Not all television shows are well defined spectacles of entertainment. Many of them are flawed from the very premise or title alone. Here are a few examples of shows that should never have made it past the pitch stage.
My Two Dads: The story of a girl whose mom dies tragically and goes to live with the two men who could possibly be her father. Possibly as in both slept with her mother and they never determined who the dad actually is. There are two huge flaws with this premise. 1) A simple paternity test in the pilot episode would have solved all of the dramatic conflict and 2) There is an unnerving tendency to call the show “My Mom was a Slut”.
Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place: A title should be catchy, provide insight into the story and create an air of mystery. This title lists the cast and location and leaves you much more interested in the nuances of the pizza place than any of the other characters. What style of a pizza place is it? It is one of those old school Italian style restaurants that has morphed into a pizza place or is it a classic pizzeria? What are the daily specials? Do they put spinach and feta on their pizzas and if so, why in the world did they think that would be a good idea? Sign that your show is doomed: when I am more interested in an inanimate object than your cast.
Everybody Loves Raymond: Obvious false advertising. Sure, some people really loved Raymond but most just considered themselves to be really good friends. Maybe if they were both drunk and it was late at night and they had been through a bit of a rough patch something might happen but it would never work out. And there were a handful of people who simply tolerated Raymond. Hate it when television lies to me.
Everybody Hates Chris: I hate this show. On those few occasions that I am feeling good about myself I check out the television listings and discover that the entire universe is against me. Some people consider that to be paranoia but does anyone else have a television show dedicated to how people despise him? What did I do to the television networks to have it become their mission to inform the world how horrible those people named Chris are? Just wait until my class action lawsuit comes through.
The Pat Sajack Show: A ninety minute late night show hosted by the guy best known for asking “Would you like to buy a vowel?” Talk about a show that was just destined for failure. Late night is a strange beast to begin with but you need to have some interesting angle to make it work. Pat Sajack is white bread through and through. That is wonderful for being a game show host because it makes you completely innocuous and makes everyone want to spend a half hour watching you ask questions. But in late night there needs to be a bit more edge, a bit of the smoke filled comedy club, and from the start this show lacked it.
Best of 120 Minutes: Going back to Champaign for this one. Poster Children, who followed the rule that all bands in the early 90’s needed a female bass player.
The 5 random CDs for the week:
1) Laura Cantrell “When the Roses Bloom Again”
2) Drive By Truckers “The Dirty South”
3) Tom Petty “Full Moon Fever”
4) Josh Rouse “Subtitulo”
5) Uncle Tupelo “Not Forever, Just For Now”
2 comments:
Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place is a highly underrated show. It featured a smarmy Ryan Reynolds doing his Van Wilder/Monty from Waiting character way before those movies came out. His bland roommate was a good contrast, and doesn't come off as annoying like Alan in Two And A Half Men. Traylor Howard was the eye candy, but she actually had a funny character (unlike the later additions to the cast of the girl who played Ashley and Tiffani Amber Thiessen's post 9/11 female firefighter trainee character). She was an environmentalist at heart who worked in marketing/PR for a chemical company that had a lot of accidents. Sadly, the characters and the stories deteriorated in the later episodes when the series became just Two Guys and a Girl.
I never found My Two Dads to be a plausible premise, but come on it had Dick Butkus as a part of the cast!
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