Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Glass Teat
http://www.avclub.com/articles/crosstalk-is-it-time-for-the-simpsons-to-call-it-a,2005/
I have my own thoughts on the question posed in that A/V club article and I shall get to them shortly. But for now, let me offer a few thoughts on the medium of television itself.
Someone I know once observed that it's kind of elitist to say that one doesn't watch TV. One could argue that the act of actually turning on a TV, even if it's just long enough to put a movie in the DVD player is watching TV. So I will say that yes, I do watch TV. But usually it's long enough until I hit the play button on my DVD player.
That being said, there have been (and to an extent in some regards still are) TV shows that I like(d) enough to watch on a regular basis. However, those shows are few and far between.
The most recent example is HBO's "The Wire". A lot of TV critics have called that the "best dramatic TV show ever" and while that may be typical critic hyperbole, it isn't that far from the truth in actuality. On the surface, "The Wire" was a cop show. But look a little bit beneath the surface and you'll see it was a superb human drama about life in big city America and the way we live and think right now. Does this mean it will come off as dated about 10 years from now? I don't know yet. But for now, it's in the upper echelon of TV dramas.
The other big (now defunct) HBO show for me was of course "The Sopranos". That was one show that started superb and managed to remain at least good until the end, even if it would've been better if it had ended one season earlier. The wacky ending did have me scratching my head. But now I see it as the only logical conclusion for the show to come to.
That's it as far as truly good dramatic shows go. I started watching "24" when it began its run. But the inane scheduling caused me to lose track and coming back in leaves me confused now. So after a while I gave up on the likes of Jack Bauer.
At times I will turn on Comedy Central, usually to watch South Park, but also to catch a stand-up special or The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's program is hilarious. However to me, it's also kinda falling victim to cultural saturation. It's gone from being the hipster answer to SNL's weekend update to being the daily half hour version of it. Which in one sense is good. However, it is possible to on occasion become nostalgic for the days when it was more of an underground thing. Still it's better to see it appreciated instead of un-appreciated and cancelled. As for South Park, it's still funny. Maybe not as edgy or novel as it was a decade ago. But it's earned the right to be where it is now. As long as Trey Parker and Matt Stone keep the humor coming, I'll be there.
I'm not a regular watcher of the "Law and Orders/CSIs". My dad and stepmom are both fans and I'll on occasion watch an episode if I end up in the same room where one is on and there's nothing else to watch or do. They aren't bad shows. But they've also gotten so over saturated that there's nothing really you can do with them outside of the limited corner they've painted themselves into.
I do NOT watch ANY of the reality TV shows or game shows (aside from syndicated episodes of Jeopardy). 99% of those shows are simply postmodern versions of what Chuck Barris "pioneered" back in the 1960s. "American Idol" is simply a meaner, 21st century "Gong Show". When "Survivor" first started, I sat down and actually tried to watch an episode. Got 5 minutes into it, realized I was about as entertained as I would've been if I'd decided to watch Rob Schneider get his eyebrows trimmed, turned it off and never watched another episode of it again.
Sitcoms? Well there's one sitcom on right now that offers real humor and is written with a certain level of intelligence. That show of course is "Two And A Half Men". Aside from that. most sitcoms nowadays are truly godawful. I think I was one of the few people in America that did NOT LOVE "Everybody Loves Raymond". "King Of Queens" offered some mild amusements here and there. But was burdened by pathetic characters. "Yes Dear" was even more pathetic.
Actually funny sitcoms with intelligent writing are a rarity as has been pointed out in numerous other outposts on the web. Of the ones that have actually been in first run (as opposed to simply syndicated re-runs) during my lifetime we've had "All In The Family" (as well as most of the Norman Lear catalog), "Newhart", "The Golden Girls", "The Cosby Show", "Cheers" and "Seinfeld". While I will not hesitate to admit to a guilty pleasure enjoyment of "Gilligan's Island", "The A-Team", "Roseanne", "Martin", "Laverne and Shirley" and "The Fresh Prince" I also will not commit blog malpractice by ranking those shows in with the ones I listed last sentence.
Now getting back to that question posed in the article about "The Simpsons".
There was a time (1992-1999) when "The Simpsons" was the best thing on TV. Those days have passed. In its first season, "The Simpsons" was a very good, yet not quite great show. Yet it got better as it moved away from simply being about Bart The Brat and focusing more on Homer and the other residents of Springfield. The golden age of Springfield lasted for the years I noted above. Around 2000 it started on a slide not into mediocrity. But into being just another TV show. It still does manage to produce some good episodes. But it's no longer the funniest, most intelligent comedy on TV.
Part of the problem is that nearly every animated prime-time show that's came along since "The Simpsons" rips them off in ways that are either obvious ("Family Guy", "South Park") or not so obvious ("King Of The Hill"). The problem though is that so many of those shows are taking what "The Simpsons" did to new levels and to an extent, doing it better.
The other part of the problem is that longevity can be a double edged sword in the world of TV. Think of the "intelligently funny" sitcoms I referred to a few paragraphs earlier. A few of them ("Cosby" and "Seinfeld") had the smarts to know when they were running out of gas and yanked the plug at the right time. "All In The Family" may easily have been the edgiest sitcom ever (probably the only one to place ahead of "The Simpsons"). But it wore out its welcome once the Jeffersons and Stivics split and the show proceeded to mutate into the lesser "Archie Bunker's Place" (although there were still a few good moments here and there, most notably the ones involving the loss of Edith).
So is it time for "The Simpsons" to go to that TV graveyard in the sky? Half and half. Part of me thinks it might be safer to pull the plug before the show does devolve into being a mediocre one. Yet, the other side of me remembers that what made the show great during its glory years was its willingness to take risks. So my overall advice would be to keep going for now. Yet, I would strongly recommend that Matt Groening and Co begin considering exit strategies now before the show ends up with ridiculous plots like Bart becoming a card carrying member of Future Educators of America.
One final note: I enjoyed "The Simpsons Movie" overall, yet it still felt like something was missing. Almost like Groening and Co had an opportunity to break out beyond the constraints of TV yet they chose not to take it. Had they pushed the limit the way Parker and Stone did with the "South Park" movie, they might have created a movie that was truly great as opposed to merely very good.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/crosstalk-is-it-time-for-the-simpsons-to-call-it-a,2005/
I have my own thoughts on the question posed in that A/V club article and I shall get to them shortly. But for now, let me offer a few thoughts on the medium of television itself.
Someone I know once observed that it's kind of elitist to say that one doesn't watch TV. One could argue that the act of actually turning on a TV, even if it's just long enough to put a movie in the DVD player is watching TV. So I will say that yes, I do watch TV. But usually it's long enough until I hit the play button on my DVD player.
That being said, there have been (and to an extent in some regards still are) TV shows that I like(d) enough to watch on a regular basis. However, those shows are few and far between.
The most recent example is HBO's "The Wire". A lot of TV critics have called that the "best dramatic TV show ever" and while that may be typical critic hyperbole, it isn't that far from the truth in actuality. On the surface, "The Wire" was a cop show. But look a little bit beneath the surface and you'll see it was a superb human drama about life in big city America and the way we live and think right now. Does this mean it will come off as dated about 10 years from now? I don't know yet. But for now, it's in the upper echelon of TV dramas.
The other big (now defunct) HBO show for me was of course "The Sopranos". That was one show that started superb and managed to remain at least good until the end, even if it would've been better if it had ended one season earlier. The wacky ending did have me scratching my head. But now I see it as the only logical conclusion for the show to come to.
That's it as far as truly good dramatic shows go. I started watching "24" when it began its run. But the inane scheduling caused me to lose track and coming back in leaves me confused now. So after a while I gave up on the likes of Jack Bauer.
At times I will turn on Comedy Central, usually to watch South Park, but also to catch a stand-up special or The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's program is hilarious. However to me, it's also kinda falling victim to cultural saturation. It's gone from being the hipster answer to SNL's weekend update to being the daily half hour version of it. Which in one sense is good. However, it is possible to on occasion become nostalgic for the days when it was more of an underground thing. Still it's better to see it appreciated instead of un-appreciated and cancelled. As for South Park, it's still funny. Maybe not as edgy or novel as it was a decade ago. But it's earned the right to be where it is now. As long as Trey Parker and Matt Stone keep the humor coming, I'll be there.
I'm not a regular watcher of the "Law and Orders/CSIs". My dad and stepmom are both fans and I'll on occasion watch an episode if I end up in the same room where one is on and there's nothing else to watch or do. They aren't bad shows. But they've also gotten so over saturated that there's nothing really you can do with them outside of the limited corner they've painted themselves into.
I do NOT watch ANY of the reality TV shows or game shows (aside from syndicated episodes of Jeopardy). 99% of those shows are simply postmodern versions of what Chuck Barris "pioneered" back in the 1960s. "American Idol" is simply a meaner, 21st century "Gong Show". When "Survivor" first started, I sat down and actually tried to watch an episode. Got 5 minutes into it, realized I was about as entertained as I would've been if I'd decided to watch Rob Schneider get his eyebrows trimmed, turned it off and never watched another episode of it again.
Sitcoms? Well there's one sitcom on right now that offers real humor and is written with a certain level of intelligence. That show of course is "Two And A Half Men". Aside from that. most sitcoms nowadays are truly godawful. I think I was one of the few people in America that did NOT LOVE "Everybody Loves Raymond". "King Of Queens" offered some mild amusements here and there. But was burdened by pathetic characters. "Yes Dear" was even more pathetic.
Actually funny sitcoms with intelligent writing are a rarity as has been pointed out in numerous other outposts on the web. Of the ones that have actually been in first run (as opposed to simply syndicated re-runs) during my lifetime we've had "All In The Family" (as well as most of the Norman Lear catalog), "Newhart", "The Golden Girls", "The Cosby Show", "Cheers" and "Seinfeld". While I will not hesitate to admit to a guilty pleasure enjoyment of "Gilligan's Island", "The A-Team", "Roseanne", "Martin", "Laverne and Shirley" and "The Fresh Prince" I also will not commit blog malpractice by ranking those shows in with the ones I listed last sentence.
Now getting back to that question posed in the article about "The Simpsons".
There was a time (1992-1999) when "The Simpsons" was the best thing on TV. Those days have passed. In its first season, "The Simpsons" was a very good, yet not quite great show. Yet it got better as it moved away from simply being about Bart The Brat and focusing more on Homer and the other residents of Springfield. The golden age of Springfield lasted for the years I noted above. Around 2000 it started on a slide not into mediocrity. But into being just another TV show. It still does manage to produce some good episodes. But it's no longer the funniest, most intelligent comedy on TV.
Part of the problem is that nearly every animated prime-time show that's came along since "The Simpsons" rips them off in ways that are either obvious ("Family Guy", "South Park") or not so obvious ("King Of The Hill"). The problem though is that so many of those shows are taking what "The Simpsons" did to new levels and to an extent, doing it better.
The other part of the problem is that longevity can be a double edged sword in the world of TV. Think of the "intelligently funny" sitcoms I referred to a few paragraphs earlier. A few of them ("Cosby" and "Seinfeld") had the smarts to know when they were running out of gas and yanked the plug at the right time. "All In The Family" may easily have been the edgiest sitcom ever (probably the only one to place ahead of "The Simpsons"). But it wore out its welcome once the Jeffersons and Stivics split and the show proceeded to mutate into the lesser "Archie Bunker's Place" (although there were still a few good moments here and there, most notably the ones involving the loss of Edith).
So is it time for "The Simpsons" to go to that TV graveyard in the sky? Half and half. Part of me thinks it might be safer to pull the plug before the show does devolve into being a mediocre one. Yet, the other side of me remembers that what made the show great during its glory years was its willingness to take risks. So my overall advice would be to keep going for now. Yet, I would strongly recommend that Matt Groening and Co begin considering exit strategies now before the show ends up with ridiculous plots like Bart becoming a card carrying member of Future Educators of America.
One final note: I enjoyed "The Simpsons Movie" overall, yet it still felt like something was missing. Almost like Groening and Co had an opportunity to break out beyond the constraints of TV yet they chose not to take it. Had they pushed the limit the way Parker and Stone did with the "South Park" movie, they might have created a movie that was truly great as opposed to merely very good.
