The Wiz

[shadowkat]

NBC's Live Broadcast of The Wiz was really good. And by far the best performance of NBC's Live Musical Broadcasts to date. Show stopping performances, and catchy dance numbers.

I was pleasantly surprised. Last year's Peter Pan was unwatchable, and I found Sound of Music amateurish. This was far better than 1978 film, and based on the Tony Award Winning Broadway Musical of the same name, not the film versions, with a few modern updates.

I have to admit - I always preferred The Wiz to The Wizard of Oz, for one thing the songs are a lot better. The Wizard of OZ really only has one memorable song - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", while the Whiz has about five, "Bring me No Bad News", "Brand New Day", "Ease on Down the Road", "Believe", and
"Home". Also "Mean old Lion". And the plot/metaphors are closer in some respects to political metaphors of the books - with the territorial witches of east, west, north and south fighting for control of OZ.

This round they actually got professional theater and vocal performers as opposed to movie actors - such as Cirque Du Soliel, Mary J. Blige, Amber Riley (Glee), Queen Latifa, Ne-Yo, and David Alan Grier in key roles.

If you haven't caught it? You can watch it online Here

The other notable bit? It was a musical with a completely black cast. No white people. If you consider the last two productions were pretty much just white casts...this is a big and rather wonderful change of pace. The fact that more people watched this presentation than the last two...bodes well for the future of television.

Now, can we hope for a diverse cast for the next presentation? Or preferably color-blind casting?

I think so. In the past ten years, I've noticed more television series have diverse casts. As opposed to token blacks, token women, token Asian, etc. In the 20th Century, for the most part, this was the case. But in the 21st Century - this appears to be changing in a major way. YAY!

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I did the same thing -- I recorded it, so I could fast forward through the commercials. The NPR review critiques both the commercial interruptions and the slow somewhat jarring camera angles. The direction wasn't stellar, and it probably should have been filmed in front of a live studio audience, with less commercial breaks, which broke up the flow of the piece.

What should have been one or two hours, was extended to three with commercials.

It's one of the things I love about streaming, no commercials.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

It's weird when I'm watching made-for-TV things on streaming and can tell that a commercial has been left out--the shows that were originally on TV have a very different structure from the ones that were made to be streamed in the first place.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this as well. The ones made for commercial television seem to have act breaks...where they end on a cliff-hanger right before the commercial break. Actually in an interview, various Buffy writers stated that they structured the narrative around projected commercial breaks. In streaming...it's more like a film, without the cliff-hanger breaks.

I notice it when I stream made for broadcast television shows such as Longmire.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yes, Longmire was really noticeable. I think I was watching Orange is the New Black at the same time I was watching that, and the difference really drew my attention.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You'd have black space, then action.

Noticed it with the Buffy and Angel DVDs as well. And in the commentaries - the writers sort of apologize for it, saying...oh, commercial break, that's why there's this weird act break here, for those of you watching this for the first time. (I didn't know that they actually structured it that way, until I listened to those commentaries - it was eye-opening how they structured the drama around advertisements, and how aware they were of them.)