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shadowkat1. Murphy Brown -- the reboot.
Stars more or less the same cast, with the addition of her adult son -- who is the weak link in the group, in that he's the straight man.
It's still funny though. Or I found it funny, your mileage may vary. Dry sardonic witty banter. No physical comedy.
And it's probably saying something that years ago, people told me that I reminded them of Murphy Brown -- apparently I have the same sense of humor? (So Diane English.)
Favorite lines?
Murphy: I'm bored. They told me to travel, but I've been everywhere. They said take up gardening, except that wouldn't be fair to the plants.
Corky Sherwood: I had my first hot flash and I've decided that when women are no longer able to procreate, God gives them menuopause as a way of saying -- you can't have kids any longer? Now you die!
To date -- the only sitcoms I've laughed at are Murphy Brown and The Good Place.
Murphy starts a new show on a cable channel called CNNCC (obviously a riff of CNN and MSNBC). She's told she has to have a smartphone. And set up a twitter account. Her son meanwhile has a competing show on at the same time as Murphy's, on the Wolf Network. (Yeah, took me a moment to get there too.) And she tells him that the network is horrible nothing good comes from it. He's doing a man on the street show, where he interviews and talks to "real" people and gets their views. Murphy's show is supposed to be about real news. Her first assignment is Climate Change, so she interviews the new head of the EPA, who turns out to have been a former gift store manager at Trump Tower, and falls through the ice in Antartica during the interview, while trying to prove there is no such thing as climate change.
LOL!
ETA: There is a cringe-inducing and highly unnecessary guest star appearance by Hillary Clinton, who auditions for Murphy's secretary. I have no idea why HRC feels the need to pop up on various television shows as a former "secretary" and rub it in that people elected the wrong dude. I find it annoying when politicians feel the need to do this. It's an obvious ploy for attention and it makes them look like nitwits. They aren't actors, they don't know how to interact with the characters and they come across stiff and uncomfortable. Please stop.
Then I watched The Big Bang Theory and thought...okay, I understand now why the guy playing Sheldon decided to call it quits. He's right this series has run it's course. It's just not funny any longer. They are repeating themselves. And it has a sort of undercurrent of meaness to the jokes that has lost me. I more or less gave up on it last year, and just turned in on occasion.
This episode had to do with Raj and Neil Degrasse Tyson (the physics guru) insulting each other on Twitter and over the phone. Although it is sort of hard to insult Raj. Sheldon and Amy visiting Legoland and making jokes about how often they can have coitus. While Kathy Bates and some other guy played Amy's parents hiding out in Amy and Sheldon's apartment, while Penny and Leonard babysat them.
It wasn't funny. I didn't laugh. Rolled my eyes a lot. Wandered off and did things during it. But no laughter was to be had.
2. Grey's Anatomy's premiere was amusing, but also a bit silly. It's reverted back to musical beds and wish fulfillment...some of which sort of pushes the envelope on suspension of disbelief. I think this show has also come close to running it's course.
3. Ocean's 8 -- the all-female Oceans...which was a tad disappointing. The critic gave it two stars and so did I. Why? The plot twist doesn't quite work or track. Or one of them sort of does, but not the other. Also it has pacing problems, and underuses a few people.
Fun. But not really worth more than a quick rental. Glad I didn't pay more than $5.99 for it.
Stars more or less the same cast, with the addition of her adult son -- who is the weak link in the group, in that he's the straight man.
It's still funny though. Or I found it funny, your mileage may vary. Dry sardonic witty banter. No physical comedy.
And it's probably saying something that years ago, people told me that I reminded them of Murphy Brown -- apparently I have the same sense of humor? (So Diane English.)
Favorite lines?
Murphy: I'm bored. They told me to travel, but I've been everywhere. They said take up gardening, except that wouldn't be fair to the plants.
Corky Sherwood: I had my first hot flash and I've decided that when women are no longer able to procreate, God gives them menuopause as a way of saying -- you can't have kids any longer? Now you die!
To date -- the only sitcoms I've laughed at are Murphy Brown and The Good Place.
Murphy starts a new show on a cable channel called CNNCC (obviously a riff of CNN and MSNBC). She's told she has to have a smartphone. And set up a twitter account. Her son meanwhile has a competing show on at the same time as Murphy's, on the Wolf Network. (Yeah, took me a moment to get there too.) And she tells him that the network is horrible nothing good comes from it. He's doing a man on the street show, where he interviews and talks to "real" people and gets their views. Murphy's show is supposed to be about real news. Her first assignment is Climate Change, so she interviews the new head of the EPA, who turns out to have been a former gift store manager at Trump Tower, and falls through the ice in Antartica during the interview, while trying to prove there is no such thing as climate change.
LOL!
ETA: There is a cringe-inducing and highly unnecessary guest star appearance by Hillary Clinton, who auditions for Murphy's secretary. I have no idea why HRC feels the need to pop up on various television shows as a former "secretary" and rub it in that people elected the wrong dude. I find it annoying when politicians feel the need to do this. It's an obvious ploy for attention and it makes them look like nitwits. They aren't actors, they don't know how to interact with the characters and they come across stiff and uncomfortable. Please stop.
Then I watched The Big Bang Theory and thought...okay, I understand now why the guy playing Sheldon decided to call it quits. He's right this series has run it's course. It's just not funny any longer. They are repeating themselves. And it has a sort of undercurrent of meaness to the jokes that has lost me. I more or less gave up on it last year, and just turned in on occasion.
This episode had to do with Raj and Neil Degrasse Tyson (the physics guru) insulting each other on Twitter and over the phone. Although it is sort of hard to insult Raj. Sheldon and Amy visiting Legoland and making jokes about how often they can have coitus. While Kathy Bates and some other guy played Amy's parents hiding out in Amy and Sheldon's apartment, while Penny and Leonard babysat them.
It wasn't funny. I didn't laugh. Rolled my eyes a lot. Wandered off and did things during it. But no laughter was to be had.
2. Grey's Anatomy's premiere was amusing, but also a bit silly. It's reverted back to musical beds and wish fulfillment...some of which sort of pushes the envelope on suspension of disbelief. I think this show has also come close to running it's course.
3. Ocean's 8 -- the all-female Oceans...which was a tad disappointing. The critic gave it two stars and so did I. Why? The plot twist doesn't quite work or track. Or one of them sort of does, but not the other. Also it has pacing problems, and underuses a few people.
Fun. But not really worth more than a quick rental. Glad I didn't pay more than $5.99 for it.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 03:08 pm (UTC)I was an avid viewer of the original for the first five or six years, but left after Diane English did, and the show slid into extended-run exhaustion. (Came back for s10 with English, but it turned out to be the final bow.)
The problem with the series, then and now, is the artificiality. Murphy is supposed to be a serious journalist tackling serious problems, but the tone and the performances are so broad, that you don't feel anything is at stake. The fact that everyone in the Beltway is in on the joke (they're probably lobbying English for cameos as I write this) only compounds the problem; you can see them winking at the audience.
I had the opposite reaction to the grown-up Avery. I thought the actor (Jake McDormand) hit just the right notes as a young man with a powerhouse mom--equal parts love, admiration and exasperation. Better, he got Bergen to relax and show Murphy's warmer, human side. (Hard not to mist up when they talked about Eldin.)
Also, Avery's no-frills/no pundits style of tele-journalism is an overdue bit of self-examination for series itself: yeah, the circus act gets the ratings, but does it really do any good? Murphy's reaction to Avery's debut on the (sigh) Wolf Network was a interesting combination of maternal pride and rare self-doubt. Good stuff.
Random notes:
-- I missed Jim Dial, the Giles to Murphy's Buffy, but I hear Charles Kimbrough will drop in from time to time.
-- Tyne Daly running Pat's bar? Perfect!
-- Sooooo....the whole Miles/Corky thing never happened?
no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 07:10 pm (UTC)I do think Murphy Brown handled their first episode better than, say, the revived Will & Grace did; I cringed all through that one, and I mostly enjoyed this one.
Yep. Had exactly the same reaction.
Roseanne was even worse...I didn't make it through that episode. Of course that was partly due to well...Roseanne.
To date the only revival pilot that I've mostly enjoyed was Murphy Brown. The others...I haven't been able to make it through. Okay, not entirely true, I did make it through two episodes of Hawaii-5-O.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-01 01:14 am (UTC)Not that its first season wasn't very good and underappreciated by the general public (critics were pretty encouraging) but after that things went downhill with an ok S2 and a not great S3. It never got good ratings even when it was put before a large audience on CBS. So a poorly rated series that was more chaff than wheat over its 3 season run and had a poorly received film nonetheless gets a continuation a decade later? We truly are in the era of perpetual TV.
Edited to add: Whoops, meant to answer rahirah's comment but still on the general topic of reboots.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-01 12:16 pm (UTC)I go into these things with lower expectations than most. To date regarding reboots or reunion series:
Veronica Mars : B Roseanne : D- Will & Grace: D- Murphy Brown: B- MASH spinoff: D- Magnum PI: F Battle Star Galatica: A Star Trek the Next Generation : A
no subject
Date: 2018-10-01 03:59 pm (UTC)For example, a continuation as with Murphy Brown is quite different than Galactica, which was a reboot that changed a number of factors and characters. Both are also different from ST:TNG which was a different show in a slightly different verse (since it was set well ahead of the original series). Yet while it was a sort of spinoff it was also different from the MASH ones which were set in a different time and premise but with a few of the same characters.
And Veronica Mars was a movie which is very different than, say, the long multiple seasons of Next Gen (which had a rocky start but was on long enough to become a good show).
no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-30 07:15 pm (UTC)The few episodes I've enjoyed, have not had any of that in it. And there have been a few -- they mainly focused on the science and making fun of physicists. But alas, those episodes are becoming fewer.
This last episode was...extremely sexist and racist. And I just cringed throughout.
The show works when it makes fun of the three nerdy scientists. But when it jumps away from that...which it does far too often for its own good, it's pretty much "Ha Ha..look how racist and sexist we all are...aren't we cool for pointing that out?" And I'm like...really not.