Another pretty day. Doing laundry again. I think I've managed to work it around other people's laundry, we shall see.
There were more people than I expected down there. But it worked out. I was tempted to use three dryers, but I didn't need them -- it would have cost more, and I could air dry the remainder. Was doing a blanket, two towels, and a sparse amount of clothes. I thought about waiting a week -- but I need those two shirts. The dryers are small electric dryers with a long running time. And there was another woman behind me who needed two dryers as well. You can't over-stuff the electric dryers like you can the gas dryers -- which are faster. We do require at least four dryers though, right now we have three gas dryers. And that's not enough for the number of people doing laundry, also we have four washers.
More television reviews.
1.
Carol's Second Act - sigh, worst I've seen yet. It's dumb and offensive, not sure how they managed that but they did. The set-up wasn't bad - an woman decides to become a doctor after her daughter is grown and her husband left her. We start with her in the residency program at a hospital, and all the action takes place at the hospital. (Television hospitals are very nice looking and everyone has a private room...what's up with that?) But the writing doesn't work. And the jokes feel labored and canned. Shame, I like Kyle McLachlan. But dear lord, he's gotten old and hasn't aged that well. It unfortunately has a laugh-track, which merely highlights all the things that aren't funny.
2.
Sunnyside (Sunnyside, Queens -- where I lived when I first moved to NYC) -- has potential. Kal Penn plays a down on his luck former council man who was booted out for bad behavior. (He got drunk and tried to bribe a police officer.) And while hunting work (he gets paid for signing autographs and taking photos with people who are obsessed with the youtube video of his drunken downfall), he stumbles upon a group of immigrants frantically trying to get American Citizenship. Not a bad set-up. But so far, it has a lot of jokes that are at the expense of the characters and slyly poking fun at immigrant stereotypes, which isn't really a good thing. Feels a little bit like "Community" and has a similar set-up to Community. In which you have the token bad boy, this round refreshingly played by a non-white ethnic actor, and the interracial immigrant. We do have women in the adult or sane/non-quirky roles -- Kal's sister who is a medical resident and an actress who could be the doppleganger for Alexandra Oscasio-Cortez. (She's also on New Amsterdam, playing Valentina, the actress is getting around.) It didn't make me laugh, but I didn't cringe either - so progress.
3.
The Good Place - The Girl From Arizona -- not sure why it was called this, since it seemed to be about things other than Eleanor, maybe they've run out titles?
It made me laugh. It does have one really good and unexpected out loud laugh moment, mainly because it seemingly comes out of nowhere and is absurd. Also, weirdly cathartic. So cathartic, I watched it twice. The episode up to that point was rather annoying.
( Read more... )I'm seeing a pattern here. Apparently television writers think comedy sprouts from poking fun at extremely annoying behavior?
4.
Bob Hearts Abishola -- this is the new comedy by Chuck Lorre, and I think we have a winner. It was the only one of the group that I laughed several times during, and I did not find annoying in any way.
The set-up is that Bob, who has a heart attack, is rushed to the hospital by his family. He wakes up after surgery to a Nigerian Nurse named Abishola who is somewhat snarky but overall fairly kind in her own way. She basically does her job as a nurse in a major Detroit hospital, and is kind about it. I've met women like her. Actually I've met both of these people in my lifetime. They are real and not weird caricatures out of the brain of some television writer.
( spoilers )Anyhow, I've decided to stick with this one. And it shows why Chuck Lorre has continued to make hit comedies through the years -- he starts with the characters and moves from there. Too many writers start with an ideal or message, and the characters as a result become the punchline or pawns of the joke or message (one of my issues with the Good Place is that, although it has fun with philosophy, so I hand wave it), while this one goes with the characters first.
5.
mixed-ish - this is the spin-off from "black-ish", which is about the wife's childhood in the early 1970s and 1980s. She's the child of inter-racial parents, who lived on a commune in the 1970s, and got kicked off when she was 12. They move into a furnished rental owned and paid for by her paternal grandfather, played by Gary Cole. Her sensible black mother joins Cole's law firm, while her free-spirited white father tries to grow his own vegetable garden out back to fee them. The series much like "blackish" is more about race relations and how they affect family dynamics than well the characters themselves. And it at times goes a bit over the top to make its points. It's exaggerated humor, and doesn't quite work for me.
Although they are right -- the writers -- interracial relationships weren't acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s, it really wasn't until the 1990s that this began to change. And it didn't change that much until some time around 2003. It took a while.
Now, anyone under the age of 50, won't watch a television series that isn't diverse.
The critical 18-45 demographic won't watch shows that are all white casts, and all male. And as a result television studios are no longer really producing them.
Anyhow, it's not bad. I may watch it again. But I wasn't pulled into it. And I didn't find it all that relatable. Blackish is the better series.
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