For someone who doesn't watch television, I watch a lot of television, and not all of it edifying. We're almost caught up on The Sopranos, for example, and while the first four seasons were edifying in entertainment terms, we've been getting through five and six more out of a sense of duty (since the first four seasons gave us a relationship with the characters) than with any joy, the odd moment excepted, like Paulie's diatribes.
Season five never recovered from the shark-jump that was the introduction of Steve Buscemi's totally unconvincing character and the pattern of Tony and Carmela's estrangement and reunification. And season six (the first three episodes, anyways) is absolute rubbish. It's like all the writers quit and the producers started using really shitty fan fiction. The sort of fan fiction that comes from fuckers who watch too much day time television and actually enjoy extended dream sequences. The sort of bastards who ask themselves what it would be like if Edie Falco was given some Emmy moments through an exhorting soliloquy to a comatose James Gandolfini. Booooooo! I love Edie Falco, but this is abuse.
It's times like this I really appreciate the way non-profit, or lower-profit British television works - where creators are willing to walk away from a show when they feel it's run its course because they haven't got used to massive revenue from frankly fucking intrusive product placement fuelling their cocaine habits. Not only does it make for better television, but it also stops me from feeling cheated the fucking millionth time I see Carmela drinking Diet Coke and I realize how much money the show's owners are making by showing me this crap.
On a happier note, we've also been watching The New Statesman, a Rik Mayall series from the late 80's that pokes fiendish fun at the Thatcher government and everything else in the world. Vicious and funny, and full of penis jokes like everything else Rik Mayall does. Always with the penis, he, which is good because penis jokes are funny, like flatulence jokes with class. Apparently, Rik Mayall has resurrected the character he plays on it in a stage show, this time poking vicious fun at Tony Blair's revolting New Labour state. Good. I fucking hate New Labour. They're a betrayal of everything good and decent. British democracy is as fucked as American democracy now. The Canadian political system isn't perfect but it's so much more representative.
This was quite an angry post, wasn't it? I'm pretty bitter about having to go to work now.
6 commenti:
I can't believe the Canadian political system came out on top in that comparison. I feel like we're caught in an endless spiral down - but I don't know much about British politics and I agree that Americans are fucked right now.
I agree that it's gross that it came out on top, but in Canada we still have ideological options come election time. In the United States and in England, that's just gone, thanks to the utter bastardization of Labour.
I see your point. We can make ideological choices even if the same parties are covered by the media and always come out on top.
It just means we get to blame ourselves for the silly mess we're in, instead of blaming a soulless vampire fuck like Tony Blair.
This past season of The Sopranos has been the worst and I'm hoping they figure out a way to end the show with something of a return to its former dark lustre.
I'm with you on the British way of approaching television.
I like it when you're at least a little mad.
I hope so too. Whichever writers have quit have to be hired back to fix it. Please. Fix it. Let me remember it fondly. Remember in the first season when Tony was talking to Uncle Ju about Augustus Caesar, and Uncle Ju wasn't getting it, so Tony told the dirty joke about the bull, his father, and a valley full of cows? THAT was the Sopranos.
I'm often a little mad so that works out well.
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