Get Ready for Galavant!

Galavant

Sundays at 8pm on ABC [That’s tonight people!]
Recommended for: Fans of Monty Python or Mel Brooks, people who like silly lyrics intertwined with off-the-cuff sex jokes, anyone who wants to see John Stamos fake a ye Olde British Accent

ABC’s Galavant was one of my ‘To Watch’ picks way back in October at the beginning of the tv season. Of course, it was slated to start in December right after the Once Upon a Time hiatus began. It was to be an eight week special to fill up the spot. Promos were launched in September and I for one got all excited.

Then it was pushed to January and four weeks instead of eight. But thankfully, Galavant is a sitcom so they can air two episodes a week in OUAT’s timeslot, and we’re all saved the onus of reruns. As a bonus, my fellow addicts and I have something new to watch during hiatus.

Galavant is the story of what a surprise, Galvant. He’s a brave knight (Joshua Sasse) who’s had his lady love (Mallory Jansen) ripped away from him under cruel circumstances and has drunk himself into a stupor for the year since she married King John (Timothy Omundson).  However, Princess (Karen David) drags him out of his ale-soaked stink hole to help her rescue her kingdom of Valencia which is under the torment of King John. Particularly wonderful is Vinnie Jones (you may remember him as the Juggernaut in X-Men The Last Stand, serial killer Sebastian Moran in Elementary or the soccer coach in She’s the Man) in his natural easy to love gruff state yelling ‘EVERYBODY SING!’ .

So what’s exciting about this? Well for starters, it’s a Monthy-Python esque musical full of original music brought forth by multiple Oscar winner Alan Menken, who’s written for numerous Disney films including Tangled, Enchanted and Hercules. So far, of the two episodes air, I feel that “She Will Be Mine” best captures the hilarity that this show presents, and the potential future that awaits it.

Next up for potential is the list of guest stars: right from the second episode we’ve got exciting additions: John Stamos as Sir Jean, a haughty knight and rival of Galavant. Sadly no singing so far on Stamos’ part, even though he’s proved he can sing from his stint on Glee. Anthony Stewart Head (Giles on Buffy and King Uther Pendragon on Merlin) is slotted to appear and hopefully will be singing as he’s recorded albums (Music for Elevators is quite lovely to relax to) as well as worked in musicals (Repo! The Genetic Opera). Ricky Gervais is also signed on as a guest star which should be hilarious whether he sings or not.

(gif from galavantdaily)

ABC’s advertising campaign has really impressed me this time around. Not only did they strike out with their usual commercial promos and online trailers, but they’ve already taken over tumblr – going straight to the hub where rabid fans gather. Tumblr has already lit up full of love for Galavant – numerous tumblrs from Galavantdaily, Galavantabc (run by the network), and Huzzahandtallyho have all exploded with gifts, quotes, videos, and joyous rants – deeply impressive considering the show premiered on Sunday.

ABC’s also done a great job of following recent trends, not only in how people watch tv but what they do after they watch tv. After people watch Glee, they go on youtube and rewatch the songs or look for the full recorded versions. To take advantage of this, Galavant’s musical numbers with lyrics have already been posted on youtube – that’s right, Galavant has his own VEVO. Billboard and numerous other media outlets were given previews and asked to post the lyrics of the songs in the first episode so that everybody could enjoy such amazing lines as “a body built for sin with cleavage you could hold a whole parade in”.

(also from galavantdaily)

Clearly the network is showing faith in Galavant – and you know I’m on board. So the only question left is: what are you waiting for?

Saying Goodbye to the Newsroom

I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.

I will not say goodbye to the Newsroom.

…okay, I will, but only because I am forced to. Please note that this is under great duress.

So this show has easily been my favourite among recent years and will go down as one I treasure along with Aaron Sorkin’s other writing. A great show consists of believable characters you fall in love with who then grow and change; a script and plot that are captivating and make sense because if everybody is scratching their head trying to figure out what the hell happened and why it did so your audience is not really enjoying themselves; a flow and pacing that prevents boredom.

An amazing show goes beyond that. An amazing show leaves an impact on its audience well after it ends, it imparts a message or meaning that its audience carries with them – that they will mentally flashback to when it is relevant in their life.

A remarkable television show makes its audience want to be better.

The Newsroom is both an amazing and a remarkable television show.

It starts with a fleet of characters, who over time manage to melt your heart and make you genuinely care what happens to them. I have literally ranted about what happened at the end of Newsroom episode 5 of season 3, “Oh Shenandoah”. From the beginning, several are easy to like: Mack’s earnest enthusiasm, Jim is awkward but dedicated, Will is gruff but entertaining, Neil is hilariously neglected and eager to contribute to more than Will’s blog; Maggie believes in loyalty, Charlie is drunk and instantly loveable and Sloane is a brilliant financial mind with no social skills.

(gif from indiewire via google images)

Others it takes longer to like: Leona Lansing is cold but at least makes a few jokes; Reese Lansing is a snivelling weasel; Don Keefer seems overly ambitious and gossip columnist Nina Howard initially lacks any moral base. But slowly, Sorkin and his team give nearly every character well rounded personalities so the audience can sympathize with each and every one of them. Leona and Reese rise up to take the higher moral ground after the Genoa scandal; Don proves he upholds the same ideals of journalism that Will, Mackenzie and Charlie champion.

Add in a snappy dialogue that rotates through heartwarming, heart wrenching, charming and funny. Include a well selected soundtrack and a fascinating plot and you’ve got a great show.

But here’s where Sorkin kicks it up a notch: on a show about a newsroom, he decided to use real world news events. He uses the BP oil spill, the shooting of Senator Kathy Gifford, Obama’s second election, the trial of Casey Anthony, the Boston Marathon bombings, and other now historic events that were covered by various news outlets. So much research and time was put into ensuring the accuracy of the events on the show that writing the scripts and shooting the episodes were delayed waiting for news events that hadn’t happened yet. This prevented the Newsroom from airing seasons on a regulated schedule like other shows. Season one started in June 2012 covering events from April 2010 to August 2011; season two in July 2014 featuring events from August 2011 to November 2012 and season three began airing in November 2014 and starts from the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. The Genoa plot of season two was not in itself factual but was based on the events of Operation Tailwind which was falsely reported as having used sarin nerve gas in a CNN/Time report. Peter Arnett and the producers involved in the report were fired.

So we have these great characters that are easy to care about and a television show doing something unprecedented. Excellent first steps.

It’s easy for the audience to draw parallels from their own lives to those of the characters. Many people have been cheated on or have cheated on someone. More than that – everyone has wronged someone or been wronged. Watching Mack wait for forgiveness and Will struggle with being unable to let go shows something everyone experiences at one point or another. It pushes the viewer towards introspection – to question who they have not forgiven or who has not forgiven them and why. It encourages everyone to look at the motives of what people do.

On its simplest and most basic levels, The Newsroom encourages its audience to follow current news events or even research past ones that it covers. I myself have researched more about the Oppose Wall Street simply because of the way it was presented on the show. An informed public is an empowered public.

But like before, Sorkin takes it further. Not only has the Newsroom passed its love of current events to its audience but it has somehow along the way instilled its ideals in the people watching: it presents cunning and common sense arguments in favour of feminism, from Maggie’s speech about how there is nothing wrong with openly liking sex to rape-victim-turned-justice seeker Mary’s spot-on rant about treatment of rape victims.

 

(gif from ‘We just decided to‘ on tumblr)

Will’s famous “mission to civilize” to restore integrity back to journalism instills a wistful longing to see it mirrored in the real world: a moment against gossip and ‘take-down pieces’ and a resurgence of honest relevant journalism. It probably won’t happen – fiction influencing relating is extremely rare – but if it instills even a little quixotic idealism in its viewers it has succeeded on a level that few even aspire to.

The beauty of the Newsroom is in its vision: to go beyond the television screen, to be more than entertainment. To encourage and inspire an audience to better themselves through information and intellectual debate. It refuses to target the lowest common denominator and encourages people to reject mindless television in favour of entertainment that engages the thoughts and emotions of its audience. The Newsroom, clearly a display of Sorkin’s evolution from Sports Night and the West Wing, is his crowning masterpiece. I salute you, Aaron Sorkin, and thank you for a television show that will forever be one of my favourites. It’s only true fault? Having only 25 episodes.

(gif from f***yeahthenewsroom on tumblr)

Why Season 5 of the Vampire Diaries was a Catastrophe and Why There Might Be Hope for Season 6

The Vampire Diaries is an interesting show that holds my attention for several reasons. First being this: it triumphs over the book series. I hated the books. I read through the first three with gritted teeth and only started reading the fourth because of the plot twist at the end of the third – L.J. Smith quickly turns 360 degrees back to her original direction and I threw the book at the wall seeing as how it had lost any potential value for me.

Thankfully, the CW show started with the premise of the book and threw most of it out the window. They’ve made numerous changes, some delightful, and some I don’t really care about either way. However, season 4 had some shaky ground that lead to the train wreck of season 5. I watched season 5 with my fingers over my eyes. The following critique contains spoilers up to Season 6, episode 6 “The More You Ignore Me the Closer I Get”, aired November 6^th, 2014.

Katherine and Enzo – beautiful precious wonderfully entertaining Enzo! (Michael Malarkey is hitting it out of the park and manages to look like he’s bunting)– were the highlights of season 5. And by Katherine, I mean watching her decay and hate being human while annoying Stefan constantly, her daughter and the travelers were ridiculous. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief of the very sad and small statistical possibility that Katherine’s daughter would also have been turned into a vampire – but Nadia had no personality beyond her desire to reconcile with her mother and then have her mother stay alive to finish their reconciliation. Essentially, Nadia servers no purpose except to provide Katherine and the rest of the group with a tie to the travelers. The writers didn’t seem to bother providing her with a personality outside of this – her emotional range goes from sullen to moody – so is essentially similar to the emotional range of a cup of jello.

(from dailyforbes on tumblr, here)

Bonnie died at the end of season 4. I know there are plenty of people who like Bonnie, who ship Damon with Bonnie, but at the end of the day when Bonnie’s not bantering with Damon she’s angry for no reason, happy to ride on a horse of superiority and ruin every else’s fun. Of all the characters on the show, Bonnie has shown the least growth over six seasons – except for dying. I was extremely comfortable with Bonnie being dead. Of course, this means the writers weren’t really planning to kill her. So Bonnie becomes the anchor, and is for a whole moment interesting again, but is mostly just in a lot of pain and trying to be stoic about it.  Maybe I’m alone in this but it feels like Bonnie was the mother of Nadia – both are characters for a purpose instead of characters with a personality. At least she sort of died again at the end of season 5. Kat Graham describes herself as ‘not attached to the character’ (read it on Hypable) which may be why I feel so disconnected from Bonnie.

Stefan/Elena in season 5 is trite. This insisting that they’re meant to be because they’re the doppelgangers and they all belong together is tired and it’s high time to get over it. Stefan and Elena broke up so that the show could move onto something new, and this feels like trying to placate ‘Stelena’ (Stefan and Elena) fans during a time of ‘Delena’ (Damon and Elena). Let the people (and hey, the characters too I guess) move on!

The saving grace of season 5 was the Whitmore secret vampire lab, which was the only interesting plotline of the season. Tying Damon’s backstory in, bringing in Enzo as a fabulous new character who provides us with a sarcastic and upbeat sociopath – hey wait a minute, he’s Damon from season one! No wonder we like him so much. At the end of the day I’m okay with Elena getting tortured too – it gave Damon a reason to be angry and he’s motivated, passionate and fierce when protecting her.

So finally, the season of bad plots and minimal character development ends with both a metaphorical and literal bang as more or less everybody dies then comes back to life and brings a few missing characters with them. Alaric returns to us! Excellent. I love the person Alaric brings out in the others – or did, previously as a vampire. He humanizes and provides a moral compass for Damon as well as a companion, a fiercer side of Elena, a mature side of Jeremy… in general, Alaric = good and I’m happy he’s back.

In summary: season 5 was off balanced and headed in the completely wrong direction: mainly boring-ville, population incredibly bored citizens who would scream to be entertained but have in fact fallen asleep due to the boredom they have incurred.

Now the writers clue into a major truth of tv life: television couples are at their most interesting when they want to be together but can’t for some reason. So, we start season 6 with Elena believing Damon is dead and Damon trapped in limbo with Bonnie. Excellent! Elena’s grieving self is out of control which is a lot more interesting than her conflicted I love Damon but I might be fated to be with Stefan angst. Caroline is spiraling without a home and her desperation is palpable. Jeremy is off the rails with grief, Alaric has no idea how to be a vampire let alone a super powered one, Tyler is petrified of becoming a werewolf again…and Liv and Luke are still around for whatever reason, but hey, they might have potential. Or well, Liv does now that she killed some kid in a cornfield. I love traumatic events that drive people insane, they’re so much fun to watch!

So season 6 is on the path to turn things around from season 5 by actually being interesting and cutting back on annoying characters. Though I dearly miss Katherine’s schemes, at least I still have Enzo to kill people and his beautifully hilarious friendship with Caroline to make me smile. Damon fighting for a resisting amnesiac Elena is bound to be wonderfully entertaining now that he’s back in the real world – and maybe I’ll even get lucky and Bonnie will stay gone for a little while. Here’s hoping the Vampire Diaries team noticed the small drop in ratings* last year and have decided to try and spice it up a little – or I may not be able to hang on until season 7.

(from The Vampire diaries Gift Blog on Tumblr, found here)

Until next time,

Love,

the TV Addictress

**according to Wikipedia’s reporting of the Nielson ratings which are a flawed rating system but it’s all we’ve really got to work with at the moment.

New Tv Season, better than Christmas!

What I’ll be Watching This TV Season…

I love September; it’s a beautiful time of the year. All the networks spend months conspiring all of their ideas, producing pilots and running them past test audiences to bring us a beautiful pack of new shows that attempt to fill the holes of all of the cancelled shows in our hearts and more importantly in their schedules.
It’s a great time for a list – what to watch, what not to watch and what I’ll hem and haw over until more trailers and reviews come out or I’m finally bored enough (often in despite of bad reviews, boredom and curiosity take over. I maintain this is how Hellcats happened). This year’s list of new shows is impressively long. And without further ado…

Hell to the Yes! To watch while being aired…

Gotham, Mondays at 8pm on Fox
One of the first things to make my list. We are in the age of the superhero my friends and it brings us several exciting prospects this season.  Set in the dark and crime ridden streets of Gotham pre-Batman, which is an edgy choice for Fox and DC. Instead of following a young Bruce Wayne a-la Smallville, Gotham’s protagonist is a younger pre-commissioner Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) as we learn the origin stories of Catwoman, the Riddler, the Penguin and new original character mob boss  lady Fish Mooney (played by Jada Pinkett Smith). It’s pitched as dark and gritty – much in the vein of Dark Knight, and may just be too cool not to watch. Kudos to a good schedule spot too – hopefully a sign that Fox is feeling gutsy.

Galavant, mid-season, on ABC
For everyone who loved Mel Brook’s ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’, one of my favourite movies, here comes Galavant. A run down drunk of a knight (Joshua Sasse) who lost the love of his life to the bad guy is called up to fight for valour and good stuff again by a smart mouthed peasant woman (Karen David). As you can see I’m very up on the plot, but here’s where I got on board: like Robin Hood, there will be singing! And unlike Glee, it will not be pop songs but actual original silly ridiculous songs written by Alan Menken (who won 8 Oscars and did music for Tangled, Enchanted, Hercules and a ton of other Disney films). I was sold on that factor alone personally, but the humor appears to be very Mel Brooks-esque as well.  Guest stars lined up include John Stamos, Anthony Stewart Head, Ricky Gervais and Weird Al Yankovic. Delightful silliness is bound to happen.  Sadly, it’s been bumped to be a mid-season fill in show, replacing Once Upon a Time reruns. I intend to make everyone I know watch it.

The McCarthys, Thursdays at 9:30pm on CBS starts October 30th
I know a lot of people have already written this off but I think it’s got some fresh aspects and some great potential. An extremely close knit Boston family are shocked when the gay son announces that he wants to leave Boston and get away from his family. The family who gets together every night, all live in a two block radius, and even go so far as to follow guy around on his dates. They’re fine with the gay thing – it’s the spending less time with the family that they have issue with. So the father asks his gay son to be his assistant basketball coach? Sure that sounds like a solution. Actress, who is delightful as Sheldon’s mother on Big Bang Theory, is a big decision in why to watch this. But seriously…the Boston accents and family date night sounds like some serious comedy to me.

The Odd Couple, sometime in 2015, hopefully early
I’m a big fan of Matthew Perry – between Friends, the West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Go On, I’ve been totally charmed by him. Pairing him up with Thomas Lennon (the guy Matt Perry is best friends with in 17 Again) to remake the Odd Couple has me filled with excitement. When I was younger, I got extremely upset when Jack Lennon died because it meant that he and Walter Matthau couldn’t make films together anymore. I’m more than happy with the cast – and the Odd Couple was hilarious the first time around. As a bonus, it’s even been a suitable amount of time to make the remake (unlike the horror of Death at a Funeral) which should make everyone pleased.

How to Get Away with Murder, Thursdays at 10pm on ABC
Viola Davis is back on tv! Yay! As a kicking ass and taking names law professor who teaches a course that she likes to call ‘how to get away with murder’. The students who are accepted as associates to work on her current case with her get heavily involved. Liza Weil, Paris Gellar of Gilmore Girls is also a regular cast member. It looks like there will be sex, drugs, rock and roll, evidence tampering and possibly even murder to win the case and get top grades. It should be delicious.  I have yet to seen a ‘what to watch list’ for this season that doesn’t have this show on it. It’s from the mind that brought you Scandal, so just watch it.

Red Band Society, Wednesdays at 9pm on FOX
A kid in a coma narrates a show focusing on the children’s ward of a hospital and the kids who band together in efforts to cope with their illnesses. Alongside coma kid, we have boy missing legs, boy about to lose his legs, eating disorder lying girl, and Octavia Spencer as a sassy nurse who clearly loves these kids and Mandy Moore as a doctor.

State of Affairs, Mondays at 10pm on NBC – stars November 17
Kathryn Heigl stars as the Secretary of Defense to the United States under a female president played by Alfre Woodard (Lafeyette’s  mentally ill mother Ruby on True Blood) who have more of a personal history: until he was killed in action, Heigl’s Charlie Tucker was engaged to the president’s son. To combat with his loss and the stress of her job, she is a perfectionist at work who parties, drinks and sleeps around off the clock. I’m expecting gender roles and the need for vengeance to be prevalent themes.

Gracepoint, Thursdays on Fox – starts October 2, 10 episodes only
A small town is rocked by the murder of a twelve year old boy. As the detectives (David Tennant of Doctor Who and Anna Gun of Breaking Bad) investigate further, the town is ripped apart by the secrets that are revealed. Michael Pena (End of Watch) and Virginia Kull (Boardwalk Empire) play the dead boy’s parents trying to deal with this horrible tragedy and the fact that all of their friends are now suspects.  This looks incredibly dramatic and full of tension with suspects abounding and a lot of tension between the detectives.
Stay tuned for more lists: what I’ll watch in the off season, what I’ll watch if I get bored enough, and what I”m going to pass on (unless something majorly changes).

Welcome from the TV Addictress

Welcome!  I am the TV Addictress: the woman who watches too much tv and is ready to tell you all about it. This is a blog of television commentary, reviews, critiques, lists and pretty much anything tv related. There will soon be pretty graphics and you know, actual posts after my remodel – which hopefully means everything will be up and running for the Fall TV Season 2014!