Category: The CW

The Decnuary Roundup (Dec ’16/Jan ’17)

Arthur PopularLeave a comment

I’m getting back on track. S. L. O. W. L. Y. (But I’m probably never going to be able to post about anything immediately after it airs until bitches pay me enough to quit my day job. Just sayin’.) So, here it go (real extra good shit that you need to watch in bold):

December

Watch this shit:

Meh

(a.k.a. Watch it or don’t, but either way it’s not the greatest ever):

  • Delicious

    Wasn’t terrible, but definitely didn’t hook me. If you’re into “narrated from beyond the grave”-type shit, that happens to be British and also includes food, then this is your bag.

  • Mariah’s World

    I mean… it is what it is. If you like reality shows about famous people being famous, here you go.

  • Terry Crews Saves Christmas

    Cute holiday fun. Even better if you wait to binge it until after the world explodes because dumb assholes couldn’t stand female e-mails.

  • The Wall

    “Who wants to be a—PLINKO!”

Guilty Pleasure:

  • The Deleted

    This utter nonsense is about horny kids who don’t own shirts and apparently escaped a cult because the milk they were served was drugs. And one of them might also be a psychotic robot. Need I say more?

January:

Watch this shit:

  • A Series of Unfortunate Events

    I was sort of prepared to not be interested in this show, but my husband was all about it, so we watched it together. I was won over, folks. It’s a real good time.

  • Beyond

    Just your average, wholesome, all-American “aliens are making shit float in the woods” coming-of-age-in-a-12-year-coma story. Definitely worth your time.

  • Caraoke Showdown

    Musical Cash Cab, hosted by the great Craig Robinson.

  • Emerald City

    Probably about as dark and realistic a take on Oz that we’ve seen.

  • Mary Kills People

    Essentially, it’s Dr. Mary Kevorkian. Not the greatest pilot ever, but Caroline Dhavernas is amazing and I trust her choices. So, I’ll keep watching.

  • The Mick

    Bad Teacher meets Uncle Buck. It has its moments. Three cheers for Carla Jimenez.

  • One Day at a Time

    Cuban family drama, love, and happiness. Seriously, such a good show.

  • Riverdale

    Other than it being based on the Archie comics, it’s not really any different from your typical high school drama. Except maybe the murder mystery? Not that it makes it a bad series, mind you. Just don’t expect anything ground breaking is all I’m saying.

  • Sneaky Pete

    Giovanni Ribisi‘s crazy Scientology-loving-dumbass is an ex-con/future re-con. Not mad at it, but it’s not my new favorite thing.

  • Spy in the Wild

    Fucking crazy-town first-person point of view of animals in their natural habitats. Some really amazing sights.

  • Throwing Shade

    If John Oliver is America’s dad and Samantha Bee is America’s mom, then Bryan Safi and Erin Gibson are attempting to be America’s gay uncle and sassy aunt, respectively.

Meh

(a.k.a. You fuckin’ get it, this shit probably sucks):

  • Big Fan

    “Big fans” have a trivia face-off against celebrities about those celebrities. Unless you’re as big a fan of the celebrity as their stalkers are, the show really won’t mean that much to you.

  • Hunted

    Truly meh. I tried watching the original UK version before this series, and it got boring real quick. This US version explains just a bit more of how they find these voluntary “fugitives,” but that doesn’t really make it any more interesting.

November Roundup

Arthur PopularLeave a comment

Things are slowing down for the year, folks. The list below is a short one. Might not do another roundup until mid-season officially starts.

The things worth your time (especially in bold):

The things that may or may not be worth your time, a.k.a. Meh:

See? So few new shows that I don’t even have anything to tell you that you definitely shouldn’t watch! I’d say it was a great month if it weren’t for all you fucking morons that didn’t vote for Hillary.

Anyways… Now that the new series have stopped premiering, I’ll probably force myself to quit being lazy and start actually writing review-y shit again. (But no promises…)

October Roundup

Arthur PopularLeave a comment

Some more new shiz of this season, in short:

The things worth your time (especially in bold):

The things that may or may not be worth your time, a.k.a. Meh:

The things not worth your time:

Old shit, no longer worth your time:

Okay, so, Eyewitness: The shit is good. Maybe even great. The thing about it is, though, that I’ve seen the original 6-episode Swedish series this it’s based on, which I loved. So, of course my brain is constantly comparing the two as I watch this Americanized iteration. It’s written by the creator of Shades of Blue, which I really didn’t love so that may not be much of a selling point, but what I mean to say is: it’s completely written by him. Adi Hasak sat down and fleshed out a complete, expanded 10-episode story which will have a conclusion. And the series itself was sold to USA as an anthology, so if there is a second season, it’ll be completely new. With all the hoopla these past few years with the seemingly endless cliffhangers and plot holes and unfinished stories, a proper ending is a magical thing to have and should be savored every time that comes around.

Not to mention: at the center of the small-town-murder-mystery story is a gay teenage romance that’s actually fucking respectful, doesn’t shy away from the sex real-life teenagers actually have, and doesn’t treat it like it’s something to be frowned upon while simultaneously accurately portraying the emotional struggle that comes with actually being a teenager accepting their sexuality. ACTUALLY.

The shit is good, I tell you. Just… a skosh less good than the original. Which, if I’m being honest, is probably the only reason it’s not bold in the list above. But you should watch it. Now. Go. Bye.

Death, Peanuts, & Detours

Arthur PopularLeave a comment

If you’ve been feeling like every show on television can’t seem to get through this season without killing someone… it’s probably because that’s exactly how the fuck it is. And, gurl, it’s getting tiresome. In the past month alone (give or take a few days), I’ve had to tell the following unlucky bitches to rest in peace:

And that’s just the shows I actually watch. Not to mention #TheLexaPledge. I don’t even know Lexa (having never seen an episode of The 100), but her death has managed to spark a revolution involving writers and producers of shows I do watch. Also, Castle‘s over or something? Again, a show I’ve never watched, though I do know that actors’ contracts were being reupped for another season which became moot once news of the main character’s death started being reported and left the fans outraged and belligerent enough for the network to pull the plug all-together.

Is this not reason enough for writers to stop thinking “Who can we kill?” If not, I don’t know what the hell will be.

I took a seat and really wondered where this all started. The best I could come up with is: The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and hashtags are to blame. These are two shows which, one could argue, are about death. I welcome any and all hate mail and trolling about how they’re both “so much more than that,” but you have to admit that they are, at least partly, about mother fuckers dying. And that shit trends like nobody’s business. You’ll usually get applauded by critics for following the beat of your own drum, but in terms of Facebook and Twitter… you get rewarded for following the beat of the loudest drum. So, of course every network executive is cramming “KILL BITCHES” down every writer’s throat. But, again… the shit is getting OLD. Life is more interesting. Not “life regarding death of a loved one.” If you think it’s something your character absolutely has to explore, I can be okay with that. Hell, I’m filling my own head with bullshit dreams of writing a series, the entirety of which orbits around someone’s death. But if your whole deal is being a pregnant virgin or a fairy tale hero or a time-traveling bad boy… killing a mother fucker just isn’t necessary. We have enough actual death to deal with. We don’t need it in our entertainment.

With all that being said, I wanna shift gears and talk about how gay Schroeder is.

Apparently, somewhere in France, some Peanuts enthusiast thought producing one bagillion 3-minute animated shorts would be a good idea. I love me some Peanuts, so I’m not mad at whoever that was. And I’m especially not mad at whoever thought adding English vocals and airing that shit in America was a good idea. It premiered last month, but with my little ol’ DVR life, I was only able to watch the first handful of shorts today.

Why it took me so long to realize, especially with the widely known relationship between Peppermint Patty and Marcie, I don’t know. But watching Lucy fawn all over Schroeder and watching him reject her for the seven trillionth time finally made it click in my head… Schroeder is gay as fuck. First, there’s him being the vehement piano player. A man of the arts. Then there’s Lucy, a woman of the mind. Bitch is already practicing psychiatry at the age of 5-ish. A doctor. Any straight man of the arts, who knows how much money a career in such is worth, would latch onto any doctor who showed him as much attention as Lucy did. Worse comes to worst, you just be sure to never play football with her. And that’s as hard as your life has to get. UNLESS… somewhere deep down in your piano playing heart, you know you could never live without some big ol’ D in your life.

Now, I must mention that I, myself, am working as an electronic book publisher by day and a pop artist by night. I also just so happen to have married a Ph.D. student. But I actually love that bitch! I met him pre-Ph.D. and wore his promise ring prior to even knowing that he applied to a Ph.D. program. So… just sayin’.

Other than all of that… If you’re not watching The Detour, you’re missing out on something amazing. I’m too drunk to get into details, but it’s co-created by Samantha Bee (who I lovingly refer to as America’s Mom, whereas John Oliver is America’s Dad) and fellow The Daily Show alum Jason Jones. And it’s the jam. Do yourself a favor and watch all of it. Right now. The end. Bye.

The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Is Your Crazy New Friend

Arthur PopularLeave a comment

I was very nervous about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Very nervous. Just based on the title alone, then even more so after seeing the trailer, I knew it could either be golden or it could be incredibly obnoxious while being equally offensive because “bitches be crazy” cannot be a a series premise.

Happy to say, the former is the case.

A successful Harvard- and Yale-educated Mandarin-speaking New York lawyer with an overbearing mother (who is clearly the source of her psychological trauma) is haunted by the notion that she has zero happiness in her life. She is Rebecca Bunch and, yes, she is unhappy. She Googles things like “How long can one survive without sleep?” and “How many people have died during sex?” She’s got pills for “emergencies” and a healthy faith in foxhole prayers to go along with them. There’s not much that’s too crazy about her, though, which, unfortunately, makes her sadness spread to us, the dear viewer, until she runs into the teenage-summer-camp-love of her life (Josh), all grown-up and about to move to California. Realizing that following him is what she must do (Hey, Felicity!), she breaks into a huge song and dance number to explain to us viewers why. And, gurl… it works. Consider that shit explained. Call it a cliché if you must, but this gay man is not mad at a big song and dance number. (Just to reassure, dear reader… I’m not your typical musical gay. So, if you yourself don’t enjoy going into the woods with mamma mia either, don’t expect to dislike this show just because a crazy chick sings sometimes.)

Aside from having a tiny non-Jewish button nose (her new boss definitely regrets that “compliment”) and stalker tendencies, she’s pretty run-of-the-mill. And kind of fun. Which is evident by her (romantic comedy cliché alert) immediately attracting other nice, normal, yet fun men. Just one in particular, actually (Greg), who invites her to a house party and ignores her obvious obsession with his friend Josh. She’s not fun enough, however, to repel jealous co-workers (Paula) threatened by Mandarin and those damn New England law schools who can smell her bullshit from a mile away.

Escaping jealous co-worker clutches for long enough to get ready for the house party…

…Rebecca shows up, finds Greg and makes out with him for, seemingly, hours. All with one eye open so as to not waste any valuable stalkee searching time. He does take it like a champ (because, apparently, lady tongue is just… worth it?), but he finally draws the line when she bursts into tears while kissing his manly, nice, and normal chest after finding out that Josh, the man of her dreams who she’s obviously(?) meant to be with forever… has a girlfriend. Heartbroken, kind of drunk, and with the sexy-time line drawn with Greg, she exits the premises just in time to be confronted by Paula (who, yeah, just happens to know where the random house party is because… plausible). She spills all the stalker-y secrets she’s managed to find out about Crazy Becca who suddenly, and reasonably, feels very threatened. The twist comes when Paula reveals that she’s no longer jealous of our crazy ex. In fact, she’s totally gung-ho with her and all of her crazy! She is all in on getting Josh to text a bitch back. And just then, like magic… he does. With a smiley face, no less. Emojis save the day, all is right with the world, and it’s time for the first crazy ex-duet.

The pilot was designed for cable, dropped by cable, then picked up by The CW and re-worked for network television. I can only imagine what we would’ve gotten had it made it to Showtime, but I don’t think we’re missing much. Maybe some nipples during the Sexy Getting Ready Song and probably the word “dick” not bleeped out when it aired. But it still definitely feels up to snuff. I think pairing it with Jane The Virgin was pretty genius on the part of The CW since they’re both very similar stylistically. You wouldn’t think that a series about a virgin accidentally getting pregnant and a series about a voluntarily unmedicated stalker would go together, but they do. So, if you like one, you’ll probably like the other.

Also, apparently, the star of the show (the O.G. Crazy Ex-G. herself) has been a YouTuber for a while. So, check out her channel if that’s your thing, you kooky kids. I’ve never really jumped on the YouTube bandwagon, but I do follow Superfruit. And Willam. And Kingsley. And Miranda. Well, damn, have I jumped on that bandwagon?

Oh, well.

Bye.

#scömìche