As summer comes upon us, I've (gasp!) been spending my time doing things other than TV so there hasn't been too much to blog about. I do have some small updates on what I've watched already:
Vicious: Bought season 1 on DVD as a birthday gift for my wife. We've already spent some good time laughing at British people being nasty to each other. Good fun was had by all.
Grace & Frankie: Still enjoying the show that the Richmond Times-Dispatch calls "great for old people, but sadly old people are too befuddled by new-fangled technology to use this 'Netflix' malarkey."
Game of Thrones: Up to date. Still entertained.
As always, my primary issue is that the show isn't just about Peter Dinklage (it took me four seasons to stop saying, "oh, crap, Kit Harrington's in this, let's watch him fumble about knowing nothing at the Wall for twenty minutes today," and a constant call-out to the screen of my wife's and mine for the first three seasons was "nobody loves you, Theon Greyjoy," which was modified from its original use on Mad Men, "nobody loves you, Pete Campbell"; both versions work equally well).
Peter Dinklage is like Maggie Smith on Downton Abbey; there's really no excuse for the show not to just be that character being clever all the time. I would watch both a Dinklage scenes-only edit of Game of Thrones and a Smith-only edit of Downton Abbey. I'll just have to put those ideas on the pile along with a version of Arrow where I can just ignore the flashbacks; I do not care what happened on the Island or not the Island or whatever.
Showing posts with label Grace and Frankie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grace and Frankie. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Grace & Frankie and the Future of Television
I have now watched a goodly chunk of the new Netflix Original Series Grace & Frankie, and I have opinions.
If you're the "tl;dr" type, here's my take in brief: the show is entertaining to watch. But do not have expectations of it being Arrested Developent.
The setup is simple, and explained visually in a great opening animation with a crumbling wedding cake with multiple toppers (to Grace Potter's cover of "Stuck in the Middle With You"):
Jane Fonda (Barbarella [sorta NSFW]) is Grace, who begins the show as something between Mad Men's Betty Draper and Arrested Development's Lucille Bluth; she's an image-conscious WASP who self medicates with a lot of alcohol. Grace starts the show married to Robert (Martin "I am so proud of my successful actor son Emilio Estevez" Sheen).
Lily Tomlin (of pre-breakup AT&T fame) is Frankie, a granola-crunchy woman who took many of the 1970's new agey fads to heart. She starts the show married to Sol (Sam "Old Glory Robot Insurance" Waterston).
However, by the middle of the first episode, we learn that Robert and Sol are not just partners in their law firm, they've been having an affair with each other for the past twenty years, and now they're coming out of the closet to divorce their wives and marry each other.
It would be an understatement to say that this is news to their wives (and their kids). Both Grace and Frankie are cut adrift, trying to put meaning to their lives, and also both trying to cohabit in the beach house their husbands went halfsies on years before; previously it was a refuge for each of them in turn, but now, with the men living in Robert and Grace's former home, both Grace and Frankie seek the comfort of the vacation home.
This sounds like the setup for some wacky hijinks, and some ensue (there's a pretty good gag setup in the first episode where someone semi-accidentally ingests a combination of peyote and muscle relaxants), but despite having the setup for straight comedy -- including Grace and Frankie's children, who have sitcom-ready quirks and backstories -- the show isn't meant to be a comedy like Arrested Development or Modern Family, two shows that generate humor every so many seconds from family drama.
This is more a mildly humorous meditation on being older and having one's life change unexpectedly. Grace and Frankie knew what was going to happen for the rest of their "good" years; now they don't, and it's tough having to even partially reinvent yourself after you're eligible for Social Security.
On its own merits, Grace and Frankie is worth watching. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin inhabit their characters; as a "free spirit," Lily Tomlin's Frankie gets the more interesting things to do, but they're both really good, as are the supporting cast. You watch to see the plot unfold and talented actors practice their craft; you do not watch because you are expecting to laugh on schedule.
I'm really impressed with the genre-bending nature of Grace & Frankie; it's a half-hour show formatted like a comedy that refuses to be funny if it doesn't serve the story. This a great example of the kind of show that Amazon Prime and Netflix have allowed to be made where previously network executives would have been perplexed as "who the show was for." This is an interesting piece of fiction that definitely deserved the investment that was put into it.
If you're the "tl;dr" type, here's my take in brief: the show is entertaining to watch. But do not have expectations of it being Arrested Developent.
The setup is simple, and explained visually in a great opening animation with a crumbling wedding cake with multiple toppers (to Grace Potter's cover of "Stuck in the Middle With You"):
Jane Fonda (Barbarella [sorta NSFW]) is Grace, who begins the show as something between Mad Men's Betty Draper and Arrested Development's Lucille Bluth; she's an image-conscious WASP who self medicates with a lot of alcohol. Grace starts the show married to Robert (Martin "I am so proud of my successful actor son Emilio Estevez" Sheen).
Lily Tomlin (of pre-breakup AT&T fame) is Frankie, a granola-crunchy woman who took many of the 1970's new agey fads to heart. She starts the show married to Sol (Sam "Old Glory Robot Insurance" Waterston).
However, by the middle of the first episode, we learn that Robert and Sol are not just partners in their law firm, they've been having an affair with each other for the past twenty years, and now they're coming out of the closet to divorce their wives and marry each other.
It would be an understatement to say that this is news to their wives (and their kids). Both Grace and Frankie are cut adrift, trying to put meaning to their lives, and also both trying to cohabit in the beach house their husbands went halfsies on years before; previously it was a refuge for each of them in turn, but now, with the men living in Robert and Grace's former home, both Grace and Frankie seek the comfort of the vacation home.
This sounds like the setup for some wacky hijinks, and some ensue (there's a pretty good gag setup in the first episode where someone semi-accidentally ingests a combination of peyote and muscle relaxants), but despite having the setup for straight comedy -- including Grace and Frankie's children, who have sitcom-ready quirks and backstories -- the show isn't meant to be a comedy like Arrested Development or Modern Family, two shows that generate humor every so many seconds from family drama.
This is more a mildly humorous meditation on being older and having one's life change unexpectedly. Grace and Frankie knew what was going to happen for the rest of their "good" years; now they don't, and it's tough having to even partially reinvent yourself after you're eligible for Social Security.
On its own merits, Grace and Frankie is worth watching. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin inhabit their characters; as a "free spirit," Lily Tomlin's Frankie gets the more interesting things to do, but they're both really good, as are the supporting cast. You watch to see the plot unfold and talented actors practice their craft; you do not watch because you are expecting to laugh on schedule.
I'm really impressed with the genre-bending nature of Grace & Frankie; it's a half-hour show formatted like a comedy that refuses to be funny if it doesn't serve the story. This a great example of the kind of show that Amazon Prime and Netflix have allowed to be made where previously network executives would have been perplexed as "who the show was for." This is an interesting piece of fiction that definitely deserved the investment that was put into it.
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