Mercy Me

Greetings, fellow TV Sluts! If you're on the East Coast chances are you're stuck inside for the foreseeable future thanks to Snowzilla 2016. Why not read a chat Arsenic Pie and I had this past week about the new PBS series, Mercy Street? 

"Based on real events, Mercy Street goes beyond the front lines of the Civil War and into the chaotic world of the Mansion House Hospital in Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia." As you'll see below...I wouldn't say we loved it. --Maggie Cats

Arsenic Pie (AP):  GANGRENE BITCHES. THAT WOUND IS OOZING AND SMELLS FOUL ALSO WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT HOW SLAVERY IS WRONG

Maggie Cats: (MC): I hope you aren't referring to the show in general with the "gangrene" and "oozing" comments.

AP: Not in a general sense, no. But as I stated before I was disappointed that there was no Neil Patrick Harris nor syphilis. Here's hoping.

MC: Maybe they will do a crossover with the now-cancelled Best Time Ever. Like, he can pop in to the room during amputations for a song and dance number.

AP: And use amputated limbs as props. See, we could write this. If they did that the show probably wouldn't have gotten cancelled.

MC: So what did you think of Mercy Street really?

AP: Well, from a production values standpoint it's on par with Downton Abbey and the BBC.

MC: But....

AP: But I felt in their attempt to be "fair," they are kind of whitewashing history and (don't hit me) making the Union look like the bad guys. Like, the Chief of Staff at the hospital is a dickbag. Nobody wanted to treat the Confederate soldier. The Union officers in charge of the hospital wanted to cheat the nice Confederate family. A little balance is needed, otherwise is comes across as propaganda. And if I need that, I'll just go watch Gone with the Wind for the twentieth time.

MC: I understand what they are trying to do, to show the nuances of all the different things people were thinking at that time, but it felt like there was way too many grand pronouncements of morality and war and politics shoehorned into the narrative. I actually thought the Green family didn't come off looking so rosy; I mean clearly they are rich people with their heads stuck in the sand. LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR THE SOUND OF THE UNION KICKING OUR ASS. But yes, they were clearly trying to demonstrate that "Confederates are people toooo!" Which ok, they were, but also, HELLO, SLAVERY. Of all the characters we met, I actually found the freeman surgeon the most compelling.

AP: Yes, and with Mary Phinney, the only abolitionist we've met so far being an insufferable shrew, and with the Union doctor being a horrible racist, I am really not sure what thesis they're trying to put forward. The Green family has the most likable characters. Emma is a lot more likable than Mary.

MC: I am hoping that as we go on, all the characters will become a bit more fleshed out than walking signboards for "I represent this side of the argument."

AP: Yes, too many grand pronouncements. Who meets Dorothea Dix and is like "Let me hold forth on my views about race and equality."

MC: If it was set anywhere other than Alexandria, I probably wouldn't keep watching. The characters are one-dimensional at this juncture. But it's my hometown, yo.

AP: Shout out to the Army of Northern Virginia.

MC: Ummm....woot? I AM UNCOMFORTABLE BY THIS.

AP: I also disliked that the only African American Mary had any contact with was like, "It's all good. I'm free. If only these racist as Northerners would let me practice medicine." Like be fair all you like, but if they're going to whitewash slavery, I'm going to call them out. I NEED A RACIST-ASS.

MC: I am sure someone will get horribly beaten soon. Don't fret.

AP: Okay. Good. I don't want my moral high horse to have been for naught. Hopefully Josh Radnor. Which is almost too bad because he looks good with the beard.

MC: And is less insufferable than Ted.

Trust me, you don't want this guy shooting you up with anything.

AP: I never watched How I Met Your Mother I was in it for the NPH for a hot minute and I got bored and tuned out.

MC: I think I watched a couple seasons in the beginning. But I wouldn't call myself a fan. As insufferable as Ted was, this guy, the doctor, who liberally shoots people up with morphine, is way better. I can't wait for the inevitable love triangle with Mary and the hot priest to kick in. Wait, I'm sorry. The hot chaplain. Or whatever.

*interlude where Arsenic Pie goes and gets her Red Baron oven pizza*

AP: The people I like the most are the Greens.They are sympathetic,and they are a nice family. And the dad is the dad from Talladega Nights. I don't like Baroness Munchausen, and the doctor is more likable than she is, and I did enjoy him telling her off.

MC: I also liked the Dad and the eldest daughter. Everyone else, including the Mother, despite being in Center Stage and a Star Trek movie, are kind of awful and insipid. Mary also looks so much like the actress who was in Scott Pilgrim it's distracting.

AP: She does. And what is Anna Sophia Robb doing on this show? Doesn't she have better things to do than lay around in a crinoline and swoon.

MC: I take it back, the hot chaplain he is my favorite character.

AP: Yes, and what a highly developed character he is,what with his two lines of dialogue.

MC: He doesn't need to speak. I can see it all through his soulful eyes.

AP: I'm telling your boyfriend.

MC: OH HE KNOWS. So, are you going to stick with Mercy Street?

AP: I might. I'll give it a go. I hated Mr. Selfridge at first, and then I ended up getting past all of the melodrama and enjoying it. But Mercy Street is kind of cliched. T

MC: The dialogue and the setting and the characters really don't stand out from anything else I've seen set during the Civil War. I'll give them a few more episodes. If nothing else for the dress porn.

MC: Keep those hoop skirts coming, ladies! So practical for nursing.

AP: It was kind of underwhelming but I honestly didn't expect that much. Hopefully, a few more episodes in and it should find its legs. Maybe Mary will kill someone with her vagina. Stranger things have happened on PBS.

MC: I am sure Lincoln will show up at some point.

AP: Those hoop skirts and corsets definitely allow for a nurse's freedom of movement.They should definitely give their costumes to Call the Midwife. I think Lincoln is due in the next episode. It's still supposed to be 1862 so we don't have to worry about him getting shot.

MC: Well, that's a relief. I am sure there will be a parade of distinguished figures through the hospital.

AP: Although, IMDB has a character listing for John Wilkes Booth.

MC: I was JUST wondering about that!

AP: I hope not, because I think that is such a cop-out to do stunt casting.

MC: And of course they'll have JWB. He was a well-known actor. Where else would he go but an Alexandria hospital.

AB: I wonder if we'll get to see him being a terrible fucking actor.

MC: This is what happens when artists get frustrated, people. They shoot presidents and commit genocide. Good thing I am a boring lawyer.

AP: I expect zero atrocities from you.

MC: When I get frustrated I just make a rubber band ball.

AP: Would you like to have some atrocities attributed to you?

MC: Let me make a Pro and Con list and get back to you.

AP: I've literally broken stress balls. No joke. I've broken like five of them.

MC: You have super strength. You are the hulk.

AP: RAAWWWWRR No stress balls are safe.

MC: No balls at all, actually.

AP: That's good news for the chaplain! We'll leave the ball-busting to Mary Phinney.

MC: That guy doesn't have any balls anyway. NAILED IT

AP: I don't know why we don't have a show.

MC: It would be a hot mess and fantastic.

AP: I concur. We'd have a zillion followers due to our wit and timely zingers.

MC: And my spectacular rack. Don't forget that, it's my power source.

AP: Your rack is far superior to my own.

MC: I should sooner pick a favorite star.

AP: You have an excellent rack. Mine are merely perky.

MC: See, we have something for everybody.

AP: And that's really all I ask. Stay perky, my friends.

MC: Once again, we have gotten completely off topic. But honestly, this is more compelling than the show.

AP: It really is.

MC: We'll be here all week. Try the veal!

AP: It's delicious Don't believe me, ASK THE DISHES.

MC: I think that's a good stopping point. We covered the basics.

AP: It's always good to know when you should throw in a good "Be Our Guest" reference.

MC: It really brought the whole thing home.

AP: It really tied the room together.

Time to go, I'm off for another day of nursing dressed all in white with my corset and 20 layers of underwear! I just need to navigate all the street cat-callers first....

Mercy Street airs Sundays at 10PM on PBS. Check your local listings for channel information.

How Did All This Opera Get in My Space?

Someday, probably far off in the future, science will discover a verifiable, reproducible explanation for why it is that people like me willingly subject ourselves to the torture of watching television shows that are smart and cutting-edge and challenging and thus have no hope of surviving the season on network TV. Sadly, that day has not yet arrived and thus I am still living with Cancelitis.

My latest flare-up comes in the form of a multi-nationally produced sci-fi drama that actually leaned much harder on the “sci” than the “fi” called Defying Gravity. The 2009 show about a manned space mission to explore the solar system was a joint project between ABC in America and CTV in Canada. It was notable for featuring a multi-national cast playing multi-national characters.

Sickness Ahoy!

The Plot: About 70 years in the future, eight astronauts, four men and four women, board the Antares for a six-year cruise to visit Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Europa, Saturn and Pluto. The show alternates between the astronauts in space and Mission Control back in Houston. Conflict comes from mysterious happenings that begin on the ship and the fact that select members of the Mission Control team seem to have a darker plan for the mission than they’re letting on. Meanwhile, characters who don’t always get along with each other are literally forced to live and work (and, let’s be honest, have sex) with each other.

And while the interpersonal tension is a major plot point, before long the astronauts are facing strange occurrences, some frightening, some awe-inspiring, tied to some kind of mysterious cargo being stored on the ship. Referred to only as “Beta” by the Earth-bound Mission Control, Beta is mucking about with the mission, literally altering the astronauts on a cellular level and causing them to come face-to-face with events from their own pasts. As Antares moves further away from Earth, the astronauts become more isolated and more fragile while Beta becomes more prominent and possibly more dangerous.

"If anyone gets a vaguely chest-bursting feeling during dinner, I'm turning this spaceship around."

Comparisons to other shows flew pretty fast and loose while Defying Gravity was on the air. Critics found it to be equal parts Lost, Babylon 5 and even Grey’s Anatomy, although in my opinion that last one is a bit out of left field. The show placed a high premium on telling a very modern story about science – about the only sign that this show couldn’t be set today is the show’s in-universe explanation for artificial gravity to explain why the actors don’t spend all their scenes floating – but one that would still, at its core, have a much more, ahem, alien driver.

Defying Gravity definitely had its weak points – like many first season shows, the writing started off clunky with some odd characterization and awkward dialogue while the writers got a better sense of who these characters were. Ironically, for a sci-fi show at least, one aspect that the show didn’t lack for was effects. Because the show was so grounded (if you’ll pardon the pun) in reality, there’s no beaming down to the planet, no faster-than-light travel, none of the typical sci-fi tropes that, in addition to putting a further barrier between the show and the viewer, also jack up the costs of filming. The ship, Antares, is much more akin to the present day International Space Station than it is to the starship Enterprise. The sets were built to look technical and modern, not glamorous and sleek. The computer and launch technology in particular, while cutting edge, wouldn’t be that out of place in any high-tech thriller set in today’s time.

It goes without saying that this show did not last long. For a grand total of only 13 episodes, viewers at least got the first full season, but like so many that went before it, we never got to see the resolution of all the mysteries. Unlike other “brilliant but cancelled” shows, however, Defying Gravity did actually get an ending! Sort of… Once it was confirmed that the show would not be coming back, creator James Parriott released highlights from the show’s Bible, including details about what each mystery for each main character meant and what was planned for them for the remaining years of their mission. Reading it points to one of the crucial lessons that sci-fi shows need to learn: never put all your cool set pieces in the third season. Defying Gravity learned that partway, so while there were plenty of storylines left floating about (sorry, I seem to be overly pun-y today), watching the entire series at least gives you some of the answers you wanted. All of which makes reading about where the show would have gone that much more frustrating because you can see how cool the final story would have been. 

 "No, it's cool. You can cancel us. I'll just wait here for the next smart science show to come along. Should arrive any minute now."

For a space opera that’s light on the opera, do yourself a favor and check out Defying Gravity.

Funny Girl(s)

It’s something of old news by now, but for people like me who just stumbled across it because that’s sometimes what you do during your day at work, let’s face it, Christopher Hitchens authored a remarkably uninformed and largely insulting piece in Vanity Fair in 2007 called “Why Women Aren’t Funny”. The misogyny of the piece is evident just from the title and let me assure you, it gets worse, but it’s also notable for the blatant racism and heterosexism it displays as well. (Seriously. He has awesome things to say about women who are non-white, overweight, gay or any combination thereof.) All in all, a great thing to read if you need to get your blood boiling, like maybe right before a big cardio workout or possibly if you’re being chased by bees or something.

It would be a measure of equality to treat Hitchens with respect and offer some kind of analysis of whether or not his argument has merit, but the problem is that it so clearly doesn’t that there isn’t any real reason to give it credence. It would be like offering an independent analysis to find out if someone was right when they bold-facedly asserted that water was not, in fact, wet. Whether or not women can be funny isn’t up for debate. Anyone who wants proof needs look no further than the recently announced fall line-up of TV shows.

 Segueing seamlessly…

I’m typically the last person to get excited about a sitcom about a neurotic young woman trying to have it all in the big city. Frankly, this story has been told more times than Chaucer. But after seeing the preview clips for The Mindy Project, I’m completely willing to give this one a shot. The brainchild of Mindy Kaling, former lead writer and supporting actor in The Office, the show follows Kaling herself as this season’s Liz Lemon, who herself has been described as 2005’s Mary Tyler Moore. For the curious, I’m also working on a theory that Mary Tyler Moore was just 1970’s Kermit the Frog, but that’s for another blog post.

Kaling’s understated witticisms are on full display and the humor in the trailer comes off as fresh and funny. The is especially remarkable considering that the set up is not only as old as the sitcom genre itself, but it seems like Kaling and her fellow writers have tried to mash about two or three other genres into the pilot just for good measure. As it is, the set-up runs the risk of being something along the lines of, “what would happen if Liz Lemon woke up in that melodramatic hospital in Seattle one morning and then decided to work there with all the other employees of Dunder-Mifflin?” 

The original theme song was going to be called "How To Save a Laugh"

Kaling certainly inherits a lot of goodwill built up from the women who have gone before her. That genetic line officially starts at Eve Arden and Lucille Ball, meanders toward Lily Tomlin and Carol Burnett and then runs straight through Jane Curtain, Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman, heading into Loretta Swit before diving through Roseanne Barr and Rhea Perlman and resurfacing at Ellen Degeneres in time to watch Tina Fey absolutely kill on Weekend Update. Each of these women held shows on their own and there isn’t a viewer in the world who isn’t going to laugh with them. Kaling is in good company and based on her successes in her previous projects, she more than deserves to be there.

All of which just makes that Hitchens article all the more ridiculous. You could almost see it being written as an attempt to be, well, funny; as if Hitchens were trying to illustrate exactly the point he was making in his article about men being more inclined toward humor and women just being pleased with themselves, with their reduced capacity for humor, when they realized that they were smart enough to get the joke. I kept expecting him to end his article in a self-congratulatory “gotcha” that would illustrate that he realized how ridiculous the article was and show that it clearly was intended to be hyperbole. That any writer who expects to be taken seriously would even question whether or not women are capable of being funny seems so oddly humorous in itself. Meanwhile, women like Mindy Kaling, who are finally allowed to anchor their own television shows, needn’t even think about Hitchen’s creaky patronizing and the rest of us get some (hopefully) solid entertainment out of it.

The Mindy Project airs this fall on FOX.