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Goodbye, Old Friend
May 18, 2010 by NaysWay · 4 Comments
Before you say anything, yes. Yes, I am one of those people. Those crazy people who’ve spent the last six years of their lives wrapped up in a TV show. A stupid show about a bunch of stupid people stuck on a stupid island. A stupid show that leaves more questions than answers and, of those questions, never really answers anything. A show that has made a bunch of no-name actors filthy rich on the dumbest premise you’ve ever heard of. A show with a bunch of nerds sitting around trying to decipher gibberish, with even more nerds and their blogs and watch parties and absurd Halloween costumes. Feh on all you idiots who’ve wasted a good portion of your lives riding the jock straps of the smartest nerds this side of the equator; nerds who were smart enough to make a show about nothing and having millions buy into it.
You feel better? You got that out of your system?
Now. With all due respect, I’m going to have to ask you to suck it.
Call the fans of the smartest, most watched, most followed, often-imitated-never-duplicated, mind freak and head explosion I’ve had the pleasure of wasting my time over these last six years, as many names as you’d like. Any die-hard LOST fan will tell you they are unphased. They’ve heard worse in their awkward adolescence on the biggest schoolyards the world over, and it will not sway them one way or the other. LOST fans. We love our show. We are true to it. Like any good marriage or other relationship, we have stuck with it – good and bad and frustrating. We have trusted the writers. We have trusted the actors. We have laughed and cried and thrown things at our televisions. We have gone to work the next day, eyes puffy from either crying (CURSE YOU, The Candidate! That’s right. Your ENTIRE EPISODE! Oy, I still weep!), or from lack of sleep, lying awake with our theories and interpretations and notions because, dear God, WHAT IS THE SMOKE MONSTER?! Better yet, WHERE DID THE STATUE COME FROM?!
We have known this would be your last season. The finale. The end-all-be-all. We gnashed our teeth when we assumed you were yanking our chains, taking us along for a long, painful ride to nowhere. But then came the end date. At first, we cheered. Yay! Closure! Deadlines on stories! A finish line! Hooray! And, last year, we squirmed a little on our couches. OK. One more year. A year is so far off. This doesn’t seem so bad. And then, the year came. The year, she is upon us. And woe be unto us, we are not ready.
Dear, sweet LOST. This has been a thrilling ride. Like any good thing, you never want it to end even when you kinda do. We will always have DVD’s. Encyclopedias. Blogs. References to help us relive our love for you. But what will be of our Tuesdays? What of that pit in our stomach, nervous with the anticipation of the next direction your storyline will take? What of our yelling at our children to hurry up and eat their food and bathe and get into nightclothes and get into the bed and faster faster FASTER BECAUSE MOMMY’S SHOW IS ABOUT TO COME ON AND, CHRIST ON A CRACKER, YOU ARE NOT GONNA MAKE ME MISS IT!
Oh, LOST. You have made me believe in storytelling again. And when you end this Sunday night, I will weep. I will openly sob. There may even be some tearing of clothes. Maybe a few kicks and screams. The devastation will be real because you will be leaving a huge, gaping abyss of creativity in your wake. A chasm so large, so black, we, as avid television watchers, fear what networks will strain to come up with in an effort to replace you. Not since the Writer’s Guild of America strike of 2007-08 have I so badly wanted to turn off my boob tube once you depart. Maybe I am sad. Maybe I’m a pathetic person. Maybe I spend way too much time watching one show. Maybe I need a life. But if my life is writing, if I love creativity, and if ever there were a tool to help inspire the masses taking an interest in either realm… well then, call me sad and pathetic.
I heart you, LOST. And, since our basketball team blows majorly hard suckage, you are the only constant I’ve had to look forward to. I will miss you, old friend.
(Heh heh. I said “constant”. Heh.)
Whatever Wednesday: What Up With That?
March 17, 2010 by NaysWay · 2 Comments
I know. I should be better than this. As a black person, I shouldn’t make fun of my own people. Uptight, highly wound black people the world over probably cringe when they see this (which really just means Spike Lee is somewhere having a heart attack). It’s a mockery in buffoonery. It’s… coonery. Oh no. Someone call the Ethics Police.
Should I really be ashamed for loving this SNL skit that clearly not only pokes fun at the sad (but true) state of so-called programming on BET, but is the caricatured epitome of black preachers everywhere?
That’s right, Spike Lee. You sit down.
Fall Over
September 22, 2009 by NaysWay · 2 Comments
See a clearer, larger copy here. (Sorry, I write small.)
Do you see this? This is called “a problem”. Who creates a grid and color-coordinates A TV SCHEDULE?! People with no lives? I’m willing to bet. Highly organized, anal people? I wouldn’t doubt it.
Would it make you feel better if I told you this was tame compared to prior Fall seasons? Yeah, I didn’t think so. But another pitch in my defense is this: most of the shows you see here will be axed in a matter of weeks – either by me or the networks where they reside. I have already mentally canceled at least six of the programs listed here. I won’t, nee can’t, devote nearly as much time as I have to TV anymore. I have a job and kids and soccer practice and dinner to make and a book to write.
That’s right. I said it.
And real life, alone, is exhausting me. Have you noticed the posts are coming later and later in the day? That’s not on purpose.
Sure, I’ll go through television withdrawal while all this is going on. But the Internet makes it so much easier for me to watch what I missed. Even my DVR will feel the sting. And at what cost? My sanity? Yes. I can barely stay awake to carry out a coherent conversation with the members of my family after 10:00 in the evening. Television? What television? Case in point: one of my previously beloved shows, Heroes, premiered last night to the tune of a 2-hour season opener. WHAT?! TWO HOURS?! And I watched because I’m dumb. And I cursed because not only was it two hours but it was BORING! OH-EM-GEE, people.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… shame on the shamer who shames. Or something.
I renounce my thrown as King of Zamunda… wait… that’s wrong. I renounce my title as Queen of the Water Cooler. There. That’s better — and I hereby claim sleep, priorities and goals for clear thinkers who are too old for this.
At least until LOST starts because then FUGGEDUHBOUDIT!
FEAR Feature: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
September 15, 2009 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
If you have never seen or heard of this awesome, awesome featurette, I implore you to watch. It will change your life. OK, not really, but if a) you’ve ever owned a blog, and b) you’ve ever been a fan of Joss Wedon, and c) you love Neil Patrick Harris, and d) you love top Hollywood people who keep their actors in-house, and e) you love musicals (which I don’t, so this is weird), you will love, love, LOVE this.
I had heard of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog a little over a year ago. It had the internet on fire with the buzz, but I could never find it to watch. The then-website was now defunct then revived only without the actual movie. So I was bummed because I figured I’d never be able to watch what everyone was talking about. And I love me some Neil Patrick Harris. God bless Twitter because everyone is now talking about the fact that this thing won an Emmy. What?! Well now I absolutely have to find it. So I go to Hulu because I’m going to spend my lunch hour catching up on the episode of Glee I missed (another must watch, soon to be featured here in the coming week… weeks?), and lo and behold, Hulu is featuring Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to celebrate their Emmy win.
So here it is. And watch quickly. There’s no telling how long Hulu will keep this up.
FEAR Feature: So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD)
July 23, 2009 by NaysWay · 2 Comments
Tonight marks the 100th episode of a show I’ve only recently become obsessed with. Now, before you say it, yes. I know I’m four seasons behind. I know this. I was one of the people moaning and groaning about it causing so much of an uproar in Fall TV scheduling since this will mark the typically reserved-for-Summer show’s first time airing for a full 2009-10 season. This show uprooted all my others: Glee, Dollhouse, Fringe, Lie To Me. While I’m running off the list, let me double-back in retrospect: I am watching a TON of TV on FOX, all of a sudden. When did that happen?! Anyway…
So I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I’ve been watching Dancing With The Stars (DWTS) since its inception. Each year, I am more and more disappointed with 1) the “star” selection, and 2) the voting process. Fans at home, dialing in for these votes, really are morons. I mean that in the most loving way, but how long did it take before Master P was voted off? MASTER-FRICKIN’-MAKE ‘EM SAY UUUGGGHH-P, people. I had more fun watching Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein dance than watching this idiot. At least then I knew it was supposed to be funny. You know. On PURPOSE. I swear voters only kept him on to frustrate the judges. I was almost made a believer again with the season of Kristi Yamaguchi because that broad can do no wrong for me. And she won which was so necessary. I don’t know if you saw it that season but the girl KILLED IT, please understand. But then, oh then, all hopes were shattered with the installment of Cloris Leachman last season. Oye. That’s all I gotta say. Oh, and meshugenah! And I’m not even Jewish but I was easily verklempt with that display of buffoonery. I respect my elders, but shouldn’t they respect me back?
This year, I vowed not to watch anyone dancing. Television has made a mockery of a timeless art form, one I held in high regard to the legends of Gregory Hines, Sammy Davis, Jr., Twyla Tharp, Bob Fosse, Debbie Allen and all the other greats. You know, REAL dancers. People I could only dream to be. And if it weren’t for bad luck and God’s infinite funny bone, I would not have given birth to a child who lives, breathes and eats dancing with music for dessert. But I did, and I am thereby punished to sit through any dancing, singing programming of her choosing. Because these gyrations must not be witnessed alone. They can only be shared with a friend… or a parent bound to you by law. Frik.
Since DWTS is banned, I turn to SYTYCD. I am safe in knowing I won’t be attacked by buffoonery or idiot D-listers, but professional kids actually trying to make this their life’s work. And make it, do they ever?! Have you seen this show? The acrobatics? The limber jumping and athleticism? This show… it causes my child fits. She must get up and roll on the floor, and Plié, and bounce, and jump up high, then fall to the floor, then do a split, then arch her back and spin violently. Is she having a seizure? No. She’s DANCING! Since the show can run, at maximum, two hours, I let her watch the first hour before bed, then fall asleep to the second hour under her covers. Last night, we watched the first hour together, and I paused the second hour so I could watch it after I laid everyone down for the evening. This one performance at the end of that second hour not only made this my new favorite dance show and obsession, but made me forgive its upheaval of my regular season schedule in the Fall…
Sobbing, do you hear me? With the noise, and the drool, and the hiccups, and the snotty nose, and the bath towel. That’s right. The UGLY cry. Fan. For. Life. I even forgive them Mary Murphy, and that is hard. So very, very hard.
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