TOP 5 GUILTY PLEASURE TV SHOWS

Television viewing is something we generally do for ourselves. It’s an escapist thing, a pastime we can enjoy with friends just as much as we can on our own. No one watches TV for anyone else’s benefit – unless you are watching The Wire purely so you can hold conversations about it, or are stuck in a Gossip Girl Season Three marathon next to your spellbound girlfriend. Mostly, TV is for number one.

But we’re not perfect, us humans, and as a result we don’t always watch the TV we should, or even the TV we think we want to. How many times have you sat down with Season One of Mad Men only to make the last-minute switch to re-watch Season Two of Family Guy? Despite clamouring for more quality in my television viewing, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to the idiot box sin. So here, at risk of losing all credibility, I put forth my top five guilty pleasure shows in the hope of salvation. It has been twenty-eight blog posts since my last confession.

5. GLEE

As an occasionally masculine, relatively tall, often unshaven heterosexual male, I really shouldn’t enjoy Glee at all - but I did, at least for the first season, and I would sing its praises to anyone who would listen, which was no-one. The funny thing about Glee is that by liking it, you find yourself between the devil, a rock, a hard place, an audition for an M. Night Shyamalan movie and the deep blue sea as it was derided by almost everyone. Sporty guys didn’t want a bar of it because it was too camp, musical theatre people hated in on the basis it watered down the medium for television, TV people didn’t like it because of its wild swings in quality, etc. What’s a guy got to do for a Lea Michele high note around here? Glee has mountainous highs and spectacular lows, and though I’ve lost interest mid-second season, for a while there, Glee was my guilty pleasure show of choice – but admitting to liking it in public was a very dangerous game indeed.

4. SUPERHERO CARTOONS

Or, to put it more bluntly, shows that are designed primarily for children under the age of fifteen. Ever had a date visit your house and tried to explain away your complete series of Beast Wars, Batman the Animated Series and X-Men? If you have, I bet you haven’t done it successfully. The thing about most kids’ shows nowadays (the good ones) is that they are subtly designed with an extra layer for the adults on top of the show itself. Spongebob Squarepants is an example of a show with a surprising amount of wacky, out-of-the-box humour that adults can get a kick out of as well. For me though, I love superhero cartoons. One of my favourite TV shows of all time (probably Top 5) is Batman: The Animated Series*. It’s artistic, dramatic, dark, funny and exciting with a vintage aesthetic that lends the whole thing a timeless feel, and has some expertly constructed and animated episodes.
But to anyone else, it’s just a Batman cartoon.

*Other great cartoons for kids? Beast Wars, X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man…

3. DANCING WITH THE STARS

This is the one show on this list that I enjoy purely for ironic reasons and get no genuine enjoyment out of whatsoever. For me it’s train wreck television, a gaudy parade of sequins, boobs, abs, hair extensions, terracotta fake tans, inane comments and awkward moments that makes the Mardi Gras look like The Man who Wasn’t There. This is a show in which someone removing a shirt, sleeves, dress or anything is cause for an entire audience of sober, presumably sane people to woo like sloshed party girls hanging out the top of a limousine. When Daniel Macpherson replaced Daryl Somers as host and added a completely unnecessary amount of class and panache to proceedings, I lost interest a little, but I always come back. Who can resist a patented Sonia Kruger awkward one-liner?

2. WIPEOUT

I think Wipeout is funny. I think people jumping from one big ball to another and falling off is funny and I don’t care what you think. Moreover, the commentary is far wittier than it has any right to be and the contestants are ready for anything. Note: this is the American version of Wipeout, not the British or Australian versions. Doesn’t anyone have an original idea anymore?

1. WWE

Yeah. You heard right. I like wrestling. Now before you put this blog on your ‘blocked pages’ list, never to frequent this godforsaken corner of the Internet again, let me explain myself. I only casually watch wrestling. I check out the big events – Wrestlemania, The Royal Rumble, Summerslam, etc. – and other than that I just follow along. But I can’t pretend that I don’t get incredibly excited when Wrestlemania comes along – and before you utter the time-honoured catchphrase of the professional wrestling Muggle – ‘you know it’s fake, right?’ – yes, I do. It’s fake, but so is Pulp Fiction, and people seem to like that. I like it because it is laugh-out loud ridiculous, hilarious and occasionally exciting in the way only a scripted sport could be. But if you catch me watching it, I’ll deny everything.

WWE was the inspiration of this list - Wrestlemania 27, which went to air Monday morning Australian time, was its usual ridiculous, patchy, highly entertaining self. There is just no way to adequately explain the excitement involved in seeing someone kick out of a finishing move, in watching The Rock or Stone Cold tear some poor wrestler a new one on the microphone, in understanding that the whole thing is a game and trying to predict how it’s been planned to end. It’s not sport. It’s sports entertainment, and I am entertained.

Please feel free to add your guilty pleasure show to the list in the comments section!

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM - GLEE

A word I use often – too often – when talking about television programs is ‘potential’. So I’ve decided to start a series of articles where I have a look at a program that might not be living up to that potential and make some suggestions that might help it get there.

 

GLEE

Once upon a time, there was a show called Nip/Tuck. Starring Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh, it was the story of two plastic surgeons, their patients and their day-to-day lives. It aired on FX in the US and the first season was both controversial and critically acclaimed.

However, the crazy plot twists and outlandish actions that viewers had come to love could only sustain a show for so long, and the producers kept trying to outdo themselves until the series became a ridiculous parody of itself that only the most desperate plot-twist hound would follow.

(It’s kind of fun to re-watch if you’re doing it ironically, the same way that people watch bad movies ironically.)

Who was the creator of Nip/Tuck? Ryan Murphy.

What other immensely popular show did he create?

Glee.

The similarities between the two shows are not exactly hard to see. Emmy winning, groundbreaking and more popular than any other show Murphy has created, Glee is a massive hit. It’s also a show with much more heart and soul than Nip/Tuck and occasionally rises to incredible highs the likes of which other comedies could only dream of.

Unfortunately, it can also be unbelievably frustrating, saccharine, cynical and unwatchable. Sometimes, those highs and lows can occur in the space of an episode.

Part of that is the Nip/Tuck syndrome – Murphy and his writers rushed through so many ridiculous plots in the first season of the show (heck, the first half-season of the show) that they left themselves nowhere to turn, nowhere to develop. How can you possibly top a baby-switching fake pregnancy plot (and a horrible, horrible one at that)?

Remember the pilot? That heavily hyped 42 minutes that was so lauded they made a director’s cut? Remember how all the Glee kids seemed so sweet and you supported their dreams? How the small-town atmosphere was charming and grounded everything, even the more outlandish moments, in reality? How Will Schuester seemed like a stand-up guy in a bad marriage and his forbidden romance with the school guidance counselor was so lovable? Remember the way that the villains had simple goals with proper motives? The way you couldn’t help but get goose bumps during the final number even if you pretended you didn’t?

Where the hell did that show go? How did we go from there to the abrasive, cannon shooting, incestuous, cynical, over-budgeted and overhyped mess we have now?

More importantly, how can we go back? Here are some thoughts on what the producers and creative team need to do:

-       Identify the line of believability and recognise what crosses it and what doesn’t. Take the unbelievably talented high school band that is able to bust out whatever tune a glee club member (or anyone) dreams up. We can buy that, because it’s an accepted part of the musical format and fits in with the heightened reality. A boy in a wheelchair being allowed to play football and doing it successfully, however, is way, way over the line. The difference, I think, is that the latter is actually a key plot point and we are asked to directly accept its plausibility. The former is just a little part of the background of the show, amusing in its ridiculousness. The writers really need to pull their collective heads in, because Artie playing football was the kind of moment that stopped me enjoying the show, and watching it became a chore rather than a pleasure.

-       Realise that the adult characters are much better suited to being occasional background characters, given they’ve become such caricatures. Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) in particular has become unlikeable and his character traits confused while Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester is so over the top she’s become grating. Find a way to utilize them properly or keep them firmly in the background. It’s not a coincidence that the best episodes of this season (Duets, Silly Love Songs) have focused squarely on the kids.

-       Work out who your best child characters are and give them more to do without overusing them. Brittany is a great background character but is starting to suffer when the show tries to put her in a vaguely serious storyline. Try not to make that mistake with Puck, Santana, Sam and co. Also, do more storylines that aren’t focused purely on relationships. The Glee Club relationship mind map must look like a two spider webs on top of each other.

-       Try and hold on to some vague integrity as far as the music goes. If you go back to some of the musical highlights (Don’t Stop Believing, Dream On, either sectionals performance, Defying Gravity and many more) of the series so far, almost none of them are current pop hits. The cramming of Katy Perry’s body of work and other chart-toppers might make a truckload of money, but it doesn’t serve the show at all creatively. I know almost every musical theatre type I’ve spoken to hates the show with a passion, but I do think it gets exponentially better when they draw from musical theatre for their performances.

-       Most of all, don’t be afraid to go small. What has always worked about this show is the way all these kids feel so suffocated by their surroundings and want to break out through music. That’s why ‘sectionals’ and ‘regionals’ episodes always worked so well – because it was a cathartic moment for the characters where you felt the thrill of performance almost as much as they did. But when you stage massive dance scenes and huge production numbers every second week, their dreams of performance don’t carry the same impact when they are finally realized.

There’s plenty more, but this article would go on for pages – and those are the things I believe are the most pressing. If you’ve got an idea on how Glee could get better – or you think it’s brilliant and they shouldn’t change a thing, feel free to comment!