I'll admit it: I've been slacking.I haven't written a bloody thing since my dissertation on the season finale of LOST. It's not like I have writer's block. Far from it. I haven't even tried to write anything.
It has been such a long time since I logged into Blogger, that my Firefox browser actually prompted me for my username and password when I ambled over here tonight.
But hey, cut me some slack. What would you like me to write about? I'm not sure if you've turned on your television since LOST ended, but there is literally nothing on. It's a wasteland of epic proportions. I'm reduced to watching the NBA Finals right this second and listening to the moderately good/moderately not good new Weezer album.
Sure, I recorded CBS' trashy soap Swingtown, with the idea of actually watching it and writing a scathing review about how bad it is (I'm assuming), but I haven't even had the slightest interest in actually watching it. It just sits there amongst all the season finales and Around the Horn episodes I still have saved on the DVR. Here's a little secret for you: I'm going to erase that before even putting it on.
I guess I could have pulled a New York Magazine and written about the new shows that will be airing this Fall, but, um, shouldn't we wait to do that until Summer officially begins? I mean I hate to be a nitpicker (that's a lie), but come on. Like anyone reading Vulture cares about the shows that TNT will be airing in November.
And then there are the Emmys, another popular television related topic. Entertainment Weekly devoted three pages to Emmy predictions in their latest issue. One problem: the nominations don't come out for a full month.
So yeah, I wasn't really that excited to write about all the stuff I plan on writing about at a later and more time pertinent date. And rather than write yet another post about LOST, I figured that I'd pull a Champ and sit a few plays out.
But two stories this week made me sit up and take notice. Considered this my Mike McDermott Ali-like return to the ring.
Jenny Humphrey Goes to Boarding School? Yes, please!
For teenage girls, New York Magazine and yours truly, the news this week of Josh Schwartz's plan to spin-off the total non-hit Gossip Girl by using Taylor Momson's jail bait ingenue as the central focus was awesome news. Usually spin-offs will inherently suck (yes, Office, I'm looking at you.) But Jenny is tailor made for her own show. For starters, she's barely a factor on Gossip Girl. Once she usurped Blair, found herself acting as the beard in a sham relationship, and then was subsequently usurped by Blair (re-usurped?) her character arc was almost over. Sure, Jenny can continue to get corrupted by the UES, turning to hard drugs, wild underage sex and other various nefarious activities, but isn't that why we have Serena? And Blair? And Dan? And Chuck? And Vanessa? And every single other character on the show?
Here's a perfect idea for the spin-off: while at boarding school, Jenny befriends Willa Holland, playing a variation on Kaitlin Cooper from Season Four of The O.C. Hilarity ensues. Also, make sure all the other characters are goody two-shoes. So when the coke fueled orgies start, things have more dramatic weight.
Needless to say, this spin-off will never happen. Five people watch Gossip Girl. How many people will watch the spin-off? Four?
Katherine Heigl, marry me!
I love Katherine Heigl. It's not just that she's extremely charming, surprising funny and super-duper hot. It's that she just doesn't seem to realize that movie stars, like athletes, are never supposed to say anything interesting. Heigl flies in the face of that theory. She buried Isaiah Washington during the whole T.R. Knight controversy. Then she called Judd Apatow out for Knocked Up saying that the women in that film came off as shrew and awful when compared with the happy-go-lucky boys. (Katherine was wrong about this, because the only woman who came off like a total slag in that movie was Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann. And I think that's because she just is one of the most unlikable actresses in Hollywood. Seriously, she's so awful, they could cast her on Grey's Anatomy and actually make the show more heinous. But, whatever.)
However those shots pale in comparison to what Katherine Heigl said today. In an interview with the AP, Heigl, the reigning Emmy Winner for Best Supporting Actress, stated that she was withdrawing her name from consideration this year because her character was poorly written. Said Heigl, through her publicist: "I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization. In addition, I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials."
This is hilarious! In two biting sentences, filled with vitriol and passive-aggression, Heigl says what every single person who watched Grey's Anatomy this year was already thinking: the writing on the show SUCKS. It got so bad this year, that the passable episodes towards the end of the season were hailed as a "return to form," which is code for "this show sucks now, but it isn't as bad as it used to be."
In addition to just slamming the piss-poor writing staff of Grey's, she also manages to take shots at her fellow, horrible actresses on the show (save Chandra Wilson.) I can't wait to see Sandra Oh nominated for a Best Supporting Actress or Ellen Pompeo snag a Best Actress nomination. Basically, if they get nominated, they look like a#@holes: they're getting the same crappy material as Heigl, but they didn't pull their names from consideration.
Most importantly though, hopefully this starts a wave of television actors admitting stuff we already know. Wouldn't it be nice if Kiefer Sutherland came out and told everyone that the last two seasons of 24 were unwatchable? Or if Wentworth Miller admitted that Prison Break was total trash?
We all know that won't happen. But a boy can dream. In the meantime, at least we have Katherine Heigl.
0 comments:
Post a Comment