Tee Vee

July 12th, 2010Blog2 comments

I’m doing a comprehensive study of television right now. Reading scripts, watching the corresponding shows. There are so many good things on TV right now — and it’s only going to keep getting better. Here’s what I really like right now:

It is an absolute shame that Party Down has been canceled. I hadn’t heard about this show until about two weeks ago when a good friend said that I had to watch it. It’s about caterers in LA — i.e., actors working lame day jobs — and each show centers around a specific event that they’re catering: A homeowner’s awards party, a sweet sixteen birthday, an orgy. It has incredible acting and writing — for me, this show is up there with Eastbound and Down. Maybe it’s because the comedy concerns people that have seriously lost their way, and the tragedy of their lives is great fuel for laughs. I don’t know. This show belongs in the pantheon of great shows that were killed after just a couple of seasons. But at least we’ll always have a couple of episodes worth of Jennifer Coolidge taking fairly rudimentary lines like “I SEE LEMONS!” and turning them into comedy gold.

Castle is my current favorite procedural. I liked Firefly, but Nathan Fillion is much better playing a womanizing mystery novelist than he is at playing a brooding space captain. The dialogue in this show crackles. It’s fun, it takes place in NYC, and its characters are nifty. It upends the idea of the procedural, focusing on character as much as plot — a great mix. I haven’t been this excited about a show since I saw the first few seasons of House.

Louie is an absolutely amazing show full of ballsy truth. I’m told that Louis C.K. has complete creative control over the show — he even edited the pilot. The comedy in this show knocks my socks off, but beyond that he tells some really compelling stories that contain a lot of drama and unpleasant but important facts about life. I’m amazed that he was able to get some of this stuff on the air, but make no mistake — I’m really glad that it’s there.

I’m late to the party with Ken Burns’ The National Parks, but this series is as enthralling as anything else this master of docs has put out in the past. All of Burns’ documentary series tell the story of America, but you’d never expect a show about the creation of our national parks to touch on race, classism, and the sheer power of individuals to turn their passions into national movements. The story of John Muir by itself is incredibly fascinating.

Finally, I saw the pilot for Will Arnett’s latest show Running Wilde — it’s fantastic. I was hoping GOB would get his own show, and finally, he pretty much has it here. Keri Russell is involved as a pretty fantastic straight man; plus the kid that plays her daughter is fantastic. I have no doubt that this kid’s going to be a star — her comedic timing is impeccable.