Wednesday, July 06, 2005

TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY To jump to the current version of this post, click here.   That's Television Without Pity  RECAPS.  If you're fretting or frazzled, or suffering from ennuie or garden-variety existential nausea, you just might need a good diverting dose of  Television Without Pity   (TWoP as the cognoscenti call it).  Its motto:  'Spare the snark, spoil the networks.'  Guests have available to them 'recaps' of literally hundreds of shows and members have access to the forums.   There are loads of message-boards for discussing TV, but for me, the big draw for TWoP was the recaps.  I didn’t start posting in the forums for about a year after I discovered the site; I just read the recaps.  That may sound strange, but TWoP recaps can be independently entertaining, in the same way a 75 year old review of a play or a book by Dorothy Parker is entertaining, whether or not you’ve ever seen or even heard of the book or play. Enjoy your television with a side of snide. TWoP can change your TV-show watching from a guilty pleasure to something you feel quite smug about.  It's so meta.   TWoP is definitely the website  I recommend if you’re someone who secretly watches America’s Next Top Model, The Apprentice,  or American Idol  but can’t admit it to anyone you know without losing all of your  hard-won credibility.  It’s good if you really used to love E.R. or The West Wing and still watch it because it’s your show, but with a growing sense of irritation and rage.  Finally, it’s a great site if you watch Deadwood and Six Feet Under because it’s not TV but HBO and they are quality productions, but end up afterward nervously pacing the floor and tearing at your cuticles or lying limply in bed staring sightlessly at the ceiling.   TWoP recaps are excellent value for money, and are free!   They're a good read even---or perhaps especially---if you have never watched even one episode of the show.  (If you really loved the show, identified heavily with the characters, have set up a fan site, have made it your life's ambition to meet/marry one of the cast, and are really, really heavily invested, it's actually probably best to stay away).  The recaps are heavily infused with the particular recapper's view of the show generally, the particular episode, the plot and the characters.  Even if you've never seen a single episode of the show, I recommend for beginners the recaps of the following shows: [1]  American Idol, Seasons 1-3 by Shack. [2]  The Amazing Race, Seasons 1-3 by Miss Alli. [3]  The Apprentice, season 1, by Miss Alli. [4] Joe Millionaire, Season 1, by Kim (remember: the dumber the premise, the more ready to hand the "snark"). [5]  America’s Next  Top Model, by Potes (seriously, you do NOT need to have watched it.) [6] Desperate Housewives by Jessica and Evany. [7] Deadwood by Al Lowe. [8] Project Runway by Jeff.   But if those don't appeal, you can find lots more to choose from on the Shows Page.    Every recapper has his or her own voice and every long-time TWoPper has his or her favorites.  My own favorite recappers are Shack (formerly the American Idol recapper), Jacob (currently recapping American Idol and responsible for two excellent recaps of ‘Dr. Phil’ specials under the Mondo Extras section ) and Djb (who has recapped a lot of things)..  I recommend starting with the easier ones and working up to theirs.  It’s probably a little difficult for anyone who has never tried the TWoP recaps to swallow the notion of a recap as  'mordant' (Shack),  'insightful and compassionate' (Jacob),  or 'surreal' (Djb),  but…you’ll see what I mean when you look at them.  All are very, very funny writers. (I've actually only seen American Idol two or three times, not just because I'm a TV snob but because I just don't like the premise..  But I have read every TWoP recap because I love Shack and Jacob).   TWoP recaps can be long.  You can’t download and print them out and you have to click each page to see the next one.  I never mind this as I really enjoy the recaps for themselves.  If you’re in a hurry or just want to know what happened on the damn show, check the episode thread on the network and save your TWoP recaps for later when you can relish them.     DISCUSSION FORUMS. As noted, TWoP has a huge number of forums, both from the recapped shows and for shows they don't recap but that the members have chosen to discuss.  If you're feeling brave, you might give them a try.  They are heavily moderated and they are not kidding when they tell you to lurk a bit and READ THE RULES (in the FAQs) before you barge in.  Go ahead, see how long you can go without deserving a moderator smackdown for being rude, for 'tone,' or for some other violation of the rules (at TWoP, you've got to walk a pretty fine line between 'snark' and between being rude to a poster or a mod).  Right now, during the summer, the pace has slowed down, so it's a good time to get your forum legs.    I’ve been posting there for years and have never had any trouble, but you do need to get the feel for a forum and a sense of the moderator’s style.  (Recommendation:  before you start posting, make sure you have read the FAQS and the moderator’s thread; I also recommend using the search function to check out the moderator’s recent posts so you know whether he or she has made any announcements.)  The TWoP administrators’ objective is to have the threads be like conversations, so there is a rule that you must read the posts from the last 15 days or the last 15 pages, whichever is less.  (Whatever you do, don’t start your post off with the statement, “Haven’t got time to read 30 pages of posts, so….”)   The up side of the strict  moderation is that standards of civility between posters are enforced and that posters who can't write standard English don't tend to last very long.  You get a real discussion, written in real English, using real words and sentences.  Is there a downside?  You be the judge.   The show recappers moderate the show forums, which is nice if you enjoy the person’s recaps.  As noted, there are forums for types of television shows---even cartoons and commercials, even shows that have been cancelled, even British shows---that aren’t recapped on TWoP. Traffic is slower on these threads and some people might prefer it that way.    If you're an HBO user, I especially recommend the forums for 'Six Feet Under,' 'Deadwood,' and the  'Sopranos.'  Unlike shows that attract a larger audience, forum traffic on these threads even during the seasons isn't so frantic, the posters are usually passionate about the show, and the moderators tend to be a bit more laid back.        RELATED POSTINGS   Comfort Food for the Psyche:  Why I Love Anne Tyler’s Novels.  [book review; fiction] “A Modicum of Blood, Carefully Husbanded”:  Famous Ghost Stories---How to Find the Good Ones   [book review; fiction] Updike for the 21st Century  [book review; fiction[ Second-Hand Bookstore Gold:  The Short Stories of H.H. Munro.  [book review] Lynda Barry Rocks My World:  The Greatest of Marlys, One Hundred Demons, and Cruddy.  [book review; graphic novel; fiction] Peter Sellers Rocks The Party  [film review] Diverse Delights:  Manolo the Shoeblogger Depression-Blocker: Go Fug Yourself The Cutest Place on the Net:  The Addictive Bliss of “Cute Overload.” Played-Out TV and Film Devices. Umberto Eco:  Foucault’s Pendulum---It’s Always About the Templars     6:47:42 PM    So you say!  [] The Office (UK)   To see the current version of this post, click here.   The Office (UK)---Accept No Substitutes. Contemporary English comedy makes me believe the theory that laughter evolved as a response to an enemy's defeat and discomfiture.  I saw the original (UK) version of The Office  [link to bbc website] when I was visiting England in 2002.  I watched it with my hands over my eyes, peeking through the fingers.  It's so painful.  So excruciating.  So gut-wrenchingly funny.  But not in the good-natured American sitcom way.  No, not like that. I own both 6-episode series plus the final episode (the 'Christmas special');  BBC America has also shown them.  At my house, we watch them every 2-3 months.  There are sections I still haven't seen because my hands are over my eyes.    If you haven't seen the British version, you haven't seen The Office.   The American version wasn't the same show. Don't assume you’re up to The Office just because you saw and liked the American version.  If I hadn't seen the original, I might have liked it, and I certainly didn't hate it.  But I had seen the original and there is just no comparison.   It's like the difference between English and American beer.  Both will get you drunk, but the English version tastes better, kicks in faster, and knocks you back on your arse for much longer.    If you saw only the American version of The Office, you probably wondered what all the fuss was about.  I like Steve Carrell a lot, but there is just no way that his portrayal of  boss 'Michael Scott' compares to office co-creator Ricky Gervais's 'David Brent.'  'Scott' comes across as shallow, socially and professionally inept, willfully oblivious, and as obnoxious as only a coworker who believes he thinks he is funny, savvy, and universally liked and admired when he's not can be.  His interactions with his employees are funny and embarrassing---but they are not devastatingly embarrassing.  They don't make you flush all over with vicarious humiliation.  'Brent' has all of these qualities, but so much more (a lot of it emerges in the second series).  His grandiose opinion of his own abilities (as 'a comedian first and a boss second') are coldly contrasted with the actual response of his employees.   He is also fumbling, needy, desperate to be liked, desperately afraid of losing face,  transparently envious, ineptly competitive, and so much more.  He is also weirdly likable, so that while you look forward eagerly to his comeuppance, it's also with a sinking feeling that you aren't going to enjoy it when it arrives. (With NBC's "Michael Scott," you end up feeling that there wasn't nearly enough of it; there's a feeling of deflation and anticlimax at the conclusion of the 6-episode series). A lot of fellow Americans I know who have seen the UK version on DVD or on BBC America find it too unbearably embarrassing to be enjoyable.  Many of them can't get through the first episode.  One person who watched it to the end without laughing once said that it was 'riveting, in the same way an impending train wreck is riveting.'  I suppose it must be true that we are predisposed to like shows about people who are successful, as Ricky Gervais said in an interview I read. The Office is brutally funny in good, cold-hearted, cringe-inducing British fashion. It's not like any sitcom.  There's no laugh track to point out the jokes or to guide your reaction.  There are some brilliant performances by the other members of the cast, including (but not limited to) MacKenzie Crook (who plays Brent's sycophantic sidekick, Gareth) and also Martin Freeman and Lucy Davies, star-crossed lovers who are as poignant in their way as any television lovers ever .  Why is it so deeply riveting, so addictively funny?  It's not what people usually mean by a  "feel-good comedy".  Yet it is. The Office is not edifying and won't make you a better person.  But if you are suffering from pangs of futility, impotence, despair, ennui, helplessness, and failure, I guarantee that it will make you feel better.  Because as big a loser as you may be and as much as your life may suck in general, at least you're not David Brent.  RELATED POSTINGS   (I Know All There is To Know) About the Glaring Game The Glaring Game Part 2:  Nature or Nurture?   God is an Englishman.  He Lives Upstairs and He’s Never Mentioned.  English Placenames:  The Cirencester Problem.  An Update on the Cirencester Problem XXX (Of a Sort) from the Mother Country:  Mr. Rumcove & the Very Cruel Poll  Estuary Englishman  Wandering Scribe? The Office UK—Accept No Substitutes [television review] A Proper Gallows Laugh Requires A Stiff Upper Lip (British Comedy)  Tea.  How It Happened to an American. No Ordinary Profile:  The Talented Mr. Rumcove  The Two Floridas   Image drawn by Mr Tenniel; painted by Damozel.   2:01:09 PM    So you say!  []

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