Episode 209: Sequester Week
Posted by billsimmon on 26 Feb 2013 at 04:29 pm | Tagged as: episodes
Slightly shorter-than-normal show this week. Pre-show notes follow after the jump…
Original air date: 2/24/13
Total run time: 1:36:10
File size: 46.2 MB
Walking Dead
Continuum
Community
H+
BSG Blood & Chrome came out last week on DVD
Die Hard 5
Misfits
Utopia season 1 complete
How genre shows would have continued if they were not cancelled
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Sequester Week
* Two parallel debates — a stupid one vs. a real one
* The only area of bipartisan agreement
* The best-kept fiscal secret in America
* Polls show GOP public-relations strategy failing
Hagel nomination
* A historic filibuster
* McCain explains rationale
* ‘Friends of Hamas’
* Imagine if it were 2005
Ted Cruz tries to revive McCarthyism
Arc of history keeps bending on marriage equality
Steve’s 10th Blogoversary!
SPSST
1. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
2. Sue Swayze, legislative director for Indiana Right to Life
3. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
4. Illinois state Sen. Kyle McCarter (R)
5. Andrew Stuttaford, a writer for National Review
6. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
West Wing post-Sorkin is the correct comparison to Community post-Harmon. Neither is terrible except by comparison to what came before. But both are different shows, and ones that many if not most viewers would not have watched had that been what was initially on offer.
I recently did go through the post-Sorkin West Wings with my wife. We went through the entire series because she hadn’t seen it. At the time I just thought they were terrible, but with the passage of time it’s easy to see what they did. After Sorkin left, West Wing became a much more narrative-heavy show. The focus was much more on the details of governing and public policy, whereas with Sorkin that stuff was more to show us how the characters worked through problems. With Sorkin, the characters were the main focus, always. Post Sorkin, it was all about plot (it was a political procedural, essentially) and the characters were handled unevenly. The show definitely gave Martin Sheen and Bradley Whitford meaty things to do, but poor Allison Janney became a complete flatline once she became Chief of Staff, until maybe the last couple episodes of the show. She only existed to advance the plots of the episodes, and just became this stressed, dour presence. Unfortunate.
Community has changed too. It’s become a broader show. The dialogue has become much more fast-paced to make it sound quippier even though there are fewer jokes, a hallmark of unfunny “comedies” like Psych. Harmon’s era had people speaking at a normal pace so that you could hear all the jokes. The show fundamentally doesn’t work as well because the satirical elements don’t hit anymore, because the show feels too much like the target it’s to be satirizing. Then again, the episodes themselves have had solid premises that have not been executed well. That could change. Then again, there’s only ten episodes left, so it’s not as though there’s much to be excited about for the future. I’ll watch them, though.