STARDATE: 11/1/11
I recently intercepted a transmission from the local PBS affiliate( KLRN channel 10) that spoke of a new TV show they are doing each Sunday in November, four episodes in total, called America in Primetime. The show airs at 8 pm Eastern/ 7 pm where it matters (TEXAS), which lands right in the middle of my rents and myself cooking dinner as a family. As a result of heavy Sunday time crunching on TV, I PVRed the show for watch yesterday, 10/31/11. Yeah, I knew that would be a tough night for television. After protecting the camp from wave after wave of miniature Zombies, Super-Humans, Vampires, and Princesses (potentially the scariest of all! Just give them a few years...) with small sugar-coated rations, I made time to check this show out.
This episode, although interesting, is not the one I would have started with. The four shows are set as Women in TV, Men in TV, Heroes in TV, and Outlaws in TV. I would have started in reverse order of that just to build the audience and suck them in instead of getting so specific so soon with a new show. Both men and women make great outlaws on TV (Bonnie and Clyde, Sopranos, Firefly, Sons of Anarchy, etc....) and human nature tends to make us "root for the Bad Boy/Girl" in most cases. Just look at any movie with Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, or Vin Diesel in it.They didn't ask me so KLRN is on its own to boost viewership.
This show dealt predominately with "Women In Situational Comedy". A woman's role in TV originally started with these "Homemaker" roles on shows like Ozzie and Harriot, Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and Father Knows Best. Then the TV world did a headstand with I Love Lucy. Finally, a show that depicted an independent woman trying to get ahead in life, love, and show-business. This was revolutionary stuff since it aired at the same time as The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason. Lucille Ball helped set the stage for future shows centralized on women and their issues. A few years after I Love Lucy came The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Here was a show dealing with issues like women in the workplace, birth control, and dating from the female perspective. The media ball gained momentum from there. Over the next few decades, women would take the frontrunner position thanks to shows like Rosanne, which showed the first "real" mother on TV with real problems to get by. Rosanne paved the way for shows like Sex in the City, Weeds, Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, and Sons of Anarchy (although the show didn't mention the Sons, it never-the-less proves the point). In today's TV, a woman can handle any decision, is accustomed to power( or if not learns to be so/uses feminine wiles), and tends to be the glue that holds the plot together.
By the time I had finished watching the show, the second wave of trick-or-treaters hit. The camp was exposed! These were kids in costume from other neighborhoods (probably reinforcements) who thought my neighborhood might have better candy, and they weren't leaving until they got it. It was the first ever "Occupy Halloween" in history. What a stupid holiday, the monsters are there whether the candy shows or not.
This brings me to my next point. ZOMBIE MOVIES ARE DEAD (no pun intended)! If I see one more show that avoids the downfall of mankind (which should be pretty "colorful" according to human nature in history) by setting the movie to start in a hospital bed weeks after Infestation, I WILL BLOW THE WHISTLE! Every single plot-route that expands on the idea of sluggishly moving and half-starved Undead just hording up and stupidly running at barriers is a waste of time (and inaccurate in my experience in the field). I want to see Zombies realistically LEARN. They start crawling, move to scraping, evolve to sprinting, and by then your 2-hour movie is over. Lets see Zombies that can use armor, weapons, and tactics. Yes, Tactics. I want ambushes, Zombie troop movement, Zombies taking household chemicals to make bombs and explosives (maybe even strapping them to dumber Zombies for "guided missiles"). Pick any 5 pages out of The Anarchist's Cookbook and assign that skill to a Zombie, BAM, already a better plot technique. The industry is craving a new "alien film" and in my opinion, it better involve humans piloting 60-foot-tall mechanized humanoid suits fighting them in 3D in space, where shots come from all sides and distances. GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME GUNDAM!
