Kelly's New Office

By Meg Walter

Tonight The Mindy Project premieres on Fox. I watched the pilot while it was on Hulu for a brief period and I found it promising. Perfect? No. But no pilot is. It usually take at least half a season, if not a whole for a new series to hit its stride, understand its characters and find its pace. So it's no surprise that The Mindy Project has a few kinks to work out, but there is some real potential in the premise and the characters.

Mindy Kaling plays Mindy Lahiri, an OBGYN who is great at her job and bad at love. It may sound like every other show with a woman in the lead role currectly on television, but The Mindy Project manages to make it feel fresh. In the first few minutes of the first episode we witness Mindy's meet-cute with Bill Hader, only to cut to his wedding reception celebrating his marriage to another woman. Mindy gives an embarrassing drunken speech, the first in a series of events that leads to a soaking Mindy in a police interrogation. The show takes off from there with a tone of both self deprication and blissful confidence (she asks for a tour of the Special Victims Unit before leaving the station).

Chris Messina. who you may recognize from Vicky Christina Barcelona and Julie & Julia, is really great as fellow doctor Danny Castellano. The stand out scene of the pilot is an exchange of insults between Mindy and Danny regarding women's fashion. It's no-holds-barred as Mindy claims that a divorced man doesn't understand women or their clothing, and Danny tells her to lose fifteen pounds. It serves as a good example of Mindy Kahling, not only the star of the show but the head writer as well, being comfortable in her own skin and willing to joke about the color and size of it.

In Interviews I've heard and read, Kaling is careful to say that she wants to be known for being a great comedy writer. Not a great Indian writer, not a great woman writer, just a great writer. That's not to say she won't use her race or gender for material. She just won't position herself as a role model to other Indians or other women. She wants to a role model to writers.

And perhaps that attitude is the reason I want The Mindy Project to do well. I want Mindy to do well. Her brilliance brought us the constintly great Kelly Kapoor, even in the last few faltering season of The Office. Her writing gave us some of the best episodes of The Office, including "The Dundies", "The Injury" and "Niagara." It's obvious that Kaling understands comedy and has the chops to pull off a show of her own. I expect great things.

Meg Walter writes about television to justify watching so darn much of it. When she's not on her couch letting her brain turn to jello she's blogging at tobetomars.blogspot.com, playing with her baby girl, or beating her husband in board games.

Ms Knope Goes to Washington

By Erin Jackson

The episode of Parks and Rec opens with Leslie Knope saying "Romantic reunions, government meetings, self-guided museum tours? I mean, am I living the dream? I don't know. Did I also just walk past a food truck and buy myself a waffle sundae? Yes." And it seemed like she was finally in her perfect Leslie Knope element. As Leslie and Andy sightsee their way through DC, her joy and enthusiasm are at maximum levels.

 Things start to go south when Ben can't join Leslie on any museum tours, not even to see George Washington's farewell address candle stand. Then the Department of the Interior dude wouldn't meet with Leslie and she had to add her perfect proposal presentation (complete with ambient sound effects and video of frolicking river otters) into a large, dismal and overflowing pile. And as Ben introduced her to all the Hot Rebeccas and Barbara Boxers, she starts to see that DC views her as just another sad folder in a sad pile to be ignored and forgotten.

 Sad Leslie makes sad Erin. Leslie Knope is my number one TV hero on the air right now. If there were just one Leslie Knope at every level of government, this world would be an amazing place. So when Leslie is discouraged, when others make her feel like some backwoods rube for staying in her hometown and taking pride in her work, my heart aches. Oh, when they said "local government is SO important" I wanted to throw water in the faces of all those C-SPAN and Neiman Marcus love children.

 Meanwhile, back in Pawnee, Ron takes over a BBQ and Ron Swanson's it up with a live pig, no vegetables (not even corn), no plates, not activities and pretty soon neither he nor the Parks Department can take it anymore. He rides off with the BBQ grill in tow, leaving the others dusty, hungry and cranky.

 These were dark times for the Pawnee Parks Department. But in this group of beautiful, sweet people, you can only wallow in self-pity so long before someone is there to lift you out of it. Ron is put in his place by Chris, and Ron makes up for his Ron-ing up by giving a little indoor BBQ and corn feast. For Leslie, the lifter-upper Andy. Sweet, stupid Andy. He tells her that she's better than Hot Rebecca- she's kick-ass Leslie, and she never gives up because she's an amalgam (you'll get it right someday, Andy). That's just the thing Leslie needs to hear and by the end of the episode, she's out of that disgusting swamp of DC and knee-deep in the disgusting Pawnee River, only this time she's taking things into her own hands, making river-clean up her office hours so she can hear people's concerns while improving the river. Then I'm kind of bummed because I can't vote for Leslie Knope for everything.

But at least she is happy, for now. However, if Ben Wyatt doesn't get his butt out of DC and back into Leslie's arms, not only will Leslie punch his face, but I don't really know if they can make things work. I sure hope that I'm wrong, because Ben and Leslie make me happy and this show exists to make me happy. Perhaps the show will yet again show us that with the right people you can have very different folks making each other happy, no matter what.

Erin Floyd Jackson has been BFFs with TV since she was a wee one when she would play TV Network Executive. She went to school to learn about how and why TV is the way it is and hopes to someday tear someone's creative vision down and re-edit it to her liking. In the meantime, she and her husband live in Huntsville, Alabama and they occasionally "blog" here (http://inappropriateapplause.tumblr.com/) when they are not geeking out over all the SCIENCE! in the Rocket City.

The Walking Dead will be walking again soon

By Nick Morley

Don, Roger, and Pete are going to be off Madison Avenue for a while, and Walt and Jesse won’t be cooking until next summer, so  what are AMC fans to do? October is approaching, which means cheap candy, a bitter chill in the air, and luckily for AMC fanatics, The Walking Dead.

The first season of The Walking Dead caught everyone by surprise. We expected the same old story, a zombie apocalypse, only a few survivors left for dead, blood, gore, brain eating etc… But what we actually got was a wide array of complex and broken characters as well as a very well developed plot.

The Walking Dead is much deeper than the stereotypical zombie movies where the undead simply try to feast on your brains. The show delves into actual human emotion, like when characters see family members turned into monsters that they often they have to kill.

For those who are new to The Walking Dead, I highly suggest watching the pilot first. It is a near perfect episode of television which leaves you disgusted, disturbed, and wanting more. If you thought or think that zombies aren’t exactly your favorite kind of drink, The Walking Dead will leave you pleasantly surprised.

The only real criticism I have about the walking dead is it's striking similarity to LOST. A big group of different people all centered around one goal, having to overcome their differences to achieve it. Of course in LOST,  they’re not often worried about watching their fellow comrade’s face be eaten off.

The Walking Dead is the only television show I’ve watched where I have made been legitimately worried about the characters, and have sat on the edge of my seat for over a half hour without realizing it. The make up and gore, are so well done, that it grosses you out in the best way possible and makes it difficult to distinguish the pretend from reality.

The show is made by AMC, and fans of Breaking Bad and Mad Men know that everything this network  touches is gold. The walking dead is no different. The acting is fantastic, the sets are perfect, and the story line leaves you wanting more and more. 

This October, fight the dead, and fear the living.

Getting Up To Speed

By Megan Geilman

I was dubious at the very underwhelming thumbnails of what seemed to be a show about a British man talking about different American cities. Then I got an email from Hulu urging me to watch their original series “Up to Speed” and was slightly more intrigued because the British man was in a photo wearing a jacket with epaulets and the body of the email boasted: “an offbeat historical travel show chronicling America’s monumentally ignored monuments.”

Still I didn’t watch. Then one night I did…and I was in for quite a few surprises. First, the man isn’t British, just ugly. He also has a very unattractive voice, which is slightly jarring if not refreshing. He looks and sounds like a combination of Ed Wynn and my 5th grade music teacher who spit a lot when she talked, And he dresses weird. And talks to some of the monuments. And some of them talk back. If you can get past all this, and I hope you can, this is probably one of the most fascinating non-fiction shows I have ever watched, if not the most fascinating.

The writing is so fantastically stimulating and the historical facts are so underground and interesting and his philosophies about life and travel are original enough that I just could not put my iPhone down. As a lover of travel, and one who has visited all of the places he’s been so far—I could not believe I had never even HEARD of a SINGLE thing he talked about. If you are looking for fascinating dinner conversation…This. Is. It.

For example, on his tour of New York, he explains: “New York City is a jazz-bepop-conversationalist of a metropolis, and the best way to converse with it is by concentration on its randomness, and foregoing any notion of a route. As we stroll the streets of New York now, for best results, maintain a continuing state of un-aiming yourself…Those of us enjoying our time within city limits, are the healthy associates of chaos. So, let arbitrary be our co-pilot, and purposelessness our destination.” He uses words like “synchronicity” and encourages us to “connoisseur the honks of the city.” It’s Shakespeare from a Clown! The animation keeps things rolling so it never seems too pedantic, and really—I cannot emphasize the writing enough.

I don’t know if it’s specifically the writing or the fascination fir historical facts he shares, but this show has incredible recall power. While visiting New York City this weekend to see a friend, I was able to retell almost the entire episode as we strolled the streets of The Big Apple—including why it is called The Big Apple. May you never have a dull conversation again...

Megan Geilman has had an on-again-off-again relationship with television since she was young and her parents occasionally let her stay up to watch Star Trek and X-Files. She lives in a small artsy borough just outside Philadelphia, PA with her husband and unborn child. She is in the painfully slow process of getting her interior design business off the ground, but also does graphic design, if you're into that. She blogs athttp://ratedgforgeilman.blogspot.com and http://megangeilmandesign.blogspot.com

Hopefully not the new normal for television

By Meg Walter

Ryan Murphy's new show The New Normal is even more problematic than Glee, if that's even possible. Like Glee, the production value is high. It looks more like a high budget film than a sitcom. The soundtrack is fun, the wardrobes spot on, and the sets enticing. But, like Glee, the characters are completely unbearable, making the whole ordeal exhausting at best and unwatchable at worst.

Goldie, yes, her name is Goldie, loves everyone! She's so open minded! So sweet! So blond! Sure, she steals her grandmother's car to drive across the country with her daughter who should probably be in school and on a whim decides to be a surrogate mother, but she's the hero and we can overlook her faults because she's tolerant and disagreeing with her choices makes us just like her villainy grandmother, Nana.

In the first two episodes Nana uses slurs to refer to gay men, lesbians, Latinos, black people, people who wear glasses, Asians, and the Jewish. Besides being highly offensive, these lines are very poorly written. "I feel like I ate a black and gay stew," suggesting that the show's writers drew random Sue Sylvesterisms from a hat or played Bigoted Madlibs to write their dialogue. Nana is the obvious foil to the shows other "progressive" characters. She watches Bill O'Reilly. She hates Obama. She's a closed-minded conservative, or conservative because she's close-minded, the show doesn't really seem to care which.

Bryan, of the David and Bryan couple, sees a baby in a department store and decides it's the cutest thing he's ever seen and he must have one, which is a totally legitimate reason to pay thousands of dollars for a surrogate mother have a child. Bryan loves to shop, thinks of foot ball half-times as Madonna performances, wants a skinny blond baby that doesn't cry, and says to David that he wants baby clothes and a baby to put them on. Like Goldie and Nana, Bryan is an extreme hyperbole, a stereotype in lieu of a person.

David, of David and Bryan, is the only character I found likable, responsible and multidimensional. Unlike his partner, David seems grounded and caring. He wants a child capable of cognitive thought, not just a pretty face. He thinks through what having a child will really mean for his future, and even hesitates before ultimately deciding it's the right step for his and his partner's future. He deserves better than this train wreck of a narrative.

Goldie's child Shania serves the sole purpose of exposing other character's motivations. "Mom, what were your dreams before you accidentally had me?" she asks, allowing Goldie to explain she  wishes she were a powerful lawyer, completely gliding over the fact that this child has been told at too young an age that she was unwanted and that her existence prevented her mother from living her dream.

Bryan's assistant Rocky is played by NeNe Leakes, who is apparently a big deal in The Real Housewives universe, and proof that a reality television star does not a good actor make. She delivers her Sassy Black Lady lines with all the enthusiasm of a sleeping sea slug. If NeNe were pulling this off, her character would be another cliche, but she's not pulling this off, so instead we get a flat recitation of a cliche script.

The New Normal is awfully bigoted for a show that so vehemently denounces bigotry. A show that dares us to defy stereotypes should not have a gay man concerned only with  superficials, an elderly racist conservative or a single mother who wishes her life were different. We call that reinforcing.

Meg Walter writes about televisions to justify watching so darn much of it. When she's not on her couch letting her brain turn to jello she's blogging at tobetomars.blogspot.com, playing with her baby girl, or beating her husband in board games.

Forget it, Jake- it's Terriers

By Erin Jackson

Terriers, like much of film noir, takes place in Southern California with a damsel in distress that leads to a case that quickly turns out to be so much more than our PI bargained for. It's hard to ignore the echoes of the neo-Noir classic Chinatown in its corrupt development deal plotline. However, Terriers lacks the dark fog, the stylized shadowy figures and other conceits of the genre. The action takes place mostly in the light of day, and in some ways the slacker-PI and dark buddy-comedy aspects of the show lessen the blow of the gritty subject matter, but in other ways, we see how a dark underbelly can reside anywhere, even in an idyllic oceanside town.

From the get go, Terriers sets itself apart from not only its Film Noir predecessors but from most TV dramas these days, as Terriers features a true hero, a guy we routinely root for and are rarely disappointed in. Donal Logue plays Hank Dollworth, an ex-cop who sobered up and starts a semi-reputable private detective agency. Hank utilizes his finely tuned skill set of a scoundrel on the outside of polite society for the benefit of mankind. He doesn't play by the rules but isn't without morals. In the first episode alone he is given ample opportunities to back down from his quest to take down a corrupt developer, to look the other way when people he cares about are framed and to profit from it. But he doesn't. At one point in the pilot he walks into a liquor store, stares down the wall of bottles and picks one up, and I yell at my TV, thinking that he is back on the wagon (off the wagon?) only to see in the next scene the bottle is for his former boss on the force, and it's a peace offering, and I wanted to give my TV a hug.

And Britt, his partner, is in a committed relationship with a wonderful girl who he is trying his best to be good enough for. Their lawyer Maggie Lefferts is very pregnant and very talented, way better than these two schmucks deserve but how I love her for trying to guide them through the dangerous terrain of pursuing a big time criminal on a low budget. And I even like Hank's ex-wife Gretchen, and so does Hank, really. There aren't a lot of people I wish ill upon; just a bunch of imperfect people trying and failing and trying again, which is so refreshing to see.

It almost goes without saying that this 1) well reviewed series with 2) a small but loyal fan base that 3) has a horrible name got cancelled pretty quickly. There are rumors of Terriers becoming a movie in the future, or getting picked up on Netflix, Arrested Development-style, and either of these things (or both) would be amazing. Though the season ends satisfyingly (this isn't one of those series that feels truncated at one season) these characters and actors merit more time, and if you have Netflix, do yourself a favor and get to know them.

Erin Floyd Jackson has been BFFs with TV since she was a wee one when she would play TV Network Executive. She went to school to learn about how and why TV is the way it is and hopes to someday tear someone's creative vision down and re-edit it to her liking. In the meantime, she and her husband live in Huntsville, Alabama and they occasionally "blog" here (http://inappropriateapplause.tumblr.com/) when they are not geeking out over all the SCIENCE! in the Rocket City.

Coffee Break

By Megan Geilman

Jerry Seinfeld’s new webseries Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee could also easily be titled “Jerry Seinfeld Loves His Life.” In a Q&A after his Salt Lake Show a couple years ago someone asked if he was going to be doing anything “new.” He hemmed and hawed and then finally said in a very Seinfeld way: “Errrm, no I don’t think so…I’m rich…really really rich.” He had a couple of kids and was looking to settle down and happily live out his life. So I have to wonder if he came up with this series on his own or was approached with an offer too enticing to refuse, but I don’t blame him for coming out of retirement for it.

Every episode is just Jerry Seinfeld, calling up one of his funny friends (which, luckily, are also OUR funny friends: Ricky Gervais, Brian Regan, etc.) and driving in a REALLY nice vintage car and getting a cup of coffee. The conversation is unscripted and chuckle-worthy (think yada yada yada meets hee hee hee). Nothing has left me crying-my-eyes-out/peeing-my-pants with laughter but it’s definitely not unfunny. Plus it’s fun feeling like you get a peek at these guys when they are off-stage and off TV/Movie Camera. At 15 minutes an episode, it’s definitely worth part of your lunch, snack, or coffee break.

The show is hosted on its own site: http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/  and on Crackle (http://www.crackle.com )

Megan Geilman has had an on-again-off-again relationship with television since she was young and her parents occasionally let her stay up to watch Star Trek and X-Files. She lives in a small artsy borough just outside Philadelphia, PA with her husband and unborn child. She is in the painfully slow process of getting her interior design business off the ground, but also does graphic design, if you're into that. She blogs at http://ratedgforgeilman.blogspot.com and http://megangeilmandesign.blogspot.com