Sunday, August 06, 2006

The weepy face syndrome



Some TV shows:
Huff
The L Word

Six Feet Under

The OC

... have many things in common: Excellent cinematography, good stories, great actors, a good sense of humor.
And those particular ones have one more thing in common, what I call the-late-season-one-weepy-face-syndrome.
I am not sure what happens, but it might be that the writers/editors feel that they have to Up The Interest so as to make it to a second season of the show. I don't know, but the fact is that those shows late in Season One just seemed to lose their sense of fun, and the comedy which lifted the shows so nicely. Things got weepy and serious, and the characters f***ed up their lives way beyond what was in character, or necessary, they just started making oodles of bad choices.
As a result the shows got boring. What a pity.

Especially since some shows demonstrate it this not necessary. Of course all the great comedy shows. And also The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, and The Sopranos.
The Sopranos, actually, I had a realization about (after watching five seasons!): that it is a comedy! A sometimes dark and certainly subtle comedy, sure, but a comedy none the less. Just one more thing that goes to show that we are not in Kansas anymore, as it were, and that this is the golden age of TV.

3 comments:

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Totally!

I just suffered through the last episode of season one of The L Word. Weeeeeepy.

Main good thing was their prominent use of Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man" right after I'd listened to it on my iTunes. One of the best songs ever.

Anonymous said...

I thought MASH was in Vietnam?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Nope, Korea.

It's been decades, but I do remember a line: Hawkeye had promised not to joke for 24 hours. And his pal whazname was trying to goat him into joking, and said about the stale meat in their meal: "I wonder what war it is from." And Hawkeye said: "the korean one, obviously."