TV

DIFFICULT PEOPLE (2015-2017)

November 24, 2020

(Hulu/VOD) DIFFICULT PEOPLE is for everyone who watched SEINFELD and realized those four friends were garbage people, but still loved the jokes (and loved the series finale).

It features Julie (Julie Klauser) as an aspirational comedian/writer stuck recapping TV (this is back in the days of -Television Without Pity-), her best friend Billy (Billy Eichner) as an aspiring comedian/actor, and a long list of brilliant supporting talent such as James Urbaniak (HENRY FOOL, VENTURE BROS) as Julie’s long-suffering boyfriend and NPR stooge, Andrea Martin (SCTV, BLACK CHRISTMAS, GREAT NEWS) as Julie’s mother, and Cole Escola and Gabourey Sidibe as co-workers at the coffee shop Billy works at.

The eps are mostly self-contained and normally feature Julie & Billy scheming to advance their writing and acting careers, but often fail miserably because they’re terrible people that can’t go two seconds without (wittily) tearing into someone, and you kind of love them for it. They know who they are, they know they aren’t going to change, and they know the world will never accept them, but they know they’re goddamn funny and smart so they’ll never stop trying or shut the fuck up. While their jokes are absolutely filthy and hurtful, they always punch up.

Somehow, despite being one of the first Hulu original shows, and despite neither Klausner or Eichner being terribly well-known names at the time, they managed to get the most ridiculous guest stars -and- make proper use of them! Deborah Harry! John Mulaney, in the part he was born to play: an eccentric rich young man into Edwardian clothing, technology, and vernacular! Stockard Channing! Victor Garber! Jessica Walter! Nathan Lane! Martin Short! Micky Dolenz! Mink Stole! John Cho! Even goddamn Lin-Manual Miranda:

Also, DIFFICULT PEOPLE had the best goddamn cold opens, partially because they always had the perfect quip and then smash-cut to WHITE REAPER’s -She Wants To- (captioned solely as DRIVING PUNK MUSIC), which is the perfect punctuation. (Similarly, just about every ep manages a perfect kiss-of before launching into WHITE REAPER’s -Half Bad-.)

Here’s a montage of the best/worst lines and insults, including some cold open jokes:

S2 Trailer (because the S1/S3 trailers? Very misleading.)

It’s not for everyone. Hell, it’s not for most well-adjusted people. However, it’s a show I routinely re-watch — and I rarely re-watch TV, apart from single scenes or sole episodes for research — because it’s so gleefully over-stuffed with jokes and gags, and the pacing is perfection. I know it’ll probably never happen, but I do hope that they’re able to find an outlet that’ll bring the show back five years from now, even if it’s just for a special.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES (1987-1990)

November 23, 2020

(DVD) Before WAREHOUSE 13, there was FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES. This series — which has no Jason, no Camp Crystal Lake, absolutely nothing to do with the FRIDAY THE 13TH films whatsoever — has one of the earliest TV ‘cursed collection of objects’ storytelling engines I can think of.

The show’s conceit is easy enough: two cousins, Ryan (John D. LeMay) and Micki (pop musician and model Robey) inherit their uncle’s antique store and, after a brief interlude featuring Ryan acting far too lecherous towards his cousin, they start selling off every item in the store to anyone interested. Through a horrific incident, they quickly realize that each item was collected by their uncle for a reason: they’re all powerful artifacts that should be locked up. Thankfully, their uncle created a meticulous ledger, and now they get to go scouring to find all of the artifacts they shouldn’t have sold in the first place.

The first season features a litany of Canadian talent, including Sarah Polley in one of her first TV roles, classic character actor (and The Old Man from MILLENNIUM) R.G. Armstrong as the original antique store owner, the previously mentioned Robey, and more. They even snagged some top-shelf directors for the first season, including David Cronenberg (who clearly was given carte blanche to shoot whatever he wanted to, and of course he trotted out a shit-ton of cancerous tumors) and Atom Egoyan, both of whom inject a bit of auteurism into the traditionally staid field of 80s television.

The recognizable guest stars and directors ebb as the show grows older though, which is fine because it finds a comfortable groove over the first two seasons. Then, in the third season, John D. Le May exits the show via one of the strangest — and oddly affecting — character exits I’ve ever seen, only to be replaced by Steve Monarque as ‘Johnny Ventura’, who is exactly what you’d expect from someone with a name like ‘Johnny Ventura’. (John D. Le May would later go on to be a featured player in JASON GOES TO HELL, completing the circuit between the show and the film.)

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES is a show that probably survived for three seasons based on faking out folks, luring them in with the promise of weekly Jason slaughters, but I fear it’s has been forgotten because of how many were burned by that very promise. While the show had few highs, it also had few lows — it’s solid comfort food and eminently re-watchable, which is more than I can say about the films.

SUPERSTORE (2015-2021)

November 22, 2020

(fubo/Hulu/peacock/VOD) SUPERSTORE has always flown under the rader. Often marketed as a big-box retail version of THE OFFICE (US) because it’s comprised of eccentrics and weirdos all trying to get by in their humdrum work environment, it has more in common with the warmness of PARKS & RECREATION, in that the characters are often trying to help one another through each day. It’s also a show that subverts how we imagine work-based sitcoms, how the audience is supposed to suspend disbelief that every employee is treated equal, that each one of them goes home at night to live in a place they can easily afford, and none of them ever have to worry about how they’re going to pay for an unexpected car repair.

While the show would be entertaining enough if these characters were placed in their own universe and the writers blissfully ignored everything happening in the real world, SUPERSTORE often tackles heavier topics, such as unionizing, immigration, and natural disasters. Few sitcoms are able to manage the delicate balance of real-world problems and humor — usually coming across as either overly glib, or as a Very Special Episode — but SUPERSTORE not only manages it, it excels at it.

The season six opener, which aired a handful of weeks ago, deals quite frankly with COVID and we watch as the show barrels through months of COVID prep and paranoia in the expert way only a five-year-old show could juggle. They don’t rely on title cards to relay the day or month, they let you figure it out through visual indicators and character dialogue because they realize you’ll pick up on the major touchstones. Sure, it won’t play the same to viewers in 10 years, but few shows do.

In the second episode of season six, the novelty of safety precautions have faded into the background but still linger as a threatening presence, and the show depicts several characters struggling with their fear and stress. Despite that, they still make it funny without defusing the importance of these characters’ struggles.

I know folks are pretty reluctant to invest in old-school 22-ep season shows — I get it! — but this one is worth it. It’s the full package: heart, humor, and hope. Feel free to skip over the first season, as it’s a bit rocky! If you don’t want to deal with COVID in your TV shows, steer clear of season six! (I know I get a bit squicked out when the show has characters talking close-up and unmasked, just for the sake of trying to wring the most out of a scene.) I don’t know what the future holds for SUPERSTORE — perhaps one more season, at best — but if that’s the case? It’s been a good run.

Season 1 trailer:

Season 4 mid-season trailer:

(The actual tone is really an odd mixture of the two: not as much spectacle as S1 promises, not as preachy as S4 appears.)

ANDY BARKER, P.I. (2007)

November 21, 2020

(VOD/DVD) A comedic neo-noir from Jonathan Groff (LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O’BRIEN, SCRUBS, HAPPY ENDINGS) where most of the major players are fools, out-of-touch with reality, or a combination of both.

Andy (Andy Richter) is a wide-eyed suburban accountant who, within five minutes of opening his private practice in a mall court, is duped into the world of investigating underground crime. Joining him is Simon (perfectly annoyingly played by Tony Hale) as Andy’s partner/video store owner whose store resides a floor under Andy’s practice, Wally (Marshall Manesh), as the tech guy/the middle-eastern restauranteur in the same mall court, and grizzled ex-private investigator Lew Staziak (Harve Presnell), who often drags Andy into as many cases as he drags him out of.

While it pokes fun at the genre (it was naming each episode after a noir film a decade before RIVERDALE was), it’s shot with the luster of a Barry Sonnefeld film, and the plotting is as tight as a drum. While the show is silly, the jokes are either sneakily smart, or the stupidity of them are so well-crafted that you don’t care. Also, it never goes as broad as say other genre parodies, like POLICE STORY! or ANGIE TRIBECA.

The series was unceremonious cancelled after four episodes — despite only having a six-ep order — which I’m oddly okay with. While I’m sure they could have sustained this level of quality for another six episodes, what we have here is more than enough.

One caveat: while the pilot is about as perfect of an initial episode of a comedy — this show hit the ground running — the second episode, despite being co-written by BUFFY alum Jane Espenson, leans far too heavily on the premise that folks can find a larger person attractive. I don’t mean there are a few jokes here and there — the episode starts with them and fires off about one or two gags a minute until the ep closes with one more joke. Maybe circle back to it, because it’s one of the rare misfires for the show.

A few out-of-context jokes for you:

“The man’s crazy! He’s throwing babies at us!”

“Gene Kelly’s 50th was a big night. Buddy Hackett took off his pants and sat down on the cake! That was comedy back then: it wasn’t funny, but they committed.”

“Someone’s moving in! I wonder who… said the owl.”

“What do you known about the chicken business?” “Oh, that’s bad news. Like the pork business without the conscience.”

(I swear, the show’s better than this trailer makes it look.)

SLINGS & ARROWS (2003-2006)

November 20, 2020

(Acorn/AMC+/Sundance Now/VOD) SLINGS & ARROWS is the story of a Shakespeare theatre troupe in a small Canadian town that’s a barely disguised facsimile of the Stratford Festival theatre troupe and — wait, no! Come back!

Yes, on paper it sounds like something you’d fall asleep to watching PBS on a Sunday afternoon, but the show is far more intriguing than that. Created by Mark McKinney (KIDS IN THE HALL — oh, do I have your attention now?), Susan Coyne (MOZART IN THE JUNGLE), and Bob Martin (MICHAEL: EVERY DAY), it’s really about actor-turned-theatre director Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross, best known for DUE SOUTH, but was also in the core seasons of TALES OF THE CITY), prone to mental breakdowns, finds himself haunted by the death of his mentor Oliver (Stephen Ouimette, who did voices on the previously mentioned DOG CITY!), who was hit and killed by a car after a very lackluster opening night of the festival’s latest production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Given that Geoffrey’s ramshackle arthouse theatre had just been closed and he was out of a job, he’s approached about taking over where Oliver left off: to helm the upcoming production of Hamlet. Geoffrey reluctantly agrees, mulling over radical changes to the production when Oliver appears in front of him, chiming in regarding his significant changes, driving Geoffrey closer to the brink of madness than he felt he already was.

(Yes, this mostly occurs in the first episode. It’s an intense show.)

Given that it was a TV show that often consisted of watching actors rehearse, or prep for rehearsal, you might think that the cinematography would be dull or perfunctory, but it’s always engrossing, and the camera rarely stays in place (except when it knows best to do so).

From the actors to the writers and directors, the entire show is a love letter to the messiness of theatre, both on the stage and off. It’s one of the most heartfelt and earnest dramas I’ve ever seen, and is chock full of complicated characters, and even features a litany of swans.

If you needed any more convincing, despite the fact that the show has barbs out for Stratford, my wife and I did trek up there some years ago — mostly because we were very enamored with SLINGS & ARROWS, but also the concept of the company — and we caught a brilliant production of MOTHER COURAGE, as well as a spectacle-laden KING LEAR with Colm Feore as Lear (who also appeared in SLINGS & ARROWS!) If Stratford still exists after the pandemic, I can’t recommend it enough, as it’s a perfectly relaxed vacation if you’re into theatre. I’m sure the swans will be waiting for you.

Season One Trailer:

If you’ve already watched SLINGS & ARROWS, the cast & crew just had a COVID reunion that ACORN has made available for free, which will almost assuredly make you want to re-watch the show:

ROUTE 66 (1960-1964)

November 19, 2020

(hoopla/Prime/tubi/VOD/Vudu) While this show was always on this month’s slate, I wanted to recommend it on the day of SUPERNATURAL’s (WB/CW, 2005-2020) series finale. SUPERNATURAL is a show that’s been a bit of a lingering constant in my life since I glommed onto it around the third season. I haven’t watched every season, but I drop in from time to time — usually for any episode that Ben Edlund has penned, or any of the obviously meta eps — and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything ends.*

But I’m supposed to discuss ROUTE 66! Here’s what you need to know about ROUTE 66:

1) It’s one of the first road trip shows, and the creator of the show (Stirling Silliphant, who previously pioneered shot-on-location TV with THE NAKED CITY) insisted on shooting in every location detailed on the page. He wanted the show to explore America, hence the title.

2) ROUTE 66 is fundamentally about two drifters, one sensitive (Tod, played by Martin Milner), one more callous and randy (Buz, played by George Maharis), and they drive from town-to-town solving mysteries and soothing community wounds in a Chevrolet Corvette. Sound familiar? They often come to blows with how to deal with a situation, with one wanting to drive off while the other wanting to stay and help those in need. Each week ended up with everything neatly tied up, and they’d drive off to another town, slightly satisfied. Also, just take a look at ‘em! 60s versions of Sam and Dean if you ever saw ‘em.

It’s a fine case-of-the week strategy, which is exactly why SUPERNATURAL stole it. SUPERNATURAL creator Eric Kripke’s elevator pitch for the show was ‘X-FILES meets ROUTE 66’.** SUPERNATURAL became something completely different — and rarely ever shot on location — but you could still see the ROUTE 66 roots showing even in the final season.

By today’s eyes, ROUTE 66 is a fun, but mostly insubstantial show. It often feels like smaller scale version of the teen drifter/loner film dramas that were released around the late 50s/early 60s but, unlike those films, it showcased parts of the US that hadn’t previously been aired on TV. It boiled down to an entertainingly slightly dramatic tourist show, of which I think the only comparable show on the air right now is THE AMAZING RACE (also CBS, but a reality show).

Later on in the series, when the show started flagging a bit, they started having fun some fun with it, most notably with -Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing- which features Tod and Buz working at Chicago’s O’Hare Inn, where Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney Jr. just happen to be staying, and TV-safe horror antics ensue. (If you’d like to read more about the ep, see here: https://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2010/10/route-66-lizards-leg-and-owlets-wing.html ) You don’t have to watch every episode of ROUTE 66, but that ep is a fine spooky treasure.

(Not a trailer, but the full first episode.)
  • For what it’s worth, my favorite SUPERNATURAL episode is probably the 200th ep. While it’s complete fan-service, it also cuts to the quick about all that works about the show, including the hows and whys it’s lasted fifteen years.
  • (Spoilers for the …prior 199 episodes? Really, apart from one specific reference that’s a running joke throughout the series, it’s mostly benign.)

** https://twitter.com/therealKripke/status/674659951747334144 I honestly can’t believe that worked as an elevator pitch in the late 90s. I’d expect to hear back: “Route what-the-who? Like the dad song?”

JOHN FROM CINCINNATI (2007)

November 18, 2020

(HBO MAX) Sadly, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI has been mired in controversy due to many DEADWOOD fans blaming it for their favorite show being canceled, as DEADWOOD creator David Milch put it on pause to pursue this oddity, and then HBO canceled both shows. While they’re probably not wrong — it’s complicated — JOHN FROM CINCINNATI deserves a better legacy than that.

JOHN was the creation of David Milch and renowned ‘surf noir’ author Kem Nunn, and I believe it’s best described as a quintessentially American spiritual surf journey. It’s focused around a being who speaks in riddles, who inserts himself into a surfing dynasty family (Mitch, Cissy, Butchie, and Shaun Yost), and the quirky characters drawn into the family’s orbit.

Milch retains his standard ‘every episode encapsulates a day’ structure and leans even more heavily into his lyrical prose, often in an intentionally obtuse way that can either delight or frustrate. Here’s an excerpt of a lengthy monologue delivered by John from a scene near the end of the sixth episode:

“If my words are yours, can you hear my father? Can Bill know my father keeping his eye on me? Can I bone Kai and Butchie know my father instead? My father’s shy doing his business. Kai helps my father dump out. Bill takes a shot! Shaunie is much improved. Joe is a doubting Thomas. Joe will not say Aleman. Joe will bring his buddies home. This is how Freddie relaxes. Cup of joe and Winchell’s variety dozen. Mitch catches a good wave. Mitch wipes out. Mitch wipes out Cissy. Cissy shows Butchie how to do that. Cissy wipes Butchie out. Butchie hurts Barry’s hand. Mr. Rollins comes in Barry’s face. My father runs the Mega Millions.”*

If you rolled your eyes at the exposition-dump above, this is not the show for you. It’s an incredibly idiosyncratic, overly theatrical, dark but not bleak show about people struggling to find hope, or at least that’s my read on it. I hesitate to say this, since it seems obvious, but the closest parallel is TWIN PEAKS, although it doesn’t lean so much on heightened melodrama and lacks a lot of PEAKS’ humor, but it’s just as thoughtful and a rich mine, if you’re willing to dig into it.

The cast is a murderers’ row of Hollywood talent and long-lasting character actors: Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood, Luis Guzmán, Ed O’Neill (doing some MVP work acting alongside a number of birds), Garret Dillahunt, Jim Beaver, Stephen Tobolowsky, Dayton Callie — the list goes on.

Yes, DEADWOOD is a fucking masterpiece, but if you’re not afraid of some strange, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI will reward you.

  • There’s behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of that scene, which is a rare glimpse into Milch’s directing style:

There’s also a music video shaped from the monologue, which is actually not nearly as weird as the closing scenes themselves.

STRANGERS WITH CANDY (1999-2000)

November 17, 2020

(Paramount+/VOD) The late 90s/early naughts was a great time to be a comedy TV nerd living in Chicago. ImprovOlympic (RIP, IO) was thriving, you had Chicago alums UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE on the air, and it was followed by STRANGERS WITH CANDY, which was chock-full of entertainers who cut their teeth at Chicago’s Second City, including a little-known comedian named Stephen Colbert. Also, Paul Dinello, aka Geoffrey Jellineck? His uncle, Dan Dinello, taught at Columbia College when I attended. Sadly, I never had him as a prof, but I felt a certain amount of weird pride whenever I walked by his office because I loved this show so goddamn much.

(All three were also in Comedy Central’s under-watched, but CableACE-award winning EXIT 57 sketch comedy show.)

STRANGERS WITH CANDY can be simply explained as: ‘What if we had a SCARED STRAIGHT TV show where the junkie goes back to high school after being in jail for 30 years?’ Amy Sedaris played ‘junkie whore’ Jerry Blank (who consists of an array of endless ticks), Colbert was a recurring teacher as was Dinello, and Greg Hollimon played the straight-man/school principal.

For a show whose premise was paper-thin, they managed to wring a surprising amount from it. It lasted for three seasons -and a movie-, and the show was never less than hilarious. (The less said about the movie, the better. It’s not awful, but the premise and writing could never sustain itself for more than ~24 minutes at a time.)

I hesitate to call STRANGERS WITH CANDY a dark comedy, because while it exacts a lot of humor out of bleak and cruel topics, its characters are rather ebullient and resilient, despite hvaing everything thrown at them in every episode. That said, it’s definitely twisted in a very Gen-X way.

I could elaborate on the strange and straight-laced characters, the colors, the awkward editing, but it’s best you find out for yourself.

The following is not a trailer — just part of the first episode:

THIEF (2006)

(N/A) For some ridiculous reason, this amazing prestige mini-series has been unavailable to legally watch for thirteen years — it was never available to stream, and was never available via DVD. Finally, FX made it available when they brought their entire back-catalogue to Hulu earlier this year, but sadly, it’s disappeared again so find it however you can. I still covet my postage-stamp-sized torrent files because, for years, that was the only way I could re-watch the show.

THIEF aired during the apex of FX’s hyper-masculine antihero period — THE SHIELD was midway through its run and RESCUE ME was in its third season, but THIEF was very much its own beast. While THIEF is essentially a ‘height goes sideways, so how is this asshole going to get out of this jam?’ tale, it had an occasional emotional vulnerability to it that I’ve always appreciated. However, due to the fact that no one could watch it, I couldn’t recommend until now.

It also helps that the lead is Andre Braugher, giving it his all. I mean really, come on, you -aren’t- going to watch a show helmed by Andre Braugher?

HAPPY ENDINGS (2011-2013)

November 15, 2020

(HBO MAX/Hulu/Netflix/VOD) Yes, I know the title is terrible, and it’s exactly why I didn’t watch this show until several years ago. Sure, it’s supposed to reflect how you can still be friends with your ex, despite her leaving you at the altar, but 1) that’s not what anyone thinks of when they hear that term and 2) that’s hardly what this show is about. It’s a hangout show that’s best described as a filthy Z-grade FRIENDS. (Okay, so maybe the title is slightly representative of the show.)

The worst part of the title is its poor use of phrasing, because this show -loved- twisting phrases. If you love the Marx Bros., you will love this show. Take, for instance, the rom-com-con cold open. (Yes, I’m skipping over the racist parrot bit because no one needs that.)

Or the following what-if joke regarding Mary Tyler Moore:

However, wordplay won’t get you very far if you lack a cast that can convincingly deliver quips, and HAPPY ENDINGS had one of the great ensembles; they wrangled a melange of brilliant comedic and improv actors (Adam Pally, Eliza Coupe, Damon Wayans Jr., Casey Wilson) and straight-laced performers (Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton), all of whom brilliantly handle their ‘so smart it’s dumb/so dumb it’s smart’ banter.

Not all of the humor has aged well, like uh, the racist parrot, the ‘Dave is 1/16th Navajo’ bit, and all of the fat jokes made at Max’s (Adam Pally) expense, but it holds up better than, oh say, 30 ROCK. Also, as a resident of Chicago, I’d be remiss to note that it severely misrepresents the city layout, almost to a hilarious degree, where many of the streets and addresses simply don’t exist. (One address cited would land them in the squarely in the middle of Lake Michigan.)

Those qualifiers aside, HAPPY ENDINGS is perhaps better than any other modern sitcom at what the show calls ‘pile-ons’. Taken out of context, none of the jokes are rarely amazing, but when unfurled over a scene they build on each other, and while the first or second gag maybe elicited a slight chuckle from you, by the time the scene has ended you’re doubled-over gasping for breath and have to rewind because you couldn’t hear the final quips over the sound of your own laughter.