Wishlist

A while ago, TWOP posted this article about hypothetical directions that 24 could go in, depending on who picked up the reins. Some were pretty hilarious. I also got to thinking about what shows I would want some of my favorite creators to make. Because we need more good television and less…Celebrity Apprentice and Deal or No Deal.



Aaron Sorkin
As many of you know, I hold Sports Night in some of the highest regard. I first watched it when it aired (admittedly, a lot of it was lost on me then) and fell in love with it all over again in sophomore year. Unfortunately, he abandoned it to focus on his more successful series, The West Wing. Finally, Studio 60 was rumoured to be what television needed to pick itself up by its bootstraps. Sadly, Studio 60 eventually just fell flat on its face. The tv show believed to save television could not save itself.

Why couldn’t Studio 60 or even Sports Night hold onto an audience quite like The West Wing? I mean, it certainly wasn’t a difference in writing; Aaron Sorkin is notorious for reusing plot lines. No, it has to do with setting. Sorkin’s power lies in creating serious drama in life-or-death situations. Dire situations are captivating when the country faces nuclear attack. It’s a lot harder to sell the same peril in reference to a show within a show.

And what is the only thing more dangerous than trying to govern the free world? Obviously it is the life of the high schooler. Aaron Sorkin could easily write an epic, critically acclaimed series that ultimately gets cancelled (following in the footsteps of My So Called Life and Freaks and Geeks). Sorkin’s signature walk-and-talk is perfect for the hallways and passing periods common to high school. His sharp rhetoric is a perfect match for the erudite elite, competing for valedictorian. And his own mortality can as easily be reflected in these teens as it can in tv show writers.

It’s been voiced before that teen dramas should include as little influence from adults as possible and while I may agree I can’t help but cast the entire school (perhaps a spin-off is in order?): Bradley Whitford as the principal concerned with raising test scores, Joshua Molina as the naïve, young journalism teacher and debate coach (and our protagonist’s surrogate parent), Felicity Huffman as the vetern English teacher, and Matthew Perry would guest star as a substitute Social Science teacher, who has a host of stories from his worldly travels, which excite and inspire the students.

Our protagonist, Charlie, would be a slightly cocky junior from an upper-middle class family, suffering through his parents’ divorce. While building the extra-curriculars of his transcript, he discovers a passion for the debate team and struggles to balance his newfound love with his commitments to the basketball team. He has aspirations to go to Georgetown and try his hand in either economics or political science.

His best friend since elementary school, and the team’s captain, Paul, is worried that they are drifting apart since our protagonist is spending more and more time with the debate team while simultaneously facing coming to terms with the surrounding drug culture that is becoming increasingly apparent with his friends. He also struggles to keep hidden from public knowledge his parents’ dire economic status. He is hoping for a sports scholarship so he can get into a decent state school

The object of affection of our protagonist is the new transfer girl, Claire, serious about journalism class and has a knack for the culinary arts. She becomes relatively popular, it doesn’t hurt that her dad is a studio musician who has a lot of celebrity contacts. Though she forms an early and close bond with a mutual friend of Charlie’s, Katie. It is slowly revealed that she transferred after losing a friend to suicide and her subsequent spiral into the bowels of depression. She drinks a lot, more than people assume.

Katie is a cheerleader and has known Charlie since middle school. Initially, he had a little crush on her, then she on him, but they could never get the timing right. Now, their relationship is more of a brother-sister thing. A little shy, she’s always wished she could be as assertive as Charlie.

In the season finale “What Kind of Day Has it Been?” Paul is falsely charged with drunk driving, which Charlie can clear him of, at the price of implicating his own involvement in the incident. Claire starts coming clean about her substance abuse. Katie faces moving away for good.

Judd Apatow
Following the logical progression in his tv series career, we move from high school, to college, to now yuppie life.

Seth Rogen stars as a 20-something in Manhattan who works a boring job but eventually (mid-season) gets laid off from his job at Merrill Lynch and uses it as his ‘get out of jail free’ card. Leslie Mann will have a reoccurring role as his boss, before he is fired. He’s been kinda passive all his life and decided to change that. He’s gonna try and make it as a stand up comic.

His best friend, played by Paul Rudd, is the cautious but supportive friend, following the path that was always expected of him. He’s in his second year at law school and is surprised at how much he loves what little shreds of life he still has left. When standing next to his best friend, he seems quite the ladies man, but that doesn’t mean all too much.

Carla Gallo plays their mutual friend and the manager of the diner (or possibly coffee shop) where much action takes place. Sassy and sweet, she has inner self-doubt on acting on her feelings toward Paul Rudd.

Busy Phillips plays a fellow co-worker at the diner (or possible coffee shop) and is an integral part of the gang. She met Seth Rogen in undergrad and they’ve stayed pretty good friends. She’s had an emotionally traumatic childhood and rarely talks about her family back home in California.

Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon should make a new tv show. I don’t care if it’s like old British ghost story that would explore the theme of lonliness. Joss needs to stop making comic books and get back to tv. Starring Anthony Stewart Head.

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Friends are the DNA of society, the building blocks of life...

Lately, life has been a little too realistic. Too much on my mind. And how do I get through this mess? Relying on those around me.
Remember when I got in a huff because someone said television based friendships are artificial and shallow? I’m still pissed about it. Not only has television united me with some dear friends, it has inspired in me the kind of friend I should be. This is why I love tv.
Here are five of the most poignant, remarkable quotes (in no particular order) that are reminders why I believe that television truly can foster friendship through example.

“This guy's walkin' down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you! Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, "Father, I'm down in this hole; can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey, Joe, it's me. Can ya help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are ya stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."” – Leo McGarry to Josh Lyman (The West Wing)

Leo McGarry is the greatest political mind. Ever. But, like all of us, is still human. He has struggled with his personal demons. Yet, these very trials are quintessential to the advice he can give. His own experiences guide those around him through disaster. And when he sees Josh stumble, he picks him up and tells him not to worry. Someone who will jump down in that hole to help you out is someone you want with you. Dedicated to my friend Josh.

“When you can’t run anymore, you crawl. And when you can’t do that, you find someone to carry you.” – Tracey to the crew of Serenity (Firefly)

Though Tracey is an, ultimately, inconsequential character, this quote best illuminates the tenants that Mal and the rest of the crew fully believe in. You don’t leave another behind. You pick them up because they’d do the same for you. For all his faults, I really wish I could be like Mal. Dedicated to my friend Tim.

“‘You're going to die if you stay here.’
‘I guess I might.’
…
‘Come with me.’
‘I can't.’
‘Why not?’
‘I got friends on the line.’” –Xander to Anya (Buffy: the Vampire Slayer)

Xander feared this approaching apocalypse more than any before. If the heavy handed symbolism of graduation as the end of world did not sink in before, it should here. But the real importance of this quote is Xander’s loyalty and steadfastness. Some have would consider him the weak link of the scoobies but Xander is the only one who only had himself to offer. And always did. Dedicated to my friend Julia.

“It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other and I want us to start bucking that trend.” – Dan Rydell to his fellow cast and crew (Sports Night)

Dan was going through some personal issues at the time and had snapped, on air, thus risking not only his career but everyone he works with. The network was already facing dire straits and he wasn’t helping. He swallowed his pride to try and amend the rift that he had caused. They need each other and so do we. Dedicated to my friend Dan.

“I think we all learned a valuable lesson about faith. You give it to the people you love. But the people who really deserve it are the ones who come through, even when you don't love them enough.” – Veronica Mars about being rescued by Logan and Keith (Veronica Mars)

No one could argue that Veronica Mars’s life has been ideal. A parent abandons you. A best friend is murdered. A father ostracized. A boyfriend on meds. You’re raped at a party and no one case. No, things could be better, so it’s pretty reasonable to understand that after all this trauma, one would want to be a little reclusive. That loss of innocence, though, is so heartbreaking and I fear that it isn’t near rare enough. Which is why I am glad that pushing away those around us is something that sometimes we can take back. Sometimes we should hold onto our idealism, so that we have something to aspire to. Dedicated to my friend Kyle.

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My history of television

Someone very wise said, TV lovers aren't born, they're made. Buffy made me.

Ryan asked me to write a little introduction to myself, and since I live to please, here it is. I thought about writing a full, day-by-day account of my TV watching history, but instead I'll try to limit my natural tendency towards wordiness (I also really like using parenthesis) and make a list like Ryan did. So here's the top ten most significant moments in my life in front of the TV:

#10, Let's Get Dangerous!: I can remember very clearly being maybe 5 or 6 years old and asking my mom, "When is Darkwing Duck on? Is it on now? You have to tell me, Mom, because I don't want to miss it." What can I say; from a young age I was drawn to dark, gritty and realistic TV shows.

#9, I'm a little bit in love with Jim Halpert: Remember when The Office first started and everyone was like, "Damn, NBC is totally circling the drain, this show is gonna suck." But during the second half of the first season, which fell during spring of freshman year of college, I started hearing a few good things here or there and thought, "Wait, how did that show not get cancelled?" And then one night I was staying up late and couldn't sleep, and decided to check out the "Recommended shows" section on the Tivo I recently bought. If you've never been blessed with having a Tivo in your life, I'll explain a little bit. Based on the shows you subscribe to (aka you set the Tivo to record every new episode of a certain show), the Tivo will find programs that are similar and then record them for you. The first program I subscribed to was The Daily Show, so for a while the only shows Tivo recommended were on CNBC, which is ridiculous because I detest serious news-based TV. But eventually Tivo branched out and recorded different shows for me, but I didn't watch any of them... until The Office. That episode was "Dwight's Speech," where Jim pranks Dwight by giving him speeches from old Fascist dictators to use in his top salesman speech. A lot of the humor was based on the twisted relationships between the characters, so at the end of the episode I was slightly underwhelmed but willing to give it another chance. I saw another Tivo-ed episode, then Ryan the Hero downloaded the first and the second season-so-far for me, and I watched about 25 episodes in 3 days. Now I'm a Jim and Pam fan for life. When Jim came into the office at the end of Casino Night and grabbed Pam for the best kiss of all time, I pretty much died.

#8, Can we borrow your tv?: Veronica Mars pretty much made freshman year. I've never made friends easily, and after a month and a half of college I wondered if I was ever going to meet people I'd want to hang out with. And then the cable in our dorm room went out, and the 6 girls of 1003 were stuck without anywhere to watch Laguna Beach. But on that Tuesday night, I was way too embarrassed to go knock on the door of 1005 by myself to watch my tiny little girl detective UPN show. But Dana insisted she'd come with me, even though she'd only seen a few episodes, and so we went and asked the boys down the hall if we could watch it in their room. Danny and Ryan (and maybe Kyle?) watched it with us, and they liked it, and the four of us preceded to watch (rewatch for me) the whole first and second season together. I had this really long conversation over Thanksgiving that year with a friend who argued that using TV as a basis for friendships might work but is more artificial and shallow than friendships formed over, I don't know, volunteer work and poetry readings. My argument was, "You're a jerk. Be happy that I'm happy that I have great friends." So maybe 1003 would have become friends with 1005 regardless of Veronica Mars. But maybe not, and even though season 3 was patchy at best, season 1 is transcendently awesome and Rob Thomas is a modern day hero.

#7, I watch too much ABC Family: I'm embarrassed to include Gilmore Girls on this list, since it's pretty much the girliest show ever created and I think it's actually pretty overrated and that Amy Sherman-Palladino is more hack than genius. But I own the first six seasons on DVD (in my defense, they were on sale at Target for $15 each), and there isn't an episode I haven't seen multiple times. My relationship with this show is the definition of love-hate: Rory is a baby-talking wimp, Lorelei is a selfish brat, the grandparents are Darth Vader-level evil, the townies are annoying, and the whole Stars Hallow community is ridiculous. And yet... whenever I've had a hard day, and am tired and worn down, I turn on ABC Family and watch an old Gilmore Girls episode and at the end of the hour I feel loads better. Despite everything that's wrong with this show (and my above list is just the tip of the iceberg), it's also a little bit magical. Plus, I have very found memories of the summer after freshman year when I didn't get a job and spent three months lying by the pool, but would go to the gym every day at noon and run on the treadmill while watching this show. Final reason: Jess!

#6: You bought me a wall: I was 12 when Dawson's Creek first started on the WB, and my parents decided it was too mature for their baby girl. But my sister was allowed to watch it, so I did a lot of lurking in doorways and I may have even watched it while standing outside looking through the window. Eventually my parents decided it was easier to just let me watch it for real so we could "discuss it," and I cringe as I think of the conversation I had with mom about Dawson's parents that included the phrase, "dry-humping." But after a season or two I moved on from DC to other WB shows with less annoying characters. I watched episodes here or there, enough to have a general grasp of the plotlines, but wasn't really invested in the characters. But then there was the summer before senior year, where every weekday I had to be at work at 9, so I would wake up at 7 and watch back to back episodes of season 3 of Dawson's Creek on TBS. Season 3 is where Pacey and Joey finally get together, stick it to Dawson, then sail off together in a boat called True Love at the end of the season. It's pretty much all downhill from there, but the best of the Pacey/Joey romance was better than almost anything else.

#5, "My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it was, you're lucky to get out alive.": But was Pacey/Joey better than Angela/Jordan Catalano? Too close to call. I was 8 when My So-Called Life first aired, and while I vaguely remember being in the room while my mom watched a rerun of it on MTV, I was too young to watch it myself. But I grew up hearing about how amazing it was, and seeing how hot Jared Leto continued to be (until the whole eyeliner/band fiasco), so it was always in the corner of my mind that I should check it out. I got the DVD set for Christmas sophomore year of high school and quickly realized that some shows are legendary for a reason. Even though I was watching this show 9 years after it first aired, I could relate to everything Angela thought and felt. I think MSCL was the first show, for me, that proved that TV can depict real life, even with scripts and actors and costumes. This show is the polar opposite of Dawson's Creek, and these two high school shows are exemplary of the two types of TV I tend to really like: the hyper-stylized, no way realistic, all melodrama everyone looks like a catalog model and has a witty comment or quip ready at lightning speed (think Gilmore Girls, Friends, Veronica Mars) vs the naturalistic, earnest, sometimes painful, very heartfelt, normal-ish actors saying "Um" and "like" (Friday Night Lights, Freaks and Geeks, the Office). This past summer I sold that old box set on Ebay and got the new, rereleased set for Christmas. I haven't gotten a chance to rewatch the MSCL eps with commentary, but I feel sure when I do that I'll relate to Angela just as deeply as I did when I was 16. And I'll still be just as frustrated that we never found out how it ended, since Claire Danes was too whiny to do another season. Then, as now, I like and demand closure from my TV shows. (That's why I'm really glad I never watched the Sopranos.)

#4, Bitch is gonna get stabbed: I watched the first season of Surviver, and I was certainly into Laguna Beach. But no reality show will ever compare to Bravo's classiest bitch, Project Runway. Senior year of high school I saw an ad for it in People and thought, "Heidi Klum is hosting a reality show? That could be kind of cool." A few weeks later, in newspaper class, my friend Ali asked if I had seen it and I remembered that I wanted to check it out. I did, and every week Ali and I would gush over Austin and Kara Saun and Jay and evil, evil Wendy Pepper. This was way before the whole Tim Gunn phenomenon, and it felt like Ali and I were the only two people in the world watching this little sewing show. It got bigger, and by freshman year of college it was the only hour of the week were all 5 of my suitemates got together in the same room, and the same for another 4 suitemates sophomore year. I haven't been really watching this season; I don't know why I can't get into it (silly challenges? Uninspiring designs?) but everytime I try to watch an episode I give up after 15 minutes. But this is still the best reality show on TV, I still want Tim Gunn to be my best friend, and I still want Kara Saun to design my outfits every day for the rest of my life.

#3, ArrDev: You guys, I was in love with Michael Cera since the very first episode of Arrested Development (I'm still trying to get ArrDev to catch on as the unofficial nickname of the show), so all you bitches-come-lately who saw Superbad and decided you wanted a piece of the cute nerd action can just go to the back of the line. But anyway... this show really cemented my tendency to watch and fall in love with the low-rated, critically acclaimed, soon to be cancelled show. I can't really get on board with the "Fox is the devil for killing ArrDev too soon!" because three seasons is a decent run. It could have been treated and promoted a lot better by the network, of course, but I feel like everything after the first season was a gift. Also, this show inspired me to go to a pottery place and paint a mug bright orange, with "SAVE ARRDEV" on one side, "Michael and George Michael" on the other with little houses, and "Terrible mistake?" on the inside. If that's not dedication I don't know what is. Now if only I can get myself a Cornballer...

#2, Is that a Michael Phelps cardboard cut-out?: I don't give a fuck about sports, but I love the Olympics. I watch the Opening Ceremonies, and I mist up at all the happy athletes waving their flags. I watch the little athlete background puff-pieces, and I get a little teary at the hard-luck stories. Paul Hamm falls on his ass in the vault then comes back to win the gold medal, and I cry like a fucking baby. I adore the Olympics: the competition, the international friendliness, the 24/7 cheesiness, the incredibly toned and hot bodies of the athletes, the barely-contained rage of the robot gymnasts from Romania... there's nothing bad about the Olympics, except curling. I was dying to go to Beijing this summer but I don't think it's gonna happen; maybe London 2012. As for the winter Olympics, sure I enjoy watching figure skating, but Michael Phelps and his speedo are at the Summer Olympics so they take priority.

#1, The Chosen One: So this is where this list has been heading to since the very first line: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Maybe you've noticed that of the above listed shows, one of the main reasons they're on this list is because they had some hot dude (Logan Echolls, Pacey Witter, Jordan Catalano, George Michael Bluth, Jess Mariano...). Yes, I have a long and storied history of TV boyfriends. So I have to say, right off the bat, that BtVS isn't number 1 because of Angel or Spike or Xander or even Giles. The reason I own multiple novelizations and behind-the-scenes guides and 5 seasons on DVD (sorry Buffy, but I just can't justify getting the UPN seasons). The reason is the great writing, the badass villains and action, the friendship of the Scooby Gang, and the most inspiring little blonde girl in the history of TV. This was the first show to make me cry (when Buffy gets the Class Protector award at Prom), the first show to make me seek out an online community, and the first show I bought on DVD. Buffy introduced me to the wider genre of sci-fi and fantasy, not to mention the future works of Joss Whedon. But it mostly made me fall in love with TV-- through this show I saw how it can bring people together, create discussions, influence emotions. I haven't watched a Buffy episode in months (maybe more than a year), but it'll always be the most influential television show of my youth.

So I guess that making this in list form didn't stop me from being really, really wordy. Sorry! Mad Men recaps to follow very soon, so start preparing your martini and don't forget to sexually harass your secretary.

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