When you need to rant...

[D'Snowth]

As if THE ODD COUPLE getting a reboot this year isn't bad enough (it's forgiveable though, Neil Simon has been rebooting it for years), apparently next year NBC will be cranking out a reboot of BEWITCHED.

The insult is too great. I mean come on, BEWITCHED is one of the greatest and most successful series in television history... Nora Ephron already tried rebooting it with that godawful movie with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, and that was a big enough insult, this is like being gauged in the eye with a middle finger. In this day and age, I can only imagine how degrading and filthy a reboot will be, when BEWITCHED was a good, clean, wholesome, fun show (though it admittedly was tired and maudlin towards the end when ALL IN THE FAMILY came out). This almost makes me want to hire Crazy Harry to demolish NBC's headquarters.

Oh, and the CW now has a sitcom about a church girl who's desperate to lose her virginity and have sex? Yeah, you know what? While we're at it, why not do a sitcom about a priest who molests little boys? We're practically there already.

 

[charlietheowl]

As if THE ODD COUPLE getting a reboot this year isn't bad enough (it's forgiveable though, Neil Simon has been rebooting it for years), apparently next year NBC will be cranking out a reboot of BEWITCHED.

Considering NBC has not launched a successful sitcom since Community (and "success" can be debated there), I wouldn't worry too much about this revival. It'll probably get burned off in the summer of 2016 or something.

 

[D'Snowth]

It still irks me to think about it, and after Nora Ephron already put a blemish on the original's integrity with that movie - which I actually gave a chance (because this was back when remakes weren't quite as bad as they've gotten in recent years), and ugh... even though they were wanting Jim Carrey for Darrin (which makes sense, given his resemblance to Dick York), I don't think even he could have saved it.

Thank God nothing ever came of that movie remake of I DREAM OF JEANNIE, that was supposed to star Lindsay Lohan as Jeannie (What The **** Casting Agency?) and Jimmy Fallon as Tony.

 

[Drtooth]

Oh, and the CW now has a sitcom about a church girl who's desperate to lose her virginity and have sex? Yeah, you know what? While we're at it, why not do a sitcom about a priest who molests little boys? We're practically there already.

I think you've got the premise wrong. There's a CW show about a girl who isn't in a rush to lose her virginity, but somehow the hospital screwed up and artificially impregnated her, and she still wants to wait until marriage. You mean that one, right?

Still a stupid idea for a show. Probably would have worked as an indie film.

Considering NBC has not launched a successful sitcom since Community (and "success" can be debated there), I wouldn't worry too much about this revival. It'll probably get burned off in the summer of 2016 or something.

Remember what happened with the gritty remake of The Munsters (that was actually pretty good if you didn't mind it being different)? The pilot wasn't even going to be aired, considering a crapload of money went into it, and then they just dumped it off as a Halloween special. I don't see Bewitched doing well if it does get picked up. And no matter what the concept, a remake, a gritty reboot, or a snarky lampshade hanging ironic parody, I don't think there's an audience no matter what. The movie burned bridges, I doubt it was successful with a low budget. I'm sure if it wasn't for a joke in an older episode of Family Guy, everyone would have forgotten about it completely.

And yeah... NBC doesn't know what to do with sitcoms, especially since the Office ended. And thank Glob we didn't get that awful Schrute spin-off... I smell Shaggy and Scooby-Doo get a Clue/Joey/Postcards from Buster and assorted "take the funniest character, make them the main characters, and then they become unfunny" failures. Not to mention the pilot turned into an episode was unwatchable. Yet, that awful thing with Minnie Driver managed to live past season replacement. I don't see Bewitched being successful on that network, even if it somehow manages to be as good as or better than the original. But I say, remake the heck out of any old sitcom you want, NBC, it's still better than Biggest Loser. And I mean, just watching them... not the actual terrible stuff that goes on behind the scenes.

 

[D'Snowth]

I think you've got the premise wrong. There's a CW show about a girl who isn't in a rush to lose her virginity, but somehow the hospital screwed up and artificially impregnated her, and she still wants to wait until marriage. You mean that one, right?

I don't know. I just recently saw a commercial for a CW show called JANE THE VIRGIN, and apparently Jane was telling people she's finally going to have sex, and everybody was making a big deal out of it, including the entire congregation of the church she attends, who are all, "Finally! Hallelujah!" which I find offensive.

I guess this is another case of false advertising? Like how MODERN FAMILY is always advertised as a show about reverse-gendered polygomy? Or how for a while THE BIG BANG THEORY was advertised as a show about a how blonde girl that a group of nerds obsessively fawn over?

 

[Drtooth]

Where are you getting these synopsises?!? They sound like far right propaganda from the PTC! Raising Hope was the one about reverse polygamy, and that was for one episode, it was satirical (obviously mocking the Sister Wives show), and the character involved was in a cult. Modern Family was never that over the top.

But yeah... I never saw that commercial, and the one I have was a "I couldn't go through with it" bit. And that was last night during The Flash. I think the main theme of the show is resistance to temptation, not just having sex. Of course, I'm not a Hispanic, Catholic, teenage girl, so the show doesn't appeal to me.

But I have 2 main rants about television:

1) we have all these groups whining about the sex and violence on scripted television, yet not saying a darn thing about how nasty, exploitative, immoral, deplorable, and disgusting that reality TV still is. Even the inspirational ones are deceptive and rotten. You'll have someone whining about bad such and such a show's influence is, and then going "OOOh! Did you see Real Housewives of [whatever]?! Isn't that delicious?!"

2) The opposite direction... snarky nerds that dump all over highly anticipated concept shows to sound cool (i.e. Gotham, which isn't in the league as bad as some say it is), yet don't even bother with crappier competition like NCIS, which is formulaic and still bothers with 2003 manners of thinking (if you know what I mean). Yeah, you can try hard to make a show work and fail while someone just keeps a lame show going forever on a formulaic note, and they'll go with the formulaic trash all the time. But the difference is, someone tried and gave us something far more unique than the same "cut the bodies open"/"sexually assaulted with a banana"stuff that's lost it's fizz by the end of the last decade. That said, duh you need to lower your expectations. They didn't make your fan fic a TV show. And thankfully they didn't because no one but you would have liked it anyway.

 

[D'Snowth]

Where are you getting these synopsises?!?

Like I said in another thread a while back, as far as MODERN FAMILY goes, a lot of it has to do with the media: I remember seeing a woman who was in the news because she had not one, but two live-in boyfriends, one of whom fathered a child with her, and the media kept refering to their living arrangements as, "A real-life modern family, just like in the hit TV series." As far as THE BIG BANG THEORY goes, as I've also said before, for a while, any kind of advert you saw for the show, whether it was magazine spreads, billboards, or TV promos, they always plastered Penny front and center, with the guys relegated to the background.

But you'll be happy to know that it's not entirely as you say... I think I'm pretty much the only one who complains about the level of sexual content in entertainment today, most everybody else I come across feel I'm somehow an uncultured ******* for it. And like you say, most people who watch reality TV anyway mostly do so ironically... interestingly enough, we must be making some progress if Dummy Poo Poo got canceled because her mother is dating a registered sex offender... but then again, DUCK DYNASTY made a comeback shortly after the hype over Phil Robertson's comments died down, so maybe after this dies down, we'll be seeing that little brat all over the place again?

 

[Drtooth]

And like you say, most people who watch reality TV anyway mostly do so ironically... interestingly enough, we must be making some progress if Dummy Poo Poo got canceled because her mother is dating a registered sex offender... but then again, DUCK DYNASTY made a comeback shortly after the hype over Phil Robertson's comments died down, so maybe after this dies down, we'll be seeing that little brat all over the place again?

The difference being that Phil's comments were initially outrageous and shocking and ticked off enough people that the network would have lost sponsors if they didn't drop the show. Phil being an arrogant Christian Conservative, not only stood by his "I'm not a bigot...but" comments, but flipped the script to say him and his family were bullied for being rightfully called out on his self conflicting bull. Yeah, I hate Christian Neo-Conservatism because...well.. oxymoron isn't the word. More like they should completely cancel each other out with the residue of creating a rift in reality. Neo-Conservatism is all about money, favoring the rich, and overall Social Darwinism. And they're also Christians, which teaches that's a bad thing. I mean, you've probably heard of Jack Chick. he has the nastiest aspects of Christianity in his comic pamphlet manifestos, and even he notes that social Darwinism is wrong (to the point of connecting it with evolution and making the comparison to Nazis because, ergo, if you believe in evolution, you also believe in social Darwinim, and that's what the Nazi's believed). So, Phil's yet another who loves Christianity for the bigotry and fear mongering, a grand tradition that goes all the way back to the early 70's.


Basically he claimed piety for saying gays are all evil and yucky, and then dumped it when he made racist comments about how happy black people were when horrible stuff was happening to them because they weren't on the welfare which isn't fair because I built this company from the ground up and I shouldn't have to pay for things I don't want just because I have more money and the social responsibility to help those less fortunate! WAAAAAHHHHH! The religion that says whatever you do to the lesser of your brothers, you do to me (or something to that effect), mind you! So, YAY Christianity when you can hate people, but let's get that crap out of here if it costs me any money. Perfectly not arrogant and hypocritical at all.

But like I said on another thread, because he was able to make himself look like a victim, and then a bunch of like minded yet much less fiscally well off (because they don't have a business and a TV show that makes craploads more money for them to promote a totally fake backwoods simple folk salt of the Earth image) sympathized and now he's more popular than ever. The show's back, he got to write a best selling manifesto about how he and said like minded people are better than everyone else because of wrong priority faith and hating entitlements that they themselves feel entitled to not pay for. Again, standard 1980's Neocon ideals hiding as old school family values.

And the WORST PART is if everyone shut up and ignored his gum flapping, the Duck Dynasty show would have eventually disappeared due to lack of interest. Then Phil would have been reduced to cutting ribbons at local thrift stores instead of having a bully pulpit and an undeserved crapload of money he doesn't want to pay taxes on.

 

[fuzzygobo]

The Dreaded Birthday Chant. Go to any corporate restaurant chain you care to name, and inevitably the wait staff will crowd around someone's table, clap up a storm (encouraging you to join in) and rattle off some barely intelligible chant to wish you a Happy Birthday. Even the person whose birthday it is doesn't seem to enjoy this. (Unless you're under five).

This ritual lost its novelty a LONG TIME AGO. Kinda went out of style with the Macarena. Wanna wish me a happy birthday? Comping my meal would be great.

 

[D'Snowth]

That's why if I have to be dragged to a restaurant on my birthday, I make a special note to request whoever the server is to not have the kitchen staff do that... I've never liked it, it's always very embarrassing, but again, if you ask, they'll comply with your request - I can't remember the last time I had to endure that on my birthday.