On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:08:03 -0600, Rob Jensen <ShutUpRob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>1) Lauren Graham apparently either got really pissed off at Alexis or
>really prepared for the writers' strike because she's sure got another
>commercial gig so suspiciously soon after Gg's indefinite hiatus
>started. She's done the voiceover for the new American Express Plum
>Card (for small businesses). Usually, commercial campaigns take quite
>some time to air. Several months and sometimes even up to a year
>depending on how big the campaign is and since it's AmEx, I'm figuring
>that it's a fairly big campaign launch. I spotted the commercial
>during Countdown and then thought it was hilarious that it *didn't*
>air during Samantha Who?, especially since, well, that plum color is
>pretty.
As a vendor who accepts American Express I'd be inclined to say the
campaign may well have been prepared several years ago and that Amex
was waiting for the economy be at a specific point before launching
it. A campaign like this may well have had it's birth back in Season
one of GG when Amex saw how Visa/MC were eating their lunch.
American Express does nothing fast. So this was in the
works long before GG ended.
Also as a vendor we were told about this type of card coming out
back in the mid 90s. (Around 95 they told us they were going to
introduce it.) (Could this commerical have been done prior to
GG even starting?) Sounds an awful lot like they started this
in the 90s but held it close to the vest while Discover got their
act together.
>
>2) Okay, you know how it seems like Shondaland is becoming
>Shondaland, as I noted to zap2it's TV Gal last week? (Sutcliffe and
>Agena on Private Practice, Herrmann on Grey's). Well, those that
>haven't made it to the promised Shondaland seem to be exiled to Monday
>nights. Milo on Heroes, Patterson on (ugh) Aliens in America,
>McCarthy (miscast) on Samantha Who? and Kirk -- err, Sean Gunn on
>October Road. That would be five Gilmore Geeks on Monday nights in
>2007 if you count John Cabrera (Brian) as one of Matt's staff writers
>on Studio 60 last season.
>
>3) Speaking of Melissa McCarthy: Okay, Heroes wasn't on tonight, so I
>did watch my second episode of Samantha Who? tonight. The series
>still shows promise but is stumbling with a huge case of tonal
>inconsistency -- the character is supposed to be torn between polar
>opposites, not the show. Samantha is a big, broad character as played
>by Christina Applegate, and rightfully so. The character has
>traumatic amnesia, she's *supposed* to be a basket case. But in order
>for the story to work, it's got to be based in reality -- such as Tim
>Tuvok Russ's droll reactions to her as the doorman to Samatha's
>ex-boyfriend's hotel.
>
>The problem is their misconception of McCarthy's character, Dina
>(sp?). Essentially, this almost stalkerish character, who didn't come
>off well in the pilot, appears to be the show's Kirk, the person that
>they want to be the community oddball. WIth this being a half-hour
>show in a very odd strike-ridden season, I think the show's makers are
>either going to have turn Dina into an actual character or write her
>out of the show. Samantha Who just doesn't have enough time to turn
>the cartoon of Dina into their own Kirk. And to be honest, Kirk
>doesn't even serve the same function on Gg. Dina is supposed to be
>the thematic antithesis to Andrea and Bad Samantha whereas Kirk's
>storylines on Gg generally paralleled or parodied something going on
>between Lorelai and Rory/Luke/Emily or otherwise riffed on the theme
>of the week. For instance, just how does the "Does the carpet match
>the drapes?" joke have anything to do with the episode's variation on
>the show's overall idea of Samantha learning that being too needy in
>her shortlived relation****p is just as bad as its opposite, being a
>cold ***** to her ex-, Todd?
>
>But they're trying to eat their cake and have it, too by putting up
>this false dichotomy between McCarthy's naiive, *theoretically*
>angelic Dina and Jennifer Esposito's assertive, devilish playah,
>Andrea. The problem is that Dina is being ****trayed not as angelic,
>but as pathetic. Not because of MM's weight, which IMO, isn't the
>issue, but something that somebody else would probably target (I'm
>cynical about viewers), but because Samantha is so big and so broad a
>character that the show needs the debate between the "angel" and the
>"devil," so to speak, be a fair fight in terms of tone and
>characterization. Esposito's Andrea is a relatively realistic take in
>terms of comedy on her white-collar power-gal character (also
>representing Samantha's past to an extent). Dina, however, as a
>stalkerish naif is so broadly drawn, so grating and so eempty-headed
>that it makes it look like MM is phoning in her lines even though she
>isn't -- that there's really nothing there for Samantha to aspire to,
>to be her future in the way Andrea is her past. Or to put it in
>simpler terms: Andrea is a three-dimensional character and Dina is a
>one-dimensional character. Even if they don't mean it, the show is
>stacking the deck *against* both Dina as a character and the
>angel/devil dichotomy in general.
>
>Worse yet (for MM fans), the show seems to be losing interest in the
>Dina character as *Andrea* served as the voice of reason, explaining
>every lesson that Samantha needed to know about getting into her first
>post-amnesia relation****p even though Samantha ignored everything she
>said and lost the guy as the logical result.
>
> -- Rob
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