Episode 518

When we think of getting in the holiday spirit, we usually think of music and movies (though I realize that doesn't mean Rockapella Christmas and The Holiday for just everyone).  This year, though, I tried my hand at holiday TV to bring in the cheer.  There are many ways to get into the holiday spirit through television: we can download the Glee Christmas album before Thanksgiving (you know who you are), we can feel warm and fuzzy when Ellen gives away wonderful things to wonderful people, or -- and this was my M.O. -- we can sit down and watch all of the Christmas episodes of The Office in one sitting (I cheated a little and threw "Dewali" in there only so I could hear Andy scream "Tuna, are you kidding me?!"  To be fair, Michael does sing a version of The Hanukkah Song at the end).

This year, as the Christmas Pandora station is playing in the background while you watch Home Alone on loop, remember that TV can have just as much holiday charm as music and movies.  Particularly when it involves Michael Scott exhibiting his genuine wit: "I would like a nice slice of Christmas Pam. Side of candied Pams. And perhaps some Pam chops. With mint..."  If that can't bring you some holiday cheer, what Pam?

Episode 517

In the days of DVD and DVR, we have a tendency to fast-forward through the opening credits of even our favorite TV shows.  Sometimes we're better off - for instance, after four seasons of Gossip Girl, we get that there's one secret you'll never tell.  But some shows really know how to work their themes into the episode.  Perhaps my favorite example of this is the cold open of The Office that shows Michael's reaction to Toby's return - his screaming is so perfectly interrupted by the theme song that we wonder how long it would have otherwise gone on.  Dexter's wonderfully creepy opening theme (though two minutes is a bit long) is actually figured into one episode - a scene showing Dexter in his morning routine - instead of being played at the beginning.

Everyone will always remember the classic theme songs - Love Boat, Friends, Sesame Street, Cheers - but I think the best  are the ones you can sing along to using just "doo doo doo"s or "bum bum bum"s (even better, ones that are essentially doo doo doos and bum bum bums on their own - How I Met Your Mother, Parks and Recreation, etc.).  Or, just one big BUM, as to not interrupt any brilliance at work. 

There are also shows whose themes work to their disadvantage.  I know someone who refuses to watch Dawson's Creek because they can't make it past Paula Cole.  Then there's Two and Half Men, whose theme is (if this is possible) even more grating than the show itself (I'll spare you the links on those ones).  But at least those are memorably bad, instead of forgettable.  Speaking of which, I dare anyone to hum the theme to Modern Family.  Impossible, right?  What a waste.

Episode 516

Today I will write in honor of one of my most loyal readers who yesterday ran the Philadelphia marathon. In order to more fully empathize (yes, marathon runners deserve empathy) with my friend-in-training, I chose to train for - and participate in - some marathons of my own. Over the past 12 days, I have watched the first two seasons of Dexter, all of Better Off Ted (two seasons) and Archer (one season), and I have begun my marathon re-watching of Seasons 5 and 6 of The Office. And that was all without turning on the television (thank you Netflix Watch Instantly), so it doesn't include any on-TV-rerun marathons, like my 12-hour America's Next Top Model day (I swear it was a season I'd never seen).

It is a vastly different experience to watch a show all at once as opposed to waiting week by week (and year by year): for thrillers, it's easier to figure out the mystery; for comedies, you're more in tune to recurring jokes; generally, you are able to appreciate the complexities that might otherwise go unnoticed. I tried to watch Better Off Ted when it was airing, but couldn't maintain interest; now having watched it all in the course of a couple of days, I'd say it is one of the smarter comedies to have graced the screen over the past few years (though of course it has tough competition and can't quite edge out the NBC line-up).

In any case, for those of you who might tell me I've wasted my time with my so-called marathons whereas "real" marathons are worth something, I'd just like to point out some uncanny similarities between the two and then, perhaps, you can reevaluate:

1) They're both called marathons.
2) The entire series of Better Off Ted (and the first two seasons of Dexter for that matter) is 26 episodes. 26 miles. Just saying.
3) Pacing is crucial for both (don't get burnt out after the first season and then lose interest).
4) Both require training (don't try to watch a TV marathon if you've never exposed yourself to more than a few episodes in a row).
5) Needing to pee during both is an enormous drag (you lose time and momentum in either case).

Episode 515

Television is home to a lot of crazies. We've got Charlie Sheen making Paris Hilton look tame. There's a potential presidential candidate with her own reality TV show. And don't forget the Survivor producer who allegedly killed his wife.

Maybe we can forgive some of this. I mean, with the absurd amount of money TV stars make, the pressure of fame and wealth, the crazy hours - it can drive a person nuts.

But, can we forgive this guy? A man in Wisconsin "was allegedly so upset by Palin's performances on Monday night's show – she danced the paso doble and the waltz – that he fired a gun at his television, prompting a 15-hour standoff at his Black Earth, Wis., home." I am so far from making this up, it's terrifying.

Episode 514

Television shows talking about television shows has become more and more common. There are plenty of different ways to do it, some more clever than others. Community tends to get "meta." The most recent episode had the study group stuck in their room (during a puppy parade, at that - how much funnier could obvious get?) for the entire afternoon and led it off with Jeff's phone call to cancel his date for the evening: "Tell your disappointment to suck it. I'm doing a bottle episode!" And a bottle episode they did.

Another technique was adopted by The Office last week: just show the characters watching TV. In this particular episode, Kelly and Gabe host a Glee viewing party; people host viewing parties for The Office all the time, but the characters on The Office watch Glee. We also know that Dwight watches Battlestar Galactica and The Apprentice and that Andy gets his LOST on. This makes the characters feel more like us, but our brains just might explode if they ever started watching The Office. I think only 30 Rock could pull off something like that (since the show is essentially about itself already). You heard it here first.

Last night, we saw another, much less subtle move on How I Met Your Mother. Barney, in an attempt to get Ted to ditch his punchy high school friend, goes on to recite nearly every reality TV tagline ever: "He has got to go. You need to be like, you are the weakest link goodbye! Punchy, the tribe has spoken. Please pack up your knives and go. Your work of art didn't work for me. Your time's up. I have to ask you to leave the mansion. You must leave the chateau. Your tour ends here. You've been chopped! You've been evicted from the Big Brother house. Your dessert just didn't measure up. Sashay away! Give me your jacket and leave Hell's kitchen! You did not get a rose. You have been eliminated from the race. You are no longer in the running to be America's Next Top Model. You're fired. Auf Wiedersehen." (For those of you who are curious, that is: The Weakest Link, Survivor, Top Chief, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, Flavor of Love, Beauty and the Geek, Joe Millionaire, Rock of Love, Chopped, Big Brother, Top Chef: Just Desserts, Ru Paul's Drag Race, Hell's Kitchen, The Bachelor(ette), The Amazing Race, America's Next Top Model, The Apprentice, Project Runway.)

I think the moral of the story is: if Barney has a high-powered banking job, spends the evening with a different girl each night, and still has time to watch all that reality television, I never again want to hear someone say they don't have time for TV. It's just not possible. And it's certainly not right.

Episode 513

Television, as a general rule, is easy to watch. That's part of why people condescend to it: it doesn't take much brain power to enjoy. So when shows produce content that is hard to watch, it becomes both ground-breaking and, well, hard to watch.

Thanks to my Los Angeles based TV consultant, I have recently (and finally) begun watching Dexter. Now this is a show that should be hard to watch - every episode involves several brutal murders, usually quite graphic. Yet you rarely need to turn away. Perhaps we can chalk it up to the dark humor infused into each episode. But I think the reason it's palatable is that the protagonist is a self-proclaimed sociopath with no feelings. While we might pity him because of his lack of emotion, it's impossible to be completely empathetic. As Dexter says in the third episode, "If I had a heart, it might be breaking right now." Well, if he had a heart, ours might be breaking, too. So instead, the real hard-to-watch is a show like Breaking Bad, where the protagonist is a dying man often committing brutal acts of violence to protect his family. Viewers (hopefully) haven't been in that situation, but we have felt pain and we can only imagine the amplified version of that pain that Walter White is experiencing. It's desperate, and it's hard to watch.

Hard to watch doesn't necessarily mean heartbreaking. Recently, it has become clear that the American public has a hard time watching anyone other than typically beautiful people engage in any sort of sexual encounter (exposed recently through a controversial article surrounding Mike and Molly). I wonder if this week's Glee kiss between Mr. Schu (who is meant to be hot stuff) and Bieste (a female actress made up to seem extremely masculine) will re-start that conversation.

One final kind of hard-to-watch is the hilarious kind: the scene when you are so embarrassed for the people involved that you would be crying if you weren't laughing so hard. The best example of this is the Scott's Tots episode of The Office. Watching Michael explain to a group of high school students that he can't pay their way through college as he'd promised so many years ago is The Office at it's hard-to-watch best. You almost want to mute the scene so you don't have to listen to Michael find the right (read: wrong) words to get through the moment. This is the kind of hard-to-watch that makes certain people say that The Office makes them uncomfortable. Well, that's the point.

Episode 512

I have been having some blogger's block and it got me thinking how it's possible that TV writers can come up with so much material week to week (and never repeat anything, with a few exceptions, as we'll see below). I then realized that -- in addition to being complete geniuses -- they have teams of writers, making this job a bit easier. Even if each person only has one or two quick jokes, it can come together to form an episode when the lead writer takes over to put it all together. So I figured, why not just throw together a few observations I've had over the past couple of weeks, and maybe I, too, will have a full episode. Here goes:

1) Sad news in the world of game shows. Charlie O'Donnell, the voice of Wheel of Fortune, passed away earlier this week. Not since the death of Rod Roddy have I been so saddened by the loss of person whose face I had never really even seen. I don't know which is more depressing -- the death of this legendary (in my mind) announcer, or the fact that Vanna White is in her mid-50s.

2) It turns out academia has its saving graces. Greg Daniels, Paul Lieberstein, and Carrie Kemper will be coming to Stanford to talk about The Office under the guise of a symposium for the American Studies program. American Studies doctorate, here I come. I knew I choose the wrong discipline.

3) I DVRed Portia de Rossi's appearance on Ellen, looking forward to hearing her Australian accent, but was sorely disappointed when she sounded like she had just stepped out of a limo from Orange County. She sounds just like Lindsay Bluth. I find it fascinating to hear foreign actors who play American characters speak with their actual accents - Chuck Bass and Charles Miner are British? Truly bizarre.

4) As I mentioned above, it is amazing that writers have so much material that they never repeat themselves. In shows like Arrested Development or 30 Rock, where every line, sometimes even every word, deserves a laugh, how is it possible that they are able to come up with a continuous stream of jokes and bits? Other than certain catch phrases that just flow right off the tongue -- that's what she said -- most jokes are used once, for a two-second laugh, and then have to be discarded forever. Daunting. Well, I recently caught two exceptions to this rule (and I'm sure there are many more):

• In the third episode of the first season of Friends, the gang is discussing ways to cushion the blow of a break-up and Chandler compares it to parents telling their kids that their dog, who has died, just went to live on a farm. Ross - already the naive one - counters that his parents actually sent his dog to a farm...hilarity ensues. Then, in the series finale, this same joke is repeated, but at Joey's expense, when Joey thinks that the Chick and the Duck had been taken to a farm. The only difference: Joey never realizes the truth.

• The cold open for last week's episode of The Office had the characters testing how far into absurdity they could go without Stanley noticing (Pam with a mustache? No problem. A donkey in the office? Doesn't blink an eye). Despite the fact that this scene had me in stitches, it can't go unnoticed that they already used this bit, though briefly, with another character: when March Madness fever came over the office in Season 3, a few of the co-workers placed bets on whether Creed would notice if they switched his apple out for a potato. And just like Stanley not noticing Kevin in drag, Creed didn't have a clue.

So those are my observations: not too keen, certainly not too humorous. But I bet if B.J. Novak or Mindy Kaling came along, they could turn it into something. I guess I'll just have to wait until the symposium and ask Greg Daniels if they're available for freelance work.