Eeksquire

Aw, I haven't seen any of the previews! I only watch ABCF in the summer and none of the shows I watch (ok, only The Fosters at this point) have started again yet. I might have to seek that out. :)

Now that I've finished the rewatch, I'm glad the new season is only a week away. Anyone have hopes for the new season? Personally, I have several, but #1 on the list is to get rid of Mike's girlfriend. I forget which movie critic coined the term "idiot plot", but she is the embodiment of it. I can live with the kids making fantastically stupid decisions (because that's what teenagers do), but her dumb decisions are too transparent and ridiculous to be believed. (And seriously? What adult is going to THAT MUCH TROUBLE to keep secrets with a teenager?)

I'm coming late to the party (just watched the whole series embarrassingly quickly - thanks Netflix!) but so much happened in this last episode that will need to be dealt with, it's like the whole season will be spent unraveling what happened in this one episode*. I guess the more I think about it, the more irritated I am that they are moving the show into "legal" territory - there's potential litigation over the baby, there's assault charges for the attack on Brandon, there's whatever happened with Mike and the bloody knuckles (and Ana?), there's the Brandon-Dani situation (although here on the East Coast, the age of consent is 16, so it wouldn't be statutory rape here, but still gross and wrong), there's Callie's paternity and adoption, as well as her ongoing parole situation... I really don't want to watch them spend all of their time in court next season (or in lawyer's offices). Sidebar: Anyone who is getting a sperm donor THAT THEY KNOW and not from a sperm bank (setting aside the do-it-at-home kit, which I've never heard of anyone doing outside of tv and movies) without getting a lawyer involved WAY BEFORE the magazines and specimen cup is out of their minds. This is NOT a matter for LegalZoom, kids, and as people that have adopted before AND dealt with custodial issues before AND had said issues blow up spectacularly in their faces, one would assume they would know better. Sorry, rant over. That just struck me as a totally false note - I can accept the teenagers making terribly stupid shortsighted choices because that's what teenagers do, but I can't accept that Lena and Stef (who are otherwise smart people) would be THAT dumb. *Of course, if I were a showrunner on ABC Family, I might do the same to ensure that I wasn't left hanging for months and months to see if anything else got better ratings before being cancelled a la Bunheads.

Yeah… the thing about Heidi is that, ok, I get it if Chris doesn't want to be on the road and away from his family all the time (now that they have 5? kids) so a format change was required, but: just because YOU Chris Powell, are now spending a lot more time with your wife does not mean that WE America, need to spend a lot more time with your wife. I get that people who have made fitness their lives' work are REALLY INTO IT, but something about her attitude seems way more judgmental to me than Chris's. It might be the "I'm [however months'] pregnant and still kicking your ass!" - I seem to recall Chris being much more about the people on the show competing with themselves and using what they used to be able/not be able to do as the yardstick rather than trying to get them to compete with Chris.

I just started watching this show (via Netflix) and I think I'm hooked. I didn't realize that it was only one season in, but I guess my timing was good - I should be caught up by the beginning of the new season!

Oh man... Another "the love of her life returns" only this time it's for Amber. Do the promo monkeys have a template they're working from?

Any predictions for tonight? I don't remember a single thing about the preview… which doesn't seem like an especially auspicious sign.

So ... Julia and Mr. Knight (I refuse to acknowledge his first name). Am I the only one that thought, "Man, wouldn't it be awesome if she got knocked up?" I know, I know, uterine scarring and whatever condition wouldn't allow her and Joel to have another child, but come ON: As long as this show is going to be totally ridiculous and unrealistic, at least it should be crazy dramatic and unrealistic!

Or, more disturbing, in prison. I believe I read somewhere that the largest public mental health institutions reside in Riker's Island, LA County Jail and some other large prison. A friend has an adult child with some challenges and there is literally nowhere for them to go. I feel like, the way they're portraying Max, this is the end game. We've seen Max (in the beginning of the series) smash an aquarium at school: what if the casualties included other children instead of just fish? Despite the show telling us that he's improved enough (from his time at Footpath, the special school that Adam and Kristina Bravermaned him into) to be mainstreamed (first to the same elementary school that Syndey and Jabbar go to and then to unspecified middle school that he's at now), it's certainly not showing us that. If he'll shove Sarah out of the way over a perceived slight, what's to stop him from shoving a classmate? A kid an at arcade who's playing the game he wants to play? An unrelated adult? Nora (when she exists in the Braverman universe, which is a separate issue)? Not everyone is likely to accept being chastised the same way that Sarah did. Hell, consider the reaction of someone who's child is shoved by Max and looks at Adam and Kristina, with a small business, a kid at Cornell, enough money to fund a vanity run for mayor and decides: Hey, that's my kid's college fund? And all the time wasted when we could be watching ACTUAL PARENTING: Either by Adam and Kristina to Max (or a much younger child when they probably thought they were done with that, or a kid away at college on the other side of the country which has its own challenges) or Joel and Julia to Victor and Sydney or - Hey! Whatever happened to Jabbar and Aida - how's Crosby adjusting to an infant? Could Zeke and Camille still have a role in their adult children's lives? Something, anything, besides The Autism Show. Edited to add: I feel like The Autism Show would ALSO be an interesting watch, and WAS, back in Season 1 when MAx was first diagnosed and Adam and Kristina were grappling with how to respond and talking to Dr. Pelican and Noel's parents (even or especially when they were making mean comparisons - not nice, but REAL, with drama and something interesting to watch and think about) and hiring Gabby and Kristina's jealously that Max responded to her instead of Kristina... Maybe I just am sad that this used to be a better show.

Blackbird, this is similar to how I was introduced to GG - terrible horrible break-up during summer classes and working full time and my friends loaned me their DVDs. I watched them constantly when I couldn't sleep. Later on, the syndicated reruns on ABC Family were my break from studying for the bar exam.

StarsFallen, I liked that too - for once, Sarah Braverman doesn't get absolutely every man in the world, whether she wants them or not. As he kept talking, I kept waiting for him to say, "...but I needed to see you one more time and see if there was a chance..." and he didn't! Finally, writers, a real disappointment for Sarah (even a disappointment that she may not have realized she's be disappointed about) - bravo!

I didn't think that was meant to show us a place in San Francisco so much as it was meant to show us that Julia, rather than asking Joel about the charge, went to the restaurant to try and interrogate the waiter about what happened. Though I do enjoy the scenery shots whenever the Bravermans road trip - whether it's Zeke and Crosby driving to Washington or when Amber bugged out to the coast after breaking up with Ryan or going to visit Grandma Blanche. Even at that though, it doesn't matter to me whether they're particularly accurate in location, it's just nice to look at.

One nice piece of continuity (sort of) this episode:when Zeke feels threatened, he hits the road. (Was it Season 1 when he took Adam on a road trip to admit to his financial troubles? I think so...) Also: for a show that hits you over the head with the bizarre, out-of-context harebrained schemes (Sarah the brilliant playwright! No wait! Photographer!; Kristina the Mayor! No wait! Principal of Snowflake Academy!) the one that strikes me as terribly obvious hasn't seemed to occur to anyone - Amber realizes that she's really good with kids and considers moving down that path. I know it would interfere with the actress's preference for music, but really there hasn't been a scene between Max and Amber where Max's behavior and attitude wasn't improved SUBSTANTIALLY (she taught him to apologize and seem sincere!) and she even made Sydney less bratty (by making paper turtles way back in the day). There's already a built-in mentor figure in Mr. Cyr, who believed in her abilities as a student before he got mixed up with the rest of the Bravermans. (Then we could continue to get glimpses of Mark, who I like very much, without having to engage him in some tortured relationship with Sarah, which I was glad to see ended pretty definitely.)