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wendyg

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Everything posted by wendyg

  1. It's very smart of Cuoco to have used her BBT money to find a project that shows her in a new light. Otherwise, what's her future? Playing sitcom moms until she's shunted into playing sitcom grandmothers? QQQQ: Yes, I thought of Goldie Hawn in FOUL PLAY, too. (Dudley Moore was not well-known at the time, but he was the funniest thing in the movie.) It's partly the hairstyle, which is very similar to the one Hawn had in that movie and, earlier, in THERE'S A GIRL IN MY SOUP.
  2. AA is keeping them *sober*. That's the big win, all by itself.
  3. The temptation was probaby to use Mabel to give the show a new, more modern face - which *did* work on MURPHY BROWN with grown-up Avery because the actor and Candice Bergen had such great chemistry. But I always thought *ever* showing Mabel was MAY's big mistake. The show was a close-up look at a marriage, and was at its best when it was tightly focused on Paul and Jamie. The two of them having to rediscover each other after years of parenting with their child far away should have been right in the show's wheelhouse.
  4. Helen Hunt's pants only look baggy because of the weird contemporary obsession with skin-tight jeans. At the time, her pants were just...normal. I agree about the drab colors, though. The reason people turned against Hunt was the infidelity plot - apparently she even had people on the street telling her off for mistreating her nice husband.
  5. Note that the current PM is complaining that his salary of £150k is insufficient to support him and his children.
  6. That, at least, is historically accurate! I highly recommend viewing YES, MINISTER and its sequel, YES, PRIME MINISTER for an inside view of how the British government actually works on this sort of thing. In an early episode of the latter, the newly installed prime minister discovers that he is not provided with household staff....and that as a result there is no one to cook him lunch on days when he doesn't have an official lunch to go to.
  7. swanpride: It was not a tax on voting. The idea was to raise funds for local council services more fairly by taxing based on the number of people in a house ("community charge") rather than the value of the house (property tax). People protested this tax in shoals on the basis that the *effect* would be to tax voting because they would derive the list of residents in each house from the elecctoral rolls. Opponents dubbed it the "poll tax", and there were riots. The plan was modified so that houses are taxed based on an estimate of their value, but there is also a component based on the number of residents. People living alone get to deduct 25%, for example. The Guardian has a discussion of the factlessness of this season: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/16/the-crown-fake-history-news-tv-series-royal-family-artistic-licence. I would not base my ideas about any of the historical people or events on these portrayals.
  8. I'm glad this show is incorporating the virus; this one and MOM seemed to me the most likely candidates to do that and be able to do it well.
  9. I think it was Michael Caine I once heard comment that if you're nominated for two very different roles in the same year you have a good chance of winning because the voters know that at least *one* of them you were acting. Maybe Seehorn's problem is that few people have seen her in anything else.
  10. Trust me, it's even more bizarre when you have to write it.
  11. I'd love to read an outline of how this season was supposed to pan out, because as is it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Can't really blame the writers, though - I'm sure it was a mad dash to get the scripts and filming done before they had to shut down. I did have to laugh at the credits for episode 5, though, where they put in a text block that said, "A sofa would have blown up here".
  12. Good interview here with Gina Yashere, co-creator of the show, with fellow comedian London Hughes about being British and heading to LA to find success: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jun/25/black-comics-in-conversation-jokes-gina-yashere-london-hughes
  13. mojoween: for "best lines" really I'd credit the writers. Perry said them very well, granted, but an actor can't do much without lines to say.
  14. I bet the scenario where a white "sensitivity" expert lectures black people on racism is true to corporate life, though. Is anyone else amused by THE GOOD FIGHT's episode naming conventions? First season it was the old THE GOOD WIFE conceit of rising and falling numbers of words in the title. Second season was Day xxx. Third season they copied FRIENDS' The One With. This season they're copying IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA with "The Gang..."
  15. I think the key to Kim is the desire for respect. It wasn't that Howard put her in doc review; it's that when she did the thing all law firms want their *partners* to do and landed a big client, she was ignored. "You don't save me. I save me." is what made the character for me - but Howard paid no attention. Then, after all the work for Mesa Verde, Kevin ignored her advice. Acker didn't respect her either - and that goaded her into trying to save his home - but he didn't *know* her. And then after everything else that's gone on, Howard patronizes her. I think she cared about becoming a good lawyer and carving out a place for herself in the corporate world because she thought the reward would be respect - and it wasn't. So, like Jimmy in season 4 (when he gave that lecture to the poor student who didn't get the grant), she's concluded that she will never win at their game. And if she can't, then screw them, let's take some of their resources and go help other people who get no respect and deserve better. BREAKING BAD always seemed to me a classic Greek tragedy: the hero is brought down by his own flaws - and brings disaster to everyone around him. BCS is following a similar trajectory.
  16. It goes to show how quickly your perceptions can change. I saw all those people sitting so close together in the church scene and was stunned by the sight.
  17. A key element of that is that sometime around episode 100 the creators of the show want to do something new - once the show is sold into syndication, their money is locked in. So at some point new showrunners take over and the show becomes an imitation of the original show. We're seeing this now with SUPERSTORE...for example.
  18. I tend to believe Kim's story was real. If you look at how she dresses, particularly in the first couple of seasons, she's put together enough to pass muster, but her clothes are clearly not expensive, and she's cobbling her professional look together out of what she can afford. Her apartment is nice, but small and aside from her occasional outings she has no expensive tastes. We also know she's a saver: she could stump up the $14k and change to pay Howard off in S3 even though she couldn't afford to pay him back before.
  19. Very good interview with David Schimmer at the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/27/david-schwimmer-im-very-aware-of-my-privilege-as-a-heterosexual-white-male
  20. I thought the couch thing was dumb. When they arrest someone for tax evasion and securities fraud, they impound the premises, search, seize computers, etc. Anyone dropping a hint about a couch could be sure the couch would be up for thorough searching. This season really relied a bit too much on old sitcom tropes that were out of character (Frankie dating two men and lying to both of them), and the whole Bud/Jessica thing. I also find it disappointing that it now seems to be three shows: Sol and Robert in one corner; the kids in another; and Grace and Frankie's lives. At least putting the four "oldies" in the same house should do away with some of that. I miss seeing the kids and parents interact, particularly Brianna and Frankie, who were great together in earlier seasons.
  21. The Robert/Sol stuff was actually worse, for me.
  22. Serious question: at some point since I was a child did they stop teaching female anatomy? The number of people who use "vagina" when they mean "groin" or "vulva" is astounding.
  23. I remember thinking it was funny that Sofia Milos, who played Julia, also played the filmmaker Paul went for a walk with on MAD ABOUT YOU. If it were today, she'd be hounded on Twitter.
  24. I think it would be fairer to say that Susie, like Midge, is learning on the job, rather than that she's simply "a crap manager". (I would also note that it's a signature tic of ASP shows that the finances and business strategies never make any sense.) She's good at spotting talent and opportunities; less good at the details. I'd also note that while an agent traditionally has gotten 10%, a manager working the way Susie is - traveling with the act full-time and guiding the talent's career, as well as getting bookings and fielding contracts and offers - normally gets more than that. 20% at least would be typical, and it wouldn't be uncommon when an act is starting out and not earning much for it to be a good bit higher, especially for the one-on-one service Susie is providing with n oother source of income. But like I say, it is unwise to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to make sense of the fiances in any ASP show.
  25. I was surprised to see that, but Wikipedia agrees: she has an MFA from Cornell. She was born in 1960, so figure she'd have been there in the early 1980s. At that time, besides the main school year programs there was (may still be, I don't know) a very good repertory theater summer program directed by a guy from Playwrights Horizons in NYC. I played music for one of thier productions in the summer of 1982; that year, one of the members of the repertory was Jimmy Smits, headed for LA at the end of that summer, IIRC. Nearby, Ithaca College also has very good theater and music programs, and in the 1970s the Cornell Savoyards used to have quite a few IC students in lead roles (and in the orchestra). IIRC David Boreanaz went to IC.
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