DearEvette

Buzzfeed Article on 'Defamation' that hilarious show-within-a-show parody of 'Scandal'

I've been watching Dr. Who and I love his new companion Bill. Black and queer and super delightful. They just an episode when the TARDIS takes them to Regency England and the first thing out of Bll's mouth is "Uh, I have a lot of melanin and slavery was a thing...so...." I just love her. She was looking at Regency England kinda janky and I can't say I blame her. That led me into watching Class another BBCA show that is kinda set in the Whoverse centering on a prep school and two of the characters are Aliens who are on earth on the down low. Nicely diverse group. I like that the Indian guy is the jock, Alpha male that is usually occupied by a white male character. He's good friends with a black female student who is really smart and the youngest one in the group. Nice, mindless Sci fi fun. And Finally I am slowly making my way through Dear White People. I am trying to savor it because it is such a treat. Holy cow what sharp writing, funny as hell, really deep -- sometimes a lot to unpack -- but not preachy at all. Reminds me of how I feel when watching Atlanta or Queen Sugar. I just want to wallow in the writing and the dialogue. Much better than the movie.

I agree 100% that this is what they were most likely going for but the execution was abysmal. First, the storyline disappeared for about 10 episodes in the middle, and then Meredith just wasn't selling any sort of pull only push -- except for sex. It felt more like she was dangling him on a string, rather than really being conflicted. And then they lumped all of it in a rush side-by-side with Maggie's mom's death so as an emotional hit for her it suffers horribly in comparison.

When I am done I am going to go back and do a watch through and jot down my favorite lines, because the quips and quotable lines fly fast and furious. If this were a book, I'd be highlighting like crazy. But speaking of Defamation, I loved Rashid's line: “Does every American show revolve around fellatio-related cliffhangers?"

I thought the same thing, but the series is being really smart about this. I am up to Chapter Six and so far the writing and storylines are really tight. Very well done. Even minor characters that you just get glimpse of in the the first two eps gets fleshed out nicely even if they don't get their own POV chapter. I have been happily surprised by the direction the story is choosing to go. Lionel -- OMG, his Geordie LaForge was so on point. I about died. The pop culture references in this show and which ones are evoked by which character are brilliant. Also, Lionel's intra-racial intimidation is as well drawn as his lack of knowledge of all the gay subgroups of which he could potentially identify. But I loved, loved, loved that timid little Lionel basically took charge during that horribly comedic attempt at a menage and read that couple. They were so absurd and his quick and incisive read of their dynamic was great. This was a fun installment and a nice showcase for Lionel. And Troy actually.

It would be fascinating to see a well done tv adaptation of the Dragonriders of Pern. Personally, I'd just do the Dragonflight/Dragonquest/White Dragon trilogy as a miniseries or a three season limited series. And then possibly Dragonsdawn as a prequel movie. Wheel of Time would be great. Or it could be a disaster. I am not so worried about the look or feel of it, but the writing & story cohesiveness could be the downfall there. You'd need someone who could really wrestle the storyline into submission. And great casting of Rand especially would be critical. A space opera adaptation that would be interesting is The Honor Harrington series. Lots of political crap, space battles and excellent opportunity for diversity since Honor is of Asian descent, her crew is from everywhere and even the Queen & her family are POC. On an Urban Fantasy front, I have been dying for the Rivers of London series to come to fruition ever since I found out it has been optioned. And in my head I have already cast Richard Ayoade as Peter (although he might be a tick too old for Peter). And Ruth Negga as Lady Ty. And Michaela Coel as Beverly Brook. And Sophie Okenodo as Mama Thames. And Yasmin Paige as Lesley May.

I think it is interesting that the show has seemed to back away from Diane being such a dark character and yet double down on Dre being so dismissive of Junior. It is like they are finding it hard to balance. No way was Dre that mean to Junior til this season. In fact he spent a lot of S1 & S2 trying to de-Geek junior and to make him a bit more hood. He was definitely invested in Junior. It has only been three seasons, but I didn't realize how young Marcus Schreiber looked when the show first started. Good selection of flashbacks. And count me in as one who wonders how Maya Rudolph would have been as Santa Monica? I feels like it was written for her almost. But I did like Rashida in this. I especially liked the dance party and how they joked about Alicia's prayer hands texting. I totally relate. I taught my dad how to text and all my siblings regret it because the man never met an emoji he didn't like. I hope we continue to see more of Bow's side of the family.

My favorite installment so far. The writing in this one is razor sharp. Man, Coco is a little tragic but damn she is a scrappy survivor. I went into this one not feeling Coco at all and very sympathetic to Sam's POV and came away with a deeper appreciation for Coco and appreciating both their perspectives.

I have nothing really to say about this episode except that Peppermint lip sync killed me. Eating her earring, doing the robot, that damn gun move in perfect sync with the song!?!?!? Yeah, call the preacher cuz I am DECEASED! Best lip sync since Chi Chi's "And I am Telling You..." last season. Will land in my person top ten.

I would love it if it were Eddie. And if so, then his fixation on Iris becomes so much more than just about making Barry suffer. But... the only off note is Killer Frost's reaction to him. If it were Eddie then the look of reverence she gives him when he reveals himself is all wrong. Caitlyn barely ever said two words to Eddie. It would make more sense if she had given him a look of surprise and then appreciation like, "oh this is too good not to be involved in." or some smart-ass smirk or something. But maybe that is just because of DP's acting choices not being great? Speaking of, I hate how dime store Eeeevil she makes Killer Frost. The sing-song voice is villain acting 101. So overdone and obvious. It is bad enough that she turns immediately evil instead of just cold, but then she had to even crank that up so that is it over the top. Theoretically KF should have been a real interesting character, but instead she is a cartoon. Odd because the Earth-2 version of KF was not this mustache-twirly. Maybe because DP was having more fun with her and not trying to infuse her with all this angsty meaning and what-not.

Loved the movie, really liked this first episode. Captures the feel of the movie so well. So far the tv-version actors are doing a great job of being very reminiscent of the movie-version actors. Well.... the guy who plays Troy is the same actor. But I like the actress who plays Sam. She captures all the complexities of that character so far. I love how it immediately and effortlessly defined all the different groups within the black college community and their philosophies. SO I agree you don't need to see the movie because it does bring you up to speed pretty quickly. I howled at Defamation. Howled!! Man, I need to check twitter to see if Shonda Rhimes said anything. Looking forward to the rest of this.

Man, this show is so schizo. It feels like there are three different shows all happening at once. My favorite is Justine/Rhys/Ben and now Troy!! I love Troy. I like their crime solving capers and the chemistry between them is fun. Ben is way more interesting with this crew than he is with Alice. My second favorite is anything surrounding Margot. Although I have never liked Felicity and groaned when she showed up, even being around Margot elevates her. Tessa has grown on me. I hated her at first but I am really liking how they are integrating her into the cast and I lover her interactions with Margot. And Finally, I think Alice is being eclipsed in her own show. Everything around her feels so fractured. Val barely even has any face time Danny running behind Margot like a puppy (as awesome as she is) just feels wrong. I just don't feel any chemistry between Alice and Ben at all. And the fact that her firm seems to exist only for Margot further seems to make her feel like a supporting player. The Ethan stuff has finally made Alice's storyline interesting to me.

I agree with this so much. As much as I was dreading the fall out from this horrible storyline, I have to admit it feels like they pulled themselves out of a headlong fall and managed to land somewhat gracefully. I like that it was really all about Maggie and Meredith and in the end Nathan was after all that was a nonentity. IMO, Meredith was the more childish one in this situation because an adult would have simply said 9 months ago -- "I am already sleeping with him." Done and done. Maggie definitely gets to feel some type of way in this situation. Those worms were the most disgusting things. I think I gagged. And now I am so paranoid, I think I am going to damn near parboil any fruit or vegetable I get. LOL.

Up until this week I would have said "I don't hate watch shows" but now I am going to have to say Stitchers. I started watching it because the premise was rather interesting, I like Sci Fi-is stuff and it stars one of my girl crushes, Salli Richardson-Whitfield. But oh, God. It is just.... not good. Actually it is kinda terrible I couldn't look away. Mainly because my HULU is on auto play and I was stuck on my couch with a broken ankle and extreme apathy. The biggest problem is the main character is a such a wooden actress. I don't know her name, never saw her in anything before but she is awful. Also her character is such a fucking special snowflake! Gah. She goes from being a college student recruited to act as a conduit in experimental and highly secretive project by the NSA because her brain chemistry can handle seeing into the minds of dead people to actually going out into the field like an actual agent and handling interrogations all by the second season? Plus she has major daddy issues. It was really rather horrible and yet I couldn't look away.

Good lord. They are really going to try to do the Wheel to Time series? And yes, I agree that the success of AGOT makes this seems plausible but the scope of WOT feels so much bigger somehow. And are they gonna throw HBO levels of money at it though? This is funny because I think that is when I gave up on the books. I couldn't keep track of all the new characters being introduced after book 4, and I reading it in real time so the wait between books exacerbated that. Though I do hear that after RJ died and Brandon Sanderson came in to write the last two books, they were pretty tight. Which isn't surprising, Sanderson's own series are really tight and inventive.

I agree not the best crafted story. I mean, why not just ask her dad who owned the guns? And you're right why would the terrorist come to the US to kill these women? And how the heck can they so easily infiltrate a party and kill a woman so no one notices her behind all the liquor? also how did they know who they were? Did the women do this before? I thought this was the first time? This was all plot to put Percy into jeopardy to either 1) write Shalita Grant off the the show or 2) use it as a catalyst to make LaSalle realize his feelings. Absent that though, it was nice seeing them work together and tone down on Gregorio.

That assumes that the three women's planned storylines were all going to require the same amount of presence and commitment, though. Or that their maternity experiences were all the same or they all happened at the the most inconvenient time in their respective story-lines. There could have been a lot of extenuating circumstances that worked against them doing anything major with Jo's husband storyline. Maybe the timing of her particular pregnancy was at the least convenient time for shooting schedules? If it was going to be a long, ongoing arc with a lot of time she would need to commit, maybe just she wasn't physically up to long gruelling shoots? Or maybe the nature of the storyline was such that they simply couldn't conveniently shoot her behind strategically placed items for weeks and weeks on end? Although Ellen Pompeo has not confirmed, it seems like maybe her third baby was also a via a surrogate? In which case the logistics of shooting Meredith would not be the same. There was no pregnancy to hide or shoot around. And her absence may not have been as long a duration. Meredith was not the center of any storyline except the (gag) triangle, but rather a supporting character in Alex's. And it is probably the reason why the Mer/Nathan thing isn't working because rather than being a real thing that was well developed over time the (gag) triangle, just became a series of odd scenes of Nathan cornering Meredith in rooms to talk about it. It just seems to me that given the amount of build up they were giving her storyline and the supposed importance of it, it just wasn't something they could drop random scenes into. If I were a Jo fan I would prefer they took their time and did the story some justice instead of throwing in some janky scenes here and there that would ultimately make the story come off looking thrown together.

I gave up on Cornwall back in the late 90s with Unnatural Exposure. Kay had become unbelievable, her love life eye roll worthy and Lucy had become this uber, awesome, sexy Goddess. I couldn't take it anymore. And it pains me that I still remember all this almost 20 years later. I gave up on Janet Evanovich (solo) sometime around Book #9 of the Stephanie Plum series. I couldn't take her endless waffling between Ranger and Joe and the stories became more manic and less naturally funny, imo. However I still adore the Fox and O'Hare series she co-writes with Lee Goldberg. I gave up on Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake around book #14 where so many chapters devolved into describing what black bondage gear the various characters were going to wear to their confrontations and it became clear that all Anita had to do to vanquish her enemies was to have sex. And then Her Merry Gentry series followed the same path and I gave up on that one in Book #7. Interestingly these two came out within a year of each other. This was particularly painful since the early books in each series, especially the Anita Blake series were really good. I gave up on Anne Rice once she started championing every special snowflake author who got butthurt over bad reviews and co-signed on her fans to harass reviewers.

That feels like my thought as well. It feels obvious that they had been planning for Jo's husband's story arc. And even the Maggie/Mer/Nathan (gag) triangle might have been a victim of this. It just seems like those stories got a bit derailed by the actresses' availability. And given how Camilla, Ellen and Caterina all had to be out at various times and places, trying to create any longer story arc that involved any one of them and planning shooting schedules for them and the rest of the cast probably became a logistical nightmare. Pre-shooting scenes can only take you so far if the actors aren't available for re-shoots or specific sets have to be redone or script changes for earlier episodes occur. It is probably why we are seeing so many bottle episodes and episodes with smaller groups or one-off contained stories and fore-fronting characters whose actors are more readily available.

Yes, I this is true. My bigger issue is that in addition to all that, there also needed to be a dangerous under the-hood vibe that let us the viewers know that the unassuming attractive guy was just his mask and underneath there was a lot more going on. And for me, Krause's simply doesn't bring all that to the table. I spent all last season having a hard time buying Ben at all because I don't think Krause sold him as this urbane con artist who is undone by real love for the first time. He was never acting in double layers. He simply never gave off that edge, ever, even under his every-man looks. I mean he could still be handsome just not movie-star-lantern-jawed handsome like Ethan and still seem a little dangerous. Instead I just kept coming away with the overwhelming sensation that he'd be more appropriate as the nice guy that Alice would throw over for Ben. I mean he's been part of this criminal organization for at the very least sixteen years and some of that should peek through. But it doesn't in his performance. Contrast with Sonya Walger who is not a drop dead beautiful woman, but like Krause is very attractive and yet her Margot manages to let that under-the-hood dangerous vibe of someone who has been conning people as a lifetime job peek through. Added to that she effortlessly shifts from the murderous head of a crime organization to a sometimes vulnerable woman who was in love with Ben (probably still in love with Ben). If Krause had been able to tap into even half of what Walger does, I'd be 100% sold on Ben. But he doesn't, imo. Also contrast to the actor who plays Ethan who in just two episodes managed to sell sincerity and doubt. I was always (almost!) convinced he was innocent. But yeah not really sure. And I think the actor did a great job of adding that dual layer. In the flashbacks, I thought Alice was the more toxic of the two.

I always thought Peter Krause was a terrible casting choice. I find the actor who plays Ethan so much more believable as the suave con artist that Ben was supposed to be last season. Kinda glad that he was proven not to be a murderer because it means (I hope) he stays around. If they want to keep Ben around they can always pair him back up with Margo. She still seems to be carrying a torch for him and now they have a kid together.

IMo, This was not a bad episode per se. As a bottle episode focusing on two doctors responding to a critical medical emergency on an airplane it was actually ok. What makes it not that great is that it was done in service to furthering the bland Meredith/Nathan romance. So far none of their interactions has made me long for them as a couple. Or made me eager to see them together. Meredith acts like she is doing Nathan a favor by even looking at him half the time. The other half of the time her mixed signals make me acutely uncomfortable. One the one hand she keeps telling him 'no' and yet on the other, when he insists on ignoring her 'no' she gives in to him sexually. I honestly don't see what he sees in her? I like Meredith generally as a character, despite her many flaws. But she is giving off absolutely nothing that should make Nathan so enamored. So it makes the entire romance feel forced. Like the recap said, the only thing all the great flashbacks with Derek did was make you remember how good she and Derek were together and how much this present relationship just pales in comparison.

Or at least having pancakes! I never watched The Chappelle show during its heyday except for two times. You got it, when Charlie Murphy told his true Hollywood stories of Prince and Rick James. Even just thinking about these two episodes has me giggling uncontrollably. RIP Charlie.

This is so true. And usually the Head Henchman is somehow cruelly betrayed by the Crime Lord just before he dies. Like they are both running for he helicopter on the roof top helipad of their crime lair and Head Henchman is holding off the good guys so Crime Lord can get away and when Head Henchmen follows him onto the helipad, Crime Lord cold shuts the door in his face and the helicopter takes off, leaving Head Henchmen to die in a hail of bullets.

Scandal hit is 100 episode mark and they had a sit down/oral history with the cast, Shonda Rhimes and various ABC executives. Some interesting tidbits: - even though the role of Olivia Pope was inspired by Judy Smith (a black woman) and she was an early consultant, the list of actresses ABC presented to Shonda were all white with Connie Britton at the top of the list. - None of the actors they originally had in mind for President Fitz wanted the role because they wouldn't be the star - Washington felt a lot of pressure to do well in the ratings because of the first bw being in a leading role of a drama series in 30 something years - They talk about Papa Pope's 'Twice as good to get half as much' speech to Olivia and how non-black viewers received that on social media versus how black viewers received it. Anyway, fun read...