Wax Lion

Last night's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rebecca made the news in a good way and got some nice attention from her mother. Rebecca hoped that meant her mom would be sending her rugelach, which she explained to her friend was a delicious dessert. It wasn't until the end of that conversation that I figured out she wasn't talking about how amazing arugula was as a dessert. I mean, I love good arugula (so hard to find some that's peppery and not just bitter AF) and for a moment I thought the joke was that West Covina was a part of California where people didn't know what arugula is but it would be challenging to turn that into a dessert.

Tonight Damien debuts on A&E and it sounds like it adds a new wrinkle on the reboot/remake/continuation debate. From what I can gather, the series is a sequel to The Omen but reboots everything from there. There's a character Ann, who wants to groom Damien to be the antichrist. In the movie sequel, there was a character Ann who turned out to be secretly protecting Damien. The characters have different last names, but I'm curious if the same name and role makes her an homage or a rebooted version.

He discussed it before, he was a Clinton supporter until her campaign made moves he found disingenuous and plain wrong, like those comments that were criticized as race-baiting and siding with McCain on a gas tax holiday being a solution to high gas prices (IIRC he savaged McCain for the position before Clinton took it, so it was a major disappointment). His criticisms of Clinton was always very substantive. They were also bitterly disappointed because I don't think he expected Clinton to pull some of the things she did once Obama started winning. Thankfully, Clinton has mostly avoided repeating those mistakes.

The CW is a lot better than the reputation its Gossip Girl days would lead. It's got one show with a mostly-PoC cast, Jane the Virgin. It's also got several shows with a pretty strong PoC supporting cast: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (only the second show with an API romantic lead), iZombie, The Flash, Arrow, The Originals, Legends of Tomorrow, The 100. These aren't Vampire Diaries-style problematic tokenism. Shelby was on Nickelodeon. Cable has been ahead in terms of diversity for a while, especially channels aimed at younger viewers. Thanks for clarifying that history... but does Mr T and Tina count as an Asian-American family sitcom? I thought it was a buddy comedy with an Asian-American lead. I think I get where you're looking at this. A "family sitcom" is a pretty specific kind of show. There are plenty of family sitcoms with white families, a good number with African-American familys (a number of them short-lived Cosby Show clones or produced by Tyler Perry). Honestly. I'm struggling to think of a latino family sitcom that lasted more than a season (USA had Sanchez of Bel Air while Fox never aired The Ortegas but sold it internationally). Outsourced is a workplace comedy, Agents of SHIELD is a superhero drama... etc. All that inclusion is more than welcome but the family sitcom is a particularly important genre. ETA: One thing I like about FOTB is that it's not just a family sitcom, it's also a period comedy like Happy Days or That 70s Show. Is that the first time a show like this focused on a PoC-led cast?

This show is great at subtle burns. A few weeks ago there was the Terry Richardson stand-in (in the "Put Yourself First" number). I don't think it' was a coincidence that Tom Selleck came up in an episode that also featured a song about celebrities stealing water, even if the joke wasn't directly about Selleck's water stealing. It took a few times for me to realize BJ Novak was saying "Back to the old ecstasy factory" I kept hearing "Lexus-C factory" and couldn't figure out the joke.

I had a hard time accepting the politics of Jack and Bobby. I liked the pilot but (IIRC) the second episode revealed that President McCallister was basically McCain, except when some dirty tricks got pulled on him he quit the party and won as an independent. So soon after the 2000 race -- a lesson on how third party candidates usually get in the way of their "side" winning -- that just made the show too ridiculous to buy. Plus, I hate it when TV shows borrow that transparently from real history, adding a lot of wish fulfillment. Then I read Salon going after it for Lahti's character being a strawman liberal fool and felt encouraged not to revisit it.

Have you seen the Tumblr blog Literally Unbelievable? It's a collection of comment threads where people mistake The Onion as true, mostly right wing freakouts with the occasional liberal. One Onion article that generated several posts was one about Planned Parenthood opening an abortionplex where women can make a fun, luxurious day out of getting their abortion. The article is really over-the-top and there's post after post of different comment threads where people are "See! It's true! Even the liberal media is reporting on this!" It's just sad. I enjoyed it when the presidents got more and more parsed, it started to sound like ratings press releases, "Funny Comedy was Monday's #1 new comedy!" ... then you think about it and realize there's two new comedies airing on Monday and the other show airs on the same network after the one in the press release. And those "presidents" were still wildly inaccurate.

Does that apply to all the female leads? I love the Emma Peel run but I never got to the Honor Blackman, Venus Smith and Tara King eras.

Back in the 80s, there were a lot of happy soap couples who dealt with their childrens' troubles or supported each other through career challenges. Also, in the Luke/Laura aftermath, they often battled crime together. I miss the idea that couples could be interesting that way.

Equal time still exists. A few NBC stations had to carry Kasich (and someone else) ads because of Trump's SNL appearance but it affects broadcast not cable and individual stations had to be dealt with, so it's a lot of effort for a small amount of time (technically equal but NBC isn't required to have all the other candidates host SNL, just for any station that gets complaint to give an equal amount of time, after hosting SNL, the candidates that applied got a 30 second ad run repeatedly for the same length of Trump's screen time). I used to be a regular MHP viewer but then my schedule got too busy. Lately I've been wanting to catch an episode but whenever I try to set a recording, it's been preempted. It's sad to lose one of TV's smartest shows.

Arg. I keep losing my post. I think they've got the set up for White Josh being tired of being around gaybros and wanting to be around someone who sticks around and clean up after a party. He's at that age where he's craving some stability but not everyone else his age is feeling the same way. I want to try to make a corned beef enchilada now.

Thanks, Kromm, I've been waiting for that casting announcement. I have to admit, I was expecting more fun stunt casting. Since it's a one-off special, they could have gotten some bigger names. (I was hoping for June Brown for Mrs Slocumb just to get a EastEnders castmember in there, since the late Wendy Richard who plays Ms Brahms was part of the original EastEnders cast).

That's why he looked familiar! I was so bummed when Huge got cancelled and we never got to see Alistair deal with being trans. Wow. That's just a totally different take on Breaking Bad. Walt got pretty unsympathetic quickly. Sure, he was mostly being shitty to worse people, but it was clear Walt was just awful by the fifth episode and that his family was frequently paid the price for Wait's inability to deal when he wasn't being fawned over for his genius. He was frequently blind to how much he hurt the people he claimed to love (nevermind the hurt his drugs caused) and care about. "Bubbly Walter White" describes Rebecca perfectly, especially when all she can see is that she'll be spending time with Josh. I think Rebecca is the kind of smart person who is great at memorizing a lot of details/rules (very useful in law) and extremely skilled at bullshitting her way through things. In New York, she was probably an amazing lawyer because she had a completely unsatisfying personal life (and probably enjoyed being at the office just by virtue of the office being less awful than the rest of her life) but now she's seeking a satisfying personal life and she doesn't know how to do that without bringing in her work skills. Those are the only things she knows how to do well and it combines horribly with her horrible social awareness. And it doesn't help that she has an enabler at the office with Paula. The only person telling her no is Darryl and he's not a strong advocate for anything. I think we were supposed to take that they had a lot of drinks presuming they were all free. They guys seemed pretty drunk by the end and these seem like people who have pretty high tolerance, drinks can add up fast.

Unfortunately it's not on their YouTube channel but Last Week Tonight just did a great "Why is this still a thing?" about Hollywood whitewashing, mixing it with the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, arguing that you can't say "There are so few Oscaar-worthy performances by PoC" and while also giving PoC roles to white actors. And on a movie tangent, in a lot of ways I think I'd enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany's but what little I've seen of Mickey Rooney's role just makes me feel shitty. ETA: Looks like they did upload the segment. https://youtu.be/LyrqsFRb2r8

Haven't we already got this from ABC? Fresh Off the Boat, American Crime, Blackish and Quantico didn't come from Shondaland. If ABC does manage to get more diverse it'll be hard to separate what to credit to the new boss and what to credit to what seems to be audience demand (ABC's big failures this season seems to be less-diverse shows like Blood & Oil). Now if only we could have gotten Fresh Off the Boat without Eddie Huang involved.

My biggest disappointment in life is that this hasn't matched reality. It takes real dedication to go to the same bar/coffee house/pub/restaurant so often that the regulars and staff befriend you. The gang from Cheers must have been really unhappy with their home lives. I've been wondering if this is a cliche on British soaps, too, when we see the entire neighborhood hanging out at the local pub every night. It's pretty rare for someone to go to a different pub because they have a friend who lives more than a few blocks away on these shows. Then again, on Corrie and EastEnders no one ever gets a job that's more than a short walk away, so when the gang from the office decides to go out for the same drink afterward, they have the same neighborhood pub.

I've been thinking more about remake vs. reboot since I've started watching Metastasis, the Colombian version of Breaking Bad. I guess for the most part TV remakes happen when you move a show from one country to another. A remake tries to stay pretty close to the original, usually because that's how they're trying to get people to watch. In a reboot, the twists are the hook to get people to watch. So I guess it comes down to the marketing. A remake promises to update the familiar for another region or a new time while a reboot promises to play with that familiarity, like how JJ Abrams' Star Trek has Uhura romantically involved with Spock. That's supposed to be surprising based on what audiences expect out of the original versions of the characters. A remake would stop at the point where it characterizes' Kirk' hacking the Kobayashi Maru exercise as douchy, not clever.

My husband and I were discussing Saul's money situation in Omaha. I figured Jimmy still has money from working with Walt left over but he's so driven by fear of the cartel coming after him, he's focused on staying under the radar. He's miserable living simply but he's afraid of bring any attention to himself. He could probably make better money running cons, but that would risk drawing unwanted attention if he cons the wrong person. He could also afford to live better, but that might bring attention to himself, too. I figured he probably has more money but he wants to make sure he can afford to go on the run again in case he is found by the cartel. Basically, he's in such fear of being found that he's suppressing every instinct that makes him Saul. As for Breaking Bad spoilers/easter eggs, so far I think BCS has done a good job. Saul's fate at the end of Breaking Bad is part of the concept but they've handled it in a way where you don't need to know the details. The discussion we've had about how much money he has probably is a sign that Breaking Bad left Saul's fate unclear enough that knowledge of Breaking Bad isn't really helpful. You need to know that Saul fled Albuquerque and now lives in Omaha. So far, the BB callbacks are nice but they don't affect your understanding of BCS. Knowing Zafir Anejo taquila's role on Breaking Bad doesn't really change your understanding of Jimmy and Kimmy's con. Knowing their mark appears on Breaking Bad doesn't add any meaning to that story, either. It just makes the Abq of BB/BCS more lived-in. They're cool extra touches but if you don't spot them, you're fine. BTW, did anyone recognize the resort where Jimmy was staying?

I've watched two episodes of Metastasis on Netflix and so far I'm enjoying it. So far it works for me, but you've got to look at it as its own thing that took inspiration from Breaking Bad. I'm debating if I'm going to watch the third episode or watch it side-by-side with the corresponding Breaking Bad episodes because I spent the second episode of Metastasis thinking the events happened an episode or two later on Breaking Bad. I'm hoping they mixed up the pacing. The telenovela format means they don't have to stick to Breaking Bad's season arcs. I really like Jose Miguel Rosas. One advantage to a remake like Metastasis is that the people involved know the full arc for the characters. The guy who plays Jose feels like he knows how Jesse changes over time . You see glimmers that he could become the more competent accomplice of later in the series, even though right now he's happy being a dumbass. Early on Jesse was just a dumbass, Jose is a smart guy but a dedicated slacker. Similarly, I hope Cielo's early arc won't make her the funstopping nag Skyler was. One twist in the first episode is that meth is new to Colombia and part of Walt's motivation is that no one has successfully manufactured crystal in Colombia. All the manufacturers that the law has caught, so far, have been from the USA or Mexico and the meth made so far has been powder. Jose is the rare Colombian who knows how to cook meth. That said, it seems like Colombian health insurance is as bad as the US. With the surviving drug dealer, Jose suggests they drop him off to the hospital who will let him die without getting any care because he doesn't have insurance. The house that Jose lives in is HUGE. It's at least three stories with the space to have an elegant staircase. Jesse's family seemed well off, but Jose's house looks like a McMansion from the inside.

Also the young, best exemplified by how the ID requirements in Texas' law excludes student IDs but makes a gun permit a valid ID for voting.

I'm thrilled John Oliver took on voter ID bills and the fake issue of voter fraud. My one nitpick is I wish he mentioned the cases where a voter ID law was enacted and then the GOP-run government shut down DMV offices in Democratic-leaning districts. Maybe now that Oliver has discussed it people will pay attention?

I definitely wouldn't call ST:TNG a reboot. It featured new characters in the same setting as the previous series, albeit later in time. The JJ Abrams movie was a reboot, since it featured new versions of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, etc.. who were changed in ways to give a few twists to what people might expect. TNG wasn't a reboot as it took place in the same universe as Kirk's Star Trek adventures and even featured a few crew members from the Enterprise.

I see it the other way around. A reboot is when it's a new continuity, making use of new versions of the core characters and the premise but usually with a few changes. Of course it's confusing because Hollywood producers and entertainment press aren't consistent in how they use those terms. The first time I've seen reboot used was in comics. The Legion of Super-Heroes was once a very popular franchise, but a creative team put together a new take on the title that was polarizing. It had some loyal fans but once those creators left, they lost those fans and couldn't get any of the fans who quit to come back. So they started fresh. New versions of all the familiar characters appeared but there were changes -- most notably, the big revelations couldn't be retold like they were still mysteries. So Hawaii Five-0 is a reboot. There's a Steve McGarrett but it's not the same Steve that Jack Lord played. He fills the same role Steve did in the original series but he's different in a lot of ways. The stuff that happened to the Jack Lord character is not part of the Alex O'Loughlin character's history. That history has been wiped fresh, like your computer's memory when you reboot it, but its supposed to be the same character.

As I recall, Obama was pretty clearly ahead among Democratic voters but it was close enough that the superdeligates were long seen as a danger to overturning the voice of voters/caucus goers. There was talk (talk that got quieter with time) that Clinton might fight for the nomination at the Convention with her superdelagates (instead she memorably released her delegates and encouraged them to support Obama). Obama didn't really outmaneuver Clinton, except that it was clear that if she challenged him for the nomination it would have torn the party apart (remember the PUMAs?) and handed the Presidency to McCain. I'm still seriously undecided in this race and I appreciate Rachel bringing up that the Democratic turnout is down. That's a serious issue and one factor I think about is that the Democratic nominee will have to be someone who can (like in 2008) counter Republcans' disenfranchement efforts and motivate voters to stand in line for hours to vote. To me, that's a major factor in assessing electability. Even though Sanders is drawing crowds, it looks like he's not bringing the first-time and young voters at the level of Obama.

That would be amazing. I hope Scott gets involved in one of Paula's schemes. (ETA: Like directly co-plotting not throwing a rock without knowing why.) Couple other touches I liked: - Rebecca breaking into Josh's phone was a great character moment, that she would know Valencia's birthday and the last 4 digits of Josh's SNN says a lot about how smart and obsessive she is. - Rebecca's drink in the last scene is a Mocha Loco. In a city with a large Asian population with enough people from Hawaii that's probably a pun on Loco Moco, a popular breakfast in Hawaii.. Nice touch.