Danielg342

Right. With walls so conveniently thick that the other characters won't hear your conversation at all even though parts (or even all of it) may pertain to them.

I remember Tom...he was one of the more interesting characters this show produced. I even followed Tom to the ill-fated spinoff. It still doesn't explain why Red chose the moment Liz joined the FBI to insert himself into her life. With Tom married to her, Red could get to her at any moment. Sure, their first meeting might be a bit awkward, but other than that, Red and Lizzie could still have a conventional familial relationship (at least as conventional as possible given the context of Red's character). There was nothing special about the moment Liz joined the FBI that would make Red want to choose that moment to come in to her life above all the other times that he could have done so.

Good to confirm the theory, even if it means little. I never liked the "Redarina" stuff, but not because of any transphobia (though part of me feels like the writers simply made Red a trans man in a vain attempt to be "hip"). It's because the mystery surrounding it falls apart for the same reason that it falls apart when we were wondering if Red was Liz's father- get a DNA test and you have your answer. Still, it doesn't do enough to give this show a purpose. So Red's Lizzie's mother. So what? Why did he decide to throw himself into Lizzie's life the minute she joins the FBI? Why didn't he do it sooner? Or at all? More importantly why should I even care that he's now in her life at all? Just because he's family doesn't cut it- he was absent from her life until she joined the FBI, which is not typical "family" behaviour, and then decides to do a 180 once Lizzie joins the FBI and insists she goes on a journey with him. Because...reasons. Reasons we don't know about. Reasons we should know about. Again, we don't have to know the answers for all the mysteries or even some of them...but if you want me to go on a journey to solve them, give me a reason to go on that journey. Or else I will not care about it.

You could run a toll booth there...it worked for others... Well, if it takes 15 minutes to get to Paris from New York, you're travelling at a speed that is roughly 24,000 km/h. Partway through that ascent to 24,000 km/h, you would have to reach the normal cruising altitude of international flights, which is 42,000 feet. Which means, according to the G-Force calculator, that most TV characters are now dead.

I think dropping the ball on Lizzie is what ultimately doomed this show. I have long criticized The Blacklist for failing to have a purpose, a reason to care for all the mysteries and intrigues the show presented us. Lizzie could have very easily been that vehicle. The Blacklist has hinted many times before Red flat out said it- far too late- in the S8 finale that he sees Lizzie as his successor. If Red had established that in the very first episode, then at least you can craft a series where Lizzie- and maybe even the rest of the FBI Task Force- has to make a choice, between staying within the law or straying from it. The mysteries can be viewed through this lens, where Lizzie's choice gets even more complicated when she realizes she has a familial connection to Red- but what that is, she does not know.

I have many, many emotions when it comes to the end of The Blacklist. On one hand, there's relief. Relief that this clunky, convoluted and ultimately stuffy series has finally reached its end. It beggared belief at the outset, and it beggared belief right until the end. On the other hand, the ending of this show feels like the end of an era. Along with Grey's Anatomy, The Blacklist was arguably the last serial TV show that was not only built for a wide audience but actually commanded one at one time. As TV's audience fractured due to streaming, so too did TV's resolve to make a serial with mass appeal, to the point where now no one is even trying. So the finale airs, and with it, becomes a relic of a time in TV history that is now lost, one that may never come back again. How did it end? Pretty much as it began, with more questions than answers. A strange mess that is every bit as puzzling as the man who is behind the show. At first, the scene of Raymond "Red" Reddington, gored to death by a bull in a field, feels anticlimactic. The greatest criminal in the world, a man who escaped detection for over thirty years, someone for whom many- both on the side of the law and those opposed to it- wanted to capture if not put a bullet in his head. How can Red escape his fate so many times under those circumstances, but be felled by an incident so innocuous that anyone could have fallen for that? It's then that I am reminded about one of the constant themes about this show- that if you have found Red, it's because he wants to you to find him. For what, we don't know- but we always knew there was a reason. Just like in the first episode, where Red "voluntarily" got arrested on Elizabeth Keen's first day to kickstart the series properly. Though we never really understood why he did what he did, we knew he got arrested because he had some unfinished business, business that somehow involved Lizzie. That will be the same thing here in Seville, in the south of Spain (at the other end of the country to Pamplona, where the "Running of the Bulls" actually takes place). For what, we don't know, but there has to be a reason why Red sent the FBI on a metaphorical wild goose chase through Washington all the way to the villa in Spain to that very specific field where he was found. Red even telegraphed, too, how he would die by taking with him the bull's skull, one that he felt was stolen and needed to be returned. In many respects, how carefully crafted this sequence is seems like the perfect cap to this series, which always presented itself as a carefully crafted sequence but it never quite got there. Even then, like in this episode, despite the clever and careful craft of this sequence, the more you look at it and poke holes in it, the more you are left wondering and questioning, resulting in not just intrigue, but frustration and confusion as well. Make no mistake, there was no part of the finale that made sense at all, and picking apart all the inconsistences and contrivances would take volumes of books to do. Just like the rest of the series...but, just like the rest of the series, it's arguable that little of it was ever designed to really make sense. There would always be questions, and questions upon questions, and the show wouldn't always answer those questions. Which made the show as infuriating as it was captivating. Much like the man himself who was behind the whole project from the beginning. Yet, that's what made it- and Red- special, and there may never be another character- or show- quite like this one ever again. So, good night Red. Good night indeed...and sleep soundly.

I'm going to copy and paste this (with some edits) from what I wrote in the "Oh HELL No!" thread because the winner of "TV Idiot of All-Time" to me will always be Fire Country's Bode Donovan Leone: I've seen a lot of moments on TV that made me irate, but none have ever made me so mad that I decided to quit watching a show. Until now. It's here I present the idiocy of the S1 finale of Fire Country. Before I begin, I may have a detail or a few wrong because FC's writers wouldn't know "consistency" if it hit them in the face. Anyway, the story goes like this: FC's main character is Bode (played by Max Thieriot, one of FC's executive producers and a co-creator), who once lived in the fictitious small California town of Edgewater until he made a choice that landed him in prison. To get his sentence reduced, he decides to volunteer for a state-run program where inmates are used to help fight fires. It's all gravy until he learns the program will send him to an inmate camp near his old hometown, where Bode has- supposedly- a ton of baggage. Anyway, Bode settles in at this camp and makes a best friend along the way, a man named Freddy (played by the electric W. Tre Davis). For reasons that don't need to be expanded upon (because it will make your head hurt), Bode becomes a model inmate and a shining star at the camp, and, wouldn't you know it, Bode gets a parole hearing at the end of S1. Meanwhile, Freddy is wrongfully convicted, because he couldn't provide his alibi that would take him away from the crime scene. Don't bother trying to figure out the details because the show didn't bother themselves. Anyway, two people agree to look into Freddy's case and they actually make progress. The first one was an inmate who was once a lawyer (and inexplicably killed off by the show) and the second was an Edgewater firefighter (named Eve) for reasons I still don't understand. While that stuff is going on, Freddy and Bode fight numerous fires and are quite good at their jobs. Along the way, they meet some vagabond who hands them a bag of cash (containing tens of thousands of dollars). Also along the way the inmate camp gets a new addition- a man named "Sleeper" (the show never gave him a name). Sleeper is heavily into drugs and drug running, and he continues his tricks at the camp. Bode tries to stop him, but Sleeper retaliates by trying to frame Freddy for the crime, but Bode foils that attempt. Should be the end of the story, but, like the one-dimensional villain that he is, Sleeper promises Bode that "this ain't over"...and, sadly, it's not. In the penultimate episode of the first season, Eve tells Freddy that, while she was able to find proof of his alibi, the courts are so backed up that the new trial date would only happen after his sentence concludes. So Freddy is resigned to his fate, even though going through with an appeal might actually benefit him (since he could clear his record). We get to the final episode. Bode's parole hearing is coming up. However, a complication arises in that Bode- somehow- tested positive for drugs. What drug we're not told. Bode knows right away that Sleeper had something to do with it, but no one believes him (except Freddy). That's not the only complication. Just before his parole hearing, an investigator comes up to him and accuses Bode of running a drug ring. Her only proof? Bode's failed test and that bag of money. This investigator also says that the delays in Freddy's appeal aren't due to a "court backlog" but the investigator's investigation, and if Bode would just fess up to running the drug ring, Freddy walks out of camp a free man. What does Bode do? Well, despite: Knowing the whole thing is a setup Invoking his right to an attorney Likely knowing the investigator has no actual proof that Bode ran a drug ring at the inmate camp (the show doesn't say that anyone else tested positive for "drugs", just Bode) The fact that Freddy's case is easy to solve, so the investigator can't hold up his appeal for that much longer The fact that Sleeper himself was caught red-handed dealing drugs since he was caught on camera doing so (the show did make that clear) Despite all that...Bode decides to use his parole hearing to fess up to his non-existent crime and go back to regular jail, just so Freddy can be released. The show tried to frame this as a "noble sacrifice", but all it did was make Bode look incredibly stupid. Bode knows a few more weeks' worth of investigating- proper investigating- would reveal Sleeper's involvement and Freddy gets to walk out a free man anyway. Plus Freddy could get a lawyer himself and get the investigator off his trail because the investigator has no proof that Freddy was involved at all, apart from being Bode's best friend. So why did Bode make his choice? I can only surmise it's because the writers- and Thieriot- wanted to have this big "angsty" moment where the writers think they're being clever by ripping away Bode's happy ending from under his nose. All so Thieriot make his best attempt at crying and looking sad (which occurred at the end of the episode) so he can get that Emmy. I can only hope the Emmy committee would look past that obvious pile of hubris. Could the show bounce back in S2 and make up for this metaphorical train wreck? Maybe, but the odds are not high. Bode's decision means that the same story that played in S1- where Bode had to repair all the bridges he burned in Edgewater- is going to play in S2, since his "confession" burned all those bridges again. Having sat through shows who have hit "the reset button" before, I know those narratives don't end well, so it's highly unlikely I'll return to this slog.

I mean...I suppose I could see why CBS might think FC is "franchise" material. It's unique in that it's a fire/rescue show set in a rural area instead of an urban one, so maybe having a spin-off that deals with a national firefighting service (like the Forest Service or a fictional agency that oversees state agencies like Cal Fire) or a firefighter service in another region could work. I'm already thinking Fire Country: Hurricane Alley would be a fun series. Though I am with you, @Lady Calypso, that any potential spinoff requires better writing and better showrunning than what got in FC. I'm ready to bail on the potential Mothership after the train wreck of a finale, so I already have my doubts about the viability of any future FC series. I wish them well, but they would need to do far better than Max Thieriot's effort to make other efforts worth my time.

This thread has missed S.W.A.T.'s "uncancellation" after much chicanery went around. It will now return for a seventh, but final, season. I watched the trailer too and...I don't know where to begin. I understand this is supposed to be a show that's about the "real" Jesus, portraying his life in a "realistic" way, showing how people would actually look at him and how the events in Jesus' life would have actually happened. Which is not a bad premise. I just think the producers of this show utterly failed. I could go on a rant about how much of a fool's game it is just to attempt to portray an "official" narrative of Jesus because of all the debates surrounding the historical Jesus, but I'm not sure it's fair to the show. I'm not sure they want to be a strictly "historical" piece, so, even though their narrative is horribly inaccurate, I'm not sure how relevant it would be to the analysis. What is relevant to the analysis is the show's decision to stock the entire cast with pasty white people (I don't care that several of the actors are actually not Caucasian, they still look the part). The people of Judea would have been darker skinned, though not necessarily black. Maybe some of them would have been as light as white people (depending on the job they had), but certainly not everyone. Then there's the accents...I don't quite get the choice to employ them. Sure, perhaps the producers wanted to emphasize Jesus' Semitic-ness by making him use a Semitic (i.e., Arabic, Hebrew, Egyptian, etc.) accent, but, with the Romans being played by people with distinctly American accents, the decision feels off. I think it should have been the other way around- use American-accented people for the Judeans (since the show is geared towards Americans, I think) because they're the people providing the narrative's point of view, and give accents to the foreigners like the Romans to emphasize their "foreign-ness". The real Romans issued all their decrees on stone slabs in Latin, and they didn't care if the local population could actually read what was decreed or not, so I don't think it would have been a bad idea to cast as Romans people who could provide that "snobby foreigner" accent. Most importantly- though I realize I'm just judging a trailer here, not a full episode- it feels like the show is incredibly wishy-washy. Jesus faces no struggles at all, and everyone is tripping over themselves just to bow down at his feet. Which is...not exactly "real" at all. I would imagine that if you are going to tell the "real" story of Jesus' life you would have to tell a story about someone who, at first, failed to draw people in but, as the series progresses, he gets better at it. I would also want to get a sense of the struggles Jesus would face going up against the Jewish elites who would rightly see him as a challenge to their authority. I mean, we're talking about the man for whom the word "martyr" was literally invented because of his story. Focusing on that inevitable tragedy- and how that tragedy inspired others- should be the focus on the series. Not some thinly-veiled Sunday service sermon.

That's likely why Hollywood does it that way- they're paying those actors a lot of money, so they need to find a way to use them. When it's a workplace show, it's not so bad because, naturally, those people would be in the same building anyway and even in real life you get people at work who say things to others that could- and probably should- have been E-Mails. When you're dealing with a family/friend type of show, it's not so realistic. Not because you'd never have family or friends who would rather say things to you in person rather than via text or an E-Mail, but because in real life most of us have friends and family who live so far from each other that it's just not feasible for those types of people to just show up on a whim every now and then. I mean, for me, other than the fact I live with my brother, my immediate family lives an hour away from me, my best friend is about a half-hour drive away and many of my other friends live similarly as far away. I know the names of one set of neighbours, but I'm not sure I'd call them my friends- they're more like acquaintances. My other neighbours I don't know their names and we barely talk. So the people in my life who should do the Kramer thing and come unannounced live too far to do that on a regular basis, and those who could be able to do that won't because they have no reason to (as we're not that close). The only time I ever experienced the phenomenon of a Kramer situation was when I was in university living at the dormitory, but that was a different environment. Even then, the people who came to my door and the people who I saw regularly weren't always my next door neighbours. In fact, they usually lived in a different building. It was still only a brief walk away but they weren't that close to me.

Well, I could see someone like Criminal Minds' Spencer Reid doing that because it's in his character to show off just how much he knows and excitedly brag about how smart he is, but Reid's an outlier. Gotham, at least, got it partly right. Harvey Bullock (played by the great Donal Logue) would always get annoyed with Ed Nygma when he didn't get to the point. Of course, Nygma wouldn't just recite technobabble and other stuff that's useless to the detectives- he'd also use riddles because...well, you know...

Here's another "doesn't happen on TV but happens in real life" moment- when a "major" crime or a very notorious criminal appears, you don't have one investigator or a small team of investigators hunting after the culprit for weeks on end. You usually have hundreds if not thousands of investigators all working on the same case and pouring through the evidence, usually with several agencies (both up and down the law enforcement food chain) getting involved. Yes, there's usually someone in charge of the investigation as well as someone designated to run point with the media (they may even be the same person) but the truth is, on such an important and urgent case, you don't have just one person looking at it. You have tons of people, because you need all those bodies to chase down every single lead you get. Which is another thing cop shows don't do a great job portraying- just how enormous the amount of possible evidence that a typical case requires. It's amusing to see crime shows depicting the heroes needing mere seconds to collect the required evidence from a crime scene or in a file, because that would never happen in real life. Yeah, I get it- it's not entertaining viewing to watch someone in a lab running several useless tests over many hours before they get to the one test that produces an actual shred of usable evidence. Or someone pouring over thousands of pages of files before they come across an apparent "smoking gun", which is almost never as clear cut as it is depicted on TV. However, that's reality. I didn't study law enforcement but I did study history, which requires collecting evidence (albeit for less, um, "dramatic" purposes). Many times you collect a lot of stuff and very little is actually usable. Often, nothing is of value. Historians routinely have to make educated inferences based on what they have, which isn't perfect and usually gets overruled by later evidence that comes to light- and that kind of stuff happens all the time. Investigators have to go through the same thing, albeit with much higher stakes than "who built this grand castle deep in the Amazon jungle?" Which is why investigators like to take their time, because better evidence can come that leads to a better conclusion. It's also why the courts exist, because prosecutors may believe they have enough evidence for a conviction but the courts are there to make sure they actually do. Maybe we need a cop show that's more about the detective's personal life than about solving crimes, because then you can get into the minutiae of police work without having to worry about solving a crime each week. It could be fun- seeing all the highs and lows, like how the detective handles impatient victims who wish they would solve the case faster, how the detective handles dropping everything to assist on a case his captain deems is an "urgent" case, how well the precinct handles "the feds" coming to town, etc. Then there would be the detective's family life or, more likely, lack thereof. It wouldn't have to be a big part of the series but, since it's based on the detective's life, it would have to be a part of it. I know there have been a few series that have explored elements of this stuff before (like The Wire) but I can't think of any that made an entire series about examining the actual day to day life of a detective. Perhaps that minutiae is too boring to explore because "nothing is happening", but perhaps it could be interesting as a countermeasure to all the "supercops" we do get. Just throwing that all out there.

I mean, sure, maybe some LEOs might try their luck at a cold case because they feel a personal connection to that case, but I can't imagine that, in doing so, they get so invested in the case that they feel their entire lives depend on solving it. "I have to do it for that little girl!" Yeah, OK...except that there are also many other little girls whose crimes are also unsolved, all over the world. Are you going to solve those cases too, or, as too often happens on TV, are you going to pretend those cases don't exist once your "personal" case is solved?

I'm not necessarily arguing that there aren't a lot of people who do wrong things and who are contemptible individuals. What I mean is that the vast majority of people don't necessarily see what they do as "bad". Meaning, when they do something wrong, they find a way to justify it, even if it really only makes sense to them. I'd like to have more crimes and criminals where the audience wonders if the police are, truly, arresting the "bad guys". I'm not talking about having criminals who are simply avenging their mother's death or are stealing to feed their kids. I'd like to see more storylines like what S.W.A.T. tried to do with The Emancipators. They were a criminal gang of impoverished individuals who struck at politicians who supported policies that they felt would hurt the poor. Since The Emancipators felt betrayed by "the system" they felt the only way to correct the problem is to take out those who were corrupting it, with the hope that politicians more amenable to their cause would come in to replace them. We can argue about whether or not The Emancipators really are sympathetic but that's not the point. You rarely have crime stories these days that take a critical look at the roles society, culture, politics, etc. play in creating criminals and the conditions for crime. You also rarely have criminals who are not cast as someone who is "different" from others in society, as if people are born criminals instead of being groomed that way because of their life experiences. You also rarely ever see the mechanics of law enforcement fail on TV, unless it's a "very special episode" or the show decides on some one-dimensional bureaucrats who are simply there to place arbitrary barriers that our heroes have to overcome. Our heroes may struggle to find the clues but they almost always find them and arrest the culprit before they can do something "really bad", with everything working out in the end. I don't need to waste a lot of pixels in talking about how untruthful that all is. Law enforcement agencies don't have enough resources and manpower to be able to solve every case that they get, so, like every other kind of "management" job (law enforcement pretty much is a management job), the LEOs have to prioritize the cases that they can solve and are most important to solve. If a case becomes increasingly difficult, they'll move on from it and focus on those that are easier, until that unresolved case becomes easier, if it ever does. ...and, while I'm sure there are lots of LEOs who are frustrated with the cases they don't solve, they don't tend to get too worked up about it. Just like every other job, there is only so much they can do so, once they've hit their limit, they're not afraid to move on. Which is all something that TV doesn't pay enough attention to. I mean, I understand that it's easier on an audience to follow one case to its conclusion than several all at once and I understand that it's just not interesting TV to see detectives doing little more than sitting around having their lunch (unless you're Barney Miller), but it makes people think law enforcement is easier than it looks. While I would appreciate a dramatic version of Barney Miller, I do feel like that kind of show would be difficult to write, since it would require a lot of organization, attention to detail and discipline that you don't normally get out of Hollywood writing staffs. So I'd like to have a crime show that, while still doing cases of the week, at least writes a few cases that the individual characters work on every now and then and don't solve until later in the season or maybe even several seasons later. Those cases don't even have to be exceptional cases with some madman causing chaos on the streets- they can be rather rudimentary cases, for which leads only crop up every now and then and the detective just needs to have the time and patience to finish the case. It would still not be totally realistic but it would at least be closer to reality than what we do get.

What bothers me most about cop shows these days- aside from the obvious points, which have been brought up and I won't repeat- is that, in this sea of grey cops who battle with how far they'll cross the line to catch the bad guy, you almost never get a criminal who is similarly grey. 99/100 the show portrays the criminal as someone who is unequivocally bad, without any room for error. Which obscures reality and may hurt actual crime fighting just as much as the "hero cop" does. We can debate how prevalent it really is, but I always believe that 99.5% of people are at least good-intentioned- meaning they don't always mean to do something wrong but, invariably at times, they do. How many stories do we have of drug dealers forced into the trade because they needed to get money to feed their families? Or someone who had a moment of weakness and found themselves in a bar fight in a night they wish they could take back? ...and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Now, I'm not saying that there are not people out there who do bad because they want to do bad, or that people who commit crimes shouldn't face consequences for their actions, because they should. What I'm saying is that we need to remember that it's not just the enforcement side of the law enforcement universe that is full of grey- so too is the world of those who break the laws. Not every criminal is some Snidely Whiplash twirling his moustache daring the cops to catch him- many criminals are people who simply made a bad choice, or were forced to make a bad choice because of circumstance beyond their control. It's time TV starts realizing that.

I knew Newsday was real, but it does surprise me they agreed to let Everybody Loves Raymond use their brand on air. Although most uses of brand names in fiction are legally protected, usually producers are wary of this kind of thing because of the multitude of issues that can arise by using a known brand. Perhaps Newsday contented themselves with Raymond because they knew the series was about Raymond's family life and any references to the company wouldn't likely go beyond jokes about typical everyday problems that would occur among staff at the newspaper. Maybe they'd think differently if Raymond was a work-com and not a family-com.

I honestly believe someone made a mistake in the editing room, because everything resolved without an explanation. Without warning, Hondo and Nichelle go from being absolutely terrified out of their minds about what is happening to both Charice and Vivian to Hondo being extremely apologetic with Charice over how strong his tone was with her. If what Charice was doing was "normal", the characters had an odd way of showing that. I mean, Hondo and Nichelle reacted like Charice had kidnapped Vivian, but then, later that day everyone's offering only the most basic of apologies and everything is OK? Something is missing.

"A disaster greater than the Hindenburg!" This clip has better visual quality, though it edits a few lines out and starts earlier (which I think provides needed context):

The difference between Michael Scott and Archie Bunker is that Michael operates from a base of obliviousness while Archie would operate from a base of defiance. No matter how many times someone tells him what he's doing isn't right, Michael just never "gets it", either because he's too stupid for it to register or he simply doesn't care. Archie, on the other hand, knows full well that others think what he does and says are wrong- he just refuses to acknowledge it. Archie's mentality is "I'm not wrong- everyone else is wrong!" Maybe it's just me but I'm not sure I'd want to follow a protagonist that doesn't have the capacity to grow, especially in a TV series. Static characters get tiring after a while. That said, when it comes to Arrested Development, the lack of growth by the Bluth family- outside of Michael and maybe his son- is by design. AD is about Michael and how he navigates the various scandals and difficulties his family gives him, so the Bluths not learning from their mistakes is one of Michael's many frustrations. I'm not sure the Bluths are comparable to Archie since the Bluths are really the support characters while Archie is the main guy of All In The Family.

My bad. Though it's no surprise it's so successful since it sounds like it's great at challenging the viewer.

Without getting into details (and I won't provide them, so anyone who thinks it, don't ask), I do have personal experience with the arbitrary nature of cancel culture. I'm sure there are others who have similar experiences. Plus, while I don't disagree with the idea that offenders make an artform out of "how dare you call me offensive!", I'd reckon at least a few of them moan about how arbitrary cancel culture can get. Those types let "whataboutism" run rampant, and some, I would say, have legitimate gripes. More importantly, I think a modern Archie Bunker only works if he has the capacity to grow. He would have to be someone who at least slowly understands that what he does and say is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/etc. and would mellow out as the series progresses. Not just because I think watching a character who is a bigot for the sake of being a bigot week after week would get tiring but also because Norman Lear himself gave Archie the capacity to grow. Could Archie work today if he was simply a bigot who mellowed out? Maybe. I feel that might be a difficult sell, and I feel such a thing is tired anyway. Hollywood never does deep dives into what makes someone like Archie who he is and I think having Archie get "cancelled" would be a great way to do that. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think Michael Scott ever come close to doing or saying the things Archie did. Though, maybe you're right- if Scott were a character now, he might complain about pronouns and that kind of stuff. Which is the problem with many of today's sitcoms- they just don't want to challenge ideas and perceptions or be "daring" anymore. They just play it way too safe. Which is not the way to have a successful comedy. Successful comedies are successful by having elements of commentary, because parody and satire are forms of commentary. In the '90s, even lighthearted fare like Home Improvement and Seinfeld had their moments diving into social and cultural issues, which helped make their stories more real and give the humour more meaning. Who is doing that today? Black-ish ended in 2022. Maybe The Neighborhood is carrying the torch but then, who else? They're all retreads of the work-coms, family-coms or friend-coms that we've all seen before, without realizing that the ones we did see before still challenged conventions as we knew them. S.W.A.T. got political in the fourth season, but I'd say they found a way to do it right. Before I get to that, I believe the problem with "getting political" is when shows get preachy. No one wants to feel like they're being "talked down" to, and, quite frankly, watching someone rant for twenty or thirty minutes isn't usually very entertaining. Too many writers, I think, try too hard to "make their point" that they don't put in the proper work getting their point to hit home. S.W.A.T. took a different path. They tackled racism by talking about the issue from a personal perspective. We didn't have characters who simply made rants about how bad racism is- we had characters who talked about their own negative experiences with racism, such as Hondo Sr.'s sad tale of getting beaten up by cops even though he was "just a kid coming home from band practice". Then we had Hondo Jr. rectify how, as a Black man, he can still be a police officer himself while so many of his colleagues mistreat other Black people simply on the basis of their race. Junior and Senior had wonderful moments trading barbs where Junior insisted that he had to "be the change he wanted to be" while Senior insisted that the police could never change. It all worked, because there was a personal element to it that allowed people in the audience to relate and understand the issue from that personal level, and there was even that hint of a debate over whose perspective- Senior or Junior- was the right one. If you're going to tackle politics, I think it's paramount to tackle it from a personal level so it can be relatable, and I think you have to challenge the audience and make them think. Politics comes with a lot of nuance and lots of grey areas, so it's important that writers at least understand that. Sure, their biases will always seep through- there's no way to avoid that- but good writers find a way to counteract that to a degree.

I realize I don't have the luxury to be able to view All In The Family in its original context, since the show literally ran before I was born (apologies to everyone who now feels old because of that statement). I've seen some episodes and read about it where I can, but I can only understand it through the lens of a modern man whose only understanding of AITF's time is from what I have learned about it, which will always be inferior to those who actually experienced it in its original timeframe. Anyway, my understanding of AITF and Archie Bunker in particular is that Archie is a man who feels that society and culture has passed him by and he struggles to fit in with how the times are at his point in life. In the 1970s, that struggle is defined as realizing that racism and sexism, among other things, are actually wrong. Today, I think the struggle is about coming to grips with cancel culture and navigating that minefield, since- as I said before- we mostly now agree about the basics of what is right and wrong, we just quibble about the details. I see this in a two-pronged approach. One, I find cancel culture can get quite random and you never know who will get offended by what and how deeply they'll be offended by it. This creates an environment where everyone is hyper-sensitive to anything that could be remotely offensive. Secondly, I think society struggles with the idea that most people are good natured and never intend to cause harm but sometimes people slip up. This is related to the first point, since there is a lot of confusion about what is and isn't considered "offensive". No one wants to "cross the line" but they have no idea how they can accomplish that when no one knows where the line actually is. So I think of a modern Archie in that context. Someone who, ironically, wishes it was the 1970s because he believes back then it was easier not to "cross the line" than it is now. I also intended to craft a character that could grow and develop, not just for the obvious reason where that kind of character is more interesting than one who does not grow and develop but also because I understand Archie himself mellowed as AITF soldiered on. He might not have completely given up his racist viewpoints but he did somewhat become more accepting of other races as the series moved on. Which is why I think a modern Archie is someone who "made a mistake" and thus has to come to terms with that. He would start off being angry and defiant, not believing he did anything wrong but he'd eventually realize that he did make a mistake and this show of remorse is what opens the door for an eventual re-acceptance back into society. Because today people are not concerned about society now telling them what used to be "okay" isn't okay anymore. Today people are more worried about making sure what they are doing is "okay" and are worried about slipping up and not fulfilling that standard. So any show that makes social commentary- as AITF did- would have to comment on that.

Mileage will vary but I think of Family Guy as a poor imitator of All In The Family, hence my poor attempt at a joke. I posted what I did before I went to bed, so maybe a few things didn't come out right. I basically agree with on this. I'm also adding that those who moan about Archie Bunker supposedly getting away with what he did and said don't realize that what Archie did and said was part of a carefully constructed character who represented a moment in time. A moment that does not exist today. I would disagree, generally, on that. I don't believe, straight up, you could have a character who simply makes fun of a non-binary person because that person's pronouns are "xir/xe". I do believe you could have an episode where one character genuinely forgets the non-binary person's pronouns and, in a misunderstanding blown out of proportion, the non-binary person flies into an outrage before realizing the other person really didn't mean any harm. The offending party could have a subplot in that same episode where he wonders where xir's anger comes from and "what's so special about being called 'xir' anyway?" before he realizes pronouns are important and he should do better to get them right. That kind of thing is very topical for today. Black-ish, for another, had an episode where a protest about representation among dolls went off the rails and where the main character had to come to terms with his own subtle inherent racism ("beige rage" if I recall it correctly). Maybe it only works because it's Black-ish but the episode highlighted the limits of outrage culture as well as telling people that they may have problematic tendencies that they perhaps don't realize. Further, I'm with @Kel Varnsen that an Archie type nowadays could be also along the lines of a sitcom version of The Colbert Report. Heck, I'd go even further. You could have a show about a Stephen Colbert type character named John Smith who has a show, "The Smith Show", on a FOX News-type network called "The Howler" (as their parent company is the Coyote Network). Smith's show isn't just cable's most watched show but also TV's most watched show, with his related podcast also topping the charts. However, due to his popularity, Smith likes to take potshots at his employer and, one day, when The Howler gets a new President, his employer has enough so they fire Smith. Smith's opponents- including those at the CNN-type network, the Public News Network- celebrate the event while Smith is stunned, left to pick up the pieces. A twist then emerges in the tale where PNN decides to hire Smith, because PNN puts profits over principle. They sell the decision by publicly stating Smith is "misunderstood" and that they believe they can "change" Smith, along with tough sounding language like "he's got a short leash", but the move is still met with the cynicism it deserves. Smith would start as a "fish out of water" having to come to terms with his new environment, but, over time, he'd learn to fit in and accept his new reality. In doing so, he'd admit that some of the things he said on The Howler he doesn't actually believe, and he comes to find his experience at PNN to be freeing, since he can state his mind more than he could before. In the end, you wouldn't necessarily have a character who completely transitions and moves all the way across the political spectrum...but you'd have someone who moderates his views and maybe comes to see the issues of political extremism on both sides of the ledger. Maybe once he reaches that point he leaves PNN to strike on his own, becoming a voice to moderates who wish politicians would spend more time trying to work things out instead of throwing around the blame game and sniping at each other. OK, maybe that's a bit wishy-washy...but, as I said before, an Archie type only works if you fit it in the right context. Since the context is different today, you have to adjust accordingly, and I believe it can be done.

The snarky side of me would respond with, "well, Peter Griffin is on TV, so of course Archie Bunker could still be on TV!" More seriously, though, I think those memes both highlight and miss the point. They miss because they misrepresent who the character of Archie Bunker was. Yes, Bunker was an unabashed racist, misogynist and discriminatory bigot, but the character was more than just a guy who spewed some provocative viewpoints. He was a product of his time, and his viewpoints were part of who he was and who he represented. This is the part where the memes have it right, because the conditions that created Archie Bunker, arguably, do not exist today. Archie represented a time when the fundamentals of society were changing and there a lot of people who were like Archie who struggled to come to terms with that. Today, I think society pretty much agrees on the fundamentals- we just quibble about the details. So there's a question about whether or not an Archie type would work today, but it's got nothing to do with the fact he got to say a lot of "bad things". The fact is, Archie's views were part of a carefully crafted character that resonated with a lot of people at the time who related to him, a situation that, arguably, does not exist today. Today an Archie type would work better if he was someone who got "cancelled", because he said or did something that he did not think was offensive but others thought otherwise. In other words, today you would have an Archie who at least realizes that racism, misogyny, homophobia and other kinds of discrimination and bigotry are wrong- he would just argue about what would actually qualify as bigotry and would try his best to defend behaviour others interpreted in that light. You would not have the old Archie who would openly wonder why anyone would think racism is wrong, because today pretty much everyone agrees racism is wrong. We just disagree with what qualifies as racism. In short, the memes that moan that Archie got away with things that can't be said today miss the point. The things Archie said were part of a character that represented his time, a time that is not now. Today, if you wanted to write a character who is in the similar vein as Archie, you would have to write him differently to make him fit in with how people think today. Meaning you could still have someone who says offensive things- but they would be said under themes and contexts that resonate today (e.g. "cancel culture"), not as they were in the 1970s.

I don't disagree. I didn't watch Max Thieriot and think "wow, there's an Emmy there!" ...but, I know Emmy-bait when I see it, and you can never tell with these award committees what they'll do. Certainly Thieriot and the Fire Country crew will do all the lobbying they need to do and they just may get rewarded for it, even if they shouldn't.