Comments on: Updated! Premiere Week 2011: The CW

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:51:16 +0000

The Shallow North gets it awfully too — Canada is in perpetual winter, with naive, child-like hockey fans who are inevitably white and polite

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:54:44 +0000

That’s a really good explanation for the stereotypes we get in so many shows. You’re right that we shouldn’t fully judge any pilot on that, because it is necessary to a degree (and makes the show legible and allows them to evoke resonance beyond the little time they have). But I share your fear… I’ll probably watch the next episode, simply to find out if we can move beyond the hicks-with-a-heart-of-gold stick.

By: Myles McNutt

Myles McNutt — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:31:13 +0000

I can’t speak to the authenticity of the representation, but I do have a theory: is it just that pilots, so filled with operational shorthand and cultural/narrative/genre codes to begin with, just inevitably fall into that which is convenient or broad so as to avoid getting bogged down? This is not an excuse so much as an explanation, and a point of note as the show moves forward. Are they interested in exploring more of the Alabama setting as their narrative burden lessens? Or will it become a sort of moving target in which the show avoids specificity in favor of convenience throughout the series? Is the pilot representative of their overall approach, or a stop-gap solution that gives them a foundation on which to build?

My gut tells me it’s the former, given how (as you note) they choose spaces that you feel they want to be representative which are not particularly accurate, but I’ll be interested to see how it evolves.

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:04:45 +0000

Sharon, I hear you on the Northern Exposure, though I thought a bit more of Everwood (maybe because I’d just seen Revenge : ). But maybe Alaskans really hated Northern Exposure (I’m curious about that now), because as an Alabama local, I was constantly frustrated with the show. For starters (and yes, i’m nitpicking), they really wanted Louisiana, because there ain’t much Bayou and coast line territory in Alabama (I wonder if they looked at a map–we’re the state that sits over Florida’s panhandle!). It’s like a hodgepodge of small town with city square and quirky everyone knows everyone else, but they want the alligator and the scenic Spanish moss on Live Oaks.

As for the characterization–there’s plenty wrong in Alabama; there’s plenty weird and bizarre (as several of my friends are realizing as they suddenly are trying to defend their daughters’ desires to become Azalea Trail maids); there’s even the hunting and the fishing and the Southern accents…

And yet it all feels off–feels too indebted to someone’s idea of what they think the South might be like than its reality. And–and here i may get a tad defensive–I do wonder whether other places are stereotyped just as badly or whether the Deep South just lends itself to it more easily…

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:39:14 +0000

On H8R, I stand by my pre-review, still amazed that CW feels it needs to stand up for crappy celebs. And yet while watching it, the thing that struck me is that for all its supposed interest in working against "haters," it's now giving them the best outlet to 15 minutes (after commercials and Lopez) of fame ... and thus oddly the show seems to encourage more haters, and especially more extravagant and over-the-top declarations of that hate as way of getting on TV. As for Ringer, like Amanda, I found myself wondering, a few seconds in, why Buffy didn't just roundhouse her assailant. To the point that I think it was a fun little device put in there to insist that Gellar is now playing someone else. Yet half an hour later, albeit offscreen, she clearly beat the crap out of her police protection. Indeed, it felt very much like Buffy was back -- still vulnerable and looking for big guys who can tower over her and tell her it'll be alright, yet still in charge of those guys and a force to be reckoned with. Add Gellar from Cruel Intentions as the Siobhan, and it seems like we actually have the three Gellars, not two. Which makes for intriguing tv, I found.