What I've Been Watching Round-Up

Last night, I finally saw THE HANGOVER. It was good - as advertised. A nice Monday evening get-my-brain-off-the-monotony-of-the-week. As reported, the Zach Galifianakis character was the stand out, especially in the first act. His humor was fresh - something I hadn't seen before - I don't know exactly what I'd call it - maybe the humor of the obvious, where the humor stems from the character's misunderstanding of what we take for granted. In thinking about humor, it made me think about new and refreshing styles of humor. I consider 30 Rock to be an original style of humor - what I call the humor of wackiness. Also, the original Office was a new style of humor - humor of reaction. Borat is a new style of humor - the humor of painful discomfort. In any case, I give this guy Zack props for coming up with an original style of humor within a pretty traditional dude-comedy.

HUNG. The only show on TV right now I care about. It is barely a comedy - there really aren't many laughs throughout. The second episode was by far the best. I think it's still trying to find it's legs, but I really like the show. It should certainly be an hour long show. There are a lot of characters and avenues to explore in the world they set up.

DEADWOOD. Catching up on old HBO. I love this frigging show. There isn't a ton to say, I'm only 4 episodes in. It's the rare show - like Sopranos and The Wire - when you start watching a disc, you're watching the whole disc nevermind that you need to get up early for work early or have plans that evening. It's a cancel-your-plans, lie-to-your-date, not-get-enough-sleep good show. Not up to Sopranos or the Wire level yet...but we'll see.

ENTOURAGE. I hate Entourage. I loathe it. I hate every character except for Ari's friend. Entourage takes the good things they've set up and overuse, spoil, and ruin them like a pretty-LA-starlet turned into a reality porn star. E is freaking midget. Sloan is an annoying toad. Turtle is a flabby pig. Johnny Drama is an old man. Vince is the blah-est vanilla character in the television universe. Werner was right in season 5 - he has no soul. Ashton Kutcher is more interesting. Ari is obviously the jewel of the show, but he can't carry this team. He's like LaBron in the series against the Magic. F this freaking show. And yet I watch it still.

SEINFELD re-runs. Yes, I still watch whenever it is on. Kramer is the secret ingredient to the show. He is the special spice they throw on the In and Out patty, the rosemary on the chicken, the garlic sauce at Zankou, Tinkerbell's magic fairy dust.... Why? The reason Seinfeld is brilliant is how the plot of each show ties together at the end. This roundness makes it special - many shows have great characters - but none brought together storylines as well as Seinfeld. But how were they able to do this? Was it magical writing? No. Because, no Seinfeld writer has been able to go on and re-create this brilliance - including David himself. No, the secret source of this power is Kramer. Kramer's character - like the Fitzgerald's genius quote - is able to hold two completely opposite positions without seeing any contradiction. It is just as likely Kramer would believe in X as he would the exact opposite of X. And given any show, he might change his opinion and his goal 180 degrees and it would make perfect sense. This character trait enables the show Seinfeld to cleverly tie all plots together efficiently. You need to a character to do something - it is easy to figure out a way for Kramer to instigate - whether it be for himself or for any other character on the show. You need a way for a plot to tie to another plot - get Kramer in there. Kramer will be an ally or an enemy to anyone. He will defend or betray anyone. He can go anywhere - like a queen on a chessboard. Yes, Kramer is the key...