Why I love television

Some of my favorite television characters. Truth.

Sometimes when I talk to people about television, I feel like they don't really get why I'm so passionate about it. Most people see television as a temporary distraction from real life, a source of information, or (perish the thought!) white noise. Scripted television has been, until recently, seen as a lesser form of entertainment; serious actors go to film, or the stage, screenplays are more complex and sophisticated than teleplays, and cinematic geniuses certainly don't sully their resumes with television projects. In recent years, those opinions have largely disappeared, but a large chunk of the general population still sees television as the awkward younger sibling of film.

As a child I was a Sesame Street fiend, and watched episodes of Eureka's Castle and David the Gnome while I stayed home with mom, before I started school. They whetted my thirst for stories, which was something I wanted however I could come by it. I had always been a consummate player of pretend, acting out stories in fantasy lands like those I heard about in books or saw on television. By night our family would gather around the television to watch The Nanny and reruns of The Cosby Show, educating me in the sitcom. By the time I was in high school, I had probably watched more reruns of classic television shows than anyone I would graduate with. It wasn't until high school, however, that I really fell in love with with it.

My love of television very much stems from my love of stories, and the disappointment I remember feeling when I would finish the too-short novels I devoured not long after deciphering the English language. All of the stories had endings, but the lives of the characters I felt connected to kept going, at least in my imagination. I wanted to know all about these people, their futures, their dreams, their passions, before I even thought about any of those things in my own life. It was the same with movies; what happened to Thumbelina and Prince Cornelius after they lived happily ever after? Did they have adventures? Did they have eight children and grow to be three hundred years old? These are things I wanted to know.

Television allows viewers to learn more about a character than a 120 minute movie can. We get to know a character over the course of roughly twenty-two episodes each year, each running from 21-50 minutes. Character development is done over the course of years, rather than minutes, and the creators are able to keep telling stories. I think that's really what I wanted when I would finish Zilpha Keatley Snyder's novel The Egypt Game, or the animated classic Anastasia. More stories with these characters I'd grown fond of.

When I first started watching Lost, the second semester of my freshman year of college, I was a woman obsessed. I watched multiple episodes a day, and was finally caught up to season four after a few months (which was not so good for my grades, but hey, awesome show, right??). I was enthralled by this group of castaways with the sordid pasts and the mysterious island that they were all somehow connected to. The characters made me want to keep watching as I became more invested, and the writers wove such fantastic stories with these characters that there was no way I could stop.

I never thought very much about how a television show is written until a couple of years ago. It simply never occurred to me that it was an actual career that I could have, taking my love of writing and meshing it with my love of television. There's nothing I would love more than to write amazing television like I've seen on Buffy, 30 Rock, Pushing Daisies, and so many more fantastic shows that I love.

So here's hoping I have a seat at the 70th Annual Emmy Awards. :)

Of zombies and daisies

There are really only three things that I remember about my dream last night.

They are, in order:

1. A used bookstore in NYC
2. My being in a band
3. Zombie apocalypse

I don't know what that means, but as long as it's not prophetic in any way (except maybe the first and second parts) I should be okay.

I didn't receive the next disc of Wonderfalls today. Netflix had it in his head that I would be getting it Tuesday, but it is now Wednesday, and my poor little disappointed self can only take so much. I'll be putting my account on hold shortly after, anyway. Money's tight. :(

I've been on a Bryan Fuller kick lately, rewatching Pushing Daisies with a friend of mine who had never seen it and rewatching some of Dead Like Me by myself. I've said this before, but I feel it merits repeating: Bryan Fuller is brilliant. His style is so imaginative and awesome. I want more than two seasons of him at one go!

He's apparently working on a Pushing Daisies comic to follow-up the series, which is way way awesome! Can't wait for that. And, he's purportedly working on pilots for NEW shows, including one for NBC called Sellevision, based on Augusten Burrough's novel of the same name about a Home Shopping Network-type television company. He also has another NBC script in the works, a comedy about an animal shelter, entitled No Kill.

I would really love to work with Bryan Fuller someday. The idea of making beautiful television like his makes me a little bit giddy.

"Can't we say "alive again"? Doesn't that sound nice?" - Ned the Piemaker

ALSO! It's Joss Whedon's birthday! I totally would have done an all Whedon post in his honor if I hadn't just now remembered. But there we are. I suck as a fangirl. I am appropriately ashamed. Happy birthday, Joss. :)

Gone, but not forgotten; or, why are so many awesome shows cancelled?

It seems that as soon as I blogged the praises of the mystery drama Happy Town, with Amy Acker and Abraham Benrubi, among others, they were destroyed with the kind of heartless indifference that every TV fanatic is quite familiar with. (Sure, the first episode wasn't perfect, but it was just compelling enough for me to look forward to the next episode. I had hope!)

While this isn't nearly of the same caliber of other quickly cancelled shows, it got me thinking about great television that can't seem to make it. Here's a list of six great television shows that only had two seasons or fewer:

Firefly-- 1 season, 14 episodes

Those who know me probably saw this one coming, but there's no way this could not be on the list. Joss Whedon's Firefly was a show unlike any other (I mean, it was awesome. A group of misfits on a spaceship, and sometimes they steal things, oh and there was cowboy stuff too and guns and kung fu and horses), and developed a cult following. The following was so great that on its cancellation, the fans rallied, and a movie was eventually produced to give us a(n almost) satisfactory ending. The show also helped along the careers of the fantastic cast. The amazing Nathan Fillion now stars in his own ABC drama Castle (and it's awesome), Summer Glau and Alan Tudyk both had recurring roles in Whedon's most recent series Dollhouse, and Morena Baccarin stars in ABC's V (see my previous post).

Freaks and Geeks-- 1 season, 18 episodes

Freaks and Geeks was a true-to-life portrayal of high school life in the 1980s amongst those who kept to the fringe of society. I don't really get why it was killed so quickly, personally, but it helped launch the careers of most of its main cast, most notably James Franco, movie star (and now General Hospital regular, apparently), Seth Rogen, movie star, and Jason Segel, who co-stars on one of my favorite shows currently on, How I Met Your Mother. Oh, and John Francis Daley, who plays kid brother Sam, is now a regular on awesome crime drama Bones.

Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip-- 1 season, 22 episodes

Before I sing the praises of this awesome show about the goings-on behind the scenes of an SNL-esque sketch comedy show, I must first make a confession. I have only seen three episodes of West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin's acclaimed Studio 60. I know, I know. "But it's a television show about television! It would only stand to reason that you, as a television addict, would love it!" Yes, dear readers, it would. And yet. But it is on my list. There are so many television shows and only so many hours in the day. Aside from that, what I did see was great, and I highly recommend it. And, to all of my Sorkiphile friends, I will watch it, don't worry. :)

Pushing Daisies-- 2 seasons, 22 episodes

Pushing Daisies was a show that, even before the first episode aired, I knew would be unlike anything I had ever seen.

1. It's simply gorgeous. The colors are vibrant and in-your-face.
2. The plot is completely original.
3. The characters are over-the-top and so much fun.
4. Oh, and it had Kristin Chenoweth, my musical theatre hero. :]

I absolutely loathe the term "dramedy" (for really no reason I can discern), but I can't really think of anywhere else to put it. It really deserves its own genre of super-awesome fantasy/drama/comedy/musical. It's also a show that I kind of new was doomed to fail. As soon as I saw how amazing the story of a piemaker who could bring the dead back to life was, I was incredibly afraid of getting attached. Lucky for me, since it landed in the middle of the writer's strike, it was given a second chance and a second season. Never mind that they aired the last few episodes when it was all but impossible for anyone to actually see them. (Sound familiar, Browncoats?)

Dollhouse-- 2 seasons, 27 episodes

When I first learned of Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse, I have to admit I was a little giddy. I had just finished Buffy and Firefly, and the prospect of more Joss was just what I needed. The plot, just like all of his other projects, was completely original, an illegal group that imprinted various personalities on "actives". It starred Buffy's Eliza Dushku as Echo, one of the actives. This show somehow made it through one season and was given another, but was given the boot soon after. Bringing me to another edition of

Open Letters to Television (Creators)

Dear Joss,

I hope that now you have learned your lesson. Firefly aired on FOX and it was never treated well. The episodes were aired all out of order, and never regularly. The network simply didn't seem to care. Then comes Dollhouse, with a great premise and a great cast (thanks for bringing in Amy Acker and Summer Glau, by the way!). It might have lasted longer on a cable network (I'm sure that SyFy would love to have you), but instead you went with FOX. Again. I'm so sorry. I really hope that someday you will bring us another show that is as successful as Buffy. Have you considered teaming with JJ Abrams, another television hero of mine?

Dead Like Me-- 2 seasons, 29 episodes

Yet another show that is (am I totally boring you yet?) completely unlike anything else on television. Dead Like Me (created by Bryan Fuller, creator of Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, two also very short-lived series)is about a group of grim reapers who go to people when they are about to die to preserve the person's soul so they can move on in peace. The show was another example of too fantastic for TV, like Fuller's other shows. Not only did it have interesting (and eccentric) characters and situations, it dealt with death in a way unlike anything else on television. It had Rebecca Gayheart for a little while (the original choice for Inara on Firefly, minterestingly enough, but she apparently had no chemistry with the rest of the cast.), and also starred Mandy Patinkin, best known (by me) for his role as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride and as Georges Seurat in the original cast of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George.