Criticizing The Hobbit for looking "like TV" misses the point

Martin Freeman in The Hobbit. Photo courtesy of TheHobbitBlog.com.

If you've been keeping up with the latest news about Peter Jackson's film of The Hobbit, you might have heard that the audience who saw a ten-minute preview of the film at CinemaCon (or at least a part of that audience) did not like the look that a 48 frames-per-second projection rate gave the movie, comparing it unfavorably to the "cinematic" quality produced by the usual 24 frames-per-second.

Devin Faraci of Badass Digest wrote that the movie was "drenched in a TV-like - specifically '70s-era BBC - video look," adding, "It looked completely non-cinematic." Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Breznican said, "The clips Jackson went on to show looked more like visiting the set of a film than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie," and Charlie Brooker took the opportunity to opine, in the Guardian, that movies and TV news are just looking too similar these days. Apparently, Brooker misses the time when TV stations "had the decency to commit to appalling production values."

How I Met Your Mother's ratings are increasing, drawing bizarre comparisons to Lost

Photos courtesy of nj.com and poptower.com.

According to Entertainment Weekly, How I Met Your Mother has risen 19(!) percent in ratings over the last season and, in addition to just crushing every show that I love in terms of viewership, is also the youngest-skewing show on CBS. That second part shouldn't really be a surprise, given that the median viewer age for that network is somewhere between "old enough to join AARP" and "older than the combined ages of the entire HIMYM cast," but the incredible ratings increase is somewhat more surprising. It is also drawing comparisons to Lost.

There were really two types of Lost fans when the show was on the air: The ones who were there from day one and hung onto every clue, determined until the bitter end to unearth the island’s mysteries, and the ones who, despite enjoying the show at the beginning, simply couldn’t take on another unanswered question or Kate’s constant stream of awful ideas. I count myself in the former category, because no matter how many times the show had left me frustrated, disappointed, or utterly confused, I always had a place in my heart for it. That and I had to know how the damn thing was going to end.
...
So, why is [the ratings increase] so interesting? Well, for one, unlike Lost, we actually knew from the get-go that there’b s a happy ending in store on HIMYM. (Ted, in spite of being an insufferable goon, eventually finds the mother of his future children.) Which brings up another interesting thing about the rise of HIMYM‘s popularity: Are people tuning in for all the clues (we meet again, yellow umbrella) and drama (there’s been plenty over the past few seasons), or is it simply because it’s a dependable, no-frills sitcom? It wouldn’t be surprising if the answer is both: HIMYM has no doubt grown in popularity thanks to syndication and word of mouth, but there’s just as much can’t-miss cliff-hanger drama as there is TV equivalent of comfort food in every episode. (The rise in popularity of stars Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel throughout the course of the show probably hasn’t hurt much, either.)
via EW.

The comparison between Lost, one of the great dramatic works of the history of television (if you ignore the ending, to which I say, "What ending? I don't remember that happening") and HIMYM, a fun show known mostly for making a womanizer out of Doogie Howser, strikes me as somewhat facile. It also doesn't explain the ratings rise, because if people were watching that show for the same reasons they watched Lost, there would have been a steady loss of viewers parallel to that experienced over the last three seasons of the Island-set head trip. And while there are probably people who watch HIMYM because they desperately want to know who the mother is (and if those kids are going to starve to death listening to Ted tell the longest story since the Odyssey), there were not, at least based on my experiences as a Lost fan, a lot of people who watched that show just to hang out with the characters. We wanted answers, dammit! And we never got any. (To your inevitable puzzled query, I repeat again: "What ending? I don't remember that happening. Ever.)

Who is David Neher?

Clockwise from top left: David Neher in New Girl, Modern Family, How I
Met Your Mother and Community. Photos courtesy of sorozatjunkie.com,
tumblr.com and CBS.

That Neher is some kind of something. Boy, this Neher is all anybody's ever talking about. So sick and tired of hearing about how brilliant that Neher is. Overrated.

Alright, so maybe you're not yet tired of hearing about how brilliant David Neher is. That's probably because you don't know his name. However, if you're anything like me, looking at the photos up there is tickling your brain. You're wrinkling your forehead and desperately searching IMDb to figure out just where exactly you've seen that curly head of hair and outrageously proportioned forehead before. You just know he looks familiar, but you don't know why.

To answer your question: you haven't just seen David Neher somewhere, you've seen him everywhere. Did you recently check out a show by the great sketch comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade? Or maybe you checked out an episode of Funny or Die's "The Amazing Adventures of David and Jennie"? Or, most likely, maybe you saw Neher in one of his four (!) guest appearances on network sitcoms this fall: he obnoxiously berated Schmidt in the pilot episode of New Girl; was tortured by the study group in Community's "Competitive Ecology"; stole Haley's money in exchange for a promise of fake IDs on Modern Family's "Hit and Run"; and, most recently, offered a pregnant Lily his nachos and some advice on facial hair in "Tick Tick Tick," the ninth episode of How I Met Your Mother's seventh season.

You would think that appearing in sitcoms on each of the four major networks would keep a guy plenty busy, but Neher isn't about to stop. He was just cast opposite Jay Malone as one of the leads on Conan O'Brien's as-yet-untitled comedy pilot for TBS (which is currently referred to as BFF, you know... in case you were interested). Neher will be playing the childhood BFF (and there's why the tentative title is relevant!) of Malone's character, a husband and father who quits his job and moves back to his old neighborhood. BFF may not be the Community spinoff, Todd!, about a young veteran's journey to honor his dying father's wish of finishing college (copyright Alex Israel), that we were all hoping for (and by "we all," I mean only me), but here's hoping the show succeeds anyway. After all, I'd love to be able to remember Neher's name without looking it up on IMDb. Such a hard-working guy deserves that much.