NBC Thursday Night Recap: or, Conceptual, Tired and Sweet

Clockwise from top left: Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski in "Nothing Left to Lose"; Maya Rudolph and Megan
Mullaly in "Hey Jealousy"; Krakowski; Donald Glover and Danny Pudi in "Pillows and Blankets"; Chevy
Chase as the Pillow Man in "Pillows and Blankets."

This recap is meant to be read in the reassuring but powerful voice of a documentary narrator. Morgan Freeman, maybe. Or that guy from The Cape. He seems like he's pretty good at this type of thing.

It is a Thursday night on NBC. The network is desperate for higher ratings, as it is consistently beaten by the Spanish-language network Univision. It responds by airing a high-concept episode based on PBS documentaries; a comedy that no one thought would last more than one season that has hung on for six; and a series starring an actor best known for a critically acclaimed, prematurely cancelled sitcom. What could go wrong?

8:00 p.m., ET.

Community airs an episode about the dissolution of the show's most innocent, joyous friendship, structured as a Ken Burns documentary about a campus-wide pillow fight. The episode brilliantly captures the sadness of a friendship that will never be the same again, while also capturing the foibles of the Greendale study group with amusing efficiency.

Narrator: Troy would later say of the war, "It was awesome. But, it wasn't?"

Narrator: Unfortunately for Britta, and millions of photographers like her, just because something is in black and white doesn't mean it's good. 

Jeff: Guys, I wasn't going to show this to anyone, but it's pretty profound, I kind of nailed it.

"Pillows and Blankets," however, is not content with merely exploring, with great precision, the subtleties of friendship and the idiosyncrasies of its characters. It also gives the viewer a chilling glimpse of a future in which our exploits are not documented by beautifully written prose and the detailed descriptions of historians, but by text messages and Facebook status updates.

What's the greatest Simpsons episode?

Source.

Tonight, The Simpsons will air "At Long Last Leave," the groundbreaking series 500th (!) episode. While there are those who argue that the show should have bowed out years ago, the 500-episode milestone is an undoubtedly impressive accomplishment that has inspired anyone and everyone to reflect on the series. While some writers - like The Guardian's Euan Ferguson - have written about the elements that make The Simpsons great, the majority have gone the route of choosing a favorite episode (or episodes) and situating it within the context of the series as a whole.

One of the most remarkable things about reading these pieces is the sheer variety of picks. Andrew Farago at the Washington Post chose the heartfelt second-season outing "Lisa's Substitute," while HitFix's Alan Sepinwall went with the fourth season's "Homer the Heretic." Both Hank Azaria and Time's James Poniewozik chose the darkly satiric "Homer's Enemy," which aired in the eight season, and Entertainment Weekly's Dan Snierson picked season four's "Duffless."

USA Today went straight to the source, asking creators Matt Groening and James L. Brooks and producers Al Jean, Mike Reiss, David Mirkin, Josh Weinstein and Mike Scully to list their favorite episodes, and there was surprisingly little overlap, with only three episodes making an appearance on more than one list: Brooks and Mirkin included the satiric two-parter "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (seasons six and seven), while Brooks and Jean both chose the series' pilot, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," and Jean and Groening both nodded to the current season's "Holidays of Future Passed."

The disparity of opinions is due not just to the number of episodes that have aired, but also the many different tones the show has taken over the course of its run. Episodes like "Lisa's Substitute," "Holidays of Future Passed" and "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" are heartfelt, family centric outings. "Duffless" and "Homer the Heretic" are stuffed with hilarious gags and over-the-top setpieces. "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" is a sharply satiric pop-culture parody, and "Homer's Enemy" is a darkly comic exploration of stupidity triumphing over aptitude. The Simpsons has made use of an incredibly diverse range of styles and viewpoints over the years, but the fact that it remains recognizable is one of the series' greatest achievements.

And yes, I am going to offer my choice for the best Simpsons  episode of all time. The excessively long lead-up is just a way of saying that I had a really, really difficult time choosing just one of the 499 existing half-hours, and that I'm certainly not claiming that my pick is the alpha and omega of Simpsons episodes, because there are so many others that are just fantastic. Ultimately, my choice comes down the fact that I like my comedy with a undercurrent of both heart and darkness (probably the reason Community is my favorite sitcom). I also like Ferguson's analysis of the way The Simpsons frames the American Dream as, essentially, the right to be lazy and incompetent and still succeed. It's obviously a very British perspective, but its one of the reasons the show's sharp-edged early episodes still hold up, and it lays the groundwork for my choice: the seventh season's "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield."

I love this episode for a lot of reasons, but the image it presents of the American Dream is probably the most important and, ultimately, incredibly bittersweet. The way that the family's working-class principles (such as they are) fade as they ingratiate themselves with the country club is sharply observed, and the satire of class distinctions is equally witty. Ultimately, the family's American Dream isn't being rich - it's sharing a meal together at Krusty Burger, and that moment marks the ultimate statement of the working-class reality that defined the show (at least in the early seasons).

The real reason the episode works, though, is because of its characterization of Marge. She is very much the unsung Simpson - being the voice of reason and the element that holds the family together means that she doesn't get a lot of opportunities to be funny, and her personal struggles are not given the attention the rest of the family gets. "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" offers a portrait of Marge that is heartfelt and very poignant at the same time. She's a stay-at-home mom in a working-class family who loves her kids and husband, but who would also like to be able to buy brand-name items and go to fancy parties. She's desperately insecure, which allows her better judgement to go out the window when praised, but she's also strong enough to recognize how much her family needs her, and to love them as they are. She's happy, but she's also trapped. "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" is attuned to the subtleties of gender differences, and the episode's gender politics drive the narrative of class struggle.

None of these elements would make this a great Simpsons episode, however, if it weren't for the laughs. Many of the funniest elements come from Homer's newly realized talent for golf and Lisa's sudden obsession with horses, neither of which are groundbreaking, but which are both are very funny. The family's attempts to fit in with the upper echelon of Springfield society are also hilarious, particularly Homer's plea to Marge to let him valet park their car: "Maybe for once, someone will call me 'sir' without making a scene" is a classic Homer quote. And the detail put into the rich "ladies who lunch," from names that would be normal if they were pronounced properly and the disguise of cutting insults as wit, is phenomenal. One of my favorite lines from any Simpsons episode, ever, is Susan's blase comment, "I hope she didn't take my attempt to destroy her too seriously."

I'm sure, however, that everyone disagrees with me. That's one of the greatest things about The Simpsons; everyone has their favorites, and is willing to defend them to the death. So, in honor of tonight's milestone, think about your favorite Simpsons episode and, if you want, sound off in the comments!

"Simpsons" cancellation: who's getting screwed here?

Photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk.

It's becoming increasingly likely that the upcoming 23rd season of The Simpsons will be its last. The increasingly contentious negotiations between Fox and the show's cast and production team must be settled by today if the show is to continue past the upcoming season, and there is no evidence that the two parties are any close to striking a deal.

According to as Facebook statement by Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns, among others), the producers have agreed to a 45 percent pay cut in order to lower the series' budget. The actors, who were originally asked to agree to the same pay cut, countered with an offer to cut their salaries by 30 percent, which was rejected by the network. In his statement (via New York Magazine), Shearer implied that Fox is completely unwilling to negotiate with the actors, particularly when it comes to the possibility of giving the actors a share of the massive profits from syndication and merchandising:

I'm willing to let them cut my salary not just 45% but more than 70% - down to half of what they said they will be willing to pay us. All I would ask in return is that I be allowed a small share of the eventual profits.

My representatives broached this idea to Fox yesterday, asking the network how low a salary number I would have to accept to make a profit participation feasible. My representatives were told there was no such number. There were, the Fox people said, simply no circumstances under which the network would consider allowing either me or any of the other actors to share in the show's success.

Shearer's depiction of the network's refusal to negotiate adds credibility to the idea that Fox doesn't want to reach a consensus in negotiations, an idea that his been widely discussed as the negotiation project has been dragged out. The reason for this is The Simpsons' syndication deal. The current deal only allows repeats of past seasons to be shown on broadcast networks; the show can't run in syndication on cable or online. According to the Atlantic, cutting a new syndication deal - which Fox can't do while the series is still under contract to produce new episodes - could earn the network as much as $750 million dollars through sale of the syndication rights. Under the cast's current contracts, they would not see any of that money.

Of course, we don't really need to feel sorry for the cast; the voices of Homer and co. are currently earning $8 million dollars per season. However, Fox's refusal to give the actors a share of the show's profits is indicative of a larger issue. For those of you who remember the writers' strike as more than just "that thing that took away all my shows for half a season," you'll remember that the same issues were at stake; writers were receiving hardly any residuals from DVD sales or online distribution of the movies and TV series on which they had worked. While this wouldn't be a problem for those writers who, like the cast of The Simpsons, were already making enormous profits off their work, it was a problem for the many underpaid, underemployed writers who relied on residuals when they weren't working.

Fox's behavior during these negotiations is not completely comparable to the behavior on the parts of networks and studios that led to the writers' strike because The Simpsons is a very rare case; a show that has been on for 23 years, whose syndication deal was struck at a time when cable television was not nearly as prevalent as it was today, and when online distribution of TV was not on anyone's radar. The similarities, however, should be somewhat worrisome to the industry. The writers' strike shut down film and television production for months, and it took the studios a long time to bounce back from that shutdown.

What Fox is doing with The Simpsons is very similar to what studios were doing to the writers - denying people even a small share of the profits from something that they helped create. What is especially worrisome is the fact that these are actors who should theoretically have some negotiating power; they're the cast of one of the most influential shows of the modern era. If they can't successfully negotiate a contract, what will happen to the actors without that kind of clout?

It wouldn't be tragic if The Simpsons were to end after this year; pretty much everyone agrees that the show is long past its creative peak, and with a full season left to go the creators would have time to plan and create the finale that they want (because a show as influential as The Simpsons really deserves a good send-off). The real problem becomes the precedent set up in this negotiation, in which even the cast of a massively profitable, very beloved show are unable to negotiate for a percentage of the profits. This precedent could have much broader implications, in which leverage in a negotiation tilts in favor of a network when a show reaches syndication age. If this precedent is adopted in other situations, it could lead to a Screen Actors' Guild strike, and no one wants that. Although, if Fox succeeds in their endeavor (which they probably will), we'll probably have lots of places to watch The Simpsons during a strike.

The Five-Seasons Test

Michael Kenneth Williams as The Wire's Omar Little. Photo courtesy of thequietus.com.

I recently read a really interesting piece by Steven Hyden of the AV Club. The AV Club is always providing interesting food for thought, but I was particularly fascinated by Hyden's piece, which proposed a new rubric for judging a musical act's greatness, one which the author called the five-albums test. Hyden proposes that, in addition to judging artists based on their popularity and their level of critical acclaim, an additional way to measure an act's excellence is by reviewing their musical output in order to determine whether that artist put out five consecutive great albums. Hyden claims that this new rubric includes artists like Fountains of Wayne and Kanye West in addition to traditional heavy-hitters like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. He also uses this rubric to cast some doubt on the greatness of acts like the Rolling Stones and - sacrilege of sacrilege! - Bob Dylan.

Hyden's piece is interesting enough in its own right, but my attention was piqued by the author's comparison between music and TV shows: "[The five-albums test] just feels right, perhaps because there's a handy parallel with TV shows, which generally have to survive for five seasons in order to reach 100 episodes, which the magic number for syndication." He goes on to acknowledge that many important and influential shows only lasted a few seasons, but maintains that "the greatest and most beloved TV shows in history ... held it together at a high level of quality for at least five seasons."

I certainly won't deny that many of the shows Hyden mentions, such as M*A*S*H, Cheers, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, The Sopranos and The Wire, are undeniable accomplishments. I happen to think that the five seasons of The Wire are the single greatest accomplishment of television, and that those five seasons represent as close to perfection as I've ever seen on TV. I also appreciate that Hyden mentioned great, groundbreaking shows that never made it to the five-season mark, likening Arrested Development and Freaks and Geeks to artists like The Sex Pistols and Nirvana. However, I think there are a few holes in Hyden's argument (at least as it pertains to TV - I'll leave it to greater minds than mine to examine his five-album rubric more closely), and they make the five-seasons test an imperfect judge of TV quality.

One of the major problems with the five-seasons test is that the length of a TV season varies wildly, depending on the network that broadcasts a show. While traditional network shows like The Simpsons generally run between twenty and twenty-two episodes per season, HBO series like The Wire only run ten or twelve. The smaller episode order means that the extra budget, time and attention that would normally be devoted to an addition ten or twelve episodes can instead be used to make each episode better. This gives shows broadcast on cable networks a serious advantage compared to those broadcast on the major networks.

Another problem with using the five-season rubric to judge TV shows is the fact that the survival of a TV show is far more dependent on the will of the network executives (as determined by the ratings) than the survival of a musical act is dependent on the record executives. Obviously, if an artist isn't selling any records, the label will be far more likely to part with them, but there's always a chance that the artist can find a new record label. And since records are (generally) much less expensive to produce than TV series, there's less of a chance that a label will drop an artist. There are obviously caveats to this rule - Kurt Cobain died before Nirvana could reach five albums, and the Sex Pistols could never get it together to record a follow-up to Never Mind the Bollocks, Here Come The Sex Pistols - but, by and large, producing five albums is easier than keeping a TV show alive for five seasons. As a Fringe fan, I've come to accept that the fourth-season pick-up is probably just a temporary reprieve, and that there is a high likelihood that the show will never get a fifth season. Does that mean the show's chance for true greatness hinges on the whims of a Fox studio executive?

The biggest problem that I have with the five-season rubric, however, is that TV seasons are generally more a part of a whole than albums are. This is more true with serialized shows like Lost and Fringe, in which the ultimate outcome of the story is just as important as the quality of the individual pieces. I would argue that Lost had five great seasons (and yes, I'm counting season three, so deal), but the finale and the episodes leading up to it were so unsatisfying that it took away from the accomplishment of the preceding seasons. I wouldn't, however, say the same thing about a show like The Simpsons, which has undoubtedly gone down in quality since its first, wonderful six or seven seasons, because The Simpsons was never building to a conclusion in the way that Lost was. There were no questions that would never be answered, or answered in an irritatingly superficial way, so the knowledge of the show's later seasons takes nothing away from the enjoyment of the early episodes.

I'm really not trying to insult Hyden here - I think his piece is fascinating, and is sure to spark countless debates about the way in which "greatness," whether in music or in TV, is determined. And Hyden certainly notes the ways in which his rubric is imperfect. I just happen to think that the five-season judgment ignores a lot of truths about television. Some of the great, brilliant-but-cancelled shows that only lasted a few seasons are probably so beloved because they never descended into creative fatigue. While I still mourn the passing of Better Off Ted, I wouldn't have wanted to see it mired in the repetitive storylines and increasing unlikeability of The Office, and I would never want to witness the sharp realism of Freaks and Geeks turn into the soap-opera that Glee has become. I also shudder to think of the Sex Pistols becoming corporatized in an attempt to appeal to mainstream listeners. It's hard to sustain greatness over the years-long slog of producing a TV show, and only a select few manage to do it without the seams showing. I would rather have a few short seasons of a truly great TV show than have those early seasons soured by a slow decline into mediocrity.