EW.com re-imagines Game of Thrones as a CW-style soap opera

As part of the magazine's year-end round-up of the best and worst everything in pop culture, Entertainment Weekly created a clever promo for Game of Thrones, if the epic aired not on HBO but on the CW.



While highlighting the pairings of Ygritte and Jon Snow and Daenerys and Ser Jorah was the obvious way to go, I quite enjoyed the way EW took advantage of the excellent chemistry between Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill to imply a somewhat plausible romance between Tyrion and Varys. Plus, the Tyrion/Varys (Varion? Tyrys?) pairing would leave the door open for an excellent love triangle between the Imp, the Spider and poor, loyal, left-out Bronn. Spin-off series, anyone?

Apparently, homosexual stereotypes will never die

Smash's Ellis Tancharoen, played by Jaime
Cepero. Photo courtesy of Yahoo! TV.

After last week's episode of Smash drew only 6.6 million viewers and a 2.3 rating - which are good numbers in the context of everything else on NBC, but show a drastic dropoff from the 11.5 million people who gave the premiere a 3.8 share in the all-important 18-34 demographic - Ken Tucker wrote a piece where he attempted to explain the ratings drop. His answers, unfortunately, both failed to account for the vast gulf between critical appreciation and audience interest, and also displayed some remarkably stereotyped notions about homosexuality.

The first problem is that, although Tucker frames the piece as an exploration of Smash's precipitous ratings decline, it really just turns into complaints about the show's direction from a TV critic's point of view. This would be totally fine - while I'm quite enjoying the show, the narrative and characterizations undoubtedly have their frustrating aspects - but for the fact that Tucker offers these criticisms as an explanation for viewers' wandering eyeballs. Apparently he's forgetting that, if critical love had anything to do with ratings, Fringe and Community would be drawing numbers not seen since the days of The Cosby Show, rather than attempting to scrape together enough viewers to stave of cancellation.

The bigger problem with the piece, however, is an unfortunate remark about the character of Ellis (Jaime Cepero), scheming assistant to Christian Borle's Tom. Tucker asserts that it's "slightly odd" that Ellis has a girlfriend, due to the fact that "he signifies, and is perceived by many in the show's enthusiastic fanbase, as gay in every other way." The piece continues,

What may factor into this is the theme of Ellis shaping up to be the series’ villain: the guy who’s going to gum up the Marilyn musical by claiming the idea was his (which it sorta was). Perhaps Smash and/or NBC wanted to avoid a gay bad guy in a way that Glee, for all its looniness, frequent narrative incoherence, and regular detachment from reality would never have had a qualm about.

Let it be said that I quite like Ken Tucker. I think his reviews are generally sharp and well-written, even when I don't agree with him. That doesn't change the fact that there are about a million things wrong with this analysis, the most egregious being the notion that Ellis has to be gay because he acts gay. Tucker claims that Ellis "signifies" as gay, but the only evidence I could find that points to the character's homosexuality is his dapper wardrobe, involvement in musical theater, and love of Marilyn Monroe. In the era of Happy Endings' football-loving, beer-drinking, slovenly Max Blum, is it really necessary to fall back on a stereotyped love of musical theater and designer fashions in order to determine whether a character is gay?

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.)

EW's Ken Tucker takes brevity to the next level

Photo courtesy of sharetv.org.

Ken Tucker's review of the new NBC "comedy" series Are You There, Chelsea? (based on the book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by "comedian" Chelsea Handler) just went up on EW's home page. Tucker's analysis, in its entirety, follows.

A 30-minute sitcom starring the likable Laura Prepon, based on autobiographical work by Chelsea Handler, with numerous remarks about being drunk and approximately 79 euphemisms for the word "vagina," all of which substituted for jokes. D+.

via Entertainment Weekly

I was thinking about reviewing this show, but now I'm planning to spare myself, because there is nothing more to be said. Ken Tucker, you are my new hero.