CBS is developing a comedy featuring a widow and widower who both lost their spouses in the WTC attacks. What do the Teemsters think of this? Too soon? West Wing and one cop show I can’t name (stopped watching net tv long ago) have already done terrorism shows, according to the article I read on Drudge this morning.
Quasi
Are you serious? How are they going to make jokes about that?
Does anybody have a link?
It’s much too soon for that. A drama show on that basis might work, but not comedy. No one would watch.
Sorry. I’m not very adept at linking but here’s what I copied http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/printedition/calendar/la-000081342oct12.story
Quasi
Quasi,
The cop show is probably * Third Watch *. I didn’t see it, but it is about cops and firemen in NYC, so it would probably be more open to criticism if they DIDN’T refer to the WTC at some point. They were supposed to have interviews with the real NYPD and NYFD in that episode, too.
IMHO anyone so insensitive to base an entire comedy series about the WTC bombing should have to explain to some 4 year old little girl who didn’t stop crying for a week and explain to her why it’s funny her daddy never came home.
After that I want to beat the living shit out of them.
Sorry if I offended anyone with the language.
I swear, sometimes I think the sit-com developers aren’t even trying anymore. Nobody will watch this, unless you count tuning in for five minutes with a sort of train wreck fascination.
I, too, think a drama might work, but not yet. It’s barely been a month and they’re already thinking about this? Jeez…
Will the woman’s husband be that guy from the picture atop the WTC with the Photoshopped airplane who has now been Photoshopped into disasters across history? That’s been just about the only funny “joke” that has come of this whole thing so far.
I doubt I’ll watch this. Even if the idea weren’t sick, twisted, and wrong, I’ve found that “prime time” is probably the least likely time I watch television these days.
Most sitcoms these days don’t joke about absolutely everything in the show. My guess is the WTC is just to set up the situation, and no jokes will be made about the actual incident.
After all, TV producers are the most paranoid people on Earth. Patton Oswalt, a TV writer and stand-up comedian, does a funny bit about this. Paraphrased from memory:
Producers would say things like, “We really like this Hitler sketch you wrote, but does he have to be anti-Semetic? And these klansmen, can you make three of them black? We might get letters…”
It’s possible to write comedy about nearly any subject so long as it’s done from an appropriate angle.
While there’s nothing funny about the collapse of the World Trade Center itself, some of the bureaucratic decisions that surround the tragedy are ripe for parody. A flight attendant friend of mine made some delightfully sarcastic comments about the demise of airline spatulas. Jokes that poke fun at terrorists render them less frightening. Humor can be a source of strength.
I’m all for a good laugh so long as it’s in moderately good taste.
I agree that the plot will not at all be based on the WTC disaster. I do fear that in the dog-eat-dog world of new sitcoms, our pals at CBS are taking advantage of the press hurricane that such a show would stir up and assuming that that will lead to greater initial ratings. It proabably will be handled very tastefully, but don’t believe everything you hear about laughter dealing with the pain if this show progresses towards production. It’s a ratings ploy and that’s it.