Tell that to Headmaster Cecil.
I do!! For no good use either, 'cause I’m Jewish!
and so many of my good Christian friends misunderstand it- hehe
I can’t stand it when Sorkin gets in his “I’ll educate the clueless peoples by having character recite trivia” mood. He would do it on West Wing and it was lame, and it’s no better here. But I know some of his fanatics really love that stuff, so who knows.
Also, the basic unreality of the FCC plot and the 4.1 earthquake just drive me nuts. Particularly the FCC, since the big moral choice is based on something that would never happen.
From what I heard on the radio this morning, it sounds like the ratings for this week’s show took a nose dive. I can’t find the numbers though – does anyone know where to find them?
It didn’t do any worse than usual. But it still lost half of the Heroes audience, and couldn’t beat a rerun of CSI: Miami, so it’s not like they’re celebrating over at NBC.
I’m afraid that a show about the lives of people putting on a Saturday Night Live-like comedy show may be no more viable than a show about the behind the scenes action at the U.N.
The public just isn’t very excited about Saturday Night Live anymore. If Studio 60 had been created back during the days of the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players fame I think it would have stood a better chance. Today’s viewers seem more interested in crime solving.
I’m amazed it keeps half the Heroes audience, actually. Heroes is completely the wrong show to lead-in, because it’s a completely different demographic.
To be honest, I think if you put Studio 60 in ER’s spot on the schedule, we’d be talking about a major success. Of course, you’d have more 30 Rock/Studio 60 comparisons.
Yeah, I agree with this. I don’t watch Heroes at all, and I do tune in to see S60…so if I were one of the viewers being counted in those ratings, I’d be going the other way.
I like the show. But:
Those of us who grew up, and live, in El Lay know:
-
A 4.1 magnitude earthquake causes no damage, even at the epicenter. Even older buildings in earthquake country would survive that kind of jiggling (forget about injuries or collapsing freeways).
-
No Christmas? A network television show, even one shot in LA (as most are), would not even consider not doing a Christmas show. 85 degree temperatures would be unusual in december (we’re having a heat wave now and it’s in the low-mid 70’s). And KRTH is playing Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” not “Hot Fun in the Summertime.”
-
Coconuts? There are hundreds of prop shops in the local area that could have supplied fake snow on a moment’s notice (and I can’t imagine that any of these people wouldn’t have at least seen Cast Away, and known how hard it is to get into a coconut).
not local issues, but still…
-
The FCC. even if you buy the whole impossible logic of the FCC actually levying a fine under the described circumstances (or a network news organization actually broadcasting a live report from Afghanistan), the idea that a media conglomerate would actually be worried about “lawyering-up” and fighting the government is laughable. Media conglomerates come as close to owning and running the government as energy conglomerates.
-
Everyone’s covered all of the abortion angles. No pregnant TV character has considered having an abortion since Maude (and a big part of her decision had to do with her being in her late 40’s-early 50’s). For all of the to-do about Murphy Brown, can you imagine how nuts the right would have gone if she’d had an abortion instead of an out-of-wedlock baby? From Maude to Murphy Brown to “Sex and the City’s” Miranda to Jordan, all the career-oriented women make the Brave Choice.
This rang false to me, mostly because I remember Abby on ER discussing her long-ago abortion to someone who may have been considering one. I could swear at least one non-recurring patient had one, but no cite on that. Anyway, a quick google search yielded this blog, which claims:[ul][li]Everwood depicted a character having an abortion. (She is, of course, punished severely by karma in the next episode.)[/li][li]House performs an abortion on a 12 year old, and even honors confidentiality.[/li][li]On Party of Five, Neve Campbell’s character decided to have an abortion, though conveniently miscarried before actually having one.[/li][*]Degrassi: the Next Generation had a girl have an abortion. (Though it seems it may not have been aired in the US because the station that carried the show refused.)[/ul]For what it’s worth.
Cristina had made an appointment on Grey’s Anatomy last year. She miscarried before it happened, but the character’s intention was to have an abortion (even if the writers and producers and networks would never let that happen).
It’s not the unmarried, pregnant female celebrity that the American public might have a problem with (see Suri) - it’s the unpartnered, pregnant female celebrity that needs an explanation. If they live in a world where Jordan is important enough to be a celebrity - news like a pregnancy has to be announced by her press secretary and spun, especially if there’s no partner in the picture. That’s the question I was expecting “when’s the press conference?” or “how are you going to explain it?” or “are you announcing who the father is?” basically - how are you going to tell this story in a flattering light before someone tells it for you and cements you as the whore of NBS?
She’s had 12 weeks to come up with some kind of announcement and apparently hasn’t - which just makes her even more media illiterate than she has already been portrayed, and still doesn’t make any sense for someone who is a high on the ladder at a broadcast network. Of course, the fact that none of the of the NBS employees can see any media problem means she’s got company.
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
This rang false to me, mostly because I remember Abby on ER discussing her long-ago abortion to someone who may have been considering one. I could swear at least one non-recurring patient had one, but no cite on that. Anyway, a quick google search yielded this blog, which claims:[ul][li]Everwood depicted a character having an abortion. (She is, of course, punished severely by karma in the next episode.)[/li][li]House performs an abortion on a 12 year old, and even honors confidentiality.[/li][li]On Party of Five, Neve Campbell’s character decided to have an abortion, though conveniently miscarried before actually having one.[/li][li]Degrassi: the Next Generation had a girl have an abortion. (Though it seems it may not have been aired in the US because the station that carried the show refused.)[/ul]For what it’s worth.[/li][/QUOTE]
The story on ER is kind of the point I think. When Miranda became preggers on SATC, everyone had stories about abortions in their past. In the present, M was required to make the Brave Choice
I don’t watch the other shows, but from what I can see we have
[list][li]Everwood: A character having an abortion, but punished by karma afterward (was it a recurring character?) You win this round[/li][li]House: They painted the blue-noses into a corner with a 12-year-old, plus this isn’t a recurring character, so there’s nothing to deal with in subsequent episodes. But it is abortion, in prime time, on a real network, so I’ll give it to you.[/li][li]Party of Five: wimp out.[/li][li]Degrassi: certainly doesn’t count if it didn’t air (OK, it aired outside the US but outside the US they can say “fuck” and show nudity – My original, unstated point was about how Victorian we’ve become in this country since the 70’s).[/li]
Also, to Amarinth: My point wasn’t about whether or not Jordan should have made that choice or not, just that no matter what the parameters are for a regular character on a prime-time network show, the writers are not allowed to have her choose and go through with an abortion.
Ellis Dee at least shows that the rules have caveats for non-recurring characters, or if the character is punished later on.
Lucy Bates (Betty Thomas) revealed she had an abortion on Hill Street Blues. Georgia Thomas (Courtney Thorne-Smith) said she had considered the possibility of an abortion when she found out she was pregnant on Ally McBeal. And on The West Wing, there was a controversy when Chief Justice nominee Evelyn Lang (Glenn Close) revealed she had an abortion.
That was so lame that I thought there must be an explanation for using coconuts (of all things) that I’d somehow missed. There have been thousands (at least) of TV shows and movies showing snow which were not filmed in actual snow so it was completely whack to have them resort to coconuts.
So you’re saying there was no plausible reason offered for not using your regular garden-variety prop snow? 
My boss and I were laughing about that. And, putting all that aside, what’s the chance the FCC would issue an NAL only a week after the incident occurred? The Enforcement Bureau is slow.
Yeah, Paula Poundstone ruined it for everybody.
Their snow was in a warehouse that collapsed in the earthquake. Or maybe that was on the far side of a collapsed highway.
The explanation that was lacking was why they did not contact any of the certainly numerous prop companies that must exist around Hollywood. Oh well.
Joanna Cassidy’s character Jo-Jo on Buffalo Bill got an abortion in the two-part episode “Jo-Jo’s Problem” in 1983 or '84. She was a major character on a prime-time sitcom, way after Maude. But the series only lasted two seasons.
I disagree. Jordan is, what, 31 & childless? It’s not that strange for a woman in that situation to take an unplanned pregnancy as kismet, & figure this is her chance to have children.
A network president in trouble with the tabloids about her sex life and told by the Board to cool it? Really? You think she’s grabbing her chance? As in, we’ve seen this over and over and nobody would think this is unusual? Or poor thinking?
BTW, for the people who still think that abortions can’t be mentioned, apparently they’re talking about one on Scrubs, as per this thread.