It’s January and you know what that means, a whole slew of new TV shows for everyone to try to get into before they’re mostly cancelled!
In this game, as with the The movie plot summary game, the last player will have provided the title of their fictitious show- *don’t *use any real show titles, please - and based only on that title (unless you “adapt” a movie from the other thread for the small screen), you’ll tell everyone what that show’s plot is about: as for the length of the description, 1-4 sentence summaries should do it.
Then you end your post with the title of your show for the next player to describe it.
Karens: Three generations of privileged white women, all named Karen, are suddenly thrust into poverty when the family patriarch is convicted of securities fraud and their wealth disappears. Grandma Karen scrapes up enough cash to sign a lease on a basement apartment in Queens, and, for the first time in her life, mama Karen has to get a job, while adolescent daughter Karen has to adjust to her first public school.
A team of LGBTQ reading tutors are sent to an inner city elementary schools with the assignment to improve reading schools by the end of the school year. Culture clashes abound as the idealistic young tutors, hard-bitten teachers and administrators, suspicious parents, and sullen students tired of being subjected to yet another experiment in education.
Based out of Rapid City, SD, the show began in 2014 with five wives whose husbands were career military officers stationed at Ellsworth AFB. Trixie Daniels established herself immediately as the fan favorite, her husband being the charismatic Major Ted Daniels, a hot shot B-1B Lancer pilot. The show took an unexpected turn in its second season, with the transfer of Major Ted to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and spent two episodes on Trixie’s farewell party. A power vacuum lead to the notorious Annabelle Hauser becoming the person to hate, and three of the five women becoming staunch supporters of Donald Trump’s White House run. After the acrimonious departures of Carolyn Hooper and Donna Duke, Annabelle brought two of her friends to star in the show, turning it into a referendum of MAGA-alt-truths, and debates over who should replace Mike Pence as Trump’s VP. In post-election 2020, several women were banned from the show, and after Jan. 6th, 2021, it was revealed that most of the cast (and crew) participated in the attack at the nation’s capital. FOX immediately canceled the series, and plans to move it to VICE were quickly squelched. As of 2023, there are no plans to renew the show.
Panned by critics, before being unceremoniously canceled after two episodes The Omarosa Show attempted cash in on both the popularity of unboxing videos and Trump’s legal woes by revealing the contents of one of the stolen classified documents each episode. The show is primarily remembered for the iconic scene during episode 2 of secret service agents rushing into the studio just before cameras cut off.
Quirky private eye solves crimes, with a TV-sleuth penchant for showily explaining what he’s figured out to the bad guy du jour. The gimmick, though, is that he isn’t doing this as a prelude to having the authorities take it from there — unless that’s what you want, in which case he’ll shrug and oblige; but, see, the reason he’s laying all of this out for you is that his passion is less detective work and more playing blackmailer. Which, at that, is how he solves so many crimes.
Set in the Old West, this comedy-adventure follows Jeremiah Smith, a small-time conman who masqueraded as a prophet straight from the Old Testament. Smith would case a town for a week or so, then ride in as “The Prophet,” complete with long robes and flowing white beard. Using information he had gleaned from his earlier visit, The Prophet would make a number of small but specific predictions directly naming townspeople, such as predicting Farmer Jones, who Smith saw buying a bolt of cloth at the general store, would soon be outfitting his children in new clothes. As he hustled for more donations each passing day, inevitably a number of “predictions” failed and Smith would high tail it out of town just ahead of the sheriff or an angry mob.
Agent Antoine Morse is one of the FBI’s top investigators. Johnny “Code” Codowski is a young hacker who got caught up doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. They’re put together to solve crimes no one else would want to touch but does someone higher up want them to fail? Watch Morse Code as they uncover a truth they weren’t sure they wanted to see.
In the 80s there were a lot of mostly subpar (imo) cartoons made based on video games at the time. Shows included Mario Brothers, Pac-Man, Q*bert, etc. etc. The idea that someone wanted to make an ET show but was only able to secure the rights through a terrible video game sounded funny to me. YMMV.
I’ll try to get the thread back on track…
Social media “treasure hunter” Joe Bob Doocey and his fellow hunters, intrigued with the urban legend of a landfill stuffed with copies of the ET video game, go on a nationwide hunt to track down functioning copies of the game to see which of them can complete the game first. Bragging rights and a $100,000 prize are on the line.
This light-hearted reality show travels the U.S. showing candid videos of real Americans waking up in the morning and preparing for the day. Typical scenes involve the last person to wake up running out of hot water in the shower, frustrated commuters fighting traffic, and, as a special bonus during ratings period, attractive young people waking up to find a stranger in bed with them.
Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) hosts a weekly variety show where he has no knowledge of any of the acts and artists that appear on the show. Larry’s response bounces between a nod and a raised eyebrow to open-mouth astonishment. Critics compare it to “the worst of The Gong Show conjoined with reality-based open mike competition” but ratings are unbelievably high.
Penn & Teller break into the field of kleptomania. Each week the magical duo (assisted once again by Allison Hannigan) go into heavily secured areas and see what they can lift. All items are returned, of course. In the series opener they visit Fort Knox. Penn nicks a watch, three wallets, a taser and a security camera. Teller packs off 50 bars of bullion. It’s all in the wrist.
The son of the famous detective works at a fast food joint. The series follows Donny Columbo through his endless days of greasy food, dirty floors, low pay, and taking crap from the likes of people in the series Karens. Unfunny and uninspiring.
Natasha Lyonne stars as Moon Girl, who follows the Grateful Dead on tour in the 1980s, supporting herself by selling grilled cheese sandwiches in the parking lots of the venues. In each episode, she reconciles a local Deadhead with his or her estranged parents, saves a mom-and-pop business from bankruptcy, inspires an underachieving high school student to work harder, and performs an emergency repair on the band’s PA system minutes before the concert starts—all within the span of a single day.
Tim Allen returns to television with this reboot of “Tool Time”, the fictional handyman show from Home Improvement, as a grumpy grandfather trying to assemble treehouses for his eight grandkids. “Al Borland” also appears as the kindly assistant who encourages the kids to accept their flinty grandpa, and for Tim to mend the fences with his sons.
A Cheers-type show set in a local bar, where every episode, the regulars talk about all the things they never did, all the places they never travelled to, all the romantic interests they never pursued, all the jobs they never took. Halfway through each episode, every one declares that today is the day they will finally Do The Things, and every episode ends with everyone just ordering another round of drinks.