A Statement About Modern Family

Now we all know it takes a lot for me to bust out Arrested Development comparisons. Normally my statements go something like "Gawd, Arrested Development is awesome", or "that was so bad, its antonym is Arrested Development." Or something equally witty.

It started with the EW Fall TV Preview. There was something about Ed O'Neill and his new show, and something about how the show can best be represented with an equation involving Arrested. In the positive sense. (As in, this show is not -Arrested Development)

Intrigue radar tuned but heartily skeptical, I continued to keep an eye out for headlines, summaries and critical missives mentioning the show. Surely, surely it couldn't be as good as Arrested Development. Surely it was going to crash and burn after an excessively clever and overambitious pilot.

Luckily for me and the rest of the viewing public, reports of Modern Family's brilliance have not been exaggerated.

The setup is something out of a Full House nightmare-- the patriarch, played by O'Neill, is newly married to a Colombian bombshell who happens to have a ten-year-old son. His daughter, played by none other than Mrs. Dr. Jack Shepherd, is the head of a "classic" family-- working dad, stay-at-home mom, two girls and a boy. The final Pritchett is the gay son who has just returned from adopting a Vietnamese baby with his partner.

They all manage to get in the same room in each episode so far, and when they do it's glorious. It's the spouses who shine in these early days (though everyone is at the top of their game)-- the bombshell and her ridiculous (but highly articulate) accent; the gay partner who wears pink paisley shirts but also happens to have been an offensive lineman for the University of Illinois; the husband who thinks he's cool, but so painfully isn't (one of my favorite lines: "I text... 'LOL,' laugh out loud... 'OMG,' oh my God... 'WTF,' why the face?").

The characters are ripe and dimensional, the stories relatively small but spectacularly written, the humor at once subtle and joltingly funny.

Arrested Development comparisons are a little premature but not far off-- so far, I think we've found a worthy successor. Let's see how things develop.

A Statement About Titanic

And now a moment of introspection.

The Park City Library and my weekly pilgrimage have afforded me the opportunity to see a lot of movies I have been "meaning" to see. You know, the ones you put on a list to save for a rainy day, or "when there's time," or whatever.

The library's selection is not huge, but what is there is significant; indie gems, old classics, and the occasional guilty pleasure.

Which brings me to today, and Titanic's presence on the shelf.

I saw Titanic three times in the 1997-1998 year (I think all of them were in the theater). I may or may not have bought it on VHS (woo!) but I promise you I did not watch it all the way through. Titanic is not something you can half-ass. You either have to sit down and watch it or not even bother.

Then, like everyone else ever, I experienced the backlash and swore it was stupid and that I would never watch it again. This was compounded by my seeing LA Confidential, a vastly superior film, and realizing that it lost to the... er... titanic Titanic in the 1998 Oscars. And that kids, is just not cool.

Recently I was talking to "a friend" (we're still at euphemisms, people) and we decided that maybe it was time to give Titanic another shot. This time not from the rose-colored Leo DiCaprio hype-glasses, but with a more discerning, adult, decade-later kind of eye.

And I have to tell you, it doesn't hold up well.

The emotional impact of the film is still heavy, but this time with the obvious human tragedy exploited for blockbuster dollars. Kate Winslet is lovely as ever, while Leo still looks like a fetus (you don't realize what a decade can do for someone's looks until you see Leo then and Leo now. And let me state for the record, I prefer Leo now). The story doesn't hold up; a decade of romance novel reading makes even Jack and Rose's miraculous forty-eight hour love story seem contrived. And of course he has to die. Because honestly, what was going to happen to them when they got off the boat?

Which means this boils down to a "he drops into her life to change her perspective, but can't stay to see the results" set against the backdrop of the legendary sinking ship. Blah.

The fashions are genius, Kathy Bates is hysterical, and I completely forgot that Victor Garber, love of my life is in it. (I went from my Alias marathon to Titanic... we're all Victor all the time, and we don't mess around).

I was left with the knowledge that I had tried Titanic again, and the surety that I could wait another decade before my next viewing.

And now I find myself writing this with Knocked Up on in the background, just as a palate cleanser.

A Statement About Glee

If you're going to name a show Glee, it had better live up to its name.

There can be nothing downer about it; even when you tackle serious issues (Hello, teen pregnancy and homosexuality! How are you today?) you've got to do it with the snap-crackle-pop lightness that your title implies, and you've got to do something to ensure that people leave feeling, well gleeful.

So far, so good.

Glee is possibly the riskiest proposition of the new television season: a musical set in a high school, on FOX, nonetheless. But this is no tweenie High School Musical redux; this is a sharp satire with even sharper characters, who happen to sing some of the kick-assest covers in recent memory.

According to "those in the know" the portrayal of school politics is spot-on, from Jane Lynch's gutting cheerleading coach to the idealistic glee coach cum Spanish prof who is forced to pay for the club out of his own pocket.

All of the stock characters are there for political correctness-- the feisty black girl, the jock, the kid in the wheelchair, the newly un-closeted fashionista, the bitch with the well-intentioned heart of gold. In any other hands these characters could be cliche (or at worst, offensive), but they all manage to shine and bounce off of each other with sparky repertoire that is anything but boring, and man can they sing.

Mr. Schuester's (aforementioned Glee/Spanish honcho) love life is a mess; he's trapped in a marriage to his high school sweetheart, a faux-pregnant trainwreck of highly codependent proportions. His real love, neurotic guidance counselor Emma, has just accepted what is essentially a marriage-in-name-only proposal from gym teacher Ken Tanaka. Coming back from all of that Jim-and-Pam loveliness, I'm not sure how much patience I'll have if the writers make it their life mission to keep Will and Emma apart, but so far so only mildly irritating.

It certainly has a lot to live up to, especially in the long term. But for the moment, Glee is fulfilling the quick-witted, happy without being saccharine void left by the late great Arrested Development.

To quote Emma, "YAY GLEE! GLEE KIDS HOORAY!"

A Statement About Mr. & Mrs. Halpert

Confession time: I have been giddy for five months.

Ever since that silent moment in a Pennsylvania (read: Los Angeles set) hospital room when a doctor told Pam Beesley and Jim Halpert that they are pregnant, I have been waitingwaitingwaitingwaiting for The Next Step.

And next Thursday, I'm going to get it.

It's a risky proposition: Who in their right mind would marry off the will-they-or-won't-they central couple five years in to a potentially ongoing franchise? That romantic tension is supposed to carry whole seasons; the unplanned pregnancy should spur a crisis of coupledom resulting in Jim fleeing the state to seek everything he'll miss when he becomes a father, and should magically drive Pam back into the arms of her former fiancé Roy. Or something.

But the brilliant brilliance of the Jim and Pam dynamic is their complete normalcy. Even when there was drama (and there has been plenty), they reacted as normal, mature, real-life adults. There was no screaming, no yelling, no overreactive not-speaking-to-eachothers (and being 3/4 of the way through a Felicity marathon, I can tell you that those are a dime a dozen on network television).

Even this unplanned pregnancy is real: there is no discussion of "what happened?", no blame placed, merely happiness at the surprise that was going to happen eventually anyway.

There will be a lot of discussion and a lot of watching of the ratings numbers after the hour-long wedding special next week. People will debate whether or not the show has been ruined because the tension is gone. I've got news for people who think this is it: the "tension" has been gone for a long time. Ever since that fateful afternoon when Jim took his name out of the running for a corporate job in New York and rushed back to Scranton to ask Pam to go to dinner with him, this moment has been inevitable.

If the wedding was put off for artificial reasons, that would ruin things. The beauty of The Office in general and Jim and Pam in specific is that they are true to life. We all know Jim and Pam, and we all want to be Jim and Pam, and there is no earthly, real reason to keep them apart.

And so I am giddy for next week. I thoroughly expect to jump up and down, and tear up, and have an hour-long freakout. I can't wait.