60: Seinfeld: George Constanza (Jason Alexander)
Although not a Jew, no one character has done more to nail down the persona of Jewishness since Woody Allen’s golden years. George was a neurotic guy, selfish and insecure to the point of dementedness, and the word stingy could well have been invented for him. Despite this, he was one of the most loved characters on one of the most loved TV shows ever made, and even today the impact of his character resonates on other shows – Friends, Will & Grace – any show where some of most of the protagonists are self-absorbed has some debt to pay to George Constanza. Based off of Larry David, the character grew in idiocy as the show went on, becoming lazier and better at lying in order to get himself out of the increasingly ridiculous situations he got himself into. He was so stupid and neurotic, it is hard not to give in and simply go along with him. It’s more fun.
59: LOST: James ‘Sawyer’ Ford (Josh Holloway)
There was nothing drastically different about the character of Sawyer. To anyone, he seems to be the typical antihero with a heart of gold, a rough former con-artist who has to make good when he crashes on the island or risk expulsion from the group. What makes him different and therefore noteworthy is that none of the other characters on LOST come anywhere near to matching his level of roughness. Whilst Locke and Sayid are both incredible badasses who shoot, knife, and neck-snap their way around, both of them do it according to a strict moral code. Not so for Sawyer, who is out for himself almost the whole time. That’s what made him so memorable.
58: Coupling: Jeffrey Murdoch (Richard Coyle)
In this superior British variation on ‘Friends’, six friends talk about sex a lot whilst getting into ludicrous scrapes with indecent results! And Jeff was the best character of the lot, narrowly beating out vapid-brained Jane to strike his name into the list. Jeff is absolutely obsessed with sex, and has composed theories and lists for practically every aspect of reproduction that you could imagine. It was in his obsession with sex that the show got most of its milage – whenever he was in the room, you could see that any moment he would explode from the conversation into a series of crude mimes, or break at length to discuss the practical use of ribbed condoms. His best moment came in the form of “the giggle-loop”.
57: Arrested Development: Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman)
In the midst of the insanity that was the Bluth family, Michael Bluth was the most normal-seeming and sensible of the lot. He was hard-working, rode a bicycle to work, and tried to do what was best for his son. Of course, this all proved to be a façade which was revealed to the viewers as Arrested Dvelopment went on. Michael was just as mad as the rest of them: but in his case the madness was his obsession with his family, even though he claimed to hate them. For as much as he denounced them, it became clear that Michael needed to be around his family in order to feel superior to someone, and this superiority complex is what ultimately messes him up and keeps him with the most dysfunctional family ever seen on television.
56: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar)
The universal truth for television would be that the main character is never the most interesting. It’s the reason why Will & Grace was fundamentally about the pairing of Jack & Karen instead of the characters of the title, and why nobody cares much about Peter from Heroes (that and the rather poor writing, of course). Buffy is mostly the same; a boring know-it-all who thinks she is far better than she really is, but has – as one character memorably put it to her – an inferiority complex about her superiority complex. She is the slayer, and vitally powerful, but it’s only thanks to her friends that she remains alive for the course of the show. Why is she in the list, then? Because she’s one of the first strong female leads in Television, and that should always be recognised. Buffy changed a lot of people’s minds about how television should be made, and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s title character was a strong part of that.
Showing posts with label LOST. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LOST. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Heroes: How To Fix It
What an awful show ‘Heroes’ has become. It started two years ago, at a time when Lost had, ahem, lost the way and was floundering about with barely any scenes featuring Locke, Sayid or Desmond at all. As Lost was going nowhere quickly, people jumped on Heroes because it was fun, moved quickly, and answered the questions that were asked of it with an impressive regularity. No four-toed statues there!
But as time has gone on, Lost has become absolutely awesome and Heroes has experienced perhaps the fastest slide into awfulness that has ever been seen on television. The characters no longer make any sense, the ongoing plots are bizarre and only work because the writers say so – and oh yeah, the writers. They seem to have no idea about what continuity is and they thought Nathan Petrelli (arguably their best character, and played by Adrian Pasdar – who is easily the best actor on the show) should be turned into a Christian. They shot him at the start of this year, y’know, and then had him be healed by a character with healing powers. Oh, but then the healing guy turned out to only exist in Nathan’s head, and wasn’t actually around. So, uh… who healed Nathan? That’s just one example of the many, many continuity errors which the writers bathe in weekly.
It’s easy to criticise Heroes. In fact, I’ll do so once more if you don’t mind – why do they kill off the characters played by decent actors? Healing cheerleader Claire can’t seem to ever get killed off, but so far this season they kill off the guy who played ‘Sark’ on Alias AND Veronica Mars? That’s not entertainment! But here I go again, complaining about the show without offering any ideas of my own to help fix it.
Well, actually I can fix it. In five steps. Want to know how I’d do it? Of course you do! Here we go:
Step 1: Kill off all the overpowered heroes, such as Sylar and Arthur Petrelli, and Claire. There’s no suspense if half the cast are immortal. Kill them off!
Step 2: Bring in a new hero, played by Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion’s power on the show will be that he is awesome, and he’ll carry a gun around at all times.
Step 3: Fire the rest of the cast. They are getting in Nathan Fillion’s way and stealing valuable airtime that should be devoted to Nathan Fillion.
Step 4: This show has poor writers. You know who is a good writer? Joss Whedon! Hire him to be the new show-runner of the programme. If you have to bribe him with the promise that he can have a musical episode once every season, so be it.
Step 5: Give Nathan Fillion a spaceship to fly around in, and hire a new cast of brilliance character-actors who can live on the spaceship with Nathan Fillion. I suggest Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres and Summer Glau to be among the new cast-members.
You see? In five simple steps, we have taken the show, reworked it significantly, and come out the other side with something fantastic and entertaining for all. Who wouldn’t want to watch this show, where Nathan Fillion has a gun and flies around on a spaceship with his friends?
NBC Executives: I know you probably feel bad about the concept of stealing ideas from your favourite blog, but seriously – just do it. I won’t even mind.
But as time has gone on, Lost has become absolutely awesome and Heroes has experienced perhaps the fastest slide into awfulness that has ever been seen on television. The characters no longer make any sense, the ongoing plots are bizarre and only work because the writers say so – and oh yeah, the writers. They seem to have no idea about what continuity is and they thought Nathan Petrelli (arguably their best character, and played by Adrian Pasdar – who is easily the best actor on the show) should be turned into a Christian. They shot him at the start of this year, y’know, and then had him be healed by a character with healing powers. Oh, but then the healing guy turned out to only exist in Nathan’s head, and wasn’t actually around. So, uh… who healed Nathan? That’s just one example of the many, many continuity errors which the writers bathe in weekly.
It’s easy to criticise Heroes. In fact, I’ll do so once more if you don’t mind – why do they kill off the characters played by decent actors? Healing cheerleader Claire can’t seem to ever get killed off, but so far this season they kill off the guy who played ‘Sark’ on Alias AND Veronica Mars? That’s not entertainment! But here I go again, complaining about the show without offering any ideas of my own to help fix it.
Well, actually I can fix it. In five steps. Want to know how I’d do it? Of course you do! Here we go:
Step 1: Kill off all the overpowered heroes, such as Sylar and Arthur Petrelli, and Claire. There’s no suspense if half the cast are immortal. Kill them off!
Step 2: Bring in a new hero, played by Nathan Fillion. Nathan Fillion’s power on the show will be that he is awesome, and he’ll carry a gun around at all times.
Step 3: Fire the rest of the cast. They are getting in Nathan Fillion’s way and stealing valuable airtime that should be devoted to Nathan Fillion.
Step 4: This show has poor writers. You know who is a good writer? Joss Whedon! Hire him to be the new show-runner of the programme. If you have to bribe him with the promise that he can have a musical episode once every season, so be it.
Step 5: Give Nathan Fillion a spaceship to fly around in, and hire a new cast of brilliance character-actors who can live on the spaceship with Nathan Fillion. I suggest Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres and Summer Glau to be among the new cast-members.
You see? In five simple steps, we have taken the show, reworked it significantly, and come out the other side with something fantastic and entertaining for all. Who wouldn’t want to watch this show, where Nathan Fillion has a gun and flies around on a spaceship with his friends?
NBC Executives: I know you probably feel bad about the concept of stealing ideas from your favourite blog, but seriously – just do it. I won’t even mind.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
How LOST Came To Be
[Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof walk into the offices of ABC television studios]
Carlton Cuse: Brother, we have an idea for a new TV show.
ABC TV Executive: Alright then… hit me.
CC: We’ve got an idea for a show where all the characters are trapped on an island.
Damon Lindelof: But! They might not actually be on an island!
CC: That’s right. Because this island is really really weird – there’s a monster on it, and polar bears live in the jungle there!
Exec: Polar bears only live in the arctic, guys.
DL: That’s exactly what’s so freaky about it! And get this about the monster who lives on the island – it’s a bunch of smoke!
Exec: Guys…
CC: I know you’re excited, but there’s more! See, all these people who survived the plane crash might have actually died, and the show is entirely set in their minds! So we have flashbacks to their life before the island…
DL: Which could be their pasts, but could be from the future!
CC: Yeah, and there’s a hatch in the floor of the island where a Scottish Guy lives and he can predict the future!
DL: He keeps predicting how different characters are going to die all the time.
Exec: How are you going to explain all this?
DL: We don’t have to! Once the show gets to the third season we’ll start reading message boards online, see who comes up with the best explanation…
CC: And use that! Brilliant, eh? Did we mention how other people live on the island? We’re going to call them ‘the others’.
DL: And one of the characters gets cancer but then – get this – is cured! And we’re going to bring in some rad new characters throughout the series like Nikki and Paolo, who…
CC: They’re totally going to be the new Ross and Rachel.
DL: And there will be people who don’t age for no reason! It’s going to be brilliant. What do you think?
Exec: Guys, I’ll be honest. There’s nothing that could make me do this show.
[The door bursts open]
JJ Abrams: Oh really?
Exec: JJ Abrams!
JJ Abrams: Damn straight, bitch! And I’m here to say: make this show… or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.
[And so, LOST is born]
Carlton Cuse: Brother, we have an idea for a new TV show.
ABC TV Executive: Alright then… hit me.
CC: We’ve got an idea for a show where all the characters are trapped on an island.
Damon Lindelof: But! They might not actually be on an island!
CC: That’s right. Because this island is really really weird – there’s a monster on it, and polar bears live in the jungle there!
Exec: Polar bears only live in the arctic, guys.
DL: That’s exactly what’s so freaky about it! And get this about the monster who lives on the island – it’s a bunch of smoke!
Exec: Guys…
CC: I know you’re excited, but there’s more! See, all these people who survived the plane crash might have actually died, and the show is entirely set in their minds! So we have flashbacks to their life before the island…
DL: Which could be their pasts, but could be from the future!
CC: Yeah, and there’s a hatch in the floor of the island where a Scottish Guy lives and he can predict the future!
DL: He keeps predicting how different characters are going to die all the time.
Exec: How are you going to explain all this?
DL: We don’t have to! Once the show gets to the third season we’ll start reading message boards online, see who comes up with the best explanation…
CC: And use that! Brilliant, eh? Did we mention how other people live on the island? We’re going to call them ‘the others’.
DL: And one of the characters gets cancer but then – get this – is cured! And we’re going to bring in some rad new characters throughout the series like Nikki and Paolo, who…
CC: They’re totally going to be the new Ross and Rachel.
DL: And there will be people who don’t age for no reason! It’s going to be brilliant. What do you think?
Exec: Guys, I’ll be honest. There’s nothing that could make me do this show.
[The door bursts open]
JJ Abrams: Oh really?
Exec: JJ Abrams!
JJ Abrams: Damn straight, bitch! And I’m here to say: make this show… or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.
[And so, LOST is born]
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