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That’s right, I said it.
Nevertheless, here’s what I’ve been up to since late summer — trying to find something, anything to say about the new crop of fall shows from the broadcast and cable networks. I didn’t give any A’s this year and a whole lot of D’s and F’s — and, yes, I did a self-reflective moment to make sure I wasn’t just wearing an extra-cranky pair of crankypants. This year’s season gets a 1.88 GPA, which, in my book, equals academic probation, right?
Continuing my end-of-semester metaphor — this is what it’s like:
Today, however, we turned our attention to the criticism/reviews that students filed this semester. The TV recappers — Heather Jurva, Levi Hunt, Caitlyn Walsh — had to file five, 500-word recaps of consecutive episodes, and did so quite ably. Levi nitpicked “The Walking Dead,” even as he praised it; Caitlyn hilariously broke down this extra-loony season of “Dexter”; and Heather called “American Horror Story” on its own BS and took it to task for being such a mess this season.
Call the midwife! I’ve once again assisted in the birth of another FALL TV ISSUE (would you believe my fourth?). You can read every last bit of it online by going here. But if you’re in Washington, won’t you do us the kindness of buying a paper? This year included reviews of all the new scripted shows, as usual– 22 of them, not technically all if you count that new Scott Baio comedy on cable and other morsels buried deep down on the program grids.
Kael. All the great critics are fond of resting their faces on their palms.
She may be the fairy godmother of all film criticism, but the work of Pauline Kael (1919-2001) went over like a lead balloon as we began our sequence of classes on criticism/reviews. (Let me just say: I remember having pretty much the same reaction when I had to read her as a college sophomore in 1987, and that was when she was still alive and crankin’ it out.)