Friday, September 27, 2013

Stevie In Front of The TV: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Crazy Ones,Mom,It's New To You (Volume 1, Number 6

LETTER HAVE IT! (Or, as I said, way back in STEVE'S BLOG 3, "Let Him Have It!")

I GOT TWO WORDS FOR YA, PAL!

RE: "The Best And Worse Of Humanity,"  STEVE'S BLOG 65,  September 22,2013

Nicely stated.

Judy Wilder
via Google +

Hey, Jude, right backatcha!
Remember, folks,  keep  those emails and posts  comin' in! You  can also reach me at my Twitter handle, @SturdySteve, email me directly at steveneisenpreis@gmail.com, or go to Facebook  and search "Steven Eisenpreis". I  may edit them for space and clarity, or maybe not.

Now, on to the business at hand:

IT'S NEW TO YOU

This  feature will spotlight the reruns you've probably never seen before, and our first such rerun comes to us  from "All In The Family," a groundbreaking situation comedy that ran on CBS from 1971 to 1980. Based on the successful British series "Till Death  Us Do Part," it starred Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, an average American working guy living at 704 Hauser Street in Queens with his long-suffering wife Edith,  (the late,great Jean Stapleton) their daughter Gloria, (Sally Struthers) and her radical husband Mike (Rob Reiner.) Recent events in Washington and Nairobi have reminded me of the classic episode,"Archie and the Editorial. "In this episode, Arch settles in for a quiet night of TV, when suddenly, he sees an editorial from the station manager calling for gun control. Being the proud American he is,  Archie angrily turns  off the TV, complains about the liberal who has just "infilterated" his house,recites a page of stats on guns and the decline of crime, and reads the Second Amendment. (Conviently forgetting the part about "A well-regulated militia.")


Immediately Archie runs to the studio to demand equal time, and, whaddya know, he becomes a TV star! I'm  not going to give the ending away, but the show is as timely now as it was back then. Check your local listings for "All In The Family" (I believe it's rated TV-PG for language.) and CLICK IT!

Speaking of  equal time,

MOM (Starring Allison Janney and Anna Faris, TV-14, Mondays 9:30 PM ET, CBS)

I say "equal time" because two blogs ago,  I reviewed DADS, which I  hated, and the show I am about to review is one about the other side of the parental equation, and I think it's the best to come out of the mind of Chuck Lorre, who gave the world TWO AND A HALF MEN, GRACE UNDER FIRE, THE BIG BANG THEORY, MIKE AND MOLLY, and the famous end-of-show "vanity cards" which  could be considered mini-blogs.

Anna Faris, whom I've always loved because she plays smart girls who just HAPPEN to be sexy, is Christy, a single mom with a degree in psychology who tries to stay above water as a waitress AND wrestles with her alcoholism. She's doing her dangdest to get her life on track, when who does she meet at an AA meeting but her OWN mom,  the talented Allison Janney. There's an expression  many of use, "OMG, I'm turning into my mom/dad!" This show addresses this problem  in a very funny and often very sophisticated way. CLICK IT!

THE CRAZY ONES,  which airs on the same network on Thursday nights at 10 PM ET and is also rated TV-14? Not so much.  It seemed like a good idea to have Robin Williams return to network television and bring Sarah Michelle Gellar (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, the Scooby-Doo movies) with him and repurpose the working title of the classic 1997 Apple spot that praises "the crazy ones"  such as  Albert Einstein,Jim Henson, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,but the execution falls flat. David E. Kelley was at his peak with such shows as "Ally McBeal" ("Felicity" and "Lizzie McGuire"are just two shows inspired by that 90's classic.) and "Boston Legal,"but,  except for Kelly Clarkson's very heartfelt reading of the 1972 classic McDonald's "You Deserve A Break Today" jingle,  (Seriously!) this sitcom about a father-daughter ad agency doesn't have enough "com" to hold my interest. (Note to McCorporate, Scrap that "I'm lovin' it!" campaign and reinstate the classic campaign with that Kelly jingle. My trainer isn't buying how you burger guys are trying to appeal to contemporary sensibilities!) Other than that Kelly song, I deserve a break, David. The rest of you, KICK IT!

And, last, but by no means least...

MARVEL'S  AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. (Starring Clark Gregg TV-14,Tuesdays 8;00 PM, ABC)

As any Marvelite worth his salt knows, S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for Supreme Headquarters of the International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division, but this new ABC effort makes S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for great television.Don't expect Captain America, Thor, Black Widow,  Iron Man, or the Hulk to pop up, even though this story rises from the ashes of the Avengers movie. Gregg reprises his role as Agent Phil Coulson, who faked his own death in the movie, and he creates a new team that James Bond would want to work with. (There is ONE paranormal, but don't expect him to become a full-on super guy.) 9/11 made us  recognize the importance of the ordinary citizen who puts on the blue of the police or the green of the military. S.H.I.E.L.D. makes  us  recognize the importance of ordinary Joes and Janes who can't outrun a speeding bullet, overpower a locomotive, or leap tall buildings at a single bound, but who work in the  shadow of some of the world's most fantastic characters. If you're a Marvel fan or a fan of Bond or U.N.C.L.E., CLICK IT!

Bye, Buckaroos!
Steve




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