Three Things I Like About Shows I Don't Watch
I work at home, and I often work into the evenings, and I keep the TV on while I work because it helps to distract myself from the tedium that is my work. I don't consider this to be "watching" TV; I consider this to be having the TV on. Watching TV means sitting on the couch, computer off, I-may-not-answer-the-phone-if-you-call-depending-on-who-you-are. There are only a handful of Shows I Watch. In the meantime, though, there are other shows that I see and, while I'm not hooked on them by any means, there are things I like.
1. Manny on "Modern Family." Mostly I find "Modern Family" a bit too broad for my tastes; too many of the characters are either types or personified neuroses. Manny, though, rocks. Most of the time I find precocious kids in fiction irritating, but Manny isn't precocious, exactly; he's just an old soul, doing his best to get by in the body of a prebuscent boy. It seems to me that "Modern Family" is a show that tends to build to payoffs of climactic hysterical behavior, but Rico Rodriguez II has enough gravity to keep his character from spinning off into orbit while still being funny. If this show was just about Manny's household I might actually watch it.
2. Deeks and Kensi on "NCIS: Los Angeles." This show is on before "The Good Wife" (or it was; "The Good Wife" is moving to Sundays this season), and so I often turn it on so I can work up until the latter show starts without forgetting about it. Deeks is played by Eric Christian Olsen, who also played Vaughn on "Community," which is another one of the Shows I Watch; I liked him on there but I like him even better here. "NCIS: LA," as far as I can tell, is a show that does not make any sort of sense, but there is a lot of chemistry between Deeks and Daniela Ruah's character, Kensi, so much that it is obvious even to the casual viewer like me. Again, I would probably watch this show if it were about these two catching bad guys and comparing comic book collections and doin' it rather than about the two stoics who actually headline the cast, O'Donnell and LL Cool J. But keep Linda Hunt. Mustn't forget about Linda Hunt.
3. Neil Patrick Harris on "How I Met Your Mother." When I watch this show, it is because I am trying to understand why people love it so. It has struck me, from the beginning, as an ambitiously mediocre sitcom; ambitious in the way that it plays with non-linear storytelling and the withholding of information, but mediocre in the way that its characters are unlikable and, crucially, in that it is Not Very Funny. There are three things that please me about HIMYM: knowing that Alyson Hannigan is gainfully employed, gazing at Cobie Smulders, and watching Neil Patrick Harris gamely take the uninspired material he is given and elevate it, sometimes to the level of genius. It's not Barney himself that works, because Barney, in the context of the other characters, is too heightened, too mysterious, too emotionally absent to come from the same storytelling universe; he's Geoff Peterson, not Andy Kindler. He's the male equivalent of Veronica Palmer in her off hours. (In fact, Barney would probably make a lot more sense in a workplace comedy.) But Harris has taken the role and made it iconic, which is the only thing I understand about HIMYM's success.
Side note: There are similarities between Barney and Manny, I think, but there are also crucial differences; Manny is a gentleman and Barney is a cad. Manny is more like Ted on HIMYM, if Ted was the one that wore suits, and was a bit less pretentious. Manny isn't going to grow up to be Barney. Haley might, though.
1. Manny on "Modern Family." Mostly I find "Modern Family" a bit too broad for my tastes; too many of the characters are either types or personified neuroses. Manny, though, rocks. Most of the time I find precocious kids in fiction irritating, but Manny isn't precocious, exactly; he's just an old soul, doing his best to get by in the body of a prebuscent boy. It seems to me that "Modern Family" is a show that tends to build to payoffs of climactic hysterical behavior, but Rico Rodriguez II has enough gravity to keep his character from spinning off into orbit while still being funny. If this show was just about Manny's household I might actually watch it.
2. Deeks and Kensi on "NCIS: Los Angeles." This show is on before "The Good Wife" (or it was; "The Good Wife" is moving to Sundays this season), and so I often turn it on so I can work up until the latter show starts without forgetting about it. Deeks is played by Eric Christian Olsen, who also played Vaughn on "Community," which is another one of the Shows I Watch; I liked him on there but I like him even better here. "NCIS: LA," as far as I can tell, is a show that does not make any sort of sense, but there is a lot of chemistry between Deeks and Daniela Ruah's character, Kensi, so much that it is obvious even to the casual viewer like me. Again, I would probably watch this show if it were about these two catching bad guys and comparing comic book collections and doin' it rather than about the two stoics who actually headline the cast, O'Donnell and LL Cool J. But keep Linda Hunt. Mustn't forget about Linda Hunt.
3. Neil Patrick Harris on "How I Met Your Mother." When I watch this show, it is because I am trying to understand why people love it so. It has struck me, from the beginning, as an ambitiously mediocre sitcom; ambitious in the way that it plays with non-linear storytelling and the withholding of information, but mediocre in the way that its characters are unlikable and, crucially, in that it is Not Very Funny. There are three things that please me about HIMYM: knowing that Alyson Hannigan is gainfully employed, gazing at Cobie Smulders, and watching Neil Patrick Harris gamely take the uninspired material he is given and elevate it, sometimes to the level of genius. It's not Barney himself that works, because Barney, in the context of the other characters, is too heightened, too mysterious, too emotionally absent to come from the same storytelling universe; he's Geoff Peterson, not Andy Kindler. He's the male equivalent of Veronica Palmer in her off hours. (In fact, Barney would probably make a lot more sense in a workplace comedy.) But Harris has taken the role and made it iconic, which is the only thing I understand about HIMYM's success.
Side note: There are similarities between Barney and Manny, I think, but there are also crucial differences; Manny is a gentleman and Barney is a cad. Manny is more like Ted on HIMYM, if Ted was the one that wore suits, and was a bit less pretentious. Manny isn't going to grow up to be Barney. Haley might, though.