Listen: Firewall & Iceberg Podcast No. 124
Dan and Alan talk 'Veep,' 'Justified' and 25 Years of FOX
Happy Monday, Boys & Girls.
It's another busy installment of The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.
This week, we talk about the "Justified" finale and Sunday's busy "Mad Men." We also review HBO's excellent "Veep" and chat about 25 Years of FOX.
And because that wasn't enough? Mail!
Next week's gonna be a bit lighter in terms of content, so mail is always appreciated. And maybe it'll be time for some sports talk...
Here's the podcast breakdown:
25 Years of FOX (00:00:40 - 00:22:00)
"Veep" (00:22:00 - 00:31:50)
Listener Mail - Ashley Judd's "puffy face" article (00:32:10 - 00:38:20)
Listener Mail - "The Office"/"Parks & Rec" (00:38:25 - 00:45:45)
Listener Mail - "Suburgatory" Emmy chances (00:46:00 - 00:50:30)
"Justified" finale (00:51:35 - 01:04:50)
Sunday's "Mad Men" (01:04:50 - 01:20:30)
As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. [Or you can always follow our RSS Feed.]
And as always, feel free to e-mail us questions for the podcast.
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
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April 16, 2012 at 7:44PM EST Reply to Commentfunny fox network story...
i was in grad school studying popular culture in the early 90s and in my sitcom class, we had to do a final research paper on any sitcom from the big three networks.
my prof didnt consider Fox a "real" network yet, which annoyed some of us. my friend wanted to write about "whoops" and i wanted to do the simpsons, since i was studying metatext and self-referentiality.
but she wouldnt give.
so, my friend wrote about "when things were rotten" (he loved mel brooks) and i did "f-troop."
chris yea that is funny
April 16, 2012 at 7:57PM ESTBen
April 16, 2012 at 11:35PM EST Reply to CommentNo mention of how securing the NFL helped legitimize FOX in the early '90s?
sepinwall That was certainly a big moment, and an oversight on our part, yes.
April 17, 2012 at 7:13AM ESTTausif Khan Another big moment for me in remember Fox during the 90s was all of those specials like "When Animals Attack". I had completely forgotten about those specials until I re-watched Arrested Development and saw they had parodied those specials by including Lucille in "World's Worst Drivers"
April 17, 2012 at 1:24PM ESTodessasteps You could say pseduo-reality programming like COPS and America's Most Wanted paved the way to TV hell on some level.
April 17, 2012 at 4:53PM ESTAs for minority programming on Fox and later on the WB/CN/UPN, there is long been a theory (true or stereotype) that in poorer urban/rural areas of the country, those channels, often on what used to be UHF stations, were derogatorially called "black cable." I know for a long time, UPN's highest rated show was WWF wrestling, due to the large ethnic demographic watching it.
DougMac
April 17, 2012 at 12:09AM EST Reply to CommentNo Flying Blind with Tea Leoni?
Mark
April 17, 2012 at 11:01AM EST Reply to CommentFOX effectively killed "The O.C." by way of creative interference (CHARLOTTE), "Athens," outrageously competitive timeslots, and, in the end, almost no promotion (remember the random S4 episode they aired on a Wednesday that NOBODY knew about?). Say what you will about Schwartz burning through too much plot early on, season 4 proved that "The O.C." writers didn't need crazy plots to write great television, they thrived when they weren't forced to make FOX happy (in fact, one of the few things that didn't work as well in S4 was the Chris Brown ratings bait, which I'm sure wasn't the writers' idea). Oh well, at least they aired it for four years and allowed it a satisfying series finale.
Jeff613 The O.C really re-ignited the teen soap drama genre.. I don't think those shows deserve that much criticism, they are what they are, it's not GofT or Breaking Bad
April 19, 2012 at 4:31AM ESTPete
April 17, 2012 at 4:48PM EST Reply to CommentDoes anyone else find it really weird how much Alan always likes the female characters in shows. It's not she's awesome because she's hot either its more of a feminist thing. Alan's the best at what he does but all the girls rule stuff is kind of annoying
Micguar Examples?
April 17, 2012 at 4:55PM ESTNat Yeah Alan, jeez! If you're gonna praise female characters, at least have the common decency to reduce them to their physical attractiveness! Sheesh!
April 17, 2012 at 8:20PM ESTpete Just listen to him talk about the girls from season 2 of Justified and the girls from Mad Men on this podcast alone. Its like a girl gets bonus points if they're fat (Joan and Mags from justified) or like ugly but smart(peggy or Robin from HIMYM) Start listening for it and you can't miss it. I'm much more impressed by characters like Sarah Linden, from The killing, where the show doesn't feel like it has to go out of its way to show Girls can be smarter than guys. Or fat girls can be sexy too! And I should get props for points ALL this out before Alan went all GIRL POWER !!! on twitter tn
April 17, 2012 at 9:18PM EST
April 17, 2012 at 9:43PM ESTWell-played, sir. Well-played.
-Daniel
amg Wow. I'm not shocked that people are hating on women who do not adhere perfectly to the "ideal" hollywood body image. But you're going to hate on Alan for pointing out how uncool it is to use derogatory appearance-based insults to denigrate and dismiss an actress or character? Its a toxic environment to inhabit. Even as someone who comes about as close as a real person can to that image, it is hard to not feel judged every waking moment, and be critical of every tiny aspect of myself that may still fall short of some ethereal ideal because I KNOW there are people who are thinking this. And I "know better" than to care; this stuff is just so insidious its impossible to remain wholly unaffected. Anytime I see women dismissed as fat or ugly and therefore of no value or interest in any way, I have to worry about whether, how, and when, my appearance could be used to do that to me. Either I should be dismissed and reviled because I'm not pretty, young, and sexy "enough", or because I'm "too" pretty, young and sexy to be taken seriously or valued for anything other than my appearance at all. Its exhausting, and there is no peace in it.
April 18, 2012 at 1:23AM ESTHow radical that Alan might not want his daughter to have to grow up constantly fighting that battle.
How many other men would agree, but don't say anything because they don't want to face this sort of backlash? And so more often than not these comments get made everyday in thousands of places and thousands of ways, and no one dares say anything about it because if they do, they are going on a "girl power" rant. Or god forbid, a genuinely feminist one. You know how us silly girls are. As another commenter wrote in the review that started all this: we should all just be "stabbed to death." Oh yes. That's not women hating at all.
Iris Ugh shut up Pete. That's why I find Alan and Daniel refreshing, they're aware of feminist issues (and racial issues, which I also appreciate - although I was disappointed they didn't say anything about the lack of diverity discussing Gilrs). They call out writers when they handle a storyine badly (women and weight on MM for example) and they judge male and female charaters by equal standards. Too often critics and viewers hate on female characters so easily, sometimes i'm shocked by it. I've read something like "I like Shameless, but I hate Fiona", I was like are you kidding me? Did Fiona kill your puppy? People find reasons to hate even a fully realised and sympathetic female character? Reading comments about any show, the men are awesome and layered and women are annoying and bitches. I know sexism is a big problem in the entertainment business - men get more votes on reality TV (of course the two guys were saved on The Voice this week, has a woman ever won fan favorite on Survivor?), men get more applause at Comic Con and panels (is Cory Monteith's work on Glee better than Lea Michelle's? I don't think so, why is her applause so much shorter?). This always bothers me.
April 19, 2012 at 11:43PM ESTSo please Pete, cut out your "Ugh feminists, judging women on different criteria than their looks" crap, there's enough patriarchy out there and sexualizing and objectifying women. Do the world a favor and keep your misogyny to yourself.
sarah
April 17, 2012 at 10:57PM EST Reply to CommentDan/Alan-
Do you think Vincent Kartheiser's performance should finally get him an Emmy nomination? If Randee Heller gets a nom for Ida Blankenship, why nothing for Vincent K? Is it only because his character is hated?
Right now the odds-makers still have Slattery as likely and VK at 100/1. Do you think this makes sense?
Clearly I'm a Vincent Kartheiser fan and think his work is on-par with the rest of the actors and better than some already nominated.
Tell me why I'm wrong. Seriously. I'm baffled.
John
April 18, 2012 at 1:28AM EST Reply to CommentGood discussion, especially on the 25 years of Fox. If the Simpsons is disqualified, I'd pick Married...with Children (a shot that essentially invented the dysfunctional family sitcom) and 24 (the most addictive show ever, as well as the best action show ever). I'm interested in Fienberg discounting 24 because it had some bad seasons later on. While that's undoubtedly true (the sixth season was an unmitigated disaster), can't we say the same thing about like the last 10 seasons of The Simpsons? At its peak, it was arguably the funniest show ever. But it has been a shell of its former self for about a decade now. I don't see how Fienberg can just ignore that.
John I meant to say "show", not "shot." This is what I get for not proofreading before posting.
April 18, 2012 at 1:30AM ESTno email
April 18, 2012 at 5:56AM EST Reply to CommentObligatory PTI question for next podcast: What's the percentage of each as a cause of the Girls backlash: Misogyny (ref: Diablo Cody/Juno), privilege/nepotism, and viewers have a hard time with "comedies" where they hate the protagonist/slacker protagonists are non-starters (ref: Scott Pilgrim).
Erika Herzog
April 18, 2012 at 9:36PM EST Reply to Commenti think the "puffy face" discussion misses the boat a bit. and then to awkwardly bring up Nicole Kidman and Meg Ryan as examples of other actresses whose appearances may or may not have been altered really didn't steer you any further towards what i think about when i react to discussions like this.
the bottom line is that a woman's appearance is always going to be the subject of the viewer's gaze and is a point of discussion in most cultural discussions, whether they are high brow or low brow.
and it's usually a pretty harsh gaze -- which i think is part of what Ashley Judd was saying. that harsh gaze is not equally applied among men and women, obviously.
especially in Hollywood this is a bigger and bigger problem because the stakes for beauty and attractiveness are so impossibly high. even the traditional character actor today is being asked to be more attractive than your regular "man on the street". to a ridiculous degree.
it's a shame that the focus wasn't more on the fact that almost all of the general internet discussion of Ashley Judd's show was focused on the issue of her face. she's a talented actress we don't see enough of and i'm sure it will hurt the chances of this show. (though have to say i'm not so thrilled with the premise -- network shows are really sucking lately, aren't they?)
yes, yes, an actor's toolbox is their face, but the whole discussion about the "puffy face" verged on the absurd after a while, didn't it? enough to make it a topic of your podcast (which i'm thankful for, btw)....
anyway, i wish you guys would have gotten into the actual matter instead of sidestepping the actual issues here. i know it's awkward to talk about this stuff but i think it's important to bring up.
Jeff613
April 19, 2012 at 4:51AM EST Reply to CommentWhat are your thoughts on Family Guy? It essentially took adult cartoons to the next level on a whole, didn't it?
Ken Raining Nope, it didn't.
April 20, 2012 at 10:58AM EST