Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, episode 125: 'The L.A. Complex,' 'Mad Men,' 'Game of Thrones' & more
Dan and Alan also talk about the 'Girls' backlash and check in on reality TV
On this week's Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, Dan and I come to an unexpected consensus on the CW's Canadian import "The L.A. Complex" (I'll have a written review posted tomorrow morning), do our periodic Dan's Reality Round-Up segment, answer a bunch of mail (including a lot of "Girls" discussion), check in on "Mad Men" like usual but also devote a few minutes to recent developments on "Game of Thrones." Busy busy busy.
The line-up:
NFL on FOX (00:00:50 - 00:04:20)
"L.A. Complex" (00:04:15 - 00:13:05)
Dan's Reality Roundup (00:13:00 - 00:26:20)
Listener Mail - Two "Girls" Queries (00:26:35 - 00:39:10)
Listener Mail - Twitter Etiquette (00:39:20 - 00:43:15)
Listener Mail - "Arrested Development" on Netflix (00:43:20 - 00:50:10)
"Game of Thrones" (00:50:20 - 00:59:55)
Sunday's "Mad Men" (01:00:00 - 01:15:20)
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, download the MP3 file or stream it on Dan's blog.
And as always, feel free to e-mail us questions for the podcast.
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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April 23, 2012 at 4:12PM EST Reply to CommentI haven't listened yet but:
1.Thank you for including GOT this week.
2. As I found out on twitter from Dan, I'm sorry Alan has dropped Fringe from his rotation and Dan is not up to date at the moment. I would have loved to hear talk about the "Days of Future Past" episode from this week.
Greg Alan dropped Fringe? Forever? That's schocking.
April 23, 2012 at 6:08PM ESTDax Doubt that's 'dropped watching'... more, dropped from reviewing rotation...
April 24, 2012 at 1:39PM ESTJedyKnight He did say he dropped watching altogether, and i can understand him, since i also did around the early start of Season 3. still have friends who are hard core fans, i dont think less of them, they dont think less of me.
April 24, 2012 at 7:22PM ESTEllisCarver
April 23, 2012 at 4:15PM EST Reply to CommentWhile Seinfeld did have an all-white cast, it did have many side characters that were people of color. Jackie the lawyer, George's boss at Yankee HQ, the owner at the Chinese Restaurant. Plus you had plots that were very clever about race, like Jerry being disappointed his girlfriend with an Asian name wasn't Asian, and Elaine being unable to figure out whether her boyfriend was black.
dan EllisCarver - And if, after 180 episodes, we can't point to "Girls" having *some* memorable minority presence, it will be ABSOLUTELY fair to go to town on it.
April 23, 2012 at 4:36PM EST-Daniel
belinda
April 23, 2012 at 5:09PM EST Reply to CommentI quite enjoyed this article...
http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/18/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-the-girls-criticism/
thedecade
April 23, 2012 at 6:13PM EST Reply to CommentWhy the Joe Buck hate? I would shutter to hear either of you actually call a Super Bowl or a Game 7 with anything more than your trademark hitch pitched shriek or droned monotone banter, boys and girls.
April 23, 2012 at 6:16PM ESTAm I the "droned monotone" or the "hitch pitched shriek"?
"Shudder." Shudder.
-Daniel
Hatfield C'mon, they're so bad you'd close your windows? That's just mean!
April 23, 2012 at 6:54PM ESTMike Luckily for Alan and Dan, they're not employed in that job. They're not angling for themselves to replace Joe Buck, they're aiming for competent announcers to do it.
April 23, 2012 at 8:31PM ESTAndrei Have to say, though, that I would LOVE to hear Alan and Dan call one Yankees-Red Sox or Giants-Patriots game!
April 25, 2012 at 8:59AM ESTWill
April 23, 2012 at 6:19PM EST Reply to CommentThis isn't the first time Pete popped in the door in his only appearance and drastically changed Peggy's day. The same thing happened in Mystery Date. Pete reminded Roger of the work to be done on Mohawk for Monday which put $400 in Peggy's pocket and set up the plot with Dawn.
Andrei Whoa - the first time I read this, i misread how Pete "popped" in the door, and started wondering "When did 'Mad Men' start going all 'Flavor of Love' on us"?!?
April 25, 2012 at 9:03AM EST
April 23, 2012 at 7:01PM EST Reply to CommentFunny that the Fox Sports apology got the details wrong. Fox took NFC away from cbs, not nbc. Cbs took afc away from nbc a few years later. Its a never ending shame spiral. :)
ed w
April 23, 2012 at 7:18PM EST Reply to CommentIf you call a show Girls and put it on HBO, many guys are going to tune in expecting 'hot chicks' and many women will tune in expecting something artsy and representative of all types of women due to the wide, generic title. Titles do matter.
If it was called something like Hannah gets a life, which I know is not a good title and is just an example of something specific to this story, it would have faced less backlash in my opinion.
ed w I should add that I'm not claiming this was the primary issue, the primary issue was as you guys stated - overhype. But I do think it was a contributing factor.
April 23, 2012 at 7:19PM EST
April 23, 2012 at 7:27PM ESTDoes that make it the jeremy lin of tv? :)
Andrei The overhyping was surely un-Lin-tentional!
April 25, 2012 at 9:07AM ESTcap
April 24, 2012 at 4:55AM EST Reply to CommentSince Alan mistook Gabrielle Union for Aisha Taylor I'll assume from now on that he is in fact a racist. And since Dan didn't correct him I'll assume from now on that he is a racist also. A shame really because I liked listening to the podcast till now... but now I have to drop it because of my high moral standards.
belinda Both Gabrielle Union and Aisha Taylor guest starred on friends as girls who dated both Ross and Joey.
April 24, 2012 at 5:00AM ESTcap Damn... doest that mean that I'm a racist now? I am so lost
April 24, 2012 at 6:41AM ESTJedyKnight I was surprised Aisha wasnt mentioned, since i think she had a role with more lines and appearances than Gabrielle (and i think it was on the final or next to final season)
April 24, 2012 at 7:24PM ESTexiledjerseyite
April 24, 2012 at 10:14AM EST Reply to CommentI started cackling at the Joe Buck discussion because I have spent many hours screaming at the TV when he calls Yankees games on FOX.
He's terrible.
RU Serious
April 24, 2012 at 11:01AM EST Reply to CommentCouple things: Joe Buck is a completely terrible announcer. I hate when announcers sound disinterested in the game, and Buck is especially bad because he's actively disappointed when the Yankees win. I don't mind announcers having opinions about the teams they're watching, but the disparity between his Yankee calls and every other call in baseball is egregious and unprofessional. And he thinks he's funny, because largely he's sitting next to two complete morons in Aikman (Well, I think this game is going to come down to who can score the most points) and McCarver (You see, you want to hit line drives because they're a lot harder to catch than your ground balls or pop ups). For someone who's called multiple game sevens, multiple WS finals, and multiple superbowls or championship games, the guy doens't have a SINGLE memorable call. By law of averages, he should have a "And we will see you tomorrow night!" or "Touch em all Joe!" by now.
And I swear to god, the discussoin of race on Girls is absolutely ridiculous. The bottom line that political correctness, which I was extremely disappointed to hear, is what's dictating the discussion. I submit that these girls don't know people of color BECAUSE IN REAL LIFE THEY DON"T KNOW THEM EITHER. It's very rare for a white girl to have a black girl best friend, and vice versa. Also, I smile knowing that if Lena Dunham had tried to write a black character or a relationship between this crew and a black woman, she'd probably be getting ripped pillar to post for her audacity, a 24 year old sheltered art hipster, trying to write an authentic black person, because how could she recognize their challenges??! Can't win for losing. Plenty of things to go after Girls for if you're so inclined, but that one seems particularly wasteful.
MerckZ
April 24, 2012 at 12:44PM EST Reply to CommentRe Mad Men - Peggy watched Born Free, not The Naked Prey. Right?
dan Yup. Indeed it was.
April 24, 2012 at 1:19PM ESTThanks to having the podcast in two different blog posts, our mistakes get corrected doubly!
-Daniel
Jerry Clearly Born Free, with the release of the lion back into the wild, echoed Bert Cooper's symbolic return to the office in terms of power. How can you miss the whole point of the HJ from Peggy?
April 24, 2012 at 4:20PM ESTJust kidding, of course - thanks for the great podcast guys.
Corey
April 25, 2012 at 11:38AM EST Reply to CommentThis was a question you asked last week about Don saying he grew up in a place like this.
In the episode where Don Draper goes to Roger and Jane's party and meets Conrad Hilton for the first time, he tells Hilton about how he worked at a very young child parking vehicles at a whorehouse.
And the point that why would his zealot stepmother Abigail allow this? Maybe she just really wanted to press home the point that she wasn't his mother and his mother was a hooker his father paid?
lztouchthedream I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of "I worked in a place like this" to Conrad Hilton, which would imply country club, not whorehouse.
April 26, 2012 at 10:58AM ESTMaxwell James
April 25, 2012 at 5:47PM EST Reply to CommentIf I might make a suggestion for your treatment of GoT on these podcasts - I think you should reverse roles. Right now you mostly have Alan asking questions of Dan, who of course has some trouble answering because he's read the books & Alan hasn't. But if Dan asks more of the questions (choosing carefully of course), it would provide interesting fodder in terms of generating speculation. Particularly since, for a non-reader, Alan is a very astute observer of the show.