Watching KVille

Hmm, there really isn’t much out there that is exciting me in any way, or making me want to watch anything other than the final half of the final season for BSG (or it is over?). Maybe FOX’s Fringe…

It’s looking a little X-Files to me, and that could be a good thing. My secret is that I have yet to watch Lost. I know, I know, it’s great and I will love it. I even own the first two or three seasons and I have yet to watch them. Why? I don’t know. It’s like after going through my addiction to The 4400 and then reeling from it when it started sucking, rebounded right into Battlestar Galactica. I just don’t want to get hooked on another multi-season-and-still-going hour long scifi drama. I just can’t. I will someday, but not today. Maybe this winter.

Anyway, Fringe is what I am writing about today. I am not sure if Fringe will be a “K-Ville.” Does it capitalize on a tragedy? If you count something like the lack of X-Files a tragedy, then yes, but I don’t think that counts. So will it only last one season or less? Who’s to say. FOX is notorious at canceling shows that perhaps just needed a second season to find their legs and audience, but JJ Abrams is behind this one, so it must be good, right? This is the guy behind Alias (never watched it, never wanted to) and Lost (already discussed above), so you know, he’s awesome or something.

Wait. What else does the image say? “From the writers of Transformers…” That movie was terrible, I mean really, really terrible. Maybe I am not as excited as I thought I was.

We shall see. FOX is fickle. Firefly came from Joss Whedon and that did nothing to keep it on the air. I am trying to think of another example, and can only think of something like Cop Rock. Can anyone please think of anything else?

FOX, fall tv, Fringe, X-Files, Lost, Alias, BSG, Battlestar Galactica, The 4400, Firefly, Cop Rock, JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon, Transformers

Ok, today we look back on a K-Ville sibling in the shortened 2007 Fall TV season: Bionic Woman.

Wait. Maybe it should be a cousin, because it is a different network.

Ok, today we look back on a K-Ville cousin, Bionic Woman. BW falls into K-Ville category #1 and #2. It was developed to piggyback on the popularity of Heroes, as well, as the penchant for remakes. And it lasted all of eight episodes, not even a respectable season, even on NBC.

At least the ad design was cool.

I for one had high hopes for Bionic Woman. I am a bit too young to remember the original, although I am pretty sure I was alive during the original’s run. Just looked it up and it ran from 1976 to 1979, so I was alive, but just barely. That didn’t sound right, but you know what I mean. I was plenty alive, just barely within the time frame in question. No matter, let’s get back to BW.

Personally, I am a big fan of anything cyborg, but bringing back what I remember being a pretty cheesy show made me nervous for the prospect of a new bionic lass. I know that is not fair as I have no true memory of The Bionic Woman (get it, the original had The attached, the remake did not), but even the little clips I see here and there don’t really do anything for me. And that bionic woman now sells adjustable mattresses on the teevee, so that is not really making me want to go back in time to relive those other, less cheesy moments of The Bionic Woman.
Again, no matter.

Bionic Woman was fairly lame. It started out pretty good, and despite the show’s growing suckiness, I kept watching, and kind of missed it when it went away. I was hoping that Bionic Woman was going to find its voice and get some kickass writing going, add some more fight scenes — a lot more — but alas, it never got better. In fact, it was getting downright silly by the time that eighth and last episode aired. Still, I really wanted it to work out. But then, maybe it was just because I wanted another hour a week during which to watch Starbuck, er, I mean Katee Sackhoff. But her character was a part-timer, and I’d rather wait for her to get better material with more screen time.

K-Ville, Bionic Woman, The Bionic Woman, NBC, Starbuck, Katee Sackhoff

In honor of the opening of Pineapple Express, the new James Franco/Seth Rogen vehicle that I am going to see today, I am giving a shout out to one of my favorite one-season-or-less (K-Ville Category #2) series, also cancelled by the genius minds at FOX: Freaks and Geeks.

Freaks and Geeks debuted in 1999, to critical acclaim but no audience. Created by Paul Feig (who works on The Office now), Freaks and Geeks followed two groups of high schoolers, freaks/stoners and geeks/nerds/virgins. The two divergent groups of three or four were bridged by Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), a junior trying to hang with the “cool” kids after years of being a geek. Her little brother and freshman, Sam, is a geek, and his trio represent the “Geeks” side of the show, and doesn’t see why Lindsay would want to hang out with Franco, Rogen and Nick (Jason Segel, also a rising star in Hollywood, both in network sitcoms and films). But Lindsay wants to be a different person, a nonconformist. She dons her dad’s army jacket and suddenly, we have a rebel.

But seriously, Freaks and Geeks was great. I miss it and watch the first and only season every few months. Though I don’t really have to, as many of the actors from Freaks and Geeks have moved on and are working, some in very high profile projects, like Pineapple Express. Franco went on to be the Green Goblin in the Spiderman trilogy, Rogen has taken over Hollywood it seems, Cardellini stole my heart in Grandma’s Boy (see this movie if you haven’t — so funny, better if you are stoned).

The first season of Freaks and Geeks, though considered complete, really wasn’t a complete first season. When Feig found out that FAG was getting the boot from FOX, he and his writing staff put together a season finale, but it didn’t work for me, at all. So in essence, FAG was killed off too soon, and if you listen to the commentary on the DVD set, you will hear that from Feig himself.

Did I mention that Paul Feig is from Michigan (yay, Michiganders!!), and he set FAG (ha ha, I never realized that was the acronym) in Michigan. Judd Apatow was also an Executive Producer, and he is comedy gold, right? Actually, I thought that FAG showed a lot more intelligence than most Apatow projects. More genuine empathy for its characters as they found their place in the complex social structure of an early 1980’s suburban Midwest high school. Think John Hughes without the preciousness.

If you missed Freaks and Geeks, I would highly, highly recommend it. There are truly brilliant scenes and moments, strong and fully realized characters, and Joe Faherty from SCTV plays Lindsay and Sam’s dad.

Pineapple Express, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Freaks and Geeks, Linda Cardellini, Paul Feig, FOX, Spiderman, Grandma’s Boy, Michigan, Judd Apatow, John Hughes, Joe Faherty

Ok, so it’s not that I don’t want to write, it is that I have very little to write about when it comes to Watching K-Ville. The show is dead, Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser have moved on to new projects, and writing about crime in New Orleans is, well, depressing. So I have been ruminating on how can I continue with Watching K-Ville, I mean, even the name is a lie.

Then it came to me. There is always an opportunity to watch a “K-Ville.” You know, one of those really crappy shows that is nothing more than a collection of television cliches, but with an added bonus of a fairly recent, true-life event/issue/condition tied into the show in order to add social relevance to the series. There are also the K-Villes out there that don’t last even a full season.

A great example of a one-season wonder...

So then it is not about Watching K-Ville, it is about watching all the K-Villes. Luckily for me, and possibly for you, I just love bad television, and I love criticizing it even more. I mean, I did go to school for it. I have a college degree in this crap, believe it or not.

And I am so glad that I had this epiphany before the new fall season (perhaps the best time of the year!!!) However, I have a penchant for watching old tv, too, so I will probably add some “pre-K-Villes” from time to time.

Now, what I am waiting for…finding a new “K-Ville” with any K-Ville cast member. That is going to happen. I guarantee it.

K-Ville, bad television, Anthony Anderson, Cole Hauser, New Orleans