Friday, February 25, 2005
I wonder if reruns of M*A*S*H would inspire a similar reaction
When you work at a magazine, it's hard not to be plagued by feelings of worthlessness while watching ER. This is nothing new. In fact, Diana and I used to confront these feelings on a weekly basis in college. We could often be heard having variations of the following conversation:
Diana: God, what are we doing in journalism?
Me: I know! We should be in med school.
Diana: Yeah!
[Pause]
Me: Then again, perhaps we're serving the world better by not being doctors.
Diana: At least this way when we screw up, nobody dies.
Me: Yeah. And it could be worse. I mean, we could be actors.
Now that Diana's not around, I have to have these conversations with myself. And it's not quite so easy to quiet the feelings of worthlessness when ER hits me with the double whammy: doctors and soldiers. But still, as well off as the world is without me being a doctor, it's even better off without me being in the middle of the war. (And seriously, war? Who are we kidding? I'd never even make it out of basic training.) So instead, I must be content to do what I can do well, which is criticize television.
To wit: I thought the Spider-Man homage (or rip-off, depending on how you want to look at it) at the end of The O.C. was really sweet, even though I saw it coming a mile away. And I liked being reminded how much I used to love the song "Champagne Supernova" when I was that age. But while we're on the subject of nostalgic music cues: Uh, Schwartz? I know you love these little forays into nostalgia, and I love them, and the actors who are playing your characters probably love them (seeing as most of them are the same age as me), but I feel that I must again point out that the characters themselves would never make such allusions. I mean, if we're really supposed to believe they're seventeen, that means they would have been, what, three when Cooleyhighharmony came out? So I doubt any of them would really select "End of the Road" as a melancholy moping song.
Oh, and ER? If you want to know how to do the whole sex/death montage well, see Desperate Housewives. Or The Godfather, although that was really more of a death/baptism montage. But it was still well done. Yours, on the other hand, was not. However, I did like the fact that, in the last scene, Neela was wearing the same necklace that I bought my sister for Christmas a couple of years ago. That was pretty cool, and for just a moment it made me forget about continuity problems and sub-par montages and feelings of worthlessness.
When you work at a magazine, it's hard not to be plagued by feelings of worthlessness while watching ER. This is nothing new. In fact, Diana and I used to confront these feelings on a weekly basis in college. We could often be heard having variations of the following conversation:
Diana: God, what are we doing in journalism?
Me: I know! We should be in med school.
Diana: Yeah!
[Pause]
Me: Then again, perhaps we're serving the world better by not being doctors.
Diana: At least this way when we screw up, nobody dies.
Me: Yeah. And it could be worse. I mean, we could be actors.
Now that Diana's not around, I have to have these conversations with myself. And it's not quite so easy to quiet the feelings of worthlessness when ER hits me with the double whammy: doctors and soldiers. But still, as well off as the world is without me being a doctor, it's even better off without me being in the middle of the war. (And seriously, war? Who are we kidding? I'd never even make it out of basic training.) So instead, I must be content to do what I can do well, which is criticize television.
To wit: I thought the Spider-Man homage (or rip-off, depending on how you want to look at it) at the end of The O.C. was really sweet, even though I saw it coming a mile away. And I liked being reminded how much I used to love the song "Champagne Supernova" when I was that age. But while we're on the subject of nostalgic music cues: Uh, Schwartz? I know you love these little forays into nostalgia, and I love them, and the actors who are playing your characters probably love them (seeing as most of them are the same age as me), but I feel that I must again point out that the characters themselves would never make such allusions. I mean, if we're really supposed to believe they're seventeen, that means they would have been, what, three when Cooleyhighharmony came out? So I doubt any of them would really select "End of the Road" as a melancholy moping song.
Oh, and ER? If you want to know how to do the whole sex/death montage well, see Desperate Housewives. Or The Godfather, although that was really more of a death/baptism montage. But it was still well done. Yours, on the other hand, was not. However, I did like the fact that, in the last scene, Neela was wearing the same necklace that I bought my sister for Christmas a couple of years ago. That was pretty cool, and for just a moment it made me forget about continuity problems and sub-par montages and feelings of worthlessness.
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