Erin Watches: Glee (still), Red Dwarf X, Political Animals, presidential debates October 18, 2012

Posted by Erin Ptah in Miscellaneous.
Tags: Barack Obama, Erin Watches, Glee, Political Animals, Politics, Red Dwarf, The Newsroom
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Glee

By the end of season 3 I was really only watching this for the schadenfreude of seeing it get torn apart in reviews. For season 4 so far, a lot of that hasn’t even been fun. They’ve thrown a bone or two (Rachel telling off Finn for being patronizing and trying to monopolize her away from her dreams? YES PLEASE, this was long overdue), but I’m starting to think it might be time to give up on the episodes and just watch Hulu’s videos of the songs, already.

…still, even with all the terrible excuses for story development leading up to it, when Santana sang “Mine” to Brittany? I can’t lie: there were some tears.

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Red Dwarf X

The Boys from the Dwarf are back! And so far it feels like something straight out of the classic series. Hard to tell what the continuity is — they haven’t bothered to explain how the characters got from their situation Red Dwarf VIII to the one in Back To Earth to this. I hope there’s a clever backstory coming, but honestly, if there isn’t one and they just plan to proceed as if nothing happened between the start of “Stoke Me A Clipper” and the start of BtE, I would be okay with that.

It’s funny. Very funny. The first episode hit high notes over and over. The second one wasn’t as perfect, but still plenty solid.

I love how the atmosphere with the group has changed. They’re visibly older (well, except Kryten, thanks to the rubber head), and it works. They’re still bickering and snarking and being ridiculous at each other, but it feels like they’ve solidified as a family over the years. In the first episode Rimmer wants to look impressive in front of [spoiler], and the others are completely on-board for playing along. (To the point of Cat wearing a plain grey jumpsuit!) And when you compare and contrast it with “Kryten”…it’s so beautiful, you guys. Glee could learn a thing or two from this show.

Bonus points: they’re two for two so far with having their one-shot characters be women! Half bonus points: the women keep being [spoiler]. At least they’re still well-drawn individuals…and we have another four episodes to go.

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Political Animals

The six-episode miniseries that is thinly veiled RPF about not!Hillary Clinton, if she had twin boys instead of a daughter and divorced not!Bill after the 2008 election, and also not!Obama was white Italian. (He’s played by Nathan Petrelli from Heroes, which is a very trippy crossover.)

Loved it. Hope they make more. It was sharp, it was rich, it was heartfelt and absorbing. There was a lot going on, but you never got lost or felt jerked around by it.

Also, the portrayal of journalism was approximately 1000% better — more professional, more realistic, more involved — than on The Newsroom. Just wanted to put that out there.

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The second 2012 Presidential Debate

Oh, look! Someone decided to make sure the President was awake for this one! And citing numbers and specifics and everything, even.

And the moderator was awake too? Gosh, they spoiled us.

I will say this: I appreciate the idea of looking at a pool of applicants, saying to yourself “hey, this group is disproportionately male/white/straight/Christian/whatever — let’s actively seek out some qualified people who aren’t, and make sure they feel welcome and invited to apply.” So it would have been genuinely commendable if Romney had ever actually done that.