September 19, 2011

So I watched the Emmys last night… I wasn’t planning to, but it was on, and I had nothing better to do. The thing that really cheeses me off is that it’s this platform where they can help raise the profile of a critically-acclaimed but audience-challenged show, maybe give it a boost that’ll help it stave off cancellation for a while. But instead they just vote for like the four same shows over and over again. It’s really maddening. I know, I’m not supposed to care about award shows, but I invariably do.

I watched one episode of Modern Family about two years ago and I thought it was pretty okay. I chuckled a couple times. If, for some reason, I was held hostage and forced to watch sitcom reruns, and the hostage-taker was kind enough to allow me to choose which sitcom out of several pre-determined options, I would probably choose Modern Family over something like The King of Queens. It’s just a really average sitcom that for some reason the Emmy people have decided to be their official comedy show for the next four years (I guess this means 30 Rock‘s days in the sun are over).

Sidenote: I was never quite clear on whether Modern Family‘s supposed to be a fictional documentary, or if it’s just shot like one but isn’t. Not that there’s necessary anything with the latter approach; Arrested Development made good use of it. I remember there being a bunch of talking head scenes but no Jim-looks at the camera. Another Sidenote: I rewatched some of the original Office semi-recently, and I was a little surprised at the relative infrequency of talking head scenes compared to the current crop of mockumentary shows, where they take up about half the episode.

Edit: Mobutu Sese Seko (not sure if that’s his real name) wrote a much more articulate and coherent thing so please forget whatever I wrote above and read that