More Teachers on Television

Those Who Can't premieres tonight on truTV.  And yes, TVLand recently premiered Teachers, and don't forget NBC's Mr. Robinson, so this is not new ground.  

Do we have room for another school series that focuses on the adults, this time set in Denver? I suppose so.  Most school-based shows, be it Glee, Teen Wolf, Awkward, or Faking It, have been oriented towards the kids rather than the adults, so this is still a different twist. 

Take a look at the trailer of the show as well as this summary:

Those Who Can't is truTV's first foray into full-length scripted comedy. The half-hour show follows three trouble-making teachers, played by show creators Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl and Ben Roy of the Denver-based comedy troupe The Grawlix. More inept than the kids they teach, they're out to beat the system as they struggle to survive each day on their own terms. Joining them is Maria Thayer (Eagleheart) as the school librarian with an insuppressible passion for life.

I still miss Boston Public, a terrific series from David E. Kelley that focused on the teachers. It ran from 2000 to 2004. With all the revivals of older shows, it is a show I would like to see back on TV.

High Hopes For Samantha Bee

I am looking forward to tonight's premiere of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS. As another refugee from the long gone, heydays of The Daily Show, she represents a hopeful start to more great comedy. 

Her new show will follow The Daily Show format with local reporting on current events. And she will be joined by her husband, Jason Jones, and others from the old Daily Show.  What a deal!

In discussing her show with the Seattle Times, she noted:

With comedy, you can’t start a piece saying, ‘We’re going to make a change happen, we’re going to change the world with this comedy,’ because then nothing would be funny at all...But we’re definitely attracted to stories that …. shine a light on something. Somebody should be paying attention to these things.

I will be paying attention and expect she will do just fine.

Check Out Chelsea

I was not familiar with Chelsea Handler's late night show, Chelsea Lately, but I bumped into her four-part series on Netflix titled Chelsea Does...  The documentary premiered at the Sundance File Festival and covers four topics: marriage, Silicon Valley, racism, and drugs.  

I watched the marriage episode and thoroughly enjoyed her approach to the topic, from Las Vegas weddings and dating services to bondage and cheating.  She covered it all and was not afraid to throw in her opinion, which often caught the others off guard.  I also enjoyed her disgusted looks at the camera more than her comments as she was clearly thinking to herself "What is wrong with these people?"  And in the marriage episode she spent a fair amount of time with her family, including questioning her father about his marriage.  Throughout the show Chelsea was open with her life and opinions.  

I strongly recommend you check out the new series.  I may need to go back and check out her talk show.  I saw a few clips, such as this one with Drake and another with Justin Bieber, that gave me a sense of what I was missing.  She has a nice way with guests.

What is HBO's Animals?

This is what HBO has to say about tonight's new series Animals:

Created by Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano and produced by Duplass Brothers Television, Animals focuses on the downtrodden creatures native to Earth’s least-habitable environment: New York City. Whether it’s lovelorn rats, gender-questioning pigeons or aging bedbugs in the midst of a midlife crisis, the awkward small talk, moral ambiguity and existential woes of non-human urbanites prove startlingly similar to our own.

Bedbugs with angst? That does sound like the Duplass brothers.  However, with everything else on piling up in my DVR, I may put this one aside for another day. 

Update: So now I know. And I think one episode will be enough. I'm not sure a cartoon with animals can truly mask the disturbing events happening on screen, from death by sex to other themes, but I think the witticisms of The Simpsons will suffice for me. 

Why I Dropped The Flash

That's it! First The Flash started crossover episodes with Arrow and now next month we will see the first Supergirl crossover episode. This is getting tiring. It was interesting in the beginning, but now it is clearly product placement rather than good storytelling. If I wanted to watch Arrow or CBS's Supergirl I would tune in, but I do not.  But now I have to record these shows as well if I want both sides of the episode.  And I expect this will shortly happen again with DC Legends since the characters on that show emerged from The Flash and Arrow.  This incestuous relationship between all these men and women in tights is too much.

I hope Netflix does not go this tiresome route with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the new Luke Cage. I don't like my peas touching my mashed potatoes, so keep my super heroes to their own hours. 

And don't get me started with this Glee crossover. That's right, The Flash's Grant Gustin was a private school brat Sebastian Smythe and Supergirl's Melissa Benoist played Marley Rose.  I wonder when Darren Criss will become TV's Aquaman.  Just kidding.  Or am I?

Madoff: Another Series on Another Real Crook

If you sat out on O.J. Simpson, you still have a chance to see another real American crime, this time financial rather than passionate, in ABC's two-night miniseries Madoff.  Richard Dreyfuss plays the part of the pyramid-scheming Bernie Madoff, while Blythe Danner plays his wife Ruth.  His misdeeds and others like him helped to trigger the Great Recession that started under the Bush Administration. 

In discussing his character in an interview, Dreyfuss pulled no punches:

He was amoral...Most people don't realize that there's moral, immoral and amoral. He was not only amoral, he was a sociopath, which means that ultimately, if you scratch the surface, he didn't give a hoot in hell about anybody including his family.

I like Dreyfuss yet cannot get excited about one more film bemoaning the financial losses of that period.  I suppose this story is easier to tell than the complex array of thievery at Enron, but that is the miniseries I want to see.  Luckily, that too had a happy ending with the crooks in jail.  Unfortunately, most of the Wall Street corruption tales do not end so happily.

I Will Skip OJ

Some may be tuning into tonight's premiere of FX's The People vs O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, but why live through that again? It only shows the murder trial of a sad man in a dysfunctional society defended by soulless lawyers.  We can watch that every night on every channel and still call it entertainment.

I think I will tune into CBS's Super Bowl Greatest Commercials. At least then I can watch the American passion for sports , celebrity, and sex directed toward a funny and more beneficial outlet (that is, beer and potato chips).