Television Of The Weak: The Return Of Two Things That Happened Before

This week, Sean Witzke watched Futurama and Tucker used a time machine to watch The Thick Of It.

Futurama - "Rebirth"/ "In-a-gadda-da-leela"
Sean Witzke

I think I'm supposed to go "YAY! FUTURAMA'S BACK", right? The problem is that Futurama ended its 4th season with a pretty great episode. A musical where all the conventions of the show were shot down and the one subplot that mattered - Fry and Leela actually getting together - wrapped up as nicely as they could.

Then Futurama came back with 4 direct to dvd movies. The first one was funny, the other three were each progressively worse than the last. The first one, Bender's Big Score, was a kind of culmination of all the stuff Futurama did well - science fiction conceits torn to shreds, alternating tone between mean-funny and romantic-sad, a willingness to burn some of their own sacred cows. But it still had the same problem that the rest of the D2DVD films had - it had the urge to sacrifice jokes and character for the sake of continuity. Its some 90's X-Men, '10s DC comics shit - Futurama would rather tell you that this tertiary character is actually the Professor's long lost son that have Dr. Zoidberg eat garbage.

Because, you know, it's a sci-fi show. It was bound to happen eventually. Nerds ruin everything and a show by nerds for nerds (apparently the writers actually know a lot about physics) is counting down to eat itself from day one. Futurama was rare because it didn't crawl up its own ass the way sci fi always does on tv (scifi fans love this wanky shit - and when they're not served it on a silver platter and given something else, they bitch. Look up "Battlestar Galactica series finale" if you wanna see).

Heres the biggest problem with these two new Futurama episodes, which I guess are the start of the 5th or 6th season depending on how you count the movies, they are almost entirely built out of jokes or ideas from ideas from previous episodes. The first joke back is near identical to the one at the start of the first movie, and it's watered down. And more importantly the "lets murder the idiots who cancelled us" impulse that was there the first time they used it, this time its was a "HEY WE'RE ON A NEW NETWORK" joke. Fucking terrible. And thats the just the first. Stem cells, robot duplicates, a character dancing to the point of exhaustion, Leela in a coma, a doomsday device wedged inside Bender, Fry having an afro from static electricity, the Professor screaming to god "prepare for rebirth", perfectly symmetrical violence, cyclops puns, Bender singing 80s tunes as commercial bumps, Hermes taping the crew use the toilet, "Do the Bender!", etc. More than that, the cliches that these two episodes are based on aren't even particularly tweaked so much as thrown out. Yes, it was actually earth the whole time. Yes, Fry is ALSO really a robot. You can guess these things in the first five minutes of each episode.

There's one great joke in this first episode, and it's Bender convincing Fry to give him ass to mouth resusitation. The second one has a pretty good 40s serial riff laced through it, complete with villain Emperor Chop Chop and Zapp Brannigan's domination fantasties. But they're brief moments among middling crap, recycled jokes, and offensive, almost Family Guy-level reference jokes.

The thing is - I love Futurama, I'll give it more leeway than I should because its something that I've got a soft spot for. I love John DiMaggio and Billy West, and I like a lot of the people behind the show because they're some of the funnier ex-Simpsons people out there. The animation is still great looking, the characters are still likeable.

But... we need to learn to let shit go, nerds. It's good that the Arrested Development movie isn't going to happen, the Stooges should have never put out a reunion album, and we should have let Futurama stay a great show that was short-lived instead of pretending this is a good thing. Sure, maybe thats nostalgia talking, as well as the intervening years being a tv rennisance upping my expectations of fucking tv shows, but this isn't hacking it. This is worse than crap, it's nerd killing funny.

And we demanded it.

The Thick Of It Series 3 - "Episode 1"
Tucker Stone

Little background might be necessary, but I'll keep it brief. I'm a firm believer that you're about as interested in the people who do the blogging as I am in what a fleshy prostitute thinks of mouth injections of imported pork, so: there's not much on television right now, and what is on irritates me in a way that I find uninteresting, and the irritation isn't compelling enough for me to spend weeks wondering why. So, for the hell of it, I figured I'd use this little spot alongside Sean's Futurama missives to take a look at the third series of The Thick Of It, which I'd put alongside the second and fourth seasons of The Wire, the final two seasons of The Shield and a hodgepodge collection of Breaking Bad episodes as the best goddamn thing that television's had to offer in the last ten years. (Maybe throw in that part of Spooks where Adam Carter talked a terrorist into killing herself as well. Oh, and the episode where Danny died!) As the upcoming fourth season of Thick is now official, I figured revisiting it might be fun, and since I never got around to listening to the commentary tracks in the first place, maybe something of interest can come out of it for you as well.

Okay, that's enough fucking human being stuff. You want to know if I ate breakfast today too? Moving on.

"On the scrap heap at the tender age of 76? That's no life for you. Hey, do you want me to call Dignitas? I could call about In-dignitas. They'd come round and push you out a window dressed as a clown."

Although the opener is rife with Peter Calpaldi spitting his venom into every mouth that comes near him, it's Olly's reference to the famous euthanasia organization that best encapsulates what this episode is about. Confusion, fear, replacement, and shame. In one of the deleted scenes, Robyn Murdoch muses on why anyone would want the job of Secretary of Social Affairs and Citizenship in the first place. The public hates them, they make less money than "graphic designers"--all in all, it's a thankless, boring job. It's also rife with embarrassment and ridicule (showcased by watching new Secretary Nicola Murray, a bottom-rung choice elevated only out of confusion and a lack of qualified candidates willing to accept the job, as she is humiliated and berated by Malcolm Tucker and eventually forced to choose between her husband's future, her middle-school aged daughter's, or her own), and one's only support network is a bunch of craven lifers, willing to sacrifice each other and themselves for the sake of a bit of job security. (Job security totally dependent on the vagaries of elections, at that.) In a brilliantly cruel twist, Armando Iannucci and the writers admit to having kept a bit of the Series Three plot from the cast, forcing the actors into a position where their scenes were filmed while they were still in the dark as to where the season was actually going, making the moments when Olly and Glenn are packing up their desks that more raw. Rebecca Front, who joined the cast as a replacement for the entrenched-in-bizarre-controversy Chris Langham (who is brusquely acknowledged on the commentary track, with only one writer even attempting to make a joke about the actor's toxic legal troubles), is described by the crew as being more than a little bit nervous about joining a show that had, by the time season three arrived, acclaimed a massive amount of notoriety. But in a similar fashion to that which has Chris Addison and James Smith performing scenes as two men who don't quite know if they've got a job anymore while the actors themselves wonder, you know, if they've got a job anymore, Rebecca's nervous and eager-to-succeed performance as Nicola Murray only benefits from the way in which the introductory episode is written. Desperate for a friend, but surrounded by misanthropic sycophants, Front spends most of the episode trying to play nice...only to reach the final minutes of the show sullenly staring out at all of the hateful people that surround her.

It's pretty much perfect, which is why it's great that Armando decided to ditch the idea of having a story where Nicola arrives and gives everybody head lice. British comedy may be obsessed with cruelty right now, but that would have been a bit too hardcore.

Although Iannucci and his writing team knew from the beginning that Series Three's primary concerns would be the arc of Malcolm Tucker, the first episode doesn't lay down much of the specifics of that. The key portion of what will eventually form those final, perfect episodes is found only in Nicola's introduction--unlike Chris Langham's Hugh, they needed Tucker to be stuck with a relatively unblemished subordinate, somebody who had yet to truly face the humiliation of the job. (They describe Hugh's character in Series 1 as someone "who has had the shit completely kicked out of him".) It's a smart choice that circumstances forced the writers into, but even if Langham had been able to stick around, they probably would have found it necessary to replace him. For some of what occurs in those final episodes to really have impact, Malcolm's eyes have to be fixed on someone who he honestly believes may have some humanity left inside them, an individual who won't choose self-preservation over pity--and that's something that only Nicola can bring to the show. It's a genius decision to write her the way they do, because as funny as Thick is when you just watch a mash-up of Jamie's demonic tirades, Series Three is able to deliver on an even more accomplished dramatic level (without losing a bit of its humor) merely by injecting the show with a bit of wide-eyed sincerity. Murray may never get to bark out of any of the show's famous foul-mouthed tirades (another deleted scene where she insults Olly comes across as weirdly out of place), but for most of Series Three, she's the much needed Trojan Horse that conceals what the story is really about.

Asides:

-Before it devolves into making fun of Bond films, the writers describe a massive amount of stuff that was shot that never made it to air: Nicola getting Malcolm's call, a morning with her children, her trying to reach her husband and leaving for work, her leaving her previous assignment, so on. It seems clear that they chose to leave that stuff out so that the audience would see her forced into an environment that they already cared about, instead of risking an intro that might've exaggerated how "new" she was to the show.

-Although the expense scandal in British politics was breaking at the time they filmed, Malcolm's demand to Nicola that she throw away an extravagant office chair (which she had unknowingly stolen from Glenn) was just a lucky coincidence. Armando even goes so far as to say that he thought it was pretty ridiculous for people to pretend that they wouldn't try to expense things like cat food if they thought they could get away with it at their job.

-At some point, there had been a proposal made to the production staff that they consider a spin-off, an idea that Armando only thought would be interesting if it was a spin-off in the same vein as CSI Miami, with the British equivalent of David Caruso. They then talk for a while about doing Thick of It Babies, eventually settling on doing a young Malcolm/young Jamie college roommate series.

-The commentaries don't spend a lot of time dealing with anything specific about the moment-to-moment, but they do stop to mention that James Smith (Glen) thought it would be funny if his character showed up to meet the new boss wearing colorful socks, as a way to "sort of tart himself up a bit". Armando made sure to include a shot where the socks are visible.

-The final line--when Malcolm claims he's leaving to wipe his ass with pictures of Nick Robinson--resulted in an email from Nick Robinson the next day, who thanked the producers on the behalf of him and his mother. They both were watching that night.

-Sean Witzke, Tucker Stone, 2010

Comments

[John Pontoon]

Considering how amazing and perfect the movie "In The Loop" was, I really should start looking for "The Thick of It." (You don't mention that the movie "...Loop" was an extension of the TV series "...Thick...", which might perhaps give some useful context to readers who forgot or never knew the connection between the two. I myself first thought it was maybe some Alan Thicke vehicle that was somehow worthy of discussion, didn't remember/put it together until you mentioned Peter Capaldi.) Do they ever rerun episodes on BBC America?

Sidebar, one of my favorite movies is Bill Forsyth's "Local Hero," which features Peter Capaldi as a sweet and somewhat naive young oil conglomerate employee. It amazes me that the same actor could play, in Malcolm Tucker, possibly the most bilious and cynical character I have ever seen in any medium, even 25 years apart for the two roles. Big ups, Mr. Capaldi!

[Abhay]

"Loop was an extension of the TV series"

Except set in a sort of alternate reality from the TV series-- In the Loop is a distillation of the TV series, but it's not a 1:1 conversion. It's out of "continuity."

News of the 4th season got by me. I was just googling last week to figure out if there had been any talk of what's planned, what with the elections turning out how they did. That is such excellent news-- the election's given them so much. Malcolm Tucker as the opposition! The conservatives are pretty fleshed out at this point, too-- it's hard to imagine them topping that third season, but should be fun to see them try...

[moose n squirrel]

"we need to learn to let shit go, nerds."

A-fucking-men.

[David Allison]

My favourite thing about that episode of The Thick of It is how broad it gets at points.

I mean, it's an amazing bit of telly, for sure. It's got lots of great Malcolm bits, lots of elaborate swearing, lots of good drama (as good as the best bits of The Wire, yes!). But you expect all of that from The Thick of It, you know?

The I AM BENT gag? The weird Elvis bit? I didn't see that stuff coming, but somehow Iannucci and co manage to get away with these potentially crass sight gags -- they're just another part of the madness, neither hidden away nor over-emphasised. It's a good trick, nicely managed.

[David Allison]

Also: Sean, fuck man, you nailed it!

I can't work up any enthusiasm for the fact that there's more Futurama, which... four years ago, that idea wouldn't have made any sense to me. I wanted Futurama back and now I wish it was dead again, so... this is all my fault, basically.

It's like when you're a kid and poor old Snowy stops moving one day so you start to prod the damn cat with your hand but still no movement so you start hitting her with a stick and your younger brother starts to look at you funny and your sister starts to cry but you're determined to make the cat get up so you keep jabbing her and you set off some sort of weird muscle spasm but looking at it you know it's not right and that makes you weirdly angry so you just keep on poking away until Snowy's eye pops out at the exact moments that your mum comes in and so she smacks the stick right out of your hand and scoops the poor cat up off the floor then goes back for the eyeball and to cut a long story short she gets the cat stuffed and you end up with a creepy door-stopper as a constant reminder of how some things should be left alone.

[Dan Coyle]

Wait, last time I checked, the nerds and fans weren't writing this season of Futurama. The guys who had already written Futurama had written it.

(checks)

Yep.

[nrh]

Ianucchi....

Day to Day-Brilliant
Alan Partridge-Briliant
His own show- spotty
In the Loop/The Thick of it-Briliant
Time Tunnel- Meh
The Gash- Worthless without Chris Morris

Anything missed?

Anyone seen the new Morris film (4 Lions)?

Also, agree across the board.

[sean witzke]

Oh so thats why Dan Coyle is such an angry fuck these days - trouble with reading comprehension.

[Tucker Stone]

nrh: Audacity of Hype, the book! I'd put that up there in the Brilliant category.

Time Tunnel is hit or miss, so I can see a "meh", and I haven't finished watching his show yet. Otherwise, I can agree with your round up. (Although the laugh track on Partridge drives me a bit crazy.)

Abhay/John: yeah, i should've brought up the movie. Some of these episodes don't have commentaries, so maybe I'll use that to pad these fuckers out.

[Chris Jones]

Sean: What do you mean "these days"? He's ALWAYS like this, wherever he goes.

[John Pontoon]

I wonder if this "continuity" and related jargon - "retcon" mostly, I guess - is starting to penetrate the broader culture. It should be because comics aren't just for kids anymore now, although I myself do breathe mostly through my mouth, so my credibility merits downward adjustment.

Anyway, I can never stay mad at you, Tucksie. I'll just assume I can call you that.

[John Pontoon]

Holy Unseen Scottish Indie, blogrollers! I just realized that none of youse nibbled at the "Local Hero"-flavored chum I tossed in your waters. See it, if you would please! Stars Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster, P. Capaldi, Dexter Fletcher, and a bunch of nobodies, about a guy who in sent to buy a coastal town for an oil company, to the townspeople's utter delight ('cuz they're gonna be rich!) Has mermaids, punkers, the Aurora Borealis (this machine sez I spelt it wrong; I feel sic), lotsa drunkenness, and the best abusive psychotherapist EVAH.

Also, Mr. Khosla, I liked your Dracula cartoon. It wasn't just for kids. Mr. Stone, I don't think you should tacitly encourage idiots to call you 'Tucksie.' All you other guys seem nice too, I guess.

[Bob Temuka]

Holy shit, that's the first I'd heard about a fourth season of The Thick of It. That's brilliant news. The first two series have just come out on DVD here so I'm catching up on that, but it's nice to know there is more to come.

(I was also quite chuffed to learn this morning that the IT Crowd is back for a fourth season. Its humour can can get a bit lowest-common-denominator sometimes, but it's got a beautiful sense of absurdity that still generates a laugh.)

The third series was the first I ever actually saw (after the movie), so there is a bit of weird audience identification with poor Nicola Murray on my part. I still find her one of the most sympathetic characters on the show, but compared to the other horrible people like Terri and Olly, that's not hard.

Looking forward to reading more about the series here, especially since I haven't seen any of the deleted scenes of heard any commentaries. It really does get dramatically meaty later on, and by the last few episodes it's remarkable how the narrative makes no effort whatsoever to babysit its audience, while still htting all the right marks.

Any chance of a Doctor Who review by you guys? I'd love to hear your take on that show....

[Bob Temuka]

And don't worry, John. Everybody loves Local Hero. It's so obviously brilliant, it doesn't need to be said out loud.

[Tucker Stone]

B.O.B.: I've tried with Dr. Who, I really have, but it just doesn't take. I did watch that Torchwood mini-series because I heard Peter Calpaldi was in it. I spent most of the time I watched it wondering whether or not it was supposed to be serious. Do they only hire bad actors on purpose?

John: I'm Tucksie enough to admit that went over my head, the Local Hero reference. That's getting remedied immediately, if only to reclaim my birth name from your oily grip.

[Abhay]

Thanks for the random compliment, John. Also: couldn't get past the first Time Tunnel. I like Alan Partridge but... I think the most I liked it was when he had his own talk show, more than the later stuff. I don't know if I associate that with the laugh track, though, so much as the range of characters he got to interact with.

4 Lions is still playing film festivals in the US-- it somewhat predictably is having troubles finding a distributor. I'm going to try to see it this afternoon, but it's unlikely I'll be able to get tickets.

More importantly, Doctor Who-- oh god, that season finale! Moffat is so, so good at his job. His episodes, I'm constantly applauding-- literally, clapping my hands together. The teaser of that second part, I wanted to give a standing ovation to, in my apartment.

A key thing with Who: The show-runner for the first four seasons was UNEVEN-- he had a populist touch and a very good "wouldn't it be cool" sense, but a real weakness with basic nuts & bolts plotting. But the guy who replaced him, and wrote the best episodes of those first four seasons, Steven Moffat-- he doesn't have that weakness. He is SO, so good at his job. For me, he is to Doctor Who what Grant Morrison is for a lot of comic fans to Superman.

If you wanted to take another shot at it, I would skip the first two seasons of the new show for starters, watch the episode Blink from the Third season (Carey Mulligan stars; my favorite episode of all time), Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead, and Midnight (I'm also very partial to Unicorn and the Wasp, but cause it's an Agatha Christie thing).

And then just skip to the 5th and most recent season, and see if that works for you any. I would NOT start with season one out of some sense of being obliged to start there. The show constantly reinvents itself, and it's a brand new show with this last season. There have been weak and uneven episodes-- I didn't care much for Vampires of Venice, and the Lodger & Victory of the Daleks were both so-so. I didn't like the Hungry Earth two-parter at all, actually, at all, but those were both important to the overall arc of the season. The rest, though...

The bad actors-- it's a children's show, and so it needs a particular kind of acting. And unlike with superhero comics, the people who make it, luckily, seem to know that it's a children's show. You know, no one talks about Doctor Who being a "modern mythology" because SHUT UP DOCTOR WHO'S FIGHTING THE DALEKS ON TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER. You know?

But the Doctor Who I watched as a kid had terrible actors AND no budget, so for me, over-the-top acting in a Doctor Who episode is comfort food, like macaroni and cheese. Like, if the new show had an episode with aliens made out of cardboard, I would be so thrilled.

Like, for me, there's something enormously comforting about how the Doctor's greatest enemies, the Daleks, aren't big fancy CGI nonsense, but these very simple goth-R2D2s from the 1960's. It's not sophisticated, but you know, I look at those things and I remember that it works, that they did spook me as a kid... There's something funny and corny about the Daleks, but they're also genocidal racists with just really creepy voices, you know? And I think that's sort of the thing about Who for me, the unexplainable appeal of it that... it's silly, it's inherently silly, the British version of Superman is an eccentric fop in a bowtie fighting a racist pepper shaker(!), but... it works anyways and not in spite of being that but because it is that to so much...?

I don't know-- I just woke up and wanted to write about Doctor Who because I'm still psyched by that finale, I guess. Sorry.

[moose n squirrel]

NOBODY LISTEN TO ABHAY. He is made of lies.

Listen: the only people for whom Doctor Who will ever be satisfying in any way are (1) children, (2) specifically British children, (3) people like me and Abhay and Tim O'Neill who watched Doctor Who as children and now cannot let go, even though they should let go, and run away from it like an abusive alcoholic parent. Doctor Who is a badly-done show. It is badly-written, badly-plotted, badly-acted, just plain bad. What can you say about a show whose most recent (and best) season was based entirely around an elaborate time paradox so full of plot holes it devolves into gibberish halfway through the finale? Or plotlines which repeatedly ask us to take as serious, terrifying monsters a group of early-60s toasterbots who wield rubber death-plungers because updating their look to make them actually intimidating would outrage its overgrown-manchild fanbase?

I have long ago come to accept that Doctor Who will always suck, and that I will always watch it because I am a mentally damaged person, but please, the rest of you can be spared this fate. Look away! Look away!

[Damon Blake]

Four Lions is a lovely piece of comedy with real emotional depth. I look forward to watching it again.

I enjoyed Time Tunnel, it's not staggering but far less slight than other UK comedy. With its gloss it seems more mainstream but there's some great jokes in there.

I went to the premier of In The Loop in Ireland and he gave a great Q&A afterwards, I am waiting for Seaon 4 of the Thick of It far more than I did for any season of LOST.