On TV, as in life, there are good cops and bad cops. But, to paraphrase Tolstoy for the millionth time, while most of the good cops we see on primetime are fairly interchangeable fair, valiant types, every bad cop is incompetent, corrupt, or otherwise dysfunctional in his own way. Sometimes that’s just the way the character is written; other times, confusing writing or direction turns officers who are supposed to be heroes into bumbling fools. After the jump, inspired by Grimm‘s unintentionally dense detectives, we round up TV cops you would never want to have on your case.
Everyone — real or fictional — needs a good neighborhood bar. And though here in New York City we’re surrounded by some great (and real) ones, we can’t help but think wistfully after the top notch drinking establishments in some of our favorite films and TV shows, which tend to take the cake every time. After all, they’re where our favorite characters hang out, which means they must be cool, right? Right. Click through to see our list of fictional bars where we would totally become regulars, and let us know which ones you’d choose in the comments!
1. The Wire’s Michael K. Williams isn’t the only beloved star joining Season 3 of Community; John Goodman will also appear in at least six episodes of the show as the new Vice Dean of the School of Air Conditioning Repair. [via Vulture]
2. James Franco, who General Hospital fans know as performance artist and serial killer Robert “Franco” Frank, is returning to the soap this September in a long-term story arc that is being called his character’s “most twisted plan yet.” [via TV Guide]
3. There’s a “grittier” remake of Bonnie and Clyde in the works, with Limitless director Neil Burger at the helm and Up in the Air co-writer Sheldon Turner working on the screenplay. While we’re not sure this reboot is at all necessary, it should be really fun to cast. [via Deadline]
4. Last night Stephen Colbert debuted a pine-fresh, male version of those controversial “talking vagina” Summer’s Eve ads. Watch the macho madness unfold here.
5. Care to buy The Dude’s Venice Beach bungalow? The Big Lebowski house is up for sale, and it will only cost you a cool $2.3 million (rug not included). [via AV Club]
Now that we’ve gone to the trouble of compiling our lists of the most memorable TV themes of the ‘80sand ‘90s, it would seem irresponsible (not to mention totally at odds with our obsessive-compulsive nature) not to carry on into the 2000s — in spite of the fact that TV theme songs all but disappeared in the decade, replaced on most shows by a quick title hit (though sometimes an ingenious and musical one) and credits rolling under the opening scenes.
However, a few shows (particularly on cable) managed to keep the opening theme song alive, while others took the fifteen to thirty seconds allowed by their networks and made something special of them. As before, it’s not just about an appropriate theme for great show (enough about the Buffy theme already); it’s about a catchy tune that fixes itself in your cranium, one that you not only sing along with when the show starts, but that even pops into your head during the day, or works its way into your shower-crooning repertoire. Our playlist is after the jump, and you can drag and drop your picks into the comments.
Treme, the quietly brilliant HBO musical drama that examines New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, debuts this week on DVD and Blu-ray, and if you haven’t seen it, you should rent or buy it post haste. (If there is one takeaway from this post, that’s it.) The series was co-created by David Simon, the journalist-turned-TV genius behind the show that launched a thousand blog posts, the late, great The Wire. And in addition to the many things that are somewhat miraculous about Treme, there is this: It is a rare case of a follow-up television show that measures up to its iconic predecessor.
TV is a tricky business, and more often than not, the creator or primary creative force behind a big hit will go into their next series, guns a-blazing, only to find that television audiences are more fickle than they thought. Steven Bochco followed Hill Street Blues with Bay City Blues; Garry Marshall and Thomas L. Miller followed The Odd Couple with Me and the Chimp; West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin’s next show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, was a costly one-season flop for NBC; M*A*S*H show runners Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart’s Karen folded after five months; Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Gilmore Girls follow-up The Return of Jezebel James lasted a mere three episodes; and Mitchell Hurwitz’s Running Wilde reunited him with Arrested Development stars Will Arnett and David Cross but ran only spottily on Fox last fall before disappearing altogether. However, there are occasions when a TV series manages to equal (or even surpass) the critical and popular success of its predecessor. Join us after the jump for a look at ten television shows where lightning struck twice.
It turns out you’re not the only one who sees the Dickensian qualities inherent in The Wire. As Joy Delyria and Sean Michael Robinson explain, “There are few works of greater scope or structural genius than the series of fiction pieces by Horatio Bucklesby Ogden, collectively known as The Wire; yet for the most part, this Victorian masterpiece has been forgotten and ignored by scholars and popular culture alike. Like his contemporary Charles Dickens, Ogden has, due to the rough and at times lurid nature of his material, been dismissed as a hack, despite significant endorsements of literary critics of the nineteenth century. Unlike the corpus of Dickens, The Wire failed to reach the critical mass of readers necessary to sustain interest over time, and thus runs the risk of falling into the obscurity of academia.” Visit The Hooded Utilitarian for their complete (and rather genius) “history” of The Wire, along with additional sample pages. [via Lapham's Quarterly]
