Dude, This Is NASA Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Last night's big project: finishing up the first go-round of NewsRadio. (Commentaries still TK. Although, in theory, I can't think of anything less entertaining than somebody sitting off-screen explaining why a sitcom is funny.) In trawling around online, I found a fine observation about the show: It stayed in a box, but inside that box it was brilliant.

Much as I love the show, I can't help but agree. You don't get the sense, as you do with Seinfeld, that the jokes are tapping into any deeper currents of culture or even--God help us--human nature. The show is too collegiate and po-mo to be primal. Not to mention topical: Punchlines include Agent Scully, LaToya Jackson and Melrose Place.

Indeed, there are times where the show (like the Blue Man Group) feels like a time capsule of that loving little moment between Thirtysomething and The O.C., where sexless snarkers lorded over pop culture. I suppose Friends is going to be remembered as "the" Gen-X sitcom, but NewsRadio has a much better claim: It's smarter and smirkier, and the characters have a certain grotesque warmth. I'd game with those guys any day. And I think they'd take me up on that.

(Here's a thought: Everyone on NewsRadio is a parallel of, and an implicit commentary on, a Friends character. Discuss.)

@ 7:44:00 AM,

1 Comments:

At 1:48 PM, Blogger BeK said...

Re: News Radio not tapping into human nature.

Respectfully, I disagree. I don't know if it occured in the first two seasons, but there's an episode where Lisa and Dave go to an electonics store and Lisa discovers for the first time the wonders of (IIRC) CSPAN.

The show ends with them sitting on a couch and watching separate televisions broadcasting different shows. They aren't bickering, but neither are they communicating.

The subtext is both cynical and telling--TV as a device that pacifies by disconnecting its viewers from each other.

 

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