Quarterlife

Before I get started, I want to say that for what may be the first time ever, that bumbling fool we call "Mr. President" has actually impressed me. Today, the Red Sox visited the White House as World Series Champs for the second time in Bush the second's reign of terror. Last time Manny Ramirez missed with some excuse like "my grandma is sick." So what does Gee Dub say upon noting Manny's absence this time?? "What happened, did his grandma die again?" I'm impressed. Ballsy and actually funny. But I guess he was on a roll, so he starts talking about Daisuke Matsuzaka saying "His press corps is bigger than mine, and we both have trouble answering questions in English." Suddenly that little countryboy smirk ain't so offensive. But Dubya wasn't done - he actually hit the trifecta. He approaches the lord of the dance, Jonathan Papelbon, and says "Thanks for wearing pants." Who is this man?? What did he do with that moron I've been publicly berating for the past seven-plus years? If only foreign diplomats could all hit dingers, maybe we wouldn't be in the predicament that we're in right now.


Okay. So now that I'm past that uncharacteristic softheartedness, let me turn to what my post is really all about. You've seen commercials, you've seen the viral videos (which are ACTUALLY the episodes, apparently), you've caught part of the hype. That's right folks, NBC has unrolled a new show that should be called "My So-Called Hipster-something." Unfortunately, that title tanked in the beta testing, so we wound up with "Quarterlife." I'd seen all the myspace notices and stuff about new episodes, so I figured when it hit network TV, I might as well see what all this corporate-generated buzz was all about. I watched the pilot episode online today (how trendy am I that I watch streaming video of a TV broadcast that was released as an online video, THEN blogging about it. I'm so PoMo it hurts) and I don't even know where to start.

I've rolled some eyes in my day. I can smirk and scoff with the rest of them. But never before have I been so enraptured with the complete necessity to constantly do all three for a prolonged period of 45 minutes like I have in watching this "show". I'll try to keep this brief, because otherwise I'll be here until sunrise picking apart every last little aspect of this horrible mockery they try to call a "program."
I am going to try this laundry-list style....

1) The "Friends 2.0 living situation": three guys, three girls. One established relationship. Guy #2 is in love with his friend's girlfriend. Girl #2 is in love with guy #2, who happens to be her roommate, and he is oblivious because he is too busy being in love with Girl #1. Guy #3 is sarcastic and clever, and asexual. Girl #3 is a slut. Most(all?) of them live in the same house.... though it's never clear who ACTUALLY lives there other than guy and girl #2.

2) The blonde is the one who happens to be a slut. But it gets worse -- she wants to be an actress except for one problem.... she can't FUCKING act!!!!! Oh noooo, stop the presses. PLUS, she has already slept with her acting teacher, so he doesn't have to play nice, since he already got the milk from the cow that can't mooooo worth a shit. BETTER STILL...... She's an ALCOHOLIC BARTENDRESS!!!!!!!! Isn't this like EVERYONE you know too???

3) There's the cute girl with the Lisa Loeb/Ingrid Michaelson glasses who the two guys are after. She ignores the fact that her boyfriend, mister clean cut, is an insensitive clod AND ignores the fact that artsy hipster film boy is madly in love with her. How does she react when she "finds out"? She taunts him at every turn, flaunting everything she has with his best friend (and arch-enemy at the same time) in order to remind him that he WON'T have it with her.

4) The guy who is least "edgy" or "indie looking" just so happens to be the cocky, good looking rich boy who is exploiting the talents of his geeky hipster buddies.
He's also got the ever-so original twist of being a womanizer too! What a concept!

5) Everyone has cool, fun, hip jobs. Two guys were in film school and now want to make commercials. Their third friend is random computer genius who apparently lives in the basement because it lends him the most freedom to explore the scarce corners of internet porn. Girl #2 is at the bottom of the totem pole at a FASHION MAGAZINE despite the fact that she's intentionally unfashionable. Girl #3 is a bartendress (as I mentioned). Girl #1 apparently has no career other than being fawned over by the film school boys.

6) There are fliers on corkboards up as art, and one of my BIGGEST gripes in the world: there is a guitar in the background just for the sake of being cool and artsy. I'm sorry, fashion magazine, but I don't think anyone in your office will randomly run up to the classical guitar and belt out a song if they're feeling creatively stifled on their coffee break.

7) Despite the fact that the girl is supposed to be a struggling writer, 99% of her blogging (which gets her and everyone around her in trouble) is done in video format. I thought the video was supposed to be left to the film-school boys.

8) They all get together to drink Mexican beer. Is the show sponsored by Pacifico???? In one episode, the only beers that make appearances are Corona, Negra Modelo, and Modelo.

9) In the first episode: the writers have already set up a love pentagon, had the girl who is ostensibly a trainwreck "find herself", and done one of those awful "I have to tell you something" "Ooh, I have to tell YOU something" scenes where the one person says they're in love with the person they've been in love with all along like it's news, to leave the other person speechless with their heart dripping out their nose.

10) They're trying to be cool while pushing the envelope with waaay too in-depth sex talk flying casually around. There's one scene where the drunk slut asks the struggling writer "when was the last time you had an orgasm?"
(a) These girls are roommates, so it could possibly be obvious.
(b) Normal people don't really talk like that. Even if friends are discussing their significant others or their desires for booty, they don't ask specifics like that. I'm never going to go up to my best friend (side note, these girls are NOT best friends in the show) and be like "Hey bro, when did you last bust a nut?", "How long since you last walked the dog?", or even "How ya been? Buried the bone recently? Really? That's fantastic!"

I'm going to keep it at ten for tonight, because otherwise I'll get so worked up that I won't sleep. But long story short, shame on you, media entity. Shame on you for thinking you can do the "stereotypically different" thing to me and folks of my age/cultural persuasion. Also, random side note - where the hell is the diversity? Shouldn't there be like the lesbian Asian, or the cool trendy black guy at the bar? Where are the cool kids with their cool piercings and tattoos? If you're going to make a show of all the interesting exploits of the creative and artsy, at least give them SOME originality.

POST-INITIAL-WRITING-NOTICE
In looking for an image to put into this posting, I discovered the following article:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The debut of NBC's new series "quarterlife" marked the network's worst time-period performance in at least 17 years and has thrown the show's fate into imminent jeopardy.

Premiering Tuesday night at 10 p.m., "quarterlife" pulled in just 3.1 million viewers. It came in a distant last place in the hour despite having a relatively strong lead-in from "The Biggest Loser" (8.1 million).

Though no official cancellation has been announced, sources say the series is expected to be yanked after a single airing -- a rare event that previously occurred when Fox axed "Anchorwoman" last summer.

Do you know what that means?? Five million people turned off as soon as that show premiered. Five MILLION people reached for the remote, and went elsewhere. You mean it's a BAD idea when the next like seven episodes are already up on youtube before you "air" them? It's not good to air your pilot on Myspace AND MTV first?? Really??? Funny how that works. Now I get to go to bed with an incredibly smug sense of satisfaction of having ridiculed a show whose death warrant may have already been signed. And how does it feel? It feels fantastic.