Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 14

Andy: Soooooooooo…

Drake: It’s been so long.

Andy: I am listening to an experimental piano piece that reminds me of the BSG music.

Drake: I don’t know where to start.

Andy: And my thought is, this summer, I am going to go back and re-watch Battlestar Galactica season 3.

Drake: That’s a good plan. Let’s talk about what we’re going to watch over the long, shitty summer.

Andy: The only bright spot being Mad Men season three later in August.

Drake: I had my doctor look at a bright spot on my back. It’s benign.

Andy: You should probably get a second opinion.

Drake: It doesn’t matter. My insurance has a punch card system. I get five growths removed and they’ll remove the sixth one for half-price.

Andy: But you don’t even have the money to get half a tumor removed. You’re fried, pal!

Drake: Thanks.

Andy: As much as I care about you dying of cancer though, I’d rather talk about what I’m going to watch this summer. Maybe I’ll start going back through The Wire. And I’m going to download this Australian show my Aussie pal recommended. Summer Heights High. Also, I got a show called Campus Ladies which is strange and fun. It’s about these two women, one’s husband has died, the other’s husband cheated on her, so they both decided to enroll in college and live in the dorms because they missed out on going when they were younger. And they totally embrace the college lifestyle.

Drake: Is it foreign?

Andy: It’s on the Oxygen network of all things. It’s all improvised too. In the manner of Curb Your Enthusiasm, that is. I’ve only seen three episodes so far, but Will Forte and Anthony Anderson were in one. It has such an awkward rhythm to the show that I guess comes from the improvised nature.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Drake: I’m starting to think I might like this. Despite its being on the Oxygen network. It’s television for women…and also people who like awkward improv?

Andy: Why can’t women like awkward improv?

Drake: Also, when you said Anthony Anderson, I immediately thought of the guy from Family Feud.

Andy: I like how you set up a dichotomy there. You fucking sexist dick. I hope you suddenly grow two more testicles so that women get freaked out by your junk.

Drake: Is it weird that doesn’t sound that bad?

Andy: I dunno. Is there an advantage to having four balls?

Andy: Besides in BASEBALL that is!!!!!!!!! HAHAHA

Drake: I’m like two steps away from four-ball teabagging you for that joke. And on that note…

Andy: I bet the sad pussies that were part of those Republican-sponsored tea parties wish they had four balls. Then they would truly be men. And they could take back this country from them liberal faggots. Oorah!

Drake: Hey Andy, remember a while ago when we talked about how nobody was watching Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse?

Andy: I remember you talking about it while I looked up fetish pornography online.

Drake: Well considering this is our season wrap up, I wanted to let you know, it got renewed.

Andy: Yes. And apparently some people are calling it the best show Joss Whedon has ever done. I am confused because the premise is so shitty. And the acting was subpar. So am I missing something, or am I reading the blogposts of total turds?

“You can fuck right off, Beckerman. We got renewed!”

Drake: I don’t think the premise is shitty. It’s actually an interesting thought exercise, and I think it could have worked very well as, say, a graphic novel. But for whatever reason season 1 just didn’t come together. And like I said before, they did a “most dangerous game” episode with Eliza Dushku that I didn’t want to watch. Up until then, I would have never thought that possible.

Drake: Who are these bloggers you’re reading?

Andy: I dunno. Something off my feed reader. There’s so much in there I can’t keep it all straight. But I’ve seen at least two people write about how great the show is, and other people have said they liked it. I just wonder if maybe people are so starved for decent shows that, against the background of shit, a half-baked premise with signs of intelligence will garner a buttload of accolades.

Andy: Hey, when life gives you accol, make accolades.

Drake: Well at any rate, the guys at TV by the Numbers, (which is an excellent site for weekly show ratings and commentary if you’ve never seen it) had Dollhouse’s chances of returning at 0 and 1% respectively.

Andy: Wow. My sample population must be too small to get an accurate reading.

Drake: The numbers were much, much lower than what was assumed for a returning one-hour drama.

Andy: It’s usually those fringe opinions that make the most sense to me though.

Drake: Maybe that says something about you?

Andy: That I’m starting to like normal shows? Soon I’ll be talking about those Real Housewife shows. The Real Housewives of Appalachia.

Drake: I still don’t think I’d watch that. Maybe if they fought a bear or something? Anyway I don’t want the outlier that is Dollhouse to give the wrong impression. Actually, in terms of shows getting re-upped, we were dead on this year.

Andy: They’d cook meth and start hate groups and die of diseases gotten from mountaintop removal mining

Drake: You had me at meth, Andy. You had me at meth. So here’s the quick run down: Friday Night Lights is coming back. Parks and Recreation is coming back. My Name is Earl and Kath & Kim are done.

Andy: I stopped watching Earl years ago, so that I don’t mind. And the two minutes I saw of Kath and Kim were enough for a lifetime. They should show an episode to newborns, so that no matter the circumstances, their lives are always uphill from there. They’ll know that regardless of the hell their lives turn into, it will never be as bad as those first moments.

Drake: Ok. So think about that, TV network people. On a related note, I have not gotten a single call back for our proposed I Now Pronounce You Beckerman and Wife. It’s comedy gold!

Andy: You pitched it? Sweet. I haven’t got any calls about the show I pitched either. Stench? It’s about a filthy detective. No one can stand to be around him.

Drake: Whoa.

Andy: And he gradually becomes lonelier and lonelier.

Drake: Because of his stench or his do-whatever-it-takes attitude?

Andy: The smell.

Drake: Oh.

Andy: But he’s also a pretty terrible detective.

Drake: Hmm.

Andy: What, Drakey no likey?

Drake: Well not to mess with your creative process, but if he’s not a very good detective and he’s smellly, why’s anybody hiring this guy?

Andy: They are poor and stupid.

Drake: Hmm.

Andy: It’s not a very glamorous show. It’s like Lucky Louie, but in the procedural genre.

Drake: Ohhhh. Ok. Well that’s all you had to say. Well even though Stench? hasn’t gotten off the ground yet, we could talk about some new stuff airing next fall.

Andy: What, are you telling me Stench? won’t get made? You fucking cocksucker, I’ll kill you.

Drake: Whoa whoa. I mean, it’s alright. It’s no Beckerman and Wife. But a comedy gem like that only comes along every so often.

Andy: I’m going to murder you.

Drake: Glee! We could talk about Glee. That’s not related to this.

Andy: Did you watch the pilot?

Really, Jane Lynch? You left Party Down for this?

Drake: I did. Hell I’ll go as far as saying I liked it. And I’m not really into the whole high school with singing thing. That’s its own genre now: high schools where people spontaneously burst into song. But within that trite and overdone world of the jock with the heart of gold and weird kids who learn that it’s ok to be different…by singing…it was actually quite good.

Andy: If that’s its own genre, I will eat a ratking.

Drake: A whole ratking, eh?

Andy: Have you known me to ever not eat a whole ratking?

Drake: I sorta just figured you’d pussy out and then wrap up like half of your ratking and bring it home. But really, you’re not fooling anybody; you’re never going to finish eating it. You’re a loser, kid, and you’ll never finish nothing ever. And since we’re talking about ratkings…perhaps this would be a good time to end this farce. Unless you have something else you want to get off your chest?

Andy: Just my sportsbra. Who knew breast implants would be a bad idea for a dude?

Drake: Me. I would have known that.

Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 13

Nearing the end of the season, and what is on the horizon but a summer of shit, of weeping and staring at an empty screen while images of Michael Scott and Liz Lemon dance in our heads, playing out the shoddy plotlines from our Office/30 Rock crossover spec script. Or maybe sadly masturbating to the Steve Carell/Tina Fey slash fiction we all wrote for tvsexstories.edu. Either way, a long, hot summer of unfulfillment awaits. But until then, Drake and I will be there to make you wish you had died.

Read the rest of this entry »

Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 12

I awoke this morning to the heavy scent of cordite and creosote. What was it that had been burning? I took a moment to savor the smoky taste on my tongue, and realized that this was a metaphor. The end of the television season fast approaches, and what is searing away except our final hours of viewing pleasure before the summer announces itself and erases the regularity of a programming schedule. Then I went into the bathroom to pee and found the charred corpse of my roommate, still smoldering on the tile. I guess he had been trying to make napalm and screwed up. What do Drake and I have to say about TV though?

Read the rest of this entry »

Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 11

It was one week ago today that my heart sagged, along with my sack, at the end of Battlestar Galactica. My Saturday morning ritual of breakfast and BSG is now what? Nothing? A memory? Did the last few months even exist? I feel cast adrift. Lonely. I avoid human contact now. Well, I would avoid it if any humans would go near me. Not even Drake will have a conversation with me that doesn’t take place online. The last time I suggested we go carousing, he told me he had to go scream at things and then document the results. What a lousy excuse. Still, he is my only lifeline to EXISTENCE. Please see what words fell out of our brains this week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 10

Another week, another fr…waitaminute. Didn’t I write that last week? Shit. I don’t even know what time it is anymore or what day it is or where I put that jar of maggots I had been saving “just in case”. The truth is, thanks to the cold snap, my internet connection was snapped in half for about a week. For once, getting it fixed had nothing to do with Time Warner’s incompetence, but rather the ridiculous incomprehensibility of trying to negotiate a time my landlord would be home and the repair-person was available. Hence, the following conversation between Drake and myself is a relic of last week, the heady days when Dollhouse and Xavier: Renegade Angel delighted our eyes with their existence. Sadly, those days are still here. Wait. Why so sadly? Why so serial?

Read the rest of this entry »

Drake and Andy Go to the TVs week 9

“Another week, another freak!” is a saying my pappy used to exclaim, mostly because mommy had a weird uterus and used to give birth to an unholy parody of life every week or so. After a few years of this shit, my dad grew inured to the parade of mutants that would traipse out of her womb, and he gave up his aspirations to have a normal life and move out to Moon Colony Gamma. Then he shot and killed all my fucked-up brothers and sisters and hung himself. When Drake was a child, his parents showered him with presents and candy. And thus, we both retreated into the world of television to escape the horrors of our lives. And then we wrote some words about shows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Andy: Soooooooooo…

Drake: It’s been so long.

Andy: I am listening to an experimental piano piece that reminds me of the BSG music.

Drake: I don’t know where to start.

Andy: And my thought is, this summer, I am going to go back and re-watch Battlestar Galactica season 3.

Drake: That’s a good plan. Let’s talk about what we’re going to watch over the long, shitty summer.

Andy: The only bright spot being Mad Men season three later in August.

Drake: I had my doctor look at a bright spot on my back. It’s benign.

Andy: You should probably get a second opinion.

Drake: It doesn’t matter. My insurance has a punch card system. I get five growths removed and they’ll remove the sixth one for half-price.

Andy: But you don’t even have the money to get half a tumor removed. You’re fried, pal!

Drake: Thanks.

Andy: As much as I care about you dying of cancer though, I’d rather talk about what I’m going to watch this summer. Maybe I’ll start going back through The Wire. And I’m going to download this Australian show my Aussie pal recommended. Summer Heights High. Also, I got a show called Campus Ladies which is strange and fun. It’s about these two women, one’s husband has died, the other’s husband cheated on her, so they both decided to enroll in college and live in the dorms because they missed out on going when they were younger. And they totally embrace the college lifestyle.

Drake: Is it foreign?

Andy: It’s on the Oxygen network of all things. It’s all improvised too. In the manner of Curb Your Enthusiasm, that is. I’ve only seen three episodes so far, but Will Forte and Anthony Anderson were in one. It has such an awkward rhythm to the show that I guess comes from the improvised nature.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Drake: I’m starting to think I might like this. Despite its being on the Oxygen network. It’s television for women…and also people who like awkward improv?

Andy: Why can’t women like awkward improv?

Drake: Also, when you said Anthony Anderson, I immediately thought of the guy from Family Feud.

Andy: I like how you set up a dichotomy there. You fucking sexist dick. I hope you suddenly grow two more testicles so that women get freaked out by your junk.

Drake: Is it weird that doesn’t sound that bad?

Andy: I dunno. Is there an advantage to having four balls?

Andy: Besides in BASEBALL that is!!!!!!!!! HAHAHA

Drake: I’m like two steps away from four-ball teabagging you for that joke. And on that note…

Andy: I bet the sad pussies that were part of those Republican-sponsored tea parties wish they had four balls. Then they would truly be men. And they could take back this country from them liberal faggots. Oorah!

Drake: Hey Andy, remember a while ago when we talked about how nobody was watching Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse?

Andy: I remember you talking about it while I looked up fetish pornography online.

Drake: Well considering this is our season wrap up, I wanted to let you know, it got renewed.

Andy: Yes. And apparently some people are calling it the best show Joss Whedon has ever done. I am confused because the premise is so shitty. And the acting was subpar. So am I missing something, or am I reading the blogposts of total turds?

“You can fuck right off, Beckerman. We got renewed!”

Drake: I don’t think the premise is shitty. It’s actually an interesting thought exercise, and I think it could have worked very well as, say, a graphic novel. But for whatever reason season 1 just didn’t come together. And like I said before, they did a “most dangerous game” episode with Eliza Dushku that I didn’t want to watch. Up until then, I would have never thought that possible.

Drake: Who are these bloggers you’re reading?

Andy: I dunno. Something off my feed reader. There’s so much in there I can’t keep it all straight. But I’ve seen at least two people write about how great the show is, and other people have said they liked it. I just wonder if maybe people are so starved for decent shows that, against the background of shit, a half-baked premise with signs of intelligence will garner a buttload of accolades.

Andy: Hey, when life gives you accol, make accolades.

Drake: Well at any rate, the guys at TV by the Numbers, (which is an excellent site for weekly show ratings and commentary if you’ve never seen it) had Dollhouse’s chances of returning at 0 and 1% respectively.

Andy: Wow. My sample population must be too small to get an accurate reading.

Drake: The numbers were much, much lower than what was assumed for a returning one-hour drama.

Andy: It’s usually those fringe opinions that make the most sense to me though.

Drake: Maybe that says something about you?

Andy: That I’m starting to like normal shows? Soon I’ll be talking about those Real Housewife shows. The Real Housewives of Appalachia.

Drake: I still don’t think I’d watch that. Maybe if they fought a bear or something? Anyway I don’t want the outlier that is Dollhouse to give the wrong impression. Actually, in terms of shows getting re-upped, we were dead on this year.

Andy: They’d cook meth and start hate groups and die of diseases gotten from mountaintop removal mining

Drake: You had me at meth, Andy. You had me at meth. So here’s the quick run down: Friday Night Lights is coming back. Parks and Recreation is coming back. My Name is Earl and Kath & Kim are done.

Andy: I stopped watching Earl years ago, so that I don’t mind. And the two minutes I saw of Kath and Kim were enough for a lifetime. They should show an episode to newborns, so that no matter the circumstances, their lives are always uphill from there. They’ll know that regardless of the hell their lives turn into, it will never be as bad as those first moments.

Drake: Ok. So think about that, TV network people. On a related note, I have not gotten a single call back for our proposed I Now Pronounce You Beckerman and Wife. It’s comedy gold!

Andy: You pitched it? Sweet. I haven’t got any calls about the show I pitched either. Stench? It’s about a filthy detective. No one can stand to be around him.

Drake: Whoa.

Andy: And he gradually becomes lonelier and lonelier.

Drake: Because of his stench or his do-whatever-it-takes attitude?

Andy: The smell.

Drake: Oh.

Andy: But he’s also a pretty terrible detective.

Drake: Hmm.

Andy: What, Drakey no likey?

Drake: Well not to mess with your creative process, but if he’s not a very good detective and he’s smellly, why’s anybody hiring this guy?

Andy: They are poor and stupid.

Drake: Hmm.

Andy: It’s not a very glamorous show. It’s like Lucky Louie, but in the procedural genre.

Drake: Ohhhh. Ok. Well that’s all you had to say. Well even though Stench? hasn’t gotten off the ground yet, we could talk about some new stuff airing next fall.

Andy: What, are you telling me Stench? won’t get made? You fucking cocksucker, I’ll kill you.

Drake: Whoa whoa. I mean, it’s alright. It’s no Beckerman and Wife. But a comedy gem like that only comes along every so often.

Andy: I’m going to murder you.

Drake: Glee! We could talk about Glee. That’s not related to this.

Andy: Did you watch the pilot?

Really, Jane Lynch? You left Party Down for this?

Drake: I did. Hell I’ll go as far as saying I liked it. And I’m not really into the whole high school with singing thing. That’s its own genre now: high schools where people spontaneously burst into song. But within that trite and overdone world of the jock with the heart of gold and weird kids who learn that it’s ok to be different…by singing…it was actually quite good.

Andy: If that’s its own genre, I will eat a ratking.

Drake: A whole ratking, eh?

Andy: Have you known me to ever not eat a whole ratking?

Drake: I sorta just figured you’d pussy out and then wrap up like half of your ratking and bring it home. But really, you’re not fooling anybody; you’re never going to finish eating it. You’re a loser, kid, and you’ll never finish nothing ever. And since we’re talking about ratkings…perhaps this would be a good time to end this farce. Unless you have something else you want to get off your chest?

Andy: Just my sportsbra. Who knew breast implants would be a bad idea for a dude?

Drake: Me. I would have known that.

Nearing the end of the season, and what is on the horizon but a summer of shit, of weeping and staring at an empty screen while images of Michael Scott and Liz Lemon dance in our heads, playing out the shoddy plotlines from our Office/30 Rock crossover spec script. Or maybe sadly masturbating to the Steve Carell/Tina Fey slash fiction we all wrote for tvsexstories.edu. Either way, a long, hot summer of unfulfillment awaits. But until then, Drake and I will be there to make you wish you had died.

Read the rest of this entry »

I awoke this morning to the heavy scent of cordite and creosote. What was it that had been burning? I took a moment to savor the smoky taste on my tongue, and realized that this was a metaphor. The end of the television season fast approaches, and what is searing away except our final hours of viewing pleasure before the summer announces itself and erases the regularity of a programming schedule. Then I went into the bathroom to pee and found the charred corpse of my roommate, still smoldering on the tile. I guess he had been trying to make napalm and screwed up. What do Drake and I have to say about TV though?

Read the rest of this entry »

It was one week ago today that my heart sagged, along with my sack, at the end of Battlestar Galactica. My Saturday morning ritual of breakfast and BSG is now what? Nothing? A memory? Did the last few months even exist? I feel cast adrift. Lonely. I avoid human contact now. Well, I would avoid it if any humans would go near me. Not even Drake will have a conversation with me that doesn’t take place online. The last time I suggested we go carousing, he told me he had to go scream at things and then document the results. What a lousy excuse. Still, he is my only lifeline to EXISTENCE. Please see what words fell out of our brains this week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Another week, another fr…waitaminute. Didn’t I write that last week? Shit. I don’t even know what time it is anymore or what day it is or where I put that jar of maggots I had been saving “just in case”. The truth is, thanks to the cold snap, my internet connection was snapped in half for about a week. For once, getting it fixed had nothing to do with Time Warner’s incompetence, but rather the ridiculous incomprehensibility of trying to negotiate a time my landlord would be home and the repair-person was available. Hence, the following conversation between Drake and myself is a relic of last week, the heady days when Dollhouse and Xavier: Renegade Angel delighted our eyes with their existence. Sadly, those days are still here. Wait. Why so sadly? Why so serial?

Read the rest of this entry »

“Another week, another freak!” is a saying my pappy used to exclaim, mostly because mommy had a weird uterus and used to give birth to an unholy parody of life every week or so. After a few years of this shit, my dad grew inured to the parade of mutants that would traipse out of her womb, and he gave up his aspirations to have a normal life and move out to Moon Colony Gamma. Then he shot and killed all my fucked-up brothers and sisters and hung himself. When Drake was a child, his parents showered him with presents and candy. And thus, we both retreated into the world of television to escape the horrors of our lives. And then we wrote some words about shows:

Read the rest of this entry »