Monthly Archives: October 2016

Television

Revivals

I know I’m a little late with this – I had a major term paper due this week – but the Gilmore Girls revival trailer is finally here!  While I’m thoroughly excited, I have mixed feelings about it.

I have a feeling the series is about how Richard Gilmore (Lorelai’s father, Rory’s grandfather) dies (the actor, Ed Hermann passed away before the revival was made) and all three Gilmore women find themselves lost as tends to happen after losing a love one, and then them each finding new meaning in their lives.  While I’m excited about traveling back to Stars Hollow, the whole subject of death and losing yourself could be rather depressing.  Either way, I’m watching it on November 25th, I’m just hoping it’s not terrible.

In addition to this exciting release this week,  it was announced today that NBC is considering reviving Will & Grace, and that Disney is reviving That’s So Raven.  Part of me hears this news and thinks “can we not think of new material?”  Why don’t we give new talent a try and see if we can tell new stories.

At the same time, though, I think this revival culture that’s going on is rather exciting.  Being able to see where our favorite characters are now and what they’re doing is intriguing.

But if you think about the networks’ reasoning for creating the revivals, it’s rather smart.  These are shows that people loved watching and had/have a huge following.  Before any of these revivals were announced, there were podcasts dedicated to Gilmore Girls and the life of Stars Hollow, people would still laugh over Karen Walker’s burns, and Raven Baxter’s catch phrase “ya nasty” was still being repeated.  Investing money in recreating these shows means that people would most likely watch them and the return on investment would be high.  Unlike creating a brand new show, there wouldn’t be a barrier where people would have to learn about what the show is about and whether they’d enjoy it.  People are already fans, so they’ll watch it.  Easy money.

Except, the problem is, networks simply can’t create random garbage scenes and expect fans to buy-in to it.  While there is a fanbase, the quality of the revival has to be high.  For instance, if in the Gilmore Girls revival Luke and Lorelai are not married or together, fans would be rather angered by it.  It took Luke and Lorelai five season to get together, but then they broke up twice and it wasn’t until the final episode of the last season they got back together for what we can only assume as for the last and final time.  If they’re still playing this on again off again relationship ten years later, it would be infuriating.  There would be no growth in the plot, so why should we watch?  While reviving shows makes it easier for networks to get initial viewing, to sustain the viewership – i.e. getting fans to watch the entire season – requires them to still produce the high level quality of a show fans have come to know and love.

Overall though, big week for tv.  Now how I’m going to watch it all while going to school and working I do not know….

Music

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

Almost two years ago, I wrote about how Sia wrote the song “Perfume” for Britney Spears.  At the time, I knew Sia wrote Rihanna’s song “Diamonds,” but I couldn’t find the demo of it.  I looked high and low for it because I think Sia has such a unique voice and songwriting style, so I’d love to hear her sing “Diamonds.”

Welp, I found it.  Or a version of it.  It’s not all flashy like Rihanna’s version, but here it is.

I feel like Sia should release an album of “covers” of songs she wrote and sold to other people.

Television

I Don’t Need to See That!

Gilmore Girls is one of those rare shows that you can watch more than once and each time you’ll find something new.  The show is littered with so many references that a lot of them tend to get missed.

In particular, I started watching the HBO show The Comeback about a year or so ago, and I really enjoyed it, but I never realized it was referenced in Gilmore Girls.  In The Comeback, Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe of Friends) plays Valerie Cherish, a ’90s sitcom has-been who tries to make her comeback in a new reality show that follows her on a new sitcom she’s doing.  The first season takes place in the early 2000s when reality tv was becoming quite popular.  The show got canceled but then picked up again for a second season ten years later.  Apparently it got renewed for a third season, but Kudrow said they’re taking a long break before filming that.  Anyway, it’s an interesting show because it’s filmed as though it’s the raw footage of the reality show, which is at first strange but quite enjoyable once you get used to it.

In the new sitcom Valerie stars in, her character has a catch phrase of “I don’t want to see that!”

Then, I was flipping through YouTube and I found this clip where Lorelai references Valerie and does the “I don’t want to see that!”  I was so excited, I couldn’t believe I missed that reference the first couple times I saw the episode! I also want to note Lauren Graham’s Valerie Cherish is spot on.

Television

Oh, Karen Walker, How We’ve Missed You.

It’s been ten years, but the cast of Will & Grace has come back together to do a scene – a mini-reunion if you will.  Now, it’s clear from the video, the reasons were clearly political – they’re not so subtly campaigning for Hillary Clinton while bashing Donald Trump.  Politics aside, I still think it’s great to travel down memory lane and see what our old friends are up to.  I find it impressive that even after ten years, the cast can manage to go back into their old roles as though no time has past.  I was particularly impressed by Megan Mullally’s performance – I for some reason thought she would’ve lost her Karen voice over the years, but she was spot on.  I also liked how the writers brought back the gags that we enjoyed throughout the series: the Just Jack hand gesture, Grace’s terrible singing, Karen being really old (i.e. the reference to the Lincoln-Douglas election being the biggest election of her life-time), Karen’s great zingers, and so much more.  Revivals, even ones as small as these, can go terribly wrong and they knocked it out of the park.

So here’s hoping Will & Grace is the next series Netflix revives.  Or, they should create the spinoff, Jack & Karen (I thought Jack and Karen were the best characters of the show anyway).  Hey, Netflix gave us more Gilmore Girls, why not more Will & Grace!

Music

Acoustic Ghost

You might know Halsey from her feature on the current number one hit “Closer” by the Chainsmokers.  I discovered her music a few months ago (or perhaps it’s now a year? Hmm…time flies) when I somehow stumbled onto Badlands, her debut studio album (which is an incredible album).  The album features her song “Ghost,” which apparently was the song that gained her a following and eventually a record deal.

I’m not entirely sure how true the story is, but apparently she released a version of the song a few years ago independently – which I read was more of an acoustic version (again, not sure how true that is) – before she got signed and they reworked it into the electronic song it is now.  I was trying to find the original, demo version, and I found the audio to the following video that someone had stripped and said was the original – upon more research I realized it wasn’t the original but a performance she did for SiriusXM Radio presumably after she was signed.  Regardless, it’s intriguing to listen to the acoustic performance and compare it to the album version – it’s interesting how many different incarnations a song can take.