In which I anger the softer side of the blogosphere
No college basketball game to go to last night (for a change), but I did have a full dance card since TV was actually decent for once. The Wife and I plopped down on the couch to watch the season finale of “Burn Notice” and then the big baby episode of “The Office.” All in all, it was an exhausting evening.
It’s kind of a rare occasion for us to have two things to watch on the same night, because The Wife and I don’t really have the same taste when it comes to television shows. (I know, you’re all shocked to hear that.) In fact, I can only think of a handful of shows on the air right now that we’ll both sit down and watch together:
- “Burn Notice”
- “The Office”
- “Sons of Anarchy”
- “Doctor Who” (although I suspect she may jump ship now that Tennant is gone)
- “The Soup”
Every once in a while she’ll sit down at watch “30 Rock” with me. I’ll sometimes let her watch “NCIS” without disruptive commentary. We’ve also got some shows that are no longer with us that we’ll watch if they randomly show up in reruns (“Arrested Development”, “Star Trek: TNG”). Other than that, we pretty much agree on nothing where television is concerned.
It pleases me immensely that The Wife is now hooked on “The Office,” because she resisted watching it for the longest time. At first, she claimed it just wasn’t funny (which is obviously false). Then she claimed she couldn’t watch it because Michael’s stupidity was just too uncomfortable to watch (which I can somewhat understand). Now she’s given up and joined the rest of civilization in acknowledging that it’s not just funny, it’s darn rootin’ tootin’ funny. Slowly, but surely, I’m introducing her to the concept of humorous entertainment. I estimate at this rate, I may get her to sit down and watch an entire “Monty Python” sketch by the time she turns 90.
Boob tube angst
Apparently some of the mommy bloggers that The Wife follows on Twitter were upset about the depiction of breastfeeding in last night’s episode, in particular the advice given by Pam’s nurse. I think that’s hilarious, particularly because the nurse’s lines were all designed to poke fun at over-thinking, “expert” parents who’ve decided they know it all after reading a few books on the subject. If you can’t just sit back, remember how everything you thought about parenting was mostly way off-base and laugh about it, you may be a little too emotionally invested in your primetime comedies.
For the record, I know about as much about breastfeeding as Jim did in the episode, but I don’t think that the nurse was advocating anything incredibly controversial, wrong or dangerous. Both of our kids took bottles in the hospital and they’ve (mostly) turned out okay. But since I don’t have ovaries, I realize my opinion on this matter is automatically 100% completely wrong.
Quite frankly, if you’re going to get worked up about that, where’s the outrage over Kevin suggesting that labor can be stalled by shoving spicy food up a pregnant woman’s bum?
What’s that you say? Why would anyone be worried about that? It’s just a show? The line was obviously there just to get a laugh? No one is seriously looking at a 30-minute comedy as a how-to guide on childbirth or parenting?
Exactly.
And now that I’ve angered the teeming hordes of blogging mothers, I bid you all adieu.
LOL _ I can’t believe I missed the baby episode of The Office!!
The British version of The Office is one of my all time favorite shows. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it…suffice it to say a lot. However, I have not watched the American version at all because from the previews it just does not look like it holds a candle to the original. Having said that, I recently found out that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are actually executive producers on the American version so I might have to acquiesce and watch at least one episode before passing judgement.
I enjoy them both, but I treat them as different shows completely rather than an attempt to duplicate the original. It’s easy to do because the plot lines diverge fairly quickly after the first episode of both shows. They recycle some jokes and themes here and there in the U.S. version, but it mostly stands on its own.
Steven Carrell is no Ricky Gervais (certainly not an indictment, only Gervais is Gervais), but I think the supporting cast on the U.S. version is much, much stronger. Overall the humor is a little less subtle and, well, Americanized, but I’d still classify it as far more witty that most of our TV.
If you’re going to give it one shot, go with “Gay Witch Hunt” from season 3 or “Dinner Party” from season 4.
I can’t really comment on the Office Breast feeding whatever, since I haven’t seen it, but I want to say that people can like comedy without thinking Monty Python is funny…it’s completely acceptable.