Guilty Pleasures: My Embarrassing TV Habits
I’m pretty sure my brain achieved some sort of nerdy singularity last Saturday night. Maybe it was more like an imploding epiphany. Or maybe it actually exploded and leaked out my ears and I’m writing this post from purgatory.
I still watch Saturday Night Live religiously, even though I know it hasn’t been good for years. (Sidenote: this season’s new crop of ladies gives me hope.) For every good episode, there are eight poor-to-middling ones. The thing is, I secretly love it when an episode is bad, because there will always be that one line or one sketch that actually scores. Always. And boy does it shine bright like a diamond.
Drunk Uncle is often that sketch for me. Weekend Update is always solid, but I think Bobby Moynihan is generally underrated and I’ve been around enough silly/sad drunk people that the character just really tickles my funny bone. Last weekend’s SNL was hosted by Melissa McCarthy—so was quite strong all around—and Drunk Uncle made an appearance to talk about tax season.
I was eating it up.
Then he started dropping Game of Thrones references, said he had a brother-in-law named “Peter Drunklage,” and I started really cracking up.
Then Peter Dinklage came out dressed like Drunk Uncle.
Sorry to get all tumblr-y with the gif. Blame Drunklage: “Tumblr me, tumblr me! Do you know what’s in my tumblr? Regret.”
We all know how I feel about Peter Dinklage (check the comments).
After I collected myself off the floor, I thanked the gods old and new for swearing fealty to House SNL. My allegiance during the bad times led to the greatest of rewards during the good.
I started thinking of all the other television shows I hesitate to admit tuning in for:
Revenge
Why not wear my Revenge love loud and proud? It’s close-minded of me, but I still associate soap operas with grandmas and hausfraus. I’m neither. I’m one of the cool kids! Nerds are cool now, right?
A modern day adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, Revenge is the juiciest of juicy nighttime soap operas. I love the strong female characters—good, evil, everything in between—and the affluent Hamptons setting. There are back stabbers, liars, murderers, thieves, rich kids, poor kids, the beautiful and the damned, and most importantly, Gabriel Mann as Nolan Ross.
Nolan is one of the greatest soap opera characters to ever exist. Highly intelligent. Honorable yet not afraid to play a little dirty, loyal yet not afraid to voice his opinions to his partners-in-crime. Weaselly yet charming, quirky yet sinister. And will hump anything that moves.
My kind of guy, in other words.
Once Upon a Time
Why hide my pride? To be honest, I saw the promos for this and thought, what a bunch of garbage this is probably going to be!
So I decided to hatewatch it. For awhile, I did. I made fun of everything and everyone. It airs on ABC (owned by Disney), so there are a million inside Disney jokes and references.
How stupid, I thought, they’re obviously pandering to people whose childhoods were defined by Disney films and they think just by toying with our previous knowledge and expectations, we’re suddenly going to become engrossed in these characters’ lives and OH MY GOD IT’S A TRAP.
It’s certainly not without problems. The central child actor is cute but terrible, for one, and I know of what I speak—I spent a good number of years working with child/teen theatre companies and our kids could act circles around this boy. I’m sure he’s got a lovely personality and there’s no substitute for experience, but yeesh.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Zelda shirt!
Why deny my true feelings? Politics, mostly. I’m not embarrassed by the basic idea of Drag Race—because really, who’d be ashamed to watch a Project Runway knockoff with drag queens and RuPaul?
RuPaul’s a legend and the show is usually just campy, kitschy fun. But Ru’s (and the show’s) tendency to make certain LGBT communities (specifically trans) the butt of jokes gets under my skin.
I’m not humorless, and I’ve been known to enjoy offensive humor. I don’t want to go into a whole diatribe in the middle of a perfectly breezy, readable list, but poking fun at a community that’s already so misunderstood—maligned, even—makes me squirm.
I don’t watch it myself but I have never heard 1 negative thing about Revenge.
My mom is obsessed with it, her friends, most of my Facebook friends…it’s like me with Game of Thrones (except a person can proudly admit to watching Game of Thrones – heck, you’re looked down on if you don’t watch it! *at least by me)
I love it when people refer to actors from nerd shows as the characters they played from that show rather than their given name. The wife is in love with Revenge, but i haven’t watched it. I heard it use the word “revengey” once and am still not sure if I’m pleased that Buffyspeak is now mainstream or horrified that they don’t seem to get that it’s supposed to be used at least semi-ironically. I enjoy the hell out of Once Upon a Time. Yeah, the kid is lame and stupid, but damn it, Red Riding Hood is a werewolf! A WEREWOLF! Shut up and take my viewership.
Ironically, I’m usually very careful NOT to refer to actors by their characters. But Alan Tudyk is Wash, forever and ever.
Weekly update should just be its own show, it’s allmost the whole reason why I watched SNL and I know other people who despise it for taking up such a big section.
Hating new SNL has become the cool thing to do, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who still watches. It certainly has its misses, but it always has. Personally I think the last few years have been the best since the late 90s.
All I know of Drunk Uncle is this, which is all pretty fair criticism to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIexj8Cb9Xw
Nice to see different sides and opinions.
Context is key. There’s a time and place for everything, and I don’t think Drunk Uncle works on an arena stage, they’re right about that. That being said, I find Opie & Anthony to be incredibly annoying.
My guilty pleasure is the Resident Evil movies. The first few were fairly good, and at least entertaining, but the last couple were just awful films. I still enjoyed them though, brainless as they are.