Footnote abuse contained herein
Feb. 23rd, 2008 09:02 pmSo, all this week, I netflixed season one of a mostly-forgotten 90s sitcom called Ned & Stacey.* And...okay, so Thomas Haden Church is quite possibly the most irritating man on the planet.** And the whole show was basically a dry run of Will & Grace for Debra Messing, who pretty much plays Grace in this series, and Grace in a fairly similar living situation at that. And the premise is...thin, to say the least, because in what AU of late twentieth-century America does one need to be married to get a job promotion, or can one not just get a roommate if one can't afford an apartment?*** But it it actually does have some hilarious dialogue****, the characters are funny and memorable without being completely hateful, and hey, bulletproof narrative kink. I can't really help myself.
(Speaking of helping...uh, anyone know where to get season two? Since S1 was put out in the middle of '05 to poor sales, I'm guessing a DVD set is not likely to come along soon.)
* My bulletproof narrative kink is the marriage of convenience. Rarely do I see it taken to the extreme of the characters actually getting married; usually it's more along the lines of XF's "Arcadia," or SG-1 fanfics where the team visits a backwards planet and Jack and Sam have to pretend to be together in order to negotiate for naquadah. In fact, I think this show, the movie Green Card, and a couple of sci-fi books by Jan Clark have been the only places I've seen it with actual legal consequences. I think what I like about the cliche is what makes it a cliche: the predictable, but always-amusing way in which it backfires on the participants, who of course always hate each other at first, but wind up succumbing to each other's charms in due time.
** Though he did grow on me as the season progressed, to where he was actually something resembling a sympathic character by the end.
*** Although they did acknowlege this in "Gay Caballeros," with a guest character making much the same observation. It's one of the many reasons that's probably my favorite of the twenty-four episodes.
**** For example:
(The doorbell rings, and Ned opens it to reveal Amanda [Stacey's older sister], dressed as Glinda for Halloween.)
NED: And who might you be, little girl?
AMANDA: J. Edgar Hoover on his day off.
(Speaking of helping...uh, anyone know where to get season two? Since S1 was put out in the middle of '05 to poor sales, I'm guessing a DVD set is not likely to come along soon.)
* My bulletproof narrative kink is the marriage of convenience. Rarely do I see it taken to the extreme of the characters actually getting married; usually it's more along the lines of XF's "Arcadia," or SG-1 fanfics where the team visits a backwards planet and Jack and Sam have to pretend to be together in order to negotiate for naquadah. In fact, I think this show, the movie Green Card, and a couple of sci-fi books by Jan Clark have been the only places I've seen it with actual legal consequences. I think what I like about the cliche is what makes it a cliche: the predictable, but always-amusing way in which it backfires on the participants, who of course always hate each other at first, but wind up succumbing to each other's charms in due time.
** Though he did grow on me as the season progressed, to where he was actually something resembling a sympathic character by the end.
*** Although they did acknowlege this in "Gay Caballeros," with a guest character making much the same observation. It's one of the many reasons that's probably my favorite of the twenty-four episodes.
**** For example:
(The doorbell rings, and Ned opens it to reveal Amanda [Stacey's older sister], dressed as Glinda for Halloween.)
NED: And who might you be, little girl?
AMANDA: J. Edgar Hoover on his day off.
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