THE New Normal- Page 22

[strummergirl]

Posted: 1/9/13 at 11:58pm

Andrew Rannells' part in Girls got expanded for Season 2 and the critical consensus is: Wow, so The New Normal guy can actually not be an annoying presence.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:05am

I think everyone on Girls is equally as annoying as everyone on The New Normal.

[Wynbish]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:10am

Even Ray?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/10/13 at 12:15am

I had to look up Ray to see which one he was, but I guess I remember him being less annoying if I'm grading on a curve.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/19/13 at 11:58pm

Now they're foisting this girl's Maggie Smith impression upon us? Will it never end?

[BroomstickBoy]

Posted: 2/20/13 at 12:43am

I saw this picture of recent guest star Matt Bomer....and had to share. Shooting something CLEARLY better than a spot on New Normal, a movie called Winter's Tale.

Yeah, him with brown eyes...WEIRD.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/20/13 at 12:58am

Oh those eyes weird me out!

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/21/13 at 12:15am

He looks like Henry Cavill in that pic.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/21/13 at 4:32am

I've been a Matt fan ever since he spun gold out of a slightly offensive Guiding Light storyline where he was revealed as a psycho mass murderer who then admitted that he had been sexually abused all his childhood and killed himself.

He really does have the chops to do some great acting--which I don't think on tv he's really shown yet. He's a friend of Ryan Murphy though, like John Stamos, who seems eager to do any role Murphy offers him--maybe he'll show up in The Normal Heart?

Bomer and Cavill have been up for some of the same roles (including Superman), so I guess others see the similarity.

Strummer--I agree with you. From the very little I've seen of Rannell's on TV (meaning, mainly The New Normal), I was really impressed with him on Girls. Especially the cocaine episode--I am a bit annoyed that he seems to have had the exit he did, which didn't seem true to the character or the show, so I hope he's back. Apparently Murphy is a huge fan of Girls--so, whatever one thinks of the show, we can probably expect a rip off version from him sooner or later...

New Normal has sunk to a ratings low--though it still had a .1 over Smash in demos (but quite a bit less in overall viewers--but netwroks don't care about the non 18-49 viewing audience.)

The thing with the show now is it has been watered down, a bit--but I almost wonder if that's a good thing. It makes it less fun to watch in a hate-watch way, at least--now instead of just being bad it often seems just boring--but it also doesn't seem earned. Suddenly Nana has pretty much learned her lesson, etc. Then again maybe this was always the plan, Murphy's shows (as much as I ended up loving thelast few episodes of this year of Horror Story) never have character development that feels earned.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 2/21/13 at 4:39am

Has this been cancelled yet?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/23/13 at 2:06am

It's still a point higher than Smash in the ratings... :P So who knows. Like most of NBC's newer shows that were doing mildly well pre Christmas (or last Spring with Smash) it's gone down a *lot* now (as has the Matt Perry sitcom before it though it's doing a bit better). I think it's another case though that NBC doesn't have anything to replace it with anyway so at the least it will finish the season.

Posted: 3/20/13 at 4:36pm

The New Normal hit a new low this week, drawing less viewers than even the beleaguered Smash. It was roundly trounced by the celebrity diving show and probably, the infomercial about those yakisoba pillows over on the shopping network.

Farewell, horrible horrible show!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 4:44pm

To be fair (as much as it kills me!), it was a rerun last night.

ETA: Well, that's what my guide said. Epguides.com says a new one was scheduled for last night. Either way, I didn't watch.

Updated On: 3/20/13 at 04:44 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 4:54pm

It was new. As Whizzer said somewhere else, the show seems to have listened to a lot of the comments about what people found off-putting about it originally--and now it's become merely completely dull.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 4:58pm

Ah. I think that might mean I'm finally over even hate-watching it. I have no desire to check it out on Hulu.

Rumor has it its on the brink of cancellation.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 5:06pm

For some reason I thought NBC had ordered a short season already for next year--but I can't find where I read that. Regardless, it's definitely not even worth hate-watching anymore.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:55pm

So I watched tonight and ... holy crap, this episode was effed up.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:03pm

I haven't watched this show in a few months. Am I missing out on anything?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:07pm

It's generally just benign and uninteresting, though Nene Lekes is actually becoming worse of an actress as time goes on.

But tonight's episode - Jesus Christ. At the beginning the butch doctor goes on and on about being proud to be a Boy Scout and hopes their future son will be one. Even though it's pointed out that they have a policy banning gays, the scouts were too important to him growing up for him to take a principled stand. Then he helps out a friend's troupe and comes out to them and they are cool. But THEN he gets a letter kicking him out of the scouts! At first the two other scouting adults deny reporting him, but later one of the other adults shows up at his house to tell him that a) His son quit the scouts because Justin Bartha got thrown out b) He (the dad of the son that just quit) was the one who reported him and he doesn't feel bad about it because he wants his son to grow to be "normal" and not like Justin Bartha.

Then the tag was Justin Bartha sadly packing up his scout stuff.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 11:41pm

That sounds even worse than what South Park did with the topic 146 years ago.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/27/13 at 1:58am

I thought I'd hate this show, but I actually don't mind it. In fact, I kinda like it. It's a well-intentioned, uneven (but quick) 30 minutes. I'm ready to be crucified by you all now...

It is funny to me though that Nene is actually way funnier on RHOA, saying ridiculous sh*t off the top of her head, than she is on this, a scripted comedy. And yes, I do believe the stuff Nene says on RHOA isn't scripted. Bloop. Updated On: 3/27/13 at 01:58 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/27/13 at 2:12am

It went from being a show we were all loving to hate to a show that just disappeared. I was looking online and it was getting about 6 million viewers a week in it's first few weeks and it's stopped cracking three 3, I think last week it was 2.1. And I don't really pay attention to that stuff, except in the case of shows I hope are coming back. Or in this case, shows I hope aren't coming back next year.

I don't know if it was listening to criticism and just overshot its course correction or if more nonsense is coming, but it just seems to be pretty aimless at this point. Now that Nana isn't as much of a polarizing lightening rod anymore, the show is now just about a pair of off-putting gay guys and the semi-tolerable people around them. People loved to hate on Partners, but at least all those characters were likable. Nene's blank, singsongy delivery drives me crazy and I think that little girl is pretty dreadful, too, but for some reason the stupid glasses and the ENDLESS parade of impressions they force us to watch convinces people that this child should praised and not shot.

And I still hate Andrew Rannells's face. He does weird things with his mouth and eyes.

And I still don't know what to make of this episode. The show veers towards the heavy-handed anyway, but this was just absurd.



Updated On: 3/27/13 at 02:12 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/27/13 at 4:09am

Ryan Murphy didn't script this show, but it reeked of the very worst of his attempts to deal with "big issues."

[Tom1071]

Posted: 3/27/13 at 3:36pm

I just hate that Ryan Murphy is still trying convince America that NeNe Leakes is an actress.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/27/13 at 4:48pm

Phyllis--you failed to completely mention the episode's brilliant b-plot.