THE New Normal

...is quite possibly the worst show ever on TV...And I saw "My Mother the Car." It sucks so bad it made the stupid commercials in it look like Downton Abbey. And Andrew Rannels looks like an elephant stepped on his face.

Everyone involved should be ashamed and enter a convent under a vow of silence to atone.

I'm going to go take ANOTHER shower.

I never saw The Book of Mormon, but on the Tony performance I thought Andrew R was very likeable. Is he being directed to be unlikeable in this? I took an instant dislike to him. Like the way I did the first time the visage of Justin Kirk appeared on a screen in front of me.

Rannell's speaking voice is really grating. The guy who plays his partner doesn't have a pleasant speaking voice either. Perhaps my antipathy is the result of the two required speech and voice and articulation classes at college. I think the rest of the cast is likeable.

This is not the worst show I have ever seen by far. I will give episode two a chance.

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That little girl inhibiting Little Edie. So pandering but so great.

I am concerned about Murphy thinking he is Norman Lear. Barkin and NeNe are so set up as Archie and Cousin Maude but I cannot take the racial jokes even for the sake of tension.

I loved My Mother the Car. I can still sing the theme song--from memory, not from Googling the lyrics:

Ever-body knows in a second life
We all come back, sooner or later!
As ever-thing from a pusSycat
To a man-eating alligator!

Now you might tink this story
Is more fiction than it's fact,
But b'lieve it or not,
My mother dear
Decided she'd come back!

As a car!
She's my very own guiding star!
A nineteen twenty-eight Porter!
That's my mother dear!
She helps me through
Ever-thing I do,
And I'm so glad she's here!
My mother, the car!
My mother, the car!

Oh, and I thought the first two episodes of The New Normal were funny. I love Andrew Rannells

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We can thank The Advocate for the creation of the wealthy/disposable income myth.

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I'ma little surprised that it seems to be getting fairly good reviews--the take in the other thread about it on here seemed to show more people disliking it than liking it... https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1050180&boardname=off&dt=43&boardid=2

I can't really blame Rannells. I have noidea how he could possibly play the role, as written, and make it appealing.

"Now the show has to decide whether it's going to be a comedy or a perpetual sermon on equality. "

I guess my problem with Ryan Murphy's writing on equality, is I don't buy it. He is obsessed with it, and showing how everyone is different, etc, but like with Glee he wants people to laugh at stereotypes in a kinda mean spirited way, and still feel good about themselves for embracing equality (jokes like in the pilot when the little person speaks about choosing to have a child and then drives off in a toy car--that's just dumb). If his shows were truly politically incorrect, equal opportunity comedies, I think the message he wants could still go through and the tone would be more consistant--or do a sentimental "we're all the same" series, but mixing the two just doesn't work for me. It's like on Glee when he spends half an episode making jokes about a repulsive Jewish stereotype, and then at the end of the episode lectures the audience not to judge people by such stereotypes.

Well if you ARE "sick to death" of the exposition argument, maybe you'll watch it again and drop dead in front of the television.

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I thought it was funny. I'm not sure "Middle America" even knew who little Edie was, but I laughed my butt off at that (really terrific little actress) doing a spot-on Little Edie impersonation.

I'm also impressed that Ryan seems to not care anymore. Boys can kiss on TV, and (although Salt Lake City and the mormons aren't airing it), everyone else is, with no protests. The "New Normal" really is the New Normal.

I feel like a gay Virginia Slims ad. We've come a long way, baby!!!

Eric, "exposition" is really essential if we're going to know who the characters are and how they will relate to one another. I really think it takes a few weeks for all the pieces to fit together and for that "well-oiled" machine to start functioning the way it should. I recall the first episode of "Welcome Back, Kotter" as being rather disjointed, but after a few weeks it became a really good show. The same is true for "Will and Grace". The very first episode had nothing to recommend it (other than the gorgeousness of Eric McCormack), but a few weeks into its run, Karen's voice became higher and the ball really started to roll.

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I guess I stand alone in my praise of Andrew Rannells.

During the first minutes of the series, we see him become genuinely overwhelmed with emotion when he's recording that video to his child. I think that bought him a lot of leeway in the characterization going forward. He can go relatively far out because (like he did so masterfully in BoM) he grounded it in a deep truth. I also appreciate that the gay couple treat each other kindly.

Though I certainly don't think it's the best show on television, I don't understand the vitriol...unless it's just Ryan Murphy backlash.

My Mother the Car? Whigga, please.

^ I know several people who do. They're rich. Which is what these characters are. We can argue that it perpetuates the myth that all gays are white and rich (an argument I'm not unsympathetic to), but a fully furnished guest house in LA is actually not that unheard of. At all.

I guess I stand alone in my praise of Andrew Rannells.

No, you don't. I join you. And I think that opening monologue to the baby was beautifully done, as are many other little moments in which he shows self-awareness of his superficiality.

And, while I agree that the idea of two gay men being rich enough to have a 2-bedroom guesthouse underscores the incorrect notion that all gay men are rich, I happen to know an LA couple who lent their guesthouse to the pregnant mother of their yet-to-be-born-and adopted baby. (However, it was not their sperm and she was not a surrogate. She was a single woman and they arranged to adopt her baby when it was born.)

So the guesthouse thing is real, at least in this one case.

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Well Robbie I guess the rich are very different from you & me (well, me at least.)