the good place

Geek Punditry #110: Playing Favorites With Love Stories

blakemp Playing Favorites , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been a while, but it’s time once again for Playing Favorites! Yes, Playing Favorites, that Geek Punditry mini feature in which I throw out a category and my pals on social media suggest related topics wherein we pick some of the best of the best. With Valentine’s Day looming, this week I asked people to share ideas for love story topics. So grab that special someone and let’s get to it! 

Bad Choices 

Jeff Edwards asked for love stories where it’s clear that the people involved made the wrong choice. It’s a funny idea, because I’m sure we can all think of at least one movie where we’ve walked away saying something like, “What the hell did he SEE in her?” And as far as I’m concerned the absolute apex of this trope is from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. 

No, I didn’t expect to be writing about Lord of the Rings this week either, but here we are. 

Now I love these movies. I think they are masterpieces, and I respect that Peter Jackson didn’t play all fast and loose with canon like SOME fantasy filmmakers I could mention. But if there’s one thing I simply will never understand, it’s why Aragorn would choose Arwen over Eowyn.

Seriously, why is this even a contest?

Sure, Liv Tyler is a classical beauty, but even 20 years ago I would have climbed over her and an entire briar patch to get to Miranda Otto. Nor is it just a matter of looks. Arwyn has that elvish grace and delicacy that makes you feel like you’re embracing a porcelain doll, and I don’t care for that. Eowyn is strong and brave, she killed the Witch King with the power of semantics, and I hear she’s doing her best to get better at making stew. She’s got it all.

In second place is a tie between every story ever written in which Archie Andrews chooses Veronica Lodge over Betty Cooper. I get it. Archie, Betty, and Veronica are the eternal love triangle, and we all know that there’s never going to be a TRUE resolution. They’ve had attempts over the years, but it never sticks. But there is a word that the French have for people who prefer Veronica over Betty: wrongo.

Frankly, they can both do better.

I don’t want this to sound like I hate Veronica, mind you. I think she gets a bit of a bad rap. There have been numerable stories that have shown that, underneath her rich girl veneer, she has a good heart. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s spoiled and selfish, and that Archie is dazzled by her beauty. Betty, on the other hand, is entirely loyal and devoted to him, and loves him without reservation, whereas Veronica on many occasions has been known to toss him aside at a moment’s notice. In fact, that’s probably WHY Archie goes for Veronica – because she’s less attainable. 

What an incredibly stupid reason. What an incredibly realistic reason.

As if that weren’t enough, Archie ignores the very sensible advice of his friends. I’m not saying that if my friends hadn’t liked Erin when I starting dating her that I would have ended the relationship, but at the very least it would have made me question what was up. True friends, people who honestly have your back, should be listened to, and Jughead has made it ABUNDANTLY clear over the years that he’s Team Betty. Archie. Archibald. Listen to your bro.

It’s a little easier to justify when you remember that Archie and the gang are all, in fact, teenagers, and as such he is even more inclined to make incredibly stupid choices than we males of the biologically adult variety. The characters aren’t ever going to grow up, but if they DID, I would like to think that Archie’s better judgment would finally kick in and he would see that the girl next door is the way to go, hopefully before Betty finally comes to HER senses and dumps his ass for Adam Chisolm.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO feel ways about things. 

Finally, although this is not a hill that I personally am prepared to die on, my wife wishes me to share her sincere belief that, in West Side Story, Tony was an absolute idiot for going after Maria when Anita was, like, RIGHT THERE. This is true of both the original and the remake. This is even true of the older Rita Moreno IN the remake. I, on the other hand, just want to point out that West Side Story is a multiversal variant of Romeo and Juliet, and as such, pretty much everybody in that story makes nothing but bad choices all day and all night. 

Electric Love

My uncle Todd Petit asked for the best love story involving a robot or cyborg, which is extremely specific, but that’s cool with me! I was a little hesitant to pick this one, though, mostly because in the Facebook comments several people already went straight to what I think is probably the best robot love story of all time.

Project ALF. 

Ah, I’ve missed this stupid, stupid joke.

No, wait, I’m thinking of the best alien/feline love stories. Obviously, the best love story involving robots comes from the Pixar masterpiece WALL-E. I love this movie, and I assume pretty much everybody who has a soul also loves it, and perhaps the main reason is the deep, perfect, sincere love that is expressed in this film. WALL-E is a garbage robot; his job for centuries has been just to collect trash and compact it. There’s no emotional component to this. But after all these hundreds of years of solitude, he finds himself growing a personality – likes, dislikes, hobbies. He begins saving select items from the trash that he finds interesting and grows a little collection. He makes friends with a cockroach. He is mesmerized by the movie Hello, Dolly! 

He even gave her flowers.

And then he meets EVE, a robot that is searching the dead Earth for signs that life can return, and it’s instant sparks. It’s like watching a busted down Ford Pinto fall in love with a sleek new electric hybrid vehicle (coming this fall in Cars 4!) but it WORKS. At first, EVE isn’t particularly impressed by WALL-E, but his sweetness, kindness, and courage melt her electronic heart. And perhaps the most amazing thing about it is that their entire relationship is almost completely wordless. Neither of them have any dialogue other than occasionally saying their names, but that doesn’t matter. By the end of this movie you are crying and cheering and imagining a new Earth populated by a slendering human population and all of WALL-E and EVE’s little robot babies.

That said, good on Pixar for resisting the urge to name him ADD-M. 

As for other great robot love stories…well, the one that comes most clearly to mind is actually one of the most tragic, and it’s from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like most Star Trek shows in the pre-modern era, this show changed and evolved considerably over its first few seasons. Perhaps the most visible change (other than Riker’s beard) was the departure of Denise Crosby, who played security chief Tasha Yar in season one. Crosby asked to be written out of the show, frustrated over the lack of attention and development her character was getting, and honestly, you can’t blame her. Go back and watch that first season again and you’ll see most of the writing did her no favors at all. But there is ONE element of her abbreviated story that stuck with the characters for all time, and that was her relationship with the android Data. The idea of Data is that he is a Pinocchio, a robot that looks almost human and that wants to be a real boy, if only he knew what emotions were.

She had an AI boyfriend BEFORE it was cool.

Data is my favorite Next Generation character, and in my top three of all Star Trek characters, and the reason is because of his emotional journey. The conceit was that, as an android, he desired the emotions he did not have, but even in that description you can see the contradiction. DESIRE is an emotion. If you HAVE no emotions, how can you DESIRE them? My read on Data, the way I feel about the character, is that he truly DID have emotions from the very beginning – he simply didn’t understand them, know how to process them, know how to define them, and therefore he BELIEVED he had none. After Tasha Yar is killed off, Data returns to her in his thoughts many times. For six seasons, then again 30 years later in the final season of Star Trek: Picard, it is Data that recalls Tasha more than anybody else, Data who brings her up, Data who reveals in that Picard episode that his memories of her are a core component of his personality matrix. The great legacy of Tasha Yar is the fact that, for the rest of his existence, poor Data has been mourning a woman he didn’t really understand he was in love with. 

Sitcom Love

Rachel Ricks asks what I think is the best romance from a sitcom. That’s such a tricky one. There are a lot of great sitcom COUPLES – Bob and Linda Belcher, Herman and Lily Munster, and so forth – but if it’s a pairing that was already together when the show begins, I don’t think I can count them. To count it as a romance, I think we need to see the relationship blossom INTO love.

I also don’t really count those stories that end poorly or where the characters don’t really belong together. Sam and Diane on Cheers may be one of the all-time legendary sitcom couples, but they were utterly toxic to one another and never belonged together. Not to say that a love story HAS to have a happy ending (see what I said about Data), but if it’s a sitcom, I want something a bit more lighthearted.

So I’m gonna stick to the Cheersiverse and say one of my favorite sitcom romances is Niles and Daphne from Frasier. And it’s odd, because it started off as a pretty poor depiction of a relationship – when they meet, Niles is already married (to an utterly reprehensible woman who browbeats and emasculates him at every turn) and pines for Daphne in secret for years. She, meanwhile, is completely oblivious to his affection and treats him with the same love and care that she does Eddie the dog. Eventually, though, his marriage to Maris ends and the two of them find one another. The arc where they’re both with other people but wind up boomeranging into each other’s arms is one of my favorites, and from that point onward the love and affection between them elevates both characters.

Pictured: Steam Heat

There’s a relatively early episode where they have to pretend to be a couple as one of the screwball schemes that happened in every other episode of Frasier, and they play the part so convincingly that Niles almost believes she shares his affection until she compliments him on how good an actor he is. The heartbreak David Hyde Pierce conveys is palpable, and you die a little for him. But it’s bought back years later, when they get together and revisit that scene again, bringing it all full circle. I just love watching those two. 

I also simply adore the relationship between Eleanor and Chidi on The Good Place. This show, about a self-proclaimed “Arizona dirtbag” (played in an adorable way that only Kristen Bell could have pulled off) who goes to Heaven due to what amounts to a clerical error, is one of the smartest and most emotionally profound sitcoms of the past decade, if not of all time. The relationship that develops between Eleanor and Chidi (William Jackson Harper) is one of the core elements of what makes it such a magnificent show. Eleanor has spent her life being self-centered and scuzzy, whereas Chidi’s life has been one of anxiety and apprehension. Eleanor acts without thinking, Chidi overthinks EVERYTHING to the point of catastrophe. The way each of them makes the other a better person is beautiful and heartwarming. 

If this screenshot doesn’t make you want to cry, you did NOT watch the last episode.

There’s a lot more to The Good Place than I revealed in that little recap, because if you’ve never seen the show I don’t want to spoil any of the incredible twists and surprises that it includes, but go and watch it and tell me you’re not rooting for Eleanor and Chidi every step of the way.

Okay, folks, I think that’s going to bring us to the end of part one of “Playing Favorites With Love Stories.” There are still several great suggestions for topics, though, so I’m not done yet. Come back next Friday, Valentine’s Day, for part two. And until then, hey, share this with someone you love. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He maintains that the purest love story on TV is Gomez and Morticia Addams, but nobody asked about that, so he’s gonna drop it here. 

Geek Punditry #6: Seeking Sitcoms

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The show that is indirectly responsible for everyone you know that can quote an episode of Rick and Morty verbatim.

It’s Desi Arnaz’s fault. As the story goes, when Lucille Ball got pregnant during the run of their legendary sitcom I Love Lucy, it was Desi who suggested to the network that they run some older episodes again to fill in the weeks when she would be out of work. The idea was bizarre. Run episodes again? Re-run them? Who would want to watch an episode of a TV comedy that they had already seen?

The answer, as it turned out, was everyone. There’s a comfort in returning to something that made you happy the first time you watched it, like finding an old friend or reminiscing about the good old days. It’s something that we all need at some time or another. 

The rerun became a standard television feature and changed the landscape of entertainment. Not only could they run the same show for an entire year without having to make quite as many episodes or skipping a week, but this eventually led to the concept of syndicating reruns of old episodes to show outside of their original timeslot. And it is syndication, I believe, that has allowed TV shows to become iconic parts of our culture. Think about it: were it not for syndication, if the shows were not still available after their initial airing, would anyone today still know the theme to The Brady Bunch, or be able to tell you how many castaways were stranded on Gilligan’s Island? Who would remember the man named Jed, a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed? Could a gentle whistle  conjure up the image of Andy Griffith and Little Ronnie Howard carrying their fishin’ poles down to the fishin’ hole?

And although it isn’t a sitcom let’s not forget that Star Trek (arguably the font from which all modern fandom springs) is only remembered today because people kept watching the reruns after the series was canceled. It was in syndication that the show’s popularity truly boomed, syndication that led to things like Star Trek conventions, merchandise, novelizations, comic books, and fanfiction…and it was those things that fueled the fire and ultimately led to the revival of the franchise. That’s huge even if you’re not a Trekker, because the fandom of virtually every major franchise since then has followed that template.

I’m not saying it’s the greatest sitcom ever made, but I won’t argue if YOU say it.

When I was younger, I would get home from school and gorge myself on a diet of sitcom reruns. Shows like Cheers, Night Court, or Mama’s Family were staples for me. The 90s came and Home Improvement, Seinfeld, and Friends joined my education. And no matter how many times I watched any given episode, I faithfully watched them again, to the point where I can remember minute details of ancient TV shows better than I remember things like the current whereabouts of my social security card. Because of syndication, I can throw out an obscure joke or comment about virtually any topic, then watch my wife roll her eyes at me when I tell her it’s a classic Simpsons reference.

The streaming revolution has changed things, of course. Once, these reruns were a way to fill time on the air before new series start. Today, fewer and fewer people are using “air time” in their television viewing at all. With the exception of sports, weather, and Svengoolie on Saturday nights, I virtually never watch any live television anymore.

This does not mean the end of reruns, of course, it just means that you have to seek them out instead of turning on whatever Channel 26 was showing at 5 p.m. In fact, for many people seeking out these older shows has become a lifestyle choice. Whereas once someone would have to content themselves with the seventeen or eighteen episodes of The Big Bang Theory that TBS shows on any given weekday, now the option exists to literally watch it 24 hours a day on HBO Max, and you can choose any episode you wish. If you go to a Bob’s Burgers group on Facebook and ask what shows the fans watch when they aren’t watching Bob on Hulu, you will be greeted by several quizzical faces that fail to comprehend such a time could exist. There are people who watch The Office on constant repeat, people who never turn off Family Guy, and folks who will spend their entire lives immersed in Pawnee, Indiana with Parks and Recreation.

There are a few too many people who don’t understand this character was meant to be a cautionary example.

I’m not entirely sure this is a good thing. Oh sure, it’s great to be able to go back and revisit your favorite shows, but I think it’s making it more difficult to find new shows, especially comedies. There’s plenty of talk about “prestige” television, but most of the time this refers to genre shows like Stranger Things or dramas like Yellowstone. The conversation doesn’t really center on blockbuster comedies the way it used to. Would it even be possible, in the current TV climate, for a show with the level of cultural penetration as Friends or Seinfeld to come into being?

As much as I love the sitcoms of my youth, I’m also the sort of person who is constantly on the lookout for new characters, new stories, and new worlds to explore. Even now, I sometimes feel a strange guilt if I watch something I’ve already seen, faced with the knowledge that I could be using this time on new entertainment. I get over it, though, and since streaming really took off in force there are many classic comedies and shows of my youth that I’ve gone back and watched in their entirety: Cheers, Frasier, Wings, The Office, Head of the Class…part of it is because I like to watch new shows with my wife (hi, Erin), and I used to go back to older shows as something to watch while she’s at work. That didn’t quite work out, though, as she would get home while I was in the middle of an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, she would get into it, and I then I had to wait to watch the old shows with her too. Now I just make her tell me explicitly which shows I am and am not allowed to watch without her to avoid confusion.

How legendary is Ted Danson? His picture is in this column twice.

Anyway few years ago, I realized it had been quite some time since I found a new comedy that I really got into, and I made it a point to start seeking them out. I began with The Good Place, which was both a wonderful choice and also completely antithetical to what I was trying to do. If you’ve never seen it, The Good Place is about a kind of scuzzy woman (played perfectly and adorably by Kristen Bell) who dies and, through a sort of cosmic clerical error, winds up in Heaven, which turns out to be run by Ted Danson.

I refuse to say any more about the story because to do so would rob new viewers of one of the most sublime television series ever made, but I will say that I never thought I would see a show that could blend together philosophy, spirituality, religion, and deep, complex contemplations on the meaning of life and the nature of existence itself with a fart joke and make it all seem utterly perfect. It is both hilarious and one of the most profoundly thoughtful and emotionally-compelling TV shows I’ve ever seen. And it’s for that reason that it’s not a show I can re-watch too often, because there are only so many times you can cry on a random Tuesday afternoon.

So The Good Place is an excellent show and I urge everyone to watch it immediately…but it wasn’t the sort of thing that made me want to put it on constant repeat the way I could Frasier. The search would continue.

The most scientifically accurate television program since SeaQuest DSV.

The next comedy that really got my attention was Abbott Elementary. Upon the suggestion of friends of mine from work (I am, in case you didn’t know, a high school English teacher), I checked out the first few episodes of the show, then I stopped and made my wife sit down and watch them with me, because it’s so good. On the surface, it feels like one of dozens of Office clones – a faux documentary set in an American workplace, this time an elementary school. There’s a wacky boss! There’s a new guy in the first episode to act as the audience surrogate! There’s a will they/won’t they couple that the audience is clearly supposed to root for! All the fingerprints are there!

What sets Abbott apart for me, at least, is the authenticity. There have been a number of TV comedies set in schools, but the majority of them have focused on the students (Saved By the Bell), or on the class of one influential teacher (Welcome Back Kotter, Head of the Class). This is the first show I’ve ever seen where the faculty are the stars of the program. What’s more, it’s the most realistic show set in a school I’ve ever seen. You’ve got the young teacher (played by show creator Quinta Brunson), eager to please and determined to be the best that she can be. You’ve got the grizzled veteran teacher (Lisa Ann Walter) who does what she wants and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. The awkward teacher (Chris Perfetti) who is determined to be thought of as cool despite the fact that he clearly is not. The teacher who has been at that school forever (Sheryl Lee Ralph), is perfect in everything she does, and is both intimidating and nurturing to everyone around her. I’ve taught with every one of these people. I have been many of them at some point or another.

It also shows the repercussions of events in a school in a way that most shows don’t. Budget cuts, classroom size, getting adequate parental support – all of these are issues that have turned up on the show in a realistic way. Well…semi-realistic. It is still a TV show, after all. Count the number of times in Saved By the Bell students are left in a classroom with no adult supervision, and know that every one of those offenses could (and depending on the severity of that episode’s hijinks, should) have resulted in somebody getting fired. Abbott actually shows consequences to even well-intentioned mistakes, (the Egg Drop episode is a wonderful example of this) and does so with relatable, enjoyable characters. Best of all, it doesn’t reduce every teacher to a useless buffoon. In fact, unlike most shows in a school setting, every faculty character — even Janelle James’s seemingly-useless principal — has moments where they show their worth as a teacher, as a friend, or as a mentor. It is the first school-focused TV show I’ve ever watched that didn’t make me ask if anyone involved had ever set foot in an American school in their lives. It’s really lovely.

It’s not perfect. The teachers do seem to have absurdly long lunch periods and planning times where their students are in someone else’s care, but I accept that as a necessity when you’re telling stories about the adults and not the kids. Those minor problems are easy for me to get past when I go back and put the show on repeat…which is where I stumble, since we’re only in the second season, and with modern TV the first season had a measly 13 episodes. While I eagerly await each new episode, there’s not enough Abbott for a good binge…not yet.

So I keep looking for more comedy.

There are two shows about dead people on this list, and I don’t know if that says more about me or about society.

The most recent show to get my attention, like Abbott, is only in its second season, but it has a few more episodes and I haven’t quite gotten through them all yet. I started watching CBS’s Ghosts on the advice of my brother (which I mention mainly because if he should happen to read this he will immediately jump in the comments and demand credit for it), and I’m enjoying it a lot. Ghosts, a remake of a British show of the same name, is about a young couple (Samantha and Jay, played by Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar, respectively) who inherit an old mansion from a distant relative, unaware that the ghosts of numerous people who have died on the property are trapped there. In the first episode, Sam has a near-death experience and wakes up with the ability to see and hear the ghosts, and the sudden connection between the ghosts and the “livings” changes things for all of them. 

It doesn’t sound like the premise of a wacky sitcom, but it’s really great. The ghosts cover a wide range of character types, from someone who died 1000 years ago (a Viking exploring the Americas played by Devan Chandler Long) to a dudebro businessman who died in the early 2000s without any pants on (Asher Grodman). The premise allows for characters with a variety of perspectives from different time periods, which makes for a fun blend of types: the former mistress of the house (Rebecca Wisocky) has attitudes about women’s roles stuck in the 1800s, while the hippie who got killed trying to hug a bear in the 1960s (Sheila Carrasco) tries to help her break out of them. The scout leader who was killed in an archery mishap in the 1980s (Richie Moriarity) wants to be best friends with Sam’s husband Jay, but it’s tough to be pals with someone who can’t see or hear you. 

The first season of the show is a fun one that sets up the premise very well, but the second season is even better as it starts to explore the world more fully. Sam encounters more ghosts beyond her own property, we get more information about the lives of the deceased, and an ongoing plotline begins to build around the 20s songstress Alberta (Danielle Pinnock), who always claimed she was murdered. Her insistence that she had an exciting demise was considered just a symptom of her hubris until evidence starts to accumulate that suggests she may be right. There’s even a great meta joke in the second season where the ghosts learn they cannot pass through the walls of a vault in the house and Jay quips that he appreciates the expansion of the mythology.

The only problem with Ghosts is, like Abbott, there’s just not enough of it yet. I’ve only got four more episodes until I’m caught up, and then what?

Time to watch the British original, I suppose.

The point is, I’m still on the lookout. The great sitcoms of the past aren’t going anywhere, and thank goodness for that. I know I can turn on Cheers or Everybody Loves Raymond or Night Court any time I want, and I frequently do. (In fact, I haven’t started watching the Night Court reboot yet because Erin and I have to finish our binge of the original series first.) But I still crave new entertainment. So I’m open for suggestions, friends. What are the current comedies that are worth watching? 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His current writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, a new episode of which is available every Wednesday on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform. He’s also a big fan of Star Trek: Lower Decks, but he doesn’t consider that a sitcom so much as a way of life.