warning, impending flashback

[jaina]

So here's my issue with this week's Studio 60. (Fine, one of my issues. And I even FFed most of the episode.) You want to do a flashback episode, all right, fine. You want to set it eight years ago, er, well, if you must. Plenty of actors could get away with that fairly realistically. But Matthew Perry, though I love him, is not one of them. I *know* what Matthew Perry looked like in 1999-- he looked like this. (I love that episode!) He did not look like this (warning, giant picture!). Slapping a backwards baseball cap on him ain't gonna cut it, sorry. I'm just glad they didn't try to flashback Danny too, because I also know what Bradley Whitford looked like in 1999, because we're Netflixing Season 1 of West Wing right now. (LOVE, you guys. LOVE.)

Oh, what the hell-- some more caps, because I love TOW Everyone Finds Out:
"She went like *this*!"
"Oh yeah? Well you don't know about Huggsy, my bedtime penguin pal!"
"Wow! You didn't even rip off any buttons!" "Not my first time."
"Yeah, you know what would be even more fun? Telling them."

Comments

[donnafantastico.livejournal.com]

You are SO right. That bothered me like whoa the whole time.

I have S1 of West Wing on DVD and it makes my heart hurt because it's SO good. It ended up such a mess. :(

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Yay! I am not the only one!

I have heard that TWW went bad. How long did it stay good? sirrogue is a completist so he'll watch the whole series, but I usually drop out when things go south.

[donnafantastico.livejournal.com]

WW got bad as soon as Aaron Sorkin was fired. I think that's when Rob Lowe left too, 'though I might be wrong about the timeline.

It's like a Buffy without a Whedon, a Gilmore without the Palladino's, Veronica without Rob Thomas, Alias without What's-His-Name-Who-Abandons-His-Shows..... it just doesn't work! (Oh, Gilmore Girls... how sad is thee.)






JJ Abrams!!! God, brain fart.

[portnoyslp.livejournal.com]

For me, I stopped caring about the show after Sorkin left after Season 4. There are still some good episodes in Season 5, though, most notably "The Supremes". I stopped watching almost totally after the second episode of Season 6, when the last few minutes made me realize that the show runners no longer cared about the characters, and just cared about creating ER-style event-driven TV.

wendyhouse says it got better after that, but your mileage may vary. :-)

[wendyhouse.livejournal.com]

huh. that didn't bother me at all. I guess maybe because although I know what Chandler Bing looked like in 1999, I don't actually know what Matt Albie looked like in 1999?

I thought it was a good episode, but hard... I feel bad for Matt and the crap he's about to put himself through.

[portnoyslp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it didn't bother me either. I mean, hey, if Perry can't make me think of him as a different person than Chandler after 15 episodes, what would that say about him as an actor?

[yav-14.livejournal.com]

Didn't bother me either. Since he was already using at that point too it made sense to me that he'd look a bit... er... you know.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

But...he wasn't using at all back then, was he? Or did I miss something in my skipping through the episode? I mean it's Danny who's the ex-addict, not Matt.

(Also, ICON!)

[yav-14.livejournal.com]

Or it could me that totally misread the situation. I thought that because he was the guy he created in the blue shirt who got fired that he was the one using in the past. And that the part about being fired, and him telling himself it might be time for rehab, was his warning to himself. I took it as a double message from then and now, but I could have been way off there.

Icon is one of Dunc's. Help yourself, she won't mind.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way.

[jcberk.livejournal.com]

I figured that the drugs he was using in the present were causing him to create memories that never happened, and in those memories he was getting warnings from his subconscious about his potential future. The warnings don't seem to have reached him though, judging by his still taking the pills at the end....

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I totally don't see him as Chandler at all on Studio 60. It's just, I know Matthew Perry did not yet look so old and used-up in '99. And so the flashback kind of grated on me, because it was done in seriousness, and I was just having trouble buying it. (I did love the background music, though.)

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm just not terribly interested in Matt going into a downward spiral over Harriet. I'd rather have some more joy on the show while it lasts, since it looks like it's on the way out. :( I've stopped hoping for renewal, and now I'm just hoping they let it finish out the season.

[portnoyslp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wouldn't expect renewal, especially with them putting it on hiatus a week early for The Black Donneleys. They say it should come back to finish out the episode order, and as long as the numbers still show that it's catering to the demographic of the inordinately wealthy, I think we'll see that happen.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

I'm sad, but not surprised. The show has enormous potential, but it also has plenty of issues. And of course it was the Second Coming of Sorkin (technically, it was the third, but still) and so expectations were really, really high.

I'll still miss the show, though. :(

[valkyrie-kitten.livejournal.com]

You know, I wasn't happy all through the episode. I wasn't sure why. I think you hit it right on the head! I really just didn't believe their 8 year flash backs. They were painful. And not just the Angst, the way they did them.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was just...eh. I just was not interested in How Harriet Met Matt. Or How Matt's Brain is Now Thoroughly Screwed Cause He's Taking the Crazy Pills. Also, there was no Steven Weber.