So Much for Being Nice, Here's Another Rant - Take This Crap Off The Air
When some of my friends and family started to read this blog, they asked me “When do you find time to do all this writing?” I have one answer: every evening from 8 to 11 pm (with the exception of Wednesdays) because there is absolutely nothing on TV the rest of the time. Of the 4200 hours or so of prime time TV available on my cable system every week, I watch the following shows regularly: The Amazing Race, Lost, What Not To Wear, and The Sopranos. I have watched other shows from time to time, but invariably they disappoint me with idiocy (jump the shark as they say). I can’t watch CSI and other coroner shows because they are too gross, and I can’t watch some other shows because it is too hard to figure out when they are on. I usually jump from channel to channel checking out the food network or a sitcom, and then clicking away at the start of each commercial. I wish I had some stuff to watch on TV, I like lying on the couch as much as the next girl, but things just haven’t worked out for me.
I must confess that there was a time last spring and early last fall when I though Grey’s Anatomy was a pretty good show. Unfortunately, like all pretty good shows, they only had enough plot for about 5 or 6 episodes. After that they obviously locked their writers in a room, starved them, deprived them of sleep, fed in some funny gas through the vents of the HVAC and had a few monkeys record the plots they came up with. I suppose it is possible that two people impaled by the same pole could be brought into the ER and make witty banter for an hour before one of them kicks off. I guess it’s possible that a doctor who performs open heart surgery in an elevator would gain absolutely no confidence and become a sniveling idiot with the start of each new episode (a doctor with the worst haircut since Buckwheat who then goes on to get an even worse haircut a la Alfalfa). I’m sure there are hospitals out there where almost all of the action takes place in an elevator that can only travel one floor per minute because it is operated by a small gnome frantically pedaling a tiny bicycle. But once you’ve used up all these great ideas, what else could possibly happen?
Okay, maybe a crazy war reenactor could end up with an unexploded rocket lodged in his chest. Maybe it could have been held in place inside his chest by a paramedic for hours, while being lifted onto a stretcher, through an ambulance ride, the hallways of the hospital, the elevator, and more hallways. Maybe when the scared paramedic took her hand away, a doctor could have instantaneously stuck her hand into the guy and stabilized the rocket. Maybe a cute, understanding, explosives expert would have let three doctors stay in the room with the patient who could explode at any time. Maybe when the doctor moved her hand and pulled out the rocket, nothing would have happened. Maybe if you suspend all belief, these things could have transpired. Where I must draw the line however, is that the cute explosives expert (wearing no protective gear) would have the rocket pulled out and put onto a tray which he would then carry down the hallway to a waiting disposal box, all the while chatting with yet another explosives expert (wearing no protective gear) as if he is carrying a tray full of macaroni from the cafeteria. Is there an explosives expert anywhere, cute or ugly, that would not have had the explosion proof container 6 inches from the patient? At the very moment where we are all supposed to feel sad and surprised that cute explosives expert has been vaporized, I was rolling my eyes in disbelief that they would top off the world’s most unlikely scenario with somehow an even more unlikely scenario.
I mean, at the time that was the world’s most unlikely scenario – little did I know what was coming up next. The “two-part season finale” has made the exploding rocket episode look like a documentary. I have not watched this show very closely lately, but it appears that one doctor (Dizzy) has fallen in love with a patient who needs a new heart. He is some sort of construction worker, who apparently works for a company that provides unlimited insurance benefits, allowing him to live in a private room at a private hospital for months without the need for a single conversation regarding who is paying the bills. He has had many close calls, almost dying, but then finally, miraculously, a heart donor is found. Actually, two heart donors (brothers) that were in the same car accident (and both died of injuries that spared all their organs) are found and are about to have their organs harvested simultaneously when the guy designated to donate Dizzy’s boyfriend’s heart dies and becomes unable to donate. Since the donors were brothers, the other brain dead (but not totally dead) brother would also be a donor match for Dizzy’s boyfriend, but since the person who was supposed to get the heart from the second brother got onto the transplant list 17 seconds before Dizzy’s boyfriend, he has dibs. So what do you think happened next?
Of course Dizzy, holes up in her boyfriend’s hospital room, and although he is on all sorts of monitors and drugs, no nurse ever stops by to see what’s going on. Then Dizzy, outraged by the 17 second rule and driven to insanity by her love for a guy she has played Scrabble with several times, decides to cut the wires to her boyfriends external heart pump, essentially killing him, so that he will be sicker and he will win the second heart. Even if you believe all the parts of this scenario of the doctor gone crazy for love, tell me if you can believe the rest of this: By phone, Dizzy tells the doctor in charge of the transplant what she is planning to do. Does he send a nurse, a security guard, another doctor, a maintenance man, in to stop her? No, he decides to drive back across town to check on the situation himself. Dizzy has one of her fellow interns come into the room and tells him what she is planning to do. Does he wrestle the scissors out of her hand? Call for help? Run so he will not be a part of the crazy scheme? No, he stands there wringing his hands and looking perplexed about what’s going on and unable to think of a way to stop it. So as the meaningful song plays in the background and the camera shots jump from scene to scene throughout the hospital, Dizzy cuts the wires and the show ends.
Unfortunately, while the camera is jumping from scene to scene, we get to see that the transplant doctor has been shot right outside the hospital (by a known teenage assailant who shot up a fast food restaurant and then eluded police all afternoon until he found his way to the hospital where all of his victims were being treated – clearly no police would have been waiting for him there). Is he shot in the leg so that he can limp into the second part and do surgery while he bleeds? No. Is he shot in the head so he can die and throw Dizzy’s plans into a tizzy? No. Come on now, put on your soap opera hats. He gets shot in the shoulder with just the slightest nick to his nerves so that one of his hands (Gasp! He’s a surgeon!) is paralyzed and he needs emergency neurosurgery. Meanwhile, hours later, the chief resident finally locates every other doctor in the show in the room with the rapidly dying boyfriend and gives them a talking to.
What happens next? I’m sure you know that the Dizzy is fired for what she’s done. Ha! Of course not! The interns all band together and reprise that famous scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where they all take blame (credit) for the wirecutting (baby) so that all of them will keep their jobs (keep from being strung up by angry fathers). So what does the chief of the hospital do when he is confronted with this defiance from interns that have been working for him for less than a year? Suspend them all? Cut off their funding? Stop it silly! Of course he makes them throw a prom in the hospital for his niece who was brought in earlier that day (from her prom, I’m not sure why she needs another one, unless it is to complete sleeping with her boyfriend because apparently she passed out doing that at the first prom) because she has cancer.
I don’t know how this show will end because it is on right now and I can’t take one more second of it. I’m sure the heart transplant guy will probably die and the surgeon will get his fingers back. Everyone will break up and get back together and cast knowing glances at each other since everyone loves the people that belong to every one else. This little synopsis barely scratches the surface of the stupidity of what I saw in one and a half parts of the two part episode (I can't even face detailing the fast food plot). I find myself rather queasy at the fact that I have wasted 1500 words on it, but something must be done. Please, please take this show off the air.
I must confess that there was a time last spring and early last fall when I though Grey’s Anatomy was a pretty good show. Unfortunately, like all pretty good shows, they only had enough plot for about 5 or 6 episodes. After that they obviously locked their writers in a room, starved them, deprived them of sleep, fed in some funny gas through the vents of the HVAC and had a few monkeys record the plots they came up with. I suppose it is possible that two people impaled by the same pole could be brought into the ER and make witty banter for an hour before one of them kicks off. I guess it’s possible that a doctor who performs open heart surgery in an elevator would gain absolutely no confidence and become a sniveling idiot with the start of each new episode (a doctor with the worst haircut since Buckwheat who then goes on to get an even worse haircut a la Alfalfa). I’m sure there are hospitals out there where almost all of the action takes place in an elevator that can only travel one floor per minute because it is operated by a small gnome frantically pedaling a tiny bicycle. But once you’ve used up all these great ideas, what else could possibly happen?
Okay, maybe a crazy war reenactor could end up with an unexploded rocket lodged in his chest. Maybe it could have been held in place inside his chest by a paramedic for hours, while being lifted onto a stretcher, through an ambulance ride, the hallways of the hospital, the elevator, and more hallways. Maybe when the scared paramedic took her hand away, a doctor could have instantaneously stuck her hand into the guy and stabilized the rocket. Maybe a cute, understanding, explosives expert would have let three doctors stay in the room with the patient who could explode at any time. Maybe when the doctor moved her hand and pulled out the rocket, nothing would have happened. Maybe if you suspend all belief, these things could have transpired. Where I must draw the line however, is that the cute explosives expert (wearing no protective gear) would have the rocket pulled out and put onto a tray which he would then carry down the hallway to a waiting disposal box, all the while chatting with yet another explosives expert (wearing no protective gear) as if he is carrying a tray full of macaroni from the cafeteria. Is there an explosives expert anywhere, cute or ugly, that would not have had the explosion proof container 6 inches from the patient? At the very moment where we are all supposed to feel sad and surprised that cute explosives expert has been vaporized, I was rolling my eyes in disbelief that they would top off the world’s most unlikely scenario with somehow an even more unlikely scenario.
I mean, at the time that was the world’s most unlikely scenario – little did I know what was coming up next. The “two-part season finale” has made the exploding rocket episode look like a documentary. I have not watched this show very closely lately, but it appears that one doctor (Dizzy) has fallen in love with a patient who needs a new heart. He is some sort of construction worker, who apparently works for a company that provides unlimited insurance benefits, allowing him to live in a private room at a private hospital for months without the need for a single conversation regarding who is paying the bills. He has had many close calls, almost dying, but then finally, miraculously, a heart donor is found. Actually, two heart donors (brothers) that were in the same car accident (and both died of injuries that spared all their organs) are found and are about to have their organs harvested simultaneously when the guy designated to donate Dizzy’s boyfriend’s heart dies and becomes unable to donate. Since the donors were brothers, the other brain dead (but not totally dead) brother would also be a donor match for Dizzy’s boyfriend, but since the person who was supposed to get the heart from the second brother got onto the transplant list 17 seconds before Dizzy’s boyfriend, he has dibs. So what do you think happened next?
Of course Dizzy, holes up in her boyfriend’s hospital room, and although he is on all sorts of monitors and drugs, no nurse ever stops by to see what’s going on. Then Dizzy, outraged by the 17 second rule and driven to insanity by her love for a guy she has played Scrabble with several times, decides to cut the wires to her boyfriends external heart pump, essentially killing him, so that he will be sicker and he will win the second heart. Even if you believe all the parts of this scenario of the doctor gone crazy for love, tell me if you can believe the rest of this: By phone, Dizzy tells the doctor in charge of the transplant what she is planning to do. Does he send a nurse, a security guard, another doctor, a maintenance man, in to stop her? No, he decides to drive back across town to check on the situation himself. Dizzy has one of her fellow interns come into the room and tells him what she is planning to do. Does he wrestle the scissors out of her hand? Call for help? Run so he will not be a part of the crazy scheme? No, he stands there wringing his hands and looking perplexed about what’s going on and unable to think of a way to stop it. So as the meaningful song plays in the background and the camera shots jump from scene to scene throughout the hospital, Dizzy cuts the wires and the show ends.
Unfortunately, while the camera is jumping from scene to scene, we get to see that the transplant doctor has been shot right outside the hospital (by a known teenage assailant who shot up a fast food restaurant and then eluded police all afternoon until he found his way to the hospital where all of his victims were being treated – clearly no police would have been waiting for him there). Is he shot in the leg so that he can limp into the second part and do surgery while he bleeds? No. Is he shot in the head so he can die and throw Dizzy’s plans into a tizzy? No. Come on now, put on your soap opera hats. He gets shot in the shoulder with just the slightest nick to his nerves so that one of his hands (Gasp! He’s a surgeon!) is paralyzed and he needs emergency neurosurgery. Meanwhile, hours later, the chief resident finally locates every other doctor in the show in the room with the rapidly dying boyfriend and gives them a talking to.
What happens next? I’m sure you know that the Dizzy is fired for what she’s done. Ha! Of course not! The interns all band together and reprise that famous scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where they all take blame (credit) for the wirecutting (baby) so that all of them will keep their jobs (keep from being strung up by angry fathers). So what does the chief of the hospital do when he is confronted with this defiance from interns that have been working for him for less than a year? Suspend them all? Cut off their funding? Stop it silly! Of course he makes them throw a prom in the hospital for his niece who was brought in earlier that day (from her prom, I’m not sure why she needs another one, unless it is to complete sleeping with her boyfriend because apparently she passed out doing that at the first prom) because she has cancer.
I don’t know how this show will end because it is on right now and I can’t take one more second of it. I’m sure the heart transplant guy will probably die and the surgeon will get his fingers back. Everyone will break up and get back together and cast knowing glances at each other since everyone loves the people that belong to every one else. This little synopsis barely scratches the surface of the stupidity of what I saw in one and a half parts of the two part episode (I can't even face detailing the fast food plot). I find myself rather queasy at the fact that I have wasted 1500 words on it, but something must be done. Please, please take this show off the air.
posted by Shannon at 11:12 PM
1 Comments:
Be happy you stopped where you did. It is the worst show on right now. How it survives while The Office and My Name is Earl struggle is officially the thing I understand least in the universe.
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