GOD IS IN THE DETAILS: I should have posted this 12 or 16 hours ago, but let me pose a question: About what do you care less: Robin's bland, generic ex-boyfriend Don, or Ted's career as a (lousy*) architect?
*Why can't the show just spend a couple grand to have an actual architect draw up an imaginary building, or even just buy the right to use some conceptual drawing from some architecture grad student? It's one thing to show Lily's crappy paintings (while acknowledging that they're crappy). It's quite another to make Ted's love of and genius at architecture the A-plot of several episodes while trotting out a dumbed-down version of a tacky 1982 tax writeoff disguising as an Omaha office tower as Ted's signature building, or to show the nonsense that Ted spews when he teaches his class or holds forth with his friends about his supposed passion. I don't mind when shows are offhandedly unrealistic about their characters' jobs (which 60 hours of the week is Marshall working?), but when they're making the jobs an important part of the plot, they need to follow the West Wing Directive and to avoid the Studio 60 Disproof: If you're going to tell us how brilliant a character is at something, you either need to nail it onscreen or keep it offscreen in its entirety.
Don. At least Ted Mosby, Architect, gave us "Ted Mosby, Sex Architect."
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty much impossible for anything to be less interesting than Robin's ex-boyfriend Don.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how clumsy the execution of Ted's architecture career has been, there's at least *something* appealing about a TV character that wants to make something other than wisecracks.
Don.
ReplyDeleteTed's career. Because I don't care about Ted.
ReplyDeleteI want more examples of the Studio 60 Disproof -- Jimmy Smits' advocacy on OUTLAW?
Probably about 80% of "brilliant lawyer!" shows fall into it.
ReplyDeleteIf the couple of books they've issued from "Richard Castle" had been really bad, those owuld have been examples of it (though ones you have to reach outside of the show itself to get to).
Arguably, we're seeing a bit of it on "Undercovers" already, which constantly keeps telling us how great Stephen is at the spying thing, but when we see him actually spying, he's not so effective. (Though Samantha is very good.)
Best example: Vinnie Chase acting on Entourage.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are sports examples all over the place. Finn on Glee (both football and basketball, though the teams are supposed to stink). Nuke LaLoosh. Every player on the team in Hang Time.
I just wish they'd stop making Lily's entire plot a bunch of stupid "Where's the poop?" lines. Alyson Hanigan is way too awesome for the crap they give her.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the West Wing Directive: the Big Bang Theory, who trumpet that they have a physicist, and so get things right (as far as I can tell) and which is all about extraordinarily geeky people, and they do get that right (I can pretty well tell).
ReplyDeleteCare more about Don, but haven't seen yesterdays ep yet, so perhaps this will change.
(On a tangent - I watch more shows day-of-taping them than I used to, pretty much because of TT. Since the ratings are now based both on numbers who watch it live and who watch it DVRed same day, someone should be kicking back mightily to y'all.)
I'm more annoyed by the whole "I can get a faculty job at Columbia without really wanting it or deserving it" thing.
ReplyDeleteThis also annoys my husband, an academic who worked his ass off at a top five program to get lucky with a job at a no-name state college, to no end. F--- that guy.
ReplyDelete(I also wondered what 60 hours Marshall was going on about. At least he's in house.)
Another great example of the Studio 60 disproof from A Random Anecdote About Something That Happened Before I Met Your Mother: "The Wedding Bride," which we were told was an amazing movie but seemed, in the scenes we were shown, to be far less sophisticated than a bad 1970s sitcom.
ReplyDeleteWe weren't told it was an amazing movie quality-wise, but just that it was an amazing movie from a financial success standpoint. Just because something is successful doesn't mean it's good. (The most successful rom com of all time remains "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which at least borders on "bad 70s sitcom.")
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. No movie that bad does as well as The Wedding Bridge was alleged to have done.
ReplyDelete(Unless, of course, it stars Tim Curry in lingerie or otherwise becomes a cult smash. But we were shown people in the theater swooning over the movie, not mocking it.)
ReplyDeleteYES. And without a Ph.D. (I know architects don't necessarily have that to teach, but I know some who do, and ARGH.) And apparently a 1:1 load? And, he's teaching architecture history, not actual studio architecture? Because NYC isn't full of underemployed Ph.D. art historians and architects who could do that. GRRR.
ReplyDeleteAlso, did Ted describe La Sagrada Familia as "brown"? I mean, I realize it's not pure white, but I would never describe it as "brown" in color.
ReplyDelete<span>I want more examples of the Studio 60 Disproof</span>
ReplyDeleteEric Taylor's playcalling and in-game decisionmaking
Sam Seaborn's speechwriting.
Also, shouldn't he be publishing? Ok, I'll stop.
ReplyDeleteThe Expendables? Karate Kid 2010? Grown Ups? The A-Team? Couples Retreat? Transformers 2? Alvin & the Chipmunks 2 - the Squeakquel? 2012? Taken? Hannah Montana the Movie? Hotel for Dogs? Sex and the City 2? Zohan? 10,000 B.C.? Beverly Hills Chihuahua? National Treasure 2? Wild Hogs? I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry? Norbit?
ReplyDeleteAll grossed about $75MM or more in the last four years.
I like Sam's speechwriting -- that was the point of the WW Directive. When Sorkin left, the speeches became unbearable.
ReplyDeleteBut we were told The Wedding Bride was GOOD. Anyway -- whatever. Certainly not worth arguing over.
ReplyDeleteI don't think any of my architecture professors had PhDs unless they were teaching architectural history. Which, of course, is what Ted is teaching, so there you go. But it would not be uncommon (more accurately, it would be the norm) for a very successful practicing architect with no academic background to teach a studio (graduate or undergrad). It would be bizarre for an unsuccessful practicing architect to teach a studio, even more so for him to teach a history survey (presumably in the art history department).
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll keep going -- in an architecture department, building is the equivalent of publishing.
ReplyDeleteIt's brown.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I guess it's white in my head.
ReplyDeleteHere's a question that I really don't know the answer to - assuming they go ahead and build Ted's depressing building, how much of Ted's time is spent on it after the blueprints are done? What you say leads me to believe that he does not have to choose between his sweet teaching load at Columbia and the building. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteThe first Richard Castle book sucked. I haven't even bothered with the second, and I LOVE Castle - the show and the character.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't have time to design buildings! He's half-assing a 1:1!
ReplyDelete(And we're NOT supposed to think Ted is an enormous douche?)
Was just there last week - it's definitely brown-ish on the outside (although it reads more peach in the photos I took).
ReplyDeleteI think of it as caramel. But it looked terrible in the slide Ted had up.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I don't think they know what to do with Lily.
ReplyDeleteSeconded, I haven't been able to get past the first chapter, it's clunky at best so far.
ReplyDeleteI'd say it's more of a taupe color. It's definitely brown-ish, but Im not sure that's the ideal descriptor.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewraff/5057417222/in/set-72157624983078551/
Here's how I understand it, though I may be wrong. Ted spent a while putting together an entry in a beauty contest for GNB. He designed some elevations, probably did some kind of rough schematic plan (though we didn't see it), and obviously did the rendering that we've seen. We should expect that the package included some other materials (a model or CGI flyover video; supporting art; probably a preliminary budget). What he did would be the architectural equivalent of an outline for a novel or a detailed pitch to a studio for a movie. He did not actually design a skyscraper yet.
ReplyDeleteSo the next step, once he has the job, would be to supervise a team of architects and engineers in reducing his idea of a building to an actual building (actually, he presumably would have supervised a team of architects in doing the pitch in the first place, but let's ignore that). The building will have elevators and fire stairs and HVAC systems and joists and flooring and an underground garage and tens of thousands of decisions about details. Every last detail of the building will need to be designed and reduced to a medium so that the contractors can get to work on it. Supervising the people who do that stuff -- the architects who drill down on the details, the engineers who have to make sure that what the architects do won't fall down, overheat, or throw windows at pedestrians, the people who manage the budget -- is a full-time job. This is not the kind of thing you can do at a drafting table pushed up against your couch. Even if it loved his presentation (and why would it? Then again it went with the Godzilla building), there is no way a corporation would give this job to Ted without requiring him to pair up with a large, experienced firm that could handle all the things that need to be done.
If he were teaching a studio, being the principal architect shouldn't be an insurmountable problem. Teaching a studio involves having a seminar-sized group of students, giving them projects, and publicly savaging their work in weekly or bi-weekly crits. The bulk of the work is in coming up with the projects -- giving them enough information (site, program, limitations, other things you want them to do). You might assign reading, but more likely it's not syllabus-type assignment but rather telling people one-on-one as you look at their work that they should think about how this architect solved this particular problem, etc. Most of the people who teach studio courses are practicing, and successful, architects.
Teaching some kind of survey course would be a lot more work. Maybe Ted could do both, but I would expect him to work his ass off and not have time to spend sitting in a bar every night with his friends or run around chasing some mythological mother of his children. But if this plot is a way to explain why we never see Ted on this show any more, that's fine with me.
It looks like it's been pretty well scrubbed since I saw it 10 years ago. Definitely was darker then (at least darker than the picture), but city grit does tend to accumulate. But I think of Sandstone as primarily a brown stone, especially after being exposed to the elements for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI'm still stuck on the fact that no one that writes for network television understands that there is no "11:00" news in Chicago (referencing the announcement of Don's news broadcast). There is 9:00 and 10:00 local news depending on the channel. I realize that we're in the fly-over but you'd think that someone involved in the show would have a working knowledge of the Midwest (where two of the main characters came from).
ReplyDeleteConsidering how few movies I see, I'm now really depressed about how many of ones I have seen made your "as bad as The Wedding Bride" list. Really wish I had skipped The Squeakquel.
ReplyDeleteIsaac, you frighten me. And stop dissing Hang Time.
ReplyDeleteWho dissed Hang Time? I just said that their actors couldn't play basketball (aside from Coach Reggie Theus, of course). That has no bearing whatsoever on my appreciation of Anthony Anderson, Megan Parlen, and Daniela Deutscher.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. In that vein, how likely is it that Robin would ever be awake to watch the 11 p.m. news? Doesn't her show come on at 4 or 5 a.m.?
ReplyDelete