Wednesday, June 24, 2015
IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASY? We haven't talked about what's been the surprise of the summer (from a TV perspective) for me, which has been unREAL on Lifetime. I'm as shocked as you are that the home of classics like Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life, Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?, and Too Young To Be A Dad has produced something this solid (if annoyingly capitalized)--a drama built around the making of a Bachelor clone called Everlasting, including a producer who's both gifted at doing bad things and with a healthy conscience about them, a "suitor" who's more interested in promoting his business than finding true love, the franchise's coke-addled "creator," and the executive producer who will stop at nothing to get "good TV." Even for someone like me, whose total Bachelor viewing consists of about 10 minutes, it's instantly addicting, and Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer are both doing solid work bringing characters who could otherwise come off as one-dimensional to full life. It's well worth checking out, and Lifetime is streaming it.
Lifetime also had the late, lamented Witches of East End (Watts can back me up on this), a show that was pitched pretty damn perfectly as overwrought soap opera.
ReplyDeleteAdore unREAL. Great as a reality show parody but, beyond that, great as a straight-up drama. Also it's interesting how rarely a main character is clearly Jewish (unless the show is about her being Jewish) and I love that aspect of it too. Like, it's not a big deal but it's also cool that her last name is Goldberg and not McCarthy.
ReplyDeleteunREAL (despite the horrible hunchback capitalization) is definitely a surprisingly good show. The non-Marti Noxon co-creator did spend some time as a producer on The Bachelor. It's just well-done (so far).
ReplyDeleteIt's based on her short film which had Ashley Williams as the producer and Anna Camp as a rejected bachelorette. (Though wouldn't Camp have been fun in the Constance Zimmer part?)
ReplyDeleteI didn't expect to like it, and really didn't enjoy the pilot, but it's grown on me. It hits a little close to home sometimes, since I haven't worked on this kind of show, but have spent some time dancing around, talking people into participating in projects I've been on. Good for Shiri finding a part that embraces her wide-eyed innocence look and also turns it on its ear. Also, I'm disappointed I've never gotten a bonus for some of my success stories. WTH?
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