Crushable » FOX

Some Proposed Plots for the Texts From Last Night Television Show

Lucia Peters — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:16:32 +0000

You’re all familiar with Texts From Last Night, right? That hilarious and often uncomfortable website dedicated to preserving for all of time those embarrassing texts that probably wouldn’t have been sent were it not for the consumption of rather a lot of one or more substances? Good. Because they’re going to make a television show out of it, and I need your help figuring out how this is going to work.

According to Deadline, Fox has tapped Ugly Betty creator Silvio Horta to develop a show based on Texts From Last Night. Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time Fox has tried to turn TFLN into a show; two Steve Holland, who wrote for The Big Bang Theory and Kenan & Kel among other things, was tasked with bringing the website to the small screen, and the season following, Marc Abrams and Michael Benson of The Bernie Mac Show took over.

Will Horta make it work? Who knows. Honestly, I just want to know what the pitches for the actual premise of the show are going to be like. Oh! I know! How do these ideas sound?

CSI: TFLN: This procedural follows edgy detectives Molloy (Sean Patrick Flannery, in a move to revive his career) and Simms (Michelle Trachtenberg, in an effort to finally be seen as an adult) attempt to solve the most difficult of crimes through the careful analysis of the debauched texts sent by the victims the night before.
Whose TFLN Is It, Anyway?: An improv comedy show hosted by Adam Sandler wherein the prompts for each scene have been assembled from the audience’s most embarrassing texts. Bonus points if you can identify which audience member your prompt came from.
Desperate TFLN: Only their texts reveal exactly what the ladies of Petunia Path get up to in their free time…
Mad TFLN: A stylish period piece that follows the lives of the employees of a well-known ad agency during the high-flying, text-happy 1960s. What’s that, you say? Texting didn’t exist in the ‘60s? LALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
Battlestar TFLN:This sci-fi epic employs futuristic technology in each person’s cell phone to prevent the sending of unfortunate text messages before the messages have even been thought up. But what happens when the cell phones start turning against their makers?
TFLN, MD: A crotchety doctor played by British actor Stephen Fry in his first turn as an American solves medical mysteries with the help of his patients’ cell phone records.
TFLN: The Sitcom: Essentially, How I Met Your Mother. With even more texting.

Hmmm… none of these are really doing it for you, are they? Ah well. I’ll keep thinking. You keep thinking, too; the only way to make this work is if we all get it on the conversation. But I mean, hey, it’s going to be on Fox, so it won’t really matter if it’s any good; it’ll just get cancelled after the second episode anyway. Carry on!

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A Discussion Of Fox’s ‘Quirky’ Zooey Deschanel Vehicle New Girl

Jamie Peck — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:45:43 +0000

Like we told you yesterday, FOX has decided to visit the pilot episode of its sitcom New Girl upon the internet-going public early, making it available for free download via iTunes a full two weeks before it premieres on television. Despite knowing there was no way it was going to be any good at all, Liana and I decided to give it a chance and watch it. As they used to say on a show that was actually funny but got canceled to make room for more travesties like this, we’ve made a huge mistake.

Liana Maeby: So, this show: I was predisposed to hate it because I read the script and was not impressed, and, like, ugh Zooey, but man! It was that bad?

Jamie Peck: I was shocked how bad it was. SHOCKED.

Liana Maeby: A decade ago there was a movie PARODYING the whole pretty girl hidden by glasses thing. So how is that the premise of a network sitcom in 2011?!

Jamie Peck: I don’t think she is presented as a pretty girl hidden by glasses, so much as her “weird and wacky” personality.

Liana Maeby: But there was totally that: glasses off, now she’s hot scene. She took them off to put on the black dress and go on her date!

Liana Maeby: And all the boys were like, “Whoooa.”

Jamie Peck: Oh yeah! And then she did a “weird” spaz dance and they were like “eeew.”

Liana Maeby: So this show was created by Liz Merriwether who’s part of Diablo Cody’s “Fempire.” Do you remember that NYT article? The thing that made me crawl under my bed and whimper for a week straight?

Jamie Peck: I think I blocked it out of my memory.

Liana Maeby: Oh, it’s very upsetting.

Liana Maeby: Quirky women writing quirky women content! And taking over the world, with quirk!

Jamie Peck: there is not an emoticon frowny enough to express my displeasure at this.

Liana Maeby: >8-(

Jamie Peck: Not even close. I would not mind the quirk so much if it was amusing…or if she seemed like anything approaching a real human being.

Liana Maeby: Every character was such an archetype, though. I just don’t understand what it’s a show about, exactly.

Jamie Peck: There was the athletic and masculine black man…

Liana Maeby: NAMED COACH!

Liana Maeby: And the stupid finance guy or whatever with his “douchebag jar.”

Jamie Peck: I kind of liked the dbag jar

Jamie Peck: most douchebaggery on sitcoms goes unremarked

Liana Maeby: I feel like maybe if that punchline weren’t the only purpose of having that character, then maybe?

Jamie Peck: mmm fair

Liana Maeby: I like the other dude.

Jamie Peck: the sad sack bartender? yes

Jamie Peck: he reminds me of charlie day

Liana Maeby: But they don’t have enough sexual tension for that to be a thing that carries the show.

Jamie Peck: can we talk about how painful to watch it was when finance bro starts trying to seduce the hot model friend with peppermint tea?

Liana Maeby: Oh god. I believe I zipped my head into my hoodie at that point.

Liana Maeby: (Because I am sooo quirky.)

Liana Maeby: But like: people do not behave that way!

Jamie Peck: he refers to her boobs at “party hats”!

Liana Maeby: So upsetting.

Liana Maeby: I’m going to start refering to party hats as “boobs.”

Jamie Peck: Time for fun, everyone put your boobs on top of your heads!

Jamie Peck: I mean, there’s a way to be totally outlandish in service of entertainment, like on 30 Rock, or Parks and Rec.

Liana Maeby: Right, but there are jokes there. Not just: sterotype, let’s laugh at it. Which was 100% every single joke in this show.

Jamie Peck: “Hot girl is hot” is NOT A JOKE.

Jamie Peck: I think most of the jokes boil down to “___ guy/girl is [ ___ again] LOL!”

Jamie Peck: Women be crying!

Liana Maeby: Men don’t understand feelings!

Liana Maeby: Dirty Dancing, AMIRITE LADIES?

Jamie Peck: Question: do the women writing this stuff think it’s funny?

Jamie Peck: Or do they think the only way to succeed in THE PATRIARCHY is to play by its dumb rules?

Liana Maeby: I think that they have enough of the vague structure of what jokes are that they must? I mean, I have a hard time believing that a writer would willfully dumb down her material to the point that it’s embarrassing. I just don’t understand how anyone thought that this was an interesting premise at all.

Jamie Peck: Look at all the fights Roseanne had with her producers! Maybe it’s their fault.

Liana Maeby: It’s probably partially the fault of execs, yes! It always is.

Liana Maeby: Women lives in an apartment with male roommates? Cool, that was all of college for me. Not TV-worthy!

Jamie Peck: Aaaw, I miss my college roomie. [I go off on a tangent about my college roomie, who was/is a semi-professional magician who would practice his delightful tricks all the time, snuck one of our inside jokes into the magazine he worked at, and is now getting a PhD in physics.]

Liana Maeby: I love him!

Liana Maeby: He should be on this show, not: dude who’s a personal trainer and is therefore loud, kinda.

Jamie Peck: Truth is stranger than fiction.

Jamie Peck: Do you think we’re offended by the fake quirk because it attempts to “speak” to us?

Liana Maeby: I think that is perhaps part of it. However, I’d take over-the-top Juno dialogue over this crap any day.

Liana Maeby: Because at least that’s trying to do something. Other than: girls’s gonna dance, we’re going to laugh.

Jamie Peck: There was some clever wordplay! Juno was a regular wordsmith compared to this one.

Liana Maeby: It’s true! And there was none of that here. Not for one line. There was not one single solid joke in the entire pilot.

Jamie Peck: I kept waiting to laugh…or titter?

Liana Maeby: Get out my party hat?

Jamie Peck: but I never had the occasion to. NO PARTY HATS FOR U, NEW GIRL.

Liana Maeby: I wonder, where does the show go from here? If the pilot was that boring, what is episode two, and then episode 26?!

Jamie Peck: They gradually come to love and depend on each other. Err, I mean the show gets canceled.

Liana Maeby: I think the problem is that Zooey’s character doesn’t have any real obstacles to overcome. Here’s why:

Liana Maeby: Her main obstacle, as presented by the show, is her own quirkiness. However, we as an audience are actually meant to find that quirkiness charming.

Liana Maeby: So where’s the tension?

Liana Maeby: In my head, after watching that dumb show.

Jamie Peck: BOOM.

THE END

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Cutegreggator: OMG, Baby Foxes!

Liana Maeby — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:46:41 +0000

The other day, my friend called a woman “foxy,” like he was some kind of character in a Quentin Tarantino homage. I laughed at him heartily, but then I realized it isn’t really such a weird thing to say. Foxes are super attractive! Here are a bunch of baby ones.

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Fan Service: Why Lisa Edelstein Leaving ‘House’ Has Nothing to Do with the House/Cuddy Breakup

Natalie Zutter — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:59:37 +0000

This week we learned that Lisa Edelstein, who plays Dr. Lisa Cuddy on Fox’s House, won’t be returning for the show’s eighth (and probably final) season. The big question, of course, is how House (Hugh Laurie) will function without his boss/ex-lover, and if Edelstein’s exit may have hastened along this season’s House/Cuddy breakup.

Edelstein’s official statement was frustratingly vague:

“After much consideration, I am moving onward with a combination of disappointment at leaving behind a character I have loved playing for seven years and excitement of the new opportunities in acting and producing that lie ahead.”

Already rumors have swirled that the producers planned the breakup of the show’s most dynamic couple (“Huddy” as the fans call them) around Edelstein’s decision. But this is probably not the case. Showrunners David Shore, Katie Jacobs, and Greg Yaitanes have been managing fans’ expectations for close to five years, throwing out hints before sweeps episodes and taking Twitter abuse after Huddy’s many stops and starts.

I can’t track down the exact link, but I clearly remember an interview with Shore on a House fan community where he said something along the lines of, “Even if we put House and Cuddy together, they may not stay together.” That was seasons before their first kiss, and when they broke up this year, Shore basically reiterated what I remembered:

“We knew it wasn’t going to last forever. We knew it couldn’t last forever. We had it mapped out since the beginning of the season that it was going to last almost exactly this long. It’s like anything else we do on the show. We go, ‘Let’s explore that. And once we’ve exhausted the exploration, let’s move on.’ …House is not a good boyfriend. House is not a good spouse. He’s got deep issues, and the reasons Cuddy breaks up with him are very valid. Taking House down an ultimately happy road just seems unrealistic.”

Michael Ausiello at TV Line reported that Edelstein, who had been fully expected to renew her contract for season 8, bowed out because she was asked to take a lower salary due to budget cuts for the entire show. So it seems that it was solely her decision, and one that will be difficult to translate within the world of the show.

No matter what the producers do, it’s going to look contrived when Cuddy just ups and leaves. The season finale airs Monday, which means it was written and shot a few weeks ago. Because we don’t know where in the season the contract negotiations came up, this may have been too tight a window to write a proper exit for Cuddy. So, will she be explained away with a few lines of dialogue in the season premiere this fall?

No word yet on if Edelstein will appear in season 8 to tie up any loose ends.

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Fox Reunites the Cast of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ for ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ the Animated Series

Natalie Zutter — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:51:09 +0000

Most movies adapted to TV shows don’t manage to stay on the air past a few years: Ferris Bueller, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, My Big Fat Greek Life. But Jared Hess, the writer-director of the 2004 sleeper hit Napoleon Dynamite, has hit upon a loophole for this rule: He’s reuniting the original cast but doing an animated series for Fox. You still get the world of the movie, but with different stories and a greater ability to tell them.

Then again, I wasn’t a big fan of Napoleon Dynamite, so this doesn’t look very funny to me. A lot of the appeal was in Jon Heder‘s physical comedy as the oblivious Napoleon; somehow, a cartoon character voiced by Heder seems more self-aware.

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Video: Check Out FOX’s New Animated Show ‘Allen Gregory’

Liana Maeby — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:11:55 +0000

Here’s a preview for animated series Allen Gregory, which will be part of FOX’s new lineup next fall. The show’s about a super-smart and sophisticated elementary school student (Pinot Grigio for lunch, anyone?) looks pretty fantastic. Allen was co-created by Jonah Hill, and boasts a team of writers we know from there hilarious Twitters — dudes like Shawn Ries and Guy Endore-Kaiser.

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‘Glee’ Recap: All Hail General Zon!

Halle Kiefer — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:49:50 +0000

After a lengthy hiatus, Glee is back in action and ready for devastating amounts of evil. Demonic Sue calls a meeting of the demented minds in the middle of the night, time usually designated for Sylvester’s “bow-hunting for hobos.” Joining in the insidious coach of Vocal Adrenaline Dustin Goolsby (Cheyanne Jackson), disgraced glee coach Sandy Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) and of course Terri Schuester, shrew. Sue dubs them Sargent Handsome, The Pink Dagger, Honeybadger respectively, before handing out their assignments designed to take down Will Schuester’s pride and joy. It goes without saying that Goolsy fails to ruin Schue’s current relationship and Sandy biffs the opportunity to ruin the glee kids’ performance. As for the Honeybadger? Ah, she lies in wait…

Across the quad and during daylight hours, Schue has it in his head that if the New Directions can only sell 20,000 pieces of salt water taffy at 25 cents each, they’ll have paid their way to Finals. As always, Santana is the voice of awesome as she pointed out how insane that idea is. Seriously, I would pay 25 cents to not have to eat a piece of taffy. Simultaneously, The Brainiacs, McKinley’s Academic Decathlon team made up of Mike, Tina, Artie and Britney, don’t have to funds to get them to their Nationals in Detroit. Not to toot my own euphonium, but I myself was on an Academic Decathlon team from Ohio that went to Nationals when I was in high school, and these kids would have shredded us. Feline AIDS? White rappers? Call me when you have questions about the history of the American Southwest. Unfortunately, Schue’s solution for the Brainiacs dilemma is….even more taffy. Some times I really wonder about that ma. I really do.

Gwyneth is back as substitute teacher and Schue’s snuggle bunny Holly Holliday. Holly soon realized that Schue is, was and forever shall be smitten with Emma, whose failed marriage to The Hottest Dentist Alive has caused her OCD to come back in full-force. Holly is also the one who suggests the group throw a benefit concert rather than sell SALT WATER TAFFY, i.e. more pieces of salt water taffy than the state of Delaware eats in a year. Schue announces the upcoming Night Of Neglect, featuring songs from neglected artists. The kids leap on board, where they immediately scheme a way to get around the premise; when Rachel suggested Celine Dion for her song, my eyes rolled approximately 360 degrees in their sockets.

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‘Glee’ Recap: Hell To The No

Halle Kiefer — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:50:12 +0000

Regionals are here! Just in time for the Glee kids to hastily write original songs for the competition! The song plunges in with an immediate Warblers rendition of “Misery,” then segues swiftly into Rachel emotes through “Only Child,” the single kid’s lament. “Damn you, dads!” she howls. Unfortunately for the only Berry on her family tree, Quinn sees her flirting with Finn and vows to never let Rachel stand in the way of her ultimate goal: prom queen. Oh, by the way, when exactly did Quinn get possessed by a demon? “How damaged does a guy have to be to be into someone as annoying as Rachel,” she snarls inside her mean girl brain, before describing herself as “relatively sane for a girl” and fondling what appears to be centuries of prom crowns. Prom queens live an average of five years longer, Quinn notes, probably because most of us lose a few years to vomiting over the statements like that. In an effort to sabotage any romantic inclinations Rachel still has by keeping a close eye on her (sure, why not), Quinn offers to write an original song with her. In turn, all the gleeks decide to write their own tune, and the premise if off and running!

Coach Sylvester, aka the current coach of Aural Intensity, declares World War Sue against the Schue and the gang. She solicits a cease and desist letter preventing New Directions from using “Sing” by My Chemical Romance. (Turns out, Sue slept with the drummer. The luckiest drummer in the world, I call him!) Meanwhile, Kurt suffers the death of his canary Pavarotti, and after he spend all that cash on a Burberry canary cage cover and matching water dish! To commemorate his little feathered friend, Kurt sings the Beatles’ “Blackbird” in creamy airy soprano I missed like the deserts missed the Fluffernutter. The song was a little on the nose but was apparently enough to make Blaine realize how much he is into his best buddy. Finally, Blaine loves Kurt! None of this “bisexual for twelve hours” misdirection! Kurt’s little puppy face lights up when Blaine spills the beans, and they a few sweet & spicy kisses as Kurt bedazzles his avian coffin (how long has it been since that bird died? They don’t keep for long, Kirt!). Good thing Blaine told Burt to explain sex to Kurt last week ‘CAUSE HE’S GONNA NEED IT (sorry!) Please, please, I beg the writers, let us enjoy their burgeoning relationship for more than two episodes before dashing Kurt’s dreams. Have you seen that boy when his heart’s broken? Have you ever seen a bunny weep? Spare us, pleazzzzzzze.

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‘Glee’ Recap: Vegetarianism For Lions, or It’s Like Hugging But Wetter

Halle Kiefer — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:34:11 +0000

We hereby call to order The Celibacy Club! Rachel, Quinn and Emma meet in an empty classroom to confirm their commitment to not getting it, or as Ms. Pillsbury would put it, being “terrified of the hose monster.” When her chastity charms start being used as nipple rings, Emma runs into the physical manifestation of boning, i.e. Gwyneth Paltrow’s substitute teacher Holly Holiday, currently filling in for a heath teacher with a terrible case of the herp. Paltrow at her most winsome dismisses Emma’s concerns about helping sexualize children, opting instead to demonstrate condoms on cucs. This proves to be an essential lesson.

Meanwhile, Santana offers to get her sweet lady kisses on with Brittany which is, HELLO, cheating, but Brittany can’t cuddle due to the FETUS IN HER UTERUS. Santana immediately tells everyone in the club, and when I say everyone I mean she pivots and Tina is walking right beside her who then tells Puck who is walking by and so on, and so forth. Also, when are Puck and Lauren Zizes finally going to bone and take away all of my frustrated high school memories? It’s like 2001 all over again. Keep on keeping on, woman. It comes out soon enough that Britney thought she was getting a baby because a stork was building a nest on her garage, which is both the cutest and most horrifying thing you can hear a sexually-active teen say. Schue realizes he needs to get his teaching on before everyone in his damn-near incestuous club is quick with child. If only there was a way to combine a much needed sex ed lesson with preparation for next week’s regionals…Enter a leather-clad Gwyneth, and a musical lesson about sexy sexy sex.

While watching Oscar Award winner Paltrow on her knees, breasts out with an open jacket in front of Artie’s eager lap was, as Schue put it, “too much,” even Rachel and Quinn get out of their seat for her swaggering version of Joan Jett’s “Do You Want To Touch Me?” So of course Emma has the Celibacy Club perform a competing number: “Afternoon Delight,” which Emma seems to think is a dessert containing pineapples, coconut and marshmallow fluff. Only if you want to get a wicked-bad yeast infection girl! Her husband Carl insists they meet with “Dr.” Gwyneth to discuss their love life. It’s revealed that the newly weds have not only never had sex, but Emma is almost certainly still in love with Will Schuester, which duh duh duh duh duuuuuuuuuuuh.

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Video: Jacob Lusk Singing ‘God Bless The Child’ On American Idol

Meghan Keane — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:17:19 +0000

The notion of an American Idol contestant singing Billie Holiday’s “God Bless The Child” sounds like a terrible idea. But somehow, a 23-year-old spa concierge from Compton, California made it work last night. Jacob Lusk took the stage during last night’s final Hollywood show of the season and got a standing ovation from the judges and all his fellow contestants.

MTVNews called it “one of the most stunning, stirring auditions ever seen on the Idol stage.” And it looks like Jacob will definitely be someone to watch this season.

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