Tonight's the night! So hyped for the return of Murphy Brown. Got my DVR ready and everything. Hoping that Murphy kicks butt and takes names and I look forward to seeing everyone again. How about you guys?
I can't wait. She couldn't have returned soon enough. Based on Candice Bergen's interview on Colbert last night, it sounds like she comes out of the gate roaring.
Love Candice Bergen, wish Boston Legal would come back. And I have a crush on Nik Dodani so if I can stay awake (have the flu) I'll be watching. Also I hear that it will be political, how dare they make it political!!! How dare they!
Word. Loved that interview last night. Hoping it's really good. I know! That's what the old show was. *shakes my head* I don't get why people aren't able to stand that anymore. I hope you get well soon from the flu!
Yeah it's like when Will and Grace did one political repilot and everyone had a fit. The first one was political too, same with Roseanne, the whole thing is nuts. And thanks, thankfully, I had 7 hours of sick time and took the day off. But I'll be at work stocking organic produce tomorrow and spreading it around.
I will be watching Murphy Brown, but I have never seen a single episode of the original. Should be interesting. It'd be cool if Bergen appeared on SNL, as it would be a callback to her being the first female host ever.
Word. Watching it now and so far so good. I like it so far. You're welcome. Spoiler OMG Hillary is on! Love it. She was interviewing for the Secretary position.
I liked it until Clinton, she needs to go back into the woods and never be seen again. But Nik looked very sexy in his first scene.
Show was okay, I'm kind of lukewarm on it based on the premiere. I might stick with it. It opens basically the same way The Good Fight did, the main character reacting to Trump's election. There were some funny parts, but it also suffered from 'Reference for reference sake syndrome', and I'm not sure there was any point to the Hillary Clinton appearance besides 'Hey look it's Hillary Clinton!!' What interests me the most is the son having a show on 'Wolf' news where he plans to be the 'Voice of reason'. The son seems like a person who falls on the conservative side of issues but is rational, reasonable, and has legitimate retorts to some liberal positions. If they can really keep that up while addressing that it leads him to support racist sexist homophobic xenophobes while making him seem both reasonable and believable, it could be an intriguing part of the show. Liked the live tweet war with Trump and the commentary on sensational journalism. But having trouble trusting sitcom writers to really deal with it on a thoughtful level.
I'm kind of hoping the show is 13 and done. I don't know how long it can last really, this would get old really fast, more so when the references would be outdated before the show airs.
I haven't watched Murphy Brown in many years but it felt great to have the whole team back (well, mostly). Yeah, some of it was a little rough, not unlike Will & Grace's first episode back, but I imagine once it gets past the "Hey, we're back!!" set-up, it'll improve (much like Will & Grace). The best part of the episode was the friendly rivalry between Murphy and her son with competing shows in the same time slot. I wasn't surprised by the contrasting styles of their shows, molded by their respective generations and experiences, but I loved how supportive they were of each other and not trying to cut each other down. Of course, there will be some raising of the stakes in their rivalry but I expect they'll continue remember what matters most: That they're mother and son.
Exactly. They had to get the exposition out of the way since it's been so long. The characters had to catch up with life as it is now. Definitely. That was nice to see.
It was nostalgic and all, but not hilarious. I appreciate the intention, but the humor was a bit labored at times. It is interesting how it felt like it was just picking up as the next episode after the last one, with the same credit font and everything. Although it's sobering to realize the original show aired long enough ago that Murphy's baby is 28 now. (Although Faith Ford, despite all the jokes about Corky's menopause, hardly seems to have aged at all compared to the others.) It's weird that they're free to refer to Trump and other political figures by name but have to hide behind a pseudonym for FOX "News." I guess the latter is a trademark, though, and they wouldn't be able to get permission to trash it. Although it's also weird that the in-universe show isn't on CBS anymore, but on an imaginary cable network. At least, I think the original show was on CBS in-universe. Anyway, it goes to show how times have changed -- I thought of this as such a progressive show back in the '90s, but now I look at it and I realize, good grief, they're all white! And the new show adding just one token Indian character and even making a joke about how he's in a stereotyped role... that's maybe not the best way to improve the show's diversity. Well, that was part of it -- the show's creator Diane English was a major supporter of Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign, and I think they go way back -- but it was also an in-joke to the original show's running gag involving Murphy being unable to keep a secretary. The endless parade of weirdo temps who came and went week after week was the show's most surrealistic element. So this was taking the "Murphy's secretary" gag to a whole new level, by getting an actual Secretary to do the bit. Anyway, it's impressive that they managed to keep the Clinton cameo a secret. It came as quite a surprise to me.
If I recall correctly Wolf News is from the original run. Reality just rolled in nicely with the show. Yeah, I was genuinely surprised by that, too, especially since that was something they could've easily over-marketed.
"Relentlessly mediocre" was my description of the first episode on Twitter last night. I liked and enjoyed the original run, though I didn't see all of it due to work and school and such, especially in the later years of the run. (For instance, until yesterday, I had no idea that Haley Joel Osment played Avery at the end.) I liked the original cast. I can't say that I was super excited about this the way several friends on Facebook and Twitter were, but I don't get super excited about much of anything anymore. I didn't laugh until Hillary Clinton's appearance. Not because of Clinton, but because the dialogue was actually witty and fun. I thought there was some very dodgy acting from Bergen and Daly. Both were flat, Daly especially so in her one scene. I felt very conscious of watching actors rather than characters. The concept was nonsense. What cable network is going to put a hard news show on in the 7-9 slot (competing with GMA, Today, Fox and Friends, and Joe Scarborough) with a bunch of, frankly, relics? Is CNC a start-up or something? Are they hurting for talent? I really thought, based on the commercials with the 60 Minutes people that Murphy's show was going to be on CBS. I felt like Diane English was working backwards from her punchline -- Murphy gets into a real-time Twitter spat with the president -- and thinking, "He watches the morning news shows, so Murphy has to be on in that hour, and we know it's the cable shows he watches, so Murphy has to be on cable." Murphy's luddite attitude to technology is silly. I look as Dan Rather's post-CBS career -- investigative journalism on start-up networks, an oft-viral Facebook page, books -- and to see Murphy, sitting in her Georgetown home bored, is a failure of imagination. Finally, the writing was very retro. I felt like I was watching an old 80s or 90s sitcom, not a 2018 sitcom. I'd rather watch Murphy Brown for today rather than something that says, "Remember when you were thirty years younger?" That raises a related point. As I watched the episode, there were point where I thought to myself, "Someone who never watched the original run won't understand this." In some ways, I think that's good -- the show assumes a certain level of awareness from the audience -- but it's also bad, because it was't new-viewer friendly and limits the audience. Either you're already in on Murphy Brown, or you're not going to be in. There's a lot of room for improvement here. I'd tweak the cast; dump either Frank or Miles for a 30-something POC character (reporter and producer respectively) that Murphy can bump heads against, because I'm not seeing where the workplace conflict is going to come from with this ensemble. The dated references are a major reason why the original run isn't available. I've heard that CBS All-Access has a couple of episodes up now, but it's not on DVD (music clearances and poor sales on season 1) and I don't ever recall it being syndicated, despite ten seasons. Who wants jokes about Dan Quayle today, and who talks about Tip O'Neill anymore?
I wouldn't say relentlessly mediocre, more just comfortably mediocre. "Relentlessly" implies a greater intensity than this had. Its barbs seemed quaint and anodyne in proportion to the awfulness of what's going on around us. I mean, an opening that paired Trump footage with "Sympathy for the Devil" made a pretty strong statement, but after that, the worst they could say about him was that he was stingy and insulted people on Twitter. The attitude that made the show edgy back in the '90s feels tame and timid by today's standards. Yeah, Bergen seemed to be phoning it in. She's capable of much better than this. It seemed like humor written by old people for other old people. I was expecting to see a fiery veteran of the culture wars fighting against the rising tide of fascism, racism, and misogyny in our politics, and instead it was mostly "Why, these kids today with their music and their gadgets and their tweeters, and by the way, our sexy young ingenue is having hot flashes because she's old now." They even went for the "fired in favor of the weather girl with breast implants" joke that was already hackneyed in Murphy Brown's original run. To an extent, yes, but I think the premiere did a decent job reintroducing each character's basic traits and current life status, particularly Miles and his neuroses. New viewers might not be drawn in as much as old viewers, but at least they'd have a fair idea of who the characters were and what they were like. Good point. I remember that Murphy clashed with Miles a lot on the old show, but having her and the others beg him to come back neutralizes a lot of that from the start. Lots of shows with dated references are available on DVD, e.g. Rocky and Bullwinkle or Get Smart. From what I read, the music clearances are the main thing keeping the show from being rerun or released.
Meh, more CBS nostalgia for aging TV viewers. There was nothing sharp about the show, just a lot of jokes that didn't land.