Rate Those Cliffhanger Resolutions: The Return of Fall Television

Last spring I discussed some of the season-ending cliffhangers I had watched.  While I’m underwhelmed overall with fall television, I decided I’d rate a few of the shows returning from last year.  In my next post I’ll weigh in on some of the new dramas that hit the scene this year and predict their longevity (a fun little game that often finds me being anything but prophetic).

Scandal (A):  Scandal won the award for the best season finale last year (in my opinion) and I think it also offered the best return.  The second season ended with the Defiance scandal officially being put to rest (David saved the day by turning the Cytron card over to Cyrus for a promotion to USDA), but quickly another scandal arose in its wake.  The episode ended with Olivia on a morning jog being bombarded by reporters questioning her about her affair with the president.  If this shocking moment wasn’t enough, Rowan (the big, scary secret B613 military boss) arrived on the scene and viewers learned that he is Olivia’s father.   The opener of season three had a lot to resolve.  Olivia’s team of Gladiators have to clear her name by working with Cyrus and Mellie to frame an innocent woman as Fitz’s mistress.  (The second episode of the season then finds Liv representing this woman as her fixer). And after the mystery of who leaked Olivia’s name to the press is revealed (it was the president himself who wanted to free Olivia from Mellie’s looming threats), this cliffhanger crisis is resolved and viewers are left to contemplate the Rowan/B613 plot.  The first few episodes of this season start to reveal more of Liv’s backstory and this problematic daddy-daughter relationship explains the problems she has had with the men in her life (or, as I’ve discussed in past posts, her surprisingly/seemingly anti-feminist hang-ups).   As the season stretches on, Liv gets her father to release Jake from “the hole” and his return to the show, along with Huck’s new knowledge of who Rowan really is, and a new B613-related scandal that (surprise, surprise) threatens the presidency, fuels the trajectory of the season to come.  Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, Lisa Kudrow joined the cast as a potential female challenger for the presidency.

The Good Wife (A-):  Last season ended with the main character, Alicia Florrick’s, husband, Peter, being elected Governor.   The final scene was set-up to lead viewers to believe that they were about to see her meet with her law partner, and former lover, Will Garner, to renew their affair.  Instead, it is revealed that she will be leaving her law firm (likely to prevent herself from embarking again in said affair).  While the resolution of this specific set-up was just so-so in the season premier, and a bit drawn out thereafter, the first episode itself was stellar.  In its traditional episodic fashion the one hour show focused around one specific law case:  the lawyers at Lockhart-Gardner are racing against the clock to save a man from a death row execution.  In one of the most fast-paced, suspenseful, skillfully edited episode to date, the law team successfully stays the prisoner’s execution.  In the back drop of all this action, the cliffhanger-related storyline stretches on as Alicia and the 4^th year associates still plan to leave the firm.  It is the following few episodes that really help develop this plot into a worthy cliffhanger-resolution as their actions are slowly uncovered.  In a nicely done parallel storyline, where Diane is asked to leave the firm after giving a public interview (to secure her pending judge appointment) that paints her partner, and long-term friend, Will, in a bad light, it is she who ultimately informs Will of Alicia’s betrayal (the fall out of which will be seen in tomorrow’s episode).  With a new law firm rivalry and a plethora of damaged relationships, there is ample material for a rich season.

The Walking Dead (B+):  When last we saw the survivors of the zombie apocalypse they had just witnessed the death of their friend (and original cast member), Andrea, and were returning to their prison compound with a bus full of refuges from the Governor’s dismantled utopic city.  The season starts months later.  The new expanded community at the prison is functioning happily and all seems calm.  Rick has stepped down from his leadership role, tending to the prison’s garden and food supply instead, and a leadership council is governing in his place.  The tranquility of the episode is a slight let down after the action-packed cliffhanger finale, however, it does what it is intended to do – lulls viewers into a few moments of false security before dropping the proverbial second shoe (which any savvy viewer surely expected).  The episode ends with the death of a teenage boy who succumbs to a flu-like virus.  As his dead body lands in the shower stall just feet away from open cellblock doors where the other residents sleep blissfully unaware that a walker is about to be born, viewers end the episode with the sense of foreboding that the show is known for.  The next episode promises death… and death it delivers.  With this mystery plague threatening the survivors from within the compound (and a rogue figure killing off those he/she believes may be the next to fall ill and turn), and an increased zombie presence threatening the walled security of their prison compound, viewers expect that the status quo is about to be disrupted and the survivors are likely going to be on the run again searching for the series’ next setting change.   

Nashville (B):  Last season ended with Rayna’s longtime friend, and former-now-reunited lover, Deacon, discovering that she had been lying to him for years about his child, passing her off as another man’s daughter.  This event causes him to spin into an alcoholic tailspin, ending 13 years of sobriety, that contributed to a car crash that leaves him and Rayna strewn across the pavement.  In a slightly anti-climatic fashion, the first episode of this season starts weeks after the accident as Deacon awaits prosecution (claiming to have been driving the car, when he had not been, as a sort of self-inflicted punishment).  Meanwhile, Rayna has existed in an induced coma since the accident and her family and friends wait eagerly for her recovery.  (Fans, like myself, I imagine, waited in much less anticipation being that it would make absolutely no sense to kill off the star of this show).  In a move completely fitting to her character, Juliette capitalizes on Rayna’s injury by playing one of Rayna’s hit songs and holding a candlelight vigil in front of the hospital.  Rayna, of course, recovers, Deacon is set free, and the episode is over.  While the episode itself was not particularly thrilling, the following few episodes seem to indicate a promising season.  The first tease was the potential career-ending injuries suffered by both Rayna and Deacon (the former has already recovered).  New characters are breathing life into the cast and providing soapy-storyline possibilities.  The new head of the record company is a character one loves to hate, the arrival of a new country upstart, Layla Grant (who wants to steal Juliette’s fan base and win Will’s heart), hints at many conflicts to come, and the addition of Scarlett’s childhood best friend, Zoey, sets up for a (somewhat predictable) love triangle involving Scarlett’s ex, Gunnar.

Revenge (B-): Last season ended with the revelation that Conrad Grayson was working with a terrorist group and his actions resulted in the death of Declan Porter (the father of his daughter’s unborn child); Victoria Grayson’s long lost son returned on her doorstep; Nolan was wrongly arrested for cyber terrorism; and Emily Thorne was forced to reveal her true identity (Amanda Clarke) to her childhood friend and soul mate, Jack Porter, so that he wouldn’t murder Conrad as retaliation for the deaths of his brother and wife.  In its typical pattern, this season started with a quick flashforward to the end of the season (Emily, apparently, getting shot on her wedding day), and then returned to May, just before the Memorial Weekend festivities that kick off summer in the Hamptons.  When the season starts it is months after the events from the last episode, a temporal narrative device that I always find undoes much of the cliffhanger excitement.  Conrad is enjoying his post as governor, Victoria is happily reunited with her son, Nolan is released from prison, Jack is off sailing in unknown parts, Charlotte returns from a summer abroad (after having miscarried Declan’s baby), and Emily & Daniel are planning their wedding.  A relatively slow start to the season.  But that doesn’t last all that long.  Emily’s revenge scheme quickly pushes Conrad out of office (after having him misdiagnosed with a terminal illness), Jack returns to blackmail Emily (finish your revenge by the end of this summer “or else”), and within a few episodes Aiden returns and viewers are left to wonder if he’s there to take down Emily or help her in her quest for vengeance (it’s the latter, or it was… for a while at least).  With two new characters, Victoria’s son and Daniel’s new female work partner, some new plot possibilities exist, but the series remains much of the same… only a bit darker than it once was which is ruining some of the camp appeal it once had for me.   

Grey’s Anatomy (C):  Last year ended with one of Grey’s traditional catastrophe episodes; a storm resulted in a slew of injuries and found the hospital in blackout conditions.  The show’s namesake, Meredith Grey, had to have a C-section without power and almost bled out due to other complications.  With most of tragedy averted, the show ended with a romantic cliffhanger (Kepner professed her love for Avery) and a tear-jerker:  Dr. Richard Webber saved the hospital (restoring the electricity) but had (apparently) lost his life in the process.  (The final shot was of him lying on the basement floor, seeming to have been electrocuted).  The romantic cliffhanger was resolved within minutes (Avery wasn’t interested and Kepner changed her mind anyhow).   The tear-jerker, Richard’s supposed death, was resolved by the episode’s end, but any seasoned viewer figured it out the minute an intern was sent to look for him and was also electrocuted.  Two people in peril?  Who’s going to die:  the original cast member or the newbie?  Yep, the newbie.  The episode, like most of the catastrophe-follow-up episodes, was touching; it was nice to see everyone rally around Richard, but the resulting episodes dealing with Heather’s (the intern’s) death was relatively unemotional.  (The series acknowledged through that cohort’s inability to really mourn her loss that the character development of those interns is still severely lacking – although not nearly as bad as the short-lived doctors from the hospital merger years back who were killed off during the catastrophe mass shooting episode).  The show’s melodramatic roots are being stressed as the season unfolds:  best friends Cristina and Meredith bicker; estranged Callie and Arizona finalize their break up; Alex crosses paths with his abusive father.  Nothing groundbreaking… but sometimes there is comfort in the familiar patterns of a favorite show.

So while none of these cliffhanger resolutions will go down as my all time favorites, it was nice to sit down and once again get lost in my familiar narratives.  Each of the above shows are holding my interest and making me look forward to the season they have laid out before me – which is more than I can say for some of the new shows launched this year.  (But that’s the next post).

Portrayals of Women on Sitcoms: From I Love Lucy to Trophy Wife (a Historical Overview of Televisual Femininity)

                              

So I don’t really like sitcoms all that much.  My recent years spent analyzing complex, postmodern dramas (combined for my love of serials of all sorts) has severely impacted my ability to enjoy 30-minute stand alone episodes meant to inspire cheap laughs (or episodic shows more generally).  The wave of reality television almost killed off sitcoms during the first decade of the 21^st century and of the few that persevered throughout this period I found only two entertaining enough to follow.  CBS’s How I Met Your Mother (2005-present) reminded me of the next generation’s Friends (although Neil Patrick Harris at times single-handedly supplied the show’s comedic content).  And ABC’s Modern Family (2009-present) seemed to be a show that could possibly break new ground (but instead it problematically reinforced stereotypes at every turn).  If I could go back in time I’d also follow The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 2007-present) because I believe it will likely go down as one of the better sitcoms of this decade. 

As we head into “the teens,” sitcoms are again big (especially on network television where the bottom line is making stations fearful of high-cost dramas).  So ever the dutiful television scholar I decided I’d record the first few episodes of some of the new sitcoms launched this fall.  And after two weeks, I am underwhelmed (to say the least).  My inability to fall in love with at least a few of these sitcoms is perplexing to some degree because as a child of the 80s I grew up consuming an endless diet of these delights.  Also, in my early studies I analyzed how situational comedies (at different times) had been an unexpected friend or foe of feminism.  So I have always valued their ability to act as distorted fun house mirrors reflecting societal trends, values, fears, and desires.   When I was reflecting on this the other day I realized that may be exactly why I cannot get into these new sitcoms:  I don’t understand what they are saying about society today.  Specifically, as a feminist media scholar, I’m not sure what to do with new shows like ABC’s Trophy Wife and Super Fun Night.   In order to understand my confusion, we need to look back at previous televisual decades and their portrayals of women.

           

The 50s

Even from its very beginning, the medium of television was tied to a gender war from which it would never seem to escape.  As early as 1948, television manufacturers had already determined that women were a primary consumer and hence targeted them with countless advertisements in home and fashion magazines and even through the radio.  The ideology behind these ads was clear:  women should be content within the domestic realm (after all, home is where the heart is) and the presence of a shiny new television could ensure that the family within that sphere would be united and happy despite the social and sexual divisions still strictly intact.  Many have argued that television contributed to women’s domestication, but this very same medium also empowered female viewers through the consumption of enjoyable products and positive depictions of femininity. The interesting thing is how the same medium, even the same program, was able to disseminate such contradictory messages simultaneously. Television scholars have noted that figures like Gracie Allen, Lucile Ball, and, later, Mary Tyler Moore became some of the earliest feminist role models and that their performances provided opportunities for critiques of patriarchy, appreciation of women’s agency, and audience pleasure.  Patricia Mellencamp views the laughter they voiced, and induced, as a “tactic of survival, ensuring sanity, the triumph of the ego, and pleasure; after all, Gracie and Lucy were narcissistically rebellious, refusing ‘to be hurt.’” However, these chuckles did not come without a price – comedy often replaced anger. 

The 60s

As images broadcasted across television screens became less blurry, so did the image of femininity.  The static was clearing up and women were coming across the screen just as they were “meant to be” – as ideal depictions of femininity.  Prime-time shows like Father Knows Best (1954-1962), Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963), Bewitched (1964-1972), I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970), and The Brady Bunch (1969-1974) jump start this televisual period with visions of women that would no longer fit by the time the sixties ceased. 

The eclectic grouping of television shows listed above demonstrates the ways in which seemingly diverse programs were actually providing viewers with very similar lessons in femininity.  These five popular programs can be seen as existing on a continuum not only historically (based on their air dates) but also conceptually in terms of the way television depicted the American family.  In the earliest television shows (like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver), the “traditional” so-called nuclear family was foregrounded.  As those early programs went off the air, other popular shows replaced them by making one (not necessarily small) variation in their conceptual set up – mysticism entered into the mix.  Programs like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie kept the basic nuclear family notion intact but made that traditional family fall into the realm of the supernatural.  (This variation is clearer in Bewitched since the fictional family does contain a married couple and their child.  However, the same basic shift can be seen in I Dream of Jeannie even though the childless couple only acts as if they are married).  The final alteration of the fictional family structure as seen in these early programs came in the form of the blended family.  The Brady Bunch serves as an example of the programming that would replace earlier sitcoms with a family unit that would prove more enduring (and realistic) than the supernatural television families that preceded it.  What is important is that all of these programs, despite some obvious contextual differences, offered up the same repetitive feminine ideal through their lead female character. Regardless of their role – the women in these shows all most definitely required their male counterpart to ensure their sitcom-friendly happy endings and televised smiles.  Quite simply, television during this period reinforced traditional gender norms.

While these shows were coming to a close and fading off air, the actual events of the feminist movement were finding their way on.  Just as television brought other social activism into the secluded living rooms of suburbia (the Civil Rights movement, anti-war activism), the decade of peace, love, and flower power brought a new mediated focus onto women’s liberation.  The effect of these various images, be they fictional (seen as hyper-sexualized hippie chicks) or real (as in the rampant televisual footage of bra burning and women on the frontline of other social activism), eventually affected the familiar portrayal of gender relations on the nightly line up.  To be clear, the television shows of this time period, although affected by the political climate surrounding them, did not perfectly mirror what was happening off-screen.  In fact, during this period of early television programming, there was a sort of lag between what was occurring in the real world and what was being broadcast via fictional programming.  (This slow response time would correct itself throughout the coming decades.)   Nonetheless, by the time the seventies  were in full swing the juxtaposition of television narrative and female imagery was completely different. 

The 70s

The seventies is often considered the decade of socially relevant programming with shows like The Mod Squad (1968-1973), All in the Family (1971-1979) and M*A*S*H (1972-1983) leading the way (Bodroghkozy 227).  It is also the decade that recast women as figures of empowerment and control with as much loyalty to their on-screen “sisters” as to the members of the opposite sex they were paired up with, pitted against, or sworn to protect.  Charlotte Brunsdon categorizes many of these programs as “heroine television,” a category that would encapsulate the traditional empowering laughter of the comedienne and the emergent feminist hijacking of the detective/drama genre. Mary Tyler Moore (1970-1977) soars to popularity in the fashion of predecessor Lucy and shows like Maude (1972-1978), Rhoda (1974-1978), Laverne and Shirley (1976-1978), and Charlie’s Angels soon follow after (1976-1981). In the spirit of women’s liberation, these shows feature women in non-traditional roles and continued to stir the pot of controversial topics, such as Maude’s bold move to have the first ever prime-time abortion in 1972, which outraged the nation (Joyrich 100). Of course, these empowering representations of women were not without their imperfections.  Julie D’Acci points out that “from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, female sex objects dominated the TV landscape in what is often called the ‘jiggle’ era, or the industry’s noneuphemistic tag ‘T & A’ period” (104).  So although figures of the powerful women were dashing across the screens they were doing so scantily clad – cleavage shirts, daisy dukes and all.  Clearly, television’s brilliance is that it succeeds in simultaneously reinforcing and destroying standard gender stereotypes through a variety of popular programming consumed by the multitudes.  These diverse programs (with their similar contradictory feminist/anti-feminist messages) then affect (on some level) television’s large viewing population, making this audio/visual medium extremely powerful in terms of its role in supplying hegemonic gender lessons. The re-sexualization of women was only the beginning of what Susan Faludi would term “the backlash.”  The mass media was sending out its contradictory message that the women’s movement had been successfully completed but yet these new found winners of the war were confronted by incessant images of women (“who had made it”) “suffering ‘burnout’ and succumbing to an ‘infertility epidemic’” and a supposed “‘man shortage’” (Faludi ix).  While these motifs hit women from one side, another blow was coming from a whole new direction; the sitcom that had previously been a friend of feminism seemingly bought into the “post” mindset and abandoned it for a surprising (or, considering the political regime, not so surprising) conservative swing to the right, resulting in the role-reversal shows.

The 80s

The sitcoms of the eighties were rather blunt in their message to women:  “okay you wanted out of the home and into the workforce, voila, there you have it and look at how well your family is functioning without you.”  Shows like Charles in Charge (1984-1990), Who’s the Boss (1984-1992), My Two Dads (1987-1990), and Full House (1987-1997) featured caring, compassionate Mr. Mom figures toting the motherhood role with unwavering success.  But the family focus was symptomatic of the eighties, with Family Ties (1982-1989) and The Cosby Show (1984-1992) resting comfortably high in the Nielson ratings for most the decade.  Besides for this obvious re-functioning of the family, the politics behind this decade that bred the yuppie are hard to miss.

Some of the most popular shows of this (“post-feminist”) period were really working to renegotiate the time periods they had just endured.  I would say that as a whole this is what the medium of television is always trying to do, only in later decades it speeds ahead to a point where it is actually trying to renegotiate the period in which it is still in.  Concerning this practice, Aniko Bodroghkozy reads The Wonder Years as working to soften “the turmoil of the sixties by nostalgically representing the period through the experiences of a prepubescent boy living in generic suburbia-land;” a world in which “the political and social turmoil so fundamental to America in the 1960s seldom intruded on the gentle world of” its central family.  Likewise, she claims that Family Ties “renegotiated the sixties by taking the premise of All in the Family (…) turning it upside down.”  And thirtysomething too explored “how one – or whether one – could maintain ‘sixties values’ in a reactionary political climate” (Bodroghkozy 241).  Moreover, focusing specifically on gender politics, one cannot overlook thirtysomething’s post-feminist vision of the home to which women have ‘freely’ chosen to return.  This “vision” is an obvious product of, and response to, the times in which the show was created.  These shows were not simply entertaining the masses during this decade, they were dictating a conservative ideology in a time period of re-setting. 

The 90s

The next decade found depictions of femininity bouncing back from the detrimental restraints of the mid-eighties.  Murphy Brown (1988-1998) went up against Dan Quayle for the rights of single mothers in America, Oprah (1986-2011) became an African-American feminist icon whose influence would reverberate for over two decades, Ellen (1994-1998) broke ground by coming out both on and off screen exposing the nation to issues of gay rights in weekly thirty minute segments, and Roseanne (1988-1997) questioned normative definitions of female sexuality, body image, and familial arrangements – giving birth to the notion of the “domestic goddess.”.

The 00s

During the early years of the 21^st century blended genres rose in popularity and attracted female viewers.  Many of these concoctions (many which were sitcom-soap opera hybrids) critiqued hegemonic depictions of traditional femininity.  This can be seen in shows like HBO’s Sex in the City (1998-2004) and Desperate Housewives (2004-2012).

The 10s

 And that brings us to today and to my opening mention of ABC’s two new sitcoms.  This fall brought viewers Trophy Wife starring Malin Ackerman.  In this show she plays a familiar role (much like one she played in 27 Dresses) – the pretty, ditzy blonde.  The variation is that this pretty, ditzy blonde is married to a twice divorced rich lawyer and becomes an unlikely step mother to his children from the two previous marriages.  The makers of the show were quick to clarify that the show is meant to be ironic in that she is not the typical trophy wife – she can’t cook and struggles in all of her attempts to parent.  Much of the comedy comes from her bumbling efforts to fulfill her new roles as wife and mother (and more so in the contrasting, highly stereotypic portrayals of the other ex-wives).  Of all the sitcoms I tried out this season, I find this one to be at least mildly interesting (but I’ve been known to watch Cougar Town so please don’t take this as ringing endorsement).  The problem, of course, is how the show focuses explicitly on Kate’s (Ackerman’s) physical appearance.  In the first episode she is referred to as a “MILF” and in the second episode ex-wife #1 accuses her to be the sexual fantasy that has prompted her son (Kate’s stepson) to write a piece of erotic fiction.  (It was, in fact, written about a fellow peer).

Another sitcom launched this year gets its humor by focusing on the female body.  While Trophy Wife puts Kate’s highly sexualized, perfect body at center stage, Super Fun Night casts the spotlight on a very different body type.  Rebel Wilson plays Kimmie and, following in line with her previous roles, her plus-sized body becomes the punch line for the narrative.  (This is not unlike her role in Pitch Perfect, for example, where she plays “Fat Amy” – a name she bestows upon herself, as her character explains, so “twig bitches” can’t call her it behind her back).  While the show casts her pretty girl rival, Kendall, in a horribly unflattering light, making viewers root for the underdog Kimmie to win (the man in terms of the show’s longer plot arch, and a singing competition in the first episode), it still gets its laugh at her expense as she runs through the office in search of jelly donuts or ends up in her girdle-like underwear after an elevator door incident.  Instead of simply casting a plus-sized actress to star in a show about professional and personal quests, the show focuses specifically on her body – again proving that there are limited roles available to women of a certain size.    

If all the previous decades of scripted television had something to say about women, what will this one have to reveal?  Are we returning to a time where the female body (and not the female character) must be the focus of televisual sitcoms?  Quite obviously this sample is too narrow and the decade too young to make such claims, but I fear that this television era is not going to prove to be overly progressive in terms of feminist portrayals of women.  So, if this is the case, I guess I’m left with this lingering thought:  welcome back sitcoms… you can go away again if you want.