Till cancellation does us part

Hi, Freaks! Today's post is inspired by the anxiously awaited wedding this weekend, so let's all give a big shout-out to Ruth and Feras! Congratulations, y'all!

Oh, and there might be another wedding this weekend. In England or whatever.

Awesome TV Weddings

Dwayne interrupts the ceremony, A Different World

I can not begin to tell you what a big deal this wedding was to me and my fourth-grade classmates. It was literally the biggest thing that happened all year. Sure, maybe the country was trying to elect a new president and laughing at Euro Disney, but Dwayne interrupted Whitley's wedding to Byron! With a swan dive! Gregory B. demonstrated it numerous times on the couch in Mrs. Powell's class.

Jim and Pam's co-workers are idiots, The Office

I cried. Like, a lot. Like, more than I am particularly comfortable admitting I cried at a TV wedding. I adored the YouTube-inspired wedding from Michael and the gang, which was funny, and sweet, and really character appropriate (I loved that Jim knew it was coming) but the cuts to the real wedding on the Niagara Falls boat had me just bawling with happiness. The final moment, a call back to seasons before, with her head on his shoulder was just....

I am not crying.

There is no Mrs. Will Truman, Will and Grace

Though Jack and Rosario's hilarious staged wedding was a contender, I'm going to go with the wedding of W&G pals Joe and Larry, not only for the well-built storyline surrounding Will's search for separation from Grace, but mostly for the hilarious antics of the detoxing Jack and Karen. Plus, this ep brought you my favorite Jack moment of  all time:

Andy and April's Awesomsauce wedding, Parks and Recreation

In addition to the impressive show runners keeping this surprise from the spoiler hungry TV public, this sweet and hilarious affair gave us great moments for all of the characters; Ron's ex-wife effigy, Tom's list of food nicknames, Andy's athletic wedding attire. Plus, April's sister!

Guys, I just got a great idea for a wedding dress...

Yay, gay, Brothers and Sisters

Kevin and Scotty's wedding, in addition to being crazy and sweet in the way only the Walkers can do, was the first gay marriage of series regulars on network TV. Somehow, nobody pitched a fit. Way to grow, America.

Ok, well... Baby steps.

Mr. and Mrs. Turkleton, Scrubs

Most of the time, I liked Carla and Turk more than J.D. and Eliot, and I loved the complicated mess this wedding turned out to be. Although I'm still pretty sure that they'd let you have the day off to get married, even if you are a surgeon.

Nope, all doctors get married at the hospital. Or by Post-It. 

When your Brother-in-Law is the devil, Charmed

Poor Piper. She spent eight years being a powerful witch and whining about wanting to be normal. Luckily for her, she got one perfectly magical moment when she married Leo in the show's third season. Yeah, it all went to hell after that.

But, damn, it looked good getting there.

The only wedding ever with an invitation for the principal, Saved by the Bell

This wedding was literally the culmination of my childhood dreams.

I thought this haircut would look like this on me. I was mistaken.

And of my parent's, General Hospital

30 million people watched this wedding, and although I was not alive for it, I grew up knowing what it was because it was such a big deal to my parents. I'm pretty sure my Dad even has it on VHS. Hey, remember VHS?! Plus, it's the only time anyone ever rooted for the girl to end up with her rapist.

Or not.

Mr and Mrs. Awesome (and their kids, Totally and Freakin'), How I Met Your Mother

Marshall and Lily planned their perfect wedding, a small affair that got hijacked by family and turned into a crazy mess with Lily's ex, a harpist in labor, and that thing with Marshall's hair. In the end, everything was perfect, as the duo got their tiny garden ceremony before the big to-do, so legendary it even brought a tear to Barney's eye.

Mr. and Mrs. Awesome Hat!

All of them, Friends

Friends takes the cake on great weddings. (Pun not intended, but go me!) I loved possessed Phoebe at Carol and Susan's, and Rachel singing Copacabana in that terrible dress at Barry and Mindy's. Chandler and Monica's is an all-time classic, and I adored Mike and Phoebe's snowy impromptu Central Perk ceremony. No list of weddings would be complete without the wedding king Ross Gellar, from the infamous name slip to the drunken festivities of Vegas.

This one definitely had the best dress. Hot.

Take a break from your obsessive viewing of Lifetime's Royal Wedding of a Lifetime (seriously, were they high when they named that?) to let me know what I missed!

A brief synopsis of everything that's wrong with television

Ok, Freaks, are you ready for some ranting? Let's do this!

Ten Things TV Executives Don't Seem to Understand

The nostalgia factor only works if we've missed it

Really, NBC? The Paul Reiser Show? Really? Because we were all clamoring to have that comedic genius back on TV? Paul Reiser hasn't been in the zeitgeist since the late 90's, and you thought, "Hey, now's the perfect time to bring back that old guy from Mad About You! Everybody loved that show!" Let's not even talk about the fact that the show has the same basic premise of Curb Your Enthusiasm, let's just focus on the fact that you replaced one bad show with an even worse one, and tried to pretend you weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel when you did it. Nobody has cared about Paul Reiser since 1999. And even then, it was iffy. (I plan to remind you all of this post next year, when Tim Allen's "I'm a man, we're different from women!" sitcom bombs next year.)

God! I have missed your hilarious wit!

Star quality is not a made up thing

It is occasionally hard to explain why certain actors work over others. There really is just a certain quality a watchable actor has that you can't quite put your finger on , but you know it when you see it. In that respect, casting poorly will kill an otherwise decent show. Jamie Campbell Bower is this show killer on Starz's Camelot, and the only thing I hate more than his terrible acting is his peach fuzz moustache. Yes, the show has other problems, Joseph Finnes is chewing scenery like a man starving and the pacing is drastically uneven, but the complete blah of the lead actor means it doesn't stand a chance.

To be fair, acting while that high is impressive.

And while we're on the new crop of historical dramas:

Stop trying so hard

We get it, Camelot and The Borgais- you are full of sex and betrayal and intrigue! Stop beating us over the head with it. Game of Thrones, try to bring some plot with all those backstabbing naked people, will you?

Yeah, I won't hold my breath.

And speaking of those three shows:

Stop making the same shows at the same time

It seems to me that networks always seem to develop a few shows a year that have the exact same premise: the pay-channel historical dramas mentioned being only one example. Let's call it the 30/60 Rule, named, of course, for the network season that brought you both 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Now, were these shows radically different? Yes, but the plot points boiled down to be exactly the same, and for some reason people seem to get confused by this. Unless you are making a procedural, one of those shows is always going to succeed, and the other is going to fail. Spectacularly. Listen up, next season's Charlie's Angels and Wonder Woman. One of you is going down.

Spoiler alert! It's this one.

Which bring me to:

Superhero costumes do not work on TV

They don't. Smallville has been on for ten years because they've never put him in a cape, and The Cape was essentially cancelled after three episodes, because it seems ridiculous to us to watch real-world characters put on a costume. (The closest that has ever worked was Spike's coat on Buffy, once he was a good guy, and even that got weird after a while.) Yes, we want to watch superheroes, but it has to work in the real world (think Buffy or Sydney from Alias) and the costume just pushes it too far.

Ratings are stupid

NBC is going to cancel Chuck. I am traumatized by this, but it's true. Monday's ratings were it's lowest ever, and it is only so-so in the all important 18-49 demographic. This is stupid. Seriously, the 18-49 demographic? Because you know who likes the same television? An 18 year-old-girl and a 49-year-old man. No. No, they don't, TV, and you are all stupid for believing it. Chuck has a rabid fan base that buys merchandise and DVDs, supports the advertisers, and talks about your show all the time, and it's not good enough that four million people watched it on Monday? I realize that the Nielsen system is completely stupid and it needs drastically to be fixed, but executives need to recognize the other ways fans show their support in this day and age. We dont' all have Nielsen boxes, but we do all have the internet.

It's why this episode happened.

Pilots are important

I have watched lots of new stuff in the last few weeks, and I will tell you unequivocally, the pilot matters. If it doesn't grab me, I am done. I have a busy schedule of TV, and I don't have time to figure out whether or not you are going to figure it out. I have rarely been wrong about a show if I have seen the pilot, if I instantly think it will be cancelled (Traffic Light), if I just know I'm not going to get into it (Breaking In), or if I think its got the potential to be a really great show (Happy Endings). We know what we like as viewers and you will rarely convince us otherwise.

 I will not like this. Because it is stupid.

It's one of the reasons:

Writing is more important

I am stunned every week by the quality TV that is Justified. It is just an astoundingly well written show. Here's the thing about "well-written": I do not necessarily mean "quality" or "critically acclaimed" or "award winning". I mean that I believe even shows that I hate can be well written. It's about having good characters and story lines that keep me engaged. You can do that with brilliance like Justified as well as with fluff like White Collar or silly like Community. But you can not throw in drama fron nowhere, Parenthood, or never let your characters grow, Brothers and Sisters. Successful shows are well written, period. Which brings me to my next point:

Quirky is not the same thing as interesting

The spring's crop of sitcoms has been really hit and miss (mostly miss) but one of the things that has really just bugged the crap out of me is this seemingly desperate push to make everyone "quirky". On the heels of the success of shows like Modern Family and Community, the sitcom newbies seem to think that peccadilloes are what endear characters to an audience. Perfect Couples tried too hard to be quirky, as does Christian Slater's new show Breaking In (the young black guy is almost a parody of an Abed/Troy cross), and I'm nervous about Mr. Sunshine because while I like it, I think the really off beat sense of humor is not making any friends. Once again, don't try so hard, shows.

But he's so quirky! And he's black!

Know your network identity

If it feels like I've been picking on NBC a lot, it's because I have. The network is a complete mess, and I really think it's because they don't know who they are. ABC does chick shows, CBS is procedural (even their sitcoms are procedural), TNT does cop shows, USA does fluff, CW does teen porn. You have to know who you are so that viewers know who you are. NBC's most bankable shows are the Thursday night comedy shows (the good ones) and they all share one thing in common: they're weird. NBC should recognize itself as the young channel, with nerdy-in-a-cool-way fresh shows that aim for the 20- and 30-something crowd. We need TV just like everyone else, and we are the majority of your audience as is. In the new TV landscape, where most of the major cable networks are producing successful original programming, you don't have to think like an old-school network. Be bold, be original, be young and cool. In short, stop trying to make more Law and Order.

Stop it. Stop it right now.

Greatness personified

With esteemed humanitarian and formidable actor Charlie Sheen being unfairly ousted from critical darling Two and a Half Men, television is short one of the finest actors to grace its small screen in history. Let's take time now to honor a few more before their gripping performances are lost to us forever:


The Best Actors on TV


William Shatner, S#*! My Dad Says, CBS

Already a TV legend for his realistic portrayal of Robot Commander James T. Kirk in the incomparable Star Trek, Shatner wowed the world when he took on the gritty, realistic role of the titular "Dad" in this heartfelt show. Shatner is mesmerizing as the grizzled father coming to grips with the adult son he abandoned so many years ago.

Never has a title been more apropos.

Olivia Munn, Perfect Couples, NBC

Previously praised for her arresting work on the groundbreaking drama Attack of the Show, Munn has crafted a performance for the ages in this flagship sitcom. This complex show is a playground for the talented Munn, who deftly ranges emotions and draws the audience in with her wit and charm.

The left one is Wit, the right one is Charm.

Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of an American Teenager, ABC Family

This method actor is a perfectionist of her craft, delving so deeply into the lead role on this substantive drama she was willing to become a teenage mother. Though she is no longer pregnant, her dedication to the role has not gone unnoticed, being awarded by the Emmy's, Golden Globes, and in a surprise and unprecedented move, the Oscars.

She thanked her OBGYN in the acceptance speech.

David Spade, Rules of Engagement, CBS

One of the few surviving comedic geniuses of his generation, Spade bring a fresh, new perspective to the TV landscape with his role as Russel Dunbar, the first ever selfish, lothario bachelor in the history of sitcoms. Handling complicated and intelligent dialogue with aplomb, this witty actor brings the full weight of his talent to bear in this role of a lifetime.

Yep, comedic genius. Also possibly a lesbian.

Rizwan Manji, Outsourced, NBC

This veteran character actor (Charlie Wilson's War, Transformers) steals the scene in this compelling drama as call-center manager Ranjiv, a complicated man concerned with life's toughest questions. Breaking down the barriers of Indian stereotypes, Manji's brave and humble portrayal stands the test of time.

He's Indian, and he's wearing a suit.

Melissa Peterman, Working Class, CMT

CMT stunned audiences and critics alike with it's brilliant and original inaugural hit, Working Class. Grounded by the realistic performance from award-winning Peterman, this dramatic foray into the world of America's rural poor is as relevant as it is moving. Peterman shines as down-on-her-luck mother Carli Mitchell, a character whose relatable struggles never fail to inspire the audience.

You can not tell at all what this show is about from this promo.

David Caruso, CSI: Miami, CBS

Propelling prop-handling to an art form, Caruso's compelling interpretation of the police force's most intrepid detective elevated the procedural in a way no other actor has accomplished and made proud red-heads everywhere.

See what I mean? Are they on? Are they off? He's a maverick!

David Mann, Meet the Browns, TBS

Mann's historical performance as the Brown family patriarch is reminiscent of greats such as A Raisin in the Sun, and brings clout to the African-American sitcom. With a performance rich in nuance and subtle characterization, Mann has created one of the deepest and most resonant characters on television.

Um, maybe more like the Uncle with a "roomate"?

AnnaLynne McCord, 90210, CW

Breaking ground for space-less names everywhere, this acting prodigy flared onto the scene in the gritty remake of the 90's classic teen drama. She  received acclaim for being willing to play "pretty", a risky move for young starlets in Hollywood, and has risen to the challenge of her complicated character Naomi brilliantly.

She might also be half tiger.

Valerie Bertinelli, Hot in Cleveland, TV Land

In one of television's best comeback stories, Bertinelli, a critically acclaimed actress long out of the limelight, has risen to stardom again with the rich and powerful Hot in Cleveland. Bertinelli is stunning in the role of the enigmatic Melanie, drawing from her real life struggles in this riveting show and outshining her far less talented castmates.

Yes, you are exactly the right age for leather pants.

April Fool's!

These people are terrible.

Get off my TV, you horrible, horrible people.