Cougar Town, Population: Awesome

We all know that television shows appreciate their audiences—they must, right? Without home viewers there's no show. But the relationships we as TV fans form with the shows we love can often feel very one-sided: we make a date once a week, we laugh, we cry, we 'ship, we get PISSED at stupid plot contrivances and NO WHY ARE YOU RUINING MY SHOW? We read articles, we form crushes on stars. We defend our show to haters and we in turn hate on shows that get better ratings in our show’s time slot. When our shows are threatened with cancellation we protest and we send things in to networks: letters, peanuts, felt beards.

But all of this time and devotion we pour into our favorite series is done in relative obscurity. Nobody who works on the show would even know if they lost you, unless maybe you’re a member of a Nielson family which honestly I doubt because I don’t believe they exist.

What I’d like to talk about here is Cougar Town which took fan appreciation way up a notch from the standard “Thanks to the fans!” shout out at the Teen Choice Awards, or “You know, for me it’s all about the fans” confession on daytime TV talk shows. When Cougar Town’s release was pushed back to midseason this year, the show rewarded its fans by sending its principal actors out to be extras on other shows. It was a small gesture that likely took a decent amount of planning and finagling between the different shows, but to the viewers waiting for their show to come back read as sort of a postcard that said "Hi! We haven't forgotten about you, please don't forget about us!"

...And then ABC pushed back Cougar Town's release again to make room for Work It (Don't. EVEN. Get. Me. Started.) and cut their episode order from 22 down to 15--after 10 episodes had already been filmed (ok again, don't get me started...this is not what this is supposed to be about...stop getting angry...) While this move is both ridiculous and infuriating, it has done one extremely positive thing for those of us who are Cougar Town fans: it has given the folks over at Cougar Town the inspiration to do a cross-country viewing party tour.

I was lucky enough to go with my best friend Kyrsten to the first viewing party that was held at the Culver Studios in Los Angeles where Cougar Town films, and honestly it was one of the most incredible experiences I've had. I'll try my best to suppress the fangirl in me (it wasn't that easy at the event either!), but let me share a quick anecdote to illustrate just how much going to this party meant to me:

Aforementioned friend Kyrsten and I were absolutely obsessed with Scrubs in high school. (This is relevant because Scrubs and Cougar Town share a few cast members as well as creator/show runner/writer Bill Lawrence who is a personal hero of mine. So, incidentally, does Spin City but that’s not crucial to this story.) Anyway, I had gotten the season 1 DVD set of Scrubs as a gift and Kyrsten and I were going to watch it when I spent the night at her house one weekend.

We absolutely swore that we wouldn't watch more than one disc so that we could make the set last but by the wee hours of the morning we had finished the entire season and had moved on to the special features. It must have been 5 or 6 am, but there we were, bloodshot eyes fixed to the screen telling each other THESE are the people we should be hanging out with, THESE are the people we should work with someday. It must be about ten years later, but those are still dreams that I harbor.

These parties are so extremely validating as a fan—to know that the series creators Bill
Lawrence and Kevin Biegel put in their own time, money and staff because they believe in their show and want to thank their fans so much is something that is completely unheard of. Everyone involved was so gracious and really seemed to be interested in meeting and interacting with their fans.

The format of the party was a little like a reverse of the set up at PaleyFest, which until this party was my favorite thing ever. Now it’s a close second. At PaleyFest, you buy tickets for each show that you’d like to see, you get together in a theater where an episode is screened, then the cast/creators come out for a panel discussion. If you buy super ridiculously expensive tickets (like bucket list expensive) you can also go to an after party with the cast and creators. For the Cougar Town viewing parties tickets were free, you show up to the party first with the cast and creators, then go to a screening, then do an informal panel discussion.

Walking into the event, it really just looked like a casual outdoor party…that happened to be held on the show’s major outdoor set piece. The show’s bar set was stocked with free beer and wine (nice beer too! I was drinking Stellas all night--I know, it's kind of blasphemous not to drink wine at a Cougar Town event. You don't have to tell me). People were spread around the set, talking amongst themselves, playing the show’s invented game Penny Can, or congregated in little circles around the actors or Bill Lawrence.

We of course bee-lined it to Bill Lawrence. After I calmed my fangirl-ass down, he was incredibly easy to talk to, fielding questions about the show's shifted premise, the actors, his writing experience, even accepted criticism and joked about that one last, kind of crappy season of Scrubs. (There's actually a story about it...and no, Bill Lawrence really wasn't involved with Scrubs: Interns at all. Good to know!) He talked about how awards shows are a scam, but when he was working on Spin City they bought into it to win Michael J. Fox an Emmy in his final year. I asked him about a new pilot he's working on and HE HIGH-FIVED ME! (Calm down, fangirl...) When people's questions waned a little he started asking people what other shows they were watching (he addressed the Community/Cougar Town crossovers! We both agreed how satisfying it is for a fan to know that two shows you love apparently love each other too. We laughed about the Downton Abbey/Cougarton Abbey thing!)

And seriously, everyone else we met there was just as welcoming and kind:

· Christa Miller (Ellie Torres) talked about how involved she is with picking the music; she's also not really as scary as you might think.

· Josh Hopkins (Grayson Ellis) invited me to take a picture with him so I didn't have to feel awkward about it, and he laughed when I said I never would have noticed his tiny eyes had they not written it into the show.

· Brian Van Holt (Bobby Cobb) yelled "get me the ribs...BITCH!" with us in a picture (you know…as a substitute for "cheese!") (That's my favorite line of the whole show!)

· Bob Clendenin (Tom) talked to Kyrsten and me for a good half hour in the party, then sat with us when they screened the episodes. It feels kind of awful watching all of the characters on Cougar Town be mean to him once you've met him in real life and especially while you're sitting right next to him, he's a super-nice guy!)

· Sanjay Shah (writer) gave us each a shirt when we asked nicely for one even though we were missing all of the trivia questions because we were (kinda) drunk and (way too) excited.

· Mary Fitzgerald (writer) became our BFF and we discussed at length how the girl in a relationship should never say "I love you" first (She wrote the episode where Jules tells Grayson she loves him; she also has a really funny story about it). She also helped us make Dan Byrd (Travis Cobb) super uncomfortable while we were cracking penis jokes.

ABC’s treatment of Cougar Town this year left a lot to be desired, but the same could never be said of Cougar Town’s treatment of its fans. Whether this show will gain any viewers or even stay on the air past season 3 is still yet to be seen, but one goal has certainly been met already: keeping their show in the viewer's minds. I'll say this much as well, if I were a lukewarm fan to begin with an event like this would COMPLETELY win me over. As it happens I was a pretty strong fan anyway but the obvious care that the people behind Cougar TownCougar Town: Interns, you can count me in. have for their fans and their own show will keep me watching pretty much no matter what. Even if eventually this show is

I have the greatest hopes that this campaign will pay off for Cougar Town once the third season finally starts. Maybe if Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel see some success, this can be the start of a whole new way for viewers to interact with the television shows they watch, or a tool for struggling shows to reinforce and grow their fan base. Either way, television history has been made here thanks to a couple of guys who refused to take “Work It” as an answer.

New Season, New Girl

New Girl S1 E1: Pilot

First off, I have to really thank Fox for making the pilot of New Girl available On Demand and online before its premiere. (In case you missed it, Fox made New Girl available on iTunes and some cable on demand programs more than a week before its official premiere date, which is Tuesday 9/20) I don’t know how successful of a marketing campaign this will be, but I certainly appreciated it. After the ridonkulously kick-ass hour and a half of television otherwise known as the Sons of Anarchy season four premiere, waiting an entire week for any other new shows to come back seems like torture.

So…thanks, Fox! Having New Girl available early has helped tide me over until the heavier premiere weeks, and also slightly slowed my assault on Netflix’s Instant Watch. Best of all, it was a considerably enjoyable diversion. I’ve always liked Zooey Deschanel and she comes across her most endearing as Jess, the freshly dumped nerd-girl who decides to cohabitate with a bunch of dudes. Although there are definitely traits in Jess that are recognizable from other Zooey Deschanel characters, I think what I found most refreshing about this one is the lack of nerd-worship given to her on screen. (Think 500 Days of Summer or Gigantic with Paul Dano.) Those of us watching at home can clearly see she’s adorable and gorgeous if a little (ok a lot) oblivious, but New Girl doesn’t shy away from making a funny and flawed character in Jess.

My favorite example of this is when new roommate/bro Schmidt (Max Greenfield) decides to cheer up the sobbing Jess by offering to help her find a rebound guy. “I’ll be, like, your guy” he tells her.

“Like Gandalf from middle earth?” she sniffles.

“ …alright let’s take the Lord of the Rings references, let’s put them in a deep dark cave where no one’s going to find them ever.”

“Except Smeagol” she replies, SO earnest and yet just a little smug. She’s not going to let go of her nerd references, man hunting or no!

Of the roommates, Nick (Jake M. Johnson) is my favorite so far. He, like Jess, is fairly recently dumped and lets it get the best of him, even hiding in his hoodie when the guys push him too hard by zipping it up and pulling the hood all the way down to his chin.

Winston, a.k.a. Coach, was recast after the pilot, so I’ve only seen Damon Wayans Jr. play him for the one episode he’s in.

Schmidt has had some good moments, but I can’t help but think that Dave Franco, younger brother of James Franco, should have been cast in that part. He was just so perfectly toolish as Cole Aaronson in the final season of Scrubs (and one of the only good things about that season, I should add).

Actually, now that I think about it every character but Jess could easily have been cast from new players in the last few seasons of Scrubs…

Dave Franco instead of Max Greenfield as Schmidt.

Michael Mosley for Jake M. Johnson as Nick. (I actually do really like Johnson, but I’m doing a thing here!)

Lee Thompson Young can be the new Winston, because what’s the problem with recasting again, especially since we could all use some famous Jett Jackson in our lives?

And… Eliza Coupe as Jess’s model friend Cece because so far Hannah Simone is sort of yawn, and Eliza is much too funny for Happy Endings.

Overall, I'd give New Girl a B+ this is a solid show with a lot of potential, and I look forward to watching the characters grow and develop.

A Vow to Joss Whedon

I finally just finished the second and final season of “Dollhouse,” and now I’m feeling some major guilt. I’ve always been a little slow on the uptake when it comes to Joss Whedon (who, in case you didn’t know, is the creator of “Dollhouse”). The only show of his I’ve ever watched in real time was “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and even then it was only the first few seasons because my mom switched our service from cable to satellite and we lost the WB.

But in the last few years between Hulu, Netflix and assorted sketchy asian sites, I’ve been able to watch all of “Buffy,” “Angel,” “Firefly,” “Serenity,” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog”, all of which are Joss Whedon joints. And he won me over; you can consider me a Whedonite because that man is a genius. The things that come out of his head are crazy detailed, imaginative, tragic and hilarious. And yet, until recently I had abstained from watching “Dollhouse,” mostly because Eliza Dushku kind of bugs me.

I think it’s the whole wounded bitch role she tends to get cast into—think Faith from “Buffy.” It’s a difficult part to pull off, and most of the time it just makes me cringe. You can’t act completely psychotic and then refer back to one traumatic event and expect to make a likeable or even well-rounded character, and when I think of Eliza Dushku, that is all I think of. Incidentally, this is also the reason I can’t handle Michelle Rodriguez: that bitch is allllllllways scowling.

After moving to Palm Springs in April for my first post-college job, I spent—who am I kidding? spend a lot of time alone (my nearest friends live in San Diego), bored (retirement community—yawn), and trying not to move too much (100+ degrees every day for months). This led—who am I kidding? leads me to invest days on end in various series on Netflix. Eventually I gave in and decided to give “Dollhouse” a try…and I loved it, Goddammit, I loved it. I even found Eliza Dushku likeable, because even at her baddassiest and bitchiest, she always went back to neutral. (I’ll explain that in a brief summary of the show a little later, but you should definitely check it out.)

The thing that kills me is that I knew I liked Joss Whedon while “Dollhouse” was on the air, and now it’s canceled. I should have trusted in Whedon’s insight and creativity enough to give “Dollhouse” a try, even if it did star Eliza Dushku.

So, here is my vow to Joss Whedon: Next time, I’ll trust you. Promise. Next show, or web short, or movie, or whatever that you come out with, I will at least try it out. Even if that scowling bitch Michelle Rodriguez is in it. Next time, your show will have one more in its audience, and hopefully next time it won’t end up canceled like “Dollhouse” or “Firefly.”