Re-viewing the 6th season of both
Scrubs and
Roseanne (well, starting with the episode where Sarah Chalke replaced Lecy Goranson) and, really, not because Chalke is in both. Or because I think there's any relation. It's just where I left off on the former on Netflix and the latter because I need a careful refresher.
As expected... there are elements of
Scrubs which are truly intolerable. Most of them, actually. Boy- did I back the wrong horse back in that thread where everyone were listing the best shows of each year since 2000. Of course, that was more than 5 years ago. Can't really fault the performers- Zach Braff is the only member of the cast who is so repetitious and limited in his comic range that he can't keep up with everyone else. But this does not make us like the characters. The character writing is... awful. The dialogue (when not trying to write characters, rather when it's focused on witty one-liners and back and forth banter) is still pretty damn sharp- the show's best feature, along with its' production values and music (and the acting). But, if you try for character development and what you end up with are characters as relentlessly dull and uninteresting as these- you're in trouble. The only drama it ever drums up comes from the job and the audience's unease with death. Kind of an easy nerve to pluck. I know I would say the show used to be a lot better in previous seasons (the 4th is the one that really evolved it into this). A far too dated show, given that it's barely a decade old.
Episodes re-watched: "My Friend with Money," "My Musical" (many parts skipped because I just couldn't take it, it was so unbearable), "His Story IV," "My Road to Nowhere," "My Perspective," "My Therapeutic Month," and "My Night to Remember"
As for
Roseanne, the opposite appears to be true. Character writing is its' top strength and though the show really peaked in those excellent 4th and 5th seasons (without question or debate some of the strongest television ever made- watch them for yourself), the ideas are still smarter than in the show's shaky first 3 seasons. There remain no sitcoms before this show (and for a long time after) that allowed families to be written as well as this one wrote the Conners. It's just the performing that falls short. By a lot. Mostly because it's a comedy and the actors are not playing their parts subtly enough. Which, of course, is the shift out of 4th & 5th season mode that really downgrades this season by comparison. John Goodman has been out of control since the pot-smoking episode, purposefully playing it up to get bigger laughs (the Thanksgiving episode being a good example). Roseanne herself is really good at dramatic acting but since this season has mostly been cutting down on dramatic storylines after they replaced the former Becky with a Robot (pre-
Scrubs Chalke), she's decided to turn Roseanne into some kind of mad scientist creation. She will
not stop bugging her eyes out.
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So, I guess what I would say the show is faulting at is tone. I mean, not just the comedy is off- the attempts to bring back the ultra-seriousness of the 5th season have been leaning toward miss over hit. "The Driver's Seat" is not a terrible episode but the show already dealt with domestic abuse three times before and here it comes again. The more interesting story was getting comedy out of Leon trying to take over the restaurant. My problem really was that the best scene of the episode was Dan going to confront Leon and that scene needed more time and more dialogue. Which it could have gotten if the squabbling over patterns of abuse repeating themselves between Roseanne, Jackie, and Dan had been whittled down. Those scenes themselves should have focused more on Jackie's baby and Roseanne's paranoia about the restaurant anyway. Another problem with these scenes is that Jackie comes off like a bit of a harpie. Merely so the scene can have a heavy in it and so Dan can get in a pretty mean joke at her expense. It's not a storyline that treats the characters with the amount of respect they deserve. It's all... well, season filler. To get in the "required" amount of seriousness. Strange to say then that the episode did a better job of this in the first scene with Roseanne, at home arguing with Dan.
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However, I wouldn't be nearly as quick to defend "Suck Up or Shut Up" or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The former is one of the worst episodes of the show up to this point. Only slightly redeemed by Glenn O'Quinn, by far one of the best actors in the series before the show turned him into a complete idiot (I think that was the 8th season), as Becky's husband Mark. Oh, and... Roseanne was really well-written here. And the one-liners about the character being perceived as a complete idiot. Like most episodes of the show, it's 2 separate stories together. The latter, about Mark, is problematic enough. The former - about Roseanne trying to charm the town's snooty upper class businesswomen, featuring
The Brady Bunch's Florence Henderson as the show's newest replacement for Kathy Bowman and Mrs. Wellman - is entirely useless, apart from one amusing crack ("Elijah Minnelli"). Leon's another weakpoint for this season. He had a strong entrance, as Beverly's puppet master pulling Roseanne's strings to annoy her. And it's been great to finally see him and Laurie Metcalfe interact, their scenes are real winners. But his character doesn't get any good jokes. Whether he's giving or receiving them. I've never been that happy with his character but his best moments were all in season 3.
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Sandra Bernhard has been great for the show though. And she gets horrendously short-changed in "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with another mopey "I'm not so cool with sharing my life with you guys" plotline and then, on top of that, they screw Roseanne over by making her look uptight (after Nancy's girlfriend kisses her). The drama is thankfully kept at the season's consistent muted level but there has got to be something better to base a gay-themed episode around then every other character criticizing Roseanne for being less progressive than she thinks she is. If they're going to even try this and bring Roseanne down a few pegs, shouldn't Nancy or Leon at least be able to take the higher ground? They don't. When Roseanne shows up at the gay bar, suddenly neither is allowed to fit in. The show makes them both look like huge dorks and Roseanne is a hit. It's an episode where I don't remember a single joke working. Kind of a test-run for season 7's Halloween episode. Oh, well. All of this is still light years ahead of
Home Improvement. Another good point over that show: this season's Christmas episode. The Mark and Becky storyline is pretty cliched, but everything else works. Especially Roseanne and Dan's Christmas decoration terrorism.
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However, this section of the season has managed to milk David's pathetic character (that's actually not a crack at the show for writing him poorly even though they sure ruined him in later seasons) for some good jokes and story ideas. Darlene might as well not be in the show at this point after the "Homecoming" episode (her storylines improve later) since they have been making every character more sarcastic in her absense. But, David being brought back to live with Roseanne and Dan (again) is the only story thread that would make Dan and David a good dramatic pairing. It's not insulting to David and you get his character's pretty funny spooked reactions to Dan whenever he enters a room. Also, moving him into Jackie's house was a decent idea. And a good way to weave in later plots between them like him setting up her computer and being the only one who noticed that she was going nuts because of a chat room addiction. David needed another character to interact with besides DJ (this never worked out), Mark (this usually leads to competition between them and... um: talk about one-sided!), Dan, and Darlene (her applying to college is the worst thing to happen to their relationship plot/subplot- I'll probably go into details on this later).
Episodes re-watched: "Homecoming," "Thanksgiving '93," "The Driver's Seat," "White Trash Christmas," "Suck Up or Shut Up," "Busted," "David vs. Goliath," "Everyone Comes to Jackie's," "Don't Make Room for Daddy," and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Anyway, if you're going to watch more episodes of Doctor Who, I think you should frequently bring suspension of disbelief with you in order to enjoy them as much as possible; and yes, it does get better.
