... if St Louis was NYC.
Living across the river from St Lose and having grown up a few hours from NYC, I was interested in seeing how American Television, an industry concentrated on both coasts, would depict a city smack dab in between them.
I got the answer after a few shows: farcically.
St Lose is dominated by white and black which The JLq Show had, but Television Formula required the Obligatory Hispanic /Liz Torres, great actress/. There are no accented Hispanics around here. The nearest one is 300 miles away -- in Chicago. Casting Liz was my clue that something was seriously amiss in the show.
The closest thing to "ethnic" around here is: 1- "The Hill" -- actually a generally rising slope -- dotted with Italian restaurants; 2- Soulard Market, an old french quarter holdover where the frenchiness is reserved solely in the name; and 3- German towns in southwestern IL where everyone has a last name with no fewer than 18 letters, an uncommon allotment of which are 'e' and 'i'.
No Hispanics. Anywhere.
StL is brain sandwiches and toasted ravioli; downtown closes at 6PM. By law. Budweiser and mostaccioli -- pronounced "muskacholi" -- are the equivalents of champagne and pate at local weddings. These things are interesting, even if only from an Abnormal Psych perspective, and would have been worth seeing in a national television show centered on some region other than the boring, repetitive and cliché NYC and LA scenery and lifestyle.
But, oh well, you can't fight Television Formula. Don't bother sending the writers on a field trip to research the people they're going to depict. Remake the center of the country to be yet another in a long line of NYC replicants.
Good actors; tired plots; wasted opportunity.
Living across the river from St Lose and having grown up a few hours from NYC, I was interested in seeing how American Television, an industry concentrated on both coasts, would depict a city smack dab in between them.
I got the answer after a few shows: farcically.
St Lose is dominated by white and black which The JLq Show had, but Television Formula required the Obligatory Hispanic /Liz Torres, great actress/. There are no accented Hispanics around here. The nearest one is 300 miles away -- in Chicago. Casting Liz was my clue that something was seriously amiss in the show.
The closest thing to "ethnic" around here is: 1- "The Hill" -- actually a generally rising slope -- dotted with Italian restaurants; 2- Soulard Market, an old french quarter holdover where the frenchiness is reserved solely in the name; and 3- German towns in southwestern IL where everyone has a last name with no fewer than 18 letters, an uncommon allotment of which are 'e' and 'i'.
No Hispanics. Anywhere.
StL is brain sandwiches and toasted ravioli; downtown closes at 6PM. By law. Budweiser and mostaccioli -- pronounced "muskacholi" -- are the equivalents of champagne and pate at local weddings. These things are interesting, even if only from an Abnormal Psych perspective, and would have been worth seeing in a national television show centered on some region other than the boring, repetitive and cliché NYC and LA scenery and lifestyle.
But, oh well, you can't fight Television Formula. Don't bother sending the writers on a field trip to research the people they're going to depict. Remake the center of the country to be yet another in a long line of NYC replicants.
Good actors; tired plots; wasted opportunity.