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bthwaithe
Reviews
Happy Valley (2014)
Disappointing Season Three
Plot and writing matter. The whole reason for the existence of season three was not believable. Catherine's sister Clare is a bit flaky in seasons one and two, but she was never so flaky that she would go along with taking the boy Ryan to see his psychopathic father in prison because the boy wants a relationship with him. Clare went through all that Catherine has gone through regarding Tommy Lee Royce. The suicide of Becky; the kidnapping and rape/torture of Ann (who is now married to Clare's nephew); the gruesome murder of policewoman Kirsten McAskill; the abduction of Ryan; Tommy Lee's attempt to murder Ryan by burning him to death; Catherine's near-murder by Royce. When Catherine asks why Clare and Neil have been taking Ryan to the prison "to have a relationship" with Tommy Lee, Clare says "It's what he (Ryan) wanted."
Come on....do better.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Diagnosis: Danger (1963)
TV Series Pilot?
This seems like it was the pilot for a television series that never got picked up. Lots of tv shows in those days had lead characters that traveled around the country going to new towns, having adventures with locals. The Fugitive was probably most famous one, but also Route 66, Have Gun, Will Travel and "Then Came Bronson" which starred Michael Parks, who stars in this show as a dedicated public health doctor. There are just so man6 public health emergencies though, and rabies and anthrax were in this episode. What next? Plague in Arizona? Venomous snake bite in TX? Tularemia in Tulare?
Michael Parks used to be called "the poor man's James Dean." After Dean died, Parks' slightly look-alike face got him more than a few tv roles. He proved to be difficult on the set of Then Came Bronson (plus the show's premise - anti-establishment loner traveling from town to town helping people solve their problems - was well past its due date by 1970. Pa4ks disappeared for a few decades then was resurrected by young male movie directors as a sort iof cult figure.
So if you want to see Michael Parks as a young man, here's a chance for you to do so. In a few years time, Marcus Welty MD would be on tv and James Brolin would take the role of the angry young anti-establishment doctor ....and he got to chase his patients around town on a motorcycle, to force medical treatment on them. If only they'd given Parks a motorcycle for this episode he might have had a long running tv series.
Endeavour: Terminus (2021)
Don't Forget The Shining
Everyone caught the Halloween references of Loomis, Haddonfield and escaped psychiatric patient/slasher. And the Agatha Christie tropes - snowbound transport (though bus rather than train). Murder. Detective leads group of suspects who are supposedly unrelated to each other (but some are acting in consort), anachronistic 1920s era clues (cufflinks), no electrical power, a transport schedule plays a part in carrying out murder as does a masquerade party, etc. But am I imaging similarities to The Shining? A closed down hotel in a snowstorm, previous gruesome murders by a madman at said hotel, a masquerade ball, a meaningful photo of a former employee (at the asylum rather than at the hotel).
Anyway, it might've been an attempt at high camp, but the ridiculous solution was so convoluted that even Morse - a connosiuer of ridiculously convoluted solutions - had to ask for help from a potential victim and from the perpetrators.
And that snowstorm. Supposedly kept everyone trapped at the hotel but Thursday had no trouble getting home. Strange saw Morse get on the bus. Strange then left the station house to check and see if Morse got home. Strange had no trouble making it to Morse's house - yet he didn't see the stranded 33 bus along the way, which he knew from the bus company was still out despite the bus company being closed down due to the storm
Then he had no trouble going from Morse's house to Thursday's house.
Dorothea Frazil also made her way to Thursday's house, then made her way home in the storm.
Thursday then made it to the asylum in the storm, saw the photo of the former asylum employee, chatted up the ax murderer, then had no problem getting to the hotel, nor did his gang of police.
Sheesh, everyone was out & about in the storm except for Morse and his fellow passengers. Laggards.
Bewitched: A Vision of Sugar Plums (1964)
I Remember This
I was looking at a nostalgia site when someone mentioned this episode and I suddenly had a memory of watching this on Christmas Eve when it was snowing outside and I was so excited. My mother was setting my hair in the living room. I was standing on the coffee table so my mother and I could see my reflection in the mirror (everyone had a big mirror over their couch in those days - so big & heavy that my mother left it on the wall when she sold the house in 2005 because she could it get it down). In the mirror I could see the reflection of the house across the street. The owner was a builder & electrician and he'd put up a wooden painting on his roof which showed Santa stepping into the chimney with a sack full of toys. It was lit up by a spotlight and was just about the greatest thing I ever saw. To me, it really looked like Santa was climbing into his chimney. The spotlight also lit up the snow that was falling on the roof. And this show came on. I was about the age where I wasn't sure if Santa was real, but seeing this show made me sure that he was.
I came to IMDb to check if the show aired on Christmas Eve as I remembered, and it did, in 1964.
Billy Mumy got to do the best stuff. He got to rule his hometown of Peaksville, Ohio. He got to go see Santa at the North Pole. He got lost in space and battled the evil Dr Smith with his robot pal and he always won. I was very jealous of him. I said to my parents "Why does that kid get to do so many cool things & you guys don't let me do *anything*?!"
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
Why is this Soooooo Terrible?
I always liked Steve Martin and Martin Short, but his show is dire. Selena Gomez sounds exactly like the robovoice on my Roku. She has no acting talent at all. No wonder Hollywood is importing British actors to play Americans.
The plot is senseless, the lighting is terrible, the direction is disastrous. It makes me wonder if the actors could feel how terribly *off* this show is when they were making it. On top of that, Hulu has taken over the reviews here and seems to own the subreddit on this show because every person I know IRL can't figure out how they managed to make such a terrible series, but everything online is an exclamation point! 10 star review! Praising Selena Gomez's fantastic acting! And demanding multiple Emmy nominations!
It's like the entertainment industry is now TASS in the old Soviet Union, dictating reality.
It's supposed to be a funny & kooky fantasy but it's senseless, lifeless, creepy & dreadfully unpleasant. Hollywood has made so many.motion capture movies that actors and environments now have an unreal quality that attempts to convey reality, but fails.
Atlantic Crossing (2020)
Half the Story is Missing
Ok, so we see how the war affected Norwegian & Swedish royalty. They hung around in palaces and escaped on ships. But what was it like for an average Norwegian family? This is how I'm used to watching these kinds of shows - show how the toffs make out while showing an ordinary family getting through the occupation. I guess the original Upstairs Downstairs series spoiled me, showing how the posh Bellamys lived through the aftermath of the Boer War, women's suffrage, the Bloomsbury group, the sinking of the Titanic, WW1, the general strike & the crash of the stock market. But it also showed how the lower classes experienced the same events. I'd like to have seen more experiences of a typical Norwegian family under Nazi occupation. Only showing the poshes is leaving out half the story.
Elizabeth Is Missing (2019)
Even Worse Than Remember Me
Gawd, I thought the awful Remember Me with Michael Palin was the worst usage of a beloved 1960s actor in a 21st century miniseries, but Elizabeth Is Missing makes Remember Me look like sheer genius storytelling. Glenda Jackson annoys us throughout the series by being repetitive - as if none of us ever knew that repetition is a sign of dementia. "Gee, does she have dementia? Or is she just being annoying while looking so much like John Hurt?" Spoiler - she has dementia. And she shows us she has dementia about a hundred times. And then some. We're so annoyed by the time this ends we don't care where Elizabeth is. Or who she is.
One Step Beyond (1959)
For Nostalgia Only
I'm writing this in what I hope are the last days of the covid 19 lockdown. I've watched a lot of old shows during this near- endless time and have been glad to see the old familiar faces of character actors I grew up watching on 60s & 70s tv. Some I've watched on nostalgia cable channels, some on streaming services. I remembered One Step Beyond from when I was a kid, along with Outer Limits & Twilight Zone. They were the spooky/sci-fi series of their time. I rewatched a number of these episodes & they were not very good. I don5 means in terms of being dated - all of these old shows are dated & young people would not be able to relate to them since today's audiences obsess over special effects/computerized imagery. You're not going to get any of that in old shows. So I didn't expect fast-moving scenes, or realistic settings. But One Step Beyond just didn't cut it and I could understand why it didn't last long. For one thing, the show was very stage-y. The acting was very theatrical and overly melodramatic. The scripts are filled with rubber - ie, stretched out. Padded. Filler. The stories themselves are pretty lame & not very interesting. At the end of each episode I felt "Oh groan, I sat through this show for *this*?
Your average urban legend is more interesting than these shows. They are too long for what they are & could be summed up in one sentence. And the scenery is more cheap & flimsy than in most 1960s shows, and that's saying something,
In short, if you are someone who time traveled back to the 1960s and were a child again, you'd like it. It's really only good for seeing old actors & remembering how safe you felt in your parents' living room watching the show with your family with the lights turned out.
Perry Mason (2020)
Terrible Show
I never watched the Black & White Perry Mason tv show, so I don't care if this show is completely different. I just know this one is bad. The plot is plodding & drawn out. I had to wait 8 episodes for that? Della Street is a drip, Perry Mason is a scrub, HBO has been on an Ugly Sex kick for a while, Tatiana Maslany's character is nonsensical (yes, I know she's based on Aimee Semple McPherson) veering sharply around curves from cynical atheism to hitting the brakes at "No! It's real! It's really real!"
A mistrial isn't a win, btw, and "lawyer" Perry Mason (who seemed to know little of the law in the courtroom but that's ok because neither did the prosecutor) needed to clarify that to the loads of people who told him he won.
The whole thing was filled with anachronisms & uncreative ripoffs from Chinatown & Day of the Locust.
I await the 25 responses from HBO bots claiming it's a 9-10 star blowout of fabulous writing, acting & filming and the claims that anyone who thinks otherwise is an doddering, near-dead nursing home loser.
Clue (1985)
Frenetically Unfunny
Good cast, blah script & very poor direction. Too many long shots when people drop a punchline. They should be closeups, otherwise the punchline gets lost. Lots & lots of lost punchlines in this film due to how it was filmed.
Mel Brooks it ain't.
It's supposed to be be energetic, fast moving fun but it's oddly dead. Jokes bomb. Actors stiffly deliver lines. You expect to hear a canned laugh track at most of the dialogue, like 1960s sitcoms that had uproarious laughter after unfunny lines.
There's too much explanation of things you don't care about. You don't care who dies or why. You don't care who did it, or why.
Maybe you have to be under 10 years when you see it. That has to be the excuse for all these highly rated reviews claiming it's one of the funniest things they've ever see. I didn't laugh once.
Thorne: Sleepyhead (2010)
This Stank
This was so bad ....it was like a joke it was so bad. It was last season of Dexter bad. It was Arya Stark killing the Night King bad. There was all this yelling & screaming. I can't imagine what life would be like if the police were as hysterical-screamy as the cops in this show. They'd all be crying & peeing themselves before getting out of the briefing room. It was obvious who the killer was as soon as his name was mentioned. Maybe if the cops weren't so wrapped up in their angsty yelling & showing their teeth to the camera they might've figured it out sooner.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
Godawful Crap
There's really nothing more to say.
Midsommar (2019)
Been There, Seen That....Only Much LONGER This Time
If you're over 21, you've seen this already. You've seen Wicker Man, Rosemary's Baby, Harvest Home, Get Out & even some random Midsomer Murders episode that uses the same old trope
"Wanted: Cult is seeking young persons with goal to steal youth, vitality, fertility & be human sacrifice to elder beings/deities. Contact our fellow cult member who will lure you to where we will drug and/or immobilize you. Please be advised there will be scary naked old people & very deliberate lighting using shadows & bright sunshine used in contrast with each other to foreshadow THE HORROR OCCURRING IN BROAD BRIGHT DAYLIGHT COMMITTED BY HAPPY BLONDE PEOPLE.
Oooooh....scary, kids.
This movie goes on & on as if the director doesn't believe in outtakes. "Yeah, we'll keep that 10th scene of slow motion dancing in there, even though it looks like the other 9 scenes of slow motion dancing."
Like all horror films, young people will make stupid choices. "Yes, I'll trip out even though I'm in so much grief that I'm always crying & shaky & i feel weird among strangers in the middle of this endless field. NBD, really. No....really.....Really...It's ok. I'm fiiiine."
"Sure, I'll drink this tea you're shoving in my hand even though the last time I ate/drank something you gave me I became spaced out and/or was fed pubic hairs."
Then, when the old people jump off the cliff and their heads are smashed in with a pallet, I'll make a big scene instead of realizing what's going on, keeping calm and saying, "That was beautiful & can I please use the outhouse?":then...escape.
And where was the electrical outlet for that laptop? And for charging the phone that was used to take all those photos?
And why were the faces of dead people taken off, then put back on again when they were just going to be burned in the shed anyway?
The sound was horrible, so I turned on subtitles. I shoukdve known the letters would be so small, thin & light that they wouldn't show up on the light screen. In fact, in one of the early severely & deliberately underlit scenes, guess where the subtitles were placed? In the one, tiny pool of light on the floor. It was like a plot to keep the dialog secret.
Cue old music for credits.
On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019)
This is a Mess
When a show tries too hard to be quirky but is devoid of wit, humor, interesting characters or plot, this is what you get. This show proverbially throws spaghetti on the wall to see what will stick and none of it does. It just slides down to the floor, all wet, limp and steamless.
The show is pointlessly repetitive and unnecessarily noisy. Scenes are drawn out well past the time someone should've yelled "Cut!"
Professor T. (2015)
Oh Look, Another Autistic/Aspy/Volatile/Rude/Eccentric Detective
Yeah i know he's a professor, but c'mon. He's detectiving and you know it.
And look, another messy haired woman detective in ill fitting ugly sweaters.
I wish their detective work could manage to solve the case of how to find a comb, shampoo and a barber without a sense of humor.
And look, the detective is emotionally transported by music. A good number of detective/priests, detective/Oxford dropouts, detective/socialites, detective/ aristocrats, detective/detectives rely on jazz, blues, classical music, pianists, violin scraping, electronica to elevate them above the cares of the filthy, teeming world that surrounds them.
But hey, at least there's no time-traveling or violent cops who hold conversations with their murdered, half-headed police partners.
And look, the novel concept of detective/doctors/professors who despise the rest of humankind.
Analyze That (2002)
Why Are there Actors
In the credits who have the names of characters from mob movies?
Black Mirror: Striking Vipers (2019)
Repetitive & Boring
This episode is about 50% padding. It was boring & repetitive and I didn't care about any of the characters in it.
Game of Thrones: The Long Night (2019)
That Was Stupid
Wtf are they doing in this show? Witty Tyrion, who was always smarter than anyone knew (except Varys) has been turned into a dope. Dany has been turned into a tyrant. Sam suddenly gets all pissed off that his abuser father & arrogant brother who looked down on him got themselves killed after betraying the Tyrells. Bran is so useless that I'm sad all those people died to save him so he could drowse in his wheelchair like an old man, flying in a ravens body doing absolutely nothing. He has to stay alive because he's supposed to be the memory of the human race & the NK wants human memory erased. Meanwhile, Samwell is constantly finding things in books that Bran doesn't know about. So the memory of human history is in books all over Westeros. We really don't need Bran.
The Dothraki stupidly charged into the night. Why? Why not try to wait until the sun comes up?
How many freaking people lived north of the wall? There's no big game up there. It's taiga and tundra. How did so many people manage to live up there? There were like 10s of thousands of wights. Was the NK gathering them for over 1000 years? Because there's no way that many wildlings could live up there and feed themselves only over the past 8 years.
Characters are repeatedly shown being cornered and swarmed by wights. But they live, despite the fact that we've been told the army of the dead is the most fearsome thing ever. Nobody can beat them! Except everybody inside the castle wall besides Edd. Little Lyanna Mormont had to charge a giant in order to get killed. And I like the way the wights wait their turn to be killed. They've swarmed our major characters, but allow the characters to kill them one at a time instead of all of them grabbing the character's arms and knocking them down.
Arya is a super killer, but she has trouble escaping shambolic zombies in a library. She gets into a room with Hound and Melisandre. Wights are bashing in the door. There are piles of bodies on the floor. There's fire everywhere. She's surrounded ...but that's ok. Because she can run and the camera will stop following her. We have no idea how she got from a barricaded room surrounded by zombies and fire, plus learned how to fly.
How the hell could wights kill the entire dothraki army, yet not be able to kill the major characters who are literally covered in wights?
Jon Snow stupidly makes the same mistakes he makes all the time. Melisandre decides to kill herself rather than try to resurrect Ser Jorah as a last good deed.
The only defense of the castle is a narrow ditch of fire right in front of the walls. No fields studded with dragon glass, no dragon glass on the outer walls of the castle. No boiling oil poured from the top walls.
This was the stupidest battle ever, and there have been some stupid battles, like the one when Jon came up with a cockeyed idea to capture a wight and the Battle of the Bastards, another of Jon's stupid battle tricks.
The Death of Stalin (2017)
Sorry, But No
I see "uneven" used a lot in reviews for this. Yeah. That's one word that can be used. I'll bet this sounded really good in development. We know it's true that Stalin was laying about for quite a while, getting.....errr, stale.....as his coterie worriedly discusses what to do. We know a power struggle followed. Why not make a black comedy about the death of Stalin? It has all the ingredients. Except it doesn't work. It doesn't work as a dark comedic satire; it doesn't work as drama. Several actors seem to have wandered in from other films (Jason Isaacs seems have dropped in for a visit from a funnier film.) Why doesn't it work? The actors are fine, but they don't seem to have gelled (jelled?) as a cast. Tambor isn't the least bit funny, which is strange. How can you make Jeffrey Tambor not funny?
The timing is off. The film feels flat. The satire lands with a thud. The corpse-like makeup on the characters is too obvious. We get it. They're surrounded by death because they cause death; they are death. The whole system is about murder and lies. And even though the death of a monster who is surrounded by monsters trying to figure out which one will become the new top monster should lend itself to satire......this film doesn't. That's too bad.
Active Measures (2018)
It's Good
I happen to know all of what's in the movie because 1) I'm retired and retired farts like me have time to read. 2) I lived in Manhattan for 20 years & am well acquainted with who and what Donald Trump is. 3) I studied Russian in college in NYC in the 1990s and know the type of people who poured into Brooklyn thanks to glasnost & perestroika. When it comes to this topic, it's kind of right up my alley.
But most people don't know the real Donald Trump or have the time to do all the reading I've done . They've got jobs, young kids, car trouble, bills, a million things to deal with. So I recommend they watch this film. It's fast moving and it's an overview. It doesn't bog down in minute details, which means it's not boring. It quickly & easily explains money laundering (something the Trump Organization has pled guilty to in the past), so that's a relief because some people's eyes glaze over and think "I don't want to have to take a class in finance."
So you've got an overview of what's going on and most people need that in order to be informed voters. The reason I gave it 8 and not 10 stars is because the closed captioning is crappy. Sometimes the film sounds fuzzy, so I needed captions but they blended into the background too many times to be effective. I also didn't like the music interfering with the story. It's a bit loud & urgent sounding, and we can do without that. But in this film you will find out who the major players are and what has gone on for the last 30 or so years.
You don't have to listen to me - you can take Don Trump Jr's word for it. In 2008 he said, ""Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." Or take the word of Erik Trump who said in 2014 "We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia ." Meanwhile their father says, "I have nothing to do with Russia." Reallly? He'd better talk to his sons, because they've been withholding vital info from him for years, lol.
Mum (2016)
Really, Really Bad
I can't believe my PBS station picked up this dreck. Maybe it's a show with a message - that a boring, nearly mute woman who doesn't seem to interact with her family beyond meekly nodding and smiling at their boorish, inane behavior will wind up with a boorish, inane family. She gives no guidance to her children; lets her in-laws walk all over her as they make nasty proclamations; watches her brother and his wife behave awfully in her home and has a nearly wordless relationship with a family friend who is in love with her. They should have drawn a cartoon bubble over her head saying "Nobody home. Be back later. Or not"
Is it supposed to be funny that people are always standing awkwardly in the front hallway saying nothing? Or did I just drop a spoiler? Maybe I should have written a SPOILER ALERT - People stand around doing and saying nothing. A lot. Is this meant to be endearing? Who knows? Who cares? "Look how annoying my family is and I am powerless. I cannot tell them they must behave appropriately in my house or leave it. Woe is me."
I guess this is what passes for "gentle comedy."
Jennifer Eight (1992)
Meh, Not Underrated
This movie is on the level of 1970s "TV movies," which were hastily thrown together weekly made-for-TV films written by hack screenwriters with hack directors and hack production values. It's surprising that Andy Garcia (in his hot days) and Uma Thurman are in this middling drama. I'm guessing the majority of the film's funding went to their salaries, because i cant find anything else the money might have been spent on. Certainly not on plot or characterization. If you haven't figured out who is the murderer after he's on screen for 20 seconds, then you should just OD yourself because there is no hope for you.
Today's TV procedural dramas are 100 times better than this film. But damn, Andy was hot back then.
Spy (2015)
Not THE Worst
This is not the worst movie ever made.
****Spoiler alert****
Melissa McCarthy's "The Boss" is the worst movie ever made.
**********************
You have been warned.
The Ghostbusters remake, also with Melissa McCarthy, is in the top ten worst movies.
I don't dislike Melissa McCarthy. I thought she was great as Sean Spicer. But someone else obviously chose the material for that SNL sketch, not Melissa. She is fine when someone steps in, refuses to allow her to repetitively swear or do scatological or gross sexual jokes.
The Durrells (2016)
Truly Awful
All you need do to get a feeling for this series is to look at the signature photo, i.e., the series official cast photo. The characters are all scowling or looking somewhat blank. And there you have it. This program is about a family of self-centered, whiny, insulting young people who continually disrespect their mother. Mother looks exasperated, then tells them what wonderful children they are and how much she loves them. Every once in a while, mother puts her foot down and demands something of her children. They mostly don't do it.
I believe this show is supposed to be humorous or farcical. It's not. It's annoying and there are no characters worth caring about. The youngest boy goes around capturing and imprisoning local wildlife. The girl is brainless and boy-crazy. The writer son looks down on everyone and the other son is a cypher with a gun and a local girlfriend but, believe me, you don't care about the son-girlfriend relationship because the characters are forgettable. The writer son is interested in his mother's sex life and that is creepy enough, but he brings home a dangerous old drunk to satiate her. I think the ensuing scene is supposed to be madcap, but it was just a chore to sit through.
I understand that Keeley Hawes is very popular in the UK, but I don't find her interesting as an actor and yes, I've seen her in other programs. Ashes to Ashes, Upstairs Downstairs 2.0 and The Tunnel to name a few. She always come across to me as Keeley Hawes, as opposed to the character she's playing. I see actors like Nicola Walker and Sarah Lancashire in as many programs, but I find them interesting. They always convince me they are the characters they're playing. I'm thinking maybe Miss Hawes' popularity is the reason why a Durrells series two is planned.
I really hope PBS stays away from series two. This has been a particularly dreary PBS season with the Durrells, the dreadfully miscast/historically inaccurate Indian Summers and the monotonously dingy Wallander (half of every episode is composed of grey-tinged scenes of Kenneth Branagh staring bleakly at nothing, signifying his health --- and the soul of the world--- is not-so-good). I miss good PBS programming and hope this dry spell ends soon. I'm not one of those Downton Abbey fans who must have elegant drawing rooms and women in artfully designed period clothing. I watched Downton for the lulz --- which it delivered. At least Downton was a success of so-bad- it's-good TV. The Durrells - no.
And yes, I know the youngest son grows up to be a much-beloved naturalist/author, but I'm not willing to sit through this program long enough to see him evolve.
2 Broke Girls (2011)
Clarence! Take Me Back! I Want to Live Again!
Please Clarence, take me out of the 1970s --- stop showing me what a world without humor is like! I don't want to stay here in this 2 Broke Girls universe of bizarro-world retro TV where sex and going to the bathroom are "nudge-nudge, know what I mean, eh?" topics. Not since Happy Days has there been a TV show where the canned laughter erupts for every line spoken and where prolonged applause greets a tiresomely unfunny character who utters lamely repetitive catchphrases.
In the 1970s, Happy Days was the favorite show of kindergarten and elementary school kids. Fonzie was the idol of preschoolers. But children of these ages shouldn't be allowed to watch the horrifyingly unfunny dreck of 2 Broke Girls. Sexual innuendos can occasionally be subtle and funny, but not on this show. They are shrilly delivered, blatantly crude and unending. 2 Broke Girls takes the format of 1970s sitcoms -- unrealistic characters in an unrealistic world talking in an unrealistic way -- and adds relentlessly repeated references to bodily functions that produce effluvia of one kind or another. I was thoroughly disgusted by this grimy, smutty juvenalia and I only saw one freaking episode.
This show is so bad it should be cancelled, then shot through the head so that it can never rise again. Then its carcass should be thrown onto a bonfire and reduced to carbon molecules.
Take me home Clarence, back to a world where canned laughter is recognized as a historical mistake and is banished forever. Take me back to to a time where TV characters do not deliver awful one liners in a stridently irritating voice, then stand back and wait for the yucks. Take me away from this 2 Broke Girls world where tawdry, one-note cultural and ethnic stereotypes are a substitute for wit.
Take me home to the 21st century.