We thought we'd be leading with Trump's pseudo-SOTU, but the ratings bump he got from not sticking a pen in anyone's eye for an hour was short-lived due to yet another scandal. The presidential pivot the pundit class was salivating over on Tuesday night had evaporated by Wednesday night, and by Friday we were Googling Russian for Dummies.
We did like Seth Meyers, who gave the speech his "Closer Look" treatment. Meyer, who spent 13 years on SNL, most of it as co-head or head writer until he got his own show in 2014, discussed the punditry aching for the "presidential" Trump.
"Guys, seriously, do you have amnesia? We have been here many times before, for like a year-and-a-half now," he said as an introduction to a montage of CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox and MSNBC talk-show hosts deconstructing Trump's "more presidential" tone �" from last April, most of whom were saying the exact same things after Trump's congressional address.
"They're talking like they're watching a gorilla at the zoo," Meyers said, showing a clip of cameras zooming in on Trump reciting his speech in the limo. Meyers also commented on various pundits "obsessed over their favorite topic, his tone," as each declared Trump sounding "presidential."
Fox News' Chris Wallace said, "I feel like tonight Donald Trump became the President of the United States." Meyers looked at the clip, then dead-panned, "Although I bet there are some Muslims and undocumented immigrants that would tell you he became president back in f-ing January." Nailed it.
The TV moment we least expected was George W. Bush talking about the importance of a free, unfettered press with �" wait for it: Ellen. Yes, we've entered the alternative universe in which Bush 2 is on Ellen . Remember when George W. was the Worst President Ever? Now he's this affable painter who does portraits of wounded soldiers and spends half the year in Africa working for women's health issues. It should be noted, Dick Cheney is still satanic.
On her March 2 show with Bush, Ellen said, "Trump is waging an outright war against all press and not allowing press to do their job, which I think is a very dangerous thing." Bush agreed, saying, "Here is what I believed when I was president, and post-president: The nation needs a free and independent press. Power can be very corrupting, and we need a press corps to hold politicians to account, including me. Yeah, I didn't like it sometimes when people said things about me, but that's the job."
Bush also noted when he visited dictatorial governments he would always urge them to embrace a free press. Ellen asked Bush how he felt about Vladimir Putin. Bush was miffed that Putin didn't like his Scottish terrier Barney.
"Putin kind of dissed him," Bush said. "He looked at him like, 'You think that's a dog?' A year later Putin said, 'Would you like to meet my dog?' Laura and I were with Putin in this dacha outside Moscow, and out comes a giant hound loping across the yard, and Putin looks at me and says, 'Bigger, stronger, and faster than Barney.'" Clearly the nuanced language of Russian literature has never touched Putin.
Bush said, "He's got a chip on his shoulder. I had a contentious relationship with him, and I think whoever the president is, is going to find out that Putin will push and push until somebody stands up to him."
Rise & fall
While we appreciated the drama that left us sobbing through most of the eight hours of When We Rise, the ratings for the Dustin Black miniseries about LGBT and AIDS activism in SF during the 70s, 80s and 90s didn't fare well. This disconnect between critical kudos and flat ratings has always been a mystery to us. The fact that the numbers for WWR dropped off by a full million between the Monday debut and the Wed., Thurs. and Fri. segments made us wonder how those ratings are collected these days. Everyone we know watches TV via streaming services or on DVR. The era of sitting around the TV set when the show comes on is reserved for group viewings, like ABC's TGIT line-up, which has a huge black and gay following on Twitter Thursday nights.
Nielsen needs to rethink the ratings wars or check the Twitter mentions for each show. WWR got massive attention on Twitter from a range of viewers in every demographic: the middle-aged who lived through it, and the youthful viewers finding solidarity in evocations of real lesbian, gay and trans people. (We did note some discontent among bisexual viewers.)
We were disappointed that USA Network cancelled our favorite gay drama from last year, the thriller Eyewitness, on March 1. The reason given was low ratings.We try not to take these things personally, but with the limited LGBT menu, it's difficult not to.
That said, gay showrunner extraordinaire Ryan Murphy has been the belle of the ball since Feud debuted with a bazillion other fab shows on March 5. Murphy, who loves media attention, has been using the excitement over Feud to comment on homophobia in the TV industry and misogyny in casting. He gave some intriguing sound bites to Vox's new I Think You're Interesting podcast about what it's like to be openly gay and shopping TV shows. Noting he had been mocked by TV executives for having a "gay voice," Murphy said, "I had one meeting with an executive about a script, and I showed up at the meeting and he started imitating my voice and making feminine hand gestures, which I don't have.
"I never thought that my voice was gay until he repeated it back to me, but I literally was stunned into silence. He was just being really brutal to me. I was very pained by it. I never understood it. But right from the beginning of my career, I did feel homophobia, and I did feel 'No.' I remember one of my early agents was fired for being gay. This was in the mid-90s." Shocking. Yet we're supposed to wonder why so few TV actors/actresses have come out? Murphy, one of the most successful showrunners and executive producers on TV, told the podcast, "It was really difficult. I don't talk about it too much because it really is painful, and a lot of these people still have jobs."
Getting started in TV was arduous, and not being in the closet made it harder to get gay characters on screen. "I didn't dare start off writing gay characters, but I had outlandish characters, and I would get notes from executives saying, �Can this character dress less gay?' Even if it was a straight woman. Or, 'The language coming out of this character's mouth seems very flamboyant, which we think is too gay and will offend some viewers. Can you take that out?'"
Murphy finally had enough and began to refuse. "It made me mad, so I just sort of leaned into it, and I wrote a bisexual character. I started to write about lesbianism. I had gay characters. I would say, 'No. I won't do it. Why do you want it taken out?'" These tales are hardly unsurprising and give entree into just what a straight club TV can be, Murphy, Greg Berlanti, Bryan Fuller and Lee Daniels notwithstanding. Having WWR on network is a still a big deal, despite the miniseries charting such a pivotal point in American history.
Season 3 of American Crime premieres March 12, because there can't be enough fabulous shows on Sunday night at the same time! John Ridley's anthology takes on immigration, xenophobia and addiction this season. The bedrock of this series remains the interplay of racism, misogyny and classism in America, issues the Oscar-winning Ridley has tackled for years in his screenwriting. The Emmy-laden cast includes Felicity Huffman, Regina King, Timothy Hutton, Richard Cabral, Lili Taylor and Benito Martinez. Sandra Oh and Dallas Roberts join the ensemble this season, as does Tony-winning lesbian actor Cherry Jones.
At a panel discussion following the show's premiere screening in Beverly Hills on March 2, executive producer Michael McDonald said, "The latest installment will focus heavily on the imbalance of America's social classes, while revisiting women's rights and racial prejudice." The main thing American Crime wanted to tackle, McDonald asserted, "is the exploitation of the workforce in America, how people are working to survive, and how they're barely doing so. Modern-day slavery does exist, and we close our eyes to it."
The roles for women have been pivotal in AC, and McDonald emphasized their importance. "We have these great women, like Felicity and Regina and Lili Taylor, that show us what it's like to be a woman in America today. The series also covers reproductive rights and women's healthcare. There is a lot of examination at what it looks like to not have power."
Felicity Huffman, nominated for Emmys for seasons one and two, said both Ridley and McDonald seem to be "in the Zeitgeist. This season has to do with xenophobia. We're asking the question, 'Does someone have to lose in order for the other to win?' and, 'How we can stop that divisiveness and come together?'" How indeed?
More frothy but still packed with great actors is NBC's new sitcom Trial & Error, which is, yes, about the fun side of killing, when a young lawyer takes on a case in a small town. The show stars Nick D'Agosto, Jayma Mays, comedian Sherri Shepherd and John Lithgow, who has Tonys, Emmys and SAG Awards, to weight this show with prodigious acting cred.
Lithgow was the sun around which 3rd Rock from the Sun revolved for six seasons. Mays and Shepherd are hilarious, so T&E may be the dark humor we've been looking for as Armageddon approaches. So for a good Feud, drama that is uniquely American Crime, and the usual Trial & Error, you know you really must stay tuned.