#Dan Quayle does not understand how this works but okay

[lil-als]

Inspired by @anteabbie’s telling presidents on characterai that she’s pregnant…. Veeps!

[gwydionmisha]

Re: Murphy Brown.

Her show started in the time period when I had extremely limited access to television.  When I was a philosophy monk, there were a tiny number of shared televisions, plus a very few private ones.  The shared ones were mostly used for news or rented videos.  We would all gather around the private ones in the afternoon for sesame Street as there was a fad for watching it like a soap opera and a lot of interest in Maria's pregnancy.  When I moved west, I still didn't have a TV for the first year at least, though my Lover and I would watch a few things like In Living Colour or rented movies on his Mom's set when she wasn't using it and we weren't  busy with work (me), University (him), or our extremely packed social life.  Eventually my parents got me a small TV and VCR for a combined Christmas/Birthday present, but the few sit coms we watched were the ones my lover liked since I'd mostly lost my taste for them.  Murphy Brown wasn't one of the tiny number of ones he watched, him not being even a little political.  I rooted for Candice Bergen and her peeps when Dan Quayle went after them, but I've literal never seen even a few minutes of the original show.  I completely understand the political and cultural importance of the show, and very specifically her decision to have a son, but I don't know these characters or history and they have no resonance for me.

I watched the premiere of the reboot anyway, for what should be obvious reasons.  I really loved the sympathy for the Devil opening montage, which was clever and surprisingly sharp for a modern sit com, suggesting they aren't going to pull their punches politically.  I could tell how exciting catching up with the various characters must be for people who loved the original show, and I could guess some things from the careful way they reintroduced them, but I simply don't have the referents for it to mean what it does for the target audience.  I am rather worried that they are laughing at the one character's mental illness as it seems to be as punchline, instead of portrayed as something people are sympathetic to.  Their use of Hillary Clinton was fascinating, but I can't decide if it was funny or just pandering to people like me.  I'm not sure in general if I actually want to be watching it.  I wanted to to be funnier, to be honest, and it was like a lot of the jokes were just missing me.  I mean, I got them, but they seemed like things that would be funny to someone on the left about ten-twenty years older than me, which makes sense, really, me being an Xer instead of a Boomer.  I've been watching TV aimed at the Boomer market a good chunk of my life, because that's what nearly all TV was my whole growing up and what most was for a good chunk of my adulthood.  I'm used to TV not really being designed for me, and on those incredibly rare occasions I find something that actually is, like Torchwood, Black Sails, Pose, Brooklyn 99, or Last Week Tonight, I get incredibly excited.

I find the new Murphy Brown meh, but that doesn't mean it's objectively bad.  All it means is it's one of a ton of things that look like things I'd like on paper but turn out not to be for me, and that's okay.  I may or may not watch a second one to see if they suit me better with more exposure, but I don't think they will.  I still wish Ms. Bergen and the rest the very best of luck, because what they are doing is important, just as it was once upon a time when I was young.