American Dad!

Due to a human error in my home office, this week we are back raiding the archives.  Yes, I’ve failed to time the completion of any new boxset to coincide with my weekly post.  You’d think that during another lockdown, when there’s literally nothing else to do besides consume hours of TV entertainment throughout the day and into the night, I would be doing better than this.  Truth is, I’ve only gone and started a part-time MA in Creative Writing (don’t laugh, especially if you see no improvement in the quality of this blog) and so I am occasionally drawn away from the big telly screen in one corner of the room to the smaller laptop screen in a different corner of the same room.  You’ve gotta switch it up.  I shan’t apologise for this oversight, as I can do whatever I want (provided I stick to government guidelines about staying two metres away from all other humans, unless I am testing my eyesight), but it’s also allowing me to reminisce about a show that’s linked to significant memories in my life: American Dad!  The exclamation mark is in the show’s title; I am not overexcited.

Now seems like a good time to turn our attention to a cartoon that set out to lampoon American foreign policy and domestic culture wars.  The year was 2005.  I was an undergraduate.  The White House was covered in Bush.  We were told our biggest fear was terrorism, to distract us from climate change and a lack of equality.  Sixteen years later, the US is recovering from an individual who makes Bush look like a harmless uncle, I’m jaded by thirteen years of office work (but am back studying), we’ve made little progress on climate change, some on equality but not enough, and the culture wars are worse than ever.  But there’s hope in America (if not yet in the UK).

American Dad! follows the Smith family, headed up by CIA career man Stan, often serving as the boomer/conservative voice, his wife Francine (she comes and goes policy-wise), and their two entitled millennial kids: Steve and Hayley.  The humour comes from the characters and the farcical things they do, often originating in Stan’s unerring patriotism and crashing into the kids’ sensitivities and/or self-obsessions.  This, plus the Washington DC setting, probably all sounds a bit vanilla.  Firstly, let’s point out that one of its co-creators is Seth MacFarlane, the comic behind Family Guy (which needs a post here too).  Any earnestness is therefore dowsed in irreverence, invoking the truism of South Park: everyone on every side of every argument is stupid.

Adding, then, to our human silliness, I’d now like to tell you all about Roger, the alien.  Hiding out at the Smiths’ after being captured during secret CIA work, Roger comes armed with a third option of opinion that often lays waste to those of the Smith generations.  An incorrigible sass-mouth, whose penchant for showing off clashes with his need to remain hidden, Roger has all the best lines and has to be carefully rationed in each episode so we are left wanting more.  He’s a world champion of dressing up though, which develops in later seasons (there are seventeen and counting) to allow more and more walks of life to be laid bare and exposed as nonsense.  Contrasting with his sharp wit, there’s also a German goldfish who’s pervy for Francine but unfunny in every other way.  He also murders the German language with incorrect grammar, and this is unacceptable on all levels.

I’ll admit to being way behind on keeping up with American Dad!  It was 2007 when we first got our hands on DVDs (yes, ancient times) of the show.  Such was our excitement that we gathered round someone’s laptop to watch them the minute they arrived.  It happened to be the day I had finished my last final exam (I had to sit eight three-hour papers dressed in an academic outfit called subfusc: dark suit, white bow tie, commoner’s gown, a carnation of the right colour, carrying a mortarboard).  The university tradition was for friends to meet you from your final paper to throw streamers and silly string over you, give you drinks and congratulate you for surviving.  I was therefore still in my formal get-up, covered in crap, and full of cheap booze.  You’re supposed to have a wild night out to enjoy your new freedom.  But I was powerless to resist the promise of subversive new animated comedy from America.  Indeed this is proof that I have always been cool, especially as I fell asleep after only a couple of episodes, but not before I’d heard Roger utter his immortal lines: “By the way, Hayley, oh my god. These Chocodiles. These Chocodiles, Hayley. Oh my god. These Chocodiles. Oh my god.”

 

Atlanta

It was good while it lasted, but now we’re staying in again apparently.  I’m sure that will help.  Naturally, while rushing around seeing friends in the run up to everything closing again, talk turned, as it often does, to boxsets that could help pass the time while we wait for unelected government advisors to test their eyesight.  To anyone that will listen, I’ve been recommending Atlanta.  The show had long been on my list of things I must get round to, but it didn’t seem to be anywhere until its recent appearance on the BBC’s iPlayer.  Maybe it slipped on while they were busy making VTs about how this year’s series of Strictly is keeping to social distancing guidelines even though nobody cares anymore and just wants to watch some dancing.  Where I failed in my explanation though was in bringing to life the joys of Atlanta and why this is such a seminal show (it’s at number 124 currently on the IMDB list of top-rated shows, just behind Line Of Duty, which, when you think of how many TV programmes there are out in there in the world, is very good going).

I’ll just wheel out some clichés here about why Atlanta defies categorisation.  It breaks the mould.  It’s one of a kind.  It’s truly unique.  Ok, there we go.  Now let’s talk about Donald Glover.  Our Donnie G is the creative force behind the whole show.  This is what made me realise that I needed Atlanta in my life.  Ever since I finished all his episodes of Community (Troy and Abed in the morning) there’s been a Troy Barnes-shaped chasm in my soul.  But gone are the bright smiles and innocent confusion of that character.  Instead we have scowling, unkempt facial hair and almost everything going wrong.  In Atlanta, Glover plays Earn, our leading man who isn’t really leading anyone anywhere (and is remarkably generous about stepping back to let the other characters shine).  We learn that he’s had educational potential, but it’s not amounted to much, with him struggling to hold down jobs, find places to live, care for his daughter and girlfriend.  We see his mum barring him entry to the house.  Throughout all of this, though, we root for Earn, a well-meaning everyman who’s often tested by but mostly tolerates the nonsense and weirdness of those around him.  And they are:

Van

Initially a background figure under the heading of baby momma, it’s thanks to Zazie Beetz’s magnetism that we’re grateful to see Vanessa step forward into focus as the two seasons progress.  She’s always surprising, whether whipping out richtig gut German in Helen at a crazy Bavarian festival (making it clear that we white folk are whack), dealing with her wasted friends at a supposed Drake party in Champagne Papi or struggling with an imbalanced and outdated friendship in Value.  These female-led instalments have lower ratings than the others, but this is just one of life’s great injustices.  Van steals my heart each time she rolls her eyes at others’ Instagram behaviour, so may we ever get to see more of her.

Paper Boi

This is actually Alfred, Earn’s cousin and smalltime-going-on-bigtime rapper.  When he can’t get off the sofa due to laziness, we really believe it, but Brian Tyree Henry comes into his own when required to cold-hard stare at anyone spouting nonsense.  In Barbershop, his frustration while trying to get a fade is so palpable it led me to sack off trying to pin down a barber to cut my hair before lockdown.  His must-see moment, though, is in B.A.N. when he’s forced to answer for his views on a late-night panel show, ambushed at every turn by virtue-signalling wokeness while the awkwardness is interspersed with fake adverts for African Americans on this pastiche of a popular channel.  Spoof ads have always had a special place in my amusement chambers and this episode delivers multiple belly laughs as a result.

Darius

Mostly found in Alfred’s kitchen, Darius is never doing what you expect him to.  LaKeith Stanfield is perfect at all times, never more so than when dealing with Teddy Perkins in a Michael Jackson-alike episode.

The rest of Atlanta is populated by all manner of grotesques, offering acerbic commentary on how race in the US interplays with wealth, work, education, family life, music, social media and just about everything you can think of.  We have humour in the deadpan observations, but also heartbreak in how easy it is to recognise these inequalities as very very real.  Atlanta’s strength comes from making everything somehow universal so that you’re forced to identify with the action as it unfolds.  But it doesn’t care what you’re expecting, calling to mind an I May Destroy You approach of drawing focus to whatever is more interesting, not what necessarily seems best placed to come next.  As such, each episode creates a work of its own, setting its own mix of characters, locations and times.  The throwback to Earn and Alfred’s schooldays seems at first leftfield, but artfully grounds what follows.

The soundtrack doesn’t stint on bangers and there’s even joy to behold in the opening credits.  Atlanta appears somewhere on screen in its unmistakable font, but you need to keep your eyes peeled to spot it among the madness.  I found myself tingling each time with excitement at the prospect of finding it, but maybe I need to get out more.  But I can’t because I’m now government-mandated to stay in.  The pandemic doesn’t stop there: it’s delayed production on the third series, automatically giving any return of Atlanta the epithet long-awaited.  And I shall wait as long as it takes.

 

Love Island USA

In a roller coaster year of dizzying highs and terrifying lows, I’m going to point the finger at ITV2 for being both the cause of and the solution to a large number of these peaks and troughs.  As we all know, the calendar year is built around Love Island.  Normally those wonderful weeks of coupling up each night with an hour of guaranteed good telly (apart from the oddly unengaging Saturday night highlights/unseen shows) synchronise with our British summers of torrential downpours and sticky sticky heatwaves (both of which give everyone a first-hand experience of our climate crisis future), but 2020 got off to a great start with an absolute glut of Majorcan madness thanks to the inaugural series of winter Love Island.

But then, as we all know, pandemic pandemonium took hold and nobody knew how to make a show about cracking on if contestants had to remain two metres apart, not to mention the indecipherable lottery that foreign travel had become.  With a shrug, the whole series was cancelled and my life was ruined.  Then, it was divulged there would be no further winter edition in 2021, meaning it was over a year till the next UK series.  I can cope with supermarket queues and remote working under the threat of redundancy, but this was a major gut punch.  Naturally, I blamed Boris.  Naturally, he blamed immigration.  Surely Love Island 2020 could go ahead if everyone claimed they were testing their eyesight?

ITV redeemed themselves by screening Love Island Australia and, even though it was an old series, it was the vape to the cigarette of my Love Island addiction.  But then someone had the bright idea of taking Love Island USA and giving it to us in real time, allowing a glorious watch-along with our American brethren – it turns out our special relationship extends beyond a catastrophic covid response and being led by privileged petulant blonde fatties.  Of course, I stopped for half a second to wonder how on earth the States were going to run a reality dating show which involves the liberal exchanging of bodily fluids (orally, mostly) in the midst of a world health emergency.

Apparently, the islanders quarantined before entering the villa, ensuring a negative test for the virus.  More importantly, while a luxury island was out of the question, the perfect solution was found in a Las Vegas rooftop.  Offering hot weather and the constant background hum of downtown traffic (interspersed with sirens), the producers had struck gold.  In fact, so much of Love Island’s much-needed escapism comes from its almost complete refusal to engage with the outside world.  There were some initial comments about lockdown, but our couples soon became the truly insular islanders we would expect.  Sure, we’re all sick of corona, but the absence of a single mention of Black Lives Matter among a group of diverse young people seems like a missed opportunity.  Even Justine opening up about her family’s time in a Kenyan refugee camp barely warranted more than a few seconds of screen time when I could happily have watched a one-hour special on the subject.

But, if to Love-Island is to act as if the outside world doesn’t matter, then this series of Love Island USA is serving up pure escapism with our perception of reality deliberately removed.  The pandemic doesn’t matter.  The centuries of racial oppression don’t matter.  The climate crisis doesn’t matter.  All that matters is finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, as being single is the greatest travesty of all.  But, whereas 2019’s season of Love Island USA made the competition to couple up all too obvious, taking the more American approach to reality TV (ruthless game-planning), this new version has realised that a lot of the format’s charm lies in sticking closely to the silliness of the UK original.  At last, we have an irreverent voiceover, mocking every single thing our island young folk get up to.  A glamorous host wonders in on the odd occasion with bad news.  People shout out “got a text!”  The ridiculous challenges have been shipped over and acted out blow by blow (literally), while Casa Amor was a resounding triumph, descending quickly into explosive orgiastic debauchery and creating great telly.  I shall hand it to the Americans – they are TV naturals.  Unlike the Brits, they take themselves a touch more seriously and are better at articulating their emotions, and they will never shy away from a cheesy Hollywood moment with no sense of irony, but the senses of humour are there, alongside the budding friendships you want to join in with.  Of particular note this season is the island girls’ predilection for slipping suddenly into outrageous British accents to ask each other: “Are you alriiiight?”  This contrasts delightfully with their otherwise as-apple-pie American accents and is a healthy reminder of how stupid British people must sound abroad.  And at home.

Of course, the teeth are whiter, but the bikinis and trunks are no tighter.  Some bits are different, some are the same, but it’s enough to tide me over in my lockdown (will we, won’t we) viewing.  Sometimes it’s nice not to hear the T word (Trump) or to see human beings experience social contact without a curtain-twitching neighbour tutting.  And if you’re looking for pure joy, I recommend Cely from this year’s cohort.  Her constant ray of positivity starts every morning when she jumps out of bed with glee while her co-islander squint and groan, before she goes on to tackle every challenge and tribulation with laughter and good humour.  As the final approaches it will be interesting to see what American viewers make of her relationship with Johnny and whether they rate it over the slower and steadier Justine and Caleb.  All I know is I’ll be sorry again when it’s all over, but maybe there’s another international version of Love Island I can distract myself with.

 

Friday Night Lights

In life, it’s important to have goals.  I’ve only set very few over the years so I can focus on each in turn.  The first was to go to Oxford – something I decided at the age of about eight apparently.  Once that was achieved (it was expensive, and they still email me asking for money that I am never going to give them), the next was to become a published writer.  Still haven’t managed that, but I think one out of two in my 34 years is a pretty decent strike weight.  A completion rate of 50% is better than 0%.  So, while number two eludes me, other interim goals crop up.  One was to buy a flat, and that dominated the last ten years before this summer’s eventual Help To Buy transaction, and another was to watch all five series of Friday Night Lights.  And now, everybody, I have finally delivered that goal.  So let’s all read my blogpost about it.

First things first, I should declare my lifelong aversion to team ball sports.  I grew up in a household where football wasn’t a thing.  My dad’s only sporting interest involved filling our home with the bone-chilling screech of Formula 1 tires and Murray Walker’s whiny exclamations every Sunday, with many a roast dinner soundtracked by what became two of my least favourite sounds.  With nobody realising I was short-sighted till my teens and my appalling hypermobility-linked proprioception, taking part in any sort of PE involved me not only being unable to see any balls that were launched at me, but also an inability to position my limbs to intercept them successfully.  My adult life therefore is an extension of my childhood home: sport is not a thing.  I save hours every night by not having to watch soccer matches, and I replace the office chat I see pursued around me about whose team beat whose and which players will lift what cups by having an actual personality.  However, I love dramas about sport.  It’s a theme for good narrative tension, like zombies (see The Walking Dead) and prisons (see Prison Break).  Let’s be honest, I’ve written fondly about Footballers’ Wives, and probably repeated most of those points here, so Friday Night Lights falls into that category.

The show is based on a book that had already become a film.  I’d loved the film, so I remember adding the first series to my Lovefilm list back in the dark ages when DVDs were sent back and forth in the post.  I got through the first two series and then, pow, I couldn’t for the life of me get hold of the subsequent instalments up to and including the final fifth season.  This caused years of discontent, as everything about the show was brilliant and I was desperate to see what happened to the characters I so dearly loved.  The later series were available on a friend’s Amazon Prime account, but you had to pay for each one.  As a Millennial, paying for content is a cause of great internal conflict, so I kept my pennies and my anxieties about what becomes of the Dillon Panthers football team.  Finding out became a lifelong ambition.  But, with the new flat came the decision to get my own Amazon Prime and by this point all series were included in the monthly subscription.  I could finally complete my task and achieve my goal.  And the outcome?  This amazing piece of writing for all seven of my regular readers.

Let’s cover what the show’s all about.  We are talking American football here.  Set in the state of Texas, where this sport is a religion, the end-of-week evening illuminations in the show’s title refer to the significance of high school football matches in small-town America.  I’ve only been to Austin in Texas, so this is sadly not something I’ve experienced first-hand, but this can go on the list of lifelong goals now.  Our heroes are Coach Eric Taylor (the cracking Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami Taylor (the equally cracking Connie Britton) – these wonderful characters are the heart of our show.  I might be in my mid-thirties, but I am available for adoption to these two.  With the whole town holding its breath for football wins each Friday, the sporting fixtures in their own right generate gripping drama.  But this is then compounded by the human stories around the sport, from the ever-evolving dynamic between Coach and Tami, to the players, their families and their friends.  The whole town of Dillon feels tangibly brought to life.

A word of warning: the whole thing is filmed in wobbly cam.  It’s as if the camera operator was trying to bat away flies throughout each shoot.  This gives an intimacy to the portrayals which is heightened by the quality of the performances throughout.  The show launched the careers of Taylor Kitsch and Michael B. Jordan, but you’ll recognise faces from an array of your favourite US dramas.  I’m going to focus on some of the peripheral characters whose actors’ names never make the emotive opening credits but whose work lifts the whole thing.  There’s Brad Leland as Buddy Garrity, a role that initially irritates before elevating itself to favourite position.  I also finished the show with a deep appreciation of Stacey Oristano as Mindy Collette.  There are too many more to mention, but the quality is consistent.  Sadly, one other element of consistency is the Taylors’ daughter, Julie.  She is annoying and stupid throughout.

On my part, I’ve also maintained the consistent approach of never understanding the rules of American football.  So much of the drama can hinge around things like who is the quarterback or how many yards are left, but not knowing what these really mean is no barrier to the show’s power.  Most remarkably of all, though, is each season’s ability to build on the previous while still finding a fresh direction.  Somehow, over the years, I ended up watching the third series twice, but it’s the perfect shift between the very different dynamics (which I won’t actually describe here as that would be giving spoilers) of the beginning and end of the programme’s lifespan.  I do remember thinking the finale to the third season was the whitest thing I had ever seen (and I grew up in semirural Surrey), but the subsequent series shift in focus to reflect and include a more holistic view of American culture.  And then, either way, your heart breaks as everything draws to a close and your life must continue without any news episodes.

So I’ll chalk up Friday Night Lights as another chapter in my love affair with America.  I’m even writing this from a Chinatown hotel room in New York, wondering why the US hasn’t got the memo about waste as plastic bags are given out freely here still and the entire hotel breakfast was an exercise in plastic landfill generation (disposable crockery and cutlery…).  But I’ll also chalk it up as an exemplary contribution to the canon of quality boxsets.  Intense drama, plausible characters, a subject matter that isn’t overdone and, even though I’m conflicted about this as I wanted more, it ends before it runs out of steam.  No matter the day of the week or the time of the day, I cannot recommend Friday Night Lights enough.