The Morning After: Slap Happy

I was too young for Twin Peaks, but heard it was great, so I got the dvds and watched them all earlier in the year, and loved it. And also thought “There’s no way they could air that today, absolutely no way.” And it wasn’t just the at times terrifying content. It’s the fact that the major channels treat their viewers like morons. I can’t think of an exception for a drama besides Lost.

I read some other reviews that just destroyed Happy Town but I wanted to give it a shot. It wasn’t good. The first half hour was pretty bad actually. But then I decided I’d watch it as silly camp, and it got better. Once I viewed it as ridiculous and over the top I could stomach it. I’ll watch next week’s. I’m not making the case for it, I acknowledge that it’s bad, but I’ll play along .

i watched Happy Town only to see Amy Acker (Dr. Saunders from Dollhouse). long live Dollhouse!
but the episode was really trite. my head hurts from all of the eye-rolling i did.

I’m with Rorschack, I stopped groaning so much once I just started viewing it as campy and ridiculous, and didn’t exactly hate it. I wasn’t particularly interested, and I didn’t take a liking to any of the characters, but I’ll certainly give it a few weeks, if only out of loyalty to Amy Acker.

That said, none of the criticisms are really off-base. My biggest issues were that there were too many characters (most of them cliches) introduced all at once, and the dialogue was VERY clunky and too expositional – and it was like some of the writing was trying too hard to be clever (“I’m so over this Romeo and Juliet thing”, etc), without actually ever getting there (basically, a bad imitation of Joss Whedon).

The best version of horror on TV is Supernatural. That show is an awesome blend of scary, creepy, and funny, and it is great with blending/balancing monster of the week episodes with interesting ongoing story arcs. Plus, it manages to have top-notch character development, great acting, and fantastic supporting characters. As I’ve said many times before, folks who are not watching Supernatural are missing out on something really special.

@sharasays: agree completely on Supernatural. It manages to do something Buffy – in all its glory – never achieved with any consistency: being scary. The way they blend Americana with classic horror and fantasy tropes is a big part of the show’s appeal, too.
Plus: lotsa lotsa quite relentless gore, which really serves to highlight the ridiculousness of current network restrictions on swearing and nudity. Grisly dismemberment yes, boobs and bad words no.