(5 minus, actually)
Tonight's episode: Season finale sees everything going into a musical, I kid thee not. Once it starts, it actually seems it's gonna stay that way. Do not adjust your set.
Some multiple choice: Ryan Murphy, when he wrote this, was (a) stoned (b) high (c) in flagrante delecto. How the hell could he otherwise have had the utter gall to inflict this final insult upon the viewing public?
You have to see this episode for yourself to understand my rant. It has got to be a dream sequence, nothing, nothing, makes sense. It revels in just exactly that. Is it truly funny, is it good zany comedy? No, it is just junk.
Takes the cake home from the fun fair for being out there.
It's been this way from almost the beginning.
I wouldn't have had anything against the concept of a surreal cartoonish TV show, but when I set out to buy this on DVD, I had thought it to be something along the lines of BEVERLY HILLS 90210. You know, with the rivalry between Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) and the Tiffani-Amber Thiessen character. I do not do too much research before buying, lest I encounter spoilers, so I generally just find out about the cast and a basic summary. And I had very, very high hopes for POPULAR. Okay, so I had a pre-conceived idea of what it might be, and I thought, two girls flying into each other's hair regularly, could only be fun.
That is what it is about. Ostensibly. But it's really just campy old Ryan Murphy of NIP/TUCK doing a freaking gay parade. Just like in NIP/TUCK, two out of every three characters are, well, not only gay, they are super-super-super gay, it becomes an endless buzz of very odd people of dubious orientation. Do not get me wrong. I do not have anything against crazies. I am one myself. But the theme, what it should have been, took second place to Ryan's mission to do a whole GLAD field day, obviously lasting 43 weeks. Things just get too weird for straight boys. Just like in NIP/TUCK. This one isn't advertised as such, not packaged as such, it's not the teen rivalry show it should be, it is a murky mess of surreal happenings, with the queerest goings-on. Queer, man, queer.
Yes, two really great female leads. I am fond of them. But I wanna boo the story-line week after week. Junk followed by more tripe followed by absolute drivel.
You could laugh at it. You could roll around in stitches, I suppose. It's really not as funny as the creators think it is. But okay, sure there are moments. The whole thing is however EMBARRASSING, and that really gets to the nitty-gritty of my argument. Admit that you enjoy POPULAR to your friends? Ooh you must be a nut. With a low IQ. You have to be. A true guilty pleasure for the totally low-class. Like NIP/TUCK.
But with two high-class lead actresses. Leslie Bibb, Carly Pope, you should have been in MELROSE PLACE.