The Season of Lowered Expectations…

  

I’m always so upbeat in the fall -  there’s a chill in the air, crisp apples at the market, new school clothes all heralding a fresh start - a new beginning!  There is the first day of school, the beginning of the new TV season and a new show at the Ahmanson.  But this fall, after the start of my daughter’s school and the start of the new season at the Ahmanson, I’m officially lowering my expectations for what’s to come on TV.

 

As some of you may remember, I am in charge of the first fundraiser at my daughter’s school-- the Magazine Drive, which is really, really aggravating, but it funds the entire yearly PTO budget so I do it and it’s not that difficult.  Everybody reads magazines!  Until this year…  there is nothing quite like trying to sell something as useless as a magazine subscription while our country’s financial infrastructure is crumbling around us.  “I know you can’t make your mortgage payment, but don’t you want a subscription to "People" magazine to while away the evenings while you’re living in your car?”  Not the best sales tactic.

 

But that’s the school’s problem, right?  It’s still the start of the school year-- sharp pencils, new sneakers…  Okay so in the mere 13 days of school we’ve had so far, my daughter has been out with strep throat, a fever and now pneumonia!  At home, per the teacher’s instructions, in addition to her regular schoolwork and homework, I have given her a math test, a spelling test and we are now working on a self-portrait for art class.  At this point, I’m pretty much home schooling…  And not happily, I might add.

 

Although the fall has not started out as brightly for us at home as I might have hoped, I headed off to the first show of my subscription at the Ahmanson with optimism.  We were seeing "9-5," a new musical!  Not a touring company of a Broadway show cast with actors who weren’t good enough to get into the original cast-- this time we were seeing the best.  The ones the show was written for.  OK, so maybe I should say “adapted” for since it’s a musicalization of a movie, which seems to be the Broadway template these days.  But heck, I enjoyed "Hairspray"!  And "The Producers"… sort of. 

 

 Well, the lights went down, the music began and there we were, listening to that same song I heard on the radio… watching dancers dressed in fashions from the 1970s doing 1970s choreography.  Hmmm…  Maybe they could have updated?  Ah, wait - now there’s entrance applause - I open my program eagerly to see what star we are welcoming to the stage.  Hmm… don’t know the name.  And it happens again.  Again, don’t recognize the name.  Interesting, since I’m pretty well versed in NY theatre and usually know all the big stars. 

 

At last I notice Allison Janney, a person who I believe actually IS a star.  But maybe not a singing star…  OK, rather than drag you through my experience of the never-ending first act (I can’t tell you any more than that since I left at intermission), I’ll just say that while Stephanie J. Block and Megan Hilty are very good singers (and apparently just finished starring in the touring production of "Wicked" that played the Pantages for the last year or so) and Allison Janney is a very good actress, I don’t know that a musical of "9-5" was what America really needs right now.  Or ever. 

 

While Hilty does an amazing job channeling the young Dolly Parton, I think the new songs by Parton are probably meant to be sung by Parton and probably on a country radio station and not a pre-Broadway stage.  Look to be perfectly honest, I’m sure the movie was fine in its day, but no matter what side of our current political situation you fall on, it’s hard to watch women called “girls,” secretaries being chased around the desk and divorcees as women to be pitied. 

 

Sure, if I had stayed for the second act, I’d have seen the women teach that horrible boss (played with no redeeming qualities at all by Marc Kudisch) the lesson he clearly deserved.  I just couldn’t bear to sit through one more mediocre song, no matter how spectacularly sung, one more kitchily choreographed number no matter how well executed, one more vivid '70s costume no matter how funny or one more remarkable change of the motorized set no matter how inventive.  I just didn’t care.  I didn’t like these people.  And while I haven’t seen the movie in many MANY years, I do remember liking them.  And that’s why I cared how it all turned out.  This time, I didn’t. 

 

So whether the girls go to jail for kidnapping their boss or whether he overpowers them and shoots them all dead, it mattered to me not at all.  I just wanted to get out of there.  Now, in my audience at least, I was CLEARLY in the minority.  I felt a little like the kid seeing the Emperor’s new clothes (“Hello, he’s naked!!”) but I felt exactly the same a month ago in NYC when I saw the Broadway production of a musical that I’m fairly certain won’t be heading out here to Los Angeles.  But in these days of lowered expectations, stranger things have happened.

 

So since the school year and the Ahmanson season have been such a disappointment to me, I’m throwing in the towel ahead of time on the new TV season.  I’m happy to watch the last few episodes of "Project Runway" and the beginning of "Dancing With the Stars."  But I think I’ll just wait until the Nielson ratings come in before I flip on one episode of a new scripted series.  Because I am tired of seeing the naked Emperor.  So here’s to lower expectations.  Let’s hope November brings some change.