Two things about this episode. (1) Are they dimming the allure of Brooke, for I start to notice less and less of those beautiful close-ups on her, + I start to notice Sam a whole lot more. Sam's more radiant, while Brooke is not always at her best.
(2) What this review is mostly all about - my fading hope for this series.
This series had all the earmarks of what I thought I would really like. Meanwhile, as a NIP/TUCK viewer, I was growing increasingly critical of Ryan Murphy (that is well documented here on IMDb) and I was kinda put off to realize my recently-acquired POPULAR is also the brainchild of that guy. Would it show?
At first, despite obviously gross-out stuff like yucky super close-ups of formaldehyde frogs, I was quite lyrical of this series, and announced here at IMDb how POPULAR it was with me. But it didn't take long for this initial bubble to burst.
The miscasting of this show is something to make me scream! While the haters have it in for poor doe-eyed long-limbed blonde cheerleader darling Brooke, Leslie Bibb is one of the few who is actually 100% correctly cast. She IS the character. Now, I like Carly Pope, and I wouldn't want anybody else to play the part of Sam, but she is miscast, she's too hot to play the dowdy bookish nerd girl Sam is supposed to be. But I'm not complaining. Nobody complains about Carly. Nothing to complain about.
It's the others. Except Tamara Mello. She also fits in 100% and to top that, I think the casting directors had an especially lucky strike there, as she is, I think, even better than what I'm sure was originally envisioned.
It's (1) chief culprit Tammy Lynn Michaels as Nicole Julian. That ugly-to-the-core character is held up as a popular girl, with stretches belief every time the cartoonishly despicable creature appears on screen. In real life, she'd have been shunned aside, especially by morally-uptight conscientious Brooke. Tammy Lynn overdoes the whole approach, it is a horrendous sight, she is cut out to play a militaristic femme- Nazi, but not a cheerleader. Every time I watch, I am brought back to reality: How could they have chosen her? Better choice: Marnette Patterson. I admit, I don't know if that lovely girl was available at that time, perhaps a bit too early, a couple years later she was wonderful in the last season of CHARMED.
{addendum to the above: currently watching WILD THINGS, 1998, wow, Denise Richards would have been perfect. Incidentally, that courtroom scene with Denise glowering, maybe this is the very thing that Tammy Lynn tried to copy? Wild stab in the dark, but I wouldn't be (too) surprised if I'm actually right...}
(2) That little weasel of a guy who plays Harrison John. He is getting on my nerves. He has a smug little face, his character is fickle and a fake and a flake, and he is supposed to be the hero (or so I figured at the beginning) yet the story-line doesn't catch up on this. He is perhaps sailing past the average viewer, but I hate the little bastard. The actor comes across as being a smug little thing in real life as well, I don't know if that is the case, and don't care. On-screen, I don't like him, while the script obviously requires someone we would root for. Not me. I want a pie (actually, more...) squished into his avaricious little face.
(3) the weighty cheerleader, Carmen. Jeesh people, being overweight, and disenfranchised because of that, doesn't automatically entitle you to have what strict-disciplined other girls also strive to have and some also cannot obtain. A Me-generation overweight chick figures she would be popular if she is on the cheerleading team, hah! In this episode, off that kick, she goes for the head cheerleader's boyfriend. Well, dream. But, get real. Get real, quick. She criticizes the system, but she sets her sights exactly like the perpetrators of the system, without understanding the irony of her whole line of thinking. So she wants to play the same game as well when it suits her. Look, in real life there is a damned reason why I myself am sitting here with a freaking little cellphone feverishly hitting at digital keys while I'm not preparing to go date Taylor Swift. Don't go out trying to be what you're not.
(4) Leslie Grossman as Mary Cherry. Now, allow me to say this, but Leslie Grossman is seriously from another planet. She gives some performance, but in real life, Mary Cherry would have been an outcast. Okay, she has the $$$, but still...
(5) Poppy. Would. So. Obviously. Have. Been. An. Outcast. I mean, not only is she of a different culture, she's mostly weird too. Yet she is highly critical of others, while being a geeky little thing.
(6) the blind school principal. Whose eyes follow people as they move. Who says things like "I want to see you in my office." Wake up scriptwriters!!!!!!!!
All these things contribute to the growing notion that this show is a big disappointment. There are some minor parts, Emory Dick and April Tuna, that are well-cast, I point that out in fairness, and I totally adore the opening sequence. And the Carly + Leslie stand-off team. But... if only some seriously needed firing could have been done...
If only I could vote them out of Kennedy High...
(2) What this review is mostly all about - my fading hope for this series.
This series had all the earmarks of what I thought I would really like. Meanwhile, as a NIP/TUCK viewer, I was growing increasingly critical of Ryan Murphy (that is well documented here on IMDb) and I was kinda put off to realize my recently-acquired POPULAR is also the brainchild of that guy. Would it show?
At first, despite obviously gross-out stuff like yucky super close-ups of formaldehyde frogs, I was quite lyrical of this series, and announced here at IMDb how POPULAR it was with me. But it didn't take long for this initial bubble to burst.
The miscasting of this show is something to make me scream! While the haters have it in for poor doe-eyed long-limbed blonde cheerleader darling Brooke, Leslie Bibb is one of the few who is actually 100% correctly cast. She IS the character. Now, I like Carly Pope, and I wouldn't want anybody else to play the part of Sam, but she is miscast, she's too hot to play the dowdy bookish nerd girl Sam is supposed to be. But I'm not complaining. Nobody complains about Carly. Nothing to complain about.
It's the others. Except Tamara Mello. She also fits in 100% and to top that, I think the casting directors had an especially lucky strike there, as she is, I think, even better than what I'm sure was originally envisioned.
It's (1) chief culprit Tammy Lynn Michaels as Nicole Julian. That ugly-to-the-core character is held up as a popular girl, with stretches belief every time the cartoonishly despicable creature appears on screen. In real life, she'd have been shunned aside, especially by morally-uptight conscientious Brooke. Tammy Lynn overdoes the whole approach, it is a horrendous sight, she is cut out to play a militaristic femme- Nazi, but not a cheerleader. Every time I watch, I am brought back to reality: How could they have chosen her? Better choice: Marnette Patterson. I admit, I don't know if that lovely girl was available at that time, perhaps a bit too early, a couple years later she was wonderful in the last season of CHARMED.
{addendum to the above: currently watching WILD THINGS, 1998, wow, Denise Richards would have been perfect. Incidentally, that courtroom scene with Denise glowering, maybe this is the very thing that Tammy Lynn tried to copy? Wild stab in the dark, but I wouldn't be (too) surprised if I'm actually right...}
(2) That little weasel of a guy who plays Harrison John. He is getting on my nerves. He has a smug little face, his character is fickle and a fake and a flake, and he is supposed to be the hero (or so I figured at the beginning) yet the story-line doesn't catch up on this. He is perhaps sailing past the average viewer, but I hate the little bastard. The actor comes across as being a smug little thing in real life as well, I don't know if that is the case, and don't care. On-screen, I don't like him, while the script obviously requires someone we would root for. Not me. I want a pie (actually, more...) squished into his avaricious little face.
(3) the weighty cheerleader, Carmen. Jeesh people, being overweight, and disenfranchised because of that, doesn't automatically entitle you to have what strict-disciplined other girls also strive to have and some also cannot obtain. A Me-generation overweight chick figures she would be popular if she is on the cheerleading team, hah! In this episode, off that kick, she goes for the head cheerleader's boyfriend. Well, dream. But, get real. Get real, quick. She criticizes the system, but she sets her sights exactly like the perpetrators of the system, without understanding the irony of her whole line of thinking. So she wants to play the same game as well when it suits her. Look, in real life there is a damned reason why I myself am sitting here with a freaking little cellphone feverishly hitting at digital keys while I'm not preparing to go date Taylor Swift. Don't go out trying to be what you're not.
(4) Leslie Grossman as Mary Cherry. Now, allow me to say this, but Leslie Grossman is seriously from another planet. She gives some performance, but in real life, Mary Cherry would have been an outcast. Okay, she has the $$$, but still...
(5) Poppy. Would. So. Obviously. Have. Been. An. Outcast. I mean, not only is she of a different culture, she's mostly weird too. Yet she is highly critical of others, while being a geeky little thing.
(6) the blind school principal. Whose eyes follow people as they move. Who says things like "I want to see you in my office." Wake up scriptwriters!!!!!!!!
All these things contribute to the growing notion that this show is a big disappointment. There are some minor parts, Emory Dick and April Tuna, that are well-cast, I point that out in fairness, and I totally adore the opening sequence. And the Carly + Leslie stand-off team. But... if only some seriously needed firing could have been done...
If only I could vote them out of Kennedy High...
