In Other TeeVee Blogs...

SALON.COM, in the leadup to the Emmy Awards this Sunday, are hosting a "TV Week" of articles. Rebecca Traister has a provocative essay called Women are the new men on TV:

Welcome to the new world on television, where the women are strong, and the men are cavemen. Literally. ABC's "Cavemen," based on the Geico ad campaign character, is about a trio of Cro-Magnons with low self-esteem and a little hair-growth problem. Small-screen heroes who aren't actually dragging their knuckles behave even worse. In the face of professional and sexual equality between the televised sexes, these fictional guys are cowed, angry and generally emasculated by the successes of their female counterparts.

It can't all be coincidence that this season is coming at the end of a summer in which the biggest movie hits have featured dopey, ill-groomed, irresponsible boys who score beautiful high-achieving women and then have no idea what to do once they land them. That's right, we're in Apatowland, baby, where the idea of a male romantic lead now begins with a water bong and ends with a fart joke. This isn't an isolated trend; it seems to be a broad cultural response that speaks to enough people to keep it floating. The shows this fall are not clones of each other: They're written by men and by women; they're geared toward teens and adults; they're comedies and dramas and dramedies. And they all seem to be expressing an anxiety about what on earth is going to happen to American men now that their women are not simply competing at work, sex, friendship, money and politics, but sometimes winning.

Among the degradations about to be heaped on television's men? There are guys whose wives cheat on them, whose girlfriends get promoted over them, whose mates make more money than they do; guys who get left out of baby-making, who date women with penises and at least one who gets anally raped by a monkey.

Traister runs down the various shows which show this new, emasculated man and muses a bit on what the heck could be going on here. But she sees only part of the story, by ignoring the fact that, with the viewing audience tipped more heavily female than ever before, at least part of this has to be because these are the kinds of shows and treatments that women want to see. This is what I was more or less alluding to in my post, The Eyeballs of Men. Traister offers an interesting prism through which to view the fall season, but I'm not sure she's entirely on the money on how and why we got here.

For my money, I look at show ideas like, "Big Shots" and just think, "Ick." Nothing for me there.

Salon's also got a monster article from Heather Havrilesky that I think every showrunner, or TV writer should be honor-bound to read. The thesis of "TV's triumphant overclass" is that the medium that once celebrated the middle class now exclusively mines the rich, and the super rich.

Today's TV denizens aren't just comfortable, they're loaded. Even as the mortgage crisis exposes the fragile foundation that lies beneath our culture of excess, the TV industry trips happily along with its tales of stylish executives attending gala functions in couture gowns. Whether it's the glamorous businesswomen of ABC's "Cashmere Mafia," quipping about their big-deal jobs over an expensive lunch, the rich men of ABC's "Big Shots" having drinks on the veranda at their exclusive club, or the sugar moguls of CBS' "Cane" wheeling and dealing in their antique-lined smoking rooms, the backdrop is always big money. Even if we're shown that the Hilton-inspired troublemakers of ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" or the angry, backstabbing prep-school brats of CW's "Gossip Girl" are deeply unhappy, desperate people because of their wealth, it still only feels like an excuse to show them unraveling over drinks at the Palace Hotel, or wandering listlessly among the clothing racks at Bergdorf's. While the tag line for NBC's midseason "Lipstick Jungle" -- "These women aren't looking for Mr. Big, they are Mr. Big" -- should feel empowering, the notion that the almighty dollar is the only surefire escape from the desperation of the late-30s single is more than a little noxious. Even on the new dramas that aren't focused on money or power, like HBO's "Tell Me You Love Me" or Showtime's "Californication," characters live in massive, pristine houses, eat at expensive restaurants and wear flawless designer clothes. While the gap between rich and poor in this country widens to an almost inconceivable chasm, our TV sets conjure a vivid picture of an American dream that most of us can't begin to attain.

She's dead on the money in so many ways. And the thing is, there are a lot of strange, sinister things that conspire to make things the way they are. First, you've got a lot of showrunners who, you know, because they're good at what they do, make a bit o green. So when they reflect their lives, it's...um...a little opulent.

Like reporters, who a couple of generations ago were of a totally different class than the establishment, and now think they ARE the establishment, the medium of TV -- which was film's dorky younger brother, employing hungry up and comers - has entered its middle age pricing boats and Maui retreats.

And then there's the subtle pressures -- things like Art Directors and Production Designers -- who naturally want to make things look cool. Cool equals expensive. Rarely do you find people getting excited about recreating that lower-middle class mismatch of bad Ikea furniture just so.

On Blood Ties, one of the things I found most interesting was that it was always easier to get new, fresh, upscale looking stuff than to get stuff that looked dingy or worn or downmarket. The downmarket stuff was always way too expensive. The consumer, throwaway culture comes to the set!

I mourned the death of Lucky Louie partly because of the money and class issues at the heart of that show seemed fresh to me -- it's not a world we see anymore. That show was actually about people struggling economically. I wonder if Roseanne would be a hit today. I doubt it. I don't blame the Friends, per se, as Havrilesky does...but read the whole article and it's hard to deny that maybe Monica and Rachel do have something to answer for.

A little more middle and working class on TV wouldn't just be socially responsible. At this point, it might actually help us connect, and open new veins of comedy and drama. But first we have to break through this current vapid glamordome that seems to rule everything in our culture today.

What do you think? Is TV doomed to shovel us rich people with zero body fat who make us aspire to economic heights we can't reach?

Maybe that's why I loved Flight of the Conchords so much. Their apartment sucked, man.

Finally, if there's anyone out there who still misses the gloriously inside "Why Television Sucks" blog, Kay Reindl's got a bit of insider cooking going on over at Seriocity.

All the comings and goings and shutdowns and panics in advance of the fall premieres -- is it just the normal sturm and drang of the fall, and the difficulty of translating pilot to series, or has something indeed fundamentally changed? Read and judge for yourself:

So what the hell, right? Well, the hell is this. TeeVee ain't the movies. In order for a TeeVee show to work, it has to move seamlessly from the pilot to the next episode. You have to feel, as an audience member, that you're still watching the same show. The trouble with "Pushing Daisies" is that the pilot makes this virtually impossible. It's SO stylized, its mark made SO clearly, that nobody can come in and duplicate that. And then there's the expense of the show. MASSIVE. Pilots have gone from partial sales tools to the ultimate sales tool. The studios will throw fifteen million bucks and two weeks of shooting at these pilots and then expect the show to be made in seven days and for under two million dollars. The studios and the networks, by demanding that show creators think big and aim for the stars, are setting these shows up for failure. It's impossible for a writer to pitch a show that doesn't make some huge splash. Being responsible with the studio's money is a large part of what being a showrunner is about. But with regards to pilots, they don't seem to care anymore. EVERY pilot must make its mark. EVERY pilot must be unique, huge, exciting, unprecedented.

But that's not TeeVee. That's a fucking summer blockbuster. I don't know how to sell in this climate. I really don't. Do I want to end up in a situation where a feature director is screwing my show? No thanks. It's not worth it.

But as screwed as "Pushing Daisies" seems to be, no show is more fucked than "Bionic Woman." As I'm sure a lot of you saw, Glen Morgan left the show last week. People have been whispering about the show being in trouble for some time now -- over time and over budget. But when someone leaves this close to the show premiering... that's indicative of a bigger problem. There've been rumors about a permanent shutdown as well. Even if these rumors aren't true, you don't want to hear that two weeks from premiering.

Sounds like my Bionic Woman's never gonna happen. Aw well. Still, kudos to Kay for reframing my idea of success for Pushing Daisies. Now, never mind it being a big hit (too much to hope for,) I now will be happy merely if it's got a short sweet run of great episodes. You know, like Love Monkey. Ladies and Gentlemen, not even George W. Bush can move the goalposts better than that.