Trust Me, It Gets Good Later

Plus: Veep, Dead To Me and what's making us happy [NPR] by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when [a stray coffee cup]( consumed the internet. It was the week when [the Met Gala]( got everybody trying to figure out exactly [what the definition of "camp" is](. And it was the week when we learned that they're already [gearing up to make a TV series]( out of the gripping (?) story of some parents who were charged with crimes for the schemes they devised to get their kids into college. Let's get to it. Opening Argument When I first introduced my friend and PCHH panelist Stephen Thompson to the brilliant comedy Parks and Recreation, I started him with the sixth episode in the series (and the last of the first season), "Rock Show." This is not because I don't think there's anything wonderful or anything of value in the first five episodes. But just as I might be inclined to start a new The Office (U.S.) viewer with "The Dundies" at the beginning of season 2, I think "Rock Show" gives you a better sense of why the show is great, and why someone is telling you to watch it, than the pilot does. It is inarguably true that many shows take a few episodes, or even more than a few, to entirely find their feet. But it is also inarguably true that with television being as crowded as it is, it's a lot to ask people to wait ... and wait ... and wait for a new show to get better. The New York Times critic James Poniewozik has talked about this problem, the "it gets really good around episode seven!" problem. How do you ask an audience to hang on that long? In fact, [as he pointed out this week]( how do you even ask yourself, as a critic, to hang on that long? [Parks and Recreation scene] Ben Cohen/NBC It used to be that critics only had the very beginning of a show to go by when they wrote a review. Maybe just one episode. And that still happens with some shows, mostly on broadcast. But if a cable network drops 12 hours of something on your lap and you absolutely think the first two are inept and obnoxious, do you have to watch the other 10? If you hang in there and episode 12 is much better than the other 11 episodes, what's the most helpful review? "If you hang out for 12 episodes, it improves"? Can you actually recommend in good conscience that people do that, given the large number of consistently good shows that fail to get traction? I made a writer on a show very very very angry a few years ago when I said on Twitter that a show had so many racist jokes in the first few minutes that I tapped out. In his opinion, I had given the show a negative review without watching it. This was shameful, he felt. But to me, I had (1) been entirely transparent about what I'd watched and not watched, and (2) kept it to Twitter rather than undertaking some full-length review of something that, as he said, I had not watched in full. This tends to be my approach in general, too. I will tell you how much I've seen. I will generally tell you how many episodes they gave me. (For instance: they sent six episodes; I watched four.) But if the first eight minutes of your show contain a bunch of racist jokes, is that not a valid observation to make? And more to the point, is it not valuable information to the people making a show that this may have been the reason people tuned out? Do regular viewers not, in fact, do this very thing? Is saying "I tapped out because of this problem" really a review made without watching it, or is it really just an explanation of why you didn't watch it? It's an increasingly complicated problem, especially when people are as spoiler-sensitive as they are. There are conflicting needs to (1) get a sense of the entire season if possible so that you can review the entire season and (2) review the show based on the entire season and not just the first episode but (3) not give away anything about where the show is going or anything about it that changes. Let me tell you a secret about my approach as a critic: I pay a lot of attention to my critic friends. Sometimes, I tap out of something and if everyone tells me it got good, I tap back in. It makes me gulp to think about it now, but I wasn't wild about the Friday Night Lights pilot, and I didn't catch up with it again until late in the first season -- because everyone I knew loved it. I remain uncertain that this isn't the best model: Evaluate a pilot, let people decide whether they want in, and then provide updates on how the show is going in case people want to come back as it goes along. It's not a novel idea. In fact, you might be familiar with this approach as, essentially, weekly episodic recapping. It's a model that serves people quite well in many ways. And it's not the way most shows are covered anymore. The choice is often to gulp a whole season of a show, or not to cover it at all. And let me tell you: If you want to read a really bad review, [read one from somebody who watched 12 hours of something she didn't like]( instead of one. --------------------------------------------------------------- We Recommend The series finale of HBO's Veep airs this Sunday night. Whether you have stuck it out with the show through Selina Meyer's various defeats and victories -- well, mostly defeats -- it's always been a funny, daring show full of killer performances. It was very sad to hear that E! has decided not to continue with Busy Phillips’ late-night show Busy Tonight. It will air its final episodes next week, and if you want a taste of a truly warm, friendly, loving chat-show experience, check it out before it's gone. My favorite coverage of the Met Gala every year comes from my friends at Go Fug Yourself. For a spirited but never mean-spirited discussion of everything that worked and didn't, everything that was and was not camp, [check it out](. For the first time, we're going to take on the very bloody, very wild John Wick franchise on an upcoming PCHH. So if you want to get ready for all the new murders, make sure to catch up on all the old murders first. (This is not the kind of movie I normally like! But I strangely enjoy these movies! I don't really understand it either! That's one thing we will undoubtedly talk about!) --------------------------------------------------------------- What We Did This Week [Dead To Me scene] Saeed Adyani/Netflix Last weekend, after we had newslettered for the week, I [published a review]( of the terrific Netflix show Dead To Me. Strongly recommended. Is Glen still recapping Game of Thrones, you ask? [I mean, only perfectly](. (I read these every week, even though I only watched half a season of this show before concluding it was, as Glen would say, Not For Lindas.) Glen, along with Teen Vogue writer Scarlett Newman, [chatted with Ari Shapiro]( for All Things Considered this week about the meaning of "camp." Stephen [wrote a little about]( the new Brandi Carlile video for her song "The Mother." Our podcast on Wednesday featured our great pals Margaret Willison and Christina Tucker, who joined me for a talk about [the pretty old-fashioned romantic comedy]( Long Shot, starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen. Our Friday show brought the wonderful Audie Cornish into the studio for [an installment of one of our favorite recurring segments]( People We're Pulling For. --------------------------------------------------------------- What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - Stephen: Iron and Wine at the Kennedy Center with David Campbell; also, the album Our Endless Numbered Days - Glen: [Tuca and Bertie]( - Audie: [Without Fail]( with Anna Chlumsky]( - Linda: [Say Nothing]( --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! 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