Cocktail Party Primer (Episode #12): Girls and Nerds, and Other Stuff I’ve Got Theories About

Has a busy week at work/school/jail left you with little time to catch up on the latest TV news?  Fear not, the GMMR Cocktail Party Primer is back to fill you in all of that’s happening in the world of TV.

Over to you, Martha… 

I spent the week watching “documentaries” about vampires on the History Channel and pretending that, unlike the previous three years I’ve lived in my apartment, this year I might have trick or treaters as an excuse to buy candy. That left me with a lot of time to think, so this is what I pondered while bombed on chocolate this week. If you aren’t too busy having sugar detox or cleaning off the last traces of your zombie Al Gore makeup to party this weekend, you’ll probably hear other former goulies and ghosties babbling about these little tidbits too.

• I have this theory that a sure-fire route to television or movie success is to come up with an idea that appeals to both girls and nerds. Examples that bear this out include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural. The synthesis of cute guys, kick ass ladies, and something from either space or Hell is a sure fire combination. The genesis of this theory lies with The X-Files, the first show to really milk the potential of girls, nerds, and nerdy girls. And this particular nerdy girl couldn’t be more pleased to learn that the new X-Files movie will begin filming December 10 and be released in July. It figures that as soon as I managed to bury my Mulder crush down so deep that no one would ever guess I once listened to David Duchovny, Why Won’t You Love Me on repeat for like six straight months, something like this would happen to pull me right back out of the closet.

• After dominating the gossip for most of the summer, Heroes: Origins was shelved without airing so much as a single frame. Some people say it’s the fault of the impending writers’ strike, while others blame Heroes’ lower rating this season, but I think I know what’s going on. NBC liked the concept of showing how extraordinary characters got started, but was hoping to do it on the cheap. Instead, in an effort to spend less money and capture a slightly younger audience, they’ve bought the syndication rights to the Muppet Babies and renamed it Muppets: Origins.

• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired this week, replacing Carpoolers and Cavemen, and it garnered ratings that bested them by 50%. The fact that shows like Carpoolers and Cavemen even exist was enough to make me seriously doubt the future of humanity. Then something like this happens to warm my bitter, frozen heart. It’s like somebody took the rock out of my treat bag and replaced it with a king-size Snickers. It’s like I was expecting to have the football pulled away before I could kick it, and instead my toe made contact. It’s like dancing in a jerky, repetitive manner to a jazzy piano solo. You get the picture. It feels nice.

• Hugh Laurie abruptly left the set of House this week and flew back to England to be with his family. Reports state that Laurie is battling depression, and that makes me sad. So as a devoted fan of the erstwhile Jeeves and Wooster, I’ve come up with an alternate perkier explanation. If you’ve ever seen the show, and if you haven’t, you simply must, you know that poor Hugh Laurie (loveable but idiotic fop Bertie Wooster) is simply a wreck unless he has Stephen Fry (his unflappable valet Jeeves) around to make him tea, iron his shirts, and extricate him from improbable romantic entanglements. In my mind they’re speeding away from the loathsome Honoria Glossop in a motorcar. Laurie is disguised as an Arabian sheik and Fry smirks knowingly in a smart bowler hat. Ah, the wonderful world of make-believe.

• When I heard that Fox ordered seven episodes of Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse, I was utterly atwitter. When I heard he’d approached Tim Minear to work on it, I thought I might wet myself. Then I whacked myself forcefully on the forehead for being naïve enough to get excited. Didn’t I just say that Fox was going to give Whedon a new show just to break our hearts by canceling it?  And don’t we all know that Tim Minear must have once offended Zeus who then condemned him to spend eternity making excellent shows that hardly last more than 13 episodes?  With a combo this brilliant but cursed, I’ll be surprised if Dollhouse even makes it to air without somebody ending up smited by a bold of lightening from the heavens.

Martha Smith is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and editor. She writes mostly about food, TV, and other things that can be enjoyed while sitting down.