The Televigion Week – Magic (19/11/24)

I don’t think I ever would have associated the list of two shows and a film this week with the word magic prior to watching, but there was no other option once I had my notes prepared. It was mostly inspired by the incredible experience I had watching episode 1 of Wolf Hall, as you’ll read below. But it also refers to a loss of magic (for me) with The Simpsons, and the magic of what a genre twist can add to a traditional coming-of-age story in My Old Ass. More broadly, I firmly believe there is a magic to watching television, at least when you’re able to be fully immersed. Of course, the best of television can pull you in even when you’re distracted or just looking for background noise. I’d love to hear about anyone’s experience of magical television viewing like this.

1. My Old Ass (Prime Video) – A science-fiction comedy drama from 2024 about Elliott, an 18 year old about to leave home, who takes hallucinogenic mushrooms with her friends and meets her 39 year old self. I had seen this film mentioned positively in the online grapevine, and then further recommended to me on Substack by Wendy Varley. It turned out to be one of the few new things I’ve watched with my Televigion Wife (we’re sticking to Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing, and missing Agatha All Along). We were hooked almost instantly by the natural performances and funny jokes, and then the great chemistry between the Elliott’s in their first scene together. It maybe felt slightly overwritten to sell the sci-fi idea, but that is nitpicking. The observations of family life were beautiful – the mum fishing for information after her daughter was out all night, but not pushing too hard, is hilariously underplayed¹. And Young Elliott trying to enjoy her family dinner after being told to by Old Elliott was laugh out loud funny, all the more surprising since it was just a quiet moment of acting, starting with the shot of the disbelieving brother. The musical sequence during the second mushroom trip to Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl” is fun² and I’m sorry to say that we’ve not got much further as of now. It’s one of those moments of magic that we don’t want to lose, a film that my wife and I are enjoying, but that gets interrupted by life with a four year old who is suddenly less settled at bedtime. I don’t imagine it is going to go wildly wrong after the 55 minute mark (its 90 minute runtime is another HUGE tick in the positive column) but I’ll update you with any other interesting thoughts next time.
2. New The Simpsons (Disney+³) – Inspired by this excellent essay from my great friend Hari, and discussing it with him, I thought I’d embark on a return to The Simpsons, a series which meant almost as much to me and my comedy development as it does to him⁴ My intention was to find some articles highlighting the best episodes from recent seasons of the show, and watch them to see what has changed. I selected Bart the Bad Guy (S31, Ep14), Not IT (S34, Ep5) (from this Screenrant article) and Lisa the Boy Scout (S34, Ep3) (from this Vulture article). Bart the Bad Guy – Based on a parody of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Bart seeing the film sequel everyone is desperately waiting for, then blackmailing them all by threat of spoilers. I have to say that just seeing those clouds, heaing that sting and then that title still makes me smile. I love it. However – NO COUCH GAG??!? What the hell is going on? Bart sounds different. Is it comforting to hear their Australian accents have not improved at all? No wait, it’s terrible. It’s a lot of setup (the whole first act) for what should be a simple premise. And I realised what I think is wrong – by the thirty-first season of a show, how could it not feel like the writers are just copying the past. A few more random annoyances – Why do they have to restate the premise in the school hall scene after the ad break, when it was established with Comic Book Guy just before? And Mayor Quimby sounds so much more Homer than before… It’s a toothless 22 minutes, saying very little and I didn’t laugh once. Not IT is a Halloween parody of the adaptations of Stephen King’s IT from 2017 and 2019. It is immediately better than Bart the Bad Guy. I think the format and structure of a direct parody is helping. They can steal the plot, and just add jokes. The absolute standout was the teenage bully based on Superintendent Chalmers being called out as “Super Intense Kid Chalmers” – I genuinely laughed out loud. As an irrelevant aside, Julie Kavner really sounds like she is struggling with Marge’s voice. Lisa the Boy Scout – It starts like a very standard Simpsons episode, with Bart and Lisa in competition as Boy Scouts, then becomes a clip show of hackers showing terrible unused material “cut by Fox/Disney”. It’s basically an almost funny sketch show. The only standout was Baby Jeff Goldblum, inspired by the success of Baby Groot and Baby Yoda, which was a great joke executed very well. But everything about the episode felt soul-less. There’s nothing to ground it, and it feels far too close to the awful indulgence of Family Guy. To round this journey into Modern Simpsons off, I felt the need to rewatch an old favourite, and see directly how different it is. So I started at S1Ep1 and scrolled through on Disney+ to choose an episode I remember, but tried to avoid those considered the absolute peak of the show (as that doesn’t feel like a fair fight). Colonel Homer (S3 Ep19) – This is the episode where Homer discovers Lurleen Lumpkin, a hidden talent of a country singer, and she falls in love with him. It’s too familiar to me to see it fresh, but compared to the new episodes I watched it has a slower pace, and a belief in itself, that they lacked. The new episodes rush, and overexplain, and are just working so hard. Whereas this believes in the story it has to tell, which comes organically from a real situation for the family, and escalates. And I actually laughed many times, even though I’ve seen this episode a lot over the years, including with commentary on the DVD boxsets. I think The Simpsons is just not the same show any more, and it’s not for me. We’ve both changed of course, and I can’t completely separate my nostaglia from my critical faculties. But it must still be working for an audience to keep going as long as it has. Let me know if you’re still watching and enjoying The Simpsons!
3. Wolf Hall (iPlayer) – This is an adaptation of two acclaimed historical novels by Hilary Mantel about Thomas Cromwell and his role in the court of Henry VIII. Given the raves for the just released sequel series based on the third and final book in the series, I have gone back and revisited this TV landmark I missed from 2015. I do remember having it highly recommended, but it is not mentioned anywhere on this site. It probably just fell off my radar due to turning 30 and preparing to get married. I was also being Quasimodo on a pantomime tour when it was released, which didn’t allow much time for thoughtful and subtle period drama. And to be completely honest, Wolf Hall was about to appear on the Televigion Backlist below, with another excuse of it not quite being the right thing. That was until 11.45pm on Saturday night, when I had just watched Colonel Homer and was getting nowhere with my own writing and simply pressed play. 64 minutes later, I had experienced true television magic. It is a fascinating period and so is often mined for historical stories, but here it is plainly played and understated, and it feels like a glimpse at reality. History is not my subject (geography is the only subject worse), and maybe I just fell in love with a well-made show, but I haven’t believed in real historical characters in this way for a very long time. I loved Mary Queen of Scots⁵, but it is theatrical and sweeping, whereas Wolf Hall seems to be showing you real history. It is obviously only imagined, and filtered through the lens of research and adaptation, but I can’t tell you how drawn in I was. The deaths in episode 1 are sudden and heartbreaking and utterly real. I was completely enthralled by every performance, and it felt magical. With not a lot of contextual knowledge, I have many questions, but the characters I already care about will pull me through all of that. I have looked out my copy of The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England and will immerse myself in this show and the period as my new obsession.

So there we have it, a magical gem of a film, a worldwide phenomenon trying to claw back its magic, and a spellbinding historical adaptation. What a week! Please do get in touch with any reactions or thoughts, and more importantly, watch Wolf Hall if you haven’t yet.

The Televigion Backlist

I will try to keep track of why I haven’t gone for these, in case that is interesting.

1. Territory (Netflix) – I’ve needed comfort viewing this week as I’ve been busy with writing a new comedy script, so something new to me and not very much in the zeitgeist is low down the pecking order.
2. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video) – The age-old problem of starting again vs trying to find out where I got to. Not much of a barrier, but enough.
3. Scavenger’s Reign (Netflix) – Too cerebral (I assume) for what I’ve been needing.
4. Shogun (Disney+) – A mix of the reasons for 1 and 4, I feel like this is a show that requires effort I don’t currently have.
5. NEW ENTRY Deadpool and Wolverine (Disney+) – The third film in the Deadpool series, and the first with Disney in charge. I think I have seen every spoiler and beat of this film through social media, but I would still like to see how I feel about it. I’m currently imagining “not as clever as it thinks it is”.

Footnotes

1. The casting and performances of the mum and 39 year old version of her daughter are so well matched, having been flagged in the dialogue as who the 18 year old thinks Old Elliott looks like. I imagine some great collaboration between the actors to achieve that, and it makes me happy. ↩︎
2. I misheard the song, not being familiar with the works of Bieber, as One Last Lonely Girl, which is much more of a serial killer Justin Bieber song than probably exists. ↩︎
3. What the hell is that image above the Footnotes section? Why has The Simpsons been categorised this way? Treehouse of Horror I can understand, but no-one has ever thought “oh I must watch a Simpsons episode vaguely related to Sports”. Have they? ↩︎
4. My own personal competitive quizzing with a school friend was not based on the Simpsons, though I do remember taking my copy of The_Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family to school, but was primarily based on the original Star Wars Trilogy, and related Tazo’s ↩︎
5. The soundtrack is exquisite to work to. You really feel like the bit of code or Powerpoint you’re working on might change the world. ↩︎