a comet passing through TV's solar system

June 29, 2016 10:25 AM

The Best Show on TV Is ​Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
posted by prize bull octorok (56 comments total)

Yup.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:37 AM on June 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thirded (or at least, it's in the conversation, and is certainly the most unexpectedly good show on TV).

Season One is free on iTunes, and please join the conversation on FanFare.
posted by Etrigan at 10:41 AM on June 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

How much singing is there on the show?
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:44 AM on June 29, 2016

Honestly, I thought Crazy Ex-girlfriend was marketed horribly when it first came out. When I was watching stuff on Hulu they would keep playing the same damn commercial for it - and it explained nothing about the show exempt maybe "harhar look this girl is crazy. Exes are crazy amirite?". The name of the show doesn't help either. No idea it had regular musical numbers.

I would never of given it a second thought, except I kept reading how people thought it was good on here and other places. I still haven't watched it, but I've continually heard good things so it is definitely on my things to watch list.

Still unfortunate about the show name though.
posted by littlesq at 10:45 AM on June 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

How much singing is there on the show?

About three numbers per week, in a panoply of styles.
posted by Etrigan at 10:46 AM on June 29, 2016

When I was watching stuff on Hulu they would keep playing the same damn commercial for it - and it explained nothing about the show exempt maybe "harhar look this girl is crazy. Exes are crazy amirite?". The name of the show doesn't help either.

Yes, all of that was a huge red flag for me. I still kind of refuse to believe the show is any good because of that, despite the fact that lots of trustworthy people insist otherwise.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:48 AM on June 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

I hope it gets to Netflix or Amazon Prime, too; I know I won't get around to watching until I can stream it on my TV.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:52 AM on June 29, 2016

I had written it off based on the title too, but (MeFi's own) Linda Holmes insisted on Pop Culture Happy Hour that it was ironic and they were leaning into the skid. I'm glad I was convinced.
posted by Etrigan at 10:52 AM on June 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

The title is in some respects a really good fit for the show they made, but it also turned out to be a big invitation to studio execs to market it poorly and for potential audiences to assume the worst. I still haven't seen the whole thing because it took until the halfway point of the season for Mrs. Fish to convince me it was actually worth watching.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:55 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't have given it a second thought until I read the AV Club's review with the headline Please oh please don't let Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's title deter you. I have not historically been a fan of the musical genre. But the last time the AV Club told me I should really check out a show in a genre that I normally hated, it turned out to be Hannibal, which I ended up really liking. So my wife & I gave CXG a shot, and it became the one show out of this past season that we would always watch as soon as it popped up on Hulu.

The name of the show doesn't help either.

Every now and then there's a really really good show with a totally ridiculous name, like Cougar Town or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is one of those shows. Hell, the show's own theme song acknowledges that the title is a sexist term and that "the situation's a lot more nuanced than that."
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:03 AM on June 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

I started watching this with my wife without really knowing what it was. She really hates most musical theater. When the first musical number started (West Covina) she almost bolted, but I convinced her to power through. By the next number (Sexy Getting Ready Song) she was completely won over. My favorite tune is "I Have Friends." I identify with it so hard.
posted by Bistle at 11:03 AM on June 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

Their roundup of other good shows didn't even mention Lady Dynamite, so I'm going to assume they haven't seen it.
posted by malphigian at 11:07 AM on June 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

"the situation's a lot more nuanced than that."

I've only watched a handful of episodes, but I like that it's head-on about "hey, our main character has mental-health issues and is managing them and it's an important part (but not all) of the story."

My favorite tune is "I Have Friends." I identify with it so hard.

Women Gotta Stick Together, yo. We've all met a Valencia.
posted by psoas at 11:40 AM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am inclined to give this praise more credence now that I see the writer also hyped You're the Worst.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:47 AM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am inclined to give this praise more credence now that I see the writer also hyped You're the Worst.

Which is, in fact, the actual best show on network tv.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:51 AM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

The show's been struggling to get a popular following that matches the critical reaction it's received so far. Everyone who watches it loves it, but they're having problems attracting new viewers. I don't know if it's still available, but they made the entire first season available for free on iTunes a couple months ago as a ploy to get new viewers on board.

Now the CW appears to be pulling its shows from Hulu after a new deal with Netflix, which is going to kill same-season visibility for the show and make it even harder for them to find new viewers. Even shows people know and love over there like The Flash, Supergirl, and iZombie are going to get torrented to hell and back again or lose their online audience entirely, if the CW doesn't come up with a mobile and set top box streaming solution that isn't "you have to pay for the CBS online service that literally nobody wants, because seriously, it's CBS".
posted by middleclasstool at 11:54 AM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

FYI it's only the first four eps which are free, and I'm downloading them right now!
posted by PussKillian at 12:05 PM on June 29, 2016

It used to be the whole series! (It's a separate version from what you find if you search on iTunes normally, labelled "for your consideration" as it's ostensibly an Emmy promo)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:08 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was amused to learn the other day that the show's creator and star, Rachel Bloom, is responsible for this.
posted by mwhybark at 12:08 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every now and then there's a really really good show with a totally ridiculous name, like Cougar Town or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

*pours out a gigantic glass of wine for Cougar Town*
posted by kmz at 12:11 PM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yes, it is labeled "for your consideration". May be gone by now.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:12 PM on June 29, 2016

About three numbers per week, in a panoply of styles.

I believe I've heard somewhere that one of the gimmicks of the show is that they never use a particular musical style more than once (although now that they've been renewed, maybe it will be "more than once per season"). Given that self-imposed restriction, it's incredible that the show is as solid as it is.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 12:12 PM on June 29, 2016

Oh my god, this is kind of amazing. Heavy Boobs.

(I have tried on dresses like that.)
posted by maryr at 12:16 PM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

it was ironic and they were leaning into the skid

For people who (like me, once) were all "See that title? Nope," the creators of the show 100% knew there would be a skid and made a decision to drive straight into it. There was never a moment where they were like "this is a totally unproblematic name for our show!"

Now, I think it hurts them worse than they ever imagined, and they should have learned a lesson from Cougartown, but it has nothing to do with the actual quality of the show.

I still get "Settle for Me" randomly stuck in my head. (That's Hans from Frozen, by the way, for your additional amusement.)
posted by Lyn Never at 12:17 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

All the songs -- including some with more "mature content" than made it to broadcast -- can be seen on Bloom's Youtube channel.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:18 PM on June 29, 2016

Oh my god, this is kind of amazing.

I love that each boob's memoir is a different size.
posted by Bistle at 12:20 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is getting to be a bit of a tangent, but rewatching that "Fuck Me Ray Bradbury" video a few days after reading the recent thread on sexism in sci fi, in particular the comment linking to Asimov's book on how to be a dirty old man, really puts it in a different light.
posted by ropeladder at 12:31 PM on June 29, 2016

Rachel Bloom was the subject of a long-ass interview on Bullseye which among many topics covered the problematic nature of a show called "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" and Rachel made such an eloquent case for it I'm not even going to try to summarize it and instead just recommend blocking an hour out of your day some time this week to listen to the whole damn podcast episode.
posted by ardgedee at 12:33 PM on June 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

The name issue is one of those things where the "it's okay for art to be challenging and provocative, and people shouldn't nope out at a title without finding out about the content" side of my brain slams up against the "well, those people are coming from a lifetime of frustration and disappointment with how they're represented, and also the network presumably wants to not alienate potential viewers, yes?" side of my brain. I don't know how to resolve it internally other than hope that the show does get a big enough following to continue and people keep discovering how great it is.

From what I've heard, a lot of women had a related experience with Fury Road too. Pushing through that initial "this again?" skepticism is hard and so very rarely rewarded, but amazing when there's a payoff.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:49 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

You guys, this is one of the funniest, smartest shows on tv. The title is IRONIC. Rachel Bloom has said her character is a female Walter White - you're supposed to both sympathize with her and also realize she is living in an impossible fairy tale of her own making / that society has conditioned her to believe in. It's a dark dark parody of sitcoms and relationships. Also it's a pretty amazing portrayal of depression and anxiety on tv. Also, there are people of color everywhere and it isn't really a big deal! Kind of like ... Life!
I'm not sure they realized how much this title would deter people. Don't be deterred.
(Unless you don't like musicals, in which case, I cannot help you. Your loss.) :)
posted by bookgirl18 at 12:50 PM on June 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

The name is comparable to "Fresh off the Boat". My jaw dropped when I saw that, particularly because it was tied to FOX.

It was only after reading that the name was 100% the show's Asian creator that I decided to hold my objections. The studio was smart to make sure those interviews were far reaching before the show aired.

Because while a show might show us a diverse cast, my assumption is that they don't get to have a substantial say in their story lines or depiction until shown otherwise. I grew up with Margaret Cho's All American Girl, and her public dismay on getting chewed up by Hollywood.

I jumped in halfway through the first season of CXG after reading that it had a believable and sympathetic depiction of mental illness. It made me more confident the creators understood the connotations with crazy, rather than rolling with the stereotypes. And then I found out it had musical numbers. Amazing musical numbers. And I love it to pieces.
posted by politikitty at 1:07 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

Which is, in fact, the actual best show on network tv

Except that it's not actually on network TV. It's on cable, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend really is on network. That might seem insignificant given that MZS is calling it the best show on TV at all, so your point would still stand if you were to be judged correct, but it's pretty amazing that a show that's on network TV is being called the best show on TV when the narrative has been so heavily slanted toward cable-equals-quality.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 1:37 PM on June 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

Is there a way to watch You're The Worst that doesn't involve illegality? I check both Netflix and Amazon Prime for it regularly and never see it.

Crazy Ex Girlfriend is great. I can't decide what my favorite number is. The very first showstopper about West Covina sold me immediately as someone familiar with West Covina but I love the JAP Rap Battle and "Settle For Me!" and "I Gave You A UTI!" and so many.
posted by Justinian at 1:37 PM on June 29, 2016

Right, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a network show, You're The Worst is not.
posted by Justinian at 1:38 PM on June 29, 2016

Oh! "You Stupid Bitch" is incredible. I always lose it when the "audience" joins in. Yes, that's what self-loathing feels like.
posted by Justinian at 1:39 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

First season of You're The Worst is on Hulu, I think?

I'm also glad that this show joins the canon of female characters who aren't just either purely aspirational or purely horrible (or the butt of a joke). Emily Nussbaum has a great piece that I can't link to on my phone that makes this point. All these "golden age" antiheroes, our Don Drapers and Tony Sopranos, and yes, our Walter Whites, are supposed to be flawed and complex - we are not supposed to aspire to be those guys. Finally I feel like I'm seeing more and more lead female characters - the titular Girls, OITNB's Piper, the GoT women, Gretchen on You're The Worst, the ladies of UnReal, I'd say Carrie Bradshaw herself- who are just as flawed and messed up as these dudes. They aren't always *supposed* to be likable. I think Rebecca Bunch is overall sympathetic, but we aren't supposed to always root for her.
When people complain to me that these characters aren't likable, I want to pull an Amy Poehler - "I don't fucking care if you like it."
posted by bookgirl18 at 2:07 PM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I also noped out at the title. And 'it's *ironic* sexism' doesn't help at all; I'm quite thoroughly sick of that too. So, not for me.
posted by tavella at 2:21 PM on June 29, 2016

FWIW, there is approximately zero irony to the show, much less ironic sexism. There's a deliberate subversion and/or unpacking of sexist tropes to shine some daylight on them, but outside of that it's one of the most earnest and heartfelt shows I've ever seen.
posted by middleclasstool at 2:32 PM on June 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

If I had to put a label on it I'd say it's appropriating a sexist term in order to explore how societal expectations related to romance damage people, especially women. But it's also an unfortunate and off-putting element that many people have to get past.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:36 PM on June 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Did anyone else find the show to be a bit plodding and repetitive (aside from the musical numbers) around episodes 7-9? We decided to stop watching after one of the Thanksgiving episodes, not because there wasn't a lot of good, but because there was just such a high volume of "meh" in between the good.

I think it should be have been a half-hour show as was the original plan, which would have improved the pacing and maybe make it easier to get through any episodes that aren't quite landing. Not than an hour-long comedy can't be done, just that I don't think they quite got it right here, at least not before we gave up on the show.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:56 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've now watched a handful of the song videos. They're great! They're clever, they're funny, they're unexpected, they've got incredible energy.

But I also feel weird about cheerfully bouncing along to so much self-loathing.
posted by clawsoon at 2:57 PM on June 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would say the title is not a glib effort in ironic sexism at all. She really struggles with mental health issues in the show, especially with how those issues define her as a person. I really relate to the character because of these struggles.
posted by Bistle at 2:57 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

Right, the title is not ironic sexism. A lot of the show is about mental health and misogyny and societal/parental expectations which mess us up bad and all that good bad stuff.
posted by Justinian at 3:06 PM on June 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

Did anyone else find the show to be a bit plodding and repetitive (aside from the musical numbers) around episodes 7-9? We decided to stop watching after one of the Thanksgiving episodes, not because there wasn't a lot of good, but because there was just such a high volume of "meh" in between the good.

I did think it was a little slow between about the Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes, but the episodes that aired after it came back from the December break (the party bus episode, the camp episode, the "Textmergency" episode) won me back into its corner pretty fast.
posted by Johnny Assay at 3:06 PM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think the title is best described as "Absurdly Reductionist But It's A TV Show Title So It Can't Be Very Long". Here are the lyrics to the theme song (on genius.com) which address the issue of the title.

Completely noping out of the show solely because of the title is kind of like noping out of brownies because they're brown. Certainly you should pass if you don't like chocolate or chewy cake textures, but the color itself is not an actual obstacle.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:52 PM on June 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

Roomie and I just watched the first episode - clever, funny, unexpected and high energy covers it, for sure. He'd already heard and liked Bloom and McKenna from their regular appearances on the Scriptnotes podcast so was down even though he's not a fan of musical numbers. Me, I was sold when I read here that it has musical numbers.

We both liked it a lot and want to keep going. So, thanks for the post, prize bull octorok!
posted by mediareport at 7:05 PM on June 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I heard this show was good for months but avoided it due to the title. Then when that Emmy freebie link went around, I watched the first four shows, got cut off, and ended up buying the season to see the rest. I'm really glad I did, it's a fantastic show. I love that they went for an hour long comedy show, they can cover so much ground and be more subtle and deeper in how they cover relationships between characters. In the end it makes the whole thing feel more real and not just a standard rom-com plotline. I've never seen a show handle mental illness throughout as this show does, it's fantastic.

I love the musical numbers, but wish there were more, but it does feel like a solid ten minutes of each show is as good as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer all-musical episode. The "I'm getting Bi" huey lewis parody song is probably my favorite from the entire series.

I recently got to see Rachel Bloom in Portland. She does a mix of standup then sings a dozen songs from the series over the course of 90 minutes and it's fantastic. If you listen to her interview on Bullseye, she mentions the Portland show because she forgot the lyrics to a song on stage, one of her biggest fears, and the Portland audience was super supportive and shouted the lyrics back to her and she loved it so much she told us she wished it happened years before, just so she could live without anxiety about it.

I can't wait for the next season of this show.
posted by mathowie at 11:26 PM on June 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

Everyone who watches it loves it, but they're having problems attracting new viewers.

Which won't be helped by the Season 2 move to the Friday Night Death Slot, but the stakes are lower then so maybe it gives the show a better chance to survive.

Also, it may help to remind new folks that watching online usually means each episode is just 40 minutes long instead of an hour.
posted by mediareport at 3:51 AM on June 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

This looks so fun! Thanks--I had completely blown it off because it was on the CW and had that title.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:28 PM on June 30, 2016

Here's Bloom, her co-creator, and her music supervisor breaking down five of the songs from the first season, including The Sexy Getting Ready Song, which was in the first episode and what sold me on the series. When the rapper comes in to do the breakdown, sees what's going on, suddenly gets woke and nopes out I about died laughing ... and then (small spoiler!) he appears later on in the episode still calling ex-girlfriends apologizing for having bought into patriarchal notions of beauty standards that he now finds horrifying. It's a throwaway joke but it was just so funny and knowing and meta and I was completely sold.

Occasionally the comedy gets a leeeeeetle too cringe-comedy for me but so far it's always been worth sticking out my discomfort because the cringing parts are always redeemed by the story and are like, "Aha! Now I understand why I had to be so uncomfortable earlier in the episode!" It's not just cringe-for-the-sake-of-cringe. (The cringe parts are often a bit too much for my husband, though, who dislikes cringe comedy and who doesn't find quite the same insider humor in breaking down unspoken parts of women's lives as I do, for the reasons you'd imagine.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:33 PM on June 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

I think it should be have been a half-hour show as was the original plan

Yeah I might still be watching. A lot of that is me; with a toddler in the house I have less time in a chunk to devote to stuff and an hour is a big ask for me. But I really felt impatient for things to move along many times during the first three, and after that we never got back to watching the rest. I finally hit the button to delete all and cancel future tivo recordings just last night.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't matter. This also falls into that category of people being uncomfortable like The Office which I don't often enjoy watching. The hour length seems to get used for the awkward linger a lot. Faster pacing might not be enough to keep that from bugging me.
posted by phearlez at 8:11 AM on July 1, 2016

The first season is on U.S. Netflix as of today.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:10 PM on July 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

Since I keep track of these things: Four Emmy nominations! Best Original Song (for "Settle For Me"), Best Choreography (jointly for "I'm So Good At Yoga," "A Boy Band Made Up Of Four Joshes" and "Settle For Me"), Best Editing and Best Theme Song.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:11 AM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rachel Bloom and Donna Lynne Champlin (Paula) wuz robbed.
posted by Etrigan at 9:17 AM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

You're not wrong, but after they took three years to figure out that hey, Tatiana Maslaney is pretty good at her job, I give the acting categories a long lag time.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:23 AM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

FYI: I've been listening to the soundtrack on Spotify. The commentary is really fun, if you want a bit more behind the scenes.
posted by politikitty at 10:04 AM on July 14, 2016