Dear BET (Blacks Entertaining Tackily)
So...tomorrow's Tuesday & I've been sitting on my feelings about the return of The Game for 6 days. When the CW freed the cast of their lease I was saddened. First Girlfriends, then The Game. I had finally gotten past my feelings about Kelsey Grammar being the 1 to bring decent black sitcoms to prime time & then I was robbed of my options. I was several seasons off of One Tree Hill, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia came on too late, & Californication couldn't figure out whether to be or not to be. What was I supposed to do with myself for the 3 hours allotted for TV in my life? All I had left was The Game marathons that BET kept running. After a while, I was over that too. Then the news came that BET would revive The Game & fill the gaping hole left by Girl Melanie sleeping in the waiting room of the hospital as Derwin's baby was born. Thanks BET. & then Tuesday night happened. In the worst case ever, I paid for my ticket to ride the bandwagon & got on board too. The ride I went on still has me reeling & something must be said before Tuesday brings the 2nd episode & kills my spirit. The original end killed me. The return raised me from the dead. & the actual show killed me a 2nd time. So...
Dear BET,
Thanks again for renewing life for Derwin, Melanie, Malik, Jason, Kelly, & Tasha Mack. We of the Young Colored Nation are so very grateful that you have returned some folks that at least semi-demi-quasi represent us on these airwaves.
I know you don't have much experience with TV writing but perhaps you should've actually watched the show before you started scripting. Crazy thing about us diehard fans—we can give the rundown for ALL episodes including the emotional footprints left behind. That means it'll be hard for you to pass off any ol' feces of bulls on us. I gotta say, I'm feeling a little disrespected, like, you assume I may not have watched television...EVER. I have a couple of tips for you going into the coming episodes...though I'm sure they've already been shot.
1. I said it already, but...watch the damn show. You tried to kill us with 2 years worth of back history that might don't make sense. While you were killing us with it, you forgot to explain where Rick Fox went, why Tasha Mack suddenly smokes Black N Milds, how Kelly turned into a white hood rat, who absconded with the original Brit Brat, & why in the poor decision making hell would Melanie quit med school to be....cute?
2. Read a book, read a book, read a mutha(bleeeeeeep) book. I don't know who you hang out with but real people don't speak like this. I know y'all are hard pressed for time over there cuz keeping up with the flavor of Gucci Mane's facial cone is important. Reading really is fundamental; I'm sure you'd like it if you tried it & find it useful in writing realistic dialogue.
3. Study screen writing. It is a lil different than writing the oft messed up teleprompter notes for Terrance J & Rocsi.
4. Spend a lil time at a MAC counter and watching Carol's Daughter on HSN so you can
5. Ya know what, eff it. Skip all this & just call up Kelsey Grammar & see if he'll loan you his writers. They know what to do. Hit 'em with the
Hey Y'all, Hey... Yeah, so we bit off more than we could chew. We had good intentions but we forgot we've never done this. If it was our own original series we could eff it up no problem. Here, we're just destroying something that was already in place & we fear the original fans may hunt us down & force us all to get our hair cut like Malik's. It would be ashamed if the Widow's Peak Bro-Hawk went mainstream & we were responsible. Can you help us out? Thanks Y'all, Thanks. Love, BET
I don't know what you're gonna do, but you've got to do something. It would just be wrong if you turned a hip black sitcom into a hyperstylized trashedy—also known as the hours noon to 8 pm on the network now.
Sincerely,
Your [tryna be a] Supporter,
Ndygo Sunshyne
PS-I ain't gon' take you disrespecting T.T. like this on every episode. Get it together. Please & thank you.
Watch me move.
ok, first forgive me for the all lower case, babe and bottle in one hand. so, as a holder of two college degrees, i shouldn't know all of this but here goes nothing. i read an interview w/the actress who plays kelly (Brittany Daniels) and it was quite telling. Okay, no more baby in the other hand. Firstly, the show is now filmed in the ATL with a BET budget. Which leads to a couple of things. Filming is non-linear. So they film totally unrelated scenes instead of filming scenes with continuity. They also have a much quicker shooting schedule. So the combination of those two things cause the actors to not have as much of a connection to the script. Coby Bell, the actor that plays Jason, stars on another show on CBS and was not originally slated to return to the show so her role was cut as well. He then decided that he could do it (with the whole abbreviated shooting schedule he could fit it in w/his real job, DML) so she was added back to the cast with a limited role (she is only slated to be in 6 eps and not all 12). Oh and Kelsey Grammar's production co. is still behind the show but don't know if it's the same writers.
ReplyDeleteSo...in truth...
ReplyDeleteI never really liked Girl Melanie & know I just have to deal with her & her awkward attempts at being....alive. Kelly Pitts...well, she actually was funnier to me than Girl Melanie, but only when engaging Tasha Mack. Now that Tasha has morphed into some Smokehound Cougar Shrew & Kelly's been taking self-defense lessons from Dragon Fly Jones (a la Martin), I'm tired already of their interaction & glad to know it won't make all the eps. Thank the Coon TV Gawds for that 1!! I ain't mad at Coby (Jason) for having another job either. He has a family & they MUST eat. Waitin' around to see if The Game was going into overtime didn't pay a'tall!!
I keep hearing the rumor that Kelsey's folks are still involved. As people who seemed to understand cohesion, they might don't make it through this trial period either. & we, the fans, might find ourselves completely w/out Vaseline as BET tries to figure it out alone. Brace ya'self...it's about to be some turbulence!!
Yeah, I was the pressed azz the waited to the end of the credits to see if his prod. team was involved and sure enough it was "Grammet" productions at the end, but they could have reduced the writers or something because they may not be getting paid as much per ep. as they did previously. But it could be the whole staff and it just may go to show that BET is really like the dementors from Harry Potter and can suck the life out of anything good. PS, Girl Melanie makes my head hurt w/her insecurity. I'll get my Astroglide ready...
ReplyDeletei HEART you for making expert use of the Dementors!!!
ReplyDeletei wish i had a door prize for you.
Thanks a million for EXPRESSING my exact feelings...all I could think was "who are these people? black n milds? terrance j? is that brit brat or miley cyrus? oh help us! BET has done it AGAIN!"
ReplyDeletePreach Sista! Both of those shows, Girlfriends and The Game where the only ones I watched faithfully when I had a tv. I would love to see a new airing of the Game, and now you are saying that BET's writers messed it up. That is so typical of them to destroy one of the only good Black, comedic sitcoms out there. This piece is hilarious!!!
ReplyDelete*dead* @ miley cyrus. that's hilarious. that lil girl did nothing to move me. NO. THING. & i'm not feelin terrance j bein forced down my throat (no pun intended) as an actor, but if i EVER see rocsi anywhere off of 106 & park somebody better hold me back cuz i'm windmillin errybody!!
ReplyDeletelast night was a struggle. they MAY have a 3rd episode in me & then it's #gameover.