TOOBITS AWARDS 2018 PART FIVE

2018 TOOBITS AWARDS

BEST BEHIND THE SCENES
IN PRINT:
BEST CRITIQUE
PROFESSIONAL
“Why I Hate ‘I Love Lucy’” by Lili Loofborouw

“Many comedies are powered by anxiety, but I Love Lucy transforms anxiety into antic terror: Ball's manic desire for attention and fulfillment, coupled with her submissive need to please, is a recipe for soul-destroying unhappiness. Her frustration is constant, her mix of rebellion and fear is the product of conditions the show can't quite paper over. "It's like The Good Place, only the show doesn't know it's The Good Place," my partner said of their marriage as we watched Lucy and Ricky "reunite" time and time again.”

AMATEUR
 Looking at her as a person I can feel a degree of pity for Roseanne. She self admittedly has mental issues and she just self destructed in front of the world. That said, anyone saying they support her... No. We're talking about an already insanely rich woman who was given a second shot at TV success. Going into the new show her comments had people against her. ABC gave her a shot anyway. Her castmates put their faith in her. She got to be back on TV, having an impact on the national narrative. All she had to do was not say anything insanely offensive. She knew that. She chose to compare a prominent black woman to talking apes and religious radicals. "But it was a joke!" The entire crux of the "joke" was to trot out the oldest hate speech for blacks in the world and pair that with "here's why else she's horrible". "She has freedom of speech!" And anyone's boss has the freedom to fire them for making the company look bad. As a nothing level employee at E! if I publically presented myself as an E! employee and went crazy racist in front of cameras, I would be fired. Roseanne is at all times a report for her show and by extension ABC. Unavoidable. The show's name is HER NAME. So she chose to say dumbass racist shit that barely if at all qualifies as a joke and she lost her show. Because that's how the damn world works. Feel bad for her? No. She's already richer than I will likely ever be. She can literally afford to do what she did and still live comfortably. The behind the scenes crew for her show cannot say the same. They're all out of jobs they actually need. Because their boss chose to be a horse's ass with no thought to what her actions would mean. And while the actors and network folks can take the financial hit, they are all now taking hits to their reputation for having given Roseanne a chance. Stand with Roseanne? When she couldn't be bothered to do right by her own cast and crew? No way.

Forgot to write down who wrote this…..  Sorry.

BEST TELEVISIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
“The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat” Is My ‘X-Files’ Series Finale
By Darren Franich

WORST TV EXPERIENCE
The Kavanaugh Hearings
 
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT IN A SHOW
‘800 Words’
In one of the plotlines, Shay Turner almost got in trouble for art forgery and even though she and her employer, Katie, were able to extricate themselves without getting arrested for fraud, Shay took all the blame and everybody who knew believed that she was responsible.  But it was Katie who first brought her into the scheme (which technically was legal the way they were doing it).  In a way, it does show that characters do have gray sides, but Katie had to know that she was in the wrong and that she should never have allowed a teenager to shoulder the blame.
  
WORST PRODUCT PLACEMENT
‘This Is Us’ – “That’ll Be The Day”
The Crock-Pot
After a faulty Crock-Pot caused the death of popular character Jack, the Crock-Pot company had to put out a statement:
"For nearly 50 years with over 100 million Crock-Pots sold, we have never received any consumer complaints similar to the fictional events portrayed in last night’s episode. In fact, the safety and design of our product renders this type of event nearly impossible.”
  
Sucks to be the Crock-Pot company…..

HONORARY MENTIONS

THE DOCTOR RECASTAWAY
This began at the end of the Christmas Special, but we had to wait most of the year to see how well the new fit worked out.   To go from the wonderful and powerful Twelfth Incarnation personified by Peter Capaldi, to be replaced by Jodie Whitaker who made History as her Thirteenth Incarnation is the first female Doctor… in the Canon.  (Joanna Lumley did it years earlier in Skitlandia.)  Had this happened in 2018, it would have won Best Overall Recastaway hands down…..

FICTIONAL COUNTRY
Normay – As with last year’s Nambia, this comes from Trump.  Well, at least from the White House Communications office.  And it got plenty of coverage on the news.

AMERICAN LOCATIONS
Havenport, Ohio & Feud on the Mason-Dixon Line – ‘The Librarians’
Havenport - Thanks to an imprisoned fairy, the town had been accident free since the early 1980s.  Once the fairy escaped, all hell broke loose.
Feud – The ghosts of two brothers who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War were resurrected so that they could set right the Truth and put aside the legend of their deaths.

HISTORICAL QUOTE
“Don’t you remember your Whitman?  ‘I am large; I contain multitudes.’” – Karen Boyd, ‘Private Eyes’