Monday, September 25, 2006

Alaska on the Tube: Men in Trees

Well, my fellow 49th Staters, I finally found myself at the CabinDwelling Compound on a Friday night, and actually remembered to tune in to catch an episode of Men in Trees.

For those of you with much better and interesting things to do than watch television, it's the newest show purportedly set Alaska. And it has perhaps the most famous hasbian* of all time, Anne Heche, as its female lead.

The audience at the CDC: myself and three other CabinDwelling folk, four dogs, and a mostly full case of shorts of Old 55 from the Silver Gulch Brewery.

Expectations were low, I must point out. But keeping in mind that it really Is Just TV, a couple of thoughts:
  • Okay, so the show must be set down in Southeast. At least they have the sense to name drop towns from down there.
  • Everything is too... clean. Perhaps that is just the way Southeast is, what with all the rain and all.
  • Oh, we'll grant the show a break on the fish-out-of-water cliche, but that'll get old quicker than you can say Joel Fleischman.
  • Radio show? Cribbed directly from The Show That Will Not Be Named. But, will grant a pass on that one because, ya know, radio has a greater importance here than anywhere else in this country.
  • Okay, so I did like the AH character, Marin, ringing the bell at the bar. Now that felt authentic.
  • Apparently, in Elmo, cops can just go ahead and set bail, and change it. Bizarre.
In general: Meh. Kind of bland. It was not the worst amount of time I've wasted on the Tube**, but the writing needs to pick up for me to justify my sacrifice of brain cells.

*Oh, just look it up.
**Not to be confused with Uncle Ted's system of tubes by which I post this and send email.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It really was too clean. That irked me, too; but like you said, I was trying to remember it's just television. I suppose dirt doesn't sell, outside of the Discovery Channel.

I only saw that first episode. Has it rained? If it is Southeast, it has to have rained by now. Unless it's winter. I couldn't decide the time of year they were trying to portray, with the snow on the ground. Did you notice that the snow was all white?

One of those shows you have to see once, if you're an Alaskan with a tv. Once was enough.