Why Would We Love This Show?

Becky and I love dinner parties, entertaining people at our house, and hospitality. I am at my best when surrounded by people, enjoying good food and drink, and serving others. I also love cinematic things and philosophical trojan horses. I often discuss TV shows like they are Meditations.

Back to The Bear

I will not spoil the show for you. You should watch it. You, of all people, would love it. The Bear has a simple premise. I found the one-liner description of the show and imagined the ChatGPT prompt that was used to create it.

Write two seasons of an episodic "comedy" about a young chef from the fine dining world who returns to Chicago to run his family's sandwich shop featuring chaotic moments with bits of philosophy, and not be funny haha but funny.

As we watched the first season and then quickly into the second season, I kept imagining that the creators and writers of the show definitely have a point of view that they are delivering through the show. One character makes an amazing transformation throughout the series. I didn’t really see it coming, but wow, did it impact me.

The Hospitality Industry

This show made me rethink the hospitality industry. I know that this is a TV show and things are exaggerated, BUT SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO EXAGGERATE TO MAKE A POINT. We live in a noisy world where people watch seconds of video, read only a few words of a headline, and throw away their single-serve relationships in a non-compostable heap of packaging materials.

We have all experienced hospitality in various forms. It starts with little details, like a folded-up elephant on your motel’s bed or when you see your favorite server at a crappy dinner. Hospitality is most likely why you come back. Everything can be learned on YouTube these days, so crazy, over-the-top dishes are not that spectacular to me anymore. What you can’t learn on YouTube is how to genuinely care about someone else’s experience.

The one character who makes a major transformation faces the idea of hospitality and why people in the service industry do what they do. In a discussion, the idea of a hospital and hospitality are rooted in the same idea. I was like, “What?” I never connected those thoughts together before. Turns our HOSPITAL is the related to HOSPITALity. Who would of thunk?

Both “hospital” and “hospitality” are derived from the Latin word “hospes”, which means “guest” or “stranger”. Over time, this root word evolved and branched off into multiple terms that denote care, shelter, or welcoming.

• Hospital: From Latin “hospitālis”, which pertains to guests. Initially, hospitals were places that provided refuge for travelers or pilgrims. Only later did they become places primarily associated with the care and treatment of the sick.
• Hospitality: From Old French “hospitalité”, which refers to the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers.

The character who makes this discovery also faces why. If you really care about yourself, you can tell on the outside. This is what struck me so hard. There is a life lesson here, buried in crude language, jump cuts, and dark humor, a life lesson sits and waits to be put on your Etsy store. To care for others, you have to care for yourself. Roll tears, I mean, credits.

So, I do love the show. I am glad that I got to watch the two seasons all at once after two years of avoiding doing so. We truly are living in a golden-age of TV, with so many great shows to watch. I guess when we all cut the cords and switched to subscriptions, they decided to give us art. I hope that the strike settles and that it is a fair deal to those who are modern-day philosophers, exaggerating for impact and trying to change the world by changing one person in the audience. We are all consumers and need creators.

Here’s an outline of Brent Forrester’s TV Comedy Course:

• Class One: Brainstorming
• Class Two: Pitching
• Class Three: Cards
• Class Four: Outline
• Class Five: Draft
• Class Six: Rewrite

What sold me?

I happened to upon Brent Forrester’s talk from the WGFestival 2021: Fundamentals of the Comedy Pilot. It was a motivating session and compelled me to look closer at Brent Forrester’s method for TV comedy.

About Brent Forrester

Brent Forrester won his first Comedy Writing Emmy at age 25 for his work on “The Ben Stiller Show.”  He went on to write for “The Simpsons,” helped launch “King of The Hill,” and was a writer, producer, and director at NBC’s “The Office” for seven seasons.  He’s written for “Late Night with Conan,”  HBO’s “Mr. Show,” and “The Larry Sanders Show,” and continues to work as a Head Writer on Netflix shows like Judd Apatow’s “Love” and Steve Carrell’s “Space Force,” along with Amazon shows like Greg Daniel’s “Upload” and “People of Earth.” 

When Brent was running the Writers Room at “The Office,” he began developing a system to get a script from “concept” to “shooting draft” in three weeks.

Part of my journey

I will share my journey as I take the comedy writing class. I am not sure if I will write a TV comedy pilot, but I am furthering my commitment to write every day. I identified as a writer for about 10 years and realized that I wasn’t writing very much. About three years ago, I changed that. I started writing every day no matter what. Sometimes I wrote jokes or philosophical musings, but I wrote something. I also committed to blogging here every week. I am not writing for an audience, I am just making writing a habit.

Writing is hard.

Better Call Saul is now in its sixth and final season. These final 13 episodes might be the last chapter in the Breaking Bad universe and I have been savoring the experience. Season six of Better Call Saul premiered on April 18, 2022, and wraps up on August 15th. The season has been torture waiting for each episode, cliffhangers, and a six-week midseason break. I decided to watch and experience this last season in a new way.

1. I watch the episodes live. Every Monday night, I focus my attention for an hour as the episode plays out all swiss chessed by commercial breaks. I haven’t watch a show this way in awhile and it has some benefits. Breaks give you a change to process, guess on what’s coming next, and build some suspense. I also don’t want to have anything spioled if I venture onto BCS Twitter.
2. Right after the episode, I join the OneTake livestream on YouTube. The OneTake brothers go live right after the episode and give their instant take on the episodes. I sometimes jump in the chat and add thoughts, but I mostly listen and revel in the episode that we all just watched together. This has been a fun way to go a little deeper into the story and join a community of folks sharing an experience together.
3. The day after the episode, I listen to the Better Call Saul Insider Podcast. This podcast puts out a new episode on the following day of the AMC aired show and features hosts Chris McCaleb and Kelley Dixon with the people actually behind the show. It is such a great podcast. They often give you a little insight into what they were think as the “break the episode” and how they technically pulled off complex shots or sequences. Again, this really helps build up the episode.
4. Throught the rest of the week, I watch a few recap vidoes on YouTube. There are some really great YouTubers who breakdown the recent episode, give some thoughts, and clear up some things for the audience. They are fun to watch as they compete to get their recap episode on YouTube before everyone esle. I highly recommend TheVividKiWi, OneTake, Courtney’s Reviews, and Pete Peppers.

With all of this, I am just trying to be in the moment an dextend the moment as long as I can. Are you watching the show? How do you watch your favoite show?

Sony Pictures Television noticed my tweet and reached out. They offered to send me a gift box to thank me for my loyalty over the years. Well, they blew me away today with an HHM banker box filled with surprises.

SPTV really delighted me with all of the touches. The box had redacted files, coffee-stained paper, crumpled up legal pad paper, and Hamlin Hamlin & McGill branding. The gifts were quite unexpected: World’s 2nd Best Lawyer… Again coffee mug complete with bullet hole, a working burner phone with a voicemail from Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn, a Zafiro Añejo bottle stopper, and the LWYRUP license plate from Saul’s Cadillac. The whole package made me well up with tears and I got a little overwhelmed. What a complete surprise.

I really love the Breaking Bad Universe universe as it has given me a lot of joy appreciating the stories, pouring over the meaning and symbolism, listening to the cast and crew on the insider podcast, and going into deep discussions with friends over the years.

Thank you, Sony Pictures Television!

Over a period of 3 months, hints were dropped which lead me to want to start watching LOST – I finally “listened to the island.” I saw a speech by J. J. Abrams, 30 Rock made a LOST reference, my friends were talking about the show, the answer is 42, and I heard a faint radio transmission on my XM. I finally broke down and watched the pilot episodes of LOST on Hulu. I was hooked.

Over the next 24 hours, I watched the entire first season – all 24 mind-bending, awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, uber-frustrating episodes. I see why this show is popular, it has all of the elements that I love – great mystery, tied with philosophical nuances and solid characters who I love to learn about. I want to figure it all out, but I am being messed with. Numbers and non-linear flashbacks spliced in the real-time storyline all make for a fantastic mind trip.

The final season starts tomorrow. I am so glad to hear there is a final season. It will make my LOST time seem worth it since I know it will have to have an ending and soon. I look forward to the rest of the seasons and catching up on the new episodes. I will be DVR’ing the new ones and maybe I will be able to finish this series with everyone else.

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