THE 2015 POPFILTER TV CHALLENGE: MARCH MADNESS

Follow the Tournament Here!

Round One

Weird Loners

vs

Younger

 

Hello everyone. My name is Jason R. Noble and I have just watched the pilots to both Weird Loners and Younger. When I signed up for this TV challenge I thought, “Oh what fun it will be to have a dialogue about all of the new television shows being unleashed upon society. What a great mouth piece this will be to shout about the height of human achievement, watching and discussing shows that have survived the onslaught of garbage to make it all the way to a premier on actual television.” And then I pulled the Weird Loners/Younger battle. Fuck me, right?

 

All is not lost. There are highs and lows to everything and these two shows are good reminders that it is not always an even distribution of extremes. First, we have Weird Loners, a show about four single people that, through incredibly coincidental circumstances, seem to form a group. There is the 33 year-old weirdo, the 36 year-old douche, the 34 year-old artist and the 37 year-old pretty white lady. They all fear commitment/growing up/being people and it is through this bond that they are able to forge an us-against-the-world gang of misanthropes. It is tired. It is hackneyed. It has the best masturbation joke of the last 5 years of network television.

 

 

And then there’s Younger, the show that proves that TV Land deserves the title of “Network That Definitely Produces Television Shows!”. The show, as it is, focuses on a 40-something mother that is trying to get a job after a painful divorce and 15 years out of the work force. She is talked down to, turned away, and psychologically beaten up to the point of giving up. As luck would have it, some tattooed idiot in a bar hits on her and makes her think that there is a chance that she might be able to pretend to be in her 20’s again, therefore worthy of an assistant position. She works under a character that is so broad that Meryl Streep’s Devil Wears Prada character would say she might need to tone it down. Hillary Duff, however, proves that she can almost pretend not to be a hateable-if-stereotypical 20-something millennial, walking a thin line between overly concerned with others and pulling away as soon as a real person might have to emerge.

 

Sad though it is, this battle breaks down to two unexpected things: Hillary Duff’s resurgence as a television darling and a fantastic moment between two characters about masturbation. Thought both of these shows certainly deserve whatever shit will be heaped upon them, Weird Loners is able to get past the stone cold rigidity of its pilot and make you think that watching the second episode will not make you bummed. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Younger. Though both shows are not going to win Emmy’s anytime soon, Weird Loners takes the first round.

 

NEXT UP…BLOODLINE VS WEIRD LONERS!

EXCITEMENT ABOUNDS!