travinitrav

The words generic and uninspired won't do justice here. The Exes and particularly its pilot reek of committee choices, like a team of network executives got together compiled all the generic garbage they could possibly think of. Every premise, plot point, line and "joke" is awful and feels unpleasant. There's less originality here than in most of the other junk mainstream TV churns out every year and that's a serious problem. The canned laughter is always forced and only serves to drive home the point none of the jokes are funny. People say dumb annoying things then wait 5 seconds for the laugh track to build and die off. Its so unpleasant I could not even watch the entire episode. Also there's a lot of people pushing gender stereotypes and in 2011 that was unacceptable. Even if it weren't offensive it would still be lazy and boring. The worst part is its filled with actors who've done much better work elsewhere. The amazon from Third Rock had real heart and wit. Here she just spouts nonsense lines and the fake laughter runs for so long I get bored and start glancing out the window. Dr Turk showed us that modern sitcoms should not have laugh tracks and the jokes should be funny & constant. Newman of course was so damn funny he changed the course of American sitcoms. Kelly Stables would later go on to Superstore which is so much better I feel sorry for her in this garbage.

The Exes is not funny, at least not the pilot, and there's nothing here to keep a sane healthy person coming back, assuming they want to keep their sense of humor. I recommend avoiding.

A brief history lesson for those who dont know or cant remember: Most Nielson box families in the 90's preferred to watch garbage, because it made them comfortable. As a result we got many low quality shows and some of them even managed to stay on the air for a few seasons. We also had tons of incredibly bad shows being greenlit because network executives were desperate to fill airtime and keep their jobs. This is one such show.

The writing is incredibly bland and generic, either because they were trying to appeal to the bland generic audiences or the writers simply had no good ideas. Everyone says stupid trite things in their petty little trite lives and there is absolutely no plot. A woman is forced to move back home. Thats it. Thats your plot. And its as boring as it sounds. She meets some of the people she left behind and big surprise, none of them has done anything interesting. The women are all jealous and spiteful. The men are all stupid and horny. Some wacky shenanigans ensue, and by wacky I mean she kisses a boy on her front porch, and the petty spiteful women forgive and forget. Maggie can't get a job at the local rag, until she does 10 seconds later, and really nothing else happens. Its kind of sad how lazy a show can be and still get put on the air. I guess they were banking on Faith Ford being a huge draw.

She wasn't.

The jokes are mostly of the cute safe variety you'd probably find on an early 80's family show, and theres no depth or characterization even when Maggie is forced to tell he life story to the people she meets. Its annoying, its plain, and it makes you wish you hadnt wasted 28 minutes of your day on Youtube. I am writing this review to spare you the agony. Do not watch. Not even if you think you love Faith Ford. She had some other shows after Murphy Brown. Go watch one of those instead.

I will do my best to review the miniseries and not Ron Jeremy himself or his victims.

To start off I'm not sure what viewers were complaining about. The early part of the first episode DOES explain how he entered the porn community and how he rose to fame. Not in much detail, I think they were hoping two short episodes would explain the basics in case there's anyone out there who doesn't know anything about Ron Jeremy. The documentary also goes into detail of how most of these actors first met and worked together. They tell some fun and silly stories about Ron before getting into stories of how he would stock, molest, violate, and rape women. Almost all are first hand accounts. They don't allow the witnesses to tell too many stories about other women. My main complaint is while we get plenty of interviews with his coworkers we do not get much in the way of actual investigation, nor do they interview any family members or law enforcement officers involved with his case. We do however get many accounts from the victims of how they were treated by society after coming out and sharing their rape allegations publically. We also don't see more than a few frames of the trial and nothing about his arrest or the official investigation. Its the kind of documentary where the film makers just let the interviewees talk and that's it. They don't have any voiceover explaining facts, and only a handful of title cards with information. For this reason I have to rate it low as a documentary, but the interviews were illuminating and felt genuine.

Also as opposed to the majority of American documentaries, this one does an amazing job of not pushing you to believe a viewpoint or get the viewer to feel a particular emotional state, or take a position. Nor do they speculate on any facts. I like that and I wish more documentaries took this approach. I'd also like them to have more facts. All they documented was a bunch of verbal stories from victims and a few from his coworkers, like cameramen and directors. The second episode ends with his legal situation up in the air. I wonder if now was the best time to make and release a documentary like this. Maybe they will do a follow up. No official word. I would have liked something much more thorough.