Good Shows

Starved and Weeds.

Finally, after four hundred years or something ridiculous that I don't have the critical thinking to process right now, we're doing tragicomic theater again. And this time, they've got women playing women instead of the director's ephebic catamites playing women. Come to think of it, though, I haven't seen Mary Louise Parker's box, and her breasts are kind of small. I will probably delete that sentence and add some commas to the one above it in the morning. Right now, though, I'm over-caff'd, and (suddenly using commas to excess)not terribly coherent.

Why you should watch Starved: (Even if you don't have a sense of humor) It's the first honest portrayal of eating disorders I've ever seen in my life. I've lived with people with eating disorders; first my sister, and then a multitude of fainting modern dancers, actresses, and one philosophy student in college. I've been virtually simmered in people who've written to Crest demanding to know the caloric content of toothpaste, just in case.

The characters on Starved are completely unsympathetic, worthless, ego-centric, fat-phobic choads. And it's delightful. Since Seinfeld, we've known that assholes are good entertainment. Any protagonist who cares about the big things too little and the little things too much is one who will go far in the current cultural milieu, where nobody cares about anything.

Starved just gets it right. It's on target. It's genuine, even though the characters themselves are anything but. They're wildean in their insincerity.

And if you do have a sense of humor, it's funny. It's hilarious. The male characters weigh their dicks on a scale. The female character responds, not with horror, but with accusations of their homosexuality. The whole exchange rings more true than anything I've seen on network television.

And Weeds is just pretty great, too.