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Parenthood - Season 4 thread (2 Viewers)

Mike Frezon

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I watch this show and you all know how much I really want to like it.

But Max's speech storyline this week is a strict parallel with the Victor/Little League storyline.

Worry, worry, worry and then watch the kid hit an unlikely homerun and save the day.

Lazy, lazy writing 101.

Sad, unrealistic, heart-tugging...when it would be much more interesting and realistic to do something else...anything else.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Once Max opened up about having Asperger's I find it believable that the students would give him the pity vote. That being said, I agree with both of you that it would have been better if he'd lost big time, but the winner was impressed enough to push the vending machine issue on his behalf.
Also it was a bit distracting casting the real life sister of the girl who plays Sydney as one of the other class president candidates. They just look too much alike.
 

Greg_S_H

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The vending machine thing is a promise he can't keep. And I find it hard to believe that vicious brats who mistreat Max will be kind now that they understand. They knew he had something going on even if they didnt have a name for it. Kids with Down syndrome are treated horribly in public school gen pop.
 

Mike Frezon

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Adam Lenhardt said:
/t/323682/parenthood-season-4-thread/60#post_3994584
The vending machine thing is a promise he can't keep.
C'mon, Greg. The way the writers are going, the adult school officials will quickly tire of Max's dogged persistence to replace the vending machines. We will then be treated to a video montage of Max doing a slow-motion victory dance up the front steps of the school as the machines are being wheeled-in (to the strains of Bill Conti's Theme from Rocky).
 

Greg_S_H

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Victor will grab a stale Twizzler from the machine and hit a donut hole so hard and true that he is instantly fast-tracked into the majors.
 

Citizen87645

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I can't disagree with most of the observations here. I too would appreciate less broad strokes regarding Victor and Max in favor of revealing the small (but no less significant) victories.

The cancer story line is chugging along and I think the actors are doing as well as can be expected with the material.

With Amber being one of my favorite characters, I like seeing her catch a break from the writers, and I'm hoping they're done going back to the well of "Amber makes a bad decision."

Although I'm still interested in the show, it has definitely moved down my priority list below Fringe, Person of Interest and Elementary. In some ways, L&O has even supplanted it.
 

Greg_S_H

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Looks like it was Drew's turn to hit the magic home run. Amber was right, he was acting like a desperate creep, but, hey, it worked!
 

mattCR

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Originally Posted by Greg_S_H /t/323682/parenthood-season-4-thread/60#post_4001464
Looks like it was Drew's turn to hit the magic home run. Amber was right, he was acting like a desperate creep, but, hey, it worked!

I'm having a real problem with characters this season acting in such a different way then their prior growth. I now have no idea at all what Joel does, and I guess they are just living off savings for a while? Who knows. Mark wasn't in this at all pretty much, nor was the photography studio so those go by the wayside. And we go to the Luncheonette and it looks as though hooligans have trashed it and all they can say is "well, that happened".

Jasmine has been AWOL for a while, but on the other hand, so have a ton of supposedly "major" storylines. I have just absolutely no idea at this point who does what.
 

Mike Frezon

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mattCR said:
I now have no idea at all what Joel does...
C'mon, Matt...Joel folds laundry.

I was already in a tailspin during the opening sequence when Amber and Ryan went to play mini-golf at the world's coolest mini-golf course...and yet there wasn't another mini-golfer anywhere to be seen. And then, in a move that has never been done at any time in any other fictional event, the guy decides he needs to school the young lady on the finer points of how to hold a gold club. There's an intimate embrace coupled with some lingering...and then in a totally surprising moment the girl decides to try out her new hand grip and totally overhits the ball practically taking off the head of her amorous date. He "machos" up and just laughs off the fact that he was almost just killed and then they go and hit the sack together.

Sheer genius. These writers are really onto some magical stuff here.

OTOH, I did appreciate the slow uptake on Drew's part when he realized that things were moving in a good direction for him with Amy whenever he mentioned Christina's cancer.

And Monica Potter and Peter Krause are still doing some great things with what they're being given to do.
 

Greg_S_H

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The scene with Julia looking like a loon while watching the boys playing basketball was not a high point. That wing of the family has been fantasyland since the whole adoption came up.
For those keeping a record of consecutive home runs scored by the home team: Victor hits an in-the-parker to be the short lived team hero; Max rattles one off the Pesky pole by winning the class presidency; and now Drew splashes one into McCovey Cove using the power of cancer. Honorable mention goes to the entire Luncheonette storyline.
 

Mike Frezon

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Originally Posted by Greg_S_H /t/323682/parenthood-season-4-thread/60#post_4001609
The scene with Julia looking like a loon while watching the boys playing basketball was not a high point.

I kinda thought one of her contacts was giving her trouble...

That was rather pathetic. Why the need to hit the audience over the head by dwelling so long on her obvious reaction? Because the writers don't respect us.

===========

Adam has been quiet here lately...
 

Mike Frezon

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Originally Posted by Patrick Sun /t/323682/parenthood-season-4-thread/90#post_4001918
This is the last season for this show, right?

I think here's only a handful of episodes left.

It was my understanding they were coming back for just a 12-episode season...but I could be wrong.

EDIT: Just found a site that said it was renewed for a 15-episode season with the chance of being extended further.
 

Greg_S_H

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TV By The Numbers has it as certain to be renewed. Commenters there and at TV Line are still rabid fans, calling it the best show on TV and whatnot. It's almost like Breaking Bad doesn't exist. And if it didn't, this still wouldn't be a contender for the title.
 

mattCR

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I think there are a lot of people married to it. Frankly, Season 1 was very good. Season 2 was a decent first half and then kind of fell off, and since then it's been a jumble of a whole lot of badly structured storylines, characters who come in and out, plot points that completely dead end, and absolute confusion about who and what these characters are.

This would have been at one point in my top 10 shows on TV.. but it's not even close now, not with stuff like Homeland/Good Wife/Breaking Bad/Mad Men/Walking Dead/Switched at Birth/Boss on the air. Frankly, it's getting to where I enjoy some new shows (Arrow) enough and with other programming on the air, I'm running out of time in my evenings for a show that just seems to be going nowhere.

Hell, next week I'll get to it late because I've finally decided to just watch Covert Affairs live instead of this. Just not enough reward to it.
 

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After seeing googly eyed Julia watch Victor and his friend play hoops into a flower pot, I was 100% convinced we would see Julia and Joel present Victor with a shiny new basketball hoop in the driveway, all in full smiles, with everything right in the world. I guess I'm relieved they didn't go there but there's still time. I would have bet a year's salary on it though.
 

Greg_S_H

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Julia seems like a crazy person. "Being there for Victor is more important than work!" From Joel's reaction, they aren't set for life from her previous income. Also, making all that pasta was just a nutty person visual, though I think it was supposed to represent her desperate boredom.
I don't think you can force a "milestone" on a kid. "You *will* go to the dance, and if it's honestly written (no safe bet, that), you *will* be miserable!"
Kind of an all around failure of an episode for me. It was nice seeing Mark lose his shit for once, but that triangle is so forced and inorganic.
 

mattCR

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I finally got around to watching this, and the dance bit to me was appalling. For as much attention as they've paid to autistic childrens issues, putting an autistic child into a noisy social environment is the reverse of every single thing any study on autism has told us over the last decade or more. The vast majority of autistic children (and by vast, I mean more then 3 in 4) autistic children have sensory recognition issues, it's one of the big tells to autism. Max has had these issues too in the show, demanding quiet or noise on cue. This is the normal. So, why would you force an autistic kid into a noisy social environment? We've had episodes where he suffered from violent outbursts because he didn't get his way / disliked the layout of things - which is completely correct, and now they are going to push a dance?

And while it's good that they show Max still has OCD issues on the vending machine, what was missed is that apparently he DID win on his vending machine "we should save money for a second vending machine"... wait, so they put back the original vending machine? How much power does Jr. High student government have over state health department control? But they just glossed over it like it was the obvious outcome: Max wins and the vending machines come back, oh and now he wants to expand the vending machine business. The kid will be a vending machine Tycoon!

The Julia story is also ridiculous. I had figured she was going to open up a private practice out of her house or something, but instead she seems content to just wallow and say "I want to try this full time mom bit"...

This entire episode was a complete mess for me. Complete mess. Everything about it just rang totally false.
 

Mike Frezon

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Originally Posted by Greg_S_H /t/323682/parenthood-season-4-thread/90#post_4006717
Kind of an all around failure of an episode for me.

Yup.

This week's metaphorical home run was Max's agreeing (prompted by his Dad's sincere request) to attend the dance. Was that a plausible event and outcome? No, not likely. But it sure did "feel good" for the audience. (Much like Victor's Little League HR, Max winning class presidency, Drew getting back with Amy, etc.).

The writers have not only gotten "safe" with all the storylines...but--even worse--they have become predictable.

Lauren Graham is wonderful...but no matter how scattered the character of of Sarah Braverman is written to be...her apparent inability to see the impact of her actions on Mark doesn't seem plausible. And if you want to say that Sarah is one of those ticking timebombs destined to explode any relationship she enters, I don't think she would be so awkwardly torturing Mark with her steps towards screwing up their plans to be able to help out Hank and his issues. The whole thing is a contrived mess (that was so obviously forecast in the season's first episode with the issue of Mark forcing himself into the Braverman family portrait).

I am so torn by this show. We get that nice little scene last night between Mae Whitman and Craig T. Nelson...and yet the storyline which brought them together is so incredibly forced and unnecessary to the show. As I was watching this episode I was actually thinking that I wasn't even going to post anything here about it because it was so "meh." But I want it to be better so badly that I can't stop thinking about what has gone so wrong.
 

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