Patton Oswalt Wants Us To Embrace Life And Watch TV
In a blog post that started out as a defense of Watchmen, America's Best Comedian (tied with Louis C.K.) Patton Oswalt launched into a detailed description of every show we should be watching on TV right now. No, Patton makes no mention of the show he currently appears regularly on, The United States Of Tara, but that would be, uh, too self promotional or whatever. He is great on that show! Yay! Moving on! Here are the highlights of Patton's TV manifesto, complete with his theory about an Eastbound And Down/No Country For Old Men connection.
They seem to be in no particular order, so I'm putting them in order of appearance (I think we all know Eastbound And Down is the #1 show everyone should start watching, anyway.)
Burn Notice:
Every episode you can learn, through Jeffrey Donavan's laconic, winking voice-over (and some pretty nifty montages) how you can use non-dairy creamer and Christmas lights to destroy a city block."
Battlestar Galactica:
If you've never seen a single episode of the show you need to break your femur, get laid up in a hospital for eight weeks, and watch the entire run on either iTunes or DVD.
Friday Night Lights:
The best hour-long drama, hands down...it's like watching a weekly documentary about a small town facing compromise and obsolescence. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton are the new Gandolfini and Falco, as far as I'm concerned.
Dollhouse:
GET (Joss Whedon's) BACK, people. Besides, I'm on it in two weeks. Do you really want to let the show get canceled, and miss Tahmoh Penikett kick the living crap out of me? The fuck else are you doing on a Friday night?
Breaking Bad:
How did you guys miss a show about a trampled, neglected genius, who turns his skill at chemistry into a fledgling meth empire, all the while battling cancer -- a cancer which, when undergoing chemotherapy, turns Cranston into a bald, black-clad arch-villain?
Delocated:
I've seen the entire season of DELOCATED and holy shit, it's brilliant... Like BATTLESTAR, it uses its far-out concept to make some pretty harsh points about the world -- in DELOCATED's case, how "reality" TV is warping, consuming and, ultimately, destroying reality. Only it's NOT harsh -- you'll be laughing your ass off. Trust me.
Eastbound And Down (This isn't an excerpt, this show deserves the whole quote):
Finally, you've got to start watching EASTBOUND AND DOWN on HBO. I know the early episodes were dark and brutal, but that's the point. Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Ben Best -- the brains behind THE FOOTFIST WAY, have created a comedic, low-rent version of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Stay with me on this.Remember how, in NO COUNTRY, you've got the Anton Chigurh character, a force of pure, un-compromised evil, plowing through the world, and we see how every other character stands or falls before him? Some saved by fate and luck, others destroyed by integrity and conviction?
Well, Danny McBride's washed-up ballplayer, Kenny Powers ("a bullet-proof tiger") is a force of pure, unapologetic delusion and narcissism. How will his sister-in-law's Christian faith, his ex-girlfriend's love for her fiancee, or a high school music teacher's man-crush stand up against the poisonous stink of Kenny's essence? This has got to be the first 1/2 hour weekly comedy which is unabashedly going to be a 3 hour movie, with each episode's opening scene being THE EXACT NEXT SCENE from the previous episode's last shot. Plus, you've got David Gordon Green directing episodes, Andrew Daly as a clueless romantic rival, and the blitzkrieg comedic assault of a mulleted Danny McBride. You do nothing but win when you watch EASTBOUND AND DOWN.
Yay Patton! I don't think anything could get me into Battlestar Galactica (I've seen enough) but Patton has inspired me personally to start DVRing Burn Notice and Breaking Bad again, and hopefully his blog post will make any reluctant fans of his start watching Eastbound And Down already. (Here's Patton's entire blog post -- Watchmen praise and all.)
Posted by Lindsay at 2:15 PM in Love-Watching, Stand Up Comedy
Tags: Eastbound And Down | Friday Night Lights | Patton Oswalt | The United States Of Tara | Watchmen
Delocated was incredible last night.
Score = 5
Delocated and Eastbound and Down are seriously the greatest comedy's on television right now.
Score = 2
He's clearly a huge supporter of McBride, Hill and those guys, he wrote a blog for the A.V. Club over the summer about how much he loved Foot Fist Way: http://www.avclub.com/articles/patton-perseveres-with-courtesy-and-indominable-sp,9116/
Score = 0
I'm looking forward to Delocated. I miss a lot living in Europe. Thank God for downloads!
And season one of Breaking Bad was phenomenal so I'm glad for the reminder. Thanks Patton Oswald and Videogum for saving me from Czech tv. All 2 channels of it.
Score = 0
joss whedon? Seriously, Patton Oswalt?
Score = -3
Tied with Louis CK? We all love them both, but the ferocity with which Patton takes down hecklers breaks the tie. He is singlehandedly responsible for my adding the word "douchenozzle" to my insult arsenal.
And come on, he's cuddlier than Mr. CK.
Score = 1
WHOA, patton oswalt....
comparing anything to The Sopranos is like playing with fire...
Score = 1
Ever since I heard Patton Oswald on the radio show, Too Beautiful to Live, I can't listen/watch him anymore. He was such an doucher.
Score = 0