By Steve Rhodes
“My Boys is back, and so are the Chicago in-jokes,” Thomas Conner writes in the Sun-Times.
Hoo-boy!
Says the show’s “star” Jordana Spiro: “I was just speaking with someone who was really excited about the Ed Debevic’s scenes.”
Yes, probably a reporter from the Trib!
It turns out, as we learned in last night’s opening episode, that Spiro’s poorly constructed character, PJ Franklin, used to hang out at Ed Debevic’s. I mean, does anyone hang out at Ed Debevic’s? Please.
It got worse.
“In this season’s second episode, PJ and friends eat some brownies that, of course, turn out to be ‘special’ brownies.”
Gee, that plot device has never been used before.
My Boys has been a particular source of pain to the Beachwood over the years.
“The dialogue was as predictable as an episode of Friends, the city views may as well have been from Vacation, and the acting purely bush league,” Pat Bataillon wrote for us in 2006.
“Strained, tired, and outright weird references to the Billy Goat (‘You know, the place that’s underground?’), Kingston Mines (‘We had great seats!’), and Lord & Taylor (Lord & Taylor?!) aside, it’s clear the writing staff knows nothing about baseball, poker, heavy metal, or the male-female dynamic,” the Beachwood TBS Affairs Desk followed. “Which pretty much leaves the show with nothing but a chick who looks cute in her softball uniform. And while that’s certainly something, it’s also certainly not enough.”
I weighed in soon thereafter, writing that “I actually look forward now to watching My Boys every Tuesday night so I can continue to crusade against it. How many inane references to Chicago, sex, rock and roll, and baseball can one show make in an episode? My Boys keeps trying to top itself.”
A week later: “[This show] offends me because it gets baseball wrong, it gets Chicago wrong, it gets sex wrong, it gets dating wrong, and, in the character who hosts some sort of heavy metal radio show, it gets rock and roll wrong.”
Our very own Scott Buckner then took a crack: “I’m pretty sure even prison inmates don’t watch except when they’re being punished.”
Somehow, the show survived.
From 2008: “[I]t’s back and it’s as bad as ever.”
In 2009, one of the show’s actors made it onto our Olympic Enemies List via Billy Dec’s crappy interviews of celebrities who wanted to see the Games come to our town our expense for their entertainment.
And now, here we are in 2010 having to contend with My Boys again. Consider it done.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on July 26, 2010