Caroline in the City Review

History of the sitcom:
Show Life: September 21, 1995 - April 1999
Running Time: 30 minutes

Background about the series:
Caroline in the City was the #1 new primetime series when it made its premiere on NBC in the 1995-1996 season. It has since then become one of the top-selling U.S. comedies worldwide, airing on leading foreign broadcast and cable networks.

Cast:
Lea Thompson, Eric Lutes, Malcolm Gets, Amy Pietz

Characters in a nutshell:
Lea Thompson as Caroline Duffy
Eric Lutes as Del Cassidy, Caroline’s ex-boyfriend and fiancé
Malcolm Gets as Richard Karinsky, Caroline’s new colorist
Amy Pietz as Annie, Caroline’s best friend and neighbor
Andy Lauer as Charlie, Del’s really funny messenger person
Tom LaGrua as Remo, proprietor of the neighborhood restaurant which all the other characters frequent

About the story:
Caroline in the City is a comedy based on the life of Caroline Duffy, a young cartoonist living in a neighborhood of New York City. ’’Caroline in the City,’’ the strip she has created, is a huge hit spawning an array of products. The strip is based on her own life, and the people in it. At the beginning of the show Caroline has just split up with Del; her boyfriend who has commitment problems. She has an on-off romance with Del that confuses her further. Her personal life is a mess but that does not stop Annie(her best friend who has an amusing dating life of her own) from arranging all kinds of dates for Caroline. The next important character is that of Richard a struggling, brooding artist who pays his rent by working as her cartoon colorist. Initially he views the going ons in her life in a very cynical, detached way but he slowly gets involved as he gets attracted to Caroline. He is the best part of the show for me thanks to his sarcasm. It’s a situational comedy and every episode deals with the personal problems and eccentricities of these characters.


A little more info about the characters:
Caroline
Caroline in the City is all about Caroline Duffy (Lea Thompson, Back to the Future) and her oddball friends. Caroline plays the part of a naive girl trying to make some sense of the world around her. She is constantly searching for true love, happiness and some material for her comic strip (not necessarily in the same order).

Richard
Caroline’s employee Richard Karinsky(Malcolm Gets) colors the cartoons for her and is at loggerheads with everyone around him (including her cat!). On the surface he appears to be cold and indifferent which is just a pretense to avoid too much contact with the world. His sarcastic remarks are the funniest points of the show. He works in Caroline’s in-house office and is easily irritated by the different characters who walk in to meet Caroline. His shy, cynical nature makes it difficult for him to profess his love to Caroline. She is unaware of his love and in the episodes that ensue there develops a romantic triangle between Caroline, Del and Richard.

Del Cassidy
Del Cassidy (Eric Lutes) is the president of the company that makes the Caroline in the City greeting cards. He is kinda self-centered and thinks that women find him irresistible (which isn’t so). Although his relation with Caroline has ended, he still hangs around her apartment all the time. Del has an assistant Charlie who is totally berserk and strangely travels everywhere on roller-skates.

Annie
Amy Pietz is Annie, Caroline’s best friend and next-door neighbor. She is a professional dancer who works in the stage musical ’’Cats’’. She is extremely blunt and often makes Richard the target of her acid tongue albeit in a very humorous manner. Although it seems as if she is looking for her ideal man, she often finds herself in temporary relationships. A very confident woman, she is quite the opposite of Caroline.

Charlie
Charlie is Del’s bizarre messenger/delivery person enacted by Andy Lauer. He is Del’s assistant who has a penchant for stupid comments and observations.

Reason you should watch it:
This is a very humorous and pleasant sitcom with sharp and witty dialogues. Take a sampling of these:
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Annie (trying on shoes): They fit fine! All I need is a shoe horn.
Caroline: You need more than the horn, you need the entire brass section.
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Del: What do you mean? You’re going to give up 200 dollars just because you’re a little embarrassed? I’d walk down the street naked for 200 dollars.
Caroline: You’d do that for 15, we already determined that last Halloween.
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Charlie: ’’I thought I saw God for a second, but it was just the light from the bathroom.’’
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Caroline: And for my next trick I’m going to make my boyfriend disappear. I say the magic words. Opera.
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Caroline: I’m fine.
Richard: Oh, please. You don’t have to be proud in front of me. I’ve seen you eat M&Ms off the floor.
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When can you catch this show :
In India you can watch the series at 11 on Zee English. I have spoken to several people and they seem to be unaware of this good sitcom. I hope my review convinces you to give this series a try.

Zoom is hot + happening!

Zoom is a very smart move made by the Times of India group of publications. After the stupendous success of Bombay Times, which was mainly due to the page 3 section, the top management has read the signs and launched the lifestyle channel. The channel essentially caters to the up market section of society with the parties, the fashion dope, and everything-glitzy and glam. What I like about Zoom is that it is completely a page 3 concoction and makes no bones about it.

Zoom had a very well publicized launch with billboards all over the city announcing its foray into the television world. As many people know the voice of Zoom is Sushmita Sen, whose voice announces the tagline of the channel ’Zoom, Isko Dekho’ Zoom has a pretty snazzy presentation style, something I believe that has been modeled on the lines of a foreign channel.

The shows on zoom that do make for interesting viewing are Popkorn, Kya Kahein, Price tag (which is a filler actually), and the Manish Malhotra show.
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Popkorn gives the entire grapevine about the Indian television industry. It has daily updates on who is in, which serial or personality is out and all the related controversies. The show is telecast on weeknights at 10. A new touch to the show is that nowadays it has a different television personality hosting the show on the weekends. (P.S. last week our made-over gal Jassi hosted it)

Price tag is cool because we get to know the actual worth of the attire of the featured actor/actress. It was astonishing to see Tanushree Dutta (who was last year’s Miss India) whose attire totaled one lac rupees(sheesh..I could buy lots of stuff with that kind of money).

The Manish Malhotra show is somewhat a poor cousin of the Koffee with Karan show. The reason I say this is because although he also gets the A-list celebrities on the show, he finds it very difficult to make them talk on awkward questions. (Manish, run to Karan bhaiya for tips on that ability).

I am not too fond of ’Kosmic chat’, which is hosted by Sunita Menon and Simone Singh. But for tarot card aficionados, this show would be a must watch. It also features celebrities who shuffle the tarot cards and ask questions about their future. Sunita does give some serious believable answers and then again it’s finally up to the viewers to decide. One very irritating show on Zoom is ’Not just page 3 ’ hosted by Pooja Bhatt. The hostess is extremely irritating and guests also look bored on it. She has started another show ‘Just Pooja’ on Zoom that needs to be avoided like crazy.

’Kya Kahein’ hosted by Irfan ‘underrated’ Khan has episodes dealing with the supernatural. Some of the episodes were good and some so-so but it lacks consistency. ‘Page 3’ telecast daily at 7.30 P.M, is essentially the guide to the parties and happenings in town. It is hosted by two PYTs who dish out all the dope on the happenings.

Lately the channel has also started showing crossover films on Saturday nights. Although this is a nice concept, what I feel is that they could also start screening old Hollywood classics that are not seen much on any channels.

The channel also has tie up with E! Entertainment because of which they get to telecast E! Entertainment features like ‘Celebrity homes’, ‘Its good to be’ etc. Both the shows show the lifestyles of the rich and famous people in Hollywood. So if you haven’t had your fill of upper crust ‘phoren’ glamour, this is what you should be tuning into.

If you want more information on the timings of the various programs and more details you can log onto zoomtelevision.indiatimes.com. Bombay Times needed a media representation and Zoom has fit the bill quite nicely. To sum it up, Zoom has lots of beautiful people, nonstop party roundups and glamour. Enjoy or rather tune in till the party lasts.

Fame Gurukul-I’m loving it

Fame Gurukul is the Indian version of Fame Academy that was telecast in the UK. After intensive singing auditions, a talented group of people were selected or rather admitted into the academy.

Ila arun is the strict head of the Gurukul who is helped by two other mentors in managing the Academy. The academy is the place where the students live 24/7 and have been getting singing lessons during their stay. Their stay in the Gurushisya environment has been quite enriching with the steady stream of visitors as renowned in music like Pandit Jasraj, Jaspinder Narula etc.

The deal is that every week all of them perform in the Gala round where three people wind up in the danger zone and have to be elected back to the Gurukul based on audience votes. Out of the three, one of them can be rescued by the remaining safe contestants who have to vote individually.

But somehow there’s more to it than meets the eye. The show had its fair share of controversy with the elimination of Kirti (a good singer) who was ousted due to some politics on the part of the Fame students. Since then the choice of the remaining students has come under close scrutiny by the judges as well as the public in general.

Last week saw the elimination of a very bright talent, Rex D’souza. The way I perceive this elimination was that the mindset of the contestants was smart (cunning?) enough to understand that when it came to popular votes, Rex could have posed a threat to each of them and could easily have won a public opinion in future. But by selecting Arijit who has been unpopular with the aam junta, the students did play their cards well. As lyricist Javed Akhtar pointed out accurately, that the Gurukul students had two wrong choices in front of them and any which ways they would have made a wrong decision.

Thankfully the new rule has brought back 3 previous contestants (Rex, Mona, Keerthi) and 2 fresh faces into the academy. When the news of the new entrants was told to the remaining contestants, they were pretty taken aback, not to mention irritated with the fact that these new contestants would get a direct entry into the show.

The funny(!) part in Gurukul is that everybody cries at the drop of a hat. Rex is the frontrunner in the crying category followed by Shamit and Arijit. At times it gets difficult to comprehend whether the participants are really sad or putting on a show for the camera. The contestants are a mixed bunch of people each with his or her own idiosyncrasies. Some of the leading contenders as of now are as follows:

Qazi Tauqueer:-
The lucky Hrithik-lookalike from Kashmir is the most popular of the lot. His singing is no great shakes but he is topping the people’s popularity charts consistently. Every week he lands up in the danger zone where the audience dutifully votes for him and bails him out, much to the chagrin of the other contestants and the bewildered judges. Qazi had recently visited a college festival where he himself was surprised to see the audience comprising mostly of girls going completely gaga over him. He is an entertaining guy all rite and the biggest draw of the contest as of now.

Shamit Tyagi:-
Mr confidence as well as the most popular guy amongst the Gurukul inhabitants. He has been pulled up and admonished by Javed Akhtar for being manipulative and playing to the gallery. He and Arijit are a little too close for comfort and consequently have had insinuations flying left right and center about their behavior.

Arpita:-
She looks the sternest and does not seem to be too diplomatic and hence ends up being quite blunt about whatever she feels. Her singing is okay enough to keep her away from the danger zone.

Rooprekha:-
The Bengali lass puts in the maximum hard work when rehearsing for her songs. She is the one who might in all probability end up being one of the fame Jodi winners. Her singing abilities are good but her Hindi enunciation leaves a lot to be desired.

Arijit Singh:-
He is the baby of the group and one of the few singers with a classical background. Arijit has not been able to garner the public votes and that has been a drawback for him. He might lose out in the end due to his lack of charisma.

Rex D’Souza:-
I personally feel his voice is the most suited to playback singing with its robust quality. His voice is very similar to singer Udit Narayan’s voice and is quite pleasant in nature. During the Independence Day special, singer KK had put him in the danger zone citing that Rex had over emoted in the rendition of the song something which I fail to understand. Before being eliminated he was a tad over confident but given his singing abilities, it shouldn’t be tough for him to make his mark in the singing world.

As the weeks have passed, the contestants have become familiar faces and most people have their favorites. Overall Fame Gurukul has really caught on and it should be interesting enough to find out who the winners (Rex n Rooprekha?) are in the finale.

Are you a desperate somebody?

Many or rather most of us have a darker side that is never really acknowledged by us. But what if circumstances in life expose our hidden nature? Should we be then branded as evil persons or is it fair that we come to terms that none of us are all good or all bad. This is just the dilemma facing the characters of the hit drama series- Desperate Housewives.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”. That sentence aptly sums up the premise of Star World’s latest offering- “Desperate Housewives” ; the zany drama series that’s making viewers go “Aha”. It’s the story of four housewives desperately trying to make most out of what life has to offer them. All of them are crazy, smart, beautiful and most importantly very, very desperate. These saucy ladies slowly realize that they must do, whatever pleases them to break out of the shackles of their situations, that had forced them to lead their mundane(read ordinary) lives.

Each of the housewives makes us realize that being a ‘housewife’ is no joke. Still waters run deep ‘coz although the women look happy on the outside, below the surface there is deep loneliness and insecurity. If that’s not all they also have quite a bit of dirty laundry which comes to the forefront as time goes by.

The first episode started in a mind-blowing manner (no pun intended) with the fifth housewife (Mary Alice) of this group ending her life all of a sudden. The remaining four housewives don’t have the faintest clue, as to what could prompt a perfectly happy woman to just end her life. Through the extremely stylish voiceover of the dead woman (!), the audience is introduced to each of the quirky inhabitants of Wisteria lane, an upper middleclass American neighborhood.

For those who came in late, here’s a short bio of each of the ‘desperados’ of the show.
=| Susan Myers (Teri Hatcher) is a softhearted, shy divorcee living with her teenaged daughter, who is still looking for that one perfect guy. In a coming of age manner, it’s her daughter who encourages her mom to get back to the dating scene.

=| Bree (Marcia Cross) is a terrible perfectionist who has made the life of her family a living hell, with her constant attention to details.

=| Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) is a former model who is caught in a loveless marriage with her husband, whose work has taken centre stage in his life. She has a casual, no frills relationship with a person who works for her husband and does not feel guilty about that at all. She is the hottest amongst all the ladies and the most stylish too.

=| Lynette Stavo (Felicity Huffman) was a successful business woman but had to give up her flourishing career when the kids came along. Her life has been reduced to a hapless condition because of her four hyperactive kids who are as mischievous as they can be.

The four women are unconsciously like a support group for each other. Their friend’s death makes them realize that she had a deep, dark secret that could have been the reason for her death. The suspense track is further enhanced in the weeks to come with both Mary Alice’s husband and son acting very suspiciously. In the ensuing episodes there has been further drama with a couple of accidents, arrests and new character developments of the seemingly innocuous people of Wisteria Lane.

The series has a lot of situations that shows human behavior with all its folly, superficiality and craziness. Like when a housewife poisons her husband knowingly/unknowingly when he wants a divorce from her. Another situation has a woman trying her best to invite her handsome neighbor for dinner but has a lot of issues doing that.

I have just seen a couple of episodes but I can safely say that the show just rocks. Most of new series that start, do take some time in getting a fan following but this drama is an exception to that rule. Many people including yours truly are addicted to the show and the progressive episodes have only gotten better. The show has all the ‘masala’ with weekly episodes on topics as diverse as dating issues, family problems, teen angst, obsessions, adultery-you get the drift.

Someone rightly said, “People are a lot like icebergs; there is so much more to them than what’s visible on the surface”. As the voiceover of the dead woman tells us, things are all around us; it’s just that we really need to ‘see’. So the big question is are you seeing the show, the world is talking about?