AMERICAN SERIES & THE CITY

Joe Millionaire America which aired in 2003 had only two seasons, but on their first season the show gained notably 40 million viewers. What happened on Joe Millionaire Indonesia was different story. While in America, shows like The Apprentice, Joe Millionaire, and MTV Real World, had succeeds attracting million viewers, in Indonesia the local versions lasted after two seasons. The case is proved that one format that worked well in one demographic area does not guarantee similar success for different demographic part. Despite rarely watched the shows, I have suspicion that Indonesia Apprentice main problem was the lack of challenging tasks, while reason on MTV Real World and Joe Millionaire involving culture value.
Maybe audiences like seeing the programs just the way they are, without local version needed and made. Because there are something can be felt on the original version that would seem too force if it ever ‘translated’ to local version. Different languages, different cultures, are reasons.
But when I saw series of American drama on pirates DVD stalls from Mall Ambassador to Ratu Plaza, I couldn’t help but think how American series can be so globally accepted it seems like there is this universality of tastes on what’s worked what’s not on drama. Okay stupid, of course it is…isn’t it so obvious? Film, Hollywood film has spoken first. Like the Babel’s director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s speeches on Golden Globe two years ago; motion picture is universal language.
In late 90’s and early 2000’s two most successful ‘ordinary life’ (not medical-law-vampire drama) American series were based in New York; FRIENDS and Sex & The City. The other two; Gilmore Girls and Six Feet Under are outside New York. Now, I like to review my favorite series based on two categorize; New York New York (title taken from an episode of Friday Night Light’s season 3) and Tastes of Small Town America.

NEW YORK NEW YORK
“The colony club is the most exclusive club in New York City which means the world,” explains Blair Waldorf to Dorota.
The sentence is confirming how the American views New York City. That New York is also like the world’s capital city. No wonder there are many successful TV shows based on New York City, from The Cosby Show (80’s) to Growing Pains (Long Island, 90’s) to Gossip Girl (2000’s). TV series based on life in New York do have the dynamic exciting feelings more than ones that based on America’s small town, to name a few; Lipstick Jungle, Cashmere Mafia, Dirty Sexy Money, and the glamorous Sex & the City.

GOSSIP GIRL
From Faulkner to Hamlet to Capote to Wharton, including quoted lines from My Fair Lady to Age of Innocence, Gossip Girl is notably rich with classic cultural reference. More than any other teen series America ever produced. The sharp tongues’ of Gossip Girl are the kids that have it all; looks, glamorously blessed life, and brain. Or minimal, skill on turning phrases.
Of course that were only how Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage creating successful teen drama. Their former work, The OC, was one good example on how good looks and good wardrobes are the main key to one hit series.
Maybe Gossip Girl’s wit comes from its novel, where the Gossip Girl originally from, but never before in the history of teen drama life values mix rich cultural reference is told in such crispy ways.
Kudos to the writers! Savage, even though you didn’t finish your Ph.D thesis, you made all those years learning theories useful. Thank you, thank you, to have given the viewers fair perspective on villainous characters.

Favorite Episodes:
Victor Victrola; Seventeen Candles; Blair Waldorf Must Pie; Hi,Society; School Lies; Much I Do About Nothing; Summer, Kind of Wonderful; The Serena Also Rises; O Brother Where Bart Thou?; In The Realm of The Basses.


SEX AND THE CITY
Carrie Bradshaw is a sexy writer that loves shoes and clothes. She is a thirty something woman who putting expensive designer stuff above the necessity to buy herself a HOUSE/apartment. She is glamour, funny, and smart. She writes about women and relationship and sex. Consider her a feminist, yet when it comes to choose the man of her life, she chose a successful financial expert gleaming with money, Mr. Big. Maybe it is women tendency to pick a man that above us. Logically, how can we let ourselves be lead by a man who has lesser quality than us, right?
Enter Miranda Hobbes, a cynical, smart and pragmatist lawyer that most men would describe as psycho. As a successful and independent big city woman, she finally found true love in Steve Brady. Steve might only a bartender with small income, but he is one person Miranda is needed to find that there is more in life than only anger and bitterness. Steve Brady is the cream that successfully softened Miranda’s hard exterior.
Enter Samantha, the always fabulous and horny. Most insecure women dislikes Samantha’s confidence, I personally found her the most entertaining (). She is like this cool older sister that extremely care and supportive.
Enter Charlotte York; maternal and feminine (not feminist), the most conservative from her bunch Charlotte was dreaming to find the right prince to be the father of her children, like most Indonesian women. Understandable, but maybe because she had temporarily refused to help Carrie financial situation, or that she doesn’t want to touch any local food in Mexico (hey, how about Jakarta’s street vendor Charlotte?), or when she got so angry on Trey and Harry for disobeying her wishes, I found Charlotte a selfish-demanding character and unreliable girl friend.
SATC was a series that told its stories on frames, through Carrie Bradshaw’s narration. The main scene can be found on every episode is Carrie contemplating hers and her friends’ sex/relationship experiences in front of her Apple notebook. Like any other good TV shows, SATC also put many scenes when unexpected difficult situation happens. Unlike many other (used to be) good TV shows, SATC was the one which ended their series on top form before the stories become ridiculous.
More than its novel, and its movie, the TV series adaptation is the best format of Sex and The City.

Favorite Episodes;
Attack of The Five Foot Ten Woman; Don’t Asks Don’t Tell; The Agony and The Ex-Tacy; The Real Me; Ghost Town; Sex and the Country; Anchors Away; Cover Girl; Plus One is the Loneliest Number; Critical Condition; To Market To Market; A Woman’s Right On Shoes; An American Girl in Paris.


FRIENDS
FRIENDS, as I writing this I consider myself lucky to know you. There are no other FRIENDS like you. New series may come and go, but you are the one that will always be on my heart. There will no other FRIENDS that ever entertain me the way you did. You are loveable, warm and funny. And you don’t even have to try so hard, you don’t need to put glamorous scenes and ridiculous scandal to make us love you.
Not like your many friends based their stories on life in New York City, you FRIENDS, are unpretentious. You’re all about this six friends with different background struggling to find their way in life. Unlike one of your friend based on Hollywood, ENTOURAGE, things in yours not always magically turns pretty; every each of your character have trough a jobless period, difficult times through family problems and relationship.
Somehow you – Joey, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Phoebe— had manages to make the best from every impossible situation. Through the ten years we had you in our life we have witnessed how amazingly every each of you had stand by each other and overcome troubles in such graceful way without even losing the individual quirkiness of yours.
FRIENDS, you may not be the longest TV drama ever aired, but you definitely the most beloved.
FRIENDS, your warmth will always be on our heart.

Favorite Episodes:
All that included Ross and Rachel’s pres and posts, Monica and Chandler’s before and after marriage.


TASTES OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA
The series based on small town America represented like lyrics on country music: plaid shirts, thick accent and people who cares on their neighbors. I’d like to include Gilmore Girls and Six Feet Under which I think was one of the best TV series ever made. But Six Feet Under was not based on small town at all, the story created around LA area. The three here also have their own distinguishing style:

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
The show not included stories with fang, blood, glamour, and high society scandal, but there are parents who merely adults, student athletes with burden on their shoulders, a small town with high school ambience, the true picture of small town America.
Center around ordinary teens and student athletes dealing that reality is not always turn pretty. Friday Night Lights is the best from all the best. From stacks of overly-dressed teen leading adult scandal dramas, Friday Night Lights’s character with their ordinary costumes is such sublime quality.
As for the circle of adultery issues the show exposed, well, program like Friday Night Lights converts abstract ideas about individual relationships between man and man, men and women, individuals and institutions, whites and blacks into concrete dramatic form. It is a ritual condensation of the dominant criteria for survival in modern complex society (Fiske, 1987).
Unlike sinetrons with their multiply re-telling of Cinderella story, it is a western (America, France) tendency to put sexual relationship issues on their well-made drama. Friday Night Lights is no exception. Infidelity also become substance on this series, but good family value like the Taylor family also included. Oh, and good Christian value since the town is still a religious Christian town.
Maybe that's why Friday Night Lights not for all people, especially in a country with Muslim majority like Indonesia, this one good show is prove that viewers majority on demographic character determine the show success.

Favorite Episodes:
The Beginning; Full Hearts; Blinders; Best Laid Plans; State; Let’s Get It On.


OCTOBER ROAD
October Road was based on Scott Rosenberg’s experience after he wrote the movie Beautiful Girls (1996), how his friends reacted after a movie about their lives.
After experiencing writer’s block, the bestseller writer Nick Garrett returns home to the town where he was raised; Knights Bridge. He has been gone from the town for ten years, leaving not only his family behind (a father and one younger brother), but also a group of friends he grew up with and one ex-girlfriend. All of whom, including the rest of the town, he had betrayed with writing Turtle on a Snare Drum which is a novel about the town he was raised and the people on it, includes his friends and ex-girlfriend. Oh, and during those ten years, the ex-girlfriend had a son while one best friend had an affair with one of the best friend’s wife. Humhumhum…
Seeming like only better for a ninety minutes movie? Well, the writers/producers do have skills. They turn the simple story into a nice entertaining series. With only some minuses:
-Question: What’s wrong with wanting to leave from Knights Ridge for only a couple of months?
-Sometimes it seems all characters have skills on turning witty phrases, too wit for everyday use and some of the characters itself.

Despite little flaws, October Road was a charming show featuring great soundtracks. In fact, they had some scenes that reminded me of 90’s music video style. Check episodes: 'Best Friend Window',‘Stand Alone By Me’ and ‘As Soon As You Are Able’. Favorite song from all? Skid Row’s I’ll Remember You.

Favorite Episodes:
‘Pilot’; ‘Tomorrow’s So Far Away’; ‘Best Friend Windows’; ‘Let’s Get Owen’, ‘Infidelity Tour’; ‘Once Around the Block’; ‘Revenge of The Cupcake Kid’; ‘Stand Alone By Me’; ‘The Fine Art of Surfacing’; ‘As Soon As You Are Able’.


TRUE BLOOD
Scenes of fangs licking bloods from delicate throat, never before I seen the picture of blood-drinking being delivered so delicious. It is confirmed, Allan Ball’s ability in making goodly written out of mainstream drama. Name Six Feet Under. Name American Beauty. Allan’s the man behind them.
Anna Paquin who plays Sookie Stockhouse is True Blood central character. Maybe because the pale feature and fangs that make Bill Compton even hotter, Sookie is the un-official vampire defender that set her eyes to Bill and Bill only. While her best friend Tara Thornton, the crazy temper with drunken mother and painful childhood experiences had lose her heart to Sookie’s older brother, Jason Stockhouse, since she was eight years old. Tara has cousin, Lafayette, who is very creative in making money. Way too creative he sells weeds and vampire's blood aside his 'good job' as a chef at Merlotte. Merlotte bar and diner where Lafayette, Sookie and Tara all works is own by Sam Merlotte, a good guy who has feeling for Sookie.
The story will continue to develop, as like Allan Ball’s Six Feet Under, many surprises are waiting to be revealed. Including the first mystery that opens the show’s pilot: who is the serial killer in town?
The local sinetrons makers can learn many things from watching this show. True Blood has the very same formula like Indonesians major taste on horror stories. Don't miss the two last episodes, I think they are the best from all first season's.


Favorite Episodes:
Strange Love; Mine; Escape From Dragon House; Cold Ground; two last episodes of 1st season.