« In Which We Recapitulate What Was Never There »

All Is Dream

by DICK CHENEY

Guys remember when I invented the recap? No one was doing this before, maybe like LiveJournal bloggers using emojis to say how batshit weird Felicity was being lately, but that was about the extent of it.

Just kidding the recap is a historical artifact. What do you think the cave paintings were? That's right, they were the descriptions of the plot from Newharts. Does my audience remember Bob Newhart? He was like Goebbels if Goebbels was a comedian. So he was Goebbels.

joke relating this moment to Anne Hathaway

If you remember the ending to Newhart, try to unremember it, so you can fill your mind with more valuable information, like how many times Katy Perry asked John Mayer "Are you sure?"

Newhart sucked hard balls in retrospect, whereas The Cosby Show is a timeless artifact teaching us how people of color are the most wonderful organisms in all of humanity.

watching people watching TV, why can't we do this today? I'd love to watch James Carville view his weekly episode of "Pretty Little Liars"

Bill Cosby was truly a terrific father. He never once took a spring break. He was always there for his kids, unless they needed something. Besides giving white America important racial lessons that Will Smith could only do in "very special" episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Bill also instructed every family in America where to put their television.

No one would counterprogram against The Cosby Show because (1) there was no point, it was a ratings Monster and (2) a rising tide lifts all boats. Seinfeld was the Jewish remake of The Cosby Show and crimes during Passover declined over seventeen percent as soon it went on the the air.

It's amazing in so many ways that Jennifer Garner stills survives to this day.

Shows that would have been good for recaps (not Cosby, every essai would end with "Bill frowned for thirty straight seconds"):

: My So-Called Life

: Felicity (overstating this is impossible)

: The War of the Worlds

: the first television airing of that Shoah documentary

: Roots

: Star Trek TNG (Not fucking Deep Space Shit)

: Everwood

: Johnny Carson ("Johnny was great tonight as usual." FIN)

: the time John Lennon was really high live blog

: Gilmore Girls

: The Wonder Years ("Kevin was such a fucking dick guys.")

: first run 90210/MP

: Lonesome Dove

: Lost (still pretending Lost never happened)

"whatever's in this probably isn't a huge disappointment or anything"Keri Russell was radiant, she had this like glow about her. You just wanted to know what would happen, who she would permit to have her and who would be left somewhat moody at Dean & Deluca in her wake. It was like watching a motorcycle crash into a roadside stand.

Felicity's sheer luminousity was only ever overwhelmed by Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham). As manager of the Independence Inn in scenic Star's Hollow, Connecticut, Lorelai was the only perfect representation of feminity until Taylor Swift's birth in 2006. She also raised a responsible and studious daughter, Rory, who was killed by I believe a Yale man as it turned out.

I tried to get a surgeon to give Lynne those cheekbones but it didn't take

It used to be that you would hop on LiveJournal and look for the latest breakdown of say, One Tree Hill, since I never knew anyone else who watched that show so I had to find out how trashy stay-at-home moms felt that Sophia Bush was ad nauseum.

Now it's easy to access those basic details. Rote plot summaries I guess substitute well enough for people who never watched the program in the first place, but just want to know what took place. If the recap could just exist instead of the show, we would have saved a lot of money and Alan Sepinwall would be the most powerful man in America.

I just FFWd all the scenes not involving Chad Michael Murray or music by Gavin DeGraw

Then again, it's also important to remind people of what happened. "Say what happened," David Mamet always says and this is a great lesson for recappers, but not particularly for those of us in our daily lives. Think about how much time we would save if humans were unable to tell each other rehashed versions of things that already occurred. Of course, most happenings would have to be described once, ideally by Charles Krauthammer, but there could only be one true version of the events, kind of like with Molly & Mad Men. It's too bad Jon Hamm stopped caring.

I tell my wife everything I do, and I know she enjoys it much more than sex, because she is usually awake when I am running down the how's and what's. I try to make it entertaining for her by describing the penis size of everyone present, since it is the true cause of everything.

 

There is a desire to share experiences. But there is an equal desire not to. When something happens to me, I usually do the feel the inclination to tell my wife. I stifle the urge as soon as it takes me over, or else Lynne would have classified national security secrets at her disposal and a fairly comprehensive list of places I have masturbated.

It's important real life and television recaps both evolve. One thing that really annoys me is when the writer makes a summary of something that occurred that is nearly as wrong as the thing itself. The space between synopsis and transcript is the most deadly boring part of writing on The Internet, it's almost as bad as anything involving John Krasinski.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

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