Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #50 on Apr 26, 2012, 12:35pm »
Actor Alan Thicke tweeted this two days ago. "@alan_thicke: In Toronto for work on LA Complex...a show both hot and cool at the same time. Watch season debut tonight! My episodes later in the season."
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #51 on Apr 26, 2012, 12:57pm »
I don't remember which Canadian station originally aired it -- but there was a 6 episode miniseason aired first. The plan all along was for the CW to air the 6 episodes again and then air additional new episodes. Here is a quote from an earlier posting by Tubedout:
Quote:
have been getting a lot of questions from personal messages and some in the comments about how The CW's involvement will impact the show. I don't know where the confusion is from, but everything I've read says that The CW purchased the rights to AIR the already produced 6 episodes. They are not producing the show themselves. A further 7 episodes will be produced by the CANADIAN production company based on how well the show does in ratings in Canada. Yes, I'm certain being "sellable" in other large markets helps the show a great deal, but this same company made Degrassi, with its plethora of gay characters, for years, with no concerns about the US market. IF the Canadian production company decides to order more episodes, The CW will then decide to air those 7 episodes based on how well the first 6 did in the US. Honestly, I'm not expecting it to do incrdibly well, for issues having nothing to do with the gay characters. But the network has an open slot, and nothing better, so whatever low ratings it gets may be perfectly fine.
Oh, and the article mentions that the ratings for the initial airing last Tuesday were "Lowest-rated broadcast drama debut of all time" source: http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/04/25/l-a-complex-ratings/ The second article doesn't mention how far back the data goes in terms of the current rating system, so there could have been worse debuts.
The Simple, Spiky Joys of ‘The L.A. Complex,’ The Best Show You Don’t Know Exists
By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 10, 2012 at 11:37 am
Three weeks ago, The L.A. Complex debuted on the CW to the lowest ratings for a broadcast drama, ever. It’s too bad, because this spiky little Canadian show about a group of actors, comics, producers and dancers who live in the same run-down Los Angeles apartment complex is great fun, an improvement both on standard aspiring-starlet stories like Smash, and on theoretically sophisticated takes on modern romance.
Smash‘s biggest problem all season has been that the competition between Ivy and Karen hasn’t felt realistically heated. With Ivy’s experience and her resemblance to Marilyn, it seems obvious that she’d be cast in the lead and Karen was the understudy. The show’s had to spend a lot of time giving Karen chances to sing and showing audiences reacting to her like she’s the Best Thing Ever and giving Ivy the silliest drug problem on television since Saved By The Bell to gin up any sort of drama.
The L.A. Complex, on the other hand, has conflicts that are actually rooted in Hollywood double standards. Abby Vargas, a young aspiring actress who’s been living in her car and making a lot of other bad life decisions, ends up competing with Raquel Westbrook, an older actress on the downswing played with a beautiful bitterness by Jewel Staite. When Abby beats out Raquel for a part, it turns out to be not much of a prize at all: her big break turns out to be playing a dead hooker on a crime show where her lines and her pay cut get cut correspondingly. The fights are so big because the stakes are so small, as when Nick Wagner, an aspiring stand-up comic whose material is flopping finally gets applause by viciously insulting a more successful female comic with whom he had an embarrassing one-night stand.
The relationships have the same kind of heft that Smash, which has recycled through tired affairs, starlets sleeping with directors, and the standard idiot pop-culture move of someone proposing after cheating, lacks. Sure, when Abby sleeps with Connor, the most successful actor of the bunch who’s beginning to shoot his new pilot, we’re not surprised when she catches him sleeping with someone else. But L.A. Complex, rather than making the arc solely about her naivete and vulnerability, has focused on Connor’s self-hatred and destructive tendencies. Other than Rescue Me, there’s not another show that’s dared to depict a male character self-harming, a practice typically reserved in pop culture to signify female teenaged angst (Jess’s cutting joke on the season finale of New Girl was an uncomfortably off moment, I thought).
The show’s subverted our expectations in other ways, too. When Alicia, a talented young dancer, clicks with a former child star who covers for her at her job at a strip club so she can make auditions, we expect to see them date. In a subsequent episode, he sets up for what seems like it might be an entirely-too-soon proposal. Instead, he asks her to make a sex tape with him to jump-start both their careers. And once they’re shooting, he’s shy, and awkward, obsessed with lighting and unable to actually get started. It’s Alicia who takes the lead in a moment that’s neither do-me feminism nor slut shaming: this is the best of the bad options, and she’s making the most of it.
And perhaps the best part of L.A. Complex has been that it’s put a gay couple with actual sexual chemistry on television. Brian Stelter wrote at the New York Times yesterday that pop culture appears to have accepted gay couples completely. But the truth is that’s more narrow that it seems: television loves married, settled gay couples, but it doesn’t actually treat gay people like straight people, giving them heated romances, sex scenes, and love interests with whom they have actual sexual chemistry. On Modern Family, established couple Mitch and Cam have essentially no physical sparks whatsoever—the show even had an episode that attempted to explain that the couple isn’t fond of public displays of affection as a way to explain away their lack of heat. I love Happy Endings, which gave schlumphy Max a hot love interest in the form of James Wolk, but the show still stopped far short of their bedroom door. Even Game of Thrones, which gave its gay king and loyal knight and lover hot makeouts wouldn’t go where it’s gone with almost everyone else on the show, and let them have on-screen sex.
But on The L.A. Complex, gay men get treated like everyone else. When Tariq Muhammad, an up-and-coming hip-hop producer gets assigned to work with superstar rapper Kaldrick King, the older man spends a day testing Tariq as they meander through Los Angeles. And at the end of that day, Kaldrick makes a veiled invitation to Tariq. The staredown between them before they kiss and fall into bed is one of the more sexually charged moments to appear on television this season. As commercial as it is, that moment does something that almost no pop culture does: treats gay people as if watching them fall in love and have sex is as interesting and as natural as seeing them as sexless, domesticated marrieds.
Joined: Sept 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 413 Location: Canada
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #58 on May 20, 2012, 9:55pm »
I think the LA complex gay sex scenes are good but I notice the scenes are done in the dark and not in the bright light. Also, I have not seen a real graphic sex scene like the heterosexual sex scenes. Tariq and Kal get to kiss which is good but they don't get to roll around in bed together.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Joined: Jun 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 3,346 Location: United States
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #59 on May 23, 2012, 7:22am »
Surprise! The Lowest-Rated Show in Broadcast History Is Actually Great
The L.A. Complex, a sexy drama about Canadians making it in Hollywood.
By June Thomas|Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2012, at 1:33 PM ET
The L.A. Complex, which you should watch before the end of its tragically short run on the CW (Tuesdays at 9 ET), is a quirky Canadian spin on a standard Hollywood story: ambitious new arrivals on their way up cross paths with once-hot starlets on their way down. The usual plots—the big break that doesn’t quite go as planned, the ingénue who wins the heart of the grizzled veteran—have been tweaked just enough that they’re recognizable without being predictable. It’s like Toronto as seen by a U.S. tourist: Everything is vaguely familiar, but for some reason the road signs are in kilometers, and the queen is on the money.
To use a word that has been overapplied to Girls, there’s a realness to The L.A. Complex that is almost shocking. Sure, the Angelenos are all beautiful and buff, but the rules of the real world still apply. (We see them working for those toned torsos, after all.) When Abby’s car—which was also, effectively, her home—breaks down, her friends can’t leave their day jobs to come to her rescue, and since she has no money for a cab, she becomes the first person in TV history to ride a city bus to an audition. The show’s big love story, and certainly its most passionate, is between Tariq and Kaldrick, and unlike so many of the sexless gay relationships on TV, their love scenes are just as explicit as the straight couples’. (Not terribly explicit, that is, but at least the censorship is consistent.) And the kids of The L.A. Complex are just as dumb and messy as real twentysomethings: After Ecstasy-gobbling Abby and boozed-up Connor have unprotected sex, Abby dutifully takes the morning-after pill … and an hour later finds herself puking into the piano at an important audition.
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #60 on May 23, 2012, 7:28am »
this is the part of the slate article that I found interesting HQ75:
Given the show’s ratings, which have been spectacular only in their badness—EW.com declared the premiere “the lowest-rated in-season broadcast drama debut on record”— after the last of the initial six episodes airs next Tuesday, there’s no way the CW will exercise its option for the next 13, which will be broadcast in Canada starting in July. It’s a minor tragedy for fans of sexy, sunny drama—The L.A. Complex launched, with little fanfare, at the tail end of the broadcast season, when viewing habits were already well-established. If the CW had waited until the slow summer weeks, it would surely have had a better chance. When Raquel tells anyone who asks that Teenage Wasteland got canceled because “we had a bad time slot,” she’s massaging the facts. But for the funny, fearless show Raquel’s a part of, it’s the sad truth.
Bold font added for emphasis by me. So it looks like the next thirteen episodes will be aired in Canada -- so something to look forward to in July!
Frankly, I'd prefer to watch the Canadian broadcast because it is less likely to be censored so I'm totally okay with it staying in Canada.
I agree, I hope it does really well in Canada were they wouldn't have to cancel it, the whole CW deal would just get the show censored, we aren't uppity about gay couples on our TV screen like Americans are.
Frankly, I'd prefer to watch the Canadian broadcast because it is less likely to be censored so I'm totally okay with it staying in Canada.
I agree, I hope it does really well in Canada were they wouldn't have to cancel it, the whole CW deal would just get the show censored, we aren't uppity about gay couples on our TV screen like Americans are.
Gay on TV - It's All in the Family is a very enlightening article from The New York Times about how things seem to be changing on American TV regarding gays
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #64 on May 25, 2012, 8:39am »
Andra Fuller reported on his facebook page that both the CW (USA) and MuchMusic (Canada) will air the new episodes starting in July. So thankfully the CW decided to give the show a chance.
Utter hypocrisy and abusers are just misunderstood woobies.
Joined: Mar 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 3,483 Location: New York City
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #65 on May 25, 2012, 8:59am »
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that Jewel "Kaylie from Firefly/Serenity" Staite was in the show. I'll have to find time to watch. I'm also glad that it doesn't appear that this show has romanticized the violent physical assault of Tariq by Kal.
I'm also not taking it as a personal slight on what I think or feel, if someone doesn't share my pov. Not everyone's going to think, or believe in the same way I do. I don't see that as a negative reflection on me as a person. I don't feel put off by coming on here and posting my thoughts, because someone doesn't share them. These varying povs are based (or should be based) on the storyline.
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #66 on May 25, 2012, 5:49pm »
Difficult Diva, I always have enjoyed Jewel Staite's acting. She had so much chemistry with Sean Maher in Firefly/Serenity. And I enjoyed her role as the chief doctor on Stargate Atlantis. I even enjoyed her brief tenure on Supernatural, as a very sympathetic monster. She's been quite typecast for sci-fi tv shows, so it is good to see her in a drama. So I am looking forward to more LA Complex.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Joined: Jun 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 3,346 Location: United States
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #72 on Jun 29, 2012, 12:49am »
I'm glad to see that photo of Ben Watson Jr on set because he's not in the returning cast photo for Season 2 and I got very scared he wouldn't return!!
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #73 on Jul 4, 2012, 12:23pm »
Promo spot for the first episode of season 2, courtesy of the CW's channel. Very spoilerish and difficult to watch as it shows some of the aftermath of last season:
Re: The L.A .Complex - Tariq & Kal « Reply #74 on Jul 5, 2012, 10:59am »
Great, thanks kevvoi! I can hardly wait!
OFF-TOPIC, but related...
On a related note, but slightly off-topic, Frank Ocean, an up-and-coming hip hopper, who worked with Kanye West and Jay-Z before, came out on his website frankocean.com. He wrote a letter on Christmas and decided to post it as an answer to some questions regarding some of his songs. Apparently he uses "he" and "him" in his songs to address his love-interest.
I'm gonna link directly to his post, it's a beautiful letter. We'll see how the hip-hop-world reacts to it. It's sorta Kal's story coming to life, although I don't think they will go there... http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6me6uSdO81qdrz3yo1_1280.png
Russell Simmons (apparently a mogul shows how much I know ) issued a statement:
Quote:
Today is a big day for hip-hop. It is a day that will define who we really are. How compassionate will we be? How loving can we be? How inclusive are we?
I am profoundly moved by the courage and honesty of Frank Ocean. Your decision to go public about your sexual orientation gives hope and light to so many young people still living in fear. These types of secrets should not matter anymore, but we know they do, and because of that I decided to write this short statement of support for one of the greatest new artists we have.
His gifts are undeniable. His talent, enormous. His bravery, incredible. His actions this morning will uplift our consciousness and allow us to become better people. Every single one of us is born with peace and tranquility in our heart. Frank just found his.
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So looking forward to this! Hopefully they'll stay true to the characters, especially Tariq and Kal. Let the drama unfold ![[image]](http://www.tv-eh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/LAcomplex.jpg "[image]")