Reviews for 5 Television Plays: A Waitress in Yellowstone, Bradford, The Museum of Science & Industry Story, A Wasted Weekend, We Will Take You There

The average rating for 5 Television Plays: A Waitress in Yellowstone, Bradford, The Museum of Science & Industry Story, A Wasted Weekend, We Will Take You There based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-06 00:00:00 James Medin They say timing is everything, right? Mamet's foray into writing for television suffers mainly from him being in the wrong place (tv) at the wrong time (the 1980's in this case). Mamet explains in his brief introduction that he always wanted to write for this medium but that he missed its golden age. Little did he know how correct he was - the golden age of television hadn't passed, it was yet to come. His style of intelligent, and more importantly quiet writing, requiring a degree of intellect and patience from his audience, would have been ideally suited for this golden age of television that we are (arguably) still living through, beginning with premium television shows like The Wire and The Sopranos and single camera sitcoms like The Office over a decade ago. Mamet writes five television episodes that are collected in this book, with only one (a final season episode of Hill Street Blues) ever made and only that one part of an existing show. You can see clearly in the other 4 Mamet's wit and dark humor, but you can also see him bending over backwards to fit into the mid-80s television landscape. His dialogue-heavy, action-lacking, style that in other settings (most notably his classic plays) make him brilliant are missing. He could have been way ahead of his time. Instead these are generally good stories that miss the mark like so much television of the time. In the end, it's too bad. Mamet could have written the best episode of a Michael Schur show ever.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-02-15 00:00:00 Tom Jackson Interesting collection of work. Some I found inspiring and some I found tiresome. I really enjoyed Holly Hughes, Karen Finley, and Lenora Champagne's work.