The plots were often absurd, but the emotional arcs made sense and relationships had real stakes. Thanks to the presence of Jaime Camil, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jane the Virgin these last couple of episodes and how well that show lovingly satirized telenovelas while also telling honest, heartfelt stories about people who existed in a heightened world. The show needs to justify why Melissa and Josh would want to stay in Schmigadoon if it’s going to have genuine tension. It’s a lot harder to sell that idea when the characters know they are in an artificial world where people don’t act rationally. The reason the characters in Brigadoon get sucked into their mystical world is because they exist in a musical and that’s just what happens. Josh and Emma’s courtship isn’t quite as flimsy, but it still lacks an emotional foundation because it’s predicated on the audience accepting musical flights of fancy rather than providing a believable reason for the relationship to thrive. Krakowski’s Countess Gabriele Von Blerkom arrives to complicate Melissa’s burgeoning romance with Doc Lopez, but there’s barely anything there to threaten the countess’s engagement. Is this an example of Melissa and Josh overcoming some sort of challenge together? Is it an example of an incompatible couple that makes concessions to keep the relationship alive when it probably doesn’t work? I’d still rather have this complicated ambiguity than the emptiness of their new relationships in Schmigadoon.
It’s unclear what we’re supposed to take away from this flashback. Sure, it might be a nice gesture in the moment, but it doesn’t do Melissa any favors if she’s out with other people and starts talking about a “doggy-dog world.”
He says he’s sorry and that she’s right about “doggy dog,” which he’s just lying about to make her feel better. Josh ultimately giving in is another way that he picks a path of least resistance, but in a more positive way than taking every single woman in town across a bridge. “Tribulation” opens with Melissa consoling Josh after he loses a fellowship opportunity, which leads to a low-grade argument about Melissa saying “doggy dog” instead of “dog eat dog.” It’s a tiff that spotlights Melissa’s stubbornness and the ways she rationalizes her thinking when she’s wrong. Most of the development for Melissa and Josh’s relationship happens in the opening flashbacks, and I wish those sequences informed the rest of the episode more strongly. Schmigadoon!’s romantic threads are extremely flimsy, and whatever the show is trying to say about modern relationships gets lost in its increasingly basic parody. Kristin Chenoweth and Jane Krakowski (finally making her appearance after four episodes of opening-credits teases) are the featured performers in “Tribulation,” and despite their best efforts, they can’t overcome the script’s shortcomings.
Will and grace season 1 episode 5 tv#
It breaks my heart that an episode of TV spotlighting two Tony Award–winning musical-theater icons is so bland.
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