As a previous president of an undisclosed major television network, and before then, a past littered with head writer credits, I have short programming notes on some shows.

The Good Wife

I gave up. The bickering between the burgeoning Florrick Agos and its progenitor Lockhart Gardner was too much. If a series is a meandering river, taking plot turns here and then there while moving forward, it feels as though “The Good Wife” meandered too far into this petty back-and-forth storyline, losing sight of any forward momentum for either firm, and leaving the show a proverbial oxbow lake, cut off from the original meandering journey and left static in a neighboring pool of nonsense. A shame, as the show was well-written and dynamic, taking on the compelling technological and governmental legal questions of the present in relevant, realistic drama.

Girls

Also known as the show containing every miserable and/or obnoxious character on television. Also known as the show most deserving of the award, What The Hell Happened? Also known as the show sponsored by indulgence.

When “Girls” debuted its appeal was that it unflinchingly exposed the post-collegiate freakout of establishing your life and a career when the floor drops away. Through a set of sharp eyes and with an even sharper tongue we got all the personal and professional roadblocks, fails and nightmares. Most satisfying, all of it happened with a humor that arose out of character and situation: true, great humor. We rooted for the characters to overcome their obstacles in all the hilarity that saw them arrive at them. So where, oh, where, did this show go off the rails? Perhaps many places, mostly occurring in the second season.

It would be kind to call the second season uneven. Someone more harsh might say scattered, even aimless. While the season initially seemed to be pushing the characters into new productive places, some positive (a book deal for Hannah, a new relationship for Shoshanna and Ray, one for Adam as well), some negative (Marnie’s failed relationship with Booth Jonathan, the expiration of Jessa’s doomed marriage), by the beginning of season three everything ended in shit minus a rekindled relationship for Adam and Hannah. And for the most part, the onslaught of shit befallen to each character happened at their own hands. In the biggest display of things going to shit, after Hannah gets what she wants, her own deluded idea of being a writer causes her to fall apart as she cannot deal with the pressure of delivering a book to her publisher, leading to an extreme reoccurrence of OCD.

Here we are at the third season where we find the characters we thought were just having a hard go of it, are instead—or, in fact—expert saboteurs. They are rooted in entitled, egomaniacal perspectives so extreme they make wallowing in their own hardships an olympic sport. Let’s take inventory four episodes into the third season: We have Shoshanna who has become an alien caricature. There is absolutely no depth, but more than that, at this point, there is no center of gravity for her personality. This is a character who now says things like, “I feel like my bandana collection is like my most developed collection,” or even more demonstrative, “I will never be bored as long as there’s Halloween.” Marnie refuses to believe she could have been to blame or even exclusively to blame for her breakup, and she still painfully entertains the idea that she has a future in singing. Jessa has no where to go after getting kicked out of rehab for her own self-preserving antics. Both Adam and Hannah want their relationship to work so they divert their own attention, which makes sense for two people who came together because they were unable to deal with their own worlds. Why stop there? Let’s add to the mix Adam’s sister who is…I lack a set of words or phrases to describe her pathological unhingedness.

Growth. That is the number one problem. No character has moved forward (maybe excluding Adam, who, is avoiding his own problems to tend to his latest project: helping Hannah out of her spiraling abyss). The characters’ problems are largely self-generated, and, further adding to the annoyance, the characters generally refuse to remove themselves from their unhealthy situations or refuse to stop their unhealthy behaviors. They present themselves as victims of the world and enjoy wallowing more than taking some initiative, some agency. While they may have a facade of a will, they definitely cannot imagine a way. Three seasons in, the overwhelming feeling is: This cannot continue.

Looking

Setting up a show is difficult: creating the world(s), working in characters’ backstories without drawing attention to them, managing timelines and perspectives, feeling out rhythms and putting characters in situations that promote chemistry. For those reasons I’m apprehensive to discuss a show in its infancy—not even four episodes have aired. However, because I’m such a master of all things television, I will. The only takeaway from this show thus far is when you drunk-eat and you live in a world obsessed with looks, protect your dignity and tell others you’re eating a kale salad rather than fattening mac and cheese. Other than that exceptional, hilarious moment, a true moment originating from circumstance and environment, this show is looking rough.

There are numerous problems, most of which revolve around the show’s striving. More than anything it wants to be a fresh take on being gay in our contemporary culture, but given its material of three gay guys exploring dating, it’s impossible not to compare “Looking” to shows that came before it and mined similar terrain. People have mentioned the show as the successor to Queer as Folk or the gay guy version of “Sex and the City,” “Girls,” even “The L Word.” The opening scene of cruising in a park nods to the past and its representations while establishing the show’s conflict of desiring to be new but relying on a foundation of old cliches. Only modern technology in the form of a cellphone saves our protagonist, Patrick from the past cliche of cruising…And yet, the very next scene, the old cliche of gays gossiping and our protagonist acting as—as Dom explicitly points out—“such a bitch” appears. Combine these scenes with conversations about the relationship norms or rules for, perhaps, relationships in general, but more accurately, gay relationships and things feel dated. The show feels torn between committing to its progressiveness and thus perhaps being too niche of a show to develop a large audience—which I would argue shouldn’t and wouldn’t necessarily be the case—and accommodating a broad audience by relying on motifs of the past. The show does explore the awkward situations of paying on a date, but again this is a preoccupation more heterosexuals, or those outside the world, ask than those inside the world, which leads to…The show awkwardly maneuvers between accessing/addressing the outsider’s view of the gay dating world while still being nested in the gay characters’ insider point of view. Additionally, “Looking” desires to embrace the risk taking of showing the realities of gay sex but refuses to show actual nudity during the few sex scenes nor does it offer pre- or post-coital actions. Throw in problems with pacing and the ability to succeed with these tepid commitments may be the reason for the tiny viewership so far.

Strictly speaking on whether the show and its characters are engaging and/or entertaining, they’re neither engaging nor not-engaging, neither entertaining nor not-entertaining, and for a show that is being promoted as new and revolutionary, middle ground won’t do. The fact that “Looking” is not at all polarizing should be the biggest clue to its shortcomings. Will this show say something new and specific on its subject matter by the end of the season? “Looking” is lucky to be on such a generous network as HBO to give it the time of a season to see. Any other network would be out, proudly. (Sorry not sorry for the bad pun.)

Final note: Thankfully there has been enough exposure of gays in the media for the concept of a gay-centric series to not be unique or compelling enough to carry a show, and ultimately that might be the greatest positive takeaway from the show.

Shameless

Change of pace. This has been a comparatively tame season thus far, losing a great deal of the energy of past seasons when conflicts piled like used condoms after an orgy. The ecstatic pacing of conflict-piling from earlier seasons, I would argue, is what made this show so enjoyable. You could count on constant, utter chaos, but now we seem to have reached the chaos apex, and we’re headed down the drama mountain to a place of more stability in the Gallagher family. This slowdown makes me wonder if this show will suffer from the Showtime curse: two super strong seasons, a solid if slipping third, and the absolute wheels coming off somewhere during the forth. See “Weeds,” “Nurse Jackie,” or “Californication.”

I may be more cautious with “Shameless” given the Showtime curse, but I do have some questions about the moves the series is taking. Fiona’s cheating feels out of character—I have a tough time imagining she would do something so reckless as to jeopardize her family, her sole priority. Cheating on your boss sounds like a one way ticket to the unemployment line. I definitely don’t buy in to the theory she’s addicted to life as Mike’s brother exclaims—perhaps a mouthpiece for the show, trying to frame rationale in a move absent of all rationale? Additionally, the continued inclusion of Frank, William H. Macy’s character, feels like a distraction. The show has set itself up to outgrow him and his actions as a premise, but the show refuses to shed him. Or maybe he will pass away soon without getting a liver? Ultimately, in order for the show to be up to its old entertaining self—pure entertainment is what “Shameless” does best—I think the Gallagher family needs to be reunited—sans Frank obviously—meaning Lip and Ian need to find their way home.