Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’ve got a new Q&A entry, where I answer questions submitted by readers. Thanks to everyone who sent in something — if you don’t see your “Q” here, I just may “A” it next time. (And keep them coming — any related topic on which you want my opinion and/or a little research? Just let me know!)

 

Isabella from Clarke says… I also love Cole Porter. He’s my favorite composer. Do you have a favorite Cole Porter lyric? 

Many. But “You’re The Top” remains a treasure trove, and my go-to answer is typically:

You’re a boon,

You’re the dam at Boulder, 

You’re the moon over Mae West’s shoulder.

I love Porter’s unique combination of two beautiful sights — the moon and Mae West’s shoulder. Something eternal, then something entrenched in the 1930s (but now eternal in its own right). There’s a lot of similar imagery in that song. Also, from the same show, here’s another favorite — some lyrics that generally aren’t performed anymore (but should be)…

So Missus R., with all her trimmin’s, 

Can broadcast a bed from Simmons 

‘Cause Franklin knows

Anything goes. 

It’s the perfect culmination of the major themes in each of Porter’s three original refrains of “Anything Goes”: sex/morality, economics/politics, and culture/media. I hate that P.G. Wodehouse’s lyrics for the 1935 West End production have permanently infiltrated Porter’s. They’re neither as smart nor as thematically cohesive as what was initially penned.

 

Kristin asks… What do you think is the worst episode of I Love Lucy? 

I think the worst episodes of I Love Lucy tend to be the early ones that aren’t well-tailored to the particulars of this series’ situation, namely its characters. I can’t overstate just how much the show improves once it delineates itself from the mediocre My Favorite Husband and embraces the personalization inherent to Lucy, which is exceptional because of its relative specificity. So, among my least favorites would be some of the generic entries that you often see fans reject like “The Young Fans,” and much as I like Edward Everett Horton and Bea Benaderet, “Lucy Plays Cupid.” Those simply have little to do with the leads, and that’s the stuff I like least. Also, there are a handful that I find clumsy, straining credibility by impugning the emotional believability and therefore continuity of the characters. I’m thinking, specifically, of “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her” and even “The Kleptomaniac” (to name just a few).

 

esoteric1234 wanted to hear more about my experience in the live studio audience of The Big Bang Theory, so I’m repeating it here… So awesome that you got to attend a taping of an episode! Forgive me if you’ve already written about this somewhere before but do you have any memories of it

Yes, I remember seeing Kaley Cuoco on the side of the soundstage as we were being led in from around the corner. She was wearing a bathrobe and had her hair up in curlers while talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette. In terms of the show, I also vividly remember watching the Sheldon/Penny scenes in her apartment. The two actors were very professional and didn’t goof around or interact much with the audience. (This was in contrast to, specifically, an episode I’d seen of Back To You the year prior. There was lots of joking around there.)

 

Brandon EF writes in with reference to an earlier Q&A entry… Your Q&A about sitcoms failing to stay at above average quality after seven seasons was very interesting because I have observed that casually myself. My question to you now is what are your 10 favorite sitcom seasons that were from Season 8 and beyond?

I’m going to try to answer this question using the same parameters. Specifically, I’m again drawing only from my roster of Sitcom Tuesday shows and going off initial gut reactions. I’m also excluding early sitcoms like Burns And Allen and Danny Thomas that don’t circulate in full for me to survey, along with more recent shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm that have significantly shorter seasons… Okay, now with all that established, I’d say that the answers are pretty self-evident. The most tolerable post-Seven sitcom seasons come from solid long-running series that also didn’t officially lose major parts of their situations near the end – namely, Cheers, Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond. And then I’d perhaps consider the eighth seasons of Married… With Children and Will & Grace as well — like the others, they’re down quite a bit by their series’ own individual standards but still stand favorably within the genre as a whole. Altogether, that’s more than ten slots, but I can’t narrow them down further without a more formal opportunity to make direct comparisons. So, that’ll have to be it for now. Good enough?

 

Lastly, Nat is curious what my… Top 5 favorite series finales [are] from shows that you’ve covered so far?

Off the top of my head, I can give you three definite favorites —

Cheers – the quintessential example of a series finale with jeopardy hinged on status quo disruption that is then denied, affirming the situation via its maintenance

Everybody Loves Raymond – a half-hour sample of family tension stemming from Ray’s premised centricity that also smartly avoids overinflated narrative strain

30 Rock – an ideal closing entry where the main characters are all given natural closure with exactly the right tonality, honoring the series’ comic identity

I’m not sure there are two more that I appreciate as much. Maybe Malcolm In The Middle? The Odd Couple? If I’m remembering right, both are straightforward finales that end their series’ situations without being emotionally overwrought. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.)

 

 

Have a question for me? Submit it at the “Ask Jackson (Q&A)” link.

 

 

Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Monday for a musical rarity!