“Growing Up Fisher” Followup and a TV Idea

This might be another light blogging week for me, because of other stuff I’m working on. For today I just have a couple more TV-related thoughts:

1. I forgot to mention yesterday that the pilot episode of “Growing Up Fisher” included a pretty good scene referencing guide dogs being excluded from some public places. The blind dad, Mel Fisher, is moving into a hotel because of his divorce. The desk clerk sees Mel’s guide dog and says he can’t be in the hotel because they have a “no pets” policy. Mel says it’s a guide dog, and the clerk just sort of repeats the “no pets” policy. That turns into a bit where Mel and his young son do what seems like a routine they’ve done before in instances of discrimination … Mel (a lawyer) cites the applicable laws, and Henry tells the clerk that his dad is a lawyer and will sue them “so hard” that the hotel will end up being named the Fisher hotel. All that snarky advocacy was pretty cool, but what I really liked was how the desk clerk heard them say guide dogs are allowed in “no pets” establishments, but its like the fact didn’t sink in. He just repeated the policy like what the customers said was some strange non sequitor. I wonder how often these cases of service animals being banned from places are situations where the staff literally aren’t processing what they are being told? I mean, maybe they get it the second or third time, (“Oh, I see what you mean!”), but by then they’ve already crossed that line into outrage territory, and next day we’re all blogging about it.

2. If someone in TV wants to try making a high-quality show about disabled people, they should start it out in some kind of nursing home or care facility, and focus on four or five youngish residents who each have a somewhat different disability, or combination of disabilities. One or two seasons could be an arc of them becoming friends, gradually realizing that instead of complaining about shit in the facility, they should try to move out of it. Then the rest of the series, however long it lasted, could show the gang living together in a shared apartment, helping each other deal with all the usual problems disabled people face. Of course a lot of the show would have to be about their interpersonal relationships, non-disability-related interests, their families, non-disabled friends, their sex lives, etc. I’m thinking all this will half-watching Season 3 episodes of “Girls”, so that’s another way to get the flavor of what I’m thinking about … i.e. there would be nakedness and swearing, but also Indie Music and feelings.

More about this another time, I think ...