Sunday, September 11, 2016

Auteur Watch - Sheldon Epps

Often, when you're looking at a résumé as long as Sheldon Epps has, your eyes often gloss over and you start to daydream.  Well, it's been a while since I haven't looked at a screen that isn't buzzing with low-grade electromagnetic energy.  I should read more books.  But I was fascinated by the title of this one episode of something called "The Game," which I'm told is a spin-off of something called "Girlfriends."  Epps directed an episode of that fine, long-running show called "To Baby... or Not to Baby." (ellipsis not mine)  That is indeed the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the sleeplessness and dirty diapers of outrageous Fortune.  Or to take Arms against a Sea of Troubles (getting time off from work, nosy neighbours, your married friends that turn out to be swingers, what have you...) and, by opposing, end them: to die, to sleep... to finally, finally get some decent sleep, something more than thirty minutes... Anyway, the Right Wing probably didn't like this episode, for its plot description reads "Melanie and Darwin... Derwin discover that Melanie might be pregnant."  Contrast that with the moral dilemma in the episode title.  Surely the answer is, and always has been, to baby, right?  What, Melanie's going to take a morning-after pill now?  Go to an abortion clinic?  I think not.  Probably not in Texas, anyway.  And that's a big state, one of the largest, if memory serves.  So many poor people clamoring for the services of so few abortion clinics...
But back to Epps' résumé.  At the top is a show called "Instant Mom," which is going to get you.  Gonna knock you right on the head, so better get yourself together, darlin'.  Anyway, I can't help but think, with all these TV shows, no attempts at the silver screen?  No, apparently not.  The closest we get is the 1987 TV movie, "Blues in the Night."  ...and so far, no one seems to care.  Apparently it doesn't live up to the song that it borrows the title from. 
But with all these TV shows, and the large egos involved with them, surely Mr. Epps has obtained enough dirt on them to ensure his continued employment in a directorial capacity.  But surely trapped inside every director is an actor that got bitten by the acting bug at some point in their life, and jumped up on that stage as though it were a candy store.  Well, there's an episode of "Frasier" just for you, called "Cranes Go Caribbean."  It's only $1.99 on YouTube and... $1.99?!!  I ain't paying that!  I'm outta here

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