Well.

Res. Life the sitcom is completed and up on MTVU’s website for viewing.  You can rate it once you watch it.  I don’t know if a higher ranking will help it come to television, or if it will come to television anyway.  But you can watch it here.

Here are my thoughts on the whole thing:

1.  A brief recap of this sitcom saga for the new readers (hello people from Tabula Rasa!  Good to see you!):  A friend and I wrote a script for a sitcom pilot for a competition at school.  It won.  Said friend claimed the story was 90 percent him and the script was 100 percent him.  He kept the prize money.  On the credits it says, “written by *name of friend*” and “story by *name of friend and Adrienne*.” About a year later, the friend called to make sure there was “no bad blood” between us.  He did not apologize or admit he was wrong.  He just didn’t want to feel badly about it any more.  I forgave him.  Because I think Jesus said that was what I should do.  I am still irritated at Jesus for this, but life has proven to me that he is always more correct about everything.

2.  The program is funny.  Really funny, actually.  But there is no way you can watch it, knowing me at all, and I think that I did not have a hand in it.  That joke at the beginning about the goat?  All me.  Classic me.  Actually, classic Garfield cartoon I saw once in fourth grade.  I have thought jokes about goats were comic gold ever since then.  I had to argue to get it in the original script.  Such behavior later became co-writer’s argument that I was “difficult to work with” and that was why he “wrote the entire script himself.” And then there is the Senior RA character, Becca.  When we wrote her, we wrote her based on the Senior RA I am in my own head.  The one I try to repress from the world.  The one I most aspire to be.  And her Facebook speech?  The idea was mine.  The content came from a POWERPOINT PRESENTATION I DO AT TRAINING.  Literally, hundreds of people have seen my presentation.  Like, I brought it to an RA conference at another school, I like it so much.  Because I am insane.  Because I have been an RA for 10 years.  You can keep the money and all the acclaim that comes from Res. Life the sitcom, man.  At least I have that PowerPoint to keep me warm.

3.  The show characterizes RAs as people who do it for the housing and people who are, pretty much, crazy.  I am not in a position to confirm or deny the latter, but the former is generally not true.  Because the job will break you if you just do it for the money.  So, the characters became parodies of the ones I was trying to write.  Which is unfortunate.  But the situations they are put in?  The ice breakers?  The simulations?  So true.  So, so true.  Maybe we all just appear as parodies of people.  Because most of the populace just isn’t subjected to this kind of thing.

4.  So watch the show.  Seriously.  Do it for me.  You can rank it if you want--go with your heart.  The story is pretty much mine.  The writing, well, a lot of it was changed.  Except for that bit about the goat.  Give it five stars, give it one.  Leave a comment saying, “Hey, yeah, way to credit both writers,” or “This should air!  Wooooo Res. Life!” or even, “Hey, I know the girl who had to argue to keep the name of this show simple and talked her co-writer into something like ‘Residence Life’ and not ‘A boy’s journey to dormhood,’” or something.  It’s up to you.

And maybe I will put my PowerPoint up there and see how it would rank.