After years of negotiating the many lawsuits made last season, HBO has approved one more season of The Presenters. Prepare yourselves for the most confusing, existential, and ridiculous season yet. Fridays at 9 only on HBO.
P301-The Secret to Human Interaction Harold discovers his wife has been drinking to alleviate her stress of being married to him. When he notices how much easier it becomes to talk with her, he applies this knowledge to become more sociable and irritable.
P302-When Harold "Somethinged" Marcy Harold tries to become more open with the writers at Flowers United and befriends one of the main writers, Marcy. After Harold inadvertently damages Marcy's reputation, Harold tries to apologize by pretending to be Bruce, her "secret" admirer.
P303-Cannibal Kittycat Killers Harold's parents drop by much to the dismay of The Howardsons. Harold unpacks his parents' luggage and finds a stolen Francis Bacon of kittens being mutilated. Harold rushes to his car to return the painting while his parents chase after him.
P304-The Contradiction Hal gets accused of being a slacktavist at his high school. In a moment of desperation, he decides to live like a homeless person for 1 whole week.
P305-A Trip to Route 666 Harold, in a Dante's Inferno-like journey, has his atheism challenged by none other than the devil himself who enjoys elaborate dance sequences.
P306-Academic Viewing Harold goes to the Sundance Film Festival and drags his son Hal along with him. While Harold "researches" the animated films on display, he discovers Hal's obsession with exploitation films.
P307-Acceptance With the holidays quickly approaching, Harold wishes to brighten up his cowokers' spirits by inviting them to a "Coexist" dinner. His curiosity gets the better of him when he accidentally riles up everybody's stance on their respective religions.
P308-Harold Meets a Time Paradox Renowned performance artist Daniel Plainview visits his newest exhibit at the local art museum. Harold anxiously meets Daniel and as a sign of good faith, criticizes Daniel's work fairly although Daniel takes the criticism very personally.
P309-The Council Harold learns of a supposedly good animated film called The Council which has been banned for nearly 50 years for its approval of bisexual polygamy. Harold and Tom plan a public screening of The Council while his wife and his son, Hal, unbeknownst to him, try to sabotage the screening.
P310-The Motivational Speech News of Flowers United getting into a financial crisis depresses everybody. A well-intended motivational presentation has the opposite effect on everyone, including The Editor who decides to pursue his life's dream of becoming a controversial issue.
P311-Harold Howardson's Wife After two and a half seasons, Harold's wife embarks on a journey to find out what her actual name is or at least to beat up the censor who's been bleeping out her name.
P312-Presenting This Man and His Comedy Harold performs at a comedy club and debuts his 20-minute routine.
P313-Nazi Sensibilities In a desperate attempt to save Flowers United from bankruptcy, The Editor begrudgingly approves the production of Nazi Sensibilities (NS), Harold's ambitious short film. Notice of the studio's closure creates a lot of tension during NS's production and everyone but Harold, Tom, Marcy, Reni, and The Editor decide to abandon the project. Meanwhile, Hal is transferred to a private boarding school for his academic excellence. Harold and his recently named wife, Elizabeth, prepare Hal's luggage and drop him off at the airport. As Harold and Elizabeth return to their home, now lacking of their son and his possessions, Harold gets a phone call from The Editor. The phone call prompts Harold and Elizabeth to have one more conversation together.
This is the last season of The Presenters. It's been a wonderful 4 years developing these characters and creating these outrageous scenarios that no sane network producer would ever approve for broadcast. Even though I posted the 1st season a year ago and technically being the only exposure anyone's ever had of this "series", this has been one of my most persistent ideas that has always popped up in my head every once in a while these past 4 years. It was something I looked forward to every Monday evening shortly after school when I could let the ideas flow out in a nervous gabble that somehow made sense every time. It would be the first time I swear out loud if only to capture the rapid-fire feeling of the characters' delivery. As I've said before, the first time I came up with a Presenters episode was around the same time I started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm so it made sense how most of the episodes in the first season are very Curbish although rather than being a blatant ripoff or a spiritual tribute, they were meant to go beyond the limits of a live-action program. In short, the first season was a very desperate attempt of being bizarre but there were a few examples that tried to be tastefully experimental. Season 2 was when the series started finding its voice and became much more personal in trying to understand who exactly these characters were trying to be such as Harold becoming more of a desperate entertainer than a neurotic narcissist. A few of these episodes were meant to deal with issues I still haven't completely forgotten about such as Harold reuniting with his high school friend Sarah, dealing with his childhood traumas and getting infatuated with an actor's voice. I did notice that this season rarely dealt with Harold's family, an issue I addressed with in the third season. I personally consider the 2nd season to be the best of the entire "series" with each episode perfectly detailing the characters without having to resort to previous templates and was where the series was right where it had to be. Season 2 was a difficult thing to try to surpass when I started considering episodes for the 3rd season. Strangely enough, the first episode I ever came up with was Season 3's A Trip to Route 666; In the first version, none of the characters were fully established and Harold was working at a dead end job where he is suddenly visited by the devil. To this day, it's the only episode that I "performed" live for a group of people, specifically, it was my horror/comedy story I told to my Geology class when we went on a trip to Death Valley in 10th grade. The trip is still one of the highlights of my high school career. It was very well-recieved even though it was very unusual. I've been working on Season 3 three months after I posted Season 2, and it would be the first time I would have an entire episode concept completely thrown out in the last minute due to being nearly impossible to describe in just a few words. Season 3 went through several revisions and many rearrangements and I still think more could be done to improve it, but as with my many other unfinished projects, it's one less burden to worry about. I would like to thank my brother, Gary Rodriguez, for encouraging me throughout the thinking process and for contributing his input in revising Season 3's descriptions and for providing the idea for "Cannibal Kittycat Killers". I would like to thank Justin Bretter, Jackson Foster, Adrian Lindo, Lorenz Kim, and Gil Young for being curious enough to listen to my recorded story descriptions back when the show was in its infancy. I'd also like to thank the people who visit my blog and take the time to read insane ideas/concepts like this one as it spurs me to improve my writing every step of the way. Comments/constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and good luck.
