YMMV / Pam & Tommy

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Yes, Tommy Lee really had a conversation with his penis in the run-up to his wedding with Pamela Anderson. In real life, however, it was entirely one-sided.
  • Also at play with Rand's use of phone books to find a plumber who has the part he needs (before realizing that he can use the Internet for this purpose) and the notion of copying the sex tape onto VHS cassettes for distribution, as opposed to just posting the footage on the Net (see also It Will Never Catch On).
  • In one scene Rand mentions Alta Vista as an example of a search engine. Although many younger viewers may have never heard of it, in the early days of dial-up internet Alta Vista was up there with Yahoo as one of the most popular search engines on the web.
• Anvilicious: The series pulls no punches delivering its message on the objectification of women, both by the media and film industry and their partners. Any time Pamela isn't shown being trapped in a gilded cage, she's telling everyone she's trapped in a gilded cage.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Four simple words. Tommy Lee's Talking Penis. Crosses with Aluminum Christmas Trees, because apparently that sort of thing did happen (Although it was a lot more one sided.)
• Catharsis Factor: After we've seen Rand's struggles and abuse at the hands of Tommy Lee, it's hard not to root for him when he strikes back at his asshole of a former boss, delivering a dose of karma while fixing his poor living situation at the same time. Unfortunately, this leads to him getting his hands on Tommy and Pamela's sex tape...
• Fetish Retardant:
  • The many many shots of a naked Tommy and Pam's nudity given the actors are very clearly wearing prosthetics.
  • The porn industry is also depicted as a rather sleazy and unpleasant industry, with the actresses having even more conspicious surgeries than Pamela.
• Jerkass Woobie: Rand stole private property and distributed a sex tape that humiliated two people. This resulted in him getting into a ton of trouble, both financially and physically. Normally, this wouldn't elicit much sympathy from the audience but Rand was ultimately just an ordinary guy down on his luck trying to pay his bills who was mistreated by Tommy Lee, had an abusive childhood, and most of his major faults come from ignorance rather than malice so it's hard not to feel a little sorry for the guy.
• Moral Event Horizon: As Erica points out, Rand crossed this by releasing a private sex tape without the consent of the parties involved for both spite and personal gain.
• One-Scene Wonder: Pam’s mom is very supportive of her daughter’s choice to pose for Playboy and offers her emotional support throughout.
  • Hugh Hefner comes across as a kind caring man in his only scene in the series.
• Squick: It's implied that Pam and Tommy have sex while watching the "Getting To Know You" scene from The King and I, good luck trying to look at the movie the same way again after this scene.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Tommy is made out to be a selfish Jerkass, but he does seem to genuinely support Pam, encouraging her with her acting, and gives Rand an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how for all the problems Rand might have with him, all Rand did by releasing the tape was hurt a woman who did nothing to him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Alicia, the journalist that keeps pushing the subject of the tape for The L.A. Times, is clearly intended as a sympathetic character, which is already weird by itself. The episode featuring her has a Failure Montage of her attempts to pitch the sex tape scandal to her boss. Eventually, she has enough ammo against her chief editor, walks triumphantly into his office and makes him pick the subject. However, the end result is starting the avalanche of the scandal, getting media attention to it and ruining people's lives, just so she can have "her" story published. She is no different than the various paparazzi the series clearly portray as to be in the wrong, yet audience is supposed to root for her success.
  • A good chunk of the audience found Rand to be too reprehensible to find funny despite his sympathetic portrayal and motivations, to the point that he was undeserving of being the Deuteragonist. Effectively, the audience realized he crossed the Moral Event Horizon well before the show admits he had.
• The Woobie: Pamela. She may be a bit of a bimbo with terrible taste in men, but unlike Tommy Lee she's never shown to be an over-privileged dropkick that treats others like crap. She really wants to be a respected actress - citing Jane Fonda as a role model - but the crew behind Baywatch don't respect her in the slightest, to the point where they watch her sex tape in full view of Pamela. Tommy doesn't seem to care how the leaked sex tape affects her, expecting Pamela to handle it as well as he does despite Pam explaining how the gender dynamics would have a greater impact on her than they would on him. And then she has to deal with being hounded by the paparazzi mere moments after suffering a miscarriage.

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