Eyes Pried Open

Collect All The Underpants!

2006-10-03T15:51:00.000-04:00

one of the many great life lessons South Park has taught the world came from the UnderPants Gnomes. They're the creatures who are stealing your underpants. If you think you "misplaced" some, it isn't you, it's them. Why are they collecting all the underpants? Because these gnomes are in search of Big Profit.

Sorry I didn't share this story from the Motley Fool earlier. It's the rare business appreciation of culture.

http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2001/foth011108.htm

Joining the Technorati

2006-09-29T17:26:00.000-04:00

A club I didn't want to join, but since it's free for everyone, why the hell not?

4/27/05

2005-04-27T11:12:00.000-04:00

TV doesn't make you smart after all.

Dana Stevens thinks the NY Times magazine piece was awful.

http://www.slate.com/id/2117395/

4/24/05

2005-04-25T00:59:00.000-04:00

TV Makes You Smarter! Really!

Really?

The former is the thesis of an article in the New York Times magazine. The basic idea is that TV is more complex today than ever, and this makes people smarter.

I'm not convinced. This idea strikes me about the same as the internet "big thinkers" who claimed information is power. I don't think information is power. Knowledge is closer to power. And using knowledge smartly is even closer. Of course, having nuclear bombs and showing little fear of the consequences of using them might be the real power.

I don't think just because people watch a particular show or set of shows they're getting smarter. That's similar to sitting in front of books by Albert Einstein or other "genius"es. Just having them doesn't do anything for the sitter.

I think that regardless of what people watch, it's how they process the stimulae on screen that will smarten them up. Talking about television, writing about television, having a dialogue, trying to assimilate the information into already conceived notions about the particulars and the world in general should do more to make you smart.

If there's one thing that watching television is likely to do for the viewer, it is making the viewer smarter about watching television. Not that they can necessarily dissect it better, but have a better understanding of the structure (content, commercial, content, commercial, newsbreak, etc), and possibly of the kinds of stories they can expect.

4/7/05

2005-04-07T08:01:00.000-04:00

It has taken me some time to figure out the appeal of The Pretender. Never watched it when it was on network; seemed like a Fugitive ripoff. Now that it's on early and in syndication, I catch snatches now and again as I'm channel-surfing for the weather.

Sadism is the show's appeal. Every episode, Jared assumes a new identity, and finds new evil-doers. They're inevitably co-workers or associates. Jared finds out that they've hurt, killed, or screwed someone, preferably killed them. Jared then sets up the evil-doer so she or he is faced with the same fate as their victim. Then, when the evil-doer has taken the bait and walked into the trap, Jared tortures them. "Do you think this is what poor Sally felt when the flames were surrounding her? Do you? Huh?" Meanwhile, the fireman, cop, contractor, whomever, is stuck in some fashion, handcuffs can do, but it's just as good to have them stuck in a machine or hanging off a building, and is about to have a building go up in flames or collapse on top of them, or roll off a precipice. The evil-doer now begs for help, because it looks like they're about to die. "Help. HELP! I'm going to die here!"

Jared smiles his malevolent smile, and continues to torture them. Inevitably, they admit their crime, "yes, YES! I did it. I didn't mean to, but the money was good, it was me or them, I couldn't die, go to jail, be in debt, what have you!" Jared then waits a little, just for justice sake, then gives them a painful way out. Meanwhile, the person's associates were around the corner, or listening on a radio, or watching the matter. The evil-doer is safe, sort of, for the moment, but his victims now know the truth and can look for justice if they so choose.

Jared, meanwhile, savors his little victory with a slightly less malevolent smile, proceeds to leave, and is about to be caught by the annoying woman or syndicate or whomever is after them, preferably all three. One of them catches Jared, but a character unique to the episode intervenes, Jared escapes, and the pursuers end up looking at each other.

And The Pretender moves on.

It's one evil show. I don't want an avenging angel like Jared working for me.

2/16/05

2005-02-17T00:59:00.000-05:00

Jack and Bobby, The WB

Since television teen sex almost inevitably leads to pregnancy, it’s about time that a female character goes to a doctor about getting the morning-after pill. Maybe Courtney has seen the shows, too. The writers definitely have, and even the show parents think it’s a good, responsible thing to do.

And it is in keeping with the nature of the show. I guess it’s only right that the network of “Seventh Heaven” brings us this show about a devoutly anti-religious single mother, her offspring and their world. Kudos to them for making her a pot-smoker and rabid left-winger as well as painfully moral. And her kids are moral and responsible and without realizing it have adopted their mom’s biases and morality to their detriment. No good deed goes unpunished.

2/15/05

2005-02-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

Veronica Mars, UPN

I heard that former “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” regular Allyson Hannigan will make an appearance on Veronica. Savvy move; demonstrates the producers know their market. Veronica, like Buffy, is girl power. Once again, we have a petite blonde whose perk and build distracts people from her super powers. Instead of physically kicking ass, Veronica knows how to both defend and attack with a brazen attitude, timely research and information. And, when need be, she has a hoodlum with a heart of gold on standby to do the arm-twisting. She also has a watcher in her dad, and an steady sidekick in Wallace, though he deserves more than eunuch status.

2/13/05

2005-02-13T03:32:00.000-05:00

Insomnia forced a retreat to the television Saturday night. Reading is usually more engrossing (snotty, ain’t I), so my hope was, as always, that bad tv would convince my mind and body that sleeping was better.

Checked the TV schedule. 1 am is not a particularly propitious time to camp out in front of the idiot box. It’s amazing how TNT/TBS has a rotation of mediocre movies. This time, Blade was the highlight of their weekend. Thanks but no, caught this when I lived with someone who had free-per-view.

The West Wing was on. Another smart, smart episode and a few funny gimmicks. It was a presidential debate, and President Bartlett came out swinging in a way that we’d never see in real life. He took issue with both the content and tone of typical presidential debates. How falsely polite they are, how empty most of the slogans and sound bytes are, how the key to success is to boil any program into a 10-word statement. Seems like some of the better commentary on politics can be found on The Wing—if only because more of America watches the show than reads political pundits at length.

Getting a complicated, substantive message to the people is something tremendously valuable and doesn’t happen nearly often enough. Arthur Miller was one of the few who was able to do it. John Sayles, while no Miller, tries to tell important stories and comment on the nature of life in America, but he’s only playing on and for the art house scene. Doing something that isn’t simple on broadcast television seems to be hard work.

There is something painfully unsatisfying about bad television. Even after you’ve seen it, you have a thirst that can’t be slaked. Angry, it’s only too easy to surf the channels, hoping to find something, anything, that tells a marginally interesting story and will serve a complete narrative meal.

2/7/05

2005-02-11T00:59:00.000-05:00

The West Wing, Bravo

Big Block of Cheese day in the West Wing. Great name, great idea, hope it happens more frequently in real life. The story is that Andrew Jackson left a huge block of cheese in the White House and invited the people to partake of it. So, once a year, the West Wing staff goes out and listens to the public say whatever they want.

The historic anecdote is real. The gift was given in 1835 and Jackson let it age for two years, then invited the public to the White House. Allegedly, the cheese was gone in two hours, but the stain and odor lasted.

http://www.whitehousehistory.org/04/subs_pph/PresidentDetail.aspx?ID=7&imageID=1303

It’s hard not to like The Wing. The characters are smart, thoughtful, funny, and grapple with complex issues that have no certain answers.

Don’t know if it’s based on reality or on imagination, but one of the striking things of the show is how most of the sets are dark and cramped, but President Bartlett’s office is lighter and almost airy. Metaphor?

Monster Garage, Discovery

Has the narrator tired of his own voice? What about his family and friends? I tire of the guy’s faux-extreme-riff on standard voice overs less than 15 minutes into the show. Just think of twenty-something guy trying to channel his “radical” days as a lame-ass skate punk who spent time hanging around the shopping center watching his buddies do tricks. Why should he do anything when he can say “Raaaadddicallll!” like few others. I guess his friends are happy he got a job.

Moderately weak premise for a show: build something one-off. Sometimes, it can be interesting, but this time, it was build a four-wheel drive woody (wood paneled station wagon) one can drive to the roughest beach with surfboard in the back in high Monster Garage style. It’s gotta be loud, it’s gotta have chrome, it’s gotta have outrageous style. Yeaaaaahhhhhhh!

I’m sure you cared. At least surf guitar legend Dick Dale showed up to waste a few screen seconds jamming with his 10 year-old son. There was little fighting and a fair amount of engine info, but you can never really see much. Watch guys ripping an old car to pieces, watch guys weld. Watch them smile in appreciation. Yeaaaaahhhhhhh! That's the way it's done, Monster Style!

2/9/05

2005-02-10T00:54:00.000-05:00

Fallout from Super Bowl ads.

IF you can’t get enough of chimps in ads, visit http://www.yeknominc.com. Yeknom is the the company parodied in the careerbuilder.com ads during the Super Bowl. Apparently, the company is upset with their portrayal. They claim most of the footage was shot during lunch break.

Careerbuilder.com thinks the above idea is viral. They set up the site and have links to the various ads. Of course, their idea of viral is sending the link to ad critics at major newspapers and magazines.

Emerald Nuts has a similar plan going with an angry leprechaun who is pissed he was cut from the Emerald Nuts Super Bowl ad. Since I found the site funny, I’ll give you the url. http://www.angryleprechaun.com

2/6/05

2005-02-07T00:59:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl XXXIX, Fox

Seems like I missed one of the best ads of the night. It was an anti-perspirant ad where the characters were dolls that didn’t take risks. Pity.

I did enjoy all the monkey ads and was disappointed that the meta Fed Ex ad didn’t include a monkey. We just don’t see enough chimps on television, save the talking chimp. But he isn’t as funny or canny as the rest.

While I was tipped off Thursday by the NY Times business pages, I was still surprised that GoDaddy.com and McIlhenny advertised. I use both, yet don’t see either getting a boost from the placements.

2/4/05

2005-02-05T01:59:00.000-05:00

Reba, WB

The single-mom sitcom. Since these exist frequently in reality, there’s not much of a reason to have a television show based on the premise. Lucky for us, not all single-moms with grown-up daughters living at home are as perky as this country star turned medical technician, but that’s the beauty of Reba. She wrote the show’s theme song, too. And, in a bow to “reality,” she’s still friendly with her ex- and the woman who stole him from her. Such complicated lives these characters lead.

Here, Reba comfort’s her ex’s wife. The wife is trashy and dumb, no match for Reba. Clearly. But Reba tolerates her with good cheer and polite jabs that the new wife doesn’t understand. The new wife wants to dump the old husband. Reba is into it until she realizes that the wife is being like her old husband.

Message time. Reba throws water on the wife’s dating fire.

Blue Collar TV, WB

This seems to be an outgrowth of a redneck Kings of Comedy Tour. Despite the frequent "redneck" shout outs, the humor doesn’t seem so redneck, more po’ white trash. It’s pretty safe for anyone to consume. Too bad the safe jokes are also tame and pretty flat. But I guess television is trying to give something to the “southern” demographic the way Seinfeld took care of the northern demographic.

2/03/05

2005-02-04T00:59:00.000-05:00

Without a Trace, CBS

Without a drama is more like it. This is the FBI here, the feds, the g-men, and if they’re getting involved, it’s a big deal, it’s serious, the people are desperate because somebody’s mother, father, sister, brother, spouse, is missing without a trace, Without A Trace, and every second count--oops, a bit of 24 here--if our heroes are going to find them. And they have 52 minutes spread over a day, to make their magic move mountains and save the girl, the boy, the puppy.

You hooked yet? Our team is lead by a rock-solid stand-up guy. He never loses his cool, rarely takes off his trench coat, but he’s not too cool, no David Caruso. His team includes the hot blonde, two fast-talking, slightly neurotic young guys who almost dress as well as the chick, and the tough behind-the-scenes black woman, who is stylish, but not over the top. You’d probably want them around if you go missing, too.

Seems like a good cast, decent writing, plausible plot, not necessarily the stereotypical solution. We don’t have to love the regular cast because their personalities aren’t so strong that they overpower the single-episode characters.

A hallmark of “gritty” police dramas is that they get the Noo Yawk street accent right. Anthonly LaPaglia, an Aussie has a basic grasp, which still has a bit of his homeland in it. Marianne Jean-Baptiste goes over the top to be a no-nonsense cop type that she pours it on too thick at times while not enough on others.

Yet the show is boring. Painfully so. There’s little tension because the regular characters have little at stake and the guest characters have so much at stake.

And once again we have a show set in New York City but shot in LA. Great looking exteriors, but just like NYPD Blue, they clearly go inside and onto a studio set to take care of the essential action.

2/2/05

2005-02-03T01:58:00.000-05:00

The State of the Union Address, CSPAN, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, PBS

On the whole, not as bad as going to the dentist. At least I could squirm.

It’s amazing that television producers haven’t figured out a way to dress up the State of the Union Address. It would be a great boon for our ADD, multiply distracted and overworked age.

What about a ticker scrolling across the bottom? What about superimposing names of people focused on during the speech?

The amazing thing is that the format is such the president could say anything, his party would cheer, and the next day everyone will be talking about it as fact. The Earth is flat? Of course! We need to limit our civil rights!

I want to see something done so that there’s real-time fact-checking on the speech. What about pointing out the times he fudges facts, pump up numbers, flip-flops, and lies? That’s what the ticker could be used for. It would make the speech more exciting, and I bet people would tune in.

The problem is that Fox would probably pioneer this feature and sex up Republican lies (‘Saddam is still responsible for 9/11’) while slamming Democrat lies (‘The surplus under Clinton was 100 million less than he stated; that’s an impeachable offense’). Good thing they’re the most popular “news” organization in the country. The only news organization willing to challenge them on tv is The Daily Show.

2/2/05

2005-02-02T00:59:00.000-05:00

February 1--Pompeii: The Last Day, Discovery
Biker Build-Off, Discovery

Pompeii: The Last Day

Discovery is using the tag line “entertain your brain” these days. It’s an apt tag. Rather than be historic and factual--enrich the brain--they decided the best way to tell the story was to create dramatic re-enactments of how some people might have spent their final hours. The archaeologists must have found people who had some socially identifying traits, though the show didn’t tell us that. Instead, they told us the stories of the politician and his family, the greedy clothes-washer, his wife, and slaes, Pliny the elder, an unnamed female slave, a few gladiators, etc.

The show barely touched on the specifics of the blast; what might have been fascinating explanations of phenomena were instead mentioned in passing. The lava had been inside the volcano so long, it turned to “foam” upon being blasted out. Then it was ash, then pumice, then there were some pyro thingees that happened. “There is no word for ‘volcano’ in Latin.” Gladiators were laughing about the pumice falling, until one got hit on the head with a volcanic rock. Not so funny, and this particular turn of events we are led to believe sealed their fate. Death.

The drama was overwrought and yet silly. Pliny visits his friend in Stabiae and even though everyone in the show has a British accent, the friend has an Italian accent. We see that the clothes washer is a jerk because he says of his slaves “they wouldn’t do an honest day’s work if I weren’t around.” The politician is humane because he releases his slaves after the point at which they could have saved themselves--and the slaves like him so much, they stay.

Meanwhile, hours later, Vesuvius continues to spew death, and the show moves into its second hour. I had to sign off.

Biker Build-off, Discovery

Another forced and unbelievable competition from Discovery. Two custom motorcycle shops are asked to design and build custom choppers in a week, then ride them, and then take them to a motorcycle rodeo where the visitors vote on the better bike.

Adding to the drama is the fact that the proprietor of the Detroit Brothers shop used to work for the Exile shop. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a slow karate chop from an arthritic hand. Ka pao.

Ok, so Russell of Exile in LA is a punk cool Brit, and his “competition” James of Detroit Brothers in Detroit is a red-blooded American. Russell has a nutty trike idea and James a neo retro lowrider. We learn little about the bikes, naturally, but see the guys in their various emotional states. James’ brother loses his composure after opening the “care” package from Russell and finding basic bike building books. The brothers retaliate by sending dead fish and a warning about “sleeping with the fishes.”

The sparks were “flying.” I wanted to change the channel.

And two bikes were built, ridden, and voted upon. Biker building info was limited to a few details about the trike’s differential, the difficulty of mounting Formula One tires, figuring out how to improvise a brake, and banging steel into shape. Another wasted hour “entertaining” my brain.

Can't wait to find out Phil's divining of winter. Talk about entertaining your brain.

2/1/05

2005-02-01T00:59:00.000-05:00

I’m at a loss for how to explain our tv-watching habits. Americans watch an average of 4 hours of television a day. Considering that most adults work eight hours and try to sleep eight hours, that four hours of daily television means they have four hours in which to eat, travel to and from work, go to the bathroom, socialize, exercise, and shop. Not alot of time to check in with kids, parents, or friends. Maybe we’re just great multi-taskers. Maybe we have a coaxial cable inserted at the base of our skull when we sleep.

I’d like to believe that often televison is just background noise while waiting at the bank, the bar, the gas station, the tv-room.

Four hours of television a day just hurts. It’s hard to believe that people really find all four hours worthwhile. Maybe there’s a comfort factor, that this thing is talking to us, soothing our fears, telling us everything is ok, though we’d be better off using a Swiffer, drinking beer, driving SUVs, taking designer drugs, and talking on cell phones. Of course, there’s no time to shop when I’m communing with Katie in the morning Dan in the evening, and Dave before I go to bed. Maybe Regis will understand if I skip out on him.

1/31/05

2005-01-31T01:59:00.000-05:00

Back! 10 days away and only 40 minutes of television. A good cleansing. Sadly, the 40 minutes were two 20-minute blocks of CNN Headline News. I'm not sure what Headline News is supposed to do, but I felt like I knew less after watching the segments than I did before. There were certainly things mentioned that informed me of something I didn't know, but they seemed devoid of context. For example, I heard there was a subway fire in New York City. The details weren't given, nor was any information about how it affected New Yorkers or the subway system. CNN also ran a feature on pregnancy and depression. This, too, contained some information. Women can get severely depressed during pregnancy. And there was a woman who experienced this herself. But I didn't feel they gave me info that made this information particularly relevant.

Of course, the banter between the newsreaders was chummy and they were decent looking in a non-threatening way. I did believe that the music themes introducing and ending segments were that belonging to a news broadcast. The super-imposed images put in the corner to help us undersand what the reader was talking about did seem to convince me they were talking about something. And the news-ticker at the bottom, well, I love it, though I don't remember anything that scrolled across the screen.

1/21/05

2005-01-21T02:55:00.000-05:00

Ouch. Too much television. Brain hurts. Taking a break. Back in about a week.

1/20/05

2005-01-20T03:03:00.000-05:00

1/17/05-1/20/05

Rough week. Can't stand to say much about the shows I saw.

Listen Up, CBS

Jason Alexander vehicle. He's George Costanza with a family.

Fresh Prince of Belair. Nick

The lame show that launched Will Smith.

Cosby Show, Nick

Jumped the shark several seasons ago

American Idol, Fox

Hopingn for a paradigm shift after William Hung? Hope some more.

Project Runway, Bravo

Fashion designer wannabe shootout. At least they were somewhat supportive of each other.

O1/17/05

2005-01-17T00:59:00.000-05:00

01/16/05--Baltimore Colts vs. New England Patriots, CBS

This has been a huge year of football watching for me. This game was probably the best I’ve seen, and it looks like it will be the last of the season as well. Always good to go out on top.

The persistent snowfall in Foxboro, MA gave the images a dated feel. The snow itself seemed to slow down the players, which made things more intriguing to watch. It looked like no one could push as hard, turn or run as fast as they can on dry grass. Since I’m of the belief that they should play some Super Bowls outside in stadiums situated in parts of the US that get winter, it’s good to see good football come out of the bad weather. I think the fans dug it, too. Made it more of an event.

The other thing I really enjoyed about the game is that it appeared both teams were more inventive and varied with their games. The Patriots occasionally put five wide receivers in the game on first down. The Colts tried some trick plays, like snapping the ball to the running back. Both teams varied between huddle and no-huddle offenses and seemed to change their plays on the line. Keeps the fans guessing as well.

01/16/05

2005-01-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

01/15/05--New York Jets vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, CBS

Why aren’t sports considered “reality” television? It’s an alternate reality, has hosts, and it’s filled with pumped up men and enhanced women. Maybe the problem is there isn’t enough humiliation or leech eating.

One of the nice things about watching the playoff games is that the commentary quality improved. Dan Dierdorf and Dick Enberg seemed to talk much less then their lesser yakkers. Nice that they skipped falling back on this being a “hard hitting” game, though they did talk too much about the Steelers offensive line wearing out the Jets. But it, along with “rookie” Roethlisberger comments, were their talking points before the game—and they stuck with them.

Someone should tell the players and the NFL that “win or go home,” is a line that was played out at least a few seasons ago.

1/15/05

2005-01-15T00:59:00.000-05:00

1/14/05--Law and Order, TNT/TBS/wherever
SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon

Do kids look at grownups watching SpongeBob with as much incredulity as adults have looking at tots watching Barney? I was giddy during most of the show. I didn’t even experience a fart joke; but it’s a silly, jejeune show, full of puerile humor. And I certainly could use more of it.

I’ve heard that SpongeBob does great with the “stoner” demographic. Guess if I like SB, I’m part of it; at least it means that I’m a Bugs Bunny fan. The show is absurd and good-natured, and even though the stories are usually pretty straightforward minor morality plays, they have so much fun getting to the conclusion that it’s hard to hate the fact that the message is obvious.

In the half hour, we got two little episodes. Bugs and crew would have given us four. In the first, SpongeBob was humiliated in front of the restaurant patrons because his grandmother kissed him outside the Krusty Krab. He resolved to be a grownup and did so with Patrick’s help. Patrick said the way you become an adult is 1. Puff up your chest. 2. Say “tax exemption.” 3. Cultivate a taste for free-form jazz. SpongeBob pulled out sideburns for him and Patrick and he went to confront his grandmother, who naturally made him want to be a child again. Who would say no to cookies and napping and presents when being an adult means no cookies and getting a gift of unwrapped office supplies?

In the second episode, Squidward got sick of being near SpongeBob because SpongeBob and Patrick wrecked his home with their reefblowers, so he went to a gated community of squids. Naturally, they were just like him. At first, it felt like paradise, because he could ride his bicycle, get canned bread, do interpretive dance, and play in a clarinet quartet. As the days wore on, it got less and less enjoyable. Finally, despondent, he sat on a park bench to contemplate. And he saw a reefblower nearby. He pulled a SpongeBob and drove his neighbors crazy. Meanwhile SpongeBob and Patrick try to visit and bring an apology cake as a gift. Chaos ensues, but our dynamic duo can’t find their crotchety friend because they can’t tell him apart from the other squids and Squidward uses the reefblower to jettison himself from the community.

Law and Order

Haven’t watched Law and Order in ages. I seem to remember that in the early days, the cops followed some leads that went nowhere and the prosecutor occasionally got it wrong and the decisions sometimes didn’t go his way. Maybe I was just watching through a rose-tinted monitor.

Whenever I’ve caught some of the “new” L & O’s over the past several years, it has seemed that there are fewer dead ends and fewer losses, and the story hinges on some twist in the defense.

This one, about an accidental death of a medical researcher due to a criminal act of an animal-rights activist was surprisingly without twists, though Briscoe and Green didn’t run into any dead ends.

01/13/05

2005-01-14T00:59:00.000-05:00

1/1305—Tilt, ESPN
Sports Center, ESPN

Tilt

Young, good looking turks take on the machine. It's an old set-up, but a solid one. Threesomes have a little danger in them, especially when one is an impatient yet charming whitey, smooth yet charming black guy (you know he’s cool because of the shaved head), and a knowing blonde chick. And the machine is run by a Las Vegas casino owner, with his pal, the super duper card player Matador, as the seemingly clean front man. And Matador is tough and cool, because he’s played by Michael Madsen. The creases in his face can have more chops than the cast of a daytime soap opera.

Madsen is one of those actors who supposedly says a lot by saying a little.

One look

and

you know.

You know?

He’s about the slow reply, the pause, the look that he will throttle you if necessary—though that just might be the camera angle. And here he is, The Matador, sleazy and cool, winning all the hands with the help of his henchman and his casino owner pal. He’s afraid of being found out, though the fear never registers. Even the anger doesn’t entirely register; he’s more into that smoldering thing.

But more to the set up, as this was the series premiere. The main characters are sitting around a poker table, and the two guys get into a discussion about Clark’s (the black guy) sweatsuit. He says, “it’s aubergine.” Eddie (the white guy) says, “it’s more eggplant.” And Clark attacks Eddie. Supposed to be a good show, though I found myself wondering if most people today know it as a racial slight. Whatever.

We’re supposed to see that the key threesome has some tensions to work out, and that these tensions are going to make the show as much as the conflict with the big baddies and the third plot of the off-duty cop trying to bring down the big house. But the tensions are too obvious, and don’t seem to go deep enough, and the characters are so clearly good looking, so clearly a notch above the people they’re trying to infiltrate, that it’s a wonder they hadn’t been spotted even before the first episode was over.

On the good side, it’s dark, there seem to be few plot advancement eunuchs (spotted one, working for the guys, got his leg badly broken by the matador at the end of the first episode), and the corruption is everywhere. The third plot, that off the off-duty cop bent on avenging his brother, has the most potential, but I don’t know how much time the show will spend on him. He’s not much to look at and doesn’t have a way with words.

Except that ESPN has a sports hole to fill, I wouldn’t see this show going anywhere.

Sports Center

This episode of Sports Center demonstrates the hole ESPN needs to fill. This was a slow sports night. They teased out as many segments as they could, incessantly ran previews and recaps, and updated us as to the condition of Kobe Bryant’s ankle—which was sprained during the evening’s Lakers’-Cav’s game--at least five times during the hour. Yasir Arafat didn’t merit that much news attention when he was dying.

1/11/05

2005-01-12T00:59:00.000-05:00

1/11/05—The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Bravo

Would the Fab Five approve of a clip show? It shouts “we’re cheap!” But it is practical recycling and gives extra screen time to a fun bunch of guys who can’t get enough of themselves. And you can always learn something new from something old, so long as it doesn’t smell. Clip show? Definitely. More time to sip cocktails and riff on style without the heavy work of changing some clueless het’s life. One can break a sweat, stain clothes, and waste perfectly good product. Smegma-sniffing ain’t easy work girls.

Clip shows have become the end of season signal staple. Let’s recap, shall we? Why bother creating a contrived plot or an extravaganza where Dr. Phil interviews the changelings six months later to see if the results were transformation traumatization. Let’s just see Carson, Jai, Kyan, Ted, and Thom being their dishy best.

I like that every queer guy has a purpose on this show. They don’t need a host to look good and segue when every staple character is sufficiently out to speak for himself. If Paige Davis had a skill other than perk, Trading Spaces would be much better. Carson seems to dominate the Fab Five, but it could be because the producers see him as the queen bee, the queerest of them all.

And at least this show doesn’t hide the fact that the show is about the staple characters more than its about the transformation. Sure, they did a tremendous job with the toupee-wearing dad, but some of their fashion suggestions were kind of gay...lame perhaps?

Speaking of lame, I’m not sure how Queer Eye for the Straight Girl could work. Dyke Eye would have been more interesting, and works with the Queer Eye premise. Not that there’s a prejudice against dyke style or anything—and they do have the token same-sex female on the show. But the little I saw indicates that she's not taking up time the way her Queer Guys do.

01/09/05

2005-01-10T00:59:00.000-05:00

1/09/05—Steve Harvey’s Big Time, WB
Fatherhood, Nickelodeon
The Cosby Show, Nickelodeon

Seems like Ol’ Steve has been coasting on his laurels lately. Don’t know what those laurels were. He was pretty lame on his own show, The Steve Harvey Show. He was the comic with the least on The Original Kings of Comedy film. In both cases, he was shown up by his ostensible sidekick, Cedric The Entertainer. It’s like Steve’s shtik is anti-shtik, if being an uptight hardass in a baaad suit without a good comeback is shtik. Unfunny everyman on stage.

One would have hoped that mc’ing a 'stupid (put something here) tricks' show would be easy for a stand-up comic who hosted Showtime At the Apollo. The concept is as old as the circus; throw in the freaks. It should be easy to work with.

A six-year old national yo-yo champ got the better of him. Don’t know if the champ is that little, but Harvey seemed surprised when the tot showed up on stage. Wasn’t Steve aware that the kid was the Under-10 national champion? Steve acted as if the guy Harvey wasn’t satisfied with getting the kid to say stuff, he had to figure out his own bit to add humor to a tot dancing with a yo-yo. And he didn’t do it well.

After a commercial break, he brought out Chuck Harris (http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/0596May/Trender/freaks.html), manager of weird acts. He manages Mr. Methane (http://www.mrmethane.com/) and The Great Regurgitator. Sadly, neither was going to appear, though Harvey acted surprised by the descriptions of the acts. It’s just as well; Stevee probably wouldn’t know what to do with them.

Is there anything funny to say about a guy who plays songs on his teeth? Steve couldn’t find it when the guy did the William Tell Overture. And he only could manage to do the typical guy “don’t touch me, man” jokes when Frank Simon came on. Frank is the guy who balances stoves on his mouth—he’s on the M&M candy bar commercial—but he also is gregarious in an old-school kind of way. He smiles, hugs, shakes hands enthusiastically, asks the audience for a shout-out. And, of course, he does balance the stove on his mouth. But to show that he can do more things, he also balanced a 3” doll on his nose. Skilled.

The one guy who got Steve going was The Rubber Boy (http://www.therubberboy.com/). Daniel Browning Smith was freaky to Steve when he pushed himself out of a small case, but Harvey was apoplectic when the guy was able to stick his head beneath his legs and got his mouth close enough to lick his balls. Harvey loved it. Could die now, wouldn’t need women, etc. Yawn.

The sad thing is that despite the set-ups and the faux-square persona Harvey puts on, it’s got to be a fake. He’s in on the choosing of the acts and must know exactly what’s going to happen before it happens. Yet, there he is, as flummoxed and flatfooted as a Republican at a confirmation hearing. It’s certainly calculated, but I’m at a loss who the calculation is supposed to appeal to. Republican cabinet nominees? Even the people who thought Willard Scott was straight would want more. Steve is presiding over a carnival scene, a televised freak show, and he’s having no fun up there. It would be nice if the guy got a little jiggy with it.

Fatherhood

Never heard of this before. Since it is based on Bill Cosby’s book of the same name, it’s hard not to see a tie-in to The Cosby Show starting after this ends.

It’s original to Nickelodeon. It debuted in 2004. It’s animated. The action concerns the Bindlebeep family; dad, mom, and three spunky kids. Seems like a late start to a show that has such young-kid oriented content. Maybe they’re aiming the show at kids who have parents working and the television funcitons as the babysitter.

Never having read the book, I’m disappointed that it doesn’t possess the humor I remember of Fat Albert. This episode’s story concerns the mother trying to raise capital to buy the book store she’s been working in. She works at a book store, the dad is a high school communications teacher. Cosby has been flashing his credentials as an educator. Can you say message?

I enjoyed the show, even if I could predict the story line. I did like that the dad was for walking with his daughter rather than driving, though it didn’t come off as cool as I would have hoped from The Cos.

The Cosby Show

This is still well after Cosby jumped the shark. Even Rudy isn’t young. The show was another message show. It’s as if Keenan Ivory Wayans character from Don’t Drink Juice... was wandering around saying “message” every minute or two.

Cosby was about to deliver the baby of a woman who had no relatives in New York. He tracks down her grandfather, played by Sammy Davis, Jr. Despite the sub-featherweight build, Sammy is an ex-boxer who seems to be alternately, a bum, a mack daddy, abrasive, smooth, insecure, and self-assured. He doesn’t want to be part of anything, he lies, he then shows up at the hospital and is smooth and charming. He doesn’t want family and he can’t read. But, like any good “message” show, he sticks around, has moments of pride, agrees to learn to read and be part of his great granddaughters life, and impresses Cliff.

Only to further the “message” Rudy tells her sister that if a 67-year old man doesn’t know how to read, she’s wasting her time in fourth grade. Sister says ‘but you won’t be able to get a job,’ Rudy replies, ‘I can teach third grade.’

01/06/05

2005-01-07T00:59:00.000-05:00

01/06/05—Life As We Know it, ABC
Roseanne, Nickelodeon

Life As We Know It

“We” are the guys. Sensitive, smart enough, arty, athletic, hunky without being too pretty. There are three of us and we can literally freeze the action so we can comment on what’s going on, but only if it’s kind of, like, important.

Since this is teensploitation television, there have to be three babes who are sensitive, smart enough, arty, athletic, and better looking than us. Kelly Osbourne is with them to make the scene more interesting. Even if she is acting, no one can ignore that kooky back story. Of course, she’s the artiest of all, which makes up for the fact that she’s not conventionally attractive or skinny enough or funny enough for a leading role.

And since we’re guys guys, sex has to be everywhere. Not only are we doing it, but thinking about it, obsessing over it, and never getting a woody at an inopportune moment. We respect virgins; that’s cool, so long as you’re interesting or attractive in a conventional way.

Our parents are doing it. That’s gross. It’s not like we’ve caught them or anything. But the thought is...it’s enough to reverse the blood flow in our favorite member. If you know what I mean.

Life as they know it

It’s not like we’re the Gilmore Girls or anything. We are better-looking. But we’re not as ostentatiously brainy and definitely not hyperactive. We have more girly-fun. And clearly, we’re doing better with the hair and with the guys.

Life as the parents know it

It doesn’t get any easier as you get older. Still worries, still insecurities, still not sure about sex. Our kids say we don’t know anything and there are times we agree. They want us to be parents, not people

The show as the viewers know it

The creators gave it that old college try. The fantasy conceit (stopping action) is a good variation, but they need more. And having Peter Dinklage as the school shrink isn’t enough. The show is well meaning, which isn’t a bad thing, but it only has minor humor to leaven the drama, which is too focused on sex. And the characters themselves aren’t particularly interesting.

Did I mention the teacher who looks younger than her students and had sex with one of the three guys? Not much of a spark there. Don’t know if it was the acting or the writing, but the minor drama fell flat.

Roseanne

Roseanne is still funny in the later episodes, but the rest of the cast has less to do. And Roseanne gets less real looking each subesquent episode I’ve seen. The hair gets darker and her face gets more symmetric, but loses its charm. Still, when she said she got a “woody” just looking at a busty woman who was applying to be a busboy, it was a great guffaw and tied into the Life As We Know It episode earlier in the evening, as one guy was having trouble in that realm.

01/04/05

2005-01-05T00:59:00.000-05:00

01/04/05—Gilmore Girls, WB
High School Reunion III, WB
Cribs, MTV

Gilmore Girls

Oh that Lorelai Gilmore! She’s a perky one. So smart, and with neuroses to challenge Woody Allen and references to challenge Dennis Miller. And looks. And such a good parent so young. Why she could pass for 20! She’s the fun one.

And her daughter Rory. Perky, smart, quick-witted, but with a reserve her mom doesn’t possess. She’s the serious one.The two of them must dominate every one they interact.

And they do. Which might be the problem with the show.

It’s a buddy show, but like all dramas, it needs to be focused on the home, even though Rory has sort of, kind of moved out, you know. She’s got that college thing going on, but her grand dad can visit for lunch, and Rory can always hang out with her mom. Wouldn’t want her straying too far. It is a homey show, as most shows are.

I should like the show. Women leading. Smart women leading. Fast-talking smart women. Fast-talking smart women not afraid of being smart. Machine gun dialogue. Speedy references. And kind of hot in a wholesome, girl-next-door kind of way. Lots of natural fibers, with outfits that exclaim style(!), but without being too girly or ostentatious. So many easy chances to make some good screwball humor. And the sidekicks generally keep up with them, though just barely.

Keeping up is an issue. The pacing and style of dialogue whenever Lorelai or Rory are on camera is always the same. Everyone talks like them in their presence. Whether it’s Luke or Lane or the grandparents. Maybe it’s an alpha-female thing. Most of the characters are smarter and wittier in their presence and then slow down to their own pace and style in scenes without the leading ladies.

Another thing that’s a bother is how stagey it gets. With some of the rapid-fire dialogue, you feel as if you’ve come across a set piece. You want to say, ‘such acting! what chops!’ but they happen over and over and over again.

In this episode, Rory is calm, Lorelai is amped, Luke is trying to make sense of it all, and the grandparents are all batty and from another era. In a tiny subplot, Lane is trying to figure out the romance thing, but it’s closer to a homework assignment than anything else. Just like all episodes.

And the dramas they have never seem to have high stakes. Nothing will shake this world. Everything is ok to begin with and the obstacles presented aren’t really challenges, just furniture to move around. Maybe it’s that the music doesn’t do it for me, or the close-ups, but there’s steady pacing pretty much going nowhere and the plot doesn’t really build as the episode moves on. Will Grandma get stuck in her panic room? Would Jodie Foster? Should anyone care?

High School Reunion III

I’m surprised this “reality” concept hasn’t been played out already. Take a bunch of people at least a decade out of high school, let them live in an exotic locale and laze about and reminisce.

Good times they ain’t. I thought everyone hated high school and yet they find people to populate the show and then watch it. My interest in this reality was played out before I left high school.

Who would go on such a show? I wonder if the obvious types are the only who express interest or the producers only express interest in the obvious types. But the show would be lost if people transcended their stereotypes. The Meathead. The Jock. The Head Cheerleader. The Loud Mouth. The Nerds. The Fat Girl. Maybe the producers are hoping that one of them will transcend, that one is no longer an ugly duckling, but a swan.

Not going to happen here. This episode focused largely on the sudden appearance two outsiders from the Cardinal Gibbons High cliques. Merely the mention of their names elicited howls from the people at the house. It’s as if the participants had never read Lord of the Flies. The abusive tune disappeared when the geek, nerd, loser outsiders pull up in a convertible corvette.

People were impressed. They don’t know that the outsiders are really struggling in life; one is unemployed, the other lives with his mother. But the outsiders are given cash to create the facade of being internet millionaires. They outsiders say they’re doing it as payback, and their marks gobble down the bait. People are immediately all over them, particularly the women, because they perceive the wealth.

I don’t know who has it worse, the guys who go on national tv pretending to be millionaires, or the people who like them because they’re millionaires. You get the sense that the characters on the show will blame and mercilessly attack the outsiders if the ruse is found out. And probably much of the audience would, too.

One of the more pathetic things about the show is how ugly the people are. We expect reality tv characters to have a deep well of ugly running at or just below the surface of their personality. The one mitigating factor for most shows is that the “reality” puts the people in totally unreal and ridiculous situations for what seems to be a huge payoff.

The people on HSR3 are ugly and mean just because they’re stuck with people from their own high school. There’s no payoff mentioned. Maybe they get a “hall pass” to get out of the house. Maybe they score with an old flame. But that’s it. And just for the sake of being in a pretty place with people they have a history with, there is all manner of fights started, backs stabbed, and pettiness on display.

Cribs

MTV promises an inside look at the bling lifestyles of their kind of celebrities. It’s just like a celebrity you don’t really care about taking you around his estate.

I was lucky enough to see the estate of Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons and the bachelor pad of Marcellus Wiley.

Russell and Kimora’s house is vast. Indoor pool. Movie theatre, dressing rooms larger than apartments. She was proud of having bought Gianni Versace’s stuff at his estate’s auction. Russell was dry, and Reverend Run was popping up everywhere.

I don’t know what to make of comments about how certainly lux amenities are the key to a successful marriage. Kimora said that separate wings in a bathroom were one such key. Last I checked most people don’t have this feature in their homes. How is this essential again? More likely, it reinforces the separation wealthy people feel from their family.

I did like how Kimora had a fancy giraffe tchotchke because she was called a “Chinky giraffe” as a kid. I liked some of Russell’s dry observations. Kimora said she didn’t let men into her dressing room. Russell noted, “unless they’re gay.” And we find a guy hanging out in her dressing room, a guy who helps pick out her outfits.

Marcelllus at least had some fun at his place. he was happy to point out the fake plants, because he’s a bachelor and travels so much. He also had his office designed like a college dorm room. He even pointed to the books on the bookshelf and said he had only read three of htem, “but knew all the titles.” Reading was for when he retired, which for an NFL star, could be any time.

12/23/04

2004-12-24T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/23/04--Punk’d, MTV
Las Vegas Bowl , ESPN (UCLA vs Wyoming)

Punk’d

I was looking forward to Punk’d. Two hours of it back to back to back to back. And I was getting in at the very beginning, the first episodes. And the beauty of the first episode is that it’s actually meta. Part of the first episode is about before the first episode. Pretty high concept. We get to see Ashton Kutcher punk’d. Getting punk’d means you’re pranked. A version of the Jamie Kennedy Experiment, MTV’s worst best friend reality show, and a bunch of others.

But the real concept is old. Candid Camera on celebrities. Well, mostly. The one punk’d setup I saw with non-celebrities was verging on mean. Well, they all verge on mean, but the “beauty” is that we get to see the rich and famous knocked down a bit. And they ostensibly benefit from the exposure. Oooh, Jeremy Sisto is accused of driving drunk by a cop. Or Chris Klein has a hostage situation going on in his house. These should work best when the build is slow, when things get more and more absurd to the point that there is no way the person being punk’d can believe that situation they’re in is real. The problem is that getting to that point takes forever. The posing by the show’s actors is convincing enough but not particularly interesting, and then the payoff is only good if the person being punk’d gets crazy at the end, swearing on camera and breaking stuff. Vivica Fox was reasonably good at being outraged, but it wasn’t really fun, because she took the prank seriously.

Some of the set-ups are just trying. When Ashton steals a car and fake crashes it into a storefront and then the punk’d subjects show up on the scene at 3:30am, it’s hard not to feel for the beleaguered celebs. By the end, I’m feeing for the viewer, who could have been darning socks.

Las Vegas Bowl

I don’t think I had heard of this bowl before. It’s certainly not in the exalted realm of the Rose Bowl. Probably a third-tier bowl. And it’s importance was demonstrated by the unpacked stands and third-tier announcing. I was waiting for James Caan to show up with plot-advancement babes and solve some crime.

The game was sufficiently slow and gave enough injury time outs, I had chance to read Time Magazine’s Man of the Year issue. The conceit of the issue is that the person so anointed generated the most news over the year. I’m fine with that. But I was aggravated by Time’s unqualified, unproven praise. The writing of the lead story was just terrible; they advanced a number of points on why Bush was worthy, then couldn’t prove them. They wrote he was specific in his proposals, that he told people things they didn’t want to hear, and yet the examples they gave and interview they published undermined those very points. When they questioned him, he was vague with answers, even though they lobbed him a softball by asking him about steroids in baseball. Yes, I know ‘roiding baseball players ranks with the war in Iraq, but still. When they gave examples of his ability to tell people what they didn’t want to hear, they told of how he didn’t answer a question about making mistakes in the second debate with Kerry. Turns out, after the debate, he sought out the woman who posed the question and explained how, of course he made mistakes, but he couldn’t answer the question for political reasons.

Time should have been bold enough to say Bush was the man of the year because he took the country from a small surplus to a huge deficit, because he pushed for a war with bogus evidence, because he didn’t have second thoughts about waging a war that majority of Americans are opposed to, because he eroded civil liberties, because he spends money the country doesn’t have like a drunk in Vegas while cutting taxes, and yet he was still elected to a second term.

I realize that game announcer predictions are less reliable than meteorologists divining tomorrow's weather by the tide, but it was impressive that the yakkers correctly predicted that the punt bouncing off the returner’s face mask was the turning point of the game. Even though Wyoming didn’t have a running game and was way behind, they got their act together for the win. Nice to see the underdog triumph, though UCLA might have been the real underdog, as their starting QB was lost to injury early on.

12/22/04

2004-12-23T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/22/04— Fear Factor Siblings, NBC
Las Vegas, NBC
Las Vegas, NBC
Roseanne, Nickelodeon

Fear Factor Siblings

Two brother-sister teams and a brother-brother and sister-sister team competed for another $50,000. Casting is essential for this show. The chicks have to be stacked, the guys have to be good looking and have large biceps and breasts, and the two same-sex sibling teams had to look like each other. Adding to it, it’s good to have a ditz, some bad guys, and some all-American types.

Forget O’Reilly. This is The Factor. You can spin all you want, but you’ve got to back up all the trash talk by sucking leeches. O’Reilly couldn’t take this kind of pressure.

Then again, the setup is totally unfair. Forget it if you aren’t good looking, if you don’t have breasts (both men and women), forget it if you aren’t buffed out. Looks might not be important for you, but the Factor has to get competitors in water at least once an episode. Got to feed the beast. The raw meat for viewers is raw meat. But enhancements never hurt.

Las Vegas

I think I didn’t give this show enough credit. Not only is there a casino owner with a heart of gold who’d rather fight crime, a cast of chicks who barely serve as plot advancement mannequins, but there’s The Love Boat angle. They have to have musical stars who are “booked” to play at the casino, but mostly do something on the casino floor.

In this episode, Brooks and Dunn are on a gambling tear. They’re at the roulette wheel, winning money, kibitzing with the cast, and amusing everyone. Could their banter be off the cuff? Is Brooks a natural blonde? Guess you’ll have to ask them.

Alec Baldwin made an appearance as a baddie. An old chum of the gruff, heart o’ gold James Caan, he’s there as an expert at casino security. Who would have thought that the slithery character Alec portrayed was scamming his old pal? Sure, everyone. But that’s the charm of television. So many of the most popular shows never surprise. And why should they?

Not content to waste a good thing, Baldwin makes another appearance in the next episode. To prove there are no hard feelings, that scamming is just business, he helps his pal Caan track down an art thief. Ah, back to fighting the bad guys. Of course, Caan owns the art. Ed McMahon does the turn as the token celebrity with no place to go. Bless him.

Roseanne

One of the questions I ask about television shows is how many plot lines can they sustain in an episode. Is it too much to ask for a “b” plot. Roseanne, still funny after jumping the shark,m wasn’t able to get past plot "a." Pity.

12/18/04

2004-12-19T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/18/04—Washington Redskins Vs. San Francisco 49ers, Fox

Somehow, each successive commentary team I experience is more underwhelming than the previous. I thought I was experiencing the B team on ESPN; turns out I got the C or maybe D team for Skins at Niners. Two losing teams playing on a Saturday night, the perfect storm for low ratings.

Kenny Albert did the play by play, while Brian Baldinger added color and Chris Myers gave us the sideline dish. Albert is nepotism in the broadcast booth, getting a huge jump on most other yakkers because his dad Marv has been a sports announcer since before Kenny was a gleam. Kenny has better hair. Baldinger is a seasoned observer who noted that San Francisco isn't turtleneck country even though Niner head coach Erickson was wearing one. Perhaps a subtle jibe at how Erickson fits in?

One of the talking points for the game was that ‘Niner QB Dorsey was fragile, standing on “spindly legs” and throwing funny. Granted, the guy isn’t mammoth, but he is 6’5”, 220 and anyone at that height should be able to throw hard and take a hit. The other was that the Redskin defense was the second best in the league, and was hoping to become the best.

Neither prediction worked out. Natch. Dorsey broke a finger and continued to play. The Skins let Dorsey threw and gave up substantial yardage, though they did intercept several passes.

Amazingly, no one talked about a “hard hitting” game, even though there were several sacks. Maybe the X factor of hard hits has been filed away because the teams are also-rans.

Once the game seemed to be decided, commentary the team loosened up, running a video bit of them painting the “virtual yellow line” on the field, something that Fox claims to have innovated. If that’s the case, they’ve been twiddling their thumbs for years. Their competition has already jumped ahead.

12/18/04

2004-12-18T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/18/04—Late Late Show, CBS

Occasionally, I turn on the television and find I’ve entered an alternate universe. Kind of like Lizard Music, but without the herpetology. As always, the tv schedule isn’t a help, because whatever is being seen hasn’t been listed. No matter how tired I am, I’m motivated to watch the surprise through. Maybe Elvis will appear

The Late Late Show was one such occurrence. These shows are the province of stand-up comedians, and mostly male stand-ups at that. When the idiot box came on, it was Susan Sarandon talking to the audience. Cleavage was also surprising, and Sarandon was happy to share. Her presence seemed out of format, and she was doing a meta-show, making fun of the conventions of doing a stand-up routine in front of a television audience. Oddly, she rarely looked at the camera; guess actors are taught not to look into it, while their talky cousins are taught the reverse.

Then, she introduced her sidekick. Tim Robbins acted as if he was a combination of Ed McMahon and Dean Martin, guffawing for no reason and mixing martinis. He’s younger than Susan, yet gray. It was a goofy combination of styles, almost seemingly giving into the Dino conceit of acting drunk.

Her desk bits were written to her sensibilities. She showed a holiday card from Arnold Schwarzenegger that read “seasons gropings.” She did common sense new bits like, “if we want to stop teen girls from drinking, all we have to do is tell them ‘drinking makes you fat.’”

The main guest of the hour was Gore Vidal, who probably hasn’t kibbitzed on commercial television since the 70s. Vidal didn’t look vital, but his commentary was. Naturally, it leaned left, but it was long and cogent and didn’t go for the cheap shots. Another example of entertainment television swapping seats with news television.

Don’t know whether it was a one-night stand for Susan or not, but it was a welcome change to the ossified late night talk format. A few more nights would be great, though as Robin Williams pointed out, the daily grind of the talk show host sucks material out of you faster than a vacuum cleaner on speed.

12/16/04

2004-12-17T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/16/04 Seinfeld
NBA on TNT: Lakers @ Kings

Seinfeld, TBS

The episode was entitled “The Strike,” but it will go down in history as “Festivus.” Maybe the show didn’t want to give away too much of the plot or maybe they thought Festivus would be a toss-off, like the beltless trench coat Jerry’s dad invented. But Festivus was really the thread that held the show together and developed the climax.

While this episode was probably after Seinfeld’s prime, it still had more going for it than most sitcoms could ever fantasize about. Many half-hour shows can barely find a plot line that can fill 22 minutes. This episode had several. The strike referred to was the end of the H&H bagelmaker’s strike, which meant Kramer went back to work (They were striking for $5.35 an hour; elaine points out that’s minimum wage, Kramer replies people have him to thank for it). Jerry was dating two-face (A woman who looked good in some light and bad in others). George was giving people holiday cards saying that he made a donation to “The Human Fund” in their name (a take-off from a gift Tim Watley gave him). Elaine had to figure out a way to get a piece of paper back from Denim Jacket (so she could get a free sub and captains hat), and Kramer convinced George’s father to bring Festivus out of retirement. As Kramer said several times, “Another Festivus miracle.”

The Elaine plot was pretty thin, but was probably around because it started well—giving a guy a fake phone number at a party—and the conclusion demonstrated the absurdity of her plan, which dovetailed with Jerry’s girlfriend finding a reason to break up with him.

I like Festivus. The holiday helps us get back to what winter holidays should be about. The aluminum pole is ecologically smart. The airing of grievances and feats of strength are a bit crazy, but at least everyone does it together over a nice meal. I’m not sure why it didn’t catch on like The OC’s Chrismukkah, but it’s more daring. Chrismukkah is very much about consumerism and the letter K somehow is funnier than other letters.

A happy Festivus to each and every one of us.

The NBA on TNT: LA Lakers at Sacramento Kings, TNT

I think this was my first game of the season. Since this was the first time I watched hoops since last year’s championships, the game felt much faster. I think it was due to fewer commercial breaks. The first seven minutes felt like they took seven minutes

It also might be a result of watching football. There’s really very little action during a football game, so the broadcast is about bulking up the few minutes of playing with hours of stuff. There are many more replays in football, many more cameras to choose from (gotta see babes and beer heads), a few more people talking, lots more graphics, computer-aided replays, and drawing on the screen. During football games, the commentators can show the trajectory of a pass; I have a hard time seeing basketball commentators using the same program to show a shot, though it probably will happen during the playoffs.

The talkers of the night were Marv Albert, Steve Kerr, and Cheryl Miller. Albert, has done play-by-play forever (that Holtzman's Heroes album is around somewhere), Kerr was a guard with the Bulls and Spurs (hold the 3-point shot record), and Miller was a great player in college and on the US national team (probably better, relative to her peers, than Kerr and Reggie Miller’s big sister). Miller, who could probably hold her own in the booth with the other two, was assigned the traditional woman’s role of prowling the sidelines trying to get inside scoops.

As usual, the commentators had their talking points for the evening, and worked them in whenever possible. The Lakers were a smaller, more athletic team. If they won, it would be for their “athleticism.” The Kings were ball controllers who weren’t afraid to pass the ball. The classic “stars” versus teamwork. But the Kings had Mike Bibby, who seemed to get and shoot the ball a ton. No mention of that. And, because everyone cares about Kobe Bryant, there was no shortage of discussion on what Kobe has said and done off court. They spent a fair amount of time discussing Vlade Divac, now a Laker, but traded from Sacramento after the end of last season. They didn’t say what seemed obvious. Divac looked out of shape and seemed to have trouble moving up and down the court.

One person who had no trouble mentioning Divac’s shorcomings was Charles Barkley. Barkley is part of the halftime show crew and he never seems to have a problem dissing everyone else. When the token white guy got in a good rejoinder on a Barkley wisecrack, Barkley basically reminds him that at least he was a pro basketballer. Good one. yawn. Barkley offers very little to the show. He’s supposed to be the smart talker, but he’s slow at the yakking game, has no insights to share, and loses the talk competition with fellow yakker Magic Johnson. Magic seemed to be directing the talk and working with whatever Charles said and Barkley could barely get a word in edgewise. I wish I could remember the exchange but Barkley mumbled something, Magic said, “that’s my point,” then moved on with something else on his mind. When the camera cut back to Barkley, he looked a bit peeved. Ah, drama, competition, controversy.

The TNT halftime show seems to be about manufacturing both insider rapport and drama, with a touch of humor. These guys don’t seem too good at it, but I’m probably not the demographic they’re looking for. Halftime is for getting up and doing things.

Like finding that aluminum pole.

12/14/04

2004-12-15T00:59:00.000-05:00

12/14/04 The Rebel Billionaire, Fox
NYPD Blue, ABC

The Rebel Billionaire, Fox

The Rebel Billionaire is Richard Branson. The show is Fox’s answer to NBC’s The Apprentice, starring Donald Trump. I assume they’re competing to work for Branson, but they either glossed over the prize or mentioned it very quickly in the opening.

Branson’s show has a bunch of things going for it. He’s a lot richer than The Donald, has much better hair, smiles more easily, has more interesting clothes, an easy way about him, and a counter-culture patina. Then again, it shouldn’t be hard to look better than a blustery blowhard who names everything after himself. And, as per Branson’s style, the show traipses around the planet.

Then again, Branson wanted to do this show and his hair didn’t earn the money. He must have some of the same demons driving him. At the core, The Rebel Billionaire is very similar to The Apprentice. Striving business types get split up into teams to complete tasks. How they do determines whether they stay or go. The funny thing about the shows is that when the boss fails they’re in the hot seat. If only this happened in real life.

Fox’s twist on the NBC format is that the losing team leader of any task goes into an elimination challenge with a team member of his or her own choosing. The two people compete at another task, though the winner of this task doesn’t necessarily stay. Branson gets to decide.

In this episode, the people have been flown to Morocco for their latest task. Branson chooses one team leader. She chooses her rival; the two pick teams, and are then told they have 24 hours to decorate a luxury room at the hotel he’s building.

For the most part, these shows feature sides of people I wouldn’t want to associate with, and if I did, I don’t think I’d like (they could always be different off-camera and in the scenes cut). Not that this is an obstacle in watching the show. If the show can create something interesting, I’m happy to drink of its waters. In general, the characters have absurdly inflated egos, terrible people skills, limited intelligence and demonstrate bad judgment most of the time. I don’t think the limited intelligence is particularly important—most of us aren’t too smart--though it stands out because of the ego issue. And all of us live by bad judgment, though somehow we muddle through. As always with “reality” shows, it’s a given that the producers stacked the deck so the kind of drama they want probably gets played out. I don’t know if these people represent typical business strivers or atypical. Certainly types were picked so we could find people to love and loathe, but the conventional business wisdom that they spout is only true because people like them repeat it and live it.

One guy in particular, Steve, will stab anyone in the back. He’s sure this is how the game is played, so he plays it with abandon. His main rival in the episode is his team leader Candida. She’s not particularly pleasant, either, and the show plays up her mistakes. Lucky for us, she has a meltdown doing the task and fails completely. She chooses him for a rival in the elimination round. And, surprisingly, wins. Branson has to choose between the two, and boots him, because Branson doesn’t like Steve’s dark side. A victory of sorts. Not that I enjoyed it.

NYPD Blue, ABC

Blue is going to fade to black shortly, after 11 seasons. This last year was supposed to be blockbuster after blockbuster.

Yawn.

I remember seeing a few episodes in the early seasons. There was some comedy, some righteousness, some good works done between the lines, and a little awkward sexual appeal. The righteousness is still there, but the other stuff is gone. Sipowicz has smoke coming out of his ears basically every time he’s on camera. He lets his partner Clark do the questioning in interrogation while the camera cuts back to him fuming. We’re supposed to get a read on the suspect based on the read Sipowicz is showing the camera. And the read is always, ‘I don’t like the guy, he’s scum, am I going to have to open my can of whoop-ass now or in a few minutes?’

Sure enough, by the end of the episode, Sipowicz had slapped around a suspect but good, after conning his way into the suspect’s apartment and finding incriminating evidence. I can see where police procedurals can get boring, but it should be cause for concern that police dramas routinely include trampling of suspect rights. I’d like to believe that cops do better, but I’m at least equally concerned that show writers are lazy. Then again, they might fear that we, the viewers, would turn off the show if these cops got it wrong, if they couldn’t wrap up a case in their allotted hour.

A thing I didn’t think about with Blue, and most of the other cop shows these days is that they’re not action shows, they’re talk shows. Shot indoors, little actions happens on camera, except when someone is beaten by Sipowicz. Otherwise, it’s all about questioning.

Maybe in some ways, Blue is seen as progressive. They feature women detectives who might be pretty, but don't dress up. There's a gay office assistant tolerated, even though he's helpful. There is always a woman ADA who might want to have something going with the male detectives.

In terms of show development, the characters haven’t grown but have become more caricatured. Sipowicz is all rage, glare, and smoke. The gay office guy is hopelessly stereotypical. They got rid of the lieutenant who could go either way and replaced him with a lieutenant who is clearly a jerk. Medavoy, the fumbling detective was starting to come out as a lothario, and in this episode, he’s wearing an English dress shirt to impress a lady at lunch. Of course, his fellow detectives ridicule him and he drags his partner into a fancy men’s clothing store to get another shirt. Wait, there was comedy! After making his partner feel uncomfortable and deciding on a new shirt, he stopped everything to admire a pocket square!

12/12/04

2004-12-13T03:59:00.000-05:00

ESPN Sports Center (ESPN)
PrimeTime Football Eagles at Redskins (ESPN)

ESPN Sports Center (ESPN)

While it’s a simple show with a simple task--talk and show all the sports highlights of the last 24 hours--it is an impressive show. The effort to assemble all the footage, create dialogue, and have two guys speedtalk for 22 minutes must be an outsized one, and this one does it a few times a day.

Prime Time Football Eagles at Redskins (ESPN)

I’m struggling to explain it, but there’s something second-rate about the ESPN commentary team. They fill up the air very well and seem to have a decent rapport, though Paul Maguire doesn’t seem to be on the same wavelength as play-by-play man Mike Patrick and ex-pro Joe Theismann. Maguire, I guess, is “color,” but he strikes me for as a failed high school football coach than a seasoned yakker. Maybe it’s just their voices. All football shows also have to have a woman on the commentary team. She’s invariably on the field getting the inside dope from the locker rooms and sidelines. I don’t know if she or her producer is the one walking around, but I guess she’s on the field because it’s assumed a woman in the broadcast booth isn’t authentic or believable for some reason.

This was a pretty close game. Even though the Eagles seemed in control most of the time (more completions, more first downs), the Redskins were basically matching them. Like my lapse into football-speak? It’s just that the Skins didn’t seem capable of much on offense. The beauty of football is that momentum can change quickly. One impressive play energizes the crowd and seems to make the players run faster and try harder. The Redskins finally put on a good run of plays late in the fourth quarter, and were close to winning, but lost it in the end zone.

An odd thing about football is that just about every game causes some commentator to note that the players are “hitting hard” or something like it. I think Maguire mentioned something about the Redskins bringing their hard-hitting shoes to the game last night. A tortured metaphor, but there is so little fresh to say about oversized men pushing people around.

Listening to the commentators carefully reveals they’re working pretty hard. Often they make mistakes, but since the viewers have been listening in and can see the game, they probably hear what the person is trying to say more than they hear the mistake.

12/10/04

2004-12-11T03:59:00.000-05:00

American Casino (Discovery)
American Hot Rod (Discovery)

American Casino

A reality show about owning and operating a Las Vegas Casino. Maybe I got a bad episode. Maybe not. Not painful to watch, but not terribly interesting. The trick with all reality shows isn’t the reality they portray, but the characters they come across. Compelling characters make for good shows. AC suffers from a lack of compelling characters.

In this episode, the management team goes on an executive retreat in Seattle. They visit a casino, east well, tackle a confidence course, and paddle a swollen river. While it might be assumed that they know casino games and are savvy players, we’re not treated to that sense. The management team seems to hit the casino pretty much as everyone else does, and seems just as likely to play unwisely.

Back at their casino, the lone management guy is trying to have a bust-out weekend to show the absent staff how good he really is. We see him trotting out all the successful promotions he knows—and he tells us as much. He’s working a microphone, he’s spinning a wheel, turning a Lucite box, giving out free money and roadside emergency kits. We see lines and people standing around with empty look on their faces. Our guy says it’s working but without having the numbers and absent of any commentary from the suckers lined up to get the swag, we’re left to take his word as truth.

The climax of the episode is a rafting trip. It goes terribly wrong. How wrong? a few of the rafts turn over, one guy thought he was about to drown, and one woman who can’t swim (they’re all wearing flotation devices) falls in the drink as well. Some others bail when scared. We’re told at the outset that the river is swollen, but the professional guides say the river is safe. Since we only get the view of the management team, it feels like the producer is desperate to create drama wherever he gets it. They never bother to tell us if the “disaster” strikes right at the start, or somewhere along the line, say some rapids.

American Hot Rod

AHC follows the American Chopper idea, but with a competition. Boyd Carrington, owner of Boyd Carrington Hot Rods has challenged his young guns to build a better hot rod than he and his old guys can. This episode was the season finale; the producers had dragged the comp out over the season. Boyd likes to offer sage advice and bold pronouncements, but at heart he’s just an old fart who likes to talk tough. He fires one of the younger fabricators for reasons unknown—though he certainly seems capable of sabotaging the efforts of the young team—and the young guys have to rush to finish their project.

The competition is two-fold. One is a five-leg race between Los Angeles, California and Louisville, Kentucky. The hot rods start at the same spot each day, and finish at the same spot, but the winner of at least three of the legs wins the race. The second half is a popularity contest; people at a hot rod convention vote on which car they like better.

The race seems pretty staid. The only issues are whether or not the cars will hold up, whether or not they’re filled with gas, and when they hit traffic. And there aren’t any Smokey and the Bandit chases. It’s just old cars tooling down the highway. Trailing the cars is another hot rod driven by the editor of Rod and Custom Magazine. He just drives and smiles. Twice he tells the audience the race was much more exciting than he imagined and he’s having a great time. If this was more exciting than he imagined, then he must have been expecting to fall asleep at the wheel. “Excitement was limited to both cars breaking down, one car running out of gas, Boyd chewing out his guys whenever he had the chance, and a steak-eating contest. Otherwise, the cross-country trip was all smooth highways and steady speed; maybe they only shot a little of the trip.

The dénouement was disappointing. Once they get to Louisville—Boyd won the race—there’s a popularity contest and visitors to the show are supposed to choose which car is “better.” The kids start electioneering a bit, urging people to vote. They don’t trash Boyd’s car, they merely encourage people to vote for their car. Boyd’s wife gets pissed and starts ragging on the other car, referring to it as a “trailer queen” and telling people it was a lousy car. Since they spent several minutes on this, I wonder if the producers thought this was box office gold.

12/9/04

2004-12-10T03:59:00.000-05:00

The OC (Fox)
The North Shore (Fox)
Roseanne (Nickelodeon)

The OC (Fox)

This is something I’d watch anyway. People compare it to Beverly Hills 90210, but there’s little comparison. The stories are less drama, more soap, the world is fabulously wealthier, and the acting and writing is much better. Somehow, just about every episode contrives a way to fit in a party and a fight. It’s also more fun. The characters are faster-talking, faster-walking, often make the comic dramatic and dramatic comic. There’s more introspection and self-doubt. The adults play a bigger role in OC, and are excellent actors. They’re neither the “kids today” types nor the “lousy kids” types. They’re active players in the kids’ lives and are allowed to have fun at their kids sakes as well as be razzed by the kiddies. In many respects, this show has tried to take Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s mantle for smart chatter—and it often succeeds. “Chrismukkah” is their most famous neologism, but they’re working hard at giving us more.

This episode swirled around the currents of the SnOC, their private school’s winter dance. Lots of self-doubt and light rejection and wondering about place in the world, while the parents hid secrets from one another. Small stories, but fun in how they were resolved. Once again, demonstrating that teen shows are amongst the best on TV.

The North Shore (Fox)

When I praise, The OC, I worry that I’m getting soft. That I’m a sucker for television’s charms as much as anyone else. That I am blinded by window dressing.

Then, I watched The North Shore. This is an evening soap, and like many evening soaps, the acting and writing is just as bad as its daytime cousins, with better photography, locations, and more sex. The setting is an exclusive hotel in Hawaii that caters to the rich and self-important where our cast of hunks, babes, bad girls, gold-diggers, schemers, and a few with hearts of gold are both peons and in the executive suite. They’ll look for good bodies, good loving, a way to move up in the world and all while having good bodies and great tans.

Shannen Doherty was added to the mix somewhere during the first season. One is forgiven for thinking they did it to boost ratings. There is little other reason for her character. She is the baddie of the episode; greedy, crass, scheming, and gives us the dagger looks on cue. The funny thing about her character is that it seems to barely interact with the rest of the cast. The scenes in which she appears seemed to have been shot apart from the others, as if they did the episode, and then added in her character as an afterthought.

The hunkiest of the bunch is the bartender. Earthy good looks with great dreads; I’m surprised he hasn’t made the cover of People yet.

Roseanne (Nickelodeon)

The Connor has already weathered several seasons on TV by this point. Sandra Bernhardt is on the cast as Nancy. I guessed lucky and watched the episode where her character comes out of the closet. I guess that was a big deal, but it’s a pretty weak episode. It functions as two mini-episodes; the first involving her lightly mentioning that she’s dating a woman, and the second where Roseanne’s mom decides to live in a senior community. The bridge is when Nancy’s girlfriend played by Moran Fairchild appears on the scene, so not a lesbian in looks. The second half is funnier because Roseanne treats the outing so gently, pointing out that she just makes fun of Nancy because it’s fun and stops when she gets bored, and later points out to Jackie (single sister type) that she kind of dresses like a lesbian.

12/07/04

2004-12-08T03:59:00.000-05:00

A Charlie Brown Christmas, ABC
According to Jim, ABC
Rodney, ABC
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, MTV

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Never my favorite Charlie Brown. Maybe it’s the length; the story could probably be handled in a half-hour as opposed to the hour it takes. Maybe it’s the fact that the story, unlike many televised Christmas “specials” does put a bit of Christ back in Christmas.

Yes, I realize the name of the holiday comes from the celebration of the birth of one Jesus of Nazareth. But the reason the holiday is a holiday is that winter celebrations have been around for thousands of years, and that Christianity was plugging their guy in the middle of it to take advantage of the holiday mojo going on around them. Jesus’ birth wasn’t noted at the time because births weren’t recorded at the time and I’m pretty sure they weren’t celebrated either. Christmas as we know it, from St. Nick to the tree to gifts and the crass commercialism got there start in the 19th century.

A great thing about many of the other classic Christmas specials is that they present secular Christmases. The Grinch is possibly at the pinnacle of the pantheon, and I get a kick out of the crazy setup and songs of A Year without a Santa Claus (the one with the heat miser and cold miser, and the walking song is totally Taoist). While it’s new, Olive the Other Reindeer has some possibilities of staying on through the years. Rudolph is too sappy, and if that red-nosed reindeer had any character, he would have told Santa and the other reindeer to fuck off. They were only using him for his nose, not treasuring his differences.

According to Jim

Jim’s Christmas show. I would never have guessed that he’d be engaged in a petty battle with his across-the-street neighbor.

Rodney

Rodney once again does his predecessor better. He’s trying to score a hot video game for his son, lamely, and then gets pinned in his truck by a Jesus statue. Of course, he learns great values.

Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

This show, thankfully, had nothing to do with Christmas. Unfortunately, it had everything to do with its subjects. This was the final episode, and it was presented commercial-free. With the interruptions I so desperately needed.

Who would stay together? Who would break up? Who would cry? Would anyone care?

I didn’t. The lives of the kids might have been over the top lux, but their lives were under the bottom boring. No insights, no interesting conflicts, no interesting dialogue, no interesting sights and sounds. Basically, the show is about boring high school kids who can’t get beyond the quotidian and can’t even seem to get much enjoyment of out it.

I can’t imagine having a film crew follow me around in high school. I don’t know if I’d have the confidence or vanity necessary to enjoy the camera. Maybe these kids are savvier than me, believing that all publicity is good publicity, and thus no matter how stupid they look or what idiotic things they do, they’ll benefit from the experience.

After the episode ended, one of the “cast,” a chick that was still in high school, appeared in the MTV studios to reflect as far as she could, and give a little preview of the next season on MTV. Audience members loved her and were effusive in praise.

Guess I’m out of the main stream. Don't know if that means I've been washed ashore, upstream, downstream, on a tributatry, or flushed out to sea. We'll see

12/05/04

2004-12-06T03:59:00.000-05:00

Prime Time Football: Pittsburgh vs. Jacksonville, ESPN

Even if football has stayed the same, the games have become more interesting. There are more cameras, more camera angles, more graphics, and a woman commentator prowling the sidelines looking for scoops. The chatter is basically the same; with this game, they kept on discussing that it was going to be a very physical game. I wish I had written down a few of the descriptions. I found myself wondering if other football teams hit less hard.

12/03/04

2004-12-04T03:59:00.000-05:00

Ice Wars, USA vs. The World, CBS

This could be anything, but it’s professional figure skating. The commentators said that the concept was born by the epic battle at the 1994 Olympics between Nancy Kerrigan and Oksana Baiul. Baiul wasn’t representing Russia at the Olympics but The World. So they take past Olympians break them down into two groups—even though most of the “world” competitors live in the US—and let them have at it in a nationalistic competition in South Carolina. What would Brian Boitano do?

I have never been one for competitions where this isn’t a quantitative way to determine winners. Games that result in numbers being generated are so open to bias and cheating, that I have a hard time seeing how any scoring system can be honest. Whenever I catch women’s gymnastics or figure skating on TV, it seems that there are decided biases in judging. Both seem to strongly favor the moves that pixie-ish girls can pull off as opposed to moves that grown women can pull off. What would Brian Boitano do?

At least with this competition—I would have been just as interested in the skating if it was just a demonstration—there were no kids. The US team included Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano. The World included Oksana Baiul and Kurt Browning. And the grownups put on polished programs, maybe not as air-worthy as kids can pull off, but longer and more varied. What would Brian Boitano do?

Not surprisingly, the US fell behind the world, despite what seemed to be generous judging. Kristi Yamaguchi won her head-to-head with Oksana Baiul, yet neither appeared on the ice at the same time. I sensed biased judging, as Kristi’s was very traditional and Oksana’s decidedly modern. What would Brian Boitano do?

It all came down to the final competition. What would Brian Boitano do? He had a tough act to follow. Kurt Browning did a great job as the first prop skater comic. Brian followed up by doing a more graceful, yet much less interesting dance with a coat rack. Of course Brian won, even without the triple lutz while wearing a blindfold, but it wasn’t enough to save the US. The World won, even though the judges were determined to see it much closer than it should have been.

11/30/04

2004-12-01T03:59:00.000-05:00

According to Jim, ABC
Rodney, ABC

According to Jim, ABC

The fat, overbearing dad with hot wife sitcom will never die, no matter how bad it smells. Essential to this genre are the cute kids who do little more than stand around, and relatives who basically live at the house. If relatives aren’t available, the next-door neighbor will suffice.

Every network has to have one of these vehicles, if not two. Hard to say if each network’s entertainment honcho decrees that his prime-time lineup must have a predictable family sitcom or not, but it seems to be the case. It’s hard to believe that each thinks they can do the genre better than the other, but maybe it’s about having a complete lineup that panders to every demographic.

In this case, the dad is Jim Belushi, being Jim Belushi, which is to say the persona of a not quite funny not quite mock serious blowhard. The hot wife is Courtney Thorne-Smith, who married him to get out of Melrose Place and move to the Chicago suburbs. Her single sister and single brother spend every spare moment at the house giving Jim plenty of opportunities to be not really funny so they can have a not quite snappy retort. A twist on the genre is that the overweight, single-for-too-long brother works with Jim; they’re architects. (odd to realize we haven’t seen an architect drama on network TV yet; architects have been a prized male profession in the movies for some time. My foray into this genre might be called Plan). The sister, naturally, is single, too. Oh the possibilities!

The single, painfully obvious plotline must always revolve around overweight dad getting mock-understated over-the-top mad about something and how things swirl around him to not quite teach him a lesson and impart values.

The guy to stir the mix on this episode was Tom Arnold doing a riff on his somewhat-dicky persona. Don’t know if this is an act or all he’s capable of, but he somehow brings more to his roles than the people he’s usually supporting.

Rodney

I didn’t know who Rodney was when I started watching, but typically, he’s a stand-up comedian and the series is based on his humor. No idea what his act is like, and as much as I want to blame somebody in control for pointless television, it’s hard to be down on moderately successful stand-up comics who take this route. Stand up is a rough way to make a living, so I have a hard time seeing anyone turning down the offer to have a sitcom based around her work, even if the result is pretty bad.

I don’t know why Rodney is on after Jim. Too many similarities. He’s not as overweight, but still kind of thick. His wife is blonde, though not as hot. The sister-in-law is more desperately single than the sister-in-law on Jim. The kids are equally props.

But I’m sure fans would point out the differences. Rodney’s family is lower down the socio-economic food chain, as witnessed by the job Rodney hates, how their house is smaller and more cluttered, and how they talk about money. Rodney is good natured and a schemer. His wife isn’t as hot, though the sister-in-law might be played by the same actress.

Still the jokes can be predicted well before they take place, the humor is very gentle, though Rodney does get in a good quip now and again. “You’re a binge worshiper,” Rodney told his wife before they made their annual trip to church Christmas eve. But beyond that, there seems to be a heavy reliance on “man” issues. Guys don’t wear this or that, they’re easily enticed by flirty saleswomen, they want to make all the financial decisions in a household.

Maybe Homer Simpson was right when he said, “It’s funny because it’s true.” But I’m not laughing. I’d like to believe that we’re told these jokes are funny, and if we hear them often enough they become and remain funny, even though their “truth” is that we’ve agreed to the delusion since television has been around.

11/29/04

2004-11-30T03:59:00.000-05:00

Fear Factor (Best Friends), NBC
Las Vegas, NBC

Fear Factor (Best Friends), NBC

I don’t make a habit of watching “reality” shows, but the first thing seems to be that if there’s any chance of some skin being shown, the chicks have to be totally stacked, and the producer has to use any means necessary to show off cleavage. FLAT-CHESTED WOMEN NEED NOT APPLY. This particular Fear Factor was about best friends competing together. One team of best friends met at the plastic surgeon’s office, where one worked and one was a client. If you didn’t have that knowledge, you’d assume the two are related as they have the same nose and breasts. Four sets of two best friends, two women’s teams, and two men’s teams. Whenever possible, the women are in jogbras or less. The guys, they can be fit, but seem to have no buff requirement, and don’t have to have breasts at all. Besides, it’s better to outfit them in baggy clothes that might only reveal some bicep and calf. And the first of the “tests” that the teams had to do entailed getting in water. When the women prepared to get in the pool, it turned out they had skimpy bikinis under the athletic outfits.

One of the things that bug me about such television is how the lure of some free money ($50,000 in this case) brings out the worst in people (maybe this is why people watch; they want to see real ugliness on parade). The host, Joe Rogan, who got that position by means unknown, worked hard at hectoring the contestants, calling them worthless and encouraging them to meanly criticize their best friend. And most complied. The surgically-enhanced women criticized each other to the point of asking how they could be friends if one couldn’t suck up leeches from a tank, carry them to a hole in a wall, spit them into the friend’s mouth, who transfers them to another bowl. He also encouraged the contestants to trash-talk the other teams, which they did poorly. When the contestants weren’t rough enough in the trash talk, he showed a highlight reel of one men’s team engaging in excessive hugging. After running that, he got the other contestants to try more lame zingers about men hugging.

Guess there was supposed to be a build-up in drama as the show went on. $50k was on the line. I don’t see how people care enough to watch. Maybe I’m supposed to put myself in the contestants’ shoes and think about how much better I’d be than them. Not swallowing that line.

Las Vegas, NBC

Here’s the idea session behind this show. A glitzy Las Vegas casino is run by a gruff-talking heart of gold guy, who can be rough but really works hard for "good." He’s surrounded by two hunky ex-police-type tough guys and all three are helped along by slinkily-dressed dames, one of whom is the casino-owners daughter (genius, but flaky), another the long-suffering girlfriend of one of the hunks (good looking AND practical), another wise-cracking (dark past she loves to talk around), and the last a good natured foreigner. They take people’s money, dress well, engage in pointless banter, and fight crime.

The crime-fighting casino owner is a new thing, but it’s really a riff on the private detective show, as the casino is equipped with better spying equipment than the government could ever possess, and because the casino owner and his henchmen aren’t cops, they can kick some ass because they’re so righteous.

Adding to this mix is James Caan as the owner. He seems weary, possibly because the plots are so painfully contrived and the acting so amateurish, but it could just as easily be because we recognize him as an older Sonny Corleone, who is now stealing his money legitimately, and still bashing heads, but only of criminals.