12/23/04

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.