2/16/05

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.