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Thursday, April 29, 2004

When Luke (of the OC) moves to Portland, they can start a spinoff called The PDX. That would be hella rad.

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Thursday, April 22, 2004

Best Week Ever on VH1 is really, really good. It's the same style as I love the 80s, but I find it about a million times more interesting.

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I love the OC. And I love the way the OC makes it easy for me to love it by having so many witty moments. And then allowing all of us to enjoy all the soapy drama. But I do have to say that Marisa and Ryan are so super boring that I can't even stand to look at them. Marisa makes all of the same lame faces in every scene, somehow hoping that they will pass for "acting." Ryan isn't as horrible of an actor, but the combo of the two of them just bores me to death. The big moment when they got back together and kissed again should have been exciting, but I'd prefer watching Seth and Summer kiss anytime. Because they are actually an interesting couple. Seth and Ryan together in a scene is much better than Ryan and Marisa, but I'm not sure if it's just because Seth is so great. I hope Summer and Seth work through their issues, because I'm totally into them as a couple. Oh, and there was a reference to "painting the ceiling" in last week's episiode that the tv club was trying to figure out - turns out Josh was right that it's a reference to masturbation. (that wasn't exactly what he thought, but close enough.) And the preview for next week's episode was explosive! Ladies punching each other, stripper firemen and las vegas. What more could we ask for?

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Tuesday, April 20, 2004

TV Land really knows how to package: (from Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis)
"TV Land will bid farewell to NBC's Friends on May 6, the night of the grand
finale, with a two pronged salute. From 6-9pm the classic tv net will air
Before They Were Friends, featuring each of the cast members on various
sitcoms long before they came together for Friends. Then at 9pm - this is
the brilliant part - for the entire hour that the Friends finale is airing,
TV Land will be closed. Instead of regularly scheduled programming, viewers
tuning in to TV Land will be treated to a room full of TV Land staffers -
purportedly watching the Friends finale -- periodically addressing the
camera to remind viewers that the Friends finale is on and that we really
aren't airing anything so there's no point staying tuned. Worth tuning in
just to see what's going on, albeit briefly. During the finale of Seinfeld
lo those many years ago, TV Land shut down for that hour as well, airing
nothing except a door with a sign that said they were closed and would be
back after Seinfeld."

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Monday, April 19, 2004

One thing I did manage to watch last week was the Apprentice finale. First of all, I think the 2 hour reality show finale thing is really lame. I'm totally sick of it. And the "live" thing was really overstated in the promos - it was really like 20 minutes of live and 1 hr 40 minutes of taped. That's hardly a "two hour live finale." I have to say, I fast forwarded through 80% of the Apprentice finale. I was glad Bill won, because through the whole competition he did a lot better than Kwame. But it was kind of weird how the boardroom set suddenly opened to reveal a life studio audience. Donald Trump comes across as a lot more intelligent and well spoken when he's edited, so the live thing was not so great for me. Best Week Ever really had the best things to say on this topic - about how the show creepily turned into a cheesy game show in the last 20 minutes. Oh, and there is absolutely no way Bill is really going to be overseeing the construction of the tallest building in Chicago.

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After my mini- Starting Over marathon I decided to watch my first episode of Keen Eddie. Keen Eddie is about a NYPD cop who moves to London to be a policeman there. I have no idea why, and even whether he is dating the British woman he aparently lives with. Keen Eddie was originally produced for Fox, who, of course, cancelled it. Then it looks like Bravo picked up the remaining episodes, including several which were never aired. I wasn't totally blown away by this show by the one episode I watched. The guy who plays Keen Eddie (the American cop) is pretty boring and bland, so the best part of the show is the British actors, who are all interesting. Even the hot girl he lives with who may or may not be his girlfriend. If she was an American actor I'm sure the role would have sucked, but with a British actor it was kind of intriguing. I'm really into foreign English speaking people though, and a total sucker for the British accent, so I am not the most unbiased observer. Well, overall I don't think Keen Eddie is a must see or must record, but I hope there's a cable channel getting ready to buy the unaired episodes of Wonderfalls the same way Bravo bought Keen Eddie.

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I'm sorry about the lack of posts, Josh, but I was on shoots all last week, and then away this weekend. So I didn't see any tv, much less have time to comment on it. Luckily when I got home last night I was so incredibly tired that I had to immediately sit down and watch four hours of TV. Though I had a wide range of options to choose from, I couldn't wait to watch the 3 episodes of Starting Over I had missed, so I went for those first. I am definitely addicted. I had been eagerly waiting for Amy's deep dark secret that they keep talking about in all of the promos, but alas, it was really nothing. Basically Erika discovered that Amy's dad is a US Senator. Whatevs. It just makes me think that Amy's bright red hair is a subtle rebellion against her fancy upbringing and Princeton education. I was really hoping that Erika would discover Amy's secret double life with a 2nd husband, or maybe that Amy used to be a stripper. Oh well. The big excitement (aside from Erika graduating) is that they have a new woman in the house who is extremely pregnant. Her name is Josie, she's only 21 and she thinks the baby's daddy could be any one of three guys. Oops. And her parents suck, and the grandparents who raised her recently died. So she's been miserable, pregnant and semi homeless for several months. It was a tearjerker. I did notice that Josie manages to have very cute clothes despite the broke and homeless thing - I'm not sure what that's about. I briefly wondered if Starting Over provides wardrobe, but I actually doubt it.

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Monday, April 12, 2004

There was a good article in the New York Times about the new Freaks and Geeks DVD. It made me want to buy it even more than I already did. Mike White said something about how watching Freaks and Geeksmade him want to burn up his existing show (I can only imagine he was refering to Cracking Up, and I would definitely have to agree with him.) The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is not coming back on TV next year. Mainly because of all the decency crap coming from the FCC. Not a huge loss to humanity or anything, but it's disturbing that the Janet Jackson fallout has had such an effect.

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Friday, April 09, 2004

I am ridiculously excited about the Apprentice finale. I gotta give it to Mark Burnett - he really knows drama. I think it would be a travesty if Bill doesn't win, because Kwame appears to have done absolutely nothing smart the whole season. Who knows what happens in the outtakes, but all they've shown all season is Kwame consistently making bad decisions in every competition. Yeah, Harvard Business School... blah, blah, whatever. I have no doubt he's really smart, but Bill seems a lot smarter in all the ways that count. I do have a theory that most of the competitions in the Apprentice have been fixed, but you know, I don't really care because it's really entertaining.

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A good rant about Fox putting crap like the Swan on the air:

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2004/04/08/swan/


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The Swan won the ratings for Wednesday night. I'm hoping that everyone else who watched it had the same sickened reaction to it that I did and will now not watch it ever again. I don't think Fox should get rewarded for exploiting sad people like that.

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Can we talk about the fact that the FCC has now launched a full out war on Howard Stern? And that they are starting to attack daytime soaps with their "indecency" bullshit. Don't vote for Bush. Please. I would be pissed at Janet Jackson for starting this whole debacle, but I think the FCC was ready to attack our first ammendment rights the minute they had an excuse, and Janet Jackson is clearly just a bumbling idiot.

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The Swan is the scariest show on the air right now. I watched it last night with some friends, and I think all of us felt sickened by the whole thing. I have many problems with it, but the worst thing is that it's not even entertaining. It's just an hour of disturbing. First of all, the two women they made over on this first episode were not that unattractive. Their biggest problems were clearly psychological. Both of them had rock bottom self esteem, which was their main unattractive feature. Their internal misery was very apparent on the outside, and was much more obvious than any imperfect features. What both of them really needed (aside from some in depth therapy) was a good haircut, to work out regularly, some nice makeup and new clothes. Instead they received the full gamut of plasic surgery and one of them came out looking like a drag queen while the other looked like a porn star. Drag queen won the right to proceed to the extra disturbing "beauty pageant" they are having later in the season. So, my imagination immediately led me to six months later in these women's lives. A complete physical transformation is not going to be enough to make either of them happy, because no matter how "perfect" you may look, if you're miserable inside your own skin you will find imperfections. Then they will start on the Michael Jackson syndrome and get more and more plastic surgery until they don't have a nose anymore. As much as Extreme Makeover is similarly disturbing, the people they choose to make over do really have serious problems. The one that immediately comes to mind is the woman who had a cleft palate and could never afford to treat it. That's the type of plastic surgery that can be justified and will actually improve a person's quality of life (I don't know if I can justify the fact that they give every woman on the show breast augmentation, but...). Being some average looking woman with 30 pounds to lose really does not justify a whole body surgical makeover. Josh really said it best when he said this show will not succeed because America will see way too much of themselves in these women. In addition to the cringe worthy aspects of the show, it's not even a very well produced piece of television. The set looks like a part of Disneyland, the makeover specialists are super creepy, and the music is directly from Who wants to be a Millionaire.

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Thursday, April 08, 2004

My So-Called Life has been canonized as one of the best TV shows ever by a bunch of critics. I actually can't remember much of it, so luckily The N (which is just Noggin at nighttime) is re-airing all of the episodes. It's on at 8 pm on Friday nights for all you people who want to see what the hype is about.

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I'm watching Condoleezza Rice's testimony to the 9/11 commission right now. She seems incredibly nervous, which I guess makes sense. She is now in the position of either defending Bush's terrorism policies, or making it sound like the white house was totally inept. I am now departing from my stated blogging purpose of only discussing TV: I met someone last night who is one of those mythical "undecided voters." I was curious why someone would be undecided, and realized that maybe if you're a white male, and therefore not under attack from the Republican party, maybe the issues you're voting on are more ambiguous. I guess there are women and minorities and gay people who vote for Republicans, but that makes no sense to me. This guy was interested in tax breaks and international relations. Although I can't understand why you would see Bush as a positive force in our international relations. Well, I have a physical disgust reaction every time I hear Bush speak, so maybe I'm just being intuitive in my politics.

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Wednesday, April 07, 2004

In a good move, Fox just cancelled Cracking Up. They do seem quite supportive of Arrested Development, though. Which is definitely a good thing. I hope people start watching it. I know, it's more work for an audience than most sitcoms, but how often do you actually laugh out loud about something on TV? It happens at least once an episode for Arrested Development. And I am deeply in love with Gob, especially in his new pastel sweatered incarnation. I mean, what's better than the scene when Gob made the family yacht disappear during Spring Break, and his geeky magician dance across the stage in a flowing shirt? I love Gob. The Segway, the magic, the macho exterior masking his deeply injured heart.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2004

There's already a petition to help save Wonderfalls: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/wonderfalls

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I got this news this morning in Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis (very useful TV news - subscribe at cynopsis@optonline.com): "Fox programming changes - Wonderfalls has fallen off the schedule. The Thursday 9p time period will be filled with repeat eps of Fox's newest
reality series, The Swan which premieres tomorrow." This just confirms two of my most negative ideas: 1. that my taste is not the taste of America, 2. that good TV rarely stays on the air. Keep on producing good shows, Bryan Fuller! Someone is watching!


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After giving up on Cracking Up, we attempted to watch Britney Spears' Onyx Hotel concert on Showtime. Wow. I have no idea what she was trying to do. Everyone is all critical of her lip-synching, and yeah, it kinda sucked, but I think it was more everything else. The creepy shirtless backup dancers in suspenders, the weird Divine-like man introducing the whole show, Britney's painful between song banter, the lounge versions of her best pop hits, and generally the feeling that the entire show had been choreographed and designed by someone who worked for Janet Jackson in the 80s. The 80s feel was weird, because it was clearly not ironic or nostalgic in any way. I mean, it couldn't really be since Britney is like 19. For me, the appeal of Britney is her cuteness, her dancing, and the bubblegum guilty pleasure pop songs she sings. Well, Britney still looks good, but the dancing was kind of ho hum, and the music was totally forgettable. Also, any attempts by Britney to be funny or have any type of soul are really embarrassing.

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I attempted to watch Cracking Up last night, but I couldn't even make it 10 minutes in. Somehow all of the good parts, most notably Molly Shannon and creator Mike White (who among other things recently wrote School of Rock, not to mention The Good Girl and was involved in one of the best shows ever, Freaks and Geeks.), did not come together as a good whole. Was it all of the bad close ups of Jason Schwartzman looking innocently baffled? Was it the over the top acting from everyone? Or the lack of any funny? Anyway, it sucks. Don't watch it. Watch Arrested Development instead, which is actually hilarious and good. I think we all must face the fact that Molly Shannon is actually not funny at all. She seemed funny in Saturday Night Live, but I think it was just because most of Saturday Night Live is so painfully boring and tedious.

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Monday, April 05, 2004

I recently watched the fourth episode of Fox's new dramedy, Wonderfalls. The pilot episode of this show was awesome, and I got very excited at the prospect of a new good show from Fox. The promise of the pilot has not been totally realized, but I still think Wonderfalls has a lot of good stuff going on. One of the creators of Wonderfalls, Bryan Fuller, also created Dead Like Me, which was a great and short lived Showtime series. I watched the entire season of Dead Like Me on Showtime on demand while painting my entire apartment this fall, and totally fell in love. Only to be heartbroken when I realized it was never coming back. So, the arrival of Wonderfalls was kind of a tv lifesaver for me. There is a lot of commonality between the two shows - totally jaded young heroines, quirky side characters, and not neccessarily happy families. The writing is great, especially when compared to Tru Calling, which has the clunkiest and most unreal dialogue ever written, and the production design and visual effects are well done. Basically both Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me are thoughtful and well crafted productions. Dead Like Me was definitely darker, which made it slightly more interesting, but Wonderfalls has a really cute bartender to kind of even the score. I'm thinking it might end up being a really great series.

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There's not a lot going on at my job today, obviously, so I was looking at my friend Josh's blog, which is linked to his friend Jessie's blog, so I looked there and noticed that Jessie watches Starting Over! Which is another show I record and obsessively watch everyday. It's by the same people who do Real World, but it's way better because it actually has an altruistic purpose. Or at least pretends to. 5 women live in a house together, all of them want to "start over" in their own way. 2 life coaches help them reach their goals. Usually there is a horribly bitchy one that terrorizes the rest of them. Usually the life coaches don't notice. Especially life coach Rhonda, who I think is actually insane. The last crazy bitch was named Christine, and they finally kicked her out when they realized she wasn't "ready" to start over. Usually the crazy bitches just graduate with Rhonda's blessing and get to continue being crazy with the added self esteem boost of releasing their own CD with the life coaches help or something. Check it out if you are near a tv at 11am.

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I love the OC. Johnny Loftus says it so much better than I could, and how does he know that Josh and I figured out the Lighthouse is the new Peach Pit?:

http://www.gloriousnoise.com/arch/001186_the_oc.php

I think Chino (Ryan) and Doe Eyed Fawn (Marisa) are both especially apt. And he's so right about Fox's evil habit of giving the OC all of these weeks off. How do they expect us to remember the intricate plot twists when they keep skipping weeks of the show?

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mentioning Extreme Makeover in my last post reminds me that possibly the most offensive project in reality TV history is about to be launched by Fox on Wednesday (9:00 pm, instead of the OC which is taking yet another break). The Swan is a show where women who consider themselves "ugly ducklings" are given plastic surgery to become "beautiful", and then compete in some sort of surreal pageant with each other. I don't know who is more despicable, the people who came up with this sick idea, or the contestants who agreed to be humiliated like this. I guess the contestants must feel like it's somehow not embarrassing to depict yourself as a crazy insecure freak on TV? Fox assures us all that there will be psychological counseling for the "ugly ducklings" through the whole process. I think this show could be even more of a train wreck than the uncomfortable finale of My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.

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My very first comment - yay!- has led me to complete my list of TV I like quite a bit. The first list was more for shows I was feeling particularly excited about that day, but here's more: Curb your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, CSI (both the original and CSI: Miami, though I actually prefer Miami for all of the backlit shots of David Caruso staring moodily into the Florida sun.) Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, (L&O:CI is just annoying), What Not to Wear (the british version), The Office (except that I've already seen all of the episodes and no more are coming!), The Apprentice. I also watch Tru Calling, but really just because Eliza Dushku's mom is friends with my mom, and so I am compelled to follow her career and cheer her on. Tru Calling is a horrible show, and although I am proud that Eliza has her own series, I wish she could have a better one. I mean, she's a decent actress and she's cute, give her a good show! I used to watch Extreme Makeover, but then it started impacting my self esteem in a negative way, so I was forced to stop.

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This is evil and mean spirited, but funny:

  • NYC's 50 most loathsome people



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    Significant Others is an improv comedy show about couples therapy. Which sounds potentially lame. But it is actually really funny. I was immediately obsessed after I saw the first episode, but then I talked to this woman at work who is probably in her 40s and she didn't get it. So perhaps it is humor specific to certain people. I think it's very much in the style of Arrested Development, which no one seems to watch, so I'm not sure how successful the show is. But I think the fact that Bravo reruns the show constantly bodes well for its survival. And Bravo is cable, after all, which means ratings don't have to be that high for a show to be considered a hit. The Significant Others season finale is on tomorrow night on Bravo at 9:30.

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