Neil Patrick Harris > Seacrest + Probst + Klum + Mandel + Bergeron

by Linda Holmes

After last year's very bad decision to turn the Emmy telecast over to the five nominated reality-show hosts -- all of whom flopped, with the exception of the always-lovely Tom Bergeron -- the show planners seem to have regained their senses: Reports say they're trying to make a deal with Neil Patrick Harris to host the show in September.

While he didn't get to do as much at the Tony Awards as I was hoping -- with the exception of the fantastic closing number, which you can watch above -- Harris was a lovely host and would undoubtedly make the Emmys a whole lot more watchable.

He also probably won't be upstaged this time by a guy who gets clocked by the scenery, so that's good news.

Make that deal, Emmy planners! If I have to liveblog three hours of Ryan Seacrest, I will be very upset.

9:05 AM ET | 07- 2-2009 | permalink

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Somewhere, A Reporter Is Bored. (That Somewhere Is Cleveland.)

by Marc Hirsh

It's a slow news day in Cleveland. How slow? Slow enough not only to spend a solid two minutes (out of what, 22 minutes of newscast?) on a non-story about a non-attack by a non-bear, but to take the time to make props and costumes. Who knew that WJW even had an arts and crafts department? Special kudos to Cleveland Metroparks naturalist Carly Martin for her insights into bear scat, and to the reporter who provided such an enthusiastic simulation of ursine climbing.

3:00 PM ET | 07- 1-2009 | permalink

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'The Daily Show' Gets Serious About International Human Rights

by Linda Holmes

On last night's edition of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart spoke to Mike Kim, the author of Escaping North Korea: Defiance And Hope In The World's Most Repressive Country. Kim spent four years helping North Korean refugees who were leaving the country through China, along a "modern-day underground railroad" that stretches 6,000 miles from Pyongyang to Bangkok, Thailand.

It's not uncommon for Jon Stewart to have interesting guests, or guests with great stories, but I think from the show's perspective, this particular conversation was almost a Platonic ideal of a Daily Show interview.

Why getting your news from The Daily Show is more complicated than it sounds, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Daily Show' Gets Serious About International Human Rights" »

7:52 AM ET | 07- 1-2009 | permalink

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PBS Nerd Television Returns And Auto-Tunes Neil deGrasse Tyson

by Linda Holmes

Tonight marks the return of PBS's Nova scienceNOW (hey, that's how they type it; I don't know), the science magazine show featuring host (and astrophysicist, and Stewart/Colbert favorite) Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The season premiere includes a discussion of synthetic diamonds; a visit with Luis von Ahn, the computer scientist who developed those little pictures of squiggly letters that you have to type in to prove you're not a robot; a look back at the anthrax attacks of several years ago; and -- best of all -- a close-up look at AutoTune, including the AutoTuning of Tyson's own very bad singing. The von Ahn and AutoTune segments are both utterly charming, and Tyson is a marvelous sport.

Check your local PBS listings, but Nova scienceNOW is generally airing alongside the regular Nova season premiere, "Musical Minds," which Oliver Sacks discussed on The Daily Show last night. I haven't seen "Musical Minds" yet, but I have read the Sacks book Musicophilia on which it is based, and The New York Times, while expressing some reservations, calls it "full of fascinating information."

So if you're the kind of person who likes to sit down for a little nerd viewing, this might be your lucky evening.

12:06 PM ET | 06-30-2009 | permalink

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A Victory For DVRs Means Even More Bad News For Networks

The remote DVR: The Supreme Court yesterday cleared the way for a new cable option. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

One of the few drawbacks of watching television on a DVR rather than live is that you have to have a physical device -- either a separate product like a TiVo or a hard drive within your cable box -- that stores the programs you want to watch. Yesterday, that drawback got a step closer to elimination when the Supreme Court declined to consider a legal challenge from content providers to a plan for the "remote DVR."

Cablevision in New York is preparing to launch a program where, instead of a hard drive in your house, your recorded programs would be stored on your cable company's remote servers, so you wouldn't have to have a physical hard drive. Cablevision says it will make DVR use easier and less expensive.

And the network and cable content providers seem to agree, given that they're pursuing a legal challenge, claiming that it's one thing for you to record and save their programs in your house for personal use (not something they always admitted you had any right to do, by the way), but it's another thing for Cablevision to save the programs for you offsite. That, they say, violates their copyright.

(Interestingly, it looks like one of the important features of this program is that Cablevision won't simply store one central copy of something that can be accessed by any of the people who have asked to record it. In order to preserve this idea that it's just off-site storage and not unlicensed on-demand programming, they have to store a separate identical copy of the same show for each subscriber.)

The broadcasters lost the last round of maneuvering and asked the Supreme Court to intervene, which, yesterday, it decided not to do. That means Cablevision gets to roll out the remote-DVR option for its subscribers later this year.

That could mean big changes for the existing viewership model.

The possible effects of remote storage and the hard life of a broadcast (or even cable) network, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Victory For DVRs Means Even More Bad News For Networks" »

8:57 AM ET | 06-30-2009 | permalink

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CBS Offers A Cutesy Kickoff To The Anti-Leno Marketing Effort

The Mentalist: The CBS drama, starring Simon Baker, is only one of several shows to benefit from CBS's "Project LENO." CBS

 

by Linda Holmes

This has really been an oddly bruising week on the pop-culture beat on levels both significant and petty, between exhausting saturation coverage of Jon and Kate, three much-discussed celebrity deaths, the giant box-office haul for the almost universally despised Transformers movie, and general (and repeated) stupidity relating to Perez Hilton, about whom I always prefer to hear (and say) as little as possible.

But eventually, you have to kind of return to normalcy, and today, we find the march toward the fall television season continuing with CBS's announcement of what it's calling "Project LENO" (har har, it stands for Late prime Enhanced News Opportunity," geddit?).

This is its attempt to cooperate with its affiliate stations to promote the 10 p.m. dramas -- The Mentalist, The Good Wife, Numbers, and the C.S.I.s both Miami and N.Y. -- that it will be putting up against Jay Leno.

Expect a lot more of this nonsense as the fall draws closer. Dear CBS: If you're going to be cute and come up with fake acronyms, you can do better than that. "Late prime Enhanced News Opportunity"? That is Large Annoyance Made Easy.

10:24 AM ET | 06-26-2009 | permalink

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The Unpredictable, Stubbornly Unusual Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett: In 1977, her hair was iconic. But she did some real acting as well. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

I kind of loved Farrah Fawcett, even though the entire first phase of her career -- the one where she became a giant superstar -- missed me, for the most part. I didn't watch Charlie's Angels, so most of my exposure to her came from the uphill battle for respectability she fought once she had left behind what had been gleefully and obnoxiously called "jiggle TV."

On television, this really started with The Burning Bed in 1984, a harrowing, multiple-Emmy-nominated TV movie about an abused woman that was made at a time when the TV movie was a much more common format than it is now. She was nominated for her work in it, though by then, she had also been on stage in Extremities, an entirely different harrowing story about an abused woman. She went on to a well-received performance in the TV version of that, as well.

But I won't lie: the thing from this era that I remember best is Small Sacrifices, the TV adaptation of Ann Rule's true-crime book about Diane Downs, a woman who shot her kids and claimed to have been attacked by a stranger. It shows up now and then on cable -- I assume it will again soon -- and Fawcett is thoroughly creepy and unsettling in it. It took her a long way away from the victim roles in Extremities and The Burning Bed.

She kept on acting and working -- like in The Apostle with Robert Duvall, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and in a short run on Spin City -- but she also suffered some indignities, like a famously odd interview with David Letterman in 1997. Ultimately, she became a bit of a well-known oddball, which tends to endear people to me.

What's particularly sad about Farrah Fawcett is that she might have been a great candidate to have her own cable drama if that option had been there for her in, say, the early 1990s, the way it has become such a great option for Glenn Close, Kyra Sedgwick, and Holly Hunter. She was a good, often really interesting actress, and a powerfully popular television presence. I think she would have made a go of it. In a lot of ways, those dramas are the TV movies of this decade, but they offer non-ingenue actresses a lot more choices.

At the time Farrah Fawcett became a poster girl -- literally -- and at the time her hair became a lot more famous than "the Rachel" ever was, she didn't seem a likely candidate to ever act with Robert Duvall or be nominated for a decent haul of awards. As hard a pop-culture box as "TV sex symbol" can be to bust out of now, it was even harder when Farrah Fawcett did it.

1:17 PM ET | 06-25-2009 | permalink

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Viewers Dump Summer Network Television: It's Not Us, It's You

by Linda Holmes

There is "network television is on the decline," and then there is "networks had their worst week among viewers 18-49 that they have ever had, ever."

Last week, it was the latter.

Before you get too excited about the notion that maybe we are throwing away our televisions entirely, keep in mind that cable isn't sharing in the networks' misery. USA is humming along with Burn Notice and Royal Pains, TNT is getting good numbers for things like The Closer, and you've probably heard that HBO got its best ratings since The Sopranos when it brought back True Blood for a second season.

And of course, this week, there's been you-know-who and you-know-who plus you-know-what, but as we've discussed in the past, that tends to be a fairly transitory thing.

But for the networks, this week has to have been downright alarming.

Bad strategy and simple freedom of choice, after the jump...

Continue reading "Viewers Dump Summer Network Television: It's Not Us, It's You" »

11:01 AM ET | 06-24-2009 | permalink

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'Superstars': ABC Ruins A Perfectly Good Old Weird TV Show

by Linda Holmes

I have fond memories of the old ABC Superstars shows, which would gather athletes from different sports and have them compete against each other in events like swimming and, most famously, an obstacle course. In the above clip, Joe Frazier swims against, among others, Jean-Claude Killy. It's kind of great. (Though not for Frazier, who unfortunately can't swim.)

I didn't even know until I was reading up on the show that it ran long enough for more recent editions to be won by Jason Sehorn. But now, ABC brings Superstars back tonight, with a twist. Of course.

And what kind of twist? A twist involving random B-list famous people. Of course.

How they messed it up, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Superstars': ABC Ruins A Perfectly Good Old Weird TV Show" »

10:05 AM ET | 06-23-2009 | permalink

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Can You Guess What Network Had A Win On Friday Night?

A reminder about network television: NBC won an important demographic on Friday night...sort of. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

If you consult the very useful web site TV By The Numbers, you'll see that the Friday night ratings race among the 18-49 demographic was won by NBC, with its Chopping Block (is that still on?) and two hours of Dateline NBC.

But it's not quite that simple. If you use the numbers from the Cynopsis newsletter, also a very helpful daily bulletin about ratings as well as lots of other things, you'll see a different result.

Who won, after the jump...

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9:13 AM ET | 06-23-2009 | permalink

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The Cringe Flame Burns Briefly: A Summer Ratings Lesson

Jon & Kate Plus 8: What does it all mean? Maybe not as much as you think. Discovery Health Channel

 

by Linda Holmes

It took exactly one highly rated episode of Jon & Kate Plus Eight for the conclusion to be reached that they were the new king and queen of TLC, and possibly monarchs of all TV. When the news broke that almost 10 million people watched the season premiere, we were off to the races.

Could TLC use its new hit show to reinvent itself? Did it mean we were all mad? Why are we unable to stop ourselves from watching? Why couldn't we turn away?

And then a funny thing happened: We turned away.

The end of the phenomenon, the "spectacular" failure of another show that 40 million people once watched, and more, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Cringe Flame Burns Briefly: A Summer Ratings Lesson" »

8:18 AM ET | 06-18-2009 | permalink

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There Is Nothing McDreamy About This 'Grey's Anatomy' Game

by Linda Holmes

I really wasn't sure where to put this video in which several test subjects voluntarily play the new Grey's Anatomy game for the Wii. Television? Games? Unrelenting horror?

Just...I'm going to let them explain it as they go, because if I told you how weird it is, you wouldn't believe me anyway. Take it away, College Humor.

(Hat-tip to Best Week Ever.)

3:10 PM ET | 06-17-2009 | permalink

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'Lost' Fans Rejoice: It's The Smoke Monster In Glorious Hi-Def

Lost: What it's worth to you in Blu-ray depends on how much you're all about looks. Buena Vista Home Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

The minute you acquire a Blu-ray player, the jokes begin: "It's a good thing I can watch Dude, Where's My Car? on Blu-ray! How else would I appreciate the glorious visuals?" "How will I ever appreciate the cinematography of Miss Congeniality 2: Armed And Fabulous while I can only see it in standard definition?"

Not everything benefits from being seen in beautiful HD, but if there's one TV show that really is different with a high-quality picture, it's probably Lost.

What the Blu-ray release has to offer, including saving your place, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Lost' Fans Rejoice: It's The Smoke Monster In Glorious Hi-Def" »

10:48 AM ET | 06-16-2009 | permalink

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Spoilerphilia and Spoilerphobia: Showrunners Talk Surprises

by Linda Holmes

As part of the run-up to the Emmy nominations, The Hollywood Reporter's web site has been running a series of videos in which various showrunners -- including Mad Men's Matthew Weiner, True Blood's Alan Ball, and Grey's Anatomy's Shonda Rhimes chitchat about various aspects of production, from network standards to product placement.

In the clip above, they express frustration about the proliferation of spoilers -- leaked information about what's going to happen on episodes that haven't aired yet. (This is indeed the traditional definition of a spoiler; it is only much more recently that the term has, for some, taken on the new meaning of "information about a show that you personally haven't chosen to watch yet and perhaps never will, but it would be great if nobody would say anything about it in case you eventually do.")

Their varied reactions are fascinating. Ball (along with The Office creator Greg Daniels) is annoyed by the effect of spoiler-hunters on the logistics of filming, Weiner seems affronted by the disruption of his creative process when people don't digest the show at the pace he intends, and Shonda Rhimes -- Shonda Rhimes, of all people -- professes to just not understand, as she puts it, "why spoilers make people happy."

Weiner goes on to insist that people don't actually enjoy reading spoilers; they are only fun for the people who are doing the revealing, who are in fact making everyone else miserable. That's true in the case of people being involuntarily spoiled (a major problem for, in particular, all online communities where serial shows are discussed).

But there is also a massive, thriving community of people desperate to be voluntarily spoiled, and it's fruitless to pretend that part of the challenge isn't that you're trying to defeat simple curiosity -- the fact that people are impatient and don't like waiting.

Furthermore, if you were looking for a defender of spoiler-free living, you would not logically go to Shonda Rhimes.

The tease and the long history of string-pulling, after the jump...

Continue reading "Spoilerphilia and Spoilerphobia: Showrunners Talk Surprises" »

8:35 AM ET | 06-15-2009 | permalink

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If You're Curious About 'Mad Men,' Here's Your Big Chance

by Linda Holmes

AMC has been rolling out news about the third season of Mad Men, and the details include a season premiere on August 16, preceded by a Season 2 marathon all day on August 10.

But if you've never seen this much-discussed, Emmy-winning show, you can get a taste of the pilot online -- that's it, at the top of the post. All of Season 1 is currently available On Demand (depending on your provider and so forth), and Season 2 will be available On Demand later in the summer. You can bet your smoke-filled conference room that Mad Men will grab another stack of Emmy nominations when they come out on July 16, so if you want to judge for yourself whether it deserves all the hype, this is the time.

11:59 AM ET | 06-12-2009 | permalink

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The Road To Digital HDTV Signals Is Paved With Discrete Stubble

Josh Holloway If you were watching him on Lost right now, you'd be distracted by trying to count individual beard hairs. Trust me. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

So today is digital switchover day, when local stations will shut off their analog signals, leaving those who get over-the-air broadcasts either (1) in really bad shape, if they don't have digital receivers; (2) in intermediate shape, if they have digital receivers and so-so signals in their area; or (3) much better off, if they get good reception of digital signals and will now get cable-quality reception through their rabbit ears.

But in addition to the end of analog, this transition could potentially mean a lot more people watching in high-definition, because some of those new digital broadcast signals are in HD. As someone who only relatively recently got a decent-sized HDTV, I look forward to seeing some other (relative) newbies experiencing The Summer Of Stubble.

Once you start looking at high-definition television (and you know this if you're used to it), you realize that people on screen have been, relatively speaking, vague blobs of flesh-colored light until now. I've been watching the first season of Lost on BluRay (more on this next week), and I'm here to tell you, I have seen some stubble. Some close-up, jump-off-the-screen, highly attenuated stubble.

It's no wonder that there is now special "HDTV makeup" for people who are going to be seen on high-definition television, because it is no joke that it is unbelievably unforgiving. It is spurned-lover unforgiving. It is embittered-relative unforgiving.

Eyebrow hairs, facial injuries, and more things that look crazy terrifying in HD, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Road To Digital HDTV Signals Is Paved With Discrete Stubble" »

10:44 AM ET | 06-12-2009 | permalink

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Let Us Allow The Word 'Cougar' To Die Instantly And Painfully

Mythical species: If seeing what's attractive about Adam Lambert is what it takes to be a cougar, then cougars don't exist. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

It was this Newsweek piece, entitled "Why Cougars Crave 'Idol' Runner-Up Adam Lambert," that finally broke me.

It is time for the word "cougar" to go, preferably instantly.

The Newsweek writer, Joan Raymond, spends paragraph upon paragraph explaining why she and her "cougar court" spent an American Idol season sweating over the heavily hyped, extremely popular, out-without-having-ever-been-in Lambert. How could this be? How could it possibly be that they, as non-teenagers, could be interested in an American Idol who, at 27 years old, was young enough to be ... their nephew, if they had a significantly older sister?

When I first heard it, "cougar" was a crude slam; I think I first noticed it on the "Aldrin Justice" episode of How I Met Your Mother, which aired in October 2006, though this ABC story was chatting it up in 2005, and it surely is much older than that.

But interestingly, as the ABC story notes, it began as a putdown — a term of ridicule for older women who went home from bars with "whoever was left."

We could go through the sexual politics, the cultural baggage that comes with older men and younger women vs. younger men and older women. We could explain why seeing women gleefully referring to themselves the same way Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) did on How I Met Your Mother is kind of disheartening.

But really, it's not necessary. The term "cougar" can be easily retired, simply on the grounds that it's so stupid.

Crazy fans, too many sex therapists, and never calling yourself "punk rock," after the jump...

Continue reading "Let Us Allow The Word 'Cougar' To Die Instantly And Painfully" »

9:08 AM ET | 06-12-2009 | permalink

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'Futurama' Scores Another Victory For Tenacity...And Robots

by Linda Holmes

It's very, very rare for rumors about the resurrection of old shows to come true, but here's one that did: Comedy Central has ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama — last canceled all the way back in 2003 — for a whole new season.

The show's delightfully wackadoo sense of humor — you can sample it in the clip above, which cobbles together all the opening-title screens, with their little notes like "Featuring Gratuitous Alien Nudity" — will undoubtedly return with creator Matt Groening.

But that's not all: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Groening is bringing the entire voice cast and the bulk of the writers back with him.

Futurama's die-hard fans have hung in a long time; it's a big payoff for them. Chalk up another victory for unconventional scheduling/viewing arrangements, because you can bet that without DVDs, the proliferation of cable channels, and the Internet (to keep the fans talking to each other), this resurrection probably wouldn't be happening.

9:33 AM ET | 06-10-2009 | permalink

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5, 6, 7, 8 Ways 'So You Think You Can Dance' Is All About Art, Man

That's real dancing: Choreographer Jean Marc Genereux, a professional ballroom dancer and choreographer, teaches a routine with his wife and partner, Frances Mousseau. Kelsey McNeal/Fox

 

by Joe Reid

Chances are, if your circle of friends contains even a few avid summer-TV watchers, you've been encouraged to watch So You Think You Can Dance. The American Idol-style dance competition has been steadily growing in popularity over the last four summers -- so much so that it's making a leap to Fox's fall schedule in September -- and its fans tend to be proselytizers.

Whoops, looks like you've got one right here.

The easiest way to win a Dance convert (says the zealot) is to describe it as "'American Idol, but better." Lots of people watch Idol but do so while holding their noses: it's cheesy, it's corporate, it's soulless, it's amateur hour, and the judges have no earthly idea what they're talking about.

And that's coming from yours truly, who actually likes the show.

A Dance fan will offer no such caveats; ask them why they watch the show, and even the most hardened, cynical ironists will end up using words like "beauty," "technique," and "artistic" within three sentences.

So with the fifth season about to kick into high gear with tonight's first competition episode, you may be asking what is it about this glitzy, commercial show that gets TV fans discussing "artistry" in the middle of June? Count off with me while I offer eight reasons:

1. The threshold of success is much lower. That doesn't mean expectations aren't high -- quite the opposite, particularly if contemporary choreographer/frequent judge Mia Michaels has any say about it. But the winner of So You Think You Can Dance receives the title of America's Favorite Dancer, a cash prize, and...not much else.

No contract with 19 Entertainment. No Kelly Clarkson-sized profitability expectations. America isn't really in the business of crowning superstar dancers. They might actually become very successful -- a role in Step Up 3D, a Christina Aguilera music video, a Broadway show -- but because that success comes without a media spotlight, the judgery gets to be less preoccupied with marketability and focus on the dancing.

The rest of the list and some illustrative clips, after the jump...

Continue reading "5, 6, 7, 8 Ways 'So You Think You Can Dance' Is All About Art, Man" »

7:52 AM ET | 06-10-2009 | permalink

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Five Excellent Ideas For Replacing Mr. T In The 'A-Team' Movie

by Linda Holmes

Okay, so Bradley Cooper (fresh off The Hangover and right on the edge of becoming a giant movie star) is maybe going to take the Dirk Benedict part in the upcoming The A-Team movie. And Liam Neeson is in talks to replace George Peppard.

And then the Variety piece throws in the fact that, you know, they haven't quite figured out who's going to replace Mr. T as B.A. Baracus.

Now, it occurs to me that this is a fairly serious problem. In a baby-name book I saw once, it was argued that you can't give your baby certain names if they are overly strongly associated with one famous person. The chapter was called, "There's Only One Arsenio."

They could very easily have called it "There's Only One Mr. T." (Well, they could have if there were more of a threat of anyone, ever, actually naming a baby "Mr. T.")

So where do you begin looking for Mr. T replacements? Nobody is kind of like Mr. T. Nobody is the new Mr. T. Nobody captures the spirit of Mr. T. It becomes increasingly apparent that Mr. T is Mr. T, and he's the only Mr. T there's ever going to be.

Nevertheless, I am prepared to step forward with several ideas. You are welcome, Hollywood.

1. Mickey Rourke.

Based on that clip, you can see that B.A. is physically powerful, he dresses badly, and he doesn't make any sense. It's a perfect fit. Mickey Rourke is vaguely nutsy, he's aggressively unique, and he certainly has the requisite experience with bombs. (Hotcha!)

More ideas I am generously prepared to share, after the jump...

Continue reading "Five Excellent Ideas For Replacing Mr. T In The 'A-Team' Movie" »

11:53 AM ET | 06- 9-2009 | permalink

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Bret Michaels: He Couldn't Have Waited Five Minutes For This?

by Linda Holmes

You know, there are sayings in the theater. The show must go on, and so forth.

Another one of them emerged from last night's Tony Awards, and it's this: Whenever it takes five minutes to sort out a tech issue at the beginning of, say, a live-blog, you can guarantee that those will be the five minutes during which Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison, will be standing his ground instead of retreating and will get conked on the head by a descending stage segment.

You can sort of see the other guys run back behind what turns out to be the problematic piece of scenery the minute the music stops, because they clearly remember from rehearsal that it's time to hustle and get out of the way. Michaels, however, was enjoying his moment (probably unlikely to appear on the Tonys too many times in the future, even before this happened), and he forgot to dash behind the backdrop. Gotta wave to the fans! Give 'em a wave! Love you!

[BONK.]

(His publicist seems to be suggesting he's okay and even hoped to "hit some after-parties," and he didn't break his nose, don't worry.)

The other notable thing, I think, is that while she clearly didn't have any idea what was happening, Stockard Channing managed to launch into "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" in a manner that unavoidably comes off like she's giving you her best exasperated "Aaaanyway..."

Best headline goes to the Times-Picayune, for this: "Opening the Tony Awards, Bret Michaels of Poison chews scenery on Broadway."

9:40 AM ET | 06- 8-2009 | permalink

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Stephen Colbert's Luxuriant Mane Gives Itself Up For Morale

Stephen Colbert: His USO tour is certainly not all talk, as you can see from what's about to happen to him here. USO

 

by Linda Holmes

Stephen Colbert will be broadcasting The Colbert Report from Iraq all this week while on a tour with the USO, and he's not wasting any time getting down to business.

As you can see, Colbert has gotten a military haircut in solidarity with the troops he's visiting. (He really did go through with it, too -- he is not, in this photo, about to leap from the chair and yell, "Psych!") The show, which, as you can see, features Colbert in a camouflage business suit, will air tonight on Comedy Central at 11:30 p.m.

8:26 AM ET | 06- 8-2009 | permalink

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Live-Blogging The Tonys: The Neil Patrick Harris Experience

The Tony Awards: This handsome fellow is your host, Neil Patrick Harris. CBS

 

by Linda Holmes

You probably know that Neil Patrick Harris is one of the Official Favorite People Of Monkey See, and we're just terribly excited that he's hosting The Tony Awards on Sunday night.

So I will be joined by regular Monkey See contributor Marc Hirsh for Sunday night's telecast. We are both, shall we say, theater enjoyers but not necessarily theater nerds, so we hope you'll come and appreciate it as a singing, dancing barrel of fun, which is what we're hoping for.

Check out the list of people who are scheduled to appear: Dolly Parton, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, and Poison. COME ON, people. That's entertainment.

If nothing else, you'll want to be here in case former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis wins a Tony for his performance in Rock Of Ages, because my head will truly explode.

Sunday night, 8:00 p.m., be there or be...watching reruns, and nobody wants that.

11:37 AM ET | 06- 5-2009 | permalink

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Does No One Remember The Last Arranged-Marriage Show?

Marriage television: Fox apparently forgot what happened the last time they tried a show about arranging marriages. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

I realize that practically nobody watched the disastrous 2003 Fox show about arranged marriages, Married By America, and for good reason. It was atrocious, stupid, boring, and completely anticlimactic, since in the end, nobody got married. I would never have watched it myself except that I was being paid to write about it at the time.

But now, Fox is back at it, developing a show called I Married A Stranger, which is essentially the same show, but worse. Worse! Last time, your family and friends just picked the fiancé, and you had to go off and live together. It was at least up to you whether to get married.

This time, the family and friends pick the person, and you don't meet him until you're standing at the altar, where you're expected to go through with it right then.

Let's get this out of the way: it's an odious, offensive, revolting, entirely meritless idea from any point of view that respects marriage, men, women, or relationships. This, we know. This debate does not need having.

What's insane is that back in 2003, it also turned out to be bad television. I don't expect Fox to refrain from making it because it's so tacky. But you'd think they might remember that it was unbelievably dull. This was not a guilty pleasure; this was a non-pleasure.

I guess there really is no well so laden with frogs and muck that you can't go back for another sip.

10:23 AM ET | 06- 5-2009 | permalink

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'Rhoda': What It Says About Wooing. And About 'WOO!'-ing

by Marc Hirsh

If you're like me (okay, at least in this regard), you may have managed to make it through your entire childhood without ever seeing an episode of Rhoda.

For reasons unknown, Rhoda, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show were distinctly absent from the batch of sitcoms that I watched every day after school, unlike Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Jeffersons and Taxi.

Lord, how I watched me some Taxi growing up.

Rhoda, on the other hand, has been akin to a myth seen only in fleeting, multicolor-headscarfed glimpses, which means that I approached the recent DVD release of Rhoda Season One with a completely fresh perspective.

Fashion aside -- also a theme song that manages to incorporate both tuba and wah-wah guitar, which, seriously: very impressive -- there's not a lot to date the show 35 years after the fact.

It's very well-made. It's still funny. And certain things that were probably meant to be borderline-shocking at the time -- such as the fact that Joe, Rhoda's soon-to-be-husband, was a divorced father -- were presented and dealt with in such a way that a modern viewer wouldn't even know they were once issues.

There are, however, two things that date the show, both of which are inadvertently showcased in "I'll Be Loving You, Sometimes," the third episode of the show's five-year run. And it all starts with the clip up at the top.

In this scene, Joe, who started dating Rhoda not long after she returned to New York from Minneapolis in the first episode, tells Rhoda that he loves her. And what's the response from the live studio audience?

Nothing. No "ooooh!"s. No gasps. Not a "Wooo!" to be heard. Nothing. The audience simply let the scene play out and laughed at the jokes.

Compare that scene to this one 20 years later on Friends, in which the audience is a little more, I don't know, vocal.

Let's go to the video, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Rhoda': What It Says About Wooing. And About 'WOO!'-ing" »

2:36 PM ET | 06- 4-2009 | permalink

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'Burn Notice': Please Don't Tell Me What Happens After The Pilot

Burn Notice: If you're all ready for tonight's third-season premiere, you're well ahead of me. USA Network

 

by Linda Holmes

Tonight is the third-season premiere of USA's Burn Notice, a critically acclaimed show that has been crucial in the growth of the network's reputation as a genuine source of original scripted programs.

Please don't tell me what happens. Or what has happened since the pilot.

Because, in keeping with the great migration toward unconventional viewing habits, I've just started watching it. (I bought it online myself; you can also get it on DVD, if you are so inclined. And there have been marathons on USA the last two days, but it's already too late to get in on that action in a useful way.)

If you're not familiar with the premise, Jeffrey Donovan plays Michael Westen, a spy who wakes up one day to find that he's been basically banished -- not just fired as a spy, but wiped off the map of creditworthiness and so forth -- for reasons unknown. ("Burned," you see.)

So now he has all his spy skills, a beautiful associate (Gabrielle Anwar), and his old friend Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell). But no money and no job and no way to survive except -- you guessed it -- by his wits. The result, which makes him basically a very driven, very overqualified private investigator in Miami, is utterly delightful (so far), with exactly the kind of wry, self-aware narration that I very nearly demand in a show of this kind.

At least that's how things are as of the early part of the first season; if he's been abducted by aliens since then, or he's become a time-traveling space soldier, you couldn't prove it by me. I'd be sad, I admit.

It used to be that the third season of a well-respected show with a lot of rich back story was just too late to jump in. It's always been one of the big frustrations with good dramas -- by the time they get going and the buzz gets to the point where you hear about it, you've missed too much. This is especially challenging now that there are far too many shows for even a devoted good-television aficionado to possibly keep track of.

But at the same time, that same irritatingly fractured landscape is supported by a variety of increasingly easy ways to bring yourself up to speed.

So I don't just suggest you keep an open mind about shows you've been ignoring and use the much-improved late-adopter options to improve the overall quality of what you're watching; I do it myself. Judging by my speedy catching-up habits with past shows, it shouldn't take me long to get to the new season. Until then, I'm keeping my eyes closed.

11:05 AM ET | 06- 4-2009 | permalink

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Edie Falco's 'Nurse Jackie' Kicks Off A Prime-Time Nurseapalooza

Nurse Jackie: Showtime's new offering brings Edie Falco back to pay cable and is only the tip of a much larger nursing iceberg coming to series television. Showtime

 

by Mark Blankenship

You may have noticed that for the next few months, scripted television will be a nurse-a-palooza. On June 8, Edie Falco dons white rubber shoes for Showtime's dark sitcom Nurse Jackie (you can see an edited version of the pilot here), and eight days later, Jada Pinkett Smith debuts on TNT's HawthoRNe, the press materials for which really do capitalize the "RN" in the title.

And you're probably thinking, "That's great, but I need more Trachtenberg." Fortunately for you, the fall will bring NBC's Mercy, starring Michelle Trachtenberg as part of a trio of hardworking nurses.

But what's causing this sudden influx of nursing series?

Cynical media hounds will tell you they aren't surprised. They'll say the country's inexhaustible appetite for medical dramas was bound to produce a nursing spike, because TV execs would rather convince us an old formula is new than try something that hasn't been tested.

You can imagine the pitch meeting, right? "Yes, Jackie Hawthorne's Mercy will be America's 450th hospital show, but this time, the doctors are supporting characters and the nurses are the leads! It's totally original!"

Meanwhile, sensitive social analysts will declare that these nursing shows demonstrate television's ever-growing stature as a great place for female narratives. Hawthorne joins Saving Grace and The Closer in TNT's slate of femme-friendly dramas, while Nurse Jackie shares a network with Weeds and The United States of Tara.

Throw in shows like True Blood, Damages, and Big Love, and you can see that for every movie with a poorly developed girlfriend character, there are three series with complex female leads. Television honors a woman's worth.

And yeah ... maybe. But I think we know the real reason these shows are springing up.

The sins of the TV-nursing past, after the jump...

Continue reading "Edie Falco's 'Nurse Jackie' Kicks Off A Prime-Time Nurseapalooza" »

9:19 AM ET | 06- 4-2009 | permalink

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Tipster Chronicles: Who Wants To Not Have Lunch With Ted Knight?

iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

From sharp-eyed tipster who is totally not Mike Pesca comes this gem, spotted among the items for sale at CharityBuzz:

Lunch with part of the cast of Too Close For Comfort is not a hot auction item.

Too Close For Comfort, you may or may not recall, was a sitcom that aired from 1980 to 1986 (which is much longer than I thought it was on), starring the late Ted Knight.

Ted Knight is not coming to lunch, obviously, no matter how much you pay. But the bidding currently stands at $150, and you have to pay for everyone's lunch. Compare this to better-faring items like Daytona with Patrick Dempsey, currently at $4250 as of this writing, or watching the U.S. Open with Andre Agassi, currently at a cool $8000 with three weeks of bidding to go.

Poor Too Close For Comfort.

Are you a sharp-eyed tipster? Because we love hilarious tips, and are perfectly happy to credit you as "sharp-eyed tipster who is totally not [your name here]" or "sharp-eyed tipster who is totally [your name here]." Or even "Sharp-eyed tipster who is totally [what you always wished was your name here]." We're flexible. Send your gems to monkeysee (at) npr.org.

12:34 PM ET | 06- 3-2009 | permalink

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Other Shows That Could Use A Giant 'Wipeout'-Style Catapult

CATAPULT!: This is something more shows should consider. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

The lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer often lead to flights of fancy. This one has to do with the giant catapult that flings people through the air (and into the water) on ABC's strangely addictive Wipeout.

I know, I know.

But hear me out.

It's not Wipeout that appeals. IT'S THE CATAPULT. (See it in action a few seconds into this promo.)

And a whimsical discussion taking place here at NPR has led to the development of a list of other shows that would also benefit from a giant catapult. Here they are, complete with simulations of what they would sound like if they did have catapults.

1. The Bachelorette. "Jillian, I really want you to know I'm here for the right reasons. I feel a connection between us, and I think as we get to know each other, you'll find out that AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!"

2. American Idol. "Those judges don't even know good singing. This unsuccessful audition in which I wore a clown suit and sang 'Don't Rain On My Parade' will not be the last you'll hear of me, because I will be back, and I will AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!"

3. House. "The patient doesn't have piccolocystic fluteopathy, or the whistling coming from his teeth would be much more high-pitched. Did you see the way his shoelaces were tied? Clearly, this man is suffering from AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!"

The rest of the list, after the jump...

Continue reading "Other Shows That Could Use A Giant 'Wipeout'-Style Catapult" »

12:15 PM ET | 06- 2-2009 | permalink

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How Bad Is The Opening Of TV's 'Land Of The Lost'? This Bad.

by Linda Holmes

Let's start the day with a quick note. Of shock.

If you heard Alex Cohen's Morning Edition piece yesterday about the new Land Of The Lost movie that comes out this weekend, you heard her talk about the fake waterfall in the opening sequence of the old TV show.

It's a good thing you can now find episodes of Land Of The Lost online, because you really have to see it for yourself. If you've never seen the show or any significant time has passed since you saw it, nothing anyone can tell you could possibly prepare you for this.

7:12 AM ET | 06- 2-2009 | permalink

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The Needle In The Haystack Of Stupid At The MTV Movie Awards

by Linda Holmes

One of the things I don't have to do in this job is subject myself to the entire MTV Movie Awards, partly because anything that's worth seeing will show up online the next day anyway.

To wit: This digital short featuring Andy Samberg, Will Ferrell, and...well, J.J. Abrams in an awfully unexpected context. The language is only intermittently salty, and the subject is: "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions." It's rather wonderful.

12:46 PM ET | 06- 1-2009 | permalink

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Conan O'Brien Takes A Giant Step Into The Unknown...Again

by Linda Holmes

Watchers of the late-night scene know very well the tale of a then-unknown Conan O'Brien taking over what used to be David Letterman's show back in 1993, having worked primarily as a writer (most notably for The Simpsons) before that time. He overcame early bad reviews to become quite beloved at 12:30 a.m., and now he's got the big desk at The Tonight Show, starting tonight.

Guests for the first week will include Will Ferrell, Tom Hanks, and Ryan Seacrest, as well as musical guests Pearl Jam, Green Day, and The John Mayer Trio.

The pressure is on, but one of the things Conan has going for him is that he's done this before; he's been patient. If he isn't an instant hit at 11:30, he's conditioned not to wilt.

10:31 AM ET | 06- 1-2009 | permalink

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If Everyone On 'I'm A Celebrity' Fell Headfirst Into A Landfill...

Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag: If everyone on I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! were thrown into landfill, which is not a bad idea, they would go first and second. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

I regret to inform you that tonight is the premiere of NBC's summer series, I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!.

Of course, the trick to this show is that the title suggests that people are there involuntarily -- perhaps they're on probation, or they're genuinely lost, or their relatives are being held for ransom, and only you can help them. Get them out of here!

The problem is that these people want on this kind of show fairly desperately. Patti Blagojevich doesn't actually want to be rescued. If she didn't want to be there, perhaps when her husband was told that he was legally prohibited from participating, she might have seen it as a sign and said, "Whew! Well, honey, at least that's over." Rather than, you know, rolling up her sleeping bag and packing her hair dryer.

But as happy as they all are to be here, this is a particularly distasteful group. Even to me, with my relatively high tolerance for nonsense, this is some high-octane nonsense.

Now, I never actually wish anyone harm, but as I came to grips with the fact that the arrival of this show was inevitable -- it will air Monday through Thursday nights throughout the entire month of June -- I began to entertain a purely frivolous fantasy in which all of these people were dropped headfirst into a large landfill. (And unharmed! Just smelly.) Almost involuntarily, I began to play a mental game called, "In What Order?"

So here's the order in which I decided I would drop them into the landfill.

1. Spencer Pratt. Spencer made his unwelcome invasion of popular culture by being the boyfriend of Heidi Montag, the official Useless Los Angeles Person of MTV's The Hills. It has become a cliché to complain about people who are famous for being famous; Spencer has pioneered a whole new kind of meta-complaining, in which we lament people who are famous just for the fact that we all hate the fact that they're famous. It's quite a logical thicket -- leave a breadcrumb trail so you can get home.

In any event, both a coward and a bully, Spencer is probably the single person on the planet Earth I would most like to see under a pile of leftover lasagna and old shoes. I decided he would go into the landfill first, not only because he will be gone immediately, but because it means everyone else will land on top of him, hopefully at awkward angles.

2. Heidi Montag.. Heidi will not see much reason to go on once we're rid of Spencer. In fact, she probably won't know what to do. Five minutes after he's gone, she'll be trying to recapture their old routine by hugging a tree and pretending to be reading about herself and the tree in Us magazine while an imaginary cameraman from Us magazine takes a picture of her with the tree that will later be captioned, "Celebrities And Trees Are Just Like Us...They Read About Themselves!"

The rest of the cast, including a ubiquitous Baldwin, after the jump...

Continue reading "If Everyone On 'I'm A Celebrity' Fell Headfirst Into A Landfill..." »

7:14 AM ET | 06- 1-2009 | permalink

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'Britain's Got Talent' Serves Up The Latest 'Upset' That Wasn't

Susan Boyle: Her fans may not have been prepared, but the way things ended for her was no surprise. Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Shocking! Upset!

Yes, that's right: Susan Boyle, who became instantly beloved, and almost as instantly overexposed, after singing "I Dreamed A Dream" on Britain's Got Talent, didn't win the final, which is being treated as a massive shock in most corners.

It isn't. Remember the backlash tracker? Susan Boyle was always going to lose this show. Always, always, always.

People will tell you that it was the fact that she was supposedly caught swearing this week, or that she lost her fans by getting a makeover, or that there was a bum note in "Memory." It wasn't. She was a story -- not an arts story, but a digital-culture story -- and her story did not include winning.

The predictable workings of the teardown industry and the natural cycle of competition shows, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Britain's Got Talent' Serves Up The Latest 'Upset' That Wasn't" »

10:51 AM ET | 05-31-2009 | permalink

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'What Not To Wear' Welcomes Mayim Bialik...Yes, Blossom

by Linda Holmes

Mayim Bialik started out playing an eerily convincing version of a young Bette Midler in Beaches, but it was her role on Blossom that made her a pop-culture icon.

She then became a well-known Surprisingly Normal Person for a former child star -- she retired (mostly) from show business, though she's popped up recently on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bones, and studied neuroscience, and had kids.

And now, rather amusingly, she's the subject of tonight's season premiere of TLC's What Not To Wear. (See a sneak peek here.) Given that Blossom is one of the show's go-to references for bad '80s fashion, it's a surprisingly witty meta-reference to make Bialik -- now a mom, much like many of the other women who appear -- the next makeover.

Based on a little sneak preview I got of the episode, Bialik looks to be incredibly game, happy to josh about Blossom and her ugly clothes and the way she danced on that show at the drop of a hat. It looks like it might actually be a lot of fun -- perfect for an '80s TV nerd on a lazy Friday night in summer.

10:00 AM ET | 05-29-2009 | permalink

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Jay Leno: A Low-Key Departure Sets Up A High-Risk Gambit

by Linda Holmes

Jay Leno's last Tonight Show airs tonight, but you'll notice the hype is nothing like it was when, for instance, Johnny Carson aired his last shows. (Carson's last was a little-recalled retrospective; his second-to-last show was the one with Bette Midler that everyone talks about.)

Of course, it's a very different event for NBC. Carson was retiring; Leno is leaving for his own prime-time show that will air every weeknight at 10 p.m., come fall. In theory, this is a good thing. In theory, Jay Leno is being promoted. What can be bittersweet about being given a third of your network's weeknight real estate? That's just sweet, right?

So while there has been some looking back this week with clips and so forth (and a silly Thursday-night medley from Billy Crystal), Leno will probably not get his "Here's That Rainy Day." Not just because he's emphatically not that guy, but because he's not really in a position to acknowledge that there's a real possibility that he's experiencing a sad ending.

The great uncertainty that is Jay Leno's prime-time project, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Jay Leno: A Low-Key Departure Sets Up A High-Risk Gambit" »

8:07 AM ET | 05-29-2009 | permalink

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'Wipeout': The Most Accurately Advertised Show On Television

by Linda Holmes

It can be hard to know what you're getting with TV. Maybe all the jokes are in the commercials, maybe the boring lead character is downplayed in favor of a funny neighbor...you know how it can go.

Maybe that's why I have a soft spot for ABC's preposterous Wipeout, the second season of which premiered last night. If you think this promo is funny, you will find an hour of Wipeout absolutely hilarious. (Nobody ever seems to be injured, so as far as I know, you don't have to temper your enthusiasm with guilt.)

If, on the other hand, you think this is the sound you hear right before your civilization collapses and we all experience backwards evolution until we are one-celled bits of goo, there is absolutely no way I would endeavor to change your mind.

For all intents and purposes, this is an hour of people getting pies in the face. It has no redeeming value whatsoever. None at all. But remember: pratfalls have been around for a long time. Human beings have often, perhaps only in the shamed corners of their conscious minds, found other people falling down to be sort of funny.

But the real advantage of Wipeout is simply that you have every shred of information you need about whether you will like it, just based on watching the ads for it. It is, in that sense, unreviewable. Do I like Wipeout? Who cares? I can't review it. I can't sit here and tell you that I have insights into Wipeout. I can't "recommend" Wipeout, like, "Hey, try that Wipeout, you might like it!" And I can't "not recommend" Wipeout, because if you like that commercial, you're going to love it for an hour at a time.

You already know the answer that exists in your own heart. But I won't make you tell anyone.

2:49 PM ET | 05-28-2009 | permalink

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The Oddly Addictive Spectacle Of The National Spelling Bee

The National Spelling Bee: Here, Emily Fletcher sweats her way through her turn. Alex Wong/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Tonight, ABC will broadcast the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., giving a bunch of school-age kids a slice of Thursday-night prime time of the type usually reserved for people like Tina Fey.

Spelling bees have made enormous gains in pop-culture significance in the last, say, ten years. Or maybe it's 12 years, because the first big spelling-bee splash of my lifetime came in 1997, when the utterly unique Rebecca Sealfont spelled "euonym" to win the Bee. Everybody was talking about Rebecca, and this was before the Internet was what it is today, and before there was YouTube to show her to you.

Since then, we've had the wonderful documentary Spellbound, the hokey but endearing Akeelah And The Bee, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway, and much, much more.

And now, we've reached the point where ESPN will be showing the national semifinals at 10:00 a.m., followed by the prime-time telecast hosted by my hands-down favorite TV host, Tom Bergeron (who usually handles things over at Dancing With The Stars).

And there are good reasons to tune in.

"Very, very bright and unusual," after the jump...

Continue reading "The Oddly Addictive Spectacle Of The National Spelling Bee" »

7:55 AM ET | 05-28-2009 | permalink

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'The Goode Family': Mike Judge's Disappointing New Comedy

The Goode Family: Mike Judge has made some good satirical projects, but this is not one of them. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

At my recent college reunion, my friends and I were confronted by water-conserving toilets that invited you to either pull the handle up or push the handle down, which resulted in a stronger or weaker flush in accordance with what the posted signs termed "your needs." I'm no stranger to the fact that there is much amusement to be had at the expense of the most self-consciously noble ideas.

Still, The Goode Family, the new animated comedy from Mike Judge that premieres tonight on ABC, mines surprisingly few laughs from its subject: the environmentally fanatical, hypersensitive vegans of the title. (The marketing makes heavy use of the term "politically correct," which has pretty much lost all meaning at this point due to overuse, but that's the idea.)

Where a good satirist goes wrong, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Goode Family': Mike Judge's Disappointing New Comedy" »

8:13 AM ET | 05-27-2009 | permalink

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The 'Designing Women' Game: Write Your Own Julia Rant

by Linda Holmes

In honor of today's release of the first season of Designing Women on DVD, it's time to write your own Julia Sugarbaker rant (like the one seen above).

As you know if you ever watched this show, its signature moment was sending Julia (Dixie Carter) on some incredibly indignant rant, at the end of which there would be thunderous applause. Now, in the spirit of Mad Libs, you can write your very own.

The game is simple. Grab something to write with (or, you know, open a blank document) and write a list of the following twenty things, which you will later plug into your rant. After the jump, we'll show you where they go. And if you think your rant is particularly good, don't forget to post your favorite parts in the comments.

(Unfortunately, it's about a paragraph too long to fit the whole thing in a comment -- it wouldn't be a Julia rant if it weren't, so snip judiciously.)

The items:

AN APPETIZER
A FAMOUS CRIMINAL
AN INEXPENSIVE RETAILER
A SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY
A METAL
A BREAKFAST CEREAL
AN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM
A POPULAR GADGET
A JUNK FOOD
A REALITY SHOW
A KIND OF CANDY
A SPORTING EVENT
A HISTORICAL FIGURE NAMED "JOHN"
A CELEBRITY NAMED "JOHN"
AN ARTICLE OF CLOTHING
A HOME ELECTRONICS COMPONENT
A CHAIN RESTAURANT
A CITY IN THE SOUTHERN U.S.
A POPULAR TOY
A LITERARY FIGURE

Your results, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Designing Women' Game: Write Your Own Julia Rant" »

9:02 AM ET | 05-26-2009 | permalink

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Five Shows To Try This Summer

by Linda Holmes

To the degree there's still a regular television season, it's basically over now. And yes, if your favorite shows are ending, you can use that time for gardening or going to the movies or sitting in a hammock with your feet up; seeing the sun is important.

Furthermore, pop-culture-wise, spring belongs to television finales and summer belongs to big movies, and that shift will happen with or without you, or me, or any of us.

But there are also people who use the summer to become viewers of the good things they've been missing, and it's easier than ever. It used to be that you had to hope for well-timed reruns to catch up, but now you can rent or buy DVDs, use Amazon or iTunes, watch online from free network sites, or try a variety of other methods if you want to upgrade the quality of what you watch.

So here, in particular order, are a few things you might try between now and the start of the fall season, during the time when even deciding you don't want to see the sun doesn't mean you should watch I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! just because that's what's on.

The shows, after the jump...

Continue reading "Five Shows To Try This Summer" »

6:13 AM ET | 05-22-2009 | permalink

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Earning The Victory: Five Things Your 'Idol' Winner Did Right

American Idol: Kris Allen, center, is your new champion — but what did he do to earn the title?Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

By now, you have probably heard that Kris Allen won this year's American Idol. You may also have participated in one of the many raging battles about whether his final-round opponent, Adam Lambert, was robbed.

If you haven't, feel free to pop down after the jump, where we'll talk about the fact that there are some very good arguments to support the case that the right guy came out on top.

Five things done right to plant the crown where it wound up, after the jump...

Continue reading "Earning The Victory: Five Things Your 'Idol' Winner Did Right" »

10:54 PM ET | 05-20-2009 | permalink

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Question: Who's the Longest-Running Fictional Character Ever?

Long-running fictional characters: Sure, there are a lot of candidates, but who takes the prize? iStockphoto.com

 

by Glen Weldon

"Longest running" is open to interpretation, so let's define our terms:

In any medium, what character has been consistently featured in continuous new adventures over the longest stretch of time?

Got that? Just the three criteria, here:

Consistent:

Makes regularly scheduled appearances — no yawning gaps between adventures.

Continuous:

The character's adventures form a central narrative that builds on what has gone before. (Read: Katzenjammer Kids, I know you've been around a long time, but you're a gag strip, not an ongoing narrative. Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts.)

New:

The constant churning out of fresh content, not simply adaptations, retellings or reprints.

So: Guesses?

After the jump: We review the top contenders, provide The Answer, and explain why The Neverending Story should really have been a horror film.

Continue reading "Question: Who's the Longest-Running Fictional Character Ever?" »

11:59 AM ET | 05-20-2009 | permalink

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One Of The Sort-Of 'Stars' Won That 'Dancing' Show Last Night

Dancing for recognition: The Dancing With The Stars judges weren't very helpful in crowning the winner, since they gave out so many perfect 10s, but the viewer voting was there to fill in the blanks. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

Between the network up-fronts and the slew of season finales, it's a TV-heavy time, I understand. But suppose you are trapped Memorial Day weekend in a conversation in which people are discussing their favorite moments of this season of Dancing With The Stars. Don't you want to be able to contribute?

Okay, "contribute" is a strong word. "Comprehend"?

"Feign interest"?

Whatever, whatever. The eighth season of one of the highest-rated shows on television came to an end last night as Shawn Johnson (who is actually sort of famous in that she is an Olympic gymnast), Gilles Marini (who is a tiny bit famous in that he was the naked guy in Sex And The City who barely did anything except shower), and Melissa Rycroft (who is briefly famous for being dumped at the very end of The Bachelor) faced off for the right to claim a very, very ugly trophy.

Seriously, it may be the ugliest award on television. It may be uglier than the award Melissa almost won on The Bachelor, which you will recall was a highly suspect engagement to a sketchy dude who could not shut up about following his heart.

But someone still won it.

Who won, and the dance that took the trophy, after the jump...

Continue reading "One Of The Sort-Of 'Stars' Won That 'Dancing' Show Last Night" »

8:53 AM ET | 05-20-2009 | permalink

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Fox's 'Glee': We Admit, It Makes Us Feel Kind Of...Gleeful

by Mark Blankenship

As I write this, it's been approximately sixteen seconds since the pilot episode of Glee -- Fox's new comedy about a high school teacher trying to redeem himself and his students by coaching their glee club -- finished airing on the east coast.

Already, the cast rendition of Journey's masterpiece "Don't Stop Believin'" is top five on the iTunes sales chart. Already, I've seen 400 Facebook status updates and 43,000 tweets about the show. What will happen when it airs in California? Will the Lakers spell the word "GLEE" on the basketball court?

Considering the publicity blitzkrieg they've launched for this thing, Fox execs have got to be sobbing for joy. And lord knows, from the moment I heard about this series, created by Nip/Tuck's Ryan Murphy, I wanted it to succeed. Sure, the dorks-make-good premise smacked of Election and Saved! and every other teen narrative, but the commercials suggested Glee could be the Platonic ideal of those familiar parts.

It has some growing to do, but after watching the first episode, I'm delighted to report that overall, Glee lives up to its hype.

Jane Lynch, complex neat freaks, and taking theater very, very seriously, after the jump...

Continue reading "Fox's 'Glee': We Admit, It Makes Us Feel Kind Of...Gleeful" »

8:49 AM ET | 05-20-2009 | permalink

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The Surprising Kris Allen: The Little Idol Who Could...And Should

Kris Allen: He was understandably shocked that he made it into the final two, and so were a lot of other people. Fox

 

by Marc Hirsh

As we go into the final week of American Idol (the last performance show airs tonight, with the winner announced tomorrow), the hysteria surrounding the show reaches a fever pitch as visions of management contracts, recording careers and bragging rights swirl through everyone's heads.

One thing that can be easily forgotten in all of this is that it's a television show. And that's why Kris Allen should win.

Why the wee Arkansan's victory would make better television, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Surprising Kris Allen: The Little Idol Who Could...And Should" »

11:06 AM ET | 05-19-2009 | permalink

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'Cougar Town' And Other Depressing 'New' Sitcom Ideas

Cougar Town: ABC has an idea to bring Courteney Cox back to television. Or...an "idea," anyway. Jason Merritt/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Network upfront week continues today, and the latest network to release its official fall schedule is ABC, which is getting notice primarily for introducing a Wednesday-night sitcom block.

And what do these new comedies have in common? All four of them star the sitcom stars of the '80s and '90s. And all four of them kind of look...terrible. Let's check the list.

Continue reading "'Cougar Town' And Other Depressing 'New' Sitcom Ideas" »

9:04 AM ET | 05-19-2009 | permalink

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Does Bringing Back 'Chuck' Mean A New Network Model?

Chuck: Don't look so serious, Zachary Levi. Your show is apparently on the way back.NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

Update: In not at all good news, ABC has apparently scrapped the budget-cutting plan outlined here for Samantha Who?, and has canceled it. Boo.

Networks may be getting almost exclusively bad news about audience erosion and the slow leak of viewers going to cable, but they're managing to hand out some good news to fans.

If you've been following the saga of NBC's Chuck and the endearingly insane fan campaign to get it renewed, you've probably already heard that there have been increasing drumbeats pointing to a renewal. Last night, Entertainment Weekly and some other outlets reported that it's now a done deal.

The order is for 13 episodes rather than what was once the standard 22-episode full season (though more and more shows are on unusual schedules), and the network is cutting the budget (who isn't?). But for people who are attached to this sweet, weird show that is so visibly a labor of love -- if any star has ever done anything any more adorable in support of his show than Zachary Levi leading hundreds of fans to Subway to participate in the Save Chuck campaign, I've never seen it -- it's a lot better than nothing.

And it looks like it might be the beginning of a larger shift, because it's not just Chuck.

Joss Whedon and the possible end of the hit-churning cycle, after the jump...

Continue reading "Does Bringing Back 'Chuck' Mean A New Network Model?" »

9:27 AM ET | 05-18-2009 | permalink

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The Celebrity Benefit Of Your Fevered Dreams: Kidney Now!

by Linda Holmes

There was much to love in last night's 30 Rock season finale, but perhaps nothing was quite as satisfying as the "We Are The World"-style songfest that Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) organized to try to find a kidney for his newly discovered biological father, Milton Greene (Alan Alda). (Find the song at about the 17:40 mark of this clip.)

Yes, that's Sheryl Crow, and Mary J. Blige, and Elvis Costello, and Cyndi Lauper, and Moby, and Rhett Miller, and some other people (not all of whom are mentioned in that link).

For some reason, they left off the name of Clay Aiken, who got probably the best joke of the episode, when it was revealed that he's the Kenneth The Page's cousin. Well, of course he is.

1:16 PM ET | 05-15-2009 | permalink

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The 'Lost' Season Finale: Quantifying The Love-Hate Factor

Lost: Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), and Kate (Evangeline Lily) were only three of the many characters tied up in last night's season finale, which we loved ten times and hated ten times. We can explain. ABC

 

by Glenn McDonald

ABC's Lost wrapped up its fifth season last night in typical fashion, with an ambitiously irritating (or is that irritatingly ambitious?) season finale. My love/hate relationship with the show continues to grow. Nothing else on TV elicits such strong reactions from my spot in the recliner, and I suppose that's what it's finally all about.

Here, I present a mathematical breakdown of last night's top ten and bottom ten moments.

Warning: Lots of insider-y fanspeak, arcane references, and several dozen spoilers dead ahead.

The top ten moments of the finale, and the bottom ten, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Lost' Season Finale: Quantifying The Love-Hate Factor" »

4:30 PM ET | 05-14-2009 | permalink

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Finale-Palooza: On One Crowded Night, Eleven Seasons End

30 Rock: Tina Fey's beloved Emmy-winner is only one of 11 network shows ending seasons tonight. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

It's hard to identify the end of the regular TV season anymore, what with the proliferation of cable channels and the rise of split seasons, partial seasons, half-year reality shows, and everything else that has unraveled traditional scheduling.

(Fun fact: According to The Futon Critic's wonderful listing system, there have been only three nights so far in all of 2009 that didn't feature either a season/series finale or a season/series premiere somewhere on the dial.)

But if you had to pick one night to represent the end of the 2008-09 season, it would probably be tonight, when eleven network series will depart for the time being.

The roll call: Bones, My Name Is Earl, Parks and Recreation, Smallville, CSI, The Office, 30 Rock, Grey's Anatomy, Hell's Kitchen, Supernatural, and CSI: NY.

What to watch?

We run down some thoughts, after the jump...

Continue reading "Finale-Palooza: On One Crowded Night, Eleven Seasons End" »

9:18 AM ET | 05-14-2009 | permalink

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Finding The Hidden Snack Breaks In Your Favorite TV Shows

by Linda Holmes

Many of us have DVRs these days, so we can pause live television whenever we like, should we suddenly have the urge to fetch some celery sticks or a nonfat yogurt. Or, you know, something less healthy. For those who don't watch their TV that way, there are always commercials, right?

But what if you don't have a DVR and you love commercials? What if you can't tear yourself away from the latest adventures of the Geico gecko but you're craving some Pringles?

This is where you must become your own investigator and locate the hidden snack breaks within your favorite shows.

1. American Idol: When the judges are talking.

As soon as you hear Randy Jackson say "Yo yo yo," leap from your seat and run for the kitchen. Make sure you have a drink in your hand by the time Paula starts talking. (Ironic, I know.) This schedule should land you back in your place on the couch by the time Simon receives a round of lusty booing suitable for a disliked European monarch.

2. House: When someone says it might be an autoimmune disorder.

House almost always features one medical fake-out about halfway through the show, where they think they've figured out what's wrong with the patient (fell and got a bicycle lodged in his esophagus!), and then they later learn that it can't be that (turns out he couldn't ride a bicycle!). Often, this misdirection has something to do with an autoimmune disorder. You can microwave a baked potato while they sort it out.

Three more, and your chance to contribute, after the jump...

Continue reading "Finding The Hidden Snack Breaks In Your Favorite TV Shows" »

12:16 PM ET | 05-13-2009 | permalink

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Why I Admire 'Lost' For Dumping Me Over My Failure To Commit

Lost: Michael Emerson's Ben Linus is only one of many characters this season forced me to lose track of. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

Tonight marks the finale of the penultimate season of Lost, ABC's Emmy-winning drama that has, over five seasons, constructed a story so complicated that it makes the black-oil mythology of The X-Files look like an episode of Full House.

Sadly, sometime this season, the show dumped me, because I wouldn't commit.

Let's back up.

Once a hyper-dramatic Gilligan's Island, where the main concerns were survival and ideally escape (at times, all that was missing was the coconut radio), Lost is now a maze of allegories and coincidences and time travel and shadowy villains who may or may not even manifest as human beings.

But while the show's critical acclaim has rebounded after a drop around the beginning of the third season, the ratings have slid from an average of about 16 million viewers in the first season to about 11 million in this one.

And in truth, more than ever, it's designed and built to only lose viewers over time, and to weed out the wimps. The wimps like me.

Changing my mind about an old theory, sort of, and some "spoilers" about what I can decipher of the current season, after the jump...

Continue reading "Why I Admire 'Lost' For Dumping Me Over My Failure To Commit" »

8:29 AM ET | 05-13-2009 | permalink

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Ten Ways Real Moms Are Much Better Than TV Moms

by Linda Holmes

For some reason, people really idealize TV moms. "June Cleaver" this and "Clair Huxtable" that, like we'd all be so lucky if we just had the moms people have on TV.

This attitude gravely underestimates the dark side of the TV mom. So in honor of Mother's Day, let's look at ten of the many reasons your real mom is better than a TV mom.

1. Your real mom would never encourage you to grotesquely humiliate yourself in a recording studio.

Look at this. Seriously. Look at it. Carol Brady has absolutely no compunction about standing there, bopping her blonde head, as her children commit to tape a song that will live in infamy, while wearing clothes suitable for some kind of documentary about The Unclaimed Clothing Of The Seventh Circle Of The Thrift Store.

Who bought Peter that shirt? His mom, in all likelihood. His spiteful, unfeeling mom. And what is Cindy? An eight-year-old go-go dancer? Nice boots, "Mom." (For a real-life counterargument, see Thanks, Mom at NPR's Picture Show photoblog.)

This is not to even mention how many times you would have to kill me before I would sing the line "Every boy's a man inside / a girl's a woman, too" in front of my mother. My mother and I keep that sort of thing to ourselves.

Letting the handyman hang out, forgetting about you entirely, and other things your real mom would probably never do, after the jump...

Continue reading "Ten Ways Real Moms Are Much Better Than TV Moms" »

9:21 AM ET | 05- 8-2009 | permalink

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The Appeal Of Origin Stories: Of Kirk, Locke, And Wolverine

Star Trek: The new J.J. Abrams film is only one of a recent spate of successful origin stories that advance the story by retreating. Paramount Pictures

 

by Mark Blankenship

These days, whether at the movies or on television, you can't swing a cat without hitting an origin story.

The current season of Lost has focused on how the Dharma Initiative and Ben Linus began, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine reveals its point of view right there in the title.

And of course, half the allure of J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek film, opening today, is its promise to show us how Kirk and Spock met, how Uhura got her job, and so forth.

But these are more than just origin stories. All three properties are interrupting the chronology of long-running narratives to tell us how things began. And since none of them started their stories at square one to begin with, many of us are learning the early histories of popular characters for the very first time.

That's especially true for people like me, who rely on movies to get their X-Men information, and who aren't so deep into Star Trek lore that they'll read a novelization about Kirk and Spock's teenage years.

So why is this type of origin tale so satisfying? Why is it interesting to begin a narrative in medias res, then suddenly bounce back to the beginning?

(SPOILERS AHEAD!) (For Lost thus far and for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, that is. We won't spoil Star Trek.)

Why origin stories are so appealing, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Appeal Of Origin Stories: Of Kirk, Locke, And Wolverine" »

8:02 AM ET | 05- 8-2009 | permalink

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'30 Rock': The Question Is Temptation, Not Partisan Politics

by Linda Holmes

One of the interesting entertainment discussion points of the week has been a Slate piece by Jonah Weiner, arguing that 30 Rock has a "weird conservative streak" (to quote the subhead).

Weiner argues that 30 Rock often shows the liberal politics of Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) to be less effective or less realistic than the conservative politics of her boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). He says: "Liz's would-be adolescent paradise--and, with it, her liberal-feminist instincts--is ultimately cast as a neurosis she needs to escape, lest she die alone and unloved in her apartment, choking on a sandwich."

The problem with this thesis is that the show isn't about politics, either liberal or conservative. If it has a theme -- and it's hazardous to insist that a show like this actually does, when its top priority is so clearly to get laughs -- that theme is temptation, and whatever it says about politics circles right back to the things that tempt Liz to do things that, for whatever reason, she knows she shouldn't.

What makes 30 Rock tick and what doesn't, after the jump...

Continue reading "'30 Rock': The Question Is Temptation, Not Partisan Politics" »

1:25 PM ET | 05- 7-2009 | permalink

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Lessons Learned From The Great Free-Chicken Fiasco Of 2009

Oprah's giveaway: She undoubtedly meant it as a more positive event than it has turned out to be thus far. Katy Winn/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Oprah Winfrey probably thought she would see nothing but an explosion of gratitude when she tried to treat the entire Internet to two pieces of KFC's new Kentucky Grilled Chicken by promoting a downloadable coupon (no longer available) that could be redeemed at "participating restaurants." Little did she realize.

It appears that nobody has learned yet that we love free stuff.

Disaster strikes, after the jump...

Continue reading "Lessons Learned From The Great Free-Chicken Fiasco Of 2009" »

8:40 AM ET | 05- 7-2009 | permalink

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Emmys Prepare To Snub Post- Katrina Drama From 'Wire' Guy

Treme: David Simon's new show will feature Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters, both of whom were on a show called The Wire, which you may have heard of. Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

It's been a little over a year since The Wire ended its five-season run on HBO — with nary an Emmy to its name, and with some critics calling it the best show in the history of television.

And now, much to the delight of everyone who doesn't find watching C.S.I. quite the same, The Wire's creator, David Simon, will bring a new series to HBO this fall.

Treme is a drama following musicians in a post-Katrina New Orleans, and Bunk fans will be happy to know that Wendell Pierce is heading up the show. Clarke Peters, whom you may know as Lester Freamon, will be on hand as well.

(If you don't know what "Treme" means, it's a New Orleans neighborhood.)

The rest of the cast is not a collection of slouches, either: Melissa Leo was Oscar-nominated for Frozen River; Steve Zahn is one of the most oddly energetic actors working; and Khandi Alexander was in Simon's Wire precursor The Corner, but was also hilarious on NewsRadio.

5:23 PM ET | 05- 6-2009 | permalink

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Culturetopia: Must-Listen Arts & Entertainment (Princess Edition)

by Linda Holmes

If it's Wednesday, this must be Culturetopia we're in. Yup, it's time for NPR's weekly arts-etcetera podcast, a roundup of our favorite NPR arts and entertainment stories from last week.

In this week's installment, arts reporter (and jazz enthusiast) Felix Contreras and I talked about:

• the Hunt For Gollum fan video released this past weekend;

• Anika Noni Rose's upcoming gig as a Disney princess;

• Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview with Gabriel Byrne of HBO's In Treatment;

• author Colm Toibin's new novel Brooklyn, about a journey from Ireland to ... well, Brooklyn;

• a recent installment of the NPR Music jazz-sampler series Take Five, in which NPR editor Tom Cole talks about the recordings that introduced him to the genre;

• a commemorative ride on New York City's fabled A train, to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of "Take The A Train" composer Duke Ellington; and

• from right here at Monkey See, the amazing kids of the PS 22 chorus, with their performance of "Eye Of The Tiger."

Sound good? Have a listen right here, if you like:

Or if automation is your thing, subscribe to Culturetopia from its podcast home page.

If you have reactions to the new podcast, please let us know below. What works for you, what doesn't?

2:20 PM ET | 05- 6-2009 | permalink

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NBC Throws A Butterfly Net Over Mindy Kaling Of 'The Office'

Mindy Kaling: After demonstrating her chops on The Office, she's getting a deal for her own show. Michael Buckner/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

Just last week, while writing the post about Bea Arthur and the changes in the landscape for women in comedy, I thought about Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly Kapoor in NBC's The Office and is also one of the show's writers.

And I thought, "How does Mindy Kaling not have her own show? If Mindy Kaling were an equally talented fellow, I believe she would have her own show."

So: Big points to NBC for wisely signing her to a deal that will allow her to develop her own comedy show while (whew!) she remains on The Office, at least for the moment.

Between its deals with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler (whose Parks and Recreation was recently renewed), and now Kaling, it certainly seems like NBC could wind up as the smart-lady comedy network, and considering how close they have seemed in recent seasons to becoming the Howie Mandel network, that's a step in the right direction.

More generally, there's been a definite drop-off in the number of comedies available on the networks in recent seasons, but if the economy doesn't improve and people increasingly seek out pleasant distractions, that could change. If it did, where would you turn for new material? Who else should get his or her own show?

8:51 AM ET | 05- 6-2009 | permalink

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The Unsung, Underpaid, Eternally Hopeful Late-Night Writers

Jay Leno: Just one of the participants in an unappealing practice the Los Angeles Times wrote about yesterday. NBC Universal

 

by Linda Holmes

When you watch a standard late-night talk show — maybe you like David Letterman, or maybe you're more of a Jay Leno person, or maybe, like me, you're into the new Jimmy Fallon show — and you hear a joke you like, where do you assume it came from?

The obvious answer would be ... the writers, right? The ones who are in the credits, the ones who compete for Emmys every year?

As The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, the answer might be more like, "Some guy who isn't getting any credit and is being paid $75 for his trouble."

Of course, not giving credit to the freelancers they're using naturally creates the impression that the jokes are being written by the credited writers. What else would you assume, if you didn't know this was standard practice?

One way to look at this is that everybody participates voluntarily. The freelancers the Times spoke to didn't seem to be all that concerned about it; one was convinced it helped him get other jobs, and anyone who's ever done anything she loved for very little money might recognize herself in the story of how he photocopied the first check he ever got for writing for David Letterman.

But the other way of looking at it is that this practice is massively exploitative, that it's essentially taking advantage of people's desire to feel validated and to get attention. As the Daily Show producer quoted in the story speculates — they don't use freelancers on that show, by the way — there's a risk that shows are "stringing them along" with the suggestion that all that work will earn them a staff job, when it won't.

(The piece doesn't mention whether anyone has ever hired a staff writer this way; it would be interesting to know.)

Conan O'Brien, the union angle, and the pride of the comedian, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Unsung, Underpaid, Eternally Hopeful Late-Night Writers" »

8:08 AM ET | 05- 5-2009 | permalink

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A Comedy Preview With Comedy: NBC Unveils 'Community'

by Linda Holmes

NBC gave its "upfront" presentation today...sort of. Normally, this is where you would get the fall schedule, and for those of you who have been following the fate of the ratings-challenged, critically adored, bubble-riding Chuck, this is when the answer should have come.

It didn't. Instead, the network unveiled some new shows, renewed some existing shows (among them the recently launched Parks and Recreation and Southland), and told fans of Chuck and Law & Order that they'd have to wait for final answers.

The new series include medical dramas called Trauma and Mercy (please note that Trauma And Mercy would make a pretty good name for your indie band, if you are looking), but the posted preview that grabs my attention is for a comedy called Community. Because...it actually looks funny.

A curious pedigree and the charmed life of the E! host, after the jump...

Continue reading "A Comedy Preview With Comedy: NBC Unveils 'Community'" »

11:07 AM ET | 05- 4-2009 | permalink

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On Campy 'Harper's Island,' Weekly Murders Are Hilarious!

by Mark Blankenship

If it had aired in the 1980s, then Harper's Island, CBS' murder-mystery series (moving from Thursdays to Saturdays as of this weekend), might have been lambasted for ruining America with its onscreen violence and macabre plot about a mysterious killer who picks off a guest at a fancy resort wedding every week.

On paper, the show certainly sounds shocking. The killer's victims -- who include a host of townie redshirts, as well as one principal character per week -- die in gruesome ways. In the pilot episode, Harry Hamlin, playing the drunkard uncle of a poor-boy groom marrying his wealthy childhood sweetheart, got his entire lower body hacked off. The next week, a priest got beheaded while hanging upside down from a tree.

And yet... the show isn't shocking it's all. It's actually kind of... funny.

Hear us out, after the jump...

Continue reading "On Campy 'Harper's Island,' Weekly Murders Are Hilarious!" »

10:57 AM ET | 05- 1-2009 | permalink

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Is This Significant?: Disney/ABC Content Is Coming To Hulu

Grey's Anatomy: Just one of the ABC shows on its way to Hulu. But does it matter? ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

Today, we learned that ABC shows, as well as some other Disney-controlled content, will be coming to Hulu.com. Until now, ABC shows have been available primarily through the network's own site, ABC.com.

That means that, with NBC and Fox having been the original partners, of the four major broadcast networks, only CBS is staying out of the Hulu deal. (They stream episodes of some shows -- though not as many as other networks -- at both CBS.com and TV.com.)

So: Is this significant?

The interface, the selection, and strength in numbers, after the jump...

Continue reading "Is This Significant?: Disney/ABC Content Is Coming To Hulu" »

3:45 PM ET | 04-30-2009 | permalink

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'The Office': As Season 5 Wraps, It Looks Like Character Counts

by Linda Holmes

As the fifth season of The Office comes to a close (there are three new episodes left, including tonight's "Casual Friday"), it's beginning to look like this is going to be the series' most successful season ever for character-driven stories, if not for hilarious comedy.

If Season 1 (which only had six episodes) was the season where Michael Scott's precise level of social clumsiness was being calibrated, and Season 2 was the season that set up the relationships that would drive the show, and Season 3 was the season that focused most heavily on resolving the Jim/Pam romance, and Season 4 was the season that was impressive just for surviving the writers' strike and the resolution of the show's most prominent sexual-tension storyline, Season 5 has been the one that has most satisfyingly paid off the stories that the writers have been telling all along.

Why this is the best season ever if you like your characters built to last, after the jump...

Continue reading "'The Office': As Season 5 Wraps, It Looks Like Character Counts" »

10:15 AM ET | 04-30-2009 | permalink

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You Can Tell Me: Too Early To Be Tired Of 'Sex And The City 2'?

by Linda Holmes

Disclosures: I was not a fan of Sex And The City when it was on TV. I thought the women were shallow, dumb, and much more similar to each other in temperament and personality than the "She's the craaaazy one! She's the sweet one!" lineup recognized. (Running the gamut from A to B, as to steal from Dorothy Parker.) I did not see anything relatable in any of them, ever, at any time.

Caveats to disclosures: During its TV lifetime, I wasn't a person who cared about clothes, or a person who had ever lived in New York, or a person who would ever kick John Corbett to the curb.

I did eventually watch a good part of the show's run, and I enjoyed it...occasionally, I guess? It was diverting enough, though I still never liked any of the women, and I still didn't care about clothes. Once I had lived in New York, though, I did find rather hilarious the way that in their world, living in the dreaded "Brooklyn" is the rough equivalent of living at the bottom of a vat of industrial waste and everyone in the entire city of New York thinks so.

I saw the movie, and it was...about what I expected. Absurd, breezy, full of women making very bad choices about relationships that are presented as freeing.

Now that casting news is rolling in about the sequel, is it too early to dread it?

Is it too early to dread the endless insistence that it resonated with every woman, that we all sat around for years discussing with our friends whether we were a Charlotte or a Miranda, and that we all rooted for Carrie to get together with the unreliable, emotionally unavailable, infantile Mr. Big? Is it too early to be sick of hearing the words "Mr. Big"?

I always kind of thought the best thing that could happen to Carrie would be the disappearance of that guy into witness protection. But then, I didn't want Ross and Rachel to end up together, either.

Most of all, is it too early to declare my entire brain a Jimmy-Choo-free zone? Because we've got a long way to go yet, and we need to pace ourselves.

1:57 PM ET | 04-29-2009 | permalink

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Neil Patrick Harris Amazes Jimmy Fallon: Take That, Magic!

by Linda Holmes

If you are a fan of Neil Patrick Harris, you probably know that he's an accomplished magician -- it's just one of the many things about him that can only be described as...awesome.

In this clip, he does a card trick for Jimmy Fallon, and even though you can sort of see the trajectory of it, and in a sense, the surprise at the end of something like this can never be a surprise, it's still utterly delightful. This has been kicking around online for a few days, but it's a rainy day where I am, and nothing solves a rainy day like Neil Patrick Harris doing a card trick.

Hat-tip to Lora.

12:57 PM ET | 04-29-2009 | permalink

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The Supreme Court Lays Down The Big Bleep On Live Television

Don't say it: Watch your mouth, or you might cost a broadcast network a lot of money. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

As you may have already read, the United States Supreme Court has announced, sort of, that it's got the FCC's back as the commission attempts to fine broadcasters for isolated smatterings of profanity.

(OK, technically, SCOTUS reversed a lower court ruling that had put the kibosh on the FCC's plan. And it hasn't really signed off on what the FCC wants to do. But still.)

Believe it or not, this all goes back to Cher and Bono and Nicole Richie swearing on live television, with a cultural (if not legal) assist from Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl.

What's it going to mean for live television? More tape delays, possibly, at least for the moment. But keep in mind that here, they've only rejected the conclusion that the FCC's decision — to start policing fleeting expletives when it hadn't before — was made without enough notice and enough explanation. They haven't yet decided whether it's ultimately unconstitutional to fine broadcasters for fleeting expletives.

The highlight of Justice Scalia's opinion from a lively-writing standpoint comes when he rejects the dissenters' argument that small-town broadcasters could be severely harmed by large fines for isolated incidents where someone swears:

We doubt, to begin with, that small-town broadcasters run a heightened risk of liability for indecent utterances. In programming that they originate, their down-home local guests probably employ vulgarity less than big-city folks; and small-town stations generally cannot afford or cannot attract foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood.

Bet you didn't even know "glitteratae" was a word. Now you do.

So now, there will be more questions about the FCC's authority — and, of course, there's a new administration, which will change the game anyway, since commissioners are appointed by the President. But until this is ironed out, you may see more live awards shows with tape delays — or, perhaps, see them moved to cable.

You may even see changes on other live shows, depending on how skittish broadcasters feel about Jane Fonda letting a shocker slip on The Today Show a while back.

12:06 PM ET | 04-28-2009 | permalink

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Fundamental Plot Truths: Spoilers And The Bonnie Bedelia Rule

Bonnie Bedelia: She can help you decipher the trickiest movie plots. Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

This entry will spoil the ending of Presumed Innocent, a so-so Harrison Ford movie from 1990, as well as the conclusion of last night's episode of ABC's Castle. (I realize that seems impossible. I assure you, it is not.)

Most Excellent UPDATE (thanks to Kim from NPR): Okay. So I watched that episode and distinctly heard them say both "WD-40" and "motor oil," and I was totally confused, because I didn't think WD-40 was motor oil, but that's what they said, so I went with it. Except they didn't, of course, say that; they said "10W-40." And that IS motor oil. Thank you for your indulgence, those of you who tolerated my bafflement. I apologize profusely. As Kim pointed out, it would have been quite the devoted murderer spraying a little bottle of WD-40 into a bathtub until it was full. Oh, television.

Last night, while enjoying an episode of ABC's banter-heavy crime procedural Castle in the company of my parents, I found myself explaining something called the Bonnie Bedelia Rule.

In this episode, a woman was drowned in a bathtub full of motor oil (I don't think anyone who makes 10W-40 paid for that particular product placement), and one of the witnesses who was interviewed early was played by Susan Ruttan, who once played Roxanne on L.A. Law. Ruttan had about three lines, and then the story moved on.

"Now," I said, "she is going to turn out to be the killer, according to the Bonnie Bedelia Rule."

The rule, after the jump...

Continue reading "Fundamental Plot Truths: Spoilers And The Bonnie Bedelia Rule" »

9:45 AM ET | 04-28-2009 | permalink

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Missing Bea Arthur

by Linda Holmes

The death of Bea Arthur on Saturday broke my sitcom-watcher's heart, and also got me thinking about this fact: The Golden Girls ran from 1985 to 1992; Designing Women ran from 1986 to 1993; Murphy Brown ran from 1988 to 1998. That means that from 1988 to 1992, all three of these shows were on at the same time.

Ninety minutes of prime time given over to comedy driven by a total of nine mouthy women (that's a compliment), six of whom were over 40. (All the Girls, Candice Bergen, and Dixie Carter.)

How things have changed, after the jump...

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8:58 AM ET | 04-27-2009 | permalink

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What Reality Does Best: Great Moments In 'Survivor' Comeuppance

by Linda Holmes

[This post contains spoilers for last night's episode of Survivor, as well as for past seasons. Do not assume that means a titular moment did or did not take place last night; I could be either noting such a moment or pining for one and lamenting its absence.]

Some people like byzantine plotting, some people like challenges and some people like watching bartenders eat rice. (There's no accounting for taste.)

For me, the No. 1 reason to watch Survivor is comeuppance for bullies, whether in the form of traditional big bully types or teeny, mean women. If you've ever wondered how people can possibly be devoted to this show, which is now in its 18th season, I'm telling you: This is why.

Nowhere on television have so many utter jerks been vanquished, even as -- admittedly -- other jerks escape punishment. It is, at its best, a visceral moment of figurative sucker-punching in a way that bothers the bully but does not harm him or her, so you can enjoy it fully without guilt. As a viewer, you don't actually want any harm to come to anyone, but you don't mind seeing good triumph over evil, just for this brief moment.

Let's get to it.

1. Edgardo, Survivor: Fiji

For my money, this is the best bully-punch of all time. The best. Unfortunately, the clip above does not include the moment, captured on film, when Edgardo -- who was part of an alliance of morons that actually called itself "The Four Horsemen" because it has "four" and "men" in it, not realizing that this meant they should technically be arguing over who was Pestilence -- realized he was going down. His face deflated like a popped balloon and then melted spectacularly in horror.

It only made his exit sweeter that it was preceded by a preposterously convoluted series of movements and counter-movements, roughly comparable to a baseball game in which the third-base coach is also the umpire and is also pitching for the other team while wearing a fake mustache.

More merriment, after the jump...

Continue reading "What Reality Does Best: Great Moments In 'Survivor' Comeuppance" »

8:31 AM ET | 04-24-2009 | permalink

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Eight Weeks In, Jimmy Fallon's Show Is... Actually Kind Of Great

by Linda Holmes

Jimmy Fallon has been the host of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon for eight weeks now, and since his uneven debut, he's developed his own interviewing style and learned to make the most of the rest of the hour, to the point where the show makes a pretty good companion if you happen to be up at 12:30 in the morning.

In the clip above, Fallon goes out in Times Square and gets people to do their celebrity impressions. Unlike Jay Leno's obnoxious "Jaywalking" segments, where the objective is to get people to be idiots in order to make the audience feel smug, the objective here is actually to find ordinary people walking around Times Square who do amusing impressions. Not all of them are good, but the idea isn't to humiliate. In a lot of ways, this is what Fallon's show has going for it in terms of tone: It's a surprisingly warm, inclusive, everybody-wins kind of comedy.

The best asset it's turned out Fallon has -- other than his band The Roots, on whom he wisely continues to lean heavily -- is that he's relentlessly game. Bad late-night interviews chug along predictably, with the guest telling two or three stories that have obviously been set up in advance, and you get the feeling that you're witnessing a conversation that's fully rehearsed ahead of time.

Fallon and one of his celebrity guests disappear down the rabbit hole, after the jump...

Continue reading "Eight Weeks In, Jimmy Fallon's Show Is... Actually Kind Of Great" »

9:11 AM ET | 04-23-2009 | permalink

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Grab Your Popcorn; The Music Experts Are 'Idol'-Fighting!

Adam Lambert: He's currently the hot topic over at All Songs Considered. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

I wanted to make sure none of you missed the fantastic discussion currently going on in the All Songs Considered blog -- right here! -- regarding American Idol. Normally, I would let the Adam Lambert issue rest after last week, but when I heard a listen to Adam's "If I Can't Have You" hilariously described as "the worst minute and 45 seconds of [Bob Boilen's] life," I knew you had to see it for yourself.

What makes this marvelous is not that Bob hated the performance -- or even that Bob thought Paula Abdul was Adam's mother (as the comments reveal) (okay, it's partly that). What makes it marvelous is simply that people who watch that show regularly can easily start thinking of the contestants in a way that separates them from the context in which they will one day have to compete.

When you hear people referred to enough times as enormously important artists of the future, it's easy to forget that to people who don't watch the show, who are evaluating them as musicians and not Idol contestants, they're often far less than television makes them out to be. (This is, of course, not limited to this guy; that would be true of any of them.) It's all about context, as you will see.

3:36 PM ET | 04-22-2009 | permalink

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Jumping On The 'Chuck' Wagon: NBC Versus The Jay Leno Problem

by Linda Holmes

NBC is a bit of a punching bag these days, what with the decision to hand five hours of prime-time real estate to Jay Leno and the spectacular failure of most of the shows the network has tried to introduce in the last few seasons.

Just about the only thing the network has done in quite some time that anyone has cheered has been keeping Friday Night Lights alive through a partnership with DirecTV. And now, it finds itself on the receiving end of another insistent campaign to save a very, very good show -- albeit one that's entirely different from Friday Night Lights.

Where FNL is a prestige drama, Chuck -- about an employee of a Best Buy-like electronics store who finds himself carrying classified government secrets in his brain -- is a mischievously funny, sharply written, genre-mashup comedy/drama/spy thriller that has struggled in the ratings ever since it premiered in the fall of 2007.

(Chuck will air its season finale next Monday at 8 p.m. -- yes, that's the death slot opposite ABC's Dancing With the Stars, Fox's House and CBS's How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory.)

It managed a renewal last year at this time, but with five hours being thrown into the gaping maw of Jay Leno (which is nothing against Jay Leno; it's just... a big gaping maw), it's going to be harder for other shows to make it, and the gathered wisdom of industry watchers seems to be that the odds of Chuck surviving are no better than about 50-50.

Enter the cavalry.

The campaign to save Chuck, after the jump...

Continue reading "Jumping On The 'Chuck' Wagon: NBC Versus The Jay Leno Problem" »

8:08 AM ET | 04-22-2009 | permalink

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Judge Rescues Blagojevich From Weeks Spent With Spencer Pratt

Rod Blagojevich: "Second prize is TWO chances to be on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!" Scott Olson/Getty Images

 

by Linda Holmes

The bad news for Rod Blagojevich, in theory, is that he's not being allowed to go to Costa Rica to compete in this summer's reality show, I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

In a rather remarkable scenario to contemplate, the judge apparently feared that Blagojevich might go to Costa Rica for filming -- the show involves being dropped into the jungle -- and then never return. (Here, experienced reality-show viewers will envision the sequence where other members of the cast express their sadness at his sudden disappearance into the darkness while Green Day's "Good Riddance" plays over a montage of his greatest moments.)

The good news, however, is that the other people who are apparently competing include American Idol also-also-ran Sanjaya Malakar, Geraldo Rivera, and the odious Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt of MTV's The Hills. So, for the duration of the show, Blagojevich has absolutely no chance of running into any of those people.

So he's got that to look forward to.

2:23 PM ET | 04-21-2009 | permalink

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Fox Taps Creepy Bald Guy In Bold (If Strange) Marketing Scheme

Creepy bald guy: The Observer, played by Michael Cerveris, is showing up all over Fox. What gives? Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

You may have wondered, while watching American Idol, baseball, or NASCAR — all on Fox — who the odd bald guy is. In this clip, he's hanging out by the racetrack on April 5:

At other times, he's been seen in the Idol audience.

Creepy bald guy is The Observer, a mysterious character on Fox's Fringe and the center of this little scheme.

His appearances aren't subtle; they're using long close-ups, not sneaking him into crowds. You couldn't really miss him on American Idol, unless you suspected that the fan base for the show was really not what you thought:

It probably works to Fox's advantage that the actor they're using here, Michael Cerveris, is a Broadway veteran whose roles have included John Wilkes Booth in the musical Assassins, so ... no stranger to the creepy hovering over major American historical figures. (Like, you know, Ryan
Seacrest.)

My favorite tidbit from this Variety article about the effort?

The fact that Fox employees have reportedly come up with a nickname for the campaign: "Where's Baldo?"

11:12 AM ET | 04-16-2009 | permalink

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'Idol' Favorite Adam Lambert Called 'Coy,' Universe Guffaws

Adam Lambert: Loud, yes. Cagey and coy about the personal questions? Maybe not. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

This ABC News piece about current American Idol front-runner Adam Lambert has perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious opener I've seen in the recent entertainment press, all under the headline, "Adam Lambert: America's First Gay 'Idol'?" and the subhead, "'American Idol's' Adam Lambert Leads Competition, Keeps Coy About Sexuality."

There's the eyeliner. There's the YouTube video in which he declares kissing girls is "not necessarily" his preference. There are the Web photos of him making out with guys.

Wait, he...wears eyeliner? Why, that is a powerful clue!

Why "coy" is not the right descriptor for this particular young man, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Idol' Favorite Adam Lambert Called 'Coy,' Universe Guffaws" »

8:32 AM ET | 04-15-2009 | permalink

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It's Alaska Week On Discovery, So Wear Your Dry Socks

by Linda Holmes

Now that the Discovery Channel has embedded Shark Week into popular culture so thoroughly that 30 Rock can make a punch line out of "Live every week like it's Shark Week," they're looking to do the same thing for Alaska Week, which is now in full swing.

Tonight's banner event is the 9:00 p.m. fifth-season premiere of Discovery's very popular Deadliest Catch, a documentary series about the dangerous life aboard fishing boats during Alaska's crab season.

But at 10:00 tonight, Discovery is also premiering a rejiggered version of The Alaska Experiment. The show first appeared last year, in a format that sent several teams to different locations to try and survive in the Alaskan wilderness.

This year, retitled Out Of The Wild: The Alaska Experiment, it hews more closely to reality-show conventions: A group of nine people are dropped in the wilderness, with minimal supplies, and tasked with hiking out as a group.

If you're drawn to the parts of Survivor that feature people trying to figure out how to catch fish and build shelter, but you don't like the parts where insurance guys and bartenders fight over who has more "integrity," you might really enjoy this show, where nobody gets voted out and you only leave if you quit.

It's kind of fascinating, in fact, to watch the way people start out thinking they will neatly execute the steps they learned in survival training and will build, say, a clever little rustic contraption to neatly ensnare a tasty dinner they will garnish with herbs of the forest. Because before long, it's more like, "Uh, we're going to try throwing rocks."

In short: Out of the Wild offers some rooting interest, some good old-fashioned schadenfreude, and plenty of opportunities to learn that when experienced people tell you something about how to keep your feet warm, you should believe them.

7:58 AM ET | 04-14-2009 | permalink

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Something To Watch Now, Before Someone Ruins It For All Of Us

Sing it, sister:Susan Boyle is the latest surprise from Britain's Got Talent

 

[Note: I had embedded the YouTube video for you here, but the embed has been disabled, so you'll have to pop over to YouTube to see it. It's well worth it. See it here. Thanks! -- Linda]

Last night on Britain's Got Talent, a lady named Susan Boyle showed up to sing, and what followed was not exactly what you might expect from her introduction. This is the sort of thing where you instantly fear that later, you will learn that she is not all that she appears to be, that this was a set-up, that...well, watch it first and you'll know.

Every now and then, though, one of these shows feints left and goes right, totally undercutting its own tropes and clichés, and it's always a treat when it does. For now, this clip is fantastic. I've watched it several times.

4:42 PM ET | 04-12-2009 | permalink

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The Spring/Summer Season, And What Your TV Will Be Serving

Spring and summer shows: NBC is hoping you will take the time this summer to enjoy Merlin. Anyone? NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

Fall isn't the only new season these days; since Dollhouse premiered in mid-February, there's been a trickle of new shows coming down the pike, and substantially more are planned over the next few months as we swing into summer.

I'll be on Weekend Edition chatting about this very thing on Sunday; here's a quick rundown of your choices, in descending order of likelihood of success. (For the purposes of this informal survey, we define success as "being worth watching at least a couple of times and remaining on television long enough to make that a plausible proposition.")

Sit Down, Shut Up (Fox, April 19)
Just waiting to break the hearts of everyone who misses Arrested Development is this half-hour animated comedy from AD creator Mitch Hurwitz, starring the voice talents of...Jason Bateman! Will Arnett! Henry Winkler! Cheri Oteri! Will Forte! Tom Kenny (that's Spongebob Squarepants to you)! This promotional video pitting Bateman against Arnett in some kind of unspecified battle of wills has nothing to do with the show itself, but it certainly will make you eager to see them work together again. Likelihood of success: 75%

Nurse Jackie (Showtime, June 8)
Edie Falco, last (of course) seen as Carmela Soprano, comes to Showtime in a half-hour comedy-drama about an emergency-room nurse. Reportedly, she likes Vicodin, just like Fox's Dr. House! Falco is just about always worth watching, so it's hard to imagine this being a total failure, even if the tragically flawed medical professional is not exactly a unique idea. Likelihood of success: 70 percent

The list goes on, and things grow dire, after the jump...

Continue reading "The Spring/Summer Season, And What Your TV Will Be Serving" »

4:49 PM ET | 04-10-2009 | permalink

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Do You Have The Right Eyeballs, Or Just The Regular Kind?

Heroes: It may be 59th in viewers' hearts, but it's much higher than that in the eye of the advertiser. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

There's a fascinating article in Forbes about what shows make the most money -- which isn't necessarily the same question as which shows get the most viewers.

"It's not necessarily just eyeballs that advertisers are buying here," explains Ed Gentner, senior vice president of video investment activation at MediaVest of advertiser interest. "It's the right eyeballs."

You will not be surprised by some of the most valuable eyeballs if you have ever seen the "Nuts And Gum" sequence on The Simpsons, wherein Homer says, "I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me -- no matter how dumb my suggestions are!"

Having the right eyeballs, after the jump...

Continue reading "Do You Have The Right Eyeballs, Or Just The Regular Kind?" »

1:35 PM ET | 04-10-2009 | permalink

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The 'Parks And Recreation' Premiere: What Did You Think?

by Linda Holmes

I liked last night's premiere of Parks And Recreation, the new comedy from Greg Daniels, the creator of the U.S. The Office, and Michael Schur, an Office writer who also plays Dwight's Cousin Mose. (Schur also was moonlighting under the moniker "Ken Tremendous" for years at a fantastic sports blog called Fire Joe Morgan, which has, very sadly, ceased publication. An extremely interesting guy.)

While it didn't make me laugh hysterically, the Amy Poehler comic timing still works, Aziz Ansari has perfectly captured the character of her associate and chief tormentor, and everything about the idea of transplanting the sensibility of The Office from corporate drudgery to public-sector drudgery makes perfect sense.

The community forum attended by citizens small in number but great in passion that is sometimes completely random ("I have a few things I want to say about Laura Linney!"), the guy who works in government while not believing in government...it all rings quite true, I think, the same way the diversity seminars and lame office parties ring true in Scranton.

The Parks And Recreation pilot isn't packed with back-to-back hilarious jokes, but the ideas are funny, the writing is sharp, and I absolutely already care whether Leslie gets to build her park. And boy, do I love that opening bit attempting to quantify the precise amount of fun the girl is having.

I'm curious to hear what you thought. Are you sold? Unsold? Partially sold? Finding it better than falling backwards into a pit?

8:36 AM ET | 04-10-2009 | permalink

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'Simpsons' Stamps: 44 Cents Of Sarcastic Family Goodness

The Simpsons: You don't have to be dead if you're a cartoon, it would appear. Associated Press

 

by Linda Holmes

So there you have them: the five first-class stamps featuring the characters from The Simpsons, which will be available May 7.

As The Washington Post notes, it's the first show to ever appear on a stamp while still producing new episodes.

(This, of course, could appear to be a double-edged sword to those who feel that the show has declined in quality: "It's been on so long that it has commemorative stamps. Pull the plug!")

Here's the question: Do you like these? When I first saw them, I thought they seemed a little flat, but the simple facial expressions are growing on me. Will you buy them?

12:54 PM ET | 04- 9-2009 | permalink

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Ten O'Clock Smackdown: 'Harper's Island' And 'Southland'

Is Uncle Marty A Pet Or Meat?: He's Uncle Marty, and he's...The Uncle. It's pretty funny, really. CBS

 

by Linda Holmes

As you may have heard, the series finale of ER was last week, meaning that the Thursday night 10 p.m. slot is free at NBC for the first time in 15 years. Not only is NBC putting up a new drama, Southland, in that slot -- temporarily, of course, since it goes to Jay Leno in the fall -- but CBS has a new show, Harper's Island, premiering tonight at the same time.

Southland is a pretty conventional network cop show, created by John Wells -- who created ER but arguably bungled the post-Aaron-Sorkin seasons of The West Wing.

The decision to center the show on Benjamin McKenzie, most famous for The O.C., is a tricky one. In the pilot, he's doing a pretty standard "rookie's first day on the job, deer in the headlights" thing, and the cast is big enough that it's hard to know the characters yet. If you favor prestige network drama, it's certainly worth watching once or twice to see how it develops -- and the premiere is already available in full on Hulu or NBC.com, and has been for a week.

Harper's Island, on the other hand, is much stranger. It's billed as a mystery, and the hook is that it ends after 13 episodes, so you don't have to worry that you will be denied resolution for season after season. There's a murderer knocking people off, one per episode, and at the end of the 13th episode, they'll tell you who it is.

The resurrection of one of my favorite film-watching games, after the jump...

Continue reading "Ten O'Clock Smackdown: 'Harper's Island' And 'Southland'" »

11:22 AM ET | 04- 9-2009 | permalink

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Fox's New Show: 'Who Wants To Have The World's Worst Idea?'

Bad idea theater: In Fox's next reality offering, real people will apparently lose their real jobs. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

There's word today that Fox has picked up Someone's Gotta Go, a reality show in which real employees at a real business choose a real co-worker to lay off, who will really lose his or her real job and be really, truly out of work.

...You've got to be kidding me.

Whether Fox reality chief Mike Darnell -- who, yes, is behind American Idol, but who was also the king of the garbage-reality wave that is now entirely out of style for the networks, which brought you Joe Millionaire and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé -- realizes it or not, people don't watch reality shows to see actually terrible things happen.

The precise appeal of shows like Survivor is that you don't have to feel bad for a guy who's a big jerk just because he doesn't win a million dollars. That's what makes the comeuppance fun. If he were losing his life savings, that would be...sad. See how it works?

I cannot conceive of people wanting to sit down and watch, week after week, as employees struggle with the grim task of selecting an office pariah to put out of work. In fact, it's difficult to imagine anything more unpleasant.

That's not to even mention the question of whether this is even remotely legal. If it's clear that your co-workers disliked you because of your religion, that's going to be a problem. Can your employer turn hiring and firing decisions over to Fox? Who will be liable if the firing turns out to be illegal?

"The tribe has spoken" is supposed to be a faux-serious jibe at self-serious contestants, not a sentence meaning that you will now lose your house.

12:52 PM ET | 04- 8-2009 | permalink

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Why a 42-Year-Old Superhero Cartoon is Better Than a Pony

By Glen Weldon

Need a break?

Lookit: Over at Marvel.com, they've just started streaming episodes of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon. The first episode went up last week, and they'll post a new one every Thursday.

Now granted, the animation itself is pretty slapdash (Spidey spends an awful lot of time web-swinging across town, passing the same six buildings several times along the way), but there's much to recommend.

First, of course, the theme song: When its brassy, six-note opening blast gives way to the syncopated drum lick, try to keep from butt-dancing; try.

Then the lyrics kick in, and start going all Socratic Method on you:

Is he strong? Listen, bud: He's got radioactive blood!

Can he swing? From a thread! Take a look overhead!

Sure, it's no "In her satin tights/fighting for your rights," but it is, I think we can all agree, patently groovy.

Then there's the jazzy, infectious score, complete with surf guitar. Hey, Spider-daddy-O! Hang eight!

Listen -- really listen -- to the sound effect of those wrist web-shooters: so perfect, so difficult to emulate with the human mouth. Millions have tried.

Finally, the voicework. Paul Soles was the very first actor to voice Spider-man (just five years after the character was created), and lent him a sardonic, wisecracking tone that I still hear in my head every time I read a Spidey word balloon. (That's Paul "Hermy the Elf Who Wants to Be a Dentist" Soles, FY proverbial I.)

Still not convinced?

After the jump: Why this show's a cultural touchstone -- to some of us, anyway. Plus the pony thing.

Continue reading "Why a 42-Year-Old Superhero Cartoon is Better Than a Pony" »

12:03 PM ET | 04- 8-2009 | permalink

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Why Mel And Mike White Should Be Your Close Personal Friends

Mel White: He and his son Mike were one of the most beloved teams in Amazing Race history. CBS

 

by Linda Holmes

Today's Fresh Air features Mel And Mike White, one of the most popular teams in the 14-season history of The Amazing Race.

Sure, Mike is a screenwriter (School Of Rock) and Mel is a gay ex-pastor who's written extensively about all manner of things, but that's not why they were beloved.

They were beloved because they were personable and good to each other, which is always a relief on a show where various teams throughout history have been pelted with tomatoes, declared their mutual hatred, and — in one very special case — broken up minutes after being eliminated from the race.

Mel was good-humored about not being quite as speedy as the younger racers, and when he struggled a lot with a particular task, Mike — like a good son should — worried as much about his father overdoing it as about the time they were losing. They always seemed like guys who could walk right out of your television and right into your living room, and they would seem right at home.

12:31 PM ET | 04- 7-2009 | permalink

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Fox's 'House' Demonstrates How Not To Draw Attention To Yourself

House: Last night's episode demonstrated that this heart isn't the only thing that's a little disoriented. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

House is a show with problems, and they are looking increasingly severe.

At its best, it was a funny, addictive, engrossing medical mystery show, modeled on Sherlock Holmes, that combined a great personal story (centered around Hugh Laurie's Dr. House) with stories about baffling patient ailments. But now House is totally adrift, and proved it last night.

Gigantic spoilers for last night's episode, which you should not read if you do not want to know what happened, after the jump ...

Continue reading "Fox's 'House' Demonstrates How Not To Draw Attention To Yourself" »

8:20 AM ET | 04- 7-2009 | permalink

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If You Only Watch One Melodrama About High-School Journalism, Make It 'The Paper'

by Linda Holmes

MTV's The Paper ran for a total of eight episodes last year, and in that time, it demonstrated more about what makes high school so difficult and often painful than any documentary I can remember. It's not an exaggeration to say it wound up being an extraordinary story about being resilient, being a friend, being an individual, being a coward, and wearing purple leggings to school. (It's also hilarious, entertaining, and amazing conversation-bait between friends.)

It's too easy to populate documentaries or reality shows about teenagers with the ones who are vapid, who have nothing in their heads, or who are specifically dedicated to being evil all the time. It's a little harder to talk about how painful things can be even for smart, serious kids -- say, kids who are fully devoted to the operation of an award-winning high-school newspaper.

Happily for all of us, Sling.com now has all the episodes of The Paper available (the first is at the top of the post), and they're conducting a coordinated Rewatch, in which you can follow along with one quick (about 22-minute) episode per weekday and talk about it in the comments.

Honestly, experiencing Amanda Lorber for yourself -- controversial, annoying, heartbreaking, clueless, inspiring, wildly enjoyable Amanda Lorber -- is worth every second you'll spend.

12:41 PM ET | 04- 6-2009 | permalink

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Better Uses Of 30 Minutes Than Viewing Bob Saget's New Comedy

Surviving Suburbia: If the sight of Bob Saget and a child playing his daughter fills your heart with dread, you are on the right track. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

There are moments when words of actual criticism fail, and the pilot of ABC's new sitcom Surviving Suburbia, starring Bob Saget, has brought me to one of those moments. Essentially, Surviving Suburbia is for the Bob Saget fan who found Full House (1) too funny; (2) too gritty; (3) too plausible; and (4) inadequately stocked with little girls saying ostensibly adorable things.

The good news is that now, you know that those 30 minutes you were undoubtedly planning to devote to watching this pilot -- which airs tonight at 9:30 after Dancing With The Stars -- are available to do other things that will be more enjoyable than watching Surviving Suburbia.

Like what, you ask?

Floss your teeth repeatedly. It's almost tax time -- redo your 1040 from scratch! Peel some potatoes, even if you just throw them away when you're done. Don't you have bathtub grout that needs whitening? Go to the airport and take in the hubbub of baggage claim. Put gum in your child's hair just so you can spend time removing it.

Just a little advice from Monkey See to you.

11:40 AM ET | 04- 6-2009 | permalink

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NBC Attempts To Handcuff Boston, Force It To Watch Jay Leno

Jay Leno: He and Amy Poehler look like they're having a good time here, but the new incarnation of his show has hit a snag. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

If you've ever had a nightmare where someone was standing over you, threatening your very existence, insisting that you watch Jay Leno or perish, then you know how Boston's NBC affiliate, WHDH, is feeling right about now.

WHDH has announced plans to pass on the entirety of the weeknightly Leno show set to air at 10 p.m. this fall.

Essentially, the station is betting against Leno, believes the show will fail, and believes it can do better for itself with an hour of local news than with Jay Leno, when it comes to setting up its 11 p.m. hour. The Boston Globe reports that the station was willing to air Leno at 11, but was refused.

NBC is insisting in response that as an NBC affiliate, WHDH is contractually required to air the show at 10, and is threatening to revoke the station's NBC affiliation. It's even threatening to start up its own new station if WHDH doesn't comply.

The threat may well work, of course, and Boston may see the show. And judging from the station's comments to the Globe, this seems to reflect almost as much frustration with the network's overall low ratings as it does specific doubts about Leno.

But putting aside the fact that if WHDH is right, NBC could lose the seventh-largest market in the country for five hours a week, this is emphatically not the mood you want surrounding the big new project you think is going to save your 10 p.m. slot. "Oh, sure," says a local affiliate. "We were okay with Knight Rider, but we have to draw the line somewhere."

Even if the network gets its way, it's a miserably inauspicious and embarrassing beginning.

9:26 AM ET | 04- 3-2009 | permalink

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Sully's Television Rights Went To...TLC?

Sully: Normally, I'd never question the judgment of a national hero (seen here at the Super Bowl, appropriately enough), but...TLC? Jamie Squire/Getty Images Sport

 

by Linda Holmes

Look, I like Chesley Sullenberger as much as the next person. If I ever have to experience a water landing, I hope it will be his firm hand on the throttle as I scream uncontrollably. I truly believe him to be the only man in America with a 100 percent approval rating.

But I question the decision to turn over his exclusive documentary rights to cable's TLC. Unless Sully is planning on having quintuplets, having a 400-pound tumor removed, getting a makeover and breaking an addiction to tapered-leg jeans, or remodeling the cockpit on a budget, this seems like a strange fit.

Despite the fact that "TLC" originally stood for The Learning Channel (really!), TLC is now sort of the Perky Do It Yourself Channel, and when it comes to piloting planes, I'm not looking for that kind of self-determination.

11:24 AM ET | 04- 2-2009 | permalink

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Ten Surprisingly Common Causes Of Death In TV Hospitals

Hospital shows: John Stamos and Maura Tierney are only two of the many ER personalities who have tried to keep patients from dying in spectacular ways. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

Tonight is the end of ER. The end of an era, the end of the machine that made George Clooney famous, and the end of a fifteen-season run that was good for at least seven seasons. The show is presumably dying of pure fatigue, but how do the patients die? Let's take a look at the ways TV-hospital patients die that other people usually don't.

Heroism. Countless television hospital patients die of heroism every year. One minute, they are valiantly trying to save a cat, dog, old person, flower bed, bicycle, or lottery ticket, and the next, they are lying in a hospital bed while the monitors sing their mournful "eeeeeeeep" in the background. Worse yet, heroism often results in a slow expiration one hospital bed over from someone who is unafflicted with heroism -- say, a terrible bigot or someone unattractive -- who is going to live. These deaths are referred to in the literature as deaths by heroism with ironic complications.

Falling helicopters. As far as we know, there has been one death by falling helicopter in the history of hospital shows, and it took place on ER. But it would seem that, relative to the total number of casualties in ER history, even this likely overrepresents the prevalence of being crushed by a falling helicopter as a cause of death. The greater statistical anomaly, however, is that this happened to Dr. "Rocket" Romano, who had lost an arm to a helicopter blade only a season before he died of having an entire helicopter fall directly on him. You know how some people are unlucky at cards? He was unlucky at helicopters.

A terrible secret. Particularly on House, it is common for patients to die of A Terrible Secret. In many cases, the Terrible Secret is not life-threatening in itself, but the efforts to conceal the Terrible Secret cause the patient to die of something innocuous. For instance, if you conceal your penicillin allergy in the course of concealing the details of the way your penicillin allergy was discovered, you risk dying of A Terrible Secret.

Dying of redemption, after the jump...

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8:46 AM ET | 04- 2-2009 | permalink

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Welcome Back, 'Project Runway'!

by Linda Holmes

Well, thank goodness. Lifetime and NBC Universal have settled their lawsuit over who has the right to air the already-filmed sixth season of Project Runway, and it will air this summer on Lifetime.

That news, my friends, is fierce.

5:02 PM ET | 04- 1-2009 | permalink

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Soft Bigotry And Scott MacIntyre

Scott MacIntyre: Good or bad, American Idol isn't going to tell you. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

Scott MacIntyre isn't a terrible singer. He's an accomplished guy, as a matter of fact. He's not a great singer, or he probably wouldn't have chosen American Idol as his ticket. But he's not a terrible singer.

Not that the show would know how to break it to you if he were.

Patronizing with lavish praise, after the jump...

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9:56 AM ET | 04- 1-2009 | permalink

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'The Office': Meet Kelly Kapoor

by Linda Holmes

In honor of the discussion of The Office's Mindy Kaling (in Neda Ulaby's Morning Edition story on the children of immigrants), we are proud to present just three of the many, many reasons to love Kaling and her character, Kelly Kapoor.

1. She gets to be mean to Pam. The clip above, in which Kelly "helpfully" compliments office sweetheart Pam on her glasses, is merely the beginning. Kelly and Pam also once had a smackdown regarding the Ping-Pong abilities of their boyfriends in the episode "The Deposition," as seen below.

More Kelly, after the jump...

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6:30 PM ET | 03-31-2009 | permalink

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Remembering Andy Hallett, Karaoke Demon Of TV's 'Angel'

by Joe Reid

Leading a post with "Sad news for Joss Whedon fans" is usually a harbinger for the latest on the programming woes of a low-rated cult series. (Viz: Whedon's currently struggling Dollhouse.)

Sadly, today that preface has to accompany the news that former Angel star Andy Hallett passed away Sunday of congestive heart disease. He was 33.

Andy Hallett's contributions to Angel, and where to find some of his best work, after the jump...

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2:45 PM ET | 03-31-2009 | permalink

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'Cupid' as Cupcake: ABC Reboots A RomCom, And It's Likable Fluff

Cupid: Bobby Cannavale plays a guy who's either very unusual, very detached from reality, or both. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

If something seems familiar about ABC's Cupid, which debuts tonight at 10 pm, it's probably because they canceled the same show — or a version of the same show — 10 years ago.

Back then, it starred Jeremy Piven instead of Bobby Cannavale as Cupid, who's been banished from Mount Olympus and sent to modern New York to unite 100 couples before he'll be allowed to come home. Or so he says.

For whatever reason, ABC has brought the comedy back for another try, still under showrunner Rob Thomas, who did the well-regarded if ratings-challenged Veronica Mars in the meantime.

And while Cupid isn't quite hitting its sweet spot yet, you might find it satisfying anyway.

The romantic comedy as confection, after the jump...

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9:54 AM ET | 03-31-2009 | permalink

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'Friday Night Lights' Fans Get To Exhale, At Least For A While

Friday Night Lights: Don't look so glum, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler)! Looks like the show is coming back after all. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

It's true: Looks like Friday Night Lights has, with the help of its DirecTV deal, managed to just about secure a deal for two more seasons.

Those are 13-episode seasons, so the total is still only a little over one normal network season. Still: This is presumably going to take pressure off the show — and the fans — for quite a while.

And that's a relief unto itself. It's exhausting to love — and undoubtedly just as painful to manage — a show that's both wildly lovable and constantly in peril.

On the fans' side, you can't relax and settle into a story if you're constantly afraid it's about to be yanked out from under you. It's like following a stock — every rumor, with the ups and the downs and living on the bubble, makes you more likely to just disengage so it doesn't break your heart.

And from a production standpoint, having to plan every season as if it might be your last messes with everything writers know about structure and timing. Imagine this: "Please write this screenplay such that we can safely cut to black at either the 20-minute mark, the 45-minute mark, the 82-minute mark, or the 194-minute mark, and the whole thing will still hang together."

Having an end date has been great for Lost, not only because that show's writers have been pushed to keep moving, but because the issue of cancellation goes away.
Now, at least for a while, FNL's writers presumably get to indulge that luxury, and just think about where they'd like the show to go.

Given that they're apparently about to undergo some massive cast restructuring as a lot of the high-school students move on, that's probably a welcome safety net. It should let the writing staff worry about the story — instead of worrying about multiple contingency plans and whether they'll still have a job in three months.

9:38 AM ET | 03-31-2009 | permalink

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ABC Bets On Fascination With Zillionaires And Hucksters

Mark Burnett: The intermittently successful reality superproducer (seen here in early March) is pretty sure your next TV heroes are the kinds of guys who say "monetize" a lot. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

Quick, whose problems do you care about the least right now?

ABC is really hoping you didn't say "extremely rich people who capriciously hand out money like candy" or "people looking to make a quick buck in a shortcut fashion," because their next reality show, Shark Tank, is all about those two populations.

The show is brought to you by Mark Burnett -- who is always mentioned as the creator of Survivor and less commonly as the creator of Pirate Master, On The Lot, and My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad. ("What, what, and what?" you ask. To which I say: Exactly.)

Based on a highly successful U.K. show called Dragon's Den, Shark Tank will apparently feature the kind of "I got a plan!" guy who is always telling you how, for instance, he's going to genetically engineer the skinless potato and live off the proceeds for life. You will follow along as he begs a bunch of rich people to bankroll his project.

What will and will not fly in a bad economy is always hard to predict, but I have to wonder whether Burnett and the network are experiencing a fundamental lapse in reading the room on a national level. Aren't there a lot of people figuring that this kind of mad speculation is what got us in trouble in the first place?

1:43 PM ET | 03-30-2009 | permalink

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A Bold Theory About Television's Bizarre Obsession With Multiples

TV multiples: Finally, we have come up with a theory to explain this rather bizarre genre. iStockphoto.com

 

by Linda Holmes

Believe it or not, there is yet another reality show about a giant gaggle of children premiering tonight on TLC. Called Table For 12, it's about parents who have two sets of twins and a set of sextuplets.

This joins, of course, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and also the Duggar family chronicles (they are, incidentally, Quiverfull followers).

The Duggar stories started with 14 Children And Pregnant Again and are currently up to 18 Kids And Counting, and will one day be called, presumably, something like, 29 Kids And Okay Now We're Starting To Get Kind Of Tired.

The TLC/Discovery/Health Channel group has certainly been the center of this particular phenomenon, but it's not alone -- ABC's Supernanny frequently features families with one or more sets of twins. Multiples are absolutely everywhere.

It took quite a while, but I have finally figured out what I think drives the national fondness for multiples.

The Disney movie that's responsible for this whole thing, after the jump...

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11:30 AM ET | 03-30-2009 | permalink

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'ER': No, It's Still On TV. And Has Been Since Man Discovered Fire.

ER: Yes, this really is a scene from ER. And if you don't recognize those actors, they are Parminder Nagra and Leland Orser. NBC

 

by Linda Holmes

Okay, ER hasn't been around quite as long as fire.

But the show, which comes to an end this Thursday, has been on since 1994. Fifteen seasons. Don't feel bad if you are currently having the same sensation that accompanies the "In Memoriam" segment at the Oscars when mention of someone's death makes you think, "Wow, that guy was alive until just recently?"

How does a fifteen-season run stack up to the run of a typical show -- even a typical long-running show? Let's take a look.

The data, after the jump...

Continue reading "'ER': No, It's Still On TV. And Has Been Since Man Discovered Fire." »

8:35 AM ET | 03-30-2009 | permalink

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ABC Makes An Uphill Run At Thursday Night Comedy

In The Motherhood: The talented Megan Mullally can't prop up this very bad new show. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

I'm a big fan of Samantha Who?, which returns to ABC tonight at 8:30 p.m. Unfortunately, it's airing after the premiere of In The Motherhood, which is painfully, wretchedly bad.

Despite the presence of talented actresses like Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Motherhood is pretty much a total loss, unfunny, boring and insulting all at once. And it features Horatio Sanz, not exactly the Saturday Night Live alumnus viewers were most eager to see again.

ABC has been making slow inroads into non-laugh-tracked half-hour comedies for a while, and they've had some good ideas -- not only Samantha Who?, but Better Off Ted, which bowed last week.

But trying to program a comedy block against what will usually be not only NBC comedies My Name Is Earl and (starting in two weeks) Parks And Recreation, but also the still-powerful Survivor? That seems overly ambitious.

It also seems a bit cursed. Whatever good effect there is from the fact that Survivor is out of the way this week (because of NCAA basketball) got totally trounced by the fact that the Obama press conference Tuesday night shoved the American Idol results show to tonight. This is a really, really tough position to put these two shows in, and while In The Motherhood will get what's coming to it, it's a real shame for Samantha Who?, which deserves better.

10:53 AM ET | 03-26-2009 | permalink

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Will The End Of 'Battlestar Galactica' Help Revive 'Dollhouse'?

Dollhouse: Patton Oswalt appeared with Eliza Dushku in Friday's episode, "Man On The Street," broadly advertised as a game-changer. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

It doesn't seem, at first glance, like the end of Battlestar Galactica on Friday nights should have anything to do with Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. While both are on Friday nights, Battlestar aired at 10:00 p.m., while Dollhouse aired at 9:00. Shouldn't that scheduling have worked to everyone's advantage, creating a night of smart sci-fi/fantasy programming that would logically appeal to some of the same people?

Maybe, but note that that Dollhouse, despite scrambling the order of episodes somewhat, chose to roll out its sixth episode -- the one both Whedon and star Eliza Dushku publicly said would represent the real ramping-up of the series -- on the same night as the Battlestar finale.

It could be a coincidence, but there are a few reasons -- aside from the obvious logical crossover in audiences -- why it might be logical to think that the end of Battlestar is the right time to go for a Dollhouse push. Dollhouse, of course, has had more problems than competition, including so-so reviews and reported behind-the-scenes tinkering. But if they're going to make a move, this might be the right moment.

How the DVR is both a blessing and a curse for a Friday-night show, after the jump...

Continue reading "Will The End Of 'Battlestar Galactica' Help Revive 'Dollhouse'?" »

9:57 AM ET | 03-23-2009 | permalink

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'The Office' Finally Faces Reality

by Marc Hirsh

Well, it finally happened. After a few seasons of steadily escalating lunacy, The Office got hit with a faceful of cold, hard reality last night.

Not that it's not fun to watch Michael literally prancing around the office dressed in a Willy Wonka costume (as happened last week) or Dwight taking it upon himself to destroy a $1200 baby stroller that doesn't belong to him in the interest of testing its structural integrity (as happened in the repeat that preceded last night's episode).

But last night's episode was, in many respects, a long time coming. There's only so far a show that purports to shine a light on the mundanity of modern work can take its wackiness before it flies completely off the handle. With the introduction of new Dunder-Mifflin VP Charles Minor (played with no-nonsense focus by The Wire's Idris Elba), the show addressed the elephant in the room by saying, "This is how this sort of behavior would actually be received."

Most notably, of course, there was Michael finally coming face-to-face with an authority figure who refused to indulge his obsequiousness (to both his superiors and his underlings) one iota. Unlike corporate head David Wallace, who has made a habit of cleaning up Michael's messes while still attempting to humor his desperate need to be loved, Minor had no compunctions putting Michael in his place.

Jim's very bad day, and why this may be one of the most important episodes in the show's history, after the jump...

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12:18 PM ET | 03-20-2009 | permalink

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Cater-Waiters Are Delicious: 'Party Down' Reviewed

Party Down: Ken Marino and Adam Scott are two of a large bevy of talented people at work on Starz's new cater-waiter comedy. Starz

 

by Linda Holmes

It's hard to overstate just how much talent is attached to the new Starz comedy Party Down, which starts tonight at 10:30 p.m., so let's just roll-call a few of the folks:

Executive Producer/Writer/Director Rob Thomas was the showrunner at both Veronica Mars and Cupid, both classically beloved shows that didn't last.

Executive Producer/Writer Paul Rudd is...Paul Rudd.

Ken Marino was part of MTV's sketch comedy The State, and went on to be a wildly versatile and reliable comic actor in lots of projects including the cult classic comedy Wet Hot American Summer.

Lizzy Caplan is an interesting and underappreciated actress who was in Cloverfield and Mean Girls, but who goes back to the Judd Apatow shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared.

Jane Lynch is the rare Christopher Guest troupe/Judd Apatow troupe crossover: she was hilarious in Best In Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and has a resumé that's worth reading just to appreciate her prolificacy.

Martin Starr also goes back to the wonderful Freaks and Geeks, where he played Bill Haverchuck.

You get the idea. It's a pretty impressive group. But do they come together into a good comedy?

The verdict and the details, after the jump...

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10:44 AM ET | 03-20-2009 | permalink

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'Better Off Ted' Is Much Better Than Its Title

by Linda Holmes

Quirky network comedies are uphill battles. Networks are not, after all, natural habitats for what's genuinely weird, which is part of what made, say, Arrested Development so striking. ABC's Better Off Ted -- premiering tonight at 8:30 -- isn't Arrested Development, by any means, but there are moments in which the same kind of enthusiastically cockeyed comedy is achieved.

A strong pedigree, a high batting average, and the sobering truth about smart, weird comedy, after the jump...

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7:09 AM ET | 03-18-2009 | permalink

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Jack Black Makes Entertainment Suitable For Children, Including His Own

by Sara Sarasohn

Jack Black is going to be on Yo Gabba Gabba. If Jack Black were going to be on any show that caters to toddlers, Yo Gabba Gabba is a likely choice, as it caters both to toddlers and tripping college students. In both cases, I guess, it's Teletubbies for the 21st century.

This isn't Jack Black's first foray into entertainment for kids. My kids loved him in Kung Fu Panda. They expressed less of a preference for his costar, Angelina Jolie. The fact that both of them have made their careers in movies that were violent or R-rated or both was completely lost on my children, but not on me.

What drives celebrities to kid fare, after the jump...

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12:04 PM ET | 03-17-2009 | permalink

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'Sci Fi' Becomes 'Syfy' In The Goofiest Rebranding In Quite Some Time

Syfy: Doesn't this make you think greater thoughts with your huge imagination? Sci Fi

 

by Linda Holmes

Sci Fi, the network that's just closing out the enormous success that was Battlestar Galactica, has decided to change its name.

From "Sci Fi" to "Syfy." This is not made up.

According to this Hollywood Reporter story, the network has decided that because it's more than space aliens and traditional science fiction, it should continue to be called "Sci Fi," but it should spell "Syfy" in a way that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and has nothing to do with anything.

Oh, and it should also change its logo to look like it's the network that makes stain-resistant carpeting.

As if that's not enough, it's adding the nonsensical tagline, "Imagine Greater." I realize not all slogans are grammatically sound, but let us get serious. "Imagine Greater"? That sounds less like a network tagline and more like the result of noodling with a management consultant's magnetic-poetry kit.

1:30 PM ET | 03-16-2009 | permalink

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A Cry For Help: When Theme Music Attacks

by Linda Holmes

It seemed harmless enough when I received a copy of the first two seasons of Mr. Belvedere on DVD. (To be released tomorrow.)

It seemed harmless, that is, until I watched a few episodes of this show I barely remember and realized that the theme song (above) had been locked in my brain for years. But I have somehow unlocked the trunk in which it was stored, and now it has grown out of control. It is stomping around my head like a monster in a black-and-white movie, capable of taking out the entire city of other things I once was capable of humming to myself. All I hear is this. It is all I hear.

It is stuck in there. It is going 'round and 'round, no ordinary earworm but some kind of nightmarish horror show, which got me thinking that maybe it's like that one scary movie (I won't spoil it by saying which one). You know what I mean, where you can't get the thing to stop menacing you until you pass the thing along to someone else? Maybe it's like that. Maybe only by encouraging you to hear this music can I release myself from its iron grip. Believe it or not, the clip above is a shortened version, so you are not getting as much exposure as you could be. I do have some sense of mercy. After all, I have relived the brief cultural moment of Bob Uecker, and you have not.

Someone once told me that the Charlie Brown theme music was a sort of earworm antidote, so I am trying to soothe myself with Snoopy while simultaneously trying to ignore the possibility that, like one of the afflicted people in Oliver Sacks' book Musicophilia, I will never get rid of it and will actually go insane.

Because of Mr. Belvedere.

This could only happen to me.

10:30 AM ET | 03-16-2009 | permalink

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The Extended, Uncut 'Daily Show' Jim Cramer Interview

by Linda Holmes

Jon Stewart's appearance with CNBC's Jim Cramer last night was one of the most highly anticipated late-night appearances in recent memory, and if you were looking for a serious confrontation, it did not disappoint. Asked at one point why there were shows on CNBC promising to teach people how to get rich without doing any work, Cramer said, "There's a market for it." "There's a market for cocaine and hookers. So what?" Stewart asked, somewhat incredulously.

You can watch the full episode as it aired, but Comedy Central has also posted the full, unedited interview, which is substantially longer and is, I will warn you, un-bleeped. Above, the first of three parts of the unedited interview. Second and third parts are after the jump.

Continue reading "The Extended, Uncut 'Daily Show' Jim Cramer Interview" »

7:34 AM ET | 03-13-2009 | permalink

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How Do I Love Thee, Idris Elba? Let Me Count The Ways, If I Can Count That High

Idris Elba: Hey there, how'd you get to be so cool? Malcolm Taylor/Getty Images Entertainment

 

by Linda Holmes

As if my tenth-grade-girl's heart doesn't have enough to contend with given that Paul Rudd was on with Jon Stewart last night (my name is written on my Trapper Keeper as "Mrs. Holmes-Rudd-Stewart"), now Idris Elba is coming to The Office. Come on! That's just sensory overload. Specifically, it overloads my sense of what is awesome.

Idris Elba played Stringer Bell on The Wire, where he was...appealingly murderous? I guess? Gorgeously menacing? Hey, I don't make the rules. And he's done much other highly regarded dramatic work as well.

And now, he's on Fresh Air, where he will undoubtedly elaborate on his career and his Scrantonicity and perhaps answer the hardball question on so many of our minds: What's it like to be so great?

3:56 PM ET | 03-12-2009 | permalink

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The 'Judges' Save': 'Idol' Throws Chum To The Craziest Sharks In The Ocean

Adam Lambert: He's a judges' favorite; will they protect him from the brutal operation of their own show? Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

UPDATE: Apparently, this twist is harder to understand than I thought, because it's making headlines that aren't even accurate.

There are probably a hundred reasons why winning American Idol is not important. Winning doesn't mean you'll be successful; losing doesn't mean you won't be; you don't actually find pop stars by making them sing Andrew Lloyd Webber; the public is fickle; the list goes on.

You may now add the fact that you can obtain a free pass from a bad week just because you are favored by the judges, who have never been able to reach their grubby little hands in to fiddle with the results...until now.

What's going on and why it's so stupid, after the jump...

Continue reading "The 'Judges' Save': 'Idol' Throws Chum To The Craziest Sharks In The Ocean" »

9:01 AM ET | 03-12-2009 | permalink

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Is 'Friday Night Lights' About To Be Renewed?

by Linda Holmes

Tipped off by Alan Sepinwall (see how useful Twitter is?), I see that Entertainment Weekly's usually reliable Michael Ausiello has great news on a possible pickup for the adored Friday Night Lights. I was extra-worried once they handed over five nights a week to Jay Leno; I'd sure like to see this turn out to be true. It would be good news for the show and its fans, but also an interesting victory for unusual distribution deals like the one that aired the most recent FNL season on DirecTV before it came to NBC.

(Latest episode is above.)

2:33 PM ET | 03-10-2009 | permalink

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Dr. George Smoot Comes To 'The Big Bang Theory'

by Linda Holmes

CBS's The Big Bang Theory is an odd little show. The Fall 2007 pilot was so atrocious that I couldn't wait for it to be over, but since then, I've gradually seen friends give in to it, to the point where it has many followers in common with How I Met Your Mother. There are two good comedic performances at its center from Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons as roomates and nerds Leonard and Sheldon -- I am not a fan of Kaley Cuoco, who plays their obligatory hot neighbor, but two out of three really isn't bad for a show that airs on the same night as Two And A Half Men.

Tonight, Big Bang welcomes Dr. George Smoot, the actual originator of the actual Big Bang theory, who is playing himself after (the story goes) becoming a fan of the show and asking to be on. Of course, tonight's episode also features an appearance by Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles star Summer Glau, and she -- not the Nobel laureate -- is the one who's been on the commercials all week.

Still: Nicely played, nerds. Nicely played.

1:40 PM ET | 03- 9-2009 | permalink

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The Grace Of The Gazelle, The Light Touch Of The Wozniak

Steve Wozniak: Here, he seems not to be entirely in tune with his partner, Karina Smirnoff. ABC

 

by Linda Holmes

Look, I'm not saying Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak won't do a great job on Dancing With The Stars (which returns tonight at 8 p.m.), but this rehearsal photo is not filling the heart with confidence.

12:54 PM ET | 03- 9-2009 | permalink

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In The Post-Shipper Era, 'The Office' Is The Most Romantic Show On Television

by Linda Holmes

Are you familiar with shippers? Or, technically, 'shippers? A shipper is a person who self-identifies as a fan of a show based on a rooting interest in a particular romantic relationship ('shipper, get it?).

In most places where television is discussed, the most devoted shippers are, frankly, the bane of everyone else's existence, because there is not an episode, a scene, a shot, or a camera angle that doesn't somehow relate to whether or not there will be kissing.

Will there be kissing? When? Where? What music will be playing? What will everyone be wearing? Will this episode contain kissing? How about next week's? How about in the season finale? Do you think the "dramatic development" in TV Guide is about kissing? Did you see that screenshot that one guy posted from that one episode where there seems to be smudged lipstick on that one actress? I wonder if it's because she was just busy kissing. KISSING KISSING KISSING, and have I mentioned...kissing?

Truly single-minded shippers are not fans of the show: they are just turning the crank and waiting for Jack to spring out of the box. All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel... You may know them by the twee, mashed-together names they invent for couples. You don't "ship" Lost's Sawyer and Kate: you ship "Skate."

Shows run into trouble when there is so much pressure built up for so long about the kissing or not kissing that it obscures every other dramatic element, so when Jack does pop out of the box, nobody knows what to do next. You get an explosion of excitement, but then what? This is why shows like Grey's Anatomy are stuck breaking everybody up and putting them back together, again and again. If all you've got is Jack in the box, then once he comes out, you'd better...put him back.

And while it seemed to be a comedy, I'm not sure I've ever seen a show more imperiled by shippers than The Office. And against all odds, it's defeated them and become far more romantic, as a story, than it was when they were exchanging all those pained, tense stares.

How the kissing enthusiasts were overcome, after the jump...

Continue reading "In The Post-Shipper Era, 'The Office' Is The Most Romantic Show On Television" »

10:44 AM ET | 03- 6-2009 | permalink

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Canceling On 'The Daily Show'? Turns Out It's Not A Good Idea

by Linda Holmes

Rick Santelli of CNBC was scheduled to be last night's guest on The Daily Show, but he canceled. Which wasn't a good idea, if the idea was to avoid being a target for Jon Stewart. It's an anti-CNBC free-for-all.

11:51 AM ET | 03- 5-2009 | permalink

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'Yelling Guy' Billy Mays Winds The Production/Promotion Universe Around Itself Once Again

by Sara Sarasohn

Another dispatch from the Monkey See infomercial desk:

In my house, we call Billy Mays "the yelling guy." In that, I don't believe that we are all that unique. Billy Mays is a guy who yells on television. He yells about Orange Glo, the Big City Slider Station, OxyClean, iCan health insurance, and various other products with practical uses, some of which have capital letters in the middle of their single-word names.

My nine year old son likes to imitate Billy Mays, probably because Billy Mays is ridiculously easy to imitate. His does his research while watching his favorite TV channels, all of which are prime Billy Mays territory: Discovery Channel, The Science Channel and The Military Channel.

The Yelling Guy gets big news and a big new opportunity, after the jump...

Continue reading "'Yelling Guy' Billy Mays Winds The Production/Promotion Universe