I, for one, am super psyched by the prospect of the Ravens and Colts going head-to-head duking it out for the AFC championship on national TV tonight. As convinced as I am that Manning will pull through for the Colts (unless they decide to pull out all starters in the 2nd half again), Joe Flacco and his Ravens took the Patriots on a ride last week that ultimately led a once shoo-in team (before Wes Welker got injured) for the playoffs to their demise in a disastrous and humiliating showdown.
Whichever team wins tonight and I hold no favorites on this one, it should make for entertaining football and with football fans only a month away from the end of the season altogether, we take what we can, even when we are pretty ardent Patriots and Steelers fans.
NBC canned “Medium” and the lovely Patricia Arquette only to have the show brought back to life by those silly “Ghost Whisperer”(s) over at CBS. Now all we need is Roma Downey to join the cast and we can exit stage right and proceed directly to heaven.
CBS takes death very seriously. In fact, all this repetitive ghost stuff makes me think that they just don’t know when to kill a decent storyline when they see it. In other words, get rid of J.Love and keep Allison Dubois.
According to an article in this week’s Newsweek, Israeli TV is quickly becoming the hottest commodity to hit Hollywood since Ben Stiller did his Derelicte schtick in Zoolander. Not to nuke the fridge here, but with acts like Yael Naim picking up steam in MacAir commercials and shows like HBO’sIn Treatment (B’tipul) managing to muster a modest, but staunchly loyal cult following, it’s not at all surprising that TV and film execs are looking to Israel to provide them with some much needed fresh and original programming. Have you seen NBC’s and ABC’s Summer programming? There’s not one show among the bunch that’s not reality TV.
It’s telling of Israel’s rising popularity and perhaps indicative of its viability as a fixture in the entertainment industry that network TV had followed in the footsteps of HBO and chosen to add and adapt an Israeli show, Mythological X, (about love, nonetheless) to their Fall roster. (To sneak a preview of The Ex-List, click here)Loaded, a FOX-produced show about dot-com millionaires is also slated to air in the Fall.
But aside from the creative, engaging story lines that Israel seems to have the capacity to deliver, why has Hollywood looked to another country to fulfill what seems to be a gaping hole in the U.S. entertainment industry at present? To quote Joshua Alston, “Israeli shows are cheap”:
“In Treatment” premiered new episodes five days a week over nine weeks. “We’re used to doing 12 or 13 episodes per season,” says HBO executive Michael Lombardo. “The cost-effectiveness of the show is what enabled us to take on this huge commitment of 45 episodes.
“The relatively low cost will allow U.S. networks to try out Israeli formats and give them space to find an audience. “In Treatment” premiered to sluggish numbers that would spell trouble for a pricier show. But it built steam by the end of the season, and performed well enough relative to its cost that HBO will launch a second season this fall.
What may be considered “shoestring budgets” by U.S. standards is fueling the passion and stamina of Israel’s entertainment industry and in turn delivering a premium product at a bargain rate. And as long as this translates to the end result being more Gabriel Byrne, then I’m one happy gal.
During the recent writers strike, we’ve been bombarded with TV shows that on normal days would never even be considered for American prime time TV or for any time actually. Now that the strike is finally over, and the writers are back at their desks, writing like there is no Mañana, and just before we are going to watch their recent creations, here are the four lowest levels of TV entertainment. Counting from worst to better:
Level 4: Reality TV: I know people are addicted to reality TV, and I understand that the desire to peak into other people’s lives might cause resistance to this post by those people. Nevertheless, Reality TV has the same features as Porn. Like porn it is being semi- directed, the participant are semi- actors, using semi- script. And the most important thing is: The viewers are convinced that they are watching the real thing. Well they are not.
Exceptions: One, The Biggest Loser. This show actually encourages people to take positive steps in improving their lives.
Level 3: Season long contests: This level is dedicated to some of the most watched shoes in the country, and includes but not limited to: American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, The Apprentice, and more. These shows are rubbish. The joy of looking at 3 judges, so full of themselves, criticizing and slaughtering the poor contestants who should have probably known better then to participate in the first place. Recent revelations regarding the new season of American Idol only emphasis how these shows are handled, by who, and for what purpose.
Exceptions: None.
Level 2: Substitute Game Shows: These are horrible, the worst of the worst. These shows were rejected by the networks, but still managed to film a couple of episodes. And just because something happened (like a writer’s strike,) they are being aired. Last night’s My Dad Is Better Then YourDad was and amazing example, in normal times, this show will not pass as a substitute for an infomercial. And don’t you start talking to me about Seinfeld, who started as a substitute, it wasn’t a game show.
Exceptions: None.
Level 1: Game Shows: There are all sorts of game shows, so excuse me for gathering all of them under one roof. Game Shows are what we watch when there is nothing else on, or when we are waiting for one of our favorite shows to start. It is often extremely boring, and may cause you to fall asleep earlier then what you had planed. But there are good sides to the genre: A. No need to follow up. You don’t need to wait a whole season to see who won. B: After a hard day, when your brains can’t take any more information, it’s a guarantee these shows will not make it harder on you.
Exceptions: One, Moment Of Truth. This show should not have been produced at whole, absolutely terrible.
I love Jeffrey Tambor. Don’t get me wrong. He was brilliant in Arrested Development and I’m sure will be outstanding in the movie version of the show when it premieres. However, when it comes to comedy pilots as of late, his choices need some serious revisiting. First there was the failed pilot, Twenty Good Years, which despite the power duo which coupled him with John Lithgow, bombed, and with great reason, after a handful of episodes.
Today CBS launched a new pilot starring Tambor in an ensemble cast which stars a no-name lead, Fran Kranz (see right), whose most notable contribution to comedy comes via The OC, where I’m quite certain his walk-on role fell under the “drama” category, but still not clear. Other cast members include Chris Klein of American Pie fame whose acting range extends to looking classically clueless while playing a caricature of himself to being Katie Holmes’ ex in real life (hmmm…connection?). Rounding out the cast is Reba star Joanna Garcia, who could very well be Cheryl Hines’ little sister/daughter and has the “damsel in distress” act down pat.
In typical sitcom fashion, the pilot revolves around Kranz’ character falling in love/lust with Garcia’s girl-next-door and from here emerges a plot hook which CBS hopes will keep audiences in captivity, until at least the end of the writers’ strike. Given the rumoured imminent end to the strike, it’s possible CBS may scrap Tambor’s latest effort in favor of a new episode of CSI. Maybe ABC or better yet, HBO, will have better luck channeling Tambor’s talent?
Last night’s new episodes of 30 Rock, and the one of My Name Is Earl, were the exception that proves the rule. There is nothing to see on TV. With the writers strike going nowhere, we are stuck with a bunch of crappy reality shows, and with Jay Leno who writes his own stuff…
One might think, that with the lack of good TV, we would embrace different activities such as poetry or at least go to the gym, but the fact is that we just keep on starring at the screen and as usual being stuffed with shit. Only this time, the shit stinks more. Please come back writers, we need you.
Yesterday I wrote about me developing an eye for Showtime’s Dexter. Today I read that I’m not alone. According to Reuters, CBS CEO, Leslie Moonves, said that CBS is planning to air edited version of Dexter, because of content shortage, due to the ongoing writers strike. Reuters also points that CBS is the leader in the forensic crime drama genre with the “CSI” franchise.
On a different note, the latest issue of the Rolling Stone Magazine covers the Led zeppelin reunion. Last night a got a chance to go over the piece and it is highly recommended if you are a fan of the band. Here is a taste of what Jimmy Page had to say about the reunion: “It was immediate, Everybody went in with a will to work and to enjoy it. It was a delight.”
TV ghost whisperer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, called a real one to once and for all rid her Los Angeles home of two ghosts. Apparently, she freaked out when they started turning the lights on and off… She later described how it worked: “This woman came over, talked to the ghosts, asked them if they were ready to go into the light and sort of crossed them over.” PR-inside reports that Love Hewitt is kind of obsessed with superstitions and convinced of the presence of spirits on the set of her CBS TV show Ghost Whisperer.
No doubt Monday nights will be my favorite TV night of the week. Why? Just read below and piece together the clues.
8-9 PM EDT
Chuck: A nerdy secret agent (in the form of a computer geek salesman) going undercover in a screwball comedy that elicits memories of SledgeHammer? I’m in…
How I Met Your Mother: If you can get thru another season of buying Neil Patrick Harris as a misogynist heterosexual player, why not?
Dancing With The Stars: Marie Osmond, Wayne Newton, Mark Cuban, Mel B, and Kelly from 90210 all in one action-packed, self-effacing hour? Ok, make that two hours a week, but hey, it’s a guaranteed upgrade for most of these celebs.
9-10 PM EDT
Heroes: “It” girl Veronica Mars aka Kristen Bell joins the cast this season and for those of us who caught a glimpse of Bell (on Gossip Girl), earlier on this season, it might be a welcome cast. Someone’s gotta save the world, anyways, and it aint gonna be the cheerleader.
10-11 PM EDT
Weeds: It may have started a few weeks ago already, but Mary-Kate Olsen plays a bad girl/dope-addicted nympho in this episode and hey, why should you limit your Monday nights to one reality TV show?
Journeyman: Cause if I had TiVo, I’d be all over this Quantum Leapish show. As is I’ll be flipping coins with my husband for the coveted 10:30 slot, which may end up going to Californication.
It’s been awhile since Harvey Keitel had a good roll in a movie, like the one he had in Pulp Fiction and not to mention Taxi Driver, and his recent rolls includes a poor performance alongside Andy McDowell in the horrible Ginostra. Now we are told that Keitel is negotiating for a roll in CBS “Criminal Minds.”
Reuters reports that the show’s star Mandy Patinkin left it last month due to what he called Creative Differences…
Following Patinkin’s exit, the show’s producers launched an exhaustive search for a big-name actor to play a new central character. “Minds,” revolving around the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, returns for a third season in the fall.
According to UGO, Jennifer Love Hewitt have decided to upgrade her career. The actress who’s best known from the TV show Party Of Five, movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Shortcut To Happiness, and also for showing a lot of skin as a spokes model for Hanes bras, will appear this Saturday at Comic-Con in San Diego to answer questions from her loyal man-fans. She will meet the drooling fans to promote her CBS Vampire drama Ghost Whisperer.
Ladies and gents, our new Price is Right host is none other than unfunny man Drew Carey. Hording all the media attention in the past few weeks, Rosie O’Donnell was also considered for this role, but ultimately Carey beat out other male front-runners, such as ET’s Mark Steines and another 2-D catatonic Ken doll TV host whose name I can’t remember.
When one associates slapping with the workplace, there are certain professions that spring to mind. It’s not a gentlemens’ vocation, but surely broadcast journalism doesn’t fall under the career paths of those seeking use of violence over words. Then again Katie Couric isn’t your traditional journalist. If one is so kind as to include Couric in this category.
Regardless, reading in the past few days of her career downturn and all the ugly doings surrounding it, I can’t help but feel sympathy even when I learn about her method of releasing steam (slapping co-workers who say words she finds curiously reprehensible) and her inability to remain confident in the face of harsh criticism directed at CBS Nightly News plummeting ratings. And to top it off having to endure the flagrant wrath of former CBS anchorman/cowardly henchman Dan Rather (once CBS’ own black sheep) jump on the “Let’s Lynch Dumbing it Down, Tarting It Up Katie” wagon just makes me feel plan ‘ol something or other for poor Katie.
Alls she wanted was a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T and some promise she wouldn’t end up in an early grave co-anchoring Dateline and staring at Stone Phillips impeccably buoyant locks everyday pondering why her hair couldn’t withstand the same humidity. Can’t fault a girl for trying to avoid that destiny.
Ms. O’Donnell has made it clear that her top dream gig (post-”View”) would be as host of the “Price Is Right” now that the geriatric Bob Barker has grown too old or too tired to make sexual advances on his female cohorts. So Barker has retired and Rosie wants in, but is the rest of America ready to embrace a gay female host? Considering the roster of male hosts being considered, Rosie would be in the minority as far as testosterone quotient (she has more) and sexuality (ok, maybe not), but Bob Barker has made it known he wants Rosie.
Rosie’s professional move would also require a possible personal move from Nyack, NY where she lives with her partner and kids to LA where “Price Is Right” is filmed. S
The up-until-recent-outing sexually ambiguous David Hyde Pierce (the lovably neurotic Niles from Frasier) accepted a Tony for his performance in “Curtains” on Sunday night and remembered to thank his longtime partner. I first began to suspect Pierce might be pitching for the other team when I saw him on a segment of “CBS Sunday Morning” and witnessed his piano-playing abilities and his impeccable taste. I’ve yet to come across a straight actor so artistically versatile. I doubt I ever will for that matter.
Season Finale season is almost over, so let’s see what happend on my favorite shows (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Brothers And Sister, Grey’s Anatomy etc. are notmy favorite shows.)
The Office ended with Jim finally asking Pam out while Ryan gets Jan’s job in corporate after she is kicked out and decides to his dismay, to move in with Michael.
My Name Is Earl ends with Earl finding himself in jail after taking the blame for Joy. I like the cast and the idea of this show, but I can’t see them making another good season.
The Simpsons 2 Great episodes last night, to reach 400. Can’t wait for the next 400 episodes.
Family Guy ended with a back-to-the-future episode. Peter travels back in time, and when he comes back, he finds that his actions changed everything and Lois is now married to Quagmire.
It’s almost over, we are almost there but the season will not end before we watch tonight season finale of Heroes and see if all the producers’ promises are kept and the story comes to a resolution. If not, I’ll try to keep my promise, and won’t watch the show when it returns…. Now that’s a threat!
It’s a frequent complaint of foreigners living in the U.S. or visiting from abroad (not to mention esteemed culture critics) that the U.S. doesn’t know how to draw the line between “important national news” and idol garbage.
Alec Baldwin’s custody battle and David Hasselhoff’s bad parenting headlines trumped the VA Tech massacre. And our nation’s preoccupation with the superficial, even at its follicular base has us more attuned to Britney Spears shaving off her hair or Sanjaya making a spectacle of his than the new elected Prime Minister of France.
Are we such an insular nation that “world” events that happen thousands of miles away don’t interest us? Is so, then how does this account for the VA Massacre coverage? Or the fact that I couldn’t recall the specifics of the the Oklahoma City bombing, but I’ll most likely always have Anna Nicole’s lawyer Larry Seidlin floating around in my conscious mind.
So what is it about vacuous, gratuitous aspects of culture that reel us in for the kill? Why does anyone (aside from Cameron Diaz) care that Paris Hilton gets prison time (why should i sign some ridiculous petition to “free” her) and why does it make the news that Hilton called upon Governor Schwarznegger to pardon her? Or better yet that she switched her attorney last minute.
I felt the same sense of apathy to the OJ trial (although to a lesser degree since he was accused of violently murdering his ex-wife and her lover and was a father of two very impressionable kids who just lost the mother that their father was on trial for killing) as I did the Michael Jackson trial (who was also potentially guilty of endangering [and sodomizing] youth). And then there’s the absurdly wacky Phil Spector ongoing nightmare of a celebrity spectacle that oddly fuses hair, celebrity, and the legal system.
Simply put, the cult of the celebrity and the media’s fascination with them will always take precedence in U.S. culture over life’s deeper, more pressing concerns especially when/if it interfaces with the legal system.
As the brilliant cultural commentator Nancy Giles astutely called out on “CBS Sunday Morning” this past week:
What is news? It’s all a blur, run into the ground, with war, politics and pop culture given the same value. It’s like pulling all-nighters to cram for exams. Sure, you’ll pass, but did anything really “stick?”
Judging by its format, it seems as if the good folk over at CBS “Sunday Morning” are still quite surprised that TV is now in color. Let alone not funded by state-run Socialist programming. However because of my wife’s compulsion to watch the show every week, I was forced to watch it and now find myself actually enjoying the segments. It’s like a TV blog and fo those of you who are early Sunday morning birds (as we are) I urge you to watch.
I, for one, am super psyched by the prospect of the Ravens and Colts going head-to-head duking it out for the AFC championship on national TV tonight. As convinced as I am that Manning will pull through for the Colts (unless they decide to pull out all starters in the 2nd half again), Joe Flacco and his Ravens took the Patriots on a ride last week that ultimately led a once shoo-in team (before Wes Welker got injured) for the playoffs to their demise in a disastrous and humiliating showdown.
NBC canned “Medium”
Level 3: Season long contests: This level is dedicated to some of the most watched shoes in the country, and includes but not limited to: 
Level 2: Substitute Game Shows: These are horrible, the worst of the worst. These shows were rejected by the networks, but still managed to film a couple of episodes. And just because something happened (like a writer’s strike,) they are being aired. Last night’s 
excuse me for gathering all of them under one roof. Game Shows are what we watch when there is nothing else on, or when we are waiting for one of our favorite shows to start. It is often extremely boring, and may cause you to fall asleep earlier then what you had planed. But there are good sides to the genre: A. No need to follow up. You don’t need to wait a whole season to see who won. B: After a hard day, when your brains can’t take any more information, it’s a guarantee these shows will not make it harder on you.
I love Jeffrey Tambor. Don’t get me wrong. He was brilliant in Arrested Development and I’m sure will be outstanding in the 
Last night’s new episodes of 30 Rock, and the one of My Name Is Earl, were the exception that proves the rule. There is nothing to see on TV. With the writers strike going nowhere, we are stuck with a bunch of crappy reality shows, and with Jay Leno who writes his own stuff…
Yesterday I wrote about me developing an eye for Showtime’s Dexter. Today I read that I’m not alone.
According to 
It’s been awhile since Harvey Keitel had a good roll in a movie, like the one he had in Pulp Fiction and not to mention Taxi Driver, and his recent rolls includes a poor performance alongside Andy McDowell in the horrible Ginostra. Now we are told that Keitel is negotiating for a roll in CBS “Criminal Minds.”
Ladies and gents, our new Price is Right host is none other than unfunny man Drew Carey. Hording all the media attention in the past few weeks, 
When one associates slapping with the workplace, there are certain professions that spring to mind. It’s not a gentlemens’ vocation, but surely broadcast journalism doesn’t fall under the career paths of those seeking use of violence over words. Then again Katie Couric isn’t your traditional journalist. If one is so kind as to include Couric in this category.
Ms. O’Donnell has made it clear that her top dream gig (post-”View”) would be as host of the “Price Is Right” now that the geriatric Bob Barker has grown too old or too tired to make sexual advances on his female cohorts. So Barker has retired and Rosie wants in, but is the rest of America ready to embrace a gay female host? Considering the roster of male hosts being considered, Rosie would be in the minority as far as testosterone quotient (she has more) and sexuality (ok, maybe not), but Bob Barker has made it known he wants Rosie.
The up-until-recent-
It’s a frequent complaint of foreigners living in the U.S. or visiting from abroad (not to mention 
