Entries Tagged 'Television' ↓

For those who haven't been following it, a few weeks ago Monday Night Raw was treated to one of the more shocking storylines they've done in a long long time – the death of Mr. McMahon. It was actually quite a good stunt, timed and choreographed carefully with spliced footage so that from the minute he stepped into his limo and closed the door, without changing the camera angle, the whole thing exploded. You're left with no choice but to think "Ok, there's was no time for him to slip out the other door." (Actually the explosion was filmed the previous night, so he was of course never in the car to begin with).

Naturally everybody is all over the story, half of them talking about how stupid it is (since we all know that Vince McMahon is a real person who was obviously not killed, duh) and half talking about how much trouble the WWE is going get in for using the FBI's name and other ridiculous trivialities.

Personally I think it was the most creative thing they've done in a long time. Surprised the heck out of me when it happened. It takes a certain amount of…well, balls, to kill off a major character on a show that has no conceivable end. This isn't the Sopranos, after all. WWE storylines are produced in the context that they will continue forever. This makes continuity annoying as you can imagine, because 3 years down the road when you have two people that are best friends there'll always be somebody saying "Remember when they tried to kill each other?" But when you kill somebody, they're supposed to stay dead.

Anyway, now the big question is, "Who did it?" This being a soap opera storyline they of course went with the "No body was recovered from the scene." Unlike a soap opera, though, the WWE has no real respect for its fans or their attention span. In a soap opera if a character is killed off, no matter how mysterious the circumstances, you can expect him to be written out of storylines for months. You eventually stop wondering about him, until one day he's back and you're all "Whoa, holy hell, I thought he was dead!" With prowrestling, however, you're treated every single week to "Let's go back and look at the footage of the explosion" and "Who do you think did it?" This naturally results in the storyline being incredibly boring after a few weeks you find yourself saying "Just get it over with already, tell us who did it, and then have Vince make his return."

My theory is that Vince faked his own death. After all he does love to play the evil genius character. It wouldn't be a stretch at all to say that he felt he was losing the respect of his employees (having just lost his beloved championship) and he decided to fake his own death to learn who was truly loyal to him. That would be pretty anticlimactic, though, and I hope they don't do it. We shall see!

Ok, I am psyched for the new season of American Inventor. The worst thing about last season was the whole "sob story" aspect, where if you didn't waste your life on your idea you didn't go on to the next round. Ridiculous.

This year they've got 3 new judges – George Foreman, Pat Croce, and the woman who started Spanx whose name I will have to go look up. Plus we brought back Peter, the mean guy from last year.

And it's obvious, in the first 15 minutes, that George Foreman is going to be the center of attention. He's the "yes" man to everything, but he also just likes to talk ("I drive a Rolls Royce", "When I told everybody I was gonna be the Champ they laughed at me, too…") So, basically, he's replacing Doug Hall who was far from a "yes" man, but he was the talker of the bunch who never knew when to shut up.

The "everything is going to be all right" guy is back! Good for him, not giving it up. Still being shown as a wacko, but hey. Now he's got twins (which he named Peter and Simon, nice). He's even got a baby doll! To his credit, last year when he was on I did get lots of people looking for the thing. And yes, you can already buy them (for $69.99, apparently, if that's still the price). He gets through this year! Good job. What's he going to do with $50k, though, I have no idea.

Oh, god, they end with a firefighter, dressed in his gear, surrounded by his family, telling stories about seeing children die. Ya think he's going through? I do, without even seeing his invention. So much for not having the sob stories this season. It appears to be an angel for sitting on top of the tree that turns into a sprinkler when it senses that the tree might be on fire. Be interesting to see if it is technically feasible, since he doesn't know for instance when exactly it will go off, how long it will take and so on. It could be the case that in a real situation the whole thing just melts completely and doesn't work.

And that's it for this week. Only one obvious sob story. I actually thought the "auto napkin" lady would have gone through – hey, it was about on a par with the bathroom clip from last year – but I don't think her pitch was good enough. She needed some velcro or straps or something else that took it beyond just "I unfolded a napkin over myself."

Now that summer reruns are upon us, Kerry and I are scanning the new shows to see if there's anything worth watching. Remember, Dancing with the Stars was originally a summer show.

Last night we found "Ex-Wives' Club", which could have been some sort of reality show, or perhaps something vaguely in the Desperate Housewives camp. On at 9pm, after all, on a major network.

It turns out to be Queer Eye for the Straight Guy meets The View meets Every Other B-List Celebrity Reality Show. Three "ex-wives", namely Marla Maples (once upon a time, Mrs. Donald Trump), Shar Jackson (baby mama to Mr. Britney Spears himself, Kevin Federline), and Angie Everhart (engaged to Sylvester Stallone, but did she ever marry him?) are now the experts who are going to help people who have just gone through nasty divorces. On the first episode we have a woman who gained 80lb due to medication and had her husband walk out on her, and a guy who came back from Iraq to literally find a naked man in his bedroom closet with his wife.

So they do some scream therapy to get out the anger, then a makeover, and you can sort of see where it goes from there.

What a horrible, horrible show. How it possibly got a 9pm slot I'll never understand, there are shows exactly like this on at like 10am in syndication (something about a recovery house or something? I know I've seen such a thing). And who in god's name made those three women experts in how to put your life back together? Shar Jackson doesn't even merit the "I married somebody famous" status line, she's down in "I married somebody who went on to marry somebody famous" land. Angie Everhart appears to have been married for 3 months. And Marla…isn't she basically famous for getting screwed in the pre-nup agreement?

Awful idea. I give it about 2 episodes.

I've been seeing the commercials for "National Bingo Night" for awhile. This is the one with the Indian man in the referee's outfit yelling "No bingo!" The latest crop of game shows (1 vs 100, Identity, etc…) have failed to really catch fire, so I've been hoping for one that would be fun to actually get behind and enjoy. The question, of course, was going to be "How do you play competitive Bingo? Isn't it just random numbers?"

Well, here's how you play it. You get a contestant (more on that in a minute) and have him play a random number game. One of the games was "Guess red or black", one was "Try to get numbers with 5's in them", and one was "Try to eliminate the digits 1-9". In each case all the contestant does is press the button to serve up a bingo ball.

The catch is that the audience is, in fact, the ones playing Bingo. So the idea is that the contestant has to win their game before anybody gets bingo. Interesting, actually. The longer the game goes on, the better the chance of someone getting bingo. As people get "one away" from Bingo, they stand up, so the contestant feels that much more pressure.

What's fun is that you can play at home, and not online like a bunch of other lame games. Here you actually print out bingo cards, each of which has its own unique identifier. So if you win you can punch the number back in and claim a prize. Sure the prizes are lame (like movie tickets or a $5 KMart coupon), but hey, it's a reason to get into it. You can print a bunch of cards and everybody can play.

Now, back to the contestants. Like all television game shows, the contestants are just crazy annoying. Where do they get these people that have no problem making complete fools of themselves, jumping up and down and screaming crazy things? It's the most annoying part of the show. Basically I tivo'd the whole thing and fast forwarded through the contestant parts to get to the actual number drawing.

I didn't win anything. Oh well, there's always next week.

I wouldn't even have tried this show if not for the fact that nothing else was on. This is the one that's about a bunch of amateur film makers (wasn't there something called Project Greenlight or something that was the exact same thing)?

Let me save you the trouble. It is an exact, and I'm talking word for word, clone of American Idol. Right down to the host saying things like "Random guy, your film was Replicate Me. The judges said this good thing, that, and the other thing. But did America agree? America voted, and….awkward pause….way too long pause…..they replicated what the judges said, you are safe. We'll see you next week."

I'm not joking. That is a transcription. The horribly long pauses for no reason, the recap of what the judges said, the punny reference to something personalized about each contestant. At one point she even did the "You'll find out….after the break" thing.

With something like 15 contestants to go through, it was just too painful to handle. I gave up.

Here we go! Transcribed as best I can, risking life and limb to hit the pause and rewind button Tivo (under threat of my wife killing me, you see…), here are the lyrics to the songwriting contest winner, This Is My Now by Scott Krippayne and Jeff Peabody! If I've made any mistakes please let me know! I'm pretty sure that Blake and Jordin sang different words in some transition parts so I'm not really sure what the "right" version is. Enjoy!

There was a time I packed my dreams away.
Living in a shell, hiding from myself.

There was a time when I was so afraid.
I thought I'd reached the end,
But baby that was then
I am made of more than my yesterdays.

This is my now, and I am breathing the moment.
As I look around I can't believe the love I see.
My fears behind me, gone are the shadows and doubts
That was then, this is my now.

I had to decide, was i going to play it safe? 
Or that somewhere deep inside, 
I'm going to turn the tide and find the strength 
To take that step of faith. (*)

This is my now, and I am breathing the moment.
As I look around I can't believe the love I see.
My fears behind me, gone are the shadows and doubts
That was then, this is my now. (*)

And I have the courage like never before, yeah.
I've settled for less now I'm ready for more,
Ready for more.

This is my now, and I am breathing in the moment.
As I look around I can't believe the love I see.
My fears behind me, gone are the shadows and doubts.
That was then, this is my now.

I'm breathing in the moment
I look around I can't believe the love I see.
My fears behind me, gone are the shadows and doubts.
That was then, this is my now.
This is my now.

(*) Although these verses were not sung on television during the finale, they are reportedly in the "original" version that won the contest.

More American Idol stories…

Technorati: American Idol

The other night I'm watching Iron Chef America, and the battle is between an American chef specializing in "American Western" cooking. The man is so cowboy that his entire staff all wore Stetson hats to the kitchen. For his battle he chooses chef Morimoto, the alumni of the original Iron Chef and basically the best of them all. The "tale of the tape" for the man showed something like a 72-12 record.

And what's the secret ingredient? Chili peppers.

Aww come on! That's hardly fair. During the final tasting, chef Morimoto even said, "I've never used them before, I really don't know anything about the different kinds. So I basically tasted them all and then based on the flavor, here's what I made." Without knowing the names he just held up different peppers, saying "In this dish, I used this one." There was a great shot of him during the battle biting into the peppers one after another, and then he gets to the jalapeno and nearly choked on it. For the rest of the battle you could see him sweating.

He did indeed lose the battle, but only by a point. Not bad for someone who was cooking with an ingredient he'd never used before. Still, though, I think that had to be one of the more lopsided battles I've ever seen.

CBS is planning a kids' version of Survivor, dubbed "a reality take on Lord of the Flies."

In the show, kids 8-15 will inhabit a ghost town (rather than an island) with no parental supervision. They will be expected to choose leaders, and make decisions about things they need (food, shelter) versus things they want (Nintendo). There will be no mandatory eliminations, and each week someone will be chosen for a reward.

It's the Lord of the Flies reference that bothers me. Has no one read this book? It does not turn out well for the children. Though I suppose if the producers are smart they'll get in a reference to somebody sharpening a stick at both ends. That'll have em glued to the seats.

Update: This post is old. Check out More on Kid Nation!

Really, can there be any shockers when there's only 3 people left? I'd like to say I predicted this, but I can't find any links to back it up. Melinda is eliminated this week, putting Blake and Jordin in the finals. I'm not really all that surprised. Melinda is a classic case of peaking early and becoming such a favorite that people just get bored with her consistency. Look at Blake over the last few weeks, and all the crazy risks he's been taking to bring the beatboxing back into his performances. Does that make him a better singer than Melinda? No, not even close. But it makes people interested in him. He got their attention. The same with Jordin. Every season there is a 17yr old with a stellar voice. None of them make it this far. She was positioned by the producers as the threat to Melinda, and that worked for her.

I expect Jordin to win the whole thing. I'm not really into it this year, there's no Taylor or Daughtry that is singing the kind of music I'd actually listen to.

More American Idol stories…

Technorati: American Idol

Big semi-final week, with scores of 60-60-59-58. I bet Apollo feels pretty dumb saying that he's aiming to be the first person to score 60, and not only doesn't he do it, but two other people do it in the same night.

Here's some trivia. This weekend, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was on tv. Know who plays cousin Angelo in that movie? Joey Fatone. He even gets to dance a bit.

This week Joey is the first to be safe, and then Laila, so it's down to Apollo and Ian. The obvious guess is Ian. He made a valiant comeback, but he's not as strong a performer as the others.

You know, when the musical guest (Julio Inglesias) just sings and there's no dancing, I think we're pushing it a bit. I think that the combination of a musical guest with a dancing demonstration is absolutely brilliant, combining the best of several worlds into something that is completely unique on television today. But then they go and fall into a pattern — sing an old song that everybody knows (Let Me Be Your Hero), and then sing something to promote your new album. Which would be fine, except why wasn't anybody dancing during the second number? Lame.

The flamenco (am I spelling that right?) demonstration looked….weird. I swear it looked like a bunch of guys in an ethnic neighborhood sitting around on the front steps banging on the side of the house while a guy in his pimpsuit pretended to be Michael Flatley Lord of the Dance. I guess it just wasn't for me.

And after 25 minutes of filler and 30 seconds of payoff, Ian goes home as it should be. Everybody's happy. He got his 10s.