Summer TV

With the Olympics now less than a month away, I thought now would would be a good time to examine a little closer the TV of summer. What in recent years has become a dumping ground of bad reality TV and reruns, has actually produced quite a few new quality programming. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of reruns and bad reality TV if that's your thing. Below is a sample of shows currently airing that I recommend. Burn Notice - Thursdays on USA: I just barely found this show. Its second season debuted last night, but I'm still catching up on Season 1. So far, it's pretty good. It's sort of a Magnum PI meets MacGuyver with some character elements borrowed from Undercover Blues and Gross Pointe Blank. The action is good. The story lines are compelling. The characters are a little over the top, but it's a fun show. Ice Road Truckers - Sundays on History: I don't know why I like this show. Maybe it's the science that would allow several tons worth of trucks and cargo to drive across a frozen lake. Maybe it's the frequently bleeped truckers who are not phony like other reality TV characters, or maybe it's the way I use it to pretend to escape the Arizona heat. Just to put some perspective on things, at one point I was watching an episode and it was -47° where (and when) the truckers were and 113° here in Phoenix. That's a difference of 160 degrees, on the same planet. In Plain Sight - Sundays on USA: This show is OK. It's about US Marshals working with people in the witness protection program in Albuquerque. The best part is Fred Weller as Marshall, the philosophical sidekick (yes his name is Marshall and he's a marshal). Law & Order: Criminal Intent - Sundays on USA: If you haven't checked out Law & Order or any of its siblings, I can't really recommend jumping in now, but I still like Vincent D'Onofrio as Detective Robert Goren. Psych - Fridays on USA: I love this show. It is really funny. It's about a super observant guy who pretends to be psychic and solves crimes. Watch it and count the obscure 80's references you see. Below is a commercial (1:00) for the Season 3 premiere which is next week. I laughed out loud when I saw that, but my wife pointed out that those unfamiliar with the show might think it looks a little gay. The show's not though, I promise. Wipeout - Tuesdays on ABC: Speaking of bad reality TV, this show is really stupid, but it makes me laugh. It's essentially an American version of Takeshi's Castle (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge from SpikeTV). I think the reason I like it is because the hosts (ESPN's John Anderson and some other dude) make fun of the contestants, who all seem to be incredibly annoying, shameless loud mouths. It's too bad one of them actually wins $50,000 at the end of each episode. At least I get to see most of them made fools of. And if none of those shows interest you, as I mentioned, we have the Olympics starting in less than a month on 8/8/08, which as we all know is a lucky number in China.

Gladiators vs. Ninjas

NBC has been putting a lot of marketing effort behind the new American Gladiators. I, for one, will pass. After only two episodes I decided that the American Gladiators were best left in the past. I've commented before that I couldn't stand the ultra annoying contestants. Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon on 30 Rock said it best: "If reality TV has taught us anything, it's that you can't keep people with no shame down." How can you root for the blue contestant over the red one when all you want is for both of them to fall flat on their face? I suppose you can root for the gladiators, but... eh. So rather than American Gladiators, I have turned my attention to a purer form of physical competition. On the G4 Channel there is a Japanese import called Ninja Warrior where each tournament (held semi-annually from what I can gather) 100 contestants attempt to conquer four obstacle courses. Usually 10-15 pass the first round, of those, 7-10 make it to the third round, and as many as three, although usually none make it to the fourth stage which has only been defeated twice in 17 tournaments, most recently by fisherman Makoto Nagano. The guy is amazing. Below is a clip (5:05) of him defeating the third and fourth stages. It's a grueling task, despite how easy he makes it look. As the tournament has gone on, competitors from all over the world have come to participate, including several Olympians, and virtually all of them have failed. Look at it this way: if American Gladiators is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Ninja Warrior is Jeopardy. One is flashy and built on gimmicks and hype. The other is tried and true and has an established foundation of consistency.

Dirty Psychic

I apologize to the thousands, OK hundreds, OK maybe dozens, alright, four or five loyal readers* for my hiatus from posting Entertainment News items. With the birth of my son, blogging has taken a back seat. But despite the writers strike seriously hindering the current television season, I've still managed to watch too much TV. My favorites like The Office and its fellow Thursday night comedies have been drastically cut, so I have been forced to go elsewhere on the dial and in the process I have discovered two gems that had previously gone unnoticed by me. The first is Psych on USA. It's about a guy who so adept at observing details around him that he's convinced the Santa Barbabra Police Department that he is a psychic. He uses his abilities to solve crimes in a theatrical fashion. They had a marathon the other day and I was able to catch up on some episodes. I highly recommend it. The second show I watch every now and again is Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe on The Discovery Channel. Unlike most educational/vocational reality shows on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, TLC and HGTV, this show actually has a funny host. In it, Mike Rowe, an average schmoe, travels around the country and spends a day doing all manner of messy blue collar work from earth worm farming to sewer cleaning. It makes for good TV. One new show that really had me disappointed is the new American Gladiators. It's like the show's creators did all that they could to make the contestants as annoying as possible. It's hard to watch when I can't make myself root for one contestant over the other. Hopefully the strike will end soon and my usual shows can return. * In actuality, my web log has been getting quite a bit of traffic lately as it has averaged between 100 and 120 visitors a day over the past month.

Fall TV Review

Now that the Fall Television Season is fully underway I thought it a good time to evaluate what's currently worth watching on TV. Before we begin, I would like to comment briefly on the threat of strike by members of the Writers Guild of America. Without getting bogged down with the details behind the labor dispute, I will comment on the effects. To sum it up, the threat seems like a good thing. An actual strike would be a bad thing. Allow me to elaborate. A sudden absence of writers would mean scripted shows would suffer and we could see an acute increase in the number of non-scripted shows. That's bad. I know some of you out there are fans of Dancing with the Stars and I think I speak for us all when I say Dog the Bounty Hunter represents a cleverly delicious slice of home-grown Americana, but any more so-called reality TV would drive me up the wall. As a result, nervous studios are stockpiling scripts and scripted shows. They have been slow to cancel under-performing shows for fear that they might run out of replacement content. That's good. I don't see how canceling a show without airing all of the completed episodes does anybody any good. It just angers people like me, who have the terrible curse of liking unsuccessful shows. So what shows have I picked this year? Will my luck change? The fact that most of what I watch is on NBC, the fourth most watched network, suggests it won't. Below, in no particular order, are the shows I am currently following. Life (Wednesdays on NBC): A drama about a detective who is given a second chance. Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers) stars as complex, offbeat Detective Charlie Crews, who returns to the force after serving 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. This is my favorite new show this season. Detective Crews is just one of those fascinating characters. The patience and quirkiness he picked up in prison is just enough to irritate his partner (played by former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Sarah Shahi), which are the best moments of each episode. The actual cop drama part of the show is nothing new, but Lewis makes treading through the cliches worth it. What has me hooked is the ongoing background story about Crews trying to solve the crime for which he had been convicted. Each episode lets you in on a new detail. I'd really like to see this show stick around for a while. House (Tuesdays on Fox): Speaking of fascinating characters, Hugh Laurie's Dr. Gregory House is the most intriguing character on TV. Based on Sherlock Holmes (with Dr. Wilson as his Watson), this investigator solves medical mysteries. He's brilliant yet mad. Last season saw him reach the brink of pure insanity by considering an injection to the brain to stimulate happiness. This season we've seen him jam a knife into a outlet just to have a near-death experience. None of this would work without Laurie in the role. Also, I'm still trying to figure where the casting carousel will stop with House auditioning a new team. It's a welcome, but not entirely necessary departure from the show's usual formula. Chuck (Mondays on NBC): Computer geek Chuck Bartowski is catapulted into a new career as the government's most vital secret agent. When Chuck opens an e-mail subliminally encoded with government secrets, he unwittingly downloads an entire server of sensitive data into his brain. Now, the fate of the world lies in the unlikely hands of a guy who works at a Buy More Electronics store (A funny imitation of Best Buy). Instead of fighting computer viruses, he must now confront assassins and international terrorists. This hour-long action sitcom is light enough to not take itself too seriously. Instead it's mocking all the action shows that have come before it. Some of the story lines are weak and at times it really comes across as being low budget, but so far I like it. My concern is all that happened in the first episode to set up the plot hasn't been explained all that well in subsequent episodes, which I fear would leave newcomers somewhat lost. Journeyman (Mondays on NBC): A romantic mystery-drama about a San Francisco newspaper reporter and family man who inexplicably begins to travel through time and change people's lives. Along the way, he also must deal with the difficulties and strife at work and home brought on by his sudden disappearances. I don't really expect this show to last. It comes across as a sort of knock off of Quantum Leap, which is fine, but it spends too much time focused on the main character's personal problems, leaving the actual time traveling and life fixing as an afterthought. Journeyman certainly has potential, however. Also, the opening theme, which can be heard below (0:31) by pressing play on the Jukebox Player, is pretty sweet. Friday Night Lights (Fridays on NBC): This series centers on the small rural town of Dillon, Texas, where the coveted state football championship rings are held in the highest regard. The Dillon Panther's faced many challenges their first season with Coach Eric Taylor at the helm, but after much hard work, determination and a victory at the State Championship Game, the team's fate at the start of yet another new season and the Taylor family's future with them, continues to remain uncertain. The second season picked up right where the first left off: with mounds of drama and I'd say things are a little too dramatic right now. Lyla Garrity, who recently found Jesus, is about the only character who seems to be happy. But it's still good TV and I'm happy to see Landry (great Texas football name) hook up with Tyra, even if it was a murder that brought them together. Love that teen angst. My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, Scrubs (Thursdays on NBC): The evening's nickname is "Comedy Done Right" and I would agree. These are probably the four funniest shows currently on network TV. Scrubs has gotten a little stale in its old age and My Name is Earl has too much gay stuff, but overall, these two hours are where it's at. I've especially found myself growing more fond of 30 Rock. Below is a sample from last night's episode (4:59) showcasing Tracy Morgan and the resurgent Alec Baldwin. My Other Shows: I still watch Without a Trace and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, both of which have gotten old and tired, especially Without a Trace which I'm starting to find really boring. I've also been watching reruns of The Sopranos (Wednesdays on A&E) and have gotten into it. It's a good show with interesting characters, but it's also way overrated. I think the entire fourth season passed with the most dramatic thing being the fallout from a fat joke. I had been watching Heroes (Mondays on NBC), but it was just moving too slowly for my liking, so I've decided to stockpile a few episodes. Maybe by watching multiple episodes at a time, the plot might advance enough. On recommendations from others I have recorded some episodes of Reaper (Tuesdays on CW) and Pushing Daisies (Wednesdays on ABC), but haven't gotten around to watching either. If you would like to recommend shows to Entertainment News readers, you can do so in the comment section.

Variety Bucket

I suppose I might be at that stage many journalists find themselves at one time or another. (Yes, I do consider myself a journalist. While I don't consider what I write important at all, I do actually have a degree in journalism.) You might call it writer's block. Maybe the excitement or thrill I originally got from "blogging" has worn off. Maybe it's the fact that my web log has been getting only about 10-15 visitors a day, which is down from the 45-50 it had been getting and a far cry from the 7,280 it got on June 8. Whatever it is, I've been having trouble coming up with fresh and creative blog entries. I'm never really short on ideas, it's the seeing the ideas through that has slowed me down. So I've decided today I will lay out several of the smaller ideas I've been kicking around into one random mess of a blog entry. I've only watched a few episodes, but HBO's Flight of Conchords is the funniest new show to come along in a while. It's too early to tell if it will reach the level of esteem where I currently hold Arrested Development and The Office, but that first episode had me laughing all the way through it. Below is a clip (3:21) where a music video/music montage breaks out during the first episode. For "The Vader Project," an art show in New York City, 66 artists were given replicas of Darth Vader helmets as a blank canvas and asked to go to work. Some of the better results can be seen below. More photos can be seen here. Sunday was the 67th birthday of the great Alex Trebek. We here at Entertainment News wish him the best. With all the big-budget game shows that seem to come and go with all their pomp and pretense (Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Deal or No Deal and their subsequent clones), Jeopardy! is the constant, steady standard you can set your watch to. A&E will soon debut a new reality TV show called The Two Coreys starring Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. From what I can gather it's basically a camera following these two losers around for weekly half-hour segments. It's a good thing they both spell their names with an "ey" or the marketing department would need to come up a different catchy title. I can't think if there has ever been a show that has featured two "actors" more desperate for a paycheck than this one. On a related note, you will soon be able to get your own Corey Feldman action figure. A toy company specializing in nostalgic toys based on cult movies will be launching a line of action figures from the 1985 movie The Goonies. Besides Feldman's "Mouth," the line will also include Chunk, Sloth, Data (the kid from Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom) and Sean Astin's Mikey. I'm a sucker for funny cameos from famous actors. One of my favorites is Charlton Heston in Wayne's World 2, seen below (1:24). I recently watched the movies The Prestige and The Illusionist within a week of each other so I could compare. I'd have to give the edge to The Prestige if for no other reason than David Bowie. Below is picture of him the 1986 movie Labyrinth and one from The Prestige in which he played the inventor Tesla. Who knew he had such range? And speaking of funny celebrity cameos, David Bowie showing up to officiate the the walk-off scene in Zoolander is also among the best.

Late Night Battle

Of the late night talk show hosts, Craig Ferguson has quickly risen to the top and is now my favorite. Back when it was announced that the mean Scottish boss from The Drew Carey Show would take over the show after Letterman, I remember thinking "That guy!? Who's going to watch that?" Fortunately for him, the people at CBS recognize the added exposure their shows get from YouTube and have uploaded several clips themselves. Below is a great clip (3:54) from a show back in May where Craig is talking about the "Up-fronts" (where networks unveil their fall lineups). I don't much care for Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno has gotten stale. David Letterman is funny, but his show is too frustrating for me to watch because he is too easily distracted and takes forever to make his point. Conan is good. He's probably my second favorite. Below is a clip (1:10) from when he hosted the Emmy's last year and drops in on the folks from The Office. You can see the entire 7-minute Emmy opening sequence here. In it Conan also visits Lost, 24, House, South Park and To Catch a Predator.

A Quiet Plug for Andy Barker

Andy Richter has a new sitcom on NBC called Andy Barker P.I. After seeing the pilot episode I can say that it's funny in a dry humor sort of way. It's not in the same ball park as The Office, but it does provide some good laughs. Richter is one of those guys who is really funny but without the right vehicle it doesn't quite work. He has that perfect clueless stare that lets you know he's an everyman and if you pay close attention, you'll probably figure things out before he does. It's too early to tell if Barker P.I. is the right vehicle, but the show does have potential. The premise of the show is that Andy Barker is an accountant who rents an office previously occupied by a private investigator. Some residual business trickles in mistaking him for a PI and you can see where this is going. Barker's reluctant at first, but he finds the lure of adventure too strong to ignore. He tells his wife "You know that feeling that I get when I hit the equal sign on the calculator and the number on the calculator is the same number that's on the worksheet? It felt like that, honey." With the help of movie expert Simon, played by Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development), he solves the case and sets himself up for future misadventures. Another great example of Richter's comedic talent is the episode of Arrested Development where he plays himself and his four identical quintuplet brothers (seen below, 4:08). Incidentally, his turn in the 2002 movie Big Trouble as two twin brothers, one a mall security guard, the other an airport security guard, was also pretty funny. Here's to hoping Andy Barker P.I. develops into a funny creative hit and lasts beyond its original 6 episodes. Knowing my track record of picking shows, it won't.

A DVR Full of Teen Angst

Owning a ReplayTV (a Digital Video Recorder, you know, like a TiVo) has allowed me to follow more shows than I probably should. The whole concept of time shifting, that is, recording shows and watching them at my convenience (and without commercials), is a greater thing than sliced bread. After all, the person who came up with sliced bread neither invented bread nor the technique of cutting things; he just put them together. No, the DVR is really in a class above that. In fact, since the dawn of time, there really are three inventions/discoveries in that top class: fire, the wheel, and the Digital Video Recorder. Those of you that have one know what I'm talking about and the rest of you should go read the Allegory of the Cave. Anyway, back to the original point about "my shows." At the beginning of each television season I pick a few new shows that I will try out and, if they are good, watch faithfully. The reason I have to pick "a few shows" is the bane of my existence. For some reason, the shows I like always get canceled due to poor ratings. I don't know if it's because I can't pick good shows or if America is growing increasingly more stupid. The success of Deal or No Deal and Dancing with the Stars makes me think it is the latter. So far this season, several of my shows have been canceled or will be soon. I was really into Smith starring Ray Liotta, but it got the axe after only three episodes. Vanished is a little hokey, but I've gotten into it. It has been relocated to Fridays where it will probably die a slow death. However, it appears my luck might be changing as today it was announced that Friday Night Lights, the fictional TV series based on the semi-fictional movie which is based on a nonfiction book written about a real high school football team in Texas, has been given the go ahead for a full season of episodes. The show has better teen angst than The O.C. or anything on the WB or WC or whatever they're calling that channel now. The football is realistic enough, and the characters are very well written. It's an engrossing show that will leave you wanting more. Now, I'm not one of those of those people who makes saving TV shows my personal mission, so I'm not going to tell you have to watch this show or it won't get picked up for a second season. Rather, I have devoted a posting on my web log to it (or half of a post as I wasted quite a bit of effort getting to the point). So next time you're watching TV on a Tuesday night and your flipping through the channels (something DVR owners don't have to do) and you come across Friday Night Lights, just say to yourself, "Oh yeah, I heard this was a good show. Maybe I'll try it out." And in case you were wondering, other shows I watch are Heroes, House, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Nine, The Office, Without a Trace, and, of course, an occasional episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter. After typing that out, I realize I watch too much TV. Thus we see that the DVR, like fire, also has a downside.

The Best of Reality TV

Many of you know where I stand on the issue of "Reality TV." I think it is boring and and very low brow. In fact I often consider certain scripted shows to be closer to reality than many of the unscripted ones. However, my opinions might be shifting. Lately I've found myself watching 30 Days (from the creator of Supersize Me). I especially liked the immigration, minimum wage and prison episodes. While I don't often agree with the politics of the show, it is a lot more intelligent and socially relevant than other programs currently on TV, especially other examples of Reality TV. At the opposite end of the spectrum is my favorite reality television show: Dog the Bounty Hunter. If you aren't watching this show (on several times a week on A&E), you're missing out. Let me elaborate. We all know the best part of the show Cops ("filmed on location with the men and women of law enforcement") is the white trash that end up handcuffed face down in the dirt after a brief chase around the trailer. Now imagine this: what if the cops chasing the white trash were also white trash. We're talking mullets, black leather, the works. Add to that a little born-again Christianity and bleeped-out profanity and you get Dog the Bounty Hunter and his family chasing down bail jumpers. It truly is quality television. Below is a clip I strung together. It is probably the greatest moment in the show's history.