"Spin-off: A random thought about TV last night..."

So now that baseball is officially dead to me, I had a chance to watch some TV last night. Now I'm not normally a Bachelor watcher, but happened to flip over just in time for one of the most entertaining reality moments in a while. In case you missed it several conversations between the Bachelor and one of his girls pretty much went like this:

Bachelor: "I like you as a friend"
Girl: with a huge smile on her face, "He really likes me, he really, really likes me"

Bachelor: "I'll be blunt; I like you as a friend"
Girl: with sparkles in her eyes, "I'm wearing white tonight, just like i will be on our wedding day"

And on it goes, this girl obviously only heard what she wanted to hear, but it couldn't have been the bachelor she was listening too. Maybe she had Michael Bolton's "To love somebody" stuck in her head... thats the only explanation i can come up with.

On a brighter note, upon seeing the Bachelor with his shirt off, she did tell the camera what exactly she wanted to do to him. Unfortunately ABC had to beep out about a minute of this interview along with "fuzz" out her mouth, just to make sure we weren't reading lips. I think i even blushed for a moment! Unfortunately she was not given a rose, which was proceeded by hysterical crying and constant questions of "Why me?" Very Entertaining!!! She defiantly is a quality girl that every boy would be proud to take home to mom...

Episode 11, "I see the games you're playing"

Absolutely brilliant! That is what I have to say about CBS’s Kid Nation once I saw through their thinly veiled ploy and realized this really is a brilliantly-diabolical plan to gain a monopoly on all the future reality show participants! Let me lay out the evidence:

1) Wife Swap, ABC, and Trading Spouses, Fox, have been getting a bit predictable with all the conflict based on who does the vacuuming. The best episode I ever watched (really this is a best out of 5 or so) was when the one wife was a local religious leader: head of her Coven. On Kid Nation, the producers don’t leave the hard-to-discuss topic of religion out-of-bounds and this week the kids were asked to hold a religious gathering for, what seemed like, no other purpose than to give them an excuse to yell at each other. This is perfect training for the yet-to-be-aired Family Exchange: Holy Wars, coming soon on CBS!

2) Trauma: Life in the ER, TLC, shows dramatic footage of car accident, gun shot and construction accidents (recall the nail gun shot into a man’s skull) but they haven’t really tapped into the available market when it comes to herpes. Watch about 10 minutes of Kid Nation and you will count no less than 20 cold-sores…and there are less than 40 kids on the show. This is the perfect opportunity for CBS to swoop in and take over TLC’s little medical show and re-title it Trauma: Outbreak in the Desert.

3) Intervention, currently airs on A&E, but will have to acquiesce to CBS once the kids from Bonanza City fully develop their appetite for shots. You see, on Kid Nation there is a saloon that is fully stocked with seltzer water & root beer for the kids to unwind with. And what did CBS provide to serve those tasty drinks? You guessed it, shot glasses. So now we get to watch 8-15 year olds pound shots of root beer, have chugging contests until 3 in the morning (they have beer mugs too) and grab a bottle to go (aka: a roadie) when missing their girlfriend becomes too much to handle. Oh yeah, there was also a seltzer water fight where the 15 year old “kid” was spraying the down the 9 & 10 year old girls…hardly more than a half step away from To Catch a Predator, NBC, and wet T-shirt contests on The Girls Next Door, E!

Next week’s episode features Town Council elections: would you vote for the Atheist, the one who can chug a root beer in 5 seconds or the one with the cold sore vaccine? Cast your vote wisely…

The Queen has spoken!

"Spin-off", Want some real reality TV?

Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those individuals involved.

So everyone thinks that all these new reality shows are the newest craze on TV, but I beg to differ. I know, I know, there’s nothing better than watching a buck o’ five sorority chic drink a gallon of a zebra’s intestinal fluid/lemur eyes/squirrel toe-nail clippings (just for a little crunch) concoction or that father of 4 that had to send his children to the crazy uncles for 3 months so he could live on an island just to get kicked off right before the grand prize. We tune in ever week, just to check up and see how our favorite person is doing, but why? Next season it will be someone new, drinking a new concoction, on a different island…

And here’s my point: Baseball. Baseball is the ultimate reality show. We, well at least myself, are all invested in this program a little bit more than any other reality show. We grew up on that same “island” where they play, we’re the little “extras” that can influence who gets that “immunity idol” at the end of the game (I can totally plug in a little “Why the hell aren’t the games sold out down there?” right now, but I won’t!), and most of all, we’ve seen these characters grow over years before our eyes and they'll be around for the next season. I know 162 episodes is a lot to catch, its like trying to watch every 90210 re-run on the soap network every afternoon, its just not gonna happen. (Yes, I am one of the little people, a Non-Tivoian.) But this time of year is when even the most casual of fans should be tuning in, everything is elevated and everything is more dramatic. There’s no producer to make you see it “their way”, however, the commentators would love if you would, but that just gives us the guy(s) on the show to despise. Every swing could mean an entire change of the “game plan” and even the little weird looking kid could be the hero, you just never know…

I know Queen, sports were not going to be part of you TV insight, but its hard to overlook this ultimate reality show that is playing out right in front of us… not to mention NASCAR in its championship and football just getting under way… I apologize, I am slacking on all the new premiers, but it’s a great time of year for reality!!!

And if that still doesn’t meet your approval, look at the match ups we have going on:

-Drew Lachey (the little brother of Nick, that nobody really paid attention too growing up down by the river, but came up with the right moves at the right time)

vs

-Omarosa (the overconfident bitch, that is just slightly less obnoxious than Donald Yankee, err Trump)

and

-Rupert (that lovable old tie-dyed shirt wearing guy, with an obvious love for that Rocky Mountain high)

vs

-Magda (that wrinkly, sun soaked old lady in “Something about Mary”, thats it)

Cheers!!!

Episode 10, "That's What She Said"

This blog is inspired by those folks I've been talking with about TV:

"Maybe he should be paired with a man." That's what the King said about the complete lack of chemistry between Cameron (Soap Opera Star) and his professional partner Edyta (who is destined never to win) after watching their Tango last night on Dancing with the Stars, ABC.

"The unfortunate thing is you are waiting for an event to happen which, for the longevity of the show, you hope never happens." That's what MCO said about the plots of shows like Life, NBC, & Dirty Sexy Money, ABC, which are based upon an intriguing mystery which, once solved, takes away the appeal of the show.

"Sometimes its a bit gory." That's what a co-worker said about the season premier of Criminal Minds, CBS, where there was a quite a bit of blood splatter in Gideon's flashbacks, the college campus and then in the second episode where women had their hearts chiseled out! Spoiler alert: they caught the bad guys (ok, not really a spoiler, cuz you knew that would happen!)

"You don't watch?!" That's what ASG said to the Queen about House, Fox, when commenting on how House, like Christina Yang, referred to his job applicants as numbers. The humor, that I'm told ensued, in that episode may be enough to convince the Queen to add House back to my season pass list.

"They must have blown the CGI budget on, uhm, I don't know what" That's what the Queen said about last night's episode of Heroes, NBC, after observing a steady decline in the special effects this season...or maybe they just don't seem as special without George Takai.

The Queen, and several others, have spoken!

Episode 9, Where Season Premiers Go Wrong

There were a lot of good series and season premiers out there last week including: The Office on NBC (yes, Jim & Pam did hook up), Criminal Minds on CBS (who knew Mandy Patinkin was retiring?!), My Name is Earl on NBC, (yes, Earl found people in prison on his list), Life on NBC (one of my favorite new series this fall-a complete surprise!) and Cane on CBS (the best new show on this fall-and I expected it to be.) But there were also some duds. Let's explore where season premiers go wrong! (Oh yeah, this entry is full of spoilers in case you haven't watched last week's TV yet...read on at your own risk!)

Starting with the most benign of errors: Unrealistic character changes. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, takes the cake here for 3 reasons. First was the introduction of Meredith’s half sister, Lexie. Is it just me or is Lexie an odd-miniature Meredith who the writers have mimicking everything I dislike about Meredith: the hesitant speech patterns, the "getting lost while thinking inside her head" and most disdainfully her showing up (admittedly, last season) in the bar where Dr. Shepard didn't introduce himself as a doctor. Second was the sudden resignation of Dr. Burke. Yes, I know what happened in real life that got him fired from the show, but I take issue with it taking Christina more than 17 days and nearly a whole shift to figure out that he was gone in a hospital where patients (who were presumably a bit distracted by their own needs) knew that Meredith was sleeping with Addison's so-to-be-ex-husband and had the nerve to confront Addison about it within a couple hours of being admitted. (Oh, and there was never once mention of Addison down in California, weird.) Third too many new characters: Why did Izzy, Alex, Christina & Meredith all have to get 4 interns? As long as Christina keeps referring to them by number, we should be OK. So why should you watch? Grey's is still an enjoyable, gossipy hospital drama that will make you laugh and cry. The best line of the premier was Izzy to her interns: "When I woke up this morning I thought I was going to get the good interns, but I didn't. I got the duds. So we'll all have to change our expectations a little."

The second place to mess up a premier, particularly a series premier, is to leave us confused if the show is a drama or comedy. The notable entry here is Big Shots, ABC. I really had high hopes for this show with actors from some of my favorite shows (Christopher Titus from the short-lived sitcom Titus, Joshua Malina from the highly rated drama West Wing, Michael Vartan from action & suspense packed Alias and Dylan McDermott from the law-drama The Practice.) But I was left confused and unsatisfied with the first hour of the show. Was I supposed to feel compassion for Dylan trying to make amends by offering his 19-year old daughter a job at his cosmetic company? Humor when Vartan's philandering boss was killed by a runaway golf cart? The list of incongruities goes on and on, I think in part because the leading men are both comedic and dramatic actors. So why should you watch? Hopefully the producers/directors will tighten up the focus of this show and deliver a compelling drama about rich, powerful businessmen...although it is quite possible the subject matter just isn't that compelling.

In my mind, the most egregious error in a season premier is traumatic injury to a main character. ER, NBC, follows this path season after season. In fact, I believe the pilot episode began with the Juliana Margulies character attempting suicide and being rushed into County General. This season begins with Neela nearly being trampled to death in an anti-war rally, being taken to County General and undergoing life saving surgery requiring 11 pints of blood. Really ER? After 14 seasons of Dr. Romano's arm amputation (and later death) by helicopter, Dr. Ray Bennett’s being hit by a bus, Dr. Pratt's surviving a road rage shooting and plunge into the river, Dr. Dubenko's bout as the "remote robot TV-head doctor" and Dr. Greene's bathroom beat-down by an angry brother of a patient the best you can do is 11 pints of blood? (note the sarcasm) Given the "accidental" injury rate, I think it wise not to accept any job offers at County General. So why should you watch? ER's been on the air for 14 years and has effectively dealt with a rotating cast while still delivering touching story lines that bring a tear to my eye.

The Queen has spoken!