Top ten least watched holiday specials
10. So You Think You Can Wassail
9. I Saw Uncle Charlie Kissing Santa Claus
8. The Littlest Angel: You’re Gonna Do What With That Christmas Tree?!
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Entries Tagged as 'television'
How we can stop the Kardashians
I realize that the very nature of writing this post is contrary to my big plan but I’m going to write it anyway; because I don’t think I’m alone when I say, “Enough is enough times infinity.”
Over the weekend, the story broke that Kim Kardashian was getting divorced from Kris Humphries. That “news” is so widespread by now that I didn’t even have to look up how long her marriage lasted to confirm that the union lasted 72 days. It is a number that is burned in my brain thanks to all the Twitter jokes and snide Facebook remarks, the links shared and re-shared, the pithy quotes about how much was made per day in this “marriage for money”, and the countless headlines that abound when you dare to search her name in Google. What makes me pause, though, are the comments written beside many of those shared links: “I am so tired of hearing about these Kardashians.” [Read more →]
The All My Children generation
Is Erica Kane dead? It seems her show is, at least on network television. Yesterday was the last episode of All My Children on ABC, and it ended with a gunshot headed in Erica’s direction, followed by a fade to black. Much like its soap opera protagonists, All My Children will be resurrected from the dead, but online. Now two questions remain: who will be in the new version, and who will watch it? [Read more →]
MartyDigs: West Beverly High
The recent landscape of American television has been dominated by shows about motorcycle dudes, tattoo shops, vampires, pawn shops, and swamps. It’s like America is suddenly obsessed with the state of Florida (zing!) I am not really into any of those shows, but the Soap Opera Network has afforded me the opportunity to take a not always pleasant trip down memory lane by showing reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210. It’s always refreshing to revisit my pimply high school years via a show about good looking rich kids who looked, acted, and lived like they were ten years older than they really were. [Read more →]
Slicker isn’t necessarily smarter: TV writing, then and now
If, say, Descartes were to come back from the grave and host a talk show, I would watch it, daily. I would also occasionally watch an episode of Jerry Springer, but I would never watch Oprah, may her show rest in peace.
I have nothing against Oprah as a person. I have plenty against Jerry Springer as a person and, aside from the annoyingly mathematical miseries he caused for me in my younger days, I have no opinion whatever about Descartes as a dude. But here’s my problem: If I watch TV, I want either brilliance or absolute melt-into-the-couch drivel — Cops, or World’s Dumbest, for instance. I can’t be bothered with middle-of-the-road quality in a TV show. Oprah is arguably a genius, in a lot of ways, but her show is pretty run-of-the-mill, on the intellectual scale. Not delightfully bad, not intellectually stimulating . . . just . . . there. [Read more →]
Top ten signs you’re not going to receive a Tony Award
10. Your play about General Schwarzkopf is called The Book of Norman
9. At least twice a week, another Spidey stuntman is maimed or killed
8. Trying to cash in on jukebox musicals like Mamma Mia and Movin’ Out, your new musical is called Ice Ice Baby
7. The marquee reads “Pauly Shore Is Jean Valjean”
6. Your Feydeau farce features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn chasing the French maid
5. No matter how good it is, your fifth-grade production of Death of a Salesman is not eligible
4. Instead of “Author! Author!” audience shouts “Boo! Kill!”
3. All the dialogue has been translated into Portuguese, because it loses something in the original
2. Your choreographer is straight
1. Your one-man show dealt mainly with your tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Jean-Ralphio’s greatest hits so far
I’ve mentioned a time or two that my cousin Ben Schwartz is on the verge of Hollywood fame and fortune. His most well-known role so far is Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation. I’ve told Ben that what I really want to see on TV is Jean-Ralphio with his own spinoff sitcom. Maybe a wealthy relative leaves him a hotel to manage in Pawnee. But, since Ben is in a new show House of Lies on Showtime, I guess Jean-Ralphio won’t be managing a hotel any time soon. Fortunately, someone recently posted a Jean-Ralphio compilation on YouTube:
“Sister Wives” vs. “Police Women of Broward County”
On Sunday, TLC ran two Christmas-themed episodes of the program “Sister Wives,” which follows the polygamist Brown family. The episodes were filmed four months after the Browns “came out,” and were being investigated by the Lehigh County sheriff’s department. It was this investigation that led to the Browns leaving Utah for Nevada, which is presumably less intolerant of polygamy, at least reality television polygamy.
Intercut with a montage of the numerous Brown children dressing their Christmas tree (at a treacherously placed cabin the middle of a forbidding area of snow-covered Utah), father Kody Brown tearfully explains that families convicted of committing the “crime” of polygamy are broken up. Third wife Christine tells us that her grandparents were jailed for polygamy, with the wives separated and children sent off to various foster families, with all contact broken off.
It was about as moving a scene as you can expect from a reality show, but imagine if the Browns lived in Broward County? [Read more →]
This Saturday: In the blue display of the cool cathode ray…
A quick programming note.
Lenora Claire and Justin Pearson, who have both been featured in When Falls the Coliseum‘s “Audio Files” column, will be on the Biography Channel‘s popular TV show My Ghost Story this Saturday. Please consult your local programming guides for the correct time!
And have an outstanding weekend.
