Category: Television

From an entertainment story at CNN entitled Lisa Kudrow set for ‘Comeback’. Lead paragraphs:

Lisa Kudrow isn’t waiting for “Friends” to become a distant memory — she’s already signed on for a new sitcom that sounds tailor made for her.

Kudrow will star in and executive produce “The Comeback,” which has received a 14-episode order from HBO, the premium cable channel said Tuesday.

She plays a former sitcom star trying to revive her career. Kudrow co-wrote the pilot episode with Michael Patrick King, who also is serving as an executive producer. An air date was not announced.

The pretty non sequitur comes at the end:

Kudrow played ditsy Phoebe Buffay in NBC’s hit sitcom “Friends,” which ended in May after 10 years. Her film roles include “Analyze This,” its sequel “Analyze That” and “The Opposite of Sex.”

Former stars of “Seinfeld” have mostly found that success hard to top. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander each had a flop after the show ended. Alexander is trying again with the freshman series “Listen Up” on CBS.

No idea why Seinfeld was important to note, since Kudrow didn’t star in it, nor did the article mention anything about Seinfeld cast members before that. Perhaps it’s a product tie-in with the new Seinfeld DVDs. Who knows? Who cares? I have four and a half discs of Buck Rogers to go.

In today’s Bleat, he begins:

I watched the first episode of Battlestar Galactica’s new season. Not something I ever thought I would look forward to, given how much I loathed the original.

And then follows up a few paragraphs later with:

I can only hope that the people behind the 80s version of “Buck Rogers” watch it and soil themselves in shame. If Twiki ever went up against Jar-Jar I’d root for the Binks. Which says a lot. To be exact, it says “bidi bidi bidi.” Meesa hate that.

The man knows no shame and his little “We in the Blue States are soooo much more sophisticated than those silly red staters” division schtick makes me want to cede Minnesota to Canada to spite him.

Also, the Vikings in the CFL would be good for the Packers. But I digress.

Has anyone else noticed how metropolitan critics absolutely rave about television shows, novels, movies, and other art that celebrates how suburban life with suburban homes, commutes, and families suck? The San Francisco Chronicle’s Tim Goodman gushes over Desperate Housewives.

Bob Rybarcyzk: Is it uncool for a guy to be addicted to ‘Sex [in the City] ‘?

Yes, it is. Man, I sincerely he’s trying to impress his girlfriend by professing to the world his abiding love for her favorite television show. Since he’s afraid to say those three little words in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Someone send that guy a testosterone emergency kit, stat!

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MSNBC has picked the Worst (and Best) Television Series Finales, wherein they find M*A*S*H worst of all:

1. “M*A*S*H*” — “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” (Feb. 28,
1983)

We know, we know, there are lots of you out there who think the two-and-a-half-hour finale is pure genius, but we think after 10-and-a-half increasingly sentimental seasons, the still top-rated show had lost the plot — literally. In the syrupy, self-righteous swan song, earnest Everyman surgeon Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda, who co-wrote and directed) suffers a nervous breakdown after witnessing a mother smother her baby on a bus. He recovers and returns to the 4077th in time for the war to end. Tears, manly hugs, and more tears build up to the big heart-tugging conclusion. As Hawkeye’s helicopter takes off, he sees that best bud B.J. (Mike Farrell) has spelled out “goodbye” in stones on the ground. Someone give us a schmaltz-ectomy — stat! Still, 106 million people tuned in for the pop-culture event (it’s still the all-time ratings champ), many of whom we expect will write in to tell us just how wrong we are.

Undoubtedly, they’ve already gotten numerous letters pointing out that Honeycutt spelled out goodbye with rolls of toilet paper, not stones.

I just wanted you, gentle reader, to know that I am much smarter than someone who’s actually figured out a way to earn money getting paid writing for the Internet.

Count down the days with me. July 27, 2004.

Can’t wait? Listen to the opening theme and visit these sites:

• Official Site: Sledge Hammer Online
• The Sledge Hammer! Arsenal

Is it July yet, mommy?

(Invaluable resource: TV Shows on DVD.com.)

Today, in the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper takes on the American Idol racism manufactuversy. He sums it up:

That’s what happened recently when Chicago’s Jennifer Hudson and two other young black women finished in the bottom three in viewer voting, while that Doogie Howser-lookin’ 16-year-old, John Stevens, was among the top vote-getters, despite the fact that he CANNOT SING A LICK. (To the shock of the judges and anyone with working ears, Hudson was sent home, which turned out to be a great career break. You don’t get to read a Top Ten List on “Late Show With David Letterman” unless you’re making real news.)

How could this happen? How could arguably the three most talented performers finish with the three worst vote totals? Hmmm, could it have something to do with the fact that they’re black?

A lot of people, including Elton John, seemed to think so.

Roeper’s take?

I thought the cries of racism in the wake of Hudson’s ouster were emotionally cheap and intellectually lazy. (Personally, I was glad to see Stevens go because I’m a rabid anti-schmaltz-ite.) To slap the “racist” tag on millions of people because they preferred a hokey teen-boy singer to some over-emoting junior divas is quite a leap. Maybe there are just a lot of Nebraska grandmas and New York teenyboppers who voted for Stevens, while fans of the Bottom Three felt so secure about their favorites that they didn’t bother to vote. I mean, if the vote two weeks ago is proof that America is racist, then last week’s vote means America has learned its lesson, and isn’t racist any more. Right?

I agree it’s not about race, but for a different reason.

From what I understand, you vote by calling a 900 number for your favorite singer. You can vote as often as you want or your parents can afford. That sort of election process selects a special subset of viewers, a subset that has superfluous money, time, and motivation to call a 900 number.

It’s not white versus black. It’s idiots versus people with lives apart from the television.

Thank you. Please note, this Internet is not an idiot box because it has more than a box. It is two boxes, a big calculator with letters on it, and a unicycle with two buttons on it. That is all.

TV Shows on DVD lists television series available for purchase on DVD.

Courtesy of FoxNews.Com, we have this description of Paris Hilton:

“I feel embarrassed and humiliated, especially because my parents and the people who love me have been hurt,” the socialite and reality TV actress said Monday in a statement to The Associated Press.

Reality TV Actress. It’s not just a job, it’s a paradox.

Ananova reports that Sky, an independent network in Britain, has decided to shelve its reality show Find Me a Man, wherein a number of male contestants vied for the affection of a woman who, like Joe Millionaire, was not what she seemed to be. As a matter of fact, it was a pre op transexual.

Please play it. It’s not that I want to see it, even for the schadenfraülein; instead, I want the pool of idiots who sign on for these shows to dry up. And nothing will do it better than watching men unknowingly kissing another man. Who would sign up thinking, “I could be that guy!”

Come to think of it, it probably wouldn’t diminsh the pool of attention starved nutbars who sign up for these things anyway. I take it back. Don’t show it and inspire one of the diminishing-returns US networks to pick it up, too.

Dr. Who is really coming back this time.

You damn Matrix-loving, Zelda-playing (instead of Dungeons and Dragons on the kitchen table as the geek gods intended) kids don’t even know what I am talking about. Go write your Java, your .Net, and play command line guru on Linux, and leave the heavy duty geekin’ to your betters.

Colin Baker rox. I’ll lick any man who says Tom Baker was better.

(Link seen on Samizdata, whose location in Britain has saved them from a lickin’.)

CNN’s talking about a new Bravo show called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in which a team of stylish gay men offer a makeover to a stylistically-challenged straight man (which is almost, but not always, a tautology).

Sounds like a good idea to me. But can they teach him to dance? If so, perhaps I should sign up.

It’s true, honey. In 1984, a guy playing the television game show Press Your Luck won over $100,000 in an hour by memorizing where the Whammies displayed on the game board. If you don’t believe your esteemed spouse, check out the Snopes page that tells the whole story.