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Television / Humor - “How to Look Good Naked,” a new show on Lifetime, seeks to help women feel good about their bodies. Thankfully, this is not a problem for men.
ben.alper@onlineoffbeat.com
Television - I have to admit that I’m not a diehard American Idol fan. I’d say my relationship to the show is more like a baseball “fan” who pays just enough attention during the regular season to know who’s still in contention, then decides which team to back during the second round of the playoffs. Typically I watch the audition shows for the car wrecks, then skip the Hollywood weeks, then start tuning in for the last one or two performances and the recap on Tuesday nights and the results shows on Wednesdays once they reach the top 12. It’s usually not until the top 8 that I start watching the full performance shows.
Still, I find myself inexorably drawn to the spectacle each year—like a moth to a flame, like a lemming to a cliff, like Randy Jackson to a sweet potato pie—and this year is no different. Once again they’ve got me hooked. But there are always things that keep me from fully enjoying the experience: questions; suggestions for making it better; things I’d like to see happen.
And so, I present my top 10 Idol Thoughts:
1) Get rid of Sanjaya Malakar. Once you’ve been parodied on Saturday Night Live you can’t be considered a credible contestant anymore. Sanjaya seems like a nice enough kid (though when he gives that massive, toothy grin I’m always afraid he’s about to eat Ryan Seacrest’s head), and maybe he actually can sing, but watching him is cringe-inducing. Each performance is more forced and desperate than the previous.
As far as I can tell Sanjaya’s ongoing success can only be attributed to one of three things:
A) Someone in his family owns a telemarketing firm in India and requires all their employees to vote for him each week
B) Idol has a huge NAMBLA following
C) People are confused and think they’re still voting for the new Keith on that Partridge Family show
Actually, at this point I hope that Sanjaya makes it to Disco Week because that’s when I think he’s really going to shine. Picture him strutting out in a big ‘fro, blue eye shadow, platform shoes and white satin pants, and putting the fire to some Gloria Gaynor. Now THAT would be entertainment!
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Humor / Television - “24,” television’s Chicken Soup for the Tortured Soul, has become a convenient answer to the popular question: Is it morally justified to twist a thumb or two if mankind and high Nielsen ratings hang in the balance?
Federal Agent Jack Bauer’s bone-crunching brand of civics lessons makes a good case for playing fast and loose with the Constitution. But if we allow ourselves to be governed by fictional characters in fictional situations, it is only fair we give other TV shows equal time.
“American Idol” makes a good argument against torture as an effective interrogation tool. The punishment Simon Cowell and his cohorts deliver to each competitor only emboldens them to keep singing. The threat of an all-expenses-paid trip to Guantanamo would never persuade most of these gift-less victims to confess ineptitude.
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Humor / Television - The CBS reality show “Armed and Famous” was canceled after only four episodes. Once again, network executives must be scratching their heads: Who wouldn’t warm up to a lovable bunch of deputized has-beens and never-weres like Latoya Jackson, Erik Estrada, professional skateboarder and small person Jason “Wee Man” Acuńa, “renowned international fitness model” Trish Status, and heir to the Ozzie Empire: Jack Osbourne? Add the exotic Muncie, Indiana locale and they almost had a sure-fire recipe for a hit.
The producers should not give up. Celebrities packing heat may not be the way to go, but there are countless other people who should not be carrying weapons. It is just a matter of finding and packaging the ones TV audiences will love to watch. Here are just a few:
Armed and Sarcastic -- Each week, a group of acerbic vigilantes hunt down friends and associates who always take them way too literally.
Armed and Wistful -- Second rate poets shoot the love of their life and then write a haiku expressing their pensive yearning about what might have been.
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Television - I finally caught up with “The Gilmore Girls” in the middle of last season when the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was losing steam. Sherman-Palladino, with her husband Daniel Palladino, was the creative engine behind the giddily gassy “Girls” Both Palladinos departed after the sixth season in one of those studio dust-ups where no one knows the whole story but it probably has everything to do with money.
What snagged me into “Gilmore” was the unflagging spirit of show. Fatigued by police procedurals, staged reality, and anything reeking of “O.C.,” I admire the CW comedy/drama because it’s one of those old-fashioned television shows driven by scripts and characters. However, I can’t help but feel I’ve stumbled into to the party too late. Now, everybody seems to be losing juice.
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Television - With the notable exceptions of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Everwood,” and some of the middle seasons of “7th Heaven” (yes, I know I sometimes have the viewing habits of a 13-year-old girl), all of my favorite TV series in the past 16 years have been on HBO: “Dream On,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Oz,” “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Entourage,” “Carnivale,” “Big Love,” and the underappreciated “The Comeback” (I never got into “Six Feet Under” or “Deadwood” because I already had too many shows to watch). Not all of these shows created the national buzz that “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” did, but all of them shared one common trait: they were truly original.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that many of these series changed the landscape of television. Take a look at the schedules on the other networks. Would “Desperate Housewives” exist if “Sex and the City” hadn’t paved the way by showing that frankly sexual female lead characters and campy humor can play in Peoria? Would “Nip/Tuck,” “Rescue Me,” or “The Shield” have made the schedule if “Oz” and “The Sopranos” hadn’t already proven that violence, profanity and often-unlikable characters can make for compelling television? Some may not see this evolution as a good thing, but there’s no question that HBO created some truly groundbreaking television.
But lately something seems to be amiss.
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Television - Remember the good old days when Oprah and Dr. Phil chatted cozily about the normal problems of marital relations and familial dustups? Dr. Phil McGraw was Oprah Winfrey's designated Dr. Feelgood. He dispensed a few bromides and everything seemed copecetic. Not anymore as "Dr. Phil" has become TV's Dr. Phrankenstein. The psychological talk show spun off from those cozy chats on Oprah's couch has taken a monstrous turn.
Dr. Phil now seems to be trying to live up to the legend of Jerry Springer by featuring freaky, genuinely disturbed guests. And the reasonable people who appear on “Dr. Phil,” such as an assistant principal slandered by her students on the Internet, come away badgered to tears by the host. In this case, Dr. Phil seemed obsessed by the lawsuit the assistant principal filed against the students and their families. He hounded her, asking repeatedly how much money was she seeking in damages. She and her lawyer refused to say.
Dr. Phil should be the last person to bang on about money. He recklessly trades on his name, trying to pump up his family’s net worth. Hello, worthless and litigious Dr. Phil diet book and paraphernalia. Hello, ripoff Phil pontificating about dating on Match.com. Hello Dr. Phil’s son, Jay McGraw, and his own diet book and makeover show. Hello Dr. Phil wife, Robin McGraw and her limpid “be your best self” book. Who knew Robin could do more than stand beside Dr. Phil with a desperate grin on her plasticized face?
Actually, the only time Robin has stepped out from the “Stepford” role is when she gave viewers an energetic tour of the ill-starred “Dr. Phil House,” a den of detox-ing druggies who fly to L.A. for personalized Phil counseling. Robin eagerly crowed about the sponsors outfitting the Dr. Phil house – as if JC Penney sheets and Lowe's gadgets will make a heroin addict go straight.
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Television - I know it’s not quite Thanksgiving yet, but before you know it it’ll be time to start your holiday shopping and you’ll be faced with the dilemma of what to get for everyone on your list. My pick for anyone over the age of 10 (and worthy of shelling out over a hundred bucks) is the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Collector’s Set,” a monumental 40-disc collection that includes every episode from the show’s seven seasons, plus extras like commentary by creator Joss Whedon and a cast round table discussion.
Now before you scoff and wonder why anyone would want to watch a silly show about a teenage girl who slays vampires, let me tell you it was so much more than that. I can’t think of another series that was so consistently well-written, thought-provoking, and fun. Period. On top of that it managed to throw in some good life lessons amidst the drama and demon killing.
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Television - Who can explain this thing called love for “All Creatures Great and Small?”
I analyze my newfound fascination with this British TV series and I can stump myself – until I consider how much my own life has changed. When “Creatures” was on the air from 1979 to '90, I didn't care much about creatures, big or small. I rarely sought meaning in innocence. Now, I seek escape in these rough Yorkshire moors, knowing every farmer by the pigs he keeps, bouncing over rutty roads in an old Bentley with no brakes, and saving the world one pregnant cow at a time.
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Humor / Television - No television show is a better example of why the networks are becoming irrelevant than ABC’s “Lost.” Sure, it’s doing pretty well ratings-wise, and I admit I’ve watched it only briefly while channel surfing.
But here’s where “Lost” loses me: I can buy into all the quirky plot lines (at least the ones I’ve read about online). Heck, I used to think MASH was a documentary. Just tell me how that big fat character, Hugo Reyes can spend three seasons on a deserted tropical island -- an island without even a hot dog stand -- and not lose any weight?
Put any fat guy on a deserted island and within an hour he’ll be screaming for his desert. It is hard to believe these characters truly have been stranded for months when one of them looks like he just finished off a couple of Denny's Grand Slam breakfasts. If the producers really want to make this show seem realistic, how about a plot line where the other survivors discover Hugo’s stash of Snickers bars?
ben.alper@onlineoffbeat.com
Television-- Ever since "The Oprah Winfrey Show" premiered for its 21st season earlier this week, Rosie O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's "The View," has been obsessing about Oprah and best friend Gayle King's cross-country road trip and their relationship. O'Donnell declared on a recent show that Winfrey and King are a "little bit gay."
If anything, Winfrey and King are a little bit high schoolish in all their proclamations about being bestest best buddies. These protestations seem cutesy, not Sapphically driven. Before they began their cross-country trip, King made Winfrey "pinkie swear" they'd stay best friends no matter what the obstacles. And watching them on their well-staged, well-edited jaunt, you get a glimmer about the real friendship between these two. King is Winfrey's reality before Oprah became an empire. These women have known each other a very long time and are supremely comfortable just hanging out. Anyone who has a close friend over many years can relate -- gay, straight, bi, tri, or semper fi.
O'Donnell's suggestion, however, raises the spectre that "The View" could become an outing ground of daytime TV. Pity the next celeb birdie fried in Rosie's gaydar. Anyway, who cares if anybody's gay, much less "a little bit gay"? Bigfoot O'Donnell steps madly while trying to find her rhythm on the show.
Television -The name “CW” Network is so confusing. Whenever I hear “CW,” I inevitably think country-western. I think a whole network full of “Reba” and America’s top models in cowboy chaps and twirling lariats.
Will The CW catch on? If you’re a loyal “Gilmore Girls” adherent, you will stumble into them wherever they roam. Marginal shows such as “7th Heaven,” “Smallville,” and “Supernatural” might have a tougher go catching traction. Ironically, "Reba" isn't even down with The CW. She's been canceled.
To me, The CW is a branding problem for a marginal broadcast network wrestling for an identity.
monica@onlineoffbeat.com
Television - Rosie O’Donnell is the Big Foot who threatens to stomp out “The View.” O’Donnell has the official title of moderator and a license to talk more than anyone else. Still, her jackhammering presence on the ABC daytime show is so loud, so overbearing, so overwhelming that she obliterates all other conversation. Viewers are left feeling exhausted by the garbled gab.
During the September 13 show, as O’Donnell rattled on about googling Lindsay Lohan’s private parts (she never explained why), Barbara Walters, the diva di tutti divas who recruited O’Donnell, finally had to step on Big Foot: “I must say,” Walters exclaimed, “it’s hard to get a word in.” O’Donnell momentarily fell silent, but then led the others to shriek the V-word as she proclaimed that she never said “vagina” so often as during her first days on “The View.” The meta message dangled as the audience at home and in the studio audience flashed on the L-word and O’Donnell’s psychosexual impact on the show.
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Humor / Television - News that this season’s cast of “Survivor” will be divided into teams by race -- black, white, Asian, and Hispanic -- can only mean two things: reality shows are stretching for new ideas and other reality shows will probably copy them.
Race wars and the general ruin of society aside, this may be the kick reality TV needs to make viewers forget public television and dramas without crime scene investigations. Think of the possibilities:
“Big Brother, the Gangbanger Edition.” It’s Crips vs. Bloods, and you won’t want to miss what happens when it’s Tyrone’s turn to take out the garbage.
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