Category Archives: TV/DVD

The 2011-2012 Emmy Nominations That Actually Noticed My Shows, Great or Small

July 19, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve never watched a complete Emmy Awards ceremony. I follow several different TV shows each season, but I don’t watch nearly enough of the “right” shows to have a sizable stake in the proceedings. It’s with good reason that I don’t write about television seven days a week.

For fun, though, I decided for my very first time ever to read through today’s nominations and see if anything I watched in the 2011-2012 season qualified for honors. Any and all of them. The official Emmys site has a link to a handy PDF summarizing every single category and nominee for the media or obsessive TV stalkers to peruse at will. I encountered two surprises:

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100 Points to “Trust Us with Your Life” for Ignoring “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” DNR Order

July 18, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

When the American version of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? was canceled, it was a sad day for those fans of TV improv comedy who were still watching after all those seasons and time slot changes. When Drew Carey and friends reformatted and relaunched on the WB as Drew Carey’s Green Screen, it just wasn’t the same to me. When a live version of basically the same shtick and troupe was recorded for the Game Show Network as Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza, it was closer to the mark, but only lasted through late-spring/early-summer 2011.

For a limited time only, improv has returned to ABC once more, minus a few faces. Trust Us with Your Life is missing Carey and longtime cohort Ryan Stiles, but the Tuesday night summer series aims for much the same ambience. Returning vets such as Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, and Jonathan Mangum (from Improv-a-Ganza, not WLIIA) are ordered around by replacement host Fred Willard into improv games adapted from a British show called Fast and Loose (which in turn was created by one of the original mind behind the original British WLIIA). Rather than a series of competitions where points are awarded even though they don’t really matter, now the games are instead loopy, inspired-by recreations of anecdotes from the lives of assorted celebrity guests of varying caliber.

So far our old friends are a treat to see again, though I wish Willard was an active performer instead of being relegated to mere host duties. Of all the games aired thus far, the funniest and least cribbed from WLIIA is “Sideways Scene”, in which three of our funnymen reenact a tale while lying sideways on an orange mat but filmed from overhead, creating fun discomfort from gravity and crawling around and over each other. (It’s funnier than it sounds.) Guest participation has varied:

* Episode 1: Tennis star Serena Williams. She seemed to enjoy every minute of it, but I was a little bugged that half the jokes were Wayne Brady complimenting her figure. This became repetitive and just a little voyeuristic.

* Episode 2: Jack and Kelly Osbourne. I never watched their world-famous MTV reality show and had few preconceptions about them beyond their bizarre fashion choices of years past. They seemed like well-adjusted siblings with the expected rivalries and embarrassing dirt on each other, perhaps because they’ve caroused together one time too many. Our improv all-stars seemed on fire, but when called upon to impersonate their famous father, I was annoyed that no one could remember the difference between his daily mumbling and his much clearer, louder singing voice.

Episode 3: Mark Cuban. Never heard of him. Apparently he’s a buff millionaire who was once a Pittsburgh bouncer and now owns a basketball team. The cast had fun with his occasionally lewd life stories, my ignorance notwithstanding.

Episode 4: Ricky Gervais. All his responses to Willard’s questions appeared to have been edited heavily due to either excessive length or simple incredulity. After some awkward opening segments about his non-idyllic childhood, he seemed to enjoy himself the most when asked to participate in a sketch where all his dialogue was provided by Colin. It’s hard to go wrong when Colin is in charge.

ABC is showing two episodes per week, Tuesdays at 9 EDT. The Internet says only eight were filmed, so this may soon be a blip in TV history. I plan to enjoy them while I can, though the promise that one of next week’s guests is Jerry Springer is not exactly enticing.

“Once Upon a Time” Season 2 Cast to Add as Many as 700 More Disney Characters

July 6, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Once Upon a Time was originally written off by Internet comics fans as an alt-world version of Bill Willingham’s Fables, but felt no slings or arrows as it became ABC’s highest-rated new drama of the 2011-2012 season. The complex saga of fairy-tale characters trapped in the modern world without their memories was a nonstop roller coaster that leavened linear storytelling with non-linear flashbacks and delved into themes of identity, belief, vengeance, betrayal, and true love. The basic cast of Snow White, Prince Charming, their long-lost adult daughter Emma, her forsaken son Henry, his adopted mother Mayor Evil Queen, and her ally/nemesis/ally/nemesis Rumpelstiltskin were joined each week by a strong, nuanced supporting cast who each had a turn living out their origins and defining their roles in the scary new world of quaint little Storybrooke.

The happy news three weeks ago was that Meghan Ory’s Red Riding Hood (a.k.a. Ruby the world’s greatest detective who’d rather be a waitress) would be upgraded to full-time regular status in season 2. This week Entertainment Weekly brought announcements of two more recurring characters being added to the show, neither of whom I’ve ever watched in anything: Jamie Chung as Mulan and Sarah Bolger as Sleeping Beauty. Those two are in addition to already existing recurring characters Dr. Jiminy Cricket, Ruby’s grandma restaurateur, the Blue Fairy, Amy Acker’s other fairy, the madder-than-mad Mad Hatter, Sidney Glass the queen’s tool, August “Pinocchio” Booth, the tormented Belle, my personal hero Grumpy, the blondish doctor who has yet to reveal his true Disney name, and a handful of other one-shot Disney properties such as Maleficent and Pongo.

I trust the showrunners know what they’re doing and will be adding new characters organically as the flow of the season allows them, rather than cramming them in all at once as if the series were a virtual clown-car of corporate merchandise mascots, all suffocating each other as they vie for our attention and the approval of their Disney overlords. I can only imagine this trend taken to an extreme as we run out of princesses by season 4 and have to start scraping the Disney barrel for too many unnecessary live-action reboots. The possibilities for casting and subplots abound:

* A Hawaiian girl named Lilo with a most exotic pet.

* Chernabog from Fantasia as the season 3 Big Bad, having conquered and assumed control of Fairy Tale Land while Mayor Evil Queen has been in absentia.

* Pocahontas as a lawyer representing for Storybrooke’s minorities and/or environmental causes, switching specialties every other episode for plot needs as TV lawyers are wont to do.

* Dumbo’s mother incarnated as an overprotective plus-sized mother of Henry’s new mute, big-eared friend.

* Bob Newhart and Zsa-Zsa Gabor reprising their roles as Bernard and Bianca, now retired adventurers who bicker sweetly while their rambunctious brood carry on the family business.

* Don Novello resumes as the demolitions expert from Atlantis: the Lost Empire, except now clad in his old Father Guido Sarducci costume.

* Aladdin’s magic carpet as a hybrid sports car, purple with gold trim, and as alive as Herbie the Love Bug.

* While I’m thinking about it, Herbie the Love Bug wouldn’t be unwelcome, either.

* Zach Braff as a small, jaundiced paranoiac who won’t stop ranting about the sky falling.

* Goofy as the world’s worst sports instructor, still making that terrified “YAAAA-HOOIE!” cry that never fails to make me chuckle.

* Robin Williams as a live-action genie. If this never happens, the show and its promises are all LIES.

Of course, a cast this size would require a budget of several million dollars per episode, possibly as much as one-tenth the cost of an episode of George Lucas’ Star Wars dream show. Cuts will need to be made somewhere to accommodate producer mandates. CG effects may be toned down somewhat in favor of placards that advise the viewers at home to “just use your imagination.” More time for extra commercials may be necessary, cutting episode running times down from forty-five minutes per episode to about ten. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Storybrooke open its very first Subway franchise.

The schedule for next weekend’s San Diego Comic Con includes a Once Upon a Time panel (Saturday the 14th at 11 a.m. — note it on your SDCC calendar app!) that will no doubt shed more light on what’s in store for season two, in addition to giving lucky fans a chance to express their gratitude to the cast in person. Personally, I’m crossing my fingers in hopes of a Grumpy and the Fairy spinoff. I’d claim myself a front-row seat for that, even if it was…for a price.

Today’s Unrelated Things: the Stalker and the Stick

July 2, 2012 By in Comics/Lit, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Basic-cable true-crime melodrama is my wife’s thing, not mine, but she noticed the description of one of tonight’s reruns of the Investigation Discovery docuseries Stalked: Someone’s Watching mentioned “a comic book author”. I’m easily excitable whenever our interests converge, so I dropped what I was doing and joined her for quality TV time that ended up disturbing me instead. The December 2011 episode titled “Signed, your Deadliest Fan” was a half-hour run-through of the experience of Colleen Doran, creator of A Distant Soil and artist of various commendable works (Sandman, Orbiter, the underrated Zodiac), who spent years at the mercy of a “fan” who subjected her to no small amount of devious psychological Hell.

As Doran recounted her story to the offscreen interviewer, I felt sure I wasn’t the only comics reader reminded of Harlan Ellison’s classic essay, “Xenogenesis”, about the real-life horror stories endured by science fiction writers at the hands of poorly raised readers oblivious to the pain caused by their own reprehensible actions toward their ostensible idols. I’m glad that Ellison was forthright enough to set “Xenogenesis” down in print, but I really don’t like to be reminded of it. I hate knowing that I share a hobby or a fandom with extremist malcontents who failed at paying attention to the good-is-better-than-evil motif portrayed in 90% of all comics ever. Understanding that other humans are not your toys shouldn’t be a challenging lesson to learn.

“Xenogenesis” doesn’t appear to be online in any reputable downloadable form. I think I still have the copy I clipped out when it was reprinted in Comics Buyer’s Guide many a moon ago. The Stalked episode is available to view via tvguide.com; alas, it costs money. Doran also wrote an even more distressing follow-up about the episode with links to her past writings about the ordeal, covering details that the producers omitted or glossed over, such as the part where the offender in question is now out and about on his own recognizance. I can see how this non-minor detail would interfere with the show’s need for closure.

(Less saddening aside about the show: I was jarred out of it for a moment during a dramatization in which “Colleen” apprehensively attended a New York comic con as a special guest circa 1987. In one brief shot, we see her cheerfully signing copies of The Unwritten. Anachronism and complete un-relation to Doran aside, the next time Peter Gross needs a month’s vacation, she would seem a great fit to me.)

* * * * *

On the brighter side of my day, the mailman finally delivered my tangible rewards for supporting Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick Kickstarter campaign. It still boggles the mind how a project that started as a quixotic quest to reprint a few old collections became a record-breaking runaway train of generosity gone wild. My pledge level permitted me a graphic novel I didn’t have, along with far too many additional stationery-section goodies that were added as prizes later in the campaign.

I’m especially tickled pink by the OotS coloring book, which includes coloring pages for each of the major stick-figure cast members, plus value-added puzzles and drawing challenges. I’m tempted to color a page and post an example for all to see, but then my coloring book wouldn’t be a mint-condition collectible anymore that I can use to fund my post-retirement world traveling.

(Caveat emptor: intense typo Nazis should think twice before purchasing a copy if the opportunity arises, because one section in the answer key misspells “situations”. I’ve seen your kind act as wet blankets in the name of proofreading in many a venue, but do realize Burlew is under tremendous pressure to fulfill his part of the deal and has a lot on his plate. It would be most gracious of you to forgive, forget, and refrain from insisting that the mere existence of “situtions” sullies his good name and ruins everything. Please do not declare the whole thing a sham or demand triple your money back and your next ten graphic novels free. As Stalked taught us, fan entitlement is an ugly, destructive force of evil.)

Next Week’s “Bunheads” to End With Funeral Pyre Stoked with Unsold “Private Practice” DVDs

June 18, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Despite ratings for a basic-cable premiere that were okay but not grounds for instant Fox-style cancellation, ABC Family’s Bunheads made a few headlines anyway last week thanks to a gift from Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes, who thought the show needed publicity. Rhimes tweeted to her 190,000 followers about the failure of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino to establish and enforce strict racial quotas during the twenty-minutes-long casting phase of the low-budget show’s compacted pre-production schedule.

On Monday Entertainment Weekly passed along interview excerpts in which Sherman-Palladino expressed disappointment in Rhimes’ flagrant disregard for the Woman Showrunners’ Code, and implied her preference instead for a one-step-at-a-time approach to show creation. (Step 1: get the show on the air in the first place, compromised or otherwise. Step 2: entertain the masses enough to survive past four episodes. Step 3: make changes as needed after you know you’ve earned the privilege to continue working.)

Anyone who tuned in Monday night for the second episode would have noticed a few non-white characters in the tiny town of Paradise, including one of Fanny’s close circle of friends. The representative even had lines, but had quite the unenviable challenge of sharing scenes with the uniquely animated Ellen Greene. Asking her to steal a scene from Pushing Daisies‘ Aunt Viv, here playing an oddball found-object nude sculptress, is a taller-than-tall order regardless of minority classification.

Personally, I thought episode 2 was even more electric than episode 1, with plenty of quotable dialogue (“At last, a chance to use my high school Tibetan!”) and a few tear-jerking scenes as everyone struggled to cope with the fallout of episode 1’s devastating cliffhanger. In addition to Ellen Greene, I was also overjoyed to see the episode end with another guest star from an old, swiftly canceled, Barry Sonnenfeld-related TV show — David Burke from the live-action version of The Tick. (All we need now is a walk-on from a veteran of Maximum Bob and we can declare June 2012 as Sonnenfeldmania Month on Bunheads. Might I suggest Beau Bridges as the Mayor of Paradise?)

Discussion questions for those who caught episode 2 tonight:

1. I thought someone somewhere manufactured party tents in black. Am I, too, imagining this?

2. Is any Mark Wahlberg film really worth skipping school on false pretenses? Even if he’s making things in France explode?

3. If you ran a party supply shop, how much would you charge for Dalai Lama cocktail napkins?

4. Capes? Seriously?

5. Which Paradise resident do you think we’ll meet first, the Republican or the Liza Minnelli impersonator?

6. The USS Intrepid‘s official site offers no coupons, but does sell gift cards. Close enough?

7. Am I or am I not alone in thinking that Fanny had the funniest and saddest line of the night, as she scoffed at the notion of being prayed for from afar: “I take my spirituality very seriously. If I don’t see it, I don’t believe it!” It’s just me, right?

8. Is it really true that no one eats carbs anymore? If so, do I have to keep living in that world?

9. If the Shonda Rhimes “Save Bunheads So It Can Have Time to Replace Half Its White Cast” publicity campaign works and the show survives past this summer, which fad do you think the show will inspire first: funeral dancing or sitar players at parties?

10. Would anyone else like an encore of Tom Waits’ “Picture in a Frame”?

I’d also like to address what was, for me, the most incendiary portion of the show: the scene in which Michelle and Rico the mellow bartender knock the concept of brunch and raise their glasses “to time-specific eating habits.” Hey, Bunheads: really? You couldn’t show even one scene of an adult male celebrating the magical rarity that is breakfast-for-dinner, so I as a breakfast-food fan could feel good about watching this show? Not one?

“Falling Skies” Fans Count Down to Season 2 Premiere, Desperately Try to Remember Character Names

June 16, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After an extended absence from Earth’s airwaves, the post-invasion saga Falling Skies returns to TNT with a two-hour season premiere Sunday, June 17th, at 9 p.m. EDT. Viewers like me were pleasantly surprised to watch a series containing the phrase “Executive Producer Steven Spielberg” that wasn’t canceled at the end of season one. Yes, I’m still bitter about the others, but I’m grateful that one made the grade with the Nielsen commoners.

Ten months have now passed since I saw the season 1 finale as it aired. I didn’t buy the DVD set and rarely watch reruns of any show, well-liked or not. Obviously I’ve slept since August 2011 and have had plenty of other shows, movies, and comics to preoccupy me in the meantime. I have less than 24 hours to remember where we left off without resorting to cheating, by which I mean paying any attention to the current marketing onslaught or reviewing its WikiPedia pages.

So far I recall the following cast of characters:

Noah Wyle as not exactly Dr. John Carter, M.D.: Our intrepid main character is a former Massachusetts history teacher who role-models bravely for his three sons while downplaying a modest drive for vengeance for the death of his wife. When last we saw him, he had agreed under duress to fly off into space with our alien overlords. I’d like to think the first scene in the premiere will be an intricately choreographed wire-fu sequence aboard the mothership that ends with him defenestrating all the aliens and piloting their craft back to Earth with their speakers blaring a classic-rawk station cranked up to 11.

Son 1, Son 2, and Son 3: Like their dad, whatever his real first name is, all their names, whatever they are, are short. Main characters never have lengthy names like Mortimer, Cordwainer, or Buckminster. I think the middle son, the implant survivor whose symbio-ectomy left him imbued with useful super-powers, was named Ben. The oldest son knew how to use guns and ride a motorcycle, and was well on his way to being treated by his dad as an official, independent, adult male. He was much more mature and less disappointing than the oldest child on Executive Producer Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova. The littlest son was very little and may grow up to be a tech whiz if he’s not endangered too often. Repeated exposure to such nightmarish situations is likely to turn him into Carl from The Walking Dead. No one wants that.

Lourdes, the overtly devoutly religious helper girl: At last, a character who can believe in God, openly display that she does, exude actual signs of hope and faith, and even pray (*gasp!*) without being secretly evil, mocked by the other characters, mocked by the showrunners, taught a very special lesson about Tolerance, or murdered as a cheap plot stunt. Yet. If the showrunners ever leave, odds are she’ll be the first character thrown under the bus. I’m trying not to mourn her loss in advance, but the track record for this sort of character has been exasperatingly dismal ever since Little House on the Prairie ended. I’d buy posters and any ancillary merchandise of her if I thought it would improve her chances of remaining on the show till the very end, and if it wouldn’t make me seem like a creepy old man.

Doctor Moon Bloodgood: You don’t forget a name like that, even when you forget a name like her character’s. Since chances of a sequel to Terminator Salvation are nil, she’ll have to accept her destiny to become Mrs. John Carter someday. For now, she’s a doctor with more resources and spine than some of her male associates, but without being hatefully offputting. Kudos!

Will Patton as Commander Gruff McPonytail: He barked orders, he disagreed with Noah Wyle every ten minutes, he struggled with his faith, he lost his marbles for a while, and then he was back in the saddle, still barking and wounding the enemy with his permanent stubbble.

Silent Dai, the only Asian around for miles: I was disappointed when he missed out on several important maneuvers due to combat injuries. Then again, there was no reason to expect him to defeat his opponents with the brutal beatdown techniques of an amazing ninja warrior. That’s racist. A missed opportunity, but still racist.

Commander Dale Dye: My eyes nearly popped out of my head when the famous TV/movie military technical advisor guest-starred last season. My heart sank when we were told he died. Offscreen, no less. I can only hope this intel was flawed and we’ll see Dye return with an alien harness and a really big gun.

Nina Sharp of Massive Dynamic: It’s hard to forget the episode where Blair Brown played a kindly old lady with lovely tea service and a penchant for selling out to the aliens. When Fringe concludes next season, Falling Skies would do well to invite her back.

Long-hair biker gangster who evolved from evil to just really, really selfish: He’s least likely to do the right thing and gets all the funniest lines. He’s the Jonathan Harris of a new generation. His saving grace is his mad cooking skills, an Iron Chef by way of MacGyver, making the most of his limited ingredients in an impoverished world where the overlords bombed all the really good restaurants out of business. I’m sure several thousand impervious Subway franchises still thrive, but who cares.

Maggie, forced biker moll no more: Understandably edgy and voted Most Likely to Put a Bullet in Chef Biker’s Head if he keeps misbehaving.

Another blond teen: I do recall there was one. She distracted Son #1 from Lourdes. Then something bad happened to her. That’ll teach her.

Young, goofy, trigger-shy Jimmy: How many more allies must be jeopardized or gravely injured before he catches up with the other quickly maturing teens and finally holds his own without crying and hiding? My guess is 72.

Ben’s black friend who loved being a slave: I couldn’t help thinking there was something very wrong about that. Proof positive that the enemy is evil.

The skitters: I can’t wait for one of them to have a personality or a name. Just one would go such a long way. Hopefully their newly revealed supervisors have surprises and identities in store.

I can only imagine how many memory holes I haven’t uncovered yet, but I trust sufficient expository reminders and recaps are forthcoming. If they fail, I’ll make up my own names for everybody and enjoy the show anyway. In this scenario the three sons will be named Morty, Cordy, and Bucky.

My “Mad Men” Season 5 Finale Predictions, 100% Accurate on Some Alternate Earth

June 4, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Mad Men has already thrown a plethora of unexpected twists and pivots at us this year, but has one more hour at its disposal to see if it can top itself even more outlandishly. One can only hope the season 5 finale, “The Phantom”, will join the ranks of “The Wheel” and “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” as another finale to end all finales.

I’m terrible at guessing what happens next in any given show. Like all other failed prognosticators, that never stops me from trying. I may look weird keeping a book by my side while I watch, for something to occupy my time during commercials or sex scenes, but rest assured I’m otherwise paying attention, keeping mental tabs as best I can with my aging memory, and harboring my own half-baked theories about what ought to happen next. Fortunately, whatever happens is usually much more stunning.

Momentary pause here for courtesy spoiler alert before I proceed. If you’re not caught up through the June 3rd episode “Commissions and Fees”, or if you just don’t care, your exit strategy should be executed right about now. Please allow me to have you escorted to safety by this authentic 1960s artifact, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

The Ghost of DC Movies Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

And now, on with my false prophecies about “The Phantom”:

* With Mrs. Pryce left behind in surprise financial dire straits, Pete offers to buy her green Jaguar as a gesture of charity, albeit for a song. For some reason the car starts just fine for him. Pete spends his long drive back to the suburbs with all the windows down, the radio cranked up, and imagining himself a Real Man. Halfway home he’s pulled over for doing 80 in a 25 MPH zone. The Jaguar is impounded. Pete is not happy.

* The funeral is a somber yet extravagant affair. With Lane’s overseas colleagues all declining to attend and Mrs. Pryce unable to speak, Don steps to the podium and delivers a eulogy that was written by Megan in about six minutes on the back of a funeral program. It is the Greatest Eulogy of All Time. Pete fumes with envy.

* A suddenly lucid and desperate Roger proposes to six different women: the twin models who witnessed his heart attack, Peggy’s brash friend Joyce, Don’s receptionist Dawn, his ex-wife Mona, and li’l Sally. We have to wait until next season to find out which one said yes. Pete overhears Roger’s end of the phone conversation, then stomps away muttering like an angry child about how he wishes he could go out and remarry every two years.

* Two months into her new job, Peggy is flourishing as a creative force at Cutler, Gleason & Chaough. Shockingly, Ted Chaough has proven not to be a lech. She later attends a business mixer with one of CGC’s major clients, the life insurance company that employs Pete’s commuter buddy. She has a chance encounter with Pete’s one-time fling, Mrs. Commuter Buddy, who’s attending the party dutifully with her husband. Casual small talk escalates into a tearful confession. Peggy somehow puts two and two together from the scant clues, makes a beeline for her old offices, kicks Pete right in his Campbell Soup Cans, and exchanges strained pleasantries with Don on her way out. Pete cannot breathe for the rest of the day.

* Don rehires previously laid-off copywriter Danny Siegel (Danny Strong) to handle the Jaguar account for him while he himself, emboldened by the Dow deal, decides go after a bigger fish than Jaguar: the great and powerful Rolls Royce. Don is convinced that their Phantom series (we have episode title!) is Where It’s At. By episode’s end, Don can’t close the deal without Megan’s help, but she refuses because of auditions and ambitions and such. The chase proves to be just another Dulcinea that teaches us the real “phantom” is the fleeting nature of happiness or business success or absolute manhood or whatever. Pete’s only moment of joy in the episode occurs when he realizes Danny is the first adult male he’s ever met who’s punier than he is.

* Betty and Henry have a mild argument or something. No one cares.

* Ed “the Devil from Reaper” Baxter calls Don, tells him he has some nerve!, and awards him with Dow’s business. All of it. After a series of fake meetings and fake intense arguments, Roger formally announces Ken will be handling the account under extreme duress, but totally solo due to fictional client mandates. Pete’s blood boils.

* The bigwigs at Heinz announce they’re so in love with the work that Michael Ginsberg and Stan Rizzo have done for their baked bean ads, they’re moving all of Heinz’ other accounts to the firm, including Big Catsup. Pete finds an excuse to leave the meeting abruptly with his face red and hot steam whistling out his ears, even though this subplot has virtually nothing to do with him.

* Trudy puts on the frumpiest dress she owns and announces she’s pregnant again. She wonders if perhaps they’ll need to move into a larger house even farther away from Manhattan, possibly as far as western New Jersey. Pete responds by climbing to the top of a water tower, wielding the trusty rifle that he obtained years ago in exchange for a duplicate chip-‘n’-dip set, and begins firing indiscriminately at innocent passersby. He doesn’t hit a single live target, but shatters the window of a beauty shop, where the bullet destroys a Clearasil display. Pete’s father-in-law is not happy. After he runs out of ammo, Pete throws his emptied gun at Trudy (missing by a wide margin), slips off his perch and onto the ground. The authorities toss him into a paddy wagon and wave him off. Our last sight of Pete is him clawing at the windows and frothing at the mouth. Trudy is later consoled by her new neighbors, Troy and Abed.

* The firm name is changed to Draper Sterling Cooper Harris. Pete’s head explodes.

CBS’ “Elementary” to Introduce Sherlock Holmes of Earth-2, Possibly Precipitate “Sherlock War” Crossover

May 31, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Despite the objections of BBC fans, this fall CBS plans to air their own Sherlock Holmes series, Elementary. Starring Jonny Lee Miller as Our Hero and Lucy Liu as mandatory progressive Dr. Watson, the show promises some or all of the following:

The last time I watched a detective show with a British counterpart, whose American version was antsy and not entirely stable, it was Robert Pastorelli in Cracker. Other than introducing the world to young Josh Hartnett’s unkempt hair, it didn’t go over well. I’m curious enough that I might tune in for the pilot. I’m a fan of unlikely heroes with too much nervous energy to spare, but I hope the rest of the cast is given more to do than simply standing around slack-jawed and watching him do all the overacting.

Shocking confession time: despite recommendations from many smart people, I have yet to watch a single episode of the BBC’s renowned Sherlock. My wife and I keep forgetting we have BBC America, and I keep forgetting that season 1 is on DVD. The only excerpt I’ve watched in full is this one:

Frankly, I’m sold. I wish I could say I’m making an Amazon one-click purchase right now, but I have a vacation in two months that needs funded first, and my pre-existing backlog of unwatched DVDs weighs upon me with some shame. Maybe I can rank it at the top of my Christmas list.

Sherman-Palladino’s “Bunheads” Does Ballet with Sharper Wit, Less Trauma Than “Black Swan”

May 29, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I don’t normally tune in to TV shows in which the women outnumber the men by a wide margin. I’ve seen multiple episodes of The Golden Girls and Designing Women only because they aired during my childhood, when I had no say in what shows our family watched. As far as more recent years go, let it be noted for the record that the gender margin on Buffy was by no means wide.

I never brake for ballet. I was once forced at too young an age to sit through a Dance Kaleidoscope performance of The Nutcracker that scarred me with boredom for decades. I’ve never seen Billy Elliott or The Red Shoes. I only endured Black Swan because my annual fanatical Oscar completism required it. Even ballet episodes of The Simpsons aren’t my cup of tea, except for any scene involving Lugash.

I’ve never even watched an ABC Family series, unless you count a few guilty-pleasure reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos. I try (and fail) to justify that by citing the members of its writing staff who hailed from the great and powerful Mystery Science Theater 3000. I also secretly think Tom Bergeron is underrated, but you didn’t hear it from me.

And no, sadly, I never saw a complete episode of Gilmore Girls. Nothing about “women’s drama on the WB” sounded like a draw for me. Admittedly, occasional snippets and reviews I caught in later seasons gave me the impression that I might like it if I tried it, but by then it was too late.

Today Entertainment Weekly gave subscribers access to a sneak preview of the entire first episode of the upcoming ABC Family series Bunheads, a ballet drama created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator and voice behind Gilmore Girls. The last time EW sent me a sneak-preview link, that particular free sample lasted all of four minutes before I rolled my eyes at the show in question, closed the browser window, and thanked them for thinking of me.

Given all of this, I had no reason to expect that Bunheads would beat the previous four-minute record. I rolled the dice and gave it a go anyway.

The first minute wasn’t encouraging– a kickline of Vegas showgirls doing their onstage frilly thing for the men, only to be pushed aside by the even less clothed real stars of their stage. The camera switches focus to two girls in the back row, exchanging catty remarks about why they don’t qualify for front row. From there the pace picks up as we move backstage and introduce a very special guest star: Alan Ruck, known to many as spineless sidekick Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but dearer to me as Captain Harriman, the schlub who helped Captain Kirk get dead in Star Trek: Generations.

Ruck’s presence as a stubborn, clueless suitor bought the pilot ten minutes of my time. Fair exchange, I figured. I’ve never seen him misused.

The next time I remembered to check the timecode, fifteen minutes had gone by. From there the scene abruptly changed, new characters entered and marked their positions, and the momentum wouldn’t stop. Next thing I knew, the full 45-minute episode had flown by and ended with a precipitous cliffhanger that left me wanting to know what happens next.

In my book, that’s unconscious high praise.

The premise, since it matters: Michelle (Tony nominee Sutton Foster, razor-sharp and Sorkin-film-ready) is a trained dancer turned hopeless Vegas eye candy who impulse-marries Captain Harriman in a rock-bottom moment of weakness and agrees to move into his mammoth abode in a faraway, cozy, everybody-knows-your-name small town called Paradise, a name well chosen from the approved list of ironic names for TV small towns. Everyone except Harriman hates her, especially his ex-girlfriend Truly (Friday Night Lights‘ Stacey Oristano, who steals every scene with pitiful comedy tears), and doubly especially Harriman’s mom (Kelly Bishop, also formerly of Gilmore Girls, playing far from caricature), who is stern and offended at the tawdry acquisition of a surprise daughter-in-law. She lives in Harriman’s home, just as you’d expect from a sitcom aiming for wacky hijinks. Michelle’s in luck, though — hubby’s mansion also houses mother-in-law’s ballet school.

You can imagine the culture clashes. You can imagine the possibilities for the two adversaries bonding over ballet despite having little else in common. You can imagine there are at least four young students with singular character traits who are only a pirouette away from being labeled the Bad News Bears of ballet.

What holds it together and makes it zing are Sherman-Palladino’s ear for dialogue that’s not cribbed from other TV shows; the immediate, surprising depth of the awkward quote-unquote “relationship” between newlyweds Michelle (who’s well aware that her actions don’t speak well of her) and Captain Harriman (who we learn isn’t as dense about their situation as he seems); and a few moments of gravity struck in just the right places that lift this pilot several planes above the level of chick-flick flight-of-fancy. I sincerely apologize for expecting no more than that going into it.

The premiere airs Monday, June 11th, on ABC Family at 9 p.m. EDT. The official site has plenty of preview material and freebies for the curious. I’ve clicked on none of them because I’m giving serious consideration to catching episode two the following week and would prefer to avoid spoilers. Also, if future episodes aim more for the ABC Family young-girl audience and not so much on a level for me, the complete opposite of their target demographic, then I’d prefer not to find out yet.

(I’m thankful the show isn’t aiming for a prurient tone — setting aside that fleeting opening scene — so I can explain to my wife why I think the show might be worthwhile without looking like a dirty old man. It also helps my case that I find her 200% more attractive than any ballet dancer. Yes, really. Don’t give me that look.)

Enclosed below is a two-minute fraction of the episode I watched of The Show I Couldn’t Possibly Like. Enjoy! I’ll just be over here remembering what owning a Man Card once felt like.

(If I could make just one suggestion: is it too late to change the title to, say, Dances in Paradise? Bunheads sounds like an Adult Swim show about animated foul-mouthed pastries.)

Cartoon Network Celebrates Memorial Day with Preview of “Annoying Orange”

May 27, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , Leave a comment

In honor of all those foodstuffs who died in the line of kitchen conversation, Cartoon Network will be airing a sneak preview of their upcoming, reverent TV adaptation of the YouTube Golden Age classic Annoying Orange on Monday, May 28th, at 8:30 EDT. TV scientists await with instruments at hand to measure the effects of a mere fifteen-minute exposure on the health and stability of unsuspecting Nielsen families.

The official teaser:

I’m out of the loop on 85% of all YouTube phenomena, but I first caught sight of this citric sociopath in his mainstream breakout role alongside other notorious YouTube mascots in a Sprint/Regal Cinemas ad, warning the cell-phone fetishists in the audience to power down. He was hard to ignore as his distinct voice arose from the ruckus and stabbed me right in the ear. Thankfully my son was on hand to explain the concept to me without rolling his eyes too much.

I was surprised to see this pop up on the Memorial Day schedule with little or no fanfare from my immediate social circles. Clearly the world must be warned.

NBC Keeps “Community” Because Torturing Beloved Show More Fun Than Canceling It

May 19, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Like most of ugly America, I initially, unfairly wrote off Community sight unseen as another generic ensemble comedy. Their first paintball episode changed my mind before the third act. A few reruns later, it earned the designation of My New Favorite Show. After a Season 1 DVD viewing binge and an iTunes shopping spree for the first several episodes of season 2, I caught up to the present and proudly stuck around ever after. Not since Futurama has a show mined geek culture so efficiently for so many comedy diamonds. The quick yet incisive character moments and off-the-cuff references fly past the viewer at an Aaron Sorkin fever pitch. The complicated emotional core keeps the study group grounded and bonded without reducing them to typical sitcom caricatures. It’s dense, razor-sharp, off-the-wall, and heartfelt all at once.

Like other fans, I winced and fretted throughout season 3 as it was trounced every week in the ratings by other, inferior, even loathsome shows. My attempts to convince friends of its worth had limited success. A few Internet acquaintances hopped aboard. Some sided with its competition, particularly CBS’ loathsome antithesis, and basically punched me in the heart. I even tried telling family members, but the conversation would have the same disappointing turnout every time. I would mention the show; they would confess they’d never heard of it; I would describe it to them in so many words (neither too many nor too few); they would nod and agree that they should try it sometime; and three minutes later they would forget we had ever spoken.

I was amazed when NBC announced its renewal. My low-rated favorite shows rarely receive a stay of execution. Sometimes a merciful renewal can be a good thing, as when Dollhouse used its season 2 to ratchet everything up several notches and ended with explosive closure. Sometimes it’s a bad thing, as when Veronica Mars used its season 3 to jump every shark in sight (new setting! new characters! loss of old characters! Logan turns to the dark side!) and ended on a despondent cliffhanger.

I had faith that Community would aim for the former over the latter. Of late, NBC has been doling out hints to the contrary, one lamentable update at a time. With that renewal announcement, we were informed the season 4 order would be only thirteen episodes. That’s no guarantee of eventual cancellation, merely a sign they’re proceeding with caution before making a final decision about whether or not to pick up the back nine. Given its underwhelming ratings performance with the all-powerful Nielsen commoners, their reticence is understandable if discouraging.

Later we were told the show would move to Fridays. On Fox this is an unqualified death sentence, especially for a sci-fi show. Community isn’t sci-fi every week, but contains elements. NBC may not be a juggernaut on Fridays, but at least they’re not Fox. Grimm survived its freshman year on Fridays. It can be done.

In that same announcement, we were told its Friday slot will be 8:30 after Whitney. When NBC first aired Whitney on Thursdays after The Office, I don’t recall its ratings topping those of its three lead-ins. After sampling two failed minutes of an unmarried couple communicating entirely through unfunny sex jokes, our household unanimously decided that on every Thursday, 9:30 would conclude our broadcast day. I would hum “The Star-Spangled Banner” in my head and turn the TV off. I am unable to imagine a scenario in which leading off primetime with Whitney will result in Community converting more viewers and surging in popularity.

I’ve had a few days now to convince myself that, short of NBC reversing its decision and axing Community after all, things shouldn’t get any worse.

Today ruined all that when I learned creator Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner:

Just a day after it was announced former Happy Endings writers David Guarascio and Moses Port would take over the Community creator’s showrunner position, Harmon took to his Tumblr page to sound off…

To recap: next season the show will air thirteen episodes on Fridays after Whitney with its creator no longer in charge.

I now wait with bated breath for the next deathly announcement to drop. Will Greendale Community College be replaced with a wacky coffee shop? Will Joel McHale be replaced by Tony Danza? Will Annie turn to the dark side? Will the cast now communicate entirely through unfunny sex jokes? Will Chevy Chase begin receiving an Executive Producer credit? What can go wrong next?

I can count the reasons I should stay. Please tell me, one by one, they all won’t fade away. Pretty please?

2011-2012 TV Cancellations Announced, All My Favorite Shows Spared

May 13, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The week of May 14th-18th will be the annual TV network upfronts, in which America’s least predictable executives present their next fall’s schedule to advertisers in hopes of fostering viewer anticipation and large sacks of money. These mostly finalized lists provide us with the best possible confirmation of renewals, cancellations, midseason postponements, and symptoms of executive dysfunction. Thanks to the last two days’ deluge of announcements from Entertainment Weekly and other sources, 2012’s final results are mostly in ahead of schedule.

Several shows were already canceled in previous months; some of them, mere minutes after their second episodes ended. Some crews have been notified of their loss within the past 48 hours and are still working through the Five Stages. For me the casualties of the 2011-2012 season fall into five categories.

(Please note: I am far from completist on this. No doubt we’ll receive solemn notice of more victims shortly. Let it be known I pay no heed to reality-show obituaries at all. Or reality shows in general, for that matter.)

Shows I watched at least once:
Alcatraz
Awake
Prime Suspect
Terra Nova

Ten minutes of Prime Suspect was enough for me. I no longer remember why, though I recall the hat didn’t help. I lasted through the full two-hour premiere of Alcatraz but couldn’t forgive Sam Neill’s stern appropriation of Dr. Evil’s cocked eyebrow. Awake started strong, but I bowed out after four episodes, once it lapsed into its own unique but grating formula that required the exact same scene twice every week:

“Let’s go check out this completely irrelevant thing! It’s extremely important to our case!”
“What? Why? It has nothing to do with anything.”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…magical hunch?”
“That’s utterly stupid. Let’s roll.”

Terra Nova, on the other hand, I followed from start to finish. For the first several episodes, I had little love for any of the Shannon kids (mandatory cutie-pie Zoe, lovestruck rebel/dork Josh, and Not Quite Jan Brady), but by the end their family was functioning much better as a unit and had developed a rudimentary foundation of supporting characters that could be built upward in future seasons. Sometimes there were even dinosaurs. My son appreciated that every episode had a one-dinosaur-head minimum. The cliffhanger finale hinted at interesting new directions in the days ahead, but the showrunners’ imaginations wrote checks that their advertising income couldn’t cash. I had hoped for a second season with downgraded expectations (say, CG supplanted by sock puppetry), but I’ve had to let that go.

Shows I never tried, but bear no ill will:
The Finder
The Firm
A Gifted Man
Harry’s Law
Ringer
The River
Secret Circle

If someone bought me a Complete Series set as a gift, I wouldn’t sneer and toss it in the Goodwill bag, but it might be several years before I find time to sample episode one.

Shows you could pay me to watch once, but no one ever did:
Allen Gregory
Are You There, Chelsea?
Breaking In
Charlie’s Angels
Free Agents
H8R
How to Be a Gentleman
I Hate My Teenage Daughter
Man Up!
Missing

Some shows I look at and say, “Why?” TV execs look at them and say, “Why not?” I await their cancellations and say, “That’s why.” Many shows have outlived my expectations. None of these did.

Shows you couldn’t pay me to watch because of, shall we say, scruples:
GCB
Pan Am
The Playboy Club

Shows 100% unfamiliar to me:
Bent
Best Friends Forever

I first learned about the existence of these two shows in this week’s headlines. I think I blinked at just the wrong month.

I was pleasantly stunned, however, at some of the renewals. As a past viewer of Firefly, FlashForward, Persons Unknown, Brimstone, and other unplanned fatalities, I’ve come to expect most of my shows to vaporize every year as a tradition. My TV habits dwell in a Hunger Games world where Grey’s Anatomy and Two-and-a-Half Men are Career Tributes and my favorite scripted shows are the carcasses that fertilize the field around the Cornucopia.

Surprise twist for me, then: other than Terra Nova, all my shows will return next season, even NBC’s widely shunned Thursday lineup. I’m grateful to those responsible for granting stays of execution for my unfairly unwatched shows this year, despite attempts by those nefarious Nielsen families to ignore them into oblivion.

For once, the day is saved thanks to…TV executives!

My 2012 Season Finale Predictions, 100% Accurate on Some Alternate Earth

May 10, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Another springtime tradition draws near as my regular TV shows each race toward their season finales. I never know how any given show will end, but it’s fun to pretend I do. Here, then, are my incorrect predictions for what’s in store for me over the next month. If any of these are remotely accurate, I’d be grateful if someone in charge would PayPal me a fraction of the ad revenues.

Community: Chang becomes the dean of the all-new all-different (read: even more destabilized) Greendale College. A shattered ex-Dean Pelton seeks a new degree and joins the study group. Troy and Britta still don’t hook up, but we discover a good reason why. The climax will be the destruction of the air conditioning annex in some sort of wormhole-based implosion that fits whatever the episode’s satirical target is. R.I.P. John Goodman’s character for arc-closure purposes, along with Pierce Hawthorne in some hideous yet hilarious manner that Dan Harmon will reveal to Chevy Chase after the episode airs, in the form of a TwitPic of his pink slip.

The Office: James Spader’s imminent departure was previously announced. Mindy Kaling’s Fox deal is reportedly reaching fruition. A spinoff is allegedly being constructed for Rainn Wilson. Other exits aren’t unlikely if the show is renewed. All signs point toward one inevitability: a natural disaster wipes out Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch, taking out half the cast. Those left standing at the end — Andy, Erin, David Wallace, Kevin, Oscar, Creed, Cathy the annoying temp, Nate from the warehouse, and a hastily rehired Todd Packer — relocate for season 9 to the scenic Utica branch, where hilarity can hopefully ensue after they pick up the pieces. If for some reason Parks & Recreation isn’t renewed, Rashida Jones returns as their new boss, Karen.

Parks & Recreation: Leslie loses the election because moving her out of the department would compromise the show’s basic premise. Somehow her loss is all Jerry’s fault, but the team holds their pre-planned victory party anyway with a little help from Donna’s cousin Ginuwine. Meanwhile, Tom fails one last time to win Anne’s heart, which is fine by me. The final scene in four words: either “Ben proposes to Leslie” or “Chris has a coronary.”

Mad Men: Reply hazy; try again later. It doesn’t help that I’m currently two episodes behind.

Once Upon a Time: In the final flashback, the dwarfs and fairies locate Charming, free him, and escort him to the comatose Snow to snap her out of it in the usual fashion. As they reunite and make wedding plans, elsewhere a rebuked Evil Queen pulls the trigger on the whole “Curse” plan…which, of course, comes with a price.

Meanwhile in the present-day real world, Henry’s stunt finally convinces Emma to believe, and I finally lose the urge to throw things at my TV. When she attempts to leave town forever for her seventh or eighth time — this time with Mary Margaret, David, and still-comatose Henry all along for the ride — she pushes her li’l jalopy so hard that the engine explodes. Everyone else is scraped and bruised, but the impact leaves Emma dead…for one whole minute. In homage to the Buffy season 1 finale, momentary clinical death is good enough to fulfill the terms and conditions for breaking the curse, leading up to a final scene of everyone remembering everything, capped with a tearful reunion between Grumpy and Amy Acker.

In the long term, Season 2 has everyone coming to terms with life in the real world despite knowing what they know and who they were. In Season 3, Our Heroes — now teamed up with a remorseful Regina, who’s at long last aware that all her problems were entirely her super-evil mom’s fault — finally find a way back to the Fairytale World, which in their absence has become a smoking crater ruled by some new evil dictator. My vote is for Jafar.

The Simpsons: Absolutely nothing of consequence occurs, except maybe another great couch gag by outside artists. My vote is for Studio Ghibli.

This list fails to include the several shows I abandoned this season. I assume their finales will also involve wormhole implosions, or cameos by Charlie Sheen. Good luck with those.