I'm adjusting to the rain, hoping for sun, and wondering why I keep dreaming about Meat Cat. This was the week in TV Land:
• Lost is back! The show's sixth and final season opener drew a bigger crowd than last year's, and the episode itself was a tight, fantastic set-up for this season's main concern, i.e., what the hell do you do when you splinter the timeline. The mystery-adventure show is some of the best pop TV out there right now. It's this decade's version of The X-Files or Twin Peaks in that it derives more energy from the pursuit of truth than attaining it. Watching the premiere on Tuesday, I was reminded how much fun the show can be. The series finale is set for Sunday, May 23, with a two-hour episode.
• Jon Stewart swung by the Fox News dungeonlair studios last week to hang out on The O'Reilly Factor, the cognitive dissonance of which has to be seen to be believed. The whole thing was pretty choppy and seemed to favor shorter sound bites; at least when Stewart has to cut an interview short, they direct viewers to the Web site for the full version. You can apparently watch the whole thing online at Fox News, but as I have yet to steel myself to check that out, you'll have to make do with this:
Blame it on the break. There hasn't been a new, non-clip-show episode of The Office since December 10. That's two months for the season to lose momentum, and the effects were felt in last night's ep, "Sabre." I also think I should come to The Office void of any other recent comedy experiences, because watching it right after Community and Parks and Recreation -- two fresh, funny shows that have really found their voice -- is starting to feel like I'm taking a break from actual comedy to watch an exercise that's about humor as a theoretical abstract. Sure, there were a couple of laughs last night, but November's "Murder" was the last really funny episode. Too many moments this week were just about awkward silences, and the show needs to learn to mix those in with genuine jokes.
So, Sabre is the new owner of Dunder Mifflin. They're a printer company that made a bid and picked up the company at the last minute, and this week's episode dealt primarily with the changes the new guard wanted to implement in the Scranton branch. Gabe, a rep from Sabre, comes by to ease everyone through the process. Andy and Erin have prepared a song for him, which goes horribly because everyone in Scranton thought it was pronounced "Sah-bray." Halfway through their song, I just wanted the pain to end, or for Troy and Abed to come in and make things interesting. Gabe showed the gang a motivational video starring Christian Slater as himself, plugging the company with the kind of weak lingo you always hear in these things. (His line about employees being able to "eat a rainbow" was great, though.)
Unable to deal with the changes -- blocking YouTube and Twitter is actually a low blow -- Michael video chats with new CEO, Jo (Kathy Bates), who cuts the crap and makes it clear that he can go along or get out. Michael pays a visit to David Wallace, now unemployed and just hanging out at his house, to get ideas. David's son plays the drums constantly, loudly, and he also gets some jabs from his wife about his productivity levels, so he's clearly got it made. He's got no help for Michael but is fixated on launching a wet-dry vac called Suck It that will teach kids to pick up their toys. Michael bails and heads back to the office, deciding that it's better to live by the new boss' crappy rules than be cut free from the herd to drift aimlessly. Speaking as one who was laid off last year, can I just say: It has its perks. Funemployment is not something to be thrown away, Michael.
Last night's American Idol was a clip show, plain and simple. Nothing else going on at all. Granted, every cattle-call audition episode can feel like a clip show, with an endless run of short, forgettable stories placed one after the other. But last night's installment didn't even pretend to be anything else. It was just unused clips of singers from every audition city that we've already seen this season, and as such it looked like a normal episode but felt like so much less.
The losers were the worst kind of caricatures, even for American Idol. I'm thinking especially of the 6-foot-8 boy who was shaped like a triangle and sang in a lofty tenor. He was one of the people brought back to be puzzled over, and even the montage before his audition turned his claim of being a "blossoming flower" into a sad joke. (He was also one of the few to get a taped intro despite having no shot at all of making it to the next round.) I mean really, even pretending that these sad people bring something to the show, why spend another hour finding more of them? What's the point?
The episode spent even more time dealing with the kind of tragic stories you normally find on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Kids who grew up poor, kids who barely survived birth, etc., etc. There seemed to be more winners than usual for an audition episode, which was likely a calculated move designed to accomplish two things: make the show feel hopeful and optimistic before the next set of grueling cuts, and try to sell the show as a happy place to make dreams come true instead of the divisive competition of its early seasons, which reveled too much in the rejection of the untalented. But the show can't have it both ways. You can't be solely about talented people taking a chance if you also want to be about screwing with those deluded few who should kindly be told to do something else.
Honestly, I found it hard to concentrate on American Idol knowing I was just an hour away from the return of Lost. Admittedly, sometimes it's hard to concentrate on the show under ordinary circumstances, so this was doubly trying. But I did my best, and I did it for you.
By now, you know all the stats: Another 10,000 or so people showed up, this time to Denver's Invesco Field for a cattle call in July and a two-day callback in August 2009. I'm grateful that the wide-open audition phase of the show is almost over, because I am running out of ways to explain how pat this is or how unsurprising any of the action is. Except for a few brief moments, last night's American Idol was as predictable as every other episode so far this year. If a singer is introduced with bouncy or cartoonish music, they're likely to fail; if they're introduced with somber tones and a taped biography using baby photos or whatever, they're probably going to win. This rule works about 99% of the time. It can be trusted.
The first singer of the night was one of those rare surprises: Despite coming across awkward and being given enough rope to hang himself by the judges, he gave a decent rendition of Squeeze's "Tempted" and got the green light to go to Hollywood. It was a surprise not because he did well but because he hadn't been sold to the viewer as someone who would do well. There was no telltale taped remote or sober narration of diseases conquered and hardships overcome. So his winning was twice as interesting. The same went for the goofy and arrogant football player who sang later in the hour. There was footage of him in the gym and on the field, but he was so cocky he forgot to sing well, and as a result the judges turned him away. Really, this was the only remotely "dramatic" moment of the night because it took a contestant who'd been set up as a winner and made him a loser. If the show did this more often, it might actually become engaging.
Last night's American Idol took the auditions to Dallas (or, more accurately, Arlington) for the sixth open-call episode of the season to date. The show seemed to be hold Dallas in high regard: It's where Kelly Clarkson was discovered in the first season back in 2002, so there's a sense that Dallas, in addition to offering a disproportionate amount of Chili's and Starbucks outposts, could produce the next Idol winner. The singers who made the cut last night weren't jaw-dropping, but then, probably nobody figured Kelly would win when they saw her the first time, either.
The best part of the episode was the way it confirmed Simon Cowell's skill for turning people into characters. He's not in the business of creating or even shepherding talent; he's out to sell records, and if the performer happens to be gifted, that's a bonus. Randy works from the gut, Kara blathers on in a vaguely New Age way, but Simon always judges an audition based on a mix of talent and commercial viability. For instance, one of the winners last night was a guy with Tourette syndrome, which manifested itself in small coughs to clear the throat every few seconds. He had a nice voice, to boot. He got the green light from all four judges, but Simon's comment was the sharpest: "I think people are gonna like you." You can always give a kid voice lessons, but if they aren't relatable, you're sunk.
The episode featured the expected stereotypical opening montage, complete with the horses Texans apparently ride to work every day on the ranch, or if they just want to form a posse. The backing music was "God Blessed Texas," a horrible song I'd forgotten ever existed, released in 1993 by Little Texas. The song is actually a weird vortex for the episode's content: Little Texas was formed in Arlington, where the auditions were held, and the track has also been used in Ford commercials in certain Texas markets, and Ford is a major sponsor for Idol. It's like the song was breathed into being by whatever demons are responsible for words like "branding" and "synergistic."
The latest round of American Idol auditions took place in Los Angeles, or more accurately, Pasadena, where 11,000 people showed up last June to try and secure a spot in the September callback. As you probably could have predicted, the episode opened with a stereotypical montage celebrating the mythic version of "Hollywood" that we all at one point agreed to use: the Hollywood sign, black-and-white movie footage, frequent deployment of words like "glamour." There's a reason Randy yells "Welcome to Hollywood!" when someone makes the cut in a cattle call. The show wants to pretend it's a place of magical happenings instead of just a grungy suburb of Los Angeles choked with tourists.
The two guest judges for the callback were Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry, and their pairing is either sublime luck or a plot to see if viewers will catch on to the fact that they're watching a talent show judged by two inherently untalented singers who co-opted random genres (pseudo-punk, burlesque) in hopes of appearing more gifted. They brought less to the proceedings than any guest judge so far. At least Victoria Beckham was pleasant and willing to offer compliments. Avril sat and petulantly played with her hoodie, and Katy got into bizarre spats with Kara. You'd think Katy would at least be willing to cut some singers some slack when it comes to attempting heightened looks or personas: She started out as a gospel singer before she realized faux-lesbianism would sell more records.
The first singer out of the gate was a clear loser who had been brought back to fail publicly, and you could tell from his vest and flop-sweat and the fact that he copped to being a data entry tech with bad people skills that this would not have a pleasant ending. Somehow, this was more like L.A. than any cheesy, knee-jerk image the show could manufacture: Someone out of their element, beating their head against a wall for no reason other than that they've seen others do it. He tried to make up for his lack of talent with an abundance of sad gusto, but no one was buying.
About two weeks before I graduated from college, my best friend got out of the poisonous relationship he'd been in for five years. He was ecstatic at the possibilities before him, and those final moments of school held for him a wonder and freedom he didn't even know he'd been missing. He's since moved on and is now married to the girl that was right for him.
I thought a lot about that time as I watched Conan O'Brien wrap his time behind the desk of NBC's The Tonight Show. After a series of events that left Conan unwilling to host a Tonight Show that wouldn't air in its 11:35 ET slot and subsequently set the stage for his departure form NBC, he was freer and looser -- just plain happier -- than he'd been since he took over the show last summer. He was never a dour host on Tonight; you just got the sense that he was always a little spooked at moving to the grown-up table, and that he wanted to balance his earnest silliness with a kind of reverence for and deference to the decades that had come before him. In his final moments at NBC, when he knew he was only a few hours from the door, he finally had the fire and verve to be the host we know he can be. His announcement on his penultimate show, "Let's have fun on television," was the mission statement he'd been missing.
But here's where I admit something, and I bet you do, too: I watched Conan more in the past couple weeks than I had in a long time. Sure, I would check him out when he hosted Late Night, and I tuned into his first episode of The Tonight Show in June and the next few, as well. But I didn't always tune in. Sometimes I'd watch Jon Stewart and stick around for Stephen Colbert over on Comedy Central; sometimes I'd watch a program I'd recorded earlier in the evening; sometimes I'd actually interact with other humans. The point is, I love Conan, and I barely watched. I've spent some time thinking about why that is, and I think I've come up with an answer.
Move over failwhale: NBC ushers in the era of the failcock.
I'm loving the weather, thinking of overthrowing Comcast, and still humming "Free Bird." This was the week in TV Land:
• So, I'm pretty sure we all watched Conan O'Brien's last episode as host of The Tonight Show. Nielsen ratings showed that his Friday episode drew a 4.8 rating in adults 18-49, much higher than usual; even as the controversial shuffling began a couple weeks ago, the brouhaha brought the show ratings in the 1.7-1.9 range. It was a sweet, funny, poignant, but ultimately energetic finish to a show that was more critically than culturally adored. And of course, it galvanized the youth movement against the returning Jay Leno (dig the art up top courtesy of Twitter user @studionashvegas). I'll have more to say in a separate blog post on the debacle, but for now, I'll leave it at this: I'm with Coco, and always will be.
• The Hope for Haiti Telethon aired Friday, which is indicative of everything you need to know about the level of commitment networks are willing to make to charity. After all, when's the last time Friday was a viable night in the ratings war? Miami Vice? There's no way that George Clooney, who spearheaded the telethon, could have gotten all the networks that aired it to give up anything other than a Friday. Regardless of that sad fact, the telethon was a success: It's raised close to $60 million so far, which doesn't even count the iTunes downloads of musical performances from the show. That's amazing, and a record for money raised by a telethon for natural disaster relief. If you want to donate, click here.
I'd hoped to see a new episode of The Office last night; the show's been on a winter break since the Christmas episode that aired December 10, back when we all thought Conan O'Brien and health care reform could be counted on. But though last night's episode, "The Banker," was technically a new one, it was actually a clip show, that time-honored sitcom standby method of killing 22 minutes. It wasn't without its charms, but really, was this better than a repeat? Nope.
The framing device for the flashback montages was the visit of an investment banker who was inspecting the office as part of the preparation for Dunder Mifflin's sale. The banker was played by David Costabile, better known as slimy managing editor Thomas Klebanow on The Wire and Doug on Flight of the Conchords. Seeing him so criminally underused here -- he had maybe ten lines -- was tragic. After a few cute moments of Michael trying to impress the banker with the branch's manufacture tech savvy, including a hidden Dwight voicing a machine called "Computron" through the speakerphone, the banker sat down to interview Toby about logistics, and that's where the montages kicked in.
Really, there's nothing to say about them. They were roughly grouped by theme: one dealt with office injuries and mishaps, one was about sexual innuendo, one was about office games and pranks, one was all about Creed (a surprising but fun choice), and one was about office hook-ups. That one eventually turned into what passed for a fanvid about Pam and Jim, and while of course they're cute and have been through many things together, if I wanted to see this I could just search YouTube for "Jim and Pam 4EVA Twilight remix."
Last night's American Idol was the fourth audition episode of the ninth season (and if you think we're almost done with the cattle call phase, you are in for a broken heart). I cannot stress enough the unreality of the show and the brilliant way it uses editing to mess with the viewer's concept of time. The open call was on July 9 last year, and the two-day callback -- the one that becomes the episode -- was the end of August. That gap allows for many things, including the opportunity to shoot remote pieces of the contestants' home lives, by which I mean the home lives of the people who will win a ticket to the next round in Hollywood. But it also makes the extreme reactions of some of the losers make more sense. After all, they probably figured they had a good chance of winning; they got a callback, right?
The auditions were in Orlando this time, where 10,000 people showed up to be whittled down by producers. The episode did everything it could to evoke the Disney vibe of the locality without actually paying the money to name the company: Much was made by Ryan Seacrest of how this is the town where "dreams come true," and he offered viewers greetings from "the happiest place in the world." They even played "When You Wish Upon a Star," which apparently isn't owned by Disney but Bourne Co. Music Publishers. Oh, Idol, you slippery mistress.
Simon, Kara, and Randy were partnered with guest judge Kristin Chenoweth for half the tryouts, which were the typical mix of blandly talented people, genuinely skilled singers, and total nutbars. The first singer of the episode was this wackadoo guy with mirror fragments on his face that gave me a really scary Red Dragon flashback, but his appearance was worth it just to see Ryan's cautious tiptoeing with the singer's friends who came along to support him. The guy is gay, as are his friends, but Ryan can't exactly go outing people or making assumptions on TV, so while he and the friends are waiting in the lobby, Ryan looks at the girl and asks, "Are you his ..." and lets her place "friend" in the awkward silence. It was fantastic.
So here we are with our pants on the ground, in the second week of American Idol, and it'll be another month before auditions end. At first I was pleasantly surprised to find that last night's episode was just an hour: I did my time in the trenches with Dancing With the Stars and assumed that similar reality competition shows used two-hour blocks as endurance tests for people like me. But it turns out that, though later Idol eps will be longer (and I'm not even going to think about the weeks that air three episodes over three straight days), the early contests are shorter. It makes sense, too. The season has a long way to go, so there's no sense overdoing it in the early rounds.
Tuesday's audition was in Chicago, home of Ferris Bueller, the Blues Brothers, and probably some famous athletes. The open call drew 12,000 people (!) to Chicago's United Center, meaning that half the arena could be filled with people who thought they were talented enough to be pop stars. That's pretty telling. Also, as a reminder, the June cattle call was for people to sing in front of producers, who picked likely winners and definite losers to perform in front of the "real" judges at a two-day callback at the end of August. It's going to take weeks, in bits and pieces, to let that weirdness sink in.
The celebrity judge for the Chicago auditions was Shania Twain, who was a pivotal figure in my life at the onset of my adolescence. She holds the record for the best-selling album by a female artist, and is outsold in Canada only by Celine Dion. Seriously, she's sold 48 million albums just in the United States. She's also terrible, and performs songs that claim to straddle the line between country and pop but are really just bad ballads, bad jokes, or bad all over. Kara said of Shania, "She has done some of the greatest pop songs," which I guess is the best way to sum up the sorry state of country music.
As most people know by now, Conan O'Brien will be exiting The Tonight Show, likely after Friday's show. It's a bitter end to his truncated run on the show, and the real hell is how easily it could have been avoided if things had just played out the way people had said they would.
In 2004, NBC renewed Jay Leno's contract as host of Tonight for five more years and told him that after that time they'd like to move O'Brien out of his role as host of Late Night and into the prime Tonight chair in 2009. Leno wasn't too jazzed about the move, as he recalled to the audience of The Jay Leno Show on Monday, but he said he decided to retire to avoid the fiasco that went down in 1992 when he and David Letterman were gunning to replace Johnny Carson. Still, despite his apparent misgivings, Leno publicly supported the transition and wanted to spend his final five years as host having fun before passing the reins to O'Brien. And I know this because Leno said so. On TV:
The weekend's gone, the sun is out, and the only marathon I did this weekend consisted of Whataburger taquitos. This was the week in TV Land:
• So! Conan and Jay are probably not going to make buddy comedies together any time soon, or ever. The growing animosity between the two -- mainly from Conan O'Brien, who is funny and smart, aimed at Jay Leno, who is neither -- blew up like crazy last week, with Conan's nightly monologues growing progressively harsher as he attacked NBC, Jay, and the entire late-night scheduling fiasco that's pretty much put him out of a job (for now). Word is that Conan's deal to exit NBC is all but in place, and some are saying that this is his last week as host of The Tonight Show. I can't believe it's come to this, though. NBC is so desperate to destroy their own network that they're unwilling to take the kind of chances that are necessary for growth. Jay Leno hosted Tonight for three years before he overtook David Letterman; Seinfeld needed the same kind of time to become the sitcom legend it was. But Conan trailed Letterman for seven months, Leno tanked, NBC tried to shuffle, and everything fell apart. What a pathetic waste. Leno's show will be gone after the Olympics, and he'll presumably get his old gig back. Ugh.
• I watched the Golden Globes last night. I don't know why. The awards themselves are awful, hacky things, awarded by foreign press members won over by boxoffice and festival buzz. (Dude, Sandra Bullock won for The Blind Side, which fact made me want to firebomb California.) But Ricky Gervais was predictably awesome, in a take-no-prisoners approach to hosting and roasting. He and Neil Patrick Harris should be official hosts of everything. Mad Men and Glee took home awards, also predictable but solid choices.
We're all in our happy places... Keep smiling.... The day is almost over...
Going into the second audition episode of American Idol, I worried that it might not be any different from the first one. And while the bottom line is that I was right on a technical level -- it was 90 minutes of good singers, bad singers, and manufactured drama -- the show seems to actually thrive when it's just churning out the same stuff over and over again. The producers aren't just stretching the audition episodes out to ride their ratings success; this show is actually pretty well assembled, and only two eps in, I'm starting to see why it's the king of reality TV. So much of the genre is over-edited, over-scored, and full of flat reaction moments set to dramatic thuds meant to inspire shock in the dumbest of viewers (e.g. pretty much every show on Bravo, Dancing With the Stars, etc.). But Idol, for all its genuine flaws and the way it traffics in human misery, is a well-built machine.
While I try to grapple with the fact that I'm beginning to somewhat respect the mechanics of a competition show built on the failure of the hopeful, I'll run down what happened last night. The second audition ep of the ninth season took place in Atlanta, with the cattle call in June 2009 and the two-day callback, when the judges saw the remainder, in August. Something like 10,000 people showed up initially, which is insane. The guest judge was Mary J. Blige, who's so much more talented than Victoria Beckham and actually knows stuff about, you know, music that you wonder why Beckham was even on.
Last night's guest judge: a bobblehead doll Victoria Beckham
I've never watched a whole season of American Idol before, but that's a minor detail. Actually watching this show doesn't seem to be necessary to know as much about it as the most devoted fans: Amateur singers + judges = quasi-drama. I also know that this is a transition year for the show; judge and boozy weird lady Paula Abdul is no longer around, and Simon Cowell is leaving after this season to launch a U.S. version of The X-Factor. Plus Ellen DeGeneres is going to be a judge, starting from the Hollywood round on.
Basically, it's not so much a show as a brand that viewers experience every January. Everybody knows Simon; I defy you to remember who won last year. (A guy named Kris Allen; thanks, Wikipedia!) I'm sure I'll use this space over the next few months to deal with questions of fame and identity, and how each successive winner has been less famous and relevant, and how the judges have become bigger characters than the singers, and how it's all just a pre-fab dream machine for vocalists, but for now: On with the horrible voyeurism of watching people fail!
Tuesday night's premiere was the first of the audition episodes designed to weed out the weak and let viewers revel in the losers' shameful realization that, contrary to American myth, not everybody can carry a tune. The ninth season kicked off in Boston, where 9,000 people showed up. Entire books could be written about the neuroses at work: Do they think they're actually good, or do they just want to be on TV? Is there a difference? Producers screen that crowd down to about 200 who make it through to the judges, and it's from that group that winners are chosen to go to the Hollywood elimination round. Last night, 32 people made the cut, so I'd guess they'll pick that many from the other cities.
I had no idea Houston could get this cold, I'm tired of reruns, and I still think your Batman voice sounds like Cookie Monster. This was the week in TV Land:
• So, NBC imploded. Again. As last week drew to a close, rumors started spreading that NBC was going to reorganize its late-night schedule only a few months after giving late-night king and generally unfunny comedian Jay Leno a nightly talk show at 10 p.m. ET. The latest word -- spelled out by NBC Universal Television chairman Jeff Gaspin over the weekend at the Television Critics Association press tour -- is that the network is looking at bumping Jay back to 11:35 and giving him half an hour, then following that with Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show at 12:05 and Jimmy Fallon's Late Night after that. (For the one of you who cares: Carson Daly would go away, likely.) Whatever happens, though, Leno's definitely out of primetime. Conan and Jay both aired their displeasure in their monologues, and Jay was uncharacteristically sharp-tongued in mocking NBC and joking about how he's used to them canceling him. It's still a fluid situation whether who will stay or leave, and one that came about largely because Jay's show was tanking and providing a bad lead-in to the local news, which made NBC affiliates riot. And NBC deserves every ounce of pain they've brought on themselves. Leno is catnip for baby boomers, the perfect Burbank-tourist mentality, and has been winning with Tonight Show forever. And Conan always played better to college kids and literate Gen X and Yers. They never should have changed anything.
• Seriously, lest you feel any pity for NBC, they just greenlighted a pilot remake of The Rockford Files. And Friday Night Lights isn't returning until the summer. Suck.
It's the middle of winter, we're about to get new shows, and this is the year I make contact. This was the week in TV Land.
• So, New Year's happened. This was my first year not to ring it in with a regular party of friends who get dangerously drunk and watch the ball drop on Telemundo. But my first NYE in Houston was a good one. Here's hoping everybody got home safe and sound, eventually. Did anybody watch Ryan Seacrest host Dick Clark's show? How is Clark still alive, anyway?
• The two-hour block of Parks and Recreation repeats was easily the best thing I watched all week. I cannot say enough about this show, which started out good but has totally hit its stride in its second season. The entire ensemble absolutely owns, but my favorite has to be Nick Offerman as the proudly indifferent boss. (One of his best lines: "I was born ready. I'm Ron fucking Swanson.") But since there wasn't much to actually see last week, let's take a look at what's coming up.
• Oh man, this week is the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl! If you're like me, you're pretty sure those are football games but aren't really interested in the outcome. Here's a tip: If you're at a viewing party, just repeat someone else's comment as a question to appear as if you're participating in the crosstalk. ("They're gonna go for it?" Or something like that. I don't know.) And like that, you're one of the dudes! Warning: May not work.
• So, 24 returns on January 17. I won't be blogging about the show -- that is, I might give it a mention, but I won't have any posts devoted to it exclusively -- and honestly, I don't care if you watch it. Even for a gung-ho procedural, it's pretty bad. Happy viewing, old people!
It's been nice knowing you, Dollhouse. Now how about that Serenity sequel, Whedon?
It's way too cold outside, I can't believe I'm back at work, and I've already braved one after-Christmas sale. This was the week in TV Land:
• I watched the finale of The Sing-Off. That's how little there was to watch on TV last week, kids: I watched a reality show hosted by Nick Lachey that was shamelessly thrown together to ride the success of Glee. It doesn't matter that one's on NBC and the other's on Fox; a trend is a trend, even if that trend is "Choir kids are now improbably hip." I cannot begin to tell you how much this isn't the case (take it from the boy who actually wore the starred vest and sang barbershop), but whatever. The final episode didn't even try to pretend there was anything more going on than that. Some dudes from Puerto Rico won, I think. I just felt bad for judge Ben Folds.
• Okay so here's the problem with Scrubs: The New Class. It's pointless. Is it bad? Not totally. Is it messing with the memory of the original series? Kinda, yeah. But mostly it's just unnecessary. Everything was really nicely wrapped up when the series ended its initial run last season on NBC: J.D. had moved on and grown up, and things felt completed. But the new show dragged him back into the action, only to play him off again. Last week's episode was the fifth one for Braff, who committed to only six episodes for the first run of the new show (thanks Hollywood trades!), so now the action shifts again to new med students who aren't unlikable but who don't have what it takes to make me want to watch them instead of just popping in a DVD from the first season of the real show. It's time for ABC to let this one go, which it looks like they're doing anyway: The network is running the show in hour-long blocks in January to get it out of the way before Lost comes back. Bye-bye, new kids.
• Any Dollhouse kids in the audience? The show's about to enter its last month, if anybody's interested. Gone forever after January.
It's almost Christmas, I'm tired of shopping, and I keep yelling "sharkfarts" at everyone. This was the week in TV Land:
• Most of the major shows and networks were in repeats this week, which threw my viewing habits off a bit. It's not like I only watch the big four networks; in fact, I usually only watch a few shows on each. But having a week of repeats and schedule changes (even The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were off!) meant I had to do the unthinkable and journey outside my comfort zone. And for that, I paid.
• Blah blah blah Jersey Shore is terrible. Everyone knows this. I mean, from the first ads before the show even premiered, it looked like the new pinnacle in stupidity. This was the week that MTV aired the episode in which one of the dumb trashy girls got full-on clocked in the face by a big brawny dude in a bar. They'd run the clip all over the place, ensuring that it found its way to every last corner of the intertubes, but when the ep aired, they cut the shot and put up a screen about how domestic violence is wrong and you should never exploit people for Nielsen ratings hit someone or something. Whatever. Way to not even try to hide your double standards, MTV. This show is absolutely abysmal, full of uneducated, self-obsessed people who are not at all acting for the cameras. They are actually this rotten, for real. Ugh.
• The Golden Globe nominations were announced Tuesday morning. Now, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association honors bad stuff more than good -- hey there, House! -- but there were some solid choices in the batch. Glee got more TV noms than any other show, and 30 Rock, The Office, and Dexter got some love, as well. But really, nominating Jeremy Piven again for Entourage? Think outside the box, folks.
I'm tired of shopping, ready for sunshine, and I need you to bring me some pens. This was the week in TV Land:
• Blah blah blah obligatory paragraph about how awesome Community is. Maybe you're tired of reading it, but I'm not tired of writing it. It's consistently good, and it just keeps getting better. It's also really starting to enjoy itself as it hits a stride halfway through the first year. This week's episode featured slow-mo fighting and a bully played by Anthony Michael Hall, but the capper was the coda with Abed, Troy, and Jeff doing some decorating:
• Talk about hurt feelings: Flight of the Conchords is no more. The second season of the HBO show ended last March, but Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement confirmed the other day that there won't be a third go-round. On one hand, it's not too surprising; the second season was pushed back from 2008 to earlier this year so the guys could finish more songs, having used up most of their material in the first season. Still, it sucks that one of HBO's only good comedies won't be returning. Why the hell can't they cancel the rapey idiocy that is Entourage? Oh well, at least we've still got Eastbound & Down.
"Secret Santa" was another solid Christmas episode from The Office, and held pretty much to the pattern they've established with past installments like "Christmas Party" (and, well, the whole show): There's an office party, Michael does something embarrassing and rude, everyone feels weird, they get over it, Michael apologizes, everybody feels a little better. Tack on a funny or sweet coda and you're done.
Written by Mindy Kaling and directed by Randall Einhorn, the ep opened with Dwight telling the camera that he'd put his "diabolical plan" on hold for the holidays, which turned out to be blessedly true. The episode was free of his machinations, content to focus on the regular insanities. This year, Jim let Phyllis dress up as Santa, which is all Michael needed to get upset. He spent the first part of the half-hour whining and trying to win people over to his cause, and when that didn't work, he flipped his red coat inside-out to reveal the white lining, scooted the fake beard down, and declared himself to be Jesus. (Who, per Michael, has the power of flight and can "heal leopards.") He said he was there to talk about the true meaning of Christmas -- getting a hilarious burst of applause from Angela -- but he just got bitter and depressed and decided to rag on all the Secret Santa gifts being exchanged. So, Michael's regular self.
Last night's Glee was a great way to cap the fall season. Fighting! Kissing! The Rolling Stones! Seriously, if they could all be like this, the show would be unstoppable. The only bad part is having to wait until April to get more.
The episode opens with Rachel figuring out that Puck knocked up Quinn. The other glee kids then have a cute split-screen conference call on their cell phones as they cruise the halls, though I could have enjoyed it more if Houston's Fox affil wasn't run by what has to be a team of mildly handicapped chimps. The widescreen ep was broadcast full-frame, so action on the sides was chopped off, making the split-screen stuff impossible to track.
Anyway, the soap action takes a pause for Mercedes to sing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," a really bland song they gave her just because they want to slot her in the big black woman role. It doesn't even have a melody, it just gets screamed for three minutes. If you want to give her something stereotypical, dudes, try some Aretha. "Think" is infinitely better.
Will is still DQ'd for the whole mattress thing the week before, so he names Emma as the faculty advisor since she wants to help out, even getting Ken to push their wedding back a few hours so she can take the choir to sectionals.
I'm recovered from the snow, I'm trying to convince people that "Dick in a Box" qualifies as Christmas music, and I've got a hole in my heart from eating batteries. This was the week in TV Land:
• 30 Rock was cute this week, though the bit about Frank turning into Liz was a little lifeless. But between Dr. Spaceman and the hi-def camera turning Jack into a Red October-era Alec Baldwin, it was still a winning episode. They pretty much all are.
• Did anybody else watch the first part of SighFie's Alice miniseries? Thoughts? (And what's with all the Alice stuff recently?) The second half airs tonight, and then it'll get rerun until the end of time.
• Parks and Recreation was once again a showcase for Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson. His beeline for the breakfast buffet at the strip club was priceless, matched only by the simple joy on his face as he flipped pancakes to "Unskinny Bop." Seriously, NBC is dead air except for Conan and the two-hour Thursday comedy block.
• Adam Lambert got booked on The View, which is apparently like ZOMG GOOD NEWS or something, since he was booted from performing on ABC's Good Morning, America for being too gay for the before-work crowd. I have absolutely no opinion on this, since I don't care enough about Adam Lambert one way or the other.
Yikes. I mean, I know The Office is dark and all, but: yikes. Last night's episode, "Scott's Tots," was grueling. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that is was penned by the writing team of Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who also wrote the fourth season's "Dinner Party," the bleakest and most soul-crushing half-hour of the series so far. But there just wasn't much to enjoy last night. At all.
The cold open was the most enjoyable bit, with Michael scolding Andy for using that weird baby talk voice around the office, only to be calmed down when Andy compliment Michael's own equally terrible Elvis impersonation. Funny, quirky, relatable. But kiss all that goodbye, because the other 22 minutes were just a grind.
The main plot dealt with Scott's Tots, a group of kids about to graduate from an inner-city high school who had been promised full college tuition by Michael a decade ago. He made the promise because he liked to see them happy, but of course he doesn't have the money, so he spends the first chunk of the episode sweating it and lashing out at Erin to compensate for it. Dude! She's sweet and tiny. But he took her with him anyway when he went to visit the school, which was just as painful an experience as I feared it would be. The seniors greeted him with applause and did some awkward rap and step performance, but the whole time my teeth were on edge. Sure enough, Michael had to stand in front of them and tell them he didn't have the money. It was like watching a man being tortured. It wasn't awkward-funny, or uncomfortable-funny, or even tragic-funny. It just hurt. It reminded me of how my old roommate and I used to stop episodes halfway through to take a breather from the pain. This was like that.
Holy crap! Glee brought it hard this week, like thirtysomething EXTREME brought it. The drama was up, the tension was great, and everything was perfectly set for next week's fall finale, the show's final ep until April.
"Mattress" opened in the teachers' lounge, with Ken (hey look he's back!) sitting with Emma and Will when Sue drops her latest bomb: She's blocked the glee kids from getting a page in the yearbook. Because why not? Kurt convinced the kids that they've been given a blessing, since the yearbook photo is annually defaced and will only heap more scorn on them. But Will -- curly-haired, idealistic Will -- lobbied for a photo, even though he had to buy out the ad space for it himself.
Will let the kids elect Rachel as the glee club captain, so they could send her as the sole rep for the photo. Emma and Will also talked about their relationship (or whatever) and Will's belief that Ken scheduled the wedding on the same day as glee sectionals just to screw with Emma and Will. Which, duh.
Rachel conned Finn into being co-captain, which for some reason meant they had to sing. They did Lily Allen's "Smile," though the auto-tune on Rachel's voice was over-the-top. She didn't even sound like she was in the same room! Ease the hell up on that, guys.
My car's in the shop, I can't figure what season it is, and I don't know what to do about the Indians in the lobby. This was Thanksgiving week in TV Land:
• Glee is going bye-bye for a while. The last episode of the year will air on December 9, completing the original 13-episode order, and the show won't return to finish out its first season until April of next year, after American Idol wraps its season. Thanks a pantload, Fox. You finally cook up a show worth watching, and then you put it on hiatus for four months so you can continue to inflict Idol on people. Also, when Glee returns, it will air on Tuesdays.
• So, Jimmy Fallon did an impression of Neil Young and performed the theme song to "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air." It was cute, but I still say this girl does a better cover:
There were some great, brutally honest moments in last night's Glee, "Hairography," but it also felt like padding for the main event. We finally got to see the other two schools that the McKinley High glee club will compete against at sectionals, though they were first referenced weeks ago. Plus come on, I get it: Jane Lynch is great at playing Jane Lynch types, with the track suits and the jokes, but her character has been all over the map this season. First Sue's mean, then she's conciliatory; first she's crazy, then she's less crazy; first she's intolerant, then she has a mentally handicapped sister. DUDE. I get that you wanna do different stuff with her, but find a through-line.
Anyway: The main plot was about Will prepping the kids to face off against a school for what my parents call delinquents and another school for the deaf. But it turns out that Sue, bored again and looking for a way to torpedo glee club, has been leaking Will's set lists to his competition. Will then visits the school for troubled kids, and you know it's bad because everything's gray and there's hip-hopish music on the soundtrack. Stereotyping! Writer Ian Brennan does have some fun with the names, though, anointing one of the students "Aphasia." Plus for some reason Eve is the principal. I have never seen a principal who looks like Eve. Will feels bad for her school's dire straits and offers her the use of McKinley's auditorium, which leads to the criminal girls performing "Bootylicious" and knocking the wind out of the glee kids.
You guys, I can't believe we've come so far together. We've had so many ups and downs, so much laughter and so many tears. When I began the season of Dancing With the Stars, I was but a boy, but now, I am a bitter, wizened man. I have seen things that would make warriors weep and soccer moms applaud. I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by reality TV.
Tom Bergeron and Lady Co-Host looked extra fancy as they introduced all the dancers, and I mean all of them. All the losers were back, like Snowboarder and Model and Dazzle Me Dreamy. Because why not? They strutted in as the band played the Black Eyed Peas' "Tonight." Quick reminder: If you like the Black Eyed Peas, you need to have a friend beat you senseless.
There was a screw-up with the taped recap, too. Live TV! Like a minute into the tape, the feed cut out and was replaced by the head of Miss Piggy, facing away from the camera. No music, no talking. Just the silence accompanying a Muppet head whose eyes you can't see. It was way too much like The Ring for me. Tom jumped in with a "Did I mention our show is live?" before tossing to a commercial. Best moment of the series?
Do you smell that? That potent mixture of stardust, flop sweat, and desperation? It's like burnt cinnamon and broken dreams. And it can mean only one thing: The final week of Dancing With the Stars.
The show's whole pointlessness was driven home in Tom Bergeron's opening narration, when he reminded viewers that "it doesn't matter how they scored" because it's the final showdown for the remaining three contestants. Then WHY KEEP SCORE AT ALL DUDES. The scores aren't cumulative and are factored into viewer votes and producer directives in ways I can't even fathom, so why do it? Whatevs. At least last night's competition ep was only 90 minutes long, or 17 when you fast-forward and just make up what happened. (Kidding!)
It was down to Donny Osmond, Kelly Osbourne, and Mya. Before the ep started, I picked Mya to win, though I'd like to see Kelly take it if only because nobody counted on her to get so far. Kelly got to kick things off, too, starting with a tango that was nice and wait a minute why is Denise Richards in the audience? Also, Kelly's brother, Jack, finally showed. Way to hop on the bandwagon at the end, dude. She got a 26.
The sun's back out, I'm ready for turkey, and I can't believe I sold my DeLorean to Mr. T. This was the week in TV Land:
• So, Oprah resigned, but not really, or something. Just to make sure we all have time to prepare our families for the ritualistic murder-suicide pacts, Oprah Winfrey (why did I use her last name?) announced the other day that her current show will end its run at the end of its 25th season, when her contract is up, in September 2011. That's eight months after the launch of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture between Oprah and Discovery that will rebrand what's currently Discovery Health Channel and reach about 80 million homes. And on that new network, know this: Oprah will have a show. Guaranteed. No one would ever pass up legitimate power, let alone the ability to influence gullible housewives and the mentally handicapped with plugs of bad books and hours devoted to quack science spouted by former Playboy Playmates who have not received any credible medical training. Hell, Oprah's episode with Sarah Palin pulled in the host's highest ratings in two years. You don't walk away from the throne like that, even if it'd be better for us all if she did. Oh well. At least there's Ellen.
• Listen up, Lost fans: The upcoming sixth season -- the show's last -- debuts on February 2. The show will air on Tuesdays for its final run, which yes, is annoying to have to remember. But ABC's having better luck with their Wednesday comedy block than expected, thanks to Modern Family and others, and they don't wanna shake the Jenga tower. Plus Lost has a devoted audience that will happily follow the show to a new night for one last season. So mark your calendars, kids, and get ready.
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