Change The Channel

Change The Channel is moving!

2009-07-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

That’s right. I’m moving Change The Channel from here on blogspot over to wordpress:

ctchannel.wordpress.com

As you can see the move is mostly for aesthetic reasons, but I have found wordpress to have a ton more features behind the scenes than blogspot does.

So this will be the last post at this address, and the new address will be:

ctchannel.wordpress.com

10 Things I Hate About You

2009-07-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Who could forget the film 10 Things I Hate About You? Apparently not the director who’s decided a television remake was in order. I guess that’s what happens when you’re life is reduced to directing episodes of ‘Til Death and Rules Of Engagement.

In all honesty though I am a pretty big fan of 10 Things the movie. It’s got Heath Ledger, it’s got Alex Mack, it’s got Joseph Gordon Lovett, heck it’s got uber-Jewish guy who’s now in Numb3rs, it’s got everything you could ever want in a teen movie. In fact, I would go so far as to say that after The Breakfast Club – 10 Things is the single best teen movie of all time... okay, that’s probably a lie but look how I said it anyway.

10 Things the TV show is NOT 10 Things the movie. There’s no point comparing the cast members of the two versions as the movie trumps the show on every front – even if you don’t like Julia Stiles particularly much you’ll find her train lengths in front of Sister from Aliens In America.

Watching the first episode of 10 Things left me with a bunch of questions:

How come Kat & Bianca have moved to a new school but still manage to bump into guys named Cameron and Patrick Verona? I mean, surely that’s more than a coincidence.

Will the remake of 10 Things prompt a remake of more late 90’s teen movies? Are Can’t Hardly Wait and She’s All That just around the corner?

Why was Patrick Verona (played by Heath Ledger in the movie) so... not a tough looking guy at all? Did his character profile list him as being ‘kind of emo’ or something?

Why was Cameron’s sidekick so short? I like short people. I like short people in funny hats. But I don’t like camera angles that constantly accentuate how short somebody is for no clear purpose. Why would Cameron be friends with someone the camera always has to be peering down at?

Why rope Larry Miller back from the original cast to yet again play the dad? The poor guy has aged ten years while his daughters have stayed the same. It’s going to take a lot of head shaving every episode to keep those gray hairs away.

And finally why wasn’t the show as bad as it should have been nor as good as it should have been?

I can’t recommend it. I can recommend rewatching the movie though, cause that still holds up. For some reason.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad

Recruiting 'Recruits'... yeah I couldn't think of a good pun.

2009-07-10T18:58:00.001-07:00

Docu-dramas are getting a bit long in the tooth these days. It seems there isn’t a professional with a uniform that hasn’t got a series based around them talking into walkie-talkies or getting stressed out or just doing their job ma’am.

Recruits on Channel 10 follows a bunch of wannabe cops at the academy and another bunch of recent graduates as they go through their rookie year of being a real life police officer. Cops are part and parcel of the docu-drama genre but Recruits is a breath of somewhat fresh air. It’s interesting getting to look into life at the police college and it’s refreshing to see that these kids are just as goofy learning to become cops as you and I would be.

While it’s by no means ‘appointment television’ there are worst shows to spend your half hour with – any of the half dozen shows based around airports basically. Speaking of which Recruits doesn’t suffer from the sort of bullshit editing that makes Border Security downright unwatchable. You know the sort of cut aways they do just as the story gets interesting.

You’ll be watching a couple of customs guys messing around with a parcel “We think there’s something in this package, let’s open it.” CUT TO NEXT STORY OF AN ANGRY ASIAN MAN, but as soon as he starts yelling CUT TO GUY BREAKING HIS WORK PERMIT as soon as that starts to hook you cut back to the guys with parcel: “ooh it looks like drugs, but what kind of drugs?” CUT TO ANGRY ASIAN MAN AGAIN. Rinse & repeat until half hour is up.

And while ‘not being retarded’ isn’t exactly high praise the subject matter does help. Seeing shit scared cops is actually a lot more entertaining and enlightening than seeing just another show about cops cleaning up the blurry faced streets.

While I don’t see myself running to get to the TV when Recruits is on I do think that for the half hour docu-drama genre it’s a pretty fine entry.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Alright

Random Acts Of Kindness

2009-07-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

In Nine’s never ending quest for mediocrity it would seem that practically anything can be turned into primetime television as long as it ticks a few boxes. Don’t worry though; ideas like this don’t take long to cook up.

“Let’s do things for people that do things for other people. That’ll make ‘em cry!” is the premise of Random Acts Of Kindness a show that obviously hasn’t come from the heart but rather from a soulless boardroom at Nine.

After axing Domestic Blitz, another “heart warmer” of a program, they decided to take half the elements of that show, one of the hosts and even the time slot and make a new show that pales in comparison to the old one.

The episode we watched opened with Scott Cam, from every single makeover show Channel 9 have ever aired, surprising a minister who runs a drop in centre that’s in need of a bit of a, surprise surprise, makeover. There’s a reason Scott keeps getting employed to do this sort of fair – he absolutely shines at it. You need somebody to be down to earth, laid back and casual, quick with a hug and a laugh – Scott Cam can manage that and not look like he’s going to have to vomit because he touched a human today.

This minister who helps kids off the street and homeless folks and is just such a loving and kind man (as these things usually go) is taken with his family to a game of football (wow, way to shell out Nine) while Scott and the boys makeover the drop in centre. At least there’s a makeover going on which is exactly the sort of things that made Domestic Blitz watchable without sinking into schmaltz.

It’s not exactly revolutionary television but watching the pastor find the work that’s been done and cry about it, and then seeing his family cry, and then seeing his friends cry, well that’s okay. I mean, it’s what these shows are all about. But after the pastor who helps streets kids the second story of a 16 year old girl who annoys people about saving the whales seems a tad less worthy.

Are they even in the same ballpark? “Oh you have a drop in centre for troubled folks? Here’s a makeover!” “Oh you already appear on television a lot, and you seem to like whales a real heap... here’s a makeover... of your bedroom.”

What?

This precocious 16 year old who has already racked up more television appearances than the rest of her class combined gets to rack up another one as she’s plucked out of high school by a greying 40 something television host nobody has ever seen before and jetted up to the Great Barrier Reef.

Why didn’t they rope the female host into this episode to spend time with the 16 year old girl, cause watching a middle aged guy go swimming, go shopping, take photographs of, have drinks with, wait outside her house at night for, be in her bedroom without her, be in her bedroom WITH her and engage in awkward conversation with a school girl was creepy at the very least. Seriously, Channel 9, why wasn’t there another adult around?

We can only thank god she didn’t have to spend any time with Karl Stefanovic who proved in the final segment that he’s even more a creep than most people believe.

Oh, and if you thought a 16 year old who care too much about whales wasn’t worth your viewing time well then you missed out on the three canteen ladies who... run the canteen... really? That’s... such a thing that happens everywhere...

Didn’t anybody think that maybe the reason these ladies work together on the canteen isn’t so the kids can “enjoy” their pumpkin soup or carrot sticks but rather because they get to spend time with their best friends and chat all day?

Does that really warrant a trip in a plane and having to eat a meal with Karl Stefanovic?

Speaking of Karl, is there a man less suited to interacting with humans than Karl? As he stands in the principal’s office and “jokes” ‘You’ve been very naughty girls’ all of Australia collectively vomited in their mouths a little bit.

Random Acts is just that, a random collection of stories, most of which don’t warrant being told on television. What will they cover next week, the unsung hero who helps his friend move house for no other reason than ‘mateship’?

They should cut the show back to one worthwhile story with one worthwhile makeover... which would just be Domestic Blitz... but still: we don’t ever need to see a vege garden get a ‘makeover’ on national television ever again, thanks.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad

The Philanthropist... it's about philanthropy...

2009-07-06T18:48:00.001-07:00

Hands up everybody out there who wants to watch a show about a rich white guy who goes around saving poor black people?

All of your with your hands down can go home, the rest of you come with me.

The Philanthropist tells the story of a billionaire named Teddy Rist as played by Marc Antony from Rome. He’s super rich and then grows a super conscious while he’s in Nigeria during a flood and saves a little black boy. He then makes it his mission to deliver a vaccine to a random Nigerian village just so he can see this little black boy again.

Is it as dopey as I’m trying to make it sound? Not really. But sort of.

NBC has been bringing the drama goods of late with Southland and Kings and while The Philanthropist aims quite high and has production values out the wazzoo (especially all those sweeping Africa shots) it just falls short because it’s all kind of daffy and boring.

Teddy Rist our would be world saver is just kind of boring, he’s not as troubled or as interesting as they want him to be, he’s just kind of there. He’s like Superman. The problem with Superman is that he can do anything. Do you need to travel back in time? Superman can spin around the world backwards really fast and make that happen. Do you need to see through walls? Superman can do that too. Because Teddy’s a billionaire there doesn’t seem to be a scrape he can’t get out of because of that. It’s not like we’re watching a normal person having to survive the Nigerian jungles, we’re watching Teddy Rist, Guy Who Can Get Out Of Anything With A Wry Smile And A Hundred Dollar Bill. Does that make the whole proceedings rather pointless and boring? You bet.

Am I going to stop asking myself questions at some point? Probably not.

Here’s another question: Is this what the show is going to be like every single episode? Are we going to watch Teddy jet to some third world country solve a bunch of problems and then deliver a tiny box of vaccine to a bunch of English speaking foreigners? Is that all the show is?

The show boasts a pretty impressive cast on top of Marc Antony, you’ve got the black guy from The Wire and the black guy from Law & Order... plus Neve Campbell is in it... for no real apparent reason. But despite an “all” “star” “cast” and some pretty top notch production values there wasn’t a whole lot of story to invest in, unless you’re a fan of learning lessons like: you can solve all the world’s problems if you’re a billionaire and follow the ghost of your dead son through the jungle. Yeah, that actually happened. Like I said, it’s daffy.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad

This afternoon we watched THISafternoon.

2009-07-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason Channel 9 has felt the need to add to the never ending torrent of ridiculously ‘casual’ news programming that started with Sunrise and Today and has brought us right up to THISafternnon.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that THISafternoon is a retarded title, and that if Channel 7 had the show it’d be called Arvo we popped on the telly just in time to catch Andrew Daddo, a random blonde co-host and a newsreader be awkward around each other.

According to the internet the Blonde Woman’s name is Katrina Blowers but she looks more like a cartoon mushroom that’s come to life. She also fails at the very premise of the show: casual news. There is nothing casual about Katrina’s “reporter voice”.

I’m sure the mission statement for THISafternoon (it’s even retarded to write) is to present the news in the casual, just got home from work, enjoying a cuppa with friends, style that you might get down at your local coffee shop. If that is the case I can imagine enjoying a coffee with Katrina goes something like this:

“Hey Kat, what’s going on today?”

“Michael Jackson is still making headlines even after his death.”

“Yeah?”

“His father has released video footage of his preparation for his ill-fated world tour.”

“Yeah, but how are you feeling?”

“Sources close to family say that Michael was excited. Are you excited? Send us an email at THISafternoon@ninemsn.com.au.”

Andrew Daddo on the other hand seems to have forgotten all of his hosting skills he learnt on World’s Wackiest Commercials and didn’t seem to be able to remember reporter names, or the email address, or who the blonde girl next to him was.

Mark Ferguson jumped in with the news and it felt like we’d changed programs and were now watching a very orange afternoon news program.

There’s a reason the non casual/real news will continue to thump THISafternoon in the ratings. Why wouldn’t you watch the news straight when your only other option is to watch the extra orange news, and listen to the pissweak “banter” of two hosts who don’t appear to have actually met each other yet.

Lawrence Leung should choose his own persona

2009-07-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

After a pilot episode that was all over the place we gave Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure a second shot, and boy oh boy after being weird but enjoyable in the first episode he really just decided to be all out boring on his second outing didn’t he?

Episode 2 finds Lawrence wanting to be a rock star. So he meets the dude from You Am I, he talks to Dicko, he plays the recorder (LOLS!) and sings really bad rock songs that he wrote as a kid (hilarious!! ... those are sarcastic exclamation points...) And quite frankly I’m not sure how else to describe Lawrence’s show other than that it’s a pretty bland knock off of Borat and John Safran that really has no clue what kind of show it wants to be.

Is it supposed to be real? Is it supposed to be staged? Because it’s too fake to be real and it’s not funny enough to be staged.

The second episode highlighted everything that doesn’t work about the show. Don’t pretend like you’re bumping into Dicko when it’s obvious your producer called him up first. Don’t pretend like Tim Rogers smashed you over the head with a bottle when it’s obviously a bit, and I know it’s obviously a bit, and you know it’s obviously a bit but then why do it at all?

Is he supposed to be that guy who confronts people like Tim Rogers and Dicko just out of the blue ala the Chaser? Because if so then don’t let us know they’re in on the joke. Don’t have Dicko go “who the hell are you?” only to cut to the pair of you getting into a car to listen to a “bad” song you wrote like his agent arranged it.

The bit where he dressed up as a rock star and annoyed celebrities at the MTV Awards was funny, trying to fight 50 Cent was especially funny but only if he sticks with that character.

Lawrence is completely different from scene to scene. Is he a shy goofball? Or is he a dick? Is he a dick who’s pretending to be a shy goofball? And why can’t he pick a persona? Is he playing up his awkwardness? Or is he really that awkward?

I don’t get his persona because it’s always changing and a show like this is all about the persona. Show’s like this work if they’re embedded in reality. Borat works because you really believe he’s embarrassing himself in front of real people. John Safran works because you really believe he’s getting an exorcism. Lawrence Leung doesn’t because it’s obvious he’s doing “bits” and by constantly letting us know it’s all some big set up it removes the credibility from the rest of the show. Stuff that we’d have a hard time believing wasn’t set up before hand, like the MTV performance where he “breaks” his laptop, we know for sure is “faked.”

Tim Rogers isn’t really smashing Lawrence over the head with a bottle therefore we now know that Lawrence’s dad didn’t happen to just find all of the ‘hilariously bad’ outfits in the clothing store to get him to try on, therefore we know that bumping into Dicko was organised, therefore the ‘MTV performance goes haywire!’ bit is all part of the act – therefore the show isn’t funny because it’s lying to us about how ‘real’ it is.

Does 'Make It Or Break It' make it... or break it?

2009-06-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Half way through the first episode of ABC Family’s new teen drama series Make It Or Break It I was praying that it got either really good or really bad because otherwise I was going to be writing a three letter review:

Meh.

Twenty minutes later I really have nothing more to report.

Make It Or Break It deals with the exciting lives of competitive gymnasts ... did I say exciting? Because I meant ‘predictable’. If you’ve ever seen the 2006 gymnastics movie Stick It, which for some reason I have, then you’ve pretty much seen this... only with less hardcore ‘revealing of the bra strap’ to show those fancy pants judges who’s boss.

MIOBI deals with four girls whose names are as forgettable as their faces – there’s the Outsider who has just moved to town, she doesn’t have a proper uniform and her mum drives a bomb. LOOK HOW MUCH SHE DOESN’T FIT IN. And she even has a little brother who’s in a wheelchair – she’s like a cross between Joan Of Arcadia and every outsider ever.

There’s the Bitch who’s a bitch, and desperately wants to make the team at any cost... quick quiz: will she lose out to the outsider or despite the outsider overcoming every obstacle will she still just fall short of selection? Please show all your working.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by bland brunette girl who I figured was going to be the lead until The Outsider was introduced and Bland Lead just got relegated to Bland Regular Girl. And there’s a super dedicated girl who’s super dedicated to becoming a successful gymnast. They all attend the world famous super important gym called The Rock... and every time they mentioned The Rock I expected Nicolas Cage to leap out brandishing a pair of flairs while rockets sent to destroy San Francisco fly through the air.

After going through the motions for a half hour of plot which can be best described as ‘Stick It-lite’ the show switches things up so much as to take as through an entirely different set of motions as the “plot thickens” and the head coach has to... oops I better not reveal that particular plot “twist.”

The problem with Make It Or Break It, other than its title, is that not only is gymnastics a stupid “sport” but it’s also kind of boring to watch. I’m not saying there isn’t the basis of a drama series in the world of spinning around on crossbars I’m just saying Make It doesn’t find it. The show taught me nothing about gymnastics that I couldn’t have guessed or made up myself.

In short it’s just not very good.

Oh, and in case you sat through the first episode wondering where you knew that mum from... it’s Roz from Frasier. Yeah, we know... it took us the whole episode to figure out as well.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad

The Secret Life Of The American Teenager

2009-06-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere, probably on Slate or Zap2it (as a side note: Slate and Zap2it run the full spectrum of interesting publication name all the way down to completely retarded publication name. See if you can figure out which is which.) that The Secret Life Of The American Teenager rated better than Gossip Girl.

A show from ABC Family, those same folks that brought the world Greek and... well... the second season of Greek, was kicking Blair Waldorf and her posse? How could this be? What kind of uber-teen show was this that it was taking down the Queen of teen?

I decided to check it out and found a show that was less Gossip Girl and more Degrassi Junior High. The Secret Life Of The American Teenager or TSLOTAT or Secret Life or whatever you want to abbreviate it to takes place in a Grant High School where the kids like to talk about sex. This is the secret life of the title, turns out teenagers talk about sex, news flash everyone.

The show packs as many characters as it can into the locker lined halls of this high school just so they can each have a unique view point on the whole gamut of sex talk. There’s the girl who had sex for the first time and got pregnant. There’s the guy who got her pregnant who sleeps around because he was sexually abused by his dad. There’s the geeky guy who hasn’t had sex, but wants to have sex. There’s the uber-Christian girl who’s saving herself for marriage and has a promise ring. There’s her quarterback boyfriend who’s also a Christian but is so desperate for sex he sleeps with another girl. This other girl doesn’t have sex until the third date and is dating the sexually abused guy.

On top of them there’s a little sister who wears promiscuous clothes. There’s the dad who doesn’t want her daughters to have sex. There’re the Christian parents who insist on the promise ring. There’s the down syndrome brother who ... has down syndrome. There’s Molly Ringwald who’s there to remind us no matter how good you think your teen drama is it’s not The Breakfast Club good. There’s the councillor who appears to talk to the kids about sex.

Even our two leads, the pregnant girl and the geeky guy, both get a chorus line of characters to help them talk through their issues. Geeky Guy gets a pair of Asian kids who I’m not sure if they were dating or brother & sister because they were both Asian and I got confused. And Pregnant Girl gets a black girl and a red head who were definitely not dating or brother & sister.

These characters all had names but they were things like Grace and Jack and John and I forgot them all by the time the show had ended. The Geeky Guy was good if obviously not a real teenager and the pregnant girl was alright although she could only cover the emotional range of ‘concerned’ to ‘overly concerned.’

In case you didn’t pick up on the subtly of the first episodes theme – it was about SEX. It felt like watching one long brochure of the dos and don’ts of sex. They tried to cover all the bases and it was weird hearing a character use the expression ‘my Lord Saviour Jesus Christ’ and have it not be played for laughs but despite the show’s earnestness the whole thing was kind of goofy. Sure it was goofy enough to be watchable, but I think I prefer my goofy teenage shows to include Chuck Bass overacting... but never say never.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Alright

You may have noticed I’ve switched from ‘Average’ to ‘Alright’ in this ratings system... although more honestly you probably haven’t noticed, nor cared.

Yes, I watched another episode of Pushing Daisies.

2009-06-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

So here I am again about to watch AGAIN the show which is beloved by so many people that it got kicked off the schedule because whilst ‘loved’ it remained very much ‘unwatched’ by those faceless masses who apparently have varying degrees of ‘shit for taste’.

As one of those “total retards” who was “completely wrong” about my initial impressions of Pushing Daisies I decided to give it another shot. I’ve picked up where I left off at Episode 4 of Season 1... I know, I only watched THREE episodes of show and thought that might have been enough to form a real opinion off it. How stupid am I??

Way back in 2007 I never really thought that Pushing Daisies was bad just that it was so pretentious that its figurative head was shoved quite a fair distance up its figurative ass. Has that opinion change on a rewatch?

Sort of, but not really.

Yes it’s clever. Yes there are some clever lines in amongst all that overwritten dialogue like after the pie maker brings a guy back from the dead and informs his wife off the truth she asks “How did you come by that?” he says “DNA... ish.”

But the show is so overly cutesy and pretentious that even though there’s a part of me that enjoys morsels here and there I find myself not enjoying the overall product.

The entire show feels like somebody is sitting there writing the dialogue and pausing for a moment to think about how clever they are. Somebody is writing the exact age of somebody right down to the year, the week, the day and the hour and then leaning back on their chair before giving themselves a pat on the back.

Why do I feel like I have to apologize for my opinion of this program? Why of all the shows I’ve trashed over my lifetime do I feel like I have to preface everything about Pushing Daisies with “I’m sorry, but...”

There are parts of it I like and parts which drive up the wall. For example does the Pie Maker have a third expression after ‘pathetic’ and ‘oh dear’? I’m not a big fan of Chuck, who I find to be a bit of an overwritten dunce, and I don’t care much for the Pie Maker and his plight to be a drip in every scene he’s in.

I like Chi McBride, I mean come on, he’s Chi McBride how can you not?

I can’t stand the constant narration. It never stops. I get that they’re using it as a device just to enhance the ‘fairy tale’ aspects of the storytelling but when you’re watching a scene where Chuck asks to hold the hand of a guy she’s on a date with while she closes her eyes and then once she does close her eyes she imagines she’s holding the Pie Maker’s hand I DO NOT need the narrator to add “In that moment Chuck was holding the Pie Maker’s hand. If only by proxy.” NO SHIT. Doesn’t that break the biggest rule of narration? Show don’t tell and especially don’t SHOW AND TELL all in the same second.

Coming back to a show that you’ve already given a bad review and expecting to come out with a different opinion of it is virtually impossible. That’d be like me attempting to sit through an episode of American Dad or Family Guy without rolling my eyes and cursing the Lord for letting Seth MacFarlane go on living. The thing is though I DON’T hate Pushing Daisies. I think it’s a fine show, I don’t think it’s the greatest show in the world, and I don’t think people should be crying over it getting cancelled after TWO COMPLETE seasons.

(Fun ‘Shut Up Pushing Daisies Fans’ Fact: There are twice as many PD episodes as there are Spaced episodes... and Spaced never got cancelled...)

A lot has been made of the fact that this is ‘too smart for television’ or ‘audiences didn’t get it’ or that ‘clever shows like this don’t come along every day’. Please, I prefer my clever shows when they don’t spend their entire running time reminding me just how clever they are. Especially when they’re really NOT that clever at all; when you break it down Pushing Daisies is just a procedural. They solve a mystery every week but manage to make it feel like an episode of CSI after dipping it in gooseberry juice, covering it in fairy bread and sprinkling it with six trucks worth of sugar.

Good, Average, Bad Or Ugly?
It’s Average, and if you think otherwise somebody should show you some Good shows.

I promise to watch the first season and eventually get back to you on how much I was ‘totally definitely wrong and that I love it so much it makes me cry’.

Why Do I Love This Ad So Much?

2009-06-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

The following is definitely my favourite Kiwi ad, but on top of that it very well be my favourite ad of all time:

It’s a Toyota ad but the Toyota only makes a brief cameo in the ad itself, but the question is - why do I love this ad so much?

Well, that all rests on the shoulders of our lead who conveys so much in the minute long ad without any dialogue.

0:11 for example as he looks longingly and absently at the snowboarder who has caught the attention of the girl he likes.

0:24 when he wakes up and freaks out. Is he freaked out he can’t find his beanie? Is it just cause he’s up early?

0:32 his ‘getting pumped face’ as he preps himself in the mirror.

0:40 and most of all his look of ‘this time I can do it’ as he looks over the snow before taking off.

0:47 when the jump that he’s so excited to complete isn’t even that impressive.

I’m not a massive fan of the ‘thump!’ and the punchline. I think it’s funnier he’s super psyched to complete such a pissweak jump after he’s been trying to hard to match the jump and spin the first snowboarder does.

But that ad runs for a minute and every time it’s on TV I stop everything I’m doing it to watch it. I like this ad more than most TV shows and if I could I’d give those two a series set in the crazy world of working at Snow Planet.

Mid-Season 2009

2009-06-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been struggling to write a quick summation for the midseason of 2009 but I think I’ll just bash it out like this:

SHOWS I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD EVER SUFFER THROUGH:

Surviving Suburbia

In The Motherhood

Sit Down, Shut Up

SHOWS I THINK YOU SHOULD WATCH ONCE JUST TO LAUGH AT THEM:

Mental

Harper’s Island

SHOWS THAT I THINK TAKE A LOT OF POTENTIAL AND THEN WASTE IT ON A BADLY WRITTEN PROCEDURAL:

Lie To Me

The Unusuals

SHOWS I HOPE GET BETTER:

Parks & Recreation

The Goode Family

Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure

SHOWS THAT DON’T NEED TO GET BETTER FOR ME TO KEEP WATCHING THEM:

Better Off Ted

Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation

SHOWS STARRING NATHAN FILLION:

Castle...

I didn’t really have any other category for that one.

SHOWS THAT WERE JUST A PILOT BUT I’M SUPER EXCITED TO SEE THE ACTUAL FIRST SEASON OF LATER IN THE YEAR:

Glee

SHOWS THAT HAD A GOOD FIRST EPISODE BUT I BET END UP DISAPPOINTING ME LATER ON:

Cupid

SHOWS THAT I THINK ARE GOING TO HAVE GREAT FIRST SEASONS:

Southland

Kings

SHOWS MADE BY JOSS WHEDON THAT AUTOMATICALLY WIN ANY ‘BEST NEW SHOW’ AWARDS BECAUSE TO NOT GIVE THEM THAT AWARD WOULD BE LIKE TELLING JESUS THAT IN THE ‘TURNING WATER INTO WINE’ STAKES HE LOST OUT TO THE GUY WHO USED TO BE ON THE O.C.:

Dollhouse

Harper's Island - It's like survivor but with more dead people.

2009-06-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday a horror movie pretending to be a network television show... or should that be a network television show pretending to be a horror movie?

Harper’s Island is about an island... called Harper’s Island – that much you probably figured out on your own. What you may not know is that there’s a wedding taking place on the island and one by one the guests are going to be killed off... okay, you probably could have figured that part out as well.

If you’re looking for familiar faces in the cast it might be noted that the groom is from either Popular or Jake 2.0 depending on how geeky you are... but really other than that you might be going ‘hey a blond guy, I recognise blonde people.’

Okay so there are no big name stars, and this being network television there is no graphic gore, so without the incentive to see Paris Hilton get bloodily impaled why would anybody watch this?

The problem with bad horror movies or television shows is that they think that people dying is enough of a plot, or enough character development. You’re left with no other storyline – you just get boring people doing something ordinary until somebody starts killing everything. I’d like for once to see a bunch of interesting funny characters doing interesting or funny things AND THEN have them killed off.

Harper’s Island leaves you with a big case of the ‘who cares’. Who cares if that person is being slaughtered? Who cares if weedy guy from Popular is marrying somebody way hotter than he is? Who cares who the killer is?

And on that ‘who’s the killer’ point – we know the guy hiding the gun, or the menacing old man, or the brother with the tats is NOT the killer. I’m surprised they didn’t fill out the cast with a bunch of literal red herrings to keep us guessing.

Harper’s Island isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a ‘good show’ – it does however do a fairly good impersonation of a ‘bad horror movie’, and I’m a sucker for bad horror movies even more than I am for ‘good horror movies’. So will I be tuning in again? Yes, but only for something to laugh at.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Bad.

talkin' 'bout Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation

2009-06-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

While we’ve been away it would seem that Channel 10 has gone and turned itself into a real life television network. Sure, Channel 9 falling apart always helps with that, but would you look at Channel 10 making real life actual hits that get real life actual ratings.

Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation is currently the biggest show on 10 and its ratings don’t look to be flagging anytime soon. So in the name of research (it’s always in the name of research...) we checked out the first episode.

First off I have to tell you what it’s about: it’s a panel show in a quiz format all about pop culture from different generations. The three “teams” consisting of two people, one captain and somebody new each episode make up three different “generations”. Baby Boomers. Generation X. Generation Y. There’s a host. They ask questions. Tell jokes. You know... it’s a panel show.

Reviewing the first episode of a panel show is a tough task. For one, it’s not like you can really base your judgement on how much you like the sets, and for two it’s not like the segments or the questions are of any real importance.

So all you can really base your opinion on is the personalities behind the desk... and again with panel shows familiarity breeds love so me thinking that Myf Warhurst is a bit of a dunce means nothing to a person who’s learnt to love the girl after like a billion Spicks & Specks episodes.

Let me try my best though:

Shaun Micallef.

Okay. This was pretty much a gimme. I’ve been a Micallef fan since The Micallef Pogram – you want to know how much of a Micallef fan I am? I watched ALL of Welcher & Welcher AND ALL of Micallef Tonight. I know. That’s dedication.

I don’t even think Francis Greenslade sat through the last couple of Welcher & Welcher episodes...

So Micallef as host – I’m on board. What about the ‘team captains’:

Amanda Keller is the captain of the Baby Boomers. Okay. So this is pretty much a given as well. Go all the way back to the Triple M Breakfast Show with Andrew Denton & Amanda Keller and there’s me tuned in every morning. Remember her show about pop culture Mondo Thingo? No. Well, I do.

And the big gimme: I used to work with Amanda... by which I mean I did volunteer work at the radio station and my desk was two desks away from hers. We said hi sometimes. I know. Please put your jealousies in writing.

Charlie Pickering is the captain of the Gen Xers. I always thought Charlie was on Skithouse but I think it may just be because he looks exactly like the half dozen other Australian comedians who WERE on Skithouse. Anyway when every answer I called out at the television was followed by a BZZ and Charlie Pickering giving the same answer I knew we had something.

I was like ‘Charlie Pickering is me... only you know, on television.’

And then there’s Josh Thomas as the captain of the Gen Y’s. You may remember Josh Thomas from his appearance as the captain of the Gen Y team on Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation. A young man whose main claim to fame is that he’s a comedian young enough as to not look the same age as Charlie Pickering.

Josh Thomas came across as awkward, I later YouTubed some of his stand up and it turns out that’s basically his whole act. Be awkward. Again I can’t really just come out and say the weird awkward host was my least favourite because who knows a season later I may learn to love the guy... I mean people like Alan Brough now don’t they?

So I give them points for Micallef, Pickering & Keller and take away points for Thomas only because I’d never seen the guy before in my life and quite frankly was embarrassed that the man elected to represent our generation on television appeared as though he’d get nervous trying to button a shirt.

What’s that then? Three out of four? Enough for me to catch the second episode? Definitely. Enough for me to never miss a week? Probably not.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Mental - You'd have to be what six letter word to watch it?

2009-06-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

The question with Mental isn’t whether it’s a bad show or not; because it is bad. The question is: just how bad is it?

There are certain shows that roll along where you go ‘woah, Big Bang Theory is a bad show’ but that’s not ‘train wreck’ bad. That’s not ‘yikes this show is awful... yet hilarious because of that’ bad. Mental aims to be a train wreck, and very nearly gets there, but instead it just pulls into the station of ‘amusingly awful’.

Mental takes place in a mental hospital, the cleanest looking mental hospital TV producers can build. It follows the adventures of the new head of medicine who is, stop me if you’ve heard this one, a rebel who doesn’t play by the rules.

His name is Dr. Jack Gallagher and he’s British (broken rule #1). The show starts with a patient going mental and stripping naked, then somebody, just some random person from the line leaps out and gets naked to help calm the man down, who could this mysterious stranger doing these weird and wacky things be? Well if you’re the one person who actually was shocked when he turned out to be the new director well then you probably should be one of his patients.

Because there isn’t a cliché that isn’t ticked (stuffy guy in a suit who doesn’t like the new directors unorthodox ways, the head of the hospital who’ll give him ONE LAST CHANCE, the lady doctor who doesn’t believe his unorthodox ways but will learn to love them AND him...) the show becomes a sort of running drinking game.

Take a shot every time Dr. Jack doesn’t “play by the rules”:

Dr. Veronica, as played by Austraila’s own Jacqueline McKenzie (you know, blonde girl who got eaten in Deep Blue Sea) has a group of patients in a room for some very structured learning. She leaves the room. Comes back. They’re gone. Dr. Jack has them outside dancing to a random band that just happened to be playing in the Hospital grounds... for some reason.

SHOT.

If this were a movie Dr. Jack would be played by an excruciating noise making Robin Williams.

Take a shot every time Dr. Jack shows off one of his “quirks”:

He rides a bike, which means he’s always walking around with the front wheel of his bike... apparently bike chains aren’t enough for this guy. It also means that he travels everywhere by bike. At one point he leaves the hospital to visit a patient’s home... lucky the patient lives nearby or that biking montage would have taken forever.

SHOT.

If there are rules around Dr. Jack is liable to break them. If you have any conventions its best if you keep them at home because he’ll break those too.

Another example (oh there are so many rules he doesn’t play by):

The doctors hold a staff meeting. Dr. Jack thinks that’s whack, he calls in some of the patients to sit in “because it’s their hospital too”. Some goth chick walks in and says “hi” and the scene fades to black... there’s no pay off. Just a scene of him breaking a rule and then fade to black.

Dr. Jack even breaks his own rules. “Patients will now sit in on staff meetings” yeah, except when he calls one later in the show and no patients sit in...

Mental is probably one of the dumbest shows ever written. This is an actual exchange of dialogue between Dr. Jack and a woman who wants to put one of his patients in an institution:

Dr. Jack: I have 72 hours to examine him. It’s only been eight.

Woman: Well, I’ll see you in 64.

She did math right there in here head for all of us to see...

Is Mental a bad show? You betcha.

Should you watch the pilot anyway? Well, only if you’re like us and you enjoy yelling out “he’s breaking the rules again!” and then laughing at the TV.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Bad.

The Goode Family - More like the Alright Family...

2009-06-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Well here’s something different a Mike Judge animated program that doesn’t completely suck. Mike Judge has always been an enigma for me – I love Office Space, and thought Idiocracy was hilarious but I don’t get King Of The Hill and I think Beavis & Butthead Do America is one of the worst films ever made.

I figured The Goode Family is an animation so it’ll slot right in alongside those other two on the ‘bad’ side of things, but here it is straddling the fence neither here nor there.

The Goode Family are a family of folks who always strive to be politically correct. There’s a dad, who I swear I thought was the younger brother for like half the episode, there’s the mum who isn’t sure if African Americans are still called African Americans anymore or are they now ‘Americans Of Color’, there’s the daughter and of course their adopted African son Ubuntu – who’s white – because he was adopted from South Africa.

If anything in there made you go ‘heh’ then yeah, that’s the entire show. It’s ‘half funny’ in the way King Of The Hill usually is, which means to say there’s a story and it isn’t throw away gag after throw away gag like say Family Guy.

When the characters are all set up to be these greeny liberal types always striving to ‘do the right thing’ you get the feeling that they’re just going to be a walking punching bag but Mike Judge steers away from that angle; which was refreshing. It does suffer from King Of The Hill esq voice acting, you know kind of laid back and boring. I’m going to tune in for a second episode but it’s not like I’m leaping out of my seat to get to it.

In the animated comedy department it’s miles better than Sit Down, Shut Up but then that’s not saying much. I don’t think that it matters that it’s on ABC rather than at the home of animation on FOX because I’m pretty sure this thing would be getting cancelled either way. It doesn’t have the instant gratification dumbed down lowest common denominator rapid fire jokes of Family Guy or American Dad, and it doesn’t have the ‘impress the geeks’ factor of Futruma, and it certainly doesn’t have the ‘this has been on forever we’ll never cancel it’ factor of The Simpsons – I’m not sure where a show like this could find a home, but then again I can’t explain how King Of The Hill got eleven seasons other than for the fact that Mike Judge must have compromising photos of Rupert Murdoch lying around.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Sit Down, Shut Up... And Get Off My Television.

2009-06-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

As one of the six people who not only remember the original Australian Sit Down, Shut Up, but also watched more than one episode I think that we’re the only people who can honestly ask the question: Why in God’s name would you remake such a freaking awful program?

The Australian version is getting more press now than it ever did when it was on the air. What possessed one of the creators of Arrested Development, no less, to bring this rancid corpse of a Stephen Curry vehicle back to life?

I’m not even sure where to begin on the program itself. It’s animated. It’s voiced by a bunch of guys who would be better used in live action form like Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Will Forte, Kristen Chenoweth, Kenan Thompson... although probably not Cheri Oteri. The show revolves around the wacky lives of a bunch of overly stereotyped and horribly drawn teachers who work at a high school and get into antics and shit.

Several thoughts roll through your mind while watching this ... I can’t think of anything more elegant to call it than ‘piece of crap’. Thoughts like:

How can there possibly be a show that looks worse animated than King Of The Hill?

Why didn’t somebody just split this cast up into groups of three and assign them a series of live action sitcoms to actually showcase their talents?

Why am I sitting here wishing I was watching Family Guy? – the first true sign of a horrible horrible program: anything that makes you wish for Seth MacFarlane.

I’m not sure if I should even bother explaining the plot which involves a male teacher who grows boobs in a storyline that I’m pretty sure The Drew Carey Show did a decade ago. There’s really nothing in this show that would warrant a collection of badly animated five minute web videos let alone an entire prime time network series.

Go figure that if you remake an awful freaking show that nobody watched you’d get yourselves an awful freaking show that nobody watched.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Bad

Kings

2009-06-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since Deadwood ended on a HBO induced cliff-hanger that will never be resolved Ian McShane has been sorely missed from our television screens, and while Kings doesn’t return him to his former glory it’s a step in the right direction.

Who would have ever thought that NBC, those asshats who brought the world Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, Kath & Kim, My Own Worst Enemy and the on-going travesty that is Heroes would produce the mid-season’s two best non-Joss Whedon related series. First Southland, and now Kings.

For some reason I had the misunderstanding that Kings told the David & Goliath story from the point of view of a young lawyer who joins a big corporation and has to fight battles... legal battles... it turns out I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Where I make some of this shit up in my mind, I’ll never know.

It’s actually about a farm boy named David (strangely enough) played by Chris “Home & Away” Egan. He goes to war, and faces off against a Goliath tank (there’s the biblical reference for you). He gets called a hero and paraded in front of the loyal subjects of King Silas, Ian McShane, one of the ‘Kings’ of the title (guess who the other one is!). Sebastian Stan plays the King’s son Jack, who seems to be channelling Chuck Bass more than any normal human being ever should.

Fictional kingdoms. Kings. Wars. This was not the show I was expecting. It’s so much better than that. A complete left field ‘you don’t see that on TV every day’ kind of program that even after a double episode leaves you wanting more.

Home & Away was really good in the lead, and while at first Ian McShane seemed miscast (he’ll always feel like a filthy bar owner to me, and not his royal highness), the role seemed to fit around his talents.

The show is both cinematic and melodramatic. NBC spared no expensive on the look of the pilot, but forgot to throw a couple of bucks towards the writers who need to clean up a few dodgy lines of dialogue. But really when something aims so high can’t we just excuse its faults... I know I usually don’t but that’s just how much I like Kings.

It made a nice break from a series of ‘quirky detective series’ on the ABC, and I would like to take a moment to applaud any television program that attempts to do something that isn’t about lawyers, or solving crimes, or doctors who have sex with lawyers while solving crimes; whether it succeeds or fails at least it tried.

It’s hard to find a show to compare it too – maybe Rome and The Tudors. If that is the case, well then it’s not Rome (what is though?) but it is freaking miles better than The Tudors.

It’s also the only show since watching the pilot I’ve been sitting around thinking “hmm, I wonder what happens next on Kings.” And that’s always a plus.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Good.

Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure

2009-06-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is deviating a little from the American mid-season, but let’s pretend that Australia has a “mid-season” too and that this is one of two shows I’ll be reviewing for it...

Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure is a weird show. The premise is such: Lawrence attempts to relive all of the dreams he had as a kid. Be a rock star. Be cool. And in the first episode: tell his grade three crush how he felt about her back then.

LL’s CYOA is basically John Safran light. Where Safran would attempt to join the KKK instead Lawrence asks ex-popstar Tiffany for song writing tips. It isn’t exactly edgy ground breaking stuff.

Lawrence is a nice enough guy and while it’s hard to tell how much of his awkward persona is a put on and how much is actually him the first episode does deliver a handful of good laughs; most of which come from Lawrence’s parents who keep telling him how creepy he’s being.

The premise of giving his grade three crush a letter he wrote back then is a somewhat interesting one, but it’s doubtful there’s really twenty minutes worth of material here. He has to visit Tiffany for song writing tips for some reason, he has to have awkward creepy conversations with not just one but two “love gurus”. It’s all over the shop for a finale which is just as embarrassing as you could predict.

There were a couple of “bits” within the whole show that didn’t really work, like him going to his ten year old cousin for dating advise. Now that’s fine, except when your cousin is a really atrocious actor – even for a ten year old. There were a couple of other moments that seemed a little ‘Chaser-ish’ and a little forced.

In the end shows like this come down to how much you like the guy in front of the camera. At the moment we like Lawrence and will check out more episodes, but I’d hate to be the person who flicks across half way through this show and be left wondering what the hell is going on.

The more we get to know Lawrence the more laughs the show will produce; I don’t expect to see him putting a voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend or streaking through the streets of Jerusalem or even getting an exorcism but until John Safran is back on our screens I guess Lawrence will have to fill that awkward ABC comedy host void.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Southland - The Best A Man Can Get.

2009-06-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Southland looks and acts like a ‘cable show’ which for a program that appears on a network alongside trash like Heroes and Crusoe that’s a pretty high compliment. Based on the pilot I would even go so far as to say that Southland is the best looking show on TV. I don’t know if the producers of The Unusuals knew that this director was out there working in television, but I hope not or else they just chose mediocrity on purpose.

Southland is the tale of cops in L.A. doing the hard yards and the tough things that cops in L.A. tend to do. Ryan from The OC plays a rookie. It’s his first day on the job and like Training Day and countless Training Day knock offs have taught us – that’s a tough assignment.

His isn’t the only story – we also follow a pair of detectives investigating a drive by and the drummer from That Thing You Do! And the wife from Jerry Maguire play another pair of detectives investigating a kidnapped child.

There were more characters on top of that, we’re inundated with eight or ten characters and it’s a little hard to keep track. Unlike with The Unusuals where the characters didn’t even seem to exist in the same universe let alone on the same show together, Southland creates one big living breathing organism where all the characters exist in the same world.

Our entry point into the series is obviously the rookie, but Regina King who usually just plays “Black Wife” in everything is great as detective Lydia Adams.

I don’t think I’ve seen a pilot this season that has surprised me more, and I don’t think there’s been a pilot this good this season let alone out of this midseason crop. If NBC really wants to crawl out of fourth place ordering smart adult well made dramas like this one are a step in the right direction.

Obviously shows like Dollhouse and Glee offer more in the long run, but based on the first episode alone Southland is stellar.

There are a couple of quibbles obviously – the beeps over the swearing were a little distracting, kind of like we were watching a live action South Park. There were a couple of dodgy lines of dialogue like “We’re fighting our own war of terror right here” to describe living in L.A. You could suggest that it’s not exactly covering ground we haven’t trod many times before, but really what counts as being new these days?

I don’t know how much louder I can say this but: check out Southland. It’s great.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Good.

Parks & Recreation - Wait a minute, I think I've seen this show...

2009-06-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

There was a rumour a while back that NBC picked up a spin off of The Office and it was going to star Amy Poehler, in presumably a rival paper company or some crap like that. That idea was dropped. They weren’t going to spin off the Office. They were going to make an entirely new show. It was still going to star Amy Poehler and it was to be called Parks And Recreation.

And it’s exactly the same as The Office.

I know people have mentioned this before but I’m late getting to the party and like the eighth person to say “oh did you get a haircut?” let me say “oh so this is exactly the same as the Office is it?”

Amy Poehler plays Michael Scott who works for the Parks Department on the local council. She’s a doofus. She gets in awkward situations. She believes her own hype. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Rashida Jones (FROM THE OFFICE) has a boyfriend who fell in a hole and broke his legs. Amy Poehler is going to fill in the hole and build a park. Embarrassing hijacks and looks to the camera ensue.

Okay now the thing is: it’s not BAD. It’s not great, it’s not the Office, okay so it’s probably a little bit like the horrible first season Office. Some bright spots and a lot of ‘what?’. I like Amy Poehler, a lot, usually, not so much in this. The rest of the cast is kind of ‘meh’ – like a group of people wandering around looking forlorn because they didn’t get a spot as an extra on the real Office. Word on the street is that Aziz Ansari is awesome... that must happen later on.

I have to keep coming back to The Office though. It’s not my fault, it’s the shows. It’s from a pair of guys who worked on the Office, it stars one of the ex-Office members, and they go to every single effort to make it look and sound and behave like the Office. You don’t want anybody to make the comparison THEN DON’T COPY THEIR DOCUMENTARY ANGLE. For craps sake, why NOT make a spin off? Where along the way did they say “hey, let’s not make a spin off, instead let’s get some old cast members, keep the same tone, play the same jokes and just make a brand new show that’s exactly the same.” That is a spin off.

Okay. Oh well. That’s what’s happened, but what about the show itself? Is it any good?

Not really. Sort of. Maybe. It could be good. I’m going to stick around cause I like Amy Poehler and The Office took a season to get good so maybe this will too.

Before I wrap this up let me again mention The Office, I know, you get it, this show is like that show, but it differs in a very important way:

Jim & Pam.

There’s no Jim & Pam in Parks & Recreations. There’s a Michael Scott, and there’s like a half dozen Stanley’s but there’s no likeable loveable Jim & Pam at the centre of it all. If the clued in pair are Aziz and Rashida – they’re more assholish and depressing than cute & loveable. So maybe they should work on that.

If things don’t get any better than they are after this first episode there’s really no point in sticking around. Fingers crossed they do.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Castle - When Good Stars Go Douchey

2009-06-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

What are the two words that make us love television?

Nathan. Fillion.

He’s great in everything from Firefly to... Serenity. Heck, he has to be the reason we liked Two Guys, A Girl & A Pizza Place because Berg, Pete & Sharon sure aren’t. We watched more of Drive than we wanted to because Nath was there for us. And now, now we have Castle.

Nathan Fillion plays Richard Castle a bestselling crime novelist. Stana Katic plays Detective Kate Beckitt who’s investigate a series of murders based on crimes that appear in Castle’s novels.

Pop Quiz:

Will Castle & Kate either:
A) Get along perfectly.
B) Realise they don’t get along and keep out of each other’s way or
C) Not get along, banter, bicker and then eventually have feelings for each other.

If you picked ‘c’ well then obviously you’ve seen at least one television show before in your lifetime.

The proceedings are fairly generic, the twist of Castle being a crime novelist is a good one. In fact the most interesting scene was probably the awkwardly acted cameos from James Patterson and another guy who I assume I’m supposed to know but don’t.

The problem with Castle is that Nathan Fillion is kind of douchey. I didn’t actually like him when, as is obvious from my opening paragraphs, I usually do. But not here, if they can tone down his dickishness in coming episodes I can get on board.

On the flipside Stana Katic is pretty great as Kate Beckitt. It’s always surprising when a star you know and love is upstaged by actress you’ve never seen before. See: Fringe.

Having sat through the entire show I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. It wasn’t that funny, the crime itself was fairly boring, and yet there’s a part of me that wants to see it again – kind of like what happened with Life. It wasn’t great to begin with but once it found its footing it was.

The “twist” at the end to keep Castle paired up Kate for further episodes forces you to hurt your imagination by stretching it so far, but I guess it could work – in that dumb TV plot point kind of way. At least all of the CIA’s information wasn’t downloaded onto his brain, I suppose.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Glee!

2009-06-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Glee isn’t exactly a mid season replacement. It’s just a pilot FOX released to springboard the first season next fall, but it’s here, we watched it and now we’re going to talk about it.

Will is a teacher. Will used to do ‘Glee Club’ back when he was in high school. The old Glee Club teacher has been kicked out. Will becomes the new head of Glee Club. He gets six students to sign up. They’re an odd ball collection of misfits.

That’s all you really need to know.

Oh, and there’s singing.

Glee is from the creator of Nip/Tuck and while that means nothing to me as I’ve never seen that show I’m sure it means something to people that have. What is noticeable about Glee though is that it does have a sort of ‘cable series shine’ to it despite the fact it’s on FOX. The show looks great, unlike say The Unusuals which looked like trash.

The show covers a lot of clichéd ground – a lot of it – the jock who joins the musical for example has been done in everything from Popular to American Pie to High School Musical. (It turns out that Ryan Murphy, the creator, also created Popular so maybe he just has a thing for quarterbacks turned singers.) There’s the over the top desperate to be a star girl, again a character we’ve seen before. Heck the group of kids is filled with a gay guy, a sassy black girl, a wheel chair guy. BUT: they feel different. They don’t feel like somebody has just gone around with a cookie cutter popping out stereotypes.

Lea Michele plays the over the top girl and she’s great. She lends a kind of creepy desperation and loneliness to the part that you don’t see a lot on television. In fact you don’t see a show like this a lot on television. The teachers didn’t click with me as much as the students, but you get the feeling as the show goes on it’s going to explore each and every one of these misfit characters a little bit more. It’s hard to explain but you know when you feel a show actually CARES about its characters? Yeah, you get that feeling with Glee.

It’s not FANTASTIC but it is fun, and it’s well written, and it’s well acted and hell, I’ll just come right out and say it: They perform a big musical number to Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. It’s the single greatest song of all time. And for me: that was enough for me to go “yep, I’ll be seeing you next season Glee.”

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Good.

The Unusuals - It's not unusual for this to suck so very much.

2009-06-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

So far the ABC midseason has brought us misfires like In The Motherhood and Surviving Suburbia, almost fires like Better Off Ted, and full fires (if that’s a thing) like Cupid so we popped The Unusuals on hoping it would be more Cupid than Motherhood. It’s not.

The Unusuals is described as being a ‘comedy drama set in the crazy world of New York City Police detectives’ except that it fails at both the comedy and the drama. It’s a complete mess of a show that doesn’t know what it wants to be and instead tries to be everything it can think of.

The problems begin in the writers room but don’t end until the credits role.

First off: we’re introduced to too many characters in the first episode. A lot of characters is fine, we love big ensembles, but only when those ensembles seem to be working together in not just the same plot but on the same show.

The Unusuals gives us Joan Of Arcadia dressed as a hooker, turns out she’s actually a cop, she’s now hired as a new detective. Her new partner has recently lost his old partner to a homicide. So they go about investigating his death. It’s all serious and mysterious and tough as nails and bullshit. MEANWHILE Black Guy From Lost and Adam Goldberg play a couple of wacky cops investigate cat murders. Apparently “cat murders” is a stand in for “actual comedy” in this show.

We find out that Adam Goldberg wants to die, and Black Guy From Lost is afraid of dying (IRONY PLUS) so Black Guy wears a bullet proof vest all the time, and always makes sure he washes his hands, and doesn’t want to be around a guy with a death wish because he’s afraid of dying ... if this guy was really afraid of dying I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t still be a cop. You can tell the writers didn’t think more than twice about any of these characters. “Ooh his quirk can be he’s afraid of dying. Lol.”

Comedy dramas usually meld the comedy into the drama not have a plot that is the drama plot and a plot that is the comedy plot. When two of your cops are wacky, and the other two stiff as a plank of wood and they’re not interacting it’s just disjointed and pointless.

On top of that the shows pretty horribly miscast. Especially Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants in the lead role as the new detective. From what I can tell she must have been working Vice as an extra curricular activity at high school before graduating and then becoming a detective. When you spend your life playing high school girls, and you look like a high school girl, nobody is going to buy you as a detective.

This central casting seems to have thrown the rest of the casting out. Because Amber Tamblyn looks young better to cast a youngish looking guy to be her partner – so she’s partnered with Jeremy Renner otherwise known as that guy you think you recognise from something but you can’t figure it out (it’s The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford by the way... either that or 28 Weeks Later, or neither...)

The problem with Jeremy Renner? He seems about 20 years younger than the character he’s playing as well. Apparently this guy used to be a major league baseball player, and then he retired, became a cop, and now also runs a diner. Shouldn’t this guy be like fifty something and not thirty something? Who’s had a pro baseball career and managed to become lead detective in NYC by the time their thirty five?

There’s a spattering of so many cast members that Heroes would be proud – there’s the douchebag cop who wants all the media attention, there’s the Latino lady cop who you can tell has sass because they force it down your throat with every line of dialogue she has, there’s the no bullshit chief of police, there’s the overly Christian cop who I’m pretty sure is Kenneth from 30 Rock’s cousin...

The pilot is all over the shop. It tries way too hard to be cool and just comes off as dickish. In fact that’s the problem with pretty much every last character: they’re all assholes and not in a watchable Denis Leary way.

The big “twist” to the show is that everybody has a secret, but these secrets are so well kept that we know half of them by the time the first episode ends. They try to play up the ‘what’s his secret’ mystery with the ex-pro ball playing diner owning cop, but it comes across as half assed at best, in a tacked on ‘Life’ kind of way.

ABC describes The Unusuals as being a “modern day MASH” ... yeah, if MASH was shit.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Bad

Better Off Ted - More Like 'Better Off... ... um ... Ted'

2009-06-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

The hardest show to talk about is always the ‘middle of the road’ show. The type of show that makes its allegiance to neither the ‘good’ group, nor to the ‘bad’ group – it just sits there in the middle. Better Off Ted is in that middle.

Ted is the story of a guy named Ted who works at a big evil corporation that makes lots of things. That’s really the plot there in a nutshell. Portia De Rosi plays his boss, a black guy and a weedy guy play scientists, and a blonde quirky girl plays a blonde quirky girl. Ted’s played by a guy who according to imdb was in Private Practice for a bit, and Desperate Housewives for a little bit, or as I like to call him “Guy With The Don Draper Voice.”

Better Off Ted sits in that television purgatory where you can’t quite figure out if you like the show or not. It’s a realm of the television world reserved primarily for sitcoms. Usually of the Corner Gas or Andy Richter Controls The Universe variety (speaking of which, turns out: Andy Richter from the people who brought you Better Off Ted...) – they’re likeable, watchable and on some occasions even funny but you keep coming back to it because the cast are so ... ‘nice’ isn’t the right word and ‘charming’ doesn’t quite pin point it so maybe – nicing.

Actually one of the common threads on these ‘nice enough’ kinds of sitcoms is Maz Jobrani – an Iranian actor who also appeared in another pair of Purgatory Comedies – Knights Of Prosperity and Life On A Stick.

Purgatory Comedies keep you around because you kind of just like to hang – “you seem like nice people, what are we all doing this time next week?” Unfortunately they also leave you with not much to say.

I will say this though: Ted has a daughter, and she was actually funny. Go figure a child actor that wasn’t repulsive. Speaking of not repulsive – Portia De Rosi was really funny as well. Which isn’t shocking if you loved her in Arrested Development but is shocking if you’re like me and thought she was the worst part of Arrested Development. But she’s great here.

While the wackiness is a little forced, okay it’s A LOT forced – ‘deadly pumpkins’, ‘girl who collects milk creamers’, ‘guy cryogenically frozen who now screams a lot’ – but it’s not grating. I see Better Off Ted getting better, and from what I hear on the big wide world of the web that may just be the case.

I’m sticking with Ted just because I can feel it going places, in the meantime though I can only rate it ‘average’ just because there’s nothing to hate – and not being hated never qualified anybody for ‘good’ status before.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Average

Is Surviving Suburbia The Worst Show Of All Time?

2009-06-06T11:06:00.001-07:00

You want the three word review of Surviving Suburbia?

It is shit.

Okay now here's some more words on the subject:

Surviving Suburbia could quite conceivably be the worst television show of all time. A television program so devoid of humour and imagination that it makes Cavemen look like Seinfeld. A television show with so little ambition that if it through it a couple of winks to the camera it could very well be a parody of every awful family sitcom ever made.

Surviving Suburbia (god doesn’t the title even scream ‘generic’) first came to life as a sitcom for The CW but it got bumped from their schedule. ABC then jumped in and picked it up. Here’s the first sign of things to come: THE CW REJECTED IT. Jesus you don’t go picking up the food thrown out by the homeless guy. Come on.

It’s the story of a sarcastic grumpy put upon dad played by a miserable Bob Saget, he has a wise ass wife who deep downs loves him very much, he has as “cute” daughter constantly fawning for attention, he has a son apparently but he jumped in and out of scenes so quick he may have just been a ghost, he has a creepy best friend and he has a dopey neighbour. All that was missing was a copyright logo that says ‘1987’.

Let’s begin with the plot because it’s only downhill from there. The dopey neighbour wants to give the grumpy dad his house keys so he can look after his fish, Bob Saget moans about how ‘house keys lead to blah blah blah insert generic discussion of ‘suburbs thing’ that doesn’t really happen in real life. His friend then causes a fire in the guys place, Bob Saget puts it out, calls himself a hero, gets treated as a hero, then feels guilty and decides to tell the truth – thus learning the lesson of what it means to be a real hero. Class, you may now go vomit.

EVERYTHING about this show is bad. From its title, to the screen wipes used to cut between the scenes, from the annoying as fuck little girl, even Bob Saget’s posture was horrible.

Words really cannot describe how bad Surviving Suburbia is. Well I guess they can: I’d rather watch a Two & A Half Men MARATHON.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?
Ugly.

Cupid Is Surprisingly Not Stupid

2009-06-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Cupid is the story of, well, Cupid. He’s been kicked out of Mount Olympus and before he’s allowed back in he needs to bring 100 couples together. Unfortunately with Cupid getting an early cancelation it would appear that 93 couples are going to remain apart and alone... forever.

Whilst trying to hook up the first of these 100 couples Cupid is arrested and meets a shrink played by Sarah Paulson who as you may or may not remember was really freaking irritating in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. The shrink believes that he’s not really Cupid and that he’s just delusional.

But lo and behold Cupid goes about his business of hooking people up much to Sarah Paulson’s confusion/amusement/falling-in-love-with-him-ness. The first episode deals with the main guy from Meet The Spartans searching for a girl he met one time in Ireland, but instead he falls for a reporter played by Connie from The Mighty Ducks.

And this is where we run into the first problem with the pilot: I really liked the couple. I really liked Meet The Spartans guy, I really like Connie from The Mighty Ducks and I really liked their 40 minute little romantic comedy... but that was this week’s couple, next week I assume there’ll be a new couple for us to fawn over.

So when my favourite characters in the show are the two that won’t be back next week you might call that an ‘issue’. That’s like if on the first episode of CSI my favourite characters where the victim’s distressed wife, and his best friend who surprise surprise turned out to be the killer.

On the flipside the show scores points for being actually romantic and not completely hokey like the misfires Valentine or The Ex List from earlier in the season; both of which were god awful pieces of trash. And by straddling the line between ‘is he cupid or is he delusional’ the creators can keep things in the “real world” and not delve into the mythology and supernatural like Valentine did with dodgy special effects and tiresome exposition.

I can’t tell you whether the 1998 version is any better or any different as I haven’t seen the original Cupid. But I bet Jeremy Piven was a better Cupid than Bobby Cannavale and only because he is Jeremy Piven and Jeremy Piven is awesome.

The most surprising thing about Cupid isn’t the fact that the “mini romantic comedy” each week thing sort of actually works, the most surprising thing is that I didn’t want to shoot Sarah Paulson between the eyes. NOW that’s an achievement.

In the end Cupid turned out to be a lot better than I thought it was going to be, which of course isn’t a stretch as I thought it was going to be god awful. So for now we’re going to keep watching it – I’ll keep you posted as to whether this ‘good’ gets downgraded over the course of it’s very short season, but until I may (and wait for this really bad pun) be falling in love with Cupid...

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?

Good.

Make A Realistic Wish? How About The Chaser Being Funny Once In A While...

2009-06-03T23:40:00.001-07:00

The Chaser have yet again been making headlines for being "controversial" this time the offending sketch is one about the 'Make A Realistic Wish Foundation'. The sketch consists of kids making wishes like "I want to go to Disneyland" and them getting a pencil case instead.

It ends with the punchline they're going to die anyway so what does it matter.

Not exactly new ground, the 'Make A Wish' joke has been around for years and usually it ends with the dying kid wanting to see boobs or something.

Taking offense to a crappy sketch on a crappy sketch comedy program is pretty much exactly all their asking for. The Chaser are notorious media whores. They want you to cry and scream and get upset when they call Peter Brock and asshole and only a hero because he died, even though he wasn't proclaimed as either at any point other than in their song.

Now I know that me writing about this is more of what they're after. I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that Channel 3 news here in New Zealand is currently running a segment about this "offensive" sketch, and that Kevin Rudd was talking about it early.

Rudd called the sketch disgraceful, even though he hadn't seen it. I think if he'd actually seen the sketch he would have changed his tune and called the "inconsequential, unfunny and really not a matter for the Prime Minister of Australia to be talking about."

I also think it's ridiculous for anybody to be 'outraged' by a sketch on a sketch comedy show. The only reason people could possibly be outraged by it is if they mistakenly believe this is a real charity and those were real sick kids. As it stands it was a joke, and much like the time I called the police to get Dexter Morgan arrested for what I thought were well documented cases of murder I think we might all find out it's just television.

So while The Chaser continue to thrash about in a desperate attempt to stay relevant I think the country needs to get their 'outrage' meter under control and be outraged when somebody does something that is actually outrageous. And you know, not just another lame take on the make a wish joke.

And besides isn't the premise of the joke for them to make a 'realistic' wish, since when is "meeting Zac Efron" and "going to Disneyland" NOT realistic? A realistic wish isn't giving a kid a stick or a pencil case, cause a kid would never realistically wish for either one of those things.

An unrealistic wish would be to go to the moon, and a realistic wish would be to have chocolate ice-cream for desert... but you know now I'm just trying to make sense of the Chaser and I stopped bothering to do that right around CNNN when they stopped being funny.

UPDATE: Just to back up my point that this is hardly new ground TVTonight have posted this sketch here from the Foxtel show The Mansion hosted by a pair of guys who used to be in Skithouse. It's pretty much the exact same joke, only these guys don't have The Chaser PR team working overdrive to keep them in the news and keep them "relevant."

In The Motherhood - It's Shrilling.

2009-06-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

The Mid-Season has been and gone, but I’m in New Zealand so just think of me being behind on my TV shows as sort of like the ‘exchange rate’ – it’s the same as if I was back home only off by a couple of months.

In The Motherhood

In The Motherhood is a single camera sitcom based around the premise that... women talk about stuff... I guess.

The wife from Curb Your Enthusiasm has a baby, her sister has two black children and the shrill one from Will & Grace plays the shrill one in this. So you have three fairly annoying women – you’re not off to a good start, what could you add to that mix to make things worse? How about Horatio Sanz.

Horatio Sanz plays a ‘manny’ a man-nanny... isn’t that funny?

In The Motherhood is not actually about anything, there’s not even a workplace that ties anything together, or a plot, it’s just three women who hang out and talk about whether you’re supposed to have sex on the third date. Which as any sitcom veteran knows is completely new and unexplored territory.

There are a couple of funny moments but they’re more ‘hehe’ than ‘lol’ – like the guy who does a bad Borat impression at her work place, which would be funnier if the show explored that idea more than just “Oh we could have a guy who quotes Borat. Yeah, people do quote Borat a lot.”

The other exciting and ground breaking plots from the pilot include the black children finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real and then telling the rest of their kindergarten class. Just like when this happens in real life CHAOS ensues. Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of going balls out ballistic there’d be a kid in a sitcom one time who when they found out Santa didn’t exist that they just went ‘meh’?

There’s a kindergarten teacher who for some reason appears functionally retarded as she wails in the corner of the classroom and awkwardly caresses a stuffed bunny at a teacher parent meeting. No explanation given, like we’re just supposed to assume that all kindergarten teachers are spastics.

The final plot with Karen from Will & Grace involves her pretending to be pregnant. Which again = groundbreaking.

You’ve got three women as your main characters and they complain a lot – the show couldn’t be more shrill if it tried.

Outside of one or two good lines there isn’t really a whole lot going on. Which isn’t surprising for a show that got cancelled four episodes into the season.

How bad is this show? The best part is the annoying chick from Will & Grace.

Good, Average, Bad or Ugly?

Bad.

Two Guys, A Girl & A 'Was This Show Always This Bad?'

2009-05-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

There's a lesson in here somewhere a lesson that says "Don't Go Back To The Things You Loved As A Kid".

It's a lesson I've learnt time and again. A lesson I learnt when I sought out the first two seasons of "Dinosaurs". 'Dear 10 Year Old Me, Dinosaurs wasn't very good - you were wrong to believe otherwise. Sorry to shatter your dreams NOT THE MOMMA.'

It's a lesson I learnt when I got a hold of Sliders, what at one point I insisted on being 'one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all times' - and it just turned out that thirteen year old me didn't have a problem with dodgy CGI and even dodgier acting from Jerry "Tomcats" O'Connell.

So it really should come as no suprise when I write this letter to fifteen year old me:

Dear Fifteen Year Old Me,

Two Guys, A Girl & A Pizza Place wasn't the hilarious half hour of fun you always thought it was. This is the reason you love Ryan Reynolds. I know. You're always telling people "Oh yeah, he was good in Blade III, but did you ever see him in Two Guys, A Girl & A Pizza Place."

Yeah, well HEADS UP: It aint good. Okay, sure, it aint Dinosaurs bad, but it aint even SeaQuest alright. This is a bad show. A bad show made worse by time.

We've had a lot of sitcoms since TG, AG & APP and in that time quite a few of them have dealt with twenty something friends hanging out and doing stuff. I can think of one right now that comes to mind: How I Met Your Mother. A funny, sweet show, that while wacky was able to deal with the realities of friendship and growing up.

Imagine that 'the realities'. And while there are an occasional beat or two where Two Guys may work - the rest of the time there are such "realities" of growing us as Berg subjecting himself to yet another science experiment in order to get some money.

There's the "reality" of Sharon working for a super evil chemical company.

There's the "reality" of Pete being a complete freaking douchebag and the fact that in real life these three would never REALLY be friends.

There's the "reality" of David Ogden Steirs playing a guy who believes he's characters from various popular movies - and not in a clever way, but in a very broad very obvious 'oh we get it you're Patrick Swayze in Ghost. That's high-larious' kind of way.

There's the "reality" of the over the top black pizza place owner who don't take no crap off of nobody, yes sir.

It's ridiculous. It's schemes. And over the top acting. And wacky plots. And it exists no where near the real world.

Okay David Ogden Steirs and the black guy are dumped after the first series and Nathan "Captain Reynolds" Fillion joins the cast which can ONLY be an improvement. But seriously - it's pretty terrible stuff.

Oh, sorry fifteen year old me I got side tracked in a rant.

Yeah, don't want to break your heart but it aint a good show. Get better taste, oh and when Family Guy comes on TV next year hate it from the very beginning this time around and don't wait for it to become popular and you be one of those guys who just hate something cause tooltrains like it more than you do.

Sincerely,
Future Pete.

If You Don't Like How I Met Your Mother You Haven't Seen Enough How I Met Your Mother

2009-05-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

I was on Facebook yesterday and decided to do one of those Top 5 lists that everybody's doing these days. I chose Top 5 TV Dramas and Top 5 TV Comedies to see what I'd come up with.

My drama picks are all awesome, naturally, and if you don't think so Josh Lyman, Seth Bullock, Lindsay Weir, Tim Riggins and Don Draper are going to come round to your house and kick your arse.

For my comedies I picked the old stand by The Simpsons, when a show has entertained you for as long as The Simpsons has you've got to put it in there. I picked Gavin & Stacey, Spaced, The Daily Show and How I Met Your Mother.

A guy I went to high school with commented that I made a nice choice with Spaced but that I lost points for How I Met Your Mother. I said "you've obviously not seen enough How I Met Your Mother then."

And that's it. The gut reaction everybody has for a show entitled How I Met Your Mother is 'oh boy, here we go, another crappy traditional American sitcom with a laugh track yuk yuk.' It's the same thought I had when I watched the first episode four years ago: "this is lame."

Oh how naive I was back then, oh how foolish. Four seasons later and I'm more than happy to trumpet HIMYM as one of my favourite five shows EVER.

But the question still stands why after four great hilarious seasons does HIMYM still get treated in the same way people treat Everybody Loves Raymond or King Of Queens?

Is it because on CBS it sits in between The Big Bang Theory and Two & A Half Men - two shows that are the furthest thing from having 'cred'.

Is it because in Austraila it's on Channel 7 - a station which does nothing if not aim for middle of the road with stuff like Packed To The Rafters, Kath & Kim or Ugly Betty?

I just wasn't sure why such a great show was still getting such a bad rap after all these years of being legen wait for it dary.

Is it the catchphrases?

All I know is that there's no sitcom on television that better understands the way friends work and interact with each other. There's no sitcom on television where I care about the characters more, and that's an important thing - that's something that makes you come back again and again to this show. That's the reason you love a show.

Friday Night Lights is ten thousand times better than Gossip Girl because you actually give a shit what happens to the characters and for that very reason HIMYM is ten thousand times better than Rules Of Engagement because you actually care what happens to the characters.

And on top of all that IT MAKES YOU LAUGH. It finds new and inventive ways to make you laugh.

There's no other show on television that would have Barney get into full makeup so that he looks like an old man, so he can pretend that he's travelled back in time just to trick a girl into having sex with "younger Barney" in order to save the world.

I mean, there just isn't.

HIMYM is the best comedy on TV at the moment and if you don't believe me, I don't really care cause I get to watch How I Met Your Mother and you don't.

So What If Pushing Daisies Got Cancelled?

2009-05-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

It's been two years since I wrote that Pushing Daisies should be canceled because it was a pretentious piece of shit, and ever since then I've had over 60 comments from people all over the net outraged that my opinion is so completely different to their opinion.

I get it - your favourite show has been canceled. I'm a douche. You're upset. You're outraged. How could they do that to Pushing Daisies?

Remember when Pushing Daisies arrived on the scene back in 2007 - what a glorious year that was. But then ABC had to go an ruin everything by canceling it after only two seasons. ONLY TWO.

How could they?

Well, let's have a look at what else came out in the 2007/2008 season and see how well their doing these days:
Samantha Who? - Samantha Cancelled.
Cavemen - Dead.
Carpoolers - Dead.
Dirty Sexy Money - Killed after the horrible second season.
Big Shots - Which show?
Women's Murder Club - Long gone now.
Cashmere Mafia - Who even remembers that show?
Miss/Guided - Yeah, like that was ever going to be a hit.
Eli Stone - Oh Eli, you tried so hard - but fell so far.
and of course:
Private Practice - the only show to debut on ABC in 2007/2008 to be renewed for a third season.

So while Pushing Daisies death was tragic - think of the fans of... um... Big Shots?

It's not just ABC that had trouble with the 2007/2008 season. What about the other four networks. How are their 2007/2008 series going heading into 2009/2010?

CBS has a series of massive failures:
Viva Laughlin - dead before it arrived.
Cane - who greenlighted these shows?
Kid Nation - oh Kid Nation, how we miss thee.
Moonlight - vampire detective = cancelled
Swingtown - got bumped to Summer then to the bin.
Welcome To The Captain - Yeah, now I'm just making shows up.

The only show to survive all that to make it to a third season:
The Big Bang Theory.
I know.

NBC's best shot at a third season pick up is Chuck - but that's still up in the air.
Otherwise it killed off:
Bionic Woman
Lipstick Jungle
Life
and Journeyman

FOX killed everything from:
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
K-Ville
Back To You
The Next Great American Band
Unhitched
The Return Of Jezebel James
Canterbury's Law
and New Amsterdam

Keeping only Kitchen Nightmares for a third season.

The CW let go of:
Aliens In America
Life Is Wild
and will kill Reaper soon enough

left with only Gossip Girl

So the only new shows to survive 2007/2008 were:
Gossip Girl, Kitchen Nightmares, The Big Bang Theory, Private Practice and possibly Chuck.

Not exactly the greatest line ups of hits.
5 out of over thirty shows made it to a third season.

Don't cry about only getting two seasons of your beloved Pushing Daisies. That's more than us Kid Nation fans got.

So what? KID NATION WAS AWESOME.

Best. Episode. Ever.

2009-04-06T02:24:00.000-07:00

Okay maybe not the best episode ever. But it's easily Top 5.

How I Met Your Mother.

Season 4. Episode 16.

'Sorry, Bro'.

One of the five funniest episodes of HIMYM ever.

I don't know what my actual list of "best. episodes. ever." looks like but I know that Robin Sparkles and Slap Bet are in the running, so that's where Sorry, Bro sits... somewhere around there.

Freaking hilarious.

HIMYM just keeps kicking ass, taking names and telling everybody else in the sitcom world how to do it - they even managed to have a cameo and have it not drain the freaking life out of the entire episode - you hear that 30 Rock?

TV To Move Around To

2009-04-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

When you're on the move or constantly traveling like we are at the moment you're standards for the type of television you're willing to watch tend to drop.

You're sitting in a hotel room and there's nothing else to do but flick on the tube so you end up watching New Zealand's Next Top Model on a week to week basis.

Yeah, I know.

On top of that we've got American Idol which is awesome, so there's no denying that it's not like we're being forced to sit through it.

We're catching episodes of Cold Case.

We tune in weekly for Fair Go and Target. Okay now these two are kiwi shows that are basically the same thing, but Target is more of a 'channel 10' style show, and Fair Go more the ABC. But the premise:
Consumer affairs.

Target is more hidden camera orientated in that they road test various cafes and tell you which ones are dodgy. Or road test a bunch of pest control places in a city and tell you which ones rip you off.

Fair Go is more about actual investigations. It's all very ACA but if ACA wasn't aimed at retards and the show instead aimed at being informative and aimed at keeping businesses fair and honest.

We're also watching a fair bit of Shortland Street the kiwi Neighbours, for no reason other than that it's terrible and that it's on.

But seriously though we love Fair Go. We can't get enough Fair Go. If Fair Go was on every night we'd watch it every night.

Who knew that the great untapped television genre was Consumer Affairs.

Cable Shmable, All You Need Here Is Network TV

2009-03-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my last post that Battlestar Galactica is on free to air TV. Well, it’s not just BG that’s popping up on the schedule that’s catching my eye in the ‘what? Serious? On free to air TV? And in prime time? Really?!’

Do you want to see HBO’s new True Blood? You don’t. But if you did just flick over to Prime.

Want to watch new episodes of Chuck? Again, you don’t. But if you did just switch onto Channel 4.

Rock Of Love? Channel 4.

Got a hankering for some British Soap Opera? Switch onto Channel 1 and watch Coronation Street.

And here is the kicker:

The Daily Show. Nightly. At 10:30pm. On Channel 4.

I know. I know. I freaking hate New Zealand TV for being so much better than Aussie TV.

I’m going to go through the TV Guide and just mention some shows. Now this isn’t Channel 7 tossiing 30 Rock on at like 10:30 at night. This is prime time. I’m going to tell you:
Mad Men.
Top Chef.
American Idol.
Project Runway.
Rove... Wait.
The Office.
30 Rock.
Flight Of The Conchords. Obviously.
Weeds.

They’ve got more free to air stations. Okay... only one more free to air station but still, that’s like giving us SBS AND a station to show Battlestar Galactica on.

Okay, NZTV isn’t exactly perfect. For one they have a love affair with docu-tv that I just can’t understand. But if you take a look at Channel 4’s nightly line up it goes like this:

6pm – Malcolm In The Middle

6:30pm – King Of The Hill

7pm – Futurama

7:30pm – Everybody Hates Chris

8pm – How I Met Your Mother

... I don’t even want to watch half of that line up, but just knowing it’s there makes me feel all good inside.

Shortland Street is awesome!

2009-03-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, that’s not remotely true. But it definitely exists. I’ve now had my first New Zealand experience and it was everything I wanted it to be... by which I mean that it was Shortland Street.

I don’t quite get what’s going on, but there was a hospital and teenagers and an ex-con... you know, everything you want from a soap opera. The production values even seemed to be a step up from Neighbours... which you know, is still like three flights of stairs down from real television, but still an improvement.

In the TV Channel stakes from what we’ve got on our hotel TV. NZ has five stations:

1, 2, 3, the imaginatively named Channel 4 and the Moari Network. Or Station. Or Channel, or whatever it was called.

The only thing you need to know other than the fact they’ve got a show called Neighbours From Hell, or Hate Your Neighbours, or I Hate My Neighbours, or That Segment From ACA Expanded To A Full Length TV Show... the only thing you need to know:

Battlestar Galactica is on Network TV. Not on cable like in the States, and not on the Internet... i mean, cable, like back in Oz. But on Channel 4.

On Fridays.

After Futurama.

Yeah.

I know.

Sick as, bro.

The next time you see me I'll be talking like thus.

2009-03-06T02:48:00.001-08:00

I'm off to New Zealand on Monday so this will be my last entry from Australia.

Next time we talk I'll probably be discussing the latest episode of Shortland Street... you know Shortland Street right? The NZ Soap Opera? You don't?! Well... nor do I... but I can't wait to find out, by which I mean 'I can totally wait to find out, but I'm not going to have to'.

I don't know exactly what to expect from New Zealand tv other than Aussie and US reruns.

I'm pretty sure my knowledge of NZ shows is this:

Bro'Town - mediocre cartoon that I think was supposed to be funny but despite the fact I PAID MONEY to buy the DVD I still couldn't bring myself to watch more than four episodes of the show.

Outrageous Fortune - which was only worthwhile because sometimes their accents would make me giggle. And for a show that continues to be praised as 'the best in New Zealand drama' it's a bit of a worry.

Seven Periods With Mr Gormbsy - often described as live action Bro'Town, I can attest to that as it's also painful and not funny. Maybe there's some bizarre river of New Zealand humour that I'm yet to tap into... but then again probably not.

A Thousand Apologies - a sketch comedy show made by minority comedians... is exactly how that show sounds in your mind. Better than the other three but that isn't exactly high praise.

So my little excursion into 'Discovering The Television Of New Zealand' didn't fare so well on this side of the Tasman I can only hope television wise things get better once we get there.

The Tudors is Rome written by high school students

2009-03-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

The Tudors is not a good show. On that 1 to 10 scale it's a five. It's boring, it's pretentious... it's on Showtime.

But the worst thing about the whole damn affair is that it's poorly written. And not poorly written in that it's about vampires who solve crimes Moonlight kind of way, but in that we are aiming so high that it was to be expected we would fall so far kind of way.

The show takes itself so seriously and is under the impression that it's so "important" that it forgot to write a single character worth watching for longer than three seconds.

Don't worry though in those three seconds you'll get more hushed tones, and sideways glances, as yet another character plots the demise of somebody or other.

This being a Showtime show it thinks it's sexy. It thinks its the hot thing since somebody toasted sliced bread. It's under the impression it's bringing sexy back to the middle ages. It's wrong. How a show can take this much sex, and this much war, and this many swords and make the whole affair boring I'll never know. But The Tudors does just that episode after episode.

The whole series is written as though it's a year 12 English assignment. "Okay, the text book says that King Henry's sister had to marry the King of Portugal. Who was old."

"Eww. An old man?"

"I bet they rooted!"

"LOLS! Let's write that in there."

"Yeah, and more tits."

"Okay, now the text book lists a series of dates and events that also happened. Should we try to spice up the dialogue in anyway or should we just jot them down so that the exposition feels like a lesson in 'how not to write dialogue'."

But the biggest crime of all that The Tudors commits other than wasting nice scenery is to be under the impression that Sam Neil is a worthwhile actor.

Sam Neil is not a worthwhile actor. That's probably the most important history lesson to come out of the whole show.

I have officially given up on Heroes

2009-03-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

It's taken me two whole seasons and eight episodes but I have now officially given up on Heroes.

I know, it took me a lot longer than the rest of the sane public out there but there's no point going on. I just watched ep 8 of season 3, and there was some bullshit about Hiro having visions, and some flashbacks to like 18 months earlier, and 1 year earlier and possibly another date in the past that I didn't clue in to because I DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT.

There was some business about the Dad Patrelli and Momma Patrelli and Nathan and Peter with his fringe again, and Sylar getting his powers, and Veronica Mars making pie and Claire's mum and some agent who I don't remember ever seeing before, and Claire's mum's brother who it turns out is the blue flame guy and blah blah blah blah blah.

That's not even a quarter of the characters in this show and that's the problem.

KILL YOUR ENTIRE CAST.

Please. Just kill them. Kill off every single one of the characters. Make the apocolypse happen, and have the entire population of earth wiped out. Except for Ando.

Have Ando be the only one left on the face of the planet and have him wandered around in the rubble looking for survivors. And then maybe he fives like five people in the space of an entire season. Imagine that, a show with managable cast numbers. It'd be unheard of!

But I don't care. Even if they did do that I don't think I'm coming back. No matter how many times somebody will say "it gets good again, just give it another four episodes." NO! I will not. There is no more of me that I can give over to this show. I'm done. It's over. It was hot, now it's not. Heroes is dead.

They had a good thing going there for a season and just like everybody predicted they screwed it all up because they don't know how to tell a story. Well, isn't that just a kick in the pants.

But that's not my problem anymore. The bloated plot lines that have no point and make little sense. Not my problem.

The ever expanding cast of characters despite the fact they've only managed to write two good ones since the show began. Not my problem.

Having to put up with Ali Larter on a week to week basis. Not my problem.

Heroes isn't my problem anymore.

No Liveblog of Episode 4

2009-03-02T01:56:00.000-08:00

No Underbelly liveblog tonight, which is disappointing but that's what happens when you're not home to watch it and instead you're out eating chocolate covered crepes.

Take that Channel 9's ratings, that dip in the ratings you're about to experience is from a nation collectively going out for crepes.

So that means last week was my last Underbelly blog what with me being out of the country this time next week. I don't know what to expect from New Zealand television, but if I was to take a guess I'd say you will be copping a frack load of Outrageous Fortune liveblogs...

Over There, Oh Over There

2009-03-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

On a scale of one to ten, one being a Bionic Woman, three being a Boston Public, five being a Heroes, ten being a Deadwood... Over There is a seven. A Life. A Dexter. A Fringe.

It's not going to set the world on fire but for what it is it's good television.

Set in the Iraq war it isn't as heavy or intricate as something like Generation Kill, but because of that it's actually watchable.

You don't feel as if you've been tossed a dozen text books that you're now expected to get through in the next 90 minutes.

I don't know how to compliment the show without dissing it instead. The characters aren't going to sit in the back of your mind in the way a Bullock or a Riggins or a Captain Reynolds do but these are the guys you've got and they're not a bad crew. Dim in particular is a solid piece of writing and acting from Luke Macfarlane who you may remember from being Scotty from Brothers & Sisters but I swear to god you probably don't.

And we could care less about the guy in the hospital who's lost his leg and going through the motions of being the army guy in the hospital who's lost his leg in every movie or tv about guys in the army that have been made since the beginning of time.

All the 'folks back home' business are exactly the same as what we've seen before. They're cheating on them. They miss them. Blah di blah blah.

But the combat scenes. The sitting in the bunker waiting to get the job done scenes. The being in charge of a road block in the middle of a night scenes. The actual army stuff, and the conversations these soldiers have that's what makes Over There worth watching.

The highest recommendation I can make for the show is that it aired on FX the same station that brough us Damages, Rescue Me and Sons Of Anarchy. You like any of those shows you'll probably give Over There a pass.

Like I said though it's a seven. Don't go out of your way to get your hands on it, but if you stumble across it, or run out of shows, or can't really be bothered with the next episode of the Wire give Over There a chance. There's a lot of good on screen that'll make it worth your television time.

There is one thing I don't like about Dollhouse.

2009-02-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

The only thing I don't like Dollhouse is the opening credits; with it's wishy washy theme tune and shots of Eliza in the city it makes the whole thing look like an ad for tampons.

Things that I like about Dollhouse that fall under the category of 'scenes only included because FOX needs to make promos':

Any scenes that consist of Eliza Dushku in her underwear for no real reason other than 'contractual obligation'.

Okay, there are two things that bug me about Dollhouse. The second one is how the "twist" that happens during the first half of the third episode was given away by the promo shot released for the series months back.

But enough about the two negatives how much do we love Dollhouse?

A lot. I still don't think The Dush has a full grasp on the ability to act, but the entire supporting cast sure does and like with most Whedon shows that's where the true greatness of the show comes from.

Was anybody's favourite character Buffy on Buffy The Vampire Slayer? If the answer is yes, well then no, you're lying.

So while Brian Lowry of Variety ponders:
Dushku does wonderful things to a tank top, but her grasp of this vague, personality-changing character is a bit of a muddle. What's left, then, is a series with a hollow center that doesn't initially make you care about its mentally malleable protagonist.

There's no reason to worry because while Dollhouse is "about" Echo it isn't at all, it's about the supporting characters who's personalities stay the same in every episode. So don't worry, this is Joss - the support cast is what he does best. Everything's going to be okay.

Digital TV - It's The Future!!

2009-02-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

With all this talk of Digital TV being the future and being just around the corner you would think that maybe just maybe they would be able to make it work first.

Watching the football last night, a not as exciting as it should have been tussle between the Brisbane Lions and Essendon, we were given the choice of watching it on:
Seven Digital.
Seven Digital HD.
Or Regular Seven.

This being one of those new fangled hooly dooly big screen digital TVs the regular Seven was such shitty quality that it doesn't really count as an option.

So you can have Seven Digital, or Seven Digital HD, which both showcase the wonder that is the Digital revolution.

By which I mean: it was shit. It didn't work. It kept cutting out. The distorted the picture. Somebody's about to kick a goal and then BAM! black screen, oh well, I guess when the picture comes back up we'll know if he kicked it. Oh he did kick it. I guess the wonder of Digital television is 'will I get to see some football today?'

In all fairness it was probably a tad windy outside and you know that pesky wind it just totally messes with the digital picture.

There hasn't been one program we've watched on Digital TV that hasn't at some point cut out because delivering a clear signal is something that has alluded the television industry since the late 50s.

Why would we want to make the switch to digital by 2013 when if we stick with our shitty analogue picture we get to watch whatever we want in full without having it cut out at important moments?

9 Things That May Or May Not Work About Fringe

2009-02-25T21:49:00.001-08:00

3 Things That Work Great

- Olivia Dunham. Anna Torv is a real find, and easily he best new face on television this season.

- Walter, not as funny as he could be, but just as funny as he should be. Walter is what makes Fringe good rather than making Fringe Moonlight.

- The first five minutes. The first five minutes make or break these types of shows. And 9 times out of 10 Fringe delivers in the opening five.

3 Things That Don't Quite Work

- They don't get the X-Files vibe quite right. For one: they don't go outside enough. The best episodes of X-Files were the ones where they ended up in the woods. Fringe never ends up in the woods... they always end up in an abandoned warehouse. How many abandoned warehouses are there in this city? And is there one that isn't home to a deranged scientist meddling with the basic structure of the human body?

- Joshua Jackson, while good and always a pleasure to see on television, isn't exactly believable as a 'genius'.

- It's not supernatural... it's science. There's never ghosts, or aliens, or werewolves, or something that just can't quite be explained. Everything can be explained, and has to be explained, at great lengths by Walter for no real reason. The show wouldn't lose anything if they stopped explaining that everytime somebody turns to a blob of jello that it's because of electro magnetic rays created by the croaking of a set of toads first brought to light when microwaved.

3 Things That Don't Work At All

- Massive Dynamic. Why is there always a big corporation behind all of the wrong doing in the world? Do they really have to be, can't there be one weird case that ISN'T tied back to the big evil corporation? Why does it have such a tardy business name?

- Walter is involved with everything that ever happened in the history of weird science and therefore is able to solve any problem in about as much time as it takes you to say 'only two ad breaks left'.

- It's eight minutes too long, now this is more a me problem than a show problem as I seem to have the attention span of a large goldfish but I find that by taking part in FOX's "Remote-Free TV" business which extends Fringe from a regular 40 minute show and blows it out to 48 minutes that rather than being short snappy and comfortably resolved by the 40 minute mark, those extra eight minutes always feel like they're dragging the show out to The Wire grade 'is it over yet?'-ness.

All you need to know about Dollhouse in one line.

2009-02-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

All you need to know about Dollhouse is this line of dialogue:

"A man standing over me holding a knife but I can't see his face... I don't think he has one!"

Awesome.

And that's it.

That's all you need to know about Dollhouse. It's awesome. If you're not watching it you should be, but you've heard that already. It's awesome and it's the best new series of the year.

There's something about a show that can go one week from being about a pedophile kidnapper and a hostage negotiator to the next week being about a girl in the woods being hunted by a guy with a bow and arrow, and yet be not about either of those things at all.

The overreaching storyline of what is the Dollhouse? What's going on there? Why are people dying? Is so interesting and raises so many questions that you wonder how it is Joss Whedon isn't paid to write every show on television.

The ongoing storyline on Life is such boring bullshit, asking all these questions that we don't care about, taking us out of murder of the week plot for five minutes every episode in a desperate attempt to join every episode together.

But here Joss gives us an ongoing storyline which is the point of the show, and gives us the story of the week to keep us interested on an episode to episode basis. Television is supposed to be this good every week.

And yes, I know I'm overselling it and if you come into it with me raving about how it's the best new show and all this business that you can only be disappointed.

But let me say this:

"Firefly."

So take that and go watch Dollhouse.

Scrubs isn't very funny.

2009-02-24T20:06:00.000-08:00

I like Scrubs. Don't get me wrong. I'm powering through the first season at the moment, but there's something that's hit me about it: it's not very funny. Sure it's sweet, and enjoyable, and there's a couple of smiles to be had, but it's not that funny.

There aren't that many lols, and to be fair the show's kind of corny. And not just kind of corny, but really corny. Especially this first season with all the whooshes and the zip zips and the wangas and all the freaking annoying ass sound effects that don't let up.

It's such a likable show but it's also just so darn lame.

Sure Dr. Cox is "great" but there hasn't been a rant yet that I haven't come away from thinking 'yeah, that was... something.'

I like the humanity of the show, and I'm enjoying the whole thing despite not finding it laugh out loud funny.

The fantasy sequences are so hit and miss that most of the time I sit through them wondering when Turk's going to stop being a pretend preacher in what seems like a never ending scene and just get back to doctoring.

It hasn't yet devolved to the point where I remember giving up on the show the first time around, and I don't see that happening anywhere in the near future. This is simply a quibble I have with the program at this point half way through the season it's really lacking in the laughs department but I'm enjoying it because it's so likable and the cast so enjoyable.

I call that the Corner Gas syndrome.

Liveblogging Underbelly Episode 3

2009-02-23T01:27:00.001-08:00

Let the Liveblogging of Underbelly Episode 3 begin.

Sure, there's like an Academy Awards ceremony on today that was also ripe for blogging, but really Sean Penn wins something, Slumdog millionaire wins something, surprise sur freaking prise.

8:35pm - According to NINE's show tags Customs is a 'BRAND NEW SERIES' if by BRAND NEW they mean THREE WEEKS OLD then yeah. I guess.

8:36pm - I can't believe we're an ad break away from Kate Ritchie's debut on Underbelly, otherwise known as Kate Ritichie finally gets a second job.

8:37pm - Previously on Underbelly. Some shit I don't remember because I was too busy typing away on the internet... also a couple of dozen music montages.

8:38pm - I appreciate Underbelly for one solid reason. Real life opening credits that last longer than three seconds.

8:39pm - Really? Opening an episode with a music montage? That's a bit out there for you guys isn't it?

8:40pm - If that guy's not careful they might shotgun off his fake mo.

8:41pm - TITS ALERT! The only way they could get tits quicker into this show is to have an all boob opening credits sequence.

8:42pm - "No cause to shove your digit in my chest." ... that's what she said.

8:44pm - Richmond supporters? I bet they're on the way to the wrong game. What's with Richmond supporters showing up all over the place. No matter who you go to see they'll always be at least one Richmond supporter wandering around.

8:45pm - KATE RITCHIE'S FIRST LINE. HOLY SHIT SHE NAILED IT!

8:47PM - I'm thinking for next episode I might time how much of the show doesn't take part in the middle of a music montage it and compare it to the amount of time that is. Cause I'd say it's about 60% montage. 40% actual scenes of dialogue.

8:48pm - Is that guy's name Ray Chuck? Cause Ray Chuck sounds like the worst combo show ever, it's about this blind musician who had all the CIA's information downloaded into his brain.

8:51pm - White King ad with the fat lady bouncing around her bathroom... freaking weird.

8:52pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought: "She seems to still be suffering from post traumatic stress after the time she washed away down river after the year twelve formal and then was kidnapped and held up in a shack for three weeks."

8:56pm - Finally a scene that reminds us why we liked Underbelly in the first place.

8:57pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought: "She answers the phone like she's still upset over Michael drowning during the flood while trying to save Sam."

8:59pm - Scrabble? Man, that's so totally 70sish. Matt Newton's acting? Man, that's so totally like a man struggling to stay afloat in a pool full of sandpaper.

9:02pm - I have to say this episode is ten times better than last weeks bullshit excuse for a storyline. Now you will go through an airport with money, now sex with Matt Newton, now go through the same airport but this time with drugs, now sex with Matt Newton.

9:06pm - "Robert Trimbole? I remember him, he once organized with NASA to have the moon landing broadcast through an Australian satellite dish... IN THE MIDDLE OF A SHEEP PADDOCK!"

9:08pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought "She turns a radio off with the remorse felt by a girl who has just found out the guy she lost her virginity to was arrested for smuggling Indonesian illegal immigrants into the country."

9:10pm - They just shot that many bullets into him and not one of them managed to damage a single tile on the wall. Now, those are some good tiles. Also, bathroom mirror still intact. Whoever designed that bathroom deserves a raise.

9:11pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought "She cries over her dead husband like a woman who remembers a man who once told her that she was a reincarnation of his long dead daughter. Her eyes are haunted like she remembers the song he used to sing her."

9:16pm - The new Honda City, named after how people love getting stuck in traffic whilst in the City.

9:17pm - Seriously though, somebody phone the art department and tell them how to make a bathroom look like it's been shot up. The answer is not 'just throw a bit of blood around.'

9:18pm - Brian's a great character. Finally I knew there'd be one character that was half way interesting on this show. I bet he dies soon.

9:20pm - I kind of like the cops as well. They're no Steve Owen and Blue Heeler Lady, but they're okay.

9:21pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought "She holds a coffee like she's hanging out at the diner pining over Curtis. Wondering whether they'll meet up at the surf club later."

9:23pm - Mother spends a lot of effort to make people think they're cool. Guys, we know you're a soft drink and we know you're made by Coke. STOP TRYING SO FREAKING HARD.

9:24pm - The AAMI black swan ad. The best bit: when the chick is all "Global warming. Yeah." to explain away the swans landing on her car.

9:26pm - Kate Ritchie acting thought "She lies in bed with her kids like a girl lying in bed wondering what life is going to be like after having to have say goodbye to Pippa."

9:28pm - To be fair on Kate Ritchie though it's not like Underbelly is filled with great roles for women. You can either get your tits out, be the lady cop, or be a grieving widow. Kate's role has been expanded out as much as it can and there's still nothing there.

9:30pm - Most convincing wig so far... and it was actually supposed to be one.

9:34pm - Oh yeah, there was a Matt Newton storyline going on in the background wasn't there?

9:37pm - Easily the best episode so far. Not hard to do with the mediocrity the first couple of episodes served up. But it's a good sign for the rest of the season. Maybe this will go like the last. Just take a bit to kick in.

9:38pm - Next week on Underbelly more Kate Ritchie jokes...

How are there Seinfeld episodes I haven't seen?

2009-02-22T23:13:00.001-08:00

How is it possible after the years and years of reruns that it turns out there's Seinfeld episodes I haven't seen?

I'm part way through season three and there have been episodes I've seen so many times that I wish my memory could be erased of them.

Like The Busboy.

You remember that episode, it's the one where George accidentally gets the busboy fired and then him and Kramer go and apologize and accidentally let his cat out, and hi jinks ensue.

I thought this trip down memory lane was going to be a lot of that. Old episodes I'd seen before and didn't care much for, or even episodes that were funny along time ago but on the sixth run through I kind of new where all the jokes were coming from.

Like The Library.

Or The Parking Garage.

But I've just gone two for two where I hadn't even seen the episode in question before.

The Tape and The Nose Job.

I'd never seen either of those episodes before.

They're like the long lost episodes I never caught in rerun. They're like that episode of The Simpsons with the babysitter who turns out the be a kidnapper from season one.

The random episode that has somehow passed me by.

The Nose Job is a strange one because it includes a random 'fantasy sequence' where Jerry's Brain plays chess with Jerry's Penis.

I'm pretty sure I would have remembered seeing that.

Good news for me:
The Limo is coming up.

Season Three is great.

The Shows I Watch Battle To The Death

2009-02-18T22:07:00.001-08:00

So because I'm bored and trying to keep from falling asleep during another episode of Battlestar Galactica (not the BG's fault, that's all on me and being a lazy git who drifts off whilst in comfortable chairs) I've decided to take the 36 shows I'm currently watching and pit them against each other in some kind of playoff battle to the death to find the top five shows I'm currently watching.

The rules. Take two shows. Choose the one I want to watch the next episode of most and send that on to the next round.

So I'm going to belt some Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine and perform this completely meaningless task.

ROUND 1

13 Fear Is Real vs. 30 Rock
As much as I hate this season of 30 Rock, Fear Is Real is as balls ass dumb as reality shows come. 30 Rock wins.

Battlestar Galactica vs. Boston Public

On the other hand as balls ass dumb as Boston Public is I'd rather laugh at David E. Kelly's attempt at hip dialogue than to risk falling asleep again (it's the chair... I swear!)
Carnivale vs. Corner Gas

As I began rewatching Carnivale I forgot how damn pretentious that show was. On the other hand television viewing doesn't get easier than The Gas. Win to the Gas.

Damages vs. Dollhouse
Have I mentioned how I think this season of Damages is completely killing my belief that the first season was one of the best things to hit TV ever. And did I mention at all that I thought Dollhouse was kick ass? Dollhouse win.

Firefly vs. Flight Of The Conchords

Conchords wins because I've seen Firefly before and I'm only doing the rewatch cause I swear there's a bunch of episodes I missed the first time round.

Fringe vs. Gossip Girl

Too easy. Gossip Girl all the way. Gossip Girl should have just scored a bye for this round.

Heroes vs. How I Met Your Mother

If there is a person in the world out there who would choose a new episode of Heroes over a new ep of HIMYM they need to be slapped in the face. Hard.

Important Things With Demetri Martin vs. Life

Life is the best cop show on television, and Demetri Martin isn't as funny as everybody (myself included) thought he was eight months ago.

Lost vs. Over There

I'm finally watching the first season of Lost... I don't know about you guys but I think this thing could get popular!
Packed To The Rafters vs. Rescue Me
As much as I believe Rescue Me needs serious rescuing Packed To The Rafters is still has half a cast worth of people who should be pushed into a volcano.

Satisfaction vs. Scrubs
As much as I love bad Australian dialogue and prostitutes - Scrubs wins because well... Scrubs wins.
Seinfeld vs. SNL
Saturday Night Live is struggling with the funny lately, meanwhile rewatching season three of Seinfeld is providing me with many lols. THEY WERE LOST IN A CARPARK!! AND THEY CALL IT A CAR GARAGE! LOLS!

Sons Of Anarchy vs. Spooks
Um. Can I vote neither? Actually, I think I might have to give this one to Spooks. Cause, well, because it doesn't really matter cause they're going to lose in the next round anyway.

The CollegeHumor Show vs. The Office

Now, really. The Office is easily the better of the two shows, but I kinda really want to see the second ep of CollegeHumor and after the super bowl episode mess I kinda could miss next weeks Office.

The Simpsons vs. The Tudors

Simpsons wins cause Tudors is twatty.

The Whitest Kids U'Know vs. The Wire

...

...

Man, it pains me to write that I'd prefer fifteen minutes of dick, turd and rape jokes to The Wire but well here we are.
Underbelly vs. United States Of Tara
Season 2 of the 'belly isn't off to a great start, and how often does a show starring Toni Collette come along that I actually enjoy? Give the win to Tara.

Veronica Mars vs. Weeds

The battle of the shows star actresses I could see leap off a bridge and not miss... Give the win to Mars, cause Weeds was nothing but a "Showtime comedy" and I mean that in the worst possible way.
ROUND 2 30 Rock vs. Boston Public

Want to know how much 30 Rock sucks this season? BOSTON PUBLIC WINS.

Corner Gas vs. Dollhouse

I bet this changes after the next three episodes of Dollhouse but... DOLLHOUSE WINS.

Flight Of The Conchords vs. Gossip Girl

Should the 'chords have even gotten up in the morning? GOSSIP GIRL WINS.

How I Met Your Mother vs. Life

Life's good an all, but it doesn't have Barney in it. HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER WINS.

Lost vs. Rescue Me
First season vs. first season Rescue Me wins, but this is first season vs. third season so LOST WINS.

Scrubs vs. Seinfeld

Seinfeld's funnier but Scrubs is easier. SCRUBS WINS.

The CollegeHumor Show vs. Spooks

Talk about walking into the next round. THE COLLEGEHUMOR SHOW WINS.

The Simpsons vs. The Whitest Kids U'Know

Even season 20 Simpsons is better than the Kids. THE SIMPSONS WINS.

United States Of Tara vs. Veronica Mars

Veronica who? UNITED STATES OF TARA WINS.

ROUND 3

Boston Public vs. Dollhouse

Um, what? DOLLHOUSE WINS.

Gossip Girl vs. How I Met Your Mother

Now, that's just unfair. You can't make me choose between... fine! HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER WINS.

Lost vs. Scrubs

Now, I'm watching the first season of both these shows because it turns out that popular trends are something I don't catch up on until their almost over... But I'll give it to LOST.

The CollegeHumor Show vs. The Simpsons

I know what I'm getting every single episode with The Simpsons. CollegeHumor is new. Is fresh. Is different. Is for some reason making it into the final round...
United States Of Tara vs. United States Of Tara
Um...

Okay, so my final line up of five shows looks like this:
Dollhouse
How I Met Your Mother
Lost
The CollegeHumor Show
and United States Of Tara

That is totally accurate, if you swap The CollegeHumor Show with Scrubs and United States Of Tara with Gossip Girl.

This was a complete waste of everybody's time now wasn't it?

YES.

30 Rock sucks. I blame Salma Hayek.

2009-02-18T01:05:00.000-08:00

What's up with 30 Rock being crap this season? Season One was the best ever. Season Two was pretty good, but boy oh boy is Season Three a massive barrel of monkey turds.

Critics everywhere have been dismissing this shift in episode quality by saying "a bad episode of 30 Rock is better than everything else on television."

Can we please stop this and call a spade a spade?

A bad episode of 30 Rock is a bad episode. And after the first ten episodes of season three there's only been one good one. So what's happened?

Is it the non stop cameos? Are they spending way too much time trying to fit Jennifer Anniston into the storyline than they are trying to figure out some actual jokes?

Cause I don't know what it is, but there are no longer any laughs to be found in the 20 minutes of Tina Fey & the crew that we get every week.

It's gone from being 'oh they're having an off week, I kinda guess Oprah was funny, I suppose' to 'man, this show is really boring is there a Big Bang Theory rerun on?'

Could it be that they're spending way too much time on Jack & Lemon and not enough time on the other funnier characters that have seemed to be pushed to the opening credits and no where else? I mean, what happened to Pete. Pete was hilarious and I think he's maybe had 45 seconds of screen time so far this season.

Salma Hayek has had more screen time this season than half the cast in the opening credits.

It's retarded. Salma Hayek is awful. She's an awful actress. She was hot for like ten minutes nine years ago. She's a drain on this show, and why are we spending several episodes dealing with the half assed storyline of her and Jack falling in love?

I'm saying it. I'm saying it over and over again.

30 Rock sucks.

Bring back 30 Rock. This is bullshit whatever this season 3 crap their giving us is. We shouldn't have to put up with it. We want 30 Rock to be funny. I don't know what they think they're doing at the moment, but there's episodes of Rules Of Engagement that have more laughs than this rubbish.

Liveblogging Underbelly Episode 2

2009-02-16T01:21:00.000-08:00

Here it is, episode 2 of Underbelly Season 2. I BET IT'S GOING TO BE A RIPPER.

8:23pm - Seven minutes until episode two starts. Oh boy you can almost taste the excitement in the air. Mm. Mm. Tastes like cleaning products...

8:25pm - How is this possibly 'Vince Colosimo's Customs'? It's obviously Vince Colosimo voices over yet another UK reality series to make it seem like 'local content'.

8:30pm - I think eating ice-cream and live blogging at the same time will be hazardous to my health, and my carpets health.

8:31pm - What's with the Domino's Pizza ads where the chick gets face loaded with tomatoes and then goes 'Hoo-Ahh!'? It makes me feel weird. Is she doing it with a large tomato-headed man?

8:33pm - I can't wait for Wipeout Australia. I best be sure to tape it so I can watch in conjunction with my Adults Only 20 to 1 and Aussie Ladette To Lady marathon!

8:34pm - This Customs show is riveting, I wonder if we'll get to watch somebody send a fax!

8:35pm - Vince Colosimo says 'search of person' like he has to do it himself.

8:35pm - "I will be going into your groin at some point but I will make you aware when I do that." I think he'll be pretty damn well aware!

8:38pm - Previously on Underbelly, so it turns out that The Wig is that guy from White Collar Blue. Thanks Sunday Today (or Today on Sunday or Today is Sunday or whatever that show is called) for that info.

8:38pm - Guy in opening credits who says "it's a jungle out there." sounds like he doesn't quite believe it, like instead it might just be a bit of bush out there.

8:39pm - Australia was invaded by heroin during the 70's? Did heroin plant a flag at any point?

8:40pm - That guy said 'bro'! Man, he totally nailed that Kiwi accent.

8:42pm - I wish when I asked questions the answers appeared in bold type along the bottom of the screen.

8:42pm - Questions like "do they really think that's a convincing wig for White Collar Bluey?"

8:44pm - TITS! That didn't take long. Thank god I was starting to wonder if I was actually watching an episode of Underbelly.

8:45pm - Two questions about Matt Newton's character. 1) Should fourteen year olds really be importing heroin? 2) Or trying to grow beards?

8:48pm - New Underbelly 2 drinking game. Take a shot every time we're NOT in the middle of a music montage.

8:51pm - If Matt Newton isn't careful somebody might mistake his character for an actual human being.

8:54pm - That freaking Subway ad is back! STOP DANCING!

8:55pm - So Crime Stoppers is saying there was a rape in the suburb of... Balaclava. Balaclava? This is just like the time there was an armed robbery in Gun Town.

8:56pm - Hey Matt Newton, I think somebody pissed in your pool.

8:57pm - Tips on making Underbelly more fun. Before each scene Matty's in imagine someone has just said to him 'Thank God You're Here'.

8:59pm - TAKE A SHOT! We're not in a music montage!

9:03pm - Thank God You're Here, or I couldn't juxtapose shots of you being in a happy family with me rooting you.

9:05pm - I hate to admit to liking something, but I think I like those AAMI ads with all the swans landing on the cars.

9:07pm - "I declare that I look like a bad porn star."

9:07pm - THERE HE IS! Thank God, I was starting to think that the entire cast of Secret Life weren't going to show up.

9:08pm - Whenever Samuel Johnson talks I want a Whopper. Damn Pavlov.

9:10pm - Whoever in the make up department said 'yeah, that looks like a realistic mustache. Now get out there on the set.' should be fired.

9:11pm - Have you noticed that in Underbelly's version of the 70s nothing from any earlier decade exists? Like once the clock turned over to 1970 everything from the 60s and before just disappeared into the air.

9:13pm - When the casting director told her 'you might have to get your tits out' I'm pretty sure he didn't mean for every scene, love.

9:16pm - What are the Crusty Demons and why would anybody who isn't a complete bogan give a shit?

9:17pm - I hope there's a music montage for the washing of Matt Newton's pants because it's been at least five minutes without one.

9:18pm - This episode so far: 'Hi I'm a cute blonde girl. Oh are you a drug dealer. Yes, I am, but I couldn't, okay I could, you can have sex with me, oh I couldn't, okay you can deliver money for me, no I couldn't, okay you can have sex with me again, oh no I couldn't, okay you can deliver drugs for me.'

9:19pm - I totally believe that is Singapore airport and not a double glass door, a pot plant and some Asians.

9:21pm - Somebody on imdb should note that. Those toilet roll holders are totally post 1978. THIS SHOW IS SO INACCURATE.

9:26pm - This episode is... shit.

9:26pm - MONEY MONTAGE!

9:27pm - I was watching an interview with Peter O'Brien where he said he hadn't seen the first season of Underbelly... So, it's just for the money then Peter?

9:28pm - ARREST MONTAGE!

9:29pm - FALSE ARREST MONTAGE!

9:30pm - Is Wagga going to be one of the 'two cities' from the title A Tale Of Two Cities, cause I'm still trying to figure out which Two Cities that's actually supposed to be about. Unless Matt Newton is one of the cities, and the other city is his girlfriends tits, because there haven't been a lot of other cities in this episode.

9:31pm - My favourite thing about Aussie Ladette To Lady is that it looks exactly like a show Channel 10 would have jumped all over three years ago, but now that 10 are trying not to be massive whore bags it's left to the only massive whore bag station left in the country to pick it up. Enter Nine.

9:32pm - Were the Yellow M&M and the Red M&M really going out in the first place? I always saw them as merely just fooling around.

9:35pm - So there's only going to be 13 episodes in this season too, so I'm really glad they wasted an hour telling us absolutely nothing. Oh, so you mean Matt Newton runs drugs into the country?... hadn't we covered that already?

9:36pm - WAIT! YOU MEAN TERRY LIED ABOUT THAT 'KILLING HIS FRIEND BUSINESS?!'... Least. Shocking. Development. Ever.

9:37pm - MURDER MONTAGE!

9:38pm - This song's great. Am I ever going to see your face? No way, get fucked, fuck off.

9:39pm - One last tit shot so we know it's the end of the episode.

9:40pm - Wow. That episode was balls. 'Next Week On Underbelly We'll Try To Be Less Crap.'

9:41pm - Oh good Kate Ritchie's in the next episode. Finally some of this All Star Cast we've been hearing so much about... I hope Merrick & Ross drop by as pair of Scots living in Signapore who deal in A grade heroin.

9:42pm - Aussie Ladette To Lady is about to start... TELEVISION OFF.

Dollhouse one word review: "phew!"

2009-02-15T02:41:00.000-08:00

So Dollhouse is the new show from that guy who brought you all of those shows you just totally love, Joss Whedon.

And like anything that comes from the J Dub it brings with it a truckload of expectations. Luckily for us, the mere mortals that we are, Dollhouse meets those expectations.

Sure Eliza Dushku should probably figure out what acting is between this and episode two but other than that we're looking at same grade A Joss Whedon styled sci-fi.

I'm sitting there watching the story of a girl who's entire personality is wiped and then replaced with another for specific 'assignments' be they rescue a kidnapped girl, or give a guy the weekend of a lifetime, and all I can think is:

"Okay, so it's not as good as Firefly or Buffy but that's okay because after their first episodes Firefly & Buffy weren't as good as Firefly or Buffy."

But then about half way through the episode the whole thing kicks into gear and it goes from good to great, and I take a step or two back (or I wouldn't if I hadn't been sitting) and go 'holy crap burgers, he totally did it again.)

Here's how you can tell if you'll like Dollhouse.

Do you like Angel? Do you like Firefly? Do you like Buffy? Do you worship the ground Joss Whedon walks on... well then guess what you already knew you were going to like Dollhouse so just jump on board with the rest of us fanboys and appreciate the ride before the whole thing gets cancelled because of awful ratings.

And after it's performance last night, they are some awful ratings. You know what rated better than the Dollhouse premiere? Wife Swap. Supernanny. The CW....

It's a Joss Whedon show so it's clever and all of the cards aren't on the table. It's smart, it's got great characters and while it's not as funny as his earlier shows it is still obviously written by Joss "no real person would word something this way" Whedon.

And because of all those things it's so totally going to be cancelled.

You did know it was on FOX right? So I'm guessing you had an inkling it was going to get canned, but trust me when I tell you this:

Dollhouse is getting two seasons AT MOST. I'll buy a hat and then eat it if it makes it to three.

Also in regards to the questionable line of dialogue in the first scene.

"Ever tried to clean a slate?"

... has anybody?

Oh yeah and before I forget:
BEST NEW SHOW OF THE SEASON.

What the fuck is a Fringe anyway?

A call for all Aussie shows to have at least one Aboriginal

2009-02-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

TVTonight is reporting that actor Aaron Pederson is calling for, and here's the quote:

“I believe we need to get to a level where every Australian show has to have an indigenous person in it."

What?

Why?

I have an idea for a show, it's about this Greek family. You get to live the ups and downs of life in a Greek-Australian family living in the Western Suburbs of Sydney... oh and their uncle is Aboriginal.

I get that Indigenous Australians benefit from seeing other Indigenous Australians on the television screen like Pederson suggests, but it's not like there's a shortage of Aboriginals on TV.

And to suggest that ALL Australians shows need at least one Indigenous actor is as stupid as saying that all Australians shows need to have no Indigenous actors.

What about Asian-Austrailans?

What about other minority groups?

Why don't we just go on the basis of 'if an actor is good, we hire them for the role'. What's with the whole 'okay, now we need a black guy to meet our quota' business?

Dear Rescue Me

2009-02-12T03:21:00.001-08:00

Dear Rescue Me,

I know you've already got four seasons under your belt and you're about to start season five, but I'm only up to Season 3.

And I've got this to say:

I really miss Season 1.

Season 1 was a really gritty drama set around the REAL lives of New York Firefighters. It took something we all knew (firefighters) and showed us a side of them we hadn't seen before (them being real a-holes).

It was fascinating, funny and great drama.

Then there was Season 2 and the cracks started to show. It was the same show, sure, but some reason these guys who were 'a-holes' in the first season were full blown assholes by the end of the second. Sure it was still a realistic look at life in a firehouse but it became a bit of a chore to watch.

Did we really want to spent 50 minutes a week with a bunch of guys we'd try to avoid in real life?

And the way they treat women. Come on man, I'm not going to sit here and cry that Tommy Gavin yelled at his ex-wife or anything, again it's all part of the 'realism', but there's a scene toward the end of Season 2 where Sheila (who has already gone through losing a husband in 9/11, having had a miscarriage, and who suffered from being on the receiving end of an abusive relationship with Gavin) gets the shit beaten out of her by her lesbian girlfriend.

Not just punched in the face or slapped around, but gets the shit beaten out of her. Head slammed against door frames, bloody noses, kicked around on the ground. It is really uncomfortable to watch. I've never had a more 'oh shit dude, do you have to show us this?' moment watching television.

It might have been passable if Sheila hadn't gone through the ringer at the hands of the writers for the past two seasons already. She's a fucking drain to watch on screen, always screaming or crying or having the shit beat out of her.

And that's part of the problem.

It's a drain. Rescue Me stopped being an enjoyable drama and started being an uncomfortable chore.

Tommy Gavin, as played by Denis Leary, is the lead. He's got family problems. His wife has left him. He's got three kids he doesn't have time for. He's an alcoholic. But he's a hell of a fire fighter.

But here's the rub:
I don't care about Tommy Gavin and his bullshit.

For a season I'm willing to put with this guy being a complete fuck up, but after a while I know why his wife left him. He's fucking horrible to be around! How are we supposed to stay invested in a show where we hate having to spend time with main character as much as his family does?

It's a realistic portrayal of a guy being a complete dick I suppose.

I'm about to kick into Season 3 and hope it all comes back to where Season 1 was but after the most depressing finale in television history in Season 2 I don't know if it's going to get there.

All the firehouse stuff is great, dealing with the lives of the firefighters is what makes the show stand out, but really do we have to put up with Tommy Gavin and all of his crap?

Important Things with Demetri Martin

2009-02-12T01:20:00.000-08:00

Hey Demetri, here's an important thing:

Having a good show.

YOU JUST GOT MAD ZINGED.

I have a couple of questions about Demetri Martin's new show.

Hasn't the whole being all retro and low budgeted been done already?

Didn't that go out with the end credits of Juno?

Are you really sticking with the 'we have poor lighting because that's hip' thing?

I like Demetri Martin and all but man he's a pretentious git sometimes.

That wasn't a question was it?

Okay. I ran out of questions.

Demetri Martin is all well and good in his whole quirky, one liner play on words sort of thingy that he's got going on. And all his stand up that I've seen has been LOL-worthy but this show was just so damn blah.

The three letters 'meh' couldn't be more appropriate.

We've got Flight Of The Conchords we don't need anybody else giving us laid back quirked up indie cred craving comedy. The 'chords have that covered.

Maybe if it had come out a year or two ago I might be really into it, but the whole thing while not very funny also seems really dated.

I was really looking forward to Important Things because I was a Demetri fan but now that I've seen it I kind of wish it had never been made, because well, it really wasn't very good.

YouTube Demetri Martin whatever 7 minute clip you get is better than his show.

Underbelly 2 nothing but lies!

2009-02-11T15:41:00.001-08:00

TVTonight reports that the son of Don Mackay (the anti-drugs campaigner who SPOILER ALERT gets killed in the first episode of Underbelly) reports that the producers just made shit up.

For example in the show Don's wife is shown working at the family business answering phones. Don's son Paul says she never did this.

HOLY SHIT BURGERS. What are these guys trying to get away with? Having a woman answering phones who didn't in real life answer phones? That's outrageous.

Also, and this is what really gets my goat and throws it around the place, the local police officer the one who's all into taking bribes and shit - apparently Paul's never heard of that guy. He's a fabrication. A lie. A bullshitty.

How producers of a television show can go around making crap up like a character or the fact that somebody answered phones when they really didn't is just mind boggling.

Also residents of Griffith could tell that it wasn't really their town being shown, and it was just a set. Those guys are sharp up there in Griffith. "That's not really my house. That's quite possibly some kind of set. I thought you said this was a documentary?"

Next thing you'll be telling is that Matthew Newton isn't a real 70's New Zealander drug baron and that he's just "playing a part."

Friday Night Lights makes me cry.

2009-02-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not afraid to admit it - Friday Night Lights makes me cry. Almost every damn episode too. For the last six episodes at least I've had tears welling up. I've teared up more times during FNL episodes than in the combination or every film, television series and sad song that I've seen or listened to throughout the rest of my life.

Is it the soundtrack that does it? Why am I at a constant state of 'I could go at any minute'? It's not even sad tears. It's not 'Mrs. Landringham is dead and now I'm crying like an idiot' tears. Their happy tears. The characters are so real that when they experience such joy that it reduces them to tears, it reduces me to tears.

And it's not just one character, or two characters, it's every damn character.

Coach giving his speech to Smash about giving his all and what not.

Tyra's mum telling her how every day since she was born Tyra surprises her.

Riggin's face when he realizes his best friend is moving to New York.

Street singing 'There's A Hole In My Bucket' over the phone to his baby son.

Everything sends me over the edge.

Why is this show so damn lovable?

Why can't over shows be like that?

To be honest though that's probably a good thing or else I'd be an emotional wreck.

I'd be watching Lost and tearing up, Scrubs would send me over the edge, old Seinfeld reruns would have me blubbering into my hanky.

So thank god it's only Friday Night Lights which taps into some raw nerve that gets me. Every. Single. Time.

Thoughts had while watching Underbelly Season 2 Premiere

2009-02-09T02:11:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here about to watch the Underbelly Season 2 Premiere at the actual time it is airing on television, crazy I know. Here are some thoughts had while watching.

"Why are they showing us a preview of what's coming up in this season of Underbelly isn't that what we're here to find out?"

"I keep expecting Matthew Newton to start cracking jokes. The guy plays 'serious' like he's taking the piss."

"Jokes Matthew Newton could crack: 'yes, this is the New Zealand accent I'm going to be using in this series.'"

"Look! Tits! There's the Underbelly we know and love."

"That Aussie Bob guy doesn't say 'gangster' to me, he says 'mayor from the town of The Dish'. I keep expecting him to be all whimsical and not know exactly what hydrogen is."

"At least the soundtrack this time round actually relates remotely to the time period it's set in. Who didn't love the first season using post 2000 tracks in 1994."

"To say some of the accents are less than convincing is like pointing out every time a bad wig appears on screen."

"LOOK! A BAD WIG!"

"AND A BAD MO!"

"Oh so the narrator is a 7 year old girl. That totally makes sense why she's including so many boobs in her memory."

"Hey it's the girl from Secret Life Of Us, and the guy from Stingers. It's like a reunion of stars from shows I never watched. Where's the lady from Water Rats when you need her?"

"The best character in this is Don Mackay, the furniture salesmen running for parliament and against drugs. I wish there was more of him and less of that guy with the really bad Italian accent. If that is even an Italian accent. It's as convincing as that Scottish guy earlier, yeah the wog guy with the afro was Scottish."

"And now the best character in the show is dead. Sorry. SPOILER ALERT. When the murder happened in real life do you think somebody was all 'SPOILER ALERT, in case you see the series where Matthew Newton plays a New Zealand heroin dealer?"

"What was with the Subway ad with all the people dancing? Does Subway make you gaytarded now?"

"Ray Chuck's gangster name is The General. That's better than being The Rear Admiral I suppose."

"Somebody phone Claudia Karvan, the cast of Secret Life are having a get together and forgot to invite her."

"I know this is a TV show, and it's fiction based on events that may or may not happened, but it pretends that it's real, so when it just makes up shit it loses some of whatever credibility it has. Nobody knows who killed Don Mackay... except the producers of Underbelly, they probably shouldn't have let somebody know this information earlier."

"The guy isn't just a 'bad cop'. He's the worst cop in the history of bad cops. 'Is it possible that he wasn't murdered at all and that he just floated into space?' 'Don wouldn't have done that.' 'But is it POSSIBLE?'"

"'We weren't sent here to take on the coppers! Got it?' ... we were sent here for me to be a stiff suit and for you to be a rebel who doesn't play by the book."

"The General didn't do hard time over there to get butt-fucked... that's what The Rear Admiral did."

"'We don't know it's a murder.' Fuck. Guy, come on. We get it. You're the guy who 'doesn't want to solve the crime'. Would you just fucking stop it, you're the worst character ever written."

"The Sydney Harbour Bridge? Hmm, I wonder what city the following scene is going to take place in."

"Channel 9's line up is so shitty. Aussie Ladette To Lady, The Farmer Wants A Wife, Aussie Wipeout... are these really the shows that you're banking on for good ratings?"

"Oh good, the pretend Scottish guy is back."

"That 'Scottish' guy is the guy who always plays Americans in Australian 'movies'. His American accent is about as convincing as his Scottish one."

"MATTHEW NEWTON ARSE ALERT!"

"Matt Newton is painting with his wang ala Brian in Spaced."

"Look! Old money; that's how you can tell this is taking place in the past. That and in the present Matthew Newton isn't a plank of wood with a bad shave and no pants."

"Oh boy, he's using a luger. Which he bought off a guy in a park. Okay, I don't want to say that Underbelly: A Tale Of Two Cities is ripping me off, but they totally stole that scene from my five minute Guy Ritchie rip off Recoil I made about 8 years ago when I didn't know that gangster films shouldn't be attempted with a budget of three dollars, a camcorder, and a cast of guys I went to high school with"

"They even stole Recoil's unconvincing accents."

"That racecourse robbery thing could have been really interesting, if you know, it hadn't have been squashed in like the third plot line somewhere down the back and if it had gone longer than a 30 second montage."

"There's that gay Subway ad again. Why are they all dancing like tards? It just doesn't make sense, I mean soggy lettuce and old tomato on a roll doesn't make me dancing tardedly?"

"Corruption is just so much fun! No wonder they all did it!"

"Does this woman always go into slow mo whenever a family member or family pet dies? She must be a pain to walk behind on the way to a funeral."

"Are you sure the dogs are dead? It's not possible they ran away with other dogs?"

"Did the first episode of the last season just meander all over the place like this?"

"I reckon that just like the last season this season will get good once the guy from Crash Unit Investigation Team Support Emergency Custom Officer shows up."

"Next week on Underbelly even more characters you can not keep track of and not one of them half as interesting as Carl Williams or Benji."

Boston Public makes The Practice look believable

2009-02-08T16:06:00.000-08:00

In the history of David E. Kelley shows there have been many many many dumb shows.

The guy brought us Ally McBeal and Chicago Hope and Picket Fences and Boston Legal.

He brought us the guy who dressed up as a nun and chopped off people's heads in The Practice.

And those are the shows that were successful.

Let's not forget Snoops... you remember Snoops right? It was about private detectives... who were probably being all sexy and controversial all the time.

There was Girls Club, it was about a law firm (GO FIGURE) made up of three young female lawyers (ALSO: GO FIGURE).

And of course who could ever forget The Brotherhood Of Poland, New Hampshire... oh that's right. Everybody.

But in the history of David E. Kelley shows there was one show that stepped up to go beyond the call of stupidity. That show was Boston Public. Set in a Boston (Really? David E? A BOSTON high school? That's different for you.) high school, which was the most fictitious high school you could find.

There's nothing wrong with the show. It's a watchable mess. The whole thing is David E. Kelley attempt to be hip. But the thing is, it appears as though he's never set foot in a high school before.

Actual dialogue from the show:

[A student is told that her affair with a teacher will have to be revealed to the entire school]
"I don't want to be the Monica Lewisnky of Winslow High." JUST LIKE A STUDENT WOULD SAY IN REAL LIFE.

But that's just David E. being David E. It's what he does best.

My favourite scene came toward the beginning of Episode 7 in Season 1. It goes something like this:

Lauren Davis, a teacher and the series main character, is hit in the head with something and collapses in the school hall.

"She was hit with a water balloon!" Cries Lipschultz the over the top old Jewish stereotype.

But Chi McBride the big black hard as nails declares "This is no water balloon... this is a breast implant."

Yeah.

I know.

I remember when a teacher was hit in the head with a breast implant at my high school.

But that's just another day at David E. Kelley's Boston Public.

Where have all the theme songs gone?

2009-02-08T01:07:00.000-08:00

Where'd all the theme songs go? Theme songs used to be a dime a dozen. Every show had a theme song. Friends had a theme song. C.S.I. has a freaking theme song. Buffy has a theme song. Everybody had a theme song.

And then something changed. One day there were theme songs and then the next day ... there was Lost.

Oh yeah Lost. You remember Lost, how'd the theme to Lost go?

It was like 'THE WORD LOST ON A SCREEN'. Yeah, man that was the best. I love that theme. That theme was so catchy. It was a lot like the theme to Heroes, or Reaper, or Gary Unmarried, or EVERY SINGLE SHOW THAT HAS COME OUT SINCE LOST.

Yeah, thanks Lost you destroyed theme songs for everybody.

Where would our favourite shows be without their theme songs?

What's The West Wing without the West Wing theme song?

What's Friends without the I'll be there for you business?

What's FREAKING DAWSON'S CREEK without all the I DON'T WANT TO WAIT junk!?!

What is it?

It's freaking nothing.

Our memories of these shows are their theme songs. We think of Cheers we hear 'making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.'

What's The Simpsons without The Simpsons theme song?

At what point did Studio Execs think that our attention spans get so short that when a theme song came on we were going to switch channels?

The only place you can go for a theme song these days is the only place that shouldn't be in charge of making theme songs: HBO.

HBO seem to miss the point when it comes to theme songs.

Hey look it's The Sopranos theme song... oh it's an hour later and it's still moping along.

Have you tried sitting through The Wire theme song? Jesus, don't even think about it, there's some static and a wire being charged, a tape being rewound, who freaking knows what's going on there.

Don't even get me started with the John From Cincinnati theme song that was a mess and a half and then another mess and then another half. So it was two messes and a whole.

Please bring back the theme song. We love the theme song.

If you're out on the road, feeling lonely and so cold.

All you have to do is call my name, and I'll be there on the next train.

Where you lead, I will follow, anywhere that you tell me to.

WHERE WOULD GILMORE GIRLS BE WITHOUT IT'S THEME SONG?!?

WHERE??!

Jesus. Just bring them back. Please.

What's up with Veronica Mars?

2009-02-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Sure it's delightful but you guys are crying over the loss of this show?

What happens in episode 5 does the cast of Firefly show up or something?

I know that the emotional connection you form with a show is a lot stronger after three seasons than the connection I've formed with it after three episodes but let's pretend that I'm speaking with some kind of authority here.

I keep expecting Veronica's narration to end in a really bad pun and a well placed XOXO.

But yeah, the show's delightful enough in that oh she's a private detective but she goes to high school kind of way, and yeah they talk in that CW pop culture referencing way that ALL of these types of shows do. That's all swell and good, but there's got to be something else going on that I'm not picking up on right?

There's got to be something that kicks in part way through season 2 that sends this from 'nice fun show' to 'let's sign a petition to stop it from being canceled it's just that freaking awesome', but go figure that just watching three episodes of the show hasn't brought that out.

Don't worry Veronica Mars devotees I'm not going to give up on the show anytime soon, I'm going to watch the whole thing because I believe you. It's good, I'll give you that. And I'm sure it becomes great. So sit down, it's not like I'm treating it like The Wire.

Speaking of The Wire... I wonder if I'll ever actually get around to watching the rest of that.... maybe... one day.... maybe.

Friday Night Lights is just so damn delightful

2009-02-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

Do you have a show that just makes you smile? Characters that you love do something just so freaking adorable that you smile like goofball.

That's Friday Night Lights. I'm part way through the third season and it's as good as the first two. Which is such a rare feat in television that a show stays good for not just more than one season in a row but THREE.

If you're not watching Friday Night Lights the question isn't 'why not', it's 'what's wrong with you?'

The characters are just damn lovable you can't help but smile when they smile. Sure you feel like an idiot but it's just so HUMAN that you can't help yourself.

There are just so many moments in every single episode that make you love the show. It's not just one character, it's not just a line of dialogue, it's these people on this show and the relationships they have with each other that makes it so good.

Humanity doesn't exist more strongly on television than in an episode of Friday Night Lights.

Sure Mad Men is a smart show, and one of the best on television, but most of the characters in Mad Men are real a-holes who you can't exactly root for. FNL is the exact opposite.

You can't help but love Friday Night Lights.

It's one of the best shows on television, and I know this is true because I'm not the first person to say it...

Lisa Wilkinson has a real bitch face.

2009-02-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

You may know Lisa Wilkinson as the co-host of Channel 9's Today program, and honestly where else could you possibly know her from?

Today was on... today, and I noticed something: Lisa Wilkinson has a real bitch face. You can't exactly see it here in this picture but there's hints of it.

If this was an episode of Lie To Me this is the part where Tim Roth points out that her brow isn't furrowed and that's how you can tell she's giving a fake smile. Other ways to tell she's giving a fake smile: she works for Channel 9.

BA DOOM CHING.

But seriously, try watching the Today show and not cop an eye full of the ol' stink face that Lisa Wilkinson gives the camera.

I imagine that knowing Lisa in real life would go something like this.

[You are standing in the hallway chatting to your friend Karen.]

You: Hey Karen, what's been going on?

Karen: Not much. Same old same old. Oh shit.

You: What?

[You spot Lisa Wilkinson walking towards you. She's in one of her moods.]

Lisa: Hiiii.

[She gives you the fake hi, you can tell it's fake cause of all the i's]

You: Hi Lisa.

[You avoid eye contact.]

Karen: I got you those copies you were after Lisa.

Lisa: Thanks Karen, you're only a day late but that's just so you isn't it.

[Lisa fake laughs and then shoots the bitch face at the pair of you.]

Lisa: At least some of us have time for a coffee break.

[Lisa snatches the copies off Karen and storms through to the studio.

You: But we're not even drinking coffee?

Karen. What. A. Bitch.

Satisfied? Not really.

2009-02-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

Satisfaction, otherwise known as The Happy Hooker Show, comes from Showtime Australia so you know it's going to be "exciting" "fresh" "television."

Satisfaction just got renewed for a third season, so I thought it was about time I checked out the first episode.

It's set in the crazy world of high priced hookers. We enter the life of Chloe and a bunch of girls at a top end brothel. And if you think there's not going to be nudity well then you missed the bit where I said this was a Showtime show.

Like most of the American Showtime series there's a lot of tit, but something got lost in translation because the thing about those American series is that while pretentious wank fests at least they were well written wank fests.

When you think 'cable series' you think 'television that offers something network tv can't'. But that's not Satisfaction. You want Madeleine West getting her bits out watch Underbelly, at least that came with a hefty dose of Carl Williams. All Satisfaction gives you is Chloe, the hooker with a heart of gold, who's raising her daughter and just trying to get by.

It's all so... been there done that. Any kind of 'edge' the show thinks it has is taken away when you remember that it's just another Australian drama. And like the rest of them it's not very interesting.

It's part of the Showtime Australia Showcase series... you remember that, they brought us Love My Way. Remember Love My Way? It's like what would happen if you took Claudia Karvan and made her fucking horrible.

Oh wait, sorry you made 'the best Australian drama in years'.

Is there any reason to watch Satisfaction?

If you like cable dramas just watch Mad Men.

If you like Austrailan series just watch Underbelly.

If you like tits just Google the word.

There's nothing here that separates Satisfaction from the crowd. Unless you have a thing for dodgy flashbacks with syrupy sweet soundtrack playing in the background.

Trust Me, Monica Potter sucks.

2009-02-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

So TNT get a new show. It's about ad guys, but it's not Mad Men. It stars Ed from Ed and Will from Will & Grace and they play of ad guys who are best friends, and they banter and have antics, and you've seen television shows before you know how this goes.

The thing is, the show isn't that bad. It's not as funny as it wants to be, and it's not as clever as it thinks it is. But there's potential there for a show that could make the list of 'Shows People Don't Mind Watching If There's Nothing Else On'. But there's a problem with the show.

And her name is Monica Potter.

You remember Monica Potter. She was in Con Air. She was in Patch Adams. She was in Along Came A Spider. Who was she in those movies? The blonde lady. What does it matter?

The point is she's in Trust Me, and she's freaking awful. Okay, not Monica Potter herself but the character she's been straddled with.

She plays a character named Sarah Krajicek-Hunter who, and if her name wasn't annoying enough, she's a brand new writer who's been hired by the firm... to be fucking irritating I think. For the first two episodes her entire character motivation is 'I want an office with a window'.

And that's in. She's new at the firm, and apparently in some way to make her character, I don't know, rough and tumble, the kind of girl who stands up for herself, the kind of girl who likes to get her way, the kind of girl who likes to bitch and moan about not getting an office with a window at her brand new job where she doesn't know anybody because THAT'S JUST THE TYPE OF GIRL SHE IS.

Tom Cavanagh's motivation is "Be Ed".

And Eric McCormack is "Be Less Gay".

But for Potter apparently her notes have all begun with "Be more annoying."

So Trust Me was twenty minutes away from me tuning into the third episode, but that was twenty minutes too much of Monica Potter being fucktarded.

On a side note though: Why is it in television shows that when characters get drunk they ALWAYS end up in jail?

Gossip Girl has no right to be this good.

2009-02-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

What's up with Gossip Girl being really good?

I mean seriously. It's really good. I'm not just saying that to be ... I don't know... gay, I guess. It's really good. Check it out. If you're not watching Gossip Girl, why not? What's stopping you? It's not just for thirteen year old girls, it's for older people who should know better as well!

Why aren't you watching it?

Is it because you think it's stupid?

Yeah, no kidding. It knows it's stupid. It's supposed to be stupid. It makes fun of how stupid it is.

You want it to have cred?

In the latest episode Blair Waldorf makes a 300 reference AND a Damages reference.

How freaking awesome is that?

A Damages reference. Who in the target demographic of Gossip Girl is going to get a Damages reference? Nobody. Yet they still made it. We're not in One Tree Hill territory anymore people, we're playing with the big guns.

On the Damages note, do you know what I'd rather watch than the second season of Damages?

The second season of Gossip Girl. Yeah, that's right. I'm saying it.

Have you seen Chuck Bass act? He's awful. AWFUL AWESOME.

Mad Men is one of the greatest shows of all time, but you know what's more fun than Mad Men?

That's right. Gossip Girl.

Hey, you like Meaty Drama don't you? Yeah, we all do. Meaty Drama is just so... Meaty.

But you know what tastes like fairy floss? Gossip Girl.

You should really check it out.

It's stupid awesome.

XOXO. Gossip Girl.

Lie To Me

2009-02-02T01:29:00.000-08:00

Lie To Me. Ok, your show is NOT mediocre.

I really wanted to like Lie To Me. I mean Tim Roth is alright in that ugly guy who was in some movies you saw kind of way, and Girl From the Practice is always... there. But it just, kind of, you know... sucked.

The characters were alright. We're not dealing with Mad Men level anything, and there's not a lot of meat in any of the roles, but they're not annoying and they could be kind of fun. They just need a better show that's all.

There's nothing wrong with procedural shows of this type. There's a mystery, it's solved by the quirky protagonist, the end. Life is one of the best shows on TV and all it is is a cop show. You've got a main character who can tell when people are lying let him do something else other than solve run of the mill 'mysteries' that nobody gives a shit about.

Shows of this type, ie The Mentalist and Psych, have a tendency to force the main character to CONSTANTLY go on about his gift. "Hey, I want to buy a burger, are the burgers good here Mr. Guy Selling Burgers?"

"Sure. The burgers are great."

"Ahh, I see why you touched your left elbow you were showing signs of guilt, and when you raised your eyebrows you're obviously lying. I know now that the burgers are not great at all."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I do it all the time. It's my job. I always go on about it. Always. Like. I seriously never stop. I watch TV and talk about how people are lying. I walk past people and stop them and go 'hey, look, I can see that you're lying cause you scratched your neck'."

It's a little tiring is all.

It'd be more fun if he wasn't constantly bragging about his gift. What would it be like if he went through life NOT pointing out when everybody was lying and instead just knowing it?

There's an interesting premise. Watching a show off constantly show off his gift it's very fun.

But then, that's Lie To Me. It couldn't be more generic if it tried. And lord knows it's trying.

Harry & The Hendersons

2009-01-26T22:41:00.000-08:00

Harry & The Hendersons was on television for three whole seasons. In television terms Harry & The Hendersons is as culturally significant as Arrested Development.

I remember H & The H's being on television all the time in the afternoon, but I'm pretty sure every single episode was just the Henderson's trying to hide Harry from a visitor.

I can't believe there was an era in television when sitcom staples included ALF, Harry & the Henderson and Dinosaurs. Where's the puppet performer supposed to go for work these days? Bear In The Big Blue House?

If there was ever a showing that was begging a remake it's Harry & The Hendersons. But now the Hendersons should be playing a black family with Anthony Anderson as the dad and Lil' Now Regular Sized Romeo as the teenage son.

Best. Worst. Show. Ever.

Why don't I care about the Conchords?

2009-01-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

I watched the first episode of the second season of Flight Of The Conchords last night. Yeah, it was pretty funny. Not Alby The Racist Dragon funny, but funny. Murray was there. The whole crew was back. LOLS ensued.

But I didn't really care. I mean, it took me a couple of days to get to the episode and I'm not exactly craving the next one right away. Don't know what it is between first season 'chords and second season 'chords for it to go from MOST HILARIOUS SHOW ABOUT NEW ZEALANDERS EVER I MUST WATCH EVERY EPISODE RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW! to OH YEAH I REMEMBER THAT SHOW, IS THAT BACK ON, OKAY LET ME REMEMBER TO WATCH THAT AT SOME POINT IN THE NEAR FUTURE... but it did and here we are.

Maybe it's time. Maybe the year away opened me up to bigger better experiences.

Check out the new Flight Of The Conchords, it's not going to disappoint. It's as good as the first season but for me personally I don't really care.

Same thing has happened with Damages. What's up with that? What has this last year of television done to me?

Why have Damages & Flight Of The Conchords fallen so far down my 'must watch list'... I mean below Gossip Girl.

Yeah. I know. I'm retardo.

United States of Whatever

2009-01-20T17:27:00.001-08:00

Who knew that Showtime had it in them to make a show that is actually worth watching. I know, it feels weird writing this but United States Of Tara is actually pretty good.

I know it stars Toni Collette.

I know it's on Showtime.

I know that it's written by Diablo "Vocabulary" Cody.

But it's actually pretty good. It didn't leave me feeling like I needed to wash of the wank stains that other Showtime shows leave me with. *cough* Californication *cough*.

It didn't overstay it's welcome like the seemingly never ending Dexter episodes.

It didn't scream controversy until it was hoarse in the mouth like The L Word.

And it didn't just kind of suck like The Tudors.

It was actually pretty good. It was actually pretty funny. And the premise of a woman with multiple personalities, as played by Toni Collette, was actually really interesting.

Yeah, I'm saying it:

I really enjoyed United States Of Tara... even though it breaks my Showtime Sucks So Don't Watch It rule.

Gossip Girl Spinoff

2009-01-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

So word on the street, and in variety, is that there's a Gossip Girl spinoff headed our way.

The spinoff will be based around Lily. Why would anybody want to watch a show about Serena's mum? Well, what if we told you it was SET IN THE 80s!

YEAH BOI.

So it's based around a young Lily growing up in LA in the 80s and having to attend a public school after going to a private school all her life.

I don't know about you but... that doesn't actually sound that bad. In fact: it actually sounds kind of good.

On a related note: what's with Gossip Girl being good? I know, it took about 6 episodes but season 2 became really good. And I mean really good by Gossip Girl standards, not really good by you know, HBO standards.

When you're right behind How I Met Your Mother in 'shows I want to see the next episode of' you're doing alright for yourself.

But back to the original point: Gossip Girl in the 80s. I can get behind that.

It takes six episodes to get into Deadwood

2009-01-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

There's this blog right, called The Jay. It's this guy, Jay; he lives in Hollywood and talks about movies, and tv, and shit, and celebrities, and really whatever he wants to it's his blog stop judging him.

Anyway, I'm all up on his Twitter feed, because I'm on Twitter and have to be up on at least somebodies feed so why not three actual friends and one complete stranger who writes a blog I read sometimes.

A couple of days ago he twits,.. twits? tweets? he tweets:
About to start watching Deadwood for the first time. How many episodes does it take to get into this show? I'm hoping for less than five.

Fair enough. I hope you like it, it's one of the best shows of all time. Enjoy The Jay. Enjoy. Today I find he's twited? twitteed? tweeted? again:
Watched the first two eps of Deadwood. Just not my speed. Gonna try The Wire next, hope it goes better with that one.

Ahh, giving up after only two episodes. That's how it starts.

You've got to give up. The first time you watch Deadwood you have to give up after two episodes citing that it's either 'too rough' or 'too boring' or 'not your speed'. I did it. It was too slow for me. I couldn't watch it. A friend of mine gave up saying that it was too rough. And now The Jay.

It's how Deadwood works you have to think that the show while it seemed great, seemed like a lot of work and so you put it aside.

But when you come back to the Deadwood, and when you decide that you're going to give it a real go this time you need six episodes. Yep. Six episodes. Not two. Not three. Not five. But six.

Give yourself six episodes of Deadwood and you will love it.

Give yourself six episodes of Deadwood and you will be shouting it's praises from the rooftops.

Some shows take a couple of episodes to get into. Deadwood NEEDS six.

And trust us, the converted, it's worth it.

Deadwood is one of the greatest television shows of all time... it just need six episodes for you to even start to believe that.

Should I watch Coupling?

2009-01-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Should I watch Coupling? I'm always going on about the Britcom, and how wonderful the Britcom is, but yet I've avoided Coupling.

I remember seeing part of an episode way back when the ABC was airing and thinking 'ooh she looks like a cat lady' and 'oh, he appears to be some kind of massive douchebag'.

And then not watching it ever again because I was like 18 at the time and decisions you make when you're 18 are always good decisions and should never be reversed.

But should I watch it? Everybody's always going on about how wonderful, and great, and hilarious it is. And by 'everybody' I mean like three people.

It comes from the guy who brought the world Press Gang, and in my mind that's as good as saying the man behind Raggy Dolls, or the fellow responsible for the Wombles has a new sitcom out. HIGH PRAISE INDEED.

So should I watch Coupling? Or should I just watch season 1 of Black Books again in an attempt to eventually get through to Season 3?

How Not To Build An Audience (Channel 10 Style)

2009-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

TVTonight is reporting that Channel 10 have cancelled In Plain Sight after five episodes...

Wait a second. In Plain Sight was on Channel 10?

Huh. The things you learn when you read the cancellation list. They also canceled their new soap opera Out Of The Blue.

Here's the thing about that one. I only found out it was on last week. I was thinking of catching an episode cause it sounded as retarded as the long since gone Reunion. And boy that was retarded.

Remember Channel 10's dating show SLASH game show Taken Out? I think it came out sometime last year, and then was Taken Out back and shot. Again, I didn't watch it. But you know, I may have at some point.

Channel 9 had Gossip Girl. They canceled that too. Here's the question: What the fuck was Channel 9 doing with Gossip Girl? Channel 9 is like your drunk uncle's channel. Channel 9 is The Footy Show, and Eddie Maguire, and CSI. Channel 9 isn't Gossip Girl. Channel 9 is only Gossip Girl when Channel 9 is standing out side Gossip Girl's high school waiting to be arrested.

Channel 9 also canceled Fringe. Again a show that screams CHANNEL TEN! but no Channel 9 had it, it didn't explode out the gate, so they cancel it.

Why are Channel 9 & Channel 10 acting like the old Channel 7?

Remember when Channel 7 bought Futurama aired it opposite new run Simpsons back in the day and then canceled it when, surprise sur freaking prise, it failed. Then they didn't run it. They just had it. FOR SIX YEARS. THEY NEVER AIRED THE FREAKING SHOW.

This was before the internet became, you know, the internet that it is today. We couldn't get it anywhere else. Channel 7 fucked with us.

They did it to Futurama. They got Family Guy. Yeah, first run Family Guy. When it first came out. Like ten years ago. They had it. Put it on Friday Nights. Then bumped it to twelve o'clock at night. Channel 7 fucked with us.

Again and again Channel 7 would take a show we wanted to watch then cancel it or bump it to 2am Tuesdays.

Channel 10 has the same trigger finger that used to get 7 hate mail back in the day.

How can anybody be expected to watch a program they don't even know is on?

Regular Television needs to behave like regular television. If networks are wondering why everybody is running off to watch television on DVD or download television or you know watch it ANY OTHER WAY BUT ON TELEVISION there's a reason.

Stability.

Do you want to watch season 3 of Arrested Development without the fear of it being pulled out from under you? Well, rent it.

It's all about stability.

And control.

Do you want to stop watching In Plain Sight? Yeah, well, don't download episode 5.

We get to behave like the asshole television programmer we're so busy cursing.

If when we're watching regular television all that happens is that we get a new show. Then the new show is pulled. Time. And. Time. And. Time. Again. We're going to stop watching regular television.

People love television shows, but they freaking hate television stations.

People will love television stations when shows get some stability and we get some control.

13: Fear Is Awesome

2009-01-09T03:39:00.000-08:00

Now, I know you didn't watch it because it was on The CW and unless it has the words 'gossip' 'model' or 'smallville' in the title nobody watches any of it.

But you've really got to check 13 - Fear Is Real out. Here's the pitch:

It's a horror reality show from Sam Raimi. 13 contestants are dumped in a shack in the woods and have to complete 'horror movie' style challenges, whoever fails at the challenges is 'killed off'.

Okay, so it's not exactly the awesome 'they don't know they're in a reality show, and really think people are dying' premise that would make for one hell of a program and one hell of a lawsuit.

But still, there's something here. In their review of the show the Washington Post seem to miss the point completely. Horror movies are supposed to be stupid.

What is it you don't get? Oh it's not scary. No freaking kidding it's not scary. It's a reality show. What were you expecting? The Exorcist?

It's from Sam Raimi, he of Evil Dead fame, the guy isn't exactly known for taking the horror genre seriously. It's stupid, but that's what everybody loves in a horror movie. As a horror fan stupidity comes with the territory. Horror fans watch more really really bad movies than fans of any other genre, yeah like one in ten is actually scary, but if you want a reality show that stays true to the real horror genre: this is it.

It's stupid. It's television. And the pilot included a couple of moments that made me tense despite myself. Girl wanders alone in the woods to go take a pee and hears a branch snap. She freaks out. Hilarious and maybe even a tiny bit scary.

Sure 13 - Fear Is Real is premise heavy and like a lot of other premise heavy reality shows *cough* Pirate Master *cough* it could turn into a massive pile of shit by episode 3, but fingers crossed each episode isn't just a retread of the one before.

Check it out. It's stupid. It's great. It's stupid great.

Damages season 2 put me to sleep.

2009-01-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Episode 1. Season 2. Damages. I'm asleep. I don't mean that in a 'oh ha ha it's really boring you caught some Zzzz's kind of way'. I mean seriously I've just woken up. I drifted off for like five minutes or something.

One minute Rose Byrne is having a go at Seth Bullock in a bar next minute I wake up and Patty's in a meeting with the Senator guy.

Okay, so maybe it was the fact I only got five hours sleep last night, and three hours the night before, and maybe it was because I just got a nine hour shift at work that started at seven, but seriously... I fell asleep during Damages.

Other than me drifting off into the never never it was alright. It wasn't Episode 1. Season 1. Man that was a good start to a series BAM! straight out of the gate.

I have a feeling season 2 will take a couple of episodes to get back in the big Damages swing of things... For now I feel, well, tired. Again, I'm stressing not cause the show is bad but because I'm literally tired...

Oh you got that already?

Did I mention I fell asleep?

More sitcoms. Yay?

2009-01-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

When I blogged the other day about wanting more sitcoms this wasn't what I meant.

Zap2it is reporting that both Kesley Grammer AND Patricia Heaton have scored pilots at ABC.

Wow, all the magic of Back To You on two shows I never want to watch. I don't even know that they're about, I've seen the name before the title and gone 'pass'.

I'm not a Frasier devotee and my Everybody Loves Raymond fandom doesn't exist at all. So the notion of seeing the two worst things from both those shows continue to blaze up the sitcom schedule is not exactly highlight of my day.

I miss all those pilots that were given to random stand up comics in the hope that they'd be the next Jerry. (this just in: they weren't.)

I miss all those pilots based around a group of "friends" in the hopes that they'd be the next Friends. (this just in: they also weren't.)

Anyway I just really hope this new Kelsey Grammer project is as exciting and hilarious as Down Periscope.

Wait. That episode of Seinfeld is from season 2??

2009-01-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

So I'm watching Seinfeld season 2 at the moment because if there's one thing I love to do it's put off watching shows I haven't seen before by watching reruns of shows I've seen like three times.

And it turns out I've never actually watched this show in order before. I know for sure I'd never seen season 1 before because Channel 10 never repeats such things.

But here I am watching episodes in season 2, and I'm all 'what really? the one where George gets the busboy fired is in season 2? huh? well there you go.'

And I keep doing it. 'what really? the one where Jerry buys the expensive jacket with the pink lining and it gets wrecked in the snow is in season 2? well there you go. man, i really hate this episode.'

Season 2 is all the episodes that were on TV that I don't like very much.

The Baby Shower. The Busboy. The Jacket. Don't like any of those episodes. Yeah, there's funny moments, it's Seinfeld even the whole freaking Susan season has funny moments, but I had no idea that these were all season 2 eps.

This is all Channel 10's fault. I've never seen this show in any kind of order, other than the season finale, which I know is the finale cause they told me so. I've just be watching random episodes on reruns for all these years and didn't know that there was an order to any of this.

And it's a good thing I'm watching it in order two, because you miss important plot details. Like... how Jerry does stand up. Things like that. Before Lost, it was Seinfeld. It's one big long elaborate plot twist after plot twist with that show, ongoing storylines, character development, foreshadowing three episodes early for massive turns of events that happen in season 6...

No, but seriously Seinfeld is pretty funny, I don't know where anybody gets off with the whole 'funniest show of all time' business we used to throw around in 1998. But then again I haven't hit the Car Park episode yet, so who am I to judge?

Comfort TV

2009-01-05T15:12:00.001-08:00

Watching TV can be like having a meal. Sometimes you just want to grab a hamburger from Maccas and sometimes, not often, but sometimes you want to take the time to make a home cooked roast with all the trimmings.

Now sure, I could be enjoying (and it's my favorite example so I'll continue to use it here) The Wire. Sure if I take my time with it I'm going to get something worthwhile out of it. It'll take me a little longer and I'll have to concentrate a little harder, but imagine the rewards.

Or I could grab a copy of Life and tune out for forty minutes.

Now as a fellow viewer of the television what would you do?

Take your time with a big meaty show like The Wire or tune out and switch on Life.

Now, for me I'm a big fan of an on the run burger.

Sure I could be watching Carnivale. Sure I could catch the latest Tudors episodes, but look. Let's face it I have episodes of Boston Public sitting there waiting for me to sit through.

Boston Public isn't great, it's almost down right awful, but frag it's easy to watch.

Flip it on, tune out, laugh mockingly at David E. Kelly's attempts to be down with kids. An enjoyable forty minutes.

On the flipside I could have spent the last fifty minutes getting to know my inner demons on Carnivale, but frag imagine all the work I would have had to put in? It's dark. It's moody. It makes me think. It makes me think a lot. It may not be immediately rewarding but 12 episodes later it'll leave me with a sense of accomplishment...

ORRRRRR

I could just watch another 40 minutes of tard worthy Boston Public.

It's stupid but you get to good hit of dialogue like:

"You had an affair with a teacher, if you want to press charges this will have to become public."
"It can't become public! I'll be the Monica Lewinsky of Winslow High!"

JUST LIKE REAL TEENAGERS TALK.

I often watch the B'Pub wondering if David E. Kelly ever was a teenager or if he was just born a 40 year old guy who knows too many sexy quirky lawyers.

And Life? Man, that shows great. They solve crimes. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

What's this The Wire business? Attempting to bring down a drug ring? Man, that's going to take forever, I like my criminals brought down within the hour, not the possibility of them going free.

Come on Wire stop trying to challenge me.

Basically I suck.

That's the long and the short of it.

I totally could be watching something worthwhile, but why would I when I've got episodes of Gossip Girl to get through....

Thoughts had while watching Gossip Girl

2009-01-04T13:32:00.001-08:00

"Man, I'm totally watching Gossip Girl. I've totally watched like five episodes over the last five days. I may be watching too much Gossip Girl."

"Chuck Bass sure can't act, but that sure is awesome. Ooh now he's being intense about getting a drink."

"If I could impersonate one person it would be the Dan Humphrey mutter. I'd be a hit at parties."

"I wish Serena would die, that would make this show truly awesome."

"The Wire sits there begging to be watched but here I am watching more Gossip Girl."

"Blair is awesome. Is it wrong for me to think that? She's so freaking awesome. This show would be suckholish if Blair wasn't so awesome."

"You know who else is awesome? Eric. Eric's awesome. He's like a little forty year old gay man."

"Vanessa could jump off a bridge. That would make this show extra awesome - more bridge jumping."

"Vanessa could jump off and take Nate with her. And Jenny."

"What's up with Jenny having a clothing line? Of all the far fetched things on this show that seems the most far fetched."

"Aaron is such a douchebag. Dan is also a douchebag. CONCLUSION: Serena is a douchebag."

"I'm so glad Blair likes her stepdad in that 'i don't like him but i like him' kind of way. It's INCONCEIVABLE but it works. See what I did there? Who are you talking to, I'm your mind I can hear you. Oh right sorry mind. STOP SPEAKING TO ME I AM ME."

"Seriously, I could be watching The Wire right now, man every TV critic in the world is so mad at me right now."

Where did all the sitcoms go?

2009-01-03T01:57:00.000-08:00

Remember sitcoms?

Sitcoms were great.

Well, by great I mean 'there'. Sitcoms were there. And then suddenly they weren't anywhere.

You used to be able to swing a cat and hit six sitcoms but these days you'd be lucky to hit a Scrubs re-run.

Scrubs. Pfft. They don't even make sitcoms properly anymore. Where's the studio audience or the "studio audience"? What happened to them?

The 90's was all about the sitcoms. You look at NBC's schedule from 1997 it goes a little something like this:

Sunday Night: Two sitcoms.
Monday: Four sitcoms.
Tuesday: Four sitcoms.
Wednesday: Four sitcoms.
Thursday: Four sitcoms.

Look at NBC these days at goes something like this:
FOUR SITCOMS.

And they're not even proper sitcoms, they're 'comedies'. You won't find a laugh track within a half a mile of any of them no matter how desperately Kath & Kim needs one.

There were 18 sitcoms on NBC in 1997, there weren't 18 sitcoms on TELEVISION in 2008.

Sitcoms were great. Sitcoms were so disposable you could watch six different ones in a row and it didn't matter. Sure, everybody loves a good crime show, but by the time you solve one crime you could have hung out with a group of friends hanging out at the office and a group of friends hanging out at some random coffee shop.

NBC in 1997 brought us such big named sitcoms as:
Men Behaving Badly - before the yanks adapted The Office they adapted Men Behaving Badly, who can forget the wacky antics of... wikipedia says 'Rob Schneider'??...
Jenny - whatever Jenny is.

Remember Fired Up??? WHO DOESN'T?

There was Suddenly Susan, Caroline In The City and The Naked Truth ... which I'm pretty sure were all the exact same show.

Okay so we do remember Mad About You, and we remember NewsRadio and despite how hard we try to forget we remember freaking Just Shoot Me!

There was Frasier, and Friends, and Seinfeld.

Remember when people watched sitcoms that didn't include the words 'and a half'?

There was ... apparently... The Tony Danza Show, and Built To Last, which ironically was canceled really quickly.

What about Working? Surely you remember when Fred Savage returned to the world of the sitcom IN AN OFFICE WORKPLACE?? I know, it was out there.

Out there like 3rd Rock From The Sun. Boy... that was on for a long time.

What about Union Square? It ran after Friends. Seriously, it ran after Friends. If anybody can tell me what Union Square is I'll give you a dollar and a strange look. And I mean tell me something other than what Wikipedia already tells me.

And of course the granddaddy of the sitcom - Veronica's Closet.

...

Okay so the sitcom is dead. It turns out there weren't that many good ones anyway, but man those were good times.

You could just flick on the TV and instead of seeing Simon Baker doing anything you could just see some random stand up appearing in a fake house set in his home city of wherever-ville and just tune out.

That was before the sitcom was killed around the new millennium by Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and The Practice, and Ally McBeal.. when Ally McBeal started winning awards for best 'comedy' that's when the sitcom started to convulse.

And then there was Malcolm In The Middle... That's right Malcolm In The Middle it's your fault we don't have laughtracks. You took away Moesha and left us with 30 Rock. You took Dharma & Greg from us and all you gave us back in return was Arrested Development...

Sure, How I Met Your Mother is a REAL sitcom, but why can't we have more of them?

Like... Boy Meets World... or... ... apparently there was a show called Teen Angel...

Life is the best thing on NBC.

2008-12-31T22:06:00.000-08:00

... that isn't a comedy.

Forget the whole on-going Jack Reese, who is responsible for Charlie going to jail, blah blah bullcrap for a moment. Because this just in: we don't give a shit.

Forget all that for a moment because let's just face facts here Life is the best show on NBC (that isn't a comedy).

Don't believe me? Let's take a look.

You think Chuck's better? Are you one of those 'oh man Chuck is so awesome people'. Yeah, well, you're wrong. Welcome to the world of your opinion is different from mine in the sense that my opinion is right and your opinion is wrong. Life trumps Chuck.

Heroes? Really? Is that even a question?

My Own Worst Cancelled... does that even count anymore?

Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU ... word on the street is SVU is a big barrel of ace burgers, but let's ignore that for a moment and remind ourselves that Life is stellar.

Stellar beats Ace Burgers every day of the week.

Knight Rider.
Crusoe.
Lipstick Jungle.

Somebody phone the council because this garbage has been sitting on the sidewalk for a year now and nobody's come to pick it up.

Deal Or No Deal.

Really? What's up with the US of A? Why is Deal Or No Deal in primetime? And why does it take you guys an hour to watch somebody fill out a live action scratchie?

I don't think we do a heck of a lot of things right when it comes to television in Australia but putting Deal Or No Deal at 5:30 when GAME SHOWS are on is one of them.

ER.

Apparently ER is still on television. LIFE TRUMPS IT.

Also there's Momma's Boys, and The Biggest Loser, and well, yeah that's it.

That's everything on NBC that isn't a comedy, and even half of their comedies are questionable. I mean I watched six episodes of Kath & Kim but that was because I'm retarded and watch a lot of everything, how are you expecting real people to watch this stuff?

So outside of 30 Rock and The Office the best thing on NBC is Life.

Yeah. Life.

I hate to say this but maybe giving Jay Leno an hour of prime time every night might actually be an IMPROVEMENT on the current schedule.

But this is NBC we're talking about, they couldn't make a hit out of a critical darling, award winning, free publicity getting, guest star packed show like 30 Rock how exactly are they going to make Life a hit?

You know how they could make Life a hit... give it to CBS.

CBS would know what to do with it.

Gavin & Stacey rocks the Britcom.

2008-12-30T21:12:00.001-08:00

If you've been hanging around checking out every Britcom to come your way from The IT Crowd to The Mighty Boosh trying to find the show that bests The Office, well, step back. It's already here.

Gavin & Stacey is the best Britcom since The Office.

Outnumbered is hilarious. Extras was lol-tastic. Peep Show does awkward comedy better than anybody.

But you want a show with the heart to match the laughs look no further than the Gavlar.

Two seasons and a Christmas special down. Here's hoping they don't puss out Ricky Gervais style and go for the third season. The Christmas special left so many questions hanging that fingers crossed a third season is just around the corner, but such is the fate of the Britcom.

The key to The Office was that we gave a shit about the characters, we saw ourselves in Tim and despite ourselves we cared for David Brent. He was a pretentious git, but it was heartbreaking when he got fired. All he had was that job.

The humanity of the whole thing only worked because the laughs were so big. Oh the laughs were bigger in Extras, but that came with a massive dose of 'look who I know' from Gervais which didn't help the medicine go down.

Extras knew how not to make a Christmas special and instead gave us a 50 minute guide to killing ourselves. Yikes that thing was horrible.

On the flipside Gav & Stace gave us a Christmas special which was actually about Christmas, and was simply an extended episode of the series. Which is all we ever asked for, we don't need some lecture about celebrity from a guy who swims around in the stuff.

Find Gavin & Stacey.

Watch Gavin & Stacey.

And after the first couple of episodes where you're sitting thinking that I'm wrong KEEP WATCHING.

You'll love these characters.

You'll care about these characters.

You'll see yourself in these characters.

You'll laugh with these characters, at these characters, around these characters, etc, etc, etc.

Gavin & Stacey: as good as The Office. Believe.

Goodbye Dexter

2008-12-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

So it finally happened. I gave up on Dexter. I know, I know, I'm wrong. It's the greatest show of all time. He kills people, that's cool. It's cool how he kills people. Killing people is a cool thing to do.

You know what, I'm out. I'm done. I'm dusted. Clean me off I'm going home. No more Dexter for me.

I watched the whole first series so it's not like I didn't try. I tried. I even enjoyed it. That's right, I was having a gay ol' time. But then about four episode into season 2 I stopped giving a flying anything about the show.

Now, we all know that Dexter's girlfriend (whatever her name is) is the single most annoying character in the history of television characters who had to go out with Dexter, and we know that the black lady who's his boss is kind of funny looking, but it's okay the black guy's awesome, and his sister's kind of hot. That's why we're sticking around.

Oh yeah and because of the mystery... wait... what mystery? Will we ever find out if the cops find out that Dexter did it?

You know, I really don't care.

I'm sorry but this is the end of the road for me. I've jumped off the ship.

Here's how I could tell I didn't like Dexter anymore:

I DID OTHER THINGS WHILE I WAS WATCHING IT.

"Hmmm, I'm watching Dexter, I guess I can leave it running while I go make myself a sandwhich, I mean I'm not going to miss anything. What's going to happen?"

"You know, I haven't checked my Facebook in about fifteen minutes, I should do that, while Dexter is running. ANYTHING to kill the time."

"Man, I wonder if I could watch TWO shows at once. Just put Dexter on mute and then play an episode of Dinosaurs. LOL. That baby insists that his father is NOT the mamma."

So there you have it, I've tossed Dexter aside on the big pile of Showtime shows that seem to be missing something.

Brotherhood, The Tudors, Californication... and now Dexter.

What's up Showtime? Why haven't you found that secret ingredient that takes a show from 'interesting premise' to 'being good'?

Please tell me that season 3 of Dexter is the best thing to ever hit television since television hit us, because you know, I will totally get on that...

When does Heroes get good again?

2008-12-27T01:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Tim Kring,

You keep telling us how Heroes will be good again. You promised that last season around episode 11 you would have mended what was wrong. Then when that never came to pass you promised us, really really promised us that Season 3 would be back in the saddle again, kicking ass taking names.

Tim, I don't believe you.

Season 3 sucks balls.

When exactly does it 'get good again' cause at the moment it still sucks. It's not 'oooh Peter Patrelli is in Ireland' bad, but it's still bad.

I've heard that it gets good again, I'm only up to episode 7, but word on the street is it gets better.

Well, you know what. That's been the word on the street since the Season 1 finale. Remember when everybody said "wow, i wonder how they're going to live up to that first season?"

And then remember how you let EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD DOWN?

Somebody should tell your writers that you don't need to fit EVERY SINGLE FREAKING CHARACTER into EVERY SINGLE FREAKING EPISODE. It's not a Reunion Special. This is the show, we can cope without seeing them for a couple of episodes.

Look, I'm not saying go back and look at what you did right in Season 1, because let's face it if Season 2 and 3 have taught us anything it's that Season 1 was a lot worse than we first thought. Go back and watch the first season of Lost. You might notice something. It's called 'character development'. They focus each episode around a different character each week. It was really quite good.

Tim, imagine if people could say that about your show again.

Imagine if you traveled to the future and just once the world wasn't going to end AGAIN and instead this future predicted that people actually liked Heroes again.

That would be a twist nobody would see coming.

That's more like it HBO.

2008-12-25T19:44:00.001-08:00

I blog a lot about HBO, but that's because they piss me off so damn often that I'm like the kid at the back of the classroom who can't stop staring at the girl no matter how many times she gives hiim the finger.

But here finally HBO haven't let me down... okay so they kind of let me down. But let's get to the news first:

HBO have teamed up with Jerry "The Blockbuster" Bruckheimer to bring us a show called Cocaine Cowboys about the 1980's drug trade in Miami...

Okay, I know this isn't exactly Rome level excitement, or Deadwood level 'oh man that sounds cool' or even Carnivale sized 'that looks like an interesting idea', but at least it isn't a show starring Phantom Planet's drummer, or about a guy with a massive dong.

Sure, it seems like a show more suited to FX but what can we do? This is HBO we're talking about; small steps are better than giant leaps backwards *cough* True Blood *cough*.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

... for yesterday.

Christmas is a time of giving, and of Christmas Specials.

What would be your dream Christmas Special?

Because mine would go a little something like this:

CROSS OVER EPISODE.

Oh sweet, a cross over episode, they're always good, but between what shows?

Well, obviously you've got to keep it within the same network so I'm going to go with NBC's Christmas Special Combo.

The Office. The folks at Dunder-Mifflin are having a Christmas party BUT IT'S BEING CRASHED BY SOME OUT OF TOWNERS.

The Cast of Heroes show up. They do some jokes about having super powers and Dwight makes a pass at the cheerleader only to then talk to camera about how:

"I can't be harmed either. It's a Shrute family tradition. We create a cocktail of beets and bears blood and we drink it in the winter time. I am invinsible."

But that's not enough. How could that be enough Christmas Crossover?

You also need a murder to happen. A CHRISTMAS MURDER.

A local Santa is found dead in the Dunder-Mifflin dumsters. It looks as though it was the work of some super hero (currently in town for whatever retarded plot twisted Tim Kring thinks up this week).

So who do you call in from the NBC line up?

Well, I'm sure you're thinking "Law & Order??" or "Law & Order: SVU??" No. Of course not. that's just silly. You call in Charlie Cruise and the team from Life.

YEAH BOY! ... Lord knows they need a cross over with a better rating show, which with Life's current ratings really could be ANY other show.

So Charlie Crews goes about his quirky detecting and Dwight talks to camera about how:

"I'm a detective. Certified. I've got the certificate right here. I carry it every where I go. I've taken on twelve cases. All now closed." He smirks at camera.

Charle Crews gets the cast of Heroes in the conference room and goes through them one by one. Giving a quirky look and eating fruit in front of Peter Patrelli, who sooks about it. Then he does it to Nathan Patrelli, who is boring and completely unnessary to the continuation of any plot ever. Then he does it to Claire, who's moody and should really go back to jumping off buildings.

But he finds out who did it... IT WAS SYLAR.

Well, of course it was.

The Heroes leave because somebody has become aware of YET ANOTHER FUTURE where the WORLD ENDS YET AGAIN. Then the Dunder-Mifflin crew go back to standing around awkwardly while Michael makes an ass of himself.

And then Charlie Crews goes back to doing what he does best... being quirky... and a cop... and on a low rating television program which is a lot better than you think it is... by which I mean it's a lot better than everything else on NBC... which isn't a comedy...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Hey Dad...! was on television for a long time.

2008-12-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia is great. Wikipedia teaches you wonderful things like what the top five disasters involving sports stadiums are, or the complete back story of every muppet ever created, and then sometimes you stumble across the Wiki page for Hey Dad...!

I remember watching a lot of Hey Dad...! back in the day, but I also remember being fairly retarded as well, so it all balances out.

For example: did you know there were 291 episodes of Hey Dad...! 291! Two. Hundred. And. Ninety. One. That's over one hundred more episodes than Seinfeld... that's forty more episodes than M*A*S*H! I didn't think anything ran for longer than M*A*S*H! But Hey Dad...! did!

I'm trying to think back to Hey Dad...! in my mind and all I can think is:
"Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kelly!"

And that's all I've got. That's all Hey Dad...! is to me. That and Late Show jokes about the little fat kid.

Wiki also tells us that the final episode (at least according to Wiki, which is about as credible as saying 'the old crazy guy down the road told me...') went like this:
In the series finale, the entire family is confined to the house with a fugitive bank robber holding the characters hostage. The robber places a bomb in the family's VCR, as leverage with the police. The bomb presumably detonates, at which point the cast break the fourth wall to thank the studio audience.

What.

The Kelly family blows up?

Really?

The whole Kelly family and Betty are taken hostage and then are BLOWN UP by a robber who PLACES A BOMB in the family's VCR??

Seriously?

Man, where's YouTube when you need it... oh, it's right here, and a search of 'Hey Dad finale' backs up Wikipedia's story.

It ended with the Kelly's being taken hostage and a bomb being placed in the VCR than then blows up.

Seriously. What.

More fun facts: Hey Dad...! is the only show that since the advent of DVD technology to be retarded enough to release a Best Of series instead of Season 1 etc. In fact, they released The Best Of... part 1 AND part 2. Yeah, awesome. That's what we want: a clip show.

Thanks Hey Dad...! produces you really know how to market something. In fact the only place where Season 1 of Hey Dad...! is available in full on DVD is in ... Germany.

What.

Was there a huge German market for jokes about dumb red heads and fat kids? And gags about how Nudge needs to borrow the milk. That's what Nudge did right? He borrowed milk a lot?

You know the worst part of all this? I now have a sudden urge to watch Hey Dad...! ... and Acropolis Now ... and All Together Now... and boy Australian sitcoms were bad... like Caroline In The City bad... like Dave's World bad.

Man, Dave's World. Now if only I could find a copy of Dave's World & Hey Dad...! & Suddenly Susan and I could have myself a marathon of awesome!

FOX orders werewolf show... world shakes head in disbelief.

2008-12-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

So FOX have ordered a pilot for a show about a group of women who all happen to be werewolves... and it's title? Why it's called 'Bitches'.

That's like calling a show about male vampires 'Cocksuckers'.

Calling women bitches isn't new, men have been doing it since the beginning of... OH WAIT I GET IT IT'S CAUSE THEY WILL BE ALL FEMALE WEREWOLVES! AND AS EVERYBODY KNOWS A FEMALE WOLF IS CALLED A ... She-Wolf.

The good news is at least FOX is lining up its shows that it's going to cancel for next season already. It's always good to get a jump on these things.

Not that I'm suggesting there's anything wrong with a show about a group of four female New Yorkers who turn into werewolves on the full moon, I'm simply saying that... wait... that's exactly what I'm saying.

At least now we know what FOX has planned to fill the timeslot made open when it cancels Dollhouse next year...

HBO just doesn't care anymore.

2008-12-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

HBO, I hate you.

It's official, I just plain don't like you anymore. I know our relationship has been rocky these last few years, you know what you did I don't need to remind you again, but you've just got to keep rubbing salt in the wound don't you?

First you greenlight the show about the guy who has a massive dong AND DOES NOTHING ELSE OF INTEREST and then you're all about picking up another pair of comedies.

One of the fresh hot new shows is Bored To Death which is about, get this, a writer/drinker who becomes a private investigator. And with Jason "Phantom Planet" Schwartzman as the lead I'm sure it won't be remotely quirky or pretentious at all.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you're freaking HBO dudes. You're HBO. HBO. Doesn't that mean anything anymore? Look, I love Flight Of The Conchords but is that really a HBO show. Come on. There is nothing 'historical' or 'epic' about Flight Of The Conchords. It's weird, it's quirky, and yeah it's funny, but come on guy's you're HBO. You're bigger than the 'Chords.

And what's the second big announcement? Why it's called 'How To Make It In America' and it's from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch of Guys Who Brought Us 'Entourage'.

Hey, guys who brought us Entourage, I've got an idea for you: How about you fix Entourage? I mean, it's awesome that the shows stagnated in it's fifth season but it might be worth your while to make that show good again before you go and MAKE THE SAME DAMN SHOW.

How To Make It In America is about a group of twenty something guys who try to achieve the American dream, but get this for a twist: it's set in New York. Holy shit bags. Somebody call the originality police cause we've got ourselves a runner.

While I'm actually pretty sure both shows will be funny, I don't care. You know why because that's not HBO. That's not the HBO I fell in love with.

I don't tune in to HBO becuase they rebroadcast Extras or Summer Heights High (why???). I don't tune it to catch Curb Your Enthusiasm or more Curb Your Enthusiasm. I like it when they make big ass blow your pants off historical epics with heaps of swearing in them.

I haven't closed the door on my 'BO yet because The Pacific is just around the corner and we're still all praying A Game Of Thrones actually arrives, but so help me god if you cancel that after two seasons because 'the ratings don't justify the budget' there will be boots in asses.

Still not convinced people actually like Big Bang Theory.

2008-12-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

So I find one of them, one of those 'people that like Big Bang Theory', I find one of them in real life and I say 'why?' They tell me it's because it's funny.

I say 'sure, I hear that it's hilarious, but I don't get it.'

"No," they say, "it's not hilarious. It's just funny."

They continue: "I know people like that, and they have arguments about equations and shit. That's why it's funny."

Maybe this is where it loses me. My problem initially with the pilot is that I didn't buy that these guys were real nerds. They seemed to be like some hack writers pretend idea of what nerds act like. They were talking about equations and star wars shampoo and I just didn't buy it. I'm a nerd and I don't argue about equations.

But person from real life wasn't the only one to use the 'they're just like the nerds I know' argument. Person from blog comment did as well.

Lumo said: "I love the scientific accuracy of the science-oriented geeky comments of the main characters..."

Maybe they're presenting a different type of nerd. A different breed of geek. A sub-species of dweeb that I have yet to come in contact with.

This still isn't enough to convince me to watch the show - that it happens to be about geeks that I don't believe exist in real life but that other (obviously more geek savvy) folks have come across.

I'm still willing to give it another shot. I mean TV Gal gave an honorable mention to BBT in her top ten shows of the week, and I take TV Gal's word as gospel what with her showing me the light on How I Met Your Mother and with her being such a mega Mad Men, 30 Rock and The Office fan.

But STILL I sit here not fully ready to commit to the Big Bang Theory. I just don't believe anybody. I'm still yet to be convinced that it's worth my investment.

CONVINCE ME WORLD.

CONVINCE ME... with something other than "Kaley Cuoco is hot y'all!" I mean, she's alright, but she's no Rachelle Lefevre.

HBO, what the hell is wrong with you?

2008-12-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

So HBO has given a ten episode order to Hung.

'What's Hung?' you ask. Why it's HBO's new "dark" comedy series about a guy with a massive cock.

Notice people always say 'dark' comedy when they mean 'comedy you won't actually laugh at'.

But seriously, it's a show about a guy with a big dick. Wow. Thanks HBO. You know this makes up for you canceling Deadwood on us.

WE FORGIVE YOU BECAUSE YOU SO GENEROUSLY GAVE US A SHOW HAS THE PLOT 'A MAN HAS A BIG DONG AND THEN DOES THINGS'

And it's Thomas Jane, a poor man's Aaron Eckhart, who gets to have the big wanger. That's awesome. That's like the perfect show. We could not have asked for anything more.

What are you doing? Is this your return to classy great television? Is this your new Sopranos? The show about the guy with a massive chopper?

Do you just take the first pitch of the day? Do you all sit there and dread a day full of meetings so you just take the first offer that walks through the door?

"Okay, it's a poorly drawn cartoon."

"DEAL! We'll call it The Life & Times Of Tim and it will be forgettable! DONE!"

Next day you walk in a guy says he wants to make a show about a guy who has a doodle like a horse and you're like:

"Fine. I want to go to my golf game. That sounds good to me. MAKE IT. WE'RE HBO! WE CAN DO WHAT WE WANT."

Remember how all those Carnivale fans were upset because they never got any closure? Well, thank god you're making a show about a guy with a massive prick and they can all now rest easy.

It's a good thing you didn't renew Rome for a third season cause then you wouldn't have had any room for the SHOW about the GUY who has a MASSIVE PENIS, YOU IDIOTS.

More new TV coming our way!

2008-12-17T16:29:00.000-08:00

So Mid-Season is right around the corner in the US and you know what that means?

Mid-Season replacements! Oh those glorious shows that are far more likely to get canceled than the shows that debuted in the falls. *cough* Eli Stone *cough*.

What's heading our way this season?

Well from ABC we've got:
Castle (March 9th)

OH SWEET A SHOW ABOUT A CASTLE... oh it's about guy who's name is Castle.

OH SWEET IT'S ABOUT AN AUTHOR WHO WRITES MURDER MYSTERIES... but then he kills his main character and this upsets a fan of the series who then starts killing people the same way they died in the books... so, it's Misery meets Copycat?

Well, if there were two mid-90's movies that I couldn't get enough of it was those two.

BUT: it stars Nathan "Firefly" Fillion so you know, I'm obviously going to watch it.

Cupid (March 24th)

ABC are also bringing us a remake of Cupid... you remember the original Cupid right? It starred Jeremy Piven and nobody saw it... except for like a bunch of dude's online who call it one of those 'shows that should never have been canceled but it was so we'll cry about it forever' shows.

So ABC being the geniuses they are decided to resurrect a show that was canceled the first time round - IT WILL DEFINITELY NOT BE CANCELED THIS TIME AS WELL.

The Unusuals (April 8th)

Finally ABC are bringing us the Unusuals, which is being called a 'comic procedural'. And if there's anything that works really well in the history of television it's funny cop shows.

Seriously though, it looks kind of interesting... but only because Adam Goldberg is in it, he's always so wacky playing the best friend in everything how can he not be great playing the best friend in this!

CBS are going to bring us the show I'm most looking forward to:

Harper's Island (April 9th)

It's a horror style drama where each of the characters die one by one (now if only Heroes could take up that plot idea...)

But it is coming to CBS.

And isn't about somebody solving a crime through the use of his mental prowess, forensic science, whispering to ghosts, forensic science, old case reports, forensic science, regular science, numbers, or being in the navy so it's probably going to get canceled quicker than you can say 'Kid Nation'.

Lie To Me (Jan 21)

FOX give us Lie To Me, it's about, GET THIS, it's about this guy who's like a human lie detector, and that's how he beats the crims.

Man, I wonder if he's going to be super quirky.

Boy, I sure hope he does. Cause I really like shows with a super quirk protagonist.

Especially ones starring Tim Roth.

Nothing says "I want to tune in every week because the star is a magnetic television presence" like Tim Roth.

Dollhouse (Feb 13)

Yes, it's nearly here. Joss is back. Fanboys everywhere rejoice. What exactly it's about, who can honestly be sure. But you know... it's Joss Whedon people! Joss Whedon!

Man, this is going to be so great!

It's going to be on FOX right?

Man, this is going to be so cancelled!

Kings (March 19)

And finally NBC will be giving us Kings part way through March.

It's a contemporary drama based on the biblical tale of King David, and if that didn't make you go 'WTF' wait until you find out who it stars:

Christopher "Home & Away" Egan. Yeah, the dude who plays David used to be on Home & Away... like not that long ago either so he doesn't score Isla Fischer style immunity.

On the other hand though it does star Ian "Deadwood" McShane, and if you could marry a man's voice I would marry that man's voice. It would probably end in divorce when I wake up from my drunken stupor and figure out that I married a man's voice, but before I come to that realization it will have been a happy marriage. Wait, what am I talking about?

Oh that's right. TV.

What are you looking forward to the most?

Because for me it aint really Dollhouse. I know, I know. I suck. But I'm really looking forward to Harper's Island. Go figure that one out.

Apparently there's this show called Prison Break...

2008-12-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

I may be like three years behind the times but I just caught the first two episodes of this so called 'Prison Break' television program.

Back in the day there was a lot of fuss surrounding the ol' P B and I managed to avoid most of it by not tuning in. Yeah, take that Prison Break! ... and House... and well all those other shows I didn't watch despite being told how awesome they were.

But here I am now catching up on what others have already seen and talked about and... what exactly was I missing?

I know I'm four seasons late saying this but first thoughts:
Whoever wrote this has never seen or heard of a prison in real life have they?

Second thoughts:
Man, they must have watched Shawshank a bunch of times.

Third thoughts:
Like a BUNCH of times, what's with everybody calling the new guy 'fish', and there being an old guy with a pet, and there being a black guy who can get you anything you need, and there being a dangerous queer.

Fourth thoughts:
Seriously, how can somebody have watched Shawshank this many times and still missed the point of it. Shawshank isn't about a jail break, it's about freedom. This show is about a jail break.

Fifth thoughts:
What's with the conspiracy? Who cares who shot the vice-presidents brother, or if it was a cover up, or if it wasn't a cover up, or if IT'S ONLY THE VICE-PRESIDENTS BROTHER!

Sixth thoughts:
Oh boy, I hope he gets the bolt out of the chair! This is getting nerve racking.

Seventh thoughts:
The pilot was directed by Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner? No wonder it was so underwhelming. Nothing says 'not up to high quality standards' like hiring the Rat-attack.

Eighth thoughts:
That doesn't really look like a map of the prison... no matter how much I squint my eyes.

Ninth thoughts:
Man, I know they're in prison but somebody buy these guys a sense of humour.

Tenth thoughts:
I have had at least nine too many thoughts about Prison Break. Especially with everybody else already having had these thoughts in 2005.

This reminds me of the time I met Don Burke.

2008-12-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

So apparently, according to TVTonight anyway, Don Burke is back in talks with Channel 9. Good on ya Nine, that's just what this country needs an old guy hosting a show about gardening. That'll turn your ratings around.

Remember when you axed Don? Remember that time? When he was a Channel 9 institution and you gave him the boot because he wasn't performing in the ratings like you would have liked. And then remember how you guys haven't performed in the ratings at all since then except for Two & A Half Men RERUNS. When reruns are the top rating program on your station you're doing more than a couple of things wrong.

Yeah, but good on ya. Give Don another shot. You know we all miss road tests and 'hooroo' and all that business about being home among gum trees, with lots of plum trees.

A sheep, or two.
A kangaroo.
A clothes line out the back.
A verander out the front.
And an old rocking chair.

Classic. Absolute bloody classic.

All this talk of The Don reminds me of the time I met Don Burke. And by 'met' I mean 'saw'. I saw Don Burke one time. Wandering around Castle Towers (which is a shopping mall despite the fact it sounds like a bad Goosebumps book... is there any other kind?) and there he was. Big Donny Burkester sitting around having coffee with old people.

We didn't walk over and say hello, or even wave and say hello from a distance, we just spotted him and said 'hey look it's Don Burke, he's talking to old people... I bet he's talking about some kind of plant... or even a particular breed of cat.'

AND HE PROBABLY WAS.

Why do people like The Big Bang Theory?

2008-12-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I'd really like to know. I don't get it. By which I mean: oh, I get it - it aint that subtle, but I don't get why you like it?

I was sitting around at work and two people started up a conversation about the BBT talking about how it was so hilarious and they really loved Sheldon.

All I could think was 'really? you like it enough to remember character names?'

In the history of disposable sitcoms the list is topped by this and Dave's World.

I suppose if it's on you might sit through it to get to something better, but people actually tune in to this stuff. You know the worst part? It rates better than How I Met Your Mother.

I get that people like Family Guy, I understand how somebody could learn to love King Of The Hill, I suppose. You want to tune in to Rules Of Engagement, sure I can see why you would do that.

But The Big Bang Theory? Really? Haven't your DVD copies of Cavemen arrived in the mail yet?

I'm seriously asking. If anybody can give me one good reason how you could possibly like The Big Bang Theory I'll give it another shot.

I won't eat my proverbial hat, but I will give you, the person with the questionable taste, the benefit of the doubt and I will try The Big Bang Theory again.

I know I'm just asking for a reason to put myself through another 20 minutes of third rate 'we have star wars shampoo because we're geeks getit?' jokes but then again I feel pretty safe in my opinion the BBT is awful and will remain awful until it awfully ends six awful seasons from awful now.

Guest Stars ... On The Office?

2008-12-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

So everybody and their dog are reporting that Jack Black, Jessica Alba and that old lady who appears in a lot of things and who Americans call 'beloved' and we call 'who the fudge bag is that?' are guest starring on the post Super Bowl episode of The Office.

What the hell The Office? Since when did you become 30 Rock.

I know, 30 Rock's awesome, but what's with all the damn cameos? "Oh look I just met Oprah, here she is in my show." Good one Tina Fey, can you get back to what we like about this show?

"You mean, more Jennifer Aniston?" No, I dont'.

Cameos for the sake of cameos aren't awesome. All you're ever left with is an episode based around the idea that Jennifer Aniston showed up. Nobody cares about Jennifer Aniston on 30 Rock, we want to see more of the writers... yeah, remember those cast members that you don't show anymore because for some reason Jack & Liz going to the moon is the plot of this weeks episode and Pete stuck with one line six episodes ago.

So The Office which has refrained from doing the Will & Grace dance of throwing a cameo into every single frame of it's show is bringing Jack "He's Not Really Black" Black and Jennifer "Wait You Mean You Also Find Her Hot" Alba on board.

Apparently they're appearing as themselves in a bootleg copy of a film the Dunder-Mifflin crew get a hold off, and that sits okay with me. Cameos work when they're somewhat unexpected.

James Cameron appears on Entourage and you go 'holy shit, that's James Cameron.'

Some young up and coming actress appears on Entourage and you go 'of course you do.'

Sean Connery appears at the end of Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and you go 'that's the best cameo of all time'.

Heather Locklear appears on Scrubs and you go 'okay that's it, i'm officially no longer watching scrubs until they pull their heads out of their collective arses.'

AND I NEVER DID AGAIN.

So as long as this is it, as long as it's just Jack Black in a pretend movie and John Cleese doesn't rock up for six episode guest stint I think we're going to be okay...

Although - John Cleese in a six episode guest stint as the head of the British branch of Dunder-Mifflin = FIFTH BEST CAMEO EVER.

Rove Going To The US Of A?

2008-12-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

With news that Rove is going to host a one night only look back at the year 2008 special for ABC hands up all those that couldn't be happier for the guy.

We'll finally be rid of him!

Only kidding. But not really, of course.

Why would America want Rove? The guy's mediocre by our standards and our standards made Chris Lilley a star.

There's nothing wrong with the guy but he does bland better than a eighth grade marching band interpretation of Green Sleeves. If ABC really want their look back at the year 2008 to be conducted by a guy who stole his act from Jay Leno than that's... oh... I see.

Could this be all because of the Jay-dog? Could the ABC be trying out prospective late night hosts now that Jay Leno is coming to prime time? Are they grooming him as a Leno rival if NBC's Jay Five Nights A Week During Prime Time takes off (which it won't.)

Or are they doing us a favour? Is this all part of Barack Obama's plan to make the world feel better about America? Are they going to countries and taking away celebrities that we've had enough of?

Because if that's the case I'm pretty sure Andrew O'Keefe would be perfect for an American version of ... um ... I don't know, do you have anything with a lot of gorging in it? Cause I could see the O'Keefester getting gorged. That'd be good television.

As for Rove though, if you really want him you can have him, you know he'll probably be as successful as the US version of Thank God You're Here...

The Ten Dumbest Shows In My Top 100

2008-12-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

There are some shows in my Top 100 that others would consider 'dumb', like say Kid Nation but that I'm not willing to concede to the 'dumb' category. To be 'dumb' I have to look at it and go 'yeah, you know what, that's pretty dumb, what's wrong with me'.

45 - American Idol

What.

Why would I think that American Idol is the 45th Best Show Of All Time. What is wrong with me? Am I a spazmo? Is that it? Am I suffering from severe spazmitis? I feel ashamed that it's on the list at all, but you know... it's like heroin.

The worst part:
American Idol is in front of Dexter

54 - Heroes

I know. Season One right? You think I'm embarrassed by the fact I have Heroes at number 54 on the list of all time greatest television shows? Yeah, well it used to be Top 25... I know. I know. I should die.

The worst part:
Heroes is in front of Seinfeld

59 - Carpoolers

Carpoolers was a dumb sitcom. There's no denying that. Most of the time it wasn't funny at all, and I openly hated two of the lead characters (Yeah, you Jerry O'Connell who appears more often in my Top 100 than he really should be allowed to) but for some reason thanks to my brain constructing this list of Top 100 shows around 'what have I watched recently' and not 'what was good when I watched it' there it is.

The worst part:
Carpoolers is in front of The Mighty Boosh

65 - Gossip Girl

According to this list (which isn't based in science or fact, and only appears on my Facebook account) there are only 64 shows in the world better than Gossip Girl, despite the fact we humans know that every show in the world is better than Gossip Girl.

Television doesn't get dumber than when Chuck Bass is speaking.

The worst part:
Gossip Girl is in front of Monty Python's Flying Circus

73 - Beauty & The Geek

In the history of dumbass reality shows it's Beauty & The Geek and Date My Mom that top the list. Was it the shitty challenges or the contrived over edited drama that really got me to place it so high on this list? Will we ever know the answer to any of these rhetorical questions?

The worst part:
Beauty & The Geek is in front of South Park

87 - Sliders

Sliders is only on this list because I remember it from my childhood. Having rewatched the first season I have come to this conclusion: 15 year old me had shit for brains.

The worst part:
Sliders is in front of The Awful Truth

88 - LAX

Television doesn't get dumber than Heather Locklear as the head of an airport, but for some reason LAX wasn't really that bad.... actually it was THAT bad, like the episode where the SWAT team shot up the control tower for no real reason, or really ANY of the episodes, but you know I'd rather watch LAX than The Wire... speaking of which:

The worst part:
LAX is in front of The Wire

95 - Man Stroke Woman

Man Stroke Woman makes it onto this list because the person who recommended to me has great taste in British comdies, so when he gave me this British comedy that is far from fun and basically the same three jokes over and over again I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Man Stroke Woman is at number 95 because I'm afraid to stand up to my peers.

The worst part:
Man Stroke Woman is in front of Black Books

98 - Funky Squad

Now, I'm a major Working Dog/D-Gen fan boy. I'll even watch their stupid fishing program but I draw the line at Funky Squad. Somebody forgot to add the jokes. I know the whole joke is that it's a really badly made 70s cop drama but it'd be nice to have something to laugh at once in a while.

The worst part:
Funky Squad is in front of John Safran's Music Jamboree

99 - That's My Bush!

From the creative geniuses behind South Park comes a live action sitcom about George W. Bush, only it isn't about George W. Bush at all - it's about sitcom cliches. So if you're willing to watch a show that is about how stupid bad sitcoms are well then strap yourself in. If on the other hand you're well aware that sitcoms are bad and you don't need the incredibly subtle hands of Trey Parker & Matt Stone smacking you over the head with a mallet about it, steer clear.

The worst part:
That's My Bush! is in front of Daria

In conclusion: I'm retarded.

Cable Network Branding

2008-12-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Cable networks, more than regular normal every day networks, are all about the branding.

Sure CBS may say to you - CRIME SHOWS - but it's so much more than just crime shows. NBC may say - ILL-ADVISED REMAKE OF A 70'S SCIENCE FICTION SHOW NOBODY CARES ABOUT - but that doesn't apply to The Office.

Whereas with cable networks it's all about the brand.

TBS has the slogan 'very funny' it's also filled with light blues and whites and let's take a stab in the dark over what kind of brand TBS wants to be? Could it be... comedy...???

Now when you want to create a brand, like TBS obviously does, you need the product to support your brand. When they show 10 Items Or Less it hurts their brand. TBS isn't about quality comedy when it comes to 10 Items Or Less - it's about laugh less comedy that looks like it was made by your cousin in his backyard.

But when TBS makes My Boys, TBS becomes about quality comedy again.

And that's where the cable networks hook you. The network becomes the brand. You like My Boys, well then you'll like the other shows on our network.

TNT claim that they know DRAMA but what they actually know is DRAMA HEADLINED BY SOMEBODY YOU SAW IN A MOVIE ONE TIME.

See The Closer starring that chick from Singles, or Saving Grace starring that lady from Raising Arizona, or Leverage starring ... that guy from... okay if you can figure out what you know Timothy Hutton from let me know.

But they're all from the same pool. Serious drama based around the lead character.

TNT doesn't same 'ensemble firefighter drama' it says 'legal drama following the exploits of Oliver Platt'.

USA is all about the 'quirk'. You think that it's a coincidence the four big dramas on USA are all kind of quirky?

Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, In Plaint Sight.

Quirky detective solves crime. Quirky detective solves crime. Quirky spy solves crime. Quirky witness protection agent ... solves crime?? who knows.

Drama with a good dose of comedy - that's USA.

You like Psych? Here, enjoy a Burn Notice - it's basically the same thing but with spy stuff.

SHOWTIME is all about the sex. Maybe not everybody will be having sex at all minutes of the day, but boy will it be sexy... or at least that's what Showtime would like to think.

Californication
The L Word
Secret Diary Of A Call Girl
Have you seen the ad campaign for Weeds? It's all about the misinformed idea that everybody wants to fuck Mary Louise Parker.

The Tudors on HBO would be all about the epic historic nature of what's going on, on Showtime it's all about Henry getting his shirt off and fucking something.

Even Dexter is all about being sexy while being a serial killer.

Want to know why Brotherhood doesn't really work on Showtime? It isn't sexy. No matter how hard they try to make it sexy, it fails.

But this is all branding. You like sexy shows, then you'll love Showtime, we've got the sexiest shows you've ever seen.

Unless you don't like sexy shows, in which case we've got some of the most pretentious shows you've ever seen.

Branding is important, unless you break your brand.

The HBO brand is broken. HBO used to mean Quality Television.

But then it meant John From Cincinnati and HBO doesn't mean quality anymore.

Every show HBO makes should be reinforcing the brand, and that's always the hope. You make Rome because in HBO's mind it means QUALITY. You make Band Of Brothers and it screams QUALITY.

By positioning yourself as the home of quality drama it allows you to sneak a few under the radar. Big Love can mean QUALITY if it's surrounded by other quality programs, but if Big Love is surrounded by John From Cincinnati and The Comeback and True Love it doesn't mean QUALITY anymore, it means Showtime.

HBO was all about big budgets and quality drama, when you've got small shows like In Treatment or Tell Me You Love Me you lose the brand.

HBO needs A Song Of Ice & Fire and the Band Of Brothers follow up The Pacific more than it needs anything else right now because they both return the image of HBO to where it belongs.

FX, as I've made clear, is my cable network of choice at the moment because FX (to me) means watchable drama. What FX wants it to mean is EDGY.

But it's all about the brand. You like Coke? Try Vanilla Coke, you'll probably like this as well.

You like Rescue Me? You'll like Sons Of Anarchy. You like Sons Of Anarchy? You'll like Damages.

By have strong shows that fit into the brand it allows viewership to expand. I watch Damages, and get hooked into FX, so I check out Sons Of Anarchy, that leads me to Rescue Me. I love Rescue Me and that leads me further down the path.

I've never before in my life ever been interested in The Shield, because I've seen it as yet another cop drama, but BASED SOLELY ON THE OTHER SHOWS I'VE WATCHED ON FX, I want to check it out.

If The Shield is as great as everybody says it only enhances the brand in my eyes further.

Sure FX sometimes goes down the Showtime route with shows like Dirt and The Riches, and Nip/Tuck has a definate Showtime feel about it. But the majority of the shows support the brand idea that FX is EDGY.

The brand is only valuable if the product is worthwhile. So while HBO was making good shows the HBO brand was invaluable, the quality of programs on HBO drops and the value drops. It used to be that if a new show came out from HBO you'd jump in and give it chance cause it was from the guys that brough you The Sopranos and Deadwood, but that's not what HBO means anymore.

AMC doesn't count because it only shows Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but if they score another couple of Mad Men style dramas watch it rocket up this list past HBO and FX to be number one. AMC is in the position to brand itself as a quality drama network, and already with Mad Men alone it has positioned itself as: CLASSY.

So, stay CLASSY AMC.