Couch Critic

Unlucky Louie

2006-08-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

I wanted to like HBO's first sitcom "Lucky Louie." I really did. I saw star Louis C.K. interviewed on "The Daily Show" and was cracking up at his jokes about his kids. This guy had a twisted view on domestic life - like male Roseanne Barr.

Louie is a part-time auto-mechanic who is constantly struggling to make ends meet and to make amends with his family, nurse Kim and daughter Lucy. Louie's co-worker Mike and his wife Tina (Laura Kightlinger) never seem to face the same problems with money or sex. And Louie's attempts to befriend the African-American family that moved in across the hall, usually ends up with racist jokes and Louie offending them.

The concept of the show is great; film in front of a live studio audience and mercilessly mock every traditional sitcom convention. Instead the joke quickly runs thin. It's one thing to point out how unfunny sitcom humor can be; it's another not to bring new jokes to the genre.

The best part of the show is the underrated Pamela S. Adlon, who plays Louie's frustrated wife Kim. She was the best part of the horrible movie "Bed of Roses" with Christian Slater and Mary Stuart Masterson and is best known for her voice-over work ("King of the Hill"). She is also the one person in "Lucky Louie" who can act. Some of the most unintentionally funny parts of the show comes from watching her act while her co-stars stumble over lines.

As is the case with most sitcoms these days, Louis C.K. is using his show as a way to showcase his stand-up and the routines of his nightclub friends. Jim Norton, Rick Shapiro - all funny at Caroline's after the 2 drink minimum, look and sound awkward in front of multiple cameras when they can't pace around a stage with a mic. And the rants about drugs and sex that cause drunk college kids to explode with laughter don't translate to a sitcom format.

Delivering few laughs, "Lucky Louie" is missing an opportunity to rip into traditional sitcoms that hasn't been done since "Roseanne." And with an average of 1-3 laughs per episode, I'm better off watching a re-run of "Roseanne" on Lifetime.

Excuses, excuses

2006-07-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

I have plenty of excuses for why I stopped posting to my blog in March. I was sick after our spring break trip to Ireland. I had finals to take and to grade. I had my thesis to write and rewrite and rewrite again. I had to find an apartment in NYC. I had to pack my fabulous South Campus apartment. I graduated. I moved. I needed to find a job. Oh and of course I needed to plan my wedding - I GOT ENGAGED to my long long long term boyfriend Connor!!! But now that is all behind me (aside from actually getting married). Thesis is done and yahoooooo - I got an A! Grad school is all done, I'm back in NYC, gainfully employed and the wedding plans are coming along so easily it makes me wonder why all those crazy girls are on "Bridezilla." So I am going to do my best to start blogging again but instead of just posting articles, it will be more like this, train of thought musings on TV, movies, and plays.

I am so thrilled to be back in New York with this amazing arts scene. Of course the summer is a weak time for TV (aside from "Rescue me," but that's a separate entry). Instead we've been keeping busy watching movies taped to the DVR (we got two this time - one for each room - I think it may be the key to a happy marriage). This past week we went to see "Spring Awakening" down at the Altantic Theater is Chelsea. In a few weeks is "7 Guitars." Every week I read the New Yorker and circle all the exhibits, plays, movies etc. that I want to see. We're even trying to work in some dance performances for me.

Anyway, I'm going to watch the first season of "Rescue Me" so I have all the background before I criticize it (and there is plenty to criticize). It's about 100 degrees out and I don't intend to move from the couch except to get italian ices from the freezer.

ABC show bombs with overdramatic relationships

2006-07-30T12:35:00.000-04:00

"What About Brian" tries to be a male version of "Grey's Anatomy," but fails because it focuses on a male character as the lead role. The other characters are unsympathetic, the dialogue is forced and the dramatic scenes are predictable.

The reason everyone is asking about Brian (Barry Watson) is because he's single. At 34. Heaven forbid. Brian decides he's in love with his best friend Adam's (Matt Davis) fiancée Marjorie (Sarah Lancaster). Brian's sister Nic (Rosanna Arquette) is trying to have a baby with her Italian hubby. And Brian's business partner Dave (Rick Gomez) is married with kids to Deena, a stay-at-home mom. Everyone wants Brian to get married so he is no longer the seventh wheel, even though all of these couples are unhappy.

Having a male character as the focus of a show about relationships doesn't work, and there is no appeal in watching a 34-year-old man acting like a neurotic teenage boy. No wonder he's single when he can't even break up with the girl he only started dating two weeks earlier. If the audience had a reason to accept Brian's reluctance to mature, he might be more likeable, but two episodes in, he merely seems pathetic.

Brian's friends aren't much better. Brian and Adam make a juvenile pact to break up with their girlfriends. Instead, Adam decides to propose the day after he dumped Marjorie because "she was stellar. She was like a guy. She was stoic." Sounds like a good reason to get married, especially since Marjorie kisses Brian while Adam is away. Deena suggests an open marriage to Dave, who is the best character on the show. He is devastated by the idea and spirals downward into self-doubt and jealousy. Why exactly he doesn't tell his wife of 13 years he doesn't like the idea isn't made clear.

The dialogue is overdramatic and unrealistic. After kissing Marjorie, Brian dramatically asks Dave, "Do you ever have a day where you question every decision you've ever made in your life?" Just as gravely, Dave answers him, "Yeah. Every day."

Deena justifies her desire to sleep with a yoga instructor by telling Dave, "It's about us giving each other a gift. Gift of an adventure. Without lying. Without losing each other."

Brian is always put into predictable situations that are boring to watch. While showering at a girl's apartment, her roommate walks in, thinking he is her roommate. Rather than tell her he's in the shower, he awkwardly fumbles when she asks for her razor. In another scene, he drives to Las Vegas to tell Marjorie he has feelings for her. When he comes to his senses, which apparently didn't happen during the five-hour drive, she sees him.

With all the self-created drama, it is no wonder these characters are so miserable. Aside from the character of Dave, the problems facing the rest of the characters are ones they brought on themselves. This doesn't create sympathy, it's annoying and whiny.

Crime drama guilty of seedy soap opera focus

2006-07-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

From DO: 4/7/06

The biggest problem with "Conviction" is that it isn't "Law & Order."

Dick Wolf brings a large and loyal fan base, who will be sorely disappointed in the show if they want to play detective, follow cases from beginning to end and hear the famous transitional music. Without the law and order, "Conviction" is just a soap opera about young assistant district attorneys. Call it "Desperate ADAs."

Nick Potter (Jordan Bridges), a rich prep with family connections, leaves behind the cushy corporate law for the life of a public servant. He shares an office with Jessica Rossi (Milena Govich). She is having a no-strings sexual fling with her supervisor, Deputy District Attorney Jim Steele (Anson Mount), but he still has feelings for Bureau Chief Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), who reprises her role from "Law & Order: SVU." Brian Peluso (Eric Balfour) is a hard-drinking gambler with a soft spot for Christina Finn (Julianne Nicholson), the fragile, sensitive mid-Westerner, and Billy Desmond (J. August Richards) is the most competitive assistant district attorney with a perfect record that he is determined to keep.

The show deals primarily with the personal lives of these characters. Who they are prosecuting takes a backseat to who they are sleeping with. Glimpses of the trials are given, but with so many lawyers, there are about four cases an episode. By the time it's clear who is trying which case, the judge has ruled. It's hard to develop sympathy for lawyers who are more concerned with boosting their win records than caring about the victims.

Any fan of "SVU" knows that Cabot entered the witness protection program after a drug dealer tried to have her killed. No explanation for her return has been offered, and the show presents her character as if she never left. She is also overly concerned with pleasing her bosses on the dreaded "eighth floor," instead of what is right, making a formerly favorite character unlikable.

But even if "Conviction" is looked at separately from the "Law & Order" legacy, it fails to stand up as a good show. The characters are preachy and arrogant, and the dialogue is pretty dismal. When Peluso is threatened by his bookie because he can't get a gun charge against his brother dropped, he confronts him the men's room of a seedy bar."Do you see this?" Peluso asks while shoving his ADA badge in his face.

"It says DA. That's what I am, bitch. I can bury you, your brother, your mother, whenever I want. Whenever I get bored. Don't you ever forget that."

Instead of showing the young lawyers at clubs, at parties and in yoga class, they should be spending more time interviewing witnesses, working with detectives and preparing their prosecution. Every tidbit of personal info given on "L&O" seems like a treat because they are given out so sparingly. "Conviction" is a case of too much information.

College grads clash with the real world on predictable Fox sitcoms

2006-07-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

From the DO: 3/31/06

Two mid-season replacement sitcoms on Fox address the biggest fears faced by new college graduates. On "Free Ride," the recent grad has no plan for his future so he moves back home with his parents, and "The Loop" deals with trying to balance job responsibility while still partying like a bleary-eyed senior. Both shows are full of clichéd characters and predictable scenarios, but lack any laughs.

In "Free Ride," Nate (Josh Dean) has no idea what he wants to do after getting his degree, so he moves back to Missouri to live with his parents. He begrudgingly befriends David Lee Roth clone Mark Dove (Dave Sheridan) and develops a fast crush on Amber (Erin Cahill), a bank teller he knew in high school who is now engaged.

There is plenty of predictable motivation for Nate to pull together a plan to move out of Missouri. His parents, who changed the lock on the front door, argue all the time when they aren't having the sex night their marriage therapist recommends. Nate's room has been converted into a home gym, so he needs to sleep on an air mattress in the garage. His only friend in town is known as "the guy who chugged motor oil." Yet Nate is drawn to Amber and wants to stay in town until she gets married. His father, angry that Nate turned down a job offer, tries to convince him that "a crappy job is the foundation of a good life."

"That job was a part of my major, and I'm not that majorly into it anymore," Nate says. "The good news is that I know what I don't want to do."

Sam (Bret Harrison), the hero on "The Loop," has the opposite problem. Hired as an airline executive right out of college based on his thesis, he is passionate about his job. But he also wants to go out drinking with his three roommates: his stoner brother Sully, ditzy bartender Lizzy and long-time crush Piper. His nighttime antics with his friends often threaten his daytime responsibilities at the airline.

The characters are one-dimensional. Sully plays almost the same irritating role that Dove does on "Free Ride." He is immature, lazy and constantly plays pranks on his younger brother. Piper is clueless about Sam's feelings for her and continues to date her blind spot, as an unnecessary graphic tells the audience while the word "douche" is sung. At work, Sam faces a sexually harassing female executive, Meryl (Mimi Rogers), and a boss who constantly threatens to fire him. When Sam must decide between a work obligation and meeting the girl he's dating at the airport, he tells his roommates he has decided to go for the girl.

"I'm gonna risk getting fired because I don't want to be 24, buried in work and putting my job above everything else in my life," he says.

Job security should actually be a concern, because a quick cancellation is as predictable as the two programs.

Perfectly planned storylines break suspense of Fox drama

2006-03-24T08:14:00.000-05:00

From 3/24/06 Daily Orange

The creators of the Fox drama "Prison Break" have meticulously woven an intriguing plot involving government conspiracy, murder and one really amazing tattoo. Yet the story always seems to fit together too perfectly, which ends up cutting the tension and suspense the show tries to create.

Engineer Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) purposely lands himself in Fox River State Penitentiary one month before his half-brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) will be executed. Intending to bust them both out, Scofield has the blueprints of the prison and other helpful clues tattooed on his body in an elaborate design. Once inside he assembles a group of fellow prisoners to assist him in breaking out and staying out. Meanwhile, Lincoln's ex-girlfriend Veronica (Robin Tunney) is working to free him through legal channels, but faces plenty of life threatening obstacles through the show.

The first season ended in November, a mere 13 episodes in. The final episode occurred the night before Lincoln's execution and Scofield's escape plan hit a snag - or pipe to be exact - preventing the group from breaking out.

Monday night's premiere picked up right where last season left off. The escape plan foiled, leaving Scofield unable to stop the execution. Veronica has exhausted all legal options. Even the governor has refused clemency because he is under the thumb of the show's villain, the vice president (Patricia Wettig). As Lincoln walks towards the chair, it looks like the end. But of course it isn't, otherwise why have a second season?

Because Scofield planned his imprisonment at Fox River, he researched every person at the prison so he could use them in his escape. The anti-death penalty hospital doctor is the governor's daughter, so Scofield fakes diabetes to get close to her. Warden Pope believes in rehabilitation and asks Scofield, who is an engineer, to help him build a model Taj Mahal for his wife. He befriends an elderly prisoner believed to have robbed a bank in hopes that he will fund them once they escape.

The neatly planned storyline fails to sustain tension because it is stressed how imperative each piece is to the escape. When Scofield's toes are cut off with gardening shears, there is no real danger felt because without him, the show is over. If he was transferred from the prison or the psych patient remained his cell mate, he never would have been able to work on the escape. When a guard almost catches the men digging the escape tunnel, of course they have it covered up when he opens the door.

Clearly the men are going to succeed in their escape, probably around sweeps time. Season two is shaping up to continue their drawn out escape from jail and then to follow them as they evade the police and track down who framed Lincoln. It's all a little too easy and going too well. Life in a maximum security prison should be more difficult for an inmate, even if he planned his own imprisonment.

Underrated, offbeat comedy scrubs into 5th season

2006-03-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

DO column from 3/3/06. Just wanna say, that weak ending is NOT mine.

Despite critical praise and several Emmy nominations, "Scrubs" has never been able to find an audience. Now in its fifth season, this offbeat comedy full of quirky characters, self-awareness and great musical references deserves another look.

J.D. Dorian (Zach Braff) is now an attending doctor at Sacred Heart Hospital, putting his intern days behind him. His best friend Turk (Donald Faison), a surgical resident, is trying to have a baby with his new wife, the bossy Nurse Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes). Fellow attending doctor Elliot Reed (Sarah Chalke) is J.D.'s insecure ex-girlfriend and roommate, and their mentor Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) constantly delights in finding new ways to insult J.D.

Just as in animated programs, the characters' thoughts are acted out, though in "Scrubs" they are done as daydreams. Turk, afraid he isn't ready for fatherhood, fantasizes that he picks up the newborn baby in the hospital nursery and somehow knocks down all the other bassinets like dominoes. Carla encourages J.D. to booty call an intern by telling him it's been done since the beginning of time, and J.D. pictures himself as a caveman giving a cavewoman excuses for why he can't stick around in the morning.

The characters on the show are likeable because they are all flawed in honest, believable ways, such as J.D.'s incapability to hold onto a relationship. Elliot encourages him to not say every thought that pops into his head, because that's what ruined their relationship. The scene flashes back to the two of them in bed.

"Are you getting thicker?" J.D. asks Elliot. "You feel thicker."

The show also pokes fun at itself. Carla calls "Webster" a stupid sitcom, causing J.D. and Turk to gasp in horror.

"I mean, that's a sitcom," she says.

Elliott asks J.D. if they can just go home from the hospital, put on their pajamas and watch "Grey's Anatomy."

"Oh I do love that show," he says. "It's like they've been watching our lives and then just put it on TV."

In addition to the indie rock that made Braff's "Garden State" so popular, the show also weaves older music into episodes. The janitor decides to start an air band to compete for water park tickets at a local bar competition, and as tryouts are held, Turk blows the other members of the band away with his dead-on dancing and lip-syncing to "Poison" by Bell Biv Devoe.

All in all, the show is definitely worth a second glance, even if it has taken five years to open your eyes.

Beauty and the Geek

2006-02-27T09:29:00.000-05:00

Thanks to constant screw-ups at the D.O. this article never ran.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the geeks on The WB's “Beauty and the Geek,” are some of the most beautiful men on television.

The geeks are painfully nervous and self-deprecating. Wanting to see them gain confidence outweighs the fun of mocking idiotic comments made by the party-girl beauties.
Ashton Kutcher's “social experiment,” now in its second season, partners up eight socially awkward yet brilliant guys with eight beautiful but dim-witted women. The goal, aside from ultimately winning a prize of $250,000, is for each contestant to transform into a well-rounded person.

The geeks undergo a more obvious transformation than the beauties. Although most of these guys are scientists, they lack any chemistry with the ladies. The lovable Tyson holds the world's record for solving the Rubix's Cube blindfolded. Quirky museum critic Josh, who is on medication for an anxiety disorder, is described by his partner as looking “like Carrot Top but he acts like Woody Allen.”

Their confidence is boosted immediately after they receive makeovers. Josh tells the camera “I look so good, I'd hook up with myself.” That’s a big difference from the first day when he described meeting the women in the house as “facing a sexual firing squad.”

MIT graduate Ankur was resistant to the makeover, particularly to having his unibrow waxed.
“There is no other purpose other than to look like what everyone says you should look like,” he said.

After the makeover, however, he joyfully dances around the room to show off his new look to the women. He even comes in second during a speed dating competition.

One geek, Chris, who was recently booted from the show, had false confidence because of his academic achievements. He made enemies quickly with his patronizing and threatening attitude towards both the beauties and the other geeks. He told Josh, who majored in psychology and film at University of Michigan that he had a “cake” major.

“I think Chris is putting the strategy of the game over building friendships and learning from the girls in the house,” said Tyson. “It really takes away from the primary purpose of our experience here in the house.”

For the beauties, who have “dedicated their lives to social pursuits,” the show uses the competitions to gently poke fun at their lack of awareness of the world around them.
“It's not really any geeky information. This is like, common knowledge. This fits into pop culture. This fits into current events. This fits into everything anybody should know,” Ankur says.

In a speech competition, Ankur’s partner Jennipher is asked how she would prevent pollution.
“Maybe not eating a lot of gaseous foods,” she answers. “Not be farting a lot. That's a form of air pollution.”

The contestants on “Beauty and the Geek” that are there for the right reasons have an opportunity for a Pygmalion experience. Sometimes, with the help of a beautiful woman, the nice guy can finish first.

Characters sweeten stereotypical romantic comedy

2006-02-04T23:49:00.000-05:00

This is from the 2/3/06 Daily Orange. Cool news ... a publicist from 20th Century Fox, which makes "How I Met Your Mother" e-mailed me to say she liked the article. Thanks to my darling sister for bearing with me and playing the show with me on speaker so I could transcribe quotes.

Never judge a book by its cover or a television show by its title. Despite being terribly named, "How I Met Your Mother" is a sweet romantic comedy that endearingly portrays the years between college and settling down.

Architect Ted (Josh Radnor) is desperate to fall in love after his best friend Marshall (Jason Segal) gets engaged to his longtime girlfriend, schoolteacher Lily (Alyson Hannigan). When he meets local cable news reporter Robin (Cobie Smulders), he thinks he's met "the one." Instead, Robin becomes part of his tight-knit circle of friends, a group rounded out by the obnoxious womanizer Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). The show is narrated via flashbacks from a grown-up Ted (voiced by Bob Saget), who is telling his teenaged children how he met their mother.

"How I Met Your Mother" is like watching "When Harry Met Sally" in weekly half-hour increments. It is romantic without being overly sappy. It is imbued with hopeful optimism about love, without forgetting how ridiculous the search can be.

When Ted meets a mysterious girl at a friend's wedding, they agree not to exchange information, so they will have one perfect night together (just like in the romantic comedy "Serendipity"). When he ultimately tracks the girl down, he launches into a sappy soliloquy about love to his friends, only to be shut down by them for thinking too much.

"How I Met Your Mother" also has a surprising amount of depth for a traditional sitcom when dealing with issues faced by people in their 20s. Although Lily practically lives at the guys' apartment, she is reluctant to give up her own place because it's important for her to maintain her independence.

"It's like fat pants," Lily tells Robin. "You hope you never have to use them, but you're glad to know they're there."

Meanwhile, Ted fears he will lose the apartment to Marshall and Lily, so he begins fighting with them. Marshall and Ted wind up in a silly sword fight scene, but what Ted says expresses the loneliness he really feels.

"You and Lily get to be married," said Ted. "What do I get? I get to be unmarried, alone, minus two roommates and on top of that, I get to be homeless. Does that seem fair?"

Adding to the comedy of the show is a very un-Doogie-like Harris, whose character sounds like he read a manual teaching him how to be a player. When Ted asks him to call a bridesmaid from the wedding to track down his mystery girl, Barney refuses. He reasons that he can't call the girl

"because we just hooked up last night. I can't call the girl the next day. I have to wait at least, like … forever. Oh snap. Never gonna call her," he says.

Likeable characters keep "How I Met Your Mother" from becoming just another sitcom about young professionals living in impossibly large Manhattan apartments while looking for love. Instead, it balances romance, comedy and a realistic look at the issues facing post-graduates.

Sick Day

2006-02-02T15:11:00.000-05:00

Are you even allowed to take sick days in grad school? It feels weird, like you need to get a note from the health center to prove to your professors you weren't making it up. On the other hand, who, in the real adult world, goes to the doctor when they have a fever? You just drink the water, take the tylenol, nap and watch lots of TV stored up on your beloved DVR...or at least that's what I do. I'm feeling much better now btw...thanks.

Anyway, stomach in check and windows open to help cool me down, I caught up on all the shows I missed last night because I went to see Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" at Syracuse Stage. Wednesday night's are getting tough....that 9pm slot has so many good shows and apparently Law & Order is moving there also? They're killing me.

I started off with "One Tree Hill." Do you think Bono dies a little inside every time he sees a piece of one of the greatest albums U2 every made being sold out to the teens? Do they even get the reference? Back to last night's episode. It was a dramatic episode with a dramatic storm. Cliche Hill? Dan took advantage of the black out to break into Keith's apartment. He had a brotherly flashback when he accidently smashed a picture of the pair as children. Behind the picture was a safe deposit box key, which Mayor Dan quickly took stole and then broke into the vault, only to find the ledger book Lucas stole last season. Keith got nothin' on him now...except the guy is a creep and clearly will get his in the end. I wish they would just do it already, it's such a repetitive storyline. Speaking of bad seeds, what is up with that cheerleader Rachel. Talk about mean girls and bad acting. Lucas and Brooke had a massive blowout because he used the same ending in a letter to her that he did in an unsent letter to Peyton. Peyton got a life lesson from her dying birth mother, who actually died finally ending that storyline. Haley and Nathan had a romantic evening talking about their relationship. Oh, and Karen and Keith did it in the cafe.

Yes, the storylines are weak, the characters predictable, the writing incredibly cheesy....but it is such a fun guilty pleasure. I can't help but hope "One Tree Hill" has a home on the new network The CW.

But then I needed some quality television so I cued up my favorite show "Veronica Mars." I find it hard to believe there are people who watch TV and aren't watching this show, but you can see my previous review for all the gushing about how amazing this show is. In last night's episode Wallace quickly learned that doing the right thing isn't always easy. His basketball phenom friend from Chicago who hit and ran from the wino, turned the blame on Wallace. Put Veronica Mars on the case. After a failed attempt to confront him because of his controlling uncle, V puts queen bitch Jackie to use. She steals the uncle's cell phone and Wallace's cop dad tracks down the bought off witnesses and proves his boy's innocence. That storyline moved shockingly quick. Moving at a slower pace in the Fightin Fitzpatricks. Weevil talks to Molly about her relationship with Felix and realizes St. Mary's Church, where her brother is a priest, is where the drug hand-offs have been happening. Where else do the PCH'ers and the 0'9ers mix? V agrees to videotape the confessional but even she has ethics because she refuses to bug it for audio. When Weevil confronts his motorcycle gang they turn on him, beat the crap out of him and drive his bike into the ocean. And Thumper even has some blackmail--a videophone tape of Weevil beating up Curly before he washed ashore. Lastly, a little attention was finally paid to the bus crash mystery. Daddy detective broke into the evidence room at the police station and stole the interview tapes and there seems to be a theme developing....all the rich kids dad's knew Curly and the newly elected Mayor even told his daughter not to get on the bus after the field trip. Hmmm....is Steve Guttenberg bad? I'd put money on it. We also found out that the dead journalism teacher knew jackie's dad, star baseball player with a gambling problem Terrence Cook. The episode ending with him being arrested in connection to the bus accident. Definitely a false lead Sheriff Lamb.

Music lineup overshadows characters in stereotypical sitcom

2006-01-21T12:26:00.000-05:00

D.O. article from 1/20/06. I'm pretty proud of this one.

Tom Farrell is looking for the next big thing in music. He's an A&R rep for True Vinyl Records, a label that really truly cares about the music, not the money. Watching "Love Monkey" is all about loving the music … and being able to tolerate an overtly obvious cross-marketing plan.

After losing his dream job, the golden-eared Farrell (Tom Cavanagh) needs to start again. His close circle of friends consists of "man about town" Shooter (Larenz Tate), the closeted former pro-baseball player-turned sportswriter Jake (Christopher Wiehl) and dermatologist Mike (Jason Priestly) who also happens to be married to Farrell's pregnant sister. Farrell's best girlfriend is Bran (Judy Greer), a straight-shooter news producer with whom the sexual tension sparks fly.

The character's lines are just background noise to the music, the real star of the show. The pilot episode featured a whopping 24 songs, ranging from featured artist-of-the-week Teddy Geiger to Air Supply. In case viewers are not up on their indie-pop, CBS has kindly listed each song featured in an episode on their Web site, along with a biography of the singer Farrell works with that week (next weeks guests are Ben Folds and LeAnn Rimes).

Music infiltrates every part of Farrell's life. He buys "The Essential Bob Dylan" as a baby shower gift for his sister. He offers to make them a birthing mix for the delivery room. When his girlfriend dumps him by saying, "When you love someone, set them free," he wonders, "Did she just quote Sting in the middle of breaking up with me?" When waxing poetic about the breakup afterwards to Bran, he quotes Dylan saying, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose."

Beyond the annoying and obvious marketing ploys, "Love Monkey" has potential to be an enjoyable show. It borrows liberally from other successful formulas about being hip urban professionals, most notably "Sex and The City." Farrell provides a constant voiceover of the inner-workings of his mind, à la Carrie Bradshaw. His three best friends, who fit stereotypical roles, are his confidants. Instead of brunch at a diner, they meet at a basketball court for a pick-up game.

But the city, including the real restaurant and bar locations, is the same, and so is the conversation topic: How do you meet the right person?

That is Farrell's problem. He can never seem to find the right woman to settle down with. Being the love monkey that he is, Farrell swings from woman to woman like they were branches on trees.

"You keep looking for the perfect branch, you're gonna end up one lonely monkey," Bran tells him.

The overload of music distracts attention away from the characters. CBS's Web site provides more information about the characters than the pilot episode did. Not only does True Vinyl Records, the make-believe label that Farrell head A&R for, have its own Web site, but each of the characters on the show has a detailed profile on myspace.com.

Somewhere a marketing executive is smiling.

Americanized 'Office' lacks humorous pacing of original series

2006-01-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

D.O. column from 12/9/05. I don't get their headlines, I gave The Office a positive review and they give it a negative headline. Read the review for yourself...

Americanizing the beloved British television program "The Office" has created a hilarious show that is just as funny as its Golden Globe-winning BBC predecessor. The gifted cast, which consists largely of the show's writers, delivers laugh-out-loud funny lines with a naturalness that accurately captures the monotony of working in an office.

A documentary is being filmed at a paper manufacturing company located in Scranton, Penn., which allows the characters to talk directly to the camera. Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is the egotistical regional manager who wastes most of his day avoiding work and showing off. Perpetually engaged receptionist Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) has an office flirtation with the genial, but unmotivated senior sales representative Jim Halpert (John Krasinski). Together, they play practical jokes on the over-zealous Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Michael's insufferably bizarre sales assistant.

Michael is more concerned with being thought of as entertaining than effectively running his branch. His poor attempts at humor usually offend and anger his staff. The entire office is forced to undergo diversity training after Michael recites part of a Chris Rock standup routine. Even after receiving the training, Michael doesn't understand what he did wrong.

"How come Chris Rock can do a routine and everybody finds it hilarious and ground-breaking, and then I go and do the exact same routine, same comedic timing and people file a complaint to corporate? Is it because I'm white and Chris is black?" Michael asks.

The funniest moments of the show come from the office pranks. Jim is constantly irritated with Dwight, whose desk is right next to his. To get revenge, he plots elaborate practical jokes. In the first episode, which was almost an exact shot-for-shot replica of the British version, Jim puts Dwight's stapler in gelatin mold and proclaims his innocence while eating a cup of Jell-O. One morning, Dwight walks into the office to discover his desk, which Jim has moved to the men's bathroom, is missing.
"Calm down. Where was the last place you saw it?" Jim asks.
The most striking difference is the pacing of the show. The BBC does not air commercials during shows, so there were approximately 29 minutes per episode. Much of the humor in the British version came from the uncomfortable silences that were stretched out after awkward situations. The American version has fewer than 21 minutes per episode, so the action moves along at a quicker pace, usually with sight gags. When Dwight exchanges his chair for a stability ball, Jim walks by and slashes it with scissors.
Either version of "The Office" is a guaranteed laugh because they are so well-acted and written. The British version focuses more on the lame attempts by the boss to be friends with the staff. The American version is a real ensemble which utilizes all of the characters' subtly delivered sarcasm to illustrate how fun a bad job can be, depending on who is working in the office.

'Bones' brings forensic dramedy back from the grave

2005-12-02T15:47:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Daily Orange - 12/2/05
(They cut part of the story which I'm adding in at the end as an alternate ending)

Rotting human flesh, bug-infested corpses and a little sarcasm go a long way in a television schedule overrun with detective dramas.
"Bones," which airs on Fox on Tuesdays at 8 p.m., is a fun show to watch because it entertains while combining murder, mystery and forensic evidence with sharply written one-liners to lighten the mood.
Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) is an austere forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute, a thinly veiled version of the Smithsonian. She is frequently lent out to the FBI to work with special agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), a former army sniper who is filled with remorse about his past and trying to make amends.
Brennan works with a team of other scientists, or "squints" as Booth calls them. Nerdy graduate student assistant Zack Addy (Eric Millegan) is constantly picked on by the millionaire conspiracy theory-spouting Dr. Jack Hodgins (TJ Thyne), whose job is to examine the bugs on human remains. Rounding out the team is Brennan's best friend Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin), a flirtatious artist who provides sketches of the victims' faces to go along with their bones.
The show allows viewers to look at a murder from two different perspectives. Brennan and her team provide the scientific evidence, hard facts supporting their theory. Booth, on the other hand, is more understanding of human nature. He hypothesizes motives for crimes and is quick to pick up on ticks that clue him into someone's guilt. When speaking to the parents of one victim, he realizes their lawyer was having an affair with the girl. After seeing mementos of a deceased DJ's life, Booth believes he was murdered instead of having died from an overdose. He is the heart of the operation, which balances out the scientific coldness of Brennan.
Deep commitment to her work leaves Brennan severely lacking in the social skills department, which ends up being the source of a lot of the show's laughs. She looks at everything as an anthropological study. Her lack of knowledge about popular culture is a running joke. When Zack holds out his fist for her to bump after they receive some good news, she looks confused.
"I'm told it's a widely acknowledged gesture of mutual success," he tells her.
Whenever Booth makes a reference in conversation to a musician or movie, she gives him an empty stare.
"Just because you say it in that definitive tone doesn't mean it means anything to me," she tells him.
In a television schedule packed with forensic detective shows, "Bones" sticks out from the rest because the funny quips the actors trade while solving murders help humanize the cold forensic evidence.

Alternate Ending:
In need of a vacation, Booth asks Brennan if she’s ever been to Costa Rica. He squirms uncomfortably as she nonchalantly answers him, while she puts the skin from a re-hydrated mummified hand onto her own in order to get a fingerprint to identify the victim.
“I guess you won’t be needing mittens for Christmas,” he says.

Laguna Beach: The Real Clueless

2005-11-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

Another Thompson essay

Previously on Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, Lauren, otherwise known as L.C., the tall, tan blonde fashionista who seems incapable of wearing anything but see-through white bikinis when she’s near a swimming pool, told her friends that it is impossible to actively look for a boyfriend. Her friends quickly concurred, citing the logical comparison of how hard it is to find shoes when you look for them. This quickly dissolved into an argument about whether that theory can also be applied to purses or sunglasses (but not both, no, never both). It brings to mind a line Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher says in the movie Clueless. “Looking for a boyfriend in high school is as meaningless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.” If she thought that Pauly Shore movies lack depth, imagine what she’d say about Laguna Beach.

MTV’s dramality, marketed as a reality version of Fox’s hit show The O.C., was actually supposed to be a reality version of Beverly Hills 90210. After all, if people were tuning in en masse to see actors play rich, spoiled, beautiful teenagers, why not just watch the real thing? Apparently the real Orange County has a lot less of shooting your juvenile delinquent boyfriend’s ecstasy-selling brother, but makes up for it with a lot more typical high school drama. There are the normal relationship break-ups and fights with close friends that all high school kids experiences. But these kids somehow manage to cope with teenage tribulations between spring break trips to Cabo San Lucas, surprise BMW SUV’s from daddy and planning their lucrative entertainment careers in L.A. instead of preparing for college. A better title would have been The Real Clueless, because these kids are re-enacting the movie without even realizing it.

Not that they are entirely to blame. For each generation of young girls, there is that one movie that stays in the zeitgeist. For those who are college-aged now, that movie was Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s valley-girl version of Emma. The majority of the cast on Laguna Beach was about eight years old when the movie came out in 1995, and it’s a sure bet that Clueless would be any of their “Top 5 favorite movie” lists.

Take a look at Kristin, the narrator (or Cher) of Laguna Beach. She is startlingly self-confident for her age. She shops and grooms herself constantly. She also is quick-witted, sarcastic and fun. The girl just wants to enjoy her senior year. She flirts, teases, and strings several boys along at once, but never settles on just one. She even drives a white jeep, as Cher did in Clueless.

After the landslides in Laguna Beach in June, the cast from last season, home from school for the summer, planned a charity fashion show and concert at a fancy restaurant to raise money. Not to dismiss the tragedy in the victim’s lives, but if they were living in mansions overlooking the Pacific Ocean, wouldn’t they be up on their insurance payments? This was like in Clueless when Cher decides she wants to do something good and become captain of the Pismo Beach disaster relief. Her teacher tells her they need to collect blankets, diapers and canned goods. Cher instead collects caviar, mini-skirts and tennis rackets.

Clueless satirized the lives of teenagers with money, whereas Laguna Beach takes itself too seriously and misses the punch-line. The popular clique’s pension for sexual antics quickly emerged and became the shows focus. It feels as though they purposely create drama for the cameras. Bad boy Jason has cheated on not one, not two, but three girlfriends this season alone. Stephen tries to rekindle a relationship with either Kristin or L.C., depending on whom the camera seems to be following that week. Kristin even kisses her best friend Jessica’s crush, which is caught on camera, but she never admits it.

The show is an addictive guilty pleasure that over 3 million people indulge in each week. Much like the primetime soap operas it was meant to imitate, it is full of lust, betrayal, stylish clothes, fancy cars and characters that are fun to hate. And much like a Pauly Shore movie, it is meaningless to search for meaning on Laguna Beach. Instead, just sit back and laugh.

Katrina Rant

2005-11-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

I wrote this for an independent study I'm doing with Bob Thompson. It's not great, being my first one, but it was more an exercise in just venting against the vast wasteland on paper. Why can't television news be all that it can be?

A round of applause, please, for the broadcast journalists of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, not only did they do their jobs, they did it well. It was exhilarating to watch Anderson Cooper refuse to take prefabricated public relations baloney from Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu. Damn straight Americans shouldn’t feel grateful to the federal government for simply doing their jobs. Oh wait, following that logic, maybe Americans shouldn’t be so grateful to the media for doing theirs.

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned in what I expect from news reports: For them to actually be fair and balanced. Show me both sides of the story without bias. Stay neutral. Keep yourself out of the story. The press has a duty to represent the public, ask the questions we don’t have the opportunity to ask ourselves. Get us answers to the questions we want answered and then trust that we’re smart enough to form an opinion on our own.

That is why watching the media, which has become the Bush administration’s lapdog, finally ask tough questions and not cower was so thrilling. The fourth estate was in full swing. But the brief remembrance of what journalism should be was soon forgotten. Like a petulant child, the media itself needed to be the center of attention and made sure it was by becoming the story.

I was actually OK at first with reporters crossing the line of neutral observer. With no rescue workers coming to the Gulf, the journalists and their production teams at times became the first line of relief. They distributed water, helped reunite families, and even rescued stranded people. They took off their reporter hats and became humans first. A respectable decision considering the situation.

But did they need to broadcast these acts of humanity? Isn’t charity a selfless act? Did they do these things because they really were concerned about these people or because a suit back in New York thought it would test well with a focus group?

The tide quickly turned (I know it’s a cliché but I have that kind of sense of humor) as the news media began exploiting the victims suffering for their own gain. One particular glaring incident happened in a taped segment with Cooper. He was walking around a small town in Mississippi that had been decimated by the Katrina’s winds and ocean swells. He happened upon a woman who was trying to salvage mementos from the rubble where her house once stood. Cooper helped the woman dig through the remains. He walked away to do an aside to the camera and became so emotional, so choked up with tears, he needed to ask the cameraman to stop filming him.

While I’m willing to bet there is some an emotional toll on the reporters in these disaster situations, I also don’t want to see the reporter crying. Especially crocodile tears that make Cooper appear like an actor playing a reporter at the scene of a tragedy. If the woman who lost her house wasn’t crying on camera, why was he?

That was just the beginning of making the reporters the center of the story. Reporters were soon talking about how hard their lives have been, how terrible the conditions they’ve been living and working in are, the lack of sleep and decent food. Keep in mind that they get paid a ridiculously large amount of money to go to these places and report these stories. And unlike the people they were reporting on, they actually had jobs and homes at the end of the day.

In the days following the Hurricane, television critic Alessandra Stanley wrote a complimentary column in the New York Times about the outrage the media felt. In the article she wrote the following about Geraldo Rivera:

''Some reporters helped stranded victims because no police officers or rescue workers were around. (Fox's Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.)''

Rivera took offense to the comment and demanded a correction be run. The Times contends that while there is no physical evidence of a nudge in the videotape, Stanley’s comment was symbolic of how pushy the media was acting. Never one to back away from the spotlight (although I’ve never seen photographic proof of him refusing to back away from the spotlight – I’m speaking metaphorically, Mr. Rivera), he has publicly threatened Stanley by saying if her name were Alexander instead of Alessandra he would fight her on 43rd Street.

He has also called her Jayson Blair in a cocktail dress. Is an off-handed comment in a critical opinion piece really akin to fabricating and plagiarizing entire stories? Are sexist remarks from established news reporter Rivera, who has won a Peabody, really tolerable? If so, the media has much bigger problems than we think.

Rivera is doing exactly what Stanley alluded to in her story. By grandstanding and making himself the story, he has detracted attention away from the real victims in the Hurricane, the people of Louisiana.

So congratulations to all the broadcast news reporters braving helicopter shootings, toxic sludge and wild roving dogs in Louisiana. You did your job well. The American public was aware of the situation as it was and rightly outraged thanks to your camerawork and on-the-scene reports. You helped reunite families and saved family pets. But perhaps when you do the inevitable story about the universities in New Orleans reopening, you can audit a journalism class. If you can walk away from Hurricane Katrina learning one thing, let it be that journalists should not report in the first person.

Wicked twists in plotlines show exciting life on 'Mars'

2005-11-30T21:54:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Daily Orange - 11/18/05

If Nancy Drew and Sam Spade had a daughter, she would probably be a lot like teenage detective Veronica Mars.
Intriguing storylines, razor-sharp wit and a talented young cast make "Veronica Mars" one of the best shows on television.
Veronica Mars (Kristin Bell) solves mysteries in the socially divided beach town of Neptune, Calif. Each episode contains clues about the main mystery of the season: What caused a bus full of her classmates to end up in the Pacific Ocean? Working out of her office in the girls' bathroom in the high school, Veronica also helps classmates solve their own mysteries for a small fee. These range from figuring out who hit a car in the school parking lot to learning why only student athletes from the poor section of town failed their drug screening test. This allows one mystery to be solved each episode, while viewers are still teased with hints about the larger, overarching crime.
"Veronica Mars" has a complicated and absorbing plotline, full of shocking twists. Last season, Veronica was inexplicably dumped by her boyfriend, her best friend was murdered and she had reason to believe her dad wasn't her birth father. But this isn't your typical high school soap opera.
In a town tensely divided between the haves and the have-nots, Veronica frequently tells viewers that nothing happens by accident. Each character has an equally complex background story, and the writers constantly build upon past episodes to weave storylines and characters together. Someone who appeared in an episode last season can easily reappear this season and be the lynchpin to solving that episode's mystery.
The dry sarcasm of the script balances out the often disturbing plots of murder, rape and incest. After telling her father about the first day back at school after summer vacation, he jokingly asks if she had any premarital sex that day. She assures him she did.
"But don't worry, Dad," she said. "I swear you're gonna like these guys."
Veronica's ex-boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring), the wise-cracking son of a movie star, is arrested on charges of murdering a member of a local motorcycle gang. Called forward in the police line-up, he smugly launches into Sally Field's Oscar Award acceptance speech.
"I'd just like to say, the other nominees are all such wonderfully gifted criminals."
In a cast made up primarily of young actors, Bell and Dohring stand out. Bell is spunky and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. She delivers her wry lines in a perfect deadpan tone. Bell also provides voiceover commentary throughout most of the show, conveying a world-weariness that would normally seem unrealistic coming from a teenager.
Dohring has the bigger challenge of making the arrogant Logan also be a sympathetic character. When Logan is being a jerk, Dohring speaks in a slow sneering tone. When Logan is vulnerable, Dohring's entire facial expression shifts to make him look scared and emotionally raw.
"Veronica Mars," which airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on UPN, is absorbing, funny and well worth investigating.

Unoriginal ideas fail to kill 'Ghost Whisperer'

2005-11-30T21:53:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Daily Orange - 11/11/05

The surprising ratings success of CBS's new program "Ghost Whisperer" proves it's not going to die anytime soon."Ghost Whisperer" takes the "I see dead people" premise of "The Sixth Sense" and turns it into a sentimental weekly television melodrama.
Despite an irritating lead actress and obvious heart-tugging tactics, "Ghost Whisperer" offers a spooky, tingle-inducing story with heart.
Cursed with a gift that allows her to communicate with the dead, Melinda Gordon, (Jennifer Love Hewitt), an antique-shop owner and newlywed, reluctantly helps earthbound spirits complete their business with the living so the spirits can cross over to the peace beyond."
Ghost Whisperer's" biggest flaw is Hewitt, a poor actress who comes off as phony and insincere. Her speech and movements are too stiff and practiced to convincingly convey a free spirit like Melinda. All of Hewitt's long, flowing dresses and the elaborate sets decorated with candelabras and velvet chaise lounges can't hide the actress' painful lack of talent.
The show's storylines are clichés, shamelessly designed to elicit the sympathy of viewers. An episode about a woman whose dead fiancé haunts her is neatly tied up when Melinda introduces her to the man who received her fiancé's heart in a transplant. A little boy who died because he disobeyed his mother refuses to move on until the mother tells him she forgives him. A missing soldier from Vietnam can cross over only after he sees his son, who was born after the soldier died, have a child of his own.
Despite the triteness of the plots, the show is surprisingly effective. It is a guilty pleasure despite, or maybe because of, such hokey storylines. It deals with death in a straightforward manner, making it a part of life instead of a macabre plot device. A spooky vibe permeates the show, but the chills come from scenes of spirituality rather than cheap scares. The positive effect of Melinda's helping the spirits cross over is what really involves the viewers' emotions. The loved ones of those left behind finally have closure as they move past the deaths that haunted them. They, and the audience, are left feeling uplifted instead of scared.
"Ghost Whisperer" is unlike any traditional ghost story, and viewers know they are being manipulated. The conclusions are never really surprising, but each week they provide a satisfying ending.

Rock hits bottom with lack of comedic material

2005-11-30T21:50:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Daily Orange - 10/28/05

The great appeal of Chris Rock is that he's an equal opportunity offender. He'll crack jokes about anyone, regardless of race, gender or class. "Everybody Hates Chris," airing Thursday nights at 8 on UPN, tries to contain Rock's edgy humor in a half-hour family-oriented comedy.
Unfortunately, the jokes that work in his stand-up routine fall flat when they are scrubbed clean for primetime.
The show is set in 1982, when Chris (Tyler James Williams) and his family move from a housing project to the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The social awkwardness facing any 13-year-old boy is compounded when his mom Rochelle (Tichina Arnold) enrolls him in the all-white Corleone Junior High. With his strict parents working hard to provide a better life for the family, Chris often finds himself stuck with more responsibility than he wants as he tries to control his younger, but taller, brother and his bratty little sister.
Rock provides voice-over narration to establish the setup for each episode. Since the show is done without a laugh track, the audience is cued when to laugh by the infliction in Rock's voice. A lot of the one-liners he provides as commentary would probably cause eruptions of laughter in a comedy special. In this context, they cause a smile at best.
When speaking about the street he lives on, Rock explains despite the presence of "hundreds of kids" on the block, there were only four fathers. Rock continues to tell the audience that "between these four dads, they had 16 jobs and worked 492 hours a week." In his stand-up, Rock would be making social commentary on dead-beat fathers. On "Everybody Hates Chris," it just seems stereotypical in the worst way.
Chris is always worried about upsetting his parents, and is scared to tell them his bike has been stolen. He imagines how his mother would punish him if she knew. "I smacked him into next week," she tells his younger siblings. "He'll be back on Tuesday." Sadly, this was the funniest line in the episode.
"Everybody Hates Chris," is nothing more than a typical family sitcom. There are running jokes in each episode about family members. Julius (Terry Crews), Chris' dad, is so cheap he knows the exact amount of food wasted. As he cleans up the breakfast plates, he picks up some scraps and says, "That's five cents' worth of bread," before popping it in his mouth. Rochelle is always quitting her temp jobs, telling her employer how many jobs her husband works, before she storms out. The show successfully conveys the love this family has for each other, but so does "Two and a Half Men."
"Everybody Hates Chris" lacks Rock's street-smart and honest humor. Cleaning up his obscenity-laced routine for television shouldn't have removed his social message.

Egomaniacal satirist broadcasts Stewart spinoff

2005-11-30T21:47:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Daily Orange - 10/21/05

Spinoffs are rarely as good as the originals. Just look at "Joey" if you need proof of that. "The Colbert Report" makes no effort to distinguish itself from its predecessor, "The Daily Show." That is why Comedy Central's satire of the political pundits on cable news channels is so easy to swallow. It's not really a spinoff of "The Daily Show," but more like an extension.

Stephen Colbert is a former correspondent (and staff writer) on "The Daily Show," best known for the segment "This Week in God," where he points out hypocrisy in organized religion. As host of "The Colbert Report," he is a reactionary, self-centered, patriotic blow-hard. To highlight his egomaniacal side, he stands in front of a portrait of himself, in which he is standing in front of a portrait of himself. He is a conglomeration of the Bill O'Reilly and Joe Scarborough types that are skewered mercilessly on "The Daily Show" for their combative commentary. As he told the audience during Monday's premiere, "If you're not scared, I'm not doing my job."

The similarities to "The Daily Show" are evident throughout the show, particularly through the slyly named segments. During "Threat Down," Colbert lists the top five threats of the day, ranging from the Avian Flu in Asia to the effect early potty training will have on the diaper industry. "The Word" focuses on a word of the day like "disappointed," which he uses to define his feelings on the Saddam Hussein trial.

There are also the familiar guest interviews with members of the media elite. Colbert's quick-witted, off-the-cuff responses to guests are by far the best part of the show.Of "Dateline NBC's" Stone Phillips' mock turtleneck, he remarked, "It's very Steve McQueen in 'Bullitt.'" When Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" told him Sunday's show is experimenting with limited advertisements, he asked, "But where will the people at Centrum Silver run their ads?"

Colbert will also continue to do the taped interview segments he did on "The Daily Show." Somehow, producers still manage to find people who don't realize the interview will be used to mock them. When Colbert interviewed the congressman from the 1st District in Georgia, he asked questions like, "Are you a Georgia peach?" and insisted that the state song, "Georgia on my Mind," was sung by Jamie Foxx, not Ray Charles.

Although Jon Stewart is not behind the large, C-shaped anchor desk with Colbert, he is an executive producer. Stewart even provides Colbert with a lead-in each night, when the two briefly exchange fake niceties during the closing moments of "The Daily Show," and viewers are given a preview of what's coming up, just like cable news channels do with their star journalists.

Fans of "The Daily Show" will enjoy seeing longtime correspondent Colbert getting the chance at his own show, even if he is just pretending to be an ultra-conservative Stewart. Soon "The Colbert Report" will need to go it alone, though, or it will become as unimportant as day-old news.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

2005-11-07T20:18:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted to my DVR (ghetto version of TiVo). Without it, how could I stomach a nauseatingly sweet 2 hour specials of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Last night's episode was about the Tom family from Northern California. This woman adopted 8 kids with disabilities, ranging from two Russian girls born without legs to a little girl who had been burned in a crib fire.
The show is guaranteed to cause tears and I'm never so willing to be manipulated to tears. Almost every episode makes me wonder where they find these people. She's a single mom raising orphans with serious orthopedic problems. And all these kids want is to have a normal life, to be able to wash dishes and cook dinner and get upstairs when it's bedtime. I'm a little jaded and cynical but I can't believe there are people THAT good.
So these lovely, charitable people are deserving of all the goodness ABC and Sears are sending their way. Aside from the stupid and antics of annoying Paul, (seriously, you want to know how to make a little kid dying from cancer smile? Stop using her illness for ratings you jerk!) the "design team" is made up of people who seem to genuinely care about these people and believe in what they are doing. Again...are people who get paid to be on-air really THAT good?
The fun part of the show starts 15 minutes before the end. When the family arrives home from their Disney World vacation they are greeted by a crowd of hundreds of cheering neighbors. Wonder where those people were before the camera crews showed up. The reaction when the family sees their new home is priceless. I can't imagine how jarring it would be to go away for a week and then come home to a place you've never seen. And to know it's yours. The tour inside is always great and truthfully, I've even started looking at the Sears website to decorate my house. The kids rooms are cheesy. The Backstreet Boy room? She's 16, by 17 she'll be over them. The book room was a good idea but c'mon, he drilled through perfectly good books to make that bed. But the kitchens and bathrooms are always amazing.
You'd think the free vacation, brand new house with brand new stuff would be enough but not for Ty. Ford delivers new cars, there's a swimming pool out back and wait for it...rip up that mortgage Mama Tom.

Welcome to the new and improved Couch Critic

2005-11-06T20:44:00.000-05:00

I tried to be good about my blog but truthfully, it wasn't interesting me, so why would it interest you. Instead, I'm going to try a different tactic. I'm just gonna write about television, like I would talk to my friends about it. That's part of the learning curve I'm going through at school. I'm trying to write these brilliant and insightful essays about why a show is great or why it sucks and instead I get nervous and stiff. I'm still going to post my articles in the Daily Orange and the critical essays I write for my independent study with Bob Thompson though. I just finished one on Laguna Beach that I'm going to give him on Tuesday. I get so nervous before I give him my essays because, well, he is the expert. He's been great though, encouraging me to just write, stream of consciousness about shows and then to go back and shape them into essays. But the Family Guy is on so it's time to log off for today.