GernLog

While perusing the Digital Bits[1] this morning, I came across this cover for the upcoming release of Caligula on DVD:

I had to wonder... when did Gob Bluth start appearing in psuedo-historical porno epics?

[1] Seriously, is there another entertainment site out there with worse design? They still have the same ugly-ass homepage they did in 1998. It's like I accidentally surfed onto some 13-year-old's Hello Kitty Compuserv site. (That said, would you care to come over and check out my glass house?.)

Labels: arresteddevelopment, TV

Lately, I've been weaning myself off of TV. I used to watch it damn near constantly when I lived alone, but with a girlfriend and now wife in the house with me, not to mention a house to maintain, writing projects to tackle, and cats to entertain, who has the time?

Mostly, though, nothing from this year's crop has caught my eye. The Bionic Woman caught my eye (in that obnoxious "The Twenty" that Regal runs before their movies) only because they seemed intent on making Michelle Ryan run around in tight, wet clothes for most of the preview. What else? I've heard rumblings about Reaper, and I used to be quite the Kevin Smith fan (he lost me around Dogma, honestly, although Clerks II was a nice return to form). But apart from those two, I know next to nothing about the upcoming offerings, I and I keep up on a lot of entertainment media.

So, I'm going to scan through the Zap2It Fall TV Guide and see what, if anything, catches my eye. Networks, take note.

First, NBC:

• Chuck: Cute premise, but McG gives me hives. I've always thought Sarah Lancaster was cute, in that "too damn attractive, no personality" cheerleader way.
  
• Journeyman: Lord knows I'm a sucker for time travel stories. I might give it an episode, but this looks to be a Lost-type exercise in drawing out plot revelations over five years. I'm already three years into Lost, so I'm more inclined to see that one through to the end than add another.
  
• Life: Another Damn Cop Show (ADCS) with a cute gimmick, which means it may as well be Cop Rock.
• The IT Crowd: The original is one of those Brit shows on my ever-expanding list of "ones I need to watch" (Shannon just added The Mighty Boosh this week, bringing the list to an even thousand). Graham Linehan (Zap2It hilariously credits him as "Graham Lineman") has my semi-eternal allegiance for co-creating Black Books, and Richard Ayode gets major credit for being Garth Marenghi's sidekick Dean Learner. And Joel McHale is nicely Kilbornian (that simultaneously engaging and repellant combination of smarm and witty sarcasm) on The Soup. Still, the original is pretty broad, and regardless of the success of The Office, Americans don't have the best track record with importing Britcoms.
• Lipstick Jungle: Um, no. I'm happy to let the wife watch it, though, if it means she'll stop watching endless Sex in the City repeats.
• World Moves: I refuse to watch "reality" TV. If I wanted to watch "real" people be petty and self-centered, I'd go somewhere and interact with them.
  

CBS:

• The Big Bang: For people who think Two and a Half Men is too hard to follow, apparently.
• Cane: I get the feeling 90% of the episodes will end with Jimmy Smits looking out a window, with a pensive look. I would only watch this if Nestor Carbonell will don his Batmanuel costume on a regular basis. (Wait, did I just read that Carbonell is going to be in The Dark Knight? That's awesome.)
  
• Kid Nation: See World Moves above.
• Moonlight: Angel without the sense of humor. Or Charisma Carpenter. So, you know, no.
• Viva Laughlin: A reality show about Uncle Joey's wife? Oh, sorry. That's Loughlin. Still, not terrifically interested.
• Swingtown: A show about wife-swapping? With the guy from Coupling (the good, British one)? On... CBS? I get the feeling that this will wind up being Thirtysomething with kinkier sex.

ABC:

• Big Shots: Titus was funny, and Josh Malina has a lot of goodwill from SportsNight, but the description ("Four top executives have the world at their fingertips -- and all the same problem us working stiffs have: fidelity, fractured relationships with exes and kids, power grabs at the office.") sounds like Thirtysomething again. Or Love Monkey without the guy from Ed. (God, I miss Ed. Where are the DVDs, dammit?)
  
• Carpoolers: Without seeing any of the show (I said this was preliminary opinions, dammit), the title alone gives me visions of, I don't know, Yes Dear. But it was created by a Kids in the Hall alum, so it may have potential.
• Cashmere Mafia: Jeez, the creators of Sex in the City should sue. Except they're producing this one. Same comments from Lipstick Mafia apply here.
• Cavemen: I think it was Abe Lincoln who said, "That show gave me the worst headache."
• Dirty Sexy Money: Why doesn't anyone know how to use punctuation anymore? Anyway, this looks like The Firm: The Series. Despite Peter Krause (same SportsNight goodwill applies to him as to Josh Malina), I don't think I'm interested, sorry. No matter how you look at it, giving up an hour of your life to watch people be angsty and mean each week is rarely worth the time.
• Private Practice: Regardless of what all the women in America say, Grey's Anatomy sucks eggs. (As one friend put it, "It's Felicity in hospital scrubs.") This will, too. In ten years, kids will laugh at their parents for having watched it.
• Pushing Daisies: Okay, I take it back. I have heard good buzz on one show, albeit just a little. This sounds interesting and original. (Not always a formula for TV success, though.) I might give it a shot.
  
• Samantha Who? The plot summary sounds like Regarding Henry, only as a half-hour sitcom. I'll pass.
• Women's Murder Club: This would be a lot more interesting if the women killed people instead of solved crimes. The plot description sounds like Sex in the City crossed with Law & Order. (Where did all the SitC ripoffs come from all of a sudden? Didn't that show end three years ago?) Reminds me of the old joke: Take two, totally different occupations and add the phrase "They're detectives!" to the end. "She's an obese nun from the future, he's a deaf-mute half-man, half-poodle. They're detectives!" (I'd watch that.)
• Eli Stone: Sounds like a genuinely weird take on Joan of Arcadia. It has "the chick from Species (or, as she's known to absolutely no one, Natasha Hentsridge), though, so it might be worth watching to see if she puts on the occasional bikini.
• Miss/Guided: I don't do shows with punny titles. Doesn't Brooke Burns look like she was hatched from a pod?
• Oprah's Big Give: You get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car! And I get a headache!

Fox:

• Back to You: The ads give the serious impression of yet another schticky sitcom. Don't care.
• K-Ville: The Zap2It page references the (joke) Simpsons spinoff Chief Wiggum: PI. 'Nuff said.
• Kitchen Nightmares: Shouldn't this be on the Food Network where I can safely ignore it?
• Nashville: Do I look like a 13-year-old girl without access to to MTV to you?
• The Next Great American Band: Well, I guess having bands of actual musicians is an improvement over the obnoxious oversinging contest that is American Idol, but it's still reality TV, and most likely music I would hate anyway. So, no.
• Canterbury's Law: Yet Another Lawyer Show (YALS). People watching TV outside of this country must think we're all doctors, lawyers, cops, or budding singers.
• New Amsterdam: Yet Another Immortal-Who-Solves-Crimes Show.
• The Return of Jezebel James: Parker Posey, on TV? Interesting. Not interesting enough to watch, but still interesting. It's another Amy Sherman-Palladino show, which means two hours of dialogue packed into an hour. It will be mildly clever, but you will end up hating yourself for watching it.
  
• The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Anything Terminator without James Cameron, in all his pompous glory, is basically pointless.
• Unhitched: Thirtysomething as a comedy. Who would have thought that, twenty years on, that show would be the most influential thing on TV? After Sex in the City, of course.

Before I do The CW, I would like to point out that they canceled Veronica Mars, one of the better-written shows on TV recently, to put on a show about singing strippers. And not even real strippers, but the lame kind that don't actually get all the way naked. Admittedly, a show about singing hookers has some potential (America's Next Singing Whore I might actually watch), but the Pussycat Dolls show sucked, and I didn't even have to watch it to know that. So I'm going to mark any shows on the network down by several points from the get-go. They would have to resurrect Arrested Development to win back my goodwill at this point.

Anyway...

• Aliens in America: A show about a Pakistani Muslim attempting to integrate into American culture could be a truly groundbreaking show about national identity and all that crap, but most likely it will center on easy jokes about strange headgear and McDonald's.
  
• CW Now: Fuck off.
• Gossip Girl: The Veronica Mars connection has me intrigued, but it looks like a fictional version of those awful MTV reality shows where spoiled brats cheat on their boyfriends. It would only be worth watching if they took a page from Heathers and incorporated the occasional ironic murder, and even then I would probably still rather just watch Heathers again.
  
• Life is Wild: 7th Heaven with lions? Bite me, CW.
  
• Online Nation: I said fuck off.
• Reaper: Well, there you go. I might actually watch this.
• Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants: I swear to God, I'm going to hit you.
• Farmer Wants a Wife: Christ, if you would have told me Survivor was going to spawn all this bullshit, I would have spent my youth inventing a time machine so I could go back and smother Mark Burnett in his cradle.

That's it for the networks. Fortunately, we still have cable, and the few remaining good shows that weren't axed by overzealous network executives between heaping helpings of cocaine.

Labels: TV