My TV Report Card

We’re  just beginning to enter that vast TV wasteland known as “holiday programming.”  For some reason,  the networks seem to believe that at this time of year, when the kids will soon be out of school and people will be taking vacation time, no one will be watching TV.  It makes no sense to me!  Nonetheless, one by one, all the regular shows will revert to reruns and the schedule will be padded with holiday specials and any old rejects that had been gathering dust in the bottom of some drawer.

So, I thought this would be a good time for me to compile a report card of sorts for some shows I’ve watched up till now.  Some are old favorites and some are new this year.

House = A- Since House came out of the mental institution, I’ve been pleased to see his character evolve in a believable way.  Those new oh-so-tiny touches of humanness have given him a vulnerability that’s touching.  I gave this show a minus because we had to wait so long to get the team of Thirteen and Taub back.

Castle & The Mentalist = A I put these two shows together because they basically have the same concept.  Both men act as consultants with a team of detectives, Castle as a mystery writer, Patrick Jane as a psychic/mentalist.  In both shows the team is led by a woman and each team consists of enjoyable characters.  The only difference is that Patrick’s family was murdered, thus creating his motivation, while Castle has a delightful mother and daughter.  Both of these shows are so fun to watch – filled with excitement, sexual tension and enough witty banter to fill an hour.  If you’re at a loss for something to watch in the next couple of weeks, try to catch a rerun of either of these shows.  You won’t be disappointed.

The Good Wife = B+ When this show was announced, I couldn’t see how a show could center around a woman whose husband was a politician who went to prison for corruption after being caught in a sex scandal.  Turns out, the show is really about his wife re-entering the workplace as an attorney.  Back when Julianna Margulies was in the show E.R., I wasn’t particularly fond of her.  But in this show, I find her fascinating.  The plots of the stories are good, as are the other cast members.  This is definitely worth a watch!

Fringe = A I wrote a post about this show when it started last year, and I’m happy to report it has maintained its suspense and wonderful “grossness!”  Although Olivia and Peter are the main male and female leads, it is Walter, the mad scientist who, judging from what I’ve seen on the Internet, has won the public’s heart.  Love this show!

FlashForward = A- This is a new show this year.  It’s about how everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds, and sees their life 6 months into the future.  This show has been like a flower unfolding.  It’s compelling because we continue to see what different people “saw” during their blackout.  Some visions are wonderful while others are scary.  I absolutely can’t wait for it to return in January!

Grey’s Anatomy = B+ This show is an oldie but goody, and kind of a secret indulgence of mine.  It always makes me laugh and then cry at least once per episode.  I marked it down because they didn’t kill off the abominable Izzy, played by the obnoxious Katherine Heigl when they had a chance.  On the plus side, there are two couples, Christina and Owen and Mark and Lexi who have really given this show a boost.  Even if you’ve never watched it, it’s worth giving a try.

Okay, well, I’ve given you some pretty good stuff to fill in your TV gaps during the holidays.  As for me, I’ve still got a one of my reality shows left to take refuge in – Survivor.  Do  you have any really good programs I’ve missed?  I’d love to hear about them!

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Juggling Fall TV

Finally!  The fall TV season is beginning, with some brand-new shows premiering in the next several weeks and our old favorites finally back with fresh episodes.  I’ve always liked waiting to see how the new line up turns out.  But now that I’ve seen the schedule, there’s one thing I have to ask:  Why do they always put all the good shows on at the same time?

Take Mondays, for example.  At 7:00 p.m. central time, is “Dancing With The Stars” opposite “House.”  Now, how am I supposed to pick one?  With “Dancing” you need to start out from Day One and get to know which celebrities are really as nice as they seem and which are egotistical blowhards.  However, when we last saw “House,” he had committed himself to a mental hospital.  He needs me to be there! I’m definitely going to have to record one…

Tuesday, it’s the same thing.  A new show “V,” based on an old science fiction mini-series I loved, (where aliens who look like us, turn out to be lizards under the skin) is up against “So You Think You Can Dance.”  Decisions, decisions!  Okay, maybe I’ll watch all the dramas and tape all the dancing.

Wednesday is another new show I’d like to try, “Mercy,” (about a cool nurse,) at the same time as “America’s Next Top Model,” which I can’t miss.  (Tyra would be so put out!)

But for me, the real torture is Thursdays.  At 7:00 is the new hot show, “Flash Forward” against “Survivor” against “Bones” against “The Vampire Diaries.”  Fortunately, I saw “Diaries”  last week, so I feel I can safely drop it.  While it wasn’t bad, I felt it was aimed at a much younger demographic than mine.  But still, the choice will be tough.  Eight o’clock is the killer for me.  There’s  “Fringe,” which, as you know, I love, love love,

versus “Grey’s Anatomy” which I also love, love, love.

What’s THAT about?  It just isn’t fair, considering there are whole other nights and time slots with nothing but stinky programs.  But, I suppose people who watch such shows as “Ugly Betty,” “Medium” and “Ghost Whisperer” would beg to differ with me, but I mean, really!

Well, it will be fun to see what new shows hold up and which ones sink to the bottom faster than a stool pigeon in a cement overcoat.

Meanwhile I’m gathering up some aspirin, furniture polish and ice packs.  My poor soon-to-be-overworked DVD recorder is going to need some TLC!

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“Dating in the Dark” Finale

Near the first of the month, I wrote this post on the new show “Dating in the Dark.”  To briefly recap the premise for those of you who didn’t read it, three men and three women are segregated in a house and come together only in a common room that is pitch black.  We see the action via infra-red cameras, as they get to know each other on the basis of personality, smell, voice, and touch.  At the end, they each get to choose the one person they’d like to see in the light.  The “reveal” is only about 10 seconds long, after which they go away and decide if they want to meet on the balcony, indicating they’d like to pursue the relationship or go out the front door and leave the show.

I’ve seen every episode and the series has continued to intrigue me, however, I have an admission to make.  As the men talked among themselves about what kinds of women they were attracted to (hot) and the women fretted that they wouldn’t be pretty enough, I pretty much thought I saw the handwriting on the wall.  I could foresee a lot of women sitting by their lonesome out on that balcony while the men hustled out the front door in search of some centerfold babe.  Unfortunately…I was so wrong!

As the couples spent hours in the dark room, making admissions, telling life stories, and responding to each other with understanding, I saw the men start to rethink their strategies and consider the possibility of dating someone based on the bond that was being created.  The women gave lip service to the same idea…until they got to the reveal.  I think so many women had built up such high expectations of what their favored guy would look like that, when he didn’t measure up, they ran for the hills!  Episode after episode I saw truly attractive men go out on the balcony to meet women who were less than gorgeous, but who possessed great personalities (or so we thought) or a quirky lovability.  In one episode, all three women went for this guy.  After meeting and getting to know him in the dark, they were ready to scratch each other’s eyes out to win his favor.  Then, after the reveal, every single one of them walked out.  Why?  Because he looked too young.  What?  It wasn’t as if they were all middle-aged women or anything.  No,  what it was was – they were all too shallow.  This kind of thing happened throughout the show, much more often with the women than the men.  It made me disappointed in my own sex.

To be honest, I’ve been known to refuse a date with someone because I could “sense” that we wouldn’t have chemistry and I believe chemistry IS important.  But – and this is a big “but,” if I had gotten to know a man first without seeing what he looked like and was totally enchanted by everything I had found out, I’d like to think I would at least have the courage to give him a chance! These women gave all of us a bad name.

I sincerely hope ABC renews this show next year because it is such a fascinating sociological experiment and the hour just flies by.  But, if they do, I hope they can come up with some women who realize that beauty is truly… just skin deep.

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Two Cool Shows

When I first saw the previews for the new show “Dating in the Dark,” I thought, “you’ve got to be kidding me!”  The premise represents a social experiment to discover the answer to the age-old question, “Is Love Blind?”  Three men and three women enter a huge house and are segregated in separate wings.  Their only contact is in a totally dark (as in, you can’t see your hand in front of your face,) room.  We, the audience get to observe them by infrared cameras.

They start out on a group date in which they introduce themselves and have to glean information by virtue of asking questions and listening to voices.  After that, they have a series of one-on-one dates with people they have chosen or who have chosen them.  At one point, they are told who their perfect match should be, based on their profiles and answers to questionnaires.  This all ultimately leads to them choosing whom they’d like to see in the light of day.

That’s one of my favorite parts because they are both standing in the dark room and are forbidden from saying anything.  All of a sudden, the light comes on over one of them for about thirty seconds and the one in the dark just studies them.  Then the other is revealed.  After that, they have to decide if they want to pursue continuing to get to know that person or be on their way.  That scene takes place with one person out on the balcony, waiting to hear one of two doors open.  If it’s the front door of the house, they can look down and see the person walking away with their luggage.  If it’s the balcony door, both parties jump for joy and leave in a limousine, presumably to pursue a possible relationship.

Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly said, “The gimmick is hokey, but beneath it lies a surprisingly untrashy reality show that actually sheds some light on the dating game.”  I agree.  Most of the participants seem genuinely sincere about finding someone who is concerned with more than looks.  Some, who have been really touched and impressed by the long conversations in the dark, discover, to their dismay, that they really are too shallow to rise above physical appearance.  Others seem excited to pursue getting to know each other.  What I like about the show is that it seems much more natural than most reality shows.  The producers don’t seem to be “pulling the strings” to make the story turn out the way they want.  Just this Monday there was an episode where all three women were desperately attracted to the same guy…in the dark.  In the end, however, he ended up on the balcony watching all three women walk away. I find the whole process fascinating.  You might, too.  It’s on Monday nights at 9/8c time.

The other show, “Defying Gravity,” I looked forward with the breathless anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.  If you’ve read this blog much, you’ll know I LOVE science fiction!  This is a show about eight astronauts, four men and four women, who are on a six year mission to seven planets across the solar system.  Everything they do is monitored and broadcast back to earth in the form of a documentary.  Their first stop will be Venus.  Throughout the story, they occasionally have flashbacks, showing how a particular character got to where they are now.

There are some long-term relationships and new ones building between the astronauts themselves and them and people back at mission control.  In the pilot, two astronauts exhibited heart problems after take off and had to be replaced by two Mars veterans down on earth, one the husband of the woman who seems to be in charge.  There was another part in which a woman was testing the Jupiter space suit and got blasted out into space, held only by a tether.  The suit turned out to have a leak and the astronauts had to get her in before she suffered brain damage.  Very exciting stuff!  All this alone would be enough to make this a good show in my book.  But that is far from all!

Apparently, the mission isn’t what the astronauts thought it would be, but the powers-that-be have chosen not to tell any of them except the captain until they reach Venus.  Also, we’ve been given the hint that the people on earth aren’t really controlling this mission.  The woman in charge tells her husband, who happens to be the captain, “It has chosen you, just as it has chosen me.”  She then instructs him to go to storage pod 4 where I’m thinking “It” is!  Okay, adventure, drama, romance and, let’s face it, “It” just has to be an alien – WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT THIS SHOW? By the end of the two-hour pilot, I was so revved that I was jumping around doing Snoopy’s “happy dance!”  But that’s just me.  I can’t imagine someone not getting hooked by this program.  If you want to give it a try, it’s on at 10/9C on Sunday nights.  I don’t think you’ll be sorry.  As for me, at 9:00 on Sunday nights, I won’t be answering the phone!

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Peeing Away A Fortune

Excuse me while I cry, but I’m still reeling over Sunday’s episode of “The Amazing Race,” the Emmy-winning reality show in which sixteen two-person teams complete in a race around the world for a million dollars. 

I’m a huge fan of this show, having watched it from the beginning, and I always winnow down the teams, until I find the one I’m going to pull for.  This year it was Lakisha and Jen, a sister team.  On Sunday, we were down to four teams left, out of which one would be eliminated and three would go on to the finale in a race for the million dollars.  I wanted “my girls” to be in that final three because, in my opinion, they were the most likable of the remaining teams.

At first it didn’t look good.  They were the last team to start out and they had to play catch-up, which they certainly did.  They did a challenge in which they had to dress up in Kabuki costumes and put the traditional make-up on each other.  They stayed so focused that they pulled ahead of the mother and son team who, in my opinion have become very nasty and negative toward my team! They ran for their next clue, only to discover they had been “U-turned” by the brother and sister team of Victor and Tammy, who already had the advantage of being Chinese in China where this took place.  A “U-turn” means that, instead of just choosing between two challenges, the “U-turned” team has to do both!   So now they had to go back to a Chinese restaurant, take a table full of orders in Chinese and convey them to the chef, in Chinese!  I thought they were goners for sure!  But they persevered and finally earned their next clue, still ahead of one team, a pair of redheaded cheerleaders, one of whom is the most “Ugly American” imaginable.

Their final challenge was for one member to eat a plateful of Chinese delicacies consisting of larvae, scorpions and starfish.  Jen, the little sister volunteered and primarily choked it all down with four bottles of water.  While they were there, the cheerleaders showed up, and one of them started chowing down like a starving farmhand who has been plowing the fields all day.  I was getting SO NERVOUS…

Jen and Lakisha finished the challenge just minutes ahead of the other team, grabbed a cab and headed toward the pit stop, which was the end of this leg of the race.  I was sitting there cheering like a maniac.  They were going to make it!  Ya-hoo!  In the cab, Jen complained that she had to pee so bad, but I thought nothing of it because I knew that after they hit the mat, and secured their place in the finals, she’d have all the time in the world to pee.

The cab arrives.  They jump out and start running…but, WAIT!  Instead of running to Phil, the host, they detour to the Porta-Potties, where Jen ducks into one.  HUH? Did I mention that the other team was only seconds behind them? I believe I yelled, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” so loudly that my whole neighborhood heard it!  I was stunned.  My almost lifeless body hit the floor, as the hateful cheerleaders pulled ahead, hit the mat, and secured a place in the final three.  I have never seen a team do something so stupid.  And after all the support and encouragement I’ve given them!  I’m still numb.

So, just for the record, if I’m ever in a race, heading for the finish line and feel like I have to go to the bathroom, let it be known I won’t hesitate to pee my panties in a New York minute!  No sirree!  Pee-pee-pee!

After all, a MILLION DOLLARS will buy a whole lot of detergent!

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