By Scott Buckner

For a brief moment Wednesday night, I thought about tuning into American Idol on Fox, but I would have just spent the hour planning an Internet petition drive supporting the euthanasia of Paula Abdul. A worthwhile project indeed, but something like that involves far more effort than I’m interested in. So I went with Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, a show which manages to magically return from the dead from time to time on lower-budget stations like WPWR/Channel 50.
As the program demonstrated, the ingenuity involved in pulling off some of magic’s more amazing illusions can be incredibly simple, so it’s no wonder why the magician community abides by the same code of silence still held sacred by tradition-minded cops and members of organized crime. That’s why Magic’s Biggest Secrets is hosted by someone known only as The Masked Magician, an individual clad in black and a full-head latex mask to hide his (or her) true identity. What might drive a magician to the depths of personal discontent responsible for Magic’s Biggest Secrets is less a mystery than what might drive a magician to show up in a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask that even Ed Wood would consider cheap and tawdry. When Mexican lucha libre wrestlers stuffed sausage-like into spandex go investing more thought into wardrobe, there are some things even Ed Wood would be justified bitching about.
Yet, it probably hasn’t occurred to the magician community that even if Jesus Himself showed up on a rerun-heavy commercial channel like WPWR directly opposite American Idol to give away the secret of turning piss into gold, the secret would still be safe from the world. (Then again, Jesus never went around sawing women in half or skewering them with big Knights of Columbus swords without a single drop of blood turning up on the blade, so there.)

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Posted on April 24, 2008

By Kathryn Ware

Our tribute to the 35th anniversary of the amazing debut season of Maude comes to an end.
*
Season 1, Episode 22
Episode Title: Maude’s Night Out
Original airdate: 20 March 1973
Plot: Maude enters the bedroom to wake her napping husband Walter. She’s wearing a pink and orange floral dressing gown and carries a martini in each hand. They have just 30 minutes to dress before they need to be at Joanna and Cliff Naylor’s party.
Walter is a crab-ass from the minute he gets up. The light’s too bright. He hates rushing to a party. Maude’s pantyhose have left a puddle in the middle of the bathroom floor. The tube of toothpaste is empty! Where’s his shaving cream! And why isn’t it in the same place it always is!! AND WHY IS THERE ALWAYS A PUDDLE OF WATER IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SOAP DISH?!! (I’m thinking, Walter, please, drink your martini already. And while you’re at it, have Maude’s too.)
Maude tries to snap Walter out of his mood. “Honey, we’re going to a party tonight, now let’s be in a party mood.” She heads off to the closet to choose her dress while singing that classic pre-party, start-me-up tune “Tip-Toe Through The Tulips.”

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Posted on April 24, 2008

By Julia Gray

One of the advantages of working from home is the amount of television I get to watch. Granted, most of the shows I watch are news-oriented, but even those can grow tiresome and I need an hour or so of mindless crap to keep me from going bat-shit crazy. What I’ve noticed with some of these programs is the more lowbrow the show, the more lowbrow the ads. Here are just a few samples of what I’ve seen that have caused my jaw to hit the floor.
The PedEgg. This is just plain gross. It’s an ergonomically shaped mini egg-shaped cheese grater for your calloused, nasty feet. The magic of the PedEgg are the micro-files that are strong enough to scrape away those heinous calluses on your feet, but not actually slice your feet in half. The scrapings are conveniently collected in the egg-shaped capsule for easy disposal into the garbage can or on top of penne arrabiata. Whatever floats your boat. Either way, your feet will look better for sandal season and, if you’re like me, you’ll never eat grated Parmesan cheese again after seeing this commercial.

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Posted on April 22, 2008

By Daniel Strauss

Cultural historians will look back on this decade as a time of extreme paranoia in American culture, a time when the very specter of our own shadow sparks rabid paranoia. Why wouldn’t they, considering shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost, which wreak suspicion and mystery? Both shows are hot-shit right now. What’s more, both shows have a serious philosophical layer to them. Common hot topics include torture (the easy way to getting a “it’s actually a really deep show” response from viewers and critics), the value of democracy, and whether the peaceful olive branch or the belligerent sword is more effective.

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Posted on April 21, 2008

By Scott Buckner

I’m not sure what did it last night: Flavor Flav’s really awful new sitcom Under One Roof on WPWR/Channel 50 or ABC-TV’s presentation of the Democratic debate, which by this hour has been denoted as a tourist attraction on every new Philadelphia city map as “The Twenty-First Gigantamous Mountain of Droning Bullshit.” Either way, I found myself afterward developing an odd affection for ABC’s Men In Trees.
Make no mistake: Men in Trees has nothing at all to do with men. Or trees. Or men abandoned by their women to figure out how to live in trees without bar soap or household cleaning services. But still.
This is a show that could be easily described as Northern Exposure meets Thirtysomething, except with an ensemble cast that, for the most part, is easily more forgettable. I’m not sure why, but ABC seems hellbent on finding a way to resurrect the spirit – if not the ghost – of its groundbreaking whinefest Thirtysomething. Yet, with Men In Trees, the network has managed to do just that without making us also think of of that whiny clusterfuck called What About Brian (Motto: “A series so bad we didn’t even bother to tack a question mark onto its name.”) However, the basic difference between Thirtysomething and Men in Trees is that I didn’t spend a whole hour last night just wanting slap the whiny hell out of everyone.
Plus, there are moments in Men In Trees that make you at least chuckle. Thirtysomething never made you chuckle. It just made you depressed over the brick walls decent marriages and hookups smack up against when people with everything they’ve ever wanted in life end up spending every waking moment being far too unsatisfied and introspective for their own fucking good.

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Posted on April 17, 2008

By Kathryn Ware

Our tribute to the 35th anniversary of the debut of Maude continues.
*
Season 1, Episode 21
Episode Title: The Perfect Marriage
Original airdate: 13 March 1973
Plot: The Findlays and their friends Vivian and Chuck are fresh off a two-week vacation in Jamaica and judging from the way they’re carousing, I’d say the group has been sipping rum and coconut the entire trip home. They roll through the door singing a Calypso tune to the beat of Maude’s maracas (hey, now!). Each couple wears coordinating clothing: a long dress with big frilly hem for the wife, a sport shirt for the husband in a matching island print, and hats woven out of dried palm fronds for all. I pity anyone who had to sit next to this bunch on the plane ride home.
“Everybody!” cries Maude and they all sing, “Mathilda – chicky, chicky, boom, boom – Mathilda – chicky, chicky, boom, boom – Mathilda, she take me money and run Venezuela!” while Chuck bangs on a miniature steel drum and Walter leads a dance line around the living room, ending with the Limbo. The vacation’s over when Walter begins his Harry Belafonte impersonation for the umpteenth time, unbuttoning his shirt down to the navel and belting out “Daaaaaay-o, daaaaay-o” to which Maude says, “Walter, we have all seen your belly button. Just put it away.”

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Posted on April 16, 2008

By Julia Gray

When O.J. Simpson was acquitted of butchering his ex-wife and her friend back in 1995, I thought I had seen the last of O.J.’s golf buddy and legal “Dream Team” member Robert Kardashian. But no. Thirteen years later, the Kardashian name is bigger than ever – even though daddy Kardashian died in 2003. For the Kardashian name is now part of reality TV renown.
That’s right – Keeping Up With The Kardashians are those Kardashians, spawned from that guy.
Robert Kardashian, then, will not only be remembered for being part of one of the most notorious criminal defense teams ever, but for his three TV reality daughters: Kim, Kourtney and Khloe (all are spelled correctly).

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Posted on April 14, 2008

By Scott Buckner

I could have spent Wednesday night tuning into the Save Humanity Edition of American Idol, but as far as I’m concerned, no celebrity has ever been able parlay heartstrings into purse strings like actress Sally Struthers. These days, Sally is involved in more profitable, actual acting work on the CBS sitcom Still Standing – one of the funniest shows still standing today – so I wasn’t in the mood for amateurs no matter how noble the cause.
So I went instead with Steve Guttenberg as a hack movie director on NBC’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent trying to convince the entire New York City police force to track down whatever criminal mastermind was responsible for his facelift gone terribly wrong, and the huge tuft of hair growing under his lower lip like a giant black caterpillar in search of something green and leafy.
It turned out to be one of those “CI” episodes featuring Chris Noth instead of Vincent D’Onofrio, who I like to call Sideways Guy because of the way he freaks out skels and other social misfits into spilling the beans by cornering them in the interview room and using that halting, unsettling vocal cadence of his while invading their personal space bent sideways at the waist. As much as I like D’Onofrio’s Detective Bobby Goren to Noth’s Detective Mike Logan better, the reworked theme song for last night’s “CI” is dramatic enough to scare you into a major heart attack if you’re sitting too close to your TV set and not paying attention when it begins.

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Posted on April 10, 2008

By Kathryn Ware

Our tribute to the 35th anniversary of the debut of Maude continues.
*
Season 1, Episode 20
Episode Title: Maude’s Good Deed
Original airdate: 6 March 1973
Plot: A visit from Maude’s high school chum has the two women hugging and giggling like schoolgirls as they reminisce about the good old days, when they were “young and dinosaurs ruled the Earth.” Maude and Jane spend the first five minutes of the episode singing old sorority songs. “Oh how we danced on the night we were wed,” they duet. “We danced and we danced ’cause the room had no bed.” Maude’s daughter Carol declares they’re “a riot.” I suspect someone’s in the kitchen sneaking sherry from the beef stroganoff Jane is cooking for dinner.
Jane and Maude have another reason for carrying on like teenagers. Jane has been dating Maude’s next-door neighbor Arthur for three whole days and things are going great! Maude seems awfully happy that her good friend is seeing Arthur, a man she usually can’t stand, but then again, he is a doctor. As Maude and Jane used to say back in the day, “hubba hubba.”

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Posted on April 9, 2008

By Scott Buckner

There are few things on Tuesday night commercial TV interesting enough to peel me away from WPWR’s airing of Jail, a program that picks up where Cops leaves off within the criminal justice chain-of-custody food chain. That’s why I was both glad and dismayed to see this week’s return of Hell’s Kitchen to Fox.
On one hand, I’m glad because Gordon Ramsay is great TV, and his Kitchen Disasters show – which tends to pop up during the Hell off-season – isn’t as engaging because Ramsay spends nowhere near as much time screaming at everyone around, kicking anything not bolted down, and hurling ill-treated food around the room in ways nobody originally intended food to be treated. This guy replaces entire kitchens and table services for dimwit mom-and-pop restaurant owners whose business plans amount to little more than “running my business into the ground,” for Chrissakes.
Yet, on the other hand, I’m dismayed because short of Ramsay zapping cheftestants in the groin with a cattle prod, Hell has become predictable. Not so for Jail, where you never know whether the next guest of the county escorted under their own power or carried in hogtied will be a cooperative check kiter, an entertaining public intoxicant, or a rabid, frothing tweaker speaking in tongues. For my entertainment dollar, you’ve made your mark when you’ve figured out endless ways to marry criminal behavior, rage, personal failure, untreated mental illness, un/underemployment, grinding hopelessness, marital discontent, illegal weaponry, domestic unrest, and unchecked substance abuse in less than 60 minutes.

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Posted on April 3, 2008