By Scott Buckner

TV is an incestuous playground, particularly when it comes to one (or often several) TV series being spun off from another. The list of television programs doing a lot of begettin’ and begottin’ is pretty considerable, particularly once the 1970s. (Yes, Mork and Mindy was indeed a Happy Days spinoff.) While Norman Lear and Aaron Spelling were perhaps the most successful purveyors of incestuous small-screen lineage, the undisputed king of the big screen tree-without-branches during the 1960s had to be Walter Elias Disney.
This thought dawned on me during this past Saturday afternoon’s Hallmark Channel doubleheader presentation of the still-incredibly popular Disney films Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson. Go ahead – try and play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with any 1960s Disney movie and see how far off the ground you’re able to climb.

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Posted on May 22, 2007

By Don Jacobson

Rock has had seven “ages,” according to BBC Television, which has launched what seems like a pretty darn comprehensive seven-week, seven-part documentary called, appropriately, The Seven Ages of Rock, which works out to one age per week. That’s a lot to cover. Here’s how they break down the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

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Posted on May 21, 2007

By Scott Buckner

Is famous multimillionaire drag racin’ funny-car driver and confessed marital failure John Force a seething ball of anger who needs professional managing, or does the world just make him fucking nuts? That was the question anyone tuning in to back-to-back episodes of A&E’s Driving Force early Tuesday morning was left to think about.
Even though I don’t catch it anywhere near as often as I’d like, Driving Force is one of my favorite A&E shows. I started watching it last summer because I initially thought John Force was the separated-at-birth twin of whacked-out actor Gary Busey before he crashed his motorcycle while not wearing a brain bucket and ended up even more whacked out. While he’s still and all Busey-esque, Force isn’t the same sort of whack job. He’s an old-school guy who, in his judgement, had the basic misfortune of siring girls to follow in his drag-racing footsteps instead of boys. He’s had cars disintegrate around him, and he’s been on fire after plowing into concrete walls at 300 miles per hour, “but nothing could prepare me for having daughters,” he says during each program intro.

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Posted on May 17, 2007

What it Is: An ultra-light, slim vacuum cleaner.
Quote: “It cleans forwards, but it also cleans backwards!”
Cost:$40 (Apparently cheaper here.)
Shill: Young-ish, slim, British infomercial super-hunk Anthony Sullivan. What is it with these Brits in infomercials? Some sort of shill-exchange program we haven’t been told about?

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Posted on May 16, 2007

By Kathryn Ware

Gilmore Girls ends with a whimper, in character with these last two disappointing seasons. The entire town of Stars Hollow throws Rory a going away party. She’s leaving to cover the Obama campaign for an online magazine and apparently won’t be seen again for years.

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Posted on May 16, 2007

By Eric Pytel

The greatest infomercial on network TV isn’t really an infomercial at all. It’s Poker after Dark, televised on NBC after the late-night talk shows and the nightly replay of the 10 o’clock NBC 5 news. I recently came upon the show after a bout of insomnia and quickly found myself glued to the tube. It’s shown nightly (Monday-Friday) with a weekly behind-the-scenes director’s cut on Saturday in the wee hours of the morning. A director’s cut!
NBC has partnered with Full-Tilt Poker.net to show weekly themed broadcasts of no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em. In between the action, commercials run that are part noir/part campy theatrics aimed at enticing viewers to try their luck at online poker. Each episode is an hour long. It starts with six seated players on Monday and by Friday the table is narrowed to two who go head-to-head until there is a victor. It’s an imaginative – and winning – formula.

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Posted on May 15, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Who knew Todd Bridges could act? And that I would learn this seeing something I thought I’d never see on TV – black people on Little House on the Prairie? And that I would actually watch an entire episode of LHOTP, as I assume fans call it? Holy crap was it good.

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Posted on May 14, 2007

By Kathryn Ware

If America Ferrera wasn’t such a magnetic rock holding Ugly Betty together, this show would run the real risk of Will-and-Gracing itself with a wicked cast of supporting actors that outshines the leads. Marc (Michael Urie) and Amanda (Becki Newton) steal every scene they’re in.
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Memo to Ask.com’s ad agency: Is it really necessary to have the father-son conversation about search engine algorithms happen while the oh-so-smug daddy sits in the tub? At least they didn’t throw Jeeves into the mix too.
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Funtivities and chicken heads! It’s Beach Day at The Office everyone! Thinking he’s up for promotion, Michael uses an office outing to “scenic Lake Scranton” to choose his successor, complete with Survivor-esque egg races, a hot dog eating contest, and walking on hot coals. Wrap your mind around your feet.
(Note to self: Don’t watch while eating Cocoa Puffs for dinner. It’s too hard to hear the dialogue over the crunching.)

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Posted on May 11, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I don’t care what anyone says, TV brings you the world. It’s not always pretty; in fact, rarely so. But there’s hardly a better medium to capture the culture right now than a day and night of television, from Rosie O’Donnell on The View and the multiple layers of The Price Is Right (Bob Barker’s longevity, the gaming of household consumerism, the total melding of editorial and advertising) to the voyeurism and moral judgements of Judge Judy and Dr. Phil to the latest news out of Iraq bumping up against reruns of M*A*S*H.
And that was just yesterday.

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Posted on May 10, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

Tuned into the Cubs game last night in the bottom of the 7th inning to find that REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin was in the booth with Len & Bob. Whoa! Are you telling me I missed Kevin Cronin singing the national anthem?
Or, as Cronin would do it, sing-ging the na-shun-a-ela an-a-them-a . . .
You have to understand that it’s the considered opinion of a few of us that REO’s “You Get What You Play For” is the greatest live album of all time, no matter what sins the band went on to commit.

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Posted on May 9, 2007