By Scott Buckner

I can’t think of anyone who looks forward to being awake during that early morning purgatory that bridges Friday night and Saturday morning – or Saturday night and Sunday morning – unless there’s some sort activity that calls for a bunch of clothing to be strewn recklessly about someone’s bedroom floor. However, occasions do arise when you end up spending Purgatory Time by yourself with whatever home shopping program WCPX-TV/Channel 38 likes to air in the wee weekend hours for the benefit of insomniacs and drunks with a hankering to buy stuff.

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Posted on December 11, 2008

By The Beachwood Blago TV Affairs Desk

1. Is Everything A Lie Down Here?

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Posted on December 9, 2008

By Scott Buckner

(Part 1.)
Over the years, we’ve learned to expect certain things from reality-based TV. That’s why I kept waiting for the uber-rich in the two-part premiere of Fox-TV’s The Secret Millionaire to turn out to be the love spawn of Leona Helmsley and Ebeneezer Scrooge. The TV landscape is loaded with enough people transformed by wealth and privilege into spoiled, insufferable pricks that you’d expect this show’s secret millionaires to wake up on Day Three yelling, “Screw the poor! I’m not going to spend one more goddamn night feeling things scurry across my legs in my sleep!”

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Posted on December 8, 2008

By Scott Buckner

There’s a point in the Christmas-time film Trading Places where Billy Ray Valentine turns to Louis Winthorp III and says, “You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.” That’s sort of the idea behind each hour-long episode of Fox-TV’s new reality-based program, The Secret Millionaire, which premiered this week with back-to-back episodes
I say it’s sort of the idea because here the rich people get turned into poor people on purpose. And after a week, they get turned back into rich people.

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Posted on December 5, 2008

By Scott Buckner

I’m not sure what anyone might say about a local TV station that promotes a music awards show that already happened a month ago. But those folks might say WPWR-TV/Channel 50’s Wednesday night presentation of the World Magic Awards came as close to bitchin’ entertainment as bitchin’ entertainment gets since Lawrence Welk isn’t around to kick it out anymore.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

Readers may have noticed that I have a strange fascination with The Hills. Watching last night’s episode, I was struck once again by the odd fact that I actually sort of like Lauren Conrad, who isn’t at all someone I normally would befriend or choose to spend time with at all. But – and yes, I realize this is a TV show and she’s been edited into a character – she seems well-grounded (especially compared to everyone else on the show, with the possible exception of wise Whitney) and . . . she has integrity.
At least this is my theory. Lauren has standards. She’s not mean or manipulative like those around here, but those around her being the kind of people they are, well, they tend to let her down. Will any friend be true to Lauren?
That friggin’ Audrina.

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Posted on November 25, 2008

By Kathryn Ware

Our look back on the debut season of Ironside continues.
Episode: The Monster of Comus Towers
Airdate: 16 November 1967
Plot: It’s a dark and stormy night when thieves break into a corporate art exhibit on the umpteenth floor of a high-rise office building to steal a rare and valuable religious painting. An infrared security system, one murdered security guard, and a suspicious candy wrapper (“Chocolate Charlie – a meal in a mouthful”) lead Ironside to the simple deduction that this was an inside job.

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Posted on November 20, 2008

By Marilyn Ferdinand

These pages have dealt with TV theme songs from time to time. It’s time to add another strong, new entry to the body of proof that those of us who treasure these recurring music videos with meaningful lyrics have a lot to celebrate: True Blood.
What do you say about a television series set in the Deep South that stars a Canadian by way of New Zealand, an Englishman, an Australian, and assorted other people who not only didn’t grow up south of the Mason-Dixon line, but may never even have heard of it? You say, it better have someone around there who knows what they’re talking about.
It does. True Blood, the HBO series that premiered this year, is the brainchild of Alan Ball, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of American Beauty (1999) and director of the acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under. Ball came upon Charlaine Harris’ The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a series of books set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and decided they would be a great basis for a TV series – one to which he could bring his Southern and gay sensibilities. The Atlanta native managed to snag Canadian/Kiwi Oscar winner Anna Paquin to play Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress who falls in love with Bill Compton (Englishman Stephen Moyer), a Civil War era vampire in an America in which vampires are now recognized citizens with legal rights and protections.

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Posted on November 18, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

Often I spend at least a certain portion of my Saturdays watching really bad TV – as opposed to the slightly bad TV I watch during the week. One difference is that I often watch retread movies on Saturdays that I never ventured out to the theater to see in their day – and never would have even if I had the chance. It’s a way to numb my brain over the weekend – sort of like alcohol.
So that’s how I found myself watching Patch Adams and The Break-Up within hours of each other. Go ahead, make fun of me. I don’t have much of a defense. Both movies were pretty bad. At the same time, both movies could’ve worked. Let’s take a look.

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Posted on November 17, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

It’s quite possible that the second season of Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew is the greatest thing ever aired on television in all of human history. Let’s run down the patients.
1. Gary Busey. Dr. Gary, as his castmates have taken to derisively calling him, is under the illusion that he is here as a “participant, not an addict,” meaning that he thinks he’s a counselor, not a patient. Not only is he a patient, he’s a whack job – Jeff Conaway times ten. Watch him play alpha male politics with the guys and creep out the women. His Buseyisms (first spun on I’m With Busey) are actually pretty good, but bear in mind that he has “angelic interventions.”
2. Jeff Conaway. Back for a return engagement and, really, not that funny anymore. Not that he was someone to laugh at, but he was at times a figure of comic relief in the first season, even as he was tragic. Now he’s just grating and, at times, obviously mugging for the camera. “911!’ he’ll yell when he claims he’s being held against his will. His girlfriend is even more aggravating, and it turns out that whatever degree of gold-digging she is up to is transcended by her own demons.
3. Steven Adler. The original drummer of Guns ‘n’ Roses whom the band fired for being such a drug-addled fuck-up. “I just want my friend back” he wails in the opener, looking at a photo of him and Slash. Adler is far, far gone and makes a life-saving visit to the emergency room before we even get started at the Pasadena Recovery Center, but a couple episodes in and he seems to be not only cleaning up nicely but surprisingly cooperative, humorous and insightful.

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Posted on November 11, 2008