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 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 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

By Scott Buckner

I’ve finally figured out how to accept the spectacle, the drama, and the constant variety of sports that is The Jerry Springer Show and everything else that is free daytime commercial TV. It’s pretty simple, really: Switch on Chicago’s own WPWR-TV at 9 a.m., imagine you have nothing hopeful to live for, and then just swim in. Because really, The Jerry Springer Show actually can be the shining beacon of your day if you just quit fighting it and give unrelenting unemployment, chronic alcoholism, and clinical depression a chance.

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Posted on March 1, 2008

By Scott Buckner

What can you say about an Academy Award show so hopelessly lame and lifeless that even the normally-interesting “Who Died Last Year?” segment is populated mostly by agents?
That was Sunday night’s show in a nutshell. In fact, the most entertaining part of the Oscars didn’t even happen during the Oscars. It came a short time later, when Jimmy Kimmel Live presented “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” in response to Kimmel girlfriend Sarah Silverman’s video “I’m Fucking Matt Damon.”
There have been very few moments in recent television history as piss-your-pants funny as that, and very few people short of Bob Geldof who can put together a reprise of “We Are The World” that has nothing whatsoever to do with starving Africans or broke farmers.
Kimmel’s segment on actors who will probably soon be dead and mentioned during the Oscars (“You will be missed. Eventually.”) was just as priceless.
Sunday night’s Oscars telecast did provide some notable moments, though. Here were some you might have been smart enough to miss.

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Posted on February 26, 2008

By Kathryn Ware

Trivia gleaned from Comcast’s Sounds of the Season Music Choice Channel. Better than watching a burning log.
*
1. In Poland, the gift bringer is Star Man. (Not to be confused with Starman.)
2. In “Prancer Returns” Charlie finds a baby reindeer in the woods and immediately believes it to be Prancer.
3. On New Year’s Day 1876, in honor of the centennial, the first Mummers’ parade was held in Philadelphia, PA.
4. Christmas Island is located in the Pacific Ocean.

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Posted on December 26, 2007

By Steve Rhodes

I didn’t sleep well last night. Here’s what I kept flipping between.
1. The Devil’s Advocate.
I love this movie.
KEANU: Why the law, dad?
PACINO: Because it puts us into everything.
I’m not terribly fond of Keanu Reeves’ performance (has he ever been good except unknowingly perfect as Johnny Utah in Point Break?), but Al Pacino as John Milton, a.k.a., the devil, is mesmerizing. While the theology is confusing, Pacino’s oration in the final scene (“I’m a fan of man! . . . God is an absentee landlord! Worship that? Never!”) is spectacular.
2. Jerry Maguire.
I detest this movie. On about 50 different levels.

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Posted on November 19, 2007

By Julia Gray

The Real Housewives of Orange County has returned for another season loaded with pregnant questions for diehard viewers like me who can’t get enough of this show despite its validation of society’s sick fascination with the rich. That’s because the show serves an alternative validating value: Repeated viewings verify the fact that the rest of us might not be as beautiful and wealthy as the “housewives” featured here, but we get weekly proof that we’re much smarter, cooler and better people than these self-absorbed half-wits with horrendous taste.
These women, in fact, have nothing to offer society except to show how not to wear your hair over 40 and that bragging about how much money you have is klassy.
But sometimes it’s fun to scratch the surface and get more surface. Let’s take a look.

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Posted on November 13, 2007