New Season, Old Shows

Finally got around to watching some TV this week, and while I still need to watch House, Lost, Apprentice: Martha, and Everybody Hates Chris, here's what's been on the idiot box the last couple of days:

America's Next Top Model started another cycle, and on the plus side they've jettisoned Nole Marin as a judge and brought in J. Alexander, who should have been a regular a while ago. On the slightly negative side, Janice Dickinson is gone, so no more psychotic outbursts from her side of the table. In her stead is Twiggy, who isn't too bad - she's pretty honest in her comments, just less demonstrative. On the bizarre side, Jay Manuel is now about one shade away from Oompa-Loompa.

The show itself was fairly predictable - 36 women were pared down to 20 and then 13 within about 45 minutes. Within the two hour premiere we got two runway "shows" and an aerial shoot, which seems like a lot out of their bag of tricks in a short amount of time. As for the women themselves, it's a pretty generic group more identifiable by stereotype (Beauty Queen, Lesbian, Small Towner, Spoiled Brat, etc.) than name.

Anyway, it doesn't look like this cycle will be any better or worse than any other, a level of predictability which is getting boring - though probably not for UPN, who can use the stability.

Joey had an hour premiere, and it was... Joey. They've made some changes (his sister works for his agent now, and he's got a new actor-friend to hang with), but it's still pretty marginal.

The Apprentice has similar issues to both of these other shows - it's formulaic, and the changes made during the off-season don't change things too much. The big innovation this season is that the winning project manager can only get immunity if the team votes for him/her to have it. I'm not sure anyone will get immunity, given that your average contestant would rather have one more person in the boardroom should the next task not go so well. It also takes some of the reward away from the risk of being project manager, though it's not like you can win without taking the role a couple of times, at least.

Future thing to watch for: Carolyn gets to run the show one week. I suppose if Surface doesn't work out, Apprentice: Carolyn could fill in Mondays at 8.

Spoiled for Choice

Let's see, tonight we have:

* The premiere of the Martha Stewart version of The Apprentice.

* The two-hour season premiere of the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model.

* The two-hour season premiere of Lost.

All starting at the same time! Thankfully, Martha will re-run on CNBC. ANTM is also re-run, but I don't think they're doing the full two hours. Which means I'll likely have to watch that and tape Lost, as I'm the only one in the house who watches it.

Thankfully, the DVR comes Saturday.

Something Different

I did three things tonight I've not done in a while.

1. Watched significant portions of the Emmy Awards. And really, it wasn't too bad. Ellen DeGeneris is a good host (and was used effectively), there were some interesting acceptance speeches (Felicity Huffman and James Spader come to mind), and the Emmy Idol thing wasn't a complete train wreck.

Even if Shatner got robbed.

And on top of everything, it was over by 11. Oscar producers, take note.

2. Watched a new episode of The Simpsons at its regular time. I'd been catching them as reruns mostly, as I can't get really worked up to catch them as they air. As with many episodes in the last few seasons, I was underwhelmed.

3. Watched The West Wing, this time the second half of last season's finale that saw Jimmy Smits' character gain the Democratic presidential nod. It was OK; the convention speech where Smits says he was asked to give a speech bowing out, but isn't going to because we live in a democracy was pretty ham-handed, and a little too typical for the show (from what I remember for not watching for the last couple of seasons).

Really, I hope Alan Alda's character wins the election. But he's a Republican, and he didn't get Leo McGarry to be his running mate. Unless they're planning a big mid-season cast change, you should get ready for President Santos (it's a bad sign that it took me 5 minutes to remember the character's last name).

Is it wrong that I want Santos to get elected so he can get hit by a bus and make Leo the president?

Bring Out Your (TV) Dead

Another season of the LaPlaca Open, the Internet's best TV dead pool, recently kicked off (so to speak). The premise: pick 10 shows that you think will come a-cropper by the end of the 2005-06 season. You get 20 points per show that tanks, with a bonus based on ranking (top show gets you 10 more points, down to one for your last show).

So who did I pick?

10 - Will & Grace - A slam-dunk given that its in its last season. Earning me 30 points will be the best thing this show has ever done for me.

9 - Monday Night Football - An entry I never would have expected at this point last year, but its move to ESPN next season opens the door for more cheap points.

8 - Unconceivable - NBC's fertility clinic show seems ripe for the cancelling: it's on Friday, has a premise that seems a little too specialized (how many cases of infertility can you follow before things get dull?), and hasn't gotten much by way of positive press from the day it was announced as being on the schedule.

It's also up against Numb3rs and 20/20, which may be problematic even though it's probably the most light-hearted choice of the three.

7 - Rodney - I'll give a shiny nickel to anyone who can tell me the network, the day and time this airs, and who plays the title character WITHOUT looking it up.

6 - Hot Properties - I may be stretching here, given that it has some well known cast members (Gail O'Grady, Nicole Sullivan) and is on ABC's TGIF, which seems pretty tolerant of crap (hello, Hope and Faith). But word is that this show is just awful, so it was hard to pass up.

5 - The Night Stalker - This show was a good idea in its time (mid-1970s): a reporter investigates the unknown, supernatural, and just plain creepy while showing some gumption and often being more lucky than good. The sense I get from the new show is that it'll be moodier, which may take some of the fun out of it. Not to mention that the supernatural became almost passe with The X Files, and is already looking a little thin this season what with the two oceanic alien shows and the WB show actually called Supernatural.

It doesn't help that this is going up against CSI, The Apprentice, and the much-hyped Fox show Reunion.

4 - Related - A show about four sisters that tries to rip off Sisters and Sex in the City simultaneously, and from what I've heard does neither well. It's also up against Lost, E-Ring, and Veronica Mars. I'm also not sure that One Tree Hill is the most natural lead-in; you'd think Gilmore Girls would make more sense... until you realize viewers would start making comparisons.

3 - Threshold - One of the two oceanic alien shows in my top ten, it does have a cast you've likely heard of (Charles S. Dutton, Carla Gugino, Brent Spiner), but I don't see this working so well given that Friday nights have been hostile towards such shows in the past, and CBS doesn't have much of a track record with the genre. It's also got another new show, The Ghost Whisperer, as a lead-in. That show stars Jennifer Love Hewitt.

How did I not put that in my entry?

2 - Surface - NBC's entry into the watery ETs genre, it's facing competition from comedies (the CBS block and Fox, which is hoping a move of Arrested Development and the new Kitchen Confidential will fare well) and the perpetual viewing machine that is 7th Heaven. What I've heard of the show suggests that it's a bit sprawling, so viewers may not stay tuned in if there are a lot of loose ends with plot and character.

1 - Out of Practice - It's part of the CBS Monday night sitcom lineup, which suggests it'll do well, but I've read some awful reviews. It could come around, but CBS has two mid-season sitcoms - starring Jenna Elfman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, respectively - that could step in should this show about doctors not pan out.

It also has Paula Marshall in the cast, which is like the kiss of death right there.

It Sings for Itself

From the CBS website, a wrinkle for the upcoming 57th Emmy Awards broadcast:

Get in tune with this year's Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast with a new contest in tribute to television's favorite theme songs entitled "Emmy Idol," with performances by Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars"), Gary Dourdan (CSI:), Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Macy Gray, Emmy Award winner and current nominee Megan Mullally ("Will & Grace"), Emmy Award winner and current nominee William Shatner ("Boston Legal"), real estate mogul and current Emmy nominee Donald Trump ("The Apprentice") and famed opera star Frederica von Stade.

Throughout the Emmys broadcast, in an "American Idol"-esque contest, these television and music personalities will trigger fans' memories of some of their favorite television theme songs. Bell will perform the theme song from "Fame;" Dourdan and Gray will join forces to perform "Movin' On Up" from "The Jeffersons;" Mullally and Trump will together perform the theme song from "Green Acres;" Shatner and von Stade will team up to perform the theme to "Star Trek." During the live broadcast, viewers can return here to vote for their favorite of the theme songs performed during "Emmy Idol." They will also be able to vote via text message. The winner will be announced toward the end of the broadcast.

So Tell Us What You Really Think

We've got the Hurricane Katrina telethon on now, and Kanye West just had a meltdown.

At first, it was stuff I'd heard in places before - the media labeling African-Americans as looters and white people as just looking for stuff, the use of force against the folks stuck in New Orleans, etc. Mike Meyers, who was on screen with him, did his best to stick to the script.

When they went back to West, he led with "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

They cut really quickly to Chris Tucker after that. Meyers, for his part, managed to remain fairly professional while still having a "what did he just say?" air about him.

Interestingly, Meyers once had a similar role on a Saturday Night Live skit. He was an inventor of a pasta machine, and Heather Locklear played the host of an infomercial for it. As it progressed, Locklear's character became increasingly racist, calling out all the major (and a couple of minor) ethnic groups. Once again, life imitates art.

More Hatin' on the Stupid Dance Show

Tonight's results show was taped completely separately from the new competition episode, which makes for some serious cognative dissonance when, in a matter of seconds, the dancers have new clothes, hairstyles, and partners. The laborious pace isn't helping, either. Nor is the continuous crying when someone gets booted off. I expect self-immolation to follow an elimination sometime in the next two to three weeks.

Of course, all of this was trumped when I learned that one of the contestants on the T(Thisspaceforrent)C-hosted UPN show R U the Girl is named O'so Krispie. Yikes.

So You Think You Can Fill Time?

While I've not been watching the episode of So You Think You Can Dance? from last week, the wife's viewing has been in the background as I've been doing things. From what I've heard, it sounds like that episode, a full 2 hours, had about 12 minutes of dancing (six couples and six individuals in a "dance-off" to stay on the show) wedged into vacuous judge comments, pointless interviews, and the hypersensitive shrieks of the audience every time a judge said something that could possibly be interpreted as negative. Or positive, really.

And let's not forget the ads, which come with regularity. This includes two breaks during the dance-off, when you think you could build some energy by having each dancer come out one after another in a sort of "can you top this?" performance. Instead, each dancer is separated by a pointless interview and pimping of the phone number to keep them on the show. Which just drags things down even more.

If a show sounds as bad as this, I can't hold out too much hope for the watching.

Not the Finest Kind

As a M*A*S*H fan, I generally appreciate the four episodes that the Hallmark Channel airs each night (though I'd appreciate them more if they weren't on from 11 pm to 1 am). Tonight, though, would be the perfect line-up for someone trying to demonstrate the lack of quality in the later seasons:

"Sons and Bowlers," which features a 4077th versus Marines bowling tournament. The subplot, where learn a lot about the relationships that Hawkeye and Charles have with their respective fathers, keeps this from being a complete stinker.

"Picture This," where Potter's attempt to paint the gang are disrupted by a feud between Hawkeye and BJ. Not a horrible episode, just predictable in how it turns out.

"That Darn Kid," where a goat eats the company payroll. I don't think I have to elaborate.

"The UN, the Night and the Music," where a visit by a UN group turns the camp upside-down. About the only good part of this episode is Charles trying to out-snob the British member of the delegation.

While none of these is a bottom five stinker (OK, the goat eating the payroll is in the running), these four demonstrate three things that make the later episodes so difficult at times:

1. An increasing need to use melodrama or teach a lesson.

2. A tired writing staff, evident where the plots become obvious and the ideas not so great.

3. Over-reliance on formerly minor characters. I'm thinking mostly of Klinger here, as he was great in small doses, but more likely to be used in an over-the-top fashion when he became a main character. Oddly, I think they could have done more with Father Mulcahey in this regard, but kept his story lines pretty limited.

I'm Tube Boob... later!

So just when you thought that "Seacrest... out!" was perhaps the stupidest sign-off line in TV, leave it to its summer cousin to do it one better.

As I was waiting to turn the TV over so I could tape Lost, I caught the last minute or so of So You Think You Can Dance? (taping for the wife to watch in my absence). As the show ended, its host signed off with "I'm Lauren Sanchez... see ya!"

Wow. I wonder if she wrote that all by herself. Probably.

More S, Less E?

There's talk that Mark Shapiro, the programming head of ESPN, may be leaving to take a job with Dan Snyder and the Washington Redskins. Shapiro is the driving force behind the focus on the 'E' in ESPN: entertainment. Those movies and series you've seen (or not, given some of the ratings), and the increase in talking-head shows. You can thank or blame Shapiro as you wish.

While the move towards original programming did give us the sublime Pardon the Interruption, it also gave us such fare as Cold Pizza, Around the Horn (which could almost be watchable if they sent Woody Paige off Fox with Max Kellerman), and the Steven A. Smith shoutfest Quite Frankly. And let us not forget Playmakers and Tilt, two original series that didn't get past season one (thanks to quality issues and, in the case of the former, bowing to pressure from the NFL, who didn't like the way pro football players were being portrayed).

As has been noted elsewhere, Shapiro's leadership has charted ESPN on the same course that MTV took a while back, where the network becomes more about a brand and a culture than about what it's supposed to be showing if you take the network name at face value.

Given that I actually like to watch sports, Shapiro's departure would be a good thing. This assumes that the new programming head would actually steer the network back towards coverage of sporting events. One can hope.

TV You Have to Develop a Taste For

The new FX show Starved will not be for everyone. Heck, I don't even know if it's for me.

I caught the second episode, and while this means I've missed out on the first episode's character building and exposition, it wasn't too hard to figure things out. There seem to be four people with eating disorders whose lives we get to follow both in and out of treatment sessions.

The second episode focuses mostly on the main character's relationship with his colonic irrigation therapist, with unfortunate (though visually entertaining in a frat boy-joke kind of way) results. We also got to see his friends deal with a domination fantasy, continued bulimia, and a combo of anorexia survival, family issues, and alcohol.

We're not exactly dealing with escapist fantasy here. But if you think you find entertainment in the dark humor coming from some very screwed up lives, Starved may work for you.

Off Air

It's been a pretty fallow period for TV watching, as many of the shows I started the summer with are done, and I've not been able to catch up with new shows, almost all of them on FX. I have several episodes of Over There on tape and need to watch them, while I missed the premiere of Starved and wonder if I'l try to squeeze it in. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia looks mildly interesting, but if I can't bother for Starved I don't think I'll be keeping up with the show that follows it.

I was a little mystified by last week's House, given the sudden appearance of Chi McBride's character and the talk between House and Cameron about feelings. I understand that you have to skip episodes over the summer given the shorter time span (which makes me wonder what I'll miss on Lost), but this seems a little abrupt.

That's all for now, or at least until I get a little me time with the VCR.

Around the Dial: the Discovery launch

To be fair, I didn't go that far around the dial for this morning's Shuttle launch. I watched most of it on two networks.

I started on CNN, and really wish I hadn't. Miles O'Brien is apparently incapable of shutting up. He managed to for about a minute before and during launch, otherwise his pointless blandishments filled the airwaves. Had I been giving the TV full attention I'd likely have turned the channel quicker.

When I did turn it was to ABC, who had a fantastic simulator that gave all sorts of information about the launch: speed, altitude, distance down range, and a bunch of fligh-specific data that I don't think I could fully appreciate (though if you're a fan of yaw, this was for you). The data was accompanied by a virtual Shuttle, depicting what we'd be seeing if we could keep a camera on the Shuttle during the entire launch.

Charles Gibson was covering the launch, and he was OK. He at least knew when to let other people talk and when to let in some silence.

I saw scant amounts of coverage for NBC and CBS. Both seemed to enjoy the benefits of the new camera added to the external tank, as for most of the time I was on their networks a shot of the separated tank with the Earth in the background dominated the visuals. It was pretty cool.

So a check-plus for ABC and even less reason to tune in to CNN for breaking events.

It's New to Me: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited

While Gordon Ramsay is a pretty polarizing TV personality, as many are learning through Hell's Kitchen, I got my first taste of his forceful personality on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (shown here on BBC America), where he would spend a week at a failing restaurant trying to help turn it around. There were only four episodes, but they were pretty entertaining. Ramsay did his share of yelling and cursing, and generally got positive results, in some cases lasting to his revisiting the restaurant one month later.

In this new show, Ramsay goes back to the original four restaurants about a year later to see if the changes took for the long term. This sounds like a set-up that would best serve original viewers, but if you've never watched the originals don't sweat it. The first 50 minutes of each episode recap the original episode. Only the last 10 minutes actually "revisit" the restaurant. I'd have liked at least half the episode to be about the revisiting.

So if you've never seen the show, go ahead and watch. If you saw the originals, only tune in at the start if you forget what happened. Otherwise, tune in around 45 minutes in and you'll be fine.

New on TV: So You Think You Can Dance

There's a pretty simple way to explain this show:

(American Idol-singing)+dancing=So You Think You Can Dance.

That's all you really need to know. The mechanics of the show are the same: tryouts across the country bring together people with talent and people without talent. The former get a chance to go to "Hollywood," the latter are mocked. Those making it to "Hollywood" (usually played by some other part of greater Los Angeles) will be winnowed down to a group of finalists, who will compete weekly until a winner is named (though apparently by a group of choreographers rather than YOU, the public).

There are other substitutions as well, as we keep our acerbic Brit (Nigel Lythgoe rather than Simon Cowell), vapid host (Lauren Sanchez in for Ryan Seacrest), and person who has some idea about the business (Carrie Ann Inaba - last seen as a judge on Dancing With the Stars and apparently not metioned at all on this show's web pages - subbing for Randy Jackson).

We do not sub for Paula Abdul, as she'll be popping up here to teach regular schlubs something about dance. Or giving out her phone number, I'm not sure which.

As you might imagine, a show that borrows so much is likely going to be a copy of the original at best. And when the original is already on the light side, the copy is that much more obvious. The show will benefit from a built-in audience of American Idol viewers and a dearth of competition, though the lack of voting may cause folks with lower interest levels in dancing to wander away until the tone deaf start appearing on our screens in January. I don't see it attracting non-dancing fans the way Dancing With the Stars did.

Which, being said, means I'll be reading or something as this plays out across our TV screen.

Ending with a whimper

On the plus side, tonight marked the end of the rather dull ABC unscripted show The Scholar, where the dramatic granting of a full ride scholarship was undermined by (a) an unbelievably slow final episode, full of sound and scholarship committee "fury" that signified nothing as the vast majority of the competitors wound up going to the college of their choice, and (b) the drawn-out nature of the episode, unusual given how much they chopped up the students' final Q&A session with the committee.

I would not look for a second installment.

On the minus side, Hell's Kitchen rewarded typical unscripted show behavior by seeing three competitors plot against a fourth, and succeeded in getting that fourth removed from the show. It was a little frustrating; Ramsay clearly knew that Elsie (the removed contestant) was hung out to dry, Elsie wouldn't confirm that, so off she went. I now do not care for any of the remaining contestants, and only find solace in the high failure rate of new restaurants. Odds are the winner will be back toiling in someone else's kitchen by New Year's Eve 2006.

Ass. Assassassassassass. Ass!

Aspercream, a product I can't claim to have thought about much over my lifetime, found its way into my head a few months ago with a "You bet your sweet Aspercreme" jingle that had me and the wife singing it well after seeing the ads using it (generally during Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!).

Of course, someone had to go and ruin it. We saw an ad today using the jingle "You bet that it's Aspercreme." Boo.

New on TV: Great Outdoors Games

ESPN is running the sixth installment of this event, which combines timber sports with dog competitions and with things you'd even see in the Olympics (shooting and archery). This year they've even added ATV racing, which I can't say interests me. But I'm sure there are ATV enthusiasts who don't share my love for big air dogs.

The host site this year is Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando, which is proving difficult in two respects:

1. Crowds appear to be sparse more often than packed, especially in comparison to turn-out in more obvious locations (like Lake Placid).
2. The recent run of bad weather caused the wash-out of the shooting events. They were using a site about 30 miles south of Orlando which apparently got quite a bit of water (as evidenced by a reported standing in waders in the middle of the rifle range). Can't say you'd really expect that sort of weather this early in the year, but it's another argument for heading away from the Gulf coast.

The latter point is also personally difficult, as I like the shooting events. The archery still seems to be on, so there's that at least.

But I really tune in for the dogs. The last couple of nights brought small and large dog agility (mostly Jack Russell terriers and border collies running a course of jumps, tires, and other obstacles), but I'm more of a fan of the retriever-dominated events: big air (basically a dog long jump) and field trials. There's a new event this year that's big air with a height component. Not sure how I feel about this, but more dogs can't be bad.

Clearly, this is a "your mileage may vary" sort of veiwing opportunity. But the coverage is reasonable (not overhyped, which is something for ESPN) and they usually only cover 2 or 3 events a night, so it's easier to follow and, if nothing's to your liking, skip without fear of missing what you want to see.

Unless it was skeet shooting.

Emmy Nominations

You would think, this being a TV blog and all, that I'd be over the moon about the Emmy Award nominations, which were released today.

Well, I'm not.

I actually don't care all that much about the Emmy Awards. Four reasons come to mind:

1. I've generally only seen a small percentage of the nominated material. This isn't all that different from, say, the Oscars, but it seems to make a difference in this case

2. I don't root for actors. Really, I'd be happy if Hugh Laurie won for his work on House, but I don't have any personal investment in a possible win for him.

3. The repetitive nature of nominations, especially in the past when it seemed that the likes of Candace Bergen, Helen Hunt, and David Hyde Pierce would win every year. It probably wasn't that bad, but it only exacerbated my disinterest.

4. The awards show is on in the summer, when I'm less likely to watch.

Going back to point three for a second, the Emmy folks may be trying to balance repetitive nominations by adopting newcomers with buzz. Witness, for example, the 15 nominations for Desperate Housewives. Clearly, this was abetted by the show's consideration as a comedy, as there's not a whole lot of stand-out material in the sitcoms that usually populate the comedy awards. I'm not sure I agree that the show is a comedy; it has comedic elements, but I tend to think of the story lines as dramatic in nature.

Random observations:

* UPN got three nominations, all technical, and all for the same show: Enterprise. Whoops. No nod for America's Next Top Model in the reality category, and (not unexpectedly) no love for Veronica Mars.

* The only network show nominated in the reality category was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which I find about as interesting as (with apologies) paint drying. Shows that did get nods here include Queer Eye, Antiques Roadshow and Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. This is easily the strangest group of nomninees. Oh, OK, there is a separate "reality-competition" category with all the expected nominees (The Apprentice, American Idol, Survivor, The Amazing Race, and, surprisingly, Project Runway).

* Sticking with American Idol, I kind of want to gag that the finale got a directing nomination, given how the show is generally kind of a mess.

* While I'm OK with shows getting more than one nomination in a category, there should be a limit. Take best guest actor in a comedy, for example. Four of the five nominees are from appearances on Will & Grace. While you can make the argument that they're all deserving, to my mind it rewards stunt casting.

* This was not the year for The West Wing, as the only acting nods went to Alan Alda and Stockard Channing. It only got five nominations total (though one is for best drama, which helps). In a related note, Kathryn Joosten, who played Mrs. Landingham on the show, got an Emmy nod for her guest role as Mrs. McClusky on Desperate Housewives.

* Oh, yeah, neither Nicolette Sheridan or Eva Longoria got acting nods. Huh.

* Scrubs got a best comedy nod, which I'm sure NBC will be happy to tout... when the show returns in January.

* I feel less dirty now that Cold Case Files has a nomination for outstanding non-fiction series.

There's probably more later. But maybe not.