Posts from — October 2008

One of the only reality television shows that I like is “Project Runway“. Why? Because they actually make something at the end of each episode, the contestants have amazing talent (for the most part anyway), and who doesn’t just love Tim Gunn and host Heidi Klum! I love her friendly german accent during eliminations, it’s so cute even the contestants who are cut can’t get mad at her.

“I am sorry, you are out. Auf Wiedersehen!”

And last season’s winner, Christian Siriano was hilarious (as was Amy Poehler spot on impression on SNL) or FIERCE as he would say.

With the legal hub-bub over whether the next season will be shown on “Lifetime” or Bravo, the television show rushed into the latest season over the summer and I totally missed it. Bravo re-runs “Project Runway” like no other, but I never managed to watch any of the eps saved on my TiVo HD DVR. Luckily, Design-Bitch has a nice photo wrap-up of the season five finale.

The hilarious Halloween costume idea thread on Pajiba, got me thinking about what I should dress up as this year. Here’s the television show related costumes I’ve come up with so far:

“Doctor Who”

The Doctor is just a blue suit and converse sneakers, easy as pie! Or if you’re a girl, you could be Martha, Donna or Rose. All you have to do is track down their specific outfits, which isn’t too hard since they typically wear one get-up all season long.

“Smallville”
Buy the archetypical Superman costume or wear casual clothes with a superman shirt underneath to be young Clark Kent.

“The Office”
Basically wear your office/work clothes and pair it with a Dundler-mifflin mug, nametag or pen to give people a hint.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Dress up like a cheerleader or late-nineties teenager. Then, pair your outfit with a wooden stake and fake blood splatter.

“Dexter” or “CSI”

Clear plastic coveralls splattered with fake blood, lab goggles, and fake scalpel if you go for the “Dexter” angle. For “CSI”, get any old cover-alls or jumpsuit and put label on the backing saying “CSI” + CITY NAME (depends on which incarnation you prefer of the CBS franchise).

Or you can get a cheap costume mask and go as a “Simpsons” character.

I’m too young to remember actual tv prices of old, but they surely have to be less than they are now. The prices for lcd tvs today are astronomical! It boggles my mind that television prices (and cable service too) have appeared to double in a blink of an eye. Yeah I’m probably one of the biggest television addict’s you’ll ever meet (we’re talking 8-10 hours a day if I didn’t have to work), but the idea of dropping 2k on a piece of technology still irks me.

I know that it’s a luxury investment, one can live without a Samsung Series 6 LCD TV. But with every tv show being broadcast in HD, I feel the urge to buy an HDTV more than ever! Since the stock market is in the crapper, maybe they’ll be extra cheap this holiday season. Fingers crossed.

Pop Candy’s interview with Ed Asner reminded me of how hilarious he was on “Mary Tyler Moore” as her boss, Lou. And let’s not forget that Ms. Moore still has that natural tv magic. She’s pretty funny on her “Lipstick Jungle” guest spot as Wendy’s mom, brutally honest but with a warm heart. Once you get past that botox face, you see that she’s still the woman who played that spunky reporter all those years ago.

The “Mary Tyler Moore Show” was one of the first television shows to focus on an unmarried (aka gasp, single!) woman with a promising career. And whatdyaknow, the character works in a television newsroom as an associate producer. The show was all about Mary and her adventures at work with Lou, Ted Baxter the anchorman (Ted Knight), and Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod). Plus, her trials at home with her friend and neighbor Rhoda, played by Valerie Harper. The show was created by the legendary James L. Brooks, who went on to later produce “The Simpsons” with Matt Groening.

“Mary Tyler Moore” theme song:

Mary Tyler Moore played one of those seminal television characters that you’ll never forget. I think I need to rent some dvd of the first seasons and get reacquainted with Mary and her friends.

Here’s the massive list of episodes I watched this weekend in my pathetic effort to free up some much needed space on my DVR box:

The final four episodes of “Doctor Who”. The season finale was rewarding since the Torchwood gang, Rose, Martha, and Sarah Jane Smith all made appearances. The poor Doctor, he’s all alone again.

Robin Tunney and Simon Baker in"The Mentalist"

The first two episodes of “The Mentalist”. Simon Baker is cute and does a good job on the show, but somehow I feel it’s too darkly themed for the CBS crowd.

The “Personae Non Grata” episode of “Law and Order” from last season. Yeah, I keep shows forever and they re-run L/O all the time. But this time it was worth it and not just for the Jeremy Sisto scenes.

Law & Order (2008)

A mother poses as her daughter on the girl’s Bspace (i.e. myspace) page to con a guy into giving her $60,000…oh and getting said guy to commit murder later on. And then turns out, she’s more than just a sociopathic manipulator (well, duh). She’s a bonafide murderer! She killed the daughter she was impersonating like two years before! And buried her in her unsuspecting boyfriend’s cellar. That’s just plain demented, L/O.

The first three episodes of this season of “Lipstick Jungle”. Boy is that dialogue terrible. But that Kirby (Nico’s boy toy) is cute and the fashion designer character, Victory Ford, is actually funny and realistic.

Victory Ford

And can you believe Wendy got fired over insurance fraud?! Oh well, I never liked Brooke Shields character all that much. It was a bit over the top with the “world is falling down around me” camera effects on Wendy. She’s all melodramatically standing in the street alone (in NYC?), looking up at the sky as she realizes her life is pretty much screwed.

“Eleventh Hour”, cloned babies, Rufus Sewell as quirky scientist, tough FBI agent Marley Shelton…zzzzzz.

I like to give my undivided attention to “It’s Always Sunny”, so I finally got to watch the “Mac and Dennis: Manhunters” episode. It was crude beyond belief - gorilla mask/teabag pranks, cannibal jokes, and Frank confusing his life with the plot of Rambo:First Blood. Oh, how I missed the “Sunny” gang so much. I plan to watch the rest of the season tonight.

Col. Shepherd and Dr. McKay in "Stargate Atlantis"

Next, I watched the latest eps of “Adventures of New Christine”, “Heroes”, “Stargate Atlantis”, and “Sanctuary”, which is actually way better in the second episode. That pilot was redundant, but once the show focused on a specific story and no exposition, I liked it.

Gee whiz! How the heck is my DVR still at 69%?! Oh wait, because I still have entire seasons of “Burn Notice”, “Psych” and “New Amsterdam” on there!

Time for Sunday lunch, your weekly hearty hate stew, and this one will really stick to your bones. Or chill them. This week’s topic: MTV’s “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF,” the grandest exercise in televised narcissism I have ever seen. Keep in mind, I watch these shows so you don’t have to.

The gist of the show is you have a bunch of imbeciles competing– yes, competing– to become Paris Hilton’s best friend while on camera and only until the end of the taping of the finale episode, but not in any legitimate sense.

Naturally, this leads to a cast of sycophants participating in activities like “always looking hot,” doing whatever Paris tells you to without complaint, seeing who can party the longest, etc., all while providing a truly endless supply of compliments and adoration to one Paris Hilton. Most noteworthy of all aspiring BFFs is Onch, below.

First of all, that is a dude. My estimation was that what Chris Crocker was to Britney Spears, Onch is to Paris Hilton, so you can imagine my surprise when I learned that Chris and Onch had some sort of feud that I don’t quite understand or care about, sometime last year.

Anyway, this show is pretty unbearable, but if you’re in the mood to yell at your television, this just might be for you.

[Picture source: MTV.com]

Last night, FX premiered its new sitcom, “Testees,” following a new episode of the already successful series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” To cut to the chase, after viewing the first episode of “Testees,” I am not a fan.

“Testees” was created by Kenny Hotz, of “Kenny vs. Spenny,” which you probably never saw. (You didn’t miss anything.) “Testees” is about two guys, Peter and Ron, who live together and work together.  By “work together,” I mean they participate in clinical studies for pay, and the idea is that hilarity ensues. It doesn’t.

In last night’s episode, Peter (the curly haired one on the left, above) is given a drug that, apparently, makes him pregnant. Yes, the first episode of “Testees” is an even less funny version of the movie Junior. I didn’t think it was possible to make a less funny version of Junior.

Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and tell you to skip this one. It tries too hard to be edgy, and ends up being juvenile and vulgar, instead. Considering that this appraisal is coming from a person who still giggles uncontrollably every time someone says “butt cheeks,” you can rest assured that this show is truly crude, and in a bad way. Worse yet, it’s crude in an unfunny way.

All of the jokes are about as subtle as the poor attempt at double entendre that is the title. (”Testees?” Get it? Because they’re “testees” in clinical tests, but “testes/testis” also means “balls!” Hilarious!)

Save the space on your DVR and record something better, instead.

[Picture source: FXnetworks.com]

Nathan Fillion of “Serenity” and now “Desperate Housewives” fame, stars in ABC’s newest midseason replacement, “Castle”. Yes, it’s another cop procedural. Yes, it’s a story of opposites attract. And if you ask me, it totally ripped it’s premise from the pages of Basic Instinct: mystery novelist’s books scarily similar to actual murder cases. Lucky for us, it’s a comedy drama, so it has a lighter tone and considerably better acting!

Check the television pilot trailer:

Source: Pop Candy

“Kath & Kim” with Molly Shannon and Selma Blair. A US version of the Austrialian series (haven’t they figured out they usually don’t work out?) - 8:30/7:30 on NBC

The original Las Vegas version of “CSI” premieres at 9pm followed by the premiere of “Eleventh Hour” with Rufus Sewell in the role originally played by Patrick Stewart on the BBC version.

On ABC, after new episodes of “Ugly Betty” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, we’ve got the series premiere of David E. Kelley’s take on the original BBC show “Life on Mars”. This remake wins the award of the stuffing as many talented film actors as possible into one show (after firing 90% of the actors from the original pilot) to make it look good: Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli, Gretchen Mol, Lisa Bonet, and Jason O’Mara as the time-traveling cop Sam Tyler.

If you haven’t visited ABC today, check out the 1970s computer terminal re-design they put up in honor of the new show. Or if you’re lazy, just look at the screenshot on TV Squad. Watch the “Life on Mars” promo below to get the gist of the show.

I have no idea how I’m gonna watch (or even DVR record) all these shows tonight!

I just remembered that Amy Poehler made a joke about a 150 inch plasma television on “Weekend Update”! She cracked that they were released just in time for no one to afford them (since we’re in a financial crisis). Turns out, she is absolutely correct. Panasonic’s 150″ plasma screen television is rumored to cost over $150,000 bucks!

The tv aka “Life Wall” is less than one inch thick. It boasts that the plasma screen uses 50% LESS power with the new double luminance efficiency feature. It has a resolution of 2160×4096 pixels, which is 4x the resolution of a typical 1080i flat screen television. And apparently it uses 220 volts, which means you probably can’t run it in your home without owning a small portion of your city’s power grid!

Panasonic now holds the record for “world’s largest plasma display”. You can find more screenshots of the 150″ TV on Gizmodo. They got to take an up-close and personal tour of these sets at CSE 2008 in January.

Luckily, there are still normal sized (and priced) plasma televisions available on the market for the rest of us.