Non-TV related stuff
I was watching The Score the other day, and it got me to thinking, who plays a better asshole character, Vince Vaughn or Ed Norton? Brendan, you might as well take this one.
Speaking of Brendan…
The only problem I have with The Weekly Pulse is that I usually have this column in the can by the time it gets put up. Meaning that there’s a lag in the back and forth that Brendan and I seem to have going.
But anyways, Peter King of Sports Illustrated said it best about Tom and Katie: “If I were Katie Holmes’ father — and God knows, having just turned 48 last week, I’m old enough to be — I’d be a little bit worried about this Tom Cruise weirdo.”
Quick Hits
They copied another network’s idea? I’m SHOCKED
The Fox Network scares me sometimes. No sooner does NBC announce a celebrity singing competition than Fox announces one of their own. Mind you, this comes with the pedigree of the Pop Idol creators, so maybe it won’t suck. Then again, American Juniors went over real well, didn’t it?
There’s a reason why it’s not called Unscripted Television
So the Writer’s Guild of America is trying to bring reality show writers and editors into the fold. It makes some sense – after all, you have to figure that the cameramen et al are card-carrying union members. But that being said, do you really want to say that you represent the guy who wrote in the idea of supplying alcohol to the Real World cast members?
Insert pixilated boob joke here
So Howard Stern won’t have any more new eps of his show on E! after July 8. But E! will continue airing repeats of women stripping for Howard’s pleasure, so I suppose that’s a relief. Meanwhile, Howard will continue to spew the exact same crap every day on the radio, until he goes to Sirius in 2006 and for all intents and purposes disappears.
Suddenly, he realized that he watched a half hour of marketing for the Magic Bullet
I tend to flip channels a lot, and often I get sucked into a show in spite of myself. This happens with more frequency during the summertime, when there are a lot of shows that you wouldn’t watch the first time around, and also a bunch of “limited run” shows that quite simply, aren’t that good. So I thought I’d present to you some of my guilty pleasures. On television, people.
Curling – Yep, the so-called sport sucks me in every time. In the 80’s you could count on curlers smoking cigars and possibly drinking while on air – and really, what in what other sport could you do that while competing on an ice surface? Nowadays, with mic’ed players and rules to keep more stones in play, it’s fascinating to see the strategy and plays that the competitors make.
What Not To Wear – The whole point of the show is to change people who are fashion disasters into people who know how to dress. And even though I’m not exactly a great dresser myself (45 years of engineering will do that to you) I get a kick out of seeing people who are dressed like bums not get the concept of maybe buying something respectable. Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are perfect in their roles as meddling fashion experts, and seem to really get through to their “clients” in the end. I’m sure the $5,000 they get to spend doesn’t hurt either.
While You Were Out – While Trading Spaces has managed to devolve into a sorry shell of itself, WYWO seems to have hit it’s stride. For me, it’s the most entertaining home renovation show out there, mostly because the deception is done in good fun and the designers truly try to do things based on the suggestions given to them.
In A Fix – Yep, another home renovation show. But this one has a different feel to it, as (one of) the homeowner(s) has basically been a lazy ass about their renovation projects, and are forced to work hard for 3 days while the others get to relax in style. Also, the carpenters don’t always seem to get along, which is always a fun thing when they have to work together as a team.
Poker – I guess that a lot of people are watching this now, and really, it can be attributed to the development of the hole-cards camera, as it helps increase the drama as you see what players will do when they have absolutely nothing. Will this help you in a real game situation? Probably not, but it helps you to appreciate the game when it’s played at such a high-stakes level.
Power Rangers – Power Rangers can be summed up like this: A stapled together story is wrapped around Japanese scenes featuring 3-to-6 spandex-clad heroes fighting a monster-of-the-week. Nowadays, the stories have become slightly more cohesive, but in its 13th season, the show is still going strong. I was a bit disappointed that the Buffalo ABC affiliate doesn’t air the show on Saturday mornings, but c’est la vie.
Hit Me Baby – I guess this one isn’t that surprising, seeing as I recap it and all. But when you think about it, this show is aimed squarely at my demographic (adults who were kids in the 80’s, or the people that made The Wedding Singer a hit). But really, it’s hard to not like this show. There’s no contract awarded at the end, no elimination ceremonies, just artists singing their songs and giving people songs that don’t get played much anymore thanks to radio becoming more and more generic.
That’s it for me this week. See you in seven.
