Well, it’s the year-end edition of The
Bits and Pieces
– ‘Saturday Night Live’ has been more miss than hit this season (it tends to happen when Horatio fricking Sanz is a substitute anchor on “Weekend Update”), but Lazy Sunday shows that they can still produce some gems. And this particular website is great for finding some classics – if you love “Celebrity Jeopardy” and “More Cowbell”, this is a great place to look for them.
– I’m sure that you’ve noticed (or not) that I’ve stopped doing recaps for ‘Numb3rs’. Truth be told, I’ve found that procedurals really don’t lend themselves to recaps, as shows are generally self-contained with small bits of continuity thrown in just so that we can say that there’s progression. I still love the show – coming from an engineering background it’s pretty easy to get into the physics in each story, but even without that it’s generally less grim than the Bruckheimer shows and you’re not subjected to GSR or trace every show.
If you need a recap fix of the show, or just general information, head on over to Running the Numb3rs, which does a pretty good job in sorting things out with this show.
– Speaking of ‘Numb3rs’, there were guest stars galore as we saw Graham Greene (Dances With Wolves) and Liz Sheridan (‘Seinfeld’,’ALF’) in “Bones of Contention”, while we saw Bill Nye (the Science Guy) in “Scorched”. Yeah, I geeked out for Bill.
And now… the lists…
Most Awkward Moment on a Live Show
Randall telling Trump that there should only one winner on the finale ‘The Apprentice’. He’s right, of course, but it didn’t seem to come out very well and Randall looked like an ass for saying it. But if Donald Trump wanted to hire Rebecca (and obviously, he did), he should’ve done so. Instead, he tried to be cute, and the end result is what we got. This narrowly beats out any time Toral opened her mouth. Speaking of ‘The Apprentice’, did anyone else think Robyn and Carolyn doing the fist bump was hilarious? Several of my collegues have gone over this, so that’s all I’ll say about it.
Top Two Most Disappointing Sophomore Shows
2. Joey, NBC – The cast is great, but the material is simply boring. It’s been a downhill slide since the Series premiere, and I don’t know if it will stop.
1. Desparate Housewives, ABC – For some reason, the producers decided to create a whole new mystery on this show, so they stuck Alfre Woodard in with the subtlety of a politician asking for votes and expected viewers to accept it. Well, it didn’t work, and this show may be well on it’s way to burning itself out.
Top Three New Shows
3. UFC Unleashed, Spike TV – Yes, it’s a collection of old PPV fights, so it’s technically not new. But it’s new to most of us who don’t put money down for PPVs. And at least you know that this will be much more entertaining than the Packers vs the Ravens.
2. Prison Break, FOX – Few things strike fear into people like seeing “Brett Ratner” attached to a project not called Rush Hour. The show is full of logic gaps and some bad acting (coughRobinTunneycough), but Wentworth Miller carries this show and made it a joy to watch every week.
1. My Name is Earl, NBC – Based on the simple premise of righting wrongs in a small town, Earl is, quite simply, a charming show made fun by the chemistry the actors have with each other. We knew Jason Lee could be charming, but it’s the earnestness of Ethan Slupee and Eddie Steeples, and the seemingly natural bitchiness of Jaime Pressly that make this show a lot of fun to watch.
Top Four Guilty Pleasures
4. Distraction, Comedy Network and Comedy Central – Yeah, nothing like seeing people down hot sauce in lieu of ringing a buzzer.
3. What Not To Wear, TLC – For some reason, it’s compelling television to see people realize that ratty sweats don’t make for distinguished dress casual wear.
2. Sin Cities, Showcase (Canada) – Pretty much what it sounds like. Suffice to say, it’s a bit too hot for American television.
1. Ed’s Night Party, City TV (Canada) – A cigar-smoking sock puppet hosts a show with go-go dancers, a hot tub with strippers in it, and interviews with porn stars and assorted others (like Trish Stratus). Truly, a show that could only have come about in Canada.
Top Five Sophomore Shows
5. CSI: New York, CBS – The first thing that this show has going for it is the theme song, Baba O’Reilly. The second is that the show makes use of how different parts of New York is. The third is that, despite the premise being exactly the same as it’s two predecessors, it still manages to feel fresh and different.
4. Lost, ABC – Like ‘Desparate Housewives’, this show seemed to have lost a step during the summer, what with having to introduce new castmembers and all. But the last few episodes have shown that the ship has righted itself, and hopefully will be at full speed once they off that annoying bitch Ana Lucia.
3. Grey’s Anatomy, ABC – Watching this show now makes me wish I had gotten on board when it first came on last year. Since it follows ‘Desparate Housewives’, there really isn’t as much pressure to come up with blockbuster storylines as much as hold the audience. And it does, by being smarter, funnier and just plain better than the show that precedes it. I still don’t like Sandra Oh, though.
2. Numb3rs, CBS – As I mentioned above, I love this show, and were it on another night besides Fridays, it’d probably get more recognition as one of the better procedurals out there.
1. The Office, NBC – Well, they’re using all-original scripts now, and you know what? This show is still funny. Yes, it’s not the BBC version, but it’s not meant to be, and it’s found it’s own niche with American audiences, and I’m down with that.
Top Six Shows That Make You Scream “Why is This Still On The Air?”
6. Big Brother, CBS – I’ll be honest – I think this show is still on the air only because Julie Chen is the host, and Les Moonves wouldn’t want to piss off his wife. The show could probably function without a host, but the Chenbot is still there, asking inane questions, making bad jokes, and having her hair styled like Jennifer Aniston on Friends – the first season. It’s kind of the inverse of ‘Family Guy’, actually – without Stewie, that show would suck. Without Chen, ‘Big Brother’ probably becomes a whole lot better.
5. Restaurant Makeover, Food Network Canada – I don’t mind renovation shows too much, but having people come in to not only renovate you restaurant, but your MENU as well seems to be a bit much.
4. The War At Home, Fox – Crap like this is still around but ‘Arrested Development’ gets pulled. Damn you, Fox
3. Popcultured, Comedy Network (Canada) – Elvira Kurt is funny. Just not in this kind of environment. But this is what happens when you’re trying to add Canadian content to your network.
2. Top 5, Food Network – I hate Bobby Rivers, who wastes airspace when we could have more Rachael Ray, or for you guys down in the States, ‘Surreal Gourmet’ and ‘Thirsty Traveller’.
1. Dr. Phil, syndicated – You know, I really don’t care too much one way or the other about Oprah, but I can’t forgive her for springing this fat bastard on the world.
Top Nine Phrases/Things That I Hope To Never Hear/Hear About/See Again
9. “Fresh” episodes of a TV show.
8. “Christmaskkuh”
7. “You just don’t fit in”
6. “Reality TV sucks”
5. “All you kids out there…”
4. Variations on “Only Brett Farve could pull off a comeback from 40 points down and 2 minutes left”
3. Horatio Sanz as “Weekend Update” anchor
2. The Weavers asking God for help with anything.
1. Todd Bertuzzi, Olympian.
Kevin’s Top Ten Reality TV Personalities of 2005
Some clarification on this. This is not a “best winner” list or “nicest” list, this is a list that highlights some of the more memorable people from the reality shows of the past year. Of course, this only includes people on shows that I watch. Which is fine, because shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘America’s Next Top Model’ are crap anyways. So if you’re mad because Kayzar didn’t make the list, well, too bad.
10.
Melissa O’Neil, ‘Canadian Idol 3’ (right, with Suzi Rawn) – Well, this is obviously your token Canadian inclusion into the list, however I do think that Melissa O’Neil is worthy of being here. To my knowledge, she is only the third person of Asian descent (she’s half Chinese) to win a reality competition in North America, following in the footsteps of Dorothy Hsu (‘The Mole 2’) and Jun Song (‘Big Brother 4’). As an Asian, it’s nice to see that one of my own can win in a contest where you can get voted out not because you’re a good singer, but because you don’t have a core of loyal voters who overlook your lack of ability (I’m looking at you, Josh and Casey). Plus, she was a perennial underdog who had to improve every week in order to show that she belonged, especially given the bias Canadian voters had towards the male singers.
9.
Luke Cummo, ‘The Ultimate Fighter 2’ – On the show, Luke was the ultimate underdog. He was the last fighter picked, he liked comic books, kept to a diet of organic foods, and was generally considered to be a bit weird, but he got two decisive victories before reaching the Welterweight finals and losing to Joe Stevenson, but not before pushing Joe to the limit. Luke’s got a bright future ahead of him, and a word of warning – if you see a skinny, nerdy, unibrowed guy walking towards you, leave him be because he just might kick your ass.
8.
Scott Savol, ‘American Idol 4’ – Love him or hate him (probably hate), Scott is one of those “villains” that reality shows need to help suck in the viewers. Never mind that this guy had (allegedly) beat up his baby mama, or that he thought he was black. Remember this – Scott was, quite possibly, the WORST performer to ever make the Top 10/12 in any Idol competition. And yet, he kept advancing through the competition, to the point where websites were created with the express purpose of campaigning FOR Scott to win the competition just to show off how ludicrous the Idol voting system is. With that in mind, how could I not include Scott on this list.
7.
Gordon Ramsey, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ – There’s something about Brits and being rude that is kind of cool to us. Jamie Oliver. Vinnie Jones. William Regal. My wife. And Gordon Ramsey probably takes the cake. As an ex-pre athlete, he’s no stranger to profanity, and wasn’t shy about using it on his candidates. And as far as being “the executive” in this “Apprentice” knockoff, he was definitely more “hands on” in making his decision as to which candidates went home, and which stayed.
6.
Chris Leben, ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ – Alcohol. It’s a staple of MTV’s reality shows, and it seems like corporate brother Spike TV decided it was a good idea. And it was, as it managed to bring out the best – and worst – out of Chris “Cat Smasher” Leben. Most of the “house” antics centered around Leben going around drunk and getting into conflicts with Bobby Southworth and Josh Koschek, which oddly enough led to Chris becoming a more sympathetic character and a fight with Koschek – which he lost. Later, with one of the other fighters injured, Leben was brought back and again, lost, this time to “second worst nickname in mixed martial arts” Kenny “KenFlo” Florian (the first, by the way, is Frank “Twinkletoes” Trigg). However, win or lose, Chris managed to make himself a marketable commodity, as he continues to be a featured fighter on Spike’s ‘Ultimate Fight Night’ specials.
5.
The Weaver Family, ‘The Amazing Race 8 (Family Edition)’ – What if you took Scott Savol’s penchant for thanking God and multiplied that by 100? And what if you were oblivious to the fact that everything you did seemed to run counter to your professed Christian lifestyle? And what if, despite that, you turned out to be a pretty good racing quartet? Well, then you’d have the Weaver family – Linda, Rachel, Rebecca and Rolly. It was both intruiging and annoying to watch this family drive across America unaware about how everything they did seemed to smack of hypocrisy. For instance, did you know that Linda was engaged to be remarried when the show was taped (and presumably still is engaged), yet she played the grieving widow card more than once? Needless to say, the internet community had a field day with this team, and to this day they still deny any wrongdoing, using the old standby of Reality TV excuses – blaming the editing.
4.
Jim Bozzini, ‘The Apprentice: Martha Stewart’ – To me, Jim has been the only standout candidate in the last three editions of ‘The Apprentice’. Not because he’s qualified for the job – people like Randall and Rebecca are much better suited to the “corporate” aftermath of the show – but because he’s one of the few people that treated the show for what it was – a game. Yes, the ultimate prize is to be the person who Donald or Martha hires, but you need to outlast 15 or 17 other people in order to do that. The best way to do that is to win and/or stay out of the Boardroom when firing time comes. Jim knew how to do that, and that’s the reason he stayed in the game until the final three. Unfortunately, he was so open about this strategy that Martha turfed him in favour of Bethany – who brought him back to help her on the final task.
3.
J.D. Fortune, ‘Rock Star: INXS’ – Like Jim, J.D. understood that the show he was on was a game, and treated it as such during the “house” portions of the show. But when it came down to the singing portions, J.D. never settled for second best. Some people have accused him of “emulating” the original songs, however I never heard that from him – rather, that was the realm of Marty Casey before he was told to stay still while singing. J.D. always seemed to know how to adjust a song to suit his strengths, and he didn’t lie when he said that he knew the INXS catalogue by heart. But in the end, it was one song, “Pretty Vegas” (ironically cowritten by fellow competitors Marty and Suzie McNeil) that swung the game in J.D.’s favour and earned him the position of INXS lead singer.
2.
“Boston” Rob Mariano, ‘The Amazing Race 7’ – I previously mentioned how reailty shows like to create a “villain” in order to get people to watch their shows. Well, unlike some other people on this list, Boston Rob not only played the villain, but he embraced it to the extent that he “turned face”, to use the wrestling term, making people like Lynn the true villains of the show. Like him or hate him, though, Rob showed us that, like ‘Survivor’, he understood the intricacies of ‘The Amazing Race’ and debuted tactics that were dodgy but legal, which I’m sure future contestants have paid attention to.
1.
Stephanie LaGrossa, ‘Survivor: Palau’ and ‘Survivor: Guatemala’ – She went from America’s Sweetheart to bitch. From being on the worst tribe in ‘Survivor’ history to second place. Steph came back onto ‘Survivor’ and proved that she wasn’t a perennial loser and that she did, in fact, know how to play the game. I give a lot of credit to Steph (and Bobby Jon) for coming back to compete when she was already a winner in the minds of most people. And if she shows up on ‘The Amazing Race’, well, you can count on me marking out for that.
That’s it for this week. Merry Christmas!!
