HER?! She Was Banned from SNL? I Can’t Believe… Wait, Who Is That?

If you ask me, “clickbait” headlines on the internet are one of the worst things ever to happen to mankind.  I used to fall for them pretty frequently, clicking on an enticing headline only to feel bad about myself when the crappy linked article failed to prove an experience nearly as excited as the one teased.  Now I avoid them at all costs.  Internet headlines have made bitter and jaded and cynical about the world I live in.

Today I was reading an article on a website that was not Answers.com, when I saw this ad/link to an article on Answers.com:

It’s an intriguing title, I’ll give them that.  What crimes against humanity could 13 stars have committed that got them banned from Saturday Night Live?  But I’ve seen this list, or variations on it, on other websites before, and I’m pretty sure many of the celebrities included are not actually BANNED from SNL.  It’s not like Lorne Michaels sends an updated list to the press every year.  The show’s history is full of one-time hosts who simply never hosted a second time, but that doesn’t mean they were all barred from setting foot in 30 Rockefeller Center.

But putting that aside, the thing that got me right away was their choice of photo for the ad.  The woman pictured is Louise Lasser, star of the 1970s soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and former wife of Woody Allen who costarred with him in Bananas.  She was reportedly dealing with some personal issues when she hosted Saturday Night Live, and her episode is somewhat infamous among fans of the show, for her strange manner on-camera and her weirdness on the set.

Still, I question the fact that of all 13 stars on the list, she’s the one they chose for the photo.  Lasser has a perfectly impressive resume — she was just in a few episodes of Girls last season —  but she hasn’t exactly been a household name in the last few decades.  Aren’t these clickbait ads trying to reach young, hip internet users?  For most people, I can only assume that Louise Lasser would not just be a Star They Didn’t Know Was Banned from SNL.  She would be a Star They Didn’t Know.

I was curious to see how many of my acquaintances would recognize Lasser on sight, so I turned to Facebook with a very informal poll.  I posted a version of the photo above and asked: “Do you know who this is?  Please answer yes or no for now.”

And wow, a lot of people answered very quickly.  The results as of this writing: 23 yes, 17 no.

So that’s actually a lot of people who know who Louise Lasser is, in addition to a lot who don’t.  But it should be noted that the kind of people I associate with tend to be exactly the kind of pop culture nerds who would recognize an actress whose profile was highest almost 40 years ago.

I think my point is still a good one, though, and that point is this: If they really wanted to get clicks, they should have used a photo of Milton Berle.  By all accounts, he was actually banned from returning to the show after his behavior on the set… and the kids today just love him!

Ryan on TV: Fall 2010

Before I start, let me get this out of the way: This blog post is not the Event.

It’s time for new TV!  I’m a little later with this post than previous years, but one advantage of that is that I’ve actually seen some of the brand-new shows, so I can talk about them knowledgeably rather than just speculate based on ads I see in the subway.

It’s kind of remarkable to think about how my TV viewing has changed in the past few years.  It wasn’t that long ago that I had to set the VCR to catch a show if I wasn’t going to be home, and I wouldn’t think twice about jumping into a show for the first time during its second or third season if I heard good things about it.  Now I never have to bother with recording a show, because I know it’ll be online within a week, either on Hulu or the network’s website.  And when the notion of picking up an existing show crosses my mind, I find myself stopping to think, Oh, but maybe I should watch the first few seasons on DVD first!  I guess we’re living in a Golden Age of TV Viewing Options, but sometimes it’s pretty darn stressful.  At least this year sees the triumphant return of Tom Selleck’s moustache to prime time television.

Now it’s time for that time-honored fall tradition, the naming of four premiering shows that I think are Most Likely to Get Cancelled by the end of the season.  Last year I predicted Accidentally on Purpose, The Good Wife, Melrose Place, and Brothers.  The Good Wife got good ratings and good reviews, and now it’s back for a second season, which I hope will include the introduction of a new character called the Bad Wife, played by Julianna Marguiles in a wig as her character’s evil twin.  As for those other three shows, they did, in fact, get canceled.  As they say, three out of four ain’t bad, although in this case it’s pretty bad for everyone who worked on those shows.

This year, my predictions are Outsourced, $#*! My Dad Says, My Generation, and Lone Star.  I’m cheating a bit on Lone Star, because I just read that the first episode got really bad ratings. (Which is too bad. I watched it, and it was an engaging show that’s a lot less high-concept than the ads would have you believe. The show’s depiction of women could use some work, though… I think there were only three female characters with a substantial number of lines, and the one thing they all had in common was that they wanted to get it on with the main character.

As for Outsourced, that’s wishful thinking, because that show’s premiere was just as bad as I expected it to be.  I’ll say the same about $#*! My Dad Says, the world’s first and perhaps last TV series based on a Twitter feed, and starring William Shatner, who may or may not know what Twitter is.

I also watched My Generation (Holy cow, how much TV am I watching?!), and it’s a good concept: a documentary crew chronicled a group of high school seniors in the year 2000, and now catches up with them 10 years later.  But the first minutes, declaring each character to be “The Rock Star” or “The Rich Kid,” didn’t bode well, and the 2010 stuff played out pretty predictably.  And as a high school graduate of 1999, the show failed to capture the era for me, because it never once depicted the kids listening to “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba.

Next up: What’s the New Show I’ve Most Looked Forward To?  I’m going to go with Undercovers.  When they announced that J.J. Abrams would be creating a new spy series, I knew I would at least watch the pilot, but I was even more intrigued by the fact that the two lead characters are a) married, and b) not white.  So often I hear writers say that married couples aren’t interesting as protagonists outside of family sitcoms, but I’ve always figured that’s just laziness on their part.  In the first episode of Undercovers, it was fun to watch these characters interact even without wondering Will They or Won’t They.  It certainly doesn’t hurt that they are quite attractive.

And what about the Returning Show I’ve Most Looked Forward To?  Well, that’s a tough one this year.  Am I less nerdily passionate about TV than I used to be, or are there just not any shows right now that inspire that kind of excitement in me?  I would say Parks and Recreation, a show that went from being really dull in season one to frequently being the funniest of NBC’s Thursday night comedies in season two… but it’s not coming back until midseason, because NBC is stupid.  So I’m going to say Modern Family. It’s a reliably funny show with appealing characters.

Which show has this year’s Worst New Show Title?  I hate to pick on $#*! My Dad Says again, but… well, actually, no I don’t, because it does have the worst new title.  The Twitter feed it’s based on uses a word you can’ t say on TV, so CBS had to use those cartoon obscenity symbols.  Apparently they’re calling it “Bleep My Dad Says” in commercials, but I’ve seen critics call it everything from “Feces My Dad Says” to the actual word.  Why not call it “Dollar-Sign Number-Sign Asterisk Exclamation-Point My Dad Says?

Other thoughts on the new season:

• Grace Park plays Kono on the new Hawaii 5-0, a role that was originally played by a man.  She previously played Boomer on the new Battlestar Galactica, a role that was also originally played by a man.  So what will be her next big TV part?  Tattoo on a remake of Fantasy Island?  Ben the bear on a a remake of Gentle Ben?  Charles Nelson Reilly on a remake of Match Game?
• Rules of Engagement returns for a new season.  Why?
• I didn’t watch Parenthood last year, but I decided to give it a try this season, and so far I’m liking it.  If nothing else, it’s been a while since I followed a non-genre show about stuff that could actually happen in real life.  Although every time I see Mae Whitman, I can’t help but say, “Her?”
• The female lead on Undercovers is named Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and that is awesome.  They should absolutely get Lady Gaga on the show as soon as possible so we can get a Gugu-Gaga scene.
• I’ve been amazed at how many people liked the premiere of the sitcom Raising Hope, which I thought was almost aggressively unfunny, despite the presence of Cloris Leachman, America’s second-favorite nutty old lady who used to be on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Is there a way to make child endangerment funny?  I suppose there could be, but I don’t think Raising Hope has found it.
• Wednesday night is Gerund-Name Pun night on Fox, with Raising Hope followed by Running Wilde, which seems to have potential, although I’m not sure Will Arnett is really leading man material.
• Chase is not a drama about a bank.
• Oh, and since I’m always obsessed with documenting shows with one-word titles, the new ones are: Undercovers, Chase, Hellcats, Nikita, Outsourced, and Outlaw.
• This is Steve Carell’s last season on The Office.  How are they going to get Michael Scott out the door?  Well, if they’re nice to the fans, they’ll let him run off to live happily ever after with Holly, his goofy soul mate from a few years ago.  So who do you think should replace him as the boss?  There have been a lot of rumors, and so far my favorite is the one about a new character played by Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords.
• I enjoyed Community last year without quite loving it the way a lot of folks did, but watching the season premiere I was surprised at how much fun I had returning to it.  I got a little weary of the pop culture references last season, but maybe knowing exactly what to expect helped me get into the show’s groove more easily.  And is it just me, or did Alison Brie get more adorable over the summer hiatus?
• A lot of How I Met Your Mother fans sure are ticked off that Ted hasn’t met our mother yet.  I wouldn’t mind if he didn’t meet her until the last episode, because it would be nearly impossible to sustain a character over an entire season who lives up to everyone’s expectations as Ted’s perfect woman.  Last season we saw her ankle, so if we see her knee this year I’ll be satisfied.  And not because I’m a knee fetishist.  No really, I’m not.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts of the new season?  Let me know in the comments!

Ryan on TV: Peter and Stewie and Brian and Ryan

I hesitated to post this, because like anyone I hate being wrong. And yet… I’m man (and geek) enough to admit it.

You know how in the past I’ve often said disparaging things about Family Guy, the primetime animated sitcom on Fox? For example, calling it one of the worst shows in the history of TV? Well, I’ve been watching some Family Guy clips on YouTube, and some more Family Guy clips on YouTube, and some full episodes on TV, and well, guess what? Family Guy is… good.

For one thing, it’s not the Simpsons ripoff so many critics claim it is. What, just because it’s a TV show about a suburban family? Heck, The Donna Reed Show did that back in the 1960s, which means that The Simpsons is actually a ripoff of Donna Reed!

And Peter Griffin? He’s not that much like Homer Simpson. I mean, okay, he’s a dumb dad. But so is George W. Bush, and nobody accuses him of being a Homer clone. Of course what really matters is the comedy, and Peter is so funny he makes me have to belch because my stomach is so full of funny.

Finally, the pop culture references… or should I say, the brilliant pop culture parodies. They’re not, as I previously thought, cheap attempts at laughter based only on the viewer’s recognition of TV and movie characters and B-list celebrities from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. They go much further than that.

Comedy is all about the unexpected, and I certainly didn’t expect to see the narrative of an episode interrupted by a scene featuring the characters from the 1980s fantasy adventure cartoon Thundercats on a sitcom about a modern American family! And when it turns out that the scene is about Lion-O using his magic sword to watch Cheetara using the toilet… well, the whole thing just goes from merely “hilarious” to all-out hi-freakin’-larious! See, they took a thing that wasn’t naughty… and made it so that it was naughty! And I’ve heard of Thundercats before, so it seems like the writers have seen the same TV shows I’ve seen, which proves that they are geniuses! The best part? Every episode is full of these jokes!

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make — and I’m pretty sure you’ve already figured this out by now — is that this whole post is an April Fool’s Day goof. Family Guy is one of the worst shows in the history of TV, and it should lick the bottom of my shoe.

Ryan on TV: Midseason 2008 Check-in

It’s officially midseason in the nation of Televisionia, which means it’s time for the follow-up to my Fall 2007 TV post. Unfortunately, the people I usually hire to write this journal are on strike, so there will be no follow-up this year.

Just kidding. But the Writer’s Guild strike sure has screwed up TV, hasn’t it? My favorite shows have been yanked out from under me: The Office and 30 Rock have run out of episodes, and Lost only finished filming eight episodes out of sixteen that were scheduled to air starting with this month’s premiere.

On the other hand, less TV means I have more time to devote to productive, enriching pursuits, such as watching 50 horror movies or attempting to create a Mii character of Barbara Bush on my Wii. (The gray Afro hairstyle I gave her doesn’t quite do her justice…) But if American Gladiators and Dance Wars are the best the networks can come up with to fill the void, I should be able to look forward to more nights free as the strike stretches on.

Let’s see, how did I do with this year’s predictions for shows Most Likely to Get Cancelled? I predicted Cavemen, Samantha Who?, Viva Laughlin and The Bionic Woman. I think a lot is still up in the air because of the strike, but I do know one thing: Viva Laughlin, the musical series about a casino, disappeared faster than a quarter in a slot machine. I actually watched the first (and only?) episode, and the show seemed pretty uneasy with the fact that the actors were occasionally singing. I’m guessing CBS figured a show so unusual was unlikely to catch on after a lackluster debut, so they pulled the plug that brought the curtain down.

Cavemen was harshly received by every TV blogger on the internet. Pretty much everyone, including me, assumed it was terrible without even watching it. Did it get cancelled? I thought it had… but it looks like no official announcement was made before TV went away. So it’s undecided. Hey, you know how there was a show called Dinosaurs and then a show called Cavemen? Somebody should make a show called Mastadons! I bet that would be a really funny show. If anyone from the networks is reading this, you can have my idea. Just make sure to pay me for it. Like, maybe, 16 bucks.

Samantha Who? seems to be faring pretty well, though much of its success may be attritbuted to its lead-in, which is one of those dancing shows. Or maybe it’s built a loyal audience of viewers who, like the lead character, have amnesia. That could work out pretty well… the network could just show the same episode every week and the audience would forget they’re watching a rerun.

The Bionic Woman seems to have gotten mixed reviews, and ratings slid downhill after the pilot. Did it get cancelled? As far as I can tell, no, it didn’t, but if it comes back after the strike I won’t expect it to last much longer. Unless they have the Bionic Woman meet Bigfoot. Ooh! Or they could have her fight the new Terminator from that new show, about whom and about which more later.

Back in the fall, I called Pushing Daisies the new show I was Most Looking Forward To, and boy, did it deliver. I was pretty certain I would like it, and I emphatically do, but I’ve been happy to see that it’s performed decently with the rest of America as well. It’s so whimsical and clever and romantic and offbeat that I would not have been shocked if it had vanished quickly, but ABC has done an admirable job of promoting it. All it took was for people to know about it… Who knew?

It’s funny that in my earlier post I referred to the show as “not another procedural crime show,” because it is, in fact, a weekly murder mystery. But it’s a very colorful mystery, with windmill farms and vats of taffy and mermaid ladies. Oh, and for the record, Kristin Chenoweth is now my reigning TV crush.

I named The Office as the Returning Show I’m Most Looking Forward To, but while it was serving up uneven hour-long episodes at the start of the season, 30 Rock swooped in and became my favorite comedy. Like Pushing Daisies, it’s a show that seems to take place on a quirkier plane of reality than our own, and that’s why I’ve come to adore it. And at least once per episode, Tracy Morgan’s Tracy character has one line that makes me guffaw.

Other thoughts:

• I wasn’t especially looking forward to Journeyman, NBC’s drama about a newspaperman and family man who keeps getting pulled back in time to fix problems, but after watching the first episode I felt compelled to watch the second, and the third, and on and on… right up until last month, when it got cancelled. That’s a shame, as the show just kept getting better, but at least they had answered some important questions about the show’s “mythology” by the final episode.

• I’m giving Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles a try. It just started this past Sunday, and settled into its Monday time slot tonight. The pilot had some questionable acting, and I’m not sure how well the whole sheboygan fits with the movies’ continuity, but I may keep watching for a while, largely due to the presence of Firefly‘s Summer Glau. She’s rad, and her character is very different from any Terminators we’ve seen before. It was interesting to me to see all the special effects in the pilot… There’s stuff they can do on a weekly TV budget now that was cutting-edge movie blockbuster stuff in 1992 when Terminator 2 was released.

• Apprehensive as I am about the truncated season, I can’t wait for the return of Lost. I’ve just been clicking around Lostpedia to refresh my memory on what happened when last we left our heroes, because dangit, we’ve been waiting since last May. Who lives? Who dies? What the heck is up with Locke? I would like to know these things.

• I’ll probably check out The Return of Jezebel James when it shows up on Fox in March. It stars Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose and was created by Gilmore Girls‘ Amy Sherman-Palladino. I like all of those people, so I’ll hope for the best. If nothing else, I have to watch just to find out where Jezebel James is returning from.

• I don’t stay up late watching TV like I used to, so I haven’t seen any of the late-night talk shows since they came back sans writers, but I’ve enjoyed reading about what the hosts are doing to make up for scripted material. These guys have never had to go on the air without scripts in their lives… We’re living in historic times!

It seems like I should have more to say about television, but I guess I don’t. What do YOU have to say?

Ryan on TV: Fall 2007

TV is back! After a summer full of reality shows I don’t care about and cable dramas I can’t see, network TV came roaring back last week, and it promises to be more fun than a barrel of… of… Britney Spearses? Or O.J. Simpsons. Whichever is funnier.

You know, most fall TV previews are penned by writers who have actually seen some of the new shows they’re writing about, but not me! You’ll never catch me putting on airs, copping an attitude of “Oh, I’m so much better than everyone because I’m a big fat legitimate TV critic!” I’m not even remotely legitimate! All of my opinions of as-yet-unaired shows are based on 1. Commercials and 2. Reading Entertainment Weekly and The AV Club.

You know also, over the summer I’ve gotten used to not having appointment TV. My evenings have been so wide open without television taking up weekly half hours and hours – I’ve watched DVDs, gotten some reading done, and learned Cantonese and the sarussaphone. Two of my favorite shows are over now (Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls) and Lost doesn’t return until February, so maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe I should cut back on TV this season, so I’ll have more time for other pursuits.

Nah.

Now it’s time for me to make my prediction for the four new shows that are Most Likely to Get Cancelled by the end of the season. In the past I’ve had about a 50% success rate, so expect at least two of these shows to get axed, much like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood: Cavemen, Samantha Who?, Viva Laughlin and The Bionic Woman.

Cavemen is based on a Geico commercial. Advance buzz has been pretty uniformly negative and the last sitcom to be based on a commercial (No, not The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer… I’m talking about Baby Bob) didn’t do so well, so expect Cavemen to go extinct pretty quickly. Although a guest appearance by Fred Flintstone might help.

Similarly, I predict that The Bionic Woman will be just as successful as other recent attempts to revive old shows (Night Stalker, The Fugitive, The Twilight Zone) and will be beaten in the ratings by shows that are better, stronger, faster.

As cute as Christina Applegate is, there’s no way the premise of Samantha Who? — a cantankerous woman gets amnesia and rediscovers her life – can sustain a series, so I think it’ll be forgotten pretty quickly.

Viva Laughlin takes place in a casino and is, apparently, a musical. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if it catches on just because it’s so different, but viewers don’t always tend to go for “different” in a major way. I could be wrong, of course. Laughlin could start a trend of TV musicals, much like the post-Simpsons animation boom or the post-Millionaire game show explosion. This time next year we may be getting new shows about singing doctors, singing lawyers, and singing hitmen. Maybe even a singing animated game show host!

No, which new is the New Show I’m Most Looking Forward To? I’m going to go with Pushing Daisies, and not just because ABC gave me a free daisy a few weeks ago as part of the show’s promotion. The creative team includes Bryan Fuller (of Wonderfalls and Heroes) and Addams Family movie director Barry Sonnenfeld, and among the cast, you got your Lee Pace (from Wonderfalls) and your Ellen Greene (who will always be Little Shop of Horrors’ Audrey to me and millions of others). The story is about a piemaker who can bring dead things back to life by touching them. It’s certainly not another procedural crime show.

And which is the Returning show I’m Most Looking Forward To? Well, Scrubs was disappointing last season and probably should have ended, and I’m having trouble remembering everything that happened on Heroes, so it’s going to come down between 30 Rock and The Office… I think I’ll go with The Office, because last season’s finale gave us some great developments (Ryan is Michael’s boss, Jim asked out Pam, Jan moved in with Michael), and seeing them play out should be fun.

And now I will bestow the award for Worst New Show Title. I’ve known what it was going to be for weeks now… Dirty Sexy Money. What were they thinking? For me, it conjures up images of a $50 dollar bill dressed like a streetwalker, and I have no doubt that everyone else in America will get the same impression.

Other thoughts – and I have a lot of them:

• The game show hosted by Jeff Foxworthy is called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? for the second year in a row. I guess it got held back… maybe it got in trouble for pulling Power of 10’s pigtails.

• The new show Moonlight is about a heroic brooding vampire. I liked it better the first time… when it was called Magnum P.I.!

• You may be asking yourself, Without Gilmore Girls, where will I get my alliteration fix? Well, the CW has Gossip Girl and Gilmore creator Amy Sherman-Palladino is working on the new comedy The Return of Jezebel James, starring the alliterative Parker Posey, so there’s no need for fear a lack of lots of lovely letters.

• Did anyone watch the premiere of Back to You last Wednesday? Was it any good? I’ve been saying for years that a talented bunch of writers and actors should get together and create a show that brings the multi-camera, studio-audience sitcom format back to its former glory. Could this be that show… or is it just half an hour of Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer insulting each other?

The jokes they showed in the promo don’t make it look so fresh. Why do all commercials for comedies show the stupidest jokes? Is it just that dumb jokes are easiest to understand quickly, or do the networks believe the majority of viewers are dodos? Are they right?

• I wish I could say Andy Barker, P.I., the Andy Richter vehicle from last midseason, was returning, but it’s not. You know, Andy Richter is great, but his greatest success so far has been as a sidekick, so maybe he should think about being part of an ensemble, rather than the lead, in his next series.

• The one-word title craze continues, with new shows like Cane, Reaper, Moonlight, and Carpoolers joining the returning likes of Shark, Bones and House. Who wants to write a story using only the words of current TV show titles?

• From what I’ve read, this season of How I Met Your Mother will be special because he’s finally going to meet your mother. As the show enters its third year, it’s about time. Maybe your mother will convince Alyson Hannigan to let her hair go back to its natural red color. She doesn’t look so good with dark locks.

• If I were a real entertainment journalist, I would write this sentence about Kate Walsh’s new show: “There are big expectations for the new Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, but will Private Practice make perfect?” But I’m not, so I won’t.

Okay, I think that’s all I have to say about TV today. Tell me what you’re watching and liking and recording and hating!

Ryan on TV: Midseason 2007 Check-in

Every time TV goes away for a while, I experience the revelation that I can actually live without it. Then, when TV comes back again, I realize that no, I can’t live without it.

TV is back again from the winter hiatus, and you know what that means. Another midseason, another midreason… for makin’ a follow-up post to my previous journal entry in which I talked about new TV shows.

Every season I make predictions about four shows upon which I bestow the title Most Likely to Get Cancelled, and this season was no exception. This year, I gave that dishonorable mention to Vanished, Happy Hour, ’Til Death, and 30 Rock.

In the past, I’ve generally had about a 50% success rate with my predictions, and thus far, I’m continuing to uphold that precedent. Vanished, a show about somebody vanishing, was cancelled in November. Since then, everyone and their elderly Aunt Cloise has joked about the appropriateness of the show’s title, so I won’t bother. Happy Hour was a show about two guys, I think, and they did some stuff, and… you know, I’ve forgotten what it was, but the point is, it’s been cancelled too.

’Til Death, on the other hand, is still hanging on, and several internet sources indicate that Fox extended the episode order to the end of the season. Also, it’ s moving to the enviable post-American Idol time slot, which can’t hurt. Although now that I say that, I wonder what the numbers are on that… How many struggling shows have found an audience after nestling in the soft bosom of Ryan Seacrest? Anyway, we’ll see if ’Til Death makes it to a second season, but I have my doubts.

I predicted that 30 Rock would get cancelled quickly because it couldn’t co-exist alongside Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which I assumed would be the better of two similar shows. They sure fooled me! Studio 60, which is pretty boring, is not living up to expectations, but 30 Rock seems to be thriving, and has turned into a pretty funny show since its shaky first episode.

In my previous post, I named Lost the season premiere I was most looking forward to. I know the six-episode “mini-season” was pretty divisive with the fans, but I thought it was quite effective as a limited story arc. There was plenty of good stuff – characters hooking up, important backstory revealed, a major character killed… and a great performance by new cast member Elizabeth Mitchell, who quickly became my reigning TV crush. I’m looking forward to the show’s midseason return next week. Thirteen weeks is a long time to find out what happens next.

Speaking of Lost’s thirteen week hiatus, did anyone watch the temporary replacement show, Daybreak? I intended to, but then I missed the first episode. And then I missed the second episode, and then it wasn’t long before it was cancelled. Sorry about that, Taye Diggs. I’ll watch your next show.

Other thoughts:

• Is 1 vs. 100 any good? I’ve yet to watch an entire episode. Based on my limited knowledge of the show, it would seem that “the mob” normally consists of 100 more-or-less normal people. If the show stays on the air for years to come, they’ll have to cast thousands of people to be in the mob. This brings us one step closer to the day when every American citizen will be featured on some sort of game show, reality show, or hidden camera show at some point in their life. That day is coming, my friends. In fact, you may be on TV right NOW!

• King of the Hill just returned for its eleventh and final season. Eleven seasons! Can you believe it? The show’s been in a pretty inglorious time slot for the last several years, but it’s maintained its quality throughout. Just compare it to all the terrible prime time cartoons that have come (and gone) in the last eleven years. Such as Stripperella — or is that comparing apples and really trashy oranges?

• This may be the first season that I haven’t heard of a new reality show that makes me want to run and hide in the oven. There’s no Chains of Love, or Temptation Island… unless I’ve missed one. I’m sure TV won’t fail to disappoint me, though. There must be a show in the works about couples who have to cheat on each other in order to earn enough money to pay for life-saving surgery, or something.

• If you had told me three years ago that Flavor Flav would become the most important figure in the history of VH1, I would have said, “Huh. Okay.” But it’s still pretty weird.

• February sweeps has started. That means the networks are pulling out all the stops to ensure higher-than-average ratings for their shows. I’m especially looking forward to the musical episode of Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator.

It seems like I should have more thoughts, but I don’t. I guess I should watch more TV. What are YOU, the readers of this journal, watching these days?

Ryan on TV: Fall 2006

Hey, kids and people. The clock on the wall says it’s fall, and that means it’s time once again for me to pore over Entertainment Weekly’s fall TV preview issue, and pass judgment on this new season of television, or as I like to call it, “TV.”

As I do every year, I’m going to use my powers of prediction to bestow the title of Most Likely to Get Cancelled on four new shows I believe will be nothing more than fading memories by the end of the season. In the past, my success rate has been 62.5%, unless I did the math wrong, which I probably did. I’m a lot better at talking about TV than I am at number sense. This year’s Most Likely to Get Cancelled awards go to Til Death, Happy Hour, Vanished, and 30 Rock.

Happy Hour is a sitcom on Fox that looks really, really stupid. This kind of show can go one of two ways: It can be cancelled within the first weeks of the season and never spoken of again, or it can inexplicably build a loyal viewer base and go on to get renewed for another season, like last year’s Most Likely to Get Cancelled show The War at Home. I’m going to wager on the former, but maybe I’m underestimating America’s clamoring desire for really, really stupid television shows.

Til Death isn’t long for this world. Brad Garrett is the lead, and I seriously doubt that everybody loves Brad. How long until Doris Roberts or Peter Boyle guest stars? Despite the presence of my döppelganger, this show won’t last.

Vanished is a drama about a kidnapping case, but it’s not the same show as Kidnapped. 30 Rock is a dramedy about a Saturday Night Live-like sketch show, but it’s not the same show as Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. TV Town just ain’t big enough for all these similar series.

It was quite a challenge to choose just four MLTGC shows this season, so just for the record I’d like to mention that I have serious doubts about Shark and The Class as well. Shark doesn’t even have a talking shark in it!

This season’s Worst New Show Title awards go to Men in Trees and The Knights of Prosperity.

Viewers are bound to be disappointed when they tune into Men in Trees, expecting to see a race of Tarzan-like men living in a forest city, and instead find only Anne Heche.

The Knights of Prosperity, which is actually a comedy, was originally conceived as a show called Let’s Rob Jeff Goldblum, which would have been a far better title. Somebody should still use that title for something. I don’t care what. A movie, a poem, a detergent. Wouldn’t you use a detergent called Let’s Rob Jeff Goldblum? Wouldn’t you try it at least once? Yes, you would, and when people said, “Your clothes smell so fresh!” you would reply, “Thank you! It’s Let’s Rob Jeff Goldblum!” and they would say, “Hoo-HAH!” and buy you parmesan-flavored buffalo wings for lunch.

This year I’m introducing a new award, the Season Premiere I’m Most Looking Forward To. These days, a large percentage of dramas and comedies alike have serialized storylines, which means we’re kept waiting over the summer to find out What Happens Next. I was intrigued by the Gilmore Girls season finale, but I’m wary of the show this season, as it finds itself without its creator Amy Sherman-Palladino for the first time. The Office season finale got viewers buzzing, and got NBC making cheesy promos that misrepresent the show. It will be very interesting to see where they take things from here.

But the season premiere I’m anticipating most is Lost, a show whose fun comes largely from sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what happens next. Last year’s chock-full finale offered some long-wanted answers, and brought up some crazy new questions. Where did the Others take our heroes? Are Locke and Eko still alive? What’s up with Charlie, anyway? And how come cast members keep getting pulled over by cops?

Other thoughts, and I have a LOT of them:

•Big Day is a comedy that follows a wedding day 24-style, in more-or-less real time. But unlike the life of a CIA agent, there are no assassination plots or bombs or car chases during most weddings, (at least not the ones I’ve been to) so how can they possibly keep the show interesting for a full season? Is anyone really going to still be watching when episode 20 is devoted entirely to doing the Electric Slide at the reception?

•If Brothers and Sisters doesn’t use the song Brothers and Sisters from the 1970s children’s album and TV special Free to Be, You and Me as a theme song, they are seriously missing out. “Ain’t we happy, everybody, bein’ everybody’s sister? Ain’t we happy, everybody, lookin’ out for Mister Mister? And starring Calista Flockhart!”

•I love, love, love the fact that CBS’s Sunday night lineup rhymes. It’s The Amazing Race, Cold Case, Without a Trace. I’ve tried to come up with some other ideas for rhyming lineups, but there don’t seem to be any other shows that work. Nothing really rhymes with Supernatural. Meanwhile, Cold Case has a showrunner named Veena Sud. I’m pretty sure that’s what I use to scrub my bathroom tile.

•The Game features Tia Mowry, who once starred on Sister, Sister with her identical twin Tamera. This is very convenient for the producers. If Tia ever decides she wants to quit the show, they can just replace her with an actress who looks and sounds exactly like her!

•Family Guy and American Dad are both back for another season of terrible. In the Entertainment Weekly article, the Family Guy executive producer says there will be a guest appearance by Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in an episode, then goes on to say, “It’s tough to explain.” Let me explain it, without having seen it: It’s a lame, unfunny reference to National Lampoon’s Vacation.

•The pretty funny sitcom How I Met Your Mother is returning. I guess he hasn’t met your mother yet. The screenshots I’ve seen from this season show the character Lily, who is normally a redhead, with dark hair. If actress Alyson Hannigan’s previous work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer is any indication, I can only assume this is the season where Lily becomes posessed and tries to kill everyone.

•I have a great idea for a Kidnapped promotion. The network can hold a viewer sweepstakes, and the winner will be kidnapped! They won’t be told in advance when it will happen, or even that they’ve won. It’ll be incredibly exciting, and it could not possibly go wrong. At least it’s better than my idea for a Bones promotional sweepstakes last year, where the winner would have his or her lifeless corpse studied by Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz.

•The new drama Six Degrees should have Kevin Bacon guest star as soon as possible. By the way, if you want to know how to connect Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less, here’s one way: Star Erika Christensen was in Traffic with Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was in Ocean’s Twelve with Julia Roberts, who was in Flatliners with Kevin Bacon. Ta-da!

•The WB and UPN networks have merged to create the CW, sure to be America’s favorite TV channel with the same initials as Carl Weathers. I’m completely in favor of the CW, because it means Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars are now in the same Tuesday-night programming block. Meanwhile, the local network affiliates left in the cold by the merger have the opportunity to become affiliates of MyNetwork TV. This kooky new network features a lineup of just two nightly soap operas, which will run for 13 weeks, at which point they will wrap up and be replaced by two new nightly soap operas. It’ll be interesting to see how the experiment works.

•John Stamos joins the cast of ER. Here’s something to think about: When ER premiered, John Stamos was still on Full House.

I could talk about TV for hours (and I have, at times), but I think I’m done for now. But be sure to tune in for my follow-up post, which will be the most… shocking… post…. EVER.

Ryan on TV: America’s Got Treasure

I don’t understand what’s happening to me.

Back in 2003, I wrote in this very journal that “I don’t like reality TV.” Since that time, I’ve found myself watching a handful of reality shows and not hating them. One reason for this is that as I’ve given more of these shows a chance, I’ve discovered that, just as in the worlds of comedy, drama, and high school performances of Grease, the reality genre has good productions as well as crappy ones. Also, I think the definition of “reality TV” has expanded to encompass shows that are more like weekly documentary films than exploitative competitions in the Survivor mold.

For example, when I come across A&E’s series Airline, about the trials and tribulations of Southwest Airlines employees, I’m pretty likely to stick around and watch it. Whether it’s dealing with a drunk passenger, a man whose flight has been canceled three times, or a guy who must be delicately informed that he’s too stinky to get on the plane, it’s intriguing to watch normal people handle the daily drama of their jobs. Anyway, they’re certainly easier to identify with than pre-manufactured singing stars named Simpson.

This summer I’ve been surprised to find myself watching two series that have little in common, other than the fact that they both fall into the “reality” category.

First, there’s Treasure Hunters, Mondays on NBC. If the movie National Treasure and the reality show The Amazing Race started on opposite ends of a runway, then drove straight toward each other until they collided hard enough to fuse them together, the result would be this show. A bunch of three-person teams – including former CIA agents, geniuses, and guys with mullets — are running around to various sites important to American history, searching for artifacts that will ultimately lead the winning team to the treasure. I don’t think they’ve said yet what the treasure will be, but I’m hoping it’s George Washington’s wooden teeth.

This show initially hooked me with its puzzles. It’s fun to watch the teams struggle to decipher clues, and even more fun to figure it out before they do and spend the rest of the show yelling at them. (“The RED quilt! Look inside the RED quilt, you fools!”) All the challenges also have a semi-educational aspect. When the teams went to Mount Rushmore, we learned about the archives that are hidden in a niche in the mountain. When they traveled to Paris, we got to hear about the American Revolution hero Lafayette. I can certainly get behind an entertaining show that sneaks in some teaching in between commercials featuring that smarmy Mac dude insulting the unhip PC guy.

Despite myself, I’ve also gotten caught up in the little dramas (and melodramas) that unfold with the treasure hunters themselves. The Fogals double-crossed the Southie Boys! How dare they? The Wild Hanlons dissed the Brown Family! Those jerks! One of the Miss USA girls injured her leg! Oh nooo! I never know whom to root for, but most of the time I end up rooting for whoever is the underdog at the time.

Wait. Is this me, Ryan, talking? Am I, Ryan, really getting caught up in one these so-called “reality shows?” Have I, Ryan, been possessed by the ghost of some other guy, perhaps also named Ryan?

The other show I’ve been watching is the hit of the summer, the show that gives piano pseudo-prodigies and stripping Snow Whites an equal shot at stardom, and the show that lets David Hasselhoff express his true feelings about jugglers. It’s America’s Got Talent, Wednesdays and Thursdays on NBC, the Simon Cowell-produced competition open to anyone who thinks they’re talented and wants a chance to win a million dollars. (Apparently host Regis Philbin is only allowed in prime time when he’s giving away a million dollars.)

I have no use for Cowell’s other show, American Idol. Yet I can’t get enough of America’s Got Talent, even though its structure is quite similar, with the three judges and the TV viewers of America getting to decide together who’s more talented than whom. Speaking of the judges, it took me a while to figure something out: While Piers Morgan is obviously this show’s Simon, it’s actually David Hasselhoff who is its Paula Abdul, and Brandy who is its Randy Jackson, rather than vice versa.

Some people have expressed frustration that this show isn’t specific enough with its criteria for talent, but I like the fact that it’s not just about melismaniacal pop singers. Who’s to say a guy who puts a scorpion in his pants isn’t just as talented as a hoop dancer? And while Morgan, the British judge, has inevitably been set up to play the part of the “sinister” judge, I think he’s given some pretty good constructive criticism, and I roll my eyes every time the audience boos him for simply being honest.

See? What in the name of KITT was that? I’m really getting into this show! But I haven’t even told you the weirdest part yet. At the end of the semi-final shows, when Reege (I can call him Reege, ‘cause I met him once) invites us all to pick up our phones and vote for our favorite act, I’ve actually been picking up my phone and voting for my favorite act! What am I doing?!

So far, I’m telling myself that these shows are a cut above most of the other offerings of the genre. Come to think of it, America’s Got Talent might not even be in the genre, considering they don’t really follow the performers offstage, so I maybe I’m getting all worked up over nothing. But I will not be watching Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance or CBS’s Rock Star or ABC’s Can YOU Cook the World’s Tastiest Omelet?, as they appear to be more of the same, so I think I can retain my dignity for now.

Still, I have to wonder. Does my surprising fondness for popular reality shows mean I’m expanding my horizons… or turning into an… (gulp)… average TV viewer?

I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this: That Taylor Ware yodels my socks off.

Ryan on TV: Fall 2005 TV Follow-up

I know, I know. It’s been quite a while since my fall 2005 TV journal entry. But just like my grandmother always said, “It’s never too late to write a follow-up to an entry in your online journal in which you talk about the new TV season.” At least I think it was my grandmother… or was it me? Anyway.

Every season I predict which new shows are Most Likely to Get Canceled. Up until fall 2004, I had a 50% success rate for correct predictions. However, my awesomeness increased that fall when all four of the new shows I named got canceled by the end of the season. That was a 100% success rate! Could I go for a repeat? Could I do it again? Could my lightning strike twice?

No.

I placed my Most Likely to Get Canceled designation on four new shows: How I Met Your Mother, The War at Home, Night Stalker and Reunion. Night Stalker, a dark remake of a show not a lot of people remember, was canceled in early November. Reunion, a show with a gimmicky “whodunnit” hook meant to unspool over the course of the entire season, was canceled in late November, leaving thousands of fans, or at least several hundreds, to forever wonder who, in fact, dunnit.

How I Met Your Mother, however, is still on, and it’s one of the better-received new comedies this year. I saw an episode, and it was actually fairly entertaining for a multi-camera sitcom. This was mostly due to Neil Patrick Harris, formerly of Stark Raving Mad, and Alyson Hannigan.

Then there’s War at Home. I truly do not understand why people are watching this. Shows like this make me want to bop the network executives on the noggin with my giant inflatable mallet (won with 250 tickets at Dave & Buster’s). Do you know what this show means for Fox’s Sunday night lineup? They have The Simpsons, which is still a pretty good show, but then it’s followed by an hour and a half of pure crap, with The War at Home followed by Family Guy and American Dad.

That’s right, I still hate Family Guy. I know “hate” is a strong word, and there aren’t many television shows I would apply it to… but I’m completely perplexed by Family Guy’s popularity, often among otherwise reasonable and intelligent TV viewers. So I think it’s deserving of my wrath, deserving of the dark black bile of pure, passionate hatred that boils deep within me every time I think about it. ‘Cause it sucks.

You may recall that I almost included Commander in Chief among the Most Likely to Get Canceled shows. It’s a good thing I didn’t, because it’s doing pretty well in the ratings. I wonder if there are people who watch both The West Wing and Commander in Chief. Do you think they ever get confused about who the president really is?

Other thoughts:

• Early in the season, I checked out the new supernatural shows with female leads, Threshold and Ghost Whisperer. Threshold started out promisingly, but despite the presence of Carla Gugino and Peter Dinklage, it didn’t have that certain something that made we want to keep coming back. It’s been canceled since. Ghost Whisperer is all right, though I don’t really understand why it’s succeeding in the same time slot on the same network where Joan of Arcadia plummeted to cancellation last season. I guess Whisperer isn’t all depressing and stuff like Joan was in its second season.

• The Office is great. Somebody give Steve Carell a high-five and an Emmy nomination.

• When somebody told me about the new reality show Skating with Celebrities, I assumed they were joking, but it’s all too true. It pairs skaters like Nancy Kerrigan with stars like Dave Coulier, who is apparently making a whole career out of being “Dave Coulier, Celebrity.” Next season we’ll be seeing Skydiving with Stars, followed by Synchronized Swimming with Famous People. Just wait ‘til you see Anson Williams’ pool moves!

• I sure do like Arrested Development. I sure do wish Fox weren’t ditching it. I sure do hope Showtime picks it up.

• As of about a week and a half ago, I have the capacity to receive UPN, and thus to watch Veronica Mars! Not since I got my own waffle maker have I been so excited. Now I can tune in every Wednesday at 8 (while recording Lost, of course) to find out who caused the bus crash and whether Steve Guttenberg knows more than he’s letting on.

• Family Guy sucks.

• I criticized the title of the TV show My Name is Earl, but having seen the show a couple of times, I now see that the title works, somehow, with the tone of the show. I can’t really explain it beyond that. Also, the title does make sense, because his name is Earl.

• I’m glad Scrubs has returned, as it’s currently the second-greatest comedy on network TV. If a magical television genie offered to put make me part of the writing staff of any show on TV, I’d very probably choose Scrubs.

Do you agree with what I’ve said? Do you disagree with what I’ve said? Do you have a hilarious, insightful observation about Poppy Montgomery? Let me know in the comments thingy below.

Ryan on TV: Fall 2005 Season

It’s that time again! It seems like just yesterday spring was fading into summer, May sweeps was wrapping up, and we were all getting ready for a season full of beach-going and drinking lemonade and wondering what the heck is in the hatch. Now fall has arrived, and with it the fall TV season.

As I’ve done the past few years, I’ve pored over Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV preview issue and come up with a few predictions, observations, and mean jokes about the television of the very near future.

I want to point something out about my fall TV journal entry of last year. In it, I noted that my success rate at predicting which new shows were Most Likely to Get Cancelled had thus far been 50%, and I vowed to bring it up to 100%.

Guess what? When the end of the 2004-2005 season came around, all four of the shows I predicted would get cancelled– Center of the Universe, Listen Up, Jonny Zero and life as we know it— had been cancelled! One hundred percent, baby! Pass the popcorn!

The challenge now is to repeat that astounding success. It was extremely difficult to predict the surefire failures this year, because there are a lot of potential stinkers. Plus, I’m at a disadvantage because I currently get about four channels on an old-school antenna, so I have no idea which shows are getting the most promotion. Still, here are my predictions for the new shows that are Most Likely to Get Cancelled: How I Met Your Mother, The War at Home, Night Stalker and Reunion .

How I Met Your Mother is narrated from the year 2030, as a dad (voice of Bob Saget of TV’s Full House and the film The Aristocrats) tells his kids about the good old days of 2005. Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Alyson Hannigan is on it, and she’s good. But assuming the show’s two romantic leads meet in the first episode, doesn’t that spoil the surprise? We’ll know how he met our mother by the end of the first half-hour!

The War at Home is not a series of propaganda films. Rather, it reflects Fox’s commitment to original programming, by airing a sitcom about a family with a dumb dad. Night Stalker is a remake of Kolchak: the Night Stalker. I’m sure TV viewers will embrace it in the exact same way they did the recent remakes of The Fugitive and The Twilight Zone. Reunion is a drama with an unusual premise: each episode represents a year in the life of its six regulars. This is the kind of show—especially on Fox—that either does really well, or just confuses people and ends up with dismal ratings and a quick death. I’m calling it for the latter fate.

This year I’m bestowing the Worst New Show Title awards on the Jason Lee comedy My Name is Earl and the Denise Richards drama Sex, Love & Secrets. Why My Name is Earl? Why not just Earl? And Sex, Love & Secrets probably would have added …and Nudity! if it weren’t for the FCC. At least it’s a better title than Sex, Love & Algebraic Equations, I’ll give them that.

Other thoughts:

• If I gave an award for Best New Show Title, it would go to Everybody Hates Chris, the new sitcom inspired by Chris Rock’s childhood. Although the writers are lucky the show seems to be getting good buzz so far. It’s one of those titles that “clever” critics would love to use against the show if it failed to entertain.

• Last year I commented on the plethora of shows on the air with acronyms. Amazingly, I don’t think there are any new acronym shows, but following the success of Lost, it appears that one-word titles are the big trend. So this season we have Supernatural, Related, Bones, Surface, Invasion, Threshold, Reunion, Inconceivable, Freddie, Twins, and E-Ring, if that last one counts. Not to mention returning shows Charmed, Medium, Stacked, Girlfriends, House, Rodney, Cuts, Joey, Alias, Eve, Reba, Smallville, Numb3rs, and Supernanny.

Whew. For a fun game, see if you can make a sentence using only those words!

• Speaking of Supernanny, I caught a rerun of it recently, and I must confess I got engrossed watching the chipper British lady helping pathetic parents reform their bratty kids. That makes one more reality show I’ll willingly watch, so it’s clear that I’ll soon have to revise my longstanding general rule of “I don’t like reality TV.”

• Commander in Chief stars Geena Davis as the president. I may regret not naming this to the Most Likely to Get Cancelled list, because I really don’t think the show will win the popular vote. Besides, network TV already has a fake president.

• Freddie is Freddie Prinze, Jr.’s new sitcom vehicle. “I didn’t know he could do comedy!” you might say. “Oh, yeah?” I might say. “Then what can he do?”

• The fact that American Dad and Family Guy are back this season makes me never want to watch TV again.

• The fact that Arrested Development is back this season makes me want to keep watching TV for the rest of my life. It’s moving to Mondays. Set your TiVos, peoples!

• Blue Collar TV returns. It’s the show that dares to poke fun at controversial topics no other show dares to, like gravy.

• I’ll probably watch the Jennifer Love Hewitt drama Ghost Whisperer to see if it’s any good, but I hope I don’t have to turn my TV volume up all the way to hear her whispering.

• My interest is piqued by Threshold, one of many new sci-fi-ish shows. It stars Carla Gugino of Karen Sisco, and has all the makings of a potential victim of my Television Curse.

• Why is King of the Hill in the 6:30 PM Central time time slot on Sunday? This is its last season, too. Why don’t they put it after The Simpsons instead of The War at Home, which as we know is destined to fail? That way they could have two full hours of animation on Sunday night, and more people would see King of the Hill. Why don’t they ever ask me before they make these decisions?

Questions? Angry rebuttals? Offers to provide me with free satellite TV for life? Don’t hesitate to use the comment thingy below.