Last week we reviewed a few shows you should definitely give a good look-see, you know, just in case the morning water cooler is like, “Did You See 2 Broke Girls Last Night…Awesome!” And you really don’t want to be the one who says all frantically, “Oh, no. I missed it. NO SPOILERS! NO SPOILERS!” Because that guy/gal really annoys us. Seriously, just walk away or something. Anyway, here are a few TV shows you should only watch if someone is willing to pay you, or if you’re related to one of the stars, or you can’t reach the remote due to being covered with 100 pounds of dog or something like that. (They’re making Finger-Guns up there!)
The Playboy Club
What Will Suck: Eddie Cibrian’s smug face. No seriously. He has a face that says, “Yes, indeed. I WILL be the Don Draper of this thing. There is no way you won’t love me. You will absolutely swoon. Jon Hamm? Who the hell is Jon Hamm?” Gag-a-barfbag. Aside from that bit of assholery, the whole premise looks entirely too contrived right down to the ice in the glass in the first shot. Now, sure, Pan Am is hoping to capture some Mad Men runoff too, but at least the manipulation there seems more subtle. This thing is NBC’s bugle alerting the masses of their attempt to challenge AMC outright. They don’t want to be Mad Men‘s mistress, they want to murder it after a hard grope in a broom closet. But we think after the show returns in the Spring, Mad Men will leave The Playboy Club sated and in a tizzy after their little romp as Draper walks out the closet smiling to himself.
What Could Work: If all the planets and stars align and Michele Bachmann swears off corndogs forever…which won’t happen, perhaps this has a chance. If those things occur and the show focuses less on Cibrian’s jackass incarnate, and perhaps focuses on the women of the era and the complexities of society at the time, and maybe the nuances that made these women revered and reviled, it could work…but this was already a TV movie starring Kirstie Alley as Gloria Steinem and called A Bunny’s Tale.
Where to Find it: NBC, where The Event went to die
What Day? Monday, September 19, 10pm
Charlie’s Angels
What Will Suck: Oh, Drew, Drew Barrymore, Executive Producer, you know I love you, Rosebud…but there’s no way this thing will be good. Judo Chop! No, it just won’t. There are matching outfits. Something named Minka Kelly is co-starring. Is that a person, or the name of a Persian cat?! Anyway, someone says, “Bring it On!” REALLY? BRING. IT. ON?! This looks like a bad version of Silk Stalkings from the early 1990’s on the USA channel when you either watched Silk Stalkings or wrestling before it became awesome. All it’s missing is a lot of multicolored blazers from Dress Barn and Rob Estes. Also…”You don’t look like cops.” “We’re not…we’re Angels.” HA! HA! HA! That was a real line. A real line in this TV show. It wasn’t a parody or a spoof. Oh, ho. That’s just…shittastically bad. Oh, Drew, I think you’re going to wish you could bury every episode in the backyard and hope the dog never digs it up. Yeesh.
What Could Work: Well, uh, nothing. Okay, wait. Maybe if they threw out this entire script…and made the show about one badass chick (Not Minka Kelly), and then somehow found a way to turn down the cheese factor about 1,000 percent. But that wouldn’t be Charlie’s Angels so there’s really no point, so I’m back to nothing…nothing at all. Everyone involved with this start looking for your next job.
Where to Find it: ABC. Modern Family has no idea how this even made it to their channel.
What Day? Thursday, September 22, 8pm
Whitney
What Will Suck: Awkward, weird, nobody-person who just descended from a place where comedy needs elective surgery…yeah, she’s now on television inexplicably. I imagine I’ll look her up on IMDB or Wikipedia and find out that she’s like Gary Shandling’s fourth cousin or some ridiculous thing like that. This looks like an awful re-imagining of Mad About You but without the genuinely likable couple who had winning banter, and a touch of realism that made that show work for forever. This thing looks like an annoying shrew and a henpecked shrew-man who pelt each other with one liners to a silly laugh track and an audience who says “Oooooo” when this Whitney person appears in one of those plastic Halloween costumes. Fine. Let’s everybody appear in a bodysuit of Fruit Roll Ups so the entire world can say, “Ooooo.” This is what little it takes to please an NBC studio audience.
What Could Work: If you were to replace Whitney “Low Rent Sarah Silverman” with someone actually worth watching, perhaps. But Amy Poehler and Tina Fey already have successful NBC shows, and Aubrey Plaza gives us nosebleeds so we’re back at square one.
Where to Find it: NBC. Paul Reiser just leaned over to Helen Hunt and said “Lolwut?”
What Day? Thursday, September 22, 9:30pm
Last Man Standing
What Will Suck: Hey, remember when Tim Allen had a show full of kids, a wife, and he made that Monkey-fart noise? Well, somehow, someone dug that thing out of a landfill in Trenton and decided to put its rotted, stinking corpse back on television. And the show actually seems like it knows it’s been sitting at the bottom of a dung pile for fifteen years. Tim Allen literally looks like he was suspended in some sort of testosterone infused bubble gum factory until the God of all things Stupid and Useless reanimated his body. He’s making jokes about minivans and “Men not being Men anymore,” but now he’s surrounded by women….get it?! Head. Wall. Anyway, he makes some comment about being glad to be home, and we wonder just what the hell…was he in rehab, jail, a DeLorean sent from 1985? All in all, there’s a Glee joke and we kind of like that, the rest, crap.
What Could Work: Tim Allen in 1991…or in animation. All other Tim Allens need not apply.
Where to Find it: ABC. Jonathan Taylor Thomas, heartthrob kid on that Home Improvement show hasn’t worked since 2006. This is your second update for “Home Improvement…Where Are They Now.”
What Day? Tuesday, October 11, 8pm
A Gifted Man
What Will Suck: Ghost Whisperer meets Touched By an Angel. Oh, CBS, we’ve forgotten who you guys are. Remember those nights when we’d all watch Touched By an Angel, Murder She Wrote, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Jake and the Fat Man, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King (No! We never watched any of those shows!)…well in the tradition of sensitive duos set to solve mysteries, or see ghosts, or save innocents, or something…here is this thing starring Patrick Wilson and Julie Benz in some sort of soapy, emotional drivel. I’d forgotten these things exist. Good thing you guys remembered, CBS! There are whole legions of knitting club participants just waiting to turn on this show and pearl some yarn! Fantabulous that you guys are still making teevee for this demographic! It’s on Fridays this fall, so you know, the knitting group doesn’t have to get up or anything.
What Could Work: Needs a spirit guide. Let’s call Della Reese.
Where to Find it: CBS. Jane Seymour has some heart shaped pendants she’d like you guys to buy.
What Day? Friday, September 23, 8pm
How to Be a Gentleman
What Will Suck: Now that Entourage has ended, this actually seems like something that would have happened on the show. Vince goes off to get married, things have continued to fall apart for Johnny’s Bananas, and now Johnny Chase (Drama) needs a new gig. Lloyd has found this wonderful script about this squeaky voiced manners nerd who needs to figure out how to be a man, ENTER JOHNNY DRAMA! Johnny is a street tough from Queens who’s insensitive and rough around the edges meaning he’s laughably stupid and a jerkoff…i.e. he needs to learn how to be a gentlemen…GET IT? EVERYONE, DO YOU GET IT?! Cue awful jokes, a laugh track, and Kevin Dillon’s hair follicles. Executive produced by Mark Whalberg. No, not really…but would you really know the difference?
What Could Work: I think it’s high time Kevin Dillon got his own show, right? He’s still playing “Drama.” It would be great if someone took a chance on him in something counter-type. He’s pigeon-holing himself in this genre when maybe it’s time he went back to thrillers or actual drama, or just something else. Stretch a little bit. This is what Ari would tell him.
Where to Find it: CBS, well, just naturally.
What Day? Thursday, September 29, 8:30pm
