Television

840 posts

Ratings Shuffle: America Still Likes These Boobs on Their Tube

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So, Charlie Sheen does the Crack. Um, okay. I totally get it, booze, girls, and a television show that gives you a veritable monetary windfall — to, uh afford your booze, girls, and now crack cocaine. Sounds almost exactly what we expect from Charlie Sheen, minus the part where he tells kids to “Stay off the crack unless you know how to manage it.” Ho, Boy! Yeah. That Sheen — doing so much for America’s youth.

Anyway, this does nothing to explain how America is still keeping Two and a Half Men at the top of the Nielsen Charts. I’d really like to meet a Two and a Half Men fan one day. Mostly to see if they have tails and live beneath the basement stairs in various old age homes scattered throughout Middle America, but that’s for another day.

Here now is what’s going on in your new weekly ratings report!

CBS, this behemoth network full of single men and/or nerds sharing a home, military head slapping, and a guy who tells his kids about all the women he has sex with that aren’t their mother, was the leader of the pack last week pulling in 3.4 adults in the 18-49 group, edging out Fox which finished a tenth of a point behind with a 3.3 rating. ABC came in third with 2.1, and NBC, home of The Cape, trailed in fourth place with a 1.6 rating! (Is it because of the The Cape, because I think it’s because of The Cape.)

The number one program, and undoubtedly the biggest draw for the CBS network last week, was Sunday night’s Grammys Award Show which apparently many of you sycophants thought was awesome. I did not. We’ll agree to disagree on that point.


The much troubled Charlie Sheen and Co. came in at a more than respectable #6 according to Nielsen, but was beaten out by American Idol on both Wednesday and Thursday nights, followed by Modern Family, and Glee. However, the crack afficionado and cast still managed to win in ratings over House, NCIS (Head Slappers!), The Big Bang Theory, and Grey’s Anatomy, which rounded out the top ten. [TV By the Numbers]

Unfortunately, or fortunately, who knows! The network’s rebooted James Belushi and Jerry O’Connell legal drama, The Defenders, is looking at the chopping block. And, guys, it’s looking back and saying yum. Not the first show on the network staring down the barrel of cancellation, Medium had that honor. Reportedly, there’s a bit of scuttlebutt about how the network cancelled Medium just to put The Defenders, a seemingly worse show, in its place. That’s mostly all bunk since Medium had abysmal ratings and was slated for cancellation anyway. Case and point, I personally haven’t watched that show since the early 00’s right before the big, “I see dead people who haunt me and help me solve crimes” boom, which eventually became, “I have psychic/stellar deductive reasoning skills to help me solve crimes and wiggle my eyebrows at pretty girls” boom, all mostly serving to clog up television like a preternatural arterial blockage of unoriginality. But whatever, Psych! It rules! The Mentalist…not so much. Luckily, we’re only down to about two of those now, but no, it’s certainly not The Defenders fault. It was just time for Medium to end.


Things also aren’t going so well for T.J. Hooker’s new grumpy old man series, $#*! My Dad Says. Um, can I just say that the Zapf Dingbats My Dad Says Shit-show didn’t really look like a good idea to begin with? I don’t know, but something about James T. Kirk walking around in a khaki vest haranguing his son, even without a purse on his arm, just seems so very 1986. Estelle Getty is probably somewhere in the ether shaking an angry fist at the blasphemous portrayal of her shtick.

So, that’s it folks. CBS reigns supreme. This makes me sad, mostly. I blame everyone else. I take responsibility for The Big Bang Theory, but that’s all. We should gift wrap V in an alien egg incubator and give it to CBS. That would help. No, really, this is awesome for CBS, I think.

Confessions: Dreadful TV Edition

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I’ve watched bad TV my whole life; normally, it was always along the lines of Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, and (very, very ashamedly) American Idol.  But recently it’s gotten worse.  Much worse.  In the past year, I’ve watched (in no particular order):

Pretty Little Liars

I have no idea what got me and Roommate hooked on what we fondly refer to as PLL.  I think we missed Gossip Girl actually being good?  I don’t know.  This show is certainly not good, to say the least.  So why do I keep watching it?  I think it has something to do with the (SPOILER ALERT!  LOLJK I know nobody except me watches this crap) fake blind girl, terribly inappropriate ABC Family channel relationship between a 16-year-old student and her English teacher, “unsolvable” murder, and whatever other ridiculous, Agatha Christie-aneurism-for-high-schoolers plotline they come up with.  It may be of note that this is the only scripted terrible TV show I watch. (Is it of note?  I don’t know.  There are so many things about this show that I can answer with “I don’t know.”)

Say Yes to the Dress

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW.  I’d love to say I have no idea why I love this show, but that would be a huge lie and this is not a post in which I lie to you, dear friends.  This is a post in which I come clean over my addictions.  I love this show because Hot. Damn. I love watching uppity bitches acting like the terrible people we all know they are.  And Randy.  And OMG SO MANY PRETTY DRESSES!!11!!!

World’s Strictest Parents

No joke, I’ve cried watching this.  Cried. Go ahead; tear me apart in the comments over my feelings.  But for real, this show takes either redneck shithead kids or spoiled untamed rich kids and sticks them with super Christian families who make the kids, like, you know, work and the bad kids FREAK THE FUCK OUT.  And then they redeem themselves and learn about feelings. And then they go to college and they meet people at parties who are like, “Hey, didn’t I see you on World’s Strictest Parents?” Like teens through the reality TV cycle, so are the days of our lives.

(I couldn’t find any videos with embedding code from the US version of this show so you’ll just have to trust me.   Or go here.)

Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami

When I saw the previews for this steaming pile of Armenian over-sharing, I thought there was no way on Kgod’s Kgreen Kearth it could be worth watching.  But oh!  How wrong I was!  Much like the other programs listed, this show is worth watching because it’s really fun to judge people who willingly put their lives on television in order to feel better about yourself. (Isn’t that kind of the point of reality TV?)  Let me tell you a-something about this family: Kourtney and Khloe used to like to get really shitfaced and hook up with random dudes and it was amazing.  Unfortunately for all of us, the show was pretty much over once Kourtney popped out the spawn of Patrick Bateman, Khloe married some tall guy who loves lakes, and a terrible spin-off set in New York (it violates the acclaimed scientific theorem that only two Kardashians (neither of which being Kim) at a time are bearable) came to be on the air.

I have more terrible TV shows I love but I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day.  Make me feel less alone and tell me what awful TV you can’t get enough of in the comments.

“Thurston, what do you wear to a rescue?”

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Lovey Howell spoke these words on Gilligan’s Island, when it seemed that a ship might pass their uncharted desert isle. Ginger immediately leapt to her feet and took Lovey by the arm – “Oh, I’ll help you.”  The next scene shows Lovey in a nautical ensemble, complete with a jaunty hat.

I remember this because it’s precisely the question I would ask.  I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I know how to find out.  Remember, I’m the guy who brought brie, french bread and shrimp cocktail to a cop-and-marine-filled paintball match, was scoffed at, and proceeded to shoot the crap out of everyone.  I will never forget looking John – a Nassau County Corrections Officer with a psychotic gun collection – in the eye, aiming at my friend Chris, and hissing “I’m gonna off that motherfucker.”  He looked at me like he was scared, and he’s 6’6″ and diesel as hell.  I held up some corrugated plastic as a shield, crawled through the scrub brush, and blew my beloved Chris away with a paintball at point-blank range.

The paint was purple.  Not a coincidence.

So work sucks, and it’s time to go.  My colleagues are nice except for the CFO, who is an undermining asshole.   I didn’t know that the SEC was in to do an examination until the day after I agreed to take the job.  The CFO makes a mint while I and my assistant are at the very bottom end of the pay scale.  It’s a 3-person job and there are two of us.  My bonus was inappropriate.  Everyone’s was, including the CFO’s, but his was in the wrong direction.

And ultimately, I blame the CEO – a man I like and respect who has given his trust to the CFO, whom I don’t.  No one does.  If the man Googled himself, he would be appalled.

An international bank wants to see me on Friday – they have a huge real estate trust and a private wealth management division where Compliance work is needed.  I must haircut, manicure, buy new shoes, buy a new belt, pick up my fancy suit pants from the cleaners, and find a way to turn Casual Friday into Froufrou Fund Friday.

I’m a bit unprepared – I can’t find the people I’m meeting anywhere online.  But I will.

I am very sorry that I will be incommunicado tomorrow, but personal business calls me out of state and I can’t be back here before late tomorrow night.  Peace, all.

I might know what to wear to this rescue.  But the fact is… I want to write for a living.  There’s half a novel in the can.  Well, the Ralph Lauren shirt box.

Out with the old, and… In with the old!

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Yes folks, some of us have decided to bring back one of the most consistently entertaining aspects of The Place Which Shall not Be Named – Live Blogs!

Our first victim?  Syfy’s own Face-Off.

It airs Tuesdays at 10 PM. If you’re not familiar, Face-Off is a reality competition show for special-effects make-up artists. It has the same format as every other cable channel TV show I’ve ever seen, as in there’s a mini-challenge at the beginning of the episode, then the contestants have a themed challenge that they have x-number of hours to complete, rinse, repeat.

The thing is, the challenges are pretty damn cool and the judges actually have a clue.  We get to hear the words of wisdom from industry pros such as Ve Neill, of Pirates of the Carribbean and Edward Scissorhands fame, and winner of three of those Academy Award thingies, which is cool, I guess.  Also, Glenn Hetrick of Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the FREAKING X-FILES people, and Patrick Tatopoulos, who had a hand  in Underworld, Independence Day, and Resident Evil: Extinction.

Those Independence Day aliens were wicked cool, y’all. Especially the one that got punched in the face by Will Smith. Ok, so the face punching was the cool part, but still.

Tonight’s challenge apparently involves “Friday the 13th” director Sean Cunningham and the creation of horror movie villains. Sounds interesting. And gory. Mmmmm…. gore….

So, Syfy (Still hate that name) at 10 PM. Hope to see you there!

What the hell is up with Groupon?

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If you were unfamiliar with Groupon, you certainly got a weird introduction to it last night with the “Tibet” commercial. That ad was stunningly bizarre. However, if you have ever sat down and read a Groupon ad, last night’s commercial was not a surprise.
We talked about these ads in Crosstalk and I did a post way back. I was just re-reading it and thought I’d post it because it shows the truly bizarre advertising ideas that Groupon uses.
(This post is from September 2010) Have you subscribed to Groupon, the online coupon group? You sign up and they email offers to you. The deals are pretty good. I got a great deal on carpet cleaning through Groupon. However, if you stop and read the text, it contains some of the strangest writing I’ve ever seen.
Here’s the first one that caught my notice. It’s a Denver area Groupon. It contains an odd analogy:
A marriage between two cuisines is preferable to a marriage between two clones of Sylvester Stallone, a process that eventually results in a baby reared on raw egg and meat punching bags.
WTF? It’s an advertisement for a Denver restaurant that I think serves fusion cuisine. This is on the menu:
Mr. Croque, a sandwich of Black Forest ham and cambozola cheese with a champagne saucette ($9), puts taste buds on a first-name basis with pleasure, and samurai sea bass attacks hunger with preserved veggies, a miso-beurre blanc, and a rigid code of honor ($26).
“What exactly,” inquired one of my online friends, “is pleasure’s first name?” The ad never reveals it. I suppose you have to go to the restaurant to find out. My favorite analogy is further along in the ad:
An extensive menu of signature cocktails and a globally focused wine list give Japoix the libationary power of a team of mixologist Clydesdales.
Are horses working at the bar? Do horses have qualities that are desirable in a bartender? My husband wondered if, maybe, the copywriter was from another culture in which the compliment “Hey, that’s a real horse of a bartender!” is common.
At first, I thought the restaurant had a random, weird copy editor. However, this morning, I opened my Groupon offer for a mainicure/pedicure and was greeted with this analogy:
Your feet have felt neglected ever since you started walking on your hands, and your hands have been jealous of your feet ever since you sold your fingers to pay for college.
In this case, why bother with the manicure? Further on, the ad reads
The luxury mani-pedi gets metacarpal and metatarsal teams looking their best before competing with rhinoceros horns and flamingo plumage in the World Keratin Showcase.
Okay, WHAT????? Will my toes look like horns? Is the nail polish flamingo-colored? I’m so confused.
I shared this with a few friends on Gawker and found out that it’s not just Denver. “Lymed”, from DC, sent me this gem from a Groupon Golf Course ad in DC. I tried to read it to my husband over the phone but started laughing so hard at the Keebler trees that I could not continue.
Gentle creeks and tributaries flow through the 7,077-yard championship layout at Old Hickory Golf Club, which is lined with oak, maple, and hickory, and conspicuously vacant Keebler trees. The Bull Run Golf Club meanders through pictorial meadows and woodlands. Regardless of the course, masterfully avoid stepping on cracks that break mothers’ backs by rolling over them (mothers, that is) in the included golf cart.
The ad got off to a good start as well:
Golf, like professional wrestling, involves an inordinate amount of tossing chairs, wearing flashy costumes, and putting while a spandexed competitor has you in a sleeper hold.
Who are these people golfing with? “A Piece of the Continent” sent in the following text from a Chicago Groupon for a science museum:
Science is one of the world’s most marginalized subjects, often bullied by math, disregarded by geography, and ridiculed by gym class.
I actually don’t think that’s true. I know for a fact that gym class isn’t around any more and I believe the science majors are the only people with jobs these days. “Delta Sierra” posted an older one from Orange County, CA:
A grocery store is like a carnival midway-it offers shelves and shelves of goodies that only become available after lobbing baseballs at stacks of bottles.
That’s not how I used to shop but I’m going to start immediately.
Clearly, the same person is writing all of the copy for Groupon because these are some of the weirdest analogies on earth. They are startling in their bizarre similarity. Do you think that alcohol is involved? I imagine it’s a more mind-altering substance. I’d like to see more of these if anyone has them on hand. At first, I thought I’d write them and tell them to get a new writer, but now I’m getting sort of attached to these little gems. I wonder if they are actively trying to make them bad at this point.
Thanks to the awesome Gawker crosstalk posters who helped with the Groupon research: spikenard, lymed, A Piece of the Continent, Madfall, Nuclear Bore, Shady Esperanto, Bebe, Mother Gooch, Delta Sierra, tipsy_hausfrau, yearscomeandgo, naugahydeinplainsight, Daisy_Sage, lamey007. This is crossposted from bbqcornnuts.typepad.com

Pathetic Obsession with Teen Mom 2

Why am I, a nearly 40 year old woman (gah! How did that happen?) obsessed with Teen Mom? I was secretly looking forward to last night’s premiere of Teen Mom 2. I set the DVR to record it twice just in case some of it got cut off. I have a theory that 30-40 year old moms are watching most of MTV’s docudramas. I bet if you could get people to really admit what they watch, you’d find out that I’m right (someone is watching all those episodes of True Life). Every time one of my friends has a baby, they tell me they spent their maternity leave watching 16 and Pregnant or My Super Sweet 16 or Jersey Shore or My Super Sweet Shore or 16 and At The Shore.

I did some self-analysis and here are some of the potential attractions that Teen Mom 2 holds for me:

  • I was obsessed with the original Teen Mom, so this is a natural progression.
  • I have little kids and this show makes my life look way easier.
  • Leah lives near my hometown so I see glimpses of where I grew up.
  • No matter how dumb I act, I still have more sense than Janelle (or Amber. Pick your season and there will be an applicable trainwreck).
  • Lawd, 17 year old boys should not be parents. Teen motherhood is a concern; teen fatherhood is a tragedy.
  • It makes me so glad I did not have children until I was in a stable relationship.
  • I am a huge dork for an underdog love story and am rooting hardcore for Leah and Corey.
  • Damn, is my husband ever WonderDad.
  • When I get irritated about spending Saturday night surrounded by tantrums and Goldfish crackers, I can remember that I spent my 20s going to so many clubs that I was sick to death of them

I continue, despite the critics, to think this show is a good documentary. It makes teen motherhood look like hell. I am soooo glad I waited. It’s so much easier when you’re older and the child’s father is older. I suppose it’s possible that some teen somewhere got pregnant on purpose just to get on this show. I’d have to question this teen’s ability to make any kind of good decision in general. Even if you’re a pregnant teen in the right age group, what are the odds you’d get on this show? Anyway, now I’ve publicly admitted my guilty TV watching habit (one of them). Now I’m going to watch the deleted scenes on MTV.com and count down the days until the next episode.

Crossposted from bbqcornnuts.typepad.com

Wait, what? No, no, really, what?

1 comment

What the frick can these two possibly have to say to one another?

CS: “I’m on a show. A television show?”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “I’m on a show, too!”
CS: “Maybe you’ve heard of it? On HBO? It’s called Big Love.”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “Heh, heh. I got me some big love here, if you know what I mean!”
CS: “No, no, you moron. Big Love. It’s about Mormons.”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “Yeah, yeah, like them singers. In like a choir or some such.”
CS: “No, no, you moron…well, yeah, like that. Look, my show’s ending, so how about I make you my next project? How attached to that hair are you?”
DJ Paul Mitchell: “My hair is totally attached to my body. Have you seen my body? It is my third best feature.”
CS: “I don’t even want to know what your first and second best features are. Just shut up and smile. They’re taking our picture.”

My hair hurts just thinking about this.

Why I watch Cougar Town

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Strike that. I don’t just watch Cougar Town. I love Cougar Town.

I stumbled upon this show late last season when, during three days of being sick, I exhausted all my backlog on Hulu. And, fuck, what was I going to do? Watch Psych or any of those other “quirky” shows from USA? Go over to CBS’s wasteland?

I figured, eh, I’ll watch Cougar Town and be offended and it will entertain me for a while.

Sadly for my love of righteous outrage, it was actually funny. And not about “cougars.” (Even though I think the early part of Season 1 tried to make that happen. It failed. Because that concept sucks.)

You should take the show for a test run. It’s fluffy and entertaining and contains my favorite character on TV right now (sorry, it’s not Aubrey Plaza). It’s Busy Phillips as “Laurie.”

I have a soft spot for crass women with big, loud personalities. And an especially soft spot for people who don’t take themselves seriously and are kind of vulnerable to boot.

Laurie fits that bill perfectly. I loved her when she tormented her ex-boyfriend’s father – “I just can’t remember if I left my hairdryer here. Must be my pregnancy brain.” Or when she talked with Cox’s character “Jules:”

Laurie: But drama is such a turnon! It makes my lady parts beep.
Jules: Would you rather be with someone emotionally stable or someone who, at game night, carves “die bitch” on the kitchen table because you think he sucks at Jenga?
Laurie: There are positives and negatives to both.
Jules: There really aren’t.
Laurie: I know. And, honey, I am sorry about your table.
Jules: That’s OK. I added a T so now it says “diet bitch.” So actually it’s really helpful!

She is a badass and I like her.

(I have the video embedded, but it isn’t working, so here is a link to what I tried to post.)