25 posts tagged “television”

Sorry, Tiger, you're STILL boring. At least John Daly can be counted on to be entertaining.

My former cow-orker Ray must be doing the happy dance (or would that be the schadenfreude dance) right now. Ray HATED Tiger Woods and enjoyed seeing TW being taken down a peg or two. Or three. Just to annoy him, I would tell him how wonderful Tiger Woods was, and ask him if he had seen Tiger win such-and-such a golf tournament.

I watched "Being Erica" Tuesday night. In the episode, Erica was fired (along with her boss Julianne) and she told Dr. Tom that she regretted having quit a job at a dot-com company before it was bought out; had she stayed, she would have become a millionaire. Like Clarence in "It's A Wonderful Life" (which we will see at least 1,000 times this month), Dr. Tom showed Erica what would have happened if that wish had come true. Millionaire!Erica was idle and unmotivated; she spent her life going out with her idle, superficial friends. When she tried to write a "serious" novel, she was told to try writing the next "The Devil Wears Prada." And then she lost all her money, wound up living with her mother, and had to work at her old telemarketing job. She accepted that the many screw-ups and setbacks that occurred over the course of her life helped build and strengthen the person that she currently was.

The show constantly shows that, even if Erica is allowed to revisit her life's regrets, she can't change what actually happened. I wonder if her acceptance that she had made mistakes over her life and that these mistakes have actually helped provide a learning experience means that she is ready to move on from her therapy and start doing what Dr. Tom has been doing for her. (The show also points out that one never really leaves therapy: one episode showed Dr. Tom going back in time and trying to reconcile with his daughter Sarah. Unfortunately, when Sarah came home, it turned out that Mrs. Tom was a total bee-atch and Sarah ran off again.)  I missed one episode a few weeks back; it's probably the one that answers all my questions.

Sebastian (Sebastard) Piggott is also on "Being Erica." He or his planty brother Oliver butchered Elvissongs during their stay on the last season of "Canadian Idol" and therefore deserve to be struck down by a TCB lightning bold for such BLASPHEMY. I liked Earl Stevenson and Mark "Cod Cheeks" Day.

In other news, I went to Dance Fit on Tuesday. I cringed when I saw Mule Kick come into the studio. However, I wonder if someone said something to her because she came on time and she actually gave the people around her (like me) space to work out in too. She even checked behind her before doing back kicks. Hopefully, this behaviour will last.

First, Jamie Sale and Craig Simpson won "Battle of the Blades." Now Donny Osmond (and partner) won "Dancing with the Stars." What's next?

Notice that Sanjaya didn't appear on either show. Big mistake.

The cast has been announced. I am disappointed.

Some of Canada's most accomplished female skaters, including Jamie Salé, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Barbara Underhill, are to join the cast of the CBC reality television series Battle of the Blades.

Other participants include:

• Isabelle Brasseur, who was an Olympic bronze medallist with partner Lloyd Eisler.
• Marie-France Dubreuil, who transformed ice dancing with husband Patrice Lauzon.
• Christine Hough-Sweeney, who represented Canada at two Olympic Games with her partner Doug Ladret.
• Jodeyne Higgins, who has performed for the past 10 years as a professional pairs skater.
• Kristina Lenko, an international dance competitor.

NHL players Sean Burke, Ken Daneyko and Ron Duguay have been added to the men's roster.

What...no Wing & Lowe? No Sanjaya? Not even Speidi? What sort of reality show is this?

Hopefully Isabelle Brasseur meets a better reality TV fate than Lloyd Eisler. (He dropped his wife for his "Skating with Celebrities" partner Kristy Swanson. At least it wasn't KKKristy Lee Cook.)

Do the viewers get to vote on this show? This could be VFTW-worthy.

"Pauler" is in talks to guest star on "Ugly Betty."  If she gets on the show, I might actually watch it. And her proposed character gets to hang around with Amanda...and Marc. I actually like Marc and Amanda (and Willy) far better than I like Betty. Wilhelmena is hilariously evil and a surprisingly complex character. Yes, she's a (hilariously) manipulative evil bitch, but the viewer can also see how she got that way and what potentially motivates her to do the things she does. As for Marc and Amanda, one senses that there is far more to them than shallow twitdom. (The episode where Marc came out to his mother was really good. And the episode this season where Amanda found out that Gene Simmons really wasn't her dad had a few touching moments.)

In comparison, Betty is just sanctimonious and boring. Maybe she is the "Jerry Seinfeld" of the series. Jerry was the least interesting character on "Seinfeld," but he brought the other characters together.

Spongebob Squarepants turned 10 on Thursday. Has it really been that long?

I want a Krabby Patty now.

12stan500.8

Hey, maybe Red Dwarf might be coming back!

The new two-parter will begin a decade on from when the crew of the Red Dwarf were last seen, with a "shock development" throwing Rimmer, Lister, Cat and Kryten back to Earth.

Chris Barrie will return as Rimmer, Craig Charles as Lister, Danny John-Jules as Cat and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten, with the new storyline written and directed by Red Dwarf co-creator Doug Naylor. Filming of the new episodes begins next month.

I notice that there's no mention of Kristine Kochanski. Thank God. I always thought she worked better as an incidental presence. I wonder how the characters will go over now. Rimmer was supposed to be a commentary of Thatcherite Britain. Lister, as long as he remains a vindaloo-swilling, lager guzzling slacker, should probably stand up. If it weren't for Lister, I wouldn't have tried vindaloo (damn hot and spicy!).

Incidentally, I used to call my ex-PHB NOR "Goal-Post Head," after Cat's nickname for Rimmer. NOR was a complete and total smeghead.

Why smart women like frivolous reality shows.

Maybe I'm not as smart as I think. I don't watch any of those shows. I do watch American Idol, which requires virtually little brain power, and, from what I've gathered, has legions of incredibly stupid fans.

Meh. When is the next new episode of "The Simpsons?"

I really don't understand Veggie Tales. Why do those veggies bounce around all the time? Given that they're veggies, wouldn't they just roll around?

(Quote from Zach Werner, Canadian Idol's answer to Simon.)

Carrie Underwood is on tonight's broadcast of Opry Live. She was recently inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, probably the first "Idol" to be inducted. Better Carrie than Pickler.

The Oak Ridge Boys just performed. They sang "Elvira," which is my least favourite of their songs (giddy-up a oom papa oom papa maw maw - no kidding!), and a song about some sinner who was baptized, thus depriving Satan of a right hand man.

On to Canadian Idol.

Today's show features the cattle-call auditions. The best thing about the show was that it covered three audition cities in an hour. American Idol drags the damn things out over a month or so.

Toronto: There were many people who could sing loud, but not that many people who can sing well. There was one guy* who reminded Zach of the Juicy Fruit commercial guy. (The one who sings about Julcy Fruit gum and strums his guitar, and subsequently has his guitar broken.)  And a girl named Tetiana, who auditioned for American Idol. (She didn't impress me, but she got a golden ticket.) I liked the Piggott brothers (so did the judges), even if one kind of butchered an Elvissong.

Calgary: The Calgary auditions didn't get off to a roaring start. They opened with a chick who melismafied Amazing Grace beyond recognition. (Unfortunately, that's one of the BIG issues that I have about American Idol; it mistakes melisma and glory notes for actual singing talent.) The rest weren't much better. There was a guy who refused to leave, and was escorted out by a security guard. The bright spots included Jesse Cottam (I liked the clip of him teaching little kids how to play guitar; he said that six year olds were really energetic and he had to keep them from hitting each other with the guitars).

Sadly, no one was anywhere near as awesome as Jaydee Bixby from last year. The show needs more Elvis people. (If only so that I can point them out to Lord Thingy, so that he can enjoy them, too!)

Edmonton: The auditions opened with a less greasy, but no less obnoxious, version of Constantine Maroulis. He managed to screech it up worse than CarlyPlant. And then there was the girl who screeched Whitney Houston (who I hate).

There was a montage of rejected singers. Moderately amusing. And sometimes pathetic.

The most memorable audition from Edmonton was Earl Stevenson from Bob's Backhoe in Lloydminster. He used to be a snowboarder, until he hurt his knee.

Once again, Vote for the Worst has an embarrassment of riches.

*I looked this guy-Taylor Abrahamse- up on Vote for the Worst's CI6 forum, where he's called Gaspy 2.0. (Gaspy is one of their nicer nicknames for Archuleta.) He played Jimmy Osmond in the "Inside the Osmonds" TV movie, among other things. Is he the Canadian version of CarlyPlant?

I saw a link to this performance from the German "Idol" show, Deutschland Sucht den Superstar, while reading Vote for the Worst. Daniel Kublbock (someone on VFTW called him Daniel Double-Umlaut) finished third on the show in its first season. He and Julien and Sanjaya should sing together.