On Television

I’m not a happy camper. No Survivor, Apprentice or CSI. I called the satellite company and they said they’d try to have someone out in 48 hours. 48 hours? Don’t they know I’m a tv junkie and I’m not doing so good. I’ve been sick all week and all I wanted to do was lay on the sofa, covered in a quilt, hugging the dogs and watching my shows. Geez, is that too much to ask for?

Last night was an embarrasment of couch potato (remember that?) riches: higher ground, a benefit for Katrina was on the radio while the Gilmore Girls, Bone and Law & Order: SVU were being recorded by the DVR. And next Tuesday, next Tuesday marks the return of James Spader in Boston Legal.

Karl and I have come to the horrible realization that we will NOT be on THE AMAZING RACE 9. The first call backs are held in Sept. in ones respected city. If we don't get a call this week (which we won't) we will have to give up our RACE dream. Dear Amazing Race producers, You are a bunch of F*ing idiots . . . . pure morons for not putting us on your presious Emmy winning show!!!!

My recap of my time at the American Idol competition in cold & rainy Chicago.

Not much has happened in these 8 days, tho. Oh, I got REALLY sick. I mean REALLY sick. So sick I wanted to die. I was going to blog on Thurs. but I couldn’t move my fingers fast enough to type. So I ended up skipping school yesterday and lying on the couch for five hours at a time, watching “The Apprentice” and “ER” and “Third Watch” on TiVo. Speaking of “The Apprentice,” who watched “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart” and felt completely violated afterwards? I did. Donald’s still got his mojo working, though.

I will not have any damned one telling me that I am not African, I really don’t care whether they are dark Yanks or whether they’re Nguni. I am a hell of a lot more “African” than Oprah Winfrey — who claims to be (yeah right) of Zulu blood — could ever hope to be.

i have a really-bad-tv addiction. it all started with saved by the bell as a kid, but has led to such things as miss match, the strip, one tree hill and the gilmore girls. i spend an alarming amount of time watching tv every week, and have been known to skip out on sleeping for a night just because i haven't had the chance to watch all my shows at reasonable times.

Late last night I watched and enjoyed mucho..a movie titled "Around the Bend," dug the mu-zack out of the soundtrack too. Of course I got my close to od-ing fill of televison this week what with the new fall line-up and all. Watched the end of Big Brother 6 (what a frigging disappoinment that win was.. the new show Invasion..Lost..Survivor Guatemala..both Apprentices..the new season of House..(loved it)…and looking ahead the The Amazing Race 8 (family version) this coming Tuesday. Shame on me filling my nights with all that gar-bage..but I must say it numbs the mind quite well when all other invasive thoughts a try and bombard…plus I’ve always rather enjoyed ‘mind-numbing.’

Socialite Paris Hilton is at the center of a Maryland police investigation after information leaked to the authorities claims she has allegedly offered teenagers drugs and alcohol. Baltimore Police officials have confirmed they're taking the reports very seriously, adding Hilton could face a hefty fine and jail time if she's found guilty. The allegations stem from an episode of reality show The Simple Life: Interns, when Hilton reportedly offered teens marijuana and bourbon to "loosen them up" for a taped segment. One of the teens involved has told police, "She loaded myself and two other underage kids on shots of Jack Daniels to loosen us up for the show." Baltimore Police Detective Chris Schaeffer tells US tabloid the National Enquirer, "These are serious allegations. We will certainly be investigating them." A spokesman for 20th Century Fox - the company behind The Simple Life - insists the allegations are false: "Paris would never endanger the welfare of a minor."

Tuesday has become my favorite night of TV, oddly enough. Gilmore Girls, The Amazing Race, The Office. Last night we got around to watching the series premiere of My Name Is Earl and we both laughed a lot, so that one will be sticking around. And we are really looking forward to Scrubs (our favorite show) returning. Again. Watch it.

I have finally ditched Desperate Housewives. In fact, I only watched up to Episode Five of Season 1. After that, they are getting boring. I don’t like to live in fantasy world like Wisteria Lane. I don’t want to be reminded how imperfect I am.

Two years ago at Christmas, after urging us to join modern times, they took matters into their own hands. We received both a DVD and a TiVo. Of course, our TV was so antiquated that it couldn’t handle the new technology so we had to go out and buy a new one. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids and not use their gifts! Once we were all connected we could start setting up our season passes. Pick a show, push a button and the TiVo records all the showings. Well, what did we usually watch? Lots of cooking shows. Stuff from the History Channel, some A & E things, endless tennis. And, yes, I admit it, some sit-coms: Scrubs, Arrested Development. But it was all very hit or miss because we couldn’t remember what night they were on or the networks kept moving them about. Now they are all neatly recorded and categorized on our “Now Playing” page.

I’ve been trying to avoid the reality tv bandwagon. I’ve successfully done it for a couple of years, it took me three seasons to really get into American Idol , but now I’m truely and well hooked (I was so pissed when Bo didn’t get it by the by.) I’ve managed to watch a season of Survivor but it didn’t do the trick for me, and I watched a season of The Apprentice, and while I enjoyed it I didn’t get that..gaga over it I guess.

Perhaps you all have seen the proliferation of monster/alien shows on television, a noticable trend away from the superhero amidst us, to the alien amidst us, which is not unique but going through revival. From Buffy and Smallville to the 4400 and Alien Invasion. The idea of the monster and the alien are related in many ways. In Beowulf, the decendant of Cain is a foul creature who can eat you whole and rip you apart. In The Invasion of the Body Snatchers you are “eaten whole,” likewise in The Thing, but the attack is subtle, infiltrative, and creepy (with lots ooze and gell), unlike the War of the Worlds where the attack has marked borders. Either way, the alien is a monster. In both Beowulf and Invasion, the monster or the alien is NOT US.

Popular television shows such as Boston Legal, Prison Break, Criminal Minds seem primary focus on crime, criminals and terrorists, and now their being bunched together on TV as the enemy against whom Americans can passionately unite at a time when fear, alienation and social fragmentation in political arena by this its increasingly threats are national spirit. Indeed, some television programs strongly implies that those who seriously threaten our security deserve no rights or liberties and need only to be stopped in their tracks and violently by the American heroes.

** Survivor starts tonight!!! Yippee! my reality tv craving will be quenched through out the fall television season now too, lol. Amazing race I believe starts next week too… Double Yippee!!

Apparantly, hurricane Katrina is completely Ellen Degeneres’s fault. According to Pat Robertson, because of Ellen’s status as host of this years Emmy Awards, God decided to punish Ellen’s hometown (New Orleans) by sending a massive hurricane its way.

Desperate Housewives is starting this weekend, and that has me excited. I used to watch it online back when I was travelling a lot. I would download a few episodes, put them on my computer and then watch them on the plane flying somewhere over Canada. I haven’t downloaded any shows in the past six months, and really I don’t think I’ll do it again. It just seems like too much hassle to find them, make sure they work, and then watch them. I could really handle a hassle free life for while.

My favorite channel would have to be MTV. Then I like VH1, E!Entertainment, the style channel, and all the local channels for the news and things. Those are the channels that I watch the most. I would have to say that I do like some of the reality shows out there today. I did watch American Idol, Americas Next Top Model, all the Quiz shows, The Bachelor, and The Real World just to name a few.

A confidential source reports that the Mayor of New Orleans and Oprah Winfrey will be sharing a helocopter flight over the city today. Also, he tells me that the NAACP is asking for permission to fly over the city to evaluate.

Since official channels are silent, informal sources continue to be the only source of updates regarding Bo’s health. These posts from the official American Idol board provide the latest update:

In the past few days since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina started to become known, I've seen dozens of organizations respond. Of course there's groups like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army that immediately stepped up and were on the scene almost instantly. And within a day or two I started hearing about different ways that other groups are also working on contributing monetarily or with much needed food, medical supplies, and other items. Most major corporations, including my employer are offering to match employee monetary donations. Celebrities like Harry Connick Jr., Ellen DeGeneres, and countless others are trying to help raise money too. Even professional athletes, who are known for being self-centered, are moved to try to do something. Hats off to folks like Warrick Dunn.

This is something I came across. This is just too funny for anyone that has seen Tom Cruise’s recent performance on random TV shows. This video may explain what is going on! Don’t mind the watermark “wld”, I borrowed this from a bittorrent site.

As a fan of some recent American TV shows (such as Lost, 24 and pretty much everything involving that Joss Whedon), I also agree with Johnson’s argument that TV drama has gotten overwhelmingly more complex over the years in terms of the complexity of the social networks that the viewer has to parse to make sense of the story (compare Dallas with The Sopranos). This is not because Hollywood has gotten any smarter — it’s the fact that the business model has changed. What actually generates most of the income associated to a given TV show are DVD sales and syndication. A show with enough depth to allow multiple viewings and interpretations will be more successful in the long run than more disposable entertainment. (Which, of course, makes it all the more puzzling why Firefly was murdered in its crib, waah.) Johnson even manages to fit reality TV into this model, suggesting that Big Brother and its ilk should not be compared to sophisticated TV drama but past shows such as The Price is Right: compared to them, The Apprentice suddenly seems like the work of intellectual giants.