This is the first season of Big Brother I’ve ever watched. I have nothing against reality TV, as so many of my friends do, so I never avoided it before, but it never seemed like it had anything worth seeking out either.

So, for some reason, I decided to watch Big Brother 8. The season is about halfway through or so, and so the competition is heating up. Two of the girls in the house are fairly religious Christians. They speak of faith and invoke God often. They do this most often in their “confessionals”, which is just them and the camera (er, and America).

In last night’s episode, one of them, let’s call her Whamber, was “on the block.” That means, she’s up for being voted out. She then lost a competition that would grant her immunity.

In her confessional, she’s asking God why he didn’t save her.

No, seriously.

Whether you’re an atheist, Christian, Muslim or devoted Cthulhu cultist, if you are reading this blog then it’s likely you are the sort of person who can see the absurdity in this.

Obviously the reason is that God doesn’t like you and would like you to stop calling. I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you this, Whamber, but somebody had to.

On The Lot is essentially American Idol for directors.

The concept of this show is right up my alley. I want nothing more to quit my job and become more of a content producer than consumer. So, this show vicariously feeds that pipe dream. I wonder if hopeful singers feel the same thing when they watch American Idol. (Not that I want to be a director, mind you, but still.)

So, I am really enjoying the show so far.

However, flawless it is not. The first episode, which clocked in at two hours, might have put a few people off because they had so many contestants/directors and you didn’t get much a feel for their style or talent at that point, yet people were getting cut.

The episodes got better, though, by cutting down the number of filmmakers competing per episode. This allows for more focus on the directors and their work. Much easier to get into and appreciate.

I’m torn, however, on if the format of the contest itself is right. It’s American Idol style, which means that the viewing public votes for their favorites at the end of each episode. I wonder if the mission of the show might be better served by something more along the lines of America’s Next Top Model or Project Runway, where the judges decide who stays and goes. However, that brings me to the next problem: the judges.

Carrie Fisher is a bizarre lady and while she has had a successful career in film, her biggest behind-the-camera success was as the writer of Postcards from the Edge. Seventeen years ago. She is, however, a script doctor (i.e. one of those folks a studio might bring in to punch up or tighten a screenplay.) I don’t know that she’s the best person to be critiquing these budding directors. She doesn’t seem to get what they’re trying to do, half the time. That might be because she’s nutty, though.

The other judge who’s there week to week is Gary Marshall. His career behind the camera makes for a pretty impressive resume, as most people know. He knows what it takes to sell a movie. Of course, he’s also 72, so it sometimes feels like he might be a little out of touch with a youger market. Of course, what do I know? The man’s still directing movies and I’m blabbering on a blog.

The third judge’s seat is filled by guest judges. So far, we’ve seen the likes of Brett Ratner and Michael Bay. There are several others, but I felt like singling these two out. Brett Ratner is the man that many people blame for ruining the X-men movie franchise. And Michael Bay? While you’re snapping at contestants to develop “style”, without ever explaining what you mean, you should remember that you’re the guy that directed Bad Boys II and Pearl Harbor. Just sayin’.

The show would need better judges (except for maybe Gary Marshall) if they were the ones voting. What’s amusing is that the live audience will actively BOO the judges with they disagree.

One of the things the show got right is their website. You can see all of the contestant’s movies there, vote there (during a set time window) and they’ve cultivated an odd community of aspiring filmmakers.

Another thing they got right is the host. Adrianna Costa might not be the smoothest at delivering her lines, but she’s fun and fairly easy on the eyes. Of course, there’s some debate about that.

I have some comments on some of the contestants, but this post has rambled on long enough. Maybe I’ll write another in a few days. The bottom line is that they are what makes the show good. The rest is just dressing.

I’ve never seen Hell’s Kitchen, but I have seen several commercials for it. It’s a reality show where chefs compete. The twist, I suppose, is that they’re all working for an asshole.

World renowned chef, Gordon Ramsay, is running the kitchen and in every commercial I’ve seen, he’s yelling at and berating the contestants. He’s made several of them cry, apparently.

Seems like a bad idea in a kitchen full of hot pans, boiling water and cutlery. This is the third season, though, and the guy’s not a knife holder yet.

One of my favorite funny people who write stuff, Lore Sjoberg, has a few ideas about How to Heat Up Geek Reality TV. I’d watch some of that shit.

Joe Barbera, one of the animators/co-creators behind Johnny Quest, Dastardly & Muttley, The Jetsons, The Fintstones, Yogi Bear and so many more died of natural causes at the age of 95.

Holy crap. 95? Everything is a “natural cause” at 95. That was a pretty good run, Mr. Barbera. Of course, it’s not half as long as your cartoons will be remembered.

Thanks.

CSI is one of the top rated shows on TV. I don’t get it. It’s very poorly written. Don’t worry, I have a great example:

I recently watched a couple of episodes because they each had subject matter that appealed to me. (One had the SuicideGirls guest staring and this most recent one was about roller derby girls. What? Punk girls. If this is in any way surprising, you haven’t met my girlfriend.) In the derby episode, they’re testing all these bottles of stuff from a suspect’s bathroom. The following witty dialog ensues:

Cop in Labcoat: “Do [women] need all these products?”
Girl in Labcoat: “You’re asking me? I work in a lab.”

Uh, ok. Girl In Labcoat is fully made up. Eyeshadow, liner, lipstick, etc. So, here’s the thing. If your character is supposed to be a squint and spout trite lab-nerdy lines about not knowing about products… she shouldn’t be made up like a girly girl.

Because that requires the use of products to achieve.

How fucking hard is that?

Via TV Squad:

Jesse Jackson calls for Seinfeld boycott: If you’ve been following the Michael Richards apology tour, you know that the actor made an appearance on the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Keep Hope Alive radio program in which he claimed to be “shattered” by his own remarks. That wasn’t good enough for the Rev. The day after Richards’ appearance, Jackson called for a boycott of the recent seventh season Seinfeld DVD release to punish the actor where it really hurts - the pocketbook.

<SNIP>

Uhm, pardon me, what? How, exactly, Mister Doctor Reverend Jackson, does that logic work? You are calling for a boycott that impacts a bunch of people who had nothing to do with Michael Richards’ racist outburst. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the impacted people probably don’t talk to Kramer any more and/or never have.

Do you think it’s just to punish an entire group of people when one person does something wrong eight years after that group has disbanded? Actually, I suppose we already have the answer to that: Apparently, you do.

So, with that in mind, and with all due respect: Screw you, Jesse.

Imagine a world like Sherman’s Lagoon or Liberty Meadows where the animals read newspapers and watch TV.

INT. CROCODILE BREAKFAST NOOK - MORNING

A big, fat, white crocodile, FRANK, sits are the breakfast table reading
the paper and enjoying his morning coffee.  His wife, MABEL, is preparing
breakfast.

FRANK: Crikey!

MABEL: What now? (disinterested)

FRANK: Irwin's dead! 

MABEL: Who now?

FRANK: Steve. Steve Irwin.  You know, that blonde aussie git.  Call's
'isself the "Crocodile Hunter".  We been gunnin' for that cocky bastard
for years.

MABEL: Oh, right, right.  Who got 'im?  Lou?  John? Oh, I bet it was that
new croc' down the marsh... what's his name?  Jeb?

FRANK: Hold on, hold on. I'm readin'.

MABEL: Or was it Jed?  No! That's it, it was Zed!  Right? Or, Ned?

FRANK: What in the--?!  I don't believe this. 

MABEL: What now?

FRANK: A fuckin' Stingray got him.  That's bullshit. He was *ours*.

MABEL: What's a Stingray?

So, in case you haven’t heard the news: Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is dead. He was stabbed through the heart by a Stingray a couple of days ago.

There are lots of people I know that are bummed about this. Frankly, I didn’t like him very much. I found him quite annoying. (I grew up with Wild Kingdom, so I’m more of a Jim Fowler fan myself.) I also thought he took unnecessary risks. Unacceptable behavior for the father of two young children, in my opinion. Do I have to even mention the croc-feeding-while-holding-his-baby incident? (Oh, look, I did anyways.)

Not that I wished him any ill will, of course. (Well, I admit to pulling for the crocs once in a while, before Irwin had kids.) However, if you liked him then be bummed. That’s ok. I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion of him. Feel what ya feel.

What gets me, though, is that I’ve run into a few people who are “shocked” or “surprised”. Um, hello? The man took life-jeapordizing risks nearly daily as part of his job. It’s how he got famous. Seems that people just took his apparent immortality for granted. Television inspired fame does weird things to people’s perceptions of reality.

If Irwin hadn’t been famous, his obituary would have read “44 year old amateur biologist and crocodile wrestler, killed by Stingray.” The public reaction would have been more along the lines of: “No shit.”

Warner Brothers is FINALLY releasing Animaniacs on DVD. I’ll be pre-ordering shortly.

Thanks to #!/usr/bin/girl for the heads up!

Are ya kidding? Get to shoot guns, jump out of airplanes and come home to your family. It’s damned near perfect.

Every once in a while, there’s a TV show which I know will soon be cancelled because I enjoy it too much. The most recent inductees to this prestigious list includes: Firefly, Dead Like Me, Battlestar Galactica, Over There… You can see that I have about a 75% success rate in killing shows just by the mere act of liking them. Producers should fear me.

Now I have my sights on The Unit, a show about a Delta Force team. It’s like Rainbow Six on TV.

(BTW: This review is a little long, so I am testing breaking up the post into two sections. I won’t do this often, as I tend to prefer having the whole post in the RSS feed myself. Ah, ha! It still puts the whole thing in the RSS feed, it just splits it on the web page. That’s excellent. Much cleaner.)

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