Oh TV.
One of the perks of the summer is how much downtime I have. Removed from midnight meetings and 2 AM problem sets, I’m finding there’s a fantastic world of goodness on TV.
Now, I’ve long said that TV is a slippery slope to stupidity, and I stand by that. 90% of television is still garbage. But that’s down from 95-97%. And, I figure, if I still read books, that balances out. Here’s a few worthy shows edged into the traditionally-weak summer lineup.
1) World Series of Pop Culture (varies, VH1): Yes, I’m a trivia geek, as evidenced by the tons of trivia questions I lugged with me from Boston to DC. But the format of this show is pretty cool, with teams and brackets. Somewhere in America, a bracket pool is starting for this, especially since the World Cup is over. The questions on the show are a tad lame; I didn’t have much trouble shouting at the TV. But there’s a fair bit of drama? Can the lone survivor of a three-man team get a Sportscenteresque moment and knock off three people in succession in categories like 1980s lyrics, Nicholas Cage Movies, and Cancelled TV. Could someone do commentary and play-by-play for these moments (even Vin Scully outtakes or loops: I don’t believe it! The impossible has happened!) Please?
2) Psych (Fridays 10 PM, USA): USA plugged the crap out of this show, starting at least a month before last Friday’s debut. But it’s smartly-written, and the premise is great. I’m not a huge fan of the show that leads into it, Monk (again, cool idea, but last Friday’s season opener, with Stanley Tucci’s actor character going crazy and becoming Monk is a classic shark-jumping moment). Psych’s premise will probably go the same way, of course (when the lead character, a “psychic” detective who in reality just has perfect memory recall starts *really* seeing things before they happen, or his memory starts to fade, yada yada yada), but until then, it’s good. Think House, minus medical and pithy, plus murder and comedy.
3) Eureka (Tuesdays 9 PM, Sci-Fi): Yet to air an episode, but again getting plugged like crazy, Eureka looks fun, but may not pan out. The idea is explained here: basically, small Northwest town is actually super-secret small Northwest town FOR SMART PEOPLE! Eureka makes the list for no other reason except this promo site.
4) Hell’s Kitchen: (Mondays 10 PM, Fox): Yes, it’s a guilty pleasure. Yes, it’s trashy TV. But it’s so unintentionally hilarious, it’s worth the hour after when I cry for watching yet another episode of Chef Gordon Ramsey curse for 44 minutes. Ramsey’s not even that bad of a person: he routinely pulls people aside and gives them encouragment (in various forms). But the people picked as contestants are so terrible, so stupid, and so ugly (on the inside), it’s tough to cheer for any of them. (Same rule applies for The Apprentice.) Case in point: Blue team has 3 people. Red Team has 4. Red Team sucks hardcore at the main event, blue team only sucks slightly less. In any event, everyone can tell the Red Team is the loser, and thus, up for elimination. Heather on the Blue Team says (verbatim): Chef, I think we [the Blue team] should be up for elimination because we didn’t live up to our potential.
Esqueeze me? You just won the freaking challenge. I’m sure there’s a DV Tape somewhere in the Fox production room entitled: Blue team bitches out Heather for 45 minutes. I would pay good money to get that tape unedited. (In the end, Ramsey still picked someone from the Red Team.)
There. A TV overview. Lord willing, I’ll never do one of these again.
