There are things we believe in this world. That the sky is blue, that water is wet, and that Paula Abdul is a complete headcase.
But has Paula's own brand of crazy actually uncovered the real truth about American Idol? Was her performance on Tuesday night evidence that the judges' responses are scripted? Sure seems that way. Paula looked like she was reading directly from a script that she didn't seem to recognize. It certainly didn't look like someone reading her own notes, as she claims. More telling, Paula critiqued a performance that due to a scheduling change that happened mid-taping hadn't actually happened yet. Hm.
Colorado was all over the April 15 Frontline—not that the show was about Colorful Colorado, but our state had a lot to do with the program itself. Denverite T.R. Reid, who lists among his many credits a stint as the Denver Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, wrote and hosted this program, which itself was funded in part by the Colorado Health Foundation and the Colorado Trust. The episode, titled “Sick Around the World” looked at exactly that: what it means to need health care in other wealthy nations, and what the American health care system might learn from them.
Television shows have always had theme songs. When they're good, they add to the show in subtle but important ways. They can set a mood, like M.A.S.H.'s theme song "Suicide is Painless." They can set up the basics of the plot, like the classic opening to Gilligan's Island or The Brady Bunch. And, sometimes, they can utterly fail in trying to do either or both. Here, a list of six of the most memorable TV theme song failures:
Charles in Charge
Ah, what better place to start a "Worst of" list than with Scott Baio? I could probably fill this list with Baio-moments: Joanie Loves Chachi, the waning years of Happy Days, Diagnosis Murder, even Scott Baio is 45 and Single. But doesn't Charles in Charge hold a special place in TV history, not to mention our collective American hearts? (At least that part of the collective American heart that pertains to syndicated '80s TV?) Of course it does. And this theme song proves it—don't we all want Charles in Charge of our days? Our nights? Our wrongs, our rights? Don't we all, in the end, want "Charles in Charge of me"? Or at least that Nicole Eggert be involved, somehow?
NBC got the jump on the rest of the networks by announcing their plans for the 2008-09 season on April 2. NBC execs have been saying for months that they wanted to embrace a new approach. Apparently, the key to that "new approach" is this: more of the same old stuff.
Not more of NBC's same old stuff, though; that much is clear. Instead, they're going to try a bunch of things that are new to NBC, who's apparently taken to heart the slogan that they used to use for summer reruns: "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!" Which wasn't meant to be insulting, even if it does sound too much like the line your Dad tried to feed you about the '79 Mercury Zephyr that passed for your first car.
The "new approach" that NBC announced Wednesday, April 2 includes:
"The buck stops here." President Truman's famous line, embedded there on his desk for all to see, lingers still today. Specifically, in the presidency of George W. Bush.
Not in the sense that W. embraced that philosophy. On the contrary, he seems to have been eager to pass that buck back down the chain of command. Or, more likely, he was never given the buck in the first place. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld held on to that buck like it was a shotgun on a captive grouse farm.
With the NBC debut of quarterlife, the web-originated series by the thirtysomething team of the capital-letter hating team of Herskovitz and Zwick, entertainment has taken a big step. Whether that step is forward or backward has yet to be determined (being the first to move from web to TV is pretty big—joining the ranks of "done in one" series cancelled after their first TV appearance, not so much), but it's a step nonetheless. But is it one that other web-based properties should take?
Slide Show
So, Knight Rider is back. Which is one of those sentences that most people don't want to hear, like "Your check engine light is on," or "Hey, look, circus clowns!" But honestly, KITT and company aren't the worst things that could come back from '80s TV.
Romance on TV generally sucks. Soap Operas ruin most of it, since love can't be an ending on a show that never ends—so nothing ends happily, no one stays together, no one can resist the wiles of a hermaphroditic demon patch-eyed midget. But the regular network offerings don't do much better. Too often, we're subjected to the likes of Dawson's Creek's Dawson and Joey (hey, look, obsessive stalking works, kids!) or Friends' Ross and Rachel (who actually started strong, but then everyone stopped caring, and no one mentioned this to the producers).
My wife and I have been told to arrive between 2 and 3 to get our tickets to see the Late Show with David Letterman. We arrive at a quarter to two just to be on the safe side, and people are already lining up. We're one of the first to line up, excited, thinking that pretty soon we'll be inside the historic Ed Sullivan theater, and out of a blustery New York winter day.
I got this call at work two weeks back. It was someone asking me if I wanted tickets to go see David Letterman. Now, it's been a longtime goal of mine to see David Letterman's show in person. Late Nite or Late Show, either one, doesn't matter. Whatever Dave's doing now. Heck, if Dave wants to go back to his morning show (which I used to play hooky from school just to catch), I'd sit in for that, too. So when I was asked, I did what any fan would do. I accused the caller of fucking with me.
Hollywood writers have already begun to return to work, even though the strike isn't officially over—which is a sign of either how much trust exists now that the picketing is done, or how many people realized that they need to delete their stuff (unfinished scripts, novels in progress, porn) off their company-owned desktops.
I watched Superbowl 42 on a flight back to Denver from a writing conference in New York City. Many people on the plane were coming from that same convention, so there were two main sets of passengers that night: rabid Giants fans (since we were coming from NYC), and poets, novelists, and writers of all forms who didn't much care about the game (mainly because we were from Colorado, not because we hate football—though I'm sure that applied to a decent number of people on the plane, too.)
Switching suddenly from PBS' Antiques Roadshow to Fox's new reality-based game show Moment of Truth? Host Mark Walberg must need a neck brace from the whiplash. Or at least a hot shower, you know, to scrub vainly away at the shame.
What would happen to the planet if the human race were to suddenly vanish? The short answer is this: all the animals high-five, and then commence eating one another. Pretty much everything falls down. And then the plants grow over everything. That's it. Good night! Pleasant dreams.
A longer answer can be found in The History Channel's 2-hour apocalyptic extravaganza Life After People. (An even longer and more interesting answer can be found in Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us—and I hope Mr. Weisman got some royalties for this not-so-subtle adaptation of his book.) Prepare yourself, though—the longer answer is still pretty much the same answer as above, only with CGI enhancement.
It's tempting to say that we, the viewing audience, did too—after all, we didn’t have to watch the ceremony this year. But honestly, the Globes are often the most entertaining of the annual awards telecasts, since they pride themselves on being less stuffy than the Oscars and the Emmys, less predictable, less scripted. But even less scripted wasn't unscripted, and so the 2008 Globes were reduced to a 2-hour Matt Lauer Globes-themed Dateline (which felt like filler—which it was, since running it meant that NBC didn't have to return paid ad revenue for the night) and a "news special" on NBC.
There are things we believe in this world. That the sky is blue, that water is wet, and that Paula Abdul is a complete headcase.
