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Friday, September 23, 2005

More Shows I Watched

But first, an ad for a show I didn't watch:

"Hey...ghooostie....check these out....what do you mean, you can't hear me?" (The Ghost Whisperer sounds like a joke title that escaped from a writers' room, doesn't it?)

Invasion: Here's one way I decide if someone knows the kinds of things about TV that I know about TV: do they know that Shaun Cassidy, known 30 years ago as David Cassidy's also-singing half-brother, is a reliable producer of oddball, cult-y TV? His credits include "American Gothic", "Cover Me", "Roar", "The Agency", and "Cold Case", which is so mainstream that I didn't even realize it was one of his. (So even I don't fully know the kind of things I know.) Anyway, this one is his too, which is part of why I figured it should be the one of the three hour-long mysterious-sci-fi shows about aliens or something like them, one on each network, that I'd check out. Also, as mentioned in a previous item, it has the creepy blond lady, who I have since looked up and turns out to have been in later seasons of Earth: Final Conflict.

So I'm disappointed to report...my disappointment. It would have been better if I could have heard any of the dialogue; the first half mostly takes place in a hurricane, and the audio was screwed up and echo-y in the second half -- I presume that was a local issue. Anyway, hurricane, flashing lights, people acting like they're posessed, and a big feeling of deja vu. It might get better, but I'm not filled with patience about it, so they better get cracking.

Everybody Hates Chris: Like My Name is Earl, I didn't like this as much as I had hoped from its advance buzz. It also pushed one of my annoyance buttons (so many, so many), which is the number of amusing childhood memoirs on TV that feature bullying. If you were creating a show about adults, and a major part of it was about going to work and trying to avoid the thug co-worker who would routinely steal your money and sometimes beat you up, I don't think that show would be a comedy. ("What about the janitor on Scrubs?" you ask. Well, shut up, is all. Also, his behaviour doesn't rise to the level of criminality, to my quick recollection.) I guess my objection is not so much to the comedic treatment as to the general shrugging acceptance of bullying that it indicates. (You know the right wing is against anti-bullying programs in schools, right? Because it stops people from beating up homos, or makes you a homo, or something.)

Oh, and stay away from Love, Inc., which is after Everybody Hates Chris, which is the only reason I tripped over it. I don't know who could save this show but it's not Busy Phillips, who turned in a great performance on Freaks And Geeks (my God, is everyone from that show on a new show this fall?) but is not a comedic lead.
- posted by Don Porges @ 9/23/2005 11:45:00 PM

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