Part II: Can We Sit and Watch the OWN Network? Movieline Investigates

Oprah Winfrey launched her new network on New Year's Day, and I have news for you: It's still on right now. Like, it's on in front of me. It's making noise and Oprah gestures and Travoltan shrieks. Right now. If this Oprah insists on buying the airwaves surrounding my beloved Game Show Network and Teen Nick, I guess she deserves serious consideration. Join me on a day-long live-blog, and click through to page two for the most recent updates.

10:20 a.m.: We're in the middle of a rerun of Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes. Oprah uses this show to explain the backstage shenanigans on her talk show, though she mentions nothing about sorcery, voodoo, and ritualized producer suicides.

10:30 a.m.: Gayle's helping out for the season premiere. She's going to tell a bunch of people they're invited to watch Oprah in person. This makes them scream, and Gayle just knew that would happen.

10:40 a.m.: An audience member in line for the show says, "I'm so excited! I've been cabbage-patching all day!" She is so far serious.

10:45 a.m.: Has Oprah ever explained why she likes John Travolta? He's helping out with the season premiere.

10:50 a.m.: Oprah does not go on to explain, "John Travolta will look exactly like me in three years, you mark my words."

10:55 a.m.: Oprah's taking her audience to AUS-TRAL-IA! Says Oprah of the bright crowd: "They're like, 'Australia?! Australia?! Where is Australia?!" Oprah's key demographic: People who cannot identify continents.

11:00 a.m.: Time for another episode of "Oprah Behind the Scenes"! Oprah's inviting the Judds on, and she doesn't seem excited about it.

11:05 a.m.: Wait, wait, the producers are making the Judds sing a song to Oprah. Phew. This is going to be a good show.

11:10 a.m.: Also, Oprah's revisiting an episode of her show from the '80s where a man with AIDS was ostracized from his small town. Say the producers: "It's only worth revisiting if people have changed their minds." Because AIDS is over, after all, and 100% acceptance was achieved sometime in 2002.

11:15 a.m.: Says a producer: "I do not believe Oprah wants to have the same exact show." I assume Oprah will have a hero moment and air the town's unchanged insanity anyway. But do the Judds have an AIDS charity single in waiting?

11:20 a.m.: Oprah's word on this ignorant small town: "You can't tell people what to do in bed." Holler! She understands us.

11:22 a.m.: Has there been a handsomer woman than Wynonna?

11:25 a.m.: Ashley Judd will not be a part of the Judds show. Well hell, Ashley, we already called the episode Double Juddpardy.

11:30 a.m.: For the 50th time today, Oprah announces that she doesn't like surprises. Then she's not going to like Wynonna's flammable magenta mane.

11:34 a.m.: This OWN Network is tiring. Can't Oprah give us something juicy? "If Margaret Avery hadn't split the vote, I'd have won the Oscar. WHERE YOU NOW, MARG?"

11:38 a.m.: "I love land the way other people love shoes," says Oprah. "Shoes? Eh. But land gets me hot." I asked for something juicy and she pulled through. My most teachable moment of the day.

11:47 a.m.: There is a commercial for Oprah's All-Stars. Suze Orman knows you can't be powerful without pointing at your fingers when you talk.

11:55 a.m.: New slogan idea for OWN: "The network where Mehmet Oz namedrops 'fecal matter' in commercials."

12:00 p.m.: Oprah ties up the episode by announcing, "That's something Maya Angelou taught me." New OWN Network slogan: "I Know Why the Caged Oprah's Still Got It."

Intermission! We'll be back when Richard Gere, Deb Winger, and Louis Gossett Jr. stop it already.

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