We all love Robert Downey Jr. for the ironic layer of delicious watercress he manages to slip into the sh*t sandwiches of the Iron Man movies, but he didn't come from nowhere. Downey pere, Robert Sr., is a forgotten wit machine these days, but he's remembered this weekend on TCM.
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Like all things in life, Saturday Night Live sketches are subjective. Even so, most viewers would agree that the show's 35th season has gone from eh (Taylor Swift and January Jones, anyone?) to actually good, thanks to some of the strongest comediennes in the business -- a shame, really, since the season ends tomorrow. Still, before Alec Baldwin closes down Studio 8H, let's remember the highlights that Lorne Michaels gave us this year.
Last night's Young Hollywood Awards put a spotlight on several glamorous vampires, including the Twilight pixies and the cast of The Vampire Diaries, but the most sinister quote of the evening came from a kid who's not known for being a bloodsucker. Alex Lambert (who capitalized on his regrettably early American Idol elimination by moving into Simon Fuller's If I Can Dream web series house) seized the opportunity to cast shade on Crystal Bowersox, who seems to be losing her once-massive edge on Lee DeWyze. Lambert must've left his diplomacy in his other mullet.
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Medium turns a corner this week as Allison (Patricia Arquette) must go the Rex Harrison root to help find a missing woman -- that's right, she's talking to the animals. I'd hope that a woodsy owl would speak in a British accent and tell her he was in the parlor room at the time of the murder, but the reality is much better (and more salient to the Arquette family) than that. Hold your Golden Retriever close, pray he's not gossiping with your loved ones, and settle in for spooks.
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Last week on Real Housewives of New York City, Bethenny mourned her estranged father from a Cadillac Escalade en route to hell and LuAnn cruised a jittery fellow named Cort who may or may not be gay. In this week's episode, whimsically titled "Housewives Overboard," LuAnn went down to Chinatown with Court (not a euphemism, she actually did venture to Canal Street), Ramona found her soulmate on a Hooters yacht, and for the first time in television history, someone misused the phrase "making lemons out of lemonade." Those goodies, as well as the truest and fakest moments of the night, after the jump.
Well, this isn't a good week for female comedians and their TV star vehicles: Deadline reports that Wanda Sykes is about to lose her Fox talk show, which she's only had since November. The 46-year-old comedian regularly pulls in ratings below her late-Saturday timeslot's previous program, MadTV. Any setback for the vivacious Sykes is a downer, but one of her potential replacements is another famous comedian -- and I'd prefer watching him revamp his failed sketch show from the '90s.
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Maybe Kenan Thompson really is the hardest working cast member on Saturday Night Live. Just this morning, he interrupted rehearsals for this weekend's season finale (hosted by Alec Baldwin) to confront Al Roker on the Weather Channel's Wake Up with Al. Click through to watch the leisurely visit, in which Thompson discussed Betty White's ability to after-party, coined a new nickname for the host and learned the golden rule of weather watching.
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Here's something you don't see every day: A season finale that wasn't actually a season finale. But with the way Community has treated television conventions during its successful freshman year run, why should you have expected anything less? So everybody's favorite Spanish 101 study group took their final exams and passed -- though if you DVR'd the episode there's a good chance you might have missed that part -- and it's now time to look forward to Anthropology. But what about next week's actual season finale? Don't worry about that now, they've got Good Will Hunting to spoof!
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Last night, Robert Downey Jr. made his last promotional television appearance for Iron Man 2 ever. Thrilled to be finished hawking, he may have shared a little too much with Craig Ferguson about his last sexual experience and that time he Nair-ed his facial hair. Click through for that segment, as well as the other highlights you missed while plotting a Law & Order fluffalanche.
We went Over There in the aptly named opener to the two-part Fringe finale last night -- over there, of course, being the other side, where an ID is a "show-me," Martin Luther King Jr. is on the 20, and Agent Olivia Dunham is about 100 times cooler than she is over here. In addition to those revelations, however, Walter Bishop and Co. offered up a ton of fodder for the show's scientific canon. But did these revelations jibe with what we already know?
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There was some debate at Movieline HQ yesterday about whether the guest star heavy two-part season finale of 30 Rock would mark an official shark jump. But good news, Tina Fey fans! "Emmanuel Goes to Dinosaur Land" -- named after Jenna's Skinemax soft-corn porn film, of course -- failed to rev up Fonzie's motorcycle by being one of the more consistently funny episodes from the entire season. Though considering it featured Jon Hamm and an evisceration of Precious, it's no wonder. After the jump video evidence of the hilarity.
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Maybe writing a controversial editorial about how gay actors are not convincing in straight roles does have a single perk amid all of the hate mail, hate e-mail and hate phone calls. According to a second open letter published by Ryan Murphy last night, Newsweek writer Ramin Setoodeh will join him on the set of his series Glee to learn about tolerance firsthand. Click through for Murphy's full message.
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· It's another huge morning for pilot news, beginning with Matthew Perry's single-cam comedy Mr. Sunshine, which ABC has greenlit to series. The Friends alum stars as an aging sports manager who realizes that he can't get by on his womanizing ways after his 40th birthday. ABC has also picked up Jerry Bruckheimer's legal procedural The Whole Truth, cop dramedy Detroit 187, documentary dramedy My Generation and a romantic comedy starring Elisha Cuthbert called Happy Endings. [THR]
Chuck and V find life after near-death, CBS picks up an overweight couple, and more TV Bites after the jump.
Ever since the Megan Mullally-Oprah Winfrey-Steve Martin-Jennifer Aniston onslaught of season three, 30 Rock has garnered a reputation -- good and bad -- for booking esteemed guest-stars. We've been treated to appearances by everyone from James Franco to Jon Bon Jovi to Buzz Aldrin in the current season, and tonight's episode, entitled "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land," will present a full credits sequence worth of the show's past gets -- with room for surprises. Should we be worried that 30 Rock, a show that once gleamed with invention and singular personality, is now a carnivalesque showcase of showbiz connections?
Hubbub aside, there are other slabs of fresh kill available on VOD besides The Human Centipede, which reminded me mostly of the Franken-toys crawling through Sid's bedroom in Toy Story, a scene that was far more chilling. And you didn't pity the actors. (Also, come on: The "centipede" idea wouldn't work at all. After one G.I. tract is done with foodstuff, there's nothing left for the next two! They'd starve! Come on!) No, better to search the cloud for more life-affirming grist -- because, well, you're alive, and your mouth isn't sewn to my anus.
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