HBO used to be the spot for smart, edgy comedy, but now that their "comedy" shows (Hung, Entourage) are more dramatic than hilarious, it's Comedy Central's turn to lead the funny vanguard. Michael & Michael Have Issues has familiar faces, but what they're doing is entirely new.
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In addition to the iPod and the hybrid car, one of the most important inventions of our lifetime is the ongoing late night talk show war. Pre-1990, the media had very little to write about when it came to late night network programming: there was Johnny Carson, followed by David Letterman and then whatever else was on. But since the Succession Crisis of the early '90s, and Bill Carter's The Late Shift book/movie you can't even find a Letterman puff piece that doesn't include a discussion of ratings. Not that many people even watch late night television, but the battle for those third shift workers and college kids rages on, with all sides constantly declaring victory.
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If you have ever seen Gordon Ramsay's BBC America show The F Word, then you know that the angriest chef in the biz has a soft side for his beloved pigs and amateur cooks. But something about that transcontinental flight must put a bee in his bonnet because the contestants on Hell's Kitchen, starting its sixth season tonight, subject themselves to the worst working conditions imaginable for a shot at a chef job. Last time we checked, sending a resume and cover letter results in less emotional scars.
When a network uses the phrase "social experiment" to describe a new reality television program, that usually means the show is either too boring or too safe to get descriptors like "hot" or "sizzling" or "scandalous" applied to it. Sadly, ABC's new "romantic reality" series Dating in the Dark is both boring and safe, which might make for a good husband, but not a dating show. This is the first of six episodes of DitD, and unless the future participants get uglier and/or prettier, this might turn out to be one of the least interesting mid-summer replacements in recent reality memory.
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In one of its typically late-to-the-game, random cultural broadsides, the writers of Entourage went after Seth Rogen in last night's episode, calling his "ugliness...oddly fascinating" in a debate over whether the actor could land a Katherine Heigl-type in real life. One might assume that the affable Rogen would shrug off the insult with a friendly, Fozzie-ish chuckle, but they don't call where Rogen's at a "fighting weight" for nothing! Behold, his amazing response when asked about the incident for E!'s Daily 10:
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Last night, the Big Brother 11 houseguests competed in a luxury challenge - not for a limousine-chauffeured trip to an isolated beach, a romantic horse ride through Griffith Park at sunset or a week's supply of table wine to bathe in, but a private screening of Columbia's new romantic comedy, The Ugly Truth. The announcement of this week's prize by Head of Household, Ronnie, was immediately followed by a full-length trailer of the movie and an Ugly Truth-themed trivia game, a flagrant marketing strategy reminiscent of 30 Rock's McFlurry and iPhone product-placement campaign.
Season 2 Episode 5: "Never Let Me Go"
You know when you really like someone, and just really hit it off, and you can't really put your finger on why, and then they pull you into the woods and turn into Bambi, and you realize that the fact that they spread Lyme disease just like you do is the erotic glue that bonds the two of you together? Well, that's what Sam found out at the start of this week's episode of True Blood, when Daphne revealed she's a shape-shifter too. It really turned Sam on, and be probably would have mounted her had Terry and Arlene not sauntered by and ruined everything.
With all of the recent celebrity deaths, it seems like the 40th anniversary of the moon landing got lost in the shuffle. This injustice is rectified tonight as a host of Apollo 11-themed programs dominate the digital airwaves. Whether you are old enough to remember watching that fateful event live or crazy enough to think it was faked on a soundstage in Vancouver, take one small step by reveling in the lunar nostalgia.
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This morning, Variety brings the happy news that Top Chef hostess Padma Lakshmi, the glassy-eyed, munchie-afflicted judging table wingwoman to Craft superstar Tom Colicchio, has signed a development deal with NBC in hopes of producing a sitcom set in "the culinary world." And yes, we also see the Cajun, Bam!-farting elephant in the room; it's impossible to think "NBC" and "popular cooking show host" without the short-lived, but profoundly terrible, Emeril flash-frying the pleasure centers of your brain into permanent anhedonia. To assist the network in its quest to develop a proper starring vehicle for Lakshmi, we've set up the Movieline QuickPilot Challenge: with just $300 in your development budget, you, the proud Peacock creative exec, must carefully select the proper items from the NBC Whole Sitcom Foods and deliver the most delicious show possible. Go!
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Last night on Big Brother, Julie Chen called Chima's last ditch argument to avoid eviction the "most memorable last plea speech we've ever heard." Unfortunately for anyone not in the studio audience or the edit room, most of the important words were bleeped out. Chima, a freelance journalist, must have said something brilliant because she managed to avoid eviction. Let's consider the possibilities.
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We have yet to see a local news kicker story hailing fat as the new thin but Oxygen and Lifetime sure are putting their weight behind female-targeted shows about plus-size empowerment. Drop Dead Diva centers a skinny women inside of a plus-size attorney and Dance Your Ass Off encourages overweight contestants to embrace their inner sexiness. Will these shows change America's judgement towards the overweight? We already had a fat president (Taft) so at least that barrier has been broken.
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While promoting her new, straight-to-DVD film, Van Wilder: Freshman Year, Kristin Cavallari has shared everything from how ten fast-food related pounds practically destroyed Van Wilder's lingerie scene to her theory on love at first sight ("I can always tell if I get butterflies"). But one issue kept popping up in her interviews: how her ironclad two-season contract for MTV's The Hills would affect her acting career.
For actors who aren't big names, TV presents a rare gift: the chance to come in for an episode and have a part that's as juicy and lengthy as that of any feature film's. Many a career has been launched to the next level by an actor whose striking performance forced us to lean forward on our couches, asking, "Who is that?" Sadly, they will always lose their chance at being nominated for a Guest Actor Emmy if, like, Jennifer Aniston decides to do a few days on 30 Rock or something.
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The media is never one to ignore trends, so expect the next 96 hours to be chock-full of Harry Potter. Look for Charles Gibson rocking spectacles and a scarf, Andy Rooney doing commentary about how annoying Muggles are and Wolf Blitzer transforming into an owl at the end of Friday's Situation Room. Tonight, Elizabeth Vargas grabs her quidditch wand or whatever, to report on Potter-creator, J.K. Rowling.
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