Both Conan O'Brien and David Letterman have had their must tune-in, "are they gonna acknowledge the internet chatter" moments over the last two weeks, but the difference between the two says a great deal: O'Brien's buzz moment was about his set's resemblance to a video game, while Letterman's was a major, headline-creating controversy that involved child rape, a former vice presidential candidate, and Elliot Spitzer, somehow. Also instructive? Last night, Letterman refused to issue a complete apology over it.
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Looks like someone's on Team Conan! During last night's Julia Roberts-dominated Late Night, David Letterman made some jokes about Sarah Palin's visit to New York with her 14-year-old daughter, Willow ("They had a wonderful time. The toughest part of her visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter"). This followed a Top 10 List devoted to Palin on Monday, which we'll reprint below, followed by the Palins', uh, incendiary reaction.
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For all the foodies, Chowhounders and dudes making homebrew, it's safe to flip over from the Food Network: Top Chef is back. But this time, rather than a bunch of noobs running around the kitchen, these are established and sometimes celebrity chefs competing for various charities in a battle royale. I'm A Chef... Get Me Out of Here? Hardly.
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Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen has taken up the good fight to catch scam artists, pedophiles and internet predators, and we were fine to let him have his fun. (We didn't really like our Uncle Frank anyway.) But when we heard that he was heading to Las Vegas with his crime fighting crew (the special airs Monday), an Eiffel Tower-shaped alarm bell went off. The point of Vegas is to buy a hooker from a drug-dealing pimp in a stolen car without consequences, and if that pusher has Chris Hansen and a sound guy in the back seat, Vegas will shut down faster than you can say "Branson, Missouri." But from crisis comes opportunity (crisitunity). Given the relatively nonthreatening content of The Hangover (tiger, Tyson, weird Asian guy), this could be an opportunity for the writers to crib some darker plot points for the Hangover sequel. Warning: Possible spoilers ahead.
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A pretty woman has the ability to get a lot out of David Letterman, and so it should come as no surprise that The Original Pretty Woman™, Julia Roberts, can get the most out of him. On Letterman's couch for the first time since his marriage to Regina Lasko, Roberts flat-out grilled him about his under-wraps marriage, barreling through Letterman's clear reluctance to talk about the matter as though she was the host and he was simply a prison-freed Paris Hilton. Then, came the Conan dig.
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Hollywood has given us many things: great films, legendary actors, brilliant directors, but it's the tragic and shocking crimes that keep America coming back for more. Nothing makes headlines like a star or starlet's demise, and there's nothing easier to cut together than a retrospective of Hollywood murders. If you're feeling bad about your life, take solace in the fact that you haven't been horribly mutilated.
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Where the 11:30 p.m. TV hour was always something of a no-brainer -- Letterman if you wanted to laugh, Leno if you wanted to sleep -- now it proposes something of a late night viewing conundrum. Conan and Letterman, treading similar waters of brainily askew comedy, court the same audience, with Conan's perhaps skewing younger. Letterman's the curmudgeon, O'Brien's the clown. Dave is the king of the awkward celebrity interview; Conan excels at pushing the envelope via childish framing devices (pimp robots, masturbating bears, insulting dog puppets, etc.) We've been gravitating to Conan, lately, mainly because his Tonight Show tenureship still has that new car smell -- but we'll gravitate back to Dave eventually and time shift O'Brien. There really is no one funnier.
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Whether or not reuniting the cast of Saved by the Bell is God's work, it's a major part of Jimmy Fallon's bid to become the talk show equivalent of a chain email stating, "You know you were born in the 80's if: you remember the Challenger exploding, or SNAP BRACELETS! Pass this on to at least ten friends or else you will die of AIDS."
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So this man, this Adam Lambert man, is on the cover of Rolling Stone now. Did we know this was going to happen? Hmmm, perhaps we had some sort of advance warning or something, but I only understand the language of Lambert when it's communicated in a hair-raising wail that's equal parts G'n'R emulation and phlegm. So what do we learn?
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Since TNT rebranded eight years ago, it's been hard to pass a bus stop or flip through the channels without being slapped around by the network's tag line: "We Know Drama." Sure, they also know that people will watch Law & Order reruns until the cows come home, but their homegrown efforts have shown more than a modicum of dramatic understanding. Two of those original shows return tonight: The quirky lady detective drama The Closer and the sophomore season of Steven Bochco's Raising the Bar. These shows aren't exactly escapist summer fare, but everyone needs some drama now and then.
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If you are a fan or even a casual viewer of Weeds, then you can probably surmise what is coming in Season 5 of Showtime's best female-fronted series. There will be a heaping helping of drugs, a sprinkle of sexual taboos, and a side of bad parenting. Consider what has already been covered in the first four seasons: suburban drug dealing, border crossing, human trafficking, gun running, rabbinical school, masturbating to naked pics of your mom, legally-convenient marriages, Snoop Dogg, fetish porn, teenage abortions, vandalism, Christianity, arson, blackmail, money-laundering, cancer, threesomes, auto-erotic asphyxiation, mercy killing, et al. I'm not sure what is left on the wall of the Weeds writing room, but Jenji Kohan and her crew will dredge up something for what could be the darkest season yet.
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Yes, we are aware that NBC has the most buzzed about reality show of the summer, but The Hills: Jungle Love Edition is on TV more often than I Love Lucy reruns so we'll skip a night here and there. Instead, we'll be watching Chef Emeril Lagasse make a visit to the Gosselin household. Will his trademark blend of sass and culinary expertise spice things up? Our sources say no.
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There is no worse night to be stuck home watching TV than a Friday night in early summer. The season is still filled with big plans and possibilities, and that banal "Can you believe it's July already?" talk is still a few weeks away. Even your parents are probably out grabbing dinner and a movie at the new mall two towns over. Go have some fun this evening, and nurse that hangover tomorrow night as your favorite brightly-colored baking goods show takes its second-to-last bow.
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So there's a new show that premiered on USA last night called Royal Pains, and no, it's not simply a fake sitcom about unruly princes that was created as viral marketing for Funny People. In fact, it's a doctor show that stars Mark Feuerstein, an actor who Hollywood has tried to make happen in Good Morning Miami, Fired Up, and countless other short-lived series. How does USA plan to make Feuerstein a star when so many network executives have tried and failed? Hitfix columnist Daniel Fienberg has a provocative theory:
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Be honest: Were it not for that headline, would you recognize the person in this picture? Would you maybe think to yourself, "Hmm, vaguely familiar in a generic way...oh, wait, that was one of the girls from the long-defunct MTV reality show Laguna Beach, Kristin Cavallari, the one who's done virtually nothing since (her 2007, according to Wikipedia: 'Made an appearance in an episode of Three 6 Mafia's reality show Adventures in Hollyhood when she went on a date with rapper Juicy J') and is so, so lucky that Lauren Conrad escaped MTV and left a reality wormhole on The Hills she could wriggle through"?
Well, guess how much she's getting paid to take Conrad's place! (Hint: You won't like it!)
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