TV Makes You Smart

About Last Night

Does anyone else find themselves reluctantly falling in love with the Amazing Race cowboys?  They were funny last night.

What about How to Make it in America?  It's not quite compelling and not quite good, yet we watch it every week. 

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HBO has a Boardwalk Empire trailer for us.  Even if it did not look completely awesome we would watch the show because we do pretty much whatever HBO tells us to do, except watch more than one episode of John From Cincinnati.   Luckily, Boardwalk Empire does look completely awesome.

Also, here's The Ricky Gervais Show.

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It's coming, America!  The next VH1 dating show, Frank The Entertainer in a Basement Affair starts January 3rd.  It's such a relief that VH1 is not following through on their threat to stop low-brow programming. 

Super awesome Ricky Gervais is coming back to HBO.

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How can we be merry this time of year when the lack of original programming wearies our hearts and plagues our souls?  It's impossible to feel thankful and miraculous while our brains are atrophying with every rerun.  We don't yet know what all is under the Christmas Tree, but we know it won't be new episodes.  If we can just make it through this happhappiest time of the year, 2010 promises renewal, hope...and the progression of halted story lines.

Are you ready America?  Although it can't happen soon enough, True Blood will be back and the casting news and spoilers are coming fast and furious.  No big plot spoilers here.  Lafayette gets a boyfriend!  We'll meet Sam's mom!  Jason gets a love/lust interest!  The werewolf has adorable dimples!  Eric falls for a Fangtasia dancer!  Explicit sex scenes, please.

William H. Macy and Showtime have a future together and Emmy Rossum is along for the ride.

And speaking of can't happen soon enough, Justified.  Just.if.ied.  Timothy Olyphant looking sternly at bad guys while wearing a cowboy hat.  Fully aware of the fact that I repeat myself, I'll say it again: No one delivers a quiet threat like T.O.  Trailer here.  More info here.

Every F...king Day of My Life

HBO premiered a documentary on Monday that chronicles the last days of freedom a woman named Wendy Maldonado has before she goes to serve ten years in prison for killing her abusive husband.  The husband, Aaron Maldonado, was obviously obsessed with documenting his family and himself on tape and the present day footage is cut with the family's home videos.  The videos show a wife who is clearly terrified and miserable, forced by her husband to smile and engage on demand.  There is ample evidence that he was thoroughly creepy and disturbed.  The stories the wife and kids tell now that he's gone are chilling.  Their story makes for a fascinating movie.  It's frightening and tragic and infuriating.  It opens with a recording of Wendy's 911 call after she and her son killed Aaron.  When the operator asks her, "What happened?  Did he try and hurt you or anything?" Wendy answers, "Every f---king day of my life."

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Believe in Christmas miracles!  Frank The Entertainer is getting his own VH1 dating show.

Some True Blood casting news. Awesome, kick-ass Pam is now a regular.  Additional male hottness has been signed.  Sam's long lost brother and Bill's wife will be with us, too. 

About Last Night

Amazing Race tipped those bratty brothers out of a kayak a bunch of times.  It was really fun to watch.  Go Globetrotters!

The Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm was fantastic.  Perfect for the show and if it really was the series finale, a great good-bye.

Dexter dropped a huge "Hi Daddy" bomb at the end.  Trinity is so vicious and his family so damaged it was really uncomfortable to watch.  We were totally shortchanged on Masuka and Dexter's kids.  That situation had a lot of untapped comedy potential.  Poor Masuka.  Why spend so much time getting us to invest in LaGuerta and Batista and their sweetness when it's clearly headed for disaster?  It's just mean.

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Minor True Blood spoilers based on casting calls.  Very enticing.

Boardwalk Empire is coming to HBO next season.  Where is Gentlemen of Leisure?

An amusing story about the Church of Scientology Spokesperson freaking out.

About Last Night

Dexter is always a good show, but once the season-long story arc starts picking up speed (as it did last night) it becomes the kind of show that we absolutely cannot wait to watch because we're very concerned about what will happen.

Thousands of hours watching competitive reality generally make us experts.  We were wrong about Lance and Keri on Amazing Race.  They blew it last night and in spite of our certainty that they were this season's couple that hated each other, they behaved calmly and lost graciously with no screaming or insulting each other.  Weird.

Rosie O'Donnell was so funny on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  She and Larry David physically fought over a restaurant check, then threatened each other with generous gifts.  It was awesome.  This show makes us laugh out loud every week.

Bored to Death had Romany Malco guest-starring.  Everything he does is fantastic.

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Tracey Morgan dishes on some former cast members.

The new Ray J girls can be seen here.  Which one will find true love?

TLC's Chilli is getting her own VH1 show, but there will be a regrettable lack of contestants locked in a mansion together.

Bravo is giving Jackie Warner another go.  Thintervention has already won at least half the battle by having an awesome name.

Another new HBO project, this one by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.  And a production date for Game of Thrones.

While we're on the topic of HOB, here's a nice reminder of just how lovely the first season of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency was.

The Catholic church is pissed at Sarah Silverman.

About Last Night

Zev and Justin were our faves on Amazing Race and they are out of it in a heartbreaker episode.  Lance and Keri are still in it and continue to hate each other and annoy the rest of us.

Another fave, Sal, was treated horribly by Mad Men.  Why did it have to happen?  Our dear, dear Sal.  At least it looked like he was cruising at the end. 

Curb Your Enthusiasm was hilarious.  Christian Slater fit right in to the attitude of the show.  Suzie yelling at Larry and kicking him out of her house was awesome.

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Bradley Whitford is coming back!  And if that isn't enough, his new show is created by Matt Nix of Burn Notice. 

This does not count as real news, but brings a lovely image to mind.  Stephen Moyer hopes for a Bill Compton/Eric Northman affair.  Don't we all?

The Good Wife will be with us for a whole season.

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One of the best things about having DirecTV is watching Friday Night Lights as soon as possible.  What will be interesting this season is character transitions.  We love the characters, we want the best for them, which in most cases would take them out of Dillon and off the show.  Read more here. 

The trailer for HBO's The Pacific miniseries looks a bit heavy-handed, but the network has a great track record with Band of Brothers and Generation Kill.  Both were incredibly compelling.

SPOILER!  Photos from Vampire Diaries showing the characters in the past.

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VH1 continues its redemption efforts with Broke and Famous. and then completely redeems itself in the eyes of trash TV lovers with Sex Rehab.

This FX show set in post-Katrina New Orleans will probably have lots of important social commentary and whatnot, but what makes it compelling is the use of the word vigilante.

HBO is trying an interesting storytelling method.  Worth checking out.

Marlee Matlin, Mario Cantone and Carol Leifer working together is really exciting and is only one of the projects Leifer has in the works.

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Laura Linney's Showtime show The C Word was announced a while ago, but this article made us realize it's a comedy.  And that makes it interesting.

From its previews Mercy looks like a lame ripoff of Nurse Jackie, but it can't possibly be that straightforward, right?  Apparently it can.  

Speaking of ripping off premium cable programming, here is what many, if not all, of us were thinking while watching Heroes. 

Jesse from Top Chef says what many, if not all, of us think about Padma.  It's funnier if you live in states that have Carl's Jr. restaurants and saw their commercials showing Padma actually eating a cheeseburger.

About Last Night

Curb Your Enthusiasm is as funny and uncomfortable as it has ever been.  The yelling, the awkward situations, the verbal dissections of what is and isn't appropriate are brilliant.  Catherine O'Hara was so much fun as Funkhouser's crazy sister. 

Bored to Death's premiere was weird and tried too hard, but we found it easy to watch.  The influence of the hard-boiled detective genre is there throughout and the contrasts are interesting.  Phillip Marlowe spent a lot of time in shady flop motels, but he never danced goofily through the lobby of one.  Know why?  Because it's stupid.

Mad Men asked the age-old question: Is it gay to get mani-pedis?  This show doesn't often make us laugh out loud but Roger was on fire last night.  "The British are coming!" was perfect and his honest shock at finding himself left off the org chart was actually quite touching.  Guy MacKendrick's future of endless possibility being destroyed by office partying was jarring.  But then it was inappropriately funny, as were all the jokes at his expense.  Evidently degrees from Cambridge and The London School of Economics are useless when you only have one foot and will never golf again.  Meanwhile, Betty's parenting continues to suck and our hearts break for Joan.  It's nice that she and Don had some time together.  A lovely scene.

Tool Academy is a thing of peculiar beauty.  Last night we saw a tool covered from collarbone to pubic bone in Nair For Men.  That tool later explained he doesn't leave the house unless he's perfect.  The other tools were ecstatic to have learned this effective manscaping technique.  Then some of them cried because underneath the doucheyness they're full of pain and insecurities.  It's amazing. 

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Three's Company but with members of congress?  Really?  It's true.

Spike Lee and Robert De Niro are putting a show together for Showtime.

This review makes Bored to Death sound like a disappointment, but we're still excited about it.

Dan Savage talks about his HBO pilot.

Dear True Blood: Thank you I hate you WTF?

Hey, True Blood, remember back in season one when Bill wore cool clothes and was absurdly sexy and dangerous?  Remember that time he licked blood out of Sookie's head without her consent?  That was hot.  Or that time she went to his house during the day and sat on his steps?  Remember when he glamored the cop?  He used to be so cool.  What happened True Blood?  What did Bill do to remove himself from your good graces?  Even when he's helping to save Bon Temps Sookie's like, shutup and bury the body.  I hate you, True Blood, for spending all that time getting me to invest in season one Bill Compton and then abandoning him for season two Bill Even-my-ex-beats-me-up Compton.  Remind us, True Blood, how his story broke our hearts.  Show us again the image of his wife and son on the porch while Lorena hisses venom in his ear.  And for heaven's sake, put him in control of something.  Also, more Bill and Jessica acting like family would be nice but now I'm just being greedy.

Thank you, True Blood, for Sam goring Maryann.  It was very satisfying.

I hate you, True Blood, for your continued cruelty to Hoyt and Jessica.  Although Hoyt looked so hunky storming out of his mother's house that I lost myself for a second and smiled but then it's like, wait...what?  Oh, right.  Tragedy.

Thank you, True Blood, for Sheriff Dearborne's line to Andy: "You might have your faults, Andy.  But at least you got pants on."

And then there's Sophie-Anne and Eric.  WTF True Blood?  You can't give us even two more seconds of them making out?  Why so stingy, True Blood?

what we learned today

DirecTV does this brilliant thing where they buy the entire run of series that were yanked from networks before all the episodes were aired.  We've watched Wonderland, The Nine, Eyes, and Smith.  Today while watching episode six of Smith we learned some things.  First we learned (again, actually, because you can never learn this lesson too many times) broadcast networks are vicious, impatient beasts that cancel great shows.   Also, Jonny Lee Miller and Simon Baker have never done anything as wonderful as what they did with Tom and Jeff's bromance.  For the first five episodes we knew they were besties, but episode six is really a Tom and Jeff love story.  

We watched the latest HBO documentary The Last Truck and learned that even the toughest and hardest of factory men and women cry when they lose their jobs and have to say good-bye to their co-workers/friends.  The knowledge and terror of having to re-invent one's self can be seen on nearly every face.

Finally, America, we learned an important lesson today that all of us as a country are learning daily this time of year, as we seem to learn every year and forget again: the start of football season is the start of the fall television season and good men (who happen to also be football fans) become vicious, impatient beasts when their football watching schedule is threatened by, say, Mad Men.  If you're like us, America, this time of year the DVR is as good as a marriage counselor for keeping the peace.

Dear True Blood: Thank you I hate you WTF?

Eric can fly.  It messes up his hair.  He likes children because they are delicious.  The thing is, America, Dream Eric has made me forget that Real Life Eric kidnapped and imprisoned Lafayette.  And that happened like a week ago in the Season 2 time line.  Eric went down to the dungeon with highlighting foils in his hair. The wretched dungeon where he had been keeping Lafayette in squalor and despair (our precious Lafayette!).  Real Life Eric went down to that dungeon and he broke a guy in half and ate his kidneys.  Admittedly it was kinda hot.  At least the Dark Sister in my Soul thought it was hot but she's not always to be trusted.  Anyway, it just happened and I should not have forgotten about it merely because he loved his father/brother/son and mourned him beautifully and because in Sookie's dreams he's all sweetly dangerous sex.  Thank you, True Blood for reminding me through Lafayette's flashback of Eric's cruelty.  Our dear, dear Lafayette!

Thank you True Blood for Andy and Jason and the clearance of their issues.

I hate you True Blood for what you did to Hoyt and Jessica.  Why, True Blood, why?

Thank you True Blood for an appropriately hilarious glimpse of Pam.  I have missed her.

True Blood, WTF is up with Cousin Stackhouse?  And the egg, True Blood.  WTF is up with the egg?