HOGEBOOM!!!!! (and some other stuff)

Going in reverse chronological order of when I watched things from the last couple of days:

"The O.C.": Okay, I think I'm going to need some kind of flow chart to keep track of all the flirting and soulful looks going on between the regular characters and their Bizarro World equivalents from Newport Union. Marissa's on the verge of dating Johnny (aka Bizarro-Ryan), Taylor Townsend (kind of a Bizarro-Summer, though she goes to Harbor) is putting a move on Seth, and Ryan and Summer are sharing more screen time together than they have in the entire series put together. Is that all? Did I miss anyone? My brain hurts. Bonus points for the complete lack of Evil Dean, but I'm not feeling the love this week.

"The Apprentice": Yeah, I've been sucked back in, dammit, and it wasn't even a good episode. Another multiple-firing, both well-deserved, but if Trump fired every contestants who deserved to be fired every week, the season would be about two weeks long. (Episode one: meet the contestants. Episode two: everyone but Randal gets fired.) One of the duller product-placed tasks of all time.

"Survivor": Hogeboom, Hogeboom, Hogeboom. From laughingstock to crafty genius you've gone, my lanky friend. The dramatic pause before busting out the Mini-Idol was one of the coolest "Survivor" moments in a long time (and would have been cooler if the editors hadn't played up Gary's probable exit so blatantly that you knew he'd pull a rabbit or idol out of his hat by episode's end). I just hope he can exercise some of his experience at lawncare (and what was up with that weird football anecdote at one point? I thought he said he was a landscaper) to convince Rafe, Cindy and Lydia to turn against the Axis of Evil, because if any of those three idiots win, I'll be irked. (Though I have to say, I'd almost be more irked by a Lydia win, since she'd be the most inconsequential winner, screentime-wise, since Vecepia.)

"Veronica Mars": A dark, dark episode (and, judging from the previews, not the last one this month) where things got so bad that a Veronica/Wiedman team-up actually seemed like a wise idea. Weevil, Cliff and Aaron all return, Joss Whedon and Kim from "Top Model" both don't embarrass themselves in acting cameos, and we get some quality Weevil/Logan fighting. Not happy, but damn good.

"South Park": I have a list of things that are always funny, under any circumstance. Al Pacino doing a Cuban accent? Always funny. Will Ferrell wearing a fake mustache? Always funny. Cartman being a hatemonger? Always, always funny. Not the most original "South Park" ever, but the scene with the anguished parents of the three Ginger Kids was worth tuning in for by itself. Question: is Lindsay Lohan a Ginger Kid? Click here to read the full post

Second chances

"Second Chance" was the name of an awful late '80s sitcom starring Kiel Martin as yet another dead guy too good for Hell and too bad for Heaven. To tip the scales one way or another, he gets sent back in time to try to influence his teenage self -- played by a young Matthew Perry during his show-killer years -- into being a better person. Like I said, awful, and things got even worse when Fox decided to ditch Martin and the whole time travel gimmick, focus on Perry and his imitation Fonzie pal and redub the show "Boys Will Be Boys." For me, the sad thing isn't that I remember this much about "Second Chance." It's that I remember it so well that I could recognize that "Boys Will Be Boys" took place in the weeks leading up to the events of "Second Chance," meaning that if the revamped show had lasted more than a few episodes, the writers would have had to bring back Martin or do some fancy tap-dancing. Why do I know this? Why did I recognize it at the time and why do I still remember it now? Why is my brain so cluttered with this level of TV minutiae? Why, as I point out in today's All TV column, was I actually able to spot plot logic discrepancies between "Category 6" and "Category 7"? But while we're on the subject of second chances, I gave a couple of Thursday shows one last shot last night, and I think I'm glad I did. Though a rerun of the "Apprentice" four-way firing didn't do much for me, I decided to check out the follow-up, if only to see the reaction of the contestants when nobody came back to the suite. Turned out to be one of the most entertaining episodes I've seen since the first season, with a good mix of genuinely competent contestants (Randal and Marshawn seem like the favorites to me) and people who are crazy but not repellent (Markus is gone, but Clay shows promise to me as someone whose demise will make me laugh). All that, and Trump at his socially retarded worst, asking if Clay was gay 57 different ways, harassing Adam about whether he was a virgin, and then heartily endorsing the concept of sex to him. He was about a heartbeat away from asking Carolyn to initiate Adam into the ways of love. Good times. I'll give it another few weeks at least. "The O.C." was a tough show for me to give up on, seeing as how I wrote an entire book about it and all, but the season had been just awful in the first few weeks, so when I had a VCR/TiVo conflict the night of the last episode before the baseball playoffs, I shrugged and decided to skip it. I didn't have that conflict last night, so I figured I'd give it one last shot, and it was a marginal improvement. For one thing, the evil Dean is on his way out. (And was I the only one waiting for him to answer his phone and hear Homer Simpson telling him, "Hello, Dean? You're a stupid-head!"?) For another, while Taylor Townshend is as big of a cartoon as the Dean, she's at least giving Summer something funny to do other than break up with Seth again. The show's still completely burnt-out and not what it was in the first season, but if I could ride out "NYPD Blue" for 11 years, around half of which were lame, I can probably stick with "O.C." for the one or two years until the show ends. Good "Survivor" last night, too. I knew Jamie wasn't going, because I can think of only one example in the series history where the editing was this blatant about a surprise boot that actually happened (Rupert on Pearl Islands). We've seen people get cocky about a numbers advantage in the past, but never at Jamie's obnoxious in-your-face level. My only hope is that Rafe and/or Cindy didn't pull the trigger yet because they can do the math and know that the time to pull this off is one or two Tribal Councils down the line. Because if any of Jamie, Judd or Stephenie wins, I'm going to be really mad I toughed it out. One disappointment: nothing on the Hogeboom/Hawkins blatant lie front this week. Where was Gary explaining that he learned how to carry stuff on his head from being a landscaper? Or that landscaping showed him how to gather firewood? Something? Anything? Frankly, I think "I'm a landscaper" should become the defacto lie for every reality show. Take last night's "Apprentice," where we could have seen something like this: Trump: Adam, is it true you've never had sex? Are you, in fact, a virgin? Adam: No, sir, I'm a landscaper. Am I right? Am I? Is this thing on? Click here to read the full post

Seeing is believing

There are some things in life where taking someone else's word on something is good enough. (For instance: "Ohmigod, this milk is rancid! Want to smell it?" "Um, no thanks.") As a critic, I obviously hope my writing is persuasive enough for people to trust me, either when I warn them away from a piece of crap or try to get them to watch some obscure Britcom they would never consider on their own.

But when the foot's on the other hand, I can't always put the same faith in the critics that I hope people put in me. Case in point: "Elizabethtown." I love Cameron Crowe, own most of his movies on DVD, and was excited to see him doing a more personal movie after "Vanilla Sky." But then the reviews started to come in, and they were... not good. It's currently at 29% on the ol' Tomatometer, and even the positive reviews are along the lines of, "Well, it's not the fiasco you've heard about, but..."

So I didn't rush out to see it the first weekend, or the second, but I eventually decided I had to see this one for myself. So since I'd already seen most of last night's TV in advance, I hit the local fiveplex and watched it with three complete strangers, two of whom were just there to make out.

And? This is what I get for not trusting the reviews. It was everything they'd said, unfocused, too long (by the end of the road trip sequence, I felt like I'd just driven to Eau Claire or Beaumont or someplace), a blank for a leading man, a self-indulgent and pointless big speech by Susan Sarandon (complete with tap dancing!) and too much reliance on pop music to convey emotions that the script or actors weren't. There were inspired moments, as there always are with Crowe (the demolition-for-kids video, "Freebird" in the rain and Alec Baldwin, who at this point should probably make five minute cameos at the beginning of every movie), but with the exception of Kirsten Dunst's wacky flight attendant, I didn't get enough of a sense of any of the characters to understand or even feel affection for them. At first, I thought that the eventual DVD deleted scenes might add more meaning, but then I remember all the bad reviews of the version shown at the Toronto Film Festival, which was about 18 minutes longer, so probably not.

Sometimes trusting people's opinions even on the good stuff backfires. I finally caught a CNBC rerun of that "Apprentice" episode with the four-way firing, and it didn't have much impact since I'd been spoiled. Even the shot of the four idiots crammed into the back of the cab wasn't very funny without the surprise factor.

Ah, well. Live and learn. Adapt, adopt and improve. Or something some guy once said. I don't know. Click here to read the full post

The network that cried wolf

NBC loves hype. "Don't miss the final two minutes!" "The greatest half-hour in the history of television!" "A sexual experience so intense it could conceivably change your political views!"

At this point, I just tune that crap out, so when NBC began airing its sixteenth iteration of "Biggest. Boardroom. Ever!" promos for last night's "Apprentice," I barely noticed. I gave up on the show midway through last spring's disaster, and saw nothing in this year's first couple of episodes to make me want to come back.

Which is a shame, because from what I've been told (and what I've since read in recaps like this one), for once the hype wasn't BS. Instead of firing one incompetent at a time until he has to choose between the two least-objectionable contestants, The Donald decided to stop screwing around and canned four at once, leading to what sounds like the most uncomfortable cab ride of all time. A friend called it "a potentially show-saving move," and he may be right. The big objection to the last few seasons has been the massive number of contestants with the business sense of a coconut. If Trump (who claims to have hand-picked this cast, by the way) can't pick qualified people to start out with, the least he can do is get rid of the real morons as quickly as possible. I'll check out one of the CNBC reruns over the weekend, and may actually give the show one last shot.

At the very least, I appear to have missed the better Mark Burnett show last night, because "Survivor: Guatemala" just isn't doing it for me. All the players I like are being voted out, while the jerkwad alliance of Judd (Jersey represent!), Jamie and Stephenie should be around for a long time, even if none of them win. Plus, Danni's getting so scary thin that I'm afraid to look directly at her anymore. Lara Flynn Boyle probably outweighs her at this point.

Oh, and recent column links: a Wednesday mailbag dealing with ABC's high commercial load and the question of what all those producers listed in a show's credits really do; a review of Sunday night's terrific "Grey's Anatomy"; and today's grab-bag including reviews of "Vampire Bats," "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and "Masters of Horror." Click here to read the full post