Well it’s been a while since I have written anything about TV. But believe it or not there has been quite a bit happening. It’s just that nobody outside of the hopelessly addicted seems to watch as much TV in the summer as they do in the winter, so you just don’t notice it as much.

Having said all that, not much has really changed percentage wise. The new shows run about 80% crap and 20% watchable, just like everything else these days.

TOUCHING EVIL (Sunday 10:00) (NO SPUD 4U)

This show is an American steal of a very good British mini-series that aired here last year. The Brits have a way of weaving psychological melodrama into police procedurals and making it fascinating to watch. It seems to be pretty much unique to them. When the Americans try it, well, let’s just say that the episode I saw was the video equivalent of watching paint dry. Apparently Bruce Willis was the executive producer (read money guy) on this one. Too bad, Bruce. It’s a yawner. I’ll let you know if the original comes back, ‘cause that’s a worthwhile viewing experience.

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (Sunday 10:00) (TWO SPUDS)

This isn’t really a new show, but it’s one I’m glad about. Larry David and all his wacky LA friends are back with another season of bad karma and Hollyweird misadventures. This show is funny, but Larry is definitely an acquired taste. A kind of pissed off west coast Woody Allen, Larry gives you both attitude and whininess all in the same character. But the writing is so clever and the plotting so strange that you can kind of overlook his shortcomings. At least I can.

THE CASINO (Monday 9:00 pm) (ONE POINT FIVE SPUDS)

These are the kinds of reality shows that I like. Although, I’m starting to have my doubts about how real they are, kind of like WWF wrestling. But, dammit, I’m as voyeuristic as the next spud and at least this is pretending to be a documentary type of show. The story is intriguing in that the actual casino in the title is way off the Vegas Strip and is attempting to offer what they refer to as the ‘old style’ Las Vegas experience. It’s owned by a couple of young bucks who are quite likeable and it really does give you some sense of what it must be like to live and work there. Not on my top 10 list of career choices, but it’s still fascinating to look at.

NORTH SHORE (Monday 8:00 pm) (ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO SPUD 4U)

Okay, I tried watching this show, I really did. It’s about some resort hotel on the North Shore (hence the title), of one of the Hawaiian Islands and the sordid little lives of all the people who work there. About 20 minutes into this crud, I started to feel physically Ill. Like I had become possessed by demons that were playing havoc with my innards. Then I realized that it wasn’t the demons at all. It was the yahoos at Fox television who had convinced me to watch this show under the pretense that it would be as tacky, soapy, tasteless and watchable as The OC. Sorry boys. The acting sucks. The writing sucks. The camerawork sucks. Even the surf sucks, and this is Hawaii, I can’t begin to imagine how they could make surf look bad. But there you go.

THE JURY (Tuesday 8:00 pm) (TWO SPUDS)

This is actually a scripted crime drama that looks at crimes from the point of view of the jury while they are in deliberation. I kind of like this show, although there’s a bit of
overexplanation (strictly for the brain dead, I’m sure), and some of the acting is a little
awkward. Too many people trying to make their small parts big, I think. This is produced by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, who did Homicide and still do Oz. (Lots of Oz people on the juries) It’s formulized to an extent, but the twisted POV makes it interesting, the writing is pretty good and it seems to be pulling decent numbers for Fox.

BLOW DRY (Tuesday 10:00 pm) (TWO SPUDS)

This is my favorite show of the second season. It’s billed as a ‘docureality’ (oi!) sh0w and it stars Hollywood big shot hair stylist, Jonathan Antin, who is in the process of opening a second salon in Hollywood. The crew stays mainly with Jonathan, who is real interesting in that he’s not gay, has a bunch of ‘ink’ (tattoos), really loves his work, tries like hell to be a good boss in spite of the fact that everybody who works for his is pretty much a prima donna, ego-maniac or whiner of some kind (what a life), loves his mom, and seems to be genuinely interested in making women look beautiful, which is something I’m all for. This show is very similar to The Restaurant, which really defined the docureality series style, meaning that it’s trying its best to shoot what’s really happening, as opposed to the reality shows I hate, which are trying to manufacture cheap emotion through synthetic conflicts or weird challenges. Unfortunately, you kind of have to watch these series from the beginning in order to fully appreciate them. But everything ends up either coming back or coming to Blockbuster on DVD sooner or later. Catch it if you can.

NYPD 24/7 (Tuesday 10:00 pm) (ONE SPUD)

Don’t be fooled by the fact that Dennis Franz introduced this show when it started airing a few weeks ago. There’s nothing new going on here. It’s just New York City bad boys, bad boys instead of Florida bad boys, bad boys. Lots of bleeping. Lots of frosted-out faces of the presumed innocent till proven guilty. Lots of tired and pissed off New York City cops. Lots of tedium in the Big Apple 24/7.

QUINTUPLETS (Wednesday 8:30 pm) (SPUD, WHAT SPUD?)

This Fox TV show could singlehandedly make Wednesday into the most pathetic night of the week for TV and definitely falls into the category of 30 minutes you will never get back again. Quintuplets is a show about a man and a woman who have 5 kids all the same age, which appears to be about 16. The kids are all quite different from each other, of course, thus covering off all 5 corners of the teenage demographic. And the wife is a whole lot cuter than her schlub husband, played by Andy Richter, who should never have left his comfy chair on the Conan O’Brien show, because this guy has absolutely no presence in a scripted show. Quintuplets is nothing more than the dictionary definition of lowest common denominator TV. Complete with wussy parental sadism, badly staged sibling rivalry and a profound lack of talent on display in every aspect of the show’s make-up. Did I hate it? Hate is such an understatement here.

METHOD & RED (Wednesday 9:30 pm) (NO SPUD 4U EITHER, HOMEBOYS)

In a lot of ways, Method & Red, another Fox fiasco, is even worse than Quintuplets. It
appears to be a comedy written for the black audience, about two very rich rappers who have moved into a condo community full of white people. Now, as a concept this would seem to have a lot going for it, in terms of socio and psychographic opportunity. Unfortunately, these opportunities are completely wasted by the fact that this show looks and feels very much like it was written by some very square middle class suburban white people. There is absolutely nothing cool about the two rappers in question. They spend most of their time involved in lame gag debates about which car they are going to take to see their lawyer. The hangers on in their entourage are almost silent characters, and Method’s momma, seems to be stitched together from every cliché in the book about black women with grown children.

Method & Red is trying too hard to please white folks and as a consequence has
compromised its ability to please black folks, or any other kind of folks who are not brain dead idiots.

AMERICAN CHOPPER (2 SPUDS)

This isn’t really a new show either, but it’s one that I classify as a guilty pleasure. It’s
essentially a docureality show that follows the trials and tribulations of the father and son business partnership of Orange Country Choppers owners, Paul Teutul Senior and Junior, and their amazing crew as they build custom choppers mostly from scratch for the rich and famous. This show is in it’s second season and is just fascinating to watch because of the sheer genius that’s required on the part of Paul Jr. to design and build these incredible bikes, usually under really tight deadlines and the ranting, raving criticism of his father, who, in my opinion is a bully, asshole and a moron all rolled into one. All that not withstanding the elder Teutal does give the show another level of interest, even if it’s just waiting to see when he gets clocked by a lug wrench.

I’ve always been a big fan of how things are made, and making these choppers the way Paul Jr. does requires a range of skills that is far beyond ordinary. But at the end of the day it’s all about the bikes and these bikes are awesome to behold.

THE SIMPLE LIFE II (ONE SPUD, JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT ONCE)

My pal David Stortini maintains that Paris Hilton is quite possibly the most dangerous
person in America because she and her friend Nicole Ritchie (daughter of Lionel Ritchie) are teaching the young girls of America how to spend so far beyond their means that they or their poor unwitting husbands to be will never be able to dig out from under the mountain of credit card debt which undoubtedly awaits them. Be that as it may, this is certainly one of the oddest docu-reality shows I have seen as these two ultra high maintenance American princesses lug their trailer behind their hot pink dodge Ram truck, invading the lives and completely befuddling some of the nicest people in America.

In the episode I saw, they invade a nice family of Louisiana bayou people who run some sort of scuttlebutt lodge in de swamp. This season, everybody is aware of Paris and Nicole now and even though the nice Bayou people kind of know what to expect, these two girls manage to freak them out anyway.

Simple Life is utterly and profoundly pointless, yet I found myself laughing at it pretty much all the way through. I guess that’s because I’ve always been good at spotting irony even in its most pedestrian forms. This show is kind of the ultimate unwitting comedy, because I am convinced that Paris and Michelle have no idea just how spoiled rotten and totally clueless they are. Watching this show has been a bit of an eye opener for me, because I am starting to see that The Simple Life is completely unique insofar as even the most stoned out script writing genius on this or any other planet could not come up with anything even close to the drivel these two vacuumheads spout whenever they open their cakeholes. Something is very wrong at Fox TV.


HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (TWO SPUDS)

I saw a one hour preview documentary on the making of this movie about a week before we went to see it, so I pretty much knew all the juicy bits going in. New director. Some Mexican guy, whose vision of Harry Potter was considerably darker than director Chris Columbus, who did the first two. This guy was apparently out to put his own stamp on this film, and in doing so made it much more sinister and scary than either of the first two. The big argument here is whether that was a good or a bad thing. I’ll be honest with you, I can’t decide and frankly, I don’t think it matters a hell of a lot anyhow. If anything, this installment is missing some of the magic of discovery that Chris Columbus managed to capture on film. This film was a darker story and true to that, it was photographed with a much darker and grainier look. I know I’m using the words dark and darker a lot, but it really is the best way to describe a lot of what’s going on in this film. As if to counterpoint the you know whatness, there were a lot of scenes that took place in locations away from Hogwart’s Academy, in exterior environment. This managed to give the film a lushness that the others lacked.

These exteriors were apparently filmed in the Scottish highlands where the Princess of Pain is currently hanging out. I can see why. These are majestic places indeed.

BUT I DIGRESS…

The more I do this column, the more I find that it’s really difficult to review big blockbuster movies that were great and that I liked. These are landmark films, made from books that are filled with imagination and wonder. And through they will never do the books complete justice, they are extremely good attempts and all amazing in their own right. I feel so petty using words like ‘dark’ to criticize this film. Yeah, it was dark. But it was supposed to be. It’s about witchcraft and murder and mayhem. Calling it dark is like saying the sun is hot. Oi.

BACK TO THE REVIEW

This is a great movie. The whole Harry Potter series is great. I loved every one of them and I will love the next five or six too, even of they hire Guy Ritchie to direct one. This is something that’s hard to screw up, especially when you’ve got pretty much all the money in the world to throw at them. They’ve got great actors a fantastic script and enough special effects wizardry to make God jealous.

This is blockbuster movie making at its finest. Everything’s first class. A completely
worthwhile movie going experience. This one is just, in my humble opinion, ever so slightly less completely worthwhile than its predecessors and I’ll leave it at that.

Well that’s enough rambling for this week. Catch you later.