90 Day Fiancé, TLC

Let’s just say I am not making any friends here at the screensnark offices with my Some Like It Watched picks. Do I have a mean streak? Not in the least bit. I just happen to watch a lot of crap TV as a result of marrying someone from Buffalo, where junk TV and junk food are a city pastime. However, in the grand scheme of crap, 90 Day Fiancé looks like a Ken Burns documentary compared to other offerings. But after reading Phil and Joe’s submissions I find it interesting how divergent their reflections are; Phil and I are pretty much on the same page here, and Joe ripped that page out and used it to wipe his ass.

Phil:

In a conversation earlier today with our editor-in-chief, I mentioned that I had a Some Like It Watched assignment from Jam.

“Sorry, man”, said Joel without even knowing the assignment, “that dude is cruel.”

It is well-known around the ScreenSnark offices that you don’t want Jam picking your assignments. He makes you watch the horrible reality shows that his wife makes him watch. He has the kind of “screw it, I’m taking as many with me as I can” attitude of a guy who, upon discovering he has AIDS, goes on an unprotected sex bender until he can no longer hoist his wang.

So naturally, I was dreading the next hour when I pulled up Season 1, Episode 1 of 90 Day Fiancé. I cringed when I heard the first line of the series, “I never expected to fall in love with someone halfway around the world.”

And while you could potentially chalk this up to the benefit of low expectations, I have to report that I was pleasantly surprised.
The show follows three couples, each consisting of a US Citizen and a foreign national, through the ninety-day period in which the expatriate is allowed to stay in the US on a K-1 visa (aka “the fiancé visa”). At the end of ninety days, the foreigner must be legally married to the American or must leave the country.

I expected to spend the entire episode looking down on loser dudes and gold digging foreigners, but was surprised when the first couple wasn’t really pathetic. This wasn’t a mail-order-bride, they had met while he was on his mission abroad and had carried out a long-distance romance. When the second couple featured a guy who was a bit of a dork and a Russian fiancé, I thought it had to mail order. But no, they had met cute on a website which pairs people learning each other’s languages. The third guy met his fiancé while working for a month in Colombia.

The women face a number of challenges adjusting to life in the US and gaining acceptance from their fiance’s suspicious families (one poor girl has to live with them) and friends (one of whom makes the Nigerian Prince joke). The guys face the inverse challenges of helping their fiancés get settled and assuaging the concerns of all of the onlookers. I imagine that the drama will ensue later in the series as they face the challenges of planning a wedding and starting a life.

The show has heart. These are earnest people who make you want to root for them to find happiness. They’re real people—not the sort of awful caricatures serve up by “reality” TV. The guys aren’t losers and letches, they just love this girl. And I’m going to do fifty pushups and a shot of bourbon as penance for saying this, but dammit, they believe in love. The girls aren’t leeches, they’re adventurous. And trusting. And when the super-hot Brazilian pixie says wistfully, “I love this man enough to leave my family for him”, your heart kind of melts.

I won’t watch this show again because, frankly, I don’t know where TLC is on my cable box and while watchable, the show wasn’t compelling enough to crack my limited rotation. I can say with all sincerity, however, that I hope it works out for each couple.

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Joe:

So, 90 Day Fiance on TLC. Concept being, these are female non-US citizens with 90 days to marry an American man in order to secure their US citizenship. Or, watch the movie Green Card, but subtract the disarmingly slimy Euro-charm of Gerard Depardieu. I went in knowing only what I had seen on The Soup, which unfortunately had already revealed that instead of being allowed access to the beginnings of touching romantic relationships built on a fabrication, I was in for more extremely trashy reality TV.

My question is, just how large is the American lowest common denominator now? How can this many awful reality TV shows with the thinnest of premises and no actual substance exist at the same time? I understand that they cost almost nothing to produce, which is obviously their main source of appeal to a network, but there has to continue to be some audience for this nonsense or else the shows would cease to be pumped out at a rate of 20-30 per year.

Just like the myriad of vaguely similar shows across a variety of scum sucking networks, the people are obviously actors, being fed certain bits of dialogue in order to draw a reaction from the audience. At one point, the sister of one of the potential grooms talks to her friend about the doubts she has about the bride’s sincerity. But the producers of the show expect me to believe that these two women would have this private conversation in front of TV cameras, where it will be seen by both the bride and the groom, likely prior to the wedding? Why not just call them both into the fucking room and have it out? And I understand that there probably are passive-aggressive fucks out there that would pull that type of bullshit, but fuck those people and don’t let them on a fucking TV show. I would rather watch wild gypsies fight over who has the stinkier gypsy pussy.

So to hell with this show. All four couples were different degrees of awful. The Oklahoma good ole boy with the Columbian fiancee was the best of the bunch, but even those two were OBVIOUSLY ACTING. I would beg TLC to stop insulting the collective American intelligence, but I’m not 100% convinced it exists anymore.

That said, I hate Mormons. I hate them. And the Mormon on this show, who is supposedly going to marry the Brazilian model (and realistically we’re talking Kohl’s ad model, not Victoria Secret Angel) I hate that motherfucker too. Stay in Provo. Do not venture out. “I think you’re too pretty” is not something you should say to anyone, ever. Feel free to eat a bullet. Or go hug a 900 foot tall statue of Jesus during a thunderstorm.

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Joe:

HBO’s Girls has been a bit of an enigma for me.  I’ve seen the marks of high praise given to it by critics, I’ve seen the awards given to the show, and Lena Dunham has been next to inescapable over the past six months.  But with all of the praise and public appearances, I have seen conspicuously few comments relating to the actual substance of the show.  This has happened so often that I had begun to doubt whether there actually was any substance to the show.  TV critics are notorious for starting an avalanche of praise for shows that haven’t earned it, the Emmys get it wrong as often as they get it right, and if the quality of a show was measured by the number of public appearances it’s stars made, the Kardashians would be moving to Westeros.  The picture I have in my head is sex, probably drugs, probably more sex, and probably a lot of twentysomething girly language that’s impossible for a 33-year-old self-respecting male to decipher.  But how to confirm?  SOME LIKE IT WATCHED!!!

But the format for Some Like It Watched has shifted a bit this week.  I’m the Button Man, and I am genuinely curious as to what the real appeal of Girls is, if anything.  But by the luck of the draw this week, our two analysts are avid watchers of the show, and therefore can add the appreciation of experts, rather than the insight of outsiders.  So let’s get to it, and I’ll see if Girls is worth investing my fast-depleting time in.

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Joel:

Girls is a very polarizing show across the internet. People seem to either adore it or they loathe it. I fall somewhere in the middle. It’s somewhat funny at times and it’s pretty groan inducing a lot of the time. Winning an award was the worst thing to happen to Lena Dunham, I believe. She was already pretty full of herself, but now? Forget about it. I think Girls is her absurd take on the manic pixie dream girl story only she’s much more of a manic trashbag after a few beers girl story. Three of my major problems with this show are that:

1. People do not speak the way that Lena Dunham thinks that they do. not since Dawson’s Creek* have I seen a show with less realistic dialogue.

2. People are not naked nearly as much as Lena Dunham thinks that they are. The amount of Lena Dunham nudity on this show is borderline fucking confrontational.

3. I don’t really like any of the Girls on Girls. Adam is my favorite character. he’s awesome and I think he’s on the show for the sole purpose of men not ripping their hair out while their girlfriends watch the show. He’s basically an avatar for all men. He sits there with a sullen look on his face while Hannah and pals spew their unbelievably inane thoughts and when he speaks, it’s usually in an outburst to get them to shut the fuck up. In short, he’s any guy who just wants to cum and is barely holding it together until he gets to.

In this episode, we celebrate Hannah’s 25th(ha, I thought she was like 35) birthday as Marnie has thrown together a nice little bash at a club with all her friends and family. It also marks the arrival of Adam’s estranged and batshit crazy sister Caroline and her gargantuan jungle bush. And the episode was heavy on Ray, and I’m fine with that because Ray rules. Although he gets beat up by a little hipster gaylord because he made the DJ stop playing his Smashing Pumpkins jam, which was actually foreshadowed somewhat earlier in the episode when fucking Colin Quinn was hanging out and chatting with Ray at the coffee shop wearing a Mellon Collie tour T-shirt. What in the blue fuck is hipster Colin Quinn doing on Girls? It’s weird. Knock it off.

Hannah sure acts like a dumbass 25 year old, though. For someone who talks so fucking much, she has no sense of social awareness and acceptability. Marnie threw her this big party and is going through major shit herself and Hannah is too self absorbed to understand how to be a friend and communicate. The least you could do was finish Marnie’s ill conceived little duet. And against all wishes from Adam, she invites nutbag Caroline into their home and I hope that’s short lived because I don’t know how much of her I can take, and then doesn’t understand why Adam isn’t in the mood for sex anymore.

But this isn’t a review. My task is to find the mass appeal of Girls. And as I said in the beginning, I’m not sure the appeal is that massive. The people that love it are fiercely protective of it, and the people who hate it seem to really fucking hate it. I think the people who find it so appealing and fresh is that they believe that it’s a harsh and honest look at relationships both romantic and platonic, and I believe it’s biggest detractors feel that it’s the complete fucking opposite of that.

*Full disclosure: I watched the shit out of Dawson’s Creek

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Jam:

Girls is at that spot in the existence of something cool – underground – where we all kind of expect that it no longer is – but we are perhaps afraid to tip our hats, so we say things like “I don’t know, what did you think?” then retreat when we don’t sense any validation shooting back at us. Well consider this that validation.

Girls sucks. I said it. Lena Dunham is no genius tapped into the mainline of 20-something-nothingness, she is just nothing. There is no substance to this shit anymore. Not that there was before, but there had to be, right? I mean they just don’t hand out TV shows to people. I know this isn’t TV it’s HBO, but come the fuck on. Like the e-book that was never written, this show somehow went into production under the same auspices. Then again it is executive produced by Judd Apatow, who has pretty much made a career on writing the unwritten.

Do I enjoy parts of Girls? Yes. But it is just so self-indulgent that I think I might find better use for my DVR.

Like OH EM GEE look how non-selfconcious she is, she is like totally naked all the time! Life is so hard guys, I totally relate to all the mental instability. This shit is so edgy. Did that guy just pee on that girl? Holy shit it’s just like the stories people tell on the internet.

Gay guys! Brooklyn! Tattoos!

So far this season has gone nowhere, established nothing and has only reinforced the stereotypes that the first two seasons established. We get introduced to a new character, aaaaand what’s the chances she is unstable and awkward? Yup, she bit a guy and broke a glass in her hand all while laughing and screaming.

Of course, we get to see more pathetic annoying-ness out of Marnie and her lack of confidence, while superficially exuding confidence. I wonder why they made the pretty girl so pathetic, I mean who writes this? You know that girl you knew from college that you haven’t spoken to in years but for some reason she fills up like 50% of your Facebook feed with attention whoring self pity posts? You know that girl who writes on New Years Eve, “last year was the worst year of my life, I only imagine this year will be worse  love comes in all sizes – YOU have no control over me because I refuse to give you that power?” I feel like my TV is Lena Dunham’s Facebook feed in moving pictures.

Adam runs into an ex, surprise! she is cute (we get it Lena) and unloads on him and his twisted antisocial craziness. Oh did I mention she makes a scene in public? I know right someone making an awkward spectacle of themselves on Girls, no way. This shit is real, though, people, no seriously, for those of you who don’t live in New York, it’s a pretty universally known secret that every time you find yourself in Brooklyn in a public place someone is making an awkward scene. They are either yelling at an ex in a coffee house, babbling about nothing to strangers at a bar, peeing in public, riding a bike naked, or getting beat up by gay guys. Brooklyn is crazy.

I am sorry, I don’t see Girls going on much longer. It just isn’t that good. I have watched all the episodes, but I have really lost the desire to watch much more. My patience has run out.

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Joe:

Well I wouldn’t exactly call that a ringing endorsement for Girls.  To be perfectly honest, I’m more than a little relieved.  THERE’S TOO MUCH FUCKING TV TO WATCH AND THE LAST THING I NEED IS ANOTHER SHITTY SHOW TO KEEP ME FROM FINISHING THE SHIELD AND CATCHING UP ON MAD MEN.  Sorry, I needed that.  And sorry it had to come at your expense, Lena Dunham.

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Joe:

Nerd culture is pervasive in modern American society.  It dominates the box office, has a solid foothold in television, has a heavy hand of influence in both literature and music, and of course in large part chooses to allow the Internet to function.  So as with anything else, when something wields so much socio-economic power, exploitation will inevitably occur.  And let’s be clear: it’s generally socially acceptable to enjoy the big budget fruits of nerd culture (i.e. watching The Dark Knight) but it is certainly still not okay to enjoy the source material (i.e. reading Detective Comics).

Let’s take stock of my nerd-dom.  I don’t just watch comic book movies, I read upwards of 10-15 comics a week.  And that includes motherfucking brand new Transformers comics.  Seriously, check them out, they’re quite good.  I used to read The Lord of the Rings every year, until I decided that reading all the released books of the Song of Ice and Fire series was a better usage of my time.  I listen to deep cut indie rock, keep current on several comic/fantasy/sci-fi podcasts, and understand what WAR means.  I can (and sometimes do) win at Harry Potter trivia.

And yet, somehow I’ve never seen a full episode of the king of all nerd TV shows, The Big Bang Theory.  I just don’t get it.  I’m a nerd, and I talk to nerds.  These people don’t exist in the real world.  They’re figments of Chuck Lorre’s overactive imagination.  And I’d be okay if I felt like this show was going out of its way to insult me.  But it’s not even doing that.  It certainly seems like it’s attempting to capitalize on the success of the Nerd in the new millennium in the laziest possible way.

This show is 2.5 Men to me.  I just don’t understand the appeal.  And get Hal Jordan’s name out yo mouth, mothafucka.

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Phil:

The Big Bang Theory has been a successful show for many years and I haven’t watched it before tonight. Through osmosis (promos shown during NFL broadcasts), I know the premise. I know that Jim Parsons is a talent. As a male, I’m familiar with Kaley Cuoco and I know that the show comes from Chuck Lorre, who has proven quite successful producing network sitcoms.

The show appears to follow the Lorre playbook. Most of the humor comes from making fun of character quirks. It leans heavily on the laugh track to punctuate its jokes and is rife with PG-13 innuendo. And in
Johnny Galecki, playing the least nerdy of the nerds, it features an excellent straight man to highlight the wackiness of the other characters.

The show isn’t afraid of borrowing from iconic movies and shows. Parsons sets out to develop a unified theory of comedy, undertaking a Lieutenant Data-like series of experiments to deconstruct humor and find its levers. In fact, as I watch the episode, I realize that Parsons is playing a Spock/Data character. His hyper-analytical programming and non-existent EQ prevents him from understanding the people around him or connecting with them on a human level. And he displays the Spock/Data inquisitiveness by continuously seeking to understand what he cannot feel. Later in the episode, Melissa Rauch reenacts Meg Ryan’s trick of proving she can convincingly fake an orgasm in diner by showing that she can convincingly fake laughter at one of her boyfriend’s jokes (in a diner). I have to wonder if the recycling is larceny or “shouts out.”

What is both good and bad about TBBT is that I can drop in uninitiated in season 7 and have a few laughs. I’m sure that the show is designed to pick up new viewers who drop in, enjoy an episode and stick with it. But the great sitcoms relied on knowledge of the characters for their humor. You had to buy in to get it, but the payoffs were better because you were bought in.

During a commercial, I looked up the ratings and saw that TBBT is consistently among the most-watched network sitcoms. This sort of success was once reserved for shows like MASH, Cheers, Seinfeld, The Office and The Simpsons. Or if you were a girl, Friends. They offered fresh humor and characters you needed to know to laugh with.

I’m struck by the realization that network sitcoms have moved to the middle—TBBT is a raging success while My Name is Earl gets canceled. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why TBBT is winning —the funny and creative show runners have moved on to cable to produce shows like Louie and Shameless, leaving shows like TBBT to mop up the rabbit ears viewers.

I don’t want to take too negative a tone here. The appeal of TBBT is obvious. It executes very well on an unaggressive plan. The jokes are safe, but well done. Chuck Lorre has obviously figured out a formula and produces an able sitcom featuring a talented (if unchallenged) cast. My guess is that TBBT’s loyal legion of viewers consists of people who aren’t comfortable with the racier comedies on cable, don’t have cable or need something mildly funny to watch after they’ve watched all of the good comedies on cable.

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Shelly:

This weeks assignment is I’m sure, appearing late-ish. But I watched Big Bang Theory, pretty much for the first time. It’s not my actual first time.. I have had a “just the tip” experience with this show. Mr.Shelly loves this shit. I mean loves. Belly rolling laughter and just a glaze of pretend bliss glaze his face when he watches this. I am usually just getting home or doing dishes or pretending I’m on Everest.

Chuck Lorre produces this and I’m telling you he must have his own Rocket Ship to the moon or Uranus at this point. The man is TV Comedy gold. The show is a typical CBS formulaic comedy. I usually always shy away from that. I love me some “The Middle” on ABC and I so so so miss “Happy Endings” (shows like Person of Interest are still on and Happy Endings is cancelled?)

The show is simple enough; basically 4 really really ridiculously smart almost Asperger type friends who are scientists. The episode I chose (which by the way, this show is in syndication on like 100 channels which means it’s oozing bread and butter money for the people involved…) was the 4 of them on a train going to a nerd herd convention. Now I’m not against nerds.. AT ALL. I AM A NERD. I love Revenge of the Nerds, I love Science Fiction and Science Real and moons, and planets, and pulsars and Boson particles.. all that shit. So I thought I may actually enjoy this show.

They see the real Actress Summer Glau. She apparently is a nerd’s dream. I like her too, maybe a tiny girl crush even. She’s no Olivia Wilde but I could see myself having a hall pass lesbian one night “shopping at the mall” experience with her. I loved her in Serenity and Firefly so now I’m all Nathan Fillion nostalgic and thinking of Joss Whedon and Buffy. Now I’m sad because I miss Buffy… focus Shelly.

There are formulaic “yuk yuk” jokes but they work. I am pleasantly surprised I actually laugh out loud at a few of them.

Kaley Cuoco shows up in a split screen (she is back at her shared apartment with Sheldon — played by Jim Parsons) and she is apparently supposed to be really really not smart (heh). I can’t decide or figure out if Kaley Cuoco is hot or cross-eyed. Def wouldn’t waste a hall pass experience on her, lesbehonest, but pretty all the same.

I like this formula, I might even watch this shit again… maybe. It’s way better that Two and Half Dildos (I never know how to spell that when it’s plural?) and way better than “The Goldbergs” in my opinion (of course it’s my opinion.. I’m writing this duh!)

Thanks Joe, it wasn’t as bad as I thought a CBS comedy would be. Now I’ve gone all the way and not just the tip.

3.75 String Theories out of 5

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Joe:

There we have it, I imagine it’s exactly what CBS is going for: two people watch the show and don’t hate it.  Man, I just have absolutely no use for network TV.

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I remember when Castle first aired and thinking that it was going to be a high-concept show that wouldn’t have any legs. A mystery author who solves crimes using his ability to write mysteries? Working with a cop who had one of the worst hairdos on television? Starring Nathan Fillion, a cult actor that had never really sniffed success after starring in a one-and-done cult phenomenon “Firefly”? How did this become a top 10 TV show? The fickle finger of fate enlisted Joel and Cameron to try and solve the mystery behind this…mystery.
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Joel:

This isn’t my first rodeo with Castle. I’ve spent a significant amount of time in the hospital over the past couple years and Castle reruns on TNT almost every day for hours. And at certain hours of the night, it was infomercials, Castle or The Nanny. If you’ve ever seen any show on the USA Network, you’ve seen Castle. palatable crime drama with a side of humor. Like Psych or White Collar or Monk, I’ll pop in from time to time, but it’s very far from appointment viewing. At the end of the day, nothing matters. They give you no real reason to become emotionally invested in these characters. They’re simply a set piece to get to the end of the crime in one single serving episode. The main characters aren’t ever going to die or anything.

And the episode Rob selected for me to watch couldn’t have been a more perfect cheeseball example of this. The main characters are Castle(a crime novelist, I think. It was hard to tell because everyone was wearing flak jackets that said POLICE and he had one that said fucking WRITER on it) and Beckett, his police officer/girlfriend. Early on in this episode, Beckett steps on a trigger to an explosive device and can’t move until they disarm it. See, on a series like Breaking Bad or The Shield or Homeland, I’d be riveted, because who knows what the fuck will happen. On Castle, we have Castle and Beckett joking around as we see flashbacks of their relationship. God dammit, Rob. A flashback episode? There’s nothing lazier than a flashback episode. And this show is already pretty fucking lazy.

And I’m going to spare you the flashbacks, because they did absolutely nothing to enhance the episode. Beckett’s standing on a fucking bomb for hours and you’re bickering about who liked who first and having this flippant, flirty discussion? uggh. About halfway through the episode, the explosives team discover there’s a timer on the bomb with about thirty minutes left on it, and only then do Castle and Beckett realize the gravity of their situation, because before that it was just jokes on jokes. But I bet you’ll never guess how it ends. Castle figures out the five digit code must be Billy based on some bullshit I don’t even remember and disarms the device with 1 second left! 1 second! That never happens. Seriously, can we ever find someone capable enough to disarm a bomb with like 14 minutes left on it?

It’s easy enough to see why people watch Castle. People want to like Nathan Fillion. People do like Nathan Fillion. They’ve just never watched his stuff and only bemoaned its loss after the fact. Secondly, it’s quite a palatable show for women who want to watch a crime show. It’s sorta funny and less grisly than most. And when your lead in is the monster rated Dancing With The Stars and The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise, women viewers will be there to be had. Was it horrible? No. Was it any good? Not really. But put it up against infomercials and the Nanny and I’ll probably tune in.
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Cameron:

A lot of us here at screensnark are pretentious douchebags, especially when it comes to procedural dramas. I admit, I’m one of the worst of the bunch. I fully understand the appeal of them, but they just aren’t for me. They’re massively popular, and I get it. Sometimes people just want to watch a self-contained hour of television without really worrying about any main characters dying unexpectedly. Normally a very straightforward storyline without any sort of brainpower needed to keep up. This ain’t Game of Thrones, this ain’t Breaking Bad. This is Castle.

I was a very big fan of the sitcom Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, (later just Two Guys and a Girl) and remember being very impressed with one actor in particular. That was obviously Ryan Reynolds. He was absolutely hilarious, destined to become a star. There was another funny character though, the boyfriend. Played by Nathan Fillion. His role within the show was not as outright funny as Reynolds’ character, but his turn as a straight man showed some fantastic comedic timing. Sometimes being a straight man in a funny show can be a challenge in itself, knowing just when to look perplexed in a crazy situation a la Ben Wyatt. He didn’t gain true cult fame until he starred in the amazing series Firefly. When I saw that I couldn’t believe how much charisma Fillion oozed, rivaling Harrison Ford. The show was tragically cancelled early and we all wondered where Nathan would go. There was the Firefly movie, Serenity and then things were pretty quiet on his front. Castle is where he ended up, unfortunately.

Unrelated image from a better project

The show isn’t any deeper than it’s premise, that being Fillion playing Richard Castle, a murder-mystery writer who gets to shadow detective Kate Beckett for book inspiration, even though she clearly disapproves. Why he’s allowed to do this ridiculous thing? I have no idea, I’d like to see the comedy of errors contained in the first episode that sets it up. The episode I actually saw was inconsequential. There was a murder, Castle uses unconventional methods to follow leads, detective Beckett uses good old fashioned detecting to follow others, and together they’re able to pool their resources and solve the murder. I imagine that could cover a large majority of the show’s plots. There’s the obvious will they/won’t they thing going on when you have one male lead and one female lead(I bet they will!!!). Formulaic as fuck, standard as shit, and as special as any one CSI spinoff. I figured this going in, and confirmed during viewing, the only reason this show works is due to the charisma of Nathan Fillion. If you’re a fan of Fillion, but procedurals are not your thing…..they still aren’t going to be. However if you’re a fan of procedurals, give Castle a shot. It’s a decent crime show and Fillion handles the lead with more charm than the Mark Harmons and David Carusos of the world.

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Phil:

I’ve never watched a procedural before, but I see why they work. It’s okay to be formulaic if you have a good formula. CSI certainly has one.

It began with cops finding a body and someone making a cringe-worthy joke—in this case “we’re stumped” as a response to a query about the origins of handless corpse. I’ve learned from memes that this is du rigueur for the genre. But from there it moves quickly. Everything, every offhanded comment and random observation leads to a break which propels the investigation forward. And every bit of evidence sent to the lab unlocks key information.

I’m curious what Rob, who understands the world at a sub-atomic level, will have to say about the science. While in the real world, it takes three weeks to produce toxicology reports for a dead celebrity, the results in the CSI world all seem to come at an impossibly fast pace. And they are all remarkably useful. There are no dead ends. I wish I were as good at anything as these people are at their jobs. And I’d love to get my hands on their image-enhancing technology.

Beyond the simplicity with which everything seems to work, my main complaint is there seems to be a great deal of interrogation without a defense attorney present. But, I suppose you couldn’t cram so much narrative into an hour if the suspects and witnesses were properly advised regarding their rights.

I really enjoyed seeing Ted Danson, Wallace Langham and Elizabeth Shue, who remains improbably attractive at fifty-years-old. By the way, I see the “didn’t leave Las Vegas” joke, but I’m not taking the shot. I like that the procedural genre employs familiar actors who have slipped off of the A-list. It has a similar appeal to the Senior PGA Tour—giving us a chance to watch Lieutenant Dan, Sam Malone, Detective Kelly and Ali Mills perform at a fairly high level even though they’re not playing Augusta anymore.

I like that the show keeps you guessing (kind of). They show you a pretty obvious culprit early on, but you know that it isn’t the real bad guy because there are 35 minutes left in the show. Then they show you another obvious culprit, but you know he isn’t the real bad guy because there are 15 minutes left. Another potential bad guy surfaces with seven minutes left, but you really can’t be sure he’s the one until the cable box clock reads 10:57. I don’t know that “he was gay!” qualifies as shocking in 2013, but I thought it an able twist in this episode.

I think what makes the formula work is that everything is delivered in slickly-packaged single-servings. Everything is neatly wrapped-up at episode’s end. Not only are loose ends tied up, but there is no moral ambiguity. The bad guy gets arrested and we are happy that he was caught—not only because is he a murderer, but a homophobe to boot. And everybody learns something, too. The crazy survivalist recluse realizes the error of his ways and vows to give his daughter a better life. You get a lot of resolution in a sixty-minute viewing. It is like the Brady Bunch with graphic autopsies.

Compared with other successful long-running dramas, CSI (and its genre-mates) certainly tastes like fast food to me. But that’s okay, fast food now and again hits the spot.

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Rob:

Once again, the wheel lands on me and I am chosen to watch a show that I have never seen before. This time it is the popular police procedural Crime Scene Investigations (CSI). As a person who is generally knowledgable about pop culture, I was fully aware of the existence of CSI and its offspring, but I never sought out the show. Part of my avoidance is my general avoidance of the CBS network, as well as my natural dislike of police procedurals. The only police procedural that I ever watched with any regularity was Law and Order: SVU, and that was mainly to laugh at the over-the-top ridiculousness of it. I suppose you could count Dexter as a police procedural, but Dexter had more season-long story arcs and you couldn’t really just drop in and watch an episode.

CSI has been on for a long time and now appears to have churned over the cast. I seem to remember a big controversy involving salary negotiations with the star William Petersen? Looks like he isn’t on the show anymore. I was pleasantly surprised to see Ted Danson and Elisabeth Shue though!

This episode opens with a young man getting chased in the dark by someone with night-vision goggles. The camera then cuts to the young man’s murder scene, with the usual detectives wittily bantering over a corpse. This is exactly what I expected to see at the beginning of a CSI episode. They even managed to fit in a “I’m stumped” pun after finding the victim to be without hands. Oh, CSI.

After interviewing a friend of the victim, the police are pointed to the desert. Using a piece of the victim’s clothes, a police dog manages to find the victim’s blood at the door of an underground bunker. The cops go into the bunker and find night-vision goggles, hunting gear, and an ominous sealed door. One cop enters the door and finds what looks to be an underground house that for some reason has artificial turf as carpeting. Then surprise surprise, the cop has a gun pointed at his head and it’s none other than the Big Baby Head from Justified (Neal McDonough)! Now I am intrigued.

The police find the victim’s blood on his doorstep, on the astroturf, and all sorts of creepy stuff upon further inspection of the bunker. He must be the murderer, right? Of course not, there’s still 40 minutes left in the episode. Elisabeth Shue finds what appears to be a little girl’s room with all sorts of different sized clothes, so clearly Baby Head has been murdering women and keeping their clothes as trophies, right? And it wouldn’t be a CSI episode experience if there wasn’t the requisite finding of semen on a bed. And wait, what’s that, a noise coming from inside the walls? Oh my, it’s one of his victims, still alive! The next scene made me laugh out loud, as Elisabeth Shue is comforting this young girl that they found in the bunker as she is about to experience the cold horror of the rape kit. I haven’t watched The Soup in ages but I’d hope that they used Shue’s facial expressions in this week’s episode.

Now we find out that this young girl is not a victim of Baby Head but is in fact his daughter. See, I knew there was too much time left in this episode! Now we find out that this girl knew the victim. This then points the police to an army surplus store where they find a young man who knows something! They chase him down and he helps explain how the victim came to be without hands. Apparently he found the guy at the front of the bunker already missing a hand, so he cut the other one off and dumped the body, because that’s what you do when you live in the world of Winter’s Bone. The cops end up finding one of the severed hands and discover some DNA under the fingernails. Long story short, Scooby Doo figures out that the murdering ghost was actually the father of the first person interviewed in the episode. Turns out the victim and the interviewee were gay lovers and the father was none too pleased with this. An admittedly interesting twist that I didn’t see coming, but boy was this convoluted. Then again, aren’t most of these crime shows pretty convoluted?

I can definitely see the appeal of this show, and these types of shows in general. They do not take a lot of emotional involvement as each episode is generally separate from the next. There is the mystery “whodunnit” aspect of the plot that makes the viewer try to figure out which person on the screen is the actual murderer. These types of shows never appealed to me. My parents LOVE these shows and I remember watching Columbo with my mom as a child nearly 30 years ago. While I loved Peter Falk’s portrayal of the underestimated detective, I was never really interested in the intellectual exercise of trying to see if I was smarter than the person who wrote the episode. If that’s your cup of tea, more power to you and I hope you enjoy the blood and jizz of CSI.

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Braxton Family Values, We Network, Thursdays 9PM

The reality TV landscape is a crowded one. Incidentally, in a society such as ours, where the entry fee for fame has been reduced to a couple of “leaked” nude shots, in the midst of the unlimited data age, this particular currency is not hard to come by, and neither are the shows which exploit it. Braxton Family Values, however, seemingly stands out, as Toni Braxton was once wildly successful and equally talented. Hers was a fame not built upon night vision blow jobs, but rather honed talent and hard work (the vertical kind).

But since I loathe reality television, and find myself in the unique situation of being able to command others to watch what I will not, I figured I’d let my curiosity get the best of someone else. This week Phil and Shelly watched Braxton Family values (so we didn’t have to) and here is what they had to say:

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Shelly:

I’ve always liked reality TV. I fell in love with COPS in the 90′s and then shows like the Real World and Survivor. I feel its taken a downward spiral in the last 5 years or so. I do believe there are still quality reality TV shows with a learning aspect to them, Braxton Family Values IS NOT one of them.
I’ve never seen the show nor did I really know it existed. i was all about Toni Braxton in the “baby baby” era but haven’t heard much from her since. I do know she went Bankrupt due to some weird producer shit. I suspect this happens a lot in music and Hollyweird but here I am worrying about how to pay for Christmas gifts for my family so I have little to no sympathy.

Apparently the premise is about her whole family sucking her fame and turning it into a job combine of their own. I think its funny that so many celebs support their families entirely or the family members think they can benefit from the famous sibling. Like, can’t any of them work at Target or Lowes? I guess not.

These girls, sisters, are all named with a “T” I immediately think They are similar to the Kardashians, and the makeup they wear proves this point. i feel like I’m watching the Wayans brothers in White Chicks. too. much. makeup. and. wigs.

Toni is on tour again , for the first time in five years and has lupus. I’m not going into what lupus can and can’t do because it would take too long but lets just say it can indeed be debilitating so bravo to Toni for not just giving up. again SHE CAN’T because her mooch family is dependent on her. She has her sisters in the show and each one has a nickname like “The wild child” but all I saw was “The Queefy one” or “The idiot”.

Her older sister? gets a “reddio” show. yes she says reddio. It drives me crazy. But really it ends up being a podcast I could bang out from my basement while I was drunk. She’s very proud of herself and wants her ENTIRE family at this premiere event. Again, I’m not knocking her but its not a “real” reddio show.

The whole show seems to just be about them on tour “together” and I just can’t get over how much makeup these women wear during dance rehearsals. when i am working out I wear little to no makeup and yoga pants (sometimes with camel toe sometimes with out) and call it a day. These women have full weaves and jewelry out the ass! In fact on of the “T” Sisters has a set on that resemble a set of keys a super to an apartment building in New York City would have. Like hello? is Joe Pesci looking for those things?

So back at the “reddio” show Traci is in some kind of fuckery outfit. Like hammer pants meets a halter top. What the literal fuck? She explains her butt and girl parts were sweaty and now it all comes to fruition. its a queef outfit. I get it now. 100%. she also compares getting her reddio podcast to when Toni won a Grammy. Totally same same.

By the way they all make up their own words. “Nervousing” and spelling out T-R-U-T-H. Ugggg, Speaking of… They wear sparkly Uggs which no one over the age of 14 should do. Just saying, ladies.

The one positive thing I can say about this show is that they seem to love each other very much. I’m big on family so I can appreciate them always being together and spending time together. Props to the Braxtons for sticking together (although do they really have a choice)?

God JAMMit its over. I feel the need to go scrub my face and brush my hair. Thank you and good night.

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Phil:

I’m at a loss.

To succeed, Reality TV shows must give us someone to root for or someone to laugh at. Or, if it is getting by at the lowest level, someone to feel better than. Braxton Family Values goes 0 for 3, yet is on its fourth season, so people are apparently watching it.

It’s hard for me to root for people who neither have little to lose nor are shooting all that high. Toni is working to continue cashing in her previous success and her sisters are working to stay employed backing up a blood relative. It seems as though middling competence is all that is needed for anyone to achieve these goals.

There is nothing particularly funny about any of them. I was mildly amused when I saw that one of the back-up Braxtons has an agent. And there was some unintentional comedy when one of the sisters lands an internet radio show, throws a party to celebrate and delivers an award show “I couldn’t have done it without you” speech (both you and I could get an internet radio show tomorrow). But I laugh more Monday morning hearing about the weekends of my upper-middle-class, Caucasian corporate suburbanite co-workers. And they’re about as exciting as a Dockers commercial.

Oddly, I don’t really feel all that superior to the Braxtons. They were dealt a decent hand when their sister hit it big, but they are working. I can’t look down on people who make the best of the situation they have. And nobody is comically stupid or untalented. Somebody calls a process “nervousing”, but if you had me miked all day long I am sure you would hear something that stupid.

Toni is talented and successful, but not remotely interesting. She appears as a disembodied voice on the phone checking in on her sisters a fair amount. And when she does appear on camera, she’s neither funny nor catty. We do learn that she’s embarking on tour which will include a few major venues. The fact that she’s still landing gigs leads me to believe that The Real McCoy must have broken up.

The Braxton Family Values SLIW will come to be known as the point in Screensnark’s history when Jam turned what was an entertaining exercise into hazing. Watching this was as pleasant as participating in an eating challenge on Survivor. Thanks, dick.

The goal of SLIW is to find the special sauce which makes a show which appears to have nothing going for it successful. So, this is usually where I say something nice. Well, I guess that Braxton Family Values is well-edited. Beyond that, my hope is that the producers have a higher purpose in mind—build the audience to its peak and then piggyback some form of death ray onto the broadcast in order to improve the overall quality of the gene pool.

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Cameron:

I watched The Real Housewives of Miami.  I knew this was going to be awful, this is the sort of bullshit my mother watches.  Important note here, my mother is a horrible person.   So this show follows the misadventures of Alexia, Adrianna, Lisa, Johanna and Lea.  It doesn’t matter, they’re all interchangeable plastic clones of what might have once been a person.  The main story of this episode focus’ on Lea’s trip to Texas.  She hates Texas, but her son RJ likes to go and visit family.  Lisa’s tagging along with them because she’s dying to get to the bottom of the complex, enigmatic, layered character that makes up her friend Lea.  You know when they’re in Texas because there’s banjo music playing in the background.  I’m sure Texans know what that’s like, it has to get annoying.  Lea kind of hates her family because she’s a cunt.  Her family is normal enough, she’s just a cunt.  She cares about nobody else in her family but her sister that died when she needs to turn on the waterworks to manufacture the drama that Bravo requires.  Lea’s nephew is a rapper, he oddly enough pimps out his aunt on stage calling her “fine” and whatnot.  Creepy ass.  They go bull riding because they’re in Texas, I mean of course they go bull riding.  Lisa sucks at it, but makes it a point to tell the audience not to misinterpret that as she’s not good at riding things.  “Because” she assures us, she’s “verrrrrry good at riding things”.  We get it Lisa, you get COCK.  You’re a whore, congratufuckinglations.  In the end Lisa feels closer to Lea because she discovers that she’s the same sort of vapid shell of a human being that she is.

Other stories include Johanna announcing her wedding to people.  Mostly her fiance’s family.  They call all his family via video phone and WTF.  Via video phone, is this how rich people communicate?  Solely through video chat as if it were fucking Demolition Man?  I’m sure they’re very familiar with the 3 seashell method of wiping.  She doesn’t want to sign a pre-nup.  OF COURSE SHE DOESN’T, SHE’S A GOLD DIGGING WHORE.  And her fiance, like a goddamn idiot, acquiesces because he wants that pussy.  He even clinches that pussy with a chartered yacht and a *GASP* puuuuuuuppy that she’ll no doubt discard within the week.  Uhhhhh other things include Alexia giving her family this bullshit speech about overcoming adversity, very vague basic greeting card bullshit that means nothing and would be strange as fuck during any normal family get-together.  One of her friends’ mother is dying and seems upset but I don’t give a shit.

I mean, I just don’t give a shit.  I hate these fucking people so much.  These shows scream fake on such a new level it’s hard to fully comprehend.  I’m okay with fictional things, but this is fiction masquerading as reality, and it’s doing so terribly.  I hated every second of this experience, and they felt like the longest seconds of my life.  I felt like I had watched 2 hours of this nonsense, and I’d glance at my watch and see it had only been 2 minutes.  I hate the way these women talk, the way they walk, the way they live.  Going into this I didn’t know where I stood in my own life, spiritually, but I’m now positive that there is no god.  How can there be?  With this dreck on television, actually attracting viewers.  I don’t understand the attraction in any shape or form, so any actual fans of it would be like aliens to me.  Negative Infinity out of 5 Stars.

P.S. one of the advertised shows on Bravo: “Fashion Queens”.  Are they serious?  These dudes look like Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier from Men on Films, it looks like a throwaway 30 Rock bit.  Fuck off Bravo, you’re dumbing down humanity.

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Shelly:

Where to begin? I have watched ALL franchises of this reality TV show. Its basically a phenomena if you will. I used to like it so much more than I do now. In fact Its wearing on me and I now pretty much no longer like any of the branches.

Having said that , I watched Real Housewives of Miami. Yes, all the women are “perfect” and run around with their boobs hanging to and fro. I can attest having lived in Florida for some time and even just occasionally visiting Miami, these women are pretty on par to women in that area. Looking as if they were sculpted out of a special heavenly silicone play dough.

This episode featured Lea Black (wife of famous criminal defense lawyer Roy Black–think William Kennedy Smith). And although I’m not a fan of her husband and his cases I literally love this woman. She is nuts, beautiful, apparently ageless? It’s weird because you know she is older but you can’t pin point her age. The episode attributes this to her line of creams probably infused with whale sperm I imagine.

The rest of them look like models, in fact one is a model. She’s not like Giselle model but I’ve seen her in some Venus Swimwear catalogs I think. You know the ones with the bright neon orange swimwear. The bikinis they sell come complete with a yeast infection , smoke infused breath and a fringe hair style.

Lea is having some kind of event to peddle her sperm cream and handbags (because they are like peanut butter and jelly don’t ya know!). One lady in particular has dabbled in plastic surgery more than the others…. Lisa. I hate when women do this shit to themselves. Like you can see the pretty natural woman underneath all the mechanics and plastic. In my real life, NO ONE has plastic surgery. NO ONE wear this black eye makeup that looks like you are literally a rabid raccoon getting raped by a grizzly bear. Who thinks that looks good?

The women break out into a fight because Lisa is a “peacemaker” trying to get Lea and this beautiful woman Adriana “back together” . Apparently they had a falling out about something stupid and Lisa wants to FORCE them to be friends. Again, in real life this shit doesn’t happen. People sometimes don’t get along, no one needs to be a weirdo peace maker. You just agree to disagree and you MOVE ON. But not these bitches, they are in front of the camera! they can make queefing and hangnails look dramatic!

Lea pretends everything is okay if we can get back to selling sperm jizz and shitty handbags as she keeps mentioning how successful she is. Well, it doesn’t matter if she worked at a year round yard sale. Her husband is who he is. It’s a lot easier to be successful peddling jizz for your face when your husband is rich. Just sayin.

I was housecleaning as I watched this episode which made me more angry and more embarrassed. I don’t like this series and I don’t like the show in general anymore. It seems the veil of truth has been pulled back and revealed most of them from all branches to be fake. Am I shocked? No. Do I need to keep watching this shit? Hell no. I want to watch Rick Grimes take his shirt off and beat a man quadruple his size, because that folks is MY REALITY!

~2.5/5 stars due to all the boobies flying

Love and sloppy kisses

~Shelly

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Jam:

(Editor’s note: It filled me with joy that Jimmy sent this to me under the subject heading “here”)

Up until literally this very moment I have been doing a fairly successful job in completely ignoring the cultural phenomena known as the Real Housewives of [enter location here]. Joel, I would like to extend to you a sincere go #@$*& yourself in the &^# #&% #$%@ $%&$$ for making me watch this. Here it goes…

I can’t help but be reminded of a study I once came across on the Netscape homepage. Yes, I said the Netscape homepage. That should give you some sense of how long ago I read the study and just how much it struck a chord that it has stayed accessible in my memory banks for just this occasion. Anyway, the study suggested that men have a physiological inability to listen to women’s voices for prolonged periods of time. The higher the pitch the harder it is to keep attuned. Please keep these findings in mind while reading the rest of this synopsis.

I am currently watching an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. The only thing not ironic about that title is assumedly the Beverly Hills part. From what I gather these women are neither real nor housewives, at least not in the acceptable sense of either word. But that is the obvious observation, what you would expect me to say. Unfortunately, this show doesn’t have the depth for me to offer any other substantial insight.

The show seems to be premised around a bunch of over the hill former trophy wives who are, or were, married to marginal B list celebrities or superficially wealthy men. Canned gatherings offer an opportunity for the gals to argue about trivialities so insignificant they push the limits of my observational abilities. From what I gather, in this episode the ladies are at a party thrown by one of the other ladies, and they are arguing about how much they are pissed off about yet another one of the ladies. I am sure this trope is completely transferable to other situations such as dinner parties, yoga sessions, group salon appointments and the such.
I promise you I am watching this with the good faith effort to report my findings; unfortunately, I cannot find any redeeming value in this show (and presumably the franchise) and I am having such a hard time following what is happening that I don’t think I will be able to achieve my goal. I know it is popular, but I cannot understand why. It makes other entrants into the field of reality television seem like Masterpiece Theatre. I question the mandate under which the Bravo network was formed, for even offering this as a viewing option. Most depressingly, however, it is the very existence of this show, which stands as a glaring indictment of the general public at large, that strongly suggests we are [bleeped] as a society.

I am seriously considering blocking channel 718 from my cable box as a result of having sat through this.

A small piece of me died tonight.

(Editor’s note: Mission accomplished)

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For this week’s installment of Some Like it Watched we switched things up a bit. One contributor is now chosen at random to select the show while three poor schlubs are chosen at random to watch whatever is selected. In this case, yours truly was giving the power of choosing, and Phil, Joel and Cam were selected to watch. Conveniently for Cam his DVR shat the bed, so this week’s insights on the NBC fantasy, Grimm are provided by Phil (who I suspect was a couple fingers deep into a portentous scotch) and Joel (who’s mind has been sufficiently numbed by pain killers and pints of Ben & Jerry limited batch ice cream). Okay let’s get this shit show started. 

Phil:

Grimm strikes me as a dumbed-down, sanitized horror movie stretched out over many, many hours. I found myself frustrated with the characters’ lack of urgency or common sense while in peril. Early in the episode, three of the good guys are surrounded by about twenty zombies who are pounding on the car. Oddly, none of the undead can break a window while the passengers discuss the proper course of action. And after surprisingly calm deliberation, the protagonists decide to drive over a couple of zombies and try to shake off the ones hanging on the roof. I’m not sure why this was such a difficult course of action to plot. I would have arrived at that plan before I finished befouling my shorts. After getting away and driving a short distance (only a couple minute lurch for the zombies), they collectively exalt in their good fortune and discuss their next step. Naturally, the zombies find and menace them again.

I could give you a few more such instances, but you get the point. Yelling at horror protagonists to stop being stupid and get the hell out of there is really only tolerable when you’ve just watched attractive camp counselors skinny dip and/or screw. 

It is hard to give Grimm a fair shake without knowing the characters. Most appear vapid and one-dimensional (even the sciencey ones), but individual backstories could make them semi-interesting. Many have their own powers—Mr. Indecisive At The Wheel got a little Teen Wolfy while fighting zombies. The apparent Head Bad Guy dresses like a 1940’s carnival barker and can turn into a blowfish who spit-blasts people with Ambien-laced Nickelodeon green slime.

There were some laughs. The cops were absolutely nonplussed by the zombie outbreak. And during the initial fight scene, the participants fall through the roof of the warehouse on which they are fighting—only to fall into containers of fluffy packing material. I suppose that if I had to fight atop a warehouse, I would want it to be a packing material warehouse.

If I had to guess what makes this show successful, I would say that it is the pace. They didn’t waste any time getting right into the action. We got a string of fights, zombies, abductions, a plane crash and a ceremonial heart removal—with the action only occasionally interrupted by rapid discussions of great import. The special effects were decent for a prime-time network show, as well. What the show ultimately accomplishes is the rapid fire delivery of shiny objects.

I usually look at the commercials that air during the show to divine the target audience. Grimm was sponsored by Macy’s, Home Depot, Wendy’s, GMC trucks, Trip Advisor, Dunkin Donuts, TJ Maxx, Chili’s, University of Phoenix and Chase. Grimm’s audience appears to be middle class adults with low standards.

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Joel:

I think Jam was trying to get one over on me by making me watch a monster show without having to watch it himself. Kudos to him, because this stunk. I don’t really care for monster shows. Or sci fi shows. Or fantasy shows. I like my fiction grounded in reality. Gritty crime dramas or uplifting family dramas. But due to the precedent set by runaway hits like The Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones and True Blood, I can’t escape the monster shows no matter how hard I try. As evidenced by the 27 promo spots for Dracula that aired during Grimm, these shows are about to come down the pike in droves. And that’s the way it has to be because that’s how it’s trending. The Breaking Bad finale(probably the best drama that I’ve ever seen) scored with 10.3 million viewers, but it took six years of clawing and scratching and word of mouth and marathon binging to get that victory, as even the previous episode scored only half those viewers. And then the next week, The Walking Dead came back and smashed Breaking Bad’s moral victory into smithereens by nabbing 16.1 million viewers. Those are INSANE numbers for a basic cable drama. But that’s starting to become the rule and not the exception.

But at least The Walking Dead looks amazing. Grimm looks like shit. I thought the name Grimm was supposed to refer to the Grimm brother’s fairy tales in some way. I saw none of that here. I don’t understand most of what I watched but it seemed to be half police procedural, half supernatural freakshow. And some of the monsters are referred to as “Grimms” but that was as far as I got on the Grimm front.

And in order to differentiate itself from The Walking Dead, in Grimm’s third season opener, our heroes find themselves running from hordes of zombies in a shipyard. They’re on the search for their friend, Nick, who is knocked out in a coffin somewhere. I remember his name because a third of this episode’s dialogue was “WHERE’S NICK?! WE GOTTA SAVE NICK!”. Nick is being captured by some other big bad, a laughable charming Cajun black man in a top hat who can puff his face out and hock a knockout goober at you like the dinosaur in Jurassic Park. This special effect looked like it cost 17 dollars. So Nick awakens and bashes his way out of the coffin, Kill Bill style and gets in a scuffle with Cajun man that finds its way into the cockpit and takes the plane down in some random woods.

As for the zombies, the cops got them all corralled into a shipping container and then Scooby and the gang threw a couple of antidote vapor grenades in there and shut the door and they all turned back into people. Whatever. So something is wrong with Nick. He’s all hulked out and angry faced somehow. He stumbles across a dive bar out in the woods and walks in and beats the shit out of everybody and then as he moves on to the next house the show ends. Not with a “…To Be Continued”, but with a “…This Ain’t Over Yet” That made me laugh out loud.

So, I guess Grimm is supposed to appeal to the horror crowd, of which I am firmly outside of. But as someone who can respect a good horror show without having to watch it, I can tell you that this falls well below the bar that’s been set. So I’m guessing this is for the die hard horror fans. If 16 million are watching The Walking Dead, I guess at least 1-1.5 of that will trickle down and watch any old damn thing.

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Completely unrelated image of the ’86 Mets and The Count

VAMPIRES! EEEK! This week’s installment of Some Like It Watched has us exploring the The CW’s The Vampire Diaries.

The Vampire Diaries | The CW | Thursdays 8PM

Jam:

I was really looking forward to making a “man it’s about time someone came up with a vampire show” joke, but after a cursory Wikipedia search, apparently this show has been on since 2009, so in that context it doesn’t seem quite witty enough to lead with. So let’s see, what we have here is your basic Dawson’s Creek meets Gossip Girl, meets Twilight; not that I have actually watched any of those, but I am pretty comfortable with generalities and assumptions.

Vampire Diaries has it all, the aforementioned vampires, the top 40 soundtrack mixed just loud enough to drown out the dialogue, 30 year old actors playing recent high school grads, a fictional mid-atlantic town with a college-brochure-mixture of diversity, product placement galore, and cast members who are trying to break into the music scene (or maybe they were tapped from the music scene? I don’t know but the Ford promotional tie-ins tell me at least one of the cast members sings in front of people for money).

Without realizing at first that this is an established show, I was left with the impression that I was watching the most confusing series premiere ever. That was before the internet informed me that this is in fact the start of the 5th season. Man, where have I been? Oh, that’s right, I have been a 30 year old productive member of society who only turns on the CW for the 10 times a year the Mets are scheduled to play on broadcast TV (and that’s during a good year. So basically I live a pretty CW free life). Let’s just say that for someone without the preternatural plot following skills of a 16 year old girl, the established lore of the show is somewhat perplexing. All the characters look alike – like an Axe commercial broke out during an Abercrombie photo shoot – and adding to the confusion some of the characters are literal doppelgängers of each other (OMG twinsies).

This season premiere we get to watch, what I am assuming are two of the main characters, go off the college where drama and calamity ensue. Keg party, yada yada yada, murder, yada yada yada, vampire drama, yada yada yada, flashbacks that make no sense to anyone just watching the show for the first time, yada yada yada, more vampire drama, cliff hanger!

So why do people watch this show?

I think the viewer base of this show falls into two categories: those who gave birth to cast members and those who lost their television remotes after catching back to back Seinfeld reruns (which I have to assume is a pretty sizable audience).

The bottom line: 

If you love vampires but somehow find yourself without enough viewing material to satiate that desire, watch this show, but not before brushing off your VHS of The Lost Boys. 

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Cameron:

Oh, sweet, I Know What You Did Last Summer is on! I can never afford an opportunity to get me some nice Freddie Prinze Jr. action. Admittedly I haven’t followed his career with much scrutiny, but I only imagine that he’s the biggest star in Hollywood at this point. …Wait. This…isn’t I Know What You Did Last Summer? That’s only the name of the title of this episode of….VAMPIRE DIARIES?! Oh, goddamnit. I don’t want to watch this. Isn’t this nonsense all the rage among emo teenaged girls these days? I’m not too old for this, am I? Nah, I’m hip. I’d like to see what I, as a grown ass man, and my grown ass friends, feel about this show. I understand that we will probably all make connections to Twilight, even though I’m sure none of us are truly intimately familiar with Twilight. It’s just when you think vampire romance bullshit, you think Twilight. Bear with us.

Alright, what did I just watch? Maybe jumping into a show in it’s 5th season isn’t the greatest idea. The previously on segment at the beginning was no help at all, just a blur of things that made zero sense. Please note, while I did my best throughout the episode to learn characters’ names, I might still be off. The show starts and it’s a montage of banging. There’s sex on beds, sex on couches, threesomes, sex in bathtubs. Sex everywhere! Mostly implied of course, it’s a family show. So Elena’s in the bathtub and decides to go through her contacts to stare longingly at Stefan’s name. I couldn’t help but notice that one of her contact names was “Pay my bills”. WTF? Does she call that number and her bills are magically paid? Is that some sort of pornographer she has to call when times get tough? Anyhow Elena and Caroline are off to college. Elena’s in a relationship with Damon, who is her ex boyfriend Stefan’s older brother. This show is more soap opera than most soap operas.

So Elena and Caroline find out they have a human roommate named Megan, which irks them. Caroline especially. They can’t drink their blood packs openly. Oooh wow look at Megan’s brand new Windows Tablet! Starting as cheap as $500! Caroline drinks one of Megan’s protein waters and it burns her throat like acid. Apparently it’s some sort of anti-vampire water. Then they can’t enter a party house because they weren’t invited in or something, and Megan is thrown out of the second story with a vampire bite in her neck! Police obviously conclude it as a suicide, and also somehow Megan knew Elena’s father. I don’t know, they were probably fucking. There’s a hundred characters and they’re all fucking.

Now a guy wanders onto the scene who apparently looks exactly like Stefan. Caroline’s mother is at some kind of end of summer party outdoors when she meets him and assumes it’s Stefan. We soon learn that his true name is Silas, some immortal vampire who Stefan looks like. Stefan is Silas’ “shadow self”. So Silas casually cuts open Caroline’s mother’s wrist and uses some sort of mind control that keeps her extremely casual about the whole ordeal.

Some girl that looks exactly like Elena shows up. Is it another doppelganger or what the fuck? Her name is Catherine and seems to know Damon, and she’s human now for whatever reason. Elena’s brother Jeremy was presumed dead by everybody at school, but he’s not dead and returns to school. He’s immediately bullied for some extremely odd reason. I don’t really understand the bully here. “Ooooh someone’s too good to not be dead”. Not an actual quote, but that’s the gist of it. So Jeremy whips ass because he’s a hunter and gets a 3 day suspension.

Silas has drinks with Damon under the guise of Stefan, but Jeremy informs Damon that he knows it’s actually Damon. Jeremy knows because when Silas touched him, he felt a chill on his tattoo. This show’s weird. So Silas tries very weakly to kill Catherine. I mean, he lightly chokes her and then strolls slowly after her when she runs away. Damon tells her to run away with Jeremy but Silas convinces Damon that if he gives him Catherine, Silas will release Stefan. Who he’s got locked away suffering somewhere, underwater apparently? Damon tells Jeremy to turn the car around and when he does, Catherine crashes them into a telephone pole. She escapes.

Caroline gets a phone call from her….boyfriend? I’m not sure. I think he’s breaking up with her because he’s running around with werewolves now. I don’t know. Some guy named Matt gets fucked with in an alley, I don’t know. Finally Silas shows up again at the outdoor festival as, I think it’s the mayor?, is giving a speech. Silas uses mind control to take over talking, and then mind controls the entire town. Then he kills the mayor, who was some girl named Bonnie’s father. I think Bonnie is a vampire too? I don’t know, she’s a regular character. Now Silas sends the whole town under his spell off to look for Catherine. There’s some shots of Stefan hallucinating and he wants to retain his humanity. Presumably if he lets go of his humanity he could escape. And that’s it, that was the show.  I don’t know.  That’s my mantra.

So, yeah. It’s not my kind of show, certainly. I suppose I get the appeal. It’s Days of Our lives meets Twilight, so it gets those kinds of fans and everybody in between. Unfortunately for me I don’t fall anywhere near those demographics. I can’t even begin to rate this thing, so I just know who I would recommend it to.

This show is recommended for: girls 13-17, and creepy women 36-49.

This show is NOT recommended for: men, people with identity issues

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Phil:

The purpose of Some Like It Watched is to watch shows which we would not watch by choice and try to determine what the attraction is (if any). Ferret out the secret sauce, so to speak. Jumping into The Vampire Diaries at the premiere of Season Five certainly presents a challenge to us Some-Like-It-Watchers because none of us reside in the target audience, nor do we know any of the backstory. That said, after watching Episode 1, I think I have a good sense for their formula (and that of the network, too). And like brandy-infused baby formula, I do see why it’s so tasty.

As you would expect, the show was awfully confusing to a virgin viewer. I’m not sure if all of the main characters are vampires, or if humans are included as well. One far-too-muscular-for-high-school fellow with a penchant for giving and receiving beatings calls himself a hunter. The self-described immortal who appears to be the baddest vampire around says that he isn’t a vampire at all. They keep reminding us that the girl who badgers her friend is dead, but I’m not sure if she is un-dead in the vampire sense or just a very solid-looking apparition.

TVD largely follows standard vampire mythology—the vamps drink blood, glamour to cover their tracks and enjoy well-developed fast-twitch muscle fibers, but these appear to have no aversion to the sun. Unlike the other popular vampire-centric entertainment offerings, they seem to be sticking with vampires rather than adding werewolves, fairies, witches (and so on). I give them credit for that. I’m fully expecting True Blood to introduce Frankenstein or The Mummy next season.

It is apparent that the show runners have all read the 90210 playbook. College life is presented as the fifteen-year-old’s vision of what college life will be like. I, for one, have never seen dorms that nice nor kegs deployed to refresh incoming freshman in the middle of the green on move-in day. Nor have I seen an entire group of high school friends gain admission to and attend the same college. I give them credit, however, for calling the school Whitmore rather than Virginia University.

There seems to be a fair amount of blurring between protagonist and antagonist. It looks like you have a few true good guys and at least one real bad guy, but most of the characters lie somewhere in between (the blond girl who appears to be on Team Good Guy is kind of a cunt). The complexity makes for a more mature offering.

Without ever having seen anything on the CW, I have a feeling that this show is very “CW-y”. Watching the commercials for the network’s other shows, they all seem to incorporate attractive 23 year-olds engrossed in some form of supernaturally-driven angsty drama. TVD ( and its sister shows) certainly do not fear cleavage. Nor bathing scenes. Even the stereotypical smart Asian roommate is well-put-together and runs around in towel. In a pinch, think I could beat off to the CW (it would certainly be easier than using the lingerie circular in the Sunday paper).

TVD moves at a quick pace. The scenes are short and the dialogue is quick. They’ll use exposition liberally to keep you caught up. And they’re not afraid of “shit just got real” moments. I can’t say that’s a bad formula. No network ever asked show runners to slow things down.

Ultimately, I can see why this works. The shows sponsors included acne medications, smartphones, McDonalds, sound systems and clothing stores. Putting out a quickly-moving, slickly-produced drama which features very attractive young actors is certainly a good way to attract consumers of those products.

___________________________________________________________________

Shelly:

Ooooookay. I have to preface this SLIW by saying I had to watch The Vampire Diaries in the dark by myself, as if I had a secret dildo or crack habit I needed to keep a secret from my family. There would be no explanation if I got “caught” watching this show. having said that it wasn’t the worst show I have ever watched but I won’t be watching it again.

Fist off I like the style and look of the show, its like an instgram filter that makes even moderately attractive people “pretty”. From the get go I was confused. I suppose that’s what happens when you watch a show in its fifth season that isn’t episodic. That’s why I loved many episodes of the X-files, because I could watch here and there and not feel lost.

The town TVD takes place in is called Mystic Falls. Really? It sounds like a Snapple ice tea competitor. In fact I think there is a Mystic Falls fruit juice? The characters start talking about “shadow selfs” , which I instantly get jealous. Do you know how much shit I could get done in my day if I had a shadow self? Real me could be watching TV/Movies and masturbating while several of my Shadow selfs deal with kids, work, laundry, Mr. Shelly, and other life tasks.

I literally have no idea who anyone is. A dead exotic girl shows a bot how to email. She is really pretty like she should be on Scandal or something. And Boone from LOST is on here!! OMG Okay maybe I can get into it now. LOST was easy one of my top 5 shows of all time. “We have to go back” is my motto in life. He looks really dramatic and squinty and pale, I assume he’s a vampire. Which by the way I also assume this show is jumping on the bandwagon of the Vampire trend formed back in 20089-2009 from the Twilight movies. (PS Shelly is not a fan of these movies.)

I only know Nina Dobrev from the awesome opening at the Emmy’s where Jimmy Fallon hosted and sang a remix of Bruce Springsteen’s “Baby we were Born to Run”. She sang to Hurley from LOST. And God dammit they are ruining the girl I discovered (yes me alone!) from New Zealand; LORDE. They play this song on EVERYTHING now , so now I’m pissed off. They did this to Alex Clare too!

Nina Dobrev is playing two chicks. A messy hair slutty looking girl and a cute college girl. I’m guessing she is a vampire too. She keeps whining about “Stefan” (like WTF kind of name is that?) and she apparently dates Boone who is his brother. Now even if you are a vampire you know fucking two diff brothers is a bad idea! good Nina is going to college for the first time with her Blonde cute friend Caroline. (Do Vamps have to go to college? Like can’t they kill and get shit they want with out the bullshit college route the rest of us schlubs are forced to conform to?) And what’s the lore here? How can they be running around in Daylight? I’m so fucking confused at this point.

By the way , there are a SHIT TON of commercials in this show. Do the CW people make a ton of money? This “hour long” show ends up being 25 minutes, and in this case that’s a plus for me.

I laugh my ass off when they arrive to their “dorm room” , its a fucking palace. What college do they go to? Most freshmen I know live in a silly dorm room that is the size of a tampax box and its made out of cinder blocks. They usually have “catchy” nicknames like “Cum Hall” instead of Cumberland hall. This place is unreal.

The show continues with a weird mystery. The two roommates have a third roomie and Caroline is worried she’ll find out they are vampires, or worse she already knows. It is quickly revealed they wear “daylight” rings, so that explains a bit as to why they can just kick it during the day. They get invited to a frat party which I immediately think the CW is going to show keg stands and orgies, but I’m disappointed quickly. The 3rd roomie is thrown from a window and the girls discover here. She appears to have been bitten by another vampire. OMG this is getting so mysterious! Who could this other vampire be? is this college like Monsters University! I’m intrigued!!!

Meanwhile we keep seeing evil “Stefan” and regular Stefan (who is trapped in some coffin gin water. That is soooo borrowed from the WB’s Angel). I don’t understand all the back and forth between Katherine and Elena (Nina Dobrev) and the two Stefans. Boone seems to know whats going on but not entirely. Also Good Nina has a brother who the dead exotic girl follows around and seems to only pester him. His name is Jeremy and he says he is a hunter.

This show better hurry up because I heard my kids moving around upstairs and I can not get caught watching this shit.

There is more weird stuff, people slit wrists in the middle of a park and drink a cup of blood like its coming from a Kuerig. Does it have carbs I wonder? I have so many questions. Does Boone wear blush? How is Katherine a “Doppelganger” (which by the way I think was a bad soft core porn with Drew Barrymore form the 90′s). How can Silas “glammy” people? Who is Silas? Why is he Stefan’s Doppelganger? Where is Caroline’s Boyfriend? Why is helping a Werewolf pack?

You are probably confused. As am I. If I was about 14-19 I would be all over this show. I assuming that’s the demo here. I need a bit more darkness and gore and sex, real sex in my shows. I should just start directing my own shit. I can totally transform my backyard into a town called ” Sapphire Flats”.

Again not the worst hour of TV I’ve ever spent my time on but I won’t be a repeat offender.

(Editor’s note: I remember Doppelganger with Drew Barrymore.  Nice pull, Shelly.)

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Joel:

This column is designed to examine a hit show and its appeal.  There are many variables when deciding what defines a hit show.  Cameron chose The Vampire Diaries this week, which is a show that gets clobbered in the ratings by the likes of The Big Bang Theory(What doesn’t?), but for the CW, it’s a HUGE hit.  I was checking twitter throughout the evening to check updates on football and baseball and every single time, without fail, the top worldwide trending topic was #TVD.  Nothing about The Big Bang Theory, nothing about Parks and Recreation. #TVD. Every time.  So it’s a monster hit with the social media crowd as well.  Hit shows aren’t as black and white as they used to be, literally and figuratively.

In full disclosure, I slammed a few necessary beers before viewing, and I’ve never seen one episode of this show and decided what better time to jump in than the season 5 premiere.  And it is with full shame that I admit that I understood nothing yet loved everything.  I wanted to watch the next episode immediately.  this is one of the funniest comedies on tv today.

Reviewing this would be a fool’s errand.  Because I don’t understand any of what was unfolding before me.  At one point, this immortal bro, Stefan, or as Cameron chastised me “That was Silas.  What show are you watching? Silas is immortal.  Stefan’s just a vampire!”  Cameron took TVD way seriously. Like it’s my fault for being confused when 5 actors are playing 17 roles.  Okay, so SILAS is a baaaaaaad man, and I loved him.  He went up and sat down with this lady at a bistro in broad daylight and just sliced her wrist and drained it into a coffee mug for a refreshment.  she didn’t seem to mind at all.  That’s because Silas is cooler than the other side of the pillow, bros.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that I find Nina Dobrev extremely sexually attractive.  and she was in every scene!  Because she plays multiple versions of herself, the vampire and the human, and both of those versions love to take bubble baths in a bathtub in the middle of a wooden attic area.  Score!  At one point, Silas shows up and tries to strangle her in her huge bathtub room, but she grabs her shiv at the side of the tub as you do and slices his face.  Also, at one point, Human Dobrev thinks she is being escorted off to be killed or something and grabs the steering wheel sending them careening into a telephone pole that explodes as if Roy Hobbs just clobbered one out of the park.  I was laughing so hard, you guys.

The part of the episode that shamefully made me want to watch more came at the end.  The mayor(?) is giving a speech to a group of youngsters when Silas commandeers the microphone and states that he has consumed enough of their blood to basically mind control them and as he commands them to be quiet and to not move a muscle, HE STRAIGHT UP GUS FRING BOX CUTTERS THE MAYOR IN THE FUCKING NECK! And they remain there, Silas’ disciples.  Where does it go from here?  I kind of want to know, and for that, suck it, Cameron!

The post Some Like the Vampire Diaries appeared first on screensnark..

Welcome to the first installment of Some like it Watched, the segment where we, the ScreenSnark staff, attempt to examine why a particular show is popular.

This week, Joel our Chief Editor, in his infinite cruelty assigned Dancing With The Stars as our focus of examination. 

We will break this post down per contributor

Jam:

I wish I could say I popped my DWTS cherry tonight, but alas, as a married man I have had many a previous night sitting stone-faced and sullen on the couch while my wife had control of the television remote.

Please don’t confuse anything I write here with enthusiasm. I am hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible. I anticipate losing the will to even proof read what I have written, so please pardon a participle left dangled or word misspelled.  Thanks.

Okay here we go…

This, the seventeenth season of Dancing, is the one in which ABC promises us actual celebrities “who don’t need Googling.” Not so fast ABC, it took me a solid 20 minutes to sort out the professional dancers from half the “celebrities”.  But then again maybe I am the guy living under a rock who doesn’t know my Corbin Bleues from my Brant Daughertys.

Oh crap, is this the Saved By the Bell reunion I have been waiting for? I see Jessie Spano and that bitchy girl who ran the volleyball courts at the summer resort. You know the one who grew up and married the King of Queens. Okay, I’ll stop pretending I don’t know who Leah Remini is (especially with my three KoQ rerun a day habit), but it is a little shocking to see her here spending her first days of Scientology freedom doing a dancing show. I thought she would still be glued in front of a computer screen digesting the last 10 years worth of current events she missed out on. We have a black president?

And much to my disappointment, Elizabeth Berkley didn’t do her first dance to “I’m So Excited.” Lame.

Okay, let’s devote this paragraph to the celebrities who need no further mentioning. I’ll just list them for efficiency: Corbin Bleu, Brant Daugherty, Christina Milian, and Amber Riley. I have no idea who any of you are, and life is too short to look it up.

Bill Nye. Bill Nye, we can only assume was cast to bring in the 30 year old Reddit crowd. If only the show had the pull to bring in Beakman as well, things might have been interesting. Bill, thanks for keeping me entertained throughout my childhood, I appreciate the effort here, but I’d rather spend a few hours reading out-of-date Encyclopedia Britannicas than watching you dance. No offense, I don’t like watching anyone dance, unless they have daddy issues and are paired up with a pole.

Jack Osbourne. Jack, I am sorry but your relevancy rivals the shits your dad’s dog kept taking on the floor while on that MTV show.

Oh look everyone, Snooki! Excuse me, Nicole, as she now wants to be referred. Snooki, please go away.

Keyshawn Johnson joins the cast this year. I am sure his presence has nothing to do with his employer’s (ESPN) desire for cross company synergy. Dude, you have to read your employment contracts more closely.

Valarie Harper? Didn’t she die? No, seriously. I read earlier this summer she only had a few months to live; yet here she is, not only alive but dancing on a reality TV show. One can only assume those death stories were pre-press to get her name back in the public so she could qualify as a celebrity for the purposes of this show. Though I guess that theory falls apart when considering they also cast Bill Engvall, who hasn’t been seen or heard from in… (yeah I trailed off here. I don’t have the energy to devote any more time or effort to Bill Engvall.)

So getting back to my purpose here, did I come any closer to figuring out why people watch this show? No. I am sorry Joel. I failed. For the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would commit several hours of his or her life each week to watching this nonsense.  I mean honestly, when was the last time anyone said, “I really can’t wait to watch a bunch of B and C-list celebrities dance to generic renditions of overplayed pop songs?” Speaking of which, ABC managed to get in two separate instances of “Blurred Lines” before even taking the first commercial break. The stage was set; I knew what I was in for. God this show is bad.

I hate you Joel. I’m going to go watch some football now.

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Shelly:

I’m a virgin to Dancing With the Stars on ABC. It’s a big name show on network TV. It’s not about Walter White, demons, ghosts, hookers, serial killers or murderers. So I would usually never watch this. I’m going outside my comfort zone and changing it up (for tonight).

The show starts and all I see are very hot blond ladies dancing around with spray tanned perfect legs. They introduce the first couple”. What the hell is Pretty Little Liars? I know I know, its on ABC Family (which is weird because from what I’ve heard it can get not so family). And The guy from PLL has a partner named Peta/PITA? Now I’m Hungry. He barely moves his hips and she is really hot. I’d like to see more ass.

Ohhh Tom Bergeron! he is hosting. Now I’m craving America’s Funniest Home video! Nothing says ‘Murica like a cat singing The Star Spangled Banner.

Next up Leah Remini who I know from The “King of Queens” but also from “Living Dolls”. I wonder if she had to consult with L Ron Hubbard before doing this show? She looks so pretty , I love her dress except it has this sparkly dog collar neck brace thing to it. Leah looks like Angelina Jolie, if Angie would eat a damn sammich. There is some nutty asshat judge who keeps making inappropriate comments. BTW “twerking” was NOT invented by Miley Cyrus. Just an FYI for the youth of America.
Brooke Burke Charvet is also hosting and although she is pretty all I think of is Sketchers and Baywatch Queefs. (I say queef too much, but its a great word).

Cut to commercial. OMG Willem Dafoe. Sharp nails. A Mercedes Benz. SOLD!

Now a High School Musical Kid (whom I should know but my kids watch weirder shit than that) and his partner Vodka girl. These dancers have insane bodies. I mean crazy hot (at least the women). I want to be a Hot queefy dancer STAT. SWAN FUCKING LAKE here I come! I do wish they’d flash a nip slip or some more ass.

Next up Jack Osbourne. Cut to the shot of Pee Paw Ozzy looking lost and about to shit himself. You can’t write this stuff, folks. Cheryl Burke is his partner and I like her look, she’s a bit thicker than the teensy dancers. Her dress however is a nude allusion dress. it looks like control top pantyhose which smell like broccoli and pregnant lady feet. so all around = not sexy.

Audience shot of J Lo and her toddler boyfriend and momma Sharon Osbourne. She’s so proud. I haven’t a snarky thing to say bout her.

Amber Reilly up next. Oh I love her. I watched the first season of Glee and she knocks the pants off of Lea Michelle. She has lost some weight and looks great. For a plus sized girl she cuts an amazing rug! I enjoyed this dance a lot. But wait did her partner Derek rip his coat? Cue “Fat Guy in a little Coat” (RIP Chris Farley).

Elizabeth Berkley. Hells yeah Nomi Malone! Please oh please tell me her and her partner recreate the classic pool thrashing scene from “Showgirls”. I have a feeling I’m going to be disappointed. I am let down. no such scene. Also does her partner not know boundaries? He is straight up licking her ear after the performance.

Then its Bill Nye “The Science Guy” but ummmm I have no clue who this is? I’m a 3 2 1 contact or Mr Wizard kind of gal. Aww they play Weird Science for him.  How cute. I feel like I’m watching Skinemax late night though with his partner (who is also insane hot). The Nutty Professor takes a whole new meaning. At the end of his “dance” he chugs a strange blue liquid.  Jonestown anyone? No surprise they rank poorly.

Some football guy. I don’t follow football if it’s not a NE Patriot related deal. Ohhh his partner has tight gold pants! I miss Solid Gold, that was a show! She may want to freshen up with Summer’s Eve after this dance. those pants don’t breathe! Their chemistry is awful, I don’t see this pair progressing too much longer.

Christina Milian is now coming out to dance.  Ummm no clue here? Did she sing something? Oh I love dry ice crawling sequences. That’s it they win. Dry ice and spastic movements woo me over any time. Her expression is that of constipation, so I guess that’s sexy.

Yayyyyyy my redneck, Bill Engvall. I think he may be the most “real” so far. His partner is so pretty in the magenta number. i want to wear that to date night at Applebee’s (remind me people). He waxes the floor with her, that’s pretty cool. His matching vest looks like he is in “Wedding Crashers” . They did pretty well dancing to “Hot-stuff”. Again I’d like to see more ass in this show. Like “Dancing with the Donks” or something.

Now Valerie Harper. Wow, what a classy lady. They really landed a star with her. Woman looks amazing for 73, and she is bringing dignity to this show. How can the judges be mean? I double dog dare them to be. He partner looks like one of those seat fillers at the Emmy’s. Here I am complaining about dirty dishes or laundry and Valerie Harper is battling cancer and dancing her ass off. I still hate fucking laundry though.

Thanks shit the last dance pair and star; Snooki. I REFUSE to call her Nicole. I am not a fan of hers or the Jersey Shore. I do think she is entirely too skinny. I prefer her more period and booze bloaty and plump. The work Snooki IS synonymous with Queef (google that). Having said that, I do like her hair and footwork. She seems the most agile and spry (like Hurley from LOST) of the bunch.

So all in all its what I expected it to be. No surprise twists or anything. I’m most likely NOT going to watch it again. 2 hours is a bigger commitment than I give to Breaking Bad, and BB is pizza, puppies, chicken wings and casual sex.

Now a show I could get into because I’m so morbid is “Dancing with SARS”. ABC Call me.

Hugs and sloppy kisses.

Shelly

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Phil:

Our stalwart Editor-in-Chief has assigned the task of watching the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars to some of the Screensnark regulars who don’t watch this show. He’s hoping to get the fresh perspective of virgin viewers. Apparently, he wasn’t aware that the show ran opposite the East Coast broadcast of the Bengals-Steelers tilt.

It’s okay, Joel. I support your lifestyle.

In television taxonomy, Reality TV fits into two phyla—Competition-based and Confrontation-based. From my limited viewing, I believe the latter to consist largely of beautiful, vapid people saying mean things about one another from the safety of a confessional booth and scheming towards one-another’s demise. This does not command my attention in any way.

The former I find engaging, at least in concept. I love people who risk. Who do. Who recognize their limitations and work to defy them. I remember hearing an interview with Season Three Champion Emmitt Smith. Emmitt, a worn-out old tailback who is built like a fire hydrant, somehow managed to defeat the lithe and foppish Mario Lopez, who was by all accounts a ringer. Mario had every step on day one. Emmitt was a plodder. When asked to what he could attribute his victory over such a heavy favorite, Emmitt replied (paraphrasing), “I’m coachable. I approached this competition like every competition I’ve ever been in. I showed up every day and went to work. “

America voted Emmitt the winner not because of the finished product, but because of his growth throughout the competition. Adam Carolla has spoken frequently about his reasons for competing on the show. He says that he wanted to be scared. He wanted to put himself into a completely uncomfortable situation and see how he would react—see if he could work through it. Jazz hands and tedious judging segments aside, I think I can enjoy the competition of DWTS. And if I can stick with it, I imagine that the personal journeys will make for compelling story lines.

What I will need is a rooting interest.

The introduction moves pretty quickly. I recognize only Bill Nye, Keyshawn Johnson, Leah Remini, Elizabeth Berkley and the zaftig lass from Glee (later I learn her name is Amber Riley). Out of the box, I’m ruling out both Riley and Berkeley as potential rooting interests because they are ringers. Riley dances as part of her day job. And I’m more familiar with Berkeley as a dancer than I would admit to my mother, sister or wife. During the early interviews, I see that both Snooki and Jack Osborne are competing and rule them both out immediately. I’m not happy with DWTS serving as a recycling bin for Reality TV ‘stars’.

Keyshawn seems a likely choice, but is ruled out when he questions the instructions of his partner. Bill Engvall fits the mold, as well, but I can’t get past the in-dance facial expression. I’m left with Remini and Nye, both of whom I like. I think that I will be rooting for Nye. At least, for now. The scores from his premiere dance suggest that I will need to find a new favorite sooner rather than later.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Joel:

Before I even watch this, in the spirit of the column, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention that there is a program on FOX called So You Think You Can Dance featuring amazingly beautiful and hungry dancers busting their ass every week. I mean, their routines are up against like, three other of their routines for choreographer Emmys every year, because the dancers on that show can be breathtaking. Yet it gets significantly lower ratings than Dancing With The Stars because America is clamoring to watch Keyshawn Johnson attempt the quickstep. It’s sad. Sigh. On with the shitshow…

-Well, that opening dance number was certainly ridiculous, but I do have to praise the cameraman who turned it into a Goodfellas steadycam shot.

-So…the Pretty Little Liars guy, couldn’t even tell you his name. What a “Star”.  Apparently his partner wants to fuck him. That’s real nice family entertainment right out of the gate. Uggh, do I have do judge their dancing? He was okay, I guess. I’ve seen way fucking worse.

-Speaking of the judges, how incredibly flaming gay is the little guy? Holy shit, this night is going to be so damn long.

-I forgot Jack Osborne was on. Consider him my favorite. I like him a lot. Fuck multiple sclerosis.

-Leah Remini looks about as excited to be there as I am to watch her be there. Why is she always so angry looking? What’s her deal?

-Outside of a few haphazard kicks she just stood there and let her poor partner dance all around her. I don’t know what these judges are smoking, but I’d like some. No, seriously. I’d like some. I am not nearly in enough of an altered state for this to entertain me.

-haha, I’m pretty sure Valerie Harper called Tom “Todd”

–Corbin Bleu looked pretty good, but he was in High School Musical, for fuck’s sake. He’s a ringer! I also expect Christina Milian to do well. when you bring in “stars” with extensive choreography training, doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of what you’re trying to do here? don’t get me wrong, I’d rather watch a nice little hot dance number than some dead Leah Remini out there, but shit. Quit throwing ringers in there.

-Love Jack Osborne. He’s awesome, but holy shit, that was the fruitiest thing I’ve seen yet tonight. Ozzy’s “where the fuck am I” face is wondrous, though.

-Amber Riley. Had no earthly idea who this was. Glee? Another ringer? But she’s a hefty girl, so she’s got that handicap. She was pretty energetic out there for a big girl. Good job. I am going to need to watch The Departed after this is over.

-Elisabeth Berkley looks so excited. She looks so…so scared. God damn, couldn’t help myself. I bet every single one of you made that joke, didn’t you?

-Damn, I ain’t even going to front. I thought Elizabeth Berkley looked pretty great out there. Although any time I hear “Imagine” and it isn’t John Lennon, I want to kick somebody’s ass.

-Bill Nye’s dance partner is hot as fuck. Way to go, old timer.

-Woof. Bill Nye sucked ass. But it was endearing how hard he tried and no matter how bad, I will NEVER hate a Weird Science reference, even if it’s a cha cha. 10!

-Looks like Keyshawn had a case of the Leah Reminis. His partner busted ass all around him while he looked like a doofus. Keyshawn Johnson, I’ve never liked you. I do not like you in a box. I do not like you with a fox. I do not like you in a trance while you watch your partner dance.

-Is Jennifer Lopez there of her own accord?  Is she being paid?  They cut to her every 21 seconds.  As far as I know, she has no rooting interest in this.  The Osbornes in the front row make a lot of sense, but what the fuck are you doing there, J-Lo?  Which begs the question:  How much does being a “dancing star” pay?  Who gets the biggest payout?  Are they equal?  Who is the STAR star of this season?  Fuck, I need to stop asking questions and finish this shit.  I’ve got like four or five dancers left, god dammit.

-Christina Milian did well, as I predicted.  fuckin ringers, man.  Imagine how bad this show would be if they had “stars” out there like Honey Boo Boo’s thumb faced mom?

BA BA DA DA BA BA BAAAAAH BA BA DA DA DAHHHHHHH!  That little ditty is going to haunt my dreams for weeks.  I’ve only heard it 412 times tonight!

-Bill Engvall.  Fox Trot.  NOPE!

-Valerie Harper is so brave.  And so courageous.  am I the only one who openly sobbed?    zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

-Isn’t Snooki like the 3rd Jersey Shore cast member to do this show?  Did she seriously just ask her dance partner “What if I shit on the floor”?  Oh, this delightfully retarded little trashbag whore.

-Snooki was alright, I guess.  Is this fucking show over yet?  I feel like I’ve gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson tonight.

-I can say with pretty much confidence that I will never watch this show again.  There’s better dance shows out there if I want to watch them.  I don’t need to watch Bills Nye and Engvall fail all over the place.  What the hell, America?  This?  Really?

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