I love Property Brothers.  It is simple and it is formulaic, but formulaic is just fine when you have a great formula.

And Property Brothers does.  The format is simple.  A couple has a list of wants and needs for their next home which they cannot afford in their local market.  The Property Brothers come in and help them select a home at a price which they can afford.  They then they proceed to renovate the home so that it meets the wants and needs of the couple and comes in with their budget..

Unlike most reality fare, I almost always like everyone involved.  The home buyers uniformly appreciate what the Property Brothers do.  I like grateful people.  And they pitch in.  I like people who pitch in.  And what can I say about the Property Brothers?  They’re here to help.  They’re not daunted by your problem—they can fix it.  Are they a little too pretty for dudes? Perhaps.  By darn it, they are useful guys to have around.

Property Brothers appeals to both genders because it gives each a steady does of what it craves.  For women, it is a show about nesting.  For men, it gives a steady stream guys solving problems with their brains and their hands.  It’s almost solution porn.

Let’s see what Cam and Joe have to say:

Cam:

When I first learned that I would be writing an article wherein Phil would choose the show to watch I groaned aloud. I did because I knew for a fact that it would be an HGTV show. My wife is an HGTV fan, I am much less so. She watches Property Virgins, Love it or List it, House Hunters, and International House Hunters pretty regularly and I’ll watch with her if I’ve got nothing better to do, like stick needles in my eye. My biggest complaint is that I can’t invest in these shows because they’re so fake. Everything within the show is so obviously staged that I feel like I’m watching shitty actors doing boring things. Imagine Breaking Bad if Walter and Skyler White looked at houses for an hour. Actually, don’t imagine that. Breaking Bad would have found a way to make that amazing. They made an hour of television about catching a fly for god’s sakes. Unfortunately I did not watch Breaking Bad, I watched Property Brothers. This series is so lame that even my wife doesn’t want anything to do with it. The show revolves around Drew Scott, a real estate agent and his brother Jonathan, a contractor. Two metrosexual twins who show “shitty” properties to prospective buyers and what they can turn them into. Then the buyers choose a property and they renovate the place and act super amazed when they see how different their home looks without walls.

The episode I watched centered on newlywed couple Rob and Janice, whose budget cap is $750,000. That’s another thing I hate about this show. I’m not trying to start any class wars, but these uppity rich people with their demands make me fucking sick. Very occasionally on Property Virgins they’ll show someone with an actual realistic budget, and those are more enjoyable to watch. It’s more relatable to me as a poor person to see a person have to choose between having a washer and dryer in their house or 1 full bathroom. Usually, and especially with International House Hunters, you’re watching people choose whether to live on the beach or have 100 acres. Anyways, in this episode the couple has a list of “needs” that include such banal upper-class bullshit like a modern house flow and a hot tub. Suck my dick, Rob. I understand that you’ve become somewhat successful to have a budget max of $750,000, but if a hot tub is on your list of needs you’re losing me as a sympathizer. The brothers show them a house that’s perfect and has everything they need and it turns out to cost 1.4 million fucking dollars, $650,000 over budget. I was hoping that this was to show them that they’re idiots and their demands are unrealistic, but it was more of a setup for Jonathan to tell them that he can renovate any old home to look just like this dream house. Do they do this every episode? I imagine this gimmick gets old fast. “Hey honey, what’d I miss?” “Oh you know, the dummy house part. They were so disappointed!”

The brothers then show them around to two different houses that look like palaces to me. Of course they act disgusted at every stupid thing they see. Sometimes I understand their skepticism when it comes to things like the kitchen layout, but when they’re criticizing stupid things like blinds and wallpaper I roll my eyes. You’re making the biggest decision of your lives, and can’t see past a 50 buck trip to Home Depot? This is actually a complaint I have in just about every HGTV show. This couple is particularly infuriating as they act as if they aren’t open to any kind of renovations. This is bullshit, right? This HAS to be bullshit, they have obviously agreed to take part of a show where renovations are one of the main focus’. Just more of the obviously fake stuff that takes me out of the show. They’re shown (via 90’s era CGI)  what the houses COULD look like, and they agree on a house, and buy it. The couple decides to help keep costs down by helping with the renovation themselves*. Yadda Yadda Yadda there’s some unexpected costs, and a hilariously staged fight between the couple prompting Jonathan to “kick them out” until the renovations are over. If that’s what arguing is, then apparently most conversations I have with my wife are actually arguments. They might be, I’m pretty oblivious to social norms. In the end everything fits into budget, including the hot tub! Thank god, I was really worried about that one. Meanwhile, I’m raising a family in a house that’s the size of one floor of their home, and 3 generations of Mexican families are living in shacks the size of their guest bathroom. I get the appeal of the show, it is escapist entertainment. It’s kind of neat to see houses transformed into different houses. Like watching an episode of Transformers where the creepily handsome property brothers take four weeks reassembling a truck into a robot. Except I’d rather watch that.

*Hell yes, I would be all over this shit. Unfortunately every single wall in my house is kind of essential, or I’d be sledgehammering the shit out of the place like Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes. Did anyone ever see Human Wrecking Balls on G4 some years ago? Now THAT was an amazing show. It’s the Property Brothers I’d watch every day. Literally it was just these two big brother guys that would go into a place and wreck it. Not with tools, but by punching and kicking the walls and appliances. I realize my love for that makes me simple, but I am simple. It was amazing! Why did it only last one season? They punched a Cessna airplane until it was nothing. If the show had gone on I’d like to think they would have just kept punching bigger things like a 747.

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Joe

I fucking hated Property Brothers. Reminds me of why I hate HGTV bullshit so much. WHO THE FUCK HAS 195K IN CASH TO DROP ON A HOUSE? “Yeah, you can probably offer about 5K less because the seller should be very receptive to a cash offer.” A FUCKING CASH OFFER? NO SHIT THE SELLER IS GONNA BE RECEPTIVE TO A FUCKING CASH OFFER. If someone made a cash offer on my house, I’d assume that it’s the fucking mafia, and I either accept the cash offer or I sleep with the fishes see. A fucking cash offer. Fuck that fucking bitch Olivia and her fucking gigantic Nancy Kerrigan meets Sarah Jessica Parker face. Fuck that bitch. Olivia sweetheart, if you’re out there, I’m sorry, but fuck you.

Rest assured, it’s not the property I hate about Property Brothers, and it’s not the Brothers I hate about Property Brothers. The houses seem to be run of the mill standard houses, usually not too outlandish like their House Hunters International brethren. The Brothers are affable twins, one of whom handles the real estate while the other handles the rehabbing. They seem like good dudes.

But the people, FUCKING SHIT THE PEOPLE. These types of shows only seem to attract a certain type of asshole, who does not comprehend that if you go on TV complaining about minuscule decorating details, or being as cavalier with your wealth as humanly possible, the vast unwashed majority of us are going to resent you to the point of wishing slow, painful, penis and/or vagina mutilating death. Either that, or the HGTV format just pushes people to over the edge of the fuckhead cliff, down into the valley of OHMYFUCKINGGOD QUIT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE CARPETING AND THE SMALLISH MASTER BEDROOM YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!

I’d love to watch this show with my wife once a week, if HGTV could promise me that they were only going to get everyday people who have to take out a mortgage to buy a home, and that they will be edited in such a way as to limit the number of times that I want to punch a hole through my TV and the wall behind it. Since I have years of evidence that suggests that’s never going to happen, fuck the Property Brothers right in their oversized and weirdly shaped heads.

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If you would like to decide for yourself, Property Brothers airs several times each day on HGTV.

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For Switch Hitter this week I picked Workaholics on Comedy Central. I cannot express how much I love this goofy as all hell show. The story of 3 friends ( and a homeless sidekick) who have low level low stress office telemarketing jobs and the follies they get into on the daily.

This show may not seem like your typical show that appeals to a mom of two girls, but I shit you not…. I laugh out loud through the whole episode usually. Blake, Adam and Anders have this banter that seems so real due to them having real friendships IN REAL LIFE (mind blown).  It reminds me of the banter Vince Vaughn and John Favreau have in real life and on the short lived series ‘Dinner for 5′ on IFC? (I want that show to still be on air– hell I’d love to produce that show and have weirdo guests from 80′s shows like St Elsewhere or Silver Spoons …okay back on track).….I enjoy that so much, the free flow and uninterrupted tit for tats.

There are drug jokes and use, rape inferences, unclaimed homosexual tendencies, immaturity, depravity, and lots and lots of butthole humor. Which is a bonus for me since I seem to have a healthy/unhealthy obsession with all this butthole, loose or tight. My workaholics use “tight butthole” for a good situation and ” loose butthole” for unsavory ones. Makes. Perfect. Sense.

I have pretty much nothing in common with these guys and yet I think it’s one of the best shows on TV. Its not The typical cheesy line up on CBS with the yuk yuk laugh track. I sometimes feel guilty for even laughing at some the outrageous and awkward situations. And when I say awkward I mean like when a dog is buried in someone’s crotch searching for Cibola or something while you’re trying to have a conversation ….that kind of awkward.

So I hope my fellow ScreenSnarkers have a tight butthole after this experience…never mind ….I know they do.

~Shelly

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Cam:

Tight butthole. When I learned that Shelly had picked Workaholics for this week’s Switch Hitter I got worried. I believe the point of Switch Hitter is to pick shows that the commentators don’t normally watch, and I’m a Workaholicsaholic. Then I said fuck it, I won’t say anything and I’ll write about a show that I was going to watch anyways. Kill two birds with one lazy stone. I got into it after the first season had aired and many of my friends told me how hilarious it was. The ads were always kind of lame and I’d thought it was about some straight laced guys in silly situations. It’s almost the opposite of that, these characters could not be further from straight laced. I watched the latest episode on Wednesday, the season 4 premiere “Orgazmo Birth”. The premise of the episode lied within the gang, Anders, Blake and Adam, trying to to go to an EDM rave. This being Workaholics, things don’t go exactly as planned.
Montez, their sexually able co-worker, agrees to buy tickets on the condition that he can go, to get away from his pregnant wife. He has to be with them since the tickets are on will-call. When the gang goes to pick Montez up however, it’s in the middle of a baby shower and Montez can’t get away. The guys infiltrate the baby shower and Anders DJs as his alter ego “DJ Ango”, and everybody accidentally drinks the guys water laced with ecstasy. Safe to say things get pretty insane, but when the gang tries sneaking Montez out his wife goes into labor literally breaking her water on Adam’s face. They go to take her to a birthing center, but since she just needs a pool they stop at a gym. There’s a hilarious sequence where the gym employee gives them a tour of the complex as Montez’s pregnant wife is trying to move things along. They get to the pool and since the plan was for her to orgasm as she gives birth, but Montez is unconscious in the car so the fellas have to stimulate her and they are completely ineffective. They didn’t even get gym memberships despite the fact that they had a baby in the pool.  My only complaint for this episode? No Jillian. She cracks me the fuck up.

So yeah, of course I know why people like Workaholics. It’s a completely ridiculous show, to go from a baby shower blasting dubstep with old women shaking their titties to Lois Griffin giving birth in a gym hot tub, the situations don’t get much more insane. Some of my favorite past Workaholics moments include the guys at a Juggalo festival, Anders and Adam trying to fight in speedos but they kept getting boners, set up a sting operation for a pedophile but befriending him, their drug dealer friend Karl writing “rape van” on the side his van so nobody fucks with it. The funniest part, however, is the interplay between the guys during all this. The biggest laughs often come from some kind of silly side conversation they have. The dialogue, like the rest of the show, is based almost nowhere in the realm of reality but squarely in the land of hilarity. I’d recommend this show to anyone who isn’t adverse to off the wall, irreverent, drug fueled comedy.

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Rob:

It has taken me a long time to come around to the idea of enjoying Comedy Central’s Workaholics. When it first debuted a few seasons ago, the ad campaign for the show was squarely aimed at the college male demographic, of which I have long since exited. Even the opening credits feature a marijuana pipe and red Solo cups, just one rohypnol pill shy of the college frat party trifecta. Combined with the uber-popular Tosh.0, Workaholics just reeked of the type of comedy that I just would not enjoy. However, this past year I enjoyed two of the stars of the show in other projects. Anders Holm had (and continues to have) a great guest role as Mindy Kaling’s boyfriend on “The Mindy Project”. Adam Devine has had some scene-stealing roles in the movie “Pitch Perfect” as well as playing the “manny” (male nanny) on “Modern Family”. I enjoyed both of these guys so much that I decided to finally give Workaholics a try, and much to my surprise, the episodes I watched from the first season were pretty funny (my favorite was the episode with the Juggalos).

For this assignment, I decided to begin watching the show as it aired for the first time, so I am reviewing the first episode of the new season, “Orgazmo Birth”. The plot revolves around the three guys wanting to attend the electronic festival Technotopia, but the high priced tickets turn them off. Their henpecked coworker Montez agrees to buy their tickets if they promise to bring him to the festival and help him escape his wife’s baby shower. The three guys proceed to purchase a drug call “Molly” to use at the festival, but it ends up in the bellies of the women at the baby shower due to a kool-aid mixup. Everyone is dancing to Anders’ music, which he is playing under the name DJ Ango, a joke that he beats to death over the course of the episode (but that appears to be par for the course for this show, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). As Adam is grinding on Montez’s wife, her water breaks on his face. The guys now have to decide whether to take her to a delivery room or to the medical tent at their musical festival, which results in a hilarious series of U-turns in an indecisive car.

They eventually decide to have a water birth at a gymnasium pool. Montez’s wife wants to have an “orgasmic water birth” which results in the three guys trying to help her achieve orgasm, which is incredibly bizarre. Luckily (?) Montez shows up to help her out as she ejaculates the baby (which is a phrase I never thought I’d ever need to use).

The episode ends with the three guys and Montez trying to get into the electronica festival only to discover that one of their coworkers (who they made fun of earlier in the episode) used Montez’s name and ID badge to collect their ticket at will call. Ha ha.

Overall, this episode was entertaining. I can see why it is popular with the college audience, as this episode did have a lot of drug and sex humor. The show is like The Three Stooges on LSD as the three characters are constantly bumbling their way through every experience. I definitely want to keep watching to see what adventures they’ll fall into next.

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“The show is like The Three Stooges on LSD ” and “tight butthole” sum it up.

Thanks folks!

~Shelly

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Cameron and Rob did not strike me as the type to catch this genius on the regular, so I though I’d have them stop by and tell me how they felt about it.  fellas?

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Rob:

Talk shows have jumped the shark for me. In my college days in the mid-90s, the only channels to really offer late night talk were NBC and CBS with Leno, Letterman, and Conan (Tom Snyder doesn’t count). Comedy Central began to air The Daily Show with host Craig Kilborn, but that was just a simple half-hour nothing show with D-list celebrity guests. But soon Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would emerge into the late night landscape, then ABC would join in the fray with Jimmy Kimmel, and Craig Kilborn would jump to CBS after Letterman. Next thing you know, there are a dozen talk shows rotating most of the same guests around the corporate shill-scrambler. Then if that wasn’t enough, Conan would get exiled to TBS to offer even more competition. NBC has Leno/Fallon (soon to be Fallon/Meyers, at least until Leno gets the Tonight Show back in another bloody coup). Comedy Central still has Stewart/Colbert. ABC has Kimmel. E! has Chelsea Handler. Bravo has Andy Cohen. TBS has Conan and Pete Holmes. And last but not least, CBS has Letterman and the subject of this post, Craig Ferguson.

The beauty of all of this variety is that it allows the viewer to really pick a personality that they most want to identify with and watch. For the longest time, I was a Conan fan, but in my opinion he lost his edge once he got the Tonight Show. His TBS show is somewhat more genuine, but it still seems far more mainstream and safe than his old Late Night show on NBC. I have seen a few episodes of Craig Ferguson before, but I haven’t in a few years, so I was interested to see what his show was like in 2014. I can definitely appreciate how quirky and unscripted his show is, as the show opens with his robot skeleton announcer Geoff and a couple of guys in a creepy horse costume staring into the camera. Ferguson definitely does not beg any wandering passersby to enjoy his show, and that is great. This show is definitely not for everyone, but in that same vein, you may have to be in the mood to watch this show. There are times where I definitely would not be in the mood for this sort of silliness.

My least favorite part of the late night talk show format is the monologue. Most talk show hosts are not standup comedians and even those that are (such as Jay Leno) tend to empty a rapid-fire fusillade of awful hacky one-liners regarding the news of the day. Craig Ferguson (who is also a standup) sidesteps the format by conversing with the camera and tossing in random news items outside of the normally regimented monologue routine. He made a joke about Chris Christie’s 2-hour press conference, remarking that “the director of The Hobbit told him he needed to make it shorter”, which was a humorous off-the-cuff joke regarding Peter Jackson’s oft-overlong fantasy movies.

I was particularly excited to watch this episode because of his guests, Patton Oswalt and Hannah New. Patton Oswalt is a money guest no matter what talk show he appears on, but he is especially great when the host is also a comedian. The interplay between Patton and Craig was very natural as they both reminisced about comedy in general. Due to the nature of Craig’s interview style, with his trademark ripping-up-of-the-question-cards, some questions are hit and miss. There can be lulls in the interview, but generally Craig randomly segues between topics that some of them are sure to be interesting. The interview with Hannah New managed to make what seemed to be another boring blond English actress somewhat entertaining. The conversation ended on an awkward note when Craig explained that some sharks have two penises and that they have to bite the female sharks during mating season because they don’t have arms. It is rare and refreshing to see a host not give two shits about what their guest thinks (or even their bosses, as Craig made some interesting references to contract negotiations).

There is just too much great television out there, and that is why I feel talk shows have jumped the shark. Between scripted television, dramas and comedies, reality TV, news, sports and talk shows, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to devour it all. And with the internet and its ability to load specific clips/interviews from talk shows, it feels even less adamant that one watch a full hour-long talk show. Your humble narrator only watches shows if their is a guest he is truly interested in, and even then, there is a lot of fast-forwarding involved. Talk shows are a dinosaur in this day and age, but Craig Ferguson is a throwback to the days when talk shows were fun and irreverent, and I would not hesitate to watch his show more, if only it wasn’t on so late and I wasn’t already 10 hours behind on my DVR.

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Cameron:

I don’t watch a whole lot of late night talk shows anymore. It’s just not something that I feel I NEED to see. I have this life to live, and television is a luxury. Late night shows lately just feel like a sub-par form of entertainment. Comedians get to make some half-formed jokes, since they have to do it EVERY night, some celebrity gets to promote whatever bullshit they just did in the guise of an interview, and some band plays live or lip syncs, who knows anymore? If I’m super bored, sometimes I’ll put on Conan or Pete Holmes because TBS is closer channel-wise than the networks and I’m lazy. The Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I have to say, I’m not all that familiar with Craig Ferguson as anything other than the boss from the Drew Carey show, so I’m coming into this pretty unbiased. Also, I just had a minor back operation and am still feeling the effects of the fentanyl, so bare with me. I’m watching the 1-14-14 episode with Kevin Bacon. It has a pretty goddamn odd opening with him talking to a robot skeleton and a horse. Is this normal? Anyways, still being on some drugs, this is tripping my balls.

Now the monologue. I guess the robot skeleton “Geoff” is the regular sidekick. Weird. Some of the jokes are funny enough, I guess. I’m generally just not a fan of talk show monologues. Here is something recent in the news, and here’s the joke we thought for it today. Eh, hit or miss obviously. The first little sketch thing is Ferguson and some guy doing German voices and acting like the band Kraftwerk. I really have no idea. Now some thing where he talks on the phone to celebrities. Obviously they’re not really the celebrities. Fuck, I’m more out of it than I thought. I shouldn’t review things drugged out of my mind, I’m lost as shit. Letters from…fans, I guess? Craig’s very meta. Talks about the workings of the show a lot. Yes, it’s just letters from fans. People are laughing, though. Why are people laughing? At this comedy show.
Kevin Bacon’s pretty funny. Apparently dogs always poop north, I didn’t know that, thanks Kev. Craig Ferguson’s a capable interviewer. Nothing phenomenal or special or radically different besides the robot skeleton sidekick. Joel had led me to believe that Ferguson was very different than your average talk show host. Maybe that’s how removed I’ve become from talk shows. This all looks par for the course. Now he’s interviewing some French actress Karla Souza. At least she acts in French movies. Ferguson is comfortable taking charge in the interview if the actor/actress wants to be boring. I like that. At least they skip the (usually) shitty band promoting their latest album and just close the show.

Overall…..it was okay. Craig Ferguson is a funny guy, and it’s certainly a late night talk show. I don’t feel any differently than I did at the beginning of the article about talk shows. I’m hardly ever up late enough to catch these live, and I don’t really find them compelling enough to DVR. Ferguson probably is funnier than Conan has been the last couple years, but the time slot kills it for me. I understand why he’s liked, and I hope he continues to thrive. Just not on my television.

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This week I might have been confused but I did a Switch Hitter and  not a SLIW. I’ve been in a Walter White Christmas induced fugue state, forgive me. I picked Ultimate Survivor Alaska on Nat Geo. I don’t know if there have been ultimate Survivors in Maine, Virginia, or Arizona..I assume not. But I love me some Alaska. I want to roll in the primordial snow naked and run from Polar Bears and sex it up in a real igloo. There are a bajillion shows about Alaska and I don’t care, I’ll be watching most of them.

The point of this one is for four teams to journey through an obstacle course of sorts, Alaska style. Now this is similar to the onslaught of new ” fake” reality TV shows. Or maybe I’m wiser now and realized shit is staged…Still I don’t care. I must share, I usually find myself attracted to a few men here or there on TV shows and sex them up in my mind. It’s not a big deal..I can’t openly finger bang in the living room with my family looking on now can I? i(I have boundaries!)  I’m also at that “age” not in my 20′s but not yet 40. I’m not sure if all women experience this but my thoughts of sex rival that of a high school boy (and my maturity level). I can also again wash the dishes or pay bills (not as dreamy) while watching this show.

The four teams are :The Military, and holy shit they are hot. The main guy seems very Matt Lauer metro douche-ish but the other two are rugged and not so annoying. The Endurance team has the youngest guy to win the Iditarod…ever, so that’s sexy and they have my favorite, a sexy Eskimo on the team. The Woodsmen: ha! The lady is amazing! She’s a tough ass broad who is a dead ringer for Dog the Bounty Hunter, and she has two guys who have to live in a log cabin.. I love them. Last team The Mountaineers: they are from Alaska and climb every vagina and crevice Alaska has to offer. They are skilled (sometimes dumb) and make my vagina a flutter (just a bit).

This show won’t make you smarter but it’s pretty good. Most men won’t have sex in my pretend igloo in my head but you might like the show regardless.

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CAM

When I learned that I’d be watching Ultimate Survival Alaska on the National Geographic channel, I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought maybe it would be similar to Man Vs Wild, or Survivorman. I watch these sorts of shows occasionally when I’m not really paying attention to the tv and need some background noise. So I was surprised to discover that in fact it’s a reality competition show. Normally I’m not a big reality competition guy; I don’t watch Survivor, Amazing Race, Real World Road Rules Challenge, etc. However I do have to open my mind somewhat since I just this last season got hardcore into Big Brother. Though I was less interested in the competition aspects of Big Brother, and more the voyeuristic angle as a group of people are filmed 24/7. So I decided to give this a fair shot. I ended up watching the first episode and maybe about half of the second.

First off I have to mention I love the no-nonsense intro. Dudes on a plane are dropped off with maps and minimal gear and a destination and they’re off. There’s no 30 minute build up, no annoying host eating time, just dropping these poor fuckers into a foot of snow and watching them go. The four teams of three people are introduced as they come upon a dog sled camp. The first team is the “endurance” team, consisting of two world class athletes including a fucking dog sledding champion, and a live off the land real Alaskan. I favor this team immediately, since they just come to dog sleds and they have the youngest winner of the Iditarod ever. Second team is the “military” team, consisting of former special services military guys. They decide, fuck the sleds, let’s just run. I like this team, I hope they win. I still feel the endurance team has the best chance, but I’m rooting for the military guys. The next team are the “woodsmen” comprised of wood cutters and shit like that. Only team with one girl. I can’t imagine them doing well at all. Finally the last team is the “mountaineers”. A bunch of Alaskan mountain climbers. They could do all right, I guess.

So I guess each episode they’re dropped into a new location with the only goal to get from point A to point B in 72 hours time. The military guys come in first in the first episode, and the woodsmen almost don’t make it. The second episode I watch drops the crews into bear country. The woodsmen soon run into a secluded hermit who happens to have a boat that they can have. The fuck? They’re allowed to take shit like that? I guess it is a true survival show. I want to be the team who happens across a guy with an airplane. The episode is hyped up with the military guys running into bears. So I’m waiting for this bear encounter and when it happens it’s such bullshit that I have to turn it off. They happen upon a bear cave and they’re all freaked out, holding up their assault rifles. Then we see a second of a bear head peek up and the guys just freak the fuck out, blind firing a shotgun in the caves’ direction and take off running. Aaaaand, that was it. That was the biggest bear danger. The fuck happened, did they just wound an animal? Some bear that just wanted to know what the hell all that noise was? Dicks.

So overall it’s a pretty big meh for me. A 6/10 type deal, something I won’t seek out, but won’t dive for the remote to change if it’s on. Since there’s cameramen who always have multiple angles, I can’t fully invest in the “survival” aspect of Ultimate Survival Alaska. There’s entire crews out there munching on Taco Bell playing on their iPhones between takes. I also don’t know what they’re playing for. Along with the no frills introduction we also got no sense of what they’re competing for. Well, according to National Geographic’s website, “It’s an epic competition series where the only prize is survival.” What? Like, they’re not playing for anything? I don’t get it. A bunch of adrenaline junkies or something? So they don’t have THAT much motivation. Fuck it, go Military Team.

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Long Island Medium TLC

Let’s just say my pick of Long Island Medium as the Switch Hitter topic has been somewhat controversial around the screensnark water cooler (which I think needs a filter change, who is in charge of that?). Some have called foul. The idea of the Switch Hitter segment is to make others watch a show that you watch and let them explore something new. Do I think Long Island Medium is a good show? No. Do I watch it? Yes.

My maternal blood line is filled with generations of old school Italian gypsies and though very much a skeptic, the subject matter intrigues me. At best, the Long Island Medium helps people come to terms with great loss and at worst she exploits sadness and vulnerability. I watch to tear it apart, but deep down the Long Island boy in me is endeared by the familiarity of it all.

What say the guys?

Rob 

I don’t think I had even heard of “Long Island Medium” before being tapped to watch the show. I checked my DVR and “luckily” there was a marathon running on TLC. The episode I chose turned out to be a road trip episode, where the medium traveled to Niagara Falls and performed some readings on the road.

I could not enjoy this show. In order to enjoy it, one would have to (a) like the star of the show and (b) believe in the power of the medium’s readings. Regarding (a), all I could think during this show was that my mom would be a reality star if she were still 40 years old. The Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputo, reminded me a lot of my mom, at least as far as obnoxious larger-than-life personality is concerned. The fashion senses are a bit different, as Caputo looks a lot like Hulk Hogan’s ex-wife, whereas my mom looked like Linda Richman. Caputo’s ridiculous hair, her huge fake nails, bad tan, constantly bewildered expression…no thank you. But I am not the target audience. I assume housewives are drawn to her pseudo-down-to-earth personality. I think it’s as fake as her skin color.

As for (b), I understand the appeal of mediums. Everyone wants to think that there’s an afterlife. Mediums can offer some solace to a person that’s lost a loved one by reinforcing the belief that they’re in a better place, or that they forgive you for a transgression, etc. However, I do not like the way that mediums perform their job. There was an excellent “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!” episode about mediums detailing the tricks they use to perform their reading. Some of these tricks were on display in this episode. It also occurred to me that you’re only seeing what the producers of the show want you to see. What about Caputo’s incorrect guesses?

This show also has a lot of filler, which I assume is the norm for these reality shows that follow a personality around. In between readings, Caputo and her husband are filmed at a chicken wing joint (because they’re in Buffalo) and are seen walking underneath Niagara Falls, with an annoying incident where the medium cut her poncho with her stupid nails.

I definitely will not ever watch this show again. It’s like it managed to combine a bunch of stuff that I don’t like into one giant shit-melange.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Phil

My wife caught me watching Long Island Medium. Frankly, I’d much rather she caught me watching porn. At least, I could have come up with a reasonable explanation as to why I was watching it.

Her: What is that?
Me: Long Island Medium
Her: Why are you watching that?
Me: A friend told me I should check it out. It’s funny if you like to mock Long Island.
Her: You don’t ever get to make fun of anything I watch again.
Me: I know.

Not knowing where to find the show, I located an episode called “Unseen 2” on demand. Theresa, the Medium, starts the episode in Philadelphia and shows up at the doorstep of a couple named Laurie and Juan, who are very excited to see her. Apparently, Juan sent a note to the show telling them that Laurie was a devoted viewer who had unresolved questions and feelings stemming from her sister’s demise from a train accident twenty years prior.

Theresa walks in the door and is able to establish credibility very quickly by asking questions about numbers, letters and images which hold deep meaning to the person. She then relays messages from the dead sister to Laurie which ultimately provide great relief, specifically that the sister’s death was an accident and that her soul is at peace. Later in the episode, she hears from a spirit hanging around an archery range and then helps a mother cope with the loss of her young son by passing on reassurances from the dead son. What is striking is that beyond her appointments with clients, Theresa appears to hear from the dead everywhere she goes. And remarkably, she heals at every stop.

I see why Long Island Medium is successful. Beyond the fact that Theresa is charming (in an overly- honest, loud, big-haired sort of way), the show delivers six-minute cycles of redemption one after the other. You could do away with the symbolism and provide the same experience by filming ER nurses cleaning and closing wounds.

But this show hurts my soul. Theresa lays bare people in awful pain who are still grasping for answers and for meaning. What’s next? A show about starving African kids picking through shit looking for seeds? Ultimately, people appear better off from their encounter with Theresa, but this exchange is way too personal to be filmed and shared. I felt awful for each and every one of these people and that awful feeling lasted for hours.

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Ah, reality TV, that niche of the television industry most rife with pedestals and pitfalls.  For every Masterchef there’s a Bachelor, for every Amazing Race there’s a Long Island Medium, for every Big Brother 14 there’s a Big Brother 15.  Shark Tank, Mark Cuban’s foray into the medium, borrows much of the schlock from the awful side of reality TV, while remaining  grounded in actual reality.  The show features real entrepreneurs seeking real cash from real investors, which allows it to separate itself from other money-related shows like Storage Wars, which have had their behind the scenes shenanigans exposed.  The basic premise of each episode is that several potential investment opportunities are pitched to the Sharks, who are made up of five wealthy investors.  The Sharks then weigh the pros and cons of the opportunity, making offers or rejections along the way.  The show can be in turns boring and intriguing, and much of the excitement level depends directly on the type of person and product being evaluated.  Every episode I complain to my wife that we’re watching, and every episode I still find myself yelling at my TV.

So this weeks assignment was “Shark tank” on ABC. it’s not mind bending, but it is a neat show and I can yell at the TV and watch with the kids.

The basic concept is people come on in front of a panel of “experts” and pitch their ideas, concepts, businesses, or inventions. Sometimes the inventions are actually good. Most of the time, however, they are redonk useless and even a waste of money.

I missed almost the first half of this past week due to a Christmas parade. if you don’t have children, just buckle up for when you do. They take over your life even if you say “they won’t take over my life”. You have no say in it.

This week was a Christmas invention special. The fist pitch was a little thing called “the Hanukkah Tree Topper”. I’m not Jewish but I always wanted to be. Firstly I wanted 8 “crazy” nights of gifts. As a gluttonous catholic, I wanted more presents growing up, the church taught me well. Secondly, I thought being Jewish was so cool and exotic and then later in life I heard Jewish men can do you pretty well. I’m not sure if I’ve ever confirmed that but I’m going with that stereotype. Mazel. Anyway this dumb thing was for mixed families with Jewish and non-Jewish members decorating a tree and you could put this tree topper to gives snaps to being Jewish. I’m not sure about the rules and regulations of being Jewish and mixing religions, I’m not sure if it’s frowned upon. The idea seemed stupid to me. I mean can’t you have a menorah and a tree? Must you combine the tree with a Hanukkah topper?

The whole premise of the show is to get these experts (who seem really like D list investors) to give you money for your company and some percentage. I don’t do finance or numbers for a living and I don’t care. Their proposals sound absurd. They claim to be already making 150k but they need more money? I know enough about business to know these people are fibbing pussy farts out of their ass.

I think either they didn’t get any of the experts or only one? Anyway this idea isn’t taking off like an Ipod anytime soon.

The other product I remember was “Cashmere hair”. LOL, I was dying during this segment. This appeals to the fake bitches of the world trying to get luxurious hair with extensions. I think it’s great for an event or something or if you’re a Real Housewife, it’s mandatory. but Us Jane Shmoes of the world just use our regular hair and seem to have to get dick that way. The premise is these clip-in hair extensions from INDIA (ya know all the best hair comes from INDIA!) The shit was super expensive. Yes it was “probably” real hair, but there is no regulating body that can tell you it’s not horse hair. This shit reminds me of those chicken cutlet tits things. I always thought that was a sham. You know if you’re a guy and you’re at a bar and you see some chic you might want to dick, and she has really nice boobs. You get her home, you’re listening to Nine Inch Nails.. and “Closer” comes on and you pop out a chicken cutlet form her bra. IF I WERE A GUY…. I’d be pisssssssssed. Just use your real teets and your real hair. You can’t be all bait n switching on men ladies. They like you for who you are or they don’t. You can’t do a Dog and Pony Show when it comes to relationships.

There were other products, but those two were my favorites. All in all this episode the investors were not that successful, and none of the ideas blew me away. There is always next week!

Thanks Joe and you all have a great Holiday Jewish or not!

4 outta 5 dreidels!

~Shelly

I have to disagree about the chicken cutlet thing.  The girls that I used to bring home from bars, they NEVER had chicken cutlets for tits.  So if one girl did have chicken cutlets for tits, I would have to say “HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE CHICKEN CUTLETS FOR TITS!!!”  But would they look really nice?  I don’t know if a chicken cutlet really looks like a tit.  Every time I try to type “cutlet” I end up tying “Cutler”.

I watched this holiday-centric episode.  I think Mark is Jewish, right?  Anyway, Jewish girls are pretty good at sexing, but I’ve experienced a very small sample size.  Pitches were:

1. The Tree Topping Star of David.  I can’t believe this got a deal.  Way too niche-y with no plan for brand extension.  And when they have Jewish guys on this show, they tend to be suuuuuuuuuper stereotypical.  I’m sure that’s not intentional, but sheesh.
2. Cashmere Hair:  Women be shoppppppppppppin’.  I was pretty surprised that no one picked this one up.  The hair extension market isn’t going to go away, and the chicks looked like they were offering really high quality hair, combined with super fast application and removal.
3. Tipsy Elves: Ugly Christmas sweaters that are unbelievably expensive.  I actually really liked a lot of the designs, and these guys had huge sales coming in.  The pitch-people with proven sales always end up with deals as long as they don’t have ridiculously stupid business models or giant problems somewhere in their company ledger.  Even so, these guys almost lost out.
4. Magnetic Christmas Lights:  None of the Sharks saw a real advantage to this product, and the guy didn’t have any real sales.  For that reason, they were OUT.

This episode was pretty representative of the show.  It’s not the greatest 45 minutes on TV, but if you spend your entire life watching high-intensity drama, you’ll burn out super fast.  Just forcing myself to calculate each entrepreneur’s company valuation in my head is a fun brain exercise, and worth the price of admission.

6/10 Santa Shaped Dildos (or Menorah-themed vibrators)

–Joe

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Overall this is a series that I really enjoy.  It is heartfelt and genuinely funny.  My only real complaint is that sometimes it feels like it’s squeezing you for cheap emotions.  As the show is set in an old folks home, they’re able to kill off a character almost every episode.  Normally the viewer doesn’t have any real emotional attachment to said character, we just get bombarded by a crying Derek telling us what great people they were.  Having this possibly autistic character crying nearly episode and spouting cheesy lines about how kindness is the answer for everything naturally evokes some sort of feeling.  Perhaps my biggest issue is actually that these things are coming from Ricky Gervais, one of the most polarizing comedians on the planet.  He plays the saint on this show, then straightens out his face and rips mercilessly on old people, fat people, and most of all, religious people.  Anyone who follows Gervais on any social media can tell you that he probably makes at minimum 3 unnecessary jabs at the stupidity of religion and the people that believe in it.

Seriously?

However, this should not take away from the experience of watching this program.  I still enjoy Tom Cruise action films, and that guy is bananas.  It actually can be very genuinely heartfelt, and getting further into the series you do start to know some of the characters dying off.  There’s a constant humor present throughout each episode, and the overall message of the show is pretty good too.  Be kind to people.  Altruism isn’t something that needs to be looked on with a sneer.  It’s pretty simple, people that do good things are good people.  It’s a point that’s pretty fantastically illustrated in this program, and I’m looking forward to series 2.  (Series 2 being season 2 in British.)  In the meantime I’d like to see if I can get my internet pals Joe and Shelly to understand that kindness is magic.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Joe

Derek is Ricky Gervais’s unexpectedly touching new single camera comedy vehicle, airing on some ridiculous Brit channel across the Atlantic, available on Netflix (and pirated download) in the states. Prior to this, I had never seen a minute of the show, but following Gervais on Twitter it gets difficult to ignore the near universal praise that the show seems to receive. In between Ricky’s endless and humorous tweet critiques of Christianity and his shilling of David Brent live shows, there are infinite comments about how tremendous Derek is.

First, after watching show after show clock in around 42-55 minutes (looking at you, Masters of Sex) it’s instantly refreshing to know that this episode is only around 24 minutes. All killer, no filler, right? It’s understandable that prestige dramas need to be longer, but there is an element to the short comedy episode that forces the point to be made quickly and effectively, or else all of the juggled balls fall out of the air.

The show is similar to The Office in that it is filmed mockumentary style, following the employees and inhabitants of a small retirement home occupied primarily by low income residents. There seems to be an inordinate amount of deranged or mentally troubled people in the building, but having only seen one ep, I can’t tell if that’s actually the case or if it’s just the intense British-ness showing through. The home is facing financial trouble and is likely facing closure, so it is up for review by some bureaucrats from a vague government agency. Gervais plays Derek, a possibly autistic pseudo-employee, and is accompanied by the kindhearted but no-shit-taking Hannah who runs the facility, and the ever aggressive Dougie, who has every skill except social skills.

The points here are made clear almost immediately. The first is that within any organization or grouping of people, if you peel back the layers of the onion, you’ll expose both examples of the elegance of human relationships and uncomfortable and unavoidable failures of everyday life. Anyone who ever has been through an audit of any type knows, the auditor is going to find shit. Nobody’s perfect, and rarely are people even close to perfect. But if people are going to expect perfection out of human beings, they’re not only going to be disappointed, but they’re also not close to understanding the point.

The second point is delightful in its simplicity. It’s okay to be nice. It’s all right to be kind. Altruism can exist. You don’t have to be an asshole. Sarcasm is fine sometimes, but other times, just try being genuinely pleasant. Is it the true meaning of life? Just be nice to people. Do nice things.

I do have to say that I have a little single-camera comedy fatigue, after multiple seasons of the British Office, the American Office, and Parks & Rec. It’s pretty obvious that this show wouldn’t work as a traditionally filmed multi-cam sitcom, but it would be nice if Gervais began exploring other techniques that haven’t been so prominent recently. Especially since he was so responsible in popularizing the single-cam mockumentary style in the first place.

But overall, this is a touching display of TV that brings with it emotionally elements that aren’t typically present in comedy. Yes, I accidentally watched Ep1 instead of the Pilot, in case there’s anyone left that hasn’t figured that out yet. But I’m very much looking forward to seeing the Pilot, and then finishing the first season.

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Shelly

Wow! I was pleasantly surprised when Cam picked “Derek” airing on Netflix for us to watch this week. Number one I must confess my secret crush on Ricky Gervais. I know he’s not your “typical” beefcake-y heart-throb, but I am hot for him. I love that I can only understand every third word he says and I love his whimsical and different outlook on life, and of course his humor. Having said that, I was over the moon happy to take on Derek.

I was also so thrilled its on Netflix. I love me some streaming Netflix. I don’t have to download shit, I don’t have to DVR stuff and explain myself why I’m DVR-ing it, and I can watch it in the middle of the night if need be.

Derek follows Gervais as this understated Health Care worker in the UK (obviously) in a nursing home. It looks as you’d expect it to look. I’ve had some experience now with the elderly and their care so I was happy to see this setting. Old people used to scare me but now I know they are people like you and I who have lived sometimes full and exotic lives. At some point your body and mind get tired but you’re still inside, if that makes sense.

Derek has a weird walk as if there might be a limp, and he has an under-bite that reminds me of my Shih tzus (whom I adore) and he is weird and odd and endearing. He has a friend in the facility: Dougie , who seems almost as equally odd and unintentionally funny He is the care taker of the facility and also Derek’s flat mate. And there is Hannah, a pretty woman who seems to be in charge of the facility. We get to know her background in an organic way. The interesting part of this show is that it’s like “the Office” (That Gervais created) in a Mockumentary style. There is a film crew there to capture their stories. Seems to make perfect sense. I mean if Honey Boo Boo has a show, why can’t these British nursing home workers?

The show is short, only 24 minutes but I feel you get super character development IMMEDIATELY. I feel I already know the three main characters. Derek clearly loves Hannah but isn’t creepy or stalker-ish in showing it. She thinks he is a great person, and Derek is. He loves these elderly patients. He gets to know them and their idiosyncrasies. It’s amazing to get to know people. I know I know, a lot of people say the world is doomed, but it’s not. People are what makes this life worth living, and I love learning about other people every day. Some are bad and some are good, and some of us are neither but just trying to figure it out.

Derek loves reality TV so he is thrilled with the film crew being there. i can’t relate because although I love TV and even the branch of some reality TV, I don’t ever want to be documented in any way, shape or form. I’m a weirdo private person and I would never think I was fascinating or good enough to be filmed. Derek himself comes off as almost autistic at times but annoying like Dianne Kruger’s character on “The Bridge”. Derek says he believes it’s more important in life to be kind instead of being clever and good looking. I think this should be put on every diaper in America. So many people are so caught up in how “smart” they think they are or how hot they think they are, when in fact they are making up lies for all that they lack. Derek is indeed actually kind so he needs to make up for nothing.

i will be watching the whole series and Thank you so much Cam for introducing it to me! The only thing it lacked at all is subtitles as they are Uber British like Harry Potter and I had to rewind a few times! Damn ‘Muricans

5/5 Fish n Chips!

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This summer, my wife got addicted to British television.  One show that she began to watch, which I decided to join in on, was “The IT Crowd”.  We had heard good things about it and we liked Chris O’Dowd in “Bridesmaids” and “Family Tree” so we gave it a shot.  We were completely unprepared for how much we would end up loving this series.  One of the funniest characters on this sitcom was the office boss.  The boss in the first two seasons was Denholm Reynholm (a great name in and of itself), played by Christopher Morris.  After Denholm’s hilarious and unexpected exit from the show, he was replaced by his son, Douglas Reynholm (the inimitable Matt Berry).

After completing the whole series, I immediately became obsessed with Matt Berry, who reminded me of a British Jack Black.  I remembered that he had a small role as a kid’s musician on Portlandia.  I went to Netflix to see what else was available featuring Matt Berry.  This is what I found:

Snuff Box?  I had never heard of this show and the picture didn’t exactly look enticing.  I had seen Rich Fulcher a few times in the past couple of years…he had a hilarious story on Funny or Die’s “Drunk History” about Abraham Lincoln.  He also played some odd characters on “NTSF:SD:SUV” and “Jon Benjamin Has A Van”, odd to the point that he made me a little uncomfortable.  But Matt Berry was so awesome that I figured I’d give Snuff Box a shot.  Boy am I glad that I did.

As a huge fan of cult comedy and sketch comedy, I was immediately impressed by the first episode of Snuff Box.  The premise is quickly set up with the opening scene: Matt and Rich play characters with their real names.  Matt is a professional hangman and Rich is his assistant (why an American is working with a British hangman is never explained but you really shouldn’t care).  The show weaves skits between their interactions and various random segues.  Snuff Box reminded me of another cult sketch show, Mr. Show (one of my favorite shows of all time), in the way that sketches would roll one into the other (though Mr. Show was much smoother in the transitions).

I also loved that there are jokes during the episode that are referenced later (sometimes in a future episode).  There is a random skit segue where Rich Fulcher is a “rapper with a baby” and sings a cheesy rap song, only to have it offhandedly referenced later in the show as its video is playing on a television and Matt Berry asks “How did this shit get to #1?”  It is best to see all six episodes in a row to get the full experience, but each episode can be individually viewed.  There are certain sketches that are repeated in different episodes, such as the hilarious “Boyfriends” sketches:

The humor is about as dark as it can get, with literal gallows humor throughout.  This show also featured the interesting dichotomy of a British and American comedy partnership.  Off the top of my head I am unable to think of another show that was 50% British and 50% American like Snuff Box (they even display the 50%/50% by the superimposing of Berry and Fulcher’s faces on the American and British flags in the opening credits).  The show itself is British but the presence of Rich Fulcher creates a schism between the politeness of British comedy and perceived ultra-vulgarity of modern American comedy.  Fulcher portrays himself as a vulgar lout who has always “gotta piss” and seems unable to complete a sentence without at least two “fucks”.  Berry’s character is much more urbane but is also a completely unapologetic dirtbag, but he is also a professional murderer…

Most of the sketches involve Fulcher and Berry as the hangmen, but they will also play random characters, such as this musical duo in the recording studio who keep meeting up with famous musicians (in this case, David Bowie):

Another sketch which exemplifies the difference between crude Fulcher and sophisticated Berry is the Christopher Lee sketch.  Matt Berry plays the famous actor Christopher Lee, as Dracula.  He is apparently hard up for work and takes a role in a porno movie directed by Fulcher’s sleazy porn director.  Weirdness and hilarity ensue:

If you like sketch comedy and are in the market for something you haven’t quite seen before, I highly recommend Snuff Box.  It is only 6 half-hour episodes, so even if you completely hate it, you won’t be that much closer to death upon finishing it.

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Joel

I would say that out of all the Screensnark staffers, Rob is the most similar to me in terms of entertainment. We’re both huge comedy nerds. We’ve been discussing stand up and sketch comedy for the better part of a decade. So when he requested that I watch Snuff Box, I was a little intrigued. I’d never heard of it before, but Rob is into a sketch comedy show that I’m not? I got very curious. He likened it to Mr. Show With Bob and David, which…no. That isn’t a slight against Snuff Box, but a testament to how much I love Mr. Show.

The problem lies here. How does one exactly critique a sketch show? I guess in the spirit of Switch Hitter, I could just critique Rob’s taste, but I find it hard to say what works and doesn’t work in a genre as subjective as sketch comedy. It’s either funny to you or it isn’t. Or it’s whatever the fuck Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! is. But I’ll try and critique it anyhow.

Snuff Box was kinda funny. No more, no less. They gave their jokes and premises no time to grow and that frustrated me as a viewer. That’s their style, but it doesn’t work for me. I’d be surprised to go back and find out if even one sketch cracked the two minute mark. And probably 7 times out of 10, I saw the punchline within five seconds of the setup. So I found it predictable, lazy comedy most of the time. But there were a few genuine laughs from me. There was a sketch with no dialogue that was probably my favorite. Just guys out on the street with huge signs with arrows that say GOLF SALE. and when they got a patron to follow the arrows, it led to a back alley where they just beat his ass with the signs. Another premise that I laughed at was the fashion trend of pre pissed in and pre shit in pants called Le Piss and Le Poo, respectively. Because I’m a 13 year old at heart.

So at the end of the day, I find this to be a pretty run of the mill sketch show. Not great, but not crummy. Sorry, Rob. We’ll get ‘em next time.

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Cameron

This week my pal, buddy, confidante, guy I know by first name Rob asked me to watch Snuff Box. He asked that I watched the entire series, and to be fair it’s only 6 episodes, but life happened and I could only get in the first episode. Not to say that I will never see the last 5 episodes, because from what I saw in the pilot episode, I liked quite a bit. Rob told us that since we were big Mr. Show fans, we would enjoy this. Having seen the first episode, I do understand the comparison. I don’t like it quite as much as Mr. Show, but I can see the similarities. Both done by a talented comedic duo. Whereas Mr. Show was anchored by David Cross and Bob Odenkirk being themselves, albeit somewhat sensationalized versions of themselves, Snuff Box seems to be anchored by comic actors Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher playing characters. A sophisticated executioner and his American assistant. Then random sketches happen in between visiting these characters.

I didn’t know these actors, I think I recognized Matt Berry from an episode of Portlandia and the American I didn’t know at all. In fact, I didn’t think the “American” character was American at all since he sounds like a British actor impersonating an American. But I looked it up and apparently the guy is actually American. Inception. I’d like to go into more depth but the boring fact is that I enjoyed it. To analyze why people enjoy this show would be to look inwards, and I don’t have the mental fortitude to do that at this point in my life. I probably will return to it now that most shows are on a break. No more Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire, etc for a while. It’s a little weird in places, like alienating weird. That’s okay though, not all the sketches on Portlandia or even Mr. Show are gold either. Final impressions, it’s streaming on Netflix, put it in your queues, it’s a funny show.

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My own personal encounter with the fandom came through one of my closest friends.  It was through him that I first heard about the show and subsequently heard about “bronies”.  Of course this was hilarious to me, so I immediately adopted the term and applied it to myself.  I became a Brony.  Ironically, of course.  A grown man wouldn’t actually enjoy it, I thought.  Yet, the more I interacted with my friend, the more he would mention the show.  In fact he would mention specific things happening within the show that led me to believe that yes, he actually watched it.  This is also a friend that I look up to in many ways.  One by one, other friends in that social circle started to become a Brony for real.  I consider myself open minded, so I figured, “why not?” and started to watch it when it became available on Netflix instant.  Vibrant artwork, not at all unpleasant to look at were my first thoughts.  Simple corny stories, some decent music, and after some time spent watching it, even some laughs.   Yes, after some time spent with the show it started to dawn on me, “I like this!”.  I don’t know what drew me in.  Maybe it’s the overall pleasant nature of it, it’s in such stark contrast to everything else I watch.  Game of Thrones, you like a character?  They’ll probably die soon.  The Walking Dead, you like a character?  They’ll probably die soon.  Sons of Anarchy, you like a character?  They’ll probably kill an innocent child and inject heroin into a recovering junkie.  I think you get the picture.  Everything I watch is so dark, even though I love them, it’s nice to have an escape.  So I proudly started to call myself a Brony, non-ironically.  I started having Google+ Hangouts with my friends wherein we’d watch new episodes on youtube.  I even went as far as to tell my co-workers about my new found quirk.  Basically, I took something that I might have enjoyed slightly, and way overcompensated because I didn’t expect to like it.

I’m also not sure when I became self-aware similar to skynet.  I looked at myself and realized exactly how hardcore I was, as a mid-20s male, into this show made primarily for little girls.  Maybe it was when my friend Sam wouldn’t stop saying “everypony”.  Maybe it was when my friend Sam gave me two My Little Pony dolls as a gift, as if that was something I’d ever want.  Maybe it was when my friend Sam proudly showed me how he groomed his pony dolls, so their hair was more accurate to what you’d see on the show.  Or Maybe it was just when I realized how fucking weird such a huge chunk of the Brony fanbase is composed of really is. Like these people.

Yikes

I’m scared!

An activity book for kids based on a show for kids?  Preposterous! 

My Little Pony pornography started rising in popularity, in about the same fashion that my metaphorical boner for the show wilted.  I mean WTF, this isn’t what drew me to this show.  Sexually, I’ll admit that I’m into some weird shit, but a million pictures of cartoon pony pussies honestly did nothing for me.  So I shunned My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for a while.  I lived in as much denial as I could about my Brony days, similar to a former prostitute trying to make a new life for themselves.  I took the time to raise my son, and eventually he started to get into television.  As opposed to when he was just a little immobile thing I could set on the ground while I watched Die Hard, now he started needing specific things to hold his interest.  We watched almost everything for children on Netflix.  Mickey House Clubhouse, Thomas the Train, Daniel Tiger, Sesame Street, all of it.  One day, just recently, after being frustrated of being forced to sit through Daniel Tiger for the 5th time I decided I’d put on My Little Pony.  The colors and songs that drew me into the show also captivated my son.  Forget gender expectations, he’s 2 years old and likes what he likes.  I also realized, I never hated this show.  I hated what the fans had done to it.  I may have gone far overboard initially in my enthusiasm, but I also may have went to far in my distaste for it as it’s still a quality program for a kids’ show.  I don’t know if I’d consider myself a Brony now, maybe a Brony Light.  It’s definitely a guilty pleasure that I wouldn’t watch without a child.  Anyhow this is my connection to this show, it’s my turn to choose, and I’m excited to see Joe and Rob become 20% cooler.

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Joe

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s a show for children. I’d say it’s specifically for children ages four to six, but my daughter isn’t two yet, and she enjoyed it well enough to repeatedly ask for an encore. I suppose boys could enjoy it as well as girls, but it’s a tough age to have your developing manhood questioned, so if I had a son and he came to me and said, “dad, I don’t want to watch the ponies anymore”, I’d be cool with that. But hey, my future son wants to watch the ponies, I won’t stop him.

One audience that the show is not decidedly intended for is adult men. Bronies should not exist. I can only imagine two scenarios in which grown men would watch this show without the accompaniment of children.
1. They are a part of some mutant strain of hipster, using blatantly faux-homo childish behavior to form a quasi-elitist anti-cult of the post-bullied. High school (junior high?) was soooooooooooo unbearable that the only possible reaction is to ironically watch an animated children’s show in order to throw it back in the face of ultra-masculine tormentors. Nope, going out into the world and being successful while a majority of the ex-jocks never make it out of the hometown, stuck forever slamming pitchers of cheap beer at Wednesday bowling league and reliving the same athletic successes and failures of their youth isn’t good enough. Instead, the über-oppressed have to put together some kind of satirically strange sect of the socially subdued who are perpetually out to prove that being a man means nothing, or at least doesn’t mean what society says it does. It’s okay guys, we’re not in high school anymore. You can go play D&D and eat your boogers and I swear, no one is going to kick your ass and take your lunch money. You don’t have to be a practicing phony-pony pedophile to prove that the worth of “manliness” is exaggerated. The enlightened among us already understand, and the neanderthals that remain aren’t worth converting.

2. Unless…you really are a bunch of thinly veiled pederasts. You’re a bunch of dudes watching a show designed for little girls. You can see how we’d mistake you for kiddy-porn watching, windowless rape van-driving, candy-offering minor-fuckers, right? From what I’ve seen, a lot of you fit the profile, so you might want to avoid anything that calls attention to your unrepentant love for underage children. Sick fucks.

If you have a kid, watch the show. The songs aren’t bad, there’s a straightforward story that’s easy for kids to follow, and there’s some jokes thrown in for the adults every few minutes. But grown dudes watching by themselves? It’s not cute, it’s fucking creepy. We can’t be friends, we can’t even be hipster-companions.

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Rob

When I first found out that I had to watch “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, I immediately groaned. Then I realized what I love about the Switch Hitter: it forces you out of your comfort zone. I likely would’ve never watched this show, and now I finally get to see what all this brony crap is all about.

Well unfortunately, after watching the final episode of season one, entitled “The Best Night Ever”, I am no closer to understanding exactly how one becomes a brony. It must be similar to how someone becomes a Scientologist; something about the material causes one to develop a cultish following for it. I don’t envision this happening to me.

The episode begins with the ponies’ excitement over attending the “Galloping Gala”, a fancy royal horse party. One horse uses magic to turn an apple and mice into a horse-drawn carriage, but their cat scares the mice-turned-into-horses away. Then there is an amusing joke where the ponies wonder who will pull their carriage, which is funny considering that they are horses.

Then it cuts to the ponies in a salon preparing for the gala and this episode starts to lose me. Why do “bronies” like this show? It appears to be aimed squarely at young girls. There doesn’t seem to be adult double-entendres that are common among a lot of cartoons. It is excessively feminine and would seem to be the complete antithesis of something that “bros” would be into.

The whole point of this episode is that the ponies had a pre-conceived notion of how the party was going to be and each one of their conceptions was completely wrong. They thought they were each going to have “The Best Night Ever” but the party ends up being the worst night ever. At the end of the episode, they are eating at a donut shop, reminiscing about how awful the night was when the host of the gala comes in and lets them know that it was indeed a great party and that their presence livened up a normally-stuffy event. They end up enjoying themselves at the donut shop.

There are some interesting messages the show is sending to young girls. There are elements of “treat me like a princess” in this episode, where at least one of the characters wants to be treated like a classic princess. I’m not sure if this is par for the course for this character but she ends up having that turned on her head when she meets a Prince Charming who is even more hoity-toity than she is. This episode also seems to be saying that when you go to a party, you should act like yourself, no matter how obnoxious and out-of-place that behavior may be. And then, in summation, the episode ends with the lesson that you might as well avoid going to parties and instead you should just hang out with the friends that you already know, sending a basic message of xenophobia.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this children’s show. Or maybe I’ve completely missed something in the brony appeal of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”? I am glad that I was made to watch this though. Perhaps one day I will understand how one becomes a brony. For now, I’m just a jabroni.

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Phil Keoghan: I’m sorry to tell you that you have been eliminated from the race

Julie Chen: You have been evicted from the Big Brother House.

Jeff Probst: The Tribe Has Spoken.

As long as those people are on the air saying those phrases, I feel good about things, if only for an hour(or in Big Brother’s case, hundreds of hours.  Big Brother is my secret shame.).  They bring me comfort and have for over a decade.  For all of CBS’s paint by numbers crime proceduarals and dumbass lowest common denominator comedies, they’ve always been the king when it comes to reality shows.  My analysts will tell you I have a huge spot in my heart for reality shows, and while true, I must specify: reality COMPETITION shows.  If someone isn’t going home at the end of the episode, I really don’t care.  And specific reality competition shows.  Ones that I could win if I applied myself.  i.e I’m never going to be Top Chef.  I’m never going to be American Idol and I’m never going to dance with stars.  But for a while, I envisioned myself winning Big Brother.  I could do it!  Until I realized that I don’t think I could.

I’m far too nice to win these games.  For every memorable nice guy on these shows, there are five much more memorable villains.  Dr. Will Kirby, Boston Rob, Evel Dick, Dan Gheesling, Russell Hantz to name a few.  I’d get eaten alive.  But I’ll be damned if I don’t love to watch it play out every single season.  The alliances, the paranoia, the backstabbing, and my personal favorites, the endurance competitions, one of which was in this episode, so that was nice.  When I drew Jam and Rob from the hat, This was my immediate choice, because I love it, yet it is so far outside their comfort zones.  Rob has never seen one episode and Jam quit watching like 11 years ago.

And this season’s gimmick of Blood vs. Water has been great, so for two total tourists to the Survivor world, of course I’m going to dump them smack dab in the middle of an awesome season with returning players, loved ones, Redemption Island, hidden immunity idols and best of all, the best host in reality television, Jeff Probst.  Will they enjoy the way he extracts information from the castaways as masterfully as ever?  I fucking hope so.  Let’s dig in!

Rob:

I will begin by stating that this is the first episode of Survivor that I have ever watched. Despite having never seen an episode of this show, the culture of it has so pervaded American pop culture that it was easy to dive right into.

Survivor first aired in 2000. It was one of the first competitive reality shows to air on network TV and revolutionized the medium in the process, for better or worse. I will admit that I have something against reality TV in general. When I was in college in the mid-90s, I was addicted to MTV programming like most college kids were. I would watch just about anything that aired on MTV, EXCEPT for two of its most popular shows, “The Real World” and “Road Rules”. There is something about these types of shows that just does not appeal to me. It may be the constant bickering between the contestants that gets on my nerves. Perhaps it’s the poor acting by amateurs who want to be celebrities. Regardless, the only reality show I watch on any sort of regular basis is “Top Chef”, and it requires true talent to succeed on that show. I suppose talent is needed to win Survivor, but it is more of the backstabby, underhanded, malicious talent that is needed.

With that said, I jumped into this episode and was immediately faced with the theme of the season, which is “Blood and Water” (pairs of contestants are either related or dating/married). This is an interesting element to add to the game as you are not only working with a blood teammate, but then you have to decide whether you want to use or discard this natural alliance (as Tina and her daughter Katie have to face during this episode).

The episode begins with the aftermath of the previous episode where Vytas’ brother Aras was voted off. Vytas is clearly not happy with this and ends up voicing his frustrations, then begging the contestants to keep him on. The first contest is the sort of the thing you’d see on “Fear Factor”, with all of the contestants having to eat disgusting items. Last one standing gets immunity from being voted off. First the contestants have to eat a shot glass of live worms. The first four people to finish off their worms move to the next round. After various shots of spit-up worms and vomit, the four people finish and move to round 2, which consists of a plate of pig intestines. Only two people manage to even finish their plate, to which they enter the final round of the challenge: two live grubs. One of the contestants, Gervase, had the same challenge in the initial 2000 season. Will he redeem himself? No, Monica ended up beating him. You have to feel for all the people who competed in this disgusting challenge and failed. Gervase conquered his fear of the grub and still lost. This kind of challenge does not appeal to me at all…I don’t understand the sick perversion of seeing people eat disgusting items.

After the first contest, then we are shown various nitpicking scenes where the contestants talk to each other and form their voting alliances. I felt like these scenes needed to be expanded upon as I don’t really see why people vote the way they vote.

We get to the first tribal council of the episode and like Festivus, grievances are aired. Monica has immunity so she can complain about Vytas, and like a fool, Vytas reveals his disgust over his brother’s dismissal. This ends up leading to his vote out, though he is not finished on the show as this season has a “Redemption Island” round that allows contestants to return to the game (Top Chef has a similar feature).

After this council, the next challenge consists of a reverse-Jenga game where the contestants have to stack coins on top of a sword handle without allowing the coins to fall off. Admittedly, this was a tense contest despite the utter childish nature of the challenge (didn’t we play these sorts of games in elementary school?). Perhaps that is the nature of the popularity of Survivor? It combines some characteristics of different genres that can offer feelings of nostalgia: (a) challenges for immunity which feel like an adult version of Nickelodeon’s “Double Dare”, (b) the overall sociological nature of the show and the show locale that is reminiscent of “Lord of the Flies”, (c) people love to see someone get voted off. The voting off aspect is utilized in all reality competition shows. Top Chef. American Idol. Dancing With The Stars. And so on and so forth.

Katie ends up being the last one standing and wins immunity. She is then faced with the choice of sticking up for her mom or letting her hang out to dry. As I haven’t seen any other episodes, I don’t quite understand what’s going on in regards to alliances and tribes. I’m not sure why Tina has to go, but she is “on the bottom” and spends a few minutes of the show trying to find the hidden immunity idol. Unbeknownst to her or anyone else, Tyson found it previous to this episode.

Eventually we get to the final tribal council and there appears to be a rift between voting for Tina and Monica. Monica is portrayed as a paranoid player and Tina tries to turn the votes onto her, bluffing about having the immunity idol, but the bluff does not work. Tina ends up getting voted off.

All in all, I must admit that this episode was enjoyable. I would not want to watch Survivor regularly as I mainly watch comedy and drama shows, but if I had to watch Survivor while stuck at my parents house for Thanksgiving, I would not complain. I totally understand why this show is popular. It has that nostalgia challenge feeling from shows we watched as kids. It is fun (for some people) to watch other people fight and bicker. It is just not my cup of tea.

Jam:

Our editor Joel loves him some reality TV. I’ll spare everyone my dime-store psychoanalysis as to why a man with a degree in the written word devotes so much time to a medium that ignores it, but hey, everyone needs an escape right?

This week Joel has asked me to review Survivor and report back my findings. I was a senior in high school the last time I watched an episode of Survivor and for the sake of reality TV fans I hope this season has come full circle because not much seams to have changed in those twelve years.

The episode I reviewed started off in familiar flash back fashion – previously on Survivor – recapping the dramatic dismissal of one of the island castaways from the previous week. The gimmick this time around is that cast members are paired up with family members, and the brother of last week’s castoff is not pleased with his kin’s extinguishing. Spoiler alert! Alliances were formed and alliances were broken, and people are pissed off! Drama has ensued.

The first half of the episode revolves around the alienated castaways begging and jockeying for the all-important alliance, followed by an immunity challenge of eating disgusting shit until everyone else gives up. Predictably the next segment revolves around people talking shit about the winner of immunity while the camera shows her lounging around and acting like her shit doesn’t stink.

After that nonsense is over with we finally get to see the anti climactic vote off of the guy who doesn’t help his own cause by talking his way off the island.

It is right around this point that I instinctually started searching my guide for something much better to watch. As if unbeknownst to me my remote control hand was cashing in a favor to my brain. I had to remind myself that I needed to keep watching.

Despite that momentary resolve, my brain must have staged a revolt on its own because next thing I knew I was waking up from an epic blackout.

I assume that while I was going for a ride on the Slumber Express I missed out on a riveting second immunity challenge. I could check the DVR, but who am I kidding here, it doesn’t matter.

When my brain checked back in I picked up on one half of a mother daughter duo having just won immunity. And what are the chances that the entire episode previous to this point was setting up this very scenario? The daughter now immune must struggle with forging ahead with new ties while throwing her mother under the bus, or sticking with the old hag and tying her anchor to a sinking ship (castaway humor).

Things don’t work out well for mom in the end.

After being forced to watch this show again after a very long time away, I am reminded why it is popular. However, I don’t have the desire or patience to follow this kind of television. The novelty has worn off over a decade ago and I have to assume that most people who watch Survivor have not been faithfully following this show for the 27 seasons since its debut during the Clinton administration (at least for their sake I hope not.) Who knows, maybe I will check in again in another 10 years.

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