Jul 2008
Edd "Kookie" Byrnes turns a crazy cat 75
07/30/08 12:01 AM
By ED BARK
Born with the un-Hollywood name of Edward Breitenberger, one of TV's first full-blown teen idols makes it three-quarters of a century on Wednesday, July 30th.
Edd "Kookie" Byrnes played a comb-wielding, super-cool car parker on ABC's 77 Sunset Strip, a breezy private eye drama that ran from 1958-'63. His character's full name was Gerald Lloyd Kookson III. But he'd rather get a crewcut than be called that.
Byrnes parlayed his fleeting TV stardom into a hit single, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb," more or less sung with Connie Stevens.
In this crystal clear clip, he lays down some laughable lingo with Sunset Strip star Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who played suave detective Stuart Bailey. Kookie greets him with, "Hi, Dad."
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Dino might: History Channel's Jurassic Fight Club trades on big prehistoric bouts
07/29/08 11:29 AM
By ED BARK
Various paleontologists, including "Dinosaur George" Blasing, are brought in to add a little scientific heft to these proceedings.
In reality, though, they're merely prehistoric versions of Larry Merchant, Jim Lampley and "Fight Doctor" Ferdie Pacheco building up the weekly main events on History Channel's Jurassic Fight Club.
Premiering Tuesday, July 29 at 8 p.m. (central), the 12-episode series is not so subtly aimed at young males who played with dinosaurs as kids and now gravitate toward Mixed Martial Arts competitions or maybe even conventional boxing matches on occasion. An opening disclaimer, gravely delivered by narrator Erik Thompson, will only further whet these appetites: "The following is a graphic depiction of a violent prehistoric battle. Viewer discretion is advised."
Mmm, mmm, good. First though, you'll have to slog through some oft-redundant preliminary blah, blah, blah. The first episode, subtitled "Cannibal Dinosaur," rewinds 70 million years to a lush green island that eventually would morph into Madagascar. Your featured, unnamed combatants are a male Majungatholus who thinks with his penis and a female member of the same species intent on protecting her juvenile offspring.
"It's the ultimate battle of the sexes," says Thompson, whose voice-over credits also include Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. The battlers' old stomping grounds also are referred to as a "crime scene" on two occasions, so c'mon in, CSI fans.
The animation is impressive throughout, although in reality this is a half-hour show stretched to a one-hour slot. Recaps are inserted after each commercial break, and you'll also get several recaps of an eventually grisly battle that includes some very heavy-duty cannibalism.
We also learn that Majungatholuses had "a mouthful of serrated, meat-slicing teeth" and were built to take "a heavy beating." Females generally were quicker on their feet but the male had a prettier knob on his head.
Future episodes, stretching all the way to the Oct. 14 "Armageddon" hour, have subtitles such as "River of Death, Gang Killers, Valley of Fear" and "Bloodiest Battle."
There's a veneer of educational value, albeit a very thin one. History Channel's days of presenting black-and-white dissections of World War II's greatest battleships are pretty much long gone or restricted to inconsequential daytime or wee morning hours. Prime-time is for lustier, bloodier pursuits, and Jurassic Fight Club provides a twofer on opening night.
Grade: B-minus
Bush gets Stoned, which reminds us of pre-war times when he was just a big, amiable boob
07/28/08 04:35 PM
By ED BARK
Both Robert Wilonsky of unfairpark and Tim Rogers from FrontBurner already have thoughtfully posted the first youtube trailer for Oliver Stone's upcoming feature film W.
We'll give Big Bob the link because li'l Tim can be a bit deficient in that regard. Besides, Tim's post has more comments than Bob's, so he's already flush.
Meanwhile, for dessert, here's the opening theme song from Comedy Central's That's My Bush!, the utterly irreverent 2001 sitcom from the creators of South Park. Deemed too expensive, it was canceled after just eight episodes despite pulling in big ratings in pre-9/11 times. Big ratings by Comedy Central's standards at least. Enjoy.
AMC's Mad Men still has ad-itude
07/25/08 10:10 AM
By ED BARK
Now here's a series that's smokin' hot, and not just because most of its principal characters keep lighting up the screen with nicotine.
AMC's Mad Men fortuitously starts its second season Sunday (at 9 p.m. central) on the heels of receiving more Emmy nominations (16) than any other drama series.
It deserves all of them for an evocative, provocative first season that rewound almost a half-century to a circa 1960 Madison Avenue advertising agency populated by thin-tied, vice-laden, tight-suited salesmen and makeup-lathered women who wore the hell out of their form-fitting dresses and rigidly constructed undergarments.
Let it be said that the early '60s were absolutely smashin' for fashion -- then and now. When's the Mad Men clothing line coming? The series easily has enough buzz, praise and momentum to launch one, even if only a million or so viewers on average watched its first 13 episodes from mid-summer to early fall.
The ultra-authentic look and feel of Mad Men contrasts with the cheap attempts at atmospherics on CBS' ongoing, 1970s-set Swingtown. Creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner, formerly a key behind-the-scenes player on The Sopranos, has this particular portal down pat. Nothing about Mad Men looks goofy or contrived. Its characters, led by debonair but demon-plagued Don Draper (Jon Hamm), are as strikingly real as the Lucky Strike cigarette campaign that kicked off Season 1.
Back then, the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency's clients also included Richard Nixon's presidential campaign. But the season ended with Nixon's defeat and Draper's retreat into himself after his real identity became known to nefarious up-and-comer Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser).
So far only Campbell and agency founding partner Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse) know that Draper is really Dick Whitman. But they don't know the particulars, which viewers do. In short, Whitman's traumatic experience in the Korean War and distaste for his surrogate parents triggered an impulsive decision to claim the name of a fellow soldier whose death he inadvertently caused.
Season 2 fast-forwards from Thanksgiving Eve, 1960 to Valentine's Day, 1962. And the first two episodes move at the same somewhat languid pace of last season's. There's no quick, stunning hook coming, but Mad Men sure knows how to marinate.
Draper's wife, Betty (January Jones), for one is growing weary of her husband's emotional detachment and suspicious of his extracurricular activities.
Her demeanor is getting icier. But on Valentine's night, she's a bejeweled, begowned stunner at a ritzy restaurant rendezvous arranged by her husband. Betty is no Boop, either in an evening dress or a black negligee she unveils when Don takes her to a room he's reserved at the swank Savoy hotel. His performance otherwise falls short, so they end up watching First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's breathless, televised tour of the White House.
Meanwhile, ex-agency gofer Peggy Olson, now a full-fledged junior copywriter, is notably slimmer after unexpectedly delivering a baby at the end of last season. The secret father is the aforementioned Pete Campbell, who's married but ever on the make both personally and professionally.
Peggy is no pushover either. In fact she's getting a bit haughty as her workplace influence grows.
"I'm in the persuasion business," she tells a young Lothario at a party that kicks off Episode 2. "And frankly, I'm disappointed in your presentation."
Pete also gets a personal jolt in Episode 2 after an American Airlines crash leaves the company in search of a new image-maker. Sterling Cooper already has the much smaller Mohawk airline under contract. But business is business, and landing American would be a big and showy upgrade.
Another of Mad Men's major players, co-partner Roger Sterling (John Slattery), had twin heart attacks near the end of last season.
Fifteen months later, he seems fully recovered and eager to make another deal that Don Draper doesn't like. One of the series' continuing intrigues is whether they're on a collision course or, in the end, on the same track.
These first two episodes of Season 2 also will reveal the whereabouts of Peggy's baby and depict a newly minted "Bohemian" lifestyle on the part of ad copywriter Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), who now has a beard and a black girlfriend.
The latter development is met with arctic disdain by head secretary Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), whose bust continues to precede her whenever she walks the walk, talks the talk.
Those who haven't yet seen Mad Men might find themselves in a bit of a fog. Then again, the Season 1 DVD is newly available for power-watching before the series begins anew.
Whether the show makes a bigger sale with audiences is important but not crucial to AMC. This is the network's maiden voyage into the intoxicating land of in-demand. Cachet and all those attendant magazine covers don't pay the bills. But if you've got 'em, smoke 'em.
Grade: A-minus
Jagged little thrill: Discovery Channel smells blood again
07/24/08 10:20 AM
By ED BARK
It's late July, and Discovery Channel hopes you're getting that gnawing feeling again.
Its 21st annual Shark Week, one of the first big branders in cable TV history, begins Sunday, July 27th, with six new programs aimed at making your jaws drop.
Facts of shark life: They can lose up to 1,000 teeth per year, have no bones in their bods and are more threatened by humans than vice-versa.
At least that's according to Discovery's "Shark Bites" fact sheet, just a small portion of the publicity blitz tied to this meal ticket. Perhaps you've seen the full-page magazine shots of the bespectacled, open-mouth kid brandishing two rows of jagged choppers. If not, go to sharkyourself.com for some grins.
Otherwise, in chronological order, here are the half-dozen Shark Week premieres, with all times central:
Mythbusters: Shark Special (Sunday, 8 to 10 p.m.) -- Does chili powder repel sharks or piss them off? Is it possible that dogs attract sharks? These questions and more are answered.
Surviving Sharks (Monday, 8 to 9 p.m.) -- Whaddya do if one of 'em bites ya?
Day of the Shark (Monday, 9 to 10 p.m.) -- This is the working title of a special chronicling six recent shark attacks.
Dirty Jobs: Shark Special (Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m.) -- Host Mike Rowe goes to the Arctic Circle in search of what's said to be the "mysterious" Greenland shark.
How Not to Become Shark Bait (Tuesday, 9 to 10 p.m.) -- "Escapologist" Jonathan Goodwin, Survivor: Cook Islands winner Yul Kwon and others journey to the Bahamas to test shark attraction theories.
Mysteries of the Shark Coast (Thursday, 8 to 10 p.m.) -- Presenting the largest shark-tagging expedition in Australian history. The goal is to figure out why the area's shark population is in "mysterious decline."
Discovery also promises "chum buckets" of popular programs from past Shark Weeks. Let the feeding frenzy begin.
Fair is fair -- and Couric strove to be just that
07/23/08 09:15 AM
By ED BARK
Barack Obama's Middle East odyssey, with the three major broadcast news anchors in tow, has irked John McCain to the point where his campaign is firing back with a video titled "Obama Love."
More on that later. But first let's look at CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric's effort to balance the scales with her "exclusive" interviews of both Obama and McCain.
She sat down with the presumptive Democratic nominee in Amman, Jordan before talking to his Republican counterpart in New Hampshire on Tuesday's Evening News. And whatever her ratings or remaining time with the broadcast, let's credit Couric with both stirring the pot and beating NBC's Brian Williams and ABC's Charles Gibson to this one-two punch.
She first pressed Obama on his disinclination to support the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq despite its apparent short-term success at least.
"People may be scratching their heads and saying 'Why?' " she told him.
Obama said the U.S. had erred in shifting away from "the central front of terrorism" in Afghanistan. But he also pledged to "always listen to the commanders on the ground. And I will make an assessment based on the facts at that time."
Couric tried again: "But microcosmically speaking, did the surge . . . help the situation in Iraq?"
"Katie, there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence," Obama replied before emphasizing that the money would have been better spent in Afghanistan and on improving a faltering U.S. economy.
Couric made a third run at him, with a slightly vexed Obama rejoining, "Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach (instead of the troop surge) . . . So this is all hypothetical."
On to McCain, who eagerly dug in.
Obama has "indicated by his failure to acknowledge the success of the surge that he would rather lose a war than lose a campaign," he said in what likely will be a resonating sound bite.
Succeeding in Iraq means that "obviously we will be freeing up troops to go to Afghanistan," McCain said, claiming Obama "doesn't understand that it's not just troops. It's an overall strategy" for winning the war on terrorism.
"Senator McCain, you sound very frustrated with Senator Obama's perspective," Couric then told him.
"No, I'm not at all," he answered. But Obama "just has been wrong and is wrong."
Couric's concluding assessment of the surge likely pleased McCain more than Obama.
"The numbers do indicate that Iraq became much safer after the surge," she told viewers, citing statistics showing far fewer deaths and casualties.
Earlier in the day, though, the McCain campaign put up a video depicting various reporters kissing up to Obama to the tune of The Four Seasons' "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."
It included a three-peat of MSNBC's Chris Matthews saying of Obama, "He's sort of a gift from the world to us in so many ways."
All of this has a way of at least temporarily correcting any imbalances. Couric's course correction was Tuesday's Exhibit A. Here's the "Obama Love" video that may have provided the impetus:
Leno's lame duck clock officially ticking to finish line (updated)
07/21/08 03:20 PM
By ED BARK
Jay Leno has less than a year left on his No.1-rated Tonight Show, NBC announced Monday.
The succession plan, with Conan O'Brien succeeding Leno, has long been in place. But the Peacock has for the first time given official days and dates, with O'Brien to step in as only the fifth host in Tonight Show history on June 1, 2009. He'll relocate from New York to Stage 1 at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, NBC says.
O'Brien in turn will be replaced sometime next spring on his Late Night show by former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon. And on May 29, Leno will host his final Tonight.
Leno, who succeeded Johnny Carson on May 25, 1992, agreed to the move several years ago. He since has stepped up his ridicule of NBC's ongoing programming problems while at the same time becoming late night's hottest property for whatever network wins a likely bidding war to get him.
At an NBC press conference Monday in Beverly Hills, though, the lantern-jawed, latter day king of late night fake-grilled Peacock executives while disguised as a none-too-telegenic TV critic in a bald cap and goatee. NBC higher-ups later said it was Leno's way of showing he's on board with the move and will help to facilitate a smooth transition.
ABC and Fox executives both have expressed a strong interest in having Leno come over to their side, but negotiations can't begin until Leno leaves the show that has remained a strong No. 1 during his tenure.
"Jay has left his personal stamp on The Tonight Show for what will be 17 years," NBC entertainment executive vice president Rick Ludwin said in a statement. "He is enormously creative, generous and professional."
NBC has given lip service to trying to keep Leno in another capacity. But few expect him to stay. The other two Tonight hosts, over an almost 54-year span to date, have been Steve Allen and Jack Paar.
***The network also announced Monday that current SNL regular and "Weekend Update" co-anchor Amy Poehler will be starring in her own NBC comedy series sometime next season. It has no official title or premise yet, but is being created by Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, executive producers of NBC's The Office.
Poehler's former running mate on SNL, Tina Fey, stepped into prime-time two seasons ago with 30 Rock, which last week received the most single-season Emmy nominations of any comedy series in history. Poehler and Fey starred in the recent feature film Baby Mama.
"She is a terrible human being," Schur said of Poehler. "But I am more than willing to overlook her many, many character flaws for the chance to work with her again."
Heidi Heidi Heidi ho'
07/21/08 03:19 PM
By ED BARK
Pathetic spectacles seem to be cheaper by the dozen these days. Still, Heidi Fleiss is tough to beat.
The former "Hollywood Madam," who served a 37-month sentence for "pandering" until her release in September 1999, is the focus of HBO's notably stuporous Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal.
The 110-minute documentary, premiering Monday, July 21 at 8 p.m. (central), is almost as lousy as its as its still-life title. That said, it's all foreplay, with the now 42-year-old, crinkle-lipped head case striving to open a cathouse catering to women clients in Godforsaken Pahrump, Nev., where such businesses are legal with the proper license.
Fleiss begins by claiming to have "conquered the world" in her 20s while Alexander the Great waited until his 30s to do the same.
"And he's dead and I'm alive," she adds, apparently hoping to convince her interviewer that she's a more formidable force than he ever was.
Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, earlier responsible for the likes of Inside Deep Throat and The Eyes of Tammy Faye, follow a none-too-steady Fleiss on her quest to establish a thriving "Stud Farm" on 60 acres of property that she managed to buy dirt cheap.
Alas, she never gets so far as a permit in this oddball ode to all things Heidi. She does, however, befriend an infirm ex-madam with a caged bird collection. One of them is a misfit parrot named Dalton, with whom Fleiss bonds. It's all supposed to be touching, showing another side of a notorious figure who nonetheless is immediately disliked by Pahrump-ians in positions of authority.
One of them is tart saloon owner Miss Kathy, who tells Fleiss with certitude, "There's no way women are going to drive this far off to get poked."
Another is George Flint, flinty director of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association.
"My biggest fear of Heidi Fleiss is Heidi Fleiss," he says. "Because she wants to be Miss Visibility."
Fleiss unfortunately, but typically, hooks up with an apparently crooked brothel baron named Joe Richards, who's charged with numerous counts of bribery. She has a doofus gofer named Michael Smallridge, too. He's fired after losing a flashlight during a dead-of-night search for decorative rocks.
The filmmakers also record Fleiss's declaration that she's the world's worst at oral sex. And that, yes, her breasts are "fake."
That pretty much covers the high points of a film that turns out to be quite a bit beneath HBO. In the end, Fleiss opens a laundromat she dubs "Dirty Laundry" while waiting for the stink to blow off of Joe Richards.
Alexander the Great shouldn't worry unduly about being upstaged. But Anna Nicole Smith might have some cause for concern.
Grade: C-minus
Elder acting Brolin turns 68 before Barbra Streisand's eyes
07/18/08 09:10 AM
By ED BARK
TV vet and Barbara Streisand hubby James Brolin hits the 68 mark on Friday, July 18th.
He broke in as Robert Young's sawbones sidekick on ABC's Marcus Welby, M.D before starring in the same network's Hotel as no-nonsense manager Peter McDermott.
Brolin later stepped into the role of an inept, laughable Ronald Reagan in the controversial 2003 miniseries The Reagans, which was made for CBS and then dumped on sister network Showtime after an outcry on Fox News Channel among others. Now Brolin's son, Josh, is playing George W. Bush in director Oliver Stone's upcoming W.
Here's a clip of the senior Brolin emoting, opposite a vexed Doberman Pinscher, in the 1973 made-for-TV movie Trapped.
30 Rock, Mad Men, John Adams set the pace for prime-time Emmys
07/17/08 08:03 AM
By ED BARK
30 Rock sent a single season record for comedy nods, Mad Men led the drama series contenders and HBO as usual dominated the movie and miniseries categories in nominations announced Thursday for the 60th annual prime-time Emmy Awards.
The Tina Fey-led NBC sitcom, which won last year's Emmy, amassed 17 nominations to break the record of 16 set in 1997 by HBO's The Larry Sanders Show.
Its competition for best comedy series is from NBC's The Office, CBS' Two and a Half Men, and HBO's Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. All four have previous nominations in this category.
Notably left out: ABC's Samantha Who? and Pushing Daisies. The latter series did have 12 nominations, though, including a best actor nod for star Lee Pace. Samantha's star, Christina Applegate, is a best actress nominee.
Mad Men, AMC's hard-smoking depiction of the 1960s Madison Avenue ad agency scene, totaled an impressive 16 nominations for its inaugural season. The record is 27 by ABC's NYPD Blue in 1994.
Emmy voters picked six rather than the usual five drama series contenders. Joining Mad Men are fellow first-time nominees Damages (FX) and Dexter (Showtime), plus previous contenders Lost (ABC), Boston Legal (ABC) and House (Fox). Both Mad Men and Damages are on advertiser-supported "basic" cable networks, marking the first time that's happened in the best drama series competition.
HBO's The Sopranos won in this category last year. Notably left out: HBO's much-praised The Wire in its final season. It was rebuffed with just a single nomination, for writing.
NBC's made-in-Austin Friday Night Lights also got sacked again. Its lone nomination is for "Outstanding Special Class -- Short Format Live-Action Entertainment Program." How humiliating.
Both The Wire and Lights have won Peabody Awards, though. So bluntly put, screw the Emmys.
Meanwhile, the HBO miniseries John Adams led all programs with 23 nominations, and is a lock to win as the best in this category in competition with Sci Fi Channel's Tin Man, A&E's The Andromeda Strain and PBS' Cranford. The all-time record holder for miniseries nods in a single season is ABC's Roots, with a likely never to be beaten 37 in 1977.
HBO also has the lion's share of best made-for-TV movie contenders, with Recount, Bernard and Doris and Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale totaling 27 nominations. The other nominees are ABC's exemplary A Raisin In The Sun, which might well win, and Lifetime's The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which is just filling out the field.
A new Emmy category, "Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program," is populated by Tom Bergeron (the likely winner for ABC's Dancing with the Stars); Heidi Klum (Bravo's Project Runway); Howie Mandel (NBC's Deal or No Deal); Jeff Probst (CBS' Survivor) and Ryan Seacrest (Fox's American Idol).
EMMY ODDS AND ENDS
***The "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series" competition has four previous Emmy winners in Glenn Close (Damages), Sally Field (ABC's Brothers & Sisters), Mariska Hargitay (NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and Holly Hunter (TNT's Saving Grace). That leaves Kyra Sedgwick of TNT's The Closer as the category's lone virgin. She also was nominated the previous two seasons, but lost to Hargitay and Field.
***In contrast, just one nominee in the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" division has an Emmy in hand. That's James Spader, who's already won all three times he's been nominated for Boston Legal. Rounding out the field are first-time nominees Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Gabriel Byrne (HBO's In Treatment), plus previous contenders Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and Hugh Laurie (House).
***Ricky Gervais, a nominee for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie," is the only contender with a previous Emmy win. But all of his competitors have either won Oscars or been nominated for them. Kevin Spacey (Recount) has two Academy Awards on his mantle; Paul Giamatti (John Adams), Ralph Fiennes (Bernard and Doris), and Tom Wilkinson (Recount) all have experienced the agony of defeat on Oscar night.
***Among this year's acting nominees, Charles Durning has the longest losing streak. He's 0 for 8 so far, but gets another shot for his supporting role on FX's Rescue Me. Also hoping to break a prolonged drought is Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), who's 0 for 6.
At the other end of Emmy's teeter-totter, Candice Bergen has won five of the eight times she's been nominated, and eventually took her name out of the running during her starring days on Murphy Brown. Now she's back with a supporting actress nod for Boston Legal. Don't bet against her.
***HBO as usual led all networks Thursday with 85 nominations, one less than last year. It had strong competition, though, from ABC, whose 76 nominations were six more than last year. Other networks with 20 or more nominations are CBS (51), NBC (50), PBS (33), Fox (28), Showtime (21) and AMC (20).
***The prime-time Emmy awards ceremony is Sept. 21 on ABC.
Comedy Central fires up a putrid new Gong Show, then saves face with Reality Bites Back
07/16/08 05:26 PM
By ED BARK
All involved with Comedy Central's reinvention of The Gong Show could find themselves knockin' on heaven's door someday.
St. Peter, if you believe in either him or a hereafter, won't bother with any formalities: "You were part of The Gong Show? Go to hell."
On the other hand, Comedy Central at least has a shot at purgatory with Reality Bites Back, which also premieres on Thursday (July 17). Who can hate a show that savagely and often sagely spoofs broadcast TV's most successful reality series?
Gong Show, hosted by Comedy Central veteran Dave Attell, is a sewer-dwelling, stomach-turning freak show that makes even the 1970s Chuck Barris original seem like Star Search. The forerunner at least had a certain coarse charm and even a sense of style. Now we get the equivalent of a moose turd served on moldy rye.
The thing premieres at 9 p.m. (central), with Attell and judges Steve Schirripa, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Brian Posehn (wow, what star power) kicking things off with an aging female impersonator who sings about her "cute, hot pussy" while cradling a short-haired cat on a leash.
This actually is one of the top-shelf acts. Following in no particular order are a super-fatso with man boobs the size of half-inflated beach balls; a "mystic" who shoves a giant needle through his arm; and a young performer from "the great state of Texas" whose gimmick is kicking himself in the forehead. He instead bloodies the bridge of his nose before getting gonged.
The grand finale is supplied by a woman who appears to be loudly passing gas while a dwarf in a tuxedo "conducts" the movements. Her below-the-belt privates also are part of the act. Judge Schirripa, in the night's only funny line, says he gonged her because "she sounded a little pitchy."
The winning act gets $600 and a Gong Show championship belt. The losers, which constitutes the rest of us, get a half-hour of industrial strength debasement and depravity. Sometimes garbage is just garbage.
Reality Bites Back, following at 9:30 p.m., is snappily and snarkily hosted by Michael Ian Black, formerly of NBC's Ed and not much since.
Ten very unknown comedians vie for a $50,000 prize and the right to be crowned "Lord of All Reality." They're also being given the "opportunity to humiliate and degrade themselves on basic cable television," Black notes.
It's done with a certain style, though, beginning with all 10 contestants playing "Extreme Manipulation: House Edition" as a means of spoofing Big Brother.
For their first challenge, house guests must woo a member of the opposite sex in a pitch dark room while "night vision" cameras record the action. There's a twist, of course.
"That's right," Black says. "They'll be seducing their parents."
A "Dirty Laundry" competition follows, with the two lowest-scorers then ripe for the "Cutting Board." Next week the survivors will sabotage The Bachelor in a mockup dubbed "Shock of Love."
Black has a crack-up demeanor that's nicely paired with an air of condescension. This suits him very well on a show that nabs some laughs without completely fouling its nest. That makes Reality Bites Back a parody worth watching after Gong Show finishes pooping.
Grades
The Gong Show -- F
Reality Bites Back -- C+
Hopefully he won't grow up. But Will Ferrell's not getting any younger
07/16/08 11:28 AM
By ED BARK
Former Saturday Night Live MVP Will Ferrell takes a crack at being 41 on Wednesday, July 16th. (Although some celebrity birthday sites list him as turning 40.)
He left NBC in 2002 to forge a movie career. Good move, but his George W. Bush bits are still worth revisiting. Here's a clip of Ferrell in classic dumb-down as a big-buckled Dubya attempting to grasp the issue of "global warmings."
D-FW one of four markets testing new Wendy Williams show. Damn the luck
07/14/08 03:22 PM
By ED BARK
"I've talked my way through the whole first segment? Well, crap, this is a cakewalk."
Outsized New York radio personality Wendy Williams burst onto Fox4 late Monday morning with a loud and lofty opinion of herself.
"How you doin' "? is her tagline and how she did was pretty awful on opening day. The Wendy Williams Show, getting a six-week "sneak peek" in just four markets -- D-FW, Detroit, New York and L.A. -- is supposed to position the sashaying "shock jock" as the next big, bawdy thing in daytime TV.
In D-FW it's supplanting the canceled Montel Williams Show at 11 a.m. weekdays for the rest of this month and next. Then a decision will be made on whether to give Williams a longer lease on more Fox stations.
Wearing a royal blue evening gown, she posed and then flounced onstage toward a prototypically adoring studio audience. Her opening "Hot Topics" segment then fell on hard times, with the host either very nervous or merely incapable of saying anything of note or bite.
Oh wait. Right at the top she did say, "I feel the bloating from my period coming on, which hasn't started."
Still, though, "I feel very loved."
Some aren't reciprocating, though. Williams' husband and business manager, Kevin Hunter, is newly on the receiving end of a federal lawsuit charging him with ordering a hit on a rival female deejay. That particular bit of business didn't make Monday's "Hot Topics."
At one point, a discombobulated Williams couldn't come up with the name of an exceedingly familiar face whose framed picture adorns a controversial cover of The New Yorker next to centerpiece caricatures of Barack and Michelle Obama as fist-bumping terrorists. Uh, honey, that would be Osama bin Laden. For our bonus round, who's pictured on the Lincoln penny?
Williams held forth from a very cheap-looking set decorated with a few overhead disco balls. A public access cable show from Poughkeepsie could match those production values. Right, Poughkeepsie?
Williams' first guest, ubiquitous James Denton from Desperate Housewives, hung in gamely even after the host asked whether his wife walks around naked in front of their five-year-old son.
Denton later recovered to tell her, "I'm so happy to be your first guest." Must've been a helluva fruit basket.
Williams also welcomed Rihanna's wigmaker and made much ado about a "Truth Booth" housing a silhouetted young woman named Mary. She's mulling whether to break it off with an apparent deadbeat she's been dating for a year. The alternative is a guy with a "bigger package" and more money whom she met four months ago.
Williams dipped into her studio audience for input as the show continued to grind its gears until quit time.
Maybe Tuesday will get better -- how could it not? -- with guest Al Roker in the house. Oprah Winfrey ain't quakin', though.
Grade: D
TNT's women of distinction return in new seasons of The Closer and Saving Grace
07/14/08 06:54 AM
By ED BARK
TNT's two ladies of the night hope to lure even more paying customers this summer.
Business is already booming for Kyra Sedgwick's The Closer, which drew close to 10 million viewers for last September's third season finale. That's a blockbuster in the advertiser-supported cable network universe.
Holly Hunter's Saving Grace averaged a respectable 4.7 million viewers in its first season. It's anything but Holly Golightly, with a heroine who's addicted to just about everything but heroin.
The dramas return in tandem on Monday, July 14th, starting with a very strong episode of The Closer at 8 p.m. (central). Reruns on CBS and Fox, plus two little-watched reality competitions on ABC and NBC might well make Sedgwick's hour the time slot winner by a ratings landslide.
The fourth season opener finds high-strung, sweets-craving deputy police chief Brenda Johnson (Sedgwick) and her charges in pursuit of a possible arsonist whose dirty work may be connected to a flash of Southern California wildfires. This unfortunately is a timely topic at the moment. But in this dramatization, the fires quickly are 95 percent contained.
Sedgwick's usual command performance is matched by the return engagement of Jason O'Mara as creepy, cocksure Bill Croelick. He's the suspected sadistic murderer/firestarter who keeps eluding conviction. Are his efforts to help Johnson genuine? Does he still have the hots for her? It's a terrific game of cat-and-mouse in an episode that also has a subplot involving Johnson's latter day, top secret cat.
The third season ended with Johnson and FBI agent Fritz Howard (Jon Tenney) finally moving in together. It's now six weeks later and much of their stuff remains in boxes. Their domestic ups and downs aren't quite as amusing as the writers apparently think they are. But it's still a howl every time Johnson twangs with mock sincerity, "Thank yew so much."
There's also a gratuitous yet highly impressive shot of the 42-year-old Sedgwick in nothing but her bra and panties. All this talk about Olympic swimmer Dara Torres being the shapeliest 40-plus-year-old woman on the planet perhaps needs to be reassessed a bit.
Over on Saving Grace, dissipated and borderline emaciated Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko (Hunter) ended last season with a gun pointed at the head of Patrick "Satan" Murphy (guest star Rene Auberjonois), the priest who repeatedly molested her as a child.
The second season premiere resumes that storyline after Grace first pursues a broad daylight carjacker who turns out to be very much wanted by the FBI. But a trusty police dog named Riley is the real hero, and he's now fighting for his life. This adds yet another demon to Grace's arsenal.
Meanwhile back home, Father Murphy is a captive audience for her very dark mood swings. At one point she drunkenly dances for him while he's tied to a chair. Hunter's performance is both a marvel and a gut-grinder. She inhabits this character with an almost surreal intensity.
Grace's earth "angel," the no-nonsense Earl (Leon Rippy), is back to further complicate her life. She remains resistant: "I hate you, Earl. I hate your angel guts."
The episode keeps twisting and turning toward more stomach knots while also find a light or two at the end of various dark tunnels. Saving Grace is far more complex and demanding than the comparatively straight-ahead crimesolving on The Closer. But it can be overbearing, too. Feeling Grace's ever-present pain is and continues to be very much an acquired taste.
All praise to TNT, though, for housing two dramas of distinction with women at their cores. Sedgwick and Hunter have a Monday night sisterhood that's unmatched anywhere else on the dial. It's their time to shine again, storm clouds and all.
GRADES
The Closer -- A-minus
Saving Grace -- B-plus
Generation Kill (or be killed) --in Iraq
07/11/08 02:52 PM
Premiering: Sunday, July 13 at 8 p.m. central and continuing through Aug. 24 on HBO
Starring: Alexander Skarsgard, James Ransone, Lee Tergesen, Stark Sands, Billy Lush, Jon Huertas, Chance Kelly, Neal Jones and many more
Written and produced by: David Simon, Ed Burns
Directed by: Susanna White, Simon Cellan Jones
By ED BARK
An early scene Sunday in HBO's Generation Kill underscores the series' gravity and recurring depravity in depicting the first 40 days of the Iraq war.
It's not bloody, but it bloody well isn't pretty. In fact, the verbiage -- and those on the receiving end of it -- might make some viewers wince more than if they were seeing a baby-faced American GI cut in half with automatic weapons fire.
While still training in North Kuwait, Marines with Bravo Company's Platoon 2 unit get a packet of supportive letters from a class of fourth graders. One of the Marines ad libs a mocking, graphic response to their hopes for peace and safe returns.
"I'm a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior . . . Peace sucks a hairy asshole," he proclaims as though he were reading his return letter to them.
That's not the half of it, but you get the point. And just at this point, some might tune out in disgust rather than endure this "gritty, uncompromising account" adapted from Rolling Stone contributor Evan Wright's same-named book and brought to HBO by the team behind The Wire.
Unfortunately the truth at times can really hurt in a point-blank, seven-hour miniseries in which real names and events are deployed. So is "the precise dialogue" recorded by Wright during his seven weeks with the First Recon Battalion. And Marine dialogue, as I know from having been one, is not for the faint of heart. Or for pussies, as your basic Leatherneck would say.
This is all a stark, searing contrast to the overall majesty of HBO's previous Band of Brothers, the acclaimed World War II miniseries orchestrated by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. They're collaborating again on HBO's The Pacific, scheduled to premiere sometime next year.
Spielberg and Hanks adorn their warfare with mood-setting music and panorama. It's not meant to be overly pretty, but at least looks and feels gallant. WWII still lends itself to that kind of approach.
There's nothing picturesque about Generation Kill. Nor is there any soundtrack, save for a closing tableau in Chapter 7 that uses Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" to very powerful effect.
Producers David Simon and Ed Burns, who also are given co-writing credits, prefer dead-end streets to yellow brick roads. They don't paint many or any pretty pictures, investing their airs of authenticity with a suitable stench.
Steven Bochco's relatively recent Over There series, killed by low ratings after a single season on FX, tried hard to get at the undersides of American soldiers in Iraq while also telling some rather lame homefront stories.
Simon and Burns almost make his efforts seem like Candyland. They have the freedom of unfettered expression on HBO, and use it without any seeming inhibitions. This can be very rough, coarse stuff, with many of the depicted Marines regularly discoursing on "ree-tards," gays (usually in much starker terms), bloodlust, bowel moments, etc.
"You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps?" one asks. "You get your brains back."
Into their midst comes Rolling Stone's Evan Wright (Lee Tergeson), who oddly enough often seems out of place even when he's supposed to seem so. Taunted in varying degrees throughout this drama, Wright does quickly impress some of the Marines after telling them he used to write "Beaver Hunt" for Hustler magazine.
Generation Kill constantly reminds viewers that Wright is a quintessential Stranger in a Strange Land. He seems to have three basic silent reactions -- bemused, confused or pretty much repulsed. Whatever, they're overused.
Wright can't hold a candle, though, to cartoonish Sgt. Major John Sixta (Neal Jones), whose loud, curious obsession with proper Marine "grooming" takes him over the top and into the realm of Foghorn Leghorn with a gallon of Red Bull in his belly.
Most of the Marines are bracingly authentic, though, even if some also are brazenly off-putting.
Sgt. Brad Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard) and kid-faced Lt. Nathaniel Fick (Stark Sands) are the marquee "good guys." They strive to act honorably amid chaos that's often promulgated by Lt. Col. Stephen "The Godfather" Ferrando (Chance Kelly), whose raspy voice is a carryover from throat cancer.
"The Godfather" -- he's strictly a third-person guy -- yearns to kick ass, take names, press the action. But he also has an occasionally redeeming compassionate streak during the course of being a man's man first and foremost.
There's also Lance Cpl. Harold James Trombley (Billy Lush), who must have spent his entire adolescence playing Grand Theft Auto. Lusting after his first kill, he's a deadeye marksman with a racist bent. Shooting a camel is kinda fun for him, too.
Generation Kill has a demonstrable lack of black characters and just a smattering of Hispanics. But the photos in Wright's book indicate that that's the way it was with this particular group of Marines. So accuracy trumps any worries about political correctness.
Most of the miniseries charts the long march into Baghdad, which isn't reached until the climactic chapter.
"I think I heard an Iraqi shot right in front of me," reporter Wright tells a Marine.
"That's too bad," he rejoins. "He probably would have liked democracy."
Both Lt. Fick and Sgt. Colbert soon have serious misgivings about the confusion and missteps that seem to be turning the so-called liberation of Iraq into an abortion.
"We keep killin' civilians, we're gonna waste this (. . .) victory," Colbert says.
Wright's time is up, though. And after a memorable exit interview with "The Godfather," he's in a chopper headed home.
That was more than five very long years ago. And a majority of Americans since have shown both their distaste for the Iraq war and their reluctance to watch it depicted on either big or small screens.
Generation Kill isn't likely to bring much of a crowd to its seven-week march through HBO's Sunday night lineup. But this is a gutty balls-out effort nonetheless. Its final images, delivered via a laptop and further sold by Cash's currency, serve as a "perfect" ending to a chapter-and-verse depiction of war as hell and warriors as raising-hellboys.
The eventual DVD set might as well be wrapped in sandpaper.
Grade: A-minus
CBS' Flashpoint not your typical summertime dim bulb
07/11/08 12:00 PM
Premiering: Friday, July 11th, at 9 p.m. (central) on CBS
Starring: Enrico Colantoni, Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, David Paetkau, Michael Cram, Sergio Di Zio, ruth Marshall, Philip akin, Lisa Marcos, Mark Taylor
Created by: Mark Ellis, Stephanie Morgenstern
By ED BARK
Taut and often quite terrific, CBS' Flashpoint is that very rare new summer series that won't make you want to shower off all that guilty pleasure residue.
Even rarer, it's scripted and actually uses actors. Oh. My. God.
Filmed in Toronto, created by Canadians and detailing the adventures of the SWAT-like Strategic Response Unit, Flashpoint at first seems like another typically overwrought hour of crime-goosed action.
Its first scene is a tight shot of a bulgy, wild-eyed foreigner holding a blonde-haired woman hostage at gunpoint. Civilians gawk and gasp behind police lines while SRU sergeant Gregory Parker (Enrico Colantoni from Veronica Mars) tries to talk him down. Then comes a relatively brief flashback that both shows how the assailant got there and introduces SRC member Ed Lane (Hugh Dillon), who's got a cute son, a cuter wife and apparently some commitment problems.
Lane turns out to be the unit's crack sniper. And without coughing up too much, Flashpoint really starts to work after it gets past the standoff. Let's just say that Lane is haunted by his occupation and regularly dogged by internal investigators. And Dillon plays him very, very well. He also resembles a younger, L.A. Law era Corbin Bernsen, but with the hair already outta here.
In this premiere episode at least, which will replace a Numb3rs rerun, we learn next to nothing about the featured criminal. He has a caring son, and apparently had a wife, but is otherwise an empty vessel. It would have helped to make him more human.
The stories of various SRC members clearly are going to be fleshed out, though. And it looks as though they'll be worth knowing. For now at least, Lane is a very intriguing head case, Parker's a sturdy team leader, Jules Callaghan (Amy Jo Johnson) knows she's cute and Sam Braddock (David Paetkau) has the assignment of hunky newcomer.
Also of note are the solid production values and music that enhances rather than intrudes, especially at the end. Canadians know how to do this stuff, and Flashpoint has, oh, about one zillion times more texture and heft than ABC's ongoing I Survived a Japanese Game Show.
Grade: B+
Ted Danson/Hellboy; Hellboy/Ted Danson
07/11/08 07:39 AM
Burn Notice back up and running
07/10/08 07:27 AM
By ED BARK
Back for a second season Thursday, Burn Notice pretty much fits the USA network's no-substitutes menu for commercial success.
This is drama with a bounce in its step, following the formulas of Monk, Psych and The Starter Wife, which now is being turned into a series.
USA, owned by NBC Universal, doesn't buy into FX's brand of dark, explosive storytelling driven by battered, tattered lead characters. Burn Notice has explosions, all right. But it's all property damage.
Not that this hasn't made USA increasingly popular of late. Burn Notice, built around a blacklisted spy, ranked as the cable world's No. 1-rated new scripted series last season. It did especially well where it counts -- with advertiser-favored 18-to-49-year-old and 25-to-54-year-old viewers.
So what's not to like? More to the point, there's really nothing to love. Burn Notice (9 p.m. central on Thursdays) is passably entertaining in its heavily narrated tales of spy vs. spies. Its centerpiece, the disenfranchised Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan), jauntily goes about the business of cleaning up messes while also trying to deduce who burned him. Maxwell Smart he's not.
Weston's Miami Beach cohorts are ex-IRA operative/ex-girlfriend Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) and worse-for-wear Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), who still dabbles in military intelligence.
They aid him in various convoluted capers while Weston's chain-smoking mother Madeline (Sharon Gless) serves as a constant irritant. Gless, the former Cagney & Lacey star, hams it up to the point where you'd like to throw momma from the train. Maybe that's supposed to be the point, but too much scenery-chewing can knock a show off track.
The second season premiere episode, subtitled "Old Friends," finds Weston coming to the aid of a schlepper named Jimmy. Some bad guys took his wife and kid for reasons that are hardly made crystal clear. But Weston can save the day by breaking into a heavily fortified office and retrieving some stolen data. First though, he impersonates a ruthless Australian before the well-appointed Fiona easily dupes a typically bald and bowled-over deskman/nebbish in order to get the keys to the kingdom.
"It's so stiff," she tells him, referring to a pen stuck in a notebook holder.
"I'll pull it out," says he. As double entendres go, that's mighty limp.
Meanwhile, Weston's ongoing voice-overs serve as a guidebook for what spies do, don't, won't and can't. There's way too much narration going around these days. It's a lazy device that shirks the more challenging task of writing crisp dialogue.
New this season to Burn Notice is a "handler" named Carla (Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica). She's only heard over the phone in Thursday's re-opener, directing our hero to play ball and risk all. In turn he yearns to learn exactly who she is.
USA will air nine new episodes of Burn Notice on Thursdays before taking a break and returning with seven more in January. It beats watching most of the unscripted slop dominating broadcast networks' schedules this summer. Still, that's hardly a ringing endorsement of a series that in reality has way too little heat.
Grade: C
The Office punches in early -- with four new "webisodes"
07/09/08 11:30 AM
What runs for 8 minutes, 30 seconds, is without Steve Carell and makes No. 4-rated NBC look visionary in times of trouble for its conventional prime-time lineup?
It's the second batch of "webisodes" for The Office, "premiering" Thursday, July 10th at 2 p.m. (central) on NBC.com.
Titled "Kevin's Loan" and running in four weekly installments, they showcase Office second banana Brian Baumgartner as title character Kevin Malone.
"Steve Carell may be the star of The Office, but I am huge on the Internet," Baumgartner says in a teleconference.
NBC trailblazed this path two Julys ago with its first collection of Office briefs, which won a -- woo hoo -- "Webby" as best Comedy Short. In "Kevin's Loan," he tries to pay off some unspecified gambling debts by borrowing money for an ice cream store he has no intention of opening.
"When you get a loan, you don't have to use it for exactly what you say you're gonna, right?" Brian asks co-worker Oscar (Oscar Nunez). Well, yeah, you do, he's told. Otherwise it's fraud.
Each webisode runs a little over two minutes. Baumgartner calls them "kind of guerilla filmmaking."
"There's a particular rhythm that you have to find that's different," he says. "We're dealing with a much smaller crew."
Plot lines have to be dangled while each webisode also offers a complete mini-story to at least a small degree. NBC's Heroes will follow Office's lead on July 14th with the debut of its first multi-part webisode, subtitled "Going Postal." As with The Office, secondary characters are getting a chance to shine.
Financial compensation for "new media" content is at the heart of ongoing negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. But Baumgartner says their dispute is "much less about this than it is about when they want to try new material and new shows."
The first Office webisodes two years ago "were much a litmus test," he says. "I think it sort of changed the way everybody was looking at online (material) and what the networks were making performers and writers do in terms of additional content . . . Now it's a little different. All of the contracts are going to have an online component as sort of a part of their package."
Last month, NBC's version of The Office won a "Future Classic" trophy at the annual TV Land awards show.
But a recent Entertainment Weekly issue devoted to the so-called "New Classics" of the past 25 years ranked the Ricky Gervais-led British Office at No. 17 while relegating the Peacock's to 61st place below series such as The WB's Felicity (No. 52) and the syndicated Xena: Warrior Princess (No. 60).
"I do love Entertainment Weekly," Baumgartner says after being goaded by unclebarky.com. "But the British Office was terrible."
That's a joke. And here's a look at some excerpts from the new Office webisodes:
Ted Koppel and Discovery rechristen China "The People's Republic of Capitalism"
07/08/08 03:37 PM
Premiering: Wednesday, July 9th at 9 p.m. (central) and continuing at the same hour through Saturday on the Discovery Channel
Anchored and reported by: Ted Koppel
Produced by: Ted Koppel and Tom Bettag
By ED BARK
Behold the master at work in what he bills as "the most extensive project I've ever undertaken."
That's saying something for former Nightline maestro Ted Koppel, even if he does say so himself in press materials.
Home base for his sixth Discovery Channel documentary -- The People's Republic of Capitalism -- is China's gift to urban sprawl and latter day capitalism. For four nights and as many hours, Koppel and his longtime producing partner, Tom Bettag, examine in depth what's become of Chongqing, China, a southwestern industrial megaplex with a population of 13.5 million and growing.
They begin, though, in Rolla, Missouri, where a Briggs & Stratton plant has laid off its workforce and instead opened a shop in Chongqing. The labor there is cheap, reliable and malleable. Meanwhile, middle-aged former assembly line workers are "shuffling through a job fair" back in Rolla.
In a way, this is oddly a good thing. Or it's at least less than an entirely one-sided tradeoff.
U.S. companies with some plants in China can make and sell products far cheaper, with Wal-Mart their mecca back home. By keeping prices down and moving their goods at a brisker pace, they in turn can still afford to keep some otherwise imperiled U.S. plants alive and reasonably well.
Those same disenfranchised Rolla workers do much of their shopping at Wal-Mart, which is top-heavy with discount-priced products made cheaper in China. A 50-year-old woman who used to work at the Rolla Briggs & Stratton plant is understandably bitter about being laid off. But she's also speechless when asked about the ancillary benefits of losing her job.
China, meanwhile, imposes heavy fines on couples who dare to have more than the government-sanctioned one child. And most of its workers, although increasingly better off financially, are still paid a shameful pittance for their long hours at menial jobs.
In a deft touch, Koppel illustrates the drudgery of an assembly line by repeating four times -- each time more rapidly -- "Snap it on. Plug it in. Check it out. Send it off." His kicker: "It's an endless, mindless, bottomless pit of a job."
A young woman, for instance, makes about $20 a week putting together boom boxes headed to Wal-Mart.
"Do you guys get high pay?" she asks Koppel.
"Yeah, we get high pay. Yeah," he replies.
"How much?"
"Too much," he says. "Maybe you should be a television reporter. What do you think?"
She thinks that would be good because working on an assembly line is a waste of her talent. Koppel for some reason gets a huge chuckle out of this. He sometimes does seem to have his nose a bit in the air.
Wednesday's chapter, titled "Joined At the Hip," is followed on successive nights by "MAOism to MEism," "The Fast Lane" and "It's the Economy, Stupid."
Koppel interviews a wide range of Chongqing denizens, including miners, prosperous developers, dirt poor peasants, teenage girls serving as "hosts" at a karaoke club and a conflicted young fashion photographer. On the one hand, he feels that his creativity is stifled. But he has no interest in dissenting against a government that he fully trusts to do the right thing.
"Talk about anything you like. Just don't get political," Koppel says of the capitalism that's replaced Chinese communism without an attendant explosion in individual freedoms.
Still, very much has changed, which The People's Republic of Capitalism also makes abundantly clear.
Koppel and crew spent a year putting this together, completing most of their work before May's devastating earthquake in China's Sichuan province. Some of the horrifying damage is depicted in still pictures while the focus remains on China's other seismic shifts as the Beijing-based Summer Olympics draw near.
It's all very eye-opening, with Koppel probing and sometimes prodding in a continuous effort to peel away all these layers. When an American developer says that "rampant democracy" would be bad for China's business climate, Koppel chides him for "pissing on democracy" enroute to getting rich.
The four-hour program is dedicated in the end to one of its associate producers, John Alexander, whom press materials say "died suddenly at age 26" in Chongqing. Koppel, for the record, is 68. Time marches on, but has yet to take him down.
Grade: A
The Peacock plucks another cable property
07/07/08 06:54 AM
By ED BARK
NBC Universal has suctioned up another formerly independent cable network, adding to the 10 it already owns.
The Weather Channel is its latest acquisition, with NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker delivering another dollop of network-speak in a statement released Sunday.
"This will further position NBC Universal as the leading provider of news, information and weather, both online and on television," he said. "Joining with The Weather Channel properties plays to our strengths in developing and programming cable networks, and in producing and distributing high-quality content across multiple platforms."
The words "high-quality content" are subject to interpretation. Under NBC Universal ownership since 2002, Bravo has been shorn of any art house ambitions and become home to a glut of gut-level reality series ranging from the bad (The It Factor) to the ugly (Being Bobby Brown) to the pretty good Project Runway).
The Weather Channel might be impervious to too much damage, although you can expect an uptick in both weather babes and disaster-themed series and specials.
NBC Universal also is likely to end -- whenever the contracts expire -- all ongoing partnerships with rival local stations. CBS-owned KTVT-TV (Channel 11) in Dallas-Fort Worth currently is partnered with The Weather Channel.
In addition to its longstanding broadcast network, NBC Universal also owns cable's Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Chiller, Oxygen, Sci Fi, Sleuth, Telemundo, Universal HD and USA.
Geraldo Rivera: Born on the Fourth of July and now Medicare-ready
07/03/08 09:46 AM
By ED BARK
Pugnacious, flirtatious, bloodied but unbowed, Geraldo Rivera turns 65 on the Fourth of July.
It seems, though, that he's been with us forever and a day, stalking bad guys, regularly making an ass of himself and sometimes exorcising his evil twin -- during a respectable CNBC period.
Rivera, still hangin' on at Fox News Channel, most famously struck ratings gold in April 1986. That's when his first post-ABC News syndicated special blasted into Al Capone's vaults and came up empty during a live, two-hour special.
"This is an adventure you and I are going to be taking together," he brayed before a wrecking crew dug in to no avail. But Rivera is still right in proclaiming that The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults was and likely always will be the most-watched syndicated program in TV history. Take a look at this evocative clip, narrated by Rivera on the show's 20th anniversary:
Read a good Lost book lately?
07/02/08 12:19 PM
By ED BARK
Four seasons and 47 volumes later, Lost has turned another page.
The mindbending ABC series now has its own "book club" on abc.com. Oprah's probably not worried yet. But executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse figure you'll enrich yourself, if not them, by reading a few of the hard- and soft bounds pictured or mentioned during the series.
"To paraphrase one of our heroes, Stephen King, to be a writer one must first be a reader," they write to Lost fans. "We find ourselves constantly striving for even a small measure of the accomplishment of what all these authors have achieved in their books.
"Pick up any of them and experience the richness of storytelling, character, and theme, and then allow your imagination to connect all that back into our show. We can't promise you any of these books will lead you to answers about Lost, but we can promise you'll be enriched for having read them."
There's ample time. Lost isn't scheduled to return until January with what will be its second-to-last season. So if you want to connect or re-connect with the aforementioned King, he's represented with Carrie.
The complete list of 47 books is on the Web site, but here are a few talking points compiled by unclebarky.com:
***Only two authors have had more than one book on Lost. Charles Dickens is represented by A Tale of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend, his last novel. Lewis Carroll is saluted with Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
***Five books figure into the storylines of two different episodes. They are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness; William Golding's Lord of the Flies; Richard Adams' Watership Down; Aldous Huxley's Island and Gary Troup's Bad Twin. Hmm.
***The two-hour pilot episode of Lost made reference to Heart of Darkness, Alice In Wonderland, Island, Watership Down and B.F. Skinner's Walden Two. Double hmm.
***Yours truly has bought just one book directly because of Lost. It's Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, prominently featured in the last episode of Season Two and heartbreakingly tied to Desmond Hume's love for Penny Widmore.
I must admit, though, that the 892-page Penguin softcover version has remained unread since arriving from amazon.com, one of the proud sponsors of unclebarky.com.
So maybe it's best to get busy with it, and "fall through the rabbit hole with us!" as Lindelof and Cuse say at the end of their "Dear Lost Reader" letter.
Let's start right now: "In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in . . ."