Static Zombie

The Other Russell

It's always sad to see someone removed from Survivor for medical reasons, but Russell's removal was particularly harsh. As Jeff said, he was extremely well-positioned in the game. But the thing of it is, this was his own damn fault. His pride did him in. He was tired-- his tribemates saw that, and suggested that he sit out the challenge and rest. But he couldn't see just how bad off he was, he let his pride trump his prudence, and he paid the price.

I would love to see a season with everyone who's ever been removed for medical reasons invited back. There aren't enough of them to make up a full cast, so throw in everyone who's ever been voted out first. The season of second chances. People try so hard to get onto the show. Getting medically removed or voted out before the game's even really begun must be a tremendous blow. Give them all a shot at redemption.

Doppeled Again?

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season premiere of Fringe.

I am incredibly angry at Fringe and, by extension, JJ Abrams.

As soon as Charlie started walking down the hall toward the furnace, I groaned and said to my wife, "Please tell me he's not going to replace Charlie." And that's exactly what happened.

Last season was so good, and my hopes for this season were even higher. Then they go and do this. It's a cheap trick, and it was done cheaply. Based on what we'd already seen, there was nowhere near enough time for the villain to kill and copy Charlie, let alone retrieve the doctor's body from whereever he'd stashed it-- we'll give the benefit of the doubt and say it was in the same room-- and position it to be found by Peter. It was a horrible cheat.

And it's a cheat we've seen before, when Sydney's best friend Francine was killed and replaced by a doppelganger on Alias. Hey JJ, just because you're stealing from yourself doesn't make it any less lazy.

I liked Charlie. Though he was often peripheral, he served an important function, connecting Olivia to the real world. He was her anchor. Taking him away may advance the plot, but it insults the audience and weakens the show. I am not looking forward to weeks of Charlie's sinister looks behind Olivia's back. How tedious. This show had so many other great things going for it-- there was no need to resort to such a hackneyed stunt.

Perhaps in the other universe, there's a show called Fringe not written by hacks.

Treemail

Do you believe Russell's savvy now?

The man is thinking a few moves ahead. Assuming that, as has been true for the past few seasons, there would be an immunity idol hidden in their camp and trying to figure out where it would be was brilliant. That he actually found it floored me. Kudos to Russell, but shame on the producers. This should be a sign to them that they've gotten lazy and predictable. Granted, nobody was going to stick their head under that tree accidentally, but if you're looking for the idol it was a pretty reasonable think to check. They should have buried it somewhere away from camp that wouldn't be stumbled upon and could only be found with the clues in hand. Shamefully lazy, really.

I'm now hoping against hope that Russell somehow manages to get the other idol too.

I'm not sure why Yasmin's there, but it sure as hell isn't to win a million dollars. Instead of making friends and recruiting allies for later in the game, she used her visit to alienate every single person on the other tribe. How can anyone be so clueless? I don't think she'll be around very long.

This was the first of two medical evacuations this season. The full-contact physical challenges have been getting more brutal season by season. They just seem like really bad ideas-- the players have no protective padding, are in 115 degree heat, and haven't been eating well. That's a recipe for disaster. I'm amazed we haven't seen broken bones.

And kids, here's one last important survival tip: if you're going to float around a swamp all afternoon, be sure not to ruin your tribe's fishing gear.

Survivor: Samoa

Let's cut to the chase. We're only one episode in, and it's already clear that this season will be all about Russell. I can only imagine how many little happy dances the production team must have done as the dailies came back. If Coach was Survivor gold, Russell is platinum.

I think it's hilarious that this guy is a multimillionaire, and is there to play the game. It's not about the money for him, it's about going up against opponents mentally and physically. I feel sorry for everyone else this season, because they're playing an entirely different game and don't even know it.

I'm surprised the rules permit players to destroy other players' stuff. Getting rid of an opponent's socks may seem small, but that player is going to be really unhappy, physically uncomfortable, and disadvantaged. Imagine trashing their shoes, or their underwear. Why not plant a snake in their bed? What exactly are the limits of what players can or can't do? It seems like if you can avoid getting seen by other players, you could get away with a lot-- especially if you remember to sabotage yourself in a trivial way, so nobody suspects you.

What amazed me about tribal council was that Russell appeared to be completely honest, saying Marisa told him she was feeling uncomfortable about him. And instead of everyone thinking, "Geez, Russell totally turned on her based on a single minor comment, that guy's trouble" they all rallied behind him. They all viewed Marisa as the guilty party (or decided to jump on the "anyone but me" bandwagon). And Marisa, after Russell stabbed her in the back at tribal, didn't even have the sense to out him as a snake and tell everyone that he approached her about having a secret alliance.

I love that Betsy, the cop, smells a rat, but hated that she a) chose to say something about it to Ashley (if I'm remembering that right), and b) proceeded to call Ashley out as the weak link at tribal council. You can bet Russell is going to hear about Betsy's mistrust of him, and I have no doubt he'll engineer her ouster. She's the oldest woman in the tribe, it shouldn't be a hard sell. I'd have thought Betsy would be smart enough to keep her eyes open and her mouth shut, her friends close and her enemies closer.

This could be a very entertaining season.

Abusive Relationships You Can't Bring Yourself To Leave, For $1000 Please Alex.

Attention, Heroes writers. You used Adam's blood to restore Nathan to perfect health after he got nuked at the end of season 1. You used Claire's blood to bring Noah back from the dead after he was shot in the eye and killed in season 2. And somehow nobody in the Petrelli/Bennet clan thinks to use Claire's blood to resurrect Nathan?

This is the difference between you and gifted practitioners of the writing craft. A Joss Whedon or a J. Michael Straczynski, after establishing the power of Claire's blood earlier in the series, would bring that thread back at such a critical moment. If that plot point became inconvenient, prior to the finale they'd illustrate why Claire's blood would not be a viable solution so that when the fateful event happened, the outcome would feel logical and tragic. What a good writer would not do is pretend that Claire's blood of Lazarus does not exist, while balancing on one foot and waving his hands madly through the air in the hope that the audience wouldn't notice.

I complain because I love. The show had such promise, once. It had wonder, and fun, and mystery. It had characters with motivations that made sense. It had the audacity to put a character named Hiro on the hero's journey. Then it developed an ability. The ability to defy logic, defy credulity, defy established characterization. The ability to go completely off the rails.

I should break the cycle of disappointment and leave the show, but I'm still in love with what it used to be. And deep inside, it has the potential to become that thing again. So I beg you. Find your characters again. Rediscover who these people were, and why viewers tuned in to watch them.

Otherwise, I might finally develop the ability to change the channel.

Angels and Feldercarb

Spoilers ho for the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

It's hard to know where to begin. There were so many disappointing reveals and moments of lazy writing in the finale, it was as if the producers, much like the ragtag fleet itself, was just exhausted and wanted the long journey to be over.

• Anders can just be put in a water bath and "plugged in", and suddenly he's a hybrid, and can "confuse the hybrids" and get them to shut down the defenses? How very Locutus of Borg. "Sleep... Data..." What the hell are the hybrids, anyway?
• We never really found out what Starbuck was. A ghost? A spirit? Makes no sense-- they ran tests on her when she got back, so she was flesh and blood. And yet, when her "journey" was over, she just vanishes. Gone. And Lee doesn't blink.
• Baltar and Caprica have been seeing ANGELS all this time? Angels that manipulate them in petty ways, with no obvious goal? Angels that did whatever the writers wanted them to do because they didn't have an endgame in mind at the time? Bah.
• The dream of the opera house was about various people protecting Hera during the battle on the Galactica? Why did that need to foreshadowed to those people years in advance? It made no sense.
• Speaking of no sense... Cavil agrees to give up Hera in exchange for Resurrection. I buy that. But when things go a little weird during the transfer of data, the Cylons freak out and start shooting everyone without being provoked. And then, in the midst of all this... Cavil kills himself. What?!
• They'd already established that Ellen knew the secret to Resurrection, back when Cavil held her captive. So the Final Five needing to join minds in order to transfer that data made no sense. On top of that, it was just a deus ex machina for a) finally revealing to Galen that Tory had killed Cally, and b) getting the Cylons to freak out and essentially self-destruct.
• Speaking of deus ex machina-- with a pilot actively navigating, a rock still flies through the canopy of a raptor and kills everyone. Yet that raptor-- now without a pilot to dodge incoming rocks or missiles-- manages to remain intact within that same debris field during a space battle, only to get nudged by a random impact so that it's facing the station when the dead pilot's arm falls on the exposed, unprotected, glowing FIRE button. Completely unnecessary and breaking credulity.
• No surprise that the mysterious notes deliver the fleet to our Earth, but what a cheat that the "Earth" we saw earlier wasn't the one we're living on. They more or less telegraphed it earlier in the season by never showing an establishing shot of the planet where our continents were visible, but it still felt cheap.
• We STILL don't know why Hera matters. They wound up on a planet full of primitive humans-- plenty of breeding stock. What's the big deal about Hera?

I wish more television writers would look to J. Michael Straczynski as a model for how to do long-form television with a roadmap. He planned Babylon 5 as a 5-year story, knowing the broad strokes of where all the characters and plotlines were headed before the first episode was written. The result was a series that thundered to a satisfying close with payoffs that made sense and felt natural. I suppose there's little incentive for television writers to go that route. It doesn't matter if the conclusion fails to satisfy, as long as they brought enough eyeballs along for the ride. TV writers are snake-oil salesmen, and we keep buying.

Frak.

Bug-Eyed Lament

Spoilers for the Top Chef finale follow.

The W and I wailed in dismay last night as we watched Carla get steamrolled out of making her own food. At the start of the season we never would have guessed Carla would make it to the finale ("That's what I believe, Tom!"), but we've been rooting for her the whole way. And what got her there was staying true to herself, executing perfectly on simple dishes. So when she let Casey talk her into sous viding her beef, a technique Carla had never used before, the chorus of "Nooooooooooo!" from our living room could be heard down the block. When Casey nudged her from a cheese tart to a cheese souffle, we knew Carla was in trouble. I just felt so terrible for her. She lost for the wrong reasons, and she'll never know what would have happened if she'd only cooked her own food (or drew a different sous chef!). I think the judges would have loved to have awarded her the title, if Carla had only given them the room to do so.

But if it couldn't be Carla, at least it wasn't Stefan. The man was clearly the best chef throughout the entire season, but he was just so insufferably smug about it that each week I not-so-silently hoped for his comeuppance. Crowning him as Top Chef would have been respectable and certainly deserved, but schadenfreude was certainly more satisfying.

As for Hosea... meh. He was good but not great throughout. Head judge Tom Colicchio has long maintained that they make each decision in a vacuum, with no regard for past performance. This season's winner certainly bears that out.

Hosea won the title, but Carla won our hearts.

Survivor: Gabon

Well I think it says a lot about this season of Survivor that we're multiple weeks in and this is my first post about the series-- and even this is only because of a plaintive voicemail from a loyal reader jonesing for his Survivor blog fix.

After the brilliance of last season's Fans Vs. Favorites, this go-round has been almost entirely unremarkable. It's the curse of the landlocked Survivor. I'm not sure why, but when there's no beach, there's less fun. And no, it has nothing to do with bikinis.

No idea why nobody trusts Ace. He hasn't done anything sneaky yet and he hasn't betrayed anyone. Is it the accent? Sugar has surprised me. I expected to dislike and dismiss the "retro pinup model" as a shallow bubblehead, but she's surprisingly endearing and seems to have more wit behind that face than expected. Then again, she left the idol in her bag and told Kenny she gave it to Ace, so perhaps she's not the brightest bulb. Could have been a brilliant move to put the target on Ace's back instead of hers if the tribe wanted to flush out the idol-- "I don't have it, I gave it to Ace!" but that's clearly not what she intended since she took it back from him almost immediately.

Meanwhile, Crystal is the biggest disappointment in the history of the game. The woman's a former Olympic runner, but she's completely tanked in every single challenge-- including the one in which the only thing she had to do was run! Everyone sees her as an asset because she's big, but in reality she's contributing nothing. When she gets voted out, as I think she will soon after the merge, she's going to be one of those bitter jury members who thinks she deserved it more than the people who lasted longer.

My money right now is on Marcus and Corinne. Everyone seems to be in love with Marcus, and Corinne seems sharp and shrewd. It'll be interesting to see if the physically weaker players like Kenny sail to the end under the radar.

Hole in the Wall

This thing doesn't deserve to last, which means it will probably be a runaway hit. The idea is paper (styrofoam?) thin, but could be some good fun. Instead, it's tawdy humor of the lowest order. The producers seem to have gone out of their way to cast obese people and then give them holes that are flat-out impossible for an obese person to pass through. That's unfair and unfun. In episode one tonight, I was actually impressed with the game's fairness. The sumos got larger holes, the jockeys thinner ones. In episode two, however, both teams were oversize (including the daughter of Fred "Rerun" Berry, for Pete's sake!), but the holes were sized for supermodels. It was epic fail after epic fail, and it all seemed calculated for cheap humor at the big people's expense. Shame. But perhaps that's to be expected from a show that a) casts Brooke Burns as hostess and b) dresses her in the shortest dress they could get past network censors.

As for "Get ready to face... the hole." I assume the mass audience snickering was edited out.

Restless Leg BSG Theory

Starbuck is the final Cylon.

"You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead your people to their end."

The hyrbid wasn't talking about the Colonial fleet. She was talking about the Cylons. Starbuck's actions-- finding the damaged base ship-- will result in the destruction of the resurrection hub, thus making all Cylons mortal-- in effect, leading them to their end.

If Starbuck isn't the final Cylon, kudos to the writers for setting up such a wholly believable misdirection.

Best... Season... Ever

Tonight I caught up on Survivor through the finale. If this season proves anything, it's that when you make a deal with the Devil, the man with the horns really comes through. There's no other way to explain the otherwise inexplicably great television Mark Burnett managed to pull out of people who supposedly really knew the game.

As far as Ozzy goes, you can't blame him for not playing his idol and trusting his alliance. The gloves hadn't truly come off yet. Ozzy had to know in his heart that he had no prayer of making it to the finals, that nobody would want to go up against him. But there was no reason for him to believe that an ally would turn on him then.

Jason, on the other hand, had no excuse. Having just seen the guy with the immunity idol get betrayed, he should have had a clue. For him to believe the women wouldn't vote for him was stupidity of the highest order. Or so I thought. Turns out it was only the second-highest order, and that another player would later change the Survivor motto to include "Out-stupid."

Where the heck did they find Erik? A cryo-chamber from the fifties? I didn't think they made people that naive anymore. As a lifelong fan of the show, the boy should have picked up some lessons. Instead, his eyes were too wide to see anything clearly, and he got hoodwinked by the biggest load of bull since Ferdinand. I don't think he would have won the game had he not thrown himself under the bus, but Parvati was right-- hands down the dumbest player ever. The best reaction was James, proclaiming that he-- having been voted out with TWO immunity idols in his pocket in his own season-- was no longer the dumbest player.

Speaking of James, as much as it sucked for him to be medically removed from the game, his only chance to make ti to the end was to win all the immunities. Not impossible, but unlikely-- he's just not as good an all-around player as Ozzy. So I don't feel like he was shafted as much as Jonathan was.

I don't understand why Parvati and Amanda voted Alexis out instead of Natalie when Amanda used the hidden immunity idol. Alexis might have seemed like a bigger threat with the jury, but with her injured leg she was a far weaker threat in challenges. The right move was to get rid of Natalie first, then make sure Alexis didn't get immunity and oust her next. It turned out not to matter, of course, but it was a baffler nevertheless.

As far as the final tribal council goes, I'm very surprised at how bitter Ozzy was. It's a game. Parvati made a move in the game. It doesn't say anything about how she values friendships outside of it. Again and again on Survivor and Big Brother, people get their feelings hurt when people they hadn't even met a month earlier decide to look after themselves first, when that's exactly the game they signed up for. TWICE, in Ozzy's case. And people like Eliza sit there with smug, holier-than-thou expressions on their faces, thinking they're above it all when really they're just bitter that their game wasn't as good as that of the people who haven't yet been ousted. I'm not saying I wouldn't be angry if my chance at a million bucks slipped away due to the machinations of others, but at least have the decency to respect the game and deal with it.

But what the heck was the deal with Natalie's question to Parvati? I didn't even understand it.

Parvati's game was definitely stronger than Amanda's, but I didn't think she had a chance with the jury. Looks like the women all respected Parvati's aggression and disdained Amanda's more passive approach. You have to feel a little bad for Amanda, who made it to the finals two seasons in a row and lost the final vote each time.

I wish Probst would have polled the jury to see how they would have voted had it been a final three instead of a final two. It would have been interesting to see how many votes would have gone to Cirie.

And finally... Parvati's actual last name is Shallow. You just can't make that up.

Petards, and Getting Hoisted Thereon

I was literally giggling with glee at the result of this week's Survivor tribal council, as Joel reaped what he had sown. The beauty of it is that even though he recognized the poetic justice of the situation a priori, once the axe came down on his head his final remarks indicated he could dish it out but couldn't take it. "How could they vote to keep someone like Chet?" he asked. He should know the answer to that, because he did it twice himself!. Joel went about the game all wrong from the start. The Fans should have banded together from the outset under the theory that the advantage would be with the Favorites' greater experience, and so they needed to remain united to have any chance. Instead Joel began by picking off the greatest threats to him personally, ignoring the larger needs of his team. Good riddance to bad rubbish, says I.

But let's talk about Cirie, who looked like she'd swallowed the canary during tribal council. That woman is playing the game harder than anyone else on the island, and none of the other players even know it. If they realized how crafty she's being, they'd bounce her in a heartbeat. She's doing all the right things. To stay alive, she has to band together with other "weaker" players and pick off the strong ones until the merge. While it's a team game, the physically weak are vulnerable, but once it becomes an individual game the equation inverts and the physical threats need to watch their backs while the weak cruise forward. Her game is all about surviving to the merge. I'm a little surpised Ozzy and Amanda agreed to oust Joel-- I'd have thought they'd have been confident enough to keep him around for the sake of a stronger tribe. All they have to do is make it to the merge and get reunited with James and Parvati, and the four of them are in a potentially great position.

I can't wait to see the faces of the other tribe when they learn that Joel was voted out. I'm predicting slack-jawed shock all around.

That was a brutal reward challenge. I suspect the producers had no idea it would become such an injury factory. But really-- Joel and Chet? How either of them agreed to that pairing is a mystery. I hope Jonathan isn't removed from the game because of his injury. That's just a horrible way to leave Survivor, not knowing if you'd have been able to make it to the end. But that wound looked nasty, and a choice between staying in the game and risking death is no choice at all.

Survivor: Fans vs Favorites

I'm not sure why they bothered with the "Micronesia" subtitle this season. Even Jeff Probst has dispensed with the tribe name malarky, just calling them Fans and Favorites.

Palau winner Tom Westman was the only previous winner invited to participate in this mini-All-Stars season, and he wisely declined with sage reasoning. He won his season without ever having a single vote cast against him. He has nothing left to prove, and playing again would only result in tarnishing that achievement. The rest of the Favorites are eager for a second shot at the million dollar brass ring. Except for Fairplay, who only deepened my disaste for him by taking up one of the coveted spots in the cast and then asking to be voted out (and had the gall to insist at tribal council that it wasn't a "quit"). Here's Osten's phone number. Have some drinks.

Jonathan continues to get a bad rap. As I remember it, the man never lied or backstabbed anyone during his season. He was simply tagged as being untrustworthy, likely because of his accent and pushiness, and it stuck. He's certainly shown more leadership and loyalty toward his alliance this season than others have.

I don't understand why the Yau-Man stick got so far up Cirie's butt as to impair her judgment. Yau-Man is definitely a weaker player physically, and from that standpoint a reasonable candidate for eviction. But Cirie wasn't playing that angle. She was so terrified of likable yet weak, one-dimensional Yau-Man getting the immunity idol, she sided with two couples to evict him. No alliance is a bigger threat than a couple. With only one other person to be loyal to, couple alliances don't fall prey to internal squabbling or playing one member off another. They're dangerous. When one member of the couple is one of the strongest physical players in the history of the game, that alliance is terrifying. When TWO such alliances exist, only a fool would pass up the chance-- the imperative-- to break them up. The possibility of that move paying off for her in the long run doesn't change the fact that strategically, it was beyond stupid.

I'd love to know how Ozzy managed to get everyone to agree to send him to Exile Island. If I were a Favorite, the LAST person I'd put within reach of an immunity idol is Ozzy. What the hell were they thinking? I really hope the guy wins-- he's a phenomenal physical player, and it's been a little while since we've seen one of those win the day. Taking a page from Yau-Man's book by creating a fake immunity idol is genius. I just hope someone falls for it!

Meanwhile, over at the Fans' camp, we have the biggest egomaniac ever to play the game. Joel was so bothered by the idea of someone else on the tribe calling the shots-- or thinking he was calling the shots-- that he twice opted to weaken the tribe rather than let that slight against his manhood go unchecked. Major props to Tracy, Yoyo-Ma to Joel's testosterone-riddled cello. Brilliantly played. Fear her.

Kathy, meanwhile, is so starstruck at meeting past players that she's blown the major advantage of being on Exile Island three times by completely bailing on the quest for the idol. When she gets voted out, she'll have nobody to blame but herself. That idol had her name written all over it.

Next week's shuffling of the tribes should change everything, depending on who winds up where. I'm quite enjoying this season. The mix of new and old faces struck a perfect balance, and all it cost was a tiny bit more of Mark Burnett's soul.

Torchwood

When the BBC brought back longtime favorite Doctor Who a few years ago, they made some very smart changes. Instead of a serial format where stories extend over multiple half-hours, stories became self-contained one-hour episodes. Production values were upgraded from what can only be called laughable to something much more in tune with what modern viewers expect-- ie, CGI instead of rubber masks. The baggage of thirty years of mythology was largely pitched, with key elements slowly reintroduced for modern viewers. But fundamentally, Doctor Who remained a family program suitable for early evening viewing.

Enter Torchwood. If you live in the United States and don't get BBC America, you've been missing out on the best new science fiction series since Battlestar Galactica. Torchwood spins off both a guest character and its name from Doctor Who (the two titles are anagrams), but ventures into darker, sexier territory than the Tardis ever explored. I like to describe Torchwood as Britain's answer to The X-Files, but without the endlessly strung-out government conspiracy / alien invasion hoo-ha dragging it down.

An impressive feat, since Torchwood itself is a secret government conspiracy. It's an agency established by Queen Victoria who, upon meeting The Doctor, realized that aliens could pose a threat to the world (and by extension, Britain). Torchwood exists "outside government" (much like the Bush administration) to monitor alien threats, recover alien technology, and prepare humanity for the 21st century when, according to the show's intro, "everything changes." The Cardiff branch of Torchwood is led by Captain Jack Harkness, an openly bisexual man with a mysterious past who, thanks to some shenanigans in the first season of Doctor Who, cannot die. His support team includes medical officer Owen, computer specialist Tosh, and admin Ianto. Police officer Gwen joins up in episode one and becomes the viewer's point-of-view character.

Torchwood isn't as cerebral or philosophical as Battlestar Galactica, nor as juvenile as Doctor Who-- it's a more mature detective-adventure romp with sophisticated storylines and character development. Even the sophomoric premise of episode two-- alien sex-fiend possesses humans and anyone copulating with it dissolves into dust-- is treated with surprising style and depth.

The good news is, the complete first season of Torchwood has just been released on DVD, and season two begins on BBC America this week-- so now's the time to jump aboard and see what you've been missing.

They're Still Pissed the Earth Doesn't Revolve Around Them

Wow. Just, wow.

But what can you expect from a culture that reveres Jerry Lewis?

Survivors Ready... Screwed!

I'm all for mixing it up a little, but this week's twist was colossally ill-considered. Tribes have gotten shuffled in all sorts of ways in the past, most commonly by random draw or a draft. The former, being random, is by definition completely fair. The outcome may wind up favoring some and disadvantaging others, but nobody is predisposed to wind up in either group. The draft is weighted toward the people doing the draft, but so much can change afterward that the advantage is relatively weak. Taking the two strongest members from each tribe and sending them over to the other side, on the other hand, is virtually guaranteed to punish the players who have arguably been the best players thus far.

At that stage of the game, the defectors are going to be outnumbered by the old guard in their new tribe. If that tribe loses an immunity challenge, it's a no-brainer to decide to pick off the defectors instead of eating their own-- especially because it happened late enough in the game that players can reasonably expect a merge to come before too long. Peigee's decision to throw the challenge and dump a strong competitor, as loathesome as it was, was spot-on correct. Assuming a merge is coming, it's downright brilliant. She's killing two birds with one stone, knocking out the strongest individual competitors while preserving the numbers on her original tribe. If that tribe holds together post-merge, it puts them in a position of great advantage. If her theory is wrong and the merge doesn't happen, it could be trouble-- but the merge has always happened in the 8-10 player range (and most often at the high end), so it's a reasonable gamble.

The problem is that the producers should have seen this coming. This shuffle was GUARANTEED to screw the players deemed the strongest. As a viewer I find it abhorrent. As a player, I might even find it actionable. I detest twists like this that arbitrarily screw a player's game. I'd rather players be allowed to pursue their strategies and play them out to their natural conclusions. But this twist is even worse-- it seems calculated to undermine or eliminate the players who are most dominant and threatening to the rest. And since those players didn't know it was coming, they had no chance to consider changing their play style beforehand to adapt to it. A strong player always runs the risk of being voted out prematurely, but they compensate for it by building alliances and winning immunities. This twist nullified those options and left the strong players to hang in the wind.

Mark Burnett, let the contestants play the game. Don't play them.

Heroes of a Thousand Cliches

Even without catching up with Nikki, D.L, Micah, Candice, or why-did-we-bother-creating-this-character-at-all-I-Can-Hear-The-Internet-Girl, there were too many balls in the air in the season premiere of Heroes. And most of them were worn and pock-marked from overuse. Accidentally meddling with history and being forced to make things right is the oldest time travel trope there is-- combining it with the "your hero isn't the hero you thought he was" chestnut doesn't make it any fresher. And... amensia? Really, that's the best you can do? <shakes head ruefully>.

So let's review the big picture plot threads: We've got a Very Bad Man Molly's having nightmares about. The Linderman conspiracy members are being stalked and killed by one of their own. A virus exists that depowers and kills Heroes. Meanwhile, Peter's got to regain his identity, Mohinder's infiltrating The Company, and Hiro's playing Sancho Panza.

The most intriguing moment was when Nathan saw a scarred reflection of himself. My first thought was that Peter had picked up Candice's ability, Nathan died in the explosion, and that was really Peter. Future Hiro, after all, said that Peter looked much different without his scar. Peter's appearance in the shipping container throws a wrench in that theory, but the flying kid hitting on Claire gives me a different take on that theory. Nathan? Still dead. But the explosion somehow split Peter into multiple people: the flying kid, amnesiac Peter, and guilt-ridden-Peter-as-Nathan. The kid was a little too interested in Claire right out of the gate (although, really, who can blame him-- Hayden Panettiere is a beauty), and his whole robot/alien thing sounded very Peteresque to me. While there's no reason two heroes can't have the same ability, we haven't seen any duplication yet-- so the fact that the kid can fly and has a special interest in Claire makes me wonder if he's a fragment of Peter.

Worst. Play. Ever.

After a long period of inactivity here-- and ample things to blog about-- what drove me to post was tonight's collossal strategic error on Big Brother.

After Dick nominated Jameka and Eric, I had a flash of excitement when I realized the coolest possibility. If Zach won the power of veto, he could rescue one of the nominees-- leaving Dick with no choice but to nominate Daniele. Zach and the rescued nominee could then vote her out! It would be a thing of beauty.

So when Zach actually won the power of veto, I was elated! I just hoped that he'd be smart enough to figure that out, or that Eric would think of it and convince him to do it. And watching Zach's expression, it looked like he'd worked it out on his own. When he stood to announce his decision, I thought he'd make the obvious play and split up the strongest alliance in the house.

Imagine my shock when he opted not to use the veto. What a lummox! The playing field would have been completely level with Eric, Jameka, Dick, and Zach remaining. Instead, Jameka and Zach are up against an unbreakable alliance, and Daniele is a fierce competitor who's won more competitions than anyone else in the house. What the hell was he thinking?

With Eric gone, Dick and Daniele are the clear favorites to win and the most deserving from a gameplay perspective. I have no patience for people who abdicate all personal responsibility to God, and as for Zach... how is he even still in the game? I can't imagine anyone actually voting for him to win-- making him a great person to bring to the finals. Sigh...

You're Now in the Hands... of the Blogger

Yes, the money. No question. But the other reason to go on a television game show is for the thrill ride of the experience. It's fun. It was just as much fun at the Play It! attraction at Walt Disney World. The crowd, the music, the drama, the tension-- that's juice, baby. As thrilled as I was to win big bucks, I couldn't help but be disappointed about not reaching the top prize. Not just for the money, but for the potential loss of future opportunities to play. The better I did, the greater the chance of being invited back for a tournament of champions or as a Wise Man. A chance to win more money would be great, but I'd do it even with no prize at stake. Playing a high-tension game in front of a live, cheering audience is exhilirating. For a game player like me, it doesn't get much better.

That tournament of champions may never happen, but Millionaire producer Michael Davies is behind a meta-tournament on Game Show Network called Grand Slam. Sixteen of the best players from game show history compete for $100,000 and bragging rights in a terrific high-pressure showdown. Sadly, despite winning more than some of the competitors, I wasn't invited. A shame, because I'd be really good at this format.

The game is played in four rounds-- trivia, numbers and logic, words and letters, and a final round combining all three. Players each get a minute on their chess clock, and time inexorably ticks away from one side or the other. A correct answer stops a player's clock and starts his opponent's. Incorrect answers, including "Pass!", incur no penalty beyond the time it takes quizmaster Pat Kiernan to read the correct answer and move on to another question. When one player's clock expires, the other carries his remaining time over to round four. Whoever wins that final decisive round advances in the tournament.

This is not a game for the faint of heart. It calls for extremely quick thinking, recall, and the ability to triage questions on the fly and recognize which are time sinks better passed than deliberated over. The numbers and logic round is particularly troublesome for many players, having earned their cash on the merits of their trivia or word skills. The roster reads like a Who's Who of modern game shows, and it's been fascinating to watch top players duke it out.

The broadcast could use some trimming. They seem to be going for the Iron Chef effect of comedically overwrought gravitas, but it doesn't really work. Dennis Miller seems out of his element calling the play by play, and his co-host Amanda Byram rarely has anything insightful to offer. Kiernan is stellar as always, but his banishment off-screen is baffling. In his recent stint on The World Series of Pop Culture he's demonstrated some great timing and charm, loosening up quite a bit since his run on the ill-fated Studio 7. If we can't trim out all the fluff and pack more game into the show-- expanding each player's clock by 30 seconds would make me very happy-- I'd love to see Kiernan in the booth as Miller's foil.

The rules could also use a little tweaking. Each player begins the match with three Switches which bounce a question to the other side. An opponent is allowed to Switch right back, however, and strategically that's going to be the right play virtually every time. They'd be far more interesting if a player couldn't Switch back, but rather had to give a correct answer before he could use a Switch of his own.

Game Show Network is running these every Saturday, and will run the whole shebang as a marathon before the final match on September 8, which should be a doozy. I hope GSN brings this back next year for another season, because it's got great drama and a high play-along factor. And hey-- Michael Davies-- put me in, coach-- I'm so ready to play!

Public Service Announcement

It is with great pleasure that I remind you that the best game show to appear in a very, very long time, The World Series of Pop Culture, is back for a second season on VH1. The ineffably droll and peculiarly charming Pat Kiernan returns to preside over the single-elimination knock-down drag out trivia fest, with inaugural champions El Chupacabra defending their title.

The budget seems a little bigger, but the format is unchanged. Perhaps the most winsome aspect of the show is that everyone really seems to be having a great time. Nothing is blown out of perspective-- they're all keenly aware that they're showing off knowledge that they really shouldn't be proud of having, and the fact that they're being allowed to do so is prize enough.

Whether you're a pop culture vulture like me or a mere dilettante, do tune in for a reminder of what game shows are supposed to be. And for a really fun trivia game, check out the World Series of Pop Culture web site and play Too Many Questions.

Stargate: SG-1 Finale

As uneven as Stargate: SG-1 has been in the latter half of its run, I'm sorry to see it go. It took a more lighthearted approach than Stargate: Atlantis, and that willingness to laugh at itself made up for a lot of the show's shortcomings.

The series finale was, I thought, beautifully done. The tone of cabin fever, determination to preserve the Asgard's legacy, paying off the obvious chemistry between Vala and Daniel, and the simplicity of the direction all worked perfectly. If there was one note they missed, it was Richard Dean Anderson's absence in a story involving the final fate of the Asgard. Given the history between them, Thor's farewell scene should have been with O'Neill instead of Carter. Given the nature of the mission O'Neill would certainly have gone, so perhaps they couldn't get Anderson for the episode.

The series continues in two direct-to-video movies to be released next year. The first, The Ark of Truth, wraps up the Ori storyline, while the other is a self-contained time-travel story called Continuum in which Earth's Stargate program is erased from the timeline. I do loooooove me the time travel stories...

Exploding Tumors

Spoilers for Stargate: Atlantis follow

In a world of internet news and instant spoilers, it's rare for a major development in a television show to come as a complete surprise to me unless I've made a concerted effort, as I do with Lost or Heroes, to avoid seeing any spilled beans. So it's astonishing to me that Doctor Carson Beckett's death on Stargate: Atlantis came as a complete shock-- especially since the episode aired months ago in Canada and the UK. Shows how low the show is on the Hollywood food chain.

I've searched the net in vain for information on what spurred this baffling decision. Actor Paul McGillion's portrayal of the Scottish doctor was one of the highlights of the show, as he exhibited remarkable chemistry with everyone in the cast. Consequently Beckett became more than just the moral center of the series-- in many ways, he became its soul. You just couldn't help but like the guy, and any scene with him in it was richer for it. That kind of impact is rare, and excising it from your ensemble seems beyond boneheaded. Did they learning nothing from the debacle of killing off Daniel Jackson on SG:1 (only to bring him back a season later)?

Apparently not-- and history seems to be repeating itself. Fan reaction was swift and deeply felt, and producers have figured out a way to write the character back in for 2-3 episodes at the end of the next season with a possibility of a full-time return in season five. But that still doesn't explain why they killed him in the first place. It certainly wasn't because the story-- about exploding tumors, of all things-- demanded it.

On the bright side, next season Jewel Staite (Firefly's Kaylee) joins the cast. On the down side, Torri Higginson's Dr Weir gets downgraded to recurring character. And somewhere in between, Amanda Tapping's Samantha Carter also joins the cast. Tapping's Carter hits very few notes, so her voice brings little new to the table except for the inevitable conflict with McKay-- which will no doubt become tiresome quickly. It's a bit like Worf moving over to Deep Space Nine after TNG's conclusion-- not the character I'd prefer to see make the transition (either Vala or Daniel would be my choice), but I appreciate the continuity.

Hell's Basket Cases

"Casting? Hi, it's Kent over at Hell's Kitchen. We loved what you did for us last year-- where did you dug up that dopey low-rider Keith? This year we want to push the boundaries even further. No! Oh, God no-- stay the hell away from cooking schools or Michelin-rated restaurants. Don't get me wrong, the cast should all have some cooking experience-- we don't want anyone killing themselves, after all-- but nothing too advanced. If we actually got people who knew what they were doing, Gordon wouldn't be able to do his pissy yelling schtick. Give us two or three competent people so the finale has some tension, but otherwise go nuts. The more small-minded and petty they are, the better. And hey, I know you guys love a challenge, so there's an extra ten grand for you if you can dig up a cherubic minority pushing fifty who's sweet as can be but utterly incompetent and prone to bursts of uncontrollable weeping. Haha... yeah, okay-- make it 20 Gs-- but for that kind of money I expect some kind of freaky genetic anomaly thrown in as well. Oh-- and I can't stress this enough-- at least one of the women has to be smokin' hot. What? Sorry, no-- I know you didn't just fall off the truck. Okay, great. You're the best."

Ahoy, Reality!

It used to be that summer meant trips to the beach, tall glasses of lemonade, and long backups on 520 when the Mariners were in town. And perhaps it still means all of those things. But you really know that summer's arrived when all the reality competitions start reappearing on television. Not the best-of-breed Amazing Race or Survivor, mind you, but the one-offs and snark-fests. And I do believe I hear the catch phrases on the breeze.

Critics have keelhauled Mark Burnett's latest, Pirate Master, and for good reason-- it has a kind of Merchant-Ivory periodness that is ill-suited to the genre. Touches that must have sounded great on paper-- "We'll dress up one player as 'captain' and two more as 'mates', then give them clunky dialog to read!"-- just look dopey when real people are involved. The casting office was obvious hunting for another Rupert when they found Jamie. And in episode one, at least, the treasure hunting was thematic but unexciting.

But.

C'mon, people-- pirates! Yarrrrr! What more could you want from a cheesy summer romp? The payout structure, where the captain gets half, the mates each a quarter, and the rest of the crew splits the remaining quarter, was created to practically guarantee a mutiny. The first doofus to grab the captain's hat has seemingly never watched any reality TV competition. The idea that he might not always be captain seems to never have occurred to him until the possibility of a mutiny was announced, and so he made no attempts to foster good will among the other players. So already we have someone whose comeuppance shall be celebrated (zounds!). And while geek/goth-boy's compass ploy was clever, his utter failure to predict its ice-cold reception only underscored his lack of social awareness.

For you board gamers out there, this show is essentially a game of Junta for real money. As any good Presidente knows, the key to retaining power is keeping key players happy while lining your own pockets as surreptitiously as possible. It will be interesting to see if anyone on the show truly groks it before it's too late.

Sorry, Charlie

Well, things certainly happened tonight! Not a lot of questions got answered, of course, but the pieces sure moved around a lot.

I thought everything in the Looking Glass station was terrific. It hit all the right notes, with Charlie moving from confidence to hope to determined acceptance. I loved that as the water closed in around him, he had the presence of mind to communicate a key bit of information to Desmond. It was a good, noble death, and I thought the writers did a fine job here.

Hurley's cavalry charge was telegraphed, but I didn't expect the bus-- a great touch. Likewise for Sayid's thighs of death. Walt's reappearance certainly raises questions-- was it Walt, or was it the island? And if it was the island, does that mean Walt is dead (since all the other apparitions we've seen have been of dead people)?

Transforming the flashback to a flashforward was an unexpected twist, but that was a loooooooooooong way to go for that conversation with Kate and the revelation that the phone call was a mistake after all. So was Sawyer the man Kate was in a hurry to get back to, or was Sawyer in the casket?

I wonder, will they continue to flashforward next season, pulling a Galactica and jumping everything forward? Will the Oceanic survivors team up with Ben and the Others to fight the freighter occupants? If Penny's not associated with the freighter, who the heck is on that boat? What's the deal with Jacob anyway? And the real question: why the hell didn't the Others just talk to the Oceanic group in the first place and tell them what's what, instead of all this cloak and dagger nonsense? Well, the answer to the last question is "Then there would be no show." But I hope there's a reason for the characters to act stupidly beyond the requirements of the plot.

While Lost could definitely learn some lessons from Heroes in the moving-the-story-along-and-give-us-answers department, Heroes could learn a thing or two about finales from the Lost crew.

Heroes Season Finale

I've had a very busy three or four days-- about which, more later once I'm better rested. How busy? I'm so tired right now, I can't even bring myself to watch the Heroes finale because I want to enjoy it and not fall asleep partway through.

But I expect most of you have already seen it, so here's the place to comment. I'll follow up with my thoughts once I'm capable of having them again.

UPDATE: What a stunning disappointment.

There's a laundry list of failures for this episode, the most glaring of which is the anticlimactic final confrontation. In the alternate future episode we got a glimmer of what a fight between Peter and Sylar would look like, and it rocked. It was a tease, but we were OK with it because we knew the real show was coming in the finale. And then... fisticuffs? Really? With all the powers they've absorbed, Peter justs uses the super-strength he just picked up from Niki moments earlier, and Sylar just uses telekinesis? As viewers, we're entirely justified in feeling ripped off here. The show promised much, much more and failed to deliver. Other items on the list:

9-0

There was a lot of talk last night about Dreamz being smart, but come on. The guy can't string two thoughts together, let alone articulate them. You don't have to be educated to be smart, and you certainly don't need to be educated to realize that reneging on a public promise to a popular player will win you no friends. I'd wonder what he was thinking, but I know the answer-- he wasn't thinking. At least not coherently. When asked simple questions, the guy couldn't even give a simple answer. And when he did finally answer Probst's oft-repeated question, it was revisionist history and a blatant lie. It was clear from his interviews at the time that when he made the deal with Yau-Man, he fully intended to honor it. He understood the consequences, but he wanted the car and he claimed to value his integrity. But when the moment came, greed trumped honor. I certainly understand the dilemma, but a truly smart man would have realized that by reneging on the deal he was burning any chance of beating Earl in the finals. He simply couldn't win. A smart man would have realized that the winning play was to honor his deal. It wouldn't have been a million dollar win, but it would have allowed him to walk tall and possibly parlay that display of integrity into further opportunity as the man who decided his honor couldn't be bought. Instead, he revealed himself to be callow and untrustworthy and became one of the biggest losers in the history of Survivor.

In a world where the best player wins the money, Yau-Man would be a lot richer. His gameplay was brilliant, from sending himself to Exile Island to secure the second immunity idol, to sensing the trap his opponents had set for him and deciding on the fly to use the idol he had when he most needed it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the show's automobile sponsor decided to give Yau-Man another truck for the positive PR value.

The jury was particularly bitter this season, notably-- and bizarrely-- Lisi. She practically voted herself out of the game, so where the hell is all that venom towards Cassandra coming from? News flash: EVERYONE's there for the million dollars. EVERYONE on the show is motivated by greed to some extent. Get over yourself. Another news flash for Boo: Tribal Council isn't exactly the forum for holier-than-thou Christian rhetoric. You all knew how the game was played when you signed on, and I don't recall anyone appointing Boo as Dreamz' spiritual guardian. I never got a good sense of who Boo was during the show, but that glimpse last night made me understand why everyone else wanted him gone.

If Yau-Man couldn't win the money, Earl was the right second choice. He may not have won any individual immunities, but he was definitely playing the game (unlike Cassandra, who was flying so far below the radar she had grass in her teeth). That he did so without ruffling any jury feathers is a remarkable accomplishment. Normally they show some of the voters' commentary during the final vote, and when they didn't do that this time I suspected it might be a sweep.

One of the more satisfying seasons of Survivor. Next, we'll see if Burnett can work his magic with pirates.

The Invisible Man

Leave it to Lost to answer some of the big questions about the island with a Ben flashback, but replace those questions with even bigger ones. Yes, Virginia, here there be spoilers.

We learn that contrary to what Ben's been telling everyone, he wasn't born on the island. Like seemingly everyone else who got marooned there, he had some serious issues with his parents. Loved the explanation for the VW bus and the skeleton (and beer!) inside it (and the fact that the writers thought ahead and gave us the bus episode in the first place to make this flashback more resonant). We didn't really find out more about what the Dharma Initiative was up to, and we know conclusively that Ben's group are the so-called Hostiles, but we have no idea who the Hostiles are and why they're, er, hostile. And how exactly was Nestor Carbonell seemingly unaged between the time he first met Ben and today? Or can we just chalk that up to not being able to make the actor more youthful?

The big question, of course, is what's the deal with Jacob? He clearly wasn't a figment of Ben's imagination. Locke heard him, and he definitely moved. But Ben didn't hear what he said to Locke, so he's not just invisible. I feel like we've crossed over into Heroes.

Ben is clearly threatened by Locke. Leadership of his little group seems to be dictated by the level of communion one has with the island. Locke's brand new to the group, and yet nobody interfered with his pummeling of Mikhail. They deferred to him. Ben is clearly not happy with the idea of losing control. Did his daughter know Locke was in danger from Ben? Is that why she gave him the gun?

We've seen a lot of ghosts on the island: Jack's dad, Kate's horse(?), Eko's brother, Ben's mom. Is Ben right about the "magic box"-- does the island provide people with the things they most desire?

Questions, questions, questions. But last night's episode cooked, and proved once again that the show's at its most interesting when it fills in the holes.

Million Dollar Gossip

I missed the first half of the Amazing Race finale, but unsurprisingly it didn't matter-- all teams were on the same flight to San Francisco. I don't mind that, per se... but for the final sprint to a million dollars, I want the last leg to be the hardest leg of all. I want teams to have the chance to come back from behind, to make big mistakes that cost them the victory, to use their wits to gain an advantage. What I want is for the whole shebang to be decided on the basis of which partner knows how their teammate would gossip about other teams.

That was a horrible, horrible final challenge. It would have been fine as one step of a longer chain of challenges, but as the last, winner-take-all obstacle, it was poorly conceived. First, the content. The answers for 2 questions were obvious (Rob and Amber), leaving only 2 real questions on the test. For each question only a couple of choices were viable. Assuming you went with Rob and Amber for the others, that leaves, say, 16 possible combinations to try. A smart team should have been out of there quickly. But it wasn't a test of intelligence, it was a test of how much each team gossipped about the other teams during the race. THIS is what we want to reward them for? Past final challenges have involved travel knowledge-- assembling a map, ordering national flags, and so forth-- which is in keeping with the show's theme. Once the challenge was completed, there was little chance for a trailing team to catch up-- it was just a straight shot to the finish (or so it seemed; these situations would benefit from a map graphic showing the origination and destination points). This was just an anticlimax on every level, including the identity of the winners, neither of whom displayed any redeemable traits over the course of the entire race.

The Amazing Race may be an impressive logistical feat that generates some great travelogue footage, but as a competition it is so seriously flawed that it boggles my mind that it consistently wins the Emmy for best reality show ahead of the far superior Survivor. But the Emmy is for the show, not the game. But really, would it hurt them to put a little more thought into the game before they throw a million bucks at someone?

Well, That Was Unexpected

Normally a show saves its big punches for the season finale, so you can imagine my shock at Parkman's cranial buzz-cut courtesy of Sylar in tonight's Heroes. I know some people don't care much for Parkman, but I have a soft spot for Greg Grunberg so I've always been rooting for his character. It saddens me to see him go.

Except, of course, that he hasn't. I'm lying. Parkman didn't have a run-in with Sylar. Nobody was killed in tonight's episode. A couple of people have told me that they were taken by surprise by my Heroes spoilers last week, so I'm just having a little fun at their expense.

This week's Heroes would have been a massive disappointment even if it didn't follow last week's tour de force. It didn't feel like anything really happened. I liked the scene in Isaac's apartment, but we got a lot of filler with Micah, Jessica and DL, Peter and Claire... it should have been called Contractually Obligated Filler Episode. Boo, I say!

Master of Deception

The Amazing Race's less confrontational gameplay helps it bring home the Emmy year after year, but last night's Survivor illustrates why Mark Burnett is the true master of the genre. For the first time in a long while, they got me. I was absolutely sure Yau-Man's number was up. The carefully-edited conspiratorial clips, combined with the genius of putting all Alex, Stacy, Cassandra, and Dreamz on one side of Tribal Council sold it. With all four of them framed together in a close-up shot, it was hard not to believe they were banded together to oust Yau-Man.

Everyone keeps harping about how Yau-Man's idol makes him a target, but there's a simple solution: don't vote for him. Let him get to the final four, then worry about him. The real problem is letting Earl get there along with him. If Cassandra, Dreamz, and Stacy were smart (Boo is clearly the next target), they'd blindside Earl to isolate Yau-Man and make him vulnerable when it's down to four. Nobody can afford to bring Yau-Man to the finals, because he'd be a shoo-in for the money.

Meanwhile, the question of whether or not there is a God may well be settled this Sunday when we discover if the horrible Mirna and Charla are allowed to win The Amazing Race.

Payoff's a Bitch

Damn! First Heroes makes with the stellar, now Lost. This is how the show should have been all along-- pay off on one storyline (Sawyer's quest for the con man), introduce a mystery on another (Jack and Juliet's secret). Most of had already connected the dots between Locke's father and Sawyer's quarry, of course, but Josh Hollaway and Terry O'Quinn are two of the show's strongest performers, so any show focusing on them has a leg up.

I really hope that before the end of the season, they explain what the hell the Others are up to. A conclave of people-- men, women, and children-- willing to not just allow a man to be tortured and killed, but to gather around and watch it happen? That needs some 'splainin'. "You're not the man we thought you were?" You mean a cold-blooded murderer? That whole sequence made no sense to me. They went through a lot of trouble to capture Locke's father and bring him to the island so Locke could make that grand gesture, a gesture than Ben apparently didn't even want him to make. I need some Cliff's Notes.

Meanwhile, I'll take Character Actions That Make No Sense for $800, Alex. No matter how ticked off she is at Jack, there's no way Kate would blab about a possible rescue in front of Juliet, who Kate clearly neither likes nor trusts. There are dozens of ways the writers could have had Jack find out about the former Las Vegas chickadee without making Kate do something stupid.

Quibbles, really, because the show as a whole was riveting. That's what comes of actually paying off the audience instead of stringing them along.

Save th-- Whaaaa?

I was so smug.

Weeks ago, I'd already figured out that the exploding man on Heroes wasn't Peter. It had to be Sylar. The price of his wanton gorging on other people's powers. Somewhere along the line he'd meet up with Ted, slice off his skull, and absorb a nuclear meltdown he hadn't counted on. The heroes would have to kill Sylar before he could go Hiroshima, and it would take Peter's yin to defeat Sylar's yang-- but perhaps at the cost of Peter's life (you can't leave someone as powerful as Peter wandering around in your universe unchecked-- there has to be some price to pay to rein in his abilities). That was the logical conclusion to all of this season's storylines. So when this week's episode revealed that Sylar was the bomb, I nodded sagely. I knew it.

When Nathan explained to Mohinder that he understood how things worked, that killing all the special people would unite everyone else, I was a little slow on the uptake. Knowing how things work is Sylar's trick. "Nathan's starting to sound like Sylar," I thought. I thought it was supposed to suggest that power and fear had twisted Nathan. So when Claire froze in her tracks and started bleeding, I was stunned. I didn't see that coming at all, and I loved it.

Alternate history stories are already among my favorite genre, but the success of this twist sealed the deal: Best. Episode. Ever. Even with Parkman's poorly-justified character transformations in service of the plot.

But now Hiro's got a problem. The comic book pages suggest that Hiro has to kill Sylar (and kudos for the completely sensible payoff to "Save the cheerleader, save the world"), but Peter's the one who actually blows up. Does Sylar somehow push him into it? Did saving Claire wind up saving the world both because Sylar can't heal and Peter now can?

I'm back to not knowing how this is going to end, which is exactly where I want to be.

Bad Decisions

A friend commented that I hadn't posted about The Amazing Race in a while, and that's largely because until last night I was three episodes behind. Now I'm caught up, and have these thoughts on that and other shows:

Frak! Frak, Frak, Frak!

There are only two categories of people who should read this entry: those who have already seen the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, and those who never plan to do so. If you're thinking that maybe someday you might watch this series that critics everywhere have been lauding to the skies even though it's based on a campy 70's science fiction show, read no further.

As for the rest of you... Baltar's acquittal was inevitable, but the manner in which it happened, with a grandstanding play by the defense that should never have been allowed, felt like a cop out despite the drama it created. But that's not what anyone's going to be talking about.

They telegraphed Tigh and Anders last week, so that was no surprise. But when Tyrol started hearing the music, I actually cried out, "Oh no, not him too!" Tory is pretty much a non-entity-- she's a minor character who's obviously getting elevated to the big leagues next season. But it is rather interesting that together they comprise the former leadership of the Resistance on New Caprica.

The revelations open up a mountain of questions. Do Cylons grow and age? Tigh and Adama have known each other forever, so just how long have the skin-jobs been around? The other Cylons-- the models we've known about all along-- don't know who the final five are (and, for that matter, the fifth is still a mystery even to us), so who created them? Why have they been living as humans all this time, unaware they were Cylons? How will the other Cylons react when they're revealed? And hey, doesn't that make Cally and Tyrol's child a hybrid like Hera? How has THAT not been detected?

As for Roslin, either she's the last Cylon-- which would be both too pat and too inconsistent-- or the transfusion of Hera's blood created a connection to the Cylon subconscious. That creates some interesting implications, and I hope the writers have the characters realize this and act on it (specifically, inject some more people with Hera's blood and try to gain further insights into what the Cylons are about).

In a way, I was disappointed to see Starbuck show up at the end. I never truly believed she was gone-- all that talk about a destiny made that improbable-- but because it seemed so obvious, I hoped I was wrong. Her Deus Ex Machina return feels neither clever nor unexpected, and I hoped for better. And they'd best have one hell of an explanation for how she survived the explosion of her viper (or did she? Her ship wasn't playing well with Draedus, and she had a kind of glow about her). I don't buy the notion that she's the fifth Cylon-- not after they spent an entire episode on flashbacks of her childhood.

I will give the writers props, however, for violating one of the cardinal rules of series television. When you have a show whose premise is "Survivors of a spacefaring human civilization search for Earth," you're not supposed to have them actually find it. It looks like they're reinventing the show next season, and that raises all sorts of interesting questions. How would a modern Earth react to the arrival of a) an advanced, spacefaring culture? b) an advanced, spacefaring culture that desperately seeks asylum and help, and c) an advanced, spacefaring culture that desperately seeks asylum and help and leads a bloodthirsty, lethal race of artifical life forms bent on humanity's destruction to their doorstep? How will the Cylons react to finding Earth? What's Hera's and Baltar's role in all of this? Is the show leading to a conclusion where Cylons and humans coexist in peace? Will the final Cylon turn out to be someone on Earth (in which case the writers have some 'splainin' to do), Baltar (thus explaining his visions of Six, and hers of him), or a minor flying-under-the-radar character like Doc Cottle?

Alin Sepinwall has a nice blog entry about the finale, including a delightful theory about how everyone in the series is really a Cylon. He also raises an interesting question about how four characters could all know "All Along the Watchtower" as a song from their childhood. Is everything really inverted? Instead of Earth being the lost thirteen colony, a splinter group broken off from this spacefaring civilization long ago, were the twelve colonies really a diaspora of our descendants? Is the show actually set far in the future? Are they coming to Earth to discover a planet destroyed by an ancient human/AI conflict? The Cylons have been saying that everything that's happening has happened before...

Whatever Ron Moore's planning, it will undoubtedly bear as little resemblance to Galactica 1980 as this show does to its forebear. Which can only be a good thing. But... 2008? Frak!

It's a Spelling Thing

From first to last and out, Rob and Amber bid farewell to Amazing Race All-Stars and their fourth attempt at a million bucks. And I couldn't be sorrier to see them go. Granted, Amber is little more than the contractually obligated second teammate and faithful sidekick on the Rob Show, but Rob has always impressed me with his understanding of the game. He recognizes it's a competition for a million bucks and not a sisterhood of the traveling pants. He never cheats, but exploits every opportunity to seize an advantage. The race without Rob will be a far less interesting journey.

But the lummox brought it on himself in an uncharacteristic lapse of gamesmanship. He chose the wrong task for the Detour, opting for the obviously more complex task merely because it involved hammer and nails. When told his sign was wrong, he said, "This better not be a spelling thing," and then-- incredibly-- did not appear to go back and verify all his spelling was correct. Amber, one assumes, was too busy signing contracts for a CBS Rob and Amber Pass Kidney Stones special to actually check Rob's work. She did try to convince Rob to switch to the other task, but Rob was too frustrated to see the wisdom in cutting bait. Instead of taking a deep breath and thinking through the problem, he flailed around at random hoping to get lucky. And this time, his luck ran out.

At this point, the only satisfying outcome left to the race is for Mirna and Charla to plummet to their deaths in a freak funicular accident in the Alps. Their behavior toward each other and everyone else in this race has been singularly dispicable, and I'm heartened by the certainty that the only way for that mean-spirited partership to win the race would be to be the only team not to board that ill-fated funicular. With Romber and Kentucky gone, I'm now rooting for either Uchenna and Joyce or Dustin and Candice to win.

But what I really want to see is Rob and Amber go up against Big Brother's Mike and Will in a game of The Mole.

Jeopardy! Round: Robin

As many of you learned a few years ago, watching game shows is vastly more entertaining when you're emotionally vested in the outcome. Robin, a college friend, fraternity sister, and Static Zombie reader/commenter will be appearing on Jeopardy! on Monday. Tune in to root her on, won't you? I'll even bet it wouldn't take much cajoling to convince Robin to post some commentary about her experience after it airs. Which, we hope, won't be for many, many days.

Middle Chef

The only Top Chef from this season is Sam. Nobody else-- certainly neither Marcel nor Ilan-- has the maturity to claim that title. Marcel seems to have some genuine cooking chops, but I can't see him leading or inspiring people. And Ilan is a one-trick caballo. It's not Top Cocinero-- come out of your Spanish safe zone and show you have some versatility, man!

The capriciousness of the judging is irksome. They talk about it being all about the food, then get rid of someone for not showing enough initiative in spending his equipment allowance. They drone on about the qualities of a top chef, then ignore issues like maturity, leadership, and history in a fit of food-centric tunnelvision. From what we see, it's unclear how well the basis for judging each challenge is explained to the chefs. Nobody told Sam he had to apply heat to anything. If it wasn't a stated criteria, he shouldn't be dinged for serving two raw dishes. Is it all about the food, or isn't it? Did the food taste good? Shouldn't that be what matters?

Booting Sam was a mistake. And a huge number of viewers seem to agree. There are over two thousand comments on Tom Colicchio's blog for this episode. At least Sam won the $10,000 fan favorite prize, and the exposure from the show has likely opened a lot of doors for him.

It's hard to imagine Marcel being called Top Chef, yet he actually seems more skilled and versatile than Ilan, whose adolescent antagonism of Marcel demonstrates he still has a lot of growing up to do.

Train Wrecks and Vacuums

One of my guiltiest pleasures is back on television for its third season. Beauty and the Geek pairs brilliant but socially clueless guys in their twenties with gorgeous but not very learned women of similar age. But it's not a dating show. Each week both sexes undergo challenges to push them out of their comfort zones, with contestants ostensibly reinforcing their partner's efforts with encouragement and mentorship. The genius of the show is that although there's $250,000 on the line for the team that makes it to the end, this isn't a cutthroat eyes-on-the-prize competition. And while the show isn't above capitalizing on its contestants' limitations for humor, it doesn't try to humiliate them. The whole framework stresses the value of the experience itself, of having the opportunity to grow beyond the stereotype nature and society have trapped them in.

When they come in, both sides are train wrecks in their own ways. The guys clearly have it worst, since most of them wear their geekiness like a badge. Upon meeting his attractive teammate, one of the geeks informs her that he's proudest of being able to recite a stupefying number of digits of pi. Another earnestly declares that if he had to make a choice between Star Trek and a woman, he'd choose Star Trek. These guys have no idea how to dress, talk, or act outside of a graduate program, and watching them embody every negative stereotype of smart people is sometimes viscerally painful.

But the women are equally bad in their own way. Most are stunning, but their very beauty has kept them from realizing their own potential. One proudly displays her practiced pouting technique which, she says matter-of-factly, is usually all she needs to get her way. And she's not alone. Many boast that they use their good looks to get what they want. One claims she hasn't read a book since fifth grade. These women exist inside a bubble containing little else but themselves and their beauty products. They rhapsodize about how happy shopping makes them, but can't identify our vice president, the square root of 100, or Tony Blair.

Week by week couples are eliminated until only one remains to claim the money. But along the way, some amazing transformations occur. It's hard to tell how much the women gain from the experience-- it's hard to overcome a lifetime of flirtation with a couple of weeks' worth of cramming and positive reinforcement. But for the guys, there's the sense that their time on the show might genuinely have helped them break out of their shells and become more social. A couple of weeks in, the surviving men get a fashion makeover that blows your mind. It's astounding what a good haircut and a stylish outfit can do to even the geekiest man's image. It's then up to the men to live up to it by not flashing the Vulcan salute to every pretty woman they meet.

If you missed the first 2-hour episode, don't despair-- the CW is rerunning it later this week, so it's not too late to set the TiVo. Perhaps the best thing about watching Beauty and the Geek is that one finds oneself truly rooting for these people to overcome... themselves. And I can turn to the gf and point out, "See? It could be so much worse."

Yul Log

Let's be clear about something. Ozzy was robbed. There's no question that Yul is a deserving winner. It's been a long time, in fact, since the finals contained two contestants who were both worthy of the prize, and had I been on that jury I'm not sure how I'd have voted. Yul played a brilliant game, but Ozzy dominated the challenges and you have to respect that.

Ozzy wasn't robbed by Yul, or by the jury. He was cheated out of his million by Mark Burnett.

In any other season of Survivor, Ozzy would have won the prize. But this time, three people made it into the finals. And while Becky was a complete non-factor in the vote, that rule change cost Ozzy one million dollars. I make that statement based on a key assumption, which isn't at all far-fetched-- that like every other individual immunity challenge this season, Ozzy would have won the additional one required to pare the final four down to three. We already saw that he won the final endurance challenge. Assuming the four to three transition went as we saw it, with a fire-building tie-breaker eliminating Sundra, Ozzy would have had the ability to choose the person to stand next to in the finals. Only a complete idiot would take Yul along for the ride, and Ozzy's not a complete idiot. So had the game progressed to its normal conclusion, Ozzy would have beaten Becky 10-0. Instead, Ozzy never got a chance to get Yul out of the game, and lost the big bucks by the slimmest possible margin.

It's one thing to throw surprises into the game, but to change the fundamental structure of the endgame without telling players in advance is dirty pool. Those guys are forming strategies based on everything coming down to a final two contestants. The dynamics of a final three are completely different, and people might have played differently had they known that was the game they were in. The players knew something was up when Brad made the jury so early, but in their wildest speculations I doubt they thought there would be three finalists. At least Ozzy got the car, thus keeping the curse of the car alive.

Day Break

I'm a sucker for time travel stories. I think I'm attracted to the attention to detail such stories require, especially when traveling into the past and back. The beauty of it is that as a viewer, I'm willing to let the screenwriter define whatever rules he wants to, and I'll believe the universe works that way. Is time fluid and mutable? Is time fixed, with the effects of time travel already incorporated into our view of history? Does a new timeline branch from each decision point? Can you visit the same point in a timeline more than once, or do you only get one shot? How much energy is required? How much mass can you take with you? Who remembers what? Are changes instantaneous, or do they ripple forward? I don't much care what the screenwriter decides, but I love watching for the minute details that indicate he really thought through all the ramifications.

Day Break is ABC's mid-season replacement to allow Lost to return uninterrupted in the fall, and it hasn't fared very well in the ratings. That's a shame, because the series-- I should say mini-series, since it was designed to be 13 episodes and out-- is doing some very nifty things with its high-concept premise: what if a man had to live the same day over and over again until he got it right? The idea was famously tackled in the movie Groundhog Day, but where that Bill Murray vehicle mined it for comedy, Day Break plays it straight. Police detective Taye Diggs gets framed for murdering a district attorney, and the people responsible are sufficiently connected that they can murder his girlfriend, threaten his sister and her children, and pluck him from a prison cell in the dead of night to try to coerce his capitulation. Not a very good day to be living again and again.

We don't know why this is happening to him, but right away some rules are established. Each day is a complete reset for everyone but him. Not only does Diggs remember everything that happened in the previous loop, but he has to live with the physical after-effects too. When he gets beaten up in a quarry, he wakens with bruised ribs. When he gets shot in one loop, he wakes up bleeding from the wound in the next. Brute force is therefore not a solution-- whatever he needs to do to break the pattern, he'll have to do it carefully.

Cleverly, each episode's title (not shown onscreen, but visible in the Tivo data) is of the form, "What if he ___?" and the episode plays out the answer to that question. What if he just ran away? What if he let his girlfriend go? What if he could change the day? That last question shaped the most recent episode, in which Diggs helps his partner out of a jam and, at the start of the next loop, receives a phone call from her that he never got in any previous loop. Is this the way to break the cycle? Will he need to fix all the broken pieces of his life in order to crack the conspiracy?

Day Break is a tight, nimble serial, and the qualities that elevate it may also spell its doom. Viewers have already rejected serialized crime dramas this season, and Day Break requires diligent attention and loyalty. It's impossible to understand what Diggs is doing unless you've seen what he's already done. That's fine for a 2-hour movie, but it makes it hard for a 13-hour serialized program to pick up new viewers along the way. Day Break may be one of those shows that is best experienced on DVD, where you can watch multiple episodes back-to-back (as I did with the first 4 hours-- thank you, Tivo!). Fans of serials like Prison Break or 24 should not let this one slip under their radar.

How to Win $100,000

I thought Jonathan was crazy for switching tribes a couple of weeks ago on Survivor. Even if the members of his old tribe distrusted him-- and many did-- they didn't outright hate him. Abandoning them for another group guaranteed that whichever of them survived to the merge would be gunning for him. And on his new tribe, he'd be the odd man out. When they had to vote someone off, who was more likely to go-- the people who'd been bonding with each other for days, or the new guy who already demonstrated that he had no tribal loyalty at all?

Except, miraculously, Jonathan's new tribe voted out three of their own in successive tribal councils and kept Jonathan. He survived to the merge. And then stabbed his new tribe in the back by flipping AGAIN and voting with his old tribe!

I'm not sure what game Jonathan's playing, but it sure isn't one that ends with him winning a million bucks. There's nobody left on that island who likes him now. I'm wondering if Jonathan switched game plans and, instead of trying for the million, decided to play for the $100,000 second prize. Because if his opponents play smart and not emotionally, he's a shoo-in. Which of them wouldn't want to stand next to Jonathan in the final two? The genius of Yul's move-- revealing to Jonathan that he had the hidden immunity idol-- is that Jonathan couldn't tell his new tribe about it. Because they would have no reason not to make sure Yul knew Jonathan blabbed, thus guaranteeing that Yul's crew would vote for Jonathan. So Jonathan had to remain silent. He could have still voted against Yul and taken his chances with his new crew, but I wouldn't be surprised if he saw that his chances for the million are slim and decided to maximize his chance at the second prize instead.

It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Show Me the Shatner

With Howie Mandel on Deal or No Deal and Bob Saget on 1 Vs. 100, the game show trend du jour is using comedians as hosts. Comedians are used to ad-libbing and interacting with audiences, lending their performance a less cheesy quality than, say, your Todd Newtons or Wink Martindales. But the choice of comedian is important, lest you saddle your show with a [shudder] Louie Anderson. The mind still boggles at that decision. So traumatic were the Louie years that the producers of Family Feud ultimately replaced him with an actor, Home Improvement's Richard Karn, instead of another comedian. And when Karn left the show, the producers tapped Seinfeld's John O'Hurley-- who at least has hosting experience from the short-lived Celebrity Spelling Bee and the revival of To Tell the Truth. For the new game show Show Me the Money, the producers went with what can only be described as a Hail Mary play and tapped William Shatner to be the host.

When you hire Shatner, you know you're getting a guy who not only has the image of a buffoon, but who has given in and embraced that image to make it his own. You're hiring high camp, on a show giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not the direction I might go, but ok. When you hear that Shatner's hosting, you might expect the producers to have crafted the show around his particular style and talents, giving him ample room and opportunity to ham it up and grab attention. But you'd only be half right. As last night's premiere proved, Shatner is relaxed and not afraid to goof with the contestants, but in today's market a marquee host and big money are apparently not enough. After all, Howie Mandel doesn't open briefcases himself-- he's got two dozen attractive models to do that for him. But models just stand there and look pretty. What game show viewers really want to see are sexy, gyrating dancers, and ABC delivered.

Shatner is joined on stage by thirteen "Million Dollar Dancers" who strut their stuff on three levels of platforms. Each platform-- and dear God, I'm not making this up-- is equipped with a gleaming pole for the dancer to incorporate into her routine. Shatner and the thirteen beauties dance their way in and out of commercial breaks.

It's like High Stakes Laugh-In.

The structural problems of the game itself (the contestant has three choices of questions to answer at each level, but can choose to pass on two of them with no penalty and no dramatic tension) are dwarfed by the absurdity and cheesiness of the presentation. The models on Deal or No Deal are unnecessary and the gameplay is brainless, but at least it's sharply assembled. This things looks and feels like what it is-- a slapped-together knock-off of a successful format that fails to appreciate what made the original successful. Ultimately, what keeps Deal or No Deal on the air isn't the array of fashion models it trots out each week, it's the drama of watching someone push their luck and either hit it big or walk away disappointed. Show Me the Money strips all of that away, leaving us with... Shatner meets Solid Gold.

Show me the moron who greenlighted this turkey.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

When Sports Night first aired, I ignored it. I don't care about sports themselves, let alone television shows about sports. A television show about a television show about sports? Please. I'm not into politics either, but I gave The West Wing a chance anyway-- and discovered that it actually made the world of politics interesting. So when Sports Night popped up in reruns on Comedy Central, I gave it a shot. Turns out it wasn't really about a sports show at all-- that was just the backdrop for a very sharply-written comedy. This season Aaron Sorkin's taken the ensemble hour-long drama format of The West Wing, crossed it with the behind-the-scenes-of-a-television-show setting of Sports Night, and produced Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip-- a show that threatens to crumble under the considerable weight of its own gravitas.

The West Wing was essentially a wish-fulfillment show, offering a look at what it might be like to have incredibly smart, dedicated people in the White House committed to making the country a better place without kowtowing to big business. Martin Sheen's President Jed Bartlett was always the smartest guy in the room, backed by a staff of brilliant and preternaturally quick-witted over-achievers. It offered viewers a glimpse into a mysterious world that affects us all yet about which we know very little. The White House backdrop opened the doors to provocative, relevant storylines that often had real-world analogues, and viewers could play "what-if?" along with the show. It was fantasy-- no White House could ever be as competent and idealistic as Bartlett's-- but a fantasy that resonated with American's yearning for government the way it "ought" to be.

Studio 60 is also a wish-fulfillment show, positing a network president who actually stands up for creative expression and freedom of speech, who goes to the mat for her producers, and who cares about quality and integrity at least as much as she does ratings and market share. But nobody outside of the television industry cares. Oh, sure, I wish there really were network execs like her, imposing a coward tax on advertisers for pulling out in the wake of the protest du jour. But in the end-- and this is me saying this-- it's just television. Viewers can only be expected to invest so much of themselves in a show about a sketch comedy show. These people are not fighting for education reform or keeping terrorists from blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge. They're performing "Pimp My Trike."

Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry are outstanding, and Amanda Peet is also interesting. But Timothy Busfield is criminally under-utilized, Stephen Weber's corporate chairman hits only one note and cries out for some nuance, and none of the "big three" performers in the show-within-a-show seem as talented as we're told they are. We should never see any of the actual skits being performed-- they're forever doomed to be less funny than those concocted by cadres of cannibalisticly competitive writers and performers on real sketch comedy shows. The action should remain behind-the-scenes, and therein lies the problem. As great as the characters might be, as fantastic as the writing might be, the premise cannot sustain the life-or-death tone we've seen so far. This show needs to be more Ally McBeal, more Boston Legal. Sports Night worked because it was all about the funny. It took us behind the scenes to find humor in the characters, to laugh at the antics of a third-rated show on a third-rated network.

Unless you work in television, I question whether anyone can really empathize with all the hand-wringing about focus groups and market share and audience retention and how much of a pressure-cooker putting on a weekly sketch comedy show really is. Studio 60's crisis-laden tone comes off as the latest example of self-infatuated Hollywood navel-gazing. The writers, actors, and producers of the show eat and breathe show business. It's their entire world, and they seem to believe that viewers with no stake in the industry will care about it as much as they do. And by the way, I've got this great idea for a television show about the pressures and machinations behind the scenes creating software at a major software company.

Heroes

The last time I was this excited about a television show they handed me a check for a quarter of a million dollars. I'm talking about Heroes, NBC's new superhero show that plays as straight drama instead of high camp. People around the world are discovering they have superhuman powers: flight, invulnerability, regeneration, precognition, teleportation-- all the usual suspects are here, but without the spandex or invisible jets. Each of them reacts differently, if not entirely believably. Teen cheerleader Claire, for instance, is horrified to discover she's an invulnerable "freak" with homecoming just around the corner. Japanese sci-fi/comics fan and salaryman Hiro, on the other hand, is ecstatic to find he can bend space and time and is not the same as everyone else.

Hiro's not the only one who can speed up time. The producers have shamelessly ripped a page out of the Lost playbook to create links among these seemingly unconnected people. But instead of learning about these links over the course of many episodes, they dump them many of them on us in the first sixty minutes. Ok, so perhaps nuance isn't in the cards for this show. Can the heroes avoid the nuclear armageddon foretold by the painting precog? Will the Indian genetics professor figure out what's creating these superhumans? And what does the sinister government agent-type have to do with all of this? Tune in next week, same Bat-time...

I'm a sucker for certain linchpin moments in genre films, like the moment of disaster and the immediate aftermath as seen in The War of the Worlds. I love watching how characters react to outrageously unlikely events. In Heroes, we get to see how a bunch of different people respond to the manifestation of superpowers, and for me that's an E-ticket ride. There are a gazillion ways that ride could fly off the rails. I'm hoping the creative team manages to keep it on course and deliver on the show's promise.

The Amazing Hosage

I have little to say yet about the new season of Survivor, except that the whole race brouhaha is a tempest in a teapot. The real question is what happens once the tribelets merge. Since that happened in week three last time, we shouldn't have long to wait. Survivor doesn't really get interesting until a few people have been ousted, anyway.

I was ready for the Muslim pair to leave The Amazing Race after all of five minutes, but even I thought they got the shaft. Admittedly, a fairly small one-- I don't think they could have sped up their progress much, but if they knew they were under threat of elimination perhaps they would have. It'd be nice to know what the players were told about the rules of the game before the race began.

With that cat out of the bag, however, I think this could be a huge improvement to the race. If ANY point along the route-- not just pit stops-- could be an elimination point, the tension and drama amp up dramatically. I was hoping they'd really play this angle up and remove all "the last team to check in may be eliminated" language so that teams really felt like an elimination could happen at any time, but that doesn't appear to be the direction they're going. It seems like an in-route elimination will be a rare surprise rather than a systemic change, which I think is a shame.

Next season, however, I hope one of the surprises they introduce into the race will be NOT casting a stereotyped gay couple, a pair of male models or beauty queens, or a bickering couple with an abusive man.

The Numbers Explained

I'm not sure why they decided to relegate information so central to the Lost mythos to a web site instead of the actual television series, but fans will want to watch this-- the culmination of a summer-long promotional game on hansoexposed.com.

Somewhere in Hollywood, a Set Builder is Ticked

When Danielle was nominated, Will made sure she didn't have a chance to talk to Erika. He should have done the same thing this week to keep Erika away from Janelle. With nothing to lose, Erika was bound to spill everything and make Janelle realize that she'd been played. And to her credit, Janelle finally smartened up and made the right play. As much as I wanted to see Will pull off the impossible, Janelle is the other worthy candidate.

Meanwhile, shortest... endurance challenge... ever. I feel bad for the craftspeople who put that volcano together and then never even had it erupt. Perhaps they'll recycle it next season. And Mike... you're no Richard Hatch.

So here's the thing. Neither Erika nor Mike can possibly take Janelle to the end, because no matter what people think of her, they respect her. How can you not? She's only still in the house because every time she was in danger, she won the necessary competition to keep herself safe. Taking her to the finals is tantamount to handing her the check. And if Janelle wins HoH, I don't think it matters who she takes, If the final two are Erika and Mike, I'm not sure who wins. Neither was a power player. Erika floated below the radar until the late game, and Mike hid in Will's shadow. The jury's pretty pissed at Will, and that animosity might well carry over to Mike. On the other hand, they might feel that while Mike was part of a masterful campaign to survive and manipulate others, Erika was just not worth anyone's time to evict.

Chances are it won't matter. Janelle's come through in the clinch time after time this season. She'll be bringing her A-game to parts two and three of the HoH competition, and I certainly wouldn't bet against her.

I Smell a Repeat

The players on this season of Big Brother are, without question, the dumbest group of "all stars" ever assembled. If the Landers twins were to walk in, the collective IQ of the women in the house would skyrocket.

Everyone in that house either watched Big Brother 2 or heard second-hand how persuasively charming and deadly Will was. And yet, week after week, players have refused to nominate him or vote him out. Worse, his cloak of protection has enveloped Mike as well, leaving a strong 2-player Chilltown alliance intact to wreak havoc behind the scenes all season long. Will and Mike were helped immeasurably by the existance of four players from season 6, and they wisely leveraged that threat to distract attention from themselves while throwing competitions to avoid appearing theatening. That, and the producers' weekly sacrifice of a goat on a blood-stained altar somewhere in the bowels beneath the house.

Oh yeah-- and the unmitigated stupidity of everyone else in the house. But the grand marshall of the Stupid Parade is Erika.

Ok, so she's making kissy-face with Mike. But how can she possibly believe that Mike would take her to the finals instead of Will? Will and Mike are close friends and business partners. Nothing is going to come between them-- especially because I'll bet Mike thinks that people would vote for him instead of Will in the finals. Erika is delusional if she thinks for a second that Mike's loyalty is to her and not Will. Her smartest play would have been to get rid of Will, thus leaving Mike with no choice but to stick with her. I don't think she had the votes to do it, mind you, but ousting Danielle-- who was clearly gunning for Will and trusting Erika-- was crazy. Erika needs Will gone, and the only scenario now under which that happens is if Erika herself gets nominated and wins the power of veto. The HoH is safe this week, but it's the veto winner (assuming the HoH doesn't win) who holds all the power as the only vote deciding who goes home. Nobody but Erika would both put Will up and vote him out. If Janelle wins the vote, she's canning Mike or Erika. Mike or Will will get rid of Erika or Janelle.

This is Janelle and Erika's last chance to make a smart move and team up against the guys. If they don't pool their resources, Chilltown's waltzing into the finals where Will will become the first reality show repeat champion.

And the thing of it is, he deserves it. The man has been nothing short of brilliant to not only survive this long, but engineer virtually every eviction throughout the season. It's been astounding to watch the puppetmaster pull everyone's strings so subtly that none of them even felt the tug. Janelle's been a phenomenal competitor, but Will's the true master of the game.

Who Wants to Be a Superhero?

Unless they're distributing flight belts to the winners of this one, I'm positive that I appeared on the right "Who Wants to Be a" show. Fortunately for creator and host Stan Lee, there's no shortage of attention-starved media whores willing to don spandex and make utter fools of themselves to gain a brief national spotlight. Who Wants to Be a Superhero? is a show strangely at odds with itself. In its opening minutes we're treated to a freak show of oddballs with absurd make-believe powers, auditioning in a star-chamber-like hall where Stan Lee grills them from a giant plasma screen. Even he doesn't want to be physically near these people, and in fact borrows this page from John Forsythe's book throughout the show, appearing only on flatscreens and communicators, never in person, as if he couldn't be bothered to actually travel to the set of his own television show.

Before long we're introduced to the contestants, many of whom come off as actors desperate for exposure. There's lantern-jawed Major Victory, who mugs for the camera to deliver his motto: "Be a winner, not a weiner." There's Lamuria, voted onto the show by Sci-Fi.Com readers seemingly for her ability to fill out a gold lamé catsuit. Monkey Woman climbs trees and screeches like a simian, while holding all the hopes and dreams of her native Seattle (go, Monkey Woman!). The Iron Enforcer is a Vin Diesel wannabe overcompensating with a giant prop gun strapped to his arm. And let us not forget Fat Mama, harnessing the force of a coronary attack for truth and justice.

The show kicks off in high camp, rendering each contestant in comic-book style and challenging the viewers to take things seriously. And then the flatscreens turn on and Stan Lee rebukes everyone for smiling, having fun, and socializing with each other, sternly informing them that superheroes don't act that way. Which isn't at all the impression I got from Marvel's Avengers or Fantastic Four comics, but Lee's getting on in years so we'll cut him some slack. His role seems to be to get the players to take this farce seriously as he "tests" them in various ways to see who's got the right superhero stuff. The challenges are meant to test their character-- honesty, integrity, compassion, and so forth. Right off the bat, one contestant is eliminated for having his words twisted by leading questions into seeming like he's only there for the money. Which is patently absurd, because EVERYONE is there for the money-- if not directly, then from other opportunities the national exposure might provide.

I'm down with reality competition shows. I love me the Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, and Treasure Hunters. But the truth is, Who Wants to Be a Superhero may well be the guiltiest pleasure of them all. The whole concept is absurd, made all the more so by the tone of dire importance lent to it by doddering codger Lee and the eagerness with which the contestants pledge to make him proud. Honestly, it's an hour of laughs-- and in the world of summer television, that's a superheroic feat of its own.

He Doesn't Have to Shoot You Now

Tonight's Big Brother was quite possibly the most interesting in the show's 7-year history. That's certainly true for the veto ceremony, which is usually a big no-op snooze-fest. The ONLY player I knew I wanted to see in the All-Star season was Will, because he's a double threat-- a good player, and good television. The American public has a very short memory (or else everyone who watched the first couple of seasons has moved on to greener pastures), but I was still stunned that he didn't get voted in by the audience. Thankfully the producers are more savvy, and thus we were treated to the most brilliant speech ever on the show.

Everyone recognizes that Will is a very strong player, and in all likelihood the best Big Brother player ever. And yet nobody seems to be in a big hurry to boot his pale heiny off the show. Frankly, I don't understand it. The floaters might think that he and Mike are necessary to combat season 6, but what are the season sixers thinking? Mike and Will are an unbreakable alliance. Nothing will ever drive a wedge between them. They will also be voting as a team and competing as a team. They're clearly the strongest threat, and yet season six is trying to keep them around! It makes no sense.

But Will has clearly discovered that his poop, miraculously, doesn't stink. And so he's turned up his game. He's done exactly what he said he did-- made the target on his back so big that it's invisible. By saying he hates everyone and promising to throw every challenge, he's made it seem like he really doesn't care about winning the game. He's defanged himself in his opponents' eyes. If he's going to throw the competitions, why vote him out when you can get rid of a more threatening competitor like Jase? Even better, Will's put all his cards on the table. He's told everyone his plan, he's told them he hates them, and so when he makes it to the final two he'll be able to say that he never lied to anyone. He showed them the knife-- can he help it if they placed their neck beneath it and shimmied back and forth?

The only question now is whether the other players will wake up in time to disarm him.

Droll Hosts and the Producers Who Love Them

Last year at this time, Pat Kiernan presided over a regrettably short-lived game show called Studio 7. The show didn't take off, but the mondo-droll Kiernan definitely had the goods. So when he sold VH1 on The World Series of Pop Culture, producer Michael Davies tapped Kiernan to assume the hosting duties.

Kiernan's ultra low-key delivery grounds the show with a certain credibility perhaps unwarranted by the subject matter. It would have been easy for the show to go in the other direction, sailing over the top with wacky, zany antics, über-geeky contestants, and an absurdly enthusiastic host. Instead, the show manages to be both whimsical and dignified, celebrating pop culture without mocking the players devoted to it.

The format, while simple, works. Each of two three-player teams sends one player to the microphone to compete head-to-head in a best-of-six trivia contest. All the questions belong to the same category-- Spielberg Films, TV Spinoffs, Hip-Hop Music, etc. If a player can't answer a question, it bounces to their opponent for a steal. The player answering the most questions eliminates their opponent. The last team with uneliminated players wins the match and continues in the tournament. The last team standing takes home $250,000.

Big Brother: Let the Game Begin

Nakomis? Really, America? Nakomis, Diane, and Erika? What, not enough personality-challenged talking heads for you on television now that Bravo's jettisoning Katie Lee Joel for next season's Top Chef? And self-centered Jase over megamaniacal Will? Take the cell phones away from the hormone-crazed teenyboppers and hand them to viewers who actually want an interesting season.

Thankfully, the producers came to the rescue, saving the nation from its own folly and throwing Danielle, Will, Mike, Marcellas, and Alison into the house where they belong. I'm glad they put George into the house as well, because Will and Mike had it exactly right-- he's a minnow among sharks, as out of his league here as the Hanlons were on Treasure Hunters. Ironically, he's such an underwhelming threat that he's likely to survive in the game for quite a while.

Unlike Danielle, who made her move far too early and overplayed her hand. She needed to recede into the background and try and disprove her reputation for evilness. To the extent that anyone in an All-Stars game can fly under the radar, that would have been her best strategy. The two biggest targets are the Season Six alliance and the unbreakable Will/Mike friendship. Like Janelle said, Danielle wasn't even on the radar-- until she opened her mouth and painted a target on her forehead. Alison just got caught in the crossfire. Fortunately for Alison, everyone wants Danielle out more. On the other hand on Big Brother, unlike Survivor, people often choose to keep the bigger threats around for a while under the theory that they'll be easy to get out later since everyone wants them gone. Which is a great plan if you're the only one using it, but if everyone's on the same page it means the big threats stick around and the small fish get fried.

The Witless Hanlons

The casting director for Treasure Hunters must have said an extra prayer of gratitude the night the "Wild" Hanlons' audition tape arrived. In all the seasons of Survivor, The Amazing Race, and Big Brother (and yes, I've watched them all) nobody-- and I mean nobody has been as inept, ill-suited for the game, or more guaranteed to generate good television than the Hanlons. They personified every negative stereotype of the southern hick, and like swine at a cocktail party seemed blissfully unaware of how out of their league they really were. The list of their blunders-- after only three episodes!-- is too long to list. The Browns had it exactly right-- the Hanlons wouldn't let the Browns ride on their boat, but the Hanlons then wanted to ride on the back of the Browns. Unbelievable. Their luck or their karma finally ran out tonight. I'm deeply sorry to see them go. They had less hope of winning than Walter Mondale, but they were a hoot to watch.

Does anyone else the lighthouse on that box artifact looks like a stylized Eiffel Tower? I think the teams will be going to France, and we'll be seeing the box again then.

Big Brother 7: All Stars

When it comes to trashy summer TV, nothing's trashier than Big Brother. If you watch Big Brother, you pretty much have to either pretend you've never heard of the show or stand loud and proud. I've watched every season. As a game guy, I'm always interested in the competitions the creators devise, and the backstabbing politics is an added bonus. I eagerly awaited Survivor's all-star season, but the same concept on Big Brother gets a muted yawn from me. Survivor seems more about having a strategy and playing the game, and as such it was interesting to fill an island with veterans and see how they fared the second time around. But not only is Big Brother's stage much smaller, but its contestants are less endearing. There's almost nobody on the nomination list that I'm interested in seeing again. I'd much rather meet a new batch of players.

But that's not an option. From the list of 20 nominees, there are only 8 I'd pick: Alison, Danielle, Howie, James, Janelle, Kaysar, Marcellas, Will. I'm betting that attention whore Mike will also make it on, although one season of his limelight-hogging was plenty. I have no idea what Cowboy and Nakomis are even doing on that list (the latter was a complete non-entity the first time, and the former makes my ears bleed), but I'll give a small prayer of thanks to whatever gods kept Holly off. I hope loud-mouth Monica doesn't make the cut-- anyone who still uses the phrase "keeping it real" is dead to me (ack! On browsing the Big Brother web site, I see that Danielle not only "kept it real" but intends to continue "keeping it real 24/7" this season. Et tu, Danielle?)-- and frankly, five years hasn't made me pine for Chicken George any. If I had to fill the 3 remaining slots, I'd go with Bunky, Dana, and Lisa.

My predictions on the 3 men and 3 women America will pick: Kaysar, Howie, Will, Alison, Janelle, Ivette. And if he doesn't get picked by America, the producers will absolutely put Marcellas in the house.

Voting closes June 28.

Treasure Hunters

My most frequent complaint about The Amazing Race is the lost opportunity represented by the frequently lame challenges the teams are asked to perform. With just a little more effort, the inane needle-in-a-haystack searches or purely physical challenges could be transformed into simple but satisfying puzzles that with both physical and mental components. It's clearly not hurting the show's ratings, but I can't help feel that the game aspect of the show could be stronger. Enter Treasure Hunters, NBC's new reality show that is most easily described as "The Amazing Race with puzzles."

As a primetime network show, the puzzles are pretty simple-- Morse code, a substitution cipher (with provided code key), an electronic combination lock-- but so far nicely devised. The lock in particular-- positioned within view of Mount Rushmore and opened by entering the ordinal sequence of the four presidents carved thereon-- felt elegant in its simplicity and integration with the environment. I was a bit disappointed that none of the teams figured out the image on the map they received, since I recognized it as an anamorphic image immediately (there was an exhibit of such images when I visited the Salvador Dali museum in Figueras, Spain). The Geniuses and Young Professionals seemed particularly dense when, confronted with a cylinder that looked remarkably like the one already in their possession, they never connected the dots.

Production values are high, and I was particularly pleased that viewers are told how far behind the leader each team is, so we're not left to wonder if teams were very close to each other or just edited to look that way. The product placement is particularly egregious, however-- is there anything unique about Ask.com's search technology?-- and my attention span isn't so short that I need to see the cell phone videos more than once, thanks. But Treasure Hunters shows real promise, and I hope the ratings are strong enough to warrant a second season and an audition opportunity for the pirates of Briny Deep ("PIRATES: Seattle, WA").

Hell's Kitchen

Somehow Hell's Kitchen flew completely under my radar last season. Now that Top Chef has drawn to a close, I need my weekly fix of "reality" cooking-- and Hell's Kitchen caught my Tivo's attention. The buzz on the show has always been that chef Gordon Ramsay is an abusive tyrant to the aspiring contestants, but when you consider what's at stake-- a position as executive chef (with a share of the the profits) at a mulitmillion dollar restaurant at Las Vegas' new Red Rocks resort-- the contestants have ample reason to grin and bear it. But after seeing the dozen hopefuls, you have to wonder if Red Rocks' human resources shouldn't stick to a more traditional interview process. Most of the candidates seem woefully underqualified for the job. Then again, I'm sure the legal eagles have made sure the "executive chef" title can be honorary at the restaurant's discretion if the winner proves not to be up to the task.

I've been told the set for the show is a television studio that was completely remodeled for the show, incorporating a fully-functioning restaurant with double kitchen (so two teams can compete) and a dormitory for the contestants to stay in for the duration. They did a terrific job-- the restaurant looks fabulous. I'm particularly fond of the colored tile work and may use something similar for my upcoming kitchen remodel.

The show almost lost me at the outset, however, when Ramsay began sampling the players' signature dishes (which he gave them 30 minutes to prepare). He was gratuitously cruel, eviscerating each dish before even tasting them and subjecting the chefs to pointless degradations. That kind of mean-spirited television may be Fox's bread and butter, but it's not my cup of tea. But I started to wonder if that group humiliation process was casting Ramsay as the drill sergeant and the players as the army recruits fresh off the bus-- a bonding experience to bring the chefs together against a common enemy and fire them up to prove their worth.

If insults was all the show had to offer, it wouldn't be worth my time. But when they moved on to actual kitchen work, the show became vastly more interesting. Unlike Top Chef, these people are working in a "real" restaurant environment, with "real" customers to satisfy. These aren't trumped-up challenges like making gourmet food from a Kwik-E-Mart, this is a real night's service on a real restaurant line. And for someone like me who's curious about the world of restaurant cooking, the show suddenly became compelling. Ramsay may be abusive with his tirades, but he's not wrong-- the player-chefs (many of whom had no restaurant experience, so the deck was stacked against them to begin wtih) were horrible. All Ramsay appeared to be doing was holding them to a high standard. Having never worked in a kitchen, I have no way to know how preposterous the whole situation is to begin with. It certainly seemed like they were given adequate time to prepare. But the show was undoubtedly cast with inexperienced chefs for precisely this reason, to give Ramsay plenty to shout about in the opening weeks as the clueless wannabes who are way out of their league get eliminated one by one.

As much as I enjoyed Top Chef, it was clearly a game. The challenges were fanciful and only tangentially related to the real world of cookery. Hell's Kitchen also has all the artifice we expect in the reality genre, but the skills it's asking for-- and showing us-- feel more real. Who's cut out to not just work in, but run, a high-pressure, high-quality commercial kitchen? And what does it take to be that person? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Oh, and for the record... my money's on Heather.

Push the Button, Frank

There are still a lot of things that don't make sense yet. Why run a psych experiment on an observation post? Why have journals dump into the middle of nowhere? Why are the Others pretending to be yokels? What do they want with Jack, Kate, and Sawyer (and not, say, Sayid or Locke)? What the heck is that smoky monster thing, and why hasn't it appeared in a while? Why are so many of the castaways' lives intertwined (or conversely, why were so many people with connections to each other on the same plane)? Is there really a sickness on the island? What exactly is so special about Walt?

But on the question of the button-- and why the plane crashed-- they delivered.

I still don't buy Michael's actions. He could have gotten the same group to make the trip just by asking them. "They're in huts, they're holding my boy, and together we can rescue them." Done. That said, will he have a change of heart and return next season when we least expect it? I wouldn't bet against it.

Lost remains that rarest of beasts, appointment television. I can't wait to see what they pull out of their hats for next season.

There But For the Grace of Sydney

I hope J.J. Abrams and crew have learned a lesson from Alias, which wrapped its erratic 5-year run this week. Always have an escape route. Look before you leap. Know where you're going before you start the journey. Take your pick. Like The X-Files before it, Alias was a poster child for seat-of-the-pants plotting. And now that it's over, it still doesn't make any sense. First, at the end of season... four?... Rambaldi's endgame was revealed to be a massive zombification project to the resounding "Huh?" of the audience. It was a development that came out of nowhere, and why Sloane would doggedly pursue such an outcome remained unclear at best.

The second time around, the endgame made much more sense, and at the same time even less. From the very beginning, the show intimated that Rambaldi had found the key to extreme longevity if not immortality. So when the bread crumbs finally led to an elixir of life, that at least felt internally consistent. Obscenely baroque, with a gazillion steps to gather artifacts that seemed to play no part in the creation of the elixir, but thematically sound. But if Rambaldi discovered eternal life, why would he be entombed? For years I've been convinced that when it all finally came together, Rambaldi himself would reveal himself to be alive and kicking and the mastermind behind... something. That, at least, would have made a sort if internal sense.

But sense isn't exactly the hallmark of the series. It would be easy, if exceedingly geeky, to go back through all five seasons and list all the Rambaldi-related shenanigans that went nowhere or were never explained. We never learn why Rambaldi prophesized about Sydney in the first place. And what was all that mumbo-jumbo about Sydney bringing "the highest power unto utter desolation"? It's obvious the writers had no idea where they were going when they pulled ideas out of their asses-- they just hopped into the paper bag and hoped to write their way out of it later.

Which brings us to Lost.

They've gone a great job so far of delivering payoffs for their promises, and everything's pretty much holding together (Michael's complete loss of a moral compass notwithstanding). So I remain hopeful. But we've just seen what can happen when a show loses its way, and I'm hoping Lost's title isn't prophetic.

Finally, An Exciting Finish!

I can't remember the last time The Amazing Race ended with some drama-- perhaps last season's family edition came closest-- but this season's finale was a real nail-biter. The final challenge, in which teams had to retrieve and arrange national flags in the order in which they visited the corresponding countries, was terrific. So much of the race is physical that it's always welcome to see more cerebral challenges. I don't understand why they don't do more of that type of thing.

As thrilled as I am that the Hippies won (despite being non-eliminated TWICE!), you've gotta feel bad for the frat boys. They got to the final roadblock first, and they were just a single exchange away from having everything right. One swap away from one million dollars. That's a lot of beer to cry over.

And would someone please explain to me how Ray and Yolanda found their way into the final three when they couldn't find anything else?

Homeless, But Not Broke

It should have been Terry.

Update: Because a couple of readers asked so nicely in the comments, some more thoughts. Of the final four contestants, the game could have gone to any of them but Danielle. The jury rightly snubbed her utter lack of game. Like Vescepia before her, Danielle survived to the end not because of her endearing personality, strong relationships, keen strategic thinking, or impressive performance in challenges, but because everyone else always had bigger fish to fry. That steady beeping you heard throughout the game was Danielle backing into the finals. As we saw in the reunion, the cash was Terry's had he just won the immunity challenge and gotten to the finals. And had Cirie won the fire-building challenge, she'd have won the game: Aras would have won the final immunity challenge and taken her with him to the finals, where the jury would have danced a merry jig as they unanimously bestowed the prize upon her.

The final immunity challenge was horrible. Burnett hit on right on the mark his very first at bat with the stand-on-the-stump challenge from season 1, and he continued to stay true to its essence with all of the "how badly do you want it?" physical exhaustion and willpower challenges that followed. I thought they stumbled last season with a challenge that so obviously favored taller players over shorter ones-- with her lanky frame wedged against the supports, Danielle never seemed to be struggling at all while Stephanie gave it everything she had-- but this time their pratfall channeled Chevy Chase. Endurance had nothing to do with this challenge, it was entirely about balance. It wasn't enough to "want it" this time. Cirie would have been gone on the first platform. This time the advantage was with the shorter players, not to mention the freaking yoga instructor-- Terry never had a chance. On any other season, Terry would have walked away a millionaire.

A note to sanctimonious flower-child Courtney: There is no high road. You wanted the money just as much as everyone else, and you lost. Where do you get off lecturing others about their life's journey? I doubt even Probst was fooled by your gibberish. Good riddance.

They're giving Exile Island another try next season-- perhaps the immunity idol will come into play this time. And was anyone else surprised they burned the torches, which they usually auction off for pediatric AIDS?

Exile Fizzle

So much for Mark Burnett's pact with the devil. This season's hidden immunity idol twist had the potential to completely shake up the game. Instead, it fell victim to a confluence of two unlikely circumstances: one player dominating all the immunity challenges, and that same player finding the idol. Terry never needed to use it, and it would have been silly for him to give it up. So the game proceeded pretty much as it usually does. The players talked and worried about the idol, but it never truly affected any gameplay-- what a disappointment! It's hardly Burnett's fault. They structured it right: the person who went to Exile Island was often the one most in danger of getting voted out. But once Terry found the idol, that no longer mattered.

I'm betting Cirie loses the fire-building challenge, and Danielle and Terry go to the finals. I'll be extremely disappointed with the jury if Terry doesn't win under that scenario. Say whatever you want about the guy, but he dominated the challenges and survived despite having a massive target on his forehead. To not give him props for that-- and to reward Danielle instead, who really did nothing but fly low-- smacks of sour grapes. Cirie at least played the game well. Danielle just went along for the ride.

The Sharks Are Looking Jumpy

I've got a lot of respect for the writers of Lost. But no matter what they come up with for the rest of the season, I don't see how it can possibly make sense of the events of tonight's episode. Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything (we'll save that for the comments). But I will say that one character did something tonight that just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand the motivation for it, given what the other characters were already in the process of doing. I hope the writers are sitting on a bunny hutch, because they're going to need to pull a few rabbits out of their asses to make sense out of this.

Old Saw

What the hell was up with last week's Smallville? I haven't even seen Saw or its sequel, but even I immediately recognized that the plot was a cheap rip-off of that movie right down to a bad guy in a goofy-looking mask. I'm guessing that the film plays it as a sadistic serial killer who forces his victims to play twisted games, and that it works in that context because the killer doesn't have some higher agenda. But on Smallville it made no sense whatsoever. The villain had his life ruined when Lionel's machinations bankrupted a company, losing his wife, house, and job. Yet he had enough resources to secure multiple flat screen monitors and a warehouse space; install industrial-grade custom gas lines, custom floors, custom doors with electronic switches, and a shatterproof glass tank; rig a floor so it could be electrified, and so forth. Riiiiiiiiight. And why does he go to all this trouble? To kill Lionel and hear him say he was sorry-- something that could have been accomplished with far less effort through the creative application of a hired goon with a pair of pliers.

I don't expect much from a superhero television show. I'll suspend disbelief and allow kryptonite to become a magical superpower-generating plot device to prevent Smallville from being a sleepy Kansas farm town. But I do like plots and character motivations to make sense. There was no excuse for this week's mess.

Top Chef

I love food. Not exactly a newsflash. Keep me the hell out of an automotive supply store, but drop me off in the kitchen section of Bed, Bath, & Beyond and I'll browse for hours. Like many recreational cooks, I've entertained fantasies of going to cooking school and turning my avocation into a vocation, but then I'm reminded of the grueling hours and repetitive nature of the work and I snap back to reality. Or in this case, reality television. Top Chef, from the makers of Project Runway, is basically Survivor in the kitchen. Each week the contestants-- all professional chefs with real skills-- compete in a "Quickfire" (read: immunity) challenge and an elimination challenge. The last chef standing gets bragging rights and a $100,000 prize.

Despite my bias towards the format and the material, the show didn't grab me right away. It suffered from the same problem as all other elimination shows-- they start with too many contestants to adequately cover in one hour. The camera flits from one to the next, spending too little time on each to get much sense for who they are. The problem is compounded when each of them is creating something, and as a viewer I want to know as much as possible about what they're making and how they're making it-- and there's just not enough time for that.

Fortunately the problem is self-correcting. As the series progresses and contestants get eliminated, those who remain get better defined and viewers are able to relate to them better. Now that we're down to just five, the balance is about right. Only three of those five-- Tiffani, Lee Anne, and Harold-- have any chance of winning (and it could really be any of them). Dave is a neurotic mess, and Stephen is a pedantic snob. But they're all fun to watch, and observing their creative process is fascinating.

Host Katie Lee Joel (Billy's wife) is execrable-- even Pinnochio wouldn't give such a wooden delivery. But the two resident food professionals-- chef Tom Calicchio and writer Gail Simmons-- make up for her, particularly Calicchio who takes a no-nonsense approach and isn't shy about asking pointed, trenchant questions of the contestants.

Top Chef is on Bravo, which probably means it's running a few times a day. If you like cooking or the business of food, check it out.

Lost Scorecard

Programs! Getchyer programs! Can't know the players without a program! Let's review the Lost backstory connections, shall we?

Shannon's father crashed into Jack's future wife's car. Shannon's father died at Jack's hospital because Jack, working on his future wife, couldn't work on him.
Locke's dad is a con artist. Could he be the one who bilked Sawyer's family?
The woman Locke did a home inspection for was Sayid's girlfriend.
Libby was in the mental hospital with Hurley.
Kate's stepfather captured Sayid during the Gulf War.
Hurley owns the box company Locke works for, and both men worked for the same person, Randy.
Locke's mother was in the same mental hospital as Hurley and Libby.
The waitress who served Sawyer and Gordy was Kate's mother.

Any others?

Nice Idea. Lousy Timing.

Terry's decision to use the immunity idol as leverage to get Casaya members to flip over to the other side was brilliant. But it came a week too late. The time to leverage the idol was last week, when La Mina was 4 members strong and flipping one from Casaya would create a 5-5 tie. Offer Danielle-- or even better, Cirie-- the idol under those conditions, and perhaps they'd have taken the deal. But Danielle thinks she's in an alliance that will become the final four. She has no incentive to bail out of that. Moreover, who would you rather go to the final four with-- athletic powerhouses Austin, Terry, and Sally, or the dysfunctional nightmare that is Casaya? If it were me, I'd think I'd have a much better chance of manipulating Casaya or flat out beating them in the challenges.

But now that Terry has revealed the idol to Danielle, it was insane of him not to give it to Austin (the logical target). Once Terry decided that it was more useful to him as a tool to keep his alliance's numbers up than as a personal shield, he should have stuck with that instinct and protected Austin. Aras would have gone home, making the numbers 5-3 and putting the hidden idol back onto Exile Island. Reclaiming that idol would be the entire game plan. Granted, it's a huge gamble-- you can't blame Terry for thinking it might be safer to rely on his ability to win personal immunities to keep him in the game, holding onto the hidden idol as a failsafe. He is the biggest target, and if the horrible Break the Plates challenge gets used for immunity this season he's toast. Or maybe he gave the idol to Sally, thinking the other players would try to outmaneuver them in the "avoid the hidden idol" shell game.

I hope Terry can pull a Tom and power through on his own skills. But if he doesn't, I'd love to see Cirie win the money. Sure, she's a radar-skimmer. But she's the craftiest one we've seen in a long time, and to pull it off she'll have to make some kind of move once they're down to 5 or 6. And there's nobody in the core alliance of four-- especially not Shane or Courtney-- who would be nearly as satisfying as a winner.

One Year Later

If you haven't seen the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, read no further.

For the rest of you... damn! At first I kept thinking, "This is some kind of alternate reality flashforward. They're not really doing this, are they? They're not really uprooting all of the characters and relationships so fundamentally, are they? Holy crap, they are. And is Starbuck... pregnant? Six's detonation of the nuclear warhead made no sense at the time, but the payoff was brilliant and made it all come together in retrospect. I have to quibble a bit, though-- the implication of the Cylons being a little over a light year away and taking a little over a year to reach New Caprica is that they left for the source of the explosion immediately and took a year to get there. That makes no sense. The Cylons have always been nipping at the Colonials' heels, so I don't understand why it would have taken them so long to reach New Caprica. Some explanation that tied into the so-called "reprieve" seems required.

It looks like the show is heading in a different direction next season, and I'm excited to see how it all plays out. Are we in for an entire season of bifurcated stories between the fleet and New Caprica (as with season one), or will they abandon New Caprica early on and return to the ragtag fugitive fleet format? Will the Cylons discover Sharon's baby? Will Anders survive? What the hell happened between Lee and Kara, anyway?

And we have to wait until October.

Nobody's Safe

I love that nobody-- short of Keifer Sutherland and Matthew Fox-- is safe on 24 or Lost. The producers' willingness to kill off characters is unusual in series television and keeps both series fresh and unpredictable.

And in other news cleverly related to the title of this entry, this story from NPR had me just screaming out loud in my car last night. Skip ahead to 4:51 or 6:26 into the story to feel my pain.

New Season of Reality

Now that the big three reality shows have kicked off their seasons, I thought I'd check in.

Getting into Mensa is easy. Just about anyone with a brain can do it. So the whole Mensa angle was way overplayed on The Apprentice, not only by Trump, but by Tarek himself. Few things turn people off quite like a Mensan trumpeting his membership as if certifies him as the next step in mankind's evolutionary ladder. I'm not in Mensa, but I view it as a social group where smart people can go to meet similarly smart people, and possibly find others who share their interests. But on the show, Mensa membership was waved about like an achievement in itself, something others should inherently respect because of the patina of greatness it supposedly provides. Phooey. Buying into-- or perhaps trying to sell-- that hype proves Tarek isn't as smart as he thinks he is.

I can't applaud loudly enough for the elimination of this season's token gay guys from The Amazing Race. Perhaps the editing is to blame, but I found nothing sympathetic about them. John in particular was crabby and negative from the get-go, and his teammate was just a non-presence. But the producers struck gold with "the hippies," who are just a hoot to watch, and how can we not be rooting for the roly-poly naivetee of the nerds? It's a good sign when there are already teams to root for and against after just a single outing.

How much would that downpour have sucked on Survivor? You've just won a load of food and are looking forward to cooking it, only to discover your camp flooded and no dry wood to use for a fire. Bobby was practically begging to get canned with his antisocial behavior. When will Survivors learn that stealing from the tribe is a big no-no? Cirie's continued presence is a minor miracle, and now she's almost home-free. Once the tribes merge, she'll easily fly under the radar of the more physical threats who will turn on each other first. Beware the low-fliers, people-- they're a bigger threat than the hardbodies.

Pocket Immunity

I don't think the players on Survivor realize yet how profoundly the existence of the personal immunity idol changes the game. By finding the idol-- and kudos for digging deeper instead of giving up after removing the stones and finding nothing obvious-- Terry now has a huge advantage. HUGE, I say. Not only can he save himself from elimination, but if he's savvy and manages to conceal his possession of the idol from everyone else he can use it to assassinate a key opponent who might otherwise be untouchable.

His teammates don't want to get rid of him, and his four-man alliance seems strong. But once the tribes merge, if I were in the game I'd be quietly lobbying to vote out EVERYONE who's ever been to Exile Island, one by one, until that immunity idol appears. It's a land mine waiting to explode in someone's face, and if I didn't know where it was, I'd be trying to flush it out. But quietly. Because it would do you no good to swing a unanimous vote against an exile with the idol if that exile cast his potentially lethal magic bullet vote against you.

Maybe the players have thought this all through already and it's just been edited out so far because it hasn't come into play. Or maybe they haven't adjusted their strategy to this twist yet. But it's going to be very interesting to hear their reactions once the full implications manifest.

Throw Me the Idol!

The older women get a partial pass on voting their most capable teammate out last night on Survivor. As a group, it was a stupid choice to make. For each of them as individuals, I can't blame them. With only 4 players in the tribe to choose from, if you can put yourself in the survival troika it really doesn't matter who the odd woman out is-- the important thing is that it's not you.

I suspect we may not have seen the last of Tina, though. In an interview, Probst said that her tragic background comes into play. We certainly didn't see that last night, which makes me think we might see another ghost tribe of outcasts and Tina might get back into the game. I'm OK with that-- getting booted out of an initial 4-person tribe is a raw deal.

Meanwhile, where's that pesky immunity idol hidden? Lacking any sense of the island's geography we have no way to know. My take on Jeff's cryptic clue is that he emphasized Misty would have time to think about WHY fate chose her to stay behind and WHY [something else I forgot]-- a departure from the norm in such a situation. I'm thinking the use of "WHY" twice to emphasize it suggests the idol is hidden in a natural feature that resembles the letter Y-- a forked tree, perhaps. You heard it here first.

First 15 of 24

I like to stockpile episodes of 24 so I can watch them at my leisure and not be held hostage to the weekly cliffhanger. So I only last night got around to watching the first 2 hours of the season, and WOW, what an opener! Great stuff. As a solution to the problem of how to bring Jack back to Los Angeles, it was genius. I'm hoping all the effort on the part of the bad guys turns out to make sense. At the moment, it just looks like a plot device. But I have faith that the writers will bring the pieces together in due course.

Meanwhile... Survivor: Exile Island premieres tonight.

Bait and Switch

So I was right, and I was wrong.

This week's Smallvillle was the worst kind of lazy, manipulative storytelling. The first iteration, where Lana gets killed, actually had some pathos. But from the moment Clark grabbed the deus ex machina crystal-- with the show's writers frantically waving their hands in the wings and imploring us to pay no attention to what's behind the curtain-- I cried foul. Jonathan's death was telegraphed early in the show, when he said Clark was a man now who didn't need his father's advice anymore. Right then I knew he was a goner. And that saddens me, because one of the things I really liked about the show was the father-son relationship and the great performance by John Schneider. He was Clark's moral center. Killing him off breaks the show from current Superman continuity, where both of Clark's parents are still alive, but not in a way that makes the series more interesting. So Lana's still in the dark about Clark's secret after all, and now we'll be treated to scenes of Lionel cozening up to the widowed Martha, Lex moving in on Lana, and Clark torn between the memory of his adoptive father and the siren call of his biological one. Do they really think viewers want to go there? I'd much rather have lost Annette O'Toole's Martha, whose hangdog Martha Kent sucks all the energy out of a scene.

If the show had ended after the first half hour it might have been more predictable, but a heck of a lot less disappointing.

Lanatomy

Next Thursday is the 100th episode of Smallville, and to herald the occasion they're making two major changes to the show (warning, spoilers follow). Clark is finally going to tell Lana who he really is, and somebody close to Clark is going to die. There are really only 5 candidates: mom, dad, Lana, Lois, and Chloe. Chloe, as the only character not part of established Superman continuity, seems like the obvious choice. But I think we're going to be cheated.

I think they're going to kill Lana.

The previews make it look that way. And it lets them shake up the show while simultaneously maintaining the status quo. Clark's secret is the only thing standing between he and Lana. If they remove it, they lose dramatic tension. And a happy hero is never as interesting as a troubled one. Killing Lana breaks the stagnation the series has struggled with while clearing the way for Clark and Lois to get closer.

it also creates a major break with traditional continuity, which can only be a good thing. It's ok if the big strokes-- Lex favoring power over friendship, Clark and Lois winding up together-- remain inviolate, but the show's more interesting if the smaller things aren't fixed in stone.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Chloe's in the driver's seat next week, or Jonathan Kent (clearing the way for Lex to win the election). Maybe, for once, the previews haven't given everything away. But I wouldn't bet on it. Which means only one change to the show instead of two.

Apprenturd

As I watched tonight's Apprentice finale, even before the live boardroom began, I found myself convinced that Trump was going to hire both Rebecca and Randall. In a season where he's fired multiple people at once on more than one occasion, hiring two apprentices would have been a fitting end. When Randall asked the other players to stand if they thought he should be the one and only apprentice, it was clear he thought it might go that way too. So I was a little disappointed when Trump hired just Randall. But when he called Randall back to ask if he thought he should hire Rebecca also, I smiled knowingly.

Then Randall's head turned 360 degrees as he began projectile vomitting and speaking in tongues.

Maybe something went on behind the scenes that we don't know about, because he and Rebecca worked closely together for much of the season and seemed to be on great terms. So I can't for the life of me understand why Randall would display a complete lack of class and grace, stabbing a blazing hot dagger into her back on live television. Trump wanted to hire them both, and all Randall had to do was be a mensch, smile a huge grin, and embrace his former partner in a celebratory hug of their mutual good fortune. Instead he chose to puff up and hog the limelight for himself. Not content to merely achieve his own goal, he had to ensure that his rival was utterly squashed in the process.

Trump talks a good game about leadership, but then let Randall make that key decision for him. If Trump doesn't cowboy up and extend an offer-- and an apology-- to Rebecca, he and Randall certainly deserve each other.

The Tribe Has Spoken

A number of readers have emailed to ask about my thoughts on the Survivor finale. I'm touched.

Steph screwed herself 6 ways to Sunday by betraying three people she had an alliance with. THREE! That's 3 of the 4 votes her opponent needed to win. Add to that the sure knowledge that members of Danni's old alliance would vote for Danni, and that gave Steph no path to victory.

Rafe was an idiot for letting Danni out of her promise. Had he gone to the finals, he would have won. And he's also an idiot for believing that both Steph and Danni were better choices to take to the final three than Lydia. I don't care what promises you've made-- when you get to that point in the game, it's time to put on your "I want to win a million dollars" hat.

This was also the first Survivor final challenge that I thought was poorly designed. Danni's height gave her a clear advantage. I can't recall a past endurance challenge that gave someone an inherent advantage because of their size or weight. Strength and physical condition, sure. But the essence of the final challenge has always been, "Who wants it more?" This one was just "Whose body is best constructed to lean most easily?" Once it devolved to that, Danni was a shoo-in.

It'd be easy to say, as Judd did, that Danni skated below the radar. But she didn't. In fact, she brilliantly orchestrated the fracture of the opposing alliance, managing not only to get Judd voted out but to get Stephanie to take the fall for it! She played Rafe like a Steinway, using his moral conflict to keep both herself and her weakest opposition in the game. The final five players to be voted out (including Steph) have only themselves to blame for not bidding on the immunity challenge advantage and letting Danni get it. They should have pooled their money to give it to someone-- anyone-- from their own alliance rather than letting Danni pick it up. Had she not gotten that advantage, she'd have been voted out that very night. Instead, she won the game.

Much though I'd have liked to have seen Stephanie win, Danni was the better player.

Jesus, Help Me Be Less of a Hypocrite!

As this season of The Amazing Race comes to a close tonight, I take solace in the certainty that if there is a God, not even He would be rooting for the Weavers to win.

Mayan Masochism

Stephanie's capacity to shoot herself in the foot on Survivor is truly astounding. Maybe she was just completely unable to convince Lydia to vote her way, and so Cindy was doomed anyway. But after Judd, Cindy was Stephanie's strongest ally. Now Stephanie stands alone against Rafe, Danni, and Lydia who-- unbeknownst to Steph-- have been conspiring together for quite a while. Rafe's done a good job of hopping from one side to the other, and Danni and Lydia's survival this far is miraculous. If Danni were to make it to the end, she'd be a shoo-in. Outnumbered after the merge and the last remaining member of a doomed tribe, how could you not vote for her? Lydia's only there because nobody thinks she's a threat, which is precisely how Vescepia won in the Marquesas. Hopefully the jury won't reward her for being the worst-performing player.

Cindy's decision tonight-- whether to keep the car she won or give it up to give each of the other four players a car instead-- was a very interesting one. Like Rafe, I think I would have given up the car. If it'd been cash, no way. But a) I don't have a need to drive in a new car, b) you have to pay taxes on the car (although if you sold the car, you'd undoubtedly make a nice profit) c) giving up the car would have been tantamount to winning immunity that week, because nobody who's just been given a car could vote off their benefactor if there was any other viable alternative, d) giving four people new cars would feel really good, and e) at the live wrap-up, do you really think Pontiac would miss the opportunity for a little more great PR by giving Cindy her own car after she generously gave one up? She could well have had the best of both worlds. But if you really wanted a new car, I can't imagine deciding to give it up even under those circumstances.

Jersey Isn't Proud

Steph, what were you thinking? Forget the question of whether or not Judd's been lying to you. Think it through. You're perceived as the force behind Jamie's elimination, when Judd wasn't informed of the change in the groupmind beforehand. When Cindy's kept in the dark about Judd's elimination, who do you think she's going to blame? And how quickly do you think the other players-- already unhappy about you getting a second chance at Survivor-- will jump at the opportunity to vote you out?

Ignoring that, sometimes you just have to trust. If Judd has been genuine with you-- and he's taken you along on two good rewards, for Pete's sake-- then he's your strongest ally. And he's a strong player. With both of you in the game together, you have a power base. Without him, you're dangling in the wind. Even if he was going to cut your throat, he'd have waited until there were only 4 players left to do it. Doing it sooner just makes no sense. But turning on him preemptively, you cut your own throat.

Oh, and Judd? Way to show some class, "man".

Apprentice Bloodbath

Are there ANY rules at all on The Apprentice? As gossip-worthy as it may be when Trump makes things up as he goes along, he threatens to undercut viewer loyalty in doing so. Firing four people at once was exciting and unexpected, sure... but it didn't feel fair to the players. The responsibility for such a devastating defeat fell on project manager Josh-- who, up until now, had my money riding on him to go all the way. He should have realized the problem with their plan when the batting cage started to dominate, and adjusted accordingly to correct it. Jennifer could be justly critized for not meeting her own hype, but Josh called the play. You can say the other two guys should have focused on sales, but they were just doing what their project manager asked them to do. They worked together well, they were just working from a poor playbook. The responsibility for that shouldn't fall on the rank-and-file, and by firing them en masse Trump has once again demonstrated how to be a crappy boss.

And on an entirely different level, was that sound I heard in the background Mark Burnett having a heart attack? In a single stroke, Trump just deleted three episodes from the series. Are we going to get three extra clip shows now? Will they bring in alternates? Will they perhaps expand the final four interviews-- which I thought was the most fascinating part of past seasons-- into a full episode? They've got a contract to fill, and now they're three people short. Brilliant.

Down the Hatch

In pre-season interviews, producers of Lost said fans should watch for episode 3. That episode aired last night, and it certainly gave us some answers. In particular, we now know exactly what the island is-- or perhaps, what it was. We have an explanation for the polar bears that don't involve them being materialized by the power of Walt's mind. We have the groundwork for more research facilities being discovered in the future. We have hints that something may have gone wrong a long time ago, which opens up some interesting theories about the various disciplines on the island becoming isolated. Or nothing may have gone wrong at all, and the orientation film-- which never mentions the exact nature of the threat, why it's so vital for the code to be transmitted every 108 minutes, or what would happen were a transmission to be missed-- may just be part of an (abandoned?) psychology experiment. We found out why it's so important for Locke to believe in something-- that he did not come by his faith easily, and that faith is all that holds him together.

We're also starting to meet the survivors from the back end of the plane, and are learning that their response to the crash appears to have been much different from that of the front passengers. Looks like it's Lord of the Flies time, and things are about to get much less civilized. Jack's a peace-time leader, not a general-- that job better suits Sayid or Sawyer. If the two groups of survivors clash, I expect we'll see some power struggles on the familiar side of the island.

Episode 2 didn't do much more than tread water, literally and figuratively, but things just got much more interesting.

Awwwwww... Geek Out!

The Boston Globe released its list of the top 50 science fiction television series of all time. The only reason such lists exist is to pick them apart and cluck at how off-base the idiots who compile them are, so far be it from me to shirk my civic duty.

Here's the Globe list:

Obviously, the Globe's concept of science fiction extends to anything with a hint of the impossible or the imaginary. One could argue about whether The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man were science fiction or spy action shows (I say the latter), but Xena was mythological fantasy with no hint of science fiction. In fact, I'd say 13 shows on the list (Nowhere Man, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Batman, The Avengers, The Greatest American Hero, Lois & Clark, The Adventures of Superman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wonder Woman, Tales From the Crypt, The Hitchhiker, Xena, and Lost) clearly don't fit the category, and 5 others (3rd Rock From the Sun, The Bionic Woman, My Favorite Martian, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The X-Files) are questionable. And if you're going to put Lost on the list at all, for God's sake rank it higher than a train wreck of a show like Sliders!

Next, let's question whether some of the genuine science fiction shows belong on any list with the word "best" in it. Earth: Final Conflict was at least three different shows over the course of its run, each less interesting than the last. By its final season, the show was something not even Gene Roddenberry would have foisted on the public. Buck Rogers also suffered an extreme makeover when the action shifted from New Chicago to the spaceship Searcher. Nobody called it a masterpiece during its initial run, and it hasn't aged well. The original Battlestar Galactica may be fondly remembered by some, but it's practically unwatchable. They recycled the same Viper shots over and over, and feathered hair is apparently alive and well in the far reaches of the galaxy. And let's not even get started about Dagget, the robotic pet. And Flash Gordon? Really?!

Now let's quibble about placement. Nostalgia notwithstanding, there is no way to justify ranking Futurama below The Jetsons. Alien Nation, a series that had some real intelligence behind it, should be much higher-- certainly above Andromeda. The aforementioned Sliders should slide way, way down the list. It's a crime to rank both Logan's Run and Voyager higher than the vastly superior Firefly, and I'd prefer to see Quantum Leap in the top 15. I think they're spot on with the high ranking of the new Battlestar Galactica, but I'd put Babylon 5 in the number 3 spot. While I can understand the emotional allure of putting the original Star Trek at the top of the list, I can't think of any sane metric by which it outshines the rightful chart-topper, The Next Generation.

Finally, a brief list off the top of my head of series missing from the list that should have been considered: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (a vastly underrated series that put Voyager to shame), Star Trek: Enterprise, Farscape, Red Dwarf, The Tomorrow People, Max Headroom, The Prisoner, Mork and Mindy.

The Apprentice

I think The Apprentice has just about run its course for me. The intense commercialization of the program, with each episode lavishing praise upon the corporate sponsor du jour while simultaneously elevating to godhood the Trump Organization or Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, has gotten a little hard to stomach. The players are largely the same mix of ladder-climbing type-A personalities every season, without the benefit of exotic locales and bikinis to distract viewers. The challenges are capricious and success often has little relation to how well the players worked. Trump, in particular, places a disturbing emphasis on victory. When a team loses the challenge by a couple of bucks and Trump asks "What went wrong?" the correct answer is that nothing went wrong. The team did well and came up short by the slimmest possible margin. A mensch would tell the team that they did very well, but the nature of the competition is that there's a winner and a loser-- so let's talk about what could have been improved. Instead, when the team says it was a virtual tie, Trump just pounds them with "But you lost!" There's no praise for what went right, just griping about what went wrong. That may make for better television, but it cultivates an image of a guy I'd never want to work for.

I had hopes for Martha's version, but it appears to be heading down a similar path despite all the talk about a softer, gentler Martha. Yes, Chuck almost quit. But what wound up happening was that the entire team rallied around him, and he bounced back with renewed focus and leadership. He had a moment of weakness, and then rebounded. But Martha ignored the unity that brought to the team-- and the leadership he displayed by bringing Jim and Dawn to the boardroom in an effort to eliminate the central conflict within their team-- and focused instead on that one moment of weakness. Her reasoning was petty and superficial, ignoring the bigger and more pressing problem of Jim's collossal ego. One can't help but wonder if Martha's leaving Jim alone for the same reason Trump kept Omarosa around-- a good villain makes people tune in. If I was a boss and an employee acted with the disrespect and childishness Jim demonstrated in the conference room, there would be no question about who got fired.

A problem with judged shows in general, and especially ones in which the judges have such a vested financial stake in success, is there's a strong incentive to rig the outcome to create higher ratings. Perhaps Martha already knows that she'll fire Jim eventually, but wants to keep him around a while to spice things up. That might be exactly what some viewers want, but for viewers like me it undermines the integrity of the competition and makes us far less interested in tuning in.

Prison Break

I don't care how much I loved my wrongly-imprisoned, soon-to-be-executed brother, or how determined I was to free him by any means necessary. If I went from a white-collar world to a high-security prison, got caught in a race riot, and had two of my toes brutally snipped by a hedge clipper, my resolve would be shaken. Not so with Michael Scofield, protagonist of Fox's high-concept Prison Break. Save for a moment when someone literally died in his arms, in five weeks we haven't seen him crack or waver. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. It'd certainly be more realistic to see him freak out a little, but it would also undermine the bedrock upon which the show is based. It's vital for us to believe that Michael has the intelligence, resourcefulness, courage and fortitude to conceive of and execute his plan, or else the entire series goes down the crapper. Despite the ex-girlfriend lawyer, the doomed brother's ex-wife and son, and the cell mate's fiancee, at its core this is a caper story. We're tuning in to see the details of Scofield's plan unfold and watch him succeed. Sure, we might pick apart the details-- there was no real reason for him to tattoo "Schweitzer" on himself, the Secret Service guys have thusfar been too prescient and omnipotent-- but a caper is all about the cleverness and intricacy of the plan, of seeing the bits and pieces of the Rube Goldberg machine drop into place and make magic. And at that level, Prison Break does not disappoint.

Unlike most high-concept shows, this one actually seems to have a plan. Plot points are introduced multiple episodes before they pay off, increasing the viewer's satisfaction when they do. The real question is how the producers plan to parlay this into a second season. A show like this wants to have a beginning, middle, and most of all an end. I'll have no problem if, after breaking out, our heroes then discover a need to break back in. But once the underlying conspiracy to frame Michael's brother Lincoln is thwarted, it would stretch credulity beyond repair for the same characters to get involved in a second escape. And when your show's called Prison Break, you don't have much flexibility in your subject matter. So I'm hoping the producers are wise enough to make this season a self-contained story, and focus on a new set of characters should a second season come about. Because I'm willing to do my time for 26 episodes, but if this story hasn't wrapped up by then I'm busting out.

Apes Online

AOL users have long been ridiculed on the Internet for being generally clueless about how things really work, but this takes the cake. Since last season, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire's Ask the Audience lifeline has generated two results-- one from the studio audience, and another from an AOL Instant Messenger poll. Tonight, when asked which of ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS can be typed using only the bottom row of letters on a standard keyboard, only 85% of the AOL audience-- each of whom was sitting in front of such a keyboard-- got the question correct. The remaining 15% must have been preoccupied trying to fax something by holding it up to their monitor screen.

Big Brother 6 Winds Down

The final Head of Household competition was, I think, the closest in BB history. Janelle just kind of fell apart, making some really bad guesses and losing her chance at $50,000. Yes, fifty. Regardless of who she chose, there was no way she could win the grand prize-- the jury is just too stacked in the other players' favor. Much of the blame for that can be laid squarely at Howie's feet for making the colossal mistake of wasting his first term as HoH and getting manipulated into nominating the very two players the competing faction wanted to get nominated, fracturing his power base in the process.

I don't care for Maggie's supercilious demeanor-- in a game like Big Brother, there's no such thing as playing dirty-- but I have to hand it to her. If the other players had had ANY brains whatsoever, Maggie would have been evicted weeks ago. She was not only the brains behind the "Friendship" alliance, but their backbone and anchor. Had the others realized that and ousted her at the first opportunity, the rest of that alliance might have crumbled. Instead, the doomed other faction let emotions rule their nominations. Janelle may have been the tougher competitor, but Maggie was the better player. Yvette cries a good story (at every opportunity), but I expect the jury to recognize Maggie's solid play and give her the money.

Nobody goes on a show like Big Brother or Survivor to make friends. Once, just once, I'd love to see someone reach that final three moment and make the intelligent choice instead of the emotional one. "Jane, you've been my best friend these past weeks, and I don't know how I'd have gotten through this without you. But everyone loves you, and if I take you with me to the finals, there's no way I can beat you. I hate Bob, but so does the jury-- if I take him with me, I'll win the money. And the money is why I came here. We all came here for the same thing, and we all knew the rules. We knew we'd be getting close to people and then voting them out of the game. It's hard, and it stinks, but that's the game we signed up for. The game came first, and our friendship developed second. I have to finish what I started and make the best play I can to win the money-- and that means voting you out." Just once.

Survivor Guatemala

It looks like Stephanie and Bobby Jon will get a reasonable shot on their new tribes, both of which have lower-hanging chaff to boot before their numbers come up. I'm one of the millions who was utterly enchanted by Stephanie's determination and spirit, and agree with one of Bobby Jon's tribemates who said Bobby Jon is not the sharpest tool in the shed. So I'm rooting for Stephanie's tribe all the way, and I'll admit to cheering when Stephanie won her first tribal immunity challenge. That had to feel good.

Supernatural

When a genre show gets buzz, I pay attention. So despite the pretty-boy casting typical of the WB, which exists in a universe populated by catalogue models and pin-ups, I tuned in for the premiere of Supernatural. And the jury's still out. The characters are a little too pat, for one thing. There's the dutiful older son (Dean) faithful to his father's demon-hunting obsession, and the reluctant younger son (Sam) trying to live a normal life only to get sucked back into the hunt against his will. The irony is that the family's descent into the supernatural is all about Sam, although he doesn't know it yet-- and I don't think the viewers are supposed to have sussed it out either. Sam's mother, y'see, was killed when Sam was just a baby. She stumbled across something-- from the back, seemingly just a guy in a trenchcoat-- standing over Sam's crib, and next thing you know she's plastered to the ceiling, then immolated. Twenty years later, Sam's girlfriend is killed in precisely the same way. Something out there seems a touch jealous. In the pilot we also learn from a spirit that Sam will someday be unfaithful, perhaps (and I'm just guessing here) triggering the creation of a vengeful spirit who travels back through Sam's life, murdering all the women who ever loved him.

The thing is, we'll probably never know. It's exactly the kind of mystery shows like this dole out in tiny scraps over the course of the series, stringing the viewer along with a promise that is never fulfilled. If the show succeeds the mystery gets stretched on to infinity (c.f.: The X-Files). If it fails, no resolution is ever forthcoming (John Doe). It's a Kobayashi Maru test for the viewer, and like global thermonuclear war the only winning move is not to play. So you have to tune in just for the episodic goodness and treat the overarching story as a bonus, an after-dinner liqueur compliments of the house. Supernatural did manage to pack some decent chills into its first hour, so I'll give it a few more tries before I decide if it makes the cut.

It's got some tough competition for the 2 Tuesday at 9 TiVo slots. The Amazing Race has one of them locked. That leaves a three-way battle between Supernatural, House (which I didn't watch last season but have heard raves about), and Commander-in-Chief starring Geena Davis as the first female president which premieres later this month. We'll see what makes the cut, and what makes BitTorrent.

Survivor Starts Tomorrow

Early reports are that this season is brutal. Palau was a gorgeous island locale with beautiful beaches and scenery, while Guatemala is rainy, brown, and muddy. Contestants are plagued by clouds of mosquitos and packs of howler monkeys. Reportedly there's nowhere to fish, making one player's fishmongering expertise useless.

Minor spoilers follow: The show begins with a gruelling 11-mile trek through the jungle, with the winning tribe getting flint and first pick of the two base camps. Reports indicate the trek kicked players' butts, turning out to be far more difficult than producers expected. Which should, at least, make for some interesting television. But the bigger twist to the season is that two familiar faces get a second chance at the game. Stephanie and Bobby Jon from Palau's doomed Ulong tribe return to captain each of the Guatemalan tribes. It'll be interesting to hear their reasons for returning. For Stephanie, I can't imagine it being anything but an anticlimax. She was a tragic heroine last season and went out as one of the darlings of the show. I can't imagine players letting her get near the prize money this time-- I expect we'll hear a lot of players conspiring to vote them off quickly, although smart ones will choose to keep them around for a while to leverage their experience-- which means the second chapter of her tale will have a less glorious finish. But then, I never would have thought Amber would win All-Stars, so what do I know? Far stranger things have happened on Survivor.

Board Game House?

After watching tonight's "Airplane House" episode of Monster House, where the family's mother was none too pleased to find the front 30 feet of a Boeing 727 in her backyard, I cruised by the show's web site to see if they had an update on the family. No such luck, but I did discover that the show has expanded its reach. Applicants used to be limited to the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas, but now they're inviting applications from Indianapolis, Kansas City, Atlanta, and... Seattle! Oooooooh yeah, baby, sign me UP! Board Game House? Game Show House? Gourmet House? My home is your palette, Steve-- come on over!

The Dunk Tank Returns

I may be hip deep in The Game right now, after a week of intense production and prep, but there's no way I'm going to miss Battle of the Network Reality Stars. I only recognize the Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother, and Apprentice alums (plus Matt Gould from Joe Schmo), but the people behind the show obviously have fond memories of its namesake. This is an homage, right down to the return to the Pepperdine campus, and they got the feel right. Great stuff, even if the "stars" in question can barely muster a twinkle. If you missed it, no worries-- it's on Bravo.

The Price of No Fame

Forget the money, adoring fans, notoriety, fast cars, expensive food, preferential treatment at hotels and restaurants. I don't need to be an A-List celebrity. I'd settle for the C-List. Because then I might be invited to participate in games like the Battle of the Network Stars, Celebrity Poker Showdown, and now, AMC's Celebrity Charades. It's not that Celebrity Charades is a great show. The tone is a bit too casual, and the two-team simultaneous-play format reduces the play-at-home factor. But it hits the AMC audience where they live, is fun to watch, throws together a truly eclectic mix of Hollywood personalities, and darn don't I wish I were one of them. Hey, Frank-- Celebrity Time's Up. Get on it.

Organizing your own Running Charades evening is simple, however, and I predict this to be the next big short-lived fad among party-goers who can climb out from under the mountain of discount poker chips.

Genuine Shock

They say that before you criticize, you should first praise. So let me start by saying that the season finale of Alias finished with the most genuinely shocking, untelegraphed surprise I've seen since... well, since last night's Arzt-burst, but you get my meaning. Completely effective, although as a season cliffhanger it lacks a certain degree of credibility. We know Sidney and Vaughn survive. Sidney's already had amnesia-- they're not going to pull the same trick with Vaughn. So it's just a matter of going through the motions at the start of the season until things are back to what passes for normal in Aliasville.

Now, about that criticism. Am I the only one who's just a tad disappointed that the whole Rambaldi plot a) made no sense, and b) wound up being a tired retread of 28 Days Later? The rip-off was truly egregious, even by Hollywood standards.

I like the secondary characters-- Marshall, Weiss, and Irina-- better than any of the stars. And the whole thing has become so incestuous and soap operatic, it feels like they're just going around in circles. Next season, I'm in a bit of a pickle. Alias, Survivor, and Smallville are all on in the same timeslot, and my Tivo has but two tuners. So something's got to give. And sadly, I think Alias is going to get shunted to the BitTorrent queue. The show's been on a steady decline since the big Superbowl reset (that's the first series reset, not to be confused with the 3-year amnesia reset or this season's APO reset) when they axed SD-6. As much as I love watching Jennifer Garner kick butt while looking mah-velous, the show's just been chasing its own tail for too long.

You've Got Some Arzt On You

Best... gratuitous death... ever.

...And Back Again

Can't get enough of Ken Jennings? If you have cable, you're in luck-- because Ken's coming back to star in a new daily game show on Comedy Central. Do people really want to watch this guy outside of his Jeopardy! habitat? It all depends on whether Michael Davies, the man behind Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Win Ben Stein's Money, can work his magic again. I'm far more curious about the format than the personalities involved. The idea of taking The Price is Right/s mini-game format and moving it from the world of dollars and cents to trivia and skill games has a lot of potential.

Except, of course, that it's on Comedy Central, which means the focus will probably be less on the game than on the funny. Not that I'd turn down a chance to play, mind you, as long as Madagascar hissing cockroaches aren't involved...

He's Baaaa-aack

For the past few months Jeopardy! has been running an Ultimate Tournament of Champions, in which all the top players from the entire modern run of the show have been slugging it out. This week we finally get down to brass tacks, as the final 3-game match against Ken Jennings gets underway. The challenger to watch is Brad Rutter, winner of the previous high water mark in the Jeopardy canon, the Million Dollar Masters tournament. If anyone can take down Jennings, he's the man. At stake? Significant bragging rights... and a cool two million dollars. The loser must also say everything in the form of a question for the next six months. Tune in, won't you?

C.S.I.: Tarantino

I watch all three C.S.I. shows, but the spin-offs are only filler. The flagship show is and always has been the original. It's like something straight out of 1950's science fiction: they cloned the show's format well enough, but they couldn't duplicate its soul. Ostensibly, part of C.S.I.'s success is that it's a self-contained procedural drama-- that it's all about the hows and the whys. But it's not. As fun as all of that is, it's built on a solid foundation of the whos. The cast, and the characters they embody, have terrific chemistry. The details of Grissom's character are brilliant, from his social ineptitude to his entomological obsession. The subtleties of the relationships among the characters that have been built up over five seasons form a vital subtext. Quentin Tarantino is a fan of the show. He's seen every episode. He loves the characters and their history. And he didn't waste his opportunity to play in their sandbox.

Tonight's 2-hour C.S.I. finale, written and directed by Tarantino, was brilliant. Snappy, poignant, clever, and unexpected, the finale gave all of the show's characters their moments. This is what great television can be. It doesn't matter if you don't know that there's been sexual tension between Grissom and Sara, or that Catherine only recently discovered that billionaire casino mogul Sam Braun is her father, or that Grissom almost lost his hearing and can read lips, or that Nick is like a little brother to the rest of the team, or that Greg used to be the DNA guy. It doesn't matter. This is a season finale that should not be missed.

And so I leave you with a single parting word.

BitTorrent.

Brainmelt

Ian dug his own grave on Survivor in so many ways, it's hard to know where to begin. He didn't do anything other Survivor players haven't done-- agreeing with whatever BS plan everyone around him was talking about to avoid drawing heat on himself. The problem was he had no exit strategy. Katie also agreed to vote Tom out, but Ian never seemed to drag her into the hot seat with him. Ian just blubbered and made no convincing argument. But bowing out after twelve hours on a bobbing pole? What the heck was he thinking? He must have woken up the next morning and kicked himself. All this talk about friendship and integrity... don't these people remember what game they're signing up for? Greg was a complete hypocrite, accusing Tom of betraying him when he plotted on the boat to do the exact same thing to Tom. Cody played the catty gay guy card for no apparent reason. And Katie did herself no favors in the way she answered the questions.

At least the right person won. Tom was the strongest, most successful player in the history of the game, and had he not taken home the money it would have been a huge injustice.

The Curse of the Car

What is it about a car that makes emaciated, sleep-deprived, isolated men into idiots? Ian and Tom had a plan. A smart one. As soon as they found out about the reward challenge, they made the very wise agreement that if one of them won, they wouldn't choose the other to go with him. So who hit Ian with the Stupid Stick? When he said he was going to take Tom, I thought Tom was going to whack him upside the head.

That Katie wound up sticking with Ian is a miracle, and yet another example of players going with their emotions instead of their brains. Katie's odds seemed much better with the women than with the men. But she apparently decided to trust Ian... which may ironically put Ian into the a no-win situation. If Ian wins the final immunity challenge and doesn't take Katie with him, the jury will vote against him and Tom will win in a landslide. If he takes Katie, the jury will vote for her. I think the only way Ian can win is to pull a Richard Hatch and tank the final immunity, trusting that both Katie and Tom would rather take Ian with them to the finals.

Stupid Hours of Operation

Okay, okay... Uchenna and Joyce won me over when they refused to stiff their cabbie even though they were just a few feet away from the finish line. They're good people, and it's hard not to be happy they won the race.

But.

Of the final three teams, Rob and Amber was the only team to not finish last in a non-elimination leg. They had a 6 hour lead on Uchenna and Joyce, and would have won easily had the last stop in San Juan not closed so early. The jetway had rolled back, and they would have had an hour lead on Uchenna and Joyce had the pilot not consented to let them board. Rob and Amber did everything right... except find a cabbie who knew Spanish. That one happenstance cost them one million dollars.

That's one of the things that irks me most about The Amazing Race. That final leg should be all about the teams testing their own abilities, and yet numerous times it's come down to who lucked into the best cab driver. Feh.

Not that anyone feels bad for Rob and Amber. "Rob and Amber Get Married"? Sheesh. I suppose when a broadcast network offer to pony up the green for your wedding-- and likely a nice bonus on top of it-- it would be hard to say no. But that doesn't make it any less tacky.

What Was He Thinking?

You and team #2 are 90 minutes ahead of teams 3 and 4. Teams 2 and 3 are strong, team 4 is weak. You have the opportunity to delay one of the other teams by 30 minutes. Which team do you pick?

An easy choice, right? Not if you're Rob. Yielding Ron and Kelly made no sense at all. The gap between them and the other teams was too large to be overcome by a yield. Uchenna and Joyce are equally strong, and yielding them would have knocked them out of the race. Rob's logic about wasting the yield was exactly backwards. The proper move was to forget about Ron and Kelly and yield Uchenna and Joyce instead. If Uchenna and Joyce win the race, Rob has nobody to blame but himself.

In other news... what the heck does Kelly see in Ron? The guy's a chauvinist jerk.

Applause

It's traditional to give a round of applause when a player is eliminated from a tournament, to thank them for their participation and salute them for the skill that got them to that point. And so I give a hearty round of applause to Stephanie, who had the misfortune of getting picked by the wrong tribe on day one. It was always highly unlikely that Steph would win-- the other players would have been insane to let her get anywhere close to the final four-- but hers is the Cinderella story nonetheless. Regardless of who winds up with the million bucks, Stephanie is clearly the big winner of this season. She'll be fielding offers left and right and will have no trouble parlaying her experience into something more.

Meanwhile, Roger Ebert's wagging finger of shame goes to Tom, who had the audacity to give the "Don't penalize me for being a strong player" speech while voting Stephanie out for precisely that reason.

Hoist on Their Own Petard

I've been rooting for Rob and Amber, but had they lost tonight it would have been poetic justice. The irony-- Rob fabricating the idea of an earlier flight to spook the other teams, only to inspire them to search for and find an earlier flight Rob didn't know about-- was priceless. When they explained about the gnome prize, however, I knew it was a non-elimination leg-- they wouldn't want the possibility of eliminating a team from the race and giving them a prize at the same time, which would be awkward.

I'm ready to take a rifle to Gretchen and put her down, to stop the incessant whining and bellyaching. Gretchen and Meredith's stick-to-itiveness has been astounding, and I'd love to be rooting for them. But they're just too unlikeable. Every time Gretchen opens her mouth-- which is pretty much every second she's on camera-- it's like nails on a chalkboard.

But how about that well with all the columns! I suspect the cool lighting was CBS's doing, but still-- spiffy. That detour was the most puzzlish challenge we've seen on this race, and I thought it was very nicely designed. More of those, please!

The Evil Leaper

Joan of Arcadia's on the bubble, and its future won't be announced until mid May. I still get a kick out of God (something you're unlikely to hear me say in any other context), and I was really impressed by the producer's willingness to kill off a supporting character (who, granted, may well have been introduced expressly for that purpose). But please-- an evil counterpart to Joan? At least they didn't go all the way and introduce someone who talks to the Devil, but this character's motivation makes no sense. He can see and talk to God, but resents and rejects Him-- so now (because he's conveniently wealthy) he insinuates himself into positions of power in the lives of those Joan loves so he can threaten Joan for no discernable reason.

Blech.

I expected better. But with ratings down in its sophomore year, the producers apparently felt like they needed to hint at Big Things To Come to try to secure a renewal. Contrast that with Enterprise, which now that it's cancelled has been turning out some of the best episodes of the series. After the disastrously ill-conceived Xindi season, the show's finally living up to its promise of being a prequel. We saw more of the Andorians and Tellarites, some Orion slave girls, the beginnings of the Federation, and now a trip into the Mirror universe. Even better, we got entirely new theme music and a new credits sequence with all the usual scenes of human exploration replaced with scenes of war and destruction. Great touch! If the show had shown this much whimsy and sense of fun from the outset, it might have had a few more years of life.

Catching Up

Some quick TV thoughts:

Holy Cannoli

Un-freaking-believable. Rob and Amber continue to outperform all past and present Amazing Race teams. Their performance on this leg, vindicating their previous gamble of taking a four hour penalty, was astounding. Squeaking onto that flight was a huge break-- Rob and Amber must crap Lucky Charms. But that's part of the game, and they're capitalizing on it. They're making things happen, which is more than you can say for any of the other teams-- certainly not now-eliminated bitch-factory Patrick. Good riddance. Lynn and Alex or Ray and Deanna next, please?

Jeopardy! Alert

Sorry for the late reminder, but if it hasn't already aired in your area, SZ readers may want to watch tonight's episode of Jeopardy!. Former 5-time winner and Static Zombie commenter Eddie Timanus will be competing in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions for a chance to lay the big smackdown on Ken Jennings for $2 million. Tune in and cheer him on! And Eddie, if you'd like to make any comments about the experience, we'd love to hear 'em.

We're Not Worthy

Rob and Amber-- OK, mainly Rob-- are by far the best players ever to appear on The Amazing Race. I don't think quitting the eating challenge was the right decision-- in four hours, it should have been possible for Rob to pace himself and get all four pounds of meat down. Easy for me to say from my couch, of course. But the canniness of convincing other teams to quit also was inspired. Completely logical, but inspired nonetheless. Never has a player worked the angles so thoroughly. The odds are stacked against Rob and Amber-- at the next two yields, the other teams are sure to penalize them if they have the chance. It doesn't matter that they've already won a million bucks-- nobody deserves to win this million more than Rob. My cap is off to you, sir.

Quote of the Week

From Lynn and Alex (boyfriends) on tonight's Amazing Race:

"There's ten teams, there's two flights, so now we're just at the back of the pack again."
"But that's OK, we're good at pulling up the rear."

Hey-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The Amazing Idiots

Your IQ must drop a few dozen points when they turn a camera on you, because tonight's teams on The Amazing Race displayed astounding stupidity. Faced with three mounds to search for plane tickets, each mound holding tickets for a specific flight (6 AM, 7 AM, 7:40 AM), three-- count 'em, three-- teams stopped at the 7:40 mound and didn't bother to check the next mound to see if it had earlier tickets, despite having plenty of time to do so. The mind boggles.

Rob and Amber have got to be the big underdogs here, since none of the other teams want to see them win again. They're going to be on their own, and I'm rooting for them (although how can you not root for Lynn and Alex?). You've got to give them props for going from last to first (ultimately finishing a close third), even passing people who were on a flight that landed over an hour before theirs. I think it would be terrific to have two Survivor winners (well, a winner and a runner-up) win the Amazing Race as well. Yeah, yeah, give someone else a chance, blah blah blah.

If you're Amber, you've got to want to have Mark Burnett's baby. Amber's fame pretty much ran out fifteen minutes after Survivor: Outback ended. She distinguished herself by not distinguishing herself in any way. She was Jerri's lapdog, a complete zero in the game. Fans rushed to their dictionaries when she was named to the cast of All-Stars, thinking the term had a meaning heretofore unknown to them. Thirty-nine days later, her entire life had changed. Not only was she a million dollars richer, but she was the center of a fairy tale romance with her newfound fiancee and castmate. She was hosting TV Guide specials and walking red carpets. All because Mark Burnett gave her a second chance. Some day-- and that day may never come-- he will ask her for a favor. Rob hopes that Burnett's first child will be a masculine child.

Rocky

I've never thought Chris Rock was funny, and nothing I've seen on tonight's Oscarcast changed my mind. The man was too loud, enunciated poorly, and simply missed the mark with his material. I didn't laugh. The great thing about Billy Crystal is that the man exudes love for the movies and the industry, and that love is infectuous. Chris Rock is merely an abrasive, mugging outsider, horribly miscast for the job.

But that seems par for the course for this Oscarcast. The opening montage was utterly horrendous, lacking any kind of rhythm, thematic unity, or craftsmanship-- it looked like it was slapped together by a teenager with a Powerbook. The musical themes used to play people on and off included some baffling choices-- the themes from The Terminator and Star Trek: The Motion Picture among them. The idea of giving some awards from the auditorium floor was ill-conceived from the start. And what's the deal with Beyonce? Did she give 'em a bulk rate or something?

At least The Incredibles beat the two Dreamworks films for best animated picture.

Survivor: Palau

That Pick 'Em game to start the show was cruel. Two people got axed from the game before they ever really got a chance to play. Granted, in Wanda's case it was a mercy killing. For us. The last person I'd want to be marooned with on a tropical island is Ethel freakin' Merman. But Jonathan got a shaft he never even knew existed. I'm hoping at some point we hear why Cody didn't pick Angie, after their "thank God I'm not the oddest one here" bonding. Seems like a stupid choice.

Meanwhile... pardon me while I indulge in a little schadenfreude and laugh uproariously at the morons who capsized their boat and lost their precious firemaking supplies in the bargain. Not really looking much like the "brains" team from where I sit-- especially considering they chose to go to a new beach, where they'll have to build a new shelter. Idiots. The right move would have been to stay at their old beach, lounging in the comfort of a shelter the losing team helped build, knowing that team was wearing themselves out building a new one! "Let's have a new adventure?" I'm sure Wanda and John had a grand old adventure being driven off the island on the power boat-- perhaps you should have gone with them instead.

I Never

I give the "I Never" sequence in tonight's episode of Lost the Best Scene of the Year award. Great stuff. Mining the Canterbury Tales for the show's flashback format was pure genius-- it just keeps getting better.

Hide the Cucumber

When you hear "Dove body wash," do you think "gay soft porn"? One of the teams on The Apprentice is billed as having book smarts, but hasn't displayed smarts of any sort at any point in this season. They were thinking like students doing a class project or a fraternity video, not like businesspeople trying to satisfy a client. All they had to ask themselves was, "Would Dove want this commercial to represent their product?" I can't see how Trump would want to hire anyone associated with that commercial.

Breaking the Camel

This week's Amazing Race really annoyed me. The producers' strategy of bunching the teams between pit stops is well-known, but usually it happens right out of the gate via airline schedules or contrived hours of operation on the first stop. This week the bunching happened near the end of the episode. There were a number of activities in this leg of the race, but none of them mattered except for the final one.

I don't like the bunching strategy, but I at least understand it. The show is theoretically more exciting if all teams have a roughly equal chance of winning each week. Fine, I'm on board with that. But to bunch them up at the end of an episode instead of the beginning makes no sense whatsoever. Worse, it jerks the viewers around. Am I watching a race, or not? A race doesn't hit the reset button 3/4 of the way through. I felt anger at the producers during this episode. I hope this was just a mistake, some kind of logistical snafu that didn't work out as planned and won't happen again. One of the reasons the show is popular is because of its perceived fairness, relative to other reality shows. Players' own actions get them eliminated, rather than political maneuvering and backstabbing. Except this week a team was saved by The Hand of GodThe Producers. And that's just not cricket.

The Apprentice 3

Maybe it was the editing. It had to have been the editing. Because there's just no way any group of 9 promising, well-educated business people could possibly be as incompetent as the "book smarts" team on tonight's season premiere. Nobody made a good decision during the entire task. The "street smarts" team, on the other hand, appeared impeccably on the ball. Given the nature of the teams and the story Burnett obviously wanted to tell, the editing is clearly a huge factor here. But no matter how you edit it, Danny's a loony tune. An incompetent loony tune who had no answers for any of the questions posed by the Burger King executive. This guy cannot possibly be long for the show.

What irked me most, however, was how they never explained how the NetWorth team was able to afford to purchase plane tickets as a promotion and not have it count against their bottom line. Did the teams each get a budget? Because the Magna team sure didn't seem to spend anything. Those kind of details are frequently omitted on The Apprentice, which makes it very hard for viewers to evaluate what's happening. Not that viewers seem to care...

You Got Served

If you caught the faint echo of a whoop of exultation on tonight's winter wind, that was my cheer at the elimination of the abusive Jonathan and shrieking Victoria from The Amazing Race. Rarely have two people risen so much bile to my throat so quickly. Now we can finally watch the show in peace.

Veronica Mars

Suprnova.org went dark for good yesterday.

I mention this because it was the central clearinghouse for bit torrents, and one which I only fully appreciated once I got my laptop and upgraded my DSL to an always-on connection. The breadth and scope of movies, TV shows, books, music, and so forth available there was just astounding. Copyright is doomed.

For my part, suprnova was of interest purely for grabbing the odd television episode I missed due to TiVo scheduling conflicts (Wednesday nights are the new Thursdays) or, in one case, due to having no initial interest in the series until internet buzz caught my attention. That series is UPN's Veronica Mars.

The buzz compared Veronica to Buffy, and I can see where the comparison came from. Both feature high school blondes with sharp tongues who use their powers to fight for justice. In Veronica's case, her "powers" are street smarts and investigative know-how. Kristin Bell's Veronica comes off as a cross between Buffy and Smallville's Chloe-- smart, determined, and glossy. She's a little too savvy, actually-- it'd be nice to see her fall on her face once in a while, instead of always carrying the day-- but the snappy dialogue might certainly be described as Whedonesque.

The setting is yet another one of those California towns and schools populated by snobby rich kids who'll turn and devour their own at the drop of a Prada bag. Is that really what high school's like out there? Does that scenario really resonate with viewers, or is it just too familiar to Hollywood writers, living in their fishbowl, to pass up?

Three things won me over. The aforementioned snappy dialogue. The slowly-resolving mystery of the murder of Veronica's best friend Lilly and subsequent disappearance of Veronica's mother. And the terrific performances of Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni as Keith Bell, Veronica's father and the former sheriff who, having lost his job (for accusing Lilly's rich father of her murder) and his wife (who left him shortly thereafter), now works as a private investigator and raises Veronica alone. The relationship between Veronica and her father is one of the show's strengths, and Colantoni-- who never impressed me as Just Shoot Me's photographer Elliot-- is a revelation here.

In any case, Veronica Mars is a series I never would have discovered without suprnova and Bit Torrent, and now it's joined my season pass list. Perhaps it may appeal to you as well.

All the Right Answers

It's been a long time since Survivor had a winner as "deserving" as Chris, from a gameplay standpoint. I agree with Chad-- he played the game amazingly well, from the his great psychological insight into how to get the women to give him a chance to winning the final two immunity challenges. And his answers in the final tribal council were spot-on perfect, the best answers I've heard on any season. Good on him for winning. The first two thirds of the season were a grand snooze, but the end finally kicked into gear. I hope they don't go back to the battle of the sexes any time soon, though.

Oh-- and that vertical maze was pretty cool, although it wound up being less interesting to watch than I expected. But a neat idea nonetheless. Hooray for no "fallen comrades" trivia challenge, too.

Tough Call

I have no idea what I would have done in Chris' shoes tonight on Survivor. He was in a very tough spot.

Option 1: Get rid of Twila. She and Scout will clearly never vote for each other, so splitting them up is a very good idea. It would also leave Eliza, Julie, and Chris as a voting bloc against Scout, practically guaranteeing Chris a spot in the final three. With both Eliza and Julie feeling strongly tied to him, as they seemed to be, he'd stand an extremely good chance of being one of the two finalists.

Option 2: Get rid of Julie. With Ami and LeAnn on the jury, that's two guaranteed votes for her should Julie make it to the final two. Getting rid of her is therefore a very smart move. On the downside, it leaves Chris and Eliza against Scout and Twila. Since Scout and Twila will never defect from each other, it means Chris and Eliza can choose to stay together and go to a tiebreaker against Scout and Twila, or one of them has to defect to the other side and vote their erstwhile partner out.

Chris chose option 2, and Eliza was NOT pleased. Even if she's sufficiently annoyed to seek an alliance with the other women, it's safe to say Twila will never agree to it. If Chris decides to vote against Eliza, the other two will do the same. But then Chris is in a pickle-- he'd HAVE to win the final immunity challenge. His choice is, I think, by far the riskier path in terms of making it to the finals. On the other hand, if he gets there, he wins a million dollars. Neither Scout nor Twila can possibly win the cash unless they're up against each other and everyone is forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

The odds at this point seem to favor Twila and Scout making it to the final two. I really hope Chris makes it-- he's the most "deserving" of the four, having miraculously avoided execution for his disastrous stint on the balance beam in the first immunity challenge and then surviving in the face of the female alliance. Twila's an acceptable second choice. Eliza and Scout have merely coasted under the radar-- Eliza barely so-- and it would be disappointing to see them collect a million bucks as a result.

Remember: the final episode is this Sunday, with the reunion immediately thereafter.

With a Whimper For $1,000, Alex

The most phenomenal run in game show history ended today as Ken Jennings finally lost, after 74 victories and $2.5 million. And the tragedy is, he just faded away. He wasn't outplayed, he simply had a bad day. He dominated the game as usual, but he found and then missed both daily doubles in Double Jeopardy for a loss of $10,000 (and a swing of twice that), and then went on to miss Final Jeopardy while his opponent got it correct. Had Ken bet $0 on the daily doubles, he would have been unbeatable in Final Jeopardy. Not to take anything away from the player who beat him-- she played fine. But she didn't wipe the floor with him, or just edge him out in a hard-fought see-saw battle of trivia giants. She just drew the lucky straw. Rather an anticlimax.

But bravo to Mr. Jennings for a remarkable run and a well-earned place in television history.

All Shook Up

It's about time Scout, Twila, and Eliza woke up and smelled the pecking order. It was abundantly clear for quite some time that Ami, Leann, and Julie were the alliance within the alliance and that the other women needed to band together with the men. Frankly, I didn't think Eliza had enough sense to grab the life preserver Chris threw her way. It's a crying shame Ami won immunity, because it would have been great to see her blindsided tonight instead of Leann. Is Eliza smart enough to realize her only chance of winning the game is to stick to Chris like glue, since Twila and Scout will never vote each other off?

The show desperately needed something like this to happen, because up to this point it's been a pretty predictable progression. Tonight the game finally got interesting.

Rules Are Good

Donald Trump may not like playing by the rules, but rules are essential in a competition. Are there any for The Apprentice? The guy seems to be able to do whatever the heck he wants-- firing people before a boardroom showdown, firing two people at once... where does it end?

Meanwhile, someone please wake me when Survivor gets interesting, or when Ami gets booted.

Basic Research

If you were going to be in a race around the world for a million dollars, do you think you might do a tiny bit of research about what you're in for? Like, say, watch some of the past five seasons of The Amazing Race? Some of these people sure didn't seem to. If they had, they'd have known the #1 rule of The Amazing Race: Never, ever choose the "search" task at a Detour. No matter how much closer it is, or how much easier it sounds than the other option, it's guaranteed to screw you in the end.

By the way, please excuse me if I occasionally burst into short fits of gleefully hysterical tittering. Every now and then I think ahead to when Jonathan gets eliminated and I can't help myself. Congratulations are in order to the show's casting director. I didn't think it'd be possible to get a contestant more abusive and reprehensible than last season's Colin, but barely ten minutes into the show Jonathan had already seized the crown.

Stupid Jeopardy! Tricks

This is cute.

Numbers

As gameplans go, it's a simple one. Make sure your alliance is solid, and make sure your alliance has more people than the other one when the merge hits. But apparently the subtle nuances of that scheme are too complex for the men on Survivor to grasp. The women of Yasur gave them a gift when they saved Rory's butt. So do the men capitalize on it by ousting a woman and giving the men the numerical advantage? No. For some reason left, perhaps, on the cutting room floor, the guys decided that John-- who had never expressed any disloyal notions that we know of, and who claimed in his final words that he would have stuck with the men to the end-- was a sufficient threat to warrant leaving themselves even-up with the women. I don't get it. They all questioned the women's loyalty, and John was a sure thing. When you've got someone in your pocket, you don't vote him out while viable alternatives exist. Utter stupidity. But then, there's only been one rocket scientist on Survivor-- and he lost.

Poor Choices

Two poor choices on last night's reality double header. First on Survivor, the men continued their bone-headed decision to play the individual game well before any merge. Already holding a 5-2 majority over the younger guys, the older men could have eaten one of their own and pruned the tribe of some dead weight, leaving them with more physically stronger members for future challenges. Instead, they're worrying about individual immunities well before any are at stake. Probst hit the nail on the head with his commentary. What makes this even more galling is that the guys may have been right. From the previews, it looks like next week we'll see some shuffling of the tribes. If your tribe isn't staying together, keeping the strongest members no longer makes sense. The shake-up just comes a tad too late for Brady, whose game would likely have gone completely differently had he managed to stick around one more week.

Over on The Apprentice, The Donald continued his series of perplexing firing decisions. Pamela was condescending and strong-willed, but she was also hands-down the most effective and impressive of all the women on the show. He as much as admitted it when he moved her over from the men's team. She acquitted herself well in the boardroom and got fired anyway. When the Trump's decisions are this idiosyncratic, the show becomes less interesting. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. As the linked article mentions, part of the reason for the first season's success is that by the end, the players left behind were all worthy. Players who were early standout performers didn't get axed until late in the game. That's not happening this time around, and rather than making the show more exciting it undermines its premise.

But the DeLonghi and "It Works" people must be kvelling.

Check Under T

I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as when watching this week's episode of The Venture Brothers ("Are You There God? It's Me, Dean"-- although TiVo is a bit confused and reports it as last week's episode, "Midlife Chrysalis"). If you haven't jumped on this bandwagon yet, what are you waiting for? The episode will be reshown a couple of times this week.

In other news, don't expect Boston Legal to last out the season. Without Rebecca DeMornay it lacks a sorely-needed edge, and just feels sloppy. David E. Kelley just phoned this one in. Denny Crane.

Do Not Adjust Your Set

Note to the makers of CSI: NY: My television set is capable of displaying a full array of dazzling colors. Please use more than two of them.

Leaping the Shark in a Single Bound

The WB's Smallville has been a sassy, often clever reimagining of Superman's youth. The writers delighted in structuring the episodes with parallel themes, juxtaposing the loving Kent family with the pathologically dysfunctional Luthors. Taking a cue from Joss Whedon, they often turned normal teenage problems into Kryptonite-enhanced superpowers. And if the writers sometimes used a sledgehammer instead of a pen, such as when Clark developed heat vision during a heat wave while watching a sex ed film presented by a hot teacher, it was done with a wink and a smile.

As the series has progressed, however, the mythology of Smallville has diverged from that of the comic book Superman-- at least, the Superman I remember. Krypton is destroyed, but Clark's biological father Jor-El somehow appears to have survived-- enough of him remains to communicate with Clark and imbue Jonathan Kent with Kryptonian abilities. Kryptonians apparently visited Earth long, long before Clark's ship crashed. Ancient cave paintings in Smallville feature Kryptonian symbols that appear to fortell Lex's eventual turn to the dark side. The cave walls come alive at Clark's touch, acting more like a supercomputer or Stargate than granite. Instead of having a random effect, red kryptonite always turns Clark into a selfish git. And so forth.

I can live with that. The divergence of the mythology has actually heightened the show's appeal, as the mysteries are slowly unraveled bit by bit. But with this week's season premiere, things appear to have taken a turn for the worse. Best friends Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan are gone, and the removal of long-time supporting players is often a danger sign. To fill the gap they've brought in Chloe's cousin Lois Lane, shattering the mythological timeline (Clark and Lois don't meet in the comics until Clark shows up to work at the Daily Planet). Lois will apparently be sticking around for quite a while, as she and Clark investigate Chloe's apparent death. But bringing Lois in smacks of desperation. A cameo appearance with the two of them never quite meeting each other would have been delightful, but this long-term relationship rips the show out of the established mythos for good. And that break jumps Smallville over the shark in a single bound.

Part of the show's charm has always been the fact that we, as viewers, know Clark's destiny. Lex Luthor is a brilliantly tragic character, because for all that he desperately wants to be good, we know he's doomed to become evil. Our knowledge of their fates colors our perceptions of the characters, giving stories added nuance. Throwing Lois Lane into Smallville, however, means that everything we thought we knew about the future may not be true. In this universe. In this incarnation. And so those delicious moments of frisson become diminished by doubt.

The new Lana storyline also bodes ill. While making a rubbing of a Parisian tomb in Notre Dame, something mystical happened and Lana blacked out. When she awakened at her apartment, she discovered a new tattoo on her back matching a symbol from her rubbing. I couldn't quite tell if the symbol is meant to be Kryptonian, but I suspect so. That little bit of serendipity strains credulity.

I'm jumping to conclusions after just one episode, but I'm not heartened by the omens that episode contained. I fear that Smallville has lost its truth, justice, and American way.

Goodbye, Dolly

1. The Survivor deck is being heavily stacked against the fellas. This week's reward challenge put them at a huge disadvantage. There's a reason the balance beam is not part of men's gymnastics. While it might have been a reasonable challenge for mixed-gender teams, for these teams it was ill-conceived.

2. The immunity challenge also favored the women, who are generally better at communicating and working together than men. And if Scout hadn't spaced on their final pieces, the women would probably have taken this challenge also.

3. Apparently Dolly didn't watch Survivor: Amazon, when Christy made the exact same mistake and got voted off for thinking she had all the power and vacillating between two factions, only to be seen as a wild card and get turned on by both. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

4. Has either team even built a shelter?

5. Yawn. Two episodes in, and this season hasn't yet engaged me.

Find Lost

If you weren't in front of your television tonight, you missed the premiere of the best new show of the season and quite possibly the most brilliant, well-executed pilot hour in TV history.

Lost, created by JJ Abrams (the man behind Alias), is brilliant from the word "Go!" even as it pays homage to the works to which it owes a debt. The opening shot echoed that of Fox's lamented John Doe, but this man stranded on a remote island is in for an entirely different experience. The first act plunges us directly into the aftermath of a passenger jet crash, as Party of Five's Matthew Fox shakes off his shock to help his fellow victims amidst the chaos. In the space of an hour we get introduced to just a handful of the 48 survivors, with only tantalizing glimpses of others (please, please let Terry O'Quinn not be a government agent / military operative for the first time in his career!). Knowing that nothing's scarier than the unknown, Abrams takes a page from Hitchcock's book and keeps the jungle threat mysterious and unseen. The Jurassic Park sequence, while predictable (I knew the pilot was a goner-- the actor is still part of the Alias cast!), was well-executed and effective. The pacing was spot-on, and the tension palpable.

For those who watched the show, here's my theory. It can't be a dinosaur. That would just be too... too. My money's on something else-- note that the pilot wasn't eaten, just killed. I'm just not sure what killed him. The comment the black woman made early on about the sound being familiar from the Bronx made me think of the subway, so I'm thinking there's a secret government (not necessarily US) underground base on that island. Their countersurveilance tech took out the plane's systems and crashed it. The noises are from underground machinery and are being heard through venting ducts. And they've got some kind of big machine roving the jungle, and the pilot got sucked into a turbine or something.

The two-hour pilot got split into two episodes, so we've only seen half of the setup. And that half was dynamite. Lost has been getting great reviews, so it wouldn't surprise me if ABC decides to rerun this episode later in the week. Watch for it. And add the show to your season pass list. In Elaine terms, it's sponge-worthy.

Reality Finales

The Amazing Race: Best... finish... ever. Colin and Christie were so consistently dispicable throughout the race, I couldn't bear the thought that they'd walk away with the money. I was thrilled when they fell into last place, and writhed in anguish as Colin overtook Karen during the climb. With the bowling moms gone and Brandon and Nicole blaming their successes and failures on God instead of themselves, that left Chip and Kim as the team to root for. Then they took forever changing clothes in the taxi instead of on the gondola, putting them in last. When they crashed twice on the luge, it was killing me.

Then they got a miracle.

From that moment on, my gut was in a knot. As they struggled to switch from the delayed flight to an earlier arrival, I was as stressed as the teams were. When Colin had the inspired idea to call ahead for a towncar driver who drove fast and knew the area well, I thought that might make the difference. The editing of the drive to the final pit stop was the most effective suspense-builder of the season, and when we saw that it was Chip and Kim I cheered out loud. Not so much because they won, but because Colin and Christie didn't.

Never underestimate the value of a good villain.

I don't think The Amazing Race deserves the Emmy for best reality show-- Survivor is still the king in my book-- but this was a super finale.

If The Amazing Race is reality writ large, nothing's smaller than Big Brother 5. Hypocracy was the order of the day, as bitter contestants with no shot at the prize railed against the perceived slights against them by the remaining contestants, oblivious to their own flaws. The most glaring example was Nicomus, who claimed for her blood is thicker than water and yet she was the one who, after promising she'd never nominate her half-brother, went ahead and did it anyway. Pffft.

And despite the 4-3 count, to my eyes it wasn't even close. Drew played a much better game than Michael who-- let's face it-- couldn't strategize himself out of a paper bag. He earned his second place by being the village idiot and flying under the radar. Which would be respectable if it had been his strategy, rather than his personality. As is so often the case, the best player in the game (Diane) finished in third place.

Two Shots From Nowhere

Let's start with Survivor. Was it just me, or was this the least interesting premiere episode in the show's history? That opening ceremony was a lame-brained idea. We watch the show to see the interplay among the contestants, not to see them sitting on the sidelines watching a show. A complete misfire. Worse, it caused the players to arrive at their camp sites after dark, so we missed out on the usual first day food/water/shelter dynamics. We never did see the men build a shelter. Then Brook gets blindsided and voted out by a cowardly band of his teammates who are already thinking of individual survival instead of the good of the team. Loudmouth Chris singlehandedly brought his team to tribal council, and should have been the one to pay for it.

The loudmouth did get the axe over on NBC's The Apprentice, in the most controversial firing yet. Ok, cockily stripping yourself of immunity is a stupid thing to do, but Bradford could have saved himself with a little sleight of mouth. All he had to do was say that he believes himself to be the strongest player, and he's willing to put himself up against anyone else in the boardroom because his skills are better than anyone else's, yada yada yada. We never saw him do that. Trump seemed fixated on the stupidity of putting himself at risk, but it was clear to Bradford that he wouldn't be at risk if Trump made a rational decision based on that week's performance. Instead, Trump blindsided him by throwing out everything else that had happened that week, including Bradford's own success at sales, and canning him for that one display of self-confidence. It was capricious and bordering on unfair, depending on what rules the contestants are given beforehand. Had Bradford been judged based on his performance at the task, he was safe and abdicating his immunity might have been a crafty strategic move to gain respect within his team. Trump ignored all of that and canned him, instead of the ineffectual Ivana or reviled Stacie, and to top it off was a royal prick to Jennifer for no apparent reason.

Good television? Sure. But distasteful. Trump didn't know the first series was going to be such a hit. Now that he's a superstar again, one wonders if he's playing to the camera.

The Benedoofus

If ABC is hoping The Benefactor is their Apprentice-killer, they're fired. The show misfires on every level. Mark Cuban comes off as a self-indulgent doofus caught up in the idea of playing Geppetto to sixteen human marionettes. The first episode was all talking heads, with no real action or drama to speak of. The apparent structure is that Cuban has devised 15 rules for success in life, and each one will cause someone to get eliminated. The problem is, the contestants are playing the game without knowing the rules. The first player got axed within seconds of Cuban's appearance, for making an off-handed comment about thinking the game will be "stupid, but not stupid stupid." Cuban showed him the door as an example of how you only get one chance to make a first impression. It came off as capricious and cruel, an emperor exercising his power simply because he can. The lesson appears to be to cowtow before him or risk eviction. Mark Cuban's game isn't one I'd want to play, and it isn't one I'll be watching.

Mo' Boardroom, Mo' Better

TiVo, bless its heart, grabbed Saturday's rerun of The Apprentice which included 20 extra minutes of the boardroom. It's a shame they don't do this every week, because this was good stuff. The boardroom scenes are the most compelling part of the show, and I'd much rather see more of that than the players goofing around in the suite. Ditto for Survivor-- show us more tribal council. Those climaxes are where all the good stuff is. You listening, Mark Burnett? Don't leave it all on the cutting room floor.

Tivo Alert: The Venture Brothers

Against all odds, Cartoon Network is becoming the hip network du jour. Its Adult Swim lineup is an enormous hit on college campuses, thanks in no small part to the network's shrewd use of college students to host keggers and give away schwag to their peers. The Navel Lint Network could become a campus sensation with that strategy.

Be that as it may, there's some great stuff to be discovered on Cartoon Network. My latest find is The Venture Brothers, a sensational homage to the adventure shows of yesteryear. The formula is lifted straight out of Jonny Quest-- two boys have adventures with their scientist father and a beefcake protector-- but refracted through a Gen-X lens that simultaneously updates the genre and retargets it at a more mature audience. If I mention that muscle-man Brock (voiced by Patrick Warburton) lusts after Russian femme fatale Molotov Cocktease and dispatches any threat with indiscriminate violence, the boys' father sports a hipster goatee and can't stand his children, and the boys hold each other down and dangle loogies over their faces, you'll get the general idea-- Jonny Quest was never like this. The artwork is crisp and bold, the writing witty and engaging, and the opening credits captures the style and conventions of the sixties adventure genre to perfection. It's funny, engaging, clever, and brilliantly executed. I'm hooked.

A Few Notes

Attention casting directors: In addition to "the gay guy" and "token black guy", please add "people who vocally trust in the Lord instead of taking responsibility for their own fate" to the list of overused character types we don't need to see anymore on reality shows. Thank you for your attention.

Changes on Millionaire

The syndicated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? will have three changes this season, generally making the show a little easier with one hand while taking a smidgeon of cash away with the other.

The payout schedule is changing around the latter third of the game. Instead of 16, 32, 64, 125, 250 for questions 9-13, contestants will now be competing for 16, 25, 50, 100, 250. If you make it to 250 it won't matter, but stopping before that point will leave you with less cash than before. On the other hand, the pot odds for question 13 are now much better, with a payout of 2:1 instead of 1.34:1.

To compensate, there are two lifeline changes. Ask the Audience will now effectively be "Ask the Audience and AOL". AOL Instant Messenger users can sign up to be IM'd during taping when someone uses this lifeline, allowing them to provide their answer. The contestant will then see separate stats for the in-studio audience and the AOL users. A great interactive element for fans, and more data for the contestant to consider. Since the AOL crowd will be a self-selecting group of game show fans, I'd expect their success rate to be higher than the audience's-- it will be interesting to see how that pans out.

Contestants will also receive a new lifeline at question #11. Switch the Question will allow contestants to throw out the current question and receive a new one instead, with no obligation to answer (they can still choose to walk away). This could prove to be a great lifesaver, or it could put someone in an even worse pickle. Still, I would have liked having that option when I got to question 14...

The net effect of these changes should be that more contestants who reach the second plateau will go on to win at least $250,000, but we may well see more players bail at $16,000 now since the pot odds for question 10 are much worse (.6:1 instead of 1.06:1). Then again question 10 may have been too rich before, since in addition to the guaranteed cash you also win a free guess at the next level.

One thing's for sure, the new lifelines will certainly make the upcoming season more interesting to watch. And a big shout out to my man Fingertips, who just got the postcard saying he's in the contestant pool. Congrats, and I hope you get the fateful phone call.

Initiate Self-Destruct Sequence

It's official: Adria's an idiot. Not only did she cast the deciding vote to evict Will, thereby guaranteeing that should she make it to the final two Will would certainly not vote for her, she asked everyone to put her in that position. That's just insane. The last thing you want to do is be seen wielding the dagger when you stick it in someone's back. Making yourself hated can be a viable strategy-- it worked for a different Will in Big Brother 2-- but that needs to be a general loathing as opposed to a fiery enmity fueling a red-hot need for reprisal, as Karen is now feeling. Nikomus is none too happy with Adria either, and as the new HoH I'd lay money on an Adria/Natalie nomination (unless she holds Natalie in reserve in case Adria wins the veto). Eliminating Will, knocking the Will-Karen-Nikomus alliance down to two-- was not necessarily a bad idea, but doing it so flamboyantly was idiotic.

Reality Meltdown

Spoiler alert. Read no further if you haven't seen this week's episode of The Amazing Race.

I really thought this was going to be a non-elimination leg, so I was very surprised when Mirna and Charla were eliminated. And while Mirna continued to display no redemptive character traits ("Who's feeling hungry? Oh, Charla is." Way to step up, chippie. Did Mirna even do a single Road Block on the entire race?), it's Colin and Christie's downfall I'm now eagerly awaiting. Mirna was unlikeable, but these two are just plain nasty and vindictive.

Meanwhile, on Big Brother 5, Adria's living proof of the old saw about absolute power corrupting absolutely. She's managed to alienate most of the house and scarcely seems to realize it. Her nomination speech was the most condescending thing I've heard in five seasons of the show. She should be hyper-sensitive to the reality that as twins, she and Natalie are a scary threat to everyone else. She should be walking on eggshells to avoid becoming the next target, not going on a power trip and making unilateral decisions. I wash my hands of the whole affair and officially hop off the Adria train.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure which would be worse-- being on peanut butter and jelly for a week or having to watch Without a Paddle.

Mounting and Dismounting

I caught a bit of the women's gymnastics tonight. What's with the red latex unitards and lip gloss on the American team? Just slap some fishnets and pumps on those girls and have done with it. The whole competition is nothing more than an infomercial for a white slavery ring.

The Power of Editing

7 to 1? Tonight's Big Brother 5 vote surprised the heck out of me. I hoped that the growing bond between Jase and Holly would spell her doom, but it looked like Jase had convinced the other guys that Holly was a sure thing for them. Apparently not. I'm looking forward to seeing the Saturday confessionals where the guys explain their votes. Like Holly, I thought Adria played the "Christian faith" card a little too heavily for someone who's making a whopping lie of omission, secretly swapping places with her twin. That's may well come back to bite her when Natalie enters the house.

And I'm afraid I must now impose a strict worldwide moratorium on the phrase "cuddle buddy." Thank you in advance for your compliance.

Reality Update

The players on Big Brother 5 continue to disappoint me. Jase and Scott are meatheads with no apparent redeeming qualities whatsoever, and yet they're dominating the game. I take solace in the knowledge that as soon as one of the women (other than Holly) wins HoH, both of them are going up on the block. But in the meantime, they're insufferable. And to top it all off, Drew-- who I could root for if he'd only show a little backbone-- put Adria up tonight. The more I've seen of Adria and her twin, the more I've liked them. For that reason, and because it would completely freak everyone else out and scare the bejeezes out of the Horsemen, I've been pulling for them to both get into the house. But unless the women can convince Marvin to vote with them, it looks like Adria's out. Marvin admits he's riding in the back of the bus, but I don't understand how he expects to ever move to the front playing 5th wheel to the four cronies.

Meanwhile, over on The Amazing Race, I can't imagine having to down a pound of caviar. Had I been in the game, I'd have known immediately upon reading the "taste for the high life" clue that it was a caviar challenge. I'm not sure if my theoretical race partner Dave likes caviar. I've never had it but I suspect I wouldn't. Of the two of us, I have the bigger appetite-- so this task would likely have fallen to me. Blech. If it weren't on a different network, tonight would have been a great opportunity for a cameo by the Fear Factor chuck bucket.

I'm also conflicted on Mirna and Charla. Charla's great, but Mirna (the tall one) is one of the most annoying people ever to appear on the show. She doesn't talk, she whines. I keep hoping Charla will just lose it and pop her one. So while I'm pulling for Charla, I'll not shed a tear when Mirna gets eliminated. Of the remaining teams, I'm futilely crossing my fingers for the soccer moms simply because they always seem like they're having the most fun.

15 Years Too Late

Unless your name is Chris, chances are good you haven't heard about Studio 7, the new game show that premiered tonight on the WB. Seven contestants live together for four days, then on the fifth play a 6-round quiz. The first three rounds are current events questions about the 21st century, the past year, and the past month. Once during these rounds, a player can ask another player for help. Why help an opponent? The first two players to get an answer wrong go onto the chopping block, and the rest vote on who leaves the game. Round four is on a specific subject, and the first to blow a question is gone. Round five is an insane memorization challenge, and the worst performer goes home. The final round is a race to answer seven questions about events of the past seven days in the shortest time. The winner takes $77,000, and returns later in the summer for a shot at $777,000.

So aside from the seven fetish, how is it? The "reality" aspect is downplayed-- the entire hour is the quiz show-- but brief confessionals from the players help illustrate where, how, and why alliances have been formed. All the players are college age, and the difficulty level is spot-on for that demographic. The elimination structure is reminiscent of The Weakest Link, but the game structure is better here since the most knowledgable player isn't at an obvious disadvantage. I quite enjoyed it. I wish it had been around when I was in college, because I'd have been all over it.

The first episode will be rerun this Sunday, with a new show on Thursday. Peter-Bob says check it out.

Good Riddance

If there's ever been an uglier person on reality television than Alison, I certainly haven't seen them. The Apprentice's Omarosa was a deceitful prima donna in denial, but The Amazing Race's Alison has been mean, abusive, domineering, and completely unlikeable in any way. She displayed all those qualities on Big Brother, and nothing's changed. Seeing the dysfunctional dynamic she has with her boyfriend only served to make her more dispicable.

My only regret at her departure is that we won't have her to root against anymore.

Easy Money the Hard Way

Today Ken Jennings won his 29th consecutive game on Jeopardy!, bringing his total winnings to $972,960. His 1,000th correct response came during today's show (don't worry, I wasn't keeping track either), and tomorrow he's well within range of reaching the one million dollar mark-- what must surely be the most hard-won easy money on television. The man is a force of nature, scything through all comers with effortless elan. Only nine episodes remain in the Jeopardy! season. Will Ken triumph through them all?

If you haven't watched Jeopardy! lately, tune in to see a trivia master in action. Game show history is being made.

TiVo Alert: Stargate

Tonight is the season premiere of Stargate: SG-1 on Sci-Fi. This episode sets up next week's series premiere of Stargate Atlantis (no colon-- go figure), the new spin-off which-- I believe for the first time in the history of televised dramas-- will run back-to-back with the original series that spawned it all season long. Boo-ya! If you've never watched Stargate, now's probably a great time to jump in to the most entertaining science fiction series on television. And before long, you'll be renting the DVDs of the past seasons of SG-1 and lamenting that you didn't hop on the bandwagon sooner.

Back-to-Back Fives

Last night saw the season premieres of Big Brother 5 and The Amazing Race, both in their fifth seasons. Big Brother is one of the most successful reality shows in the world, and yet admitting you watch it in the United States is akin to showing off your John Tesh collection. But if a rising tide raises all ships, surely the influx of such dreck as The Swan, The Littlest Groom, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee makes Big Brother sparkle like freshly fallen snow. OK, so it's no Survivor. But the contestants all know what they're signing up for, and the Machievellian shenanigans deliver vicarious tension that's often lacking in the summer months.

This season, the show has trotted out an unlikely hook under the absurd moniker of Project Do Not Assume, or Project DNA. Two of the houseguests, unbeknownst to each other, are actually half-siblings. By the end of the first episode, Michael-- who never knew his real father-- has already figured out that Jennifer is his younger half-sister. He hasn't told her yet for fear of the connection hurting him in the game. I doubt that'll last long, especially since Jennifer will undoubtedly be one of the first on the chopping block. When the cast was first introduced, Jennifer-- a plain, perhaps even homely girl with six tattoos and hair dyed blue who asked everyone to call her Nicomus-- seemed completely out of place, more suited to Mad Mad House than Big Brother. Her connection to Michael makes her presence make more sense. Still, that one blood connection would be an awfully thin tendril on which to hang an entire season's hype.

And so there's a second twist. One houseguest will have an identical twin switching off with him/her throughout the game, with none of the other houseguests knowing. We've seen this in sitcoms, and I'm sure real twins are constantly fooling people, but it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep up the charade in such an insular environment where any conversation can come back to bite you.

Meanwhile, do NONE of these people take Basic Strategy 101? After the first food challenge, Lori was offered $10,000 to betray the group and force everyone to live on peanut butter and jelly for the week. If they declined, each other houseguest in turn would receive the same offer until someone accepted or everyone declined. Lori took the money, thereby tattooing "Evict me!" on her forehead. I suppose $10,000 for a week's effort is a pretty good outcome, especially since the vast majority of players will leave with nothing. But in taking the money, Lori shot a big hole in her chance of winning the $500,000 grand prize. First rule of eviction games: get in with the biggest crowd early, and keep your head low. Do NOT start out by a) getting $10K ahead of your competition, and b) taking food out of their bellies.

The Amazing Race 5 follows and, in a crossover casting first, features the second-place contestant from last season's Big Brother (Alison), who is apparently unlikeable in any reality format. No "virgins" or gay couple this time around, but this year's stunt casting is a partnership that includes a "little person" who, stubby legs aside, appears far more up to the challenge than her full-size cousin. Sadly, there's also no standout team to root for yet. Bring back the clowns!

Weekly updates to come.

Next Action Star

Caught an episode of Next Action Star on GSN last night, and was surprised to find it was actually watchable. Thirty men and women are "auditioning" for lead roles in an upcoming Joel Silver action film, and over the course of the series casting directors gradually reduce the field down to the eventual male and female winners. Last night the group went from 30 down to 20 after an action scene. The most interesting part of the whole thing-- as with most such shows-- is the elimination process. In this case, we get to listen in as the casting people discuss the actors. One assumes the discussions will get more involved as the field dwindles, and that discussion is oddly compelling-- largely because I'm not a casting director, and so the decision-making process of that world is alien and interesting.

More importantly, Next Action Star immediately follows Extreme Dodgeball, which I just missed this week but will Tivo for next time. I loved dodgeball when I was a kid (we called it Bombardment), so this promises some goofy, surreal fun. Anyone seen it yet?

Introducing: The Rabbit Cam

ESPN's coverage of the World Series of Poker this year is exploding into 22 hour-long segments throughout the summer, incorporating many side events as well as the main no-limit hold 'em tournament. The full schedule can be found here. Of special note is the introduction of the rabbit cam, a camera under the table by the dealer which will show what card would have been dealt next when a player folds! Technicians are still working on the Hellmuth cam, which would show us an alternate universe where players in the hand acted precisely as Phil Hellmuth expected they would.

ESPN coverage starts July 6, and runs for 2 hours every Tuesday through Sept. 14.

Do Hicks Even Have Cell Phones?

85% of the vote for Rupert. Not exactly the shock of the century. CBS and Burnett must have known that's how it would work out-- the web site's tracked Survivor popularity all season long, and Rupert's always been WAY at the top. Guess they decided to give the people what they wanted. Thank goodness the whole game isn't decided that way.

Rupert, Colby, even Rob-- OK, I get that. But... Tom? TOM? The man's a drunken mumbling idiot. I've gotta believe his vote count was tiny, but just a little less tiny than the next guy. Too bad the audience vote didn't happen right after the Marquesas-- Kathy would have been a shoo-in. Ah well, timing is everything.

So much for Survivor until September, and the inevitable bungee challenge.

Rating Their Pleas

The 18 All-Stars have each recorded a brief plea for the audience-awarded million. Let's review their pitches.

Alicia: Her whole attitude screams... well... attitude. Getting in the face of her opponents might have been a viable strategy, but getting in the face of the voters isn't.

Amber: She obviously doesn't expect the money, so the graceful thing to do would have been to say that she just won a million, let someone else have a chance. A lost opportunity to show some class.

Colby: Easily the most charming plea. Doubt it'll work, but nicely done.

Ethan: Props for coming right out and saying he doesn't need the money and that he'll split it evenly among the 18 All-Stars' favorite charities, but antiprops for saying he "deserves" the money because of what he'll do with it. Bzzz.

Jenna L.: Slow down, woman! Very big of you to lobby for Rupert, although your implication that stoners are going to vote for him was kinda odd. Also, the "Rupert's going to win anyway" approach isn't exactly the best line to use to convince people to vote for him.

Jenna M.: Simple, honest, heart-felt. Good on you.

Jerri: Wallowing in a bizarre anti-reality cause isn't going to win her friends or money.

Kathy: I expected a bit more of an emotional pitch from Kathy instead of "I played hard and with integrity." I don't know where people keep getting the idea that playing Survivor with integrity is a virtue. Winning after playing virtuously, ala Ethan, is commendable. It is not, however, a reason in and of itself to elect someone a winner.

Lex: Lex enjoins people to vote with their heart. Perhaps because he knows that he's got no chance at the money and everyone's going to vote for Rupert anyway.

Richard: You might have been the best player of the game in season 1, but not this time, pal. There are other players far more "deserving" of the cash than you.

Rob C: Hook a brother up! Love it. Love the tacit acknowledgement that Rupert's the populist choice, but Rob just comes off looking and sounding desperate. If people want the money to go to Rupert, they're going to give it directly to him-- not to you to split with him. You're flailing, buddy. Would have liked to have seen you win in the Amazon, but you're not getting this million either.

Rob M.: Here's where a touch of humility might have served you in good stead. "I'm being honest-- I deserve the million" isn't the way to voters' hearts.

Rudy: What can you say about this guy that hasn't already been said? A product of another time, in a good way. If this vote was happening after Survivor: Borneo, he'd be a shoo-in. But I think his moment has passed.

Rupert: After an uncomfortable start begging for the money by virtue of how many people it would help in Indianapolis, he did exactly the right thing and became the only one of the 18 All-Stars to thank the viewers for all their support, win or lose. Of course, the man could have made funny faces and baby talked for 20 seconds and he'd still win this million.

Shii-Ann: Babble babble babble. Anyone who actually uses the phrase "Outwit, outplay, outlast" in their plea deserves a boot to the head.

Susan: LOL. A woman who knows she's got no shot at the cash and at least decided to have some fun with it.

Tina: My first reaction was approval for her lack of greed, opening declaring she doesn't want the money. But my hypocracy detector went through the roof when she asked people to vote for the person who's going to give it away. Tell us, Tina, have you given all of your million away? Now that you've got yours, none of the other 17 are entitled to theirs? Feh.

Tom: Being in the game longer than anyone else doesn't mean you played better-- it just means people didn't see you as enough of a threat to get rid of sooner.

And Rupert Gets His Million

Thoughts on tonight's Survivor finale:

Curse Will Be Broken

Tom's certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was in a tough spot. Faced with two alliances of two, he was the odd man out no matter which way he turned. And really, at this point players must realize that Rob has alienated everyone who's on the jury, so he's looking like the man to stand next to in the final two. So I can't fault Tom too much for not turning against Rob and Amber.

But now that we're down to two alliances of two, the next vote looks like it should come down to the tie breaker unless either Jenna or Rupert turns on the other. Which would be INSANE, given that Rob and Amber are clearly going to stick together to the end, so Jenna and Rupert's best shot is to do the same.

But somehow, I think the curse of the cars will be broken, and Amber's going to walk off with both a car and a million.

The Immortal

Laughed all the way through tonight's Angel, which was just superb. Well, all the bits with Angel and Spike, anyway. The Illyria-Wesley plotline is just tiresome. At first I was saddened when Fred was killed, since she and Wes deserved some happiness. Then Illyria grew on me as Amy Acker proved far more intriguing in blue. But Alexis Denisof's just phoning it in, mumbling his lines in a flaccid simulation of grief that furthers neither his character nor the show's quality. If internet scuttlebutt is true, tonight's episode sets up a poignant moment in the upcoming series finale, but I'm not sure if I'll care by then. Wesley was far more interesting when he was boffing Lila.

But the whole concept behind The Immortal was just terrific, and the interplay between Spike and Angel was hilarious. Andrew's pontification near the end was the literary equivalent of a sledgehammer, but it worked. Fun stuff. Who needs Sarah Michelle Gellar, anyway?

Pyrrhic Victory

Shii-Ann was right-- Amber is going to win the million. But I doubt that's much comfort to her. Perhaps she knew her number was up, but if not she certainly talked her way onto the jury, where she's the second guaranteed Amber vote (Lex being the other; I suspect Kathy is an Amber vote also, but her tribal council vote against Amber makes the a bit more questionable).

The rampaging idiocy of Tom, Rupert, and Jenna just boggled my mind at first, but then I realized that all three of them had to join Shii-Ann in voting out Amber in order for it to work without risking a tie-breaker. And given Tom's inexplicable belief that he has a prayer of going to the final two with Rob, that wasn't likely to happen.

Next week, however, is the perfect-- and last-- chance to split the Rob/Amber alliance. I'd lay money that Rupert, Jenna, and Tom will be unable to come together to make it happen.

Rob, of course, has a major problem on his hands. The jury is now stacked with people who would sooner give Richard the million than hand it over to him. His gameplay has been effective thusfar, but I don't see a viable endgame strategy for him. He's burned too many bridges to hope that the jury will reward him for a game well played. Right now Amber is sitting pretty. And when you consider that Amber was the last person selected to be in the game, only making the cut because Colleen, Elisabeth, and possibly Christy turned the opportunity down... apparently Mr. Burnett's contract with the devil is long-term.

Speaking of which-- have you been watching The Restaurant? Another little piece of Burnett's soul siphoned down below in exchange for that little slice of serendipity. Obviously the timing was carefully orchestrated so that the coup would happen on-camera, but I wonder who waited for whom. Either way, it's dynamite television.

There Is No Spoon

The Alias writers have admitted in today's New York Times that they're making things up as they go along. For weeks they had no idea what "the passenger" was, despite the characters' fevered attempts to find it. They wrote Lauren as nothing more than a romantic foil for Sydney for eleven weeks, then decided it would be more fun if she were evil. They're flying by the seat of their collective pants, like The X-Files and Twin Peaks before them. Is it too much to ask for serial writers to have a road map, instead of throwing things at the wall and then writing around whatever sticks? The whole arc of the show just got much less interesting, since it's clear they have no idea what the whole Rimbaldi payoff will be yet and are just frantically laying down railroad tracks in front of the locomotive.

Yawn

A pretty weak episode of Survivor tonight, but bully for Shii-Ann for sticking it out and nabbing immunity when she needed it. I'm glad the gang-up-on-someone challenge, one of my long-held pet peeves about Survivor, was for reward instead of immunity-- that would have been a sucky way for Shii-Ann to get booted.

With everyone thinking they're in 'til the final four with Rob, it's no surprise that a coup wasn't forthcoming. I'm beginning to think the most brilliant player in the game is-- wait for it-- Amber, letting Rob play the heavy while protecting her and doing all her dirty work. If it comes down to Rob and Amber, will people vote with their heads and give Rob credit for how well he's played, or will they vote with their hearts and vote against him as payback for his betrayals?

Open Letter to Omarosa

You lied. With nothing at stake for yourself and with your employer and former teammate betting everything on your capability, you flat-out lied to him for no apparent reason.

And you wonder why everyone hates you?

Talk to the hand.

Your Own Damn Fault

Great drama tonight, as Lex discovered what we've known all along-- Rob is simply not to be trusted. There was obviously some out-of-game dynamics involved in Lex's decision to help Rob last week, but he was a fool to confuse the game with real life. Rob's making no such mistake. Banking on Rob's good will-- without even hammering out the details in advance, but just taking it on faith that Rob would make good-- was just insanity, regardless of their relationship outside of the game. Lex himself turned on Ethan. This seems like a bit of poetic justice. And much as I'd have liked to have seen Lex win, he brought this on himself when he got rid of Richard, then Colby, then Jerri. By the time of the merge, he'd killed his own cannon fodder.

I think Rupert also made a very naive choice in bringing Amber along with him to the reward-- a choice which didn't further his standing in the game at all. His alliance with Jenna was already strong, and Amber is never going to choose Rupert over Rob. Rupert might have been wiser to take Kathy, Shii-Ann, or Alicia and forge his own alliances, waiting for the opportunity to drive a wedge into Rob's inner circle. Except, of course, he thinks he's inside that circle.

Contract Expired

A friend of mine is fond of claiming that Mark Burnett has a deal with the devil, as evidenced by the spectacular good fortune with which he's been blessed in various Survivor goings-on: the women beating the pants of the men at the start of the Amazon series, Rudy staying around well past any reasonable expectations in season one, etc. But this week that contract seemingly expired, as his bid to shuffle up the teams failed spectacularly. The odds against each team staying together as they did are roughly .5 ^ 8, or about 0.4%, which is 1:250. Clearly not what Burnett had in mind.

But then codacil 1542.71 kicked in, as Amber miraculously squirmed her way off the chopping block thanks to mass idiocy at Mogo Mogo. If I'm understanding the logic correctly, Lex decided to oust Jerri-- who would likely have supported him to the very end, as she said-- because he thinks Rob will help him out later and would carry a grudge if he voted Amber out.

Ex-CUSE me?

Lex is an idiot. If there's someone you genuinely fear in the game, the idea is to get him out. Evicting Amber would have seriously thrown Rob off his game and would have kept Mogo Mogo intact, in stronger position to survive post-merge. Instead, Amber and Rob have succeeded in eating away at Mogo Mogo from within.

Worse, why in the WORLD would Shii-Ann and Kathy go along with this plan? Kathy heard Rob beg Lex for Amber's life and offer him future aid in return for keeping Amber alive. So Lex, at least, felt he was getting something. But there was nothing in it for Kathy. Shii-Ann, I'm sure, was just happy it wasn't her own head on the block.

Or are they afraid Rob will hold a grudge OUTSIDE the game? I've heard that one of Rob's strategies was to gather as much dirt on the other Survivors as possible to use as leverage. Maybe he has something on Lex and Kathy that they'd rather not get out. Far-fetched, but I'm trying to make sense of their baffling idiocy.

One thing's for sure-- when Rob and Amber make it to the final four, they'll have definitely earned their spots. I wasn't crazy about their inclusion in All-Stars, but they're both playing much better their second time around.

And everyone else seems to be playing much worse.

Luck Be a Lady Tonight

It kills me that the tribe with the most likable players-- Kathy, Lex, Ethan-- is the one that keeps losing, while the unappealing snakes on Chapera roll merrily along.

I thought the immunity challenge this week was pretty lame. A good team challenge involves teamwork, and this was just a series of individual efforts. Burnett can do better.

Meanwhile... what was Jerri thinking? The number one rule of Survivor must be this: never stick your neck out. Volunteering to be the tribe's representative in an immunity challenge is a no-win scenario. If you win the challenge your team avoids tribal council, but the following week your good work is long forgotten. If you lose the challenge, you're the scapegoat. When the tribe asks for volunteers for an immunity challenge, it's time to take a slight step backward. Unless, of course, you feel you have nothing to lose-- in which case you're better off taking your fate into your own hands. Perhaps Jerri thought she was next in line. And clearly, she might have been. But she got lucky-- Lex continued to be stupid, voting off yet another human shield. I don't know what he's thinking. When the tribes finally merge, who the heck does Lex think the former Chaperas are going to think is the biggest threat left on Mogo Mogo? Shii-Ann? Please. I like Lex, but he started playing the individual game far too soon, and it's going to bite him.

Devil in the Details

I get annoyed when movies and television shows dabble in my areas of expertise and get the details wrong-- especially when getting them right would have been so easy. Case in point: last night's Stargate: SG-1.

The opening shot is of O'Neill shaving in his bathroom mirror. Clipped to the mirror is a cryptic crossword puzzle. We know it's a cryptic for two reasons: the grid is a cryptic-style grid, with words intersecting at every other letter instead of on every letter; and the title of the page is "CRYPTIC CROSSWORD" (aside: because I'm a geek, I freeze-framed to see what the entries in the grid were. The clues were too small to read and the entries were difficult to discern, but it was pretty clear that they made no sense. Most of the filled-in answers weren't even words).

A few minutes later O'Neill triumphantly hands the completed grid to Carter, with whom he had a bet about being able to complete it. From Carter's reaction, it's obvious O'Neill's blown it (explaining the nonsense entries?). Specifically, Carter says, "The clue for 29 across is 'Atomic weight of Boron.' The answer is TEN. You wrote FAT." That's not a cryptic clue, that's a traditional crossword clue. That clue would never have been part of the puzzle we saw.

In England, a "crossword" is a cryptic crossword, while an "American crossword" is the kind with which we're more familiar. Is the same true in Canada? Was this a case of the script-- written by an American-- calling for a "crossword puzzle", not realizing that the term would mean something different to the Vancouver prop team?

Blindsided

Trivia: Have we ever seen a combined immunity/reward team challenge before? I don't remember one off-hand, and as rewards go this one was huge.

I'm not sure I like Lex's betrayal of Colby last night. Colby had a point-- the game's still a team game, and until that changes you want your strongest members to stay. If Colby's a threat to Mogo Mogo, you can be sure Chapera will also see him as a threat. Lex's smarter move was to keep Colby around as a shield, counting on him to take the first bullet from Chapera. All Lex did was move himself a little higher on the hit list once the merge arrives.

Mogo Mogo seems to be imploding, increasing the chances that the final four will come from Chapera. And with the exception of Rupert, there's really nobody there I want to see in the final four. I'll grudgingly admit that Rob is earning his spot, but I still don't like the guy.

My fingers are crossed that Kathy will figure out a way to use this crossover experience to her advantage down the road.

Mad Mad House

SciFi premiered a new reality show last night. Mad Mad House put a dozen people-- many of whom are devout Christians-- into a gothic mansion occupied by a witch, naturalist, "modern primitive", "vampire", and voodoo priestess. They're asked to participate in the rituals of these "Alts", who vote one guest out of the house each week.

Is this Joe Schmo 2? Because a joke's being played on someone. The guests immediately wondered if the Alts were just actors. If they weren't actors before, they certainly are now-- each is playing their archetype to the hilt. They talk a lot about how open their guests are (or aren't) to new experiences and ideas, but the casting was so obviously canted towards the closed-minded that the whole affair comes off as too carefully contrived.

Just how bad is Mad Mad House? They couldn't even afford a proofreader. In close-captioning the speech of a houseguest, they misspelled "guarantee". I can live with a vampire or a witch, but not an illiterate producer.

Sue Sue Sudio

The camera never gave us a good angle of Hatch's shenanigans, so it's hard to judge Sue's reaction. Not that that'll stop us, naturally. Was Hatch a puerile jackass? Absolutely. Should someone on the production staff have thrown up a red flag on the idea of someone participating in a contact challenge naked? Hell yeah. But Sue was fully clothed. It's doubtful there was any skin-on-skin contact. For someone who peed on a raft in the presence of her tribemates, suddenly she's awfully prickly about privates. And Hatch is gay. He clearly wasn't making any sexual advances. He and Sue have known each other for years. He probably thought he was just taunting her and being cute. He was wrong, and I can see how Sue might have been uncomfortable or disgusted. But violated? Dehumanized?

Hatch was wrong, and had he not been voted out that night there'd be a good case to boot him anyway. But Sue's reaction seems grossly disproportionate to the offense.

On with the game.

Update: I just rewatched last week's challenge on the Survivor web site. When Sue came to the final platform, she had two choices of how to proceed. Her teammates urged her to hurry up and take the lefthand route, but she demurred saying, "No, I want this one"-- meaning the route Richard Hatch was using to come toward her. Not only could she have taken the other path, she should have-- it was vacant. She chose instead to wait for Richard, forcing the two of them to squeeze by each other. Are there legitimate reasons for her to have made that choice? Sure. But it smells fishy. She put herself in Richard's path when she needn't have. She knew he was naked. That sounds like assumption of risk to me. There's lots of blame to spread around here, but some of it is definitely Sue's.

The Suspense is Killing Him

It's hard to feel bad for anyone who's getting a chance to win ten million dollars, but pity the final contestant on last night's Super Millionaire finale. Succeeding at an nth hour attempt to get into the hotseat, he's now trapped in limbo at the $5,000 level for three months in the carryover from Hell. Brutal. It could be worse-- he could be at the $50,000 mark with no lifelines, spending the next three months wondering if he'll get a $100,000 question he knows cold. And I'm sure he'll be getting a lot of media attention in his local area. But my one night carryover was stressful, and I already had $32,000 locked in. Three months and I'd have been a wreck.

See Dick Leave

Thank God. I couldn't take much more of that smarmy prick, or the man it belonged to. Hamming for the camera, daring everyone else to just deal with his nakedness-- a truly baffling attitude if he had any designs on the prize at all-- and oozing smuggery (yes, smuggery)... all he needed was a handlebar moustache to twirl. I couldn't be happier to see him go. Next week, however, his legacy lives on. The previews show Sue railing at Jeff over Hatch's naked confrontation during this week's immunity challenge, and Internet scuttlebutt says (possible spoiler, highlight to read) Sue quits the game amid threats to sue because nobody stepped in and told Richard that getting naked in a physical challenge was inappropriate. If true, it should be a very interesting show.

Dissolving the losing tribe in the reward challenge was a great way to shake the game up at just the right time, and I can't imagine a better thing happening to Saboga. That was the tribe of the damned. I'm happy the game put a fork in them.

Of the two remaining tribes, Mogo Mogo actually looks stronger to me. But Rob-- assuming it was his idea for everyone to just jump off the platform and let him back onto the course-- is proving to be even craftier than I thought. Bravo. Meanwhile, Kathy continues to impress with her savvy, general demeanor, and good sense. As far as my hopes for the winner go, I'm jumping off the Rupert train-- sorry big guy, but you were a far better pirate than an all-star-- and hitching the first ride to Kathytown. Go get 'em.

Double Dip This

By popular demand-- OK, one loyal reader left a plaintive request on my voicemail-- my thoughts on Super Millionaire.

They're giving away too much money.

Look, on the original show, reaching a million dollars was a terrific goal. "A million dollars" has a mythic stature in our culture that no other dollar amount rivals. It's the ultimate goal. That's part of the genius of the original Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. In the new version, reaching a million after twelve questions is an anticlimax with three more questions left to come. Sure, there's a ten million dollar carrot dangling in the distance, but for most players that's a pipe dream. A million dollars, however, is very reachable. Hell, from $100,000 to $500,000 is a free freaking guess. And therein lies the problem.

On the original show, nobody was really satisfied at $64,000. Happy to have gotten that far, yes. But wanting to go on. Disappointed not to have made it to triple digits. Tempted by the phenomenal pot odds-- risking $32,000 to make an additional $61,000 and get a look at the next question-- into taking a chance. But now, how can anyone not be satisfied at $500,000? Wanting to go on? Sure. Disappointed not to have made it to 7 digits? OK. But also absolutely thrilled to be leaving the game with half a million dollars. And that takes a lot of the tension out of the game.

The dollar figures are just too large.

It's always heartbreaking to watch a contestant leave with $0, but when last night's contestant botched the Tinkertoys question it was gut-wrenching. Her lost opportunity was much greater than any llama before her. It wouldn't surprise me if she was bawling her eyes out backstage, as the realization hit that she'd thrown away an easy $100,000 with a solid chance at $500,000 or more. On the old show, there was always a chance at a life-changing amount of money, but the odds were heavily against you. Now the odds are astoundingly with you, and that makes failure far more painful.

Meanwhile, they've overhyping the "next dimension" of the game-- enough already. The harsh lighting looks terrible. The centrifugal barfometric camera has got to go. The artificial drama of "who are the wise men tonight?" is overplayed, especially given their tiny bit of game involvement. As for Regis, he's got some great qualities as a host, but an unfortunate tendency to make the game about HIM. Witness his vaguely racist presumption in spontaneously nicknaming the first contestant "the Kimmer" because his last name was Kim, or making jokes at the contestant's expense. He calls attention to himself instead of making the contestant shine. Regis has great energy and enthusiasm which takes the show to a more vibrant level than Meredith Vieira's more low-key approach. But Meredith comes off as a nicer person, making her version more pleasant to watch.

That's not to say, of course, that I wouldn't jump in Regis' hotseat in a nanosecond if given the opportunity. Which somehow sounds dirty.

The truth is that throwing vast sums of money at people makes for compelling television. We want to see contestants agonizing over the risks. We want to see them in their moment of elation. Super Millionaire will be back in May, and probably every sweeps thereafter for a long time to come.

Lamb to the Slaughter

Rob has no excuses. As a self-styled expert on Survivor, he should have worked harder to save his butt. And he especially should have known better than to trust Boston Rob. Whenever that guy moves he leaves a trail of slime behind.

What amazes me most is that the other members of Chapera, seeing the bond forming between Boston Rob and Amber, didn't nip it in the bud and axe one of them. That kind of strong alliance is too big a threat to leave unanswered. After Big Tom, Amber seems the most expendable. Give her the heave-ho and you still have a strong tribe, plus you've kept Rob M. in check. Voting out Rob C. just didn't make much sense.

I've got this sinking feeling that Amber and Boston Rob face off against each other in the finals (and no, I haven't read any spoilers so it's just speculation). Slimy Guy vs. Under the Radar Girl. Talk about choosing the lesser of two evils...

Puppet Love

Last night's Angel was, on the whole, terrific. How can you not love demonic puppets? And when puppet Angel vamped out, I nearly busted a gut. The sound work on David Boreanaz' voice was poorly balanced, however-- he never sounded like he was in the scene with everyone else. And you'd think they could have made a puppet that looked a little bit more like him.

Meanwhile, next week threatens to jump the shark as Fred gets possessed by a demon and the gang may be powerless to save her. Now where have I seen that before... wait, it's coming to me... oh yeah-- most of last season, only it was Cordelia doing the soul-swapping. Yawn...

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

This week's Angel marked Charisma Carpenter's swan song with the show. Angel's been sub-par all season, but it wasn't until this episode that I realized what's been missing.

The show is greatly hurt by Cordelia's absence. Angel might be the lead of the show, but Cordelia was the emotional center. Her relationship with Angel-- and the Powers That Be-- anchored the show, and without it Angel has been adrift. Cordelia had an electricity and vibrance that Amy Acker's Fred can't approach. Carpenter was particularly strong in her farewell appearance, turning in a sweet, moving performance that brought home how far her character has come since the show began.

I didn't miss Cordelia at all when she left Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but her departure from Angel leaves a surprisingly large hole.

Update: The WB has announced that this will be the final season of Angel. Suddenly that hole doesn't look so large after all.

Timing is Everything

I agree with Alicia. If I was that worried about a loved one dying while I was away, I don't think I'd have gone to Panama in the first place. Jenna's reason for leaving Survivor tonight was about as good as they come, and prescient-- I got a little chill when the final text appeared. But her poor judgment in coming into the game in the first place had two powerful effects-- robbing someone else of the spot, and handicapping her tribemates. Given what happened, there's no question she made the right decision to leave. But she made a very wrong decision to come in the first place-- a decision that may have hurt others more than herself.

From a production note, I'd love to know the sequence of events leading up to that psuedo-council at the challenge. Did Probst know about Jenna's plans beforehand? How long did taping stop while the producers figured out how to play it? Minutiae like that fascinates me.

Meanwhile... what the heck was Rupert thinking? Digging a basement in the sand, by the water? Insanity. Sheer insanity. It's a good thing Rupert had his time in the sun last season, because this time around he's looking a few logs short of a life raft.

Super Millionaire Rules Announced

The payout schedule for the upcoming Super Millionaire will look like this:

$1,000
$2,000
$3,000
$4,000
$5,000 (lock-in)
$10,000
$20,000
$30,000
$50,000
$100,000 (lock-in and two more lifelines)
$500,000
$1 million
$2.5 million
$5 million
$10 million

That's quintuple the former payout at the first plateau and triple the former level at the second plateau. But it's after that second plateau that it really gets interesting. Instead of doubling your money from $32K to $64K, you can now quintuple up to half a million dollars on a free guess! Throw in 2 more lifelines, including the most powerful one yet (see below), and we can expect to see a lot of millionaires.

The two new lifelines are Three Wise Men, in which the player can ask a panel of three trivia experts for help, and Double Dip, in which a player gets two chances at providing an answer. The catch with Double Dip, however, is that if you invoke it you are not allowed to walk away from that question. But combine it with the 50/50 and you're guaranteed a correct answer (although the producers are expected to prohibit this combination).

Expect a lot of drama with the Double Dip lifeline. It, and Three Wise Men, only become available after you reach $100,000. So using it will always mean high stakes.

I envy the 15-or-so contestants who'll be getting their shot in this hotseat. Assuming the difficulty of the questions remains the same, ABC is going to give away a LOT of money.

Brawn, But No Brains

Rupert, I love ya man. I'm rooting for you even though I know it's a lost cause. Being a nice guy will only get you so far-- you have to be smart. And you're blowing it.

Saboga got a gift when their boat just floated to the surface on its own. And then, in a feat of stupidity that would make Jessica Simpson proud, Saboga proceeded to bail out the boat a bucket at a time. I couldn't believe my eyes. Inverting the boat on top of the pontoon was the obvious play. Even if nobody on Saboga thought of it before the game began, someone should have noticed both of the opposing tribes doing it! But Saboga doggedly continued their doomed bucket brigade, and threw away what should have been an easy victory.

And this after they gave up their reward to give all teams fire.

Back at the ranch, Rupert then flat-out told his tribemates that he had a pact with Rudy! That was an incredibly boneheaded move for Mr. Boneham. If Rudy stayed, their alliance would then be public where it could have backfired against them. If Rudy left, the broken alliance would make Rupert look weaker and more vulnerable, and voting against Ethan would make it harder to pull him over to Rupert's side. Which is precisely what Rupert needs to do now to stay alive.

Well, that and win some damn immunity challenges.

Well, Rupert, at least you caught a fish. Maybe that'll count for something.

Doomed to Repeat Them

Rupert, Rupert, Rupert. What were you thinking? Of all the castaways, you're the one whose loss is freshest. The mistakes you made should be burning brightly in your mind. How could you possibly be making the same ones all over again so soon? Ethan was completely honorable and trustworthy throughout the Africa game. Maybe he won't be this time, but he's proven he's inclined to be. Tina never did anything brazenly traitorous, either. Jerri and Jenna are obvious schemers and inherently untrustworthy. The choice of whom to back was a no-brainer! Not to mention the shield factor-- as previous winners, Ethan and Tina are far more likely to get voted out later than you would be, so keeping them around would have kept you alive longer.

There's still hope. If you're smart, you'll approach Ethan and accept him into your alliance with Rudy. Then the three of you have a strong chance of survival, as long as Rudy doesn't collapse from the strain.

Going into tonight, the yellow team was my clear favorite. I'll still be rooting for them going forward. The Rob/Rob/Alicia/Amber/Tom/Susan team does nothing for me. I wouldn't mind if Rob C. won the game this time (since he was robbed in the Amazon), but I'd love to see that team just get knocked off one by one. On the other team, Kathy and Shii-Ann have my support with Lex a close runner-up.

In past Survivors, the first tribe to tribal council has always returned with fire. It's a reasonable consolation prize, considering the loss of a tribemate. Depriving the yellow team of that silver lining was brutal! This is obviously going to be an impossibly grueling game. My hat is off to whomever outlasts the rest-- because for the first time, it seems like that element is going to be at least as important as outwitting and outplaying.

Maybe If He Took the Ring Out of His Lip...

And the award for most unintentionally funny use of captions on a television series goes to... Celebrity Mole: Yucatan for their policy of close-captioning Dennis Rodman's confessionals. He's a bit of a low-talker, but his words are perfectly understandable (is there an aural equivalent of legible?). The real service would be if the producers somehow made his statements actually make sense.

The games on this week's show, by the way, were quite good. The similarity of all the paintings in the art game was just brutal. It didn't help that Mark Curry gave phenomenally poor descriptions to his teammates. It looks like either he or Tracey is the Mole. But if it's him, he's being remarkably obvious about it.

All-Star Game

I can't remember the last time I looked forward to Superbowl Sunday as much as I do today. And it has nothing, of course, to do with the Patriots, or the Panthers, or the Homer Simpson Mastercard commercial.

You know me better than that.

It's all about Survivor, baby. Three teams of six repeat castaways each, mano-a-mano for another million. This time, not only do we all know the players-- so do they. That's gonna make things really interesting from the get-go. And the gamemaker in me is very curious to see how Burnett's going to capitalize on the three-way action in challenges.

Quote of the day, from a story in the Philadelphia Daily News, about the contestants:

"They hang, they talk, they go to charities," Probst said. "It's a big part of their lives, 'Survivor.' So they talk about it all the time with each other." Yet, as you'll see in Sunday's premiere, none of them has apparently spent any time talking about how to make fire.

That cracks me up. You'd think that for their second chance, they'd have brushed up a bit on their basic survival skills-- especially the ones that gave them trouble the first time around.

And another quote, also from Probst:

"One by one, they e-mailed me or called before we got out there and said, 'I just want to let you know: I'm not gonna give you anything good at tribal council.'

"I went into the game thinking, 'How am I gonna get good stuff out of these guys?' And it turned out I got the best stuff I've ever gotten."

I am so looking forward to this.

I am so sad.

Dennis Miller's New CNBC Show

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Super Millionaire

The New York Times reports that ABC has decided to bring Who Wants to Be a Millionaire back to prime time. They'll be returning to the original scheduling format-- multiple nights in a single week of sweeps-- and bringing back Regis, but changing the game format to create new excitement. The dollar values will be increased tenfold, with the top prize rocketing to ten million dollars. When players reach the second level of the game, they'll also receive three new lifelines (the details of which have yet to be announced). The new Super Millionaire will air the week of Feb. 22.

And no, as a former contestant on the syndicated show, I don't expect to be eligible to play. Dammit.

Promo Writers Must Die

Attention Celebrity Mole: Yucatan producers: Yes, tonight's victim would have been a delightful surprise IF YOU FREAKING IDIOTS DIDN'T RUIN IT WITH THE TEASERS DURING THE SHOW!. Instead of saying "You'll never believe who becomes the Mole's second victim," you might as well have just flashed "Corbin gets executed" on the screen every ten seconds-- it'd have been just as subtle. Crap like this is why The Mole got cancelled in the first place. You nitwits aren't fit to lick the guano off Mark Burnett's Reeboks. Pinheads.

The Big Reveal

Not only did they reveal what happened to Sydney's missing two years on tonight's Alias, but they did so without pulling a rabbit out of their ass. Not only did it make sense, but it made other things that have happened this season make more sense. And you've gotta love the final twist. The show's still got it.

I do have a question about the test tube baby thing, though. It's been close to twenty years since I took biology, but I seem to recall that the human fertilization process requires sperm. Is sperm just a DNA delivery system? Can a lab tech take any old male DNA and fertilize a human egg?

Museum Living

The Apprentice isn't much different from Mark Burnett's other reality series, Survivor. Two teams of 8 people each, challenges to perform and win immunity and rewards, somebody getting booted each week.

But Survivor has bikinis.

The Apprentice has Trump. The guy comes off about as flexible as a 2x4. And who in the world would want to live in that apartment of his? Everything in it is gold leaf and marble-- can we say "Versailles complex"?

The redeeming factor of the show was the boardroom, which seemed more honest, confrontational, and dramatic than the usual tribal council. I liked hearing what Trump and his cronies had to say and the responses from the contestants. I was disappointed that nobody brought up the single factor that seemed to put the women out ahead of the men-- their price point. While the men were flogging lemonade at a dollar a glass, the women were getting five bucks a pop. Forget everything else-- the men simply priced themselves out of the competition.

And come on-- after "The tribe has spoken," is "You're fired" the best they could do? Gimme some zing-- "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out," or a Mr. Slate riff in the delivery-- something.

One Down, Six to Go

Way too early to gain any useful Mole intelligence, but... My gut says that Baldwin and Bersen are players, not Moles-- they're simply too entertaining playing it straight for the producers to muck about by making one of them the Mole. Everhart's "make them think I'm the Mole" ploy is either a brilliant bit of double-reverse psychology, or it's exactly what she said it was. I'm counting her out as a Mole.

That leaves Rodman, Curry, Gold, and Pulliam. Who is the Mole?

Reality Rundown

A bunch of reality TV hits the air this week, and I thought I'd release the Static Zombie syllabus so we're all on the same page.

Wednesday, 10 PM, ABC: Celebrity Mole Yucatan. The Mole is the best of all the reality TV concepts, and the celebrity angle doesn't harm the gameplay a bit. Oddly, Corbin Bersen and Stephen Baldwin-- veterans of the first Celebrity Mole-- are back again. Is one of them the Mole this time? We'll be watching.

Thursday, 8:32 PM, NBC: The Apprentice. Candidates vie for a job with a 6-figure salary from Donald Trump by competing in challenging tasks. C'mon, it's The Donald. Would he put his name on anything of questionable quality? Meanwhile, a Bronx cheer to NBC for their pervasive practice this season of starting shows a minute or two early to spite TiVo users and create Season Pass conflicts. Here's a tip, NBC: in every conflict, your show will get the heave-ho. Spite works both ways, bastards.

Sunday, 9 PM, The WB: The Surreal Life. The first series was oddly fascinating, in no small part because of Corey Feldman's rampaging ego. This time we get Ron Jeremy, Tammy Faye, and Erik Estrada under the same roof as the show answers the burning question, "Whatever happened to Vanilla Ice?" It's a train wreck waiting to happen, and we can't turn our eyes away.

Also premiering this week is the second series of Average Joe. As part of our longstanding ennui about relationship/dating programs, we will not be watching. Sorry. Besides, the producers tanked their own premise last time by introducing a bunch of "hunks" into the mix late in the game-- I don't expect many viewers to sign back on to be fooled twice.

24

I'm just catching up on this season of 24-- I'm about 5 episodes in-- and I'm not impressed. If our real governmental agencies are run as poorly as CTU, be very afraid. This place has a bigger mole problem than Cindy Crawford. After Nina in season 1, you'd think they'd tighten their security procedures just a tad. And how exactly did Chappelle, who sided against the President in season 2, manage to keep his job? And apparently becoming a trained computer tech at a government agency where your father works is as easy as saying "plot device." Still, it beats being stalked by a cougar.

I'm disappointed at how the writers seem to be revisiting their own themes-- Jack on the run from CTU, a mole in the ranks, the President having possible betrayal issues with the people closest to him. Part of me hopes this whole situation is an elaborate setup to get Jack back in with Salazar and root out his terrorist contacts, except that it wouldn't make a shred of sense. I've got a couple more episodes stored up on TiVo, so I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt for now and see where things go. But the clock is definitely ticking.

Update: Watched the rest and am now up to date. And whaddya know, I was right-- it was an elaborate setup to get Jack back in with Salazar, and it doesn't make a shred of sense. I mean, come on-- government agents orchestrating a prison riot, wherein guards are bound to get killed? The worst offense is how they didn't play fair with the viewer. We see Jack, Tony, and Gael act in ways that make no sense if they're in on the whole scheme. And Tony keeping it from Michelle? I don't buy that at all. Feh.

Survivor Finale

Yay! Finally, a Survivor winner who deserves the title. Way to go, Sandra. I was praying Lill would give Jon the boot, thereby allowing him no opportunity to slime into a victory, but worried that she'd be smart enough to know that she couldn't beat Sandra. Sadly, she also thought she couldn't beat Jon and decided she'd rather Sandra get the money. And that's a very understandable line of reasoning. Jon may have irked people, but he played the game very well. There's always the chance that the jury would set their personal feelings aside and give the money to the player who played the best game (c.f. Richard Hatch). In the case of Lill vs. Jon, Jon was unquestionably the better player.

As I said on Thursday, I went into tonight with Lill as my #1 choice and Sandra #2. But as the final tribal council unfolded, I reversed my votes. Much as I rooted for Lill, Sandra played a far better game. Kudos to her for a well-deserved victory.

Meanwhile... could you possibly love Rupert more? A shame he'll get voted off the All Stars the moment the tribes merge...

Hypocrites

"You voted for her, you twit!"

That's what I shouted at the TV tonight upon hearing Burton's self-serving final words against Lill. If I hadn't already been rooting for his demise, that would have been enough to send me into a little happy dance when his flame was snuffed. What a hypocrite. He was an idiot for picking Jon for the reward and leaving the three women alone at camp, and he paid for it. Take your licking along with your car. Some people only got one chance at the game, bozo. You got two and still couldn't close the deal. Don't let the bitterness hit you on the ass on your way out.

I have to admit that I'm a hypocrite, too. As time's passed, the thought of Burton winning the game after getting voted out the first time really rubbed me the wrong way. It would feel unjust for him to win because of an unexpected rebuy. And yet I'm rooting for Lill. Same circumstances, same unjustness. But in her case I don't care. Maybe it's because I felt she was booted unfairly the first time. Maybe it's because she's the underdog. For whatever reason, a victory for Lill wouldn't bother me a bit.

I've been a Darrah detractor in the past, but anyone who can win three immunity challenges in a row has staked a deserving claim to the prize. I'd rather she not win, but I can't say she hasn't earned it in the end.

Sandra's my #2 preference. You have to admire her no-nonsense approach to the game. That lady's got moxie.

The winner, of course, will probably be the least desirable of them all-- Jon. He's already been on the island 35 days too long in my book. He's worked to get where he is, no doubt about it. But I just don't cotton to 'im. His sorry ass belongs on the jury bench, not in the winner's circle.

Remember: the finale is this Sunday, followed by the live reunion show. TiVo owners, add the reunion manually since your Season Pass won't get it (although a Wishlist will).

Gettin' It On, Super-style

I thoroughly enjoyed this week's Justice League. The writing was fantastic, with The Joker cracking me up multiple times. The format of the episode-- The Joker hosting a broadcast of the League's attempt to foil his plot-- worked beautifully, and Mark Hamill's Joker was delightful as ever. After seeing the Royal Flush Gang in Batman Beyond, it was great to see the origin of the group. And to top it all off, the long-simmering chemistry between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern finally paid off with some super-smooches. If the JL Watch Tower's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'.

E? Try F.

Todd Newton has a pretty easy job on E!'s Coming Attractions. All he has to do is look affable and read the inane script off the teleprompter. Any monkey could do it.

Wrong.

Cindy Taylor, the guest host-du-jour on the show, makes Todd Newton look like Laurence Olivier. Her qualifications were apparently that she's easy on the eyes, because the Wizard's got her brains on a shelf somewhere in Oz. I'm being a bit harsh-- she manages to get all the words out, pronounced correctly and in the right order. But it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that zing. The dialogue she's given is dopey enough as it is-- when read by someone for whom Dick and Jane is heavy material, it's painful to watch.

I can only hope the casting couch doesn't chafe.

Celebrity Poker Showdown

ESPN has long mastered the art of making good poker into bad TV. Who knew bad poker could be good TV?

Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown showcased some pretty poor poker. In fairness, all the exposure the game's received lately has raised the bar pretty high. Plunk a bunch of celebrity amateurs at a table and it's bound to be ugly. Sure enough, the first outing saw baffling raises, insane calls, and some flat-out appalling luck. But that they-could-do-anything-because-they-don't-know-any-better factor made it fun to watch.

I love Kevin Pollak, and his Christopher Walken intro was hilarious. But after that, he wasn't on the A material. Poker pro Phil Gordon provided some great incredulous commentary-- it's always fun to make fun of celebs. I particularly liked the fact that players moved to the "Loser's Lounge" when they're knocked out where they can comment on the action and hope they'll show more of it next time around.

As an hour show, we only see a scant few hands. This makes the action seem disjointed, as players who were far ahead before the commerical suddenly drop to the back of the pack upon return. Room for improvement, then, but still an entertaining hour and one I intend to track faithfully.

Pants on Fire

Bravo.

I'm a charter member of the Jon's a Dick club, but even I have to give him props. What he did was brilliant, and you have to wonder that nobody ever thought of it-- or carried through with it-- before. There's always a Loved Ones challenge. Having the forethought to capitalize on that by generating sympathy is not only clever, but a sound tactical move. It bought him the reward challenge (valuable more in its deprivation from other players than in itself) and quite possibly a few days more on the island, at no risk. The players will never discover the big lie until it's too late. Sure, they'll never talk to you again-- but you didn't go there to make friends. You went to make money.

I'll do a little happy dance if he finally gets voted out (at this point it's clear that he's everyone's favorite to go up against in the final two), but he's right-- this'll go down as one of the most memorable events in Survivor history.

But enough about Jon-- let's talk about those he bamboozled. My bile tonight is directed at the players who just threw their game away by ignoring their gut and a) throwing away a golden opportunity to oust the strongest player, and b) tossing a potential ally they worked hard to recruit instead. What the hell were Christa and Sandra thinking? Alliances have shifted so much already that any promises beyond the immediate tribal council aren't worth a damn. And yet these two geniuses happily agree to payment on Tuesday for a hamburger today.

I think this was the first time we've seen Jeff screw up during a challenge. It was an understandable mistake-- I'll bet a lot of people would misspell LIAISON. I wonder exactly how and when it was discovered. I'm sure there was a lot edited out, but it does suggest the kind of stuff that's happening behind the scenes-- producers looking things over and so forth. I wonder if the back-up challenge was in place already or was conceived on the fly. I was crushed to see Burton lose immunity-- with him holding the sword, I thought it extremely likely that Jon was toast.

At this point, the runway has been cleared for Darrah and all she has to do is bring her seat back and tray table upright for landing. Jon and Burton want Sandra and Christa out. Sandra and Christa... I don't know what the hell they want anymore. But nobody feels strongly about axing Darrah, and that can't help but work in her favor.

Note to future Survivor contestants: the biggest threats aren't the strongest players. Aim your radar low, shoot first, and ask questions later.

The Real All-Star Game

It looks like Rupert may get another chance. From the CBS Early Show page:

(CBS) America's favorite pirate was given the heave-ho on Thursday night's "Survivor: Pearl Islands." but for undisclosed reasons, Rupert Boneham is not available to appear in The Early Show studio this Friday morning.

While CBS will not confirm his whereabouts, various online sources suggest Rupert may be on location for next season's "Survivor: All-Stars."

Internet reports put the cast of the all-star edition, to debut in the plum post-Superbowl time slot, as follows:

Richard Hatch (Pulau Tiga)
Susan Hawk (Pulau Tiga)
Rudy Boesch (Pulau Tiga)
Jenna Lewis (Pulau Tiga)
Colby Donaldson (Australia)
Alicia Calaway (Australia)
Amber Brkich (Australia)
Jerri Manthey (Australia)
Tina Wesson (Australia)
Tom Buchanan (Africa)
Lex Van Den Berghe (Africa)
Ethan Zohn (Africa)
Rob Mariano (Marquesas)
Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien (Marquesas)
Shii-Ann Huang (Thailand)
Rob Cesternino (Amazon)
Jenna Morasca (Amazon)
Rupert Boneham (Pearl Islands)

Ken Stafford (Thailand) and Sandra Diaz-Twine (Pearl Islands) are reported alternates.

Here are pictures to go with the names.

Unexpected inclusions: Alicia, Amber (?!), Tom, Rob Mariano
Interesting omissions:
Survivor 4 & 5 winners Vecepia and Brian
Gretchen Cordy (Pulau Tiga)
Jeff Varner (Australia)
Michael Skupin (Australia)
Gina Crews (Marquesas)
Helen Glover (Thailand)
Dave Johnson (Amazon)
Deena Bennett (Amazon)

Half of the contestants are from seasons 1 and 2-- it will be interesting to see if that works in their favor or against them. If I were in the game, I'd try to break up the players from matching seasons ASAP. On the other hand, rumor is the game will involve three tribes of six players each, which will certainly reduce the number of paired players before the merge.

And I say again... AMBER?!

Alas, Poor Rupert

It was obvious from the bizarre Rupert vignette at the opening of tonight's show that the jolly pirate was a goner. Rupert must be the most popular Survivor ever. I can only hope he's able to turn that popularity into some kind of windfall outside of the game.

If I could wave a magic wand and make one change to Survivor for all eternity, it would be to eliminate the gang-up-on-a-victim immunity challenges. I've got no problem with them as rewards, but they're horribly ill-conceived for immunities. Immunity should be the last hope of a player stuck in the crosshairs, and these gang challenges offer no hope at all. Blech.

It now looks like Darrah, Tijuana, Jon, Burton, and Lil will be the last five. Then either the girls will team up to boot off the guys, or Burton will somehow hold onto Lil's allegiance and they and Jon will vote off Darrah and Tijuana.

Either way, it's hard for me to root for anyone at this point. Rupert was doomed from the get-go, but he was fun to watch and cheer on. Now I just hope Jon doesn't slime to a victory and Darrah doesn't fly under the radar to one.

Chortle

Laugh-out-loud moment from last week's The Simpsons:

Homer: "I'm going to hide you where there's nobody around for miles: Disney's California Adventure!"

ESPN Gets It Wrong

It's amazing to me that the World Poker Tour got it right on their very first outing, but ESPN-- with all their experience covering events-- got it very, very wrong in their coverage of the Scrabble All Stars Tournament they sponsored. Let's count the problems:

• At least 15 minutes went by before we saw any Scrabble getting played.
  
• Overall, more screen time was spent interviewing and talking about players than actually playing the game.
  
• We only saw a grand total of 3 games get played.
  
• We very, very rarely had a chance to play along at home, trying to find a move with the players' racks. I was very pleased with myself for spotting DIPLOIDS in the final game, for example, and would have liked more opportunities.
  
• Very little analysis of the games in progress. What analysis existed seemed good (TOQUE[T]), but there wasn't nearly enough of it.
  
• Far too much time spent on the basics of Scrabble.
  
• The woman co-anchoring with Fatsis had no clue about Scrabble, asked some inane questions, and had no business being there.
  
• Inclusion of "top female player" on the commentary team because she's a woman was insulting.
  

The World Poker Tour focuses on the game. We gain insight by seeing it played by top players. A similar format could have been used here. Alternatively, it would have been equally fascinating to hear more commentary from the stadium room where the eliminated players watched the final. ESPN had a number of ways to go here, and they chose one that condescended to the viewer, illuminated nothing about the game, and was a complete snooze. Shuffle up and play already!

Easiest. Trivia. Ever.

I mean, come ON! How can you not know what a cutlass, cat-o-nine-tails, and keelhauling are-- especially with the immunity totem being a cutlass, and one of the challenges inspired by keelhauling! Speaking of slack-faced idiotry, what's up with Christa? Probst told her that pieces of eight were Spanish doubloons a couple of questions earlier-- how can she then say they wouldn't be found in a pirate's treasure chest? Un-freaking-believable.

The writing's in the sand for Rupert, who appears to need the greatest string of immunities in Survivor history to make it to the finals. It looks like as soon as he loses one, our poor, trusting pirate is out. At this point, his only hope is for Lil to realize that Burton and Jon are snakes, Darah and Tijuana will vote her out in a hearbeat, and Rupert will never betray her. Any bets?

Payback's a Bitch

Catching up on a week's worth of Tivo'd programs, starting with Survivor. What goes around comes around, and Andrew had it coming. Lil's responses to him were priceless. There was no reason in the world for Lil to stay with the Morgans who voted her out in the first place. Props to Rupert, however, for confronting the issue head-on with Burton and telling him exactly why he was voted out (although we never heard Rupert include "throwing the challenge" as part of the reason).

The downside, of course, is that Jon's going to be with us through the end now, as a player or juror. I'm hoping Drake won't be stupid and vote Jon off next week. They need to knock off another Morgan first (Ryan O. being the obvious choice), just in case the other Morgans get smart and bring Lil, Jon, or Burton over to their side.

Genius

Sheer, unadulterated genius.

The Outcasts represent the best twist of any Survivor yet. Despite what they said about the ration regimen, you have to wonder if they had a physical edge over the other tribes. But ultimately, it was their careful assembly of their pole that took them to victory after Drake's fell apart.

I found it interesting that although this was billed as a reward challenge, no mention was made of what Drake or Morgan would have won had they not been beaten by the Outcasts. Either it was edited out because it wound up being irrelevant, or this should have been called an immunity challenge.

As for Osten, good riddance and shame on him. I agree with Jeff-- too many people work their butts off to stay in the game. For him to just give up his spot is a slap in the face to whoever would have played instead had he decided not to enter the game at all.

In the Outcast council, I'd expect players to vote for whichever other Outcast they think is likely to garner the least votes (which would suggest a win for Nicole, unless everyone double-thinks and votes elsewhere). I'd also expect 2 separate votes, otherwise it would be too easy for them to just pair up and vote for each other, creating a 6-way tie.

The fact that the Outcasts are being guaranteed immunity in the next council suggests we may not see a merge for a while.

Mr. Burnett, I tip my hat to you, sir.

It's All About Joe

As expected, Matt got the $100,000 tonight on the conclusion of The Joe Schmo Show, along with every other prize that was mentioned during the show-- including the ones he gave away or didn't win. His reaction to the big moment when the hoax was revealed was priceless, but you had to feel bad for the guy when even "best friend" Brian turned out to be not just an actor, but a writer too. Reports that he was bitter about the whole affair appear to have been exaggerated-- he seemed overwhelmingly positive about the experience.

The producers of the show got extremely lucky when they found Matt. Without him, there was no show. The writing was poor. The acting was poor. The editing was poor. The pacing was poor. Hell, the cheapo producers even reused signature music from The Mole. What made it all hang together was Matt. His plasticene features and earnest good nature provided the heart the show desperately needed. Without Matt, The Joe Schmo Show was just bad community theater.

The Rupert Show

This week on The Rupert Show, our hero said goodbye to a snake. And a couple of days earlier, he buried Balboa.

Buh-dum bum.

Cannons: Very cool challenge. Amazing how much those cannonballs sliced/hooked through the air.

We've seen the "bear a heavy load" challenge before. I think both tribes blew it on the strategy. If it were me, I'd have distributed the weights absolutely evenly across all three opponents instead of loading up on one. While Osten was taking on more weight, the other two Morgans had none. Better to tire them all out gradually, so that the time spent between loads is felt by all three instead of just one. Still, Andrew's stamina was a big surprise, and I give big kudos to Morgan for winning on relatively light stomachs.

But Trish... what were you thinking? Of course Rupert's a threat. Everyone knows that. On both tribes. Which is why he's target #1 after the merge. There was no need to stick your next out pre-merge, especially when the tribes are even and you need your strongest players to hold the advantage. Plus, the number one rule in Survivor is never stick your neck out-- that's how it gets chopped off. When the group is reaching a consensus to vote out someone who isn't you, you smile and vote with them. You don't turn on the most popular tribe member and make yourself a bigger target.

Now that Rupert knows Jon betrayed him, here's hoping the cocky snot's the next Drake to go.

Suck it Down

Michelle chugged her own grave. No doubt about that. But Jon's managed to scratch my mental chalkboard with only a few minutes of screen time-- surely he's an ever bigger annoyance when you're living on the same beach with him. He was a complete goon with the tiller in the reward challenge... vote his sorry poseur ass off.

It's hard to say what will come of Rupert's time with Morgan. He obviously made friends in the other tribe, and that could wind up biting him. The diplomatic "looting" with Andrew was very interesting. If I was a Drake, the influence he demonstrated would make me even more nervous about a post-merge Rupert.

The next immunity challenge will be crucial. If Drake loses, Morgan suddenly has a fighting chance as they enter the merge 5-5. It's easy to think that the other players would be idiots for not ousting Rupert the first chance they get, but he's obviously the center of the Drake tribe and he's a potential ally for the Morgans. If you were on Rupert's good side, wouldn't you want him around to help carry you to the endgame? It will be very interesting to see how everyone deals with him after the merge.

As much as I'd love to see Rupert pull an Ethan Zahn and win, the smart money's against him. At this point, I'm just hoping that Osten and Jon leave first.

Idiots on Parade

I don't care how many challenges you've won in a row. You do not intentionally throw an immunity challenge. If the entire tribe is fed up with someone and will be happier if that person's gone, that's the silver lining in the event of a loss-- it's not an excuse to make the loss happen. And Drake wasn't even in that kind of unanimous situation. Burton was an enormous fool, one whose final words reveal he was awfully full of himself. Before you worry about what'll happen after the merge, you've got to get there first, moron. Burton got what he deserved, and Drake just lost a hell of a lot of karma points.

Was it just me, or was Jeff Probst looking daggers at Jon? The guy was making a complete ass of himself, and I'd have been equally happy to see his pale butt taking the walk of shame.

The most foolish thing about Drake's decision to take a dive is that they appear to not have considered the repercussions to morale, tribe unity, and trust. Combined with Rupert's conscription onto Morgan, we may have seen a key turning point in the game. Morgan got a much-needed morale boost, and it looks like Rupert is going to be making friends fast as he provides them with food and shows them how to fend for themselves. Next week I don't think Morgan will be the despondent losers they've been up to now. Hopefully there won't be a Drake backlash against Rupert. He appears to have a solid support base, though, and they'd be insane to follow up the eviction of Burton by voting off Rupert.

Then again, they've already taken a calamitous nosedive into idiocy. All bets are off.

The Practice

David E. Kelley isn't exactly a student of the realist school of television. His series are like unreliable used cars. They start off reliably enough, but they never get the service they need and problems just pile one atop another until finally it's a deathtrap hurtling over the cliff at 100 miles per hour.

Witness The Practice.

Once upon a time, this was a compelling drama about a scrappy Boston law firm. Then Bobby and Lindsay got married and the wheels fell off the cart. The Practice became a circus of the absurd, with a never-ending menagerie of contrived cases and over-the-top plot twists cuminating in Linday's conviction for murder.

This season, Kelley's cleaned house. The show's headlining characters-- Bobby, Lindsay, Helen-- are gone, along with supporters Rebecca and Lucy. Maybe now they'll actually develop Eugene's character after all these years of being a stoic cipher. But the reason to return to the show isn't the surviving cast members-- it's the new one.

James Spader's Alan Shore is an ethically-challenged attorney who appears to be on the side of the angels, but doesn't see the need to walk the high road to reach them. Spader's performance in the season opener was sheer brilliance. This guy is smarmy, oily, and reprehensible-- and we like him anyway. He energized every scene he was in. The car may still be a rocketing deathtrap, but at least there's someone worth watching in the driver's seat.

What Has It Gots In Its Tivoses?

Since you're curious... here's what I've got in my Season Pass list. Items marked with a * are wishlists. I cleaned a few dead series off the list, so it's down to 53.

1. The West Wing
2. Alias
3. Good Eats
4. The Practice
5. 24
6. Boston Public
7. Angel
8. Judging Amy
9. Smallville
10. Ed
11. Stargate SG-1 (the best SF show on television)
12. ER
13. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
14. Malcolm in the Middle (rarely actually watch it)
15. Dinner For Five (great show on IFC)
16. Fear Factor
17. Whose Line Is It Anyway?
18. Justice League (new episodes only appear once in a blue moon)
19. America's Test Kitchen
20. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
21. Ebert & Roeper
22. X-Men: Evolution
23. * Movies & AARON SORKIN (functionally equivalent to MALICE)
24. * Movies & CHASING AMY
25. Survivor: Pearl Islands
26. America's Test Kitchen from Cook's Illustrated
27. Jeopardy!
28. The Simpsons
29. TVography (nothing here in ages)
30. Extreme Cuisine (ditto)
31. * "BOARD GAME"
32. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
33. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law
34. CSI: Miami
35. The Surreal Life (in case the next season uses the same name)
36. Extreme Homes
37. Coming Attractions
38. * POKER
39. Cooking School Stories (in case there's another season)
40. Lucky (was this cancelled?)
41. Most Extreme Elimination
42. * ARNOTT, DAVID (an actor friend ["Grandpa, what's prejudice?"])
43. * Movies & NINE QUEENS
44. Monk
45. World Poker Tour
46. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
47. Spider Man (MTV)
48. MI-5
49. The Joe Schmo Show
50. Las Vegas
51. The Lyon's Den
52. Karen Sisco
53. Joan of Arcadia

Oh, God.

I knew I shouldn't have watched Joan of Arcadia. Season Passes: 57, self control: 0.

There's No "I" in "TEAM"

The Survivor immunity challenge I've always hated most is the one in which each player has 3 lives, and one by one players take away a life from the player of their choice. A player who desperately needs to win this challenge has absolutely no chance of doing so-- it's just another version of the tribal council vote, and a poorly conceived challenge.

But that's an individual challenge. Tonight we saw a poorly conceived team challenge. Nobody on the team mattered except for the anchorman. The fate of the entire tribe was in their hands, and each other tribe member had essentially no impact on the final outcome. Team challenges shouldn't be about one champion facing off against another, unless it's a tournament format where each team member competes and score is kept. Here it was just an endurance test between the strongest individual from each tribe, with everyone else watching from the sidelines. If I were Lillian, I'd be doubly frustrated at being voted off as a result of Osten losing that challenge.

Much as I'd have liked to have seen Darrah get booted, I'm hardly surprised. A tribe as demoralized and ravaged as Morgan shouldn't care about who does the most work in camp. It's all about who can help them win the challenges. I didn't notice Darrah making a stronger contribution than Lillian in that area, but then I wasn't on the beach. It's their call. A shame Lil's strong work ethic didn't save her.

Osten may be strong, but he singlehandedly lost both challenges for his tribe this week and the previews make it seem like he blows another one next time. Incompetence trumps strength-- it's time to vote him out.

Joe Censorship

Something very odd happened on last night's Joe Schmo Show. I'm not talking about Hutch being ejected for breaking the rules, or Molly's boyfriend coming to visit. I'm talking about an inexplicable case of censorship.

During the honey challenge, the cast stripped to their bathing suits, doused each other in honey, and groped all over each others' bodies. Later in the show, players had to lick chocolate off the bodies of topless models who were doused with it. The network (Spike, the Network for Men) had no problem showing the models' ample chocolate-dipped breasts. But for some bizarre reason, they refused to show Brian's bare nipples! There was no issue with the same features of Matt or Hutch's bodies-- just Brian's. Whenever he was shown during the honey challenge, his nipples were pixelated. What the heck is up with that? Are they pierced? And if so, so what? "Blur out Brian's nipples-- we don't want to offend anyone. Camera 2, zoom in tight on that model's breasts. I want to see that chocolate glisten."

Alias Kicks Butt

Thank you for your attention.

Quit, Ya Weenie

Some good drama on tonight's Survivor, as the Morgan tribe continued to disintegrate. Kudos to Mark Burnett for the two additional thematica twists revealed tonight: the winning team in each reward challenge gets to plunder the opposing camp of any one item (a reward from a previous season, but nonetheless appropos), and the burial of a treasure somewhere on each island, with each reward earning the team a third of a treasure map and a clue to help find it. Brilliant! If I were in the game, I'd be completely obsessing over that map and what goodies might be concealed in the chest. Some of the tribe's luggage, perhaps?

Meanwhile, Andrew is distinguishing himself as the kind of person I despise: self-righteous, egotistical, certain the problem is anywhere but with himself, and secure in the knowledge that his poop is lemony fresh. And whaddya know... he's a lawyer.

Big Brother 4

My jaw is still on the floor after tonight's finale to Big Brother 4. All through the season I kept shouting at the players to vote Alison out of the house. But they never managed to do it-- partly because they were fools, and partly because Alison's success at HoH and Veto challenges made it extremely difficult for them to do so. When she made it to the final 2, I thought she had the game in the bag. Sure, her machinations pissed off a lot of jury members. But she played the game incredibly well. She worked to get to the end while Jun kind of snuck in on her coattails. Which is a strategy in its own right, of course, but you've got to give Alison her props. She needed to win competitions and she won them.

So when the jury turned in a 6-1 verdict for Jun, I was flabbergasted. I expected the players to be able to put their feelings aside and recognize how well Alison played the game. Moreover, all of Alison's misdeeds were in-game, and not personal; Jun made a lot of snarky personal comments about the jury members in earshot of other jurors. Alison ripped them apart in the diary room, but the jurors didn't know that when they voted. I expected the jurors to respect Alison's gameplay while looking askance at Jun's pettiness.

Then there are the individual votes. Erika's comments prior to voting made it clear that she didn't think Jun should win, and Jun's answer to her question was a disaster. Yet Erika voted for her! Jack, of all people, should have respected the strength Alison displayed as a competitor-- but he went with Jun. And Nathan, the man most cruelly manipulated by Alison and who insisted-- AFTER voting!-- that he'd never speak with Alison again, nevertheless voted for her! It was like the show was being broadcast from some kind of Bizarro universe.

Alison was robbed. She played the superior game. Jun flew under the radar and drifted between alliances adroitly, but Alison was piloting the plane. She deserved to land safely instead of getting shot down.

Nice stack

A player on Millionaire got a great stack yesterday. The questions were really easy up to the $32K mark, then got harder but intersected my knowledge base, and then finally became impossible for me at $250K. The ones I remember:

32K: "Remember the Maine" is a slogan from what conflict?
A. Spanish-American war
B. US Civil War
C. War of 1812
D. World War I

$64K: The eyelike markings on a peacock's tail are called what? (sorry, don't remember choices-- correct answer was OCELLI, which I reasoned was the correct answer due to its common root with OCULAR).

$125K: In mathematics, what letter is commonly used to designate the slope of a line?
A. j
B. c
C. k
D. m

(Contestant asked the audience, who got it right by a large margin; I managed to pull it out of my memory).

$250K: Beethoven's Fifth symphony is in what key?
A. A minor
B. D major
C. C minor
D. F major

This one would have stopped me cold, but I would have had lifelines left.

Yes, this is how I think when I watch the show. In my defense(?), I did the same thing before I was a contestant, too.

Survivor: Pearl Islands

Tonight's premiere of Survivor: Pearl Islands featured the most interesting opening to date. The big twist-- that the players would get only the clothes on their backs, with no food, luxuries, or changes of clothes-- was publicized early. But then each tribe got a sack of money and was turned loose in a Panamanian village to acquire supplies, and that was inspired. The two tribes displayed strikingly different personalities, one rushing around like headless chickens and the other collaborating and using their heads. Keeping with the show's pirate theme, one even swiped booty from the other's stash when they weren't looking!

Tribally, I'm rooting for Drake-- the organized blue-clad team that really cleaned up on their shopping spree. Individually, you've gotta love scoutmaster Lillian and Hagrid Rupert. Survivor is tons of fun, and I'm looking forward to another entertaining season.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

... or what passes for it around my house: the start of the fall TV season. The season premiere of Enterprise is this Wednesday ("How can we improve ratings? Better writing? No... Develop our own innovative style instead of retreading the past 20 years of the franchise? No... Let's make T'Pol sexier and more emotional! THAT's what fans want!"), followed by the soon-to-be-very-short-lived-I'm-sure new series Jake 2.0 (Hollywood premise #19c: guy gets injected by nanites, gains superpowers, becomes secret agent. Not to be confused with "guy gets mind transferred into genetically engineered body, gains superpowers, becomes secret agent" (Now and Again) or "guy gets implanted with Quicksilver gland, gains superpowers, becomes secret agent" (The Invisible Man) or, of course, "guy drives really cool car with superpowers, becomes secret agent" (Knight Rider)).

But the discovery of the summer for me has been MI-5. This British series, known overseas as Spooks, is just nifty. Spies are just so much cooler when they all have accents. And the spies in this show are real people with real foibles. One of them's embezzling from the agency. Another uses his clearance to boost his credit rating. And if you overlook the monumentally clumsy season 1 finale, the writing's solid. Unlike Alias (which I nevertheless adore), the hijinks here are firmly grounded in reality. These guys aren't superhuman and don't have future tech. There's not even enough budget to show normal explosions-- a car bomb explodes off-screen, merely implied by the noise and the ripple it causes in someone's lit match. And that's part of what makes this series work. Since they can't dazzle us with special effects, they have to make up for it in other areas-- the ones that really count. Plot. Character. Dialogue. Storytelling.

The show's first season was a scant 6 episodes, the second season only 10. With the rate at which they're being re-run on A&E, it's easy to get caught up. Or just jump in-- Tuesdays at 9PM.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: MI-5 handles domestic matters within the UK. MI-6, Bond's outfit, is international.

You're Dead to Us

I have seen the face of evil, and it is The Joe Schmo Show (Spike TV, Tuesday nights). Its concept-- a fake, rigged reality show populated by actors playing the roles of archetypal contestants except for one lone guy who thinks it's real-- is the most mean-spirited thing on television. It's one thing to be the brunt of a practical joke. It's another to be played for a fool on national television. Matt Gould, a pizza delivery guy from Pittsburg and the titular Schmo, has declined interviews and none of the producers will talk about how he feels now that he knows the truth. One assumes he's a mite miffed, and understandably so. The entire show is a parody of reality TV-- complete with an absurd eviction ceremony in which a collectors' plate of the evictee is shattered in the fireplace with the host solemnly announcing, "You're dead to us"-- and the joke's on him.

The thing of it is, the producers did their casting too well. They were looking for an all-American guy, and they got one. In the first two hours, Gould comes off as a genuinely nice guy. After archetypal "asshole" Hutch makes offensive comments and picks his nose at dinner, Gould pulls him aside and urges him to tone it down if he doesn't want to get voted out. When Hutch threatens "gay" contestant Kip during a competition, Gould immediately supports Kip and pledges his protection. You can't help but root for the guy.

Especially when he zigs instead of the zag producers expected. In a ridiculous immunity challenge called "Hands on the High-Priced Hooker," contestants are asked to keep a part of their body in constant contact with part of a naked adult film star's body. Gould is "randomly" assigned to keep his hand on her breast. The whole competition was rigged so that it would eventually come down to Gould vs. Hutch, but mere seconds after "Go!" Gould spoiled the plan by being the first to let go. The cast and crew were incredulous, and I was cheering. Gould is the ultimate underdog, and it's delightful to see him unwittingly throw a wrench in the producers' schemes.

It's easy to think Gould should have caught on to the gag. The first evicted contestant babbled an incoherent tirade lifted wholesale from Survivor; the "Lord of the Manor" robe is laughable; actors made a number of potentially fatal gaffes. But we're on the outside looking in. Gould was living with these actors, who were in character 24/7. He was in the game, playing for $100,000 grand. And there was definitely a television show being made. Why would he possibly suspect it was all a sham? Amidst all the scripted stories that are playing out around him, Gould stands as the only honest man in a sea of liars. As in The Truman Show, his sincerity makes him all the more appealing and the producers more dastardly.

If they'd put, say, Corey Feldman as the Schmo, I'd be laughing at every twisted lie he bought into. Instead their sap is turning out to be an unlikely hero. Audience sympathies are with him, not the producers. Miscalculation or intent? We're not sure. But one of the show's strengths is that it's not just a fake reality show, it's also "The Making Of" that show. We see behind-the-scenes footage of the cast getting their instructions for the day; interviews with the actors when they flub their roles; concerns of the producers when things don't go as planned. In other words, the audience is let in on the joke. And as we're rooting for Matt Gould, we're also marveling at what went into making this happen and the sheer audacity of it.

No doubt about it, The Joe Schmo Show is evil. And I'm hooked.

Back in the Hotseat

Apparently the Millionaire reruns this week are from my week of shows, which means I'll probably be on this Thursday and Friday. If you missed it the first go-round, or you just want to marvel at The Great Millicent Ass-Pull one more time, here's your chance.

The Barely Remarkable Race

I think we can all agree that the only two outcomes that mattered were a) Jon and Al win, and b) Jon and Kelly don't. One out of two ain't bad.

The problem with The Amazing Race is that for most of the season it is not, in fact, a race to be first-- it's a race not to be last. The race is structured so that winning any given leg conveys absolutely no advantage for the next one. The ultimate winner could come in 2nd-to-last in every leg, as long as they finish first at the end. Feh.

The basic idea behind the show is great, but it's always suffered from poor development. Most activities en route are not interesting for viewers to watch, and provide little room for trailing teams to catch up. And there are no guns or goofy costumes. I think if teams were issued service pistols at the starting line and Tian and Jaree had to run the entire race dressed as French maids, the show would suddenly become a heck of a lot more interesting.

My CGI Sense is Tingling

The new animated Spider-man series on MTV is creepy. First, Spidey's voiced by Neil Patrick Harris and whenever he opens his mouth for a wisecrack I can only think, "Doogie!" But it's the animation style that really creeps me out.

The whole thing is computer animated, and not in a cute, Pixar kind of way. The entire show looks like it was created using the animation engine of a video game. That isn't hyperbole-- everyone moves completely unrealistically with a kind of floaty smoothness game players will recognize immediately. Action sequences are terrific, but close-ups and conversations are horrendous. I keep expecting life meters to appear over their heads. It'd also be nice if, for once, the TV version of the character would be more-or-less in sync with the comic book instead of stuck in his early college, pre-marriage years.

Watching the series is like watching a videogame cut scene, but without the payoff of having gameplay resume. Maybe it's perfect for a generation raised on that kind of animation, but I'll take Cartoon Network's Justice League over this any day.

Tears of a Clown

My favorites, gone!
Who can I root for now? Who?
Not Kelly and John!

If they win the race
It will be just like last year,
When the whiner won.

I no longer watch
To cheer for a victory;
I hope they all lose.

Why didn't you check
For a better flight sooner?
Goodbye, Jon and Al.

"What kind of clown are you?"
"The crying on the inside kind, I guess."
-- Bill Murray, Quick Change

Saving Private Waiter

I'm digging The Restaurant, the new reality show documenting the creation of Rocco's in New York City. I suspect the best is mostly over, at least in so much as getting a "real" look at how things go in the restaurant world. Customers had to apply for a table, telling the producers what they'd bring to the show. I'm sure the place was jammed with people proposing marriage, hiring and firing employees, coming out to their parents, and otherwise creating artificial "reality". So far, Rocco himself has come off as someone with no people/management skills, and his food has not appeared to go over well. Open only a day, Rocco's looks like a sinking ship.

But more importantly... is it just me, or is one of the waiters a dead ringer for the Jewish soldier from Saving Private Ryan?

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Over on a WWTBaM message board, someone's been keeping track of the results of every contestant over the course of this season. In fact, they've even kept transcripts of all of the question stacks. But I'm more interested in the stats.

There were 382 different players this season, with 396 question stacks (14 contestants who won $0 their first time around were given a second chance later). Of those 396 attempts...

2 players (0.5%) won $1,000,000
1 player (0.25%) won $500,000
5 players (1.26%) won $250,000
19 players (4.79%) won $125,000
39 players (9.84%) won $64,000
84 players (21.21%) won $32,000
52 players (13.13%) won $16,000
34 players (8.58%) won $8,000
6 players (1.51%) won $4,000
0 players (0%) won $2,000
137 players (34.59%) won $1,000
17 players (4.29%) won $0
$12,574,000 in prize money was paid out

Why are these stats interesting? Okay, sure, there's the feel-good factor. But I'll admit that my fingers are crossed that, as the prime time version did, they'll invite their top winners back to play again (splitting their winnings with a charity). I'd love to get another shot at the game-- it'd be even more fun the second time around. I'd go even if it weren't televised and there was no money involved. The drama and excitement of sitting in the hotseat, with the lights and live audience... for a game player, it's the ultimate setting. They had me at hello.

Two Snaps Up

I have no illusions. I'm what you'd call style-challenged. If, by "challenged," you meant "completely lacking in." My wardrobe comes courtesy of Costco, my furniture from a hodgepodge of outlet stores, hand-me-downs, and Ikea. My walls are bare save Arcimboldo Summer and Winter prints, a framed "Speechless" lithograph, and (believe it or not) dogs playing poker. The style police have declared me a mobile disaster zone.

But at least I know it. Which is why I've just set up a season pass for Bravo's new series, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The Fab Five, a team of five gay men expert in the realms of fashion, grooming, cuisine, culture, and interior design, descend upon a straight guy to transform him from zero to hero. And while they're dedicated to rescuing their charge from the style doldrums, they do so with snarky irreverence that's frankly hysterical. Trading Spaces bores me, but Queer Eye strikes a chord. Each poor schlub they rescue from fashion oblivion is me.

70's Heaven

If you don't get Trio, you're missing out on a fabulous trip down memory lane. As part of their "My Trio" series, in which they invite a celebrity to program the network for a week, Joel Stein of Time Magazine is manning the grill this week. And he's serving up a real treat: daily episodes of Battle of the Network Stars.

I loved watching this when I was a kid, but it's positively delectable now. First, vintage television celebrities like Fred "Rerun" Berry, Gabe Kaplan, Lyle Waggoner and Valerie Bertinelli compete in Olympic-style events ranging from swimming and relays to the obstacle course and tug of war. Victor French in a swimming race? Genius! Slow-motion replay of a panting, heaving Adrienne Barbeau? That's television gold, baby!

Now add play-by-play from Howard Cosell, with all the earnestness of a genuine sporting event, and commentary from Telly Savalas and Bruce Jenner. Feeling groovy yet? Toss in gloriously cheesy pre-credit sequences introducing the teams, rudimentary on-screen graphics from a bygone era, puff-piece lifestyle interviews with the stars, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of ABC shows. Calling your cable company yet? Then let me mention the laughable hair styles and collars wide enough to keep Sally Field aloft. Priceless!

It's hard to believe this hasn't been resurrected. With the popularity of celebrity editions of game shows and Fear Factor, and the advent of reality fare like The Surreal Life and I'm a Celebrity-- Get Me Out Of Here!, this seems like a natural. Or is it a relic from a more innocent time, when we were content to see celebrities in a dunk tank instead of a shark tank? Someone give me a budget!

Millionaire Recap

Some people have requested a transcript of all the questions in my Millionaire stack, and others wanted to know what was going through my mind while I was in the hotseat. So I've combined them into one entry.

$100: Which of these vessels is designed to be powered by wind?

A. Sailboat
B. Canoe
C. Submarine
D. Geraldo Rivera

$200: Ragu is a popular brand of what grocery store product?

A. Salad dressing
B. Barbeque sauce
C. Salsa
D. Pasta sauce

$300: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot" is a line from both "Auld Lang Syne" and what

patriotic tune?

A. Yankee Doodle Dandy
B. My Country Tis of Thee
C. You're a Grand Old Flag
D. America The Beautiful

My first moment of panic. I didn't know the answer to this initially, but realized that I knew all the songs on the list and could work through it. So I mentally ran through each of the songs until I hit the right lyrics, which you see me sing on the show.

500: Commonly used to refer to soldiers, the military abbreviation "G.I." stands for "government" what?

A. Individual
B. Immersion
C. Imperative
D. Issue

I was still nervous and a little rattled from the last question. Had you asked me this question in my living room, it would have been a no-brainer. And in the hotseat, I immediately knew ISSUE was right. But the wording of the question threw me. "Government issue" doesn't really make sense referring to PEOPLE. The government doesn't issue people. The previous day's show, taped a few minutes earlier, saw four players leave or crash before getting to $32,000. One of them crashed with $0. I didn't want to do that. And meanwhile, the background music you hear during the first five questions isn't played in the studio-- it's added in post-production. The studio is completely quiet. A couple hundred people were all focused on me in eerie silence, which made it uncomfortable for me to spend the time I should have spent to calmly think it through. So I panicked and Asked the Audience. I regretted it almost immediately, but couldn't take it back. You can see the self-disgust on my face for throwing away a lifeline on such a bonehead question. In the end, it didn't matter-- more on that later.

The audience voted:

A. 12%
B. 0%
C. 3%
D. 85%

$1,000: What word is often used as a mnemonic to help kids remember the names of the Great Lakes?

A. SHINE
B. HOMES
C. STONE
D. EMPIRE

Phew. After the previous two questions, I was relieved to get something I knew.

$2,000: What prehistoric creature's name comes from two Greek words meaning "wing" and "finger"?

A. Triceratops
B. Stegosaurus
C. Pterodactyl
D. Brontosaurus

The word "Greek" caused me to misinterpret the question when it first appeared, thinking that all the choices would be mythological creatures and having no idea what creature they were talking about. Since mythology is a really strong subject for me and this was a low level question, I was very puzzled. You can see the concern on my face. Then the choices came up, and "Triceratops" confused me again since it's not a mythological creature. Then "Stegosaurus" came up and I realized a) I'd misunderstood the question, b) they're looking for dinosaurs, and c) the answer would be "pterodactyl". When "Pterodactyl" came up, I smiled a little with relief and then-- still rattled from the lifeline-- thought it through vocally to make sure I had the right answer.

$4,000: The Torah is commonly referred to as "The Five Books" of what Biblical figure?

A. Abraham
B. Moses
C. Jacob
D. Noah

Everything going through my head was pretty much said on screen. I immediately thought MOSES, but when Abraham appeared I doubted myself. I took five years of Hebrew school. I was bar-mitzvahed. Of course I knew "The five books of Moses"-- anywhere else but in that hotseat. So I just had to calm myself down, think it through, and convince myself that my first impulse was the correct one.

$8,000: In the 1989 film "Do The Right Thing", a riot begins after a trash can is thrown through the front window of a what?

A. Laundromat
B. Barbershop
C. Video store
D. Pizzeria

In the course of the day, I'd known EVERY movie question that had been posed in all 4 episodes taped. Except, of course, the one given to me. I can't count the number of times I COULD have seen this movie, but didn't. In college. At friends' houses. On cable. I've had ample choices to see it without even going out of my way to do so. It never really interested me. So inside, I'm railing at the injustice. For God's sake, give me the Indiana Jones question Julian burned 2 lifelines on! I knew that one cold. Of the four choices, LAUNDROMAT and VIDEO STORE seemed the most likely, but I had absolutely no concrete reason to pick those over the others. I absolutely needed a lifeline, and the one I'd have chosen was the Ask the Audience-- which I'd already used. 50/50 would just give me better odds on a guess. So I had to use the lifeline I'd really hoped to save until much later, the Phone a Friend. Earlier in the day, I'd been informed that two of the people on my Phone a Friend list couldn't be reached and therefore weren't available for me to use. Both of them are cinephiles who would have known this immediately. I worried that it wouldn't be easily Googleable (although the plot summary on IMDB provides the answer), so I needed someone who'd seen the movie. Of the three people left, I knew Mark was also something of a cinephile and I was reasonably confident, although not certain, that he'd seen the film. So I called him, and thankfully he knew it right away. If he hadn't, I'd have had to have used the 50/50 and hope to guess correctly. I wouldn't have, though-- PIZZERIA was probably my last choice, and I think I would have picked whatever other option remained.

$16,000: In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission took about how many days to travel from Earth to the moon's surface?

A. 2
B. 4
C. 6
D. 7

I actually stopped tape on this question. When I first read it, I thought it was asking for the time it took Apollo 11 to reach the moon from Earth. Then I saw they were looking for the time from launch to actually landing. This made a huge difference to me-- it introduced a new variable (how long did they orbit before landing?)-- and I wanted to be absolutely sure I was reading it right. So I stopped tape and asked to clarify. When you see me kind of staring off into space, that's because I was watching the stage manager, who signalled me when they resumed taping. My gut said the answer was 4, but I had no solid justification for it. As I said on camera, I thought it was a low number given the size of the Apollo capsule. 2 seemed low (and if it were 2, I thought the choices would be 1, 2, 3, 4) and 6 and 7 seemed high. But I could be completely wrong, and it could have been any of those. I REALLY wanted to get to $32,000. Much as I'd have liked to hold onto the lifeline, I'd have kicked myself if I took the shot on 4 based on nothing but a hunch and some spurious meta-game reasoning. So I took the 50/50, hoping that 4 and 7 would be the remaining choices. Instead, it left me with 4 and 6. I knew I wasn't walking away, and 4 had been my gut feeling all along. Essentially, I used the lifeline to see if 4 would survive. Since it did, I went with it.

$32,000. The ancient Minoan civilization originated on what Mediterranean island?

A. Rhodes
B. Cyprus
C. Crete
D. Sicily

My thoughts are pretty obvious here if you watched the show. I'd just burned my last two lifelines, and was facing the all-important $32,000 question. I needed to get this right. If I had no clue, I'd have to decide if I'd really do what I'd been saying I'd do at this point, and take a guess. I was pretty sure I would, but not 100% sure. But as soon as the question came up, I pumped my fists with thumbs up. Finally, something I knew. Thank God! As I said earlier, mythology is a strong category for me. I knew that King Minos, and the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, are based in Crete. I was pretty sure that the Minoans are named after Minos. The only question was if they'd first established themselves on another island before coming to Crete. But I couldn't think of any reference I'd ever seen suggesting that, so I went with the obvious answer.

$64,000: Mattel's famous Barbie doll has what middle name?

A. Millicent
B. Veronica
C. Elizabeth
D. Nadine

My heart sank. I had no freaking clue. How ironic, that an expert on games would go out on a toy question. But there's no risk on the $64,000 question, so I was definitely taking a guess. When Millicent first appeared, it resonated for me. I have no idea why. I eliminated Nadine immediately-- I just couldn't imagine such a provincial name being chosen. Veronica was an Archie, and it seemed that attorneys would nix using Veronica as the doll's middle name for fear of litigation. That left Millicent and Elizabeth. I could see a strong case for Elizabeth, a regal name that might have some appeal to children. My brain said Elizabeth, but Millicent had touched a chord. I decided that since I was going to guess anyway and had no real data on which to base my decision, I'd trust my first instinct and cross my fingers.

At home, Meredith never fools me when she tries to fake out contestants. She has a tell. She never draws out the agony when someone has truly gotten in wrong-- she just comes out and says so. She only plays with you if you've gotten it right. So earlier, when she tried to fake me out on the Apollo question, it didn't work. But on this one, despite my knowing her tell, I was sufficiently uncertain about the answer that for a split second she got me.

The show ended at this point, and Meredith expressed her amazement to me that I'd guessed it correctly-- that to her, Millicent was as "out there" as I'd said Nadine was to me. This was the last show taped on that day, so I was held over for another tape day, got to meet another group of contestants, and spent another restless night tossing and turning with the Millionaire theme music stuck in my head as I wondered if I'd have the guts to guess on the $125,000 question if I didn't know the answer.

I also had ample time to think about my lifeline usage. I'd been kicking myself for burning the Ask the Audience lifeline on the GI question, but I realized it wouldn't have mattered. If I'd saved it, I'd have asked the audience on the Do the Right Thing question, and then used another lifeline on the Apollo question. I would absolutely have used my last lifeline on the Barbie question at $64K if I'd had one available. So even if I hadn't panicked at $500, I'd still be going into the $125,000 question with no lifelines left. Phew! A lifetime of restless sleep and "what if?"s averted.

$125,000: Jean-Joseph Mouret's "Rondeau" is best known as the theme music for what television show?

A. Meet the Press
B. Masterpiece Theatre
C. Murder She Wrote
D. Dynasty

I was hoping for something I knew, but this wasn't it. And it galled me, because television is another strong category for me. So I took a good, hard look at the choices. I knew the Dynasty theme music, and it's very modern-- so I eliminated that right away. Murder She Wrote's music seemed like something that Mike Post might write (he didn't), not something from a French composer. That left Meet the Press and Masterpiece Theater. I had no idea what Meet the Press's music was, but my dad used to watch Masterpiece Theater all the time and I knew that music by heart. And it sounded like what "Jean-Joseph Mouret's 'Rondeau'" might sound like. So I felt pretty good about Masterpiece Theater, but not certain-- especially since I couldn't conclusively eliminate Meet the Press. All day long, I'd been telling people-- myself included-- that if I didn't know the answer to the $125K question I'd guess anyway. My reasoning was that the difference between $32K and $64 wasn't life-changing, and if I got it right, not only was I at $125K but I got a free look at the $250K question, which I might know. On paper, my reasoning was sound. In the hotseat, though... everything changes. I had $64,000 in my pocket. All I had to do was walk away. Much as I might have wanted to think of it as theoretical money, it wasn't. It was real. It was mine. And if I guessed, I could lose half of it. So I thought for a long time-- much longer than shown on TV. And if finally came down to the fact that if the answer really was Masterpiece Theater and I walked away, I'd NEVER forgive myself. I'd always wonder how far I could have gotten, and I'd become a bitter old man in my early thirties. If I went with Masterpiece Theater and it was wrong, at least I took my shot. If I did all that I could and it just didn't work out, I could live with that. So I pulled the trigger.

$250,000: Snoopy's favorite line "It was a dark and stormy night." is the first line of a novel by what Victorian author?

A. George Gissing
B. Edith Nesbit
C. Edward Bulwer-Lytton
D. Vernon Lee

It's obvious that I knew this immediately. I remember seeing the Dark and Stormy books in the humor section of bookstores when I was a teenager. I believe we had one or more of them in the house library of my college fraternity. And just three months earlier, the Microsoft Puzzle Hunt had featured a puzzle based on Bulwer-Lytton contest winners. I don't know why Edith Nesbit registered for me-- I looked her up later and didn't recognize her works or anything about her. Something about her name did resonate, though. There was never a moment when I was thinking that I'd answer B instead of C. All the time I spent thinking about it-- again, more than was shown on TV-- was spent wracking my brain trying to figure out why Nesbit resonated so I could conclusively rule her out. I couldn't do it. I had no idea why her name was familiar. But I KNEW that Bulwer-Lytton was associated with the contest, and that the contest was inspired by "It was a dark and stormy night." I was pretty sure he was the author of the novel. There was no way I could walk away from this question, so I just set my uncertainty aside, trusted what I knew, and took the plunge.

$500,000: In January 1995, who became the first celebrity to appear in the well-known "milk mustache" ad-campaign?

A. Billy Ray Cyrus
B. Naomi Campbell
C. Tony Bennett
D. Joan Lunden

Another pop-culture question I didn't know. My stack was heavy on pop culture. Pop culture is a very strong area for me, yet I used 2 lifelines on pop culture questions. Grrrr. I'm rather more aware of advertising campaigns than the average American, too, so the fact that I didn't know this bothered me. But here's the kicker: I didn't know who Naomi Campbell was. I'd seen the name before in Yahoo News headlines, but mentally I had her pegged as a country singer (NAOMI Judd / Glenn CAMPBELL). So when I ruled her out, I was ruling out someone that didn't exist. My first thought was Michael Jordan, because he's so well known, popular, and black-- the image of a white moustache on a black face would be striking. Oh, the irony. In the end, I was leaning toward Tony Bennett, because milk has a stodgy image and so did Bennett, until his weird youth appeal kicked in. So he seemed like a strong candidate. But my logic was thin, and there was a lot of money on the line. Given the bizarre set of names among the choices, I thought it was highly likely that ALL of them had done milk ads (in fact, all of them had done milk ads in the first year of the campaign). I REALLY wanted to at least SEE the million dollar question, but $250,000 was real money. Dropping back to $32K would be painful. Once again, I did the analysis: how would I feel if Tony Bennett was the answer and I walked? And I decided that I'd feel OK, since I wasn't at all sure about it this time-- it'd be an enormous guess. And if I guessed and was wrong, I'd feel sick about giving up $218,000. So I decided to call it a day, and walked away with the cash.

Millionaire Today

I'm on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire today. Check local listings for channel and time.

If you watched yesterday, you saw a series of contestants crap out early-- including one player who missed on the $1,000 question and left with $0. All of these people were in my contestant group. I'd gotten to know them over the past day, and I watched them tank from the green room with a sinking stomach. It seemed like a bad omen and rattled my already-strained nerves. I think that bit of background is helpful in understanding my mind-set when I sat in the hotseat.

Warning: I expect the comments to this message to contain spoilers. Don't read if you don't want the know the outcome of the show.

Big Brother Bozo Bounced

I know, I know... so many bozos to choose from, which one do I mean?

In this case, I'm talking about Scott-- the least likeable of all the houseguests, thanks to his wool cap affectation and urban homeboy pretensions. A scant 5 days in, the iconoclast was expelled from the house after throwing furniture around for no apparent reason, acting belligerent towards the other players, and generally making those around him fear for their safety. Just how you'd expect someone to act when they're in a diplomatic elimination contest for half a million bucks.

And get this-- he blamed it all on genital warts, which he claimed have devastated his life. I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole. And apparently, neither is houseguest Alison who immediately began frantically cleaning the bathroom toilet. I also love how Alison wailed about how having her ex-boyfriend in the house might hurt the feelings of her current boyfriend, yet she has no problem groping Nathan at night. Tonight's show was brought to you by the word HYPOCRITE.

And this is only week 1. Next week we discover that Nathan is on steroids, Dave suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and Jack was once abducted by aliens.

Banzai

I haven't laughed so hard since the first Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Everything about Banzai is absurd-- the format, the Japanese graphics, the event names, the frenzied narration urging viewers to "Bet now!". But it's inspired absurdity. Watching Simon Cowell deal with an interviewer who would only ask 1 question and then remain silent was hysterical. The capper was having a priest, a rabbi, and Lou Ferrigno race on exercycles, with the stakes being the soul of a baby.

Inspired absurdity.

What makes it all work, however, is the Japanese-accented narration. So over the top, so politically incorrect (although I hear it actually IS a Japanese man doing the voiceovers), and so funny because of it. I can't believe Fox is getting away with this, but I hope it lasts. This is now must-see TV for the start of our weekly game sessions. Until the inevitable outcry from the Asian-American population forces Fox to throw in the towel.

Watch now!

Because You're Mean?

On tonight's Amazing Race, Kelly and Jon indignantly wondered why Millie didn't even wave to them when her taxi passed theirs. Hmm. Could it have anything to do with your excessive cattiness and the way you've been making fun of her behind her back for days now? Would you wave to someone who's been calling you Millie Moooooooooooooooooooole and putting you down on national television? Grow up, Kelly Crrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaab.

Me on Millionaire

I've been waiting until the date was official to post anything here, but I've just received confirmation that I'll be appearing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? a week from today-- Thursday, July 17. Check your local listings for station and time. I taped the show back in December, and haven't been allowed to talk about it. Once it airs, the gag order is lifted.

This comment thread will be a spoiler-free zone. Next week I'll post another entry where people can comment on the show itself.

Here's a teaser, proving that it's manifestly impossible to take a good picture of me-- even for television professionals.

Big Brother 4

Everybody thinks they want fame. But once they have it-- I mean, really have it-- many celebrities wish they could get rid of it and get their lives back. Once you're famous, everything you do goes under a microscope. You can't dash out to the corner store for Pepto Bismol without worrying about getting recognized and seeing "Celebrity Addicted to Antacids" in the tabloids the next day.

So the idea of being on mike and surrounded by cameras for 24 hours, 7 days a week for an entire summer is insane. We all have perfectly innocent yet distasteful habits we'd rather not get publicized nationwide-- biting your nails, picking your nose, scratching your butt. Morning hair. Whatever. And yet thousands of people applied to be locked into the Big Brother house, where their every word and move is captured on videotape.

Big Brother is a guilty pleasure. I watch out of professional interest-- I like to see what challenges the producers throw at the contestants, and consider how I'd make them better or do them differently. But I also watch because the house is a tinderbox, and it's fun to watch it go up in flames.

Horrible, I know. But there it is. This season the producers have stacked the deck rather unfairly. First, they brought 8 of the houseguests into the house an hour early, had them compete in a food challenge (each week guests must earn their food, or else it's nothing but PB&J all week), and let them bond with each other a bit. THEN they told them the secret about their 5 remaining housemates, who arrived shortly thereafter-- they were all ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends of some of the first 8. And right away, before they know whose exes were coming, they panicked and did the logical thing-- made a pact to get rid of those 5 exes first.

The "X factor", as the producers are calling it, will certainly shake up the game from the get-go and yield more soap opera. But it pollutes the game concept, which I find more than a little frustrating. Not all of the exes parted on poor terms. Former partners who can strike a deal with each other are at a great advantage over everyone else. Worse, by giving the first 8 a chance to bond and form a pact, the producers put the 5 exes at a significant initial disadvantage (assuming the pact is kept). That kind of handicapping is grossly unnecessary in a game like this, and I hope it doesn't prove to be decisive.

Either way, I'll be watching and reporting as the season progresses. Watch along with me and join in the commentary. See how fun it is to poke wanna-be celebrities with a sharp stick.

Who Wants To Be An Annuitaire?

The fan community is in a tizzy over the new rules for the coming season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, particularly the rampant cost-cutting measures. To wit:

Confetti Never Lies

In the "Nobody Cares But Me" department...

Lone pieces of confetti fluttered into view throughout tonight's Millionaire. Since I know that Nancy Christy, the first woman to win a million, taped her show the day before I got there, the logical conclusion is that tonight's show was from the same tape date as Kevin Smith's million-dollar win. Since they tape 4 shows a day, and the first unaired show from my tape date will air on July 15, that means the rest of the shows taped on Nancy Christy's date should be July 10-14. Working back through the math, with next week in reruns it looks like Kevin Smith taped his appearance just 3-4 days before me. So Millionaire went most of the taping season without a million-dollar winner, which must have been killing them. And I taped in the same week as both big winners.

Like I said... nobody cares but me.

Better Late Than Never

FYI, the 7th season of Stargate: SG1 starts tonight. They're showing a 1-hour retrospective/season-7-teaser special, followed by 2 new episodes. Meant to post this earlier today, for the benefit of those of you without TiVo. Sorry, east-coasters.

Stargate: SG1 is the most entertaining SF show on television today. If you like that kind of thing, start watching.

Amazing Race 4: Likes It Up the Ass

I'm an unabashed fan of non-dating reality TV-- Survivor, Big Brother (returning later this summer), Fear Factor-- and the least mean-spirited of the bunch is The Amazing Race. One of the reasons Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was successful was that everyone watching it played the meta-game of "Who would I pick as my lifeline?" The Amazing Race has a similar element, with viewers imagining who they'd team up with for this competition. For me that'd be college friend Dave, with whom I once spent six weeks galavanting around Europe (years before the now-infamous Word Freak incident). By the end of the show, Dave would probably owe me the GNP of Luxembourg in Cribbage debt.

The casting team typically does a great job picking diverse pairs to compete. I've already picked the team I most want to win (how can you not root for a pair of circus clowns?). But the team I most sympathize with is Millie and Chuck, a southern couple who've been dating for 12 years. And they're virgins. How do I know? The Amazing Race apparently feels it's important enough, that it defines who they are so dramatically, that they flash it on-screen every time they cut to that couple. For other teams, it's "Jon and Al: Circus clowns" or "Steve and Dave: Air traffic controllers". But for this couple it's "Millie and Chuck: Dating 12 years: Virgins".

I don't care what they're doing, or not doing, in the bedroom. They don't say "Tian and Jaree: Latex fetishists" or "Kelly and Jon: Doggie style". Hell, they don't even say "Reichen and Chip: Gay gay gay". So why is it so vital to remind us that Millie and Chuck are virgins? It's nobody's business but their own, regardless of what they, CBS, or anyone else thinks.

Oh, and as for Monica and Sheree, using the Fast Forward when they knew four teams were on a bus two hours behind them... it's a good thing they're married to (presumably well-off) professional atheletes, because there's no way these dingalings are winning the race.

Finalerama

Buffy: I'll say one thing for that Whedon chap, he knows how to go out with a bang. Angel's appearance amounted to nothing but a deus ex, delivering a powerful amulet out of nowhere and then vanishing again. Would have preferred to see him fight alongside Buffy. Willow had a nice moment. Anya met her foreshadowed death. Liked the interplay between Wood and Faith. Spike disappeared, so he can be brought back next season on Angel. And Buffy solved her loneliness issues by empowering an unknown number of slayers and creating infinite spinoff potential. The plot made little sense. We're never told, for example, how the collapse of the hellmouth in any way stops The First. After all, as Giles pointed out, there's another hellmouth in Cleveland. As Apocali go, this one was pretty much a bust. It proves that intimate stories are more affecting than grandiose ones. Remember the end of season 2, where Buffy had to send Angel back to Hell to save the world, just as he regained his soul? There's a finale. This one left me kinda cold.

Smallville: Not sure I like how they've changed the mythology to make Jor-El kinda evil, with Machiavellian plans for ol' Clark. Definitely didn't like the complete mishandling of Jonathan Kent tonight. I just didn't buy his cold shoulder. We know Clark will come back to Smallville at the start of next season, so his pained exodus isn't much of a cliffhanger. But I'm quite curious to see what happens with ol' Lex. Seemingly drugged by his new wife and left for dead on a crashing plane, things don't look good. As for Lionel Luther, he's become tiresome and I find myself wishing they'd just kill the bastard and let Lex embrace the dark side already. Since Smallville's the WB's biggest hit, I doubt they'll muck with the formula overly much.

24: Not nearly as good a finale as last season's. In fact, the last few weeks were more fizzle than sizzle. It looks like they're setting up next season to chronicle the very next day, which is something of a surprise. Seems like they'd be telling much the same story. Curious to see where they'll go.

John Don't

In other news, John Doe won't be back next season so we may never learn if the series' creators had a plan or were just slinging back Icees and winging it.

Angel will return, however, and I've got mixed feelings on that one. The gang's living in a giant deus ex machina now, and the writers might start getting lazy. Cordelia's out-- Charisma Carpenter won't be coming back-- but James Marsters is bringing Spike to the party. We've seen some major prophecies about "the vampire with a soul", and now there are two of them. And they're both hot on Buffy. Bringing them together should create some nice tension.

Oh, and in the Heavy-Handed Foreshadowing Dept: Smallville. "The day is coming when the last son will begin his quest to rule the Earth." Yeah, yeah, we get it. "The last son" isn't the last son of Krypton, as Clark thinks, it's the last son of Lionel Luthor. Who wants to bet that Lex's fiancee-- and his recently-rediscovered brother, I'd imagine-- doesn't have long to live? I like that Smallville has finally advanced some plot lately. Clark and Lana are finally getting together (though in his shoes, I'd pick Chloe), "meteor rocks" are finally Kryptonite, and Clark's learning about where he came from. All to the good, but I expected Dr. Walden to become Braniac instead of a charcoal briquette. I'm not sure how they can pull the trigger on Lex turning evil without pushing Clark into tights, but they've managed to be pretty smart so far and I'm willing to stick around to find out.

Pairs

I know Hollywood films often come in pairs-- two volcano movies, two asteroid-hits-the-Earth movies, two Mars movies-- but that kind of parallel development is rare on television, which tends to copycat success after the fact instead. But this season not only did we have two hour-long dramas featuring the President of the United States as a main character (The West Wing, 24), but both of them utilized the 25th amendment in their storylines.

I couldn't even have told you what the 25th amendment was a few weeks ago. If you're likewise Constitutionally challenged, it says that the President can step down if he feels he can't discharge his duties, or the VP and a majority of the Cabinet can declare the President to be unfit and force him to step down.

I find it hard to believe that writers on two top, creative shows would crib ideas off each other-- surely pride would get in the way-- and yet the coincidence of parallel development seems so unlikely. With all the stories to tell, these two series converge on the same one mere weeks apart? Right. And it was just a weather balloon in Roswell.

Meanwhile, series creator and writer Aaron Sorkin won't be back on The West Wing next season. Sorkin's dialogue crackles. It has a unique tempo and rhythm. Watch any episode of Sports Night and The West Wing, and you can immediately tell the same hand was responsible. The show will not be the same without him, and I fear next season might be the last for President Bartlet and crew.

Life Isn't Fair

Just what the world needed-- reinforcement that pretty people always win. In this case, a pretty, bratty, lazy person. Props to Jenna for winning the last two immunity challenges, both of which were essential to her survival. Nobody can accuse her of coasting through the last few days.

All the days leading up to that are a completely different story.

Not that Matt's much better, really-- he would have been toast without Rob-- but at least he was working his tail off from the get-go. He never whined about wanting to quit. He never got cocky enough to sunbathe while other tribe members worked.

And at the end, he only got one vote. I'm still baffled.

Jenna's win isn't as disappointing as Vesepia's from the Marquesas, but it's a close second.

Stacked Against Me

If you watched Millionaire today, you saw Armand win $500,000 on a stack of questions that had me completely demoralized in the green room. Sure, I picked the right answer to the $500,000 question, but I never would have gotten there (and I didn't know it for certain). The $64,000 question would have stopped me dead-- despite it seeming too obvious for that dollar level, I still would have gone for Mercury instead of Venus and I'd have gone home. If I'd even gotten THAT far. I didn't know the $8K, $16K, or $32K questions either! Actually, I might have known the $16K answer from my cramming the night before, but sitting at home today I didn't remember it. So with the possible exception of that question, I didn't know the answer to ANY of the questions Armand was asked from $8K on. So now imagine me sitting in the green room, trying to psych myself up for my eventual shot (which, incidentally, could be at any time-- they don't tell you it's your turn until the person before you gets into the hotseat), having just been unable to answer a SINGLE question correctly.

The efficacy of my anti-perspirant was thoroughly tested.

We were all thrilled for Armand. In fact, rooting for him was one of the best parts of the whole Millionaire experience. The whole room erupted in cheers and applause. When he won, we won. Only, without the money. The crappy thing about Millionaire is that when you leave the green room to go on set, you don't come back. Ever. I never saw Armand again to congratulate him, and I'd have liked to. And I think he'd have loved to receive the room's affection. But I'm sure the money was comfort enough. =)

Oh-- remember the end of the show, when Meredith introduces the clip of Nancy Christy's win "for the benefit of the audience" and anyone else who missed it? They didn't show the clip on set. Apparently the tape was already in post-production and no longer in the building. Meredith almost had a riot on her hands. I suspect the crew gave away a lot of extra T-shirts right about then.

Anyway, here are Armand's questions-- how would you have done?

$8,000: What teen singer, often called an "anti-Britney", is known for her hits "Sk8er Boi" and "Complicated"?

A. Vanessa Carlton
B. Ashanti
C. Michelle Branch
D. Avril Lavigne

[This question was my second-worst nightmare-- a question about teen pop music. Armand phoned a friend who knew the answer.]

$16,000: Which of these islands is not part of the island group known as the Greater Antilles?

A. Bermuda
B. Jamaica
C. Cuba
D. Puerto Rico

$32,000: The last battle of the War of 1812 took place in what year?

A. 1812
B. 1813
C. 1814
D. 1815

$64,000: What planet in our solar system has the hottest surface temperature, reaching up to 900 degrees F?

A. Mercury
B. Venus
C. Mars
D. Jupiter

[My worst nightmare: a question I think I know, but am wrong about.]

$125,000: With over 3 billion passengers a year, what city's subway system is the world's busiest?

A. Moscow
B. Seoul
C. Mexico City
D. Tokyo

Armand took the 50/50 and got it down to A and C.

[In the green room, the strong feeling of the room was that the answer was D, Tokyo. I knew they had people whose job it was to cram more people onto the train, so it seemed solid to me. Then when it got down to A and C, we threw that out and picked another answer. And got it wrong again.]

$250,000: What 1955 film was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Palme d'Or award?

A. Gigi
B. East of Eden
C. Marty
D. Roman Holiday

$500,000: In the 1800s, jokers were introduced to decks of cards to enable people to play a version of what game?

A. Euchre
B. Poker
C. Cribbage
D. Rummy

$1,000,000: The song "God Bless America" was originally written for what 1918 musical?

A. Oh, Lady! Lady!
B. Yip, Yip, Yiphank
C. Blossom Time
D. Watch Your Step

Answers:

$8,000: D - Avril Lavigne
$16,000: A - Bermuda
$32,000: D - 1815
$64,000: B - Venus
$125,000: A - Moscow
$250,000: C - Marty
$500,000: A - Euchre
$1,000,000: B - Yip Yip Yiphank

Millionaire #2

Tonight Nancy Christy became the first woman to go all the way to the top on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Her appearance was taped the day before my trip to the show. When we went onto the set for our dry run, a single piece of confetti fluttered down from the rigging. Friday's show is the first actually taped while I was there-- more on that tomorrow. Meanwhile, could you have been a millionaire? Here are the questions.

$100: What movie features a single group known as The von Trapp Family Singers?

A. Almost Famous
B. The Sound of Music
C. Funny Girl
D. Grumpy Old Men

$200: The front of an aircraft is often referred to as its what?

A. Nose
B. Mouth
C. Chest
D. Chin

$300: On a classic TV sitcom, earthling Mindy McConnell lives with an alien named what?

A. ALF
B. Uncle Martin
C. Spock
D. Mork

$500: Native to Australia, the emu is what type of animal?

A. Snake
B. Bird
C. Goat
D. Fish

$1000: William Masters and Virginia Johnson are best known for their pioneering studies on what subject?

A. Human sexuality
B. Depression
C. Preschool education
D. Subliminal advertising

$2000: American composer John Philip Sousa is best known for writing what typ e of musical compositions?

A. Polkas
B. Ballads
C. Waltzes
D. Marches

$4000: "Piccolo" is an Italian word meaning which of the following?

A. Fast
B. Colorful
C. Loud
D. Small

$8000: Often found in health clubs, an "erg" machine simulates which of these activities?

A. Cross-country skiing
B. Swimming
C. Rowing a boat
D. Climbing Stairs

She decided to ask the audience:

C: 45%
D: 29%
A: 18%
B: 8%

Then the 50/50, leaving choices A and C.

$16,000: A 1939 treaty between the USSR and Germany secretly laid the groundwork for the division of what country after World War II?

A. Italy
B. Poland
C. France
D. United Kingdom

Nancy phoned a friend, but time ran out before her friend could give her any suggestions. All her lifelines are now gone.

$32,000: In the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, what is Tevye's profession?

A. Tailor
B. Grocer
C. Milkman
D. Scholar

$64,000: Amtrak's scenic "Coast Starlight" train service runs between which of these two U.S. cities?

A. San Diego & New York
B. Miami & Boston
C. Houston & New Orleans
D. Los Angeles & Seattle

$125,000: Girl detective Nancy Drew made her debut in the 1930 book titled "The Secret of the" what?

A. Haunted Museum
B. Lost Diamond
C. Ancient Treasure
D. Old Clock

$250,000: On the California coast, what kind of fish is known for coming ashore and laying its eggs on the beach?

A. Pupfish
B. Loach
C. Grunion
D. Sawfish

$500,000: In 1957, Jorn Utzon won an international competition to design what architectural landmark?

A. Sears Tower
B. Sydney Opera House
C. Seattle Space Needle
D. Pompidou Center

$1,000,000: Who did artist Grant Wood use as the model for the farmer in his classic painting "American Gothic"?

A. Traveling salesman
B. Local sheriff
C. His dentist
D. His butcher

For the record, I would have needed a lifeline at $8000, $64,000, and $500,000, and then-- assuming the lifelines worked for me-- I'd have bailed.

Answers:

$100: B - The Sound of Music
$200: A - Nose
$300: D - Mork
$500: B - Bird
$1,000: A - Human sexuality
$2,000: D - Marches
$4,000: D - Small
$8,000: C - Rowing a boat
$16,000: B - Poland
$32,000: C - Milkman
$64,000: D - Los Angeles & Seattle
$125,000: D - Old Clock
$250,000: C - Grunion
$500,000: B - Sydney Opera House
$1,000,000: C - His dentist

Fast Forward

Wow. That must take the cake for being one of the most unexpected cliffhanger season finales in history. I'm talking, of course, about Alias-- the smart and sexy spy series that you really should be watching. So let's recap. We don't know what Sloane saw in the document given to him by David Carradine. We don't know what the Rimbaldi device did. We don't know what Irina's real agenda is-- her "explanation" really wasn't one. And most of all, we don't know what the heck happened to Sydney after her showdown with Francie and what's happened to everyone else in the meantime. Will the series pick up where it left off, or will it rewind? And more importantly, do the show's creators have a road map or are they making this up as they go along? Because this whole Rimbaldi thing has been playing out for two years now, and we're no closer to a revelation now than we were when the show began. I like unexpected turns as much as the next guy, but I want assurances that there's a firm hand on the tiller. And tonight's cliffhanger is either sheer brilliance or a desperation hail Mary pass.

Toast For Your Waffle

Christy, Christy, Christy. I knew you were doomed, but to go out like this? Drunk with power for the first time in the game, you forgot the cardinal rule: never, ever waffle. You KNEW you were never going to side with Jenna and Heidi, so why be coy with Rob? After all the maneuvering he's done, did you really think he'd just sit on his hands and hope you decided to vote with him? If you'd just told him you were on his side, Jenna would be snuggling with Alex right now, plotting their revenge against Rob. But you had to milk the moment, and now you're gone.

Revenge of the Ham-fisted Writers

More of the same on this week's Buffy, as characters once again act inexplicably to service the plot. There is no way Dawn would tell Buffy to leave. Xander might be bitter, but taking it out on Buffy-- in front of everyone-- is way out of character. Principal Wood hasn't been much involved, but all of a sudden he waltzes in and sides AGAINST Buffy? Anya actually calls Buffy LUCKIER than they are? Let's see, she's died twice, her mother died, she killed her true love after she lost her virginity to him and he immediately turned evil, she's had her body switched, she was yanked forcibly out of heaven, and is saddled with the responsibility of stopping an apocalypse for which she'll receive no credit but probably a whopping stack of repair bills. Yeah, real lucky. And Buffy, after years of dealing with this kind of thing, is completely out of touch with the feelings of those around her and oblivious to the effect her actions are having on them. Buffy's been through much, much worse than anything Caleb or The First have put her through, yet she's handling it like a novice. With writing like this, I'm not sorry at all to see Buffy go.

That's GOTTA Hurt

I have seen the future, and it is Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (9 PM Saturdays, TNN). Someday all of the world's conflicts will be solved with painful physical elimination stunts. The Iraqi and American armies will be issued helmets and kneepads and sent charging at a series of doorways, some covered with paper and others with hardwood. Those who choose correctly will advance to the next stunt, swinging from a rope and dropping onto a small floating platform. Then storming a hill while dodging enormous rolling boulders. And so forth, until only one side remains to impose a strict totalitarian regime or capitalist nirvana on the populace. The proceedings will be closely monitored by flamboyantly dressed Japanese men, and overdubbed in irreverant English non-sequitirs for laughs. The most painful eliminations will be recapped at the end, and at 2AM it will be the most hysterical thing you'll have ever seen and the neighbors will call the police to quiet the howls of laughter. The revolution WILL be televised, and it will be dubbed.

John D'oh!

I've grudgingly enjoyed John Doe. I say grudgingly, because it's incredible to me that it survived the season while its superior leadin, Firefly, got the axe. But I watched Doe all season, despite the cardboard characters of Frank and Avery, because they had fun with the show's fundamental premise. When they killed Karen a few weeks ago, the show rose a notch in my esteem. That was a bold move-- even bolder if it was planned from the outset and not the result of a contract dispute. But last night... last night it jumped the shark.

They'd set up a really nice juxtaposition between John Doe and Digger. Doe's a man desperately searching for his past, while Digger steadfastly keeps his past behind him. There was a nice buddy vibe building. It worked. And last night they trashed it by revealing Digger to be the leader of the Phoenix Group, the organization that killed Karen and believes Doe is their messiah.

This makes no sense.

Doe wound up at Digger's place by happenstance. They met by chance. The odds against that happening-- of Doe linking up with his arch-nemesis-- are astronomical. Credulity is strewn all about the room in tiny particles floating on beams of afternoon sunlight. Explaining it, as they might, by saying that whatever gives Doe his knowledge also programmed him to seek out Digger so that the Phoenix Group could watch him is blatant ret-con. I'm sure if I were to review past episodes, Digger's actions would make no sense in light of this development.

This is the X-Files at its worst. For a series like this to work, viewers must invest their trust in the creators. We take it on faith that there's a grand plan, and that the writers aren't just making it up as they go along. Nowhere Man, a one-season-wonder from UPN a few years back, exhibited similar symptoms. 24 does it right. With its season finale, John Doe pulled back the curtain to reveal the wizard as a man without a plan, just struggling to keep one step ahead.

At Least He's a Savvy Geek

I was pleasantly surprised at the upheaval in last night's Survivor. "Pleasantly" because I feel neither Jenna nor Alex "deserves" to win (I'm undecided about Heidi). "Surprised" because Rob gave up a sure minimum finish of 4th place in exchange for an outside chance at the win. Rob's comments about Jenna and Heidi paint him as an infantile, pathetic geek. But he knows the game. And he was smart to recognize that he was first on the chopping block for his little alliance. But he may not have been smart enough.

If his new allies have any brains, Rob's just slit his own throat. By betraying his old alliance, Rob has proven himself to be untrustworthy. That makes him a liability. And he just rendered himself obsolete. If Butch, Matt, and Kristy turned against him, the three of them would still have a majority against Jenna and Heidi and could coast to the endgame. If they leave Rob around the battle lines become murky. If they're smart, they'll get rid of him now before he can switch sides again. Matt seems to feel beholden to Rob, but his vote wouldn't even be required-- Jenna and Heidi are sure to vote for him. And if Rob, by some miracle, makes it to the end, there's no way Alex, Jenna, or Heidi would vote to give him the million.

At this point I'm pulling for Kristy, even though that's a lost cause-- as I've said before, you'd have to be an idiot to take her into the finals with you. But you've gotta root for somebody, and I'd rather see one of the hard workers beat the cocky people.

It's Only Fun Until Someone Loses an Eye

Just caught up with last week's Buffy, in which our heroine succumbs to one of Roger Ebert's pet peeves-- the heroine doing something stupid because the plot requires it. Everyone around her says Caleb is baiting a trap, but Buffy not only bullheadedly plows into it, she takes a bunch of untested girls with her. I didn't buy it. With writers good enough to give us the delightful scene with Faith and Spike in the basement, you'd think they could remember Buffy's IQ isn't as low as her name implies. And what was that rubbish Caleb spouted about Xander being "the one who always sees everything"? Makes for some nice irony, but not any sense. It's good to have Faith back for the final few episodes, but I hope they're better written than this one.

Do You Think He's Even Aware of the Irony?

According to a Yahoo news story, in September Pepsi will give someone a chance to win 1 billion dollars. The billion-dollar winner will be chosen by a monkey that will draw a number out of a hat.

"An unusually dexterous monkey will do the picking," executive producer Matti Leshem explains to CNN. "It's the ultimate slap in the face to evolution: The fate of a billion dollars will be in the hands of a monkey."

Lesham then flung feces across the room and returned to his banana.

Suicide is Painless

And she was doing so well.

If you try to stab a teammate in the back-- particularly one who has established closer ties with the others than you have-- your knife is liable to find its way back to you. There was no way Jenna or Heidi was going to vote for Alex, and I'm amazed Deena didn't see that. I was very surprised that Rob turned on her, though. With his influence over Matt and Butch, if he ousted Alex he suddenly became the power player behind the scenes. Now he's just 1 of 4, and probably the weakest of the bunch. Not smart. But then, what can we expect from a guy who brings a Magic 8 Ball along as his luxury item?

Matt, meanwhile, is a very lucky man-- and completely oblivious. Perhaps he can win himself a clue in the next reward challenge.

Final Answer: Guilty

Three people in Britain were found guilty today of conspiring to cheat on the UK edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. They managed to escape jail time, however, receiving suspended sentences. The footage from the controversial million-pound win will be broadcast for the first time tonight in the UK. Transcripts of the episode made the cheating sound obvious, and it will be interesting to hear how blatant it actually appears to UK viewers. What's amazing to me isn't that these guys tried to cheat, but that they were so astoundingly clumsy at it.

Red Hot Poker

Part of the appeal of Iron Chef was the way it brought the conventions of sports broadcasting to a cooking show. Those same conventions are now being applied to poker. World Poker Tour airs every Wednesday on The Travel Channel, and it's great, great television.

The World Poker Tour is a series of high stakes Hold 'Em tournaments created specifically for this television series, culminating in a final million dollar showdown at the Bellagio later this year. You may have watched other poker events on television, but not like this. The players sit amid a monstrous set with strobing lights and roving cameras. The table is not only lit from underneath, but built-in "hole card cams" sneak peeks at every player's cards. Viewers get to see not just the hands that get played, but those that get tossed as well-- and that makes a tremendous difference. It allows us to see into the minds of the world's greatest players, watching as they bluff, back down, or walk right into a trap. Popup Video-style factoids free the commentators to focus on insightful commentary.

This is good stuff. Peter-Bob says, "Check it out!"

Best... Reality Show... Ever

I could not possibly make this up.

The WB has given the go-ahead to Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, a new reality series from Stan Lee. Contestants pitch their superhero ideas to a panel of celebs who have portrayed superheroes on TV and film, then dress up as their proposed character to perform feats of derring-do as part of the "superhero makeover".

No word yet on whether that makeover includes actual emasculation, or merely a complete loss of dignity and self respect.

Touched By a Lawyer

The Sci-Fi Channel announced 16 new shows for the 04-05 year today, including a Stargate: SG-1 spinoff called Stargate: Atlantis. But just when you think the channel is realizing it's potential, you see this:

Dead Lawyers - DreamWorks Television (Taken) produces this one-hour series with a deliciously judicious concept. Sleazy unscrupulous lawyers, in order to redeem themselves, come back from the dead to defend everyone they screwed when they were alive - and it's all pro bono! When hotshot defense attorney Jimmy Quinn is run over by a bus, he finds himself in his own version of hell: a law firm on earth composed of other dead lawyers, all trying to right miscarriages of justice in order to redeem themselves.

Change this concept to "Dead TV Executives" and you've got something.

Tick Tock

Episodes of 24 have been stacking up on my Tivo for months now. I knew I'd want to watch them all in rapid succession, and this weekend I caught up. And damn if this isn't one of the best shows on television. If you're not already watching, there's not much point in jumping in now-- you'll be better off picking up the inevitable DVD and watching the entire season. Which you should certainly do. This is good stuff.

Varekai

Few reality series are as compelling as Bravo's Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within, which concluded its run on Monday and will begin its repeat cycle next week. That's because unlike all the fabricated reality we've been fed lately, this is truly real-- a serialized documentary of the creation of the Cirque du Soleil show, Varekai. The camera stays with a handful of the performers, some veterans, others neophytes, providing beguiling glimpses of life inside the colorful Cirque. We see them mold their acts, moving through triumphs and disappointments as the show develops. The story of Gareth and Ashley is particularly gripping, as they struggle to master Acadian acrobatics ahead of the onrushing deadline. The focus on the performers means a big part of the picture is out of frame. We gain little insight into Cirque owner Guy de Liberte. We don't get into the head of director Dominic Champagne, or see much of his creative process. Some of the best scenes involve the marketing sessions where the show's poster is developed, and I'd have liked to have seen more of the back-room machinations. I hope Bravo produces more series like this one, pulling back the curtain on the creative process.

But really-- are there no dentists in Montreal? What's up with Dominic's teeth? <shudder>

And the Jerk Is...

There's chutzpah, and then there's a complete lack of class. At tonight's Oscar ceremony, Michael Moore landed squarely in the latter category. Upon winning the Best Documentary award, he made a nice gesture by pulling all the other nominees onto the stage with him to be recognized. Then he launched into political rhetoric.

I happen to believe the winner's podium is not an appropriate place for airing political grievances, but that battle was lost long ago and that's not my beef. After corraling his fellow nominees, Moore presented himself as their spokesman. And then selfishly presented his controversial political beliefs as those of the entire group. If I were one of the people standing with him, I'd have kicked him in the nuts the moment we got backstage for suckering me into such a self-serving bait-and-switch.

Cree

Stargate SG-1 is the best SF show on television. Yeah, the movie was kinda lame. But there was a great idea behind it, and the TV series ran with it. And it did it with panache. Sure, Richard Dean Anderson's Colonel O'Neill is utterly absurd-- nobody with his irreverent attitude could possibly survive in the upper ranks of the air force, let alone lead an elite team responsible for interplanetary exploration. Sure, Major Carter can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. Daniel can decipher every ancient, dead language ever written on Earth, and Teal'c has fewer notes than a test of the emergency broadcast system. Granted, all of it. But the show gets almost everything else right.

The production values are terrific. As ridiculous as O'Neill is, his dialogue is hilarious. The cast clicks and is eminently likeable. The series has an astounding grip on its continuity, with characters and plot elements resurfacing frequently (I'm particularly fond of 2010, where the team realizes the dire consequences of trusting a certain alien race and sends a message back in time to warn themselves, and then 2001 the following season where we see the team first encounter those aliens and change their behavior based on that message).

The show floundered this season with Michael Shanks' departure (he's returning next season). It says something that the best episodes this year featured his guest appearance. And while the scene with Daniel and Jack in the elevator was one of the best all year, tonight's season finale got Daniel all wrong. He'd never give Anubis the Eye of Ra, especially after learning what Anubis is, which would justify acting against Anubis directly (although not, apparently, in the eyes of Uma). This episode missed the boat in other areas as well, such as the complete lack of emotional connection between Jack and Skara and the treacly ending.

Yet even when it misses, Stargate SG-1 is still better than 90% of what's out there. If you haven't discovered it yet, check out the reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Justice Is Served

Ah, Karma.

When Shawna desperately wanted to get out of the game, her Survivor allies refused to vote her off. Then, after scoring the coveted role of Alex's scalp masseuse and deciding she's in it for the long haul, her tribemates tell her to not let the tent flap hit her on the way out.

I think Nelson Muntz said it best: "Ha ha!"

Big Bucks

I'll confess-- I loved Press Your Luck. It was one of the most mindless game shows on television, but it was by far the most exciting. That big board with the flashing whammies was damned compelling, and I watched it in its initial run and in USA reruns whenever I got the chance. But I missed one of the most famous moments in game show history, and finally got to see it tonight when Game Show Network aired the misleadingly titled documentary Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.

The thing of it was, the big board wasn't random. The lights flashed in five different sequences of eighteen cells each. And Michael Larson noticed it. Armed with a VCR, he memorized those patterns and capitalized on an even bigger weakness in the system-- some of the cells never, ever held a whammy. After whammying on his first spin, before he got his reaction time nailed down, he went on to earn over $100,000 in dozens of consecutive spins-- the highest single day total in game show history at the time. The show had to be split across two episodes. The episodes were never rerun-- CBS didn't even want them to air the first time.

The documentary includes both episodes in their entirety, and they're fascinating to watch. Larson's two opponents are clearly flabbergasted by what transpires, and host Peter Tomarken has no idea that the man has cracked the system despite the fact that he keeps landing on the same two squares on the board. Far less effective is the padding material, including absurd frame-by-frame analysis in which viewers are instructed to watch Larson's crinkled, inscrutable eyes for insight into his "trance-like" focus.

The writing continually insinuates that Larson was somehow in the wrong, beginning with the loaded use of "scandal" in the title. But there was no scandal. Everything Larson did was perfectly legal. Tomarken says as much at the end, even congratulating the man for earning his $100,000 through keen observation and determination. That should have been the editorial angle from the get-go, celebrating an enterprising man's achievement while examining the production decisions which created the flawed system that made it possible. Instead, the subtext of the program is that Larson was some kind of con man who scammed the network, instead of beating them at their own game.

If you'd like to see for yourself, Game Show Network will be running the show again at 9PM Monday and next Sunday, and midnight Tuesday (that's Tuesday morning).

Men Are Pigs

Watching Survivor: The Amazon this season, in which the men have been pitted against the women, I've felt embarrassed for my entire gender. With the exception of Butch, one of the older men, the rest of the bunch have behaved like peurile frat boys. "Heidi's cute." "Jenna's got a sexy ass." "Shawna's the hottest." Hello? You're not on Elimidate. There's a million bucks on the line, people-- how's about keeping your eyes on the prize? Not that the women have been bashing down female stereotypes, either, with their shabby shelter, recurring cattiness, and the young, attractive women going off alone to revel in heir youth and accuse the older women of being jealous of their beauty.

Tonight the tribes got shuffled. Most of the annoying men and women wound up together, while the two players I'm most cheering for. rocket scientist Dave and deaf, spunky Kristy (a lost cause, I'm sure; you'd have to be insane to let someone with a disability make it into the final two-- you might as well just sign over the check on day one and save yourself a lot of time), are on the same tribe. And of course, the annoying people won immunity. Not that the other outcome would have been much better-- the most worthy player on that side, Deena, is living on borrowed time.

I suppose I'll be content with any outcome as long as drama queen Shawna gets her whiny butt booted. Unless, of course, it comes down to her and one of the three allies who refused to vote her off last week despite her weepy entreaties to do so. That karmic justice would be sweet indeed.

Oh, and Jeanne: Take what consolation you can, but nobody-- I suspect not even you-- buys the "I didn't win the game, but I'm the winner in life" dodge. Self-righteousness is the last refuge of the loser. You're no nobler than they are, you just got beaten sooner.

Keeping the Faith

When talk started about spinning Eliza Dushku's Faith into her own series, I was skeptical. Season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the high point of the series in large part because of Faith, but it was the tension between her and Buffy that made it work. Faith and Buffy were yin and yang, the Luke and Vader of the Buffyverse. Put Faith on her own and the equation is out of balance.

I should have known better. The same could have been said of Angel, and the past season and a half of that spinoff has been stronger than the last couple of years of Buffy. Lilah's death disappointed me (take Fred-- please!), and I'm worried that it's jumped the shark with evil Cordelia (they've gone way too long without explaining that one already), not to mention Cordy sleeping with Connor, leading to pregnant Cordelia... but I'll wait until the storyline has played itself out before passing judgment.

Dushku's turn in the past few Angel episodes, however, has been dynamite. The sense of debt Faith feels toward Angel gives her much-needed humanity and depth. In facing Angel's inner darkness personified, Faith has been forced to face her own dark side and reaffirm who she is and will be. That inner turmoil makes Faith far more interesting than Buffy, who has had all the flair and personality of a corpse since reanimating from one at the start of last season. And the vibe between Faith and Wesley, her once-dorky, now-studly former Watcher, is electric. These two have one hell of a troubled history, and they acknowledge it. Their interactions are rich with subtext. Now the idea of a series crafted around Faith excites and intrigues me.

Not that it matters. Dushku turned down the concept to star instead as a morgue employee who talks to the dead, reliving the same day over and over again until she sets things right. Kind of a Quantum Groundhog's Day. In the meantime, Faith's about to wrap things up in L.A. and pop over to Sunnydale, where she'll hopefully give Buffy a much-needed jolt of something-interesting-to-watch.

The Buffy/Angel romance was inspired. She kills vampires, he is a vampire. They yearn to be together, but can't be without risk of setting Angelus free in a moment of true happiness. Classic tragedy. But the platonic relationship between Faith and Angel could be something even richer, bound with many layers of nuance and emotion. If Dushku's pilot fails, I hope she reconsiders picking up the stake again.

Meredith, I'll Bone-- er, Phone a Friend

The writers got evil on yesterday's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The following question appeared at the $4000 level:

On the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, what was the nickname of Mike Seaver's best friend?

A) Cockroach
B) Skippy
C) Six
D) Boner

The contestant didn't hesitate before answering B, Skippy, and crashing back to $1,000. The correct answer was D, Boner. For a $4,000 question, the choices here were evil-- they're all best friends of 80's sitcom characters. Cockroach is Theo's pal from The Cosby Show, Skippy is from Family Ties, and Six is from Blossom. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

Of course, the real crime here is the lost opportunity to have Meredith read Woody, Dick, and Willy as the wrong answers. Now that's television.

Holy Corpulence!

Speaking of The Superfriends, last night CBS aired Return to the Batcave. Like last year's Surviving Gilligan's Island, the behind-the-scenes segments revealed fascinating glimpses into the creation of a cult TV phenomenon. Padding the thing out to two hours by adding a framing story where Adam West and Burt Ward chase down a stolen Batmobile, however, was an intensely bad idea executed poorly. West pretty much parodied himself and Burt Ward was mesmerizing-- he sounded exactly the same as he did 35 years ago, but was about triple the size. And when he talked, only his mouth moved-- it was like he was trapped inside a really bad fat suit. Too many Bat pastries at the ol' Bat craft services table. Frank Gorshin looked like he'd been pulled out of the grave, but Catwomen Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar have still got it.