A Fool's Utopia 06.10.07: Fall 2007 TV Schedule Preview Part I - NBC

Posted by Ron Martin on 06.10.2007

This week in one man's utopia: things that piss me off, movies I've seen in the theater twice, roller derby and the Loch Ness Monster.

-- The networks unveiled their new lineups for the 2007-2008 season upwards of a month ago. As usual, the boneheaded braindead suits at the network have no clue about the differences between their asses and their faces, let alone have their finger on the pulse of America. The 2007-2008 TV season should see the continued decline in overall TV ratings for the networks. But in all fairness, we got to give the shows a chance. For you, the reader, I have done the hard work. I have delved into the nightmare that is the creativity of the major networks. I have watched the previews. I have done the homework, so you don't have to. No, gifts and applause aren't necessary. Just the knowledge of the good I've done for society I quite enough. It's that and some niaprazine that help me sleep at night. Will these shows strike out, or will they get to take a base? Without further ado, I give to you the first part of Fall 2007.





The Journeyman -- Mondays, drama. Dan Vasser thought he had it all, a loving wife and family. Now, for no reason apparent from any sort of previews written or video, he can travel through time. Through this time travel he reconnects – wait for it – with his long dead ex-fiancée. Can he save her this time and if he does, what will it mean to his future. Just so you know the acting (from the preview) is over the top soap opera style. Strike One. It is never explained why this guy is traveling through time and if he can't control it, then why he isn't he traveling further back than the stone age of 1987? Strike Two. Obviously, he saves his ex-fiancée or the added premise of how this effects his future life wouldn't even be introduced. There, I've already taken you through ¾ the season. Also, if this does play out and get ratings, how in the hell do you justify a second season? Strike Three. You're Oooouuuuttt!



Chuck -- Tuesdays, drama. This is your basic unwilling, unknowing action hero. Chuck Bartkowski is your run of the mill computer geek. He works as a member of the Nerd Herd (think Geek Squad) for Buy More (think Best Buy). He has an old friend that sends him an e-mail that when opened encodes all the countries greatest secrets in Chuck's head. Strike One. Now a plethora of countries including his own want to get him for those secrets. He is seduced by a sexy spy. Ball One. Chaos ensues. Zach Levi looks and acts a lot like Jimmy Fallon. Strike Two. That being said, there are a lot of funny lines in the preview and this looks like it could be a surprisingly light and funny show that has a lot of action. The writing seems somewhat intelligent. One of my fears is that it might drag as a one-hour drama. This would be better if Chuck randomly spit out US secrets that he didn't even know he knew. Like who shot JFK. Give this one a chance. It might surprise you. Base hit.



The Bionic Woman -- Wednesdays, drama. Local bartender currently taking care of her deaf younger sister is in a fatal car accident. Her professor boyfriend takes her to an emergency military facility because he mysteriously has full security access. Here she becomes the bionic woman. One of the military personnel says it when he says, "We're keeping her here against her will. How long before she figures out no one can stop her if she wants to leave?" Exactly. Why would the government create something they couldn't stop because her boyfriend is a top-secret government agent? Strike One. The added deaf little sister is just a cheap trick to make the bionic woman seem more human than super. Unless the deaf girl comes under fire by the government, this subplot is totally worthless. Strike Two. Later in the series, a second bionic woman shows up as the original bionic woman created by the government and they do battle. So the government screwed up once before and went ahead and did it again? Strike Three. You're oooooooooouuuuuuutttttt! You want superhero action? Watch Heroes.



Life -- Wednesdays, Drama. Detective Charlie Crews went to jail in 1994 for a crime he didn't commit. Twelve years later, the case is re-opened and he is released. Crews decides to become a cop again. He waltzes right in and gets a detective job like nothing ever happened. Strike One. And, of course, he is paired with a super hot partner whom I am sure there is going to be a romantic slow-build subplot. Strike Two. However, the time spent in jail has changed Crews. Now he is a fountain of information. He spills one-liners that are often cryptic and eclectic, yet somehow odd and appealing. He is a human fortune cookie. Ball One. The charisma of Damien Lewis as Charlie Crews is undeniable. Much like that Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House. There are definitely worse characters to imitate. Ball Two. Also, as a side plot, the show works in elements (such as cameras in cell phones) that Crews is unfamiliar with due to his time in jail as a running gag. Ball Three. Also present is a documentary element. Interviews with Crews old partners and new partners presented in documentary style. Mix that with odd choices for edit cuts and you have a unique presentation experience. That will be the deciding factor of whether or not this show succeeds. For now, I say it's worth a look. Check out the first few episodes, you may be pleasantly surprises. Batter, take your base.


The Singing Bee -- Fridays, Reality. I don't know a whole lot about this show, and NBC isn't offering a whole lot of information about it. This tells me one thing – it must suck! Strike One. This is presented as a new version of the old reality show 1 vs. 100. I know what you're asking. If this is a new version of an old show, why is it present in the Fall new show preview? Good question. Same one I asked when this show was prominently featured on NBC's website on the "new shows" page. Strike Two. The premise of the show is contestants must sing lines from pop songs once a band playing the songs has stopped playing. So, it's national karaoke. Strike Three. You're oooooooouuuuuuutttttttt! The format of 1 vs. 100 has become so convoluted that it's hard to follow. Is the mob your friend or your foe? You never truly know. Skip this addition to the already saturated reality market. Surely you have something better to do with your Friday nights.

To conclude my baseball analogy, NBC left two runners on. Check out or DVR the first few episode of Chuck and Life as those might be worth watching. Other than that, it looks like NBC's rapid downfall continues in 2007. Maybe they should concentrate on fixing up their Must-See TV lineup and less on dramas that would be average two-hour schlock movies, much less 24 one-hour episodes for a season. Good work NBC, you're retard suits make me feel smarter every day.

Midseason shows that didn't get up to bat for NBC before I retired the side: Lipstick Jungle is a Sex and the City wannabe starring Brooke Shields; The It Crowd is about a woman helping two nerds become cool and is masquerading as a comedy. I am very upset at the wasting of a very talented Jessica St Clair; World Moves is American Idol for dance teams all around the world. Yuck.

Shows at NBC worth at least recording on the ol' DVR: 30 Rock, The Biggest Loser, Heroes, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Office, Saturday Night Live, Scrubs, Sunday Night Football.

Up next inning: FOX.

-- So I've been hearing a lot about this "repeat business" that the third installments of these major movie franchises are not getting. Seriously, how many people pay full price to see a movie more than once? I mean I know that I am so old that I walked with Jesus, but surely the youth today isn't ponying up $8 - $10 bucks more than once to see this crap. Even when I was a young buck during the civil war years I never saw movies twice in the theater. This is how it works. You see the movie. If your town has a $1 or $2 theater, maybe you see it again when it hits the discount theater. Then, if you like it, you buy it or rent it on DVD. I want to know who pays full price to see movies in the theater twice and why. Let me know America and vast other countries whom may be reading this column. I'm not criticizing, I sincerely would like to know.

-- You can put this in the category of stuff that pisses me off. For the first 18 years of my life, I lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. Not Chicago or New York, I know, but still a highly populated metropolitan area. Since then, I moved to a good sized, but smaller college town near Indianapolis. All in all, I have lived in Indiana all my life. Never once in all my many, many years on this Earth have I ever seen someone in the state of Indiana wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. This week alone while driving in my town: half a dozen then I stopped counting. Just another reason why I support selective reproduction.

-- Another reason why I support such a thing is the show Sci-Fi Investigates. I know this show was cancelled last year, after like 10 episodes, but I still had a bunch on my DVR to watch. I watched them. I know why the show got cancelled. I'm sorry, I just looked it up and the show recorded a massive number of 6 episodes before being cancelled. I realize Sci-Fi was trying to take advantage of the popular Ghost Hunters show by throwing another paranormal show out there and I can respect that. However, the thing that ruined the show was Rob Mariano. This guy is a "reality star" that you may know better as Boston Rob. Like they have to include the town he is in his name because this guy is a living cartoon of a Bostonian caricature. He is the so-called "skeptic" although he has nothing to his credit that would lead us to believe that he can do anything other than say "I don't believe it". You know there is a magazine called Skeptic. You couldn't get someone from the magazine to be on the show. Someone with a little more of a credential than "Hey, I am like the Red Sox and I lost on Survivor". Idiots.

-- Three random reviews of three random DVDs from my not-so random collection:



1. The Ring -- The previews for this movie were absolutely magnificent. I'm not talking about the later ones that showed action. I'm talking about the thirty second ones that showed a few quick random shots and then just the grainy film of the ring. Brilliant! They got my money with that preview. The movie itself is excellently done taking a basically no-name cast and weaving a well told story. The fact that it was a reporter as the main character gave some credibility to the story as well. These are the minor little things that make movies great people. As a reporter she has the needed skills to solve this mystery. Add in the very cryptic tape and the surprisingly creepy (despite the campiness) image of the little girl coming out the TV and you have a movie worth buying on DVD. 4/5



2. Indianapolis Colts NFL Championship DVD -- Okay, I'll admit, I got duped on this one. In the midst of the only time one of my favorite teams won a world championship, I went to NFLShop.com and pre-ordered this DVD for $30. I thought it would be exclusive to the NFL. Once it came out, it was at every grocery store, drug store and gas station in Indiana for $20. To add insult to injury, I didn't even get my copy until a week after the gas stations had theirs. Oh well, you live and you learn. This basically gives you everything from NFL films about the Colts that aired that year, including video recaps of every single game. This also includes expanded highlights from the Super Bowl. The extras aren't too noteworthy, just more NFL Films things already aired about the Colts that season. What I really want is a DVD of the entire Super Bowl. Does anyone know where I can get this? Also included is the Cirque De Soleil pregame show. I'd rather have the Prince halftime show. For Colts Fans 4.5/5. For everyone else 1.5/5



3. Buffy: The Unaired Pilot --I know what you're thinking. Hey, that picture above doesn't look like a DVD cover. That's because this particular DVD has never been released. It was picked up as a bootleg at a horror movie convention. This is the 20 minute episode created by Joss Whedon that he used to sell the concept to networks. As expected, the special effects are terrible (this was made very low budget) but there are a lot of similarities to the first episode of Buffy proper. No Angel in this one and Darla dies before the episode is over. A different girl, whose name I can't be forced to remember, plays a chunky even more of a loser version of Willow. Thank God that part was recast! You can't find this at a DVD store, cuz like I said it was never released. It's not even on imdb. It good for major Buffy fans, but for everyone else just start with Episode 1, Season 1. 2.5/5


-- By the way, the only movies I have seen twice in the theater are American Pie and Freddy vs. Jason. With American Pie, there was a thunderstorm in the middle of the flick and the power went out for like a minute. At the end of the film they gave me and the girl I was seeing at the time two free movie passes each. Later that night, I treated my roommate to the same movie, but technically, I didn't pay for it. With Freddy vs. Jason, I saw opening night with some friends. A week later, we wanted to go to the drive-in for the first time since the early 90s, we didn't care what was playing, we just wanted to go to the drive-in! For $6 at the drive-in I sat through the God awful American Wedding to get to the second feature which, of course, was the aforementioned Freddy vs. Jason. Now, I have seen second viewings of films lots of times at the discount theaters, including The Crow which I saw probably 15 –20 times at $1 a pop. On top of that, I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show once a week in the theaters for three years in high school. That doesn't count though, right?

-- Say what you want about the man, but he continues to show why he can afford to look like a Barbie doll while the rest of us can only dream about it. Michael Jackson, who has infamously bought rights to popular songs, strikes again. We all know about Mikey's purchasing a lot of the Beatles catalogue back in the day, but here recently he purchased the rights to the Eminem songs "The Real Slim Shady" and "Without Me". I am no Eminem fan, but I am pop culture aware enough to know that these are his two most commercially friendly songs. I have no idea why the rights to these songs were available other than to say the one thing we already knew – Eminem is an idiot. So when you hear these beat behind a Toyota commercial six month from now, realize Mike Jackson is making a lot of money. So Mikey now owns those songs to go with the Beatles songs he already owns and songs by Bjork, Beck, Shakira and others. I've been trying to decipher actual songs but everything I've seen just says the artists. I will dig further. I do it for you reader! For you damnit!

-- Have you guys seen this new footage of the Loch Ness monster? If you haven't go check it out on youtube. I'm not making any definite predictions, but they are finding new species of once though extinct creatures all the time. Is it so far fetched to think that this creature is what we'd like to think it is?

-- It's that time. Oh yeah, pull down your disco balls, break out the bell-bottoms and use a pick on your hair if you must, we be getting RETRO!

When I was a kid, every Saturday night, I watched Rollergames. I even went to the store several times in search of the official Rollergames magazine. Rollergames was basically roller derby updated for the 80s. It was fake. Any connoisseur of wrestling could tell that it was, but it was fun nonetheless. I mean come on, The T-Birds (America's Team) had an 80-year-old guy who would win the game with for them on the last round every single time. This guy could barely skate. You knew it had to be fake. Especially with the over the top "managers" of every team. There were three good guy teams: The T-Birds, the Rockers and Hot Flash. There were three bad guy teams: The Violators, The Maniacs and Bad Attitude. There was a pecking order too. When the T-Bird played the Rockers or Hot Flash, suddenly the non-T-Bird team would start cheating. Roller derby, like all good things, is making a comeback. Check it out, I bet there's roller derby team near you!

Aside from downloading the Alanis Morissette parody of My Humps and Weird Al's White and Nerdy, I haven't seen a new music video in years. Is this still a promotional item for hit songs. With MTV no longer playing music video, is it necessary for a band to make one? With all the multitudes of media today, I guess the way we watch our musical artists is much different. That sucks.

Sticking with MTV, anyone remember the show Remote Control? If anything said MTV game show, it was Remote Control. Does this still hold up today? I need to find out if this has been released on DVD. For those not in the know, this show launched the careers of Adam Sandler and Colin Quinn as well as featured armchairs that flipped back into the wall if you lost. Of course it's a must see.

-- Let's file something else in the Things that Piss Me Off category. This time it's DVD wrapping. I understand that to prevent theft, the DVDs must be superiorly wrapped. I get it. But why in the blue hell can't you think of something else other than that sticky crap at the top of the DVD to wrap it in. Every time I pull this off, part of the cover comes with it or it leaves a mark on the cover. I'd like the new pristeenness of my DVDs to last longer than the opening of the package. It's gotten to the point where I just cut the sticker in half along the case line in order to open and just leave it on. I shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to open a DVD without damaging the case.



-- Your podcast review for the week: Mysterious Universe. Produced and hosted by Benjamin Grundy, this Sydney, Australia, based podcast talks about subjects such as aliens, cryptozoology, ancient mysteries, shadow people, alternate dimensions, and generally anything doing with paranormal subject matter. Benjamin is the only person on the podcast unless there is an interview. While entertaining, Grundy as the only personality on the show makes the show lack the interaction that every good podcast needs. Also, Grundy basically reads and comments on stories he has found on the internet, often giving the very sites that he found them on. That being said, the podcast is free, so why would anyone hunt down all these articles when Grundy is providing them to you in one podcast. The podcast is weekly and is usually around 45 minutes long of just Grundy talking, reading articles or view call-ins. Occasionally there is an interview with a person in the paranormal field. For $5 a month you can become a premium member receiving an extended version of the podcast and two more weekly podcasts called MindShots. I am not a premium member, so I can't review these extras. The podcast does lack in certain areas, but the production quality is good enough and the information it good stuff if you don't want to do the research yourself. 3/5

IT CAME FROM MY IPOD
Five songs directly from my IPOD celebrating Cooch McGee's bouncing in and out of jail.

1. My Own Prison by Creed
2. Hangman Jury by Aerosmith
3. Prison Song by System of a Down
4. I'm in the Jailhouse Now by The Soggy Bottom Boys
5. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now by The Smiths

Now I must leave you.

If anyone does a podcast, or knows of a podcast they'd like me to review, please drop me an e-mail. I am always looking for more podcasts. Until next week always remember that vending machines do not accept pennies!