05.16.05
Arrested Development Gets a Third Season
Somewhat miraculously, the funniest show on television has been renewed. Here’s hoping Fox will release the Season 2 DVDs soon.
Archive for TV
01.30.05
Damn You, Dunham
My TiVo nabbed a bunch of episodes of Comedy Central Presents for me this weekend, which was good—sure, they’re hit and miss in terms of quality, but every once in a while you get a Lewis Black or or a Dom Irrera or maybe an Arj Barker, and that makes up for the dreck you get the rest of the time. Anyway, one of the comedians I saw today was Jeff Dunham. The Joneses and Smiths among you might not understand this, but I get kind of excited when I see someone with my surname. It doesn’t happen often—in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone in person who had my last name and wasn’t related to me.
Anyway, I was prepared to laugh, but as it turned out Jeff Dunham is a spectacularly bad ventriloquist. He had several puppets, with different voices and mannerisms for each, but not a funny or original joke the whole show. He actually thought it would be a good idea to steal the dentist bit from Bill Cosby, Himself, cut out all the funniest punchlines, and put it in the mouth of a purple muppet-like creature with no teeth. And he wasn’t any good at the technical aspect of ventriloquism, either.
All I can hope for at this point is that he doesn’t become famous and create a stain on a perfectly good family name—the way I assume Carrot Top has done for all the Tops of the world. I don’t want to have to change my name just to avoid the uncomfortable “are you related to…” moments.
01.27.05
The (American) Office
Those of you in the habit of scrolling down a bit may have noticed the Amazon Associates link to the complete DVD edition of The Office that’s currently residing in my sidebar. Well, today I was alerted by a Metafilter post to an American remake of this great British sitcom. The pilot is available online, and if you want a summary of what’s wrong with American sitcoms, you could do a lot worse than to compare this dreck to the masterful original.
It’s entirely possible that if I saw the American version without having experienced Ricky Gervais as David Brent first, I wouldn’t hate it. But it’s such a pale imitation … I just can’t express how much I hate it. The pacing is off—the original let you wallow in shocked, uncomfortable silence, while this one zips you off to the next scene. The direction is bad—there’s always a reaction shot, always a reminder that what you’re watching is not a documentary. And the casting is all wrong. It’s just wrong.
If you haven’t seen the original, there’s no time like the present. But don’t bother with the remake.
01.26.05
Nova ScienceNOW
There’s a new science show on PBS called Nova ScienceNOW—and, silly capitalization aside, if you’re at all interested in recent developments in the world of science, you owe it to yourself to TiVo this show. If you don’t have a TiVo, this is the perfect excuse to buy one. It’s for science!
The first episode featured segments on hurricane prediction, an engineer’s attempts to engineer every aspect of his life, “booming” desert sands, and—most interesting to me—mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are, in short, the reason we can learn by imitation, the driving force behind human culture, and the biological basis of empathy. If you missed it, check out the ScienceNOW web site for clips, updates, bonus materials, links to further resources, an RSS feed, and even the complete episode in streaming video.
Update: I had thought Nova ScienceNOW was a completely new show; turns out it’s just a recurring feature within the Nova series. Disappointing, but I’ll take what I can get.
