Monthly Archives: July 2012
9 Reality Shows That Didn’t Last
In recent years, entertainment has been suffering an overload of reality television, most of which is trite and unintelligent. A lot of the programming is still on the air, but a lot of it is now a part of television history no one appreciates. Let’s revisit some of the shows that flopped.
Married By America
In Married By America, viewers voted for pairs of single men and women would be engaged and arranged to be married all within a 5 week span. The dating pool was originally selected by the suitors’ loved ones. America then voted in to decide which man would propose to which women without even having seen her face or talked to her at all. After the fiances were paired up, they spent five weeks first getting to know the person they were planning to marry. At the end of each episode, so called relationship experts would decide which engagement was going to end. By the final episode, two couples were left to plan their weddings Thankfully, neither of the couples went through with it. I’m surprised this wasn’t thought of as unethical from the start, but cancelling it after a season was the right call.
Dish Subscribers Will Have Access to Breaking Bad Premiere
At the end of last month, Dish Network dropped AMC from its service. However, all is not lost for fans of AMC’s Breaking Bad. The network is making the season 5 premiere of Breaking Bad available via a live stream at www.amctv.com/breakingbad4dish. Dish customers will be able to register for access to the live stream beginning today at 3pm. The live stream will begin this Sunday at 10pm, which is the same time Breaking Bad will begin its fifth season on AMC.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Sammy Davis Jr. on All in the Family
Today’s video is my favorite clip from All in the Family. After Sammy Davis Jr. leaves his suitcase in Archie Bunker’s cab, he visits Archie’s house to get it back. Before Sammy leaves Archie asks for a photo with him, Sammy says yes and gives Archie a surprise he would never expect.
Viacom Stops Free Streaming of Its Shows
The fight between Viacom and DirecTV has officially affected everyone. Since DirecTV decided to direct their customers who want to watch Viacom shows to their corresponding websites, Viacom has decided to pull full episodes of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, SpongeBob Squarepants, iCarly, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and more. However, full episodes do remain on Hulu.
AGT Results Recap: July 11th
Hawley Magic Performing on Tuesday
Four of 12 acts were set to advance on last night’s America’s Got Talent and it was once again the boundaries of what should be considered true talent. The live shows started with 48 acts and a lot of them didn’t deserve a shot. The semifinals will consist of 24 acts, many of which will be misplaced. However, there’s nothing the show can do about it. The judges were never shown a good selection of talent this season. Past seasons have certainly been better, so this is not the best the show can do. It just seems that they got incredibly unlucky this time around. This is the point where the competition is supposed to be getting serious, but it’s difficult at this point to take the show seriously.
The first result brought Turf and Tim Hockenberry to the stage. I was initially surprised. Then I remembered that both acts usually advance when only two are brought on stage. Turf did not deserve to advance, but four acts had to. America probably got it right. After all, both of them are talented. It was clear though that Hockenberry outperformed Turf on Tuesday. The judges usually say the talent is overwhelming and it would be true in most seasons. However, the acts that have been advancing might have already been gone in a more competitive season.
Viacom Channels Go Dark on DirecTV
Last night at midnight, 20 million DirecTV subscribers lost 17 different Viacom channels. The channels lost include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and more.
DirecTV and Viacom conflict of carriage fees continues. DirecTV says Viacom wants a 30 percent increase in fees, which comes out to an additional $1 billion. Viacom’s Vice President for Corporate Communications Mark Jafar wrote on his company’s blog that the increase amounts to “a couple pennies per day, per subscriber”, that DirecTV has been paying “the same bargain rate” for Viacom programming for 7 years, and that Viacom “accounts for 20% of all viewing on DirecTV.”
USA Today reports that DirecTV subscribers who tune into Viacom channels will now see a “mix” channel of programming from other networks, such as Bravo, FX, and TBS. DirecTV is also making eight Encore movie channels, which are usually part of premium packages, available for free to all of its customers until July 31.
For more on DirecTV’s side of the argument, check out directvpromise. More on Viacom’s view can be found on the company’s blog and whendirecttvdrops.
Cool TV Video of the Day: NBC’s Loud and Proud!
Back in the 80s and very early 90s, the Big 3 created catchy songs to go along with their fall schedules. In the early 80s, NBC fortunes were much like they are today: not very good. Instead of complaining about it, they decided to get self-deprecating about it in house. NBC took their “We’re Proud” jingle and had the same ad agency, same production staff, and same performers as the original promo and spoofed their own song.
Here is the spoof (Complete with someone on YouTube replacing the original “We’re Loud” with “We’re Proud.”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN9wJ75DjdA
The original is after the jump.
AGT’s Second Night of Performances
Turf
America’s Got Talent has provided its viewers with a selection of acts that basically asks America to go with the lesser of 48 evils. This isn’t to say that some of the acts aren’t good at times, but this is a season with many subpar acts. Even a lot of the ones the judges think are good will never be worthy of a Vegas show. This season’s highest quality should be considered mediocre television. Once again, it’s hard to say whether four acts actually deserved to advance. America will just have to take it as it is and realize those are the rules.
Lion DanceMe
Lion DanceMe act consisted of the performers dressed in their lion costumes jumping in between platforms. This is supposed to be a cross between a dance act and a danger act. There was neither. This act did not deserve to make it past Vegas. As the judges said, their act seems the same every performance. The platforms might have been a little higher and there might have even been less dancing. That makes the act only slightly better in one aspect and much worse in another. In the package beforehand, Sharon said she loved the element of danger. When considering the danger acts, it is incredibly unfortunate that any other truly dangerous act is put into the same category as Lion DanceMe. Howie got bored watching the performance as did I. Both Howard and Sharon were constructive, but it’s not worth it. Lion DanceMe does not really belong on the national stage.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Letterman Introduces the GE Handshake
In the 80s, David Letterman used to host Late Night on NBC. Naturally when GE bought NBC from RCA, Letterman would want to “drop in and say hello,” complete with a fruit basket. However, Dave has trouble even entering the building. You will see the infamous GE Handshake and the rest of the hilarious results in today’s video.
Wait! What's A Dial? 