Monthly Archives: August 2012
Animal Practice… Worth the View or Just a Zoo?
As anyone who has ever been to a theatre knows, nothing is ever on time. Because the Olympics wasn’t over by 10:30 last night, the Sneak Preview of NBC’s Animal Practice was pushed back 20 minutes. When it started, I was left wondering if it was worth NBC finally cutting time out of the Closing Ceremonies to see it.
Justin Kirk plays Veterinarian Dr. George Coleman who is good with animals, not so good with the owners. When the woman who owned the animal hospital George works in passes away, her granddaughter, Dorothy Crane, takes over. Crane, played by Joanna Garcia-Swisher, also just happens to be Dr. Coleman’s ex-girlfriend.
The main human-centered storyline of the Sneak Peek episode is that after the owner of the hospital dies, Dorothy takes over and tells George that they can keep the hospital running without it being too awkward. Other important story line centered around a dog that swallowed something and needs surgery to remove it. The owner isn’t happy that the surgery will cost two-thousand dollars and demands to put the dog down despite the fact that it would destroy his young daughter’s happiness. George, angry with the owner, takes the dog and proceeds to hide it. He plans to do the surgery anyway despite the consequences.
Weekly TV Update: August 13
NBC interrupted the closing ceremonies to preview Animal Practice.
Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte is eyeing reality show offers.
Another Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, is interested in reality TV. Phelps will appear on a Golf Channel show that helps amateur golfers improve their game.
Two and a Half Men gets a new guest star: Miley Cyrus.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria has been suspended for plagiarism.
Episodes: Matt Gains Weight And Beverly Tries To Move On
Episodes doesn’t have to have a complicated story in order to be funny. Sometimes the most innocuous issue exaggerated to the point where the story works extremely well. This was the case on Sunday night. The episode opens with Sean and Beverly in a meeting with Merc and Carole. Merc and Carole are their usual passive-aggressive selves and try to act as pleasantly as they can toward the Lincolns. Of course, Sean and Beverly know something is wrong. Carole asks them how they think the show is going even though they clearly don’t care about Sean and Beverly’s perspective. Beverly is smart enough to know that Merc and Carole are only asking so they can say what they think about the show.
Merc and Carole finally reveal that they are concerned that Matt has gained weight. Beverly seems hesitant to respond at first and then says that he might have put on a couple of pounds. This might simply be to appease the network, but it is unclear. Sean more obviously disagrees. He says that he doesn’t see any change in Matt’s weight. Beverly says playfully that Sean doesn’t notice those types of things. This behavior between Sean and Beverly is very curious. After Sean halted their sexual encounter at the end of last week’s show, it’s surprising they are able to so fluidly act like a couple and playfully chide each other. Commenting on personal flaws is not common for a professional relationship, especially in a joking matter. It is hard to believe that they are so good at putting personal feelings aside. For some reason, they prefer to deny that they want to give their marriage another try. Of course, Sean is terrible at suppressing his pain and Beverly does not even try to hide it. The Lincolns’ dynamic proves that sometimes things are not better left unsaid.
Shark Week Begins
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Discovery‘s Shark Week, which begins tonight. Over the course of the week, Discover will air 9 specials about the eponymous sea creature.
Here is the complete schedule:
Sunday, August 12
9pm Air Jaws Apocalypse
Shark expert Chris Fallows and producer Jeff Kurr chronicle the life of great white sharks around Seal Island, South Africa. The special focuses on Colossus, who dominates the other sharks in the area. The team also captures dozens of great whites hanging in shallow water eating.
10pm Shark Week’s Impossible Shots
Shark Week’s Impossible shots features wildlife cameramen fighting against time, bad weather, and bad luck to film a previously uncaptured view of a great white shark’s Polaris breach, which is no easy task. The only way to find out whether or not Andy Casagrande and his team were successful is to watch.
Shows That Should Be Forgotten: Joey
Friends was a sitcom on NBC that began in 1994 and lasted 10 seasons. It is currently in syndication on multiple channels and it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Friends might have been a success, but its short-lived spin-off, Joey was a failure from the start. Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) moved from has native New York City to Hollywood in the spin-off. Joey was meant to be a big hit after it was announced as part of NBC’s fall schedule for the 2004 season. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Joey had low ratings from the beginning and never succeeded with critics. It was cancelled in the middle of the second season. Even so, it lasted too long.
In the pilot, Joey goes to Hollywood after hiring a new agent and is offered the lead in two television series. He accepts the one of the offers and assumes that the other one will be a huge flop. The series Joey chose is cancelled almost immediately. At this point, he is right back where he started. He is a struggling actor, who is untalented and is failing to realize his dreams because he is unable to make decent career decisions. Conversely, the show he rejected becomes a huge hit. Joey is close-minded right from the start and it is extremely hard to root for him.
Go On Will Go On
NBC hit a home run with Go On. The show stars Matthew Perry as sportscaster Ryan King, whose boss forces him to join the Transitions therapy group. Of course, Ryan feels that he does not need therapy and any attempt to convince people to agree with him fails because he keeps lashing out at everyone. For those who insist on making Friends comparisons, Ryan is Chandler Bing, if Chandler Bing suffered from clinical depression and was constantly sardonic. It is a little jarring at first, since Friends is still being rerun continually, but it works.
Ryan’s first Transitions’ meeting makes up a big part of the pilot episode. When he first arrives, Ryan takes his place in the circle and listens briefly to some of his fellow group members’ problems. He quickly gets fed up with the wallowing because everything in his life is a competition. Deciding to do something about this, Ryan pulls out a whiteboard and starts making a bracket that one of the group members dubs “March Sadness.” For someone to progress in “March Sadness,” they have to tell their sob story in 5 seconds and it has to be more depressing than their competitors. It is twisted that Ryan turns suffering into a competition, but for some reason it does seem like a feasible way to move on in one’s life. The winner was a Fausta, a woman who spoke mostly Spanish and lost both her husband and her son. As the winner, Ryan crowned Fausta with a pastry box that she now cherishes.
Sharon Osbourne is Leaving America’s Got Talent
After a dispute with NBC involving her son, Sharon Osbourne has decided to quit America’s Got Talent. Obsourne has been with AGT for six years. Her reasons for leaving NBC may be justified, but another change is going to be hard to handle. Sharon Obsourne wasn’t a great judge. She was too lenient with the contestants, even the terrible ones. She always wanted to be nice to the contestants and apologetic to the ones who had no talent. It may not have been reasonable, but it was part of the show. The AGT judge panel thrived on polarity. The other judges’ harsher personas have been at odds with Osbourne for her entire tenure. It was always good television. The classic arguments will be gone. The instinct of telling the men to “behave” will be gone. Howie Mandel is about to become AGT’s longest tenured judge and he has only been on the show for three out of its seven years. There is a huge possibility that a lot of the entertainment value will be gone from the show once Osbourne departs. Of course, it all depends on who replaces her, which has yet to be determined.
Wait! What's A Dial? 