Category Archives: Network Television
The Cliched “Ben and Kate”
Ben and Kate is one of those shows that has been done in one form or another a million times. Kate is the responsible sister and single mother, who has settled down with her daughter to live as normal a life as possible. Ben is her annoying brother, who has never grown up and always arrives at Kate’s house unannounced with a problem. The dynamic is not original, but that does not mean the show has to be completely clichéd. The pilot episode seems to forget that even unoriginal concepts can be done in an original way. Anyone who has ever sat through more than one sitcom will be able to spot the obvious jokes before they come out of the characters’ mouths.
The pilot of Ben and Kate starts with a prologue from Kate’s point of view. It basically says what the audience picks up in the first 5 minutes: Kate grew up too fast because she got pregnant at a young age, whereas her brother never grew up and always ruins anything remotely adult. There are times when Ben acts less mature than Kate’s 5-year-old daughter, Maddie.
Kate and her British female friend, BJ, work at Buddy’s Bar & Grill, which is also the place Ben and his friend Tommy hang out. The bar seems to exist solely as a place to set up overdone jokes. Kate walks around wearing a fanny pack, which the guys and BJ hate. This results in a nasty, yet playful, exchange of insults between BJ and Kate. BJ asks her friend, “Do you know what fanny means in my country?” Kate retorts, “Do you know what BJ means in my country?” To which BJ just responds, “Very well, very well, indeed.” Once the girls are away from the boys, Kate refers to her desire to have sex with her boyfriend George as having “the sex” and says guys want to do her all the time. Of course, BJ feels the need to point out they are not going to have sex if Kate keeps on calling it “the sex.”
Weekly TV Update: August 27
NBC’s Utah affliate KSL refuses to carry The New Normal.
Last Thursday, Jerry Nelson died at 78 years old. He was the voice of the Count on Sesame Street.
Dancing With the Stars viewers have chosen Sabrina Bryan to be the 13th contestant on that show’s all-star season.
Anthony Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations, will take his show to CNN after its upcoming season is over.
The former voice of Dora the Explorer, Caitlin Sanchez, attempts to sue Nickelodeon again because she says her lawyer committed fraud. In the original lawsuit, Sanchez claims she was fired for hitting puberty.
AGT Results Recap: August 22nd
Carly Rae Jepsen
Tuesday night’s wildcard edition of America’s Got Talent was one of the few times this season that the show wasn’t a complete disappointment. The talent wasn’t overwhelming, but at least the night had a more competitive atmosphere. The results were not completely obvious, but there were some clear standouts who seemed destined to take spots. It would have been a perfectly adequate week, if America voted correctly. Instead, Wednesday’s results show was a letdown.
The first result was between Ben Blaque, Sebastian “El Charro De Orro,” and the Bandbaz Brothers. None of these acts completely deserved to advance, but they all had the same basic skill levels as performers. That being said, it wasn’t surprising that Sebastian made it through to the semifinals. He won’t win the competition, but he is reasonably talented.
After Sebastian advanced, it was time for a performance by the cast of a Broadway musical version of Bring It On. The performance was average. It certainly wasn’t amazing, but it was a good time filler.
Jimmy Kimmel Will Air at 11:35pm
Starting in January, ABC will push Nightline back an hour, so that Jimmy Kimmel Live can be a direct competitor to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman. This does not make sense. ABC already wins the 11:35pm late night ratings race against Leno and Letterman with Nightline, which averages 3.8 million viewers. However, ABC loses the ratings race a half hour later because Kimmel averages 1.8 million viewers to Leno’s 3.71 million viewers and Letterman’s 3.22 million viewers. Kimmel also receives the fewest number of viewers among the 3 hosts in the coveted 19-49 demographic.
Cool TV Video Of The Day: Hugh Laurie On Friends
Most American television viewers know Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House. However, in 1998, Laurie made a guest appearance on Friends as a very sardonic airplane passenger who tries to reason with Jennifer Aniston’s character, Rachel, about going to London to stop a wedding. Laurie may have had a small role on Friends, but it’s easy to see why he deserved a big break in America a few years later.
America’s Got Talent: The Wildcard Show
Todd Oliver and Irving
America’s Got Talent has been filled with disappointment this season, so on a show where the judges bring back 12 eliminated acts, it seems logical that this would be the worse show yet. Strangely, it wasn’t. There were still some sub-par acts, but Tuesday’s wildcard show was a good night overall. It was a shot at redemption and some of the acts made their case quite well. Fortunately, no act was a complete waste of time unlike previous nights.
Spencer Horsman
Spencer Horsman is an escape artist, who was extremely disappointing in his quaterfinal performance. He was behind a blank screen performing his escape, so the audience could not see what was happening. Clearly, he had more potential, so Howard brought him back. Horsman showed his potential this time and has proven himself to be a fantastic act. This time he trapped himself in a glass box and filled it with an excessive amount of wet cement. He was attempting to escape the box before he buried himself alive. He was able to keep the crowd on the edge of their seat because the danger level was higher than ever before. Horsman will be back. Howard made the right decision to reinstate him.
AGT Results Recap: August 15th
Gabby Douglas hosts with Nick Canon
After one of the worst performance shows of an already disappointing season, twelve acts from YouTube were facing elimination on last night’s America’s Got Talent. Of the 12 acts, only two really deserved to move on to the semifinals. This has been the pattern all season. There was a small chance that AGT would find a star through YouTube who would enter the competition and save the season, but this was unfortunately not the case. Instead, most of the acts that performed on Tuesday night were terrible, which made the results far too easy to predict.
The show opened with host Nick Cannon introducing Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas as a guest host for the hour. She received standing ovation from the audience. It was a bit unnecessary to have Douglas appear on the show and her presence seemed a little awkward, especially when she was asked to read from the teleprompter. Nevertheless, AGT had to try something to attract its viewers since talent has been lacking, but having Douglas on the show just didn’t work.
Wait! What's A Dial? 