Category Archives: Primetime
Diagnosis: ‘Do No Harm’ Dead on Arrival
You may be familiar with the NBC series Do No Harm as the show that premiered to dismal ratings (the lowest in primetime history, in fact) and was mercilessly ridiculed through every form of social media imaginable. As I sat down to actually watch the pilot it was hard to force the negativity out of my mind and watch the show objectively, but I gave it my best effort and what I discovered was a show that maybe wasn’t deserving of such vehement hate. However, it was admittedly deeply flawed.
Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) is a successful neurosurgeon who has spent the last five years keeping his evil alter-ego, Ian Price, dormant through self-medicating with a strong cocktail that puts him in a coma every night. Like volcanoes are apt to do, Ian eventually erupts and begins wreaking havoc on Cole’s life. I can appreciate a good Jekyll and Hyde story as much as the next person but what I can’t appreciate is a story that is basically implausible from the very beginning. The split personality is attributed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which is a real medical condition.
How Will the New ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Cast Do?
In less than two weeks, 12 new celebrities will head out onto the Dancing with the Stars dance floor. Airing September 16th, celebrities begin to vie for the coveted trophy and bragging rights of Dancing with the Stars Champion. Every year, fans get excited when the announcement comes on Good Morning America around 8:30 am. The answer to “Who will appear on the next season of Dancing with the Stars?” is finally here.
Former NY Jets Wide-Reciever Keyshawn Johnson will join the seventeenth season. Dancing With the Stars typically has one or two athletes on the show each season. They usually become top contenders and are entertaining to watch. He might be at an advantage compared to the other contestants because of the fancy footwork he had to do on a daily basis. Johnson’s fast paced agility and personality will certainly help him out with swift and energetic dance routines.
The other male celebrities on the list are Jack Osbourne, High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu, comedian Bill Engvall, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Pretty Little Liars bad boy Brant Daughtery. Corbin Bleu is the only male contest who has previous experience dancing, so it will be interesting to see how the other men keep up with him and Johnson.
‘My Big Fat Revenge’ Is Big on the Revenge
My Big Fat Revenge sends many mixed messages. The show enables big women to lose weight and get revenge on exes, family members, or anyone who has ever made fun of them for their weight. While it is great that the women receive the help they need to get healthy, the fact that they have to get healthy before they can tell their tormentors off is cruel in it’s own way.
The first episode introduced the audience to Jen and Tamar, whose stories are unfortunately way too common. Jen met her ex-boyfriend through a website specifically for “big beautiful women.” Even though ex-boyfriend was looking for a “big beautiful woman,” he was still ashamed to be seen with her in public. He went as far as asking Jen to lose weight and die her hair, so he could date a skinny blonde chick. Tamar’s problem was her mother, who would call her daughter, a “tub of lard” and say she had a “tire belly.” Tamar had to deal with the jabs at her weight throughout her entire childhood. Understandably, both women wanted to get revenge, but they were sent to Los Angeles to lose weight first.
In Los Angeles, Jen and Tamar spent three months exercising. Every day they were in the gym for six hours. This was shown with the standard weight-loss show montage, but since My Big Fat Revenge isn’t really a show about weight loss it was a quick segment. During those three months, Jen lost 68 pounds and Tamar lost 46 pounds.
5 Soul Crushingly Sad Fry Moments from “Futurama”
Ten years after creating one of the most recognized television families of all time, Matt Groening and company introduced us to a new kind of animated series. Futurama had a few similarities to The Simpsons. They both aired Sunday nights on Fox. The type of design and animation were similar. They even contained the same pop-culture referencing humor that has become synonymous with current generation comedies, such as South Park and v. Although they shared a few similarities, Futurama was very different from The Simpsons.
The Simpsons was and will always be one of Fox’s most beloved and successful series. Futurama may never reach that status, but it will go down as one of the funniest and original programs that Fox had the audacity to cancel after only four (almost five) seasons. Luckily after a successful string of straight to DVD releases, Comedy Central resurrected the cult series for four more seasons.
With the final episode airing this week, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some of the things that made Futurama the under-appreciated heartwarming show that it is. Starting with some of the soul crushingly sad moments from the shows impressive seven-season run that spanned over fourteen years.
The series finale of Futurama airs on Comedy Central this Wednesday at 10 pm
5. When Fry is Late to Dinner with Leila Because of Time Travel
Season 6, Episode 7: “The Late Phillip J. Fry”
Fry never has any luck with time travel. One of the latest examples was in last season’s episode “The Late Phillip J. Fry.” Professor Farnsworth invents a time machine and before a date with Leela for her birthday and Fry, Bender, and the Professor end up going on an adventure through time. Unfortunately for Fry, the Professor fails to invent away to go back in time, only forward. They continue to travel further in time until they kind find a year where backwards time travel exists.
Back in the present, Leela is stood up by Fry, and is never seen again. The audience sees a dismal future that does not contain Fry, Bender, and the Professor. Leela’s future is successful, but loveless. She is mad at Fry for leaving and not explaining why. Years have passed a birthday card appears out of nowhere and hits future Leela in the face. The card is from Fry and it explains why he disappeared. Leela goes back to the restaurant and leaves a message for Fry to hopefully see in the future. Fry sees the heartfelt message left by Leela and says, “I made it, Leela. Sorry I’m a billion years late.”
Fry, Bender, and the Professor are unable to find away back to their time. They travel to the end of time and watch the destruction of the universe, only to realize the universe keeps restarting in a non-stop loop. By going further in time, they could get back to the time before they left. They come back in time to kill and replace themselves (avoiding a time paradox, according to the Professor). Fry gets to go on his date with Leela, and everything is right with the world.
“Breaking Bad’s” ‘Rabid Dog’ Is All Over The Place
When has Jesse versus Walt not had a presence in Breaking Bad? Sure, it hasn’t always been at the magnitude it’s at now – it feels like it’s been forever since the worst thing we saw Walt do was call Jesse an idiot – but it’s always been there. It’s been growing in severity as each season has passed, from some verbal disagreements to several physical fights, all hopefully building up to one last confrontation. “Rabid Dog” set the scene for the final showdown; it just took awhile for it to get there. The last few episodes have flown by. I find myself looking at the clock and thinking, “No way an hour has already passed. It just started!” This episode, though, was a little slower, starting with Walt’s faulty gas pump lie.
Before I get to that, the opening scene needs a little love. I’m pretty sure I gnawed off all of my fingernails as Walt moved through his gasoline-soaked house searching for Jesse and discovered he was gone. Walt’s cover-up for the gasoline smell kind of undid all of that. It wasn’t poor writing or a bad transition. It’s that Walt’s elaborate lies have become so tiresome that they’re disrupting the course of the show. The bigger the lie, the more he exaggerates this sense of earnestness, and even Walt Jr. picked up on it. I have to admit, I gasped when he asked his dad to tell the truth for once. I thought for sure this was going to be the moment he started to figure everything out. My hopes were dashed when he started talking about Walt’s cancer, which he gladly played into. Skyler seemed to know almost immediately and confronted him about it once the family settled in at its temporary hotel home.
Perez Hilton Visits “America’s Next Top Model”
The competition on America’s Next Top Model is heating up. This week, contestants were given the chance to talk to their loved ones. All 12 of the contestants had to split one hour among themselves with the winner of last week’s best photo, Jourdan, receiving 10 minutes. Jourdan abuses the privilege by talking to her boyfriend for over ten minutes and other members of the house understandably get annoyed.
Everyone feels that Jourdan is top dog on America’s Next Top Model because she has been getting high praise lately from the judges and abuses her privileges. Of course, contestants get annoyed at Jeremy as well. He likes Jourdan, will defend her, and everyone knows it.
Salvador Dali Confuses The Panelists On ‘What’s My Line?’
Whenever Salvador Dali is around, things take a turn toward the strange. While What’s My Line?‘s master of ceremonies, John Charles Daly, often finds himself tied by the limitedness of the “yes and no” question format, Dali’s appearance makes matters worse because Dali wants to say “yes” to everything. Then again, you wouldn’t expect anything less from a man who considered himself to be drugs.
‘Breaking Bad’: These Are My ‘Confessions’
With every new episode of Breaking Bad comes seriously heightened anxiety levels. We’ve all endured some pretty panicky moments over the course of the show, but no episode has ever come close to the tension “Confessions” created. Let’s start from the beginning.
The opening scene brought us to a diner with Todd, his uncle, and a cohort, all of whom were just returning from laying a smackdown on Declan and his subpar meth lab. Todd let Walt know what went down via a voicemail and then, after sitting down at the table, gloats about his involvement with the train heist in what felt like an attempt to convince the older, hardened criminals that he was ready to head up his own lab. We don’t hear about Todd again or the rest of the episode, so it’s unclear whether or not Walt actually heard the message.
In the next scene, Walt seems to be focusing on more important things than his cell phone. He’s trying to cover up his black eyes with concealer while also talking to Walt Jr. He’s not totally engrossed in the conversation until Jr. mentions that Marie invited him over for dinner. Walt perks up mid-makeup application and, just as his son is walking out the door, he pulls him back in. He has to think fast, so he does the one thing he knows will keep Walt Jr. in the house: he drops the “C” bomb. He was clearly not ready for the news and decides to stay home, just like Walt, the expert manipulator who chose to go after his own son, knew he would. When Hank gets home sans his nephew, Marie panics. She becomes more on-edge once she realizes Hank hasn’t revealed his secret to anyone at work. The scene cuts to the White residence, and Walt recites and records the beginning of what sounds a confession, which starts out almost identically to the one in the pilot.
Who Can ‘Beat Bobby Flay?’
Food Network loves having chefs who aren’t famous compete against Bobby Flay. The Iron Chef America and former Throwdown! with Bobby Flay star now has a new show, Beat Bobby Flay, which is a combination of the former two shows. While Beat Bobby Flay feels derivative, so does everything that Food Network airs nowadays. Only, this time it doesn’t get boring because they took the some ideas from both Iron Chef and Throwdown! and left the unnecessary exposition on the cutting room floor.
Of course, every show begins with a segment that introduces the chefs to viewers. Since Beat Bobby Flay is only a half hour, each chef of the two chefs competing in the first round gets about a minute to describe themselves, which means no long, dramatic life stories. Life stories are limited to “this is my cooking style, this is how and why I chose it, and this is how I developed it.” It’s a cooking show. No less would be kind of odd. Any more would border on tedious and risk veering into uninteresting.
The “America’s Next Top Model” Men Get Catty
Oh boy! If you thought last week was entertaining, this week certainly turned up a couple of notches. Within the first few minutes, tension in the house already started to form between Chris H. and Mike.
Chris has a tendency of being overly dramatic and Mike told him to shut the f**k up. This was all over having a 5 minute conversation with a loved one back at home. Chris mentions that he remembers his mom as being abusive physically and verbally. An example would be, she chucked a cell phone at his head. Being disrespected by another fellow contestant, Chris sees Mike in a whole different light. Ouch, can you say catfight? And there was certainly no catwalk there to be seen. Mike is certainly no fan of Chris’s if Mike would call Chris “a dramatic little bitch.” Since when do guys get so caddy all of a sudden on the show?
Wait! What's A Dial? 