TV On DVD - July 12, 2005

This is late but Tuesday was not a good day for me. I spent most of the time I'd usually use to write this trying to locate some fittings for a damaged underground sprinkler head. When I finally found what I thought was the right parts I discovered that I got the wrong size. Anyway here are the listings of DVDs released on Tuesday.

America Undercover: The Autopsy Files
- Part of HBO's America Undercover documentary series, The Autopsy Files examines autopsies in a number of real cases. This DVD contains the original 1994 Autopsy: Confessions of a Medical Examiner and the 1995 Autopsy 2: Voices From The Dead. Although the series is shown on Canada's Documentary Channel I haven't seen it.

Butterflies: Series 1
- British series which I never saw. Summaries indicate that it has a vague resemblance to Desperate Housewives except not really. Wendy Craig plays Ria Parkison who is happily but "not excitedly" married to Ben, played by the ever useful and enjoyable Geoffrey Palmer. No wonder she always seems to be on the verge of having an affair.

Care Bears: Share a Scare
Care Bears: Season of Caring
- You have no idea how much I loathe the Care Bears. Suffice it to say I didn't like them when they started out as Hallmark Cards, and adding voices and movement hasn't improved my feelings any.

The Best of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe
- TV on DVD called this the "Best 10 episode collectors edition" to which I can only ask "There were good episodes of this?" Maybe I just don't get it, to me it's just another animated toy commercial.

Hercules: Legendary Journeys - Season Six
- Ah Hercules, the role that Kevin Sorbo was born to play. The sixth and final season was abbreviated with only six episodes, but the series on the whole was definitely a keeper. The main characters were never taken too seriously and the supporting cast was very good, including noted New Zealand writer, actor and director Michael Hurst as Hercules' best friend Iolus, the late Kevin Smith as his best enemy (and half brother), the god Ares, Alexandra Tydings as his half-sister the goddess Aphrodite, and the ever popular Bruce Campbell as the thief Autolycus.

Hunter: The Complete Second Season
- Never really a favourite of mine, but even I have to admit that the interaction between Sergeant Rick Hunter and his partner Sergeant DeeDee "the Brass Butterfly" McCall was letter perfect, like people who could get at each other but always had each other's back.

Mickey Mouse Club: Best Of The Original
- No matter how many times Disney revives the Mickey Mouse Club this is the one people will remember. This is actually the second version of the club (the first was in the 1930s and was basically a fan club for the character Mickey Mouse) but this is the one where everyone saw Annette Funicello grow up. The cast also included Don Grady (later Robby on My Three Sons) Bobby Burgess (later a featured singer and dancer on the Lawrence Welk Show) and of course Disney mainstay Tommy Kirk. This disk contains five episodes, however there is a box set from the Disney Treasures series with ten episodes and a number of special features which is probably a better buy for the real fan...if you can find it.

MMC: The Best Of Britney, Justin and Christina
- Back in 1989 someone at Disney thought it was a good idea to revive the Mickey Mouse Club yet again, this time for Disney's own cable channel. Apparently someone then decided that the name The All New Mickey Mouse Club (to differentiate it from the New Mickey Mouse Club which was the 1977 version) wasn't "hip and happenin'" enough...or something, because it was dubbed MMC. This DVD release features four episodes of the show plus concert performances by Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, all of whom were in the cast for the last two seasons of the show.

The Nanny - The Complete First Season
- I have never made any secret about my love of Fran Drescher or The Nanny. Subtle comedy it wasn't but it routinely had me rolling in the aisles. The adult casting was superb with the two major supporting actors - Daniel Davis as the butler Niles and Lauren Lane as Fran's nemesis C.C. Babcock - often getting many of the best gags. The pilot was fairly ordinary and gives no hint of what's to come but once the series got rolling it was, at its best, reminiscent of the best of I Love Lucy. In fact Fran Drescher did one episode in a later season as a tribute to I Love Lucy. Highly recommended, but I am biased.

Oblongs, The Complete Series
- Another Best Buy exclusive. This WB series about a rather odd family that lived on land that had been a toxic waste dump lasted a total of 8 weeks, with four more episodes never airing. It has been on Teletoon, but I don't recall having seen it.

Poirot: The Classic Collection
- This massive 12 disc set collects all of the classic Hercule Poirot stories done for A&E (classic to diferentiate them from the "New Adventures" which was a series of two hour movies made later). The series (and the movies) starred David Suchet as Poirot and he was perhaps the best actor for the part - certainly better than Sir Peter Ustinov, who appeared as Poirot in two theatrical movies - Death On The Nile, Evil Under The Sun and Appointment With Death - and three made for TV movies - Murder In Three Acts, Dead Man's Folly, and Thirteen At Dinner. Although the price ($196.50 from Amazon.ca) seems like a lot it is less than half the cost of the 12 discs bought individually.

Sealab 2021: Season Three
- Another "modern" animated series from Cartoon Network, and another one that I haven't seen. The premise is a carry over from the old Hanna-Barbera series Sealab 2020 but with a decidedly bizarre turn as the crew of Sealab is going mad, but in a funny way. Uses scenes from Alex Toth's original series.

Tales from the Crypt: The Complete First Season
- HBO's horror series loosely based on the classic EC comics from the 1950s. Reminiscent in some ways of the old Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling series in the use of a host (which was in fact used by those same EC Comics as well as a host of radio shows from the 1940s) to bookend the stories which always had a twist ending. In this case it was the garrulous Cryptkeeper, who was basically an animatronic puppet.

Titus: Complete Seasons 1 & 2
- Not a show that I ever watched, indicated by the fact that It lasted a lot longer than I actually thought it did. Worth noting if only for the presence of the always watchable Stacy Keach as Chris Titus's father, both in the current and the frequent flashback sequences.

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom: Dangerous Encounters in the Wild
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom: Mammals of North America
- Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was standard fare in many households. Sponsored by Mutual of Omaha (an insurance company) this was one way to get nature documentaries on commercial television in the days before cable and satellite TV. The host of the series was Marlin Perkins and he was always in there, not just as host but as one of the people studying the animals, along with his assistants, usually either Stan Brock or Jim Fowler. While the series continued for a few years after Perkins left the series in 1985 (he died of cancer in 1986) it wasn't the same. These two sets include 10 half-hour episodes each of the series.

Season 1 - Wire in the Blood
Wire in the Blood: The Complete Second Season
- A British series which I haven't seen about a psychologist with an expertise in serial killers partnered with a police detective. I know it sounds like a depressingly large number of American cop shows, but the British perspective apparently makes it work better.

Under the Umbrella Tree Volume 3
- A series which steadfastly refuses to show up on Amazon.ca or on Amazon.com. Which is odd considering that the show was produced by the CBC in cooperation with the Disney Channel. As a result I can't tell you anything about what's on the Volume 3 disk.

Poll Results - Where Do You Get Your TV Listings

After last week's large voter turn out this was a little - no a lot - disappointing; only three votes and I cast one of them to test a change I made in the setup of the poll (to prevent multiple voters). As a result the numbers are not particularly useful, but indicate a little bit of a trend.

The question asked was What source do you use most for TV Listings? I asked this because the source source I depend on for my listings has changed over the years for a variety of reasons.

None of the voters used TV Guide, their local TV listings, or other magazine. TV Guide as a source seems to have gone down in popularity considerably. About the only time that I buy it anymore is for the fall TV Previews. Increasingly the presentation of listings is compressed into grids with little information about the episodes being shown during the week, and presentation of information on digital channels is restricted to prime time only. That said It's better than my local newspaper's listings book which doesn't bother to include listings for digital channels at all. Ads for them yes (mainly for the channels owned by Canwest Global which also owns the local paper). As for other magazines, my local cable provider doesn't do a magazine and the other available publications are for satellite sources, so of course the channel listings don't match my TV. However the satellite publications do give listings, and in some cases summaries, for a full month.

I'm a bit surprised that "online source" didn't get a vote. I use Zap2It as a secondary source, largely because their listings are searchable and extend for about 2 weeks which is longer than any other source except some of the commercial magazines. Their search is also a lot more comprehensive than any other since they include descriptions as well as just titles.

The TV Listings channel got one vote. It's probably different elsewhere but Shaw Cable's Listings Channel doesn't give me much information beyond what's on right now and what will be on in the next half hour. In addition they've moved most of the digital channel listings onto a second channel, I suppose because the scroll for the analog channels was so long.

Searchable Cable or Satellite Box Guide got two votes, including mine. The searchability isn't as good as Zap2It since it only searches by title, and the listings don't go as far in advance as not only Zap2It but all of the dead tree versions. Still it has a couple of advantages - it's right there on the TV (and not in another room like my computer) and it often seems to be more up to date. Not always but sometimes.

I'm holding off on the next poll until Thursday so I can start asking about the 2005 Emmy Nominees which should give about eight or nine polls about the awards.

A Sort-Of Apology

A few days ago I got the following e-missive. Although I have the name of the offended party I won't run it since I haven't contacted him and asked his permission. The guy (I will go that far - it was a man) wanted me to apologise for the piece I wrote on the first episode of Dancing With The Stars. Here's what he wrote (although I've replaced his quotation marks in keeping with the style I try to maintain in the Blog):

I'm awaiting your public apology relative to Dancing with the Stars. You thought you knew it all.

Well I'm not going to do it. True I was wrong when I said that Dancing With The Stars was a train wreck waiting to happen. But I refuse to apologise for expressing what at the time was my honest opinion.

Allow me to defend my position. The review was, on the whole not particularly negative to the show itself. The last line states "it at least has the advantage of originality" and while I did fault them on some technical gaffes - like the cameras shooting directly into bright lights which had the effect of totally obscuring the dancers - and for hiring Tom Bergeron as host (and giving him a pile of lame jokes), I did state that I found the premise intriguing. In fact I stated in my original review "Ballroom Dancing is a beautiful thing and even sensual thing when you're doing it ... and if there's a market for hours of figure skating in the winter, then there should be a market for this."

No, my problem wasn't with the show it was with the viewing public. The show was imported from Britain where Ballroom Dancing is a staple on TV, while it is hard to find Ballroom Dancing on TV even on a cable station in North America. Broadcast network coverage? Forget about it. Look at the British imports in the "nontraditional" programming areas that have appeared on network TV in the US and died: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, The Weakest Link and the original concept of Big Brother (strictly speaking it debuted in the Netherlands but it was only when it hit in Britain that it came to the US) were all tried and for one reason or another failed in the US. This season's other British import in this style Hit Me Baby One More Time drew less than satisfactory ratings. My expectation for Dancing With The Stars was that North Americans wouldn't turn on the TV to watch it - that having expressed an enjoyment of people eating disgusting things (Fear Factor) Trying to find "Mr. Right" (The Bachelor), and scheming and backstabbing (too many shows to mention but including Survivor and The Apprentice and their clones), they would have neither the grounding nor the interest in watching people - even if they are semi-famous - dance in a formal style, because there wouldn't be enough "action". Thankfully I was wrong. It almost restores my faith in TV viewers. Almost.

The part of the email that really got me was that last sentence: "You thought you knew it all." Well no I didn't. I did what reviewers do, I stated my opinion. In my opinion the show was a train wreck waiting to happen because I didn't think it was going to get an audience. And incidentally I wasn't the only one. Although a Google News search didn't go back farther than June 6 here are some comments from professional reviewers.

• The Mercury News: Take ABC's Dancing With the Stars (9 p.m. Wednesdays, Ch. 7) which made its debut last week. It's a ballroom dancing competition. (Well, that's OK.) It's a poorly executed version of a British hit. (Strike one.) It features such D-list celebrities as ex-``Bachelorette'' Trisha Sutter. (Strike two.) And it has a really lame host in Tom Bergeron from ``America's Funniest Home Videos.'' (Strike three, you're out.).
  
• The San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman: I also didn't review Dancing With the Stars on ABC because not just my life, but all lives, are too short to watch D-list celebrities dance.
  
• The New York Daily News: Programs that premiered last week without benefit of preview, ABC's Dancing With the Stars and NBC's Hit Me Baby One More Time, provided too little context and even less entertainment value. Judges on the former tried too hard to be glib and quote-worthy (but failed), while watching the ravages of time do their work on formerly idolized rockers is more sadistic than heartwarming.
  
• The Washington Post: Dancing With the Stars Inexplicably, about 13.5 million viewers watched the unveiling of ABC's dance competition starring C-list has-beens such as New Kids on the Block's Joey McIntyre, Rod Stewart's ex-model spouse Rachel Hunter, former world heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield and professional reality-series star Trista Sutter.
  
• Canoe.ca ( the online component of Canada's Sun newspapers): Forget the strange goings-on in the jungle on Lost, a more bizarre and mind-boggling mystery is emerging at ABC. No, it's not the network's new show Invasion or the latest script for Desperate Housewives - it's the unbelievable success of the ultra-cheesy ballroom dance-off show, Dancing With the Stars.

There are more if you're interested. By comparison I was gentle. They're all expressing their opinion. Could that opinion be wrong? Of course and I am willing to admit that my assessment of the ratings potential of Dancing With The Stars was off the mark. However nowhere have I ever said that what I've written while reviewing a TV show has been anything but my opinion, and I doubt that any critic ever has. So while I might apologise for not being perceptive enough to predict that the show would be a hit, I will not apologise for expressing the opinion that it wouldn't find a large audience.

Oh Joy, Another Meme

I know Sam, you're just spreading the "happiness".

What I was doing ten years ago:
5 years ago:
1 year ago:
Yesterday: Pretty much the same answer to all of these - writing when I get the chance and working for my family. Over the years the boss has changed. Ten years ago it was my Grandfather but of late it's been my Mother. Pretty mundane stuff really and I don't want to go into details. Ten years ago I was publishing my own small but reasonably well received Diplomacy zine as a sideline, but the Internet (as a way of playing the game) and some personal problems ended that. Interestingly I average about twice as many hit daily on this blog as I had subscribers for my zine - which shows how pathetic it was.

5 snacks I enjoy:
Dill Pickle flavoured Doritos
Old Dutch Barbecue flavour potato chips
Hawkins Cheezies
Chocolate Chip cookies (the soft chewy type preferred)
Muffins

5 songs I know all the words to:
Oh Canada!
God Save The Queen
The Star Spangled Banner
- As you can see I'm not much of a one for listening to music except as background.

5 Things I would do with $100 million:
Buys some well run businesses - it takes money to make money and once you have it you want to make more of it.
Give $1 million in a trust fund to the Library Fund of the University of Saskatchewan.
Spread another $9 million to various other charities that interest me.
Play poker with Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and the others at the big game at the Belagio.
Travel... a lot.

5 locations I would like to run away to:
Disneyland - what can I say, the one chance I had to go was thwarted by one University exam.
London - the one in England since I've already been to the one in Ontario.
Rome
Istanbul
New Zealand - I don't know why but New Zealand has always fascinated me

5 bad habits I have:
Forgetting things.
Prevaricating.
Not paying attention.
Either not talking enough or talking too much.
Eating junk food.

5 things I like doing:
Bowling.
Blogging.
Biking.
Playing Poker online.
And of course Watching TV.

5 things I would never wear:
Jeans - I've tried in the past but when I take them off my legs tend to look like I've been sunburned and been really uncomfortable for hours afterwards
Thong underwear - I had enough wedgies in grade school.
Cowboy boots - can't get them to fit my feet.
A muscle shirt - there are some things that would be criminal to expose to the public.
Bermuda Shorts - for the same reason and yes I am talking about my legs.

5 TV shows I like:
The Amazing Race - The only reality show I desperately want to be on and can't because I'm Canadian.
Battlestar Galactica
Iron Chef - Japanese or the new American version, but not the one that was on UPN.
CSI - the original but New York isn't that bad
House
and a host of others of course.

5 Biggest joys of the moment:
My nephew Brian - 2 1/2 years old and I don't get to see him nearly enough.
Online Poker - I enjoy it even if I'm only adequate at it.
Listening to Big Band jazz or even classical music.
Reading.
Having the hearing in my left ear come back.
(This last one requires a bit of an explanation. For the past few years the hearing in my left ear tends to become less than normal for about six months every year - sort of like a permanent case of swimmers ear. It always comes back, usually in June or July.)

5 Favorite toys:
My TV.
My DVD player.
My Computer.
My Shortwave Radio Receiver.
My Bike.

5 Next victims:
Well I could suggest Tim and Ronniecat but I doubt they'd be any more likely to reply than Sutpen or Cooke. On the other hand Linda probably would if she has the time.

Here We Go Again

Is it possible that this is the sixth season of the American version of Big Brother? It seems like only five years ago that we were marvelling to the antics of "Chicken" George and Will "Mega", not to mention the emotional wreck that was Karen. Ah yes, how times have changed.

The truth is that the first season of Big Brother was the only real season of Big Brother that North Americans have ever seen. The show, which had been a huge success in Europe when CBS introduced it in 2000, brought eleven people from across the United States together and locked them in a "house" together under observation 24/7. Based on what people on "the outside" saw they were supposed to phone in and vote for one of two "houseguests" who had been nominated for eviction by the other people "inside." The only problem - well one of the problems - was the show really didn't work in the Unites States. The show's ratings were nothing to write home about, although there are a lot of programmers today who would have loved the numbers that that first season of Big Brother drew. Moreover a lot of the viewers, who had been expecting either the metaphorical second coming or the end of the universe - depending on which critics they were reading - just found the show boring. Part of that could be attributed to the fact that things that could be shown on European and Australian versions of the show - nudity, swearing and generally boorish behaviour - couldn't be shown on American TV. Most importantly the viewers had been given something to compare Big Brother to, a little show that CBS had decided to sacrifice that summer of 2000 called Survivor. The ratings for Survivor were what the network had expected from Big Brother. Indeed even the Big Brother houseguests, who had seen Survivor before they went into the house, were in awe. When two people from the Big Brother house were taken to the Emmys the one thing they talked about afterwards was meeting Survivor Rudy Boesch.

CBS wanted changes made and they made this clear to the shows producers, Arnold Shapiro Productions and the Dutch media giant Endemol Productions. The result made the show more like Survivor to the point where it was a near carbon copy. Instead of challenges just being for food or rewards, one person would become "Head Of Household" (HOH) who got his or her own private room for the week. Instead of the houseguests selecting two people for eviction, that job was given to the HOH. It was the houseguests, not the viewers who were given the task of voting people out - the audience had lost their interactive capacity and were reduced to spectators. The show became at best an inferior carbon copy of Survivor with the players adopting the tactics that Richard Hatch had used so well in the first Survivor (and which most subsequent players have applied so poorly) complete with a final jury vote by evicted houseguests to decide the ultimate winner. The results in terms of ratings were slightly better, but not that much.

Season 3 saw the first of the gimmicks which my friend Ian J. Ball objects to so much. In that season the "Power of Veto" was introduced. It allowed the holder - who won a cheesy looking medallion in a competition - to remove one of the people nominated for elimination from the mix but couldn't be used on yourself until the last time it was used in that season. Moreover at one point during the season, when four players had been eliminated, the one of the evicted houseguests was brought back into the house, ultimately voted back in by their fellow players. If anything ratings for that season of Big Brother were down slightly from the previous year, but close enough to what they had been for the difference to be of little significance. In Season 4 the gimmick was the "X Factor". Several people in the house had been in relationships with other players. These ex-couples (get it) had in fact been recruited because of their previous relationships. There were fireworks - to the point where one of the contestants was removed by the producers after flying into a jealous rage, while the viewers also saw (or rather didn't see thanks to very large comforters and an awareness that they were on camera) a pair of contestants supposedly having sex - but the show had moved far from its roots. The fifth season saw a new gimmick. "Project DNA" actually had two. One contestant discovered that another was a sister he never knew existed, but the major twist was that one player was actually two - identical twin sisters who swapped in and out of the house for several weeks before they were allowed to reveal their secret. They didn't win of course.

This year there's another gimmick of course. Described by CBS as "The Summer Of Secrets" the show has started out with a new "house"; the old one - actually a number of mobile homes put together - was demolished to make room for new CBS offices. This one is apparently at least partially within a soundstage to ensure that there won't be much in the way of interference from the outside world. Unlike previous seasons where the sexes were balanced there are eight women and six men. Apparently one of the contestants is transgendered person. (If so I suspect it's Ivette, who claims to have a secret that none of the others will guess and despite the fact that we see her kiss another woman I don't think it's that she's a lesbian - every season has had at least one gay person in it.) The new house - a two story structure - apparently has secret rooms that the houseguests can discover and there are reportedly trapdoors in the "backyard". But the big "secret" is that the producers have totally abandoned the base concept that all of the contestants are strangers. Each of the contestants is in fact partnered with another person in the house with whom they have a preexisting relationship, but each pair thinks that they're the only ones in that situation. If they can keep the secret throughout the show and are the last two people in the house, the winner will receive $1 million while the runner-up will get $250,000. If a partnership doesn't finish first and second the winner will "only" get $500,000.

It's hard to write a real review of Big Brother based on the first episode. It's not that the show is too complex, it's just that even more than most reality programs this show lives or dies on the quality of the people in the cast and the first episodes presents the viewer with the same dilemma that the initial Head of Household faces in choosing the first nominees for elimination - we know virtually nothing about these people and the structure of the first episode means that we don't get to learn much about most of them. We don't know personalities yet, even though there are some forceful people coming to the fore, like Eric the fireman, and Howie the meteorologist. For now at least the new gimmick adds little to the show, to the point where we don't yet know who is partnered with whom. We don't even know yet how it will affect strategy; in the first episode's combination Food and Head Of Household challenge the optimal strategy for each partnership would seem to be for one partner to be on each team of seven competitors but since we don't know the identity of the partners we don't know if that plan was followed.

For better or for worse, Big Brother is the model for the reality-competition show industry that has grown to such large - and imitative - proportions. It is ironic of course that the show which was innovative in its international incarnations has been reduced to a rather pale imitation of another show in it's American version. Maybe Americans just aren't interested in participating in their own entertainment, although the interactive aspect of the show has successfully imported with American Idol and even Dancing With The Stars. It is also possible, I suppose, that the time wasn't right for the original concept and that if it were introduced today with greater online access (and using toll-free 800 numbers instead of pay to vote 900 numbers) the show as it was created would have been a bigger success. In the end however I think that the original American incarnation of Big Brother "failed" because it was being compared with Survivor. Both the structural changes in the elimination process, and the increasing reliance on gimmicks to keep the show "interesting" and "innovative" are the result. We'll have to see how that works out, but on the whole I feel they should focus more on getting interesting people and less on gimmicks to keep viewers involved.

The End Of Two Sumer Shows

I hadn't planned on writing anything today but then I remember that Wednesday night represented the finales for two popular summer series - Beauty And The Geek and Dancing With The Stars - so I figured I might as well do a quick recap.

I actually don't have much to say about Beauty And The Geek. The final episode seemed to drag a bit because there was no final activities. The challenges in previous weeks had been a major factor in the enjoyment of the show and something was missing without them. That's not to say that there wasn't something of interest. We were finally able to see Richard in a situation where he wasn't acting the fool. He actually seemed to be a pretty good piano player. Had he been able to show this side of his personality earlier in the series he might have seemed less aggravating to everyone else - both in the mansion and amongst those watching. That's not to say that Richard wasn't good TV and you have to wonder just how much of what he was doing was the real guy and how much of it was playing to the cameras. Certainly it was the combative Richard/Chuck relationship that became the principal area of conflict in the series rather than the male/female relationships. So I suppose it was fitting that the two big "stars" - and their female partners - faced each other in the final episode. There was a tremendous conflict in styles. Away from the piano Richard was doing an exceptionally good imitation of the young Woody Allen (I'd previously compared Richard to the character of Urkel, but I think the Wood-man is closer to the mark), obsessing over everything that possibly could go wrong and what they should focus on for studying. Meanwhile Chuck - always controlled and disciplined thanks in part to meditation and martial arts training - took the attitude that what happens is what is meant to happen. And that's what basically occurred. The final elimination was tightly fought and literally came down to Richard not knowing what Mindy's middle name was while Chuck knew what Caitilin's was.

As for Dancing With The Stars, let me just say that it grew on me to the point where, if I currently had a special lady in my life, I'd probably be willing to head off to Arthur Murray's for some dance lessons which would probably go better than the ones I had before my high school graduation - although anything would have been better than that. The truth is however that John O'Hurley and Charlotte Jorgenson were robbed, in part by the judges and in part by the scoring system which gave as much weight to audience opinion as it did to judges scores. There was no possible way that Kelly Monaco and Alec Mazo's free-style dance routine was worth 10s across the board while John and Charlotte's was only worth 9s. Monaco's footwork was suspect in my view and she seemed to stumble at least once. The three point difference in the scores for the freestyle was enough to give Kelly and Alec a one point lead overall in the night's voting which meant 2 points from the judges while John and Charlotte got one. The audience voting last week apparently was stronger for Kelly and Alec - why, I don't know although it might be that she's younger or that she's on an ABC soap and thus more visible - than for John and Charlotte. However it may not have mattered. If the professional judges hadn't been so blind (or, if you're cynical, hadn't been told how to vote) and given John and Charlotte two votes and Kelly and Alec one, a tie would have resulted which apparently would have been settled based on the previous week's audience vote, so John and Charlotte were screwed either way.

Suggestions: Since The WB has already announced that Beauty And The Geek will be returning (much to my friend Ian J. Ball's disgust - see his Summer Update - 06/23/05) and since ABC is sure to renew Dancing with the Stars although they're not quite sure yet when they'll put it into the lineup, I should like to offer the following suggestions.

Beauty And The Geek: Geekier looking geeks. Richard really was the "geekiest" of the males although Joe had his moments. On the other hand the network should also look for women who are also more the way the website describes them - intellectually impaired. Just as an example, Scarlett - eliminated last week - may be a model and actress but she also had a college GPA of 3.4, a degree on business and is considering going for her MBA. The same held true of some of the other women.

Dancing With The Stars: More stars, less Bergeron. That guy really started to annoy me after a while and it wasn't a very long while. The British, Australian and New Zealand versions of the show had 10 teams which would make the initial dances shorter but would extend the series a few more weeks. Also, keep it in the summer. It may have been a big ratings grabber in the summer but I don't think it would have fared as well against new scripted programming. Finally and most importantly, fix the scoring! Audience participation is fine but it was a disaster in the final episode to have the audience vote count equally with the votes of the professional judges. Why not have each judge's vote count separately and the audience preference count for a quarter of the final total. After all theyknow what they're looking for. Oh yeah, and bring back O'Hurley and Jorgenson next year for another face-off with Monaco and Mazo.

TV on DVD - July 5, 2005

Very thin list this week, including one which can't be bought in Canada or at Amazon. On the other hand I am enjoying the dog days of summer although if my online Poker playing gets any worse I may have to shop for a new mouse - I seem to get too smart for my own good and slamming the mouse on the desk is not good for it. Next entry will probably be for the debut of Big Brother on Thursday.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Best Of Spike (Best Buy Exclusive)
- There's them that like Spike and them that don't. He grows on you I guess, but then so does foot fungus (you now know which camp I fall into). It doesn't really matter to me, since you can only get this DVD through Best Buy, and a check of the Best Buy Canada website indicates that you can't get it at Best Buy's Canadian stores. To be fair the Spike episodes are frequently entertaining, but there's still something disturbing about the character.

Fantastic Four - The Complete Animated Series
- We all know why this is being released now. This release of the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series from the Marvel Action Hour is clearly an effort to cash in on the release of the new movie. I never watched this although I'm sure that the show was seen on some station in this market. If the art on the TV.com site is any indicator at all, this animated version had none of the power or dynamism of the original Jack Kirby version of the characters. Of course I'm not one to judge - I've always preferred DC.

Monk: Season 3
- Monk is available in most of Canada on the digital cable channel Canadian Learning Television (I know it's a pretty odd choice, but CLT is a fairly odd station - apparently Monk is included as part of Communications Studies 358 at Athabasca University in their Telecourse service). I saw the first season of Monk when ABC showed the series the summer after it debuted. I enjoyed it at the time and was rather disappointed that ABC didn't showing subsequent seasons. I was even more surprised when I learned that ABC had originally ordered the show. They pulled out when Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) decided that he didn't want to play Adrian Monk. I'm not sure what the bigger mistake was - ABC pulling out when Richards did or ABC wanting Richards to play Monk in the first place. I haven't seen the subsequent seasons, mainly because I haven't made an effort to. Season three is the final season with the marvellous Bitty Schram as Monk's assistant Sharona and introduces Traylor Howard as Natalie, her replacement.

Roughnecks: Starship Troopers - Complete Campaigns
- Okay, this one is a total surprise to me. I didn't know it existed and don't know why it exists. Apparently it did show up on Teletoon here in Canada but quite frankly although I enjoyed the Heinlein novel when I was younger, I grew out of it. I hated the movie (except for Dina Meyer's nudes scenes of course) and can't see how you could translate that into a series aimed at kids or even young adults although I gather it is closer to the novel than the movie, and the animation is supposed to be excellent.

Tour of Duty: Complete Third Season
- Tour of Duty is a show that I never watched, largely because the subject matter doesn't interest me. As a series it was never as successful (or supported by CBS) as the other Vietnam series of about the same period, ABC's China Beach. By the third and final season the show was starting to hit the skids, as shown by the decision to add an aging Lee Majors to the cast. I can't help but wondering though whether fifteen or twenty years after the fact we'll be watching movies and TV series about the Iraq War.

This Weeks Poll - Where Do You Get Your TV Listings?

Here we are with another poll. Deciding what to watch on TV is one thing but how do you know when your show is on? Well of course you check the TV listings, but what source do you prefer?

A couple of clarifications. In the category other magazines I include independent publications for satellite users, and TV listings produced by your cable provider but not the listings booklets that most newspapers publish. Online sources is any online source (including TVGuide.com and your service providers website if they offer TV listings) not just the one I mentioned.

As usual, feel free to comment here.

Poll Results

Another high as far as voter participation with 17 votes. I asked how long it took you to decide whether you liked a new show. The question was spawned by a couple of summer series Dancing With The Stars and The Inside - both of which I like. One had stellar ratings right from the beginning, while the other hasn't seemed to have emerged from being in the dark so to speak. Why did people like one almost immediately and not pick up on the other?

Of the people who responded six of you (35%) said that it took you just a few minutes to decide. Four of you (23%) said that it took you about three episodes. Three people (17%) said that it took a couple of episodes. There was a tie for fourth with two people (11%) each saying that they needed most of an episode to decide, and that they new from the previews. Surprisingly - given what happened to House between the time that it was following Rebel Billionaire and when it was following American Idol - no one admitted to just watching whatever was on at the time.

As it happens, professional critics (which is to say people who write for newspapers and real websites, not amateur critics like me) usually get tapes or DVDs of shows, often with three episodes of a new show from which they can write a review of the series. (Of course whether a critic can make or break a series on his or her own is another question; I suspect not but it probably depends on the critic.) I do know is that before I started this blog I found myself amongst the majority who either knew from the previews or from watching a few minutes of a show. I "knew" that Seinfeld wasn't for me without watching a minute of it and it only took a few minutes of Everybody Loves Raymond to turn me off of that. However, my own personal rule for criticism is that as often as possible a critic shouldn't base his evaluation of something based on seeing part of it, and I have pretty much lived up to that standard. I give most of the shows that I've reviewed a complete episode for me to like them. The sole exception was Fire Me Please which turned me off half way through its first episode - well sooner really. So if I were to answer my own question now I'd say it takes me most of an episode to evaluate it critically - although I still probably know within a few minutes of seeing it whether I'll keep watching.

New Poll later today - once I figure out a question.

Amazing - I Agree With The PTC

First of all, I haven't been feeling very well for the past few days so my posts have been sporadic at best. As a result I haven't been able to complete a review of the new CTV show Robson Arms. Suffice it to say that I like it a great deal and am disappointed with the way that the network is burning it off in July, two half-hour episodes at a time. It deserves better.

Now on to the main thing. I do agree with the PTC on an issue but it's not strictly speaking an issue of censorship. Rather it's an issue of choice. According to the PTC's "E-Alert" the Council has joined with "Consumer's Union, the American Family Association, the AFL-CIO, Morality in Media, and seventeen other organizations, joined together to urge Congress to give cable viewers more control over the programming coming into their homes. In a letter to members of Congress, the coalition urged Congress to enact legislation that would allow consumers to choose cable channels on an a la carte basis." Strange bedfellows indeed and I suspect that the AFL-CIO and the Consumer's Union don't have the same reason for advocating a la carte choice of cable channels as the PTC, Morality in Media and The American Family Association. In their recommended letter to American legislators the Council writes:

"The problem of raunchy programming pouring out of our television sets day and night has become an issue of national concern. Hollywood, which is responsible for producing and airing such offensive material, with ultra-violent images, obscene language and graphic sexual dialogue has washed its hands of responsibility for the consequences stating that consumers - parents - should be more proactive in safeguarding their families from this offensive material.

Over-the-air broadcast networks have to abide by decency standards. There is, however, no such jurisdiction over cable television, which is far more offensive. Cable companies enjoy a virtual monopoly forcing consumers not just to take offensive programs, but to pay for them. This is unconscionable. Why can you pick up the phone, order and pay for HBO if you want it, but can't pick up the phone, cancel and stop paying for MTV if you don't? When you visit your local convenience store to purchase milk and bread, should you also be forced to take and pay for a carton of cigarettes, too?

There is one solution that is as obvious as it is simple. It is acceptable to conservatives, moderates and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. It is cable choice, the ability for the consumer to choose what he takes and pays for when he orders cable. The technology exists and the system could be implemented overnight - but the cable monopolies won't allow it."

So obviously the PTC expects that, given the right to "pick and pay" for their cable channels people will only buy wholesome, uplifting, family fare. I doubt that's what the Consumer's Union and the AFL-CIO expect. I believe that they feel that a la carte pricing will reduce costs to consumers. That's fine - it's not necessarily right but it's fine. Each of the organizations named, and probably the other seventeen organizations that the PTC doesn't name want the same thing for different reasons. The questions are, I suppose, can it be done and can it be done as easily as the PTC claims?

The answers are yes and no. Yes it can be done, and I know because a portion of my cable programming is available on an a la carte basis - the digital portion. And it is easy to implement. When I got digital cable I was able to choose how many of the digital channels beyond certain basic services (four American superstations and later five time shifting channels) I would take. I called the cable office and literally within minutes the channels I wanted were the ones I was seeing. This doesn't apply to the analog side however. As my neighbour, who works for Shaw Cable, tells it if the station isn't digital they have to install blocks on an individual basis. So it's not exactly easy unless the cable industry converts all of their stations to digital services exclusively, or at least everything beyond local stations. So yes, if you have digital service it can be implemented overnight but only for the digital channels.

Now let's look at costs. Cable companies say that offering packages is cheaper for them. They reflect this in price so I suspect it's true. Here are prices for digital channels on three Canadian cable systems (Shaw, Rogers and Cogeco)

Shaw Rogers Cogeco
1 Channel NA* $2.49 $2.49
2 Channels $2.99 NA* NA*
5 Channels $6.95 $9.95 $6.99
10 Channels $10.95 $14.95 $9.99
30 Channels $20.95 $26.99 $19.99

* Shaw is the only company offering a price for 2 channels but not for one.

But now consider packages. Rogers offers 9 non-premium digital movie channels for $7.99, $1.96 less than they charge for five individual channels. Cogeco offers a digital pack of 6 non-premium movie channels for $6.99, which is $2.49 less than ordering the same six channels a la carte. Cogeco charges a base price of $43.99 with any one of their digital packages, $54.99 for three packages and $64.99 for all seven (this is based on purchase of the digital box). Packages are priced to to make them more attractive to consumers. Of the three cable companies that I've looked at here, Shaw is the only one not to offer packages. Is the average consumer more willing to buy the two additional Cogeco digital packages for $11 (let's say that the two packages includes a total of 15 additional channels) or is he/she more likely to spend $16.98 to choose 15 channels? If most of the channels that he wants can be obtained for that $11 he will buy the package even if there are channels there that he/she doesn't want because based on Cogeco's pricing that $11 represents only seven channels bought a la carte.

So yes, I agree with the PTC, and the AFL-CIO, and the Consumers Union and all of the other groups that advocate a la carte pricing for cable television, but unless cable companies are prepared to switch totally to digital cable and abandon analog it can't happen. And unless the only choice that the companies offer is a la carte pricing alternatives (over and above basic network coverage) I suspect that the vast majority of people will opt for packages if packages are cheaper.

Happy Canada Day!

This has nothing to do with TV except that CBC will, as usual, be broadcasting several hours of music and celebrating from Parliament Hill in the next few hours. However some of my 'Merican blogging buddies have been hacking me off by posting premature patriotism from their side of the Medicine Line (what the Sioux and other tribes called the border during the Indian Wars - and what Americans in search of cheap prescription drugs call it today) and there must be retaliation. So my friends, the Fathers of Confederation!

Not Bad Mr. Kotter

One of my other abiding passions is Poker, so let me take the opportunity to link Poker and Television by congratulating Gabe Kaplan, who played Mr. Kotter in the 1970s series Welcome Back Kotter for finishing in second place in the $5,000 buy-in Limit Hold'em event at the 2005 World Series of Poker. Kaplan (seen here in a photo from the 1979 World Series) is a veteran poker player who finished in sixth place in the main event of the 1980 World Series which was the first year that the legendary Stuey Ungar won the tournament.

In other entertainment related Poker news, Jennifer Tilly who is best known as a movie actress but did some television work, particularly in the 1980s, won the Ladies Tournament at the World Series - a $158,625 pay day for two days work and probably more than she earned per day doing the TV version of The Magnificent Ambersons.

I Told Him "Julie Don't Watch"

I don't know that much about Ancient Rome, but thanks to a first year Classics course at University and an abiding interest in history, I probably know more than the average guy. While this is normally a good thing, when it comes to reviewing the new ABC miniseries Empire a little knowledge is not only dangerous but can blow the whole premise out of the water if one is inclined to view it as a history rather than as a drama.

Empire supposedly tells the tale of the events leading up to and following the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar in 45 B.C and the rise of his nephew and adopted son Octavius as Caesar, under the protection and tutelage of the gladiator Tyrannus. Octavius is portrayed as a pampered teen, inexperienced and perplexed by the complexity of the situation that he finds himself in, which Tyrannus has to guide him through. This is the central core of the story around which the other conflicts flow. The death of Gaius Julius Caesar left a power vacuum which his murderers intended to fill, as did Marc Antony who was his trusted colleague and aide. Political intrigue was the order of the day and the miniseries makes it clear that Octavius is nowhere near ready for this. He must flee Rome, with Tyrannus, in order to eventually claim the title of Caesar. Throw in what will probably be a "forbidden romance" with a Vestal Virgin and the whole thing descends into the realm of typical movie of the week material instead of the epic return of the miniseries format that I'm sure the producers were hoping for.

The miniseries manages to commit major crimes against history and gets niggling little details wrong in a manner that is thoroughly irritating to anyone with a knowledge of the period. The miniseries is dependent on the idea that Octavius was a politically naive boy who had never been in battle, and that he had been surprised by being named Caesar's heir. In fact while he was not a seasoned military veteran, like all Roman citizens he had begun his military training at age 17 - he was 19 at the time of Caesar's death - and had served in Caesar's last campaign in Spain a one of the leaders of the 10th Legion. He was also well aware that he had been adopted. Indeed, contrary to the central conceit of Empire, Octavius wasn't even in Rome at the time of Gaius Julius Caesar's death - he was in Illyria (now Albania and the former Yugoslavia) training with the Macedonian legions for Caesar's planned campaign in Syria against the Parthians. They even manage to get titles wrong. Repeatedly the conspiratorial senators use the expression "Caesar" as if it was already a title as when Cassius yells at Octavius "You'll never be Caesar!" In fact he already was, by virtue of his adoption, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. Similarly Mark Antony is repeatedly referred to simply as "General". Antony was in fact one of the two Roman Consuls for the year, the other being Gaius Julius Caesar, and a Consul was far more than "just" a general. Absent entirely from this production are Calpurnia (Caesar's wife), Cleopatra (his mistress and Queen of Egypt) and Caesarian (his natural son with Cleopatra) despite the fact that all were in Rome at the time.

Setting aside the historic ignorance being displayed in this production - and what I've mentioned above is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg - the production is basically uneven. There are some very good actors in this thing. Canadian based actor Colm Feore, who played Pierre Trudeau in the CBC mini-series Trudeau is excellent as Caesar (contrary to various comments Feore is not British - he was born in Boston and lives in Stratford Ontario) and Michael Byrne is very good as Cicero. James Frain, who played Paul Raines in 24 plays a too young looking and uncertain Brutus (strictly speaking Marcus Junius Brutus - two of Caesar's assassins had the cognomen Brutus the other being Decimius Junius Brutus Albinus) but does excellent work. Vincent Regan plays Marc Antony and just by his appearance is an excellent choice - he looks as dull witted as the real Antony reputedly was, comfortable only in his leather breastplate. Sadly not much can be said for the remainder of the cast. They aren't particularly inspiring, and Orla Brady plays Octavian's mother Atia (consistently callled Caesar's sister when in reality she was his niece, daughter of his eldest sister Julia - all Roman women were named with a feminized version of their clan or gens name thus both of Caesar's sisters were named Julia) with what can best be described as melodramatic flair. The less said about Santiago Cabrera as Octavian, the better.

The CGI recreations of the City of Rome are rather good and presumably fairly accurate, but there's a definite sense that they skimped in other areas. The crowd scenes in particular seem underpopulated. ABC and Touchstone Pictures spent a great deal of money making Empire but it seems unevenly distributed. They might, for example, have bought a better script. The fact that the mini-series, which was supposed to mark a revival of the big mini-series on network TV, is being burned off in June and July rather than in a sweeps period indicates that someone at ABC realised that they had a real loser on their hands. ABC would have been better off buying the rights to one of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome novels such as First Man In Rome. Instead they ended up with this mess. Watch only if there's nothing else you'd rather see. Or, if you want to be entertained, try to get a copy of Wayne and Shuster's Rinse The Blood Off My Toga - it's about as historically accurate.

TV on DVD - June 28, 2005

Another fairly short list this time around, but with a couple of really good things on offer.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Indecision 2004
- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a staple of late night TV here in Canada where it's seen on the CTV network after the late local news. In the United States it's seen on the Comedy Central network. No matter, not only is the show funny but it's also extremely topical. This DVD features 10 episodes built around the 2004 election campaign, including four episodes from the Democratic Convention, four from the Republican Convention, one following the first Bush-Kerry debate, and the not quite correctly titled election night episode Prelude to a Recount.

Nick Frost's Danger! 50,000 Volts!
- Okay, I have absolutely no idea what this is about or if it has ever been seen in North America let alone Canada. It's apparently a BBC series though, featuring Nick Frost from the movie Shaun Of The Dead showing how to "survive" various life threatening events. But I only know that from IMDB.

The Doris Day Show: Season 1
- She never wanted to do the TV series. She found out that she was contracted to do it after her third husband Martin Melcher died (I always wondered why she stayed with him - he was a lousy husband who signed her for projects without her consent or even her knowledge, and her own memoirs mention that she had several affairs during their marriage including one with Maury Wills). Still she stuck with it for five years until she pulled the plug herself. In the first two seasons she was a widow with two kids, living on a farm with her father played by Denver Pyle. Later she moved to the city with the kids and in the last two season the children had disappeared entirely (and I wouldn't be surprised if the character had become a virgin during the hiatus). Denver Pyle, who played her father in the first two seasons was in fact born in 1920 and was 48 when the series started, which meant that he was just four years older than Doris Day (born in 1924). Of course even then he looked like Uncle Jesse Duke while Doris looked like she was pushing forty but not quite across that particular line yet.

The Even Stevens Movie
- I have absolutely no idea what this is about beyond what is written in the Amazon description. The series that the movie is based on has probably played on the Family Channel here in Canada, but I rarely watch the channel anymore since it has dropped the old Disney material. I do remember Dona Pescow from a series called Angie that she starred in with Robert Hayes shortly after her appearance in Saturday Night Fever and by the look of the cover photo for this DVD, the years have not been kind.

Game Over: Complete Collection
- Another series I've never heard of, this was on UPN in 2004 - briefly. It ran five episodes with a sixth episode not being aired. The concept is interesting - the show is about a family who all happen to be characters in several video games - but the execution, well it sucked.

New Adventures Of Gumby: Vol. 1
New Adventures Of Gumby: Vol. 2
- This is going to shock and amaze you but to this day I have never seen an episode of Gumby, either in the original incarnation or in the "New Adventures" version. I did know what Gumby and his pal Pokey looked like because when I was a kid the merchandise was in the toy section of Woolworths, but the series? Never saw it. I know, it was a deprived childhood, but at least there were the Hanna-Barbera series like Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, and Huckleberry Hound so I wasn't totally deprived of cultural icons.

Homicide: Life On The Street: The Complete Season 7
- The final season of one of the most critically acclaimed series of the 1990s. The critics loved it but the ratings were never particularly strong even though it developed a fan base that can best be described as fanatical. I loved some of the early season, but after a while - thanks to the network jerking it around a bit in terms of time slots and when it would start airing, I sort of lost track of it. For a number of years it ran nightly on Bravo! in Canada, before being replaced by NYPD Blue but the series is currently not seen on Canadian TV. Pity.

The House of Eliott: Series One
- Created by actresses Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh - who had previously collaborated in creating Upstairs Downstairs - this is a series about two women in the 1920s trying to establish themselves as fashion designers. Atkins and Marsh didn't do as well as their earlier series - while both were glorified soap operas, House of Elliott was geared far more for the female audience - but it ran for three years on the BBC. Not bad, and Louise Lombard was lovely.

La Femme Nikita: The Complete Third Season
- Based on the 1990 Luc Bresson movie of the same name and the American remake Point Of No Return, this series was another Canadian co-production. And another series that I just couldn't get into, not that I tried very hard. Maybe if I did I'd have liked it.

Ren And Stimpy: Seasons 3 And A Halfish
- Never a fan - I failed to see any charm in this. Sorry, since I know it had a rabid following. Maybe I'm just too old.

Revelations
- Long time readers may have noticed that I didn't write a review of Revelations when it aired earlier this spring on NBC. It was quite deliberate - I couldn't figure out a way to write a review without offending people. Let me state it plainly here though: even if I gave the "Revelations of St. John" any credence as prophecy, what NBC produced was a big steaming mess in an effort to pander to groups like the PTC and the apparent interest in things biblical as indicated by the attendance at The Passion Of The Christ and the Left Behind books and videos.

Shadow Raiders: Season 1
- Another computer animated series from Mainframe Entertainment this one ran for just 13 episodes. The consensus is that it wasn't as good as the other Mainframe shows of the period - Reboot and Beast Wars (Beasties in the U.S.) - which still puts it ahead of most other animated series.

Spenser: For Hire: The Movie Collection
- Between 1993 and 1995 Robert Urich and Avery Brooks made four movies based on Robert B. Parker's Spenser books: Ceremony, Pale Kings and Princes, The Judas Goat, and A Savage Place. Toronto stood in for Boston, and Barbara Williams and Wendy Crewson played Spenser's lady friend Susan Silverman. While the series hasn't been released on DVD these four movies are now available on DVD.

A Touch Of Frost: Season 6
- I honestly wasn't aware that this was a series per se. Rather I thought it was a series of movies. Starring the always excellent David Jason as Inspector "Jack" Frost, the shows from this series that I've seen have always been first rate mysteries and in general excellent entertainment. If you liked Morris you'll probably like this.

The Twilight Zone: Season 3 (The Definitive Edition)
- This is the classic Rod Serling series from the early 1960s. The third season includes A Game of Pool with Jack Klugman, Kick The Can (which was late adapted for the Twilight Zone Movie), and To Serve Man with Lloyd Bochner. Definitely one of the landmarks in Television history.

The Twilight Zone: Seasons 2 & 3 (1986 - 1988)
- This, on the other hand was not. CBS decided to resurrect The Twilight Zone in 1985, two years after the movie and were so sure that it would be a hit that they guaranteed a specific number of episodes for syndication. It wasn't - it was cancelled after two years and the third season was in fact made for first run syndication to fulfill the contract. The show had some excellent writers including Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski, but the hour long format really didn't flatter the material and sometimes resulted in stories that were either padded to fill the hour. The episodes with two or three stories in them are on the whole the best, but was the audience really willing to sit still for that sort of thing. Apparently not.

My Perfect Women!?

So my blogging buddy Tim Gueguen had this link in his blog to a site called Celebmatch which uses "the scientific method of biorhythms to calculate the compatibilities" between you and various celebrities. Tim holds that biorhythms are bunk, and I basically agree. What this site does seems less like Biorhythms, and more like cheap astrology to me though. Enter your birthdate and they will tell you which five celebrities (you can choose male or female) you match up with best, and if you click on their names you will see who you are most compatible with physically, emotionally and intellectually. All from your birth date. You can also see how you match with other celebrities. So here's who they said I was best suited for:

1. Ellen DeGeneres 98%
2. Anita Baker 98%
3. Crystal Gayle 98%
4. Star Jones 98%
5. Beth Broderick 97%

Apparently part of the matching process is to find someone close to my own age, which is silly. I'm a man - I want younger.

(BTW: This post is also an experiment with Blogger's new image feature. So far not bad.

New Poll

How long does it take for you to decide whether you like a new show?

Since TV ratings are what determines what we watch, and the plug is often pulled very fast, it would seem to be useful to know how long it takes people to make up their minds about what they're going to watch.

As usual, feel free to comment here.

Poll Results - What Sort Of TV Shows Do You Buy On DVD?

I know that's not exactly the poll question but that was the intent. Thirteen voters this week, and I wasn't one of them.

In first place with 5 votes (38%) is "Shows from when you were young." That's not really surprising - nostalgia is a considerable force in our lives and shows from when we were kids are almost like comfort food, bringing back good memories.

In second place is the miswritten "Why would I buy TV shows on TV?" - which of course was meant to read DVD - with 3 votes (23%). That actually was what caused me to come up with this poll - someone commented in response to one of my early TV on DVD columns "I hate reruns. Why would I buy TV shows on DVD?" I was trying to provide some answers.

There was a tie for third between current series, and miniseries with 2 votes each (15%). I get miniseries - there are maybe a half dozen that I would buy if I could afford them or if they were available on DVD. Current series is a bit more of a mystery. I suppose the motivation is that it's a series you really like and this way you get it full length, with commentaries and special features and without commercials.

In fifth place, with 1 vote (7%) is a sort of catchall category - "Shows that you haven't seen." What I was aiming at was shows from another country or shows on sources which, for whatever reason, you don't get on your TV. For me an example might be Deadwood or Dead Like Me which are or were on a premium movie service that I don't subscribe to. Of course there isn't enough room in the poll to explain that.

Bringing up the end is Children's Shows. No one voted for that category, which in all honesty is a massive surprise to me. I don't have kids but a large part of my brother's DVD collection is made up of Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs for my 2 year old nephew (who only really wants to see the disc where Cranky the Crane falls down - I've pretty much got that one memorized).

What's in my collection? Well not much. The price of boxed sets is a consideration but there are a lot of movies I want to own as well. I have the pilot and second episode of Smallville which was put out in Canada soon after the show debuted and wasn't offered for sale in the U.S. I also have the Brentwood DVD of 20 episodes of Dragnet from the 1950s, and I nearly bought a cheap set of Public Domain comedies from the 1950s including some early Jack Benny Programs. I'd like to get Band Of Brothers or From The Earth To The Moon if I can ever get a good price on either but right now what I'm really interested in is getting Firefly before the movie Serenity is released. So I guess you could put me between Shows from when I was young and current series. Of course with my luck my next purchase will probably be another Thomas set for my nephew.

New poll later today. I may revisit this topic later but for now I'm looking at something different.

I Remember Them

There's a significant difference between British TV and American TV - and here I'm not talking about quality. Viewers on both sides of the Atlantic give producers on the other side of the Atlantic too much credit for their shows. American audiences get to see the best shows that the British produce and rate it better than American TV while British viewers are more likely to rave over American shows and pronounce that British programmes are crap. No, to my mind the big difference between British and American television is that the British are more willing to try different things. American networks seem to think that there are only four types of show that can possibly be on TV: dramas, sitcoms, reality shows, and news magazines (and there wouldn't be reality shows if the British and Europeans hadn't had huge successes with them first). Don't even get me started on the degree too which American producers limit the field in those genres.

The British, on the other hand, tend to look at things a little differently. True, there are dramas, sitcoms, reality shows and news magazines, but the British networks go a little further. They do shows like Ground Force (a gardening show), Changing Rooms (a home renovation show), The Antiques Roadshow (an antiques valuation show), and Top Gear (a show about new cars) in prime time on network TV. They do game shows - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The Weakest Link are still popular in Britain (in fact Ann Robinson recently recently provided her own voice for the new Doctor Who in her Weakest Link persona). And they do music. Four of the five major British Networks - BBC1, BBC2, ITV, and Channel 4 - have at least one music show. And we're not talking about something like American Idol (which originated in Britain as Pop Idol) either. Top Of The Pops and Later with Jools Holland are long running series that feature fairly major artists. The Beatles appeared on Top Of The Pops around the time of their first American tour, and Mick Jagger was on the show much later. The list of people who appeared on Top Of The Pops is staggering. Later With Jools Holland is a more recent show but it still has an impressive guest list.

The point is that neither of those shows would be on American network TV. About the only program that shows musical acts is Saturday Night Live. I don't know what it is about American network executives but they seem unwilling to do musical shows. Maybe they believe that they won't get the ratings or that the various acts will want too much money. Or maybe they think that this is what MTV was created for. The only music show on network TV in the United States is American Idol where the performers are wannabes - safe wannabes. Give the show credit, ratings are incredible. But although CBS tried reviving Star Search, no other network has really attempted to do a show that was primarily music. At least not until this summer when NBC brought us Hit Me Baby One More Time. Naturally it's imported from Britain, complete with host Vernon Kay. It's only on for five weeks which is two weeks more than it was originally set for thanks to ratings which apparently surprised NBC's network weasels, although they been slipping each week.

Still It's an interesting experiment. The show takes what the network flacks call "veteran hit makers" (and many viewers call one hit wonders) and has them perform one of their old hits (or their one hit) and then in the second half of the show has them cover a more contemporary song by a current artist (usually). Before the second song there's a "what are they doing now" segment - Thelma Houston has grandkids, Greg Kihn has written five novels, Billy Vera does voices for commercials and supplies material for compilation albums from the 1940s and '50s. The performers are in what initially appears to be a large club but is probably a large TV studio with plenty of floor space for fans, most of whom look as though they might have been conceived to some of this music. At the end of the episode there's a vote by the studio audience which determines the "best" performance. That act wins a $20,000 donation to a charity of their choice.

The typical route for a musician who has a hit, or even several hits, is a short roller coaster ride with three stages. Initially they take any gig that will pay them a little money living on credit in hopes that someone will take notice. Then someone does takes notice; they get a recording contract and do a song that touches people in some way. And then, because they can't make lightning strike twice, they're back to taking any gig that will pay them a little money, trying to get back on top until they finally realize that they aren't going to be back on top. If they're smart they didn't spend the money they made with their one hit on sex and drugs. From the look of most of the people on Thursday's episode, they did. Certainly Glass Tiger looked as though they don't have to worry about their credit rating or having their Ontario homes and lake properties repossessed. Did the years take their toll? Sure. I'm not sure that the voices were quite as good as when Thelma Houston and Club Nouveau were actually having their one hit, and Glass Tiger looks as though they haven't been missing many meals - or skipping the carbs for that matter - but they all look better than Keith Richard (of course most corpses look better than Keith Richard). So yeah, most of these acts hear themselves on the oldies stations as they do their morning commutes, but it's good to see and hear them today. I don't really care about the competition aspect, but it's original to the British series and if making this into a reality show is what it takes to sell the concept to an American network so be it.

This summer has given us two concepts - Dancing With The Stars and Hit Me Baby One More Time - which have been slotted into the "reality" series ghetto but are significantly different and dare I say it original. What I really hope is that ratings for Hit Me Baby One More Time will be strong enough that some visionary at an American network will decide that popular music will make for good network television. It doesn't necessarily have to be the big names but perhaps a mix of big names with the young up and comers - the possible one hit wonders twenty years from now - would work. But of course the American television industry doesn't have space for visionaries, except in the summer.

I Want To Be A Hilton!?

Why?

Why would I want to be a Hilton?

Why did NBC buy this retread of The Apprentice?

Why did Kathy Hilton - who is classier than Paris and Nikki combined not to mention better looking - decide to make this her return to Television (she did some guest appearances in the mid 1970s before she married Rick Hilton, including two episodes of Happy Days) in this?

Actually it's not horrible - close but not quite. In fact it reminded me of something. After careful checking (okay when I was checking momma Kathy's IMDB listing I naturally checked out Paris's listing and found that The Simple Life was initially described as a real life version of Green Acres) it hit me. Remember that proposal for a reality version of The Beverly Hillbillies that was so roundly condemned that no one even considered buying it? Well they've revived it but called it I Want To Be A Hilton. I know it's a bit of a reach but if you substitute Kathy Hilton for Miss Hathaway and this group of 14 uncouth blue collar types for four Ozark Hillbillies then The Beverly Hillbillies becomes I Want To Be A Hilton.

The contestants gather together for the first time near the famous information booth at (cue reverb) Grand Central Station (end reverb) - sorry Grand Central Terminal. They are soon escorted by a butler type (you can tell because he wearing a tail coat) to a private cocktail reception at the exclusive Campbell Apartment - which isn't a private residence but a really expensive bar in the Terminal. There, as they dig - literally - into the souvlaki and other exclusive edibles, not to mention the free booze, they are being observed by an eminence gris (well eminence vert really, she's all in green and at 46 looking better than either of her daughters). It's Kathy Hilton, and at about this time she's probably wondering if she shouldn't have stuck with her acting career and not married Rick HIlton (who is one of the Executive Producers by the way). Eventually she descends amongst the hoi polloi and introduces herself. Each contestant is presented with a silver spoon with a ribbon around it indicating which team he or she is going to be on. Green Team is the "Paris Park Team" while Blue Team is the "Nikki Madison Team". Needless to say there's one guy in a private interview who wonders "just how much this thing (the spoon) is worth." After that they go to their exclusive apartments in the historic Melrose Hotel (which was the old Hotel Barbizon for Women if you were interested).

The next day the teams are sent of in the usual Trump style tasks. Well sort of. They're told that they'll be going to an exclusive party at "21" but of course it is the polite thing to buy a gift for the hostess so first thing they have to do is to select one person to go on a shopping expedition with a $100 bill. Specifically they have to select someone from the other team to buy that team's gift, so naturally they select the person they think is most socially inept from the other team. Madison picked construction worker (and arena football player) JW for Park while Park took ranch hand (and septic tank installer) Jabe for Madison. While they were out buying a gift for the party the others were sent to "etiquette boot camp" to learn how to conduct themselves at a fancy dinner party. You know, stuff like how to order, hold (not by the bowl, by the stem), and drink wine, how to extract and eat escargot, how to crack a lobster, and about various cheeses. Then came the twist. When the teams (with their gift buyer) assembled that evening for their party at "21" they learned that the gift buyers would be the only one attending the party. The rest would watch on closed circuit TV and give him instructions as to what to do by radio. The main table consisted of Ted Allen from Queer Eye, Billy Bush from Access Hollywood, and Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia. Hilarity ensued. JW did well with his gift (a bottle of wine and flowers) but stumbled a bit when he refused to eat the escargot. Still he offered a very nice toast. Jabe had less success with his gift of a four pound box of chocolates in cheap wrapping paper and Kathy Hilton's name scrawled on it in felt tip marker. Also he was not properly attired - no jacket. During his toast he repeated what his team members tell him over the radio, including, just like in a bad sitcom, "say thank you". Needless to say, his team were unsuccessful, they were the ones who lost a team member - perfume salesman Alain, punished for the sin of being too quiet. He wasn't on "The List".

The show had it's moments. As you might expect, Ted Allen was witty, at one point asking Jabe "Don't you have snails in Texas?" (Answer: "Yes sir, but we don't eat them."), and later telling Kathy "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes....Well I would but they wouldn't fit me." As well the show has an occasional voice-over, but unlike the voice-over in Hell's Kitchen which attempts to make the show sound like a documentary, the narrator in I Want To Be A Hilton has the persona of a snootier than the snooty English butler who is more of a character in the show than Kathy Hilton herself. As for the contestants only three really stood out in the first episode: Ann, a grad student and former Miss Tampa who seems to break into song at the passing of a participle; Yvette, an Irish born Las Vegas showgirl seems to have decided that the Hilton she wants to be is Paris; and Latricia, a California DMV clerk who wants is channeling the original Conrad's mother. She does not approve of Yvette, the way she flirts, and the short skirts that show off her butt (according to Latricia) that Yvette wears around the apartment.

It is saying a great deal when the most interesting parts of a show is guest appearance by a reality show veteran and an unseen voice actor. Part of what made The Beverly Hillbillies fun was that they were wealthy people behaving like "home folks" and here you have "home folks" wanting a chance to behave like the rich, or at least an idealized version of the rich (in one interview Hilton states that many rich people could use a course in "Etiquette 101"). The trouble is that like so many of the current crop of reality shows it is a ripoff of The Apprentice and while it is slightly more original than The Cut (I liked the party "twist") it is much less so than Hell's Kitchen. I will give Kathy Hilton one thing though. I think she's better on camera than Donald Trump (and has probably forgotten more about taste and etiquette than he ever knew). I like her, I just don't like her show.