January 2006 Archives

Somewhere in Manhattan, you can press your ear to the cornerstone of a skyscraper and hear a faint but distinct whirring sound. Don't be alarmed -- it's just the body of Michigan J. Frog, spinning in his tiny shoebox grave.

Startling fans of mostly substandard television, Warner Bros.' WB network and CBS' UPN announced today that they would cease operations this coming fall, merging into a new and vaguely alarming-sounding entity known as The CW. As the occupants of the two bottom rungs of the increasingly rickety ladder of broadcast television, the networks' semi-unholy union seems like a concession to the reality that, even in a 500-channel universe, there's just not room for two cut-rate TV stations on the dial.

OK, I'm being unnecessarily mean here. (Mostly because, well, it's fun.) Over the past few years, both networks have managed to haul themselves partly out of a collective morass of bad shows and worse programming decisions. UPN remains the worst of the lot, given that roughly half its lineup involves people who make their living in their underwear, but it's managed to unearth and nurture a few gems like Everybody Hates Chris and That Ridiculously Good Teen Detective Show I'm Not Supposed to Mention. The WB, despite cancelling Angel for the brain-dead likes of Supernatural and Related, at least has Gilmore Girls, and Everwood and Smallville are both sorta good-ish now and then.

Ultimately, I think the combined CW will be good news for shows like these, if only because it'll leave less room for the sort of godawful tripe currently used to pad out the schedule around them. It sounds like the best shows from the WB and UPN (and, unfortunately, WWE Smackdown!) will be migrating to the new network. UPN's Dawn Ostroff, who deserves kudos for supporting Chris and Veronica Mars, will be in charge of the new network, and makes vague noises in the press release about seeking more quality programming for the combined channel. (The release also gives the distinct impression that a certain tiny blonde detective will be getting a third season, which can only be a good thing.)

Of course, it's also too easy to imagine things going the other way, leaving The CW the network equivalent of late-stage Jeff Goldblum from The Fly. I'm seeing sitcoms in which wacky down-home single mothers from Arkansas start up nail salons in the ghetto; a primetime soap opera about forbidden romance between the son of a pro wrestler and the daughter of a supermodel; and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. ("You can understand a dilithium warp matrix, Dad -- but you'll never understand me!")

Then again, if The CW does ultimately implode amidst its own awfulness, it's still a boon for the TV-watching public: Instead of ignoring two lousy networks, we only have to ignore one. Even Michigan J. Frog would likely find that something worth singing about.

When my wife and I settled down to watch the first episode of Courting Alex she said the same thing she'd said a few days earlier when we settled down to watch the first episode of Love Monkey. "Ugh, this is CBS," she said.

Surely, I thought, there must be some show on CBS we watch. Lost is ABC. The various Law & Orders are NBC, of course. Lazytown is Nick Jr. Oh, and there's Disparate Housewives and now, alas, Celebrity Fit Club 3 -- none of which are CBS. I've been catching up on Firefly on the DVD Boxed Set Channel. And I did watch the first episode of Criminal Minds -- didn't I write about it for TeeVee? Maybe I forgot -- hey, that's a CBS show! Which I never watched again!

I guess my wife is right as always. We don't watch CBS. I don't think we've tuned in to CBS with any regularity since Chicago Hope went off the air. This used to be because CBS was the network of the elderly and the incontinent. Now I'm not so sure -- maybe today it's the network of the young and hip and we've been left behind. After all, we now find the New Yorker endlessly interesting. We're getting very old.

If the two shows we saw were any indication, though, CBS is not the network of the young and hip. It's the network of the middle-aged and not terribly interesting.

We are big fans of Without A Trace in the Schmeiser-Michaels household. Insofar as procedural dramas goes, this one tends to be well-written, well-acted and beautifully shot and directed. It's one of the better shows on network television, and it's one of the few that's remained at a consistently high quality year in and year out.

However, we are prone to letting episodes pile up on the TiVo because in addition to being very well-written and well-acted and well-shot, Without A Trace is also very depressing. Any given episode includes things like tragic murders, tragic deaths or tragic comeuppances which prompt a death wish on someone's part. Invariably, the theme of the episode is "Once people discover your secrets, your life might as well be over." After an episode last season in which the missing woman (Elizabeth Pena) was shot by her brother, thus leaving her foster children to the vagaries of the social services, I curled up in the fetal position on the floor and refused to watch our remaining Without A Trace stockpile until the urge to end it all passed.

Fortunately, the Schmeiser-Michaels household has come up with a solution for TV drama trauma. Because TV drinking games are so dreadfully ubiquitous, we have elected not to go that route. Instead, we're turning to the vice of gambling. The rules are simple: before starting an episode of Without A Trace, turn to the other habitues of your gambling parlor -- or living room, whatever -- and ask the money question: "Alive or dead?" People state their options and lay down their money. At the end of the episode, at least one viewer will be happy.

If this simple wagering is too easy for you -- after all, it is akin to betting on a coin flip -- you can always make the rules more complicated. Some suggestions below:

TeeVee reader Jason Kmet sent us this open letter to David Letterman following his feisty interview with Bill O'Reilly earlier this week. (See the video.)

Dear Dave:

I would have sent this letter to the CBS Mailbag, but we haven't seen that segment on the show for quite a while. Sending it to teevee.org seemed to be the next best option.

I don't want to sound like the typical gushing fan, but I can't resist. Your show has been a nightly ritual for over 20 years, which covers almost two-thirds of my life. I've seen you be an innovator in the world of broadcasting. As a result, I hardly feel qualified to give you advice about your show, but I thought I'd let you know what one hard-core fan is thinking.

As usual, I watched the episode on Tuesday. I saw you rip into Bill O'Reilly regarding his rather insensitive comments about Cindy Sheehan. This resulted in a bit of tussle between the two of you. It was nice to see you show some passion. We don't get to see that fire very often these days. Most nights you seem to be rather bored. One evening earlier, you looked like you would've rather been anywhere else except interviewing the vacuous Heather Graham. I could barely watch it myself, and I'm a huge fan of the show. If I felt that way, I'm pretty sure that less devoted viewers were long gone by that point.

Here is my idea. It's time to make some subtle adjustments to the program. You've done it before when you moved from NBC to CBS. You need to look at making the show more like the O'Reilly interview and less like the Graham segment. Over the years, you've shown that you can do a mixture of serious broadcasting along with comedy. Your post 9/11 speech was considered one of the best statements made by any television personality. Your skills as an interviewer are quite underrated. We've seen you ask challenging questions before. Why not bring in more guests that actually have something to talk about?

You don't have to make radical changes. We don't want you to become Ted Koppel. We also don't need you to try to imitate John Stewart's show. I think there is an opportunity for your show to fill the gap that falls between Stewart and the now-departed Koppel. You have an hour which leaves you with enough time to do a couple of interesting interviews and still have the chance to do some comedy.

Leave the softball interviews with celebrities to Leno and the others. It's a tired concept anyway. You don't have to ignore the pop culture elite, but why not focus on inviting guests that interest you? Ultimately, late night talk shows are more about the host than the guests anyway.

This much is certain: if you are bored, the show is not going to attract more viewers. It seems evident that you aren't going to catch Leno in the ratings any time soon with the current formula. Even if it doesn't translate into better ratings, these changes might at least keep you interested.

Even if you don't make these changes, I'll still be watching. Your place as a legend in television is secure. But wouldn't it be great to cap your career with making shows that you can really be proud of instead of flying on auto-pilot into the sunset?

Sincerely,

Jason Kmet

Let me start by distancing myself from the show I'm about to discuss. I do not like Celebrity Fit Club. I do not like the way the show buys into our culture's unhealthy obsession with conforming to what is, for most people, an unreachable ideal. I happen to believe that obesity is a disease. It wouldn't surprise me if, within the next decade or so, medical researchers discover that obesity is caused by some infectious agent, a virus maybe, much the same way medicine thought -- for thousands of years -- stomach ulcers were caused by stress when they're actually caused by bacteria and can be treated with antibiotics. I firmly believe that obesity is a currently untreatable disease and that it's not the fault of the fat person that they are fat. I firmly believe this for anyone my size or smaller. Anyone fatter is a disgusting pig with no self-control.

So I do not like Celebrity Fit Club, now in its third incarnation on VH1. Yet I must admit to some familiarity with it. In this show, presumably washed-up and putatively entertaining actors and other Hollywood detritus decide to lose weight and get in shape on national TV while a large, scary, hairless man berates them. I know about this show because, I admit, I have watched it a few times: I watch it when it's on and my TiVo is empty and I don't feel like putting on a DVD. But I won't say I like it -- I firmly agree with Heather Havrilesky in Salon when she writes that we need to differentiate between shows we watch because we get sucked in and those we actually enjoy. Celebrity Fit Club 3 sucked me in, and I have some observations.