CouchBoy Chronicles

with Brad Oswald

• New Canadian Idol host? I’m with Ben!

  

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  Ben Mulroney, Canadian Idol host. (CTV)

  In an interview this week, random prime-ministerial offspring and occasional reality-TV host Ben Mulroney suggested that whenever Canadian Idol returns to CTV’s airwaves – that is, IF it returns – the show’s producers might be well served by a complete shakeup of the format, in order to "prove to the cynics that the show is still relevant."

  Among the changes he mulled out loud were a new set of judges and ... wait for it ... a new host.

  View Full Post | 5/05/2009 2:59 PM | 2

• Terminator: Fit to be saved from termination?

  Is there a "bubble" show in the current prime-time lineup that you believe shouldn't be allowed to burst?

  The U.S. version of E! network just ran its annual online "Save One Show" campaign, and fans who voted chose the Fox action drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as the series they'd most like to save from the cancellation axe. Second place went to NBC's geek-spy thriller, Chuck, and third belonged to Fox's other Friday-night fixture, Dollhouse.

  View Full Post | 4/05/2009 9:55 AM | 5

• Cringe-worthy comedy at its Gervaisian best

  There hasn’t been a one-two TV-comedy punch this uncomfortably brilliant in recent memory – the Comedy Network just announced that it’s launching something called Ricky Gervais Sunday Nights next month (starting May 3), meaning back-to-back episodes of the Brit-wit genius’s two comedy classics – The Office (the original British version) and Extras – airing at midnight and 12:45 a.m. each Sunday.

  
  If you’ve never seen the BBC version of The Office but are a fan of the much-longer-running NBC adaptation, you really are in for a treat.

  View Full Post | 27/04/2009 2:08 PM | 2

• Idol yawns, Dancing dips, Survivor seethes

  

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  Benjamin 'Coach' Wade has been the Survivor castaway viewers love to hate (MONTY BRINTON / CBS)

  Is it just me, or have some of this season’s second-half reality-TV offerings suffered a decided fun-quotient downturn?

  Despite a fairly strong field of finalists, I’ve found the current season of American Idol to be one of the least inspired in the series’ lengthy run.

  View Full Post | 23/04/2009 2:21 PM | 0

• Best of MY Fest

  Well, no one's laughing now. Not because they're not interested in a good chuckle, of course; simply because the 8th annual funny fest is finished and all involved, from organizers to performers to audiences members, probably just need a nice long rest.

  And in terms of putting this Comedy Festering blog to bed for another year, I guess the only thing left to do is wrap it up with a quick look at what qualified as the best of my circuitous journey through the fest. Here's what caught my eye and tickled my funny bone:

  View Full Post | 21/04/2009 9:36 AM | 1

• Debaters 2: This time, it’s personal....

  I hate to miss a taping of The Debaters anytime anyway, because they’re so darned much fun, but Sunday afternoon’s wrap-up edition of this fest’s filibusterathon was a must-see for me because one of its topics hit quite close to home: Should we be sad that newspapers are disappearing?
  
  Outlining the affirmatives and negatives of the question were two intellectually well-armed arguers -- deep-and-dark-thinking U.S. comic Marc Maron and fest artistic director Al Rae.
  
  Rae, whom I’m pretty sure actually likes newspapers, presented the case for newspapers as irrelevant dinosaurs; Maron, whom I’m confident loathes newspapers much less than he loathes most of everything else that confronts him, was cast in the role of newspapers’ defender.
  
  It was a spirited and erudite sparring session that probably didn’t do anything to either stave off or speed up the printed paper’s demise; Maron ended up winning the debate with a series of head-on declarations about papers’ importance in maintaining an enlightened population in the face of an increasingly prevalent and progressively dumbed-down online information flow:
  
  “The death of newspapers signals the end of community, objectivity and an organic connection to events,” he offered, preaching directly to this one-member choir. “The computer is a portal in to a sterile, bright electronic now where we glean detached information that reflects a past, present and possible future; online you find news that fits YOUR interests, YOUR ideology, YOUR priorities, YOUR needs. You are your own city ... your own world. What news is important on Planet YOU, and ... who cares?”
  
  Works for me. Worked for the voting-by-applause crowd, too.
  
  Other debates in the six-pack of verbal showdowns included Sean Cullen and Ron Sparks arguing the merits of monotheism over polytheism, Irwin Barker and Mike Bullard pondering youth justice, John Wing and Teresa Pavlinek tussling (and engaging in a best-tush showdown for good measure) over which sex ages more gracefully, George Westerholm and Maryellen Hooper tackling the topic of too-spoiled kids, and The Williamson Playboys and Sam “White Chedda” Easton engaging in a bizarre in-character debate of the death of respect among today’s younger generation.
  
  It was, as expected, a very entertaining afternoon. And for me, that’s a wrap on the fest -- I’m taking a pass on tonight’s final Best of the Fest gala so’s I can take in a nephew’s playoff hockey game, and later I’ll spend a few minutes poring over the notes and figuring out what qualifies as the best of MY fest ... which I’ll share tomorrow with anybody that might actually give a ... whatever.
  
   

  View Full Post | 19/04/2009 5:42 PM | 1

• Saturday night’s ... well ... all right

  Maybe it was a simple case of -- as discussed pretty much to DEATH in earlier posts -- the choices made. As it was, my Saturday night at the comedy fest was a bunch of just OK that ended with a crescendo of hot-and-sweaty, unrepentently dark and dirty WOW.
  
  If your travels and total weekend-evening experience were different from mine, maybe you can fill in the blanks and brighten up the picture just a titch....
  
  What I got to: Saturday Night Evening Gala at Pantages; Saturday Night Late Gala at Pantages; The Dark and Stormy Show at the Park Theatre
  
  What I couldn’t get to: Kings of Komedy, both early (Steve Patterson) and late (Jonny Harris) at Rumor’s; Park At The Park, at, well, you know.
  
  The early gala, The Seven Deadly sins, had a topic-appropriate host in former Codco fella Andy Jones -- as a born-and-bred Newfoundlander, he’s always carried a deep-rooted contempt for and boundless comedic curiosity about religious institutions (specifically, the Roman Catholic church) and the often hypocrisy-soaked strictures they impose on their followers. It also helps that he’s a brilliant writer and a gifted -- if perhaps somewhat dark -- monologist.
  
  “For years, you’ve been asking us to do a show that’s more relevant to Winnipeg,” he said in his introduction to the vice-gripped gala. “Well, I think we’ve finally done it.”
  
  His opening chat delved, quite expectedly, into sin as an RC-concocted concept: “The deadly sins are also known as the ‘cardinal’ sins -- because many a cardinal has been caught committing them...”
  
  This year’s festival’s Ms. Everywhere, Debra DiGiovanni, was up first, tackling the topic of envy with a peripatetic performance that careened between stuff she’s envious of and stuff about her other people should envy -- including the simplicity of her single existence: “You can be envious of the fact I’m a spinster -- sure, I’m dying alone, but I rarely shave my legs.”
  
  Jeff McEnery seemed an odd choice to explore lust -- neither his delivery nor his material ever managed to generate much in the way of heat; Maritime big boy Brad Muise fared much better on the subject of gluttony, with a buffet’s worth of self-deprecating observations: “I know I’m a glutton; I was backstage, and the other comics were discussing the seven deadly sins, and I was thinking, ‘I wonder what sloth tastes like...’”
  
  Speaking of sloth, and all its ‘-fulness’ implications, topic tender Ron Sparks had a much better time of it in Saturday’s sin-fest than at Wednesday’s opening-nighter; his pacing and insights fit his assigned subject quite nicely: “I put you at the lower end of the continuum (of laziness),” he offered to the ‘Peggers at Pantages. “If you were REALLY lazy, you wouldn’t live in Winnipeg, where you have to shovel snow out of your driveway from July until June...”
  
  Tim Nutt, whose stage-persona signature is all about imposing and angry, got the topic he deserved and made the most of his 10 minutes of tirade time. “Our parents and grandparents got mad,” he reflected on the current population’s relatively tepid approach to rage. “They fought wars and ended injustice with their anger. What do we do? We get cancelled TV shows back on the air.”
  
  He ended his set with this, which turned out to be a bit prophetic: “Of all the things that make me angry, this is one of the worst: I had to come out here and talk to you people about anger, and I couldn’t swear one time.”
  
  Jones returned to the stage for a character piece that showed off his talents as a one-man-show performer but seemed to leave the audience unsure how to react; the piece had the host, as often he has been onstage, dressed in priest’s garb and railing about sin and damnation and the unworthiness of vain mere mortals to lay claim to anything approaching perfection in their Earthly lives (the punchline being that it was graduation address to an elementary-school class).
  
  Show-closer (well, sort of) Marc Maron turned his topic -- greed -- on its head by declaring it’s the only vice that ISN’T on his daily checklist of activities; it was, like his Friday headlining gig at Rumor’s, a dark and challenging effort.
  
  And then, unexpectedly, like one of those hidden bonus tracks on a CD, Nutt re-took the stage and did about 15 more minutes of standup in which he WAS allowed to curse. Fest organizers said later they gave him the extra time because the show finished more quickly than anticipated and they wanted to make sure the audience got its laughs-per-minute money’s worth. It was a good decision, and Nutt’s after-rant was much stronger than his earlier mouth-washed-out-with-soap set.
  
  Overall, a pretty good show that never erupted into wild peals of laughter; maybe it was the touchy subject matter, maybe flood fatigue, maybe the fact the house wasn’t completely full; it just felt like the early-gala audience never completely committed itself to Sin.
  
  The later gala, Cradle to the Grave, produced similar mixed crowd-reaction results. Host Kevin McDonald -- the gangly, curly-haired Kid in the Hall, was a pretty able host, opening with a weird musical number and injecting appealingly absurd scripted bits throughout the show, but the life’s-journey-exploring performers I caught before ducking out early to catch another show elsewhere never got much more that polite acceptance and occasional waves of laughter from the crowd. Big Daddy Tazz, always a big fave with locals, fared well with some bits about how this generation’s kids are treated differently from the last -- “I read in an anger-management pamphlet that you’re never supposed to hit your kids or your animals out of anger. My dad used to hit me with a cat!”
  
  Festival iron man John Wing -- the only performer to appear at every Winnipeg festival to date -- mused on the impossibilities of being father to two teenage daughters: “(My 16-year-old) is so embarrassed to be seen with me that I have to drop her off three blocks from her Facebook page,” and, later, while discussing the awkwardness of having “the talk” with female offspring, “She thinks I don’t know anything about sex ... which means she’s been talking to her mother.”
  
  The standups then sat down for a spell, making room for a somewhat uneven sketch by Picnicface guys Mark Little and Andrew Bush, and a weary but amusing in-character monologue by Teresa Pavlinek in the guise of a middle-aged mom who’s just been dumped by her husband and has reacted by going all botox/new boobs/party-hardy-RV-lifestyle-y.
  
  A rare foray by Mike Bullard into pre-written material (his usual thing is off-the-cuff spritzing with the audience) produced mixed results; the meandering exploration of hitting life’s 50-year barrier teetered at times on the dividing line between bitterly funny and just plain mad: “I used to love older women. When I was 20, my first girlfriend was 42. She was fantastic. I’m pretty sure if I bumped into her today, the love wouldn’t come flooding back,” and “I used to love older women because they were great in bed; now I bang older women because the HAVE great beds,” and, later, on his own techno-un-saviness, “I don’t have a Blackberry, but I do know a black guy named Barry, so I have him send all my e-mails.”
  
  That’s when I hit the road to get to south Osborne in time for The Dark and Stormy Show, which means I skipped out on Maryellen Hooper’s character piece and The Williamson Playboys’ musical contribution. I don’t know how much I missed, but I do know that the late-gala crowd, like the earlier group in the soft-seat hall, didn’t seem wildly overwhelmed by what they’d seen so far.
  
  Dark and stormy -- a.k.a. the dirty show -- was an out-of-the-Park sweat-soaked home run -- you know, like, if you’re into that sort of gynecological/scatological/discussions-of-deviance/no-filter-on-profanity kind of thing. The beyond-sold-out crowd in the cozy confines of the former movie house -- which, by the way, is a GREAT venue for live comedy -- knew what to expect and, I’m sure, had all their expectations exceeded. Tim Nutt was the well-chosen host, and the roster -- Rob Pue, Tim Steeves, Sam Easton, Tom Steffen, Allyson Smith, Glen Foster and Marc Maron -- got as down, dirty and dark as they possibly could. It was brilliant ... if you’re into that sort of thing ... and allowed me to head home feeling a bit better about a Saturday night that would otherwise have been just all right.
  
   
  
   
  
  
  
   

  View Full Post | 19/04/2009 4:55 PM | 0

• There's just no debating it...

  Based on the fun level at Saturday afternoon's taping of The Debaters, I wish I could advise you to grab tickets for Sunday's follow-up session as quickly as you can.

  But I can't. I wish I could, but I can't. Because you can't. If you don't already have them, you won't be able to get them, because both tapings of the recorded-for-radio verbal joust-off were, as always, sold out before the fest even started.

  View Full Post | 18/04/2009 5:28 PM | 0

• Decision, decisions, decisions...

  It's the Saturday morning after the Friday night before; I have awakened, bleary eyed, with some familiar feelings -- slight unease about what happened last night, a need to mentally retrace my steps, concerns that I may have made some questionable choices, remorse about things I maybe should have done but didn't, and the unsettling certainty that whatever mistakes I've made and whatever I might try to delude myself I've learned from them, I'm going to make them again.

  Nothing new here. What's a bit different is that last evening didn't include any notable misbehaviour, I was at no point blissfully and willingly overserved, and I actually do remember everything I did and said.

  View Full Post | 18/04/2009 9:59 AM | 2

• Jonny Harris: Underground Comedy

  I had an interesting sit-down with East Coast comic Jonny Harris, in which the first-time visitor to the ’Peg discussed his comedy roots and inspirations and expressed wonderment at our burg’s network of underground walkways.

  Fun chat. Funny guy.

  View Full Post | 17/04/2009 3:28 PM | 0

• An organizational downturn, followed by a comedic rally

  Watching Thursday night's Savings & Groans gala at the Pantages Playhouse was kind of like watching the stock market during the past six months (or I'm sure it might have been, if I was anywhere near smart enough to understand the stock market) -- sometimes unsettling, occasionally frightening, creating a sense of curiousity about who's ultimately at fault, but with enough moments of encouraging up-tick and a late-stages rally to leave one with the gratifying but still-uncertain feeling that not all was lost.

  The theme of the show -- basically, the no-end-in-sight economic crisis -- was challenging, and the basic logistics of putting the darned thing on were also a bit daunting, given that this was the first taped-for-TV gala in a new era in which the fest's big shows are no longer in-house CBC productions but independently produced programs handled by locally based Frantic Films.
  
  To say there were a few glitches and hiccups would be an understatement, and to suggest that they didn't affect the pacing of the show and, ultimately, the audience's enjoyment thereof would be patently untrue.

  View Full Post | 17/04/2009 9:20 AM | 0

• Opening Night: Dikes (Dykes?) overflowing

  A girl, two guys, a gay and That Canadian Guy -- that pretty much sums up the '09 edition of the Winnipeg Comedy Fest's opening-night gala in the cavernous and not-quite-soundproof curtained showroom at McPhillips Street Station.

  For those of you scoring at home, it took exactly 12 seconds for a festival performer to lob out the first flood-related joke of this soggy spring's funnyfest -- it actually arrived BEFORE the show started, during artistic director Al Rae's introductory remarks, when he recalled having moved to Winnipeg in the spring of 1997, during that other flood of that other century:

  View Full Post | 16/04/2009 9:37 AM | 0

• Comedy Festering

  And so it begins ... in the funniest freakin’ way possible, of course.

  The 8th Annual CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival starts tonight with the always-sold-out Opening Night Gala, played out on that stage tucked in behind the VLTs and bingo tables at McPhillips Street Station.

  View Full Post | 15/04/2009 2:53 PM | 1

• Corner Gas goodbye: Mission accomplished

  

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  In an interview last week, Corner Gas creator/star Brent Butt said writing the final episode of the series proved to be a tricky endeavour, because the farewell instalment had to have a special atmosphere while still maintaining CG’s signature show-about-nowhere attitude.

  
  Monday night’s sendoff got the job done.

  View Full Post | 14/04/2009 3:10 PM | 0

• Are you feeling the Madness?

  

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  Greg Gumbel (left), Seth Davis and Greg Anthony at CBS’s March Madness HQ. (JEFFREY R. STAAB / CBS)

  For a certain segment of the WFP newsroom population – as well as sports-obsessed denizens of workplaces all around North America – these are the days that set the heart all a-flutter.

  It’s only a few more hours until the tipoff of the NCAA Basketball Championship, a.k.a. March Madness, and for hoops- and sports-pool-obsessed fans, it’s Christmas Eve and Halloween night all wrapped up in one.

  View Full Post | 18/03/2009 1:39 PM | 0

• Fallon: the art of conversation

  

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  Drew Barrymore 'licks it for ten' with Jimmy Fallon on Late Night. (DANA EDELSON / NBC)

  It's far too early to pass judgment on Jimmy Fallon's performance as host of NBC's Late Night franchise, but perhaps it's fair to offer a few preliminary observations about the former SNL fake-news reader's early efforts as a chat-show desker.

  The show and its new host won't find their footing for many more weeks -- months, even, if Conan O'Brien's tentative but steadily improving start in the same chair are any sort of blueprint -- but the first couple of weeks of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon have demonstrated a few things worth celebrating and one element that's cause for consternation.

  View Full Post | 11/03/2009 2:43 PM | 1

• Most dramatic EVER - no, seriously

  

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  THE BACHELORETTE - Jillian Harris is the new bachelorette. This will be the 5th edition of ABC's popular romance reality series. (ABC/CRAIG SJODIN) JILLIAN (ABC)

  Sheesh. Like, enough, already. If there's a show on the tube that outdoes even the most ambitious promotional over-reaching in the rest of the reality-TV world, it's ABC's The Bachelor.

  Every installment is THE MOST SHOCKING EPISODE EVER; every rejection is THE MOST EMOTIONAL ROSE CEREMONY EVER, and every next-week's-show teaser promise THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE TWIST EVER. The already preposterous fabricated-romance-as-reality franchise always seems to find a new way to -- if not in deeds, then at least in promotional-babble overload -- make itself seem sillier with each passing week.

  View Full Post | 4/03/2009 3:01 PM | 3

• Life on Mars' death in primetime

  

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  LIFE ON MARS - "Life on Mars" stars Jason O'Mara as Sam Tyler, Harvey Keitel as Lieutenant Gene Hunt, Michael Imperioli as Detective Ray Carling, Gretchen Mol as Annie Norris and Jonathan Murphy as Detective Chris Skelton. (ABC/KURT ISWARIENKIO) (ABC)

  Sad news today for fans of ABC's Americanized version of the brilliantly time-warped cop show Life on Mars: the series has ended (or will, soon) its Earthly existence, having been cancelled by the network after a brief but poorly rated run.

  Life on Mars' U.S. broadcaster announced the axe-job today, stating that the series -- which stars Jason O'Mara as a NYPD detective who gets hit by a car while on the job and wakes up in 1973, and co-stars Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli and Gretchen Mol as his disco-era deskmates -- will be allowed to burn off the remainder of its 17 ordered episodes. But after that, that's that. Which is a shame, because Life on Mars, while never quite as brilliant as the BBC original on which it's based, did have a certain unique charm, a quirky angle on the traditional cop-show concept, and an infallibly rockin' episodic soundtrack (which included, among others, local '70s world-conquerers The Guess Who).

  View Full Post | 3/03/2009 3:29 PM | 4

• Fallon fuels guest-grab frenzy

  

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  Jimmy Fallon (VIRGINIA SHERWOOD / NBC)

  Late-night TV's guest-booking battle seems headed for a boil-over as competing networks scramble to attract viewers during Jimmy Fallon's first week as host of NBC's post-Conan Late Night franchise.

  The head-to-head competition, of course, is between Fallon's fledgling chatfest and CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

  View Full Post | 26/02/2009 3:12 PM | 0

• Back in the saddle -- or at least on the couch

  

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  Hugh Jackman and Beyonce at the Academy Awards (MICHAEL YADA / AMPAS)

  It's been a long, not-so-leisurely haul since the last post here in CouchBoyLand, and there's an equally long story (that I'm not going to bore you with here) that fills in the hows and whys of the extended absence.

  The more important (or, perhaps, to you, not) thing is that we're back, ready to re-start this TV-inclined blog and hoping there might be somebody out there inclined to read it.

  View Full Post | 25/02/2009 1:21 PM | 0

• Dropped the ball; fumbled the puck; zigged when they shoulda zagged: CBC's big OOPS

  This is, I believe, what's referred to in the sports biz as "IN YOUR FACE!!!!"
  
  Just hours after CBC's crafty executives and rights-contract negotiators announced that they had quite generously offered to summon a mediator to try to resolve the HNIC-theme impasse, CTV/TSN delivered this crashing check into the end boards:Toronto, ON (June 9, 2008) – CTV Inc., together with Copyright Music & Visuals, today announced that CTV Inc. has acquired all rights to ‘The Hockey Theme’ in perpetuity, preserving the song’s legacy and ensuring it will be heard on national television for years to come.  ‘The Hockey Theme’ song will now live on CTV Inc. properties TSN, RDS and across Canada on CTV during coverage of the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympics as outlined below.   The deal between CTV and Copyright Music & Visuals was agreed to in principle after the CBC publicly announced last Friday at 5 p.m. ET that a deal could not be reached with the rights holders.  Due diligence was completed earlier today. The song, which was created by Vancouver’s Dolores Claman in 1968, will now be used in NHL broadcasts on TSN and RDS beginning this Fall.  In addition, CTV will utilize the song as part of its hockey coverage during the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.   “The song has a long and storied history in Canadian sports and has become ingrained in the hearts and minds of hockey fans across the country.  It is an iconic tune, embraced by Canadians everywhere, and we felt it was imperative to save it.  We know we will be in hockey forever, so there’s no doubt this acquisition will create value for us,” said Rick Brace, President, Revenue, Business Planning and Sports, CTV Inc.  “It’s an honour and a privilege to own such a cherished piece of Canadiana.” “I am very moved by how so many Canadians have taken the hockey theme to heart.  We are so pleased the song has found a new home,” said Claman.  “Throughout our negotiations, CTV displayed a tremendous amount of respect for my family and the song.  ‘The Hockey Theme’ means so much to Canadians, and we know it’s in good hands with CTV.”   The announcement complements TSN’s new six-year multi-platform NHL deal, featuring more coverage of Canadian teams than ever before with at least one Canadian team in every game.  Earlier this year, RDS extended its exclusive rights agreement with the Montreal Canadiens through the 2011-12 season. If the timeline information in CTV's release is accurate, what this means is not only that CBC's attempt to play hardball with the theme's composer resulted in the People's Network dithering away its relationship with the song, but that at the same time CBC brass were preparing through the weekend to execute the cunning hire-a-mediator gambit on Monday, Ms. Claman was already at home rolling (figuratively) around on a big pile of CTV money.Ooops. The song lives on, and from this fall onward, every time a hockey fan watches a game on TSN, he/she will be reminded of how CBC got its jersey pulled over its head in this tussle.In hockey slang, what CTV pulled off today would be "a great deke." And in the parlance of the puck, CBC would likely be referred to as "a pylon."Highlight of the night? Indeed.

  View Full Post | 9/06/2008 6:23 PM | 0

• CBC: OFF SIDE!!!!

  How far, you ask, is too far?THIS far:

   By Bal Brach

  View Full Post | 5/06/2008 6:10 PM | 0

• Idol outcome: a pleasant surprise!

  Well, I've got to admit, I really didn't see THAT coming..... Not that I'm upset -- in fact, quite the contrary -- with David Cook being crowned this season's American Idol. I thought throughout the Top-10 pare-down that he was the most distinctive and daring of the bunch, but there seemed to be an inevitability to the notion that walking emoticon David Archuleta was going to win this thing. In fairness, each would have been a legit pick. Archuleta's voice is pretty much perfect; I just preferred the slightly lived-in, slightly rough-around-the-edges qualities Cook brought to the contest. Archuleta struck me as a younger, latter-day version of Clay Aiken -- destined, eventually, not to rock the world but to wow 'em on Broadway. Cook, perhaps, could follow in the footsteps of non-winner Chris Daughtry, who seems to have found record-biz success more or less on his own terms after getting the boot prematurely from Idol.So here's the question: given the fact he's intent on maintaining (or, more to the point, establishing) rock-star cred in the aftermath of his Idol run, could winning the crown actually hurt David Cook more than help? Would being rejected by the Idol audience have given his "cool" factor a Daughtry-sized boost?Also, one other random thought after watching last night's over-long (but actually pretty entertaining) Idol sendoff:  after having endured the series run and fallen short of their dream, mustn't it be a soul-crushing contractual ordeal for straight-ahead singers like Carly Smithson and Amanda Overmyer and offbeat performers like Jason Castro to be forced to spend the next few months  doing those white-leisure-suited, clumsily choreographed, Brady-Bunch-ish showtune renditions night after night on the American Idol concert tour? Despite the paycheques, my goodness, that's gotta be a grind....What are your thoughts? Did the best David win?  (and while we're at it, was the Kristi-Yamaguchi mirror-ball grab the right Dancing result? I'm sayin' yes to that one...)

  View Full Post | 22/05/2008 2:18 PM | 0

• Super-duper scooper dupers!!!

  "I've lost my reign as the dumbest Survivor EVER!"The structure and semantics may have been a bit shaky, but ol' Gravedigger James was absolutely spot-on with the sentiment in his tribal-council jury-bench declaration last night after the ladies of the Black Widow Society lured poor, slack-jawed waffle-cone filler Erik into their web and then snuffed him with almost-uncomfortable glee. It was, at once, the saddest and the funniest moment in Survivor history. Dude, dude, dude, dude, DUDE -- the one thing you NEVER do, unless you've got a brace of hidden immunity idols in your back pockets, is hand the hard-won immunity necklace to someone else.But Erik did. To Nat, no less. Sheeeesh. And now, Ozzie and Jason can feel not quite so stupid about the way the comfortably cackling conspiratorettes  sent them packing at recent TCs.I still think Cirie's going to win, but I've switched my vote-off lineup card to show nasty Nat going next.Your thoughts?Also, I've been wracking my brain, and I really can't think of a more shockingly boneheaded play in all the previous seasons of Survivor. Can you??? 

  View Full Post | 9/05/2008 5:44 PM | 0

• Reality-TV stretch run

  The Idol field is down to three; the roster of Dancing duos has been reduced to four; and the Survivor site has just five unhappy campers -- four full-of-themselves females and just one very twitchy guy -- left.Time, then, for some fearless and foolhardy end-of-season predictions, don't'cha think?First -- and, I think, easiest to handicap -- is American Idol, which I am pre-emptively stating is reduced to three even before tonight's elimination show, because dreadful dreadlocked lyric-dropper Jason Castro is as good as gone. That leaves the dueling Davids, Archuleta and Cook, and late bloomer Syesha Mercado as the series' seventh-season finalists.  As good as she has been in the run-up to the final song-selection showdown, the betting here is -- as it has been for some time -- that we're going to see a Dave-off, Idol-style, in the final episode. My heart's behind Cook, but my head tells me America's going to vote for Archuleta.On the Dancing floor, CouchBoy's predicted elimination order goes like this: Marissa Jaret Winokur gets hoofed next, because her fan base isn't big enough; Jason Taylor gets sacked in the final-three shakedown; and then one-armed bandit Cristian de la Fuente comes up short in the sympathy-vote department, leaving former figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi as the deserving winner of the mirror-ball bauble.Over at Survivor: Micronesia -- Fans vs. Favorites, picking a winner isn't much easier than staying in the game after you've found the hidden immunity idol. It's pretty obvious that gullible guy Erik is gone as soon as he fails to win an immunity idol -- which should happen as soon as the challenge involves brains rather than brawn -- but the more interesting scenario involves just exactly how the Black Widow Bunch decides which of its members will be, er, dis-membered first. My guess is that Amanda will get her torch snuffed first, with the ever-more-cartoonishly-evil Natalie getting her comeuppance shortly after that. Which leaves a final-jury-vote pairing of Parvati and Cirie;  the CB perspective is that Cirie, while quite unpopular will get props from her former island peeps for having been the game's master manipulator.So there you have it -- David Archuleta, Kristi Yamaguchi, Cirie Fields.Any questions? Disagreements, perhaps? 

  View Full Post | 7/05/2008 6:12 PM | 0

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