VAGUE SPACE

2011-2012 TV Season in Review Winners

And the winners are:

Best Comedy

Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia  (FX)
Life's Too Short (HBO)
Louie (FX)
Modern Family (ABC)
Nurse Jackie  (Showtime)
Parks and Recreation  (NBC)

This was the toughest competition of the season, as Nurse Jackie (2010's winner) edges out Parks and Recreation (last year's winner).  Parks was pretty great again (although ratings have cratered, as they have for all of NBC's Thursday lineup) but Nurse Jackie was as good this season as it was in its first two seasons, even though there are still a few episodes left.  This is a sober Jackie for the very first time, a necessary step in the arc of the show -- her drug abuse was getting worse and worse and affecting her family and work -- and it was going to have to end.  Badly.  Which it did when guest Billie Joe Armstrong died in her arms after an overdose.  They handled the rehab rather well (although quickly) and have handled the "clean and sober" part equally well, as her husband has sued for divorce and custody of the kids, putting the rest of her life in danger in the absence of the drug use.  O'Hara's pregnancy has been a welcome addition (I assume Eve Best is pregnant in real life, but either way it works).  Getting Anna Deveare-Smith out on the floor as a nurse again was a stroke of genius.  And the inclusion of Bobby Canavale was a wise decision to give Jackie a foil (with the twist that she befriended his addict son in rehab -- a juicy detail that I can't wait to see how it resolves).  All in all, the show has focused more on the hospital than Jackie's family life (now that her husband has left her) and that has probably been for the good (he was always the weakest character).  So in the end, Nurse Jackie beats out the great "Leslie running for town council" season on Parks and Recreation.  Coming in third again was another solid season for Modern Family, edging out the 2nd season of the awkward but wonderful comedy of Louis CK.

 

TV Madness Round 3 - The Other Shows

1 - Late Night with David Letterman vs. 9 - 120 Minutes
4 - Monday Night Football vs. 12 - The Real World / Road Rules Challenge

Dave is up 6-0 over 120 Minutes and will move on to the next round.  For my younger readers out there, there was a time when MTV (short for music television) actually played music videos and there was certainly a time when it had the pulse on the music of the culture.  Music culturally has been stripped and divided into chunks of mediocrity with any brilliance obscured these days but back then, even when Debbie Gibson or Motley Crue (and yes, I consider the musical "talents" of both artists the same) were lighting up the music channel during the day, during late night (starting only on Sunday nights at midnight but I think at some point expanding throughout the week) MTV was actually playing brilliant "underground" music (mostly British new wave bands that had limited success here) and I was listening.  But yeah.  Dave will move on.  In the other matchup we have a symbol of the downslide of MTV and our culture into a reality-obsessed nation clamoring for short-lived fame by rewarding steroid-addled alcoholics for exposing their bodies and mood changes for our entertainment.  And we have football.  Actually both are kind of similar.  And as I'm writing this, I realize I've forgotten to include Hard Knocks among the potential great shows in history -- it definitely should have made the play-in at least, if only for the scene in which Antonio Cromartie is trying to name his children.  But the point I'm trying to make, if there is any point to make, is that the Challenge is pretty close to the worst of our culture.  And 120 Minutes was a brief shining light of good.  So even though I will be watching with baited anticipation whether Johnny will literally freeze his Bananas off in the final challenge tomorrow night against psychopath CT (and equally nutso Diem), I can't move it forward.  Although I still don't think sports should be in this category.  Oh well, too late now.

Winners:  1 - Late Night with David Letterman vs. 4 - Monday Night Football (vote below)

 

The End of the Challenge

So I've watched every episode of this season's Gauntlet III (Real World/ Road Rules Challenge) on MTV and gone from mildly amused to obsessively interested to patently disgusted to completely appalled.  There are reportedly still 5 weeks left, and I guess I'll still watch it even though I'm embarrassed to say so, but it's pretty much over at this point.  Coral -- the last holdout from the "original"/old school Challenge veterans -- voluntarily left the show this week, the first time she hasn't made it to a final episode in a Challenge other than the one year she left due to injury.  For reasons that make no logical sense, her team of Veterans turned against her (and Beth and Katie) and actively plotted to get rid of them.  The steroid-addled male team members have wanted to dump all the female "dead weight," as they called it, but that should not have included Coral, one of the strongest female contestants in Challenge history, up to and including this season.  And the female team members beside Coral, Beth, Katie (and perhaps Robin), joined in line behind the despicable Evelyn in the efforts to dump the "old-timers" from the game (for reference sake, Coral is only 29, but these idiots running the game now are a few years younger).  The first evidence of a crack in Coral's usual safety in these games was when her male "friends" on the team (namely, Brad, Evan, and Kenny) didn't defend her from going into the Gauntlet against Beth, but she won anyway.

Then this week, the men threw their second female competition, blatantly targeting Katie and Coral, and after the Rookies protected Katie and sent in Evelyn, it was obvious that her teammates were going to select Coral again -- this time as a sacrificial lamb to the almost male Ev -- and Coral said she had enough.  She had a calm and rational goodbye moment with Evan and Katie, explaining that she didn't give a shit about anyone else on the team if they were so set against kicking her off, especially since she's one of the strongest females, and especially after Evan did nothing to support his supposed friend.  In a tearful scene earlier in the episode, Coral admits to being deeply hurt that Evan turned his back on her friendship during the game (shades of her more hysterical betrayal at the hands of Mike the Miz a few years ago).  Now, I've always like Coral, so I'm 100% on her side on this, but even if you don't like her, you have to admit she came off looking classy here.  Her teammates actively screwed her over for no apparent reason other than a power play to take out a former leader in other challenges and she didn't let them have the satisfaction.  She left on her own terms and forced the Vets to send in one of their own to get eaten alive by Ev in the Gauntlet (since Katie was safe).  Casey volunteered/got pushed in, and got destroyed by the she-male (picture to the right), and the entire team put on a despicable display of a pity party over the fact that "Coral screwed them over."  Um... no, idiots.  You screwed her over first, and hard, and undeservedly.  You have zero right to complain about her coming back at you.  Bravo, Coral.  Fuck the veterans.  And yes, I am fully aware how sad it is that I've become emotionally invested in such a horrible program, but hey, there it is.

Johnny Going Bananas

So this year's edition of the Real World / Road Rules Challenge - The Gauntlet III is apparently featuring hour long episodes every week with two challenges, two gauntlets, and two eliminations.  Double the pleasure, double the fun?  Not entirely; this is still a show filled with vapid wannabe celebrities who have too many steroids pumping through their veins to make much sense at all, but yet I'm glued to the screen every Wednesday night at 10, so I don't know if I have the right to complain. 

This week featured a lot of lesbianism in the first half of the show and a lot of Johnny Bananas in the second half.  For LegFu's sake, we'll start with the girl-on-girl action.  Brooke and Evelyn have been getting it on since the start of the series, although how far they've been going is open to interpretation, even between the couple.  Ev, who's openly a lesbian, is clearly in love.  Brooke -- well, let's just say she seems a little more likely to just be experimenting.  She's also one of the worst athletes in the history of the series and openly admits that at least, although it leads one to wonder why she chose to join the Challenge in the first place -- oh that's right, none of these fame whores would ever turn down a shot at another TV show.  But after the Rookies lose their 4th straight challenge - some stupid event involving laundry... yes, laundry (I'm pretty sure the producers have completely run out of ideas) - Brooke ends up in the Gauntlet against Jillian, since the Veterans can't protect her from going in two straight times.  They wanted to keep her around to hamper the Rookies with her clumsy ineptitude, but alas, she has to face Jillian in a hybrid of keepaway/football that some people think her size advantage over the waif-like Jillian might help with, but the ever-brilliant Coral realizes this is just wishful thinking.

Coral:  "Brooke don't even know what day it is, let alone how to get the ball and push it across the line."

The Challenge Returns

And so the time has come again for one of my guilty TV pleasures, the Real World / Road Rules Challenge , and as usual, I've been sucked right into it one more time.  I mean at this point, I don't even remember what season of The Real World these participants came from -- I just know them from the challenges.  But it's tough to get a better format than sticking a bunch of hyper-competitive, angry, aging former reality world stars into a resort in Mexico and have them get drunk, hook up, hate each other, and try to physically annihilate their opponents in a battle for a share of $300,000 cash, which will be the entire income for most of the cast members for the foreseeable future.  It doesn't get any better than that.  And oh yeah, after a brief hiatus, Coral's back.  It really doesn't get any better than that.

The name of this year's challenge is Gauntlet III, and the format is slightly different than previous seasons.  The winners of the challenge get to select one member from the losing team to go into the Gauntlet (five different one-on-one competitions, winner survives) as well as a member from the losing team who will be immune from selection.  Then the losing team has to pick the other member to face his teammate in the Gauntlet (but not the member who was chosen to be immune).  The matchup is Veterans vs. Rookies -- long-time (and for most of them, really, really long-time) contestants from the Challenge vs. Real World and Road Rules alumni who are Challenge virgins, or have only been on one show (and for the most part, not lasted very long).  There's another added twist as well -- the individual competitions are not worth any money to be banked into the team's potential winnings, so it's (a) winner take all for the 300K at the end, and (b) except to avoid the Gauntlet, there is no need to compete to win the intermediate challenges and since the Gauntlet alternates sexes week to week, there may be an already expressed desire of the Veteran men to tank the women's weeks in order to intentionally lose female members before the Final Challenge.  This strategy has occurred before among some of the Veterans that are currently playing, in order to dump some dead weight from the Final task (which is usually a "you don't win until your last player crosses the finish line" contest) and also to reduce the number of competitors to share in the 300K.  And if you don't think that matters to these cutthroat, selfish fame whores, you're a little mistaken.

(Note to LegFu Johnson:  "lesbians" ahead... read on)

Season in Review

What a roller-coaster television season, one marked mostly by disappointment, but with a few bright pleasures, including a single brilliant shining example of quality network television comedy.  There was little else.  I've stopped watching TV as much in recent years, which you've probably noticed in my lack of blogging about the pleasures of television, and it is admittedly quite freeing.  I don't miss having shows to watch, for it seems as if (even with DVR) you become beholden to the shows as more than mere entertaining distractions from daily obsessions.  Several times this season, even with my limited schedule of must-watch programs, I've stared at a list with three or four O.C.s and a couple Losts and felt more resigned than anything at my need to watch them.  The truth is, it's better not to get involved, to spend my time socializing or reading or writing or listening to music -- heck, almost anything is better than being forced to watch another confusing episode of Lost... and that's one of my favorite shows.  And I've found I can only take my television in small bites for the most part.  The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - yes, of course, but they only take about 15 minutes each and then some Food Network, some baseball, maybe a glimpse of Seinfeld, and that's basically my viewing day.  I have other things to do.  The point is, when I was younger, for better or worse, I could easily make a list of some top 20 or 30 programs in a season that I've at least watched on a semi-regular basis.  Most of those were sitcoms, back when sitcoms were still programmed, but still, I had serious trouble coming up with 10 shows to make this season's list.  And I don't regret it.  Looking at the state of the top 10 in fact, I'm kind of glad that at least three of the programs will not be returning next season.  I just don't have the time anymore.

Fresh Meat Final Four

I haven't blogged about this show in a while, but it is still on my weekly viewing schedule.  Yes I know I say I don't have enough time to watch recommended quality programs like Rescue Me or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (although I have caught the last couple episodes of it and it's quite funny), while I continue to watch another Real World/Road Rules Challenge retread, but let's not concentrate on the negative and get right into the show.  Fresh Meat - as they've decided to call this season - is down to four teams, as follows:   

• Derrick and Diem
• Tina and Kenny
• Darrell and Aviv
• Wes and Casey

And the fact that I knew those without having to look them up or check on the spelling is disturbing enough.  Let's just try to move on.

Fresh Meat

Nothing signals the start of summer like bad reality television, and this year MTV has kicked it up a notch with the premiere of this season's Real World/Road Rules Challenge titled "Fresh Meat".  Yes, it's called Fresh Meat.  Does MTV just not give a shit anymore?  Has subtlety as an art form skipped past the next generation?  Is the ghost of Mary-Ellis Bunim just laughing at the whole affair while her heirs collect royalty checks?  And the scariest part is, it was a great fucking premiere episode.  Yes, I need help.

The concept this time around is to pair up "veterans" of the two series with newcomers - a seemingly random group of youngsters who will compete with such long-time RW/RRulers as Coral, Derrick, and Katie.  It's an interesting concept in that some new blood is definitely needed to revitalize the Challenge but as could easily be predicted, the newbies sort of blend together into the background while the old personalities dominate the show.  Of course, the presence of so many young people kind of makes you feel a little dated.  Especially after the advice that Wes from the Austin cast gave to an 18-year old newcomer:

    Avoid Coral and Shane and Tina - basically anybody that you watched when you were in middle school, just stay the hell away from.

Oh the Horror

Taken from the Bunim/Murray Real World website is this open casting call..

And I really don't have anything to add, except this might be the worst idea for a television series in the history of electricity (save for the time they said "Let's see if anyone still remembers INXS")

 

Live in the Los Angeles area? We want to hear from you!

Veronica and Rachel from Road Rules and The RR/RW Challenge are filming a new show.  The girls are looking for a new BFF and someone to help them out with their clothing line!

We are looking for smart, sexy, and fun girls who have what it takes to hang out with two of the most notorious girls of reality TV.

Please email us at mcast@bunim-murray.com with your name, age, a photo, an mpeg (if you like) and a few reasons why you think you have the skills for the job.

An Inferno to Remember

On Monday night, MTV showed a recap clip show of the recently completed Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno 2 and it turned out to be about as interesting as any episode of the season - which is saying quite a bit, as this season was filled with a lot of drama, tension, and naked sluts.  Which is where the recap show began... with Tonya, spilling about another one of her "conquests":

    "Yeah, I hooked up with Landon.  It was completely uneventful... I felt like I was making out with a tree."

Landon's memory of the incident:  "Well, it's not that I regret it... well, yeah I regret it."  And in all fairness, how could you not?  Most people who sleep with hookers must feel a little regret, especially if the whore in question goes on national TV to compare you to a tree.  Not good times.  I think getting hit in the balls on one of the challenges is at this point a better memory for him.