- The first season of the new ABC hit Greek is winding down, albeit with a hopeful vibe because the show has been picked up for a second season and will be returning later this season. Last night’s episode was billed as a sort of showdown night for different characters, with Rusty and Dale squaring off in a battle for control of their dorm room, Cappie and Rebecca Logan squaring off as part of a psychology experiment and Casey squaring off against Frannie (not sure there are actually any hot college girls with the name Frannie in 2007, but never mind that) in the race for the title of “Omega Chi Sweetheart” for the Omega Chi Fraternity, of which Casey’s boyfriend Evan is president. Actually, as the season has worn on, Casey has definitely become the more central character, as opposed to a focus on Rusty that the show promoted when it first started. The Casey-Cappie-Evan love triangle has become the centerpiece of the show, which is actually quite remarkable when you consider that there hasn’t been a single Evan-Cappie fight/showdown the entire season. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the new “I used to be a _______________ major” for Cappie this week was psychology, and at this point I actually wish I had been keeping track of how many majors this guy has had, because there have to be at least seven or eight by now. Ironically, though, it was Frannie, the annoyingly proper, perky, matronly president of the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority, who found out in this week’s episode that she won’t be graduating on time. That led to a showdown with Casey because it means another year of Frannie at Zeta Beta, where Casey was fixing to take over. Meanwhile, Dale and Rusty squared off over control of their dorm room when Dale had his feelings hurt over Rusty spending all of his time with girlfriend Jen K. Ultimately, the story has a happy ending when Jen K. pointed out that Dale has been very helpful to Rusty and that they are more than roommates, they are actually friends. Again I have to ask what girl would actually be that understanding of an annoying roommate, be willing to attend a physics lecture (as happened in this episode as well) and openly state that one of her goals for the relationship would be to reach double digits in the having sex column? Yeah, girls like that aren't very realistic. The Cappie-Rebecca Logan story didn't evolve into much, serving only to teach us a bit about Cappie (his parents were irresponsible hippies) and to give him another chance to make amends with Casey by paying her back for bailing him out at the strip club by giving her the money he received for participating in the psychology experiment with Rebecca. Overall, this episode was mroe focused on the dramatic side of the equation as opposed to the comedic side, but it was still fun to watch and it set up what should be a great season finale with special guest stars Charisma Carpenter and Alan Ruck, next Monday, 9 p.m. on ABC Family.
- Romeo Crennel is a moron. Man, that feels good to say. The portly, secretive and often-cryptic coach of the Cleveland Browns is already showing why this should and probably will be his final season with the team. All offseason and preseason Crennel has been hedging, hemming and hawing about naming a starting quarterback. The Browns have incumbent started Charlie Frye, along with backup Derek Anderson, who started a few games last season when Frye was injured. They also have Brady Quinn, a highly touted rookie from Notre Dame who held out for the first week and a half of training camp in a contract dispute, which greatly impeded his chances to win the starting job. Going into training camp, Crennel billed the situation as an open competition, but neither Frye nor Anderson did much to distinguish themselves in preseason action. Quinn finally signed and got into camp, but he was so far behind that despite good play in his three preseason games, he was given no chance to win the start job. That left Frye and Anderson, with Frye’s play giving him a slight edge for the starter’s role to open the season. Crennel made the announcement yesterday that Frye is indeed the starter…..kind of….sort of….well, for the first week anyhow. That’s right, Coach Ass Hat is going with a week-by-week basis for starting quarterback. It’s the single dumbest thing I have seen from a football coach in a long time, for a number of reasons. First, the guy who’s starting, Frye in this case, is going to have one eye on the field and one eye on the sidelines every time he makes a throw, wondering if he’s about to lose his job. Second, what the hell does it say about you if you can’t pick a starter and at least publicly stand by them? Even if they are starting on a week-to-week basis, don’t say that publicly, you’re just needlessly inviting constant speculation and creating a circus. Third, every other team in the NFL has managed to decide on a starting quarterback without attaching a “for this week” tag, just like every other team in the NFL was able to do that last year, the year before and the year before that. The only time a guy is designated as a one-week starter is if he’s filling in for an injured or suspended player. This is taking the idea of a quarterback competition a little too far, extending it into the regular season indefinitely. Hey Coach Ass Hat, at some point you need to pick one guy and stick with him. And oh yeah, not only won’t Crennel name a starter beyond this week’s game, this tool won’t even say who the backup is going to be for this week’s game. Yes, that’s right, he won’t say who will be holding the clipboard and relaying in signs. Good one, R., because other teams will now have to spend all that extra time preparing for not one but two backup quarterbacks, doubling that time from about two minutes of prepation to four. Perhaps Crennel isn’t taking this concept far enough; maybe he needs to force all three quarterbacks to get identical haircuts and a la Mission: Impossible 2, have scientists give them the same exact face so you can’t tell them apart. Give them all the same jersey number, force them to keep their helmets on at all times and never speak so there is literally no way to tell them apart. Either that, or Crennel should just pull his head out of his ass and make a decision. This type of indecisiveness and refusal to make an actual decision beyond this week’s game shows a lack of testicular fortitude that I definitely would not want in the coach of any team I was on. Fortunately with the four-win season the Browns are headed for, Crennel should be fired at year’s end anyhow and then maybe the Browns can bring in a coach with the brains and balls to make an actual decision.
- Polls are normally a ginormous waste of time. They can be slanted, biased and set up to prove any point you want to make. They’re flawed and often unreliable, but on occasion a poll confirms something so blatantly obvious that it’s impossible to dispute it. In America, there aren’t very many topics you can definitively prove a point about and have overwhelming evidence to back it up. That our president is an incompetent, idiotic, inept moron is one such point, and recent polls show that most of America feels this way. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that a resounding two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the job W. is doing in office, a full five-percent jump from polls done nine months ago. An even greater percentage of Americans feel that our country is headed in the wrong direction, which isn’t surprising given the current lacking nature of our leadership. On the whole, Americans are more eager for the upcoming elections and the assurance of a new president than they have ever been, again not surprising. Maybe we can not only elect one who will end this atrocity of a war in Iraq, but won’t start any new unjustified, unnecessary, exorbitantly expensive abominations of wars AND won’t take a week’s vacation at his ranch in Texas two or three times a month instead of being at the White House, doing the job he was elected to do. Ah, the winds of change are about to blow, and it could not be a more welcome sight for America.
- A few brief notes from TV land: First, the first season of Heroes is now out on DVD, which I highly recommend purchasing ASAP. If you’re a fan of the show, then you know what an amazing first year it was, 23 thrilling, action-packed rides that left you hungry for more. If you didn’t watch last season, order the DVD and you have your chance to catch up on the phenomenon before this next season begins, which brings me to my next bit of news. The season premiere for Heroes is Monday, Sept. 24, which seems to be right in the middle of this year’s popular time frame for starting new seasons. Prison Break begins one week earlier on Sept. 17, while another of my favorites, Smallville, begins the same week as Heroes, with Clark Kent and friends set to return on Sept. 27. I was just scanning my memory bank, trying to figure out when the season premieres were for other favorite shows of mine, but then I realized that the CW has FREAKING CANCELLED NEARLY ALL OF THEM! (You still suck big time, Dawn Ostroff!) One Tree Hill doesn’t return until midseason, as is true for Lost and The Amazing Race. It’s not going to be a great fall for TV if what I’m seeing to this point is any indication, that’s for sure. Come to think of it, you may want to order that Heroes DVD right away because it’s the only way you’re going to find a decent show to watch several nights each week.
- See what happens when you encourage and indulge TV networks with the crappy, inane programming they put on the air, people? That crappy programming begets more crappy programming, as evidenced by the fact that ABC is now going to have a spin-off from its unwatchable, chick-flick of a reality show Dancing with the (D-List) Stars. The show, titled Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, will feature two losers who apparently are judges for DWTDLS and will now square off in a six-week suck-fest to see which of them is a better dancer. Former DWTDLS winner (the ultimate oxymoron, because in a travesty like this show, there are no winners) will host the program, which will have the two loser judges taking teams of entrants any trying to mold them into the “ultimate dance team.” Now had there been more Americans out there with an IQ above 46, we could have given DWTDLS the zero Nielsen rating it so richly deserves and there would have been no spin-off. This is why you don’t feed the monkeys at the zoo, America, and it’s why you don’t give in to your petulant 4-year-old when he or she throws a temper tantrum, because it will only lead to bad things. From now on, don’t watch mindless, idiotic, lame TV shows and the networks will kill them off the way God intended (well, unless it’s Dawn Ostroff and the CW, then they’ll order five more seasons of it).
- Well whaddya know, another scientific study on a totally obvious fact turns up no new information and basically restates what we already knew. Still, even among redundant science, this study stands out as a massive waste of time and money. A new study published in the newest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that despite men saying they look for certain deeper, less superficial characteristics in a potential mate, men end up deciding on who they marry based primarily on physical appearance. Men in the study listed characteristics they’d want in a mate beforehand, with many listing personality traits as opposed to appearance. Yet when it came time to make their choices, shock of all shocks, the men picked women who were hot. Dude, where do I sign up for a grant to study clearly obvious things like this? Can I get a grant to study whether college students like beer and free food? What about research money to figure out whether Ferraris are more fun to drive than 1975 Ford Pintos with rusted out floors and no engine? Or maybe I should just start my own scientific journal with a title like Stating the Blatantly Obvious: Studies Only Telling You Things That Everyone with More Than Five Brain Cells Already Knows. Ah science, isn’t it wonderful…..
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