More KANYE

Listen Kanye, stop being self-aware and making fun of your persona. That is my job. Do you see me making videos that rip off Akira? Do I walk around Tokyo markets looking for venetian blinds I can wear as sunglasses?

Finally I understand why Kanye is always wearing sunglasses indoors: he is a modern Samson. His power is in those dark lenses. Watch as Kanye removes his glasses and immediately forgets the words to his own song.

KANYE

Whether you love him or hate him- or love to hate him, or hate to love him- you had to see Kanye's performance on SNL last night. His first musical performance was definitely a highlight. I still can't figure out what my favourite part was.

Glow-in-the-dark Kanye?









"Whoa, it's really dark in here. I can't see anything! Maybe some of my trademark stupid glasses would help"









It's Black Elton John, bitch.









Kanye's hiphop string harem?









THE WINNER: Kanye changes glasses midperformance. I guess the intense sunlight on that stage was making it hard Kan to concentrate.










What was your favourite part? Why don't you watch Kanye and tell us.

Tween Must Be Contagious

So I went to the So You Think You Can Dance Tour tonight. Far too tired to blog about the whole thing now; but I wanted to post my video of the Princes dance from tonight. This dance is everywhere on this blog, so I had to get video of it live. All that screaming in the video is courteousy of my section- where the average age was 29 and we all vowed not to scream like little girls. That didn't work out.

Did You Think No One Would Notice?

Phallic has already provided a review of the first episode of Moonlight for you, and he hit the nail pretty much on the head. Over the summer I read about this show and, having a vampire pop culture fetish, I was looking forward to it as an idea. As soon as they announced this, I immediately started reading comments about how this was exactly like Angel. My first thought was that sure they're both vampire detectives, but they wouldn't put something on the air that was a duplicate of a show that only stopped airing a couple of years ago. I was horrifically surprised to discover that I was so very wrong. Phallic has already mentioned some of the other, more obscure, material that Moonlight rips off and this can be added to the long list. This isn't just similar to Angel because they're good vampires who work as detectives. This show actually steals almost all its details and subplots from that show. The most ridiculous part: they wrote a love interest for Mick St. John that's exactly the same as the love interest Angel had on season 1 of that show (I'm sorry, one is a reporter and the other is an LAPD detective, big difference) and they cast a woman who looks just like the girl from Angel to play her! Take a look for yourself:


That is the always delicious (pre-Law & Order) Elisabeth Röhm steaming up your screen on the right.

Supporting cast observations:
-I love Jason Dohring. I'm a big Veronica Mars fan. I just wish he were more Logan-y on this show. His character could be great if he just loosened up a little and added some serious camp action to the role.
-Shannyn Sassoman is HOT. She's an 11; but bitch either needs some acting lessons or a transition into porn because she is awful in everything she does (I vote for the latter)
-Sophia Myles is an even worse actress. The difference is that she's not nearly as hot and her bad acting is so much more boring than Shannyn's. But, hey, if she stays on this show for a while The Doctor will probably dump her ass and be available again. There's one reason to keep this around for a couple of years.

Moonlight review - I'd say it sucks, but that's just too obvious

"Being a vampire sucks"

Yes, that is the actual first line of Moonlight. It's got a pseudo-documentary opening wherein Mick St. John, vampire, is interviewed about being a vampire. He immediately launches into a monologue that might have well been stolen directly from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's comic Preacher wherein a vampire explains how he is invincible to garlic, holy water, crosses, being staked in the heart, and he cannot turn himself into a bat. Mick is a vampire detective who solves vampire crimes in LA while trying to make sure that nobody finds out that vampires exist. He spends this episode hunting down someone who is murdering vapid goth whores for screwing their college professor who leads a vampire cult.

Remember when I mentioned that dialogue was stolen directly from a comic in the first scene of this episode? Well, later "And Death shall have no Dominion" by John Donne gets name-dropped by the leader of the vampire cult. Oh, guess what, No Dominion was Charlie Huston's second Joe Pitt novel. What kind of character is Joe Pitt, you may ask? Oh, just A VAMPIRE DETECTIVE.

God, I can't even bring myself to mock this, there's nothing going on. I'm 40 minutes in, and there's nothing interesting or entertaining happening here, just a leaden string of shitty post-Blade/Anne Rice vampire cliches. Their idea of originality is having Mick shoot up blood instead of drinking it. Oh, blood drinking is like alcoholism/drug addiction that's never been done before by EVERY VAMPIRE MOVIE EVER. Also, to top of the overwhelming goth idiocy of this, the emotional final sequence is set to fucking Evanescence.

Now that the episode's done, I feel I should also mention that Shannyn Sossamon shows up playing pretty much the exact same character as she did in Dirt, an insanely clingy girlfriend figure for the male protagonist who tries to drive him to the dark side. The only difference is last time she was a schizophrenic hallucination and this time she's a vampire. Also, Dirt was actually entertaining.

This show didn't screen at CBS's pilots, meaning they somehow had even less confidence in this than Viva Laughlin!, and that's a show where they've already fired one of the producers before the first episode has even aired.

Verdict: Blah blah we're vampires blah blah I can never get close to anyone because I'm a monster blah blah OH MY GOD WHO CARES. I can't even begin to explain how boring this show is, but I don't think either of us made it more than halfway through this episode before we stopped paying attention. You may wonder why I am posting a picture of Uwe Boll here. That is because he made Bloodrayne, a vampire movie that is currently ranked at #97 on the IMDb Bottom 100 list, yet still manages to be roughly 100 times more entertaining than anything on display in the festival of failure that was the pilot of Moonlight.

Would I Watch It? Dear god no.

Programming Notes

Kongye is now back to work in an office and it's been crazy here. Kongye works at a zoo, and today the animals have gone crazy. Hopefully we'll have some updates postgame tonight. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow is the start of a week of wall-to-wall So You Think You Can Dance-related activities for the Kongizzle so there may be even more random references to the blog's #1 TV obsession. Kind of like in this post and my personal favourite.

Breakfast with Brian Darling

I love this so much I had to get up first thing today and upload it for you.

Best catchphrase ever:

Dirty Sexy Money- Just Watch This Show

We at this blog will not be reviewing the pilot for Dirty Sexy Money. We are not worthy. We will say that this is OUR FAVOURITE show of the new TV season. It is absolutely hilarious and we love all the Darlings. If you have any doubts, watch the pilot. The humour is outrageous, wicked, and just perfect. I can’t say enough good things about this show and I wouldn’t know where to start. The one thing I will say is the Brian Darling a.k.a The Evil Priest, is THE BEST CHARACTER ON TELEVISION right now. Just how much does the blog love him? We named the blog after his catchphrase, we quoted Priest lines for weeks, and Kongye has seen almost every Glenn Fitzgerald project she could get her hands on (more on that another time). If you are not watching this show, you are missing out. Prepare for a flood of videos by tomorrow morning, along with entry after entry about this show, its cast, and anything with the words dirty, sexy, or money in it.

Life Review

This guy's main adorable quirk is that he really likes fruit. How adorable and quirky is that?

Life is a show about a police officer who’s wrongly imprisoned for 12 years, exonerated, and returns to the force as a detective. Ever since House became a huge hit and Hugh Laurie won every award known to man we’ve had a steady stream of quirky anti-heroes invade our television sets. This guy is not so much quirky as he is just annoying as fuck. Phallic had to keep reminding me that he was “Zen,” not just raised by wolves. Maybe I’m not familiar with that school of thought, as I couldn’t pick out a single Zen quality about him. This show was annoying, depressing, and sometimes confusing. The only scene I enjoyed was when they raid a drug den. The main character’s partner, a recovering drug addict, shoots a bag of coke. It blows up in her face and she’s just covered in the stuff. She immediately- and melodramatically- runs to the crack house’s shower and washes the coke off as she freaks out. It was HI-larious, as Phallic would say. Adam Arkin plays the cop’s only friend and he’s also the only thing this show has going for it.

Verdict: I give it a couple of weeks. It will be one of the first casualties of the TV season.

Would I Watch It? No.

Bionic Woman Review- Geek Porn with Wet T-Shirts

We haven’t been able to post all the updates we wanted on the blog today. Wouldn’t you know it, Kongye has a job and a life outside the blogosphere? Today a little of both intruded when Kongye had our weekly brunch with T and a shitstorm was abrewin’ on the work front. With that in mind, we bring you the reviews of tonight’s 2 NBC premieres.

I didn’t care for either Bionic Woman or Life. Personally I’d lump them together into the not good but not horrifically bad either category; but because Bionic Woman is so hyped and because it seems to be NBC’s big hope for Heroes-like numbers this year, I guess it deserves its own review. Basically, this show just didn’t give me a reason to keep wanting to watch it. I was extremely unimpressed with the staging of the climatic fight sequence in the pilot episode, and if that’s how they choose to showcase themselves it’s just not going to cut it. The heavy use of wire work and the Asian-inspired roof garden really harkened back too much to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for my liking. The similarities were likely not intentional, but it was all I could think about. This show suffered from trying to make everything too big. In that scene the two women were thrown around and crashed into the building far more than was necessary. The creators don’t trust the quality of their product enough to be subtle with anything. They feel the need to bombard us with too much of everything. Even the rain on this show is over the top and distracting. They’re really trying to clobber us over the heads with this idea that this image is significant.
It’s not all bad. I happen to like Michelle Ryan a lot- or at least I did in Jekyll over the summer. The problem is that I don’t like her as an action hero. On an admittedly shallow level, she just doesn’t have the physique I like in my female ass-kickers. I’m more of a Kate Beckinsale in Underworld kind of person. Michelle’s just on the boxy side (I’m not calling her fat, I can tell she’s actually very fit. Her body type just makes her not naturally lean and I don’t like that). Ultimately, if I’m not going to enjoy watching her fight on an aesthetic level, it just doesn’t make the show as good. I like most of the supporting cast. The producers recast the role of Jamie’s sister and reshot all the scenes with her, so basically all the non-bionic parts of the pilot. The new actress is a vast improvement, and I like that they dropped the goth angle because that’s an overused cliché: the troubled goth teen.
I’m going to lay all my cards on the table: I hate Isaiah Washington. I won’t get into it too much now; but the Cliff’s Notes is that I think he’s a set cancer and he doesn’t take responsibility for his own actions. I found out about NBC’s decision to stunt cast him on Bionic Woman before I saw one frame of this show. I am rooting for this show to fail largely so that Isaiah will find himself unemployed yet again, hopefully for a long, long time. Maybe that’s tainted my perception of the pilot, maybe not. I know co-blogger Phallic did enjoy this and he’ll tell you more about that when he has a chance.

Verdict: I’m hoping this show is pulled from the schedule even before any of Washington’s episodes air. That’s pretty unlikely. This will go on and on far longer than it needs to.

Would I Watch It? Nope

Another Gossip Girl Tease- Feel the Sexual Tension

An exclusive preview of tonight's show:

I have to say I was a little thrown off by the sudden costume changes in this scene; but it really works.

Doogie

Kongye don't usually read much Gawker; but we were surfing there this morning looking for something and this caught our attention on the front page. Kongye has blogged of a deep love for Neil Patrick Harris and this is a Doogie-sized dose of the NPH.

LINK

Gossip Girl Episode 2- A Preview

I feel cheated! The girls are actually hotel staff that Cumface banged after the big party in the Pilot. I really wanted something more exotic. I at least wanted that whole man thing to pan out. Also on Cumface's agenda: a statue. Time to put up our running score. After adding this week's conquests to last week's failed rapes- Cumface:3 Female of the Species: 2

Kongye got a copy of the latest episode of Gossip Girl late last night. It was actually too late for Kongye to watch immediately; but we got up all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am today- probably from the shear anticipation of seeing this- and watched this hot mess in bed. Unfortunately Kongye has work this morning and there's a full slate of spanking new TV that we have to blog about. Tonight is the premiere of the Blog's biggest fall obsession: Dirty Sexy Money! Expect a long review of that pilot later today.

In the meantime, I know you need a taste of what you can expect from this latest installment of GG. This episode does not disappoint. It may very well be the most unintentionally homoerotic hour of television I've seen all year. This episode makes even less sense than the pilot! The best part is that it's started to make fun of its ridiculous plotlines for you- that clusterfuck line towards the end was almost exactly what I was thinking; bravo GG writers. I can't wait to blog this. Here is what I'm going to do: I'm going to devote a few entries to it. Later today, before it airs on the CW, I'll post a full episode review/recap. As I rewatch this on my TiVo later tonight I'll do a running commentary on all the gooey goodness.

What's on Kongye's TiVo- Kongye is a Hateful Bitch Edition

BONES- 8pm, Fox- It’s a procedural that’s not on CBS and Kongye likes that the actors weren’t hired for their looks. Kongye won’t watch this if there’s something better on; but there isn’t so it’ll be on the DVR.

DANCING WITH THE STARS- 8pm, ABC- Sigh, The Houghness won’t be dancing tonight because the male “celebrities” are performing. Maybe we’ll still get some sweet Hough reaction shots. This is quite a pathetic list of performers they have on the men’s side. Kongye don’t even know who most of them are. Kongye hopes Wayne Newton spins out of control, crashes into Mark Cuban, and crushes him under the weight of his enormous, orange, botox-filled head.

HOUSE-9pm, Fox- Kongye didn’t really miss House while it was off the air. That’s a good show, though. Usually nothing worth blogging about, unless show guy’s balls blow up again.

MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEEN- 10pm, MTV- These little shitheads used to bring Kongye such joy. Now all the glee is gone because if you’ve seen one girl pretending to be even more rich and/or spoiled than she is in a desperate attempt to get on TV you’ve seen them all. It’s been a while, maybe this will work for Kongye again.

LAW & ORDER: SVU- 10pm, NBC- Tonight’s episode is absolute proof that Cynthia Nixon really needed that Sex and the City movie to be made. From the commercials it looks like she plays a multiple personality serial killer who thinks she’s a horny school girl, among others. All Cynthia does between SATC projects is stupid guest spots on procedural TV shows. Someone give her a real job.

MURDER- 12am, Spike- Have you heard about this show? It’s strangely fascinating, if only because they clearly pick crimes to solve based on how horrific the crime scenes would be to recreate. The producers of this totally get off on the fact that it’s late night cable and just throw random blood and guts in. the way they do this makes it amazingly not shocking in the least bit.

THE WAR- 12am, PBS- Kongye continues a failed attempt at getting more cultured. Now on the DVR: 2 unwatched instalments of The War. After tonight there will be 3.

Reaper- Definitely Worth a Viewing

Remember how I was all mean and hateful to Chuck the other day? First of all, get used to it; I’m a mean and hateful person by nature. More importantly, REAPER is premiering tonight and it’s like Chuck, only good.
When I say it’s like Chuck, I mean it’s pretty much exactly like Chuck. Granted Bret Harrison works in a Home Depot instead of a Best Buy and he becomes a bounty hunter for the devil instead of an annoying piece of shit that Adam Baldwin should kill as soon as possible; but otherwise the premises are pretty similar. Sam is a loser; but he’s actually a loser because his parents sold his sold to the devil before he was conceived and felt so guilty about it that they never forced him to work hard, so he never achieved anything. On his 21st birthday weird shit starts to happen, the devil shows up, and his parents tell him about the soul-selling stuff. The devil comes back and explains that he expects him to return escapees back to Hell. The rest of the show is Sam coming to terms with that and learning how to do his new job. Obviously he’s initially comically horrible at it and we go through some pretty standard story arch stuff. The plot isn’t the most appealing part of this show. I wouldn’t say it’s extraordinarily original. However, this show is funny, sweet, appealing, and smart. Bottom line is that it keeps you watching. Bret Harrison is just one of my favourite actors out there right now. He’s in a very uncomfortable Hollywood circle, since I just found out he’s friends with the likes of Adam Brody. He can be forgiven for that because he’s just that good. A couple of years in Vancouver working on this show should help. Man, Brody is totally gonna be sleeping on his couch in like a month.
*Aside to Bret: Dude, ditch the Seth Cohen. That whole cast is a sinking ship. In fact, do everyone a favour and put him out of his misery. Does he have any range beyond high school comic book geek?
The rest of the cast is great, too. One of the best ways of doing the devil I can remember. I appreciate that he’s not over the top, he’s a guy I think I’d like to hang out with. The love interest in a little boring; but give her time. One of the show’s strengths is that it does its sweet scenes very well; they fit in with the overall tone of the show.
I’m going to do a whole Chuck vs. Reaper entry at some point because it’s amazing how similar these shows are on paper and how much Reaper owns Chuck in every category. This show is what Chuck wishes it were.

Verdict: I think this is a really good direction for the CW to go in. It works for a young audience, it can get males interested in the network, and it has a family viewing potential for families with teens. I think it’ll go a couple of seasons.

Would I Watch It? Definitely; but there probably won’t be blog entries devoted to it.

Cane- Suck It, CBS

-------------------------------I feel pretty

I HATE Cane. This was by far my least favourite pilot for the new season. Congratulations Cane, you beat the likes of The Big Bang Theory, Big Shots, Life is Wild, and even Viva Laughlin.
Here is why this show makes me so very angry. Unlike the other shows up there, Cane wasn’t so bad that I could look over at my screening companion and actively laugh at it. It was profoundly boring, the cast was full of generic actors that networks cast when they want hot Hispanics, and the whole thing just seemed to be pandering and trying to be a beacon of multiculturalism on network TV. CBS has created, with no exaggeration, a telenovela. It’s not even original to make a telenovela with higher production values because after the demise of the WB and UPN last year a channel called My Network TV came out and did the same exact thing. I’m guessing the budgets at CBS are higher; but I think ultimately it’ll look about the same. I saw some online ad banners and didn’t know they were for Cane at first. Even the banners look more appropriate for a daytime soap.
Nestor Carbonell has some pretty epic guyliner in the pilot. That’s the only thing worth seeing in this whole sorry mess. I have sampled it for you above so you don’t have to suffer through the pilot. Let us never speak of this show again, under any circumstances.

Verdict: It’s the only show on the Big 4 centered around people of colour. CBS wouldn’t dare cancel this. The question is, who is the audience? There are major reasons why every target demo I can think of wouldn’t be at all interested in this show. Given how much I hate it, I think it’ll be the highest rated new drama.

Would I Watch It? I won’t even dignify that with a response.

PIME TARADOX

So, Kongye has already contributed her thoughts on Journeyman, but I figured I'd take special note of the most amazing plot thread of the pilot, which is that Kevin McKidd's heroic journey is that he spends most of show fucking up a random guy's life as much as he can.

Step 1: Kevin McKidd is sent back in time and he stops a suicidal man from getting himself run over by a trolley. He gets the man's name (I think it's Neil,) and goes on his way.

Step 2: A few years later, Kevin McKidd runs into Neil in a cafe. Neil is having a conversation with his pregnant girlfriend, wherein he basically tells her that he doesn't want to take care of the baby and she should get an abortion. Kevin McKidd confronts the girlfriend and tells her how totally special it is to have a child, even if it is in a fucked up relationship. She goes back to Neil and eventually gets married to him at some point.

Step 3: Kevin McKidd finds out that Neil kills his wife and child in 1997.

Step 4: Kevin McKidd goes back in time to 1997 and tracks down Neil, who is stalking his wife and child so he can shoot them. As Neil crosses the street while drawing his gun, Kevin calls out his name.

(This is where it gets good.)

Neil turns around AND IS PROMPTLY HIT BY A BUS. He goes flying like 20 feet and smashes into another car's windshield, dying instantly. At this point, I am laughing hysterically. The wife goes up to Kevin and reveals that Neil had threatened to kill her, then Kevin goes back into the timewarp.

So let's review Kevin McKidd's contributions to the life of Neil: He stopped him from killing himself, and instead pushed him into a loveless, abusive marriage with a child he didn't want, and then HE GOT HIM KILLED ANYWAY. All he did was make Neil's miserable failure of a life that many years longer and that much shittier. MY HERO.*

"I did it for the lulz."

*(Actually, it turns out the real goal of his mission was to make sure that Neil's wife got pregnant so the kid could pull a bunch of third world peasants out of a burning bus or something, but it's funnier if you ignore that scene and just pretend that this is like Quantum Leap except Scott Bakula's mission was to be the biggest asshole ever to random bystanders.)

What's on Kongye's TiVo tonight- Man Ogling Edition

Now that the TV season is officially underway, I'm going to put myself out there and reveal the contents of my DVR to the blog-reading public (as is anyone reads this). Here's what I feel is worth my TV-watching time tonight:

PRISON BREAK-8pm, Fox- I watched the third season premier last week and had no idea what the hell was going on. The most horrifying part is that Wentworth Miller is trapped under all that clothing. FREE WENTWORTHS PECS! At least give me some arm, Fox. Stop being cheap and fire the makeup artist to do the fake tattoos.

DANCING WITH THE STARS- 8pm, ABC- It's no SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE(where else can you get dueling gay princes and, ummm, this); but it has former 90210 cast members dancing with wax statues. I heart Derek Hough. When I found out he was dancing with my homegirl Jennie Garth, I knew it would be the start of something beautiful on this blog. Americans have not been graced with the hotness that is the Houghness; but he's like a twinkier version of Zac Efron. You heard right- MORE twinky. DWTS is the perfect place for Derek because for once he won't be the least realistic human there.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER- 8pm, CBS- Technically Kongye will be downloading this because it conflicts with the other two shitty shows on at 8. This is the only thing Kongye watches on CBS. Kongye loves her some Neil Patrick Harris. In fact, Kongye loves all men on television named Neil. For the record, Kongye scoured the internet looking for shirtless NPH pics to link here- purely for continuity's sake- but nothing of quality was available. Doogie needs to get naked more often. The goods were on display last season, and it was some fantastic merchandise. At some point Kongye will do a Neil vs. Neil entry because those two have a lot in common. As a general rule Kongye doesn't have ogling feelings about NPH, we just respect his work. He was robbed of an Emmy. Piven's so ugly and pathetic he got the pity votes. Kongye's gonna get you, Piven. Watch NPH on HIMYM, people.

WEEDS- 10pm, Showtime- This show keeps getting more insane and I like that. I wish the producers would have fewer Olsen twins dry humping Hunter Parrish, though. I didn't actually care, or even notice that much. I thought it was a bit of a stunt when they did it last week. I was more annoyed that they replayed that 3 second clip on every show for a week to show how scandalous the Olsen twins now were. Stick to making funny TV, don't do stupid stunt casting.

THE WAR- That's right, Kongye's all cultured and shit. Kongye's going to be watching the new Ken Burns 25-part, 175-hour WWII documentary while reading the accompanying book and thinking really deeply about loss and sacrifice. That's the plan at least. So far the first part is sitting on Kongye's DVR's and was skipped over so Kongye could see what the ladies on The View wanted to bitch about today.

Journeyman- I Didn't Know Time Travel Could Be This Boring

Journeyman is boring. The premise was sort of intriguing: a guy travels randomly through time, changes events, and tries to affect the future. The pilot was just a mess.
The show has been set up to have two main components. We’ll have a procedural element where each week he has a specific timeline that he has to go through and manipulate to a particular goal and we’ll have a larger story arc about his dead fiancé actually being alive and also travelling through time and him trying to figure out the mystery of that.
The mess in the pilot comes from there being too many components to the plot in the main story arc. The main character is married with a son but he has this ex-fiancé who he thinks died at some point in the past in a plane crash. He has a police officer brother that he doesn’t get along with. During his various trips into the past in the pilot we find out all these details- like his current wife was once married to or dating his brother but the show suggests they were having an affair while he was with the fiancé and she was with the brother. In the present they complicate the story by having him disappear every time he goes into the past. This leads to an intervention on the show and so we get hints that maybe he had a drug problem in the past. All this stuff weighs the show down because you just want him to get on with the time traveling, or with anything other than wallowing, really. Further complicating the show is the fact that it’s painted itself into a corner with its central love triangle. This guy lost his great love and now he’s found out that she may be alive and travelling through time with him. He also has opportunities to be with her in the past. At the same time they show him as a devoted family man who will do just about anything to save his marriage. It’s pretty much a no-win they have set up there. There’s a scene towards the end where he finally proves to his wife that he can travel through time by using their wedding ring and their garden that’s actually lovely and works very well on the female demos. One scene isn’t nearly enough to recommend this, though.

Verdict: Journeyman has a fantastic spot right after Heroes. With that comes the responsibility of retaining the lead-in’s viewers. I don’t see enough people sticking around to watch this. I think NBC will keep this for at least a season, but it will lose its time slot.

Would I Watch It? No; but I think it’s cool if it connects with other people.

Chuck- I Want My Hour Back

Wait, is this not, like, the same show? Dude, I was confused by the totally wicked writing and, you know, the fact that you've already stunt-cast that brunette chick.


NBC has high hopes for Chuck. It’s getting really great reviews. This is another one of the shows that I was able to watch over the summer and then again at the Paley Center. Having seen it twice now, I can honestly say I think it’s one of the most shrill, annoying, self-congratulatory pilots I’ve watched in quite some time. Chuck is about a college-dropout computer geek who works as a supervisor of a Nerd Herd in an electronics store. He’s pathetic, lonely, and has no future. One night, for reasons that the show will probably never bother to explain to us, his former college roommate who became a secret agent for NSA (or the FBI or the CIA, who the fuck cares) sent him an email containing a file that when opened downloaded the contents of a supercomputer into Chuck’s head. Apparently there was only one copy of this supercomputer thingy hanging around and when the NSA or FBI or CIA or whichever one of those his roommate wasn’t working for killed his former roommate, they destroyed that copy so now Chuck is it. Oh, have I mentioned that for some reason the CIA and NSA (one of those two is possibly the FBI, I don’t care enough) are violently fighting each other on this show? They kill each other’s agents and damage large sections of Los Angeles and Washington in the process. Office politics can be such a bitch. One of those organizations then sends a hot chick (of course it has to be a hot chick) to kill and/ or protect him. The other government organization sends Adam Baldwin to kill both of them for no reason that’s readily explained.

If that description sounded convoluted and confusing to you, don’t worry. Chuck doesn’t concern itself with things like “logic” and “explaining plot holes.” This show is all about having the producers sit in a room and say “Oh, aren’t we so clever and hip.” There are frequent explosions, car chases, women in lingerie, ninjas, and climactic bomb-disarmings thrown in to keep the mostly ADD-afflicted, douchebag audience happy. I kept hoping that Adam Baldwin would actually just kill everyone and rip off his face to reveal the robot underneath. There is not a single interesting, attractive, funny, or inventive character on this show. Chuck is such a waste of space. He’s supposed to be some kind of lovable loser; but he’s actually just devoid of any personality whatsoever. Any glimmers of action he ever has (I think they show that he’s a nice guy by having him help a dad recreate a little girl’s dance recital) are just completely generic and mundane. He’s also very quietly bitter and has this giant victim complex about his college roommate and his college girlfriend and how they’ve ruined his life. Why would I want to watch a show set around him? The worst part of this show is that it thinks it’s witty. It thinks it has elevated TV to some amazing level and it really hasn’t.

Verdict: The same people of questionable taste who tune in to Heroes every week will eat this shit up. It’s a lead-in to that show, so they can plop their lazy asses on the couch at 8pm and turn their brains off completely until at least 10 (unless they also tune into the next show we’ll be reviewing; in which case, make that 11)

Would I Watch It? I’m making a Chuck voodoo doll already. Where do I stick pins in
for cancellation? I hate NBC.

Ignorant Moron

Kongye doesn't usually blog politically. I won't blog about any of the other stupid double-talk Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered at Columbia today; but I found the following answer to a question about executions of gays in Iran particularly quoteworthy:

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals. We don't have that in our country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you that we have it."

[SOAPBOX]I'm sure the media is going to focus on his other answers because gay rights just isn't a priority in this country.[STEPPING OFF SOAPBOX]

Baby, you told me all about it last night in between sucking off those four trannies. Expect an MS Paint penis next to his head Perez-Hilton-style by the end of the night.

Big Bang Theory- CBS Needed to Recycle Some Old Sitcom Sets

Tonight is a big night for TV. Lots of shows are returning, and some are premiering. Kongye is here to tell you about the pilots of tonight’s new shows.

-------------Comic gold....for the obese, illiterate masses
The Big Bang Theory: I’ve previously stated my desire for the multi-camera, half hour sitcom to die. This show only reaffirms that passion. Here’s a brilliant premise: a hot, dim chick moves in across the hall from two awkward, (apparently) brilliant geeks. One of the geeks falls madly in love with her but is too socially retarded to make it happen. Hilarity ensues. Oh wait, no it doesn’t. I saw the original pilot of this over the summer and then again at the Paley screenings. For some unknown reason (I don't get why because you can hardly tell the difference) they reshot the opening, which features the geeks at a sperm bank. The writers thought that would be a hilarious gag. It actually does a pretty good job summing up this show: it’s just a bunch of sitcom clichés that you’ve seen before on dozens of other (mostly superior) shows. There’s really marginal talent in front of and behind the camera, and it basically just fails on every level. The two standouts here- one good and one bad- are the hot chick and the tall geek. Hot Chick isn’t a real human being. She behaves kind of like a non-greasy Britney Spears: breaking down and stripping down in front of these complete strangers, then asking them for ridiculous favours. That behaviour is scripted to be weird. What I find unsettling is how she behaves towards the geeks and two more losers they bring in to round out the flock for more “laughs.” Hot chick clearly had a lobotomy while they put in her implants because she just responds with the same plastered on smile to everyone in this show, no matter what. Tall Geek (Jim Parsons) is the only part of this show that works. His delivery of the offensively bland material is great and he’s very endearing. I’d like to see him recast in a far better quality program because I can tell he’s got good comedic skills.

Verdicts: I will forget this show is on the air by tomorrow; but it may continue to run for seasons. Hey, every time Charlie Sheen is on Access Hollywood getting accused of subscribing to Latina Tranny porn sites I think how sad it is that he’s sitting at home, washed up….then they remind me that he has some show I’ve never heard of and he’s the highest paid actor on TV. If the FBI ever had to hide witnesses from me (you know, for when they put me on trial for the meth lab I run out of the MSG subbasements) they should give them shows on CBS because then I’d never be able to find them. Did you people know that there’s a show with David Spade and The Tick on Monday nights on CBS? When did this happen?

Would I Watch It? No

I Really Hope She Has a Teenage Son

Leeze Gibbons was on the View on Friday and announced that her next big career move was to become a life coach. I don't give a shit what she does with her life; but this announcement did get me thinking about the possibilities....

I also wouldn't be surprised to find out Leeza used to have a penis.

Dexter Season 2: Don't Bother

So, I downloaded the first two episodes of the second season of Showtime's "serial killer" drama. I put "serial killer" in "quotes" because 1) he doesn't actually kill anybody at all, and 2) somewhere around episode 3 of the first season the decision was made to turn this into an incredibly shitty police procedural that bears a closer resemblance to a retarded version of Homicide: Life on the Street with fetal alcohol syndrome than Jeff Lindsay's original novel.

"OH BOO HOO I'M THE LAMEST SERIAL KILLER EVER ALSO I DON'T EVEN ACT LIKE A SOCIOPATH BECAUSE MY WRITERS SUCK"

I've basically summed up Dexter's entire internal monologue for the first episode as well as the subtext of every single line of the script. Apparently Showtime assumed that when you're making a show that revolves around a serial killer, what the audience really wants to see is a combination of said serial killer going bowling and then impotently whining about how they're unable to bring themselves to kill. I can't believe Thomas Harris didn't realize this when he was writing Silence of the Lambs, he could have really broken new ground when Hannibal Lecter explained to Clarice the intense psychological significance of Buffalo Bill making a seven-ten split. Remind me again why this show is on the air?

I'm not even going to comment on how bad the rest of this episode sucked, such as a thrilling look at the office politics of Lieutenant Who Gives a Shit and Detective Boring Vestigial Character, not to mention the ongoing drama of Dexter's girlfriend and her worthless wifebeating ex-husband, but suffice to say there is not a single interesting plot point or believable character beat in this entire miserable episode. I deleted the second episode after 10 minutes, and felt utterly disgusted that I had even watched it that long.

Would I Watch It: No, and you should feel bad about yourself if you do.

More Gossip Girl

Because I have nothing to do at work right now and, quite frankly, because I am developing a near obsession with this show, here is some more Gossip Girl content I found:

First a description of Cumface's character in the books from Wikipedia:


Chuck Bass
A rich, lust-driven antagonist whose list of the finer things in life is short: sex and alcohol. He once came close to taking advantage of a vulnerable Jenny Humphrey in a bathroom and tried to sleep with an inebriated Serena van der Woodsen. Nobody is certain about his sexual orientation. Chuck has an obnoxious pet monkey named Sweetie, who can often be found perching on his shoulder and wearing coordinated outfits. Everyone, quite frankly, despises him, but because his bank account and good looks have just always been part of the latest party, they just shrug off his egotistical antics and accept him for what he is: a rich party animal. He ends up going to military college, because he didn't get into any of the normal ones he applied to. He is portrayed by Ed Westwick in the TV series.

I demand that the monkey be immediately written into the show! $10 to the first person to photoshop a monkey in a "coordinating outfit" into a photo of Cumface. I don't even think it would be hard to find coordinating outfits in tiny sizes for a monkey with the way designers make kids' clothing now.


P.S.: I can't wait to see Cumface and pretty much any of the male characters hook up. Too bad the producers will pussy out and just make him predatory to one gender.




I found this production still online. In the trailer for episode 2 Cumface is seen standing between two identical hookers (not these girls). I guess the running theme is that he enjoys buying double the fun. C0-blogger Phallic points out one of these girls looks a bit manly. Here's hoping he's on to something.

Gossip Girl Review

Kongye has taken quite a long hiatus from real blogging. But with tonight's premiere of Gossip Girl on The CW, we feel a deadline approaching. Kongye actually did attend the CW pilot screenings, so when we say horrible things about these pilots, we are doing so with some level of expertise.

I’m going to devote an entry to Gossip Girl. There are a bunch of reasons for that. First, I am faced with an overwhelming amount of hype for it right now. My mailbox is being invaded by the show this week. When Us Weekly arrived Monday (3 days late- the nerve of them), I was met with a glowing full-page review in the TV section. This morning my copy of Time Out New York arrived, featuring almost 10 pages of Gossip Girl-inspired content. A quick glance reveals the content is less inspired by the content of the show than by its PR team. It’s staring at me from the top of my AIM window. Blog partner Phallic pointed out that Perez and Gawker have tons of GG branding. I am being blitzed, and it feels personal. All this stalking is almost enough to erase the good will the pilot built up- almost.

That brings us to my review. Let me preface this by saying that Gossip Girl is the kind of show that you can instantly tell if you’ll like based on your reaction to its description. Basically, it’s The O.C. on the UES. That being said, I didn’t like The O.C.- mostly because I don’t like Juicy Couture, bad boys in pukka shells and wife beaters, whiny geeks, or anything with even a hint of California. This show did get me, though. It’s painfully predictable. The only thing unexpected is how boring the “revelations” and “twists” are. That’s her big secret that made her leave New York? Wasn’t that made obvious about 30 seconds into the pilot? Did any of the characters not know? I can’t possibly justify why I like this show. It will be my televised equivalent of Popeye’s Chicken. It’s so far beyond guilty pleasure, the only way to characterize it is lethal. I could actually feel my body shutting down as I watched this.

[Possible Spoiler Warning]
I think the best way to review this is to go through the characters.

My favourite is Cumface. If it weren’t for Dirty Sexy Money’s Evil Priest, Cumface might be my favourite new character in primetime this year. I affectionately call him that because he’s always got the grunting, distorted features you’d see in an average man’s cumface. I suppose in that sense this actor is perfectly cast. In their review, Us Weekly says his “sexual aggressively in the premiere may be off-putting to some viewers.” I say that despite constantly being surrounded by a harem of willing skanks, Cumface still tries to rape 2 of the main characters in the pilot. In fact it seems to be a running theme that when any character finds out he’s alone with a girl their reaction is “Oh, he’s going to rape her” with varying degrees of concern. In fact, when the Tokens see him taking his second potential victim upstairs, they roll their eyes and giggle knowingly. Cumface is clearly a manifestation of the producers’ own bitterness towards the popular guys in their high schools. They like to imagine that the only way guys like him can get laid is to take it forcibly. Unfortunately the writing is so bad and the situations so ridiculous that’s more like The Continental than a real threat. His techniques are amazing. After getting a girl drunk, luring her to an abandoned kitchen, and all but getting her to promise him sex, he decides he doesn’t want her to willingly have sex with him. How else to explain the fact that he tells her that he watched her have sex with her best friend’s boyfriend and that he’ll tell everyone unless she sleeps with him? I know voyeurism and extortion are huge turn-ons for me! I can’t wait to see how he follows up a fine week of lechery.

The two main characters are Serena and Blair. They are clearly going to the new role models for young girls in need of strong, intelligent women to look up to. In the pilot we learn a lot about the decision-making of these girls. We learn that Serena left home for a year to go to boarding school because she got drunk and screwed her best friend’s boyfriend in an empty hotel bar while Cumface watched. If I ever did something I didn’t want anyone to find out about, the first thing I’d do is attract an enormous amount of attention to myself by moving to another state without warning. But wait, Serena didn’t tell anyone she was moving, so clearly no one was going to notice she had disappeared, right? Oh, is that not how it works? Serena lives in the hotel owned by Cumface’s family. She enjoys getting shitfaced in the hotel’s bar. Apparently she also loves truffle oil (her favourite food is grilled cheese sandwiches made with truffle oil. The writers were trying so hard to show the average 12-year-old sophisticated New York food that they could relate to), She loves truffle oil so much that she agrees to go into an abandoned kitchen with Cumface to some even though he makes it quite clear what he expects as payment for the sandwich.
Blair isn’t much better. The pilot episode highlights the fact that she’s a virgin. Mind you, she’s not a virgin because she’s waiting for the right guy or for a deep love, she’s waiting to give it up to her boyfriend in order to use it as a way to get him to want her more than Serena. Her inability to close the deal throughout the pilot is pretty much indicative of how pathetic this character is. If she wasn’t the secondary female lead, and didn’t have a fantastic wardrobe, she really wouldn’t be worth mentioning. She’s less interesting than everyone else on the screen.
The boyfriend the two girls fight over is so boring I’ve already forgotten him entirely. Serena has a brother. In the pilot he’s just tried to kill himself. My first instinct was that he was gay. Then there was a scene at a store with Serena, her love interest, his little sister, and the little brother that set up a possible pairing for the young ’uns. Now I’m wavering between the brother ending up with the little sister or the forgettable boyfriend. I’m rooting for the latter. That’s pretty much the only way the boyfriend would be interesting.
Serena’s big love interest in the pilot is Penn Badgley. He is the only person I feel deserving of having his actual name here. Penn’s never been in anything good; but for some reason I still really root for him. Frequently I want his shows to be cancelled; but for him to somehow not be fired. Good news is I don’t think this is getting cancelled. He’s also the best male character on the show. He’s being compared to Cumface and the guy who may as well not exist; but it’s still kind of an accomplishment. His character has a little sister. She’s supposed to likable and represent the audience or something. In the pilot she just came off as the most naïve, helpless creature you could imagine. She is Cumface’s other victim; but unlike Serena, she needs to be rescued from him. That’s probably because after the first time he makes unwanted advances towards her, she accepts champagne from him and lets him take her up to the roof. This is despite texting “help me” to her brother. For a while we thought she was Gossip Girl; but she’s have to be at least semi-literate for that to work.
Finally, I want to argue a little more with Us Weekly. They criticize the show for not being diverse. Clearly they are racists who were choosing to ignore all the color on their screens. The Tokens (pictured above in typical situations) appear in almost all the group scenes. They do typical ethnic things like stand on either side of the female lead and look sassy and hang all over rich assholes (the one visible in the picture above is probably texting “me love you long time” to Cumface). They may not speak or have names; but they are integral to the show.

Final verdict:
This show will be the CW’s flagship for however long they can keep a reasonable percentage of this cast on the payroll.

Would I Watch It: As if you couldn’t tell from my high praise; I will be watching this show every week, I'm rewatching the pilot tonight, and I’ll be blogging it here.

Social Commentary From K-Ville

So I caught up with Fox's newest hit, K-Ville, this morning. It was pretty much as bad as I thought it was going to be, only with more drive-by shootings, explosions, and blatant stereotypes. Here's a nugget from 5 minutes into the pilot:

Anthony Anderson: Don’t tell me you just bought this
Sassy Black Woman: That’s right, baby. It was a bargain, too. Only cost me 2 FEMA checks. Look, I’m a singer, not a bean counter and I gotta ride in style.
Anthony Anderson: On the taxpayers backs.

I took no liberties with that quote.

Nashville Update

In our Fox reviews, Kongye predicted that Nashville would be cancelled as soon as the overnight ratings came in. I'm pleased to inform readers that it is well on its way! Nashville was actually the lowest rated program on network TV last night. It was beaten by such things as WWE Smackdown, America's Funniest Home Videos (is that still on? Have we not seen enough people getting hit in the nuts with stuff?), and CBS's half hour commercial for its fall shows.

When I predicted it would be cancelled once the numbers came in, I forgot that it was premiering on a Friday and Fox was airing the Emmys on Sunday. My guess is that the people with the power to kill this were either too busy this weekend or didn't want to highlight the shame on a weekend when Fox is pretending to be a legitimate network.

Separated at Birth

LINK

Fox Reviews

So we didn't actually go to the Fox party. In hindsight that may have been a mistake as it was the first and there are a number of catering issues that have come up. Was the wine actually good on the first night? Did people drink all the Heineken or was there never any to begin with? We may never know.

Although I haven't seen any of Fox's pilots, I feel qualified to judge them nonetheless. Clearly Fox is not having a banner year. It's somewhat sad considering there is some really good programming on the network. None of the shows premiering this year are in any danger of joining that category. Let's take a look at the contestants:



K-Ville: This one screened first, so clearly this is what Fox is most proud of from the new season. Tough choice to make for Fox. It must like when Joe Jackson is asked which son he's most proud of right now. Putting aside for a second the fact that Anthony Anderson is headlining a show, this program doesn't look offensive. From the ads and the clips made available, this looks like a standard issue buddy cop procedural without the sharp writing that might redeem such a setup. K-ville's hook- and I think I'm slightly offended by this- is that it's set in post-Katrina New Orleans. So each week we'll be spoon fed what the writing staff thinks is some important social commentary. This show is on against Heroes, Dancing With the Stars, and Two and a Half Men. That means two things:
1) My TV will not be on for that hour
2) K-Ville will not do well in the ratings
That being said, I think Fox wants to keep this on the air. It probably thinks K-Ville is really significant. It will probably make it to season 2.

Would I Watch It: No



Back to You: This is clearly made to manufacture hype. Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton are back on TV! They're bickering with each other! They're anchorpeople! If any of those things made you the least bit excited, please leave now. I don't remember how I felt about Frasier going off the air; I suspect ambivalent. I do, however, remember cheering the end of Everybody Loves Raymond. I don't want to see any of those people on my TV ever again. My own biases aside, let's look at the facts. Despite the cast, Fox doesn't consider this show worthy of being at the top of the screening slate. That means it has not tested well. If it's not as good as K-ville what hope is there? The bottom line is that this is a multi-camera half hour sitcom. The format is quickly nearing extinction for a reason. You still see them every once in a while and CBS is trying to keep them alive; but the fact of the matter is that good comedy writers now have alternatives and they are exploring them. It's up against some unknown commodities and Deal or No Deal. I don't think it stands much of a chance even if Pushing Daisies doesn't find the audience it deserves. I give it 3 episodes. I will add that Fox may keep this show around even if it's a critical and ratings failure like with 'Til Death. However, within 3 episodes it'll probably have a time slot change or a big retool.

Would I Watch It: No



Nashville: The Hills on a network and set in Nashville; who thought this was a good idea? Clearly not Fox because they're burying it on Friday night and premiering it with pretty much no press tonight. This won't be good. It will probably be cancelled as soon as the overnight ratings come in a la Anchorwoman. Hopefully it will be a warning to other networks not to try this kind of "reality" in the future.

If you're interested, you can watch the full first episode here:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/video.aspx?id=nashville_full

I'm not and I won't. I won't be TiVoing this tonight, either. This seems redundant but...

Would I Watch It: Hell No



Kitchen Nightmares: I LOVE the British original of this show. The setup, as per the British version, is that Gordon Ramsay comes into struggling restaurants that are often driving their owners into bankruptcy and he offers the harsh, honest advice on how to fix them and generate business. I'm not sure about this new version because I've noticed something about the Gordon Ramsay that appears on Fox- he's a caricature of the Gordon Ramsay on British TV. On Hell's Kitchen he's meaner, more annoying, and less knowledgeable than he is on The F Word or Kitchen Nightmares UK. I hope he's more like himself on this show because Gordon Ramsay can actually be a witty, charming man and his behavior actually makes sense when it's put in context like it is on the original version of this show. Kitchen Nightmares reminds you that he is a talented chef who understands food and the business of running restaurants. If this show stays true to its roots it will be great. I don't know if it is capable of generating network-sized ratings because it's not like anything on network TV right now so I'm not comfortable predicting its fate.

Would I Watch It: Yes- but I may change my mind once I see it

How We Review

So here's the basic format of the reviews:

We provide a little information about the show. We'll try not to put in too many spoilers that haven't been revealed in the press already.
We then review the shows based on the pilots we've seen and what's been happening with the productions since the shows were greenlit.
We'll tell you how long we think it will last.
Finally, we'll wrap it all up with our final verdict. Our evaluation asks the only question that really matters: would we watch this show?
We probably won't actually watch these shows. In the real world we may not have time to watch them or there may be something better on in that time slot; but it seems like the best question to answer.

It's Kongye, Bitch

I won't start this blog off with a mission statement or an explanation of any kind. The fact is, we have no idea where this is going. To kick things off we'll do some reviews of the pilots we saw at the Paley Center's recent TV Preview Parties. First, let's talk about these "parties." Overall, these screenings were very nice. It was a free wine and cheese followed by the chance to see a bunch of TV shows before they air.

Thank you Paley Center of Media.

Just because we had a good time doesn't mean Kongye Weiss won't nitpick about everything that went wrong. That's not our style. The waiting line was epic; mostly because of one very special guest star- Lord Douchington of the 21 Club. Douchington was so impressive that we will devote an entire post to him later on. In fact, Kongye Weiss may make a special trip to the 21 Club at some point just to pay him a visit. Moving on to the catering. The food was free and had no visible evidence of spoilage so we'll leave it alone. The biggest problem with the food was likely the heards that attacked it as soon as the doors opened. Those italian cookie trays never stood a chance. Kongye was still able to successfully create a light dinner by foraging on leftover cheese and crudites.



The bar was epic. We arrived for the ABC party ready to get blitzed after dropping $9 each at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain on beers that would've cost us $5 at any other bar. Kongye was hoping to see Bobby Flay battle a ninja for a glass of OJ with ice while reading a dossier with a clip art rendition of a disgusting regional food item; but we were out of luck. I call Bobby and his wife surf 'n turf because she is a fine, delicious piece of meat, and he resembles a lobster.



Ok, back to the topic at hand. The Paley Center provided plenty of wine to help with my missions and this half of Kongye definitely got buzzed at that first screening. The PC came up with some brilliant strategies to slow down my consumption of wine at future screenings. The wine got more and more disgusting at each screening. At ABC it was pretty standard bad, cheap wine. At NBC it began to be actively unpleasant, CBS's dose had quite the burn as it went down, and by the time the CW party came around Kongye only accepted the wine because the bar had been replaced with 2 low tables that made it impossible for the bartenders to piss in some wine glasses and claim it was white wine (a theory we developed the night before about what the wine would evolve into).