KBearlog

Well nearly all the new shows I had planned to watch have come on. I’ve told you about liking Threshold and Supernatural. Since then I’ve watched the premiers of Kitchen Confedential, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, Everybody Hates Chris and Extras. Noticed all of these are comedies, which proves at least to me that comedy is making a comeback on TV. The two best comedies and best programs period are My Name is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris.

Earl is a petty criminal. Earl and his friends make the Connors on Roseanne seem like landed gentry. For all their lack of education, morals, drive or ambition they aren’t that bad, unless you’re their victim. Earl wins $100,000 in the lottery and loses the ticket when he’s hit by a car. While in the hospital he hears Carson Daly talk about karma. Earl thinks this is something new that Carson has come up with. Earl decides if he’s going to make his life better, he’ll have to make for the terrible things he has done. He makes a list of 258 bad things he’s done and goes out to correct them. Before this sounds like some uplifting drama, it’s actually an outrageous comedy. If you liked Raising Arizona then you’ll like Earl. They both share the same type of sense of humor. Jason Lee is great as Earl and the supporting cast is strong. If the writing continues to be strong and NBC actually decides to support it and allow it to grow, this could be the big hit comedy they’ve been looking for. Of course NBC has never fully supported Scrubs, so don’t get your hopes up to high. Don’t let me discourage you, watch the show, I think you’ll enjoy it as much as me.

The other great new comedy is Everybody Hates Chris. This is one of the shows I’m reviewing on my website KBearTV. This show has had a lot of hype, so I had prepared myself to be a little disappointed if it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. I shouldn’t have worried, it deserves the hype. Some of the jokes I’ve seen in numerous promos, but in the context of the show they were still funny and the jokes I hadn’t seen before were hilarious. If the writing remains as strong with the great cast they have, UPN might have just hit the mother lode. With Chris and Veronica Mars, UPN is no longer a laughingstock.

I basically liked the other comedies I watched. I’ll be sure to keep watching Ricky Gervasis’s Extras. It’s not quite as good as The Office, what could be, but thankfully it’s in the neighborhood. Kitchen Confidential is the new comedy on FOX and it’s not quite good yet, but I’ve seen two episodes and I think it has the potential to be a good show. I didn’t like How I Met Your Mother; it wasn’t bad; it just didn’t catch my interest. It seems interchangeable with the other sitcoms on CBS.

After such a long dry period for comedies, it’s good that the networks have finally begun producing some good new comedies again. With the comedies I already like such as Arrested Development, Bernie Mac, Girlfriends, Curb Your Enthusiasm and the ones I’ll be looking to return later in the season like Scrubs, Reno 911 and Entourage, I should have something good to laugh at throughout the season.

I don’t usually watch the Emmys, the shows and actors they ignore and the shows and actors they reward are just too painful for me to watch. Since I’m doing this blog and have a TV review website, I figured I’d man up and watch this year. How do I get myself into these things?

The 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards opens with a voiceover from Jack Bauer parodying the opening of 24. (I’ll be mixing and matching everyone’s characters names and real names, depending on which one is easier for me to remember or spell. I’m kind of lazy folks.) Then they have some past winners (and John Travolta) talking bout when they accepted their Emmy. Earth, Wind & Fire comes out singing “September” except the lyrics have been changed to talk about the past TV season. I tuned out immediately. To further destroy a great song, the Black Eyed Peas join EWF to rap and get the audience on their feet. Whoever is EWF’s agent should be fired immediately. I guess next he’ll have them doing weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Ellen DeGeneres monologue was pretty good. Ellen is never fall down laughing funny too me. At her best she gets me to chuckle and I did chuckle at a few things she said. The joke I liked the best: if you lose the Emmy, it’s not because you’re a bad person, it’s because you’re a bad actor. The first presenters were the Desperate Housewives themselves. They all looked good so it was easy to ignore the patter. Felicity Huffman did make me laugh when she recognized how lame it was by saying “Clunk”. They presented the best supporting actor in a comedy to Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond (ELR). I couldn’t believe he beat out Jeremy Piven or Jeffrey Tambor. That was an indication how the night would go.

Jack Bauer presented the best supporting actor in a drama to Captain Kirk himself William Shatner. I was beginning to get the feeling the voters hadn’t bothered to watch any TV this season. One of the guys from Lost should have won this. Then the Emmy Idol competition began, with the Donald and Karen from Will and Grace singing the theme to Green Acres. I’m sure the late Eddie Albert turned in his grave.

Blythe Danner won best supporting actress in a drama for Huff, a show I saw 10 minutes of before I turned the channel. HBO started winning their traditional Emmys for miniseries or movie. Willow and Doogie who are co-stars on that new CBS sitcom introduced the next Emmy Idol contestant, our own Veronica Mars singing Fame. Kirsten Bell is actually a talented singer but I wasn’t feeling it, the song didn’t exactly have me jumping on my furniture because I can live forever. One of the best parts of the evening took place when they presented the Emmy for the writers of variety, music or comedy programming. Each show sent hilarious pictures, Ali G. had porn shots of his writers, the Daily Show had their writers goofing off, Conan had his writers names speed by and just showed him in a glamour shot with the wind blowing through his hair and Dave had Regis fighting with a bear. It was all very funny. Of course I was brought back down when Doris Roberts of ELR won for supporting actress comedy series. Her beating out Jessica Walters shows this isn’t a just universe.

David Letterman comes out to pay tribute to Johnny Carson. It’s a nice tribute. Some people think Jay should have been on stage with Dave, but I disagree, Dave was close to Johnny and carries his legacy more so than Jay. Ellen’s girlfriend introduces the next Emmy Idol contestants, Warrick from CSI and Macy Gray singing Movin’ On Up from The Jeffersons. Warrick has a decent voice. Lost wins best direction for a drama series. House wins writing for a drama series. The most memorable moment of the show was when S. Epatha Merkerson won the Emmy for actress in a miniseries or movie. She had put her acceptance speech in her bosom and it kept moving down so she couldn’t retrieve it. She made up for it with her enthusiasm, grace and charm. John Stewart came on and had a hilarious bit where he’s recorded some biting political commentary and the CBS censors have edited it fearing the FCC. It alone proves why Stewart deserves every award he receives.

Arrested Development wins writing in a comedy series for The Righteous Brothers episode that had my man Franklin in it. Kirk and opera singer Frederica von Stade are the last Emmy Idol contestant and they do the theme to Star Trek. Shatner did the show’s opening, and the opera singer did the singing part. It was funny and I thought it would win Emmy Idol. I should have known better. The first big shock of the evening was Felicity Huffman beating out her co-stars to win lead actress in a comedy series. I think Felicity Huffman is a top notch actress and she does a good job on Desperate Housewives with what she has to work with, but Lynette is the worse character on the show. I’ve fast forwarded through her storylines many of a time. I blame it on the writers. Marcia Cross deserved to win because she does such an outstanding job with Bree. In another actress hands Bree could have been a one note caricature but in Marcia Cross’s hands she became a complex sympathetic character. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous.

The next big shock is Patricia Arquette winning actress in a drama series. Of the five nominees she was probably given the fifth best chance to win. It just kept coming. Tony Shalhoub won for actor in a comedy series. It wasn’t an upset or undeserved, but I would have loved to see Jason Bateman or Zach Braff win. James Spader won actor in a drama series again for the second year in a row. Too my shock the Donald won Emmy Idol. With the elections in 2004 and now this, my faith in democracy has been deeply shaken. My mood was lifted up again when Lost won outstanding drama series. It was crushed again when Everybody Loves Raymond won outstanding comedy. Most people probably wanted Desperate Housewives, I thought Arrested Development would repeat and hoping against hope that Scrubs would pull the upset. ELR’s win confirmed that the Emmy voters like to stay with the same ole same ole.

Well the Emmys is like Labor Day, the official close of the previous season. This was actually a good season with a lot of new and interesting shows and stars. Too bad the Emmys don’t do a better job reflecting it. They did recognize Desperate Housewives and Lost, but only because they were so huge. It would be great if they started recognizing shows that aren’t on the big 4 and HBO. Someone should tell the Emmy voters that the WB, UPN, FX, SciFi and other channels have some excellent shows too that should be recognized. Maybe next year, a guy can dream.

The new season has started and I’ve caught some of the new shows. The two that have made the biggest impression on me so far are Supernatural and Threshold. I like all type of shows but I have an affinity to genre shows. Two of my all time favorite shows were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files. I regularly watch SciFi Friday and I’m still upset they took off Farscape. So I love that they are having so many genre shows on TV this fall.

Supernatural is about two brothers who lost their mother to supernatural forces. Their father has been fighting these forces and has trained his sons to fight them too. The oldest Dean has followed in his father’s footstep but the youngest son; Sam is a senior at Stanford preparing to go to law school. Their father goes missing and the brothers reunite to find their father. The first episode was as scary as network TV can be. The actors who play the brothers, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki have good chemistry together. The writing was okay but it needs to improve. A new monster every week can get tiring unless they have an interesting mythology that ties the show together. It’s on the WB on Tuesdays following the Gilmore Girls.

The best new show I’ve seen so far is Threshold. It’s about an alien invasion and a top secret government group led by a female contingency analyst and a team of scientist and military types. Since the show involves aliens you think about the X-Files but it’s a lot different. Instead of our heroes trying to penetrate the government conspiracy, they are the government conspiracy. They are trying to contain the alien threat without alarming the public. The show has a strong cast with Carla Gugino, Charles Dutton, Peter Dinklage and Brent Spiner. Any show that has Roc and Mr. Data in it already has my attention. The two hour premier flowed smoothly and I look forward to seeing it next week. The show is structured in a way that allows for continued growth. I think this one will be a winner. It has one obstacle that could sink it, it comes on Friday night. CBS isn’t as quick to cancel shows on Friday nights like FOX, (Firefly, Dark Angel) so maybe it has a chance. It comes on at 8:00 central time after the damn show they cancelled Joan of Arcadia for. (Me bitter, hell yeah).

More new shows come on this week and the return of many of our favorites. I’ll give you my impressions of some of the new shows. Since I’m unfortunately not getting paid to watch any of these new shows I won’t be seeing a lot of them. If you see a new show that you like, let me know, I’ll try to catch it. If it’s dreadful, there will be hell to pay, or not.

It’s nearly two weeks since Katrina struck New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast and I’m just getting around to commenting on it. That would put me on par with the rest of the Bush administration. The major difference being my delay hasn’t cost thousands of lives. Like many of you I’ve been pretty depressed by all of it. I’m from Mississippi and my parents still live in Meridian. Meridian was hit by the storm and my parents lost power for over three days. Communication was spotty at best. Fortunately my parents are okay and our house wasn’t damaged. I wish I could say that about the rest of Mississippi. Seeing Biloxi, Gulfport and other Mississippi cities destroyed breaks my heart.

What I feel about New Orleans is pure rage. I never thought I’d live long enough to see citizens of these United States treated like yesterday’s trash. The images I saw from New Orleans have destroyed what little confidence I had in our government. I know America treats poor blacks as third class citizens, but I didn’t realize poor blacks had been downgraded to untouchables in America’s caste system. As incompetent as Bush has been proven to be (Iraq anyone), even he and his cronies, Chertoff and Brown would have been able to get it together sooner if they were really motivated. No way would it have taken them this long to respond if it had been Miami that had been hit; (wouldn’t want to lose all those conservative Cuban voters, now would we?)

The response of the American people and the offers of help from the international community have been heartening. It shows most of the people in this country and the world community care. It’s too bad America’s leaders don’t. I should assure Bush and his cronies of one thing, there won’t be any forgive and forget on this one. We aren’t going to forgive you for your callousness and incompetence and we won’t forget that you helped turn the most powerful country in the world into an impotent third world country. I’m sure Bush will reward Chertoff and Brown the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their service during this crisis. I imagine that Bush will be shocked when he isn’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “heroic” leadership.

In the short term we can contribute money to organizations and volunteer to help the hurricanes victims. In the long term we have to hold our public officials accountable for what happened to New Orleans. FEMA has to be returned to the efficient agency it was under the Clinton administration. That means that Michael Brown should return to his offices to find his personal belongings in a box sitting on the sidewalk; the same for Michael Chertoff. We have to make sure that when the city is rebuild that it is done right, and that no expense is spared to make sure that the levees can hold back Lake Pontchartrain. The poor citizens of New Orleans who were abandoned must be given access to every service that can improve their lives, even if they choose not to move back to the city. All victims of Katrina must be given all the assistance they need to get back on their feet. The rest of us have to decide what type of country we want this to be and elect officials who will carry out our core beliefs. If American decides that it wants to continue the philosophies and policies of this administration in the future, then God help us all.