2008's Guilty Pleasures

OK, I ain't proud of 'em, but I likes 'em, so's I watch 'em.

HELL'S KITCHEN - It's profane and abusive but HK has one thing a lot of reality shows don't. I doesn't feel forced. If it is, it's well disguised. If you think about it, Gordon Ramsay is really the one going through the torture. I'll admit to skimming through the team rewards elements and getting right back into the kitchen for the good stuff.

PRISON BREAK - Man, oh, man. "How will they continue this show once they break out of prison?" Simple, they'll be on the run for a year. Then they'll get caught and have to escape from a Panamanian prison. Then they'll be on the run again, but this time a government agent will offer them freedom in return for stealing something from a Halliburton-esque organization. THEN they'll get double-crossed and have the item stolen from them BY THEIR MOTHER. This thing has more twists per episode than a month of DAYS OF OUR LIVES. And I love it!

BONES - BONES didn't make my Top 10 list for a very good reason. Sometimes the writing is a tad short of tortorous. It's hard to buy that someone who has written several best selling books can be as ignorant about modern American culture as Temperence Brennan. But David Boreanaz is sharp as Agent Booth. He's why I tuned in to begin with. (I REALLY miss ANGEL)

HEROES - Faded in year two, wasted too much time in year three, but it's going to have to get a lot worse for me to bail out. What started as a brilliant 'what if?' concept has quickly devolved into an over-populated comic book world. We need fewer dead end sotrylines, a narrower focus on fewer characters and a return to the magic of discovery that made up so much of that first season.

ER - Back in the beginning, I chose CHICAGO HOPE over E.R.. The two medical dramas were both set in a Chicago hospital and were scheduled head to head on NBC and CBS. By mid-season Hope had moved to Monday and I've seen every episode of E.R. since. That being said, this show is a long way away from the show that scored 40 shares with EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Thank God the torurous storyline of Dr. Abby is finally finished. It felt like some sort of penance to force myself to sit through the darkmess and dreariness that accompanied that character. Seriously, the show would have benefitted from having another flaming helicopter falling out of the sky and squishing her like a whiny bug about two years ago. The show is better - by far - without her. It's a shame we're nto going to get to know some of the new characters very well before the entire thing wraps up in March.

[SIDEBAR: On 12/30/08, the five networks combined managed to score a measly 22 share. That means 78 percent of TVs in use at the time were watching something other than network TV. In its prime, E.R. used to score a 25 share with a RERUN.]

FAMILY GUY - OK, I admit it. I watch it. But, to be fair, it's better than it used to be. It's WAY better than it was back when it was cancelled. It still goes too far, too often, but the non-sequiters have found their own rhythm and the show has found its voice. I suppose from here on out, the decline begins.

OK - what about you? Your turn. Confess away.

ER & Political Product Placement

Sometimes there's something beneficial to watching several episodes of a series back to back. It's way easier to spot trends when the chapters aren't separated by a full week of the mundanities of life.

Take my recent experience with ER, for example.

It's not a big thing - and quite possibly something I wouldn't have noticed had I not been cleaning out the TiVo.

But...in back to back episodes characters from ER mentioned Democratic presidential candidates in passing and in a positive light. Both Obama and Hillary got what might have passed for product placement had they been Gateway computers or hybrid cars. They weren't ringing endorsements a la "I'm voting for Obama!" but they were positive mentions nonetheless.

One wonders - once the writers' strike is over, will there be enough election process remaining for John Edwards or any of the Republican candidates to receive anything approaching equal time?

ER Goes Green, Badly

Wow.

Just watched the 'green' episode of ER - the one that aired in NBC/Universal's ridiculous GREEN WEEK.

What a pitiful, forced, badly written attempt at subliminal propaganda.

From a tie-dyed hippie sing-a-long (I swear the guy was actually wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt) to not-so-subtle lines discussing the inconvenience of truth, to the product placement storyline featuring one of the doctor's new itty-bitty car, this episode stunk.

Part of the reason the Writers' Guild is out on strike right now is because they're being forced to write commercials like this into their story lines 1) without a share of the money earned by such commercial placement, and 2) without regard to how crippling said placement may be to a storyline.

And while this may not have been product placement in its purest sense, there's no doubt the massages were forced into the hour. No characters came out and said "Mmm McDonald's - I'm lovin' it." But I suppose it's hard to work "I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States." into many plots.

This episode of ER was shameful. This show used to be a strong, forceful energetic being. Now the show is like an exotic dancer who's past her prime. Just going through the motions for the tips.

If I were the writer who created Abby Lockhart, I'd consider suing for literal defamation of character.

Elsewhere in GREEN WEEK, Al Gore's appearance on 30 ROCK was a great self-parody, akin to the treatment he gets over on SOUTH PARK. At least the guy who used to be the next president of the united States has a sense of humor about himself.