Termite Television: The Rise and Fall of Danity Kane

I was trying to fashion a tweet about Making the Band: The Rise and Fall of Danity Kane but there's no way to talk about all that is fascinating (yet incredibly boring) about this hour of television in just 140 characters. This recap of numerous seasons of the long-running television series purports to pull back the curtain on the pop group's recent breakup but all it really reveals are the limitations of "reality" television.

Deriding the lack of reality surrounding so-called reality television is nothing new. At this point, it's pretty obvious reality television is, at best, carefully production managed and scrupulously edited and, at worst, thinly veiled scripted fiction. Still, regardless of the circumstances of its production (one I attest to knowing nothing about), there were some things about Making the Band that were incontestably real: this group assembled and svengali'd by Sean "Diddy" Combs released two albums, played concerts, had several hit singles; my wife and I danced to one of them in a bar just last night.

Making the Band is a strange relic, a lumbering beast from the paleozoic era of reality TV; so old, in fact, that in its initial conception it was designed to put together the next big boy band back when the phrase "boy band" was still a big deal. The series outlived a switch from broadcast to cable and even the band it had made (That'd be the now defunct O-Town). When the show's reins were passed along to Diddy, he invented his own group, Da Band. When it crumbled after three seasons, he hit upon the idea of inventing yet another group, this time an all-girl concoction. This fivesome would eventually become known as Danity Kane, and this hourlong special, The Rise and Fall of Danity Kane, charts the group's early successes and eventual dissolution. The story itself is almost entirely without interest, but as a referendum on reality TV's shortcomings, it's absolutely riveting.

Here's what I mean. The show is called Making the Band, and if it's doing its job right, it should show you what it's like inside the inner circle of this up-and-coming band. And yet not even Making the Band knows exactly why the group broke up! Though cameras were present for a scene where Diddy fires two of band's five members, the show's narrator professes that it's still not clear what broke up the group. The show ends with its narrator asking questions like "Was it Aubrey desire to create her own image that broke them apart?" "Or was it the dissolution between the friendship between Aubrey and Aundrea?" Why are you asking ME, TV voice? YOU were there! Shouldn't you have some idea?

Despite hundreds of hours of footage and dozens of cameras, the series didn't capture the actual reality surrounding its "reality" show. It is the televisual equivalent of a guy who thinks his relationship with a woman is going perfectly well, is shocked when she dumps him, looks back over his memories of their time together and sees no evidence of trouble the has to be told by his best friend that she was cheating on him all along. Either the people making Making the Band were inobservant or the people they were following were willfully hiding crucial information from the cameras. Either is a fatal flaw.

The most interesting figure in the entire show is Aubrey O'Day, one of the first girls fired from the group by Diddy. In the picture above, she's the one to the far left styled like she could become the next cast member of another MTV reality show, The Hills. What little footage of unrest within Danity Kane exists comes via the numerous battles O'Day had with Diddy over her appearance, her attitude, her feelings, her dance moves, her whatever. Diddy doesn't like that O'Day puts herself before the group, but based on the evidence in this show, it was a wise move; though the show may be titled The Rise and Fall of Danity Kane but it might as well be subtitled The Aubrey O'Day Story. She's the member with the most screentime, the most on-camera interviews, and the most glamour shots (particularly useful in charting O'Day's eerie transformation from a normal, pretty looking girl into a full-size Pussycat Doll Barbie). Even if the controversy got her fired from the band, it also got her the most attention, and created a feedback loop whereby now she's the character around which all DK stories center. Then again, this may have less to do with telling the "true story" of the group and more about setting O'Day up for her solo reality show, which is supposedly in the offing later this year.

That's what you're left with, really, the use of a reality show as a carefully disguised PR device. When Diddy fired O'Day and D. Woods on camera, he did it in a showroom for his clothing line. When Danity Kane or their sibling group Day26 release an album, it's typically timed to coincide with Making the Band's season finale. There's lots of undiscovered musical talent out there; Diddy could presumably find lots more people to sign and develop (and yell at, and control, and critique) without resorting to a television series to do it. But the show acts as the perfect way to promote the artists, and its a canny way of propping up record sales at a time when the whole industry is struggling. It's all brilliant advertising for a real fiction.

The Dark Knight Returns: A Second Look at Batman: The Animated Series

For those who remember the Batman cartoon from the 1990s as an entertaining childhood diversion, it is time to look again. Batman: The Animated Series airs nightly on ToonDisney (at 7:30 PM, check your local listings) and I can promise if you have any affection at all for the character or for good television you won't be disappointed.

I've caught around 30 episodes the past couple weeks and would classify just two of the bunch as "bad" or not worth watching. The rest vary from diverting (as in the jaunty "Prophecy of Doom" about a phony baloney prophet who cons Bruce Wayne's rich friends) to poetic ("Appointment in Crime Alley" about Batman's annual remembrance of his fallen parents) to the flat-out brilliant ("The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy," a beautiful little thriller about a criminal trying to steal Batman's cape and cowl, has a devilishly clever denouement). Nearly all the episodes I've watched — even some of the more uneven ones — are way better than the vast majority of Batman comics I've ever read (excluding a couple of classics, like these). I think that's reflected in the fact that in the wake of the show's critical, commercial, and artistic success the DC comics were reshaped to reflect the reality of the series (such as adding characters like Harley Quinn, the Joker's deranged girlfriend and sidekick, who was invented specifically for television and then transplated in nearly-identical form to the printed page).

There's a lot of cultural origins to this work, and the stuff that comes from comic books often seems more indebted more to EC horror than the Dark Knight; like "The Clock King" which transforms the origin of a silly old villain whose gimmick stems from his love of time pieces (on the other Batman TV show, Walter Slezak played him with much personal panache but little menace) into a miniature morality tale. Temple Fugate (approximately the Latin phrase 'time flies') is a efficient businessman obsessed with punctuality, convinced by a stranger he meets on a train to relax a little bit. So Fugate does, and promptly muffs a court case and loses everything. A few years later, he swears revenge on the stranger who he blames for all his troubles; in the interim the man's become the mayor of Gotham City and Fugate uses his knowledge of schedules to sabotage his reelection campaign.

Batman: The Animated Series is well-respected for its strikingly atmospheric visuals and gritty action sequences, both unique to an animated cartoon supposedly geared toward children. And though the series operates from a uniform style, it's easy to spot flourishes and personal touches from the Batman's signature directors, particularly in wide variety of representations of old Bats himself. Frank Paur's Batman, with his even-squarer-than-usual jaw and a flurry of low angles, looks like something dreamed up by Alex Toth. Kevin Altieri's looks more like a ninja; he wears his cape as a cloak draped over his shoulders, helping him to blend in with the shadows of the city. Some of the directors even have clear thematic specialties: Boyd Kirkland's episodes almost always involve some sort of obsession with the past, from "Beware the Gray Ghost" about a team-up between Batman and Bruce Wayne's childhood idol to "It's Never Too Late" about a crime boss wracked by the guilt of a bad decision from decades before, to "Nothing to Fear," which introduces the Scarecrow to the show and gives us Batman confronting his greatest fear, disappointing his dead father. Even better Batman responds to his vengeful dad's accusations by howling "No! I am vengeance! I am the night! I...AM...BATMAN!" Hell yeah you are dude.

My one gripe: freaking Toon Disney stopped airing episodes in order after the three dozen shows I saw and went back and started showing the same ones over again, even there's some sixty episodes left in the full run. Guess I'd better turn to Netflix, or set my DVR for Superman: The Animates Series, also airing nightly on ToonDisney and from many of the same very talented creators.

Termite Television: Private Screening: Lemmon/Matthau

Just a note of praise for a fine show I watched on my DVR last night. It was an old episode of the infrequent Turner Classic Movies series Private Screening, where Hollywood legends sit down with TCM host Robert Osborne to discuss their career. This installment featured two guests: Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. It was one of the best hours of television I've seen in months.

The show was taped in 1998, as a promotional vehicle for the release of the unwatchable film, The Odd Couple II (this show is, in retrospect, the film's only positive effect). And so while there is far too much back-slapping about how amazing their new movie is (including Lemmon making the absurd statement that other to Some Like it Hot, Odd Couple II is the best comedy script he's ever read...uh, no Jack.) there is still plenty of time for my favorite onscreen duo (you heard me) to kibbitz about their careers. The grumpy old men are even candid enough to share some honest criticism of their work — Lemmon, like most viewers, finds Buddy Buddy a little lacking — as well as some hilarious stories. My favorite involved Lemmon taking Matthau to a sneak preview of his film Alex & The Gypsy. The screening, like the rest of that film's release, was a huge disaster; as the audience angrily filed out they wouldn't even look at Lemmon was sitting there waiting for their approval! After enduring the entire film, Lemmon turned to Matthau and asked, "So Walt, what did you think?" Matthau's response: "Get out of the picture!"

Though I often find Osborne to be a little stiff in his introductions, this nearly ten year old show definitely finds him in finer, more lively form and really showcases his talents as an interviewer; doing a long-form interview like this, with two different subjects who need to be balanced throughout is far more difficult than Osborne makes it look. Now if he'd only show this sort of enthusiam when he's introducing Stagecoach for the thirtieth time.

If you've never seen their great collaborations with Billy Wilder, The Fortune Cookie or their vastly underrated (even by themselves!) take on The Front Page, do yourself a favor and Netflix them. And if this show is ever on again, watch it.

Termite Television: Sports Night

It boggles my mind just how much of his shows — The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and, yes, Sports Night — Aaron Sorkin wrote single-handedly. I have trouble writing two movie reviews a week and finding time to update this blog. Sorkin churned out twenty plus scripts a year, each at least a hundred pages long. The secret to his success? Pounding down handfuls of crack cocaine! I guess regular cocaine just didn't have enough oomph.

Both of the Sorkin shows I've seen — Studio 60 and now Sports Night — claim to be about one thing (the making of a Saturday Night Live-style television show and the making of a SportsCenter-style television show, respectively) but are, in fact, about another: that being, Sorkin himself. Many of the characters, like SN's Dan Rydell and S60's Danny Tripp, are former drug users (many, apparently, are also named Danny). They are excellent, obsessive writers. They work long hours because they love their jobs. They treat their co-workers like family and their family like co-workers. The focal point of both shows is a strangely-huggy relationship between two male co-workers and best friends. It is interesting that Sorkin's one bonafide TV hit, The West Wing, is the one show of his that isn't quite as blatantly autobiographical as the others. Without having seen TWW, I'd guess it's probably also a little less self-congratulatory, which may also be a factor.

After hearing about his unorthodox style for years, it's a bit surprising to see how conventional Sorkin's storytelling values are: even if his characters talk quickly, even if the air is thick with technical jargon (Instant Sports Night drinking game: take a shot any time a character says "VTR"), the plots are boilerplate workplace drama — disagreements between management and rank and file and will-they-won't-they office romances. The endings of both series I've seen are shockingly upbeat — what other shows give happy endings to everyone in the cast? Sorkin's constantly assailed for writing over his audience's heads — characters within his shows often allude to this fact in conversation with corporate superiors who want to dumb down their work — and you can sort of see the writer's confusion: the guy's just doing rudimentary feel-good melodrama gussied up with a little inside baseball. These shows are thinly-veiled, carefully-dialogued soap operas. They're Melrose Place with a better vocabulary and a big TV control room where the pool should be.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary; Sports Night is good. This is the sort of show I love to watch on DVD because it is so addictive you can plow through the episodes without having to wait a week in between, and it's the sort of show I hate to watch on DVD because seeing how good it is all at once saddens you when you realize that if you'd watched it and supported it when it was on in the first place maybe you'd have more than 45 episodes of it to dig into now. Oh well. Time for The West Wing I guess.

Termite Television: Return to Hell's Kitchen

He's baaaaaaaaaaack!!


There are exactly three things I look forward to every summer: San Diego Comic-Con, hot dogs straight off the grill, and the return of my favorite television show, Hell's Kitchen. I wrote extensively about HK last summer at the start of its second season, so this will serve as a brief refresher.

As always, the show remains a reality/game show about a bunch of marginally talented culinary artists all fighting for their very own restaurant in Las Vegas and a couple hundred grand in cash. Standing in their way is the great British tyrant of the kitchen, Gordon Ramsay, one of the world's most respected chefs and biggest assholes. While a typical reality show primarily stars hot people with drinking problems and/or personality disorders, FOX and the producers of Hell's Kitchen take a different approach: fill the cast with circus freaks who aren't even qualified to eat in a restaurant, much less work in one. That way Ramsay will have tons of targets to yell things like "SHUT IT OFF YOU DONKEY!" to.

The highlight of this year's bumper crop of loons is Aaron, a 48-year-old retirement home chef from California who wore a cowboy hat to meet Chef Ramsay. Yes, Aaron's a cowboy, and just like real cowboys in the Old West he weeps when he's scared and sneezes into his cooking. Yee haw, Aaron. I'm also a fan of Vinnie, a nightclub chef from New Jersey who foolishly thought he could talk back to Chef Ramsay and who'd never heard the word "rubbish" before. "If you want me to do something, use words I can understand!" he griped to the cameras. Oy. Wouldn't you know he's from New Jersey.

For the second year in a row, Ramsay has split the men and women into separate teams and made them compete against each other. The men tend to get on well, but the women can't seem to stop yelling at one another (A disgusted Ramsay referred to them as "Hell's Bitches" at the end of their disastrous first service). Though one of these "chefs" will have the chance to run their very own restaurant, none of them at this stage of the game can fry an egg. None, except poor Julia, a cook at a Waffle House, who pleaded with her team to let her make the eggs — because, y'know, when you work at a waffle restaurant, you get pretty good at cooking eggs — while her snobby peers kept ignoring her and telling her to chop onions. Then she cried. Then Ramsay yelled. Then more crying.

It's clear that as it enters its third season, Hell's Kitchen has totally abandoned any pretense of being anything other than rubbish — yes, Vinnie, rubbish. The contestants are emotionally unstable (one fainted before she even spoke to Ramsay), physically impaired (one guy has a kidney disorder that makes him look like a child) or just totally insane (Vinnie, I'm looking at you). There are exactly two contestants, one male and one female, who look like they've used an oven before (coincidentally, it wouldn't be the first time that someone couldn't figure out how to turn on an oven — one guy got the boot last year for that very reason). So I think the finals are pretty much set at this point. But that's fine; you don't watch Hell's Kitchen for the suspense, you watch to see nutjobs get yelled at by an even bigger nutjob. Set your DVRs people, it's gonna be great.

Termite Television: Inside the Actors Studio

(Or: "Put This Pathetic Creature Out of Its Misery")

I couldn't sleep last night, and it wasn't the anticipation of the plane ride home from Austin that was doing it. No, it was a completely ridiculous late night episode of Inside the Actors Studio, a show that has increasingly become the least essential interview show on television. You don't watch ItAS to learn about the craft of acting; you watch to learn just how desperate one man is to hobnob with movie stars, and how desperate movie stars are for compliments.

I think the craft of acting is very interesting. When a good actor has something to say about it, that's worth my time without a doubt. And Inside the Actors Studio has had some incredible guests over the years, including Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, and Clint Eastwood. They replayed a Eastwood episode a few weeks ago — it's a few years old now — and man is it good. They talked about everything from Leone to Unforgiven. Great stuff.

But after almost 200 episodes and now in its 13th (!!!) season, The Actors Studio is starting to strain for guests. I recently saw an episode with Diana Ross: quick name one movie she's been in besides Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany, and The Wiz? Trick question; there are none. Ross' episode was particularly pointless, but it's far from an aberration; here's a sample of the people who, however talented, had absolutely no right appearing on Inside the Actors Studio in recent years: Elton John, Barbara Walters, George Carlin, Roseanne, Billy Joel, and Jay Leno. I've never seen Leno's episode but I imagine the exchange about Collision Course was incredibly enlightening.

Whatever else it started out as, Inside the Actors Studio has basically turned into just another talk show, albeit one with lengthier interviews and a more eccentric host (more on him in a bit). The only people who go on it now are the people with something to promote; typically said host, James Lipton, builds up to his discussion of that release, which he has always seen "at a special screening" or "an early, unfinished print" and with an air of awed solemnity, as if he's just seen the Shroud of Turin instead of The Da Vinci Code. And, to be clear, lengthy doesn't mean in depth. The conversation is superficial and heavy on bootlickery. Often Lipton reveres work that even his guests readily admit is flawed or not worth discussing. These aren't softballs; these are beach balls.

The episode that had me completely riveted was a new one involving Chris Rock (promoting his new, Rohmer-remake I Think I Love My Wife). Chris Rock is a remarkably gifted comedian; easily one of the two or three finest and funniest of his generation, and definitely someone who deserves consideration if you're drawing up a list of the best of all time. But he is not a good actor. I've seen him in a lot of movies; at his best he plays a twist on his comedic persona (Dogma, Lethal Weapon 4) and at worst is an unfunny, awkward twist on his comedic persona (Head of State and the truly revolting Bad Company).

In short, no one should be getting acting tips from Chris Rock, but there he is, up on stage, imparting his accumulated wisdom to impressionable youngsters and an absurdly enthused host. Really, you haven't lived, or laughed, until you've heard James Lipton intone, in all sincerity, "Chris, then you made a film of which I am an unapologetic fan of. Who is...Pootie Tang?!?!?"

Man that's good stuff. Lipton, you're crazy. But I feel like you're so sincere in your flattery, or at least so consistent with it, that it's amusing. Worth watching for educational value? Not really. But for unintended laughs? You betcha. I mean just look at this guy:


That guy is bananas.

Termite Television: Space Seed

I had a full on flirtation with Star Trek nerdness back in 8th grade. I even attended a Star Trek convention in New York City (just one, and no, I didn't wear a costume). I'm still sort of fascinated by the original series, with Kirk, Spock, and the rest, and I've been DVRing it here and there the last couple of months. I keep waiting for someone to put that Star Trek animated series, freshly out on DVD, on television so I can see it again for the first time since childhood, when I completely adored the reruns that used to pepper Nickelodeon's schedule the way Spongebob does now, but I guess the live-action series will have to do in the meantime.

So, Space Seed. This episode introduces Ricardo Montalban's Khan, the outlandish villain who reppears in the one Star Trek movie even non-Star Trek fans agree is actually kind of good, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In the hourlong episode, written by Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber and directed by Marc Daniels, the Starship Enterprise stumbles on a sleeper ship drifting in space. This "SS Botany Bay" houses a race of supermen, who fled the Earth following the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s (remember those? Good times...), and have spent the last two centuries in suspended animation. Captain Kirk and his away team inadvertantly revive their leader, Khan, who returns to the ship, acts like a douchebag, causes all sort of havoc, is defeated, and then left for dead on a wasteland planet.

The idea behind the Khan character is that he is some sort of pefect human specimen; a superman, the ubermench, and so on. When they transport over and investigate, Kirk brings along a crew historian, a female lieutenant named McGivers. Despite whatever training she has, whatever allegiance she holds to her captain, her ship, and her home planet, she takes one look at Khan while he's still in suspended animation — before he's even uttered a word or shown off his awesomely manly and totally hairless chestal region — and she is so smitted she doesn't even hear Captain Kirk's orders while she thinks of at least ten different ways to bang the guy.


I love that in 1967 with all of Hollywood at its disposal, the producers of Star Trek chose Ricardo Montalban as their emblem of unchecked masculinity. Look at that man! Is that man-beauty or what?!? How the hell did he keep himself looking so brown in suspended animation? Did he freeze himself inside his tanning bed? He truly is a super man!

Khan's man-booty is so blazingly hot it's a wonder the male crewmembers don't lose themselves in his powerful eyes and Montalbanian pectorals as well (Montalbanian pectorals being defined as pectorals so choked in self tanner that they resemble rich Corinthian leather). Somehow Kirk and company take their eyes off his hotness long enough to regain control of the ship and defeat him, but not before Khan gets to tell McGivers that she "amuses" him and hiss the word "fatigue" in such a way as to make it sound eighteen syllables long.

It's remarkable that someone thought this material had the potential for a great Star Trek movie because it is one of the silliest episodes of the first series that didn't involve the crew going to a planet of gangsters or talking bunny rabbits or something. In the big Khan/Kirk fist fight, they don't even attempt to disguise the pair's stunt doubles ("Dude Khan suddenly got much more pale! And Kirk's girdle isn't as tight!"). But someone did recognize the potential, and hey it worked. This is why I don't work in movies. I just make fun of them.

Termite Television: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

The first best show of the 2006-07 season is Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. In a nutshell, the show is Sorkin's The West Wing set backstage of a Saturday Night Live-ish comedy series, though since I've seen maybe half of one of The West Wings 156 episodes, that's sort of an educated guess. Both were created and written by Sorkin, both directed by Thomas Schlamme, both co-starred Bradley Whitford, both involve people walking a lot while frequently talking.

Several websites referred to how autobiographical the show is — do a Google news search, you'll find them. Frankly, I don't know and couldn't care less about that. Wherever the material is coming from, it's good: crisp, smart, and funny. The opening sequence of the pilot is an all-timer: Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch), the fatherly producer of the show-within-a-show has an edgy sketch cut by the network censor just before broadcast. When the show goes live, Mendell jumps in front of the cameras and starts a Network-esque meltdown (acknowledged as knowingly Network-esque in a very funny sequence several minutes later). Mendell, sick of the way network pressure has watered down his beloved show, wants to get fired. So he does what no one on television does: he speaks honestly. Here's some highlights from the speech:

This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it’s gotten lobotomized by a candy ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience...We’re all being lobotomized by this country’s most influential industry. It’s just throwing in the towel on any endeavor to do anything that doesn’t include the courting of 12 year old boys. Not even the smart 12 year olds, the stupid ones, the idiots. Which there are plenty, thanks in no small measure to this network. So why don’t you just, change the channel, turn off the TV. Do it right now, go ahead...There is a struggle between art and commerce. Well there has always been a struggle between art and commerce. Now, I’m telling you, art is getting its ass kicked. And it’s making us mean. And it’s making us bitchy. It’s making us cheap punks, that’s not who we are! People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump. [Inaudible] We’re eating worms for money. Who wants to screw my sister! Guys are getting killed in a war that’s got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe...

I don't care if Sorkin is doing this with a bit of a wink, or if the show distracts from Mendell's speech to some degree by intercutting with the network censor's attempts to pull the plug on the live broadcast. Putting this on HBO, no matter the context, is edgy. Putting this on broadcast television, but particularly NBC — the network that airs Saturday Night Live AND The Apprentice — is ludicrous. NBC must be as deseperate for a hit show as the "NBS" channel that broadcasts Mendell's Studio 60.

The rest of the episode wasn't quite as riveting as the opening, but it establishes one of the best cast ensembles in television, including Steven Webber as the jerkstore head of NBS and Amanda Peet as his newly hired and somewhat enigmatic V.P. Whitford and nominal lead Matthew Perry play a writing team that Peet wants to get to replace Hirsch's character, and both already pop with a nice friends-for-life chemistry.

Another feather in Studio 60's cap: not afraid to be melodramatic. Sure, having Perry's character be the ex-lover of Studio 60's most popular female star is contrived but you know what: it creates the perfect soapy tension that these sort of hour-long dramas thrive on. I'm not ashamed to say I look forward to many will-they-won't-they moments for months or hopefully years to come.

If you missed the pilot episode, it's playing on Bravo this week. Get in on the ground floor.

Termite Television: Lucky Louie

Lucky Louie is unique. It is a sitcom about a lower middle class family that actually live and dress like they have money problems (along with Everybody Hates Chris). There's also a lot of male nudity. The brainchild of stand-up comic Louie C.K., it wrings humor out of muggings, frigidity, race, and heart-attacks. Filmed in front of a live studio audience on video, with extremely shallow staging (reminiscent of early sitcoms like The Honeymooners), the show is refreshingly intimate. There are no stylistic flourishes, appropriate for a show that's trying to approximate how a bummed out working class guy lives. As for plot, here's C.K. from an interview on HBO.com:

"Well, it's real simple. It's about a guy in a dead-end job who has a wife and a kid. He works in a muffler shop, but he's not even a mechanic. If you work at Dunkin' Donuts, you can just go over to Midas and retrain for two days, and you now are a muffler guy. So that's what this guy is. He's working in the service industry, and his wife is a nurse, so she's got an actual profession, an actual skill. And since her job has benefits and real pay, she's the one that works full-time. It happens in a lot of families. The guy's job has to be part-time, 'cause if he did it full-time it would only cost too much to put the kid in day care. So we're just in a common situation. His wife can be a pain in the ass, he's a douchebag in her eyes. And it gets to feel numb after a while. His friends are stupid, but he can't go out looking for a great best friend, like in other sitcoms where the friend is just right there for the guy. I don't know, I never had a friend like that. So it's just regular folks."

So, no bullshit, and the laughs are always barbed. In the last episode Louie's wife Kim (Pamela Adlon) tries to get him to go on a diet after his friend Mike (Michael Hagerty) has a mild heart attack (she challenges him to catch her, he gets exhausted running around the table). He tries for a few days, then starts sneaking food on the side, ending up on the toilet eating chocolate cake. In the end, she gives up. It's funny because Louie is sympathetic, with his permanent hangdog pout wanting to slam down the final bite of the Big Mac. We want him to be happy, but shit, he's killing himself. And that's how it ends. No resolution, nobody's learned anything, and Louie will remain out of shape. Truly a feel-bad comedy - but it's all done with a light touch - no lessons are being imparted. It's just how this guy is. No judgments, but often hilarious.

The actors are key for this to come off at all, and they're aces all around. Hagerty's been around forever in commercials and everything else on TV, and he's been honing this deadpan fat slob for years. It's lived in. Jim Norton's the other friend, Rich, who deals dope to teenagers on the side. Norton's another stand-up guy, a regular on the sorely missed Tough Crowd, and whose splenetic vulgarities gain more impact in a minor role. They sneak up on you. Adlon (who's voiced a string of animated series), and who's way too attractive for poor Louie, supplies the show with a mischievous energy and a facility for the sly putdown.

I don't expect it to last long - the spare style, banal subject matter, and off-hand vulgarity (it's never what I'd call obscene) are way out of step with what sells, especially on HBO. Shit, it follows up the rich-hued complexity of Deadwood and just looks out of place. I'm scared for it.

Termite Television: DVR

This was a good week to write about television, since I just got cable in my home for the first time in four years. Ah the nourishing bounty of several hundred channels of entertainment: I've already been struck with a deepening appreciation for Countdown with Keith Olbermann, found nightly bliss amongst the fraternity on Baseball Tonight, and even enjoyed some childhood nostalgia with old episodes of The A-Team. There's seems to be a lot more weird crap on the dial than I remembered: I've spent significant time watching old episodes of the Mr. T cartoon, wrestling matches from pre-history between Hulk Hogan and Big Bad Boss Man on MSG, and game shows from the Nickelodeon of my youth I'd forgotten existed (how that dude from Nickelodeon GUTS ever made it all the way to Yes Dear is a question that will be debated for eons).

But nothing has been more important than my discovery of perhaps the greatest invention in human history: DVR. For a measily nine bucks a month, I can pause, rewind, fast forward, and record any program my twisted heart desires. It's sort of like becoming a mad god of television. Like a Viking, I control all I survey. None are safe from my hand. I SAY THEE NAY COMMERCIALS!

Watching shows you missed because you were watching something else (or something really lame like going outside or speaking to other human beings) is fine and dandy. But the real pleasure is scouring the channels for movies, saving them, and sitting down to watch them later. You wouldn't believe the caliber of movies that play at 5:00 AM. Frank Tashlin's frothy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? doesn't come out on DVD until August; I caught it this week after an early morning airing on the suprisingly excellent Fox Movie Channel. And Fritz Lang's obscure Pacific Theater picture American Guerilla in the Philippines has never been released on any home format, but I caught it thanks to my DVR (so this is how Tom Gunning feels!). Other highlights from my first days of DVRevelations: Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, Howard Hawks' Monkey Business, and Otto Preminger's River of No Return.

Tonight I can choose from Police Beat (I missed it's brief run in theaters), Rosetta (After the astonishing L'Enfant, I'm sorely in need of an education in the Dardennes Brothers), Welles' Othello or the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (how have I gone my entire life without watching it?!?). Renting half of those movies would have cost me the nine bucks I'm spending on the DVR widget for the entire month.

Truly this is why God gave man eyeballs.

Termite Television: Parental Control

Every detail is attended to, so every episode is the same. A template has been pounded out in what I'm sure were endless test screenings with the hormonal horde. There is something lulling about the sameness, it comforts and soothes my tempestuous soul. The world outside may scoff at my aspirations at love and career, but Parental Control is there as an anchor: parents will always despise their spawn's beloved, and the beloved will spit in their drink. Or some variation thereof.

For those unaware, PC is a dating show, with one glorious difference: parents select two dates for their child - and then watch said dates on video with their child's spouse, whom they treat with regal disdain. The child must pick her favorite at the end. Bon mots fly with calming regularity - tones never rise too high, and no line is spoken with conviction. All are acting out the roles proscribed for them - but nothing is ever at stake. Everyone is uncomfortable, fake smiles combat with put-on disdain - and it all comes off like a coming of age ritual that everyone wants to end as soon as possible.

This is what must happen: parents interview prospective dates, asking about career, attitude, passions, and then one wild card question. Something about dance moves, sexual proclivities, special talents, etc., that cause these charming contestants to engage in physically embarrassing activities. Climbing on the table is a popular option. These climbers are never selected but are forever treasured. The parents squirm, smirk, say a sarcastic "oh really" to wacky answers, and generally convey a disturbing amount of reserve. Then they flip through a photo book, point to a page, and pick a mate. These sublime faces are kept from us with a merciless cut to commercial.


On to the couch they sit, this makeshift family of young lovers and finger waggers. It is the peak of the whole flawless operation. The lazy punk, that video-game playing, trucker-hat wearing layabout sits next to his golden haired, spindle waisted lady. The parents inevitably ask if he is nervous - and irregardless of his response, dastardly say he should be. Zing! But the worry is there on his face and on his creased brow. I hate him and yet I sympathize with him. The green eyed monster devours us all at times. Doorbell rings, the lady rises to open the door...the door opens a crack and....will the face be pockmarked, chubby, chiseled? I don't know. Commercial.

Door opens, hand shakes. The stud is muscular, an Abercrombie or weightlifter type usually. Sometimes the boyfriend refuses to shake the interlopers hand, I cringe and anticipate the veiled homophobic slurs to come. There they are! He looks like a girl, he says. And yet, I can't disagree. The boyfriend and I have connected once again. The two blind dates scamper off, the boyfriend stews in boiling juices, the parents giving him screwfaces the entire time. Theme dates ensue. Dance lessons elicit "He's just trying to grab her ass" (a popular refrain, and undoubtedly true). Or it's tennis where grabass is defended by Pops as "at least he's teaching her something." Small talk on dates is all veiled references to the current beau's shortcomings: "so you like to work out", "you have a job", "you shower regularly". Many shots of parents nodding. Then the bombshell of some nasty thing the lover did to the parents, like the aforementioned spit in cup, or it's laxatives in coffee or some such iteration of the ol' switcheroo. The kids are fond of the ol' switcheroo. Date over, come home, lady lists reasons she likes guy. Another important detail - the section of the couple going on the date always remains optimistic and never criticizes her dates - always takes her parents side on every issue until the final decision. Pump up suspense and all. Commercial.

Another date. Repeat previous scene. Commercial.

At this point the fun is over for me, as everyone has risen from the couch - that cauldron of teenage insecurity and parental arrogance. But anyway, the lady chooses - and inevitably they stay with their man. The status quo reigns supreme, the earth remains on its axis, and I anxiously await the next thrilling installment. It's probably on right now and that warms my inner organs.

Also, the review on IMDB is excellent and much shorter than mine:

"I'm only 16 but I usually don't watch MTV. But this time is different. Parents who are unsatisfied with their daughters boyfriend so they're going to pick two guys out of many hopefuls, they each take her on a date and the she has to decided to stay with her old boyfriend or go with one of the new guys. Their decisions are very mixed. Some stay and some go. The girls boyfriend is always a conceited jerk who treats her like complete poopy. (cant say the s word on this site, besides poopy sounds funny) I got a question. Why are all of MTV's shows done in California? They should do some in Florida or a cool place to be, There's more to life then California MTV!!!!! The girl is usually a dumb blonde who had a guy a beautiful blonde would never date. A lot of these girls are dating loser guys like me. The show is a bit unrealistic but still fun to watch. They should come to Connecticut in the summertime, it's really nice here, but ONLY in the summertime."

Termite Television: 5 Months of Idol Chatter. Speechless? Hardly.

My love for American Idol began late. It was Season 2. That was the year when I began watching regularly. It was the late episodes, and the defeat of Clay Aiken by Rubin Studdard on Finale night that the tears started to well up. Rubin was the favorite that year, all the celebs were rooting for him. The audience resounded with a deep hollering "Ruuuuuuubin" when he'd appear. Quentin Tarantino was in the audience, I remember, punching the air and whoopin it up when Rubin waddled to the mike. Clay was just gay. Or latently so. But I liked him. He was the kind of guy I would have fallen for in middle school. Real sweet, but with a trendy edge. A momma's boy for sure. He wasn't threatening, and in retrospect, maybe that's what lost him the title. I watched the Season 2 Finale at my parents' home in Colorado while I drank from my green bottle of Heineken. It wasn't the right setting, my 80-something grandmother and fifty-something mother sat in the chairs opposite me, while Dad was enclaved in the upstairs room away from the "noise" and "garbage" Guy Smiley-Seacrest introduced. The tenor wasn't right that night. I watched with guarded emotion, insecure with my display of affection for Clay, Ryan Seacrest, and the sheer spectacle of the roaring audience. For chrissake I was sitting with my granny.

Down south in Tennessee was Camille Knox, my friend and fellow American Idol lover. Our conversations on the show mostly happened via email, thus making it too difficult to refer to American Idol as "American Idol," and we scripted our own shorthand: "AmIdol." Camille was in a different time zone, central time. I was in Mountain. This posed problems because she saw the show and final outcome while I was waiting with baited breath in the middle of the Rockies, pissed on beer, on the verge of tears and an emotional break-down while she held the secret that was to define the mood for the rest of the calendar year post-Season 2. As you can see, between the time zone discrepancies and my elderly audience in the living room, things were awry. I knew then I needed to watch with a Soul Sister, a person who understood the sheer hilarity and devastation of Simon Cowell's one word performance summaries: "Horrible." I needed to be among one who could get rabidly mad at judge Randy Jackson's pretentious paroxysm named "pitchy" when the contestants would conclude their performances. I needed someone to understand the gravity of Paula Abdul's cakey makeup and gaudy beaded necklaces that weighed more than she. I needed someone to understand the horror of her cakey makeup. For the love of god, her makeup.

At the start of Season 3 we had our calendars marked. Camille and I were roommates, finally together on opening night with heaping handfuls of chocolate in our mouths. Auditions! The center of gravity of AmIdol. This is what the show is about, seeing the vast crowds of contestants who think they have talent, seeing them line up for hours on end, hungry and tired and talentless, only to be, with all inevitability, capital D-denied access to the Hollywood rounds. But a lucky few make it. They burst from the judges' console with a yellow paper in hand, tumbling over Ryan and their loved ones while they scream into the camera. They've made it! They've made it. Oh, but the season is long...

Hollywood is another beast, my friends. Contestants swagger onto the stage confident and boastful and Simon is not amused. Once the Hollywood rounds are screened you have a good idea who's going to make the final cut. It's not just the actual talent of the finalists, but also the hammer-over-the-head backstories of the kids they find pre-air date to profile. Fast-forward to Season 5. Kelly Pickler the famous blonde southerner who as it turns out never heard of Calamari. "Pick Pickler!" She was cute and the producers knew it. Her dad is also a dead-beat, so that helps pull the heartstrings. We want the poor twangy girl without a father figure to triumph, and so, hello Top 12. And yet! Hollywood auditions endure. How about the evil Brittenum brothers, Terrell and Derell? I hate them. Hate is a strong word? Let me clarify: I hate them. The twins are, however, in all their despicability, a prime example of why auditions, Hollywood or preliminary, maintain the form and integrity of AmIdol. Those boys lost out. They were unsavory and cocky, but...they could sing. This is the conundrum: Can a character so loathsome possibly make it on to the Top 24? The Top 12? Could they take the whole show? Surely not, surely not. But you never know. It's the element of surprise, the time shared with each contestant regardless if you prefer their voice to Bo Bice's or Fantasia Barrino's that keeps the show nuanced. It's the long audition season that lets you live and breathe with these personalities, and justifies your own final pick for the Top 3.

The season does wear on. Scheduling conflicts arise. Three straight week-nights of AmIdol means good-bye social life and hello Diet Coke and Ford commercials. Unless of course your social life is AmIdol. Then, in that case, Hello social life! I admit, the middle of the season can be hard to sit through, especially if it is anything like this past season, Season 5, where there was no contestant to clearly love or hate. Kevin Covais, the pre-pubescent from Long Island was the worst, but he was gone and off the radar too quick to keep us infuriated enough to find the knit-beanie-wearing L.A. resident Ace Young exciting. The Great Mandisa was gone in a snap. Taylor was always one of my favorites, but his presence wanned as weeks passed. No one stood out. At least not yet.

In Season 3 we knew Fantasia was Top 3 material. In Season 4 we saw Bo Bice soar to the top, beating the ever-stagy and self-important Constantine. There were always clear heroes and villains. In early seasons when this was the case it was easier to tune in to make sure gag-inducing Anthony Federov was denied further hip gyrating privileges on national TV, and see through that Carrie Underwood and Bo prevailed.

When Season 4 began Camille and I were still roommates so of course we had Idol night blocked off in our planners together. Yes, it was the momentum and antagonism of contestants like Vonzell and Scott Savol that brought us diligently back to the couch Tuesday nights, but it was more than our personal hatred for these sorry singers that delighted us to watch. It was the fact that we could both check out of the mundane daily routine for one, two, sometimes three hours, and get excited about the details of someone else's problems. The ever-present problem for contestants was whether or not they'd make it on to the next week. Was this their last night? The problems posed for the judges, or at least Paula, was whether or not their physical appearance would be scrutinized that evening. Looking at some of Paula's outfits was like staring at a copy of Us Weekly where we (GASP) at celeb fashion offenders. Paula's apparent drunkeness that was at its height in Season 4 made her clothing escapades all the more exciting.

This year was an underwhelming season. Camille was in L.A., I in New York City. We couldn't be physically together on the couch, but we were one in spirit. Before the Finale Camille advised, "Here's one way to look at tonight: only two more episodes to go, then our long, national nightmare will be over and we can start living for next January again." We would be true to our roots, nevertheless, and find the Idol Spirit. As the Season 5 Finale approached our enthusiasm built. There really was a spark in the air, you could feel the energy. Grown men and children alike united to indulge in the glitter of the last night. By Wednesday, May 24th, the mood had changed. I wrote her my observations: "The Idol Fever is building, Camille. The hour is almost here . . . [a] girl I always have tension with [at work] even talked me up and smiled and waved and wished me happy watching as she left---this does not happen, Camille. Do you see what this show does! America! In solidarity!"

We had done it. We had triumphed. Taylor Hicks won (Soul Patrol!), the Top 12 gang came back for stunning group sings, Mary J. Blige showed up, Live performed with Chris Daughtry, David Hasselhoff teared-up in the crowd. Then, just when we thought it was over: Prince. Season 5 with all of its lulls had redeemed itself. It took Camille and I a few days to decompress and return to the regular pace of life, to realize that it was seven months until Idol shows its face on TV again. AmIdol was the buzz for the first 5 months of the year, and though we're in the off-season there is plenty to remember and a lot to look forward to. I'll sleep soundly knowing that on this hot summer night, someone, somewhere is auditioning for next January's show. AmIdol is alive.

Termite Television: The Wire

It's sort of perfect that The Wire is about selling and taking drugs: it is, without question, the most addictive television show in history. While watching season two on DVD I became so transfixed that I spent all night watching the last six episodes; the sun was up before I finally went to sleep. I was under no deadline to return the discs, I just couldn't justify sleeping in that situation. People refer to great books as page turners. There is, to my knowledge, no similar term for television shows, so I'm inventing one: The Wire is a stone-cold disc turner. It is also the best cop show ever made; it's damn near the best show period ever made. Please note that I've just finished watching all thirteen hours of the series' third season in something like three days, so using the phrase "damn near" in a sentence seems perfectly reasonable.

Trying to explain the show's greatness is impossible because when you tell people that you love a show as underwatched as The Wire you always get the same question: "What's it about?" and what makes The Wire special has nothing to do with what it's about, which is what every cop show in the history of television is about. The Wire simply does it better and more complexly, than anybody else.

By complexly, I don't mean abstract concepts like a preponderance of metaphors or overarching themes that guide the drama more than simple genre formulations, although The Wire has both of those things. I mean it more concretely — this show has more characters and more plotlines than any other I have ever seen. Here's a partial list of stories from season three (which begins, rather ominously, with the demolition of a seedy city landmark): a high-ranking policeman legalizes narcotics in his district; a councilman considers running for mayor; a drug dealer returns from jail to find the balance of power upset by the man running his crew in his stead; a cop realizing a man he sent to prison is dead and possibly murdered (this man was a crucial figure in season one, and was indeed murdered in a shocking scene during season two); a young dealer beefing with an established crew; an old gangster paroled from prison struggling to say on the straight and narrow; the mayor forcing the cops to lower their crime statistics in the middle of a gang war. That's a lot already, plenty for any other show to tackle, but that doesn't even begin to take into account the stories of the cops and criminals personal lives: the lieutenant separated from his wife who falls for his co-worker; the lesbian detective whose marriage suffers when her partner decides to get a child; the dealer who is hiding a secret about a murder he ordered.

I mentioned the murder from season two that impacts season three. That happens a lot in The Wire. It's not a show you can watch with one eye while you check your email or do the dishes. It demands attention. Each season is its own complete story with its own theme (the first batch focused on bureaucracy, season two labor issues, and season three social reform) but each new set builds upon the mythology that preceded. The primary police characters work for a special unit of the Baltimore police department specializing in wire tapping (hence the series' title), but the members of the crew constantly change: two officers, Herc and Carver, haven't worked directly with the unit since the first season, but they remain on the show as they work tangentially related cases. Somehow, creator David Simon (who wrote the book that inspired the show Homicide) balances the existing characters with the new ones he continually introduces. The fact that a lot of them end up dead probably helps a little.

A lot of series that tell stories over the course of a season get boring in the middle: even a show as good as Alias is only really worth watching for the season premiere and finale and a couple of episodes during sweeps. Somehow, The Wire tops itself week after week, which means every new episode of The Wire is the best I've ever seen. I can't wait to see what happens next, and I can never predict it either. As I finished writing this, a beloved character performed a mistake costly enough to remove him from the unit and another sacrificed his integrity for his loyalty. A few episodes ago, I was far too delighted when one character finished a beer can, crushed it, and tossed it onto a roof. This sounds inconsequential, except several episodes earlier, another cop had done the exact same thing, and the latter was the former's mentor. One seemingly innocuous gesture said more about their relationship than any flashback or dialogue could.

Besides Simon, the other show's other crucial voice is George Pelecanos, my favorite crime novelist, and a producer and writer on The Wire. The third season character least important to the story (but, ironically, most important thematically) is Cutty, a former gang banger released from prison trying to find his place in the world. This is very clearly a Pelecanosian creation, not far removed from the hero of his last novel, Drama City. Additional episodes in the third season were written by Richard Price and Dennis Lehane.

When season four appears, I will be ready, salivating like a Pavlovian dog that's just heard a bell. Like Smuckers, with The Wire, you know it's good.

Season four of The Wire premieres later this year on HBO.

Termite Television: Hell's Kitchen

If there is a Rosetta Stone to my taste, Hell's Kitchen might be it. I've often joked to friends that if I could create a show, it would look a lot like Hell's Kitchen and, really, no other show I know epitomizes the so-bad-it's-good aesthetic that I relish in crummy old science-fiction pictures and things starring crazy dudes playing football in tuxedos. Melodramatic, shrill, and calculated for maximum drama, Hell's Kitchen is either the smartest dumb show or the dumbest smart show ever made. I can't decide; I change my mind three or four times per episode.

Hell's Kitchen — or just "The Kitchen" for people in the know, as in "Did you guys catch "The Kitchen" last night? — is a reality show in the mold of The Apprentice: an eccentric success teaches his trade to a group of eager young whipper snappers with a fabulous reward awaiting the winner. In this case the trade is cooking (obviously) and the eccentric success is British chef Gordon Ramsay; the reward a million dollar restaurant in a new Las Vegas resort. Ramsay has written books like "Passion for Flavour" and "Passion for Seafood" but his greatest passion is for publicly humiliating people; he is, possibly, the world's worst boss (Meryl Streep's in "The Devil Wears Prada" seems downright compassionate in comparison). Ramsay's breakthrough show in England, where the chef would help revitalize restaurants in need of his aid, was called "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." The American version removes most of the benevolence and imagines what Ramsay's own nightmares might be like.

Generally, these types of reality shows select contestants who are at least mildly qualified for the position at the end; though some might be abrasive, or obnoxious, or egotistical, you can at least rationalize why even the worst contestant managed to make their way on the show. Not so on Hell's Kitchen, where the participants appear selected not for their culinary ability or their passion for fine cuisine but rather for their inherent ability to annoy the shit out of Ramsay. For instance, this year's cast included Larry the fishmonger, who was forced out of the competition due to a physical breakdown caused by stress (inexplicably, his panic attack came not after one of Ramsay's verbal beatdowns, but after an evening hottubbing with the lovely ladies of "The Kitchen"), and a young man named Giacomo, who was allegedly a pizza maker, but ultimately found his way out of Hell's Kitchen when it was revealed that he did not even know how to turn on an oven (an oven being a rather crucial element of the pizza making, as well as most cooking enterprises).

Generally, these type of shows operate under a rigorously observed set of rules; Hell's Kitchen is completely subjective. At any point Ramsay can do whatever he wants and he very often does, like an angry deity smiting subjects who have failed to please him. During elimination, Ramsay will often request the least sucky contestant to offer up two teammates to go on the chopping block (this has to be the least rewarding reward in reality show history, since the person who doesn't get eliminated now wants to stab you in the back, which is dangerous on a show with this many meat cleavers lying about) but if the contestant he really wants to kick off isn't among the two, he will simply add him to the bunch and then eliminate him. Each episode is structured around a climactic meal service (which almost always ends in screaming and failure) and a challenge around the :30 mark, which is, without fail, judged however Ramsay sees fit. A recent episode required the players to cut steaks to the proper size and weight for serving. Ramsay judged, not with a mold or a scale, but with his eye and his hands, dismissing the steaks he didn't like with lines like, "I wouldn't serve that to a dog!"

You might wonder why I watch a show in which the contestants are clearly unqualified and the rules are constantly in flux. This is because Hell's Kitchen is not about the reward, in the way that The Apprentice is about getting rich working for Donald Trump. Hell's Kitchen is about watching stupid people get yelled at by the man with the shortest fuse in the history of civilzation. Though I would rather get deported than appear on the show myself, something about Ramsay belittling their poor lost souls gives me an admittedly sadistic pleasure. "GET BACK ON YOUR STATION, YOU DONKEY!" is something I expect to hear most episodes. "MOVE YOUR ASS FAT BOY!" is music to my ears. The creators do a brilliant job of letting us see these mistakes coming, of capturing that deer-in-the-headlights look when a contestant realizes they've screwed up and they are due for a tongue lashing (such as when one overweight contestant perspired so profusely in the kitchen that he began to sweat into the food...yummy). And think about it: even if you win Hell's Kitchen, what are you really winning? The chance to work 40 hours a week for Gordon Ramsay? To get belittled and insulted and made to feel like a maggot every day of your adult life, without the benefit of being on television while it's happening? Wow, what a fabulous prize. I think I'll take what's behind the curtain Monty.

A delightfully grumpy host coupled with some delightfully inept contestants would be enough to make a good show, but the show's heart stopping editing (cutting to commercials mid-word when it suits the drama!) and hilariously clumsy rituals (is it really necessary to impale the exiled chef's jacket on a meat hook AND incinerate their picture? Wouldn't one suffice to indicate their dismissal?) take it over the top. Hell's Kitchen is low-brow entertainment of the very highest order. Ramsay's cuisine shall always reign supreme (you donkey).

Hell's Kitchen airs Mondays at 9 PM on FOX.

Termite Art Presents: TERMITE TELEVISION!

It enlightens us. It infuriates us. It entertains us. For your reading pleasure, a very special theme week at Termite Art, one that will surely go down in history as a special theme week of a blog that 30 people read on a daily basis. The men and women of Termite Art share their personal boob tube highlights. This is Termite Television.