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Send your comments about TV -- reality or un -- to ELinerTV@aol.com. And check out my other blog: PhantomProf.blogspot.com.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Where to start? The Miss America Pageant? The Emmys? Was there a difference? Both shows could benefit from swapping some strategies. Let's have the Miss A. contestants face Joan Rivers for comments during the bathing suit competition. Let's have the nominees for Emmy's Best Actress in a Sitcom award line up for a current events quiz. Let's have Clay Aiken get trapped in a room with 50 beautiful women and see if they can get a rise out of him. That would answer a few questions, wouldn't it? Or maybe just one question.

And who were the two idiots sitting up in the balcony with microphones. babbling like bubbleheads during the Miss A. Pageant? One was J-Lo's DJ sister. The guy, who appeared to have a mouth loaded up with a double set of teeth, was -- who? Anybody? Anybody? There haven't been two emptier bodies in a balcony since the Muppets' Statler and Waldorf. But wait -- the Muppets had human hands up their asses and I think if you looked closely, Miss Lopez and that grinny guy might have, too.

The Emmys chose to honor the oldest or most boring people in many categories. Doris Roberts. Yawn. "Raymond." Yawn. William H. Macy and his weepy movie about the door-to-door salesman. Sniff. Yawn.

Best story that didn't happen at the Emmys: If John Ritters' family had shown up (which they didn't), they might have been seated behind the cast of "Six Feet Under."

Yawn.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Oh. Mah. Gawd. Can "Newlyweds" get any better? Nick and Jessica go to the senior citizen wedding -- massively hung over from a night of "discoing" in Cincinnati. Nick's granny and her new hubby were very cute -- why not a show about THESE newlyweds, huh? -- and you had to applaud when one of the guests, a guy who looked about 114, carefully parked his Lark scooter and then tumbled right to the carpet. Good times.

Poor little Jessica. She whines about her mean ol' record company who didn't like the way she sang "Sweetest Sin" because, well, face it, when she TRIES to sing, she sounds like one of those "American Idol" rejects who don't get it when Simon tells them to go back to waitressing. Jessica Simpson is to popular music what O.J. Simpson is to... popular music.

Nick, however, seems to have some talent and a knack for record producing (he helped wifey with re-recording the mess). So again, What's He Doing With This Bimbo? The clock is ticking down on this marriage even as we type.

Thursday, September 11, 2003

"The Family" has ended with Ant'ny winning the mil and splitting it with his nine family members. Let's see, after taxes, that's about 50G apiece. Not bad for a month's work. And if baldheaded cutie Michael doesn't end up doing some film work after this, then the casting directors aren't paying attention. And what was with George Hamilton pretending to wipe a tear from his over-tanned cheek at the end? George, you haven't shown any acting chops since "Where the Boys Are." Don't start trying now.

Christmas should be fun in Joisey this year though.

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

"The Family" ends tonight. Zzzzzzz. Last week it was so good, the finale can't do anything but feel like a big fat anticlimax. Instead, I'm quickly becoming addicted to Spike TV's "Joe Schmo," the meta-reality show that plays a "Truman Show" trick on one unlucky "player" who believes he's in a reality game thing called "Rags to Riches." The big mansion. A dozen stereotypical houseguests: the bitch, the virgin, the Marine, the jerk, etc. It took 90 minutes into the opening episode for "Joe" (forgot his real name, but does it matter?) to start outsmarting the producers. When they played "hands on a high-priced hooker," expecting him to be the final winner (as they'd scripted it, without his knowledge, of course), he went out FIRST because he wanted to be consigned to the laundry room bed (instead of having to share with the marine). It's all too too confusing. But when you see the folks in the control booth go "WHAAAA!" and throw up their hands at Joe's unpredictability, you know you have the possibility of genius TV going on.

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Dawn Marie goes down! But maybe not completely out on "The Family," ABC's greedfest about the Joisey clan trying to score a million bucks. Last night, groovy hostmeister George Hamilton revealed the identities of the "secret board of trustees," aka the butler, chef, maid, social director and stylist. Wow, did Momma's eyes pop when she realized the chef had NOT appreciated all her whiny critiques of his gourmet goodies. Remember the "don't use fresh parsley" remark? Of course you don't, but I do and that's why I'm married to my TV set and not a banker named Brad.

The baldheaded cute cousin guy is the one who looks like a winner on "The Family" and if he scores the bucks, watch Uncle Mikey turn into Luca Brazzi. It won't be pretty. Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Counting the days till "Survivor: The Pearl Islands."

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Boy meets boy. Boy gets boy. The Bravo series ended with James, our hero, choosing Wes, a much shorter, much swishier gay man with a haircut that makes him look like Zippy the Pinhead. They cried. They hugged. They kissed. Woohoo. And now they get a trip to New Zealand, the happiest, gayest place on earth, one assumes. Left behind on the staircase of losers were the other short gay guy and the tall, good-looking straight man, Franklin. And how fast did I catch on that Franklin was hetero? Big tip-off was his date in the limo with James. They popped open the champagne, poured two glasses and then -- voila! -- Franklin grabbed his glass BY THE FLUTE NOT THE STEM. No self-respecting, Kim Cattrall-worshipping gay man would hold a champers glass by anything but the stem. That's how it's done. Keeps the Cristal colder that way. Franklin guzzled his bubbly like it was a can of Schlitz. So, no mo' 'mo-ing for him. But then again, was it just me, or as the show unfolded, didn't Franklin look like he was getting a straight eye for that queer guy? Either he's a terrific actor or he let a little lavender take hold as he got to know the hunkarific James. Look for Franklin in a cover story in Out about a year from now.

Watch a lot of reality TV and you're bound to come to one conclusion about the state of America's housekeeping: We're a nation of slobs. Whether it's those hairy guys and their rancid fridge contents that the Fab Five clear out on "Queer Eye" or the crap-strewn mansion of "Newlyweds" Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey on MTV, anytime a door opens on a real American household, the dirty laundry is piled knee-high and crusty dishes crowd the sink. "Do we have a mop?" Jessica squeaked to Nick last week after she poured festering flower water on the kitchen floor. "You don't know if we own a mop and you're asking if you're a good housecleaner?" Nick squawked. "There's your answer."

Then later, Jessica listlessly pushed an O'Cedar sponge mop around and said "I thought mops had strings on 'em." Yes, dear, and Nick thought his new bride had a brain above those big bazooms. Surprise. Give this marriage two years.

But back to slobdom. Every season the "Real World" kids move into their shiny new digs, all purple paint and puffy sofas, and within a week have it looking like a dorm room in April. When "Trading Spaces" shoots to the "before" on that suburban family room, it's always a post-apocalyptic pile of Playskool toys, ugly afghans and Wal-Mart photo studio portraits framed in fake pine. American families never throw away anything, have no idea how to hang pictures (eye level, people!) and have an absurdly high regard for Thomas Whatshisname's "Master of Light" paintings.

Why fear terrorists? It's clutter that will kill us in the end.