The Loss of the Crew of STS-107

Along with the rest of the nation, I was shocked to learn of the shuttle loss, and have been watching the coverage all day. After sampling CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, I settled on the latter, where I found Sheppard Smith's handling of the breaking news -- or lack of it -- well done and suitably downbeat. With the 17th anniversary of the Challenger disaster just days ago, it became extra-eerie tonight to tune into History Channel International at 7pm to find a previously scheduled episode of History Explorer titled "Point of No Return" about the Challenger. Hopefully the cause of today's terrible accident won't turn out to be as full of human failings as that of the 1986 incident. It was also interesting to repeatedly hear that one of the astronauts -- I'll find out which one -- was a big fan of science fiction, Star Trek in particular. Has there ever been another television show with as much influence? No, and there never will be.

I highly recommend www.space.com for excellent coverage of this sad story. Their website definitely belongs in your bookmarks.

 
Review: Miracles

Like those possibly apocryphal folks who carry signs proclaiming “The End is Near,” ABC’s new series Miracles also has a message, and viewers might have some thrills in store figuring it out. This moody, gloomy hour is higher in atmosphere than anything else, but when you’re dealing with matters demonic, angelic and everything in between – well, artistic license should be fully granted. In my preview I called it the “Pius-X Files” and that’s the way it’s playing out, with Skeet Ulrich as Paul, a rebellious and disillusioned priest on a mission to investigate and predictably debunk tales of healings performed by a deathly ill young boy who weakens with each feat performed. There are portents of unease right from the start; Paul sees theological scrawls on water towers and subliminal glimpses of a grotesque face. It’s creepy stuff, a little slow getting out there, but this show eventually sets a proper, detailed and unsettling table for us. After personally experiencing a mysterious healing – which kills the young boy – and a subsequent unsettling manifestation, Paul is thoroughly spooked. Skeptical church officials fail to believe him, and he bolts, seeking answers to a whole new set of spiritual queries. It’s at this point that Angus Macfadyen appears, as another ex-priest -- or maybe not ex; these priests either seem to wear turtlenecks or collars, and the only thing I’m sort of sure of is that Paul seems to be out of the Church, which I’m assuming means that he’ll be free to dabble in romance during the show, natch. Anyway, Angus, who was so great in HBO’s The Rat Pack movie as Peter Lawford, but who might be better remembered as Robert the Bruce in Braveheart, introduces himself and his organization, a secret group investigating the growing inventory of other unsettling manifestations, all pointing to some kind of cataclysmic apocalyptic upheaval looming on the horizon. Bad news for Paul, but good news for Miracles, and let’s hope that this unusual series can find enough viewers willing to give up the double-forensic whammy of Crossing Jordan and CSI Miami on Monday nights at 10pm. As the late great evangelist Katherine Kuhlman used to say, “I believe in Miracles,” and I think you might, too, at least the one that ABC’s trying to bring us. And let's hope those guys with the signs don't have a mole in the network head offices....
Miracles airs Mondays at 10pm on ABC.

 
Review: Veritas: The Quest

Review: Fun in entertainment is different things to different people; to some, it’s watching a show with a bunch of lawyers arguing with each other while wearing designer duds…others prefer deadpan detectives shaking down pernicious perps…or maybe it’s the prefab follies on reality shows, or the current crop of medicos and forensic docs cutting it up on the tube. For me, I’ll take somebody exploring an ancient tomb, suspended over laser beam lacework, their next move sure to set off a long-forgotten booby trap and blow the whole place up. That’s entertainment, and it’s exactly what you’re going to get in Veritas: The Quest, that and a fair dose of teenage angst, dysfunctional family dynamics and plenty of archaeological hoo-ha thrown in for effect. This show is not going to change the world – and it’s probably not going to last more than a few episodes, sorry to say – but it can’t be bad to have a show where knowledge is a thing to be prized, smart people who know arcane things are the heroes, and there’s a reverence for the wonder of the past. V:TQ may not have the zing of the original Indiana Jones movie (yet is better than the Young IJ series), but does have a young and handsome male lead (who’s not afraid to cry, btw, but let’s hope the waterworks don’t flow too regularly) and thankfully plenty of interesting-enough adult characters to make it watchable for the over-16 crowd. Production values are superb, with snowy Montreal admirably subbing for Paris locales in the opener, suitably gritty and spooky underground temples, and a zippy car chase in the first few minutes that at least showed that the show can put on the gas when it needs to. A lot of the first episode was setting the basic plot – rebellious kid, widower father, secret mission, grudging reconciliation – so we’ll assume from here on out we’ll be heavy on plot, which is exactly what a show like this needs, that and a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief from the audience, of course. Veritas: The Quest is a distant relative to sophisticated action-adventures skeins like Alias (which incidentally had a dismal post-Super Bowl post-game performance on Sunday night, for a variety of reasons) and 24, and predictably closer to Tomb Raider Lara Croft than anything else (same producers), but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something that’s completely fanciful, confoundingly over-the-top and over-serious in all the right ways. If I had a kid, I’d sure as heck be encouraging said offspring to watch this show instead of chowing down on the poison pellets spewed out by every reality show on the air today. Interesting side note: This season has seen three cast members from the movie The Mummy make it to series; the first two, Oded Fehr from Presidio Med and John Hannah from MDs, have both seen their series cancelled. This time it’s Arnold Vosloo’s turn -- the Mummy himself -- and let’s hope he has more luck than his compatriots!
Veritas: The Quest airs Mondays at 8pm on ABC.

Check out the latest network line-ups on my main website.

 
Missing Kimmel

Hey, if you live in Atlanta, don't waste your time looking for Jimmy Kimmel Live, the new much-touted ABC network late-night talk show. Our ABC affiliate WSB-TV has declined to air it, instead offering a second play of Entertainment Tonight and a rerun of their 11pm news. At a time when ABC's trying so hard to create a renaissance for itself, it's inconceivable that an affiliate in a major market could put the kibosh on a show that's tailor-made to capture the net's growing audience. This is a travesty; whether or not you care for Kimmel particularly, the fact that WSB is demonstrating such media moronism doesn't speak well for this city. If you care to, contact WSB to complain about this ridiculous state of affairs. Their email addy is Talk2Us@wsbtv.com.

 
Reviews: Penn & Teller: Bullshit! and The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael


Warning: if you're somebody who swallows everything you're told hook, line and sinker, you're not gonna like Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on Showtime. You're going to think they're spoiled sports, crabby bastards, complete cynics and unrelenting skeptics, and you'd be right -- but that doesn't mean that they're wrong. The mission of this half-hour show, a pet project of this long-lived, very popular magic duo, is to debunk the BS going on all around us, the fuzzy thinking, sentimental notions, and marketing cons that have a hold on a lot of us. We all have our weak spots, and no doubt even the most skeptical of us are going to have some of our favorite tenets shaken to the core, but the time has come for a show like this. The premiere episode tackled the "Talking to the Dead" phenomenon, as practiced by psychics such as John Edwards and James Van Praagh (whose syndicated series has been canceled, btw). P & T pretty much put the screws to that little scamfest, explaining common con artist techniques which allow any skilled practicioner to get the same results as those psychic wonderboys. Obviously people turn to psychics so they can feel better in some way -- hey, it hurts when somebody you love dies -- but it's vital to remember that it's a business to these guys, and a pretty indefensible one, too. Not everybody is going to cotton to Penn & Teller's personas here; they've always been -- well, Penn has always been -- brash and borderline asshole, and the kind of material they're covering here is legitimate fodder for condescension, ridicule, and debunking, but the message is delivered with incessant profanity which some will enjoy more than others. Penn is such a glib talker that it's hard to know if his quieter, more personal revelations on this show -- about his own parents' deaths and how they affected him -- are his own brand of bullshit, but I sort of think not, which makes his vitriolic pronouncements more harsh by contrast. You certainly can't call him likeable, which probably suits him fine, so it helps to have the Harpo-like sweet-faced Teller around to lend mute beatific leavening to the proceedings. Future episodes will cover such topics as alternative medicine, secondhand smoke, bottled water, alien abuctions and everything in-between. Even if you're a dopey sap who reads the horoscopes everyday -- or especially if you do -- you need to hear this stuff.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! airs on Showtime Fridays at 11pm, with repeats Thursdays at 10pm. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Website

I'm not sure what Penn & Teller would make of The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael; it's not purporting to be anything more than dream interpretation, which is possibly bullshit but is also a legitimate psychological tool as practiced by the Michael of the show title. From the promos on SciFi, voiced-over by that Daria-sound-alike who's working way too much these days (enough of that bored slacker droning already!), I was expecting a kind of hipster yock-fest with the requisite goateed fellas and late-twenty-something gals confessing their naughty nightmares and getting glib feedback from the hosts. What I saw, at least on one of the episodes I watched, was a fairly serious and empathetic give and take with several moments of genuine human pain in evidence, and no jokes were forthcoming at all, just as it should be. I expected to hate this show; Annabelle Gurwich, whose previous hosting chores on the TBS Dinner and a Movie franchise were never less than annoying and always bitchy (consider the venue, I suppose), seemed a crappy choice for anything hoping to be legitimate, and the promos were shallow and silly. She's evidently matured, actually getting rave reviews for a current stint in the New York play Joe and Betty, and acquits herself pretty well here, too. The nicest thing is that she seems to know when to shut up and defer to somebody who knows something, namely her co-host Michael Lennox. A Los Angeles psychotherapist who specializes in dream-work, Lennox has a pleasant, mildly geeky demeanor and seems determined to keep the show on a legitimate keel and not turn it into a non-stop laugh-fest. Of course, everybody's confessing to naked dreams and sexy dreams and poo-poo dreams and all that stuff, but that's the way dreams are sometimes, and it sells so it's there. However, that one moment of authenticity and human contact that I saw is enough to convince me that The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael isn't the nightmare that it might have been, not by a long shot.
The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael airs on SciFi Monday - Fridays at 11pm. The Dream Team Website

 
Two Premieres Tonight on ABC

If you're up for some new dramatic action, be sure to check out ABC's new series, Veritas at 8pm and Miracles at 10pm, with The Practice sandwiched in the middle on its new night. Reviews here tomorrow (previews on them at my main website) on both of them and Kimmel's new show.

NBC is doing a "Blizzard Monday" primetime stunt tonight, weaving a white-out snow event through its series line-up, including chilly stunts on Fear Factor. Sure it's a silly gimmick, but that's basically where TV is at these days. It couldn't be worse than Fox's Bridezilla special, could it?

Also, here's a chance to say a little something about one of HGTV's regular shows that is stripped M - F at 7:30pm, and also airs in primetime on Thursday nights. It's House Hunters, an undeniably boring yet strangely fascinating half-hour that follows regular folks as they tour houses with real estate agents. The banter is awkward, the hunters incredibly picky and petty as they tear apart someone's hearth and home (as you only can do when you're in real estate search mode, but boy does it seem rude when you're watching it, at least to me), and yet...somehow it's irresistible. Since most of the episodes I've seen have been taped in California/Los Angeles, my biggest question is always "How in the hell do these folks afford these houses?," since the humblest hovel there starts at about 150K, but that's their problem, not mine. This show is the closest thing to going through someone's underwear drawer -- or watching somebody else do it -- and it's also fun listening to the well-meaning agents try to anticipate their clients' pet peeves and react to them, sometimes without much luck. House Hunters is 100% low-key and more than a little lame, but in terms of reality programming I'd take this little slice of real life over much of what else is out there, and I predict that you'll get hooked if you tune in.

 
More Anti-Super Bowl Viewing!

If men in drag, pet prognosticators, and British cooking don't appeal to you, there are a few other interesting choices on tap this Sunday. A&E goes to their series cupboard (now considerably less well-stocked since they gave up Law & Order to TNT a year or so ago) and comes up with a 4pm - 12mid stint of Jessica Fletcher adventures with a Murder, She Wrote marathon. This isn't exactly cutting-edge by any means, but I can see where it would definitely bring some comfort and entertainment to a segment of the population who cares not for football, beer brawls, over-commercialism or the general decline of humanity, and they've got a point.

Beginning at 4pm for four hours, History repeats their fine TR An American Lion two-part documentary featuring Richard Dreyfuss as the voice of Roosevelt. It's fascinating to see the film footage of this dynamic American icon, and it will certainly make you ponder a time when a President really was a magnificent symbol of our nation's promise. This is followed by two hours of Sex in the 20th Century, and two of my favorite shows on TV these days, Mail Call and Conquest. Highly recommended!

Bravo starts out their 11-hour anti-football strategy at 6pm with four episodes of the half-hour Fire Island documentary series, then follows with eight hours of Gay Weddings, proving once and for ever that all weddings are basically sentimental rituals which aren't particularly any more interesting or less silly if the brides and grooms are gay. Which, of course, doesn't mean that our gay brethren shouldn't have to endure the same awkward celebrations as the rest of us, but why on earth would they want to? My take on this whole movement is that the bridal industry must be salivating to have discovered this burgeoning new segment of customers with money to burn. However, if you're a fan of hearts and flowers of any orientation this marathon will bring a tear to your jaded eyes.

Though football isn't my thing, I'll be tuning in for ABC's post-SB episode of the always-hyperspeed and super-stylish Alias, then I've got to take a look at Jimmy Kimmel Live talk show debut at 12:05am. I like Kimmel, I think the live aspect is definitely intriguing, and let's see what having an open bar in the lobby does for the audience in attendance. Bottoms Up!