Episode 618

Summer television has commenced, and while I'm tempted to already start raving about So You Think You Can Dance, I will hold off for now: it is a precious rarity of good summer TV and I'll need to use it when I very quickly run out of material.

While plenty of other, less talented reality TV will also air this summer, I'd like to focus on one new show in particular: Love in the Wild, an "adventure-dating" series that strands ten men and ten women in the Costa Rican jungle, competing against each other while simultaneous trying to find love.   I know what you're thinking: "How does this show exist?" Well, here's what I'm thinking: "How does this show exist only now?"  How did it take television 22 seasons of Survivor and 22 seasons of the Bachelor franchise to realize that the two are MFEO?

It does remind me, though, of my only reality TV star encounter ever, a story that I can now proudly recount because it is finally pertinent.  Yul - winner of Survivor: Cook Islands - opened a Red Mango three blocks from my house. I recognized him instantly at the grand opening (and yes, I'm proud of that).  When I approached him, he was incredibly friendly, but just a little too eager to tell me about some off-screen shenanigans.  Within thirty seconds of meeting him, he recounted an unclothed and inebriated hot tub incident involving Parvati and Ozzy, two of that season's most eye-candied contestants.

Bottom line: maybe the reason that it took them this long to produce a Survivor/Bachelor Pad mash-up is because it was essentially already happening behind the scenes.  But hey, better now than never.

Episode 617

Now that most shows have aired their finales, I think it's time a do a Top 10 Winners and Losers list for TV this season:

Winners*
1) Friday Night Lights (Every. Single. Moment.)
2) The Office post-Steve Carell (somehow)
3) Baby Lily on Modern Family (Sadly, she's going to have to start talking soon.)
4) Tom Haverford 
5) Michael Emerson on Parenthood
6) Boston Rob (literally...and finally.)
7) "Oh, Honey" 
8) Jennifer Lopez
9) Perfect Couples (I know you - and the people in charge - disagree.)
10) Richard Blais's drug dealer

Losers*
1) Matthew Morrison
2) Brad Womack
3) Ashton Kutcher (even more than Charlie Sheen, I'd say.)
4) American Idol voters
5) Carson Daly (if not for him, The Voice might have been on the other side of this.)
6) Community
7) Dexter (apparently - I'm a season behind, so I'm trusting my sources on this one.)
8) Gossip Girl
9) Richard Dreyfuss on Parenthood
10) Florence, Italy (this would be number 1, but Season 4 of Jersey Shore hasn't even aired yet.)


*Other than the #1 slots on both lists, these are in no particular order.  To clarify: that means that Friday Night Lights is the best thing that happened to television this year and Matthew Morrison is the worst thing that happened to television...ever.  Seriously insufferable.

Episode 616

Yet another blow-softener (do I even need to say it?) for Steve Carell's departure from prime time. The man himself was on Ellen this week (as was amazingly-east-coast-pride-filled John Krasinski), and she asked him if - having completed filming on The Office and Crazy, Stupid, Love - he is good at not having anything to do.  He responded:

"I am so great at not having anything to do.  I think I am an intrinsically, extremely lazy person.  And an entire day will go by and I will have done nothing but drive my kids to school, pick them up, have a cup of coffee, read the paper, and go to bed.  And that's it.  That's like...I have nothing to show for a day.  I love it.  I think I am just a lazy, lazy person at heart."

Most celebrities - and while we're at it, most human beings - love to flaunt how busy they are, no matter what absurdity the busyness consists of (how do you have time to be reading this blog, anyway?)  But as someone who often has nothing to show for a day, and loves it, I truly appreciate the sincerity of this phenomenal man. 

But I can't end this entry without giving credit to Ellen herself for another, almost-as-brilliant comment: "TV is the most important thing in the whole wide world.  Well...it's more important than reading and less important than money."  And she's completely unbiased.

Episode 615

There were only two things that could have softened the blow of Steve Carell leaving The Office: an absolutely perfect final episode or a huge "PSYCH!" displayed, Chuck Lorre-style, at the end of the hour.  I might have preferred the latter, given my embarrassingly tear-filled reaction to his departure, but I'll take what I can get - and they nailed it (that's what she said).  I feel like I'll somehow taint it if I try to dissect why it was so beautifully done, but it was absolutely a reward to those of us who followed Michael, for better or worse, through seven hilarious years.  And the fact that the episode was titled "Goodbye, Michael" reminded us perfectly of Michael at his "Goodbye, Toby" best.

With Steve Carell gone, and rumors that Alec Baldwin is next, I can only thank the NBC gods that Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson) is going strong.  As brilliant as Aziz Ansari was on last week's episode - making it one of the most consistently funny half-hours in recent TV history - Nick Offerman once again stole the show this week, despite his limited screen-time.  The only way his speech at the art show could have been better is if Michael Scott had been waiting for him afterward at the bar, somehow proud of his own accomplishment.

Episode 614

It had been about two years since I'd watched an episode of Dawson's Creek, and the other day I decided to give it another go: a walk down memory lane, some face time with my old friend Pacey.  Well, I'm not sure if the transition from early- to mid-twenties gave me a few extra brain cells, but wow, what a terrible show.  Don't get me wrong, it will always be in my heart, and I will never stop relating my personal experiences to it and making everyone around me do the same, but I might not be breaking out those DVDs again until I'm sure that pure nostalgia will carry me through.

The friend who inadvertently got me hooked on Dawson's Creek (by rolling her eyes as I cried my heart out during Jen's dying monologue in the series finale, the first episode I'd ever seen) just pointed me to this: a list of TV shows that could have been a lot better, if only... I agree with 100% of them (as long as Marshall gets to stick around as Barney's sidekick on How I Met Your Mother 2.0), but since there are only 19, I thought I'd round it out with my own #20: Dawson's Creek would have been better if every time Katie Holmes or James Van Der Beek said anything, everyone responded in unison: "No one cares."  And while we're at it, perhaps we can discover why Jen's American grandma had a British accent.

Episode 613

A famous study, initiated at Bing Nursery School, tested children's capacities for delayed gratification.  They were given a marshmallow and told that they could either eat it right away, or, if they waited a certain amount of time, they would be given two marshmallows (basically a gold mine for a 3-year-old).  After following up with the participants decades later, researchers noticed that those who had waited for the second marshmallow had higher SAT scores and were generally described as more competent.  So: wait for the second one and not only do you get two marshmallows, but you apparently get life-long success.  You can see a rather hilarious repetition of the experiment here.

Television has recently decided to conduct this experiment on the American public.  NBC will be airing the final season of Friday Night Lights beginning next Friday, but because it was already aired on DirecTV, the DVDs were released last week.  This gave us all the option: buy the DVDs and watch them all at once for immediate but short-lived joy, or wait for them to air week by week, thus delaying (and extending) gratification.

In case you were wondering, I ate the marshmallow.  And it was absolutely worth a future of incompetence and failure.

Episode 612

On a recent version of the SAT, there was an essay question about the implications and impact of Reality TV on American society.  Ten years too late, SAT board - if I'd had that prompt, maybe I could have gotten into an Ivy, or (gasp!) Stanford.

Students have inevitably taken up arms against the question. I completely agree with their complaints: someone who watches Reality TV will have a much easier time responding.  A student knowledgeable about the genre could provide, or at least have in mind, specific examples that would support their argument or even help them form a convincing response.  (For instance, they could mention how awful it is that the cover of this week's People Magazine features Brad and Emily's rocky engagement while confining the tragedy in Japan to the sidebar, just above the discussion of Kate Middleton's bikini body).  So yes, the question is unfair. 

But too freakin' bad. 

Reality TV does have an impact on our society, for better or worse, and as informed citizens, high school students should be able to discuss it.  Not that they shouldn't also be informed about politics and the global economy (etc. etc. etc.) but that doesn't preclude an an awareness of television culture.  In fact, pop culture is the easiest of any "subject" to learn - it's the most accessible (literally and intellectually) and takes the fewest brain cells to process (though probably kills the most).  I'm not suggesting that sixteen-year-olds should be forced to watch Jersey Shore and America's Next Top Model, or that they need to know that first-ever Survivor winner, Richard Hatch, is back for another stint in prison.  But they should absolutely be able to form a clear argument about one of the most important American cultural phenomena.

And really, now that the SAT is out of 2400, no one over the age of 18 really knows what your score means anyway.