SteveSilver.net

TV Notes

Some thoughts on summer TV shows:

“Six Feet Under” continued its long, slow climb back to respectability with another strong episode on Monday. For the first time, in two years, it felt like the old show again.

One funny thing I noticed- in the scene where Nate’s friend Todd is talking about his recent divorce, he jokes that “pretty soon, she was fucking a guy with nut cancer- she was fucking Lance Armstrong!” In the scene 20 minutes later when Todd is getting stoned, shirtless, with Claire, we can clearly see that he’s wearing one of those Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelets.

“The Real World: Austin” has followed the usual pattern from the last few seasons of appearing to introduce actual interesting personalites in the first few episodes, only to inevitably abandon that later on in order to concentrate exclusively on drinking/brawling/hot tub orgies. Not the first two episodes were missing any of the above...

Among this year’s cast members are Melinda- who was described as “hot” about 15 different times in the first two episodes, but reminds me too much of Paris Hilton to hold any appeal. And she’s unfortunately monopolized both episodes, at the expense of Rachel- an Army nurse and veteran of the Iraq war.

Now leave aside the question of whether Rachel forfeited her military eligibility by making out with another girl in the hot tub the first week. I really love that we’ve reached a phase in the war on terrorism in which we’re getting actual war veterans on reality shows, alongside the sorority girls, bartenders, and aspiring actors. This happened on “The Amazing Race” last year, when a former Iraq war POW was on the show and was chastised by his bitchy ex-beauty queen wife for his “failure to commit.” We haven’t seen much of this from Rachel yet, except for a brief ripping of Michael Moore, although according to previews we’ll get more soldier/frat boy conflict later on this season.

Another highlight was that the show’s first drunken brawl took place in the first episode, when cast member Danny had his collarbonecheekbone broken in a street fight, while being defended by blond frat boy AbeWes, an obvious closet case who really, REALLY should be more vocal about his desire to hook up with women. Seriously- he should mention it five times per episode, instead of three. Or else people might think he’s GAY, or something.

“The Andy Milonakis Show” may be the first television show in history whose appeal breaks down entirely along stoner/non-stoner lines. Obviously influenced heavily by “The Tom Green Show,” the show consists of Andy, the guy behind “The Super Bowl is Gay,” hanging around his apartment and the streets of New York doing stupid stuff, much of which involves unnatural use of food, occasionally with the assistance of Video Toaster-caliber special effects.

The bits are hit or miss –mostly miss- and nothing in the first episode comes close to the random wit of ‘Super Bowl.’ But there are some gems, such as bit with Andy using spoons to eat virtually everything in his apartment.

I met Andy a few years back and can’t believe he actually has his own show on a major network. Then again, so do Bobby Brown, Paris Hilton’s mother, and Hulk Hogan, so I guess it’s not such a big surprise after all.

Posted by Stephen Silver at July 1, 2005 01:06 AM