Category Archives: TV

TV Review: Pam & Tommy 1.5 “Uncle Jim & Aunt Susie in Duluth” (dir by Gwyneth Horder-Payton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode of Pam & Tommy was a definite improvement on last week’s, largely because it didn’t feature Seth Rogen wandering around with a “poor me” expression on his face.  Last week, far too much time was devoted to Rogen’s sad sack portrayal of Reed Gauthier, who the show insists on trying to make a sympathetic character even though he was essentially just a thief who tried to make a lot of money by stealing and then selling someone else’s private sex tape.

Reed was nowhere to be found in this week’s episode.  Instead, the narrative focused on how Pam and Tommy’s sex tape became a national story.  Not surprisingly, it all turned out to be Tommy Lee’s fault.  When the show opens, Jay Leno won’t make jokes about the sex tape because it’s not something that Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie in Duluth have heard about.  The LA Times won’t run a story on it because the editor says that it’s not real news.  With Pam preparing for the opening of Barb Wire and Tommy working on his new album (and very much aware that his label no longer views him or the band as being a top priority), it appears that there’s a chance that Pam and Tommy can ride this out.

But then Bob Guccione the publisher of Penthouse, gets his hands on the tape and Tommy and a bunch of lawyers decide to file a lawsuit to keep him for publishing stills.  Pam has her doubts but Tommy and the lawyers do what they want.  Guccione responds by saying that he had a first amendment right to publish pictures from the sex tape.  The L.A. Times discovers, from the court filings, that the sex tape was stolen from Pam and Tommy and that it’s being sold without their permission.  With the story going national, Jay Leno realizes that Duluth now know all about it.  On top of all that, Pam learns how to use a search engine!

It was a busy episode.  And, in contrast to the nearly hour-long episodes that proceeded it, it was only 32 minutes long.  A half hour is the perfect amount of time to spend with Pam & Tommy.  Spending more than half an hour with them means dealing with the fact that Tommy’s a moron and Pam really does seem to think that she’s going to win an Oscar for Barb Wire.  Spending just 30 minute with them means that both characters get a chance to present their cases without wearing out their welcome.  Sebastian Stan and Lily James both gave good performances in this week’s episode, with Stan portraying Tommy as being a manchild who is in deep denial about the fact that the 80s are over while Lily James captured Pam’s need to try to keep everyone happy.  It’s Pam who instinctively knows the right way to deal with Guccione but she’s ignored by Tommy and his team of lawyers.  As Pam’s publicist puts it, women are taught from an early age to always say yes and to agree with men, even when they know that the men doesn’t have the slightest idea what they’re talking about.

That said, Pam & Tommy is still definitely a flawed vehicle.  For every moment that works, there’s a moment or a line of dialogue that just tries too hard.  Particularly in the scenes with Jay Leno, Pam & Tommy felt like it was one Nathan Lane cameo away from turning into a Ryan Murphy production.  Five episodes in and the main problem remains that Pam & Tommy continues to struggle to convince the audience that it’s telling a story that needs to be stretched out of over 8 episodes.  If ever a true story was meant to a 90-minute TBS production, this is it.

 

Lisa Marie’s Top 6 Super Bowl Ads

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve said many times on this very site, the Super Bowl is pretty much all about the commercials for me.  This year, there was a few commercials that I liked but, for the most part, the selection was pretty bland.  Usually, I pick anywhere between 8 to 10 favorite Super Bowl Ads.  This year, there’s only six that really made much of an impression on me.

And here they are:

6. Frito Lay — Push It!

Sloths are so cute!

5. Amazon — Mind Reader

Why is Alexa trying to destroy Scarlett Johansson’s marriage!?

4. All-Electric Chevy Silverado — New Generation

To be honest, I got kind of sick of all of the electric vehicle commercials that aired this year.  Most of them felt …. a little insincere.  But I did like this one, just because it reunited The Sopranos’s Meadow and Tony. Jr.  It’s good to see that they’re still with us, regardless of what happened to Tony at the end of the series.  I’m not sure how Tony would feel about his daughter driving an electric truck, though.  “Gary Cooper didn’t need no charging station.”

3. Planet Fitness — What’s Gotten Into Lindsay?

Of course, if anything bad happens to Lindsay, we know who to blame.

2. Budweiser — A Clydesdale’s Journey

The horse survived!  I had tears in my mismatched eyes.

  1. Salesforce — “The New Frontier”

I’m not sure what exactly Matthew McConaughey is selling here but he’s one of the few people who can pull off lecturing from a hot air balloon.  As I watched this commercial, I considered that if McConaughey had run for governor, he could have floated around the state, campaigning from his balloon.  Instead, we’re stuck with Beto and his skateboard.  Oh well.  Miss opportunities.

The Shattered Lens Live Tweets Super Bowl Sunday!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

The Super Bowl just ended so I guess it’s time to recap the reaction of the members of the TSL Team who watched and tweeted about it.  Jeff, Erin, Case, Leonard, and I all watched and …. I don’t know.  The game kind of sucked this year.  I didn’t care about the game and I thought that commercials were kind of boring..  Case thought the commercials were depressing.  Leonard got so bored that he left for ice cream.  Jeff and Erin are mad that the Bengals lost.  Even though it wasn’t as bad as last year, there was still weren’t as many movie commercials as in the past.

I think our collective reaction can be summed up as this:

There was apparently some hope at the start of the second half, when the game started get exciting:

But in the end, the Super Bowl and the commercials just didn’t deliver:

It all led to one question:

Yep, that was it.

My 2022 Super Bowl Prediction

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Bengals 27

Rams 24

It’s hard for me to make a prediction when Tom Brady isn’t playing the game.  This is a new situation for me but I guess it’s one that we’re all going to have to get used to.  I don’t know much about either team but I’m going with the Bengals because I like Cincinnati more than Los Angeles.  The Bengals achieving their first Super Bowl win would be the perfect ending for a season that few saw coming.

The Rams are fierce, though.  They’ll put up a good fight.  I think this game could go either way but I’m picking the Bengals.

Great Moments In Television History #16: Maude Flanders Gets Hit By A T-Shirt Cannon

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Twenty-two years ago, on this very date, this happened on The Simpsons:

Today, it is easy to forget what an impact the death of Maude Flanders had on viewers.  We are now used to semi-regular characters dying on TV shows and, of course, no one really cares that much about The Simpsons any more.

In 2000, though, this was a big deal.  There were weeks of speculation over which Simpsons character would die, though most of us figured that it would be Maude Flanders early on.  Maude had never been a major character, as Rev. Lovejoy pointed out in his eulogy.  Plus, the actress that voice Maude, Maggie Roswell, had left the show.  (Roswell later returned.)  At the time, killing Maude was a controversial move, especially as she died as a result of Homer acting like a jerk.  (Then again, everything that ever happened in Springfield was a result of Homer acting like a jerk.)  Some critics complained that the show treated her death too cavalierly and that such morbid subject matter did not belong on a show like The Simpsons.  But, as the show’s producers pointed out, the death of Maude also opened the door for new storylines involving Ned Flanders and, as a result, Ned became one of the few characters on the show to actually grow as a person.

Even though Ned was invented to act as a foil to Homer and he’s been the victim of some lazy writing (especially in the more recent season), Ned Flanders has a dedicated fan base and a lot it is due to him being one of the few people in Springfield to actually show any sort of decency on a consistent basis.  That Homer is incapable of understanding that Ned is the only person (outside of the family) that he can depend on is one of the show’s best and longest-running jokes.  As a character, Ned was at his best when he was coming to terms with Maude’s death, learning how to date again, and even forgiving Homer for the role he played in the tragedy.  (Homer never really seemed to realize that it was all his fault.  Typical Homer.)  The show deserved more than a little credit for how it handled the fallout of Maude’s death, from Rod and Todd’s sadness to Ned’s very temporary loss of faith.  Over the upcoming years, Ned Flanders went to marry Edna Krapapple and, after the passing of Carol Wallace, became a widower for a second time.

One final note: Marvin Monroe later turned out to be alive so I wonder who was buried in his grave at teh cemetery.

Previous Great Moments In Television History:

  1. Planet of the Apes The TV Series
  2. Lonely Water
  3. Ghostwatch Traumatizes The UK
  4. Frasier Meets The Candidate
  5. The Autons Terrify The UK
  6. Freedom’s Last Stand
  7. Bing Crosby and David Bowie Share A Duet
  8. Apaches Traumatizes the UK
  9. Doctor Who Begins Its 100th Serial
  10. First Night 2013 With Jamie Kennedy
  11. Elvis Sings With Sinatra
  12. NBC Airs Their First Football Game
  13. The A-Team Premieres
  14. The Birth of Dr. Johnny Fever
  15. The Second NFL Pro Bowl Is Broadcast

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/6/22 — 2/13/22

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been quite a week.  The Oscar nominations were announced.  The creepiest Winter Games ever have been playing out in China.  South Park revealed that some people apparently didn’t understand that Tolkein was named after the author of The Hobibt and Lord of the Rings.  (Like, seriously, you guys…..)  And the z-list celebs on Celebrity Big Brother revealed themselves to be taking the show way too seriously.

Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Chaos on a train!  Rene thought he and Yvette were going to elope on the Geneva Express but unfortunately, his wife Edith found Rene’s note and thought that it was meant for her.  While Rene wandered the train, trying to hook up with his two mistresses without his wife noticing, Herr Flick, Lt. Gruber, and a host of others wandered the train in search for the valuable original copy of the painting known as The Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies.  Things got a bit chaotic on the train and they were even more chaotic back at the Cafe, where Officer Crabtree and his mangled French offered up very little in the way of help.  I laughed, I always do.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Amazing Race here.  The Amazing Race has been a bit odd this season.  Due to the COVID lockdowns, two of the strongest teams ended up dropping out of the race.  As a result, we are late into the race and there are currently three strong teams and then two teams that basically can’t even read a road map.  The two weaker teams would never have lasted this long in a normal season.  I’m going to laugh and laugh if one of them somehow manages to win.  As of right now, though, it seems as if the oddly robotic but hyper competent team of Kim & Penn have to be considered the favorites.

BBC World News (Tuesday Morning, BBC)

I watched the Oscar nomination announcements on the BBC because, unlike ABC, the BBC actually showed all of the categories instead of just showing the major nominees.  (Add to that, why would anyone want to watch Oscar analysis from George Stephanopoulos?)  I have to admit that I enjoyed the BBC’s take on the nominations, which basically amounted to, “Quite a few nominations for Belfast, that’s a win for our side.”

Celebrity Big Brother (CBS and Paramount Plus)

I wrote about Celebrity Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.  I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of celebrity reality competition shows to begin with and Celebrity Big Brother tends to be the worst of them all.  Since celebrities really don’t have much at stake in these games, most of them just leave the House when things get too intense, like Chris Kattan did earlier this week.  As for the remaining celebrity houseguests, Todd Bridges is an idiot and Toddrick Hall seems to be taking this whole thing just a little bit too seriously.  Don’t ruin your brand just to give Julie Chen something to talk about.

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoon, FXX)

Among the episodes I watched on Monday afternoon, there was one where Hank got to carry the Olympic flame and Dale got a chance to use the flame to light his cigarette.  Go, Hank!  Go, Dale!  That was back when the Olympics were something special.

On Thursday, after getting disgusted with all of the propaganda at the Winter Games, I again turned over to FXX and watched a few episodes of King of the Hill.  I watched five episodes, from Lucky trying to sue Dale to Launne getting married to Boomhauer surfing at Corpus Christi.  It was fun and took my mind off what Boomhauer would call “the dang ol’ enormity of it all.”

 The Love Boat (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Yay!  It was a 70s Valentine’s cruise!  Love was in the air and cocaine was probably backstage.  Sailing on the Love Boat were Patty Duke, Frankie Avalon, Barbie Benton, Denny Evans, Jamie Farr, Ricky Nelson, and Carole White!  A computer program that was designed to link everyone to their ideal Valentine’s Day partner caused havoc on the boat but everything worked out in the end.  That’s the important thing.

Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

Because I have the world’s worst martyr complex, I wrote about the latest episode of Pam & Tommy here.

South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)

For the record, I always knew his name was Tolkien.  I don’t know what the Hell was wrong with the rest of you.

The Winter Olympics (All Week, NBC and Other Stations)

On Sunday night, I watched figure skating.  Even though I’m not as into the Olympics this year as I’ve been in previous years, there’s still no way that I would miss figure skating, curling, yeti hunting, and that weird sport where they ski and shoot a rifle.

On Monday morning, I watched that very sport, with the skiing and the rifle shooting.  It still seemed like a strange sport to me but, as I watched, I also realized that it was probably the only Olympic event that James Bond would have enjoyed (and, by that, I mean Roger Moore’s joyful Bond as opposed to Daniel Craig’s whiny Bond) and I was happy about that.  Later, I watched some curling and I seriously think I could do well with that sport.  I know how to work a broom.

On Wednesday, I watched some skiing and that totally freaked me out, just because I’ve heard so many stories about people slamming into trees.  Agck!  Then, on Thursday, I watched a bit more curling and that definitely left me less freaked out than the skiing.  You can’t hurt anyone with a broom, unless you’re Jackie Chan in an 80s movie.

Saturday morning, I watched some figure skating, which I loved.  I also watched some ski jumping and I marveled at how fake the snow looked.  Apparently, they’ve been using fake snow for the Winter Olympics because it’s not actually that cold or snowy in Beijing.  That’s weird and strange and yet somehow appropriate for these uniquely uninspiring games.

WKRP In Cincinnati (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Radio DJ Johnny Fever got a job hosting a television dance show and sold out his soul to play disco music.  Fortunately, Johnny was able to vanquish his evil Rip Tide identity at the end of the episode.  At one point, Johnny’s TV boss said that she loved the 60s and would love to “get mellow and listen to the Dead” after the show and I was like, “Oh my God, they allowed people talk about weed on TV back then?”  You learn something new every day.

*Spoilers* Reacher, S1 Ep3, “Spoonful”, Review By Case Wright, (Dir: Stephen Surjik)

Posted on by casewright

We need to create a list of people in this show who don’t want to kill Jack Reacher. I can think of three people… Oscar, Roscoe, and maybe….Jasper. Jasper could snap. How many times can you dig testicles out of a dead man’s stomach before you go homicidal… twice… three times?! Not many more (see below).

Jasper desperately groping for his mental Happy Place.

We learn from BRIEF exposition that Jack’s estranged brother Joe was in the Secret Service and high up boss: Director of special investigations – anti-counterfeiting. Somehow Margrave is involved in counterfeiting?! What’s special about Reacher is that at its heart it’s a Whodunnit. It’s a mystery with so much action, but it’s a mystery show like if Sherlock Holmes traded in his opium for LOTS of freeweights. Jasper identifies the latest murder victim as a trucker who worked for Kliner. This trucker got into a jam and got a high priced lawyer somehow to get him out of it.

They develop a plan: Oscar will search a crooked prison guard’s home and Reacher goes to the lawyer posing as a prospective client. Both end with severe beatings. Oscar gets beaten and arrested by redneck cops who mistake him for a burglar and Reacher just plain beats up the lawyer until he gives up information. Obviously, they are planning on taking this case to court.

The next plan is to confront KIiner at his office. Why? This did not make sense, but it enabled Oscar to show some more emotions. With their hand tipped, EVERYONE has to go into quasi-hiding. This town really sucks. Roscoe has a run-in with the world’s most obvious sociopath- KJ- Kliner’s horrible kid. KJ tries to drive a wedge in Roscoe and Reacher’s relationship by accusing him of being a war criminal. We all hate KJ. Oscar goes to Atlanta to find some intel on Hubble the accountant. Hubble stopped coming to the Atlanta office for work a year ago. What was he doing? Well, money laundering. So…. Ok, I guess Oscar just really wanted to hangout in Atlanta. Yes, there’s a lot going on.

Reacher goes back to crooked prison guard’s bar to find him. He doesn’t, but he does get to beat the Hell out of several people. The crooked prison guard skipped town. Once again, Reacher is tailed by two South American Hitmen who try really really hard to kill him, but Reacher beats them to the punch and shoots them dead. Reacher discovers the crooked prison guard is dead in their trunk. I really need to get a body count on this show; we have to be edging into Total Recall territory.

This is a fun episode and it really forces all the heroes to understand that there will be no arrests. This is the wild west and it’s murder and vengeance every single day.

TV Review: Pam & Tommy 1.4 “The Master Beta” (dir by Lake Bell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

That was my thought after I published my review of the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy.  Don’t get me wrong.  I stand by everything that I wrote in that review.  The first three episodes were relatively well-made and they captured as specific point in time and Lily James was likably earnest as Pam.

Instead, my concern came from the fact that, by reviewing the first three episodes, I had now committed myself to watching and reviewing the entire series.  And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was no way that Pam & Tommy could remain interesting for a total of 8 hours, not unless the show abandoned its Ryan Murphy-lite approach and did something really unexpected with its recreation of the story.  There’s just not enough there.  This is a good 2-hour story but Pam & Tommy is an 8-epiosde miniseries.  That’s 8-plus hours of Pam getting upset, Tommy acting like a dumbass, and Rand being every creepy guy who has ever approached you in a bar and started asking you about the book you’re reading.  (It would, of course, never occur to him that the main reason you’re reading the book is to avoid talking to guys like him.)

Having now watched the fourth episode, it’s hard not to feel that I was very much correct in my concerns.  Don’t get me wrong.  The fourth episode had its moments.  It featured an enjoyably intense performance from Don Harvey as the legendary Hollywood private investigator, Anthony Pellicano.  Once Tommy finally discovers that his safe has been stolen and Pam reminds him about the videotape, Pellicano is the man who they approach to track down the perpetrator.  This leads to a scene of Pellicano beating the crap out of Rand and it’s fun to watch.  Some of that is because Don Harvey is a master of portraying urbane menace.  But I have to admit that a lot of it is because Rand himself is such an annoying character.  This episode opened with Seth Rogen, as Rand, wandering around a porn set and trying to reconnect with his estranged wife (Taylor Schilling), who significantly was just trying to read Anne Rice’s latest book when he approached her.  Just the sight of Rand, with his mullet and his sad-sack facial expression, was so annoying that it was actually cathartic to see him get tossed around his apartment.

The problem is that the show wants us to feel some sympathy for Rand but there’s nothing sympathetic about him.  He’s a loser and the fact that he still loves his wife and still wants to take care of her doesn’t make him any less of a loser.  He’s a thief, a guy who accidentally stole a sex tape and then decided to put it online.  The fact that he later feels guilty doesn’t change the fact that he did it.  There’s as scene in the fourth episode where Rand is upset to see someone else selling bootleg copies of the tape.  On the one hand, it’s not a bad scene.  There’s an enjoyable irony to Rand discovering that someone has essentially stolen the tape from him after Rand went through so much trouble to steal the tape from Tommy.  But the show doesn’t seem to be sure whether it wants us to laugh at Rand’s misfortune or to sympathize with him as he realizes that the consequences of his actions are out of his control.  As a character, Rand is not compelling enough for both to be an option.

As for the title characters, both Sebastian Stan and Lily James do their best but I get the feeling that we’ve already learned all the we need to know about them.  There was one good moment that examined Pam and Tommy’s different reactions to the release of the sex tape but otherwise, neither Tommy nor Pam are really that interesting as characters.  I ended the fourth hour of Pam & Tommy very much aware that there were still four more hours to go.  What else, I found myself wondering, could be left to be said?