I just read the news that Peter Engel passed away yesterday. My Retro Television reviews started with four Engel-produced shows, California Dreams, One World, Hang Time, and City Guys. Right now, I’m reviewing one of his later shows, Malibu CA. I would be lying if I said all of those reviews have been positive. I loved California Dreams and Hang Time won me over but the only good thing about Malibu CA is that it’s not Pacific Blue.
But here’s the thing. Peter Engel, regardless of what I may think of some of his later shows. made pop cultural history with Saved By The Bell. When I was a kid, you couldn’t turn on a TV without finding Saved By The Bell reruns playing somewhere. (Myself, I only wish Saved By The Bell: The New Class was as easy to find.) Today, Saved By The Bell has faded a bit from our collective memory, a relic from the childhoods of many elder millennials and their Gen-X siblings. That reboot on Peacock was never quite as good as I used to tell myself it was. But the original show can still be found on Prime, just as California Dreams and Hang Time can be found on YouTube. The Engelverse will live forever.
Spending this week at my sister Megan’s, I haven’t really watched that much television, beyond the shows that I regularly watch for my Retro Television Reviews.
Megan and I did watch The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Days of our Lives this week. I’m a bit off-and-on when it comes to watching daytime dramas. I usually enjoy them when I do watch them but I also only tend to watch when I’ve got someone around who wants to watch with me. I guess I like talking through the boring parts.
I spent quite a bit of time flipping back and forth from Fox to CNN to MSNBC to follow all of the latest on the Baltimore bridge collapse. There has been a lot of criticism and a lot of conspiracy theories in the days following the disaster and that’s understandable. Criticism and conspiracies are how most people deal with tragedies of overwhelming proportion. But there was also a lot of heroism on display right after the disaster occurred. It’s good to reminded that not everyone is as narcissistic in real life as they seem to be on social media.
Every night, Megan and I ducked into her office and binged California Dreams. It was fun to revisit the show. Megan agrees, by the way, with those who think that Lorena and I have a lot in common. We intended to watch a few episodes of City Guys and One World as well but, in both cases, Megan said that sitting through one episode was more than enough.
Erin and I watched It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on Thursday night. It was cute but I always feel bad for Charlie Brown. Everyone gets something from the Easter Beagle except for him. I’m not a dog person but I do like beagles.
On Friday night, I watched another episode of Rollergames with Jeff and our friends Pat and Matt. Watching people get tossed over the railings was fun.
And, on Saturday morning, I got caught up with the latest season of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia! I love those bastards.
I spent most of this week watching horror movies and Big Brother. Sometimes, I couldn’t tell which was which. Here’s some thoughts on what I did watch this week!
The Challenge USA (Sunday and Thursday Night, CBS)
I watched it on Sunday, I didn’t watch it on Thursday. I don’t remember a thing that happened on Sunday, beyond the fact that I was annoyed by the fact that I was being asked to pay attention to someone named Bananas. To be honest, I’m getting kind of bored with reality TV. For instance, once this season of Big Brother is over, I never want to see any of the houseguests again. The idea of following them from show to show is just so cringey to me.
I watched another episode of this old anime series on Saturday morning. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. A lot of stuff exploded so that was kind of fun.
Dr. Phil (YouTube)
Sunday morning, I watched an episode featuring a mother who was convinced that her daughter was lying about having stomach cancer and stealing money from people online. It turns out the mom was right!
Saturday afternoon, I watched an episode about a 17 year-old girl who was planning on moving out of her home so that she could live with an 18 year-old that she had never personally met. Dr. Phil did not think this was a good idea.
Republican Party Presidential Primary Debate (Fox News)
I watched it but I’m going to keep my opinions to myself. I will say that there were some candidates who seemed to be considerably more impressive than others.
Sally Jessy Raphael (YouTube)
I watched two episodes of this 90s talk show on Saturday. One episode was about teenagers being pressured by their friends and family to lose their virginities. The other was about husband, wives, and secrets. The audience booed everyone.
Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, MeTV)
It was student/teacher week! Zack became principal. Kelly taught history! Mr. Belding roamed the hallways! Lisa and Screech took over the athletic department and Slater and the jocks passed their history test just in time to lead Bayside to a 28-21 victory over Valley. This particular episode never made any sense to me.
Stars on Mars (Monday Night, FOX)
To be honest, Marshawn Lynch probably should have been sent back to Earth much sooner than he was. But, then again, everyone else kept leaving voluntarily so it’s not like there were really many opportunities to do so. This is one of those shows that, in the future, I will probably claim to have never heard of.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, City Guys finally comes to an end.
Episode 5.25 “And Then There Were None”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 8th, 2001)
Having graduated from Manny High, the gang (and Ms. Noble!) gather together at the Manhattan Diner so that they can remember all of the adventures they had over the past five years of high school. I can understand a group of high school friends wanting to get together for one last time before going to college but what is the principal doing there? I mean, Ms. Noble has retired. Why isn’t she hanging out with her husband? Why isn’t she in the Hamptons? WHY IS SHE STILL HANGING OUT WITH THESE KIDS!?
Anyway, as you may have guessed, this is a clip show. We get clips of Dawn crusading for the environment during the first season and then a scene of her getting drunk at Chris’s penthouse. And then we get a clip of that weird time that Ms. Noble tricked L-Train into thinking she couldn’t walk. We relive a few of the times that Al and L-Train did something stupid. Cassidy remembers some cringey radio drama that she did with Chris and Jamal and, for some reason, she also remembers Chris’s terrible Austin Powers impersonation. Finally, Chris and Jamal remember their stupid radio show. After everyone has left, Chris and Jamal share one final embrace and then Chris leaves Manhattan Diner. Jamal stands at the booth alone and …. wow, that’s kind of depressing.
In general, I loathe clip shows but I usually make an exception if they are a part of a series finale. CityGuys is a show that I grew tired of reviewing about halfway through the 4th season but the finale actually was kind of touching. If nothing else, the cast themselves seemed to be genuinely emotional about filming their final scenes together.
However, this effective episode was not the final episode of City Guys to air. There was one more episode to go….
Episode 5.26 “Al’s In Toyland”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 15th, 2001)
As I’ve often said while reviewing both City Guys and Hang Time, NBC didn’t really pay much attention to little things like showing episodes in the order in which they were supposed to be seen. Nowhere is this more evident than with the final episode City Guys, which finds the gang back in high school despite having graduated and left for college in the previous episodes. This is because Al In Toyland was not meant to be the series finale. It was meant to air earlier in the season but it was pushed back because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.
This episode opens by reminding us that Ms. Noble is a monster as she announces that she has signed Jamal, Chris, L-Train, Dawn, and Cassidy up for the marching band without telling them ahead of time. She explains that they all need an elective arts credit. (Cassidy has appeared off-Broadway but somehow doesn’t have an elective arts credit?) The band, of course, practices on the roof of the school and the gang is horrified to discover how uncool the band kids are.
Why isn’t Al in the band? It’s because he’s working in advertising! The president of Snappy Toys has hired Al to do commercials for him because he was impressed by Al’s suggestion that “Snappy Toys Ain’t Just For Kids No more” could be their new slogan. Somehow, this leads to L-Train starring in a commercial. I mean, it’s strange enough that a company would put Al in charge of their advertising but why would they hire L-Train to star in their commercial?
Snappy Toys asks Al to develop a campaign for a toy gun known as the Annihilator. L-Train tells a story about a friend of his who entered a store with a toy gun and got shot by the owner. Al promises that he’ll develop a non-violent commercial for the gun but his boss says that he wants the commercial to look like the “opening scene of Scream!”
While Al works on his advertising career, Chris, Jamal, Dawn, Cassidy, and L-Train discover that the band kids really know how to party. In fact, they’re throwing a rave …. on the roof of the school! It turns out that the band has very high standards and, after a pep rally, they kick Chris, Jamal, Dawn, Cassidy, and L-Train out of the band for just not being cool enough. I guess they listened to Chris and Jamal’s radio show.
Meanwhile, Al sees his younger sibling playing with the guns and pretending to be dead. He decides that he can’t work for Snappy Toys. He quits but his boss assures him that, “a kid like you, who stands up for what he believes in — you have a great future.”
And so ends City Guys! And, to be honest, Al’s In Toyland wasn’t a terrible episode. I liked the fact that Al’s boss was not portrayed as being some sort of sleazy, money-crazed villain but instead just as a reasonable businessman making business decisions. And I even liked the band subplot, if just because it featured all of the main characters being put in their place for once.
What is left to say about City Guys? City Guys was the show that I used to launch Reto Television Reviews. I’ve been watching and reviewing the show for nearly a year. At first, I kind of enjoyed the show and then I got kind of annoyed the show and, by the fifth season, I think it was pretty obvious that I was ready to be done with it. That said, I do feel a little emotional saying goodbye to it. City Guys was a show that had a few good moments, though it never really escaped the shadow of better Peter Engel-produced shows like California Dreams and Saved By The Bell.
Next week, we’ll be starting a look at a new show on Thursday. Here’s a preview:
The Challenge: USA (Sunday and Thursday Night, CBS)
I did have this show on in the background on Thurdsay night but, if you want to know how little I paid attention to this episode, just consider that I somehow missed Paulie coming out until I read about it on twitter afterwards.
J.R. was eliminated this week. It’s still a cute show but I don’t really care that much about any of the relatives left.
Dr. Phil (YouTube)
Sunday morning, as I waited for the Big Brother live feeds to come back, I watched an old episode of Dr. Phil on YouTube. A mother was upset that her teenage daughter was dating a registered sex offender. Her daughter insisted that it was no big deal and that her boyfriend had changed. It turned out the daughter was naïve but the mother was overbearing and a bit hypocritical herself.
On Thursday and on Saturday, I watched a few episodes about trashy in-laws because I needed some background noise. They all kind of blended together, to the extent that I’m not even sure how many episodes I ended up watching.
On Friday night, I joined Jeff and our friend Pat in watching an episode about British pop stars. It was a fun episode!
The PGA Tour on CBS (Sunday, CBS)
I refuse to apologize for liking golf. I didn’t even care that the tour totally preempted Big Brother on Sunday. I enjoy looking at the courses.
Radio 1990 (Night Flight Plus)
On Saturday morning, Jeff and I joined our friend Pat in watching an episode of this old music program. The episode featured a profile of Van Halen.
60 Minutes (Sunday Night, CBS)
Because golf ran late on Sunday, I sat through an episode of 60 Minutes as I waited for Big Brother to start. I can’t remember anything about any of the stories that they showed. 60 Minutes has always seemed like such a strange show to me. It feels like a show that’s permanently frozen in the past century. That said, I appreciate the way the stopwatch always tells me how many more minutes are left in each episode.
Stars on Mars (Monday Night, Fox)
Ariel, who was the person on Mars to whom I related to, volunteered to be sent back to Earth. If I was a producer of this reality show, I would be concerned by the fact that all of the participants keep volunteering to be kicked off the show.
Superfan (Wednesday Night, CBS)
People competed for the title of being Shania Twain’s biggest fan. It was dumb and it’s tempting to blame the show on the dearth of new scripted content during the writer’s strike but, to be honest, the networks were airing game shows just this stupid on television before everyone went on strike.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
It’s taken nearly a year but we’re almost done with City Guys! This week, it’s time for the last prom and graduation!
Episode 5.23 “Prom-Lems”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 1st, 2001)
It’s time for the last prom of the graduating class of Manny High! Al and Dawn decide that, even though they are broken up, they will still go to the prom together. L-Train and Jamal try to show their dates a wonderful night but first the limo they ordered cancels and then L-Train fails to make the reservations for dinner at Tavern in the Green. Not surprisingly, their dates are a bit less than impressed with the idea of having jambalaya at the Manhattan Diner. Meanwhile, Ms. Noble won’t stop going on about how she doesn’t have anyone to go to prom with because her husband is out of town. Ms. Noble, once again …. YOU’RE THE PRINCIPAL! PROM IS NOT ABOUT YOU! Anyway, Ms. Noble’s husband does come back home in time to take her to prom so, fortunately, everyone is spared from having to listen to Ms. Noble whine about it.
The majority of the episode focuses on Chris and Cassidy. Chris and Cassidy should be happy because they’re named Prom King and Queen but there’s an issue that could have easily been resolved by everyone not being an idiot and not jumping to conclusions. When Cassidy learns that Chris is going to give her a ring at prom, she thinks that Chris is not only going to ask her to marry him but that he is also pressure her to go to Duke with him and leave behind her plans of attending Cal Arts. But, it turns out that Chris just wanted to give her a ring because it seemed like a romantic thing to do. This is another one of those issues that could have been resolved by Cassidy just asking Chris about the ring.
Every high school show produced by Peter Engel featured a “final prom” episode and, by that time City Guys got around to it, the show and its writers were obviously just going through the motions. It’s a pretty boring prom, to be honest. It’s nowhere near as touching as the California Dreams playing their final gig or Jessie and Slater sharing one last dance. It’s just another night at Manny High.
(Why were teenagers in Peter Engel sitcoms always applying to Duke?)
Episode 5.24 “Goodbye Manny High”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 8th, 2001)
Graduation is approaching but life at Manny High is still as pointlessly complicated as ever.
For instance, Dawn has been entrusted with ordering the school’s diplomas. Why would that be Dawn’s job? Shouldn’t that be Ms. Noble’s job or maybe the job of the school district? Well, needless to say, Dawn screws up and ends up getting a bunch of diplomas that were supposed to go to a private school in Canada. Al, however, says that his cousin can get them some new diplomas before Ms. Noble ever finds out. Again …. WHY ARE STUDENTS IN CHARGE OF THIS!? Here’s the thing with diplomas. They’re kind of important. You don’t just hand out homemade diplomas. When the students of Manny High are applying for their first post-High School jobs, I can only imagine how their potential employers are going to react to being handed a home-made diploma.
Meanwhile, Chris and Jamal have to figure out the best way to end their stupid radio show. Even after Chris puts on a turban and speaks in a fake Indian accent (and yes, it is all incredibly cringey), Chris cannot figure out how he and Jamal should say goodbye to Manny High.
But the biggest problem might be L-Train’s! After being held back three times, L-Train is excited because he’s finally going to graduate. Except …. he’s not! He’s short one credit and there’s no way he can make up that credit in just four days so it looks like the Bayside Gang is going to have to figure out a way to help Zack graduate. Oh wait, I’m sorry. I got confused as to which Peter Engel-produced show’s graduation episode I was reviewing. It’s understandable as the exact same thing that happens to L-Train also happened to Zack Morris at the end of Saved By The Bell. It’s almost as if Peter Engel’s stable of writers had collectively given up on coming up with new ideas during the final two seasons of City Guys.…
Anyway, just as how the Saved By The Bell girls totally ruined their final ballet performance so Zack could get his final credit, Cassidy decides to put on a one-act play, starring L-Train. The play is called For Girls Only and, of course, it requires that L-Train put on a wig and speak in a slightly higher voice. The school board is impressed with the play and gives L-Train his elective credit. L-Train graduates! L-Train thanks Ms. Noble for helping him to go from being a bully to being a high school graduate and, as was so often the case with this show, Steven Daniel’s sweet sincerity makes the scene work, despite the somewhat overwritten dialogue.
As for the other storylines, Chris and Jamal end their final show by announcing, “Goodbye, Manny High!” The fake diplomas arrive just in time for graduation. Everyone puts on their red robes and, after five long and punishing seasons, they receive their diplomas. The camera glides through Manny High’s empty hallways and we hear dialogue from past episodes. For all the silliness of this episode and the show in general, these final moments were kind of touching, if just because it reminded me of my own feelings when I graduated high school. Plus, an empty school hallway always feels like the perfect way to wrap up any show about high school.
Yay, it’s over! City Guys is over!
Except it’s not. There’s still more two episodes to go. We’ll get to them next week and then, City Guys will finally be over.
The latest season of this reality show premiered this week. I kind of watched it but, to be honest, I got bored and tuned out after 20 minutes or so. As far as I can tell, The Challenge mostly seems to exist to give work to former reality show contestants who don’t want to return to their former lives.
The remaining contestants finally figured out that Hugo was Jimmy Carter’s grandson and they sent him packing. I’m enjoying this show, though I’m still annoyed all of my favorites have been eliminated. That said, Hugo wasn’t one of my favorites so this week was a good one.
Dr. Phil (YouTube)
Despite being opposed to Dr. Phil on general principle, I did have the show on for background noise while I was getting some work done on Tuesday. The first episode featured an out-of-control teen who got sent to rehab. Phil said that the parents were ultimately to blame and, for once, I agreed because her parents really were the worst! The 2nd episode featured a man who somehow thought it would be okay to live with both his wife and his mistress in the same house. Dr. Phil explained why this arrangement probably would not work. The 3rd episode featured a woman who hired a nanny off of Craig’s List and who was shocked when the Nanny turned out to be a bit shady. The fourth episode featured a former beauty pageant contestant who was now an out-of-control teen. Dr. Phil sent her to a mental health facility, which led to a lot of tears. It was awkward. I’m not sure I agree with Dr. Phil’s solution. I think it was more about making the audience happy than helping the child. Finally, for the fifth episode, I watched an episode about two sisters who claimed they would never accept their new stepmother. The family was a complete mess. I felt bad for the stepmother.
On Sunday morning, I watched three full hours of Saved By The Bell. Zack started dating Kristy, the new wrestler. But then, in the next episode, he was suddenly trying to date Slater’s ex-girlfriend from Germany, showing that Zack definitely had commitment issues. Zack then had an operation on his knee and returned to school in time to convince everyone to not allow oil drilling on Bayside’s property. (Poor Becky!) Then, it was time to rig a chess tournament and head to the mall so that he and his friends could buy tickets to (snicker) the U2 concert. The common factor in all of these episodes was everyone putting way too much faith in Screech.
Solid Gold (YouTube)
I watched an episode of this old 80s music show on Sunday night. The episode I watched was from 1982 and it featured some good music and a lot of dancing so I enjoyed it.
Stars on Mars (Monday Night, Fox)
The Lance Armstrong redemption has come to an end as Armstrong left “Mars” this week.
In the special one-hour Christmas special, Jim Hacker became Prime Minister! While it’s true that he became PM because everyone was impressed by the fact that he had no strongly held beliefs, it was still hard not to be happy for him. I love this show.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, Ms. Noble is finally retiring!
Episode 5.21 “Anchors Aweigh”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 24th, 2001)
Here’s this episode’s plot description, via Wikipedia:
The time for Ms. Noble’s retirement and the gang’s graduation is drawing near and everybody is excited, except for Dawn. Witnessing the preparation for next year and the new changes being made at the school makes Dawn uneasy. She begins to become anxious about moving on from Manny High and the thought of being apart from her friends when they all go their separate ways in the fall.
Ms. Noble’s retiring? It’s about damn time! I mean, I understand that Ms. Noble didn’t have much of a life outside of telling people who to do but still, it seems like it would get boring after a while. Then again, maybe she was just retiring so she could follow the Chris and Jamal to college and continue to yell at them for not devoting more time to church and charity. As for Dawn’s feelings, I can relate. I felt the same way when I graduated high school.
Unfortunately, there are many season 5 episodes that are not available to stream and this is one of them. So, this is as good a review as this episode is going to get. Let’s move on to an episode that actually be reviewed.
Episode 5.22 “Video Killed The Radio Star”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 24th, 2001)
No, your eyes are not deceiving you! Because Ms. Noble is retiring, the graduating class of Manny High decided to pool their money and put a cheap-looking bust of her in front of the school. Ms. Noble is certainly excited but seriously, in what world would this happen? Graduation is coming up. People are making plans to either go to college or get a job. Everyone should be moving on from high school and instead, the students are spending their money on a statue of their principal? Who, in the world, loves their principal this much!?
Now, it should be noted that someone does immediately starts vandalizing the statue, which is perhaps the most realistic thing that has ever happened on City Guys. At first, the statue is covered in clown make up. Then someone puts an Abraham Lincoln beard on it. Finally, Ms. Noble spends the night in the courtyard, pretends to be her own statue, and discovers that Al and L-Train are behind the vandalism because, of course, they are. It’s not like there’s any other students at the school.
As dumb as the whole statue subplot is, it’s nowhere near as bad as this episode’s A-plot. Ms. Noble tells Chris and Jamal that there is an opening to produce a television show for Manny High. (Manny High has a television studio?) Chris and Jamal both say that they don’t need to be on TV as long as they have their radio show. Instead, Dawn, Cassidy, Al, and L-Train end up producing an abomination called Muffy The Werewolf Slapper.
Yes, Muffy is meant to be a parody of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And yes, everyone at Manny High loves it even though it’s not that funny. (Dawn and Cassidy plays cheerleaders who love Freddie Prinze, Jr. and fighting werewolves. L-Train and Al are the werewolves who just want to date Dawn and Cassidy.) Unfortunately, since Muffy airs at the same time as Chris and Jamal’s radio show, Chris and Jamal lose all of their listeners. (I’ve always been stunned at the idea of anyone setting their schedule around Chris and Jamal’s tired radio schtick.) Feeling jealous, Chris and Jamal sabotage the recording of an episode of Muffy. Feeling guilty, they confess on the radio and then appear on the next episode of Muffy, playing two cheerleaders who try to steal Al and L-Train away from the werewolf slappers.
It was dumb. The whole thing was just mind-numbingly dumb. Watching these final episodes of CityGuys, one gets the idea that everyone involved in the show mentally checked out long before shooting their final episode.
Speaking of final episodes, it’s only two weeks away! Finally, some good news.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Seriously, how have we not reached the final episode yet?
Episode 5.19 “Model Behavior”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 17th, 2001)
I have to admit that, with each week, it gets harder and harder for me to watch and review this stupid show. I’m currently on the final season and there’s only a few more episodes left to go but, every Thursday, I literally have to force myself to sit through whatever episodes are available on YouTube. CityGuys was never a particularly original show to begin with. I mean, the only thing that distinguishes it from every other show that Peter Engel produced for NBC was that the cast was a bit more diverse than usual. But, by the fifth season, it was obvious that the writers were out of ideas and the cast was ready to move on. I’m at the point that, whenever I hear Al call his ex-girlfriend “Dawny Dawn,” I want to throw something across the room. Whenever Ms. Noble starts to talk down to her students, I want to scream. Whenever Chris say something dorky or Jamal asks someone to “Help a brother out,” I silently groan. It’s all so predictable that I feel like I could probably just guess what happened in each episode and be correct.
As for this episode, Jamal has a girlfriend! Now, because so much of Season 5 is not streaming online, I don’t know if this episode is the first time that we’ve seen Rosie (Jenna Watson) but apparently, she and Jamal are very much an established couple. Rosie gets an opportunity to be a model and Jamal throws a fit because he doesn’t want other guys checking out his girlfriend, even though Jamal was earlier doing the same thing to Rosie’s fellow models. When Rosie calls him out on it, Jamal learns an important lessons about double standards. Personally, I’m amazed that a successful model like Rosie would waste her time with someone who can barely handle running the cash register at the Manhattan Diner.
Meanwhile, Dawn is organizing a week-long trip to Florida and one of the students who was meant to be a part of the group has to drop out after she gets mono. Ms. Noble tells Dawn that it’s up to her to select who will be the replacement. Al and L-Train suck up to Dawn and try to convince her to take them to Florida. Dawn picks some guy named Jason instead and Ms. Noble gives Al and L-Train a week of detention. In the past, this is the type of B-plot that would have been saved by the comic timing of Steven Daniel but, at this point, I’m even tired of L-Train. To be honest, I don’t know why Dawn didn’t just pick her best friend Cassidy.
This episode just felt tired. The Florida trip made no sense whatsoever while the model storyline just made me think about how much better California Dreams would have handled the whole thing. I’ve been reviewing City Guys for nearly a year now and I’m definitely ready to move on.
Episode 5.20 “Almost Fatal”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 17th, 2001)
Here’s the plot description for Wikipedia:
After Chris, Jamal, and El-Train survive a car crash, they start going through some changes as they now view life in a whole new perspective. The three friends begin live to their lives on the edge by doing certain activities to the extreme.
This is one of the many season 5 episodes that is not currently streaming anywhere. That’s kind of a shame because the plot description makes it sound like this episode could have been interesting or, at the very least, memorably bad. That said, if I had to guess, I’d say that this was probably just another episode where everyone spent too much time hanging out on the roof and getting a stern talking to from Ms. Noble.
Next week, I’ll be more another episode closer to being done with this show!
Big Brother starts next week and I’m going to have a lot less free time. (I probably should have made better use of my free time this week!) That said, I skipped the Big Brother special that CBS aired this week because I knew there wouldn’t be anything interesting revealed. Big Brother is a show that I both love and hate in equal measures. I never find myself looking forward to it but I always watch once it starts.
Anyways, here some thoughts on what I did watch this week!
I have to admit that Cole was one of the players who I thought had a really good chance of winning the game so I was a little surprised to see him leave the show this week. For the record, he was Alicia Keys’s brother. At this point, I’m just rooting for Olivia.
Degrassi High (YouTube)
I watched an episode on Sunday. Everyone was smoking weed.
Degrassi: The Next Generation (Tubi)
I watched a few random episodes on Sunday. Most of them were from the superlong tenth season, which isn’t really Degrassi’s best season but it is one that I occasionally like to revisit just because it’s not one of those seasons that really demands that you put a lot of effort into concentrating on what was happening on-screen. The tenth season of Degrassi is perfect for background noise.
The episode that I watched on Thursday was entitled “I Want My Child To Stop Listening To Marilyn Manson.” The kids loved Marilyn and the parents were panicking. Jenny Jones told her audience, “Now, you know, Marilyn Manson is a guy, right? He’s a male.” One of Jenny’s guests was a cutter. The audience booed her, which I doubt helped. “He is far from being one of the beautiful people!” one parent said, “He is a sadistic pig!” I think this episode was from 1996.
On Friday, I watched an episode in which Jenny revealed the results of DNA tests. As a host, Jenny Jones was so flustered and spent so much time stumbling over her words that I actually got a headache while watching her.
On Thursday, I watched an episode about young people with lovers who were old enough to be their grandparents. Many of them had angry family members who wanted to yell at them on national television. The audience did a lot of booing.
I followed this up with an episode in which women were encouraged to dump their “cheating boyfriends.” One of the boyfriends had cheated on his girlfriend with a 13 year-old! Hopefully, they broke up after the show.
I then watched a third episode, in which bratty teenagers talk about how much they disliked the men that their mother dated. I cringed as I was flooded by memories of my own bratty behavior whenever my mom started to date someone new.
On Friday, for reasons that even I can’t quite fathom, I watched another episode in which Sally gave updates on out-of-control teens, the majority of whom were still out-of-control. The boot camps did not work.
Stars on Mars (Monday Night, Fox)
The silliest reality show on television right now continued this week, with Rhonda Rousey asking to be sent back to Earth. Fortunately, since no one on the show had actually left Earth to begin with, it was a quick journey home. As for who I hope wins Stars on Mars …. eh, whatever the prize is, give it to William Shatner. I know he’s the host and he probably only had to spend a day or two pre-taping all of his scenes but he’s still the most entertaining part of the show.
The Steve Wilkos Show (YouTube)
I watched an episode on Thursday. Two brothers with really deep acne scars were on the show, trying to figure out which one was the father of a baby. Their annoying mother came out and screamed at everyone. It was so incredibly trashy that it become oddly fascinating.
I followed this with a second episode, in which Steve tossed an abusive boyfriend off of his stage. That was satisfying to see. Believe it or not, I do think that Steve was perhaps a bit more sincere than his fellow daily talk show hosts. The dislike that he felt towards abusers and cheaters always seemed real in a way that Maury Povich’s similar outrage did not.
On Friday morning, I watched two episodes while doing some work in my office. The first episode featured a woman with a scummy, abusive boyfriend. She dumped him at the end of the episode and the entire audience chanted her name. This was followed by an episode featuring a woman who claimed that her ex-boyfriend had stolen the ashes of her deceased and cremated child. That was weird and depressing.
Through the Shattered Lens 