Tag Archives: television show

What Lisa Watched Last Night #81: California Dreams 3.15 “Junior Achievements” (directed by Patrick Maloney)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as the world froze outside, I battled insomnia by watching yet another old episode of California Dreams.

Why Was I Watching It?

Last night, Texas was hit by a cold front.  So, there I was, wide awake at 3 in the morning, curled up on the couch in my beloved Pirates t-shirt and panties and shivering as the wind howled and the temperature outside plunged into the low 30s.  I figured that maybe watching something silly on YouTube would help me get a little sleep.  So, I figured why not watch a show from sunny, always warm California?

Unfortunately, as I’ve explained in my previous California Dreams–related posts, there aren’t any old episodes of Saved By The Bell: The New Class on YouTube so I had to watch California Dreams instead.

What Was It About?

It’s flu season in California.  Instead of doing the smart thing and staying home and resting, the very sick Tony (William James Jones) continues to go to school and work.  Fortunately, Tony’s girlfriend Sam (Jennie Kwan) is from China and therefore, using typical California Dreams logic, is capable of brewing a magical tea.

Meanwhile, the economics teacher at Pacific Coast High School is handing out $500 to his students and demanding that they use it to start a successful business.  While Jake (Australia’s Jay Anthony Franke) and Mark (Aaron Jackson) struggle to sell music lessons, Sly (Michael Cade), Tiffany (Kelly Packard), and Lorena (Diana Uribe) go into business selling Sam’s magic tea.  However, their greed angers Sam’s ancestors.

Naturally, lessons are learned.

What Worked?

The commercial shoot was amusing.  Anyone who has ever appeared in a student film will be able to relate to it.  I especially liked the fact that Tiffany’s response to Tony’s direction was to repeat the line in the exact same way as before.

I liked the way that Jake’s student delivered the line, “A public debut might be a bit premature…”

What Did Not Work?

Wow, California Dreams — ethnic stereotype much?

I have to admit that I’m a bit confused about PCHS.  In some episodes, it’s portrayed as being this school where there’s little to no discipline and the student body is absurdly powerful.  And then, in an episode like this one, it’s suddenly full of teachers who just randomly hand out money, demand that their students start and run a successful business, and sentence people to summer school on a whim.

As well, you have to wonder how the teacher could punish Jake and Mark for not charging for their lessons while then giving Sam an A just because she was pretty much forced, by a random set of circumstances, into doing the right thing.  I mean, how exactly is that integrity?

Seriously, California must have a really powerful teachers union.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

Back when I was in college, I had a role in a student film where I was required to spend a lot of time in bed while wearing a black negligee.  The script didn’t call for me to cough but I did so anyway because I felt that’s what my character would do in that situation.  “Lisa, don’t cough,” the director said.  I glared back at him and said, “Well, excuse the fuck outta me for trying to give a good performance.”  Everyone laughed and assumed I was joking so I just went with it.

Lessons Learned

Back in the 90s, you could do a lot with $500.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #77: California Dreams S3E13 “Rebel Without A Nerve” (dir by Patrick Maloney)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched yet another episode of the old 90s sitcom, California Dreams.

Why Was I Watching It?

If you’ve been following this site for a while, you may remember that I was introduced to California Dreams by my sister Megan while we were looking for an alternative to watching reruns of Saved By The Bell: The New Class.  (It’s a long story.)  Since every episode of California Dreams is available on YouTube, I’ve been watching them whenever I’ve found myself in the mood to watch a mediocre 90s sitcom.  Last night, I was in the mood.

What Was It About?

Jake Summers (Jay Anthony Franke) has long been known as the coolest, hottest guy at Pacific Coat High School.  However, that’s about to change because Tommy Keating (guest star Joseph D. Reitman) has transferred to PCH and he’s determined to shove Jake off of his pedestal.  At first, it seems like this could never happen because Tommy appears to be overweight, goony, and about 40 years old.  However, when Jake crashes his bike, Tommy moves in for the kill…

Meanwhile, PCH has gone accident free for several days and Principal Blumford (Dennis Hask…oh wait, that’s Earl Boen in the role of Blumford), is excited about the prospect of getting PCH listed in the Guggenheim Book of World Records.  In order to keep the school safe, Blumford assigns Tony (Williams James Jones) and Sly (Michael Cade) to the safety patrol…

Meanwhile, Mark (Aaron Jackson) remains cute yet strangely underused…

What Worked?

As opposed to the previous episode of California Dreams (in which Jake starts smoking and his Uncle Frank gets cancer), this episode was strictly for fun.    Instead of trying to teach us an important lesson about safety, this episode acknowledged what we all truly know: only losers became hall monitors.

Add to that, any episode that attempts to set Jake up as the California equivalent to Lord Byron (mad, bad, and dangerous to know) automatically has a lot of camp appeal.

What Did Not Work?

Was it just me or did Tommy Keating appear to be a little bit old to still be going to high school?  Seriously, if you haven’t graduated by the time you’re 40, you might as well just drop out and get your G.E.D.

Then again, he did ace that Biology quiz so maybe Tommy had finally gotten his act together…

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moment

Lorena and I definitely have a similar fashion sense.  Her 2nd outfit (the one with the super cute black miniskirt) was to die for and it reminded me of what I wore to mass on Ash Wednesday.

Also, I frequently mistake ketchup for blood.

Lessons Learned

Safety is for losers.

 

Review: Bates Motel 1.2 “Nice Town You Picked, Norma.”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

-bates-motel--episod

Norman Bates has a brother?

Wow, who would have guessed?

That was the main addition that last night’s episode of Bates Motel provided to the Psycho mythology.  Played by Max Thierot (who was so good in last year’s underrated The House At The End of the Street), Dylan is Norman’s half-brother.  He was born when Norma was 17 years old and, as this episode quickly establishes, he’s a little bitter that Norma abandoned him and his father so that she could marry Sam Bates.

Actually, he’s more than a little bitter.  Bitterness appears to be Dylan’s only emotion.  From the minute that Dylan shows up at the Bates Motel, he’s angry.  Though he greets Norma with “Hello, mother,” (presumably so the slower members of the audience won’t be confused as to who he is), he spends the rest of the episode loudly refusing to call her anything other than “Norma” or “the whore.”

Dylan’s relationship with his half-brother isn’t much better.  About halfway through the episode, Norman reacts to Dylan’s taunting by attacking him with a meat cleaver and gets beaten up for his trouble.  “I told you not to do that!” Dylan shouts after he tosses Norman down to the kitchen floor.

To be honest, Dylan would pretty much be insufferable if not for the fact that he’s played by Max Thierot.  Much as he did in The House At The End Of The Street, Thierot is able to generate sympathy for a fairly unsympathetic character.  It helps, of course, that when compared to Norman and Norma, Dylan almost seems to be sensible.

Norma, meanwhile, has bigger problems than just her oldest son deciding to move back in with her.  She’s still trying to cover up the fact that she killed the previous owner of the motel.  It doesn’t help that Sheriff Romero (Nestor Carbonell) has discovered the dead man’s pickup truck parked near the motel.

Norma handles the situation by flirting with Deputy Shelby (Mike Vogel).  While Norman and Dylan are busy fighting in the kitchen, Norma and Shelby are at the town’s logging festival.  Judging from some of the feedback on twitter, I may be in a minority on this but I actually enjoyed the scenes between Shelby and Norma.  Vogel and Vera Farmiga had a very likable chemistry and I thought the scenes did a good job of establishing the town itself as a character.  Much as Lost had to leave the island, Bates Motel has to be able to tell stories outside of the motel and I think that tonight’s episode showed that it can.

Speaking of things happening outside of the motel, that’s probably where Norman (Freddie Highmore) should try to spend as much time as possible.  When he’s inside the motel, he spends all of his time looking at his little BDSM sketchbook and watching his mother while she undresses in front of him.  However, outside of the motel, he’s got a rather sweet relationship with a girl named Emma (Olivia Cooke).  Together, he and Emma research the origins of the sketchbook (“Don’t worry,” Emma says, “I’ve read lots of manga.”) and they even stumble across a local marijuana farm.

Norman ends up spending a lot of time with Emma because his other female friend, the oddly named Bradley (Nicola Peltz), spends most of the episode at the hospital.  Apparently, somebody set her father on fire.  However, as Deputy Shelby explains to Norma, the town has a way of taking care of trouble makers. That’s made pretty obvious at the end of tonight’s episode when Norma drives by another man who, in an apparent act of retribution, has been set on fire in the middle of the town square.

I enjoyed the second episode of Bates Motel.  It was full of atmosphere and Vera Farmiga’s performance continues to maintain the perfect balance between reality and camp.  Narratively, the story is still unfolding at a very deliberate pace but this episode provided enough intriguing clues to make me excited about seeing what happens next Monday.

That said, I still can’t help but feel that this show’s main weakness is the fact that , as opposed to being a stand alone series, it has to exist as part of the mythology of Psycho.  In many ways, Bates Motel reminds me of The Carrie Diaries, a prequel to Sex In The City that airs on CW.  It’s a well-acted show that’s full of a nicely observed moments but it’s still impossible for me to watch without thinking, “It doesn’t matter what happens because we already know Carrie’s going to eventually end up meeting and marrying Mr. Big.”

By the same token, I still find it next to impossible to watch Bates Motel without thinking to myself, “Eventually, regardless of what happens wit Dylan, Emma, or the pot farmers, Norman’s going to end up wearing Norma’s clothes, peeping on women in the shower, and killing them.”

Divorced from the Psycho mythology, Bates Motel is an entertaining and intriguing little show.  However, without the Psycho mythology, would a show called Bates Motel have ever made it to the air in the first place?

Random Observations:

  • The best scene, by far, was Norma’s alternatively friendly and creepy conversation with Emma.  “And what’s your life expectancy?”
  • How much do you want to bet that Dylan’s going to end up working with the pot farmers?
  • Speaking of the pot farm, am I the only one who was reminded of that episode of Lost where John Locke’s flashback dealt with the period of time he spent living on a commune?
  • I know I said this last week but seriously, how can you not love Nestor Carbonell?

Review: Bates Motel S1E1 “First You Dream, Then You Die” (dir by Tucker Gates)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

bates_motel

When I was in high school, I once wrote a short story for my creative writing class.  The story was basically about me and my friends shopping at the mall and it was full of quirky observations and funny dialogue.  I had a lot of fun writing it and, when I read it aloud, both the class and my teacher seemed to enjoy it.

However, when I got my paper back, I discovered that I had only gotten a B for my efforts.  At the top of the first page of my story, in bold red ink, my teacher had written: “As usual, you’re very observant and detailed.  However, I get the feeling that you mostly write to amuse yourself.  Why should anyone care about this story?”

At the time, I felt my teacher was being very unfair and I’m still not very happy about that comment.  Why should anyone care?  I thought.  Because I wrote it, that’s why!  However, as time has gone by, I’ve come to see (if not necessarily agree with) her point.  “Why should anyone care?” is the question that critics ask themselves every time they start a review.

“Why should anyone care?” is also the question that I asked myself every time I saw a commercial for Bates Motel on A&E.

The commercials promised that Bates Motel would be a prequel to one of the most memorable films ever made, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  And while they were undeniably effective and occasionally disturbing, I still found myself wondering why anyone should care.  We all already know what Norman Bates is going to eventually become so is there really a need for a prequel to give us the exact details of how it happened?

In other words: Why should anyone care?

That’s the question that Bates Motel attempted to answer last night with its premiere episode.  It didn’t quite succeed.  As well-made as the episode was, Bates Motel exists in the long shadow of Psycho and one reason why Psycho remains a classic is because, storywise, it told us everything that we needed to know.  As a result of Anthony Perkins’s iconic lead performance, we ended that film feeling that we knew everything that we needed to know about both Norman Bates and how he became what he became.  The question for Bates Motel — even more than “Why should we care?” — is whether or not the show has anything new to tell us.

So far, it’s still too early to tell but I do hope that Bates Motel does find a reason for us to care because, if it does, it has the potential to be an entertaining and effective little show.

Last night’s episode started with teenage Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) finding his father’s dead body.  When he informs his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), she doesn’t seem to be all that concerned.  In fact, the attentive observer might have even noticed a small smile on Norma’s lips.

6 months later, Norman and his extremely overprotective mother are moving to a new town.  Norma’s bought a run-down motel and she says that this will be the perfect way for her and Norman to start a new life.  However, the motel’s former owner disagrees and, when he attempts to rape Norma, he ends up getting stabbed to death and dumped in a bathtub.

Meanwhile, Norman is struggling to adapt to his new life.  During his first day of school, he manages to befriend four high school girls who, needless to say, are not approved of  by his mother.  Norman sneaks out of the house to go to a party but, like a good son, he still helps his mom dispose of a dead body.  He also manages to find a crudely illustrated BDSM booklet underneath the carpet in one of the motel rooms.  Hmmmm….that’s probably not going to turn out well…

There were some promising signs for the future to be found last night.  The entire episode had an undeniably creepy, off-center feel to it.  When the commercials leading up to the premiere first started to air, I was somewhat put off by the sight of Norman Bates listening to an iPod.  As I put it on twitter, “If Norman Bates was in his 30s in 1960, then how did he own an iPod when he was a teenager?”  However, after seeing last night’s episode, I saw that the show’s creators were actually being very clever in how they mixed modern technology (like that iPod) with various retro details.  This is the type of show where people get text messages while watching flickering black-and-white televisions and it gave this episode a timeless and, at times, rather surreal feel.

Another big plus was that, about halfway through the episode, Nestor Carbonell showed up.  In Bates Motel, Carbonell plays Sheriff Andy Romero.  He shows up to investigate the new owners of the motel, asks Norma a few insinuating questions, and then proceeds to take the world’s longest (and loudest) piss without once noticing that he’s standing next to a dead body.  Carbonell’s pretty much playing the same role that he played in last season’s Ringer but no matter.  Nestor Carbonell elevates anything that he’s involved with.

Freddie Highmore made for a sympathetic Norman and, perhaps most importantly, you can look at him and imagine him growing up to be Anthony Perkins.  However, not surprisingly, last night’s episode was dominated by Vera Farmiga.  Playing Norma as a character who is both sympathetic and frightening, Farmiga finds the perfect pitch for her performance.  Farmiga is brave enough to occasionally go over-the-top but she’s also a skilled enough actress that she never allows Norma to be anything less than credible.

In the end, both Norman and Norma are monsters that you can believe in and, for that reason, I’ll be interested to see what Bates Motel does with them over the next few episodes.

Random Observations:

  • That final scene was tres creepy, no?
  • Tonight’s episode was directed Tucker Gates, who previously directed episodes of Lost and Alias.
  • Vera Farmiga seriously kicks so much ass!  I hope that, when I grow up, I’m just like her.
  • Ever since I first saw him on Lost, I’ve loved Nestor Carbonell.  I wasn’t that enthusiastic about The Dark Knight Rises but I smiled when he showed up and then I shed a tear when his character was blown up.
  • When Norman went to that party with his new friends, I tweeted, “OMG, Norman’s trapped in a Harmony Korine movie!”
  • Despite having mixed feelings about whether or not the show is really all that necessary, I’m still looking forward to watching and reviewing the next few episodes of Bates Motel.  I’m just hoping that the show doesn’t devolve into a “murder-a-week” format.
  • Speaking of which, who do you think will be the first character to be menaced while taking a shower?  Because you so know it’s going to happen…

What Lisa and Megan Watched Last Night #62: California Dreams S3E3 “Budget Cuts” (dir. by Patrick Maloney)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my sister Megan and I continued to bond over episodes of bad sitcoms from the 1990s.  Among those episodes was “Budget Cuts,” from the third season of California Dreams.

Why Were We Watching It?

I’ve been spending this holiday week visiting my wonderful sister Megan in Ft. Worth and, for the past few days, we’ve been bonding over the fact that she has almost every single episode of Saved By The Bell: The New Class and California Dreams on DVD.

(Personally, SBTB: TNC has a lot of nostalgia value for me but Megan claims that California Dreams was a “thousand times better” than either the original Saved By The Bell or The New Class.)

Last night, we watched several randomly selected episodes of both SBTB: TNC and California Dreams and, out of all of them, “Budget Cuts” is the one that really stood out.

What Was It About?

Much like the “Belding’s Prank” episode of SBTB: TNC, “Budget Cuts” is an episode that seems to take place in a high school that has an absurdly powerful student body.  The school also has its very own radio station that broadcasts nonstop over the course of the entire day.  I’m not really sure how this would work, since it seems like this would interfere with things like students going to and concentrating in class but maybe that’s just the way things were in California during the mid-90s.

Anyway, sleazy Sly Winkle (played by Michael Cade) is given control of the radio station and he promptly gives shows to all of his friends.  Mark (Aaron Jackson) is a bitchy critic in the style of Addison DeWitt.  Sam (Jennie Kwan) gives love advice to a caller who, in the opinion of both me and Megan, was just a guy wearing an ugly wig.  Lorena (Diana Uribe) has a show that’s all about fashion.  (Yay!)  And Jake (Jay Anthony Franke) has a show where he tells people to “Shut up and listen!”

Anyway, the school board is making budget cuts and it appears that the radio station is going to be closed down!  After being pressured by Jake, Lorena ends up locking herself in the studio and refusing to come out until the school board agrees to hear the student demands.

Somehow, this works and then, fortunately, Jake shows up at the school board meeting and OH MY GOD!  JAKE’S WEARING A SUIT!  The live studio audience goes crazy at the sight of Jake all dressed up and with good reason.  The boy cleans up well.

But will it be enough to save the radio station?

What Worked?

Every teen sitcom has to have at least one episode where the show’s resident rebel makes an appearance wearing a suit as opposed to his leather jacket.  This, of course, is because we all know that the most important thing about a rebel is that he should be able to clean up well.  In this episode, Jay Anthony Franke cleans up very well.

What Did Not Work?

Four words: “Absurdly powerful student body.”  Seriously.  Between California Dreams and Saved By The Bell, California appears to be a state where teenagers are given the equivalent of diplomatic immunity.

“OH MY GOD!  JUST LIKE US!” Moments

Both Megan and I agreed that we both identified with the character of Lorena, both because of her temper and her sense of fashion.

Though this episode of California Dreams didn’t actually feature the band performing, Megan and I still decided that we should start a band of our own.  We’re going to call ourselves the Cleavage Sisters and we’re going to hire David Foster to write aggressively bland songs for us.  Megan will sing them while I dance around the stage.  It’ll be fun!

Lessons Learned

Sometimes, people don’t like to be told to “shut up and listen.”

Review: True Blood S5E11 “Sunset”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For better or worse, the fifth season of True Blood is rapidly drawing to a close.  Tonight’s episode (the last before next week’s season finale) featured a lot blood and it answered at least one big question that True Blood fans have been debating since about halfway through this season.

That question: does Bill actually believe all of this Lilith stuff or is he just pretending in order to manipulate the situation to his own advantage?  A lot of people — myself included — assumed the Bill had to have some sort of secret plan.  Bill, we all assumed, has always been too much of a politician to become a true believer in anything.

Well, it turns out that we were all wrong.  As tonight’s episode proved, Bill is indeed a true believer.  He has drunk from the proverbial kool-aid (or Lilith’s blood, as the case may be).  As Pam explains in one of tonight’s better moments, Bill and the rest of the Authority are nesting.  Essentially, it’s what happens when vampires spend too much time hanging out with each other.

Bill, in fact, has become such a true believer that he’s now having visions of a blood-drenched Lilith telling him that he is the one (and the only one) that she has chosen to lead vampires to their rightful future.  When another chancellor (the bald, black guy whose name I can never remember) confesses to having had the same vision, Bill responds with, “NO, I AM THE CHOSEN ONE!” and then chops off his head. Of course, even before Bill has finished cleaning his hands, Lilith is appearing to Salome and telling her that she’s the chosen one.

In a nice bit of irony, even as former skeptic Bill becomes even more devoted to Lilith, former true believer Nora has lost her faith in Lilith.  After Nora makes up with her “brother” Eric (and thank you, True Blood, for indulging us Alexander Skarsgard fans with that little scene), the two of them start to search for an oppurtunity to escape the bunker.  That opportunity presents itself when a human general shows up, demands to speak to Roman, and then reveals that he has video evidence of Russell and the Rev. Newlin slaughtering a frat house.  Eric responds by killing the general and then volunteering to go (with Nora, of course) to Washington D.C. and take care of the video.  The rightfully suspicious Bill orders a security detail to accompany Eric and Nora but, as soon as they’re out of the bunker, Eric kills both of the guards and he and Nora fly off into the night.  Needless to say, it was nice to see Eric acting like Eric again.

Bill also decided to send a security detail with Jessica after he ordered her to return to Bon Temps and turn Jason into a vampire.  However, Jessica only pretends to turn Jason which gives Jason a chance to kill Jessica’s two guards.  Seriously, the Authority might want to take a look at the training program for the members of their Security Detail because it doesn’t appear to be that effective.

Anyway, Jessica tells Jason what’s going on and then, after Jason runs back to the Faerie nightclub so he can warn Sookie, Jessica ends up hiding out with Pam and Tara.  At first, Pam isn’t all that happy to see Jessica show up because, after all, Pam’s already got her hands full trying to clean up after Tara’s murder of Sheriff Elijah.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Elijah was made by Chancellor Rosalyn and when Rosalyn shows up searching for him, she immediately accuses Tara of killing him.  Pam, who has been incorrectly informed by Jessica that Eric is still at the Authority HQ, confesses and, along with Jessica, is promptly arrested and taken to the bunker.

And you know who else is in the bunker?  Sam and Luna, who are still running around as field mice until they finally manage to track down Emma, who is still in her adorable wolf puppy form.  Unfortunately,  Sam and Luna shift back into human form when they find Emma and are then promptly found by Authority security guards who assume that they’re simply humans who have been imprisoned in order to serve as a food source.  When Sam hears one of the guards mention that it’s time for “Chancellor Compton’s breakfast,” he volunteers to be that meal and, as the episode comes to an end, he is being led out of the jail while Pam’s being led into it.

But that’s not all!

Tara might be falling in love with Pam, or at least that’s the way it seems to Jessica.

Alcide is staying with his dad and apparently spends most of his time chopping wood without a shirt on and that’s perfectly alright with me.  However, when a group of baby vamps show up and start attacking the trailer park, Alcide (and, eventually, his dad) fight them off.

Finally, Sookie is hiding out at the Faerie nightclub and, as part of her efforts to learn why she has been promised to the mysterious Warlow, she talks to the Elder, the oldest faerie in existence.  Unfortunately, the Elder turns out to be a bit of a flake whose mind has been permanently scrambled by the amount of times that she’s jumped through all the various realities.  The Elder assures Sookie that “A dark time is coming,” and it turns out that she’s right as, at the end of tonight’s episode, Russell and the Rev. Newlin manage to track down the fearie night club.  As the terrified faeries watch, Russell drains the Elder dry and then, fangs bared, lunges forward to attack…

This was a bloody episode and, to judge from the previews, next week’s finale is going to be even more bloody.  Will Bill come to his senses?  Will Warlow make an appearance?  And will someone please just go ahead and stake the Rev. Newlin?

Hopefully, we’ll find out next week.

Random Observations:

  1. This episode’s unofficial scene count: 44.
  2. This was an uneven episode but overall, I liked it.  There was a lot about this episode that felt like filler but, at the same time, the idea of the vampires having religious visions as a result of “nesting” is an intriguing one and I hope that it’s one that next week’s finale explores.
  3. Of all the episodes so far this season, this one was probably the most explicit in making the connection between organized religion and the Authority.  It wasn’t subtle but then again, True Blood rarely is.
  4. “Don’t play game with me, you little ginger bitch!”  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard those exact same words…
  5. Pam is like the Lauren Bacall of vampires.

What Lisa Watched Last Night: Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas (dir. by Jeff Melman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Recently, I spent the night watching a bunch of commercials for Everest College that had been recorded onto my DVR.  Occasionally, the Everest commercials were interrupted by 1994’s made-for-tv movie Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas.

Why Was I Watching It?

Back when I was like 10, I used to always watch Saved By The Bell: The New Class every Saturday morning.  Even at that age, I knew that show was kinda stupid and that Dustin Diamond’s Screech Powers was one of the most annoying television characters of all time.  But I still watched it and occasionally, I would catch a rerun of the Old Class as well.  (Quite honestly, up until a few years ago, there was never a time that reruns of Saved By The Bell weren’t being broadcast somewhere.)  By the time I was in high school, I appreciated Saved By The Bell as being almost a type of performance art.

As of late, it’s been difficult to find Saved By The Bell reruns on television and that made me a little bit sad because I felt like my childhood was disappearing and that I might be turning into an adult.  So, imagine how happy I was when I discovered that MTV2 now shows a two hour-block of Saved By The Bell every afternoon and, thanks to the wonderful thing that is the DVR, I can watch them without having to quit my job to do so.  Yay!

Two weeks ago, MTV2 showed the final Saved By The Bell movie, 1994’s Wedding in Las Vegas.  Though I knew, of course, that Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and Kelly (Tiffani Amber Thiessen) had gotten married at the end of the original series, I had never actually seen the wedding.  And I have to admit that I really didn’t have much desire to see the wedding until it suddenly showed up on my DVR…

What Was It About?

This is one of those rare cases where the film’s title truly tells you everything you need to know.  Zack and Kelly get married in Las Vegas while their friends Screech, Slater (Mario Lopez), and Lisa (Lark Voorhees) have wacky adventures of their own.  Zack has $1,200 dollars to try to put on his dream wedding but, as often happens in the world of Saved By The Bell, there are countless complications that are largely the result of Zack being a sociopathic pathological liar.  Zack loses all of his money but, instead of telling Kelly the truth, he attempts to win the money by becoming a male escort.  Meanwhile, Slater falls in love with a girl who is being pursued by the Mafia and Lisa (Hey, I just noticed that we have the same name!  Yay!) ends up flirting with a hot guy who has a pony tail and who, fortunately, happens to be as rich as everyone else that she went to high school with.

What Worked And What Did Not Work?

Normally, I separate this into two separate questions but that’s kind of pointless when you’re dealing with something like Saved By The Bell: Wedding Las Vegas.  The main thing that works about a show like Saved By The Bell is that absolutely nothing really works.  It’s all very silly, shallow, predictable, dated, occasionally cringe-worthy, and, in its way, very calming.  Despite the film’s many flaws, it’s difficult to really justify criticizing it too harshly because you know what you’re getting into when you decide to watch something called Saved By The Bell: Wedding In Las Vegas in the first place.

Almost everyone in the cast is really cute in a 90s kinda way and even the usually horrible Dustin Diamond (who I hated even when I was ten years old and watching him on the New Class) is tolerable in Las Vegas.  Though the film — much like the series — is focused on Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack, I’ve always felt that Zack was overrated.  Mario Lopez, with his confident smile and perfectly chiseled body, was (and still is) the hot one.   Whereas Zack always seemed to have an off-putting air of entitlement, Slater knew what he wanted and he took it.  That trend continues in Wedding In Las Vegas where Slater won’t even let the Mafia stand in the way of getting a date.

This film is technically a comedy though you don’t so much laugh with it as you laugh at it.  However, there was one moment that made me genuinely laugh out loud and that was the scene where “the gang” visits a 24-hour wedding chapel and director Jeff Melman gives us a quick tracking shot of the long line of couples waiting to get married.  Along with the expected Elvis impersonators, there’s also a very pregnant girl standing next to a scared-looking boy who has an old man pointing a shotgun at him.  That made me laugh.

This is yet another one of the shows where every single problem could have been avoided by the characters just not acting like idiots.  Seriously, I don’t know what’s worse — that Zack felt that it would be better to become a male escort as opposed to just telling Kelly the truth or that Kelly so quickly forgave him.  (Me, I would have been so mad at him but it doesn’t seem to bother Kelly that her future husband lied to her on the night before their wedding.)

As I stated before, there’s a lot that technically doesn’t work about Wedding in Las Vegas but it is Saved By The Bell, after all.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

If ever get married in Las Vegas, I imagine it’ll be quite a bit like Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas, in that I fully expect that 1) I’ll stay at a nice hotel, 2) I’ll get a mani/pedi with my best girlfriend, and 3) the Mafia will somehow be involved. 

That said, Dustin Diamond will not be invited to my wedding.

Lessons Learned

Nothing can stand in the way of true love.  Especially when you’re rich and white.

“Don’t You Forget About Me” — The Psych Version

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so basically this is just a commercial for a show that I don’t watch but it’s just so adorable that I had to feature it.  The show, by the way, is called Psych and it’s on the USA network.  I know a lot of people who love this show but I’ve honestly never seen it, largely because I always forget just where exactly the USA network is located on AT&T U-verse.

But if I do end up tracking down the USA Network and watching an episode, it’ll be because of this commercial.  Seriously, it’s just so adorable!

 

What Lisa Watched Last Night: What Did I Do Last Night?

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

No, What Did I Do Last Night? is not the latest Lifetime movie, despite the title.  (What Did I Do Last Night?: The Lisa Marie Bowman Story — I like the sound of that….)  What Did I Do Last Night? is a 30-minute “reality” show that currently airs on the Current TV Network.  Check your local listings.

Why Was I Watching It?

Originally, I had turned over to Current TV to watch Al Pacino in Scarface.  What Did I Do Last Night? came on immediately after Scarface and, as often happens with my late night television habits, I was just too lazy to change the station.

What’s It About?

Apparently, over the course of each episode, the show’s smug host (Jeff Leach) gets a different English person drunk and then films them acting like a complete jackass.  The next day, he shows the footage to his hungover victim and scares them sober.  Or something like that.

This episode’s victim was a cheerful blonde named Rita who, once she got intoxicated, ended up climbing on top of a table at a bar.  The next morning, Rita responded by saying that she was “disgusting” and then breaking down into tears.  That’ll teach her to try to enjoy herself when she goes out.

What Worked?

Well, Rita did say she was going to try to reduce her drinking so technically, I guess you could say the whole show worked.  Except, of course, that’s a load of crap because the show’s not about helping people.  It’s about humiliating them while the viewing audience thinks, “I might be an unoriginal, boring, unimaginative toadsucker, but at least I don’t ever get that drunk.”  And, taken from that perspective, the show again accomplished what it set out to do.

What Didn’t Work:

There’s a thin line between helping and victimizing and this show pretty much crossed that line from the beginning.

This show was a lot like Intervention in that it claims to help the addicted but only after they’ve managed to exploit that addiction for all that its worth.  Of course, there is a big difference in that the Intervention film crew doesn’t actually shoot anyone up with heroin while this show actually gets people drunk so that the smug host can criticize them for it.  The whole time that Rita was being shown stumbling around drunk, nobody ever asked if, under nontelevised circumstances, she usually drank quite as much alcohol as the show’s producers insisted on providing for her.

Plus, they pulled a very cruel trick on Rita early on in the show.  While Rita is debating what to wear on her drunken night out, the show’s producers are heard encouraging her to wear a white dress with a low neckline and a very short skirt.  What they didn’t tell Rita — but what they surely knew — was that her entire trip to the bar would be filmed with an infrared camera which would basically make that white dress transparent in a way that a non-white dress would not have been.  Since the dress itself was practically skin-tight, Rita didn’t wear any underwear with the dress which means that, for the final 15 minutes of the show, she’s seen thoroughly shitfaced in a see-through dress with a huge amount of pixels over her crotch.  And it’s impossible to maintain any sort of dignity when you’re climbing on top of a bar with a blurry twat.

I felt very bad for poor, exploited Rita.  I hope somebody bought her a drink afer this show aired.

“Oh My God!  Just Like Me!” Moment

At one point, after the producers have gotten her drunk, Rita is shown falling down and then falling again as she attempts to stand back up.  “Oh my God!” I shouted, “just like me!”  What’s sad is that, for the most part, I rarely drink.  Yet, I often fall.

Later on, as Rita was standing on a table and demanding, “Everybody look at me bum!”, my sister Erin said, “Oh my God, just like Lisa.”  As much as I love my sister, I have to disagree.  Obviously, not being English, I don’t use terms like “bum.”

Lessons Learned

Don’t wear white on reality television.