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

Posted on February 12, 2022 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.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 1/30/22 — 2/5/22

Posted on February 5, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I promised last week, I spent most of this week getting caught up on movies. Here’s some thoughts on what little television I did watch:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Though the episode aired on Sunday, I didn’t get to watch it until Friday and I have to admit that I was a bit out of it at the time, so don’t even ask me to explain just what exactly happened. I do remember that Officer Crabtree had a conversation in which he mangled the French language. I know that happens every episode but still, it always makes me laugh.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Amazing Race here!

The Bachelor (Monday Night, ABC)

Claytonbot continued to learn human emotions while the bachelorettes continued to accuse each other of not being on the show for the right reasons. Claytonbot even cancelled the cocktail party due to some drama that was definitely totally real and in no way staged. Like, totally, for real.

Bar Rescue (Weekday Mornings, Paramount TV)

I watched an episode on Tuesday. A bartender couldn’t make the perfect Manhattan so Jon Taffer condemned everyone who worked at the bar to Hell.

Celebrity Big Brother (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Night)

I wrote about Celebrity Big Brother, the show that I love to hate, over at the Big Brother Blog.

Football Game: Bengals vs. Chiefs (Sunday Night, Fox)

I was happy when the Bengals won because they wear those cute helmets with the stripes.

Football Games: 49ers vs Rams (Sunday afternoon, CBS)

Everyone’s a winner as far as I’m concerned! Yay! But, on a much more realistic note, the Rams won. Or was it the 49ers? I can’t remember for sure. Either way, congrats.

Full House (Sunday Mornings, MeTV)

I watched two episodes on Sunday. Uncle Jesse was upset that no one cared about his crappy cover band. I have to wonder if the band themselves ever resented having all of Danny Tanner’s bratty children wandering around the place while they were trying to rehearse. Also, why didn’t they rehearse in the garage as opposed to that cramped living room? I haven’t seen that many episodes of Full House but I’m getting the feeling that this show often did not make sense.

The Love Boat (Sunday Evening, MeTV)

It was a Halloween episode so everyone wore a costume. Woo hoo!

The Office (All Week, Comedy Central)

On Friday, I watched the “Search Committee” episode, which I’ve always considered to be one of those shows biggest mistakes. This was after Michael had left, D’Angelo had died, and Dwight had fired a gun in the office. Jo appointed Gabe, Jim, and Toby to interview applicants to be the new manager and, of course, all of the applicants were played by celebrities. The cameos were distracting and I still don’t understand why James Spader’s bland take on Robert California led to the show being massively restructured during the following season. Of the celebs who interviewed, Ray Romano actually came across like he would have been the best fit for the show’s style but, if I remember correctly, Romano was already on another show at the time. Personally, I think that, instead of trying to find another Steve Carell, they should have just hired some nondescript nobody to play the manager and spent the last seasons of The Office concentrating on the people working there.

I can still remember watching this episode when it originally aired. At the time, I actually felt a bit of dread when Andy Bernard showed up to be interviewed because I knew he was probably going to end up with the job. Andy was a funny character during his first two seasons with the show but, after that, Ed Helms’s performance started to become oddly needy. All of the flaws that made Andy an unfortunate choice to be at the center of the season 8 were present in the “Search Committee” episode.

Finally, I have to ask — why would Jo put Jim on the Committee? How does that make any sense? He already had managerial experience so why didn’t she just promote him?

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Granville seemed to be really upset about something. As usual, Arkwright was too busy obsessing on Nurse Gladys Emmanuel to care. This was definitely an episode that I had seen before.

Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

I wrote about the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy here.

Parking Wars (Tuesday Morning, A&E)

The indie towing guys took a man’s truck and then laughed when the man said that he was going to lose his job and wouldn’t be able to feed his family. What a bunch of scumbags. “I feel bad for him but he came here cussing and I got no sympathy for that.” ANY SYMPATHY, you illiterate fascist!

The View (Weekday Mornings, ABC)

It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched The View but I decided to watch it on Tuesday to see how they would deal with Whoopi Goldberg outing herself as being incredibly ignorant on the subject of the Holocaust. It turns out that they didn’t really deal with it. Whoopi briefly interviewed the president of the ADL, who mentioned that The View had never had a Jewish co-host. The show then went to commercial and we came back with Whoopi and the gang talking about “you know who,” which I guess is their way of referring to Trump. Later, Charlie Day was interviewed. I like Charlie Day. For one thing, he’s not an anti-Semite.

That night, after the show aired, ABC announced that Whoopi would be suspended for two weeks. For the record, I don’t think Whoopi’s comments were malicious, at least not in the way that Nick Cannon’s anti-Semitic comments were. (It’s kind of weird how Nick basically repeated the same anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have, for centuries, been used to justify the persecution of the Jewish people but, afterwards, was allowed to keep his job as host of The Masked Singer and was also giving his own talk show. Like seriously, how the Hell does that happen?) I think Whoopi’s comments were ignorant and the fact that she doubled down on them, on both the show and apparently later on Colbert, shows the type of arrogance that only comes from never having to deal with anyone openly disagreeing with you. I’d rather that, instead of suspending her and waiting for everything the blow over, The View would have used this opportunity to educate both Goldberg and the show’s viewers. Whoopi Goldberg is 66 years old and, we are constantly told, a smart woman. That she could be so ignorant is definitely a cause for concern.

The Winter Olympics (Weekdays, NBC and other stations)

I’ve tried to watch a little of The Olympics but the whole thing just feels icky this year. As soon as the Olympics Committee guy started quoting John Lennon during the opening ceremonies, I had to look away. I imagine I’ll watch a bit of skating and maybe some curling. But I’m definitely in no way enthusiastic about the Olympics this year.