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Published on 5/17/08
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✽ Recommended or notable
Thursday 15
Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey 7–7:30pm, Cinemax. If you’re into Second Life, avoid this “documentary,” shot completely in the virtual world; it’s so faux-philosophical you’ll think you’ve died and been reincarnated in a hotbox dorm room, Socrates quotes and all. If you’re not into Second Life, also avoid filmmaker Douglas Gayeton’s bogus attempt to overstate SL’s meaning, courtesy of his avatar, Molotov Alva. If, however, you’ve always wondered how your grandparents feel when you talk about the Internet—confused, put off, but trying hard not to seem too judgmental—then by all means, go ahead and watch this self-congratulatory nonsense.
✽ My Name Is Earl 7–8pm, NBC. When Earl debuted in 2005, we worried about the viability of its structure: Could writers legitimately come up with a new karmic wrong to right every week, and if they could, might that get a little boring? To our surprise and mostly delight, Earl doesn’t get boring. If anything, the times the show tinkered with its setup, like with Earl starting this season in jail or deciding last season to go to Mexico, it faltered. During the last season and in particular the poststrike episodes, Earl has remained abundantly enjoyable, but the show has become decidedly less funny or, more specifically, less frequently funny. Tonight’s season finale finds Earl questioning his marriage to Billie, who now demands he choose between his list and her. We’d be sad to see Alyssa Milano go—Billie is such a fun character, and we like watching Earl’s approach to marriage—but we’d survive if that took the show back to its original stylings. More Joy. Definitely more Crabman. And of course, more karma.
Smallville 7–8pm, The CW. As the CW continues to implode—with high-profile shows bringing in few viewers (Gossip Girl), higher-rated shows facing cancellation (Reaper) and gaudy reality shows defining the struggling network (America’s Next Top Model, Girlicious)—it’s surprising the veteran series Smallville isn’t considered more of an emblem. On its best days, the show represents some of what the CW does well: flashy teen shows with sustainable drama. On its worst, though, Smallville suffers from the same ailments that beset its WB and CW predecessors Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: a severe case of not knowing when enough’s enough. Tonight’s seventh-season finale would seem more exciting if we didn’t already know Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor, is leaving the show. How intense can a Superman series be minus Lex Luthor?
✽ ER 9–10pm, NBC. Six weeks ago, we couldn’t get enough County General. Then three weeks ago, Holt from Dirt pulled a gun on the ER staff, and we groaned so loudly it ripped a hole in space-time and we traveled back to 1997 when this happened on Chicago Hope. Oh, how tough the plight of the doctor-show fan. Still, any show that has Steve Buscemi guest-star as “a drunk and very mysterious patient” gets our stamp of approval. Here’s hoping the veteran show finishes its penultimate season with the panache it’s demonstrated over the last several months.
Sex: The Revolution 9–10pm, VH1. Conventional wisdom says the proliferation of cable networks leads to narrowcasting; channels are more specific than ever, with stations dedicated to crime programming, military shows, documentaries, you name it. In that model, though, can VH1 have it both ways? Can it be home to Celebracadabra, Rock of Love and a slew of other celebreality series, and also thorough if utterly unoriginal documentaries? Can its brand be both low- and highbrow? We’re pretty sure it can’t, and given how reminiscent this four-part doc is of IFC’s Indie Sex from 2007, we’ll say VH1 should stick to its strengths: tacky, trashy reality shows and Best Week Ever. Like 2006’s Drug Years, Sex: The Revolution provides a lot of information you’ve heard before, largely packaged in a baffling, you-missed-the-good-times nostalgia.
Friday 16
America’s Funniest Home Videos 7–9pm, ABC. If you were born the day AFHV premiered, you’d be a senior in high school right now. This show has been on since before Nelson Mandela got out of prison, since before the Soviet Union crumbled, since before the first Gulf War. AFHV used to air opposite Murder, She Wrote and In Living Color.
Numb3rs 9–10pm, CBS. Zeljko Ivanek is an unusual kind of TV star: He’s been on a million and one shows, but he’s not exactly a character actor, and he’s played a wide range of roles, like the suicidal Southern guy on Damages, the earnest state’s attorney on Homicide and the villainous Andre Drazen on the first season of 24, among dozens of guest spots. Tonight, he’s a special agent, but Numb3rs fans will be too distracted by the fact that this is Diane Farr’s final episode to notice.
Saturday 17
Groomer Has It 8–9pm, Animal Planet. Wow. Turns out you can turn any job in the universe into a reality-contest show. On this mind-alteringly idiotic series, dog groomers go head to head to be named “top dog.” They also seemingly compete to say the dumbest things possible, such as: “They call me the Paris Hilton of dog grooming,” “We were in there like swimwear” and “I have a seventh sense about dogs.” Still, there’s a strange, sad truth about Groomer, and it’s that the hypnotic show studied Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model so closely that it fits in the same pleasure receptors in your brain—it’s the methadone to their heroin, and just as stultifying and addictive.
Sunday 18
✽ Everybody Hates Chris 7–7:30pm, The CW. Aw, they grow up so fast. Chris is graduating from junior high on tonight’s season finale, but fear not—Chris has been renewed for a fourth season, so it’ll be back in the fall. We still wish the CW would do more to beef up this show’s profile, but consistent, flexible humor and solid performances will have to be enough for now.
✽ The Simpsons 7–7:30pm, Fox. The 19th season of the classic cartoon draws—heyo!—to a close tonight, with Lisa getting a taste of fame and deciding she doesn’t like it too much.
Desperate Housewives 8–10pm, ABC. Season finales of Desperate Housewives are all starting to seem the same. Someone’s secret gets spilled (Mary Alice, the Applewhites, Victor), someone’s in Extreme Danger (Susan’s held at gunpoint, Bree escapes from a mental hospital, Edie hangs herself), Teri Hatcher squishes up her face and Eva Longoria stomps around. So…that happens again. This year’s secret-leaker: Katherine Mayfair. And everyone’s threatened.
Monday 19
The Big Bang Theory 7–7:30pm, CBS. We’re tired of crapping on this show. It’s a not-very-good sitcom, its only female character is a bimbo, and it hasn’t decided yet if its characters hate each other or not. Plus, all the ostensibly hideous nerdy outfits the guys wear are just adorable hipster ensembles. We are not fooled, Big Bang. But we like Johnny Galecki so much, the show uses legit science terminology, and it has such an old-school rhythm and style it’s like a comedy time machine—argh, we can’t hate it 100 percent. Next season, though, would it kill this show to include a woman? A real one?
✽ Bones 7–8pm, Fox. This season kicked off with a serial-killer story line, and it picks it up again for the finale. While we wish the murderer had a less goofy title—“Gormogon” is just silly—his creepy antics still manage to scare us, especially now that he might be working from inside the Jeffersonian.
✽ Gossip Girl 7–8pm, The CW. It’s a megashowdown to end all bitch-offs when Serena and Georgina finally go for each other’s jugulars on the series that somehow made hair extensions seem desirable and has no problem pimping out a 14-year-old. (Taylor Momsen, who plays social-climbing “Little J” Jenny, will turn 15 in July.) We’re hoping the CW decides to bring GG back early because it’s positively crying out for the 90210/O.C. summer treatment.
✽ How I Met Your Mother 7:30–8pm, CBS. Since returning from the strike, HIMYM has been in top form—if you can excuse the Britney Spears guest spots, which we can. We fully expect Neil Patrick Harris to win an Emmy this year—Jeremy Piven’s time has come and gone—and as Jason Segel’s profile rises, we’re hoping Mother’s does as well.
The Bachelorette 8–10pm, ABC. Given how many Americans don’t “believe” in evolution, we probably shouldn’t be surprised by how many believe you can find love on television. DeAnna Pappas is unfortunate enough to believe it twice, even after being rejected on the previous season of The Bachelor. Hey, DeAnna, have you ever heard the saying that starts “fool me once…”?
✽ House 8–9pm, Fox. Peter Jacobson has quickly turned Dr. Taub from a background player to our favorite House underling; Taub’s one of the better doctors, but Jacobson’s performance is so light and comfortable it manages to pull us away from our adoration of both Kal Penn and Robert Sean Leonard. House has a spotty history with season finales, so we’re really hoping against hope that this isn’t another cliff-hanger.
Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman 9–10pm, Sundance. We’re pretty sure the title of this doc series isn’t meant ironically; Jennifer Fox, the 42-year-old who basically profiles herself in this tour of self-absorption disguised as a travelogue, seems to believe that she’s free, somehow liberated by her “progressive” ideas on love and relationships. (“I have a boyfriend and a lover.” Congratulations.) But we haven’t heard anyone sound so trapped by their concept of selfhood since the eighth grade, nor has anyone seemed so desperate for validation since we were swapping Lip Smackers and slam books. Am I okay? Do you hate me? Are my ideas bad? Does that make me bad? Will you agree with my theories on sex, love and relationships, even though it doesn’t really matter what my friends think? Jennifer, here are two tips we got in middle school, and they’re just as relevant now: First, always carry a tampon just in case. And second, it doesn’t matter what other people think.
Tuesday 20
Dancing with the Stars 8–10pm, ABC. At press time, Kristi Yamaguchi FTW seems like a foregone conclusion. Seems about right.
✽ Reaper 8–9pm, The CW. We thought the demon-union subplot was a little wacky when it started, but now it’s one of our favorite parts of the fledgling knight-in-Satan’s-service series: You say “Ken Marino,” we say “how high.” If this is the series finale, we’ll be crushed, but we’ll also be happy knowing the show went out with its head held high, having really found its voice—more quirk, less earnestness—and pacing—like a pop song, go big on the big stuff and speed through everything else. Tonight, the demons set a trap for Sam, whom they believe to be a huge threat, and Sock falls for one of the beasts.
Shark 9–10pm, CBS. For a show that makes a hero out of a would-be villain, Shark still manages to make actual villains seem pretty damn sleazy, and Wayne Callison is the show’s high-water mark. It helps that Billy Campbell plays spooky crazed guy extremely well (see also: The 4400).
Wednesday 21
American Idol 8–10pm, Fox. Ratings analysts and TV experts have been wringing their hands over Idol’s ratings drop-off this season, which prompted Fox to try rejiggering episode structure, which prompted Paula Abdul to go off the deep end. What could possibly explain lower ratings this season? How about all the contestants being droid-ishly boring? Every week was like a J.Crew catalog for the ears: totally acceptable, but completely nondescript. No one tunes into the finale before, oh, 9:50, do they?
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