Okay, so the past few TV posts have lacked a certain amount of. . . humor. Trust me, I don’t find raking through the muck of television land any funnier than you do. It’s a chore. That, and my left testicle ran away. Rolled, actually. I think it was demanding more exercise, so I slapped it and it fell off, rolled down the couch, across the floor, and into the garden. That’s how devoted I am to you, dear reader. I dropped my left nut for you.

ABC hasn’t shown any signs of life on Friday night since the days of Urkel and Mr. Belvedere or, as I like to call it, the decline of Western Civilization. This year is no exception, and the quality has slid down the slippery piffle slope at an accelerated pace. Again they give us Wife Swap, which has two families swapping wives, but the swapping is less Swingtown and The Ice Storm and more like trading chlamydia for crabs. After an hour of yelling, crying, broken bottles, thrown furniture and a lot of swearing, I decided that I should calm down. It’s only a television show. At ten o’clock is the fairly reliable, yet outdated 20/20, whose usefulness came to an end with the advent of Ashleigh Banfield and Anderson Cooper. It’s a Neanderthal process in a Cro-Magnon world.

On CBS is The Ghost Whisperer, starring Party of Five alum Jennifer Love Hewitt. A psychic sees dead people and helps them “cross over” while giving comfort and aid to their not-deceased loved ones. I admit I really liked the episode where Apollo possesses a corpse and walks around like a zombie. That was pretty cool, but the load of New Agey balderdash from executive producer James Van Praagh pleads with audiences to believe the shite he’s shoveling, even delivered as a fiction. The psychic fun continues with The Ex-List, which is about as exciting as watching bread toast on a rotisserie. It centers around a woman who goes batshit nuts (my interpretation) after a ‘psychic’ tells her she has a year to get married or be single forever! Oh noes! In the words of Mad Magazine, “blech!” I suppose Friday is for psychics. Will the psychics forsee this getting canceled sooner than Viva Laughlin or Smith? Only two episodes will tell. Third to bat is Numb3rs, which is interesting, and has a neat premise. Alas, I have yet to see a single episode in its entirety, simply because of the CSI factor that emanates from most of CBS’ prime-time dramas. Perhaps I’ll put it on my Netflix list.

The CW offers an amusement with Everybody Hates Chris, which I don’t think is that funny. Then again, I like Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, so you can take that for what it’s worth. After that it’s The Game and a repeat of Top Model, so it’s really a night of fodder and detritus. The Game is about the girlfriend of an NFL star, who has to get used to living with the Game. It sounds as promising as a rehash of Fashion, Inc.

Fox has given up on Fridays. They’re hoping to amuse poor saps like me with the folly of idiots trying to prove themselves worthy of a prize. Normally, I’d poo-poo the idea of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader and Don’t Forget the Lyrics, but as I have proven five out of seven times, I am smarter than those smug little Elementarians, so I watch and enjoy the first. I have watched (and sometimes enjoyed) Don’t Forget the Lyrics for two reasons: I’m a sucker for Wayne Brady, and it’s fun to watch my wife try to sing along. That’s about all I have for Fox.

The most interesting part of the Friday Night lineup is NBC’s take. Deal or No Deal sandwiched in between Crusoe and Life. Crusoe is based on Daniel Defoe’s classic libertarian tale of the struggle of man vs. everything else. The preview looked luscious, so I’ll fire up the TiVo for an ep or two. Life has the red-headed guy who was in Band of Brothers, so it has three plusses without even trying. The rest of the premise is lackluster, but what isn’t lackluster this year?

So on Friday night, I suggest going to a bar and getting rip-roaring drunk and pretending you can still live out your college days. Or, for the family folks on this site (all two of you), maybe rent a movie or play a board game or something just as dull and mind-numbing. Whatever you do, it will still beat the Friday Night Fight.

spread the panic!

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Tags: criticism, entertainment, Fall, pop culture, prime time, smug, Television, TV

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.