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I’d Like to Ruin Television For You, 2009-2010 edition: Monday

September 3rd, 2009 by Waldorf Van Buren

It’s that time of year again! The official listings are out for the new Television season, and if you’re anything like me, then you are simultaneously frothing and salivating over the garbage and secret delights coming in over the transom. My job here, as the guy who ruins TV for you, is to give a quick rundown of the best and worst that TV is offering we few, we happy few, we groundlings of the idiot box. I haven’t seen any of the new shows, but if there is one thing I know, it’s that the Large Hadron Collider won’t destroy the Universe™ anytime soon — that and what’s bad in entertainment.

First up, I begin our venture through the boob tube land by visiting the “Monday Night Lineup”. It doesn’t seem too much different from last year’s appalling dung-heap of LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) funny business. ABC gives us another round of the mindnumbingly number of the mind Dancing with the “Stars” (quotes mine), with some “Stars” I’ve never heard of, nor care to see Foxtrot across my new TV screen. Tom DeLay. . . Really? I’ve already seen his soft-shoe and his tap-dance and I wasn’t impressed then. Perhaps his prison stint has loosened him up, so to speak, but it still won’t get me watching that crapulated mission to fucktacular nonsense. Hmm. I think I should trademark that phrase. Anyway, it’s more of the same shit, different season. If I want to see a politician sing and dance, I’ll watch Charles Durning’s turn as the Governor in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Ooooooh, I love to dance a little sidestep!) A whole two freakin’ hours of that inner-taint-ment (okay, I promise no more ridiculous and awkward punnage). It’s followed by Castle, which has my semi-approval if only to keep Nathan “Cap’n Tightpants” Fillion’s career alive. The woman that is in the show with him is pretty cute, too. However, that’s not a reason to watch the mostly formulaic rehash of Moonlighting. Yes, yes, I know it’s not Moonlighting, but it might as well be – although they’d never be able to pull off Taming of the Shrew.

CBS continues its trend of mediocre to good comedies, starting with another season of Ted Moseby (Josh Radnor) trying to find “The One” that he speaks of in Bob Saget’s voice to his uninterested children in How I Met Your Mother. It’s actually a quite good show, despite being a comedy of situations, and the ensemble is strong. It also helps that I have a crush on Neil Patrick Harris (mostly for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long blog), Alyson Hanagan (the whole Willow thing and, well, things she’s done with a flute), and Cobie Smulders (what’s not to love?). Josh Radnor reminds me of a good friend I had during Elementary and High School, and Jason Segal reminds me of one of my college roommates. So they’re both cool with me, too. On after HIMYM is a new comedy featuring Greg and Dharma’s enjoyable Jenna Elfman in a role not suited to her. The whole premise is highly convoluted about her getting pregnant by a friend and moving in for a platonic relationship but her party girl friends don’t want her to settle and she’s also being pursued by her ex and that friend she had the accidental kid with is still a kid himself. It’s really a mashup of bad ideas, much like most other CBS sitcoms. It would be just thirty minutes of wasted time waiting for the next funny show to come on, but it is followed by the Charlie Sheen-Jon Cryer show Two and a Half Men, so it’s much longer than that. In last year’s “I’d Like To Ruin Television for You”, I managed to say that it was actually a funny comedy, and I know I lost points with some of you on that. After watching a whole season, I retract those statements and renounce the show. . . except the end title cards with Chuck Lorre’s bits of wisdom. One thing I can assure you, in HD they are more readable, and when they are more readable, they are 76% funnier. It almost makes up for the lost 28 and a half minutes that precede the cards, but oh well. CBS does redeem itself at 9:30 PM with The Big Bang Theory. It is a pop culture geek phenomenon that I willingly and most assuredly rate as last season’s funniest show, as well as the best of all shows last season. Looking over the microwaved meatloaf and coagulated mac and cheese that the execs call new, I can prematurely proclaim them to still keep that title. If you haven’t watched, do yourself a favor and Netflix the first season. If you don’t think it’s even remotely funny, then you probably are not doing yourself any favors by reading my tripe, either. CBS plunks down its Monday night anchor with Horatio Cane taking off and putting on sunglasses in CSI:Miami. The most unwatchable of the three.

Fuck if I’m even going to mention CW’s Monday night schedule.

Fox gives us another season of HOUSE, followed by another season of HOUSE with Tim Roth. Oh, and Jennifer Beals is on the show. I’m kind of beyond House, now. I’ll watch it in repeats, but I won’t bother to DVR it. Lie to Me*, the House with Roth, appeals as much as plantar’s warts and reflux. So, Fox is a skip for Monday night.

NBC gives us another installment of Heroes. Honestly, if it weren’t for Greg “Grunny” Grunberg’s sexuality, his incessant cries of “Yowsa!”, and his underplayed, (and unfortunately underutilized character), I’d give up entirely. I’m extraordinarily tired of the Petrelli good/evil plotlines, the Sylar good/evil plotlines, the Hiro losing his power plotlines, and the Claire-Daddy issue plotlines. I guess I am tired of the tired old plotlines. The most interesting story line they played was one that never played out – with the alternate version of the future. That dystopic look was awesome and they should have gone balls-out with it. Instead, they wimped out. I’ve pretty much given up on Heroes. I don’t know if I can swallow another volume. Sorry, Grunny. If it turns out to be good, I’ll get it on Netflix or On Demand or something, but I won’t waste my Monday DVRing on it ever again. I’ve been duped too many times. I think there is another show on after that – yes, Trauma. Trauma is a drama (hah) about paramedics. I think I saw this before – it was called Emergency! or Third Watch or something like that. Really, I have no use for that show. If I want to see real heroes I’ll go talk to some firefighters or volunteer EMT’s in my own town. They are far more entertaining anyway. I’d also include Jay Leno’s show in the Ten spot, but I refuse to acknowledge his existence until Andy Hallet is properly honored.

So, that is the schmaltz and shit filled Monday evening, and by this blogger’s reckoning, Monday night is owned by CBS, but barely. My advice is to tape/DVR the two best things on that night (and my vote goes to How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory) then go out and dump some money into the economy or volunteer at a soup kitchen. Either way, you are in for more entertainment and excitement dodging H1N1 than sitting on your couch wasting your brain on TV. My brain is fired just talking about one day of the new season, so the next six will have to come in installments. I know, you’re quivering with anticipation. . . like Jell-O™ (brand gelatin).

NEXT: Tuesday Night belongs to the Visitors. . .

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Journal, Media, Panic!. 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.


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