The Pratt Pack

The Hills, Episode: “Don’t Act Innocent…”

Poor Frankie. He’s the Hills character who has been constantly mentioned on the show since season 1, is always hosting pool parties at his house, and even manages to sneak into a few shots here and there but, unfortunately, due to his not-100% Caucasian ethnic background, is not permitted to actually be included in Lauren’s vapid entourage.

Chez Frankie played host to one of two Pratt meltdowns this week: the first being Stephanie Pratt and Doug’s. First of all, these two have ZERO chemistry together and are clearly feigning a connection just to get an entire episode devoted to them (mission accomplished!) After each tried to explain their way out of their hook-up, trusty Brody emerged to bitch out Stephanie for the 15th time this season! Then Lauren came to comfort/not comfort a crying Stephanie but ended up just alternating between wiping her tears and glaring at her uncomfortably during long stretches of silences. Remember, on the Lauren Conrad Scale of Emotions, an uncomfortable silence is comparable to a normal person having a full-blown conniption that includes screaming, crying, and object-smashing.

Pratt Meltdown # 2: After Heidi’s dim-witted sister decided to surprise Heidi by flying their mother in from non-LA (that’s how people on The Hills define any locale that’s outside of LA, NYC, London or Paris), the real surprise was that Mama Montag had no idea her silicone-infused daughter was even living with Spencer Pratt the King of Smarmy. In an attempt to find a common ground, Spenc and prospective Mama-in-law went out to lunch and he spent the entire time making mocking, sarcastic, and sometimes threatening comments to her, all the while doing his trademark “obnoxious full-grin with head tilt.” Welcome to the family!

In the end, the best part of this episode was the 3-second shot we got of Whitney spitting out pool water. As the only Lauren hanger-on with any semblance of intelligence, how much longer is Whit going to deal with these inane, sushi-eating morons before she wises up?

Oh well, time to go put on my giant, Olsen-sized sunglasses and dine alfresco. See you next week, Lauren and the gang!

--Ray

Gimmie 5...Years

Desperate Housewives, Episode: “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow”

As we all know from the final scenes of the DH season 4 finale, the series is jumping ahead 5 years to reinvigorate the writing and to help explain why Nicollette Sheridan’s plastic surgery techniques look so 2013.

So let’s jump right in and check on our housewives, one-by-one, to see how the flash-forward has treated them…

Susan

With a new, cute, albeit terribly miscast baby (why would Susan’s baby be blonde? Or have legs that measure more than four inches in diameter?), Susan’s now doing her painter. Seriously, the whole “housewife effs a blue collar guy and hilariously pushes him out the window to avoid getting caught” story arc is très season one. (Oh, Jesse Metcalfe, your career just hasn’t taken off as quickly as you’d hoped!) Then, just when we thought we were finally rid of Mike the Percocet-Poppin’ Plumber (if his name were Peter, that would’ve been even more alliterative), it turns out that he didn’t actually die in a car crash as we were led to believe at the beginning of the episode. I, for one, am relieved. Now we get yet another season of Mike Delfino, the least interesting DH character ever! (Yes, even less interesting than Susan’s daughter, What’s-Her-Name.)

Lynette

I have to say I’m more than mildly perturbed with Lynette’s child count! First, she had like 9. Then 4. Now, we’re down to just 2! Maybe we’ll find out what happened in the 5-year interim—and maybe DCFS was involved—but the now-16-year-old red-headed boys (AKA The Ginger Mafia) are engaging in ridiculously exaggerated misbehavior like turning their parents’ pizza place into an illegal, after-hours casino. Tune in next week when the Scavo twins kill a hooker and Lynette has to bury the body...in heels!

Gabby

Now fat and frumpy (and by fat I mean ‘TV fat,’ which is like 114 lbs., and by frumpy, I mean they make her wear clothes from Macy’s instead of Saks), Gabby has 2 fatty daughters, one of whom downs cake like nobody’s bidness. The still-blind Carlos is…well…still blind.

Bree

Having built a Martha Stewart-esque empire, Bree Van De Kamp isn’t getting along so hot with Katherine Mayfair. All we really gathered from the 5 year break is that her beeyotch daughter stole the baby and that Orson the annoying dentist/vehicular homicide-attempter is still in the picture.

…Oh, and the kind-of-a-main-housewife-but-not-always-included-amongst-the-group-as-a-whole-and-not-featured-in-the-opening-credits-thereby-ranking-her-beneath-the-four-main-housewives housewife Edie is back with a new hubby (played by Neal McDonough, that creepy guy with the crazy eyes from Boomtown—remember that show?—no?—well that’s why it was cancelled) who may or may not be a serial killer. Here’s to hoping that either Mike or Orson is his first victim!

--Ray

P.S. - Can’t wait until season 6 when they flash forward another 5 years. Possible story arc: Susan needs a hip replacement and the hip of a preemie baby is used.

DVR Deluge

Can we please talk about tonight's DVR extravaganza?! These are all the shows I have scheduled tonight...

9pm Desperate Housewives (ABC) Season 5 premiere
9pm Family Guy (FOX) Season 7 premiere
9pm Dexter (Showtime) Season 3 premiere
10pm Brothers & Sisters (ABC) Season 3 premiere
10pm Mad Men (AMC)
10pm Skins (BBC America) (A phenomenal British series I've been addicted to!)
10pm Californication (Showtime) Season 2 premiere

The best part is, I have an essay on Emma due early tomorrow! Sorry, Jane Austen but Bree Van De Kamp is just more culturally relevant than you right now.

--Ray

Ice, Ice, Baby

Grey’s Anatomy, Episode: “Dream a Little Dream of Me”

Now comes the time for me to eschew any and all vestiges of masculinity so I can bring you my recap of Grey’s Anatomy: a show watched by millions of 14-year-old girls, middle-aged cat ladies, and me. I know what you’re thinking: “Ray, didn’t you eschew your masculinity a loooong time ago when you became obsessed with Gossip Girl?” To which I would respond, “STFU. I’ve been watching girl-TV since the mid-‘90s!” (Ally McBeal, you’re gone but not forgotten!)

So here we are in season 5 of G’sA or as I like to call it, Loquacious, Ethnically Diverse Doctors of Varying Levels of Attractiveness, Most of Whom are Sluts, or LEDDVLAMWS for short. First of all, I love how the people on this show get a ridiculously unlimited amount of face time with their doctors, specifically the scene in which Dr. Karev counseled one of the various, overacting, Guest-Actress-in-a-Drama-Emmy-hungry extras about her husband cheating on her. I had to wait an hour and a half to get a damn throat culture, but these people get all day! "Excuse me doctor, can you please leave your 30 dying patients (including my husband who has ebola, the clap, and a steak knife jammed into his occipital lobe) alone for a while so you can sit with me in a vacant, dimly lit room and discuss the many dangers, toils, and snares of marriage and/or life in general while snow falls poignantly outside and an acoustic cover of a Jeff Buckley song by Michelle Branch plays in the background? OK, thanks!”

I don’t recall much of the beginning of this episode but it followed the general outline of a Grey’s opening:

9:00-9:02 Light banter about doctor’s sex lives.
9:02-9:04 Dr. Bailey and her white-girl haircut yell at people.
9:04-9:07 Patient shows up at ER entrance with outlandish wound. Patient is always outlandish person (midget, prostitute, Amish lesbian) impaled with outlandish foreign object (blender, twig, Mariah Carey album)
9:07 Grey’s Anatomy logo dramatically appears right after someone faints.

All I remember is that there was some woman whose memory reset every 30 seconds. (Memento rip-off! Christopher Nolan, call your lawyer!) Life actually wouldn’t be so bad if your memory reset every 30 seconds: you could eat twice a minute guilt-free! (Note to self: suffer head trauma, buy Doritos.)

So we’re plodding through the 2-hour premiere thinking, “You know what this episode needs? A metaphor for Dr. Yang’s cold demeanor displaying how, some day, it will catch up with her!” when Dr. Yang, during an outlandish speech, slips outlandishly and is then outlandishly impaled by… wait for it… an icicle! Oh, the outlandishness! Making matters worse, the shot of the icicle breaking was bad TV-CGI (brought to you by the makers of the Lost smoke monster!). Cristina “Brillo Pad Eyebrows” Yang survived to make out with some random army doctor. Maybe he’ll become her new boyfriend… until he inevitably calls Dr. O'Malley a fag on set and gets fired.

Katherine “Don’t Nominate Me for an Emmy” Heigl (in case you haven’t noticed, I love doing mid-name nicknames) had a Denny flashback in which she had to wear that damn prom dress again (I hope it was laundered). Despite 15 botched heart transplants (courtesy of Dr. Izzie “I Don’t Know What the F**k I’m Doing” Stevens) and having been dead for 2 years, Denny still manages to keep his stubble at just the perfect length!

So, kids, Grey’s is officially back! Time to vote on which scenario will open next week’s show…

A. A white supremacist hemophiliac with a heart of gold is impaled by one of his burning crosses.
B. A husband and wife who are also conjoined twins have been impaled with a garden hose.
C. A blind, morbidly obese Muslim child with a prosthetic neck has purposely impaled himself on a parade float much to the chagrin of his fundamentalist parents.
D. A perfectly healthy girl shows up at the ER entrance looking to fill out a job application to work in the maintenance department. Dr. Bailey impales her with a mop.

--Ray

ROD – The 60th Annual Emmys Edition

Welcome to the first edition of “ROD” or "Random Observations During." Here, instead of providing you with a streamlined, organized, thesis-driven editorial about a television show, we just messily list our knee-jerk reactions in a scattershot manner. In case you haven’t noticed, the budget of our humble blog GMTOGMD doesn’t allow for an editor.

8:00 PM – Unless she’s giving out cars or corralling Tom Cruise, Oprah is just boring.

8:19 PM – Travesty # 1: Jean Smart of Samantha Who? beats out SNL’s Amy Poehler (our first choice), Ugly Betty’s Vanessa Williams (our second choice), and Pushing Daisies’s Kristen Chenoweth (our third choice) for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Nobody even watches Samantha Who? and Amy Poehler is our generation’s Lucille Ball! (Yes, I stand behind that.)

8:29 PM – Travesty # 2: Some dude with an unpronounceable name from Damages beats out Mad Men’s John Slattery (our first choice) and Lost’s Michael Emerson (our second choice) for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama. It’s been 30 minutes and no one good has won!

8:42 PM – Oh snap! Conan O’Brien makes fun of Katherine Heigl for bowing out of the Best Supporting Actress in a Drama category this year. This almost makes up for Travesty # 3: Dianne Wiest (In Treatment) beating Chandra Wilson, Sandra Oh (both Grey’s Anatomy), and Rachel Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters). The winner didn’t even show! We’d have taken an ungrateful Izzie Stevens over this!

8:52 PM – Steve Martin reminisces about some (possibly) dead guy. Where’s Brangelina?

8:53 PM – Steve’s Martin’s dead guy accepts the award indicating he’s likely not dead.

8:56 PM – Who are you and why are you STILL talking?! Seriously, is Brangelina anywhere in the vicinity?! I don’t even care if they’re at an Applebee’s, just cut to them!

9:01 PM – Josh Groban? Bring back the not-dead guy! I’m sorry for what I said about him!

9:06 PM – Just because you wear glasses doesn’t mean we’ll forget about the “rude little pig” voicemail, Alec Baldwin! It’s time for the miniseries/TV movies awards, AKA snack time.

9:19 PM – Heidi Klum refers to Bones as The Bones. Who says being the host of the Emmys requires you know TV shows’ names?!

9:20 PM – Lauren Conrad and David Boreanaz have the embarrassing role of presenting other presenters. You know, if Lauren would just admit that The Hills is scripted, she could actually be eligible to win Emmys instead of presenting people who present Emmys!

9:25 PM – Tina Fey wins for writing 30 Rock! She’s our generation’s Lucille Ball. Wait, did I already use that? OK, she’s Ethel. Also, she references one of the greatest lines in the history of 30 Rock: “Never go with a hippie to a second location.”

9:28-9:43 PM – Too-long clip from The West Wing, Martin Sheen tells us to vote, the speech by the president of the ATAS, then more awards for TV movies and miniseries. The only highlight from this stretch of snoozery is the producer of Recount almost running into the camera when walking up the aisle.

9:44 PM – John Stewart and Stephen Colbert help us forget how bored we are with more directing and writing awards by comparing John McCain to a prune.

10:15 PM – It’s 10:15 and they’re still giving out directing awards? We’re all going to die.

10:16 PM – Mad Men wins for Best Writing for a Drama Series! This bodes well for it to win the biggie. I swear to God, if House, Damages, or, heaven forbid, Boston Legal wins I’ll have a conniption. That would effectively render the Emmys equal to the Grammys in the level of inanity with which the final award is given. (In case you missed it, at this year’s Grammys, a Herbie Hancock cover album (yes, cover, as in non-original material) beat both Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black and Kanye West’s Graduation for Album of the Year.)

10:25 PM – Finally, the real awards. OK, we’ll forgive Alec “rude little pig” Baldwin because he absolutely deserves to win Best Actor in a Comedy for 30 Rock which is now officially funnier than The Office.

10:28 PM – Does anyone watch Damages? I still think of Glenn Close (winner of Best Actress in a Drama) as Cruella de Vil only.

10:29 PM – Dead people slide show! No, Estelle Getty! Come back to us!

10:38 PM – Shock of the night: Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) beats favored John Hamm (Mad Men) for Best Actor in a Drama. We think MM is the better show, but all that matters really is that neither the ridiculously overrated James Spader (Boston Legal) nor the Britishly overrated Hugh Laurie (House) won.

10:41 PM – Yay, Tina Fey (Best Actress in a Comedy)! Mary-Louise Parker is a goddess but, again, 30 Rock is the funniest show on television. (Weeds is the second-funniest!)

10:42 PM – It took us 2 hours and 42 minutes, but we finally get a funny bit—Jimmy Kimmel’s reality TV spoof when announcing Jeff Probst (Survivor) as the winner of Best Reality TV Show Host.

10:53 PM – An emaciated Mary Tyler Moore and an awesome Betty White give Tina Fey the Best Comedy Series Emmy for 30 Rock. If you don’t watch a show after it wins the Best Comedy Series Emmy two years in a row, something is just wrong with you!

10:56 PM – Yes Mad Men (Best Drama Series)! Die, Boston Legal, die! (Sorry, I’m still upset about last year’s Emmys when James Spader of Boston Legal beat James freakin’ Gandolfini of The Sopranos—AKA the greatest show in modern history—for Best Actor in a Drama, an event now known as “The Worst Moment in the History of the Emmys.” Making it even worse: that was The Sopranos's final year.)

10:57 PM – Thanks to rushing through the end of the show like no one’s business, The Emmys end 3 minutes early. We only had 3 travesties which means I won’t swear off this whole TV thing. (As if I ever was going to.) Good night kids!

--Ray

The Least of My "Brother"s

How do you know the summer is officially over? Is it the days getting shorter? The chill in the air? The kids going back to school? Hell no! You know fall has begun when Julie Chen makes her hair extra poofy for the Big Brother finale! Tuesday night, Dan, who only owns one, red St. Mary’s T-shirt, beat Memphis, the dim-witted, cockatoo-haired “mixologist,” by a unanimous vote. While this season was underwhelming to say the least (listen, you just can’t top a full-cast pool orgy, seizures, and an emotionally unstable, unnaturally-lactating bikini barista), Dan’s win was a welcome relief over the aforementioned mix-o-cockatoo and Colonel Crankypants (Jerry).

Our finale kicked off with the “Pick me, choose me, LOVE ME” segment where each of the final two begs the jury, Meredith Grey-style, to vote for them. Memphis tried to make “Ya know” his “But first” by using it 38 times during his addresses to the jury but Dan obviously made a much better impression by turning on his charm—and by charm I mean screaming into the camera as usual. As for the jury, April wore a full leather catsuit for no apparent reason and if Renny’s bipolar continuum were an automobile, the Check Engine light would have definitely been on.

Speaking of Renny the N’Awlins Loon, during the Parade O’ Jurors, she took a full three minutes to walk down the terribly designed, wooden walkway to enter her designated stage area. (Seriously, what inebriated set designer chose “Midwestern deck” as the studio’s theme?) At one point, none of the audience members were even offering their hands to shake anymore; Renny just began belligerently grabbing them and forcing a shake to prolong her screen time. Last Renny observation, I promise: She began her speech with, “In life and in TV games…” Isn’t that from Psalms?

Post-vote, Chenny brought back the houseguests who didn’t make the jury (AKA the people we stopped caring about in mid-July) and Brian delivered an interminable rant about how he witnessed some incredibly mean behavior while watching at home such as April and Michelle making fun of Keesha’s clothes. Obviously, Brian missed last season if he thinks that qualifies as mean! (If you also missed last season, here are two small samplings: 1. Several houseguests made fun of the fact that Amanda’s father hung himself to her face. 2.) Houseguests Chelsia and Josh, after finding out fellow houseguest Natalie had had several abortions, conspired to throw ketchup on her and shout, “This is the blood from your aborted baby fetuses!” (The BB producers put a stop to that one before it happened.)) In short, for something to qualify as “mean” in the Big Brother house, the mocking of death better be somehow involved!

In conclusion, if anything good came out of this unremarkable and predictable season finale, it was the genesis of “Give Me TV or Give Me Death,” the co-blog by myself, Ray, and my fellow-blogger Sonia! We have filled our DVRs to the brim to bring you our reactions to every moment of the television season ahead of us. From the new (90210 2.0) to the played out (yes, Prison Break is still on the air and we love it!), from the critically lauded (Mad Men, 30 Rock) to the critically reviled (you’ll never take The Hills from us!), from the young (Gossip Girl) to the elderly (The 700 Club… OK, just kidding on that one), we’re bringing it all to you!

So let the 2008/2009 TV season begin! Sonia and I will be here to rant, rave, review, recap, recollect, recapitulate and revel in every Dunder-Mifflin kerfuffle (The Office), every inexplicable smoke monster appearance (Lost), every ridiculous medical procedure that is conveniently evocative of the personal issues Meredith Grey happens to be currently enduring, every CTU phone ring (doot doot DOOT doo), and every disfigured lesbian midget with lobster claws and postpartum depression (Nip/Tuck). So for the 3 people (including Sonia and I) who will visit this web page throughout this TV season, we salute you! We’re doing it for you, America*!

--Ray

*Again, by America, I mean the 0.0000006% of the American population that will read this.