Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Almeida You Up at the Rendezvous Point!



24, Episode: Day 7: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

This hour kicked off with Buchanan and Chloe Pulp Fiction-ing a semi-buried Agent Renee with adrenaline to revive her. While this worked, I still prefer my scenario in which Jack would have pistol-whipped a family of groundhogs until they agreed to burrow an underground escape route through which Renee would have crawled to safety.

Then, in a much needed coup d’état, Tony shot Emerson after he took Jack hostage, claiming to sense that something was up. Even though Jack was the one who came within inches of a bullet, it was Jack who asked Tony if he was OK. (Aww! Bromance!)

When President Taylor refused to comply with Dubaku’s demand to remove U.S. forces from Senegal, he put on his own private air show right outside the Oval Office window crashing two jets into each other. I’m sure the families of the passengers on those planes will be comforted to know that their loved ones died in the attempt to save a country with a Gross Domestic Product of $12 and whose major exports are textiles and typhoid. Book your vacation to Senegal today!

Meanwhile, while First Gentleman Henry Taylor (what exactly is the proper term for the emasculated husband of a ball-bustin’ female president? First Man? First Husband? Kevin Federline?), who had enjoyed a nice, hot coffee laced with a muscular paralytic (coming soon to Starbucks: the Neurotoxin Latte! Only $18.95.) courtesy of Agent Gedge, couldn’t do much to stop his captor from stabbing Samantha, he was able to regain just enough strength to drop that mofo off the balcony and choke him to death.

Finally, this hour ended with the most exciting news in 24 history: Jack’s coming to Ohio! Granted it’s not for sight-seeing but rather because Dubaku chose to attack a chemical plant in my home state. What can I say? This terrorist’s got good taste in targets! In case the 24 writers are running low on things for the cast to do in Ohio, I’ve come up with a few storylines:

1.) Jack must run up the glass pyramid side of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building to stop a terrorist plot to steal a pair of Mick Jagger’s pants.

2.) Chloe thwarts the KGB when they trap Kim Bauer on the Millennium Force at Cedar Point, threatening to derail the coaster into Lake Erie.

3.) When Nina Myers comes back from the dead as an eco-terrorist and is spotted executing polar bears at the Columbus Zoo, Tony must enlist the help of Bobo the Gorilla to push Nina into the shark tank.

And in honor of Jack & Tony being reunited for this new season, we need to take a look at the greatest 24 moment that never was: Jack & Tony at a drive-thru!





--Ray

Lez Dispenser


The L Word, Episodes: “Long Night’s Journey into Day”/”Least Likely”

Oh my God, they killed Jenny! That’s what we found out even before the obnoxious opening credits rolled in the premiere of the sixth and final season of The L Word. We don’t know how or why Jenny the Loon ended up floating in Bette and Tina’s pool, but it seems we’re going to have to sift through a seasonful of flashbacks to find out. The second the lead detective on the case turned out to be a sassy, built broad in a pantsuit, I knew it would only be a matter of time until she beds half the cast in a round-robin of patented L Word faux-thrusting.

Things were going swimmingly until episode 2 when several of the most annoying secondary characters resurfaced. First, there's Max the Cranky Shim, who reappeared WITH A FULL BEARD and pregnant! Paging Oprah! Then, Jodi the Deaf Lesbian popped up to hawk her heinous abstract art. (Will this show ever run out of outlandish minorities? I’m hoping they can manage to squeeze in a dwarf lesbian and a hypoglycemic, Sikh lesbian before the show’s end.)

This season seems promising but, hopefully, The L Word will return to its roots as it prepares for its sendoff: women way too pretty to realistically be lesbians engaging in physically impossible yet fun-to-watch missionary sex and moments of girl-on-girl oil wrestling. We should probably take a look at that clip to refresh our memories...



Ah, Showtime! Slowly reversing the progress of the Women's Movement since 1976! Oh, and Carmen, the greatest L Word character in the show’s history, better come back at some point because I still haven’t quite recovered from that black lingerie scene from a few seasons ago (conveniently pictured at left). Sorry, this show brings out the perviness in us all!

--Ray

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Breast Dressed


The Bachelor, Episode 3

First off, don’t ask my why on earth I’m watching this season of The Bachelor since it has that not-so-great record: in 12 season of The Bachelor and 4 seasons of The Bachelorette, only ONE couple has actually gotten married. (That’s a 6.25% success rate for $%&#’s sake!) But after watching the travesty of bachelorette DeAnna Pappas choosing that idiot man-child Jesse over Jason last year, I just couldn’t resist seeing single dad Jason humiliate himself on another reality dating show, I mean, get a second chance at love.

We were down to the final twelve and Stephanie is, of course, my favorite. How can you possibly not root for her after that adorable montage of her, Jason, and her daughter Sophia literally frolicking through Legoland? (Although I was a little worried that if they swung that poor child by her arms one more time, she was either going to vomit or require medical attention.) Luckily, Steph got her rose but we were soon to learn that the threat of vomit hadn't exactly subsided.

On a group date, or as I like to call them, Women’s Movement Digression (WMD) dates, Jason was rubbed down with baby oil by several of his harem members which, we were told, was going to somehow prevent breast cancer. Then, all the father-figure wholesomeness he had displayed with Steph and Soph devolved into fratboy perviness as he asked if he could rub plaster on his date’s breasts… again, to prevent breast cancer. During this date, Shannon the dental hygienist, who, if I can be blunt, looks like hell, kept obsessing about how she didn’t get any one-on-one time with Jason. My guess is that Jason kept looking for her to have one-on-one time, but she was so busy gabbing to the camera about how she didn’t get any one-on-one time that he just gave up. This mousy broad has issues!

But the best part of this episode was the one-on-one date with Natalie. This brazen blonde who was 90% makeup and 10% heart, when asked by Jason if there was anything important she wanted him to know about her, responded, “I love bears.” Needless to say, Goldilocks did not receive a rose. (Not even the C-listy musical performer of the week, Kate Voegele could save her.) The cherry on top was the rejectee being literally stripped of the $1 million diamond necklace Jason had given her at the beginning of the date. This was even worse than when DeAnna kicked that dude out of the horse-drawn carriage and left him standing on the freaking sidewalk! Upon her departure, Nat chose to go the American Idol route of exit behavior, swearing up a storm and screaming about how she was better than everyone and more attractive. Where’s Simon when we need him?

At the cocktail party, Jason made out with three gals and shared the most awkward kiss in reality TV history with Nikki. Then, Shannon went apeshit, started doing voices, basically begged Jason to impregnate her, and vomited during what, after twelve seasons of delay, actually turned out to be the most dramatic rose ceremony ever. In the end, idiots Kari and Erica (AKA the She-Beast from the East) left but, regardless, this carnival of freaks ABC has assembled this time around is sure to bring that 6.25% success rate down to 5.88%!

--Ray

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I Think I'm Turning Senegalese


24, Episode: Day 7: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Hello my long-lost TV peeps! I’ve had an outpouring of questions (lie) from thousands (lie) of readers (lie) wondering where I’ve been for the past month (lie). As I’ve slowly come to the realization that my co-blog is much more of a mono-blog (damn you, Sonia!), it took a great show to rouse me from my blogging slumber. What better show than 24?!

So I sat through the TV movie/season 7 prequel 24: Redemption in November watching Jack run amok in Senegal which was moderately entertaining, but last week’s 4-hour, 2-night, 3-bathroom break premiere packed in a few shocking moments. The surprises in order of occurrence are:

1.) Holy crap, Tony Almeida’s not dead!
2.) Holy crap, Tony Almeida’s evil!
3.) Holy crap, Tony Almeida’s not really evil!
4.) Holy crap, Jack Bauer almost stabbed a guy in the ear with a Bic pen!

So while Jack & Tony’s (which sounds like a plumbing duo) undercover plan to get some CIP device which… um… does something bad unfurled, I enjoyed guest star spotting! There was Carly Pope (Samantha McPherson from Popular! Where’s Mary Cherry?!) playing Samantha Roth, the former girlfriend of the now-dead president’s son. Then there’s Janeane Garofalo as Janis Gold. The ultraliberal Janeane doing a multiepisode guest role on 24 is kind of like Anne Coulter guesting on The L Word, but I can’t wait to see her go toe-to-toe with Chloe!

The best part of last night’s episode was Jack going all Bill Nye, the Science Guy and doing chemical reactions in an air vent to smoke out the Senegal prime minister dude. (Apparently Windex + Mr. Clean Kitchen & Bathroom = noxious gas.) Oddly, PM Matobo and the Missus were trapped in there with a Costco wholesale pack of Fiji water. Who knew they had $8-a-bottle designer water in Africa? I want my donation to UNICEF back!*

The episode closed with the Kill Bill Volume 2-esque burying alive of FBI agent Walker (who registered a 10 on the sexual tension Richter scale with Jack) meaning that Jack will probably somehow manage to fashion a breathing tube out of a nearby bamboo shoot so she can live. This season seems pretty good so far, but if Jack runs out of damsels in distress to rescue, Kim could always come back and get attacked by cougars in the forest again. (We miss you, Kim Bauer!)

--Ray

*I have never donated to UNICEF or any other charity for that matter.