TV Diary
1. Planet Earth
This show is the shit. I grew up watching all those National Geographic/Wild America-type nature shows on PBS with all the intense footage of animals in their natural habitat and exotic plantlife and all that. And I'm amazed it took this long for someone to update that format with more and more hi-tech cameras and more stylized cinematography, it seems like a no-brainer because stuff like this never ceases to be worth watching. But then, since this show took 5 years to shoot, I guess they did get the idea a while back but just took their time to do it right. Christ, this show has a 9.8/10 user rating on IMDb, don't take my word for it, watch it.
2. American Idol
I have to say, given that it's kind of undeniable that this season has been overall kind of weak, especially compared to last season, I'm pretty happy with the way the last few weeks have gone down, aside from the whole "Idol Gives Back" debacle and the ripoff of a 2 hour results show with no result. They got rid of Sanjaya before the top 6 thankfully, and he's already starting to feel like a distant memory (at least, until he gets a pilot on FOX), and then dumped Chris "nasally is a form of singing" Richardson and Phil, who'd turned in some good performances but just was not built to last. And this week, I was ready to see LaKisha go with her bad song choices and all. She really fell off from the early episodes, I just started tuning out her performances. If you'd asked me a month or two ago who I thought the top 3 should be, I probably would've said Jordin, Blake and Melinda (I might've thrown in Sligh or Glocksen in there out of some favoritism, but I ultimately knew they weren't built to last). Melinda is a little boring but still a truly great singer, and right now I'm rooting for Jordin to take it and become a serious pop star. Everyone I know hates hates hates Blake, which I can understand. But hey, it's American Idol, of course the token hip/contemporary guy is gonna be into 311 and beatboxing! Everything on AI is seen through a lens of middle American corniness, that's the way it is and I probably wouldn't have it any other way. Plus I could see him making some decent Maroon 5-type pop records.
3. The Riches
I feel like this show is on very thin ice, where the premise is constantly in danger of becoming a little too implausible or contrived to get into. And every time I watch the preview at the end for the next week's episode, it looks like that's gonna be the one where it just gets too ridiculous, and then the actual episode pulls it off and I'm still invested in it. But then, they just got renewed for a 2nd season, so it'll be interesting to see how they keep it all going. Right now, I think Minnie Driver as Dahlia is emerging as the really compelling character in the whole thing. Where Eddie Izzard is just kind of hanging in there as a dramatic actor and his character is not too different from the smartass making it up as he goes along that he plays in his standup act, Dahlia keeps getting fleshed out and humanized more every week. At first it seemed like she could be a caricature of a woman who can't get her shit together, who went to prison and ended up with a drug habit. But the show keeps delving into her struggle to keep straight, to not hate the man she went to prison for because he's still her husband, to keep up the facade of the life they're now faking. I don't know if Driver's ever had a film role this complex before.
This show is the shit. I grew up watching all those National Geographic/Wild America-type nature shows on PBS with all the intense footage of animals in their natural habitat and exotic plantlife and all that. And I'm amazed it took this long for someone to update that format with more and more hi-tech cameras and more stylized cinematography, it seems like a no-brainer because stuff like this never ceases to be worth watching. But then, since this show took 5 years to shoot, I guess they did get the idea a while back but just took their time to do it right. Christ, this show has a 9.8/10 user rating on IMDb, don't take my word for it, watch it.
2. American Idol
I have to say, given that it's kind of undeniable that this season has been overall kind of weak, especially compared to last season, I'm pretty happy with the way the last few weeks have gone down, aside from the whole "Idol Gives Back" debacle and the ripoff of a 2 hour results show with no result. They got rid of Sanjaya before the top 6 thankfully, and he's already starting to feel like a distant memory (at least, until he gets a pilot on FOX), and then dumped Chris "nasally is a form of singing" Richardson and Phil, who'd turned in some good performances but just was not built to last. And this week, I was ready to see LaKisha go with her bad song choices and all. She really fell off from the early episodes, I just started tuning out her performances. If you'd asked me a month or two ago who I thought the top 3 should be, I probably would've said Jordin, Blake and Melinda (I might've thrown in Sligh or Glocksen in there out of some favoritism, but I ultimately knew they weren't built to last). Melinda is a little boring but still a truly great singer, and right now I'm rooting for Jordin to take it and become a serious pop star. Everyone I know hates hates hates Blake, which I can understand. But hey, it's American Idol, of course the token hip/contemporary guy is gonna be into 311 and beatboxing! Everything on AI is seen through a lens of middle American corniness, that's the way it is and I probably wouldn't have it any other way. Plus I could see him making some decent Maroon 5-type pop records.
3. The Riches
I feel like this show is on very thin ice, where the premise is constantly in danger of becoming a little too implausible or contrived to get into. And every time I watch the preview at the end for the next week's episode, it looks like that's gonna be the one where it just gets too ridiculous, and then the actual episode pulls it off and I'm still invested in it. But then, they just got renewed for a 2nd season, so it'll be interesting to see how they keep it all going. Right now, I think Minnie Driver as Dahlia is emerging as the really compelling character in the whole thing. Where Eddie Izzard is just kind of hanging in there as a dramatic actor and his character is not too different from the smartass making it up as he goes along that he plays in his standup act, Dahlia keeps getting fleshed out and humanized more every week. At first it seemed like she could be a caricature of a woman who can't get her shit together, who went to prison and ended up with a drug habit. But the show keeps delving into her struggle to keep straight, to not hate the man she went to prison for because he's still her husband, to keep up the facade of the life they're now faking. I don't know if Driver's ever had a film role this complex before.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at 11:33 AM.
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