TV Diary
a) "United States Of Tara"
So Steven Spielberg came up with some corny and potentially really offensive idea for a comedy about a mentally ill woman with multiple personalities, and decided that the lady who wrote Juno's unparalleled ear for completely moronic slang was needed to write the series. But since they ended up with a pretty nice cast I decided to at least watch the pilot anyway. And Toni Collette is, as always, a really impressive and believable actress when she's given a good role to play, like the 'normal' personality in the first scene of the pilot. But really, even when she has to play her character's hopelessly broad and ridiculous other personalities, she carries it pretty well, but there's really just no getting past that Diablo Cody dialogue. I kinda feel bad for John Corbett, he has such an appealing low-key bro vibe that seemingly every role he gets is just the laid back romantic foil for crazy or neurotic women (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Sex And The City," even "Northern Exposure" really).
b) "Tool Academy"
I had high hopes for this based on the title alone, but it really surpassed my expectations. VH1's had so many reality shows dedicated to the famous and almost-famous behaving badly now, and even the ones ostensibly about reforming them, like "Charm School," ultimately just give them chances to be rewarded for acting stupid on TV some more and rarely seem to change the participants. But this show, which takes a bunch of random douchebags who think they're competing to be "Mr. Awesome," and then reveals that they've been submitted to the show "Tool Academy" by their fed up girlfriends, actually combines the entertainment value of humiliating these tribal tattoo morons with a sense that they are actually learning something about themselves and their relationships. I mean the therapy sessions are pretty genuinely greuling stuff, to the degree that you can be sure that anything in a fake-looking reality show is genuine, and I felt some serious sympathy for the girls that put up with these guys. And now and then, one of them throws a tantrum and the host says "I'm sorry, you're just a tool" and kicks them out, and I go back to being entertained and not totally bummed out. Great show.
c) "True Beauty"
This kind of starts from the same premise as "Tool Academy," starting with a bunch of people thinking they're in a beauty competition but really being evaluated for 'inner beauty,' but the results are neither as funny as exec producer Ashton Kutcher intends, nor as deep and thought-provoking as exec producer Tyra Banks intends. In a way, it's kind of apt that a couple of former models who have spent the last 10 years trying painfully hard to prove that they're more than just a pretty face would come up with this show. But the execution is just really dull and the 'tests' they set up are really transparent and contrived and reveal little to nothing about the contestants. The only way this show could redeem itself is if at the end they reveal that it's actually a test of the host's inner beauty and tell Vanessa Minnillo that she's a terrible person.
d) "Hole In The Wall"
I only watched this for 20 minutes and I have no idea how they can stretch this show out for a whole hour, let alone multiple episodes. But for those 20 minutes I was laughing my ass off, as they say "it's time to FACE THE WALL" over and over and people try to bend into shapes and the wall comes at them and knocks them into a pool of water. It's the kind of bizarre mindless entertainment that would have to come from Japan, and would have to be put on U.S. airwaves by FOX, and I'll probably never watch it again. But most crappy game shows never even manage to be that entertaining once, so I can't really knock it.
So Steven Spielberg came up with some corny and potentially really offensive idea for a comedy about a mentally ill woman with multiple personalities, and decided that the lady who wrote Juno's unparalleled ear for completely moronic slang was needed to write the series. But since they ended up with a pretty nice cast I decided to at least watch the pilot anyway. And Toni Collette is, as always, a really impressive and believable actress when she's given a good role to play, like the 'normal' personality in the first scene of the pilot. But really, even when she has to play her character's hopelessly broad and ridiculous other personalities, she carries it pretty well, but there's really just no getting past that Diablo Cody dialogue. I kinda feel bad for John Corbett, he has such an appealing low-key bro vibe that seemingly every role he gets is just the laid back romantic foil for crazy or neurotic women (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Sex And The City," even "Northern Exposure" really).
b) "Tool Academy"
I had high hopes for this based on the title alone, but it really surpassed my expectations. VH1's had so many reality shows dedicated to the famous and almost-famous behaving badly now, and even the ones ostensibly about reforming them, like "Charm School," ultimately just give them chances to be rewarded for acting stupid on TV some more and rarely seem to change the participants. But this show, which takes a bunch of random douchebags who think they're competing to be "Mr. Awesome," and then reveals that they've been submitted to the show "Tool Academy" by their fed up girlfriends, actually combines the entertainment value of humiliating these tribal tattoo morons with a sense that they are actually learning something about themselves and their relationships. I mean the therapy sessions are pretty genuinely greuling stuff, to the degree that you can be sure that anything in a fake-looking reality show is genuine, and I felt some serious sympathy for the girls that put up with these guys. And now and then, one of them throws a tantrum and the host says "I'm sorry, you're just a tool" and kicks them out, and I go back to being entertained and not totally bummed out. Great show.
c) "True Beauty"
This kind of starts from the same premise as "Tool Academy," starting with a bunch of people thinking they're in a beauty competition but really being evaluated for 'inner beauty,' but the results are neither as funny as exec producer Ashton Kutcher intends, nor as deep and thought-provoking as exec producer Tyra Banks intends. In a way, it's kind of apt that a couple of former models who have spent the last 10 years trying painfully hard to prove that they're more than just a pretty face would come up with this show. But the execution is just really dull and the 'tests' they set up are really transparent and contrived and reveal little to nothing about the contestants. The only way this show could redeem itself is if at the end they reveal that it's actually a test of the host's inner beauty and tell Vanessa Minnillo that she's a terrible person.
d) "Hole In The Wall"
I only watched this for 20 minutes and I have no idea how they can stretch this show out for a whole hour, let alone multiple episodes. But for those 20 minutes I was laughing my ass off, as they say "it's time to FACE THE WALL" over and over and people try to bend into shapes and the wall comes at them and knocks them into a pool of water. It's the kind of bizarre mindless entertainment that would have to come from Japan, and would have to be put on U.S. airwaves by FOX, and I'll probably never watch it again. But most crappy game shows never even manage to be that entertaining once, so I can't really knock it.
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on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 12:02 PM.
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