The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

I didn’t have the gumption to post on a daily basis during the 2010 Winter Olympics, but I did watch a lot of them.  As I get older I find that I enjoy the Olympics more and more, although I think I prefer the Summer games more.  So here’s some random observations on the 17-day spectacle that was the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics…

• First off, I know I’m not the only one who thought NBC’s coverage sucked hard.  I don’t even care about the tape delays so much (since I’m not around to watch during the day anyway), but there was so much else to hate.  Look, I get that television networks are businesses, and the primary goal of a business is to make money.  But really, could NBC have been any more clumsy about the unending barrage of commercials?  After awhile it felt like I was watching one long infomercial for Visa, Verizon, AT&T, Diet Coke, Lexus, and McDonald’s among others.  (It’s the Visa show, brought to you with limited Olympic interruption!)

• I totally missed the opening ceremonies, but from the online commentary I saw I don’t think I missed much.  Slam poetry, for real?

• Every time I saw the Olympic logo I kept thinking of the cover for Rush’s Test for Echo album.

• Speaking of Rush – how the hell do you have a closing ceremony that celebrates the essence of Canada and not include Rush?  Avril Lavigne?  Nickleback?  WTF???

• Say Apolo Ohno again.  I dare you, I double dare you mother*^@%&@%!

• I’m not ashamed to say I watched more curling than any other event.  I do feel kind of bad for all the crap John Shuster took for leading the U.S. team’s march of futility, but it was damn frustrating to witness.

• To watch the commercials and little human interest stories that dominated NBC’s coverage, you wouldn’t think any of the athletes had fathers.

• I’m not going to bellyache about the U.S. men’s hockey team falling short in the gold medal game – considering they weren’t even expected to medal at all – but it would’ve been sweet to win the whole thing.

• Great job by Steve Holcomb’s gold-medal bobsleigh team, but if I never have to see his ass jiggle in that skin-tight suit again it’ll be too soon.

• Dear Julia Mancuso – STFU and stop whining.  Joannie Rochette cried less than you, and that poor girl just lost her mother.

• It’s cool and all that Shaun White dominated the Halfpipe, but I can’t get into it.  It’s the equivalent of the slam dunk competition at the NBA All-Star game.

• Best line of the entire Games goes to Bob Costas just prior to the closing ceremonies, praising Canada for their “innovations in science and whatnot”.

• I seem to remember coverage of the Beijing games being spread out over a lot more networks (with a much greater variety of events), but maybe I’m imagining things.

• Ballet, classical choirs, and giant glowing hamster balls.  Holy crap, Sochi means business.

Television.  Love it or hate it, it sure beats reading or taking out the garbage.  I don’t post all that frequently about TV on this site, but man do I spend a truckload of time watching it.  So here’s a breakdown of the shows I watched over this past television season, and what I thought of them.  Overall it was a pretty good year, and the spectre of the writers’ strike is already a distant memory.

American Dad! – I can only guess that more of Seth MacFarlane’s attention has been directed towards this show than Family Guy, which is the reason it has consistently been the funnier of the two.  Or maybe he isn’t overseeing it, and that’s why it’s funnier.  Either way, this season saw a drop in quality from the previous few but was still pretty good.  Any bit with a Roger/Steve pairing was usually pretty good, but there were good laughs to be had elsewhere as well (Steve and friends facing off against the cool kids at school and the inspired Roger/Hayley costume switching gag to name a few).

One of the best elements of American Dad! is its willingness to explore Roger’s various neuroses and personalities for something other than comedy.  “The One That Got Away” is a prime example – Roger tracks down an unknown crook who maxed out his credit card, and it turns out to be himself living a completely separate life.  This kind of relatively nuanced writing has been done before on AD and I hope to see more of it. Final grade: B-

Read on Daddy-O…

Sometimes there’s something to be said for having little to no social life, and therefore spending New Year’s Eve at home with nothing more than a loved one by your side, some decent champagne to drink, and the glow of TV to entertain you.  Such was the case last night as I and Mrs. Suit were channel hopping to catch various New Year’s celebrations on the boob tube.

Dick Clark, bless his heart, is just too awkward to watch at this point.  I commend him for coming back from a stroke to usher in the new year once again, but when you find yourself waiting eagerly for Ryan Seacrest to come back you know it’s bad.

Over on NBC, Carson Daly put in yet another competent but bland effort.  How the hell is this guy still in show business?  He’s got the personality of cold oatmeal.

The greatest New Year’s Eve celebration, it turns out, was over on CNN.  The festivities were hosted by Anderson Cooper and…Kathy Griffin?!?  Yep, Kathy “no job is too small” Griffin.  In contrast to the rather scripted and stilted productions from the broadcast networks, Anderson and Griffin spent the evening playing rather loose with things and wandering from whatever script there was.

It did actually result in a fairly entertaining show, especially just before 1am Eastern.  Griffin, who had apparently been heckled from the crowd below all night, lost it and fell victim to a producer who must’ve had too much to drink and forgot to cut her mic in time.  As a result we got this TV instant classic:

I don’t know about you, but that’s gotta rank just ahead of the moon landing as the single greatest moment in television history.  In the event the video gets taken down (as well as the dozens of others already up), here’s a transcript:

“Shut up!  You know what, screw you, I’m working!  Why don’t you get a job buddy?  You know what, I don’t go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth.”

You stay classy, Kathy.

I didn’t write about Heroes much (at all) last season, and for good reason.  After a brilliant debut, the second season pretty much redefined “letdown”.  You know this, the fans know this, and even creator Tim Kring knows this.  So the show’s third volume – “Villains”, which debuted with two episodes last night – is crucial to the success of the third season and the show’s future.

It’s going to take some time for me to really immerse myself back into the world of Heroes again, but so far so good.  The balance between action and drama – draction – was just about right.  Seeing as the last new episode aired about 10 months ago, I found it surprisingly easy to pick up the show’s various storylines.  That probably also has to do with some of the lamer ones being done or forgotten entirely.

So let’s start with the positive – adding new villains to the mix is a good idea.  I loves me some Sylar, but without the element of surprise or mystery he enjoyed in the first season, he doesn’t seem quite as malevolent.  The new baddies who busted out of Primatech’s holding cells seem like a particularly amoral and violent bunch, as evidenced by their murderous protest over high gas prices.  The heroism of the show’s main characters only works convincingly when contrasted against ultimate evil, and right now Sylar doesn’t cut it anymore.

And as I mentioned earlier, there are good doses of action to go along with the more slowly developing parts.  And let’s face it – the fun in this show has nothing to do with seeing if the heroes get to save the world.  It’s frigging NBC, you know the world will not blow up on this show (not for long anyway).  So that whole conceit is a non-starter.  No, the fun part of the show is watching one set of freaky people fight the other set of freaky people.  And last night they sure got their freak on.

Even Mohinder got into the act, when he very wisely injected himself with an experimental serum designed to throw his adrenal gland into overdrive and get some powers of his own.  And true to form, it appears to be backfiring nicely, so it looks like we’ll get to see the modern equivalent of Brundlefly.  Apparently the power to get a clue will continue to elude poor Mohinder

Most importantly, it looks as if many of the main characters will be used to their full potential again.  Hiro is back in the present and is already mixing it up, and Peter seems to have found more constructive uses of his time than chasing after distressed Irish barmaids.  And even Noah Bennet is back in action after his release from Primatech.

There were only a few sour notes last night, in fact.  I know a lot of people have the hots for Ali Larter, but she really is a lousy actress and adds little to the show.  But if they have to keep her around it’s good to see they may have ditched the “Jikki” premise and given her a whole new character.  And I wasn’t entirely pleased to see the return of Maya, one half of the Weepy Latin Twins combo of season 2.  But even her tendency toward whininess was curbed somewhat by her horrible taste in men.

There are a ton of other points I could get into, but this really isn’t meant to be as much of a review/summary as it is a list of impressions. So all this is to say that I was obviously interested enough in Heroes – despite last year – to watch the first two episodes.  And while it’s still very early in the game, the signs of a turnaround for the show are present.  Whether or not the show can win back my love remains to be seen, but we’ll at least continue seeing each other for awhile longer.

I missed watching new TV shows less than I thought I would, but it was nonetheless good to have some of my favorites back this week. Last night marked the post-strike return of The Office and Scrubs, and the two shows basically picked up where they left off in ‘07.

The Office, “Dinner Party”

There were lots of great lines in this one, but I think I was more entertained than amused. The cringe factor was kicked up about three notches (to a level approaching the Ricky Gervais original), as Michael and Jan’s relationship was put under the microscope. To call them dysfunctional would be an affront to dysfunctional couples everywhere. I rather enjoyed Michael in this episode, as he was more sympathetic than he’s been in recent episodes. And did anyone catch that he outsmarted Jim not once but twice (when he pulled off the elaborate “overtime” hoax to get Jim and Pam to the party and later, when he observed that it wouldn’t take Jim and Pam to assess the damage to Jim’s supposedly flooded apartment)?

Read on Daddy-O…

March 24, 1989: The Exxon tanker Valdez accidentally hits the state of Alaska, spilling about 11 million gallons of oil. Capt. Joseph Hazlewood was later convicted of negligent discharge of oil and failing to leave a note at the scene of an accident. What’s scary is that it’s not even one of the 50 worst oil spills of all-time.

March 27, 1884: The first long-distance telephone call takes place, between New York and Boston. Contrary to urban legend, the content of the call was not “Red Sox suck!”

March 27, 1998: The Food and Drug Administration approves the use of Viagra; sales of used Corvettes and Mustangs drop 78%.

March 28, 1930: Constantinople changes its name to Istanbul; provides fodder for quirky rock bands of the future.

March 28, 1979: An accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station kills no one, spooks many; America says “F that!” to nuclear power and decides to take its chances with coal and oil.

March 30, 1867: U.S. Secretary of State William Seward completes the purchase of the Alaskan Territory from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million. Enraged Congressmen petition the Russians to give Seward a negative feedback rating.

March 30, 1964: The popular quiz show Jeopardy! debuts on NBC. Cries of “I could totally win this if I wanted to” heard throughout the nation for the first time.

March 30, 1981: Would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr. fires six shots at President Ronald Reagan, doesn’t land one (Reagan was hit by a bullet that had ricocheted off his limousine). Jodie Foster still won’t return his calls.

…these are a few of my favorite things!

There are so many things to love about this newest segment of Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator,” I don’t know where to begin (if you want the money shot, skip to the five-minute mark). First off, this guy is willing to drive almost six hours to hook up with someone he had just started chatting with. Folks, sexual perversion and a complete lack of impulse control are a dangerous mix.

Next, despite the fact that this creep is in the house (and presumably about to seal the deal), he still feels the need to lie about himself to impress the ladies. I don’t know much about police work, but I’m pretty sure they don’t promote to lieutenant after just one year on the force (turns out he was a trainee for about two months then got the boot).

I like the new “Predator” touch – the usual wet bar setup has been replaced by a much more intimate “dueling Barcalounger” motif. The predator’s chair even has a back massage pad!

Now for that aforementioned money shot – hot taser action! This guy had already dug his own grave by telling the decoy that he carried his gun everywhere with him, so the real police were ready for him when he tried to go back to his car. Within seconds he’s tased, and proceeds to run through the house and scream like a sorority girl during a panty raid. The “don’t tase me bro” goof took it with more dignity than this clown.

I suggest you go back and watch that arrest again. I know I just did.