Tag: Television

Affleck’s Revenge.

One of the few shows I caught regularly last fall, Celebrity Poker Showdown returns for a second season on May 27, with Kid in the Hall Dave Foley replacing Kevin Pollack. This time around, the players will include Sean Astin, Jennie Garth, James Woods, Matthew Perry, Angie Dickinson, and Dave Navarro. Samwise versus Big Bad Mama…I’m so there.

Where my K-9s at?

So, I don’t know what’s stranger…the claim that P. Diddy, Snoop, and Jay-Z are allegedly donning rubber masks for the new Dr. Who revival on BBC, or the assertion that Diddy’s got a full-size gold-plated Dalek of bling. Puff Davros? Diddy Digs Daleks? I think somebody’s having me on. (By way of Triptych Cryptic.)

The Return of Harvey.

It’s official…A year after reneging on their two-year deal, the cretins at Sci-Fi have agreed to resurrect Farscape for the Peacekeeper War, a four-hour miniseries set for this fall. It’ll be nice to see Crichton & co. return for closure, and I’ll definitely have to break the Sci-Fi boycott for this event. Still, we were supposed to get 22 episodes, not 4 hours. Frellers…

Same Old Republic.

In another endorsement news, and in yet another sad reminder of how far the once-proud mag has fallen, the New Republic endorses Joe Lieberman. Basically, they feel he’s the best representative of the “hawkish liberalism” that should define the party, as evidenced by his continual support for Dubya’s Gulf War II. That’s bad enough, but you have to read the article to get a sense of how utterly ridiculous it all is. Exhibit A, the opening lines: “Recall for a moment the political climate in the United States in January 2001. Ralph Nader and the Supreme Court had made George W. Bush president.” (My italics.) Give it up, y’all. Or, here’s another, “Liberals resent Lieberman’s moralism. But what they see as sanctimony, many ordinary Americans see as overdue concern about the toxic influences that saturate their children’s lives.” They do? Really? Are these the same Americans who’ve made Joe Millionaire and The Simple Life hit shows? I like some of the writers on staff at TNR — some of ’em are even my friends from the DC days — but let’s face it, Marty Peretz and Peter Beinart are to Democratic Party politics what Stanley Kauffmann is to film: conservative, condescending, and hopelessly out of touch.

Unscripted K-os?

Max of Lots of Co. points the way to this intriguing article on the pitfalls that have befallen K Street. I finally saw a few episodes at a friend’s house and, while James and Mary came off well, I thought the show suffered from a few strategic errors. For one, as this story points out, the only people who will recognize (or will care about) all the uncredited cameos are the same ones who’ll realize how ultimately fake the show is. For another, the show’s greatest strength was that it seemed news-dependent, but…if you have no news for a few weeks, trouble ensues. (Hence, the not-very-engaging personal subplots that have taken over.) Still, I think there’s definite potential for a show like K St.…perhaps Soderbergh & co. should try a second run a little closer to election time, if HBO wills it.