Starting Over

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. First, a Most Awesome programming note: there's a new season of Endurance starting on NBC on Saturday, September 27th. Check local listings. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was the new Bunim-Murray show, Starting Over. First of all, it's on every weekday. Every weekday! And since women are usually the ones who cause all of the drama in a Real World house, Bunim and Murray only allowed women in the Starting Over house. And boy, are these women messed up. They are supposed to be in the house so that they can change their lives, but some of them seem to only be there to get on television. Okay, I guess that part is not that different from The Real World. But they do have some crazy ladies in that house. Like there's Nyanza, who reminds me of Tami from The Real World Los Angeles, but a little bit less crazy. But Nyanza really loves herself, which makes me wonder what exactly she thinks she is going to change about herself. I think Nyanza would be a lot happier if she could change everyone in her life instead of herself. And then there's Maureen, who wants to become a stand-up comedian. The problem is that she's not funny, has no sense of timing, and is frankly kind of scary. Also, stinky, because she rarely bathes. And then there is Andy. Oh, Andy. She looks like Brooke Shields, but bigger and more mannish. And she's crazy! And manipulative! And overly dramatic! And antagonistic! The usual problem with B/M shows is that they start out strong and then get really boring or repetitive. (See: The Real World/Road Rules Challenge). I'm hoping that doesn't happen with Starting Over, because once a woman achieves her goals, she gets to leave the house and a new person come in. Oh, and I didn't even mention the life coaches. Life coaches! Awesome.

Maternal Instincts

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week, which may also be the most awesome thing I've seen on TV all year. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was a made-for-TV movie on the Lifetime Movie Network called Maternal Instincts. Delta Burke played a woman who really wanted to have a baby, even though her husband wasn't that into it, and she would say things to her friends like that she thought mothers who worked were immoral. So she was kind of crazy to start out with. And then she was having some sort of surgery to help her have a baby and they found cancer and her husband and her best friend told the doctor to give Delta a complete hysterectomy.

Once she gets home, Delta has all these temper tantrums and in one of them she throws the cradle they had bought, which breaks into a thousand pieces, like, Delta Smash! So then Delta confronts the doctor and finds out that it was her husband's decision, and she storms off to their cabin on the lake and while they are fighting, her husband slips on some fish guts, hits his head, and dies. Yes, fish guts. And Delta isn't sad, but just raises her eyebrows, because she's crazy. So then she goes out to lunch and sees a baby and goes into the bathroom and has a temper tantrum. So then she's watching TV and eating ice cream and she sees her doctor on TV, explaining about how she (the doctor) is pregnant and taking progesterone to prevent miscarriage and Delta freaks out and throws her ice cream at the TV. So Delta becomes obsessed with ruining her doctor's life, and she sneaks into the doctor's house and replaces the progesterone with olive oil, which the doctor doesn't notice, somehow. So then Delta gets the receptionist at a biomedical lab fired and starts the crazy-person mainstay: a scrapbook of clippings. So then the doctor almost has a miscarriage because she's been injecting olive oil, and Delta's working at the lab now, so she screws up the doctor's blood sample, and also switches the results on all of the doctor's patients' test results. Then Delta gets a job with her best friend, who discovers what Delta is up to, so Delta tosses her off a building, which no one notices. Then, Delta tries to seduce the doctor's husband, and when it doesn't work, she runs him over with her car and dumps him on the doctor's doorstep. So the doctor takes her husband to the hospital and then gives birth due to the shock, and meanwhile Delta has gone back to her original job of working in the hospital nursery so of course she steals the doctor's baby and the doctor and takes them down to the boiler room. But the most awesome part was when the doctor woke up and Delta was chasing her around with a giant wrench and they fought and the doctor pushed Delta down a flight of stairs. But the sight of Delta Burke in a nurse's uniform running around in a hospital boiler room with a giant wrench was fucking hilarious. So then the doctor and her husband and their baby are all fine, but Delta goes to the loony bin and sits in a padded room singing to a doll which was actually kind of creepy for such a ridiculous movie. But also, awesome.

Joe Schmo

And now it's time for The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was the new faux-reality show Joe Schmo on Spike TV. If you haven't heard about it, the producers got a group of actors and then one regular guy, and they told the regular guy that he was on a reality show, but really the whole thing is fake. So it's kind of like watching a regular reality show, but they try to make it totally over-the-top, and you think any minute the guy is going to figure it out, but so far he hasn't. They even have the requisite smarmy host who delivers super-cheesy lines, complete with dramatic pauses, and they cast all the reality-show types, like the Virgin and the Asshole and the Old Crusty Guy. There was a lot about it that was awesome, including the immunity challenge where they all had to touch various body parts to a naked porn star and the last person to let go won immunity. So the producers planned to have it be a showdown between the regular guy and the asshole, but then the regular guy let go first, totally ruining their plans, and they showed a shot of the people in the control room gasping, which was awesome. But the greatest part was the elimination ceremony, where they all "voted" for one person to leave. And the contestants all lined up on these bleachers and the host walked in and just stared at them for ten minutes before speaking, just like on The Bachelor. And each contestant had a commemorative plate with his or her face on it. A plate. Awesome. So then the host read off the votes and the schemer was voted out. So she had to serve her plate to the host and then she gave the most ridiculous speech about snakes and rats and cockroaches. And then the host was like, "Ashes and ashes, dust to dust, from the point forward, you are dead to us," and he threw her plate in the fire! Awesome! And she stomped out and the host was trying to give some concluding remarks but you could hear the schemer in the background yelling because she couldn't figure out how to get out of the house. So everyone thought the regular guy had to have figured it out at this point, and one of the contestants went up to his room for damage control, but it turned out the regular guy was just pissed off because the schemer -- with whom he was supposed to have an alliance -- had voted for him. I thought the whole show would be really dumb, but maybe after recapping six seasons of Real World, as well as Love Cruise, Boot Camp, Tough Enough, The Mole, and Joe Millionaire, I just really appreciate spoofs of reality shows.

Little House: "Survival"

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was thanks to the Little House on the Prairie marathon on the Hallmark Channel. I actually saw an episode I've never seen before! So that in and of itself was awesome. In this episode, the Ingalls family is coming back from a big trip to Mankato. These three dudes ride up on horseback, and one of them is the Sheriff from Sleepy Eye. They're looking for the last member of the Sioux tribe, a guy named Lame Horse. Which is more like Lame Name, since it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The Sheriff wants to kills Lame Horse. Also, the Sheriff warns the Ingalls family that a blizzard is coming, and since this was before the days of Triple Doppler radar, he knows it because his foot got frostbitten twice and now it tells him when snow is coming. Pa scoffs at this, because it's way too late in the year for a blizzard. So next thing you know, it's a total blizzard and the Ingalls family holes up in a conveniently abandoned house. Pa goes out to chop some wood for the fire, and his horse is like, "Neigh!" and Pa's like, "What's up?" and the horse is like, "Neigh, neigh!" and Pa figures the horse is on crack but we know it means that Lame Horse is nearby. So Pa comes back with the wood and he and Ma have a conversation about how they don't have much food left and things are tense. So the next day, Pa goes out hunting and gets a deer but it's still a total blizzard so he falls down in the snow. Meanwhile, the Sheriff (who totally knew there was a blizzard coming but ignored it for some unknown reason) stumbles into the Ingalls's temporary housing, and Ma helps him warm up and feeds him, even though he's totally creepy. So then Lame Horse finds Pa and brings him to the house and the Sheriff makes Ma tie Lame Horse up even though Lame Horse saved Pa's life. That night, while everyone is sleeping, Lame Horse totally uses the fire to burn through his ropes and escape. Awesome! So then the next morning, the Sheriff is all pissed off and yells, and Pa gives him this totally anachronistic speech about loving other people despite their racial differences, like, somehow Pa was the Martin Luther King of his day. And then Pa has to go out to the barn to shoot one of the horses so that they have food, and he's all sad about it and the horse is like, "Neigh?" and Pa is like, "Sorry, dude." And then Lame Horse comes back and drops off a deer for the Ingalls family. But the Sheriff sees Lame Horse walking away and totally shoots him but not fatally, and Ma nurses Lame Horse back to health because all he needed was to get his Ingalls on and he's all better. And Pa shames the Sheriff into giving up his bloodthirsty hunt and then the storm stops and they all go home. And the horse was like, "Awesome! I totally lived!"

Kate's Secret

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was actually a classic movie I rewatched for the first time since health class in eighth grade called Kate's Secret.It stars Meredith Baxter Birney as a housewife named Kate, and she has a secret: she's got really large front teeth and kind of looks like a rabbit. Oh, and she's bulimic. Her husband is all successful and she has a preteen daughter and she's a housewife and her mother is really overbearing. So she's worried that her husband is having an affair with his colleague and she thinks she needs to be the perfect housewife in order to keep his interest so she binges and purges. But not in a messy way where, like, she pukes up blood or wears away all the enamel on her teeth. In the first binge, she goes into a grocery store and hides behind one of those cardboard standups while she scarfs down like three Pinwheels. And I'm like, "That's binging? That's dinner in my house!" And then she goes and pukes it up in an alley or something. And then she gives a big party at her house and her husband ignores her and instead of telling him to fuck off because she spends a lot of time cleaning his house and cooking his dinner and raising his child, she starts stuffing chocolate cake in her mouth and basically eating all of the leftovers from the party. And then her mom comes in, like, why is her mom at her house all the time anyway, and she lies and says that the dog ate the chocolate cake and made a mess. So then she goes to a fancy party with her husband and feels all inadequate because she's just a housewife and then she passes out in the bathroom. And I realize that eating disorders are very serious and I have sympathy for those afflicted, but the movie kind of made it seem like she should just get a part-time job or something. Or tell her mother and her husband to fuck off. So then she gets admitted to an eating disorder clinic and it's kind of like Girl, Binging and Purging with the wacky crew of disordered eaters including Miss Patty from Gilmore Girls and Mackenzie Phillips in her super-druggie days. And Meredith Baxter Birney's roommate is Tracy Nelson and it's kind of sad because I think I read in People that Tracy Nelson really did have an eating disorder in real life so she's not so much acting and she's a model and her mother is telling her not to gain any more weight than she has to, and you'd think her doctor or therapist would tell her mother to fuck off, but they don't, and then of course Tracy Nelson dies because Meredith Baxter Birney can't die because she has a daughter and that would be too realistic. Plus, she only purged like twice before being admitted. And I think the lesson you were supposed to take away was that people who are unappreciated get eating disorders. So then Meredith Baxter Birney totally gets better, but not before a visit from her best friend, played by Shari Belafonte, who wears super-hiddy '80s fashions like a long gauzy skirt with socks and sneakers. But the only thing I got from this movie in eighth grade was that my best friend and I, whenever we felt really full, would be like, "Man, I'm like Meredith Baxter Birney stuffing down Pinwheels in the supermarket." Which is awesome.

True Life: "I'm Getting Divorced"

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw On TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was an episode of True Life called "I'm Getting Divorced." It featured two young women. One woman's parents were getting divorced, which was boring, so if you record it, just skip those sections.The awesome part was the story of Jennifer, who married Jason on Valentine's Day 2003. At first, it seems kind of normal, right? People get married too young and then realize they've made a huge mistake. Your first clue that something is horribly wrong is when Jennifer shows you pictures of their matching tattoos. Then Jennifer says, "I saw that he loved me and I totally overlooked that [the music cuts out] he was an ex-crack addict." Hee! I mean, it's sad that he's a crackhead and all, and I felt bad for, like, a minute, and then I realized that they agreed to have their stories told on national television, and throughout the episode, you can tell that they are totally playing to the cameras, so then I didn't feel bad anymore. But wait. It gets better. A month into their relationship, Jason was arrested and went to jail for five months. Then, a week after he got out, they got married. So they were together for six months before getting married, but five of those, Jason was in jail. So after their marriage, they moved in together, and Jennifer didn't know that the whole time, he was still using crack. She didn't know? Girl, please. So, she moved back home. And Jason called her a lot and Jennifer pretended she hated it, but you could tell by the look on her face that she secretly kind of liked it. But this is the most awesome part. Jennifer says that there are a lot of reasons why she wanted the divorce. She continues, "But the number one reason I was being so pushy about getting my divorce ASAP [pronounced A-SAP] is because I need my freedom. I need my freedom to do what I was put on this earth for, and that is...to rap." AWESOME! Turns out Jennifer (or if you want to call her by her rap name, Slim JG) is recording an album. And she is so completely terrible. She sounds like she's reading her lyrics from a sheet of paper (because she is) and she has no rhythm and...she's just awful. And she has a tattoo that says Slim JG. So Slim JG is sure that she's going to make a ton of money off this album and she doesn't want Jason to get any of it, so they need to get a divorce. Which is about when I started to wonder if Jason was the only crack-smoker in the relationship. And so much more happened, so all I can tell you is that you must catch this episode. You just have to. It is awesome.

Battle of the Network Stars

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw On TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was definitely the multiple episodes of Battle of the Network Stars that were on Trio. But the best one was the first episode, from 1976. First of all, because it was the first one, it was totally unpolished and even more ridiculous. Howard Cosell was the announcer, and during the relay race, he kept saying that people "breasted the tape" at the end, which was kind of awkward when the winner was a woman. Although, according to Cosell, none of the female participants were women. They were all "girls." And speaking of girls, there was this horrific interview with Farrah Fawcett-Majors where she talked about how she loved being married to Lee Majors and she hurried home from filming Charlie's Angels every day so that she could make him dinner and then she actually said, "It's something I need to do as a female or a wife" and then Howard said, "I know Lee and he is a male and he likes to dominate," like, how does Howard know that? And then during the swimming competition, the bathing suits were totally see-through and I think I saw Ma Ingalls's nipples, which was fucking creepy, and then I saw everything Tim Matheson has to offer, which was quite a bit, frankly. And when they introduced all of the contestants, I had heard of most of the people except for the people on NBC's team. I had never heard of the people or the shows they came from, which makes me think that NBC's 1976 line-up was pretty fucking lame. And the most awesome part was when Bob Conrad's team was penalized during the relay race and he totally had a meltdown and started yelling, "Like hell! Like hell! Like hell!" and puffing away on a cigarette and finally he had a tie-breaker race with Gabe Kaplan to decide it and Gabe Kaplan actually won! You go, Mr. Kotter! God, there were so many more awesome things, but I will conclude by telling you that they had characters from the ABC special Return to Oz demonstrate the obstacle course, so the Cowardly Lion belly-crawled under the net and then the Tin Man ran through the tires and then the Scarecrow did the monkey bars and the music playing during this demonstration was "The Hustle." I swear to God. And that's just one episode. They showed five this week! And there's a marathon on Sunday, which you should totally watch if you are a fan of awesome television, as I am.