Seduction in a Small Town

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 a television movie called Seduction in a Small Town, although the title isn't really appropriate because it wasn't really about a seduction, although it was set in a small town, so they get it half right. Anyway, Half-Pint Ingalls, her husband, and their two kids move from the big city back to the husband's hometown, and start farming. There's a lucrative venture. And Half-Pint has a heart condition and one kid has asthma, so for a while I thought it was going to be a movie about how farmers don't have health insurance, but apparently they were able to pay for doctor visits out of pocket or something. So Half-Pint feels like an outsider, because it's a small town, so the residents are judgmental and gossipy, like people in big cities aren't also judgmental and gossipy. But Half-Pint was kind of a bitch, not to be judgmental and gossipy or anything. Although I am from a small town, so it's probably in my nature. But then a new woman moves to town, played by Joely Fisher, using a horrible Southern accent for no apparent reason, and Half-Pint befriends her because they are both outsiders. So Joely Fisher has some sort of secret shady past, as you do, and she tries to seduce Half-Pint's husband, which I guess is the seduction of the title, but it's like five minutes out of the whole movie, and it doesn't work, so it's really more like character-building than a plot point. She is also creepily overly involved with Half-Pint's kids. The final straw comes when Joely asks Half-Pint and her hubby (let's just call him Manly) for some money, which they don't have to give, because Half-Pint claims that they have six mortgages on their home, like, what bank would approve mortgages #5 and #6? On a farm, where only Manly worked, as far as I could tell, so it clearly wasn't a big-time operation. Anyway, Joely gets pissed off and reports Half-Pint to Social Services for child abuse, and she manages to talk the local harpies into swearing statements as well, because one time Half-Pint grabbed her son's arm outside the Piggly Wiggly to keep him from running into traffic. The Social Services woman is new to the job, and goes way overboard in trying to make the case, especially the scene where they totally botch confiscating the children and placing them in foster homes. It was like the FBI at Waco, and the Social Services lady was Janet Reno. Anyway, if the director knew anything about pacing, that would have been the big conflict, and the movie would have been resolved about half an hour later, but instead there was all this crap where the kids came back, and then were confiscated again, and Half-Pint had to take two psych exams, and there was a lightning storm and Half-Pint's barn burned down, and whatever! Just get to the part where Joely Fisher is revealed to be a lunatic, people! So then Half-Pint goes to Joely's hometown and finds out that she's a lunatic, and exposes her as such to the local harpies. And then the movie is STILL not over, because there's some rigmarole where Half-Pint can't get her kids back right away due to bureaucracy (always an exciting plot twist! Ooh, the tape, it is so red!) but she does get her kids back, and then the locals help her to rebuild her barn to make up for falsely accusing her of child abuse, and Half-Pint was still kind of a bitch about it, like, didn't Reverend Alden teach her about forgiveness between endless repetitions of "Bringing in the Sheaves"? So it was awesome.

Starting Over

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 the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet, but there's not much to say about that, except that puppies are cute. So instead, I'll tell you about the most awesome non-puppy-related thing I saw on TV last week, which was an episode of Starting Over. The show was losing me for a while, but this week totally sucked me back in. First, there is a woman who has amnesia, like, who knew that really existed outside of soap operas? And while she thinks she got it due to encephalitis or something, the doctors are starting to suspect that she got it due to a traumatic incident that she doesn't want to recall. And now she's trying to figure out what that traumatic incident might be. Dramatic! And there's also a woman who is the butchiest butch that ever butched (she's a prison guard, okay?) who is divorced (from a man) with eight kids and wants to learn to be more feminine or something. Her whole situation is just weird, and I suspect that more and more interesting details are going to leak out, like how last week she admitted that she doesn't wear makeup because her father told her that only whores do. But the most awesome episode last week involved Cassie, a high-school dropout and recovering alcoholic who gave up a baby for adoption and is now trying to find him. A few weeks back, the women in the house were all talking about people they admire, and for some reason, Cassie is a huge John Davidson fan. Who? Yeah. John Davidson, former host of That's Incredible. Cassie finds him inspiring. So, the night before she had to take the GED, the life coaches arranged for Cassie to get a visit from John Davidson. And she freaked out! And even John Davidson was kind of like, "Really? Me?" And Cassie explained how, in a dark period of her life (which means all of it), she saw him on TV and decided to write him a letter, and he sent her an autographed picture that said, "You're Incredible." And you could see John Davidson thinking, "Okay, we sent those out to everyone, and I never actually signed them, you FREAK!" But he had to be nice. So then, he sang a song to her, about how she was a ship and she would determine her own course, and he was like talk-singing at the end, and it was hilarious. And then he left, but it was awesome that (a) someone is that big of a freak over John Davidson of all people, and (b) that even John Davidson was confused as to why she loved him so much. So that was awesome.

My Super Sweet 16

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 show on MTV called My Super Sweet 16, which chronicles some ridiculously oversized party given by teenage girls. So there have been two episodes so far, but the most awesome one was definitely the "coming-out party" given by two girls named Jacqueline and Lauren. So Jacqueline, a Kristin Davis lookalike, is both beautiful and sweet, if a bit spoiled. And Lauren is a total diva and bitch. And clearly completely jealous of her friend. This was best exemplified by a sequence where Saks Fifth Avenue shut down an entire floor to accommodate their dress-shopping trip, and Jacqueline tried on dress after dress and looked awesome in all of them, while Lauren just creepily stared at her and looked pissed off. So finally Jacqueline settles on this black BCBG minidress, and Lauren goes and finds almost the same dress and announces that she's going to buy it. The fuck? Bitch is crazy. And they were getting way too much enjoyment out of handing out their invitations to an exclusive seven-hundred-person list, and apparently people ended up scalping invitations and trying to forge VIP passes. And these ballsy twelve-year-old girls tried to bluff their way in, which was pretty awesome. Oh! And I forgot to mention that they charged money to get in! How fucking tacky is that! They claimed they were giving the money "to breast cancer" (Breast Cancer says thanks!), but that's like charging a cover at your wedding or something. And the editors made sure we understood the disparity between Lauren and Jacqueline by showing their preparations for the party; Lauren bitched at her father (who was paying for the party) and took cell-phone calls while getting her makeup done and hair extensions put in, while Jacqueline went for a jog with her cousins and practiced the piano. So the night of the party, Pauly Shore showed up. Of course he did! What else does he have to do? And he totally hit on the birthday girls. And then the band started playing and people started moshing, and Jacqueline got dragged into it and got punched in the face. At the end of the night, Jacqueline was happy and walked around and thanked everyone, including the cops, while Lauren just bitched that it was nothing special and her feet hurt. And it was awesome.

The Surreal Life

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 premiere episode of the new season of The Surreal Life. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I think I've seen every episode of that show, not because I'm all that interested, but because I somehow always end up watching it at, like, 3:00 AM. So I watched the premiere, and I am so glad that I did. First to show up was the wrestler formerly known as Chyna, and I don't know if you have seen the pictures circulating on the internet of her private parts, but if you haven't, avoid them at all costs, because I am scarred for life. For life! So Chyna immediately grabbed the one single room, ignoring the fact that everything in the room (closet, bed, toilet, chairs) were all really scaled down. And then she got drunk. So the others (Peter Brady, Da Brat, Jane Wiedlin, Adrienne Curry, Marcus Schenkenburg, and Mini-Me) all showed up. And I knew it was going to be awesome because Mini-Me drives one of those little motorized scooters everywhere. So obviously, the room with the scaled-down furniture was supposed to be for Mini-Me, and he got pissed, but Chyna wouldn't give it up. And she was standing in there next to this miniature closet, going, "What? Why are you guys saying this room is for [Mini-Me]? Why can't it be my room?" She finally agreed to give it up. So then for dinner, Adrienne Curry served sushi off her naked body and Mini-Me was totally wasted and like, rubbing her nipple, which was creepy. So he passed out in his bed, and Adrienne and Jane decided to go naked in the hot tub. Peter Brady told Mini-Me that the girls were naked, and Mini-Me came back out. So then they're all sitting around (fully clothed) and Mini-Me is totally rubbing up on Peter Brady's thigh and patting him and loving him up as they sit together on this bench. And then Mini-Me totally passes out and nearly falls off the bench. So Peter Brady sets him back up, and he passes out a few more times, so Peter Brady ends up carrying him like a baby back into the house, which was hilarious. So then later, Da Brat gets up to sleep on the couch, because her roommate Chyna is snoring. On the way, she sees Mini-Me, stark naked, sitting on his scooter in the exercise room. So she asks if he's okay, and she notices that he's taking a whiz in the corner. You haven't lived until you've seen Mini-Me, naked, peeing in the corner while sitting on his scooter. I hope he didn't mess up the electrical system. So Da Brat gets Peter Brady, but what do you do in that situation? Laugh. Which is what everyone did. And it was awesome.

Law & Order

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. This week, I have been watching a lot (and I do mean a lot) of Law & Order in my own little memorial tribute to Jerry Orbach. And besides Briscoe, my favorite character on the show is Adam Schiff, as portrayed by Steven Hill. I mostly like Hill because his predominant character attribute is that he's constantly eating, and always appears constipated. One of my favorite games to play while watching (besides yelling out, "Objection, your honor! He's leading the witness!" during the courtroom scenes) is, after every one of Schiff's lines, adding something like, "Boy, I'm so backed up. Do you have any Metamucil?" So you can imagine why I end up watching the show alone. Anyway, out of the many, many episodes that I watched this week, I think my favorite one was the one where these people adopt a baby and they claim it died when it fell out of its crib, but then it turns out that they have a creepy, crazy older adopted son who punched the baby in the head. And they keep the kid locked up in a room where the walls are smeared with poop and then they bring him in for a session with Skoda, the psychiatrist, who is probably my second-favorite character on the show. But then it turns out that the baby was already dead when the crazy kid punched him, so then the prosecutors go after the adoption broker and the rest of the episode is pretty traditional. But there were three things that made this episode awesome. One was the crazy kid that they kept locked in his shit room. Two was Skoda, who I sort of have a crush on, even though he played racist evil Schillinger on Oz. And three was that, at one point, Schiff was having an outdoor conference and, for no known reason, he was wearing a white fedora. Why? Why a fedora, and why was it white? Did he think he was going to wander into an episode of Miami Vice? That hat was awesome, and so was the episode. I'll miss you, Jerry Orbach, but you will live on forever in reruns on TNT. And this is where Wing can tell you about her favorite episode.

Little House: "Mortal Mission"

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. I'll tell you, between the holidays and all of the repeats for the last few weeks, television has not been all that awesome. But I did see an episode of Little House that I had actually never seen before, so that was pretty awesome. See, this rancher had some sick sheep, but he still needed to sell them for slaughter or his farm would go under. And the sheep totally had the ANTHRAX! And every time they said ANTHRAX it was in all-caps and then there would be a portentous musical cue. So of course, Ma and Mrs. Garvey both buy some of this cheap lamb for dinner, because they are poor, as does pretty much everyone else in town. And then they all start coming down with ANTHRAX! So Laura and Albert get it, and Nellie, Willie, and Nels Olsen, and Adam and various blind school students, and Andrew and Alice Garvey. They bring all the sick people to the blind school to use as a temporary hospital. So then Pa and Jonathan Garvey get home from wherever the hell they were and Doc Baker gets them to head to Springfield and get the medicine that's coming on the train. Meanwhile, Really Angry Dad gets all upset that his son is dead and tries to kill the rancher, who has also come down with the ANTHRAX, and really, how dumb was he to eat his own tainted lamb? But the rancher is already dead, because he was a bad person. So then Pa and Jonathan are coming home with the medicine, and they get hijacked by a wild-eyed homesteader who wants all the medicine for himself and his family, and takes Pa and Jonathan hostage. So finally the homesteader's wife betrays him, because he's crazy, and Pa and Jonathan take the medicine to the blind school. So a few people died, but none of the main characters. And then, once the worst was over, Hester Sue started singing about Jesus, because she's black. And it was awesome.

Little House: "Rage"

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 Little House that I had actually never seen before, probably because it was one of the later ones with Shannen Doherty, which are usually crap. Anyway, Shannen Doherty's friend is sweet on a boy, but her pa, Robert Loggia, doesn't approve. And then Robert Loggia has to go to Sleepy Eye to get a bank loan so he didn't lose his farm (which would be like the third business he's lost), and the bank totally turns him down. So Robert Loggia loses it and comes home and shoots his wife and daughter, which was kind of a gritty storyline for Little House, but his family doesn't die. So of course, they have to involve Laura somehow. So all the town men (like Almanzo and Mr. Edwards and Nels Olsen) go out looking for Robert Loggia, but Robert Loggia goes to Laura's house. And he thinks Laura is his wife, and Shannen Doherty is his daughter. So Laura plays along until she can figure out what to do, but then Robert Loggia finds Laura's baby, and he thinks his daughter had a secret baby with the boy she liked, and he gets all pissed that everyone lied to him. So somehow, Laura convinces him to go with her to the boy's house and confront him, and while they go out to the barn, Shannen Doherty hides in the storm cellar with the baby. But then Laura clocks Robert Loggia with a piece of wood and makes a run for it. So of course, Robert Loggia pops back up because she didn't shoot him or anything, and now he's really mad. And that part was actually kind of scary. So they go back in the house and he can't find Shannen Doherty and the baby, and Robert Loggia and Laura get in a big fight and he knocks over a lantern and starts a fire. So Laura totally panics and yells out that Shannen Doherty and the baby are in the storm cellar, because she's afraid the fire will trap them. Meanwhile, it was like the smallest fire ever, and Robert Loggia put it out by stomping on it, so good one, Laura. Finally, Laura convinces Robert Loggia to let Shannen Doherty go get some water from the well, and Shannen starts running around looking for help. And Robert Loggia has a moment of lucidity where he realizes that Laura isn't his wife. But then the men of town show up and shoot Robert Loggia dead. All in all, it was pretty dark for Little House, which was awesome.