Lie to me, The Good Guys, Persons Unknown and Last Comic Standing

Summer is here. So, the summer line-up for T.V. is here also. At first glance I felt like this summer was gonna be a lot more reasonable than last year as far as quality viewing but after my first slew of shows I'm a little worried. Here is my first impression of the four shows I caught on Monday Night.

-- Last Comic Standing --

Here is a show that just confuses the hell out of me. Every year I get really excited about it and then ever year I feel disappointed. This year being no different. Here is the thing, I love Craig Robinson. I love the idea of having a comedian reality show and I even liked the judges they picked for the first day. I say "first day" cause last year it was 3 totally different people every episode. I don't know if they are gonna do that this year but the mere fact that I don't know leads into what irks me about this show. I am pretty sure they producers have no clue what they are doing. They don't seem to have any format or any regulation. They seem to be just throwing cards into a hat and hoping they go in. If I ever tried out for this show I would definitely try to make the first audition cause they always seem to pick a ton of comics at the beginning and then cut a lot of people in the later auditions because they are running out of room. Their whole selection process doesn't make any sense at all. Also, this show is on NBC who, if we all remember last year, just decided to end the show with 6 contestants left randomly. Pretty much anything new on NBC nowadays leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I know it was greenlighted by Zuckerman. You know him as the guy who canceled Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Mercy, Southland Tales and who is that popular guy....hmmmm....He had a late night talk show....

All in all, the first episode was pretty damn funny and Craig Robinson did not disappoint. I am just worried about things to come and am assuming it's gonna be another year of half-assedness from the producers and lead to the series getting unusually cut mid season.

Episode Grade: B-

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-- Persons Unknown --

What can I say about this. This wannabe Saw/Lost/Heroes concoction should probably be on during the day on TNT as part of the "stories" my grandma watches. You truly have to have no brain and not have any inclination to want to solve a puzzle to be able to enjoy this. That statement concludes how ludicrous it is because the basis of the show is that it is a puzzle that the audience is supposed to attempt to figure out as the cast does. The acting in this is pretty bad but what makes it stand out so much is the god awful writing. They totally destroyed any type of character development cause they were so intense on cramming so much into the first episode. In order for a show to work this way, you have to be able to identify with the characters and say to yourself, "Yah that's what I would do if I was put in that situation." Right from the get go when hot skinny chick turns her back completely on her kid to talk to the guy that apparently has no other purpose other than to distract her while her kid gets fake-kidnapped...(Which I'm still not sure I even understand how that happened). No real parent (outside of Britney) would take their eyes off their kid for that long.

Also, what's up with the only kidnapping white people? Seriously? Hey NBC....there ARE other brands of human out there. It's 2010 guys, I know you through in the random black guy to "shake things up a bit" but, just because there is a "only black guy at the party" joke...doesn't mean you have to follow it as a basis for every show you create and produce. If you want me to believe that 7 random people got swiped from obscurity, seemingly having no connection to each other....then actually pick 7 RANDOM people.

Episode Grade: D-

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--The Good Guys--

Have you ever wrinkled your forehead so hard and for so long that you got a headache? That's pretty much what happened to me for the entire 42 or so minutes of this show. I had really high expectations going into this. I like Colin Hanks....I think he is the perfect straight man for any show such as this. I love Eric from Billy Madison (bet some of you didn't connect that did you?). But this show was all kinds of wrong and silly. First off, I'm still not sure if it is supposed to be a drama or a comedy...or some kind of comedic drama or dramatic comedy but, it fails to be any of those. The writers of this show should be embarrassed. They seem to play some sort of dumb and dumber detective duo that falls ass backwards into solving crimes when no one expects them to due to their sheer stupidity and lack of any type of knowledge of standard police procedure. The first obvious question you have right at the beginning of the show is...."How in the hell did these guys make it into the police department....let alone get promoted to detective?" In one scene, Eric (I forgot what his real name is) is screaming "tell me where my friend is!" at a police computer because he doesn't understand how a gps tracking program works. Not only that, it seems that he has never used a computer before in his life. Had this show been been on the air in......oh, I don't know..... 1975......or some time period where every single person in the world DIDN'T USE A COMPUTER EVERY SINGLE DAY IN ALMOST EVERY CAREER THEY HAVE.....I'd be more inclined to believe some of the stupid crap that went on in this episode. It was just ridiculous. The main bad guy's plot being foiled because of his jealousy issues....come on. Just silliness. I really hope this show gets much better in the next episode cause the cast has some promise but as far as the first episode.....blah.

Episode Grade: F

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Lie To Me

Let's start this out with me saying that the first season of "Lie to Me" was absolutely one of my favorite first season's in a while. It was written well, focusing on the science that Paul Ekman has spent years researching, testing and proving. It was an ingenious idea to cast Tim Roth. He is amazing as Doctor Cal Lightman and the think the way they started developing all the characters in the first season was great. Then the second season came along. I read somewhere that some new guy took over the direction of the show and he came from some cop drama like "The Unit" or something like that. Things started to go down hill a bit. It seemed now that the only focus was on Tim Roth's character and how he is suddenly semi crazy and no one else on the show respects him or his work or ability at all. Everyone thinks he is wrong until he proves them all right and they are somewhat ignorant to him. Then they did the god awful poker episode. Don't even get me started on how terrible that episode was.

So now we have the 3rd season (or 2nd part of the 2nd season...what ever they decide I guess) that began on Monday. Over all I thought it was a pretty good episode. I like when Cal goes up against the psychopathic guys that are hard to read (My favorite episode in the season one was "Blinded" when he went up against the mass murderer guy). I also like that there was another, equally important story going on being head up by the other two on the Lightman team. Here is my problem with this episode: It shoud have been an hour and a half long instead of just an hour. They spent so much time build up the cases that when it came time to resolve the episode they completely dropped the ball. In the minor case, Loker eluded to some creative idea to appease everyone involved but they didn't even tell us what he did! The just had a scene where the hot chick says, "Good thing you came up with that creative idea Loker." Really? Do you think we are that dumb? Then the main story Cal "outwits" the psychopath guy....I guess. I mean you don't really even know. It all got wrapped up so quickly that I had to rewind to even catch what the hell happened.

I don't know. It seems as if they are trying to get back to the first season but are not quite there yet. All in all, I am glad it's back on t.v. Easily one of my favorite shows to watch right now. Just needs some fine tuning.

Episode Grade: B

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All in all, pretty lame beginning to the summer as far as new shows are concerned. Hopefully I pick up on something else that fills my t.v. watching time or else it's Seinfeld re-runs for me.

Antny

The Good Fold...

For most of you out there poker is just a fun game that you watch on t.v. or played with your family when you were little. Maybe you and a few friends get together and play once in a while or maybe you play it at a party and end the game a bit more scantily clad than you started. When you begin to take the game more seriously, learn more about the proper strategy to apply to the game when playing, the lessons learned can be applied to other things in life as well.

I'm not gonna bore you with poker game theory or statistical hand match up advantages. Yet, there is one rule that I find particularly interesting, as it applies to life just as much as it applies to poker. That rule is, "Don't get married to your hand."

The rule is simple. When getting dealt your first cards in a particular round...no matter how good they seem to be at the start....it's always proper to take the strength of your hand with a grain of salt. The reason for this is because a certain percentage of the time your hand will still become the second or third best. The reason why this "RULE" is so important is just as simple. If you have a bad hand....you don't want to put any money in the pot. But if you start with good cards...you have a tendency to want to invest everything you got even though it becomes more evident that you are holding a loser.

Life is crazy. It's amazing that no matter how smart we become as we get older...it's seems impossible to figure anything out. I still have no clue what I'm doing. Conversely, I've never met anyone who walks around confidently saying, "Yah, I got this life thing figured out....what's next on the agenda?"

One thing I do know is through life we get dealt some amazing looking stuff sometimes. Situations or people that, at first look, seem to have great potential and could provide maximum gain. So we invest ourselves into these affairs hoping to get what we thought we may get in the beginning. Yet sometimes, in life, as the same as in poker....things don't go as we planned. Our once exciting world of possibilities turns out to have one single, mundane road leading to disaster. But just like when we are holding two black aces and staring at an obvious made flush...we continue to go down that road because of the promise that was so inviting. So lucrative.

It's at that moment, as a serious poker player, that you learn to make the good fold. You don't get married to your hand. You let it go because you know that later on, in the future another opportunity will arise and it may be even more profitable than the last. You know in your gut that continuing down that road will just cause you to lose more of what you invest. It's hard. It's really hard letting go of those two aces. Seeing them and every potential benefit you may have obtained when you first picked them up go fluttering away as your cards slide into the graveyard of the muck.

When you're beat, you're beat.

Same with life. I'm not advocating just quiting anything you start with the fear that you might not be successful. Everyone out here has that one thing in their life that they know they should have ended a long time ago. It may have seemed really great at first but the sum of mean has shown less than optimal results. It's time to make the good fold and move on so you can be prepared for the better things that are to come. There will always be better spots. Always.

American Idol Finale - My Thoughts

So we crowned a new American Idol Champ in a two hour long show that seemed to turn into some sort of Simon Cowell roast of sorts. I'm not really sure exactly whether or not I enjoyed the show but I will tell you...I definitely love having a DVR and being able to not only fast forward through the commercials but all the ridiculous nonsense that they fill those two hours with. Here are some of my thoughts as I went through the show.

--Las show with Simon. I don't really know if this show will continue on past this season. Simon is kinda the key to the show but also as you look through the talent that made it through this year...it was really a bunch of wannabe's. I'm not saying I dislike Crystal or Lee (cause I like them both) I'm just saying that usually you see a lot of people grow as musicians and it seemed like so many of them dropped the ball this year. Also I think America as voters were almost voting blindly this year as a lot of good people got dropped right away and a lot of miserable people stayed.

--Kris Allen's new song should probably be called "lullaby" because I'm pretty sure I dozed off twice in the middle of it. After this is when I decided to use the fast forward option more literally.

--Eek. Sorry, I just jumped behind my chair. It's been a while since I seen Sabian, or Chibbian or Shivabon's (or how ever the hell you spell her name) ridiculous vampire grill. Seriously, I would probably have to wear a clove of garlic if I ever met this girl just to make myself feel safe.

--I really wish Andrew Garcia got a better chance to shine on this how. I've stumbled upon some Youtube stuff he did with all the other randoms in there and gotta say they(he) is really good. Sucks he kinda got the shaft on this show.

--Was it just me or did it seem like as soon as Dane Cook made it out there he immediately regretted the decision to do this spot. What was it really anyway? He sang (horribly) some lines that Simon has used in the past...made three one-liner jokes about Simon being mean....then had a bunch of ridiculous past failures come out where in which one tried to steal the show and the AI production company had to cut away to commercial right away. Hey Dane Cook! There is a reason why AI only let those people be on the "recorded" part of their show...it's so when they spontaneously do something stupid they can cut and edit it up for t.v.

--So Paula Abdul is here....in a dress that looks like she is on her way to the prom after the show is over. At first she looked pretty....I don't know....held up....until she started talking. Now I realize she was just reading (because let's be honest...no way in a million years is she writing these jokes herself) but how many and more specifically which drugs is she on right now. I'm telling you I was making $1 bets with myself on how long it would be before she tripped and fell off the stage. It just got worse and worse too. The jokes were awful as well. "There's a baby in the back with a Simon haircut and hunny....it's your turn to feed him." Wah wah wah wah.........Ugh. I didn't know if I was gonna throw up from her jokes or if she was gonna throw up from all the body shots she was doing with Casey behind stage before she went on.

--All the past idols except David Cook on the stage. Made me think of two things. 1) What could David Cook possibly be doing that he couldn't make it for this. It was a big deal and I'm sure they had it planned months ago. So you can't tell me he is on the road or in Europe or something like that. Seriously? Carrie Underwood who is a bigger star than anyone else to come out of this show and she is here....and performed. Where are you? That brings me to my second thought 2) Is it safe to say that Carrie Underwood by far, the absolute best Idol to come out of this show. You can make the argument that the hobbit from Season 1 should get the top rank because she had more #1's maybe but lets' size them up. Kelly Clarkson-Baggins had a 3 year head start and they have sold close to the same amount of records. Yet Carrie has done it in a much harder genre to sell in I think. She is also successfully crossed over two genres (Pop and Country). Not to mention (which may or may not be the most important fact)....she is so damn hot. I mean, insanely hot. I stare at her and I just wonder, "How does a girl become this hot? " Like it's some sort of puzzle or something. I keep looking to the backpage to find the answer. None of the mysteries of Lost, spanned across all six seasons, can compare to the comprehension that I don't posses of why she is so hot. I guess she sings good to.

--I'd like to tell you a little story. Before my late grandma passed she was starting to lose it in her old age. One of her little quirks was that she swore up and down that Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson were the same person. "You never see them anywhere together!" she used to scream at my mom. After Janet's first performance tonight...I'm starting to think that old granny was right. I got goose bumps from how much she sounded like Michael on that song. It was single-handedly the second creepiest moment in the show (the first being a close up of shbibanahangnagnnn's face, mouth agape, teeth looking like they are ready to much on the bark of a tree to stay sharp). It was honestly like Micheal was singing through her from beyond....whoooooooooooooooooo

--Finally...the results. As I said before I liked both of them. But Crystal is by far....better than Lee. Give Lee six-months...a year to work on his nervousness and maybe he will be unbelievable but I am making a prediction now. Crystal will out sell Lee 2-1 in record sales when you match their first albums together.

--Sidenote: What's up with the U2 song being his first song release? Have they ever done this before? Let the winner release a Cover Song for their first song? I'm really confused. I always though they had a song written for them and they both had to sing it on the final show. Why U2? Look I personally hate their guts but I do respect the stranglehold they have on half of our nation as well as over in Europe. Not anyone can sing that song...I can't. You have to really do something special with it for it to work. Lee's version sounds awfully like some guy singing it at Karaoke Friday's at the Rockin Gators. I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

All in all. This season kinda sucked though I am glad I was introduced to Bowersox and Lee Dewyze. Bowersox just has it. I know a few people around here that just have it and when you watch them sing it's just like...nothing else matters for that 3 and a half minutes. That's kinda what I got from Bowersox although I could never really tell unless I saw her live.

That's all I got.

Anthony