Housewives Are Desperate

I started watching the television show Desperate Housewives when it first aired. It was entertaining. The original promo clips featured a naked Teri Hatcher running around the neighborhood. What American, red-blooded, heterosexual male wouldn't want to see that?

However, last season really sucked and in my opinion, the show is not worth investing the time to watch it. For whatever reason that I can't find, the producers of the show decided to "reboot" it by moving it 5 years in the future. So we are to understand it is now 2014 on Westeria Lane? There has not been much technological change from what I can tell.

One of the characters did buy a Lexus with a refrigerator, so I guess we have that to look forward to. Another character in the show was unemployed and was attempting to get back into the work force. He was having a difficult time and he believed it was because he was older. This character claimed he was asked about Twitter at a job interview and he stated he did not know what Twitter was. Ok, if it's 2014 and you don't know what Twitter is (in all likelihood, Twitter will probably be dead by then), then you don't deserve to get hired.

There were a few references to how bad the economy was in the last season. So I guess our current recession will continue for the next 5 years. There were some other continuity issues as well. One particular couple had two kids in the 5 years the show leaped over. However, these kids looked to be about 7 or 8 years old. The father of these kids was made blind from an accident a couple seasons earlier. Behold, there's now an operation to let him see again. In another gaffe, the 16-year old daughter of Teri Hatcher's character has now graduated from college, is gainfully employed making good money and is engaged to be married... all in 5 years, from high school sophomore to 20-something fiancee.

The biggest flop of the season past was Hatcher's character Susan and her husband were in a car wreck that killed a woman and her child. Susan can't deal with this turn of events in her life and demands a divorce. WTF? Where does this come from? Mike, Susan's husband finally says "sure" and signs the papers all the while she's crying, now thinking that this might be a mistake. Mike moves on and starts banging another neighbor which he later gets engaged to.

Meanwhile, the man whose wife and child were killed in the car accident plots his revenge. He buys a house in the neighborhood and starts a band with Mike and others. He buddys up with everyone. Ultimately, he wants Susan and her child to get killed at the same place and same way his family was killed. Then episode after episode last season, there was no story development whatsoever. On episode showed us some handyman who died that everyone on the street loved. The recounted stories of this guy whom we've never seen or heard of for 4 or 5 seasons. WTF? Then they did the same thing when they killed off one of the major characters. The stories went nowhere.

For the season final, Mike is off to get married with the other neighbor girl. The psycho that moved into the neighborhood just gave up on his original scheme and instead decided to kill Susan and her son by taking them camping in the woods and just shooting them. He instead was able to get them to the same location of the accident and arranges to have Mike run into them, but then he chickens out and lets them go. Mike, Susan and their son are ok, the psycho is dead and by the end of the episode, there is another flash forward where Mike and Susan are getting remarried (though they never show her, you just know it's her... saw that coming months ago).

That was completely worthless. A season of TV watching I'll never get back. I doubt I even tune in this season.

TV Guide's Top 100 Episodes

The new TV Guide is here! The new TV Guide is here! And they have counted down, in yet another pointless countdown, the top 100 TV show episodes. Without surprise, the Seinfeld episode "The Contest" won the coveted number 1 spot. Among the top ten were notables such as episodes from All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore and a token episode of I Love Lucy. Others in the top 100 were from Cheers, Twilight Zone, M*A*S*H and even an episode of Batman from the 1960's. Some odd choices I thought were selections from newer shows such as The Big Bang Theory, House and 30 Rock.

But what really surprised me were some classics that didn't even rank. How about the episode where Gilligan messed up the castaway's rescue on Gilligan's Island? Hilarious. And where in this list is the episode of Three's Company where everyone had that misunderstanding? Or how about the one on The Munsters when Marilyn brought her date home and his hair stood on end and he ran off when he met her Uncle Herman and Aunt Lily? Come on!

Number 100 on the list was the episode of The Brady Bunch where Marcia breaks her nose. So maybe the list isn't a complete loss.

I Finally Went To See Star Trek

... and it really doesn't sit too well with me. But I need to realize it was only a TV show, not real history.  But watching the original Star Trek as far back as I can humanly remember, this movie seems a bit like history revision. I read somewhere that the movie was to be a "reboot" of the Star Trek franchise. In doing this, and without giving too much away, the story calls for a change in the timeline in the 23rd century... so I guess it wouldn't be history revision. It was revised before it became history.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big Star Trek fan. I don't dress up in the ears or costumes and attend conventions (I will confess I did dress up as Capt. Kirk for Halloween one year). But from watching the show for 40 years, I've come to learn much about it and its characters. The one thing about the series in the 1960s was that it held a lot of consistency. More so that any other TV show of the time. That also continued into the Next Generation series. But the new movie loses some of this consistency. Over all it was good move, but if I were the producer, I would have made a few changes that could have maintained the original Trek story.

Spoiler Alert. Don't read any further if you haven't seen the movie yet or Star Trek doesn't interest you.

The main change I would make would be the removal of the Uhura, Sulu and Chekov characters. In the movie, the story is set during Kirk's days in Starfleet Academy. Uhura, Sulu and Checkov were a few years younger than Kirk. There was no way they would attend the Academy at the same time. Instead, the movie showed Sulu and Chekov as commissioned bridge officers on the Enterprise, while Kirk was still technically a cadet. I would have brought them in in a second prequel movie, if any.

I would have made minor changes with Spock, McCoy and Scotty. Come on... in the movie, Kirk was still a cadet, but Spock held the rank of Commander. That was his rank in the original series in the 60's. So you mean to tell me Spock had stayed a Commander for 12-13 years with no promotion.

There were many other things that did not stay consistent with the original series, but that can largely be explained by the timeline being changed. 

I did enjoy when Kirk's parents were deciding on a name for the future captain of the Enterprise. The special effects were great. The casting was done very well as the actors portrayed their iconic roles almost like the originals (Dr. "Bones" McCoy was exceptional). I liked the fact they kept the usual catchphrases (ie "I've given her all she's got, Captain"). I also liked the fact that they kept the same, although improved, Starfleet uniforms from the 60's original. 

I really didn't like the fact how Kirk became captain so quickly. And Captain Pike's timeline was largely changed. It appeared Kirk took command away from him. In the original Trek, Kirk mentioned that he met Christopher Pike only once.  Additionally, I did not approve the fact that the planet Vulcan was destroyed. That will be a major change in the Federation for the 23rd and 24th centuries.

But then again, it's only a TV show/movie... "get a life!"

Death Race 2000

One of the first movies I saw when we originally got HBO in the late 70's was this fine motion picture. Released in 1975, it was an early Sylvester Stallone movie of a cross country race where racers ran over and killed pedestrians for points to win. It's morbid, it's horrible, it's bad but in a good way.

I was checking the on-screen TV guide tonight and then noticed it was on DirecTV Free 101. I decided to watch it as I hadn't seen it for more than 20 years. I think I can still recite most of it line by line like I could from the multiple times I've seen Smokey and the Bandit. As I watch it, I can't help but get plenty of good belly laughs.

In the beginning when the race is about to start, Stallone who plays the bad guy, gets booed by the audience. He responds by taking a sub-machine gun and shoots at the crowd.

In another scene, a group of 3 punks try to play chicken with one of the racers who will undoubtedly try to run them over. They open a man hole so they can escape quickly. The first punk goes underground, followed quickly by the second person. The second person, unbeknowst to the third guy, closes the man hole. This left the third guy out there by himself. The racer comes around the corner and the third guy tries to jump straight into the man hole. Too late. "Oh Shit!" he says only moments before he's run over. Next, the two other guys stick their heads out of the man hole to see what happened. Another racer (Stallone, as "Machine Gun" Joe Vaturbo) comes from the opposite direction and runs them over too!!

At the end of the movie, the hero, named "Frankenstein" played by David Carridine, runs into the platform where the US president gave a speech and kills him.

Good stuff, man!!

Tonight on Free 101, they cleaned up all the profanity and nudity. Every time someone cusses, they bleep it out with the sound of a car horn. All in all, it's still worth watching.

Dog Show

Well, the Labrador retriever got screwed again.

Monday and Tuesday nights were the 132nd Annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show, which Uno the beagle won Best in Show. I was kind of rooting for him last night because 1) the beagle has never won the event and 2) I liked his personality. But I would have been happy with Duce the Australian Shepard or Marge the Weinereiner.

But another dog which has never been Best in Show in this event is the beloved Labrador retriever, nor the Golden retriever. Both of these dogs are the most popular dogs in the world. The Lab falls into the sporting group catagory... and I've never seen a lab or golden win this group either.

But like I said, I'm happy for Uno and also happy that a poodle didn't claim the accolade.