Grid Effect

We took a day off that wasn’t a national holiday nor were we on any sort of vacation. The television options were just so piss poor that we couldn’t reasonably post anything of any substance. And today is no different, but lest we up and quit the site altogether we should post something, even if it’s strictly for hits. Or rather, avoiding a drop in our already low intake of hits. So, as has been our wont lately, we’ll just preview tonight’s options on the broadcast networks. As our expectations are always high.

Oh, and as a side note, we didn’t get a chance to watch any of the talk shows last night. We regularly don’t, but coming back from the strike would have been an exception. We hear Letterman was sporting a full grown beard, is this in protest I assume? Either way, we watched Fast Food Nation instead, and can guarantee we’ll never eating another hamburger. At least for a few months until we’ve forgotten about the film.

All eastern standard, naturally.

NBC
8pm: Deal or No Deal
So, like, the only people still watching this swill are the same people trying to get on it, right? I mean, this isn’t still bringing in a regular audience that millions of Americans still deem appointment television, is it? Oh, wait, never mind.

9pm: Celebrity Apprentice
Well, at least it’s new. We can’t get too high and mighty with this one since we unfortunately used to recap it. At least at the time it was people aspiring to be celebrities instead of falling celebrities grasping at straws. Actually, we’re not sure which is better: seeing some formally anonymous person embarrass him/herself on national television, or “Big Pussy” Bompensiero attempt to sell more beach towels at a pool than some tabloid whore who just put out a sex tape. Either way, the tag of this post sums up our feelings on this show.

Good luck to all the contestants in their noblest endeavors.

10pm: ER
You have to hand it to NBC, even in the wake of the strike they churn out a solid five hours of new, original programming from primetime to late night. But yeah, we don’t watch ER, never have and certainly never will.

ABC
8pm: Ugly Betty
I need to find a new gimmick in the wake of the writer’s strike, because I have absolutely nothing new to add here. We believe it to be a decent series but have never watched more than a few minutes of it, so even if it weren’t we can’t mock the series in any way without assuring a spot in hell.

9pm: Grey’s Anatomy
Where the doctors are like models and the hospitals are like burlesque houses. Also, we saw a preview for a movie with Katherine Heigl in it when we went to see Charlie Wilson’s War called 27 Dresses. It’s about a woman whose been a bridesmaid twenty-seven times and is feeling the societal and familial pressure to get married, but has yet to find a proper beau. Anyhow, after seeing the trailer in full, we determined we’d rather see the Sex and The City movie than this one; and we’d rather sew our thumbs to our toes than see the Sex and The City movie. So draw your own conclusions.

10pm: Desperate Housewives
Hey, speaking of desperate, I’d say randomly moving a series to a completely different weeknight to air a rerun qualifies as such. We wonder if Tony Parker has just taken to being publicly and literally whipped on his domineering forty years his senior wife’s “dramedy”? We use quotations because the series is neither particularly funny nor dramatic.

FOX
8pm: The Orange Bowl (the corporate sponsor can go fuck themselves)
Listen, while we have been advocating for a playoff since Oregon was snubbed in favor of Nebraska back in 2001 (the 2002 national title game), we have always enjoyed the bowl season. Irregular match-ups we typically don’t see as the nations best teams square off in a year end game for bragging rights (and if it’s not the national title game, that’s all their playing for). But the teams chosen to play each other are so random and illogical. Why pit Georgia, the third ranked team in the nation and the first team left out of the title game, against Hawaii: an undersized novelty team with more hype than it ever deserved? To relive the magic of Boise St-Oklahoma last year?

First off, Boise State last year would beat the snot out of Hawaii this year (neither are even as close to as good as Utah in 2004, who had to play the lowliest team ever to make the BCS, at least until Hawaii). Secondly, why not give us Georgia-USC? The two teams virtually every person with a reasonable perspective thought were the two best teams at the end of the season (though not the best resumes).

I’m sure if I flip over to anything tonight, it will probably be this, but Kansas, who wrongfully got in over Missouri, presumably because their fans will be more apt to travel, squaring off against Virginia Tech has about all the allure of a NFL-Euro game.

Bottom line is a playoff is imperative for the legitimacy of the sport. There is too much parity and too many cases to be made year in and year out. We’re heading down to the BCS title game this year to see if OSU can redeem itself after last year’s debacle in Glendale, and even if they do, the entire spectacle will feel, if not at that moment then at least in the long-term, wholly unsatisfying.

/tangent

CBS
8pm: Without A Trace
Ugh.

9pm: CSI
A total of five people solve all the crime in a city because the network doesn’t want to increase the budget for more actors nor do the writers want to increase their workload. Enjoy.

10pm: Without A Trace
Honestly, are they fucking kidding me? We figured this would happen, but not to this degree.

Back with something different tomorrow before we head down to Naw’lins.