So the History Channel, which I have long lamented as being entirely unwatchable, is making me like it again.  As a history major from college, I want to love it - like CourtTV, which I want to love, but seriously hate - but with it’s emphasis on Nazis, Hitler, and blowin’ stuff up, I haven’t been able to.  But starting with Ice Road Truckers this past year, and continuing with random things that I’ve stumbled upon while flipping channels like Star Wars: Secrets Revealed, suddenly I love the History Channel.  The upcoming previews for the new year I saw while watching The States look exciting and non-war related too so I can’t wait!

That has been summer television for me . . . and now it’s sadly ending. I can barely remember the pre-revolutionary 90210 summer episodes era when summer was a wasteland of reruns. Okay, well summer is still mostly reruns, but this summer has been particularly blissful with a range of fresh content, as it were, that render repeats to the extent networks show those - my cable box has rarely seen the single digits in the last three months. (That’s also because we have HD and the networks are all 70_, but . . . details).

Anyway, the summer season started off unambitiously with The Starter Wife, the semi-autobiographical dramatization of the novel by Brian Grazer’s (now ex-) third wife, which was both maddening and entertaining, frustrating and perfectly fluffy. I would never imagine myself devoting months of TV watching to such piffle, but six episodes was the perfect dose. I slightly hated the end - something about how apparently you do have to change yourself radically to make relationships work or something, but I had to admit I wasn’t watching for life lessons. I kind of wanted the bling.

Some summer programming choices were specifically designed to fill a hole, e.g., The History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers, a serviceable replacement for Deadliest Catch. Truckers was fascinating, if horribly repetitive, but has that same “it’s really freaking cold and we’re making a lot of money (relatively) doing manly things that most people never could and never will” element. The frigid temperatures and perpetual fear of crashing through the ice in the Northwest Territories echo the frigid temperatures, killer waves, and ice floes of the Bering Sea, and the question of whether diamonds or crabs are worth any of this resonate equally. Deadliest Catch wins, though, because the omnipresent man versus man while they’re both versus nature element is more compelling than the man versus nature and only occasionally versus a jerk.

Another source of amusement has been the burn off of shows I liked, but were yanked before their time. There are a number of shows that fit this bill, e.g., Vanished which the machine has been recording at 2 a.m. on Monday mornings, but we haven’t gone back to that yet.

In that category, we finished off Standoff, which was cool and unconventional in that they did us the favor of having the male and female lead hook up before we got there, which eliminated all the will-they-or-won’t-they nonsense by giving us an adult relationship as a twist on the buddy cop television genre. And the awesome Gina Torres was there too. No idea why the audiences never bit.

The other fun show that fits this bill is The Loop, with its fabulously endearing and catchy theme-song, “Hockey Monkey.” Again, not sure why the Loop wasn’t a hit with the kids - it featured a twentysomething with a college business degree who parlays that into a job as an exec with an airline where all his colleagues are older and more experienced (his boss calls him “Thesis”), which leads to lots of generational clashes and lots of episodes about the downsides of being drunk. But how can you not love a show with an episode where a very scary dog eats a flash drive with a crucial presentation on it?!

Probably the two best series this summer though have been Eureka and Burn Notice, which are not quite over. I fell in love with Eureka last summer, and was excited to see it back. It’s one of those quirky, fun sci-fi shows, but what I like the most is that other than casually advancing the mythology of the “Artifact” all the mysterious goings on are always the result of some scientist taking an experiment too far, grounding it in human frailties. Burn Notice was been a delightful surprise, following an ex-spy who’s trying to figure out why he’s been burned (kicked out of the spy business), and helping someone in need every week. Mr. Sassy expressed surprise that I liked Burn Notice, given that I like to “follow the rules” - which is so not true - and lead character Michael Westen has to break them to help his clients. Whatever. Anyway, the show is right up both of our alleys, fitting in with his love of The Incredible Hulk and Knight Rider and my love of Quantum Leap.

Finally, I’ve just started getting into Mad Men, AMC’s take on advertising execs on Madison Avenue in the 1960’s. So far I’ve learned that everyone smoked a lot and it really, really kind of sucked to be a woman back then. Also cool - Rosemarie DeWitt from Standoff shows up!

Yesterday I went to see The Simpsons Movie, which I liked very much - it was good, but not, of course, Best. Movie. Ever. good, but an enjoyable time. Anyway, there were a million previews, but the single most awesome was for Daddy Day Camp, the sequel to 2003’s celebration of the general incompetence of fathers or something, Daddy Day Care. (Full disclosure: I never saw Daddy Day Care, but I saw the commercials and have seen movies before so I’m sure while the papas struggled at first they eventually make it work, and hilarity ensues, blah blah blah.) So there are many wonderful things about the preview.

First, the screen announced that the movie was “From the Studio that Brought You Daddy Day Care.” Not the producers, not the director, not even the writers. So maybe this isn’t about creative fulfillment?

Second, as I asked Matt, “Wasn’t Eddie Murphy in Daddy Day Care?” Because Eddie, didn’t show up this time around. Instead, this time Cuba Gooding Jr. is dutifully playing the role of “black male lead.” Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. lapping up the sloppy seconds of Academy Award nominee Eddie “Norbit” Murphy. Seriously?

Third, even Jeff Garlin, who played the lesser-known co-star dad in the original, didn’t lower himself to participate in this project. I knew the large man who looked like John Goodman’s cousin was not in Daddy Day Care, but we were halfway through the preview before I remembered Garlin was in the original, which made me sad somehow.

Fourth, Daddy Day Camp looks terrible. Just god-awful and in no way worth whatever they paid to make it. Those kids are going to be accidentally leaving that credit off their resumes for years.

So I just finished watching Emeril Live for the first time since . . . um, actually, I’ve never watched a whole episode of Emeril. I’m at best a casual Food Network watcher, settling on a show for a few minutes when flipping channels - though I’ve always had a soft spot for the aspirational efficiency of 30 Minute Meals. But I could never stand the “Bam!” I recall stumbling on Emeril doing something halfway interesting and then it would come out and the channel would change.

Anyway, I taped this week’s episode of Emeril, “Kicked Up Tailgaiting,” because it featured as special guests soccer stars Pablo Mastroeni and Jimmy Conrad. And by “soccer stars,” I mean people self-proclaimed soccer fan Emeril has never heard of, judging by the fact that he couldn’t remember their last names or their teams without reading them off the blue card. And these poor guys play on the national team for Pete’s sake! Mastroeni and Conrad were, of course, gracious and adorable, which made it much less awkward than it could have been. Even when Emeril thanked “the soccer organization” - whatever that is - at the end of the show.

(I only taped it because it featured the two soccer players. Every couple weeks I do a keyword search in the DVR for “soccer” so I can catch all the games I might want to tape, but that also creates lots of random hits like Emeril, usually at least one Dora the Explorer episode, the Will & Grace where Will and Jack join a gay soccer team, and whimsical bits like Cleats of Imminent Doom.)

Query - why does Emeril have a band? I suppose it’s a vestige of the dizzying heights of fame he once achieved - and the women in his audience still look enraptured by him (though other than the excessive use of cilantro, I would not say no to him cooking for me) - but it’s just so goofy.

The upside of the viewing was that not only is the “Bam!” thankfully gone, but I got to appreciate just how charming Emeril is. He was funny, though not as funny as the audience thought, and I bet no one does lime juice rage like Emeril. His was so into his stories even when they lacked payoff for the rest of us, but he endearingly made it work. And he had no problem teasing himself for his gaffes, including the running motif of measuring so casually that the various pots and bowls were not quite big enough for what he needed to put in them. I have no intention of watching again, but if the Bam! was keeping you away, it’s safe to go back.

On the one hand, NBC’s The Singing Bee will premiere this summer, featuring ordinary people singing along to popular songs and then they have to get the lyrics right once the music stops. On the other hand, FOX’s Don’t Forget the Lyrics premieres this summer, featuring ordinary people singing along to popular songs and then they have to get the lyrics right once the music stops. Totally different. And not at all alike.

I had almost forgotten that FOX and NBC did this before with The Contender and The Next Great Champ, but I think singing shows are probably a lot more enjoyable than boxing shows so maybe everyone can win!

As also noted in the article, FOX typically goes at it with ABC in this game, as with Supernanny vs. Nanny 911 and Wife Swap vs. Trading Spouses, but also The Chair vs. The Chamber. Nice to find a new sparring partner.

As a What Not to Wear addict,*I decided to take in the pilot episode of Shut up! It’s Stacy London. Truth be told, I was prepared to not really like the show based on the commercials, which made it look rather annoying.

And watching it, certainly for the first half, was pretty irritating. Stacy had dipped into the big bag of desperate talk show tricks from the get go, principally the handing out of many, many gifts to the studio audience - sometimes as a “reward” and sometimes randomly. Another thing that turned me off was this bizarre posture issue that Stacy developed, where she was slightly hunched over and had no neck, despite the fact that she is in reality a gazelle with a very long neck. The other thing that drove me crazy was the sheer number of segments that she crammed into her hour long show, specifically:

• a fashion show of the worst Friday night outfits that her studio audience ever wore and selecting the absolute worst for a makeover and an end of show reveal,
• a young woman who wore the same dress to a wedding as another guest - a grandmother,
• a trip to Lisa Rinna’s store Belle Gray,
• an excursion with four friends to Rebecca Taylor and shopping with the adorable Miss Taylor herself,
• a road test by three viewers of the season’s hottest trends (orange shiny leggings, super high wasted jeans, mega-platforms),
• cool beauty products with a Redbook editor (including something I didn’t know was a problem or that you could talk about on TV),
• Stacy and two “high heel virgins” testing comfortable all day high-heeled shoes, and
• Jane Krakowski’s life in five outfits - including a very awesome coatdress in orange from age six.

And Stacy kept saying, randomly, inappropriately, “Shut up!”

But somewhere during the show, somewhere between Rebecca Taylor telling us her vaguely useful five fashion essentials for spring (the laminated lace trench coat was cute, but the cropped swing jacket, not so much) and Stacy giving an audience member a brooch that was attached to the back of Stacy’s dress, I got it. I realized that Shut up! is not a talk show. It’s basically a magazine, except you don’t have to read it, you don’t have to buy it, and it’s on TV.

I don’t buy or read fashion and beauty magazines, basically because after a run with Teen magazine during my adolescence I became firmly convinced that it didn’t make much sense to pay for the same information over and over again. Especially where the advice never really squarely fit me, but rather some idealized creatures with entirely different hair, skin, and body type specifications. The magazine never made me feel bad about myself (quite frankly, I was at my physical peak during my teens, playing soccer three seasons a year), but rather, I was pretty sure I wasn’t the target demographic. (Though Lauren Christy’s “Magazine” does resonate with me.)

But what I liked about Stacy’s show was that launching off of what she does on What Not to Wear, the clothes, the accessories, the advice, and the beauty products that she talked about on her show were appropriate for a much broader range than I envision the big fashion and beauty magazines really satisfy.

Once I came to this realization, I began to appreciate the show a lot more. I’m a busy person, and, notwithstanding the fact that I would never buy a fashion or beauty magazine because I wouldn’t want to subscribe and the cover price on a one-off purchase is highway robbery, I liked the idea of a TV version of such a magazine. It was a highly efficient way to get some good information.

It reminded me that I’m pretty tempted to stop my subscription for Real Simple when it expires, because, quite frankly, it’s a lot quicker for me to watch the weekly episodes of the show, which take less than half an hour, versus reading the whole magazine, which certainly is full of helpful information applicable to my actual everyday life and my aspirational everyday life but takes me the better part of a month off and on to read. And I can get the details from the show online.

So will I watch in the fall when Shut up! formally debuts on TLC? Maybe.

*It was the BBC’s What Not to Wear that originally sucked me in - I have Trinny and Susannah’s book (not that I’ve actually followed it!) but never got around to Stacy and Clinton’s - when I was off at school because BBC America was some convenient, sub-100 channel (got me into The Office too), but I can never find the channel now so that ship has sailed.

I am so excited for Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? The commercials make it look like it’s going to provide so many priceless moments. It looks certain to prove both (1) that most people really do forget more than they remember on balance and (2) that a lot of the things you learn are lovely but have absolutely no application in your adult life and shouldn’t clog up your brain space. Although none of the questions I’ve seen in the commercials seem that hard - how many sides does a trapezoid have? what’s a diameter? what’s a pronoun? So I suppose maybe I shouldn’t find this so funny - I mean 45% of these people vote, right?

Yes, Peter Boyle, who died yesterday was more than the character he played on an episode of the X-Files - a fantastic performance that won him an Emmy, but that was probably my favorite performance by him. (By the by, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” is a great episode in what was probably one of the best seasons (the third) of the X-Files.) I never really watched Everybody Loves Raymond (wasn’t really the target demo, you know?), but whenever I did catch some random episode in syndication, his character was the one I looked forward to seeing. He was also really adorable in my fave guilty pleasure rom-com While You Were Sleeping. His filmography though includes so many movies I’m almost embarrased I haven’t yet seen - The Candidate, Taxi Driver, Monster’s Ball, etc.

How could I have forgotten about Survivor announcing that the tribes for the forthcoming Cook Islands edition are divided up by race - black, white, Latino, and Asian? That’s a mind-blowing story. It could be so awesome and so awful. What happens after the merge (typically occurring after some mixing up of the tribes)? When people gravitate back to their original tribe members, with whom their earliest loyalties were formed, will they be accused of being racist? No doubt ratings will be up, and I might even watch again. It’s been positively boring and routine the last few seasons and so I never made it past the premieres, if even that far.

I mean to post more often. I really do. Every day I come across events and articles I’m dying to write about, but because I can’t/shouldn’t/don’t blog at work (look, they’ve already taken away the sudoku), I keep it inside. Well, that’s not really true. I usually call up or e-mail one of my co-workers and we riff on the story for a few minutes, which yields the very enjoyable instant feedback and communal appreciation this medium does not always deliver. And by the time I get home, I’m usually too tired to write - and quite frankly I’m often a little sick of the computer. But I resolve to be better. (Like a fool I have many September resolutions in mind.) So this is what has been sparking my mind this week:

Bikes vs. Peds vs. Bikes vs. Autos vs. Bikes

Apparently the bicycles are taking over SF, and it’s a little scary, right? First, pedestrians (even blind ones) are effectively trapped on streetcorners by Critical Mass. Second, the the Bicycle Coalition is well on its way to world domination - well, SF street domination via their apparently immense political power. As important as encouraging, bicycling, walking, and public transportation is, I’m a little wary of the practicality of making SF a car-less city. There are plenty of people for whom going car-less just isn’t practical, particularly given how terrible Muni is, e.g., people with more than one small child to tote around. Finally, this is not explicitly a bicycle thing, but while the parking tax on the November SF ballot could be a great method of raising a little more scratch for the city and for Muni, a couple things give me pause. The money goes into the general fund, which means it doesn’t have to be used for any trasit related endeavors or costs and given that the city never has enough money for anything it wants to do, I’m not optimistic that it will end up fixing streets or public transportation. Further, as I mentioned above, there really are plenty of people for whom driving is really the only practical option. Lastly, I’m not really sure what the value is of giving Muni more money when there doesn’t seem to be much of correlation between the quality of Muni and its budget.

The Bright Shiny Glowing Box

I’m kind of excited about the fall television season even though I have no idea what’s going to be on. I’ve barely watched TV all summer, which was impressive for me, but I’m ready to become slavishly devoted to the idiot box again. The Prison Break premiere was delightfully tense goodness and I’m still basking in the summer euphoria of Project Runway (I miss Bradley, I’m still a bit shocked Jeffrey so cavalierly made someone’s mother cry, I kind of want to be there (and kind of don’t) when Vincent finally cracks, I want to rip off all of Angela’s damn rosettes!, I adore Uli and Michael, and Heidi Klum is all kinds of awesome) for a few more weeks.

On the giant, brighter, shinier box, I also saw two movies last weekend, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. It was the fun, and not at all terrible, Snakes on a Plane and the goofy, adorable Little Miss Sunshine. Both were thoroughly enjoyable. Snakes because it was just fun, it hit all the elements of a classic disaster flick, and the snakes (faulty science and all) were pretty darn cool. Though Little Miss Sunshine resulted in depicting the most unfortunately put upon nice, little family ever, it was a great story and everyone in it played their parts perfectly. I might take a small issue with the divine Toni Collette being stuck in the typical “mom” role where other than trying to make everyone in her family behave, she’s the only one without an issue.

Remind Me Never To Go To Maryland (At Least While I’m Still Black)

The story of a (black) guy in Baltimore arrested for stealing his own car, which looked nothing like the car that the cops happened to be looking for that day, is so obviously disgusting and wrong that you wouildn’t think we’d have to talk about such things happening in this day and age, but here we are. And those geniuses sold his car (which they thought was stolen, so they sold it why?) while he was awaiting trial. And it took the testimony of the owner of the stolen car to exonerate the guy. Nice.

Poor Pluto

I’m just saying. And everyone’s taking it so personally.

And Ew

Don’t Marry Career Women. Thanks Forbes. [via Gawker, Shocker: Forbes Recommends Trophy Wives, via Boing Boing] At least they put up a counterpoint (Don’t Marry A Lazy Man) now, which I’m sure will elevate the discourse between the genders. At least Forbes.com is getting a lot of page views.