Winter of TV discontent

It’s no secret that I love the TV. And, yes, I would marry it if I could.

But the writers strike really needs to end. My love is not going to wait forever. I’m personally willing to be a scab and write shows about libraries, unicorns and baking cupcakes, if they’ll have me. Also, if they need me to make the Oscars less boring, I have some ideas.

But the people who run TV have other ideas. Like the current Miss America Reality Check show on TLC. I guess I wasn’t paying attention earlier this month, but it’s a 4 part reality show ending in the Miss America Pageant on Saturday. Yes, All 52 Miss America contestants (including Miss Virgin Islands and Miss Washington DC) live in a house together and compete in challenges. Challenges, mostly entirely unrelated to being a pageant queen. However, no one gets voted off the island or anything. The top and bottom 3 for each contest are singled out but there don’t seem to be any consequences for winning or losing. But of course pageant girls are competitive, and they’re compete for anything (nothing?).

In the meantime celebrity judges try to get the girls to update their looks and stale pageant images. Which is a noble cause, except the judges’ tastes are just as arbitrary as pageant standards. My least favorite is Jeannie Mai, a makeup artist to the stars, or something. And, just about twice as bitchy and vapid as you’d expect one to be. If anyone has ever watched the Disney Channel show The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, she’s exactly like a 10 year older London Tipton.

What I don’t understand is the rules. How far in advance was this show scheduled? When the girls were competing in their individual state pageants did they know? Certainly, they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into in all their previous pageant practice. And what about the whole nonsense that Miss America is a scholarship competition? What does that have to do with living 10 to a bedroom on TV for a month? I only saw last weeks, but I do have to say at least, unlike other reality shows, there was a noticeable lack of girls changing clothes, and cameras in the bathrooms. Most likely, this is the one bit of control the Miss America organization had.

Please read tvgasm’s recap if you’re still interested. I don’t think I’ll be around to watch Miss America this weekend, I can only hope TLC is lacking shows and will repeat it indiscriminately.

Meanwhile, ABC has a different response to the writers strike.

#1 I’ve been noticing they’re editing General Hospital to fill more time than the shot footage should. More repeated bits after commercial breaks, and from Friday to Monday. Also, I don’t know if I’m crazy, but it looks like more commercials too.

But #2, came out of nowhere, with no pomp that I could find. Go to ABC’s streaming video site, you can catch up with your favorite shows like normal. But starting this month, they seem to be releasing a new episode of my so called life direct to the internet.
I don’t understand, but I’m not going to complain.


In other TV news, I’ve been thinking about getting the complete box set of the Twilight Zone. But I didn’t realize it was on twice at 10pm weeknights on the Sci Fi channel. Anyone have any opinions?

Also, if you're not a regular viewer of MTV's My super sweet 16. This is a zorse, and this is a zonkey. Awesomeness!