Month: October 2005 (Page 2 of 3)

Paging Sherry Bobbins… Sherry Bobbins to Wisteria Lane, please

October 16, 2005 / Deb Medsker

Who would have thought a simple black umbrella could make a grown woman cry?

Adding to Lynette’s already crushing sense of guilt about returning to work full-time, Parker invents an imaginary friend: beloved British nanny Mrs. Mulberry, represented by the aforementioned umbrella. In the spirit of her forerunner, Disney creation Mary Poppins (not to mention Simpsons homage Sherry Bobbins), Mrs. Mulberry is fun-loving, strong-willed, and deeply reliable. Unlike her Disney inspiration, however, Mrs. Mulberry is also promptly run over by a garbage truck, in full view of her young charge.

Years from now, Parker will undoubtedly relive that trauma many times, flat on his back on a therapist’s couch, tearfully describing irreparably-mangled umbrella spokes…and Lynette will gladly cover the cost of each session…since she was the one who threw nanny under the bus (so to speak). On the bright side, Mrs. Mulberry is now free to engage in a torrid romance with Drop Dead Fred.

Elsewhere in Happy Town, Gabrielle ditches lawyer Michael “Best In Show” Hitchcock for Adrian “Profit” Pasdar, after inciting a disturbingly touching prison riot. Profit succeeds where Dog Boy failed, and gets Gabby the conjugal trailer tumble she demands…but we’re left wondering how long it will take for her to succumb to Pasdar’s rakish charms.

Clearly overestimating viewers’ patience with Susan’s general incompetence as a human being, the writers choose to have her lie to Mike about having seen Zach, and then fund Zach’s escape to Utah. In other words, she will happily let her lover continue to worry about the welfare of his RUNAWAY TEENAGE SON, because that is more convenient for her than having Zach reunite with the man who gave him half his DNA. Susan is a dipshit. We’re done writing about her until Marc Cherry apologizes for treating his audience like a bunch of inbred baboons.

Last but never least, Andrew and George circle one another like snarling tomcats, each protecting his own interests. Andrew baits George with a delightful imitation of Bree’s orgasm noises (uncannily similar to her dessert-enjoyment noises), but in the end it is George who wears the victor’s smirk. He taunts Andrew with a poolside kiss of Mommy Dearest, earning himself a bloody nose and–more importantly–a return trip to Correctional Camp for Andrew.

The nerdy pharmacist wins this round…but never count out the aggressive, moody teenager: they don’t tend to take defeat very well.

Desperate Housewives, TV, TV Dramas

Pilgrims & Indians

October 12, 2005 / Jason Zingale

Ah, finally… an episode of “Lost” that actually had me licking my chops by the end. And since I’m closer to the subject of food, it seems only right to focus on Hurley for the moment, who’s discovered food heaven inside the hatch. But what’s this? Jin and a man in a giant chicken outfit have joined Hurley down in the hatch? And Jin is speaking perfect English? Oh, wait. It’s Hurley who’s speaking the other language (Korean), and it’s only a daydream. But you have to admit that the producers were pretty sly in their preview of Jin speaking English last week, but why would Hurley be dreaming about the Korean castaway if he didn’t have any connection to him winning the lottery?

Remember back to season one when Jin made a short appearance in Hurley’s flashback and think hard on it. Still nothing? Yeah, me either, but at least we got to hear Jin tell Hurley to “have a cluckity cluck cluck day,” and we also got a little more insight into Hurley’s lotto winning days before the plane crash.

But none of this changes the fact that Hurley’s been given the toughest job on the island: inventory all of the food without letting anyone else know about it. So what does he do? He tells someone. But it’s only Rose he lets in on his “little secret,” and probably for the better. Without her to calm him down when he planned to blow the food up with the leftover dynamite, no one would be enjoying a tasty Thanksgiving snack.

Meanwhile, Claire comes across one of the messages in a bottle carried back to shore, which only causes reason for concern from the ladies on the island (Claire, Shannon, and Sun), who fear that everyone on the raft is dead. But more important, Sawyer received yet another beatdown (his third since he reached the island), this time at the hands of Ana Lucia, who is apparently the leader of the remaining survivors from the back of the plane that broke off during the crash. There’s only a handful left, and they’re living more like savages than castaways, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Raft Gang will stay there with them, or bring them back to the original camp. That is if they can even find it.

But by far the best part of last night’s episode – yes, even better than Jin’s “cluck cluck” line – was Charlie’s outward distinguishing between the A Team (Jack, Kate, Locke, Sayid, Hurley) and the B Team (the rest of the major characters) on the island. It’s funny to thing that the same people are doing everything week in and week out while some of these castaways just lounge around all day long. Then again, we’ve seen what happens when a red shirt goes on a mission with the A Team. Better off leaving the dirty work to the people you know won’t die.

Lost, TV, TV Dramas

Down goes Pompey!

October 11, 2005 / John Paulsen

After last season, many of the networks scrambled to capitalize on the success of “Lost,” but I wasn’t expecting any of the characters on “Rome” to end up stranded on a deserted island. Such was the case for our heroes, Lucius and Titus, who find themselves in dire straits after their ship sinks in a storm. I half expected a polar bear to charge out of the jungle, only there wasn’t any jungle, or any water for that matter. “This is where we die,” proclaims Lucius, who later figures out a way to use the corpses that washed up as part of a raft to get off the island. Like the Guinness guy says on those commercials – “Brilliant!”

Last week, I discussed Octavia’s budding relationship with Servilia, but I thought it would develop as more of a mother / daughter connection, with Servilia acting as a proper maternal figure that Octavia seems to so desperately want. But that’s not what we saw tonight. Regarding the lesbian love, I started to get suspicious when Octavia had to primp before seeing Servilia the first time and then more so after her strange reaction (post-masturbation scene) when Atia wanted her to visit Servilia the second time. There’s sort of a Melissa Etheridge / Portia De Rossi thing going on between these two. It should be good television when Atia finally finds out.

I felt a little cheated after all the buildup to the final battle between Pompey and Caesar. The battle consisted of a few close up strobe shots of soldiers fighting. I hate the strobe effect – it is a cheap way to try to add drama to a scene that should contain more, and it is usually a sign of a show going the way of the dodo, or at least being dropped from my viewing roster. I am going to give “Rome” a pass on this one, but if this is really their idea of a battle scene, we’re all in trouble. Nevertheless, we have no idea how Caesar overcame horrible odds to be victorious until Pompey draws it out in the dirt later in the show. That’s just what I want to see, a semicircle in the dirt.

I also wonder about the likelihood of Pompey arriving at the exact same spot on the coast where Lucius and Titus wash ashore. Talk about random. Caesar explains this convenient coincidence away in one of the final scenes by saying that our two heroes “have powerful gods on their side.” If you say so, Julius. If you ask me, it’s just uncharacteristically lazy writing.

And how about poor, poor Cicero? The guy wants out of politics and just wants to sleep, whether it’s a proper retirement or a permanent dirt nap. He and Brutus surrender to Caesar and the chief welcomes him with open arms. Cicero tries to beg for Caesar’s mercy, and seems to be trying to put himself out to pasture in the process, but Caesar won’t let him get a word in edgewise. An overused Michael Corleone quote comes to mind – “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

The episode was saved by the final scene where Pompey lands in Egypt and is beheaded. Gruesome, violent, unnecessary – these are all words that come to mind. Man, I love HBO.

Rome, TV, TV Dramas

An interview with Lisa Lampanelli

October 9, 2005 / David Medsker

Bullz-Eye.com interviewed stand-up comic Lisa Lampanelli a while back. Here’s a clip:

It takes a tough broad to hang with the boys in the world of comedy, and Lisa Lampanelli is so tough that the boys are actually afraid of her. Her routine (you’ve no doubt seen her on a number of Comedy Central roasts), which focuses mainly on ripping the paying audience to ribbons, is the kind of stuff you’d get out of Don Rickles after messing with his medication. It’s venomous, yes, but playful; her secret weapon is that she’s equal opportunity, and in doing so makes everyone part of the joke and lets them in on it as well.

Bullz-Eye caught up with the lovable Queen of Mean, on the road to support her new album Take It Like a Man, in a hotel outside of Kansas City with a phone system that sounded worse than if we had strung a wire between two tin cans. Luckily, she had her cell phone handy.

BE: (laughs) Roasts are obviously supposed to be mean fun, but that Chevy Chase roast was one of the most mean-spirited things I have ever seen.

LL: Well, because he was such an A-hole. I’ve always thought that the more tongue in cheek the roast comes off, like Foxworthy, he’s such a great guy. I mean, there is nobody who has a legitimate complaint with Jeff Foxworthy.

BE: Well, how could you?

LL: Exactly, and Larry the Cable Guy, they’re all just great guys. And because none of us (roasting Foxworthy) meant anything that we said, it came off so much funnier. And I was the only chick on that, so that helps. You know, “wow, she’s the only girl and she did so good,” this and that. But this Pam Anderson (roast) made it a million times better, because of all those celebs like Courtney Love made idiots out of themselves. And I got to cash in.

BE: I have to admit, I haven’t seen that one yet.

LL: Oh, my God. Dude, Courtney Love and Andy Dick, they misbehaved so much that it was on CNN and Access Hollywood. So everybody wanted to watch it, and because of (Love and Dick) being idiots, people got to know who I was. I’m like, bring it on, drink some more, Courtney, you old whore.

BE: I lose track of all the times I’ve read about Courtney Love doing something stupid.

LL: Oh, well, she did something even stupider. After my set, because I had to headline the thing, I go up, I do really well, she grabs me, and before I know it, she’s kissing me on the lips. Now, listen, I ain’t had a dyke encounter, and I got nothing against lesbo encounters, but I figured that if I had one, that I would be the ugly one. I mean, of all the broads there, of all the chicks that could have planted one on me, like Pam Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith…I would have made out with Bea Arthur, do you understand? I would rather have a Golden Girl on my face than that broad. And she tasted terrible; she tasted like Marion Barry’s morning breath.

Click here for the full interview…

Interviews, Stand-Up Comics

Admit it: Lynette’s boss is right

October 9, 2005 / Deb Medsker

I’m not saying Joely Fisher’s character is likable, and I’m not saying I didn’t thoroughly enjoy Lynette’s multitasking, agency-future-strategizing, baby-diaper-changing Supermom scene a few weeks back. All I’m saying is, Bitter Single Gal’s got a point: Why should the childless people of the world have to shoulder extra workload to cover for those who choose to have kids?

It’s patently unfair, yet it happens all the time–and people with children tend to take it for granted. Lynette’s boss is served up as a villain for pointing this out–and, granted, perhaps she could have peppered her delivery with a tad more tact–but she is absolutely justified in protecting her own “work-life balance.” So what if she doesn’t have kids? So what if her only plans for the evening are to see how many shots of tequila she can down before her vision starts to go fuzzy? It is her absolute right to do just that. Her down time is her own, to spend however she sees fit, and she shouldn’t be obligated to pick up anyone else’s slack unless she wants to–which, clearly, she doesn’t.

It’s a shame they’ve made her character into a borderline Cruella DeVille caricature, because this issue is a hot button for twenty- and thirty-something adults all over the country (including, most likely, some of the writers on staff behind those cheery Wisteria Lane facades), and some real give-and-take debate on the topic would be relevant, timely, and fun to watch. Instead, we get Bitter Single Gal: selfish, intolerant, and pathetic: a missed opportunity.

Elsewhere on the lane, Gabrielle’s ego takes a hit when she witnesses sweet, pure, loving statutory rape victim John having a go at another older woman’s…um…hedges. Worse yet, John tells Gabby he thinks he may be in love with his latest Mrs. Robinson. Chalk one up for Carlos, who called it from the get-go: Lawnmower Man ain’t as sweet as he looks (and he ain’t none too smart much, neither).

Over in Susanville, where every day brings some new form of humiliation–the more public, the better–Susan butts in on Julie and Edie’s daughter/potential stepmother bonding, and this time Julie is the one to suffer. Yawn. Susan’s neighbor Alfre Woodard briefly has an enraged black man rampaging in her kitchen, but he is immediately subdued. Double yawn.

And then, before the yawning gets too entrenched, Bree takes a lie detector test to prove her innocence…and it spikes when they ask whether she loves George. George, meanwhile, apparently puts his pharmaceutical knowledge to good use, and passes his own polygraph with flying colors.

Will Bree question her true feelings for George? When will the police going to make the connection between George and Rex? What ever happened to Andrew’s plot to take revenge on Bree? And how many tequila shots does it take before Bitter Single Gal’s vision goes fuzzy?

These questions and more will be answered…eventually. Maybe. We hope. Or we might start to yawn again.