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New Shows (2013): July 15 - 21

A relatively quiet week with a good mix of color. For clarity, I have listed the new shows in the order they originally aired. I am also now listing the day and time the show airs in case it is something you would care to watch. As a reminder, red means don’t bother; blue means maybe; green means good; magenta means great.

iHeartRadio Ultimate Pool Party (The CW, Monday at 8:00pm)
A group of “randomly” picked listeners (all of whom are pretty and young) play in the Fontaninebleau Hotel pool in Miami and listen to live music. Hosted by Arielle Kebbel (Lexie from The Vampire Diaries), whose new show (see below) was continually plugged, we also got to see previews for some of The CW’s new fall shows. The music was good; the new shows look less so.

The Crash Reel (HBO, Monday at 9:00pm)
Kevin Pearce was a snowboarding Olympic hopeful until he suffered a terrible head injury through a bad fall. This documentary takes us from the days when he was a star in the making through his fall and recovery. I loved this. Heartwarming and inspirational, watching this impressive young man come to terms with his injury and his life kept me enthralled and left me inspired. Do try to watch this; it will make you appreciate how good your life really is.

Buying RVs (Destination America, Monday at 10:00pm)
A half hour show in which a family is shown a series of RVs and then must choose which one they will buy. If you are in the market for one, you may find this interesting. If not, this is all a bit much.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? (The CW, Tuesday at 8:00pm)
A remake of the Drew Carey show that ran for quite a while. A group of people get together and do improvisational comedy. The sketches varied from painfully bad to laugh until you cry hilarious. This is not a show I will watch on a regular basis, but I may check it out now and again if I am in the mood for a laugh.

Perfect Score (The CW, Tuesday at 9:00pm)
This show is simply offensive. Ten men are awarded a cash value (I couldn’t make this up) and two women then compete against each other to try to find the one who has the most value to (a) win the money and (b) go on a date with him. Arielle Kebbel, whom I loved as Lexie, has sunk significantly in my opinion of her.

TWA Flight 800 (Epix, Streaming)
An outstanding documentary about the flight that went down over Long Island Sound, seventeen years to the day from the date this show originally aired. I usually roll my eyes at conspiracy theories (how is it possible to keep that many people quiet for so long?), but the evidence produced in this documentary is compelling. Did a missile bring down that plane (as the documentary alleges) or was it a faulty fuel tank (the official finding)? Watch this and decide for yourself.

Celebrity Motor Homes (Great American Country, Wednesday at 9:00pm)
I don’t get this channel, so I watched the pieces that are available on the channel’s website. As OTT as you would imagine, these motor homes are bigger than and worth more than any house I have ever lived in. If you want to see excess run amok, click here and watch the bit on Will Smith’s trailer. Genuinely astonishing, but in a yuck way.

Deal With It (TBS, Wednesday at 10:30pm)
As if we needed any more proof that people will do anything for money. In this show, the host (Theo Von) wires people with earpieces and then gives them instructions on how to misbehave in public to embarrass their friends. I am not a fan of people making fools of themselves; I am even less a fan of people making fools of their friends. I turned this off seven minutes in.

Blast Vegas (Syfy, Thursday at 9:00pm)
Some poor soul worked out his adolescent issues by writing this movie. The biggest nerd in college goes to Vegas with his frat buddies who proceed to make fun of him because he is still a virgin. Simultaneously, an Egyptian curse is set loose on the town. All the frat boys, pretty girls and the father figure end up dead. Our hero saves the day and gets the girl to bad music and even worse CGI. Syfy movies are getting worse all the time.

Wedding Island (TLC, Thursday at 10:00pm)
Sandy Malone is a wedding planner based on the island of Vieques off Puerto Rico. She is as unpleasant as any of the bridezillas with whom she deals.

Touching the Dragon (National Geographic, Friday at 8:00pm)
An interesting documentary about a man in Costa Rica who had a crocodile as a pet. Intriguing exploration of the bond that can form between man and the most unlikely of animals.

Teen Beach Movie (Disney, Friday at 8:00pm)
Exactly what you think this is. Lots of singing and dancing, all reminiscent of the ‘60s plethora of beach movies. The songs are silly; the dancing isn’t bad; the acting is amateur. It is, however, light and breezy, not to mention something you can watch with your kids. Not nearly as bad as I expected it to be when I sat down to watch it.

Liv and Maddie (Disney, Friday at 9:45pm)
A fairly standard sitcom. Liv is a teen television star who has come home after four years in Hollywood. Maddie is her twin sister, an athlete with her first crush on a boy. The plot is one you have seen and the dialogue is dire. However, Dove Cameron, who plays the role of both twins, is a revelation. She sings like someone twice her age and she can act. The personality traits she gives to each of the twins is remarkable. Probably not a show I will watch when it premieres in the fall, but I was very impressed with this young woman.

Miss U Much (VH1, Friday at 10:00pm)
Catherine Reitman visits TV and pop stars from the '90s who have fallen out of the public eye. Neither she nor the people she visits are very interesting and her constant fawning over them gets old very quickly. These guys no longer grace the cover of Tiger Beat for a reason.

Cedar Cove (Hallmark, Saturday at 8:00pm)
Cedar Cove is a small town, somewhere on the Washington Coast, filled with quirky characters and Olivia who is the judge. Offered a federal judgeship, she must decide whether to stay or to follow her ambition. While the plot is nothing new, there is something oddly charming about this show. I got caught up in the story and the end of the pilot actually made me cry. That doesn’t happen often.

The Toyman Killer (Lifetime, Saturday at 10:00pm)
A movie in which a young psychoanalyst must determine if a young woman facing lethal injection truly suffers from multiple personalities or if she is faking it to avoid death. This story is intertwined with a whodunnit regarding a killer from the past. Tough to watch as the scenes with the young woman got quite intense, but the mystery was good and the twist at the end I didn’t see coming at all. A notch above the usual Lifetime movie.

Kumail Nanjiani: Beta Male (Comedy Central, Sunday at 12:00am)
All I ask from a stand-up comedian is that he or she make me laugh out loud. Nanjiani succeeded, often. He does a bit on the colors used in laser printers that had me howling. If you are looking for an entertaining forty minutes, you could do far worse than this.

City Girl Diaries (Style, Sunday at 9:00pm)
Sex and the City turned into a reality show. It’s even worse than it sounds.

Brother vs. Brother (HGTV, Sunday at 10:00pm)
Two brothers put together teams and then compete to renovate houses. The team that adds the most value to the house wins. The team that doesn’t loses a member until there is one person standing. That person wins $50,000. Standard reality/competition show that, because I am not interested in renovating houses, did not interest me in the slightest. If you are interested, this is certainly a step above the usual drama in shows of this ilk.

3 comments:

  1. Sci Fi movies are getting worse all the time. You know, I think you are right. They have exhausted the silly, the stupid and the awful and are going for the truly ghastly + awful. But if it includes a shark dive bombing the hero, heroine or their car plus anonymous pedestrians, I can go for it. Sort of.

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  2. Whose Line can be, as you said, truly hilarious or painful. It's not my kind of thing, either. Brother vs Brother actually is my kind of thing, but I can't help it -- I find the Property Brothers creepy. :)

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  3. I absolutely loved the original UK version of Whose Line - Colin Mochrie and Ryan CantRemember are just brilliant

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