It's Not a Good Show.

NYC Prep

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

That’s what watching NYC Prep feels like. I’d rather get a root canal or let someone break my arm or clean a toilet or get my face pierced or get stung by a dozen bees. 

Since I am never ever ever going to watch it again, I am not going to learn any of the putative human beings’ names. 

All you need to know is that these wealthy New York teenagers are some of the most loathsome creatures I’ve ever witnessed, and I watch Dr. 90210. On purpose, for fun. 

None of these worthless shits is ever going to amount to anything, except to become the lucky owner of a huge bank account. 

While they aren’t all identical in their loathsomeness, they all are equally loathsome. Some are painfully correct and others quite open in their disdain for lesser beings, but all of them are creepy, sheltered, moneyed dorks. Some of them support causes, most of them don’t. Some of them are preppy, some dress the way they think artists (with money) are supposed to dress. Some of them are good looking, some are not. But they all suck. Hard. 

It’s a lot like Real Housewives of New York City, except with much creepier sexual intrigue. 

Much has already been said about the depths to which our popular culture will sink. If I were taking bets as to the measure of those depths, I’d wager on infinite. To be honest, it isn’t really the moral implications that keep me awake at night, but rather aesthetic considerations. Where is the entertainment value in so-called reality tv? If I want to gawk at badly behaved idiots, I’ll go to Taco Mac, thank you very much. 

NCIS

Navy Criminal Investigative Service? I think not. Instead they should call it Your Grandfather Was Right About Everything (Except Maybe Racism, Unless It’s Directed Toward Arabs). 

If you like this show, you are probably either very old or suffering some kind of serious mental handicap. Either way, you should see a doctor as soon as possible. 

The creators of the show never bothered to develop any characters, so I haven’t bothered to learn their names, nor have I looked up the names of the actors. There’s Old Guy, who sometimes get really mean just like grandpa, Kooky Alternative Girl, who nonetheless represents and upholds government authority and traditional social mores, Smirky Guy, who is smirky, British Medical Person, who is a little bit creepy and has an irritating accent, and Other Female Character, who is the other female character.

Why someone decided to have a show about the Navy Criminal Investigative Service is beyond me. There must have been a contingent of nursing home residents who were very sad when JAG was cancelled. 

At any rate, for a show that involves so much murder and mayhem, it’s awfully slow-paced and boring. It is also painfully patriotic, frequently referencing Gitmo without so much as an eyeblink about the human rights abuses going on there. It’s like 24 for people with heart conditions. 

Old Guy is the protagonist, and you can tell that he’s worked up about something because he yells alot and engages in mild cursing. Again, kinda like grandpa. For Old Guy, “ass” is a major swear word, only to be taken out of the glass case in the event of emergencies. 

In one episode, we begin with a father and son playing golf. The father is career military, highly placed, possibly a general. He’s about to have to go back to Iraq. The son is about to go to Princeton. The father is trying to putt out of a sand trap, and on the first swing he explodes. Literally explodes. 

The biggest problem I see with the series is that it’s not awful enough to be funny, just awful enough to be awful. Walker Texas Ranger is like a thousand times better. 

Also, it gives Dick Cheney a hard-on, so that’s like three war crimes. If you’re watching this show regularly, don’t complain to me later that you got sent to the Hague. 

Family Guy.

Used to be funny. 

Now it’s not. 

Fuck you. 

Sean Connery.

Yeah, yeah. Sean Connery is technically not a show. Well, technically he’s not an actor, either, and that hasn’t stopped him so far. 

He’s supposed to be the best James Bond ever, but what kind of accomplishment is that? James Bond is a sociopathic misogynist. The best Sean Connery can do with the character is to smirk after killing someone, smirk after getting a woman killed after sleeping with her, or smirk after smirking. Also he wore a hairpiece. 

Have you seen any of Sean Connery’s other work? 

Zardoz. One of the worst films ever made. 

Hunt for the Red October. Connery doesn’t even attempt a Russian accent, which I suppose is a mercy. He does smirk, though. This movie gives Newt Gingrich a hard-on, so it is by definition a war crime. 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Actually, I like this one, although Harrison Ford is another actor who’s work outside of his signature role(s) is mostly garbage. For some reason the whole thing works. I think it’s because playing an obnoxious semi-deadbeat dad is probably the closest thing to a perfect role that Sean Connery is ever going to get. 

Entrapment. Sean Connery is Catherine Zeta Jones’s love interest, even though at the time of filming he was at least ninety hundred years old. 

Finding Forrester. This is a bad movie, and you are a bad person if you like it. 

Those are just some lowlights. 

Sean Connery sucks. 

Royal Pains? Really?

Does USA have a special grant from the government to make awful shows? Did they get part of the TARP bailout money exclusively for the purpose of degrading the public will through shitty television? 

Is Dick Cheney still the Vice President? 

Am I hallucinating? Am I dead? Am I in hell? Did I literally die and go to hell, and this is my punishment? 

Royal Pains. I don’t even have to watch the show to know it’s going to be a real brain rape of a program. 

Sample dialogue:

“This is the kind of party God would go to,” curly-haired non-doctor brother.

“Yeah. IF He could get IN,” doctor brother, smugly. 

<throwing up in mouth>

Look, God. I’m sorry I stole candy when I was six. I’m sorry I cheated on a geography test in fourth grade. I’m sorry I hijacked my freshman year roommate’s webpage and put exotically offensive porn on it. I’m sorry I took an umbrella that wasn’t mine from a lost and found in a New York movie theatre last week. 

But I don’t deserve this. 

Law and Order SVU: For Idiots

Law and Order shoulda called it quits a long time ago. But no. They started rolling out, like, one new spinoff a month. Pretty soon there’s gonna be more episodes of Law and Order than there are words in the dictionary. They’ll have to start paying people to stay up all night watching them. 

The worst of the lot is SVU, which I think stands for Sexual Crime Violence Rape Rape. And that’s what the show is about. Rape and violence and sex and rape and incest and child molestation and rape and rape. 

Also, bad dialogue. 

“Where are we on the rape?” the captain says. 

“Porn is a multi-billion dollar Mom and Pop industry now,” says Detective Benson. “And Mom got out a long time ago.” 

And so on.

Also, the acting is bad.

Also, the plots are absurd. 

Also, it’s for idiots. 

Burn Notice Needs a Burn Notice

I finally figured out why I hate Burn Notice so much. 

Because it’s a fucking terrible show. 

You want more? 

Ok. The lead, Jeffrey Donovan, delivers all his lines as if he believes he’s being extremely clever. The problem is that he isn’t clever. He’s dumb. 

And Bruce Campbell is totally wasted in this show. I wish I meant that he was super drunk all the time. Nope. He’s just not being put to good use here. He should be the lead in his own show. Maybe a show about a hit man who gets blackballed… Oh. Wait. 

Also it just plain sucks.