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VH1 Craps on TV

August 04, 2006

There's no good way to tell you this.

“Flavor of Love” is VH1’s highest rated reality show. In it, women compete to be Flavor Flav’s girlfriend by donning a nickname and subjecting themselves to a string of bizarre taboo-breaking challenges. The first season included an episode where Flav and two of the contestants took a shower together, as well as a variety of fights ending in some “pretty-girls-spitting-at-each-other” action. It is only natural that this Sunday’s season premiere try to top last seasons hijinks.

So, uhm…one of the girls is going to take a dump on the floor. Cameras rolling. Not. Kidding.

This according to Perez Hilton, whose gossip blog is a current must-read. He reports that after the deed, the contestant tries to sneak away up the stairs, followed by Flav’s sleuthing nose.

There’s nothing good to say about this other than we had a hard time writing about it, so it's highly unlikely that we'll watch. But we just had to share. Another TV taboo broken. Gag.

Katharine McFeet

Singer, Fringe-Festival-Show-Producer, and erstwhile klutz -- Katharine McPhee is having a rough couple of months. After a wicked bout of laryngitis that temporarily cost her the ability to to perform on the American Idols tour, McPhee has now broken her left foot.

The "Idol'' runner-up tripped backstage before a performance Tuesday night in Charlotte, N.C. However, she was able to take the stage wearing ''slipper-sandals'' to sing two songs. She went to a hospital after the performance, and X-rays showed a hairline fracture in her left foot.

Last week, when all of the kids from "Idol" met with President Bush in the Oval Office, there was fear that McPhee would be unable to attend, due to illness. At the last minute she was deemed "fit to serve" and posed for the photo. All in all, McPhee is said to be in ''good'' condition and will stay on the tour.

Unless there are any more accidents -- like, perhaps, deciding to sing in a Ford commercial.

Sci Fi Channel Saves Lost Shows

August 03, 2006

For months now, BBCancelled's community boards have been raging with questions about how to find some seriously brilliant but regrettably cancelled shows. Good news, we found them! They’re over at the Sci Fi Channel!

In a deal with CBS Paramount, Sci Fi acquired the rights to some of the best series made in the past few years. The list includes:

“Star Trek: Enterprise” -- the prequel to the original series starring Scott Bakula.

“Haunted” -- Matthew Fox receives messages from dead people while solving crimes.

“The Invaders” -- Scott Bakula (again) tries to save the earth from space aliens in an acclaimed mini-series by Stephen King.

“Threshold” -- a female government analyst and her team of scientists face off with an alien lifeform.

“The Stand” -- based on the Stephen King novel and starring Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald, who toil through a post-apocolyptic, disease-ridden world.

“The Langoliers” -- starring Patricia Wetting and Dean Stockwell who wake up on a cross-country flight to find that there are only a handful of people left in the world.

Also included in the deal were “Tales from the Dark Side,” and several made-for-TV movies, including Primal Force which is about mutant baboons. That’s right. You heard us: Mutant. Baboons.

Sci-Fi will also continue it’s exclusive showing of “The Twilight Zone” and other brilliant but cancelled request: “Dead Like Me.” There you go. Knock Yourselves Out.

Indie TV Fest in NYC

“The time is at hand for an ambitious attempt to reshape contemporary television” or so says the website of The New York Television Festival, which starts next month.

With websites like YouTube and Al Gore’s Current TV, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on the independents. After all, movies have the Sundance and Cannes festivals, theater has the fringe festivals; so why shouldn’t TV get a chance for independent producers to create something they care about before it’s tinkered with by the networks?

The festival’s backers (including MSN) will give a $10,000 prize to the maker of one of 22 pilots. The award ''establishes a pipeline for a pilot-maker to become a full-fledged TV producer virtually overnight,'' said Terence Gray, festival founder.

Actors in the pilots include Jason Ritter, of the now-cancelled “Joan of Arcadia, and Brad Greenwood of “The Drew Carey Show.” Several of last years winning pilots were bought by stations like A&E and OLNE, but it’s still too early to see the fruits of their labor. Give it time though, this is only the second year of the festival.

This years New York Television Festival will take place in Manhattan from Sept. 12-17.

FEMA, Not Bush, Watches HBO

August 02, 2006

HBO can get an audience. This, we know.

But what about Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina and FEMA’s slow, if not completely inept response? Will it get an audience with the man who might need to see it most: FEMA director David Paulison.

''I'm taking [the show] very seriously, and I'm not taking it personally,'' Paulison told reporters. ''I want to make this country proud of FEMA again. I think we could do that.''

The much-embattled head of the agency went on to say that he is interested in seeing “any report” of what went wrong.

''When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,'' is scheduled to air on HBO Aug. 21-22, and includes some pretty harsh words for FEMA. Spike Lee has been pretty blunt about the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina, saying, ''Pray to God you don't have to depend on FEMA,''

Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, was asked whether or not the W. would be watching the documentary. The ex-Fox News man said that that the Bush administration is having regular meetings about disaster preparedness, and ''whether that includes movie viewing, I don't know.”

Penn and Teller Host "Creative Emmys"

After being nominated for 3 Emmys this year, the duo known as Penn and Teller will host the part of the Emmys that viewers only see as montage: the awards for stuff done by the people behind the scenes.

The 2006 Creative Arts Emmys ceremony will present trophies in 73 categories, including those for technical achievement and guest actors and actresses in series. The ceremony will be held Aug. 19, while the prime-time Emmys are scheduled for Aug. 27.

Penn and Teller earned three Emmy nominations for their own critically acclaimed Showtime show: “Bullshit” wherein they crankily debunk myths about pop culture and pop philosophy.

English Only. Where?

While congress is “debating” immigration and trying to pass offensive English only laws, television viewers spoke Spanish last week. For the first time, Univision had more Nielsen viewers in the highly coveted 18-24 demographic than any of the major networks, except, weirdly, Fox.

The increase in viewers is credited to the huge success of a single telenova “Fea Mas Bella,” which is soon to be Americanized and introduced on ABC as “Ugly Betty.”

The show follows the adventures of a homely secretary at a media company, who works her way up based on, get this, her smarts and not her looks. Sounds like someone we know at BBCancelled.

The American version will be produced by Salma Hayek, who claims: “I'm sure that the American audience is very thirsty for something like this and they're just going to love it."

"The Comeback" Is Coming Back

August 01, 2006

Lisa Kudrow got an Emmy nomination after HBO killed her genius (in our opinion) quasi-reality show, “The Comeback.” Now she’s getting a DVD version to give away to friends and family. And for us to buy.

All 13 episodes will be released in time for Emmy broadcast that (we think) Kudrow should absolutely come away a winner on.

Backstory: Before the show’s fan-base moved beyond TV-fetishists and gay men, HBO took “The Comeback” off the air. The channel said that their “future commitments” wouldn’t allow them to give the show “the support it needed.”

Horsefeathers!

Oh well. It’s another show to add to the list of Brilliant, but Cancelled.

More R.e.s.p.e.c.t. for Aretha

In addition to her 17 Grammys, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame membership -- and title as “The Queen of Soul” -- Aretha Franklin will receive the Award of Excellence from the United Negro College Fund for her work with the organization, as well as her philanthropy towards other causes.

And the event will be televised.

The 64-year-old singer will receive the honor at the college fund's ''An Evening of Stars,'' to be taped Sept. 8-9 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. The annual TV special will air nationwide in late January 2007.

Previous honorees include Lou Rawls, Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder, but Franklin is the first woman to receive the honor.

In a statement, the UNF says Franklin ''has established a standard of excellence that exemplifies the educational distinction to which our member colleges are dedicated and to which they hold their students.''

Tori 4 Sale, and Cher

Attention, K-Mart Shoppers. Exit the store and head home to your computer. Tori Spelling is hawking her goods online at eBay. Some of it, she says: “with no visible stains or tears.”

Uhm, gu-ross.

It’s unclear as to whether or not Tori is keeping the cash or donating it to charity.

Another celeb is selling out … Cher.

In an effort to, no kidding, redecorate her home, Cher is auctioning off 700 items, including neo-Gothic art, an H2 Hummer, a pair of painted brass chandeliers, and a 16th century terra cotta figure of Christ. The auction is expected to bring in more than $1 million, with a ''nice percentage'' of the proceeds going to the Cher Charitable Foundation.

''I'm truly excited about it,'' Cher said, ''I'm only keeping about five items from everything I have. When I got off the road, something happened and I said, 'You know, I think it's time to do something different, but my house is so full that there's no way to do something different unless I totally change it.''

Not surprisingly … ''The amount of costumes I have is staggering, so this sale doesn't even make a dent,'' she said. She will also auction 85 pieces of jewelry, including beaded items she made herself.

That’s right … Made. Herself.

One Second of Jackson's Nipple = $183,333

July 31, 2006

CBS paid the fine, but is appealing. They said the FCC is stupid. The FCC says CBS is indecent-immoral-and-out-of-touch-with-America.

We really have little to add to this maelstrom of mediocrity. But let’s do the math.

CBS paid $550,000 to the FCC because of Janet Jackson’s breast-flashing episode during the Super Bowl.

The “episode” lasted about 3 seconds. So that means Janet Jackson’s nipple is worth $183,333 per second.

If she ever decided to throw in the towel on the singing career, well, she’s got a very valuable asset.

More “Huff” Knock-0ffs Coming Out

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Maybe.

HBO announced that Mark Wahlberg, executive producer of “Entourage” (and star the show is based on) will executive produce “In Treatment” -- a show about a therapist who can listen calmly to his patients while having a very hard time dealing with his own anger issues.

Wasn’t there an Emmy-winning, superbly written and flawlessly executed show just like this?

We’ve been getting a lot of traffic at BBCancelled about “Huff” and it’s about time we addressed it. Yes, we totally agree. It was brilliant and cancelled. After being nominated for seven Emmys, and winning a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for Blythe Danner, Showtime pulled the plug on “Huff,” citing low ratings.

It’s like the Big Bang. We don’t really understand it.

Something else we don’t understand: Last week we reported at least three stories about new shows for the fall about troubled therapists starring notables like Ted Danson and Anne Heche. Major networks are stumbling over themselves to get a show on television based on this premise, and Showtime had Hank Azaria! (Not to mention Emmy-nominated Oliver Platt, Paget Brewster, and the phenomenal Anton Yelchin.) And they killed it.

MTV Video Award Nominees Announced

Maybe the impending 25th anniversary has MTV in a retro funk -- the just-released Video Award nominations for 2006 are a Who's Who of 1990.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers scored seven nods and Madonna is up for five, including best video of the year.

Some newcomer will surely be recognized. (Does Nick Lachey count as new?)

Or maybe MTV judges have gone Grammy on us and are giving out the awards to all the old-timers.

We’ll have to wait and see. The 2006 MTV Video Music Awards air live August 31 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Viewers can vote on the awards' general categories, such as best male video and best hip hop video, through Aug. 20 by visiting MTV Overdrive, an internet channel launched last year, at the Web site www.vma.mtv.com. Voting for the viewer's choice award runs Aug. 7 through Aug. 31.

Vice Survives Jump to Big Screen

Surprising to us (the trailers and ads around looked boring and blue), Miami Vice shot to the number one spot at the box office this weekend, pulling in a $25 million.

Every critic has said pretty much the same thing -- what made it genius on television (it was laughably cheesy) is exactly what’s missing from the movie. And yet they liked the “mood” of the film. Un-huh.

Don’t movies based on TV shows depend on a shout-out to what made the TV show memorable? Nicole Kidman had to learn how to twitch her nose like Samantha on Bewitched and Tom Cruise has had all sorts of trouble with making a believable character out of Mission Impossible because the movies have nothing to do with the show, except the music.

Then again, Cruise’s non-Mission Impossibleness hasn’t hurt the box office tallies. So maybe he's smarter than us.

Anyway, we like “Miami Vice” -- on TV! -- because of the opening title shots with bikinis and boats and those (god help us) pink shirts, coupled with the 80s pop songs. Plus the stubble and the tame love scenes.

Now we have Collin Farrell and Gong Li in the shower together. Oh, that's why it's number one.