ATWT: Panic! At the Elevator

Monday, March 29th:

Luke jumping up and down in the elevator during Reid’s panic attack in the elevator was so hilariously inappropriate. Obviously Luke had fun witnessing the fact that Dr. Reid Oliver is not invincible and adverse to fear.



Dusty is like some sort of superhero. Seriously; the guy was shot, put in a trunk, and left for dead back in 2007 and he managed to literally walk out of it. A gunshot wound, even to the head, seems to be nothing for this guy. He's sort of like a more sane version of Paul; I was expecting him to be okay. Noah’s actually here today? Yes! The show actually remembering Dusty’s connection with him was also refreshing. It’s nice to see Luke actually tell Noah himself about the donation. They're not together right now, but it just goes to show how much they care about each other, breakup or not. I’m glad the writers didn’t go the typical angry!Noah route. That was always so frustrating to watch.

And what’s this? Reid actually cracking a smile today? With his usual bitchy demeanor, you’d think he’d have pulled something in order to do that. Also, that "quick and dirty, just the way I like it" line in reference to Dusty's surgery? People are going to fanwank the hell out of that.

My issues with this storyline so far notwithstanding (not being a fan of Reid and not enough Noah); at least with Noah back on canvas we can actually at least have some sort of potential triangle with all three characters being on.

Online Pick of the Week (3/26): Bob

In 1992, two years after his hit show Newhart ended, legendary comedian Bob Newhart came back to CBS with a new series. Fans of the comedian know him best for his previous shows on the network: The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78) and Newhart (1982-90). However, unlike his previous series, Bob unfortunately was not a success and only ran for two seasons.

Here Newhart plays Bob McKay, a greeting card artist, whose 1950’s comic book, Mad Dog, was forced into oblivion when a Senate sub-committee deemed that his comic was corrupting to his young audience. However, years later, The American-Canadian Trans-Continental Communications Company, a.k.a. AmCanTranConComCo buys the rights to the series and wants a comeback. Conflicts arise however when head Howard Stone wants to retool it and make Mad Dog a vigilante. The show also starred Carlene Watkins as his wife Kaye, Cynthia Stevenson as his adult daughter Trisha, Ruth Kobart as Iris, John Cygan as Howard, and Andrew Bilgore as Albie. Further on into the series it also featured Lisa Kudrow and Tom Poston.

One of my all-time favorite things about Bob Newhart is his dead-pan delivery. He’s always done such a magnificent job as straight-man to everyone else’s antics and behaviors, and from seeing the first show, he did just as good a job here as he did on The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. I’ve read about how things changed between the first and second seasons; a lot of retooling took place, meaning the end of Mad Dog and cast changes, which resulted in its demise. Looks like a classic instance where a show tried to fix something that wasn’t broken.

Seeing this show makes me wish I had Nick at Nite back when this show aired along with his other two sitcoms. Obviously, short-lived sitcoms like this can’t be run all the time, but it’d be nice if a cable network (attention WGN America!) could air at least some episodes during a special marathon or something.

The short-lived Bob, my online pick of the week!

ATWT: Bitch, Please!

Thursday, March 25th:

Loved Luke’s conversation with Holden. There need to be more of those.

I love how quickly Luke saw through Reid’s nice act; he obviously wasn‘t born yesterday. Reid just doesn’t do nice and here it shows. It was plain as day that he wanted something. Especially after what happened last week, there‘s no way he‘d walk in and ask how things were with Noah.

I’m still far from in love with the guy, but today for once I didn’t hate Reid like I usually do. I wish I could understand why Luke was insistent on not telling Noah that some of the money he donated towards the wing was from him. There is not really a need for that, I don't think.

GSN: April Schedule Changes

Several online TV listings (TitanTV, Yahoo!, Zap2it, etc.) are reporting changes for GSN’s line-up, beginning of all days, on April 1st.





CHANGES LISTED ONLY:

9:00 am Family Feud (Richard Dawson ABC 1980; replaces Match Game syndie 1979-82)
9:30 am Card Sharks (replaces Match Game PM)
10:00 am Card Sharks (replaces Family Feud, Ray Combs 1988-94 syndie)
11:00 am $100,000 Pyramid (replaces Catch 21)
11:30 am Match Game ‘74 (replaces Jeopardy!)
12:00 pm Match Game ‘74 (replaces Match Game ‘78)
1:00 am Family Feud (Richard Karn, replaces Regis’ Millionaire)
1:30 am Family Feud (Richard Karn, replaces Regis’ Millionaire)
3:00 am Card Sharks (replaces Family Feud 1977-85 syndie)
3:30 am Card Sharks (replaces Password)

Also 6 pm and 1 am Saturdays will feature Million Dollar Password, in place of 1 vs. 100.

There’s some bad news with this as far as I’m concerned; Jeopardy! has been on this network since its inception and I can’t believe that show is leaving. Not too happy with Combs Feud given the shaft (again) either. It’s typical the version of the show getting the least airplay is the one to go while Karn Feud airs 5 times a day. I’m not too thrilled about Password exiting either but it looks like they’re going to have aired all the episodes they have before removing the show. I’m also a bit disappointed in Match Game rewinding back to 1974 as I was looking forward to some of the later episodes.

But for probably the first time in almost a year, in spite of the negatives, I actually find something positive about a GSN schedule change. Variety is still an issue but Card Sharks is one of GSN’s more popular shows and always did decently when it was rerun, so bringing back a solid performer is definitely a plus. And it also is an obvious sign that the Goodson shows are not done for on GSN. It’s pretty clear right now that at this point they can only afford to air so much at a given time. Million Dollar Password is a pretty good acquisition too. Lord knows I’ll take this show over tired and ridiculous reality and hidden camera garbage.

Online Pick of the Week (3/19): Nurses

This is one of those picks that isn’t going to be that well remembered, but it’s still worth a watch. The show is back from the day where Saturday night actually featured fresh sitcoms on television. In this case it is the spin-off of Empty Nest, Nurses, which took place in the same hospital as Empty Nest and originally ran on NBC from 1991-94. This was one of the final shows created by the legendary Susan Harris (best known for creating shows such as Soap, Benson, and The Golden Girls).

The show went through many cast changes, but the original cast was as follows: Cynical and sarcastic Sally Miller (Stephanie Hodge), married to a firefighter and a mother of three, and head nurse, Annie Roland (Arnetia Walker), immigrant Gina Cuevas who often mentioned her home country San Pequeno (Ada Maris), wise-cracking orderly Paco Ortiz (Carlos Lacamara), naïve newbie Julie Millbury (Mary Jo Keenan), and egotistical Dr. Hank Kaplan (Kip Gilman).

With this new addition, by this point in time, NBC had three Susan Harris shows airing in a row on Saturday nights: The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Nurses. All three of them were set in Miami. And one of the things this block was known for was the occasional theme night where all three sitcoms had the same plot. I actually remember being a young child and watching the “hurricane night” on NBC. I remember both The Golden Girls with the two-parter “The Monkey Show”, and Empty Nest with the episode “Windy” well, but not the hurricane episode of Nurses oddly enough.

The characters are funny and their quirks are interesting. After watching this pilot, this is another one of those shows that I’d really like to see in repeats somewhere. Hallmark? WEtv? Anyone? So many shows air so many times, it’d be nice to see something different mixed in. Something that doesn’t get as much airplay.

Nurses, my online pick of the week!

ATWT: Independent Noah

Tuesday, March 16th:

I love Noah Mayer, always have and always will, but this independence stuff is starting to get to me. I’ve never been blind before so I can only imagine the hardships that come, but it would have been nice to see some of the other things that occur during something like this. Noah wanting to claim his independence repeatedly reminds me of the “But Reg was our friennnnnd!“ line uttered from Luke every other scene in that particular storyline last year. Both lines are said repeatedly. And I’m sorry, but I would rather Luke do something like pick up Noah’s cane for him versus him possibly cutting himself over broken pottery.

Luke seriously has a point. Noah stuck by him through so much when Luke tried to push him away. There is nothing wrong with taking a little reciprocation from Luke when it’s needed. Why doesn’t Noah understand that?! ARGH. No wonder a break up was inevitable. In spite of the sadness, this was such a love-filled break up. Too convincing that Nuke is the endgame.

Wednesday, March 17th:

You know, if I were Reid and I was getting beaten up by someone and someone else stopped it I’d be a BIT more grateful. Luke has McBitchy figured out so well. And sorry, but no sexual tension was there to be had with these two, at least not from my eyes. I’ll admit, I saw something when Luke grabbed him at the police station, but here? All I saw was anger. It’s no different than Holden and Damian grabbing each other or Jack and Craig in a fit of rage.

I’ll admit I’m interested in where this story is going, but at this point nothing much has changed. Luke was nice to Reid yet again and Reid responded by being jerky. Sigh. Aside from a couple one-liners they're making it REALLY hard for me to like this guy.

Online Pick of the Week (3/12): Wheel of Fortune

I know it’s early for Halloween, but I noticed this Halloween Week 2000 episode of Wheel had been posted and it was such a nice treat I just had to share my thoughts seven months early.

I normally show my disdain for things like theme weeks on Wheel of Fortune, but this one is actually an example of a good one. Usually, my problem is that they’re either done too much and feature many lame ones seemingly only for the purpose just to have them (like Beaches Sweepstakes), but Holidays are always a good time to take example of such a concept. Another good thing is that aside from the celebs in costume, it’s the same old good game for the most part. Much fewer gimmicks, much less fluff, even for 2000.

I won’t reveal the celebrities under the costumes since that takes away the fun.

Wheel of Fortune, my online pick of the week!

G-T Shows I Miss: To Tell The Truth

Ah, To Tell The Truth. One of the best panel shows. Ever.

This show has come and gone over the years. The two longest runs being on CBS from 1956-68 hosted by Bud Collyer, and first run syndication from 1969-78 hosted by Garry Moore and then Joe Garagiola in the final year. There’s been at least one short-lived incarnation as well in each the 1980’s in syndication, hosted by Canadian personality Robin Ward, the 1990’s on NBC, hosted by in order: Gordon Elliott, Lynn Swann, and Alex Trebek; and the 2000’s in syndication again with John O’Hurley.

The rules are pretty simple, and with the exception of dollar amount and set changes, and adding a couple things like the audience vote seen late on the original and 2000 runs, they stayed the same. Three contestants are introduced, all claiming to be the same person. Then the host would read an affidavit signed by the central character. The central character only tells the truth when questions are asked one at a time by celebrity panelists while the two imposters are allowed to lie and pretend to be the character. When the questioning is done, then the panelists secretly write who they think is the real central character (either number one, number two, or number three). Once the host asks for the real person to stand up, the other two players tell who they really are.

The thing that really stands out with this show are the contestants’ stories. Some of which were emotional, like involving lost family members. Some were fun as well involving animals, science, or the world of movies and television. This classic moment involved dog food. Famous people would be involved as well. Rip Taylor and Christopher Hewitt dressed as impostors. Civil rights icon Rosa Parks appeared on the show in 1980. Also, some didn’t just involve celebrities themselves, but also some people who would be players later became famous, such as Ally Sheedy and Larry King.

Another thing that usually makes the show fun are the celebrity panelists. It’s one reason why the 1969-78 version is my all time favorite. Nothing could beat the combination of Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass, and Kitty Carlisle on the screen together. Kitty was also hands down the best cross-examiner the show ever had and shined well (she appeared at least once on every version!). There were other great panelists as well, including Hy Garnder, Polly Bergen, Gene Rayburn, Bert Convy, Betty White, Dick Van Dyke, Nipsey Russell, and Tom Poston.

It’s a shame the show was pulled from the overnight. And thanks to silly self-inflicted restrictions, there are some years of the black and white era we’ll probably never see on GSN again even if they regain the rights to the show. But in spite of that, there’s plenty of episodes to go around and it’s definitely a series that deserves some spot on the schedule.

ATWT: Getting Ready to Go

Thursday, March 11th:

As much as I dislike Dr. Reid, his attitude to Henry today was actually well justified. I usually love him, but Henry’s “are you sure you know?” in response to Reid’s stating that he’s gay (um, wow) and the other stuff that came out of his mouth is an absolutely asinine. I know Henry’s not a homophobe based on past interactions with Luke and Noah, but today he just came off as a buffoon. And Katie was so right. It’s none of his business when/if he told her.

Luke and Noah were great today. No forced business to be had here. While I hate that Jake is going to be off canvas AGAIN for the next 2-3 weeks, I do like the fact that it looks like Noah is going to Dallas for his operation with his relationship with Luke on good terms. And Noah totally wanted that kiss and didn‘t back down. There’s no question about it.

This episode was better than I thought it would be. It seemed before that today would be focused much on forced drama that’s been seen the past couple or so Nuke days. Today wasn’t the case at all. I just hope they don’t jack things up by giving them an off-camera break up situation. This is one of those days in which I say that I wish more episodes would be written this way.

Friday, March 12th:

Sigh. More of Dr. Jerk being full of old-school charm as usual. Not yet knowing the doc is actually gay himself, Luke’s reasoning wasn’t that off-centre about his possible homophobia. But still, overall this guy is an equal opportunity jackass. Let’s not forget his jerk like behavior towards, Bob, Kim, Lily, the judge, and damn near everyone else. Young. Old. Straight. Gay. Doesn’t matter. Dude’s a prick. End of story.

ATWT: Good Riddance, Damian

Wednesday, March 10th:

So glad that Damian is gone now. At first when he came back they made it seem like the guy turned over a new leaf, for instance during the Zac and Zoe storyline. But in the end he just turned back into the same old slime that he was before. And I was even more glad to see Luke confront him. I was more than happy to hear him say Holden is his only father since Damian tarnished that right to be referred to as such. No redemption could ever work. Character’s ruined forever for me. Dude’s scum. Vile trash. Adios. Good riddance. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

I’m not ecstatic at all about Faith being re-casted. But I did like the scenes between nuFaith and Luke. Looks like someone else in Oakdale is an addict of some kind. Sigh, what else is new. And who pops pills randomly in a POLICE STATION?! Seriously.

OLTL: The End of Kish

One Life to Live is writing out its gay couple. I could never really get much into the Kyle and Oliver storyline, but I know there are plenty of people who did, and I feel bad for the fans. There were a number of them. What an awful thing to do. And even not as a Kish fan, there are things about this decision that still manage to disgust me. The fact that they seemed to wait to make this announcement until after the GLAAD nominations were announced. And the fact that, according to a tweet from Scott Evans (who plays Officer Fish), this was apparently announced without even having the decency to notify the actors first. How classy.

I think that it's really worth pointing out that not just gays that are offended by awful decisions like this. There are plenty of straight people who enjoy seeing storylines involving gay characters. Many of some of the greatest Luke and Noah, Brian and Justin, and probably Kyle and Oliver, as well, and many other canon and slash gay fan fiction stories are written by straight women as well as gay people. Many people from all walks of life appreciate these stories and they all deserve to be respected.

It just makes me think of the double-edged sword that is As The World Turns. It's nice to see that Luke and Noah have stayed on the show for the past near 3 years, but a number of the decisions in how to tell their story have been far from perfect, and a few points have been pretty infuriating (see the kissing ban).

It also makes me continue to think that decisions like these are one of the many things that have people tuning out in the end when it comes to current daytime dramas. Higher ups can cry "ratings," they can claim people aren't home at 1:00 or 2:00 pm. Yeah, whatever. There are reasons why these ratings go down. According to the fans’ responses, other creative decisions with other characters haven’t boded well over the past few months, leading to people’s disinterest (for instance, one of the male leads on the show is a rapist(!?!)). And I’ve seen pretty much nothing but negative response to these firings so far. Overall in daytime, it's the lack of diversity, lack of strong character driven stories, and lack of plain just not caring about the fans is what drive people away. It’s just that simple. Practically no attention paid towards the fans; and in anger and frustration, they tune out. This is just one of many examples of that. In the end, when the ratings go down and a show is canceled, the people in charge have no one to blame but themselves.

Congratulations, One Life to Live, add yourself to pretty much the rest of daytime soaps. Looks like you just shot yourself in the foot.

Remembering Nan Martin

Actress Nan Martin has passed away. She died on March 4th at the age of 82. Nan was perhaps best for her role as the boss Mrs. Louder on The Drew Carey Show. She also appeared in numerous guest starting roles on television shows, including Ben Casey, NYPD Blue, The Twilight Zone and Star Trek: The Next Generation. She also appeared in movies such as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Doctor Detroit, and worked on Broadway.

Though my number one favorite role of her ever has to be, hands down, her guest appearance on The Golden Girls episode “It’s A Miserable Life,” as the evil but hilarious neighbor Mrs. Claxton. It’s one of my favorite episodes of not just that show’s second season, but the series.

Online Pick of the Week (3/5): Girlfriends

Oh, hell yes! I’ve recently gotten WEtv back, so I’ve been watching some episodes from the final year or so of the UPN/CW sitcom Girlfriends for the first time.

And now I realize why I lost interest in the show originally. I must say it really lost something when Jill Marie Jones a.k.a. Toni Childs left. I've seen certain shows that have the adult "friend" ensemble type casts which can survive one or two people leaving (Mary Tyler Moore easily comes to mind with Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman going off to do their own spin-offs), but there are other shows where going on without a main character just didn't fly (for instance, the British version of Coupling) and this was one of those shows. The other three girls were still there: book smart Joan Clayton (Tracee Ellis-Ross), sassy Maya Wilkes (Golden Brooks), sexually adventurous and bi-racial Lynn Searcy (Persia White), and their male friend William Dent (Reggie Hayes). They tried to fill the void by bringing back William’s ex-girlfriend Monica and giving Maya’s husband Darnell and her son Jabari bigger roles, but it really wasn‘t the same.

Also I think another reason why the show wasn’t the same for me in the end were the stories. Well not the stories in themselves, but how depressing they got. I was happy that Maya was pregnant again, but it sucked only to see her miscarry in the end. Just as it finally looked like Joan was going to marry, her fiancé Aaron was deployed to Iraq. And with the CW cheapening out on them in the end, there was no real series finale made. One of several bad decisions the network would make fresh after the merge.

Despite my grievances with the later seasons, I still find that Girlfriends in its beginning and in its first few seasons was a really funny situation comedy centered around four loving, strong, and unique African-American women and their male friend. It also did a really good job at handling certain issues, such as interracial relationships and AIDS. I wish it ended as well as it started. In the start, there’s a lot of fun mixed in with the conflict. Toni and Maya’s back-and-forth is always worth a laugh. Lynn’s sexually ambiguous and artistic behavior also provided some good laughs, and the earliest episodes also poised an interesting point of view of Joan’s where we see more of what she’s thinking.

The episode chosen is “Old Dog,” one of my favorites from the first season. In it, Joan is willing to consider waiving her “three month rule” of dating with her current boyfriend and seeks her friends’ advice.

Girlfriends, my online pick of the week!

G-T Shows I Miss on GSN: Trivia Trap

Another show I miss on GSN from the people of Mark Goodson Productions, Trivia Trap, a short-lived half-hour of trivia, of course, which most recently aired in a late night block on the network. It ran from October 8, 1984-April 5, 1985; was hosted by Bob Eubanks, and aired on ABC. Not only was it one of the few Goodson trivia shows, but Trap was also the final show of Mark Goodson's to have an original format. Every series of theirs which aired thereafter was a revival of a previous game show.


The show went through two different formats in its life span. The first front game went like this: two teams of three; the juniors and the seniors played. The Juniors being 30 years of age and younger. The seniors being 30 years and older. There’d be two rows of answers displayed on monitors; with a question going with each row. The aim was to eliminate the wrong answers leaving the correct one, getting $50 for every correct elimination and $300 for removing all three wrong answers.

A couple months into the run, this format was changed. Still two teams of Juniors and Seniors, but instead, there were true/false questions came from red or black envelopes. Correct answers were $25 each. There was also a category played with four answers after that. If all of them agreed and got it right, it was worth $200. If one team member correctly agreed, it was worth $100. If they all disagreed, it was worth $50. Disagreeing with the answer correctly earned them a chance to correctly agree with an answer for $200 in the same way.

After the front game was the fast paced Trivia Race in which the two teams played in order to get to $1,000 the fastest to win the game. In this round there would be three categories to start things off. The team in control picked the category and everytime one was chosen a new one would take its place. Questions were worth $100 each and the control of the round would remain with them as long as they answer correctly. It'd switch to the other side if otherwise.

After the race, there is the $10,000 bonus ladder round where the winning team members played individually for cash (and also played that particular round in search of the correct answers). Both this and the trivia race rounds stayed the same during the entire run. Winning teams could stay on the show for up to 5 days before being retired undefeated.


This is hands down, one of Bob Eubanks’ best shows. The Newlywed Game is truly a classic and he’s great at that too, but I prefer him a bit more on this show. He’s much better with the contestants here than he would be on Card Sharks a couple years later. I can think of two things that easily killed it though. There's the format change and the show originally airing at 11 AM - the same time as Wheel of Fortune on NBC and The Price is Right on CBS. In most cases a newbie series has practically no shot against two established hits. See also The Power of 10.

I prefer the first front game format the best out of the two. Both have their play along factors, but the original one I find to be so much more engaging and better conceived.

One of the things I also love about this show is how very extremely 1980’s it is. It’s one of those classic shows you watch and you immediately can guess what time period it’s from, and it’s hard to imagine the show taking place in any other decade.


Not a bad way to spend a half hour, and I'd love to see it return to late nights on GSN someday, or even daytime.

Instant Recall: Review

There's a new hidden camera game reality show coming to GSN called Instant Recall. Blah. Okay, but the show has veteran game show host Wink Martindale in it. So that means it has to be good, right? Right? Uh... no.

It’s as if the folks behind the show watched the Orbitz commercials that Wink has done, taken that concept, and mixed it in with some hidden camera-type stunts and turned it into a series. I’ll admit the commercials were cute, but this show isn’t. There’s just so much to dislike. The silly dating show-type introductions for the players. The hidden camera scenes that took up most of the show were obviously phony, boring as all hell, and in all honesty, also badly acted. And then there’s the absolute worst aspect of the show: the fact that the only real game aspect of the show comes off as a horribly conceived parody. It’s as if they said “we’ve got a reality show, but if we take a few minutes out of it and make the people playing wear name tags, participate on a fugly on-demand set, and give Wink a traditional EMC-51 microphone, it’ll be okay!” Wrong.

Fans have been waiting for a long time to see Wink do another show, especially after his appearances on GSN Live when the interstitial series first started in 2008. And there's no doubt about it; he's still got it as a host. He's as quick-witted and sharp as ever, all the more reason why I say the man deserves better.

This is really a shame. I was hoping to give this at least some sort of decent review. I really was. I have no problem whatsoever with GSN coming up with original programming. But as mentioned here by me before, there has to be a limit. I’ve said I’m no big fan of Catch 21, but like it or not, it’s a real game show. Any dislikes with that show aside, I could at least understand producing new shows of that caliber. Instant Recall is NOT of that same caliber though. It’s not entertaining, and it hardly comes off as a game show, but it does come off as a cheesy (and that’s cheesy in the bad way, gang) version of one of their other crap fest recent shows, Hidden Agenda.

Give me Tic Tac Dough or Headline Chasers reruns any day of the week.

ATWT: Drama-Induced Goodbyes

Wednesday, March 3rd:

Good God! Why does this show insist on injecting drama where there really shouldn’t need to be any? Why?! There is no reason whatsoever for a break-up. None. I refuse to believe Noah “doesn’t need a lover right now.” If anything, the almost kiss proved that very well. The almost kiss also proves that the off-the-charts sexual chemistry is there like nobody’s business (give this couple an intimate love scene in a bed NOW!). And way to dismiss Luke’s feelings in the end. That doesn’t make Noah look too good. One of many reasons why plot driven storytelling does not a good soap make.

And here’s a thought of logic that seems to be thrown out the window… Luke could easily go with Noah to Dallas. But no, that has to be tossed aside for forced angst. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: angst is a good quality for a show like this. And when it’s done right, it leads to great drama, but when it’s forced for the sake of the plot and nothing more, it can really fall flat. It’s really a shame since Jake Silbermann is doing a great job playing a blind person. All it needs is just better writing. Preferably writing that doesn’t go up and down quality-wise from episode to episode. Oh, and of course, Noah probably isn’t going to be seen for a while. Boo.

And no formal goodbye scenes with Maddie? Especially after taking the time to establish some sort of new friendship with Hunter and getting along really well with Noah again. And Luke and Maddie barely said a word to each other on camera. What a lame move to make.

Sorry, no cookie for you today, show.