Tuesdays are not complete without the 7th Heaven rundown...
"A Touch of Bink", Airdate 4.28.03
God. NOTHING interesting happened in this episode. Maybe I ought to just start making things up. Even at my drunkest, my plots would make more sense than last week's Desert Smackdown. Last night's episode mainly circled around bad things happening to tertiary characters that no one gives a damn about, thereby draining it of any emotional resonance.
The Reverend gives his first sermon after six months of "If I Only Had a Heart." The roof starts leaking, so the Reverend and Chandler start raising money with the help of grouchy church lady Ms. Bink. Ms. Bink isn't my favorite church lady (that would be the one that got high on cough syrup during Annie's baby shower). Of course, Bad Things Happen to Bad People, so at 8:53 the church finds out that she has cancer. However, since Mrs. Bink has only been in 3 episodes, I don't know why I'm supposed to care.
Ruthie's boyfriend Teeth-to-Spare is upset because his mom has a new boyfriend. The new boyfriend is smarmy, intimidating, and over every night. Teeth-to-Spare is especially annoyed when the mom and boyfriend "fall asleep on the couch after talking for hours." Right, and my 10th grade boyfriend was in my room helping me with a stuck bra clasp. The mom, like all womenfolk, is clueless. At the end of the episode, the boyfriend tells Teeth-to-Spare that if he messes up the relationship, he'll get his dog kicked out of the house. I'm sure this could be a very compelling plot, but again it centers around a tertiary character that I don't give a damn about. At this point, I'm on the boyfriend's side because his name is Dick and I'm sure that created some issues for him.
Lucy and Kevin are back from their honeymoon and are living it up in the garage apartment. Roxanne presses for details about S-E-X, but Kevin tells her that "guys don't talk about that kind of stuff." Mike and I were laughing so hard we missed the next 10 minutes of the episode. I suppose guys are busy talking about shoes, self-tanners and Melrose Place. Roxanne and Lucy go out for pizza and Lucy talks about how wonderful married sex is and how so very glad she is she waited. I have given up understanding why two characters who have hated each other all season would go out for pizza.
Finally, that horrific thing we'd all been dreading has finally occured: the Poddlers got a subplot. The Poddlers take time out of their busy schedule of speaking in unison to steal money from all over the house. The weirdest part of all is when they take money out of Cecilia's purse - she has an organizer, a makeup bag and NO WALLET. All the money is just mixed in there higgeldy-piggeldy (hee, "higgeldy-piggedly"). At 8:53, they apologize and the episode mercifully ends.
Intentional humor: 2 Unintentional humor: 2 Preachiness: 6 Histrionics: 2 Items thrown at television: 0 (I was too busy sleeping).
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
A few announcements: I tried to watch Mr. Personality for you guys, but in spite of the name, no one had any personality on this show and I had to turn it off halfway through. Though I will say that I want to date the 28-year-old NFL Mascot. Also, the site of the week belongs to Kurt. Finally, 7th Heaven showrunner Brenda Hampton stated in an interview that Lucy and Kevin are getting married because three 13-year-old girls accosted her on the set and told her they loved the Lucy/Kevin relationship. I think Brenda's dirty little secret is that those three girls are now on the writing staff.
“We Do”, Airdate 4.21.03
Lucy’s wedding day arrives, along with torrential rains, a plague of locusts, schmaltzy flashbacks and Bo Derek. I’ll let you decide which is more horrifying.
We open with the rehearsal, where everyone hovers about without enthusiasm. Gabrielle (Phyllis Diller!) arrives, announces that Lucy’s grandparents will not be attending, and offers to help. Both Lucy and Ruthie refer to Gabrielle as a “bad omen.”
Lucy stays up all night fretting about her pretty princess wedding, and decides to go wake up Kevin for some encouragement. Kevin is in bed, shirtless, hairless and shimmery. Maybe I haven’t seen enough naked men (shut up, anyone who went to college with me), but he just doesn’t look natural. Lucy expresses astonishment that Kevin is not wearing pajamas. In Lucy’s mind, it is 1954, which may be the last time any man went to bed in anything more than boxers. As they snuggle and discuss whether to cancel their big day because of the storm, the whole family hovers in the hallway with flashlights. God, these people creep me out. Lucy decides to go ahead with the wedding, because few things in life are so able to fill the abyss of Lucy’s neediness and love of attention.
Annie and Ruthie have a late-night discussion about Ruthie wanting to elope when she gets married. Hooray, Ruthie! Naturally, Annie pitches a fit about how nobody can ever get married without my approval why oh why do my children hate me? (On a side note, I once told my mom that I would hate a big wedding. Her response? “Thank God!” Proof that hippie liberal heathens sometimes make the best mothers).
The next day is full of get-to-the-wedding zaniness and madcap hijinks. Gabrielle goes to pick up Alzheimer Grandpa and flirts with him mercilessly. Kevin’s sister Patty Mary (no, really, that’s her name), gets stranded in Buffalo but meets a nice man at the airport. Everyone meets men at the airport on this show. Mary and Matt are trapped in New York, and…Robbie who? Oh, that’s right, that guy who was on the show for four years and mysteriously “moved to Florida” (aka the actor is in rehab).
Woefully Miscast Rachel Blanchard and Chandler (remember them?) drive to Las Vegas to retrieve Bo Derek and Brain-Dead Ben. On the way, Rachel Blanchard gets the flu, Ben eats Fritos, Bo Derek continues to be Bo Derek, and everyone gets in a brawl at a service station. No, seriously. Chandler and Ben get in a fight over Rachel’s honor, Rachel whups Bo Derek, and the show officially, now and forever, ceases to make any sense. I mean, as much as I sympathize with the desire to hit any number of these characters, a minister beating people up at a service station in the desert is utterly Lynchworthy.
Now that we’ve dispatched with the random characters foisted on us in the last year, let’s get back to Princess Lucy. Lucy spends the whole day with her hair in curlers, which is confusing because her hair is straight and flat during the wedding. She hugs both parents, who have a series of flashbacks: Lucy baking brownies, Lucy actually having friends, Lucy’s party celebrating her first period (that was the pilot episode, I’m not making that up), and Lucy’s hair progressively mutating throughout the seasons. Seriously, dude, don’t do the Velveeta acid.
Everyone gets organized to go to the church. Eric hugs Kevin, Ruthie wears a bridesmaid’s dress, Neck-of-Steel Cecilia has no lines but is in the credits anyway, Teeth-to-Spare Peter thinks Ruthie is just lovely, my eyes fall out of my head, and Mike retches in a corner. Everyone makes it to the church on time: Mary in her flight attendant’s uniform, Matt in jeans, Ben in mud, and Rachel Blanchard in sweat and vomit. (Incidentally, sweat and vomit are my two top reactions to this show).
Lucy has a pre-wedding freakout, which I transcribe below:
Lucy: Maybe I shouldn’t get married yet – I haven’t finished school, I don’t have a career, maybe I should have some money in the bank first and NOT get married at 20.
Shannon: For the love of God, yes! Finally someone’s making some sense!
Annie: I know my daughter, and this is just cold feet. If she really really loved me, she’d get married before she's an old maid!
Matt: Patri-ARCHY! Patri-ARCHY! Rah rah rah!
Lucy: OK, I’ll get married. Matt, can you zip up my dress?
There is something utterly creepy about asking your brother to dress you. The wedding scene itself is mercifully brief, with applause and “traditional vows.” For your amusement, Mike and I have rewritten them.
Shannon (for Kevin): I promise to control and manipulate you, hold my mysterious wealth that the writers invented for me over your head, respect and cherish your family more than you, and laugh behind your back, forsaking all others, forevermore.
Mike (for Lucy): I promise to yell and shout, to hold you responsible for everything that goes wrong, and flirt with everyone while forsaking all others, forevermore.
Intentional humor: 6 Unintentional humor: 3 Preachiness: 4 Histrionics: 8 Items thrown at television: 18
“We Do”, Airdate 4.21.03
Lucy’s wedding day arrives, along with torrential rains, a plague of locusts, schmaltzy flashbacks and Bo Derek. I’ll let you decide which is more horrifying.
We open with the rehearsal, where everyone hovers about without enthusiasm. Gabrielle (Phyllis Diller!) arrives, announces that Lucy’s grandparents will not be attending, and offers to help. Both Lucy and Ruthie refer to Gabrielle as a “bad omen.”
Lucy stays up all night fretting about her pretty princess wedding, and decides to go wake up Kevin for some encouragement. Kevin is in bed, shirtless, hairless and shimmery. Maybe I haven’t seen enough naked men (shut up, anyone who went to college with me), but he just doesn’t look natural. Lucy expresses astonishment that Kevin is not wearing pajamas. In Lucy’s mind, it is 1954, which may be the last time any man went to bed in anything more than boxers. As they snuggle and discuss whether to cancel their big day because of the storm, the whole family hovers in the hallway with flashlights. God, these people creep me out. Lucy decides to go ahead with the wedding, because few things in life are so able to fill the abyss of Lucy’s neediness and love of attention.
Annie and Ruthie have a late-night discussion about Ruthie wanting to elope when she gets married. Hooray, Ruthie! Naturally, Annie pitches a fit about how nobody can ever get married without my approval why oh why do my children hate me? (On a side note, I once told my mom that I would hate a big wedding. Her response? “Thank God!” Proof that hippie liberal heathens sometimes make the best mothers).
The next day is full of get-to-the-wedding zaniness and madcap hijinks. Gabrielle goes to pick up Alzheimer Grandpa and flirts with him mercilessly. Kevin’s sister Patty Mary (no, really, that’s her name), gets stranded in Buffalo but meets a nice man at the airport. Everyone meets men at the airport on this show. Mary and Matt are trapped in New York, and…Robbie who? Oh, that’s right, that guy who was on the show for four years and mysteriously “moved to Florida” (aka the actor is in rehab).
Woefully Miscast Rachel Blanchard and Chandler (remember them?) drive to Las Vegas to retrieve Bo Derek and Brain-Dead Ben. On the way, Rachel Blanchard gets the flu, Ben eats Fritos, Bo Derek continues to be Bo Derek, and everyone gets in a brawl at a service station. No, seriously. Chandler and Ben get in a fight over Rachel’s honor, Rachel whups Bo Derek, and the show officially, now and forever, ceases to make any sense. I mean, as much as I sympathize with the desire to hit any number of these characters, a minister beating people up at a service station in the desert is utterly Lynchworthy.
Now that we’ve dispatched with the random characters foisted on us in the last year, let’s get back to Princess Lucy. Lucy spends the whole day with her hair in curlers, which is confusing because her hair is straight and flat during the wedding. She hugs both parents, who have a series of flashbacks: Lucy baking brownies, Lucy actually having friends, Lucy’s party celebrating her first period (that was the pilot episode, I’m not making that up), and Lucy’s hair progressively mutating throughout the seasons. Seriously, dude, don’t do the Velveeta acid.
Everyone gets organized to go to the church. Eric hugs Kevin, Ruthie wears a bridesmaid’s dress, Neck-of-Steel Cecilia has no lines but is in the credits anyway, Teeth-to-Spare Peter thinks Ruthie is just lovely, my eyes fall out of my head, and Mike retches in a corner. Everyone makes it to the church on time: Mary in her flight attendant’s uniform, Matt in jeans, Ben in mud, and Rachel Blanchard in sweat and vomit. (Incidentally, sweat and vomit are my two top reactions to this show).
Lucy has a pre-wedding freakout, which I transcribe below:
Lucy: Maybe I shouldn’t get married yet – I haven’t finished school, I don’t have a career, maybe I should have some money in the bank first and NOT get married at 20.
Shannon: For the love of God, yes! Finally someone’s making some sense!
Annie: I know my daughter, and this is just cold feet. If she really really loved me, she’d get married before she's an old maid!
Matt: Patri-ARCHY! Patri-ARCHY! Rah rah rah!
Lucy: OK, I’ll get married. Matt, can you zip up my dress?
There is something utterly creepy about asking your brother to dress you. The wedding scene itself is mercifully brief, with applause and “traditional vows.” For your amusement, Mike and I have rewritten them.
Shannon (for Kevin): I promise to control and manipulate you, hold my mysterious wealth that the writers invented for me over your head, respect and cherish your family more than you, and laugh behind your back, forsaking all others, forevermore.
Mike (for Lucy): I promise to yell and shout, to hold you responsible for everything that goes wrong, and flirt with everyone while forsaking all others, forevermore.
Intentional humor: 6 Unintentional humor: 3 Preachiness: 4 Histrionics: 8 Items thrown at television: 18
Thursday, April 10, 2003
OK, so last night I was going to do laundry, wash dishes, and watch American Idol. One out of three ain't bad.
Last night on American Idol:
Ruben is wearing the damn 205 jerseys again. This week's group sing was an Up With People-fied version of "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie, including I-have-a-wedgie foot-stomp-wriggle-stomp choreography. Clay and Carmen avoided dancing by cuddling in a corner. Carmen, honey, Clay's not into girls. Accept it.
Kelly Clarkson sang her new (SPLAT! WHACK!) "hit", "Miss Independent", which sounds eerily like the female portion of Duran Duran's "Come Undone". Next up is a bizarre Ford commercial of Ruben in a tux, singing "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car" to Carmen, whose voice is so dubbed she may as well be in a ninja movie.
The results:
Clay "The Most Humble Eyelashes in Showbiz" Aiken is safe.
Ruben "205 is the Essence of My Soul" Studdard is safe.
Josh "Support Our Troops by Voting for the Chubby Guy Singing Badly in Glendale" Gracin is safe, and will be forever and ever, no matter how awful he is. Oh, and you can lose the twang, Josh. You're from Michigan.
Trenyce "Lashundra is Dead To Me" OneName is safe.
Carmen "Slap Myself on the Ass and Warble" Rasmussen is safe.
The bottom 3 are Kimberly Caldwell, Kimberley Locke, and Rickey Smith. Both Kims are reprieved, and Rickey is sacrificed.
From the way people cry when contestants are eliminated, you'd think they were being led off to their deaths. Actually, I think contestants are murdered after the show, so Paula can stay young by bathing in their blood.
Rickey's farewell video features duck-feeding and "Flowers for Algernon" maudlin sentimentality. I didn't like Rickey, but he can sort of sing, and Carmen is flat-out dreadful. How is she still on my TV? Vote below.
Last night on American Idol:
Ruben is wearing the damn 205 jerseys again. This week's group sing was an Up With People-fied version of "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie, including I-have-a-wedgie foot-stomp-wriggle-stomp choreography. Clay and Carmen avoided dancing by cuddling in a corner. Carmen, honey, Clay's not into girls. Accept it.
Kelly Clarkson sang her new (SPLAT! WHACK!) "hit", "Miss Independent", which sounds eerily like the female portion of Duran Duran's "Come Undone". Next up is a bizarre Ford commercial of Ruben in a tux, singing "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car" to Carmen, whose voice is so dubbed she may as well be in a ninja movie.
The results:
Clay "The Most Humble Eyelashes in Showbiz" Aiken is safe.
Ruben "205 is the Essence of My Soul" Studdard is safe.
Josh "Support Our Troops by Voting for the Chubby Guy Singing Badly in Glendale" Gracin is safe, and will be forever and ever, no matter how awful he is. Oh, and you can lose the twang, Josh. You're from Michigan.
Trenyce "Lashundra is Dead To Me" OneName is safe.
Carmen "Slap Myself on the Ass and Warble" Rasmussen is safe.
The bottom 3 are Kimberly Caldwell, Kimberley Locke, and Rickey Smith. Both Kims are reprieved, and Rickey is sacrificed.
From the way people cry when contestants are eliminated, you'd think they were being led off to their deaths. Actually, I think contestants are murdered after the show, so Paula can stay young by bathing in their blood.
Rickey's farewell video features duck-feeding and "Flowers for Algernon" maudlin sentimentality. I didn't like Rickey, but he can sort of sing, and Carmen is flat-out dreadful. How is she still on my TV? Vote below.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
No new 7th Heavens for two weeks, so here's some American Idol stuff.
By popular demand, here are the rules for my American Idol Drinking Game:
Judge Rules:
1. Drink every time Randy says a performer "did their thing."
2. Drink every time Paula says someone is "refreshing" or comments on how terrific they look.
3. Drink every time Simon gets interrupted or booed.
Performer Rules:
4. Drink twice if, when receiving negative feedback from the judges, a contestant asks the crowd for support.
5. Drink twice when Clay does his Eyelash Flutter of Humility
6. Drink twice whenever Kimberley Caldwell leaps or pushes her way into the frame.
7. Drink twice when anyone shouts "Ruuuuuuuuuben!"
Ryan Seacrest Rules:
Drink whenever Ryan claims any of the following untrue things:
8. That he is attracted to women.
9. That he is younger than 35.
10. That he is ad libbing.
And here's a poll. It seems like every week, there's a new American Idol scandal. Here are the contestants that have not been publicly humiliated. Vote on the next scandal!
By popular demand, here are the rules for my American Idol Drinking Game:
Judge Rules:
1. Drink every time Randy says a performer "did their thing."
2. Drink every time Paula says someone is "refreshing" or comments on how terrific they look.
3. Drink every time Simon gets interrupted or booed.
Performer Rules:
4. Drink twice if, when receiving negative feedback from the judges, a contestant asks the crowd for support.
5. Drink twice when Clay does his Eyelash Flutter of Humility
6. Drink twice whenever Kimberley Caldwell leaps or pushes her way into the frame.
7. Drink twice when anyone shouts "Ruuuuuuuuuben!"
Ryan Seacrest Rules:
Drink whenever Ryan claims any of the following untrue things:
8. That he is attracted to women.
9. That he is younger than 35.
10. That he is ad libbing.
And here's a poll. It seems like every week, there's a new American Idol scandal. Here are the contestants that have not been publicly humiliated. Vote on the next scandal!
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