The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week - by Kim

[SanDeE*]

Is it just me, or does The Blue Lagoon air on TV every other month, or something? I saw this on regular cable over the summer, but that was the first time I saw it. I never saw it as a kid, but yeah - I can see how a kid would think it was dirty! They had sex through like a quarter of the movie! And really, how could she not know she was pregnant? I learned about all that stuff before I got to kindergarten!

[Natasha (candygirl)]

reality rules

The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week is a reality show on TBS called The Mansion. I don't know why I have such a love for off-brand reality shows, but I really enjoy them. Maybe it's because there's no hype, or maybe it's because I often feel that I am the only person in the world watching them, but I can't get enough.

Anyway, in this particular show, eight people moved into a mansion in Ohio (Ohio!), and each week they elect a foreman and renovate one room in the mansion, with time and budget constraints. Any money saved on budget goes to the foreman. Then some judges come through and decide how good it is, and reward the team with a paycheck of up to $10,000. They divide the paycheck into eight unequal amounts, and the foreman has to hand out the checks. There are no eliminations, which I also enjoy. And it's hosted by Mark L. Walberg, which is always fun.

Anyway, the best episode so far featured the tough-talking New York native as foreman, and she was kind of incompetent, but not as incompetent as most of the others. And one of the guys was told that if he would just disappear from the job for, like, twelve hours, the whole team would get bonus money, so he did. And then at the end, when everyone found out why he disappeared (he claimed he was injured and went to the hospital), no one was even happy about it! They were all still pissed off.

And then the team got their payday, and the foreman decided to keep all the money for herself, so no one got any money that week! The balls on her! And the weirdest part is that no one seems to care about it or even bring it up in future episodes. Since that happened, we've had a couple hooking up and breaking up, many fights, and lots of drama. Check it out on Saturday mornings (no, seriously) on TBS, because it is awesome.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Sadly, last week's Real World recap did not include an installment of TMATISOTLW, but this week I'm Forever Your Girl:

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was a film on the Lifetime Movie Network called Touched By Evil. It starred Miss Paula Abdul as a woman who is raped by a creepy guy that broke into her apartment, and the rapist is some sort of serial rapist the police can't catch. And even though this movie was made, like, ten years ago, Miss Paula was looking about fifty years older than she does today, largely due to her unstylish short hair.

So anyway, Miss Paula has a hard time getting over her ordeal, especially since the guy is still out there raping people. Eventually, she makes friends with Tracy Nelson (as you do) and gets to know a guy played by Adrian Pasdar. And I don't think there was anyone besides Miss Paula who didn't realize that Adrian Pasdar was the rapist after about two minutes. So Miss Paula gets more and more involved with Adrian, and she also keeps getting prank phone calls where the rapist whispers to her and then plays "Obsession" by Animotion, and since it's Miss Paula, I kind of expected her to bust out some choreography or something, which would have been awesome.

So the police keep uncovering all of this circumstantial evidence suggesting that Adrian might be the rapist, but it's nothing that can't be explained away, and yet Miss Paula keeps dating him, even though she thinks he might be the guy who raped her, like, is she so desperate for a man that she can't just dump him and find someone else, whether he was the rapist or not? So then Miss Paula finally decides to have sex with Adrian, and she actually collects a sperm sample (they didn't show how this happened and I don't want to know) and then takes it to the cops to get it DNA-tested to try to match it to the sample taken for her rape kit. But the cops can't do it without a warrant and probable cause, so Paula is supposed to take it to a lab on her own, but then that whole plot point kind of gets dropped.

And in the end, Adrian proposes and Paula accepts, even though she totally thinks he's probably her rapist. And then the rapist comes back to Miss Paula's house and they scuffle and Miss Paula grabs his gun (dirty!) and unmasks him, and it's totally Adrian, which was so incredibly disappointing because it was so obvious, and he gets arrested, and Tracy Nelson wears baggy t-shirts and leggings a lot, and it was awesome.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

ewwwww:

The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was an episode of Oprah that aired on Thursday. Ostensibly, it was promoting the show How Clean Is Your House?, which I've watched before, so I was familiar with the two British ladies who go into disgusting houses and show a nationwide audience how filthy people can be. So Oprah had it set up for the ladies to go into this woman's apartment and clean it up. But, oh my Lord. Okay, to set it up, this lady looked like a totally average member of Oprah's audience -- well-dressed, nice jewelry, expensive haircut. But her house was...well, let me describe it.

First, there was dog poop all over the place, and I do mean all over the place, including in her bed. Like tons of it. Like, weeks' worth. Plus, she had two birds who had escaped their cage and she couldn't get them back in, so they were also just freely pooping wherever the mood struck. And then there was a flat of strawberries sitting on the dining-room table. Where it had been for two years. The cleaning ladies thought it was a box of dead mice. Plus, there was the usual crap strewn all over the place, and boxes, and whatnot. In her kitchen, she had a loaf of bread that was so old it had liquefied, and a dirty pot that contained maggots. It was about at this point that I realized the woman was not just your garden-variety slob. She was clearly mentally ill in some way, and it started to be kind of sad. She had putrefying meat in her refrigerator, and the toilet was so dirty that it was black. I'm just describing the tip of the iceberg, but I have seriously never seen a filthier place, and I once visited an old bachelor farmer who owned like thirty-seven cats.

So then Oprah pretty much derailed the show to tell the woman that she clearly had mental problems and needed to get serious help, and the woman was all in denial about it, and Oprah was like, "No, for real. Get help." ["Kim, you forgot the part where she had been married and divorced six times, so clearly, her problems extended to many areas of her life. And how she kept standing up and asking the audience for 'peace and blessings' and they were like hissing at her because they hated her so much." -- Wing Chun] All I can say is that if you didn't see it, you should watch for a repeat because it was awesome.

[Nothingman]

Just call the fire department and have a controlled burn on that place.

[SanDeE*]

Wow, that's disgusting. I've been to some nasty apartments (namely, college-age men and a couple of college-age women) but that house sounds like too much. My best friend has a roommate who is nasty like that: never takes out the trash, never does the dishes, doesn't clean up spills, etc.

[Nostradamus]

Heh, reminds me of Trainspotting and the Narstiest Toilet in all of Scotland.

[starbug]

Bleugh. I hate filth... so I can just about watch that show without wanting to cry. How do people live like that?!
There was a similar show over here beforehand called 'Life of Grime' set in london but it was more to do with health and safety inspectors (restaurants, butchers etc) than personal hygiene. Anyway, the student house I was living in at the time was on the show. They were filming a piece on how the local parade of chinese restaurants were tipping hot fat down the drains and blocking the sewers, and they panned round from the back of the restaurants, through the car park next to our house, and then on to our house! you can imagine the excitement as we were sitting in the same house, watching our house on TV. ok, not the most flattering. And it was the same year we had the big bad london sewer rat infestation. Nice.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

15.12

The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was a made-for-television movie called Moment of Truth: A Mother's Deception starring Joan Van Ark. She played a wife and mother who tried to get a promotion at the bank where she worked, but got turned down because she didn't ask for it quickly enough and they didn't know she was interested.

So for some reason, this sends her into a downward spiral. Plus, her husband is kind of a dick and her daughter is leaving for college. So she starts having back pain and her doctor refers her to a pain specialist, which is a nice way of saying that he thinks she's loony.

So the pain specialist is clearly a cult leader, and here's how you know. First, he works at a place called The Institute. How would she not know that was a cult? And also, he has wind chimes. Come on. Cult. And also he's constantly giving her back rubs and whispering to her and s**t. So he convinces Joan Van Ark to go to The Institute, and he implants the suggestion that her husband used to beat her, even though he didn't, so she leaves home for good.

So then her daughter and her husband contact a cult expert and they kidnap Joan and take her to a remote cabin in the woods (as you do) and try to deprogram her. And the cult leader finds the cabin and there's a big confrontation and of course, her family wins out and they live happily ever after.

Can you imagine their dinner conversation in the following year? "Hey, Mom. Remember when you were in that creepy cult and accused Dad of beating you? Good times. That was hilarious." So that was awesome.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Pre-Brenda (or Brinda, as Kelly called her):

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was an episode of Little House that I had actually never seen before, probably because it was one of the later ones with Shannen Doherty, which are usually crap. Anyway, Shannen Doherty's friend is sweet on a boy, but her pa, Robert Loggia, doesn't approve. And then Robert Loggia has to go to Sleepy Eye to get a bank loan so he didn't lose his farm (which would be like the third business he's lost), and the bank totally turns him down.

So Robert Loggia loses it and comes home and shoots his wife and daughter, which was kind of a gritty storyline for Little House, but his family doesn't die. So of course, they have to involve Laura somehow. So all the town men (like Almanzo and Mr. Edwards and Nels Olsen) go out looking for Robert Loggia, but Robert Loggia goes to Laura's house. And he thinks Laura is his wife, and Shannen Doherty is his daughter. So Laura plays along until she can figure out what to do, but then Robert Loggia finds Laura's baby, and he thinks his daughter had a secret baby with the boy she liked, and he gets all pissed that everyone lied to him.

So somehow, Laura convinces him to go with her to the boy's house and confront him, and while they go out to the barn, Shannen Doherty hides in the storm cellar with the baby. But then Laura clocks Robert Loggia with a piece of wood and makes a run for it. So of course, Robert Loggia pops back up because she didn't shoot him or anything, and now he's really mad. And that part was actually kind of scary.

So they go back in the house and he can't find Shannen Doherty and the baby, and Robert Loggia and Laura get in a big fight and he knocks over a lantern and starts a fire. So Laura totally panics and yells out that Shannen Doherty and the baby are in the storm cellar, because she's afraid the fire will trap them. Meanwhile, it was like the smallest fire ever, and Robert Loggia put it out by stomping on it, so good one, Laura.

Finally, Laura convinces Robert Loggia to let Shannen Doherty go get some water from the well, and Shannen starts running around looking for help. And Robert Loggia has a moment of lucidity where he realizes that Laura isn't his wife. But then the men of town show up and shoot Robert Loggia dead. All in all, it was pretty dark for Little House, which was awesome.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

The return of TMATISOTLW:

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. I'll tell you, between the holidays and all of the repeats for the last few weeks, television has not been all that awesome. But I did see an episode of Little House that I had actually never seen before, so that was pretty awesome.

See, this rancher had some sick sheep, but he still needed to sell them for slaughter or his farm would go under. And the sheep totally had the ANTHRAX! And every time they said ANTHRAX it was in all-caps and then there would be a portentous musical cue. So of course, Ma and Mrs. Garvey both buy some of this cheap lamb for dinner, because they are poor, as does pretty much everyone else in town. And then they all start coming down with ANTHRAX!

So Laura and Albert get it, and Nellie, Willie, and Nels Olsen, and Adam and various blind school students, and Andrew and Alice Garvey. They bring all the sick people to the blind school to use as a temporary hospital. So then Pa and Jonathan Garvey get home from wherever the hell they were and Doc Baker gets them to head to Springfield and get the medicine that's coming on the train.

Meanwhile, Really Angry Dad gets all upset that his son is dead and tries to kill the rancher, who has also come down with the ANTHRAX, and really, how dumb was he to eat his own tainted lamb? But the rancher is already dead, because he was a bad person. So then Pa and Jonathan are coming home with the medicine, and they get hijacked by a wild-eyed homesteader who wants all the medicine for himself and his family, and takes Pa and Jonathan hostage.

So finally the homesteader's wife betrays him, because he's crazy, and Pa and Jonathan take the medicine to the blind school. So a few people died, but none of the main characters. And then, once the worst was over, Hester Sue started singing about Jesus, because she's black. And it was awesome.

[SanDeE*]

What a morbid episode! Very funny recap, though.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

No one puts baby in the corner!

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. This week, I have been watching a lot (and I do mean a lot) of Law & Order in my own little memorial tribute to Jerry Orbach. And besides Briscoe, my favorite character on the show is Adam Schiff, as portrayed by Steven Hill. I mostly like Hill because his predominant character attribute is that he's constantly eating, and always appears constipated. One of my favorite games to play while watching (besides yelling out, "Objection, your honor! He's leading the witness!" during the courtroom scenes) is, after every one of Schiff's lines, adding something like, "Boy, I'm so backed up. Do you have any Metamucil?" So you can imagine why I end up watching the show alone.

Anyway, out of the many, many episodes that I watched this week, I think my favorite one was the one where these people adopt a baby and they claim it died when it fell out of its crib, but then it turns out that they have a creepy, crazy older adopted son who punched the baby in the head. And they keep the kid locked up in a room where the walls are smeared with poop and then they bring him in for a session with Skoda, the psychiatrist, who is probably my second-favorite character on the show. But then it turns out that the baby was already dead when the crazy kid punched him, so then the prosecutors go after the adoption broker and the rest of the episode is pretty traditional.

But there were three things that made this episode awesome. One was the crazy kid that they kept locked in his s**t room. Two was Skoda, who I sort of have a crush on, even though he played racist evil Schillinger on Oz. And three was that, at one point, Schiff was having an outdoor conference and, for no known reason, he was wearing a white fedora. Why? Why a fedora, and why was it white? Did he think he was going to wander into an episode of Miami Vice? That hat was awesome, and so was the episode. I'll miss you, Jerry Orbach, but you will live on forever in reruns on TNT. And this is where Wing can tell you about her favorite episode.

["Dude, so many. And I have seen them all. But probably my favourite is 'Misconception,' even though it's pre-Briscoe. Yokas from Third Watch and Kellerman from Homicide are this young couple, and she's pregnant and gets mugged and loses the baby, and it turns out that she was having an affair with her boss, this big lawyer, and then we find out that she and Kellerman planned the whole thing, including the pregnancy, and that he was the one who attacked her, and that it was all a huge extortion plot, and that technically killing the fetus wasn't a crime under New York law because of how many weeks old it was so they can't be charged with anything, but Ben Stone goes through with his case against them anyway and in his closing argument he totally chews everything in the room, including the bench, all, 'Nooooo criiiiiiime? A child is dead. No criiiiime?' And he keeps talking about what monsters they are -- which, totally -- but even when he's talking about a violent assault and an intentional miscarriage, he's such a drama queen that you can barely even take him seriously, which is awesome. I loved Ben Stone, and I loved Lenny Briscoe and his many obstreporous ex-wives and ex-wife punchlines. R.I.P." -- Wing Chun]

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Peter Brady & Mini-Me!:

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was the premiere episode of the new season of The Surreal Life. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I think I've seen every episode of that show, not because I'm all that interested, but because I somehow always end up watching it at, like, 3:00 AM. So I watched the premiere, and I am so glad that I did.

First to show up was the wrestler formerly known as Chyna, and I don't know if you have seen the pictures circulating on the internet of her private parts, but if you haven't, avoid them at all costs, because I am scarred for life. For life! So Chyna immediately grabbed the one single room, ignoring the fact that everything in the room (closet, bed, toilet, chairs) were all really scaled down. And then she got drunk.

So the others (Peter Brady, Da Brat, Jane Wiedlin, Adrienne Curry, Marcus Schenkenburg, and Mini-Me) all showed up. And I knew it was going to be awesome because Mini-Me drives one of those little motorized scooters everywhere. So obviously, the room with the scaled-down furniture was supposed to be for Mini-Me, and he got pissed, but Chyna wouldn't give it up. And she was standing in there next to this miniature closet, going, "What? Why are you guys saying this room is for [Mini-Me]? Why can't it be my room?" She finally agreed to give it up.

So then for dinner, Adrienne Curry served sushi off her naked body and Mini-Me was totally wasted and like, rubbing her nipple, which was creepy. So he passed out in his bed, and Adrienne and Jane decided to go naked in the hot tub. Peter Brady told Mini-Me that the girls were naked, and Mini-Me came back out. So then they're all sitting around (fully clothed) and Mini-Me is totally rubbing up on Peter Brady's thigh and patting him and loving him up as they sit together on this bench. And then Mini-Me totally passes out and nearly falls off the bench. So Peter Brady sets him back up, and he passes out a few more times, so Peter Brady ends up carrying him like a baby back into the house, which was hilarious.

So then later, Da Brat gets up to sleep on the couch, because her roommate Chyna is snoring. On the way, she sees Mini-Me, stark naked, sitting on his scooter in the exercise room. So she asks if he's okay, and she notices that he's taking a whiz in the corner. You haven't lived until you've seen Mini-Me, naked, peeing in the corner while sitting on his scooter. I hope he didn't mess up the electrical system. So Da Brat gets Peter Brady, but what do you do in that situation? Laugh. Which is what everyone did. And it was awesome.

[SanDeE*]

I know I'm not Kim, but I just had to share this!

The most awesome thing I saw on TV this week was a 1976 movie called "The Boy In The Bubble" starring a young John Travolta as a teenager with an immune deficiency, therefore he has to stay in a germ-free room for his entire life. He also has a small germ-free box he can go in when his parents have to transport him outside of their home. John has a huge crush on the girl next door, who plays like she doesn't like him, but she does, even though she has a jerk of a boyfriend. John watches the neighbor girl ride around on her horse and swim at the beach by their houses all the time, which is pretty creepy. He also admits to her that he never showers, because since there are no germs in his plastic bedroom, there is no smell. Eeewww!

In one scene, John is at a beach party (in his plastic box) with his parents there too, and the girl is dared to hold John's hand, which she does and later admits it was a dare. This sends John into a thrashing hissy fit inside his box on the beach! He's screaming, "bring me to the hospital!" and his mother yells at the neighbor girl, "What did you do to him?!???" It was hilarious.

The best scene is when John finally is allowed to go to regular high school, which has been a battle for him all his life and until now he had to video-conference his classroom, which seemed weird to me - why can't his parents just get a tutor? They can afford all those germ-free containers and hospital bills. Eh. Anyway, he goes to school in this orange germ-free space suit, and they have a germ-free cubicle set up for him in his classroom. One day the neighbor girl and her friends invite John to go for a walk with them during lunch, and they end up at the football field smoking a joint. John of course can't smoke it, so he says to them, "I'm from outer space, you know, and the people on my home planet are stronger than humans." Then he says to the neighbor girl's boyfriend, "I bet I can do more pushups than you." Neighbor girl's boyfriend says, "Are you talking space money or real money?" John says, "I'm talking ten bucks, and we'll do the kind where you clap your hands in the middle." So they have their pushup contest and John wins, but while he's celebrating the batteries run out on his space suit, and he starts yelling "take me to the bubble! Take me to the bubble!"

At the end of the movie he goes through graduation with a cap & gown over his space suit. Hilarious! And after graduation, John decides to leave his bubble. He is fine of course, and walks over to the neighbor girl who is feeding her horse and asks her to take him for a ride. End shot is the two of them riding around on the horse in their backyards.

This could quite possibly be the best and worst movie I've seen. It was so bad!