TVSquad

Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes, please hear me out. I'm not saying I think Sanjaya should win this thing. Not even close. Those of you who've read my recaps, know I'm not a fan of Sanjaya.

But as much as I've disliked his performances, I'm actually going to defend Sanjaya. Mostly, because I feel sorry for him. He's a young kid thrown in the deep end of the pool, and sometimes he looks like he's drowning in front of 33 million viewers. The judges, critics, and viewers have been really, really cruel. And I'm not a fan of big bullies (ahem, Simon) who beat up on the younger, weaker kids just for sport.

The recent talk regarding American Idol has revolved around one of two things: 1) Paula Abdul's slow, sad descent into dementia and 2) the fact that the show seems much more cruel than usual. (I'd like to see Randy's uselessness and Simon's insistence on wearing t-shirts at least two sizes too small also thrown into the discussion, but I digress).

There's been enough ink spilled on the first point that I really don't have too much to add. Suffice it to say that I think all Paula needs is some rest and an exorcism and she'll be fine.

As to the second point, I agree that the show has become much more cruel as of late. I think that the judges have been mean and that the show seems to focus on the bad auditions rather than the good ones. And you know what? I think it's great.

I spent about 15 minutes last night reading a ridiculously detailed summary of the 8(!?) separate timelines that spring into and out of existence throughout the course of the three Back To The Future movies. It just so happened that during my study of "timeline 1985(a)" that my wife happened into my office to ask me what I was up to. When I told her, she sorta sadly shook her head and left muttering something about me "having no life."

Okay, I admit, trolling Wikipedia for the latest breakdown of a 19-year-old movie franchise ain't exactly what Henry David Thoreau meant when he spoke about "sucking the marrow out of life", but there's at least one person in the world who has even less of a life than I do: the guy who wrote the friggin' article in the first place.

And you know what? Thank God for that guy...

In a scene from one of my favorite shows, Newsradio, Dave (Dave Foley) makes a comment to Bill (Phil Hartman), saying something about "you're like Andy Rooney, only without a sense of humor." And Phil retorts, "Andy Rooney is Andy Rooney without a sense of humor."

It's a lame, inaccurate joke, the only one I can think of from this great show.

I know how you feel. Really, I do. A TV show comes along that seems so obvious in its mediocrity you can't fathom why so many people enjoy it. You list myriad examples of how the show is sub-par, or a blatant rip-off of another show, or too reliant on "easy" jokes, but no one will listen to you. They just keep watching and touting the show as if it's some work of genius. It's enough to make you go insane and eat your own face.

Family Guy may be popular, but there's still a lot of people who don't like it. My feelings on this subject are paradoxical. I like Family Guy, but I still have to agree with people who say the writing isn't always up to snuff, and that the show relies too heavily on pop culture references as a substitute for humor. Brian has a line in one episode that always makes me cringe: describing New York City, he claims it's "like Prague, sans the whimsy." Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like some college freshman trying to sound smarter than he is.

I'm going to start this out with a simple statement: I don't like Martha Stewart. She bugs me, her talk show freaks the hell out of me, and for whatever reason I'm also terrified of people who have their own magazines. However, I partly understand where she's coming from regarding the recent comment war between her and Donald Trump. The topic of course being her version of The Apprentice and how large a flop it was. So despite my feelings toward the Kitchen Queen, I kind of feel bad for her (or at least agree with her) when discussing how this is all playing out.

There's a tendency in our culture, and it's certainly prevalent in the blogosphere, to snark at anything that doesn't immediately turn us on. I'm guilty of this myself, but I cut myself some slack because I'm writing about the entertainment industry, which is, to me anyway, of little consequence within the Grand Scheme.

A couple of days ago, my fellow game show fan Bob gave a big thumbs down to Deal or No Deal, the new game show on NBC. He thought the premise, where a contestant goes through torturous rounds of elimination to determine if the briefcase he picked has a ton of money in it, got too tedious after 20 minutes or so. He also thought the "banker", who calls in between each rounf to offer to buy the case off the contestant for mostly increasing amounts of money, was a goofy device.

Well, I didn't get a chance to watch the show until tonight, and I've got to say, I liked it. In this episode a woman managed to get the bank offer up to $201,000 before taking the deal, which turned out to be the right decision. Same with the second contestant, who, even though many of the big money cases were eliminated early, got the bank offer up to $99,000 before leaving his 50-50 shot behind (again, he made a good deal).

Before, I start this - let me be clear about one thing. By writing this, I realize that I'm opening up a giant can of worms and I'm probably going to get a lot of poo flung in my direction. But I think this needs to be said, and besides, everyone likes playing devil's advocate once in a while.

I didn't realize that when I posted the Breaking News: Aaron Brown leaves CNN story that it would cause such an avalanche of comments. Right now we're at 174 comments (not counting the 64 comments on my Anderson Cooper vs. Aaron Brown post), and 99.9% of the posters are very much pro Aaron Brown.

So I think it's about time someone stuck up for Mr. Cooper.