TVSquad

Even though they have experts telling us that the volunteers in The Colony will internalize their situation and begin to think of it as their real lives, I don't believe it. The premise of the show is to take ten ordinary people from a variety of backgrounds and sequester them in a warehouse. Then we'll all pretend it's post apocalyptic Los Angeles and they have to find a way to survive.

But it's just not working. Two episodes in, and I'm not buying it at all. I'm not even really buying that the volunteers are buying into it. They seem just like any other reality show participant, enjoying their moment in the spotlight. The producers have rigged up marauders to go after them, but does anyone really believe they're in any danger? A true post-apocalyptic scenario would be a nightmare of terrors and fears with mortal peril at every turn.

I didn't have a lot of faith that ABC's Dating in the Dark would make for good television. But it's surprised me. In only two weeks, it's already made interesting observations on attraction and the human sport of dating. The only drawback for me so far is that virtually everyone is attractive on the show.

If the point is to see if personality can overcome physical appearance, then shouldn't you bring in some people who aren't conventionally attractive? And I mean more than just having a hot blonde with some acne and a couple of people with about fifteen pounds of extra weight around the middle.

Nevertheless, we did get a bit of shallowness, as well as people learning that it does pay to get to know someone before you judge them on their looks alone. Of the six couples we've seen so far, only two have walked away after seeing one another. And only one of those was based on physical appearance.

The casting directors have outdone themselves this time. The third season of The CW's Beauty and The Geek is set for a two-hour premiere on January 3rd, and while the formula remains the same, the players have changed. This season's geek squad is enough to make the average Boing Boing reader cream her pants. We're talking about a Linux operator, a guy who fronts a Star Wars tribute band, a hardcore Trekkie ("Trekker is the preferred term."), a gamer with a Nintendo controller tattooed to his arm and a MIT grad who's memorized Pi out some 100 decimal places because it makes him fun at parties. The beauties are, in the words of the geeks, "shiny" and "full of cleavage." They're also capable of delivering more "Where's the Panama Canal?"-type moments in a half hour period than an army of Jessica Simpson clones. Needless to say, it's going to be a great season.

Ben Silverman, the executive producer of Ugly Betty and The Office, has more than sitcoms up his sleeve. Silverman and friends are introducing a game show called Identity to television before the end of the year. Taking the Deal or No Deal approach to scheduling, NBC has decided to fast-track the show and air it every night over an eight night stretch between December 18th and December 22nd. Penn Jillette, one half of magic duo Penn & Teller and co-host of Showtime's Bullshit, will host.