Television Of The Weak: Prop Comics, Bad Actors, Awesome Beer Commercials & Two New Writers

This Week:  24, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, Super Bowl Commercials & The Bad Girls Club

The Factual Opinion proudly welcomes manga and comic book critic superstar Matthew Brady from Warren Peace Sings The Blues as well as freelance video game writer Zeb L. West from Squidhelmet onto the Television Of The Weak Fire Retrieval Squad.  We kill?  Everything.

24 - "2:00PM - 3:00PM"

Whereas last weeks episode depicted some nasty bloodshed struggling for the viewers attention beside Cherry Jones strangling her way through treacly monologues about Why Good Men Must Never Falter, this week took a different tactic:  nasty bloodshed struggling for the viewers attention besides Janeane Garofalo's strangled performance of some treacly phone conversation.  Whatever the opposite of compelling is--not boring, because boring doesn't work so steadily towards actively diminishing one's desire to watch television--that's roughly the description of Janeane so far this season.  Consider this:  it's conceivable that the reason the writers included lines where Janeane corrects the soon-to-die-in-vain heroic plant manager of Scary MacGuffin Exploding Plant # 3 for the terrible sin of calling her "Honey" while on the phone discussing the very real, and very awful, death scenario he's been shoved into so that the writers could showcase how Janeane--like Chloe before her--is a character so used to dealing with the numbers and digital aspect of violence and horror that the only way for her to find some mental safety is to resort to labeling the unseen man she knows she cannot help as yet another chauvinist pig, yet another man who she probably is used to dealing with on a frequent basis.  And that's a surprisingly intelligent decision on the part of the writers.  Fighting crime on the FBI level is a truly compartmentalized industry--sure, they all get some level of training, but a number crunching cubical filler like Janeane wouldn't be prepared, couldn't be prepared, for the type of emotional minefield that a real world ticking bomb threat would cause.  Finding a way--any way at all--for her to identify it with her real personality, her real world, wouldn't just be a likelihood, it would make good sense:  she has to tell this man to do things, all the while realizing that every second he spends wandering around his plant, answering her questions and supervising its evacuation, is yet another second that he should be running away as fast as he can.  As far as she knows, there isn't any reason to believe that this guy, and the people he sees all around him, aren't going to die horribly.  Even worse, she knows that this guy knows that too--that he's clearly got enough of an understanding of the problem at hand to have already grasped that the end result of this scenario is that all those evacuees, as well as a good portion of the surrounding population, are going to die horribly.  Labeling him, correcting his tossed off in fear colloquialism (one that could certainly make him a sexist pig, although that's clearly not the reason it's shoved in to the script), makes it that much easier to deal with it.  He's no longer a guy going to die that she has to get emotionally trapped into caring about as a specific human being.  He's another sexist dude who she's going to order around, the same way she did when the receptionist wouldn't connect her immediately when she first called.

All of that makes sense on paper.  But on the ground?  On the ground, Janeane Garafalo is a terrible, shitty actor, and she fails to convince on any level beyond sounding like the clueless, one-note harpy she's turned this character into.  Unlike Cherry Jones, who has had to suffer shit material and ended up making shit, Janeane's had some decent, standard 24 sequences, and she's botched every fucking landing she attempted.  It's been a while since 24 featured somebody this bad on this extended of a basis--in fact, the best possible thing for Janeane's performance is the still-coming return of Elisha Cuthbert, who can pretty much guarantee that she'll be bringing some kind of terrible trailing in her wake. 

Of course, in the face of all that, it behooves me to mention that this episode also included a ton of stuff for that website that keeps track of how many people Jack Bauer kills.  Joined by Tony and a Sweet Jesus I Wish I Took Yoga From Bill Buchanan (click that), and as the GZA once said "Clips are fully loaded, and then blood floods the lawn."  While one of the bad guys--the biggest and nastiest--had to escape to keep the show moving into the new, CIP device free story arc, everybody else died.  And whoa mama, it wasn't none of that Jason Bourne style killing either, with magazines and hand towels:  it's all machine guns all the time for this ex-CTU team of freestyle killers.  And while, sure, 24 has had all kinds of pull the trigger violence before, this was the first time that we've seen something like this:  these guys have no right to be doing any of exactly what they're doing.  They aren't government employees, Bill Buchanan isn't holding onto magical pardons for acts committed, this is just straight up vigilante justice, and the only excuse?  American pride.  Considering how far they could take this down the rabbit hole--well, that just makes it that much better.  And meaner.

Fringe - "The Transformation" by Matthew Brady

So this show?  It's kind of like The X-Files, but dumber.  Not that X-Files wasn't often pretty dumb itself, but this puts it to shame, simply in the ludicrousness of its premise, from the goofy science, to the non-bureaucracy and perfectly synchronized cooperation of its governmental law enforcement agencies, to its make-it-up-as-you-go-along conspiracy.  Sure, there's supposedly a big plan, as with Lost or Battlestar Galactica, but I'm sure the writers of all these shows just throw a bunch of shit at the wall and then save whatever seems coolest.

Anyway, you've got a team composed of some blonde Australian woman who is not a very good actor pretending to be American by speaking in a sort of throaty voice.  Then there's the kid from The Mighty Ducks, although I'm sure he would prefer to be known as one of the guys on Dawson's Creek.  No, not Dawson, the other one.  I have no idea what his name was, I never watched that show.  The authority figure is played by Lt. Daniels from The Wire, so you can expect lots of grumpy glowering and that look that he does that makes his eyes stand out like golf balls against his dark skin.  And there's some other people that aren't really important, so you can ignore them.   But best of all is John Noble (who I had never heard of/noticed before, but apparently he played Denethor in the last two Lord of the Rings movies, if you know who that is) as a crazy old mad scientist who is always working in a lab and coming up with the answers to whatever weird shit the team discovers.  He's got a backstory that ties into whatever the show is supposed to be about, but he's really there to spout sciency gobbledegook and make funny non-sequiturs, and he's great at both.

So in this episode, the pre-credits sequence (known as the "freak-meet" by a nascent fan base, or at least people who comment on the TV reviews at the AV Club) sees bad stuff happen on an airplane. Already?  The pilot went with the "plane crash caused by freaky events" route, and they're going down that road again already?  There's a nervous guy who gets a nosebleed, which makes him freak out and tell the flight attendants that something bad is going to happen, then he locks himself in a bathroom and starts screaming, and then he turns into a monster and the plane crashes.  You know, the team needs to step up their game and stop this sort of thing before it happens, rather than reacting after a few hundred civilians die.  So the investigation makes Olivia (blonde lady) remember some stuff about the case from the memories of her old partner/lover John that are stuck in her head (long story), and she gets Walter (mad scientist) to put her back in that tank thing that lets her go into her mind and talk to him.  But last time they did this, Walter complained vociferously, saying it was too dangerous to ever do again, and made a big deal about how it wasn't a good thing to do.  But forget about that, this time around she phones him up and says "Let's do it", and in the next scene she's in the tank.   I guess she convinced him off camera, or informed him that he's just plot device that keeps each episode moving, and we don't have enough screen time for your arguments.

So, blah blah blah, she manages to meet up with John even though Walter says she shouldn't be able to talk to him, only observe memories, he gives her information, she ends up racing to stop a deal that would see bioterrorists sell a bunch of the virus that causes the monster mutation to bad guys.  Do they catch the evildoers?  Nope, the virus is unleashed in Chicago and turns the city into a land of monsters.  I wish; that would actually be kind of interesting.  But no, justice prevails, and then it's back in the tank for one last visit with John and some boring lovey-dovey stuff in which Olivia tells him she loves him and never believed he was a traitor.  Except for all the times she did.

Yeah, this show is pretty dumb.  So why do I watch it?  I'm still not sure, but I think it has to do with the occasional neat/silly ideas and exciting, well-constructed plots.  The overall story arc is overly complicated, of course, but it can be kind of fun, even when it doesn't make all that much sense (for instance, several episodes back, the people at evil corporation Massive Dynamic were trying to extract memories from John's dead body, and when they determined that the memories were missing, it seemed that Olivia must have them.  But everybody has forgotten about that now).  And while most of the characters are bland, Walter is consistently eccentric and funny; this episode saw a scene in which he was excited about injecting his possible antidote for the monster virus into a watermelon.

So, let's have more freaky stuff, please, like last week's brain-melting computer virus or the previous week's giant common-cold slugs.  The show is best when it strikes that balance of ridiculous and exciting, with just enough conspiracy to not seem made up on the fly.  Next week is looking kind of good, with the return of the teleporting German prisoner and some threat that seems to be melting people's eyelids and lips.  Come on, Fringe, don't make me feel like I'm wasting my time.

Battlestar Galactica - "The Oath" by Nina Stone

Oh, man.  Sure, sure….the second episode was pretty lackluster.  But hey, we all have bad days, right? Doesn’t mean we’re bad people.  And holy shit, the third episode of BSG was spectacular!  True to it’s usual form, BSG made me proud to be a fan.  I don’t think a meager explanation from me can even do it justice.  Every scene was better than the one before it.  So much happened.  I’d say something like, “Oh, I miss the Sixes, when are we gonna see what’s going on with them?”  And BAM!  There’s a Six in the next scene.  You know, I don’t even feel like analyzing it or explaining why it was so good.  It was just good.  Frakkin’ Good!  Starbuck was a bad ass.  Colonel Tigh and Adama showed the world what real men are made of, and Baltar (finally!) was his usually fantastic self – weak and strong all at once, with his overriding motive of self-preservation showing its colors once again.  And there’s so much more. If you’re a fan, you loved this episode.  If you were watching for the first time – you loved this episode. We’ve got quite a cliff hanger going on right now.  Can’t wait to see how it all pans out.

Super Bowl Commercial Round-Up by Zeb L. West

With a flat-lining economy and a consumer-base of increasingly unemployed Americans, is it any wonder that Superbowl ad space was at an all-time high this year?  As if to prove that the US can still spend obscene amounts on inane jingles and bizarre attention-grabbers, NBC sold 30 second spots for 3 million dollars apiece (100 grand a tick!).  Although everyone hoped the underdogs Cardinals would somehow overthrow the cocky Steelers, there was no comeuppance for the common man on Super Bowl Sunday.

After the third Toyota Tundra ad, I started to notice a distinct lack of Ford F-150s in my Super Bowl commercial spread.   Normally Ford and GM are out in force with their mud-splattering, brody-spinning, slow-Bob-Seger-singin’ tributes to the American man.  While it’s comforting to know that the tax dollars we all just donated to the ailing auto industry weren’t squandered on ads, it felt like a family member was missing from the holiday dinner table!  As if old gas-guzzling Uncle Ford couldn’t come down this year because he’d gotten laid off.  To make matters worse, the car ad that carried the most weight was the Hyundai Assurance spot where they promise to take back the car if you lose your job!

Hyundai’s marketing vultures weren’t the only ones trying to sell the bad economy.  There were competing ads from big job sites Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com, which mercifully took more of a ‘your job sucks’ tone than a ‘we know you got canned’ tone.   But the topper was an all-star-super-team-up between Ed McMahon and MC Hammer (how could this not have happened before?) for the totally shady-lookin’ but supposedly legit operation Cash4Gold.com.  Apparently you can toss your wedding ring or fillings into a Netflix-style pouch and send them off to the Hammer so he and McMahon can melt those suckers down and send you enough scratch to buy a ticket to see Will Ferrell in Land of the Lost.

The landscape looked especially bleak for movies.  Pixar spent half their ad ($1.5 million) reminiscing about their former successes to try and bolster the uninspired-loooking Up.  The announcement of the Transformers and Da Vinci Code sequels were so lackluster that I thought both commercials were announcing that the originals had finally come to DVD.  The one ray of hope, although I should know better, came in the form of the live-action G.I. Joe movie. Though the only recognizable characters were Snake-eyes and Dennis Quaid, the preview evoked cheers from our Super Bowl crew, who were maybe just welcoming the image of some elite American badasses banded together for the altruistic purpose of fighting pure evil.

The standout commercial of the night seemed to make the most profound comment about the state of the economy, was, unsurprisingly, for beer.  Miller High Life decided to mock the competition by running an ad that was only one second long.  And although the commercial consisted only of a lone beer man shouting ‘High Life’ at the camera, it somehow stole the show by contrast.  Ever classy, the champagne of beers took the trophy by keeping it on the cheap.

As the evening dwindled, the promised underdog victory somehow slipped away from the Cardinals.  As the big franchise Steelers took their smug victory lap, the cheap beer headache started to kick in, and I wonder if anybody else went to bed feeling like I did; that somehow the bill of good being sold on the TV that night was a long way off from the American Dream.

The Bad Girls Club - "What Happens In Vegas Airs On Television"

Previously on The Bad Girls Club:  The girls decided that real gambling in Vegas was preferable to fake gambling in their house.

Yes, these are long.  Click the breaker!

The show opens with this statement from Ashley:  "My ex just put 2,500 dollars in my account."  Sarah and Tiffany seem to find this a bit disturbing, but in the confession Sarah reveals that she is actually jealous.  She doesn't know anybody who would do that for her.  Ashley explains that the ex refers to her as his "kid," from the tone of her voice and look on her face, this is something to be proud of.

The conflict between the two Ambers (who like each other and are friends) and the Fab Four (who used to not like each other but have teamed up because they dislike the Ambers more) continues as the Fab Four--Tiffany, Boston, Ailea and Sarah--decide to ride in one car together while the Ambers take the other car.  Ashley is forced to choose which car to ride in:  the one with four people in it, or the one with two people.  She picks the Ambers, and the car rides are intercut with each other to show that both of the groups use the opportunity to talk shit about each other for the entire drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.  (Mapquest claims this route takes over four hours.)  During the ride, Sarah explains the division between the two groups from her point of view: the two Ambers are friends because they are blond, whereas she likes to have "meaningful friendships."  In the other car, Amber B ventures the idea that it would be funny for her and Amber M "to confirm our friendship and piss off the other girls" by getting married in one of those Las Vegas drive-by wedding chapels.  Amber M loves the idea and immediately agrees, although Ashley points out that the girls would have to kiss, and they all get kind of freaked out.  The producers start soft-focusing the camera and cutting in scenes of the two girls laughing, playing with each other, wrestling, taking a bath...it's the most poignant sequence the show has ever had.

The cars arrive in Vegas, and Boston calls it "Chuck-E Cheese on crack."  Tiffany claims that Vegas is where she always imagined she would end up if she "clicked her heels."  Sarah refers to it as "Chuck-E Cheese on acid...because it has lights and blinky things."

The hotel room they are in has only three beds and a pull out cot.  The girls are arguing about this, coming up with who will share the beds, who will sleep on a cot, although Ashley points out that it probably won't matter because they will probably just get drunk and pass out "with a guy" or "wherever."  This seems to have become true, as the show never returns to the bed problems for the remainder of the episode.  It does, however, lead to a moment where Tiffany--reacting to Ashley's insistence that she will sleep on a bed, no matter what--tells Sarah that "the new girl shouldn't even be in Vegas."  This scene is cut with a confessional piece, shot in the hotel room, where Tiffany says that she has no problem with Ashley.  If Tiffany also mentions in the confessional that Ashley is the one who came up with the "let's all go to Las Vegas" idea, or at least served as the mouthpiece for the producers who probably came up with it, that sequence is not shown. 

After the bed arguments dwindle down, Amber M is ready to start drinking and gambling.  That is where they go, and that is what they do.  But first, they stop at a buffet restaurant and in a brief pause in conversation,  Amber B proposes to Amber M at the table with a Ring Pop she has placed in some kind of engagement ring style box.  Ailea, Boston and Tiffany are furious, but do not speak immediately.  Boston actually seems disgusted, which is sort of a throw back to her aggressive homophobia that has come up multiple times throughout the season.

After leaving the two Ambers at the buffet restaurant, Sarah and Boston agree not to attend the wedding.  Tiffany walks up and says:  "I don't appreciate that.  I feel like that should have been a group decision if that's what I wanted to do while I was here in Vegas.  This is not the Amber/Amber show, I don't give a fuck about them getting married and what they have going on.  I don't think it's fun.  I don't want to go to a chapel and marry they asses or none of that.  It's Tiffany's first time in Vegas.  When am I gonna get to do what the fuck I want to do?"

The Ambers, unaware of how angry they have made everyone, including Ashley, who knew in advance of the planned prank, decide to wander the casino floor and accost strangers with wedding announcements.  Except for the other Bad Girls, back at the bar, everyone seems to be really enjoying this portion of the show.  It apparently goes on for long enough for Ashley and the Fab Four to calm down, because when everyone regroups at the bar, Tiffany claims she will go with the flow and proceeds to help put condoms on the wedding veil that Ailea has purchased for Amber B, along with other unshown presents.

For the bachelorette party, the entire group goes to a male strip show called "The Thunder Down Under."  (The dancers are all Australian.)  During the show, Ashley and a stripper on stage make eye contact.  He takes her on stage, sits her in a chair and starts grinding on her.  He tears off his pants and is only wearing a thong--which must be blurred out--and really big kneepads, shoes and socks.  Ashley:  "I am loving the Thunder Down Under.  I welcome big penises."  Amber B seems to have taken offense at Ashley's behavior--she informs Amber M as well as the camera how much she dislikes Ashley's constant attempts to be the center of attention--but ends up on stage with a stripper herself.  Like Ashley's, her stripper's entire butt area is blurred out, but it is still clear enough to see Amber B grab his ass and pulls his crotch into her face. 

The dancers ask the girls to join them at a nearby bar, although the girls claim to the camera later that it was just a coincidence they all ended up at the same place.  The guy who picked up Ashley continues to fool around, her straddling him and playful touching grosses out all of the girls, especially Tiffany.  In a continuation of her irritation at Ashley, Amber B decides to flirt with the guy just to see if she can steal his attention away for Ashley.  It works.  Amber B takes him away and says "Ashley's not that pretty."  (She says this in a confessional, to the other girls, and then ropes the guy into hearing her complaints as well.)  Ashley, who is unaware that Amber B is making fun of her to the stripper, who finds the entire situation interesting, believes that Amber B has stolen her guy.

Eventually, Amber B and Ashley start arguing--it isn't clear where, but not wherever the men are--and Ashley is giving Amber B a bunch of shit about how she liked him, and he liked her.  This continues even as Amber B laughs in her face and says "He's a stripper."  Ashley believes this is beside the point, and this little tour de force of dialog occurs:

Ashley:  We'll talk about it later.

Amber B: I don't want to talk about it later.

Ashley:  Well I don't want to talk to you right now about it.

Amber B:  Now.  Well, I'm not going to talk about it later.  Now or never!

Ashley:  I guess never then.  Shut up.

Amber B:  Never's fine with me!

Then, the Fantasy Girls arrive.  (The Fantasy Girls are female stripper/Vegas dancers.  The show lets the viewer figure that on their own.)  The Fantasy Girls climb over the Bad Girls physically and grab the guys.  The male strippers welcome this, and seem more excited to see the Fantasy Girls then at any other point this episode.  The male strippers the push the Bad Girls to audition for the Fantasy Girls.  The Fantasy Girls excitedly agree that this is a great idea and reveal that Chris Judd is their choreographer.  (Chris Judd used to be married to Jennifer Lopez, a celebrity of some kind.)

Ashley, who is 21 and unemployed, tells everyone that she was a choreographer for ten years, "just so you know."  Amber B rolls her eyes so hard she has to take two steps to the left.  (This is not an exaggeration.  She nearly falls over.)

It becomes clear that "audition" means that the Bad Girls will learn a short dance routine prior to the next evenings performance by the Fantasy Girls.  They agree and head back home, and the show skips to the next morning as they struggle with hangovers.  Amber B, who has never cared much for Sarah, decides to tell Sarah that Ashley talked shit about Sarah's naked pictures on the Playboy website.

Sarah grabs Tiffany and tells her everything Amber B told her, which is quite a lot and very confusing as it's not clear whether A) the conversation Amber B told Sarah about ever happened, B) when Amber B had the amount of time to tell Sarah everything that Sarah then tells Tiffany, C) whether or not Sarah believes it or D) how valuable it is to have one hungover girl tell another hungover girl who she doesn't like about statements an entirely other hungover girl said and then show a scene where a whole new person--Tiffany--gives advice about how to deal with that telephone game of gossip.

Tiffany tells Sarah that Ashley is "clearly jealous."

The Bad Girls meet Stephanie Sanchez, the lead singer of Fantasy, which is the name of the show.  The show is at 10:30 that evening and Chris Judd himself will be teaching them a dance routine.  Before he does, the girls meet the stylist of the show and get dressed up in little t's, short schoolgirl skirts, fishnets, boots, hats, and ties.  Sarah feels "like the sexiest thing to walk the earth" in the outfit, and she and Ashley agree to do a topless portion during the show.  They eventually introduce Chris Judd, who the girls consider a "famous-famous choreographer."  This may be true, this reviewer does not know how famous the choreographers are for this type of dance companies.

The choreographers--there is another one who does all the talking, Chris Judd never speaks--are having a rough time working with the girls, because they keep running around instead of paying attention.  Amber B is clearly the worst of all of the girls, but doesn't care, admitting that:  "I don't have very good coordination and can't remember stuff.  But!  I'm really good looking, so that makes up for it."

Ashley buys everybody some wine after rehearsal.  Boston has decided that she likes Ashley.  Ailea has decided that she like Ashley.  Sarah can't help it, she wants to like Ashley so badly that she is starting to wonder if Amber B told her the truth about what Ashley said.

Disclaimer: This next paragraph occurred on the show, regardless of how much you are going to think it is completely made up.  A picture has been included full size to document the truthfulness.

Prior to the performance, in the dressing room, the choreographer walks in and says "Hey everybody.  I want you to meet Carrot Top." In walks Carrot Top, who has a goatee and steroid arms now.  He is also drinking, has his hair up in a top knot, and the veins on his massive arms are popping out.  The veins are easy to see because he is wearing a blue and red striped undershirt.  His arms are gigantic.  He brings them shots on a tray.  His arms are so big that the full glasses of Long Island Ice Tea or whatever drink it is looks to be the size of a shot glass by comparison.

Sarah, like all the Bad Girls except the Ambers, is very excited by a drunken Carrot Top providing them with alcohol.  She then says that she wants to "take this seriously" when she finds out the Ambers have written "The Amber Show" on their stomachs.

The girls arrive backstage.  The curtain is getting ready to go up.  Boston tells us it will be a Bad Girls Disaster.  Ailea feels like she is having a panic attack.  Curtain goes up?

They don't remember the choreography. 

That's too bad, because the choreography consists of them walking up to the front, and Amber B keeps screwing it up.  Eventually, Sarah and Ashley show the audience their bare breasts and all is apparently forgiven.  Leaving the stage, Tiffany falls down the stairs a bit, but laughs it off.  Sarah claims "I killed it" in a good way, but all of the other girls admit openly that they did not do a good job of remembering in which directions to walk when they walked around on stage. 

The girls finish of the night by going to a club where Ashley gets in an actual fight, but for some reason it is just shown in a quick montage.  However, enough footage is shown that it is clearly a more violent fight than any on the show thus far, save the mutual choking match that resulted in Kayla leaving the show a few episodes ago.

The next morning, the girls agree to stop at a wedding chapel on their way back to Los Angeles so that the two Ambers can go ahead with their wedding.  This portion of the show is cut with the two Ambers in a confessional (shot after their return to Los Angeles) where they just make jokes about what married life will be like.  They pick a chapel whose sign says "Joan Collins & Michael Jordan got married here".

An old woman with bright orange hair is helping them, although she seems very put off by the girls and the camera crew.  The two Ambers are really enjoying themselves while all of the other girls lay around on the floor. 

"Amber M looks so beautiful in her white wedding dress," says Amber B.  "And then I look in the mirror, and see myself, and realize how much better I look."

The old lady, who has decided that she does not like this situation at all, begins telling the girls weird shit from the Bible that none of the girls remember from the Bible.  For example, when some of the girls decide to go and smoke, the old lady tells them the Bible says that "If you smoke, you'll smoke in hell."  Boston, who enjoys fighting with anyone, asks what part of the Bible says this.  Ashley seems genuinely confused by the comment, as she mentions that she's pretty sure that they cigarettes weren't available "back then."

The two Ambers start practicing their vows--it's not clear where the vows are from, as both the Ambers seem to be reading them for the first time, and they sound like something that was taken out of Penthouse Letters.  The old woman, who only hears bits and pieces, decides she has heard enough.  She kicks the girls out of the chapel, claiming that this is disrespectful to God.  They get back in the cars, and the episode ends.

Next week on the Bad Girls Club:  The war between the Ambers and the Fab Four reaches a point that necessitates Ailea--the only member of the house to have admitted that she has previously spent time locked up in a mental institution because she was considered "a danger to herself and others"--running across a room and jumping towards Amber B while Amber B is in bed.

-Matthew Brady, Zeb L. West, Nina Stone & Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Sharif]

Thank you so much for reviewing Fringe! It sucks so much but I can't stop watching it. Maybe I am mesmerized by Olvia Dunham showing off her pasta cooking skills to a soundtrack of lite-jazz. I love how you also noticed Lt. Daniels's amphibian eyes.

I won't read the rest of the recaps because I haven't sat down to watch Battlestar yet, and because I haven't seen 24 for three years. Nevertheless, you now tempt me to catch up, if only to see what Chloe "Potato Face" O'Brian is up to these days.

[Richard]

Wait, Kim Bauer is coming back? I hope and pray she'll be chased by a mountain lion again. 24 needs more non sequitur storylines.

[10FootBongz]

I can't believe that Matt Brady from Newsarama is typing for you guys now. So, is this like some sort of blog crossover, first Brady types for the Factual and then the Factual types for Newsarama? Are there any tie-in blogs that we need to read to get the whole story on this crossover?

[Matthew J. Brady]

God, I'm becoming obsessed with this Bad Girls show, or at least these recaps of it. I just can't process what makes these girls tick; is it some innate need for rivalry and drama that makes them find such ridiculous reasons to be lifelong enemies? I don't understand it, but I can't look away.

Anyway, if you're curious about this Fantasy show in Vegas, here's a description of what it's like to attend it: http://yeoldecomicblogge.blogspot.com/2008/02/off-topic-fantasizing-about-early.html

Oh, and I'll assume Mr. Bongz is being facetious, but just in case, I'm not the guy you're thinking of. If you're looking for an inter-blog crossover, TFO does manage to associate with all the good ones, like Jog, the Mindless Ones, Every Day is Like Wednesday, Attentiondeficitdisorderly, and probably several others. We should have some sort of blogger convention sometime; that would make for a great crossover.

[Abhay]

His name was Pacey.