Years:  1964, 1965
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance
Director:  Maury Thompson, Jack Donohue
Run time:  11 hours, 59 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     You know how sometimes you can watch the same sight gag over and over?  Like The Three Stooges.  They do the same thing over and over, and it never stops being entertaining.  Or Buster Keaton, who always had the same problems, always got knocked over in the same way, and always choreographed his falling sequences in a similar fashion.  And it just got better and better.  Even the Marx Brothers, whose wordplay was most often brilliant, basically used many variations on the same joke over and over.

     Then there’s Lucille Ball.  With I Love Lucy, the jokes and physical comedy were repetitive, and awfully similar, from one show to the next.  But they worked.  Almost all the time.  Her second show, The Lucy Show, simply can’t live up to the standard she set the first time around.  Every joke feels stale, every pratfall is so familiar as to no longer be funny, and every set-piece feels like it has been dragged out of a closet on the I Love Lucy set, a closet where it was once relegated for just not being good enough.

     This is the same debate I have had with many classic rock fans here at the radio station.  Yes, AC/DC have made the same song, over and over, for thirty years.  But that song is good, and it lends itself to a number of slightly different interpretations that make it consistently interesting, and a new AC/DC album sells well.  By contrast, Nickelback have been making the same song over and over for ten years.  They do so because that song sells.  But it was terrible the first time, and therefore is no better the fiftieth time.

     The Lucy Show still has a few moments that shine through, but really it’s just Lucy and Vivian chasing men, trying to cover up some misdeed, and taking on silly situations so they can have a pratfall.  Like a raft inflating in a sporting goods store.  Or Lucy’s awkwardness on roller skates.  Or…the list goes on and on.  And it is now tiresome.  Paramount Home Entertainment releases Season Three on DVD November 30th, and I just can’t get into it.

Year: 1961
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Richard Boone, Lisa Lu
Guest stars of note:  George Kennedy, Charles Bronson, Duane Eddy, Janet Lake,  Odetta, Hal Needham, Buddy Ebsen
Creators:  Sam Rolfe, Herb Meadow
Run time:  8 hours, 11 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Paladin returns to dispense his brand of questionable justice in Season Five, Volume One of Have Gun Will Travel, out November 30th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It’s the same as other seasons in that Paladin (Richard Boone) heads off to help someone, advocates non-violence and tells them not to kill, then he recites some poetry by Tennyson or Donne and then he kills everyone.  It’s still weird enough, and compelling enough to be awesome.

     What sets Season Five Volume One apart from other volumes I have seen is the guest list.  The second episode of the season features future Oscar winner George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke) as a man who may or may not have killed his traveling partner.  The third episode features guitar great Duane Eddy (who does the rendition of the Have Gun Will Travel theme song in the video clip above) as a young man embroiled in a Hatfield-McCoy type feud with another family.

     Then, for the western nerds like me who love this stuff, there’s an episode starring the smoking hot Janet Lake that starts off as a straight take-off on the 3:10 To Yuma story and ends with a bizarre showdown with a bandido in the desert.  Buddy Ebsen, Hal Needham, and the great blues singer Odetta make appearances in various episodes as well.  (Some more than one.)

     But the greatest episode on the set is the one starring Charles Bronson.  Well, in fact, there are two episodes that star Bronson in different roles.  But the one I’m talking about stars Charles Bronson and George Kennedy (making his second appearance on this DVD).  Bronson plays a total wimp.  Yep – you read that right.  A total wimp.  He’s beaten down by his own mother, and lives a quiet life cut off from the rest of society.  He hires Paladin to teach him to fight.

     So Richard Boone shows up to teach Charles Bronson to fight.  Bronson wants to fight George Kennedy.  Because Kennedy has stolen Bronson’s mail-order bride.  Who is a passionate Greek woman driven away by the wimpy Bronson’s mother.  This gives us an opportunity to learn that Paladin (of course) knows Greek, and a chance to watch George Kennedy and Charles Bronson beat each other up.  For me, anyway, that’s reason enough to grab this set of DVDs.

Years:  2000, 2002
Genre:  TV movie, Biopic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Meredith Monroe, Tess Harper, Walton Goggins, Lindsay Crouse, Haley McCormick, Courtnie Bull, Barbara Jane Reams, Richard Thomas, Skye McCole Bartusiak
Directors:  Marcus Cole
Run time:  181 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     At the beginning of Beyond The Prairie, there’s a weird blue spherical shining luminescent object that flies out of the sky and smashes into the ground in a field near the home of a young Laura Ingalls.  I was immediately intrigued – an unidentified falling flaming object?  The true story of Laura Ingalls Wilder was going to involve alien encounters, and science fiction anomalies, and maybe a totally crazy woman?  That was a lot better than I had imagined this story to be!

     But alas, it was no UFO.  In fact, the bad-CGI object was never explained at all.  It was merely a device to start a fire, which would lead to Laura’s father being heroic and stalwart, and show us that he had a great and loving relationship with his daughter.  That’s it.  From there, we get to meet her equally wise and wonderful mother and her warm and caring blind sister.  Everyone is fantastic!

     We’re treated to some seriously silly dialogue – Laura writes a mean-spirited poem about her spiteful and vindictive teacher, and her father has to have a heart-to-heart talk with her.  That talk goes someone like this…

  “Laura, you bin given a gift!  You kin take the things ya see, and feel, and turn ‘em into words.  And you used that gift to hurt this woman.  Spiteful and vindictive or not, she din’t deserve that.”

     These words are of course delivered with an impressive gravitas, as good ol’ Dad proves to be both kind-hearted and wise, and a constant source of life lessons to young Laura.  But this particular exchange, along with many others in the movie, made me laugh until my sides ached.  In fact, I rewound this scene, and a few others, and they made me laugh just as much the second time around.

     The rest of the time, the movie just moves from one plot point to the next, one incident to the next, one scenario at a time.  It never shows us any actual action, just the aftermath of that action.  We see Laura about to have sex with her new husband, then the scene cuts away and a baby is there.  We see Laura about to give birth, and the scene cuts away to the family grieving over (presumably) a stillbirth.  Laura’s husband Almonzo heads into town, next thing you know he’s back at the house with Laura fighting a blaze at the ol’ homestead.

     There are two parts to the story, both of which are contained on this DVD.  Which means there are three hours of the Laura Ingalls Wilder story here.  Three long, by-the-numbers hours of storytelling that, I hope, would make Ms. Wilder herself very upset.  There is almost no effort put in to character development.  Instead, it’s a chronological recounting of what we think must have been Laura’s life.  How little effort was put into the movie?  Laura’s daughter’s dog’s name is Fido.  Fido.  Need I say more?

Year:  2009
Genre:  Drama
Countries:  France, Germany, Israel
Language:  Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Ran Danker, Zohar Strauss, Tzahi Grad, Tinkerbell
Director:  Haim Tabakman
Run time:  90 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     To say that Eyes Wide Open, out November 16th from First Run Features, is slow-paced is akin to saying Crank is fast-paced.  In that it’s a drastic understatement.  Eyes Wide Open features vast stretches with little to no dialogue, and often has just one person in the frame.  But the slow pace really works.  It’s deliberate, and measured, and thanks to some terrific acting performances, the stillness resonates.

     Eyes Wide Open is a tragic, dramatic film about Aaron (Zohar Strauss), a butcher living in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem.  He has a wife, and a family, and plays his part in the uber-religious community.  When Ezri (Ran Danker), a young homeless Yeshiva student, happens by Aaron’s shop, Aaron offers the young man a job and a place to stay above the butchery.

     Soon, it becomes clear that Ezri is gay, and that he has been banished by at least one, if not several Yeshivas, because of his lifestyle.  His presence in Aaron’s life and butcher shop awaken feelings in Aaron that he appears to have buried for years, maybe decades.  As the two begin to have a clandestine relationship, Aaron begins to have trouble with his family, his business and of course the super-religious community.

     This ultra-orthodox community not only shuns homosexuals, but actively persecutes them.  Aaron is threatened and pressured to kick Ezri out of his shop.  But only with Ezri does he truly feel alive.  The film is really Aaron’s story, one of intense, devastating internal conflict.  Guilt, torment, religious fundamentalism, desire and love battle in his heart in nearly every frame of the movie.  The sparse dialogue is used judiciously and well, especially in a couple of scenes where Aaron and the rabbi engage in theological discussions based on their own personal feelings – both interpret the text to mean what they want it to mean.

     Eyes Wide Open is nothing if not powerful.  Many movies have been made about gay struggles in the context of religion (usually the Christian religion).  Most of them have been very good.  This one stands out because of the performance of Zohar Strauss, who plays Aaron perfectly.  This is a man who is stronger than even he himself realizes, but also a man who allows his inner turmoil to paralyze him at crucial moments.  And in the end, he becomes a devastating, tragic figure in a wonderful movie.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Pina Bausch, some assistants, dozens of teenagers
Directors:  Anne Linsel, Rainer Hoffman
Run time:  89 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Dancing Dreams, out November 16th from First Run Features, does two things.  It pays tribute to a giant in the world of dance and choreography, Pina Bausch.  It also shows teenagers with little or no experience in the world of theatre and dance blooming and flourishing through their experiences with the art world.

     The documentary follows 40 teenagers who were selected to perform Contact Zone, a dance piece created by Bausch.  Most of them didn’t know who she was, and most of them had never participated in anything like this before.  Over the course of a year, they learned to dance, to act and to perform on stage.  What’s most fascinating about the film is the growth we can see in the kids.  We can follow them from their unsure, nervous first steps to their confident (but still nervous) debut performance a year later.

     Pina Bausch herself appears very little in the film.  Most of the training and rehearsals are overseen by two other dance pros, and Bausch shows up now and then to check on the progress and chain smoke cigarettes.  I learned more about Bausch from the special features than I did from the documentary itself, but the documentary isn’t really about Bausch, it’s about the 40 kids coming into their own and mastering a complicated modern dance piece.

     Pina Bausch died in 2009, shortly after the movie was completed.  In a way, that makes Dancing Dreams something of an elegy to her life and work, but it wasn’t conceived that way.  I will admit that before seeing this movie I knew nothing of Pina Bausch or her work, and now all I really know comes from the little “biography” special feature on this disc.  If you want to learn all about Pina Bausch and her life and career, there are books, and wikipedia, and so on.  Don’t watch this movie for her.  Watch Dancing Dreams for the kids.  It’s totally worth it.

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Fantasy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis, Seychelle Gabriel, Francis Guinan, Damon Gupton, Summer Bishil
Director:  M. Night Shyamalan
Run time:  103 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There are many problems with The Last Airbender, out November 16th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  First, the story.  Four powerful groups exist in the world.  Firebenders, airbenders, waterbenders and earthbenders.  See, there used to be only four elements, you see.  So each group can control their own “element” through a series of painful tai-chi-esque contortions and then a well-placed thrust of the hands or two.

     Only one being in the world, the Avatar, can control all four “elements” at once, and it is this being that keeps the world in balance.  However, he disappeared 100 years ago, and since then the Firebenders have waged war on the rest of the world.  Now the Avatar has returned from a ludicrous frozen prison, and he is about nine years old.  He is the last surviving airbender, and must learn to master the other three elements in order to defeat the evil firebenders bent on world domination.

     He is aided by two teenagers, one of whom is a waterbender.  They are pursued by two firebenders, one of whom is the disgraced son of the firebender lord.  Zuko (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire) can’t return home to face his father unless he captures the Avatar.  Even more evil than Zuko is Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show), who seems to be the firebender lord’s top general.

     Now, a quick rundown of those problems…there’s a flying bison that is so reminiscent of the flying dog in The Neverending Story that one can’t help but feel it’s a ripoff.  On further examination, it comes straight out of the cartoon of The Last Airbender, so it isn’t a rip-off at all (not directly anyway).  It’s just stupid.  But that’s minor compared to the other problems…

     The dialogue is atrocious.  At best, it’s a series of narrations, as every character explains where they have come from, or what they just did, or why the world is the way it is.  Not once does it feel like conversation.  And not once does any of the dialogue shed any light on any of the characters.  Well, except for Aang (Noah Ringer), the Avatar himself, because most of the dialogue is the narration of his back story.  But the other characters are two-dimensional at best, and the firebender bad guys are barely one-dimensional.

     The “fights” are also atrocious.  They basically consist of “benders” doing a bunch of tai-chi moves, then water rising up and flying at someone.  It’s like watching people fight, through interpretive dance, from fifteen feet apart.  Actually, it’s not LIKE that at all.  It IS that.  And most of the movie is a big long unnecessary fight sequence.  Which means it’s terribly boring.

     OK.  Now, my biggest problem with the movie.  It is directed by M. Night Shyamalan.  Who, in the movie world, still thinks Shyamalan is actually good?  Or even adequate as a movie director?  This is a guy who caught lightning in a bottle once – with The Sixth Sense – and has been getting progressively worse ever since.  He is now dreadful, writes awful scripts, and butchers everything he touches.  So…why?  Why entrust what is obviously supposed to be the first in a large series of movies to someone so inept?

     Best case scenario – Shyamalan recaptures some of his old magic, and manages to make a passable film.  (This might actually have been possible here – because it’s the first movie in a series, and therefore has no real ending – so Shyamalan can’t ruin the film by writing it around the Big Twist Ending of which he is so fond.)  Then, for the second and third installments, he gets progressively worse, leading to an epic monetary failure in The Last Airbender 3.

     Worst case scenario – Shyamalan makes an absolutely dreadful movie, like The Happening or The Village or Lady In The Water.  People go to watch it, because they are fans of the TV series.  Or they just want to see Dev Patel in a film.  A second movie is greenlit.  It costs 80 million dollars.  Not one person who watched the first one wants to see a second one, because the first one was a turd.  You lose 80 million dollars and the third movie never gets made.

     I’m thinking that this movie landed somewhere in the middle.  I think the studio will realize that it’s awful, and will NOT make a second movie.  Or, if they do, they will not choose M. Night Shyamalan to direct it.  But I suspect a second movie will not be coming.  Much like The Golden Compass before it (a vastly superior film), this one will be confined to the dust pile.

     One version of this DVD release, one that is exclusive to Wal-Mart, comes packaged with a DVD of volume 1 of the cartoon television series.  Which is basically the exact same story, only told with Japanese animation and featuring a few scenes with giant “elephant” koi fish.  Watching this cartoon after watching the movie just reinforces how faithfully the movie relied on the cartoon story line.  Which is fine, but how can a live-action movie create characters more two-dimensional than a cartoon?  M. Night Shyamalan, that’s how.

Years:  2009
Genre:  TV series, Drama, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  David Duchovny, Natascha McElhone, Kathleen Turner, Madeleine Martin, Evan Handler, Pamela Adlon, Madeline Zima, Embeth Davidtz
Guest stars:  Rick Springfield (as himself)
Eye candy:  See below
Creator:  Tom Kapinos
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I could go on at length about the clever writing, terrific acting and hilarious dialogue that make Californication one of the absolute best shows on television.  I could explain how Kathleen Turner, as a man-woman sexual predator boss is one of the great new characters on TV.  I could even explain how Rick Springfield playing a crazier, more drug-addled version of himself is an inspired casting choice for this, or any other show.  Or, I could just show you a series of pictures of the ludicrously hot women who show up in Season Three of Californication (and usually show up naked)!  I think I’ll just do that.

Year:  1970
Genre:  Western
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Jim Davis, Jeanne Moreau, Mitchell Ryan, Bo Hopkins, Richard Farnsworth
Director:  William A. Fraker
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     As Homer Simpson once said, Lee Marvin is always drunk and violent.  That’s true, and I would point to Lee Marvin as an actor who almost never existed on screen outside his comfort zone.  Which is, as Homer so sharply pointed out, a violent drunk.  Monte Walsh is a pleasant surprise in Marvin’s career, in a sense the exception that proves the rule. 

     Now, I’m not going to pretend that Monte Walsh, just now being released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment, is a TOTAL departure for Lee Marvin.  After all, he’s still playing a violent drunk who likes his whiskey and his fistfights.  But he gets a chance to flex his acting muscles a little more than usual, in a movie that is both poignant and poetic.  Marvin and his best pal Chet (Jack Palance in a role that’s a departure for him as well, in that he isn’t a villain) go looking for work.

     Monte and Chet must compete with dozens of other cowboys for seasonal work, work which is getting more and more scarce as the west moves on from the old ways.  As the work force gets cut again and again, cowboys are forced to turn to other ways of earning an income.  While Monte manages to hang on to one of the few remaining cowboy jobs, Chet starts working in a hardware store and gets married, leaving Monte behind.  Other cowboys, like Shorty (a terrific Mitch Ryan), turn to crime and bank robbery.

     The slow, elegaic pace of Monte Walsh works well, as the old west moves on and becomes something else.  Monte tries to create a life for himself the way Chet did, but his old flame Martine (Jeanne Moreau) has tuberculosis and isn’t long for the world.  When his old friend Shorty comes back through town and wreaks sad, devastating havoc, Lee Marvin gets drunk and violent once more, saddling up for a final showdown that ends both this movie, and, in a way, the old west itself.

Years:  2010
Genre:  Comedy, Stand-up, Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Subject:  Sam Kinison
Starring:  Dennis Leary, Ice-T, Lewis Black, Chris Rock, Jay Leno, Ron White, Kathy Griffin, Lenny Clarke, Norm MacDonald, George Lopez
Run time:   60 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I don’t think I would get Sam Kinison if I just watched a bunch of his stand-up.  He seems to be more concerned with volume than he is with actual jokes, he’s so bitter and angry it’s hard to laugh, and his persona is more frightening than humourous.  Sure, I get that shock value is sometimes more revolutionary in the comedy world than the material itself is, but Kinison sure didn’t seem like he was doing anything for shock value.  He really appeared to be playing himself – an unstable, furious screaming maniac.

     That’s why Back From Hell is such a great documentary to showcase Kinison.  I actually need to hear from Lewis Black and Chris Rock.  I need Dennis Leary to explain to me what made Kinison so great.  And after listening to all these gigantic names in the comedy world, and appreciating their appreciation for this man, I can actually understand his brilliance, and I get it.  Well…almost.

Year:  1999, 2000
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Tiffani Thiessen (barely), Jason Priestley (barely), Ian Ziering, Luke Perry, Brian Austin Green, Lindsay Price, Vanessa Marcil
Eye candy:  Garth, Thiessen, Price, Marcil
Creator:  Darren Star
Producer:  Paul Robinson
Run time:  19 hours 6 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Oh, the pain.  What could be more painful than watching the final episode of the long-running Beverly Hills 90210?  I can think of only one thing.  A wedding video.  I mean, an actual wedding video.  Like, two of your irritating, schmaltzy crappy friends sit you down in their living room to make you watch the video of their wedding.  Here we are setting up the candles…here we are waiting for the official…now we’re walking up the aisle…oh, you have to hear this – Ted wrote his own vows, it was so CUTE!

     That would be awful, wouldn’t it?  Almost as awful as actually attending a wedding, I would say.  And that’s what you get with the very last episode of Beverly Hills 90210.  One big, long, painful wedding.  And it SUCKS.  I’m sure fans of the show were waiting, in great anticipation, to see how the series would end its run.  And maybe they even identified with the characters enough to care about their big, long, painful wedding.  Maybe.  But it’s still a wedding episode.  And nothing more.

     MY biggest problem with it had to do with WHO was getting married.  David and Donna?  The two lamest characters in the entire run of the show?  How…lame.  Imagine if they had ended Seinfeld by marrying off Newman and Teri Hatcher.  Or Friends by marrying off Phoebe and Joey.  Or The A-Team by marrying off Face and B.A. Baracus.  Wouldn’t that be kinda…anti-climactic?

     And so it is with 90210, as the two worst characters get hitched in an interminable, cheesy and painful ceremony for the entire final episode.  You know how sometimes you have friends who get married, and you just know it isn’t going to work and they’re not going to last?  This is kinda like that.  You just know Donna’s gonna end up, later in life, with some tool like Dean McDermott.

     And you just know, later in life, David’s gonna dump Donna for some tool like Megan Fox.

Year:  1954
Genre:  Musical, comedy, Christmas, classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English 
Starring:  Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, Vera Ellen, Dean Jagger
Director:  Michael Curtiz
Run time:  120 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                At Christmas time, you get two things in the DVD world.  You get box sets with seemingly unrelated movies thrown together, that old people who don’t get it might purchase for young people who don’t care.  Also, you get re-releases of classic Christmas movies in fancy box sets.                One of those rereleases this year is the White Christmas  set, out November 2nd from Paramount Home Entertainment.  A classic movie that I’m sure we’ve all seen, and of course if you haven’t you should.  And the Anniversary edition comes with some pretty cool things, like a series of postcards which I think are pretty cool for fans.  The second disc is crammed with great special features like the ones on Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Danny Kaye.  There’s also a feature-length commentary on the movie by Rosemary Clooney herself, an added bonus that really works.

                That being said, don’t be fooled by the packaging.  It looks like an impressive box, with snow and glitter and so forth.  But once you open it, you’ll throw away the box because there’s nothing to it.  It’s just a package of fake snow and an awkward plastic box.  But keep the film - it’s certainly one worth having, for the special features alone. 

     A quick word on the film itself while I’m at it – White Christmas is, most assuredly, over rated.  The cast is magnificent, many of the songs are terrific (including, of course, the title track), and some of the set pieces are fantastic as well.  With all that going for it, this should be much, much better than it actually is.  The biggest problem is the screenplay, which is just awful and makes the 2-hour run time feel interminable.  White Christmas is certainly a classic, but only because the bar for Christmas movies has been set pretty low over the years.

Years:  2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Genre:  TV series, comedy, sitcom
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin James, Leah Remini, Patton Oswalt, Lou Ferrigno, Jerry Stiller, Victor Williams, Gary Valentine
Guest stars:  Tucker Carlson, Rampage Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Nicole Sullivan, Adam Sandler, Adam West, Robert Goulet, Huey Lewis, Kirstie Alley, Randy Couture
Creators:  David Litt, Michael J. Weithorn
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I like Kevin James and Jerry Stiller and PAtton Oswalt and the rest of the cast of King of Queens.  And I REALLY like Leah Remini, who is one of the hottest women alive and a terrific actress as well.  But then, this sitcom suffered simply because of that.  More than any other sitcom of the 90s and 2000s, this one really, really felt like a formula crammed into a box and spit out into mass production.

     I get that it’s politically correct to say that women are better than men.  That they are smarter and stronger and tougher and better looking and in every way superior.  It’s also very easy to get a laugh this way.  Oh, look at the poor stupid men!  Aren’t they adorably inept and generally terrible?  Ah, he’s going to try to fix the sink!  This will be so funny!  Well, to some people, I guess it is.  Lots of people, ’cause this show lasted nine seasons!

     But to me, it’s just implausible and sad.  This gorgeous, hot brilliant tough woman has inexplicably married a fat, sloppy, inept moron with very little discernible charm.  Imagine, just for a moment, that the situation were reversed.  Imagine watching a sitcom where, say, Brad Pitt was married to Susan Boyle.  And the whole show consisted of Susan Boyle wearing the same underwear for a week at a time, or forgetting Brad Pitt’s birthday because she stopped to eat a bucket of fudge.  How long do you think that would last?  Would it make it out of the boardroom at all?

     And so, with so many sitcoms of the 90s, we’re supposed to swallow this utterly inexplicable couple, and we’re supposed to laugh at the fact that Doug has to beg Carrie to be allowed to leave the house with the guys for a weekend.  Dude – you have no kids!  Why wouldn’t you be allowed to leave the house, unless she’s a heartless control freak harpie and you’re a spineless useless dishrag?  Oh – because it’s funnier that way.  I get it.

     The final season at last tried to do something about this obvious imbalance – it took this ludicrous relationship to its logical conclusion, as Carrie and Doug began contemplating divorce throughout Season Nine.  However, because the writers and creators of this show were as spineless and chicken and formulaic as Doug himself, they copped out with the big finale.  So sad.

Year:  2010
Genre:  TV series, Lesbian, Drama, Reality
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Rose Garcia, Jill Sloane Goldstein, Mikey Koffman, Whitney Mixter, Tracy Ryerson, Nikki Weiss
Eye candy:  Everyone
Creator:  Ilene Chaiken
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Now that The L Word is no more, something has to fill the void.  The void where there are no hot lesbians having sex with each other on television.  And so here comes The Real L Word to fill that void, with REAL hot lesbians having sex with each other.  So we get a reality TV show that has obviously been cast based exactly on the characters from the fictional TV show.  That’s kind of a leap, isn’t it?  Remember when they tried to make a “reality” TV show out of the “fictional” Gilligan’s Island?  It’s kind of…weird.

     So we have Whitney, who plays the “Shane” character from The L Word.  And Jill and Nikki, the settled-down, married lesbians.  And Mikey, the tough chick.  And Tracy, the Mia Kirshner of the show, a supermodel-hot lesbian who is new to the scene having just come out of the closet.  And so on and so forth.  This show comes from the same person who created The L Word, so I guess she really understands the formula.  But a lot of it feels pretty forced.

     Now to the important stuff – how much naked lesbian sex IS there, you are asking.  And rightly so.  The answer is, a lot less than The L Word, a lot more than Spongebob.  In Season One, out now from Paramount Home Entertainment, there is really only one hardcode, naked scene.  It involves a strap-on.  I find it humourous, if not flat-out disingenuous, that the scene is filmed so we never get to see the actual strap-on device.  Like, we’re not going to be offended by two naked lesbians having full-on intercourse on screen, but seeing a plastic object shaped like a penis might push us over the edge?

     In the end, sex or no sex, naked or no naked, this show is OK.  I like many of the characters (sorry – real people) like Tracy and Jill and Nikki and Stamie.  And there are decent villains as well, Rose being the lightning rod for my disdain as she cheats on her smoking hot girlfriend Natalie.  But I can’t help but feel like I’m watching a half-assed copy of a show I once enjoyed more. 

Years:  2010
Genre:  Comedy, Stand-up
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bo Burnham
Run time:   63 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     You don’t need to be familiar with Heizenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the works of William Shakespeare, the lyrics of Eminem, the legend of King Midas or the sexual proclivities of sea otters to enjoy Bo Burnham’s Words Words Words, out on DVD October 16th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  But it would help to have a really vast knowledge about everything in the world.

     For example, the stand-up special begins with a couple of jokes about Noam Chomsky and a strap-on.  Sadly, I assume that far more people know what a strap-on is than know what a Noam Chomsky is.  But you kind of need to know both to find it funny. 

     Either way, whether you’re worldly and learned or an illiterate shut-in, you’ll miss large portions of Words Words Words.  The jokes come so fast and rapid-fire that you can’t help but miss one while you’re laughing at another.  In a rap song obviously inspired by Eminem, I laughed hard enough at the line about a gay sea otter (I blow dudes outta the water) that I missed about a full verse of the song.

     In my opinion, this is the best thing a stand-up comedy DVD can do – tell more jokes than I can handle at one time.  That means I can watch it over and over and still get something new out of it time and again.  Which means it’s well worth the purchase.  Also, it’s all about words.  And I’m a word nerd.  There are some word jokes that just don’t work well when I remember them later – “if you take the ‘bat’ out of the ‘basement’…you get semen” – work great in the special because Burnham has such great delivery and stage presence. 

     This one is a must for comedy fans – especially those who have followed older comedians for years.  Burnham takes old jokes from older comedians and turns them on their head – and in many cases, makes them much funnier.  It all works, it’s all great, and I can’t wait for the next Bo Burnham DVD.

Years:  1966, 1967
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  David Janssen, Barry Morse
Guest star of note:  Hope Lange, Ossie Davis, Tom Skerritt, Ted Knight, Dabney Coleman, Bill Raisch, Bruce Dern, Ed Asner
Narrator:  William Conrad
Creator:  Roy Huggins
Run time:  12 hours 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The Fugitive, an excellent series from the 60s, is coming to an end.  Well, the DVD releases are.  Season Four, Volume One is out November 2nd from Paramount Home Entertainment, and it will presumably be followed by the actual final volume in the series in six months or a year from now.  Because putting the whole fourth season on one DVD set would be…too concise?

     At any rate, they have now been able to stretch the four seasons of this series into eight DVDs.  Well, seven.  With the eighth (and only important one, really) still to come.  I still like the show, and I love David Janssen.  Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble appears to be older now than when the show started, which stands to reason.  But I mean a lot older.  And a little chubbier too.  I suspect that’s because the series is now in colour.

     So although I like Janssen and the show, I found it hard to care about Volume One of the final season, aside from the “oh – huh” factor of seeing a few stars like Ossie Davis and Bruce Dern when they were younger.  Really, this is just more of the same from the show, and it’s leading up to a conclusion I really want to see.  But I’m going to have to wait a year to see it.