The Lifetime channel is making it very clear that it's sick and tired of being a punchline B-list comediennes use when talking about what they do when they get dumped or are on their periods.
First the network sneakily snatched away Bravo's trendy reality program Project Runway. Now it's delving even deeper into the hip fashion game with a new original reality series, Blush: The Search for the Next Great Makeup Artist. Because culture just doesn't celebrate the useless but moneymaking fashion industry enough!
Yet despite its similarities to shows like Runway and Shear Genius, Blush also promises to be quite different—it's going to be much, much worse. That's because it's basically a goddamn unabashed infomercial.
Former wrestler, Predator actor, and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is about to add another notch under his ever-widening belt: TV Show host for truTV:
Jesse Ventura will be working on a new conspiracy-theory series…Ventura will travel the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity.
TV AUDIENCES CONTINUE TO DWINDLE "Every season premiere Thursday night drew a lower rating than last fall, as returning favorites such as ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy,' CBS' 'Survivor' and NBC's 'The Office' tripped across the board. ABC firmly won the night, as expected. Its two-hour fifth season premiere of 'Grey's Anatomy' (18.5 million viewers, 7.4 national adults 18 to 49 rating and an 18 share) was the evening's highest-rated and most-watched show, with each half hour growing in the Nielsens. Yet 'Grey's' was down 17% from last fall’s one-hour opener. Lead-in 'Ugly Betty' (9.8 million, 3.3/9) slipped 15%, marking its lowest-rated debut to date."
SEX PLOTS COME TO THE FOREFRONT OF CULTURE "In the life-imitates-art department, there's no better example than David Duchovny, a real sex addict - he recently checked into rehab for sex addiction - who plays one in the Showtime series 'Californication.' … Yet Duchovny's show is not the only place where once underground practices are moving into the mainstream. Opening Friday is 'Choke,' … starring Sam Rockwell as a sex addict; George Clooney plays one for laughs in the recent 'Burn After Reading.' Writer-director Kevin Smith's 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno,' opening Oct. 31, tells of platonic friends … who raise money by starring in their own sex film. … Coming soon to the WE network are 'Secret Lives of Women: Sex Addicts' … and a new reality series, 'Sex Change Hospital.' CBS recently broadcast 'Swingtown,' a summer replacement series about swinging '70s couples. And really pushing the envelope is Palahniuk's latest novel, 'Snuff,' about an aging porn star determined to have sex with 600 men in a single day."
Just when you thought MTV couldn't become more of a soulless corporation without transforming into subplot fodder for a John Grisham novel, the former hipness barometer outdid itself in one week by:
1) Canceling TRL, and with it the last shred of reasoning behind calling the Viacom subsidiary a music station.
2) Signing a contract that would allow them to stay at their Times Square location (that really only made sense to inhabit when TRL was on the air) with a $35-per-square-foot rent increase.
3) Destroying the rainforest for the sake of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge show that no one knew was still on the air:
Paris Hilton's ode to herself, MTV's Paris Hilton's My New BFF, debuts Sept. 30 with 16 women and two men competing to be her "paparazzi-ready" best friend. While hyping the show, Hilton said 300,000 people applied for the cast.
Like the story she tells suitors about being drug and disease free, this is a lie.
It was only an amount of time until America's obsession with B-list celebs reduced the country to watching 'Til Death star Brad Garrett receive a prostate exam on national television.
Pamela Anderson, on the premiere of her new reality show, Girl on the Loose, on Sunday: "PEOPLE BETTER BE WATCHNG THE OLYMPICS INSTEAD OF MY SHOW!!! You know how E replays things over and over — if people are interested it's always around."
America took Pam's advice and turned away in droves! In fact, more viewers tuned in for the season premiere of C-grade schlock Sunset Tan than for GotL, which you better check out soon if you have any interest at all. Contrary to what Pammy thinks, it's unlikely it will "always" be around.
MTV has put out a casting call for their newest shockingly ill-conceived reality show, Model Makers, which will feature young girls being judged on how well they slim down in order to prove their love of the catwalk. So disturbing, but not anything new for reality television, which as of late actually seemed to be pulling back from the precarious brink of Milf Island:
This, ladies and gentleman, is what's passing for a winning design on this dismal season of Project Runway. Yes, we know it was an outfit for drag queens, but come on!
An interesting theory we read on the Internets suggests that Bravo might be intentionally sabotaging Proj Run before it goes away to Lifetime, which is so catty and rude that it makes perfect sense when talking about a reality show about fashion. Discuss!
Look! Two clowns from two separate clownish reality shows – America's Most Smartest Model and Road Rules – have the exact same clownish face. It took us a while to realize this, but now that we have, we're excited to see if the reality-television-Charlie-Brown-circle-face gene these two are carrying exists in anyone else. Can you help us out?
We all know violent sexpot New York has no respect for herself – really, how could she? – but had you any idea how little she cares for the feelings of others?
In the newest episode of televised pockmark New York Goes to Hollywood, Pollard attempts to research Japanese culture for an upcoming commercial role. Of course, she goes about this not by heading to the library for The Book of Five Rings or scouring Wikipedia, but by asking every Asian person she sees if they can explain Japan. (To a Korean dry cleaner: "Is that the same as being Japanese, or, like, not at all?") HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hilarious! And ironic, considering how the underlying joke here – New York doesn't get that all Asians aren't the same – is pretty similar to one that's plagued blacks for hundreds of years.
We'd love to see how well Pollard would take it were a Japanese person to approach her and ask how she played a crackhead so well in Jungle Fever.
The upcoming NBC reality show Celebrity Come Dine with Me is an American spin-off of a popular British show where a celebrity host has four of his celebrity friends over for dinner, and then gets judged on criteria ranging from food (edible? Macro-biotic?) to entertainment (karoke? charades?). Somehow this will produce a "winner" from the range of hosts, although it seems like there is only one host/hostess per show, and implies the same guest "judges" travel from house to house, which would mean there are four celebrities in Hollywood that have nothing else to but run around town visiting go around and visit their other celebrity friends. This is different from what celebrities normally do, because there will be cameras following them here.
Transgender reality show contestants are all the rage these days, with a trans woman vying to win the dubious honor of waiting on Sean Combs hand and foot on VH1 and another on the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model.
Model-hopeful Isis, a 22-year-old Maryland native, describes herself as "a woman born physically male" who would "like to help people, but [is on the show] to follow [her] dreams."
Click through for the answer.
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Oh. Goodie. First came L.A.'s The Hills. Next will come its New York spin-off. And this fall, we'll also be treated to a D.C. version of white girls of privilege. From something called PB&J Television (they produced Sports Illustrated's model reality show) comes Washington's attempt at "unscripted" reality, with an as-yet-untitled show that's set to start filming in September and rushed to air by November. And how do we know it's a sure thing? Well, you never really know, but Lifetime did pick it up and supposedly plans to air it immediately following Project Runway, which it's stealing from Bravo to create quite the perfect lead-in. "Casting hasn't been finalized, according to one source, but the primary characters — local socialites/hotties/20-somethings Katherine Kennedy, Krista Johnson and Sophie Pyle — remain on board. Johnson’s younger sister, Alexa Johnson, will also play a role in the show, most likely, although she and the show are still working out specifics. The Johnson sisters are alumnae of South Carolina’s College of Charleston, Kennedy graduated from Loyola Marymount and Pyle is taking a semester off from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill." Also, they plan on being "more realistic":
Speaking of things we can't believe, human minstrel show Tiffany "New York" Pollard has once again been granted license to stymie the progress of civil rights with a crappy reality show, New York Goes to Hollywood.
This latest installment in the televised downfall of a human being follows Pollard on her quest for "legitimate, Hollywood fame." Yes, she wants to be an actress now—"a certified actress." This will never happen, of course, but it seems you could have fooled Pollard, who's already mean to everyone despite not having the sort of résumé, background or skill-set normally associated with prima donnas of her caliber.
Guess what: we won't be tuning in. But if your thing is seeing a delusional black lady belittle white people and herself at the same time, check it out.
Now that Yankee swordsman Alex Rodriguez has inked a deal with the William Morris Agency to continue his career in more "creative" ways, where do you think he'll turn up next? Are guys that fuck other guys' wives while also cheating on their own wives better actors or reality show centerpieces? Our call: ESPN reality program in which doofy armchair quarterbacks compete in weekly challenges to be A-Rod's assistant. Bob Costas would guest host and also help Rodriguez choose who "gets cut" from the team, until just the victor remains. (Jesus, it's frightening how easy it is to think up TV shows that could actually be very successful.)
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