Guilty Pleasures and other Summer Programming

As I stated in the Defiance thread, I like dance shows. One of my favorites over the summer months is So You Think You Can Dance, which started audition episodes last week and continue tonight (5/21/13) and tomorrow (5/22/13). So, that's what I would like to talk about, but the summer has become a time of sometimes interesting alternative programming, as well as an unhealthy amount of drek.

Last night I half-watched ABC's summertime replacement for Castle, a Canadian show called "Motive". I say I "half-watched" it because before the credits even roll they label one guest actor "Killer" and another "Victim". The show's gimmick is that the lovely detective who solves the case is interested in WHY the murder was committed. Yeah, from a psychological point of view that can be interesting, but this is just a twist on the "how to catch 'em" format pioneered by Colombo. So, already knowing who the killer is and who the victim is, I got kinda bored real quick. On the up side, I got some writing done on the latest chapter of SoMag 2.3.

Alright! Who (besides me) has been watching the audition rounds of So You Think You Can Dance? Anybody? Beuller?

Nope...

Tom, Tom, Tom,

Dance chicks are hawt. If for no other reason than a chance to watch scantily clad women with freaking incredible physiques twirling around to some pretty decent music, you should be watching this show. Seriously.

Also, for fun, I try to figure out which of the male dancers are gay... or rather just how gay the male dancers are. It's kinda fun. I mean, some of them are just obvious, like total light-in-the-loafers, limp wristed, lisping stereotypes, but others aren't that apparent. It's a sick, politically incorrect, and totally cynical thing to do, but what guilty pleasure isn't?

I've been making full use of DVR. I've missed 2 weeks, but I'm hoping to catch up. I just go to be too early to watch it when it's on

I just posted this on Facebook:

Quote :

Who all remembers the fairy tale of the Emperor's New Clothes? The story goes that the Emperor is conned by a fast talking tailor into appearing nude in public because nobody wanted to admit that they couldn't see the magical material his new clothes were made of, except for one little girl who pointed out to the Emperor that his new suit was the one he was born with.

I feel like that every time I see a Sonya Tayeh dance routine on So You Think You Can Dance. Every single one, without fail, is a hot mess, a non-sensical mish mash of bodies moving in odd, disjointed ways that all add up to one unappealing pile of steaming "art". Then, everybody just goes on and on and gushes about how brilliant Sonya is, how wonderful and evocative her choreography is. Then, there's me, sitting in my chair, a faceless, nameless child in the crowd crying out, "Hey! That sucked! Why can't you people see that sucked? If that had sucked any harder it would have formed a quantum singularity, collapsed into a black hole, and destroyed all life on this planet!"
(I'm a geek. Deal with it.)

I have a theory as to why nobody on the show can see that this particular Emperor (Empress?) is nekkid, and it goes back to that steaming glob of "art". "Art." She's convinced these folks that she works for that she's an "artiste" and because they don't want to appear unsophisticated they heap praise on her for her "artistry". Well as one of those people with a sublime lack of sophistication, aka a redneck, she's just not good at what she does. Admit it, Hollyweirdos, and you'll be happy happy happy.

Liv, tonight they unveiled the Top 20, had them dance routines within their chosen styles before doing a top 10 guys, a top 10 gals, and a top 20 routine.  Two of the girls are Jazz dancers, and they danced a Sonya Tayeh number, which sucked, and then the top 20 number was another Sonya Tayeh number made all the worse because there were twenty people on stage at one time.  It wasn't just a hot mess, it was a steaming pile of crap.

Okay, much like Gideon (or maybe 'cause Gideon's much like me) I'm a sucker for seeing hip-hop dancers do other styles of dance, and we've got a good selection of them this season, a street dancer, a crumper, and two animators.  The street dancer, Fick-Shun, and the crumper, a girl named Mariah, look to be extremely versatile and adaptable.  I look forward to seeing how they do.

Okay, this is the guilty pleasures thread so I'm gonna admit that I've kinda been sucked in by a new ABC Family drama, Twisted.  Twisted is about a boy named Danny Desai who, at age 11, takes a jump rope and strangles his aunt to death, and his two best friends, Lacey and Jo, are the witnesses, after the fact, to his crime.  Now, flash forward five or six years, and Danny is being released from the juvenile mental facility where he was sent, and he's returning to Green Cove to attend high school.  His two former best friends are no longer friends with one another.  Lacey has become a popular mean girl, number 1 BFF to the school's slutty Queen Bee.  Jo has gone bohemian and flies under the radar as a part of the freaks & geeks crowd.  So, Danny returns to school and drama ensues because everybody knows he's a murderer.  They call him "Socio" but really from the way they act they should have been calling him "Psycho."  Anyhoo, Danny tries to reconnect with Lacey and Jo who both want nothing to do with him, but Danny is played by the ridiculously handsome Avan Jogia so they're both secretly pining for him whether they want to admit it or not.

So, the show gets off to a banging start as Danny reveals that he had a good reason to kill his aunt, but he can't talk about it because he's trying to protect Lacey and Jo.  Lacey's BFF, Regina, Slutty Queen Bee, tries to seduce Danny, who notices that Regina is wearing a necklace that once belonged to the aunt that he killed.  Later, after a typical TV/movie high school party at the rich bitch's house, the maid finds Regina dead, and her necklace is missing.  Danny has a very weak alibi (Lacey was in his room at the time, but she was asleep when he got the text from Regina that she had info on why he did in his aunt), but because he's an admitted killer, he becomes suspect Numero Uno.  Jo finds it hard to believe that Danny would have killed Regina, and she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  However, known only to Danny and us viewers, he has Regina's necklace.

Did Danny do it?  Is he being set up?  Why did he have to kill his aunt?  I look forward to finding out.

(Just to keep it real, the girl playing Jo, Maddie Hasson, is ridiculously pretty.  Hell, this is a cast full of ridiculously pretty people, straight out of central casting.)

Steven, FYI, 

Anna hates you now - she is cursing you for inadvertently helping to get her addicted to a new show. 

In other news, it's cool to see Melissa Joan Hart get some new work, same for Joe Lawrence ("Melissa and Joe" on ABC Family).

Bwah-ha-ha! Mine is an eee-ville... wait, which show? I'm assuming you mean Twisted, but SYTYCD is pretty addictive, too.

Twisted in particular. We have no interest in dance shows. Thanks.
Especially Dance Shows that don't pay me. You should watch America's Got Talent - it's amusing watching Howie Mandell and Howard Stern making fun of the contestants. But to be honest, I only watch that when I can't find something on History or on the internet to amuse me.

EEE-yeah, I tried to watch America's Got Talent, and while I found a couple of the acts amusing, I really kinda didn't like the Howie & Howard Show.  I'll stick to watching incredibly fit females in wee tiny outfits prancing about.

UGH! voting on SYTYCD is so difficult how do you choose between flavors of awesome!

I divided my votes up between three of them, but choosing wasn't easy.

Mariah & Blu-Print got a hip hop routine. Can you say "perfect storm?" click. click. BOOM! I knew that you could.

I've got the Monday night blues now. Defiance had its season finale last week. I've got to come up with a new plan for Monday night TV now that my 9 o'clock hour has a big hole in it. I guess I'll start watching Major Crimes on TNT since I've been watching King & Maxwell at 10 pm.

FYI, Major Crimes is the name of the show that used to be The Closer, but when Kyra Sedgewick decided to leave the show, they had to change the name because her character was the Closer of the title. Now, they've got President Roslin, uh, I mean Mary McConnell playing the new head of the Major Crimes department. It's a pretty standard police procedural.

King & Maxwell is a show from the producer of NCIS: LA, but it's somewhat better, IMHO. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are both former Secret Service agents who've gone into business as Washington, DC, private eyes. They often cross paths with a grumpy FBI agent who doesn't like them, and they're assisted on their cases by autistic super genius Edgar Roy (played to Rainman-like perfection by Remember the Titans and Sons of Anarchy's Ryan Hurst).

Okay, a guilty pleasure post! I am gonna recommend Nickelodeon's Sam & Cat from mega-prolific kids' show producer Dan Schneider. So, take iCarly's Sam Puckett (played by Jenette McCurdy) and put her in a funky apartment with Victorious's Cat Valentine (played by Ariana Grande) and have the two of them go into business together as babysitters. Hilarious misadventures ensue!

No, seriously, they do. It's corny, cheesy comedy fun.

If you haven't seen it yet, Disney's newest Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM), Teen Beach Movie, is a hoot!  First, it's a delightful little romp with singing and dancing and beautiful scenery.  By "beautiful scenery" I mean the fact that the movie was shot on a beach in Puerto Rico, but the number of attractive girls in the cast would count.  Secondly, it's a clever little fantasy in which a magical surfboard deposits two modern kids into an alternate reality (ala Narnia) that is the world of a 60s teen beach movie called "Wet Side Story."  The point of the kids being dropped into "Wet Side Story" is so that the girl, Mack, can learn an important life lesson that will impact her real life.  Her reactions to being in a movie musical is what really drives a lot of the humor for me.

Honestly, I'd love to watch this movie with Liv, Jodi, and Beth.  I think the three of them would appreciate it the most of all.

Okay, I've just had a thought re: ABC Family's "Twisted". I'm gonna place it inside a spoiler block for folks who aren't caught up on the current episodes yet.

Spoiler:

There it is. If you've been watching, and you've read my theory, feel free to discuss.