There's Always TV!

TV talk today!

Have you seen "The Marriage Ref" yet?  The celebrity panel offers a lot of humor and from their opinions you get a glimpse into their mindsets, often surprising.  The most fun comes from the married couples themselves and they don't mean to be funny, they just are.  The things they argue about makes you go, "Gee, we're so normal compared to them, yeh?"  Hmmm, oh really?

For instance, one couple needed mediation because the husband's beloved dog died and he got it stuffed.  He intended to construct a "shrine" in their upstairs hallway (visible also from the ground floor) to display his stuffed doggie.  Happily the panel and the Marriage Ref sided with the wife and the dog will be "buried" in the attic for her husband's enjoyment only.  Check out "Fonzie" the dog and the Ridolfi's.  I think they're a funny couple!

One decision that the Marriage Ref made that is still bugging me involved five tortoises.  They're the husband's pets and yet the wife has to do most of the work caring for them.  As they live longer than human beings, she's not happy with the prospect of doing this for the rest of her life.  The Ref's decision was that she must.  She wasn't even asking her husband to get rid of them all, just a couple of them!  I'm thinking she made a tactical error by not asking to get rid of them all.  We're not talking about little turtles in a terranium.  We're talking about 70 lb. land tortoises!  [I should clarify that this couple didn't appear on the Marriage Ref show itself, but on Oprah's show when she had Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Papa on as guests.]  The Ref and Oprah agreed that it would be bad to break up the family pets, while Jerry said they're not pets because they show no expressions.  I think the wife should scoop up their poop and put it in hubby's car so he'll have a part of them with him when he goes to work.

Other arguments included a wife insisting that their "formal diningroom" be used only for Thanksgiving.  I thought that was a bit too anal and I couldn't believe the Ref ruled in her favor, although he did concede that her husband shouldn't be required to set up an "instant patio" that she ordered.  Another wife refused to let her hub install a stripper pole in their bedroom and the Ref ruled in her favor--thank goodness because a grouchy, reluctant pole dancer is a turn-off!  One husband complained about his wife who insists on flossing her teeth in bed.  This was an easy unanimous decision for the panel and the Ref, and now this stupid wife has millions of people thinking of her as "that gross teeth flosser lady").   Of course all couples got a free Caribbean cruise at the end, so maybe she thought it was worth being exposed?

We audience members sit at home and laugh at these couples as though they're from Planet Crazy but I'm sure you could all come up with arguments you've had with your spouse that are just as funny as theirs.  Not me, of course,  I'm a very reasonable, intelligent spouse who basically just gives in to my husband's ideas which are always brilliant, and vice versa. 

Other TV programs I'm watching:

American Idol (Tuesdays/Wednesdays on FOX):  No favorite yet although I do like Crystal Bowersox whom the oddsmakers are already favoring.  I also like Andrew Garcia.  Unfortunately there isn't an Adam Lambert-type contestant who makes me look forward to the show every week.  I have one wish about this show and that is I wish AI would choose the songs for the contestants. I'm sick of hearing "Wrong song, dog," and confused about the conflicting criticism of "you didn't make it your own" and "why did you change a perfectly good song." 

The Good Wife (Tuesdays on CBS):  Not only are three of the main characters among my favorite actors (Julianna Margulies, Chris Noth, and Christine Baransky), but we get a bonus in Archie Panjabi's character, Kalinda.  She's my new favorite character of all the shows I'm watching this season.  She's an intelligent, uber cool lady investigator who is often the Superwoman who saves the day.  She's also sexy without dressing constantly to show cleavage like those CSI ladies. Where so many TV series have the stereotypical Indian character who is funny/nerdy or serious/nerdy, she's one Indian who is the antithesis of those characters except that they kept in the intelligent part.  (Not that I don't love those comical characters such as Raj on "The Big Bang").

Dancing With the Stars (Mondays/Tuesdays on ABC):  They haven't started yet, but I'm 99% sure Evan Lysacek will win or at least come in second. This man lives for training and from an interview he did after winning his ice-skating gold medal, it's obvious he is very goal-oriented.  Not to mention the fact that three Olympians have already won DWTS (Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Ohno, and Shawn Johnson). Assuming he's as good as I think he'll be, the only reason he may not win is if the voters have an issue with him, if you know what I mean.  I think Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls will also be in the finals.  Every year when they announce the celebrity line-up I hope that there won't be anyone I care to watch so there'd be one less show for me to follow, and there have been years that I don't watch (such as last year), but I admit I have a lady-crush on Nicole S. and I love ice skaters soooo looks like I'll be doing the AI/DTWS juggle on Tuesday nights. 

Anthony Bourdain/No Reservations and Andrew Zimmerman/Bizarre Foods (Mondays on the Travel Channel):  I used to want to travel, but was too lazy to go anywhere except Honolulu and Las Vegas.  I'm still lazy, but I no longer feel the urge to travel because of these two guys.  I can pretty much live vicariously through them because they fill my "exotic food" need.  Even if I went to the same countries they visit I wouldn't be able to eat what they do because they have inside info and connections I don't.  Well anyway, that's how I'm justifying sitting on my behind watching TV instead of traveling to the food bazaars of Istanbul.  That and saving $5000.

 Dr. Oz (10:00 a.m. daily on ABC):  Even if you don't watch daytime TV, you should try to watch this (record it) because you'd benefit from information you'll hear.  What's great about Dr. Oz is he embraces both allopathic and naturopathic medicine.

The Middle (Wednesdays on ABC):  I like this new sitcom and haven't been able to watch it because of the Olympics and AI.  I had stopped watching family sitcoms because they started to annoy me with their usual hot wife, un-hot husband, and bratty kids.  I didn't intend to watch The Middle, but somehow saw an episode and was hooked by that cute little (literally little) son, dopey insecure daughter, and also dopey older son.  I love atypical, especially because these odd kids are quite appealing in their own ways.  Patricia Heaton's mom character in "The Middle" is not half as capable and self-assured a mom as Debra Romano was, and thank goodness that Scrub's crazed maintenance man (actor Neil Flynn) is now a pretty average, though typically clueless dad.  I like that according to what I've seen so far, this show is funny without the husband and wife constantly battling each other.

I'm also still into Law and Order, CSI, Ugly Betty (cancelled!), Desperate Housewives, Glee, and Lost.  I'm trying not to watch anything new because I'm trying to watch less television.  If you think I'm watching a lot now, you should've seen me a few years ago when I would be watching one show and recording two others!  I rarely have to record anything these days and still wonder why a TVholic like myself can find too much to watch on "Budget Basic" cable ($13/month, approx. two dozen channels) and yet most people have more than double the choice and seem to watch less TV than we do.  Well, as Bruce Springsteen sings: "57 Channels and Nothing On" !