These past few weeks have been something like purgatory on TV. Spring programs are off air. The late night shows have inconsiderately taken large breaks and left us wayward, searching for canned laughs and strange celebrity sports in the YouTube archives like common scavengers. But with the summer slate starting to trickle in, we’re hoping this is the beginning of our ascent from the cave of shadows and back into the sun. For this week, NBC’s gaggle of morning talk hosts gave us some cheap laughs and TV’s favorite clone brigade invited us to a brief house party. John Oliver continued to be our rock (bless you, sir) and on Sunday we started our final walk with True Blood. Much like the United States House of Representatives, we shall overcome this challenging time. Let us join hands as a nation—preferably in the most awkward fashion possible—and share in the joy of WIRED’s weekly TV recap together. Kumbaya, friends.
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver — Dr. Oz and Nutritional Supplements
Beware, all ye who would dare f*ck up on the public stage, for John Oliver is the new protector of this realm, and he is beholden to no advertisers! Now, this might be too presumptuous, but we’re going to assume WIRED isn’t the biggest Dr. Oz crowd. So, for any of you doubters out there: The man is a big deal, and his product recommendations can be the medical equivalent of getting an Oprah’s Book Club endorsement. His market impact is significant enough to have earned a title—The Dr. Oz Effect—and if you believe the producers of his show, he basically put the Neti Pot on the map. It’s sort of like being the influential head of a megachurch, except the congregation is the daytime TV audience and the cause célèbre is fat busting. All this is to say: Dr. Mehmet Oz is shepherding a large flock. As an accomplished healthcare professional he has a responsibility to give viewers sound guidance, and hawking “magic” pills doesn’t really satisfy that obligation, by Oliver’s estimation. So pop some corn and settle in for this 16-minute dismantling of Oz The Great and Powerful by the HBO show host, who suggests a nice warm glass of shut-the-hell-up as a preventative measure against letting pop science get the better of you. Maybe it’s time to just be a life-saving heart surgeon for a while, Doc. No shame in the fallback career.
True Blood — Episode 1 Clip #3
Now that you’ve all finished marathonthing six seasons of True Blood with the help of WIRED’s comprehensive binge-watching guide to the show, we trust that you’ve taken in seventh and final season’s premiere episode from Sunday. Yes, it was a lot of work on a short calendar, but we knew you could do it! So here we are, back in Bon Temps for one last ride on the supernatural sex party Scrambler. Alcide is back—in Sookie’s bed! Jessica is (un)dead set on atoning for her sins. Bill and Sam have reached a détente to save the town and both of their respective species from the scourge of Hep-V vamps, and magnificent Pam is magnificently searching for her lost love/maker/best friend/boss, Eric. So the gang’s all in attendance, and it looks like everyone’s lives are about to go from bad to catastrophically worse in no time flat. In this scene, we get to see Sookie give the townsfolk a piece of her mind after everyone starts blaming her—again—for all the misfortune in their lives. And yeah, she’s played a big part in this whole nightmare, but when the threat-level starts reaching Apocalypse Orange™ it’s safe to say the issue has gone beyond one girl and her precious fairy vagina.
Conan — Andy Serkis Channels Gollum & Caesar the Ape
Even though Conan and Andy Richter make this segment pretty uncomfortable, it’s still awesome to watch Andy Serkis do his Andy Serkis thing without any green screens, facial tracking dots, or costume prosthesis to obscure the impossibly talented man behind some of screen history’s most engrossing characters. (Hey, Peter Jackson’s King Kong was pretty bad, but we defy you not to fall in love with Serkis’ big ape eyes as Kong caresses Ann Darrow’s face with his dying breath.) If there is any justice in the world of screen arts, Serkis will win an Academy Award for some crucial motion capture supporting role he’s bound to play in the future, but for now we’ll settle for watching him do Gollum on late-night TV.
NBC Today Show — So Uncomfortable: Congressmen Sing ‘We Shall Overcome’
Cheesy morning roundtable shows are so weird. Watching members of the House of Representatives awkwardly cross arms (why are they crossing their arms that way??) and sing an uplifting song together is incredibly strange and uncomfortable, not least of all because of how uncomfortable John Boehner just looks all the time, but watching the hosts of The Today Show do the same in an attempt at mocking humor is somehow even worse. It’s supposed to be a joke about the members of Congress, but turns them into the joke instead, and it gives us full body tingles in a very unpleasant way. This has to be the hosting equivalent of dreaming you’re in class without pants on. Except this really happened. And it’s on the internet. Forever. But considering Carson Daly is ageing backwards, forever probably doesn’t feel that long to him.
Bonus Track: Orphan Black — Making of Orphan Black‘s Four Clone Dance Party
It’s hard enough to leave your favorite characters and performers behind when a TV season wraps up, but with Orphan Black we have to miss Tatiana Maslany five times as much (six if you want to count Tony the trans clone)! And in the second season finale, we got to see the whole Clone Club in the same place at the same time having a nice little rager in Felix’s apartment. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how they stitched four clonesbians into one scene. As always, crazy props to Maslany for embodying each character so fully in dance. Cosima is at her own private Burning Man. Sarah is just keeping it G. Alison’s whole body looks like fun hurts and Helena is, well, just so Helena!
No comments:
Post a Comment