August 24, 2007

What to Watch: Coming Up on Cable

Seth Arenstein on Bob Saget's 2nd HBO comedy special; National Geographic Channel's Road to War: Iraq; and more original cable programming.

Tube Stake: Programming Reviews by Seth Arenstein

AM I BLUE: Bob Saget's comedy special on HBO.

• SATURDAY, AUGUST 25

Bob Saget: That Ain’t Right, 10pm, HBO.

Full House’s Bob Saget does his best to rid himself of the family friendly imprimatur with a filthy standup routine that would make Tony Soprano blush. While it might be funny to watch an actor associated with clean comedy use the F-word repeatedly and in various grammatical forms, those who don’t know that earlier work (or who missed his profane turn in The Aristocrats) can only chuckle occasionally at his rapid-fire, blue-language shtick in his second HBO comedy special. (Click here for a preview.)

• SUNDAY, AUGUST 26

Army Wives, season 1 finale, 10pm, Lifetime.

Why did this series about some of the most gorgeous Army wives ever seen become a record-breaking hit for Lifetime? The writing isn’t extraordinary, and the venue, Ft. Marshall, doesn’t feature the lush landscape of Fantasy Island.*

Among the cast, Kim Delaney and Catherine Bell seem to barely break a sweat, although they look so good sweatless that it almost doesn’t matter what they do. Speaking of good looks, there’s also quite a bit of male beefcake for the female contingent to feast their eyes on, ranging from young PFC Trevor LeBlanc (Drew Fuller) to hunky older guy Col. Michael Holden (Brian McNamara).

In a class by herself is brash barmaid Roxy Le Blanc (Sally Pressman), the youngest and cutest wife who isn’t afraid to flaunt her wares, a source of constant pleasure to the males in television-land who suddenly have taken to watching Lifetime on Sunday nights with their wives. Actually Pressman, a relative newcomer, is much more than a short-shorts-wearing floozy — she’s outstanding in her rough-around-the-edges role.

Besides many viewers identifying with a drama taking place on an Army base because of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s probably the relationships between the Army wives that’s got women viewers hooked. That’s because the spouses of the highest-ranking men on the base, the mid-level officers and the lower ranking men are supporting each other so admirably, and crossing all sorts of class lines and protocol to do so. We know in real life a Colonel’s wife wouldn’t have much to do with a Private’s lady, but apparently we love to watch a show where they do.

The ladies — and honorary wife, Dr. Roland Burton (Sterling K. Brown) — will need to cling to each other more than most weeks tonight for several reasons. First, the munitions dump on the base is being looted and terrorism is suspected. That leads to a decision to deploy troops quicker than expected, so, folks, we’ll have a few tender last-night scenarios to contend with, although even they will get cut short. And don’t forget, this is the season finale, so you know there’s a pot boiler coming your way. Although, I have to admit, it’s a pretty unexpected one, and will keep us wondering until next season.

* Speaking of fantasies, if you really want to stretch your imagination, or more precisely completely turn off your brain for 2 hours, tune in to The Murder of Princess Diana, which premiered last night (Sat. Aug. 25) on Lifetime, but will inevitably be re-shown countless times this week. You won’t learn much from this unbelievably silly film, but heck, it takes place in Paris, it’s mildly entertaining, and its stars pretty Jennifer Morrison from Fox’s hit House.

• MONDAY, AUGUST 27

Road to War: Iraq, 9pm, National Geographic Channel.

Can’t imagine many of the boys at Fox will be happy with this well-done and relatively balanced recap of the events leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It’s a brief history lesson where Clinton, Bush, the Pentagon, the Hill and even the media take their lumps.

As you might expect, the White House won’t be too pleased with this piece either, nor will former CIA chief George “Slam Dunk” Tenet, who takes a number of hits for his “hastily prepared” National Intelligence Estimate in 2003, the one about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction that apparently helped push the president to drop diplomacy and make war.

What’s most interesting about this re-telling of the story are short interviews with people like former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who attended the Tenet briefing and claims he didn’t like what he heard. “I think I said [during the briefing] there was no there there,” he tells Nat Geo. He also recalls that Tenet used the slam-dunk phraseology [referring to the certainty that Saddam possessed WMDs] twice during that session. “The president challenged him on that,” Card remembers. 

And bravo to the Republicans interviewed — to a man, they don’t try to blame Tenet for going to war. It was the president’s call, Card and others say or imply. (Click here for a sneak peek.) 

• TUESDAY, AUGUST 28

The Education of Ms. Groves, 8pm, Sundance Channel.

The presidential debates have featured hopefuls discussing how to fix public education. Putting the best teachers in the worst schools, an admirable idea, is often put forward, although the format of the debates leaves little time for practical plans to do that. Candidates, and voters who watch Sundance’s Education of Ms Groves will come away with a new appreciation of why such a scheme might not be a magic bullet.
 
The Education of Ms. Groves is a 4-night (it concludes Friday) extension of the Peabody Award-winning NBC Dateline episode that followed recent University of Virginia grad Monica Groves. The attractive and articulate 21-year-old is one of a select group of recent graduates chosen by Teach for America to educate students in poor schools. Ms. Groves is assigned to teach language arts to 6th graders in an Atlanta, GA, school.

Tonight’s episode finds her enthusiastic as she sets up her classroom. Quickly, though, she finds herself spending more time disciplining students than teaching them. She struggles with providing a supportive environment for her students while being stern enough to maintain decorum in the classroom. Groves manages to be only slightly perturbed tonight, but we can see her frustration growing. She also discovers that many of her students are facing difficulties outside the classroom, including homelessness, poverty and broken families.

In Wednesday’s episode, we find a bent but not-quite-broken Groves, sobbing during her video diary due to the frustration of being unable to reach her students. Worse, she realizes she’s not imagining things. While marking mid-term exams, she finds that her students haven’t learned the material she’s tried to teach them and that just one student has passed, barely. Groves attends a seminar with other Teach for America participants and finds her situation is not unique.

The Bronx is Burning, series finale, 10pm ET, ESPN.

It’s the 6th game of the 1977 World Series and NY Yankees’ manager Billy Martin, star right fielder Reggie Jackson and owner George Steinbrenner are at each other’s throats, despite the fact that the Yankees are leading the Dodgers 3 games to 2, just one win away from a world championship.

While the earlier 7 episodes in this mini have focused on the chaos off the field, including the situation in New York City, where serial murderer Son of Sam is killing women and Ed Koch is battling Bella Abzug, Mario Cuomo and incumbent Abe Beame for the mayor’s job, the producers tonight sensibly look to the House that Ruth built for the bulk of the final episode. They made the right choice. 

While the game itself was in doubt in the early innings, that changed quickly thanks to a strong Yankees’ starting pitching (my, how things have changed) and Jackson’s 3-home-run performance. ESPN viewers will love the extended clips from the original broadcast, complete with Keith Jackson’s announcing and commentary from Jaws himself, Howard Cosell.

They’ll also appreciate the lengths to which ESPN goes to expertly mix clips of the Bronx cast (Daniel Sunjata, a series regular in FX's Rescue Me, as Jackson, John Turturro as Martin and Oliver Platt as Steinbrenner) with the 1977 broadcast. The only obvious fake spot is a pre-game interview with Steinbrenner, where Platt as The Boss is superimposed over the real Steinbrenner, who was seated next to Cosell. But even that works.

Perhaps the most entertaining nugget, though, comes from the Dodgers’ side. It’s a clip, again presumably from the original broadcast or perhaps done for an extended highlight film, where Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda heads to the mound for a conference with his pitcher and catcher after one of Jackson’s dingers. As umpire John McSherry strolls to the hill to break up the coffee klatch, Lasorda, who was wearing a microphone, greets the ump.

“John, how are you?” Lasorda says calmly as the throng at Yankee Stadium cheers, smelling blood in the water. “I don’t know if I should make a pitching change,” he continues. “If you were the manager, what would you do?” he asks the burly ump. Although we can’t quite make out what McSherry says, he probably wasn’t wearing a mic, the assembled decide a call to the bullpen is in order. Of course, it didn’t matter. Jackson belted homers that night off starter Burt Hooton, and relievers Elias Sosa and the knuckleballer, Charlie Hough. Jackson,  the series MVP, became only the 2nd Yankees player to hit 3 homers in a Series game (Babe Ruth did it in 1926 and 1928).

And don’t turn off the set when the show is over. The credits are worth watching as the series’ characters are shown being portrayed by the actors and then as they appeared in real life. (Click here for a sneak peek at the series' finale.)

• WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29  

Crazy Sexy Cancer, 9pm, TLC.

An inspiring odyssey told nicely by 31-year-old actress-dancer-photographer Kris Carr, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer in ’03.

There’s not too much crazy here, as the subject, young women with cancer, is too serious for much craziness. On the other hand, as the noted philosopher Captain "Hawkeye" Pierce once said, “If we don’t go crazy around here occasionally, we’ll all go crazy.” So the other women we meet through Carr attack their cancer by meeting with others in the same boat, staging rock concerts to raise money and morale and wearing wool caps emblazoned with the mantra: "F*** Cancer."

Maybe cancer’s crazy because it’s random, attacking the old, middle aged and here, 30-ish women. Maybe it’s crazy because it leads people to do things they wouldn’t have done when they were well, like eat a macrobiotic diet, starting their day with a glass of ground grass. There’s enough humor here, believe it or not, that the film could have been called Funny Sexy Cancer.

For that reason and others some will argue that the film’s too light. We get only glimpses of cancer’s emotional nightmare from the comely face and curvy physique of our guide for the evening, Ms. Carr, who’s got a rare form of the disease. Carr expresses anger — "Why me? What did I do to deserve this?" — and cries a bit, but mostly she keeps a smile on her face, a cross between Kerry Russell and Annabelle Gurwitch.

"Does cancer look like this?" some will complain. The answer, Carr would say, is yes, sometimes it does. Not often, will be the critics’ retort. To be fair we see some of cancer’s devastation when Carr is off-screen. Perhaps Carr made a conscious choice with her film and life to be upbeat. It works in both cases. A question gnaws throughout: Can cancer be defeated with the mind and some wheat grass?  

But back to that title. Cancer is sexy on Carr because she’s showing no outward signs of the disease. In tight jeans and t-shirts, she’s lithe as a flower as she power-walks and practices yoga, all without any pain or drowsiness. 

Of course for Carr, cancer is a state of mind, so it’s sexy because the women chronicled here refuse to let cancer defeat their self-confidence. “They’re crazy, sexy, vibrant, loving, normal, sparkly and whole individuals,” Carr says. Sure they’d like to think that, but beneath the surface they must have been terrified. We were as we watched this film, waiting for cancer to be cancer. While we won’t give away how the film ends, we leave you with insight into Carr, as she answers the question: What do you hope people will gain by watching your film?  

“Of course I hope viewers will be enlightened and inspired. The film has many powerful meanings — empowerment, education, attitude, strength. But the most important nugget is choice. We all have something we wish we could change. We have all faced hard times. How we transform the obstacles determines the level to which we allow ourselves to grow. Not everyone will be cured - this is true - but we can all be healed, especially when we replace our fears with love and head-butt adversity with grace. It's a choice we make.” (Click here for a sneak peek.)

Pantry Raid, series premiere, 9pm, Style.

Rice Krispies beef cups? Popcorn in clam chowder? Chef Michael Schulson is the poster child for ‘necessity is the mother of invention (in the kitchen)’ as he cooks with whatever he finds in your pantry. (By the way, the Rice Krispies with beef were delicious at TCA).

Next time you look in the refrigerator and think there’s nothing for dinner, take a lesson from Schulson, the 30-something executive chef at 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired Pod in Philadelphia and Buddakan in NY’s Chelsea Market.

In his new attempt at television food shows (he was seen earlier on Discovery Channel’s Go Ahead, Make My Dinner), Schulson shows that practically anyone can make a good meal with ingredients commonly found in pantries and refrigerators. But you need to be resourceful and always try to augment boxed and canned food with fresh ingredients, like vegetables and fruit.

In tonight’s premiere, he helps bride-to-be Kristen make a decent meal from what she and the chef find in her mother’s kitchen. No bread to go with the soup? Schulson uses popcorn, placing it atop canned chicken soup that’s been enhanced with fresh vegetables and canned clams. No bread crumbs for the chops? That’s easy, take a box of crackers and smash it. Coat the chops with milk and eggs and then bread them with your crushed crackers.

Even better, Schulson’s goal is to make his viewers more comfortable in the kitchen. To that end, he easily leads Kristen through some pretty simple recipes and dispenses some useful culinary tips.   

The Concert for New Orleans Remembered, 10pm, MSG.

A very good look back at the Sept. 2005 concert (From the Big Apple to the Big Easy) at Madison Square Garden that raised some $9 million for New Orleans and was put together within weeks of the Katrina tragedy. This is a special behind-the-scenes "making of" documentary about the concert, not the concert itself. So, we’ll forgive music lovers if they yell at the set: “Stop the talk and just play the music!” 

For those folks, hang in there. Near the 30-minute mark there’s an extended clip of Simon & Garfunkel with Aaron Neville in a rousing version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. And the chatter’s not bad, and includes quite a bit from the late Ed Bradley. Shortly after Simon & Garfunkel, there’s a nice piece with New Orleans R&B great Clarence Frogman Henry, and a good clip about a presidential intro for John Fogerty. 

Beyond the performances on the stage, there was a lot of emotion backstage, and viewers will get an excellent view of that.

• THURSDAY, AUGUST 30

World’s Funniest Commercials, 9pm, TBS.

This compendium of hilarious ads is worth watching, taping and archiving. Also worth a look is the group of ads that were deemed too racy for American television, which TBS has grouped online at veryfunnyads.com.

Of course, TBS allowed one or two to slip in to tonight’s broadcast (a follow-up to last year's special) that were saucy, but excellent. One of the best comes about 15 minutes in, a simple piece (also posted on YouTube) advertising a ladies-only restroom on Britain’s Silverjet airline. We won’t reveal the plot details, but it yielded an out-loud laugh from your reviewer.

Despite what many of us might think, some of the best commercials are made in the good ol’ USA, perhaps proving that strong ad content will be watched, even with the ability to fast forward on DVRs.

On the other hand, during this show you might want to fast forward anything that is not a commercial, specifically the inane commentary between commercials by Kevin Nealon, on location in Paris.

While many Super Bowls pale in comparison to the commercials, it’s hard to understand why TBS spent the money to send Nealon  to Paris instead of hiring good writers to produce more intelligent and funny patter for him between the clumps of very good commercials from around the world.

All times ET/PT unless otherwise noted.

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