TELEVISION

Glee star Cory Monteith passes away at 31

According to CNN, Cory Monteith, who played heart throb Finn Hudson in the Fox hit “Glee,” was found dead in a Vancouver, Canada, hotel room Saturday, police said. He was 31.

Vancouver police said the cause of death was not immediately apparent, but they ruled out foul play.

Medical examiners will conduct an autopsy Monday.

Monteith’s body was discovered by staff members at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel after he missed his checkout time, acting Chief Constable Doug LePard told reporters.

Monteith apparently had several people over to his room at one point Friday night, but LePard said Monteith, who had checked in July 6, was seen on hotel surveillance video returning to his room in the early morning hours by himself.

Cory Monteith — Credit: celebrity-gossip.net

The Twitter-verse has already responded to his death, having two global trending topics of his name and #prayforlea, designed for his fiancee and fellow Glee star Lea Michele. One of the top tweets from Demi Lovato pretty much says it best-

Let’s all remind ourselves that in this time of need to focus on his family and friends and not spend days upon weeks upon months criticizing this man who can’t speak up for himself now. Regardless of how it happened, the world lost a phenomenal talent and was a key player in making one of the best television shows of the past decade. RIP Cory, you will truly be missed by millions of people.

The Bridge May Not Be The Wire, But It’s Still Worth Crossing

by Michael Tyminski

The Bridge: Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on FX

There was a time when HBO’s drama suite always had room for the sort of show that tackled contemporary issues in a thought-provoking and realistic manner, such as Oz, and The Wire. However, while HBO has managed to build it’s ratings back on more fantastical shows such as Game of Thrones and True Blood, FX has quickly taken the mantle over for these gritty, contemporary shows, with Rescue Me, Justified, and tonight’s show: The Bridge.

The Bridge tracks the story of two cops, the American Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) and the Mexican Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir) as they try to track a serial killer operating in both countries. Along the way, they must deal with the numerous problems that plague the border, including drug cartels, prostitution, political corruption and other minefields.

The strength of this show lies in its’ characters, and particularly it’s leads. Sonya Cross’s by-the-book cop is made extremely aloof (to the point where it’s debatable whether the character has Asperger’s) in nature in order to bring the trope to it’s logical extreme (as very little seems to emotionally sway her from cold detached logic). Meanwhile, Marco Ruiz is built to be a perfect counterpoint, a warm, pragmatic cop whose experience in Juarez tells him that sometimes the book needs to be thrown out in extreme circumstances. It’s in those moments where these characters are required to establish their respective quirks (Sonya’s awkward questioning of both the judge’s husband and the reporter stuck in a bomb laden car and Ruiz’s going to the “Captain” to get clearance to look into the case) that the writing shines most.

Of course, both characters are just subtle enough that they require strong acting to carry their nuances onto the screen. Diane Kruger does a superb job stripping Sonya of her empathy, while making sure to leave enough room to be emotionally broken when she finds out her lieutenant is eyeing retirement. Demian Bichir, however, steals the show with his incredibly charismatic approach to Ruiz, who gets to have lighter, wittier exchanges in many of his scenes. The supporting cast also holds their weight well, with performances that are generally strong all around.

I also appreciate the show’s fearlessness in pushing the theme of double standards and divides in numerous ways: our initial act, the reporter’s reaction to the crime wave in Juarez, the message from the “bomb” in his car. The most interesting use of this divide, however, is in the shows fearless use of Spanish (and subtitles) for most of the scenes in Juarez, implying an even further contrast from what’s happening on the US side of the border.

If there was any issue I had with The Bridge, it’s that the extended pilot is a little bloated at points. This feels particularly true in laying the roots for our B-stories, particularly the one spurring from the man with the heart-attack, as the ensuing scenes didn’t say particularly much, and felt lost in between the scenes that exist to reinforce the Cross-Ruiz dynamic.

The Final Verdict: The Bridge is the sort of show that has the potential for greatness, but after the extended pilot, I’m not entirely certain how far the show will pull back from its’ central storyline. However, even if the show does not reach The Wire-like heights, there is enough good just from the shows central pairing to make it worth watching. Hopefully as the episodes are cut down to 44 minutes in length, some of the fat will be cut out and the end result will be the pantheon level show FX is hoping for it to be. At the minimum it’s worth checking out, but on a quiet night for summer programming, it’s probably appointment viewing.

Drunk History is Funny Even When Sober

by Michael Tyminski

Drunk History: Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on Comedy Central

Have you ever been to a bar and someone you barely know walks up to you and starts talking your ear off about something neither you nor they are particularly knowledgeable about? Comedy Central is banking that what you may find irritating at your local watering hole you’ll find entertaining in 22 minute chunks on your TV screen with it’s newest show, Drunk History

Drunk History revolves around a simple (and pretty self evident) concept: Various people recount important events of American History under the influence. These events are then re-enacted by guest star, and are often of dubious factual stature.

Drunk History tackles multiple topics a show, which helps keep you from tiring out on each rambling story (and expect each story to ramble). Our premiere episode tackled three of the most influential events in American History: Watergate, Lincoln’s Assassination, and that time Elvis came to the White House to meet Nixon in the early 70’s.

With shows like this, the most important question you can ask is: did I laugh? Well I did. Derek Waters does an excellent job staying out of the way of his guests, existing solely to ensure the guests are inebriated enough to tell the stories, which take already interesting moments in American history and turn them up to ridiculous levels.

What truly makes this show work however, is its ability to strive for accuracy while striving for complete inaccuracy at the same time. Since we only hear the voice of our original storytellers, the reenactments are entirely lip-synced, and lip-synced well. This commitment carries over to the drunk moments, leading to scenarios like Richard Nixon or John Wilkes Booth comically veering off course as the storyteller reacts to having a cat in the room or stumbling over his speech. Conversely, the bare minimum is often put into making our guest stars look like their counterparts, leading to Bob Odenkirk and Stephen Merchant looking nothing like Richard Nixon or Abe Lincoln respectively.

Speaking of the guest re-enactors, we get to see a who’s who of the comedy world attack these roles, with our debut episode also showing cameos by Dave Grohl, Jack Black, Nathan Fielder, Adam Scott, Fred Willard and others in addition to Odenkirk and Merchant.

Drunk History also works because it fearlessly takes the absurdism and cranks it up to eleven. Hearing about how Elvis’s ego made him a narcotics officer who tried to run down a plane in order to catch a jewel thief during the apex of his “Fat Elvis” years works on a fundamentally different level coming from someone whose enthusiastic because he’s drunk as opposed to merely being stubborn while playing ill-informed (like say, Stephen Colbert’s character on his self titled show).

The Final Verdict: For a show that extols the virtues of drunk, loose, sloppy storytelling, Drunk History succeeds surprisingly well at being a tight, detail oriented show (even when it’s trying to get details wrong). Between it’s mixture of A-list comedic talent on the re-enactment side, relatively short story lengths, and a full bore commitment to it’s major conceit, it’s a show whose laughs come from unexpected depths. Check it out, it’s a pretty funny take on the weird but true events of our nation’s past.

You’ll Get Out Alive, Doing So Awake Is The Hard Part

by Michael Tyminski

Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls: Mondays at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBC

Last week, NBC debuted Siberia, a drama set in inhospitable terrain with extreme circumstances about a reality show that can went horribly wrong. This week, in a rare piece of internal consistency for NBC in the past couple of years, they launch a new reality series set in inhospitable terrain with extreme circumstances and a title that implies anything can go horribly wrong.

Get Out Alive stars survival guru Bear Grylls in a competition to see which teams can make it through the diverse New Zealand wilderness. Teams are paired up and given simple survival tasks, such as procuring food, building shelter, making fire or navigating an obstacle to a new place. After each step of the way, the weakest team is eliminated until there is only one team left who makes it the entire way to civilization. The show, much it’s companion is built less around getting from point A to point B faster or backbiting politics, and more around endurance, teamwork, and a survivalist spirit.

We open on a rapid fire series of shots (including a cool series of shots of Grylls skydiving into the fray) and introductory talking heads explaining our contestants motivations. From here our obstacle team took over, having to navigate our team down a swift moving glacial river bank towards a camp of dry land. After a relatively uneventful run through the river, our food team was sent bushwhacking up to a cavern where Bear left food for the contestants, only for it to be found in a freezing cold creek.

After procuring food, our team is forced to navigate down to a safer overnight camp, a task made considerably more difficult when carrying a deer carcass and with two men on the verge of hypothermia. Ultimately, they make it to the camp, where the shelter and fire teams must rush against the falling sun. Bear emerges from the wild, and prods the contestants to move faster before giving the contestants fish eyes and telling them to procure urine.

The urine was ultimately used for their next challenge, which had the contestants making urine and mud water acceptable for drinking. This challenge plays much like the immunity challenges in Survivor, with the winners getting to eat a large feast and get some peace of mind, while the others have a small amount of rice and beans to sustain themselves for the day, before heading off to Bear’s camp to stave off elimination.

It’s pretty commendable that Get Out Alive manages to create a purely cooperative format that doesn’t encourage the usual backbiting that comes with the genre, it also tends to suffer from a lack of drama. Part of this seems to be the result of pacing, as any particular conflict tends to end up glossed over in a matter of seconds, even though there were clear opportunities for the contestants to get into disagreements (many of which revolve around food). The largest reason for this, however, seems to be due to an elimination process where the sole judge, jury, and eliminator is Grylls himself – and his major criteria are hard work, intelligence, and enthusiasm, not gamesmanship and sniping.

The truly most frustrating aspect of Get Out Alive, however, is the fact that in spite of some truly stunning camera work, the show is over-narrated, often telling in lieu of showing. The end result is a show that spends more time in talking heads and less time playing to its strengths. Weirdly enough, the one person whom seems reduced to five second sound bites is Bear himself, whose observations become increasingly redundant as the hour wears on. This is a shame, as whenever Grylls is allowed to explain something at length, he lights up the screen in a way that few others can.

The Final Verdict: Get Out Alive wants to be a positive, and heartwarming alternative to Survivor in the worst way. But weirdly enough, its’ formula of quick cuts, tons of narration, and lack of emphasis on anything besides a linear navigation of survival and the contest create a fairly boring hour of television. I could however, see this show becoming better as the season wears on and the number of contestants (and hopefully cutaways) dwindles, allowing the show to avoid talking us to death. I’d probably wait and see for that reason, but if you’re looking for inoffensive and non-challenging TV fare, you could do much worse.

Big Brother 15 Jumps The Shark- Doomed, and done.

by Ryan Shea

I was so amped to do a ton of write ups this summer about my favorite reality show of all time, Big Brother. Having been an avid fan since I was in high school, I yearn and look forward this show every year and marvel in its wizardry of alliances, mental anguish, sillyness and above all Julie Chen saying “But First”. Over the past couple of years or so, the show has really taken a down turn in terms of finding original houseguests that we root for and the redundant aspect of past houseguests showing up to compete again, similar to what Survivor has exhausted for over a decade now.

So when I found out that with the exception of Elissa, Rachel Reilly’s sister, that everyone else was brand new to the game this year, I was freaking ecstatic. Even in the short period of time that I had to view the houseguests and get to know some of them before the show even aired, I wasn’t necessarily thrilled at a lot of the choices but happy that it was going to be brand spanking new. Then the show started, and I was instantly turned off by a lot of the people. The main issue is that when you read a lot of what these people are about outside of the house, they aren’t die hard fans but wannabe actors and models who are trying to make their big break in Hollywood. The hardcore gamers are a select few that sometimes clearly know what they are doing by winning the whole damn thing (BB10 Dan, BB14 Ian, and the earlier seasons). So that was a huge turn off.

Then, not even a week into the game, a zillion reports came about of certain houseguests saying extremely insulting racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments about others in the game that was a complete turn off. This might have been brought on a bit by what is going on with Paula Deen, but the difference here is that we have taped footage of some of these people saying this stuff. Take for instance Aaryn, this dumb naive Texan who said about Helen, the only Asian-American houesguest, “Dude, shut up and go make some rice”. Fellow contestant GinaMarie added “Andy was like, ‘I’m gonna punch her in the face,’ and I was like, ‘Maybe that’ll make her eyes straight.'”

That is only the beginning of these horrid people. The conversation then turned to Howard and Candice, two African-American contestants. “Blacks stick together … They’re like tokens … They’re like black Barbie and Kens,” someone on the tape says, before another voice says that Candice’s “blackness” was coming out. They then worried aloud about Andy getting the MVP “because everybody loves the queers.” GinaMarie is from New York mind you, which has a huge gay population. Good luck coming home to that sweetheart.

It seems as if this short period of time has led to a ton of fallout not only from Aaryn and GinaMarie but the show and network itself. Aaryn has been dropped by her modeling agency Zephyr Talent, who had this to say in a statement (I love how honest they are and didn’t give a pageant answer in this)-

“Aaryn, season 15 cast member of Big Brother, revealed prejudices and other beliefs that we (Zephyr Talent) do not condone,” the page reads. “We certainly find the statements made by Aaryn on the live Internet feed to be offensive. Any views or opinions expressed in personal commentary by Aaryn, either on any live feed from the House or during the broadcast, are hers alone and do not represent the views or opinions of Zephyr Talent. Upon much consideration, we have decided to release Aaryn from her contract with Zephyr Talent.”

GinaMarie has also been fired from her day job, East Coast USA Pageant (WHAT THE FUCK WITH ALL THESE MODELS AND PAGEANT GIRLS) after not only that comment but stating that welfare is n*****r insurance, with them having this to say about this classy gal-

“We are actually thankful that this show let us see GinaMarie for who she truly is. We would never want her to be a role model to our future contestants.” “In a business where we are surrounded by beauty every day we are saddened to see something so ugly come from someone we put on a very high pedestal.”

Now here is the thing, CBS states they aren’t condoning this because it doesn’t reflect what the network thinks but someone has to take a stand. This is similar when in BB8 that they kept Evil Dick in the house even after he tortured the other houseguests and lit a burnt cigarette into Jen’s arm and dumped iced tea on her head. And as much as I love Janelle, her drunken rant in BB6 going after everyone calling Beau a “gold digger” and April a “whore” was bad as well. Eric in that season was the absolute worst houseguest of all time going after Kaysar for his religious beliefs which was the catapult to everyone in the world viciously hating The Friendship Alliance.

According to TV By The Numbers, Big Brother earned a series low with last night’s episode at a 1.6 18-49 demo, and only 5.6 million viewers (they average around 7-8 million an episode and the eviction ones are higher normally). So clearly, there has been some backlash on this. I don’t understand why Allison Grodner, who runs this show, won’t step in and do anything because quite frankly it makes her look bad and she has been the blame for why this show has been fledgling for years now. The show in the beginning was people who were avid game players who were there to play the game, not some pathetic actor types who have no idea how the game is played then become beloved reality stars. If CBS is smart, they will oust Aaryn and GinaMarie ASAP. Here is an idea- let’s watch video of their former employers firing them on air and see their reactions. That would be a ratings bonanza.

Big Brother as far as I see it has evicted themselves from a good and fun show to a drab and pathetic excuse for reality TV.

The Pieces Are There, But Ray Donovan Needs A Fixer To Put It Together

by Michael Tyminski

Ray Donovan: Sundays at 10 p.m. Eastern on Showtime

We are currently in a year of transition for our prestige networks. As many of televisions best dramas (Breaking Bad, Dexter, Mad Men) are in either their final or penultimate seasons, we are also seeing signs of rebirth for a new crop of dramas all over the dial aiming to take their place in the public eye (Hannibal and The Americans have been 2013’s best so far). This is particularly an issue for Showtime, for whom Dexter is truly the centerpiece of their Sunday night portfolio and the networks most recognizable show (with only Homeland as the other Showtime show on most people’s radars). As a result, one can only imagine that Showtime hopes that Ray Donovan will fascinate the audience enough of its’ lead in to keep eyes glued in a post-Dexter landscape.

Ray Donovan is built around its’ titular character (as played by Liev Schrieber). Donovan is a “fixer”, a modern day Winston Wolfe who’s primary responsibility is to make the problems of Hollywood’s rich and famous just “go away”. However, things are made more complicated when his father, Mickey (John Voight) is released from prison, as Ray has tried to keep his past concealed and that’s going to be a lot harder to do with his father around town.

Our pilot starts with the release of Mickey Donovan, whose been incarcerated in the outskirts of Boston. Within minutes of his release he has shown up in a nearby church to kill a nameless priest. We then cut to the suburbs of Los Angeles, where Ray receives some calls that amount to just another day at the office for him: An athlete wakes up with a dead girl in his bed and an action star with a big action flick out soon gets caught soliciting a transvestite that will kill his big opening. Ray’s solution? Put the prostitute solicitor in the same room as the dead girl and plant the story. At that point Ray gets another call from a man who wants him to investigate his paramour, Ashley: a twenty-something pop star and former child star, an awkward proposition when he discovers she has feelings for him. Afterwards, he is dispatched to bail his brother Bunchy out of jail, only to have the bombshell of his new half brother dropped upon him.

The next morning, he showed up at Ezra’s wife’s memorial only to find out that Mickey is en route to Los Angeles and that Ezra is suddenly guilt stricken. Additionally, Ray comes home to find Ashley in the house with his wife having a few drinks. Ray drives her home, but an awkward conversation with ends with her attempting another unsolicited move on Ray. At this point, his wife is angry, and makes him scuttle off to his penthouse in town where he gets wasted and gets haunted by his starlet problem and his father before falling asleep.

Ray returns home to his wife, who confronts him about everything: a possible tryst with the Ashley, trying to get his kids into an exclusive public school, and leaving “the valley”. He gets to the party, where Abby starts pushing Stu about Marlboro, only for Stu to once again make the claim that Ray slept with Ashley. Ray then goes to the gum only to find out about the man Mickey murdered (the priest who molested Bunchy) and fly into a rage when Mickey asks about his grandchildren.

So will this show reach the prestige that Showtime hopes it will hit? While it shows flashes of potential, it falls way short of those standards. Much of this, I think has to do with the writing of our pilot. While Ray is portrayed as a complicated and messed up guy, and Mickey alternates regularly between affable guy with a second take of life and completely evil overlord, many of the shows other characters are glossed over or note. This is fairly egregious with Abby, who tends to be written entirely like a harpy (95 percent of her lines involve her complaining that they are merely living a comfortable upper middle class existence and not obscenely rich) and an obstacle than a loving wife. Ashley runs into a similar problem, as she literally is written to dive in on Ray at the drop of a hat, drinks her way through epilepsy and generally puts Ray in bad positions.

A second issue with the writing was the insistence on putting a ton of unrelated twists and turns into a pilot that clearly was meant to come off as the prologue for the rest of the series. As an example, the reveal of Daryll being Mickey’s illegitimate son could easily have been scuttled off until the second episode (especially since it’s the only scene the character appears in, and he’s there as a background character). One runs into the same problem in other places, as the show tries to cram a large number of story lines into a mere 44 minute show.

The acting is generally pretty solid, though it’s always apparent that Schrieber, who plays the titular character seems to act circles around everyone else, though that may be in part due to the fact that Ray is allowed to drop his Boston accent, whereas the other Donovans are held to almost comically stereotypical accents. Jon Voight seems to work well as Mickey, and the scene where he and Schreiber finally meet made for some gripping television.

The Final Verdict: This is the sort of show that has so much potential in it’s premise: everyone wants to see the fixer work his magic – it’s in those moments of levity that Ray Donovan shines. However, the show tries so hard to be Mad Men and The Sopranos with a little Pulp Fiction sprinkled in that the show turns into an overcrowded mess as the writers’ shoehorn all of these elements in. This is one of the few dramas that feels like a wait and see proposition: the pieces are there (and they are excellent pieces), however it will mean nothing if they never come together to make a coherent whole.

Chatty Talk with Elise

by Elise Pentz

Happy Saturday, ya’ll!!

My, oh my!! Paula Deen has certainly been in some hot water recently.. She has been dropped by Walmart, QVC, Smithfield, Target, J. C. Penney, & The Food Network(after 11 years!), plus Ballantine Books decided to cancel their 5 book deal with her. I haven’t been following this particular topic, all I am aware of is that she used some inappropriate language years ago & is now being punished for it. So, my question to you guys is… Do you think this is appropriate punishment or do you think she deserves more? Or less? I’d love to hear from you guys!!

In a Summer With Little On, Under the Dome Satisfies

by Michael Tyminski

Under the Dome: Mondays at 10 p.m. Eastern on CBS

It’s not very often that we see quality event-worthy television on the major networks during the summer months. This tends to especially true in weaker years like this one, where the major networks have been forced to go the bench earlier than usual and bury their dead shows (among them Zero Hour, Cult, and Do Not Harm) in sub-prime summer time slots. Mercifully, CBS is bucking this trend, debuting it’s science fiction drama, Under the Dome Monday evening.

Under The Dome, derived from the Stephen King novel of the same name, tells the tale of a small town cut off from the rest of the world as the result of being suddenly stuck under a large transparent dome. From there, the show takes a micro level approach, following up on the denizens of this new cordoned off world.

We open with a variety of scenes from a small town to introduce us to many of our local townsfolk in Chester’s Mill. Suddenly every bell goes off in town, as the titular dome drops onto our quaint little town. After a number of crashes by planes and cars into our large invisible deathtrap, we find out that the bulk of our emergency services are also trapped outside of the dome.

We return to Big Jim, Duke and Linda trying to assess a situation before our Julia tries to take photos only to find that her car will be commandeered. We then meet a mother and her two children whom are being driven to a “tough love” camp, only to find out that they are trapped under the dome and stop their car just in time (a truck going the other way is considerably less lucky). Linda gets to the dome only to find that the army has arrived and is shooing away a large number of journalists and other citizens.

It’s from here that things slowly start to descend towards peoples’ worse sides. Big Jim looks to add more police against Duke’s opposition before making an ominous mention of Duke’s heart troubles. Junior then finds Barbie and starts to menace him before Julia shows up, thwarting everything. We then shift a bridge party, only for Joe to get the same dome induced seizure we found earlier in the episode before cutting to Junior snapping, accidentally tossing Angie onto the floor, only to later find out that he has locked her in Big Jim’s fallout shelter.

So with that (admittedly long) recap of events out of the way, did this show live up to the hype? Well sort of: The special effects look uneven: The bloody hand on the done looked OK, as did Duke’s pacemaker exploding, while the gravity enforced vivisection of a cow or the CG of the plane flying into the dome looked considerably better. As a general rule, the physical effects look better than their CG counterparts, but for a show that’s intended to be an event show on a major network, I usually expect a little more.

What makes this show work, however, is not the visuals, but the acting. Alexander Koch does a particularly strong job portraying Big Jim’s son Junior, as he goes from nice guy about to leave for college to jealous longing psychopath. Dean Norris is magnificent as Big Jim, our town board member with questionable morals and a survivalist streak. However, many of our side characters also fit their roles well, whether it’s our radio staff (who exist for a little comic relief) or Jeff Fahey whom makes the most of his day in the sun as the “too old for this” cop Duke.

Another positive sign for the show comes from the way that it managed to sequence its’ disparate threads (and there are many disparate threads in the show). While it’s pretty different to parse the writing quality from a novel (that I admittedly haven’t read), Under the Dome works in this medium by giving our most important characters enough screen time that you can with ease determine whom our central characters are (Barbie, Big Jim, Julia, and Junior) while parsing out enough space for us to get to better know our peripheral characters (which is essential in a town small enough that it seems everyone knows everybody else). Furthermore, our pilot does an excellent job of establishing the story hooks and intrigue that are typically required of the first chapter for a serialized show.

The Final Verdict: With solid acting and an intricate story that looks to take turns in numerous directions, Under the Dome is the sort of show that is easy to become attached to during the summer doldrums. I can only hope that over time the visuals start to catch up in order to bring this show to the level of some of the other best dramas on TV (**coughHannibalcough**). On a weak night during a quiet time of the year, it’s the sort of show that’s worth watching while you wait for new seasons of your favorites.

Whodunnit? Starts and Ends With a Bang But Bores In Between

by Michael Tyminski

Whodunnit?: Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC

I always try to start these reviews with a little bit of context in which a show can be placed. The reason I tend to do that is because I feel that it’s important to see running threads in order to get a better feel for the environment in which a show exists. Sometimes it’s a big picture macro trend (for example, serial killers being in during the latter half of the 2012-2013) TV season. Other times, like tonight, it’s a network’s recurrent use of a trope to affect the trajectory of a show’s tone, much like tonight’s show, Whodunnit?

Whodunnit? is ABC’s newest reality game show and fits neatly within a recent trend for that network to have summer game shows that to some degree fit within the dangerous game trope (other examples being 2010’s Downfall and 2011’s 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show.) It involves our contestants running around trying to piece together murder’s caused by the show’s “killer”, because failure means… MURDER (cue scare chord).

It’s in those grisly and over the top murders that Whodunnit? tries to hang it’s hat on (as shown by said murders being large parts of the show’s advertising). Our premiere offered two such crime scenes, each one with different qualities of execution. The first such crime scene, in which our former cheerleader was found on the floor, surrounded by wire and an exploded aquarium felt incredibly contrived (the morgue scene also showed the very limits of the makeup department) but our late night wake-up in which Dontae was sent running out the door aflame felt considerably more impressive.

Unfortunately, outside of the shock of these initial murders, Whodunnit? becomes incredibly boring. The mystery genre hinges in part on causing the viewer to take guesses as to whom the culprit is (for that matter, most of our greatest game shows rely on a similar dynamic with the audience). Instead, Whodunnit? tends to take the viewer in a very linear path, often breezing over any potential red herrings and leading us straight to the clues, meaning that our murder often pieces itself together by the time our final clue is revealed halfway through the episode.

With the mysteries being way too straightforward (if this were a drama using the case of the week format, it would be solved by 20 past the hour), one would hope that other aspects of the show, such as the game within the game or the contestants’ personalities would make up for the deficiencies of the game itself. Whodunnit? disappoints on that count as well. Because the game does not force the contestants to ever really find out who the killer is, there’s actually no incentive for the killer to plant misleading theories, leading to the stagnant reality show “strategy” of basic alliances (in which no one actually trusts each other) and a simple question: to share or not share information? (and even then from a pure game play perspective, it’s always correct to be open since each contestant has a very limited slice of the puzzle).

A bright spot of the show is the Butler Giles (Gildart Jackson). Giles has an almost impossible task, trying to weave outlandish exposition while keeping the game moving and hardest of all keeping a straight face. I say that because our killer’s messages are incredibly campy, which makes the contestant’s “deadly serious” cutaway shots almost laughable in comparison.

The Final Verdict: Whodunnit? throws a lot of special effects at you, but comes up lacking when it comes to the remaining 50 minutes of the hour. The end result is a paint by numbers mystery show that leaves no real surprises, a larger game within a game that feels redundant and forced, and a group of contestants that are difficult to relate to. Normally, I feel like ABC tends to put shows like this with Wipeout to fill a summer weeknight, but its’ separation from it’s natural partner felt like a sign of foreboding doom. Skip this and wait for the inevitable YouTube murder montage, by doing so you’ll have managed to see all of the good parts.

The Soup Investigates is a Worthy Spin-Off

by Michael Tyminski

The Soup Investigates: Wednesday’s at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on E! TV

Believe it or not, there was a time when E! TV was defined by something other than the Kardashians. In this time, their entertainment news empire instead focused on a clip-driven comedy show (that would ultimately be the forerunner for shows like Tosh.0, Ridiculousness, I Love the…, and any number of any other ridiculously cheap series) called Talk Soup that was a cult phenomenon throughout the 1990’s. The series, which at that time lampooned trash TV legends such as Jerry Springer and Geraldo, would be revived in 2004 under the careful watch of Joel McHale, switch to mocking bad reality TV, and be rechristened The Soup. It’s success has led E! to generate a spinoff (much like it did for late night sensation Chelsea Lately) in the form of The Soup Investigates which debuted Wednesday night.

The Soup Investigates takes the basic soup formula of digging for the most ridiculous things you can find in order to mock them, and puts a laser focus on them. Instead of the quick riffing formula you see on the main show, Investigates tends to focus on more fully thought out pieces. Unlike similar mock news show The Daily Show, the show eschews a current events focus for pop culture mockery, and seems to derive its’ format from news magazine shows like Dateline and 20/20.

Our premiere provides a number of interesting conceits, including harassing a bunch of young Bieber fans about Bieber’s aging process. This follows up with a critical investigation into the roses from The Bachelor that ends up turning into a satire of the show’s format in which a correspondent takes his love of the show a little too seriously. The third and final story of the night involves a correspondent going storage hunting before stumbling upon Tila Tequila’s storage unit.

With quick and inexpensive shows of this ilk, the single most important question you can ask is: Did this make me laugh? Well actually, it did and did so in a surprisingly offbeat way for it’s network. While I expected that a lot of the pieces would involve lampooning pop culture, I could see a piece like Bieber’s age advanced photos sitting well in a Wonder Showzen-esque sort of show, playing as much of it’s subject’s discomfort as the audiences. The Storage Unit segment, conversely, seems like the sort of bit that will play well with the show’s intended audience: people who will watch this as a bridge between The Soup and Chelsea Lately

For a show marketed around McHale, it becomes apparent very quickly that he is not the centerpiece of the show, as he receives less screen time than any of his correspondents do and predominantly exists to set up the show’s prerecorded pieces. Personally, I would like to have seen a little more interaction between McHale and the correspondents, but for this episode it’s fairly understandable as the Bachelor rose segment benefited by straddling a commercial break at a key juncture (because reality shows have never been guilty of such a thing, ever, right?).

The Final Verdict: The Soup Investigates is a lot of things, but outside of a somewhat similar format, the one thing that can be safely said is that it’s not a Daily Show clone. Instead what you get is a mixed bag of surprisingly dark humor and spot on stealth parodies of much of the dreck that occupies the airwaves in this day and age. It’s not exactly that most groundbreaking television, but as something to occupy the space between the E! tent-poles that both lead in and out of it or as a show to watch when nothing else is on, you can do a lot worse. Check it out, you’ll probably laugh more than you expect.

TELEVISION

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