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Televisualist: Dancing, M*A*S*H, And Beijing Bash
Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.
Monday
It’s the 2008 Teen Choice Awards! Hosted by Miley Cyrus! (Who is the new Hilary Duff. Who was the new Avril Lavigne. You have to work overtime to keep up with teen pop culture.) Expect this to be the least controversial awards show ever! Which also means it will be the least interesting awards show ever! (Global, 8 p.m.)
On the opposite end of the suitability spectrum, we find that Teletoon ends the August long weekend with an airing of South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut. Genuinely a good movie in its own right, even if the swearing novelty is gone, what with how nowadays the characters get to swear in regular everyday episodes. (10 p.m.)
Tuesday
It’s the two-hour finale of I Survived A Japanese Game Show! Which has taught us one valuable thing: Japanese game shows are a lot funnier without English voiceovers or American participants. Incidentally, there is in fact no actual Japanese game show called “Majide.” They made it up for the show, because the real Japanese game shows all turned ABC down. Don’t you kind of love the Japanese for that? (ABC, 8 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week: “Homer Goes To College.” An early classic. Oh, darn that crusty old Dean! (WUTV, 11 p.m.)
Wednesday
The final competition episode of So You Think You Can Dance features a final four of… well, you will remember that Televisualist said this was the year of the breaker? Two breakers (the impressively adaptable Joshua and the exceptionally charismatic Twitch) fill out the men’s side. The women (Katee and Courtney) are a pair of versatile contemporary dancers. In short: it should be a good final, even if Twitch certainly isn’t as good a pure dancer as Will or Mark. (CTV, 8 p.m.)
CNBC airs a one-hour special entitled “Saving General Motors.” How they will manage to make “build less crappy cars” last for one hour is beyond Televisualist’s knowledge. (9 p.m.)
Thursday
The finale of So You Think You Can Dance, unlike most competitive reality show finales, is traditionally pretty good; they take care to bring interesting dancers from outside the show as well as good new routines for the contestants, along with a few popular routines from competition. This year features a popping battle between Robert Muraine (of IKEA fame) and the equally-freaktastic-in-every-way Philip Chbeeb. In short: likely to be awesome. (CTV, 8 p.m.)
The original film version of M*A*S*H is a lot more experimental than the TV show ever was, but that’s to be expected; it’s vintage Robert Altman, playing around with narrative and sound as he was prone to do. This is not to say that it’s not worth watching, because it is. It’s just not as instantly fun as the TV show was… but it does reward a close viewing. (AMC, 8 p.m.)
Friday
It’s the opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics tonight. Now, normally opening ceremonies for an Olympics (what’s the plural of “Olympics,” anyway? Olympicses?) are boring, staid affairs. But this is Beijing, and there’s controversy, and who knows, maybe some lone Tibetan will shoot the torch with a sniper rifle. Okay, probably not, but that would be kind of wild, admit it.
American Pie: Band Camp. If you’re not the sort of person to peruse direct-to-DVD fare, you have probably missed out entirely on the continuing existence of the American Pie franchise. This is probably to your benefit, because if there was ever a living definition of “diminishing returns,” it is this franchise. The direct-to-DVD sequels focus on the younger Stiflers, with none of the original cast except Eugene Levy as “Jim’s Dad,” each film having progressively less of a reason to have Jim’s dad show up. But hey, if Eugene Levy gets a paycheque out of it, Televisualist thinks that’s all right. And maybe Jason Biggs will show up in the next one! It’s not like he has anything better to do. (MuchMusic, 9 p.m.)