culture
Televisualist: Soon Admitting the Existence of Christmas
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.
MADD wants us to mention that drunk driving is wrong. Which is good of them. Otherwise we might have endorsed it, and then wouldn't we look silly?
Monday
The Sing-Off concludes, as the three remaining contestants go head-to-head-to-head in a final singing competition sort of a thing. Your remaining contestants, for those wondering, are the Dartmouth Aires (“the Ivy League group with generations of tradition that probably won’t win because voting for them is like voting for the Yankees to win the World Series”), Pentatonix (“the group that claims they are urban and edgy because they do top 40 R&B hits…like every other a cappella group in the world”) and Urban Method (“we have a rapper!”). If our cynicism at the groups’ attempts to market themselves is warranted, however, our sense of fairness forces us to admit that The Sing-Off is consistently more fun than any other singing competition show going. It’s certainly more fun than The X-Factor, which poached Nicole Scherzinger as a judge from The Sing-Off, which replaced her with Sara Bareilles—which in judging terms is like losing your Yugo and getting a Lamborghini to replace it. Combine Bareilles with Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman and you get the smartest judging panel on any singing competition show (not that this is a high bar to cross), but really, it’s a great talent show. It’s a shame X-Factor gets triple the viewers. (NBC, 8 p.m.)
We’re not sure how Cake Boss: Next Great Baker got a second season, as its first season wasn’t even as good as Top Chef: Just Desserts, which was in turn not anywhere near as good as Top Chef. But if you want to see people making cakes on TV, well, here you go. (TLC, 9 p.m.)
Yep, first showing of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Televisualist’s policy of scorn for the airing of Christmas specials in November extends even to this point. Wait a couple weeks. It’s Grinch, it’ll get aired five or six more times in the next month. (ABC, 8 p.m.)
Tuesday
We think Seinfeld peaked with “The Pilot,” the two-part episode where Jerry and George finally get their NBC pilot based on their lives—the metahumour here was never really equalled within the show and afterwards the show would start getting ever more misanthropic and less-fun. Some people disagree and say that Seinfeld didn’t peak until season eight. We do not agree. (Comedy Network, 11 a.m.)
Wednesday
Okay, we will say that as of this year’s Christmas in Rockefeller Center, it is officially all right to air Christmas programming. It has the Rockefeller Center tree-lighting, and it’s November 30, so…okay, we would have preferred December 1, but we’ll take what we can get. Plus, Tony Bennett will sing. (NBC, 8 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week: “New Kids on the Blecch,” where Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph form a boy band. (It’s not a great week for Simpsons reruns.) “You know, we had fun at the expense of the US Navy, who are out there every day protecting us from Godzilla. And stingrays.” (Comedy Network, 8 p.m.)
So apparently there’s a Grammy nominations concert? The nominations get a concert now? Lady Gaga and Jason Aldean will perform, maybe in the hopes that this will get them a Grammy. Sorry, but the idea that the nominations show should have a concert is just kind of weird. After all, when they announce the Oscar nominations, they don’t do the In Memoriam reel there and then, you know? They just get J. Random-Unlucky-Celebrity-Who-Promised-To-Wake Up-At-Two-in-the-Morning-To-Look-Chipper-and-Say-Some-Names. (Global, 10 p.m.)
Thursday
D.U.I. is TLC’s new show about…well, honestly, you should be able to figure it out from the title. Because that’s all the show is: every episode is two drunk-driving arrests. Apparently someone thought Cops was too general, or something, but this is foolish: no one should challenge Cops‘ dominance over cop-related reality TV programming. When the heat death of the universe comes, there will still be new seasons of Cops. (9 p.m.)
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra (do they play whilst wearing furry hats and gloves?) performs Ghosts of Christmas Eve, an old special where the late Ossie Davis watches a Christmas story with a young girl. Also featuring Jewel, which shows you that this was made in the 90s. (PBS, 9:30 p.m.)
Friday
I Hate My Teenage Daughter stars Jaime Pressly and Katie Finneran as mothers who, well, hate their daughters because their daughters are horrible people. The show is very black in its comedy; unfortunately it’s also very broad, and the two don’t mix well together. (Global, 9 p.m.)
Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights isn’t a very good movie, but it is practically the only Hanukkah movie out there, and until such time as someone makes a good modern-day Hanukkah movie, we feel sort of obligated to mention it. Which is why we hope somebody makes a good Hanukkah movie really, really soon. (MuchMusic, 10 p.m.)
The Weekend
Nowdays you only get one opportunity to watch It’s A Wonderful Life during the holidays, since NBC now controls the rights and only typically airs it once a year. This is it. You have been warned, people. (Saturday, 8 p.m.)
The Mythbusters team presents Punkin’ Chunkin’ 2011, their annual pumpkin-catapulting special. They then follow this up with Flying Anvils 2011, their anvil-launching special. We assume you at least partially enjoy explosions, so perhaps this will be of interest to you. (Discovery, beginning 8 p.m. Sunday)