culture
Televisualist: Now With New Artistic Talent Called “Leeching From The Internet”
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.
It’s funny because Brett is too important to do original art for this column any more! Screencap from the Simpsons rerun of the week, “I Am Furious Yellow.”
Monday
The Bachelor has its annual “The Women Tell All” special, wherein the contestants dish about the Bachelor and the Bachelorettes and the host and everything else and we care about this for some reason. I’m looking in the press materials but they don’t say why that is. Will check again. (CFMT, 8 p.m.)
Tuesday
Treasure Detectives is another show about people who think they might have really valuable stuff, except it’s on CNBC, so instead of grandmothers pulling out a family heirloom, it’s irritating rich people who collect rare art things who want to be sure their rare art things are genuine. Really, anything on CNBC is basically regular television of some kind, except it’s targeted at irritating rich people. (9 p.m.)
The Joe Schmo Show concludes, and we have like the first six episodes PVR’d and we haven’t watched any of it yet. We really, really mean to! Honest! We will get to it eventually! When we have more time! Probably after Game of Thrones‘ third season ends! (Spike, 10 p.m.)
Wednesday
Bravo has picked up Homeland and begins airing it tonight, starting with the first season premiere. So now those of you who couldn’t figure out how to watch it before (hint: it rhymes with “the schminternet”) can experience the “This is great! Now it’s back! Now it sucks! Now it’s kinda okay!” rollercoaster arc of the entire thing for yourselves. (10 p.m.)
Thursday
In the ongoing saga of “every cable channel loses its identity so it can air cheap reality shows,” the latest casualty is Outdoor Life Network…oh, excuse us, it’s just OLN now, we guess. Anyway, tonight you can catch the season premieres of Baggage Battles, a reality show about people who try to score deals at customs seized property auctions, and Toy Hunter, a reality show about a guy who goes around looking for rare toys to sell at conventions. The apparent hook to justify airing these programs on OLN is that in both shows, the protagonists travel around to various places. Because they couldn’t even be bothered to put in a canoe or something, we guess. (Beginning at 9 p.m.)
Friday
Returning for a second season: Fashion Star, NBC’s kitschy fashion-competition reality show that is basically a lesser knockoff of Project Runway (anything without Tim Gunn is by definition a lesser knockoff in this regard), but where viewers can actually buy the clothes after the show airs, which is a neat little idea that has given Fashion Star a bit of a cult following, if not a large one. But hey, it’s NBC, they don’t care. They’re glad they’ve got six people watching these days. (CTV2, 8 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week: “I Am Furious Yellow,” where Bart creates a web cartoon about Homer. “Bart, this is just Dad.” “It’s a composite character. Your dad, my dad, a little of Maggie’s dad…” (Comedy Network, 8:30 p.m.)
Also returning: Say Yes To The Dress Atlanta, which of course airs on The All Weddings All The Fucking Time Channel TLC. (9 p.m.)
The Weekend
We never watch Talking Dead, AMC’s hour-long discussion of “the Walking Dead episodes you just watched,” because why would we? Why would anybody? Why do you need to watch people talk about the show you just watched? Can’t you do that yourself? At the very least, can’t you just go on Twitter or Facebook or something? We do not understand! We understand why people would watch practically any other show, even the ones we flat-out loathe, but not this one! We would sooner watch the burning Yule log at Christmas time than this! (10 p.m. Sunday)