Comment Corner

Folks, this is it. These are the dog-days of summer where television viewing is curtailed as shows go into hibernation. Some of these shows won't be back, Studio 60 I'm looking at your unfunny ass, some will, The Office thank the golden taint of Christ's ass and new ones will appear. Provided they don't star Andy Richter, they can give themselves a whirl.

9:00 is about the time each summer night that I'm prepared to watch some TV. I've finished doing whatever nefarious things interested me, I've rolled trashcans across busy streets, squirted mustard and ketchup on neighbourhood dogs and had my ass handed to me on online Mortal Kombat II. (Sidenote to MKII. Some of the fucking kids kicking my ass on there weren't even born when the goddamn game came out. How the hell did these little shits manage to learn the mechanics of this game such that I can't do the Raiden "Gommagommaaieeeeeee" flying death slam over and over? Little assholes.)

So, what do the studios have for me this summer? Let's have a look, shall we?

HELL'S KITCHEN 3



This show is goddamn hilarious. There's nothing funnier than a snobby British chef screaming his brains out at an assortment of brain-dead slobs. Each show is basically the same, elitist prick goes beserk over trivial things, swears a bunch, people cry, get offended and then come back the next week to see what's new. Essentially, the show is the televised cooking competition Comment Corner.

That said, this year, the producers have fallen short. I can imagine that in the boardroom, the producers sat around discussing how to tailor the show to Gordon Ramsey's unique verbal barrages. Here's where they took a big skiddy dump. Rather than get people with a backbone and a sense of foolish pride, they elected instead to hire the biggest bunch of crybaby sucks. I'm sure they thought these pussies would be lambs to Ramsey's slaughter.

That's the problem. When you give Ramsey a bunch of pussies, he lightens up his insults. Apparently, beneath that gruff exterior, Ramsey has a small shred of soul and recognizes that it's bad television to attack pathetic people who put up no struggle. Nobody would pay to watch a fist-fight between Dolph Lundgren and a diabetic pregnant woman (except maybe Dick Cheney) because it's just too lopsided. Ramsey is at his best when he's busting somebody down, not kicking their exposed throats while they're already down.

Had the producers gone out and recruited arrogant pricks, the show would have more click as these goofs would stand up to Ramsey. THEN he could focus righteous anger on them and unload with both barrels. As the audience, I could then root for Ramsey to just smash a hot frying-pan across a mouthy bastards face and still scream at the guy while he picks his teeth out of the risotto.

Reno 911



While technically not a summer show, with Lost on hiatus until February, my Wednesday evenings at 10:00 have opened up. So, I reunited with an old friend, Reno 911. This show too is fucking hilarious.

A cross between an office sitcom and Cops using a mockumentary formula tried and tested by the Trailer Park Boys, it chronicles the daily lives of the Reno Sheriff's department. The earlier seasons, much like the Trailer Park Boys, are uneven in their character developments. However, here in the fourth season, the show has certainly found its groove and the writers (also the stars of the show) are able to craft some pretty good scripts. Any of the cops taking on Terry the roller-skating prostitute is as funny as Ricky taking on Randy any day.

However, Reno 911 suffers from a slight problem too. Many of the episodes depend upon a grand suckering of the Sheriff's department. Anybody who shows up at the precint usually has an ulterior motive to either rob the station or enact revenge on the deputies. It's a heavily relied upon gimmick and in later seasons, the over dependence usually results in the viewer being able to guess the M. Night Shyamalyananyanlllayanman twist.

Canada's Next Top Model



Skinny twits. That's it. Skinny fucking twits. I don't know how many Canadian Top Models have been forged from this shitfest, but I haven't seen any of them in anything recognizable. Maybe they become the face of the new Fort MacMurray cat-house under the name Madame Fingerbang but that's not Toronto and this is the only city that matters.

I'm not going into any typical model jokes. They're tired. What am I going to do is say that this show would be more interesting by a thousand-fold if they just fed the models through a large engine and blasted the bloody remains out of the exhaust and down the runway. To me, the fashions would look the same anyway.

And that folks, is just a small sampling of this summer's summer-fare. Watch, enjoy and if you're a little 12 year-old jerk who throws nothing but Liu Kang fireballs, one of these days I'm going to figure out how to beam cancer into your forehead from your tv.