Dave's TV Reviews

Let me tell you a story. There once was an English producer named Simon Cowell who wanted to sign a charming lady looker vocalist named Kelly Clarkson to his record label. Then he had an amazing idea. Why stop there? Build a reality show from the other end. Line up a whole line of sorry wannabes and parade them in front of national televison. Verbally berate the really bad ones in a way that I could never get away with in normal circumstances to hook in the daytime television demographic. No instruments, no original music, and a lot of cover tunes that make the hardcore music fans cringe, but to hell with them. We've got enough people from the we'll applaud for anything demographic to cover the outrage of the minority vote of those in this country with a shred of musical integrity. (To say nothing of enough obvious product placement to keep us rolling in untold wealth years after this year is off the air).

By now you've figured out that I'm not a big fan of the show. No, I'm not some long-haired heavy-metal disciple with BLACK SABBATH tattooed on my forehead. Nope. Raised on classical and jazz, and now very much a fan if the indie rock scene, I help promote the most exciting growth we've seen in the modern era. I would hope people would notice the lackluster careers the winners since Kelly Clarkson have had. Runner-up Clay Aiken and musical nightmare WIlliam Hung wound up with greater commercial success/recognition than some former winners. Maybe it's lost on the viewers that the most recent winner, Mr. Silver Fox was off doing his first commercial campaign long before his first CD release. UGH!!!

Final words this show is nothing but a sad smoke and mirrors facade. America gets to choose the next musical superstar??? Give me a break. You can't find me 50 Americans whose opinion Simon Cowell respects. Do you genuinely think he cares or takes it into account when 50 million vote for their favorite on the show? To sum it up; American Idol is rigged, just like Survivor, or name any other reality show you like. If you're watching it as a guilty pleasure , hey fine, mine is the Three Stooges , but don't expect me or anyone with more than three functional brain cells to to take Americal Idol or its fanbase seriously.

Bill O'Reilly's Factor has evolved somewhat over the years since it started. O'Reilly isn't nearly as easy to pin down politically as some may believe. There is that extreme faction on the left that says "If you don't agree with everything we say, you're a right-wing fascist." That excepted, he's far more centrist on many issues than any of his critics are willing to give him in the midst of their blue-faced temper tantrums, more inspired by their resentments of his commercial successes than anything else. Case in point: the reviewer of Bill O'Reilly on this very service, Yahoo. While it certainly covered all of the factual matters concerning Bill O'Reilly's career, the reviewer (unnamed, how very brave) could not resist slanting the review with opinions and focusing on events that would portray Bill O'Reilly in as negative as possible. Ironically, it is just this sort of lack of professionalism compromised at the altar of political activism that O'Reilly routinely rails against on his show. So, here it is, bottom line:

Bill O'Reilly and the Factor: 4 Stars
Yahoo's Anonymous Television Reviewer: Zero Stars (Less than
Awful)

By the way, my name is posted with my review, I don't hide from anyone.

Take it from somebody who grew up in a cul-de-sac, just like the kids in the show, this cartooon is as funny as pantsing the class bully and running his jeans up the flagpole with a rubber chicken!!! I am a 38 year old fan of the show and proud to say so! I watch the program with my two sons and we all laugh long and hard together. A lot of it for me is because the characters remind me so much of the kids I grew up with. Yours truly was very much like Eddy (the neighborhood con man). My best friend was a carbon copy of Edd (intellectual, quiet, over-polite, always trying to keep me out of trouble). The list goes on, but its just too hilarious for words. Its a great show with intergenerational humor. If you love to laugh, you'll love this show.

Forever drawn as I am to shows that have a large cast of characters, I find myself wanting to take a poll on Scrubs. "Okay, America, Which Scubs Character Is The Most Bent?" And ya know what? I love it. Dr. Cox's rants are something I look forward to with unabashed zeal. I want to sic the janitor on my worst enemies. This is just straight up funny and the humor is the type that you wind up talking about at work the next day, with your relatives on the phone, and with your friends at during happy hour after the days drudgery is over.

This was my favorite show on television. Sad as I am to see it come to an end, the producers and directors did the right thing. The great products in entertainmsnet always leave the audience wanting more, and The Shield has done that, rather than dragging it out and heaven forbid it ever got to that point where the series jumped the shark and had to be forcibly put out of its misery, having lost the grit and edge that made it so special in the first place.

As to Vic Mackey, I guess he found out that there are fates that are as bad, if not worse than getting caught. Over seven years, in spite of the laundry list of sins commited by Mackey, its been hard not to forgive Mackey, even cheer for him. The crimminals who he's taken off the streets have been far worse than him and the individuals who have pursued him equally flawed. His end reminds me of the end of the movie Goodfellas and the voice over done by Henry Hill as he fetches the daily aper in his bathrobe in some nameless suburb.

And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action... have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody... get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

So long to Vic and to the rest of the cast of The Shield. Given the overpowering amount of lame crap that bombards us on televison these days, we owe you a seven year long thank you.

Luke Skywalker's struggle with the Dark Side of the Force was never like this. It certainly was never this damn funny. Tommy Gavin will leave you cheering for him, cursing him, and rolling with laughter all in the same show. No good guys, no bad guys, just a lot of well-written, complex characters and great storylines, all made given a twisted kick by Denis Leary's cyncial double barrelled unapologetic barbed wit. I enjoy each episode and mark down the beginning over each season on my calendar.

Overprivileged brainless self-absorbed sybarite goes on boring series of staged 'adventures' with overprivileged brainless self- absorbed sybarite gal pal. Oh yeah, sign me up for at least ten seconds of that. Hey Paris, with any luck this series will end up just liek you, in the can. That judge just made my holiday card list for life. Oops, guess that hakes me a "hater", doesn't it? Know what? So what? I don't need the Paris Hilton Sycophant Army to tell me I'm an S.O.B. I enjoy it. The hours are good, there's no heavy lifting, and oh yeah, i don't have to wear a blaze orange jumpsuit with numbers on it.

Does anyone really care what this brainless self-absorbed completely useless sybarite does? FELLOW SOCIALITE FLUFFHEADS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!! But don't chip a nail white you're feverishly testing those linguistic abbreviations! Hey, here's one for ya...DILLIGAF (Do I Look Like I Give A...., you get the idea.)

This show is just too funny. I had to watch it for a while before I could convice myself that it was really on television! I thought I'd walked into the doorframe again! By the time I'd stopped laughing and taped my ribs it dawned on me that the show was for real. This type of dark twisted iconoclastic humor is just what I love! It's all that plus being very smart and well written.

Every episode is something fresh and the characters are very well-developed. With a lot of the cookie-cutter snore-fests that are getting shoved at us every year by the networks I am soooo glad something like this is out there. You can empathize with these borderline rogue types and it makes it a legit guilty pleasure to "cheer for the crimminal" in every situation.