There's A New Housewife In Town!

Love this ABC promo...



I have a good feeling about this upcoming season...that hasn't happened in a while.

More Random TV Talk

Four more "singers" have been voted off the "American Idol" island. They won't be missed. Simon Cowell will be missed. His commentary is about the only thing keeping me watching. I suppose I should be shallow and say I enjoy contestant Tim Urban's shirtless picture. Perhaps if he showed some skin on the show he can hang around a few weeks more.

Meanwhile, tonight we were force-fed an appearance by Danny Gokey. He sang, which was bad enough (though, since I record it each week and fast-forward through the commercials, I also was able to forward past the song). Then he had to not only pimp his late wife (again), but also the fact that the song he sang was written by someone whose wife also died. I got this from Entertainment Weekly, and I'll probably have to say it until the day I die: put the GO in Gokey!

Thank goodness for the DVR. I also fast-forward through the filmed packages for each wannabe such as this week's inane "Something that America would be surprised to learn about me is..." followed by a totally unsurprising (and usually uninteresting) fact. Here's a clue, wannabes (and show's producers): no one's heard of any of you before this. I don't know ANYTHING about you. And unless you're going to talk about your nights at the local sex club either riding the sling or on your knees at the "milking station," I don't care.

Meanwhile, last week I worried that "Desperate Housewives" was hinting that Katherine would go lesbian with the stripper. I so hoped they wouldn't go there. They went there. Plus, apparently (suddenly) the gay couple on the block throw big parties all the time, but also (again, suddenly) are trying to adopt a baby. And Susan was an idiot (as usual). I seriously think I'm tiring of this show. The only question is, should I stick it out until John Barrowman arrives in April to do whatever he's doing that will lead to the end of the stupid Bolen mystery and Drea de Matteo's leaving the show?

If I stop watching both "DH" and "Idol," and with "Ugly Betty" ending next month, I won't have many shows to watch on the "big four" networks -- "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," and "Bones." I'm sticking with "The Amazing Race" at least as long as Steve Smith is still on. On cable, there's also "RuPaul's Drag Race" and "Be Good Johnny Weir" but there aren't too many episodes of those shows so they won't be on much longer. "Mad Men" and "Robot Chicken" are in between seasons. I've been watching "Southland" since it moved to TNT. They've got some new episodes now, so we'll see if TNT wants to continue running it. I like it but I'm not sure I love it yet. Oh, and I musn't forget my daily dose of TMZ.

I know there are a lot of shows that are popular and/or critically acclaimed, but as I've said before, something needs to hook me in order for me to even try to watch. So if I've got some more empty time slots in the coming weeks I doubt they'll be filled by other shows.

Random TV Talk

I've been writing about "The Amazing Race" regularly because of the presence of ex-Phillies coach Steve Smith, but I don't want to do similar updates for every show I watch. However, there are a few things on my mind about some TV shows, so I thought I'd just do a little summary here, and perhaps do it on a regular basis.

Earlier tonight I watched the first live "American Idol" of the season, featuring the 12 female singers performing. As usual, I saw nothing that made me think I'd ever buy one of their records. It was pretty mediocre, at best. If anything, the judges (other than Simon) were too nice at times. I wasn't overly impressed with Ellen, and Kara and Randy were their usual dimwitted selves. There was weak singing, there were poor song choices, and the whole thing really seems like the same old, same old (except now there's no potential Paula loopiness). And that's bad since I only started watching regularly three years ago. I'm about 99.9 percent sure that once Simon leaves I won't bother to watch again, but I don't know if I can sit through this season any more. I'll watch the guys perform this week, but after that?

I continue to enjoy "RuPaul's Drag Race." The challenges are surprisingly clever -- this week the queens trying to become America's Next Drag Superstar had to impersonate a celebrity. And the "Untucked" companion show, featuring the behind-the-scenes cattiness, is juicy. My only quibble with this season is that I haven't really developed any favorites yet. It would help if I had someone to root for, the way I was rooting for Ongina last year. There's still time for someone to step up, though.

On the other hand, I may finally be getting over "Desperate Housewives." This week was yet another of those episodes that revolves around one person, in this case the stripper who moved in with Susan and Mike. There was a little story involving each of the housewives, and at the end she was out, in and out. As in, moved out of Susan and Mike's, moved in with Katherine, and came out as a lesbian to Katherine. And they seem to be hinting that Katherine might be...exploring her options in the dating pool. It felt sort of icky, to be honest. There are still some funny lines here and there, but for the first time I'm wondering if the late Mary Alice should just go into the light once and for all instead of sticking around to narrate her friends' foibles from the great beyond.

My Sunday Night TV

Now that the networks are bringing out new episodes, there's a bit too much for me at the moment. Too many of the shows I watch regularly are on Sundays: "The Simpsons," "Family Guy," and "Desperate Housewives," all of which premiered tonight. Also, I sampled the "Family Guy" spinoff "The Cleveland Show" -- I don't think I'll give it a second chance. "Mad Men" is in the mix as well, although it started a few weeks ago and there aren't as many new episodes in the season, so it will be out of the way. (I'd include "Robot Chicken" as well, but their new episodes ended last week. Besides, it's a 15-minute show -- actually less, because of commercial time and the credits.)

I could, of course, DVR a lot of this and save it for during the week. That presents problems, though:

• The networks -- Fox, in particular, often skews things so that their shows begin a minute or two before the scheduled time ("The Simpsons" will start at 7:58 or 7:59, for example). Also, if they have a national NFL telecast in the 4:15 pm ET slot and the game runs late that may cause the schedule to be adjusted.
• I don't like to watch shows days later if I can help it. I like to read some recaps of shows on EW.com and I don't want to worry about avoiding spoilers.
• With my DVR I can record one network while watching a show on another network. If I do that, I can't watch the Sunday night NFL games on NBC. If the Eagles are one of the Sunday night teams, that takes away my options further. I have a second TV downstairs (besides my TV with the DVR in the living room) but the screen is smaller and there's no DVR.

I record the shows anyway so I can fast-forward through the commercials, but this generally means I'm either missing the Sunday night football or I only see parts of it, or I'm up really late at night -- like now, for example.

Because of all of this, I'm not watching the new season of "The Amazing Race." It debuted tonight as well. I never watched the show until the most recent season but I was really impressed. If I want to watch this season I'll have to catch up with it online, or perhaps the Travel Channel will have repeats later in the week, as they did last year.

I suppose I'm lucky that I only have this problem one night per week.