The Focus Rally is ridiculously cool -- no, really!

Hey, there's TV and then there's TV ... but there's nothing quite like live streaming for a strange kind of intimacy. It's like you're there, even if you haven't left the comfort of laptopland.

Take the odd little promotion/race/event that Ford Motor Company is staging at the moment, the Focus Rally. You may have seen the ads on "normal" TV for it, but once you visit the site, you'll see just how odd and interactive it is: a nationwide car rally with half a dozen two-person teams in competition. Girl teams, boy teams, friends, family, all yakkin' as they take on Survivor-like challenges and (occasionally) bitch at each other. You can pick a team, 'sponsor' them, and follow them on the various social media; you can participate in the trivia-challenge question-and-answers ... and you can watch your chosen team inside their car, as they drive.

WCOTV chose Clayton and Adam, 'cause they's the funniest and most talkative. We've even talked to 'em as they're driving, sending messages through Twitter. It's a bit like having a direct line to the players on THE AMAZING RACE, and both Clayton and Adam are just as funny and charming as expected.  

Take a look. Weird but true, it's actually, strangely engaging. And having the livestream on while you're working is just fun.

GalaxyQuest Revisited

It's been more than ten years since GalaxyQuest hit theaters, but we had the occasion to see it again recently, and it's still very, very funny. And though (word has it) started as a much darker condemnation of the whole Trekkie phenomenon and type-casting, the actual film displays a kind of grudging affection for the cheesy-scifi genre and its relentless fans.
And now there's something new (well, recovered) that's almost as good as the orignal movie: a E! Entertainment-style "behind the scenes" mockumentary about GalaxyQuest TOS and the then-new movie that was being made. Apparently it was part of the PR kit for the movie back in '99, and has been unavailable since then, but -- thank the media gods -- somebody was kind enough to put in up on YouTube (in three parts), and it's a classic. Right up there with the CSI parody of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica a couple of season back.
Take a look!  And though the entire GalaxyQuest isn't available on Netflix Watch Instantly (yet), you can find it floating around on the InterGoogles, or even (ick) go to the (ick) video store and (ick) rent it. If people still do that sort of thing.
Enjoy!

Robot Chicken Returns, Seth Green Achieves Cult Godhood

Let's just surrender to it. Give in. Seth Green, all of 36 years old, is already a certifiable cult-level Hero of the People.

It's not just because Robot Chicken is returning with new episodes (Sunday, 11:45, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim). It's just everything.  This dude has been on TV since he was, like, ten years old.  And who'd've thought the mouthy little dude on The Byrds of Paradise -- yes, some of us remember this long-ago classic starring Seth and Jennifer Love Hewitt and some grown-up dudes nobody cares about except for maybe Arlo Guthrie -- would rise to the heights of Oz the Werewolf on Buffy, Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies back when Mike Myers was funny, and the voice of Chris Griffin on Family Guy?

We'd have to love him for Robot Chicken alone.  A show that shouldn't even exist, much less be painfully, horribly funny about things we shouldn't really laugh about at all. But if you haven't seen the rap version of a sequel to Jim Henson's movie, The Dark Krys-TAHL, then you haven't truly lived. And the damn thing just keeps getting better and better.  (Oh, and rent the undeservedly ignored Titan Maximum, Season One (and only) over on Netflix. If you love RC and Seth Green, you will not be sorry.)

So who cares if he's still in his mid-thirties and looks in his mid-twenties?  Who cares if he's become a major player as a producer as well as an actor, and somehow manages to remain one step ahead of us and still cool after all these years?  We're not jealous. Not at all. We forgive him for Without a Paddle. We'll overlook Three Kings. And we'll just watch these new Robot Chickens and be happy that Seth is alive, and most likely going to be with us for a long, long time. 

Leslie Nielsen Dies; We All Get Smaller

He is so well-known and well-loved  even after all this time, that his death is making surprisingly big headlines: Leslie Nielsen, star of Naked Gun, goofy silver-haired comic actor, dead at 84 from complications from pneumonia.

Some people, of course, should never die. Not by violence, not from old age -- not at all.  And as far as his public persona goes, Leslie Nielsen was one of those guys: befuddled, brilliant, clueless, sly. We're going to miss him. He was and is and will be irreplaceable.

But we remember the other Leslie Nielsen, too -- the one we grew up with.  The one was was a guest star in pretty much ever single hour-long drama on American TV from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies, and not as a comedian, but as a serious, respected character actor. The Fugitive, Wagon Train, Ben Casey. And not so much later Kojak, Cannon, Columbo, Kung Fu, and even series that didn't start with the "K" sound.  He was a serious guy in those days; sleek, silver-haired, hatchet-handsome, always playing non-ethnic crime-boss sharks or corrupt cops. Always slightly dangerous and hard as nails.  Which is why it was so funny when, after a few years on the back burner, he showed up in Airplane! and then in Police Squad! Because not so long before then, he had actually been in the very shows that those performances parodied so perfectly. And he did it with such convincing earnestness, such ease. 

He was on TV almost before there was TV. IMDB has his first performances listed as 1950.  He was on Philco Theater. He was on Suspense. He was on Twilight Zone -- the original Twilight Zone, the good one. He was the captain of the spaceship in Forbidden friggin' Planet, man, and in Tammy and the Bachelor and Peyton Place and Beau Geste. And he didn't go all funny on us until thirty years and literally hundreds of performances after his first appearance. Then he kept on for another twenty years. And though some of those movies were god-awful, Leslie Nielsen never was. He never let us down.

Some people should never die.  Ever.

Dark Blue Gets Booted; Does It Matter?

Dark Blue seemed to fit the time-tested TNT model: get a well-recognized centerpiece, build a clever team around him/her, and set 'em off to explore some familiar but cleverly rendered territory. It worked with The Closer and Leverage and Memphis Beat; it seems to be working .. okay ... with Rizzoli and Isles. (C'mon, who can resist Angie Harmon?).  And look: Dylan McDermott! From The Practice! HE would be good, right?

Not so much. Dermott was perfectly adequate -- though come on, the perpetually-three-day-old-beard thing seems strangely outdated already, doesn't it? What is this, a revival of Miami Vice? But even with the yeoman service of Nikki Aycox and, more recently, the redoubtable Tricia Helfer (sans Monroe bouffant) .. the show just lacked chemistry.

It's not originality. Frankly, none of the TNT shows -- except maybe Leverage -- can claim that. There is an almost pleasant scent of the familiar about the plots and characters from most of their output.  But that's okay. It's like reading every book that Robert B. Parker ever wrote after the first five; it's like reading that Dickens or Rowling or King novel one more time; it's like going back and watching Cheers or Wings again when you have a cold and there's nothing else on. Familiar is not bad. It's comforting. Nourishing.  Harmless.

But there has to be something more. There has to be chemistry. You can see it in all the other extant TNT shows. Nobody's going to be giving Rizzoli and Isles any awards for "original" "writing" (both terms used here advisedly). But Harmon and Sasha Alexander are such fun to watch, strike such sparks, that you forgiven the Swiss cheese plotting and hackneyed characters. And sometimes you need X-Ray Specs to see any plot at all in Memphis Beat, but really -- who cares? Jason Lee is a peach, and casting DJ Qualls, the quintessential geek-boy of 2010, was a stroke of genius.

Dark Blue just didn't have any of that to offer.  No sparks between McDermott and his co-stars. No wonderfully eccentric supporting cast. No ... nothing, really. And it was apparent from the start. Decent opening-night ratings were followed by an unreversed slide from S1E2, and never really stopped. 

Not that TNT has given up on the formula. Look for Falling Skies, the net's toss into the post-apocalyptic sweepstakes (Hey, Walking Dead! How's it goin'?) about a hardy band of survivors six months after the aliens invade. Centerpiece: the surprisingly convincing Noah Wylie, with the awesome Moon Bloodgood at his side. Once more into the breach: recognizable centerpiece, strong support, and off we go.

But as for Dark Blue? Actually, it's kind of spooky: it's already disappeared from the TNT Network web site as if it never existed.  Brr. But it's understandable. You can't win 'em all.  Even TNT needs the right chemistry to truly explode.

Finally! Human Target returns, as much fun as ever

It seems like a thousand years ago, but Christopher Chance and Co. have finally returned to FOX, and the show is as fast, wry, ridiculously violent and entertaining as ever. The openerand Episode 2 are both still available on Hulu and FOX.com; new episodes will be with us on Wednesday for a few weeks least.

Things are a little more ... complex ... than they were in the first season.  In the Season Two opener, Chance acquires a "benefactor" -- an exceedingly beautiful and audaciously thin British widow billionaress -- and a dangerously close to cliche cute-plucky-beautiful-young-thief-girl. Both look like they're in it for the duration, though we admit we're going to miss the funky 'boy's club' free-for-all of last year (and there's a sense they'll play on that natural conflict with the new cast). 

Still, the boys are back. Chance is still chance, Winston even more Winston-y, and what can you say about Guerrero?  Or what SHOULD you say, if you don't want to get, like, killed or something/ (One fun thing is then absolutely gleeful, giggly, teen-heart-throb  hero worship that the new young street-theif has for the cold-blooded assassin, and how he reacts to it with crusty acceptance.)

Anyway: welcome back. Next stop, Leverage, back on TNT December 12 (Two weeks! Yay!)

Back in the USA (Network): Psych Returns Tonight, Burn Notice Tomorrow

Neither show may be Emmy material, but Psych and Burn Notice are the televisionic equivalent of comfort food: they're simple, filling, and rarely let you down. And thank God they're coming back.
 
Psych returns tonight, Wednesday 11/10, with the reappearance of an increasingly puffy Carey Elwes as a not-terribly-talented dashing cat burglar who still has enough on the ball to outwit Shawn (like who doesn't?). Tomorrow, 11/11, Michael Weston reappears with the whole crew intact (go, Bruce Campbell, Go, Sharon Gless!), including Coby Bell, the surly-gorgeous Jesse who showed up last year and looked like a no-show for Season 4 right up 'til the Michael-gets-shot finale. (Coby, by the way, was a regular on The Game [didn't see it], Half and Half [didn't see it], and Third Watch [didn't care], so even if he isn't a vet like BC or SG, or even Gabrielle Anwar, face it: the man has paid his dues.)

The mini-nets seem to be settling into roles not unlike the old, old days whe CBS was the Tiffany Network, ABC was the Family Network, and NBC was the Innovator (as much as any of those titles really meant anything). HBO's doing the weird-ass gritty stuff; AMC is doing the best dramas on TV; CW -- like its predecessors -- can't seem to find its ass with both hands and a road map, and USA just keeps pounding away with well-produced, unchallenging but not-bad comfort food, like these two and Blue Collar and Covert Affairs. (Maybe if The Good Guys had shown up here, it would make it to a second season.)

Hey, in this day and age, you take what you can get. Get the chips and dip, Marge: USA's on!