Seriously.

As you all know, I am STILL without home computer access and thus desperately casting around for things to do.  (Have I complained about that yet today?)  Among other things, I’ve seen a hell of a lot of HGTV and the Food Network. And during my fiftieth Good Eats rerun, what did I see?  An ad for the Food Network’s new show “What Would Brian Boitano Make?”

No, seriously.  Could I make something like this up?  Apparently the show just debuted (Sundays at 1 pm Eastern) and is an actual cooking show centering around a champion figure skater.  Those who are not South Park fans may be thinking that this is the most random idea ever.  Well, frankly, it’s pretty random regardless, but Google the fine South Park musical number “What Would Brian Boitano Do?”

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There’s nothing like commercials to tell you who the advertising world thinks your tastes mean you are.  If you mostly watch prime time network TV, you may never notice much of a bias (people with money to spend who eat?), but explore the weirder networks or late night TV?  It can get pretty funny.  The next time you’re home sick, try watching daytime TV.  You’ll find that Madison Avenue expects you to be a bored young mom, an impending ITT Tech student, disabled, or someone in desperate need of joining the military.  (I’ve noticed that on at least one network, the Army ads predominate until about 6 pm, at which point the Marines take over.  I would comment on that except that I’m pretty sure my Marine friend would never let go of it if I did.)

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been watching a lot of design shows recently.  As you might expect, the commercials that go along with design shoes are primarily designed to create the overwhelming urge to repaint every room you have in new and groovier and possibly more environmentally friendly colors.  This is sort of unfortunate for me given that I don’t own my apartment, but Sherman-Williams may break me yet.  Even funnier, I got a kick out of watching professional bull riding with the boy the other night, at which point I suddenly became part of a bow-hunting, bass-fishing demographic with ads that started with lines like “I will not be ashamed to be a MAN!”  Uh, I am part of the Stetson-owning, Tex-Mex eating demographic who at least knows what Dickies is, but I kind of doubt that I’ll be buying a truck bed liner any time soon.

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So, has anyone noticed the recent change to our basic cable lineup?  Rest in peace, Sci-Fi Channel, I enjoyed you while you lasted.  I know, I’m a chick.  I’m not supposed to watch sci-fi on TV.  But the fact is, I have gotten more hours of mileage out of the former Sci-Fi Channel than I care to admit.  As of yesterday, the Sci-Fi Channel changed its name in an attempt to both shake the geeky image of science fiction and free itself up to pursue programming that goes farther afield from sci-fi and fantasy.  I’m a little dubious about the value of freeing the network up to bring their programming back to the mainstream stuff that every other network (how many hundreds are there now?) is already doing, but I can understand the desire to do some PR for the image of the sci fi viewer as teenaged, geeky, and male.  (I’ll note that it’s an increasingly inaccurate image of science fiction readers and viewers to the extent that it was ever accurate in the first place, but that’s a whole different discussion.)

My problem is this: is “SyFy” supposed to seem cooler?  This is possibly the stupidest network name I have ever seen. It sounds and looks even more idiotic than the National Geographic Channel calling itself Nat Geo.  I think I actually even like “Spike” better as a network name, and Spike is, well, lacking in nuance to say the least. In this article from TV Week, the president of the former Sci-Fi Channel had this to say about their decision to change to SyFy:

When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it… It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

Seriously? They feel cooler by changing the name to conform with text message spelling?  (Number 536 on my list of signs of the apocalypse…)  Am I supposed to LOL at this point? Dear God, people.  I don’t normally feel self-conscious about watching sci-fi on television, but it’s hard not to see that quote as just pitiful — he sounds like the confused middle-aged dad trying to seem cool with the kids.

The name change was timed to coincide with the premier of the new “SyFy” original series “Warehouse 13″ yesterday.  While I haven’t seen it, the reviews I’ve seen of Warehouse 13 have been uniformly terrible and have said that it is derivative of… pretty much everything from Raiders of the Lost Ark to X-Files in the most obvious possible way.  I’ll note that the reviews for their real science fiction series like “Stargate SG-1″ and “Battlestar Galactica” were generally very good.  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Fox, makers of such intellectual fare as The Littlest Groom and When Animals Attack 30, has decided they have a great idea to turn this slow economy into a profitable show:

The network has ordered Someone’s Gotta Go, which will take place in real businesses across America and give employees the power to decide who among them gets fired, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.

“It’s Survivor meets The Office,” Fox reality chief Mike Darnell told Variety.

“When someone is arbitrarily let go the first reaction usually is ‘How come that person was fired when another idiot is still here?’ This finally gives employees a chance to make that decision instead of a boss.”

Yeesh.  Cause destroying lives on national television is so.much.fun! Hell in a handbasket, folks. That’s where we are heading.

More here.

Lily has just posted about her ongoing devotion to AMC’s “Mad Men,” and believe me, I can vouch for it that she is in fact devoted.  Reaaalllly devoted.  I have to admit, though, I like “Mad Men” but I have only seen a few episodes of the first season on DVD.  I feel like I ought to be catching up, but I don’t have any idea what day of the week it’s on, and somehow the DVDs have not quite made it into my Netflix queue yet.  Let me take a minute to tell you about one of my favorite shows, a show in which, incidentally, Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks has been a recurring guest star. I’m talking about NBC’s “Life”.  (Watchable shows on broadcast television still exist?  That’s right!)

Here’s my thing about “Life”: I absolutely freaking LOVE Damian Lewis.  LOVE him.  Before last season, I was vaguely aware that he existed and had an equally vague awareness that he was talented.  After watching “Life”?  Consider me a convert. He is so enormously quirky and weird and completely hilarious as the intermittently zen Detective Crews that the show hardly needs to have a plot to be thoroughly enjoyable.  I’d watch it just for him.

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