TV Junkie: The Last of the New…I Swear!

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By Penny Landau

Memo to: “One Life to Live,” how could you have made Eli into a psycho? The TVJ loved this guy (and the sexy Matt Walton, whose evil side is wonderful!) and now he’s just another creep who Blair’s planning to marry. Poor Blair (the fabulously spectacular and underappreciated, not to mention stunning, Kassie DePaiva) marrying yet another loser. Hey Blair’s not THAT dumb! Give her a break. In fact, give all those Cramer women a break.

One more back, back, back:

“Mad Men” is back, be still the TVJ’s heart! Don Draper is back with a vengeance! Just who IS Don Draper? This is what everyone wants to know, and in the first few episodes, we start to find out. Don Draper is a lonely, desperate, unhappy, alcoholic mess. Now what? But on the brighter side, guess what? When Don said to the taxi driver “Sixth & Waverly, please,” the TVJ almost jumped out of her seat!!! Don Draper lives in her neighborhood! Can you believe that? The TVJ will be spending the next few weeks combing the West Village looking for signs of Don Draper. You can’t hide from the TVJ, Donnie!!! Oh wait, maybe I should just check out the local bars. Cocktail!

More new, new, new:

What’s not to love about “Rizzoli & Isles,” with Angie Harmon aboard? Once again, she’s the hot babe who doesn’t know she’s the hot babe. Take it from the TVJ, she’s the hot babe. Harmon, as Jane Rizzoli, along with the other hot babe, Maura Isles (played by Sasha Alexander) are the 21^st Century Boston version of Cagney & Lacey, but more fun and, have I mentioned, really hot?  Add Lorraine Bracco as Rizzoli’s annoying mother and Donnie Wahlberg as her old school pal and Lt., and you have a really good show. The TVJ has loved Angie Harmon for years, but Sasha Alexander’s Maura Isles is making it hard to choose whether you’re a Rizzoli fan or an Isles fan. The TVJ votes for both. There’s something really hot (did I mention that these two are really hot?) about a women with that kind of a brain who spouts $250 words every time she opens her mouth. Last, but certainly NOT least is “The Real L Word,” which has the TVJ glued to the set, almost as much as “The L Word” did. The TVJ adores Nikki and Jill. Mikey is adorable and mush on the inside.  Whitney is just a skanky ho’ who will f*#k anything that stops long enough, and that’s that! Then there’s Tracy and Stamie and THE KIDS. Well, what can the TVJ say? Marrying into a family with three really young kids when you’re only 30,  cannot be easy. Time will tell. The TVJ LOVES Rose, but so does NOT like Natalie, who needs to pack it up and give Rose the TVJ’s phone number. Ok, maybe the TVJ would like to date Rose, but that’s beside the point. Her response to Rose’s Valentine Day gift was blah, blah, blah! The TVJ would have jumped for joy and never left the hotel room! But the TVJ digresses, as usual. See? Look what these women have done to the TVJ! Guess this means that “The Real L Word” is another “TVJ Must See TV”

The First Snooki Update of the New Season:

Well, “Jersey Shore” is back with all its tacky lovability. And there was our first look at our Snooki, resplendent in, whatever she was in. Starting next week, the TVJ will feature the usually “Snooki Update” which will hopefully, NOT include handcuffs!

The TVJ’s “TV Family of the Week”

“Mary Knows Best” is one of SyFy’s best yet. Mary is a psychic and what a psychic she is! The show stars Long Islander Mary Occhino and her kids; daughter Jackie (who reluctantly has Mary’s “gift”), Uncle Charlie (Mary’s brother), sons Carl (a pragmatic journalist) and Chris (an investigative psychic) and Chris’ son Taylor. Let the TVJ state this right now: Mary trying to get a date for her daughter during her Sirius-XM radio show is hilarious and probably grounds for matricide. But the most fascinating part of the show, was watching Mary house-hunt with her son Carl, as she senses good vibes and bad. Carl doubts what she says, but since “Mary Knows Best,” we and Carl find out that she’s right on the money, all the time! The TVJ LOVES Mary and her family and you will too. Trust me on this one.

In Memoriam:  

The TVJ mourns the passing of Mitch Miller. How many nights did the TVJ stay up to “Sing Along with Mitch?” Every one of us who has ever plunked their respective tuchusi on a stool in a piano bar, owes it all to the “Master of the Sing-Along,” Mitch Miller. He taught us tunes from Broadway, film, pop-culture and the “Great American Songbook,” and led many of his followers to careers in show biz. Mr. Miller, a Rochester native who was born on the Fourth of July, had been an accomplished oboist and was still a force in the recording industry when he came up with the idea of recording old standards with a chorus of some two dozen male voices and printing the lyrics on album covers. The Sing Along With Mitch album series, which began in 1958, was an immense success, finding an eager audience among older listeners looking for an alternative to rock ’n’ roll. Mitch and the Gang serenaded them with chestnuts like “Home on the Range,” “That Old Gang of Mine,” “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” When the concept was adapted for television in 1961, with the lyrics appearing at the bottom of the screen, Mr. Miller, with his beaming smile and neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, became a national celebrity, launching the careers of several singers, most notably, Leslie Uggams. By then he had established himself as a hit maker for Columbia Records and a career shaper for singers like Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Patti Page and Frankie Laine, carefully matching singers with songs and choosing often unorthodox but almost always catchy instrumental accompaniment. Mr. Miller was a studio innovator. Along with the late guitarist Les Paul, he helped pioneer overdubbing, the technique by which different tracks are laid over one another to produce a richer effect, employing it memorably with Ms. Page, whose close-harmony “duets” with herself became her signature. One Miller specialty was developing crossovers from country to pop, having particular success with Hank Williams’s songs. He transformed “Hey, Good Lookin’” into a hit for Mr. Laine and Jo Stafford, and did the same for Mr. Bennett (“Cold, Cold Heart”), Ms. Clooney (“Half as Much”) and Ms. Stafford (“Jambalaya”). The TVJ can’t hear “The Yellow Rose of Texas” without thinking of Mitch Miller and following the bouncing ball.

See you next week…

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