By Elaine B

Whale Wars has been Animal Planet’s most watched series ever – and given that those statistics come from the network that brought us the drama of Meerkat Manor, that is saying a lot about the environmental fervor in this country. And it must be green fervor, because until the incredible drama of the final episode, the series did not live up to its hype, missing some promising moments to give us a deeper look at the crew members that agreed to be featured, the state of the whales themselves, even a bit of footage from Japan, where citizens might comment on how they feel about their whale meat consumption.

But instead, in the second to last episode, we are treated to the onboard training of yet another crew in the art of getting the inflatable boats in the water. We also meet the new crew, one of whom makes the comment that, “Whales are more important to the Earth than people are.” This is a thought many viewers might take exception with.

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Categories: Comedy, Reality TV by Elaine
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Tags: Animal Planet, Paul Watson, Sea Shepherds, Somali Pirates, Whale Wars

Posted By Jeff Pfeiffer

Do you hear what I hear? It’s a few more Christmas music videos! Since you’ll no longer see them on MTV or VH1, allow me to play VJ for you.

* Here’s one of the laziest, quick-cash-in-on-the-trend Christmas remixes ever. Just when you thought you got the original out of your head …

* Here’s Twisted Sister trying to recapture their video glory days. At least they didn’t bring back Mark Metcalf and put him in drag as the Neidermeyer-like lady who needs some rockin’ Christmas spirit:

* Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” You might be surprised at just how many other groups have covered this tune:

Categories: Holiday by RabbitEars
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Tags: Christmas, George Michael, Jeff Pfeiffer, Last Christmas, Macarena, Music, music video, RabbitEars, Twisted Sister, Video, Wham!

Posted by Mike

Synopsis: Ted’s sister — or as he calls her, Hurricane Heather (played by Erin Cahill) — has just arrived in town, with plans to stay in New York permanently and work in finance. Ted, of course, is skeptical because this is the same sister who, during her college years, took six years to graduate from three schools, wrecked two cars, got married for five days and lived in a tree for nine weeks only to discover that no one wanted to chop it down. His biggest concern, though, as it always is when Heather visits, is to keep Barney away from his baby sister. It seems that every year, when the Mosby family Christmas card arrives, Barney sings a Christmas carol, substituting lyrics about how hot Heather is and the things he’d like to do to her.

While Ted is doing his best to prevent Barney from doing his thing, Marshall and Robin are doing theirs — which is to say they’re hanging out a the Walleye Saloon, a bar for Minnesotans that features a Fisherman’s Quest video game and a banner that reads “I’m drinking till I forget the 1999 NFC Championship Game.” Robin loves the bar so much that she’s willing to conceal her Canadian heritage, which is something that would get her thrown out of the bar. When she begins to “steal” the bar away from Marshall, he reveals her Canadianness (Canadianity?) by asking her to name the Minnesota Vikings kicker whose missed field goal cost his team a trip to the Super Bowl, and she guesses Rashad Tarkenton instead of Gary Anderson. Feeling bad, Marshall then takes Robin to the Hoser Hut.

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Categories: Comedy by Mike
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Tags: Barney Stinson, CBS, Erin Cahill, Heather Mosby, himym, How I Met Your Mother, Minnesota Vikings, Robin Sparkles, Ted's sister

Posted By Jeff Pfeiffer

If your only exposure to the experience of listening to dried fruit sing Christmas carols comes from the Simpsons episode where the family watches the “California Prunes” sing “O Pruney Night” (which happens to be “offensive to Christians and prunes”), then you may not be old enough to remember 1987’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration, which included a guest appearance from then-popular pitchmen … er, fruit … the California Raisins.

The animated singing group was created for a series of commercials by the California Raisin Advisory Board to make sure their wrinkled crop was ingrained in consumer consciousness … and boy, was it. The Raisins developed a product omnipresence that would make Coca-Cola envious, appearing in TV specials and an animated series, and cutting some albums. As with real raisins themselves, you either loved these guys, didn’t really acknowledge them, or were flat-out sickened by them.

They appear in this Christmas special along with other Claymation creations (if talking raisins are too mundane for you, the program features, among others, ice-dancing walruses and be-bopping camels) from Will Vinton, who won an Emmy for the program. No word on whether the show helped raisins replace more traditional holiday fruits that Christmas season, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The California Date Administrative Committee and the California Fig Advisory Board simply had no answer for this marketing powerhouse.

Categories: Holiday by RabbitEars
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Tags: A Claymation Christmas Celebration, California Raisin Advisory Board, California Raisins, Christmas, dates, figs, Jeff Pfeiffer, O Pruney Night, RabbitEars, raisins, The Simpsons, Video, Will Vinton

By Elaine B
Since Dexter is my favorite show on television, I always want each season to go on and on, but Sunday’s season finale should have lasted two hours at least. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to. Maybe Showtime’s letting the world know there would be another season of Dexter forced the creators into a revisionist frenzy that led to a perfunctory and dull wrap-up of everything. Consider what we learned in less than an hour:

Rita gets a card from her mother that says, “Third time’s a charm.” Rita tells Dexter that it’s for the third kid, but Dex can tell she is lying. He learns she was married for just a few months at 16. He decides to let her have her secrets. He has plenty of his own.

LaGuerta is uncertain of how to handle Ellen Wolf’s murder and Miguel’s involvement in it. Dexter advises her to keep it all to herself rather than to ruin his family’s memory of him and inflame the Hispanic community for no reason. [Read more →]

Categories: Drama by Elaine
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Tags: Dexter Season Finale, Showtime

by Zhillbear

Sugar says that handing over the hidden immunity idol to Matty at the last Tribal Council felt glorious — she’s never felt so powerful. She continues the power rush by telling Bob that the plan is to pick off Kenny and Susie next. “Yes, dear,” says Bob.

Kenny’s bummed that he was out of the loop with the vote against Crystal, and he’s pouting because he thinks Bob went back on his offer to give him the immunity necklace. Bob says he didn’t hand over the necklace because he knew Kenny wasn’t being voted out, and Kenny says that wasn’t the deal. Kenny asks Bob if he’ll give him the immunity necklace should Bob win the next challenge, and the response (either from Bob or Matty — I can’t tell) is “Why don’t you get your own idol?” Burn!

Before the immunity challenge, the Survivors get clothes and face paint to dress themselves up as warriors, and Jeff Probst comments on how it looks “very Village People.” He doesn’t comment on how Susie’s face paint makes her look like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, so I think that’s just me.

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Categories: Reality TV by Zhillbear
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Tags: Bob, CBS, Corinne, finale, gabon, Matty, Randy, Recap, reunion, Sugar, Survivor, Susie, winner

Posted by Mike, Ryan and johnnysweeptheleg

Synopsis: It’s once again time for Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s annual Christmas party. This one is going to be different, though, because it’s the first one that Phyllis — not Angela — has planned. She has opted for a Moroccan theme, but making Angela miserable seems to be the real thread that holds Phyllis’ party plans together. Because she knows about Angela’s infidelity, Phyllis has decided to make the former party planning committee tyrant her own personal little … um, helper. Technically it’s not blackmail, since that would require a formal letter. The arrangement is short-lived, since Phyllis ultimately ends up telling everyone in the office about Angela’s secret by the end of the party. Everyone, that is, except for Andy, who is busy jamming on the sitar.

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Categories: Comedy by Mike
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Tags: Christmas episode, Dwight Shrute, Intervention, Michael Scott, NBC, Recap, rehab, Steve Carell, The Office

by Zhillbear

Matty’s upset with Kenny for voting against him, and he doesn’t believe Kenny’s claim that he thought Corinne had a hidden immunity idol. Bob feels horrible for the position his fake idol put Kenny in, and he offers to give Kenny immunity if he wins the next immunity challenge. Kenny tells the camera that he continues to think of himself as a mastermind. I do not join him in that opinion.

The reward challenge involves racing through a swamp over obstacles, retrieving balls and shooting them into a net. Matty, Kenny and Bob do well in the challenge, while the women fail to toss in a single ball. After Bob shoots his final ball into his net to win the challenge, Crystal runs up to her net to dunk it in and prove that she can indeed make a basket from an inch away — and she misses that, too.

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Categories: Reality TV by Zhillbear
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Tags: Bob, CBS, Crystal, gabon, Kenny, Matty, Recap, Sugar, Survivor

Posted By Jeff Pfeiffer

Time for another station break … we’ll be back after these words.

An FYI, though — If you plan on giving the first item to someone this year, I would recommend remaining a very Secret Santa.

Categories: Holiday by RabbitEars
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Tags: Air Jordan, Atari, Christmas, commercial, E.T., E.T. video game, Folgers, Folgers coffee, Jeff Pfeiffer, Michael Jordan, RabbitEars, Video

By Elaine B
Still dogged by the Japanese spy ship, with one engine broken down and an inoperable crane making it impossible to launch their attack boats, Capt. Watson heads the Steve Irwin back to port in Melbourne for repairs. Along the way, the underpowered ship has to outrun a massive storm that has the crew banging into things below deck while Watson, who’s obviously been through storms like this before, is reciting sea-related poetry for the benefit of the cameras. [Read more →]

Categories: Reality TV by Elaine
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Tags: Animal Planet, Paul Watson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sea Shepherd, Whale Wars