SFist Watches: TV Tonight
Sometimes, you just have to love Fox. While they continue to ponder what to do with their good shows, poking at them like a giant gorilla prodding at the t-rex it just killed (yeah, we saw King Kong recently), they have no problem creating blatant rip-offs of shows that are pretty much junk to begin with. We can almost hear them pounding their chests with pride.
"Dancing with the Stars" has its devoted following, there's no doubt about it, and that's a fact that continues to baffle some of us. So we wonder, will the fans of "Dancing" tune in to Fox's "Skating with Celebrities" tonight? Or will they just look upon this tacky rip-off as too tacky a rip-off? Putting "celebrities" (and believe us, we use that term lightly) on skates is obviously a better recipe for humiliation than putting them on a dance floor, and indeed, Fox is marketing the show as a "train wreck on ice." But is it really worth it? Isn't it humiliating enough just BEING Todd Bridges? Doesn't just knowing he exists bring you some entertainment? Must we really witness his ankle-turning attempts at skating? Maybe if the celebrities really WERE celebrities, we'd be more inclined to tune in. But until they get Tom Cruise to slide across an icy floor on his ass, we'll stick to "Lost."
Image of Nancy Kerrigan wondering if that Alanis Morrisette song could really be about this idiot, from Fox.com.
Which is airing at the same time as "Skating": 9 p.m. Last week saw the return of the show after over a month of hiatus, and it left us a little...irked. The last thing we saw before the break was Michael having an IM session with someone who may or may not have been his missing son, Walt. Stunning. And so we waited and waited, and come last week's episode, Michael...says nothing about it. He doesn't seem to think it's strange that a computer that apparently has no other capabilities aside from entering a code also has some primitive instant message program built into it. And he doesn't mention his session to anyone else. Why? He wasn't watching the movie that told them not to use the computer for any other purpose aside from entering the code, so he didn't know he was doing something FORBIDDEN.
So, perhaps he's keeping it a secret because he's paranoid. He's hell-bent on finding his kid, and doesn't trust anyone else to help him. Or, and this is the scenario we're hoping for, maybe he's just going nuts. Maybe he imagined the entire IM exchange, and will run off into the jungle in search of his son, and get himself killed by one of the Others.
And we wouldn't mind that one bit.
Although we'd prefer it if Charlie could die instead.