This is just lovely: Below is a few minutes of the official premiere of TLC's new tear-jerking series Surprise Homecoming, which airs Monday at 10/9c. In it, Ingrid, a woman coming home from serving overseas, reunites with her mother, Estine. It is a surprise, hence it being featured on a show called Surprise Homecoming. The emotional outpouring that follows is overwhelming...
The longest preview yet of the upcoming Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated (in select theaters Friday, July 15) has hit the web, and what can be said about it that it isn't already saying itself? With a variety of talking heads (Mark Levin and Andrew Breitbart among them) spouting vague praise about the former governor of Alaska/probable 2012 presidential hopeful, this looks like Fox News: The Movie, basically...
On Wednesday's episode, America's Got Talent entered its second round of Las Vegas auditions (these count as semifinals, right?), which meant a second round of ridiculousness from acts that have come before. None — not the big guy with the freestyle dance and the too-short shirt, not the tween girl group who sound like The Chipettes without any vocal altering, not the young rappers/wappers, not the far-from-angelic wing-wearer — matched the weirdness of the geriatric duo consisting of a pianist and an acrobat. The best thing about this is that unlike, say, Narcissister, this pair's act doesn't seem self-consciously weird — it mostly feels accidental and blissfully unaware. The banana-eating, though, is a bit precious...
TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras (Wednesdays at 10/9c) is often criticized for exhibiting bad parenting, but this week's episode is garnering the opposite response. We were introduced to Brock Ritter, a now-8-year-old, self-described "diva," who lives in Michigan and pursues his interests in dancing, pageantry and occasionally dressing up like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, despite teasing and what society dictates as gender-normative behavior. (Watch a clip of Brock in action.) We spoke with Brock's mom, Tori, about letting her son be himself, pageantry criticism and what Brock's father thinks of all this...
We already know that people aren't on reality TV to make friends. Per recent episodes of The Glee Project and Food Network Star, they still aren't. But for the video below, we thought we'd take a look into the other reasons why people say they are and aren't appearing on unscripted television. These things range from "for me" (Celebrity Rehab), "for the deaf kids" (Celebrity Apprentice) and, as heard on America's Got Talent, "to tell people that if you don't get in your own way, your dreams are yours for the havin'" (whatever that means!)...
Once again, the contestant sent packing on this week's Platinum Hit (Mondays, 10/9c, Bravo) was the one who had contributed the least. At least that's what we were led to believe: according to Melissa Rapp, it was simply her time to go, and she couldn't hang on because she didn't bring the strategy that reality TV calls for. Below, she shares her naive involvement in the genre, and her surprise at the machinations that were taking place all around her (alleging that Nick's attitude is a pose and that Jes and Johnny's relationship is contrived). While the narrative that goes "hindsight is 20/20" is common, especially for those chewed up and spit out by reality TV, Rapp articulates her experience particularly well, especially for someone who left a show about writing so early...
No show provokes a gut reaction like Toddlers & Tiaras (Wednesdays, 10/9c, TLC). Those who aren't entranced by the very specific, extremely odd cultural world of child beauty pageants tend to wring their hands and decry the behavior on display as despicable or abusive. Reality TV has a way of bringing out the armchair psychologists, but to tackle the issues the show brings up, we thought we'd talk to an expert on the side of the pageants: Annette Hill runs the circuit Universal Royalty Beauty Pageants that the show frequently profiles. She is outspoken, passionate and more than a little defensive over criticism. Still, she runs her business like an open book, having incorporated TV coverage from the start and keeping her pageants open to the public. (In the interest of providing full disclosure, she also invited me down to their nationals pageant in November. Should the invitation stand come pageant time, I will absolutely take her up on it.) Below, we hit Hill with just about every critique we could think of: the idea that pageants sexualize children, the toll pageants could take on the competitors' psyches, the unease that seeing a child in full makeup can provoke, the curse of the stage parent. Gamely, she tackles the ire head on...
On America's Got Talent, a 42-year-old housewife named Cindy Chang performed the Puccini aria "O mio babbino caro," impressing everyone in the room (no one more than herself, though — she wept when she finished). That love has spread throughout the Internet, where Chang is being proclaimed "the next Susan Boyle." VIDEO: Multi-Faced performer wins over America's Got Talent judges That description says far less about Chang than it does the people who are drawing it...
Love in the Wild (Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC) is a trashy beach novel of a TV show. It is salacious in nature (10 women and 10 men are thrown together in a Costa Rican paradise to partner-swap their way to true love) but not in practice (so much closed-mouth kissing). It is kind of mean (each week the last picked — that is, least desired — from each sex goes home) but then again completely goofy (at one point during a river-rafting challenge, someone confused a stick for a crocodile). It is mindless enough to be ideal summertime programming. Catch up on today's news To give you a sense of how silly this whole thing is, we're counting down the top 10 most ridiculous things these ridiculous (though as yet even tempered) people said on Wednesday's ridiculous premiere...
Joe Manganiello will shift shapes from werewolf to con man when he stops by White Collar. Entertainment Weekly says the True Blood actor will appear on Collar when it returns for the second half of its third season in January...
The most amazing thing about this clip from America's Got Talent isn't the performance, which found one Narcissister always appearing to be facing forward despite turning around and upside down. (Thank strategically placed mannequin heads for that!) No, what's truly amazing is the response...
Come Monday, Sept. 19, we will know the fate of Charlie Harper. That's the day that Two and a Half Men will return to the air (obviously without Charlie Sheen). The network announced Wednesday that Sept. 19 will "officially open" its season, with the Season 7 premiere of How I Met Your Mother bowing at 8/7c, the Season 9 premiere of Two and a Half Men showing up at 9/8c, new show 2 Broke Girls debuting at 9:30/8:30c (a special time) and Hawaii Five-O returning for Season 2 at 10/9c. Sept. 19 is not strictly the first time CBS will begin airing its fall slate of programming — Survivor: South Pacific is set to begin Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 8/7c. Everything you need to know about CBS next season "Our playbook is pretty consistent: wherever and whenever possible we use established successful series to introduce new shows," said CBS prime-time executive Kelly Kahl. "We've also asked a couple of our strongest series to work overtime during premiere week in order to support the new series and bolster our performance"...
Will Smith has tapped Denzel Washington to star in The American Can, according to New York magazine's Vulture blog. The film will be based on the true story of John Keller, who stayed behind in his New Orleans apartment complex to ward off looters and take care of residents unable to evacuate after the levees broke as a result of Hurricane Katrina...
In the latest riposte by Jon Stewart against Fox News Channel, Stewart answers the network's recent allegations of racism over his Herman Cain imitation with ... more racism-allegation provocations...
Twilight and Nurse Jackie star Peter Facinelli plans to produce a Whitey Bulger biopic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film would be based on the 2003 book Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob by Edward MacKenzie Jr., and Phyllis Karas...
Comedy Central has picked up two sketch comedy series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Nick Kroll (Childrens Hospital, Cavemen) will headline his own show, eponymously titled The Nick Show Kroll. MADtv's Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have also signed on for an as-yet-untitled sketch series...
Lady Gaga has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over wristbands sold via her website that are supposed to raise funds for Japanese earthquake relief, according to E! Online. Ari Kresch, a lawyer for 1-800-LAW-FIRM, which filed the lawsuit, says Gaga deceived people when she claimed "all proceeds" from the $5 bracelets that read "WE PRAY FOR JAPAN" would go directly to Japan relief efforts. "There's a $3.99 shipping charge including packaging that weighed less than an ounce, so paying a $3.99 service charge for making a $5 donation is excessive since most of that costs about 50 cents," Kresch said. Lady Gaga reacts to New York's new gay marriage law But shipping charges aren't the extent of the grievances...
Heidi Klum will debut a collection of costume jewelry called Wildlife by Heidi Klum on the home-shopping channel QVC on Sept. 8, according to Us. The line will consist of "statement pieces," Klum says, and range in price from $30 to $200. "The only reason to wear costume jewelry is to wear something large —something you can't do with real jewelry because it would be too expensive," says the supermodel-turned-reality TV host...
David Duchovny and Téa Leoni have separated again, according to Us Magazine...
On Piers Morgan Tonight, Beyoncé sat down with Morgan at a tiny table packed with plates to discuss her life. Her bio sounded like a Shania Twain song as she said that as she nears 30 "I feel like a woman!"...
This week's episode of Hoarders (Mondays, 9/8c, A&E) was every bit as fascinating as last week's Season 4 premiere. Billy Bob hoards toys (he was basically the male equivalent of last week's doll hoarder Phyllis, and accordingly received the circus-music score as he went through his collection). He had an amazing meltdown that involved him barking orders at the organizers, which ran counter to their objective (clearing out mounds of his stuff). In the end, his house looked less like a disaster and more like a tightly packed toy museum. Progress is progress! Even more fascinating was Beverly Hills-dwelling Jean...
In its weekly intro, A&E's Intervention explains that the show ropes in its subjects by presenting itself as a "documentary about addiction." You understand how this could work for a while, but for a show that's been around for as long as it has (its 10th season!), you'd expect someone to catch on. That's exactly what happens on Monday's episode...
