William Shatner Roast (DVD)

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HAM ROAST
William Shatner gets grilled by Comedy Central

In the beginning there was the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. And it was lewd. Or at least as lewd as such megawatt comics as Don Rickles, Milton Berle and Jack Benny could get away with in the pre-cable era. Next came the Friars Club roasts, an annual event dating back to the 1950s, but not televised until Comedy Central realized their worth in 1998. Since then, Comedy Central has also produced its own roasts. These tend to be nights of very funny, very obscene stand-up comedy presented under the false pretense of honoring a has-been entertainer. Such is certainly the case with the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner, out in an extended, uncensored cut on DVD.

As an interviewer puts it in one of several backstage bonus features, the cast is “a veritable ‘Who’s That?’ of Hollywood C-list actors.” Jason Alexander hosts, and Betty White is about as classy as the roster gets, while such circuit comics as Artie Lange, Jeffrey Ross and Lisa Lampanelli hold nothing back. Lampanelli, expressing her bedroom preferences, instructs us that she’s “provided more openings to black men than affirmative action.”

As they freely admit, most of the participants don’t really know Shatner very well. This includes Farrah Fawcett who gives a dazed and confused monologue and gets licked on the face by Andy Dick. Leonard Nimoy had the career savvy to stay home, but a couple of “Star Trek” alumni do turn up. In comedy, timing is everything, and the taping of this special occurred within months of George Takei’s pronouncement of his homosexuality. As Sulu on Star Trek, he could not have been more earnest. Now a “creepy old gay dude” as Alexander describes him, he rattles off a series of cock-related one-liners and is, to coin a phrase, the butt of jokes from nearly every other participant. The brightest gag of the evening involves a visual of him coming out of the closet. Even Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) gets in on the act with an amusing anecdote involving Mr. Takei’s tongue.

Seated in his captain’s chair from the USS Enterprise, Shatner is a gracious roastee, enduring video montages of his infamous singing appearances and pre-taped insults from the likes of Ben Stiller and Sarah Silverman. Naturally, he’s given the opportunity to laugh last and rises to the occasion with a monologue that any Trekker would find as blue as Romulan Ale.
- Stan Friedman   May 2, 2007

Smallville

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BOY WONDER
‘Smallville’ grows up

In the aftermath of Virginia Tech, it’s hard to watch the CW’s “Smallville” in the same way. With nearly six seasons under its belt, and a mythos that goes back 70 years, this contemporary retelling of Superman’s upbringing in a Kansas farm town is a polished adventure series. But suddenly, a hero who regularly flings speeding bullets out of the paths of his college-age friends seems especially welcome. And the disturbed, twenty-something villains with twisted motivations are particularly disturbing.

Three flavors of evildoers coexist on “Smallville” this season: Lex Luthor and his ominous medical experiments; the escaped alien criminals from the Phantom Zone who give Clark Kent the occasional bloody nose; but the most horrifying and symbolic are the “meteor freaks”—young people who were exposed to kryptonite and develop worrisome powers. They’re attractive members of society who snap when their body chemistry freaks out. One sweet girl, for instance, turns into a killer plant that reproduces by implanting seeds in the men she strangles.

The show’s early seasons handled Superboy’s growing pains with a wry mix of comic book legendry and sex: His heat vision would trigger prematurely at the site of a hot substitute teacher, and he’d go weak at the knees when talking to pretty Lana Lang (turned out she was wearing kryptonite jewelry). Back then, Lex was his good friend and the longevity of the series has allowed for their mutual hatred of each other to grow at a wonderfully slow boil. Similarly, Lois Lane pops in and out, but reveals herself to be more of a Green Arrow kinda gal for now.

After a demonic high school prom, the show toyed with college life. But, with the exception of an otherworldly evil professor, the writers—bless their innocent hearts—seemed unable to conjure up enough campus terror to sustain interest. The Daily Planet, the Kent Farm and the Luthor estate provide the fertile ground these days for Clark’s exploits. Entering manhood, he faces not only the usual tricky romantic problems faced by most, but also the possibility that he was sent to Earth not to help earthlings, but to conquer them. After all, he’s an outsider from a (quite literally) broken home—with too many secrets and unmatchable firepower.
- Stan Friedman   April 25, 2007

Til Death Do Us Part

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COURTING DEATH
Fatal attractions, and John Waters looks on

In his own way, John Waters is this country’s Alfred Hitchcock. While not delving into true terror territory, his Cecil-B-Demented film work rarely fails to shock viewers, even as it winks at them, with a directorial style that’s instantly recognizable. Now, Waters is echoing the Master of Suspense by appearing in a TV series that is reminiscent of the classic “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” of the 1950s. This is not to say that CourtTV’s “‘Til Death Do Us Part” stands the faintest chance of becoming a classic, but at least the characters die trying.

Every half-hour episode is a campy, low-budget and joyfully mean-spirited salute to mariticide, the age-old act of offing one’s spouse. The murders are based on true stories but with names changed, characters combined and virtually unknown writers creating the dialog. Waters serves as narrator, in character as the Groom Reaper, a jovial lover of strangulation, bludgeoning and misguided attempts of corpse concealment. His bad pun of a name is second only to the show’s promise to “love, honor and perish.”

Each episode begins with a happy couple tying the knot, but the camera soon enough pans away to find Waters as he spouts such wonderfully bad set-ups as, “He had a head for figures, and she was ready to multiply. Too bad 10 years down the road, one half of this pair will be subtracted—permanently.” Next, we fast-forward to when the honeymoon is definitely over, observing about 10 minutes worth of marital discord in scenarios where either husband or wife could be the ultimate killer. To their credit, the show always manages to keep the suspense building until a brain finally gets bashed or a delicate throat strangled.

This is the first scripted series for CourtTV as they undertake a rebranding strategy. The first couple pages of every script are available on their website: a good tease and a great tool for understanding how a show comes to life. It also reveals that half the season’s episodes were written by either Ken or Mary Hanes, a couple who clearly know better than to attempt to share a credit, or to bring their work home with them.
- Stan Friedman   April 18, 2007

The Riches

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GYPSIES, BRITS & THIEVES
To ‘The Riches’ go the spoils

If you are an up-and-coming cable channel with aspirations of grandeur, there are several assets which you might seek out: recognizable stars with respected resumés, scripts that analyze American cultural values (both hidden and exploited), comedy-drama scenarios which borrow liberally from the successes of HBO and Showtime and, of course, gags involving artificial limbs. FX took all of these elements, threw in a cross-dressing adolescent for good measure, and arrived at The Riches—an overwritten carnival of suburban neuroses, marital squabbles, disturbing pasts and kind-hearted criminals. Fortunately, it’s as catty as it is calculated.

Leading the cast are Eddie Izzard, as Wayne, and Minnie Driver as Dahlia, husband-and-wife gypsies, or “travelers’ to use the modern vernacular. Their backstories are shady, their future dependent upon their skill sets as they set up shop with assumed identities in a posh, residential Louisiana neighborhood. Izzard turns in a compelling and complex performance, but speaks in a dialect that had me completely distracted throughout the first two episodes. A British actor playing a Southerner of Irish descent, he ultimately settles into an accent that sounds a bit like Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter. Driver goes for the white-trash inflections right off, but her physical appearance alternates too rapidly between the ugly ex-con with a taste for the needle that she was, and the ravishing desperate housewife she’s becoming.

Wayne and Dahlia will do anything for their three children. That includes indulging their youngest son, Sam, in his penchant for girl’s clothing, a nice inside joke given Izzard’s infamous transvestite acts. While mom and the sibs each suffer yearnings to go back to their transient lifestyle, Wayne craves the domestic American Dream. His vision, and the familial impulse to do what’s best for your loved ones, keep the clan bonded even as nosy neighbors grow suspect, a prosthetic arm goes flying and Dale comes ever closer to discovering where to find them. Ultimately, the show operates on the same principle as “Weeds,” “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under.” Namely, extended families with quirky business practices are capable of loving and of being loved.
- April 11, 2007

The Agency

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Do not confuse “The Agency” on VH1 with “The Office” on NBC. The latter is a faux doc about an unaware but likable boss and his multicultural employees, who burn through their days falling in love with each other while selling paper products...
- Stan Friedman   April 4, 2007