The 50 Biggest Disappointments of the 00's

1. Bud Selig letting baseball become unwatchable (Big Head Barry becoming the home run king, A-Roid getting a ring, letting the Red Sox roid themselves up to break The Curse, the All-Star Game tie, etc.)

2. The death of Napster

3. The CW thinking shows like Farmer Takes a Wife, 90210, Melrose Place, Life Is Wild, The Pussycat Dolls, High Society, and Fly Girls were better alternatives that Veronica Mars

4. The football team formerly known as the Browns winning a Super Bowl in the second year of The real Browns expansion, who only won three games that year

5. Kanye West going emo

6. The rise of Ringtone Rappers and auto-tune

7. Here is something I could not understand: how Landry Clarke could just kill a man

8. The Writer’s Strike

9. Dave Chappelle going crazy; ending Chappelle's Show after only two seasons

10. Bill Belichicken cheating his way to multiple Super Bowls wins

11. Fox canceling The Lone Gunmen, Undeclared, Firefly, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Keen Eddie, The Jury, The Inside, Point Pleasant, and Reunion after (and sometime before) just one season

12. Having to constantly hear about American Karaoke

13. The entire Heroes series, and having Kristen Bell slum it on such a horribly written / acted show

14. The Steelers winning two ref assisted Super Bowl

15. TV Guide going bigger

16. Basically everything after the season one finale of Lost

17. 50 Cent deciding to make music for suburban white teenage girls

18. The Jay Leno Hour

19. Fergie joining the Black Eyed Peas

20. Having to wait fifteen years for the mediocre Chinese Democracy (and Dr. Pepper not delivering on their promise of a free can)

21. MTV deciding to cater to teenage girls who were too busy texting to care about their crappy shows

22. The Democrats unable to nominate someone competent enough to even beat George Bush

23. Superman Return

24. X & Y - Coldplay

25. The shrinking Rolling Stone

26. The Pirates of the Caribbean sequels

27. Y2K

28. Hollywood ruining my childhood (Transformers, Dukes of Hazard, etc.)

29. Trapped in the Closet; Chapters 13-22

30. Kate Bosworth Going Skelator

31. No Detox from Dr. Dre

32. U.S. Basketball Nightmare teams

33. Sam's Town - The Killers

34. Christina Aguilera starting to look like drag queen version of her Genie in a Bottle self

35. Bionic Woman reboot

36. Jay-Z’s Un-retirement song

37. Survivor All Stars

38. Smashing Pumpkins reunion

39. The Hockey lock out

40. The Shins not changing my life like Natalie Portman promised

41. Janet Jackson’s nipple

42. Working On a Dream - Bruce Springsteen

43. Joe Rogan version of The Man Show

44. Any celebrity documentary style reality show after The Osbornes first season

45. The XFL

46. Brett Favre in a Jets Vikings uniform

47. Jerry Springer banning fighting

48. Lindsay Lohan

49. Austin Powers in Goldmember

50. Tara Reid somehow being able to ruin Wild On

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXXXII

Quote of the Week: You strike at the shepherd, and the sheep may scatter. (Boyd Crowder’s congregation, Justified)

Song of the Week: Blaze of Glory – Jon Bon Jovi (as performed by Jeffster, Chuck)

Big News of the Week: A Melancholy Happy Trails to Gary Colman: As a child of the eighties of course I watched Diff’rent Strokes, a show that could have only been made that decade (rich white dudes adopts two kids from the ghettos, if they did it now, it would probably be foreigners a la Angelina Jolie). I was really young at the time so I really do not recall much else about the series except of course for, “Whacha talkin’ ‘bout Willis.”

Gratuitous Token Hot Chick Picture of the Week:



Chuck: So Papa Bartowski gets shot near a laboratory where they were able to bring Shaw back to life (after being brought all the way back from Paris) and no one thought to give it a try for daddy. Keep in mind selectively using Claire’s blood on Heroes is one of very many things that made that show unwatchable. And how is a guy as paranoid as him not wear a bullet proof vest? But still it is hard to complain about am episode that included a Jeffster music video (except that they haven’t yet released a full version to the internets). Although the duo better not be on the run for very much next season in order to shed some budget. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Chuck on iTunes.

How I Met Your Mother: See my Parenthood review. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: A female Sheldon is cool for a one off thing but I fear that Blossom may return again next season might be too much of a good thing. And I would have liked to see some failed matches before they got to the female Sheldon. Sheldon on a blind date with a normal person has to be the highest of high comedy. You can download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Parenthood: Not so fun fact: I once dyed my hair black. I couldn’t wait long enough to get rid of that hair soon enough that I got a premature buzz cut so I had brown roots up the sides and the black still up top. Needless to say I got ridiculed as much as Ted dying his blond. Too bad the season ended before we could see Haddie’s dyer’s remorse. But my favorite part of the episode was when Zeke laid into Timm for having an extra latter in his name. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Justified: Good old Dewey, getting deputized. If he gets banished from the church again I wouldn’t mind seeing that as a spin-off. Though I was hoping that was going to Be Stephan Root coming to the VFW with a court order to come inside. But everything seems to be coming together (I wish the previously on portion was actually longer) and we may be looking at some big blowup between Raylan, Boyd, and Bo, and I would be surprised if all three are still alive by the end of the season. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Free Download of the Week: Matador Records - Intended Play 2010 (Amazon MP3): Artist included on the sampler include Cat Power, Pavement and Ted Leo.

Deal of the Week: Blu Ray Spotlight for Dad (Iron Man, Sin City, Planet Earth)

Video of the Week: It was pretty clear for a long time that Lost wasn’t going to answer all the questions it posed throughout it series run, and below is a rundown of a few of them. Keep in mind the video is produced by a site called College Humor, so some are asked for humorous effect, and some were actually answered if you were paying attention and of course they missed quite of few questions (but if you made that video with every unanswered question it would be a couple hours). But still a good watch. And of course you acn also check out my series review of Lost: Whatever Happened Happened.



Next Week Pick of the Week: It’s Memorial Day, turn off your television and enjoy the great outdoors.

Feed Your iPod vol. XLV: Delicate

My head still hurts from the Lost finale and my lengthy write up of the show (see Whatever Happened Happened). While I have Lost on my mind, I thought I’d go back to one of my favorite song placements from the show, Delicate by Damien Rice that closed out a season one episode where Hurley humorously ran out of battery life. Below is the clip from the show and under that is the song as a whole.

Delicate – Damien Rice

Whatever Happened Happened

If Blogger allowed subtitles, it would be, “Unless of course it was all a dream then that didn’t really happen.”

Please, if you will, jump into the Hot Tube Time Machine all the way back to February 10, 2005, a mere week into the inception of the 9th Green and my very first mention of Lost here, Déjà Vu All Over Again. In the post I mention my first apprehension to the show going in the long run because it had just already in the first season utilized the second of the biggest clichés in television history when we learned that Claire had come down with a bout of amnesia. But I bring this up because of the first overused cliché they used, the “it was all a dream” sequence when Boone saw Smoke kill his sister until Locke said, “Psyche! It was all a dream Boone, she is still alive.”

There is always a lot of talk about if a series finale could tarnish a show and the answer is no. The Seinfeld was considered bad but is still regarded as one of the funniest shows in the history of television. The Sopranos ending created such visceral hatred but I still saw it on plenty of Greatest of the 00’s lists and even topped a few. These were like seeing Joe Montana in a Chief’s uniform, sure you do not want to see it, but it doesn’t disqualify him from the Hall of Fame.

While the series finale may not tarnish the show as a whole, it completely ruined the last season. As one of the few people that actually like the flash-sideways, to go back and realize that forty percent of the season happened in the dead minds of the castaways so they could have the lamest high school reunion ever really ruined that part of the season I had previously liked so much. And what was with everyone with a drinking the kool-aid look to everyone sported after they flashed. They were all way too happy to realize they were dead.

And who was and wasn’t invited was befuddling. Sure they could explain away Michael as being stuck Jacob Marley style with whispering chains (along, plausibly, with Eko, Nikki, Paulo and a few others) but what about Walt? Could have had some flashes at some time with Vincent? And who invited Ben? Did he really redeem himself that much as Hurley’s number two? And what happens to him outside the church? Couldn’t he have gone with Alex and or Rousseau? Speaking of children, where were Aaron, baby Charlie, Ji Yeon, and the spawn of Sawyer? Shouldn’t have Richard warranted an invite? Sure if the island was underwater, he never gets eternal life from Jacob, but if sideways was just make believe anyway, he could have made an appearance.

And the absence of Faraday and Charlotte could be explained away by Desmond respecting the request of Eloise Hawking, but as the “time cop” shouldn’t she know if a world created by a group that leaves, would that world cease to exist and she then was denying her son a chance to pass on? And why care enough to include Miles, Artz and Anna Lucia in you sideways world but not even invite them to your reunion? Sure they did not have some epic love story, but neither did Locke or Boone (did I miss a scene when Boone had his flash backs?). Neither did Sayid and Shannon for that matter. Seriously, Sayid pines over Nadia, cris-crossing continents trying to find her, watches her die, but his true love is a chick he dated for a week.

The big irony for me when it comes to Lost is when ABC shipped Monday Night Football I said there was nothing left on the All Broads Channel for guys to watch except for Lost. It wasn’t until the finale did I realize that Lost in fact fit right in with all the other televised chick flicks on the network. Lost was never a genre show, the sci-fi aspect of the show was no less a gimmick than a hospital or the suburbs. This is why we would never get some important answers to questions like: "Why was Sun the only living member of Oceanic 6 that didn’t flash back to 1977?" because it never matter. If you need and answer, it was just a way for the writers to keep Jin and Sun away from each other for another two seasons because it would make for a more emotional reunion and subsequent farewell.

The finale was for all the people who would annoyingly mash up character names and fights to the death arguing over if Kate should pick Jack or Sawyer and cried when Penny called Desmond on the freighter for the first time. Sure I enjoys the first couple flashes in the finale (to a point, they really went overboard with all of them) but that just isn’t me, I could have cared less who Kate picked as long as the writers found new ways to get her out of her clothes and didn’t well up during the phone call because I was still trying to figure out how present day Desmond was able to get nineties Penny to call him. It is probably not a coincidence that some of my favorite characters on the show, Ben, Locke, Hugo, Faraday, Miles, rarely got any sweet lovin’ if any.

A secondary irony is for the whole series all I ever heard about the show was, “I have no clue what is going on but I love it.” Well I almost always new was going on (I could never wrap my head around the idea of the Constant) I never thought the show was all that great since the second season. But in the end it may not have been a good idea to trust someone behind Crossing Jordan and Nash Bridges.

Lost: The Series gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXXX

Quote of the Week: And I’m gonna give you a minute to extradite yourself out my face before I have to paint your office with your (expletive delete). (Toby – Justified)

Song of the Week: Eye of the Tiger – Survivor (as preformed by Hawaiian Wedding Band, Modern Family)

Big News of the Week: Early Pick Up’s All-Around: Usually we have to wait until Up Fronts before we know for sure what will be on the schedule, but NBC slowly tricked out their pick up’s and even ABC has even gotten into the early pick up business too. Cannot say I am all that interested with any of the shows, but I will wait for a final judgment when I get to see some promos.

Chuck: Christopher Lloyd appearing on an NBC show is making me start to lean towards him and the Christopher Lloyd who created Modern Family. And funniest scene of the week was when the patients came to Chuck’s defense. Too bad they got shot down before they could actually help. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Chuck on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: Why does Judy Greer always plays lose women? As soon as she showed up I though, she was going to sneak into Leonard’s room and of course it happened. What I didn’t see is her getting tossed around to all the friends, sans Sheldon of course. But Greer deserves better. You can download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Lost: So Smokie isn’t really Locke or even Jacob’s brother (who turned out to be Adam), just an entity that used to be light and if it leaves the island, it will be some sort of Pandora’s Box situation. Alrighty. But much like the Richard Alpert episode, sure we got a lot of big answers, but I was still expecting much more out of this episode. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Justified: After last week’s Deadwood reunion I thought we would get treated to a Eurotrip reunion this week except the guy from the movie in the cast didn’t bother to show up this week. And it was really had to think of the other dude from Eurotrip as some big bag former boxer. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Parenthood: Second funniest scene of the week: Zeke congratulation his granddaughter for not having intercourse with her boyfriend. Haddie’s reaction was priceless. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Mercy: Oh Mercy, it was a good, guilty pleasure run, but naturally NBC gave you the ax and now I will not get the enjoyment of watching Dawn Summers try to emote on a weekly basis. You will be missed. But not really because VH1 will always have much guiltier pleasure. Except for that offensive 100 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Date or Have Sex. You know there won’t be a female version of this special because there is only one. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Mercy on iTunes.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: Yawn. This should have been the week they did a double tribal council because it was rather boring. Even Sandra ruined what could have been an entertaining moment by not even letting Probst finish his Immunity Idol speech depriving us the chance for the usual ten second edit that the show likes to do in a will they or won’t they play the idol situation. And what was up with Colby this episode? He explodes at his brother because he cannot catch water, then at Tribal; he sits at the ends staring at the ground the whole time. I cannot believe this guy may actually win. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Community: The big problem this show runs into, maybe too often, is they rely too heavily on expecting everyone will get their pop culture references. I understand Troy’s storyline was one big homage, but I have absolutely no clue what it was paying tribute to. You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Friday Night Lights: Holy Mike Leach sighting! I wonder if his pirate rambling was as unintentionally funny back in the fall for those watching on DirecTV as it was for those of us watching on NBC who now know Leach is unemployed. Maybe Coach Taylor can recruit him to the Lions staff next year. But my favorite part of the episode is when Tammy went to the boosters meeting and asked Joe McCoy infront of everyone if he still planned on exposing the mail box scam from season’s past. My least favorite is when Coach told Riggins he had something to show him, and we never found out what. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Free Download of the Week: Die by the Drop – The Dead Weather (rcrdlbl)

Deal of the Week: Mega Savings on Mega Movie & TV Show Hits (Forgetting Sarah Marshall [Blu-Ray], Happy Gilmore, E.T.)

Next Week Pick of the Week: Lost, Tuesday and Sunday at 9:00: Here it is, the final three and a half hours of Lost ever and it cannot not come soon enough. Not because I am that eager to learn how it ends, but I just what to not have to worry about watching the show ever again because I am putting the chances of there being a satisfying ending in the single digits. For the fanatics, ABC is also running the two hour series premiere Saturday and there will be the prerequisite hour primer before the finale and a special Jimmy Kimmel Live afterwards.

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXXIX

How I Met Your Mother: If Ted wrote himself a not as to why not to get back with Robin, why didn’t he read it when he got back with her a couple seasons ago? But anyway. I am completely for the whole separate beds for sleeping. I have enough trouble getting to sleep by myself and that is only exacerbated when there are knees in my back. And why stop there, how about separate rooms? You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: As painful as the post breakup interaction of Leonard and Penny were, at least Sheldon trying to play both sides was one of his funniest bits of the season. You can download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Castle: Holy Veronica Mars reunion! Okay so Parker and Deputy Leo didn’t share any screen time here or on Veronica Mars, but I will take what I can. And I wouldn’t mind if Parker sticks around because Beckett could us a female friend or just someone to fight over for Castle. But this begs the question whatever happened to Day On that Julie Gonzalo was starring in for NBC? Last I hear it got trimmed down to a two hour movie. You know it is not good when as hard up for programming NBC was, they still haven’t found time to air the show. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes. Also be sure to check out my chat with Stana Katic.

Lost: Seriously, Jin is going to down himself and let his daughter that he never met grow up an orphan? Hurmph. I am really beginning to think I was on the button when I said that the “Real” timeline will end with everyone dying but everyone lives happily ever after in the Flashsideways like in that one Buffy episode. At least there are four and a half hours left before I can stop thinking about this show. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Justified: Holy Dan Doherty sighting! And of course it was Seth Bullock to talk him down. Here’s hoping that this is only a precursor for the show to bring in Al Swearengen. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Parenthood: Wait, was that really the host of Tool Academy that I just saw on the show? And as one of the “cool” parents? Alrighty. And if Joel was so upset about the soccer quitting, why didn’t he step up and coach when schuedual must be open. C’mon, if the dude from Survivor can coach girls soccer, how hard can it be? You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Modern Family: I am not sure who laughed harder, Alex, when talking about her sister flirting with a middle schooler, or me laughing at Alex laughing at her sister. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Happy Town: And we have our first “seriously” moment of the series when it turns out Kubiac (yes, I just made a Parker Lewis reference) turned out to be the one who nailed a rail road spike threw the dude’s head. Alrighty. The second would be the sherriff letting the Kube off the hook for the murder. Sure, why not. And if the dead dude said where the bodies were, why not at least take a look? You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Happy Town on iTunes.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: Hopefully this is the last stand of Russell. Despite the previews, I cannot see Rupert, after his tirade against him this week, teaming up with him. I am really ready to get Russell off my television and if he is ever asked back to another All-Star season everyone is smart enough to get rid of him first. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Community: I loved all the not so thinly veiled pot shots at the college’s glee club: “I’m all for winning but let’s not resort to cheap ploys,” “That is so uninspired,” “Write some original songs,” Couldn’t have said it better myself. You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Friday Night Lights: The season three finale just happened to air as the say day as Opening Day in Cleveland when a rai delay pushed the game into the evening pre-empted FNL and I ended up having to watch it on Hulu the next day. Then almost a year later the season four premiere just happened to coincide with a tornado warning preemption making miss the show because of weather two epidsodes in a row. Huruph. Here’s hoping the episode shows up On Demand so I am not stuck watching it on my computer again. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXXVII

How I Met Your Mother: Kid or Drunk may be the greatest idea the show has had in season and Marshall really needs to pitch the idea to his father-in-law for his next board game. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

Trauma: Forget present day San Francisco, convert the show to late nineties New Orleans and follow around Tyler, his mullet, and his partner with his catchphrase, “He’s dead.” That show would have been much better than the current version. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Trauma on iTunes.

Castle: Oh snap, Esposito’s partner was still alive and gone deep, deep undercover. Didn’t see that one coming. And on a completely shallow tangent, Beckett should go with the ponytail look more often, she looks much better with the hair up. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes. Also be sure to check out my chat with Stana Katic.

Lost: Not totally unexpected, the flash-sideways are starting to blend exclusively (with some help with Desmond, but how did he know that Jack was going to meet with the lawyer (a disappointing chick who blew up last week, was Rousseau not available?), or did he). But why exactly can Locke not just kill a candidate, a whole wall of them have died so far, and just take the remainder on the plane? Hurph. The finale cannot come soon enough so I can stop thinking about the show. Except next week is a repeat which pushes that back an unnecessary week. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu.



Justified: Now that is what I call an ending. Something tells me that even though Raylan will actually turn down the offer on his dad, that will eventually be turned into a yes later in the season. Though I must say I had the exact same reation as Raylan did towards every person I hate in my life and reevaluate if I have ever gone so far as to burn ever Hitler painting I could get my hands on. Really one of the mot powerful scenes on television this season. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Parenthood: Oh Zeke and your reverse racism. Though why didn’t Jasmine pull the band aid and tell her family the truth before the party even started? I guessed because we would have never gotten Zeke putting a foot in his mouth. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

The Challenge: Fresh Meat 2: The look on Wes’ face when Kenny told him that he actually turned down Teresa was the funniest thing that happened on television all week. But I have to give it to Wes, the pre-game alliance to plant the mole may be one of the greatest moves in reality history to the point I am surprised no one has tried it before (aside from creating a whole show centered on the premise in The Mole). You can stream recent episodes over at MTV.com. You can also download The Challenge: Fresh Meat 2 on iTunes.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: Now that it has played out, I am not going to put J.T. on top of the dumbest moves in Survivor history because my top three all resulted in their instant demise where J.T. had the time to fix his mistake and may have recovered from the mistake had Parvati had not pulled the boldest move in Survivor history. I was shocked when she gave her Hidden Immunity Idol to Sandra, but managed to be even more surprised when she pulled out the second Idol and not use it herself but actually gave it to Jerri. I just recently was able to pick my jaw off the floor.

Too bad we didn’t get to see the gamesmanship had each tribe had Idols the other didn’t know about. Do Parvati and J.T. both use theirs and leaving no one with any votes? Does Sandra turn on the Villians and vote for Russell on a revote? Does Parvati even tell Amanda about it and does Amanda use that information against her? As amazing as this week’s Tribal was, imagine how it may have played out if J.T. kept the Idol. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.