Normally I like ridiculously tight short-shorts and tank tops, but seriously, how can you look at this picture and not want to hurl something in the general direction of your television screen?  The pretentious head-tilts and neck-cocks and vacuous looks …

I don’t feel so good … someone find my bucket!  Not that one … the one with the big CW on it!

In case you’re far luckier than I and it has never even crossed your radar before now, ANTM = America’s Next Top Model

I’m all about the Shatner. I believe the man is an icon. His performance on Boston Legal sets a standard few could ever hope to achieve. Unfortunately, not even the Shatner can save this giant, stinking pile of $#*!.

In case you missed it, this comedy is supposed to be based upon the often hilarious twitter feed of the same name, and the book, both by Justin Halpern.  Some things simply do not translate.

This is one of those things.

William Shatner is the dad in question. The rest of the cast … who cares?   With any luck, this thing will be gone before it can irreparably damage their careers.  The Shatner will survive … the others may not.

My advice?  Watch The Big Bang Theory but keep your remote close at hand so you can tune away the moment Shit … um … $#*! begins.  They cancelled The New Adventures of Old Christine for this kind of shit?

Amazing.

$#*! My Dad Says airs Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on CBS.

My annual Top 10 list of Crap I Won’t Be Watching this Fall

1. America’s Next Top Model … Never have, never will.
2. The Apprentice … Ditto.
3. Survivor: Nicaragua/The Biggest Loser … Double Ditto.
4. 90210/The Gossip Girl … I honestly can’t tell the difference.
5. One Tree Hill … This is still on? Really?
6. Outlaw … NBC premiered this Friday drama on a Wednesday … I still didn’t watch. And I like Jimmy Smits.
7. Secret Millionaire … ABC can’t even figure out a premiere date for this one.
8. School Pride … Can’t seem to work up enough interest to figure out what the hell this one is.
9. Anything at All on Saturday Except My DVR … The Nets have given up on Saturday so I’ve decided to join them.
10. Dancing with the Stars … You’re not getting me this year, you bastards!!! Bristol and the Hoff? I’d rather die than let you get me …

New crap or old, dried up bunny droppings, here is a list of current series we really don’t need to see anymore anywhere:

1. The Jay Leno Show
2. Jon & Kate Plus 8 (or any variation of ‘plus’ anything)
3. Ugly Betty
4. 90210/Melrose Place
5. America’s Next Top Model
6. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
7. The Bachelor (or any variation of ‘bach’ anything)
8. The Biggest Loser
9. One Tree Hill
10. Project Runway

See, it’s not all ‘reality’ shows.  And I completely avoided anything from MTV and Bravo.  If not for the amazing fuster-cluck that is/was Jon & Kate, I could have skipped E! as well.  But those two are just evil human beings and it bugs the hell out of me that I even know who they are.

Here is your TeleVision from Hell Top Ten New Shows Not to Watch, 2009 Edition.

1. The Jay Leno Show, NBC
2. The Beautiful Life, CW – Canceled after just two episodes
3. Melrose Place, CW
4. Any and Every New Reality Show on Any Network
5. Eastwick, ABC
6. Hank, ABC
7. Accidentally On Purpose, CBS
8. Brothers, Fox
9. Romantically Challenged, ABC – Not on the schedule, but sounds HORRIBLE
10. 100 Questions, NBC – Not on the schedule

… a big rock.  Hell, drop a mountain on my skull, just don’t ever make me watch anything as dreadful as Meteor: Path to Destruction … ever.

I reviewed this thing last week after watching the first half.  As unbearable as those two hours had been, I felt compelled to see it through.  So last night I watched the final half.

This steaming pile of … rubble makes Armageddon look like Citizen Kane.  Long before the end of this thing, I was praying to the Glorious One That Is My TiVo that the giant monster rock from space would just hit the planet and obliterate us all.  My prayers were only partially answered when midway through they squashed Jason Alexander like a sweaty round bug.

I do however wonder if Jason requested to be killed off once he realized the horror he was perpetrating on the viewing public.  If so, though a relatively small mercy overall, I thank him for his sacrifice … and apologize for the bug remark.

It’s summer time and the networks are throwing whatever they can at us to see what stinks … er … sticks.  They’re busily burning off any leftover episodes of whatever series they long since decided to cancel and filling in the schedule with one reality show after another (I only watch the ones with incredibly gorgeous, impossibly athletic young women in very skimpy stripper outfits … aka So You Think You Can Dance).  But every once in a while, they do cobble together a little original programming … as long as they can do it on a budget.

So we get Meteor: Path to Destruction.  I guess the extra title is there to keep us from confusing this with Meteor, a disaster film from the late 1970s (early 80s?) staring Sean Connery.  Back when it first appeared, Meteor was critically panned.  Now, some might consider it a camp classic, a reasonable if not very good example of the disaster films of that era.

I really doubt this mini series “event” from NBC is ever going to be considered a classic of any sort by anybody.  Instead of Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Martin Landau, and Natalie Wood, we get Jason Alexander, Stacy Keach, Bill Campbell and Marla Sokoloff.  But I’m not going to fault the cast that this “disaster movie lite” is managing to fall below my own admitted low expectations.  They’re game enough, if not great.  Jason Alexander is somehow even slightly compelling in his role as the “in over his head science guy”.  Some of Stacy Keach’s efforts darn near brought a tear to my eye.  His threatening speech to a gun-nut would-be rabble-rouser  had me believing that this old, small town sheriff could disarm this foolish bumpkin and kill him with a seizure inducing stare without even scuffing his badge.

And so what if the costumes for any week of the afore-mentioned dance competition likely cost more than the special effects on display here.  I’ve been known to watch (and occasionally enjoy) the cheese-fest monster movie of the week on the Sci-Fi channel, rarely holding the lack of quality effects against them.  Every few minutes we get to see thousands of asteroids hurtling through space toward our helpless blue planet … or some kind of computerized Google Earth meets NORAD map thing zooming in on the west coast of the United States.  All the action happens here, by the way.  Yeah, there’s the ridiculous story line of the cute science gal trying to make her way here from Mexico with the vital piece of information required to save us all from certain doom, but the rest of the story all takes place in the good ol’ US of A.  Or, more precisely, in California.  The oft repeated (and I do mean oft) Google Earth special effect thingy is as close as we ever get to NORAD … or the Pentagon … or NASA for that matter.

There is, supposedly, some kind of critical time-line involved for this disaster, but good luck figuring that out.  Day becomes night becomes day at the whim of a seriously overpaid editor somewhere.  Most of the subplot story-lines are so far off the chart stupid as to not bother even mentioning.

Okay.  I just have to mention one.  Is there anyone, anywhere with worse luck than the cute science gal played by poor Marla Sokoloff?  Holy crap!  Every step this lady makes is plagued by mishap and misfortune … and at no time is she actually obliterated by a meteorite.  And by all that’s holey*, don’t let women drive them old trucks.  Not only will they not put gas in the damn things, they will also cause them to certainly overheat … a dual disaster that happens not once but twice … in just the first episode of the mini-series … to two different female characters.  And you just have to know that each time it happens, a fatal tragedy immediately follows.

And why is this thing in two parts?  Well, for one reason, they couldn’t call it a mini-series if it wasn’t.  But fortunately, there isn’t simply one giant Earth killing asteroid.  There’s two.  Ergo, part two.  See how that works?

That’s it.  I give up.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not giving this sad little mini-series anything close passing marks.  Yeah, I’m gonna watch how it all ends up next week.  Why?  Well, I guess there’s a unlucky, sad little cute science gal inside all of us.  We know it’s gonna be a hard, horrible road yet somehow we keep pressing on, regardless of the enormity of the disaster certainly about to befall us.

Meteor: Path to Destruction aired on NBC Sunday, July 12, and concludes the following Sunday at 9/8c.

*By all that’s holey … it’s a pun.  And I do apologize for it.

*sigh*

Did I just have my expectations too high for Knight Rider?  I was never overly impressed with the original, but I’m fairly sure it was better than this.  While critically panned, the made for TV movie was a ratings success last year.  I think both were right, the critics and the viewers.  The viewers saw the potential … the critics reported the reality.  Unfortunately, NBC and the writers and producers of Knight Rider only listened to the viewers and chose to completely ignore the reviews.

Even with a seemingly built-in audience for Knight Rider, you cannot excuse how very awful this show is.  Eye candy has its place.  I love candy.  But no one and no television series can exist on nothing but the sweet-stuff.  Except maybe CSI: Miami.

The car looks cool.   The leads look great and the supporting cast is kind of fun.  The sets are awesome and the special effects (mostly) very nice.  But then you swallow and get nothing for your efforts but a toothache.

The plot is mostly non-existent.  The super secret code is hidden in some guy’s DNA … but we slide right past that into a messed up sub-plot of amnesia and secret files and ghosts from the past.  The super duper car gets fire bombed but damned if the brilliant scientists can figure out how to put out the fire before our heroes get cooked … only we know that they will figure it out.  After a bit of gratuitous semi-nudity.

Hey, gratuitous and nudity always get my vote.  But gratuitous semi-nudity?  That’s wrong on so many levels.

The technology which should be the heart of any show like this is highly suspect.  Some of it works (the windshield HUD) but much more of it doesn’t (the transformation into a pick-up, eavesdropping on a speeding car).  Even the geeks are not going to buy most of this.  The ineffective editing doesn’t help sell the concept either.

I won’t say much about the performances … acting is hard to judge accurately when the writing (and directing and editing) is all so sad.  Some performances are worse than others; Justin Bruening as Mike Tracer makes the Hoff* look like Robert De Niro.

Knight Rider could have been something pretty cool.  It isn’t.  Pretty soon, the viewers are going to realize that and get on the same page as the critics.  When they do, it’s good night Knight Rider.

Knight Rider airs Wednesday on NBC at 8/7c.

*The Hoff is David Hasselhoff, star of the original series back in the 80′s.