A still frame cannot do this horror show justice

I realize there has been a lot written about the creepy, unsettling, and at times downright scary new show American Horror Story, but I am here to tell you there is a much creepier, more unsettling, even scarier new show on the air. It’s called Virgin Diaries and it is disturbing and unnerving on a whole new level. TLC is no stranger to making me queasy and filling me with the urge to cover my eyes to avoid whatever they’re showing on screen (Sister Wives recently featured a very special birth episode that was so downright creepy and weird it made the Twilight: Breaking Dawn birth scene seem normal),  but this new show takes the cake. And trust me, TLC has a lot of cake to give out, they have the Cake Boss and all his various spin-offs to provide them.

Virgin Diaries, without a doubt, is more cringe-inducing then all the Saw, Hostel and Human Centipede movies combined. Whether it’s a 35 year old virgin telling a woman on their first date that he is a virgin (much to her dismay) or 3 virgin roommates (well, one of them “reclaimed” her virginity, so that’s a total cop-out) making up lame parody songs about being virgins, this show made me audibly cringe about every 30 seconds. Ricky Gervais, take notes. None of the cringe-humor in the original Office even comes close to this. But the real stars of this episode are the couple who have never even kissed up until their wedding day. Somehow they must have avoided seeing anyone kiss ever, because boy oh boy do they not know how to do it. Check out the commercial below, with their horrifying kiss at the very end. And then count yourself lucky. They kept doing that throughout their reception. Over and over. Again and again. Nightmare inducing stuff. And let’s not even get into their post-wedding night discussion of their awkward first time…

Bam! Duggars!

We don’t do a lot of Duggar coverage ’round these parts. If you’ve heard of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, you’re probably familiar with them. Hell, if you’ve heard of some crazy people with 14, 15, 16, etc. kids, you’ve heard of the Duggars. Rarely does the brood do anything newsworthy or worth commenting on, but I’ll be damned if Michelle Duggar isn’t pregnant with baby #20! Her uterus tried to make a run for it with #19 (that poor little girl, by the way, who should be adopted out to a family who has TIME for a baby with developmental delays), but didn’t get very far before Michelle decided it was time for another go-round. Announced via The Today Show (per usual for the past…5 kids, maybe?), the newest J. Duggar is due in April 2012.

Previous Duggar children include: Joshua, twins Jana and John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn-Grace, and of course, Josie. Whew! Ovbs, the next will be Jesus, regardless of sex. The oldest is 23, the youngest (besides in utero) is nearly 2. Michelle is 45. Jim Bob is 46. The oldest Duggar grandchild is just over 2 years old.

Cringe. She’s been pregnant for 15 years! Save Michelle’s uterus! It’s the hardest working uterus in the biz (shove over, Angelina, you don’t even compare). It should have its own book deal, talk show, and private island!

The cast of Terra Nova and their dinosaur fence!

It’s that time again, faithful readers! Moving from the frivolous summer television schedule to the slightly less frivolous fall schedule! (Less frivolity due only to the excess of cop/law/medical shows premiering, of course) My stars, I love fall! It’s cold outside–why not watch some new and improved television? And how! Wanna know where to find me every day of the week, starting this month? Lemme break it down for you:

As of September 26th, Monday nights will see me tuning into Terra Nova, that new Fox/Steven Spielberg-produced vehicle, on at 8pm (who watches TV before 8pm? Unless you live in Central Time, I guess). It’s an ambitious, expensive concept: an ordinary family travels back in time to live in prehistoric Earth. Shenanigans ensue! As long as Terra Nova doesn’t get dragged down by it’s own hype, it should prove fascinating. You know, hopefully. I’m also rather intrigued by Hart of Dixie (Summer Roberts returns!) and The Playboy Club, but that one might get dumped pretty quickly. Oh well, there’s always Castle.

I have given up on How I Met Your Mother, because OBVIOUSLY Ted is never going to meet The Mother. I mean, BARNEY IS GETTING MARRIED before Ted meets The Mother!

Tuesday. Glee. Meh. New trainers on The Biggest Loser! Sarah Michelle Gellar returns at 9pm on Ringer on The CW–that’s where I’ll be! Welcome back, Buffy! Otherwise, Tuesday’s a bit of a wash for me without Pretty Little Liars. Come back soon, ladies!

Wednesdays are a bit delicious, with the All Star edition of America’s Next Top Model at 9pm (competing with Modern Family), and newcomers Revenge (revenge in the Hamptons! Yes! Stealthy!) and American Horror Story (with the wonderful Connie Britton) at 10pm. Pretty solid for Hump Day!

The Vampire Diaries and Community are a tough choice on Thursday evenings, and L.J. Smith, original author of The Vampire Diaries, has another show on The CW: The Secret Circle, which is about witches. You better believe I was all over that shizz as a teenager, so don’t be surprised if I live inside my television on Thursday nights. Otherwise, Maria Bello tries to fill Helen Mirren’s remarkable, amazing, enormous shoes on the American version of Prime Suspect. We’ll see.

If vampires, witches, sitcoms and cop shows aren’t your thing, there’s always the new Beavis and Butthead. Just sayin’.

Nikita kicks off The CW’s Friday evenings–is Alex now bad? Will we see lots more of deliciously evil Amanda? Will Shane West finally have the combat training he so desperately needs? New show Grimm, at 9pm on NBC, sounds pretty amazing, and the preview was no slouch either. Once Upon a Time (premiering at the end of October on ABC) seems…sort of similar? We’ll see which one survives.

Saturday is always a dud–I use mine for college football, but Sunday offers up the return of The Walking Dead, now with new showrunner, new writers, and new chaos! Pan Am, featuring Christina Ricci, pops up at 10pm. People keep calling it the Mad Men of the skies, so let’s hope it can rise above (rimshot!) that.

That’s where to find me–what are YOU looking forward to watching this season? Recommendations always welcomed!

By the way…has anyone caught any Big Sexy on TLC?

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ second season may not air

The end times are here! Just kidding. Well–possibly not kidding, for Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. It seems a large chunk of the plot of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills second season focused on the disintegration of Russell and Taylor Armstrong’s marriage, and with Russell Armstrong’s recent suicide, the future of the show is in doubt. Bravo honchos are not sure what to do with the season–whether they’ll run what they have, re-edit the footage, or scrap it all together. The season premiere is currently scheduled for September 5th, though that may change in light of the tragedy. Russell Armstrong’s family is considering suing Bravo, his sister is giving interviews about their childhood, and Taylor is planning his funeral. Perhaps it’s time for Taylor, at least, to step back out of the spotlight and give herself and her child some normalcy for a while.

Meanwhile, in 2 days, the Kardashian Dynasty will take a major blow, as Kim marries NBA baller Kris Humphries. New deets have come out about the enormous to-do at the Sotto Il Monte estate in Montecito, including Kim’s strict “no ‘plus-one’ policy,” choreographed first dance (oh, of course), and she had to uninvite 50 people due to fire code restrictions. The nerve! Maybe she should had her wedding at Dodger Stadium. Guests have to abide by a strict dress code (black or white only), go through metal detectors, and hand over cellphones at the door–no Facebooking during the ceremony, Justin Bieber! Oh, Kimstraveganza, it will be amazing! Who else would invite Venus and Serena Williams, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Lopez, and Kathy Lee Gifford to the same event? It’s an unusual group of people, is what I’m saying here. Who’s with me in counting down the days to the four hour Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event? October 9th and 10th, people! Keep up!

Finally: TLC has canceled both Kate Plus Eight and LA Ink. The reign of terror is over, people! Wait, what? 19 Kids and a Frightened Uterus is still on? And I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant Even Though I Gained 30 Pounds in 9 Months? Nevermind. Continue your downward spiral, TLC.

The Holy Trinity of teen cinema

There’s a new controversy brewing around the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, and this time it doesn’t even have anything to do with former star Charlie Sheen. In fact, it would appear somewhere out there is incredibly sick of seeing Sheen on their TV. A man in New York City was arrested after making multiple bomb threats to the TV station WPIX-11, claiming he would blow the studio up if they didn’t stop airing repeats of Two and a Half Men over and over at all hours of the day. That is some dedication to hating a sitcom.Obviously threatening to blow up anyone for any reason is awful, and it’s especially ridiculous when the heart of the matter is a dumb sitcom, but at the same time is this guy some kind of new folk hero? I think we may see more people follow in his footsteps, taking on the networks to try and force them to play less terrible programming. I know I’ll be starting a hunger strike to get less Cake Boss on TLC. I mean there are about 500 channels and On-Demand and DVR, but hey it’s the principle!

Speaking of terrible things getting way too much screen time, at the MTV Movie Awards last night you could barely go 30 seconds without seeing the cast of Twilight. Proving once and for all that the MTV Movie Awards are the anti-Oscars and that the up and coming generation is doomed, Twilight: Eclipse won the most awards of the night. Twilight swept the awards so well that it actually managed to win every award it was nominated for, including Best Picture of the Year. Do these people live on the same planet? I have to hope that 8 pale Twilight fans sat there clicking with their Taylor Lautner’s Abs shaped mouse to vote for that movie for weeks on end and that the MTV crowd doesn’t really think that is the best movie of the year. At least Emma Stone won for Best Comedic Performance in Easy A! Not all is lost.

Naturally Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart won for Best Kiss. I would have voted for Paul Stanley, but what do I know? (That was a KISS joke people!) The crowd was bummed when real life couple Robert and Kristen refused to kiss for them on stage, but Pattinson made up for it by running into the crowd to plat a man-on-man (or vamp-on-wolf) kiss on co-star Taylor Lautner. And with that, thousands of Twi-Hards saw their poorly written fan-fiction coming true. The dream is real girls! The dream is real!

Dedicated savers dumpster dive for coupons

This Sunday I decided to be lazy and hang around my apartment while doing some writing. I turned on the TV to put on something mindless to be background noise while I diligently typed away on my laptop. I flipped to TLC to check out this new show of theirs, Extreme Couponing. 4 hours later I hadn’t done any writing and I was still watching Extreme Couponing.

For those not in the know, Extreme Couponing is the latest reality show in TLC’s block of “Oh my god look at these weirdos” programming that includes Hoarding: Buried Alive, My Strange Addiction, Strange Sex and Sister Wives. Hell, they even have a show called The Unpoppables about people who make balloon art. TLC is supposed to stand for The Learning Channel, but every time I watch the show the only thing I learn is another reason why China is overtaking the United States in world power. These are Americans, and this is what Americans watch. And I am proudly one of those Americans.

The premise of Extreme Couponing is this: people who dedicate a good portion of their life to clipping coupons go to the store, buy obscene amounts of groceries, and then pay next to nothing for them. Almost every story on there is kind of sad, kind of awesome, and kind of makes you want to start hoarding coupons all at once. The awesome part comes at checkout, when the register is like a winning slot machine in reverse. Watching a bill of $700 dollars shrink down to $2.67 is pretty insane, and really does make you consider how much money you could be saving if you took the tips from these coupon masters and dedicated some time to it. That, of course, is where the sad part comes in.

These people spend hours upon hours of their life clipping coupons, calculating savings and forming shopping strategies. It’s not uncommon for them to plan for at least 2 fulls days and then shop for 7 hours at a time. Sometimes 2 or 3 of those hours are at the checkout, which the clerks obviously looovveee…. And then, back home, they turn every bit of space in their house into a stockpile of goods they may never even use but they couldn’t pass up. 78 bottles of mustard? Sure, that will come in handy.

But what I really learned from watching waaayyy too much Extreme Couponing in one day is that it’s not really about saving money. It’s the thrill of getting one over on “the man,” of sticking it to the big corporations that overcharge us. In this rough economic time, who wouldn’t want to  pull a fast one like this? Hell, at the end of every shopping trip they showed the store clerks and managers gathered around to applaud the clever couponers for robbing them blind. They work there and they’re ecstatic their employer just got ripped off! Even when a guy figured out a combo of coupons that resulted in Total cereal being free at the store, and then special-ordered 1100 boxes he walked away with for free, the clerks stood around cheering. The other shoppers join in, rooting for the savings to stack up as high as possible. And at home you do too. Seriously grocery store, $5 for a box of cereal? Are you serious? Steal it all, crazy coupon guy!

The auditions for the new Vatican TV show were more competitive than American Idol. But no need for voting with Papal Infallibility.

With reality stars like The Kardashians of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and Snooki of Jersey Shore building their own cult-like following, it make sense that religious figures would start getting jealous. And although some men of the cloth lash out at our modern deification of individuals just because a camera is pointed their way, some have another way of coping: join in!

Pastor Ted Haggard was the head of his own mega-church in Colorado, as well as leader of the National Association of Evangelicals (which has a measly 30 million members), but it all came to an embarrassing end after a scandal involving crystal-meth and a male prostitute. Pastor Ted stepped down immediately to work on his recovery and rebuilding his family, but he must have recently come to an important revelation during his quest for self-discovery: “working on yourself” don’t pay like a mega-church. So Ted is back in the spotlight with a 1 hour TLC special: Ted Haggard: Scandalous. The special (let’s be honest and call it the “test first episode of a new series” that it really is) will cover how Ted has dealt with his shameful downfall and the work he has been doing on a brand new church. I don’t know about you, but I think a special on the male-prostitute would probably be more interesting.

As for the other set of religious reality stars, how about the biggest hitters of them all?! No, not Tom Cruise and John Travolta, though a reality show about Scientology would be insane. We’re talking about the Vatican! Yep, the only religious group that has THEIR OWN CITY is teaming up with the Discovery Channel for the most awesome sounding show involving the Catholic church ever: The Exorcist Files. The show will focus on the hauntings and demonic possessions that the Catholic Church is asked to investigate and will feature religious experts and top Vatican officials. Although I’m sure most episodes won’t feature anything as exciting as a little green-skinned demon girl spinning her head around a projectile vomiting, it could still be a fun guilty pleasure show for when MonsterQuest isn’t on. Here’s hoping for a guest appearance by the Pope during sweeps week!

Palin/Gosselin, our 2012 presidential ticket?

When it was announced that Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin would be taking a family camping trip together in Alaska to cross-promote their TLC shows Kate Plus Eight and Sarah Palin’s Alaska, I warned that nothing good would come of it. Their powers would combine to create some sort of extremely polarizing version of Captain Planet designed only to have children, take over every possible media outlet and then complain about how the media is so unfair and won’t leave it alone. Ok, so the camping trip happened and it turns out I wasn’t 100% right. But something massively harmful to our world could spin out of it after all: Kate Gosselin has supposedly been inspired to run for office.

This is a crazy rumor, right? After all, Kate Gosselin doesn’t really have any political experience. All she has really done is produced a bunch of kids. The people who do know who she is are pretty split between hardcore supporters and people who hate her. She has a pretty spotty past as far as decisions and behavior, especially when…ok, this is starting to sound a bit familiar. As Kate supposedly said after camping with Sarah Palin, “If she can hold office, so could I.” Sadly that also applies to the entire film crew. And 6 of Kate’s kids. And the tents they used. Now if only Jon Gosselin would run against her! That would be a reality show!

Picking up another story I wrote about previously, former TV chef Juan-Carlos Cruz was sentenced to 9 years in prison for soliciting two homeless men to murder his wife, a task they luckily didn’t carry out. I assume after Juan’s show got canceled that being his gun-for-hire just wasn’t as thrilling as killing for Rachel Ray, for instance (I can only assume she has a personal squad of hitmen). Apparently Juan’s wife was suicidal, but because he is a strict and devout Catholic, he hired these men to kill her in order to spare her the mortal sin of suicide and the eternal hellfire that would await her. Wow, good excuse Juan. This is the same guy who ripped $100 bills in half and gave the homeless men half before the job and planned to give the other half after the job, to avoid them ditching. Quite the brilliant(ly ridiculous) scheme. This is why my favorite TV chef is Gordon Ramsay from Hell’s Kitchen, a man I believe would do the job himself. While swearing.

Mel and Oksana in happier times. I’d say they were a good Cliffhanger on my Stallone relationship chart

Sometimes I wish all people were as delightfully crazy as fictional characters like The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Or Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Or Gary Busey from life. He’s a CGI character by Lucas Arts, right? There’s no way he’s real. But no, instead we are stuck with this lot o’ kooks…

You may have missed the news, but apparently Mel Gibson has a few issues he needs to work out and his marriage to Oksana Grigorieva could be described as rocky at best. And by that I do mean Rocky V, the worst Rocky movie of them all. When it reaches Stop or My Mom Will Shoot level we’ll really know it’s over. Yes, I now characterize failing marriages with Sylvester Stallone films. Anyway, after releasing a string of horrible phone calls with Mel a few months back, Oksana has finally been interviewed by Larry King about her marriage. She claims that one evening Mel punched her repeatedly, choked her and brandished a gun at her. Whoa there Mel! That’s a Lethal Weapon! Even though Mel did this in front of Oksana’s 12 year old son, while she had their baby in her arms, she still got back with Mel for a brief time to give it another shot. I assume it was only because Gibson is so much easier to pronounce/spell than Grigorieva. Maybe it was worth it for the hassle she avoided making reservations? Oh that’s right, he’s a monster. Probably not.

On the other side of the celebrity spectrum, Tony Danza (yeah, he’s still around) recently had an outburst at the funeral of writer/friend Philip Carlo, where celebrities like Mickey Rourke and Chuck Zito were in attendance. Unhappy with the proceedings, feeling they were insufficient to memorialize his friend, Danza stood up and yelled at the Priest, kicking him off-stage and taking over with his own stories about Carlo. When the Priest demanded he take a seat, Danza responded “Who’s the Boss? Me!” Ok that last part didn’t happen, but how amazing would that be? The fact that Tony was so upset about his friend passing is sad, but come on, you don’t try and steal the spotlight at a funeral. Even if it is the only stage/spotlight that you still have access to. Tony’s career hasn’t faired so well, I think it might be “Who’s the Temp?” these days. The most amazing part? Tony Danza was the one to cause a crazy scene at an event with Mickey Rourke in attendance. Losing your touch Mickey!

And although this man isn’t a celebrity, he probably will be soon. Steven Cowan, a 66 year old man from Wisconsin, became so enraged by Bristol Palin moving on to the finale of Dancing With the Stars that he fired a shotgun into his TV in a fit of rage. See, I sit here and complain about Bristol Palin on a blog, but there are some heroes out there actually doing something about it. He then pointed the shotgun at his wife and demanded his pistols, presumably to go shoot smaller screens that might feature a Palin doing a salsa or quick-step, like an iPod touch or a laptop. Any properly trained electronics hunter knows you don’t need a high powered weapon for those (but you do need a seasonal permit). Let’s just hope this guy doesn’t watch TLC. If he stumbles upon Sarah Palin’s Alaska he could very well embark on a shooting spree.

A very confusing publicity still of the Palins. Fishing bikers who buy fancy PowerWheels and won’t stand too close to each other?

Over the weekend, the Palin family stormed our TVs with their new show Sarah Palin’s Alaska, which features Sarah and her entire brood exploring the scenic Alaska wilderness. Since the show is on TLC I thought a good name for the show might have been Sarah and Todd Plus God (Oh And Their Weirdly Named Children Too) but I guess they decided to focus in on the Alaska part. Their loss! You know what they didn’t lose? Viewers. The show was the highest rated premiere in TLC history with nearly 5 million viewers. Those numbers, plus the fact that some are calling the show a gigantic 2012 campaign ad, means this show has officially replaced 30 Days of Night as the most frightening piece of entertainment ever based in Alaska.

From the first note of the gloriously over the top Americana theme song I knew Sarah Palin’s Alaska would deliver some moments of heightened ridiculousness, and boy did it! The show is kind of a mix between a nature documentary and a reality show, which means one scene can be Sarah Palin hanging out with dog-sledders and the next can be her lecturing her daughter about bringing boys up to her room. Which, let’s be honest, was nice to see. That family doesn’t have the best track record on teen pregnancy. Though getting knocked up did get Bristol famous enough to be one of the top contestants on Dancing With the Stars, so maybe Willow should ignore mom and pop! Also, spoiler alert: Sarah Palin’s Alaska probably won’t be exploring the sex education classes or libraries of Alaska. Or at least the ones Sarah allowed to stay open while Governor.

It’s hard to choose a favorite moment, but it might have been when Todd and Sarah discussed the gigantic 14 foot fence they built around their house to stop the prying eyes of a reporter that moved in next door. Sarah thinks it’s a great example for how we could secure our nation’s borders. Yes, because illegal immigrants definitely won’t find their way around 8 Home Depot plywood fences nailed to each other! I’m really hoping Sarah(’s personal chef) spills some vegetable oil on the kitchen floor so she can come up with a good-ol folksy Alaskan way to clean up the BP oil spill too!

Sarah, who fancies herself a “Mama Bear,” also made sure to come in contact with a real mama bear on a fishing trip. For a few minutes after that I could only hear the show because my eyes were uncontrollably rolling. Surprisingly every animal Sarah has come into contact with so far in the Alaskan wilderness has escaped un-shot, but we still have 7 more episodes to go! She’ll be shooting up the scenery soon enough!

Enjoy a preview for the show below: