Couch Tomato: Box Office? Poison!

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (2)

STUPID WRITERS' STRIKE.

The "House" Christmas episode is aired at the butt-end of January; "Ugly Betty," "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" are back so sporadically I miss every single episode and have to give half my savings to ABC via iTunes.

The only saving grace of this season is catching a few minutes of a reality-dating-competition show in which a magical phrase is used. A stripper looks into the camera and accuses a fellow contestant of being "the biggest [rhymes with flicktrucker doorwag] in the house."

Welcome, ladies and germs — and ladies with germs — to "Rock of Love With Bret Michaels" (Sundays on VH1).

Bret Michaels, you old-timers will recall, was the lead singer of a Los Angeles hair-metal band when lipstick was de rigeur at the Rainbow on Sunset — nineteen eighty-ought-eighty-nine or so. If you've ever made out with a total stranger to "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," you have experienced the spell-casting qualities of formerly the hot frontman and his power-ballad passion.

Well, it seems Bret is flying solo these days and, having lost his career and, allegedly, his hair (the cowboy hat/bandanna look is hiding something, or rather nothing), is in search of a soulmate to "feel a personal connection with."

VH1 held up a hand to its ear, sensing a washed-up rock star moaning about his personal life and in need of a career rev, and answered the call.

Hence, the greatest reality dating show of all time.

Season One just came to an end, but it is, by all accounts, must-see-DVD. The finale went fantastically limp when the skanky broad Bret chose dumped his ass on live TV, so Season Two has kicked off with another set of desperate actresses, porn actresses (you think I'm kidding? No links here; they are most def NSFW) and get-on-TV wannabes (Hello again, Megan of "Beauty and the Geek"!) jostling for Bret's attention by giving him the gynecological Full Monty at a relatively sedate burlesque joint, ironing half-naked, doing The Robot and trying to protect a "Baby Bret" doll from being punched in the face by last season's aforementioned flickbucker soremag.

And we're only three episodes in.

The apocalyptic skankiness of the "ladies" is the biggest draw. These bitches make the contestants on "Flavor of Love" look like debutantes.

There's Peyton, a torn-down piece whose cigarette-ravaged throat needs only a couple thousand more smokes before she actually becomes Marianne Faithfull. There's Kristy Joe, with one divorce behind her and an annulment on the way — she's kinda still married — and she's really hoping the restraining order will stick. (She's the prettiest, most demure one.)

There is Whozits, the girl who got so blitzed at the first-night party in the house that she was passed out through the elimination ceremony and had to be woken the next morning and told "Your tour ends here," to which she voice-overed, while rolling her sad suitcase out the front doors, "I'm a nice girl, I'm a smart girl. But apparently I'm also a blackout-drunk girl."

Self-knowledge! Personal growth! That's what it's all about.

There are plastic duck-lips like you would not believe; enhancements right up to the chin; tattoos, like, whoa; an enormous female person whom Bret calls "my Ukranian love tank"; a girl named Destiney, a girl named Ambre, a girl named Aubry.

Oh, and the pittmucker floorsag?

That nom de guerre was bestowed upon her during the "Meet the Parents" episode, whereupon her creepy dad (who directed the horrible music video on her Web site) promptly trotted off to poor Bert to ask him whether it was true. Yes, Dad asks Washed-Up Lipstick Rocker whether his daughter has been, uh, favoring him nightly. You don't see that on "The Bachelor."

Fun With Jack and Kate

In serious TV news, "Lost" is back, and no one except those Internet weirdos knows what's going on. And they're probably wrong.

So in the interest of maintaining the tone of the facetious pop-up commentary in Wednesday night's rerun of last season's finale (got that?) that was useless to a) the Internet weirdos, who have not lost faith and b) the newbies, who aren't going to be sufficiently up to speed despite the coy, mincing explanations of such Season One hits as Crazy Danielle, the Black Rock pirate ship and the utterly fascinating Jack-Kate-Saywer triangle, herein, a simplistic recap of the last episode of the last season, just in time for the first episode of the new season.

None of which is happening in any space-time continuum that makes sense to me.

But...

I forget how good this show is when it's off the air making me furious. And it isn't that hard to follow, unless you totally forgot about Naomi, like I did.

See Jack drink. Drink, Jack, drink. Jack is flying. He loves flying now. Whee! Jack is a loser pillhead. Someone has died and Jack is sad. Pills can mute the pain, Jack. Jack pretends to be a doctor again, but no one will let him. You can't fix everyone, Jack. Pills, pills, pills.

See Jack lead the Losties through the jungle. Trudge, trudge, trudge. They are going to find a radio tower because they trust Naomi. Dumb, Losties, dumb.

See Charlie bloody. Yay, Charlie is bloody. He has embraced his destiny. His destiny is to die. Die, Charlie, die.

Sayid is hot. Hot, hot, hot. He and Bernard and Jin fend off Others. They are captured. Oopsie, Sayid, Bernard and Jin. Others pretend to kill Sayid, Bernard and Jin, but they are wussies. Cry like little girls, Others, cry. Then die when Hurley saves the day. Yay, Hurley!

Ben and Alex go after the Losties. Manipulate, Ben, manipulate. Jack has Ben tied up and Alex meets Danielle. Crazy runs in the family, Alex! Medicate, Alex, medicate.

See Desmond get shot at by Patchy. Dive, Desmond, dive. See weak females in Station Looking Glass give Charlie the code to turn off the Others' jamming device. Beach Boys, Charlie. See Charlie fulfill his destiny. Charlie crosses himself — and Arion cries. Cry, soft-hearted blogger, cry!

Walt saves Locke. Live, Locke, live. Live to foil Jack's plans and shoot Naomi. But the call goes through. Hello, normal people on the other end of the line, hello! They'll be there in a jiff. Did you know that Locke is the name of a prominent philosopher?

See FutureJack tell FutureKate they have to go back to the island. See FutureKate look at FutureJack like he's a crazy drunken pillhead. Run, FutureKate, run!

It's all about science vs. faith, see, and faith has a gun. I'll be back soon with an update on the Season Four debut, which was almost as entertaining as the Barak-Hillary debate.