TV: This and that

I've written before about how disappointed I've been with the last two seasons of The Amazing Race. I actually stopped watching the show this season, because, despite the fact that I still think it's the best reality show on the air, there wasn't a single team that I wanted to win. Lately, the casting directors have gone overboard in casting villains (including this year's despicable Jonathan and Victoria) and have neglected to cast any real good guys. And so I gave up on the show. I can't invest myself in a competition where I just don't care who wins.

Well, that may have changed with the seventh edition of TAR, debuting March 1 (jeez, give the game a rest between installments, why don't you?). This week it was announced that one of the competing teams will be Amber and Boston Rob, of Survivor fame.

I also gave up on Survivor this last season, but before that I was a big fan. And the unlikely romance between Amber and Rob was one of the all-time highlights of the series. I can't wait to see how their partnership works within the framework of TAR, where Rob's scheming and Amber's... um... well, I'm sure she had some skills, other than flirting with Rob enough for him to carry her to the end... their particular skills won't be anywhere near the advantage that they were on Survivor. You lost me, TAR, but you've pulled me back in!

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Point Pleasant was pointedly unpleasant. How's that for a headline, Entertainment Weekly?

I'd like to say I expected more from executive producer Marti Noxon, formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. But every single advance review made me realize that I wasn't in for a new classic. So I had low expectations, and Point Pleasant completely failed to meet them.

So there's this gal who washes up in the waters off Point Pleasant. She seems nice enough, but it turns out she's half-devil. Isn't that always the way? Yes, daddy is Satan himself. But she doesn't seem to know that -- she just knows that weird stuff happens around her, like, beach bonfires explode with fireballs if some girl gets bitchy with her. And then there's a bunch of bland, dopey Abercrombie & Fitch models making up the rest of the cast, shooting googly eyes at one another when they're not actively bed-hopping.

It seems like the show is going for an O.C.-meets-the-supernatural kind of vibe -- the show even airs immediately following The O.C. But rather than sexy and campy, it's sleazy and stupid. Which, frankly, is a relief to me -- that's one less TV show for me to watch!

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I've become hooked on Joey, for unexpected reasons. The two characters I was least interested in when I wrote about it for Forces of Good (which hopefully will be relaunching soon!), Joey's neighbor/landlady Alex and nephew Michael (Andrea Anders and Paulo Costanzo), have now become the most interesting characters. Matt LeBlanc's Joey is going through all the same motions he went through on Friends, and Drea De Matteo as his sister Gina got old real fast. While they've grown stagnant, Alex and Michael have developed, if slightly -- she's gotten tougher, he's grown less naive. And they're both nicer and smarter than Joey or Gina, which makes them easier to connect with. And the way the show often pairs them (as the secondary characters they are) together in sideplots makes me wonder if the writers shouldn't be aiming for a romance between them in the long run, rather than between Alex and Joey (which is the way the show originally was leaning).

Also, there have been some great guest appearances, from a surprisingly funny Lucy Liu, to Michael's nerd idol Brent Spiner, to Beth Littleford as the unwitting Alex's lesbian date, to Ben Falcone as neighbor Howard, Joey's hilarious, hyper-enthusiastic fan. In a recent episode, he wanted to apply to be Joey's assistant. Didn't he already have a job? Joey asked. "I'm vice president of the third largest bank in California," Howard immediately responded. Later in the episode, Joey refused to allow Howard to tag along with him on an errand, telling him he was going to drop him off at the bank instead. Howard pouted, "Aw, I hate that place!!"

With all the solid turns from supporting characters, Joey is becoming a reliably funny sitcom. Too bad they can't do something with that Joey guy.

TV: The case of the missing actress

As you may or may not know (well, you'd know if you'd read my article at forcesofgood.com), the original, unaired pilot episode of Joey had a different actress in the role of Joey's neighbor/landlady. The producers replaced her and reshot her scenes before the pilot debuted.

Last night, NBC repeated that pilot episode. And the new actress (Andrea Anders is her name) was MIA. The two scenes in which she had appeared (one toward the beginning, in which she first meets Joey, and one at the end, where she reveals to Joey that she's married) were cut completely out of the show.

Man, that does not bode well for her future with the show.

This mysterious retooling of an already aired show is right up there with Spin City. Do you remember in the first season, Michael J. Fox had a live-in girlfriend, played by Carla Gugino? Gugino was abruptly written out of the show (midway through that first season, if I'm not mistaken). ABC later reran one of the episodes she had been in -- only she wasn't in it anymore. Not only had her scenes been cut, the other cast members actually filmed additional, brand-new scenes to fill up the missing time. They made her an unperson.

I wonder if this new version of the Joey pilot is the first subtle step towards erasing Anders from existence, too.