That’s what they should call it. Forget the makeover. It’s all about the tears. My wife and I have made a habit of watching ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on Sunday nights. Tonight it trumped the season premiere of The Simpsons, despite my objections.
The show started last season as Trading Spaces on steroids, where they hyped the conflicts between designers and tried to showcase as much run away creativity as possible. But this year they’ve gotten the formula right and focused on heart-breaking stories of families that could really use a break. The editing focuses on how the home improvements make life easier on the family. Gone are the personal conflicts and creativity run amok. Now it’s all about these heart breaking stories. This week was a family of deaf parents with a blind and autistic son. Last week was a family of three in New York who had been cheated by a contractor who started work on their house and left it unfinished. A few weeks ago saw a family with a child who was allergic to the sun. A few weeks before that was an enormous family with something like nine kids where the mom had died.
The home improvements are cool, but what really sells the show are the thousands of people who come together and turn a family’s life around, not simply by raising their roof (literally) and packing their home to the rafters with material goods, but by giving them hope. It makes the commercial tie-ins (which in reality are the motivating factor behind the show) seem absolutely brilliant. Sears couldn’t get as much mileage from a Super Bowl commercial as they do from a total weepfest they made possible.
But what really throws the whole thing is the next show in ABC’s line-up: Desperate Housewives.
On Saturday, October 2 Nickelodeon will go off the air for a day to promote physical activity. The popular children’s cable channel will go silent all day Saturday in an effort to get kids and their families playing as part of the Worldwide Day of Play.
But on Nickelodeon’s web site hyping the day for kids there’s little mention of the blank screens they’ll find come Saturday. Maybe it’s just too hard to admit.
TV networks are finally catching the wave of religiously-aware entertainment that’s been successful in other media, including Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, The Left Behind series, The DaVinci Code, The Prayer of Jabez, and a few dozen music groups including P.O.D., Switchfoot, Sixpence None the Richer and more. Faith is finally getting air time on TV in shows like Joan of Arcadia, Tru Calling and others. There have been exceptions in the past, like 7th Heaven and Touched By an Angel, but as a whole networks are realizing that there’s no separation of church and primetime. NBC is planning two spiritual dramas, Medium and Revelations, described as “an apocalyptic thriller featuring Bill Pullman as a scientist racing to thwart Armageddon.”
You get the idea: TV is on DVD. Cable no longer has a stranglehold on the rerun market. Cough up $45 and you can watch a season of your favorite series on your own time, with no commercials, as often as you want. No more waiting for sweeps week for plots to boil or planning dinner around the TV schedule. DVD is making on demand TV possible.
The DVD revolution raises a lot of questions about the future of television. DVD buying habits have already brought one series back from cancellation (Family Guy). You also have to wonder about the future of commercials as consumers get used to TV without them — which raises the question of how the money is made. It’s also a technological quandry as DVD became a widely accepted platform in record time. How long will DVD last, and how long before piles and piles of 6-disc sets overcome America’s family rooms and someone develops a device that will do to DVDs what the iPod did to CDs?
In the meantime, cancel my cable TV and bring on Buffy.
And if you’re not so sure about this whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer thing, the interview includes a pretty decent explanation of the spiritual themes in Buffy, and why it’s worth watching even though the Parents’ Television Council called it the worst show on TV.
Angel went off the air last night, ending new TV installments to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe. But the series will live on in unending products and as a pop culture phenomenon.
There’s definitely a lot in the shows to tackle. I particularly like James Marsters’ (who plays Spike) comments about the end of Angel: “Being a hero doesn’t mean you succeed in saving the day. It just means you tried.” The quote is that much better having caught the last ten minutes of Angel last night.
OK, M&Ms have their color back. In case you noticed the freaky black and white M&Ms and a stupid marketing stunt, it’s over. Last night they aired some funky new commercials with the tagline that “Chocolate is better in color.”
But forget the consumer ‘buy chocolate’ mentality. Check out the flat-out coolness of that commercial. The candy rolling around like waves and exploding in color? Pretty freaking cool. But what I really want to know is where can I get that “color my world” song? Props to M&Ms for a cool commercial (I stopped fast-forwarding to watch), but big bust on not making the song readily available (web search and visit to the M&Ms site came up empty — sorry you lose, customer dissatisfied).
In an earlier post I mentioned a campaign to bring the TV show Freeks and Geeks to DVD. Apparently it worked.
However, there will be two versions available: The $120 Limited Edition set, which comes in a special yearbook with two extra DVDs of extras, and the $70 normal version (which is available at Amazon.com for $48.99).
Even the normal edition is a bit pricey for 18 episodes, but it’s a good show. Word on the street is that the licensing for the music included is what drove up hte price.
A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.
On Saturday, October 2 
The TV to DVD conversion continues as old and new favorites hit the market. This week 1980s classics