The Guilty Pleasure Television of 2010

TV Show: Pardon the Interruption

Network: ESPN

Cast: Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Tony Reali

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/p/pardon_the_interruption.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 10

Display Width: 200Pardon the Interruption
ESPN

They’ve been doing it so long that it’s like second nature. Give them a topic and they riff like old school stand-ups, routines and regular catchphrases peppering the always accurate (if occasionally, narrow) insights. Oh, and did we mention these guys are talking about sports? Indeed, for the last nine years, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon have gone bald head to head, arguing over such esoteric topics as the post-season baseball “hot stove”, the ever-present pressure of big money in athletics, and perhaps most importantly, the various player personalities that make up America’s many past times. Within their gimmicky set-up (they occasionally take “Five Good Minutes” for an interview, and play games with names like “Word Up” and “Report Card”), the duo delivers that rarity in real TV, passion and personality. Oh, and did we mention they are talking about sports? Bill Gibron

 

TV Show: The Apprentice

Network: NBC

Cast: Donald Trump

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/t/the-apprentice.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 9

Display Width: 200The Apprentice
NBC

There wasn’t much edification in the 10th season of The Apprentice even though iron-eyed winner Brandy Kuentzel gave us something to root for. A season that gasped along on life support was, however, precisely what made the show entertaining. In fact, this season’s ratings nosedive was complemented by a parade of grade-D tantrums, as every boardroom showdown came within a credit-card width of full-blown fisticuffs. And the Donald acted thoroughly pissed off about having to participate — calling the female team “bitches” and yelling, “You couldn’t f*cking read!” at another contestant before shit-canning him to the elevator. The show was a cabwreck from start to finish, with one hopeful, Anand, fired at the beginning of an episode (for cheating, an Apprentice first) and with the morbid fascination of watching David Johnson, the biggest jackass in the show’s history. Steve Leftridge

 

TV Show: The Goldbergs

Network: NBC/DVD

Cast: Gertrude Berg, Philip Loeb, Harold J. Stone, Robert H. Harris, Eli Mintz, Larry Robinson

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/t/thegoldbergs_ultimate.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 8

Display Width: 200The Goldbergs
NBC/DVD

You don’t have to be Jewish to love The Goldbergs, and you don’t have to be a fanatic for old-time television either. Originally broadcast 1949-1956, The Goldbergs is still enjoyable to watch today. The show’s episodes capture the reality of life in a working-class Jewish family in the Bronx in a way recognizable to strivers everywhere, regardless of ethnicity or geographic location. Family matriarch Molly Goldberg, played by series creator and scriptwriter Gertrude Berg, embodies the distilled essence of a real type of person — the Jewish mother who is the emotional center of her family and the go-to person when anyone has a problem. Molly is a stereotype, but she’s a comforting one, and Berg projects the kind of warmth and sincerity which makes you feel that she could also solve your problems if you gave her a chance. Sarah Boslaugh

 

TV Show: Criminal Minds

Network: CBS

Cast: Joe Mantegna, Thomas Gibson, Paget Brewster, Shemar Moore, Matthew Gray Gubler, Kirsten Vangsness

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/c/criminal-minds1.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 7

Display Width: 200Criminal Minds
CBS

As far as so-self-serious-they’re-hilarious crime procedurals go, CSI: Miami and the overwrought David Caruso get most of the love, but for my money, Criminal Minds rules the roost. As awful as it can be, I continue to stomach its slick mediocrity for the reliable comedic fixes. I return for the contrived last-minute rescues, the ludicrous interpretive leaps, the pretentious literary quotes, the incorrect weekly assumption that the “unsub” is impotent. And that wonderfully mismatched cast! The washed-up comic-actor leads Thomas Gibson and Joe Mantegna, their line deliveries so monotone they border on Method. Shemar Moore’s aggressive, over-compensatory masculinity. Kirstin Vangsness’ aggressive, over-compensatory quirkiness. And Matthew Gray Gubler’s ambling, nasal-talking personification of geek cred bait. An impending spin-off with Forest Whitaker and Janeane Garofalo threatens to siphon off its vital oxygen, but the original fire will always burn brightest and best (by which I mean corniest and worst). Ross Langager

 

TV Show: Say Yes to the Dress

Network: TLC

Cast: Roger Craig Smith

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/s/say-yes-to-the-dress-big-bliss-0.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 6

Display Width: 200Say Yes to the Dress
TLC

Brides-to-be tune into TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress, a reality show that takes place at the tony Kleinfeld’s bridal salon in Manhattan, for the sheer thrill of seeing a barrage of thousands-of-dollar dresses paraded across the screen. Mermaid, fit-and-flare, A-line, and ball gown confections float across the screen, and home viewers have the guilty pleasure of critiquing gowns that they might never afford to try on in the first place. “This one is too over-the-top,” you might think. “The first one flattered her figure better.” Yet even after the excitement of seeing new Pnina Tornai and Vera Wang gowns has waned, it’s still mesmerizing to see the way that women sell to other women. Other television shows — The Apprentice, for example — celebrate the hard-hitting, hard-sell approach that men take with each other in business. It’s much more rare to see the approach that female saleswomen take with female clients, and observing those intricate operations is the true guilty pleasure of Say Yes to the Dress. Marisa LaScala

 

5 – 1

TV Show: Wipeout

Network: ABC

Cast: John Anderson, John Henson, Jill Wagner

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/a/abc-wipeout.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 5

Display Width: 200Wipeout
ABC

Wipeout barreled into its third season as an ABC summer staple. It’s such a fixture now that the network aired it twice a week all summer long. That familiarity hasn’t diminished the show’s guilty pleasures at all. Lots of folks just don’t get it, but there’s something about watching a mixture of skilled and hapless contestants attempt to get through obstacle courses that are simultaneously ridiculous and difficult. We may laugh at the wipeouts, but there’s a thrill in the triumphs, too. It’s impressive when someone manages to get across the big balls without falling. And Wipeout‘s producers are dedicated to keeping viewers (and contestants) on their toes, updating the courses each season with plenty of new obstacles. Wipeout is TV’s guilty pleasure that keeps on giving. Chris Conaton

 

TV Show: American Idol

Network: Fox

Cast: Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi, Ellen DeGeneres

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/a/american-idol11.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 4

Display Width: 200 American Idol
Fox

Fans decried the ninth season’s Top 24 as the weakest Idol gang ever, a critique that proved even more troubling when voters jettisoned some of the show’s most promising singers (Lilly Scott, Katelyn Epperly) in early episodes in favor of the likes of Yoda-faced Aaron Kelly and planet-sized Michael Lynche, who overstayed their welcome for weeks. At the end of it all was the crowning of Lee DeWyze, one of the biggest shrugs in Idol history. Afterwards, DeWyze immediately went into the Witness Protection Program. The real story, though, were the judges, as the panel swelled to four, among them an unmusical comedienne who ran out of jokes after two episodes. It was a judge-panel chemistry so abysmal that only one of them remains for next season, and even Simon’s big send-off was emotionally frigid. Yet, dammit to hell, we still couldn’t resist, remaining glued to every Siobhan Magnus-opus and Crystal Bowersox-rocking. And if any interest waned, do you think we’re not tuning in for the Steven Tyler era? Dream on. Steve Leftridge

 

TV Show: 16 and Pregnant

Network: MTV

Cast: Various

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/1/16_and_pregnant.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 3

Display Width: 200

16 and Pregnant
MTV

MTV’s docu-drama 16 and Pregnant evokes the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures: schadenfreude. “No matter what troubles I’ve gotten to in my lifetime,” the viewer may think, “at least I didn’t get pregnant when I was 16”. And, as callous as that may seem, it’s exactly the mission of the series. 16 and Pregnant doesn’t glamorize pregnancy and teen motherhood. Instead, it lays bare a thoroughly un-romanticized reality, full of painful labors, strained and broken relationships, the tedium and expense of raising children, and unrealized potentials and goals. Sure, the series regulars may become tabloid celebrities, but, given the choice, I’m sure that not many 16 and Pregnant fans would want to swap lives with one of its stars. Marisa LaScala

 

TV Show: Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives

Network: Food Network

Cast: Guy Fieri

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/g/guyfieridiners.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 2

Display Width: 200Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives
Food Network

There’s nowhere else in the multichannel universe that a viewer can find visceral gratification more quickly than the Food Network, and none of its shows hits the common gourmand’s sweet spot quite like Diners, Drive-In and Dives. If one can overcome grotesque host Guy Fieri (he of the spiked hair, the asshole shirts, and the disconcerting habit of resting his unused shades on the back of his neck), one is rewarded with a whirlwind tour of All-American cuisine in all its repellent attractiveness. Stopping in at two or three down-home dives per episode, Fieri profiles the joints that have made the American epicurean landscape into an impassable range of carbohydrate peaks. The food is undoubtedly bad for you, but for a fleeting second, it just seems so good, and isn’t that the very definition of a guilty pleasure? Ross Langager

 

TV Show: The Vampire Diaries

Network: The CW

Cast: Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Steven R. McQueen, Sara Canning, Katerina Graham, Candice Accola

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/e/e-diaries-season-2-out-this-september-2010-208×300.jpg

Display as: List

List number: 1

Display Width: 200 The Vampire Diaries
The CW

Loosely based on a series of L.J. Smith young adult novels penned a good decade before Twilight was a “sparkly” drop of blood in Stephanie Meyers’ eye, The Vampire Diaries’ writing team of Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson (of Dawson’s Creek fame) one-upped the books, adding new characters and plot twists to the pre-existing mythos. Set in Mystic Falls, VA — a fictional town populated with vampires, werewolves and witches; each involved in their own often-overlapping and oddly compelling love triangles — the show features the right amount of sex appeal and impressive depth and character development from an ensemble cast of young actors who have rapidly improved in the span of less than a season. Ian Somerhalder alone makes the show worth watching for his addictive portrayal of anti-hero Damon Salvatore. He alternates between waggling his eyebrows in a display of unabashed camp and reveling in his vampiric villainy, then makes you empathize for him as he pines over Elena (Nina Dobrev), the human girlfriend of his estranged brother Stefan (Paul Wesley). Screw True Blood. The Vampire Diaries is the true successor to Buffy. Lana Cooper