So. The unintentionally hillarious (when they’re not maddening) Parents’ Television Council unleashed their latest report

If you’ve read the full report before, this year’s one will be very familiar since they, apparently, only bother to write about shows that weren’t in previous reports. Otherwise they just take last year’s write-up and add new pictures to look current. That means, once again, the full report (PDF warning) contains these sentences about Survivor that always mystifies me:

During one episode, two female contestants stripped naked during a challenge in exchange for chocolate cookies and peanut butter. Although the nudity was pixilated, it was captured on tape and broadcast into millions of homes.

Now I get that the PTC thinks that pixelated nudity is still bad. I can agree with them on that… but that is one oddly phrased sentence. I mean that moment from the show was bad because it involved the host bribing two women to strip, but that part isn’t brought up. Yet, the PTC seems to ojbect to the scene being recorded (which is a strange objection to make about reality TV) and broadcast (isn’t that what they’re complaining about in every case?)

Survivor, overall, has plenty of pixelated nudity and it looks for ways to get its titillating moments (like this current season which left cast members with nothing to wear but their underwear for weeks) so to see that one incident mentioned year after year just feels strange.

I also found this bit about Heroes oddly worded:

Don’t be fooled by the title of the show, however. These are not your archetypical comic book heroes who fight for truth, justice and the American Way. One “hero,” Niki Saunders…her alter ego randomly takes over her mind and body and is committing unspeakable acts of violence and sexual deviance.

Uhm, wha? Okay, aside from sleeping with Nathan what sexual things has Jessica done? Which ones were “unspeakable acts of… sexual deviance”? And, once again, shouldn’t they be a little concern about serial killer Sylar or the cold-blooded killer who’s a loving father the rest of the time?

Also oddly worded, this warning about sexual themes on House:

Several episodes have contained sexual content. In one episode, for example, a young man falls ill during sex and explicit dialouge about the possibilities of dying as a result of kinky sex followed. In another, a teenage model suffereing from a mysterious condition claims to have seduced her father and manager. Doctors later discover that she is a hermaphrodite with testicular canceer.

So, uhm, are they saying that having an intersexed patient (who says “hermaphordite” anymore?) is the same as one who is injured during kinky sex? Not having seen the episode, maybe it was handled in a salacious way, but the way it’s written it sounds like the PTC finds the patient’s intersexed nature to be as appalling as the incest.

To be fair to the PTC, they seem to have moved away from the days when acknowledging the existence of gay people was worth raising alarms. Their warning about The Amazing Race could have objected to the show’s frequent casting of same-sex couples. Still, the PTC seems to have a bigger problem with sex than violence, as they usually do.

Just to be clear, I have no problem with giving parents descriptions of television shows that might warn them about the kind of content their kids could be exposed to, I just keep shaking my head at how the PTC keeps doing such a bad job of it. Overall, I think kids-in-mind.com does a far better job of trying to inform parents.

6:00 PM The Haunting (Turner Classic Movies)

If I scoured the schedules of every movie channel with the “classic” in its name and this is the only thing I like, does that make me overly picky? (Keeping in mind, slasher films don’t work for me… they just don’t really grab me the way a ghost story does.)

8:00 PM Pushing Daisies (ABC)

Hey who was just thrilled to hear “Birdhouse in Your Soul” performed on network television? If the next thirteen episodes are this good (and Fuller manages to introduce another well-written gay character) this might just might ease the Wonderfalls obsession.

10:02 PM Dirty, Sexy Money (ABC)

Carmelita finally returns tonight! Yay, a character I can cheer for, instead of just find interesting.

10:30 PM The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)

I would so watch “Cookie Party” if it didn’t have such obnoxious contestants.

Well, I just upgraded my WordPress and obviously something’s broken…

(Aw, gee, where did my blogroll go? I wasn’t expecting that at all.)

It’s been a busy week….

• Say it ain’t so, Fox options the chance to Americanize Spaced. Look, I could see an American-made Spaced working, just not at the hands of the network that considered Kirstie Alley as a suitable replacement for Dawn French.
• Lisa Fortuner smartly analyzes the double standard of how sex and violence is mixed in comics. Unsurprisingly, the comments turn to the expected “WiR says that nothing bad should ever happen to female characters… ever!” and “White male characters get hurt, too!” Gah, I hate comic readers sometimes.
• The upcoming B-52’s album, Funplex was heavily influenced by New Order’s Get Ready. I’m stoked since I loved Get Ready.
• Hooray for the return of Hero Happy Hour!
• Okay Bill Doughty has the second-best description I’ve ever heard for Death Note. (I still love referring to it as “Profit if it had been conceived by Rod Serling.”)

8:00 PM How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

John Cho appears in tonight’s episode… even though his storyline follows Marshall, I’m hoping we’ll get a mini-Harold and Kumar reunion… and wouldn’t this be the perfect place to debut the TV spot for the Harold and Kumar sequel?

8:30 PM Aliens in America (The CW)

Normally, I’d be rolling my eyes at tonight’s plot, with Raja taking a job at a convenience store, but Aliens has already built up a good track record with subverting stereotypes. I’ll give this one a chance.

9:00 PM Heroes (NBC)

So. Is no one shocked (oops, no pun intended) that Kristen Bell pulled off a bad guy with aplomb? I can’t wait to see more of her.

9:32 PM Samantha Who? (NBC)

Despite the mixed reviews, I’m really loving this series. There’s a balance in tone being achieved here that reminds me of the early episodes of My Name is Earl, managing to be mean and sarcastic while also having its sweet and heartwarming moments.

10:00 PM Journeyman (NBC)

It’s the Halloween episode! I wonder if this show will be the slightest bit realistic and show how it’s impossible to go anywhere in San Francisco that night?

In case you hadn’t heard, Marie Osmond fainted on the set of Dancing with the Stars, recently, and commented that one contributing factor might have been the wildfires currently burning in SoCal. That’s inspired snarky commentary scoffing at the idea (with some commenters suggesting that Osmond is making light of the disaster by finding a way to make them about her).

All that’s just annoying me to pieces since I lived in SoCal when Malibu was threatened by wildfires in the early 90s. Think of it, huge fires throwing plenty of smoke in the atmosphere without stop, eventually it gets bad enough that, even an hour’s drive away your lungs feel like you’ve been in a smoke-filled room for hours. Breathing that much smoke for anything longer than a couple days really takes it’s toll on you.

Yeah, it’s been a crazy week…

8:00 PM My Name is Earl (NBC)

Tonight, conjugal visits! Eh, I’m sure they’ll make it funny.

8:00 PM Ugly Betty (ABC)

It’s a hot nerdy Christopher Gorham wearing just boxer briefs. Do I need anything more?

8:30 PM 30 Rock (NBC)

Carrie Fisher makes a guest appearance tonight, as a writer that Liz Lemon idolized. Carrie Fisher and Tina Fey together, I couldn’t be happier.

9:00 PM The Office (NBC)

Dunder Mifflin asks its regional offices to contribute to the company’s next ad… you can just guess what happens next.

9:00 PM Supernatural (The CW)

10:00 PM It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (fx)

Just going on the episode title, “Dennis looks like a registered sex offender” this one sounds good.

Okay, so Bionic Woman which kept getting recorded mostly due to the spouse’s interest got killed by his new Oblivion addiction.

8:00 PM Pushing Daisies (ABC)

Okay, wow. Last week’s episode, the first one without director Barry Sonnenfield, was the second coming of Wonderfalls I hoped to find. I loved the forward motion in this episode, too, with Olive figuring out Chuck’s secret, just as Raul Esparza’s pharmecutical salesman comes to town.

8:00 PM Gossip Girl (The CW)

Eh, last week gave a little too much attention to the least interesting character for my tastes (uhm, whasshername, the Humprey sister) but I’m still fully hooked on this one.

10:02 PM Dirty, Sexy Money (ABC)

Y’know, a week without Candis Cayne’s transsexual character did more to hurt my interest in the Darlings than I expected… let’s see how a second week holds.

10:30 PM The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)

I was pretty impressed with last week’s episode, which actually made for an effective parody of “Oppression Olympics” mentality, as well as some overall snark about how minorities sometimes think their experience makes them experts in the experiences of other minority groups. I’m not sure if that level of subtlety was intentional, since I don’t think Silverman’s comedy is usually that multilayered, but it worked amazingly.

According to a Pushing Daisies fansite, the season’s best new drama has been picked up for a full season. (via ONTD)

Meanwhile, the other new show that’s totally charmed me, Samantha Who? saw it’s ratings go up in its second week. That’s a tremendously encouraging sign since the premiere was likely boosted by its Dancing with the Stars lead-in. The second week performance suggests that enough people who sampled it liked it enough to come back and that the show might have a chance when it doesn’t have ABC’s 800 pound gorilla supporting it.

UPDATE: E! online and Michael Ausiello also report the good Daisies news.

Okay,I think Tuesday night TV is now the worst weekday night of TV. I’ve given up on most of it and what I still watch is hanging on a thread (Boston Legal is having a very weak season and Bones is one of only two shows I watch on Fox, now, so it’s in danger of being dropped just from my forgetting to look at that part of the listings) to sum:

• Beauty and the Geek: Always loses me sometime after the makeovers and last week they annoyed me with the way they handled their reverse gendered twist. The makeovers are usually combined with a dating-themed challenge and this one had the geeks having to ask other competitors out on the date for a B&G prom. However, since there was only one girl geek, she was free to ask out any of the guy geeks. At this point I start thinking how cool it’d be — even though I know it wouldn’t really happen — if one of the geeks decided to come out at this point and either one of the boy geeks asked out male beauty Sam or girl geek Nicole asked out one of the female beauties. I wasn’t expecting it but my little “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” moment got derailed when it was specified by the host that Sam wouldn’t have to sit out the competition because he couldn’t get asked out by one of the boy geeks. I’m not angry over the situation, just mildly annoyed. Combine that with the usual frustration with B&G’s reliance on the same damn formula, the predictability in its eliminations plus the easily manipulated elimination round and I’m done with this show until they do a fully reverse-gendered cast.
• Reaper: I didn’t like the pilot as it seemed like the critics did — it was cute but I felt like I already saw that show. Still, I was willing to wait for Reaper to find its voice. Unfortunately, every episode I’ve seen has been a rehash of the pilot… I’m tired of seeing this guy go from reluctant supernatural bounty hunter to embracing his powers just in time and then back to reluctant. I don’t need massive continuity, but I’d like to see some character movement.
• Cane: I never got around to investing in this series and all the speculation about its impending cancellation tells me I shouldn’t bother. They should have included scenes of Polly Walker and Rita Moreno trading barbs in the pilot.

So. Yeah. Basically, a sleazy MTV reality show is more compelling than anything else on. That’s sad.