Some new shows, mostly re-used ideas…and my thoughts.

First, don’t even start with me on UPN. Some say Veronica Mars is good. Fine, take one good show.

“Out of Practice”? Out of luck. It’s got Paula Marshall. She’s the death knell. She’s replaced Ted McGinley. Making her a lesbian is a cheap ploy that won’t work.

“Commander in Chief” – So tell me, did the alleged Senator from New York (Arkansas) personally pay to get this show on the air? I like Geena and Donald but I’m already sick of West Wing and quit watching that years ago – why would I start again?

“Wife Swap”? Didn’t we cancel this thing yet? Go away already. All of these ‘alleged’ reality shows are becoming tiresome.

“How I Met Your Mother”. More like “How I got canceled in 6 episodes.”

“Bones”. So we take the leftover X-Files scripts and the guy from Angel and a pinch of CSI and try to make a new show? Sorry, it’s an old show already.

“Supernatural”. The WB isn’t happy that Sabrina is gone and Charmed is almost over? Go away already.

“Freddie” Freddie Prinz, Jr., is a chef with a wacky family of women. Wow, what a fresh idea. Nothing this exciting has come along….zzzz. What’s this with people being a chef as if that’s the most exciting thing in the world. Ever see a real show about Gordon Ramsey’s life as a chef? It’s not a pretty life, believe me.

“Criminal Minds”? It’s Profiler times 4. And it’ll get nuked in one-fourth the time.

“E-Ring”. E-ring? Is that a sex aid? E-ring is like Commander-in-Chief with uniforms.

The big offenders…
“Three Wishes”. My first wish? This self-righteous, look how noble and giving we are garbage excuse for a tear-jerker goes far, far away. Unfortunately, everyone missing “Joan of Arcadia” will latch onto this like Tara Reid finding a half-full bottle of Dom under the table and make it a success.

“Hot Properties” It’s Wysteria Lane wearing a yellow Re/Max jacket. All you need to know about real estate is 10% of the people do 90% of the sales and the first person on the show to say “Location, location, location” gets a skillet to the frontal lobe.

and the big winner
“Inconceivable”
Man, NBC sinks to the depths for this one. A show about…fertilization? Only the NBC people frightened by the religious right could make a whole show that for one hour a week takes the sex out of making babies. Disaster. A wreck. A pathetic, retched idea that makes you beg to see what show was bumped to provide us with one hour of -this- every week. Stunning. Kill it now.

It’ll only last four episodes so here’s the four A and B plotlines we’ll see.

A’s –
Miracle pregnancy due to modern science
Cloning
In vitro
Surrogate mother (who is the sister of the infertile mom and is talked into the pregnancy in a stirring and obvious speech by whomever ends up being the leading female of the show)

B’s –
Abortion clinic threats
Telling a 50-year old woman she should NOT have a baby
Lots of scenes in a lab where actors wear coats and face masks to appear smart
The day-after pill passing through the FDA like you know what through a goose.

Think I’m right? You know I am.

Most of the schedule will stink. Bad.
What’s good?
The Apprentice crowd and every sympthetic female will flock to Martha Stewart and make her blatant copycat show a success. The only problem is that instead of building a building the winner will build….garland.

“My Name is Earl” will be funny if given a chance – which means it won’t be given a chance.

“Prison Break” will latch onto the pre-”24″ crowd and be good for a while, then tedious and overdone.

And those are the fall tv highlights, such as they are.

Some folks think the college game has passed Joe Paterno and left him in the dust, remnants of a bygone era using a bygone offense and cast aside by the gridiron powers that be.

I disagree – college football didn’t pass JoePa or even Penn State – it passed Penn State’s legacy.

Time has passed over programs like Penn State and Notre Dame. The teams are still occasionally good but at this point the only real difference in my mind is the ND alums demand a new coach every three seasons while Happy Valley sticks to it’s guns and the man that brought them into prominence.

The only problem is college football isn’t the same game. It’s not even the same since 1980.

The sport has bypassed the Lions and Irish not through their own fault, but through the fact that so many teams are now viable. The present USC squad excluded no one runs the table much anymore if they face a legit schedule. The ND and PSU fans surely remember teams that went 10-0. Those seasons are long gone.

Joe Paterno isn’t outdated, but the game he remembers coaching is. He used to coach in the 70s when 90% of college football was also-rans and never-weres. Now even the smaller conferences have teams that can surprise, cause matchup problems and recruit both in and out of state. He’s not coaching in the year 2005 and Notre Dame fans aren’t living in 2005.

Both have wild, crazy-haired expectations and aspirations.

Both are going to be sorely disappointed from here on out.

There are many reasons why the NFL is better than Major League Baseball.

The most important of which, to me, is hope.

Every team in the NFL has hope. See, the worst teams get the best draft picks and the easiest schedules the next season. A team that went 4-12 can sign two free agents, get a healthy player back in the lineup, get 2 easy games instead of tough ones and -Bingo! – you’re last season’s Chargers.
The last teams to lose the Super Bowl didn’t even have winning records the following year. Good teams lose players to bad teams, who then become good teams. Everyone has a shot at the playoffs.

In baseball, there are very few teams that ever have a shot. Starting from Opening Day the following teams have ZERO chance to win the Series…Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Colorado, Milwaukee, Seattle and Texas. That’s one fourth of the league.

In the NFL one fourth of the teams may be rebuilding, but even a team in the eighth year of a five-year plan (insert Arizona or CIncinnati) still has a shot at .500 and a wild car with a few breaks. There ain’t enough breaks in the world gonna get Tampa into the World Series.

Why? Money. In the NFL every team gets about $75 million from tv revenue. In baseball, some teams get nothing. No tv deal. No money at all. Other teams have monstrous corporate cable packages and reap millions from viewers and sponsorship.

Until baseball figures out that the revenue needs to be split like the NFL has figured it out, expect many many baseball teams to be out of the race on day one. They have no hope. Hopeless.

That is why the NFL is better than Major League Baseball.

It’s amazing how perception rarely changes.

Some things you take for granted. You feel secure in your existence knowing that some things just -are- and always will be. Things like safety in family or gravity or earth’s sustained orbit… You take for granted that these won’t change – but some other things you count on to be true as well and if they aren’t truth you don’t know what to think. The world is topsy-turvy.

You take for granted that
…the Arizona Cardinals will be lousy…
…that the Bengals won’t spend money…
…that Raider fans will attend games dressed as extras from Mad Max 4…
…that hockey will never be more popular than it was in ’94 when the Rangers were good…
…that baseball will never be good in Texas, so long as the Rangers have no pitchers…
…that all college football players in the state of Florida earned a 200 SAT score…
…that commercialism sucked the life out of the Olympics a long time ago…
…that pro wrestling is fixed…
…that Detroit will claim itself Hockeytown regardless of their playoff finish…
…that the UPN tv schedule will stink beyond words…

When these things we hold near and dear as fact turn up fiction, our stomachs turn, hair falls out and normal people become quivering shells of themselves, twitching like a paparazzi seeing one Olsen twin on one street corner, the other Olsen on another, and only one TRO to violate.

So please, I beg of you…
Arizona, continue to find ways to blow your potential.
Bengals – continue your miserly, shortsighted ways.
Black and white fans? Continue your asinine behavior.
NHL? Just stop, okay? Eliminate a line…whatever. If you don’t start calling penalties none of that crap matters.
Texas? Move to Vegas. Both are hot, one is fun. (It ain’t Arlington)
Florida? They’re called ‘standards’. Get some.
IOC – don’t be greedy, bought-off hypocrites.
WWE – don’t change a thing. I’m already ignoring you as it is. Statis quo, baby.
Red Wings fans? Be proud of your heritage, but get that stupid “Hockeytown” off the ice.
and
UPN…poor, futile, UPN. You will -never- get it, will you?