Dancing With The Stars (ABC, 8 p.m.) — Season premiere. Never watched a minute of DWTS before, but my Steelers homerism will likely compel me to tune in long enough for Hines Ward to make a fool of himself. Is Kirstie Alley the fattest woman to ever take part on DWTS? Not sure, but Wendy Williams has to be the tranniest.

Skins (MTV, 10 p.m.) — Season finale. Possibly the last chance to see if the Justice Department will seize your television for watching child pornography on cable.

No Reservations (Travel Channel, 9 p.m.) — After trips to Cambodia, Haiti and Nicaragua, Anthony Bourdain treks through Vienna. Not much hope for monologues about abject human suffering and dispossession this week. Bourdain might have to recreate the cuckoo clock speech from The Third Man instead.

American Pickers (History Channel, 9 p.m.) — Season premiere. Mike and Frank search through an old South Carolina hardware store and a Georgia man’s stash of memorabilia. Anything without a Confederate Flag on it might fetch millions.

LATE NIGHT GUESTS: Dana Carvey, Dr. Michio Kaku and British Sea Power on Letterman; Zachary Levi, Lisa Lampanelli and Raphael Saadiq on Leno; Liv Tyler, Mark Cuban and Brett Dennen on Kimmel; Kiefer Sutherland, Emily Browning and Little Dragon on Fallon and Steve Martin on Colbert. Full listings at TV Squad.

Those hoping for some more light-hearted fare from HBO are in luck. Today, the network announced it is a developing a mini-series on the affable old man whose soft-spoken genial manner and carefree folksy expressions left a nation depantsed with charm for eight whole years. That blithe spirit, of course, is former Vice President Dick Cheney.

And let me tell you, the initial description of the series doesn’t sound ominous at all.

The project — to be written by The West Wing’s Rick Cleveland — will be based on Barton Gellman’s book “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency” and the Frontline documentary The Dark Side, and will chart the “single-minded pursuit of enhanced power for the Presidency [that] was unprecedented in the nation’s history,” say producers.

“Also, we’re gonna have him shooting people in the face and telling everyone in Congress to eff off. We think it’ll be the definitive ‘eat sh*t, Cheney’ work to date.”

HBO executives only hope he lives long enough to choke on their bile.

It was just last week that a YouTube video of a bullied Australian kid fighting back against his tormentor went viral and the world found its latest inspirational figure. Now young, portly Casey Heynes has come to represent every put-upon and downtrodden person who ever summoned the courage to powerbomb someone smaller than them.

After the jump are two separate news segments about the video. Each is longer than seven minutes. Jeebus. If Casey had thrown down a Japanese nuclear reactor, he might not have gotten as much coverage. The first clip gives a soft focus overview of Casey’s experience with bullying. I enjoy the fact that no one expresses any concern about his use of violence until about seven and a half minutes into the clip.

The second video deals with the bully, Richard Gale, claiming he is the actual victim in this whole ordeal and that Casey bullied him first. Pfft. YouTube clips or it didn’t happen, Richie.

[Prolongs the cycle of suffering]

Read the rest of this entry »

Former SNL also-suck Victoria Jackson’s uncomfortable descent into shrilly madness has been chronicled here before. I’d be content to ignore her in perpetuity, but then she had to let loose a well-circulated and unintentionally innuendo-filled rant about a the latest episode of “Glee”, in which two gay characters engage in acts of extreme osculation (that’s science for “kissing”).

Did you see “Glee” this week? Sickening! And, besides shoving the gay thing down our throats, they made a mockery of Christians – again! I wonder what their agenda is? Hey, producers of “Glee” – what’s your agenda? One-way tolerance?

Yeah, Glee producers! It’s always about your gay thing down our throats. What if we want to put our gay thing down YOUR throats? Huh? Oh. I see. Well, I’ll get on the phone with the hotel, then.

Not to soft-peddle the rampant homophobia expressed here, but then that sentiment is not exactly new or unexpected among those who trash “Glee”. What really ruptures my anus is that I’m now somewhat aligned with nutbags like Victoria Jackson in my dislike of the show. I was happier when it was Dave Grohl and Slash saying “Glee” sucks. Way to intolerance up our hatefest, Jackson.

It was reported soon after the first season of “The Walking Dead” concluded late last year that the entire writing staff of the AMC hit was being cleared out for possibly being too good at their job. That turned out not to be entirely accurate, though creator Robert Kirkman wouldn’t give any iron-clad promises that changes to the writing staff wouldn’t take place prior to the start of the second season.

So with that mind I guess we can refrain from calling Kirkman a dirty lying whore upon hearing the news that Stephen King is in talks to write a Season 2 episode. The development makes sense given that the series’ executive producer, Frank Darabont, was responsible for bringing three of King’s books to the big screen. Of course, this offer is being made in no way to atone for King passing over Darabont for The Dark Tower.

I intend to ignore further news about the King episode until it’s confirmed. The guessing game is half the fun. The arrival of zombies as crazy clowns and Red Sox fans should be enough to tip me off. Let’s just hope this opens the door to other notable horror writers getting a go on the show. Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine have endless ideas for shoehorning a cliffhanger in just before every commercial break. OH GOD, WHAT’S THAT SHADOW?! Oh whew, it’s just a zombie shaped rock.

It’s already been established that David E. Kelley’s upcoming Wonder Woman remake will be ridiculous and horrible, albeit sexy. With sexiness at the center of its appeal, the all-important costume reveal becomes even more significant than other comic book adaptations, seeing as how the wrong outfit will totally throw off the fanboy fapping.

Well, Adrianne Palicki’s costume was first revealed to the public late last week. And the hue and cry was swift and Doritos Late Night encrusted.

“Gahhh! Garish colors! Eagle covering cleavage! Conspicuous absence of star-spangled thong!”

I don’t get it. Wonder Woman has never exactly been known for understated costume design, but I suppose the masses were hoping for something in keeping with all-black-everything contemporary trend in superhero aesthetic. Why toy with the kitschy classics? Lynda Carter has already said she approves. And if my go-to Dr. Katz reference gets any more dated, I’ll be a squiggly sad face.

In what was either a watershed moment for the way extravagantly produced serialized entertainment is delivered to your eyeballs or merely a company trying to take on more than it’s able (possibly both!), Netflix announced on Friday that it reached a $100 million, two-season deal to produce and distribute “House of Cards,” a project starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher, who was last seen being bilked out of an Oscar by whoever helmed The King’s Queef.

Most observers have interpreted the move into original programming as a shot across the bow to premium cable outlets – especially HBO – which have been fretting that competition from online video services could cut into their revenue. And while that may be even more the case now, worry not – your precious David Simon shows and sexually explicit vampire dramas are safe.

One of the arguments cable networks and distributors like to make about the effect that Netflix — and online video in general — has on the broader TV ecosystem is that by disrupting current business models, Netflix is essentially destroying the engine through which high-quality content is created. That is, by drawing eyeballs elsewhere, Netflix and others could cripple the broadcast and cable networks’ ability to fund production of future shows. But Netflix’s bid shows that high-quality content will continue to find funding, even if it’s not through existing or traditional channels.

Welp, unless you have a tremendous amount of brand loyalty for HBO, or have yet to find a way to hook up your Netflix account to your [affects TV announcer voice] home gaming console [/unaffect] this should come as welcome or at least not particularly disastrous news to you, dear consumer.

While there are those saying that Sarah Palin’s foray into televised hunting has only served to further tarnish her image as a true-to-life hunter and legitimate killer of things, that doesn’t mean she can’t impart what little actual knowledge of living off nature that she has onto the next generation of rusticated dimwits. And so in a TV crossover worthy of The Flintstones meets The Jetsons, Palin welcomes Kate Gosselin and her brood on the next episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” for some basic wilderness training. And, shock of shocks, Kate turns out to annoy everyone.

Then Kate and her kids land at the campsite. Quickly, Kate proves to be a bigger pill than a horse tranquilizer.

“I’m not worrying about bears right now,” she is soon grousing. “I’m just worried about keeping my toes wiggling ’cause they’re freezing.”

Sarah, daughters Piper and Willow, husband Todd and other family members seem to be having a blast. So, for that matter, are Kate’s youngsters.

“The kids are having fun, so I’m tolerating it, but this is my new home,” grumbles Kate, having sullenly planted herself, apart from the rest, beneath a tarp. “I am miserable, but, I mean, somebody’s got to be.”

That’s a good martyrdom complex. At least if you’re one of eight siblings, you have a fighting chance not to be the miserable one in that household. Though it should be for captivating television years from now when they can film the day when the other seven kids, now grown up, finally decide to free the outcast from his manacles in the basement.

The always reliable gossip site MediaTakeOut is running with the report that Kim Kardashian is pregnant and the father is none other than Kanye West. Actually, that’s poor phrasing. It could be any number of others, but the site is running with Kanye, per an anonymous source who isn’t even entirely certain a pregnancy exists.

Skeptical dog wishes you wouldn’t show him these things.

The insider, who asked to remain nameless told MediaTakeOut.com, “Kim has been seeing Kanye [West] off and on for years now. But this summer, they [hooked up] five or six times.” The insider continued, “Kanye told her that he didn’t want anything serious, but Kim really likes him.”

And now, according to the insider, she suspects that Kim Kardashian is PREGNANT. The insider explains, “Kim is being very secretive about everything. She calls [Kanye] almost non-stop and wants to know what she should do.” The insider reportedly OVERHEARD the conversation between Kanye and Kim, with her OWN EARS.

All right. The source only suspects a pregnancy is taking place because Kim is being secretive and has been heard conversing with Kanye, though it was over the phone and therefore one-sided and unverifiable. However, this secondhand, likely spurious information was gathered by her own ears. Not ear implants. Not an electronic recording, which might actually be useful. Nope. Real ears.