Some Thoughts on Television.....

So, what else do you do when it snows to beat hell and the temperatures are in single digits or sub-zero?  You watch a lot of TV, that's what......

Through the magic of the DVR, we finally finished watching the 3 and 1/2 self-congratulatory Saturday Night Live special that NBC aired this past Sunday night.  Based on the comments on Facebook while the show aired, I know that I am going to be at odds with a lot of folks, but that show could have been squeezed into ninety minutes, two hours, tops.  I have long maintained that the humor of SNL is generational.  My parents didn't "get" Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi et al, and I never quite got people like Chris Farley, Adam Sandberg and people of that ilk, but that's okay.

As for the show on Sunday, I liked the Jeopardy sketch, the Wayne's World sketch, some, not all, of the Weekend Update stuff, the tribute to those who died, including the item about Generalissimo Francisco Franco, Paul Simon, and seeing some of the original cast members.

And the jokes about not being able to read the cue cards, which EVERYBODY made, got old after the second person did it.

Last weekend we did a major Binge Watch of Seasons Four and Five of HBO's terrific "Boardwalk Empire".  What an great series that was.  The short, eight episode fifth and final season did a fantastic job of bringing the entire story full circle, and it led to an absolutely perfect conclusion.

If you like crime dramas, and haven't seen this show, then do whatever you can...buy/rent/borrow the DVD sets, go to Netflix, OnDemand, or stream in some fashion, but watch this series.

Golf Channel is now three episodes in to its current season, "Big Break, The Palm Beaches FL".  Men only contestants this time.  No one yet has stood out as a "villain" in the show, as Anthony Quesada and Mary Narcisi had in past seasons, so there is no one to really root against as yet.  The guy that I am sure that the producers want to go all the way is Chad Pfiefer, and Iraqi war vet who is an amputee with a leg prosthesis.  In truth, Chad is not as good a golfer as most of the others, so I can't see him hanging in there for too long, but he has already been to two elimination challenges and sent three other contestants packing, so who knows?

From a local perspective, one of the contestants if Robert Rohanna of Waynesburg, PA.

If you've read the agate type in the Pittsburgh sports pages over the years, you know his name.  A local professional who represents Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, he has kicked around the mini-tours, and he seems to be a likable guy. Also, he is seen in some clips on the show wearing an Andrew McCutchen tee shirt.  So, Let's Go Robert!

CBS has decided to do a reboot of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple".  As TV critic Rob Owen stated in the PG yesterday, Why?  The show premiered last night following "The Big Bang Theory", which should have given it a large audience, and it wasn't awful, but, again, why?  Why follow what was a classic TV series, which was based on a classic movie, which was based on the classic Simon play?  This one stars Matthew Perry of "Friends" as Oscar, and some guy named Thomas Lennon as Felix.  Perry is okay as Oscar, but Lennon's portrayal of Felix is so over the top that it is going to be hard to take on a regular basis, I think.

At least two of the lines in last night's episode were direct lifts from the original Simon play.  So give Perry, who had the writing credit for this episode, some props for sticking with the original.

Watched an episode of "Fantasy Island" on wine of those "classic TV only" cable stations on Wednesday night.  Hey, I told you we were getting desperate.  Anyway, this show was circa 1978, and it hit the perfect trifecta of TV Awfulness: bad acting, bad writing, bad editing.  Can't believe that was regular television viewing for us back in Seventies.  Makes you realize that television has indeed improved over the years, despite some of the dreck that still populates it.

Finally, and I know I'm a bit late on this one, but I guess that I must comment on Brian Williams.  You all know the story, so I won't restate it again, but when the news of his false heroics emerged, I knew at the time that this would not end well for him.  I feel bad, because, I liked Brian Williams at the NBC anchor desk.  The fact that he continued to repeat this story, and even embellish it over the course of ten years is what is so befuddling to me.  I am surprised, actually, that it took this long for this particular shoe to drop.

Williams is currently on a six month suspension form NBC.  I am sure that we will see him again on television, but not at a network anchor desk, and probably not on NBC.

Hubris strikes down another icon.  It is a story as old as time.

The "Big Break" Is Back

Combine one of my favorite activities - golf - with something I don't care for at all - reality TV shows - and what you get is Golf Channel's "The Big Break", the one and only reality TV show that I never miss.  

The newest version of this series, "Big Break Myrtle Beach", premiered last month, and we are now four episodes into it.   This version consists of twelve participants, six men, six women, competing head to head.  As is usually the case, it takes a few weeks - and a few eliminations - to sort out who's who on this show.  However, on essential element made itself very clear by Week Two, and that was who the Villain of this season will be.  It is Anthony Quezada from Phoenix, AZ.  At 19, Anthony is the youngest ever male participant on Big Break, and it seems that the producers must have instructed Anthony to take every known precept regarding golf etiquette and sportsmanship and completely disregard them.  He makes the "miss it, Noonan" caddies at Bushwood seem like the epitome of decorum by comparison.  Honestly, I am rooting for one or more of his fellow competitors to just coldcock him on a green during one of the challenges.

All that aside, though, Anthony can play some golf.  He has already survived two elimination challenges.

Episode Five is tonight, and from the previews it appears that it will feature another Big Break staple - Speed Golf.

All this and the breathless commentary of Tom Abbot.  It's Must See TV for golf fans.

Big Break Florida

A new season of Big Break debuted on Golf Channel last week, and I was finally able to catch up with the first  two episodes this morning.  As you can see from the picture above, this show takes place in Florida (Amelia Island), and features 12 women contestants vying for their "big break".

Brit Tom Abbot is back as the breathless host, and his co-host this time around is Melanie Collins of Yahoo Sports.  The show still features all sorts of golf skills challenges including the Big Break signature event, chipping golf balls through panes of glass.  It never gets old!  In the first show there was a new twist to the Elimination Challenge.  Only one contestant was involved. They had her tee it up on a par five.  If she scored par or better, she was saved and would go on to the next show.  If she bogeyed the hole, she was eliminated.  Sounds simple, but it was pretty good theater.

In prior iterations of this show, it takes a couple of weeks and a couple of contestants being eliminated before you really get a handle on who's who and develop a rooting interest for one or more of the players, and that will be the case here.  There is, however, one exception to that in Big Break Florida.  As with all such shows, a "villain" is required, and this role has fallen to 24 year old Mary Narzisi.  She is clearly, and I'm sorry, but I don't know how else to say this, the least attractive of the 12 ladies on the show, she is constantly being bleeped because of her cursing, she continually says how the other players "piss her off", and she behaves in an unsportsmanlike manner with her opponents that defies all known golf course etiquette.  I will be cheering mightily each week for her elimination.

Only two episodes have been shown thus far, but if you look hard enough, Golf Channel is always rerunning past episodes, and even if you don't find them, it is early enough in the series for you to still be able to get caught up in it.  New episodes air Monday nights at 9:00 PM Eastern on Golf Channel.

Enjoy.

The Big Break NFL Concludes

SPOILER ALERT: If you recorded the concluding episode of Gold Channel's "Big Break NFL" and are planning on seeing it later, you may wish to delay reading this entry, as I will divulge who won.  If you are so inclined, please come back and read when you have seen the show.

Golf Channel's latest rendition of its Big Break series concluded last night when Team Dolman, the only team that did not suffer a loss in the series, came up against Team Rice in the "four quarters" of match play.  Kind of hokey, but Golf Channel had to stick with its football theme.  I found myself rooting for Jerry Rice and his squad because (a) Rice was a likable sort throughout the series, and (b) Chris Dolman was not.  I felt bad for the two golfers who were paired with Dolman throughout, but they were in the final show, so maybe his methods worked somehow.

Of the two football players, Rice was clearly better than Dolman, as evidenced by a scrambling par 5 that Rice made after driving in grass that was as high as his shoulders on one hole, and by a topped drive on one hole by Dolman that didn't clear the ladies tees.

In any event, the winning team was........

TEAM RICE!!!!!

Big Breakers Emily Talley and Isaac Sanchez won exemptions into primo tournaments on the big circuits.  Talley will play in the LPGA Shoprite Classic that will be held from May 30-June 1, and Sanchez will play on the PGA Tour's FedEx St. Jude Classic on June 5-8.   As I did with the winner of Big Break Mexico's Taylor Collins, I will follow up and report on how Emily and Isaac do when they get their Big Breaks come June.

Another entertaining entry in this Golf Channel Series.  Can't wait for the next one! 

Big Break Mexico Follow-Up

Back in August, I wrote about the victory of 23 year old Taylor Collins on Golf Channel's "Big Break Mexico":

http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-big-break-mexico-champion.html

Among the cash and prizes that Ms. Collins received was an exemption into the LPGA's Lorena Ochoa Invitational.  Well, that tournament took place this past weekend, and here is how Taylor's Big Break turned out for her.

In a field of 36 golfers, Taylor Collins, sadly, finished in 35th and last place (one golfer withdrew after the second round).  Over the four rounds, she shot 74-77-76-73 - 300, which was twelve shots over par, seven shots behind the golfers just ahead off her, and twenty-eight shots behind winner Lexi Thompson.  For her efforts, Collins cashed a check for $7,250.

This is not to make light of Taylor Collins' performance, but, rather, to point out the world of difference between those golfers who regularly compete on the PGA and LPGA Tours and those golfers who scuff around on the fringes of professional tournament golf and compete on "The Big Break".

Taylor Collins is a terrific golfer by almost anybody's standards, and she seemed like a pleasant young woman when you watched her on the show.  I wish her well in pursuit of her dream, but it looks like she has a steep mountain to climb.

The current iteration of the show, Big Break NFL, will grant exemptions into professional tournaments in 2014 to both a male and female golfer, and The Grandstander will follow up on those performances as well.

By the way, to my knowledge, only one Big Break winner, Tommy Gainey, has managed to make a go of it in golf's big leagues.  He won once on the PGA Tour in 2012, and in 2013 he played in 28 events, made 14 cuts, had one top ten finish, and earned $520,000.  He's making a living, but he's hardly a household name.

On Cutch, The Big Break, Scorsese, and Christie

Random Comments.....

The Page 1 story in the Post-Gazette this morning about the possible enhancement of Andrew McCutchen's "brand" should he be named the National League's Most Valuable Player today had the following interesting fact about the endorsement income of a couple of contemporary athletes.  The NBA's LeBron James earns between $40 and $50 million a year in endorsements.  Peyton Manning is the NFL's biggest endorsement earner with $15+ million per year.  Baseball's highest such earner is the Yankees' Derek Jeter who pulls in about $9 million a year.  I would not have guessed that baseball's highest such earner would be pulling in so much less than his hoops and gridiron colleagues.  The story didn't mention who the NHL's biggest earner is.

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Are you watching the current edition of Golf Channel's "The Big Break"?  This season is called the "Big Break - NFL" and it features six three person teams consisting of a male and female golfer and captained by a retired NFL star (Jerry Rice, Al Del Greco, Chris Doleman, Mark Bulger, Tim Brown, and Mark Rypian).  One team each week earns a loss, and when you accumulate two losses, the entire three person team is eliminated.  Anyway, it took until the seventh week of the season before one team finally got two losses and were sent packing.  I won't spoil anything by saying which NFL star was the first to go.  I will say that the biggest jagoff  among the NFL'ers is turning out to be Chris Doleman.  Sorry about that, Pitt Panther fans, but there you are.  Interestingly enough, Doleman's team remains undefeated.

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Took a look at the holiday movies that were featured in the Post-Gazette this morning.  Nothing jumping out at me as something I ABSOLUTELY HAVE to see.  One interesting one is Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  Saw a trailer for it awhile back, and it looks interesting.  

I do not plan on seeing anything about hobbits, bows and arrows, or super heroes.

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I read an oldie this week - "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" by Agatha Christie, written in 1938. This one was vintage Christie: a miserly, wealthy old curmudgeon summons his four sons, three daughters-in-law, and a granddaughter to his English country manor house for Christmas. Throw in another unexpected visitor, and a couple of suspicious servants.  On Christmas Eve, the old man is murdered quite violently and his body is found in a room that is, you guessed it, locked from the inside.  And it just so happens that Hercule Poirot is spending the Holiday with his old friend, the local police superintendent.

Most Christie scholars will tell you that she produced her greatest works in the 1930's, when she produced 17 novels and numerous short stories.  They will also tell you that THIS particular novel does not fall within the scope of those great works, and I would happen to agree with them.  Although, it is still a lot if fun to read.  And almost "Downton Abbey"-like in it's depiction of life in the Manor House.

The Big Break Mexico Champion

I suppose that this can be considered a spoiler, but if you don't know who won Golf Channel's The Big Break Mexico by now, then you probably didn't care in the first place.  Anyway, 23 year old Taylor Collins won this edition of the Big Break when her finals match with Matthew Galloway went to the 18th hole.  Ms. Collins won 1 Up.

It was a well played match, and Taylor is a deserving champion.  In addition to a bunch of cash and other prizes, Taylor's "big break" will be an exemption into the LPGA's Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico in November.  The tournament will run from November 14-17.

The Grandstander will be monitoring that tournament to see how Ms. Collins takes advantage of her big break.  I'm rooting for her.

I love "The Big Break".

The Big Break

I know that this may come off as sounding snobbish on my part, but I do not watch the competitive "reality shows" on TV.  I used to be a huge fan of "Survivor", but that show jumped the shark, in my mind, anyway, about five or six years ago, and I haven't watched it since.  And I have never seen a single episode to American Idol, America's Got Talent, Dancing With the Stars, The Voice or any of the dozens of such shows that liter the TV landscape.

I do have one exception to this rule, however, and that is Golf Channel's "The Big Break".  I love this one, and the current season, "Big Break Mexico" is living up to all Big Break expectations.  This season has a twist to it.  Twelve golfers, six men, six women, divided into three teams of four (2 men, 2 women).  No one was eliminated until the fifth show of the season, at which point, four golfers got the ax. From this point forward, one golfer will go in each show.

My absolute favorite element of this show, and it never changes, is the bravado all of these participants have.  When given the challenge facing them in a given show, the golfers will invariably state something along these lines: 

"I was thrilled that it was a bunker shot / flop shot / drive / chip-and-putt, because I'm great at bunker shots / flop shots / driving / chipping-and-putting.  That shot is my bread and butter. I really wanted that shot!"  

We are then treated to seeing these golfers totally screwing up the shot presented to them, and playing the shot like some hacker at the local muni.  In other words, playing the shot like I might play it.

Big Break Mexico's team concept also introduced a new element to the program with the players all talking about the all-for-one nature of team competition while at the same time back-biting and putting down their own team members when away from them. Then there are the tears when someone gets eliminated.  Fabulous!

Each show also has one player who talks tough, says he (or she) is out to win this thing, I know I'm better than everyone, and I don't care about any of these other people, because this is going to me MY Big Break.  This year it was a bearded blond guy with glasses named Rob who assumed the role.  You can guess what happened.  Rob was eliminated when he drove deep into woods, took three shots to hack his way out and snowmanned a par five. 

It's classic stuff and the breathless commentary of Brit Tom Abbot and Stephanie Sparks only add to all of the pseudo- drama.

God help me, but I love it!