Just Us Nerds

The highlights are few and far between this week, so I’ll cover them all at once.

Monday

Star Trek: Voyager
Janeway and crew start their long voyage home all over again tonight on Spike. The first season was pretty rocky, but they’ll get to the watchable stuff eventually.

What About Brian?
Brian gets sentenced to community service. Apparently being a putz IS a crime.

Tuesday

Big Day

The bachelor party is taking place on the same day as the wedding and it lasts less than an hour. Nice work dudes.

Wednesday

King of Queens
The plot is the usual mishmash of crap about a dog and a massage chair. It will produce approximately three laughs, which has been the average for KoQ since the beginning. On the upside, Lou Ferrigno guest stars.

Thursday

OC
Ryan, Taylor, Summer and Seth go on a road trip. Looks like they’re going to Vegas. See you there Summer!

Friday

Justice
In what will quite possibly be the last episode of Justice ever, they have a Christmas party. I guess a goodbye party would be a bit presumptive.

Friday

Ghost Whisperer
It’s welcome to the jungle for Melinda, who finds herself in an eerie new place with a ghost who has a speech disorder. Sucks for her. Jay Mohr is back as Dr. Payne. Sucks for him.

100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catchphrases
We’ve reached the top twenty. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for anybody, but the number one probably isn’t “BoooYaaaa”.

Numb3rs
It’s time for standard police procedural plot #11: online predator. A serial killer is preying on young girls recruited over the Internet. Also, this is the week that Larry leaves to go to 24 . . . errr, NASA.

Saturday

Christmas Do-Over
It’s another glorious Saturday night and you have no business being at home. If you happen to have the flu or a lack of social skills, however, you can watch this Groundhog Day meets A Christmas Carol “comedy”. Mohr importantly, you get to see Jay Mohr take one more giant step away from relevancy as the idiot who needs hundreds of Christmas Days to get it right. This movie also answers the important question, “What ever happened to Adrienne Barbeau and Daphne Zuniga?”

Sunday

American Dad
The whack-jobs over at American Dad have somehow merged of A Christmas Carol with an Oliver Stone version of the Butterfly Effect to figure out how Christmas would be effected if we had won Vietnam. Lisa Kudrow, Donald Sutherland and Robert DeNiro lend their voices.

Family Guy
Brian makes out with Meg behind his girlfriend’s back. Since Brian is a dog, this is both sad and sick. Since Megan is as close as a human being comes to being a troll, it is even sadder and sicker. Sounds like a good episode.

This Weekend’s Pick N’ Flick

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
If you’ve got a dozen or so hours to kill this weekend, TNT is airing the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy. That’s right, Frodo takes his long, long walk on TNT. Bring a pillow and a butt load of popcorn.

The Office
It’s Christmas at Benihana this week as the staff finally begins to act on the seething hatred that has been building since the merger. The party committee divides into two warring factions. Michael gets dumped. The boys go out drinking while the girls fight. It may be the bestest, most wonderfullest and specialest xmas ever.

‘Til Death
Joy and Eddie ruin Steph’s party when they fight over whether unplugging the toaster saves electricity. Yup, that’s what it says. I wouldn’t lie to you. They must think their Seinfeld now.

Scrubs
JD gets to know the woman who is having his baby. Maybe they’ll even find out they like each other. Turk starts giving medical advice on the down low to make money. The Janitor leads a strike for dental insurance.

30 Rock
Liz is dumping her beeper-selling boyfriend. I’m gonna miss him, at least until Monk is back on the air.

OC
Is it Chrismukkah again already?

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Rambo: First Blood Part II
No eighties movie was soaked in more testosterone than Rambo. Rambo could not be beaten. Sheer force of will and a workout regimen that would kill a normal man combined to make him nearly invincible. Yes John, we get to win this time.

Bones
This is the episode directed by David Duchovny and guest starring Kathy Reichs, the author of the books this show is based on. It figures then that this is a legacy episode, delving into Brennan’s mysterious and somewhat shady family. Also, Zack has to defend his dissertation with the help of Angela. Also, they snuck a mystery in, so this should be a pretty packed hour.

Day Break
The show nobody wants to watch just keeps getting better and better. This week Hopper tracks down one of the key players in the conspiracy to put Hopper away for murder and destroy just about everything else in his life.

Criminal Minds
The crappy show that everyone keeps choosing to watch instead of Day Break keeps chugging along. Morgan gets arrested for murder so the BAU team must get together to prove him innocent. In other words, it’s standard CBS procedural plot #6.

2006 Video Game Awards
Samuel L. Jackson hosts this exciting awards show dedicated to video games. I don’t know about you, but I fully expect The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to clean up!

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Raising Helen
Watch this movie carefully and see if you can figure out why Helen thinks it is a good idea to take a low-paying crap job instead of her high paying fashion gig. I never could figure that out.

NCIS
It’s technology run amok week at NCIS when an automated vehicle named Otto (Get it, Otto / Auto?) starts taking lives. Also, it looks like somebody is finally noticing that Tony keeps disappearing for hours at a time. Nice detective work guys. Should be a fun episode.

House
I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of Wilson stepping in and deciding what’s best for House all the time. I realize he is sort of justified this time, since it is his ass on the line too, but let’s remember that this is the same guy who decided House needed to think he was wrong about the cure for a patient and who stepped in to get the bloodstained carpet back when House threw a hissy fit. Let House fight his own battles, I say. This week Wilson cuts a deal with Tritter, but he does it “for House’s own good.” Thanks Wilson, I can’t wait for them to replace you with a beach ball.

Nip/Tuck (Season Finale)
I’ll give Nip/Tuck credit for not being as dark this year, but I still felt that they weren’t back to the level of fun that they had in the first two years. There were some good episodes. The first Brooke Shields one was especially fun and kinky and I loved the crazy Nanny. Unfortunately, the plot was all over the place again. Sometimes I feel like they don’t even watch their own show. In the finale, Sean wants to sell his shares in the business . . . again and Escobar’s Wife wants a face lift. It would be funny if the last shot was of Quentin and Kit opening a bagel shop in Vancouver. Well, it would be funny to me anyway.

Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2006
I have her list and I’ve sorted it according to who might actually belong on the list and those who are a waste of space.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Hit movie? Check. Lawsuits? Check. A fistfight on the streets of New York? Check. Sasha makes the list.

Anna Wintour: The Devil Wears Prada was based on her. She is both talented and evil. Probably worthy.

Joel Osteen: As leader of the largest church in America, Osteen is worthy of the list, although I would have been more likely to pick Rick Warren. Osteen is not bad for the token religious guy.

Andre Agassi: Our token athlete. I would have picked Lance Armstrong just because the whole Matthew McConaughey BFF thing is kind of weird, but Agassi isn’t bad for the jock position.

John Ramsey: How long are we gonna keep milking the Ramsey cow? When it comes to the token criminal, Mark Foley should have had this spot.

Jay-Z: The only reason he’s on the list is he has an album out this month. Nothing fascinating there, just corporate pandering.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: Hit Movie? Last year. Ugly Divorce? Last year. Weird baby story? Tomkat and Madonna both have you beat there. Sorry, Brangelina doesn’t make the list.

Terri Irwin: her husband died. I feel bad for her but I am not fascinated by her. Sorry, off the list.

Patrick Dempsey: The token TV guy leaves me McBored to tears. Why not go with Neil Patrick Harris? He had a massive comeback and a massive coming out. Much more interesting than this guy. Hell, Dempsey, isn’t even the most interesting guy on his own show.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

National Lampoon’s Vacation
This is a funny movie, and a culturally significant one. It marks the beginning of Chevy Case’s descent from his original roles as the smart irreverent guy into the obnoxious stupid guy roles that defined him for the next twenty years . . . and counting.

How I Met Your Mother
Lilly is gonna go all Grinch on their asses and steal Christmas. I hate it when the previews don’t mention Barney, so let’s assume that at some point he says “Snowsuit Up.”

Class
Kat’s college friend (the über-hot Jaime King) joins the cast and intimidates the hell out of Kat. It’s about time she got taken down a notch. Also, Yonk gets Nicole a stripper pole for their anniversary. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Inside the Actor’s Studio
Just a fair warning, Lipton is interviewing that rat-bastard Forest Whitaker. Once again the unholy hell-spawn gets a national forum. Damn you Forest Whitaker!

The Lost Room
Peter Krause plays a homicide detective who finds the key to a room that will take him anywhere in the world. This proves to be an important tool because he just happens to lose his daughter at the same time. What a wacky coincidence! Be careful, Dakota Fanning’s equally creepy sister plays the lost daughter.

CSI: Miami
Horatio must track down a suspected terrorist who is being hunted by the terrorists she is suspected of working with. Can he save her from being killed long enough to get her convicted and give her the chair? Of course, she’ll probably turn out to be innocent. What an exciting plot twist that will be!

The Year Without a Santa Claus
This isn’t the cute animated story, but instead a full-length TV movie about the time when Santa decided to do something else for a year. If you loved John Goodman’s turn as Frosty in Frosty Returns, you’ll love him as Santa. If you absolutely loathed that horrible sequel to the majestic Frosty and feel that it may have done serious damage to Frosty’s legacy and left you scarred for life, than you should probably skip this too.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Stripes
Bill Murray gives the best performance of his early career as the soldier who epitomizes how desperate the military was for recruits back in the early eighties. If you’ve never had the Aunt Jemima Treatment, now is the time.

Justice
It was a smart move switching Justice to Friday nights, because at this point in December it is about the only thing on. This week our high-powered legal team throws their well-groomed weight behind Jane Seymour. Hey, they aren’t the first.

Law & Order
I checked and it turns out this show is still on. When this Law & Order first began I was still in college and nobody had heard of Nirvana yet. The first George Bush wasn’t even unpopular yet. Hell, this show debuted before 90210! Of course, it’s still younger than the Simpsons so that gives you an idea of how damned old that show is. This week’s “ripped from the headlines” story is about wiretapping and hookers, so it should be fun.

Battlestar Galactica
The fleet faces starvation when the vending machine in the break room goes on the fritz.

Saturday

Hollidaze: The Christmas that Almost Didn’t Happen
Have you heard of Rusty the Reindeer? Me either. It appears he’s heading to New York to find out who is naughty or nice but ends up in a support group for holiday icons who hate the holidays. In case that didn’t sound scary enough, Fred Savage provides the voice of Rusty. Let’s just face it, Saturdays suck.

Sunday:

The Amazing Race (Season Finale)
If you’re like me (and if so, how’s the ointment working out?) you don’t watch this show until the finale when you can see the whole thing at once. If so, tonight’s the night.

The Simpsons
Bart and Nelson become best friends, forcing Milhouse to commit ritualistic suicide, or at least whine a lot. Haw haw!

American Dad
Steve and Roger head to New York City, where they become complete and utter failures, much like they always have been. The cool thing is the celebrity voices: John Stewart, John Krasinski and Johnny Galecki. With that many Johns, you know there’s for to be a hooker reference.

This Weekend’s Pick N’ Flick

Trading Places
Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd were never funnier than they were in this story of a rich snob and a street hustler who find their positions in life switched one Christmas.

My Name Is Earl
In a special hour-long episode, Earl and Randy head to Mexico to get Catalina back. Apparently they need to defeat both armed gunman and swingers to do it. Meanwhile, Joy is taking happy pills to cure her anger issues, and it is working. The only problem is that Darnell prefers mean Joy. Lord knows the rest of us do.

Scrubs
Carla is finally having the baby! It’s been about a year and a half since she got pregnant, so it really is about time.

Smallville
In yet another attempt to be relevant (And in an eerie parallel to the Earl storyline) Clark discovers some illegal aliens being imprisoned on a farm and tries to keep them from being deported.

CSI
The killer with the really lame dioramas is back, and so is Danny Bonaduce. Let’s hope this is the last time we see either of them.

30 Rock
Set your pagers on vibrate, it’s time for another episode of 30 Rock, complete with the usual corporate whoremongering. This week they are all up in arms about an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. I guess it’s good that somebody is.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

The Green Berets
Watch John Wayne be John Wayne in the only major pro-Vietnam movie ever made in America. Sulu is in it too. Can you imagine John Wayne and George Takei hanging out? Oh my!

The King of Queens (Season Premiere)
Yes, it’s back! You can tell by the prime December launch that CBS is really committed to this, the last of its fat guy married to a hot chick sitcoms. Where once these sitcoms roamed the land like the mighty buffalo, they are now sequestered in a few minor preserves (again like the mighty buffalo). After this year, they may well disappear altogether.

Daybreak
Oh Tay! Mr. Diggs spends this day as a hostage. Bet he didn’t see that coming.

Wicked Wicked Games (Series Premiere)
Hey, Tatum O’Neal is back! Much like her character, she has been scorned for 20 years and is now looking for revenge. Stay out of this girl’s middle aged woman’s way.

Watch Over Me (Series Premiere)
Sure, this soap’s premise about a bodyguard and the client who falls in love with him is a little bit worn out by this point, but it’s good to see Casper Van Dien getting work.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Jack Frost
See Michael Keaton hit an all-time career low when he plays a failure of a father who dies in a car accident and comes back a year later as a snowman so that he can reconnect with his son. The saddest thing about this movie is that George Clooney passed on it to do Batman and Robin, thus reminding us that Michael Keaton once ruled the roost as Batman, but was eventually reduced to taking a movie that was so bad George Clooney turned it down to do the crappy-assed fourth movie of the Batman franchise.

Campus Ladies
The adventures of Joan and Barri are officially the ONLY reason to watch Oxygen. This week our middle-aged sophomores experiment with three-ways and shoplifting.

Gilmore Girls
Luke and Christopher are gonna fight! I’m kind of hoping that they both take one hell of a beating. I want to see a Tyler Durdon style bloodbath. Not just Luke and Christopher either, I want to see the entire town wailing on each other. It’s been coming for a long, long time.

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show
Once a year, CBS likes to go all FOX on your asses and show the Victoria’s Secret models wearing next to nothing. They do it just for the ratings. I couldn’t be prouder. Gisele will be there. Selita too.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Empire of the Sun
Do you know why Schindler’s List was shot in back and white? I think it’s because Spielberg shot Empire of the Sun in glorious, oversaturated color and the critics accused him of turning Disney on them. It’s a damned shame. For my money this is the best movie Spielberg ever made. A young Christian Bale and a not-quite-so-old John Malkovich shine in this story of a young boy caught behind enemy lines in China during World War II. Catch it on AMC.

2006 Billboard Music Awards
Highlights will probably include Gwen Stephani’s new “High Class Coke Whore” look, The Killers acting like self-satisfied pricks and at least one rapper getting shot – should be a good time.

Heroes
(Fall Finale) One of the Heroes is gonna die. My money is on D.L. who really didn’t know who he was screwing with. By the way, if Hiro can’t change the past, why would future Hiro go back in time to warn Peter to Save the Cheerleader? Wouldn’t that have been a little pointless?

What About Brian?
Brian tries to use speed dating to lure Bridget into a romantic connection. Jesus, wasn’t shattering a marriage enough? This guy bounces back better than Flubber. Also, speed dating? I believe we have found the cliché plot device of the 00s.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
We know Jordan is pregnant. We don’t know who the father is. I’m going to go against the popular choice of Danny and move right to Jack. Come on, wouldn’t that be a way better plot twist? It would also explain why he is suddenly on her side and why the promos have him resigning.

Tonight’s Pick N’ Flick

Big Daddy

This is the movie where Adam Sandler got too carried away with the nice guy bit. It was OK in The Wedding Singer and even Waterboy but by this point it became clear that the jackass who made movies like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison so damned fun was gone. He’d been replaced by somebody who wanted to be loved. Still, at least this isn’t Little Nicky, which was a total waste of an hour and a half.

Sweeps are over people and this weekend really shows the strain of TV when nobody is watching. Here’s the best of some mighty slim pickings.

Friday

Ice Wars 2006: USA VS. The World
Once again, the rest of the world is pitted against us. Even in ice skating, we stand alone. Couldn’t they at least have given us the UK and Australia? You know, a Coalition of the Skating? Tune in to see if Brian Boitano can save the day again.

1 Vs. 100
This week features the cast of Las Vegas. Now is your chance to prove you’re smarter than Nikki Cox.

Saturday

The Christmas Card
A soldier visits a family because he got an anonymous Christmas card from them on the front line – kind of creepy if you ask me. Also, since this is the Hallmark channel, I’ve got to wonder if this isn’t an infomercial.

Sunday

Librarian Two: Return to Kind Solomon’s Mine
Noah Wyle reprises his role as a geekier version of Indiana Jones. Guess where he’s going this time? Oh, and it’s directed by Commander Riker. Good to see Frakes getting work . . . I guess.

This Weekend’s Pick N’ Flick

Pearl Harbor
People criticize this movie (probably because the romance is so incredibly lame) but they just don’t know how to watch it. Skip the first 45 minutes and the last 45 minutes. When you see Alec Baldwin, it’s time to go for a snack. If you follow these tips, you can have a pretty pleasant viewing experience. Tivo really helps this one out.