What was on TV? Mon, March 7, 2005

20 years ago, Fred Durst was suing Gawker for publishing his sex tape. Let's see what was on TV!

8:00 The L Word (recorded)

2x03 "Loneliest Number"

Watching The L Word alone...I don't recommend it. So many stories of the show's heyday involve the comments sections of recaps or watch parties at lesbian bars. That community is as important to the show's legacy as the show itself. Watching it by yourself just isn't the same. I watch something like the completely bugnuts dream sequence that opens this episode, and the urge to turn to someone and say "can you believe this?" is palpable.

And strictly as a tv show, The L Word is...okay. Uneven and fascinating, but I find it hard to sink my teeth into. I honestly think the writing is on par with...One Tree Hill? Maybe a little better than that, but still. The primary appeal of a show like The L Word or One Tree Hill is finding some friends and tearing it apart together. And I don't have time to do that! So I might let other people tackle The L Word in all its sexy, silly, and messy glory.

9:00 24 on Fox

4x12 "Day 4: 6:00 P.M. - 7:00 P.M."

This season marked a major reset for 24. Jack was the only returning series regular. It was bold but it paid off, ratings were better than ever. But they still had to bring back the old favorites. This episode gets a ton of mileage out of seeing Tony, Jack's old pal at the CTU, interact with the new CTU crew. It shakes things up over at CTU, which is a good thing, as that corner of the story was getting pretty stale. This is the first season of 24 I've ever watched, so I don't know Tony's backstory, but the sense of history he brings to the show is still palpable and welcome. And the episode ends with his old love interest Michelle returning! I'm definitely excited for that.

10:00 Fat Actress on Showtime

1x01 "Big Butts"

This show had massive buzz. I read lots of mid-2000s press for this project, and everyone had an article about Fat Actress. Alley was still a pretty big star, and her weight was a tabloid fixation. People wanted to make fun of her, but the excitement for this show also reflected a real desire to see fat women in lead roles.

I don't think that the result satisfied anybody. The jokes about her weight are constant, nasty, and overly broad. The pilot opens with her stepping on the scale and crawling in the bathroom in misery and horror. Kelly Preston tells her to eat cigarettes and tear her stomach lining. There's also a ton of ugly racial humor about how Black men will like her because she has a big ass. When she goes in to pitch a sitcom to Jeff Zucker (playing himself!) there's a Black guy in the room, and the way she and her entourage talked about him...yeesh.

So the only jokes in the pilot are fat jokes or racist jokes. It also looks terrible. The show is from Brenda Hampton, creator of 7th Heaven, of all people, and it has the same cheap beige look as that show.

Offscreen, Alley had recently become the spokesperson for Jenny Craig (the most popular dieting company of the mid-2000s). She proclaimed her desire to lose weight in many of the articles promoting the show. In an article promoting the show in Broadcasting and Cable, a Showtime executive recalled Alley presenting him with a Jenny Craig cake. When asked how it was, he diplomatically said that it was "cake-like." This is funnier than anything in the actual show.

Late Night

Robin Williams was the voice in the new animated movie Robots, so he made the rounds on Late Night. First up was Leno, where he discusses his recent appearance at the Oscars. See, he had a whole parody song prepared, but the producers nixed it. People wondered: was it dirty? Was it scandalous?

He recites the whole song on Leno. He was presenting best animated feature, and he just made fun of a bunch of cartoon characters. Pinocchio's had his nose done, Superman's on steroids, Batman and Robin share a sink, and so on. It reveals what the studios would find truly objectionable in the age of IP. Sex, violence? We can work with that, as long as you don't disrupt the status quo too much. But disparage our precious property, our intellectual property? We can't have that.

What Else Was On

• Showtime scheduled the premiere of Super Size Me right before Fat Actress and branded the whole night as "Fat Monday."
• Lifetime premiered Lies My Mother Told Me, starring Joely Richardson as a con-artist and Hayden Penetierre as her daughter Haylei (not a typo). According to the movie's Wikipedia page, Joely Richardson has an implied lesbian relationship with a college student and they work together to kill Colm Feore, the boyfriend who's blackmailing her.
• NBC premiered the boxing reality show The Contender. This was the most anticipated show of the Fall Season. Mark Burnett looked like he had the Midas Touch after The Apprentice. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sylvester Stallone, and Sugar Ray Leonard were also attached, lending the project real legitimacy. And NBC was absolutey desperate for a hit, and wizard of spin Jeff Zucker hyped the show to the moon. Huge brands were attached to the project (you can see car companies talking about product placement on the show in the Frontline documentary The Persuaders). Then Fox beat them to the air with their own boxing reality show starring Oscar de la Hoya, and then The Contender just kept on getting delayed and delayed. And then news broke that one of the contestants had died by suicide. The buzz was now ice cold, and the ratings reflected that.
• The Contender cratered for many reasons. One of them was Les Moonves. CBS ran repeats of Two and a Half Men and CSI: Miami in February sweeps in part so they could premiere new episodes of two of their biggest hits opposite The Contender and absolutely clobber the show, destroying whatever hopes NBC had of salvaging its season. Les Moonves' burning resentment for NBC and Jeff Zucker is something to behold.

TiVo Status

The Masterpiece Theater miniseries The Lost Prince, a Frontline documentary, the TV movies Sucker Free City, Lackawanna Blues, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Ladies Night, tw0 episodes of Miracle's Boys, and one episode of Monk. 17 hours total.

Music, 20 years ago

Fat Actress had a fat girl, The L Word had queer women. But a fat queer woman? Good luck finding that on TV in 2005. But they existed! Beth Ditto, the lead singer of Gossip, would become an icon, in large part because she stood out as a fat woman who was confident and comfortable in her sexuality. Gossip wouldn't fully break out for another year, but they were already making music. "Jason's Basement" is my favorite song from their 2003 album Movement, a wonderful ode to queer communities and found families.