What was on TV? Wed, Feb 2, 2005

20 years ago, members of Congress booed George W. Bush during the State of the Union address. We seriously need to bring that energy to 2025. Let's see what was on TV in 2005!

8:00 American Idol on Fox

4x06 "San Francisco Auditions"

Available on YouTube

I do not enjoy American Idol auditions. By this point, they'd become such a phenomenon that the show dedicated six whole episodes to them. That is too many. I watched three hours of auditions and saw a lot of sad and desperate people but not one person who went on to real success on the show. You need to have at least one of those per episode, otherwise it becomes too depressing!

This episode is interesting to me personally because it takes place in my hometown. I definitely know someone who knows someone who went to this audition. They held it in the Cow Palace, an iconic SF venue that now hosts raves and also the annual Dickens Christmas fair.

The most notable thing about this episode in 2025 is the rampant gender policing. Multiple men are ripped apart for singing like "girls," even when they exhibit real talent. There's a lot of barely veiled homophobia, especially from Simon. It's ugly stuff. No wonder people lost their minds over Adam Lambert a few years after this.

9:00 Project Runway on Bravo

1x08 "Postal Uniform Challenge"

Available on Tubi

The postal service challenge is now the stuff of Project Runway legend, and rightly so. It takes the assignment seriously while remaining entertaining and dramatic, capturing a perfect balance of high culture and trashy thrills. For instance, sending the contestants out on a postal route seems like a stunt. And it proves very entertaining, as Austin and Wendy are awkward together on their route and the other three contestants gossip about Wendy on their route. But the side-quest proves valuable to the challenge, as the designers use their experience and feedback from real postal workers to create more functional designs.

And this is just a great challenge, one that feels truly transformative and imaginative. "What if postal workers were more fashionable?" is a question that hardly anyone was asking before this episode, except for cool postal workers. But wouldn't the world be better if postal workers got to be comfortable and cute? I want to live in that world! It's a challenge that truly shows the transformative power of fashion. Especially once you see Kara's winning design I gasped when it came down the runway. It's so cute, it looks so comfortable, and it looks like a postal uniform. And Project Runway gets a bad rap for its fatphobia, deservedly so. But in this episode, the judges are resolute in insisting that the designs should look good on men and women of all sizes, and it's wonderful. And this judging panel is great too, Nina Garcia makes a glorious return, and the postal worker is great too, providing a refreshing real-world perspective. All that, plus we get Austin filling in as Jay's model (thus proving that his very cute design was unisex!), and so much more. Still a total gem of an episode, 20 years later.

10:00 Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica on MTV

4x02 "Jess Gets a Root Canal"

Available on YouTube

Newlyweds was a sensation when it debuted. "Chicken of the sea" became the aughts equivalent of a meme. But two years later (literally, the episode before this one was an anniversary special), the bloom was off the rose, in every possible way.

It's clear that the producers are struggling to find drama, since the main event of this episode is Jessica Simpson getting a root canal (you see the procedure in detail and learn all about her terrible dental hygiene, it's really something). But in the margins, you get a portrait of a dying marriage and it is excellent television. Nick wants to watch the game and tells Jess to go "watch Lifetime" (she protests that she doesn't watch Lifetime and revises his suggestion to "watch a Hugh Grant movie). When he tells her he has a tooth missing, she is clearly disgusted and she is annoyed. Nick is also peeved when trick-or-treaters demand to see Jessica (or Ashlee, if she isn't available) and prove completely uninterested in him. Their marriage is a spellbinding mix of resentment and apathy. Anyone who was still watching the show could not have been surprised that they never made it to their three-year anniversary.

Late Night

Trump is on Conan tonight. Seeing this man be heralded like a king for being a mediocre reality tv host never fails to make me angry. Especially when we know where it leads.

NBC certainly treated Trump like a king. But Conan wasn't necessarily on board with that. Conan's relationship to Trump is fascinating. He makes a lot of jokes about him, and he does an impression of him (it's basically a just duckface). But his contempt for the guy is palpable. Every time NBC makes him promote The Apprentice it's like he has a gun to his head, and he will often say "I'm a whore" after delivering the prepared lines, just in case you didn't get the message. And interviews will often devolve into Trump chatter, and his disdain for the man is palpable (see his interview with Heidi Klum for a good example).

Tonight, NBC made him invite Donald Trump on the show. This is not surprising, they were desperately trying to revive the flagging Apprentice. They even shoehorned him into their Tsunami benefit concert! And Trump is well-behaved. He's self-deprecating, polite, he trashes Jeff Zucker. If there was ever an interview that could win over me and the Conan audience, it's this one.

But Conan clearly hates the guy, it's coming off of him in waves. Conan is a good interviewer. Jay always seems bored, and Dave is outright rude unless he respects the guest. But Conan always seems genuinely interested in what even the silliest starlet has to say. But in this interview, he's just going through the motions, until he mentions that a new Trump building blocked the view in his old apartment. Then he comes alive, and his anger feels real. Remember when Trump was hated merely for building bad and ugly buildings? The early 2000s was a long time ago. I want to go back. Hence this blog.

What Else Was On

George Bush delivered the State of the Union Address. Topics included our awesome economy, using Christianity to save Black kids from gangs, and "protecting marriage" with a constitutional amendment. He tried to sell a newer, nicer version of the war on terror where we made terror go away by making life awesome in the Middle East. But there was also lots of "crush the terrorists and anyone who might possibly perhaps be friends with them" rhetoric, so it wasn't very convincing. He also discussed privatizing social security, and got booed by members of Congress for his efforts. So began his second term. And it was all downill from here.

TiVo Status

The Masterpiece Theater miniseries He Knew He Was Right and The Lost Prince. 8 hours total.