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May 21-23, 2007 |
Sunday, May 27, 2007, 11:35 p.m.  I hope all of you are experiencing a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. If only we could have some relief from the long, parched drought we've had in Tennessee. We'd have taken a smidgen of that rain in Indianapolis Sunday.....Looking back on the past week: under no circumstances will you convince me, despite the network's protests, that Fox did not deliberately wait until after 10 p.m. to announce Jordin Sparks as the winner. Fox apologized Friday for fouling up all the TiVo users who did not have the finish when they watched the finale on their hard drives. The networks delight in playing havoc with TiVos or other DVR units because of the easy commercial bypasses. That finale has been produced like clockwork to end at 10 in every previous year. I'm not buying the alibis, live show or not.If you haven't seen former Weakest Link host George Gray's work on What's with THAT House? on HGTV, you owe it to yourself. He'll have you in stitches touring the nation's offbeat homes and his special tonight, What's With THAT Extreme Home?, was his best yet. That constant mugging for the camera with his silly grin is worth the watch.....I haven't asked yet as to why but the abrupt change from Richard Karn to Richard Dawson episodes of Family Feud during these Sunday night marathons on GSN is curious. That kind of thing usually doesn't happen unless one set was a ratings disaster.....ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd has been harping on Deal or No Deal viewers as being lower-class lately. Don't know what Colin's beef is. He's a great host and commentator but when he offers his personal entertainment tastes, I could easily turn the tables on him. Colin's a bit of an elitist. I interviewed author Wesley Hyatt again for our Farewell to Barker Week Cover Story for the week of June 11. Wes is so articulate and an intense student of television history. You will genuinely enjoy his insights. He also has a new book, "Kicking Off the Week," which details the history of Monday Night Football on television. It's a must read.....We may end up with a leak in the next couple of weeks but I am of the belief CBS is going to try to hold off on naming Barker's successor until after his final Price Is Right appearance June 15. National Bingo Night is a huge disappointment, which is why ABC may have slotted it on Fridays....but I can tell you two major problems: Ed Sanders may be a fine designer and ideal for Extreme Makeover Home Edition but his British accent is much too coarse for American television in this format. He's having to yell over the audience through most of the show and he's difficult to understand. The other issue: the show is focused so much on Price Is Right-style games for the onstage contestant that it minimizes the idea that a Bingo game is going on in the audience. This one will disappear quickly. We just received the word of Charles Nelson Reilly's death about an hour ago. Because of the late hour, we'll attempt to collect our thoughts for an audio tribute later today. For now, this is our third giant loss in the last month, on top of the passing of Kitty Carlisle and Tom Poston. Ironically, our friend Peter Marshall has been hit twice. Poston was Peter's best friend and Peter appeared with Charles in the Broadway play "Skyscrapers" back in the '50s. As I all too frequently am forced to say, we're losing too many of our legends too fast.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2007 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
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