The wuss factor

More 'reality,' the Emmy nominations, and Ellen

by Robert David Sullivan

You're not getting the most out of Survivor if you're not checking out the Internet sites devoted to the show. Then again, if you're worried about how people are going to vote in this fall's presidential election, you'd better not look. Survivor fans, at least the ones posting comments on America Online, seem to have a hard time grasping the idea of competition. Their favorite contestant is Sean, the knuckleheaded neurologist who doesn't want to cause any hurt feelings (even though rejection is the whole point of the game), so he's voting against a different opponent in each episode, in alphabetical order. Now I see the danger of listing candidates on the ballot from A to Z in real elections -- and having a president named Aaron Aardvark is the least of it.

The AOL site is boiling over with fear and indignation; typical is Renae1275's response to the rumor that basketball coach Gervase will be the show's winner: "Gervase is the laziest person that I have EVER seen!!! All of the rest of the people have worked hard and I don't want America to award laziness!! That would not say ANYTHING for our country!!!" I know you're sincere, Renae1275, but I have to wonder whether you meant to say "to reward laziness" and just wanted to save yourself a keystroke. At any rate, our country is already in irrevocable decline, thanks to the fact that I won a Monopoly game in 1991 through deceitful means (hiding my money beneath the board and tricking the other players into believing I was nearly broke). At the time, I thought I was in a harmless game that would have no effects beyond my living room, but now I see that all of America loses whenever a citizen wins anything through guile and strategy instead of grit and stick-to-it-ness.

Naturally, almost everyone on AOL despises Richard and Susan, the leaders of a Survivor voting bloc that picked off some of the more sunny-tempered players. SmthBlondie notes: "Susan has to go because she is a back-stabbing liar. When asked last night if there was an alliance going on, she said no, but we all know better because she heads it up." I can see how somebody who embraces the nickname "Blondie" might be frightened by a world where not everything is as it appears to be -- and I invite her to a friendly little poker game that takes place every week in Saugus.

But the logic of GloriaGraf19 is truly astounding: "In my opinion, Richard needs to go. He takes great joy in running the entire show. Hopefully, the others will wake up and form an alliance of their own and vote Richard or Susan off next. That would certainly make the show more interesting."

Getting rid of the two people who prompt most of the e-mail about the show will make it "more interesting"? While we're at it, let's improve Law & Order by getting rid of those nasty murderers, and let's jazz up Live with Regis and Kathie Lee by dumping -- oh, right, she's already on her way out, and I'm sure the show's ratings will improve dramatically.

It's scary enough that GloriaGraf19 might vote in a presidential election, but she also seems to be the type of person with enough time on her hands to volunteer for focus groups -- those distinguished bodies of citizens who pick TV pilots and determine the endings of Hollywood movies. I can hear her now: "In my opinion, we need a couple of dolphins -- named alphabetically, of course. And getting rid of that `perfect storm' would certainly make the movie more interesting."

COMPARED WITH some of the other "reality" TV shows this summer, Survivor and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire remain the classiest examples of the genre. Take the Sci-Fi Channel's Crossing Over with John Edward (Mondays at 11 p.m.), where the host receives messages from dead people related to members of the studio audience. After picking a volunteer/victim, Edward begins by saying that he can feel the presence of a spirit whose name begins with "J" and ends with "Y," or some such combination. (If you're the widow of Xavier Zugnak, I wouldn't bother writing for tickets to the show.) The audience member then gasps and says something like, "Holy cow, I had a second cousin named Jimmy who fell down a manhole," or, "Say, I called some guy `Jerky' before I cut him off in my SUV and his Toyota flew off the Tobin Bridge." In most cases, the spirit tells Edward that all is forgiven, and things aren't so bad in the afterlife. (Maybe because there's no Sci-Fi Channel.)

I don't have much hope that Edward will establish contact with some guy's departed wife and then exclaim, "She says that you killed her!" (Cut to a Peter Lorre look-alike running out of the studio only to be shot to death on the Satellite of Love from the discarded set of Mystery Science Theater 3000.) If nothing else, Crossing Over does raise an interesting legal question: if Edward were to "quote" a spirit to reveal that a still-living person is a pedophile or a trainspotter, could he be sued for defamation of character? Or is there a libel shield for charlatans?

The only thing really wrong with Comedy Central's Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.) is that it doesn't work without Dame Edna Everage as the host. The point of the show is that people will do anything for a free vacation, but Darva Conger already proved that on Who Wants To Marry a Multimillionaire? Last week on Toothbrush, for reasons too complicated to explain, we got a peek into the bedroom of some guy in the audience. Host Mark Curry yelled, "We went in your bedroom! I slept in your bed!" (Dame Edna might have noted how clever it is to have such an uninviting bedroom and thus have no need to buy condoms.) The highlight of the episode was a game called "Is That My Daddy's Ass?", which involved a woman trying to identify her father out of a line-up of Speedo-clad men shoving their cheeks through holes in a wall. She won, which was even more disturbing than hearing Survivor's Greg make a joke about "feeling" his sister.

Cheesier still is USA's Strip Poker (weeknights at 11 p.m.), which is just what the name implies -- albeit in a disappointingly tame way. Two young men and two young women with exhibitionist tendencies participate in a convoluted game that involves electronic playing cards and trivia questions. (Well, what doesn't involve trivia questions these days? Rumor has it that the S&M club that was recently busted in Attleboro forced its members to answer questions about Hogan's Heroes before they could get spanked.) The players on Strip Poker wear a lot of superfluous undergarments, so it takes the full half-hour for them to get down to their boxers and bikinis -- but at least the "winning" team often gets into the spirit of things and strips down to match the losers. My question about this show is: why would anybody watch it before 11:25?

AFTER LAST YEAR'S embarrassing Emmy Awards ceremony (where The Practice beat The Sopranos for best drama series and almost all of the 17 honored actors had won before), the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences decided to change its voting rules. In the past, volunteer judges were sequestered in a hotel for two days, where they watched videotapes and then picked the winners for each Emmy category. The judges tended to be older members of the TV profession, and it's not surprising that they were especially fond of shows with jury trials. This year, judges can watch tapes and fill out ballots in their own home and on their own time, which may attract more volunteers who still have the use of their legs.

The bad news is that the list of nominees -- chosen by thousands of Academy members and announced last week -- still suck, so most of the winners are going to suck too. Among the 10 nominees for best drama and best comedy series, the Emmy voters made only two changes from last year, replacing NYPD Blue with The West Wing and Ally McBeal with Will & Grace.

For best drama series, voters kept ER, Law & Order, and The Practice, all of which have already won and don't deserve to win again this year. The West Wing is the favorite, and traditionalists must be relieved that one of the big three networks has delivered a show that can match HBO on merit. Besides, Emmy voters can't resist infuriating right-wingers by voting for an idealistic comedy drama reminiscent of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. It just makes better politics than voting for a gangster series that's a cross between Martin Scorsese and the Farrelly Brothers. (If there were an Emmy for sound effects, Tony's bout of food poisoning -- which hit him at both ends -- would be pretty tough to beat.)

As for some of the more egregiously overlooked dramas, the subtle Once and Again got a single nomination, for star Sela Ward, and the sci-fi series Now and Again was recognized only for its title sequence. Buffy the Vampire Slayer got nominations for writing and cinematography (both for the episode titled "Hush") and for hairstyling.

The nominees for acting prove that the Academy still hates youth. Five West Wing actors got nods: Martin Sheen (the president), Richard Schiff (Toby), John Spencer (Leo), Alison Janney (C.J.), and Stockard Channing (the first lady, in what may be a subtle show of support for Hillary Clinton). But the relatively young Bradley Whitford, who's won raves for turning the potentially whiny character of Josh Lyman into a romantic hero, was snubbed. The Sopranos also got five nods: James Gandolfini (Tony), Edie Falco (Carmela), Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Melfi), the late Nancy Marchand (Olivia), and Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior). I would have nominated Chianese last season, when his character was more prominent, but this year his spot should have gone to one of the younger hotheads on the show: Michael Imperioli (Christopher) or David Proval (Richie).

On the comedy side, Will & Grace is up against five-time winner Frasier, plus Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Sex and the City. The midseason hit Malcolm in the Middle won nods for writing, directing, casting, co-star Jane Kaczmarek, and guest star Bea Arthur. Freaks and Geeks, which I would vote as the best series of the season, got nominations for writing and casting. That '70s Show, which killed Freaks in the ratings, was recognized for hairstyling and make-up.

HBO ALSO PICKED UP Emmy nominations for comedy specials starring Eddie Izzard (Dress To Kill) and Chris Rock (Bigger and Blacker). It probably won't be as lucky with Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning, which premiered this past Sunday and will be repeated this Friday (July 28) at 10:30 p.m. (and probably dozens of times after that). DeGeneres is not only low-key but also tired-looking throughout this stand-up performance. Still, there are enough funny moments to make it worth watching, from one-liners ("We use 10 percent of our brain. Imagine what we could accomplish if we used the other 60 percent.") to long riffs with bizarre images (responding to homophobes who equate gay marriage with bestiality, she talks about what it might be like to marry a goat). DeGeneres, who says that she's using "the patch" to wean herself from the need for public approval, seems to work on the assumption that her audience will follow her anywhere. If you can go along with this for an hour, as I did, you might find The Beginning to be a welcome change from the hyperactivity and the phoniness of other stand-up specials.