Joey Gibson’s Blog

I didn’t see this when it aired, but I caught it on one of those “most outrageous” clip shows. It’s now one of my favorites.

I used to love watching the original Japanese show Iron Chef and I’ve come to like Iron Chef America. I love Alton Brown and frequent judge, Ted Allen. But there are three things that really annoy me about this show, and it would be far better if they would fix them. 

1. Teach Kevin Brausch how to say “kon ban wa.” It’s not “kan ben wa,” as Kevin says it. It’s not that hard to say properly.
2. Get rid of that idiot who plays “The Chairman.” Chairman Kaga on the original show was somewhat dignified. This guy is a total cornball.
3. Lose the cheesy kung-fu sound effects when the Chairman turns his head, moves his arm, etc.

To be honest, I think they should get rid of the whole show mythology and just make it a cooking competition. Making this chairman the supposed nephew of Chairman Kaga was a reasonable device to introduce the show to America, but it’s time to get rid of it. Especially that campy idiot who plays him. (Yes, I know, I mentioned that twice.)

Several months ago a friend recommended a show on the USA network called Burn Notice. I didn’t get around to watching it until about two weeks ago. I wish I’d taken his advice sooner, since this show is great. It’s about a former spy who gets burned by his agency. He is trying to find out who burned him, while he and his friend Sam take on various jobs and good deeds to pay the bills. It’s sort of like a miniature A-Team. Sam, by the way, is played by Bruce Campbell, of Evil Dead, Army of Darkness and Bubba Ho-Tep fame. If you like spy shows with bits of humor, definitely check it out.

I just finished watching the series premiere of The Cleaner on the A&E network and about the only thing I can say is, “meh.” Part of my indifference comes from the fact that when I heard the name of the show, I assumed it was going to be something similar to Harvey Keitel’s “Mr. Wolfe” from Pulp Fiction; “I’m Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.” But that’s not what it was about. The other part is due to the excessive use of “the ’s’ word.” In this one-hour show, there were at least 12 occurrences of the word. That’s a lot. One single conversation in one scene contained 5 of those uses. That’s just absurd, and shows a lack of skill in the writers.

Anyway, the show revolves around an ex-junkie who believes he talks to God, and his network of  ex-junkie associates who try to help people with drug problems. Get it? He’s the “clean”er? Of course, while he’s helping other people, he’s neglecting his own family, and strife ensues. The acting was pretty good and the characters were fairly interesting, but the show just didn’t do it for me.

I just finished watching the latest installment of The Sopranos and I have to say it sucked really bad. I was a huge fan of the show for the first three years. Season 4 was a bit rocky and Season 5 was absolutely horrible. With the one notable exception of the whacking of Adriana, S5 season was a big yawn. So far this year, I’m completely unimpressed. If you’re going to make your fans wait two years between seasons, the new season needs to be big. Huge, even. So far, they’re just not cutting it.

As an aside, we just finished watching all of Season 1 of Desperate Housewives. Now that is a great show.

Tammy and I have started watching a show on BBC America called The Kumars at No. 42, and we love it. According to the official site, it’s “Part scripted comedy, part improvisation, part genuine interview,” which pretty much sums up what we’ve seen. Tammy doesn’t usually like British humor (while I love it) so for her to laugh out loud at this show, it must be funny. Check it out. It comes on Wednesday nights at 10:00 PM.