I work from home most days so I end up watching a lot of television, mostly because I can't write with music playing and I have the same problem with total silence. Hey, that sounds like a good excuse, right? Look, I like television. I like it a lot and I won't apologize for it. It's my favorite entertainment medium.

It's time to celebrate it!

Each week I am going to bring you the most notable things that I saw on television over the past seven days, both the good and the bad. Of course, this will be a lkot more interesting once the new fall season begins, but the summer offers its own brand of programming that I find just as enjoyable and interesting.

Let's get to it!

(Be warned, there may or may not be spoilers ahead!)

Monday

Secrets of the Founding Fathers (The History Channel)

We Americans have a strange relationship with the Founding Fathers. And I include myself in this camp. We have raised them to the status of demi-gods, extolling their virtues while turning a willfully bllind eye to their transgressions (unless they are delightful transgressions, like a lot of what Benjamin Franklin got up to, that dirty old man). It's completely understandable, we want... hell, we need our heroes, and there are no heroes bigger than the men who risked hanging for treason in order to free themselves, and their country, from the tyranny of the British Empire.

This History Channel special was advertised as pulling back the curtain on the shadowy and insidious things that the Founding Fathers might have been up to when they weren't forging new nations (or perhaps, even while they were). Emphasis on the might, apparently.

So what did I learn from this special? Mostly things I already knew, like the fact that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were bigtime Freemasons. George Washington was especially and overtly into being a Freemason, incorporating many Freemason rites and ceremonies into official government ceremonies.

What did I learn from this special that I didn't already know? Well, I didn't know that not long ago 1,200+ pieces of human remains were discovered under Benjamin Franklin's London home. That was interesting. I have to say that I was very relieved to find out that Fankling allowed a doctor to illegally perform anatomy experiements on human cadavers in his backyard and that this was, most likely, the reason for all the human remains. Although, I supposed if Benjamin Franklin was secretly a serial killer I would have heard about it before now.

I also learned that Benjamin Franklin--

Hold on a second, why is it always about Franklin? Because he was so endlessly fascinating, that's why.

I also learned that Benjamin Franklin was possibly a member of The Hellfire Club, which held what basically amounted to high society orgies in secret underground lairs. Wow! Awesome! Franklin was thought to have definitely attended said orgies, but whether or not he wa an actual member of The Hellfire Club is up for debate amongst scholars who get government grants to study subterranean sex clubs. Whether or not he was a member, because he did attend these... happy gatherings, it is surmised that he used his knowledge of the sexual peccadilloes of England's high society (including members of Parliament) to the advantage of the Rebellion. That Franklin -- always thinking with both heads, he was.

Oh, and apparently George Washington was much more of a womanizer than I had previously thought.

I'm not entirely sure why I tuned into this special in the first place. Well, that's not true, yes I am. All you have to say to me is "Freemasons" and I'll at least give you a look. They are my favorite shadowy, possibly nefarious, secret society. All in all, this was an interesting one hour of material stretched out to two hours and padded with a lot of bait and switch tactics ("Coming up, which Founding Fathers were members of groups that today would be considered terrorist organizations?" The Boston Tea Party? Really? I, along with everyone else in America, already know about that!), and a bunch of doom and gloom proclamations about all the underhanded activities that some people believe that the Freemasons are responsible for.

And I choose to believe those proclamations because life is a lot more interesting that way.

Tuesday



Rescue Me (F/X)
"Torch"

This was one disturbing episode.

I mean, like... it was really disturbing.

On Rescue Me, the actual firefighting is usually secondary to the lives and struggles of the characters. In this episode, a three car accident involving a dead small child affects everyone in the firehouse in ways that none of them see coming, and a few we don't see coming either.

Franco takes his anger out in the boxing ring. Lou runs back to a woman who once betrayed him and lays himself emotionally bare in front of her (oh, Lou, I feel like this is going to blow up in your face again). And then there's Tommy. Tommy drinks and he drinks and he drinks some more and finds himself haunted by the ghosts of this dead relatives. His father, brother, son and best friend/cousin show up to face him and still Tommy can't feel... anything. So he ups the ante by taking a blowtorch to his leg. Finally, he feels something! Wow... I just... that whole scene was profoundly and wonderfully fucked up. I don't know how much lower Tommy can sink, but the very last scene of the episode suggests that me might not be so dead inside afterall.

Throughout most of the season there has been a major subplot running in the background about Garrity dealing with kidney cancer that he got as a result of his time on The Pile at Ground Zero. It's been an especially touching and all too real storyline in a show full of them. Well, now it's gotten kind of weird. In the last few episodes while under medication, Garrity has been having hallucinations that have manifested themselves as Broadway-style musical numbers. I'm no sure how I feel about them. The first one was funny. The second was still funny, but less so. I don't know, at this poitn it's kind of weird. Steven Pasquale (who plays Garrity) has a really nice voice, though.

Wednesday



The Philanthropist (NBC)
"Myanmar"

Despite some exciting and/or interesting bits around the middle, this episode was a big step down from last week's premiere episode.

The pilot had the storytelling device of Teddy Rist (as played by James Purefoy) narrating the events to a comely bartender he was trying to bed. So he was funny and charming and that was a big part of what made the show (and the character) so likable. This week's episode was narrated by Jesse L. Martin's character Philip Maidstone, who was describing things to the board of directors of Maidstone-Rist, the company of which the two best friends are co-CEOs. Jesse L. Martin is a fine actor, but the narration was not as compelling, and was actually kind of boring. It didn't help that for the most part, what was happening on the show was kind of boring too.

I'm still in for the duration with this show, mostly because of Purefoy's Teddy Rist, who is one of the better charming rogues to come across television in a long time. 

Thursday

With the exception of two random and brief monsoon-like bouts of rain, it was beautiful out so I spent most of the day/night out of my apartment and amongst real people. Compared to their television counterparts, I found their dialogue to be less clever and lacking in crackling dramatic tense.

Friday



The Twilight Zone (Sci Fi Channel)

To celebrate the July 4th holiday, Sci Fi Channel held a marathon of The Twilight Zone that went all weekend long, starting on Friday at 5pm and ending on Sunday at 5:30am. If you really want to be technical about it, I watched episodes all throughout the weekend, but I needed a Friday show and this was the day it started.

Not only is The Twilight Zone one of the best television shows of all time, it is one of the most daring and important as well. I wrote very briefly about my thoughts on Rod Serling earlier in the year, but to quickly sum it up, Serling is one of the most important writer/producers in the history of television and we don't have enough insanely talented mavericks running around Hollywood anymore.

I'm always excited whenever there is a Twilight Zone marathon on television. There are so many classic bits of television to be found that it's very easy to lose hours and possibly days on the couch. "A Game of Pool", "The Invaders", "The Masks", "Eye of the Beholder", "A Stop at Willoughby", "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "People Are Alike All Over", "Time Enough At Last"... I could literally go on and on about this show and these episodes and how there isn't much on TV even now to rival both the biting (yet still heartfelt) social commentary and skillful and varied writing found in The Twilight Zone.  

The above episode, "To Serve Man" didn't air in the marathon until Saturday, but it's a classic so I don't care.

Saturday

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship (ESPN)

I can't decide if the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship is the greatest thing in the world, or the most horrifying.

Every year on July 4th, the top competitive eaters in the world gather on Coney Island to participate in what I can only imagine is the most popular and well-known eating competition in the world. And not only do the competitors come, but judging by the crowd shots, thousands and thousands of people come to watch these competitive eaters stuff their faces with hot dogs for ten minutes. Or maybe they come to watch the throwing up, although I'd hope not.

The thing that I really do appreciate, from a purely comedic level, is that the television production from ESPN is totally and completely over-the-top. They treat this competition as if it is the most important sporting event in the world, complete with all the WWE-style bluster and stone cold gravitas that the on-camera people can muster while keeping a straight face (Yes, I realize those are two completely opposite styles!). If you're going to cover a totally ridiculous event, you might as well do it in the most ridiculous style available, I say. At least I hope that is intentionally and comically over-the-top. If ESPN was playing this straight and not for laughs then I might have to give up on humanity.

As for the competition itself, it is truly glorious in its utter horrifyingness. For ten minutes the competitors stuff their faces with as many hot dogs as they can, and while it was an impressive sight to behold, I couldn't help but feel queasy when it was all over. I was watching this with my mom and brother and my mom probably summed up the entire thing when she asked, "When do they put up the ticker along the bottom ranking the most obese states in the nation?"

Joey Chestnut ended up outpacing the once dominant Kobayashi and winning his third Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship in a row, with a record 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

Sunday

Iron Man

For the most part, the TV networks went into hibernation for the holiday weekend, so I popped Iron Man into the ol' DVD player, because I hadn't seen it since the DVD first came out.

It was still good.

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