*"Factory" on Spike*
Whether it winds up a hit or a box-office bust, the “Get Smart” movie has proved one thing to me: I am officially an old guy.
According to the director, Peter Segal, “Get Smart” is now just like a comic book, a “classic” that should be “honored.” And then, once honor has been paid, it should be turned into something completely unrecognizable to anyone over the age of 40. I believe Segal used the phrase “comedic 'Bourne Identity'” in one interview -- and no, he wasn't referring to the Ludlum novels.
Now when I was growing up, I thought “Get Smart” was pretty darned entertaining just as it was. Why did it have to be turned into an action movie? Oh, but now I'm edging perilously close to get-off-my-lawn territory.
The reality is that the new generation doesn't care what used to be entertaining. It has its own sensibility, one that gets a little less recognizable to me with each passing year. Still, there are some areas where their tastes and mine overlap, and this week three shows like that are coming up.
“Factory” (9 p.m. CT Sunday, Spike TV). Honestly, I had zero expectations for this comedy, which features four slackers working in dead-end industrial jobs. Not my world in any remote sense. And even though it featured one of the players from the pioneering Comedy Central series “Strangers with Candy,” that launched Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert into orbit, I wondered what it was doing on Spike, a channel better known for lowbrow fare like mixed martial arts and “Rambo” films.
But as I moseyed through the episode, I found myself laughing harder and harder until I had to close the door to keep from disturbing others. The beauty of “Factory” is that it speaks in the minimalist lingo epitomized by those Budweiser “dude” ads, yet is so perfectly pitched and paced that after a while it becomes a real-life “Beavis and Butt-Head,” where half the entertainment value is just watching these guys talk like idiots.
The comedy has a loose, improvisational feel to it, but is still pretty fast-paced. And the four characters are at their funniest just in the room alone, swapping lines with each other, an experience a lot of dudes in their 20s can relate to … or so I'm told.
* “Hopkins” *(9 CT Thursday, ABC, KMBC-9). Remember a few years ago (in 2000, to be exact) when ABC put on a real-life medical drama called “Hopkins 24/7”? It was a big deal at the time, because ABC's news crews were spending hundreds of hours documenting the everyday lives of doctors at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, using these new, cute little handheld cameras.
Well, that was then. Handhelds are everywhere on TV these days, and the reality genre has boomed, and the on-screen conventions have been pushed relentlessly forward. And it shows with “Hopkins.” The new version bears less of a resemblance to “ER”-styled medical drama of the 2000 “Hopkins” than it does to “The Hills,” the MTV sensation that introduced a whole new visual vocabulary to unscripted TV.
The stories still involve people being treated at Hopkins, of course, but what's striking is how much time is spent outside the hospital with the docs and their families. There are scenes in here so intimate, it's amazing that some of the actors here don't have black eyes from accidentally turning into a lurking camera lens.
* “Dr. Drew Celebrity Addiction Special” *(9 p.m. CT Tuesday, VH1). This program, hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky, gives me an excuse to write about “Celebrity Rehab.” Back in the '90s Dr. Drew was known for giving out sex advice on radio and TV. Now, thanks to “Celebrity Rehab,” he's known for giving recovery advice to D-list celebrities at his detox facility-slash-Big Brother crib. Cable TV has churned through a generation of talent in that time, yet Dr. Drew is still standing, still delivering a remarkably no-nonsense public health message.
On a channel that features such edifying fare as women competing aggressively for the privilege of dating the lead singer from Poison, “Celebrity Rehab” fits the channel's bottom-feeding instincts. And yet it also manages to bring a sophisticated don't-do-drugs message to the its jaded young audience. After watching wheelchair-bound train wreck Jeff Conaway for a few weeks, wouldn't you sober up?
Though loosely tied to “Celebrity Rehab,” which just got re-upped for a new season, the special focuses on high-profile substance abuse cases such as Amy Winehouse and the late Heath Ledger, as well as “sobriety success stories” like Craig Ferguson and Jack Osbourne.
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