Beene There Done That

Has anybody noticed that Fox's new show, Oliver Beene (Official Site), seems to be a rip-off of the Wonder Years? Everything about the show screams, "I wish I was Kevin Arnold!" The TV show not only copies The Wonder Years premise by following Oliver growing through his adolescent years in the 60's but it also copies every other character in the show. You may think this comparison is pretty weak, but consider the following. The teacher drones on like Ben Stein, Oliver has friends that seem just like Winnie and Paul. Not even the trademark Wonder Year scenes of showing black & white newscasts in the background are cut from this cheap copy. Even the narrator's voice sounds like it came straight out of The Wonder Years. They could have at least based the show in the early 80's giving us Gen-X's something to relate to. Who do they think their target audience is anyway?

TV is the Pitts

Continuing with my rant about lame new TV shows, comes my take on The Pitts (Official Site) -- it's Fox's other new show. I guess I never gave it much of a chance, but from what I did see (about the first 15 minutes) the show gets two enthusiastic thumbs down. The premise of this show is that a supposedly normal girl (who can't act) lives with a family of psychotics that have very bad luck ? think Malcolm in the Middle but less funny. I didn't watch the ending, so I don't know if they are keeping all of the characters but in this particular episode they hired a nanny who has been absessed with the Father ever since he stood her up on prom night 25 years ago. Why couldn't he remember her when he hired her? Lame, lame, lame!

Where did all the good shows go? I'll take the Internet over TV any day. Although, I must admit, I do like the occasional cartoon.