Primal Screen
Zombies at the Olympics?
Published: July 25, 2012
Instead, Sheen took a role as an obnoxious, self-indulgent, raunchy anger-management therapist. Sure, it’s bought him a few more minutes of attention — “look, everybody, the train wreck is playing a train wreck!” — but it will do nothing for his long-term career prospects. I predict America will tire of this cynical stunt pretty fast.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to start my own TV production firm so I can create that show about the kindly public defender in the Amazon.
Off the Hook: Extreme Catches (8pm Mon, Discovery; series will then move to Animal Planet starting the following Mon)
Pro wrestler Showtime Eric Young proves to be an appealing host in this new reality series. Showtime sets out to “fish with the best of ’em, on their terms.” In the premiere, that means heading to Florida for a damn-fool shark-fishing expedition. If the idea of reeling in man-eating predators doesn’t sound reckless enough, how about doing it while standing on a flimsy paddleboard in the middle of the ocean?
“Will I die doing this?” Showtime asks his local mentor.
“Absolutely, you can die doing this,” he replies.
“All right,” Showtime says, smiling. “Good!”
You may fear for Showtime’s life, but that would be silly. With his bushy beard, raspy voice and muscle-bound physique, he’s a real-life cross between Paul Bunyan and Bluto from the Popeye cartoons. As if in a folk legend, he picks up sharks with his bare hands and kisses them.
Note to man-eating predators: If I were you, I’d stay out of this guy’s way.
The Great Escape (9pm Sun, TNT)
In this headache-inducing reality competition, three pairs of players are locked in confinement. As deafening percussion fills the soundtrack, the players must search for maps and keys, avoid security guards, crack codes, and make their way through obstacles. The first pair to break out wins $100,000.
I say The Great Escape is “headache-inducing” because it’s relentlessly tense. If I were a contestant, I’d be less interested in escaping than in finding the source of that deafening percussion and destroying it.
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