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The Remote Island

The Weekly Rewind: Endless Summer

Posted by Ben Kallen


This week here at The Remote Island, we spent most of our time just trying to come up with fun stuff for you to watch. Because it's July, and the networks have pretty much given up for the summer. Sure, there's the last few episodes of Swingtown, which we're kind of hoping goes out with a giant orgy that leaves the characters far more satisfied than the show ever did for viewers. And there are reality competitions in which kids try to sing (or, even more difficult, sing country), or adults try to dance. (Frankly, we'd rather see somebody lose on Jeopardy.)

Meanwhile, summer programming on cable mainly consists of fun reality crapola, such as From G's to Gents, and about a dozen quirky detective shows, like the ones starring the Glamorous Ladies of TNT

Mostly, though, they're all just trying to hang on till the upcoming fall season. Which we're excited about, too -- which is why we gave you loads of spoilerrific info on Dollhouse, Dexter, Life on Mars, CSI, Friday Night Lights and Robot Chicken: Star Wars.

For lack of anything better to watch, we sent you to the Internet: for Heroes webisodes and X-Files conspiracy sites (not that you need them to understand the critically drubbed movie), to see John McCain fall asleep on Conan's desk, and for the final episode of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, now gone from the free web forever. (But at least Doogie Howser still has a few songs left in him -- somewhere in the neighborhood of Beaker's YouTube channel.) Then we told you why you should get TV Funhouse  and Spaced on DVD.

What else? Sadly, we said goodbye to Estelle Getty, Ebert & Roeper, and (possibly) Jay Leno.

And, of course, we dove right into the shallow end of the cultural pool, telling you about sexytime on the sets of Big Brother and Saved By the Bell, and (allegedly) at Matthew Broderick's friend's place. But the fun's over for The Bachelor, though he was the only one surprised about it.

And finally, we learned that watching too much TV makes us all think we're on TV. Which isn't actually true... yet.

 


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About Ben Kallen

Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

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Lindy Parker has worked as a ghostwriter, editor, dance instructor and a purveyor of dreams, one beer at a time. She loves Charles Dickens and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and also, straight-to-video releases with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. It's possible she reads more teen fiction than she should. She hails from Los Angeles, her hometown and soul mate, but she lives in Brooklyn, the fling she'll never forget.

Olivia Purnell left Ohio for sunny Los Angeles; then found that she couldn’t ignore New York City’s call, and brought herself to Brooklyn where she has worked with GenArt, BlackBook, the School of American Ballet, and finished an M.A. in Creative Writing from N.Y.U. She loves one-liners with sting and hates the stench of the subway in the summer. That said, she can’t get enough of either.

Jake Kalish is a freelance journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in Details, Maxim, Stuff, New York Press, Spin, Blender, Men's Fitness, Poets and Writers, and Playboy, among other publications. He is also the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights.

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Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

Nicole Ankowski has lived in Ohio, Oakland, and on the high plains of South Dakota, but is now proud to call Brooklyn home. She wrote for alternative weekly papers in the first two states, and tried to learn Lakota in the last. (The vowels can be tricky.) She just earned her MFA in Creative Writing and has been published in Beeswax literary journal. She is unable to resist good writing or bad TV.

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