<![CDATA[Gawker: defamer, greek]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: defamer, greek]]> http://gawker.com/tag/defamer/greek http://gawker.com/tag/defamer/greek <![CDATA[ABC Family's Greek: Just the (Many) Gay Parts]]> Who knew ABC Family was chasing the Logo audience. Witness their college frat house soap opera Greek, which, as this clip reel demonstrates, may just be the gayest show on television this side of Bromance.

What do you mean you haven't been watching Greek? It's the only teenage soap opera out there about the natural tensions between conformity and individualism in our colleges' Greek system. Some of those individuals are gay! Like Calvin, the spritely young black dude who loves other dudes— dudes like Michael. Michael is also a gay frat boy and Calvin's love interest. They're both openly gay but feel the pressure to be butch and unsexual around their frat brothers. Is it an appropriate gesture for Calvin to send Michael flowers because he didn't introduce Michael to his fraternity brothers? Ah, questions of sexual etiquette plague us all, don't they?

So good for ABC Family! It's heartening to see them portray openly gay men as regular folks instead of an insurgent force against marriage or mincing float ornaments! Maybe this puts the popular opinion just another teensy step ahead of our current laws? Maybe just a scosh.

From Lindsay Lohan's pregnancy propaganda film to to Greek's homosexual indoctrination, ABC Family has clearly taken a brazen stance on the population control issue. Where can we go for our pro-birth entertainment? Lou Dobbs, a nation tuns to you.

Thanks go to video intern Spencer Lund for watching a whole lot of Greek.

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<![CDATA[Mickey Mouse Assimilated By Hulu Aliens]]> The extraterrestrials at Hulu have staged another coup in their bid to take over television. Disney has struck up a deal with the online video site, meaning we get ABC shows now.

Plus ABC Family! So, phew, you can finally catch up on Greek. (No, really, you should.)

This also makes CBS the only major network to not host any content on the site, because they have a deal with TV.com and old people are bewildered by the internet anyway.

Hulu still comes in third in video site viewership, behind MySpace and YouTube, but in quality, it's so totally the best. And we're not even shilling! We actually enjoy it and use it. Go figure.

[TheWrap]

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<![CDATA[Television's Mid-Fall Report Card]]> It is already October 15th! How did that happen? I guess you could say that the Earth rotated around the sun a specific number of times and that days winnowed into nights which bled into days and so on and so on in the circle game. I think that's it. So, how have we been spending these ever-marching autumn hours? Watching TV, of course! Lots and lots of TV. Some has been good (Mad Men, The Daily Show), some has been bad (90210), and some has just been puzzling (Two and a Half Men?). So as we approach the ever-important November Sweeps Week—when networks set their ad rates based on inflated, extraordinary episodes that don't actually reflect typical week-in, week-out quality—let's take a second to give a quarter term report card. How has television been faring, you know, quality-wise (because we already know that ratings are in the toilet)? We'll analyze after the jump.

SUNDAY

Desperate Housewives Time Travels
The big surprise in last season's finale was a series of short scenes showing the characters five years in the future. The new season picked up where that left off, with everyone older and not necessarily wiser. It's a bit gimmicky, yes, but it's allowed them to jettison tiresome plotlines and create brand new ones (Lynette's rambunctious twin boys are now rambunctious twin young men!). While some of us here at HQ still find the show to be a bit of a whiny bore, others are digging the series like it was the first season all over again. B+

Entourage's Cameoverload
The HBO boyfest LA answer to girl business New Yorkfest Sex and the City has been overdoing it with the celebrity guest appearances, yes. But its arc has also been pat and frustrating. Drama has reached Inspector Clouseau levels of idiocy, Turtle has been given little to do, E continues to rankle in his snappy-short-guy-who's-kinda-earnest way, Adrien Grenier still cannot act, and poor Jeremy Piven is going to drive himself to an early grave with all his senseless bellowing. Credit to the underused Debi Mazar and Rex Lee for keeping their characters fresh and fun, though. C-

Dexter Is Still Killer
Showtime's gory character study about a Miami forensics expert cum justice-seeking serial killer (Michael C. Hall, steamy as ever) and the people who orbit him is still as thrilling as ever. Good grades go to Jennifer Carpenter's sassy new haircut, the always-dependable Lauren Vélez and David Zayas as Dexter's weary partners in crime fighting, and to the softly heartbreaking Julie Benz who brings a quiet dignity to every tiny scene she's in. This season's chief storyline (so far), concerning Dexter's accidental murder of an ADA's (Jimmy Smits) brother, is tense and ominous. You know, as the show should be. A-

True Blood, Truly
It's campy and silly at times, yes, but with the ever-increasing mysterious death toll, we're hooked now. Anna Paquin-factor be damned. B

Mad Men
Oh you know it's good. A

MONDAY

Gossip Girl & The Hills: Hurt So Good
The Upper East Side teen soap (fiction) and the Los Angeles post-teen soap (reality!) are both dumb and gut-churning sometimes, yes, but both have mostly been hitting on as many cylinders as they can so far this season. GG has tempered the silly melodrama of last season with more groan-inducing witty New Yorky references and word play, while The Hills has mined some sneakily affecting emotional depths. (Well, not really that affecting, but you know, relatively.) It's what the kids are watching and really, they could be doing worse. GG: B+, Hills: B-

Two and a Half Men Apparently Exists
Yeah, apparently it does. And lots of people watch it. Sigh. D

TUESDAY

Greek Is The Best Show You're Probably Not Watching
Well the third season of this terrific little confection of a college series is almost over, but I'm told the entire first season is available for your ears and eyeballs to consume online. It's a funny, sweet, nice-but-not-too-nice dramedy about a college in Ohio (where it's always sunny and warm!), that has soared these past couple of months. That Greek (heh!) guy from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is on it, and, well, swoon. The various romantic polygons have remarkably not gotten tired, and the sore-thumb single gay plotline has been treated calmly and evenly. Go watch! A-

Please Do Not Watch 90210
This excreble misery of a remake is a sloppily-made, boring piece of drivel that mind-bogglingly managed to even underestimate the taste level of squealing teenage girls. With seemingly no feel for plot structure, continuity, character, or humor, the writers have blundered along, serving us tepid little piles of gruel that—despite the presence of o.g. stars Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth (plus a hilarious Hannah Zuckerman-Vasquez line)—woefully pale in comparison to the original teen whine and cheese party. Ugh. F-

Fringe: WTF?
OK, we admit we only watched the first episode of this sci-fi CSI meets X-Files pastiche. And we admit to sort of enjoying it. But nothing really pulled us back in. Joshua Jackson, way late of Dawson's Creek, is as wannabe suave and charming as ever, Anna Torv is sort of hard to pin down, and Lance Reddick is left to lurk in the shadows, reminding of us better work like The Wire and Lost. Who has kept up with this? How's it doing? We guess right now we'll give it a C

WEDNESDAY

Goodbye Forever, Project Runway
So it ends tonight, whatever. This season has been kind of unbearable, save for a few highlights (Leanne! Sort of!), with its annoying catchphrases, untalented contestants, and uninspired challenges. When the show comes back as a sad Pontiac Phoenix rising from the ashes on Lifetime (or, um, maybe not), we're pretty sure we're not going to watch it. Which is sad, because it used to be so damn good. Ah well. To everything a season and blah blah. C-

I Suppose There Have Been Other Things Airing On Wednesday Nights?
Um, let's see here.. Lipstick Jungle? No thanks. Knight Rider? Certainly not. America's Next Top Model? Never in a million years. Oh here we go. Top Design. Wait. Wait, nope. Not that either.

THURSDAY

Clocking In At The Office
We've only had two episodes, but they've been squirmy, swoony delights thanks mostly to the rainy day engagement between floppy old Jim and frizzy old Pam—though, it'd be nice to have her back in the actual office, rather than flirting it up with that teddy bear dude from Mad Men—and to the pitch-perfect Amy Ryan as a strange, nerdy, cautious love interest for ever-bumbling Michael Scott. Kudos also to the show's writers for giving lesser-seen characters like Meredith their chances to shine. A-

Kath & Kim
Sad. Just sad. Such high hopes for the usually likable Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, but this Australian import just didn't connect. D

Live From New York It's... Thursday Night?
Because of some sort of political and economic foofaraw going on these days, Lorne Michaels and co. have decided to add a special Thursday version of their Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment to the NBC lineup. You know, to stay current and all. We've only had one so far (they'll run up to the election), and it was funny in parts and strained and awkward in others. The thing is, SNL is so skimpy on the funny as is, it seems a bit foolish to stretch out their best material to two nights a week. But, we'll keep watching for now and give it a tentative B.

It Really Is Always Sunny In Philadelphia
FX's hilarious, filthy, swear-filled, low-budget comedy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia continues to blow the brain with out-there yet somehow completely salient themes like the gas crisis and how to fake one's own death. A

(Note: Please come back, '30 Rock.' Pleeeassse??)

THOSE OTHER TWO NIGHTS NORMAL PEOPLE SPEND DRUNK

Friday and Saturday... I dunno. I guess there's new stuff on, but who really watches. So instead let's take a moment to discuss the real TV this fall, which of course has been news and various humorous reportings on said news. As we said above, there seems to be some sort of election happening as well as some coverage of the large and troubling black hole that recently opened up here in New York, south of Worth Street. The "news" programs, as they were, have been of course loud and shouty and irksome and saturated with the kind of editorializing and conjecture that has somehow slunk its way to the top of the heap. It's so rare, like really honestly rare, these days to see any reporting that's not loaded with opinions and speculation and all manner of rabid fame-clawing by correspondents desperate to earn the next truckload of sweet ass O'Reilly or Olbermann cash. Fuck who's in the tank for who, let's toss out both tanks and start from scratch. And yes, though I like her, I'm willing to throw the Maddow out with the bathwater. F+

The parody shows, chiefly The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, have fared far better because, duh, there's just so. much. to make fun of. It's no surprise that these arch hosts (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert) are performing ably, but all of their correspondents, writers, and editors have also been more on top of their game than we've seen in a long time. Wherever you fall on the issues (crazy, nonsensical shortsightedness vs. Barack Obama), the back-to-back lineup is always worth watching. A+

So that's that! Tell us what else you've been watching and if you've enjoyed it in the comments. And, you know, disagree with me. Because really I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

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<![CDATA[The Most Conservative and Most Liberal Shows On TV]]> The Gossip Girl kids have gotten political. Two of them at least, Penn Badgley who plays Dan and his off-screen ladylove Blake Lively, who plays his on-screen ladylove Serena. They're appearing in a MoveOn.org anti-McCain ad in which regular kids—including these two soap stars at that Hannah girl from that American Teenager documentary—condescend to their McCain-voting parents as if they were about to drink or take doobies. Har har. So Gossip Girl is a bit liberal, but it's not the only politicized show on the air. No indeed there are others, subtly (or not so) spouting rhetoric from both sides of the aisle. Our Photoshop expert Steve Dressler has created a simple chart that we'll explain after the jump.


On the Conservative right you have jingo-tastic torture and shoot first, then maybe ask questions 24. Alongside it are The Hills (Heidi Montag endorses McCain, he calls her "a very talented actress", John Adams twirls in his grave. Plus it's all about remorseless spending and there are no gays on the show and, actually, thousands of gays in LA, especially working in fashion for God's sake), The Sopranos (we think it's more about conservative people than it is conservative, but some people read it is rah rah family values, in perverted way. And yes we realize it's not on the air anymore, whatevs), and Two and a Half Men. OK, so we don't normally watch that show but lots of people do! We suspect they're the 60 million people we don't want to talk to, enemies of ideas and progress and rebellion against the status quo.

On the left you have Liberal nutjobs like 30 Rock (though Tina Fey's character once said she would probs end up voting for McCain, that was a while ago, and man oh man things have changed. That "Cooter" episode alone qualifies it as one of the most searingly liberal shows on the air), gay-friendly fare like Greek (best show on TV right now, no joke. Watch it.), the aforementioned GG (its actors are libs, its cast ethno and homo friendly, the really rich kids avoid talking about what would probably be conny politics), and Mad Men. This show is a toss up because, like The Sopranos it's about some conservative people, but not necessarily conservative in its messages. It's ultimately a study of the Beginning of the End of the American dream, which gives it some trenchantly liberal undertones. Plus that sad gay character. Hm. Just like Sopranos.

And then there's South Park in the middle, the cartoon show with its own brand of Libertarianism. I suppose it's fair for an iconoclast to claim no particular affiliation other than with one's own self-satisfaction.

What else would you add to the chart, and where? Maybe a conservative nod to "fuck habeas corpus" shows like Law & Order: SVU?

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<![CDATA[Sorority Sisters Miffed That Trashy Summer Show Makes Greek Life Look As Fun As It Totally Is!]]>
Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore after last night's premiere of Greek*, an ABC Family show dedicated to spreading the inaccurate notion that fraternity and sorority life consists of little more than pretty people being bitchy and boning each other while drunk on free-flowing keg beer, the Tri-Delts have released a statement decrying the hurtful stereotypes perpetuated by the series: "The behavior depicted in Greek happens in sororities as often as doctors look like McDreamy. Greek may make for good TV, but it's a far cry from reality for the vast majority of our members.

"Women who participate in that kind of superficial and 'mean girl' behavior are totally missing out on the true sorority experience." The Delta Delta Deltas are, of course, lying, hoping to draw a crowd of hopeless undesirables to their rush events who'll walk blindly into their punishing gauntlet of eye rolls, bitchy comments about their clothes, or hints about their weight like, "And every day, we have a super-healthy salad bar that totally helped me drop five pounds. So! You'd probably want to check that out if we become sisters!"

[*Is this now our new favorite trashy summer show? It just might be.]

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