S T O O P I D

Anything you were doing in bed including reading was waaaayyyy better than this.

I watched it (err, rather, I was getting some work done during the Olympics and then didn't turn the TV off). The first segment was actually kind of funny - guy had his beloved dog stuffed after it died and wanted to keep it in a shrine in their house. The panel decided that that was gross (because... yeah) but he could keep the dog in the attic.

The second segment was the one about the stripper pole in the advertisements -- that one had an undercurrent of depressing for me. The couple was funny, but the guy was clearly just trying to spice up their sex lives a bit. I think the panel's advice in the end (though I wasn't paying super close attention) was that she doesn't have to get a stripper pole if she doesn't want, but she should be open to being more adventurous. Which isn't exactly bad advice...

No! Did the Olympics start already? Why is no one even talking about them this year...?

Nah, I switched to that dinosaur sex show on Discovery.

Did I miss anything?

It was on after the closing ceremonies

Wrong, Dan. NBC "paused" the closing ceremonies at 10:30pm to air the garbage show. The last part of the ceremonies then aired at 11:35pm. Many people were annoyed by the abrupt change/disruption.

Also, what was the quote on the Marriage Ref about how if only 1000 people in the U.S. do something then it's basically on the same level as being a serial killer?

Second the love for Wolf Hall.

Another brilliant bit of programming by NBC, interrupting the ceremonies for that crap. The only aspect of the show they're selling is the big name guest panelists, and there won't be any more once the already-taped episodes air.

They lost me at Alec Baldwin being even a pretend marriage ref. Maybe NBC can have a show with the Octomom giving advice to teens on how to avoid pregnancy.

I made it through about twelve minutes before I realized that the three panelists (Alec, Jerry, and Kelly Ripa) must have committed some atrocity against NBC to be foisted on an unwitting public in this manner.

Total crap.

I want Alec on Wife Swap or Nanny Emergency or one of those parenting shows! "RUDE, THOUGHTLESS LITTLE PIG! YOU DON'T HAVE THE BRAINS OR THE DECENCY..."

The more callous side of me thought--when his daughter called 911 thinking he had a heart attack a few weeks ago--that he was faking a heart attack to scare the bejeezus out of her. After all, his publicist wrote off the incident as "a misunderstanding on one person's part."

I do agree that the phone message was not really that nasty compared to what I've heard other parents say to their kids. But if he WERE faking a cardiac event to get to the kid, now that's REAL mad parenting skillz!

Did you just take a shot at SVU? The worst/best show on television? HOW DARE YOU SIR!

Wow. Some of your readers who commented are just waaay "too cool" to enjoy The Marriage Ref, I guess! I was angry at NBCs idiotic programming priorities, but I watched and I guarantee that 90% of the people who saw The Ref laughed and enjoyed it. The couples and scenarios were genuinely funny, and they were not offering "marriage advice"...they were making the call on a specific disagreement that the participants agreed to heed. Check it out! It will only be as good as the guests, though

@ stinkbug (7): So that's what happened. I was wondering what the fuck NBC was doing. I thought it was just going to be another scheisse commercial break for the stupid show. After staying on nbc for all of 2 minutes and realizing that this was the actual show I just switched to CBC and then went to bed from then on.

During the Olympics Opening/Closing there should have been more cooler canadian rock bands playing like Arcade Fire, BSC, etc. I enjoyed those who did perform (does that include McLachlan?).

@8 - it was about the guy who had his dog stuffed. They had some fact-checker person look up how many people have their pets stuffed every year and it was 1,000. The point was, this is not a normal thing to do.

Anyways, it was really the first scenario that I found funny. Less so the commentary (Kelly Ripa was pretty annoying). They showed the guy's dead stuffed dog, and it actually looked dead... not like a taxidermied version of a pet. Other people's weirdness can be entertaining. From the "preview" it seems like the show is a whole bunch of "my spouse does/did this really weird thing, am I justified in wanting him/her to stop?"

Eh... It fell into the "if it comes on while I'm cleaning or working, I probably won't turn it off" category for me.

NBC is an industry joke now. With Seinfeld, they hope to drudge up the network's heyday. I smell a Friends reunion in the offing. Could NBC even afford that now?

I know I'm not alone in hating NBC's coverage of the Games (commercial interruptions, live vs. taped, et al.), but apparently viewership was up almost 50% over Torino. NBC has the rights to London in 2012, then the Olympics might go back to ABC or it might even go to ESPN and wouldn't that be a hoot? (Except you'd have to have cable to watch the Olympics!)

Wolf Hall is one of the best things I have read in a looong time. I'm excited that she's going to do another book for the latter part of his career.

@7 ftw - WE WANTED THE REST OF THE CLOSING CEREMONIES, NBC!

One other item that attested to NBCs stellar judgment on coverage is when they finally resumed coverage of the closing ceremonies, they introduced Alanis Morissette, who came out in a gorgeous gown and began to sang a really lovely song - at which point they cut away to interview a bobsled athlete, while Alanis was singing distantly in the background. This was the time for athlete interviews, after 2 weeks of coverage? During her song?

I just wanted to chime in with agreement about SVU. I was able to watch that show before I had kids, but oh man... I call it "Bad Plonk Plonk." To distinguish it of course from the other versions of Plonk Plonk that air constantly.

In our area it comes on after SNL, and my wife sometimes watches it. I can't understand why. It is traumatizing. I mean, I could scan the web for images from war zones if I wanted to do, but I don't see the point in seeing that stuff any more that I need to see the stuff SVU airs.

Now every cast member has had their own failed show. Further proof that Larry David was the best part of Seinfeld.

I would like to award the Olympics EPIC FAIL Medal to ... wait for it ...

NBC

Yeah, you guys totally won that medal.

(we love how the local NBC people tried to sneak stuff in, but having football announcers on speed skating or race announcers for curling and cutting away from the real action .. seriously ...)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/131180/the-mar…

the stripper pole conversation annoyed me. they never told the woman to her face that she should be more adventurous and they actually seemed a little too hard on the guy in my opionion. i actually stopped and told my husband, "this show reminds me why i love dan savage so much."

@30 Dan has been posting those "every child" stories for a long time now. There's nothing more to say except "that's horrifying" every time he posts one, and even that doesn't do it justice, so most people just say nothing.

I turned off the closing ceremonies when the mime showed up.

"Wolf Hall" is an amazing read. Even though the book's thick, I wanted it to last a few hundred pages longer.

Maybe NBC will get a Ken's 'Schrammie' Award.

It was pretty enjoyable. It's also pretty much a ripoff of The Things I Hate About You, a British show whose American version on Bravo was hosted by Mo Rocca.