Jon Stewart, please come back. We need you more than ever.
I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting. It has been 11 days, Stephen. 11 [BLEEP] days. Eleven. The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the public.
The reason that I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting is that every instinct and fiber of my pathological self-regard calls me to abuse of power. I want — no, deserve — not just your respect but your adoration. Parades with the tanks and the synchronized dancing, and why can’t they train 10,000 doves to spell out “Trump” in the clouds? How hard can it be? They’re already flying.
I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting because it is going to take relentless stamina, vigilance and every institutional check and balance this great country can muster to keep me, Donald J. Trump, from going full Palpatine, with the lightning coming out of the fingertips and “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate.”
We have never faced this before. Purposeful, vindictive chaos. But perhaps therein lies the saving grace of my, Donald J. Trump’s, presidency.
No one action will be adequate. All actions will be necessary. And if we do not allow Donald Trump to exhaust our fight and somehow come through this presidency calamity-less and constitutionally partially intact, then I, Donald J. Trump, will have demonstrated the greatness of America. Just not the way I thought I was gonna.
So, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court announcement. In a sane world a television blog wouldn’t be commenting on the President announcing his choice for the Supreme Court because what on Earth does that have to do with TV? But because in our madness we elected a reality show President, and he promptly turned what should have just been a routine press conference into a reality competition.
This creep reportedly flew his two candidates to Washington D.C. for the announcement to ramp up the suspense, and went so far as to change their twitter accounts to look alike. He then scheduled a primetime announcement, leaving the networks scrambling to reschedule programming so that they could broadcast his stupid Rose Ceremony live.
Aside from reducing what should be an important civic moment into a reality show season finale, see this for what it was: a distraction. Trump had previously said that he would make this announcement on Thursday. As in tomorrow. So what would make him push up the date?
Oh. Right.
And so I personally made the choice to refuse to watch the announcement live. I knew that it would be reported later, and I didn’t want to give Trump what he craves most of all: ratings and attention. Samantha Bee had the same idea, bless her.
Meanwhile, The Cheeto In Chief has begun icing out CNN altogether. No members of his administration have been on Jake Tapper’s show for the past couple of weeks and Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer have not appeared on any of their prime time show. An unnamed official explains: “We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda.” WELL, SUPER.
And oh shit, Trump just called CNN “fake news” again.
But on the bright side, cracks in the relationship between Trump and Fox News are beginning to reveal themselves. Sean Hannity, his biggest sycophant, still adores him, of course, but others — including Bill O’Reilly of all people — are expressing criticism.
Here’s The Daily Show‘s Hasan Minhaj breaking down the Muslim ban for the YouTube generation which is ironic because The Daily Show did not make this video available on YouTube making it impossible for me to embed here.
Siiiiigh. Here make yourself feel better by watching Triumph terrorize Trump supporters at the Inauguration.
Other TV News
Courtney Love is going to be in a Lifetime movie about the Menendez brothers because someone over at Lifetime is a motherfucking genius. Alas, Love will not be playing Eric, but rather Kitty.
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS NORA BUCHANAN IS GOING TO BE ON GENERAL HOSPITAL. WILL SHE HAVE A SCENE WITH TODD/FRANCO? MY HEAD IS EXPLODING!
Here’s Rihanna as Marion Crane in the upcoming final season of Bates Motel, guys.
Listen to me: If you have not been watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, it’s OK, I am not judging you. But you can fix this: starting next month, on February 11th in fact, the entire second season will be added to Netflix — where the first season is already streaming. Go do yourself a favor and catch up.
Speaking of: 1. Supergirl and The Flash are going to have a musical crossover event and 2. Rachel Bloom of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is going to write a song for it. When I am Queen, Bloom will write all the songs for every musical episode of every show.
Oh and hey, Lois Lane is going to be on Supergirl!
If you are interested in the new Star Trek, here’s a look at production so far.
Spoiler alert: Dr. Stephanie is probably not going to be back on Grey’s Anatomy. Is this a big deal? I don’t watch the show, so I don’t know if this is a big deal or not.
Yikes: Bethenny Frankel’s husband is acting all kinds of crazy and got his ass arrested.
i09 gives a fitting tribute to the Twelfth Doctor.
If you are a Broadchurch fan like me, you’ll be interested in the trailer for season 3. If you have no idea what I’m even talking about, I guess you’re just not that into dark British crime dramas.
Pilot News
ABC has given a pilot order to Unit Zero, an action dramedy starring Toni Collette from Kenya Barris, the guy who created black-ish.
ABC also ordered Salamander, a remake of a Belgian conspiracy series about a bunch of safety deposit boxes.
Street Dreams, a pilot about the rapper Nas’ life, has been given a pilot order over at BET. I’m sure the good ratings the New Edition miniseries got last week had something to do with that decision.
The CW ordered Life Sentence, a dramedy about a woman who thought she had a terminal illness, but doesn’t and now has to deal with the fallout of living every day like it was her last.
The CW also ordered Insatiable, about a lawyer-turned-beauty-pageant-coach. I’m already sold.
Drama High, a high school drama from the producers of Hamilton (!) and Friday Night Lights (!!) has been ordered by NBC.
In Other Development News
American Jihad, a documentary about how young men are radicalized, will air on Showtime in March. NOT RELEVANT AT ALL RIGHT NOW.
HBO is developing Francis & The Godfather, a movie about what happened behind the scenes during the filming of The Godfather.
Lionsgate is seriously talking about making a John Wick prequel series.
Wyatt Cenac’s stand-up series, Night Train with Wyatt Cenac, has been renewed for a second season on Seeso, whatever the hell that is.
Let’s Talk About Ratings
Riverdale premiered to softish ratings — comparable to No Tomorrow and Frequency. However, it has a better chance of being renewed than those shows because of the critical buzz it’s receiving. And if you like soapy teen dramas, you should give it a shot.
Star and The Mick are both likely to be renewed over at Fox, to which I say, “GOOD.”
Pure Genius is all but dead at CBS, but The Odd Couple ended its shortened season even, so there is a small chance it could return.
Scandal is not going anywhere anytime soon, but watch your back Quantico.
Everything over on NBC remains safe. We’ll have to see how Powerless, which premieres tomorrow night, does next week.
R.I.P
Frank Pellegrino, Sopranos actor and owner of Rao’s Italian restaurant
Gwendolyn Gillen, sculptor of the Mary Tyler Moore statue
WATCH THIS
The 100: Clarke and her friends have to deal with a whole new mess in the season premiere. 8 p.m., The CW
The Expanse: Holden and the crew deal with the aftermath of their escape. Two-hour season premiere. 9 p.m., Syfy
Showtime at the Apollo: Chaka Khan; T.I.; Meek Mill; Quavo; RaRa; Mike Epps; and Gabriel Iglesias perform and amateur night. 7 p.m., Fox
Late Night: Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Keanu Reeves, Judd Apatow, the Lumineers Late Night with Seth Meyers: Dakota Johnson, Willie Geist, Paper Route, Kenny Aronoff The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Ricky Gervais, Christina Ricci, Jain The Late Late Show with James Corden: Aaron Paul, Jenny Slate, Jermaine Fowler Jimmy Kimmel Live: Rob Lowe, Dave Salmoni, Tom Chaplin Conan: Jamie Dornan, Blake Anderson, Orny Adams The Daily Show: David Miliband Watch What Happens Live: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Keke Palmer
| WEDS. | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | The Goldbergs (repeat) |
Speechless (repeat) |
Modern Family (repeat) |
black-ish (repeat) |
Match Game (repeat) |
| CBS | Hunted (new) |
Criminal Minds (new) |
Code Black (new) |
| CW | Arrow (new) |
The 100 (new) |
Local |
| FOX | Lethal Weapon (new) |
Star (new) |
News/Local |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (repeat) |
Law & Order: SVU (repeat) |
Chicago P.D. (repeat) |
Watched the premiere of Riverdale wit the wife. It was…better than expected!