Chuck Norris fans were tuning in with religious
and irony-free devotion. Who else but The Hallmark Channel could possibly rerun
it with a straight face? CBS kept Walker on the air for no fewer than
eight seasons. Why? They had their reasons. See if you can guess what they
were.
However, if Walker's relative scarcity of photon torpedoes always bugged
you, be advised that Spike feels your pain. "The First Network for Men" brings
you Star Trek: The Next Generation at the one o'clock hour. It's
not all fast cars, dubbed Japanese game shows, and heaving breasts on Spike,
although to be honest, Star Trek: TNG is in many ways a bizarre combination
of all three. If you're married, it's on late enough for your wife to have
gone to bed. If you're not, well, this is some prime World of Warcraft
time. Make it so.
It may not be Saturday, and it may be on decade-old tape, but for those who
don't care for spaceships, political humor, or cowboy boots to the face, there's
Saturday Night Live on E! .
They're keeping the Silver Age (the Phil Hartman/Chris Farley cast) and the
Bronze Age (the Will Ferrell/Molly Shannon cast) of Lorne Michaels' teflon
sketch-comedy monster alive in their late-night block. Whether you prefer
Hartman's Clinton or Ferrell's Bush, you stand a good chance of seeing Chris Walken.
2:00 AM
This is when Comedy Central turns into a two-hour crap shoot.
What'll it be? Four too-short episodes of Upright Citizens' Brigade
or TV Funhouse? Or 120 toxic minutes of Kid Notorious? Proceeding
on two key precepts ("No one's watching anyway" and "Infomercials are bad"),
Comedy Central takes this opportunity to plug the 2:00 slot with whatever's
next on the pile. Take your chances. Likewise, Cartoon Network's wildly popular Adult Swim starts anew at this hour, with a
frequently-changing lineup. If you consider yourself truly pop cultural, it's
a necessity.
Is SCTV the greatest, smartest, most daring sketch-comedy in history?
I'm going to say yes, yes it is. Even split into 30 minute chunks, the original
90-minute episodes would stand as glittering jewels of comic splendor in prime
time, but at 2:00 on TV Land they shine out like a shaft of gold when
all around is dark. Think I'm being hyperbolic? Watch the show.
Speaking of SCTV, if "Krazy Krafts with Molly Earl" were hosted by
Chairman Kaga, the result would likely be Craft Corner Deathmatch,
on Style. In a Battlebots-style arena, contestants
face off against each other in a fierce, ruthless battle of... crafts. After
two rounds of this, the "celebrity" judging panel selects a victor to challenge
the Craft Lady of Steel, aka Jocelyn Worrall, the unholy product of a collaboration
between Martha Stewart and Magneto. She's a nigh-unstoppable
juggernaut of crafting might, if there is such a thing. All this may sound
pretty lame, but if the show's tongue were any more firmly in cheek it'd need
oral surgery.
Sometimes you stumble upon a show at 2:00 that's so deserving of prime-time
attention that it boggles the mind that it's no longer getting it. My So-Called
Life, airing on Noggin at this time,
is one of those shows. Like Freaks
and Geeks, it was a brilliant, dead-on portrait of the trials
and tribulations of the teenage experience ‹ and like Freaks and Geeks,
it was tragically axed all too soon. If you still have enough wits about you
to appreciate its charms at this late hour, don't miss it.
And then there's Quantum Leap over on Sci-Fi. It makes a nice
follow-up to ST:TNG, especially if you're still mourning the loss of
Enterprise
and/or the '80s. Dr. Sam Beckett wasn't quite the one-fisted adventurer Captain
Archer was, but then again, let's see Archer pull off a proper "Oh boy." Just
watch out for that final season, when the writers introduced an evil time-traveling
antagonist. Yeah.
Take it from me, Eternal Word Television Network's series Super Saints has nothing to do with the time that radioactive spider bit Mother Teresa. |
3:00 AM
So you're still up. NBC has noticed, and rewards your tenacity with reruns
of Conan O'Brien. In a world of late-night talk shows so depressingly
stuffy there isn't even any use in asking "Who farted?" anymore, Conan's a
refreshing breath of nitrous oxide, especially at three in the morning (and
if that's not funny enough for you, I feel compelled to point out that SCTV's still going strong on TV Land).
It may be an insta-rerun from the night before, but the punchier you get,
the better Iron Chef becomes (on Food Network, of course). The clear-thinking
part of your brain that lets you differentiate between what's edible and what's
not passed out an hour ago, leaving you to seriously consider what desserts
could be made out of a sea urchin. Note: confuse this with Iron
Chef America at your own risk.
The good people at TheSmokingGun.com looked at Crank Yankers
and asked, "Hey, why don't we do that?" Court TV obligingly replied, "I don't know ‹
why don't you?" And thus Smoking Gun TV was born. The show recreates outrageous, bizarre, and
just plain juicy incidents (generally involving celebrities) described in
court transcripts and police reports, using only puppets and Playmobil toys
to dramatize the action. And damn, does it ever work. We all know Winona
Ryder was caught shoplifting, but you can't really appreciate the absurdity
of the situation until you see her portrayed by a yarn-haired puppet.
There's something comforting about a no-gimmicks-required nature documentary
narrated by a person of the British persuasion. It's like a bowl of chicken
soup. Champions of the Wild, on Animal Planet, is just that
sort of late-night comfort food. Each episode focuses on a particular species
of animal, from gorillas to wild dogs to whooping cranes, as the titular "champion,"
but it quickly becomes clear that as far as nature's concerned, being the
champion means little more than finding food for the day. Should make the
luxury of being able to watch TV at 3:00 AM feel like a real accomplishment.
4:00 AM
This is where we separate the men from the boys. If you enjoy half-hour commercials‹and
if you're still awake at four o'clock, you just might‹this is a great time
to check out all the paid programming on cable TV. Infomercials are definitely
the majority rule at this hour. Turn over enough rocks, though, and you'll
find more reasons to stay up for another hour.
VH1 sets the tone here with their block of '80s videos
entitled, appropriately enough, "We Are The '80s". And hey, I like
the '80s as much as the next guy, but I'm convinced that VH1 thinks that if
they don't keep devoting airtime to that
particular decade, we'd all forget it existed.
But how could we possibly forget when at this very hour TJ Hooker is on A&E?
DeForest "Bones" Kelley once called this show "Captain Kirk in a uniform,"
but TJ Hooker doesn't resemble the svelte Kirk so much as a pork sausage.
Gone was the hunk who could put the moves on a blue alien woman. Hooker wasn't
the first guy you'd pick to chase down a fleeing crook or leap onto the hood
of a moving car, but that didn't stop the writers from cramming as much chasing
and leaping into every episode as they could. Check out Heather Locklear as
Stacy Sheridan, and if you're very, very lucky, you'll get to see Leonard
Nimoy guesting as Hooker's old partner.
The '80s fest continues over on Sci-Fi with another classic, Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century, starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray, which is sure to
inspire more than a few reactions of "Holy crap!" Holier crap, though, is
the non-stop parade of notable guest stars. TJ Hooker may have settled
for Jim Brown and Vic Tayback, but Buck drew the likes of Jerry Orbach,
Gary Coleman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Buster Crabbe, Frank Gorshin, Jack Palance,
Ceasar Romero, Ray Walston, Julie Newmar ‹ you can't swing a dead space cat
on this show without hitting at least three character actors‹not to mention
none other than Mel Blanc voicing Twiki the robot,
whose "Bee-dee-bee-dee-bee" catchphrase was... well... recognizable, anyway.
Buck Rogers offered a chilling vision of a future in which people routinely
wear white spandex.
If all this nostalgia is a little too impractical for you tastes, you might
want to check out BBC World News on BBC America. The BBC doesn't have news anchors,
it has news readers. That alone should tell you a little about how it differs
from American cable news stations like Fox News Channel or CNN,
but feel free to flip between the three to see for yourself. The BBC doesn't
need to tout how "fair and balanced" it is; its focus on international news,
sans sensationalism, sets it apart. And everything sounds more authoritative
when spoken with a British accent. Plus, where else are you going to get your
cricket updates?
5:00 AM
Alright, seriously. That's it. It's officially morning. Sleep time is now.
Using these basic building-blocks of late-night programming, any number of
viewing experiences is possible. You can go the drama route, starting with
Walker, Texas Ranger, then My So-Called Life, Champions of
the Wild, and landing on TJ Hooker. Or take the comedy path, bouncing
from SNL, whatever Comedy Central has to offer, and finishing inexplicably
with TJ Hooker again. And have you noticed the eerie vein of Star Trek
that runs through these four hours? Between ST:TNG, Quantum Leap, TJ Hooker
(is there anything this show can't do?), and a possible guest appearance by
Mark Lenard on Buck Rogers,
the tentacles of Trek reach far indeed.
For the real experience, though, don't plan a thing. Channel surf until you
wipe out in a sleep-deprived delirium.
Email the author.
Return to Season 2, Episode 1.
All written content © 2005 by the authors. For more information, contact homer@smrt-tv.com