Sunday, September 7, 2008

Fall TV: It is, as they say, "Time to Face the Hole"

The 10.5 most amazing things about Fox's “Hole in the Wall”:

10) Brooke Burns says everything in the same weirdly halting yet totally excited cadence. “You’re the team captain, right!” and “Introduce me to your team!” sound like the exact same sentence. It’s really bizarre.
9) The two teams in the first episode were made of “Six-Packs” – guys on the shortish side who are “personal trainers,” but from their descriptions sound more like unemployed bodybuilders – and “Beer-Bellies” – radio employees who likely think “The Jerky Boys” was the apex of comedy. In other words, there are no winners here. Only losers.
8) There are actually lifeguards on duty when the contestants fall into the 5-feet-deep pool. At least, I think they’re lifeguards, because they’re wearing Baywatch-style swimsuits and holding those pontoon thingies. Once again: for the 5-feet-deep pool. That a camera man is standing in.
7) Before every…ah, let’s just be charitable and call it “event”…there is an explanation – complete with cute visual aids – of what the next challenge will be. “This time, TWO contestants need to jump through the holes.” In case the whole concept was just too confusing for the average viewer.
6) After every commercial break, there is a recap of the results of the previous jump through the hole. Again, just in case viewers were having trouble keeping up.
5) In addition to Brooke Burns on the sidelines, there’s a host up in a balcony, whose best moment came when he referred to one of the very white, American, Californian bodybuilders as “an Iraqi war veteran.”
4) The grand prize is $100,000. For jumping through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall. Just let that sink in.
3) The show’s attempted catchphrase is, “It’s time to face the hole.”
2) This show is 22 minutes long, when by all rights, it’s hard to make a case for it being longer than 2 minutes.
1.5) Watching this show, you are actually likely to utter the words, "Y'know, I think I'd probably be pretty good at this."

And the #1 most interesting thing about “Hole in the Wall”…

1) There will actually be more than one episode of a show called “Hole in the Wall,” wherein obnoxious people attempt to jump through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall.

Will I be watching this show again? …Possibly. I’ll definitely watch it after it follows the “Fringe” pilot. But if I can’t be bothered to plop myself down on the couch Thursday nights at 8 to watch “My Name is Earl” – a show I actually kinda like – it’s not too likely I’ll make time for this one. No matter how many oddly-shaped contestants they promise to shove through those holes.

Then again, “It’s time to face the hole” is a phrase I’d really like to see used in regular conversation.




1 comment:

tad said...

I think they could cut it down to 90 seconds... each time faced 4 holes and then there was the blind hole attempt. I'm guessing there is about 10 seconds per attempt, maybe 15 to get in a replay or 2 if something exciting happens. I know they need to fluff it out for tv, but there's no way they couldn't get 2 sets of teams per episode or at least have everybody do an individual hole.