The Day the Nerd-Bros Died
Today in showbiz news: A beloved video game-based show has been given the ax, Howie Mandel has a new game show, and a reality star gets into the acting game.
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Lo, listen to the mournful church bells toll sadly up on Xbox Hill. Hark the doves crying in the PS3 forest. Hear the consoling words of "Sucks, dude" and "WTF??" filling the town square. It is a sad day for total bros who are also into video games, and are thus also nerds, because G4 has canceled its daily video game/other dude culture chat series Attack of the Show. Yes, it's all over. The show that gave the world Olivia Munn (and relaunched Chris Hardwick) is being shut down. No more hideously awkward interviews with people who don't find Daniel Tosh-style jokes all that funny. No more ogling "cool" chicks who love videogames and hopefully hopefully hopefully also like giving head. No more whatever the hell else happened on that show. 'Tis no more. In a press release, G4 brass says that Attack of the Show (and X Play, also canceled) "defined the gamer culture for a generation of young men." And now those men are young no longer. They have graduated from their b.o.-stinking college dorms, wiped the Cool Ranch dust off their fingers, thrown away those crusty socks, and moved into air conditioned condos afforded by their sales jobs. Things have gotten serious with Jill and it's time to grow up. And so, like The Giving Tree, once-beloved Attack of the Show will serve only has a stump, in memory. A place to rest upon when all the Petes and Ryans and Timbos (Timboooo!!!) of the world want to remember their youthful glory days. Keen with me, o fellow life travelers. For a great and wondrous dream has bloomed, lived, and died this day. [Deadline]
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Take comfort in the fact that Howie Mandel has been given another damn game show, this one to air around Christmas. The show is called Take It All and merits a full description. Take it away, Hollywood Reporter:
In the show, a contestant selects and opens a prize worth thousands of dollars; dream prizes such as luxury cars, exotic trips, jewelry and VIP experiences. Then, the next player is faced with a dilemma: do they steal a prize that has already been revealed, or do they take a chance with another unopened prize, hoping what's inside is worth more?
But that's just the beginning. When there are only two contestants left, the players have a life-changing choice to make: keep the prizes they have -- or try and take all the prizes. If both players choose to "keep mine," they will each keep the prizes they have won in the prior rounds. If one player chooses "keep mine" and the other chooses to "take it all," the player that chose "take it all" will go home with all the prizes -- theirs and their opponents. But if both choose "take it all," they both go home with nothing. The stakes are insanely high as each contestant grapples with the choice of a lifetime.
Sounds crazy! And kind of awful. And also isn't that how Bachelor Pad ends every season? With some jerk keeping all the money as a reward for being a jerk? It's something like that. So this has the potential to reveal some real human indecency. Which we always need more of. Always. Also, this show used to be called Howie Mandel's White Elephant so let's hahahahaha about that for a while. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Oh man, the good TV news just keeps on coming. ABC Family is teamin' up with WWE and making a movie vehicle for Real World: Back to New York cast member turned professional wrestler Mike "The Miz" Mizanin. It's what we've all been waiting for, especially the teen girls who watch ABC Family for shows like Pretty Little Liars and Tramp Killers. (Is that a show on ABC Family?) All the girls who watch that network are always saying "This is great and all, but could there be more sweaty bellowing from a veiny man in his 30s?" That's what they're clamoring for. So ABC Family has obliged. The movie, to air next year as part of the network's "25 Days of Christmas" programming bloc, will be called Christmas Bounty and is about "an elementary school teacher who is forced to return to her former life as a bounty hunter to save the family business." Aha. So it's probably a good guess that the Miz won't be playing the schoolteacher/bounty hunter, but maybe he'll be one of her friends or associates. This ought to be great. Not better than Holiday in Handcuffs, in which Melissa Joan Hart plays a raving psychopath who kidnaps Mario Lopez and forces him to pretend he's her boyfriend and then Grover from House Arrest comes out of the closet, but still great. Excellent work, The Miz! And excellent work to you too, ABC Family. Now we return you to an all new episode of Mystery Teens or whatever's on that damn channel. [Deadline]
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The guy who wrote Hugo has been tapped to write two new James Bond movies, which wil have a connecting story. So Skyfall isn't a goodbye to the franchise or anything. It's completely up in the air as to whether Daniel Craig will be back in the role, or if they'll hand it off to his heir apparent, Jim Broadbent. Obviously the whole world is gunning for Broadbent, just to hear him say "Shaken, stirred, shim-shambled or shoo-shooed, who's to bloody know?? Chip chip hooray!", but there are no guarantees. And we have no idea what the story is, because this stuff is secretive. We don't even know what Skyfall is about and that thing comes out in like two weeks. Anyway, long live Bond, I suppose. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Bravo: Television for Sass-Mouths is developing a scripted show about the Coke/Pepsi wars of the '80s. So it's like Mad Men except set in a far worse era and about something more specific and less interesting. And to really gild the lily the spec script was written by a producer for Flipping Out. Hey, Bravo... Obviously many of your brightly lit reality programs are beloved. You're on the top of your game. Or, at least, close enough to the top. So why are you rocking the boat with nonsense like this? 1) '80s nostalgia is the most hideously played-out thing since the actual '80s. 2) Coke vs. Pepsi? There is no contest and thus no dramatic stakes. And 3) You're Bravo. Stop it. Everyone stop it. If you want to do a thing about companies warring, make a The Late Shift-esque TV movie about when you lost Project Runway to Lifetime. [Deadline]
