2014 is slouching towards oblivion, and by that I mean that by next week you will be hearing Christmas music and counting down the final days of The Colbert Report. Dire times indeed. I wish I could tell you that Rip Taylor is debuting a new show about training pit bulls, or that Fox's dreadful social experiment Utopia will be put down, or that there isn't an upcoming special on CMT called Party Down South: Drunksgiving ... but I cannot. All I have to offer are these few bright spots in the horizontal hold.
A Poet In New York (Oct. 29, BBC). I suppose it makes sense that a guy who warned against going gently into that good night would himself "rage, rage against the dying of the light" by drinking himself to death at 39. The good news is that Dylan Thomas was apparently horny and ready to party right up until the very end, and the BBC has fashioned a pastiche of those last romantic days to mark the centenary of his birth this year. Cheers!
Rival Survival (Oct. 29, Discovery). Now here's an idea — two politicians on opposite sides are forced to battle it out to the death, naked, on a deserted island. The winner gets to sleep with Elizabeth Warren. Arizona senator Jeff Flake (R) and New Mexico senator Martin Heinrich (D) must set aside any disagreements they may have about tort reform and rough it in the Marshall Islands for a week. The bad news: They aren't going to be naked, and the winner actually has to sleep with Mitch McConnell.
Lucha Underground (Oct. 29, El Rey) Ay chihuahua, this looks muy estupido... y ¡FANTASTICO! I'm struggling with whether or not to describe this thing as "reality," because it is based on actual wrestlers and a guy named El Jefe who manages the league, but just like any professional wrestling, the narrators are — shall we say — unreliable. If American WWE isn't corny and dumb enough for you, bienvenidos a Lucha Underground!
Project Runway All Stars (Oct. 30, Lifetime). Lifetime really stacked the deck this season with everyone who ever had a hissy fit, a crying jag, or thinks their scrim don't stank. Alexandria the pinched-face shrew, Michelle the shaved-headed wildebeest, Dmitry "Hans n Franz" Sholokhov, and uber-bitchy Gunnar are all back and ready to rip each other apart on team challenges. Sweetie pies Helen, Kate, and Justin are also returning so that we have someone to cheer for.
Olive Kitteridge (Nov. 2, HBO). HBO must be dusting off its Golden Globe display case because this miniseries is critic-bait. Frances McDormand plays the title character in this cinematic drama based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that flits between several interwoven stories set in Maine. Bill Murray also stars!
MasterChef Junior (Nov. 4, Fox). They really do find little kids who can cook better than you, then they place them in a thunderdome against the Kraken. One of the kids is from Greenbrae, even. That's in Marin, which is a place where people actually live on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Virunga (Nov. 7, Netflix). Watching the trailer to this was enough to get me all verklempt, but I'm very glad that someone is shining a light on the gorilla-poaching epidemic in Virunga National Park in the Congo. Leonardo DiCaprio took time away from trolling Victoria's Secret shows to produce this documentary, but his dedication to environmental causes is indeed noble and appreciated.
Last Patrol (Nov. 10, HBO). The last installment of journalist Sebastian Junger's Afghanistan war trilogy that began with Restrepo. This documentary features Junger and three other correspondents hiking and camping up the wilds of America's East Coast over the course of a year, braving gnarly weather conditions and sharing their war experiences.
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (Nov. 29, Lifetime). I cannot in good conscience recommend something that gives voice to Grumpy Cat; part of her charm is that we have no idea what she would sound like if she could talk. So prepare to have that part of our cultural zeitgeist destroyed. The voice is also going to be Aubrey Plaza, the same chick who defined "epic fail" when she drunkenly tried to take Will Ferrell's MTV Award from him on stage during his acceptance speech. Lame. (Jeez, this preview sounds like something Grumpy Cat would write. How very meta.)
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