Big Brown not as disappointing as his team

I'm not a fan of horse racing. Let's just get that out of the way to start. I actually think it's pretty strange that we care if one random horse can run faster than other random horses. Does the horse itself really care either way? Probably not. But all of the hype surrounding the final leg of the Triple Crown, and the fact that the Belmont Stakes is run here in New York, led me to watch today's race.

For those of you who are not versed in horse racing, a quick primer. There are 3 major races every year -- the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. A horse that wins all three races in one year is considered a Triple Crown winner. The last time a horse has pulled off the feat? 30 years ago in 1978 with Affirmed. So any time a horse wins the first two races, expectations are high coming into the third and final race.

This year, a horse named Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness without much trouble, and thus was a huge favorite to win the Belmont Stakes today. How huge? He was a 1-4 favorite, meaning that if you put up $100, you'd only stand to win $25 if Big Brown won.

Well, guess what happened? Big Brown lost. And not only did he lose, but he lost badly. He finished dead last. Over 120,000 people came out to watch this race, with about $6 million dollars alone being bet just on Big Brown to win. Needless to say, a huge disappointment.

In ABC's coverage, story after story was created to add drama to the event. However, rather than making me like the Big Brown contingent, I ended up wanting to root against them. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the horse himself. He seems like a nice enough equine. No, my dislike is for all of the people surrounding Big Brown.

For instance:

• Jockey, Kent Desormeaux, had a story about his son, Jacob, who was born with a rare condition called Usher Syndrome. This disease leaves sufferers with hearing loss and vision loss. The sad tale was supposed to be hopeful because if Desormeaux's son loses his vision he'd always have the visual of Big Brown winning the Triple Crown to get him through the tough times. I did feel bad for his son, but the story was done so poorly it evoked little emotion and just seemed like it was exploiting Jacob's disease to make the otherwise cantankerous jockey look more sentimental. At the end of the story, they showed Kent watching, likely to get a teary-eyed visual, but he really didn't look all that emotional about it. When asked about the story, Kent made odd comments, something along the lines of God giving his son this disease so that the spotlight can shine on their family in times like this. And when asked if he would be thinking of Jacob as he rides, he said he definitely would not -- once his legs were over the horse, nothing else matters but the race. I'm sure he didn't mean these words to come out so callously, but it didn't help me feel good about Big Brown's jockey


• It was clearly stated that Big Brown was given steroids by his trainer regularly as part of his training program. This means that Big Brown was juiced for the first two races which he won going away. While it's not exactly illegal in horse racing to use steroids (for what reason I don't know), not all horses use it, so the ones that do draw a suspicious eye. In order to deflect any criticism, trainer Rick Dutrow decided not to inject Big Brown leading into the Belmont Stakes. Were steroids the reason Big Brown was so good in the first two races and so terrible in the third? Hmmm...


• Speaking of trainer Rick Dutrow, they showed a story about his personal life, where he talked about how he was a hard living guy who loved gambling, expensive women, and drugs. It was set up as a heart-warming tale of how was able to dig himself out of his excesses and train a Triple Crown contender. However it came off really strangely. Dutrow detailed how the mother of his child, a former beauty queen in Jamaica who had a terrible crack habit, was murdered by a crack dealer. Dutrow seemed to have little to no emotion about the event. Even worse, they talked about how he then took his daughter, Molly, to live in a horse barn up through age 3 because they couldn't afford any other place to live. Then at age 3, he sent Molly away to live with her grandmother because he couldn't take care of her. Classy statement of the day? Dutrow laughs and says, look I still live a hard life, do you really think I can take care of Molly? I can barely take care of myself! And then oddly the story closes with a note that Molly is now living with him "for better or worse" (yes, the voiceover actually said that). Heartwarming! Dutrow closes the story with a brash guarantee that Big Brown would win. Oops.

All in all, the day was highly anti-climatic, and ABC's coverage was pretty horrid. Perhaps I'll watch another race one day when another Triple Crown hopeful comes to light, but I'll definitely steer clear of the pre-race schlock that comes along with it.

six degrees - tv review

Six Degrees is another new fall show this season. Six Degrees is written by J.J. Abrams, who penned Felicity (watchable), Alias (a very good show until Abrams left to write Lost), What About Brian (terrible), and Lost (well, you know). Given his track record, there was absolutely no way to predict how this show would fare. Well, now I know. And knowing was half the battle.

Premise:

Everyone in the world is connected in some way. They just are. And in this show, boy is that true. All the cast members are drawn together by fate or coincidence, as their storylines collide. Um... yeah. That's the whole premise.

What's Good:

The show is set in New York City. And New York is a totally fun place. Well, not as potrayed in this show. But in real life. It's cool. And they have great pizza.

What's Bad:

The storylines are completely contrived to get all of the characters to interact. The dialogue is wooden, outcomes predictable, and the character interaction is not entirely believable. But other than that, the show is a gem.

Breakout Character:

Hmmm... if I had to choose, I guess I'd pick the guy who drives people around. Because his brother is a shady underworld mob-type charater who has a huge scar cut clear across his face. So I guess I'm not choosing the driver guy at all. I'm choosing the thuggy brother. Who has been on-screen for a total of 12 mins in 4 episodes. Great.

Overall Recommendation:

Ok, this review is ridiculously lackluster, I know. In all honesty, I'm not the target demographic. This is aimed at the Felicity/What About Brian crowd, and if you liked those shows, you'd probably watch this one too. It's somewhere dead smack in between those predecessors in terms of quality.

On the Salinger scale, where a party of five is the highest rating, Claudia and half an Owen have a seat at the table.

1.5 Salingers

Six Degrees airs Thursday at 10pm on ABC

summer viewing...

Ah, feel the warmth of the air. The hot afternoon sun burns long into the evening, as the ice cubes in your lemonade clink sharply against the cool glass tumbler in your hand. All of this can only mean one thing -- the summer television season has decended upon us.

Yes, now that Lost, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, and The O.C. have entered summer hiatus, a whole slate of new shows have jumped in to take their place. Two in particular debuted on Wednesday night -- Dancing with the Stars and Beauty and the Geek. Of course, it is my duty to watch them both, not for my own enjoyment, but for yours. Yes, I know. It's very noble of me.

Dancing with the Stars combines elements of American Idol, Dirty Dancing, and The Surreal Life to create a reality stew of sorts. The basic premise -- teach a group of "stars" a series of dances over a period of just a few weeks, have them face off against each other in a dance showdown, and have these dances judged by a panel of three "experts" who rate their moves and stage presence, ala Simon Cowell and friends.

The "stars" that the show's title refers to? Julia Roberts? Tom Cruise? Will Smith? Um, no. Try former model Rachel Hunter, the dude who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld, one of the New Kids on the Block, and some chick from General Hospital. I think the show should have been called Dancing with Some Dudes and Chicks You May Have Seen on TV Once or Twice Before, So Maybe One or Two of Them Will Look Vaguely Familiar to You. Ok, so that title is a bit long, but at least it's accurate. The current title is blatant false advertising. It's worse than those "buy real estate with no money down and make millions doing it" infomercials.

The first time I saw promos for this show, I started thinking to myself "Who the hell is this show targetted at? This is the dumbest premise I've ever heard of." Of course, before I could even finish that thought, my mom exclaimed, "Oh good! This show looks like fun, when is it on?" That's when it hit me. My mom is insane. But then I thought a bit more about it and realized that According to Jim and Two and a Half Men are two of the highest rated shows on TV. That makes no logical sense either, but yet it's true. So perhaps my mom is just in that demographic of folks that just crave good ol' fashioned brainless entertainment. If that's the case, more power to Dancing with the Stars, I suppose. My only hope is that they spice it up in episode two by having Joey McIntyre trash talk everyone, prompting J. Peterman to scream, "no one puts Evander Holyfield in the corner," as he lifts Evander high in the air while "I Had the Time of My Life" plays in the background.

The other new summer show is Beauty and the Geek on the WB -- Ashton Kucher's "social experiment" television show. The show pairs 7 geeks (many are full fledged Mensa members) with 7 beauties (mostly blonde ditzes with bubbly personalities) into Can't Buy Me Love-style 2 person teams. The goal of each team, have the "geek" teach the "beauty" about history, spelling, math, and all things intellectual, while they in turn learn how to be cool. The team that makes the greatest change wins $250,000 each.

I expected to hate this show to be honest, I mean it IS an Ashton Kucher production, but it's actually pretty entertaining. Of course, no show like this would be complete without your usual contrived characters -- the 30 year old virgin, the uber-nerd, the ultimate blonde ditz -- but just like Can't Buy Me Love, some of the beauties actually start falling for the geeks that they originally mocked. The geeks and beauties alike start pulling for their teammates to succeed, rather than playing only for the sake of winning the money. It's heart warming in a "Coral hating the Miz and calling him a racist but then making the complete 180 by the end of the show to become his best friend in the next 400 Real World/Road Rules Challenges" kind of way. I'll keep an eye on this show throughout the summer to see if it lives up to the premise, but I would say it's worth watching if you're a reality show junkie like I am.

Overall scores on the Salinger Scale, where a Party of Five is the highest rating -- Dancing with the Stars gets 1 Salinger (and not even a good one like Bailey, I'd only give it a Claudia) for anyone in my general peer group. If you're my mom's age, or perhaps a real big fan of cheesy dancing, it would probably land about 2.5 Salingers. As for Beauty and the Geek, I'd say Charlie, Bailey, Julia, and half an Owen would be invited to the table. A Party of Three and a Half (3.5 Salingers) for all my nerds and hotties. Holla.