Cocktail Party Primer (Episode #5)

Oh, Tim Minear, I Kid Because I Love

Labor Day marks the official end of summer. We may be sweaty and sunburned now, but soon we’ll pack in our flip-flops and bathing suits and hit the couch for an autumn of new TV. I’m about to head out for a long weekend of sipping watermelon martinis out of a thermos under a tree at the park, but before I go, here’s the gossip that should keep you humming at the final barbecues and beach parties of the season.

• Brilliant-but-cancelled All-Star Tim Minear, the Grand Poobah behind such dearly departed shows as Wonderfalls, Firefly, and Drive, landed a new pilot at ABC. Miracle Man centers on a disgraced former televangelist who suddenly begins performing real miracles. Minear is reported to have been inspired by his experiences in calling in a variety of real life faith healers and voodoo priests in an attempt to save his previous shows from the ax.  It should come as no surprise that despite the show’s intriguing premise, Vegas is putting the odds on Miracle Man’s cancellation at or before the eight episode mark at 20-1. There’s money to be made here people. Beat the rush; call your bookie now!

• Know what the only thing more pitiful than a middle-aged woman who’s trying desperately to recapture a piece of her high school glory days? A middle-aged woman trying desperately to recapture her high school glory days on television. The CW plans to take gleeful advantage of this sad state with a new makeover show called “I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again.”  With the help of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders trainer, ten women will work to see who can best fit into her old pleated miniskirt again. The winner gets $50,000 and the chance to wield her pompoms before a live audience. All it will cost the contestants is some soreness in the quads, their real high school age children never acknowledging them in public again, and whatever shreds of wounded dignity life hasn’t taken from them already.

• In real life, if you’re 45, have raging commitment issues, and an admitted obsession with Playboy Playmates, you’re the kind of guy whose mother sets him up on blind dates with that nice girl from her gardening club with the lazy eye you’ll hardly even notice. In Washed-up Celebrity Land, you hire a life coach and get a reality show on VH1.  If you’re Scott Baio, your show about being 45 and single will get a second season even though you have ceased to be either 45 or single. No word on how much money Tim Minear is willing to give Baio to learn how, in the name of sweet Zombie Jesus, you get renewed for a second season.

• If you need further proof that VH1 is determined to challenge Fox for the title of Network Most Likely to Make You Doubt the Future of Humanity, prepare for the end of all doubt. The network is planning a show for 2008 called Celeb Rehab. It will follow such train wrecks on legs as Tom Sizemore, Andy Dick, and Joanie “Chyna” Laurer as they go through the Pasadena Recovery Center.  I would have thought it impossible, but VH1 has come up with a show that makes watching one of Hugh Heffner’s girlfriends trying to prove “she’s got flow” on Celebrity Rap Superstar seem as understated and classy as Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. They’re overachievers at underachieving, those kids at VH1.

• Matt LeBlanc is being sued by Camille Cerio, a woman who was his manager for about a year during the mid-90s. She claims he owes her money from his entire run on Friends. LeBlanc’s current reps are, unsurprisingly, deriding the suit as being totally without merit. However, they offered to forfeit some of the cash if, in return, she would be willing to publicly take the blame for the failed spinoff Joey. Cerio responed, “For the right price, I’ll claim responsibility for that Fox disaster Anchorwoman, the meltdown at Cheroybl, and throw in two of Tim Minear’s cancellations for free.”

Martha Smith is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and editor. She writes mostly about food, TV, and other things that can be enjoyed while sitting down.