Four Episodes at Once

Here's how we could sum up the four episodes that aired Tuesday-Friday of this past week: gay, happy, sad, gay/happy/sad.

But I committed to this project, and though it was never specified that I would give you more than one-word takes on episodes, I think it was implied. And, frankly, I'm better than that. So let's do this.


Gay Tuesday: This kind of episode is what makes me certain that Oprah is not gay. I just don't believe that someone would make this effort (25 years' worth) to make it clear that she supports gay people, wants them to come out, wants everyone to come to the realization that being gay is okay, if she were herself gay. It just doesn't make sense. Preachers who rail against homosexuality, only to be caught in the closet going down on the lawn boy, make sense to me, because the lady doth protest too much, you know? Oprah being gay just doesn't work. I believe if she were gay, she would have come out long ago.

But, man, that sure would make for a hell of a final line on the final show later this year, huh? All I'm saying is think about it, Opes.

We got some clips of Greg Louganis on the show back in 1995, and then he was there on Tuesday, mostly to reach out to a young man who found the courage to come out because of Louganis. Nice, I guess, but not engrossing television. I was more interested in Chris and Joe, a couple that had been married, until Chris came out of the closet and told her husband Joe that she was gay. And then Joe said, "Good, because so am I." Quite the story, but I was most interested to see how their sons were adjusting. The answer is, not surprisingly, they're doing just fine.

Turns out that the story of Joe and Chris left one viewer skeptical, until that viewer met a chick she liked, and fell in love. Then she had to tell her husband, and it turns out he was gay, too. This shit is becoming an epidemic, I tell you.

Baby Sister Drama

Oprah has a sister. You know this by now. Her sister, Patricia, has known for years, but has spent this long struggling to figure out how to tell Oprah. In all that time, she never once considered going to the press, which makes her kind of an awesome human being. Oprah sure thought so, anyway.

Patricia was probably just smart enough to understand that the $100,000 the National Enquirer would give her is nothing compared to what she will be getting from Oprah. I mean, seriously. This chick is set for life. How do you feel about Australia, Patricia?

Seriously, though, the woman seems perfectly nice, and she should be commended for keeping her family's business private. Apparently she reminds everyone in Oprah's family of Oprah's now deceased sister, also named Patricia (no one knows how the newly found Patricia got her name since her mother, who is also Oprah's mother, did not give it to her), in her looks and her mannerisms. So it's been tough for the original Patricia's daughters, but everyone was happy to meet this new addition.

But whenever there are big reunions like this on Oprah, don't you always expect the huge surprise of a bunch of money or a trip or something? Come on, Opes! She's your sister! Where's her iPad, for Christ's sake?

Also, has anyone considered how Gayle feels about all this?

Australia!

I'm going to cram three days worth of Australia shows into one post.

I'm not even sure how long the Oprah folks were in Australia, but everything about these shows felt rushed and weird. There were 300 guests to follow, plus Oprah and Gayle and all the people Oprah surprised while she was Down Under. So cramming all of that into four one-hour shows was...ambitious, for lack of a better word

Which is not to say that I'm going to complain all that much. The fact is, these shows were fun. I said in my first (brief) post about the Australia shows that it was Oprah at her best, and I'm not backing off that claim.  It's just that it seemed like they had enough material to fill two weeks' worth of shows, and then some. So it just felt a little hurried.

Oprah surprised some Australian viewers at their homes, and surprised a pregnant super fan at a baby store, giving her a billion things for a nursery. The lady was due to have a c-section the next day, so I would hope she already had her nursery set up, but that sure was a lot of nice stuff Oprah gave her. The lady might want to look into selling that stuff on eBay. Cha-ching!

We saw some of the excursions the audience members went on, but I guess that's where I felt things were lacking, and why I thought things felt hurried. I mean, I know the show is called Oprah, and people like to know what she's doing, but the big excitement of the premiere episode was in watching the audience members' reactions to the news that they were going! to! Australia! So though we saw a woman surprise her husband with news of her pregnancy (super cute), and saw some people on hot air balloons and on other adventures, there just wasn't a lot of that. There was no indication as to how the audience was broken up into groups to go to Uluru, or to Olivia Newton-John's spa, or wherever else they went. And with 300 people, you know that every single one of them had a story to tell, and I would have liked to have seen more about them.

Change Is in the Air

Turns out, watching Oprah isn't all that easy when dealing with a 24-hour stomach flu (me and Katie), the sudden onset of the terrible twos (Merritt), and a 40-hour per week full-time job (me).  I have an alarm set for every day at 3:55, and getting myself to the television at that point in the day, even just four days into the new episodes of 2011, is a surprisingly difficult task.

Which is not to say that I've missed an episode (other than the one I already told you I missed), because I haven't. But I've had to do things a little differently, which means things will be changing a little bit around here.

Don't freak out. All I'm saying is that my style is going to have to adapt to my lifestyle. I can no longer have the "pleasure" of sitting down after Merritt has gone to bed, firing up the DVR, and taking copious notes on each new episode of Oprah.

All this means to you is that you'll probably get less of the recap stuff in the posts . Instead of details on the things Octomom said on Friday's episode, for instance, you're more likely to just get my general thoughts on the content. Which, in this case, would be the following:

Octomom is crazy.

Seriously insane. The whole episode was just an attempt to get her to stop being crazy and admit that maybe, just maybe, having eight kids (at once!) when you couldn't afford the first six you'd already had was a bit of a poor judgment call. Suze Orman, financial lesbian, was having none of Nadya Suleman's (that's Octomom's real name) bullshit, which was a good thing, I guess. But it just made for a really weird, awkward show, in which Suleman kept claiming that she agreed with everything Orman said, and she was really trying, and the one thing she'd always said was that she wasn't going to exploit her children for financial gain. Even if that financial gain would help her actually, you know, keep those children alive. Orman and Winfrey both thought Suleman was addicted to fame, until Suleman went on a crying rant about how all she's ever wanted is those mean, bullying girls from her school years (her metaphor for all women) to like her, and how they don't like her as a result of all this baby nonsense, so of course she doesn't like the fame she's gotten from this.

1/13/11 -- Five Things You Need to Do in 2011

So, after almost two weeks without a new episode, this is what we get? Really? Come on, Opes. I realize that you're probably saving the big stuff for when all the Australia episodes start next Tuesday, but I was hoping for a little more than this.

I'll just break this down for you quickly. Here are the five things Oprah thinks you need to do this year:

1. Know your five lifesaving numbers: blood pressure, waist size, weight, cholesterol, fasting blood sugar.
2. Know five weight loss secrets: have a clear vision of what you want, convince yourself that you are deserving, identify the biggest barriers, break through the barriers, put yourself first.
3. Know five clutter traps in your home: kitchen, closet, bedroom, bathroom, family room laundry room.

I understand the theme, but that is a list of three. Wouldn't it have made more sense, if you're going to call it "Five Things You Need to Do in 2011," if the episode consisted of five categories, perhaps with each having five items? 

I guess I'll reluctantly forgive them for only having three categories, since at least each one had five items.  Except, wait. For the clutter traps, there are six rooms listed. So, there goes that my leniency. 

And that forgiveness really went out the window once we got to the tail end of the show, which featured "7 Fashion Must-Haves." 

Nobody knows what they're doing over there at Oprah. That's clear to me now.

I suppose Dr. Oz gave some helpful tips, along with some ridiculous demonstrations of what happens to your arteries when you have high blood pressure. But, really, if you needed Oprah and Dr. Oz to tell you that it's good to know your cholesterol and blood pressure, that's a problem.

And Bob Greene just gave us a lot of gibberish. You know what people are looking for when you tell them they're going to get "weight loss secrets"? How about some practical food and/or fitness tips? No, you're right. What people really need is to be told to "break through the barriers." Because that's not abstract or anything. This is what a friend of mine would call "touchy-feely" advice. And I tell you, I will not stand for it.

I barely paid attention during the "clutter traps" section. Some Australian guy told us to not be messy, and to go to The Container Store to get organized. Then the whole audience got a $100 gift card to the store. The end.

You may sense a bit of complaining in this post, but you ain't seen nothing yet. Friday's episode is Suze Orman talking to the "Octomom." I need you all to know that lately I have seriously been considering giving up this project, simply because my life has become much more chaotic in the last month or so. And episodes like Friday's are enough to push me over the edge. I am going to pick up Merritt at 2:30, and given the drive time on a Friday, I can't even guarantee I'll be back by 4:00, when Oprah begins. But knowing that I'll have to stare at a moron with disgusting lips for the whole hour is not going to make me entirely eager to break the speed limit, if you catch my drift.

Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star

Oprah is seriously killing me with all these repeat episodes. And I'm sure it's killing all of you that I've had nothing to write about for what seems like a year now. But everything returns on Thursday, according to the website, so I'll be ready to go at 4 pm. Let's all hope that Merritt is willing to watch Oprah that afternoon, since we no longer have cable and I decided against getting the DVR. It's either see it live, or illegally download it.

And speaking of the potential of missing episodes, I did miss the last new one. It was recorded on my DVR, but then I canceled cable, and within seconds my DVR was just a useless piece of machinery with an new episode of Oprah trapped inside. But, honestly, I didn't care that much. The episode was all about the new OWN show called Your Own Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star. Clever title.

I don't think I can describe to you how not sad I am over missing an hour of Carson Kressley and Nancy O'Dell talking about the next big thing. So, yes, the "missed episode" count is at one. If I feel really guilty about that at some point this season, I'll consider finding a way to watch it. But don't count on it.

The other night, Katie had to take Merritt to urgent care. He was not feeling well at all, and we were, at that point, going on three straight nights without anyone in the house getting a bit of sleep. It ended up being six nights in a row, but that's not the point here.

The point is, Katie noticed an "O Magazine" in the room at urgent care, and mentioned it out loud. What follows is history, and proof that I have already found Oprah's next TV star.

(and please note: Merritt was not coached on this. Katie mentioned Oprah's name one time, then pulled out the magazines several minutes later. The kid has probably just sat through enough episodes to know the deal by now.)

Thursday's episode: the five things you need to do in 2011.