Do You Miss the 90’s?
Add comment March 24th, 2008
I’d like to start with an apology. After the last goNOW was published last Thursday which included information about a show of mine the following day at Starbuck’s I learned that it was cancelled. If you happened to attend then I apologize for the inconvenience. The good news is that I learned that the performance will be rescheduled. More on that later.  Last Saturday night I ended up at Breeze, a bar on the Northeast side of Rockford, with a group of friends and as expected we all had a good time. What made the night, however, was the decision to have an ‘after hours’ at a buddy’s place. While there we brought the ol’ iBook G4 and did some web surfing. I discovered that the best thing for me and my friends to do while drinking is look up 90’s TV Trivia. On YouTube we looked up several tv intros including, but not limited to, Salute Your Shorts, Denver the Last Dinosaur, Nick Arcade, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Wild and Crazy Kids, etc. Our collective minds worked together to re-remember memories that we thought were long lost. The end result? An all-in-all good night and me really, really missing The X-Files.Â
Anyone who thinks a lesson in sixteenth century Reformation isn’t a steamy pitch for prime time hasn’t seen Showtime’s The Tudors. The period piece follows King Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) early into his reign, as he annuls his marriage to the dutiful and somewhat naïve Catherine of Aragorn (Maria Doyle Kennedy) for the worldly yet manipulative Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer). The movers and shakers in King Henry’s court react, as some vie for power and others stand for principle. Particularly noteworthy is Peter O’Toole’s engrossing portrayal of the presumptive Pope Paul III on the receiving end of the Reformation. One small problem is the extremely fluid timeline, which eclipses entire years within a span of two or three episodes. The Tudors airs on Showtime Sunday March 30th at 8:00 PM.    
Though FX boasts a host of anti-heroes on prime time, none are as compelling, sympathetic or honest as scammer Wayne Malloy (Eddie Izzard) on The Riches. He lives in a dead man’s life literally, assuming the upper class life of deceased lawyer Doug Rich with his family, including Wayne’s ex-convict wife Dahlia (Minnie Driver), their crafty daughter Di Di (Shannon Marie Woodward), lock picking son Cael (Noel Fisher) and cross-dressing youngest Sam (Aidan Mitchell). The second season follows Wayne managing with fallout caused by the Malloy’s murderous cousin Dale (Todd Stashwick) as the rest of the family make a break for it. The show only shot seven episodes before the writer’s strike, so be sure to catch the Riches on FX Tuesday at 9:00 PM.
