'Bred Crumbs

Don't Stop Unbelieving

11:49 PM

I sure never thought I'd hear about something on cable access and respond with, "Omigod, I've got to see that," but it's happened – and stranger still, the program lived up to the promise.

Tipped off by an article in the SF Chronicle, I caught Episode 26 of Fantasy Bedtime Hour, which, naturally, was a half-hour long. It's a genius, genius idea. Two women, in bed, summarize a section of Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, the first of seven (and counting) complex novels about a leper transported to a magical Land, whose reality he does not accept, even while the Land's people expect him to be a savior. The hero, Thomas Covenant, is often not heroic, and the prose can be dense. Which is also what our two stars, Heatherly and Julie, pretend to be. Though clearly they're not.

After the severely paraphrased reading ("And Mhoram goes ... and Covenant's all ...") there's a dramatization of the featured passage. A very, very loose dramatization. (Sample dialogue: "Leprosy isn't cruel. John Tesh is cruel. Leprosy is fun.") After that, this week's experts – that is, people who have finished, and understood, the book – join the girls in bed. The passage is analyzed at length, and interpreted through drawing.

Production values are fleeting, and acting ability is not a priority, but it's inspired, funny as hell, and even has the hearty approval of Stephen R. Donaldson himself, who has shown a notable lack of, as he would always put it in the Covenant series, "trepidation" and even appeared in an episode.

By Kevin's Lore, I wish I'd found this 25 episodes back. Wait! Is that them online ...?

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While You Were Not Too Worn Out

11:54 PM

This is the night we find out what triumphs: my unreasonable love of TLC's While You Were Out, or my every-fiber-of-my-being hatred of What Not to Wear and its makeover ilk. The two shows are crossing over for one two-hour episode (which repeats Friday).

The joint premise: While Joe in Chicago works with Evan Farmer and the While You Were Out team to redo his wife's bedroom in Chicago, Dana's friends have arranged for her to be on What Not to Wear, getting a fashion remake in New York. The spouses cannot tell each other what's up. Each thinks only he/she is springing a surprise.

Come watch while I watch. If my running commentary seems long, keep in mind that it's still 15 pages shorter than the average Television Without Pity recap. And if you wonder whether my fandom or my hatred comes out on top, notice that I refuse to acknowledge What Not to Wear's hosts by name.

:01 – Clearly, WNTW is the alpha show here, winning title sequence and narrator. WYWO's Evan walks Nadia the designer to the door and chats up the homeowner as usual, but it looks like we won't be getting his loopy updates of the room redo. Good thing there was a real WYWO ep before this.

:10 – Evan and Nadia have sent Joe the husband homeowner away, unusually lamely, so they can pack up the wife's wardrobe and ship it to the fascists in New York. And, yes, Dana's clothes are, well, questionable – clown shirts and bowling shoes. But what I don't want in WYWO is 10 minutes of their trashing what's in the closets. At least Evan, true to form, is having fun with it, trying on the wife's halter tops. "Meanwhile," the fashionistas are staring at a tiny SONY monitor watching this live, which I'm not buying for a moment. After Evan and Nadia in Chicago make a light-hearted comment about some patchwork find, we cut to the evil duo in New York tacking on their shrewish, wit-free takes, and soon enough, they're threatening to make over Evan and cut his hair. You just frelling try, bitches. They also seem offended that the WYWO crew is taking so long to pack the old clothes, because how dare anyone have fun when there is fashion to be committed. God, I so do not want to be in a 100-mile radius of these fash-wipes.

:10-20 – Pure What Not to Wear hell. They've ambushed Dana in New York, and they've dragged her to their studio to dissect what a horrible human being she is for wearing what she wants to. They attack her rolled-up jeans legs, because apparently someone has decided that's out this week. All this in spite of the fact that Ms. Fashion, who lands a solid 8 on the Fran Drescher annoyance scale, is wearing gigantic, blind-old-man sunglasses.

:20 – After a whole 15 seconds of WYWO, we're back at the trashing of Dana, seen in covert video footage. She has dared to leave the house in sandals and socks, just to get something out of her car in the driveway, and she must be shot for it.

:27 – Except for a brief room clearing, we've seen naught of WYWO lately. Instead, we have to endure the 360-degree-mirror, humiliation-in-the-round of the fashion victim. Because no one looks better than when they're standing in a music box.

:29 – We're back to WYWO, painting time, but it's all fashion trash talk. Suddenly, Evan acts like the wife is the strangest human in the world because sometimes she wears camo casually. You know, like 80 percent of Americans.

:33 – Another brief WYWO visit. Andrew is trimming wood into elegent curves, wearing a T-shirt that says, in inappropriately stylish script, Who Flung Poo. In New York, I imagine, the Fashion Twins feel knives slicing through their plastic mannequin hearts. I imagine this actually happening. In graphic, gleeful, detail.

:36 – Here's another fantasy of mine. Some well-meaning but very stupid, thoughtless friends sign me up for What Not to Wear, and when Hansel and Gretel show up to spring the surprise, I launch into the greatest tirade of all time, ripping them, their crew, and all my supposed friends about eighty-five new ones each. I refuse to sign any damn waiver. TLC has wasted thousands of dollars on a show that won't happen, and Boris and Natasha spontaneously combust.

:40 – Evan and the WNTW hosts chat by phone. Bantering with Evan, the male host seems like a person for the first time. She-wolf asks Evan what's up with his hair, which has grown longish, but it works because it's wavy and gorgeous. In response, he threatens a mullet. Ha!

:42 – A refreshingly long WYWO segment. Andrew – beautiful, charming, English-accented Andrew – pretends not to understand why women keep driving slowly down the street where he's doing his carpentry. Inside, Evan, inspired by finding a baseball cap with the tag still on, busts out an intentionally horrible rap. These two shows so don't go together. Better: a WYWO/Clean Sweep mix. Evan and team redo the rooms while Lovably Stern Australian Organizer Guy banishes all the "clutta."

:46 – In New York, the fashion brainwashing is taking its toll on our poor victim, who claims to have seen the light. Seeing herself in the secretly recorded footage of her usual clothes, and in the 360 mirror, she now has grown to hate herself. She can see that she doesn't look as good as she thinks. That's right, in cheap, super-pixilated, hidden-camera video footage and harshly lit mirrors, she has somehow failed to look fabulous.

:49 – On Sunday, TLC is showing some documentary about a dying boy called "The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off," featuring heartbreaking philosophical narration by the doomed child. The commercial for it is the saddest single thing I've ever seen.

:50 – Loopy Evan Update! He's lounging sexily on a sheet of wood recapping The Story So Far, as he should be. Next, Nadia goes over craft needs with Joe the homeowner – and suddenly, we cut to the fashion cops, criticizing Nadia for sending him off to get two lamps, light bulbs and a mirror for $57. Great, now they're interior design experts too. Kill them. OK, maybe the shopping list is a tall order, but I bet Joe could actually get the goods on budget at second-hand stores in Chicago. The real problem is that Joe's obligated by sponsorship to go to Home Craphole, where $57 gets him one ugly table lamp. Which an employee probably told him was a ceiling fan.

:54 – New York, still bitching about the lamp shopping. "This is home decor, not rocket science or fashion!" says man-bitch. I see, making a room you live in comfortable and homey: no-brainer. Picking out and putting on clothes: the equivalent of quantum physics.

:55 – A new fantasy: Super-hunky WYWO carpenter Jason, who is not in this special, appears out of nowhere and uses his Manhattan-sized arms to bandsaw the heads off the What Not to Wear hosts. Wait, he takes off his shirt first.

:58 – Confessionals. Dana thinks her husband is mad at her because she can't tell him her secret. Joe says things are going great and seems glad his love is having fun. That's because he's in the midst of warmth, humor, home and hearth, and she's off having her self-esteem gutted by Frick and Frack.

1:01 – Until now, TLC had let more than an hour lapse without mentioning Lance Armstrong. Heads will roll.

1:04 – Much is made of the now-painted-over lavender walls – which are the same color as the curtain on the What Not to Wear set. Why is one wrong and one stylish again?

1:06 – Enter Day 2 of the room redo. We have been given very little concept of what the room is supposed to look like. Because it can't be belted.

1:07 – Sweet, funny carpenter Leslie has pulled an Andrew, building something that may be too big for the space. Meanwhile, really horrible wallpaper is being put up. Very unlike WYWO, which usually produces snazzy, practical rooms. It looks much more like something Hildy or Frank would barf up on Trading Spaces. Evil influences are at work here.

1:09 – Nadia has begun the traditional Day 2 designer freakout. We're momentarily at home.

1:10 – Dana's mandatory new wardrobe is praised. It's still lavender, but now it's OK, because fashion experts have approved it.

1:12 – Joe confesses that he has no carpentry skills, and he's wearing a pro-Vermont sweatshirt. Hmmm.

1:18 – At the house, much miscalculation has occurred. They're trying to fit Jolly Green Giant furniture into a Barbie-sized room. The doors of Leslie's giant shelf build have to be reconfigured so they'll open without crashing into the giant new bed. Oops.

1:20 – Dana has been shipped off to the hair stylist, who shellacs her strands for highlights. This is juxtaposed with her husband painting a jewelry box. Kudos to the editors.

1:21 – Evan is wearing his brown-and-white leather jacket with the burgundy racing stripe. Hot. That's fashion, folks. (Side note: unlike in other redesign shows, the WYWO cast gets to wear different clothes on the different days. Which seems much less stinky, and makes it harder to cheat the story in editing.)

1:23 – Back on WYWO, more oops. Nadia is hiding in a section of Leslie's giant shelves because she has to tell Evan that he built his nightstand shelves wrong, putting the openings on the wrong side. One of the reasons I love the show. They screw up, just like you and I would. Something else they usually do well – goof off – is missing from this show. Our loss.

1:25 – The stylist has replaced Dana's mom 'do with ... a slightly different mom 'do. Pay no attention to the man behind the scissors.

1:27 – There's some WYWO goofiness after all. Leslie makes Joe hide in the shelf box with Nadia so they can break their bad-building news to him. But the thing is, they'll fix it.

1:31 – Andrew has pulled an Andrew, building a cabinet that doesn't fit through the front door. Even though Evan has fixed his problem, poor Nadia seems seriously pissed. Hey, at least she's doesn't have some chick drawing on her with an "irridescent pencil," like poor Dana, who is now at the makeup station in the assembly line of damnation. When all is done, Dana has bags under her eyes that weren't there before, but no one seems to notice. The narrator proclaims that she's gone from "schoolmarm" to "hot for teacher." Right, if you're at Golden Girls University.

1:34 – WYWO's coming into its own. Even though they're behind as usual, Andrew is entertaining a group of fans across the street. Homeowner Joe is stressing out a tad, but with a smile on his face, unlike Nadia, who I think may have placed a phone call between shots to Carter Oosterhouse or Eric Stromer to see if they can get her a slot on that new Amy Grant show. Everyone's trying to get off TLC before their skin falls off.

1:38 – Joe has finally scored his $57 lamps, two matching delicate standing sconce things, and they make Nadia so happy she almost cries. I remember feeling that way back in my newspaper deadline days, when I'd nearly tear up because we'd finally shipped off our first completed page of the night at one minute before deadline.

1:41 – Dana is paraded in her new clothes. One outfit is a black pantsuit with white trim. What the hosts call "sophisticated" looks to me like Captain Kangaroo at a funeral. Next: a beige blazer over an open-collar red shirt. A waiter on safari, with bonus points for ultra-tacky embroidery on one shoulder. Dana gets a big approval hug from the fashionistas. This is the best Punk'd ever.

1:47 – Come to think of it, in her new hair and makeup, Dana kind of looks like a plump Paige Davis. We miss you, Paige. Or we would, if we ever watched TS anymore.

1:49 – Cross-host phone call. More hair harassment of Evan. Evan coaxes the crowd across the street to yell, "Leave Evan alone!" Amen.

1:51 – As it always does, the room comes together, miraculously, in the last half-hour. The bed is round, Andrew's shelves curve around it perfectly, and a retro-round-spiky lamp hangs overhead. Very Jetsons, except for the still-ugly wallpaper.

1:53 – A house full of family and friends crowd the finished room for the double-reveal, as Dana, WNTW hosts in tow, approaches the house in a limo. Ms. Drescher places a coded call to Evan to make sure WYWO is ready for WNTW. They're chatty, like they're old college pals. I bet she secretly loves his hair.

1:57 – They're at the house. Poor Dana is so nervous about showing Joe the new her that she is shaking and barely able to walk. The hosts find this delightful.

1:58 – I'll admit it, it is fun to see the look on Dana's face when she finds out she's been had by two unscripted TV shows simultaneously. And I love that her first question upon seeing her new bedroom is, "Where do I get round sheets?"

And we're out. Hosts are proud, friends are happy, Joe is shocked and thrilled, Dana is shocked and thrilled, TV makes everyone better.

I'd like some ice cream now, but I need a cable show to customize it for me.

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