DSTV TOP SERIES
Real Husbands of Hollywood Sony Max, Channel 128, Tuesday, 21:30 I was ready to dismiss this show purely on the title. It sounds like the kind of thing nobody with half a brain could be interested in, but apparently people like it, and it’s been renewed for a third season this year.
It’s a sort of hammed-up reality show where the stars make it clear that they’re taking things from their everyday lives and trying to make them funnier by blowing them out of proportion, rather than trying to get us to believe that it’s not all staged. I give it points right there for admitting it’s based on reality, but with embellishments and improvised comedy.
The show was created by actor and comedian Kevin Hart, and follows his day-to-day life as he tries to climb the social ladder of Hollywood — failing every time in humiliating ways. It might help that he doesn’t pretend this isn’t what he’s doing and that it doesn’t annoy when it doesn’t work out. I instantly have more respect for a celebrity who can laugh at himself.
Hart is joined in his endeavour to poke fun at himself and the Hollywood-husband lifestyle by Boris Kodjoe, Nelly, Duane Martin, JB Smoove, Nick Cannon, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, and Robin Thicke.
It sounds like the typical reality show dreck we’ve become accustomed to — but this is selfaware reality show dreck, and that’s got to count for something. Intelligence M-Net, Channel 101, Friday, 19:30 I won’t go too much into this one, since it was cancelled after only one season and clearly wasn’t a big enough deal to be brought here with any expedience, like the recent Game of Thrones , Fargo or 24: Live Another Day series. But it’s new and it occupies a Friday prime-time slot, so I may as well tell you about it.
It’s a sci-fi action series about a US intelligence operative named Gabriel Vaughn (Josh Holloway), who has a super-computer implanted in his brain that gives him access to the internet wirelessly from anywhere, allowing him to gain critical mission information on the fly. He’s also got a penchant for disobeying orders and plans to use the technology to pursue his own aim of finding his missing wife.
So far, so standard. There’s a whole lot of reasons I could list as to why this one doesn’t leave me hopeful, but the general consensus is that Gabe is a tosser who doesn’t act like someone who is a trained agent, or someone who has the benefit of a super-computer brain.
The producers could have done something new and compelling with the concept, especially given how it might not be that farfetched any more — but it seems they were content to make a vanilla, late 2000’s-style action series, and not a particularly good one at that. Still, it has a few fans who will argue that we just didn’t get it. American Restoration: Season three History Channel, Channel 186, Tuesday, 19:30 And just when I finish calling reality shows dreck, here I am about to recommend another one. This is the third season of American Restoration , which is a spin-off of the reality show Pawn Stars. I’m not familiar with either, but apparently they both approach the subject of rare and valuable old things. In this case, it follows the day-to-day business of Rick’s Restorations, an antique repair shop owned and operated by artisan Rick Dale, below left, who has been restoring antiques in Las Vegas for 30 years.
Rick has a lot of respect for the old days when items were hand-crafted with care and attention to detail.
All the items that get brought to his shop for repair are unique and every new part has to be made from scratch — unlike today where we take our laptops or washing machines in for repair, and factoryproduced replacement parts are ordered and bunged in according to an instruction book.
Each project Rick and his staff work on is a unique challenge and they usually work on six to 12 projects at a time. Sometimes they need to bring in an outside craftsman to help them out in specific areas.
This sounds like another one of those shows I probably won’t be able to stop watching if I catch the first few minutes of an episode.