Property Brothers live to entertain
It’s almost impossible to remember when people watched HGTV, the “Home and Garden TV” network, to actually learn something. Entertainment has trumped practicality for so long that the network can refer to Drew and Jonathan Scott as “HGTV superstars” without hesitation.
The familiar siblings return for “Brother vs. Brother: No Rules” (9 p.m., HGTV, TV-PG). Apparently, they will attempt to renovate and flip a property in the Los Angeles area. Budget, we are told, is no object, and any location is fair game.
I have to admit, I’m lost here. If there are no budget constraints, then where is the tension and what, exactly, is the point — unless it’s to show “superstars” with unlimited funds spending freely. And one of these creatures has a movie-star girlfriend, Zooey Deschanel. Why should we care?
I’ve never been terribly comfortable with the whole “house-flipping” concept.
For most of us mere mortals, home ownership is not only the cornerstone of our meager assets — our house is the place where we live and some of us raise families. It was not that long ago that home ownership was seen as kind of sacred. Flipping turns this American dream into a cynical game. I’m reminded of George Costanza’s mother on “Seinfeld,” chastising her self-pleasuring son for treating his body “like an amusement park.” Flipping shows reflect capitalism as pornography.
Celebrating flipping is particularly odious in California, a place where millions have been priced out of home ownership by speculative gamesmanship and where homelessness is an epidemic.
› Parents of the world, beware — something annoying this way comes. “Superkitties” (10:30 a.m., Disney Channel) is on the horizon. Four big-eyed cuddlers join forces to fight crime, evil and bad things in a CGI universe brighter than a bouncy castle. The theme song and action-montage music consist of them purring “Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow” to the tune of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” For moms and dads with morning headaches, “Apocalypse Now” has arrived.
› “Drag Race” star RuPaul gets a prime-time network perch as host of “Lingo” (9 p.m., CBS), a new game show pitting four teams of two against each other in a contest to see who can guess the most words after being given the first letter as a clue. From the limited clips available, this isn’t a crossword game, so each guessed word does not seem to be linked to the previous one or next one. A quarter-century after the introduction of ABC’s prime-time game “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” the color and design of these sets do not seem to have evolved.
While we’re on the subject of game shows, it’s curious to note that while celebrities and has-beens pretend to go through military boot camp training on “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14), Drew Carey, who actually was a Marine, is the host of “The Price Is Right at Night” (8 p.m., CBS).