‘The Curse’ is horror, reality, comedy
Intentionally uncomfortable, “The Curse” 10 p.m., Sunday, Showtime, TV-MA) blends television genres with disturbing results. Emma Stone (“La La Land,” “The Favourite”) and Nathan Fielder (“The Rehearsal”) star as Whitney and Asher Siegel, the recently married hosts of an HGTV-type series called “Flipanthropy.”
As on many reality shelter shows, the hosts of “Flipanthropy” make their home in a particular place, in this case a city in Northern New Mexico. In the breezy fashion of such series, it blends profitdriven house flipping and home makeovers with societal uplift and a passion for positive change.
The bromides flow rather easily until a subject of one of their on-air gimmicks lashes out and puts a curse on Asher. Suddenly their consumer-friendly exercise is awash with personal problems and an atmosphere of guilt about the very nature of capitalism and the appropriation of Native American lands and cultures.
“The Curse” was introduced at the New York Film Festival in October and has already begun streaming on the Paramount+ tier that includes Showtime content.
It’s interesting that this blend of reality and satire arrives on Showtime when its premium cable rival HBO is still wobbling through the difficult adjustment to its merger with the reality factory Discovery.
A shotgun marriage that only number-crunchers could love, the merger put “Dr. Pimple Popper” and “The Gilded Age” under the same roof, assuming that all content is the same and that viewer’s discernment is but a mere detail.
To compound matters, it jettisoned the name HBO, long synonymous with quality TV, and took the name MAX, more associated with its cheesier subbrand Cinemax, home to racier fare.
Yet more proof that the suits running Max don’t know what they are doing arrived last week when it was revealed that they were so upset by the terrible reviews for the since-canceled series “The Idol” that they created fake accounts on X (formerly known as Twitter) to troll and torment TV critics.
This is beyond embarrassing. Anyone involved in running networks should know that the relationship between critics and programmers is one for the long haul. A critic might pan one series and then help build an audience for another show years later. The people who used to run HBO certainly used to know that. But it’s MAX now.
Showtime may be airing “The Curse,” but HBO/ Max seems to be the place that’s been snakebit. ›
The New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders meet in NFL Football action (8:15 p.m. Sunday, NBC). Look for a commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the infamous “Heidi Bowl,” when NBC cut away from a Jets-Raiders game on November 17, 1968, to air the regularly scheduled children’s movie “Heidi.”
At the time the network switched the action to the Swiss Alps, the Jets held the lead. But in the last few moments of the game, the Oakland Raiders scored twice and prevailed in the most exciting fashion. Outraged fans flooded the network’s switchboard with calls of protest.
The resulting media maelstrom convinced broadcasters that NFL games, once considered a mere Sunday afternoon pastime, were ready for prime time. In 1970, the prime time hit “Monday Night Football” was born. And the annual Super Bowl contest was moved from Sunday afternoons into prime time. Both cemented the game’s reputation for attracting consistently huge ratings, a tradition that continues more than a halfcentury later. ›
Colleagues, friends and comedy disciples salute a veteran comic on “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life” (8 p.m. Saturday, HBO, TV-14). Best known for directing such comedies as “Modern Romance,” “Lost in America,” and “Mother,” Brooks’ early works included short movies blending documentary and comedy.