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The Wishing Well

by DICK CHENEY

I have a hard time focusing for the length of time it takes to watch a television show. It's not like I reach for my phone or iPad right away. I usually don't. It's that I see someone else doing it, and I immediately think, "I could also be checking the price of Paul Krugman voodoo dolls on Amazon while I watch Hot in Cleveland." Granted, I am not the most adventurous sort. I was suspicious of what sherbet was for over forty years; Doug Feith once sent me 52 e-mails trying to convince me to take MDMA before I relented.

A few hours after any woman meets up with Elijah Wood, she thinks to herself, "That was fun, but do I really need to be nuzzled by Frodo twice?" Then again, it's hard to find something worthwhile to watch on television when it's so evident that we live in an age where Aaron Sorkin's latent anti-semitism has reached its nadir.

Wilfred

Wilfred posits that talking to your dog is unusual, when it's one of the most common behaviors in existence. The most common behaviors are something like:

1. Mouthing the words to songs

2. Being a little grossed out by Emma Stone

3. Always thinking of the same subject while peeing

Things I say to my dog include:

1. What's going on champ?

2. That's a good girl.

3. Where's your toy?

When you ask my golden retriever where her toy is, she begins to get very excited. The recipe is so simple sometimes I quietly wonder why no one will ask me where my toy is.

The everpresent score of Wilfred is heavily reminiscent of everything Jon Brion has ever done. It's supposed to be some kind of Alice-in-Wonderland tinkle to represent the descent of Ryan (Elijah Wood) into madness. In reality it gets more and more annoying, which is kind of the point — we are almost as frustrated with Wood's lawyer-turned-wastrel as he is with himself.

Ryan is heavily invested in an extremely mediocre woman. Her name is Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), and she tells you everything you need to know about the show. It is only interested in taking one meaningful risk at a time. Barely distinguishable from the lesser broke girl or the corpse of Kaley Cuoco, the only character more underwritten than Jenna is a gastroenterologist played by Robin Williams.

I would be more into the show if before every airing they had Cesar Millan come out and say, "This is what would happen if dogs could think."

get it?

Anger Management

Charlie Sheen's face is slowly crumbling; it looks like a bunch of stucco deteriorated over hundreds of years. His new show, Anger Management, features him parenting a teenage girl, whose new stepfather is a heavily tattoed Brian Austin Green. The only situation more unfamiliar to Sheen would be climbing onto his house and actually redoing his roof so it doesn't look so much like his face.

Sheen's character plays a Harvard educated psychologist who sees patterns in everything, even labels on soup cans or in the lining of a yarmulke he received at a bar mitzvah. His major love interest is played by Kiefer Sutherland, and his minor love interest is portrayed by Jim Caviezel.

Every woman who sleeps with Sheen's character on Anger Management has to repeatedly emphasize how much she enjoys the experience, until it becomes the world's most extensive case of the lady doth protest too much.

Anthony Edwards now plays Maura Isles on "Rizzoli & Isles"

Falling Skies

Aliens noticed Noah Wyle's neckbeard from another nebula and were like, "Doesn't that thing itch?

what could make me feel this way?

Veep

I always wonder, thinking back on the eight long years of Bill Clinton's presidency before I arrived, what did Al Gore do with all that time? My main guesses have generally been: Xbox, a variety of lotions, washing his car with recycled water, Mike & Ikes and watercress.

It is unclear which sort of person the creators of Veep think less of: women, or vice presidents. The presentation of Vice President Selina Myers (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as constantly ignored and neglected is wildly implausible. Even less believable is that she would have a sexual relationship with the guy who played David on The Office.

Fortunately, even single movement of Anna Chlumsky's face inspires hope and joy in every part of my being. She is a sensation. The show should have been about a proud lesbian relationship between the two women, and the cliffhanger at the end of the first season should have been whether or not they can tell Selina's father (Ed Asner?). Veep started out a little slow before finding itself. The show's constant denigration of the office of the Vice President is potentially grounds for treason charges, or at least litigation based on whoever isn't giving Buster Bluth the punchlines he deserves. How dare they.

did you order the code red?Game of Thrones

People come up to me in the supermarket, at the gynecologist's office, in sniper towers, asking me one thing: What did you think of the Thrones finale? Wasn't it stupid when the White Walkers of the North marched forth at about 5 mph?

I quickly tell them I don't care. Only one thing in Westeros matters or will matter to me. You. You there.

Stay away from Robb Stark. Stay away from him. What kind of name is Talisa? Why do people assume a woman healer is a nurse instead of a doctor? There's no doctors in the Seven Kingdoms, why do you think Sansa Stark knows so little about her menstrual cycle? You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Health care reform

I wonder what B.O. will do with himself once he's out of office. On the negative side of the ledger, he'll have to avoid urinating all over the toilet bowl for the first time in several years. On the positive side, Jimmy Fallon doesn't have to worry about booking guests anymore.

Louie

In the first episode of Louie's third season, he purchases a motorcycle and crashes it. He reveals his ex-wife is a woman of color. Each new possibility is both completely bizarre and made into something familiar and universal by CK's performance — he's basically reinventing the concept of being a mime for a new millennium. In playing himself, he rarely speaks except to grumble, make an excuse, or apologize. It is very funny, but it is also very sad that he writes himself this way.

When a person's low self-esteem becomes so extreme in comparison to their actual self-worth, it's called a reverse Alex Trebek.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording and the former vice president of the United States. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He last wrote in these pages about Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.

"Hanging By A Thread" - Ami Saraiya & the Outcome (mp3)

"Soundproof Box" - Ami Saraiya & the Outcome (mp3)

The new album from Ami Saraiya is entitled Soundproof Box.

the undersecretary of defense of the white walkers

Comments

[Bob Dole]

"It is very funny, but it is also very sad that he writes himself this way."

Most viewers won't realize that Louis CK had a fairly horrible motorcycle accident early in his career. Much worse than the one depicted in the season 3 opener. He has talked about that day being the beginning of the most horrible period of his career coupled with the realization he was losing his hair. I'm curious to see where he's taking us this season by taking us to such a crucial point in his life.