From: "Dennis A. Amith [kndy]" To: "nt2099 ML - Welcome to Cyberia baby!" Subject: [Dorama ML] TELEVIEWS / We interrupt this game to bring you our regularly scheduled programming...again Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 11:40:32 -0800 TELEVIEWS / We interrupt this game to bring you our regularly scheduled programming...again Wm. Penn It's 9:22 p.m., Nov. 14, on NTV, and the major league All-Stars are trying for their first win in game four of their series with the Japanese All-Stars. Barry Bonds has hit a bases-loaded home run for the Sapporo Dome fans and the score is 6-5. It is now the bottom of the ninth, and Casey...er..."Godzilla" Matsui is at bat. Can he beat Bonds at his own game and clobber one outta here to give the Japanese team their fourth straight win? The tension rises. It will only be another minute now before the nation knows. Matsui moves to the plate. He arches his back, tightens his grip on the bat and moves it into position. A look of gritty determination crosses his face. Is he gonna hit one outta here or ...what!? Wait! Whoa! The clock has struck 9:24 p.m. and that means it is time for all us good little viewers to move along. After 144 minutes glued to the tube, we are now no longer supposed to care who wins? Other programming awaits. And for what did we give up the exciting final moments of the big game? Why, Dochira no Ryori, of course. They had a big game going that night, too. It was "nikuman" versus "curry pan." Didn't stick around long enough to see who won that one, either. On Saturday, Nov. 16, NHK gouged out 45 minutes in the middle of the all-star game for the evening news. Ah, Japanese TV--don't ya just love it? Make that 5,900, please. A few weeks ago, Televiews reported the 2001 TV Star Meikan (Star's Directory) included 5,500 TV celebrities. Well, the 2003 edition has just hit the newsstands and it includes information on a staggering 5,900 TV personalities. The entertainment industry may be the fastest growing sector in the Japanese economy. At this rate, we could be watching Celebrity Survivor forever. The directory includes photos and short profiles of each entry and that all-important data--the hiragana for their names. Prospective buyers are likely to find it on the shelf right next to the Morning Musume Bible. (No kidding. It has come to this.) The latter volume is almost as thick as TV Star Meikan. The MM may also be one of the chief reasons for the ever-burgeoning "geinokai" population. Their numbers just keep growing and growing and growing. For those interested in learning more about the real lives of the stars, two programs are recommended. The first is the long-standing hit Oshare Kankei (Sundays at 10 p.m. on NTV), where celebrities agree to chat about their personal lives and let host Ichiro Furutachi snoop through their handbags as if he were an airport security guard. A newer spin-off on the celebrity interview concept, is Bakusho Osupi Mondai, which airs Wednesdays at 7 p.m. on Fuji TV. The Japanese title is an abbreviated form of the four emcees' names: the comedy duo Bakusho Mondai, Osugi and Piko. The latter pair have been around the entertainment world for a very long time and have lots of anecdotes they are not hesitant to share. Bakusho Mondai themselves have been in the business 15 years, but have only recently become household names. Just goes to show, perseverence more than talent is an important key to "geinokai" success. On Nov. 14, the show's guest was veteran actress Kayoko Kishimoto. The format involves a fairly frank chat and the introduction of several of the guest's celebrity friends, who also engaged in some revealing reminiscing.The guest's friend that night was Toshio Yanagiba, who admitted he had once thought of marrying her. He co-starred with Kishimoto back in the late 1980s when she was a central presence on the drama scene. She has also had the honor of playing Hibari Misora in the TV rendition of her life story. One of the more interesting aspects of this show is that they pick a key year in the celebrity's life and provide a nostalgic look back at the TV and entertainment world in that year This is a talk show, so one must endure the emcees' loud interruptions, but for those interested in the private lives of the stars, it can provide some interesting details. And if it doesn't provide some information, it will at least supply some gourmet tidbits. Just to make sure vicarious TV gourmets don't go away hungry, the emcee quartet and guests play a ball-toss game at the end. The winners dine on the night's gastronomical delight, which that evening was soba dipped in a soy-flavored soup containing tender slivers of duck. With the way the nation's gourmet tendencies continue to insinuate themselves into everything from TV dramas to quiz shows, Televiews will soon be able to pass for the cooking column. Adding a few gourmet touches to the format may be the last resort for Denpa Shonen (Saturdays at 10 p.m. on NTV), in its increasingly desperate scramble for survival. Recently, Televiews reported the show had been ordered to get ratings of at least 13 percent or call it quits. That ratings goal became an increasingly impossible quest when the show was moved to Saturday night, where it faces some of the toughest competition around (Broadcaster, NHK sports, a suspense drama and the Saturday night movie). The Denpa Shonen concept, which was introduced back in 1992 and really took off with Saruganseki's trek from Tokyo to London in 1995, seems to have finally lost favor with the public. It had a good 10-year run and should retire gracefully, but that is not the Denpa Shonen style. The producers have been reaching lower and lower into the practical joke bin in a desperate attempt to survive. One effort was the recent kappa sighting they arranged in Tohoku. The poor fellow in the green leotard was lurking about for months without being noticed until Denpa Shonen informed a sports newspaper themselves. They feebly tried to put a good face on that antic on the Nov. 16 show. One antic that will not be shown on air occurred Nov. 3 at the Meiji Gakuin University festival. A 20-member choir showed up to serenade Minshuto leader Yukio Hatoyama in the middle of his address to the students. The group entered abruptly and started singing parodies of popular tunes they dedicated to the politician. The words suggested he was not popular and was not demonstrating firm leadership, according to the vernacular press. It turned out the whole performance was being filmed for Denpa Shonen. Hatoyama, through his lawyers, protested the disruption and the network quickly agreed not to air the episode. Denpa Shonen is singing its own swan song and it is badly out of tune. It would be wiser to get Nasubi, the hitchhikers and the pedalboat people together for a final yearend jamboree, and then just fade quietly. The networks do seem to have gotten the message light romances would be a good idea for the winter quarter. TBS will team up Izumi Inamori and Katsunori Takahashi in a story about women involved in romances with younger men. With a script by Makiko Uchidate, it has a better than average chance of success. Hope this one is a winner for Inamori. Despite getting the casting call for series after series, she has not had a really good role since Beach Boys back in 1997. TBS has an all-star cast of veterans signed up to support Haruhiko Kato and Rei Kikukawa in their new January series tentatively titled Keiji Ichiro. Kato will play the title role of police detective Ichiro Suzuki. Hmmm. Wonder where they found an original name like that? Over at Fuji TV, they will try to resurrect the ratings potential of the Monday, 9 p.m. slot with a still titleless love story starring Takako Matsu and Kenji Sakaguchi, and liven up Thursday nights with a romantic comedy starring Nanako Matsushima and Masaharu Fukuyama.