In the 1980s, audiences thrilled to the foibles of Kimberley Featherbeak, Pamela Ann Windchime, Devon St. Palestine, and a host of other tempestuous beauties who starred in the prime time soap "Wasp Cove." Now, if you’re lucky enough to be in New York, you can see the lost episodes live at Comix (and starring Jewcy contributer Rachel Shukert alongside This American Life's David Rakoff). Even if you can’t go witness the passion and the pain in person, you can still watch the credit sequence below:

In Treatment: Is it ok that we're standing this close?Previously: Part One, Part Two

Emily Gould: Ok, I'm caught up now -- have you seen the episode where he goes to see his own therapist yet?

Elisa Albert: Amazing. Yes. And truly it was the reason for continuing to watch. Loved especially how Paul challenges and tests her in much the same way as he is continually challenged/tested by his own patients. Was such a primal scene. And Diane Wiest i've adored since "Parenthood". Anyone?

But since then, nothing. I can't watch. Not, like, emotionally-can't. Literally: can't. My frickin' cable is malfunctioning and the benevolent support team at TimeWarner has offered me a fourteen-hour window sometime next month when they may or may not come and possibly fix it. (And what, pray tell, am I supposed to do to occupy myself during said fourteen-hour window if my cable isn't working?)

What's sadder: that my cable has been out for two days or that I'm sad that my cable has been out for two days? I'm having some feelings about my feelings. Help.

In the absence of anything else to talk about, I will therefore resort to base gossip: Britney's therapist? The one who got her committed? As identified in all the rags as one Dr. Deborah Nadel of Santa Monica? Only slightly off point, but guess what? Totally my high school shrink. Which explains. So. Much.

Emily: Ha! Have you ever had the conversation with any of your shrinks about what it would take to get committed? I never had until recently. I had been hedgy about spitting something out (uh, uncharacteristic, n'duh), and she was like "why did you hesitate?" and I was like, "I was thinking that would be the one thing I could say that would make you be ethically obligated to call the men in the white coats to cart me away." She laughed -- I mean, she didn't GUFFAW, but she definitely CHUCKLED -- and was like "that will never happen."

I have to admit, I was sort of disappointed.

Anyway, I have only seen one episode of 'In Treatment' post- Paul's visit to Diane Wiest, who is aging really well. I found that it was harder to take him seriously now that we know all his fallibilities. Not to ruin it for you, but his next visit with Laura, his responsible-adult-in-charge facade kinda cracks.

Anyway, I'm sorry about your cable! I didn't have cable -- or TV for that matter -- for four months recently and it was sort of cleansing. Towards the end, though, I stopped having anything to talk to anyone about. Don't let that happen to you.

HBO is having an Israel moment. The network’s new show, "In Treatment," is so closely based on an Israeli series that the American actors aren't allowed to watch the Israeli version, lest they learn too much about the future of the characters. And after six months of negotiations, it looks like HBO will be buying the rights to another Israeli drama, “A Touch Away."

Says Carolyn Strauss, president of HBO entertainment, “I don’t know what’s in the drinking water there. But for as tiny as that country is, they make some interesting television shows.”

“A Touch Away” follows the romance between a secular Russian immigrant and a haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) girl who’s already been matched off with an observant fiance. Reviews in the Jewish media have been hugely positive. As one reader who saw a screening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival put it on IMDB: “No one left the theater to go to the bathroom. A 10 out of 10.”

So far, opinions about HBO’s version of "In Treatment" -- including ours! -- have been mixed, but Blair Underwood’s episodes, in which he plays a former army pilot who bombed a madrassa full of children, look like they should be good. Check out the clip below.

The first season of “Rock of Love” ended with aging Poison frontman Bret Michaels getting rejected by Jes, the self-consciously "punk" chick he’d chosen to be his one true VH1 soulmate. This season, which premiered Sunday, seems to feature fewer Jes types and more inflated stripper types like Angelique, who distinguishes herself in the clip below by having a delightful French accent and taking off her panties.

Angelique actually looks a lot like Bret circa 1988, which makes sense given that most of the “Rock of Love” contestants seem more interested in being Bret Michaels than doing him. They’ve all got fake hair like Bret, they all have melty faces like Bret, and they all claim to be really excited about going to strip clubs and making out with girls like Bret. Also, it’s pretty clear post-Jes that what these girls want isn’t Mr. Every Rose Has Its Thorn—it’s that special kind of fame that comes with being known nationwide for your sexing-and-drinking abilities, exactly like Poison in its heyday.

So the whole show turns into a contest to see who can best emulate Bret in his youth— with Bret competing hardest of all.

Will, my mate from the Popinjays sends this along with his compliments. We give out Clios, the Brits give out Charlie Brooker. 

For those of you who aren't addicted to crappy reality TV like I am, let me fill you in on what's been happening this season on Big Brother.

The difference between Big Brother and the more successful The Real World franchise is that while both features people who are taped 24/7, The Real World is edited down into 22 half-hour episodes. With an online feed and a partnership deal with Showtime, Big Brother allows for neither editing nor downtime. That means that the show captures not only the mundane but the scandalous, and viewers tune in hoping to catch the good stuff.

This season has been rife with stupidity and intolerance. If you haven't been following the show closely, have no fear. One clever MySpacer came up with a handy diagram to show the prejudices of everyone on the show.

One particularly odious contestant, Amber, has made no secret of her dislike of Jews, saying that she can tell a Jew by their last name and they're all "selfish" and "greedy." You can see video of her antisemitic rant here, complete with audio feedback.

It's been a pleasure to guest edit the Daily Shvitz this week - for me, at least, if not for yourselves (an experience that has only redoubled my determination to find out what a "shvitz" actually is). I'm taking my leave of you now to go out and watch the Simpsons movie, which came out yesterday in Britain and to which I am looking forward rather more than a man of my advancing years really should. Reviews have been mixed, with the exception of Rupert Murdoch's Times, which duly proclaimed it the best thing since the invention of the Twinkie bar. Nonetheless, I go into the movie full of hope and relatively unspoiled, and will be interested to see for myself how well Matt Groening's creation has made the jump to the big screen.

The contrast with my viewing experience last night is worth noting. A full ten and a half months after it aired in the US, the first episode of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip premiered on British TV. Again, reviews were mixed: this time the Times hated it ("a smug, self-satisfied dud.") while others were more conciliatory. My own instinct, as a huge West Wing fan, was that, while the pilot was so-so, it would be more sensible to wait a few weeks and form my own judgement over time, as you do.

Except, of course, that I don't get to decide whether I want to make Studio 60 a regular part of my weekly viewing. Reading through the puff pieces in the papers, there was almost no hint in any of the officially-sanctioned publicity that the show had been canned by NBC before the end of its first season. This strange PR campaign was taken to its logical conclusion in a surreal column in the daily freesheet Metro on Tuesday, which ran excerpts of an interview with Matthew Perry in which he revealed that he was "not concerned" about whether or not the show was as successful as Friends. (' "There's less pressure on me now," he says in Grazia magazine. "I will not sign up to the kind of thinking that this has to be as successful as my last show." ')

Watching Studio 60 for the first time is a slightly strange experience when you already know that it has failed; disappointment normally comes after the anticipation (as my ex-girlfriend will testify), not before it. It's rather like watching Rita Hayworth sensuously peeling off that glove in Gilda; the beauty of that moment will last for as long as our civilisation, and possibly longer - but then it passes, and you remember that you are watching a ghost, and that Rita died of Alzheimer's more than twenty years ago. 

For British TV addicts and cinemagoers, though, this is not that unusual. Hit US shows take months to reach our screens, and even once they are here, they normally run some distance behind their US air dates. (We're still waiting for the second half of the final season of the Sopranos, and trying to avoid finding out what happens is incredibly difficult.) The same is true of movies. It is common practice for even the biggest movies to open in the US weeks, and sometimes months, ahead of their release dates in Europe, although this trend has been reversing in the age of digital piracy. This means that, for big "event" movies like Star Wars, or shows like Lost, it can be difficult to remain unspoiled while you wait to see it for yourself. In the case of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, for which we Brits must wait until 21st September, I suspect the damage will be limited: but the reveal at the end of The Empire Strikes Back would not survive today's internet age, nor would "Who Shot J.R.?" be a very interesting question if it had been answered weeks before you even saw the cliffhanger that preceded it.

They say that trends begin in America and take a little while to get across the Atlantic to us; in my own little field of political blogging, that is certainly true, but it applies to much more important things too - from the housing market to our choice of foreign wars, it is impossible to ignore the fact that America sets the agenda. The aforementioned Spice Girls are the exception that, thankfully, prove the rule.) So my plea to you is to watch more intelligent shows like Studio 60 (even if they're flawed), and stop showing up to crap like Pearl Harbor; because today it's the Lincoln Square cineplex, but tomorrow, it's the world.

Oh, and don't vote for Hillary Clinton. Please.

No Forethought: A photo would have made things so much simpler!�In case you’re one of the people who thought I was a moron for posting about the Jesus Tomb, you’ll appreciate this article at Beliefnet, which debunks the whole Jesus Tomb story pretty effectively.

It gets into many reasons for why this is just silliness, among them some historical inaccuracies:

• The ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem, and his adult home was Nazareth. The family was still in Nazareth after he was dead and gone. Why in the world would any member of Jesus' family be buried in Jerusalem other than James and Jesus?
• One of the ossuaries has the name "Judah, son of Jesus." We have no historical evidence of such a son of Jesus. We have no historical evidence he was ever married.
• By all ancient accounts, the tomb of Jesus was empty—even the Jewish and Roman authorities acknowledged this. Now, it takes a year for the flesh to desiccate, and then you put the man's bones in an ossuary. But according to historical record, Jesus' body was long gone from Joseph of Arimathea's tomb well before then. Are we really to believe it was moved to another tomb, decayed, and then put in an ossuary? It's not likely.
• In order to argue that Jesus remained buried after his death, you must accuse James, Peter and John (mentioned in Galatians 1 and 2, our earliest New Testament document) of fraud and cover-up. Are we to believe that they knew Jesus didn't rise bodily from the dead but perpetrated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they hide the body of Jesus in another tomb? The James in question here is Jesus' brother, who certainly would have known about a family tomb.

It also goes into why DNA testing  is silly, and how common the name Jesus was back in the day… And if you want even more, you can check out the author’s blog.

But I’ll say in defense of my initial post… I never claimed to BELIEVE any of this stuff.  I just thought it was interesting, and I like when public outcries and  bad TV (which both go well with popcorn). 

Do we have to fight about the inaccuracies of WifeSwap too?

Might House Have A Clue As To Why Tuesday Night TV Is So Boring?My husband and I just subscribed to Netflix after tiring of each others' incessent need to channel surf. We didn't readily admit to this being the catalyst, but we all know how annoying it is to watch another person take out their ADD on the very object whose desiny is to amuse you.

It's a tall order.

After being a Netflix member for over a month now and signing up for the 3 movies at-a-time deal, we've also discovered that this is a waste of money since you'll never receive a DVD more than once a week. Each week, we aspire to beat the system somehow and yet it always averages to be the same scenario playing itself out: If we watch our movies during the week and send them back right away, chances are we will not have another DVD in time to watch for the weekend.

But of course the question remains that if TV is far better than movies these days, as Newsweek tells me, why are we so dependent on our Netflix for viewing satisfaction?

Our DVDs are a default for us. This means that if there is nothing on the telly (sorry been watching too much BBC "The Office" on Netflix), we mumble the word Netflix. Some shows are staples in our home: "The Office," "Heroes," "Lost" and "South Park" being at the top. Then there are the fillers like "Shark," one of fifteen "CSI" locales, and "Law & Order."

Last night, our filler was "House." Since the time slot's major competition is "Pussycat Dolls Presents," it was a no-brainer. Still, watching singer Dave Matthews play a musician who happens to be brain-damaged didn't feel too much of an acting feat, but at least we got to loathe Hugh Laurie's House character a bit more and leave the episode feeling someone had been more of an asshole that day than either of us. Did I mention that Personal guilt runs high in my house.

But back to Tuesday night TV and the search for a show that doesn't entirely suck. We rounded out the night with the "48 Hours Mystery" show. It's a bit better than "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" in that it's less likely that the perv next door or someone you once met at a bar will be exposed on national TV as a pedophile and leave you permanently scarred emotionally.

Anyways, the particular case featured on "48 Hours" was also one that I had followed since it was a local story involving a former NYC socialite who'd been found brutally beaten and murdered in her Cape Cod home with her 2-year-old daughter bending over her mother's slain body, attempting to suckle mommy's breasts. The Christa Worthington case attracted national news coverage, but here in Boston it was nauseatingly covered ad infinitum.

Naturally I know when I watch these unsolved murder cases, I go to bed thinking the killer will be coming after me that very night because the rational part of me has been extinguished. And given the restless/criminal action going on in my apartment as of late, perhaps cuddling up with a innocent, non-violent book is a healthier psychological alternative.

Then again, TV really is like decent junk food and as are well aware of, even the bad junk food still is better than going hungry.

The Jesus Tomb: One big happy...

I absolutely understand why Christians will be upset by this story in the Jerusalem Post (and the documentary it describes) but what do Jews think about it? I find it fascinating myself… and will be glued to the set next week when the flick airs!

And I will absolutely be following the “furor” it “sparks”. This is my kind of news!

Basically, a crack team from the Discovery Channel has put together a documentary about the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” in Jerusalem… and they’re going to reveal great truths to us amateur theologians out here in TV-land. Namely, that Jesus was buried with his wife Mary Magdalene, and their SON, Judah!

They’re doing DNA tests on the remains and shit! Jesus DNA!

See, this is a big big BIG deal for Christians for a number of reasons. Jesus wasn’t supposed to be getting it on with Mary, and certainly he wasn’t supposed to be making babies. But mostly, he was supposedly resurrected and taken up into heaven by God. Bodily. He shouldn’t have left any remains for DNA testers, besides maybe some toenails clippings.

So if there should be the least little shred of credibility (which I can’t honestly imagine there will be) attributed to this cable-TV insanity… it’s going to be OFF THE CHAIN!

Of course, I’m expecting a lot of Jews to get upset too, because Jews don’t like Jesus. They don’t like to talk about Jesus. But religiously, it doesn’t matter to us, does it? After all, to us, it should be like someone finding the tomb of Shabbatai Tzvi and his baby’s mama… Though I’m not sure The Discovery Channel would bother with that.

Of course, there’s always the fear that people will say this is a “Jewish conspiracy” (You know, like evolution)… but at least it’ll be interesting.

Anyone see the T Shirt that Justin Kirk wore in the Showtime TV show 'Weeds'?

He plays someone who is studying to be a Rabbi, and selling weed on the side, and he wears a T Shirt that says in large letters Gettin' הי (It might have said Gettin' יה, not sure)

(Kinda similar to the baseball cap sold by Jewcy that says Chai Maintenance).

Anyone know where to find one of those? Think Jewcy might start selling one?

Fox just pulled the plug on the OC. Nobody should be too devastated by that news. It was time. If we’re going to mourn anything now, it should not be the show that ended today, but the show that could have been.

Go back and watch the OC pilot next time it’s on TV. Everyone remembers the classic moment when water polo hunk Luke schools new-kid-in-town Ryan on how it’s done in Orange County. But my favorite line occurs earlier in the episode. At this point in the show, all we know about Ryan is that he’s a thug from working-class Chino who stole a car and wound up temporarily adopted by his attorney’s rich family, the Cohens. He’s loitering at the end of the Cohens’ long driveway when Marissa, the beautiful problem child next door, comes out to smoke a cigarette. She stares at him disdainfully and says, “Who are you?”

He replies: “Whoever you want me to be.”

It’s such a terrifically soapy response—sexy, yet utterly ridiculous. And it presents all of the show’s potential in less than five seconds. Here’s the smoldering bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, facing the vodka-swilling daughter of the guy who just embezzled half the town’s funds in order to keep his wife in Gucci. The possibilities are endless: Who does Marissa want Ryan to be?

Unfortunately, it turned out that Marissa just wanted Ryan to be a nice guy. It also turned out that he fit into Orange County just fine once Luke stopped punching him in the face. By the end of the second season, the James Dean had been leeched right out of him, leaving behind just a nice adopted Jewish boy who got good grades and wanted to be an architect. To create drama, the writers had to bring in temporary hooligans like Oliver (the unstable rich kid) and Trey (Ryan’s unstable brother), who wreaked havoc for a couple episodes and then were killed off or relegated forever to Pittsburgh or Portland.

Like most of the first season audience, I gave up on the show a while ago, and I won’t miss it. But I will miss that brief period, early on, when Ryan Atwood seemed like he might be more than just a pretty, oft-punched face.