Today: I Hope Somebody Is Pickpocketing Those Tourists

A disclaimer: I was having a very nice dream about myself and a handsome flight attendant flirting over duty free on a UTA flight from Milwaukee to New York, when I was woken up to watch this. Needless to say, Matt Lauer & Co. cannot compare to the charms of a bespectacled 33 year old frenchman with a buzzcut and 45" chest bursting out of his uniform.

Although I have watched it for as long as I can remember, The Today Show has worked my nerves ever since they got that cockamamie idea of having a crowd right outside the studio. I don't get the appeal whatsoever. If someone showed up on the streets of Rockefeller Center with a sign saying "Hello Hikaru," then I would kindly inform them that if they feel the need to say "hi" publicly, they should call me on a speakerphone.

Anyway, Today, rightly or wrongly is considered the gold standard of morning television. I can see how, it combines the celebrity factor of GMA with the probing of The Early Show, and--as Tom Cruise and Anne Coulter can attest to--Matt Lauer is not afraid to go there. However, they still have that daft crowd lingering in the background.

Much has been said in recent days about the new set of Today--the one that they were working on all summer. Well, it looks like any cut-and-dry snooty lounge (think Therapy, but all in orange and blue) I've been to. All that is missing is a DJ looking hipper-than-thou in the background and servers trying desperately to not to drop drinks on the pretentious clientele.

The other new addition to Today, of course, is Meredith Vieira. She is not Katie Couric. That is not a slight, nor is it effusive praise. I'm just saying that she is not Katie Couric. She is, however, very genial and far from wanting to steamroll her personality onto the audience. She's also very aware of the fact that the show is now all in HD (because believe you me, Rob Morrison has forgotten that WNBC is now all doing all their news in HD as well).

Now that I've just praised Today, I now come to dump on it. For starters, Natalie Morales. What is her purpose on days when Ann Curry is there? She just sort of sits there and smiles, waiting for someone to switch her off. Then there's Al Roker, who really should learn that all we need to know is the weather and not try to build his own cult of personality. (Although, I will say that only Al Roker could interview Star Jones and nonverbally communicate to the audience at home that nobody was buying what she was selling.)

Then there's the cutesy aspect of the show. This isn't so much something that the anchors say, but rather what the director chooses to show. There will always be certain shots you can count on seeing during any episode of Today: at some point, some child will be hoisted into the air by their parents--clearly oblivious to the fact that the child does not want to be front and centre; Matt Lauer & Meredith Vieira will try to do a promo for a very serious story while Pat & Harvey from Boise go "I'm on tv! I'm in New York City!" in the background; and they will cut to Al Roker too early surprising him.

Unfortunately, Today is in one of their "Let's Throw A Heterosexuals-Only Wedding" multiweek parties. On the plus side, Meredith doesn't slop sugar as much as Katie Couric did, but god almighty, I do hate these segments. Homophobic exclusion aside, I can't stand these. It's 8:20 in the morning and the last thing I want to see is people grinning from ear to ear and shitting sunshine, to be blunt. Luckily, the WNBC news break comes just in time to rescue me.

Today during it's 3 hour run goes through peaks and valleys. The first half hour starts strong, then it gets into a minor valley in the second, the third half-hour goes down somewhat, then it hits close to rock bottom in the fourth half-hour, it redeems itself somewhat in the fifth, and then just comes crashing to the ground at the end. Understandably, this means that I am not looking forward to the 8:30-9 half-hour. Today's one is a classic: cooking meals you will never eat as well as warnings that women are wasting their money...and no one gets the irony.

I have never understood why they have cooking segments on television. Not once have I ever been inspired to cook a recipe seen on television, nor have I eaten something that someone prepared after seeing it on television. Maybe some people do, but I have never come across them. Today, Matt Lauer is aiding/leering at Nigella Lawson, a woman whose breasts threaten to become part of the recipe itself. They are ostensibly making spaghetti and other "comfort foods," but all they are really doing is making me nauseous. Once upon a time, I was able to eat breakfast, but then I started watching Today, and my ability to have solid food in the morning disappeared.

Then it's Jean Chatzky's segment. She seems to be on this show every single day, and somehow manages to write a book. Every single time she is on this show, she has one message: "Ladies, you're spending too much!" Why are women singled out, Jean? And, um, if you're telling us that we're spending too much, then why do we have to buy your book to learn how to be frugal? Just put it up on a free website. Somehow, I suspect that Jean herself is deep in credit card debt and is trying to climb out of it by telling people that they're spending too much. It screams pyramid scheme to me. I don't buy into her argument that women need more money than men because they live longer. I can't wrap my head around the fact that since I'll live a statistically shorter life than my female cousin, I can go and spend money like there is no tomorrow. Not buying it--in both senses of the phrase.

Gene Shallit closes out the half-hour with his review of Everyone's Hero. The only interesting thing about Gene's reviews is that you can wonder why that man decides to show himself in public looking like he spent his life sticking his fingers into electric sockets. Otherwise, it's rave, rave, rave unless it's Brokeback Mountain, or a film that might be perceived as just tiniest bit challenging.

(Joe Avellar for some reason is doing the local news break at 8:55. If someone would explain to me why I find him very sexy, despite the fact that he's extremely avuncular, I would appreciate it.)

The fifth half-hour opens with Matt & Al (Meredith can't appear in the third hour, due to her contract with Disney) discussing why Eighties fashion is returning. If that sounds like a recipe for uncomfortable television to you, then you'd be quite correct. Even though Natalie Morales--who is no Ann Curry (and that is a slam against Morales)-- gives a competent news digest, the show takes a nose dive into inanity by having Al Roker talking to the new Ivory Soap family. I don't care. I also don't care about Natalie Morales and some woman from eBay (!) trying to convince us of why overpriced Eighties knockoffs are chic. Third hour, I now dub thee "the hour of blatant shilling," because all I see here so far are people working for their kickbacks.

Al Roker then stumbles his way through a report about getting your vitamins from fruit. Some genius decides to play the NBC News Special Report music to open it, and gives me an unnecessary scare. There are few sounds that can shock to me to the core, a Special Report theme is one of them since you know it never is going to be good news. (The other one is the old Emergency Broadcasting System siren. Thank god, that has been replaced on most channels with something much more melodic.I always suspected that those things were causing heart attacks and epileptic fits.) Anyway, why is this a report? Do some people really not know that you get calcium from milk? And again, who told Al Roker that he should do more than just the weather? Not everyone who watches the third hour of Today is stupid.

Coming up on the final half-hour: Tony Bennett & Michael Buble'. The ad with Teri Hatcher swinging her hair about was more interesting than the prospect of hearing and seeing those two perform. I hate crooning, just so you know.

The final half-hour opens with this android they have been yammering about all morning long. I truly believe that these people are genuinely threatened by it, judging by the amount of nervous jokes they have been making about a relatively lifelike android. Then Al & Natalie--because Today is basically 12 Little Indians with anchors disappearing over its 3 hours--prattle on about nothing at all. Seriously, I was listening closely and I can't recall a single sodding thing that they said, and I have captioning on.

The android is apparently part of some invention shindig that GE is co-sponsoring. The show's resident technology guru (read: geek complete with glasses, but he wears jeans so he's "hip") goes through umpteen different inventions while Al Roker makes a fool out of himself. I feel like I'm watching a car crash.

Oh lord, it's "American Story" today, Today's mawkish attempt to replicate Charles Kuralt's folksy travelogues with Bob Dotson as Il Kuralt. Dotson is no Kuralt, no matter how hard he tries. Today, he's featuring a bunch of middle-aged (and that's being generous, because these men look geriatric zombies) men who have restarted their garage band. All I can say is that if I was related to them, I'd change my name and burn my family tree down.

Bennett & Buble' next, and I feel a bit puzzled by why Tony Bennett is on again less than week after appearing on Today to promote yet another duets album. Who's buying these albums, and can we possibly incapacitate them? It seems that every singer off the hit parade these days is doing a duet album, and the fact of the matter is that they all sound and look like desperate attempts to maintain some type of relevance.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there and the whole segment is blissfully free of any audience reaction shots, so I gather I should be grateful for little mercies.

Thus ends 3 hours of Today, still the best national show, but flawed as hell. I still hope that somebody is pickpocketing those tourists.

(Mysteriously, Rob Morrison returns to do the final local news break. What the devil is going on at Rockefeller Center?)

On deck: The CW11 Morning News or Hair! or "Probably The Most Mind-Numbing Two Hours in My Whole Life (and I've seen The Early Show)"