William Shatner's Raw Nerve

Bill Shatner. So many things to so many people. I find it funny that the one thing he was known for for so many years, Star Trek, is now one of the last things I associate him with these days. Word association with William Shatner usually pulls out of me the terms "egomaniac", "Price line guy", "good natured self-parody", "Futurama guest star", and of course "Denny Crane".

No matter how you view William Shatner, one thing cannot be ignored: The man has an uncanny ability to reinvent his career and make himself relevant to each ensuing pop culture generation. His latest project appears on the Biography channel, and it's called Shatner's Raw Nerve. In a series of (supposedly) unscripted interviews, Shatner talks to famous folk who have had their share of challenges and and setback in their careers. While I wonder how "raw" the show is, it does have a raw feel while not looking cheap, and it fosters an engaging ambiance. Oprah Winfrey can have her massive stage and hundreds of in-studio audience members. Raw Nerve is just two people, sitting in opposing love seats, talking to each other for half an hour. It's an intimate show, and you feel like the only audience member in the world because of it.

Another distinction from the Oprah style of interview is that none of the questions are softballs. Again, who knows how "unscripted" this show is, but the dialogue comes across in a much more improvisational style that a pre-planned one. In the first episode with interviewee Valerie Bertinelli, Shatner presses her on her past addiction problems, and before you know it the conversation has spun into Catholic ideals and how deeply Bertinelli truly believes in the concept of heaven or hell. And she gets a little flustered about it to boot!

The biggest knock on the show is this: If you care about the guest, you'll probably love the episode. If you don't care however, you probably won't care at the end of 30 minutes, either. Whether it's Shatner, the questioning, or the style of the show, something about the program falls just a little short. I really don't care about Valerie Bertinelli, and I started tuning out as the interview went on. However, the next guest was Tim Allen, someone I'm a little more engaged in, so conversely I was a little more engaged in the show.

Talk shows are a dime a dozen today (Tyra Banks?), and interchangeable, in my opinion. But Raw Nerve is fresh and different, and everyone should give it a try. I wouldn't jump into it as appointment viewing right off the bat, but check your listings for a guest you're interested in (Tuesday nights on Bio) and see what you think. For all the distance he's achieved from the Star Trek days, Bill Shatner has once again started to explore the final frontier: A fresh talk show format.

Code Monkeys

Ah, Space Ghost Coast to Coast. At a time when other than The Simpsons, the closest this country got to an "adult cartoon" was lame pop-culture references in Animaniacs, the brain trust at Cartoon Network figured out that reusing cheap animation along with a bizarrely fresh (and often edgy) script could result in an American animation revolution. Space Ghost C2C was, in the beginning, nothing short of genius. Not only was the show itself wonderful, but it gave us Adult Swim, an onslaught of programming that spanned the gamut of brilliance (Robot Chicken, Harvey Birdman) to the "quality depends on how much pot was smoked while writing the script" (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Frisky Dingo) to the simply unwatchable (anybody ever seen an episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor?).

But it all began with Space Ghost, and the invention of a new genre: Cheap animated programming targeting men who were boys in the 1980's and grew up with GI Joe, Transformers, and Nintendo. And in that vein, the G4 network has given us Code Monkeys.

The concept is simple enough, and hardly new. Dave and Jerry are programmers at video game publisher GameAvision, headlining a cast of bizarre characters where wackiness ensues. But the premise and plots aren't important. What makes Code Monkeys fascinating is that the animation is stylized to look like a crappy 8-bit NES game. There are video game in-jokes aplenty, enough for any nerd of my generation to have a few belly laughs. But the best thing about the show is it's the first since The Simpsons to be a true "freeze frame" show. Given the video game nature of the style, every episode has multiple "menu bars" where tangential jokes are taking place, constantly supplementing the plot. It's a brilliant concept that guarantees Code Monkeys needs multiple viewings to get everything contained in each episode.

I wouldn't recommend the show for anyone who doesn't have a VCR or DVR, as it's on an obscure network at ungodly hours (and I can't do appointment viewing when the appointment is at 1:30am), but if you can record it, Code Monkeys is worth a look. Some of the jokes flop, and it has a certain South Park "we're doing this to be outrageous, not because we really have anything to say" quality to it, but the style is so incredibly innovative, you just might get sucked in. That, and it's funny to see the commercials as well. Ever wonder what advertisers think will appeal to 30-something men who watch G4...?