movielib

Showtime, 9:00pm CDT

Season 5 kicks off with an episode that doesn't seem particularly exciting to me.

Next week: Wal-Mart. (Sound a lot more interesting.)

P&T has been renewed for Seasons 5&6, ten episodes per season.

Also on tap this season:

Breast Hysteria
Detoxing
Exorcism
Immigration

I think all those sound interesting.

Groucho

Can't weight!

Tracer Bullet

You know, your husband is much funnier than you.

Red Dog

Wow. It's back already? Cool.

I'll have to do what I did last year. Wait for most of the episodes to air, and then order Showtime for a day or two to watch them all On Demand.

Deftones

I'm intrigued at how they are going to do this one.

Groucho

From the promos it sounds like they're going to come to the same conclusion as they did in the "working out" show: some people are stocky, they'll never be thin, get over it.

das Monkey

Woah ... something to watch on television finally (at least I hope so).

das

Josh-da-man

Exorcism should be good.

And "breast hysteria" should be good for a few laughs. And boobies.

das Monkey

Great to have it back, but as usual, I have some criticism. First, that one guy definitely needed an "and then there's this asshole!" He says you can't call obesity an "epidemic" because that only refers to disease. Bullshit semantics. It's widespread and has grown rapidly (har har) -- wtf else do you want to call it? Then he says we don't know how to help people maintain a healthy weight. Double bullshit. We know exactly how to do it (save some isolated medical conditions); what we don't know is how to design a magic pill that lets you drink bacon grease while sitting on your ass all day and magically not store fat everywhere.

I did like the BMI stuff, though. The BMI is typical of our government. It's completely generalized and utterly useless, and it would be difficult to find something more meaningless than the BMI. I'm not sure pasty-white king of the uncoordinated dorklords's failure to win an athletic competition is the best way to demonstrate that, but watching the fat guy run through the hurdles was funny, so I'll let it slide.

The evolution argument was weak. You can't have it both ways. If you want to assert that humans were designed to eat all this food for survival, you must also recognize that it's only in the most recent years that humanity has retreated into their homes to live on the Internet and gorge on food that is heavily prepared with unnatural fatty chemicals. That's the reason there's an "epidemic" in the first place.

All that aside, what disappointed me the most was that they largely missed the most important aspect of this issue: deprivation diets and the harm they cause. Most diets are based on some form of deprivation, which leads to a quick body-shock weight loss, but that weight loss is often an off-balance mixture of muscle and fat accompanied with a longterm slowing of the body's metabolism. When the subject ultimately abandons the unrealistic diet, the slowed metabolism forces the weight to return more quickly, and the loss of muscle mass makes it such that when the subject returns to the previous weight, he's less healthy than before. The last guy they talked to briefly mentioned the harm of repeated dieting, but I wish they had spent some actual effort going after an industry that is slowly killing consumers for profit.

The reality is that there is a legitimate obesity problem in this country, and the undereducated public is being misled and abused by a morally disgusting industry. But at least they showed some boobies and made a few funnies, so there's always that.

Next week should be interesting.

das

wendersfan

You know, I think you sell TV short sometimes. It's better than you think, man.

movielib

As I expected, this was not a good one. Every season has some clunkers but you don't want to see it in the premier. The "Fat Guy Olympics" was a padding waste of time and even P&T knew it was totally meaningless.

Oh well, I think next week will be much better.

boredsilly

The BMI stuff was good, but the rest...meh.

Skinny != Athletic. That's news?

Looking forward to the Wal-Mart ep.

Michael T Hudson

I was suprised this was on as well. I figured my Tivo was picking up an old episode. I hope the Wal-Mart episode is a good one.

darkside

This series has gotten slowly worse as its moved along and this episode was particulary boring. They definitely have some episodes coming that could be interesting though.

Xander

Pretty much felt the same way Das did. The stuff about BMI I agreed with. But I didn't like how now they laugh/make fun of people with nutrition/health science degrees while agreeing with people with fucking law degrees?? How are they experts on the subjects of nutrition and weight loss suddenly? Seemed out of character to me.

Looking forward to the Wal-mart one.

cornflakeguy

Just a pre-viewing question.

What exactly are people "looking forward to the Wal-Mart one" for?

What are your thoughts going in?

1. It's an evil evil place and they should all burn in hell for "driving out the little guy."
2. Hey, they have the best price so I shop there. Whats the big deal?

I'm with #2, by the way.

Hey will the mods let us start a thread on the Wal-Mart show NOW?

Groucho

It's obvious from the promos that P&T are going with #2 on the Wal-Mart show.

das Monkey

I just figure a Wal-Mart episode will be a great source of comedy.

das

Red Dog

But it was funny seeing that fat guy knock over all the hurdles; well, except for the one he ran around.

It was good to see them expose the BS that is the BMI, but otherwise, I agree, a lackluster episode.

Jason

I think they were looking for a little positive reinforcement on how Wal Mart is just the cuddliest, friendliest company in the whole wide world and there's nothing at all wrong with how they do business.

And judging from the other thread, I think that's exactly what they got.