'Dear Prudence' Comes Out To Play Whodunit; Over-The-Top Comic Gets A Dose Of Reality
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Published: August 21, 2008
Proving that television covers the spectrum of human existence, this column will include items about Margaret Cho and Jane Seymour. Both have TV projects debuting this week.
Seymour, who went from a James Bond girl in "Live and Let Die" to a rugged-but-beautiful pioneer in "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," joins the network for aging actors.
Her "Dear Prudence" movie debuts at 8 p.m. Saturday on the Hallmark Channel.
Cho, an outspoken, over-the-top neurotic comic, becomes the latest celebrity to be followed by cameras for a reality series. "The Cho Show" debuts at 11 tonight on VH1.
"Dear Prudence" is a lighthearted whodunit that has Seymour, 57, playing a Martha Stewart type named Prudence McCoy. She is known for her "PruPointers," down-home solutions for all of life's problems. On vacation at a Wyoming Lodge, Prudence gets involved in a suicide case that turns out to be murder.
Seymour recently told TV critics that she played it for laughs. "People on the set were laughing out loud in the middle of shots," she said, describing Prudence as "a very A-type personality, very efficient, and she knows how to figure things out, clean things up, and she's very practical. She just accidentally happens to solve murders."
Seymour changed her look for the role, putting on a short red wig to become Prudence.
Seymour is joining Hallmark's movie mystery franchise which includes Dick Van Dyke as a crime-solving professor in the "Murder 101" movies, and, in the works are films starring Bob Newhart as a quirky police detective.
John Larroquette, Kellie Martin and Lea Thompson also have been featured in a series of Hallmark mysteries which are old-school, low-budget and often disappointing. Most are just carried by the personality of the featured star.
Larroquette's "McBride," Martin's "Mystery Woman" and Thompson's "Jane Doe" have finished their runs and no new films are planned.
"Dear Prudence" should continue because it's one of the better efforts
And now for something completely different.
"The Cho Show," is mildly entertaining if you like watching this kind of "staged quasi-reality show" on which an eccentric celebrity and her freaky entourage traverse through their glam Hollywood lives.
You would think that Cho has had enough success as a stand-up to be overqualified for the C-list status of most of VH1's celebrity players. She plays bigger venues such as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (Sept. 25).
But some people just can't resist being a diva, and Cho seems to be following in the footsteps of comic Kathy Griffin, whose "Life on the D-List" has made her more famous than her stand-up.
Viewers will meet Cho's sweet, bemused, slightly confused and amazingly tolerant parents, who for years have been the butt of her jokes. Cho's followers were cast to play a gay posse of hairdressers, stylists and spiritual advisers. Her "assistant" is portrayed by a friend, the diminutive burlesque performer Selene Luna.
On the opening episode, Cho anguishes over whether she should accept an award from an Asian-American magazine. It allows her to rehash material about once being an embarrassment to the Asian-American community because she is a foul-mouthed, tattooed, bisexual Korean comic who makes fun of Korean stereotypes.
Cho also has signed on for a Lifetime network comedy, "Drop Dead Diva," about a dead party girl whose soul is trapped in the body of a brilliant but frumpy lawyer (Brooke Elliott). Cho will play her assistant.
TUNE IN TONIGHT
Burn Notice, 10 p.m. USA
If you are not suffering from Olympic burnout, try this action series. Tonight, ousted spy Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) hooks up with modern day pirates for an undercover heist.
The Principal's Office, 9 p.m. truTV
This realty series is based on what happens when students land in school principals' offices. Tonight, a class clown, a class skipper and a tardy lad are punished.
