OT: sambeaux, "Oil Storm" is a ficticious TV show.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 03, 2005
Greasy drama waters down ‘Oil Storm’
By AARON BARNHART
The Kansas City Star
“Oil Storm” (7 p.m. Sunday, FX). Imagine: It’s late 2005, and America’s gas and oil supply is cut off. A huge hurricane takes out Louisiana. Terrorists attack Saudi Arabia. Icy storms rock New England. Tankers go boom. We lose a bidding war with the Chinese. Suddenly, light sweet crude is more precious than extra virgin olive. Think $52 a barrel for oil is too high? Hah! Try $152. Fill up your SUV? That’ll be 200 bucks, you greedy, greedy consumer.
All this takes place on the current president’s watch, we’re told. So where is the president? More importantly — where’s the vice president?
That’s what’s screwy about “Oil Storm.” Although made to look like a “Frontline” special, mentions of Bush and Cheney are more scarce than petrol in this movie. We see the Saudi royal family and Russian president Vladimir Putin, but there’s no risk in showing them.
Nuclear fusion? Drilling in Alaska? Cheney’s energy task force? They don’t figure in “Oil Storm,” which chickens out just when it’s getting interesting. Instead of delving into the causes of the oil crisis, it revolves around two families that are in this movie to represent All Our Pain.
One family runs a gas station in Texas and enjoys taking shaky home videos of themselves (so much for the “Frontline” look). The other runs a farm in South Dakota and is hit hard when, in response to the fuel shortage, Congress ends the agricultural subsidy program.
Leaving aside what a silly storyline that is, do the Brits who made “Oil Storm” realize that most farming in America is carried out by corporations that hire expensive lobbyists, just like the oil companies?
The producers of “Oil Storm” also do historical simulation shows for PBS, such as “Colonial House.” They’re better at that than they are at simulating the future.
“Entourage” and “The Comeback” (8 and 8:30 p.m. Sunday, HBO). It’s season two for “Entourage,” the comedy that gave HBO a testosterone kick last summer.
We find the career of Vince (Adrian Grenier), rising Hollywood star, inching forward. He’s forced to move out of last season’s rental, so he decides to buy a home.
Meanwhile, Drama (Kevin Dillon) begs Vince’s agent, Ari (Jeremy Piven), to get him reinstated at the Playboy Mansion. When he can’t, manager Eric (Kevin Connolly) fumes, “You know, Ari, you carry about as much weight as Lara Flynn Boyle.” A punch line like that is worth putting all those proper nouns in the paper.
That’s followed by “The Comeback,” in which Lisa Kudrow plays a faded sitcom star who agrees to let reality-TV cameras follow her around as she attempts a return to the small screen. Norma Desmond meets “The Office,” if that makes any sense.
I’m not a big fan of these improvised docu-style comedies, and “Comeback” is no exception. But I find most HBO shows take some getting used to.
TV Barn’s TV Picks: One of cable’s big hits from last summer, “The 4400,” is back beginning at 8 p.m. Sunday on USA.
Like a lot of sci-fi shows, it offers a catchy premise and a lot of dopey lines. “I deal in facts,” says one of the 4400, “and the fact is I’ve gotta flush this radiator before lunch!”
The two-hour pilot from last season airs at noon Sunday.
Based on an America Online poll, that ever-reliable gauge of public sentiment, Matt Lauer will announce who is “The Greatest American” at 7 p.m. Sunday on Discovery.
Cash is King until further notice!!!
My comments on companies are usually my opinion of long term success (years). The PPS may go up or down greatly in the meantime depending on the number of greedy suckers with money.
