Cold on Hot in Cleveland

"Hot in Cleveland" is the first-ever scripted program for back to the past channel TVLAND, which usually shows reruns of past-era programs like the Andy Griffith Show and Sanford & Son. But this June the channel broadcast the ensemble show with four actresses, most notably Betty White as one of them. The premise is that three over the hill women from body-conscious LA were en route to Paris for a vacation and stopped in Cleveland for an emergency layover. Int he course of the layover they discovered that over the hill in LA is just right in Cleveland. They were Hot. In. Cleveland.

I guess I shouldn't have hoped for a show based on such a vain premise would offer anything substantial in the way of intelligent entertainment, but; I think Betty White is funny. So is Valerie Bertinelli, Wendy Malik and Jane Leves. The first show aired and was kind of funny but it was also kinda raunchy, unnecessarily so.

The second week was kinda funny and somewhat sweet, if you overlook the adultery and manhunting and one night stand sex. It had good guest stars and the bit with Betty White and Carl Reiner at the restaurant comparing prescriptions and offering to car-pool to Canada for generic drugs was hilarious. But then at the end of the show it got really raunchy. The Golden Girls was risque. This was raunch.

One last gasp this week and I am now over it. It didn't get better, it got worse. The show is shallow, vain, lewd, obscene, and salacious. I'm sorry that the channel that broadcasts Andy Griffith, the very nostalgic definition of sweet, past age innocence, soils themselves with gutter-level jokes, but there you have it. I'm even sorrier that the show is going to be renewed for twice the number of shows, 20, for next season. I'm sorriest about Betty White stopping to such lows. But there you have it. I'm over Hot In Cleveland...