Guilty Pleasure: TV’s ‘Mistresses’ Is Deliciously Addictive

‘Mistresses,’ ABC’s summer soap series, reminds me of the original ‘Beverly Hills 90210.’ I hated, hated, hated, HATED it. But, I watched EVERY single episode until it went off the air. Why? I still don’t know. However, ‘Mistresses’ shares that same addictive, soapy awfulness where the acting is terrible and the dialogue is wooden, but I just can’t stop watching it. It’s just plain … addicting.

‘Mistresses,’ in case you haven’t caught the terrible commercials or laughed at the one-dimensional pilot, centers on four women, who despite their wealth, beauty and egregiously toned calves, can’t stop making the WORST mistakes in their sex lives. Lawyer Savi (Alyssa Milano) cheats on her husband with her hot co-counsel (Jason George). Storeowner April (Rochelle Aytes) discovers her husband cheated on her with a two-bit Florida piece. Realtor Joss (Jes Macallan) sleeps with anything breathing. And, headshrinker Karen (Yunjin Kim) foolishly sleeps with her dying patient (John Schneider).

I don’t know why ABC didn’t call ‘Mistresses’ by its real name, female dumbasses. Admittedly, I don’t know what’s dumber, the plot, its heroines or me for continuously watching. So what makes these women dumbasses? Let me catch you up the first eight episodes.

Savi’s a lawyer who handles divorce, estate laws, and everything in between. But, when her hot, Aussie husband turns abusive, instead of shouting what you’d expect from a lawyer, she hops onto her equally hot co-counsel. Maybe I’m just lazy, but I found it unrealistic. No, not the cheating, but how the cheating happened. I refuse to believe a woman in her mid-30s who just worked eight-to-ten LONG hours and underwent a draining fight with her husband, would hop into her car to DRIVE BACK to her office at nighttime for nookie. I don’t care what Limp Bizkit says, if it were me, I’d just curl up with Jerry Springer and Ben & Jerry.

Next, on the list of female dumbasses is April, the dumbass grieving widow. Basically, a woman stalks her for WEEKS (possibly MONTHS), shows up at her house in the middle of the night, claims she’s April’s dead husband’s ex-mistress and demands half of April’s estate settlement. And, dumbass April doesn’t call the cops. Instead, she liquidates 20% of her business. When her creepy ex-husband arrives at their neighborhood in BROAD DAYLIGHT and NO ONE recognizes him, she doesn’t call the cops on him either. Instead, she ignores possible future legal repercussions (bigamy, illegal inheritance) and tells him to get the hell out of town.

Karen, the therapist, is the dumbest of all. She’s shocked her hot, terminally ill patient used her for a last hurrah and didn’t truly view her as his “soulmate.” Really?! ‘Cus that’s pretty much textbook. If I’m dying, eff yea I’m gonna make a play for the hottest person at my job. THEN, she lies to the people investigating his death, destroys her notes and THEN fakes new ones. Somehow the investigators don’t notice the timestamp for all her files read the exact same date. But, her anti-intelligence doesn’t stop there. When her lover’s creepy son STALKS her, calls her continuously, shows up at her practice randomly AND arrives at her house in the middle of the night, SHE DOESN’T REPORT HIM EITHER!!! Instead, she goes to his apartment for dinner and is SHOCKED he misinterprets her actions. GAH!!! I’m shocked someone hasn’t sold her swamp land in Florida. Do these women know how to dial 911? They sure know how to dial each other!

Joss isn’t dumb, but her love interest, Alex (Shannyn Sossamon) is. Scratch that, Alex isn’t dumb, she’s just sad. Does anyone remember ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’ (straight girl thinks she’s gay, guess what … she isn’t)? We all know what will happen, but Alex and Joss convince themselves otherwise.

While the female characters are written as dumbasses, the males aren’t; but, they’re used mostly as eye candy. ‘Mistresses’ is literally a waste of hot male talent. Every single male actor I ever respected yet lusted after appears here. John Schneider (‘Smallville’)? Check. Jason George (‘Gray’s Anatomy’)? Check. Gary Dourdan (‘CSI’)? Check. Check. Remember Brett Tucker, the smarmy British investigator who hit on Beckett on ‘Castle’? Check. Check. Check. While in reality I can’t find a single man over age 10 within a 25-mile radius, ‘Mistresses’ is full of wealthy, good-looking, uber-sensitive, mostly single men who keep falling over these women.

So, why do I keep watching? I don’t know!!! It’s like old school ‘Beverly Hills 90210,’ I can’t stop rolling my eyes even as I curl up on the couch watching it. It definitely isn’t the 21st century version of ‘Waiting to Exhale.’ Outside a throwaway joke, it doesn’t analyze the complexities of why a woman might cheat, ignore being cheated on or cheat with a married man. It definitely isn’t a network version of ‘Sex and the City.’ It’s more a watered down version which portrays what everyone claimed ‘Sex and the City’ was – a celebration of wooden acting, stiff dialogue, and one-dimensional problems.

Maybe that’s why I watch ‘Mistresses’ while loathing it (and myself). The women handle their problems so unrealistically there’s no way I can relate. (Seriously, if someone blackmails or stalks you, CALL THE COPS!) With their cavernous homes housing only 1-2 people, their brightly colored clothes, their hot lovers, and their perfectly selected accessories, it’s just fantasist, escapist soapy goodness. In fact, it’s so bad, I hope ABC brings this mess back again next year. So, yea, like cronuts, ‘Mistresses’ is bad for you (but, oh so delicious).

Tara Strong Teases The ‘My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’ Season Finale

Today marks the season finale of The Hub’s My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and it’s literally a magical send-off! BFTV caught up with prolific voice actress Tara Strong, who voices the show’s main protagonist Twilight Sparkle, to preview the episode and discuss the epic My Little Pony fan base.

What makes today’s episode so great? “The ending’s pretty spectacular,” Tara explained. “[Twilight Sparkle] finally gets rewarded for her good deeds by this amazing growth and transformation.” It’s a plot development that was heralded by the special coronation concert that The Hub hosted last weekend, and celebrated by a My Little Pony marathon today, hosted by Miss America 2013 Mallory Hagan.

She added that the series is something that can be enjoyed by more than just young women. “When you first hear My Little Pony, you think it’s for little girls, but it’s not for little girls,” she added. “It’s literally a show families can sit down and watch. There’s nothing that you can say, ‘I’m not going to let my kid watch that.'”

Voicing Twilight Sparkle is one of many lines on Tara’s amazing resume, which also includes the likes of Rugrats, The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, and The Hub’s own Pound Puppies and Dan Vs. “I’ve been incredibly blessed. the roles that I’ve booked are just so iconic, like Batgirl, Harley Quinn and The Powerpuff Girls,” she reflected. “The list really goes on and sometimes I have to pinch myself. The sequel to Little Mermaid [The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea] was my ultimate fangirl [moment]. When I was singing with Jodi Benson, I just burst into tears looking at her! I’m so lucky to have had this career.”

With hundreds of voices in her repertoire, that’s a tall order to keep straight, or avoid duplicating, but Tara explained how she keeps everything sorted. “I’m really conscientious about not doing the same voice on two different shows. I’m like ‘No, Timmy Turner lives with The Fairly OddParents.’ Even if you just tweak it a little, once you create a character, they sort of live in your brain [and] I don’t confuse them. I don’t mix them up. I know when I’m going somewhere, I become that character.”

Tara is one of the folks who is in the elite echelon of voiceover actors, including but not limited to the likes of Billy West (Futurama), Maurice LaMarche (Pinky and the Brain), Rob Paulsen (Animaniacs), John DiMaggio (Futurama), Grey DeLisle (Young Justice) and Tom Kenny (SpongeBob Squarepants). Asked to name one of her favorite voice actors, she said, “I did my very first job with Cree Summer. We loved each other then, and we still do now. We’ve worked together on many shows and she’s just so gifted. I consider her a sister really.

“We all do know each other, and we all get along,” she added. “I’m amazed daily in the studio.”

1 of 2Next pagePhoto Credits: The Hub

A Few Minutes With… Ginger Gonzaga on FX’s ‘Legit’

FX’s Legit is about to get a lot more interesting. Tonight marks the debut of Ginger Gonzaga as Jim’s (Jim Jefferies) frustrated girlfriend – and BFTV recently caught up with Ginger to get the scoop on this hilarious actress and writer.

“It’s just like a bad relationship from the beginning,” quipped Ginger, who appears in five episodes of Legit‘s first season, starting with her introduction in tonight’s “Anger.” The title of the episode should tell you everything you need to know about her character’s relationship with Jim.

Before she was fighting with foul-mouthed Australian comics, the actress had her lightbulb moment in a room full of college dudes. “When I got into college, I didn’t know for sure that I was funny, and then I lived with all guys. All of my male roommates wold steal all the jokes I had earlier in the day and use them to hit on girls,” she explained with a laugh.

Ginger got her professional start working with two institutions of comedy, The Groundlings and Second City. “My sophomore year I went to a Groundlings show. I auditioned for The Groundlings and I got in. I loved improv and that was kind of the first step,” she said.

Something else she loved was the FOX animated comedy Family Guy – which made it particularly sweet when she was cast as Gina in Seth MacFarlane’s box-office smash Ted. “I’m mostly in the unrated version,” she said. Making it more amusing was the fact that Ginger had actually sat in on several Family Guy table reads beforehand.

“When I first moved here [to Los Angeles], I met one of [Family Guy‘s] writers, and she used to let me come to the table reads,” she added. “But then when I got cast in the movie, I was probably one of the only actors that didn’t actually know Seth before!” Now, they’ve become friends, and Ginger voiced the character of Cindy in two Family Guy episodes, season eleven’s “Yug Ylimaf” and the upcoming “Chris Cross,” which airs on February 17.

MacFarlane isn’t the only person who makes Ginger laugh. “I love Sacha Baron Cohen, and I love Ricky Gervais,” she said. She also enjoys the wit of her on-screen boyfriend: “I love Jim Jefferies. Everything that Jim says, I share his opinion on almost everything.”

You can see a selection of Ginger’s comedy work on Funny or Die, and she also co-hosted Hulu’s The Morning After for a year and a half, selections from which you can check out here. On The Morning After, Ginger was known for the variety of characters she played, and that diversity is something she aspires to.

“I just want to be able to play every type of thing. I want to check every type of person that I could be off of my list. Not always be playing the same thing,” added Ginger, who is also a writer and has collaborated with the likes of David Koechner (Anchorman) and Owen Benjamin (Sullivan and Son). Who else would she like to work with next? “I’d love to work with Tim Burton, and Paul Thomas Anderson, and Sacha Baron Cohen,” she added.

Although she makes us laugh on-screen, Ginger’s personal taste in television runs toward thrillers like Showtime’s Homeland and AMC’s Breaking Bad. One thing hasn’t changed, though: “I still love Family Guy,” she added. But now she’s not just laughing at someone else’s jokes – she’s bringing more than a few laughs of her own.

Ginger’s first episode of Legit airs tonight at 10:30 PM ET/PT on FX. You can also follow her on Twitter (@GingerTheJester) and visit her official website (GingerGonzaga.com).

For more from Brittany Frederick, visit my official website and follow me on Twitter (@tvbrittanyf).

(c)2013 Brittany Frederick. Appears at Starpulse with permission. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted.

Photo Credits: PR Photos

Check Out Nat Geo Wild’s New Series ‘Alpha Dogs’ Friday, Feb. 8

They hail from Europe, and respond to commands in their native tongue; they are members of every branch of the military, the Secret Service and law enforcement agencies worldwide; they have helped take down some of the most infamous terrorists in history; and they are suckers for a tennis ball. They are the K-9s of Vohne Liche Kennels (VLK), one of the premiere K-9 training facilities in the world, and together with the team that trains them they are an integral part of the war on terror.

Beginning Friday, Feb. 8, at 9 & 9:30 p.m. ET (and airing weekly Fridays at 9 & 9:30 p.m. ET), Nat Geo WILD’s cameras go behind the scenes with exclusive access to VLK’s elite trainers at their headquarters in rural Indiana, as they work around the clock to train these Alpha Dogs in the art of detection and assault. They do it all with one goal: serving our country.

The training approach is intense: Any mistakes the dogs make-missing a bomb, letting an enemy escape or not detecting weapons-could cost lives. Join the VLK team as they teach handlers and dogs to leap from helicopters, rappel down buildings, search buildings and cars for explosives and drugs, and chase down human targets. The dogs can even be trained to find illicit cell phones in prison cells and money being brought through airports as part of laundering schemes. Training these K-9/human tandems in real-world situations, like staying focused on a bad guy while live gunfire is occurring around them, is critical. The VLK team will go to whatever lengths necessary, be it live explosives or real drugs, to make sure no dog or handler graduates from their program unprepared.

Though the trainers at VLK may look like a biker gang, and sometimes may act like one, they have extensive experience serving on the front lines in military and law enforcement agencies, and many carry top secret clearance. Led by owner and founder Kenny Licklider, a retired senior master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, each member of the team is an alpha male in his own right:

-Danny, head of police training, is the toughest guy with a mullet that you’ve ever met.
-Bobby, head of military operations, is cool under pressure, and has never seen a deadline he can’t meet.
-Luther, lead instructor for the kennel’s Tactical Explosive Detector Dog (T.E.D.D.) program, is the team’s most outgoing personality.
-K.C. isn’t just the boss’s son but also one of the best up-and-coming trainers at the facility.

Photo Credits: Nat Geo Wild