Leaving Las Vegas: The Night I Let My Mother Have The Remote

My mother is in town and since I'm trying to be a good hostess, I let her watch whatever she wanted on TV last night. This is kind of a big deal, since we have very different taste. Caser in point, her favorite things on TV include Monk, Steven Seagal movies on TNT and old episodes of Ryan's Hope. Not exactly the dry humor I enjoy.

But I gave it a go. What did she select? Ghost Whisperer and Las Vegas. I kid you not. It was three hours of programming about as enticing as lukewarm milk.

Ghost Whisperer was first. I tried to be open minded. If you've never seen the show (kudos, first of all) it's about Melinda, a girl who sees ghosts and conveniently works at an antique shop. In this episode she thought she saw the ghost of her father...who she didn't know had died. Gripping. I fell asleep for 10 minutes and woke up to see Jay Mohr (Last Comic Standing) making small talk with Love about spirits or hauntings or something. I closed my eyes again and woke up again, but this time my patience was rewarded and I got to see Love get sucked into a random door in the middle of the road (ala Monster's Inc).

I was almost optimistic for Las Vegas. It's been on for awhile and seems to have a healthy fan following. Plus, I watched one when the music of OKGo was featured throughout the episode. However, my hope quickly faded when I realized this episode was two hours long and it featured Tom Selleck (pictured). Once you work with Steve Gutenberg, the stink of mediocrity can never be cleaned. I made it through 40 minutes where I saw several morning sickness jokes, two ghosts (that's more than Ghost Whisperer) and Josh Duhmael's (Win A Date With Tad Hamilton) hair get spikier and spikier.

So what did I learn? When your mom comes to visit, just say no. Or take a few Ambien and see her in the morning.