Randomly elsewhere on TV...

The fall season will be starting up in a few weeks, so there'll be plenty of new and returning shows to talk about, but for now, here are some random things that I've been following recently:

Grand Slam on the Game Show Network. It's a pretty fun idea, take champions from a variety of other game shows (Jeopardy!, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, and others) and pit them against eachother in a single-elimination tournament. There aren't any gimmicks here: the contestants are rapidly asked questions in turn as a clock counts down. There are four rounds in each match-up: general knowledge, numbers and logic, words and letters, and a final round with questions all types. The numbers and logic round seems especially brutal to me...it's basically just all mental math and speed is of the essence.

Anyway, the final was tonight, and it featured Jeopardy! giant Ken Jennings against Ogi Ogas, a $500,000 winner on Millionaire. These two guys were really incredibly well-matched and the number of questions being answered and the speed were just crazy! The first two rounds were almost neck and neck but then Ken Jennings kicked butt on a special "contemporary knowledge" round and held onto a lead in the Words and Vowels round, then not surprisingly, won it all. I'm a pretty big Ken Jennings fan...winning Millionaire is definitely tough, but winning 74 games of Jeopardy in a row? He was on TV every weekday from June to November! Go Ken Jennings!

One of the more curious aspects of the show is that for some reason, Dennis Miller is commentating. I was under the impression that Dennis Miller is pretty well-known and famous, so what he's doing commentating a game show that no one is talking about I have no idea, but he's pretty amusing regardless.

Little People, Big World on TLC. I've been following this on and off for awhile now, which is a reality show about a family of little people. The Roloffs, Matt and Amy, are dwarfs, and they have four children, one of which is a little person as well and the rest, "average-sized." A good chunk of the stories involve how they have to adapt to various life situations because of their size or special events that they get to attend because of their fame, but a lot of it is just regular family stuff: getting drivers' licenses, first dates, trips and vacations, etc. The Roloffs live on a large farm in Oregon that's kind of aiming to be a Knott's Berry Farm type place, with a Western village and lots of contraptions like a trebuchet and a zip line (Matt has a thing for projects), which is the background for a lot of episodes too. It's really just a nice little family show about a really likable family.