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BY INKOO KANG

Hospitals are depressing. Until recently, medical shows glossed over this basic fact of life by focusing on the most glamorous clique within them: doctors. For the past two decades, the upwardly mobile audience identification integral to most TV shows taught us to look away from the bedpans and sheaves of insurance paperwork and focus instead on the halos (ER), the lip gloss (Grey's Anatomy), the chicken soup for the soul (Scrubs), or the preening intellect (House) of every hospital's upper crust.

Grey's Anatomy is still going strong in its 11th season, but since House's departure from the airwaves in 2012, we've been living in the twilight of the docs. Last year, Shonda Rhimes' cornerstone series was the only medical show to crack the top half of the broadcast ratings. This week brought news that Fox has canceled its pediatric-ward-set Red Band Society. Already a kind of backlash to its treacly cousins, House ushered in a wavelet of even more self-aware or cynical medical shows including Showtime's Nurse Jackie, Cartoon Network's Children's Hospital and HBO's Getting On that channel viewer disinterest in the goodliness of doctors and, arguably, the nation's growing suspicion of medical professionals.

Of those three programs, Getting On is the least known but the most daring, insightful and poignant. Now in its six-episode second season (after its Nov. 9 premiere), the superb workplace comedy continues to explore themes of power, gender, class, corporatization, mortality, and the mysteries of the stuff that comes out of our butts. (Believe me, you don't know as much as you think you know.) For the show's impressive sophomore year, showrunners Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer have embraced greater serialization to make one of pop culture's most incisive commentaries on the failures of the American health-care system.

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CMT

There is a difference between being a redneck and being white trash.

So when CMT's fourth season of Redneck Island airs Thursday, make sure you're fully aware of the difference.

After filling out an application she found on her Facebook newsfeed, Royse City native and former Hooters bartender Nicole Bass was selected to compete with 23 other rednecks on the show for a grand prize of $100,000.

The premise of the show is basically what you think it is -- a bunch of rednecks on an island doing redneck things. Think Here Comes Honey Boo Boo meets Survivor meets Buck Wild (remember that MTV show? No?).

"This season is season four and it's not completely different than the previous three seasons, but it's a lot different," Bass says. "That's why they're referring to Redneck Island season four as the all-new Redneck Island. But the basis of the show is they put everyone together and give you competitions, and you go through the competition trying to stay to win the $100,000."

Season four is mainly different because, as Bass explains it -- well actually, let's let her explain it.

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If we're honest with ourselves, the teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks better than the original Star Wars movies. That's how this week's Voice Film Club podcast opens, with your hosts Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of the

Village Voice and Amy Nicholson of LA Weekly. Talk then turns to Reese Witherspoon's excellent performance in Wild, and then to director Jennifer Kent's spectacular, terrifying new film The Babadook. The group wraps by recommending a few underrated or under-seen films: Zero Motivation, Concerning Violence, and Life Partners. Amy closes the show with a recap of her interview with Garfield creator Jim Davis, who finally settles it: does Jon ever actually hear Garfield, or is Jon just talking to himself?

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A promotional image for the The Cosby Show.

BY INKOO KANG

Bill Cosby's present is secure. Despite the 17 women (so far) who have publicly come forward with notably similar allegations of drug-enabled sexual assault, the comedian received standing ovations for his stand-up performances in the Bahamas and in Florida recently. His comeback tour will likely continue over the next few months. A handful of venues have canceled his engagements, but more than two dozen shows remain on the schedule.

Cosby's legacy, however, may be marred forever. Unsurprisingly, it's the cultural critics who grew up worshipping his TV family -- those who feel the betrayal of The Cosby Show's wholesomeness most acutely -- who have led the charge in renouncing everything the comedian has ever done. Roxane Gay powerfully (if not entirely convincingly) argued that, in the case of Cosby, the choice is "art or humanity": "There is only one side that matters ... We have to stop supporting any of his endeavors. His art does not absolve him. Art is nothing compared to humanity, nothing at all." Mike Ryan was no less absolute: "All the good he did -- and his contributions to popular culture really did do a lot of good -- is now ruined."

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A car shop that only builds screen-accurate reproductions of famous cars like The A-Team van and Doc Brown's DeLorean from Back to the Future sounds like a much more interesting target for a reality show than a group of white trash, beauty pageant freaks without a moral compass.

Apparently executives at the Reelz Channel agree with us.

Robert Moseley, owner and operator of Bob's Prop Shop in Flower Mound, says Reelz will debut Screen Machines, a reality show based around his movie car business, Tuesday, Dec. 2nd. The series will also get its first public screening at a special premiere on the same day at the Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson.

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Photo: Murray Close

Jennifer Lawrence in Mockingjay

Can The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 keep up with the first two films? Why was the final book split into two movies? Does Katniss even want to be part of this revolution? On this week's Voice Film Club podcast, we discuss all things Hunger Games before moving onto a documentary about Sheffield, England's Pulp, and finishing with a recommendation for Happy Valley, a documentary on the fallout after the Penn State scandal. Be sure to follow our hosts on Twitter: Alan Scherstuhl (@studiesincrap), Stephanie Zacharek (@szacharek), and Amy Nicholson (@theamynicholson).

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A Season 1 Kardashian

BY INKOO KANG

Minor spoilers for the second episode of The Comeback's sophomore season.

It's no mystery why The Comeback, which returned for its second season this past Sunday after a nine-year hiatus, never became a big hit for HBO. Other mockumentaries like The Office, Parks and Recreation and Modern Family have thrived, but Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King's Hollywood-based cringe comedy centers on a protagonist who's uniquely difficult to relate to: a middle-aged, out-of-work actress whose career depends on eating shit with a polite grin, and who doesn't mind making certain other people eat shit too when she's in the position to do so.

The Comeback's eight-episode sophomore season is powerful and amusing and sad, and Kudrow is astoundingly good as Valerie Cherish, the gratingly chirpy has-been sitcom star barely suppressing her enormous desperation and rage. Season 2 finds Valerie signing up for a co-starring role in an HBO drama that's written by and based on the experiences of her hateful ex Paulie G. (Lance Barber). Valerie plays Mallory, a misogynistic caricature of herself, while omnipresent cameras hired by the actress film her every move and humiliation, like being told by a network exec that she "still look[s] real," i.e., old. 

It's telling, though, that these eight new episodes take their aim not at reality TV (like the first season did) but at the testosterone-fueled, sexually exploitative, auteur-driven cable dramas that HBO's proudest offerings comprise. The season premiere does feature cameos from RuPaul, Top Chef's Carla Hall, and Beverly Hills Housewives cast member Lisa Vanderpump, as well as name-checks of other Housewives Bethenny Frankel and Teresa Giudice. But as anxious and reckless as Valerie is with her professional choices, even she's over reality TV: "I was there at the beginning [of the genre] with The Comeback [Valerie's reality show]. Back then, it was just me and people eating bugs on Survivor." Cameras still follow Valerie around everywhere, but it's no longer for a shot at Bravo's schedule; rather, they're creating behind-the-scenes footage for Valerie's new show, Seeing Red.

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It's a special The Daily Show edition of the Voice Film Club podcast, as we talk about Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher (starring Steve Carell) and move onto Rosewater, the movie Jon Stewart left The Daily Show for three months in 2013 to direct. Both are in theaters starting November 14.

Here's a full rundown of this week's podcast. Click on the links to read more about each topic.

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I never thought the DVD would fall from grace so quickly. The digital media revolution was inevitable but who knew it would happen so fast? Places like Netflix, Crackle and Hulu haven't just eliminated the need for a DVD player to watch movies. Traditional broadcast and cable television may very soon become obsolete. At this rate, it won't be long before you won't need a television to watch your favorite shows. Someone can just beam a broadcast directly into your central cortex and you can watch anything you've ever wanted until your mind literally melts from all the radiation such a signal would produce.

It's a shame because it wasn't that long ago when VHS tapes were still around and even the most horrid productions gave us hours of awkward, hilarious entertainment. Thankfully, the folks behind The Found Footage Festival are out there collecting these relics of poorly lit productions from garage sales and thrift shops to present them the way God intended them to be seen: in a theater by a crowd of drunken voyeurs.

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Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar is a big, ambitious picture but it didn't connect with our critics. We discuss the film at the top of this week's podcast before moving onto a few other notable films on screens large and small this week.

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