Comments on: Corkscrewed: Mostly Screwed

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:56:24 +0000

Chris: As much as I like to see fools parted with their money in reality shows I just could not get over how completely staged all the events of the first 2 shows here. I know they don’t know what they are doing in the wine business but they appear to be total idiots and only Simon seems not in on the joke (or perhaps that’s intended to soften his public image).

But perhaps I judged too soon here… one thing is for certain, however, I’m not going to watch the rest of the shows to find out.

By: Chris Ruttan

Chris Ruttan — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 06:12:47 +0000

As a vineyard owner in Northern California having developed a vineyard from scratch on a shoestring budget, I am probably in a better position to appreciate the irony of the show Corkscrewed. The two protagonist, Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, a couple of vitner wannabes, are poster boys for the dilitant, gentleman farmers not uncommon in this business. The truth is to run a successful, profitable vineyard, you need the work ethics of a Pennsylvanian Dutch farmer, resourcefulness and and self-reliance, neither of which these two individuals have. I don’t know whether to be contemptuous or sympathetic. To every contractor in the business, these two are like a couple a plump chickens prime for plucking. For example, one consultant had them firing a 22 rifle at target representation of likely varmints in their vineyard. Wonder what they paid for that experience? And at the end of the season unable to sell their grapes, they pay a winery to make vanity wine from their grapes, which is like you paying your employer to work for him. Fortunately for Nigel and Ken, grapevines are hardy plants that suffer fools gladly.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 02:04:07 +0000

Jason and Bill,

I really thought this series was one of the worst waste of time in the history of my inane television viewing. It’s really bad on several levels and if you know wine, it’s almost nauseating. Really.

Thanks for contributing and please take my advice

By: Bill Wilson

Bill Wilson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:54:29 +0000

Gee, Tim, tell us how you really feel about the show.

I’ve never understood why these things are called “reality shows.” There’s nothing real about them–a reality show would follow a poor dude working each day, dealing with annoying co-workers/customers/whomever, struggling to make ends meet, and waking up the next day to do it all over again. “American Idol” is just a sophisticated beauty pageant, “Survivor” is a modern-day Coliseum event, and so on.

There’s nothing wrong with these types of shows, per se, but the viewing public already has enough trouble with separating reality from television, so the use of “reality” only helps to exacerbate the problem further.

But, hopefully Fox et al. will continue putting out junk like Corkscrewed–it will hopefully drive more people to listen to podcasts!

By: Jason Coleman

Jason Coleman — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:40:00 +0000

Thanks for the review.

I saw like 10 minutes of this show while visiting my father, who has DirectTV. Obviously, I was intrigued but couldn’t get it with my cable.

Now I know not to bother.