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On The Tube

Comedians at play

7/31/2013

on the tubeLisa Kudrow and friends crack each other up in “Web Therapy”

“Web Therapy” is a series where comedians amuse each other and, more often than not, the viewers (Tuesday, 10 p.m., Showtime). Lisa Kudrow plans a dumb, vain, manipulative therapist named Fiona, who communicates with people via web chat. Each half-hour episode consists of a double-screen image, with Kudrow on one side talking to stars like Megan Mullally and Steve Carell on the other. In season three, they improvise silly conversations about a misbegotten Broadway musical and a phony self-help cult called Quorum.

Carell plays Jackson, the head of Quorum, and this week he hooks up both Fiona and himself to a “soul-cleansing machine.” The machine makes a pleasant “ding” after a truthful answer and provides an electric shock after a lie. Jackson gets a shock when he denies that he once sold timeshares. He takes an additional jolt when he insists that they were “spiritually based timeshares.” BZZT!

A blooper reel over the closing credits shows the stars having a good time. You’ll have a good time, too.

DING.

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“Psychic Tia”

Saturday, 9 p.m. (A&E)

Tia Belle runs a psychic shop in New Jersey, dressed in a black Morticia Addams gown and a 20-pound cross necklace. She heals people, casts spells and communes with the ghosts of clients’ loved ones. And she manages these miraculous feats with nothing more than candles and a deck of cards.

Oh, and a New Jersey attitude that would put Tony Soprano to shame. Tia has a big mouth and an abrasive personality, speaking in a thick Joisey accent. She is conspicuously lacking in mysteriousness when she screams at her son: “Stop bustin’ my balls!”

If I were a ghost, I would refuse to materialize when I heard that ear-splitting voice. I would waft the hell out of New Jersey.

 

“Hot Listings Miami”

Tuesday, 8 p.m. (Style)

Katrina Campins is one of the rare real estate brokers who deserve her own reality series. Like all the others, she sells luxury properties to the rich and famous. But she distinguishes herself with a classy presence. Katrina is smart and well spoken, and she has a playful relationship with the members of her Florida family business. She seems like a decent human being, albeit one with an extraordinary drive to succeed. “The word ‘can’t’ doesn’t exist in my vocabulary,” she says.

“Hot Listings Miami” has the bright idea of including a couple of villains, allowing you to root even harder for Katrina. Tomi and David are more typical of reality-show brokers: mean, manipulative and arrogant. “This is the lamest party I’ve ever been to,” David whispers to Tomi at a Katrina shindig. “They don’t even have cheese cubes!” I’d like a cheese cube myself… to throw at this creep.

“Hot Listings Miami” could not be any more entertaining. CV

Dean Robbins is a syndicated TV columnist from Madison, Wis. He graduated from Grinnell College and went on to become an award-winning journalist, but he’s been a committed couch potato long before he figured out a way to get paid for watching TV. See more of his work at www.thedailypage.com.

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