I Like to Watch

Discovery's "Alaska Experiment" takes "Survivor" to hungry-bear-filled hinterlands (Tom Cruise takes Oprah there, too!), while "Battlestar Galactica" is darker than ever!

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: Oprah Winfrey, TV, Tom Cruise, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, Battlestar Galactica, I Like to Watch

May 11, 2008 | Dead horses, deadly cyclones, erupting volcanoes, evil monsters, priests floating away on helium balloons, never to be heard from again, plus even more dumb people with babies ... The news is so dark these days, it's not surprising that all our favorite TV shows are doing their best imitations of a Lifetime movie of the week -- you know, the one where the kid and the kid's pony die at the end?

But you know what makes all the little children feel better about how dark and scary the world is? Fairy tales. So let's start with a fairy tale about a little prince named Tom Cruise.

Cruisin'
Once upon a time, there was a sad little prince named Tom Cruise who wanted to share his love with the world, but the world wasn't in the mood. As the little prince trampled joyfully on Oprah's butter-yellow sofa, all the world's peoples sighed and picked lint off their corduroys. Even as they listened to the squeals of the unruly fraudience of middle-aged "Top Gun" groupies who'd been fantasizing about Tom to the strains of "Take My Breath Away" for 20-odd years straight, they remained indifferent. They had fallen out of love with Tom somewhere around the 50th time they heard a roomful of frat boys sing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." They certainly weren't having any of this latest flash of bleached teeth and overflowing emotion for a princess bride whose career had been up "Dawson's Creek" without a paddle for years.

So little prince Tom gave the world the cold shoulder. Prince Tom and princess Kate and their anatomically correct robot-baby, Suri, would lock themselves away in their 400-acre kingdom in Telluride, sipping red rum to get through those long wintry months. Sure, they'd allow legendary photographers to enter the snowy compound and photograph them as they squeezed each other and squinted into the middle distance like models at a Sears catalog shoot, but otherwise they'd remain far from our nasty, clawing, thetan-infested, psychotropic-drug-popping clutches.

Until last week, when little prince Cruise decided to allow Oprah (also royalty, after all) into his magnificent castle for a face-to-face interview. Needless to say, there would be no jumping and waving and fist pumping this time around. No, sir. Donning his "No, I'm serious!" face, Tom sat down with Oprah for a heart-to-heart ... or maybe we should call it a heart-to-press release.

Oprah: People think you're insane, judgmental, controlling and possibly gay. They wonder why you lost your doughnuts on my show. They wonder why you condescended to that nice man Matt Lauer and insulted poor depressed Brooke Shields. They wonder if Suri is your baby or just a wondrously lifelike assemblage of pricey robotics ... Tom: I'm not going to comment on what ... The press really doesn't interest me, unless they've got all their credentials in order and they're contractually obligated to photograph me from my good side. Oprah: Come on, Tom, don't you just want to die sometimes? Tom: [Frowning] I'm incredibly happy, so happy I can't even put it into words. I feel so very privileged and blessed, truly blessed, to live this life. I feel pretty and witty and ... I'm sorry, our time is up. The chopper is waiting outside for you.

And so Oprah flew off, and the little prince lived happily ever after in his imaginary mountain kingdom! See, children? Even when entire villages are leveled and pretty horsies are killed, there's still hope left in the world. God isn't dead, boys and girls, he just likes Tom Cruise better than you.

If you're craving even more "T.C.," there's a nice summary of his interview in the Washington Post, but here in ILTW-land, we've got bigger fish to grab straight from an icy river, chop into little pieces, stuff into jars and subsist on for the next three months.

Next page: Suffering and privations ... but no million-dollar prize