Real Housewives

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Tuesday: "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' " Season 2 premiere features tearful conversations about Russell Armstrong's suicide. ( Los Angeles Times ) Survival TV puts its stars in dangerous situations, including drinking urine and cauterizing wounds with gunpowder. ( Los Angeles Times ) "The Help" beats out movie theater newcomers "The Debt" and "Apollo 18" at the box office. ( Los Angeles Times ) "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" makes quite an impression at the Venice Film Festival.

Coverage of the "Arab Spring" dominated the Peabody Awards when the oldest honors in broadcasting were handed out Wednesday. CNN, Al Jazeera English and National Public Radio received the prestigious award for their coverage of the pro-Democracy movements that led to leaders being unseated in the Middle East, including Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The awards recognize achievement and public service by TV and radio stations, individuals and the Internet. An awards ceremony will be in New York on May 21. The list of 38 Peabodys went far beyond news coverage, recognizing popular television shows, radio series and websites.

The "Real Housewives" franchise has always been more than a little troubling. The general premise — that if you put a group of well-off women together, they will spend their time buying luxury goods, obsessing about their appearance and stabbing each other in the back — is, essentially, misogyny on a stick. Which doesn't mean it isn't entertaining; for three and a half minutes last year, I thought I liked the New Jersey version, mostly because the women were actually related, which made their relationships seem less like diva-casting, and two or three of them were mildly recognizable as actual wives and mothers.

After "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Taylor Armstrong's husband, Russell, killed himself in August 2011, Armstrong could have pulled back from the spotlight. Instead, she sought comfort in it. Five weeks after her husband's death, Armstrong appeared on "Dr. Phil," speaking about allegations that later would be unleashed on the Bravo reality TV series: that Russell physically and emotionally abused her. Six months after Russell's death, she has released a tell-all book about their marriage, "Hiding From Reality," further elaborating on the accusations and intensifying her media saturation with a slew of appearances on such shows as "The View," "Today" and "Dr. Drew.

'The Real Housewives of D.C.' Where: Bravo When: 9 p.m. Thursday Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

As senior vice president of production and programming for Bravo, Andy Cohen oversees cutthroat chefs and fashion designers, a la "Top Chef" and "The Fashion Show," as well as larger-than-life personalities such as Kathy Griffin and Rachel Zoe. But Cohen has a soft spot for a handful of housewives. "I've seen every frame of every episode multiple times -- I love all these women," Cohen said about the ladies of Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise.

WHAT'S remarkable about the cast of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" is not that they are exceptional in any way, but that they are oblivious to what's behind their appeal: They are horrible people ["They're Busting Out of the O.C." March 11]. Add delusional and falsely entitled and you have a trifecta for Bravo television. Reality TV "stars" may think they're smart, but an audience knows better. It's probably inaccurate when Smiley states, "They hate the fact that we've figured out how to take exposure from the show and turn it into something."

UNDERRATED Delroy Lindo : With a voice like tumbled gravel and a face with the severity of a clenched fist, this British character actor was a scene-stealer in '90s films such as "Get Shorty" and "Clockers. " Though he drifted off Hollywood's radar in recent years, it's a pleasure to see him again in Fox's "The Chicago Code," where it seems he's up to his old tricks as a powerful politico. TV wasn't hurting for another cop show, but Lindo makes at least one character worth watching.

On Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise, a main character is affluence. It takes many forms: private planes, posh mansions, thousand-dollar shopping sprees. And it seemed Russell Armstrong and his wife, Taylor, who appeared on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," had been living up to the lifestyle. Last season, Taylor threw a $60,000 party for their then-4-year-old daughter, frequently conferred with a private stylist and devoted much of her free time to philanthropy. On Monday night, Russell Armstrong, 47, was found dead in an apparent suicide, and facts began to emerge Tuesday that raise questions about how the program presented the couple and whether the resulting glare of publicity played any role in his death.

SERIES The Voice: Blind auditions for this unscripted singing competition continue (8 p.m. NBC). House: Chase (Jesse Spencer) forges a bond with the team's latest patient (Julie Mond), a cloistered nun who is about to take her final vows in this new episode (8 p.m. Fox). The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: The troubled unscripted series reunion episodes continue at 8 and 9 8 p.m. on Bravo. Undercover Boss: Abroad: The American series goes international premiering with David Clarke on an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of Best Western (9 p.m. TLC)

It's more than just a TV show. It's part of your daily or weekly routine that reaches beyond the small screen. It's a piece of pop culture you want to experience even when you're not watching it. You, my friend, are a merchandiser's dream, and you've contributed to the growing cache of TV-inspired swag that's never more in demand than at the holidays. Today's choices are nearly endless, including "Cougar Town's" "40 is the new 20" throw pillow, Animal Planet's pet beds and a temporary tattoo of the "Sons of Anarchy" grim reaper logo big enough to cover a grown man's back.

  Israel's hottest new TV show may be making many viewers feel guilty. But they can't stop watching it. It's a "Real Housewives" reality-based knockoff about six rich, materialistic women bouncing from personal training sessions in their mansions to Botox appointments to champagne-fueled shopping binges, dishing dirt about one another and generally reveling in their own fabulousness. Hardly scandalous stuff to American TV viewers. But in the land of the kibbutz - a nation founded on egalitarian ideals, where lawmakers still wear jeans in the Knesset, or parliament, and the flaunting of wealth was once considered taboo - this unapologetic celebration of the lifestyles of the rich and Israeli is hitting a raw nerve.

McDonald's McRib is back. The barbecue sauce-slathered, tangy pork sandwich that launched more fan sites than many rock stars has once again started showing up in McDonald's restaurants nationwide. The last time the McRib made a limited-time appearance — in fall 2010 after being sporadically available for 16 years — customers went whole hog, driving McDonald's U.S. sales up 4.8% in a month. And it's likely to again be a hit, at least among the McRib faithful that made the sandwich — which has no actual ribs — a cult favorite.

One of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" has just described how she agrees with Bravo's decision to air the show in the aftermath of the suicide of Russell Armstrong, husband of one of the housewives, when Anderson Cooper breaks in with a query. "I've been touched by suicide. My brother committed suicide when he was 23 and I was 21," Cooper said, citing his well-known personal history. "The question is: Is reality television the best forum to bring it up?" As viewers of his prime-time CNN program "Anderson Cooper 360" will quickly recognize, the moment is vintage Cooper: a journalistic interrogative cloaked in emotional and even personal garb.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Tuesday: "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' " Season 2 premiere features tearful conversations about Russell Armstrong's suicide. ( Los Angeles Times ) Survival TV puts its stars in dangerous situations, including drinking urine and cauterizing wounds with gunpowder. ( Los Angeles Times ) "The Help" beats out movie theater newcomers "The Debt" and "Apollo 18" at the box office. ( Los Angeles Times ) "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" makes quite an impression at the Venice Film Festival.