Culture & Celebrity

Living with Ed might not always be easy, but it sure is green. The new miniseries, airing on Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT on HGTV, follows the adventures of Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife, Rachelle Carson, through their domestic lives. Being the good TreeHugging celeb that he is, Ed wants everything to be as green as possible, from the food they eat to the energy the house consumes to their transportation, and promises to provide an interesting counterpoint to the rampant overconsumption often associated with celebrity. Our pals at Grist recently caught up with Ed to chat about what living with Ed is really like; while the plot and producers seem content to allow Rachelle to roll her eyes at her husband's green antics, Ed certainly cares for our planet and goes to great lengths to reduce his and his family's footprint on it. While the good-natured-eye-rolling wife slant might make for more engaging television for some, we worry that this could marginalize Ed's efforts and make him appear to be more of a fringe-dweller and less of a do-gooding citizen who cares enough about the Earth to use a solar oven and power his toaster with a bicycle. In any event, the show does have promise when it comes to green education, and showing that celebrities can lead effective, green lifestyles; only time will tell if Living with Ed will get HGTV's watchers to think more about green, or write off the efforts of one man as "more hippie than hip" and change the channel. Find out starting this Sunday, January 7 at 10 pm. ::Living With Ed, ::Living with Ed MySpace, ::Grist and ::Hugg