Grid Effect

Well, that was fucking depressing. I suppose it’s fitting that Amy Ryan, whom everything we’ve seen her in has been utterly tragic, makes her debut (cameo?) on the best comedy series on television, and it turns into one of the more depressing season finale’s we’ve ever seen. Albeit not fourth season of The Wire depressing, but certainly not the quirky exuberance we are used to.

That’s not to say the show isn’t without its darker moments. But in this we had deceptive marriage acceptances, failed marriage proposals, affairs, and probably the nastiest thing anyone has ever done on the show in what Jan did/is doing to Michael. It’s amazing how they’ve managed to turn her from a sympathetic character into some sort of domineering, entitled lunatic. Still, at least they turned it into a legitimate conflict and further illustrated the depths of Michael’s desperation to have children.

It’s all the more egregious with the arrival or Holly, and Amy Ryan really adopted the role well. She just played the part of an exceedingly relatable character. We hope she comes back for the fifth season, but we have our reservations. She’s too marketable for film to get bogged down with a show that would eat up as much of her time as The Office would. The whole Michael conflict with the kid and figuring out how to approach Holly with Jim’s insistence to pace himself was the highlight of the evening.

Now this would be a decent pairing.

But it appears the story of the night was the non-proposal and proposal that took place. It’s certainly not beyond Andy’s clueless ness to propose to someone who is so indifferent to their relationship roughly two to three months into it, so we didn’t think that the action in and of itself was a plot contrivance. But if the writers tend to make this failure to propose an actual storyline and source of conflict with Jim and Pam, as much as we prefer them to not get married, we’d probably prefer it if they found another source of conflict for the two of them. Maybe something just a little less contrived.

There is always the chance they end up putting Jim in New York with Ryan’s job (I checked youtube to see if the video of him being “arrested” was actually posted, couldn’t find it if it was) to put the kaibosh on any of that speculation. Having him and Pam in New York would certainly change the dynamic of the show, but it would be favorable to her sleeping with some guy in New York because Jim didn’t propose to her during a mini-fireworks display.

All things considered it was handled well, but when we the dominating storyline in a fucking comedy is whether or not someone is going to propose to his girlfriend, we can’t help but think the show is ignoring it’s main objective. We thought there was plenty to laugh about in this finale (not as good as “The Job” and not even close to “Casino Night”), it just expects to be too invested in everyone’s relationship status. And I, for one, don’t want to see anything to catastrophic, but ultimately don’t care. I just want to see decent comedy born out of the situational circumstances.

The twist with Dwight we really didn’t see coming, and to be honest while we buy the fact that despite all her religious predilections, Angela would definitely have an affair, but she would never fuck in the office she works in. Or any office for that matter. It definitely leads us to a motive for Ed Helms to leave with his spinoff.

Choice quotes/moments:

“Hazing is a great way to let a new employee know that they’re not wanted here, and you hate them.” -Dwight

“You cheated on me, when I specifically asked you not too.” -Michael, upon finding out Jan’s pregnancy wasn’t his.

-Loved Dwight setting up Beadie (Holly) with the premise that Kevin was mentally retarded, even though we’ve seen it done a hundred times since the Seinfeld episode with Mel Torme. But Kevin has always spoke in the most simplistic, least abstract way possible so the confusion felt realistic.

“DOES ANYONE HAVE A CAMERA?!!” -Toby

-Loved that Phyllis was able to pull off a successful office party, even if it meant she would never be able to do it again.

“He has been cruising for a bruising for awhile. I am his cruiser, and my name is captain bruisin’.”-Michael on Toby’s interview.

-Speaking of which, Michael struggling to come up with questions on the fly leading to the paraphrasing all of his original questions: “Who do you think you are?”; “What gives you the right?” In addition to his gift for Toby, followed by Dwight’s brutally clueless honesty might have been the best two minute sequence ever on this show.

“What we refer to in the business as misleading the customers. Another good term is, fraud. I think the real crime in the whole thing…was the beard. ” -Oscar, though limited in camera time, especially this year, always gets the choice lines. This one about Ryan getting arrested.

Kevin: Cool, a bouncy house.
Phyllis: Kevin take your shoes off first.

“Mr. Andrew Bernard…It’s got a nice ring to it.” -Andy

“If there’s any details you want to fill me in on, like…what exactly lamaze is, I’d love to hear it” -Michael

“I need to go buckle him in” -Holly

A great episode, but as always, these overly dramatic ones (and we think Paul Lieberstein is a good writer) bring about a lot of trepidation about the direction the series is taking. Not to say there is a chance in hell we won’t watch next season, but we’re always on the verge of thinking it will lose its edge.

The Office finale is tonight, rendering us speechless that we’ll actually spend a full hour tonight watching a comedy that we are looking forward too. I saw a preview on Leno last night with Rainn Wilson as the guest introducing it, and if that clip was an indication of how the episode will go, then we’re optimistic for the finale. One of the characters ends up leaving, and though who that is, is implicit in the episode title, we are not in the business of spoiling anyone before an episode has aired. But lets just say that he’s a writer, and I’m sure he will be intricately involved in this alleged spinoff, set to air in 2009.

In the meantime, here are some links. We really pity anyone who reads this site, there are probably about 1,236,632 other TV sites that have more committed approaches than we do at this one as they seem to watch more television. But let us sum that up in three words: fuck that shit. Encouraging people to watch Gossip Girl is something we can’t condone much less participate in.

Not that we expected anything from CBS to really set our world on fire or for them to Stand PAT in the fall, but what they’re offering seems exceptionally bad. For the three pilots they describe in the article: one’s a ripoff of Meet The Parents, one is a ripoff of Psyche and the other is a carbon copy of every relationship sitcom ever made. You know, if they are going to essentially steal from everyone else, you think they would be a little more relevant than a TV show no one watches on USA and a movie that’s over ten years old. Just sayin’.

For God knows what reason, Kelsey Grammar gives a shit about his now canceled FOX sitcom, Back To You. Considering the guy is set for life, has to be pushing sixty years old and the show was at best getting a marginal Nielsen and kind of lukewarm critically, you’d think he’d almost be in a hurry to get off the air with that so as not to tarnish his legacy. But no. He wants everyone to see what no one has seen, and the only reason no one has seen it is because everyone assumes it will be unpleasant. That’s conviction most people lack, which we admire; but it’s like continuing the bank robbery even after you’re surrounded by a SWAT team: it’s probably better to just cut your losses and accept the fact that you failed.

In a stunning development that is shocking the world, left-wing politicians are upset with a Hollywood project. Specifically, HBO’s new original movie Recount about the 2000 presidential election. Apparently it makes them look like complete and utter pussies (while most likely simultaneously making the right-wing look bat shit crazy, but they’re used to it), which democrats are probably tired of being labeled as. We haven’t seen the movie as it doesn’t air for another couple weeks, but our interest has peaked. And I promise both sides of the aisle that when I review it on here, I’ll be sure to point out how ridiculous both of you are.

Obviously, he’s a democrat.

Dana Delaney, whose been in such hits as The Right Temptation and Exit to Eden, will continue her role on Desperate Housewives into next season. This is despite her storyline ending this season, which means she’ll be narrating from beyond with a couple flashbacks here and there. See, if you combine all of the five minute stints we’ve watched of that show, it probably comes out to around an episode and a half of the series, and we already know what’s going to happen.

And finally, according to the San Fransisco Chronicle, it’s officially been proven that sitcoms literally rot your brain. Now, there is a lot of variances of sitcoms these days. If Arrested Development and South Park rot my brain, then let me say that 1) I don’t believe it for a minute and 2) Even if they did I wouldn’t give a shit. If you’re watching shit like Big Bang Theory or Rules of Engagement (or to disprove our bias, It’s Always Sunny), then sure, this study is irrefutable. But simply because it’s packaged as a half-hour comedy on television, doesn’t mean by default it turns you into some zombie shut-in. Sure, that is predominately the case, but there are exceptions.

Office recap tomorrow.

We’ll come out and say it right now. we’re not doing anything but watching basketball tonight. Not only do we have money on one of the games, and the other game involves the home-state team, we went to Cleveland on Saturday for game 3 of the Cavs-Pistons and walked around all day and night with a short-sleeve shirt on. It was probably fairly cold out when we left the game, I don’t know, I was too drunk to notice. But as a result my throat feels like the great wall of China is running through it right now. So, just expect more of the same tomorrow is all we’re saying.

I get the impression that all the news and press releases about the upcoming 90210 remake will turn out to be more entertaining than the show itself. The show was so over-the-top when it was on in the early 90’s, I’m not sure what else they can really accomplish in terms of outrageousness and still expect people to watch. Like I’ve said before, unless Michael caps someone in the knee with a shotgun for their family inheritance, our interest is non-existent.

The new cast of 90210, it looks about like one would expect.

Hi-yo! The Real World is making like the Nets and heading to Brooklyn. We’re not sure how people like the current cast will really fit in around our favorite NYC borough, but if they can supply the coke than I’m sure the twenty-something crowd will except them just fine.

I’m sorry, but we’ve often criticized Lost but always preambled that we can see the appeal. Well, if this actually happens, we take that all back, the show will be rendered appeal-less. If you are to lazy to click on the link like I would be, it’s an interview with “Popular Mechanics”, saying that the island everyone is allegedly lost on, is capable of time travel. We have no idea how close the series is to pulling this off, or if they’re just saying this for the benefit of “Popular Mechanics”, but essentially what it means is nothing is out of bounds for the show. They could learn to fly with palm tree leaves and it would seem feasible now. Christ all mighty. I’ve seen in commercials they all have guns now, can’t Daniels kill everyone on the island, regret it and then kill himself out of guilt in these final episodes?

Apparently I’m not the only one who was critical of last Thursday’s Office episode. This article claims it to be their worst effort in the four year run, and while we might not go that far, it is definitely closer to the bottom than the top of the list for us as well. It seems nit-picky, since the four preceding it were world-class, but it’s almost like they focused all their efforts on the finale and just used the penultimate episode to set it up.

It seems like I post a link to this after every Survivor season, but Sunday’s finale was the lowest rated finale for the series, breaking last season’s record low. Let’s put it this way, given how good this season was (even if it disappointed in the end), if it’s finale couldn’t beat out the finale from the dismally boring China season, then this is a trend we’re expecting to continue.

Finally, something of a high note, I guess, Mitchell Hurwitz has an animated series set to come out featuring the voices of Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. Will we watch? Obviously. But Hurwitz’s grand return to television, we were expecting something a little more enticing than an animated series. Essentially we were hoping for Arrested Development, but maybe with a different setting. Though that might be one liberty too many for them to take, that show was fucking perfect.

We kind of lied at the end of yesterday’s post when we assured a later day entry about the reunion and whatnot. We just pushed it back a day for the sake of efficiency. Also, this will be our last post on this Survivor season, so if you hate this show as much as most people in my demographic then rest easy, because this is the last time we’ll be posting about it until the fall season in Gabon (which looks fucking amazing).

The jury was probably the strangest exhibition of human behavior on reality television since Puck spit on David on the first “Real World/Road Rules Challenge”. They should put these eight people in a room with no windows together and see what the situation bares because an island just isn’t confined enough for such…peculiar characters. We’ll just do a rundown of the jury questions we can still recall, and pontificate on why they were asked:

Natalie: Probably one of the odder characters to ever embrace the Survivor landscape. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues with alternative lifestyles. But expressing affection in such an obtuse and unsettling manner and inappropriate setting definitely caught us off guard. If you want to proposition her, just wait until the after party when she is good and drunk, Parvati strikes me as the “I’ll try anything once” type. Anyway, Natalie has since claimed that she asked the question because she at least wanted to make Parvati uncomfortable before she voted for her to win a million dollars, which strikes us as at best back-pedaling and at worst denial.

We can’t all have enough decorum to wait until after Tribal Council to make passes at people.

Ozzy: Someone is feeling a little self-righteous for my taste. Parvati and (mostly) Cirie pulled one over on you, just recognize it as good gameplay and move on. He apologized at the reunion, or rather accepted the move for what it is. But we just couldn’t comprehend why after sitting in that hotel for the past couple weeks he was still so vindictive. Apparently they briefly dated after the Cook Islands season so that’s sort of a reason to take it personally. I guess. But his vying for Amanda’s affection was actually more nauseating. The only reason why it wasn’t as misplaced as Natalie’s is 1) editing, and 2) he wasn’t as fucking ambiguous and creepy with what he was trying to say. Still, it’s going to be really embarrassing when she dumps him for some film producer who has a thing for semi-amazons.

Alexis: She was so gravely concerned about how the winner would serve as a role model for young girls that she had to vote for the world’s foremost foxy-boxing authority. I’m guessing she didn’t want to cast a vote for someone who’s profile lists her as a pageant winner, but the real reason she voted for Parvati is because she thought she was “cool” or something. As far as electing a role model for teenagers, the pickins were slim.

James: As dense as he seems about the whole process of participating on Survivor, he sure as shit is good-natured about the entire thing. Even his interrogation of Parvati came off as more playful than anything. Probably the most even-keeled, normalcy displayed in the entire inquisition (or whatever the hell you want to call it).

Eliza: On the other end of the spectrum, young Eliza came out swinging. And for some reason it didn’t seem as bitter as this brand of “questioning” usually seems. Just an honest assessment of each participant’s character. She genuinely seemed to believe Parvati was some immoral sycophant, like Fairplay’s doppelganger or something. And she really seemed to be under the impression that Amanda was dense as a bone and lacking any and all substance.
I didn’t necessarily agree with her on either account (well, maybe the former), but her convictions seemed to impend her choice, and she seemed quite conflicted that she had to cast a vote that would reward these people a seven figure prize. Why she picked Parvati I’ll never understand. Maybe she thought she wouldn’t win, so cast a vote knowing it wouldn’t amount to anything, maybe she just cast it for raw game play. But either way, based on her harpooning of Parvati ten minutes (TV time) before she cast her vote, it was like an OSU fan rooting for Michigan over Michigan State.

Jason: Didn’t bring much to the table in the way of logic or insanity. He simply wanted validation for the one blindside he was apart of.

Cirie: Probably the most constructive (if self-serving) line of questioning. Essentially, she wanted to know why Amanda chose Parvati over her, and instead of giving the textbook “you’re too strong of a competitor” answer, she essentially gave Parvati all the credit for making final two. Which is somewhat counterproductive, considering Amanda is trying to prove that she is more worthy of the million than Parvati, but whatever.

Erik: Also good natured about his blunder, which is probably the biggest ever seen on this show. He seemed to be seething a little during the reunion (non-verbally of course) but overall he seemed to recover well from his most public humiliation. But that wasn’t reflective in his questioning, as he seemed to believe that Amanda genuinely cared about him, whether it was platonic affection or otherwise. Still, the “hard-line” he took with her was still comical, because his voice kept kind-of, sort-of cracking.

This was the closest jury we’ve seen to a parade of carnival freaks, and while it was disappointing in how little the jury questioning revealed, it was definitely memorable. Still, there are plenty of questions we would have liked to have had answered that were never asked.

Speaking of which, the reunion didn’t offer much in the way of unveiling. It would have been nice to have known why people voted they way they did, but that doesn’t draw any ratings it seems, because Probst never inquires about it.

If you want a summary of the reunion, here it is in short: Yau’s still hilarious, Ozzy mocked the lunch lady from China, everyone who was injured is now fine, Mikey’s mom died, Parvati’s still self-absorbed, Joel is still frightening, James won the fan vote, Mary’s getting married, Fairplay has a daughter and wants Jeff to hug her and Cirie was virtually ignored. The end.

In other words, like every other Survivor reunion, it was rather uneventful and we’re still not sure why we watch it. A dreary end to an exciting season.

Probably links or something tomorrow.

We figured since there is nothing else on Sunday nights even worth mentioning that we’d get the Survivor finale out of the way. The title refers to the women supposedly being witches, thus they are stirring a cauldron that they pretend to huddle around. It’s not terribly original. but have we ever gotten an original metaphor from a contestant on this show that wasn’t from Jonathan Penner or Yul Kwon?

Anyhow, it wasn’t really a lively finale, everything that we assumed would happen, did. Meaning, one of the people that we didn’t want to see win from the beginning of the season won. Not to say that Parvati was completely undeserving, but it really felt like 90% of the time, she was just executing one of Cirie’s many blindsides. You could probably say that Parvati didn’t win it so much as Amanda lost it. Again. At the final tribal council. For the most part she just looks frightened of confrontation and when she is asked to explain herself, she attempts to be non-offensive and dances around a straight answer only to the agitation of the person asking the question. It’s sad really.

Of course, the fact that the people asking the questions are vindictive pricks have the time factors into the scenario as well. We can’t remember every jury members question, but Natalie’s stands out for her sheer weirdness, Eliza for her non-question (though we tend to agree with her scathing commentary), Erik for his bitterness and Ozzy for his self-righteousness and gut spilling display. But it was definitely a Survivor first to have two of the jury members make romantic propositions to the two finalists with their “questions”. That was…fitting.

We try to never judge a season’s success based on who we want to win and how they finish. But when someone like Parvati wins, it kind of speaks to the rest of the cast, and probably why we weren’t all that infatuated with this finale. Amanda had to have known that if she brings Parvati instead of Cirie, she is going to have Alexis and Natalie’s vote in the bad. Cirie is going to feel slighted, so count her vote towards Parvati as well. We can’t believe that Erik didn’t vote for Parvati, but he is so enamored with Ozzy he wants to sleep with the same women as him, so going into it she’s theoretically down 0-4 out the gate. It seems like a mistake to bring her instead of Cirie since Cirie just spent the last tribal council complaining about being at the bottom of every alliance she was a member of. In other words, she has no committed votes (or at least fewer than four).

Your Final four for Survivor. In case you didn’t realize, it’s all women. Natalie would be happy to tell you.

The blame for losing Jason and Eliza’s vote falls squarely on the shoulders of Amanda (though in the case of Eliza, she can’t be blamed for Eliza’s random decision making). Jason was probably on the fence, but when Amanda said she would have told Ozzy about the upcoming blindside, and considering that move saved his ass, his decision was then made for him. It’s kind of ironic, because in the one instance she wanted to give a non-committal answer, she opens the vault. In the case of Eliza, she seemed to hate and resent Parvati, but not have any respect for Amanda. I don’t know how she votes for someone who treated her with as much disrespect as anyone has ever treated anybody with on this show, but there it is. She cast the deciding vote and gave Parvati Shallow a million dollars. Without question the least likable person we’ve ever seen win a season of Survivor.

It seems to be common consensus that Cirie got screwed with the show reverting back to a final two, instead of the standard final three they’ve used for four or five seasons now. While it does seem out of the ordinary to randomly revert back to a F2, there was no guarantee it would be a F3. They’ve done an F2 more times than an F3 so it seems like fair game to us. To just assume that you are looking at an F3 seems presumptuous to us. And most people making excuses are just pissed off that they had to watch Parvati win a million dollars and not give Cirie one iota of credit. Something we can relate to, definitely, but this move by the producers isn’t nearly as egregiously unacceptable as all the challenges that took people out of the game prematurely.

Cirie’s biggest problem has been the same problem she’s had all season, and why she didn’t make the F3 in Cook Islands: she’s a liability in challenges. While we value strategy over challenge play, that aspect of the game is still integral. We were indifferent to who won, but if we were forced to choose one of the four to root for, Cirie would have been the choice in a landslide. Followed by Amanda then Parvati then Natalie, whom we’re still too freaked out by to comment on thoroughly.

We’ll still look back on this season fondly, it was just too eventful to consider otherwise (even if it was in part due to awful game-play and stupidity). But the constant harping by Probst that this is the greatest season ever seems like wishful thinking. He said the same shit about China, and that is probably the worst season they’ve had (definitely the worst we’ve seen), but you could make an actual case for this one, but the game play was so bad in some of the instances that we only give so much credit to those who pulled it off. Still, it was fun to watch.

Back with a recap on the reunion and some more commentary on the finale later.

Sorry this is coming up so late. We had to wait until we got off work to write it so you can imagine my annoyance. I have a strict policy about not writing anything for this website on my own free time. And, well, when I have to do so during the 6:30 PTI (albeit with Bob Ryan, but PTI none the less) that just grates even more.

Anyhow, I suppose it’s a good sign when they take five episodes into the second half of a season after a writers strike for me to be indifferent about one of their installments, but I can’t help but feeling like there was a lot of missed potential here. I mean, a job fair and a golf course used as settings in one episode seems almost excessive for just one episode. But they felt it necessary to show the parallels between Michael and Jim and the diverging paths of Jim and Pam.

That kiss in the final scene (before the credits) really felt kind of hackneyed and (again) excessive for this show. One thing I’ve always loved about The Office is their ability (forgive me David Simon) to do more with less. Of course, what makes this show watchable even when were not particularly fond of the direction its taking, is that Michael manages to lean in and offer some commentary. But with little to no involvement in the actual office short of Dwight lacking any real authority and giving Angela the cold shoulder all day, I expect more than a couple physical comedy gags and some awkward confrontations. Something along the lines of Dwight in an NYC club is much more suitable.

Speaking of NYC, some partners in crime at corporate were conspicuously absent this episode.

Usually we pity Michael, but his shabby treatment of the aspiring paper company employee and Pam made us actually kind of hope something violent happens to him. This is generally an issue with this brand of humor, if it doesn’t work or is unoriginal, it comes across as more callous than pitiful. Really the only thing we liked about the entire job fair plot was Michael booting the basketball across the gym and Pam’s reminiscing about skipping gym class.

The golf outing went from a promising concept to something they had Jim take too seriously and turned Andy and Kevin into walking caricatures. I mean, I guess we want to see Jim and Pam happy and all, but I’m still only so invested in it. The whole, “he wants to impress her” storyline is only good for a couple lines listed below. Our ambivalence towards episodes like this probably derives from 1) we prefer comedies to be comedic, and 2) Jim’s attitude (or initial attitude) towards his job was so similar to ours. Watching him take selling paper even remotely seriously kind of ruins part of the show we actually love. I’m almost hoping they move off to Philly or NYC together, the two of them get their spinoff, we can ignore that show and watch an Office that revolves around Dwight and Andy.

Dwight and Angela’s non-developments were amusing, but never provided much more than them pacing around awkwardly and Dwight ignoring Angela, except for the occasional coworker interaction. It was in character for both of them, but just didn’t bring much to the table. You can actually probably say the same thing for everyone this episode except for Michael, whom when crossed a certain threshold, just seems like something from someone’s nightmare, rather than an actual human being (see Phyllis’ wedding).

We really have little else to say about the episode so here are the precious few choice moments:

“We’re to find some interns at the high school, need to euthanize this place.” -Michael

“I’m about to do something bold at this job that I’ve never done before…Try.” -Jim

Being back here brings back memories: Pretending to have PMS so i didn’t have to play volleyball, pretending to have PMS so I didn’t have to play basketball, those were the days.” -Pam

“The American workaday ends at 5pm.” -Dwight, instructing the employees.

“Justin is the ugly girl in the movie who takes her glasses off and is hot. And you discover she wasn’t ugly, she just had glasses on.” -Michael, describing the only student who exhibited any interest in working for them.

“I would never say this to her face, but she is extremely nice and a gifted artist.” -Michael describing Pam

Not their best, not their worst. We can live with one underwhelming episode for every four brilliant episodes. Even on the heels of this, we’re on pins and needles waiting for the hour long finale.We’ve had our issues with the hour long episodes in the past, but when done selectively and not compulsively, they’re generally the comedic and dramatic highlights of the season (see “Casino Night” and “Benihana Christmas”).

With the finale this Sunday we decided to get this out of the way now. Frankly, we’re tired of these egregiously long episode titles and there has to be alternatives. Like for instance, at some point during this episode didn’t someone say “embarrassment on a national scale”. That would be a lot more succinct and to the point than these bizarre analogies that the contestants use. It might qualify as a spoiler, but, we’d be okay with it if it meant a condensed post-title.

Anyhow, after last night’s blunder, the consensus seems to be that this is the biggest faux-pas in Survivor history. And though we never saw the first seven or eight seasons, we’d be hard-pressed to imagine anything more desperate or ill-advised. Everyone liked to mock Ozzy and Jason (and James from China) for not playing their idols, but they were at least, to some extent, led to believe they had no reason to use an idol that could help them later in the game. They had legitimate incentive to refrain from playing an idol that can only be put into use before you know where everyone stands, Erik simply gave away immunity that had no future value which he earned from a challenge that ironically ended with a solved puzzle reading “Guaranteed Final 4″. No one in their right mind should ever expect to receive that from someone else in this game.

So why did he give away the idol? His initial stance when Natalie insisted that he give her the idol to regain Cirie’s trust (I’ll give Natalie this, it does sound ridiculous to say out loud), was, “I’m not even going to consider it”/ The knee-jerk response seems to be “because he’s an idiot, that’s why”. And while it indeed was a boneheaded decision, simply labeling him a moron doesn’t accomplish all that much (It’s amazing how many people in the above link call Erik a moron while misspelling the word “moron” or something equally ironic). He claims his incentive was jury votes and that is actually a legitimate motive (not reason, there is never a reason to give away immunity under the current format), but it seemed like the undertone to that was just a general dire need to be accepted. If that is indeed the case that seems to have a degree of sadness to it.

Why would he so desperately seek approval from these people? By our estimations the reason is two fold. He was being coerced by four women, three of whom Erik probably deems attractive (1 and a half by our count. I mean, Parvati has her appeal and all, but we’re only going to be so enamored with someone who has Conehead teeth), he is obviously naive in a way and is probably pre-disposed to seeking the approval of people like Amanda. He claimed he was just aspiring to be friends and make amends with everyone he lied to (and he did lie, but every time he did it was like he let the person he was making false promises to, talk him into those false promises, yet another example of seeking approval). But conventional wisdom would lead you to believe he was letting the member make decisions for him.

It doesn’t take Einstein to pull off the most improbable move in Survivor history, just numbers.

But there is evidence to the contrary that speaks to another motivation. Specifically all his idolization of many of the favorites (most notably Ozzy) and his enthusiastic introduction with his brother that Probst was gracing them with his presence. And of all four of the women, the one he was most indifferent towards was Natalie, the only remaining contestant that was one the show as a fan. He didn’t seem to deflect Cirie all that well (who does?), so maybe he wasn’t using any hyperbole when he said in his parting words (paraphrasing): “These people are my idols and they treated me as an equal”. Yeah, we think there might be some other issues that led to Erik willfully handing over immunity.

Still, his blunder made for really uncomfortable night of television. It wasn’t so much that any of the women were in the wrong for attempting this. Of course they weren’t, the game in and of itself is the task at hand, and the promotion and general tone of the show is “by any means necessary”. Which, from a game perspective, even explains why Erik did what he did. But it seemed like such a gang attack from someone in such a vulnerable position that the discomfort was almost unavoidable.

In the above link, there seems to be a backlash to calling the women “bitches” for their handling of the situation. Followed by a subsequent accusation of those poster’s misogyny. We’ll never understand why things are always divided along gender lines on this series and its fans (though this season the female contestants keep bringing it up), but the issue of various people perceiving them as “bitches” isn’t really a surprise given the nature of the move they pulled off.

The counter-argument seems to be, “but if a man does something similar he is considered strategic and is praised”. While I agree that there is definitely a tendency to villainize the women on this show for nothing more than strategic play, this argument is invalid because no man has ever pulled off something even remotely comparable, nor do I think one or any could, so we don’t have to worry about the comparison.

You might be able to pull something like this on a woman of a similar age and impression as Erik, but for whatever reason I feel like the manipulator would also have to be a woman. And anytime someone makes someone look so cartoonishly idiotic, it’s going to be labeled negatively regardless of the circumstances (real life or reality television). Not that they could help themselves (nor do I blame them), laughing uncontrollably in Erik’s face is only going to accentuate any moral issues someone might have with their actions, thus the unnecessary phrasing from multiple viewers. Unfortunately there is no male synonym for “bitch” (enlighten me otherwise), so if a guy or a group of guys ever pull off something similar, he/them are just referred to as “evil”, “asshole” or the pop nomenclature of the past year or so, “douchebag”.

That said, before this challenge the only person we had any rooting interest in was Amanda (it was minimal at best). We respect Cirie’s game play (every blindside short of Alexis’ has originated from her) but we still feel sour about the whole incident with Yau-Man and Penner, and her superiority complex with the “fans” from when her team was losing challenges after the tribe shake-up was unflattering at best; we’ve always had a low opinion of Parvati because of her vapid shallowness and Natalie is probably the only genuine bitch of the group (Yikes!). So ultimately we couldn’t care less who wins at this point.

It wasn’t that we were rooting for Erik or anything, but the overall tone of this episode just seemed unnecessarily cold. Did they really have to show everyone’s reaction while casting their vote? Not that any of them could help it, but seeing the jury and the people still left in the game laughing in front of Erik’s face epitomizes why we don’t watch any other reality television. It also doesn’t help that outside of Cirie, we don’t really consider the ruling outfit a brain trust of epic proportions, to say the least.

Regardless of our opinions of it, this was definitely a memorable episode and eventful season. We’ve enjoyed it thoroughly, which makes it all the more bizarre that we have no real interest in the finale. Still, we’re going to watch and half-heartedly hope either Amanda or Cirie can take home the million.

Office recap later today.

So, we didn’t take any notes during the episode last week, was James referring to his injured digit? Or was he trying to be menacing with this faux-threat? At this point in the game with no numbers and no strategy, the only way James could be menacing is if he was physically so a la Joey on this season’s Real World. Yeah. I watched the Real World last night after basketball because Orlando was pwning Detroit, fucking sue me.

Anyway, James’ untimely and unwanted (at least from the producers standpoint) departure from the game was only a small fraction of this episode. He probably had the best reappearance of a medical evacuation ever though, showing up to tribal with an IV. It reminded me of South Park’s parody of the 2000 election in which Mr. Garrison brought in the dying kindergartner to vote for class president.

His appearance at Tribal Council was only the tip of the iceberg, because this episode was probably the best use of the immunity idol since Earl turned it against Alex and his gaggle of cronies. Mainly because it was nice to see it effectively used for once and Amanda was absolutely radiant when she played the thing. It’s nice to see that while my one Survivor (semi but was fading quickly) crush is dispatched, a new one is making a name for herself.

It wasn’t so much that she played it as it was how she played it. From the get-go when she came back from immunity challenge to empty her bag (presumably a little over-eager to do so, but those are bygones at this point), to aligning with one other person (Parvati, bleh) to assist in distracting everyone else while she dug for the idol, to seeing where everyone stood before she actually went in search of the thing, to that fucking Oscar worthy performance at Tribal Council and her subsequent strut up to Probst to put the idol in play, we thoroughly enjoyed the entire spectacle. The only way it was getting any better is if they voted out Natalie instead of Alexis who was literally on her last leg anyways, or if Natalie just spontaneously combusted into flames.

It looks like they’re posing…whatever, do your thing doe (dough? I’m never certain) eyes.

But I think the decision to vote out Alexis was part of the strategy on Amanda’s part. Since Amanda wanted vile Natalie out of the game and Parvati wanted Alexis (I have no fucking clue why, and just when I’m beginning to change my opinion of Parvati, she insists on some shit like this and kills any perceived good will), it was a good compromise to make so Parvati doesn’t run off and tell the other four people about the idol. So even though I disagree with the actual final decision, I concede that it was phenomenal game play.

In other news, Erik could make a bit of an immunity run in the next few episodes. You wouldn’t expect it because he has the hair of a 55 year-old woman and the physique and mindset of a twelve year-old boy (look at his squealing excitement to have is brother and Jeff Probst within close proximity of each other), but he’s deceptively competitive, and aside from Parvati in challenges that require balance and agility he’s in pretty good standing in everything else. We actually let out an audible yelp when he took the target challenge in such convincing fashion.

We’ll never figure out why all the women didn’t just aim for only one person’s bottles in their alliance if their ultimate goal was to have an all female final five. But we suppose that their SURVIVAL instincts kicked in (Huh? Am I right or am I right, people? High five!). Either that or they are over-confident, unoriginal idiots. Historically speaking on Survivor, that has traditionally been the case.

The reward challenge and actual reward were kind of bland. We never much care about the “besmirch each other behind their backs then embarrass everyone by way of Jeff Probst” challenge. At least Alexis got that one taste of victory before being ousted, but ironically enough the person she sent to immunity ended up leading to her torch being snuffed. Why is everyone this season so apprehensive to go to exile island when they know damn well that there is an immunity idol to be had?

Nothing much else happened, we were happy to see that alliance have to turn on each other after their ugly cockiness last week, and judging from the previews last week we expect to see more of the same.

Did anyone watch anything even partially interesting last night? We watched the Cavs-Celts game, and that had its moments. Especially that end of 3rd quarter score of 53-52, that was interesting, or typical of the shoddy play that we’ve come to expect from the NBA’s eastern conference. These Celtics manage to get less and less inspiring as the time passes. It’s almost like no one other than them was taking the regular season seriously and just biding time until the playoffs began. But alas, they won the game and that is the bottom line, though if you’re a Celtics fan, you’re confidence has to have certainly wavered.

Obviously, we’re completely miffed here. We can dissect the playoffs or pretend to have watched a reality series last night. We’d do a nightly preview, but we already did one for Wednesday two weeks ago and virtually nothing has changed.

Here we are. Even a broken clock is right twice a day or some other more fitting analogy. That link, in case you’re wondering, is a press release of sorts about the new season of Hard Knocks. It goes without saying that this should be a significant improvement on last year’s somewhat uneventful profile of the Kansas City Chiefs.

For those who are unaware of the show or just simply uninterested with the NFL (meaning you’ve probably stopped reading this by now, but what the hell?), Hard Knocks is a miniseries that gives their audience and insiders look at an NFL preseason, or at least whatever the team at large is willing to sign away on. And I have no idea what the makeup of these contracts between HBO and the organizations are (this is the sixth or seventh year they’ve done this), but since this year’s team is the Dallas Cowboys, my guess is that Jerry Jones might want to maintain some executive control.

Glad to see Owens and Dallas fans can set their differences aside for money and wins.

The Cowboys, comprised of probably the most embarrassing tabloid romance in football (Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson), the most emotionally unstable player (Terrell Owens), the Nicky Santoro of the league (Pacman Jones, and that’s assuming he is reinstated), the most aggressive owner and passive successful coach (the aforementioned Jerry Jones and Wade Phillips) and a slew of other characters that includes Roy Williams, Terry Glenn and Tank Johnson. The latter of which has a rap sheet like Paulie Walnuts.

The NFL has been mired in legal issues as of late, and the front office led my commissioner Roger Goodell has been doing everything it can to weed out the bad seeds and demonstrate that they are serious on reprimanding professionally those who break the law. Thing is, they can barely keep up. Essentially the entire Bengals roster is behind bars, and if not they want to leave or are indifferent to their team’s issues. You can go to this website and it reads more like a police blotter than a comedy blog.

It’s also hard to take this new initiative seriously, considering the mess that Paul Taglibue, the current commissioner’s predecessor left behind. The worst instance comes in the case of Leonard Little, who killed a woman while drunk driving and as of last season was still getting considerable playing time for the Rams, who reside in St. Louis where he was convicted of manslaughter. This wasn’t on Goodell’s watch, but it’s hard for the casual fan who doesn’t follow these timelines to overlook when an authority figure says he’s trying to clean up the league and a few days later a murderer is blitzing the quarterback.

So while we’re looking forward to Hard Knocks, Goodell and whoever may give a shit within the Cowboys might want to intervene on the cutting room floor, because when they show Johnson, Pacman and Owens (to be fair, Owens has never been associated with any illegal activity, his insanity has been strictly law abiding) pouring Cristal on a stripper in one of their dorms, it’s just going to being throwing gasoline on a fire. For a league that has already dealt with murder trials, dogfighting, a litany of DUI, possession and domestic abuse cases, a hazing incident gone awry is about the last thing this empire needs.

Yawwwwn. That pretty much sums up my general malaise over doing this post and the outlook on the day ahead. In hindsight, since we have yet to do one for Monday, we should have done a nightly preview yesterday and one extended links post today, but what’s done is done. So let’s summarize the interesting facets of the TV industry from the past 24 hours.

You know, I like The Office as much as anyone, but NBC really might want to consider developing some new series’ with staying power if they ever want to climb out of the cellar in ratings, where they have perpetually been for the past six or seven years. Replacing adopted series that weren’t drawing any ratings with sitcom reruns is no way to go through life, Ben Silverman.

Tristan Wilds, better known as Michael Lee, and even more so as the new Omar Little, has been cast to play an adopted son on the new 90210. This is great news that someone in Hollywood has been paying attention to The Wire, and might lead to the series’ increased popularization and more options for its cast (sans commercials and bit parts on various network crime dramas) even after its series finale. But still, the only way we’re tuning into this is if we catch wind that Michael Lee sticks-up Lucille Bluth for her jewels or something, and he does it with a shotgun, and immediately goes into hiding only to reemerge for revenge after Lucille’s husband has his boyfriend tortured and murdered. Essentially, I’m only watching this show if it’s like the first three seasons of The Wire set in Beverly Hills.

I have some bad news for everyone who doesn’t read this blog: Men In Trees has been canceled. We never knew what it was, where it was set, who was in it or why it existed, but it exists no more. We’re sorry for your loss Men In Trees fans, we hope this message finds you well, and that one of the other thirty-something melodrama’s on ABC appeases you before its untimely canceling.

Seth MacFarlane is reportedly set to sign a $100 million, five year contract with 20th Century Fox for his show of randomly assembled jokes also known as Family Guy. He also co-created American Dad, which is a slight improvement. But Family Guy was a comedy gem before it was canceled in its first go-around with FOX, when they came back it was with an entirely different set of writers and the jokes felt uninspired, over-indulgent and borderline predictable to us. Whatever, get your money Mr. MacFarlane, maybe when he is sleeping on a bed of money he’ll be able to conjure up something original and not targeted at twelve year-olds.

The lone highlight of a once great cartoon.

After his recent ratings increase and rash of good publicity for his stint at the White House Correspondents dinner, European publications are now endorsing Craig Ferguson as Letterman’s successor. I suppose they aren’t familiar with his pleas to have Jon Stewart replace the lauded late night host, but now that Mr. Ferguson is a realistic option we suspect he is going to retract his selfless endorsement. Or rather just ignore it, because we are probably one of nineteen people who actually remember that happening. In other news, here is him cutting short an interview with Bill Maher.

Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune makes the case that The Hills is the new Friends. Not necessarily in terms of theme or plot, but in their portrayal of twenty-somethings. The unearned luxury that accompanied NBC’s last ratings monster is the same thing that MTV”s “reality” series thrives off of. Needless to say, it’s escapism thinly-veiled as drama. We wholeheartedly agree with all of this, and while we still have yet to watch a millisecond of The Hills, we find it disturbing that we can name three female and one male “personalities” (what the fuck are we supposed to call these people?).

Finally, Martin Freeman, who played the original Jim Halpert on Ricky Gervais’ Office views his stint on the international hit as both “a blessing and a curse”. Essentially it’s the Seinfeld hex for Europe and he blames that on his inability to find any new work. Umm, if he’s looking for commercial or mainstream gigs, most of those are over here in the states. The lack of work available to him might have something more to do with him being British than any noteworthy roles he’s played. Still, it must be a pain in the ass to be type-casted after a series which only ran for sixteen episodes, resulting in limited financial gain but possibly negates any potential future jobs. The Seinfeld people all complain about it, and they all made over a million an episode for the last two seasons (44 episodes).

Something different tomorrow.

Welcome back from what was a glorious weekend of actively avoiding television. And you know, if there are people watching what TV offers over the weekends I really hope they enjoy it, but while what we generally see during the week is bad enough, the weekend offerings are a constant barrage of idiocy. It’s like going from the rubik’s cube to the ball in a cup. Or rather, something less complicated than a rubik’s cube and more bland than ball in a cup.

So we’re back to the same old after a week long attempt at originality. Here are some links to start the late morning right.

Here’s some obscure website’s take on the top fifty television series’ of all time. It looks like they list them one by one, meaning you have to link to forty-nine different pages from the one you open on so we’re probably never going to read it. But it does have Quantum Leap listed at #50, so it’s probably a worthwhile read, unless it ignores The Wire, then the people at this online publication are idiots.

Jon Stewart will be on location for the D & R NC’s, if you’re into that sort of thing. It could get fairly contentious at both of them, amongst the democrats themselves Jon could end up collateral damage, and while all republicans generally tend to concede that they like his humor, they probably all secretly hate his guts, and could become the target of their scorn. Either way, things could turn out bad for the quick-witted political voice.

Jessica Walter, also known as Lucille Bluth, has been cast for the Beverly Hills: 90210 remake. She’ll probably play the exact same character she played on Arrested Development but will do so dramatically instead of comically. Which is why we watch AD and not 90210, because that character should never be taken seriously.

Tailor made for the primetime soap.

Amy Ryan is set to join the cast of The Office (Note: Avoid clicking on this link if you wish to avoid any and all spoilers, even for comedies). Either she has an extraordinary agent, an eye for good acting projects or just an incredible amount of luck, because between this, The Wire, Capote Gone Baby Gone & Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead she hasn’t had a misstep in about ten years. And perusing her IMDB page, it looks like the connection here is co-starring in Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. We had to see that to restore some order in the world, because generally an academy award nominated actress doesn’t “downgrade” to sitcom acting.

And finally, if you’re anything like me then you’ve always wondered what Wire characters would look like in Simpsons animation, but never had the talent, connections or resources to actually see it come to fruition. Well, wait no more, because this website has taken the time to bring these legendary characters to life with a Matt Groening likeness. It’s embarrassing how much I enjoyed this.

Something tomorrow.

We’re not going to even get started on Survivor, but if Erik can keep up this current immunity streak, plus with the girls alliance crumbling as a result of his win and Amanda’s discovery, he could really make a run for this thing. Outside of Amanda I’m not sure who else would win a jury vote against him, possibly Cirie because she has been kind of lurking in the shadows dictating every move Parvati makes and catching none of the blame for it, but whoever she’s to go up against in the finale can shed some light on her misgivings. It was nice to see her blindsided for once though.

Anyhow, for the first time since the strike The Office neglected to hit a home run, it was still a double, but was so plot-oriented and at times flat out ignored the comedy angle that we can’t be completely adulated with an episode of television from a series best described as a comedic sitcom. Still, it set things up nicely for the finale and had some brilliant moments of tension and comedy.

First off, Dwight Schrute is back in original form for the first time since Angela dumped him for euthanizing her cat; and took out revenge on his arch-nemesis, Andy, by buying his car and selling it at a higher price after strong-arming Andy into a deal. The camera shot through the window after Andy sold the car while he was observing a sale sign that we assume is just leftover from beforehand, only for us to see when the camera slowly pans down and see that the sign says, “Contact DWIGHT SCHRUTE” was a highlight for me. I make no bones about Rainn Wilson playing my favorite character on this show, and from that camera shot to the confrontation between him and Andy to the outside shots of Dwight washing the car…the whole sequence is just validating.

Dwight’s ideal hierarchy.

Aside from that and Michael’s attempt to garner knowledge about gang conflict resolution from Darryl, everything was just tense. Even if it was funny it was comically tense. And we do not mind, but man, between this and the “Dinner Party” episode we’re starting to almost pity the characters, we’re not sure if that was intended for anyone other than Michael Scott.

Everything with Stanley just felt like it hinged on a false premise. Essentially, Michael isn’t supposed to be able to implore Stanley to assist them in writing a rapping voice message with the implication that he would be beneficial because he is black, which is what happened when Stanley lashed out at him. That in and of itself, along with all the other racist commentary and not-so-subtle references to minorities that Michael engages in would be enough to sue him and the company. We understand the environment that the two and everyone else in the office has come to accept, but that doesn’t make it any less unlawful.

The other subplot along with Dwight and Andy was Jim being put in professional jeopardy. That visit from Ryan is a pretty standard practice in an office environment. you bring in someone from corporate to offer a warning, then should the person in question finds himself in an insubordinate position whether it is his fault or someone else’s, that person can be terminated under the guise that “they were warned”. If these were normal circumstances,the tone of Ryan’s warning would mean that if he just upped his productivity all would be well. But his HR representative and his corporate overlord both have it out for him, and that cannot play in his favor. Unless Toby (surprised he didn’t actually head for Costa Rica) makes another untoward pass at Pam or David Wallace intervenes in the Ryan-Jim showdown, this might not turn out so well for our resident protagonist.

I’m kind of surprised by the reaction to Toby’s deceptiveness. He’s always been a sympathetic character considering he has no wife, no girlfriend, an estranged kid he seldom sees as it sounds like he got the screws put to him in a divorce, a job where everyone either hates or ignores him, the only person who doesn’t he has a hopeless crush on so he’s bending the rules slightly to pursue her. Not that this is the most constructive manner of doing so, but I’m certainly not surprised by his actions. He feels he has nothing to lose, and sadly enough, in many ways, he’s right.

Choice quotes:

“This car is a piece of junk. You have three options: you can either sell it for scrap metal, give it to someone you want to die in a car accident, or sell it to me. I’m going to use this vehicle as a carrier, it will be dragged by horses”. -Dwight, underplaying the value of Andy’s car to him.

“Seller beware, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to monitoring a three way bidding war for my Xterra”. -Dwight, indifferent to Andy’s protestations

“In the gang world, we use something called fluffy fingers. You tickle him, and he starts laughing, then soon enough he starts tickling you, and you’re laughing. And before you know it, ya’ll are eating dinner.” -Darryl, explaining the ills of gang life to Michael

Kevin: Every single one of my girlfriends has had glasses, it’s actually kind of a turn on for me.
Pam: I have to get back to work now.
Kevin: Can you just do me one favor? Can you say, “These are due back next Thursday”?

Michael: Were you in the Crips or Bloods?
Darryl: Both. And the Latin Kings, The Warriors and the Newsies.

Probably it for the day, enjoy the weekend.

We’ve already covered the major events of this one pretty extensively over here, and it still pisses us off to no end. Between the four of them, how could James, Amanda, Erik and Jason not put together some kind of scheme to form a new alliance instead of hanging on begrudgingly to the already established core alliance. It was so fucking simple. Sure, you could make excuses for all of them sans Jason, because the other three had to know that he had the idol, but Alexis, Parvati and Natalie were scheming right in front of the three of them while they rolled their eyes. Don’t just act all passive-aggressive you fucking humps, do something to rectify the current situation!

According to this interview at Entertainment Weekly Jason was apparently under the impression that it was in Natalie’s best interest to align with him. And although we were never shown why he would think that, he has proven to be rather dense at times before so we’ll let the shoddy editing slide. He said that James didn’t like him so he never offered to align with him. Well, fuck James then. If he had played the idol and gotten Erik and Amanda to vote with him, that would have been the majority after all the votes had been discarded when he played the idol. I mean, why would you just want to desperately cling to that fifth position, when did that become so fucking lauded?

Anyhow, to the finer points of the game. Like, say, the reward challenge. We’ve been repulsed by this show many a time, but probably none more so than the incident with the chocolate cake. The incident was two-fold in establishing my repulsion. First Alexis, Parvati, Cirie all eating it with Natalie after she purchased the thing and was given three people to share it with. And not eat it with a fork or anything remotely civil like that, but pouncing on it with no eating utensils like a diabetic on her death bed. In other words, it was horrifying. Probst gave them I believe two minutes to eat this thing, and they took that very literally as they more or less just jammed their faces into it in unison. Even James, who had voluntarily taken the bats that Natalie unknowingly purchased, thought it disgusting.

The second half of my disbelief came when Erik paid Cirie $40 to lick her fingers/hand. That was, in and of itself, probably the weakest thing I’ve ever seen. It was pretty indicative of his position in the game, “I’ll pay you cash money if you’ll let me lick the scraps off your hand” is basically what he said. To his credit, the game ended right then and there, so Cirie’s newly acquired $40 was rendered worthless.

These people make Joel look desirable.

But is it just me or are the Survivor’s more gluttonous this year than in recent history? We had this train wreck, Ozzy dropping out of an immunity challenge for fucking donuts shortly after he had eaten a rather large meal at reward, people being unable to contain their excitement over an unseen food item that they accidentally dropped out of a challenge, and just a general entitlement and bitchiness that at least we’ve never seen.

Anything else happen? Oh, and while we do believe Jason to be a bit of an airhead, Survivor production really did a hatchet job on him. I mean, they might as well edited a clown outfit onto him, because what we saw in that EW interview, versus what we saw on the show, really didn’t seem like the same person. We fault him for poor game play and a general vapidness, but not for being unlikeable or intolerable. And the four women generally had to dislike him to say the shit about him that they did. It all seemed very juvenile to me, even for a Survivor episode.

All in all this season has had some great moments, but we doubt we’ll be able to handle a final three that involves any of the four members of the dominant alliance. The real shame in Jason & Co. not counter-attacking this episode was that if the three on the outskirts were ever going to make a move, it had to be here. Now their best bet is to sit it out and hope the four of them implode, which at this point doesn’t seem likely.

They can try and persuade someone else to switch allegiances, but that seems like it would only solidify their resolve. Still, an F3 of say, Parvati, Alexis and Natalie would be less encouraging than last season in China with Courtney, Todd & Amanda or Exile Island with Aras and Danielle. That is to say, we’d only watch for the interrogation from the jury. We’d like to see a female alliance, because we haven’t seen one successfully play out yet, but not with this miserable troupe.

We’ll try to post some links today but we’re abnormally busy, so don’t hold your breath.

So, remember when I said a couple days ago that HBO might be unsalvageable without the presence of any original scripted series? Well, umm, yeah (clears throat), we may have been wrong about that, or at least for ninety-one minutes last night When Bob Costas held a panel discussion about how professional sports are handled in the media. We probably could have recommended this yesterday instead of mocking Jeff Probst’s sensibilities. Pssh, whatever. We stand by the decision and offer no apologies.

The format was five different topics consisting of sports talk radio, blogs, television, beat reporters, and race in sports; each segment with their own panel and worthy of it’s own ninety minute discussion, since Costas manages to regularly bring in either qualified perspectives or personalities and didn’t disappoint last night. But the one that was the most contentious and messy was the “discussion” on blogs. We use quotations because it was more of a berating that an actual exchange of thoughts and ideas.

This panel consisted of Braylon Edwards, a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, Buzz Bissinger, best known for his novel on the Odessa Perriman football team, “Friday Night Lights”, and Will Leitch, author and editor of the website Deadspin. Deadspin is a sports blog that posts roughly fifteen times a day on varying topics and is probably our biggest distraction at work. It provides a fresh, humorous, almost lighthearted perspective on sports and athletes, gets close to 15,000,000 hits a month and for whatever reason angers those in traditional media.

Well, it’s not for whatever reason, they seem to be vast and misguided for the most part. This hostility can mainly be contributed to three factors: Many members of what’s widely referred to as the “mainstream media” since a growing irrelevance and downsizing of their medium, many think that blogs are salacious and disparaging with no motive, and many of them are just vindictive because of something they’ve read about themselves on blogs.

The host in his younger days, an amiable bloke but we disagree on the topic at hand.

And there is some credence to this, particularly the former. Anyone who watched the final season of The Wire knows how marginalized daily newspapers are becoming, and much of that fact is due to the internet and the incentive people have to update news and provide op-ed material on their own. It’s free, it’s convenient and based on that alone the demand for blogs isn’t going to relent. There is certainly some truth to the latter two, not all blogs are respectable and I’m sure have on occasion (if not regularly) said something uncalled for about a member of the media. And it certainly seems Buzz Bissinger has felt the scorn once or twice in his life, because his vitriol was off the charts.

The debate essentially consisted of Buzz screaming like a lunatic, Costas cutting him short way too late and asking for Leitch to explain himself, while Braylon Edwards mostly sat uncomfortably and waited for Costas to ask him his opinion (he did twice). But the biggest issue we take with Buzz is how misinformed and unfair he was. First of all, he did everything he could to lump all blogs together, which is just asinine. Will Leitch has no judicial control over what content is on any other blog other than his own. That would be like blaming the New York Times for something written by the Washington Post, what does one have to do with the other? I think Buzz was just struggling with the concept that when he goes from one webpage to the next with relative ease he is reading two, separate unrelated perspectives, which is what makes web-based content so appealing to so many.

And to his credit he brought in quotes and pieces from Deadspin itself to voice his discontent. But he managed to take everything out of context and seemingly did so intentionally. This just accentuated his self-righteousness. It all came to a head when he cherry-picked a quote that if read by itself is much more likely to be construed as offensive when the rest of the article wasn’t included. But when he accused Leitch for every blog on the internet not being 100% accurate, he accredited the article he was quoting from to the wrong author. The irony was rich if also infuriating and befuddling.

Costas, while doing his best to seem neutral, certainly seemed to have a predetermined opinion on the subject, asking Leitch to explain the commenters on his website (which more often than not seems to devolve into a tedious game of one-upsmanship ),, and subsequently asked him if he would hypothetically rummage through someone’s trash or used something someone else found from someone’s trash as a story. This probably more than anything else dictated the tone of the “debate”.

Edwards offered a little support for Mr. Leitch, but for the most part used a story about photos on the website of Matt Leinhart drinking at one of his I’m sure many house parties. Edwards isn’t the issue, however, just a bystander caught in the middle of a greater battle. His opinion basically stemmed from his noticeable paranoia about being caught in such a situation and was taking it personally. The issue is people are genuinely curious about professional athletes, and it’s not like these guys are hounded by paparazzi everywhere they go.

Leinhart threw a house party, invited several people into his house I’m sure he was unfamiliar with, someone snapped a photo of him getting drunk with some coeds (who turned out to be under 21, if that counts for anything), said person sent it into a website and Leitch chose to run a post about it because your average fan is curious what Matt Leinhart’s life might be like off the field. It’s that simple. Is Leitch not supposed to run it because he should be worried about offending the quarterback? Leitch’s primary concern is entertaining his readers while they trudge through another bland day at work, not protecting the reputation the quarterback on his favorite NFL team. It seems like if this is something you are tremendously offended by then it’s a pretty quick fix: don’t read it.

One would think we’d be even more incensed with HBO after the essential sandbagging they did to one of our favorite sportswriters, but we’re not. We can’t really explain why, but the contention between blogs and traditional media is most heated in the sports world and they provided a forum for a debate that is long overdue, even if it was 80% one-sided.

We could write about not only the internet segment, but the other four for hours on end, but this is a television blog and were only able to write about it on a technicality (the special was on television). But just know that if you watched the segment and found yourself agreeing with Bissinger and never read Deadspin, here is the follow-up story from Will Leitch on the experience and the article that Bissinger quoted from. You can decide for yourself if this seems like credible entertainment or just interesting content. We’d argue both, but we’re just a lowly blogger so please disregard anything we say as “unqualified”. Since apparently it requires so many credentials to state an opinion that any rationale human being could find reasonable.

Sorry for the tangent, Survivor recap tomorrow.

One might think that hosting the second most popular game show on television would make for a charmed life, but you would be wrong. Living a life that is akin to a constan