Grid Effect

Much like Tony Soprano in the least liked episode of the final season, we will be playing catch up for the foreseeable future. In terms of writing a television blog, it was a bad 12 days to be out of pocket. We missed the premieres and season episodes of multiple series, and just as a cherry on top we managed to be in a Greyhound on our way to St. Louis while the Emmy’s were taking place. If that isn’t a good indicator of our disinterest in the event, then I don’t know what is.

The only thing we were really concerned with is whether or not The Wire would actually win the only award it was nominated for and it didn’t, but it at least lost to Mad Men. We are constantly conflicted about this. On the one hand, it is better for the series’ legacy if it is constantly overlooked for awards (particularly Emmys). On the other, and this is with all due respect to Mad Men which is the best series on television by a mile, this is still a crock of shit. Here’s a list of winners if you care, though it is oddly agreeable for the most part.

Either way it doesn’t sound like we missed much except a Colbert acceptance speech and maybe a David Simon appearance at an award show. Other than that, we were happy to save the money on the plane ticket. At least sort of, riding a Greyhound across the country is kind of like getting on one of those Halloween cart rides at a carnival, only the thrills aren’t vicarious.

If you absolutely must travel via Greyhound, do try to avoid the Tulsa layover.

Still, here is a quick rundown of what to expect from us over the course of the next eight work days (sans links or previews or anything else that is never planned). We did manage to catch a break in that Mad Men randomly decided to take a night off:

-Recap/review of the most recent Mad Men episode “A Night to Remember”.

-Recap/review of Weeds season four finale.

-Recap/review of Entourage season five, episode three.

-Recaps of Survivor: Gabon and Office season five premieres.

-It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia review, which we’ve already sort of mentioned completing.

We hope to burn through all of this by Friday but any promise would be admittedly hollow. Though we will try to get to one of these later tonight.

There is a slew of worthwhile news items on the docket today, so we’re going to try and divvy them up into two of three posts. Anything less would just be undignified.

If you want to know the premise for any and every plot in FNL’s third season, then here’s your type of column. I’ve always wondered why the broadcast network series are generally so loose lipped about the developments of future seasons while the cable series’ basically have a death warning should any cast or crew member reveal anything to anyone. Given, nothing is given away other than where the upcoming season will begin, but it’s still so much information.

We always imagined you were a plot device, sorry to see you go, Lyla's chaste boyfriend.

Ever wondered how Weeds decided to blow up the entire series and take it south? I kind of assumed that after the third season it was evident they were out of ideas, so they could have taken it to Antarctica for all I cared, so long as they tried something different. But apparently there was greater incentive to switch gears. Hmm, color me surprised.

The Wire, Mad Men and 30 Rock took home the top prizes at the Critics Choice Awards. See, these winners are quite similar to the Emmy nominations, but no one will ever mention it, because the pink elephant in the room is the absence of The Wire with the Emmy’s. But still: progress.

Lorne Michaels is now blaming the media’s love affair for why his Barack Obama skits are so noticeably unfunny. Um, there are always politicians that the media fawns over, it has never been a problem in the past. Part of SNL’s job is to make him mockable, not wait for the media or the politician himself to beat you to the punch. Good lord, what ever happened to SNL?

And finally, if you’re into this sort of thing, Paul Lieberstein, writer and actor who plays Toby on The Office, married a college professor over this past week. Apparently no one gave Paul the memo that when you are doing something professionally in Hollywood, you are supposed to marry the student and not the professor.

That’s all we have the energy for at the moment, back with more links shortly.

Well, that was fucking annoying. We had posted some links on Friday and a Thursday night network preview, and with the higher ups switching to a new server, it somehow managed to delete both posts. This is particularly annoying for the Thursday post, mainly because it was exceptionally funny and it is a timely thing. Meaning it was written for specific date and times that can’t be replicated.

Fuck it, we’ll just write the same exact thing for this Thursday. My apologies for that.

Anyhow, here’s a summarized version of what we said about the Emmy nominations on Friday. Basically, everything looked on the up and up set aside a few minor quibbles which aren’t worth getting into the details of (again), and the major complaint being the almost clean snub of The Wire yet again. It’s not like we were surprised by this outcome, if the fourth season couldn’t muster up a single nomination — which we’re on record as saying is the best season of television ever made — then what hope did the far inferior (but still better than everything else on television with the exception of Mad Men) fifth season really have? After two years of writing for this site, it’s a good thing this shit doesn’t bother me anymore.

The only aspect of this even remotely flummoxing about this is David Simon and Ed Burns manage to snag a writing nomination. And that is almost a disappointment, the series’ legacy would have been better off being unacknowledged altogether.

According to David Chase, these only go for $15 at your local pawn shop, perhaps there's a reason for the diminished market value?

Based on this nomination and one for the same category for season three’s penultimate episode “Middle Ground”, it would appear that Emmy voters are at least, to some extent, watching the series. So why the lack of nominations in all major categories (acting, directing and best drama)? Even they are spinning a giant wheel and nominating whichever name the pin falls under, you would assume The Wire would come up more than it has. We do not have an explanation other than the people running this shindig are fairly unenlightened. Ed Burns sees it as a willful lack of recognition for black actors, and we’re sure that factors in to some degree. But filming in Baltimore probably doesn’t help their cause. Or their fans cause rather, since Simon doesn’t give a shit about Emmy’s or any awards.

In other areas, Rescue Me and Dennis Leary were all but ignored. Which is probably a good thing, since multiple nominations would only inflate the already inflated ego. Mad Men and 30 Rock led the way with over fifteen nominations for each series (four of 30 Rock’s came in the best guest appearance category, which probably illustrates why we don’t watch the series more than anything else), while other multiple nomination recipients went to Damages, The Office, and just to prove how in love with itself Hollywood actually is: Entourage.

What’s most vexing about all this and how it relates to The Wire, is how many more cable nominations there are than ever before. This is good news. One would figure the increased recognition of non-broadcast series would boost the best series on television’s profile, but that wouldn’t appear to be the case. Maybe they can attribute the writing nom to this development.

Even though we consider the overall development a sign of progress, their is always a dissenting opinion. Take this stooge for example. Who claims that the Emmy’s are now out of touch with the common American viewer. To which we reply: Good. The average American viewer, if ratings are any indication, is either ten years old or a complete moron who watches, soul-crushing, mind-numbing trash that we’d be ashamed to even throw out, much less claim ownership to.

Maybe this development will hurt the ratings for the Emmy’s broadcast, but we are fairly indifferent to that as well. Since the show is nothing more than a self-congratulatory smug-fest it’s probably better that no one watches it. But it does seem if not important, then at least relevant, that the people running the show for television’s highest creative honors at least honor creative efforts.

Either way, this is a significant improvement from last year’s awards, and that is with our favorite show ever being ignored. I guess our expectations were low. Still, now that The Wire is done and nothing left for them to blatantly ignore that deserves their attention, maybe we’ll be impressed from here on out.