Grid Effect

A little upswing in television news lately, unfortunately about 80% of it revolves around late night talk shows. We’re just going to skip all of that and try to bring you the interesting part of the remaining 20%, which leaves us with about 5% of the news items available.

As you have probably heard by now, Mad Men has an official premiere date for the third season. I’ll just go ahead and kill the suspense: it’s August 16th. We’re still over two months away but it feels oh so close. This is how desperate we are for good news in television, a show that we knew would be released in August makes headlines when which day in August it will be on air. And there were really only five days too choose from since we knew it would be a Sunday. Whatever, the general mundaneness of this news isn’t going to kill my buzz over hearing it.

As if I needed another reason to feel giddy this morning: Michael K Williams has signed on for a part in Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire, which will air on HBO once they pick up the pilot. If you don’t know who Michael K. Williams is, you might know him better as Omar Little. And if you don’t know who Omar Little is, then I’m taking my ball and going home, because I don’t think we can be friends anymore.

You may have noticed that we’ve been intentionally avoiding all the David Carradine, part of that has been out of respect for the actor and his family, but mostly because the somewhat abnormal circumstances surrounding the case have led pretty much everyone to believe that there are some sordid details that won’t come out for awhile, if ever. Well, the leaking of new information continues, so we’ll just stand guard for now.

A producer for Lost has come out and said they’ll have a “real” finale, “unlike The Sopranos”. You may remember when a producer for The Shield did the same thing, and maybe it’s just me but I find myself wondering where these guys find the balls to do shit like this. Do they not understand? If it wasn’t for The Sopranos none of you fucks would even have a show to worry about a finale. It started the whole “TV as cult following” movement and dragged a dying medium (scripted televised dramas) out from the gutter. To his credit he did say that The Sopranos was “brilliant”, but it seems a tad disingenuous when you follow that up with, “(Lost) is going to have a real ending”.

Here’s a list of television’s twenty least feminist characters. There isn’t really thing to argue here, but I will say that feminist have some lofty demands of who their pop-culture icons should be. That’s probably why there’s so few of them. That, and no one really identifies as a feminist anymore, even if they adhere to feminist principals. I think it’s time for a re-branding.

The end of Summer cannot come soon enough.

Here’s Danny DeVito drunkenly forcing — intentionally or otherwise — one of the more awkward interviews you’ll ever see on local television. You could dump five gallons of Nickelodeon ooze on these two and it really wouldn’t seem that out of place. Between this and Pat Tomasulo from WGN trash-talking to a four year-old in a take of one-on-one basketball, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to start watching more local news. My favorite part from either of these is when Tomasulo says, “don’t bring that in here, Tyler“, just so the kid knows exactly how much the guy from the TV hates his guts.

OK, a couple late night items: I know I’ve been giving Stephen Colbert the business as of late (and I’m sure its gotten back to him and just devastated his week), but his shows from Iraq have been as genuinely funny and enjoyable as anything he’s ever done on his show. He’s also giving a voice to the military, something so many people that have been in a similar position have failed to do. Also,  The segments at Fort Jackson have been especially entertaining.

And finally, everyone is rushing to call the move of Conan to 11:30 a mistake since Letterman beat him in the ratings this week. I’d tell everyone to relax, since I don’t think Letterman will be able to book guests with the same clout as Howard Stern and Julia Roberts every week, nor will he always inadvertently crack pedophilia jokes at the expense of a conservative politician’s daughter. Or maybe he will if it means improved ratings, I don’t know. Considering he is basically the only entity at CBS that has been losing to his contemporary at NBC, staying on top might result in an extreme course of action. You’re just the beginning of it, Willow.

Back tomorrow to close out this week, probably with some links. We’re working on procuring Showtime so expect that Weeds recap by Monday, if not tomorrow.