Grid Effect

After what we’d probably consider the worst recap we’ve written on this site (and that’s saying something), we’re ready to deliver on a few links. Well, we were better prepared two hours ago, but internet connectivity issues at work (i.e. we didn’t have any) forced us into a mean darts game that resulted in us continuing our win streak and our current state of indifference.

We were tempted to ramble on about how identifiable My Boys was last night, and how it’s probably the best episode we’ve seen of the fairly uneven comedy; and how Rescue Me was basically an episode of The Wire where someone left the western (Dukie, Michael and Bug going to Six Flags, Bodie going to Philly, Marlo going to the Bahamas, etc.); but reconsidered and realized that the former isn’t worth addressing and we can tackle the latter six days from now. So, straight links it is.

CBS has canceled Without A Trace but renewed Numbers. I guess this is a bad thing for WAT fans. But to paraphrase Robert Plant, the name and faces might change, but the plot remains virtually the same. Oh, and the CW dumped Privileged. I don’t know what that last sentence means, but I’m certain someone can make sense out of it.

If you thought Stephen wasn’t getting enough credit at either the final jury or the reunion on Survivor: Tocantins, you can now sleep peacefully at night because JT has given all credit to him for his win. I don’t know what happened on that island, but whatever it was I’m certain that the cameras didn’t catch it.

Speaking of belated Survivor commentary, Bill Simmons spent about twenty minutes at the end of his most recent podcast discussing the finale. Which brings me to my question, does anyone know of any Survivor podcasts I can possibly catch for next season?

If you’re desperate for a watchable HBO Sunday night series like I am, here’s the debut trailer for Hung, a tragic tale of a down-on-his-luck basketball coach and his comically large member. I can’t really hear it what with not having audio at work and all, but I can guarantee that I’m watching it, verdict is still out whether it’s getting the recap treatment.

In there many attempts to low-brow the network, NBC’s only new shining star from the passed season is Southland, which is their highfalutin’ poor man’s impression of The Wire (Note: any impression of The Wire will be an improvement over Howie Do It). Maybe this should teach us all something, that while networks constantly aim for the lowest common denominator and those who reach the lowest tend to win, there’s a resurgence going on. American’s will no longer sit idly by and watch this drivel…Or it could just be an aberration, as cop shows tend to have the highest success rate on the broadcast networks, regardless of quality or intentions. Yeah, I’m probably reading too much into it.

Jim Cramer is still in ” fruitlessly attempting to save face” mode from his Daily Show appearance. I seem to be one of the few people online that thinks he was hosed to some extent, but what he fails to realize is that the American Idol finale is approaching, and everyone has since forgotten about his national blunder. It’s time to move on, Jim. Everyone else has.

I think it was worth it.

Some girl from the MTV family of reality TV shows set in SoCal is returning to the same family after a hiatus. She was pursuing and acting career and blah, blah, blah and she thinks her training will improve the show and whatever, I basically just included this in today’s post so I have an excuse to post this picture. I hope the article is more substantive than this paragraph, but it’s MTV we’re talking about here, so probably not.

For those of you who enjoy Chuck, which doesn’t mean simply watching the series and being entertained by it. No, this series has now reached Arrested Development/Friday Night Lights status, and that implies that in order to be considered a fan by the cult who follows the show, you must reach the monthly quota of letter writing to the network. But anyways, for those of you who meet this criteria, Subway is going to become an even bigger influence on the show. If the deal is still around by then, expect Chuck’s friend to bust into a scene and say, “Chuck, I have that $5 foot long jingle stuck in my head” followed by Chuck playing the song on his computer. Don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t be distracting at all.

NBC renewed Carson Daly’s show for some reason. It’s undergone a massive overhaul to improve its standing but since Daly has naked pictures of Ben Silverman in a group orgy at Palm Springs, it continues to be on the airwaves. Have any of you seen this show? I’m going to assume you haven’t, but it’s basically shot like MTV Sports now, except considerably less interesting.

And finally, because they’ve both come to the realization that this will probably be the apex of their careers, Sarah Chalke and Zach Braff have agreed to more seasons of Scrubs. I guess my question then is, what was all the hullabaloo about then? Wasn’t this entire season and the creation of it and the reasoning for it based strictly on the fact that Bill Lawrence and Braff were ready to call it quits? Why all the misdirection? Just please go away so I don’t have to act like the series has any qualities I like when I talk to women.

Back later with more links.

This will probably be our last links post of the week and we’ll try to get to both our Survivor and Office recaps either later tonight or tomorrow at some point. I don’t know if either will happen because we have billing tomorrow, it’s a bitch like that when it falls on a Friday.

I have never heard of this show until about two months ago and now I can’t escape discussion/rumors about it, but Jon & Kate Plus 8 returns memorial day weekend. Apparently this series is popular because Kate is an unruly bitch to Jon, which is entertaining to masochists and sadists the world over. Personally, if I wanted to watch some wretched woman completely emasculate her husband for no apparent reason, I’d hang out with my married/”seriously” dating friends.

Some writer for The Sun wants to know how a noted Baltimore restaurant is going to factor into the upcoming season of Mad Men, as I guess some of the producers were inquiring about it. Well, if you remembered the minute details of the show, you would know that in the “Golden Violin“, when Ken Cosgrove asked Sal to explain how he and his wife met, she responded in kind by informing him that they grew up in Baltimore together. So if I had to guess, this should be the setting for a Sal flashback. Don’t get me wrong, Don could end up on another sojourn that leads him to charm city since being that focused on Sal would be unusual for the series (not that Bryan Batt doesn’t deserve it), but it doesn’t seem like an exotic enough location after the trip out west.

We mentioned this on the fantasy football website, but it has crossover appeal: the HBO NFL mini-camp documentary is returning in 2009, with the Cincinnati Bengals. I understand many who read this site might not get the significance of that, but really it’s the closest HBO can get to Cops in the NFL. We imagine it will be pretty tame, but presumably the team isn’t filled with attention whores trying too hard for camera time like last year’s monstrosity with the Cowboys. Maybe it’s might intense disdain for the Star as an Eagles fan, but that was unbearable.

It really is surprising more people aren't watching this show.

Being interviewed about his series Chuck, Josh Schwartz claims the show isn’t expensive or cheap to produce. I hate to break to you, OC creator, but when assessing whether or not you’re going to be renewed it will beconsidered one or the other. Even with the paltry ratings, you’re kind of sitting pretty because, as mentioned before, everything on NBC gets paltry ratings. And they have to throw something on the air, so hey, why not the show with the cult fanbase? Actually, call the Chuck fan base a cult is kind of an insult to cults. I mean, I think thirty-eight people in Heaven’s gate killed themselves. Are we really that confident Chuck can amass that kind of Nielsen?

Speaking of which, both NBC series’ Chuck and the downward spiral known as Heroes registered lower ratings than average for their series finales. I guess this would be news if all of NBC’s series didn’t utterly fail in the Nielsen’s, but they do so it really doesn’t matter. It’s a shame we haven’t figured out a more sophisticated barometer to determine who watches what more than finding people desperate enough for money that they welcome some ratings box into their house that monitors what they have on at all times for very limited compensation. But we haven’t, and now everyone is under the impression that Two and A Half Men is a better comedy than 30 Rock because more people watch it. Which is full-proof logic, if you ask me.

In anticipation for tonight’s Survivor episode, it warrants mentioning that Tyler has gone on record as calling Sierra, “Whiny, dumb, weak and blindly ignorant“. Seems fair, I mean, he did get to know her under completely normal circumstances where nothing can skew your perception of someone. I totally understand ridiculing someone in public and holding a lifetime grudge because of a couple weeks spent in an isolated, exotic locale together.

If you’re like me and always willing to give Wire alums recent projects a chance, then you’d be happy to know that Clark Peters (Lester Freamon) is set to play Nelson Mandela in an upcoming special for TV viewers in England. Of course, if you’re like me then you don’t live in England, much less anywhere in Europe, so forget I said anything. Also, in the linked article they say Freamon is based on David Simon, which isn’t true, and that David Simon is a former police detective, which also isn’t true. So there is a good chance this Nelson Mandela special doesn’t really exist, either.

And finally, my alma mater, The Ohio State University, conducted a survey that discovered conservatives are more susceptible to believing that Stephen Colbert isn’t being satirical on his nightly talk show, The Colbert Report. This study is released just in time to continue the never-ending shitstorm of bad press releases for the republican party. It’s a good thing OSU went out of their way to do this too, here we were all wondering what different political parties thought of Stephen Colbert, and now we can finally get to sleep tonight. Of course, I’m sure the study was skewed to reach a set of desired results, but that doesn’t make this look any better.

That’s it for today, look for our Survivor recap tonight and our Office recap tomorrow afternoon.

So we’re off to yet another slow start today, and while I intended to write our Office recap over the weekend, our laptop seems to have internally combusted, so it wasn’t a possibility. Writing it this long after the episode aired just seems pointless, so we’ll go the full mile and post it on Thursday night before the new episode airs.

Also, we intended to write a review for Sit Down, Shut Up, the knew Mitch Hurwitz live animation series on FOX. But as it turned out the show was kind of not funny or interesting, so we’re going to hold off on reviewing it, because badmouthing the man who’s responsible for Arrested Development is in poor taste. We already have Michael Cera for that and there’s no reason to form a bandwagon. We’ll watch a couple more episodes to give it a fair chance (which we probably wouldn’t be doing if it wasn’t from Mitch Hurwitz), but much like with Parks and Recreation, we’re not feeling to confident about it.

So yeah, we’re neglecting our promises in favor of a few links, and I’m fine with that.

Here’s an article about David Simon pleading with newspaper editors to begin charging for online content as a method of staying afloat. If you haven’t noticed, newspapers are dying off at about the same rate as the American Auto Industry, yet no one gives a shit because they can still get their news online and there isn’t a single paper that employs even an iota of how many people say…GM does. But it really seems like a last hope that I’m not certain is much of one. When someone can pay for your service then copy and paste it to his/her website without any ramifications, it doesn’t seem very practical if you want people to visit the site. I mean, it stands to reason that if you begin charging for your service, you’re going to have fewer visitors, and fewer visitors makes your site less appealing for advertisers. I’m not going to pretend to understand how all of that works, but on the face of it, it does seem like you would lose just as much as you might earn by asking subscribers to pay. Also, to the man’s credit, a lot of this was brought up in the fifth season of The Wire, so he kind of saw all this coming.

While I seem to enjoy more series’ on NBC than just about everyone on the face of the planet (Friday Night Lights, The Office & 30 Rock account for two more series’ than I watch on all the broadcast networks combined), I have to admit that it does seem to be ran by business deficient people. I mean, I don’t know what else to think when they set a record breaking total in ad sales for the Super Bowl, score a record high Nielsen and still manage to lose $45 million on it. Jesus, it’s like other than to entertain me, the network exists for the sole purpose of supplying cannon fodder for Bill O’Reilly.

Hey, remember when we commented on our unhealthy obsession with Diane Farr and her random career decisions, well it seems fitting that we follow up on that and let you know that the girl from Rescue Me is being replaced for her role on Parenthood by Monica Potter, the blond from nothing I’ve ever seen before. That’s assuming the IMDB page on her is up to date. But she’s from Ohio, so that’s…something. Whatever, I don’t know what Parenthood
is, I don’t know who Monica Potter is and I couldn’t really care less what Diane Farr does with her career; so we’re bored and ending this paragraph.

Mad Men is releasing its second season DVD in July, do you want to see what the box is going to look like? If so, click here. If not because anticipating what a DVD cover is going to look like seems sad and depressing to you, then move onto the next paragraph. Personally, we couldn’t get to this link quick enough.

And finally, Chuck’s season finale is quickly approaching, and series creator Josh Schwartz assures us that it isn’t accommodating to a standard series finale, meaning that there will be little to no resolution at the end of the last episode. Much like with the fate of Parenthood, I can’t be bothered to care about this, but with such paltry ratings I’d be hard-pressed to think of any reasonable network springing for a third season. But this is NBC, so reason might be put on the back-burner. People seem to enjoy it, though, so I guess I’m rooting for you all to get your wish to see NBC’s share value continue to plummet.

Probably it for today, Rescue Me recap tomorrow morning.

Ahh, Monday nights. The first day back from the weekend and thus the most anticipated television night of the week. What do the broadcast networks offer in the way of entertainment? I think you’ll be pleasantly uninspired. In the infamous words of Michael Scott, “you’re gonna hate it”.

NBC

8PM: Chuck
We reviewed this series back when we were still taking this blog too seriously. It brought some fine qualities to the table but ultimately wasn’t for us. In other words, they go out of their way to load this series with eye candy, but the story format and same cliche jokes about Beta male guys aren’t really anything we haven’t seen before. Still, it’s going to be a shame when yet another scripted series gets cut for budgetary concerns in favor of Arsenio Hall’s return to television.

9PM: Heroes
In this series’ run we’ve watched half of one episode and couldn’t stand it. It was getting rave reviews until the season one finale, now it has the critical and commercial popularity of a FOX reality series in July. I’m not sure what the fall from grace consists of, but either way we feel vindicated. We call this series the anti-Wire, for its large ensemble cast and the fact that it’s blatantly obvious who the “good” and “bad” guys are.

10PM: Medium
In case you haven’t noticed, Monday night is when NBC trots out all their series without an actual weekday in the title that they feel should have a large audience. Medium is a little past its prime in that regard, but I’m fairly certain the woman in this has won an Emmy and still has a paltry audience compared to its younger days. Basically, Medium is NBC’s new ER.

ABC

8PM: The Bachelor
Two hours worth of faux-relationship drama for the benefit of the lovelorn, contemptuous and bitter masses. It’s a dream come true for those that like to see others humiliated on a national stage. Not that I feel bad for anyone invloved. If you’re going to go on national television, proclaim your love for someone you’ve spoken to intermittently over the course of…a month(?) in some vapid quest for fame and fortune, we might pity your aspirations but having any sympathy for anyone in the moment is highly unlikely.

10PM: True Beauty
The natural follow-up to a show like The Bachelor, in which the contestants are judged based on some self-righteous notion of someone’s morality. Naturally, these peoples since of inner-beauty doesn’t permit them from whoring themselves on reality television either, which means they’re probably just older than the people they are judging so harshly. Oh, and by the way, take an hour out of The Bachelor episode that precedes this and replace it with a talk show of some sort, and set aside extremely popular scripted series’, and this will be what prime time lineups will look like in a scant four or five years.

FOX

8PM: House
The good doctor will undoubtedly remove a chainsaw from someone’s head, then use said chainsaw to remove a baby elephant from the lower intestine of an African ivory dealer. Everyone will learn a valuable lesson which House will mock with a dismissive one-liner. That’s what I heard is going to happen, anyways.

9PM: 24
In the episode description it says, “Jack and Renee race against time”. Uhhh, isn’t this the premise of every season/episode of 24? Just replace the name Renee with whoever else is the female lead for any given season, and you have every episode of 24 ever made. Honestly, how in the hell would a show about a man saving the world over the stretch of one day not be considered a “race against time”?

CBS

8PM: The Big Bang Theory
This show has sort of amassed a healthy commercial following, and has even drawn the admiration of a number of critics. We reviewed this series at about the same time we reviewed Chuck and it wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. We’d like to see how they improved it over the weeks, but we won’t. Mainly because it’s on CBS. Unfair and shortsighted? You bet. Honest and forthcoming? Unquestionably.

8:30PM: How I Met Your Mother
The one traditional sitcom (meaning it has a laugh track) that still sees a fair amount of critical praise. I have a number of friends that watch this show, so I can’t completely dismiss it, but it seems like its popularity is founded on the notion that Doogie Howser is in it, and everyone is just flummoxed that he’s still popular.

9PM: Two and A Half Men
What can we say that hasn’t already been said? Luckily for the producers of this show, Charlie Sheen is seen as box office poison as a result of bad PR for the past decade or so, but he’s already a proven and valued commodity on the set of the highest rated comedy on television, and he’s non-expendable. What I’m trying to say is, this series is going to be on until Charlie Sheen either wants to retire or feels he’s lined his pockets with enough coin that he doesn’t have to show up to work everyday.

9:30PM: Worst Week
I have no idea what this is. Actually, I think I made a joke about its title, seeing as how there is know way in hell a comedy’s entire series run is set inside a single week. It’s the sitcom equivalent to Prison Break.

10PM: CSI: Miami
What’s the best way to follow four sitcoms with redundant comedy you probably could have watched twenty years ago? A drama with unintentionally great comedy starring David Caruso spewing definitive one-liners at crime scenes, which are just about always the set of a movie, a photo shoot or anywhere else they can find an excuse to load the cast with attractive women.

Unless you read or leave the house on weekday nights or have cable or something crazy like that, these are your options. Have a great time with them.

Flight of The Conchords review later today.

A few more links to close out the day. A few programming notes: We didn’t do any fall network previews this year mainly because it is relatively a lot more work than we are accustom to on a day to day basis, combined with additive day job responsibility from a year ago and another site we are writing for daily, we felt it better to just forgo bashing the efforts of every broadcast network and let you find out for yourself just how lethargic they apparently are.

But starting next Monday, in which virtually every new fall series will have already premiered, we will do a nightly preview for every day that week. Sure, it will cut into work hours and links and everything else that we are trying so desperately to keep up on, but what’s writing a blog for marginal pay without over-extending yourself? With any luck, I’ll be fired from my day job as a result.

Onto the links….

It warrants mentioning that Friday Night Lights technically kicks off its third season tomorrow night. I say “technically” because it only exists for you if you happen to plunk down the egregious amounts of money that Direct TV requires for their services. So, since its only available through the satellite provider, we’re going to pretend that it isn’t airing until next February when us philistines with cable can catch it on NBC. We apologize for the circumstances, here, Direct TV subscribers, but as an apology may we offer you a narrow, pale, extended middle finger right between your eyes for pandering to the inefficient, overpriced & unnecessary service that is satellite television. If it wasn’t for you materialistic heathens who need to feel important with a wobbly satellite atop the roof of your house, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. And we would be able to get the NFL ticket at a reasonable rate via a more practical service as well.

The brain trust over at the Washington Post wonders what New York City was like circa Mad Men times. Uh, it was only forty-six years ago. Part of the point of the series is a reflection on how prehistoric our sensibilities were despite a healthy percentage of the current population being alive at the time. But they are probably right, I’m pretty sure Dinosaurs ruled the streets, and to get a cab you first had to pull the tail of a Stegosaurus so he could hale one for you. Isn’t it suspicious how little of the show is actually held outside? Now you know why. Other than that, I hear it was pretty much the same.

A visual approximation. Truth be told no one knows what it was like.

SNL has experienced yet another ratings bump with Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin. At this point Fey is still basically a cast member of the series, and I can no longer deny her virtual comedy icon status, but I’m not really getting this impersonation. She looks and sounds like Palin, to be sure, but she never says anything all that funny. She just acts like Palin. Of course, there was the “lifeline” gag, but the connection is tepid at best. In fact it is just completely random. Why would Sarah Palin ask for a “lifeline” in the middle of an interview with Katie Couric? Because she is struggling so much with the interview? Isn’t there a better route to go with that other than a reference to a now archaic quiz show?

ZOMG you guys, you remember when the entire branch weighed itself in on The Office? Well, as it turns out, they used a real scale! I can’t believe it, instead of using a slightly elevated black platform that wasn’t a scale, they used a slightly elevated black platform that was. That’s what makes this series so funny, the taut realism of their props. Not just every series goes to such great lengths for their audience. That must’ve been a weight on the budget….A weight, get it? Man, I am priceless.

Paul Feig, most notably the creator of Freaks and Geeks, along with having directed and written for virtually every series we’ve ever watched including Arrested Development, The Office, Mad Men & Weeds, considers his career a failure. Oh boy, this is messy. We had a feeling this might happen, and not because Paul Feig is actually a failure, but because everyone around him is so immensely successful. If Freaks and Geeks had been released in 2004 instead of 1999, it would still be on air and he would be at the helm of this new comedy wave, instead of on the sidelines. Poor bastard.

This is fucking brilliant. HBO’s upcoming series set in the near future, Americatown, will explore the concept of Americans as immigrants when American equivalents of Chinatowns start going up all over the world. The one looming question I have is, don’t people generally go to McDonald’s or whatever landmarks of American culture because it is convenient and affordable? If they are secluded to these niche segments of a city, doesn’t that negate both advantages thus making them obsolete (at least in foreign countries)? Whatever, we don’t usually say this, but we are certainly looking forward to how this and the litany of deeper questions is tackled.

Chuck premiered last night, and it improved upon its fairly successful strike-shortened pilot season, says Alan Sepinwall. We respect Alan Sepinwall, but this series is one of the few we do not see eye to eye on. I mean, as far as fluff goes it is probably better than most. But we feel like there are enough series on television where we can watch some impotent little bitch mince through a plot, there isn’t any reason to go out of our way to watch just one of them when the character is virtually always the same person.

And finally, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be the halftime performance for the upcoming Superbowl in Tampa, FL. Unlike most of the country — or rather, the countless array of ESPN sports pundits — we have enjoyed this slew of classic rock artists for halftime. I know, I know, this is done to avoid anymore “nipple-gate” scenarios. And while we don’t like the all the additive precautions for the sake of placating the FCC, the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake performance, all nipples aside, was just idiotic. I know this sounds crazy, but I’d rather hear actual good, creative music than watch a bunch of dipshits perform choreographed dances. Regardless of how old said good, creative music may be.

Back tomorrow morning with something.

In case your life is so void of any source of enjoyment, responsibility or a career that lets you out of work in a timely fashion on Fridays, here are some links to close out this week. And yes, much like all of you, we are taking Monday off.

So apparently it is still news when someone famous agrees to a cameo on 30 Rock, and this time around it is Jennifer Aniston. We like and respect Miss Aniston (though we seem to be in the minority with that), but really couldn’t care less about her or anyone else going on Tina Fey’s hit series. It has reached a point now where it wouldn’t surprise us if Obama pops up on that show.

Just to be clear, we're not complaining about the selection.

Michael Phelps is set to host SNL (which will be a trainwreck) and make a cameo on Entourage. This isn’t surprising but still disappointing. The sooner he’s done with all his interviews and cameos and endorsements, the sooner we can all forget pretending to be interested in swimming. His accomplishments are impressive, but just the fact that there is swimming terminology occupying our brain is enough to question our internet surfing at work. Also, I bet there is about a 99% chance someone on Entourage (probably Ari) says something along the lines of, “hhhheeeyyy, the real life ‘Aquaman’”, to Phelps in his cameo. In fact, his entire cameo will be solely for that purpose.

Apparently perceived camaraderie from democratic politicians between them and the staff of The Daily Show has made it difficult for Jon Stewart’s minions to do their jobs. Their jobs being mocking politicians. Apparently they are under the impression that since Jon Stewart is a widely recognized as a democrat (and is most of the time), he doesn’t find them ridiculous. All I want to point to is this clip from Jon Oliver asking DNC patrons about the Clinton speech to disprove that theory. Anyhow, they are airing a Friday episode to cover all the histrionics from last night, we definitely recommend watching.

Nikki Finke wonders why NBC newsmen like Aaron Sorkin so much. Why she gives a shit, I have no idea. But without reading her paragraph about it I would guess that since The West Wing was on NBC, and they currently work for NBC, that they have met at wrap parties or whatever work related functions these people would meet at, befriended, and now they like each other. I know it sounds crazy, but it is this thing called forming platonic friendships that an awful lot of us sentients learn when we are three or four. We commence doing so for the next twenty years, then stop until we are married and platonic friends are the only moral outlet for human contact away from our intolerable spouses and professions.

So apparently it wasn’t official — which means we could have done something to prevent it and never did, which pisses us off to no end — but Chuck was just renewed for a second season. And thank God for that. We don’t have enough emasculated nitwits portrayed on television. Only on every sitcom and reality series. And most network dramas…but that is about it.

And finally, It’s Always Sunny now has a blog, and they recommend that you be over eighteen to enter. I would say require, but all they do is ask you to enter your birth date with three drop down boxes. Don’t get me wrong, teenagers are ridiculously stupid, but they are computer savvy. And while you or me and everyone over fifty might have trouble with this concept, your average teen can probably put the pieces together of clicking on the arrow, selecting a birth month, birth day and a fictional birth year to gain access. There are roughly ten posts there right now, we recommend all of them without having read a word of it.

That’s it for now, we’ll be back next Tuesday with a synopsis of everything that didn’t happen in television over the next three days.

Michael Strahan will make a cameo on Chuck, which apparently got renewed and we never were privy to this information, or else we heard about it, maybe even posted about it, but forgot because we don’t give a shit. Anyhow, based on the one episode we’ve watched of this show, I imagine that two things will happen during his cameo: 1) He will physically and/or verbally threaten Chuck’s best friend to hilarious results, because it is always funny when larger guys intimidate their smaller counterparts, and 2) He will make a pass at Chuck’s love interest, thus be a plot point for at least an entire episode.

Surely some pithy comment will be made about this as well.

Anyhow, I’m sure Mr. Strahan doesn’t mind doing these side gigs for a little extra cash, but it still has to stick in his craw that he probably doesn’t have a choice due to that egregious divorce settlement from awhile back. We imagine he brought a lot of the trouble onto himself, but unless he killed her mother there didn’t really seem to be much justification for the verdict that was rendered.

Still, at least when he retires he actually retires. None of this waffling Brett Favre nonsense that is perpetually in the news cycle annoying the bejesus out of me. Make all the cameos you want Michael, but if you could convince your friend to take a knee one more time, all of us outside of Wisconsin who follow this sort of thing would greatly appreciate it.

More later if anything else catches out eye.

A possibly redeeming episode of Nip Tuck last night, we’ll have to think about it over the course of the following week. We will say this: On a trash TV level, which is the only level the series has ever been enjoyable on, last night’s episode worked.

We’ll get to it in detail next Tuesday, onto the links…

Sounds like everyone approached yesterday’s strike negotiations with a level-head. This is huge, since the Hollywood crowd is seldom reasonable about anything. I envisioned more of a Larry David-Alan Wasserman type scenario.

In lieu of writers? Simple, bring back American Gladiators. I wonder if they’ll have any sort of reunion show, with all the original gladiators, Joe Theismann and the quintessential Italian stereotype in the jumpsuit explaining the nuance of the eliminator to us? Seriously, that guy with the slicked back hair has done more harm to the Italian/American perception than anything that ever happened on The Sopranos.

There better be a reincarnation of the game, preferably on the Wii.

Maybe you haven’t heard, but NBC has picked up Chuck and Life for full seasons. We watched about twenty minutes of the former since the pilot, and it consisted of Chuck and his friend acting completely pathetic with the female lead and some really bad actress brought in as one of the female lead’s coworkers (the names escape me). We don’t want to rush to judgment, so we’ll ask, has it gotten any better? Or has it at least improved within its own genre? We never watched Life but hear good things. Of course, those who watch Chuck have many laudatory comments as well, so read into that how you will.

The presidential hopefuls list their favorite series’ on television. Not sure who I’m voting for yet, but if I go blue the fact that Barack Obama is the only candidate who watches The Wire certainly doesn’t hurt his cause. We’ve always said that if Carcetti reminds us of anyone, it’s Obama. Given Obama is operating on a much larger scale, but the young, upstart politician giving all the veterans the business is essentially what the fictional Carcetti and non-fictional Obama have set out to do. Assuming the parallel is consistent, it’s only a matter of time before the windy city native is swallowed up by the dark side.

Just to illustrate how there is no rhyme or reason to the television industry, HBO grew in popularity after The Sopranos finale. Is it because Curb returned after a two year hiatus? We’re John From Cincinnati’s ratings misleading? Were people not aware that “Made In America” was David Chase’s series finale? No idea, but only the former makes an iota of sense.

We actually saw this live last Friday, and while we we’re amused by it, we found it surprising that the University of Colorado would be self-deprecating to the point of having Cartman mock their politics, which Trey Parker and Matt Stone have done several times on their series. If you include the win that afternoon, it was a great day for the people in Boulder.

And finally, has there ever been more in production banter about a movie than we’re experiencing with the Sex and the City theatrical debut? Honestly, they’re going to flame out with all the over-saturation.

Man, it’s shit like this that makes one thankful for football season. For the next couple weeks here, I’m going to try and subside my distaste for broadcast network television and review some pilots this fall. Today we’re looking at The Big Bang Theory and Chuck, we’ll try to get to Journeyman later. I am not too happy about any of this, but they should be easy to criticize, and the writing practically takes care of itself. Sorry for remembering so few names, but other than for the sake of this post, the motives were lacking.

First up, The Big Bang Theory, it centers on two guys walking around or sitting around their apartment discussing the scientifically trivial or their new neighbor, whom they’re all tongue-tied around because she’s an attractive blond. You know its going to be somewhat (or extremely) formulaic when they clarify that despite living together, they are, indeed, heterosexual. Homophobia, you crazy mensch, is there any mediocrity that you do not attempt to remedy?

Outside of two of the geeks friends that visit periodically, and an appearance from attractive neighbor’s ex-boyfriend (who steals the two geeks pants when they attempt to retrieve her television), this is your show. In short, I was tired of the gimmick before they rolled the credits.

Every actor in the pilot is familiar, but I can’t put any names to faces. All the jokes revolve around stereotypical geek or ditzy blond behavior. Hence why she is more oblivious of their awkwardness than seems humanly possible. The petty technical math debates are tedious and boring. The one, Kenny (I think) is entirely too socially inept and unwilling to adjust that it makes him hard to sympathize with, not to mention he’s walking around in his pajamas. The guy is giving a decent performance, but its so one note and relentless that at the eleven minute mark we’ve already decided to not watch this beyond the pilot.

The girl is too dense for words, the personality difference between her and the other two is too vast, meaning if they invited her over for lunch (as they did), she would have been conjuring up an excuse to leave within two minutes tops, not asking to shower at their apartment (as she did). There also isn’t any explanation why the two geeks would be friends with one another. They’re both geeks, but one is so much more socially ambitious than the other that I’d hope they eventually give some back story. Either way, the premise is so washed up and the humor is so repetitive that we probably won’t be around to find out. Is that shortsighted and unfair? Probably, but being shortsighted and unfair tends to save us a lot of time on writing.

At least it was only a half hour, because the only thing I was asking myself during Chuck is, “why the hell is this a full hour long?” It appears that this is an unpopular opinion, but while this show wasn’t nearly as detestable as Big Bang Theory, it certainly wasn’t something we were enamored with. Like, in any way.

For starters, The inconsistencies with Chuck (lead character) are abundant, and annoying. He dropped out of Stanford and lives with his sister, who’s a doctor, apparently. He seems to suffer a little anxiety when at a party where they explain the premise, but unlike the other two characters in Big Bang, he displays a certain degree of social aptitude and normalcy that contradicts his lifestyle, until he goes off on a tangent about his ex-girlfriend. His Brother-in-law or whatever (could be boyfriend to sister) is a complete meat head, essentially an aging frat boy scampering around saying things like “not awesome” or “awesome”. He’s a doctor as well, meaning these doctors are all of the Grey’s Anatomy variety (Has anyone working on these shows ever even met a doctor?).

Chuck’s former college roommate who stole his girlfriend (and apparently the sole reason for Chuck’s apathy five years later) is now a highly trained assassin for some government agency. We are introduced to him leaping off buildings and what have you, it seems like he’s going to be a pivotal part of this series, but dies after sending an email to Chuck, that somehow uploads numerous Government secrets into his brain. Yes, I’m serious.

After watching that action sequence, the setting and tone of the series is dull. Like a cross between Life of Brian and 24, two shows existences that I’m publicly opposed to. This series is created by Josh Schwartz, so maybe replacing Life of Brian with OC would be more apt. Either way, the reaction is not a positive one. All of the technical aspects of this pilot, combined with the theme song (that anxiety inducing “bong-with-the-bong-di bang-da-bang-boogie” track) that is in every “hip” movie and television show nowadays that this series plays ad nauseam, I was ready to switch over to the Monday night game.

Some of the scenes I was put off by: there was a really weird interlude where Chuck films a girl-ballerina dancing in the store because her dad forgot to put digital film in camcorder at her recital. The entire scene seemed like a contrivance put in place for the female agent (who was looking on and Chuck was unaware of her at the time) to see what a great guy Chuck is. There was an odd scene with Chuck dancing with the agent (whom he still believed to be nothing more than a date) where he’s all lightheaded or something, and she is impaling people with sharp objects she pulls off her person without him noticing.

It’s fucking bizarre, and hence the 24 reference. The show requires me to suspend too much disbelief to take seriously. And if its not completely offbeat like the two aforementioned scenes, it’s a textbook cliche (is that redundant?). Like, for example, a scene atop a parking garage with guns drawn between the CIA, the NSA, and Chuck figuring out what’s happening to him as everyone goes full disclosure to avoid any bloodshed. This is spliced with scenes of a military lecturer who’s about to be assassinated and Chuck somehow sees all of these plans through the information that has been downloaded in his brain. He’s like the male equivalent of the robot or whatever from Weird Science. I am guessing by episode seven of this series it all turns out to be some sort of conspiracy orchestrated by the white house.

There are a few lame running gags, including the one about Chuck’s best friend/coworker having a crush on his married to a fellow doctor sister. He was by far my favorite character throughout the hour, the only time I laughed was when Chuck was walking towards his boss to put in his notice for a promotion with some dramatic “showdown” type music playing, and we discover its Chuck’s friend that has turned up a stereo in the store, when he turns the music off. It even made me look past the fact that Chuck was applying for a promotion immediately after discovering he’s now working on call with the CIA.

Chuck is in deep with nary a confidante

With a series like Chuck, the appeal is understandable. In the same vein as Heroes or 24 or Lost, they seem to substitute quality acting and writing, and logic; with lightheartedness and physical attractiveness. This has all the makings of a series that will score a large Nielsen rating, but it’s just not for us, despite our favoritism for NBC over their three primary competitors.

Back with some links tomorrow, maybe a word or two about some other new series’.