Grid Effect

A few more links to close out the week. It’s kind of absurd how top-heavy our TV viewing is: Two series’ on Sunday, one on Monday and one on Tuesday, then nothing Wednesday-Saturday; and that’s likely not going to change anytime soon. I hate the site being so monolithic and then just changing pace for the second half of the week, but we’re not dictating the terms ’round here. Unless something unusual arises, expect this pace on Grid Effect to continue until It’s Always Sunny starts up.

Onto some links…

Here’s Jeremy Piven saying “fuck” on CNN’s web site. Oh no, someone cursed on the interwebs? What’s happened to us?! Anyways, I’d expect a media shitstorm over this if he had been on, say, Larry King or something equally reputable; because he’s Jeremy Piven and everyone hates his guts these days. But not even the most sanctimonious prick can get worked up about someone cursing on a streaming internet video. Please tell me I’m right about this.

Big news coming out of HBO’s media day or whatever it’s called in television. To summarize, Hung, True Blood and Entourage were all renewed (no surprise considering that all three of them are dramatically moving the dial), Treme isn’t going to premiere until August, and a second season of Life and Times of Tim is in production stages but they haven’t decided where to schedule it. The two series’ that are still waiting to hear where they stand: The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency and Flight of The Conchords.

The latter of which is likely to come back for a third season, though I didn’t even realize they were seeking a renewal. Last I heard, –and kind of just assumed because the series ended with Bret and Jemaine doing a “Stomp” like rendition in New Zealand– they were undecided if they wanted to do a third season, since I don’t think they ever regarded themselves as TV people, as evidenced by Bret Mackenzie’s non-satirical band, The Black Seeds. At least I think it isn’t satire.

Heard this in Breaking Bad episode, “4 Days Out”; season two, episode nine. Turns out it goes well with a montage for cooking meth.

For those who actually give a shit (read: the pitiable and disenfranchised), John and Kate return next week, and Kate’s going to don a bikini at some point. Great! Even more reason not to watch. They need to make more of an effort to render this show unwatchable, if just to save us from Satan’s embrace.

Larry David said that the Seinfeld cast members will appear sporadically throughout the upcoming season, scheduled to premiere on September 20th. He said it’s possible that they’ll touch on Michael Richards’…incident at The Laugh Factory from a couple years ago. I don’t really see how they can miss an opportunity like this if Larry is still living with the Blacks. It was almost tailer-made for him to put into a television show.

Here’s a study profiling average usage in cable, and reportedly 22% of us are substituting online viewing for it, either cutting back on costs or canceling it altogether. What a revelation. I never would have thought that when you made the exact same viewing experience available through other mediums at a discounted rate, people would actually take advantage of it.

And finally, it has been reported…I don’t know how many times, but I can’t recall if we ever brought it up or not: you will not see fictional Ray Drecker’s fictional penis anytime soon on Hung. I understand this is a big disappointment or relief for a lot of you, and to both parties I would like to say that you’re the reason I never feel bad when I don’t leave my house all weekend. I guess I should thank you for the excuse.

Have a good weekend, we’ll be back on Monday with the standard recaps.

Last night’s episode represented the best and worst of what Entourage has ever had to offer. For instance, their was a heavy emphasis on Ari mentoring not only Eric but also Turtle. This speaks to some sort of character development the series has been severely lacking since pretty much the second season. At the same time, however, there are numerous lapses in logic, unnecessarily hurried plot points (ones that in the past have never been touched on again) and a vast array of unbearably awful “comedy” moments and boring “how great are our lives?” extended scenes.

Let’s start with what was enjoyable: Turtle deciding to branch out on his own. They’ve attempted and failed to do this on several occasions (Rufus’ daughter and Saigon being the most notable), who would’ve thought that all it would take to get him properly motivated was set him up with a millionaire actress. Anyways, I would love to see them follow through on this as it would bring a new plot and hopefully derive a broader scope of humor for a series desperately in need of a revival, but there isn’t any reason for me to think this will actually happen.

It also begs the question: why would Turtle all of a sudden feel uncomfortable mooching off of Vince? Because he’s dating Meadow Soprano? If anything you’d think he would consider that liberating. I mean, at least he’d be mooching off someone that would be considered more conventional than a platonic high school friend. Vince doesn’t play in the NBA, after all. I’m also not sure why he’d interpret both his friend and girlfriend getting him a car as “thinking he’s a loser”. In short, there was just so much bewildering about it that I was distracted by the bigger picture: Turtle is finally going to attempt to regain control of his own life. But in the Entourage universe, that has tended to mean they’ll touch on it a couple more times five and nine weeks later before abandoning the plot altogether.

Eric had the other dominant storyline this week, and he too relied on going to Ari for help instead of the three friends who never offer anything constructive, but it seems like he should have been able to keep Charlie on his own series behind the camera if not in front of it. I mean, it was his show that tested so high. One would think that would count for something. Personally I think E should figure out how to get his The Crush-esque love interest off his back. Not that she’s especially annoying or anything, but since she’s clearly lying about her age (as is the actress’s IMDB page), it would be wise to seek some mentoring on that front. Her juvenile descriptions of why she doesn’t like Charlie are just emphasizing her young appearance. It’s also a little ironic, since “I don’t like her” is exactly how I would describe the actresses presence on this show so far. He needs to get back to bedding women like Holly Valance and casting needs to get their shit together.

That was pretty much the bulk of the episode with the only redeeming scenes both involving Jeremy Piven. Kevin Connolly and Jerry Ferrara managed to hold their own, but then they took Ari’s sound advice out into the world, we got Eric’s remarkably weak, “well maybe you’re racist” line delivered to the TV exec; and Turtle’s revelation that he’s taking business courses at UCLA. But no explanation of how he’s finagling his way into a competitive business college, other than Jamie Lynn-Sigler might be willing to donate enough money for his enrollment (that’s just my assumption).

Other notes from this episode with the ridiculous title I refuse to retype:

-I actually think the best scene that encompassed Turtle’s sudden self-consciousness was 50 Cent’s cameo, which was unusually good for any a series that thrives on shitty cameos.

-Is there a specific reason Drama’s lines are written worse and worse and with less efficacy? God, that line about E being too small for anyone to find was brutal.

-It’ll be interesting to see if they keep Charlie in the storyline. For a series that regularly packs too much fluff into its seasons, for them to put emphasis on the “Murphy Group” would be enjoyable, but I doubt it happens.

They didn’t follow up with Ari and Andrew at all (in fact we didn’t even see Andrew), and outside of a couple throwaway remarks we didn’t get any development with Ari and Lloyd. I will say that one theme we enjoyed is Ari appears to be playing an even larger role this season, which is always a step in the right direction. He’s not really what the series is supposed to be predicated on, but keeping the series fresh is the top priority. If he’s going to be a life coach for all four members of the “Entourage” and it’s the best they have to offer, then by all means, it’s better than watching Eric and Turtle bemoan shit that people in their respective positions just do without consultation.

Back tomorrow with Weeds and Rescue Me recaps.

Well, this was an improvement but it simply isn’t great (or even all that good) television. Not that I’m expecting it to be, at least their was some new material here with Andrew and Ari, but every scene with Mrs. Ari (just give her a first fucking name already) and Andrew’s wife were cringe-worthy. Not to be all oddly feminist or anything but you can always tell when a writer’s room is overloaded with men when scenes like the one with them drinking after a “mani-pedi” are produced from them.

As usual, though, the best material came from Miller-Gold and not the Vince Chase camp. The notion of fraternizing with underlings has always been joked about on this show but never broached, and some sort of conflict regarding Andrew was inevitable since he’s getting so much camera time, I just happened to guess wrong as to what it would be. Also, expect to see Lizzie (do 26 year-old aspiring agents working for powerful Hollywood agencies often refer to themselves as “Lizzie”) having a more prominent role in upcoming episodes, as she’s played by Autumn Reeser, who is supposedly someone people have heard of before.

But from “the boys” side of things, I’m just not that interested unless it involves work in some capacity. I like looking at Emmanuele Chirqui, but I couldn’t care less about Sloane and Eric’s relationship. Vince’s love life is back to being superfluous, just like it should be and Drama was especially douche-y last night (though I liked Kevin Connolly’s take to Drama’s date inviting him for a threesome).

If this show is going to start to focus so heavily on their relationships, about the only one redeemable at the moment is Jamie-Lynn and Turtle, and I’m pretty fucking certain that’s only because the two actors are also dating (it doesn’t hurt that Jerry Ferrara is arguably the best actor of the four of them and Turtle is easily the least developed character). Am I alone in this or there actually people who care what’s exchanged between Eric and Sloane? I guess if the alternative is Eric dating his thirteen year-old neighbor, then yes, I care quite a bit.

Honestly, who made that casting decision? Did they think it would go unnoticed if they paired Eric off with the girl from Boy Meets World? There are things about this series that are simply bewildering at times, and this is one of them.

I get the feeling that’s going to be the dominant theme this season, seeing as how everyone’s career is oh so successful at the moment, all we have on our plate is the respective love lives of the entourage and Ari’s reaction to whatever transpires with Andrew and Lloyd at Miller Gold. Which isn’t terrible television, but its not all that inspired either, specifically since we know that none of this will permanently afflict our core cast of characters. If the show was funnier, then we could forgive it, but it’s rarely as funny as it thinks it is, so we need some more substance, writers.

Hung recap later.

No television to recap and that’s kind of a good thing. For how irregularly we post on this site yesterday was a fucking marathon. Here are a few links, because we have nothing else to write about. Sorry, we didn’t watch Rescue Me last night, I was too busy losing another basketball game. We only lost by fourteen this time, that’s a considerable improvement over the 98-54 drubbing from the week before. Seriously, we’re like the fucking Bad News Bears out there. That’s probably why I’m mailing it in today, I’m fucking depressed that a fourteen point loss is a good news.

For all you hopeless romantics out there, I have some bad news: David Alan Grier is getting divorced. I would make a “if these kids can’t make it, what hope is there for the rest of us” joke, but honestly,  if the star of Little Man can’t hold a marriage together, we might as well all just give up. What a tragic day this was when it broke last Thursday. I almost feel like I knew about it at the time.

Some endeavors weren't as successful as others.

Well, if nothing else, HBO’s upcoming Jack Kevorkian biopic is going to have as strong of a cast as any HBO original in ever made: first Al Pacino and now Susan Sarandon and John Goodman. Sarandon’s a good actress but her and her non-husbands reactionary politics drive me fucking crazy. Goodman, on the other hand, is probably one of my favorite character actors around. Ever since Dan Connor and Walter Sobchak he gets a pass for life. And if you don’t know who those characters are, then we can’t be friends.

Richard Hatch’s request to be let out of prison in time for another Survivor reunion has been denied. How long was his sentence? Is this starting to seem excessive to anyone else? For the time he got he might as well have tried to rob a bank. Maybe since I never saw what a prick he was in the two season’s he’s already competed in I want to see him out of prison. It seems like anyone would since it’s, you know, a game show. But some people apparently become incensed by these things.

Take a good look, because it's the last time she'll be on this site for awhile.

It’s amazing and refreshing to see how open Friday Night Lights is with their “spoilers”. Here you can read descriptions and motives of four new characters for the upcoming fourth season that wasn’t supposed to ever take place. To be honest, I hate how these descriptions read, but I generally hate reading anything sincere, so don’t listen to my interpretation of it. I’m embarrassed enough that I enjoy watching the show.

Reason number 523,476 I can’t stand what American television is slowly devolving into: tourists in LA are going in droves to reality television locales. I don’t care if it’s because they’re with kids who want to see where The Hills stars hang out or if they know people on any of these shows or if they’re drooling morons, I can’t think of a single solitary reason to regard anything described in that article as being an attraction to someone on vacation. For fuck’s sake, hit up Hermosa beach or go to a sporting event or any of the plethora of options there are for someone visiting LA.

FX picked up prime time animated series Archer, which is basically satire on the world a James Bond inhabits (trailer here). FX continues to be the best basic cable network for original programming in terms of quality, availability and options. AMC’s series’ are better, but with only two of them in rotation it’s hard not to give the nod to FX.

And finally, despite what I may think about True Blood and the Entourage season premiere, it looks like HBO is back on top of the original programming world (note: it isn’t basic cable), at least in terms of ratings. I’m not sure if its quite surpassed Showtime in quality (we still like Weeds and as stated ad nauseum before, Dexter is incredibly flawed but has some great energy and uniqueness), , I think we might have to wait until Curb returns and Treme premieres, but at least they’re in the conversation.

Back tomorrow, probably with more links.

We meant to post this last night but we were too busy at work to do it there, then had numerous tedious fucking little errands to run, then forgot we agreed to dog-sit for a friend whose out of town. In other words, we didn’t have time to watch Weeds either, so we figured we’d just post twice today, then we woke up this morning and realized we completely forgot about Rescue Me. What I’m trying to say is, expect three posts today and some links tomorrow.

To the topic at hand, now. You might have been able to ascertain that we weren’t too enamored with the season six premiere on Sunday, but it really wasn’t anything wrong with that specific episode. I think it’s more a construct of the series, in that it doesn’t really have anywhere interesting to go.

If I'm watching this nonsense I'm at least posting pictures like this of their guest stars.

That episode was your standard Entourage episode. Some mundane shit happened, they cracked fairly horrendous jokes about it and something quasi-serious happened that no one in the audience should take seriously because they lead such an absurd life of privilege. Oh noes, Vince has to live by himself  sometimes when Turtle’s fucking Meadow Soprano! It’s just like that time when Bubbles accidentally drugged Sherrod in season four.

Point being, this show isn’t ever going to be able to work on a long term basis as a drama, because the four guys aren’t terribly likable and there isn’t much at stake. Ever. It’s either, “will Vince get the next big movie role?” or “will our lead characters be driven apart by some riff in the group or extemporaneous circumstances?” Needless to say that after five full seasons I’ve begun to lose most interest.

So I can tune into see the standard Ari Gold conflict resolution, or maybe I’m not giving the writers enough credit and they’ll produce a decent multi-episode arc or self-contained episode from time-to-time. But the well on the former seems all washed up and the latter tends to be their worst efforts. Was there a real clamoring in the Entourage audience to see Vince get his driver’s license? Is anyone interested in any potential romance on this show? Does anyone honestly give a shit?

We did get Ari putting the screws to a rightfully petulant Lloyd over his non-promotion. I like the  portion of the episode, but isn’t any Ari-Lloyd sub-plot supposed to take a backseat in a show called Entourage? It’s not supposed to be the reason I’m tuning in. But anyhow, I’m about 100% certain that Ari is going to have to fire Andrew and potentially end up replacing him with Lloyd. Or replacing him with someone else in-office that frees up a position for Lloyd.

Either way, I feel like I’ve written enough about a series that we’ve been waffling on for about two seasons now. In fact I feel like I’ve written enough about this episode, which was not only uninteresting and uneven, it was also outdated (Leno still hosting Tonight Show, My Name Is Earl still being on the air? The latter is forgivable the former is just lazy).

With that in mind, we’ll give it four more episodes to decide whether or not this is worth recapping. Because with Weeds being as good as it has been lately and Hung showing a lot of promise, we’re just not that interested in writing about or watching Entourage every week.

Weeds recap later.

Here’s a few links to end the day. We wanted to get to it before tomorrow but we’ve watched the first three seasons of Dexter because we’ve been completely and utterly bored for the past three weeks. And we plan on going through every single shortcoming and limitation that the series offers, so be sure to tune in for that. I won’t say I hated everything about it, but with the exception of Lost it is by far and away my least favorite critically acclaimed scripted series (24 is in the running as well).

So yeah, if you never get tired of listening to us complain about why something isn’t better than it is, come on by tomorrow. Until then, here are some news items.

Here’s a new trailer for the upcoming season on Sons of Anarchy. Have we decided if this show is any good or not? And how is it good? Is Wire good (with complex plots and sound character structure) or Lost good (with brainless storylines and easy twists that rarely payoff)? Either way, I feel like I should know more about Sons of Anarchy than I do, but I haven’t seen anything to reel me in, including this trailer.

Doug Ellin says of the new season of Entourage, which premieres this upcoming Sunday, that the characters begin to evolve this year. He says he wanted to reinvent the show without changing, which is a complete fucking oxymoron, because I’m pretty sure that when you reinvent something it changes quite a bit. I can’t turn a fan into a garbage disposal, but if I could I’m pretty sure it would be considered “changed”. Because it would dispose of garbage instead of providing a cool breeze in a warm room. Illiteracy aside, Doug Ellin saying the characters will “grow” should be a good sign for anyone who wanted Entourage to turn into something substantive, which I don’t think it was ever supposed to be. Still, if it gets us away from episodes like “Tree Trippers“, us apologists will be all the better for it.

My interest is piqued.

Here’s Jimmy Fallon performing at the White House for a fourth of July celebration for veterans and their families. He’s mildly awkward but affable and just does what Jimmy Fallon tends to do these days: endear people to him. We’re more interested in the fact that Michelle Branch was there, because where did she go and did she take Norah Jones and every other brunette vocalist from that two year period with her?

I’m pretty sure the Shakespeare wrote the phrase, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much” specifically for people and entities like NBC, who are once again pimping their ratings. This time it’s with The Tonight Show. I don’t know why anytime they score a decent Nielsen they feel the need to send out a fucking press release about it, but it’s starting to get embarrassing. As much as it pains me to say, CBS doesn’t have time to let the world know every time they get a hit show. That should probably tell them somethng.

This is why I was concerned about Schwarzenegger winning the Governorship in California: first Al Franken gets elected to the Senate, now Alec Baldwin is contemplating running for Congress (and makes the announcement in Playboy). It’s bad enough that politicians seem to prioritize being famous and cult of personality over policy and efficacy, now they’ve diverted so far away from the goal that the people they’re trying too ill-advisedly trying to emulate are taking their jobs.

If you’re a fan of Dollhouse –and lord knows there’s dozens of you– here’s a scene from the “lost” episode. I didn’t watch it because I’m not interested in or intrigued by Dollhouse, but I like the idea of not airing a television show for business reasons then calling it “lost”. I think other corporations should enforce this policy, like when McDonald’s brings the McRib back, they should call it the “lost McRib”, because no one really knows what happened to it. Though I don’t think there’s a marketing gimmick in existence that could make me eat a McRib or watch a lost or found episode of Dollhouse.

And finally, the Michael Jackson memorial could have been watched by roughly a billion people. I have no idea how this shit is measured on an international scale, but I completely believe it. This basically puts Michael Jackson’s death on par with the World Cup, an international event between two countries vying for the title of best nation of the most popular sport in the world. If anything, that’s the legacy that Michael Jackson leaves: some kid from Gary, Indiana becomes the most famous yet controversial entertainer the world has seen.

Back tomorrow with the Dexter hammering and a nightly preview.

Few notes before we get to the links. First off, we’re not going to be posting twice today like we suggested yesterday. For whatever reason, it alluded us that this is 4th of July weekend and we have a myriad of friends and family in town. So, consider this our last post until the sixth.

Secondly, we finished watching Breaking Bad’s strike shortened first season last night and holy shit, what an unbelievable series thus far. We’ve expressed our adulation for it earlier this week, but Bryan Cranston has somehow improved in the role and is deserving of any accolades that come his way. This is just my opinion but he trumps Jon Hamm for alpha-male of AMC. I’ve always lauded Hamm’s performance, but never really thought he was doing anything we haven’t seen before. I can’t say the same for Cranston, whose demonstrating as much range as any actor on television. I’ve even come around on Aaron Paul, who we weren’t too fond of in the first three episodes but has come into his own, and the rapport between him and Cranston is approaching that of Wendell Pierce and Dominic West on The Wire.

You can tell the series was adversly effected by the writer’s strike, as things we’re going at a snail’s pace for the first four episodes and just accelerated in the last two. We managed to go from Walter opting out of chemo and the drug game, to selling pounds of meth and accepting treatment. There haven’t been any significant leaps of faith except for maybe Pinkman’s enlightenment into the finer points of cooking, but that is a minor squabble. After just seven episodes, we’re ready to put this one on the mantle with Mad Men. The writing, the pacing, the stories and side characters and subtle humor and poignant dramatic moments all are executed impeccably.

It’s a damn shame we’ve been recapping Weeds instead of this, but we’ve come to realize we have a difficult time watching two different drama series’ back-to-back and this followed The Wire episodes, “Not For Attribution”. Naturally, it’s AMC’s fault for premiering their groundbreaking new series while the best drama of all time that regularly attracted less than one million viewers was in its final season. As long as someone else is being blamed for this travesty that isn’t me, that’s how I role.

Onto the links.

We've posted this before, but it warrants the extra attention.

Kristen Bell says she doubts that a Veronica Mars film will ever be made. I don’t really care. I’m not even sure I know what a Veronica Mars is. It could be a candy bar for all I know, but it presents the very appealing option of posting this picture off to the left, and that’s an opportunity we simply couldn’t pass up. Not to say she isn’t a good actress or that we should count Veronica Mars against her, but let’s be honest, no one is going to complain about that picture, either.

In other impossibly attractive women news, for all who like Sloane on Entourage: she’s going to be featured a lot more than she has been the past couple seasons. This is a great development for the eye candy quotient, as it’s been waning in the past couple years. But the show has been accused a number of times for rehashing the same material over and over and over again (a charge I can’t really refute, but I think it’s cyclical like just about everything else on television). Eh, this upcoming season is the one that could really tip the scales on our perennial waffling with this series, we might have to quit apologizing for it.

It’s official, Neil Patrick Harris is the host of the 2009 Emmys. Is it customary for a potential nominee to double as a host for an awards show? I hate to respond to a question with a question, but I believe the correct answer is, “who cares?” I’m fine with the choice even though I’m not completely on board with his cult following. They could have and certainly have done a lot worse.

And finally, upon the news that Al Franken has finally won the senate seat in Minnesota, the question arises of who is going to play him on SNL? Have we had a good impression on SNL since Darrell Hammond left (question: Has Darrell Hammond left SNL?). That show isn’t exactly stacked with Mike Miejers’ and Phil Hartman’s these days. In that respect I guess it really doesn’t matter. I’m sure it will be hilarious when someone comes onto stage and begins screaming insanely as their Franken impression.

Alright, that’s it for the week. Have a festive and enjoyable fourth, we’ll be back on Monday with a Hung recap and we’ll finally get to those nightly previews.

Just a few words before we get into the links. It is long overdue but we started watching the first season of Breaking Bad this past weekend, and I have to tell you, it’s every bit as good as advertised, if not better. Just like Hung and Weeds, Breaking Bad is about a middle (or in Nancy’s case, upper-middle) class parent forced into circumventing the state and breaking what some might call overly-litigious laws.

In the case of Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), his background in chemistry and recent terminal cancer diagnosis have led him to the point that the only way he can make enough money to provide for his family for after he’s gone, is to produce and distribute crystal meth. He’s probably correct, but after the first few episodes I’ve seen (3), he definitely regrets the decision.

I don’t want to get into a dissertation about this show, but from what we’ve seen of this, Hung and Weeds, Breaking Bad is the best amongst them. It combines dark comedy and drama even better than Hung and manages to produce more laughs per minute than Weeds, which is the most comedy-centric of the three, or at least it strives to be. In short, we highly recommend renting or netflix-ing or purchasing the first season and DVR’ing the second when AMC replays it, if it suits you like it suits me.

Onto some links…

Since it is now fashionable to mock Entourage ever since that College Humor video (or really since the series premiered five years ago), here’s yet another comedy troop taking some pot shots at the HBO series. I don’t have any audio so I can’t really watch it, but I’m sure it’s hilarious. It’s so subversive to ridicule a series that no one seems to like.

AMC has put together three new promos for season three. And when they say “promos for season three” they actually mean “montages of seasons one and two”. I would say this was disappointing, but I still watched and enjoyed them. All of them except for the romance promo, which couldn’t have tried to turn the series into a tabloid headline any more than it did.

For all those who might care — and I know there’s a lot of you — Lost has added a new episode for their final season, bringing the grand total to eighteen. See, this is why I don’t think that series is structured nearly as tightly as all the fans and producers lead me to believe. I mean, I could just watch an episode on occasion and deduct that much, but when you’re actively adding new episodes before production of the final season, you can’t really claim David Simon levels of planning.

If I get drunk I might end up recording an episode...

Drea De Matteo, whom you may remember as Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos, is joining the cast of Desperate Housewives. At least now fans have one justification for watching that show, assuming they’re attracted to women, that is. Otherwise I have no explanation for you. You’re making a trash prime time soap opera into a series that some manage to regard as not only commercially but also critically successful. So yeah, feel free to stop watching anytime now.

We suggested as much in our review of the pilot and last week in a links post, but it’s now official, between True Blood and Hung, HBO is experiencing a long overdue resurgence. By my estimation, these are the first two new series’ they’ve created since 2004 that has garnered any commercial appeal (sex and vampires will do that), but when you have names like Alexander Payne, Alan Ball, Dmitry Limpkin and Jane Adams attached to them you’re going to be on the receiving end of some critical praise as well. It’s not The Wire, Sopranos, Deadwood and Curb in its prime, but it’s enough to rival AMC as best original programming (and will surpass it come this fall).

FX has released their premiere dates, and the one we’re preoccupied with, obviously, is It’s Always Sunny, which is returning on September 17th. That’s three days short of a full ten months on hiatus after the fourth season finale, so we can either expect to see the best season yet (because it’s been carefully crafted) or the worst season yet (because they are running thin on ideas and had to settle on this final product). I can’t wait to have comedic sociopaths back on my television, it makes the week seem so much more tolerable.

In other FX news, Denis Leary is resisting the urge to create a Rescue Me movie. Upon hearing this my first reaction was, who the fuck wants to see that? My second reaction was, cling to that urge, Denis. I will say this, however, last nights episode was a drastic improvement over the week before.

I don’t buy this shit for a minute, but it is rumored that Simon Cowell could earn up to $144 million for next year’s American Idol season. Because you can’t just get anyone to criticize a bunch high school wannabes, you have to get one of those people who do the “I Love The ___” shows on VH1. Or you can pay Cowell nine figures. I can see the logic. I mean, I guess he brings in viewers, but I’m still stunned as to how. Just have Triumph come in and the guy will probably do it for about a 100th of that, and people will still watch, and whatever money you might lose from advertisers would be gained in not paying some blowhard $143 million more than he’s worth.

Rescue Me was outstanding last night, much in the same way it’s been before the last two episodes. Beyond that we didn’t really watch any television outside of Daily Show, and Stewart, once again, just bitch slapped all three cable news networks; which is always a feel good moment for the folks. I liked the nervous, forced laughter when he’s taking MSNBC to task.

It makes sense, I imagine there’s a considerable conflict of interests when the person you’ve been trained like a Pavlovian dog to laugh at/with every time he makes an innocuous comment/gesture/facial expression, is now lacing into hackneyed political pundits that align with your ideology. With any luck, they’ll be ruined forever.

Here’s an article wondering why the new CBS procedural drama, Three Rivers, is set in Pittsburgh and not LA. Yeah, why aren’t there more shows set in LA.? That city hardly ever gets any recognition in pop-culture. It just seems so unfair that cities like Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City are always reaping their mid-market status. What about the LA’s, the NYC’s and the Chicago’s? Won’t somebody think of the three biggest markets in the country?!

If you were looking to pinpoint a reason why you disliked Entourage but couldn’t find the words to summarize your contempt, this video does quite well. It’s obviously an over-simplification, but that’s what makes it so funny.

This is basically the entire show.

Somehow, some way, True Blood is bringing in HBO’s best ratings since The Sopranos. For commercial appeal, both rely pretty heavily on sex and violence, so it isn’t exactly a mystery why either of them draw high Nielsen’s, but I am amazed at Americans tolerance and never-ending infatuation for vampire/zombie stories. There’s a few of them out there, from what I hear. If you combine all the film and television installments, they’re basically cop dramas at this point. God, I can’t wait for Treme, Curb, Hung, Boardwalk Empire, and Ribbon of Dreams start up so I can pretend that this and a sabotaged episode of a Joe Buck talk show aren’t the most redeeming qualities for the once great pay cable network.

Well, well, well, looks like ABC is now going inside the Obama White House. Better pucker up FOX, or before you know it the only people watching your network will…probably be the same embittered bunch that already make you by far the highest rated network. As you were.

This is some great news: congress is putting in motion a plan to lower the volume of TV ads. You know how you can be watching, say, Friday Night Lights, and the episode goes into commercial which you don’t really think anything of, only to hear the sonic boom that is a Chevy truck ad because for whatever reason, the decibel level they air the commercial with is ten times that with which they film the show you’re watching. I can’t tell you how overdue this is. My father, god bless him, listens to the television in his house at about the 65 mark. I can on average hear everything thoroughly at about 24. That’s damn near three times louder than most need the television to be. Anything to lower the overall volume whenever I visit is greatly appreciated.

And so the fallout from Artie Lange’s appearance on Joe Buck Live begins. Most notably in him telling an HBO executive to go fuck himself, and reportedly being banned from Conan’s Tonight Show. Yeah, how dare he be subversive on HBO coming from Howard Stern. Seriously, am I missing something here? Even if you don’t like Lange’s brand of low-brow humor he at least made the show watchable. If HBO didn’t want a scene, they shouldn’t have invited on a comedian who’s known for his hatred of their new show host.

And finally, Conan O’Brien first netted Larry David (whom outside of a Top Ten list on Letterman, I don’t think I’ve ever seen do a talk show) for last night, and has Kobe Bryant as a guest tonight. If you’re a fan of watching athletes and entertainers try entirely too hard to be affable and down-to-earth, I suggest you tune in.

Maybe a few more links later.

Kind of busy at work dealing with the fallout from an audit, so naturally we’re a little later on this then we’d care to be. What do you want from me, though? The only way to avoid circumstances like this would be to quit my job. Wait a second…that’s not a half bad idea. Then I could live out my dream of hunting leprechauns in the northeast. Most of the sitings are in Vermont but I’m certain their just crossing in from Massachusetts.

Anyway, enough of those pipe dreams, everyone knows my generation won’t be able to retire until we’re in our late 60’s, nor will we see a dime of social security I would use to pay for my bow ‘n arrow set with fairy dust tips. Let’s just doll out some links.

Exclusive photos from the third season of "Mad Men". They're making a few...changes.

Here’s a profile piece on Elizabeth Moss (Peggy from Mad Men). Nothing terribly enlightening but apparently she was in the Broadway production Speed The Plow (which made some headlines with Jeremy Piven leaving due to Mercury poisoning), she is in an upcoming Judd Apatow flick and is married to Fred Armisen from SNL. Between all this and her work on the best show on television, she’s quickly becoming a seven degree-r.

Multiple videos of Dwight Schrute’s best moments, since we regard him as the best character on the show it seemed link-worthy. Also, is it bad that we’re already feeling nostalgic for The Office, regardless of our ambivalence about the finale? It can’t be a good thing.

Entourage adds more guest “stars” to the sixth season. I’m just going to start referring guest “stars” on Entourage as “flare”, because the emphasis on style and pizazz over substance has become jarring, even for a show about Hollywood. Also, the quotations around the word stars is necessary, since one of them is the guy from Eli Stone, one from Prison Break and the other is James Caan’s kid. I think you understand where we’re coming from on this.

HBO news regarding Hung and Treme, also they’re considering canceling In Treatment. To which we reply please don’t toy with me HBO. If you can get rid of all your series’ that revolve around overwrought conversations about uninteresting characters we’d be eternally grateful.

If this photo of Stephen Colbert in a camouflage three-piece suit doesn’t brighten up your day, then I’m afraid you can’t be helped.

And finally, a couple of bad reviews for the upcoming season of Weeds. With just reading the headlines and not the actual article (do you want these links or not?), it seems they’re generally complaining about the same thing I am: the series has over-extended itself. Unless Doug and Andy are walking around smoking it, the usage and sale of marijuana is barely even a blip on the radar anymore. Now we have human and cocaine trafficking to operate the screen while we are expected to root for a woman who’s responsible (indirectly or otherwise) for the deaths of several characters.

But we’re supposed to forgive her because…she’s an attractive 40-something widow with two sons? Its never really been explained why we shouldn’t want to see her dead. Still, regardless of how uneven and flawed we find the series to be now, we’re doing everything we can to find a place to watch it. If we’re so fortunate we’ll probably stick around for Nurse Jackie as well. But I have my limits to how far I’m willing to go. As is the norm in these situations, I don’t allow kissing. NO exceptions.

We spent all night watching television, but that isn’t as pathetic as it might seem since My Boys put us to sleep last night. Like, literally, put us too sleep. To give you an idea of how bad it was, we haven’t fallen asleep pre 11PM since before we were sixteen, when we couldn’t drive anywhere. It was truly an awful half hour of television and was probably the best example we can think of that this series was created by a woman whose never actually seen men talk to each other.

Rescue Me continued its run of strong episodes (though dipped a little bit from the week before) and they finally gave Sheila some substance for the first time in roughly…three seasons. It seems she exists in the series now for some reason other than agitating Tommy, which is all we ever asked for. But for the sake of consistency we’re going to wait six days for our recap of that. For the time being, here are some links.

If anyone ever had any doubt about HBO’s intentions with David Simon’s new series, it is now official: HBO has ordered nine episodes of Treme. No word on when it’s going to air but that doesn’t really matter. We now have a drama that provides incentive for us to have HBO that isn’t a sports documentary. ‘Tis a good day, indeed.

Since it sounds like the BBC has been getting a lot of positive feedback about airing The Wire, David Simon is preparing to teach a “masterclass” at the “Edinburgh TV Festival”. The quotations are mandatory because I can’t attest to either of these things existing, but assuming The Guardian isn’t lying to me: I want to go to there. Actually, maybe not. His overt cynicism about everything is interesting enough in small portions on youtube clips, if I were to see him in person, one look into his eyes and I might breakdown in tears.

Recognize him?

If you consider new casting decisions in between seasons to constitute spoilers, then I suppose in the loosest definition imaginable, this is a spoiler alert for the upcoming season of Mad Men: some actor I’ve never heard of has been cast to play Sterling Cooper’s CFO. Frankly, I’d consider discovering renovations to the SC offices before the season premiere aired to be more upsetting than this news.

Also, despite the past two seasons premiering in July, this upcoming season has already been pushed back until late August. Thanks for the press release, entertainment media. If you had never told me I wouldn’t have noticed. You’re not covering the war or economy, you know. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Assholes.

Mindy Kaling has signed a deal with NBC to show-run and star in her own comedy. With her having so much executive control, it all but guarantees the series will be better than Parks and Recreation.

Spike TV has purchased the rights to all five seasons of Entourage for syndication. This is kind of a moment of clarity for me. It’s like someone threw a glass of water in my face while I was in a drunken stupor, and now I’ve come to realize that I have been recapping and occasionally enjoying a series that Spike TV deems worthy of spending $600,000 an episode on (that’s a bulk sum of $39,600,000, if anyone is counting). We’ve always been apprehensive and somewhat defensive about admitting we enjoyed Entourage, and now we know why: It caters to a Spike TV audience, who unless they were running a Godfather marathon and we were in a leg cast, I don’t ever recall watching or even bothering to see what the cable network was offering.

Because NBC is desperate like a virgin in a whorehouse but lacks all other options, they’ve decided to take Weekend Update — the fake news sketch that has been on Saturday Night Live for the past thirty-four years — and turn it into its own prime time show. They seem to think this is a good idea because the world is under the mistaken impression that it’s funnier now than it was in the days of Dennis Miller, Chevy Chase, Kevin Nealon or even Norm MacDonald. I don’t know why this is the assumption everyone has, but I think it has something to do with Tina Fey looking like Sarah Palin, and by the transitive property of NBC thinking every person/entity that mocks republicans is funny, this results in a prime time series for a storied comedy sketch that has been nose-diving in quality for the past eleven years. And just to clarify, I’m not being defensive in the least, I voted for Obama almost specifically because of Sarah Palin, but the motivation for everything seems kind of transparent at this point.

Speaking of Tina Fey, because speculation is always the preferable analytical tactic of entertainment op-ed writers when they have nothing else to discuss, here’s a short piece from the Boston Globe wondering if 30 Rock will hold up thirty years from now. I guess the plethora of pop-culture references has some people (or at least this guy) concerned that the series will become quickly dated. For starters, all comedy is dated. When you watch Seinfeld now, it’s as much as an atmospheric as it is a comedy about daily minutia, since roughly 65% of the jokes could be resolved with the existence of cell phones. Secondly, 30 Rock is fucking hysterical right now, and isn’t that what matters? The Quantum Leap reference actually made us pause the episode while we tried to compose ourselves. Honestly, I could give a shit if some fifteen year old in 2040 doesn’t understand it (or a fifteen year old now), because I don’t think it was made for him.

And finally, I feel like we’ve mentioned it before but I’m too lazy to go back and find the post where we did (and also because we completely forgot about it until reading this link), Family Guy is spinning off a series with Cleveland, and its been renewed for a second season before the series premiere. Even when we were watching Family Guy (which was pre-renewal), Cleveland was one of the characters we didn’t really…get. It seems like if you were to make a spin-off for any of these characters, it would be the baby or the dog, everyone else seemed to be for show, and didn’t really provide any laughs. Between this and the Weekend Update show, we’re about three ill-advised moves from quitting television altogether. Except for Mad Men, we could never quit Mad Men.

Back tomorrow with more links.

So unless there is something urgent to report, which there never has been, nor will there ever be because this is a television blog we might start posting later in the day much more frequently. Our workload increased about two months ago and hasn’t really relented, we’re about to increase posting frequency and length on our other site and for the most part, we’re watching very few series at the moment. Right now we’re recapping Survivor, The Office, Rescue Me (just remarkable last night), and we’re watching but not recapping My Boys & 30 Rock, this is the extent of our regular television viewing for the foreseeable future. As long as that is the case, not much should change except for limited posting and the time of which we do it.

For the time being, let’s get to some links.

Adding to it’s already filled trophy case of awards, Mad Men won best international series at some awards show in Britain. Not for nothing, but as great as that series is it’s really benefiting coming onto the scene after The Sopranos (which it had to because Matt Weiner was a writer for it), The West Wing and all the other series’ that were critically acclaimed but have ended their run in recent years. I think Mad Men is unequivocally the best series still producing new episodes, but I’d also say that television isn’t nearly as good as it was four years ago. Too many copycats and wannabes, not enough series’ producing raw, unseen content that rivals the best of what you would see in film (which I tend to think Mad Men does), so Matthew Weiner and Co. deservingly benefit, I guess.

This might be a little off-topic, but Jon Stewart had a lively discussion about what quantifies torture with Cliff May, who’s some sort of Government official. I’m too lazy to actually read the website I linked too so I can’t tell you specifically what his role is. Anyhow, I tend to think that the other facets of our foreign policy and the economy should take precedent over this, but that’s probably because I had yet to hear an actual intelligent conversation about it. Usually when you watch cable news it’s nothing more than an exchange of superlatives and platitudes that you could hear in any run of the mill high school government class, but this was actually entertaining and mapped out the two reasonable sides of the argument.

Entourage, one of the more fake explicit series’ on television, is looking for syndication deals with Spike TV and Comedy Central. I’m pretty sure the last straw in my total shaming of being a fan of Entourage would be if it got syndication on Spike TV, who outside of depressing Pros Vs. Joes episodes I avoid with all my might (Note: My might is pretty non-existent). But yeah, I say “fake explicit” because watching people smoke weed is generally something you can do on FX, and aside for the really infrequent frontal nudity and a vulgar reference to it (usually from Drama), there isn’t that much editing work to be had here.

Can't we at least start using Curb for our Larry David references?

More evidence that we and the media love to blur the line between entertainment and politics: The Daily Beast ponders whether or not Obama is modeling their approach to the previous administration from the Seinfeld episode in which George does the opposite of what his impulses tell him to do. This is two psuedo-political oriented links in one post so I don’t want to dwell on it, but despite your feelings on Bush or Obama, doesn’t this just seem a tad juvenile. The best way to get anyone from the opposite side of teh aisle to dismiss your opinion is by comparing someone they hold in esteem to George Costanza, or at least that’s what I was always taught.

Here’s an article suggesting Dollhouse be rewarded a second, hyphenated season to resolve its open-ended storylines, I guess the point would be that the series could gain some traction and develop a cult following, like every Joss Whedon series. But it never offers incentive for the network to do so. But yes, just about every series’ given additional episodes knowing they will be their last episodes is capable of piecing together some finality. This is like when Tiger Woods fans (in this case, Joss Whedon fans) make the claim that when he loses a tourney (a series gets canceled), it was only because he missed a couple putts that he usually sinks (if people watched the series like they watched Buffy). That’s right, and if I had wheels I’d be a wagon. He missed those putts (he didn’t make a marketable series), therefore, he lost (the show was canceled). Trust me, it’s not the first time.

If The Bachelor is good enough for its own CSI episode, I feel The Sopranos is as well.

You’re not going to believe this, but CSI: Miami is scheduled to do an episode with a murder on the set of a Bachelor-esque television show. Wait, a murder scene with numerous attractive women ranging from scantily-clad to whorishly-clad is the setting for a CSI: Miami episode. If I had to guess, when the actual crime takes place it’s going to take place in or around a hot tub. Look, I’m all for cheap exploitation of attractive women as much as possible, but this branch of the CSI franchise just makes it too obvious.

Jesus, someone at the New Yorker asks if Amy Poehler is the most popular SNL cast member of the past decade, with her chief rivals being Tina Fey and Will Ferrell. If you’re one of those people who wonders why others often lament the failed state of SNL, now you know why. It isn’t that Amy Poehler is devoid of comedic chops, it’s just that when you look at her best skits compared to those of Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Mike Meijers, David Spade and countless others I can’t recall at the moment, no one on that short list for the aughts really measures up. Sorry, but it’s true.

On top of his upcoming series Treme and a potential miniseries about the Lincoln assassination, David Simon is pondering a CIA series that would detail its inception a la The Good Sheppard, but presumably in a more coherent and time-efficient manner. I am unabashedly biased for anything this man plans too put on HBO, but absolutely none of that sounds unappealing. In fact, based on the strength of The Wire and Generation Kill I’d venture to say that it’s appointment television.

Alright, one more politically influenced link: FOX is bucking the trend and airing Lie To Me in favor of the president’s address tonight, so as to avoid it running into American Idol. I don’t know why they can’t simply cut the speech short in favor of Idol at nine, but either way this ruins one of the simple pleasures of having a president desperate to keep his approval ratings up. Despite how much I loved Idol getting bumped, I have to admit that from a business perspective nothing makes more sense. Instead of splitting presidential coverage with the three other broadcast networks for the same speech, you air the most popular show on television that gets more viewers than all four of the networks airing Obama speeches combined. I may not like it, but I’m forced to respect it. And god damn it I hate respecting any of the broadcast networks.

Despite its intense promotional campaign during the NCAA tournament, Harper’s Island is being sent to Saturdays, away from its cushy 10PM Thursday slot. Needless to say, I think they better drop an A-bomb on that island if they want all those people dead before the series is canceled. Maybe it’s right around the island with where Lost takes place, two birds with one stone. See, I’m always trying to economize.

The president of HBO promises that new series Hung, about a gym teacher with a sizable penis, won’t be entirely focused on penis jokes. She later got defensive and added, “just because the title of the series is a euphemism for a large male appendage doesn’t mean it will necessarily revolve around his dick, alright?…OK, it actually does. You should see what the props department came up with, you will swear they could have saved Tower 2 with this thing”

And finally, for all you fans of emasculating women and effeminate men in your comedy, ABC wants Scrubs back for a 9th season. My first reaction to reading that was disbelief that there’s only been eight seasons, because it feels like that series has plagued my Thursday nights since I was at least 15. My second reaction was amazement that it actually developed enough of an audience that ABC is trying to convince them of a final season, whereas NBC was constantly pushing them out the door. For all you fans of the series, once everyone other than Zach Braff realizes they don’t have much of a career after this, you can start marking your calendars for that ninth season premiere.

More tomorrow.

We’ll get to the FNL recap later tonight or tomorrow morning, to get us through the morning we’re going to post a few links that feel like sufficient time killers. I think we’re still in the middle of our sugar crash from easter (it’s one those five hour energy commercials warn you about) so our apologies if we mail this one in.

Further evidence that the recession is effecting your television viewing options: Showtime rejected all four pilot opportunities that were recently presented to them. I was under the impression that picking up pilots, relative to the number that are propositioned, is something of a rarity. But I guess this is news since a couple of them were highly regarded within the industry. Its not like you can afford Showtime, anyways, which is why they can’t push their budget any further, which is why you’re stuck watching The Tudors if you’re one of the fe fortunate enough to afford the premium network but dumb enough to actually subscribe to it.

I suspect he watches for the same reason any of us do.

Doug Ellin, creator of Entourage, was stunned to learn that president Obama watches his series. I can imagine. You make a series about four nitwits plodding around southern California and you discover that a sitting president in one of the more tumultuous times in the history of the world takes time out of his schedule to watch said nitwits? That probably wasn’t what he and Mark Wahlberg set out to do. If nothing else, maybe this will provide some extra incentive for everyone involved in the series to try a little harder. God, just thinking about the fact that someone in elected office might have sat down, watched that Joshua Tree episode and actually enjoyed it makes me tremble in fear. for the future of our nation.

Ugh, I really didn’t want t even mention this here but we’re desperate for something: Octomom, the best argument that pro-choice advocates have ever had, has landed a reality television show. That makes sense. I’ve always heard that the best way to refute the impression everyone is under that you’re a negligent, self-absorbed attention whore, is to prove everyone right by going on national television. At least she gives cable news networks a distraction from ever having to do investigative news journalism.

I guess I’m the only person who considers him vastly overrated, because Joss Whedon is being given a Lifetime Achievement award from Harvard. He’s behind the scenes of some solid material, but nothing groundbreaking or even particularly memorable. I guess Harvard is a staunch defender of Dollhouse. Maybe it’s because I’m biased as a result of dating a girl who only watched Joss Whedon shows. This is strictly anecdotal and by no means meant to encompass an entire demographic, but our first conversation about television went something like this:

Me: I have a penchant for watching unhealthy amounts television.
Her: Oh, I love watching television. Did you ever watch Buffy?
Me: Occasionally, it was more roommates girlfriends watching it than me.
Her: So guys can’t like Buffy?
Me: (seeing where this is going and desperately wanting to change subjects) No, they can. I just think the intended audience is younger women. You ever watch Sopranos?
Her: No, I’ve heard it was alright. I don’t like watching all that violence though.
Me: But you’re favorite show is about a vampire slayer.
Her: It’s different. Are you watching Angel?
Me: Nah, I kind of missed the premiere of it and never bothered to start at the beginning. Maybe I should have though since it seems fairly popular.
Her: Oh, it’s great.
Me: What’s your favorite TV show that you can remember watching? Or is it something current? Everyone I know seems to claim The Office as the greatest comedy of all time.
Her: I never got into it. You may have never heard of my favorite show, actually, it only had one season, but it was called Firefly.

/End most boring second date story in history of second dates.

Look, I can appreciate the fact that Joss Whedon has a loyal allegiance out there and that his shows are better than average. The above viewing habits are light years ahead of watching NCIS, CSI, Without A Trace and then explaining to me what a connoisseur of television you are. But don’t tell me Joss Whedon is the greatest thing since sliced bread when you haven’t bothered to watch any series that he wasn’t a part of. I’m not a total snob about these things, you don’t have to have watched The Wire or Mad Men or Arrested Development for me to respect your opinion; but when your range of experience is so limited, don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about just because your favorite women’s studies professor said that you did.

Alright, probably it for today. Might return with some links or something tomorrow before getting to the FNL series finale.

I don’t know about anyone else, but that was a pretty eventful weekend. It’s amazing how much more active you feel when you’re sitting on your fat ass at a multiplex instead of at your house watching moving images on a screen. Seriously, it really felt like I was accomplishing something by going to three movies in two days, in addition to watching football in a bar instead of at mine or a friend’s house.

Yes, I am aware that this is basically what I've turned into. And I'm OK with that.

But anyhow, here are the five best shows from 2008. We will have left several off of here for various reasons, of which we’ll explain after we post.

5) The Office

It feels like this series has run its course at the end of every calendar year, yet it manages to sneak into our top five regardless. More so than any other series, The Office was a victim of the strike (having the biggest gap in between a single season). But they managed to handle it better than anyone else, providing great story arcs and quality episodes after the strike, that didn’t feel hastily put together or contrived (like so many of their counterparts). The first half of season five has been predominately successful, with obviously a few exceptions. Still, you’re not going to find a better comedy for your time and money on television right now.

4) The Shield

Yeah, we’ve stated a number of times that we haven’t watched this series, at least not on a regular basis. But the final season sounded like a rewarding one for its audience and a devastating one for it’s anti-hero Vic Mackey. It sounded as if the Tony Soprano of police departments finally got his comeuppance (something Tony himself never encountered, at least not in any tangible way), and that in itself makes this critically acclaimed series worth watching. We will get around to it at some point (potentially this summer), but for right now all we can do is assume that The Shield lived up to expectations and trust the opinions of critics we’ve found to be reliable in the past.

3) Mad Men

During any other year that was absent a Sopranos or Wire season, this would have been in the top spot. The atypical story of a 1960’s Madison Avenue executive struggling with identity and life in an ever-changing and hostile world, only improved on its debut season. Mad Men, a show that has gained notoriety through style more so than substance, is chock full of the latter. Season two managed to encompass every imaginable reaction to the turbulent beginning to the 1960’s. There are those that adapt accordingly (Don, Peggy), those who desire to but are unable because of either forces beyond their control or stubbornness (Salvatore, Pete Campbell, Joan Holloway) and those who are reluctant to accept it at all (Roger, Harry, Paul); All while everyone copes with the turmoil of their own lives. Mad Men has always been an atmospheric and a successful one at that, but when the narrative turned into the best thing on television for the second half of the year, this has officially taken the crown from recently retired series as the best show on television.

2) Generation Kill

We might be cheating with this a little, because it’s a miniseries with a completely different scale and much tighter focus. Unfortunately, we do not give a shit. The show adapted from the Evan Wright novel of the same name gave us layman a factual and (mostly) unbiased and honest look at the Iraq war and those engaging in it on our behalf. Was it critical? Yes. But it also portrayed the majority of those on the front lines with a degree of affection, that lent you to believe that it wasn’t personal, just frustrated. David Simon’s follow up to his magnum opus basically took the rank and file of the streets of Baltimore and placed it in Iraq with the US military and gave you a dramatized look at the inner-workings of these men’s experience, and all that entailed. The good and the bad.

1) The Wire

Was the serial killer storyline far and away the most sensational story this series has ever done? Absolutely (and don’t give me Hamsterdam as a counterpoint, because it’s not even close). Did the addition of the Sun to the cast feel hammed up and suffering from tunnel vision about fabulists whoring themselves out for pulitzers? At times, definitely. But this is The Wire we’re talking about. For whatever complaints you may have had about how they handled their final season, their was still plenty of subtext about the corrosion of the American city. Not to mention what most people are primarily concerned with: We got closure and a relatively happy ending for the characters we’ve grown so fond of over the past five seasons. I’m on record as saying this was my least favorite season from David Simon, but it was still better than anything else we watched in 2008.

As for series’ that didn’t make the cut:

-Entourage: For a series that prides itself on the number of insider jokes they churn out in a given episode, they didn’t really seem to apply the nature of Hollywood to it’s protagonist Vince Chase. We don’t believe for a second that any “star” of his caliber would be shunned from the industry after one bad showing at an film festival. But when they decided to go in that direction, it really felt like they had to stick with it and not redeem his entire career in the closing minutes of the season. We always say with comedies that as long as we’re genuinely laughing at what’s taking place, then we’re content with the effort. Problem being, Entourage wasn’t terribly funny in 2008, either.

Rescue Me, Damages, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of The Conchords: Did not air any new episodes in 2008.

The Life and Times of Tim: We would have put the first half of the season at #5 or #6, but was bored senseless in the second half, to the point we opted to keep it off the top ten altogether for those that exhibited a little more consistency.
Probably it for today, and potentially the rest of the week. We’ll post again if anything comes across the wire but most only pretend to work in the final months of each year, those in the television industry are no different. Have a happy new years if you don’t hear from us again in 2008.

This finale seemed to upset quite a few people, mostly as a result of the last five minutes. Why isn’t Vince thrown to the wolves for at least half of another season seems to be the biggest complaint. Another half season of turmoil, then the dramatic edge that this series is constantly attempting to seek out might actually be found. Just give us at least full season of Vince trying to restore his image and maybe they’ll reach an audience outside of the usual fanboys.

I hate to harp on the plot so much because this series is generally recognized as a comedy, and our rule of thumb with comedies is that so long as it’s generating laughs then we couldn’t care one way or the other about the plot. But critique it is exactly what we’re going to do because this episode was basically humorless outside of a couple millisecond takes with Drama and Turtle (which weren’t even particularly funny). So they left us with no other options.

Naturally, everything is patched up tidily in the end, and not only does Vince land a leading role in a feature film, he does it with arguably the greatest filmmaker who ever lived in an adaptation of The Great Gatsby. I can understand why people would be perpetually annoyed, especially because the build up to the letdown was so great. I think we all kind of wanted Vince’s future to be hanging in the balance at the end of the season, not to have Martin fucking Scorsese come through and save the day without any explanation other than “I liked the footage of you in $120 million dollar film that you helped murder”. Needless to say his cameo in Curb was much more appropriate instead of him just ego-stroking our protagonist.

Had he known this would be the cost, he would have never cast Mark Wahlberg in The Departed

Speaking of which, I ignored it last week because I’m willing to give the series the benefit of the doubt, but that footage of Vince dangling from that harness was about the most banal set of takes I’ve ever seen, and I did theater in high school. I’m willing to overlook that if it is contained in one episode and Dana Gordon and John Ellis said he was “great” in what they saw, but when it ends up being the reason for Vince landing the next Scorsese film it has to be mentioned that everyone in the series was watching something different than the audience. I will give them credit for this in one respect, everyone’s reactions that Vince suddenly landed a new role under the best possible circumstances were surprisingly and appropriately apt.

It would have been a stark improvement, if, say, they extended the episode by about fifteen minutes, showed us Ari or Scorsese or Gus Van Sant talking about Vince’s supposed acting chops and Ari convincing one of the two why he isn’t washed up. As opposed to Ari just flying into New York unannounced, guessing they’d be at Drama’s newly named bar and putting him on the cell phone with Scorsese a la James Cameron from the Sundance episode.

Other than that, we actually found the episode to be pretty strong: Vince showed some actual human emotion at least momentarily, we liked the fight between him and Eric, who finally seemed ready to move on with his life (its up for debate if he would really have a career after that); they gave Turtle a contingency leeching plan and Drama a great subplot with the FBI agent that Big Pussy answered to. It had a lot of promise that they were going to end strongly, at least up until the last five minutes, and then it when hurling off a cliff.

It was extremely disappointing too. Mainly because like we mentioned last week, with a couple exceptions this has been a fairly strong season. Not in the way of artistry but just raw entertainment. I could watch Entourage for twenty-five minutes (after fast-forwarding through that insufferable Perry Ferrell song in the opening credits) and typically find it to be a nice deterrent from my floundering fantasy football team. And I still can and will next season, but holy Christ was that a wrong turn they took with Ari stepping into that bar.

Life and Times of Tim recap later.