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.

My apologies for starting this so late. It turns out that when you skip work for three days you return with an unusual workload. Who’d've thunk it?

Anyhow, Hung continues to run strong with “The Pickle Jar”. It wasn’t a perfect episode by any means, for instance I’d like some explanation for why Damon is so caught up in the state of Darby’s love life. I’d also like the actors who play Damon and Darby to be completely replaced with different actors, since they’re making Robert Iler look natural on camera.

It seems to be the case, however, that even if a scene or storyline isn’t working, their is always something to redeem it. In this case it would be the chance for Tom Jane to deliver what I think has been the only real laugh out-loud scene of the four episodes to date. As awkward as the drive-in scene was –and again, its awkwardness stems directly from the actors playing the twins (maybe it’s intentional) — Ray breaking up the fight and pronouncing, “You’re about to hit my son when you’re twice as fat as he is” had me in stitches.

And this is how every scene with Jesse, Damon and Darby tends to go for me. For the most part I find it boring and unnecessary, but there will always be some caveat or direction it takes at the last second to make up for the scattered remains that are left from what ended so promising in the previous episode. They beat a dead horse for the first ten minutes, then offer him a salt lick immediately afterwards. If they don’t show more consistency or substantive development, I’m going to stop being fooled by the hope they keep instilling in the final minutes. I’m a bit slower than most, so we’re willing to wait a full season.

But one thing we don’t have to hold out for anymore is Tanya and Ray embracing and beginning to excel at what they do. If there is a god in this fictional world, they will both force Lenore out of the loop and give her clients an ultimatum: us or her. Given how hyperbolic the series is when the topic of Ray’s member/prowess is broached, I imagine they can force most of them out of Lenore’s client base. That’s basically why I’m watching this series still, to see if Lenore experiences any sort of comeuppance for just constantly being an overwhelming bitch with no redeeming qualities.

Speaking of which, Ray finally showed he’s capable of being more than a self-aggrandizing whore with a big cock. He did so mostly by not resenting his kids never-ending shortcomings. They not only possess character flaws, but they are the same types of flaws that he would resent in his formidable years, and when it comes to anything other than child-rearing he seems to use those years to direct his life, which is probably why he’s now hooking.

And also in the closing scene with Molly, who clearly isn’t accustom to such a lifestyle, but he made her comfortable and probably ensured a regular customer as a result. This is after he left because he claimed he was under the weather. I think he was partially being honest but he clearly used it as an excuse because he was uncomfortable sleeping with an overweight, menopausal woman. The look on his face when she answered the door and his studying the clock at the hardware store pretty much summed up his reasons for leaving the first time and going back for a second. But it was still undetermined if he was legitimately sick.

But it appears he’s acclimating well, and the money isn’t hurting things. If she’s paying $600 a visit and uses him once a week, already he’s ensuring $1,800 a month for one customer after giving Tanya her 25%. That’s $21,600 a year, if he has one regular customer for each weeknight he’s clearing $107,400 per year. For roughly 10 working hours a week. I can certainly understand the motivation and probably why the concept of a straight male hooker clearing that kind of scratch is so far-fetched. If his customers found out how much he was netting, they’d probably cut him off out of resentment.

On top of being actually getting the career off the ground, this was also the funniest episode we’ve seen. The aforementioned line too Hammer and the awarding of the pickle jar alone made this funnier than all three previous episodes combined. I still don’t understand why Hung is billed as a comedy, but this was a step in the right direction. And despite contrivances like Lenore running into Jess and the kids at the Salon, just watching the actual business operation and the chemistry between Tom Jane and Jane Adams is worth the half hour on a Sunday night.

Entourage recap later today.

They’re going to have to knock it the fuck off with these episode titles if they want me to keep recapping their show. I’d be on board with if their was ever a significant reason for two separate not-sequitur titles, but there isn’t. For two episodes its just been two, unrelated quotes that the only thing in common with them is they happen to reside in the same episode. This week Ray describes his relationship with Tanya as “strange friends” and Ray giving his neighbors lyric cookies, one of which has a lyric inside the says “the truth is, you’re sexy”, that the wife is obviously going to misconstrue.

But still, we thought this was another successful effort from Hung, despite the absurd episode title(s). It’s building much in the same way that Breaking Bad* did, in that just learning the tricks of the trade dominates the story while they react to the fallout from their ill-preparation. That fallout isn’t nearly as perilous on Hung as it is on Breaking Bad, but it’s the main source of comedy, and since this series bills itself as such, its fitting. But I think they’d be better off labeling it a dramedy of sorts, because as much as I enjoy Hung I don’t really laugh that much when I’m watching it.

So the struggle continues, they finally get Ray’s wallet back from Lenore after numerous avoidances and bold-faced lies from her. What I can’t understand is why she took $400 off his card if she’s as wealthy as she presents herself to be. I mean, it’s $400 and seems to mean a lot less to her than it does to Ray or Tanya. I know she’s supposed to be vile, but a thief, liar and con-artist seem to preclude any chance of redemption, despite what she may look like. And I tend to be especially shallow.

I think it’s time we started to see a little evolution from Tanya, as well. This is three episodes in a row of her beating around the bush, timidly approaching everyone she interacts with. What makes her and Ray so great on camera together is she’s considerably more forthcoming with him and he always has a response for her new wave arguments and lifestyle. I’d like to see more of that personality inflicted on the rest of the world, including her date with overly pretentious yet clueless Floyd. Not that Floyd’s necessarily a bad guy, right now he seems like the furthest thing from it. But if he has ulterior motives its not really going to surprise anyone, and Tanya seems to recognize how full of shit he could be but elects to ignore it.

The trials and tribulations of Jessica and the twins still aren’t matching that of Ray and Tanya, and usually the second they come on screen I’m waiting breathlessly for them to leave it. We will say that we did like the decision to purchase the rescue dog and their subsequent shared awkward moment over it. Jessica seemed like she had some good will coming her way, even if we still find her pretty loathsome. Who would have thought that the second you show your kids you have something to offer other than doting after them, they will immediately respect you more. Life’s funny like that sometimes.

The show continues to impress when Tanya is on screen with Ray, and it seems Ray is the only character whose definitively compelling in every scene he’s in and manages to be likable in spite of his many, many vices and flaws. I like the move to repair the house by himself. He started out the series lamenting the changes in the country that would have his parents rolling over in their graves, I’m pretty sure one of the principals these dead paternal figures would live by is self-reliance, and nothing is symbolizes that more than rebuilding your own home.

Rescue Me and Weeds recaps later today.

*We gave in and bought the first six episodes of Breaking Bad’s second season on Amazon because I can’t stand not wasting my money, and it’s easily the best series on television right now with the exception of Mad Men. Just un-fucking believable television and significantly better than Hung, which we obviously enjoy.

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.

Last night’s episode really fed well off the first one. Certainly they’re not rushing into anything and the learning curve they’re working on is pretty similar to that of Walter White on Breaking Bad, though outside of The Wire, I’ve never seen a show that’s that patient. Certainly we can’t hold a show like Hung, a series that’s primary motivation is to be a dark comedy, to the same standards.

And don’t get us wrong, right now we’re enjoying the series. But the comedy seems to be lacking. Is it that funny that his first client is overly demanding? I guess for some, but we just thought it was fodder for how vile Lenore was supposed to be, but then we realized, “oh, I’m supposed to find this comedic”. That pretty much summarizes our feelings toward the episode: it was well made, but potentially not for the reasons they intended.

That said, Thomas Jane and Jane Adams still have great chemistry and is the highlight of the show. Any time they appear on screen together you know it will be interesting if not flat out hysterical (though I tend to think billing the show as a comedy is the wrong direction to take, if you couldn’t tell). I also appreciate how neither of them seem conflicted about the gender reversal. It’s a good thing their still the focus of the show, because most of what I disliked from the pilot episode didn’t improve with week 2.

Anne Heche actually regressed in tolerability. I know she’s supposed to be irritable, but she’s not sympathetically so because as far as I can tell she’s pretty god damn awful person for no real reason. And I’m not sure what to make of the principal, who along with Lenore was the other addition to the cast last night. If this is emblematic of the real Detroit it appears there aren’t any male professionals left in that city, except for the man our lead’s wife left him for and his neighbor who’s constantly haranguing him about his landscaping, naturally.

Anyhow, there really isn’t much to add in terms of the plot. Though we think Tanya’s marketing strategy is fairly ingenious and the emphasis on protecting Ray’s identity is going to grow increasingly difficult. As much as he might be willing to whore himself, he doesn’t want to be publicly disgraced or lose his kids, which seem to be the only two things Ray really gives a shit about anymore.

Back with our recap of a pretty dismal Entourage premiere. I think we’re putting it on notice, depends on what kind of mood we’re in at the end of the day.

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.

For a series that could have probably gotten by being nothing more than a run of double-entendres and dick jokes, if the pilot episode is anything to go by, Hung strives to be much more than the low-brow comedy that most show-runners would fall back on. We wouldn’t expect anything less from HBO, but it would probably be much more viable commercially if they had gone that route (a blue collar Entourage, is probably the best way to describe it).

Tom Jane plays Ray Drucker, a man that is, in all manners of speaking, kind of down on his luck. He teaches history and coach’s a terrible high school basketball team, his wife left him for a rich acquaintance of their’s from high school that they never liked, and his son and daughter resent him because his house caught on fire and he’s sleeping outside in a tent, as a result of your average teenager being a heartless goon, he now has to earn their approval as well.

These, combined with many confirmations that you are well-endowed, are apparently the necessary steps to becoming a male escort. If you watched last night, the entire series is basically a PSA for why no one, especially no guy, should ever go into teaching. It might sound appealing coming out of college, what with summer’s off and a steady income. But with so little upward mobility, there’s a good chance you have the same earning power at 45 as you do at 25, and that results in a broken marriage and turning tricks.

Or, as the opening monologue would suggest, it could be a parable about the death of the American dream. Either way, Ray’s life is in a rut, and after attending a “How to get rich” seminar and running into a former one night stand (Tanya, it’s unclear if he slept with this woman while he was married), her hurled insult as he leaves her house and the advice to use your “one great tool” to realize your financial aspirations, Ray decides to put his unusually large member to work.

It's not exactly the Bunny Ranch, but it'll do.

Things do not come so naturally for Ray, as you might imagine, as his first client rejects him after looking through her peephole and slipping him $50 under the door for leaving a basketball game he was supposed to be coaching. After an efficient stalking job by Tanya, he enlists her help to improve his marketing, which is some comically embarrassing ad in a newspaper for “Big Donnie”. In short, she becomes his pimp. The business aspect is left there, and we close with Tommy giving the $50 from his failed attempt at whoring to his kid to buy a concert ticket (something his step-dad already covered).

In short, there is a lot to like about Hung, the least of which being Anne Heche (who seems to be almost universally despised in her role), the best of which is Tom Jane, who absolutely owns every scene he is in. Right now the dialog feels rather stifled, and that may be a part of the character introduction, but at the moment the only person who speaks with any authority or says anything that catches us off-guard is Ray, and we can’t tell if it’s because Jane is playing the part so effectively or if everyone else seems to be trotting out tired superlatives every time they open their mouths, but he carried the pilot episode. Yes, we’ve come a long way since Ghost Rider.

Like we suggested before, the series looks to be multi-faceted and thought-provoking. There is plenty of humor in it, but it’s derived from the perspective of a downtrodden middle-aged man whose all but given up hope that his life is ever going to improve. And the tragedy, even though it’s delivered in a lighthearted manner, is palpable. It’s the perfect blend of the two genres without feeling forced or overwrought or misplaced.

There are also plenty of small caveats to this show to like. For starters, setting it in Detroit, which is ground-zero for the current/pending collapse of the American economy. He shuffles about from depressing casino hotels to his lakeside house to the dilapidated school that employs him. It feels very rust-belt and the city, much like Ray, gives off the feel of desperation.

Anyhow, if you couldn’t tell, we enjoyed the pilot. This is definitely going into the weekly rotation as we continue to look for new series’ to recap. The best news, though, is that HBO is officially hitting stride again and is ready to reclaim the title of best original programming back from AMC (piss off, Showtime fans). Much like Ray Drucker, the former pro-baseball hopeful and Central Florida scholarship recipient, HBO is trying to garner the same respect they once commanded. The process has just been a little slow in the making since The Sopranos and The Wire went off the air. But our protagonist and the once great cable network are now using their worldly gifts (which happens to be Ray’s cock, in both instances), to their advantage.

Kind of a somber week in television with the passing of Farah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Michael Jackson. If you’re wondering what either of them have to do with television you’re probably under the age of 25. To which I respond” Google it, you unworldly fuck. But instead of going into some lengthy retrospective that I am bound to say something wildly inappropriate in, I’ll just offer my condolences and move along with some links.

Weeds has a new female Mexican character that is going to intervene in Esteban and Nancy’s tryst. Sounds great, I feel like that show can do no wrong at the moment. Also, if this new character isn’t at least loosely based on Griselda Blanco, I’m going to be extremely disappointed.

Wow, what an actress.

Johnny Depp and Megan Fox were both on Letterman last night. As per usual around here, I’ll show a picture of the latter and talk about the former, because I didn’t know it was possible to come off as humble when talking about an island in the Bahamas and a boat that could cross the Atlantic, both of which you own, but he did just that. Fox came across as comfortable in her own skin but, and you’re not going to believe this, she was remarkably self-absorbed. Surprising, isn’t it?

Janet Hubert, better known as Aunt Vivyan from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has upped the gutter language in her counter-strike against Will Smith, whom she alleges professionally abused her in the early 90’s and “hid behind NBC’s panties”. Obviously this is an attempt to sully his good name and expose him for the scoundrel he clearly is. And maybe she’s being honest, I don’t know. But what I do know is, all of this shit happened well over a decade ago (too lazy to actually look up her last appearance on the show), and she’s probably in some financial trouble (who isn’t? Oh, that’s right, Will Smith). You can probably do the math on this one, and it’s the same reason anyone would be skeptical.

By his own admission, Letterman is afraid to tell a Sarah Palin joke. This wasn’t supposed to be political but since it so clearly is, I like the selectiveness of everyone’s political correctness. Republicans get mad if you crack jokes about evangelicals and democrats get made if you crack jokes about minorities and women. Then both sides somehow manage to complain about political correctness run amok when they’re called out for their (sometimes legitimate, sometimes not) bigotry. I guess me assessment would be: It’s the circle of life, Simba. We need these distractions and for no one to ever call attention to the rampant, sweeping idiocy of it all.

CBS announced their fall premiere dates, so if you can’t wait for some sensationalized crime drama, now you know how long before you can watch new episodes that follow the identical format of the last 800 you’ve watched.

NBC has also announced their fall premiere dates, and while their programming is considerably more diverse than CBS’, it pulls in about a third of the ratings (completely rough estimate). I don’t know why this is, but I do know that everyone I surround myself with watches NBC far more than they watch CBS, so from this pointless little anecdotal nugget, I conclude — once again — that Nielsen’s are utter bullshit.

To say True Blood is growing in popularity is like saying Michael Jackson is has a loyal fan base. They’ve already moved 1,000,000 DVD’s of the first season, and selling that many of the first season means significantly increased viewership of the second, and that forces everyone to buy/rent those DVD’s or purchase HBO. I can’t believe we’re going to look back on this and say that True Blood was the show that pulled HBO out from the gutter, because I just don’t get it.

Because we can’t go by without at least throwing something, someone’s way, here’s a great article about how Michael Jackson basically made MTV a brand. Not what it is today, someone well after Jackson’s prime turned MTV what it is. To honor his memory they did show a marathon of his videos, but they quickly jumped back into their non-stop barrage of reality programming. Way to know your audience, MTV. No, I’m serious, way to know your audience.

And finally, the NY Times wrote an entire article about HBO is hoping their new series Hung, about a down on his luck school teacher who starts turning female tricks for money, becomes a hit. They could probably write the same article for every show that has or will premiere at any point in the future, so I’m not sure what the point is. I will say this, however, that based on the strength of this review, I’d fully expect a recap from us on Monday.

That’s it until Monday, I imagine. Back with recaps and potentially nightly previews next week.