Grid Effect

My apologies for not posting yesterday, but I woke up feeling like I got my ass kicked in a bar last night while shit-faced. My back was preventing me from walking, my head from thinking and my stomach from eating; long story short, it was a tremendously long day for getting out of bed at 1PM. I guess it makes sense given that we referred to a new links post on Tuesday as “long overdue“, given that we were too incapacitated to actually post them yesterday morning. I feel like Walter White minus the cancer and double life, which is to say flat out miserable.

If you weren’t angry enough at the world for already being a smoldering ball of chemicals on a fast track to hell, then I have some bad news for your insufferable perky optimism: Lauren Conrad’s bullshit “novel” could end up being optioned for a film. Which struck me as strange because isn’t her book based on her life, which has already been made into a TV show? Christ, I hope I never have any daughters if this is the consumerism that drives the demographic.

In attractive woman that I still respect news, Gabrielle Union has joined the cast of the upcoming NBC series FlashForward. She’ll play a lawyer with a romantic interest on a show that turns two words into one…On second thought I take back my initial assessment, but she’s still insanely beautiful so it doesn’t really matter.

Here’s a concise synopsis of the AMC party that supposedly took place after they premiered the first episode of Mad Men’s third season. I have to tell you, if I was to attend any circle-jerk Hollywood event it would probably be this one. From what it sounds like everyone is rather amiable and these are without a doubt the two best projects in television or film. Yes, film industry, you’ve officially been surpassed by television in regards to inspiring, original content.

This seems like a good time for me to do my weekly pimping of Breaking Bad, and point you in the direction of the mini-episodes they put out in after their strike shortened first season and before the kick in the balls second. For the most part they’re pretty mundane and aren’t necessarily representative of the greatness of the series, but the mini-episode entitled, “The Break In”, is a real knee-slapper and is emblematic of the dark humor displayed on the series.

Here’s some snippets of the Joan Rivers Roast set to premiere August 9th on Comedy Central (where else has a roast aired in the past 10 years?). I always tune into these for Greg Giraldo, because his career is so ridiculously overlooked that you can always bank on him to be at these things, and he always kills. As does most everyone else given the chance at the podium. And while I don’t tend to like Joan Rivers (entirely too superficial work detail for me to take seriously, I also resent anyone being a harbinger of fashion), she can give as good as she gets.

Speaking of Joan Rivers, she, much like about, say, 50% of the country, takes the legitimacy of Jay Leno’s career quite personally. I don’t understand why this guy is so hard for everyone who hates him to ignore, but it is proving quite daunting. And the fact that Conan is now losing to Letterman on a regular basis seems to only fuel the flames of resentment. We never enjoyed Leno’s comedy either, but it certainly isn’t keeping us up at night.

ESPN’s upcoming documentary series, 30 for 30, has added more directors to its arsenal. I can’t emphasize enough how much I’m looking forward to this. For the uninitiated, under the suggestion from Bill Simmons, ESPN grabbed (or is currently grabbing) 30 filmmakers to put together a small documentary about a pivotal (sometimes obscure, sometimes not) sporting event since their inception in 1979 (that’d be thirty years). You can see the full list of what they have completed so far, personally we’re looking forward to “The Trial of Allen Iverson”, if for no other reason that it feels like we might get a Zapruder-like film out of it.

In its ongoing quest to make mincemeat out of supposed “new king of pay cable ever since Sopranos went off the air” Showtime, Diane Keaton has signed onto her own HBO comedy about a feminist icon. Because we all know how humorous feminists tend to be. I kid, of course, because while this probably isn’t something I’ll watch more than once (I even watched the first three episodes of Carinvale, so I’m probably too easy when it comes to HBO), there is definitely an untapped market for it. And in all likelihood HBO will be true to form, and knock this out of the fucking park.

As you probably heard, Ben Silverman has finally been ousted as NBC’s Entertainment President. This was probably long overdue. Even though I personally watch(ed) more on NBC than any other network for the past five years and counting, the ratings are in the tank, they have way too many series’ open to horrendous reviews and even worse Nielsen’s, not to mention all the desperate attempts at remakes. Sorry, man, but The Office, 30 Rock and FNL will only carry an entire broadcast network so far.

And finally, below is the trailer for the upcoming season of Dexter. We’ve made our feelings quite clear about this show, and the trailer contains much of what we find redundant about it, but I’ll be damned if this series isn’t tailer-made to produce an anticipatory montage, which is probably why they were able to get over three minutes out of it. Most TV spots run roughly under a minute, but most series’ aren’t about a charming sociopath who brutally disembowels and murders other serial killers, because that’s just how he was raised.

Back tomorrow with more links, I imagine.

Just a few quick links to close out the short week at Grid Effect. It’s not like it really matters, we never post anything interesting here half the time anyways. Also, since this is a links post let me get this started in the introductory paragraph: Breaking Bad’s second season is available on Amazon online, I highly recommend it after you watch the first season. It may seem like I’m talking abou this series too often these days, but it’s really just making up for lost time. I don’t think there’s anything you can watch on television that’s more worthy of your time than these DVD’s. Unless you take pleasure in watching So You Think You Can Dance, in which case I can’t help you.

Onto the links…

Lie To Me, which is amazingly still on the air, nabbed Erika Christensen for their…next…season? I don’t care enough to read but that has to be the gist of it. Anyhow, if you don’t know who Erika Christensen is it’s probably because you follow current film and television, and she hasn’t been in anything since the blockbuster Swimfan, which took the world  by storm with its acerbic wit and originality…I’m just kidding, it’s a steaming pile of cliched horseshit that shouldn’t have ever been made in the first place. But she did give a promising turn in Traffic, but that was seven or eight years ago. And now she’s in Lie To Me. I think everything’s gone according to plan.

Brooke Burns has landed a role on the apparently vaunted yet detestable and discouraging Melrose Place, because CUPWNB or whatever the network is going by these days is the epitome of class, and Brooke Burns reflects that reputation. She the star of such shows as North Shore and the host of Dog Eat Dog, I think we can all agree she’s earned this. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to know that this woman will probably make more money in the next calendar year than I will in the next twenty. Really brightens my day. Also landing a role on CW’s remake of a former hit television show? Kelly Carlson. Here she is below doing some of her finer work on Nip Tuck.

I don’t know how many of you watched The Daily Show, and more specifically how many of you watched it on Monday night, but Jon Stewart’s interview with Brian Williams was about the funniest thing I’ve seen on television since The Office went off the air (sorry Weeds, Entourage and every other “dramedy” we may have mentioned along the way). The writer seems to think the conversation was part of some ongoing, unknown riff between the comedian and nightly news host, I think it was just two decent friends (good acquaintances?) breaking balls, or whatever the nomenclature is these days. But I’m just a lowly blogger and Dave Itzkoff writes for the Times. Just go with your gut on this one.

And finally, it looks like AMC is breaking out the big, ineffective guns to boost Mad Men’s third season, much like they did for the second which scored them such paltry ratings that AMC couldn’t find it in their heart to throw the bank at Matthew Weiner. Which is unusual since this is the best and most critically acclaimed series on television. I can sort of understand this, fans of Mad Men can be pretty insufferable. If half the people I know who watch Mad Men had recommended it to me before I bothered to watch it on my own, I’d probably steer clear of it as well, since 90% of the time the first thing they talk about is either style/set design. Both are the best you’ll find in film or television, but a series it does not make. Honestly, give it a rest, average Mad Men fan. I get it, the style is almost impeccably reflective of the era, but it’s a hat/living room/Sunday dress. Nothing more, nothing less. I can find one online and buy it for you, if you promise to shut the hell up about it.

Alright, back on Monday with the current standard recapping schedule.

What a dull fucking week this has been for this website. It’s actually kind of starting to annoy me. Again, all we watched was Daily Show last night, if you can recommend something that isn’t a rerun or a new episode of a gut-wrenchingly terrible reality series, I’m all ears. As of last night, the best thing on in prime time has been reruns of 30 Rock and The Office. You know, it is fucking summer, when is actual summer television going to start? July? Does June not qualify anymore?

Anyhow, if you couldn’t figure it out we’re falling back on links again. Don’t blame me, blame the unholy overlords that run the television industry. I will not resort to being another person who watches god damn reality shows to laugh at the people participating in them.

Looks like someone is backing my play about Artie Lange’s appearance on Joe Buck’s show. Or he’s just inadvertently agreeing with me shortly after I posted on Tuesday. It’s pretty much the same thing. Really, it’s the only logical conclusion one can reach from HBO’s handling of this: When taken into consideration the rest of their programming, how can HBO take the moral high ground? I know this is geared more towards family programming, but it was on at 9PM, so it kind of nullifies that argument.

Here’s a link to someone’s twitter page informing us that Triumph The Insult Comic Dog will be making his debut on tonight on Conan with a segment at Bonaroo, which is a concert of some sort. The wannabe hippy contingent will be as easy to crack jokes on as the Star Wars movie line, if not more so. Whether or not there is any validity to this claim, I couldn’t tell you. But I’m trying to drive up viewership, so just tune in tonight if you have nothing better to do.

Rolling Stone did a long interview with Matt Weiner about Mad Men past and future. In it he says he wanted to capture the rise of LA with the “decline” of New York. I didn’t realize NYC was struggling so much, or ever did. As far as I could tell it is and was always considered one of the more thriving markets in the history of the world. For as great as Mad Men is, it’s basically the anti-Wire. As rough as certain aspects of Betty Draper’s and Joan Holloway’s lives can be, I’m pretty certain Dukie, Wallace and Randy would do everything short of kill to have it as good as they do. Not to disparage the plight of character’s like Betty and Joan, but when you hear the show-runner talk about the “decline of  New York”, it’s kind of hard to take seriously.

Whoever it was that played the first Aunt Vivyan on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, will be writing a memoir about her experience on the show, in which she disparages the bankable movie star she used to share a set with. Guess who I’m referring too. No, go on, guess. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t Alfonso Ribiero…

Alright, it’s Will Smith. By my count, this will be the first negative press he’ll be forced to endure since…I don’t even know when. I’m sure someone called him a thug in then 80’s when he was primarily a rap artist. Probably since then. And unless she says something like he was constantly sexually harassing the rest of the cast, I doubt anyone will really give a shit.

That’s all we have for right now, we’ll post at least once more today. Promise.

Yeah, didn’t watch a minute of television last night besides Daily Show and the Larry David interview with Conan the night before. He just may be the most awkwardly comfortable man that walks the streets in Hollywood. Judging by the bulk majority of these late night interviews, that’s some steep competition. So kudos to you, Mr. David. And may you henceforth have only non-regrettable orgasms (it probably helps if you watch the interview).

Anyhow, you could probably guess that we’re resorting to posting links. Enjoy.

I don't know what he sees in her.

Christina Hendricks (Joan from Mad Men) is engaged to some actor on some shitty USA or TNT drama. No one should be too surprised by this development but everyone should be disappointed. Anyhow, I guess it pays to be on one of the many interchangeable television shows produced by both cable and broadcast networks alike. If nothing else it keeps you in the loop.

A man walked 2,200 miles from Cincinnati to LA to hand in his Survivor audition tape and was still turned down by casting. This story is quite amazing. First of all, only someone from Ohio could still possess the relentless, dimwitted optimism that’s required to partake in something like a walk across the country for a reality television show. Secondly, only Hollywood could take something as inconsequential as a falling reality series and turn the casting process into the fucking Godfather. I can’t imagine what the harm would be in allowing him on the show. “He’s too nice” was the excuse he claims they gave, and admittedly that can be nauseating. But at the same time, wouldn’t he generate a little much needed publicity? Wouldn’t this create a little buzz, and you might get some viewers who’ve given up on the show in the past few years? I really just don’t see a downside to casting him.

Here’s an interview with Mary Louise-Parker, in which she just talks about Weeds for the better part of 2,000 words. It’s a worthwhile read if you have some free time, but nothing too illuminating. Talking to actors rarely is. “How do you like pretending to be an unlikeable bitch that sleeps her way out of trouble and jeopardizes the safety of her family?” “I’ve always been attracted to roles where I come of as unlikeable, it’s just such a stretch for me, and I enjoy challenging myself, both on and off the camera.”…And so on.

Jason Jones has thrown down the gauntlet on Stephen Colbert, calling his sojourn to Iran tougher than Stephen’s to Iraq. I’d be hard-pressed to disagree, but I’d love to see a response that actually turns this into something of a feud. There needs to be more crossover between the two shows being that they are so closely connected and whatnot. (Sidebar: There wasn’t a response for this last night, was there?).

The Artie Lange saga continues, and he’s now banned from HBO, under the premise that HBO, “doesn’t have any interest in his world.” Mind you, this is the same network that is known for Taxi Cab Confessions, G-String Divas and a slew of X-rated stand-up gigs. No Mr. HBO exec, I’m afraid that’s exactly what you and your cohorts have interest in, whether you want to admit it or not. In fact you inhabit it, and are partly responsible for its creation. Anyway, in case you’re keeping score at home, that makes an entire series of networks and the most storied talk show in the history of late night that he’s no longer welcomed at. All in all, not bad for a single night’s work.

Portia De Rossi (Lindsay Fumke from Arrested Development) has her agent shopping around her memoirs detailing her experience with anorexia while shooting Ally McBeal. Man, with Calista Flockart on set, that show was probably ground zero for eating disorders in its time. No wonder it was canceled prematurely (at least according to ratings), we were about to see the slowest mass suicide the country has ever known.

And finally, probably a good sign that you’re losing credibility as an awards show: when the MTV Video Music Awards are forcing you to reschedule. That’s what’s happening to the Emmy’s (surprisingly not the Grammy’s, though I’m sure they’d have to acquiesce as well). Not that I give a shit about the Emmy’s, but it is really depressing that anything on MTV has the commercial appeal to force anything, much less television’s most “prized” award ceremony. Though this isn’t really surprising, I don’t even want to contemplate who would win a ratings war if they were the only two options, The Wire or Next…let’s just end this before we start thinking about it.

Back tomorrow with more links, most likely.

We didn’t bother with the links today because there just wasn’t that much to post. Today, however, well, today isn’t much different. But we have to post something and we’re too busy to mentally run through all of last week’s Rescue Me episode. I watched Joe Buck Live because I basically hate myself, and I want to know who told Joe Buck he was funny. Or interesting or deserving of his own HBO Talk Show. But mostly funny, because we don’t need him doing stand up before each episode.

Oh well, at least I could fast-forward through the Brett Favre story, because I think we all know it by heart at this point. And Artie Lange gave the show a bit of a pulse, though probably not the type Buck was looking for, in fact I think Lange almost jump-started a heart attack for our newly-minted show host. I heard the “Overtime” segment on HBO.com got even more uncomfortable, but I haven’t had the chance to watch it and now they’ve taken it off their site. Woe is me.

UPDATE: Deadspin is now streaming the “overtime” video.

Also, we’re looking for a Weeds outlet, hoping Netflix comes through again. And now that you know the rest of the story, here are some links.

Not that anyone who might read this site would care, but the Rose Bowl is eventually going to end up on ESPN. It’s all the same, really, Disney owns both networks. Just so long as the game doesn’t end up on FOX. Probably the network least equipped to cover a sport that they’re actually contracted to broadcast. Seriously, it’s fucking awful. Outside of Jimmy Johnson, there isn’t a single, solitary personality that either broadcasts games or provides analysis that either cares or knows what they’re talking about. It’s what I imagine watching Mormons provide commentary for the World Series of Poker would be like. At least we only have two more seasons of this bullshit.

Go see "3:10 To Yuma".

Hey, remember the kind of douchey guy who was on this season of Survivor that coached women’s soccer and claimed to also be a maestro? What was his name again?…Damn, I wish I could recall…Anyone?…Oh, that’s right: Ben Wade. Anyways, he’s decided to go down in flames as opposed to the much more favorable meekly drifting away: A book is being written about him. Well, more specifically, that most likely bullshit story he told about being kidnapped and sauteed by “indigenous peoples”. Yeah, I think even I hate him as much as the girl who wrote the TWoP recaps for the Tocantins season. Though I probably won’t mention it so frequently.

If you were wondering why AMC wanted to insert more commercials into your average Mad Men episode in the first place, it’s because their ad space isn’t worth shit. Well, they run significantly fewer commercials than most other hour long dramas, but also because they don’t make any money. A commercial on the best show on television runs a company roughly ten grand. For the same space on, say, Burn Notice, runs over twice that. America, why do you do me this way?

Here’s a Variety article comparing the alumni of Daily Show and SNL, asking which is better (I’m assuming this is of the past ten years or so). If you’re asking on a strictly critical level, it’s not even close. Ed Helms is on the best comedy on the broadcast networks and was the second lead in the best comedy I’ve seen since Big Lebowski, Steve Carell has been in about four blockbuster comedies (Evan Almighty notwithstanding), Stephen Colbert has one of the best variety shows on television…I’m not going to sit here and list everyone and there credentials. But if you take Will Ferrell (who has three good movies) and Tina Fey (the second best comedy on broadcast network television), there isn’t much to sift through.

David Letterman has apologized to Sarah Palin a little more sincerely than he did before. Great, now we can all put this behind us, and get back to focusing on the mess that is this country and virtually every other nation-state on the face of the earth (Read: those that aren’t in Scandinavia). Oh wait, obviously I’m overlooking the immense amount of political capital to be gained from a misunderstanding over a dumb joke on a late night show. Silly me. I hear every great politician’s career starts by feuding with late night hosts. That’s how Reagan got elected, he accused Carson of being a nymph.

And finally, no one can claim Daily Show and Colbert Report is watched by dipshit partisan college kids, because your average viewer of the two shows is 41.4 and 38.3, respectively. No, now you have to say it’s watched just by dipshit partisans, which I guess includes me, but not really.

Alright, we’re working on catching Weeds later tonight or this week for recapping purposes (we don’t tend on waiting a full week to recap episodes) and expect Rescue Me’s recap coming later.

We’re noticeably under the weather today, like can’t hold our head up straight or move without immense pain radiating through our body under the weather. So unfortunately we’re going to have to mail this in. Don’t blame us, blame the dipshit who comes into our work with the flu out of some misguided sense of dedication.

I'll never get tired of this.

Here’s some snippets from Fred Savage directing an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to this. Between this photo array and DeVito’s pretend meltdown with local Philly news I just might have to start downloading pirated episodes. Also, the first picture is of a dog that appears to be dead or experiencing some REM sleep, which leads me to believe that Mike Vick is going to be a focal point of one of these episodes.

Conan O’Brien has usurped David Letterman in ratings. And here I was, thinking that one night when Letterman beat Conan on Tuesday that it was all over for the gangly red-head. Who would have thought, that when you beat someone in ratings for one night in a show that airs five nights a week, you can easily bounce back from that? Rejoice, the world is not ending. I don’t know if it will stay this way for Conan, but with every committed republican now officially vowing to never watch Letterman, O’Brien will probably lose again tonight. Has anyone even bothered to explain Letterman’s joke to Palin? Because if she really thinks he was trying to disparage Willow (Alaska is still on planet Earth, right?), I don’t think she really understands the context of it.

Here is a round table discussion with multiple showrunners explaining why they don’t like spoilers. I didn’t realize this was something that needed explaining. People invest a lot of time developing plots, scripts, settings, etc.  I could understand one wanting to wait to unveil their work on their own time-table, not at the whim of some unemployed fuck-face. Maybe someone thought that any news is good news? Either way, I’m linking to this mainly so you can see what Genji Kohan looks like. Methinks she was born into whatever plane of existence Weeds happens on. At least the first couple of seasons.

Alright, that’s it. We’ll try to post again later tonight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The end of Summer cannot come soon enough.

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

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

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

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

It’s Always Sunny returns in September, so says ad in between the premiere and re-airing of last night’s Rescue Me episodes. I can’t find verification anywhere, but I should be all you need, baby. In the meantime, go to the show’s website and watch these full episodes. Listening to Mac make excuses for why he has to share a foldout bed with Frank should brighten up your morning. I’m looking forward to them taking an ax to the recession. I’m already an asshole, you don’t have to tell me.

As I’m sure you’ve seen/read/or heard about from two dozen different outlets by now, Mark-Paul Gosselaar dressed as Zack Morris on Jimmy Fallon’s show and Howard Stern dressed as Howard Stern on Letterman’s show. Amazingly I watched both of them on television, and I didn’t really think either would be the seminal events they were made out to be the following day in the entertainment world. I think sometimes, we make a bigger deal out of these things than the masses, and I have no idea why. Especially when they aren’t all that unexpected.

This is also making the rounds: how 30 Rock is a thinly veiled shadow of The Muppet Show. Eh, I’m not going to read the article because I’m pretty sure every series on television could have parallels drawn to it from some sort of predecessor, but the snippets I’ve read seem to make sense. I never watched The Muppet Show as a kid, so I don’t really know much about it.

There it is. Riveting.

Here’s the Real World: DC house. I saw articles suspecting that this was the house a couple days ago and thought about posting it, but then it dawned on me: feeding into speculation of where a new Real World house is going to be for a season that won’t air for at least nine months would be a new low for this site. I suppose this isn’t much better, but at least its been confirmed.

Good news for the state of the union: Jon & Kate Plus 8’s ratings continue to drop. I credit Barack Obama for this development. But honestly, I’m proud of you people, between this and the It’s Always Sunny episode I watched before coming in this morning is helping to restore my sanity.

I know everyone was nervous about the state of Nurse Jackie after one episode, but rest assured, it has been renewed. See, as much as I knock on Showtime for their poor production quality and generic premises, they get shit done. I can’t recall a time with The Sopranos or The Wire when the status of each series’ livelihood wasn’t in question. Specifically the questions, “Is it coming back?” and “when is it coming back?” being constantly tossed around for a few months before the network would ever give a definitive answer.

And finally, it turns out AMC isn’t cutting into Mad Men’s runtime to make way for more commercials, but much like we expected is instead going to extend the show’s airtime past 11PM to accommodate additional ads. This is the most logical conclusion, so naturally AMC reached it, because it’s one of the better ran cable networks on basic.

Back tomorrow with more links.

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.

Since you were undoubtedly wondering what happened to the Goode Family review we suggested would be posted yesterday, I should probably inform you that our DVR fucked up, only catching the last nine minutes of the show. From what we saw it wasn’t terribly funny and relied too heavily on standard cliches about PC behavior. But what we watched was kind of a non-sequitur, it picked up right when some girl was complaining to a guy who seemed like her older bother, about her mom forcing her too have sex.

Anyhow, I’m trying not to read too much into it, but I think its already been ruined for us. The animation was too bright and we don’t really like ABC, anyways. Are we actively looking for excuses to not watch this show? You betcha.

Onto some links to close out this dreadfully long, short work week.

The good news is, I might not have to worry about it, as the ratings were pretty sub-par for The Goode Family. I don’t really watch anything on ABC, and I skip pretty much every commercial when I watch a game on ESPN, so I don’t know what kind of marketing campaign was put together, but poor ratings for an animated series in prime time has to be expected, right? Either way, I’m pretty sure one more joke about same marriage vs. opposite marriage will put them right over the top.

Reportedly AMC wants an extra two minutes of commercials for each season three episode of Mad Men. I think it’s time we recalibrate how television networks (especially cable) schedule their daily programming. I mean, why would AMC limit Mad Men to one hour that has to be split with commercials? If Matt Weiner says he needs and extra fifteen minutes to squeeze in all his scenes, is there a reason they don’t give it to him? Is it really urgent they start that 4,000th rerun of Footloose when the hour hand is decidedly on a number? They may not get the best ratings, but Mad Men is by far the most buzz-worthy product the network has too offer.

Might be airbrushed a little, but we don't mind.

Joss Whedon might cast Summer Glau onto the second season of Dollhouse, giving her a chance to revive their partnership from the failed Firefly series. We mentioned when it was expected that Dollhouse was going to go off the air and everyone was blaming Eliza Dushku, that to be consistent you’d have to also blame Glau for the failures of Firefly. It seems that since Dollhouse survived cancellation, he now has some clout to bring back the witch solely responsible for one of his few misfires (just speaking commercially, people, relax). And who could blame him. Look at that picture, I’d wrestle a lion for the opportunity to meet this woman, much less work on a TV set with her for months on end.

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Real World season, which is set in Cancun. It manages to cram every cliche from the storied franchise in a two minute and eight second span. Or, he’s different when he drinks and you’re not here to make friends? Couldn’t the latter be expected and if the former is true, why did you agree to live in a house with six strangers carrying an equally serious alcohol problem?

It looks like we’re at the point where every detail of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s life is deemed newsworthy, as evidenced by this “published” news story about one of them pranking the other. Hey remember that time someone in your office put a fucking whoopie cushion in your chair, did you ever think that could one day make the rounds online? Well, it will if you one day contribute to riding a once great sketch comedy show into the ground (I love 30 Rock, as stated many times before, but SNL hasn’t been funny on any consistent basis for at least ten years).

And finally, it probably warrants mentioning that tonight is the last episode of Leno on The Tonight Show, and he’ll officially pass the torch to Conan O’Brien as host. I don’t think anyone whose ever told jokes on a broadcast network for a living has ever been so divisive (to generalize: red states love him and blue states hate him, so he always beat Letterman in ratings). This departure hasn’t been nearly as sentimental as O’Brien leaving The Late Show, maybe because it involved a move across the country? Or because Leno will significantly augment his visibility moving to 10PM, while Conan’s public persona will only slightly increase? I have no idea, but what I do know is that NBC is doing something that the masses actually seem to give a shit about. I can’t remember that happening since the debut of Deal of No Deal.

Back on Monday with nightly previews and some reaction to Conan as Tonight Show host.

Nothing too spectacular today, just a few links to keep up our end of the bargain with 451 Press. I failed to record, much less watch Rescue Me last night. I kind of feel like an asshole about it because completely forgetting about a series we recap (read: actually enjoy watching) is something I don’t thin we’ve ever done unless we skipped town and forgot to record something a few days in advance, but the Cavs-Magic game was entertaining to the point of distracting. Honestly, you could have built the space tunnel from Contact with how honed in I was on that game.

You ever wonder what Emmy submitted DVD’s look like compared to the DVD’s you buy from Amazon or Best Buy or what have you: then do yourself a favor and click this link, save the available photos in a folder on your computer and hopefully you will begin to ponder what exactly it is that you’re doing with your life, because right now it’s preparing yourself to compare the inside covers of varying types of the same DVD set.

God bless you and your thinly-veiled narcissism.

In case you were wondering, Evangeline Lilly isn’t interested in becoming the next Angelina Jolie. I, much like everyone else I suspect, didn’t realize that this was something being offered to her. Maybe she thought it was because their names are kind of similar. But, whatever, kudos to you Evangeline, on you’re selfless nature that keeps you in seven or low eight figures, and doesn’t put you into nine. I’m just happy that you decided to randomly publicly confirm something that no one was wondering about, otherwise how would we justify posting this picture of you?

A&E has a new series coming out called Obsessed, the television spin-off of that new Idris Elba/Beyonce/crazy white lady movie…Or wait, no, I read that wrong. It’s actually a harsh and depressing portrayal about the lives of OCD patients that the article promises numerous times isn’t for laughs. But let’s be honest, OCD is always funny. My guess is if you were amused by Sling Blade, then you’re going to be amused by someone’s crippling fear of using a public restroom.

Access Hollywood has a tour of Conan’s Tonight Show set hosted by Conan himself. We’ve only watched a few seconds of it, but from what we can assume there will be a performance stage, a desk and some accompanying couches for guests, a small music stage for the house band and some unique lighting to separate it from the other, rapidly growing number of late night shows flooding the airwaves. Also, I’m not sure if this was the intention, but it looks like they moved The Tonight Show to Neptune.

Hey, speaking of NBC late night television, I think it’s official: everyone has turned the corner from despising the choice of Jimmy Fallon to being charmed by his late night efforts. I will give him credit that his show is a much easier watch than most, and his amiableness definitely goes a long way, but there just isn’t a lot of wit on his show. It’s the closest thing to a family picnic there is on late night, if that makes sense.

Everyone’s all up in arms about something called Jon & Kate Plus 8, as it’s basically showing the implosion of an absurd television family. I’m not really sure why any of this is surprising to anyone, as Kate has been described several times to me by friends who watch the show as a female epithet considered much more offensive than “bitch”, that we’re not prepared to use on this site. It’s hard to believe someone so adversarial would actually be an active member in a failing marriage, I know, but it’s probably the most realistic any “reality” show has ever been. And if you needed more proof of America’s infatuation for watching people fall from grace: the show clocked ten million viewers with the season five premiere. ‘Dems Sopranos numberz.

And finally, Al Pacino will play Dr. Kevorkian in an HBO film directed by Barry Levinson. This sounds appealing, but we’re not going to lie, we’re worried about what finding that says about us. We don’t want to delve into the politics of the whole thing, but the concept of wanting to see a film about a doctor whom euthanized the sick and elderly can’t be a beneficial character trait, I’m certain. I have to imagine I’d have a better chance of meeting women if I walked around like Green Man than if I told everyone I know about the potential for this film.

Back tomorrow with more of the same.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Probably it for today, Rescue Me recap tomorrow morning.