Grid Effect

We’ll get to a few links in a moment. We have to. Because really, what’s this website without recycled news items? It doesn’t exist, really. But just a few quick words about the Rescue Me mini-episode (I almost typed “minisode” without the quotations, imagine my embarrassment). It had some funny context and it’s always enjoyable to see Mike mocked for his Forrest Gump like intelligence, but it was fairly predictable what was going to happen after Mike managed to spell “plethora” correctly.

There’s really nothing else to say about this five minute installment of Rescue Me. It certainly paled in comparison to last week’s. But that was masterful. So, if that is the litmus test, I’m afraid all of these will qualify as failures from here on out. Sorry, Tolan and Leary, you should have set the bar lower so early in your mini-episode run.

Onto some links:

Ebert and Roeper have replacements and I’ve never heard of them before, nor am I even certain they’re professional critics. But here is an unmerciful assessment of the two new hosts. I get the impression that the it will resemble an entertainment news show in the same vein as Entertainment News or Access Hollywood more so than anything related to film criticism. And while it’s a pity, come late August I’ll no longer be forced to stay up until 1am on Sunday nights to watch movie reviews. Silver lining, I suppose. Anyhow, If these two do end up doing film reviews together a la Ebert and Roeper, this will probably end with me saying I’d rather watch trailers for a half hour.

I hate commenting on gossip, but In probably the most random Hollywood friendship or whatever documented in the history of that fucking town, Jon Hamm is informed enough on the status of Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman to doll out updates to tabloids. This is kind of like finding out your girlfriend is sleeping with a midget, only more unexpected. In other news, Kathy Bates is now dating the kid from Dick Tracy.

Elizabeth Berkley, most noted for her roles in Showgirls and as Jesse “I’m off my rocker on caffeine pills” Spano on Saved By The Bell; has been cast into the final season of The L Word. Apparently they haven’t seen her work or they’re looking for the worst actress possible so it is easier to denigrate the straight woman. Whatever, if behooves me to even try to understand this show.

Rosie Perez, long noted for her stand against lowbrow film and television, has accepted a role on Lipstick Jungle. Which makes sense, because it’s so universally recognized as the second coming of Shakespeare. We’ll let it slide because she’s also in the upcoming Pineapple Express.

So apparently NBC and Greg Daniels are torn as to whether they should do an Office spin-off, create a series specifically for Amy Poehler, both, or turn the two ideas into one. The latter seems the most practical, but not for us, only for people who find Amy Poehler funny, which in my non-scientific observations is strictly women ages 16-35. If nothing else, that’s a loyal TV demographic.

And finally, Jay Leno is done next memorial day as host of The Tonight Show, we imagine Conan O’Brien will replace him shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon will start in early Spring of 2009. Um, we’re not really sure what to make of any of this, but in short: NBC is replacing hack, one-liner specialist and horrid interviewer Jay Leno, with an underachieving comedic actor in Jimmy Fallon, who has no experience in this field.  Bang up job, NBC. Now Steve Schrippa is going to be out of a job in less than a year.

There is a slew of worthwhile news items on the docket today, so we’re going to try and divvy them up into two of three posts. Anything less would just be undignified.

If you want to know the premise for any and every plot in FNL’s third season, then here’s your type of column. I’ve always wondered why the broadcast network series are generally so loose lipped about the developments of future seasons while the cable series’ basically have a death warning should any cast or crew member reveal anything to anyone. Given, nothing is given away other than where the upcoming season will begin, but it’s still so much information.

We always imagined you were a plot device, sorry to see you go, Lyla's chaste boyfriend.

Ever wondered how Weeds decided to blow up the entire series and take it south? I kind of assumed that after the third season it was evident they were out of ideas, so they could have taken it to Antarctica for all I cared, so long as they tried something different. But apparently there was greater incentive to switch gears. Hmm, color me surprised.

The Wire, Mad Men and 30 Rock took home the top prizes at the Critics Choice Awards. See, these winners are quite similar to the Emmy nominations, but no one will ever mention it, because the pink elephant in the room is the absence of The Wire with the Emmy’s. But still: progress.

Lorne Michaels is now blaming the media’s love affair for why his Barack Obama skits are so noticeably unfunny. Um, there are always politicians that the media fawns over, it has never been a problem in the past. Part of SNL’s job is to make him mockable, not wait for the media or the politician himself to beat you to the punch. Good lord, what ever happened to SNL?

And finally, if you’re into this sort of thing, Paul Lieberstein, writer and actor who plays Toby on The Office, married a college professor over this past week. Apparently no one gave Paul the memo that when you are doing something professionally in Hollywood, you are supposed to marry the student and not the professor.

That’s all we have the energy for at the moment, back with more links shortly.

We’re not sure how pithy we’ll keep it today. It is fairly boring at work so we might just continue scribing nonsense until the phone rings, someone calls our name, we run out of topics or we decide to finally go sexually harass the new girl down the hall. We’ve been procrastinating on that and it’s about time we upheld our image. If she thinks she can just waltz around here and do the job she is paid to do without being denigrated in some way, she has another thing coming.

Kristen Bell, also known as the hot blond in Forgetting Sarah Marshall as Sarah Marshall, will be joining the cast of Heroes this upcoming season. At least if you’re like me and detest this series, you now have incentive to watch. Then again, if you are like me, you’d also rather bungee jump with no cord than watch more than five minutes of something like Heroes, which I thought was canceled for some reason.

Everyone can breath a sigh of relief, because The Simpsons will be make it to a 21st season. And thank God, because if I had to go through life knowing there were only twenty seasons of The Simpsons, I just might have to go find a life worth living, and now I don’t need too. At least not now. But mark my words, I’m going to finish that script one of these days.

Sienna Miller appears to have a proclivity for melodramatic actors on ham-fisted ABC dramas, as she has now been courted successfully by two of the three brothers on Brothers and Sisters. I’m sure it’s just a big coincidence that a woman who could date practically any guy she wanted too fell for two guys who are working together on the same series for the better part of the year. But there are two other theories that might be at play here: 1) She’s dating the new one as some sort of revenge on the first one, or 2) Not that this series in any way resembles an actual family, but she is living out some sort sick, elaborate, incestual fantasy that reminds us Deliverance for some reason, can’t figure out why, though. Anyways, I think theory number two is most likely.

Really, I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Guys usually don’t go for women like this.

If you care about this sort of thing, this guy is predicting that Mad Men will clean up at the Emmy’s. We didn’t read much of the article, but we assume the theory is related to the fact that many of the Emmy voters grew up around the same time the series is set (early 60’s), are extremely liberal and like seeing their mystique of this time period stripped away. Either way, I hope he is right. Although, I wouldn’t be too disappointed if this were another Wire situation with the Emmy’s completely ignoring what is the best series on television. Again.

Also, because we can never have just one Mad Men link, Jon Hamm describes the second season “like swimming a marathon underwater“. Funny, that sounds like something his character might say, only not terribly clever. I’m assuming it means that it is long and at a tepid pace, but were to lazy to think much more about it. Still, a good interview from Mo Ryan.

A little FX news before we tip on out:

Nip Tuck creator Ryan Murphy says the series has three more seasons in it before they will retire it in 2011. Wow, that doesn’t seem like much if you haven’t watched the series at all, but I would actually subtract four and a half from what he plans on doing from here on out. The last season was such a jumbled mess of dead end plotlines, red herrings and soap-opera contrivances that we have a hard time believing that audience plans to come back for a sixth season. Sure, we were never grand appreciators of the series, but the difference between seasons 1 through four and five is virtually unprecedented.

The FOX cable network also purchased some comedy series called Testees, which just by its name is sure to be awful. But on the bright side, in that same link you will see they picked up 39 more episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. We assume that’s on top of this season debuting in a couple months, so we have four more seasons of Sunny to look forward to. That will make any soulless TV fan’s day.

Alright, we’re done for the day, back tomorrow with some links most likely.

There is way too much news from the weekend to bring it all to one post, so we’ll limit it to six or so links as to keep things relatively organized.

It has been speculated ever since his divorce, and is now official. Larry David is bringing back Curb Your Enthusiasm for a seventh season in the first quarter of 2009. We assume the film he was doing with Woody Allen is all wrapped up, hence the announcement. No word yet as to whether or not the Blacks will be part of the cast, but we are kind of assuming — nay, expecting — they will be. This was announced on Friday and we’re still giddy about it, that’s why we’re winners.

This seems like too much sense that we assumed it would never happen.

Elizabeth Moss and January Jones claim to have restarted smoking again as a result of being on Mad Men, which isn’t all that surprising. If you were actually addicted to smoking, a picture of a banana or some gay porn could probably get you back on the wagon, much less being around take after take of people smoking herbal cigarettes while you’re at work. Either way, it’s a small price to pay to be apart of the series. Before this January Jones was best known for being in American Wedding, which was like the sixth installment of the American Pie franchise. A franchise we loathe of the highest order.

David Simon is not making a Wire movie. Saying, “It would be like dragging a flag through the mud.” Well then, that should put all rumors, speculation and ideas to rest. Particularly the ideas, I have to imagine that David Simon shooting down one of your scripts is akin to Michael Jordan telling you to go out for track and field instead of basketball.

Speaking of David Simon — and the fact that we’re still pretty enamored with what we watched last night — Generation Kill was screened at Camp Pendleton prior to its airing, and for anyone questioning its authenticity, you should know that it was widely received by the several hundred marines in attendance. This instills more anticipation than any review we could ever read, because it is coming from the ground floor.

David Simon is just all over the newswire these days, as his new series about Jazz musicians in New Orleans, Treme, will star Wendell Pierce a New Orleans native and Wire alumnus himself. This news, beyond all else, is just fantastic. Are we wrong to hope that he also has a casual, borderline destructive drinking problem?

And finally, more good news, Martin Scorcese is bringing his talents to HBO for a series about the corruption that plagues/plagued Atlantic City. We live by few rules, but if it involves Scorcese, corruption, crime and legalized gambling then we make a point to see whatever it is.

Back with a Weeds review/recap and some more links tomorrow.

Some links to end the work week.

More Mad Men news: Reportedly there are life-size images of Don Draper on a train that runs to and from Times Square and Grand Central Station. First off, anyone who would go out of there way to look at artwork of a TV character on a subway cart should probably get a hobby or some other interest before Darwinism gets the better of you.

Secondly, I’m sure the cart will stay in mint condition. Not because it’s on an NYC subway or anything, everyone knows those are havens of model ethical behavior, but because 1.1 million people watch the show every week. We all know what a deep passion high school kids who tag subway carts have for 1960 atmospherics that 1.1 million people watch every week. Naturally they will know exactly what they’re looking at and treat it with the utmost respect.

It’s so authentic they don’t even allow black people on it.

I think at this point it is safe to say that the $25 million marketing campaign was totally worth it. Because while Mad Men is categorized as a current “it” show (translation: something that everyone in inner-circles talks about but no one outside of those circles watches), at least one reporter seems to find everything and everyone involved with the series devoid of personality. I’m all for cynicism. Fuck, this blog thrives off of it. But this reporter seems like the Jay Mariotti of entertainment critics.

Despite previous reports, the Mad Men five season plan is not set in stone. In other words, if AMC or some other larger network throws enough money at me I’ll totally sell out my as of now masterpiece. Obviously I’m kidding. But thanks anyhow Mathew Weiner, for making me look like a dipshit. I like how a report can come about speculating about the future of a series, then a completely contradicting report can come from a different publication but the same source. It looks like whoever was responsible for the the previous report, basically took their interpretation of it an ran wild, instead of asking clarification from a reasonably vague Weiner. Just how drunk are they getting at this press tour?

If you think I’m being too crass, something similar happened with a reported riff between Evan Wright, David Simon and a dispute over writing credits for Generation Kill. It’s a he said-she said betweem Wright and the writer of course, but is there anything valid coming out of this press tour? The whole thing is like a giant hoax. If I was on either side of this tour , the media or the talent, I’d be half expecting an empty room with a nothing but an inflatable clown doll when I showed up to a Q&A.

Also on the HBO front, because nothing ever ends when it should, Ricky Gervais is now saying that Extras might be in line for a return to the airwaves. Not that we would mind, we think the entire series run totaled maybe sixteen episodes as the British are wont to do. Still, this is like Elway returning to the NFL in that it’s the last retired series we would ever expect to see new episodes of. Seinfeld is due for a comeback before Extras.

See you on Monday with a review/recap of the first installment of Generation Kill.

We’ll go back to our roots and make this post a plethora of links instead of extrapolating on one news item like we’ve been doing recently. Not for any nostalgic reasons, but nothing we could find deserves its own post and we’ll be damned if we’re going to compromise our integrity for the sake of consistency, alright?

Roger Ebert waxes sentimentally about Wit, an old HBO original movie about a woman dying from ovarian cancer starring Emma Thompson. Guy has balls. It must be painfully difficult to write about such subject matter in his situation. We’re still waiting for him to come back to television, because while we like how A.O. Scott has recommended two television seasons as his DVD picks of the week (Wire season four and Mad Men), he can’t hold a candle to Mr. Ebert.

Office webisodes (a much preferred homogenization of words to “minisodes”) are supposed to kick off today, but the newest one has yet to be posted. We’ve never watched these and we’re not sure why. Probably has something to do with the fact that The Office already produces twenty-two episodes a season, a significant chunk of which are an hour long. Oh well, now that we’ve linked to the site, we’ll probably watch all of them in one sitting over some donuts and milk (I’m twelve). Man, writing for this site is so personally rewarding.

You’re not going to believe this, but that mean old fuck who hosts Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t like what I’m assuming he considers intrusive questioning. Wow. He always seems so even-keeled and understanding. I can’t believe he would just curse like that. If this was 1992 and he somehow made it passed the FCC, my parents wouldn’t let me watch his show after this incident.

In a move that has shocked the world, the whore sleeping with the sleazebag former New York State Governor is heading out to Hollywood for a stab at reality television. It’s almost like, a girl with no discernible talent or ambition, who slept with rich and powerful men for large sums of money, actually has a deep-seeded desire to be in the limelight. How immoral. Not the whole prostitution thing, but using your prostitution to garner fame. Having sex with strangers for money is supposed to be one of the more honest trades left in this crazy workaday world, and now there’s all these ulterior motives. It sickens me what we’ve become.

Denise Richard’s neighbors are upset over her new reality series, as it is a huge disruption on the neighborhood. They claim, “This is a gated community, not a zoo”. Umm, you live next to Denise Richards, who used to live with Charlie Sheen. If anything your community has always been a zoo, and they just killed off all the wildcats. Either way, you live in a gated community, and while it might be a hassle and unfair of me to suggest this, but everyone assumes you have the means to move to another gated community.

Asked for further comment, the neighbors said, “If I have to see that heathen or her camera crew one more time on the way to the monocle store, we’ll make sure she never has that moat built around her estate. You can be sure of that.”

In conclusion, no one will ever feel sorry for you when you’re rich and complaining about something innocuous happening inside your ivory tower. I hope your yard workers take an extra twenty minutes next time they are working for pinto beans and burn your house down. Oh, and also? Denise Richards is a fucking twatbag with little to no redeemable value, but it doesn’t make these neighbors any more tolerable.

Entourage is quickly developing the best cast ever from shows that aren’t theirs. First it was Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and now it is Jeffrey Tambor. Looks like Tambor will be playing himself, I didn’t bother to read the article for Sigler, but it would make sense. If so her character on Sopranos will be referenced at hyper-speed.

Alright, I’m starting to tire of the over-saturation of Mad Men, but we feel obligated to inform of any and all news about the series since we are such avid fans. So here goes:

-Mathew Weiner has a five season plan that he doesn’t intend on exceeding. This is generally a good thing, The Wire and The Sopranos both had beginnings and ends in mind when they started out, this is why we put Mad Men in that caliber. Unlike Lost, 24 or even Rescue Me, who both seem to be making it up as they go.

-The second season will premiere on Valentine’s Day in 1962. So, five seasons, each with roughly two years in between seasons, sounds like the final season will take place in 1970 after Woodstock and the tail-end of the hippy-era. I, for one, find that to be a good stopping point.

-According to Weiner, the first season set in 1960 was similar to the year it aired. He warns of more parallelism between 2008 and the second season. He even drops the upcoming presidential election. Which is odd because the Nixon-Kennedy election of 1960, at least in our eyes, is eerily similar to Obama-McCain.

And finally, Peter Bogdonavich — who for whatever reason seems to be a go to voice on all things Sopranos related — wants to make sure no one gets their hopes up or down, and assures us that a Sopranos movie will in all likelihood never happen. We had no idea that it had even been hinted at in the past calendar year, but it’s good to know that something I wasn’t expecting will probably reach my expectations. Whew, that’s a relief.

A few more links to close out the day. We’re not trying to say that we are beholden to the concept, in fact more than anything else in the world we would like to distance ourselves from the posting format. But, even though we’re elated it’s 4th of July weekend, it doesn’t make us anymore creative. As Stringer Bell might say, same as it ever was.

You’re not going to believe this, but studies indicate that women comprise 85% of ABC’s online viewing audience. And here I was all this time, thinking the traditional alpha male fell in love with shows like October Road, Eli Stone & Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The times they are a changin’, indeed.

Denis Leary, Elaine Benes & Marc Cuban will be three of many that donate their voices to this upcoming season of The Simpsons, increasing the popularity of the historic show’s irrelevance. Their was about a five year stretch wherein The Simpsons was the premiere comedy on television, but for the past eight years or so it has been dying the slowest death imaginable. Just imagine if Seinfeld was still making new episodes how tired they would seem, then multiply it by ten. That’s where we’re at with The Simpsons. God, this is just depressing, moving on.

Hey, you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of bizarre, repetitive though I’m sure technically sound episode of South Park? Well, wait no longer my belabored friend, the feature is now available on their website with the episode “Major Boobage“. We weren’t particularly fond of the episode, but its worth a look never the less.

Finally, there will be some reasonable conflict on Entourage. It appears the high life the four protagonists have been living for four seasons will be deflated a tad as they struggle to make a lavish living. Given, its not The Wire, we don’t have people struggling with heroin addiction or anything. But if the series is going to stay on the air, we appreciate the minor alteration.

If you haven’t seen any Mad Men episodes and yearn to potentially help boost their DVD revenue, you can watch the pilot episode online. We would highly recommend this, but without an outlet to watch the rest of the series, if you’re not into buying DVD’s there isn’t much point. If you need a superficial reason to watch, an entire episode could be Christina Hendricks washing her car and we’d be sufficiently entertained.

Speaking of which, its almost imperative to the future of AMC that you buy the DVD, since they dropped $25 million promoting the second season. “We’re treating this like a movie opening” says the marketing president for the network. And I could see the benefits of that, but do most movies spend $25 million in promotions?

And finally, fresh off his oddly miscast role as Abomination or whatever the guy’s name was in The Hulk, Tim Roth is heading to the small screen with the FOX pilot Lie To Me, in which he plays a “human lie detector”. Simply put, this will probably be melodramatic tripe. My question is, whose decision was it to cast the bellboy from Four Rooms as a martial arts expert in the military, because it was surreal.

That’s it until Monday, have a great fourth. We recommend celebrating your country’s independence by blowing up a small piece of it.

Considering we’re not posting anything for tomorrow, we’re going to try an keep things light and optimistic around here. Meaning, most of the news will be good news, and if it’s bad, we’ll try to keep it in good humor to compensate. This is generally what we always do, but the goal is to accentuate the positive heading into the glorious three day weekend that is the 4th of July.

Mainly we wanted to comment on the Rescue Me mini-episodes (I’d rather be drenched in honey and eaten alive by fire ants than use the phrase “minisode” without at least sarcastic quotations). While they’ve been funny at moments, it really is too much of a tease as well as something of a nuisance. I mean, I don’t watch TV really, so there is never anything on Tuesday nights at 10pm that I want to see. But if there were and I still don’t have a recorder of some sort, then I have to cut into the show I planned on watching for five minutes of witty banter.

On top of that, you barely have time to assimilate yourself to the show and soak in the characters before they roll the “mini-credits”. The whole thing is like a lap-dance from a woman you have absolutely no chance with. Never the less, if my ringing endorsement is enough to draw you in, the installments can actually be watched here should you decide this is worth your time.

With the second season of Mad Men less than a month away, we went ahead and pre-ordered the first season DVD’s (actually arrived a day before the official release), and let me just say that the packaging alone on this set is creative enough that it’s like the Helena of Troy of DVD seasons. That’s right, it has the potential to start wars. One of our favorite TV critics actually criticized the set for excessive episode commentaries (it would appear the talent is a little too pleased with themselves). We haven’t gotten around to watching any of the extras on the DVD, though we did see a “Best of Mad Men” half hour special during lunch a few days ago. It was enough to keep us out of work for twenty minutes longer than is necessary and make us pine for the free time to peruse such features on the DVD.

Suddenly I find I’m fending off the urge to smoke. It’s even prettier than the below picture.

Speaking of DVD’s, I have some bad news for all Sopranos fans who have made a point to buy every season on DVD. David Chase and the fine blood-sucking folks over at HBO have opted to release a box set of epic proportions. Now, usually when this is the case, in which something is repackaged and upgraded to be considered the “ultimate” collectors item, I tend to wipe my ass with the shameless capitalism and manipulation. The bonuses that vary from one DVD set to the next tend to be something along the lines of a gag reel and a folded up, crinkled poster they cram inside the box.

But with this new Sopranos incarnation, I think I’m going to have to buy it at its outrageous $400 price tag (The Sopranos first season was the first season of television I ever bought on DVD, and I fully expected every season of every show to run me somewhere in between $60 and $80, so I was delighted when I could get The Wire, FNL, Curb & Mad Men all for under $40). Literally, it has everything that the individual seasons did not: alternate endings, deleted scenes, lost scenes (shit that happened off camera that was in the series), actor, director, writer interviews, three soundtrack discs and even an interview with David Chase by Alec Baldwin (what?). This is like if I was seven years old again, and it had suddenly begun to rain candy like I had always hoped.

The only dilemma is they are planning on doing something similar with The Wire now because HBO is dead set on seeing me live beyond my means. Their plans are a little less polished than those for The Sopranos, because the mafia hit will be an enormous pay day for everyone involved. But with the pending release of the fifth season, do I bite the bullet and purchase it, or do I wait until the probable December release of the box set (mind you, I’m selling all my seasons for both series’ if I invest in the box sets)? This is truly a test of wills for over-privileged fucks like myself.

Back with a couple more random posts today.

I come from a rather tolling weekend as the bearer of good news: in only one week we’ll actually have a television series to discuss. Well, eight days. Weeds’ 4th season premiere airs a week from today, given us fodder for Tuesday’s post. The at times unbearably self-satisfied and unapologetically liberal series just might be the saving grace for this blog. It’s a shame we’ve had to lower our standards so, but it is what it is.

In the meantime, we will, of course, be offering more of the same. Here are some links to kick off your work week. We might take a break from this and do a list of some sort before the week is out.

New York Magazine wonders what is up with all these crazy women on reality television? Because apparently NYM has never understood the concept of ratings. It’s not like a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest type of situation. Either these women are hamming it up for attention or they were borderline dysfunctional/certifiable long before they were cast on some reality series, and that is why they were cast on some reality series. You could just as easily make one of these lists for male reality stars, particularly Real World cast members.

Jimmy Kimmel is only slightly slagging in ratings behind Conan O’Brien, who is now looking like a suspicious candidate to replace Leno. Say what you will about Leno, we certainly have, but he’s a surefire ratings cannon. Maybe some of O’Brien’s viewership is falling off because they are waiting for him to be bumped up an hour? But while we’ve defended him in the past, losing nights to Craig Ferguson and Kimmel now being viable competition, it stands to wonder if this isn’t a sign of things to come. It is almost like jumping in front of a camera and making cat noises doesn’t have any staying power.

Some writer for some shitty newspaper believes the problem with the Obama imitation on Saturday Night Live isn’t that Fred Armisen is white, but rather that he doesn’t capture Obama’s charisma. Yeah, because mocking imitations for comedic effect only work when they are extremely flattering. Norm McDonald really personified a realistic and fair minded portrayal of Bob Dole, that’s what made it one of the better impersonations in the show’s history. Its accuracy.

If only they gave him more credit for being affable, this would be hilarious.

Survivor: Gabon is behind schedule. Apparently shipping has turned into something of a hassle, and makes it all the more clear why disaster relief is so wildly inefficient in this country and around the world. A private company can’t even supply a TV show with enough goods to film for thirty-nine days, what chance does anyone have in the wake of tragedy?

Semi-related, John Slattery admits to watching Progect Runway, and takes a shot at Survivor while doing so, “What I like is the show is about the creativity, not just, ‘Let’s vote the biggest asshole off the island.’” You take it back John Slattery, how dare you trivialize our guilty pleasure to compliment your guilty pleasure. Why can’t you be more like Vincent Kartheiser and simply say the show you like, then fail to offer an explanation for why you would like something so tedious and trite.

HBO forced a local Baltimore purse shop to change its name from “Handbags In The City” to “Handbags and The City”. I’m just glad to see they’re not picking on the little guy. That store was profiting marginally from using a ridiculously stupid pun on one of their show titles that hasn’t been on the air for four years without proper copyright access. Damn right they have to change that sentence connector. No free passes when it comes to similar language.

And finally, if you’re all clamoring to know what John Stamos has been up to — Like all of us — well, here is your answer. I couldn’t read the article, I fell into mild paralysis with elation that Jesse does indeed have more projects on the way.

That’s all we’ve got, I hope your day goes as quick as mine will slow.

What makes a Thursday morning better than average? When you can return to writing the same tired useless bullshit that you always did, without feeling guilty because you never tried anything new. No, instead you get to feel guilty because you tried and it failed miserably. Your welcome, 451 press!

So here are some links to help tide you over while we wait patiently for Weeds to kick off its fourth season. But even then our expectations are nil after the most recent effort. We have some issues with that series that we’ll address in our season three recap that will be posted sometime late next week before the June 16th premiere. In the meantime, enjoy reading whatever I can trudge up here.

Alan Sepinwall, probably one of the better TV critics around, only had his blog for the last two seasons of The Wire, of which he wrote detailed recaps for every episode. So instead of letting all reasonable obligations end like that, he’s going back to the pilot episode, and writing a weekly recap for every episode in the first season. Not only that, but he’s doing two separate recaps for each episode, one for people who have seen the entire series, and one for people just tuning in. This is something we would contemplate doing if we had the time, patience, interest or resources to actually see it through.

Here are your top ten series’ with opening credit narrations. It’s tedious, pointless and ultimately kind of idiotic, but we read and enjoyed it anyways. Who doesn’t love a good list?

Mad Men will have moved forward past Don Draper sitting on his steps alone for Thanksgiving for the start of the second season. It didn’t end the first season with the characters in peril, and the season two premiere won’t pick up with them in the same exact scene. In other words, it isn’t Weeds. For which we can all be thankful.

The quintessential American romance.

Comparing and contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of the American and British versions of The Office. Seems like apples and oranges at this point. I mean, the American version has had four seasons, three of which are longer than the entire series of its British predecessor. Next week, I’m writing a post about the dichotomy between The Critic and South Park, mainly because they’re both animated.

Speaking of which, South Park will be available on HD for DirectTV subscribers. It’s a widely known fact that watching comedy in HD makes everything exponentially funnier. Its like being stoned, but on technological advancement.

Rescue Me “minisodes” will debut on June 24th, we might have mentioned that on this site. I know we mentioned the eventual existence of them, but no confident that we had a date. Either way, here it is. I, for one, am tickled to see what exactly a minisode is, other than a thematic commercial.

What a surprise, Mad Men and The Wire lead the way in nominations at the Critic’s Awards. Really, there is nothing comparable in quality, originality and style to these series’ on television. Lost can go fuck itself.

And finally, our other national nightmare might come to an end. Eventually. The Simpsons is guaranteed at least a total of twenty seasons, but for some reason it is speculated that after that 20th season, the series will come to an end. We’d be elated, but we’ll believe it when we see it. The show is an institution, but a crumbling one that needs to go away.

That’s it for today, expect a nightly preview tomorrow.

Technical difficulties have afflicted Grid Effect, and while we are more inclined to neglect the site altogether and call it a wash, it’s unspeakably boring at work. So we’re more than happy to contribute to the mass of worthless information that comprises most of the internets. Here are some links, enjoy.

Mad Men’s official second season debut has been scheduled for Sunday, July 27th at 10pm est. Hopefully Pete Campbell hasn’t killed his bastard child by then. This, compounded with Generation Kill and Weeds (a coworker recently dropped HBO in favor of Showtime & Starz for the same price, I’m sensing an oncoming trend), should make July an unusually good TV month.

It looks like Jericho fans are just as insufferable as Friday Night Lights fans, except only for a far inferior television series. Still, best of luck to them and all their future endeavors, with any luck they’ll get Quantum Leap back on the air as well.

A preview of season four of Weeds. We haven’t seen the third season yet (starting tonight, actually), but we’ll just say that after the first two seasons, we’re kind of hoping either Nancy Botwin redeems herself in some way or else she experiences some comeuppance. A little too reckless/negligent for us to always want to see her succeed.

Tivo will have an option to record all the series’ recommended by the Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan (see Mad Men link). We enjoy Miss Ryan’s prose, but why she was chosen over the thousands of TV critics in the country, we’ll never understand. Anyway, don’t be surprised if you select this option, only to see your Tivo overloaded with Friday Night Lights reruns.

MTV will have cameras follow rapper/wannabe actor TI around while he completes his court ordered 1,000 hours of community service. It’s like a Scared Straight for those with penchants of loitering and starting bar fights. TI was found guilty of much heavier charges, but he’s a celebrity. And it’s a widely known fact that celebrities are better than regular people, thus receive lighter sentences. If for whatever reason (we can’t think of one) this doesn’t sound like its for you, don’t worry; I’m sure MTV will manage to condense the 1,000 into about 180 minutes.

The Hills goes out of their way to illustrate their “personalities” as non-celebrities so as to make it still seem relatable, because they know that no other media exists in the entire world, and no one could figure this out for themselves. Said MTV programming head, Tony DiSanto: “It’s not a documentary about Lauren who is a star because she’s on a show called ‘The Hills.” He followed that up with, “I don’t give a shit what you fucking muts say, MTV has programming standards, and we will not lower our brow for any of you unless you can guarantee us higher ratings”.*

I just can’t place why this show is popular.

Terrence Winter is working on a new project with HBO, and reflects fondly on working with Sydney Pollack. If you don’t know who Terrence Winter is, then go look it up because we’ve mentioned his accolades enough on this website. We’ll just link to his IMDB page to make it easier…This guy loves the northeast, apparently.

Speaking of which, if you’re looking for an overpriced, (most likely) oversized suit, then look no further: James Gandolfini is auctioning off twenty-four of the suits he wore as Tony Soprano. A couple questions: First, he got to keep those fucking suits? All of Them? Did he ever wear the same suit twice? Or just one an episode? I’d be looking to hawk some of those as well. Second, does it come with his chronic wheezing? I don’t want the suit unless respiratory disease is promised.

I love that we live in a world where Ashton Kutcher is now in a position to hire Kelsey Grammar and not the other way around. We have no idea what for and we’re already disinterested.

Reynoldsburg, Ohio native “Bow Wow” has joined the cast of Entourage. One of the five characters (likely Turtle) will almost certainly call him “dog” in some lame attempt at a pun, and everyone in the scene will laugh…this show needs to end.

Drea De Matteo is getting the Michael Richards treatment after her asinine decision to leave The Sopranos in favor of a spinoff sitcom on NBC. We said at the time it was probably the smart move since she was going to be killed off regardless, but we’ve heard contradicting reports. If in fact she opted to leave before discovering she would be killed off instead of as a result of it, then this website has little sympathy for her. At the same time, the failures of Joey had little to do with Matteo’s acting, and what little success they did have you could attribute at least 40% to her looks. True story.

Finally,HBO is set to air Bad Girls, a women’s prison drama that’s going to ruin all of our lesbian fantasies. Or maybe enhance them, who knows? If there is anyone that dreams of men hooking up with each other at a fervent pace, Oz most likely fulfilled those. Unless you like to live through your sexual encounters, then probably not. Seriously though, it looks great!

Have a thoroughly rewarding weekend.

Still haven’t watched anything all that riveting. We shamefully tuned into Beauty and The Geek last night and it was essentially an hour long string of people crying, so we’ll probably steer clear of that unless it picks up its game. So, when in doubt, here are some links (as is our montra).

Jay Leno was forced to apologize for his persistent gay jokes while McCain hassles Letterman for regularly mocking his age. To avoid any scarring anyone deeply, eventually these guys will be forced to stand on stage in a nondescript full body suit and mutter to themselves while staring at the ground. I think this is where we are ultimately heading.

For whatever reason, Britain is importing The Hills, probably to indoctrinate their youth with conspicuous consumption. I don’t know. It’s beyond me why anyone would want to their own version of the worst aspects of American pop culture, but at least Kevin Spacey has a legitimate cause now.

Hey, speaking of conspicuous consumption, the series that sort of popularized it is now responsible for establishing a $24,000 NYC tour. That’s right, a tour company will show you New York the same way you saw it on Sex and The City. If I lived in such a fantasy world, I always imagined myself going on a murderous rampage. Can I be held responsible for my actions should I choose to take this tour? I think not. Not for twenty-four large.

Don Draper, mingling with the Bohemian set.

Some great news for this website, Mad Men is slated for DVD release on July 1st. This way the boomers can relive their horrifying childhood’s over and over again. Seriously, it must be a nice retrospective for them, because it is for me and I wasn’t alive until twenty-five years after the fact. I need to know when they are coming back for a second season. With virtually all good dramatic television off the airwaves right now, this is more anticipated than ever.

And finally, here’s wishing Roger Ebert the best of luck. After three surgeries he still hasn’t regained his voice thus unable to do his review show with Richard Roeper, but is set to return to written reviews. We will most certainly be reading.

Survivor and South Park recaps tomorrow. Yay substance!

This is what happens when you rewatch an academy award winning movie instead of one of the more anticipated miniseries’ in about a decade, you have nothing to write on your website about. We saw like the first thirty minutes of it, but it was on mute as not to distract us from the riveting phone conversation we were engaged in. Anyhow, it looked stylistic if somewhat fake, and Giamatti — even with being the title character — is on screen entirely too much.

So yeah, outside of the selection show that is our weekend in a nutshell: we didn’t watch John Adams. Enthralling. We did, however, watch No Country For Old Men last night, and this is on the heels of seeing 3:10 To Yuma earlier in the week, all that is really comparable about the two is the villains. And after seeing No Country again, Antoine Chigurh makes Bud West looks like an OZ prag.

See, clearly Giamatti wasn’t that much of a miscast.

It appears not everyone is immediately giving John Adams a rave review like is usually done. This one is particularly soulless towards Giamatti, whose stock has been plummeting ever since he was integral to that Lady In The Water movie.

But hey, HBO only shelled out $100 million to see this project made, that’s hardly even considered a significant investment for a pay channel. Can someone explain the logic for HBO to invest this heavily in something when they are reliant on subscribers? Few to no people are actually going to pay for HBO as a result of a miniseries, and even if they do, conventional wisdom would suggest that it’ll be canceled two months from now when the series is done. So I guess the incentive is that those people, after being exposed to the majesty that is HBO, will have no choice but to keep the pay network, or be to lazy to cancel it, or maybe its DVD sales and awards are the motivators. Either way, I need an explanation.

If this guy’s opinion counts for anything at all, it looks like Mad Men will go over well with the Brits. There seems to be a proclivity on the other side of the pond for watching Americans wallow in despair. From what I can gather, The Wire has a pretty strong following as well. Of course, I enjoy watching both series’, which I guess would make me a self-loathing patriot. Whatever, I’m not watching 24.

The gang from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is bringing their act to FOX in a new sitcom deal. Or rather, a portion of their act, were not certain FCC guidelines allow for a comedy about finding a dumpster baby. On the other hand, they do allow people to wreck their lives on reality television, so the excessive degree of lewdness could go either way.

To send you out on this Monday morning on a high note, it appears FNL is getting closer and closer to a deal. Good, we don’t want our Crucifictorious t-shirt to be dated before we ever wear it in public. Besides, what is Minka Kelly going to do should this series go off the air.

Slow day, back with more tomorrow.

After staying up until 2am waiting for HBO to post the new Wire episode on demand, we called it a night. Problem being, we are dead tired and keep drifting off at work, so we’re sorry if this post doesn’t thrill and amuse.

Two series’ this website is incredibly favorable of, Weeds and Mad Men, have both received exemptions from the writer’s strike. Supposedly they cut a deal with their respective production companies or something? I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if enough high ranking members of the WGA liked these two shows enough that they decided to let it slide.

Nielsen ratings for The Wire continue to fall, and I have one question for those who may be concerned with this, does it really seem like fewer people are watching the show than at the end of the fourth season? All the people I know who watched it still do, and all the blogs, websites, message boards, etc. I visit all have the same frequency of posts/comments. Does anyone know if DVR/Tivo recordings and On Demand views are factored into these ratings? I sincerely doubt it. Also, some dickhead leaked the first seven episodes online, so several loyalists aren’t even using HBO to watch the episodes.

Let me extrapolate on this point to vent, I like that the episodes are posted earlier On Demand, but between that, the online availability of episodes that have yet to air, and the regular showing on Sunday nights, it makes the series impossible to talk about with other fans. If you talk to seven people, they’re at six different stages in the season, so every conversation is bogged down in a series of qualifiers such as, “well, have you gotten to (fill in this scene here, and just asking about it spoils the series)?”, and “I know you’re not up to this point, but…”. For someone who likes to dissect every facet of every episode, I’d probably simply prefer it if they did away with all the On Demand shenanigans and advanced copies, and force me to watch every Sunday night. If not for myself, then for everyone whose been incidentally spoiled and for the series’ ratings (even though they’re kind of irrelevant now).

Speaking of The Wire, Lance Reddick has gone from the critically acclaimed series, to Oz, to movies that share a name with a Norm McDonald comedy to Mercedes commercials and now to FOX pilots. While we have no doubt this project will sink like a stone, it’s always good to see good actors from legendary series’ get more work. Anyone seen JK Williams (Bodie) sine he was shot dead on his corner? Didn’t think so. That kid should be able to find work solely for his spit takes.

The king stay the king, Bodie. Until he’s murdered, then someone else is the king.

Here’s wishing Roger Ebert all the best after yet another surgery. His Great Movies List has provided me with countless entertainment recommendations for slow weekends over the years, we need to see another hundred added to that list before it’s all said and done. We also hope he regains his voice and makes it back to his show, which has been influencing our theater outings for about seven years now.

So apparently, and this is going to come as a huge surprise, Americans love them some schaudenfruede, as evidenced by 24 million people watching Moment of Truth. If only everyone’s personal and domestic conflicts could be aired on national television, we would all be so happy. Maybe there should be some sort of mandate on this to help pull us out of a looming recession: if you have some deep-seeded secret or revelation you’re planning on making to a family member/close friend, it must be done on Fox, so we can have a cast of judges humiliate you more than you could possibly humiliate yourself. Though I will give the series credit, it takes balls to invite Roger Clemens onto a show with such a premise. There is no telling how that ‘roided up entitled freak will react.

And finally, to send you out of here on a sour (or positive, depending on your perspective) note, ABC has cut a third of their fall pilots for 2008. Not pulling any punches, the network is taking a meat axe to the union, who seems to have gotten in over its head. I think this might mean that the end is nigh for October Road.

Back tomorrow with something other than a Nip Tuck recap tomorrow.

Yeesh, still haven’t gotten around to watching Breaking Bad, but man is the suspense building. We’ll probably watch it on Sunday before the sophomore effort in lieu of any football to consume. We did, however, watch Nip Tuck. And after foregoing all recaps from here on out, we felt validated. That’s all we’ll say.

Also, something we discovered recently, the reason we liked the hideously deformed Rachel Ben Nattan character so much is because she is played by Maggie Siff, the same Maggie Siff who played our favorite female character on Mad Men: Rachel Menken. We never would have guessed that. As little as six months ago we’d never heard of this woman, now she’s playing two of our favorite characters on, two of the, roughly ten, series’ we watch.

It appears the Grammy’s are so innocuous now the WGA isn’t even going to bother to picket them. Either the union is getting apathetic, or this should tell us something about the dire state of the music industry. Or the awards handed out at the Grammy’s aren’t reliant on the WGA for creative council. Whatever, I’m too lazy to read the article.

An article making the case for FNL being a commercial failure because they never marketed their product with additional supplemental products such as toys, lunch boxes, etc. Not sure if I really agree with any of this, the series makes the other peripheral products viable revenue options, not the other way around. This is like saying baseball never would have reached its apex without baseball cards, seems counter-intuitive. And secondly, I have a Crucifictorious t-shirt, so to say they haven’t franchised FNL is essentially a blatant falsehood.

Clearly the problem is the above was never transformed into a Barbie Doll.

In least expected marriage of all time news, Larry Gillard Jr. who played D’Angelo Barksdale on The Wire before his untimely death in the middle of season two, is married to Michelle Paress, aka Alma Gutierrez. Since no one watches The Wire, for you Sopranos fans, this is like Tony Blundetto marrying Meadow.

In one of the more petty, pointless, and ultimately ineffectual moves of all time, the FOX affiliate in Green Bay that airs Seinfeld reruns canceled their syndication for the day Eli Manning would be in town for the playoff game against The Packers. So Jerry Seinfeld sent the wide-eyed quarterback a free box set. It’s a move that almost made me glad the Giants won despite hating the fucking Giants. And the subsequent interference from Seinfeld almost redeems him from the whole cookbook fiasco, despite considering the decision to berate a woman rightfully looking for her fair share on national television to be completely irredeemable. All told, this was quite the enlightening series of events.

And finally, an interview with Linda Cardellini on her stint with the short lived but cult followed and critically praised Freaks and Geeks. We think she’s on ER now or something, but she’ll always be Lindsey Weir to this website. At least until she’s in a Judd Apatow movie, then she’ll be whoever that character is.

Kind of slow ’round these parts. Back with something more invigorating tomorrow.