Grid Effect

See, you take a week off from doing links, and there is some actual worthwhile shit to relay. I need to come up with more ideas for arbitrary lists so this isn’t such a rare occurrence.

Peter Tolan, co-creator and writer on the now scorned Rescue Me, is developing a new series with Mathew Perry. In which the Friends alum will utter the seaward, or the “C” word to you non-Arrested Development fans and those who follow and understand English. Apparently we’re supposed to care about the slur, but what’s more shocking to me is that Peter Tolan is developing something without Dennis Leary, and Mathew Perry is still able to find work. It appears being married to Courtney Cox, be it in real life or in fiction, is terrible for your career.

There is talk of a Weeds spinoff in the works with Conrad and presumably Heylia. Normally I would applaud such a decision being that these are/were two of the better actors/characters on the series. But the writers are overwhelmed as it is since they seem to be making it up as they go with the Botwins, so I don’t know if they can handle the workload of writing for two series. And a new writing staff generally doesn’t write for already developed characters all that well (see: Family Guy).

Speaking of which, despite it slagging in quality, Weeds’ fourth season premiere brought Showtime the biggest audience it has ever had. It seems like this is a common theme for series’ on premium networks. That theme being, whenever one of their series’ takes an abnormally long hiatus, the premiere for the following season brings in a huge number (see: Sopranos season four premiere).

Steve Carell promises to be on board with The Office for at least three more seasons. We’re probably at a point now where the series could survive without him, but I am still amazed at his loyalty. This is like if Clooney were still on ER. Also in the link he states that he is fully expecting Amy Ryan to return for the fifth season, which gives the series more star power than any series we can remember.

We think she’s on to his fake serial killer ruse.

Actually, that honor might go to Damages, who is sporting a cast made up of Glenn Close, Ted Danson & now William Hurt. At this point, this series could just as easily be confused with an 80’s movie. Throw in a Michael Douglas or Emilio Estevez for a strong lead and BOOM! That shit would be box office gold twenty-five years ago.

I hate to crush everyone’s hopes, but Lyndsay Lohan is waiting until 2009 to submit her work on Ugly Betty for Emmy consideration. I know, just when you think things are looking on the up and up for her, she’s going to have to miss out on the booze soaked awards show.

US Magazine did a countdown of top reality TV villains. Omarosa led the pack, followed by some guy named Spencer Pratt, Johnny Fairplay and Puck from Real World: San Fransisco rounded out the top four. Um, I remember Omarosa from the first season of Apprentice, and she was a little loopy and a bit accusatory, but beyond that she wasn’t terribly villainous, just comical. Puck, on the other hand, verbally berated a terminally ill AIDS victim pretty much until he was dead and buried. What did Omarosa or “Spencer”– if that is your real name — ever do to top that?

Jason Bateman is now under contract with FOX to create series for them. This is great and all, but isn’t FOX the same network that canceled the critically acclaimed series that he was the lead actor on? Doesn’t this seem like a conflict of interests? He claims to be an “avid consumer of television”. In non-Hollywood speak that generally means you’re a lazy ass, not someone who creates multiple series for a broadcast network. This might not end well.

Finally, given that we have watched Meet The Press every week for the past two or three years, we would be amiss if we didn’t say something about Tim Russert, whose objective and impartial analysis and questioning represented the last bastion of respectable journalism on television. We have no idea who NBC will choose to replace him with, but whoever it is, those shoes he left behind will prove to be too big to fill. His absence will be palpable for years to come.

Links or something similar 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.

We’ll have parts three and four in the adventures of NBC executives coming next week, we’re still transcribing a lot of what we heard, and that is no easy task. To get us to next week we’re resorting back to our old ways, and getting you caught up on all the random industry news that no one is particularly interested in. Enjoy.

Some guy won American Idol a couple nights ago. We have no idea what his name is, but it really doesn’t matter. The operative word is “guy”, meaning he’ll be participating in c-list celebrity charity events and on E! reality television shows within the calendar year. Still, 32 million people watched that shit, and that almost seems like an understatement. We were in a Chinese restaurant for our nieces birthday on Wednesday night. Everyone from the bartenders to the waiters to my nieces to my siblings to my cousins were invested in this show. You would have thought a UFO had touched down the way everyone was huddling around the fucking television.

HBO has hired Frank Rich, A NY Times op-ed columnist as a consultant. Seems like a peculiar decision, given the mainstream indifference towards everything involving the NY Times. Maybe they hired him for his opinion, only to do the exact opposite of everything he suggests. Nothing against Frank Rich or the NY Times, but numbers are numbers and they do not play favorably with anything out of their op-ed section. It isn’t like HBO, who play host to Real Time With Bill Maher, hasn’t made their political leanings perfectly clear in the past.

The psuedo-feminist gawker blog Jezebel is watching every episode of Sex and The City in anticipation of the TV show’s theatrical debut. From the way she makes it sound, it’s like the TV equivalent of first time you go back out into public after being in a strip club, in which you expect every conversation with a woman to conclude with the offering of a lap dance. But instead of mistaking innocent exchanges for simulated sex-for-money propositions, you find yourself using tacky puns in everyday conversation and assuming that everyone is speaking in innuendo. In other words, never go to strip clubs, and if you must watch Sex and The City, never do so at a frequency of more than two or three episodes at a time. It’s bad for your real world sensibilities.

Simpsons voice actors (is this the proper terminology?) are now taking home $500,000 an episode. This would have made sense in the mid-90’s when the series was arguably (most likely) the best thing on television, now that it’s sinking like a fucking rock, actually, its been at the bottom of the ocean for about four or five years now, they’re getting a cool half a mil for their efforts? When did the television industry become like NBA contracts?

I usually find myself in a similar predicament at least two or three times a week.

Rescue Me, one of the bigger casualties of the writers strike that still managed to stay on air, is airing ten “minisodes” in lieu of an actual season in 2008. This is a nice gesture, and if you have a Tivo or DVR everything set to record Rescue Me episodes will pick these up, but I still do not have either device so am shit out of luck when it comes to actually catching these things. My life may be rather empty, but not so much that I can make time for something as mundane as a five minute episode of television. Why they don’t put these things up on a youtube channel or something is beyond me. Anyhow, their next season is twenty-two episodes, meaning it’s actually just two seasons without a hiatus.

Survivor is hoping to appeal to a younger audience by–and I kid you not– lowering their age requirements to be on the show from 21 to 18. Umm, this is the same show that had Parvati, Amanda, Jason and Erik on it, right? Something tells me the fountain of maturity wasn’t the culprit for keeping their ratings down. It probably has more to do with after sixteen seasons, everything starts to lose its appeal. But hey, by all means, lower the age limit. They should pull kids out of a TRL crowd if they think that will help their cause.

On the other hand, Survivor’s debut in Israel, much like it was here, has been something of a pop-culture phenomenon. I have no idea what it’s like in Israel for the average joe, but many of the citizens have to consider the name of the reality series in somewhat poor taste. They did an entire Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about this.

And finally in ratings news, FOX finished the season at #1, proving once again that just because you are successful, doesn’t mean you won’t piss us off greatly. And Desperate Housewives is rated the highest scripted series on television by beating out CSI. Proving that ever since The Sopranos went off the air, if you want to engage in any water-cooler discussion at work, then this site is really counterproductive for you.

Back with part three of our epic saga of the NBC executives later today or next Monday.

We’ll come out and say it right now. we’re not doing anything but watching basketball tonight. Not only do we have money on one of the games, and the other game involves the home-state team, we went to Cleveland on Saturday for game 3 of the Cavs-Pistons and walked around all day and night with a short-sleeve shirt on. It was probably fairly cold out when we left the game, I don’t know, I was too drunk to notice. But as a result my throat feels like the great wall of China is running through it right now. So, just expect more of the same tomorrow is all we’re saying.

I get the impression that all the news and press releases about the upcoming 90210 remake will turn out to be more entertaining than the show itself. The show was so over-the-top when it was on in the early 90’s, I’m not sure what else they can really accomplish in terms of outrageousness and still expect people to watch. Like I’ve said before, unless Michael caps someone in the knee with a shotgun for their family inheritance, our interest is non-existent.

The new cast of 90210, it looks about like one would expect.

Hi-yo! The Real World is making like the Nets and heading to Brooklyn. We’re not sure how people like the current cast will really fit in around our favorite NYC borough, but if they can supply the coke than I’m sure the twenty-something crowd will except them just fine.

I’m sorry, but we’ve often criticized Lost but always preambled that we can see the appeal. Well, if this actually happens, we take that all back, the show will be rendered appeal-less. If you are to lazy to click on the link like I would be, it’s an interview with “Popular Mechanics”, saying that the island everyone is allegedly lost on, is capable of time travel. We have no idea how close the series is to pulling this off, or if they’re just saying this for the benefit of “Popular Mechanics”, but essentially what it means is nothing is out of bounds for the show. They could learn to fly with palm tree leaves and it would seem feasible now. Christ all mighty. I’ve seen in commercials they all have guns now, can’t Daniels kill everyone on the island, regret it and then kill himself out of guilt in these final episodes?

Apparently I’m not the only one who was critical of last Thursday’s Office episode. This article claims it to be their worst effort in the four year run, and while we might not go that far, it is definitely closer to the bottom than the top of the list for us as well. It seems nit-picky, since the four preceding it were world-class, but it’s almost like they focused all their efforts on the finale and just used the penultimate episode to set it up.

It seems like I post a link to this after every Survivor season, but Sunday’s finale was the lowest rated finale for the series, breaking last season’s record low. Let’s put it this way, given how good this season was (even if it disappointed in the end), if it’s finale couldn’t beat out the finale from the dismally boring China season, then this is a trend we’re expecting to continue.

Finally, something of a high note, I guess, Mitchell Hurwitz has an animated series set to come out featuring the voices of Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. Will we watch? Obviously. But Hurwitz’s grand return to television, we were expecting something a little more enticing than an animated series. Essentially we were hoping for Arrested Development, but maybe with a different setting. Though that might be one liberty too many for them to take, that show was fucking perfect.

Did anyone watch anything even partially interesting last night? We watched the Cavs-Celts game, and that had its moments. Especially that end of 3rd quarter score of 53-52, that was interesting, or typical of the shoddy play that we’ve come to expect from the NBA’s eastern conference. These Celtics manage to get less and less inspiring as the time passes. It’s almost like no one other than them was taking the regular season seriously and just biding time until the playoffs began. But alas, they won the game and that is the bottom line, though if you’re a Celtics fan, you’re confidence has to have certainly wavered.

Obviously, we’re completely miffed here. We can dissect the playoffs or pretend to have watched a reality series last night. We’d do a nightly preview, but we already did one for Wednesday two weeks ago and virtually nothing has changed.

Here we are. Even a broken clock is right twice a day or some other more fitting analogy. That link, in case you’re wondering, is a press release of sorts about the new season of Hard Knocks. It goes without saying that this should be a significant improvement on last year’s somewhat uneventful profile of the Kansas City Chiefs.

For those who are unaware of the show or just simply uninterested with the NFL (meaning you’ve probably stopped reading this by now, but what the hell?), Hard Knocks is a miniseries that gives their audience and insiders look at an NFL preseason, or at least whatever the team at large is willing to sign away on. And I have no idea what the makeup of these contracts between HBO and the organizations are (this is the sixth or seventh year they’ve done this), but since this year’s team is the Dallas Cowboys, my guess is that Jerry Jones might want to maintain some executive control.

Glad to see Owens and Dallas fans can set their differences aside for money and wins.

The Cowboys, comprised of probably the most embarrassing tabloid romance in football (Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson), the most emotionally unstable player (Terrell Owens), the Nicky Santoro of the league (Pacman Jones, and that’s assuming he is reinstated), the most aggressive owner and passive successful coach (the aforementioned Jerry Jones and Wade Phillips) and a slew of other characters that includes Roy Williams, Terry Glenn and Tank Johnson. The latter of which has a rap sheet like Paulie Walnuts.

The NFL has been mired in legal issues as of late, and the front office led my commissioner Roger Goodell has been doing everything it can to weed out the bad seeds and demonstrate that they are serious on reprimanding professionally those who break the law. Thing is, they can barely keep up. Essentially the entire Bengals roster is behind bars, and if not they want to leave or are indifferent to their team’s issues. You can go to this website and it reads more like a police blotter than a comedy blog.

It’s also hard to take this new initiative seriously, considering the mess that Paul Taglibue, the current commissioner’s predecessor left behind. The worst instance comes in the case of Leonard Little, who killed a woman while drunk driving and as of last season was still getting considerable playing time for the Rams, who reside in St. Louis where he was convicted of manslaughter. This wasn’t on Goodell’s watch, but it’s hard for the casual fan who doesn’t follow these timelines to overlook when an authority figure says he’s trying to clean up the league and a few days later a murderer is blitzing the quarterback.

So while we’re looking forward to Hard Knocks, Goodell and whoever may give a shit within the Cowboys might want to intervene on the cutting room floor, because when they show Johnson, Pacman and Owens (to be fair, Owens has never been associated with any illegal activity, his insanity has been strictly law abiding) pouring Cristal on a stripper in one of their dorms, it’s just going to being throwing gasoline on a fire. For a league that has already dealt with murder trials, dogfighting, a litany of DUI, possession and domestic abuse cases, a hazing incident gone awry is about the last thing this empire needs.

Yawwwwn. That pretty much sums up my general malaise over doing this post and the outlook on the day ahead. In hindsight, since we have yet to do one for Monday, we should have done a nightly preview yesterday and one extended links post today, but what’s done is done. So let’s summarize the interesting facets of the TV industry from the past 24 hours.

You know, I like The Office as much as anyone, but NBC really might want to consider developing some new series’ with staying power if they ever want to climb out of the cellar in ratings, where they have perpetually been for the past six or seven years. Replacing adopted series that weren’t drawing any ratings with sitcom reruns is no way to go through life, Ben Silverman.

Tristan Wilds, better known as Michael Lee, and even more so as the new Omar Little, has been cast to play an adopted son on the new 90210. This is great news that someone in Hollywood has been paying attention to The Wire, and might lead to the series’ increased popularization and more options for its cast (sans commercials and bit parts on various network crime dramas) even after its series finale. But still, the only way we’re tuning into this is if we catch wind that Michael Lee sticks-up Lucille Bluth for her jewels or something, and he does it with a shotgun, and immediately goes into hiding only to reemerge for revenge after Lucille’s husband has his boyfriend tortured and murdered. Essentially, I’m only watching this show if it’s like the first three seasons of The Wire set in Beverly Hills.

I have some bad news for everyone who doesn’t read this blog: Men In Trees has been canceled. We never knew what it was, where it was set, who was in it or why it existed, but it exists no more. We’re sorry for your loss Men In Trees fans, we hope this message finds you well, and that one of the other thirty-something melodrama’s on ABC appeases you before its untimely canceling.

Seth MacFarlane is reportedly set to sign a $100 million, five year contract with 20th Century Fox for his show of randomly assembled jokes also known as Family Guy. He also co-created American Dad, which is a slight improvement. But Family Guy was a comedy gem before it was canceled in its first go-around with FOX, when they came back it was with an entirely different set of writers and the jokes felt uninspired, over-indulgent and borderline predictable to us. Whatever, get your money Mr. MacFarlane, maybe when he is sleeping on a bed of money he’ll be able to conjure up something original and not targeted at twelve year-olds.

The lone highlight of a once great cartoon.

After his recent ratings increase and rash of good publicity for his stint at the White House Correspondents dinner, European publications are now endorsing Craig Ferguson as Letterman’s successor. I suppose they aren’t familiar with his pleas to have Jon Stewart replace the lauded late night host, but now that Mr. Ferguson is a realistic option we suspect he is going to retract his selfless endorsement. Or rather just ignore it, because we are probably one of nineteen people who actually remember that happening. In other news, here is him cutting short an interview with Bill Maher.

Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune makes the case that The Hills is the new Friends. Not necessarily in terms of theme or plot, but in their portrayal of twenty-somethings. The unearned luxury that accompanied NBC’s last ratings monster is the same thing that MTV”s “reality” series thrives off of. Needless to say, it’s escapism thinly-veiled as drama. We wholeheartedly agree with all of this, and while we still have yet to watch a millisecond of The Hills, we find it disturbing that we can name three female and one male “personalities” (what the fuck are we supposed to call these people?).

Finally, Martin Freeman, who played the original Jim Halpert on Ricky Gervais’ Office views his stint on the international hit as both “a blessing and a curse”. Essentially it’s the Seinfeld hex for Europe and he blames that on his inability to find any new work. Umm, if he’s looking for commercial or mainstream gigs, most of those are over here in the states. The lack of work available to him might have something more to do with him being British than any noteworthy roles he’s played. Still, it must be a pain in the ass to be type-casted after a series which only ran for sixteen episodes, resulting in limited financial gain but possibly negates any potential future jobs. The Seinfeld people all complain about it, and they all made over a million an episode for the last two seasons (44 episodes).

Something different tomorrow.

We’re still in the precipice of a hectic work week, so bare with us as we offer up day old news for the first three days of this, the third week of April.

Now desperately seeking an edge to regather its once dominant Nielsen score, Survivor is going HD. Assuming this is the case, the editing team better be working around the clock to verify there are not any exposed body parts.

TV critic Tim Goodman sums up the mentality of NBC comedy fans quite aptly in this op-ed piece. In short, he says we’re comedy elitists who denounce more traditional CBS comedies without giving them a chance. This describes the attitude on Grid Effect almost to a tee, and the odds of us changing up are about 100/1. Call us a snob if you will, but we’ve watched Big Bang Theory and we were mightily unimpressed.

Albert Brooks will play Nancy Botwin’s father-in-law in the fourth season of Weeds. Now, if only they would release the third season DVD’s so I could prepare to watch the fourth season, I’d be all set. But no, Showtime keeps me in suspense, at least with DVD releases and not actual storytelling.

There’s a picture of Mary Louise-Parker’s digitally enhanced naked ass that we wanted to use, but chose this instead. Mainly because violence is so much less-threatening than sex.

Here’s something you don’t see everyday: A reality TV director has been arrested on charges he falsely imprisoned eight women. Apparently he led them into his house with the promise of putting them on a series. A few things about this, first, I thought people that lied about being in showbiz to get women actually had no affiliation with the industry. If you actually have some kind of pull, what’s the point of promising a woman a spot you never plan to give to her, if you can actually put a good word? I suppose you can always be a sick fuck, so maybe that’s the case. Secondly, I think this is another argument for the abolishment of reality television. If it is so mind-numbingly boring for the people involved that they resort to multiple kidnappings, then it’s time to rethink the genre.

A.O. Scott, who we’ve sometimes felt to be pompous, writes a piece about Roger Ebert’s television career that is anything but. Regardless of your opinion of Ebert’s approach to movie reviews, his contribution is undeniable and hopefully a “Better Know a Congressman” segment.

Stephen Colbert is doing his show from Philadelphia all week. We watched last night as Colbert always brings his A-game for the away crowd, and last night was no exception. We recommend tuning in tonight to see an interview with Michelle Obama.

It seems like state employees were really fond of The Wire. Which is strange since that is who the show is usually hammering away on, even with the obvious degree of affection the series portrays the majority of its characters with, they are still perceived as ineffective at best and expendable at worst. But yeah, City Hall in Nashville is still in mourning over its conclusion. I guess that speaks to the caliber of programming that The Wire brought every week.

And finally, Newsday has a column about the difficulties sports-oriented TV series face. We mentioned it yesterday with The Contender, the article focuses mainly on Friday Night Lights, the problems the two shows face might vary, but we think a lot of it is related to sports movies being such a staple in US cinema that diverting from that is unlikely. Sports fans generally have amazingly short attention spans, we think FNL’s ratings failure stems directly from that mindset.

More of the same tomorrow.

As some of my friends from Georgia might say, Hey ya’ll! It is Monday, meaning I, just like you, probably have no vested interest in what I’m currently doing. You show us a person who enjoys Monday mornings, and I’ll show you an office pariah. Also, I suppose we owe you an apology. Last Friday at the end of our Office recap, we promised an additional post later that afternoon that was never delivered.

We’re not going to lie, though we were busy at work, we could have squeezed it in, we just felt like if we used up all the good links for an unnecessary post on Friday, then there would be nothing to write about on Monday. And really, that is just kind of sad. To be honest, I think we’re more deserving of your pity than your ire.

So here are a few links. Se’ll try to unveil something original this week, maybe another story in the life of Jason Katims, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

For everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the themes and direction of The Wire, watch this forum with David Simon and…several community leaders at Harvard. The moderator has all the personality and charisma you’d expect most Harvard faculty to have.

Speaking of personality, Flight of The Conchords are touring the U.S. over the summer. I imagine it will be a similar act to their HBO special. But still, definitely worth the price of admission. We’d rather see this than 90% of legitimate music acts that will be touring at about the same time.

It’s times like this we wished we still smoked weed.

Here is nerve.com’s opinion of the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. We’re glad to see that The State was included, along with some Chapelle Show and of course, SNL. Had we compiled our own list it would have been from the same sources, but different material.

Mo Ryan at the Tribune wonders whether or not HBO can make it a whole five months without airing any original series until Fall. While it will be atypical for them, there really isn’t much the network can do about it now. And it’s not like their going to crumble up and die during the hiatus. Besides, who the fuck is currently watching HBO anyways?

The saga of Mark Burnett’s the reality series continues as The Contender has now been canceled by ESPN. Currently shopping for another home, this article states that HBO and Showtime are off the books. I don’t know why this series doesn’t just fade into oblivion like every other series ever made, but it doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon. Someone should make a movie about this continuing struggle to find a home for a reality series that nobody watches. I could see the tagline for it now: “It’s down for the count, but up to the challenge”.

And finally,Craig Ferguson managed to beat Conan O’Brien in ratings without any qualifiers last week. When we were in college it seemed like everyone we didn’t like or respect preferred Ferguson over O’Brien, so this isn’t really a surprise to us. We disliked a lot of people we went to school with. Nothing against Ferguson personally, we just prefer the zaniness of Conan (who made a brilliant appearance at Comedy Central’s “Night of Too Many Stars” yesterday).

That’s it for now, don’t expect anything else today.

My apologies for neglecting the site yesterday, but it’s not as if I was off in the Caribbean getting drunk with models or anything. But rather had to pull a Jason Kidd and sit out the one day. The only difference being that we actually had a migraine. We could have posted yesterday, but it would have been even more incoherent than usual, and that doesn’t do anyone any good. This post is later than usual because we are trying to catch up on some work and varying after effects. Never the less, we are still TV-less on this television website, so here are some more links. We are happy to mail it in everyday, migraine or otherwise.

The FCC is suing FOX over Married By America. I can understand the FCC intervening in shows like 24 or Desperate Housewives or something similar. I don’t condone it, but I can see the logic. Suing a reality show that’s participated and determined by the very people the FCC is supposed to be sheltering…then what’s the point?

Well, on Friday we suggested this might be the case, and you are not going to believe this but, John McCain indeed lied about watching The Hills. I know, I know, it’s shocking. It’s not as relevant as some of Clinton’s gaffes, but it is no less embarrassing. Actually, the situation would probably be all the more alarming if a presidential candidate was actually watching anything on MTV.

If we had any interest in trying to parlay this pedestrian blog into an actual newspaper gig, then we might be shit out of luck. Why? Because like The Wire taught us, newspapers are more interested about their ever depreciating bottom line. And while TV critics might bring in a certain audience the paper wouldn’t otherwise get, they are certainly not the lifeblood of a city publication.

So it looks like the writer’s strike gave networks plausible deniability about some of their series’, and as a result fewer than usual are going to be canceled. Maybe that was the hidden agenda of the writers strike? I mean, if you work on October Road you’re probably getting the boot after a few episodes anyways, right? Might as well encourage a strike, use it as an excuse for unemployment, then if you’re lucky, you’ll have a series to return to work on in the summer. It’s genius, actually.

Is there anything about this series that isn’t wholesome?

According to Jason Katims, there won’t be any significant changes in style or theme for the upcoming season of FNL, just format. Well, you can attempt to cover it all you want Mr. Katims, but we heard differently. Obviously he’s a tool for the corporate machine. Man.

HBO is taking the summer off. Partly as a result of the strike, and partly because they can. So, um, Mad Men will still be around, right? Maybe It’s Always Sunny? God, this site can only become so unappealing before the internet swallows it whole.

And finally, NPR pays tribute to the South Park character least likely to ever listen to an NPR broadcast. At least they acknowledge the series still exists. I figured after the “Smug Alert” episode they were dead to National Public Radio.

Back with something equally bland tomorrow.

This has been a long week here at Grid Effect. The last four days have taken us to task between work hassles, posting hassles and a lack of quality material to post about, the fact we haven’t gone any sort of rampage has been sort of surprising. Even to us. But at least Survivor gave us a decent episode last night, even if it was one of the more depraved things we’ve seen on the series in awhile it restored our faith in the concept of justice on a reality show, despite the fact that Cirie is still there. So here is a fresh batch of links as you prepare for what is sure to be a long day of work or not going to classes.

Proof that politicians will do anything for a vote, John McCain actually put on airs that he watches The Hills, although I’m 90% sure he isn’t aware of how ludicrous that his, since he has no idea what The Hills entails. This is like the time in the fourth grade some classmate asked me if I spit or swallow and I had no idea what the hell he was referring too. The only difference is, I abstained from answering.
We suppose he did so for the “endorsement” from one of the cast members (I’m not even going to do her the favor of writing out her name), but if he ever watched the show he would know that the only people who take this person seriously aren’t old enough to vote or are college-aged girls who claim to hate this girl but watch The Hills every week.

Friday Night Lights is officially coming back to NBC, but not until 2009 and the episodes will air after Direct TV airs them in the fall of 2008. Jesus, talk about getting pwned. I mean, I like the series and all, but for the sake of NBC, I’d probably just pretend I didn’t want the series anymore and then cry myself to sleep every night.
Alan Sepinwall speculates that since so many people use cable over Direct TV, if their will be a spike in illegal downloads for those too impatient to wait for the NBC debut. And in fact, he is absolutely correct, whatever limited support the series gets is going to be spread too thin from everyone watching at different times and paces. Now call me crazy, but I think we’ve encountered something like this before.

So We can either wait to see these two on NBC, or download new episodes on Rip Torrent as they air on Direct TV? Seems like a question that answers itself.

First Mad Men announces their pilot season release on DVD, and now The Wire announces their DVD’s will be made available in August. We will most certainly be splurging for both, but we’d love to see a spinoff series that involved characters from both shows. Everyone would be so confused!

Some guy at the Times wonders why HBO doesn’t remake a series like Skins, a supposed dark teenage series on the BBC. We’re not certain or anything, but we’d like to think that despite HBO’s run of failures as of late, they still have a modicum of decency and standards. Of course, Tell Me You Love Me would suggest otherwise.
Besides, HBO has never been in the business of lifting ideas or series’ for other networks, so it really isn’t terribly surprising they haven’t gotten desperate enough to go for anything like Skins. And am I missing something, or isn’t this eerily similar to Kids, the beyond retarded movie made in 1995 that caused all the fuss over at MTV. Yeah, if it’s still hard too determine, I’m unimpressed with Skins.

See you Monday, kids. Enjoy the final four.

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!

Now that was some shitty basketball, my friends. All the casual NCAA tournament fans are surely happy with the results, but other than them, the games were insufferably boring and the outcomes too disappointing for too much jubilation. Four one seeds are going to San Antonio? Surely it’s what some people want to see, and historically when a lower seed makes the final four the games themselves turn out to be a disappointment; but I could really give a fuck which of these teams wins a national title.

Also, I know this is a television and not a sports blog but I’d like to point out that while Bill Self finally reached the final four, he and his Jayhawks weren’t called upon to beat a team ranked higher than a nine seed to do so. They won the games that they were asked to win and you can’t knock them for variables out of their hands, but they might want to give a shout out to the selection committee as well.

Anyhow, we have absolutely nothing of interest to write about. The best we can do is a list of random thoughts and observations from the weekend. Here it is:

-There hasn’t been any CBS promotions quite as obnoxious or sleepless night inducing as the infamously creepy Baby Bob campaign from 2002. But shows as mundane and repetitive as How I met Your Mother or CSI bring their own brand of irritability to the table. Mainly, how far the sitcom has fallen that HIMYM is considered “good”, and David Caruso probably makes close to a million an episode for a replica series of a replicated franchise.

Alright CBS, you win. We admit it, this shit still haunts our dreams.

-Here’s a slide show of former Real World cast members and, you’re not going to believe this, but as people age, they tend to gain weight and lose their complexion. This holds true even for reality TV stars. See? They are just like us.

-Speaking of The Real World, doesn’t it feel like more of these people should end up in prison. Not necessarily the house mates from the earlier seasons, but take this most recent season in Sydney. The fact that none of those catty white bitches or their abrasive male roommate will ever be incarcerated just wreaks of injustice. These people make the contestants on Beauty and The Geek look well-adjusted.

-I really, really want Gus Johnson to read my eulogy. Even if I spend all my days sitting in my office, then retiring for the night to sit in front of my television, if he can make some of these games over the weekend watchable then certainly he could turn my life into a Hollywood movie.

-Weighing out the options for each season, we think summer has favorable viewing over the fall. This summer we have Mad Men, It’s Always Sunny, Weeds, Conchords, Entourage (meh) and usually Rescue Me but we seem to recall it being pushed back a full year as a result of the writer’s strike. In the fall, and we are listing these as if the writer’s strike never took place, we are privileged to The Office, Survivor, Curb, South Park and The Wire just ended.

We have no idea what new series’ will be unveiled next October, but as it stands currently, our favorite comedy (It’s Always Sunny) and our favorite drama (Mad Men) air during what is widely considered the “off season” for television. I think it’s safe to say, we clearly shouldn’t be writing a television blog.

Back with links or something tomorrow.

Basketball consumed all of our time and interest last night. Unless you find our trip to the gym and subsequent shower nudged between work and tourney watching to be riveting prose, I’m afraid we have nothing really worth contributing from our personal lives. So, we had to go hunting. Ladies and gentlemen, here is approximately your forty-third batch of links from this website in the short calendar year.

So, Prison Break is now beheading characters during contract disputes, then finding loopholes to return the character once the actor’s negotiations are completed. Man, that is an entirely plateau of leverage. Can you imagine if this were physically possible, how many series producers would take this route with contract renewals, “Well Rainn Wilson, don’t get us wrong, we would like to have you back. We really would. But right now Dwight Schrute’s head is rolling past the Chili’s and is about to exit Scranton if you fail to except this offer. So (leans in dramatically), what will it be?”
Anyhow, the narrative of the series will be that it was someone else’s head that was liberated from his/her body (gasp). Brilliant. I think its been made abundantly clear, but I can’t form into words how much I despise this show. They’re now stealing from middle-tier South Park episodes.

There’s only one way for the Schrute Buck to increase in value.

Lord help us, there is talks of a Hills movie. For those who don’t know, The Hills is a reality series following the grand tradition of MTV shows that celebrates vapid, entitled late teens to mid-twenties girls. My question is, what would the time frame be on a movie like this? I know it’s probably predominately scripted in the first place, but if it takes the better part of a year to fill 100 minutes of screentime, then maybe MTV could find better personalities to make television and (apparently) movies about. There are enough stints of dead silence on one of these episodes that I would feel like I was watching an Antonioni film if it wasn’t for the noticeable overtones of idiocy implicit in every one of them.

Kyle Chandler has joined the echo chamber, and is confident in FNL’s return. We wonder how he’ll take to the new management style.

Hal Holbrook, reprising his role from The Sopranos (not really), will yet again play a terminally ill patient. But this time it will be on ER and probably played a little more melodramatically as well.

Speaking of The Sopranos, David Chase was honored by the WGA with a lifetime achievement award. I guess they felt he needed at least one more honoring, just for good measure. All the while David Simon sits at home with an empty mantle. This could explain Simon’s newspaper plot in his final Wire season, maybe this is all just sour grapes that regardless of his substantial contributions to whatever field he is in, he is always overlooked. I’m kidding, of course. But it would be quite ironic if some sort of tape leaked with him lamenting the lack of an Emmy nomination.

Speaking of Mr. Simon, here’s a trailer for his HBO miniseries slated for July. We were going to watch anyways, but with Tobias Beecher and Ziggy Sobotka carrying much of the acting burden, we’ll gladly do David Simon’s bidding and hammer it down your throats.

Tina Fey wants everyone whose ever been on television or in a tabloid to make a cameo on 30 Rock. Have you been on your local affiliate catching a foul ball at a minor league baseball game or at a cookout performing the heimlich on a relative? Then give Ms. Fey a call, she can probably find time to squeeze you into an episode.

That’s it for a dreadful week in episodic television. We’re going to be honest, we probably won’t be setting the world on fire next week either.

With nothing worthwhile on television last night and still being a little under the weather, we succumbed to something we never thought we would ever succumb too. Now, I have to throw a bunch of qualifiers into the mix before I announce what we watched last night: not only was I feeling sick but I am being heavily medicated, there was no NBA on and we didn’t have any netflix. Now without the option of a viable alternative, we did something we never thought we were capable of: we watched Beauty and The Geek.

But that isn’t the humiliating part of the story, that comes in the fact that we actually kind of enjoyed it (currently we are drinking Jameson at work we are so depressed by this, it’s a good thing we’re unarmed, otherwise there would be no telling what we’re capable of). It did seem to conjure up some bad memories for the geek faction of the contest, in fact we were downright mortified for them during the challenge portion of the episode.

First of all, a little exposition for those who are unfamiliar. Beauty and The Geek, at least this season, took approximately ten classically attractive women and ten socially challenged guys and pitted them against each other in various forms of competition. Whichever team loses in whatever that week’s contest is, are subject to elimination by the other team, who nominate approximately half of the losing team for an elimination round. Supposedly just being in the limited confines of a mansion in Los Angeles is supposed to create a bond between the beauties and the geeks? We’re really not sure.

Your teams, respectively.

Anyhow, the challenge this week was a football game at the Coliseum between the geeks and the beauties. Yes, a football game. Just what the team of geeks needs, a reinforcement of why they are there in the first place by pinpointing a significant reason why these geeks are often considered geeks: under-achievement in competitive sports. It’s bad enough they were forced to play football against their will, but then against a team of physically fit girls, also reinforcing part of the reason they might have trouble attaining such women in the first place. At least if the played the actual USC football team no one would blame them if they got hammered.

The game itself was almost painful to watch. One guy actually had to be assisted off the field by the medical staff after one of the girls tackled him, then another was bitched at by one of the more aggressive beauties for blocking too hard. It really struck me as a lose-lose for them, but since one beauty and one geek risked elimination by switching teams, they were forced to try and win for their new teammate brave enough to switch alliances. And the geeks lost in convincing fashion: 24-12.

The format only got worse from there. As they lined up to decide which geeks the beauties were going to send to the elimination round, we discovered that they were now going to divy up the contestants in pairs consisting (obviously) of one beauty and one geek, but since there were only seven beauties and eight geeks because the beauty who joined the geeks football team was eliminated via losing the game, one of the geeks wasn’t going to be picked and thus sent packing.

The decision to go all Sadie Hawkins on them seemed exceptionally cruel. All these guys’ insecurities probably stem from adolescent/high school experiences similar to this one, they might as well have tied them to a flagpole and gotten it over with. Still, there are redeeming qualities to the show. We’re not sure if the series is always so cold, but we’re also wondering if the people are always so decent, as that’s not usually par for the course with reality programming.

For the most part, it seemed like basic human decency takes hold on this series. There wasn’t any mocking of stupidity of the women or of the shortcomings of the men, everyone was just….accepting. Which is something foreign on any reality show we’ve ever seen. While the humanity of it was provided by the contestants (one girl even waited outside for the geek injured during the football game to come home from the hospital), the producers seemed intent on begrudging all of them for their flaws. Somehow this was circumvented by everyone being exploited.

We probably won’t make this appointment viewing, because we struggle to do that with any reality TV, even Survivor, which we’ve been recapping since our inception. But the series did have heart, a vaguely original premise and managed to be humorous at times, usually not at the expense of those participating. If this were the standard for reality television, we might not mock it so mercilessly.

South Park recap tomorrow.

Not for nothing, but we were impressed with last night’s Survivor, even if it was one team completely destroying another (I was kind of hoping the favorites would lose as comeuppance for getting rid of Yau-Man prematurely, but that wasn’t the case). And the idol discovery was probably the best they’ve had since its inception, probably because it was done so effortlessly and secretively. Cirie should have known better considering all the traveling through water that the retrieval entailed. Considering how easy the clues were for seemingly everyone but Ami, the only real challenge here was the foot and aquatic travel, and no one is swimming from one island to the next quicker than Ozzy.

But anyhow, you may have noticed were not doing the Wire recap in our usually designated spot. This is mostly the result of us having watched episode 59 a couple times since, and hoping to avoid accidentally spoiling anyone without backtracking and watching episode 58 again so we know what not to include. And even though we could probably avoid this just by doing it from memory this fine Friday morning, we’re at work and don’t really have the time. So, as is our motto, here are some links:

It would seem that Charlie Sheen called Ryan Seacrest to assist in halting the production of his estranged ex-wife’s reality show. While I can understand Sheen not wanting to have his kids exploited in any way (though they clearly haven’t dodged that pickle), does Seacrest really have any pull? It would be like calling Bill Bellamy at MTV to prevent Daria from airing in the early 90’s. Oh, or remember The Maxx? Yeah, like everything it may be on youtube, but I’ve got that shit on VHS.

Probably the coolest cartoon of all time.

A bit of a Wire teaser for you, and absolutely do not watch this if for some reason you haven’t seen any of this season or episode 58: an interview with the child actors who play Bug and Kenard for some Baltimore radio show. They seem to be cast in their respective roles for a reason, as Bug has to be forced into talking while Kenard just does so without any suggestion. And my apologies for not knowing their actual names, but they’re peripheral characters and I’m not even sure if they’re in the opening credits.

An interview with Michael K. Williams, the above bold print applies to this link as well.

Oh, and just so no one’s upset when they flip to HBO on demand Sunday night at midnight and do not see the new Wire episode posted: it’s because it won’t be, at least not until after it airs on HBO. So if you’re like me you have two full weeks (or 13 days and 21 hours if you want to get technical about it) in between the penultimate episode and the ninety minute finale.

More evidence that despite my hatred for ABC, it’s the best run network of the four: they’re now offering on demand services. While this is a great service, I’m just not sure how many times over I can watch the same Dancing With The Stars episode. This does affect ratings though, look at The Wire as case in point. I doubt ABC will post episodes a week in advance, but if people feel like they can tune in at their convenience, fewer people are going to watch when Nielsen’s are being measured.

Speaking of the pay network, here is HBO’s intro from 1983. See I told you everything is on youtube. This thing is so fucking dated they do everything but have a narrator hype the age of colored television.

Registration is required for this article from the LA times, but it pleads the case for a total revamping of the Oscars. We don’t really understand this prevailing attitude. They had limited time to prepare because of the writer’s strike, the movies were mostly obscure indie-flicks that the overwhelming majority of the movie going public did not see, and they were four hours long. Can’t we just chalk it up to a disappointing year for the Oscars and move the fuck on? Do full articles from national publications about the shortcomings of an awards show really need to be penned? Well, yes, I have been watching this Wire season, why do you ask?

I love this article about the misguided attempt from HBO to post Wire episodes a week in advance on demand. We’ve mentioned consequences of this before and this article is nothing more than validation, because it does seem to lead to premature online leaks and contributes to probably thousands of loyal fans being unwillingly spoiled (either from said leaks or message boards). We try to keep it really discrete around here as we never watch online episodes, but are on the on demand schedule. There is only one episode left that no one but critics and show creators have seen, so it’s too little to do anything about it now, but hopefully with their next critically acclaimed series they’ll keep the interests of their fans in mind.

For girlfriends who would find it entertaining if their boyfriends killed themselves, here’s an article tossing around the idea of a hybrid Friends and Gilmore Girls movie. Sure it’s all fun and games now, but how do you think a Bratz movie gets made?

Speaking of suicide, which is always a cheerful topic, if this woman from Moment of Truth doesn’t leap off the Chrysler Building then she’s getting off easy. Cheat on your spouse? Yeah, whatever, obviously you’re not the first. Completely humiliate and berate him on national television about your infidelities, well, that’s an entirely new breed of satanic. I guess it’s appropriate that the question she lied on was, “Are you a good person?” Also, I’m completely OK with the FOX entertainment branch being burning to rubble.

And finally, SNL is preparing another Obama-Clinton sketch for this upcoming episode. While we watched last week and chuckled a couple times, it is really hard to watch the sketch comedy show trudge along knowing how great it was from 1991-1998 or so. The sketch that Senator Clinton awkwardly invoked in her debate on Tuesday didn’t really strike me as all that hilarious because it lacked any sort of nuance (like every SNL skit from the past six years), and seemed to actually believe that Clinton’s recent primary woes have been the sole result of media bias.
Obviously the media likes him over her, it’s undeniable, but she has a solid amount of journalist advocates and the lambasting she’s received (if you can even call it that) is nothing compared to what they’ll do to McCain. Somehow we doubt the vitriol from Clinton supporters will be as venomous.

Anyhow, before we get too far off track, look for the Wire recap later this weekend.