Grid Effect

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.

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.

If you watched anything on network last night, we hope you Tivo’d this. Because even though we probably rank this episode right in the middle of everything we’ve seen from Parker and Stone this season, it still beat the shit out of anything we previewed yesterday.

It’s nice to see that during the hiatus South Park didn’t forget how to make non-topical episodes. “Super Fun Time” was alright but nothing to write home about, I was kind of out of the loop on this one since I’ve never experienced the fervent dedication to character of the tourist trap living museums that they were portraying. Still, it was at times hilarious to watch without any prior reference.

One thing South Park has managed to do, more so than any other comedy, is given you what you expect from each character in a certain predicament while managing to avoid predictability and staleness.

Only Leopold could enjoy that field trip.

So last night the class goes onto a field trip to a mock town from 1864 and it is held hostage by German thieves who robbed a Burger King (the constant exchanging of what they stole was arguably the highlight of the episode). So what happens? Stan plays the hero, Kyle plays the concerned friend, Cartman evades the whole thing by dragging Butters and all his passivity and teacher loyalty to an elaborate arcade and Kenny is almost used as an example when the town actors refuse to break character for their captors.

All stay true to character and leave us with a decent episode of television. We prefer the episodes lacking a contemporary take on socio-politics when they reign in such outlandish premises, but after close to 200 episodes we’ll take what we can get, as it is probably increasingly difficult to find new situations for the 4th graders to be in. Again, the episode wasn’t a misguided idea, just executed haphazardly.

As we said earlier we’ve never visited one of those tailer made for elementary school field trip places and been so annoyed or patronized by the employees. But we have been condescended to, probably not to the same degree but any time you’re treated like an idiot it comes off as irritating. So that end of it was relatable. But on the whole, while what was being presented was indeed funny in and of itself, it struck me as something almost unique to Colorado, or wherever Trey Parker and/or Matt Stone grew up.

Some choice moments:

-Butters actually getting angry, only to break down crying.

-Every interrogation by of the town actors.

-Kyle pointing out the mill worker’s digital watch, only to have an SUV roll up behind them.

-The one actor contemplating breaking character and using a telephone, only to have his supervisor pin him against the wall and physically silence him.

-All of the actors at the living museum breaking character at 5pm in a Pavlovian fashion.

Since the previews for next episode are the season premiere, we’re assuming this was the last of this half of the season. It was a decent run but with more clunkers than we’re accustom too., but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t expecting more from them in the second half.

This was mailed in and we apologize for that. We’ll have a Survivor recap later today that will be much more comprehensive.

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, we had some personal affairs to attend too. And while for us that is usually a euphemism for “urgently had to go to the clinic”, I can assure you that yesterday was no such instance. But we’ll have two posts today between this and our weekly Survivor recap, so we’ll still get paid roughly the same wages. Or rather, to make it up to the loyal reader.

First Heavy Metal, then Stand and Deliver and now Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Between the movie references and speaking to our countries over-dependence on internet access, I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone now officially represent all of generation X. But that was undoubtedly another great episode, as we tend to believe all Randy-centered episodes are. From the pornography, to the impersonal relationships, to the helplessness and news dependency, the downside of the internet was collectively detailed in an oddly depressing episode.

We’re certain this sing-a-long was a reference to something we’ve seen as well, and if you have any idea, don’t hesitate to enlighten us.

Obviously it was satire, but if there were some kind of internet collapse it would be like a nationwide natural disaster. Banks, businesses would fold, money would disappear, the cost of goods would skyrocket and we’d be left in a more vulnerable state than we already are. So while things like long distance middle school relationships and addictions to pornography are trivial concerns, they are definitely only a tip of the iceberg, and definitely make for much better comedic material than something like a(nother) major US bank folding, which is an almost horrifying prospect at this point.

Highlights from the episode were too vast to count. But all of the melodramatic exchanges (”How will I contact you? You won’t have internet.” and “There is no internet to tell us the internet why there is no internet”), the newscasters leaping up and down over an incoming fax, Kyle’s solution to unplug and plug-in the giant wifi router (and pausing for those obligatory couple extra seconds for no good reason though he’s deemed it otherwise), Randy’s post self-coitus state and the internet porn simulator all made for a great episode.

This is a very different season in that it seems to be even more preachy than usual, but if they close out their twelfth season with the same strength they’ve aired the last three weeks, then we’re confident this show is no longer bottom feeding. We’ve pretty much already come to the conclusion that for as long as South Park is airing new episodes, they won’t ever officially “jump the shark”, but rather fluctuate in quality. So while we’ll have to endure an occasional (or frequent) “Major Boobage“, we’ll be compensated with the just as frequent “Canada on Strike”.

Survivor recap later.

One thing about South Park is that I use posting titles that never in a million years would I have thought necessary. And the title isn’t even half of it. I watched last night’s episode during the midnight rerun, so maybe my judgment is off, but I can categorically say that as far as the American landscape is concerned, that was probably the most offensive episode they’ve ever aired.

It really seemed to cover everyone: Latinos, black people, white people, gays, lesbians, abortion, the Patriots, high school melodramas, etc. In a way it all evens out. How can anyone be offended if everyone else is being raked over the coals? No one was selectively persecuted, so getting all in a tizzy over it would seem pointless, Not that anyone is still offended by South Park.

But we personally weren’t all that infatuated with this episode. Even though we said it could be deemed offensive, it wasn’t that. Our sensibilities are delicate, just not when it comes to cartoons. And again, we watched the midnight rerun so maybe our judgment was off. But the only laughs we remember having were Cartman’s throwaway line to the class when chasing down a student who took off, “Look class, just review that chapter of all the sportcaster’s saying Bill Belichick cheating wasn’t a big deal and I’ll be right back”, the subsequent conversation about rich white girls having abortions and the Mr. Garrison’s mouse singing to the moon. While we thought the latter was odd, we love the reference to Fievel Goes West.

The role-model for cheating….According to Broncos fans.

These instances alone made it the second most watchable episode of the five this season. And it’s not that it was inherently bad or anything. It just seems that with such a great premise, the episode didn’t follow through as well as it should have. That seems to be the running theme for this season. For the majority of the time, we felt like we were waiting for a enormous payoff (and you could argue the hallway conversation was it) that never came to fruition.

The whole over-emphasis of the women standing on the tables seemed odd at best and cheap at its worst. I don’t really understand the process to developing an animated episode of television, but was that even worth the legwork? It was like a cross-reference to the Curb Your Enthusiasm mockumentary where Larry David is contemplating getting back into stand-up and the friend he is consulting has some sage advice for him, “Two words: dick jokes”; and the Nip Tuck episode where Rosie O’Donnell’s character pays to have an ear genetically engineered on a mouse.

And while we appreciate the whole parody of Stand and Deliver, it could really be mistaken for about twenty other “teacher infiltrates inner-city school and redeems the students capable of redemption” motif since 1988. In that respect it was probably just confusing for people who haven’t seen that particular movie, and thought they were watching a parody of Dangerous Minds or something.

We’ve seen much worse episodes but we’ve seen plenty better. At this point we’re just waiting for this run of episodes to end so we can quit struggling with something to say about them. Because right now we are running on fumes.

Survivor recap later.

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.

Now that was vintage South Park: Topical, satirical, undermining; all the ingredients that generally culminate into a great episode. We were beginning to think Terrence and Philip were done for this world, and we would have little complaints should that have been the case, but they were resurrected brilliantly last night. When they first appeared on screen we were almost hoping that the four boys had grown tired of the cartoon, but alas, that wasn’t the case. It was a nice callback to the “Cartoon Wars” saga.

But if you wanted to know where Parker and Stone stood on the writer’s strike, well, there it is. When the president of the “WGA” had this exchange with other national leaders:

CPM: We want more money.
Random diplomat: We don’t understand. Money frommmmmm where?
CPM: (paraphrasing) I don’t care you greedy fat cat just give us more money!

I though that summed up their stance quite nicely. Truth be told, however, animation writer’s aren’t covered by the WGA, so to the best of my knowledge they weren’t effected by the strike (at least not professionally, though undoubtedly they lost sleep at night). In other words, it’s easy and convenient for them to take this stance. We still believe that regardless of internet revenue and whether or not any actually exists, writer’s are still underpaid for their contribution in entertainment. Never the less, it gave us the hilariously technical morality lecture from Kyle on the issue. It’s a shame Canada had to be the surrogate for a South Park whipping boy. Again.

We’ll gladly admit that we are rarely fond of the Canadian themed episodes. Not that it’s offensive or anything, we’re not really certain of their beef with the North American country. Whatever it is, the material is always heavy-handed and bewildering more so than it is funny. But last night, tied in with the youtube subplot and the fruitless and non-threatening national threat for more money made this episode redeemable.

We thought the mocking of Canada’s financial situation was somewhat ill-timed, because at the very least Canada’s dollar is virtually equal to ours. Given, we are not up too speed on global economics like we should be (imagine that!). I mean, our understanding is a little more refined than the antagonist’s was in this episode, but it seems like a pot-kettle situation for anyone to disparage another countries economy. Vilifying the Canada’s fake president was apropos, given how reluctant most national leaders are to cope to a mistake, we particularly loved the pleading with the UN (was that supposed to be the UN?) and their apathy towards his plight, and Kyle’s intervening.

I guess we’re part of the problem now.

The scene with all the “infamous” youtube characters was probably the highlight. We tend to think most of those people are accidentally famous and didn’t really set out to be the laughing stock of American culture, but the subsequent quest for theoretical money is something we find believable, especially with the “leave Britney alone!” guy. The notion of him scavenging for any type of income from his hysterical ramblings doesn’t seem likely, but rather probable. I can’t imagine anyone engaging in such a practice if he isn’t about his bottom line. One thing I like about South Park is how unaffiliated and indifferent they are with everything. Two weeks ago they mock the paparazzi and the American public for hounding Britney Spears, two weeks later they mock her most ardent defender.

Oddly enough, and probably not a coincidence, the Root of All Evil episode that followed pitted porn against youtube. And several of the entities mentioned in the South Park episode were also referenced on Lewis Black’s new variety show. I guess comedy central is trying to defend the decision to keep all of their copyrighted property off the viral video site. If that’s the case, that the network influenced one or both of these series’ to lecture us on the perils of youtube, they have something to learn about subtlety.

Not their best episode ever, but the best this season by a mile. We’re still holding out for a parody of the democratic primary, but they might stay away from electoral politics until the general.

Survivor recap later.

Umm, I think it’s about time to assume that South Park is running out of ideas. I am always hesitant to say that, because it seems like whenever I do, they smack me in the face with something laugh out loud hysterical, and I have to retract what I had said a week beforehand. But three episodes into the twelfth season and the themes have been: AIDS via tonsil surgery and injection, the tabloids and public driving Britney Spears to attempt suicide and leaving her headless, and last night with cats spraying urine into people’s faces for a euphoric buzz.

I hate when I criticize this or The Office because as of now they are probably the two most consistent comedies on television, so when they hit a speed bump here and there it feels tedious to go about harping on it. But honestly, what was I suppose to do with that episode last night? Any episode that focuses on Kenny always feels tired because half the humor in it comes from him mumbling behind his jacket. They have been doing this for comedic effect since literally the first episode.

This isn’t to say that the entire episode was for naught. Gerald Broflovski’s “cheesing” setup with the harness and the projector had me in stitches, as did the Anne Frank parody (mostly because it came from Cartman), Gerald and Kenny’s fight in the sandbox and the generic 80’s rock music during the hallucinations. But every episode of South Park is good for at least a couple laughs. But everything else about this episode fell flat for us.

If you haven’t seen the movie, this sums it up nicely.

Namely the hallucination sequences. They were an homage of sorts to the movie Heavy Metal, If you haven’t seen it, it’s like the intergalactic Grindhouse for animation or something. But even if you are familiar with the references it doesn’t count for much of an improvement, “Look, everything is shaped liked breasts, HAHA!” It reminded us of the Al Gore “ManBearPig” episode from season ten. That entire episode was hilarious, except for one gag in which all the rocks in the cave are shaped like male genitals. It just distracted from the rest of the story and felt poorly timed.

We’re optimistic about a rebound, but these have been three subpar episodes in a row now. Every season has had dry spells and clunker episodes, and while its not officially a slump because the episodes aren’t completely irredeemable, it is certainly starting to feel like the beginning of the end. Every comedy series eventually hits a wall, even after eleven successful years for them to now be hitting it, still feels too soon.

Back tomorrow with links or something.

Well, that was an interesting little parody. Its over the top nature is in step with the coverage of Britney Spears, so we did not mind her walking around with her head missing as to illustrate the point that the paparazzi and media are never, as long as she is walking this earth, going to reward her any privacy. It isn’t the funniest celebrity parody they have done on the series, but it is probably the most apt.

Britney was lucky, her tabloid counterpart really took it on the chin.

We have nothing interesting to add to the topic of celebrity culture in mainly the US and Britain (It’s unnecessary, pointless, etc.), so we don’t want to turn this post into some sort of social commentary. But with the manner in which all coverage is almost cult like of her, we wouldn’t be surprised if there was some untold secret about why Britney Spears and people of her ilk are followed around so vigorously. I mean, the coverage isn’t just informative (or rather, as informative as any of this coverage can be), it’s callous to boot. The episode was pitch perfect in the tone of the coverage and everyday attitudes towards it as well:

Studio guy: She is so stupid.
Kyle: Of course she is, she doesn’t have a brain.
Studio guy: yeah, isn’t she dumb?
Kyle: No, I mean her brain is literally gone!
Studio guy: Yeah, and she’s fat too.

That exchange, in addition to the camel toe and the paparazzi guy pointing intensely at Kyle, Stan and Spears as they attempted to sneak out of the hospital were the only times we recall laughing in the episode, but it was still an interesting take on the subject matter. It’s rare South Park has a decent episode that we didn’t find all that funny, but enjoyed regardless.

Other notes from this episode:

-Does anyone know what movie they were parodying as Britney was making her escape for the north pole and was trapped in the middle of the field with the calm, unflinching mob? We have it stored in the cerebellum somewhere, but are unable to locate it at the moment.

-The opening scene really wet our beak for what has to be the inevitable democratic primary satire. If it is anything like what they did for the 2004 election, then we’ll certainly find it delightful.

-Since the coverage of Britney Spears is so abundant, is there any chance this actually gets recognized by the news media? After the Cartoon Wars episodes, I’m fairly certain Parker and Stone have a free pass on any controversial material and everyone willfully ignores it. The only episode we remember getting any publicity is the Scientology spoofs.

-Maybe this will do for Spears what the SNL sketches did for Clinton. And she can also awkwardly reference it in a public forum.

Enjoyable episode overall. Seldom we are actually interested in the plot of a South Park episode, we were with the “Imaginationland” trilogy, but the story was funny as hell too. This had a few laughs, a fresh angle and since a woman was walking around with the entire top of her head blown off, it was probably the most outlandish episode done as well. In other words, this isn’t making us run out and buy the DVD’s, but definitely keeping our interest.

Off tomorrow, back Monday with some news links or something.

Well, that was…underwhelming. It’s been awhile since our last South Park recap, so we understand the premium on being controversial after that long of a hiatus, but while we love the premise they decided to use, and the invocation of Magic Johnson, but the execution left something to be desired.

We were hoping for some form of campaign parody, and that it would be dealt with evenly, as opposed to just undermining one side and gently mocking the other (I’m looking at you, SNL), and we fully expect them to touch upon that in the next seven episodes so that isn’t the sole reason for why we’re unimpressed. The main reason for our disappointment is the predictability of most of the dialogue.

For example, Cartman’s outburst on the plane over AIDS being worse than cancer. While it’s a darkly comical suggestion, it just felt like they didn’t deliver with it. There is such an array for situational humor there, that they skipped over for over-zealous screaming and outrageousness. The majority of the episode felt like this.

That isn’t to say the episode was without its highlights. Kyle berating Cartman in front of Magic over his use of the phrase “HIV positive”, along with Cartman trying to defend why he infected Kyle with HIV, and Kyle being incapable of controlling his laughter at the news that Cartman was HIV positive, but those three moments just saved an otherwise confusing twenty-two minutes. Not confusing in the sense that we didn’t understand what we were watching, but confusing as to why we were watching it in the first place.

Your random, weekly celebrity mocking on this week’s South Park

This seemed to happen in their last cycle of episodes, they came out with the “Le Petit Tourette” episode, which had one shining moment (Stan or Kyle at the Tourette’s support meeting) but felt underwritten and mismanaged otherwise. But that same cycle of episodes gave us the “Imaginationland” trilogy which is arguably Parker and Stone’s magnum opus. So my expectations are still high, even if they were unmet last night.

The reason for our high expectations probably stems from the strike that left us in a comedy drought ever since January. Sure, FNL and The Wire have their moments (especially the latter), but as far as scripted half hour comedies are concerned, no Weeds, Curb or The Office have left us pining for something to laugh at on the small screen. Last night’s episode, for the most part, wasn’t it.

It looks like we’ll have more material within a couple months. Why is that, you ask? Well, because the strike has, for all intensive purposes come to an end. Depending on which side you listen to, the other side won (not terribly surprising that everyone in Hollywood opts to play the victim card). But still, they can at least move on from all this hullabaloo and get back to entertaining us. In two months time we should be having weekly recaps of The Office, and, ummm, huh; well, maybe additional Friday Night Lights episodes. Well, that’s on top of South Park, which should be returning sooner rather than later.

So for the foreseeable future on Grid Effect, we’ll be recapping Survivor and The Wire. At some point in the next couple months South Park will be added to the docket, followed by The Office and potentially (though unlikely) FNL will be recapped as well. That’s five shows, about the best we ever do on this website.

If you’re a fan of the outrageous as opposed to the realistic, then I have some bad news for you, my friend. It appears Heroes and 24 are both done for this television season. That means no detonating nuclear missiles and no cheerleader that always wears her competitive outfit, even while saving the planet. If these things appeal to you, then 2009 will look much brighter than 2008. Also, if you’re looking for an upcoming schedule of which series’ will return to the airwaves when, then look no further.

The strike cost tinseltown an estimated $2 billion dollars. $2 billion. What is the country spending on the war per month? Doesn’t this have to ballpark it? $2 billion for roughly three months is $666,666,666 per month. Clearly I need to be making friends with these people as opposed to mocking them and their sometimes lazy, pedestrian work.

According to a recent survey — which are never inaccurate, much like exit polls — half of all British men would sacrifice six months for a new plasma. First off, six months is nothing. In the immortal words of George Costanza, “I could do six months on my head”. Secondly, suppose we lived in Britain, if we were to give up sex for six months for anything, it would probably be a pizza, or a cheeseburger, or something remotely edible. Not like the awfulness that is mainstream over there. And thirdly, if we’re giving up sex with just Great Britain residents, it’s not something we’d consider a huge loss. So we’d probably be willing to sacrifice sex in Great Britain for six months for a pack of mentos and a new basketball….But that’s just us.

To be fair, we value a pack of these like most people value their offspring.

For whatever reason, Craig Ferguson is voluntarily suggesting that should Letterman leave his post, that Jon Stewart should be named his successor, and not him. I mean, he’s right, but that’s not entirely the point. Has anyone ever voluntarily given up his opportunity to move up a time slot in the late night game? Christ, even Carson Daly is contending to fill Conan O’Brien’s shoes. And as little as we think of Craig Ferguson, Daly makes him look like Carson. In a way I admire this. He’s content with his position (which is a comfortable one) and doesn’t have an over-sized ego that needs validation, but it’s just so atypical.

FNL wasn’t intended to be a cliffhanger on Friday, which we find befuddling. They knew a strike was looming, they knew how many episodes they made and they knew what would happen in the final episode. So…what was the intention again? Look, we know you’re trying to bait Ben Silverman into extending the series at the expense of your fans, and that is fine, just own up to it. As fans, most of us probably appreciate the effort. But your series is too good for us to think you’re a retard, so just own these shenanigans and we’ll call it a day.

Finally, The Wire gets some award recognition. Along with 30 Rock, the WGA anointed these two programs best writing in a comedy and drama. I guess this is appropriate, writers recognize great writing, and is just another indication that we need to start watching 30 Rock.

Speaking of The Wire, here’s an interview with Lance Reddick and how he almost came to play crack addicted Bubbles instead of the straight and narrow, well-intentioned yet ladder climbing police lieutenant. I wonder if there’s any mention of those Cadillac commercials. Enter into this with caution, he has a completely different voice than what he uses on the series, the only person it seems like you can’t say that about is the one character with the most uniquely baffling accent: Snoop.

That’s all we have for the time being, back tomorrow with — yyyyyaaaaawwwwn — probably more of the same.

Too tired still for a proper introduction, lets just jump write into the links. Oh, and I will say it was great to have Stewart and Colbert back last night. Though the lack of a sufficient writing staff Colbert was reduced to dancing in his audience to some song that I know I’ve heard but couldn’t put an artist or title too. Still, both of them excel at the late night game and it at least gives me some television to watch. Stewart just seems to have a firm grasp on the political machine in this country, and mocks it accordingly.

Oh, and sorry for the lack of strike coverage. But virtually any link I could provide says the same thing from a different source. So for at least today we’re just going to skip it. All that seems relevant to add is that it is still taking place and there is still no end in sight. The end.

Links…

Much like The Sopranos saga was youtube-d down to a seven minute summary, The Wire was at least given the courtesy of getting over four. Not sure how one is so much shorter than the other since I haven’t watched the latter, but how much time would other series’ warrant? I think you could rundown the 143 seasons of ER they’ve aired in about fifteen seconds.

David Simon is responding to any and all online criticisms about his new season. While it does seem that the new season has a different tonal setting, is shot a little differently and appears to be the most far-fetched of the four, aren’t we all getting a little too critical? It might seem a bit hypocritical for this site to criticize someone’s perceived disparagement, but Simon has brought us four seasons of some of the most moving, groundbreaking, introspective television to ever air in the world. Nitpicks over the believability of the fifth season seem a little tedious and misguided.

Someone with an immense amount of time on their hands posted a rundown of all the journalistic shorthand on this season of The Wire. While we appreciate the effort, all insider slang used on the series for any institution depicted has been explained over time, and has made the series that much more interesting on second viewing.

After seeing the 2nd episode this season, you can count Greggs in.

In case fans and surveyors of the series haven’t quite figured it out, David Simon is completely disinterested in winning an Emmy. Good. Has there ever been a more flawed and asinine awards ceremony? Why should he need some arbitrary award for a false sense of validation? At this point its almost better for the series’ legacy if it never claims an award from the “top” television awards show. If I were him I’d aspire to head AFI’s top series of the year more so than win a fucking Emmy.

Since Seinfeld and his hack wife have been acting like such elitist pricks over this entire cookbook scandal, we’re actually pleased to announce that there lowly rival is holding their feet to the fire in court. But I’m sure the two of them will get out of this jam untarnished, since celebrities are above the law and all.

Okay, just one piece of strike related news: Stephen Colbert handed out chili to writers picketing his show and is obviously good-natured about the entire thing. Unless, dare I say, it was Mr. and Mrs. Scott Tenorman chili.

Dexter reruns are being syndicated by CBS with heavy, heavy editing. Hopefully it results in cutting down some of that awful narration and hackneyed, cliche dialog. Something tells me that the acting from the girlfriend will still be in full throttle, and that just might kill the series for the masses.

And finally, just to prove my theory that male alumnus from American Idol have a far lower ceiling for career longevity than their female counterparts: Taylor Kicks has reportedly been dropped by his recored label. And this to me was really surprising, I really thought a 29 year-old who looked forty-five would thrive in the world of pop music. Guess you learn something new everyday.

Back tomorrow with recaps for The Wire and FNL.

Helluva holiday season this year, we’ve probably been fairly outgoing in the wake of this writer’s strike. And you know what? We don’t like it. Spending time with loved ones, discovering and experiencing new things the world has to offer is overrated if you ask us. Sitting down in front of the television for a five hour binge is generally just as exciting and far more relaxing. Anyhow, onto the rest of the year end review…

5) Extras
Only got better from season one to two and was capped off by an hour and half finale that was as sentimental and introspective as it was hysterical. A sharp turn for a series that’s only dramatic moment beforehand was concluded with a voice mail from Patrick Stewart offering the series’ female lead a role in a soft porn. If Extras taught us anything, it’s that British actors, on a wide scale, are much more self-deprecating than American actors. And that Gervais and Ashley Jensen could both make the transition to dramatic acting and not miss a beat.

4) South Park
Imaginationland! To be frank I couldn’t even remember anything else about the most recent stretch of episodes and had to look it up. There was a King of Kong parody, an oral sex episode that coincided with a mockery of Jesus Camp, a 300 parody, a Guitar Hero episode and several mediocre attempts. But the three part saga that was “Imaginationland” hit on every comedic element possible. From rehashing former characters to absurd scenarios to remarkable likenesses, Trey Parker and Matt Stone proved they still hit more often than they miss.

3) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Sometimes they strive too hard to upset as many people as possible (much like their predecessors at #4) and it cuts into the comedic stylings. But, when it’s working it works better than any other comedy on television. The cast (including Danny DeVito) appears to feed off their apparent synergy more so than any other cast on television since Seinfeld as “the gang” disparages and destroys their lives and the lives of those who dare associate with them. After finishing their third and best season I think this spot is well deserved, if unpopular.

I’d probably rather cross Chris and Snoop.

2) Mad Men
If it wasn’t for the finale of arguably the greatest achievement in television history this probably would have claimed the top spot. Jon Hamm, Vincent Kartheiser and John Slattery (who was briefly in Charlie Wilson’s War getting brow beaten by Philip Seymour Hoffman, by the way) led the helm of an ensemble cast that’s second to none. Every remarkably imperfect character is capable of invoking sympathy at times and hatred at others, including the protagonist Donald Draper, whose mysterious background and unfolded tale kept the summer television season worthwhile. The atmospheric has paved the way for a new style of television as it focuses on every intricate detail of the life during 1960. All we have to say is the editing team is probably underpaid.

1) The Sopranos
What else is there to say that hasn’t been said? The final scene has been rehashed and debated ad nauseum and in some ways diminished the brilliance of the final nine episodes. From a critical standpoint, the concluding half season of this series is probably the best run they produced (we’d still make a case for the fifth season, but that’s a different post) over the eight years it was on and left the series on an ambiguous high note, probably the only appropriate manner for David Chase to end it on.

That’s it for 2007, happy new years!

Feeling slightly better today, though I wouldn’t categorize it as better than shit, I still feel very much like excrement. But still, we came into work today and there isn’t a more leisurely way to spend our time than writing about an animated sitcom.

This was another stellar episode last night. I think everyone can remember being clueless about what makes the opposite sex tick at that age, and they illustrated it well. The highlight of which being the diction the girls used in the council meetings. We have no familiarity with it, but we’ll be damned if it wasn’t funny. Stan’s flummoxed reaction to it all was priceless, we’d definitely have the same deer in headlights look, and we’re twenty-five years old.

Kyle’s crisis of self-worth was quite comical as well, and it kicked off with that slow shot of the camera panning out from the bathroom wall, where he realized he was voted the ugliest boy in the class by all the girls, after being the only boy in the class to insist that it’s meaningless. This also carried-in the Government conspiracy parody with the list council (or whatever the hell it was called). The dialog throughout this was spot-on with such lines as: “I can assure you that this council doesn’t do anything in haste”, “You just couldn’t stop looking, could you?”; and everything involving the council heads and Bebe. After this episode, we’re certain Parker and Stone can parody anything with any storyline you give them.

The inspiration for insecure fourth graders everywhere.

The Abe Lincoln dream sequence was great as a bit of a diversion from the rest of the episode. Kyle rejecting all of his advice, then Lincoln driving him home in a sedan, then Lincoln calling Kyle an asshole when he refuses to reconsider the advice he offered, was a pretty lethal comedy bit. Listening to Abe rationalize why it’s good to be less attractive in adolescence (and adulthood, really) seemed like the writers were lecturing more than anything, “She always believed she was interesting and funny because guys would always tell her how special she is, but it was only because she was hot, when she turned forty she realized she’s about as interesting as a wet carrot”; but we still found it immensely enjoyable. The fact that this only seemed to motivate Kyle to burn the school down only enhanced its comedic value.

All in all, another fine episode to throw in the South Park library. Set aside the first episode with the Tourette’s syndrome there has been something to enjoy about every episode this season. We’re not sure how many more episodes are left in this set, they usually do eight at a time, if that is indeed the case, then we regrettably only have one more episode left before the next hiatus, and seven more left in the eleventh season. I still wouldn’t worry, their contracted for four more seasons after this, so they still have plenty of time to lose “it”.

Survivor recap later today.

This is coming late, so we’re going to turn it in the name of time frames and exhaustion:

Things we liked:

-Heroin Hero and that heroin induced bird.

-The regular mocking of video games that imitate real life talents. All while if the time spent playing the game was spent on learning the actual skill, it would be mastered ten times over by the game player.

-The parody of numerous fictional and non-fictional bio-films.

-Randy impotently trying to bond with his Stan.

-Stan having a moment of self-recognition while playing the racing game.

-Mick

-The kid that Stan was forced into a duo with, because he’s like a carbon copy of my roommate’s brother.

-The typical, impatient Denver fan response to Jay Cutler’s slower than expected professional development.

The things we didn’t like were few and far between, and consists of little more than nitpicks that have no bearing on the entertainment factor of the episode. This is the third episode I can recall where the characters make an attempt at forming a musical act: There was the “Fingerbang” episode mocking boy bands, then the race to go platinum where Cartman forms a Christian rock band. It’s actually four if you include the “Timmy” episode where he joined forces with Skyler and his band of misfits, but I don’t since it involved all peripheral characters.

Sorry for the half-ass job here, but when an episode was as enjoyable as this one, there is very little too write about. This is the second video game they’ve raked over the coals in the past couple of seasons (World of Warcraft being the first victim), we can only hope that Halo is next on the radar.