Grid Effect

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back with a couple more random posts today.

This is the second half of our Sopranos-Wire season ranking (there is no good shorthand for this description). Let me just preface this by saying that even though these seasons fell in the second half, each and every one of them is immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking, but in the work of splitting hairs, these fall by the wayside. In fact, this second half will probably be really disagreeable for people who are fans of both series’. See the top six seasons of these two shows here.

7) The Sopranos - Season three

Best Episodes: “Employee of The Month”, “University”, “Pine Barrens”, “Amour Fou”

As far as fan favorites go, this and season one of The Sopranos probably rank one and two. Which has always surprised m, because season three is when this show redirects itself as a predominately morbid drama rather than a casual satire. Season three was building towards it, and you can pinpoint it to a single incident that they made the leap: When Ralphie killed his pregnant mistress in “University”…and Tony ended up letting him live. Through two and a half seasons we had almost come to admire some of these characters, especially Tony, and that wasn’t David Chase’s intent at all. So he managed to keep Ralphie as his antagonist, and make everyone else just as despicable as he thought they should be.

The Wire - Season two

Best Episodes: “Hot Shots”, “All Prologue”, “Storm Warnings”, “Port In A Storm”

Probably the least favorite season of hardcore Wire fans, mainly because it is the whitest and it was so startling coming of the street corner filled first season for the series to make such a dramatic shift to the loading docks. Simon’s obsession with parallelism and institutions is at its most raw here. We see Nick Sobotka (D’Angelo), Ziggy (Wallace) & Frank (Avon, we guess) playing a working class mirror image of their drug cartel counterpart. This season, in hindsight, was absolutely necessary. You can’t capture the image of a city until the plight of the working underclass is depicted, and if he had left this storyline out, he would have been ignoring a dominate sect of the population.

9) The Sopranos - Season Four

Best Episodes: “No Show”, “The Weight”, “Whoever Did This”, “Eloise”, “Whitecaps”

This season is most memorable for the separation that concluded probably the darkest and dreariest season of television that we can recall. There was a solid eighteen month hiatus in between seasons three and four, and during the layover 9/11 happened. There was some debate as to whether or not they would keep the shot of the towers in the opening credits and Chase opted against it under the premise that the series is supposed to reflect the day it is airing. And holy shit does he take that moniker seriously.

Chase always tried to reflect the times in his art. This season, the one following 9/11, was appropriately hopeless in more ways than one. As we were treated to tales of suicide, kids taking arrows through the chest, Tony’s murderous obsession with animals, red herrings, dementia and everything else in between. A work of art, without question, but one that few people can watch a second time.

Few things spark more warmth in the heart of a mobster than a horse who unknowingly and unwillingly runs races for you.

10) The Sopranos - Season Two

Best Episodes: “Commendatori”, “The Happy Wanderer”, “D-Girl”, “Full Leather Jacket”

This is where me and your average fan will more commonly butt heads. I’ve always felt that season two was too much of a replica of season one, and instead of building on the themes they laid out in the debut, they just rehashed the same points repeatedly. This season, even more so than one, is the most sympathetic to Tony Soprano and his ilk, but they gave us super-villain Richie Aprile, Furio, and introduced us to Janice, so it wasn’t in any way a total loss. This was by far the funniest season and the plot development, with everything from Chris’ shooting to his aspirations as a screenwriter, Tony’s waffling on therapy, Melfi’s professional conflicts and Big Puss’s demise are handled brilliantly. It just  comparatively brought little to the table in terms of actual subtext and character development.

11) The Wire - Season Five

Best Episodes: “Transitions”, “Clarifications”, “Late Editions”, “-30″

Fake serial killers, newspapers, politics, drugs, cops, robbers, internal conflict…Basically we thought this season of The Wire tried to do too much. It still turned into a phenomenal closing chapter, but there was much bitching about the lack of depth to essentially all of the newspaper characters sans Gus, and we attribute this to being the largest cast they’ve ever had, along with their shortest season by and episode and a half (the finale was ninety minutes). They gave the series a proper and satisfying conclusion, but the introduction of about ten new characters dropped it in these rankings considerably.

We’re not going to attest to the believability of the portrayal of the newsroom, because we’ve never worked in one, but so many of the characters were often one-dimensional caricatures that we weren’t used to seeing, if they had done a sixth season and fleshed them out, we probably wouldn’t feel this way. In short, given the scale of this series, it was almost impossible to end it appropriately, but we were more than pleased with the final product.

12) The Sopranos - Season 6A

Best Episodes: “Join The Club”, “Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request”, “The Ride”, Cold Stones”

This wasn’t technically a full season, and we wonder if maybe we have it cellar-dwelling on this list, but this almost seemed like it was biding time for HBO just so they could squeeze a few more episodes out of a hit series. Still, they provided us with issues of homosexuality, drug use, traditional masculinity and theology. Actually, the series would have seemed small if not for these twelve episodes.

This season, even more so than the season that Tony almost died in, will probably be remembered as the Vito season more so than anything, and I’ve always maintained about Vito that when he is killed, you’re supposed to sympathize with why he was killed, not that he actually was. Vito, much like 95% of the characters on this series, was a scumbag. He had killed an innocent bystander in just the episode beforehand. His death wasn’t tragic in that it took place, but rather because of the intolerance that drove it.

There it is. Our highly opinionated and subjective list. If you apply twelve points for the best season and one point for the worst, then divide the total by the number of seasons for each series, you get an average score of 7.2 for The Wire and The Sopranos clocks in at an even 6, which is much closer than it appears. If 6A of The Sopranos had switched places with season two of The Wire, David Chase’s series would have come out victorious. However, by our flawed, statistical measure, The Wire was the better overall series. Again, this is highly debatable and we welcome any opposing point of view, but just be sure that whatever your opinion is, assuming it isn’t identical to ours, is dead fucking wrong and you should be ashamed.

Back with links or something tomorrow.

It is a frequent topic of debate amongst TV internet nerds of which series is better: The Wire or The Sopranos. Now, you can find more people (not necessarily all of them are nerds) who’ll tell you the latter, but generally speaking, the defenders of the former are much more ardent. We’re not sure if it’s a (justified) inferiority complex or what, but whenever we talk to a staunch Wire fan, it turns into a pontification from both sides.

For the most part it’s absurd to even bother comparing the two. One focuses on internal and familial conflict, the other on social and institutional decay and corruption. I’ve always been in the camp that thought The Wire was better, simply for the wider range of characters, it broke more television formalities and as far as universal accomplishment, they did what The Sopranos did better than The Sopranos did what The Wire did. Or something.

In other words, I think they accomplished more on The Wire. But why not take this a step further? This madness hasn’t gone far enough, I say. Let’s rank all twelve (Yes, I am counting season six as 6A & 6B, because they are so different in style and tone and were separated by eight months) seasons of the two historic series’ and unveil which ultimately scores a higher average rating. According to me.

1) The Wire - Season Four

Best Episodes: Each on is as good as the next. Fucking impossible to discern one episode as better than the other.

Probably the greatest season of television ever made. Coming into it fans were probably a little skeptical, no more Stringer Bell, Avon’s locked up & McNulty’s on the straight and narrow because Dominic West needed the free time to shoot 300. Never the less, they captured so many facets of the city, including the eroding public education in urban areas, and illustrated how all of these violent characters we’ve actually come to sympathize with became what they became.

In the absence of an entire street gang (sans Bodie, whose arc this season was one of the more tragic and poetic things we’ve ever seen on film) Simon developed several up until now peripheral characters to give the street the chilling allure it always had and increased the danger it represented (namely Chris and Snoop, played amazingly by Felicia Pearson & some guys name I have to copy and paste: Gbenga Akinnagbe). In other words, we’ll never look at vacant houses the same.

2) The Sopranos - Season five

Best Episodes: “Unidentified Black Males”, “Long Term Parking”, “Irregular Around The Margins”, “Where’s Johnny?”

Your average casual Sopranos fan was generally a blood thirsty sycophant whose motives for watching the series week to week were simply to see who would take one in the head. After season three, we waited well over a year for season four and by the time it ended, the majority of fans longed for the days of plot and an emphasis on casual violence. Season five filled that void (the body count was the second highest of any of the thirteen episode seasons), and filled it quickly with numerous prison releases which included Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) and Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent, it was only a matter of time before he ended up on this series).

Of the seven seasons David Chase gave us, this was the best culmination of plot, humor, character development, themes and symbolism. Nowadays it gets tossed aside because so many people were displeased with seasons four and six (particularly the first half) that it is easier to say “the first three seasons were better” than to actually distinguish season five from the two surrounding it. But still, this was The Sopranos finest thirteen hours of execution.

One of many inappropriate encounters.

3) The Sopranos - Season 6B

Best Episodes: “Remember When”, “Kennedy and Heidi”, “Walk Like A Man”, “Made In America”

The final chapter ended a little more somberly than most of us wanted/expected. Instead of being treated to nine hours of gangland warfare (Sans “The Blue Comet”) we got Yeats poems and gambling addictions. But if it didn’t explore the depths of depravity and David Chase’s ultimately cynical outlook on humanity in a morbidly entertaining fashion. We had been entertained and provoked by this series for 77 episodes, but rarely were any of those episodes exceeded by what we were privy to in the final nine.

4) The Wire - Season One

Best Episodes: “The Buys”, “Cleaning Up”, “Lessons”, “Sentencing”

This is the season of television kind of changed our outlook on many things — including how television could and should be made — so in that respect it could head this list. But there were still a few stylistic glitches that David Simon had to work out, but this is possibly the closest to first place any fourth place finisher has ever been for anything. It was baffling at first, and you had to almost train yourself to watch it, but the unparalleled parallelism, succinct yet thorough character introduction and convincing case against the war on drugs puts The Wire’s freshman effort in a comfortable fourth.

5) The Wire - Season Three

Best Episodes: “Dead Soldiers”, “Moral Midgetry”, “Middle Ground”, “Straight and True”

This is where it gets tricky. Simply because putting any of these seasons lower than five seems unjust in a way. I mean, who’s to separate the firs season of The Sopranos from the second season of The Wire? On what basis to I justify putting one in front of the other?

Essentially, we’re putting the Hamsterdam season in the five spot simply for the way it ended what they thought might be a series finale but left enough room for a new run, which must have been daunting. Oh, and the concept of Hamsterdam as it related to the drug game and our ineffectiveness to slow it down (there was a war going on while Hamsterdam was in place), plus the overwhelming yet subtle theme of reform and the allegory for the war in Iraq, really solidified this as a premiere season of television.

6) The Sopranos - Season one

Best Episodes: “Boca”, “College”, “The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti”, “I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano”

Not as confusing as the first season or pilot of The Wire, in fact it is in several ways similar to a standard mob piece. But the compounding of family life with thug life with therapy and the intersecting and contradicting nature of the three turned Tony Soprano into one of the more complicated and despicable and relatable television characters ever created. Season one of The Sopranos is probably as much a comedy as it is a drama, when you watch it now it seems almost cartoonish when compared to more recent seasons. But even then, this series was so meticulous with its writing that you could see the direction it was heading in (i.e. all these people are really fucked in the head).

We’ll come back with the second half on Wednesday. Weeds recap tomorrow.

Alan Sepinwall has done a follow up on The Sopranos finale a year to the day after its original airing. We have nothing else to write about, so we figured why not steal the premise and offer up our thoughts.

We’ve gone through a lot this past year in the television industry. A writer’s strike, the end of The Wire, the worst of our carpal-tunnel…but it has seemed even longer as a result of The Sopranos no longer being around. In a way, the series was fairly exhausting to watch: death, betrayal, family, the individual & the American experiment were all prevalent themes; and virtually all of them were always viewed as myopically corrupted.

The penultimate episode (”The Blue Comet”) might have been the most tension filled hour of television I’ve ever witnessed. For an entire hour, the New Jersey mob is being exterminated, and we were rendered sitting ducks to see who will and will not survive. The tone, the settings, the pacing all made for an exhaustingly suspenseful episode of television.

So as its cancellation approached, one would think for a series with such a negative and disturbing world view, that finale’s airing would be not only welcomed and anticipated, but when those credits fell, it would also invoke a sense of relief.

The problem being, those credits and their abruptness became a point of widely speculated argument and theory. All of a sudden, instead of being a moment of satisfying liberation, for many fans, the finale was just a source of frustration in an already frustrating world. There would be no closure, only debate: Was Tony killed? Was he not killed? Have we seen the man in the Members Only jacket before? Have we seen anyone in Holsten’s before? David Chase, a man clearly suffering from his own trepidation about the state of the country and the globe, would provide many of his most loyal fans no joy in what he seems to believe to be a joyless world.

This guy? Seriously? You can’t be serious.

But still, a year later and many of us are still speculating. All of the completely disprovable theories have since been disproven, and the debate falls largely in the “was it or wasn’t it a success?” and “was Tony killed?” categories. There is a myriad of reasons for this endless debate. The writer’s strike may have deprived us of a deterrent, no series has been released with nearly as much of an impact, nothing as great and as popular has aired since. All of these are valid, but I would venture to argue that this seemingly endless debate is indicative of a successful series finale.

David Chase is either unwilling or unable to explain what the contents of that final scene actually entail. Instead has opted for vague, non-committal, non-answers that could basically mean anything. We’ve adamantly placed ourselves with the perspective that Tony, for all his money and capitalistic success, leads a miserable, virtually joyless life. And by that same token, his punishment is he is forced to live with his miserable self, just as we’ve seen him do for the past six seasons.

He claims he wants to live, but his entire life is one of fear and disgust: fear of execution or incarceration, disgust with himself and everything around him. So really, what is he getting out of life. At one point in season two (and I’m not going to rehash my entire argument you can read that here, here, here and here, but we’ve been rewatching some of the series and this seemed relevant), Tony is talking to Melfi, completely frightened about getting arraigned on the Bevelaukwa murder. He states (paraphrasing), “Once my kids go to college, the federal Government can do anything they want with me, lock me up, throw away the key, give me the chair, I don’t care”.

At a point where Meadow is looking at a successful career as a corporate defense attorney before turning into her mom (before then she will be her dad) and AJ looking at a career in entertainment, the above quote would seem to indicate a certain indifference to the remainder of his life.

With that aside, this finale has done something that none before it has ever accomplished: sparked argument over its meaning for a full year. And even as dismissive as we were to the argument that Tony took a bullet to the dome a la Cheese Wagstaff, this fine fellow has written over 20,000 words constructing that very point. This person could actually be a monkey chained to a desk and we’d still give credence to the other side. 20,000 words on anything even remotely coherent means there is room to ponder.

So for my dismissive tone, if anyone is/was offended, I apologize. But for a full year, we maintain the same argument as it seems the most practical. And for a series that has prided itself on a lack of sensationalism (relatively speaking), making Tony Soprano’s death a debatable point seems cheap and unrepresented by the rest of the series.

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.

Today is April fool’s day, so I’m sad to announce that these next two news items are not a joke, but rather deftly serious. It appears Kevin Spacey believes BBC reality series set in the theater are undermining the valuable contribution actors have on society with their simplemindedness. Or something. We can’t really make rhyme or reason over what he’s taking issue with. Additionally, the coalition of Italian Americans Associations is outraged that Steve Buscemi, an upstanding model citizen with a successful acting and directing career after a ten year stint in the NYFD was invited to speak.

So here’s the issue, we have two prominent factions of two different societies upset over something most of us would consider trivial at worst and unnoticeable at best. So we’ll match up the two “oppressed” groups to determine once and for all, which action is more detrimental to their cause.

In corner one we have actors. Now, the mainstream consensus about actors seems to be their priorities are out of whack, their pretentious, spoiled, and lacking perception. But that is only prevalent in Hollywood. The truth is most actors work for peanuts because they are either extremely passionate about the art form or they have a deep desire to be famous. When Kevin Spacey started out, I think it’s safe to say that he fell into the former category. Someone who defends the integrity of theater work so vigorously certainly isn’t in it for the fast cars and even faster women.

But despite all the rigors your average actor might go through, all the aforementioned stereotypes apply. Some might say it is justified still, as the typical actor usually can afford such a lifestyle by way of his/her privileged upbringing. It’s easy to stay living in a $4,000 a month New York loft in Soho while being paid in coupons when your dad owns half the real estate in North Jersey. This again, is one of many assumptions most have for the acting community. We suppose Spacey is arguing when you cheapen the profession, it does a disservice to all working and aspiring actors everywhere. He’s like the David Simon of the acting community.

Your typical actor doesn’t get much respect outside of New York and LA, and even then they are resigned to close knit, though occasionally affluent communities. Thing is, being an actor isn’t something you’re born into, it’s a chosen career path. Italian Americans cannot say the same thing.

Season five tops our list of Sopranos in terms of artistry, Buscemi contributed significantly to that.

Italian Americans, the last refuge of European descendants who still refer to their ancestral land when describing their heritage. We believe this is indicative of their heightened sensitivity. The core issue with groups that take offense to every Italian stereotype is that they feel their culture isn’t recognized for their considerable contributions to the development of this country, but rather for Hollywood imagery that is all too quick to paint all Italian Americans with one broad brush of overweight, bigoted, murderous thugs. We believe this has some validity, and a groundswell of positive Italian/American characters is long overdue.

Never the less, The Sopranos seems to draw their ire more so than any other mafia related portrayal. And the thing is, even the murderous characters on The Sopranos are fleshed out beyond the point of caricatures. Sans Paulie and Silvio, none of the main characters really embodied any of those cliche mafioso tendencies.

Thing is, by all accounts Buscemi is a pillar of excellence with the arthouse crowd. He has always been more about his art than his wallet size, and tends to go for anything but the cheap, exploitive dollar. We do not know why this is lost on this particular Italian American group, but it appears it has.

Was The Sopranos a brutal series about brutal, narcissistic men? Yes, but I think if you took a poll of most Americans, they would quickly tell you that they are well aware of Italian Americans who are an asset to this country rather than a liability or threat. Point being, I don’t think the influence of a series like The Sopranos is nearly as significant on the national perception of Italian Americans as the influence that comes from complaining about the lauded television series. Instead of taking issue with the sub-story of the series (the overlying theme was family, not organized crime), revel in the fact that what is widely considered the greatest television series of all time was created by David Chase, himself, an Italian American.

Obviously, if forced to choose the more persecuted group would be Italian Americans. They do have a history in this country of being exploited for a myriad of reasons, none of them justified, but wallowing about a speech from someone as harmless and talented as Steve Buscemi or the aim of reality series’ both seem misguided.

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.

It appears George Lucas is working on a new television series he is referring to as a cross between Sopranos and Deadwood…in space! On the surface this sounds like quite possibly too retarded from a guy who still lives off a trilogy he completed a quarter of a century ago, but then we recalled what the prequel trilogy entailed, and well, we decided that his description probably isn’t a misquote.

What can we expect from something like that? I’m picturing a bunch of Italians eating lasagna and drinking wine in a rusty saloon with shotguns and androgynous females. Maybe that is too on the nose, maybe it is something like a gang of wookies that speak with Italian accents in a mining town that is too close to the sun. That sounds just right. Essentially, its going to be like the bar scene from Star Wars but with an abundance of humans.

Imagine them all holding lightsabers. Yeah, that’s a fucking goldmine.

If almost anyone else had said this it would be a laughing stock, not something that everyone anticipates with great vigor. I’m going to announce a project that crosses Mr. Baseball and The Deer Hunter, it’s set during a war in the US after a Japanese baseball player is drafted in a coalition effort. The baseball player forms a bond with his fellow soldiers and crazy high jinks ensue on many battlefields in a war torn country. Amidst all the strife, he teaches his fellow soldiers — among other valuable life lessons — not to take the war so seriously before they are all killed in an air strike. Genius. It’s tragic and zany.

For every word that I hear this guy say and every project he has announced, I am all the more grateful that Annie Hall beat out Star Wars for best picture in 1977. It’s not like Woody Allen has been on his A-game for the past twenty years or anything, but Crimes and Misdemeanors, Sweet and Lowdown, Mighty Aphrodite and Match Point alone make for a better post magnum opus career that anything Lucas has been apart of, and I’m not even including his work from 1978 to 1987.

Maybe we should stop rewarding projects to people who never demonstrate any consistency. If you are kind enough to take a gander at his IMDB page, you will notice that it is extremely, almost obnoxiously long, but outside of Star Wars movies and I’ll throw Willow into the mix, is there anything else that received commercial or critical praise? Don’t get me wrong, Howard The Duck has its qualities, but by no stretch of the imagination is it considered a success.

Whatever, all the Star Wars films (even the most recent three) grossed more money than the GDP of most African countries, so he’s always going to get film and television deals and that is just a reality. Until he doesn’t, and then we’ll see the prequel “remastered” to match the quality of modern day film (South Park covered this mockery quite aptly). But when this project ultimately disappoints, just like so many others he has been apart of, do not complain that you weren’t forewarned.

We decide to partake in a week long tribute to the greatest drama of all time after weeks of monotony in the television industry, and sure enough, news breaks on several fronts that interest us. We’ll be discussing The Wire all day tomorrow and next week, but today we’ll post some links and our Survivor recap later today.

First and foremost, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is returning for a fourth season. We;re not exactly certain what the delay was, every one we know watches and enjoys it, and that is reflected by the stellar 9.6/10 ranking it has on IMDB. Yes, IMDB people tend to consist largely of teenagers with skateboards and dimebags on their person in school, but it indicates a larger audience than FX could ever expect for such an abnormal sitcom.

I can’t believe this was announced in the same week, much less the same day as It’s Always Sunny’s return, or really I can’t believed this was announced at all: Friday Night Lights is set to be renewed for a third season. How, you ask? Direct TV is going to share production costs with NBC and air the series on one of their selected channels. So not only does the series get picked up, it gets a larger platform. The city of Seattle probably wishes they could be so fortunate with the Sonics.

There back this summer, long underwear and all.

So that’s encouraging for two of the series’ we regularly review here, could anything beneficial happen to another, making this an extraordinarily good week for television even if it’s a bad week for everything else? Well, looky here: The Office cast is returning to work today. Holy shit, my head’s spinning with good news this morning. Seriously, I’m like Lucille Osterro right now.

Not exactly news, but we loved this feature on one of the blogs we regularly visit. Three critics each picked a show and argued for that series’ status as the greatest television drama of all time. The three shows in question: The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood. If forced to choose, and mind you each series has it’s own characteristics that make it better than the other two, we rank them as such: The Wire stay the king, The Sopranos, Deadwood.

If you’ve ever read this blog you could probably guess that, and its not that we dislike Deadwood but after a season and a half of it we bowed out because it struck us as somewhat one-dimensional. The former two series’ have plenty in common but approach them from different angles, we gave the nod to The Wire because it has a wider range of characters, more of an emotional core, and it emphasizes the political, rather than the personal, which The Sopranos does in spades ever so eloquently.

Speculation on whether or not SNL sparked this Clinton surge is rampant. If it’s true, and it certainly looks like it could be, it would represent a new low in American politics. First off, SNL isn’t even remotely funny anymore. They might as well have us watch the last five minutes of Million Dollar Baby on a continuous loop for ninety minutes, because that would be equally hilarious. Second of all, if sketch comedy shows are determining election outcomes then we really need to collectively reevaluate how are leaders come to fruition, because this is getting absurd. Though to be fair, any of those politically oriented sketches were ten times more persuasive than that bullshit ad with the ringing phone.

We’ve actually known about this for some time, as we saw the movie 25th Hour the week it came out. But Isiah Whitlock, better known as Clay Davis, first used his catchphrase, “Shhhhheeeeiiiit” in the Spike Lee film, not The Wire. Does it kill its efficacy? Not really because it seems so appropriate for the character, it’s just another example of institutional bureaucracy.

Finally, a British man has opened the “Tony Soprano Pizza Shop” somewhere in North Hampton. It immediately becomes the best restaurant in its area, not because of its name, but rather because it serves something edible. This might be better than the local McDonalds.

Back with the Survivor recap later today.

Jesus, what a slow fucking week this is. This reminds me of the time when I actually had a social life and didn’t woefully turn to the television for any sort of entertainment, only to be disappointed with my options when I actually did. At least now I know there is nothing worthwhile and have the good sense to not even bother turning to it.

So here it is, presented by default in accordance with my laziness, yet another batch of links. Nothing all that riveting or telling, but when your best viewing option consists of something like a two-hour long television episode about a group of people trapped on a tropical island with a polar bear, then perhaps links about off-screen industry news are for the best.

Montel Williams is leaving his talk show after seventeen years of tried-and-true exploitation. Call me crazy, but I was quite certain he parlayed his talk show into infomercials for pharmaceutical companies and had given up the talk show circuit awhile ago. Either way I could give a fuck, he’ll still be all over Fox News pimping anti-depressants.

The parents tv council (which I refuse to capitalize, because an organization with as much time on their hands as this one should really have a more creative name) is imploring CBS to reconsider airing Dexter on their home network. Supposedly the council is concerned about graphic violence (despite the show and the network already promising to edit the series heavily), which is a new one for them; typically they’re concerned about graphic sex. And while I would like to see CBS relegate Dexter to Showtime, it’s for a completely different reason. In short: that show fucking blows. The plot isn’t so bad, but the acting (from everyone other than Michael C. Hall and maybe the girl who played the doctor on OZ) and the dialog makes me squirm it’s so forced and unnatural.

He’s just using that knife for debate leverage, we have no idea what these people are worried about.

Gee whiz, it would be swell if HBO thought to greenlight another series not revolving around psychiatry. Judging by these ratings for In Treatment, it might be sooner rather than later. So wait, these ratings are indicating that the average American doesn’t have the patience to watch two strangers talk for a half hour? Wow. I never would’ve figured. But honestly, if the average American’s attention span can’t get him to watch The Wire, then it’s not going to respond to something like a grueling marathon of melodramatic swill that is in Treatment.

A “grow-house” was found in the neighborhood where Weeds shoots all of its offset scenes. Allegedly the plants were worth as much as $8 million. Man, so regularly you hear about marijuana being a gateway drug, but if that is the case, then how are they’re still enough customers to consumer $8 million worth? If everyone is eventually graduating to coke or whatever, then why the need for millions of dollars of weed in SoCal? Also, it might be a gateway drug, but I think that’s more the case with the dealers. Such a high percentage of them seem to delve into more illicit substances after a stint with cannabis.

James Gandolfini went after an aggressive fan, then took a picture with him. While the guy seemed like a baiting cocksucker, we have to wonder about this emotional fluctuation with the actor who played Tony Soprano. I don’t want it to be true but can’t help but notice: clearly Gandolfini is on steroids. That, or he was trying to avoid a frivolous lawsuit.

The LA Times took a beating from its readers emails lamented the paper spoiling Prop Joe’s death on The Wire. Most of the complaints were along the lines of, “some of us can’t orchestrate our lives around a television show to watch a second after its available”. While I can understand this brand of complaint (if there is one show that has the potential to make me homicidal for being spoiled by it, it’s The Wire) that not everyone can watch the new episodes immediately (not me, but you know, other people), the emails used as an example are so high and mighty that I’m almost glad they had “Transitions” ruined. Besides, if you didn’t see Prop Joe’s demise as an inevitability in the prior episodes, then you probably should find something else to watch.

And finally, some old Survivor castaway from a season before I started watching is starting a record label for reality television contestants. Good lord, we always knew 90% of reality show contestants were desperate, we had no idea they were also delusional. Not that the two character traits are always mutually exclusive, but this is a whole new level of delusion we didn’t think possible without being in a straight jacket. Anyone remember David from the Real World: New Orleans season? Yeah, expect more of that.

FNL recap tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great weekend of television. Or rather, a great weekend of football with a couple good series’ on. So many people are skeptical of the McNulty development on The Wire and I’m just not understanding the knee-jerk reactions. We are five minutes into his caper and already people have voiced discontent over its fallacy. How it’s any more farcical than Hamsterdam this website will never understand, but it provides an excellent way for the media to become intrinsically instead of peripherally involved in this season’s arc, and that is what they’ve been so far to the commercial viewer: a distraction to the characters we’ve come to know and love.

Also this weekend Bill Maher’s show returned. This website doesn’t claim any political affiliations in fear of losing half of its already minimal audience, but watching one party set up a forum to verbally berate a single member of the other party is always enjoyable. Maher now brings in some guy from Rolling Stone he refers to as a field reporter or some shit, just to pile on whichever republican has shown up for his medicine. This week it was Tony Snow, who despite still recovering from Chemo treatments stood tall against the semi hate-fueled panel and audience. Seriously, regardless of which side of the aisle you happen to land on, you had to admit being impressed. Then again, debating politics with Marc Cuban probably isn’t a daunting task for a former press secretary. Simply put, if he’s the Dallas Mavericks then Helen Thomas is the San Antonio Spurs.

The Golden Globes took place last night. Not an actual awards show because those who would have scripted it would have been outside protesting its very existence. And since we had absolutely no idea it was taking place, we were surprised to see it being hosted on NBC with two, two person “panels” going back and forth talking vapidly about the winners and nominees in the name of killing time. It was a strange broadcast, and since they were doing much more succinct shows on E! and CNN (NEWS!), we couldn’t really fathom why any one would watch it.

Anyhow, while we were somewhat intrigued by who won, we weren’t too adamant about it since the nominees were so random, at least in the television categories. How can you hold an awards show for television and leave The Sopranos completely off the docket, sans Edie Falco? We have no idea, either. Never the less, it was good to see Mad Men garner recognition for best drama and best actor, for a series that should appeal to everyone with a brain over the age of twenty, maybe it will grow on its already large (cable) audience. Extras taking home best comedy series didn’t come as a surprise since foreign press essentially means European press. But the win was warranted, and we can’t recall Ricky Gervais’ sophomore series being recognized in any awards capacity to date.

Because of the strike, Gervais managed to avoid all public embarrassments.

A few gripes, namely David Duchovony getting the win for best comedic actor when his series is hardly a comedy. This seemed like a novelty to have him nominated in the first place, and I think we all kind of assumed it was Alec Baldwin’s to lose, or even Ricky Gervais or Steve Carell. For a field as loaded as this one was, seeing the guy from The X-Files win because his show is new kind of cheapens the already cheap award show. Also, we were pulling for Mary-Louise Parker (finally saw the third season premiere of Weeds this weekend, it was…chaotic) in the best comedic actress but can’t argue too staunchly against Tina Fey.

That was the weekend in a nutshell. We’ll try and return this afternoon with something worthwhile.

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!

We’re at work today and not entirely certain if we were supposed to come in. You could hear a pin drop it’s so desolate in here so we’re assuming we could have stayed home. But no matter, when we have a blog to entertain ourselves with.

Between the holiday season and the strike there has been jack shit on television as of late. On Friday night we got one more Wire special. This one entitled “The Last Word”, a sort of overview of what the fifth season themes will be. It was entertaining and insightful without being filled with spoilers, so that was a quality half hour. Other than that, we’ve taken to rewatching the first season of Mad Men and haranguing those who don’t watch it or The Wire (we get very elitist and self-righteous when we’ve been drinking).

So, yeah, it’ll be similar to this until FNL and Nip Tuck return, and even then we’re struggling for material because we’re not really into either of those series’ anymore. Otherwise we’ve got The Wire on January 6th and a strike with no end date in sight. TBS does have their annual 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story on the horizon here so things could be worse, it could be a days worth of Deck The Halls. See, there’s always a silver lining.

Onto the short but sweet links…

The WGA fully intends to picket the Golden Globes, which will effectively kill the buzzes of everyone in attendance. Nothing like being the scourge of Hollywood I would imagine. Something tells me that if you fuck with George Clooney while he’s getting his drink on, labor strike or no labor strike, there will be repercussions. We cannot even fathom what Sean Penn is capable of (we really liked both Michael Clayton and Into The Wild, by the way).

Dwight Schrute, or Rainn Wilson, or, if you’d like, the store clerk from Juno (tremendously overrated, by the way) will be following in Sarah Silverman’s footsteps to host the Independent Spirit Awards. If it weren’t for their quirky, untraditional choice of hosts, it’s probably the most obscure show during awards season.

Letterman’s sought after exemption was turned down by whichever governing body handles such matters. Not that we’re surprised, it seemed like an odd scheme to actually be able to pull off, especially in the public eye. With labor strikes I doubt its common for someone to be able to work because they were popular.

A rare acknowledgment of American Idol’s existence: Ruben Studdard was recently dropped by his record label. Despite winning the contrived game show, his sales have been poor at best and downright inexcusable at worst. This doesn’t come as a surprise, either, we’re pretty convinced you have to be female to experience any commercial success after Idol. And if there is an exception to this, please let us know.

We’re sensing a trend here.

In the grand tradition of cable channel Christmas marathons for syndicated series’, here’s a comprehensive list of virtually all of them, should you find yourself with nothing to do on the holidays. I, for one, see nothing abnormal or depressing about watching endless hours of Flip That House on TLC.

Denise from Survivor has donated Mark Burnett’s money to an AIDS charity. Regardless of what anyone says, I think this totally redeems her, and I’m not being sarcastic in any way. We’d be happy to donate someone else’s money to needy charities so multi-millionaires can write off the donation.

And finally, we know all of you were concerned about this, but David Chase has won his lawsuit. Yes apparently the courts decided that introducing a series creator to people doesn’t qualify one to receive co-creation credits. Shocking, I know. Anyway, at least now we can all sleep at night.

That’s it until the 26th, merry Christmas (for those easily offended) and happy holidays (also for those easily offended).

These posts keep making it out later and later in the morning and for that you have my apologies. But what I can’t apologize for is the absolute dearth of series’ to write about. So far this week we’ve posted four times, and only once was for something we actually recommended (The Extras finale). So, while our posts might be late, we’re pinning it on a lack of motivation…and mundane paper pushing. Seriously, the posts we write pales in comparison to the paper we move.

Holy fucking Christ yes, this is what we’ve been waiting for: the “official” trailer for the fifth season of The Wire. I guess the other five or so we’re just prep trailers for this one. Some people like to remain completely unspoiled, so if you don’t want to hear anything about the final season, stop reading HERE………Of the four kids, we know at least Michael will be back in full form next season, if I were to speculate, I’d also say we see Dukie, no Namond and possibly Randy, depending on whether or not Carver followed through on his promise to adopt him. Also, Avon’s back, but it looks like he’s still in prison. And if that’s the case, Weebay would be around as well. If this doesn’t make you wish for the new year, nothing will. As a side note, we’ll be in New Orleans for the premiere, and we’ll be running around frantically looking for a television with HBO. Sad, maybe. But at least it’s honest.

Denise, the mulleted lunch lady on Survivor: China lied about her demotion and pay cut at the reunion, and it turned out her transition to janitorial work was actually a promotion. So any field hockey game she missed were of her own volition. To her credit she return the check to Mark Burnett. Damn, if she had said she excepted a promotion that had a marginally improved salary but with shittier hours, she probably still would have been offered that check. Instead she accepted it under false pretenses, and the multi-millionaire gets to keep his 50 g’s.

“Wait, you mean she was lying?…Well does she still want the money?…I’m not going to a fucking bank, give it to a homeless man or something. Peons.”

Letterman, is returning with his writers on January 2nd. Apparently they’re hoping for a “special exemption” through some loophole the show’s producers may have found, but either way they’re willing to improve the writers salaries as much as the show itself is allowed to do. Letterman must be scared shitless about returning without them.

David Chase has contemplated tears over this lawsuit filed against him. I guess he weighed the positives and negatives and decided against it. David Chase, that’s an emotional guy. We haven’t commented on it yet because it sounds so frivolous, but apparently a New Jersey judge is claiming co-creation of the series because he introduced Chase to some men with mafia ties that served as inspiration for much of the series. While he’s entitled to something, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chase snubbed him, half of everything the showrunner generated is an absurd request. That’s civil suits for you, though. Ask high, receive a greater sum than you would have if you had asked for a reasonable offer. It’s fucking idiotic. If anything you should be publicly humiliated in some fashion for being so egregious.

We couldn’t fathom such a privileged life when staying in from a booze-filled, elongated awards show is considered a “sacrifice”, but that is exactly the boat most of the actors are in with the Golden Globes. Yes, several of them are going to be so generous to the writers as to not attend an awards show in their name. Guilt has to be the motivating factor in all those charitable donations and philanthropy from celebrities.

Todd from Survivor is humble enough to admit that he isn’t a replica of whose generally considered one of the greatest strategists in the game’s history. I know most of you were thinking he’s exactly like Richard Hatch just like most of you refer to me as the reincarnation of Thoreau, but he’s willing to admit that this is not the case. Also, his last name is Herzog…doesn’t he almost have to be a distant relative of Werner Herzog? How many of them are floating around in the US anyways? Also, that’s a German name. So, that makes Todd a gay Mormon flight attendant with German ancestry living in Utah…be glad you were born in the 80’s Todd.

And finally, its been ten years since Chris Farley tragically passed away. There still has been no one even remotely similar to him and he’s stood the test of time, making him the 90’s Jim Belushi. Go back and watch an old skit as the motivational speaker, the impressionable talk show host, Chips audition or Schmitt’s gay, and all of them are still hysterical and better than anything SNL has put out since McDonald-Ferrell-Breuer all left the show. If there is a heaven, I’d like to think Hartman and Farley are currently doing improv in it.

Back tomorrow with a multiple post day.