Grid Effect

Rescue Me was outstanding last night, much in the same way it’s been before the last two episodes. Beyond that we didn’t really watch any television outside of Daily Show, and Stewart, once again, just bitch slapped all three cable news networks; which is always a feel good moment for the folks. I liked the nervous, forced laughter when he’s taking MSNBC to task.

It makes sense, I imagine there’s a considerable conflict of interests when the person you’ve been trained like a Pavlovian dog to laugh at/with every time he makes an innocuous comment/gesture/facial expression, is now lacing into hackneyed political pundits that align with your ideology. With any luck, they’ll be ruined forever.

Here’s an article wondering why the new CBS procedural drama, Three Rivers, is set in Pittsburgh and not LA. Yeah, why aren’t there more shows set in LA.? That city hardly ever gets any recognition in pop-culture. It just seems so unfair that cities like Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City are always reaping their mid-market status. What about the LA’s, the NYC’s and the Chicago’s? Won’t somebody think of the three biggest markets in the country?!

If you were looking to pinpoint a reason why you disliked Entourage but couldn’t find the words to summarize your contempt, this video does quite well. It’s obviously an over-simplification, but that’s what makes it so funny.

This is basically the entire show.

Somehow, some way, True Blood is bringing in HBO’s best ratings since The Sopranos. For commercial appeal, both rely pretty heavily on sex and violence, so it isn’t exactly a mystery why either of them draw high Nielsen’s, but I am amazed at Americans tolerance and never-ending infatuation for vampire/zombie stories. There’s a few of them out there, from what I hear. If you combine all the film and television installments, they’re basically cop dramas at this point. God, I can’t wait for Treme, Curb, Hung, Boardwalk Empire, and Ribbon of Dreams start up so I can pretend that this and a sabotaged episode of a Joe Buck talk show aren’t the most redeeming qualities for the once great pay cable network.

Well, well, well, looks like ABC is now going inside the Obama White House. Better pucker up FOX, or before you know it the only people watching your network will…probably be the same embittered bunch that already make you by far the highest rated network. As you were.

This is some great news: congress is putting in motion a plan to lower the volume of TV ads. You know how you can be watching, say, Friday Night Lights, and the episode goes into commercial which you don’t really think anything of, only to hear the sonic boom that is a Chevy truck ad because for whatever reason, the decibel level they air the commercial with is ten times that with which they film the show you’re watching. I can’t tell you how overdue this is. My father, god bless him, listens to the television in his house at about the 65 mark. I can on average hear everything thoroughly at about 24. That’s damn near three times louder than most need the television to be. Anything to lower the overall volume whenever I visit is greatly appreciated.

And so the fallout from Artie Lange’s appearance on Joe Buck Live begins. Most notably in him telling an HBO executive to go fuck himself, and reportedly being banned from Conan’s Tonight Show. Yeah, how dare he be subversive on HBO coming from Howard Stern. Seriously, am I missing something here? Even if you don’t like Lange’s brand of low-brow humor he at least made the show watchable. If HBO didn’t want a scene, they shouldn’t have invited on a comedian who’s known for his hatred of their new show host.

And finally, Conan O’Brien first netted Larry David (whom outside of a Top Ten list on Letterman, I don’t think I’ve ever seen do a talk show) for last night, and has Kobe Bryant as a guest tonight. If you’re a fan of watching athletes and entertainers try entirely too hard to be affable and down-to-earth, I suggest you tune in.

Maybe a few more links later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The end of Summer cannot come soon enough.

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

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

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

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

A few links to start off this painful, painful morning. Basically I was playing basketball last night and was matched-up with god damn OSU linebacker who preferred to play in the post. Not to brag, but I more than held my own but am paying for it now. Not only am I about five years older than this kid, he has roughly forty pounds of muscle mass on me and is being finely tuned to make an NFL roster. If anything, it was an solemn reminder that I need to stay out of prison.

So I guess it is considered pertinent that David Letterman got hitched in fucking Montana yesterday. Or at some point in recent history. Whatever. I’m too lazy and bored by this whole topic to actually read the article. Oh my goodness, David Letterman married the same woman he’s been dating for twenty-plus years and has a kid with…uh, now she’ll definitely get in the will! How life Altering!

So apparently Dancing With The Stars actually pays their guest “celebrity” participants $200,000 to compete on their half-witted dance show. That’s, like, actual incentive. Most of these “celebrities” are actually “retired” celebrities, and $200,000 grand, while it’s not what they’re accustom to being paid, it’s a good way for someone like Warren Sapp to supplement his income. Tucker Fucking Carlson and whoever else has been voted off first on that show has been paid that much money for about a week worth of dance training and one or two show appearances. In other words, it’s not nearly as degrading as it sounds.

Parks and Recreation is getting destroyed by focus groups. For the uninitiated, that’s the pending Amy Poehler-Rashida Jones vehicle. And really just the Amy Poehler vehicle, Rashida Jones was cast because she had such a good arc on The Office and this way it’s indisputably a female driven comedy, something everyone claims their is a huge market for. Anyways, I don’t find this terribly surprising. For all the love she gets in the media (blogs, news networks, TV critics, etc.), I tend to think of Amy Poehler as about the most overrated comedic actor I’ve ever seen perform. Not that she doesn’t have any redeemable qualities but she is widely regarded as just a notch or two below Tina Fey, and it’s really not even close. At the same time, this country is filled to the brim with retards, and I imagine just about every comedy we like except for It’s Always Sunny would get lampooned in focus groups as well.

Best of luck, ladies. Though we must say that it's not looking promising.

Generally we hate shit like this because it’s so incredibly meaningless, but here are James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) and Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano) together for the first time since the HBO series’ finale. According to the link, the two who one would have thought were tired of pretending to be married in a public forum, “laughed the night away”. I can only hope that when they finally got home or in private, Carmela threw one of those minature statues at him and he retaliated by punching a hole through the wall in their pool house.

I’ve never watched Battlestar Galactica save for a few choice scenes, and this decision is up their with my avoidance of Breaking Bad as one of my bigger TV viewing regrets. Mostly because unless our pyramid scheme pans out, there’s no way we’re ever going to have enough money to create the free time to actually go back and watch all these episodes. But in this piece from Salon.com, it describes the series finale as “the opposite of David Chase’s famous non-ending of The Sopranos.” Yes, well, every series finale is very much unlike that of The Sopranos, that’s what made it so fucking effective. How are people missing this? Is it considered a success if it mirrors everything else you’ve ever seen? God damn this shit drives me nuts.

Mindy Kaling is saying that The Office has decided to abandon “that’s what she said” for the time being. This is probably a wise move. After five seasons of using a running joke, you really don’t want it to wear out its welcome. Not to say I didn’t like the usage of it, but it seems absurd to put out to pasture because its become “so commonplace”. I guess when they used the joke about three dozen times in season three, that it was just a coincidence every time it came up.

And finally, Roseanne Barr is reportedly piecing together a return to prime time television. Which may not be the wisest move. I enjoyed Roseanne as much as the next pre-teen straight male before it turned into a misguided preach-fest about social issues, but Roseanne Barr is something of a polarizing figure and could really turn into a PR nightmare. Then again, Alec Baldwin thrives on 30 Rock and has taken home multiple awards for his performance, but the series still gets low ratings. No one is going to stop Roseanne from getting a sitcom if she wants one, but is anyone going to be surprised when its off the air after six episodes?

The truth of the matter is — and no one wants to admit it — is that the era of the critically successful traditional sitcom is about dead. The only exception for one that is critically lauded and commercially successful is How I Met Your Mother, and it is a relic. Anyone with a semblance of taste disdain’s Two and A Half Men and according to Nielsen’s their isn’t much of an audience for the quirkier NBC comedies that is widely received by television snobs everywhere. I don’t see Roseanne Barr, whose delivery seems permanently trapped in 1994, changing any of this.

Probably it for today, back with some more links and maybe a nightly preview for tomorrow.

Man, I fucking love the NCAA Tournament, it coincides beautifully with the changing (improving) weather and makes for the perfect acceptable excuse to not work or do anything productive. As far as this website is concerned, everything bows to the ratings superiority of the tournament and goes on hiatus, thus cutting back our workload. Just another unassuming perk for the best weekend of the year.

Anyways, here are some links.

Much like Jackie Earl Haley landing the part of Rorsasch in The Watchmen, Henry Rollins has landed a role in Sons of Anarchy. One would might suggest the series was made for him rather than the other way around. Because really, whoever created this show had to have him in mind when he came up with the idea. “A show about aggressive white men with an askew sense of selective morality that ride motorcycles everywhere…how can I not cast Henry Rollins?!”

Obama is going to make an appearance on Leno this Thursday, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the country right now so why not spend hours out of your day making an appearance on a late night talk show? I don’t want to get too preachy about any of this because in the scheme of things is pretty inconsequential, but Leno? Really? I mean, at least do it right and go on Letterman. Shit, he went to bat for you by hammering McCain about…I can’t remember what. But I’m sure it was important.

The SciFi channel is rebranding the network to “SyFy” because it’s grammatically incorrect and one digit shorter, thus making it OK for all the cool kids to text message each other about. This might be the move that really brings in those Nielsen’s they’re looking for when they replay Bloodrayne II at 1:30PM on a Saturday afternoon. One suggestion I have to really drive up those ratings: More rap music.

It’s Monday, meaning some hack entertainment columnist has had time to collect their thoughts about The Office, put them on paper and be the next person in the assembly line of hack writers to explain why the series needs to get rid of Steve Carell. I really don’t understand why this is such a popular sentiment now. I guess people are not liking the character post-Holly Flax breakup, but he’s still generating laughs in the State School Elitist household on a pretty regular basis. Given, there are episodes where he is featured that I don’t care much for (like last week, for example); but it seems a bit drastic to suggest that they need to completely change the face of the show.

Speaking of Andy Melman, it looks like for Matthew Fox (the guy from Lost for people who don’t know or

It's related. Sort of.

care who that is) the end of his current hit show that has earned him more wealth and fame than he has ever had a right too, means the end of his television career. What a loss to the community, surely all the world’s overrated series’ will be irrevocably effected by this. All kidding aside, it’s going to be really unsettling when he’s on a VH1 reality show in five years. But the answer is yes, if you were wondering if posting this link was yet again nothing more than excuse to post a picture of Evangeline Lilly. I’ll take any reason that presents itself. Enjoy.

And finally, David Chase, not to be outdone by David Simon or Martin Scorsese (Note: He’s been outdone by both of them), is returning to HBO for a new series about the birth of Hollywood entitled A Ribbon of Dreams, a phrase coined by Orson Welles about the film industry. I think HBO might be seeing a return to greatness here in the next calendar year. Right now they’re far from it. While Conchords and Entourage are both suitably entertaining each in their own respect, and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s new season could blow the roof off the network, two decent comedies and a legendary one isn’t enough to justify keeping the pay channel.

More of the same tomorrow.

We have three series’ to recap, a nightly preview that we need to get too and a whole set of news items that we’re behind on. Not to mention we’re jam packed with an excessive amount of work at the day job, that really goes beyond our paygrade.

But we’ll start with the most pertinent of items. That is, The Office Super Bowl episode. Some expressed concern that the focus on loading the episode with A-list celebrity cameos might result in something of a letdown. As it turned out, and we probably should have been enlightened enough to realize, those cameos were nothing more than a marketing tool to attract potential new viewers. If I was one of the people that didn’t regularly watch the show, but tuned in because I heard Jessica Alba was going to be in it, I would have been severly pissed off.

Stuck with the regulars last night.

For the rest of us Office faithful, it didn’t deter from office antics and if anything, the pirated movie subplot was forced into the script by the producers (or so it seems). There was a real focus on physical comedy last night and it was executed perfectly. The cold open with the escalating panic to a fire in the office and Dwight’s monologue beforehand (”today, smoking is going to save lives” and later in the scramble, “have you ever seen a burn victim?” and the bags of stolen chips Kevin took out of the vending machine that fall out of his pockets when he assists Jim in pulling Michael off Stanley) is already beig lauded as one of the best this series has produced.

But for us, the CPR segment that goes  awry was infinitely funnier. Between Andy’s acapella rendition of “Staying Alive”, Dwight’s Buffalo Bill-ing of the CPR dummy and Michael’s “No arms or legs is basically how you exist right now Kevin, you don’t do anything” and “No, Karen, they’re not breathing, nor do they have any limbs. Where are they?”, Michael referring to the Red Cross as a racket, Kevin proclaiming “Call it” when he was tired of mimicking CPR, of  I actually doubled over laughing.

The episode stood on its own, so this episode does appeal to those unfamiliar with it if they enjoy this brand of humor (even if they were disappointed by the lack of Alba, Black of Leechman) but manage to keep all the pathos that make up these characters and how they function. Nothing was compromised in their attempt to lasso in any viewers, and instead of altering what the series is really about, they just enhanced what they already excel in. That is, among other things, displaying Michael Scott’s insecurities.

Though the roast went predictably with people unleashing various degrees of venom and Michael being unable to cope with the backlash that he asked for, it didn’t make it any less in tune with the character. Throughout the series Michael has always said he views the workplace as a family in an effort to compensate for the family he lacks in his personal life, so the plan was defunct from the beginning. But his reaction to it and the following delayed retort roasting kind of summed up his slow realization that while he does cares deeply about the people who work for him, that the feeling isn’t necessarily mutual. The majority of the office doesn’t wish him any ill-will, but if they didn’t have to see Michael on a daily basis then they most definitely wouldn’t.

Pam’s parents getting a divorce rounded out the series hitting on all its strong points, as that obviously has a built in demographic for it (read: lots and lots of women). We thought the whole thing was set up nicely even though I can’t think of any two guys I know who would have exchanges like Jim and Pam’s father had off camera, but it closed on one of those melodramatic notes that might seem to be happening in abundance this season. For a previous example, see Jim buying his parents old house from them and the unveiling of it to Pam.

Other notes:

-The two scenes at corporate with David Wallace, and Dwight’s under-selling the significance of starting a fire, his explanation for why he carved the face off the CPR dummy and Michael’s cinematic long gaze out the window with him muttering “the city” under his breath was one of those moments for those who are familiar with the characters.

“I could not because I did not feel it…Yeah, right. I filled with full of butter and sugar and forced him not to excercise for thirty years” -Dwight, explaining why he couldn’t memorize his succinct apology and innoculating himself of any culpability for Stanley’s heart attack.

-Leslie David Baker was given more camera time than any of the other bit players, and he used it successfully. We loved the coffin line and the conclusion that he is going to die because he can’t relax around the people he works with.

This was probably the best episode of the season, which is ideal (just ask the NFL about how great it is to have your best show of the year on Super Bowl Sunday). Occasionally the hour long episodes can drone on and be loaded with filler, last night they utilized every last second of their run time and set aside the ploy to attract viewers with the pirated movie, this was a flawless episode.

Nightly preview later today.

I should probably mention that there is some quality television returning/airing tonight. Most notably: The Office, which comes back from its month long hiatus; and 30 Rock, which, while modestly funny last week, Salma Hayek’s heaving breasts manage to dominate all the water cooler talk in some of your more traditional offices last Friday.

And speaking of The Office, look who’s scheduled to make a six episode cameo later this season. If you’re too lazy to click on the link I’ll just tell you: Idris Elba. If you never watched The Wire or never bothered to learn the actor’s names, he played Stringer Bell in the first three seasons. Anyhow, between the reference to the series in “Night Out” and Amy Ryan getting a six episode arc earlier this season (that began in last season’s finale), either a producer or someone in casting is a fan and has a really good eye for talent.

But back to Elba. This, more so than anything else I can recall, is the best example of entertainment world’s colliding. Of all the series’ we recap on here, I can’t think of any two that are more an example of polar opposites than The Wire and The Office. Survivor use to be in The Office’s spot,, but Corrinne went and ruined that this season when she made threats against several fellow contestants lives. Congratulations, Corrinne. You managed to turn an otherwise harmless reality show into something more akin to Baltimore’s west side.

Anyhow, this seems to happen more often than not when you begin to identify an actor with a specific character he’s portrayed. It’s a culmination of the role being so well-executed and well-written that if the role is recurring over several seasons, it’s almost impossible to see the actor in something else and not immediately think of the character that you remember him from. It’s the antithesis of seeing Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.

So what are some other instances of this? Here’s a top five because we’re too busy to do a top ten (Note: We’re keeping this with recent history, anything pre-1980’s is excluded because it’s absurd to act like there is any similarity between television now and then, other than they share the same medium).

1) James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano

It’s not exactly original and from what I can tell it’s the last thing Gandolfini wants to hear, but what does he want everyone to say? He was the central figure in a television series that changed the landscape of scripted television forever. Since everyone who isn’t a counter-cultural dipshit just for the sake of being a counter-cultural dipshit seems agree that The Sopranos is at least one of the five greatest series’ of all time, I’d probably wear it as a badge of honor rather than a scarlet letter. Things would probably go better for Gandolfini’s post-Sopranos career if he did.

2) Ed O’Neill as Al Bundy

I’m not sure if in the 2+ years we’ve been writing on this site that we’ve ever mentioned Married With Children. But some of his other work we’ve seen him in where he was perfectly sufficient if not commendable yet couldn’t shake the typecast: Blue Chips, Dutch, Little Giants. Other films we’ve seen him in where we didn’t expect him to complain about women’s shoes: 0. Actually, that’s not entirely true, he played a short-order cook in Wayne’s World who was more embittered than Al Bundy ever was, so through some form of osmosis we were able to separate the actor from his character. We still remember his most infamous line from the movie: “Why is it when you kill a man in war it’s called heroic, but when you do it in the heat of passion, it’s called murder?” Other than that, this is what 260 episodes with one character will do to you.

Unfortunately, this spawned several casual imitations.

3) Michael Richards as Kramer

I was torn between him and George Costanza, and it was a tough call. Jason Alexander did a whole arc on Curb Your Enthusiasm about how he can’t get noticed for anything other than Costanza. But what ended up pushing Richards over the edge was Alexander has at least attempted to play other characters that aren’t eerily similar to the character he played on Seinfeld. The two movies we’ve seen Michael Richards in: Trial & Error and Airheads, Richards is playing either an abridged version of Kramer or some guy crawling through a ventilation system at a radio station. Essentially, it was distracting just how similar he was to Cozmo.

Of course while he once lamented this fact, he probably now wishes that’s what he was best remembered for. Over the course of time, I’m sure he will be. But when you scream the “N-word” at several audience members during a stand-up, that racist label can really stick.

4) Mary Louise-Parker as Nancy Botwin

This series hasn’t been around for that long and I’m sure there are plenty of better examples for this list, but we were watching The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (Great film, but watch it without any distractions or else you’re going to spend the length of the movie checking your watch/cell phone) in which she plays Jesse James’ wife. We couldn’t help but internally scream “It’s Nancy Botwin!”. It was even all the more glaring since the two characters are such polar opposites. Nancy is the prototypical strong, empowered contemporary woman who happens to recklessly sell drugs for…you can’t even say to support her family anymore, so much as for her own amusement.

Meanwhile, Zee James was the standard timid, docile housewife who barely spoke. Towards the end of Jesse James, I was waiting for Zee to seduce a bevy of men to have the Ford brothers murdered. Never happened, because I forgot I was watching Mary Louise-Parker play a different character, and that Nancy Botwin isn’t a real person.

5) Kelsey Grammar as Frasier Crane

For starters, the character spanned two rather infamous series in Cheers (201 episodes) and his own psuedo spin-off Frasier (263 episodes). That is 464 episodes with an actor playing the same character. How does the American public even begin to differentiate him from this character? For all the bitching any actor might do over typecasting, their agents/managers/whoever should put them in the Clockwork Orange suspension chair and make them watch a fourth of the episodes Kelsey Grammar has done with this character, then inform said actor how many more episodes of Dr. Frasier Crane he/she could be subjected too and suggest they just shut the fuck up for awhile. Call me when you get to 100 episodes, much less 464.

That’s five off the top of my head. Since Idris Elba and The Office spun this entire thing, I think it warrants mentioning that all Wire characters avoided the top five because none of them had proportional screen time with any of the aforementioned names. My apologies if this was misleading.

Back with more tomorrow.

I know American Idol premiered last night and I’m sure it was vastly different then the last 3,000 times Simon Cowell incessantly mocked some misguided teenager from following his/her pipe dream, and I am sure it was even more hilarious than all those other times combined. Oh, that Simon Cowell. What a rapscallion.

But a bit of a sidebar from last night’s TV viewing irrelevant to what everyone watched (Spoilers For NIp Tuck): Though I did vow to quit recapping Nip Tuck for the foreseeable future, we did tune in last night because what the fuck else do I have to do? And Christian fucked Liz because…I still haven’t figured that out yet. Because she’s a sworn lesbian and they have historically disliked each other. Anyhow, that means every permanent fixture on the show has had their genitals make contact with the genitals of another permanent fixture. All that’s left now is for retribution for Sean and Christian fucking Matt’s ex-wife, Matt has to fuck Sean’s. I know they’ve never quite crossed the line into full blown incest, but they’ve been teetering on the brink for about three or four seasons now. If they want to continue to shock me with their behavior I’m afraid this is the next logical step to take. Now you know why we’re no longer recapping the series.

I take it back, Kelly. I take it back!

Also: Christian has breast cancer and is getting robbed by hookers off Craigslist, Sean is pretending to be wheelchair bound so people will pay attention to him and Julia can’t remember shit about her personal history after being shot in the head, so Sean convinced her they were still married until their son proved to be a beacon of enlightenment, but she seems A-OK with it. “Yeah, you tried to take advantage of me in an incredibly physically and emotionally vulnerable state, but I guess you had your reasons”.

Actually, this is why we stopped watching this series (in addition to Kelly Carlson being a terrible actress, as we noticed when she finally did a scene fully clothed last night and we were able to notice): Because I can all but guarantee that Sean and Matt will have some bare knuckled verbal brawl over Matt telling Julia the truth about their non-marriage, and it will be sprung from out of nowhere. But the show will present it as something that’s been eating away at Sean for X amount of time, even though they’ve never indicated as much in the past.

Anyhow, for the sake of keeping our word, we’re going to switch topics.

James Gandolfini has taken a role on Broadway for a play entitled “God of Carnage”. I have no idea what it’s about but Gandolfini has stated on numerous occasions that mainstream storytelling should be geared more towards the plight of the working class, so I’d expect something along those lines. Like a Wire season two plot without the drugs or gang interference or police intervention. In other words, basically nothing like the second season of The Wire.

This woman from the Boston Herald asks if reality television is getting too soft. Uh, wait, what? Well, I guess it depends on which reality series you’re watching, but I assume everything on VH1, MTV & E! still has the moral compass of a starving wild boar. Perhaps this might be true for some reality television on the broadcast networks or cable networks that gear more towards a family audience; but I can speak for Survivor — in which the most recent episode featured a sociopath mocking a fellow contestant for grieving over her deceased father — when I say this is undoubtedly not the case. So maybe it now strives to reach a wider audience and as far as I know no one’s been murdered on a studio set. But worrying about reality television going too soft is like worrying about a shortage of alcohol on a college campus: Neither is really going to ever happen.

And finally, in the great tradition of networks scaling back to fit their budget and increase their profit margin: ABC is contemplating resurrecting Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Since its been on the air since it debuted, I assume that means bringing it back to prime time and justifying doing so by bringing in a host people can stand. If you’re Meredith Viera and hear this, what exactly are you thinking? Knowing that ABC has to replace you just to move the show into a more desirable hour, and all you really do is ask a stranger inane trivia questions? Do you just accept it or are you still preoccupied with the rat race and hoping for a promotion? Considering she’s already a millionaire I really hope that’s the case.

Probably it for today unless something strikes our fancy.

Alright, we promised nightly previews last week, but upon further review of the television schedule, several new series’ aren’t returning until next week. So if you can wait just seven more days we’ll eventually get around to that. I know how hard it is to find out what’s on. You have digital cable guides, TV guide, local newspaper guides, the network websites and word of mouth; but that’s it. If these outlets aren’t available to you, then you have us to fall back on. It’s quite the service we’re providing here. When you sit back and think about it, it can all be a little overwhelming.

Anyhow, now that the Golden Globes are over and we can hopefully stop fawning over every word that comes out of Tina Fey’s mouth, some HBO newsbits to celebrate their annual night of cleaning up at a for sale awards show:

-Well I’ll be. The pay cable network has ordered a second season of Life and Times of Tim. I can’t imagine why. The series generated no buzz, no critical acclaim, no ratings and no awards. Other than an extremely funny first half of their pilot season, the series has virtually no qualities that a network would consider redeeming. I guess it tells us something about the semi-dire state of HBO. Or maybe something about the economy, because the only way I can understand them welcoming back Life and Times is if the crew for the series agreed to be paid in Rubles.

-Sheila Dixon, the inspiration for Narese Campbell on The Wire who doubles as the mayor of Baltimore is being indicted on charges ranging from fraud to greater fraud. Jesus, you can usually tell when a politician is corrupt in some way, but if you’re persona is so questionable that you serve as the inspiration for one of the more villainous public officials ever on televisions for two full seasons, then you might need to find a new line of work.

I hope that like Nerese, Shiela has her looks to fall back on.

-The Sopranos turned ten years old on Saturday, and this is news for people who are completely incapable of moving on like your humble orator. I celebrated by waking up at noon, watching Master & Commander on Blu-Ray and NFL playoffs shortly thereafter. It was as great of a birthday party as I have ever been too.

-To cater to the infantismal lack of patience that internet pop-culture dwellers are infamous for and Flight of The Conchords fans are essentially a subgroup of, the New Zealand comedic musical act will be selling selling the songs from their episodes the day after they air. So if you’re partial to misplaced lyrics over an ironic melody, this is ideal for you.

Alright, that’s it for now. Back later with something non-HBO related. This is going to be hard.

With the arrival of Tony Soprano in 1999 to HBO, people were as impressed as they were insulted that such a character even existed that could make everyone so angry. A year or two later, television was overrun with anti-heroes. That is, lead characters with a moral flexibility that allows them to occasionally (or predominately) act in an unsavory manner.

Typically, I enjoy watching characters like this. They’re unpredictable, their motives are always in question and you spend half the series undecided if you want to see them win or not. But they are alway portrayed as better than those around them. Who would you consider more redeemable, Tony Soprano or Ralphie Cifaretto? Or Paulie? Or Silvio? While Tony might be a scumbag in every sense of the term, he always managed to seem morally superior to his henchmen. He could senselessly beat the shit out of his bartender, but show enough fatherly concern for his kids that rooting for him was always an option.

"Did you warble, my little wren?"

Ten years later though, and television’s leading men are all adopting this same moral ambiguity that was once so unique. From Don Draper to the now dispatched Vic Mackey to Tommy Gavin on Rescue Me (The show’s been off the air for so long I feel compelled to remind everyone what show the character is on), any character considered original is now almost a cliche. Or at least, so says this Newsweek article. Which brings up an interesting point: while we enjoy characters that aren’t walking stereotypes of 50’s television that manages to typecast every single person as a hero or villain, has television gone too far the other way? In which every dramatic series attempting to avoid cliches has become a cliche in and of itself?

I’m hardly an authority on the matter, as I do not regularly watch Dexter, The Shield, Deadwood or the droves of series that strive for the Tony Soprano-esque mob boss by night and family man by day dichotomy. But I will definitely say that this isn’t true for every series. Obviously, if you judge each on a case-by-case basis, some do it better than others. And in some cases, by the end of the series, the character’s actions are supposed to be predictable (such as on The Sopranos, when it was emblematic of the theme that people never change).

But I do think there is plenty of room for script writers to improve. For example, why is there never a character on television who’s, for the most part, morally decent that sometimes acts out of character for the greater good? Right now, it is virtually always the exact opposite: A character whose essentially amoral, but will occasionally do the right thing. The former is almost non-existent on television. Save for a DA who will throw a case because he believes his client is guilty, which isn’t exactly pushing the envelope as far as controversy goes.

But even this would eventually prove to be repetitive. If this model was adopted and done successfully so that it kept the audience guessing, we would undoubtedly see more of it. Because that’s how the entertainment industry works. They look for a successful mold, someone eventually finds it and then it is rehashed again and again by varying outlets. Same goes for the film industry. Right now all the films taking home awards are inarguably macabre compared to years past. And all the movies sweeping the box office are either comic book adaptations, kids movies and comedies. There is some crossover (Dark Knight being the best example), but clearly the tone of Hollywood is shifting, because audiences want something different than artists. And at the end of the day, money is going to take precedence over art.

But for the time being this is what we are dealing with. David Chase always made a point to demonstrate that Tony Soprano wasn’t someone we should be rooting for, but the character was so charismatic that half the audience couldn’t help themselves. It spoke to the darker nature of not only his subject matter but also those consuming it. I do feel like we are starting to drift away from that, and the character in question is often either not all that much of an anti-hero or is too despicable to actually watch. With a little effort, maybe we can avoid rendering the characters that are actually interesting studies completely redundant. That is, if they aren’t already.

Well, we promised to post a second time on Friday and failed to do so. It’s not that we forgot or anything, but we realized that if we had posted again on Friday it would render us with nothing to write about today. We probably should have at least gone back and deleted the last sentence of our first Friday post, but that seems disingenuous. So instead, we just unwittingly lied about it and called it a day.

Anyhow, we did watch a little television over the weekend, but nothing new. Namely, we’ve been watching the last nine episodes of The Sopranos for the past two or three weeks, and finally got around to the series finale last night while my fantasy team was being upset in an aggravating manner. We still haven’t changed our initial opinion of what happened in Holsten’s in that final scene (more specifically: nothing), but it is still as riveting to rewatch over a year later as it was when it first debuted.

One caveat I think we missed the first time around, however, is how we wonder how much AJ’s transformation resembled his David Chase’s. Now given, Chase went to NYU and eventually got into television on what one would believe was his own merit. But Chase has gone on record saying he was chronically depressed in college, which AJ clearly was. And what did AJ end up doing at the end of the episode? Working as a production assistant for a film studio that his Dad hooked him up with. Since AJ is portrayed as having sold out his core principals for the relaxed gig in entertainment, does Chase look at himself in a similar light? Did he ever consider joining the military? One of my favorite aspects of that short-lived storyline was how pro-Iraq war Carmela and Tony seemed to be, yet adamantly opposed to their kid being involved first hand,. And this was all without realizing the hypocrisy of their position.

He has said that Livia was based (loosely or otherwise) off his own mother. I wouldn’t put it past him to include more of his own experiences in this series, especially when they seem so similar.

Onto the links.

Because it requires so much less of your time and probably pays just as well, Rainn Wilson and Jenna Fischer are both trying their hand in production. Since NBC seems plum out of ideas that might translate into actual ratings, they’re going to let them, lest they lose their only comedy that generates an audience. I really have no opinion on this one way or the other, as it seems harmless and desperate on the part of the peacock all at the same time.

This network deserves a better class of series', and these two are going to give it to them.

Alright, Puff Daddy wants to visit the set of 30 Rock and make his own cameo. First off, they already have too many cameos on that series. Secondly, 30 Rock seems to exist to mock people like Puff Daddy, and thirdly, why does is he so desperate to launch an acting career? He’s already a multi-millionaire, is recognized everywhere he goes and seems none the worse for it. So why now? Just stick to keeping it as a hobby with roles like the one in Made and leave it at that. Somehow I think that if we do see a black James Bond in the near future, it isn’t going to be Sean Combs playing him.

Mad Men has such commercial and critical buzz these days that people are either consciously or subconsciously designing their property titles to look like the logo from Mad Men. This is on Madison Ave., so one can assume it is intentional. But it doesn’t exactly register anything other than, “Oh, someone inside that office has good tastes in television shows”. Anyhow, that’s your non-news item for the day.

Tired of playing drums for the band that did the theme song for OC, Jason Schwartzman is now creating a series for HBO entitled, Bored To Death, a series about a struggling writer. Also mentioned in that link is another new comedy for HBO called How To Make It In America, about two guys struggling to reach the heights in New York. Well, at least only one of them is directly related to the entertainment industry. I didn’t realize HBO was capable of such a thing.

And finally, if you were wondering how Arrested Development came to be, Ron Howard attributes a lot of the credit to the Osbournes. Which makes sense, a reality show about a borderline dysfunctional family inspiring the creation of a scripted comedy about an abnormally dysfunctional family. You may recall that The Osbournes is almost solely responsible for the wave the reality shows we’ve seen for the past six, seven years. Sure, there was The Real World and Star Search long before it, but there wasn’t much reality television on — especially not shows like Big Brother and The Surreal Life and everything that airs on VH1 and E! — before The Osbournes graced us with their presence on a weekly basis. Anyhow, I recommend the article for a little insight to the process.

Back with more tomorrow.

Good God is television going to blow nuts over the course of the next month or so. In these trying economic times, If I were you, I’d consider canceling my cable instead of my Netflix account for December. With The Shield, Entourage, It’s Always Sunny, Mad Men, and South Park all off the air, we can’t imagine what you’d be watching that isn’t either on NBC or Survivor. Schmucks.

Obviously, this is our idea of a respectable segue into a links post. We have to guilt you into accepting our apathy, you see.

Alright, well if you want to know what your mid-season options are on the broadcast networks, here’s what you have on ABC. One of them is a remake of a short-lived sitcom that start Jeremy Piven in the 90’s, the others are too poorly titled for me to delve into further detail on. Sure, people say don’t judge a book by its cover, but we don’t subscribe to that. It’s far too enjoyable to judge anything and everything upon site/recommendation.

Here’s a preview clip for all you Lost fanatics. We haven’t watched an episode since the first season, but as far as we can remember, wasn’t the series set on an island? And doesn’t the title suggest as much? I guess when you get picked up for a fifth fucking season, you can only have a group of people who inexplicably survived a plane crash battle mystical creatures and pirates on a supposedly desolate and uninhabited island before it just starts to seem passe. I’ll shut up now.

Man, we must dislike Lost more than we thought if she doesn't compel us to tune in.

According to Dennis Leary at one of his book signings, the upcoming season of Rescue Me will have the firehouse addressing 9/11 conspiracy theories. In typical Rescue Me fashion, I imagine either Probie (Mike) or Sean will consider them to be legitimate, and he will be mocked mercilessly for it. Personally, I think their comedic material at this point in the series is better than their dramatic, so this is the preferable way to handle it.

Aimee Teegarden, who plays Julie Taylor on FNL and despite being over 18 I still feel creepy about finding her attractive, is going to play a 45 year old woman named Rhonda on the upcoming season of 90210. I’m just kidding, the character is actually in high school. But her name is really Rhonda. They might as well have gone the full mile with the antiquated name and went with Rita. Of course, what’s on dozens and dozens of people’s minds is, what does this suggest about the future of FNL? Well, if you want my uninformed opinion, it probably implies that the series is about to be canceled. And who would’ve thunk it? Usually when they split a series’ audience in half for two different airings on basic television and satellite, sending the non-satellite masses to the internet to download pirated episodes, why I thought that plan would certainly ensure the long term success of an already struggling series.

Speaking of series’ on the internet, Funny or Die will begin streaming the season two premiere for Flight Of The Conchords on December 17th. Yet another reason to cancel your cable for the current month.

Want to know more about the extras on The Sopranos box set before making the extravagant purchase? Then look no further. Here HBO has put some well timed snippets of the features on youtube. Scroll over to the related videos section to see more. How haven’t I ordered this yet?

Steve Buscemi is campaigning for a part in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming HBO series, Empire. Not to mention it will be penned by Terrence Winter (at least the pilot). Oh my God, I hope I’m inaudible when I bust in my pants so that my coworkers don’t send me to HR. Just look at this. It’s the greatest living filmmaker, teaming with the best writer from what’s widely regarded as the best series in the history of television, and one of the more respected actors in Hollywood actively seeking out a part, which he may or may not get. I can’t really make a case for not recommending this when it hits the airwaves in ten years. I really can’t.

And finally, this article ponders the notion of “great” television series becoming too widespread and the seemingly diluting ratings for each of them. I can attest to this. As much as I hype many series’ on this website, I will readily admit their are others that I never watched for varying reasons that probably hold court with some of the lesser dramas we follow here at Grid Effect.

The issue I take with the column is, he uses the three obvious options for television as art form in The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men, and suggests that their will soon be another series greeted with just as much hyperbole and fanaticism as those three were, and includes others in his argument like Lost and Damages and The Shield. Now, I’m willing to recognize that television is as great as its ever been. In fact, I never really watched TV until The Sopranos debuted in 1999. But I think lumping every critically acclaimed show into one group is disingenuous.

For one, what I’ve seen of Lost (and it is admittedly limited), I would hardly qualify that series as high art or ambitious beyond anything execpt drawing a large audience. With The Shield and Damages, I will reluctantly state that I am clearly on the wrong half of the FX ship. I went with Nip Tuck and Rescue Me as my FX original dramas of choice, and while the first two seasons of Rescue Me and the first season of Nip Tuck offered a lot in the way of quality narrative, intricate character study and social commentary, I barely like either series anymore (particularly Nip Tuck). But the fact that I haven’t heard any critics recommend either The Shield or Damages, at least not with the same fervor that the aforementioned three kings of television get mentioned, I am confident in saying that they’re not in the same league. Or at least not for any objective observer. I plan on watching The Shield in its entirety at some point in the coming years and I’m sure I will regret being so late to the party, but lack of time and interest have carried the day for the series’ run.

Back tomorrow with probably more of the same.

Like we alluded to yesterday, we would have wrote our recap for the penultimate episode of what is sure to be the first and last season of The Life and Times of Tim, but their was one hitch in our plan: We haven’t watched it. I know, its been two days now and their is really no excuse. Personally I think this says more about the series’  than it says about me…Alright, it says an awful lot about me. But I wouldn’t delay it so much if I thought that under any circumstances the episode would be worthwhile. I’ll try to watch it at lunch and get to it later today.

Given that Life and Times is coming to a close on Sunday, we’ve mentioned it before but our available shows to recap is quickly coming down to Survivor and The Office. As in, next week these will be the only shows we’re still recapping. So expect a lot more links, previews, random observations and whatever else I can address.

This seems like a good time to mention that we’ll be taking a breather on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, the entire industry takes the four days off and we see no reason to be exceptional, particularly since their won’t be anything to write about.

For now, here are some links.

The average American household is now watching over eight hours of television a day, which is a new record. The fact that its a new record isn’t terribly surprising. What with technological advancements that constitute a wider array of channels and additive convenience combined with a sagging economy that makes an affordable night in with some takeout seem all the more appealing; television is an option that most middle class families still have.

No, the fact that its a record isn’t surprising at all. What’s surprising is the actual figure: 8 hours!? Are you fucking kidding me? Are we in a depression? Is the average American now unemployed and I’m just unaware of it? Are they watching fewer hours on weekdays and not moving during the weekends? Christ. I have no social life and I write a TV blog, and even I can’t muster more than two or three hours a day.

The creator of The Shield (who apparently just pulled of a spectacular series finale), Shawn Ryan, is being a little forthcoming with his love-hate impressions towards The Sopranos. If you recall some of the cast was none to pleased with how ambiguously Chase ended his series and vowed to end The Shield with more certitude. Now that he’s done that, he believes their product is just as, if not better than anything Chase accomplished. Maybe he’s right, I can’t really comment on it because my viewing experience with The Shield has been minimal at best and non-existent at worst. But I think he’s picking the wrong battle here. The Sopranos pre-dates The Shield. And if it wasn’t for David Chase’s considerable effort, no one would no who Shawn Ryan is. If he’s looking for someone to blame his lack of notoriety on, he should pin it on shows like Boston Legal and 24. Series’ that get critical acclaim that occasionally feels undeserved solely because they’re on the broadcast networks.

If you’re a fan of theater and Mad Men, you might enjoy this bit of news: They’re turning the Emmy winning series into a traveling musical. No idea who the cast will consist of, but I know several of those actors got their start in theater, but I’ll be surprised if you see Elisabeth Moss on stage belting out a high note. This sounds appealing though, I always prefer my casual misogyny to be in delivered in the majesty of song.

Alec Baldwin is claiming Salma Hayek was his favorite woman to work with, not only on 30 Rock but just in general. We haven’t the slightest why Alec feels the need to comment on his favorite anything, but we can understand this sentiment because…well, I’ll let the picture do the talking.

Mystery Solved.

And finally, if you thought Randy would slump into some depression after his abnormally vindictive booting on Survivor this week (quasi-spoilers in link), think again. It appears he’s actually still talking to people from the show and while we don’t have any feedback on how responsive they are, it sounds like this has been liberating for him. At least from a social perspective. He doesn’t sound to contemptuous of anyone except Sugar, which is surprising considering how Crystal was towards him. Then again, he illuminates some things in this interview besides spoilers that make everyone’s anger on last night’s episode sound justified. Hopefully he’ll actually grow from it.

Back later with Life and Times recap.

We’re breaking out the links today. Because its Wednesday, and unless you want to hear me prattle on about how shit-tastic ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker final table was last night or how entertaining Stephen Colbert’s interview with Kevin Johnson was, then you won’t complain.

As I’m sure all of you have heard by now, Jennifer Aniston will be on 30 Rock tomorrow night. For all the promotion this has gotten, if this doesn’t make Arrested Development look like According to Jim then it was well over-hyped. Conclusion: It is over-hyped. Anyhow, you can watch three clips of her cameo here, and the person who posted them made a point to mention how much funnier Aniston on this show than she has ever been in any of her movies. Considering all her best work is in drama, that isn’t a terrible surprise. In regards to the comedies she’s been in, well yeah, its astounding how good writing can make an actor seem talented and bad writing can make her seem pedestrian.

And this is why I fucking hate Nielsen’s: According to the archaic ratings system, 30 Rock’s audience decreased from their sophomore episode that guest starred Oprah. The implication of course being that Oprah drove away viewers. Does anyone believe for a fucking second that this actually happened? Either everyone tuned into the premiere out of the excitement of having 30 Rock back (ohmigodohmigodohmigod!) and a good portion of the audience was over the initial rush that they decided to just record the show for later; or Nielsen’s samples such a small portion of the country that it isn’t really indicative of any trend in the marketplace. Either way, it needs to be drastically modified.

Because sub-par impersonations, over-acting and bad timing are so in vogue these days, rival networks are searching for their own version of SNL. My question is: why now? SNL has been on the air for what? 35 years now? Its as bad as it has ever been, it is overran with commercials and musical acts and flat performances. In the ninety minutes NBC gives to SNL, you get about twenty minutes of sketches. A ratio that’s so disproportionate that I am surprised internet access hasn’t made the show completely obsolete. So, why now? Was Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin really that historic or are our standards just lower? Anyhow, I’m glad to see that comedic variety shows have fallen the way of reality series about two families exchanging members or dance competitions.

HBO has nine pilots in the works, this guy at the LA Times wonders which of the chosen few will become their next Sopranos. The answer? None. Sopranos reached both commercial and critical success unlike anything ever on television before it, and we will likely never see that again for a number of reasons. 1) Mob culture has a certain bent appeal in this country that dwarfs any other genre. 2) Our aesthetic taste has collectively diminished with the likes of Deal or No Deal and redundant cop shows. 3) David Chase followed a formula that is virtually impossible to replicate. He brought in a mainstream audience in the first two seasons, making The Sopranos a dark comedy as much as it was a drama. As much as I like The Wire (even more so than David Chase’s magnum opus), it couldn’t hold a candle to what The Sopranos was able to accomplish.

Halfway through the third season (”University”), the series made a dramatic shift from dark dramedy to a study of American culture through the prism of an upper class family who just happened to be associated with the mob. As much complaining as their was about the last three seasons of that series, we have no idea how it held the ratings it did. Our best explanation would be intrigue, the average viewer wanted to know how it would end even if it meant sitting through hours of television they deemed monotonous. I hope they were happy.

Nothing like buying something you practically already own.

Speaking of The Sopranos, David Chase is optimistic about the reaction to the new box set, which we have every intention of buying but still do not have the temperament to pay for after buying every individual season. He also squashes any rumors about a movie so the fans can have some closure. Everyone just needs to chill out on the film adaptation of HBO series’. Sex And The City made one because they saw a cash cow and the series has always been fluff anyhow. The only way Chase is going to tarnish his work here is if he goes through a divorce and wants (not needs) to compensate for the increased overhead.

Big Boi from Outkast will make a cameo on Law & Order. You’re not going to believe this, but he will be playing a criminal. In the same vein as Mike Vick, he will be suspected of smuggling animals and probably talk like Omar Little before being arrested and sent to prison for life. Because everyone at the end of a Law & Order episode justice is always served with an iron fist.

Back with South Park recap tomorrow.

We could have written the Mad Men recap yesterday and out of respect to you the reader and for our sanity, we probably should have. But this isn’t about what’s practical and what isn’t, it’s about doing the bare minimum and still being rewarded the same had we busted out ass. So today, later, we will get that done. For the time being let us enjoy some day old news items.

Oh, and fucking baseball waiting until mid-afternoon to announce that they were delaying the last three innings of game four until today really fucked us. We could have gotten the Tuesday preview out of the way yesterday and wrapped up all our nightly previews by next week. Sometimes, it just isn’t your seasonal shift.

So, remember when I said that Mathew Weiner would forever and always be associated with Mad Men, so long as it was on the air? Well, I’ve been usurped by Nikki Finke, who is reporting that Lions Gate wants to dump Weiner in favor of someone who won’t ask for $10 million a season. That is a heavy price tag for an independent production company, so I think their concerns are warranted. But we still maintain that this is a negotiation tactic. He demands too much, they put it in the media that he can be replaced before making a counter offer that they will then negotiate from. My guess is Weiner ends up with about $6 million for season three in a one year deal.

Speaking of Mad Men, here is a Simpsons parody which we all knew was coming. Thing is though, its not really a parody (unless the whole episode or at least part of it is modeled after the AMC series) of the show, just of the credits. And instead of a series of shadowy iconic images from the 60’s, it is a shadowy Homer plummeting from a building while brightly lit Simpsons characters and staples are attached to the buildings around him. Needless to say, they seem to be continuing to lose their touch. God, it pains me to badmouth The Simpsons.

It has not been a good six months for Ben Silverman. What with endless rumors that Jeff Zucker and the rest of NBC are looking to fire him, the constant allegations and suspicion about his supposedly depraved lifestyle, Silverman is probably regretting ever leaving his day job as a small TV production exec. Now Tina Fey finally admits what everyone was probably capable of figuring out, he is the inspiration for at least four different semi-bafoonish characters on 30 Rock, and since Tina Fey is basically the Barack Obama of comedy right now (you can’t criticize her, and even if you do, regardless of the legitimacy or severity criticism, nothing sticks). I get the impression that they were probably arguing behind the scenes, then the reviews/ratings came in for her series and it ended with Fey screaming, “I’m your boss, I’m your boss”, followed by her slamming her apartment door in his face.

If you do not get the above reference, hopefully you do now.

For those who may be interested, Barack Obama will be on The Daily Show tonight. I enjoy Jon Stewart’s nightly musings immensely and I will probably end up voting for tonight’s guest (if I do not abstain), but it has delved into a bit of a circle jerk lately and has been more of a daily prolonged endorsement for either why you should vote for Barack or not vote for McCain as opposed to an actual comedy show. Something we never thought we would be able to say.

It would seem that the ratings for True Blood, Life and Times of Tim and Little Britain are fairly underwhelming, because HBO is now entering the wine selling business. Specifically, Sopranos themed wine. If this feels like it is about four years too late to you or idiotic regardless of the poor timing, then rest assured you are not alone. Pssh, I’m holding out from HBO’s corporate shilling until they get into the smut business and open a gun store.

Mad Men recap later today.

A second day of links. Don’t blame us, blame the unbalanced television schedules from every network, cable and broadcast alike.

Not sure if anyone has noticed since it is on Friday night, but NBC has made a television adaptation for “Robinson Crusoe”, a book that every English Lit major has to read and 40% of them pretend to find it insightful or relevant in any way. The TV series, entitled Crusoe, is getting some favorable ratings, but it probably has a Titanic like budget and, again, is on Friday nights. We hope you fans get a full season out of this, but we’re skeptical.

If everyone is going to be so well groomed, they probably shouldn't have used the glossiest lense they could find.

Speaking of adaptations, Starz has brought a television version of the film Crash to the small screen that goes by the same name. The heavy-handed Oscar winner that is now hip to dismiss as self-important and cliched debuted sometime last week, we saw it on and skipped through it without batting an eye? Why, because we want to be hip, of course, but also since we can’t imagine a series being conjured up from that film. For the uninitiated, the film revolves around a bunch of freak occurrences in Los Angeles, intertwining the stories of several characters of every imaginable ethnicity and how each character’s subconscious racism/pre-set notions effects how they react under very abnormal circumstances.

Its fundamental purpose, as far as we can tell, was making white, upper-middle class baby-boomers feel good about their liberalism. But the basic premise was a stretch then and it’s even more so with a television series. I am sure it will deviate from the film quite a bit, but what is the motivation to watch? Much less recommend.

And this is probably the finest example of why television still isn’t respected as a narrative form: Kristen Cavallari will be making a cameo on CSI. I can’t think of a better reason to hate this country than this girl’s fiscal success. MTV markets her as something to aspire to be, keeps her on television for half a decade as people watch her and her friends have slow, inconsequential, mundane conversations while they shop, she claims to be an “actress”, and CSI throws her a cameo hoping to attract an even larger audience of shit heads than they already do. To some extent, you have to love how unwarranted and shallow and simple and cynical all of this is, and how excepting everyone seems to be of it. On another, it makes you want to move into the woods and forgo all levels of consumerism.

Jamie Lynn-Sigler is set to make cameos on How I Met Your Mother and Entourage in the coming weeks. We welcome Miss Meadow’s return to television, but when you are on such an iconic series it is hard to gain notoriety for anything other than said character. Just ask Jason Alexander, who I believe is making is 70th guest appearance on Bill Maher’s show this Friday. I mean, judging by the previews she is playing herself on Entourage, and I am confident there will be about a dozen mob references from Drama and Vince (she is supposedly going to be relationship interest for Turtle). To say the least, this isn’t going to help her cause if she wants a career after this fall.

CBS, desperate to prove they do not have a liberal bone in their bodies, has now contracted Rob Riggle to develop a sitcom for them. Making him the third Daily Show correspondent asked to deliver a second sitcom from the satirical news show. This is good news for CBS, Riggle, Jason Jones and Samantha Bee; and bad news for Daily Show, whose replacements for Ed Helms, Stephen Colbert, Rob Cordry and Steve Carell took a long, long time to find their respective groove that could even rival their predecessors. At least they still have John Oliver, and the occasional appearance from Larry Wilmore and Demitri Martin; but right now their bench is lacking depth.

And finally, FOX might be closing a deal with Will Arnett, who by all accounts, hasn’t been involved in anything funny since Arrested Development. That is just personal opinion. Admittedly we never saw Blades of Glory and several people seemed to enjoy that nonsensical internet video with cardboard cutouts of the Olsen twins. But for whatever reason we still regard this as a good thing, probably because it might lead to us watching a series on FOX for the first time since Arrested went off the air.

South Park recap tomorrow.