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.

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

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

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

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

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

The quintessential American romance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lone highlight of a once great cartoon.

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

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

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

Something different tomorrow.

Welcome back from what was a glorious weekend of actively avoiding television. And you know, if there are people watching what TV offers over the weekends I really hope they enjoy it, but while what we generally see during the week is bad enough, the weekend offerings are a constant barrage of idiocy. It’s like going from the rubik’s cube to the ball in a cup. Or rather, something less complicated than a rubik’s cube and more bland than ball in a cup.

So we’re back to the same old after a week long attempt at originality. Here are some links to start the late morning right.

Here’s some obscure website’s take on the top fifty television series’ of all time. It looks like they list them one by one, meaning you have to link to forty-nine different pages from the one you open on so we’re probably never going to read it. But it does have Quantum Leap listed at #50, so it’s probably a worthwhile read, unless it ignores The Wire, then the people at this online publication are idiots.

Jon Stewart will be on location for the D & R NC’s, if you’re into that sort of thing. It could get fairly contentious at both of them, amongst the democrats themselves Jon could end up collateral damage, and while all republicans generally tend to concede that they like his humor, they probably all secretly hate his guts, and could become the target of their scorn. Either way, things could turn out bad for the quick-witted political voice.

Jessica Walter, also known as Lucille Bluth, has been cast for the Beverly Hills: 90210 remake. She’ll probably play the exact same character she played on Arrested Development but will do so dramatically instead of comically. Which is why we watch AD and not 90210, because that character should never be taken seriously.

Tailor made for the primetime soap.

Amy Ryan is set to join the cast of The Office (Note: Avoid clicking on this link if you wish to avoid any and all spoilers, even for comedies). Either she has an extraordinary agent, an eye for good acting projects or just an incredible amount of luck, because between this, The Wire, Capote Gone Baby Gone & Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead she hasn’t had a misstep in about ten years. And perusing her IMDB page, it looks like the connection here is co-starring in Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. We had to see that to restore some order in the world, because generally an academy award nominated actress doesn’t “downgrade” to sitcom acting.

And finally, if you’re anything like me then you’ve always wondered what Wire characters would look like in Simpsons animation, but never had the talent, connections or resources to actually see it come to fruition. Well, wait no more, because this website has taken the time to bring these legendary characters to life with a Matt Groening likeness. It’s embarrassing how much I enjoyed this.

Something tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More of the same tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We went to bed around 11pm last night, so there wasn’t much television viewing taking place. We did, however, catch Beauty and The Geek. And the content of the show really doesn’t interest me. What interests me, mainly, was the cross promotion they took part in with the latest remade horror movie, Prom Night.

It was your typical product placement, featuring a snippet of a trailer, some of the contestants claiming to want to see it, and even “prom tips” from the actress who plays the female lead. Now, none of this bothered me, what bothered me was during the trailer, they had one of the characters from the movie voicing over the montage, and the voice sounded familiar to me. Like someone from the recent past. So I went to the IMDB page and sure enough…there was Idris Elba listed as Detective Winn. But that wasn’t it, while perusing the cast, I noticed that James Ransone was listed as the 7th lead.

If you’re wondering who these two actors are, then you probably don’t read this website all that often. But Elba played Stringer Bell on The Wire and Ransone played Ziggy Sobotka during the second season of the same series. And really, going from The Wire to this Swill is kind of like going from POTUS to PTA president in the span of two weeks. We’d say it’s tough being an actor if not for the most often undeserved wealth and recognition, but we will say that it’s embarrassing in many ways, and in Elba’s case morbid. In his two most notable jobs he’s died twice. We’re giving it about a ninety percent chance he dies in Prom Night as well. I mean, at least if he was doing porn he’d get to make it to the end credits.

We are looking forward to the next James Ransone vehicle.

We’re glad Wire alumnae are getting work in movies as retroactive pay for a limited budget on the greatest series of all time. But isn’t there something a little more respectable available? We saw Fruit in a McDonald’s commercial during the tournament, and we find that less humiliating than playing tenth fiddle to Brittany Snow. I can’t imagine this is what he had in mind when coming over from England.

We should mention that Scott Porter, who plays Jason Street on Friday Night Lights is the male lead in this movie. And it seems like more appropriate work for him. Primarily because we’re already used to seeing him play a high schooler, and he also has a lead role. That’s money one can live off of, even if it’s for something as degrading as Prom Night.

The only thing we find troubling about this is Elba’s presence in it, Ransone and Porter are both young and white, this is what’s generally available for them. That isn’t to say Elba hasn’t gotten other work — including about twenty minutes of screen time in American Gangster — but for what he did on The Wire I guess four years after the fact we assumed he’d be landing some lead roles here and there. This might explain why we’re not running Hollywood.

But when we say television is in many ways better than film, this is what we mean. Television, and maybe it’s a result of a higher volume of roles, seems to reward better actors with appropriately more sought after work. At least this appears to be the case in critically acclaimed series’.

South Park & Survivor recaps tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you Monday, kids. Enjoy the final four.

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.

Some links for the day. This might be a recurring theme this week with just about all decent television taking the week off so as not to interfere with the magnificent beast that is the NCAA tournament. And by “all decent television” I mean Survivor. South Park should still be on Wednesday.

Apparently there was a series called The Return of Jezebel James on FOX at some point, and apparently they have also canceled this series. That’s a shame, you know? It would have been great if it was on air long enough for me to actually know it existed. Given how television works nowadays, this was probably the next Mash or something because great shows seldom generate an audience anymore.

Jezebel James starred these two…I’m already a fan.

Ryan Seacrest wants to “rule television”, this is eerily similar to LeBron James’ aspirations to be a “”Global Icon”. Listen guys, you’re a TV host and a basketball player, there is only so much either of you can do from the line of work you have chosen. Disney rules television, Seacrest, alright? You’re just a fucking patsy. And LeBron? There are no more global icons, because everybody hates everyone else. Don’t make me go all Arthur Jensen on a fucking television blog.

Prison Break’s fourth season is ready to shoot. That is going to be a helluva payoff when they finally make their escape. Unless it’s like Life and the series is a collection of multiple failed attempts.

Christopher J. Clanton, better known as Savino to Wire fans, was stabbed coming out of a Baltimore night club. Here’s wishing him well in his recovery and acting career, which probably won’t take off anytime soon since the only outlet for black actors now that The Wire is off the air is McDonald’s commercials.

If you fancy yourself a fan of Daily Show alumnus’, here’s Colbert and Carell on The Dana Carvey Show.

And finally, you know what is a good barometer for fame and power in this country? When your dog dying makes the news. If you had a pet at some point during your tenure as a celebrity and it passed without making any headlines, then you should be officially barred from The Oscars.

Back with more of the same tomorrow, I imagine.

That title is just a morass of punctuation. It’s how I imagine Clark Kent wrote all his columns for the paper he worked at. Not merely written prose, but prose so complex that only people who could fly are able to decrypt it. Anyway, here are my last thoughts on the characters and themes of The Wire finale and series, we’ll try to wrap it up and be as inclusive as possible, but we’re not certain everything will be covered. Email or comment if we left out something imperative.

We just watched the pilot episode the other day, and one thing we were surprised by is there was never a Bubbs-Kima reunion. She always joked that if Bubbs ever cleaned himself up that he wouldn’t be useful to her, so we suppose their lack of a reunion is emblematic of Bubbles progression. But still, they seemed to have a partnership that extended past po-lice work, my guess is this is a result of the shortened season.

Speaking of Kima, we’ve spent little to no time contemplating her decision. We didn’t like it, but can understand. She always had a moral center that McNulty, in matters of policing, seemed to lack. For all the grooming, or expected grooming of her as the next McNulty, she turned out to be the next Bunk, which is probably a healthier lifestyle. The final scene with her and Bunk at the terrace homes where Ron Gant (the series’ first murder victim and the closing scene for the pilot episode) was murdered, was a nice callback and typified the parallelism the finale seemed to hinge on.

Carver as the next Daniels, and Daniels as the next, uh, Levy? I guess, was unexpected if you are currently rewatching the first season like I am. Carver always did demonstrate a little more competency and concern than Herc, but certainly did represent the best and brightest in the western. Then again, we know Daniels was skimming money off the top in his early days in the eastern, and is all but responsible for why he’s a lawyer now, but the contrast of personalities really resonates when he, Prez and Herc go about their flaccid raid on the franklin terrace.

We’ve been almost mute on the newspaper story because it is what everyone expected it to be (tired football reference: They are who we thought they were!), but we thought they capped it off appropriately, even if expectedly. At least Fletch was promoted to fill Gus’ position, even if Gus being demoted and Alma being outsourced is completely unjustified, they at least put some nobility in the assistant editors position. Clark Johnson played the hell out of that role, his speech about being “too simple-minded” to Alma and his outrage at Klebanow were the two defining newsroom scenes. The latter got him demoted, and the former explained why he stayed. Fuck Templeton. It’s a shame McNulty never got to bond with Gus.

Other thoughts:

-The old MCU has reverted back to nothing more than a phone in an empty room. Since Lester was the face of major crimes, I supposed it makes sense he is back to focusing on his dollhouse miniatures.

-Slim Charles finally became a CEO, the last refuge of recognizable, regular street characters still on the street.

-Chris and Weebay bonding in prison…sounds about right. Their lack of remorse, like they completely expected to spend the majority of their lives in prison, is disturbing, if not profound on a thematic level. If Prison Break was done with these actors, characters and writers, we might watch it.

-It was somewhat astounding that we didn’t get a shot of Cutty in the final montage. A small complaint, since its been summarized what he is and will continue to do. But a snippet of him coaching in the gym with women offering large servings of food would have been a nice finishing touch. Of course, I could lament the same thing about Randy, or Namond, or Bunny or Ziggy or Nick or any other number of characters throughout the series. But it was still beautifully executed.

That’s it. The greatest series in television history comes to a close on a strong note with a demand for more storytelling. It encompassed everything that is dismal and depressing about this country but had an addictive quality to it that is almost beyond comprehension. We suppose it has something to do with the character development or the intertwining storylines that almost never cross paths. We went through three seasons with multiple characters who were only connected through other characters, and no one ever mentions it. Who did Slim Charles ever associate with outside of the street? Or Cutty outside of the gym? Or Daniels outside of the department? Or Carcetti outside of politics?

This series really should usher in a new form of television a la The Sopranos, but it is so much trickier to market. How do you present an ensemble cast regularly exceeding fifty characters to a public that typically lacks the attention span to even read a news article? It’s impossible. So in a way, having it exalted in unreplicated semi-obscurity for dorks like me and the majority of my fellow Wire brethren, almost makes the series that much more unique and memorable.

Have a good weekend, y’all.

You know it’s been a successful venture when within a week after the series ends, people begin speculating about a film and despite infinite amounts of closure, fans still want more. We aren’t privy to insider knowledge, but we probably spend about 40% of our time at work scouring the internet for Wire related news and commentary. Since Monday, this is the best we’ve found.

Hey, speaking of a movie, several actors have already locked in a deal to finance the thing, though David Simon isn’t feeling it at the moment. We’d go see it, but the format would have to be so dramatically modified were not sure it would resemble the television series at all. Still, the rumor is a prequel, so if it brought us a young Bunk, Bodie, Omar, Bubbles, etc. Well, lets just say they have us by the nuts and leave it at that.

Thing is, David Simon isn’t so hot on the idea at the moment. Simon, as intelligent, insightful and down to Earth as he appears to be, seems like he would require a lot of ego-stroking to convince him to do anything, “come on Mr. Simon, you’re so smart and so talented, no one could make a film depicting urban and American decay as well as you.”

This guy from the Baltimore Sun, not so surprisingly, pisses all over the finale (and the season in general). While I agree that the series lost a bit of authenticity this year, and that at times, the newsroom characters felt a little one-note in their motives, this scathing piece just wreaks of sour grapes. I think part of this backlash from journalists (who by in large loved the series before this season), is due to them not being removed from the institution under fire, and either can’t see this season for what it is or refuse to do so.

Here’s a letter of appreciation from David Simon to the fans, of which 1.8 million watched his finale. Naturally it doubled in ratings when on demand was no longer an earlier option. Not tremendous ratings, but respectable for HBO. To quote Norris in the first cold open in the fifth season premiere, “Americans are stupid people by and large”. One of them however, wasn’t David Simon, who instead attended a Pogues concert. I knew there was a reason I liked this guy.

We can’t think of a better way to spend an evening in March. Other than watching The Wire.

Here’s some streaming video of them shooting the final episode. Not exactly riveting, but they keep all spoilers under such tight wraps, I’m surprised there’s actually video available of them shooting. /sarcasm.

A scene by scene breakdown of the final montage with “hilarious” commentary. Its not terrible, but The Wire is too good for us to be facetious about the final montage.

Actually, we take that back. This opening credits of Wire characters to the Survivor music in the background is hysterical, particularly Dukie’s introduction.

Several cast members reflect on the past five seasons. We haven’t read it yet, but listening to actors discuss a series that they are involved with and a fan of is always an insightful, fresh perspective. And that is probably the last time you’ll ever hear me say anything an actor says is insightful.

Final thoughts on the series and its characters later today.

I thought naming this post after the four boys’ introductory episode seemed appropriate. Mostly as an illustration of how far they’ve come and how low the majority of them were forced to stoop. These are probably the characters that tugged at the heartstrings of more of its audience members than any other facet of a series known for drawing tears. So a follow-up post on their conclusion is only fitting, given how invested everyone is in them.

Namond: The one non-tragic figure of the three. He’ll probably go to University of Maryland, and sleep with numerous slutty white girls intent on pissing of their fathers. If one of them isn’t the two that Dukie and Michael met at Six Flags I’d be surprised, you know how this series loves its continuity and parallelism. If I had to guess he’ll probably major in English, because that curriculum is filled with guys who like to talk shit constantly but really never say anything. In ten years he’ll probably have a life resembling Prezbo’s or Gus’. But he’ll certainly never follow in Bunny’s footsteps.

Randy: The happiest of the three seems to be the most transformed of the four. When we started out, Randy had the best situation possible. A surrogate mother keeping a close eye on him and everything he did. But unfortunately, just living in that environment trouble finds you. And being thirteen or whatever, you’re not always going to handle it perfectly. Watching his childhood be ripped from him at the end of the fourth season, to seeing him ripped, being confrontational with Bunk then shoving the grade-schooler on the steps was like seeing Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk for the first time. There is absolutely nothing resembling the before and after shot.

I have no idea if Randy was putting on airs or not. It appears that if he was, his whole life is a facade, a coping mechanism he uses to compensate for being labeled a snitch at one point in time. Whether he’s legitimately that hardened or not, the kid who wanted to own a grocery store will probably wind up being your typical corner boy with no future, and no actual interest in slinging, and therefore, no upward mobility. If he doesn’t turn out like Bodie it would be considered a success.

From left to right we have a pecking order from tragic to hopeful.

Dukie: Easily the most tragic of the four. Despite being from the most desolate of backgrounds (his entire family addicted to crack), Dukie survived and avoided using for as long as was humanly possible. I actually had a friend suggest Dukie’s outcome was his own fault for skipping high school. This was coming from a friend that grew up in an upper-middle class suburb with a doctor and a lawyer for parents, who got through school (high school and college) pulling B’s and C’s. Needless to say, his worldly experience was a polar opposite and infinitely better than The Wire’s whipping boy. Just consider how cold Ms. Donnelly was with him at the school entrance, that is the only real home he’s ever known and even they have shunned him.

A staple of everything that is wrong with how cities are governed and our schools are ran, Dukie was probably the smartest of the four and ends up on the streets doing crack with his new Prezbo, an araber heroin addict. The best outcome for him is something akin to what Bubbles got at the end of his season. But where is Dukie’s safety net that will let him stay in her basement? Sadly, he doesn’t have one, and my there are plenty of cynical overtones in my prediction for someone’s like Dukie’s future, especially if he’s already unconvincing people who at least pretend to care about him for money. Let’s just move on.

Michael: The one fit for the streets but capable of so much more. His inevitable outcome was either kingpin or stickup artist, and he’s too young to be the former, but independent enough to be the latter. Some people took issue with this explanation, but what was his other option? Just stay in hiding until the day he dies? All he knows is Baltimore, so he isn’t lambing it. For someone as intelligent and capable as Michael, he was bound to rebel against one institution or another. Given his means, it happens to be the most ruthless one possible. If he had a suburban type background, he might have turned out to be the next Eliot Spitzer, sans the addiction to prostitutes. Nice callback to Omar’s introduction when he shot Vinson in the knee. In an episode loaded with callbacks, this was the second most recognizable one.

These four kids were really the emotional core of the series. Since Wallace, everything else that happened tragically, predominately happened to adults. And while a significant amount of these adults were at one point one of these four kids, not being exposed to their upbringing makes it much easier to create some distance. In these four cases, we were not afforded that luxury. The Greek tragedy is resonates more here than at any point in the series, hence a post dedicated to them.

Were going to do some links to keep you posted on the rest of TV world, plus our weekly Survivor recap tomorrow. Won’t be a complete hiatus before we finish reviewing the series on Friday.