Grid Effect

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.