Grid Effect

One quick note about this new format: it’s impossible to keep up with the regular news items that we would usually deem newsworthy (for a TV blog, at least). So, for the sake of posterity and time, we’re going to have to occasionally continue to post these all at once with hyphenated explanation and unnecessarily harsh opinions. We’ll try to be more selective with the posts we dedicate solely to one news item, but we can’t make any promises that this will stay consistent or there will be any rhyme or reason to what we choose. Doing this while I multi-task at my ever increasingly tedious day job is proving to be a tad too daunting for my tastes.

With that said I have some good news, Mad Men is locked in to return this summer but no such guarantee is made for Matthew Weiner. I hope he doesn’t get too demanding because while it is his project, he no longer owns the rights to it and a good chunk of the network heads probably think it can survive without him. He probably has the support of the entire staff (everyone from the stagehands to the cast) so that will definitely play in his favor, but if they want to let him go I doubt they will carry his water for him. Just take a modest to slightly below what your demands are raise and just wait until the series is done to make that David Chase money. This isn’t something he wants to toy with.

Jennifer Aniston might be up for a Mad Men cameo, which may or may not be a good idea. Unless they can do with her what they did with Colin Hanks and make her at least somewhat unrecognizable, I really do not want the distraction. It’s not that I think she’s ugly or anything (my affinity has been touched on with a moderately exploitive picture of the actress)

Here’s a review (sort of) from the San Fransisco Gate about how out of touch 24 is with current day America. More specifically, he believes with Obama’s move into the White House on the 20th, the series has grown out dated. Look, full disclosure: I voted for Obama and I have never regularly watched nor enjoyed 24. But isn’t the series basically a standard good vs. evil one hour drama with a slight reformation that the entire series takes place within a day of TV time? I mean, are the villains of the world eradicated immediately after Obama is sworn in? The article states, “Cynicism about politics and especially the presidency are the currency of 24 - beyond the whole terrorist bogeyman conceit” as reason that the series won’t last. Doesn’t this seem incredibly shortsighted? there is a whole mass of people out there who are (rightly or wrongly and for an myriad of reasons) cynical about Obama taking office, not too mention that there is still plenty of people that just assume and accept political corruption. We all want change for the better, but I don’t think that implies all of popular culture has to change with it.

ER is adding three more episodes to their final season, I guess just to typify why I never watch the series in the first place. If you’ve been on the air for what is it? About fifteen years now? Shouldn’t you already have a plan in store for how you’re ending the series? Throwing three episodes into the mix on a whim just seems to cheapen your product. Also, doesn’t continuity effect anything with this show? Like, how are those three episodes going to effect everything that isn’t isolated to one specific episode? I know they can just fill it with more unique and unforeseeable injuries/sicknesses, but I wouldn’t expect a very rewarding finale if that is the case.

Breaking Bad is vowing to slow down the pace for its second season. Between this and The Shield, I can’t decide which omission from my recapping routine makes me less qualified to write this blog. Probably Breaking Bad, since it debuted long after my first post. But still, The Shield producing what some are calling the greatest series finale of all time isn’t helping my cause.

One of the many contestants for Trump to feel superior too. And that's what it's all about, right?

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, here are the sixteen contestants for this season of Celebrity Apprentice. It’s not exactly riveting, but at least you might be able to recognize at least a quarter of the names. Natalie Gulbis, Tom Green, Herschel Walker, comprise the headliners on a season of reality television that the best you can say about it is it’s being done for charity. Or rather, for NBC to fill some airtime at an affordable rate, but at some point in time, I’m told money will be given to charity. I would love to see someone do something like this for bloggers, I’m pretty sure the unexpected lethargy would result in them shutting down production about four days in.

Some rapper HBO probably paid entirely too much money did a five minute rap that attempted to summarize all the pivotal plot points of The Wire. It’s just like all of the other youtube free lance videos that have attempted to do this, but with less humor and more rhythm. Also, it’s impossible to coherently summarize all the significant developments in The Wire unless you talk like the orange haired woman from The Fifth Element.

And finally, Seth Rogen will do voice work in an episode of The Simpsons that he also penned. In it, he reportedly does the voice for a trainer that Homer hires to assist him in losing weight after the Comic Book guy writes a comic that gets optioned for a film adaptation. It’s good to see that instead of just copying the premise from one single episode they’ve already done, Rogen has taken to copying the premise for about five different episodes in the series’ history and making his own rehashed version of what we’ve already seen. This, whether you believe my sincerity or not, is actually rather admirable (if not overly creative). He’s paying homage to a show he’s clearly a fan of in the most convoluted way possible. I’ll be surprised if every joke in the series is more than a reference to an episode that aired pre-2002.

Alright, that’s it for the week. Enjoy the weekend and we’ll be back with nightly previews next week.