Grid Effect

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.