Grid Effect

Absolutely nothing on television last night, we promised a nightly preview on Sunday for today, but don’t have time for it right now, maybe later this afternoon. Anyhow, here are some links.

I can’t imagine The Wire is heavily promoted on the other side of the pond, but for everyone enamored with the sophistication of Brits, season five debuted over there to a paltry 38,000 viewers. See, just like Americans, Europeans would probably rather watch Wipeout. I don’t know what the correct proportionality would be, but it at least scored around a Nielsen rating of one here in the states, so at least Americans can at least drop whatever intellectual inferiority complex they might have had with our ally, or at least when it comes to television. We’re still collectively retarded. Much like every shortcoming in Europe, I’m somehow pinning this one on soccer hooliganism.

Alright, if you didn’t see Mad Men when it originally aired, or download it off Itunes or Bit Torrent, or catch the marathon this past Sunday, or see any of the reruns in between the original run and the marathon, or haven’t watched it on demand; you can now watch the season one finale on their website. What a monumental service they’re providing. Don’t get me wrong, my nuts are tingling with the thought of Sunday’s season two premiere. But if they don’t open to at least 5 million viewers, then all this promotion has been a total fucking waste. $25 million. Does anyone know how many pilots you can produce for that kind of scratch? But no, Mr. Weiner needs a painted subway cart to advertise his critically acclaimed series that was tailor made for a small but loyal demographic in the first place.

The creator or whatever of ER intends to ask George Clooney to return for a cameo, and doubts the film star will agree but isn’t deterred. I’m guessing John Wells was the affable nerd who wanted to date the head cheerleader, and asked her out after telling everyone else he was going to ask her out but she’ll probably say no but then she says yes out of a sense of obligation to not appear like a total bitch to the rest of her peers. I’m on to you, John Wells.

You want to catch this hunk of man meat Mr. Wells? You're going to have to drop the pity party.

Grey’s Anatomy consulted GLAAD for how to handle an upcoming storyline about a lesbian couple. I understand this is as much a publicity stunt as anything to compensate for the whole Isiah Washington thing, but wouldn’t the advice just be to not make them one-dimensional? Like, don’t gay people ever get tired of watching gay and lesbian characters that have nothing to offer aside from commentary about proclivities for fucking people of the same gender? Is creating an Omar Little or a Kima Greggs, gay characters who just happen to be gay all that difficult?

And finally, Joss Whedon’s new series was all the rage at the critics press tour this year. It is called Dollhouse, and will serve as a prequel to something. I don’t know, I’m not reading that full interview. I’ve never seen Firefly (but hear Christina Hendricks is in it, and since we would be entertained watching her do manual labor, we can certainly make room for a series she is in) so I can’t comment on it. I’ve seen a few episodes of Buffy — because my roommate’s girlfriend junior year was obsessed with the show, and he was a total pussy, so she always ended up watching it at our place — and fucking loathed it.

Maybe I went into the show with a preset notion to hate it because I couldn’t stand my roommates girlfriend, but the production on it required a bigger budget than whatever network was responsible for financing the series. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be so superficial. But the fight scenes looked like something out of Gymkata, and that was a bit distracting. But hey, you want to watch Dollhouse? Be my guest. But don’t come crying to me the first time you see a woman holding a knife and a head and bodiless foot flashes onto the screen and kicks the knife away.

Back with a preview of tonight’s airings.