Grid Effect

We are bored, as a result we present you with these links. Why? Boredom is a great motivator.

It is official, Laurence Fishburne agrees to join the cast of CSI. I think this is a great move all around: Fishburne gets his payday, and fans of CSI get to hear one of the better actors on the planet regurgitate virtually identical lines in varying contexts for and undisclosed number of seasons. They can only hope this turns out as well as David Caruso.

A new book is coming out detailing past casting decisions and non-decisions that have probably altered careers one way or another. For the purposes of this blog, the one most relevant is Jenna FIscher almost being cast as Jennifer Garner’s character on Alias. We never watched Alias, but we know it was about a woman running around beating and killing everyone she comes into contact with. A female led 24, without the novelty premise. Maybe we have a deep, unwavering preset notion about what Jenna Fischer can and can’t play because of her very familiar role on The Office, but she doesn’t exactly strike fear in the hearts of men with The Finer Things Club. To the contrary, we want to win her a teddy bear at a fair or something whenever she shows up on our television.

Since she was never cast in "Alias", here's Jenna Fischer in some sort of under-garment we do not have the name for. It's only fair.

Skins, the raunchy teen drama on the BBC, has dumped its entire cast after two seasons in an effort to keep the focus on high school. And perverted men everywhere rejoice! I wonder if FNL is planning on doing something similar. Because if so, why watch it? For most series’ (good series’ anyways), the characters are there to represent something on a larger scale. After awhile, you tune in to see them as they grow and evolve/devolve. This isn’t like The Wire, where characters absence or death from the series can represent something in and of itself. If they are going to dump the entire cast every two years, then why not just watch The Real World or some other reality series? At least you will see a litany of real life bar fights. And that’s only in one season.

Colin Hanks was apparently quite persistent in forcing his way onto Mad Men. It must be nice when your father is one of the more powerful men in showbiz and you can do such things. That isn’t to say he was bad on it. We mentioned before how someone with such a high profile might be distracting, but to be honest, we didn’t even recognize him at first. And he excelled in the role. This might be a new line of work for him: ambiguously intentioned men of faith.

Hey, remember Master P? Yeah, I didn’t either until I clicked on this link, which explains that he is looking to launch a better, presumably blacker, BET. Apparently you can make a lot of money by throwing remarkably inane catch phrases over erratic, base heavy melodies. I’ll have to remember that in my next life. Still, we hope he gets the rights to Wire syndication and they actually rerun the series periodically. BET currently has rights to it and it runs at random, maybe once a month. Bang up job, BET. You might have been able to branch out your audience to snide, white, over-privileged liberal arts majors such as myself, and you completely miss the boat.
And finally, the Emmy’s, desperate for an increase in viewership since deciding to unjustly nominate the same shows year after year with no recourse until recently, are getting interactive. In honor of their sixtieth show, they are letting fans vote on what were the twenty best dramatic and the twenty funniest scenes in the history of television. I hope they are prepared to have American Idol account for at least a quarter of these moments.

Weeds recap and maybe something else tomorrow.