Grid Effect

Yawn. Well, unless you watch American Idol or are into the ongoing tale that is the writer’s strike then this week in television has been dire in its lack of versatility. Fucking reality shows, man. Any time they want to get this trash off the air and bring back something at least scripted, if awful, they won’t get any complaints from me. Anyways, here are some links…

Not everyone feels the same way we do, apparently, as FOX’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles took in a little over 18 million in nielsen’s. We haven’t acknowledged the existence of this series since our fall preview and were kind of hoping it would just fade into the wind so we wouldn’t have too. Since, you know, there are three movies available on Netflix that chronicle a very similar story, if not a complete replication. But hey, do not ever underestimate American’s love for familiarity. That’s why restaurants have regular customers and fans have favorite sports teams. It doesn’t explain why everyone cheats on their spouse nowadays, but we’ll take it one loosely based metaphor at a time.

Ellen Degeneres beat out Oprah as America’s favorite television personality. This is probably the result of openly siding with a political campaign, but my guess is Oprah could give a fuck if you like her or not. If she wants to get away from you, she has like two miles of land separating her abode from the nearest street. If this were medieval times, you couldn’t even reach her house with a cannonball. In other words, she could put Gravel in office and tell the rest of us to piss off.

Everyone’s favorite communism indoctrination machine for children is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. If you aren’t aware of the Smurfs as being just that from your childhood, we suggest you go back and watch an episode or two, the themes aren’t all that subtle. Personally, I’m just disappointed that we didn’t see any Smurfs in “Imaginationland”.

Do you see Papa Smurf? He has everything but a fucking cigar in his hand.

Barak Obama, whose on record as saying The Wire is his favorite series on television, has now included Omar as his favorite character, but is quick to dismiss his criminal lifestyle. Does anyone that watches the series, then mentions a favorite character, actually condone the actions of that character? Sure, there are some: Lester, Daniels, Bunny, etc. But if someone is partial to Stringer or Marlo or Snoop or Omar, is anyone actually suggesting they admire their lifestyle? This is the problem with contemporary politics, you have to convey obvious points about your favorite fictional on screen characters that are obvious.

This is either a clip from Reality Bites or Jon Stewart is interviewing Conan O’Brien on his old show. It’s virtually impossible to distinguish the two.

Disappointing story about Chad L. Coleman (better known as Cutty on The Wire) working in a grocery store and unable to find acting work as a result of the strike. He seems content with it, but we’re not. Someone who turns in a performance that honest and uplifting (difficult to do on such a series) should have roles thrown at him, instead he’s punching a clock.

Chile is entering the fold by becoming the fourth country to import The Office, just to make sure Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant can buy their own jets instead of having to share one. They are the first South American country to create a David Brent and could open up a whole network of possibilities for Gervais and Merchant to export their fifteen episode series too.

Alright, we’re going to wrap it up here. There is plenty of news worth mocking and maybe we’ll get to more of it later in the day, but right now were tired and somewhat depressed about the current headlines, so we’re going to cut our losses and actually do some Grade-A paper pushing.