Grid Effect

Happy holidays to all you secular individuals who take yourselves entirely too seriously, and merry Christmas to all you conservative Christians who do exactly the same. Since it is Christmas eve and all, we’re not going to feel too guilty about skimping on our daily post. I mean, is anyone else even working a full day today? Right now I feel like I’m the only person not stranded at an airport waiting for a delayed flight. Now that is something to be thankful for.

Some of us get more into the spirit than others.

Whenever I read a description of a series in development that sounds completely ludicrous, I like to post a link to it. You know, really get the word out on the desperation of the television industry. So it is with great pride that I introduce you to Bitches, a potentially new series for FOX about four female Manhattanites who double as werewolves. Basically, it’s going to be like Sex and The City, only with an entirely new subset of puns to work with. Anyways, it sounded absurd to me. I’ll let you be the judge. Oh, and anyone who thinks that title is going to fly on basic television is sorely mistaken.

The mayor of Oakland has turned down the “offer” from HBO to shoot a documentary about street level prostitution in his city. It’s in quotations because it seems like a costly venture for some funds for shooting. Apparently Oakland’s film coordinator (I just found out this is a real profession, probably limited to major markets and mid-level markets in California) is still pushing for the project, citing The Wire’s positive effect on Baltimore and raising awareness. What said film coordinator doesn’t seem to understand, bless his naive little heart, is that when people watch those specials on HBO, they laugh at the predicament everyone finds themselves in. Why? Because the majority of Americans are twisted, cynical fucks. When they watch The Wire, people generally empathize with the characters. If someone wants to do some analysis on the dichotomy here, feel free.

Good grief, as if MTV didn’t already have such a huge investment in mindless television revolving around brain dead 16-22 year olds, they have announced their intentions to debut 16 new reality series’ over the next few months. This is just in case Next, Room Raiders, My Super Sweet 16, Real World, Parental Control, Cribs, The Hills, Laguna Beach, Exiled, Run’s House, Life of Ryan, Making The Band, MADE, and Paris Hilton’s My New BFF weren’t satisfying your appetite for desperate celebrity wannabes without an ounce of creative or original thought.

As much as LeBron James can have a breakout season for the Cavs at this point, he is having one. Sensing that his desired “global icon” status is inevitable, a development deal has been reached between him, ABC and Ice Cube to produce a series that’s basically about what a wonderful person he is. It has been described by Sam Alimpour as a cross between Friday Night Lights and Entourage. That’s kind of funny, because I always considered FNL the series a cross between FNL the movie and Entourage; but they probably mean it will have a rooted, central focus on a small number of characters instead of the large ensemble that the Direct TV series currently sports. Either way, its the best thing ABC has announced for us since the arrival of Step-by-Step to TGIF lineup back in the day. We were nine.

So I guess there’s something called a reality television school, and apparently the guy who founded it never watched reality television until recently. Amazingly, people are surprised by this. You want to know why you shouldn’t be? Because people who are out thinking of contrived bullshit like “Reality Television School” to make money aren’t sitting on their ass watching It’s Complicated. They’re plotting ways to get you to hand them the money out of your pocket so it’s technically not stealing.

And we’ll leave you on a somewhat festive note, here are the ten most underrated Christmas specials of all time according to some guy who writes a blog. I have no idea what this says about us, but we haven’t seen any of these. So I can’t really attest to their over or under rated-ness.

Have a happy holidays/merry Christmas. We’re taking the day off tomorrow but will be back on Friday to post our top ten shows of 2008.