Mostly Safe For Work

Flight of the Conchords

By J:

I liked the first season of Flight of the Conchords but, perhaps in a bit of subconscious backlash against hipster love, didn't know if I'd make it through season two.  However, it's really good.  Specific episodes have been fantastic.  The Australian-New Zealand rivalry is particularly funny.  Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) directed last weeks episode that included two great songs.

"Too Many Dicks":



And "Carol Brown," which is actually beautiful:

Lost: Season Three, Plus a Bowl Pick

Nearly finished marathoning season three of Lost, and I have to admit it was pretty good. I'd seen the first few episodes - which sucked - before I stopped watching last year, so I've been skeptical all this time. It did get pretty damn good, though. Officially, I think the blonde chick is still a bad guy. Now I'm pissed because if I'm going to watch season four from the beginning I have to get used to waiting a week between episodes, and I don't want to do that. I'm thinking I'll just wait until it comes out on DVD again, but then I risk hearing spoilers. Like today, for example, I was reading something unrelated to Lost in which the writer alluded to Charlie's death. I still haven't watched the two part final episode, so as far as I knew Charlie was going to survive. It sucks that I made it several months without knowing that only to have it spoiled less than two hours before going home to watch it.

Now, on to the BCS. I've made predictions about most of the major sporting events that have transpired over the past year or so, so I thought I'd weigh in on the LSU-OSU game tonight. The accuracy of my predictions sucks ass, however, so I'm not sure why I am continuing to risk humiliating myself, but here goes nothing.....LSU 27 - OSU 13.

No, I don't buy that the SEC is faster than the Big Ten, and having played on this stage last year will certainly help OSU, but between the homefield advantage for LSU and an edge on the offensive side of the ball, I think LSU will be able to score first and steadily widen their lead on route to a very questionable national title. So there.

-T

The End of Journeyman, Misc. Television

NBC aired its final two episodes of Journeyman this week, which is a shame because the show was consistently good and getting better.  Of this fall's new shows, I liked the initial episodes of Chuck and Life better the first Journeyman offerings.  But their premises just don't have the realistic staying promise that Journeyman was beginning to exhibit.

In other TV news, my Tivo is beginning to feel the impact of the writers' strike.  I managed to clear the thing the other day for the first time, well, ever.  This means it's time to tackle some TV-on-DVD. 

In lieu of new TV, I'm currently watching The Wire, which is just as good as everyone says.  I gave the first couple episodes a try awhile back and wasn't intrigued enough to order disc two.  Got hooked on the second try, though.  This is masterful storytelling.  Layered characters, great plots and dialog, little exposition.  I just started season two.  The dockworker angle is not interesting to me.  Doesn't matter.  They'll find a way to make it awesome.  I'm pumped for season four, when one of the cops resigns and starts teaching middle school in inner-city Baltimore.  The non-police, non-drug facet of the upcoming fifth and final season is the media.   

The first season of Veronica Mars is still the greatest television season ever made.  However, if The Wire maintains its current quality, it may off Buffy as the most consistently great show I've ever seen. 

We are not getting any new episodes any time soon - save Lost, which has a great trailer out, and one or two intriguing series debuting in early 2008.  After The Wire, I don't know what series to start.  I've been mulling rewatching Twin Peaks now that the entire show is out on DVD, but I think the second viewing I did like 10 years ago was enough.  Thought about trying the entire X-Files run on DVD.  But that's a months long project with some very poor final seasons and no real ending to look forward to.   

State of Television

It will be interesting to see how this writers' strike plays out...

I've had to seriously cut back on my TV/Tivo habits due to working full-time while going to school full-time.  As far as new shows go, I enjoyed the first few episodes of Pushing Daisies and Aliens in America but couldn't see their respective premises continuing to be interesting for much longer.  I like the heavily-staged reality shows Kid Nation and Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.  I really, really like three new hour-long shows:

1. Chuck, Mondays on NBC - Charming geek with photographic memory who works at a fictional version of Best Buy's Geek Squad gets insane number of CIA files essentially downloaded to his brain.  Yes, it's ridiculous.  But it's also hilarious, warm and smart.  And his CIA handler (highest pic somewhere in this entry) is purty. 

2. Life, Wednesdays on NBC - Cop (played by great British actor who portrayed the lead in Band of Brothers) is wrongly accused of murder and sent to prison for years.  After being exonerated, he wins a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the city and also demands his reinstatement as a detective.  They're going with a longer story arc about those who framed him for the murder, probably other cops, paired with mostly self-contained eps.  I like Life.  Main character's partner is a troubled hot female, Dallas' own (and descendant of Iranian royalty) Sarah Shahi (lower pic). 

3. Journeyman, Mondays on NBC - San Fran journalist (played by British actor lead in Rome) time travels to correct past wrongs.  It's like Quantum Leap except he goes flashes back and forth from the present and his supposedly long-deceased fiancee - he's now married - is also apparently a time traveler. 

In terms of returning shows, Curb Your Enthusiasm's return after a years-long hiatus has been amazing.  Better than it's ever been.  After some very shaky starts, both The Office and Friday Night Lights.  Oh, and I'm still on board with House and Bill Maher. 

Bill Maher is a Good

I generally enjoy the Bill Maher show on HBO.  Whether a single episode's great or boring, of course, depends on his guests and the chemistry among them.  A couple weeks ago he called out the 9/11 Truthers for being the nutjobs that they are, and last night a few of them got into his audience:

Actually he first aimed at the conspiracy theorists last September after Charlie Sheen made some public remarks that questioned the tragedy's narrative.  Extra points to Rob Thomas, whose music I have never admired for saying, well, "he was in Men at Work:" 

FNL Ep 2

Friday's episode was great.  Osama bin Laden may mention the disastrous Landry-Tyra subplot from the season opener along with the latest Chomsky et al diatribes in his next video.  But Friday's ep represents a return to FNL greatness.  The dump-the-body plotline thankfully did not take up much of the hour.  Coach Taylor's scenes as a college assistant who's low on the totem pole were great.  Introducing a hot Latina live-in nursing aide for Matt and his grandmother right after Matt's dumped by the coach's daughter was contrived.  But good. 

The ratings, however, were down significantly from last week's mediocre numbers.  It got beat by Moonlight, a stupid vampire show on CBS that's basically Angel without talent.  Things don't look good.

In 2006, after NBC announced the cancellation of the West Wing, Andy Bowers proposed in Slate that the show could be continued and distributed on a pay-per-view and ITunes basis:

So, what would it take for a pay-per-view-only West Wing to be financially viable? I realize the economics of Hollywood involve more trickery than a Harry Potter movie—as Edward J. Epstein points out regularly in Slate—but here are some basic numbers: The West Wing has about 8 million viewers per week. It costs about $6 million per episode. In other words, if every person who now watches the show paid $1 a week, TWW would more than pay for itself.

Obviously not all 8 million viewers could or would pay for the show. But let's say a quarter of them would. That's 2 million people paying $3 per episode (or maybe $4, throwing in a buck for Steve Jobs and the cable companies). The episodes could be viewed on a PPV channel, downloaded to a DVR, or slurped onto video iPods.

I think it's very conceivable that a smaller but devoted fanbase to a show, which is hard to fathom in advertiser's dollars, would be willing to make up the difference on a pay-per-episode basis.  Every show I know of, 30 minutes of an hour, big budget or not, costs $2 per ep on ITunes.  A DVD season, which runs from $35-60 a season for an average 22 ep run, that's around $1.50-3 per show.  The numbers are getting convoluted here.  I'd pay at least $7 an episode for Friday Night Lights. 

Friday Night Lights Shoots Itself in the Ass

I have spent many a minute singing the praises of FNL to anyone who would listen.  Save one storyline, last Friday's second-season premiere was perfect.  That one storyline, featuring two of FNL's most beloved characters, may ruin the show forever.  In short, a nerdy guy accidentally kills a guy who is trying to rape the hot bad girl who the nerdy guy loves.  Instead of going to the police, they dump the body in a river. 

Every single person I've talked to or read who watches FNL hated, hated, hated this development.  The whole "jump-the-shark" concept is obnoxious, but there  is no better way to describe how one plotline in one episode can kill a season's worth of fan goodwill.  And, again, everything else in the premiere was great.  I'll keep watching, but I don't know if the writers will be able to get themselves out of this. 

My New Favorite Show!

I am in the middle of the first episode of The Pickup Artist as I write this and I am already hooked. It took me a while to jump on the reality TV bandwagon, but now I'm leading the charge. It never ceases to amaze me what nonsense can be thought up as a pretense for one of these shows. This particular show includes about ten hopelessly nerdy guys who repel women and three "Master Pickup Artists" who will try to teach them how to bag chicks. The three "artists" all have rediculous nicknames - Mystery, Matador, and J-Dog - which remind me of the scene in Dodge Ball when Ben Stiller is introducing his team in the bar. I can't wait to see what will happen throughout this show. I am ecstatic. Whatever funk I was in yesterday has been totally remedied over the past twenty minutes.

-T

Back In The Swing of Things

I've spent the last two days catching up on a week's worth of being out of touch with everything that happened in our country outside of the Embassy Suites in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I'm extremely happy about a couple of developments. First, Rock of Love looks poised to continue the tradition of D-list celebs looking for love on TV while simultaneously presiding over an astonishing train wreck of humiliation and degradation. That alone has me giddy. I'm not sure how to put this delicately, but hypothetically, if I had ever accidentally viewed any adult material on the internet, there would have been a chance that I would have seen one of the girls from the show doing some very naughty things. Hypothetically. Scott Baio Is 45 and Single looks like it has considerably less potential, mostly because Baio is such a schmuk, but I'll give it a week or two to grow on me.

The Michael Vick and Tim Donaghy scandals have the makings of great theatre in the sports world. I only hope we get to the good stuff before I develop a steroids scadal-Barbaro-755 like fatigue from the constant headlines.

Flight of the Conchords continues to impress. I have paid for the HBO addition to the cable package for my new townhome specifically to watch this show. 13 dollars for four shows a month. I am a savvy investor. For anyone that watched last night, this morning my girlfriend payed me the "your beard is good" compliment from last night's show, for which she earned several points.

This link is a page of Steven Wright one-liners. Very Funny.

And a random bit of entertainment I encountered this morning was watching the commercial for Yaz birth control. At the end of all medical ads there is that guy who talks really fast and goes through all of the disclaimers and warnings associated with the product. Well, in this commercial they try to work this into the conversation the women are having with one another. It's rediculous and it makes me laugh, though I might well be the only one. I was amazed just now to find the commercial on Youtube, though it has undergone a bit of creative editing with regards to the on screen messages.

Hmmm, that's all I have to say right now. I'm desperate for something of substance to write about. But between not working, the crappy summer TV lineup, and no sports that I like being in season I'm really spinning my wheels. Maybe my life should be larger than sports and TV........nahhh. Five weeks until college football season!

-T

My Name Is Earl

I recently finished watching the first season of My Name Is Earl and I was very impressed. It's got a great, original premise and is extremely well casted and acted. I've always liked Jason Lee for some reason, but I've never quite understood why he is so successful, he's just a bad actor. He doesn't need to be great to pull off Earl, though, looking the part is half the battle, which he does. Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee are both phenomenal. They are both instant classic sit-com characters. I wonder why Jaime Pressly seems so perfect and so natural playing white trash? She is also perhaps the hottest woman on the planet. I'm thinking about asking her out. Anyways, I'm looking forward to season two coming out later this month. Check it out.

-T