Tardy Report Cards

On thinking about television without actually writing about it until its too late.

Sure, May Sweeps were ages ago. And those Spring Finales can hardly be remembered. But I've got something to say dammit, and it'll be said. Because this is a blog. And it's been anything but topical lately. So why mess with success?

1. CBS -- I watched nothing on this network during prime time, yet since it and PBS are the only channels I can actually get at home on my bunny ears, I have developed something of an embittered affinity for Craig Ferguson. While his interviewing style needs loads of polish, and his musical guests are way too West Coast, his monologue is probably the tightest in all of late-nite TV. And he has all those funny noises. Man, I love funny noises.

Letter Grade: C- / Ferguson carries this network.

2. FOX -- I miss the X-Files. I tried getting through season 3 of 24 on DVD for a second time this past winter. I failed again. Miserably, too. Plus, they black out all the good baseball games on Saturday afternoon when I try watching them on MLB.com. Bastards.

Grade: F / Someone reunite Bob Costas with baseball.

3. CW -- Someday, I'll catch up on season 3 of Veronica Mars. I can't say I was too sad to hear it was canned, though. Buffy was all downhill after 3 seasons, so at least VM won't have to go through that. And they finally canceled Seventh Heaven, too!

Grade: D+ / I give it two more years, tops.

4. NBC -- Who would have though that NBC could have stolen my heart so madly and deeply this past year. Friday Night Lights literally blew me away. I can't say enough about this show. It's damn good TV; most likely the best drama on television, cable or no. Heroes, however, sort of limped to an inauspicious ending. Sylar is still alive? Who cares? If it weren't for Hiro and Super-Jess, I don't think I'd be interested in season 2. Studio 60, on the other hand, finished up its run (during June, no less) on the upswing. Kind of. I got the feeling Aaron Sorkin just kind of threw caution to the wind and pulled out every TV cliche possible for the last four eps. In spite of all the ridiculous melodrama, this cast really acted their asses off, and Sorkin tied things up quite nicely in the end, giving his lame-duck series the kind of farewell that he couldn't with the West Wing. On top of all that, NBC threw a bunch of really good "quirky" series onto the wall to see what stuck: 30 Rock? Success! Andy Barker, P.I. and Raines? No one watched but me! Brilliant!

Grade: B+ / Friday Night Lights moves to Friday nights! It was nice knowing you.

5. ABC -- More shows that didn't make it regardless of how quality they were -- Knights of Prosperity and Day Break just couldn't take the network heat. Day Break because no one who loved Lost gave it a chance (even though it blew 2/3 of Lost season 3 out of the water); and Knights because ABC doesn't know how to market half-hour comedies. Good job, suits! Then there was Lost. Some good, some bad. After a terrible start, my faith was nearly restored in this series -- until the last couple of episodes. If Locke had actually died, I would have given up on this show completely. More on that tomorrow, because this post is long enough already.

Grade: B- / Let's Rob Ray Romano. Wouldn't you have watched that show?


Overall Grade: C+ / Too many good shows got buried.

My Life's Overall Pathetic-ness Grade: A- / Only because I don't watch CSI Miami.

Last Week in TV, Best Last Week Ever

The week that was. The week that wasn't.

Venture Brothers - Frickin' OMG! This is the craziest show on in the history of craziest shows, ever!! And I probably miss half the jokes from laughing so hard. And it's a two-parter, too! Hank and Dean are my heroes. Sigh.

Heroes - We're almost on the verge of this show making sense. I can feel it.

Studio 60 - I don't care what teh internets say, I'm in love with Sarah Paulsen. Evan Handler, too. Basically anyone that talks real fast and still makes sense all the while saying things that make me smile, we're golden.

Veronica Mars - Things aren't all they seem at Hearst College, with like a dozen character introductions who are all officially suspects by the end of the second episode. And Veronica even recapped everything in the last minute for us slower viewers! Boy, she sure is nice. Sigh.

Friday Night Lights - Just when this show is about to go over the top with the melodrama, it reels it back in with a punch to the gut. Seriously, it's like being hit across the forehead with a sock full of quarters and paper cuts every 20 minutes, but substitute across the forehead with openly beating heart. It's alright that I'm not making sense. You stopped reading when I started talking about TV again.

30 Rock - My gigantic Tina Fey crush of 2001 returns! Alec Baldwin is slimy fun. And Tracy Morgan is fantastic. It's nice to see a funny sitcom with smart writing these days. Hell, it's nice to see a funny sitcom period.

20 Good Years - 20 Good Years? I'd settle for 20 good minutes! Ba-dum-bump. *

Lost - Someone other than that terrible love triangle that is Jackatawyer. And Sun shot that bad bitch down! Did you see that Kim Jong Il? Run for cover cause South Korea will take you out! And a Locke episode next week! it doesn't get much better! Sigh.

Six Degrees - I was disappointed by the opening; for some reason I was under the impression that every teaser would be a ten minute flashback to the bank, ala Alias and their crazy opens (which were often the entire first act). Instead, we learned more from those distracting two-second flashbacks spaced throughout the episode. Away with them! The only thing they accomplished was break after break of the tension the show was trying to build. Let the story flow naturally from the cold open -- you don't need to remind us every few minutes that the shit hit the fan during the stand-off. Bad job tire for you, Six Degrees.

*I'm afraid to google it, but I guarantee that joke has been made 1000s of times already.

Impressions: Studio 60: 103

Who loves semicolons!?!

Our very first third episode! And a keeper, at that. While episode 103 has probably been in the can for a number of weeks, it still managed to deal with a few issues that have popped up across the blogosphere since the pilot and episode 102 aired, all within the context of the show-within-a-show. (Note: To my knowledge, the internets have not come up with a uniform way to differentiate between Studio 60 the show on NBC, and Studio 60 the late-night show-within-a-show.) Please, forgo the headaches and press on!

Issue #1: Studio 60 will never be as popular as the West Wing: To answer that criticism, Sorkin had the entire plot of tonight's episode revolve around television ratings/focus groups, and whether or not Studio 60 (the show-within-a-show) could hold onto its ratings from the previous week. In tonight's episode, the show-within-a show does. In reality, the actual show on NBC didn't (episode two of NBC's Studio 60 saw a drop in ratings; tonight's ratings won't be available until tomorrow morning).

Issue #2: Studio 60 is like nothing on television, hence, regular people just won't "get it": Seeing how NBC's Studio 60 lost viewers after its first episode, this is quite honestly a valid criticism. But Sorkin deals with it within the context of his show by introducing a sketch in his show-within-a-show that most viewers in the focus group just don't get. The producers decide to run the sketch again in episode two (of the show-within-a-show) and the focus group numbers indicate that more people "got it" when they saw the character/sketch for the second time. Sorkin's hope for NBC's Studio 60 is the same. The more often people watch it, the more comfortable they become with the format, and the more they "get" the show.

Issue #3: Sorkin can't possibly write every episode of Studio 60 (like he did on the West Wing), and not burn out at some point (like he did on the West Wing): Sorkin has admitted that he won't try to write every episode of the show, and in his show-within-a-show, Sorkin has Studio 60 head-writer Matt Alby come to the same conclusion. Alby allows other writers into the fold to avoid burn out, just as Sorkin will in reality.

Issue #4: Aaron Sorkin doesn't understand Middle America and criticizes it every chance he gets: This was true at times on the West Wing, and it has been true at times on Studio 60 thus far. Yet, in tonight's episode, Sorkin has two scenes which show he's trying to rectify the situation. One involved a joke about a small-town's decision to replace a school production of The Crucible with the "less-controversial" A Midsummer Night's Dream. The joke was cut from the broadcast version of the show-within-a-show because the cast didn't feel that the small town deserved the same amount of ridicule as larger, more powerful targets like the White House or the Religious Right. And another incident came later in the show when over 400 callers phoned the NBS affiliate in Terra Haute, Indiana, to complain about the affiliate's decision not to air the late-night show-within-a-show version of Studio 60.

Are you nice and confused now? Sorry about that. But until we can talk about NBC's Studio 60 and NBS's Studio 60 (the show-within-a-show) without having to resort to all that wordy blather, I'm not sure what else to do. The solution will come to someone soon, someone much smarter and most likely much prettier than me, and all will be right with the world once again.

Until that day, let's all try to keep up. Shall we?

(Screencaps ruthlessly stolen from screenmusings.com.)

A Monday Night for the Scrapbook

Yeah, Sorkin brought the funny.

So Monday night might be my favorite night from now on. Not only do you have a revitalized Monday Night Football to watch during commercial breaks, but you have actual programming to watch should said game suck bad. Honestly, whether it sucks or not, I'll be watching something else anyways. And this is why.

Heroes was seriously the best pilot of the fall so far. Better than Studio 60 even. It was tight, every second was used for maximum effect. There wasn't a single moment where I felt like changing the channel. Each plot thread was interesting enough to propel itself on its own, yet near the end of the show, the primary plot began to take shape as smaller threads intertwined. Not to be outdone, the casting and acting were superb as well. It was refrshing to see an ensemble cast that didn't act like they were making a movie of the week. Heroes will garner its share of Lost comparisons, not just because of its scope, but because it's genuinely good. Everything just clicked. Even the sets and lighting were outstanding. This was fine television, and I for one, cannot wait until next week.

And Studio 60 brung it. After last week's set-up, tonight's episode knocked it out of the park. If NBC doesn't command Monday nights by the end of the year, it'll be a dirty shame, at least as much shame as there is left for network television after having been first doled out to politicians, cable news pundits and mass murderers. I totally lost my train of thought. Something about....dangit. Okay, so maybe The Pirates of Penzance bit at the end was a little meh, but I can forgive Sorkin his little quirks. He's earned it.

So a good night? Yes. And by 11:00ish, the New Orleans Saints ought to have win #3 for the season. Even Harry Connick, Jr. showed up for the game! Could this night get any better?

More TV Nonsense

Last week was Premiere Week!

Or was it?

There are still dozens of new and returning shows left to premiere, including Lost, Veronica Mars, Lost, Smallville and Lost. But here are my early thoughts on what we've seen so far (and by we've I mean I've, because television is my current drug of choice while yours is baking or the Bible or a successful career). Let's go!

Prison Break - Like I said a few weeks ago, what was a very set-driven show last season has morphed into a Fugitive type serial, this time with a whole host of men-on-the-run. The first three episodes stuck to the "we gotta get to Utah and find the buried treasure" plot that was introduced late last season. There have been some genuinely creepy moments (mostly involving T-Bag getting his hand sewed back on and giving evil looks to minors), and exciting ones as well. But the whole bit with the tattoos keeps going and going and going....it's like Michael mapped out the rest of his life on his blasted arms. At some point he's going to have to start thinking on his own, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen anytime soon. In addition, the whole subplot involving Robin Tunney's character has completed stalled with her death and with Patricia Wettig's (Vice-President Reynolds) bolting for greener pastures on Brothers and Sisters. The Fugitive angle only works as long as someone is actively trying to prove Lincoln Burrows' innocence. We'll see what tonight brings.

Vanished - Vanished had better shape up soon. The mood and tenor of the show are fantastic: they do 24 even better than 24 does 24 these days. But the cast is a bit on the weak side: there's no Keifer Sutherland or Hugh Laurie to really take the reigns and lead this show. Heck, I'd settle for someone like William Fichter, whose been a terrific foil for Michael over on Prison Break. Luckily, another Invasion alum, Eddie Cibrian, is rumored to be joining the cast soon, but the cast isn't all what ails the show. The plotting has been sketchy for the past couple of episodes, with an absurd suicide, a pointless ransom drop-off (which was done much better in the first episode of NBC's Kidnapped), and a Kim Bauer-ish subplot involving the Senator's daughter, her affair with a Supreme Court nominee, and her relationship with her current boyfriend. With Heroes starting tonight, Vanished's days might be numbered.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - I shared my pilot episode thoughts last week, but on a further note, I'm really looking forward to the new episode tonight. From what I've heard around the horn, it's even more entertaining than the pilot, as we get out first real look at the late-night players and into how the show is made. And while the pilot was a little over-the-top preachy at times, future episodes ought to bring the funny.

Smith - I was thoroughly unimpressed with Smith. Ray Liotta plays a great thief, but so does Andre Braugher, and much better I might add. While Smith went with the slick Oceans 11 vibe, it doesn't sit well when its lead characters kill innocent guards during a heist. Andre's Braugher's (short lived?) Thief dealt with the moral ramifications of murder in a way which would have made Flannery O'Conner proud. It was FX-ey without being gratuitous about it. But apparently, no one was watching. So now all we're left with is the CBS version. Joy.

Jericho - I was honestly looking forward to Jericho, until I started watching it. Whereas Lost began with a bang, Jerichoo sort of whimpered along for a good 15 minutes. Remember the first few minutes of Lost's pilot, when Jack sort of woke up on the island, stumbled onto the crash site and started saving people left and right? Jericho had none of that. When the actual disaster actually happened (a nuclear explosion), it was too far away to do any serious damage to the town. Instead, we got two bus crashes: one a school bus which was rescued by the mayor's black-sheep son, and another a prison bus with a bunch of nasty convicts onboard, which dun-dun-dun, was left for future episodes to resolve. The cast has the same problem as Vanished, thus far. Skeet Ulrich is no Matthew Fox, you know? And don't get me started on the amateur tracheotomy. It had me in fits of giggles. Not a good sign.

Kidnapped - Vanished sometimes seems like a 24 knockoff, which is the intent, I guess. Kidnapped, on the other hand, sometimes seemed like a TV mini-series knock off. A well-produced, handsomely shot and expertly acted TV mini-series knock off, but still a knock off none-the-less. The production values are high, on the order of a John Wells/Aaron Sorkin type series that NBC loves so dearly (even the credits seemed very NBC-ish, somehow). But Delroy Lindo and Jeremy Sisto bring something to Kidnapped that most new shows this season are lacking: gravitas and great chemistry. Word is that Kidnapped failed to deliver in the ratings against CSI:NY, which could signal the return of the original Law & Order to its old stomping grounds on Wednesday at 10/9 Central. And that would be a shame. The next two weeks will probably decide Kidnapped's fate. Here's to crossed fingers and knocks on wood.

Grey's Anatomy/Six Degrees - I'm not sure what I expected. I caught most of Grey's while waiting for the premiere of Six Degrees, and I was disappointed on both counts. Grey's was everything I loved/hated about Dawson's Creek. Some capable acting, witty dialogue, and loads and loads of emotional porn. I couldn't handle it then, and I can't handle it now. Melodrama can be loads of fun, as long as its broken up by super-powered teens or mystery islands. That being said, Six Degrees didn't do anything to brighten my spirits. J.J. Abrams had nothing to do with the writing of the pilot episode, and it showed. The plot was just one cliche right after another, which could probably describe any TV show when you get down to it, but Hope Davis was the only actor who was able to transcend the trappings of TV drama with her performance. Everyone else just basically went through the motions, and delivered a pretty boring pilot in the process. The sad thing is, it's light years ahead of its competition with Shark and ER, so given time, maybe it'll make something of itself. I'll be back for episode two, though now, just out of curiosity.

Men in Trees - This is the kind of show I will like 20 years from now, if I someone happen to be a woman by then, too. It's light and breezy, all girl-power for the soccer mom who-may-or-may-not-be-in-a-serious-relationship set. Anne Heche is wonderful. The cast around her is great. And it's set in not-New York, i.e. Alaska. But I'm not in my 40s. And I don't have a uterus. So there's not much left for me here. Oh well. I'd like to see it make the cut, though. It's the kind of TV that really deserves to be on TV. Honest.

That's it so far. Keep reading though, below, I actually blog about something that might matter to you. God help me, I've still got it!

Short Bulletpoint Thingama--Oh forget it. Does anyone else remember when I used to be able to come up with clever blog titles?

Because I have so much to say and so little desire to say it.

• So the premiere of Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip has come and gone. And I was pleasantly pleased. Not blown away (though the Matthew Perry/Bradley Whitford scenes came awful close), but I enjoyed it all the same. Sorkin's dialogue sparkled, and Tommy Schlamme's direction was like the welcome return of an old friend. But: 45-minute pilots that have to introduce some 7 or 8 main characters are going to be a bit clunky. Remember that in The West Wing's pilot, President Bartlett was barely introduced -- he only had a short scene near the end of the episode -- which allowed Sorkin to focus exclusively on his other five stars. Once the characters of Studio 60 are established (which they mostly have been), I expect the show to start humming along. That being said....
  
• News is the series premiere of Studio 60 was overcome in the rating-wars by the season premiere of CSI:Miami. Surprisingly, Studio 60 actually lost ground as the hour went on, as a sizable amount of viewers tuned elsewhere for their entertainmennt during the second half of the show. That Studio 60 lost to CSI:Miami doesn't surprise me much. The show targets an audience that probably doesn't watch CSI:Miami in the first place, so it's a good program to square off against (though NBC likely wouldn't mind if they could steal away some of CSI:Miami's current audience, no doubt). That Studio 60 lost ground is a bit alarming, but when you consider it, the drop makes sense. Studio 60's lead-in was the wildly (at least for another couple of months) popular Deal or No Deal -- a two hour edition no less. While it may be a ratings grabber, it's definitely not a good thematic or genre lead-in. After two hours of watching people open briefcases and make funny faces, it's no wonder Studio 60 couldn't keep that audience. It's everything Deal isn't -- smart, fast-paced and irresistibly charming. In fact, the Judd Hirsch speech that opened Studio 60 railed against the very same television that Deal or No Deal represents. And while I've no personal problem with dumb entertainment (hello, Johnny Knoxville), it's only the fault of NBC's programming execs that Studio 60 wasn't able to hold its lead's audience.
• Speaking of stupid entertainment, and stupidity in general, there's an interesting piece in last week's Time Magazine (Sep 18th cover date) about Mike Judge's new film, Idiocracy. Judge, who you might know as the creator of Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, and everyone's favorite cubicle-comedy Office Space, has been hard at work on Idiocracy for over two years now (it's been in the can for months), and with Luke Wilson starring, you'd think you would have seen a trailer for it by now. But nothing. No press, no marketing campaign, no trailer on Quicktime's website for us movie geeks, no nothing. Idiocracy tells the story of a normal guy from our present (Wilson) who is frozen and thawed out in the year 2505, and finds himself in a strange future where he's the smartest person alive. Judge's vision of the future is alot like our present, only a hell of a lot worse. Corporations and advertising have dumbed down culture so far that everyone is an idiot, and everything around them is gaudily uniform. (My favorite quote from the article describes a scene where "Costco takes up miles of space and has greeters emotionlessly repeat, 'Welcome to Costco. I love you.'") Time cites the failure of Fox's marketing division to create a trailer that test groups reacted positively to for Fox's decision to limit the movie's release to just seven cities. Let's hope that Fox's creative failure to find a way to market the film doesn't hurt its chances to get a proper DVD treatement. Most likely, Idiocracy will play like another Office Space by slowly building a cult audience then exploding to the point where Comedy Central and TBS are engaged in a blood feud for the television rights. Anything to replace their repeated airings of Malibu's Most Wanted, please!
  
• New Topic: Rupert Murdoch wants your money, evangelical America! In addition to their lack of trailer cutting skills, Fox now has a Christian film marketing arm, aptly named FoxFaith. Fox plans to release small-budget Christians films on DVD while specifically marketing them to Christian audiences with the help of churches like yours. Additionally, FoxFaith will market a select few films each year for theatrical release as well. Fox does not have any plans to produce big-budget Passion of the Christ epics however: their first film will an adaptation of Christian romance novelist Janette Oke's Love's Abiding Joy. For those of you not familiar with with the Christian romance scene, it's a lot like Harlequin novels, except the sex scenes are replaced with more wholesome conversion experiences. Can I get an amen?
• And finally, while none of you will care, Joss Whedon is taking over the plotting/scripting duties for Marvel Comic's Runaways beginning with issue #25. I'm not even sure if I care, save for the fact that the book was created by Brian K. Vaughan (of Y: The Last Man fame), and that Whedon is TV geek royalty. Runaways has always sounded like a fun read, and maybe someday, if I can get past the fact that it's not published before the 1990s, I'll check it out.

That's it Goodmen and Goodwomen. Maybe next time I'll write about things that matter, like that long awaited post about my jury duty. Most likely, it'll just be about Lost withdrawal.

P.S. Jake, can you remember to get my copy of Lost Season One from that one guy whose name I can't remember? I think it's safe to say that he's had a chance to view all 22 episodes considering how he's had it for about a year now. Thanks, chief.