August 2008 Archives
Three press releases today regarding Hurrican Gustav:
ABC: "This evening, "World News" anchor Charles Gibson will report live from New Orleans - just hours before the storm is expected to hit. ... ABC News will continue to report from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. "This Week" host and Chief Washington Correspondent, George Stephanopoulos, will anchor and report from the RNC and ABC News correspondent David Wright - who has been covering the McCain campaign for ABC News - will continue to report from the trail for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms.
NBC: "'Nightly News' Anchor and Managing Editor, Brian Williams will report live from the region beginning this evening with an exclusive interview with Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain. NBC News' Ann Curry, Lester Holt, Al Roker and a team of correspondents including Contessa Brewer, Don Teague, Janet Shamlian, Kerry Sanders, Lee Cowan, Mark Potter, Mary Murray, Michelle Kosinski, and others, will also be on location.
"NBC News' Tom Brokaw will head up the network's coverage of the RNC live from St. Paul. He will be joined by the network's political team of Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd, David Gregory, John Yang, Luke Russert, Kelly O'Donnell, Mike Taibbi, Savannah Guthrie, Tom Costello, among others."
CBS: "Gustav Press Op! ... We would love if you would consider featuring a story about the Katrina Pet Memorial! Wendy and Lucky Diamond, are judges on CBS' 'Greatest American Dog' and have been animal advocates for the past decade. This is an inspirational story of a woman who rescued her Maltese Lucky ten years ago and since has dedicated her life to helping the underdog!"
Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee explained all you need to know about Jon McCain's strategy in selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate (there're a few potentially dodgy words thrown in here):
Stewart: "In many ways, Governor Palin seems to be the ideological opposite of Senator Clinton."
Bee: "But she's her gynecological twin."
Monday's season-4 premiere of "Prison Break" begins with some voice-over narration: "My name is Michael Scofield and I'm a fugitive."
Hi, Michael!
Michael's (Wentworth Miller) in L.A., rabid for revenge for Sara's (Sarah Wayne Callies) murder last season: "It ends today. I will seek the justice that I now know the system cannot provide."
Well, good luck with that, because before long, the show goes out of its mind - again. I can't keep track of it (and I could follow "The Wire"), and I'm not sure its writers can, either.
(The "Prison Break" cast gather 'round a laptop and try to make sense of a script for the next episode.)
The whole thing revolves around a data card code-named Scylla that belongs to The Company, which isn't, in fact, the CIA. For a while, it seems like The Company's trying to buy the data card back from itself, but that certainly couldn't be the case, and anyway, bodies are dropping like flies at the Roosevelt Hotel during a daytime cocktail party and Michael shows up anxious to add to the body count and then he's told that Sara's alive.
Not that Michael has any reason to believe anything anyone in The Company has told him before, but he drops his guard long enough and then the cops are coming and everyone has to skedaddle and there seems to be some sort of Scylla switcheroo but that doesn't seem to be borne out since the guy who did the switcheroo still has it.
(She's baa-a-aack!)
Some sinister guy says, "This is a security breach that could have catastrophic ramifications for the Company." But wasn't it already a security breach that could have catastrophic ramifications for the Company?
The good thing is, "Prison Break" hurtles along so fast that you're not given much time to scratch your head over every narrative lapse because another one's coming in just a minute or two. Like, Linc (Dominic Purcell) just blithely lets it drop that Sona, the Panamanian prison that Michael broke out of last season, burned down and all the inmates escaped - remember, these psychotic, worst of the worst villains - and Linc is imparting this information from Panama City, where he's enjoying a nice al fresco meal with his son and his girlfriend, and everyone's pretty blasé given that they should be locked in their homes, crouching in fear.
But that does mean that the whole gang will soon be able to get together again and fight The Company at the behest of a Homeland Security Agent (Michael Rapaport) who suffers from curious mood swings - one moment, he's cajoling Michael into performing all sorts of seemingly impossible acts of derring-do (which turn out not to be so impossible if you just sort of edit around the tough scrapes - ulp, he's about to be caught; cut to the next shot and whew, he's escaped); the next, he's crabbing because it's taking more than a couple of hours to do the impossible against a sinister organization he calls "this country's greatest threat to its own democracy." (Like we said, a pretty kinetic show.)
(When we did a search for "Prison Break Violence" at Google Images, this photo was on the second page. Honest!)
So they cook up a gadget called "a digital black hole," capable of stealing digital information from anything it's in close proximity to (mull that, people who work on laptops in coffee shops), and The Company dispatches this imposing guy to kill off anyone who's ever had something to do with this show (which seems just a little extreme). Imposing guy busts into Alex's (William Fichtner) wife's home and kills off a couple of peripheral characters, yet when it comes to his chance to smoke Michael, Linc and Sara as one, he lazily takes a shot through a window from his car and doesn't bother with any follow-up.
(If he concentrates hard enough, Wentworth Miller can almost forget that watching his show is like slamming down a case of power drinks and then spinning in circles for a few minutes.)
Oh, and T-Bag (Robert Knepper), out to kill Michael, manages one more transgressive act. Yum!
As crazily improbable as all this is, perhaps the most astonishing thing that happens in Monday's episode is that Michael is finally shed of that tattoo that forced him to wear all those long-sleeve shirts and jackets in humid, 90-degree heat - in one sitting, with no ill effects. Which is pretty impressive, since I know someone who is trying to have a really tiny tattoo removed and it's taken weeks of treatments and several nasty blisters.
Man, this show winds me up.
- "Prison Break:" 8 and 9 p.m. Monday, Fox (Channel 11).
This comes courtesy of Wonkette.com, from where I stole it:
I know I've been railing against all those "McCain is old" jokes, but this one actually made me laugh.
And this comes from Radar Online - it's the billboard that will greet Republicans arriving at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport en route to the Republican National Convention:
Well, now we know why Showtime's "Californication" picked up an Emmy nomination for its casting: David Duchovny didn't have to do much acting in his portrayal of bed-hopping Hank Moody. Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe for his work in "Californication," has entered rehab for sex addiction.
(Never pose for publicity stills that might come back to haunt you.)
Duchovny has spoken of his addiction in the past. "You have no idea how good it feels to be so popular," he recalled in an interview with London's TV Times. "I lost my virginity at 14, and I've loved women ever since. The way a woman smells - it's the ultimate aphrodisiac." Speaking of going to rehab for the addiction at the time, he joked, "Either these meetings will help me, deal with my addiction, or I'll meet lots of women. Either way I can't lose!"
(I said, never pose for publicity stills that might come back to haunt you.)
In another interview, Duchovny lumped women and drugs together but said that his marriage had helped alleviate the addiction:
"It was a turning point in my life, a conjunction of timing, maturity, luck and attraction. All the pieces fell into place. When you're married you have to deal with yourself. You can't sublimate your pain with drugs and other women. Or should that be women and other drugs?"
(He's just not listening to me with these publicity stills.)
Boy, some networks really go all-out to promote their shows: "Californication" returns Sept. 28. Does anyone think it's a good idea for Duchovny to continue to play this role? Getting into that character seems to have had a deleterious effect on him.
What happens if you're a sex addict and you don't look like David Duchovny? That can't be good.
"Why can't Daddy have salt?"
"Because we love him."
Thus ended last week's episode of "Mad Men," which was more interesting than that closing ceremony of the Olympics that you probably sat through. (Never fear; AMC's allowing you to catch up on Sunday with a "Mad Men" season-two marathon, featuring every episode so far, beginning at 5 p.m. and concluding, at 10 p.m., with the latest episode.)
It was a moment that was fraught with more tension and less affection than it sounds. Of course, were it my house, the exchange might have gone more along the lines of:
"Why can't The Mayor have his EpiPen?"
"Because we want to see how big he'll swell up before he can't breathe."
And now, Sunday's installment, and I've become convinced that AMC just enjoys goofing on its fans with its advance episode log lines. Here's the latest:
"Don and Duck take a stab at making peace. Peggy tries to insinuate herself into the execs' after-hours meetings. Duck deals with a family visit at the office."
Which is a hilariously benign way to describe what I like to call "the raunchy episode." Playtex, a Sterling Cooper client, asks for a new campaign to compete with Maidenform's saucy bra ads, which, of course, leads to no end of japery about boobs from boobs: "I find they both open easily," "quips" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) of both Playtex's and Maidenform's products.
Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who has to endure all the guys' bra gags, discovers a new way to call attention to herself. But pity Betty (January Jones), who can't win for losing in this episode.
And Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) will do something that will vaguely sadden you, and Duck (Mark Moses) will do something that will profoundly sadden you, and Don (Jon Hamm) - well, Don proceeds further down that path he's pursued, fairly disturbingly, for the past couple of episodes. "I told you to stop talking," he says by way of explanation.
Has there ever been a show about abject sadness and anomie that also managed to be this witty and compelling? Can abject sadness and anomie be this witty and compelling?
- "Mad Men:" 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.
Before a single episode of its sophomore season has aired and before a single ratings point has been measured, NBC has given "Chuck" a full-season order.
"This show has really hit its stride and deserves a full-season commitment to carry out the producers' vision for this unique series," a press release quoted Teri Weinberg, executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, as saying.
"Chuck" - which stars Zach Levi as an underachiever toiling at a big-box store who gets the entire U.S. intelligence database downloaded into his brain - is a fun, larky show, but it didn't exactly set the boxes in the Nielsen Family households on fire last season. It was one of a handful of shows that the networks kept on the shelf after the writers strike ended - the thinking apparently being they liked these shows and wanted to bring them back this season, but were afraid if they returned after the strike and did the same middling numbers (or worse), it'd be hard to justify awarding them second seasons and the networks didn't have many new shows to replace them with so best to give them a splashy relaunch. ("Pushing Daisies" and "Dirty Sexy Money" are a couple of other examples.) It's rare for a show in "Chuck's" position to be granted a full-season order so quickly; maybe it really will hit the ground running or maybe NBC figures it's going to have bigger headaches elsewhere on the schedule.
Levi's breezily charming and the cast meshes well (some of Chuck's colleagues at the store are pretty annoying, though) and the show never takes itself vary seriously, so one hopes the show really is finding its creative footing and that viewers will be finding it come the fall. "Chuck" returns Monday, September 29 at 8 p.m.
We've been discussing the on-air implosion at MSNBC, and suddenly, so are a whole lot of other people. Politico.com quotes someone at MSNBC as saying, "The situation at our channel is about to blow up," with other sources at the network adding that the on-air tiffs "were a public glimpse of much more intense behind-the-scenes turmoil."
And the Schadenfreude is growing: Jossip.com reports:
"Meanwhile, in the past few hours we've spoke to a number of 30 Rock staffers in Denver, New York, and Washington -- some of whom thought it more productive to speak to us than attend to the on-going live DNC coverage -- and the common wisdom is: 1) Nobody can believe how much Keith Olbermann is getting away with, even if he does draw ratings; 2) As an Olbermann protege, Rachel Maddow is attracting negative feelings from staffers, since she stays mum on many of these catfights, but "there's still time" to represent; 3) MSNBC head Phil Griffin is alienating staffers by publicly defending Olbermann while privately bashing him, and it's left many wondering when that will leak (oops); 4) MSNBC publicist Jeremy Gaines appears increasingly stressed out and can be seen "shaking" with a phone attached to his ear dealing with reporters; 5) You don't want to run into Chris Matthews anytime soon, especially en route to the bathroom, because he has zero pleasant things to say right now; 6) Joe Scarborough is definitely stressed, but he's managed to calm down a bit today and can be seen laughing and gabbing; 7) None of this is helping ratings, with MSNBC scoring the lowest numbers against Fox News and CNN in convention coverage."
("Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!")
About the on-air-squabbling, Griffin told Variety, "Look it happens. Everyone is working hard here, and people are passionate about their feelings, and this is the rough-and-tumble world of politics." Griffin, naturally, would prefer his reporters not to quarrel for the cameras, "but it wasn't the first time and probably won't be the last. The main thing is, this does not define us. Don't make more of this than it is."
Too late for that now. There was another microphone glitch yesterday, as Olbermann was caught trying to run conservative pundit Mike Murphy off the air following rumors that he had tried to ban him from MSNBC's coverage:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you Mike: are we to, to place the credibility of you as a pundit on your belief, that you've just asserted, that the Clintons will vote for John McCain?
MURPHY: Absolutely. I really believe Hillary Clinton will vote for McCain. Look, they're friends. [Crowd boos]. Ah, come on, don't shout me down: let me talk. I mean come on, this is, you guys are so in the tank we ought to be filming this on a submarine. The fact is, Barack Obama, to his credit, has moved closer to Hillary Clinton and John McCain on foreign policy, Hillary and John McCain have worked --
MATTHEWS: That's an argument -- that's not what I'm asking you.
MURPHY: I really believe --
MATTHEWS: Mike, let me get back to --
KEITH OLBERMANN (OFF CAMERA): Let's wrap him up, all right?
All this, and Olbermann designed "Countdown" so that there wouldn't be the sort of partisan shouting matches that inform so much cable-news airtime. If there is such animosity among MSNBC minions towards Olbermann, perhaps someone's intentionally not shutting his mic off and passing it off as a gaffe. On the other hand, if you are trying to present intelligent coverage of this campaign, you probably don't want to give air time to some bozo who, off the top of his head, says stuff like "I really believe Hillary Clinton will vote for McCain," so you can't blame Olbermann for rolling his eyes verbally.
Sensing an opening, Fox News executive John Moody lit up on Olbermann in a blog entry:
"Thank goodness for online video streaming. It's about the only way I could watch Keith Olbermann.
"Earlier this week, Keith, an MSNBC propagandist who has come to believe people care what he hopes/thinks/says/because-there's-no-filter-in-between, smeared my colleague Howard Wolfson, who was Hillary Clinton's communication director and is now a FOX News political analyst. Keith compared Howard to Tokyo Rose. ...
"Keith is too important to be constrained (restrained might be a different matter) by facts. He is the heir to Huntley, to Brinkley, to Chancellor, to Brokaw. (Sorry, NBC).
"Keith thinks Democrats shouldn't deign to appear on FOX. That's the same philosophy that served John Edwards so well when he was an active candidate (among other things). Like Sen. Edwards, Keith is a non-factor now that the real decisions have been made. And like Tokyo Rose, he is a fictional conflation."
Olbermann responded: "John Moody is a hysterical, doctrinaire, Right Wing hack propagandist, who conveniently forgets that when he thought I shared his allegiance to his dark view of the world, tried to hire me for Fox News. As for Mr. Wolfson, I feel very sorry for the choices he made that led him to his sad state." Fox News denies it ever offered Keith a gig.
Whew. On one hand, Olbermann did turn MSNBC around, and in more ways than one. One the other, he does have a reputation for having an ego, and though he seemed to have tamped it down more recently, it wouldn't be surprising if success has gone to his head. And finally, regardless of what one thinks of MSNBC's tilt to the left, at least they're not willfully crapping on facts like the folks at Fox like to do, though, like Fox, they do seem to ignore inconvenient ones.
Oh, and some guy named Barack Obama's going to try to get some air time tonight amid the bickering.
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" spent wads of cash sending their cast and crew to Denver; I'm sitting here at home, without a battery of writers and producers, watching the Democratic National Convention on the satellite TeeVee my editors won't even let me expense.
So Stewart and Company turned out to spend a whole lot of money to file last night's segment on MSNBC squabbling that's not a whole lot different from the one I submitted in the early afternoon. (That link is pretty much a goof, since the post linked above is just a scroll-down below this one.)
And Stephen Colbert's guest last night, former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, was pretty engaging and even fairly complimentary to the Democrats, which is a heck of a shocker when it comes to Republicans.
The drama at the Democratic National Convention this week has been whether the Democrats can muster up a rousing display of party unity. The drama at MSNBC this week seems to be whether the anchors and correspondents can muster up any network unity.
"At a forum on Sunday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called MSNBC 'the official network of the Obama campaign,' Brokaw said, 'I think Keith (Olbermann) has gone too far. I think Chris (Matthews) has gone too far.'"
They love Obama more than they love themselves, and tension is spilling onto the airwaves. Angry old Pat Buchanan has been reliably hilarious - on Monday, he kvetched that Michelle Obama's speech lacked credibility or something because it had been written in advance (like, uh, just about all political speeches) - but that's just Pat Buchanan for you. The other anchors and analysts have been squabbling amongst themselves, as well.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's such a contrast between what these campaigns are saying now and what they were telling me off the record two weeks ago perhaps because of Steve Schmidt's new leadership in the McCain campaign. The fact that the McCain campaign has been leaning forward with one message and their...
KEITH OLBERMANN (interrupting): Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?!
SCARBOROUGH: According to some McCain people...a a shovel?
OLBERMANN: I mean seriously, Joe. ... The man just lost seven points in the likely voter poll. McCain did from last month's USA Today's Likely Voter poll. The higher level one. The supposedly more sophisticated one. It was 49-45 McCain last month. It's 48-45 Obama. Back up what they're saying with what you're saying.
(Thus it was ever so: A lithograph of MSNBC's coverage of the 1860 Presidential campaign.)
OLBERMANN: Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic Leader, has been kind enough to stand by with us inside the Pepsi Center and has listened to us go off at the mouth [making the talking-too-much hand motion] on the subject of Sen. Clinton's speech tonight. I gather you had something...
MATTHEWS (interrupting): Well, if you make that sound, Keith [making the talking-too-much hand motion], I can do the same to you. That's what I thought. All right? And I said it. That's the point!
Olbermann seemed to be referring to both Matthews and himself, while Matthews thought Keith was dissing him and replied in turn.
"I will let you know that 'my party,' my party loathes me much more than your party, the Democratic Party, loathes me," Scarborough replied. "What about your party? What's your party, David Shuster? David, what's your party?"
Shuster said, "I have no party. I'm a complete independent."
"Oh, I feel so comforted by the fact that you're independent. I bet everyone at MSNBC has 'independent' on their voting cards," Scarborough shot back, and this went on in this vein for some time.
(MSNBC anchors and reporters after the convention - what's left of them, anyway.)
"It's unfortunate that a news organization with a great tradition like NBC has been taken over by those kind of antics. ... I'm not going to be lectured on how to be a good Democrat from them."
These little psycho-dramas are the main reason to watch MSNBC during its convention coverage, as otherwise, it's gotten way too cheerleader-y even for staunch Obama supporters. Olbermann even admitted he was sounding like a sycophant after Michelle Obama's speech Monday. They could achieve the same affect by dialing it down by half. As Stephen Colbert famously observed, truth has a well-known liberal bias, so the MSNBC folks don't have to push their opinions so stridently.
Here's The CW's Dawn Ostroff trying (not?) to explain how her network is staying afloat despite pretty awful ratings and that shadowy sinister deal with Media Rights Capital to create generic TeeVee shows for the network's Sunday-night lineup, which we have already made fun of:
QUESTION: There are a lot of reports about your network's health. What would you say about your network's health? I mean, how long can this network be saved? I mean, are you under some deadline to prove yourself?
DAWN OSTROFF: No, there's no deadline. We feel that we've made a lot of progress. To have a show like "Gossip Girl" in our second year on the air is -- it's been really great for us. I mean, as I said, everywhere we go, we see our talent out there, people talk about the show. Just yesterday, I was watching "Good Morning America," and they did a piece on - a whole fashion show on how to get that "Gossip Girl" look. So I think that, you know, we all feel that we're on our way. And obviously, shows like "90210" and "Stylista" and "Privileged" and "13," we feel we're going to have a good season.
(Aside: Did she answer the question? No, she did not. But then, she rarely answers the question; she just talks about what a sensation "Gossip Girl" is, when it's only watched by 2½ million people and every last damn one of them must work at Entertainment Weekly because they write about it so much.)
(CW executive Dawn Ostroff is all smiles after managing to avoid giving a single straight answer at a press conference.)
QUESTION: Couple of questions about the Sunday [MRC] night deal. First of all, can you explain the business aspect? Do they get a piece of the ad revenue? And second -- or something like that? And secondly, how much creative input will you have at the network? Will they be reporting to your drama or comedy executives, and can you give notes and things like that?
(FYI: The CW disbanded its comedy division a couple of months before Press Tour.)
DAWN OSTROFF: No. We're involved creatively with the shows. Our group of very talented executives, Michael Roberts and Thom Sherman -- they're all reading the scripts. And the deal's very complicated, but it's a deal that makes a lot of sense for us and for MRC.
(Other questions, about why The CW is abandoning black audiences for shallow, upscale audiences with shows like "Gossip Girl," "90210" and "Privileged," and then back to MRC.}
QUESTION: And the other question again, going back to MRC, who gets to cancel the shows there?
DAWN OSTROFF: Well, we're not up to canceling shows. We want to get them on the air first.
QUESTION: Just miracle of miracles, one might do well. I mean, who makes the decision?
DAWN OSTROFF: Well, we make the decision with MRC.
QUESTION: Dawn, if I could follow on the MRC thing a little more. I mean, other networks have done this. NBC rented out its morning Saturday time to Discovery Channel and some others have let people simply buy chunks of their time. Isn't that closer to what you're doing? Isn't MRC simply buying the time from you and then can sell the advertising and do what it wants to?
DAWN OSTROFF: It's a much more complicated deal than that, to be honest. But the idea is that, look, we all are looking at different ways of doing our business as are many of you. I mean, we're all in a time where, you know, there are opportunities and there are different ways to look at how we put programming on, and it's been done for many years. We're not doing anything that's that unusual.
QUESTION: To be a little more specific, then, they're not buying the time like Discovery does from NBC where they just pay the flat sum. Is it a profit sharing thing where they're taking the time?
DAWN OSTROFF: Let's leave it at it's a very complicated deal and we'll leave it at that. It is. Next question.
FINAL SCORE: Ostroff Obfuscation 1, Actual Information 0.
NBC is ecstatically trumpeting the fact that 214 million viewers took in at least some aspect of the Beijing Olympics (of course, when you figure in how many thousands of hours of coverage were being offered on NBC and its sister cable networks as well as online and on cell phones, that only averages out to about 35, 40 viewers per hour).
Ah, but the 70,000 spots for "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Kath & Kim" doesn't seem to have persuaded viewers to tune in when they debut. "America's Toughest Job" debuted last night to just under 7.5 million viewers, a huge slide from Olympics audience levels, and, per Variety:
"Industry insiders who have parsed the competitive fall tracking studies making the rounds said NBC received only a slight bounce in awareness for frosh skeins like 'Kath & Kim' and 'My Own Worst Enemy.'"
A rival network executive gloated, ""Given the size of the Olympics audience, 'Kath & Kim' is not where you'd like it to be. You saw some boost, but not significant."
(Horizon Media has already predicted "Kath & Kim" will flop, probably just by taking a gander at the costumes.)
Even NBC-Universal overlord Jeff "Darth" Zucker conceded, "Historically, there hasn't been a huge correlation between using that platform and what happens in the fall." Of course, that's not what they tell advertisers or the media when touting their fall schedule.
Variety concludes, "In some ways, the Olympics hurt the other networks more than it helped NBC." Well, then, Mission Sort Of Accomplished.
Mere weeks before the fall TV season is to begin, ABC has finally announced its midseason replacement series.
A couple are cop shows. Nathan Fillion ("Firefly," "Drive" and a story arc on "Desperate Housewives") will star as a horror novelist who helps cops solve crimes in "Castle." Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia," "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" movies) will be part of the ensemble dramedy "The Unusuals," about a quirky New York City police precinct.
(Nathan Fillion fights crime with a toy light saber and a silly hat. It's oddly effective.)
(Amber Tamblyn might want to have that wrist looked at.)
ABC also picked up a couple of sitcoms. Jay Harrington (who has appeared on a number of short-lived series, such as "Coupling," "The Division," "The Inside," "Summerland" and the one-episode wonder "Emily's Reasons Why Not," and who also had a story arc on "Desperate Housewives") will play a nice guy stumbling through an amoral world in "Better Off Ted," from Victor Fresco, who created the underappreciated "Andy Richter Controls the Universe." Alyssa Milano ("Charmed," "Melrose Place") will find herself surrounded by dysfunction in "Single With Parents."
(Jay Harrington grimly considers the existential void in which he exists, just before remembering he's starring in a sitcom this time around.)
(There are a lot of photos of Alyssa Milano online where she's holding up her top and letting you gaze at her midriff. This isn't one of them.)
ABC will also attempt to reboot "Cupid," an admired but little-seen 1998 romantic comedy, with Bobby Cannavale in the role created by Jeremy Piven, a guy who either really is Cupid or is just crazy.
You know political coverage has traipsed through the looking glass when Jon Stewart hosts a breakfast in Denver while the Democratic National Convention is firing up and draws a number of top political reporters and columnists, and slams CNN and its cable-news brethren as "gerbil wheels," and CNN reports on it. And all of those commenting on the story at the CNN.com site agree with Stewart.
Like Bob from Indianapolis: "Is it any wonder that thinking people get their news form Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, two comedians whose journalistic insights show how shallow and 2-Dimensional REAL NEWS has become. The Fourth Estate is largely responsible for allowing the criminals in the White House to operate without oversight for eight years while these tools followed Paris and Britney around like the second coming...."
And that Fox News actually feels the need to respond to Stewart's slams against them:
"Obama could cure cancer and [Fox News would] figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster," Stewart said. To which a Fox News spokesman replied, "Being out of touch with mainstream America is nothing new to Jon, as evidenced by the crash-and-burn ratings of this year's Oscars telecast." This bears repeating: Fox News had to attack a comic making a joke about them. That sort of speaks volumes as to the influence Stewart wields these days. Well, that, and the fact that political pundits went to hear what Jon Stewart had to say about the state of punditry today.
It's not like Stewart saved all his vitriol for Fox: He called cable-news in general a "slow-witted beast," adding, "They drive the coverage, they drive the themes. It's as though we are in 'Of Mice and Men' and we say, 'Hey, Lenny, why don't you be the leader."
Stewart slagged (as we have, here) late-night comics who rely on the tired "McCain is old" jokes, and said of the Republican, who has appeared on "The Daily Show" more times than any other guest, "He knows we're there to introduce him to 20-year-olds smoking out of apple bongs."
(Fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Of ragging on stupid stuff.)
The Democratic National Convention in Denver was abruptly postponed today when word came out about a minor squabble on the "Desperate Housewives" set. Ricardo Chavira, who plays Carlos, groused to TV Guide (in the edition that'll hit newsstands on Thursday) about the upcoming season's storyline involving Gabrielle's (Eva Longoria-Parker) overweight daughters.
"Seeing [struggles with weight issues] in my family and [considering] the childhood-obesity issues in the United States right now, should we be making fun of it?" Chavira ponders aloud.
(This isn't the sort of photo you'd expect to see accompany a "Desperate Housewives" story, is it?)
Uh, I guess the guy has a point: If some sort of issue is troubling this country, then the last thing we want to do is discuss it in a national forum.
Cherry was asked something along these lines at TV Press Tour in a question that concerned Gabrielle not being as glamorous this season, and that being insulting, and replied, at length:
"I'm excited to show that sometimes ... you're going to let the appearance slide a little bit. I actually think that there's a truth in that, and we're going to get to see this formerly glamorous woman deal with those issues. I actually think it's something that's probably been a long time coming, and I'm happy to do that. As far as an insult to moms, have you been to the Midwest?
"I mean, you know, my family is from Oklahoma, and all my aunts will look at our show, and they go, 'Well, yeah, if I didn't have to clean a toilet and go out and do my husband's dry cleaning, if I didn't have to go out and check on stuff on the farm, yeah, I guess I could get pedicures and manicures and get my hair done. But I don't have time for that.'
"In many ways, the women I know from Oklahoma resent the images that TV puts forth because they feel it's unrealistic expectations are put upon them. So for me, I actually felt guilty when I got my cast together because every woman on this stage got her part because she was the best one who auditioned, but I literally was saying to the casting people, 'This is not what I had in my mind. I had more real women in my mind.'
(Here's the sort of photo you'd expect with a "Desperate Housewives" item, to help you get through Marc Cherry's ruminations.)
"And people always thought, 'Oh God, you're smart for putting this glamorous group of women in a show called "Desperate Housewives."' Quite the contrary, I just went with the best actresses I could get, and then it became its own thing, and I literally spent four years going, 'I think there's some real stories about real women suffering that I haven't told because I have the most gorgeous cast in the history of TV,' and I think there's women out there who go, 'Can not one of them have a weight problem, damn it? Because I have a weight problem.'
"And as a guy who comes from a family who has that kind of thing, for me, it was a chance to go, 'Yeah, let's take the glamour out of it. Let's address some real stuff.' My comment is not an insult about the women of America, quite the contrary. I think that there's something heroic about, 'You know what, I've gone through my 20s where I got to be glamorous. Now I have to get down to the business of being a wife and mother and all the kind of grimy reality that goes along with that.'
And I honor that and respect it. I don't think the storyline is in any way pejorative. I think it's addressing something that's very real. And I love all my relatives, and I see what they go through. For me it's just a chance to address that."
Cherry added that Chavira could expect to spend the rest of his time on the series in a fat suit.
Stealing thunder from the Democrats, who were going to begin their national convention today in Denver but cancelled it when they were upstaged by this breaking news, ABC announced its lineup for this fall's "Dancing with the Stars."
Alas, Dan Quayle did not make the cut as had previously been rumored. But it is one of those quixotic lineups, a group of people you'd never expect to see in the same room together and hopefully never will again.
One coup for ABC is landing Misty May-Treanor, one-half of the two-time Olympic gold-medal beach volleyball team who'll be extending her fame into minutes 16 and beyond and, one imagines, be wearing more clothing for this competition.
(Misty May-Treanor offers a sneak peak at her interpretation of the Charleston.)
She'll be competing against fellow athletes Maurice Greene, who won Gold in the 2000 Olympics so still qualifies as a "star," and Super Bowl champion defensive tackle Warren Sapp, who in agreeing to participate in this program proves his last name is apt.
"DWTS" has thrown in a couple of ringers who should have a leg up on the competition, since their resumes already include dancing: Lance Bass, the former boy-band member hot off his recent success as a willing punchline in "Tropic Thunder," and Toni Braxton.
(Let's face it, Lance Bass just likes being associated with stars of any stripe.)
There's also the requisite ABC/Disney promotional synergy at work, as longtime ABC soap actress Susan Lucci (who was more famous for having not won an Emmy than she was after she finally won one) and "Hannah Montana" co-star Cody Linley, whose appearance here represents a bald bid to lure in the 'tween crowd.
Then, you have the requisite hacks who have devoted their careers to trolling reality shows: "celebrity" chef Rocco DiSpirito, voluptuous irritant Kim Kardashian (who was hospitalized last night after cutting her foot in a hotel room last night, but plans to stick with the program) and (per ABC's press notes) "celebrity mom" who "has truly done it all," Brooke Burke.
Then there are the additions that goose the proceedings into the surreal. Comedy Central's Roastmaster General Jeffrey Ross will be on the receiving end of the insults on this show. Cloris Leachman, who made a splash herself in the Bob Saget roast last week, will bring her special brand of crazy to the program.
("Mein Gott! Es ist meine Karriere, die in die Schatten und in den Nebel wegläuft!")
And the "DWTS" brain trust must have a lot of brass or a lot of confidence in their series, because they've rounded off this bunch with Ted McGinley, Jump the Shark's patron saint and noted killer-offer of popular shows. Will McGinley work his special magic here?
After two-plus weeks of the glamorous pomp and ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, NBC returns to being NBC 2K-point-O (emphasis on the "O"), introducing tonight a new semi-cheesy reality-competition series, "America's Toughest Jobs."
Now, most TV critics will probably and myopically tell you that America's Toughest Job is, well, obviously, TV Critic. It may not seem too arduous - you sit around and watch TV shows - but much of what you watch is so bereft of entertainment, so soul-draining that you spend way too much of your time pondering and even being cheered by the fact of your own mortality.
A while back, I had to sign a waiver absolving NBC of all blame were I to die simply from participating in a playful little media event promoting their show "American Gladiators." Sample sentence: "(Your) presence in or upon the premises or facilities where said EVENTS are or will be taking place involve inherent and unavoidable risks, including the risk of death and serious personal injury." So I can just imagine the pages and pages of legalese and @ss-covering the contestants of "America's Toughest Job" had to pore over just to get on the show.
"America's Toughest Job" is produced by Thom Beers, a reality-show mogul whose best-known shows are "Ice Road Truckers" and "Deadliest Catch," but he's done a bunch of reality series about people who do really dangerous things on a daily basis. (He also did something called "Milk Carton Kids," which, if it was anything like his other shows, may have been the most twisted reality show ever to grace Television.)
(How would you do a show called "Milk Carton Kids:" from the perspective of the kids, the worried parents or the sickos who put their visages on the milk cartons to begin with? Or would you kidnap the kids yourself, and make it a reality competition in which the parents have to find their kids? Decisions, decisions...)
Anyway, "America's Toughest Job" is merely Beers doing a mash-up of his other shows: Contestants tonight go crab-fishing in Alaska, which is "Deadliest Catch's" subject; they'll also go trucking (a la "Ice Road Truckers"), logging (Beers also has a show called "Ax Men"), oil-drilling (he also has a show called "Black Gold") and ... well, you get the idea. Which is, have contestants compete in challenges that could land them in traction.
Pitting ordinary citizens in extraordinary circumstances isn't a bad idea. But the show's execution feels utterly uninspired from the beginning, which telegraphs to viewers: This is just another stupid reality show.
"America was built by hardworking men and women," the narration declares, fairly irrelevantly. This show, it continues, is concerned with contestants aspiring to "something new ... something real." (Of course, since the competitions involve monster-truck driving and bullfighting, that whole notion of contestants wanting to tap into "something real" is diminished pretty quickly.)
And I didn't time it, but I'm pretty sure we see a contestant whooping, "Whooo!" - a requisite reality-show staple - within the first minute. Narration continues: "Along the way, tempers flare - and they learn something about themselves." And this differs from every other reality series how?
(By the way, Beers himself does the narration, and he really should consider ponying up some cash for someone else. Beers' narration is in that awkward cadence of computer voices, and sounds like he's explaining the show to extremely dim children.)
All this said, the show itself isn't bad. There's too much incident for the editors to be able to create memorable characters out of the contestants, and the product placement sequence is pretty irritating, and they try to wring way too much drama out of a contestant who's allergic to seafood (her allergy makes her a wuss, the show suggests; hey, I have the same allergy, so I feel her pain, and then I really feel her pain when they make fun of her for actually having the temerity to own books).
But the show's actually furtively educational - it demonstrates just how tricky and exotic these jobs really are, how they require a sensibility well outside the norm. If the show focused on this and didn't feel as if it had to shoehorn the requisite reality-show strictures into its structure, it'd be pretty good. As it is, it's more of the same-old same old.
- "America's Toughest Job:" 9 p.m. Monday, NBC (Channel 4).
The good people at 236.com (motto: Some of the news, most of the time) have thoughtfully sat through a Fox News Channel documentary about Barack Obama and incisively distilled it to its essence, in just a minute's running time.
You probably have one of the following responses:
Shock that such a disreputable character is running for President (in which case, you're right in Fox's wheelhouse and should watch more often).
Shock that Fox would air such a hatchet job (obviously, you've never watched Fox News, either).
Amusement (it is a pretty great editing job).
Pretty much what you expected.
Equal Time Doctrine Bonus: Here's 23/6's similar cut-down on Fox News' John McCain documentary:
These two minutes pretty much tell you all you need to make an informed opinion in the voting booth come November. ... Or do they?
The ... End?
(Why is media coverage of this campaign devolving into a bad "Twilight Zone" episode, anyway?)
"Generation Kill" wraps things up Sunday night. You probably haven't been watching this brilliant miniseries - it received a gaudy launch but seems to have dropped off most people's radar at this point (though the response to the Rudy Reyes piece was semi-heartening and underscored LA.com's myopia in overlooking it).
Evan Wright, author of the book upon which the series is based (who also had a hand in scripting, as well), was philosophical about the show's chances at attracting a sizable audience. "If the American public tunes in, I hope they do, but on a deep philosophical level, I don't give a f@%&," he told me. He had heard all the chatter about war films not playing well in the Zeitgeist right now, that Americans suffered from war fatigue, and all he could say about that was, "War fatigue is a pretty comical term for an American public who have had no hardship generally during this war, no hardship whatsoever. Their war fatigue is ADD."
(Evan Wright thinks you can't handle the truth.)
Nonetheless, the final installment is easily absorbed even if you haven't been watching; I'll even provide a handy recap of the series for you:
Previously, on "Generation Kill:" The Marines of First Recon have been tear-@ssing around Iraq, blowing stuff up, coping with clueless superiors and being manly men in general.
With that out of the way, here's Episode 7, "Bomb in the Garden:"
First Recon rolls into Baghdad, and their mission is coming to an end. "We have rolled through this country f@%&ing things up and now we have to show these people what we've liberated them for," one Marine declares, though it turns out to be wishful thinking. They think they're going to be safe in Baghdad, but chaos is spreading. Their translator warns them, obviously prophetically, "You've taken the country apart, but you're not putting it back together. ... All this is a bomb - if it explodes, it will be bigger than the war."
The episode also includes the notorious incident in which First Recon Marine Eric Kocher - who served as the show's technical advisor - gets in trouble for saving people's lives when he ran into a minefield they were marking with chemlights in the black of night and one stepped on a mine.
"It was ridiculous to go into a mine field at nighttime," he says of the operation, and his own actions. "That was the only time I did something my mind was telling me not to do. But before I knew it, I was already in the minefield. I was thinking, 'What the f@%& am I doing?' I'm thinking, 'Wow, this wasn't the greatest idea I ever had.' But I had to get to the engineer. He was screaming me to stay out, that he would low-crawl out. He didn't have a foot, and he's concerned about us. But I got him out. It was kind of heartbreaking. My stomach kind of turned. It was the first time I saw an American casualty right in front of me.
"And then, I'm getting my rights read to me. You've got to be f@%&ing kidding me. I had to write a rebuttal to keep the officers out of trouble for sending us out there (in the first place). It fell on my shoulders when what happened happened."
(Eric Kocher learned the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished.)
Sunday's episode concludes with a powerful sequence that summarizes the series succinctly and beautifully, a scene that series co-creator David Simon, who usually doesn't toot his own horn in this way, is extremely proud of. He particularly loves the song that plays over the scene and doesn't want it given away.
The song had already been plugged into the sequence before its rights had been secured. Someone asked him what Plan B would be if they didn't get permission to use it, and Simon says he replied, "Plan B is, we use the song anyway and deal with it in court."
(I didn't have the heart to tell Simon (here, on the "GenKill" set) that the song had already been used on an episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.")
Like Wright, Simon believes we've been too passive in our response to what's going on in Iraq.
"If you're against the war, you should be out there in the street, because it should matter to you," he told me. "And if you're for the war, you should be asserting for the military in ways that re-incorporate them into the rest of the country, bringing them back into the sense of our own collective."
- "Generation Kill:" 9 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. Sunday, HBO. Also 8 p.m. and midnight Monday, 11 p.m. Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. and midnight Wednesday, 10 p.m. Thursday and so on and so forth.
A friend and I had a little debate over last week's episode of "Mad Men." I said Peggy's (Elisabeth Moss) sister, jealous over Peggy's befriending the young priest (Colin Hanks), deliberately ratted her out to him over her abandoning her kid under the guise of seeming agitated; my friend said no. Thoughts?
In the meantime, "Mad Men" seems to be aspiring to the stage where every exchange is epigrammatic. Consider this gem in Sunday's episode in a scene in which Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) is being questioned by a fertility doctor:
Doctor: "Do you work with ... radioactive materials, toxic chemicals?"
Pete: "I'm in advertising."
So, once again, AMC's not-very-hard-sell-at-all description of Sunday's episode:
"Don once again finds himself having to deal with issues between TV comedian Jimmy and his wife, Bobbie. Joan finally finds Don the perfect secretary."
This may be the most brilliant synopsis AMC has offered all season, mainly because it completely ignores the incident that drives the episode's motor, the alliance that results and the oh-so-subtle but exquisite power shift that occurs.
The new secretary subplot isn't all that interesting - even Don's (Jon Hamm) unimpressed; he first walks by her with little more than a grunt. But she's a looker, all the guys in the office are hot for her, she kind of works that with generous views of her décolletage - you know, standard "Mad Men" patter.
As for Don and Bobbie (Melinda McGraw), well, that's a hate f@%& waiting to happen again and again. Hamm takes on a particularly distant air - too distant to even register as melancholy; it's something emptier - when Don's with Bobbie. She wonders aloud, "Why is it so hard to just enjoy things?" And then we find out.
"Mad Men" has something fascinating going on in its tonal adjustments. Scenes dominated by Don tend to have a crackle and polish - he's in charge and knows it, even when he isn't. Scenes featuring Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), on the other hand, feel dreamier, as if she's not sure she belongs where she is or how she got there (Moss's airy delivery no doubt has something to do with this). This is particularly the case in this week's episode - until one scene in which the formula gets shaken up. (It is hell discussing this show without mentioning anything AMC might consider a spoiler.)
Oh, and a week after we start Roger's Alcoholic-Themed One-Liner of the Week comes the rare week when he doesn't have one. But he does offer up this nugget of timeless wisdom: "If you put a penny in a jar every time you make love in the first year of marriage and you take a penny out of the jar every time you make love in the second year of marriage, you know what you have? A jar full of pennies."
Oh, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart makes an unlikely appearance. As does Rachel (Maggie Siff), the one Don let get away last season - and that's not a spoiler (AMC lists Siff in the episode's credits), but they spoiled the reunion with what seems a throwaway scene, while on the other hand they throw another ball in the air that could return to earth at any moment.
- "Mad Men:" 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.
How would you like to win this:
Of course you would! The Golden Dumpster Baby, an homage to an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," can be yours if you are a student at one of the following universities (or can make it to one of the other events) and you win the "It's Always Sunny" game show when it comes to your town, including Cal State Fullerton on Aug. 28.
More info here. The schedule:
Fri, Aug. 22 - U. of Colorado: UMC Welcome Fest (8pm-12am)
Sun, Aug. 24 - U. of California, Berkeley: Caltopia (10am-5pm)
Mon, Aug. 25 - U. of California, Berkeley: Caltopia (10am-4pm)
Thu, Aug. 28 - Cal State Fullerton U. (TBA)
Fri, Aug. 29 - San Diego State U.: ARC After Dark (9pm-12am)
Tues, Sep. 2 - Arizona State U. (TBA)
Fri, Sep. 5 - Kent State: Black Squirrel Festival (10am-4pm)
Sat, Sep. 6 - Guinness Oyster Festival: Chicago, IL (TBA)
Fri, Sep. 12 - U. of Pennsylvania: No Place Like Penn (TBA)
Sun, Sep. 14 - Adam's Morgan Day Festival: Washington, D.C. (12pm-7pm)
Thurs, Sep. 18 - Hofstra University (TBA)
(Obviously, I posted this because I thought you deserved a look at the photo, not because you have a chance of actually winning. The show returns Sept. 18 at 10 p.m. on FX.)
TV Guide is rarely in the business of doing anything other than cheer-leading for the Television Landscape, so it was a bit of a surprise that they're offering up this rather cranky list of their least favorite TV couples, which appears in the issue hitting newsstands today. Most of the romances the magazine finds grating are on shows still on the air, which means either than they don't make love like they used to or that TV Guide editors have very poor memories. Or, likely, both.
No. 1 - "Gizzie" (George & Izzie), "Grey's Anatomy." This much-hated coupling no doubt inspired the list in the first place. Per TV Guide: "First off, could the combo name be any uglier? And secondly, ewww. It was like watching a faded prom queen and her slightly dim-witted brother get it on."
("Look deep into my eyes - you are getting sleeeepy.... Or, at least, the viewers are.")
No. 2 - Tom & Lynette, "Desperate Housewives." "Forget Wisteria Lane's occasional homicides; the real mystery here is why these two aren't in therapy," TV Guide grouses. Hey, their dysfunction makes them pretty realistic and perfect for each other.
No. 3 - Boris & Natasha, "The Bullwinkle Show." Really? I think they have terrific chemistry. And are more convincing as a couple than ...
No. 4 - Clark & Lana, "Smallville." As TV Guide notes, "Lana is only interesting when she's presumed dead."
No. 5 - Billy & Alison, "Melrose Place."
No. 6 - Kate & Jack, "Lost." TV Guide prefers them on the island rather than in the future.
(This probably looks more interesting than it really was.)
No. 7 - Trista & Ryan, "The Bachelorette." These two would make the list if it wasn't just TV, but the most annoying couples on the planet.
No. 8 - Ryan & Marissa, "The O.C." Didn't this show suffer enough without needing a post-mortem dig?
No. 9 - Sara & Grissom, "CSI."
No. 10 - Rob & Amber, "Survivor." See Trista and Ryan, above.
Meanwhile, the folks at AOL have even more time on their hands: They patched together a Top-20 list of All-Time Best Game Shows. But as with reality shows and teen soaps, there's such a thin line between inspired and insulting.
No. 1 - "The Price is Right."
No. 2 - "Jeopardy!" Leave it to TV Guide to champion gaudy consumerism over actual intelligence.
No. 3 - "Wheel of Fortune." Remember when they forced winners, after each round, to blow the money they had just won on crap like $500 porcelain Dalmatians? Nah, neither do I.
No. 4 - "What's My Line?"
No. 5 - "Let's Make a Deal."
No. 6 - "Match Game."
No. 7 - "The Newlywed Game." Best urban legend ever: "In the butt."
No. 8 - "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."
No. 9 - "Twenty One."
No. 10 - "Hollywood Squares."
The rest, if you care, after the jump.
Continue reading Top-Two List of List-Related Press Releases That Came My Way Today.
How do the folks at the Center for Media and Public Affairs spend their days? Do they vet the news networks for factual errors and cases of bias? Do they examine political policies and their potential impact on the American people?
No, they watch the late-night talk shows and count jokes.
CMPA released its 2008 Political Humor Study today, based on assiduously watching Leno, Letterman, Conan, Stewart and Colbert from Jan. 1 to July 31 of this year, and the results won't shock you. George Bush may be a lame duck, but he still corners the market on late-night one-liners, followed by Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, former New York governor Elliot Spitzer (thanks to his randy dalliance with that three-diamond call girl), Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney and Mike Huckabee. For some reason, CMPA also counted the number of beanball gags aimed at former pitcher Roger Clemens' head. (John Edwards got lucky, so to speak - his sex scandal broke mainly after the study had concluded, or he'd be a real up-and-comer on the list.)
McCain was the butt of 322 jokes from Leno, Letterman, and O'Brien, and I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of them were about the fact that he's old. Stewart and Colbert threw in another 201, presumably more nuanced, jabs. Obama, on the other hand, was the target of a mere 169 broadcast network jokes, but 207 ripostes from Comedy Central.
605 laughs came at President Bush's expense (keep in mind this is only on late-night, not regular media coverage, or the number would've been much higher). Hillary Clinton inspired 562 jokes, while Bill Clinton still managed 152 (again, how many do you think were womanizing gags?). Late-night comics must be getting lazy, because they only managed to come up with 101 Dick Cheney jokes.
CMPA doesn't analyze why the humor-weapons gap between Obama and McCain may exist, but others have pointed out that there hasn't been an agreed-upon facet of Obama that makes for easy jokes. That's the problem with these nuanced politicians: You can't make stupid sh!t stick. That, and the fact that "McCain's old" jokes are the easiest, laziest way of getting a laugh on the planet.
Perhaps Obama should demand equal time on the late-night shows.
Anyway, here are three Leno jokes about the candidates. You can decide if they're funny or not.
"McCain was asked how he's going to conserve energy. He said by taking three naps a day."
"Obama said he'll visit Iraq and Afghanistan because he wants to see an area overrun by violent extremists. So it sounds like he already misses his old church."
"It's not looking good for Hillary. Today even Yogi Berra said, 'It's over.'"
I've never heard of ZO2, and neither, probably, have you. They're an actual metal band struggling to achieve stardom, and I've never been much of a fan of the genre, so I'm obviously not enamored with their music. But they have this new show, "Z Rock," debuting Sunday on IFC, and it's a semi-improvised mockumentary in the "This is Spinal Tap" vein, so the more pressing issue is, are they funny?
(The gentlemen of ZO2 reflect on the finer aspects of crafting noisy music - oh, and banging as many groupies as time permits.)
The show's premise is that while they're waiting to become huge rock stars, they moonlight as a Wiggles-type kids act, playing upscale birthday parties and the like, only they're not so good at turning off the decadent rock-star thing when they're around kids. It's a funny premise; you just wish the execution were more consistent.
In Sunday's premiere, for example, there are two jokes about shaving pubic hair in the show's first five minutes. (Well, not jokes, really; just gratuitous references.) They land a gig to play a kid's show for a temperamental music producer who could make them stars, but the night before, get sidetracked with some groupies, so they arrive late to the assignment and discuss rather unsavory sexual acts in front of one of the kids and then it turns out that their recent conquests are really just horny soccer moms who turn up at the party and - well, you know; complications ensue.
The improvised dialogue often feels improvised in Sunday's premiere, which isn't a good thing, and the show features a lot of head-scratching celebrity cameos, such as Joan Rivers - hands, everybody: Any fans of raunchy heavy-metal comedy itching to see Joan Rivers?
But things pick up as the series progresses. Next week's episode finds the guys at a double-booked kids' party, performing alongside the jolly if passive-aggressive hacks of Kidtastic! and hating every minute of it. Conveniently, one of the band's former illicit conquests shows up at this party, too.
(Anyone want to bet that these T-shirts find themselves in a different configuration somewhere in the episode?)
An episode further in the future actually managed some solid laughs. The guys are shooting a music video, and former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro has agreed to direct it. The whole celebrities-proving-they're-good-sports-by-mocking-their-personae thing has gotten kind of old, but Navarro is piercingly good at it, and he has so much to work with.
Navarro's vision for the video emphasizes their work with kids - the very thing ZO2 wants to get away from. But what he comes up with is in breathtakingly funny bad taste, an initially dopey vision that quickly devolves into scenes of children drinking shots of Jack Daniels and acting otherwise inappropriately in the way vixens usually do in music videos.
(By "Z Rock" standards, this is inordinately tame.)
Earlier episodes were rude for rudeness' sake; this one has some real bite. (What'd really be funny is if IFC put Navarro up for an Emmy in the guest-star-in-a-comedy category; watching members of those blue-ribbon panels pale as they watched this episode would be priceless.)
Not for kids or the faint of heart, "Z Rock" boasts robust nudity, vigorous simulation of sexual conduct and the sort of language that even I wouldn't use. On the strength of the three episodes made available for review, it starts out a little sluggish but definitely improves. ZO2 may or may not become heavy-metal heroes, but if their learning curve on "Z Rock" proceeds apace, they might make for a good comedy act.
They're still no "Flight of the Conchords," though.
- "Z Rock:" 11:30 p.m. Sunday; also 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and 10:30 p.m. Fridays; Independent Film Channel.
(You know what this means, don't you? This show'll be debuting opposite the final half-hour of the closing ceremony of the most-watched Olympics ever. Good luck with that, guys.)
I was going through some of the transcripts from Press Tour when I came upon this little gem from Fox's executive session. I remember my colleagues and I chortling at this exchange at the time.
QUESTION: How important is drama for you going forward?
KEVIN REILLY: Drama?
QUESTION: Yeah. Because you've got the success with "24" and "House." You've got these two strong shows coming.
KEVIN REILLY: Yeah.
QUESTION: Clearly, it's a philosophy. Why -- why is drama as important as it seems to be to FOX? What does it give you that other genres don't?
Reilly, though baffled by the question, politely answered it seriously, instead of saying something like, "Well, it's an exciting new genre that every network has employed copiously for, oh, the past 60 years. Look, if you don't have a real question, Mr. TeeVee Journalist, you don't have to strain to ask one. You can just sit there and be quiet."
A couple of years ago, Dan Abrams ran MSNBC; now, he's getting his show bounced off the schedule. But for a good cause: Rachel Maddow, a particularly sane pundit (and, just guessing, soon-to-be-ex-Air-America host) with an unusually even temperament by TV standards, will be getting her own nightly series, airing at 6 p.m. Pacific Time after "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." (Olbermann just lost a good guest.) Here's hoping she has Pat Buchanan on her show, since he really gets wound up by her.
More good news: The little dog we found yesterday has been reunited with her owner. The owner was ecstatic, but perhaps the happiest individual in this equation is my dog Wally, who can quit with the jealousy already. (By the way, her name was Babette.)
Sick of staying in every night, watching TV? Why not try a nice night out - get dressed up, drive to Beverly Hills and ... watch TV.
In order to generate interest in what so far has been a pretty quiet run-up to the fall season, The Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television & Radio) in Beverly Hills will host five evenings of Fall Preview parties, one for each network to introduce their new wares - or, not, in ABC's case.
Each evening begins at 6 p.m. with a reception, followed by a Q&A featuring talent from the shows at 7, with the screenings to follow. Here's the schedule:
Friday, September 5: FOX will unwrap "Fringe" and "Do Not Disturb."
(We tend to run a lot of photos from "Fringe," even though there aren't that many good ones out there yet. But this one's OK, better than the one of her in the hazmat suit but not as good as the one of her in the sensory-deprivation chamber.)
Saturday, September 6: The CW presents "90210," which will have already debuted, and "Privileged."
Monday, September 8: NBC presents what may be the first chance for anyone to see its new shows "My Own Worst Enemy," "Kath & Kim," "Crusoe" and, uh, "Knight Rider."
Tuesday, September 9: CBS uncorks "Gary Unmarried," "The Ex List," "Worst Week" and "The Mentalist," but not "Eleventh Hour." Hmmm.
("The Ex List:" "Whattaya mean you can't tell me how my show will do? You're a friggin' fortune teller!")
Wednesday, September 10: ABC will only have a "preview" of "Life on Mars" to share, not an entire episode. Double hmmm. And since that's their lone new scripted show, they'll busk by re-introducing "Pushing Daisies," "Private Practice" and "Eli Stone," but not "Dirty Sexy Money." Triple hmmm.
And hey, it's free (though you'll pay a grave toll on your psyche by sitting through "Gary Unmarried"). First come, first served each night. More information and schedule updates at PaleyCenter.org.
The first review screener of NBC's fall season has arrived! And it's, uh - not for a new show. It's "Heroes"' season-three premiere. Well, it's a start.
Also, we have discussed here ABC's online screening service for critics - it saves a lot on disks and packaging, so it's environmentally friendly, but my screening experiences there had sucked. Someone at ABC actually saw this blog and contacted me about this and was extraordinarily nice and helpful about it all. I had to re-register at their super-secret website and watched a couple of "Wipeout" clips and it is much improved - not optimal in this big-screen HDTV world, perhaps, but eminently watchable.
And then, I got this Email:
"Recently you attempted to register onto [ABC's super-secret website] as a permanent user. Because of the heavy traffic, demand for the materials we provide and various licensing issues, we are forced to put some limits on the access to this site.
"Therefore, we have denied your application at this time."
Boy, if I'm getting rejected on a professional level like this, that explains volumes about my personal life. Looks like it might be time for one of those "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Mayor of Television!"-style outbursts.
There was a phone press conference Monday announcing, definitively, that Lawrence Fishburne would be joining the cast of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," just as series star (and executive producer) William Petersen would be exiting (they'll interact in episodes 9 and 10, tentatively set to air Dec. 11 and 18). Here's how on top of this seismic narrative shift the producers are: They haven't even figured out what Fishburne's character's name is yet. (They have, however, worked out a nickname for him: "The Professor.")
("The Professor's" big character trait is that he works the windblown, wrinkly look, only to discover that the windblown, wrinkly look works you. Oh, and that he's a potential serial killer.)
Other revelations - or, more precisely, not revelations at all - from Monday's phone press conference:
Fishburne admitted he hadn't even been a "CSI" fan before agreeing to star on the show:
"I am now," he laughed. "I felt a little stupid and embarrassed not having watched the show prior to meeting with the (producers)." But he did take the time and effort to watch episodes they had sent him, and found them "dark and moody," which led Fishburne to concede, "'Wow, this'll work.'"
Back at July's TV Press Tour, the only thing remotely resembling information during CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler's press conference was the particulars of the new "CSI" character. Tassler said then that Fishburne's character would share a similar genetic profile with serial killers.
So, of course, they backed away from that description on Monday.
Fishburne said, laughing, "I have no knowledge of such a biological profile nor would I be at liberty to speak about such a biological profile if in fact such a biological profile did exist. I don't know. I'm just really excited that I'm going to be able to join this team. We have a lot of stuff to flesh out."
We hope this clears a lot of things up for you, but then, we know it doesn't. At all.
Your Mayor was walking his own dog in Echo Park today when he came upon a diminutive stray, and much to his own extremely jealous dog's dismay, took her in.
No collar, no tags; it looks like a grey female toy poodle, but then, if you know better, let me know (I'll have to fix my posts at FidoFinder.com and craigslist). If you know someone who lost a dog approximating the looker above (seen trying to make nice with Pixar inspiration Wally The Dog), let us know. She's an affectionate, well-behaved pooch (we'd've kicked her to the curb if she was anything but; humanitarianism - or, at least, mammalism - has its limits) of indeterminate age. She clearly has some lapdog experience, but rudimentary commands such as "sit" and "shake" elude her.
What was that "Heroes" catch phrase? "Save the frou-frou lapdog; save the world?" Close enough.
Just about everything you need to know about TV today, in a post that took more time to track down the art than to write!
The CW issued this statement this afternoon:
"The CW and our studio partner CBS Paramount Network Television have made the strategic marketing decision not to screen '90210' for any media in advance of its premiere. We're not hiding anything . . . simply keeping a lid on '90210' until 9.02, riding the curiosity and anticipation into premiere night, and letting all our constituents see it at the same time."
(Translation: They're hiding something.)
(The New York Times is sweet on Jon Stewart.)
The New York Times distills all of its many stories about "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" into one big mash note, because its book critic apparently has a crush on Jon. It seems to think that "the emergence of 'The Daily Show' as a genuine cultural and political force" is something they just thought up, even though people have been saying that sort of thing for years now.
(The very model of jurisprudence.)
("You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.")
John McCain's campaign manager is accusing NBC of "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race." When he makes that charge against Fox News, we'll sit up and take notice.
(Yingsel the Tibetan antelope and Olympic mascot is adorably running in terror from her Chinese oppressors.)
By the way, viewership of NBC's first night of post-Michael Phelps coverage was down, but just a little bit: An average of 26.4 million tuned in, as opposed to the 30+ million that were watching while the swimmer was on his historic tear. 38.8 million watched him splash into the history books Saturday night when he won his eighth gold medal of the games, the highest ratings NBC has received on a Saturday night since an episode of "Empty Nest" on Feb. 24, 1990, back when Phelps was 4 years old.
(Is joining the cast of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" taking the red pill or the blue pill?)
It's official: Lawrence Fishburne is joining the cast of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" in the upcoming season's ninth episode, just before William Petersen lights out for the territory or whatever it is he's gonna do. He plays a pathologist who battles his own violent impulses, which he probably had to do when he read this line in the Variety story: "It's a homecoming of sorts for Fishburne, who played Cowboy Curtis on the Eye's classic Saturday morning series 'Pee-Wee's Playhouse' in the mid-1980s."
(Can't we all just get along?)
The following story (which ran yesterday) wanders all over the place and is hardly the proudest moment in my career, but it does offer a kind of interesting insight into what happens when you have to distill 39,000 words into 1,400, when you have to marry one timely news peg (a documentary about Helen Thomas, airing tonight) with a different one (cable-news coverage of the political conventions) and when you know what art you paper plans to run (photos of Keith Olbermann, Karl Rove and Wolf Blitzer, though not the delightful ones seen below) before you've even finished your story.
*
It's appropriate that, in this Presidential campaign season, HBO is airing "Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House," a documentary about the 88-year-old correspondent, a woman virtually alone these days amid the White House press corps in refusing to lob softball questions. The film subtly underscores the evolution of the political journalist from intrepid truth-seeker to soundbite-spewing careerist and/or partisan hack.
(Conservatives clearly don't like Helen Thomas.)
"Part what drives her to keep going (at her age) is that she doesn't see someone to replace her," suggests Rory Kennedy, "Thank You, Mr. President's" director. "She still has to keep going."
Thomas has parried with every President dating back to John F. Kennedy. A tribute to her tenacity is the fact that President Geroge W. Bush no longer takes her questions.
"Helen makes important points - the press has become the fourth column of government, but without the press asking tough questions and getting answers, democracy doesn't work as well," says Kennedy, a documentarian who's the daughter of assassinated Presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy.
"That's been the case under this administration," she continues. "There's a real sense that if you went up against them, they would not speak to you. And if the President is not answering your questions, your job is arguably less effective."
As a result, in recent years, political coverage on TV has largely been reduced to talking points and barking pundits, with a side order of actual policy analysis if time allows. But as Americans weigh their choice between voting for John McCain or Barack Obama for their next President, the real world has demands more from reporters.
The war in Iraq has grown increasingly unpopular. The economy is in seeming freefall, with gas prices and home foreclosures drastically up and job security dramatically down. Can TV's news divisions forego the hyped rhetoric and focus on delineating policy differences between McCain and Obama, rather than debating their TV commercials?
Well, maybe, but only if they can stop slinging mud at one another first.
Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S., insists his network "embrac(es) wholeheartedly this idea that we're living in a post-partisan time. ... And it's our role as journalists to provide these voters with the tools they need to make up their minds.
"That might sound obvious but, in fact, our competitors do the opposite," he continues. "They're entrenched in calcified points of view, highly partisan, and that's what you're going to get from them, leaving the vast, open middle for us simply to provide the information. You could call it the Legos approach, where we'll supply you with all the pieces you need, and then you make out of it what you think you ought to."
(Yes, CNN's President compared his network's political coverage to this.)
Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace declares, "MSNBC ... went so far over the line in terms of being in the tank to Barack Obama that it lost a lot of credibility. For all the criticisms we sometimes get about allowing our politics to infuse our journalism ... you've got someone like (MSNBC's) Keith Olbermann, who's delivering ten-minute screeds against President Bush ... which is fine if he wants to say those things. It's an interesting show.
"But then (Olbermann) anchoring coverage, whether it's primary nights or debate coverage ... our feeling is the opinion-makers should deliver their opinions, and the journalists should cover the news," Wallace concludes.
Olbermann wryly counters, "Not to try to start an argument with Fox - as you know, I would never do anything like that, but ... on their primary nights, (Sean) Hannity (and Bill) O'Reilly were on for 45 minutes or more."
He adds, "We are asking (viewers) to be able to separate what they might see during Chris (Matthews') show or my show and what they see on election night. We know there are different rules for us. ... If you are fairly good at what you do in this business, you should be able to do a couple of different things and know which is appropriate in which set of circumstances."
(Keith Olbermann might not have posed for this publicity still had he remembered a certain scene in Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator.")
CBS News political analyst Jeff Greenfield notes that both sides love to claim media bias to rally their base, particularly conservatives.
"I suspect the McCain campaign want their people energized by the fact that they're fighting a battle against the media," he says. "The folks that I've talked to in the McCain campaign, they don't necessarily think that the media is in the tank (for Obama, but) that's going to be part of the dialogue."
BBC America's "BBC World News America" executive producer Rome Harman, whose newscast is dedicated to covering the Presidential campaign from a global perspective, divines no evil intentions behind partisanship.
"Have networks seen commercial potential in testing the wind and riding it one direction or another?" he asks, rhetorically. "Sure; it would be silly to say that hasn't been the dynamic."
And still, "BBC World News America" anchor Matt Frei says of domestic cable-news coverage, "During the election year, it's ... very lively, engaging, political journalism that reflects the lively and engaging nature of the election. ... But we can't spend hours talking about it the way that they do, and we don't believe that you have to.
"This election's about reintroducing America to the world," Frei continues. "That's what a lot of people in this country feel, so we can say: 'Let's see how (a candidate is) being received in India, Pakistan, China, South Korea, and we can then call on (our) bureaus to give us instant reaction to that."
All that said, the cable news networks do have interesting insights to offer into the upcoming Democratic and Republican Party Conventions.
Ted Koppel, who as an ABC reporter, pointedly walked out of the 1996 Republican Convention, arguing that "it was really nothing more than a picture show (with no) news happening," will be covering the conventions for "BBC World News America."
He now says, "I don't think anyone can make that observation about this year. This has been one of the most remarkable political years we've ever seen."
Fox News scored a coup - and not just for its fan base - when it signed Bush Administration advisor Karl Rove, known as "The Architect" behind the last two election-night victories, as a political analyst. (In an attempt to provide balance, they recruited Clinton campaign advisor Howard Wolfson.)
Regardless of whether you think Rove saved the Republic or should be imprisoned for his crimes against it, there's probably no one who can provide keener insight into 21st-century campaign politics.
"It's actually a sickness," Rove jokes of his acuity. "You know how some people can name the 1954 starting lineup for the Cleveland Indians? I can give you (election) precinct returns. It's a very sad thing.
(If the Constitution was a person, Karl Rove would do this to it, too.)
"It's not like we're coming from a completely neutral position," Rove continues. "But we gotta be aware of that and try to help people understand the process, what's happening, what's unfolding in front of them."
So here's what you should expect from cable-news convention coverage:
CNN's Wolf Blitzer says, "Barack Obama's Democratic party is going to be very different. He's a 47-year-old African-American who wants to change the Democratic Party, wants to bring in young voters. So how is that reflected in the platform, in policies?
"Over the years, I've always found that there's so much going on behind the scenes at conventions - we'll be streaming (speeches) at cnnpolitics.com, but we won't be on the air with that; we'll be assessing what's going on and reporting on what we're hearing," he continues. "It's an opportunity for all of us to have access to people who have a good sense of what's going on, and we can pick their brains and hopefully do some serious reporting in the process. We're not going to simply be stenographers."
(Wolf Blitzer sees no evil.)
MSNBC political analyst Chuck Todd adds, "Both nominees have a unique thing in common, in that there's this middle period in their professional lives that nobody knows anything about, and one of our jobs is to educate people on John McCain from 1974 to 1994 and Barack Obama from 1980 to 1996. ... Our job is to say, 'Who are these people? ... How are these guys going to govern? What's going to be the big difference?'"
Fox News' editorial vice president John Moody says, "It's up to the Republicans to make it sexy and as interesting as the Democratic Convention. Clearly, the Democrats have a historic convention coming up. I think (Republicans) will have a hard time matching the historic proportions of this kind of candidate that the Democrats have and the surroundings in which he's going to accept this historic nomination."
It all sounds palatable and compelling, but filmmaker Kennedy isn't convinced.
"It used to be that the news portions of networks were not profit-oriented - they were for the public's interest," she says. "But, because of changes in laws and the way corporate America operates, the proliferation of news channels has become more competitive. They know you'd rather tune into stories about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie than stories about civilians getting killed in Iraq. That's not going to change until TV news is exclusively devoted to the public interest."
- "Thank You Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House," 9 tonight (and Thursday), HBO.
(OMG, my career trajectory has gone from "Men in Black II" to online videos!)
My name is David K. (Hi, David!), and I'm a person with something resembling an attention span. I don't suffer from ADD. I'm actually addicted to long, complicated narratives.
Which would seem to make me uniquely unqualified to talk about webisodes. NBC-Universal hopes that viewers will get hooked on their short video spurts in which not much happens in a few minutes but something of note eventually happens once those few minutes accumulate. Earlier this summer, NBC introduced a serialized "Office" storyline that wasn't bad, but wasn't nearly as funny as the show itself. If you have a life and need more than a few minutes of exposition to hook you into an ongoing story, well, then, you're out of luck.
Which brings us to "Gemini Division," NBC-U's online series about ... well, it's hard to say. They only sent two of the 50 webisodes, and I feel kind of stupid trying to review 10-to-14 minutes of material. It debuts today; a second episode will appear tomorrow. They're hoping that these two offerings will hook viewers, and then next week, they'll start posting webisodes with a vengeance, one each weekday beginning Aug. 25.
"Gemini Division" stars Rosario Dawson (who you'd think could score a better gig than this; nonetheless, her performance is pretty good) as Anna Diaz, an undercover cop who's sending video Emails to an unnamed friend (us) via a futuristic Microsoft version of the iPhone (the series is already reportedly profitable, before anyone has even seen it, thanks to copious product placement for folks like Microsoft).
(Now you know why you might want to watch "Gemini Division:" Rosario Dawson is pretty.)
Anna's dispatching her V-logs from Paris (you're forgiven if you're reminded of Stephen Colbert's green-screen challenges), a la the LonelyGirl15 videos only she's not lonely and she's not 15: She and her boyfriend/maybe fiancé Nick are having the time of their lives - until all sorts of weirdness intrudes.
A sinister character is shadowing Anna and Nick, and Nick has some creepy issues, and the press release offers spoilers that the first two episodes don't hint at, and the trailer does, too, but the trailer also makes "Gemini Division" look like it has something approaching production values, which is certainly not borne out by the first two webisodes, which is all about those cheesy greenscreens. So anyway.
The first two installments of "Gemini Division" didn't hook me - I won't be visiting the site on a daily basis when the story begins in earnest next week - but it didn't alienate me, either. When the inevitable DVD is released, I might check it out, to see if there's something to its story. On the other hand, if "Gemini Division" really boasted a great story, one imagines it would've been produced on a platform that allows for bigger budgets and better production values. On yet another hand, perhaps its producers were hellbent on proving Internet content could be monetized.
There are probably even more other hands to consider, but we'll stop here. And say, undefinitively: Your call.
You don't want to hack off a sensitive soul who champions those with Down Syndrome. Ben Stiller's not-quite-Vietnam not-quite-epic but thoroughly hilarious "Tropic Thunder" was protested and boycotted by a dozen disabilities groups offended by Stiller's character's portrayal of "Simple Jack," a man so blissfully, blitheringly attuned to life that he chases birds with mallets (check out the movie-theater standee in the background of a couple of shots), but not boycotted by the folks (myself included) who contributed to its five-day take of $37 million.
And anyway, where were these groups when Rosie O'Donnell went full 'tard in "Baldly Trying to Win An Emmy with My Sister," anyway? That was far more offensive than anything in "Tropic Thunder." (You really should click on the above link; it will make - or, if you're with a protest group, ruin - your day.) The point has been made repeatedly, but let's just say it once more: "Tropic Thunder" does not make fun of the differently abled, or whatever the p.c. term is these days. It eviscerates actors who portray such characters in order to win acting trophies.
African-Americans, Jewish people and drug-dealing Asians (who are portrayed as huge fans of "Simple Jack") might have issues with the film, though. If they're not too busy laughing at it. For a big-budget movie, "Tropic Thunder" sure is eager to offend as many people as possible. And I mean that in a good way.
"Tropic Thunder" is the rare movie that manages to do all sorts of juvenile humor in the most intelligent way possible. It's smart on so many levels: During one scene, I was thinking that I would've edited this part down, but then I realized that its corollary in a real Vietnam movie would've played out in the same extended fashion, and then it ended with Jack Black desperately offering to swallow Brandon T. Jackson's gravy, so all was well with the world.
On top of all this, Stiller managed to make us all not think such dark thoughts about Tom Cruise, perhaps the trickiest stunt of them all in this nerviest of mega-budgeted comedies.
Also, Ben Stiller must have a weird fetish for being stabbed by Asian children: This is the second film in which he gets hacked away at by one (the other was "Starsky and Hutch"). Why haven't we seen that perversion discussed ad nauseum in the media?
And as happy as I am to play the contrarian, I'm forced to add my voice to those astounded by Robert Downey, Jr. in the movie. I saw the film this afternoon, and I'm still helplessly laughing at the stuff he pulled off in this movie, and if that's not value for your dollar, what is?
Looks like we've got a year in which our two leading candidates for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar are guys who disappeared under ridiculously extravagant makeup jobs and still managed to make all that makeup seem an afterthought:
Is it just me, or was NBC's three-way interview between Bob Costas, Olympic Miracle Man Michael Phelps and former Olympic record holder Mark Spitz a little on the awkward side?
It came after Phelps' photo-finish victory by .01 of a second in the 100-meter butterfly, when Phelps tied Spitz's record for most gold medals won in an Olympics (Phelps, naturally, has already broken Spitz's record for most golds won in an Olympic career; he goes for his record-shattering eighth gold of the Beijing Olympics tonight). The interview was the final feature in NBC's 8 p.m.-midnight coverage, and since they didn't have anything else to go with at that point, Costas kind of busked it, trying to coax a mutual admiration party out of the two.
(Milorad Cavic, imitating Maxwell Smart: "Missed it by that much!")
Spitz - who had publicly complained that he had not been invited to attend the games and therefore didn't go, saying that having to sit in the stands with the hoi polloi was "demeaning" - played along, at first. "What you did tonight was epic, and it was epic for the whole world to see how great you really are," he said, but then, perhaps inevitably, he made it about himself:
"You weren't born when I did what I did but I'm sure I was part of your inspiration and I take that as a full compliment," Spitz continued, divining Phelps' inner feelings. "They say that you judge one's character by the company that you keep, and I'm happy to keep company with you."
Phelps replied, simply, "Thank you, Mark."
So Costas tried to cajole Phelps to participate in the love-in: "What do those words mean to you Michael, heartfelt words from Mark Spitz?"
Phelps - who, to be fair, must be kind of exhausted at this point - went into standard boilerplate, what you hear from every contestant in every event: "You know, for so many years, everyone dreams about becoming an Olympian. You know from the past people who competed in the Olympic Games, and you're an Olympian for life, just like they are. There have been so many greats that have come before me, and what Mark did is still amazing. It's incredible, and it's a very, very hard thing to accomplish. I think it shows, whatever you put your mind to, you really can accomplish."
Well, no, it shows that whatever Phelps puts his mind to, he can accomplish; the rest of us'd probably just flounder about. He continued:
"When Mark won seven, he put his mind to something, and he did everything he could to get there. And it's the same thing for me. I've tried to stay as positive as I could and stay rested and recover. And there's so much that goes into it. I've tried to stay positive and dream big. And it's gotten me here. So, I'm very, very thankful."
OK, so that didn't result in the sort of emotional moment Costas was hoping for, so he tried another tack, pitting them against each other. He asked Spitz who'd win if he and Phelps met each other at their peak.
Spitz ceded little ground: "If Michael and I were to have that chance, hypothetically, I certainly would know what made him tick and how to beat him, and he would know the same about me. So I would have to say now, we'd probably tie. But after tomorrow when he wins his eighth gold medal, I will take my hat off and be happy and glad to take second to Michael any day."
Phelps merely replied, "I've seen a few [emphasis mine] of Mark's races and a lot has changed in that time, and really over the last four years. It's been cool to be a part of, and to see the change in the sport. This sport is starting to take off more and more, and it's been even more fun to be a part of. I'm glad to see everything, change for the better for American swimming anyway."
"Change for the better for American swimming" wasn't probably the sort of phrase that Spitz (who didn't seem to smile much during the interview) was hoping to hear. Eventually, though, Phelps and Spitz did join Costas in a trans-Pacific group-hug, as the two swimmers found gracious things to say about one another to end the segment.
This exchange reminded me of an interview I did a few years back with Michael Lewis, author of several books about new technologies ("The New New Thing," "Next") and how they're applied to unlikely areas of society ("Moneyball"). We were reflecting on the irony that medical science will allow us to live much longer in a culture that values youth above all.
"Great," I said; "now we'll all survive through a prolonged period of irrelevance."
"'A Prolonged Period of Irrelevance' - that'd be a great title for a book," Lewis laughed.
The title's still available if you want to write a book, Mark.
Here're a couple of disturbing things that will give you pause before trolling the Internets (or watching CNN) ever again:
Yes, this is Scarlett Johansson, er, plugging, um, her new Woody Allen movie. You probably can't read the small print, but it completely disavows what you had on your smutty, smutty mind when you read the headline in the first place. It seems a bit of an extreme measure to try to coax young people into blowing off "Tropic Thunder" and "Pineapple Express" in favor of seeing a Woody Allen movie.
OK, let's recap: CNN couldn't be bothered to investigate the John Edwards sex-scandal rumors even though they turned out to be true, but they're devoting quality time to this tripe. You might expect this from Fox News, which throws lunacy like this out there in the hopes of it maybe having traction long after it has been roundly debunked (some folks still think Obama's a Muslim, after all; wouldn't that make him the Anti-Mohammad?), but you'd expect - what? discretion? common decency? - from CNN. What'll they cook up next about Obama for CNN to "debate?"
No idea what to make of this, a trailer for a movie, "An American Carol," which looks like a lame YouTube parody except that it has actual stars in it and is introduced by Bill O'Reilly. It's hard to tell if it's what it presents itself as being - a parody of the American Left - or if it's a meta-parody of the Red-State stereotype of the American Left, or if it's a meta-meta-parody of what the Blue States think the Red States think of the American Left, or ... well, you get the idea. What it isn't, by any measure, is funny.
*
Geez, what a depressing way to wrap up the week. How can we salvage this? Oh, wait, I know - remember yesterday, when I complained that Fox still hadn't sent out a screener of "Fringe?" Well, guess what landed on my doorstop today!
("Fringe's" Phillip Broyles: good guy or bad guy? Discuss. You don't have to have seen the show to form an opinion; those who have seen it can't say for sure.)
Along with a note from series creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci that begins, "We're so thrilled that you liked the pilot of FRINGE, which you more than likely downloaded illegally." Ooops: Busted.
No, wait - the letter begins: "Dear Attractive, Intelligent, Funny TV Journalist," ... So they've mixed me up with someone else.
I would've groused about not getting a "My Own Worst Enemy" screener yet, but I'm not sure how much I want one.
There's a scene in Sunday night's episode of "Mad Men" that made me gasp, and I pretty much never gasp at TV shows. But first, AMC's sanitized-for-your-protection synopsis of the episode.
"Peggy's family hosts lunch for a new priest in their church. Don and Betty enjoy a family weekend together. Freddy and Ken take a client out to lunch who stirs Roger Sterling's heart. Sterling Cooper staffers work double time to prepare for a last minute pitch meeting."
("I don't know, Don - I think I may actually look a little spiffier in this scene.")
Actually, there's something that's a little misleading in that synopsis - it's not the client who stirs Roger's (John Slattery) heart (also, it's not exactly his heart). And "enjoy" may be too strong a word for Don (Jon Hamm) and Betty's (January Jones) weekend - their son begins exhibiting behavior that would be diagnosed as ADD these days, which cuts into their enjoyment.
But the main stories are Sterling Cooper's heroic efforts to land that American Airlines account that was first introduced two weeks ago and Peggy's (Elisabeth Moss) burgeoning relationship with that young priest (Colin Hanks), which promises to be a little on the tricky side, thanks to Peggy's busybody sister.
Still, the question: How do you sell America on an airline that has just suffered the worst (at that point) air disaster in history? For all the build-up - Don has another one of his visionary moments - the denouement is actually something of a cheat, but in an unexpected, clever kind of way that tweaks viewers. Perhaps they're cooking up an extra for the next DVD set.
But that comic disappointment leads to a moment in which a character's action is so shocking and seemingly out of character (though this dark turn was recently hinted at) that it inspired that aforementioned gasp.
It's hard to believe, but season two of "Mad Men" is at least as good as its inspired first year, and it may be shaping up to be even better. Certainly, as we've come to know the characters, creator Matthew Weiner has taken the opportunity to give us richer, deeper looks at their interior lives. It's rare to become so involved in TV characters that when they let us down, we don't just accept it as an inspired narrative turn, we practically feel betrayed - and itch to see just what'll happen next.
And, herewith, a new "Mad Men" feature:
Roger's Alcoholic-Themed One-Liner of the Week: Roger's daughter tells him that her fiancé "has other interests besides drinking."
Roger: "That'll change."
- "Mad Men:" 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.
Variety gets wise to something we've been grousing about here, on and off: The networks have been profoundly remiss at getting screeners to critics, even though they're premiering some of their new shows earlier than usual.
As we've noted, traditionally, critics receive screeners of fall programming in late May or June. This helps us digest the material in a thoughtful fashion (well, sort of) and get a sense of the upcoming TV season so that we can prepare handsome Fall-TV packages for our readers. It also prepares us for July's TV Press Tour so we'll have all sorts of penetrating questions for the show's creators such as, "Do you have any favorite recipes?"
This year, no such luck. Fox's "Fringe" debuts in less than a month, and only critics staying at the hotel got a sneak peak at the show (unless you could find a bootleg version online). At this point, one has to imagine that there exist at least rough cuts of several episodes of "Fringe," and the networks have always seen fit to send out rough cuts when it serves their purposes, so the silence is fairly chilling. (By contrast, HBO has sent out five episodes of "True Blood," which debuts a couple of days before "Fringe.") NBC, ABC and The CW still haven't sent out anything on its new shows; only CBS ponied up before Press Tour this year.
("Fringe" is supposed to be pretty good. Will anyone ever find out?)
Oh, and just an aside to point out that if this is broadcast TV's brave new world, moving Press Tour into August will be essentially pointless, as Press Tour would be wrapping up right about now and there's still been nothing to watch.
Variety notes, "(T)hat lack of info may wind up having an effect on viewers, who may not read as much about new shows leading up to their premieres -- and as a result may not be as enthused about and eager to tune into this fall's new wares." Which is hardly the position the broadcast networks want to be in post-writers-strike, when they lost a sizable chunk of viewers to cable and need to make some serious noise to lure them back.
(The writers strike is still being blamed for network tardiness, which at this point is b.s.: For example, "Mad Men" began work a week or so before the writers strike ended thanks to a waiver from the WGA and has been able to provide final cuts of four episodes. So the idea that, say, NBC still has nothing from "My Own Worst Enemy" says more about that show than about the writers strike.)
Speaking of NBC, they've touted their brave new initiative of scrapping pilots in favor of multi-episode pickups based solely on scripts, and how has that worked out for them? Variety has the answer:
"That's led to plenty of rumor and speculation in recent weeks that the Peacock and/or its execs are in trouble. Net's made showrunner changes on new skeins like 'My Own Worst Enemy' and 'Philanthropist,' and with no pilots shot for shows like 'Kath & Kim,' NBC has been making significant creative changes on the fly."
(NBC is Its Own Worst Enemy.)
Which, you know, is the whole point of shooting pilots in the first place - to work out the bugs. NBC's new method could prove to be even more costly, because now they've committed to multiple episodes of shows that, once production commences, may prove to be unworkable and could've otherwise been strangled in the crib after the pilot.
ABC, too, has been tinkering and fretting over its one new scripted fall series, "Life on Mars," for literally a couple of years now, and even if it eventually falls together handsomely, no critic will ever really be able to appreciate that fact, because the network has opted out of the screener business. Instead, it'll offer an online glimpse of the show at a super-secret website that offers far grainier, crummier images than most online screening experiences. Offering up an ambitious show like "Life on Mars" in a viewing experience akin to an old YouTube video is, just guessing, not the optimum way to sell it to critics.
Ah, well, I suppose critics can take some solace in the fact that as much as all of this is a hassle for them and their readers, it's an absolute nightmare for the networks, who have no idea how to market these new shows that they've scarcely seen: Sounds like they'll be taking what used to be called wet negatives of episodes and putting them directly on the air.
E!, that purveyor of crap reality programming and lurid celebrity coverage (which then attempts to redeem itself by allowing Joel McHale and "The Soup" to make fun of it all), has announced its latest contribution to Western Civilization, "Celebrity Crises: 10 Most Shocking Mental Disorders," which airs Aug. 22. "Hour-long Special Takes a Look at the Mental Struggles of the Hollywood Glitterati," the press release's sub-head exults.
Except, well, none of it's all that shocking, not even close. They promise to examine one actress's self-mutilation, but the rest is ho-hum, hardly exotic and nothing particular to Hollywood: Eating disorders, depression, etc. Surely they could find more interesting neuroses. After all, this is Hollywood we're talking about.
Hey, E! Did you ever think your garish celebrity coverage might be contributing to that depression in Hollywood?
BBC America's melodrama/meta-provocation "Skins" would be the result if Larry Clark's grungy, icky, utterly depressing film "Kids" and The CW's glossy, silly, utterly vacuous show "Gossip Girl" ever met at a party, got wasted, rufie'd one another up, mated like ferrets and had a kid. (And you know that that's the sort of thing that both "Kids" and "Gossip Girl" would totally do, so maybe that's how this series actually came into being!) All three concern amoral, substance-abusing, hyper-sexualized teenagers; all that's different are their tones and sensibilities.
(Kids these days.)
"Skins" is a lot like "Gossip Girl," but it's way more lurid and occasionally seems to get the joke about how trashy it is. Here's how lurid/trashy: You likely won't see the very first shot of the series, at least not the way I saw it, nor several of the ensuing early shots, either (nudity's no biggie on British television). And, one of the characters -- the girlfriend (April Pearson) of the sleazy lead character, Tony (Nicholas Hoult) -- is nicknamed "Nips," and yes, for essentially the reason you're imagining. And, there's a close-up shot of Nips grabbing Tony's crotch (to be fair, he's wearing pants, so they're showing a little restraint here). And, another teenaged character is introduced in bed with his girlfriend. And, a throwaway gag involves a license plate that reads MD TW4T (think about it...). And, the first episode's plotline concerns Tony's efforts to get his nerdy pal Sid (Mike Bailey) laid before his 17th birthday.
Sid's ostensible conquest, once they get her good and stoned? The urgently self-destructive Cassie (Hannah Murray, in a performance that's almost too good for this show, simultaneously wry and poignant). (Sid has to visit, of all places, a brothel to score the pot; there's much groaning and ecstatic crying in the background.)
Sunday's first episode culminates at a parent-free teen party that gets way out of hand; Sunday's second episode begins at a completely different parent-free teen party that got way out of hand; when the parents do return, kids come pouring out of the house, escaping in various levels of disrobe. Say what you will about teenagers (and TV characters in general), but, in their defense, they never, ever learn a damn thing.
Here are some other things you might want to know about "Skins:" Women of all ages are hot for Tony, apparently because he's such a pr!ck (maybe I should give this a try - the nice-guy thing's gotten me nowhere, so I have nothing to lose); adult female characters in general seem to relish being ogled while they're nekkid by male teens in this world. Characters' parents are absentee, self-absorbed or otherwise hopelessly dysfunctional, which, the subtext suggests, has created this toxic miasma of adolescent hormonal rage. The villain of the first three episodes is a guy sporting an utterly ridiculous handlebar mustache. The show's one decent kid is the recipient, in next week's episode, of the worst abuse. And BBC America will warn you that "Skins" is "Intended for a mature audience." When, in fact, genuine maturity is an actual impediment to enjoying the show.
(This ad art for "Skins" - depicting a teenage orgy - provoked controversy and was eventually banned in England. Puritans.)
"Skins" is a show that virtually relies upon people being offended by it; otherwise, how else will everyone else know that they should be watching it? It's way over-the-top, and usually the least funny when it's actually trying to be funny, but overall those who aren't appalled by it will find it a guilty pleasure. Emphasis, of course, more on "guilty" than "pleasure."
- "Skins:" 9 and 10 p.m. Sunday, BBC America; thereafter, 10 p.m. Sundays.
Outcry over the introduction of Al Jazeera English was so pronounced when the English-language cable-news network was introduced that, well, good luck finding it anywhere. Because, you know, they were going to be tin-eared when it came to the audience they were seeking and go and run "Death to America" messages 24/7, and someone watching would take it upon himself to obey, or something.
But that didn't prevent the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences from nominating it for two international news Emmys today. Al Jazeera was cited in the international news and public affairs reporting categories, for stories on the Myanmar uprising and subsequent military crackdown and radical Islamists in Pakistan's Red Mosque.
That's as many nominations as "The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" and MSNBC each received when the domestic news and documentary nods were announced last month. And that's two more than all of the Fox News Channel received (though, to be fair: Fox, perhaps sensing the writing on the wall, traditionally does not submit entries for the competition; saves on all the "For Your Consideration" ads in the trades, one supposes).
Which of these is not a passage from Conde Nast Portfolio's fawning, the jury's-still-out-despite-years-of-disappointment profile of NBC-Universal CEO Jeff Zucker?
A) Zucker does not dwell on the past. Looking at the mountains of burned videotape behind them, Zucker, whose NBC network still largely depends on the kinds of prime-time shows that went up in smoke here, says, "It's tragic."
(Jeff Zucker surveys what is left of NBC after years of declining ratings.)
B) Lately, NBC's prime-time operation has been underperforming even in the underperforming broadcast-TV sector: It was dead last among the top four networks when Zucker took over in 2007, and a year and a half into the Zucker era, it's still dead last in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic. Zucker and his staff are quick to point out that the network has remained profitable despite the ratings disappointments.
C) Zucker's height is much commented on: He is about five foot five. Yet that relative diminutiveness has perhaps made him more likable. Ever since he ran for North Miami High School student-body president with the campaign slogan, "The little man with big ideas," he has known that to be noticed, to thrive, he has to be more winning, more persuasive, more determined than his average-size peers.
D) Zucker's colleagues, competitors, and family all marvel at his competitiveness. "If you pick up a ping-pong paddle in our house, he will play you until he wins, even on a weekend," Caryn (Zucker's wife) says. "He won't stop until he wins. ... (H)e sent me flowers, kept telling me to get rid of the boyfriend, and he pursued me like a maniac. When he wants something, that's it: one track. But it wasn't done in a creepy, stalker way.""
E) Zucker points out that for every 80 pilots made, only eight become shows and just one of those becomes a hit. That ratio, he explains, works only if your hits generate enough money to pay for all those misses. But in today's fragmented media landscape, that math has broken down, leaving the networks scrambling to monetize their content in new ways, via the Web, DVDs, and digital downloads. Therefore, Zucker's most audacious and controversial move was to dramatically slash the number of pilots NBC will produce each season, to about five. "This way, we guarantee than virtually no pilot will become a series, or a hit, because series eat up valuable tracts of primetime real estate and hits are incredibly expensive to produce," Zucker explains. "We cannot operate with the cost structure that has been in place for the past 35 years. We are going to crumble beneath the weight of that."
F) (H)e staged ... a kind of NBC theme park sprawled across Rockefeller Center, replete with every conceivable size and shape of flat-panel monitor. The evening's gospel was distilled on a pyramid chart that showed how NBC's hit 'Heroes' is available as mobile content, video on demand, streaming video, and a digital download, as well as on cable and, of course, the old television network. At the event, everywhere you looked, you'd see a famous face--Maria Bartiromo, Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Meredith Vieira, Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, Deion Sanders, and at least a dozen more, all of whom have shows on NBC channels. Striding through the middle of it all--and easy to track because of the camera and lighting crews that followed him everywhere--was Zucker, the maestro of the event. What made him especially conspicuous was that he was the only person trailed by a vast entourage who wasn't handsome, pretty, or particularly famous.
Answer, and the actual quote, after the jump.
Continue reading Jeff Zucker will kill TV in order to save it.
Generally speaking, if a cable network launches a new show in the middle of TV Press Tour, that's an open invitation to TV critics: "We know you're busy. Feel free to give this one a pass in reviewing. But be sure to jot out a breezy item on the show's Press Tour session, and we'll consider your job done."
And so it was with "Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust," TLC's impressively addled reality series - I duly ignored it, and my life seemed none the emptier for it. Until Jan, a reader, recently sent me an Email with the subject header "Ashley Paige: Twit."
(If only she would keep mute on the show.)
Paige is a high-end fashion designer who charges hundreds of dollars for her swimwear and has her own boutique in Hollywood, and yet, as this show would have us believe, is perpetually on the brink of financial ruin. To think - if she'd only hire a business manager, this show would have no reason to exist. But it's clear that it's never occurred to her that intelligent people exist: Whenever one of her dogs strolls into an area populated by Ashley and her friends/employees, the average IQ of the room escalates exponentially.
As Jan wrote, watching Ms. Paige flounder is "almost as strangely entertaining as watching Paula Adbul self-destruct. ... She is clueless, started out dumb and just gets dumber. Rather than a facelift, how about just combing her hair and eliminating the cutesy dog-ear ponytails! Yeech... As for her having a child, her mom doesn't need a baby; she already has one - Ashley, 38 and going on 8. ... You owe it to yourself to watch at least one or two (episodes) just for... well, I can't go as far as to say 'laughs' ... It's so pathetic...."
Thus encouraged, I dug out the screener TLC sent a while back and watched, and was not disappointed. Paige suffers from a monumental case of ADD, more easily distracted than a child surrounded by shiny objects. The show somewhat implausibly posits that she has but two weeks to throw together a line for a show during L.A.'s Fashion Week, but she's eternally sidetracked - there are Tarot cards to be selected, money candles to be ignited, séances to conduct to prevent her employees from getting their work done, friends to squeal at when she should be hiring runway models. As one of her charges diplomatically puts it, "Anything that can go wrong usually goes wrong."
The show's loglines read like plot synopses for bad sitcoms: "Ashley debates getting a facelift for her 38th Birthday; Leah wants to be a grandmother someday, so she urges Ashley to consult an egg fertilization clinic instead. Can Ashley even afford these procedures? And if so, which one will she choose?" And, indeed, the show plays out like a situation comedy (much of the "reality" seems clearly manipulated), with hapless Ashley stumbling through another set of misadventures. And I don't think the crying jags of neurotic female characters have been played for laughs since Mary Tyler Moore on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or Lucille Ball on "I Love Lucy," so the show's sensibility is almost as retro as some of her clothing designs.
Other episodes play out sitcom-like, as well, only her mom Leah is the clueless one: She tries to feed anorexic models muffins. Even though her only talents seem to be baking said muffins and breathing oxygen, she applies at a temp agency that fills jobs for construction sites. When Ashley laments that she doesn't have a boyfriend, Leah trolls hardware stores and heads to the dog park to find a beau for her daughter (meanwhile, Ashley has her staff fill out her profile at an online dating site).
"I'm going to look like a total idiot in front of the entire fashion world," Ashley laments at one point. Instead, she does one better - she looks like a total idiot in front of the entire basic-cable world.
- "Ashley Paige: Bikini or Bust," 10 and 10:30 p.m. Fridays, TLC.
Turns out it's not just me that Kathy Lee Gifford imbues with existential dread with a side order of militarized-stomach-virus-level nausea. Turns out it's, oh, a good chunk of the human race.
Since Kathy Lee joined the "Today" show's fourth (and mercifully final) hour in April, its viewership has dropped from 1.9 million to 1.7 million, which is 30 million less than what NBC has been averaging for its prime-time Olympic coverage so far (OK, not a great comparison). But those who have remained are die-hard Kathy Lee fans:
"Every time that fourth hour comes on, I can literally feel my body temperature rising," one "fan" told the New York Times. "I'm getting angry just talking about it." Oh, wait.
Jim Bell, executive producer of "Today," leaps to Kathy Lee's defense: "If you look in the 'Today' show viewer e-mail box, it's a miracle anyone watches the show. People who take the time to post comments on blogs are overwhelmingly negative." Oops, that's not exactly defending her, is it? Oh, well.
And this antipathy toward Gifford is snowballing: The Times cites an anti-Kathy-Lee Facebook page with four members!
Here's an amusing clip mentioned in the Times piece in which Sam the Cooking Guy tells Kathy Lee to shut the f#%& up. She does - for about four seconds.
Can we put that guy on a coin or a stamp or something?
We discussed the John Edwards Affair Scandal a couple of days before Edwards 'fessed up, allowing the mainstream media to finally report on it. And now, of course, come the repercussions - the earnest, defensive, chest-puffing navel-gazing on why they couldn't discuss it before that point.
"A number of news organizations with resources far greater than The Enquirer's, like The New York Times, say they looked into the Edwards matter and found nothing solid enough to report, while others did not look at all.
"Some of their comments point to a lack of interest in a story about the private conduct of an also-ran presidential candidate, and a distaste for following the lead of a publication they hold in low esteem."
"The story of Edwards's affair with a former campaign aide became so widely known -- what a Slate blogger called "undernews" -- that by last week there seemed little point in the mainstream media gatekeepers' keeping it isolated outside their moat. And yet, even as some national news organizations tried halfheartedly to confirm the tawdry tale, they ignored it in public -- wary of the National Enquirer, of Edwards's dismissal of "tabloid trash," of wading once again into the swamp of sexual scandal without definitive proof.
"By early last week, journalists were in the awkward position of refusing to report on explosive allegations that were almost certain to knock the former North Carolina senator out of the Democratic convention. They were in a box of their own making, one that came to feel airtight and uncomfortable.
"When critics, especially on the right, accused the media of protecting a Democrat because of liberal bias, journalists were unable to respond, because to do so would be to acknowledge the very thing they were declining to report. At the same time, in an area of financial cutbacks and shrinking staffs, news organizations have fewer reporters to dig into what most considered a less-than-pressing priority. ...
"The fact that big newspapers, magazines and networks have standards -- that is, they refuse to print every stray rumor just because it's "out there" -- is one of their strengths. But in the latter stages of this case, it made them look clueless. Perhaps there is a middle ground where media outlets can report on a burgeoning controversy without vouching for the underlying allegations, being candid with readers and viewers about what they know and don't know.
"In the end, the much-derided MSM were superfluous, their monopoly a faded memory. People have hundreds of ways to obtain information in today's instantaneous media culture, and are capable of reaching their own conclusions about what is reliable and what is not."
"The following day I spoke with Alexander Hitchen, another Enquirer reporter who was at the Hilton, and expected to turn around a media-related story. But it could be argued that a media story -- without a corresponding news story -- is sort of a weasel way around the unpleasant fact that you can't actually confirm the rumors yourself."
"I wasn't eager to take on the story because, frankly, I didn't find it all that remarkable or noteworthy. Sure, Edwards isn't exactly some anonymous private citizen. In fact, he is a prominent Democrat who might well have -- until the scandal broke -- wound up in the Cabinet if Obama were elected president. He's also someone who has said that voters should evaluate candidates' personal character in deciding what kind of leaders they would make.
"But nor is Edwards the front-page fodder he was back when the fight for the Democratic nomination was in full swing and he had a faint chance of winning. The fact that Edwards lied repeatedly to reporters and his campaign paid Hunter thousands of dollars made the story a bit more appealing. Yet it wasn't appealing enough to compete with all the other things there are to write about in the world -- including the shaky economy, the Iraq war, Iran's nuclear buildup, Russia's invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia and the Beijing Olympics."
Well, sure. But don't news outlets have bunches of reporters, so that some can cover wars, some can cover economic woes and some can cover former Presidential candidates' high jinks?
Of course, they all blew the weapons-of-mass-destruction thing, too, so by comparison this is no biggie.
Not since NASA staged the moonlanding in a remote New Mexico hangar have we seen such fakery: That big footprint effect during the cast-of-thousands opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the result of computer graphics rather than part of the elaborate fireworks display:
"Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. ... 'Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,' he said. 'But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished.'"
(This, apparently, didn't really happen.)
NBC announcers hipped their viewers to the fact, but millions of other viewers around the world were left with the impression that what they were witnessing was actually erupting in the skies over Beijing. Good thing they tricked up that bit, because otherwise, you know, that extravaganza might've felt a little flat.
(A scene from the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony, or, maybe, just a random shot of a whole bunch of explosions. It's kind of hard to tell.)
Sgt. Rudy Reyes, formerly of First Recon Battalion, the most elite unit of the Marines whose exploits have been essayed in the acclaimed HBO miniseries "Generation Kill," has many harrowing combat stories of his time in Iraq at the beginning of the war. But this one will have to suffice: the battle at Al Gharraf, which, despite its ferocity, yielded mercifully few American casualties.
"Oh my god, I felt the bullets going by me, my man!" says Reyes, a San Diego resident who served as a driver on First Recon's mission to push into Iraq ahead of all other units, with an incredulous laugh. (He's also the lone Marine to play himself in the miniseries.)
(Rudy, on the left, with his friend Eric Kocher, who also served in First Recon and was an advisor on "Generation Kill.")
"I thought I was going to be one of the casualties! I wasn't just scared; it was a different kind of fear. All of our vehicles were (susceptible to gunfire) except the lead vehicle. I was hunkered down" - he demonstrates by crouching and miming driving - "and all I could see was the space between the dashboard and the top of the steering wheel, and that's what I was looking at and bullets are going everywhere and my buddy is shooting right over my shoulder so one ear is gone because he was shooting so loud and the heavy gun up top is going. I'm like, 'Am I gonna make it?'"
A fellow Marine wasn't so lucky, taking a bullet to the leg, and Reyes was charged with driving him back to a triage center.
"It's the black of night, with laser beams flying in and out of us; three of my tires are blown out - my Humvee is bum-bump-bum-bump-bum-bump!" Reyes recalls during an interview over lunch.
His description is almost affectionate as he recalls his wounded colleague's mocking him during their evacuation: "He's like, 'Man, Rudy, you drive like s--t! You can't even stay on the road!' He's got his foot on the mirror, a tourniquet on his leg, he's still shooting; I'm thinking, 'Damn, I've got the best team in the world.'"
When the sun eventually rose, Reyes noticed a bullet hole in his windshield square in the driver's eyeline. Good thing he was crouching.
Reyes tells the story with awe and reverence and wit, the same qualities with which viewers have found "Generation Kill" itself imbued. Reyes is perhaps the most unique member of First Recon, a practicing Buddhist and top martial-arts fighter. He hardly comes off as a tough guy - while telling his stories, he touches my arm frequently and repeatedly calls me "brother."
In fact, Reyes is so unique that those working on "Generation Kill," from cast members to director Susanna White to Evan Wright, who wrote the book upon which the series is based and also contributed to the scripts, all insist no one else could have played him.
White, who affectionately calls Reyes "a sushi-eating Buddhist marine," recalls, "He was extraordinary. I said, 'I think Rudy should play himself.' It was very risky, but we would bring actors in and it became apparent no one could play Rudy other than Rudy. He is a unique creature."
Staff Sergeant Eric Kocher, who served with Reyes in First Recon and served as military advisor on "Generation Kill," adds, "I've been with him since the dawn of time; I was in Afghanistan with him, and he truly is one of a kind. You'll never find another Marine like him. ... Rudy won't fit in anywhere else but in the Recon community he fit in perfectly.
"In 10 years, he's never had bad day - he brings so much positive energy," Kocher continues. "He was training us in stretching exercises, stuff we wouldn't do if he wasn't there. He's a positive influence."
Stark Sands, who stars as Lt. Fick, recalls Reyes working out between takes, digging a boulder out of the ground and bench-pressing it. "He's uncastable," Sands says. "He has the physical form of a Greek statue. He almost always had perfectly coifed hair. He had product on his face. It's not what you'd expect from a cold-blooded killer. Nobody could do it like him. He's like a superhero."
Yes - in addition to his achieving a perfect balance between mind and body and his assignment, Reyes is also unmistakably Adonis-like. In both the book and the miniseries, a Marine insists, "It doesn't mean you're gay if you think Rudy's hot. We all think he's hot."
And yet, like many who served in Iraq, Reyes has come to question everything from the war plan to the way the Bush Administration has let the American people off the hook, to sort of conveniently overlook the fact that soldiers continue to put their lives on the line in the Middle East.
Even though he emerged from combat physically unscathed, Reyes says, "All of my gunshots are in my soul, not in my body. You still get injured, and you're still taking fire. Your naïveté is killed, and you see a part of a large piece of something - your guys, your enemy, the people caught in between - and that takes a toll on you.
"Very few people in this room would kill another person," he continues, referring to the other restaurant patrons. "To be trained and conditioned very hard to overcome the aversion to murder - it comes at a price. The good news is, because we know how to kill, we survive the battlefield. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is, it takes a toll on you." Reyes experienced that toll when his marriage dissolved when he returned home.
Reyes agrees with his former colleague Lt. Nathaniel Fick, who wrote a book criticizing the Pentagon's strategy, arguing that there weren't enough soldiers in Iraq to deal with the inevitable insurgency.
"That's true - we were put on the sideline after we had done what we were supposed to do from a marketing level, and it became our undoing," Reyes says. "And we're still paying for it now, and we'll probably be paying for it for another 10 years."
Reyes believes Americans should be able to see photos of the flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq with our soldiers.
"It will help us understand and embrace and maybe love those young men and young women even more and also be more involved with their government," he says. "If they saw these young men and women coming home (in flag-draped coffins), maybe they'd be mobilized and motivated about getting to the bottom of what we're doing over there. ... There's a giant elephant secret war in the room that nobody wants to speak about."
Instead, he senses a lot of civilian apathy. "And a lot of it comes from leadership from the top," he declares. "I'd love to talk to George Bush, and I have a feeling that he's not a bad guy, he just didn't listen to the right people around him and it got out of control. I'll bet you George Bush himself feels powerless. I'll bet you he doesn't want to look at the war, either. And his actions trickle down to the rest of the country - nobody wants to look at it. We rally behind some quasi-jingoistic anthems about patriotism and leave it at that.
"Marines don't feel connected to civilian Americans," Reyes adds. "We see ourselves as a breed apart, and that insulates us from their apathy." He pauses, considering his words, for a long time. His brother-in-arms Kocher may say that Reyes has never had a bad day, but clearly, this isn't a good moment.
"If we really thought about it, it would break our hearts, and I don't know that we would fight as well," Reyes concludes. "I don't know that we would survive."
*
This was the story I wrote for today's paper, which, given the Daily News' website, probably didn't run intact, if at all.
I first encountered Rudy at Coachella in April, and while we both enjoyed the music, I was fairly astounded both at his stories and how he exploded my preconceptions of military heroes (obviously, he changed lots of people's notions of Marines, as well). His soulfulness, thoughtfulness and insights underscored why he had been recruited as one of America's best of the best.
Here are a few items that didn't make its way into the story:
On how First Recon's mission differs from the usual regiment of military training:
"It is a dichotomy; it is left and right. In a way, we use that framework to our fullest. We learn to bend rules as much as possible, because on the outside, we must appear when necessary spit-and-polish. But on a mission, it's only you and four guys, no one else knows what it's like to spend four of five days with your eye almost burned out to the point of blindness behind a sniper scope. Mission reality is different from Marine Corps spit and polish."
On his last (secret) missions in Iraq: "This is typically what we would do - we were working some zones in Fallujah and Rimadi, which were hotbeds in 2004, the hottest areas. My platoon under cover of darkness would move in in Humvees to a checkpoint and conduct a checkpoint. My team would be spread low between each vehicle. Each of us would step out and then lay down in the reeds and the ditch and the vehicles would go away. We would have extra rockets, spike-strips, mines and the anti-materiel rifle. Control clandestine to a cut-off zone, so when the vehicles approaching the checkpoint slow down turn around and speed away instead of going to the checkpoint, we would interdict them with the spike strips and/or small arms and the rockets. This is a beautiful marriage of overt operations with covert operations. You can't beat it.
"We didn't wear helmets so our ears were more open. We were laden with assault gear, not body armor. We'd roll in civilian jalopies. We were doing all kinds of asymmetrical, bait-and-switch, counter-insurgency efforts up there."
On the fact that his unit went into situations expecting heavy fire from the enemy: "We didn't call it cannon fodder; we called it Recon by Fire."
On his squaring his Buddhist principals with First Recon's mission:
"We called our mentors Jedis, and in the 'Star Wars' culture, Jedis were space-born samurai who had ideals and honors and respects that exceeded the dynasties and day-to-day commerce. They had these ideals and code of honor. They were one with their light sabers. The nature of Recon work is attention to detail, and if you could boil down the practice of Buddhism to one word, it would be 'attention.' Attention to what you're holding onto, attention to what you must let go, attention to another human being's suffering and struggles. Attention's great, and Recon work is some ways is very very Buddhist - sniper work - everything is attention. Not good or bad, not positive or negative. But attention."
On Combat Dive, a facet of training (which costs Americans $1 million for each First Recon Marine, worth every penny given how assiduous their training is) in which trainees are taught how to be kept from being drowned, just as they're essentially being drowned):
"Combat Dive (is) the most difficult and arduous dive school of any of the special forces. ... It teaches you to be in an environment that's not conducive to human life, to be under an extreme amount of stress as (your instructors) attack you, choke you and then try to take your air away.
"You must hold on to your strap for as long as it takes - it may be up to a minute sub-surface of them attacking you and spinning you around and taking off your fins and weight belt and so on. And then they let go - you are only thinking pro-actively: What are my procedures to get my air back? And how do I do it in an environment with other Marines so that it's safe (for them)? So we don't just get our air back - first we look left, then we look right; this is after a minute of guys beating you up and choking you and smashing your head into the deck of the pool. Left, right, up, down - why?
"Because you're going to pull your air tanks over you - what if there's one of your dive buddies up there and you smash him in the face? Secure your air source, fix your problem, untie the knot (in the air hose), and if you keep your head together systematically, you can get back in the mission.
"It teaches mental fortitude and toughness and also mental checklist: You'll be all right, your buddy will be all right and your mission will be all right. ... When you go to combat dive, you're so confident that the course has set you up for success. The first time, I didn't last five seconds before I was (wildly gesticulates) and the instructor smashes a regulator in your mouth so you can breathe. I was so scared; it's so otherworldly, them taking all your stuff and you're panicking and you're burning up all that air you have in you. That night, I seriously wondered if I had what it takes. But I showed up the next day, as always. Shame is a motivator."
On how First Recon's mission differs from the usual regiment of military training:
"It is a dichotomy; it is left and right. In a way, we use that framework to our fullest. We learn to bend rules as much as possible, because on the outside, we must appear when necessary spit-and-polish. But on a mission, it's only you and four guys, no one else knows what it's like to spend four of five days with your eye almost burned out to the point of blindness behind a sniper scope. Mission reality is different from Marine Corps spit and polish."
On his last (secret) missions in Iraq: "This is typically what we would do - we were working some zones in Fallujah and Rimadi, which were hotbeds in 2004, the hottest areas. My platoon under cover of darkness would move in in Humvees to a checkpoint and conduct a checkpoint. My team would be spread low between each vehicle. Each of us would step out and then lay down in the reeds and the ditch and the vehicles would go away. We would have extra rockets, spike-strips, mines and the anti-materiel rifle. Control clandestine to a cut-off zone, so when the vehicles approaching the checkpoint slow down turn around and speed away instead of going to the checkpoint, we would interdict them with the spike strips and/or small arms and the rockets. This is a beautiful marriage of overt operations with covert operations. You can't beat it.
"We didn't wear helmets so our ears were more open. We were laden with assault gear, not body armor. We'd roll in civilian jalopies. We were doing all kinds of asymmetrical, bait-and-switch, counter-insurgency efforts up there."
On the fact that his unit went into situations expecting heavy fire from the enemy: "We didn't call it cannon fodder; we called it Recon by Fire."
On his squaring his Buddhist principals with First Recon's mission:
"We called our mentors Jedis, and in the 'Star Wars' culture, Jedis were space-born samurai who had ideals and honors and respects that exceeded the dynasties and day-to-day commerce. They had these ideals and code of honor. They were one with their light sabers. The nature of Recon work is attention to detail, and if you could boil down the practice of Buddhism to one word, it would be 'attention.' Attention to what you're holding onto, attention to what you must let go, attention to another human being's suffering and struggles. Attention's great, and Recon work is some ways is very very Buddhist - sniper work - everything is attention. Not good or bad, not positive or negative. But attention."
On his father, who fought in Vietnam:
"My father was a Vietnam veteran, a Marine, and he fought for two tours, and he never came back right. I didn't know him ever. I never saw him, and I've only now gotten to know his family. He died when I was in Afghanistan.
"On my search for myself when I came back from my last tour, because I was having such problems mentally and emotionally, I looked for him. I got to know my aunts and uncles. After Vietnam, he was never the same guy - he was sick all the time, he had some problems with Agent Orange. He was on psychological medication and died very young, at 51. He never told anyone about me, that he had a son. He always seemed sad, and was told he'd be prone to emotion. It's funny, it's a lot of the same things I still go through. Amazing - that was 30 years ago, and here I am, going through the same thing. But no - I'm experiencing the same things, but I'm changing my behavior and I'm looking to make a difference.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this, but what I mean is, not a lot has changed over the last couple of decades, the last couple of hundred years, the last couple of thousand years, in terms of what happens when people go away to fight and come home. We have this incredible ability for technology and communication now, yet Marines, soldiers, airmen, sailors are still struggling just as they were a millennium ago."
- "Generation Kill:" 9 tonight (and repeated a whole lot), HBO.
Bernie Mac was a profanely funny comic who somehow managed the impossible - fusing his brash, not-for-the-kids persona onto a family-friendly sitcom that was also hilarious, a deft mixture of dark, cynical wit, a little aggression and heart that didn't feel icky or manufactured. Mac died today in his hometown of Chicago from complications with the pneumonia that had recently hospitalized him.
Mac recently made news for uncorking his routine at a rally for Barack Obama. Some thought it was inappropriate given the venue, and even Obama told him to "clean up your act," before adding, "I'm just messing with you, man."
Here's a sequence from the pilot of "The Bernie Mac Show," in which Bernie and his wife somewhat reluctantly take in his nieces and nephew when his sister enters rehab:
Mac's segments in which he chatted directly to the camera (and referred to his viewers sweepingly, as "America") were a frequent highlight of the show; that's when he dropped the bluster and came off as empathetically confounded as the next guy. The show won a Peabody Award, the most prestigious prize a TV series can win.
This clip features Don Cheadle in a funny turn as a brazen opportunist interrupting Bernie's efforts to pay respect at the funeral of a relative, and Bernie's touching reflections after the wake. It also contains Bernie delivering a now-sad throwaway line, "I'm going to outlive you all."
I recently picked up "Big Blue Ball," a Peter Gabriel side-project recording on which Sinead O'Connor specifically ordered me to "Stop war; stop terror." Also, I received an Email asking me to "Stop the genocide in Darfur" and "Stop Global Warming."
So, with all that, my plate's pretty full right now. I'll post more later.
Thankfully, my fear that AMC would become more protective of "Mad Men" episodes has been proven unfounded. The bad news is that, having seen the next two episodes of the show, I've been reduced to the status of a lab rat punching its nose against a button in order to receive a pellet. Having seen these episodes, how can I possibly survive for another two weeks without a "Mad Men" fix? It's the DT's for me.
Sunday, and we'll start once again with AMC's generic description of the episode: "Trouble arises on the set of a commercial while Don plays hooky from the office. Meanwhile, Harry, determined to make improvements in his career, tries to gather support around a controversial sponsorship. Betty joins Don when he attempts to appease his clients with a friendly dinner."
Sunday's episode begins with a comic circa 1962 (patterned after Don Rickles? Jerry Lewis?) shooting a commercial; when the owner of the company the comic's plugging shows up with his, shall we say, rather portly wife, the comic starts in with the fat jokes. Naturally, this threatens to become a disaster for our friends at Sterling Cooper, who wonder why Don (Jon Hamm) wasn't around to tamp down the blow-up. (If you haven't noticed, Don's been going AWOL a lot lately, in an apparent effort to figure something out about himself; he angrily and euphemistically tells his secretary, "You do not 'cover' for me - you manage people's expectations.")
Meanwhile, a subplot involves a controversial episode of "The Defenders" involving abortion. ("Mad Men" has rather quietly become quite the history lesson: CBS did in fact air an abortion-themed episode of "The Defenders" in April 1962; likewise, that Jackie O White House tour really did air on Valentine's Day of that year and, per last week's episode, an American Airlines Flight 1 crashed on March 1; it was the deadliest air crash in history at the time. Here's hoping/guessing that AMC will offer the "Defenders" episode in question on its website the way it did the NBC special on the White House.)
And Betty (January Jones) is forced to try to convince someone who presses her that she's not sad, "it's just that my people are Nordic." And then she must accompany Don to the dinner in which he has to patch things up between the comic and his client: "Is this one where I talk or one where I don't?" she asks. Betty's growing a spine and a sense of humor while she seethes in her brittle bitterness.
The episode is particularly briskly written and, as usual, impeccably performed. And its exploration into Don's psyche is growing addictively unsettling: If something Don does in Sunday's show surprises you, wait 'til next week. I'm, frankly, worried for the guy. And for myself - I keep pressing this button in my cage, but no new "Mad Men" screeners are coming out.
BBC America has some brass to premiere a show during the Olympics, and not just any show but a splashy, big-budget series about dinosaurs and other critters from the past terrorizing our present.
"Primeval," which has been given the timeslot formerly occupied by "Torchwood," BBC America's all-time highest-rated show, feels a lot like that program - it's fast-paced, cheeky and features a lot of (too much?) inter-clique romantic intrigue. If it's not quite as tartly scripted or as urgently apocalyptic (after four episodes made available, at least; that looks like it will change) as "Torchwood" and settles for certain narrative conventions that "Torchwood" gleefully eschewed, it's still plenty of fun.
(That guy is one cool customer, to react with such reserve in such close proximity to such fearsomely savage CGI.)
Our old narrative pal, the temporal anomaly, is "Primeval's" jumping-off point. Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) is an evolutionary zoologist whose scientist wife disappeared eight years prior. He, his assistant Stephan Hart (James Murray) and a geeky fanboy though ostensibly high-IQ student named Connor (Andrew-Lee Potts) are summoned by Claudia Brown (Lucy Brown; no relation), a Home Office operative, to investigate reports of odd creatures wandering the same location where Cutter's wife disappeared. Reptile expert Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt) just happens to be wandering the woods in search of the same critters. Claudia would prefer Cutter summarily debunk the reports, but when they find a dead steer in a tree, that becomes a little problematic, and when they get chased around by a ravenous Gorgonopsid, it becomes impossible.
They locate a temporal anomaly and venture hundreds of millions of years into the past, where Cutter discovers his wife's camera next to a skeleton. (It's a man's, Cutter quickly asserts, but doesn't ever seem to consider the implications that it's not his wife.) "Everything we know about the universe is wrong," Cutter dramatically intones. "This is far from over."
Well, of course, it's far from over; we have a whole season of episodes to deal with. Turns out there are a scad of these temporal anomalies, and apparently prehistoric creatures are far better at discovering them and traveling through them than we clueless humans.
Next week, they must contend with an army of creepy, venomous bugs the size of bassinets and a killer centipede that could swallow five or six grown men whole (for arachnophobes, this episode is a queasy delight). Future episodes feature man-eating sea monsters and dodos that would be cute - if they weren't hosting some particularly nasty parasites.
(Because a blog can never have too many photos of women with guns, and because zoologists wielding firearms always calm my nerves when the world is imperiled, we include this photo.)
Some plot devices can be head-scratchers, and while dialogue is generally pithy, at times, it's also kind of hokey. Lines like "He may be a little unconventional in his methods, but he's the closest thing we have to an expert" and "I offer you the key to time, and you turn your back on it" are as clunky as they read. Claudia's boss is pretty much a cardboard wormy villain, though Ben Miller gives him a droll demeanor.
And the romantic complications threaten to become tiresome if they're not acted upon, and quick: Connor (he and his equally nerdy pals are the most annoying characters here) is sweet on Abby, who's hot for Stephen, who's otherwise spoken for, or maybe not. Claudia is drawn to Cutter, who still pines for his wife (Juliet Miller) even though she's left him in the lurch for eight years and may have some sinister scheme in mind.
The creature effects are pretty good by TV standards, which means they're still not terribly persuasive. Still, "Primeval" is nonstop fun, exciting and reasonably smart and agreeably silly all at once. Give BBC America a gold medal for having the guts to counter-program against the Olympics with such an invigorating action show that the broadcast networks would kill to have.
- "Primeval:" 9 p.m. Saturdays, BBC America.
Despite the outrage from fans of Tillman the skateboarding bulldog when he got chased off "Greatest American Dog" last week, the predicted viewer exodus did not occur. Up against the finale of "So You Think You Can Dance," "Greatest American Dog" had 5.9 million viewers, down just 100,000 (who were all probably watching Tillman videos on YouTube) from last week.
Speaking of Tillman, he was "interviewed" last year by a "pet psychic," and here's a little of what he had to say:
"I want to say that I love to skateboard. I dream of skateboarding all the time.
"I am very smart. Way smarter than what anyone thinks. I like it when I eat hamburgers. It makes me skate better."
And then there's this curious confession:
"I make people touch each other. When they see me they are filled with joy and love for one another. It's a great feeling."
So Tillman is something of an aphrodisiac. He's also quite the philosopher, as well, judging from this quote:
"(K)eep focusing on the future. ... Because when I see (people) looking into the past, I think it hurts them. I know from skateboarding that you always have to look forward smiling. If you look back you fall and if you look forward with fear you fall."
What is our world coming to when the media can't get excited about a political sex scandal? This John Edwards "Love Child" story has been bubbling just below the public consciousness for a couple of weeks now, and the news networks have been surprisingly mum on the subject. Even Fox News, which you'd think'd be all over this like a rabid bobcat on a baby bird, has been fairly circumspect on the subject, though they did do a little chat about why there wasn't much coverage, kind of like what we're doing here. L.A. Times bloggers received an edict to not write about it, and naturally, when that edict became public, it became a bigger deal than had the bloggers been allowed to bloviate in peace.
And now comes this, from the National Enquirer, which "broke" the story (which may be one of the main reasons everyone else has avoided it): A conveniently grainy photo of what appears to be the ghost of Bobby Kennedy holding a baby next to a photo of Edwards sinisterly drawing some window blinds. "The photos everyone's been waiting for," the Enquirer trumpets, even though one of the photos is just of an apparently empty hotel room and I doubt everyone's really been waiting for that.
The story erupted, sort of, at the Beverly Hilton, home of the summer TV Press Tour, the last day of Press Tour, when Edwards went to a hotel room that a woman who is not his wife had checked into. He left in the early hours of the morning, where he was badgered by an Enquirer operative, so he did what any right-thinking fella with something to hide would do and scurried into a men's room. Hotel security gave the Enquirer snoop the boot and then a few people heard about it.
So see, we've got some stuff to work with here, and yet everyone's been so quiet and respectful and responsible, which is not like TV news at all, which prefers to pick at scabs like John McCain's "Celebrity" commercial until they bleed. And CNN and MSNBC pretty much became The Larry Craig Network when the Idaho Senator suffered a bout of Restless Leg Syndrome in a Minneapolis airport Men's Room, and Florida Representative Mark Foley's Emails to Congressional pages took up great swatches of air time, but Edwards' travails can't buy a little forbidden love, and that guy just ran for President (and was scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention).
It's not like the news networks are too busy covering reporter Ron Suskind's allegations that the Bush Administration forged a document to justify war with Iraq (said coverage at this point amounting roughly to, "Suskind has two sources in the CIA on the record saying they did; the White House says it didn't. Back to you in the studio").
So what do you think? Is there a double standard, or is the media simply being responsible by waiting until there's some meat on the bones of these charges? Or, maybe, both?
Hey, what better way to observe NBC-Universal's Green Initiative than to customize a big ole 18-wheeler semi-truck "equipped with power and water, and includes a state-of-the-art kitchen with the capacity to accommodate 38 guests per seating" and drive it around America when gas has vaulted over $4/gallon? That's the thinking behind "Top Chef: The Tour," which is coming to L.A. on Friday.
Former contestants (or, per the press release, "chef'testants" - clever or no?) from the reality-competition show will do a series of little cooking demonstrations for you and yours. The private seatings are all already booked, but on Friday from 3:00-4:00p.m. at CityWalk, Richard Blais (from season four) and Brian Malarkey (season three) will do a public appearance. Maybe you'll get a little appetizer for free or something!
(They won't be cooking from this stove, we're pretty sure.)
Then it's off to Des Moines. According to their itinerary, it'll take a week for the 18-wheeler to galumph across half the country.
According to a new study from the Parents Television Council, if you're watching a really satisfying sexual tryst on the TeeVee (satisfying for the characters involved, that is, though how satisfying it is for you depends on how pathetic you are to get your jollies from watching TV), it likely involves a couple that's not married. And if the sex is lousy, then chances are the couple coupling are characters married to each other:
"PTC said the study, titled 'Happily Never After: How Hollywood Favors Adultery and Promiscuity Over Marital Intimacy on Prime Time Broadcast TV,' observed 207.5 hours of scripted prime-time series during four weeks from Sept. 23 to Oct. 22, 2007.
"That time frame covers a few early weeks of the overall TV season, when plotlines get set up and the action is likely to be more vivid, as networks try to hook viewers in for the long haul, especially brand-new shows that are looking to develop a weekly audience."
OK, so even the story itself is pointing out how the PTC skewed their results. Also, I'm guessing that there are far more single characters on TV than married characters, just because they have a wider range of dramatic options around them for writers to explore. So if you're going to have characters getting busy, it's going to be out of wedlock out of necessity. And the references to unsatisfying marital sex came, predictably enough, from lame suburban sitcoms such as "Carpoolers," so that kind of scraps the PTC's "Hollywood's promulgating the notion that married sex is bad" argument.
But then there's this: "References to incest, pedophilia, partner swapping, prostitution, threesomes, transsexuals/transvestites, bestiality and necrophilia combined outnumbered references to sex in marriage on NBC by a ratio of 27 to 1." And here, I've been dumping on NBC all this time.
Of course, there's little further elucidation on those "references," most of which were probably jokes of some sort and not actual depictions of said act in a positive light.
The report itself cites scenes from a surprisingly large number of cancelled shows, such as "Carpoolers," "Big Shots" (lots of "Big Shots" references) "Journeyman," "Bionic Woman," "Aliens in America" and, uh, "Cavemen" (most of them dialogue, not actual action). So why didn't the PTC turn the report on its head and suggest that viewers aren't all that interested in watching watered-down sexuality on TV rather than touting a fairly unprovable argument about TV's pernicious influence?
PTC President Tim Winter, in PTC's default hand-wringing mode, declared, "(M)any in Hollywood are actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently showing it in a negative manner. ... Behaviors that were once seen as fringe, immoral or socially destructive have been given the stamp of approval by the TV industry."
Well, he does say "once seen as fringe, immoral or socially destructive," so perhaps the onus is on the PTC to explain why their intolerance towards others is the sage way to go. And if they really wanted to ratchet up the sexual references, why did they only include scripted programming and ignore reality shows like "The Bachelor," where real people get cozy with one another, not just made-up characters? Perhaps PTC's real beef is with Hollywood's creative community and they've realized there's not much they can do about real-world mores.
It's astonishing how little (or subdued) play this story about the Bush Administration being very, very naughty has gotten, given that it comes from Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who used to work for the Wall Street Journal (not exactly a bastion of left-wing bomb-throwing) and is in fact citing people who spoke on the record. (The New York Times hadn't mentioned it, a day later, even though Suskind wrote that Sunday Times Magazine piece that created the chilling phrase "the reality-based community.")
It's as if everyone's too shocked to believe his reportage is true, even given everything else the White House has done. If Ron Suskind - who still has a reputation to protect, unlike some other lame ducks we could mention - is making this stuff up, he'll have a lot of hell to pay. But given his track record, doesn't he deserve benefit of the doubt? Over, you know, Dick Cheney? Riots in 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... -- oh, that's right, never. Because no one cares about dead soldiers or the Constitution these days.
While speaking to "House's" Jesse Spencer on an unrelated matter yesterday, a few details about his series' fifth season emerged. One is kind of spoiler-y, though if he's telling me this sort of thing, it can't be too much of a surprise.
If you recall, last season ended with House (Hugh Laurie) being at least indirectly responsible for the death of his confidante Wilson's (Robert Sean Leonard) girlfriend. Spencer reports that in season five, "Wilson leaves the hospital after a rift with House after he lost his girlfriend."
Of course, season three ended with Spencer's character, Chase, as well as Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Foreman (Omar Epps) leaving the hospital in their rear-view mirrors, as well, and that didn't seem to take for more than an episode or two.
"At the moment, they've still got me in surgery - I'm still messing around with blood and guts," Spencer says. "They're entering into a relationship between Chase and Cameron. But basically, we don't want to steer too far from the medical mysteries." No point in messing with success.
(To illustrate this blog entry, we're presenting Olympic mascots, past, present and future. Here's Izzy of the 1998 Atlanta Olympics...)
My screed last week on the Olympics appeared in the print edition of the paper today, and though no one posted comments here on the blog (shame!), the print edition elicited some responses. And no one disagreed with me (on the issue of the Olympics, at least, but we'll get to that momentarily).
(...Neve and Gliz, the 2006 Toronto Olympics...)
"Your cynical observations on the Olympics cracked us up this a.m.," wrote one fan. "Most of the (Olympic) sports never see black type on a sport's page anywhere. Who cares about watching swimmers swimming upside down while sticking their feet up into the air. Give me a break!"
(...Hidy and Howdy, the 1988 Calgary Olympics...
"You're not alone," another reader assured me. "I'm a former radio and television sports guy, and I don't care about the Olympics. ... I'm totally with you about what I believe your 'distraction' argument is as it pertains to more serious issues."
(...Powder, Copper and Coal, the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics...)
"I thought I was the only one that dreaded the onslaught of coming coverage," another reader commiserated. "These four year intrusions have become nothing more than 'Quien es mas macho?' Frankly, I plan to watch the 'Puppy Bowl.'"
Also, in the interest of attempting to maintain some semblance of job security, I want to point out this reader also generously wrote, "If you ever leave the Daily News, I shall immediately cancel my subscription! I have never read such insightful television critiques as those that you supply in your various columns."
(...Sumi, Quatchi and Miga, the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Olympics...)
They weren't all raves, however. One reader took issue with my swipe at home schooling: "Your snide crack about home schooling only shows your ignorance. ... I can assure you that home school students are much more geopolitically aware than the average public school student." But even he was a good enough sport to concede, "P.S. The irony is that I agree totally with your view of the Olympics."
(... and Jampa the Burning Monk, mascot of this year's China Olympics.)
Friend to this blog Spencer Green (he contributed this ingenious Fall-TV schedule last September), has taken on a project that only a genius or a madman would dare tackle: The Parallel Universe Film Guide, a Bizarro-World imdb.com-style site listing, at this point, along with cast lists, dialogue, factoids ("This was the first major American film to link A-bomb testing and high cholesterol") and critical reviews ("I was on the fence about racial bigotry but this movie convinced me that it is, indeed, bad"), 1,000 movies that don't really exist.
Except if you read closely, they do. Try, for example, 2007's "Slack-Jawed Yokels Feelin' Philosophical" (which follows the Rave Brothers' other movies, "Slack-Jawed Yokels in Minnesota," "Slack-Jawed Yokels on Parade" and "Slack-Jawed Yokels Picaresque"), and this famous exchange:
Filip Knoroz holds out his closed hands in front him.)
Knoroz: I've got a marble in one of these hands. Choose which one.
Toby: I don't want to.
Knoroz: Choose.
Toby: I don't want to.
Knoroz: Choose.
Toby: Why? Why do I have to choose?
Knoroz: Just play along.
Toby: Why? You're gonna kill me anyway.
Knoroz: True. But this way, it seems more cosmically important, huh? Randomness and fate, see what I'm getting at?
Toby: Fine, the left one.
(Knoroz opens his left hand. No marble. Knoroz opens his right hand. No marble.)
Knoroz: Or, maybe I just like to kill people.
(Knoriz kills Toby with a Patriot missile.)
That might remind you slightly of a recent Oscar-winning film, and its predecessors listed may remind you of the Coen Brothers canon. The Parallel Universe Film Guide is funny if you don't know your film history and utterly hilarious if you do, and an entertaining game to figure out what movies directors and actors Green is referencing. I particularly enjoyed the listing for the 2005 bewildering Oscar winner "Crash" (which I like to call "Los Angeles: City Without Tact"), which, of course, is not its title in the Parallel Universe. See if you can find it (in fact, first one that does and reports back in the comments section will win some TV Press Tour tchotchkes, or something.)
It's obsessive and a little confounding (I'd love to see the reaction from someone who just stumbles upon the site by accident) and it's not just hours of fun, it's days of fun.
In an Email, Green said simply, and cryptically, "Yeah, it took...a while."
Traditionally, July was the cruelest of months for TV critics, because that was when the horror of the Television Critics' Association's summer Press Tour occurred, three weeks of 10-hour days of untrammeled yammering from showrunners about the deep metaphysical underpinnings behind a show about a fat boor and his hot wife or from actors about their characters' "journeys."
"A significant reason for the move is that this year with so many shows having no pilot episode in the can because of the writers strike, there were several panels that were somewhat unproductive. Crix had a hard time discussing the show with cast and crew when they hadn't seen anything yet."
Hahaha, "several" panels were "somewhat" unproductive. Variety continues:
"In one particular exchange, 'Kings' star Ian McShane started ripping into a scribe who wasn't quite sure of where the show's story takes place."
Well, to be fair, critics weren't allowed to see the pilot before the press conference (and are still waiting, in fact). And Francis Lawrence and Erwin Stoff, producers of this David-and-Goliath update, didn't seem to be too sure of where the show's story took place, either, as you can see from the transcript:
("Off with the scribe's head!")
QUESTION: What world does this take place in? I mean are -- the flag is not -- it looks like the U.S. military, but the flag is not the U.S. flag. Are these literally kings?
FRANCIS LAWRENCE: Yeah, what we did was we created an alternate world so it's a world that feels very familiar. We shot it in New York, but we changed the landscape and we sort of built everything from the ground up. The country is run by a monarchy. Ian is the king. We changed -- you know, it's a country that's run by the metric system, so signs change. The military uniforms are slightly different. Obviously the flag is different. We've gotten sort of rid of almost all the signs of pop culture from the world. We started from the ground up and decided what are all the little details that you need to change in a world that makes it feel different yet still familiar so that it's relatable.
QUESTION: You know, we didn't get pilots to look at, and sometimes we can get an idea from looking at the clips. Not so much this time.
(snip)
QUESTION: You know, you say you're creating an alternate world and so obviously you can't have it filled with recognizable celebrities and pop culture from this world, but I just wonder are you going to deal with that at all in that world? I mean, are you going to have any sort of -- I mean, what do people do when they're not deciding what to do next as king or when they aren't involved in some action of import to the plot in the arc of the story? I mean, are they going to sit down and watch TV? Are they going to have books to read? It can be a very -- I mean, like "Star Wars" has no pop culture. I mean, there are no magazines on the tables in any of the apartments or whatever, but it's in the future so they can get away with it. But if you're going to be here, I just wonder --
ERWIN STOFF: If I might, a very sort of simple way to think of it is that the show takes place in a country that you haven't heard of, is that the show takes place absolutely today in a country which you haven't heard of. And any of the things available to us are available in the world that the show takes place in.
IAN McSHANE: I mean, there's no apocalyptic voice coming on, saying, "It's the year 2025. The world is in disarray. These people are" -- we don't wear an overall or some kind of strange one-piece.
QUESTION: So there's a United States, there's a China, there's a Russia. So it's this world. It's just not a country we know?
MICHAEL GREEN: Not necessarily, no.
FRANCIS LAWRENCE: It's a familiar world.
QUESTION: OK. Now you're not making any sense at all.
FRANCIS LAWRENCE: Thank you.
IAN McSHANE: Did you say you're not making any sense or we're not making any sense?
MICHAEL GREEN: No, he said we're not.
IAN McSHANE: We're not making any sense? Is that what drama's about? Isn't drama -- excuse me - for your ignorant remark. Isn't drama based on the fact -- we're not making any sense? What the hell kind of question? You ask a question. You want an answer or not? The world -- drama is built on biblical -- biblical -- the greatest novel written by 50 people ever. If you can't get a good story from that, you can't. What do you expect, it all spelled out for you now, that you should know what kind of pop culture of we're going to refer to Britney Spears' new child?
QUESTION: No, no, no. But the answer to the question was that it's a country I've never heard of, but it's going to be filled with all the things that are available to me in this world. So I naturally followed up by making sure I understood in saying is it this world? And then, no, it's not necessarily this world.
IAN McSHANE: It is this world, yes. It's what he said. He never said --
FRANCIS LAWRENCE: The difference is -- the difference is that you don't have Starbucks. You have a coffee. It's not a Starbucks. You don't have a BlackBerry, but there's phones and cell phone. There's no Britney Spears, but people sing songs.
*
There's no Britney Spears? Can we move there?
Anyway, here I was, thinking that the reason the networks skimped on the screeners this year was because of the writers strike when in fact they were hoping for little skirmishes like this one with the talent calling TCA members boobs and wastrels. Turns out another (probably bigger) reason they're pushing this back is so that the networks can actually benefit from all the coverage and blogging and blathering that emanates from Press Tour: Scheduling the event closer to the actual beginning of the fall season helps the broadcast networks; cable networks who launch shows in the summer and critics who could use the extra time to process all the material that comes from the event, not so much.
Since there's not going to be a whole lot to discuss about TV outside of the Olympics in the ensuing weeks, next week's TV Guide (on newsstands Thursday) looks at the highest-paid TV stars and creators. Here are some of the salaries discussed:
"Two and a Half Men's" Charlie Sheen makes $825,000 per episodes (which includes earnings from his ownership stake in the show), which is a whole lot more than "CSI's" William Petersen, who this season will be walking away from $600,000 per episode. They're the highest-paid actors in a comedy and drama, respectively.
Mariska Hargitay is the highest-paid actress, pulling down $400,000 per episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Another TV cop, "The Closer's" Kyra Sedgwick, earns the most among cable stars, at $275,000 per episode. Memo to aspiring actresses: Get an exotic-sounding name, and you'll be golden.
("Look, I have one of these, so let's all just forget that little thing with 'The Love Guru' ever happened, OK? - Oh, you have already? Well, forget I ever mentioned it.")
Hargitay makes as much as the voice talent for "The Simpsons," each of whom earns $400,000 per episode, without having to do nearly as much heavy lifting. But "Family Guy's" Seth MacFarlane towers over almost everybody: His new deal with Fox will reap $100 million through 2012.
And these you probably already knew: Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions earned $385 million last year, "American Idol" curmudgeon Simon Cowell (with the record deals included) makes do on $50 million per annum, David Letterman pockets $32 million before taxes and, yes, Katie Couric's must-discussed $15-million/year contract is discussed yet again.
The following week, TV Guide will be doing their annual report on the highest-paid TV Critics, and I will once again be shocked not to be on the list.
The "High School Musical" phenomenon has officially begun obeying the Law of Diminishing Returns: ABC's reality competition "High School Musical - Get in the Picture" (in which the "prize" is to get to appear dancing (probably in the background) of a music video that'll appear over the upcoming sequel's end credits) tanked last night, with a mere 3.00 million viewers and a fairly embarrassing 0.9/3 among adults 18-49. It only held on to half the viewers of a repeat of "America's Funniest Home Videos." Mark Berman, Mediaweek's ratings guru, writes, "Comparably, this very well could be ABC's lowest rated Sunday 8 p.m. performance in the history of the network."
And in the category of Huh?, NBC today announced that John McCain and Barack Obama have taped "funny campaign ads" for NBC's almost-as-ignored reality-competition series "Last Comic Standing." Wouldn't it've made more sense for them to do spots for a show someone actually watches? And anyway, here's guessing McCain just gave NBC his recent "Celebrity" spot - now, that was a joke.
Last year, during Showtime's TV Press Tour session for "Californication," David Duchovny let it slip that there was a script for a new "X-Files" movie, and critics were jazzed - momentarily, at least.
"Gillian's (Anderson) on board and I'm on board, and that's all I can tell you," Duchovny said, in that obfuscating way that accompanied all things "X-Files."
Evan Handler, his "Californication" co-star, joked, "It's going to open the same weekend as the 'Sex and the City' movie."
Duchovny countered, "We're going to crush 'em."
Well, not exactly. "Sex and the City" - a show that averaged maybe 7, 8 million viewers on HBO - has grossed $151 million for its big-screen incarnation. "The X-Files: I Want to Make More Money" - which, in its heyday, had twice as many viewers as "Sex and the City" - tanked at the box office, earning $10 million its opening weekend and a mere $1 million on Friday, its eight day in theaters. To date, it has grossed $14 million, which is probably what they spent trying to keep plot spoilers from leaking out.
The only thing crushed was "X-Files"' fans' expectations. And Fox's expectations that said fans were clamoring for Mulder and Scully to return.
(Looking at these two, it's hard to believe whose movie was a smash and whose was a bomb.)
I must confess to being a little gun shy when it comes to discussing Sunday's episode of "Mad Men." During TV Press Tour, a publicist mildly chastised me for revealing plot points that they didn't want revealed when I blogged about the show last summer. Well, I was merely guessing that Peggy was pregnant last year, so I'm not sure which plot points she had in mind, but, as I've noted earlier, they seem to be all of them.
Also, when I was talking to series creator Matthew Weiner, I asked a number of questions about Frank O'Hara's book of poetry that was used in the second season premiere, and he got a little uneasy and specifically asked me not to discuss it in my story before the episode aired:
"I don't want to be in a position of having to stop talking to people or to stop sending stuff out. People should have the same experience you had - you didn't know anything (about the episode, I'm presuming, or maybe he was just insulting me) and you loved it." And then, he did discuss the book, after all.
Well. We try to be spoiler-free round these parts (and at least two reviews - in Slate.com and the Boston Globe - quoted O'Hara's poem in their reviews, anyway, so obviously not everyone got the memo), but sometimes it's hard to tell what's supposed to be a surprise and what's fair game, and if you don't discuss the storyline, that can leave you without a whole lot to talk about (even discussing a line of dialogue or an actor's expression in a scene could give something away).
Anyway, here's what AMC is willing to let you know about episode two (per their website):
"Paul hosts a party at his apartment and introduces someone special to his Sterling Cooper colleagues. Peggy visits her family for dinner. Despite a conflict of interest, the Sterling Cooper agency aggressively pursues an airline account and Duck attempts to appeal to the client using an unorthodox approach."
I know, right? Pretty ho-hum for a pretty great show. Without going into particulars, such a description gives you no idea just how heinous Duck's pursuit of that "airline account" truly is, or how emotionally devastating Peggy's family time is.
And can I mention that for once in his miserable life, Pete almost does the right thing, but then he happens to catch Don in a grumpy mood and Don's all p!ssy with him so Pete goes off and does the wrong thing as usual? Well, I just did.
Here's hoping AMC is as generous with the screeners as they were in season one, but fearing that this may not be the case.
- "Mad Men: 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.
There have been a handful of legitimate reasons to question Barack Obama's qualifications to be President - chief among them, his experience or lack thereof - but there have been many, many silly ones, as well: his name, the fact that the rest of the world likes him, the fact that he's smart and carries himself with assurance (which is somehow being spun into "elitism" and "arrogance").
From the article:
"'He's too new ... and he needs to put some meat on his bones,' says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
"'I won't vote for any beanpole guy,' another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.
"The last overweight president to be elected was 335-pound William Howard Taft in 1908. As for tall and lanky presidents, 'you might have to go back to Abraham Lincoln' in 1860, says presidential historian Stephen Hess. 'Most presidents were sort of in the middle.'" ...
"These days he stays away from junk food and instead snacks on MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, a healthy organic brew. (Sen. McCain is said to have a weakness for Butterfinger candy bars, jelly beans, and coffee and doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts.)
"But too much time in the gym can cause problems, as Sen. Obama learned last month after he made three stops to local Chicago gyms in one day, for a total of 188 minutes. The marathon workout session sparked a widely circulated Associated Press article titled 'Obama Becomes a Gym Rat.' In it, the reporter wrote, 'Sometimes it's hard to tell if Barack Obama is running for president of the United States or Mr. Universe.' ...
"Food faux pas have plagued presidential candidates in the past. On a 1976 visit to Texas, Gerald Ford bit into a tamale with the corn husk still on. He lost the election to Jimmy Carter. In 2003, Mass. Sen. John Kerry was labeled effete when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak with Swiss instead of the usual Cheez Whiz topping."
So there you have it: America has become a country where being intelligent, self-assured, popular and even in good shape have all become negatives. I was right earlier in the week: Seth Rogen for President!
About this blog
David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place.
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