To Be Continued ... Next Week

Monday night is "must tape TV" night around my house. From September to April I'm out of the house on Monday nights, bowling, but so many of the shows I like are on that two VCRs and a time shifting feed on one of the TVs is just barely enough to catch everything I want to see. Take last night. VCR #1 - the mono JVC that I bought from my ex-sister-in-law when she and my brother got married and didn't need two VCRs - was taping Medium on CTV (an episode I hadn't seen otherwise I wouldn't have bothered) and CSI: Miami. VCR #2 - the Panasonic with Stereo and Commercial Advance and connected to the digital box - was taping Celebrity Poker Showdown and then, later 24 on the time shift feed. I also caught the last half hour of The Contender, but that wasn't enough to really evaluate the show. Today I'm writing about 24.

24 is a serial in the best sense of the word. Serials are a form that television has never really gotten, which is really surprising since as a form it would seem to be ideally suited for TV. To be clear about what I mean we need to define terms, or at least I need to define what I mean by some terms. In my book a serial is episodic, has continuity, has a definite beginning and ending, and at no point becomes episodic. The main storyline is the storyline. Episodes must connect with each other in an easily comprehensible manner and to hold audiences there should be a hook at the end of an episode in the form of a cliffhanger to get viewers to come back for the next one. There may be sequels but although the sequels may have references to the previous installment in the series but the end of a storyline is definitive. There are series that have had continuity over the years, many that have had ongoing story arc some of which have lasted a whole season, but in the case of most such shows - Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good example - have submerged the season long story arc to do one-off episodes or even mini arcs within the year. There have been plenty of series to use cliffhangers, usually at the end of a season to pull fans back for the start of the next season. Soap operas, daytime or nighttime, are not examples of the serial using my definition because they don't have definitive ends even though storylines do. In a Soap one major story arc may be building to a dramatic climax while the next major story arc is starting to develop.

The serial is designed to bring people back each week, and they have a long and proud tradition. The novels of Charles Dickens were written as serials in magazines, as were the Sherlock Holmes novels. The adventure comic strips were serials. In radio the serial was a staple, primarily for juvenile audiences. In the movies the serial reached its high point. They were there at the beginnings of the movies with The Perils of Pauline and other films being made for mainstream audiences. The first Flash Gordon serial was the only serial reviewed by the New York Times. The form carried on, weakening gradually until the last serial was produced in the mid-1950s. In all cases the reasoning was simple - to get people coming back, whether coming back meant buying the magazine, the newspaper, Kellogg's cereal, or tickets to the movies. Strangely TV has never done much with the serial format. The last "real" serial (using my definition) on TV was probably the first season of Murder One, the season with Daniel Benzali as the lead actor. It treated the form seriously. An earlier series, Cliff Hanger (1979) didn't; it treated the entire genre with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Now there is 24.

24 works mainly because of its star, Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. He's a brooding presence, someone of whom you'd expect anything, if you know him. If you don't he might seem ordinary. In a recent episode a character (who Jack has been torturing) describes Jack as a "common thug". Thug perhaps, but scarcely common. In the past he's killed a man and cut off his head with a hacksaw in order to reestablish his cover, set up a situation where it appeared that the children of a terrorist were being killed on his orders, become a heroin addict, and cut off the hand of his daughter's lover so that a deadly pathogen wouldn't be released in a school. Bauer is dedicated, even single minded, about his job and his job is protecting his country. He'd willingly die for his country - in fact he already has once.

Surrounding Sutherland is an ever changing cast of supporting characters. Only one other actor has been in all four seasons of 24 - Carlos Bernard as Tony Almeida although in the fourth season his character has appeared in fewer than half the episodes (there's also a promise that Dennis Haysbaert will make a guest appearance in the show). This doesn't mean that the supporting characters aren't engaging. Some are, some aren't but at best what they do is support Sutherland and at worst are somewhat annoying scenery for him to work with. An example this season is CTU office head Erin Driscoll, played by Alberta Watson, who spends most of here time second guessing Jack and part of her time obsessing about her mentally ill daughter. More interesting are the villains, but then villains usually are more interesting.

This season has featured a family of Arab terrorists, played by Nestor Serrano, Shohreh Agdashloo and Jonathon Ahdout. The portrayal has caused a protests against the show, notably in Britain, as portraying all Arabs as terrorists. There's a certain justification for this, although not all of the Arab characters that we've seen, even in this season, have been terrorists and in previous seasons there have been many more sympathetic Arabic characters than there have been terrorists. On the other hand, government agencies haven't exactly been portrayed as "nice guys" either. Although there have been occasional examples of torture in previous seasons, this season has seen three or four cases of characters being interrogated by a US government agency in methods that would be more suited to Argentina during the Dirty War. In three of those cases the characters who were tortured (Richard Heller, Sarah Gavin, and Paul Raines) have not only been American citizens, but non-Arab American citizens.

Direction and the visual look of the series are first rate. It is in the area of writing that it falls a little short of the mark it tries to hit. The plotlines at times seem a bit formulaic from season to season. A season usually starts with what seems like the "big threat" and the "big villain. As events proceed it turns out that the "big villain" is merely a cog in a bigger organization and the "big plot" is merely a prelude for something even bigger and deadlier. In addition viewers are asked to swallow various absurdities in a challenge to the concept of willing suspension of disbelief. In order to carry the storyline as whole you have to be willing to accept something like Jack dying of a heart attack, being revived and then an hour later literally being almost as good as new ... at least until the plot needs for him to suffer complications from the heart attack. You also have to endure poorly refined sub-plots for supporting characters. The series of stories surrounding the character of Kim Bauer are legendary - of Kim's three boyfriends in the series, one died, one lost his leg, and one had his hand cut off (although at least he got his hand sewn back on unlike the other guy's leg). And yet, accepting the absurdity of the situations is part of what makes the show worth watching. About the only thing we can be sure of in the continuing story of 24 is that each week is going to bring a big plot twist and another tense cliffhanger. And after all, isn't that what serials are all about?

Whatever Happened To? (#2 of a Series)

Whatever happened to PBS Pledge Weeks where the programming was actually worth watching?

One of the annoyances about PBS are Pledge Weeks, those periods when your local (and in the case of Canada not so local - I get two stations one in Detroit and, thanks to digital cable, one in Spokane) stations try to raise the money they need to meet operating expenses. Or, as the stations put it: "Pledge now to help keep public television alive in (insert name of city here). Without your generous pledges this service may not survive." Which, on the whole seems a worthy enough goal. There are good, worthwhile shows on PBS that a commercial network wouldn't put on, and although they don't occupy a lot of my viewing time there are a few that I don't miss. Too bad they don't show them during the beg-a-thons.

It wasn't always that way. Originally PBS here came from Fargo North Dakota, except for a few weeks when their transmitter blew down and we saw shows from the mothership in Boston. The Fargo station seemed to raise all of its money through bake sales because they never seemed to have Pledge Weeks. Believe me the cheap quality showed (but it was still better than the NBC and CBS stations we had at the time - the CBS station in particular looked as if it was been broadcast out of a tin shed on someone's farm with AV equipment the local high school had tossed out). When it finally dawned on someone at the CRTC that using stations that were 100 miles from the cable head-end in areas where summer electrical were as common as mosquitos wasn't really serving the public, we got stations in Detroit on our cable system. So did, and does, most Canada. The PBS station in Detroit, WTVS was our first experience with Pledge Weeks. The interruptions were annoying, but the programs shown during the Pledge periods were usually first rate. It was like that for a long time, a mixture of important new programs, old favourites and marathons of regular programs. It's hard to remember today but the first runs of the major Ken Burns series The Civil War and Baseball both occurred during PBS Pledge Weeks. And then there were the marathons (usually presented with a warning that if you don't pay for it you're going to lose it). My favourite was Doctor Who complete with denizens of the Detroit and Flint Dr. Who clubs - in costume - answering phones and always racking up huge amounts of donations. Of course the station would never tell anyone how much they needed to raise unless of course they didn't raise it.

Somewhere along the line things changed. Today, Pledge Weeks on PBS are not only longer - officially two weeks but the Detroit station usually follows the two weeks with one week of "Best of Pledge" which given what they show is an oxymoron of titanic proportions - but also create the feeling that one is watching a station that is primarily populated with infomercials. I always get the feeling at the end of a current Pledge Weeks show that I am expected to sign up for a self-help course or buy the set of CDs and DVDs that are being hawked. Consider some of the "highlights" from the current set of pledge weeks on WTVS Detroit:

• Ageless Skin, Secrets from Dr. Denese


• John Tesh: Worship at Red Rocks


• Suze Ormond: for the Young, Fabulous & Broke


• Stig Rosen: This is the Moment


• Heart of Pilates


• California Dreaming: The Songs of The Mamas and Papas


• David Carradine: Tai Chi for the Mind and Body


• Gary Null: Power Aging


• Art of Health with Gary Null


• Andre Rieu: Live in Tuscany (on tape)


• Daniel O'Donnell: Encore In Branson


• Dr Wayne Dyer: The Power of Intention


• Christianne Northrup M.D. (Actual show title is Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Physical & Emotional Health)

This might not be so objectionable if it were the one station but this sort of line-up is also on the Spokane PBS station KSPS (check the schedule for the week of March 6) and WGBH Boston.

The major question I have is simply this: why does PBS think that this sort of programming will get money from me? For me, this sort of programming is so far removed from what I expect from PBS, not to mention what I actually watch on PBS that it is more likely to get me to abandon the station than it is to get me to support it, and the longer it runs - the Best of Pledge showings - the more it angers me. Are they being paid to put these things on? I don't know but if the trend to longer pledge periods and more pledge periods continues, someday they could lose me as a viewer no matter how much I like This Old House.

A Law & Order Too Far?

Winter series - the spackle that covers the cracks in the previous Fall's schedule. Some winter shows are designed to fill the gaps and disappear at the end of May sweeps, while other series are meant to succeed, and debut in the winter to exploit the weaknesses in the schedules of other networks and establish themselves sufficiently that, come next Fall they'll have an advantage over any new program that the "other guys" air. Clearly, the latest addition to the Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Trial by Jury is firmly rooted in the latter category.

Unlike the other entries in the franchise Law & Order: Trial by Jury is focused almost entirely on the prosecutors and the defense attorneys. In Thursday night's debut episode there are two investigators, DA's Men, whose job it is to interview witnesses and track down additional bits of evidence to solidify the case. In the first two episodes the DA's Investigators are Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Hector Salazar (Kirk Acevedo). Neither is an active cop - Briscoe of course had retired, while Salazar had been badly wounded and is on disability. In truth they don't have that much to do; most of the burden for carrying the show falls on Bebe Neuwirth as Assistant District Attorney Tracey Kibre and Amy Carlson as Assistant District Attorney Kelly Gaffney as well as the assorted guest stars as defense attorneys. The show follows a trial from the grand jury examination of the prosecution's evidence to determine if there is enough material to indict the suspect, through jury selection, presentation of the case and jury deliberations. Unusually for a Dick Wolf produced series at least some of the process will be seen through the eyes of various defense attorneys.

I'm not sure about this series, although of course it's hard to evaluate it from one viewing. The elements seem to be there. The cast is solid, particularly Bebe Neuwirth whose work I've always enjoyed. And yet the show doesn't feel "right" somehow. Part of the reason is Producer Dick Wolf's oft-expressed dislike and disdain for defense attorneys. In Wolf's world, the prosecutors are always the "good guys" and defense attorneys always the "bad guys" and the cops always get the right person...eventually. In the first episode the defense attorney is played by Annabella Sciorra and is depicted as someone who will defend her client, who she suspects is guilty even before he tells her how he murdered the victim, because she's getting a seven figure fee. It is clear that Wolf will be making the defense attorneys into characters who are so flawed they are impossible to like or sympathize with and, in support of his contention that the defendant is usually guilty, the defendants thoroughly bad. In Thursday's episode the defendant was not only a rich and arrogant Broadway producer, he was a former attorney who was so corrupt that he was disbarred. This might be fine in the original Law & Order where the defense councils may have been major guest stars but were seen for far less than half an episode, but in Law & Order: Trial by Jury the defenders have a much larger role and have to carry at least some of the plot. It wouldn't hurt for them to have at least some sympathetic qualities. Instead Sciorra's character "Maggie Detweiler" came across as cold and grasping bitch, while her jury consultants came across as sleazy.

Thursday's episode was full of absurdities. Kibre has the suspect arrested and put before the grand jury after a year - despite the absence of a body, and blood evidence that was sufficiently contaminated that they couldn't prove that it belonged to the victim - because the victim's mother found a business card from an obstetrician and learned that the victim was pregnant. The key argument in the case centered not around the evidence in the murder case or about the victim, but that the defendant had some healthy dogs put to sleep because they'd be an inconvenience in the city. This satisfies the requirement to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? Apparently it does. This sort of thing occurs of course. There was a murder case in Canada where a man was convicted of murdering the child of a neighbour because he was "different" (which apparently meant he didn't go out drinking and chasing anything in a skirt, and that he kept bees). The problem is that in that case Guy Paul Morin was innocent and his innocence was proved by DNA testing. About the only thing that rang true in the events surrounding the trial itself was that the final hold-out in the case decided to change his mind because he didn't want to miss "the playoffs".

Finally a few thoughts on Jerry Orbach. He looked ill and his colour seemed terribly artificial - as if the make-up had been put on particularly heavily and was the wrong shade at that. Then there was the hair which seemed to be the product of a bad dye job, but might well have been a wig to hide chemotherapy related hair loss. He did a good job with the material that he had, but clearly Briscoe was a secondary character in the series and would continue to have been secondary had he been able to continue in the part.

I have no doubt that Law & Order: Trial by Jury will do well in the ratings, at least for a while. I just can't help but feel that the show won't measure up to the non-ratings standards that the other shows in the Law & Order stable have set. It seems flawed somehow but I don't fully understand why. I'll watch it, at least for a while, and see if I can figure it out.

NYPD Blue - Goodbye, Farewell, and Thanks

On the same day that Alaska senator and chairman of the US Senate Commerce Committee, Ted Stevens, announced that he would support an extension of the FCC indecency regulations that cover broadcast TV to cable TV, the groundbreaking show that tested those regulations from the beginning has left the air. The last NYPD Blue to air was not quite as edgy as the first. There were no bare asses or almost exposed female nipples , and the famous dictionary of words that could be used has apparently shrunken somewhat. I doubt that today Andy Sipowicz would be able to grab his crotch and shout "Ipsa this you pissy little bitch."

It doesn't really matter of course. The point was never really to shock. It was much more about reflecting the realities of "the job" and the people who did it. The aim of series creator David Milch and his adviser, friend and later Executive producer of the show, former New York Police detective Bill Clark was to make a show as real as American TV would let it be. And while Law & Order which debuted three years earlier was all about the cases and never the people, on NYPD Blue was about the people. The cases they worked were part of the way we found out about them. The people were interesting because, as is rarely the case in television but is necessary in great drama, they were shown "warts and all", and there were some pretty prominent warts.

As the special that aired before the final episode showed, NYPD Blue evolved through a series of stages. The first year of the show was very much about David Caruso's character John Kelly. Sipowicz was a major figure but it was Kelly and the storylines that surrounded him that were the focus. The problem was that Caruso sincerely believed it and thought that the world was his oyster bar and being tied to a series was keeping him from enjoying it. He left acrimoniously and I think the show was better for it. I certainly think that the show wouldn't have lasted 12 years with Kelly as the focus. What Caruso leaving did do was to give Dennis Franz and his character Andy Sipowicz a more prominent role by bringing Jimmy Smits in to play Bobby Simone. The relationship between the two was far closer to being equals than it was with any of the other partners that Andy had. It was illustrated in the special with the clip of Simone and Sipowicz singing "Duke of Earl" together in the car, something that Bill Clark and David Milch did on at least one occasion. It was an intimacy that wasn't shared with any subsequent partners. When Jimmy Smits left the show in 1998 and was replaced by Rick Schroeder, the chemistry changed. Schroeder's Danny Sorenson was never an equal to Sipowicz; rather he was a cipher that Andy was never able to crack which made the character's departure wrenching. Finally there was Mark-Paul Gosselaar. His character, John Clark Jr., was a pupil. He was also a Sipowicz in the making buffeted by personal problems that drove him towards despair and addiction, but this time Sipowicz was able to see the problem and catch it. This evolution in the show was also an evolution of Sipowicz. He went from Andy the drunken screw-up with Kelly, to Andy the guy who tries hard but sometime slips with Simone, to Andy the guy who has all this stuff to teach but doesn't know how with Sorenson, to Saint Sipowicz with Clark.

NYPD Blue is a show that is a sparkling example of the theory that a movie or TV show rises and falls on three things: good actors, good writing and good direction. NYPD Blue all three elements. The acting has been strong throughout most of the series' run, with the supporting players delivering solid work and storylines that at time rose above simple support of the leads. They all had effective backstories and the ways the parts were played made the backstories believable. Actors brought elements that the writers didn't think of to their roles - Gordon Clapp decided that Greg Medavoy stammered when he was nervous (in an early episode, a director went to producer Steven Bochco and complained that he couldn't work around Clapp's stammer and the actor had to be replaced; Bochco told him that the stammer was part of Medavoy's character). The series went through a lot of actors but by and large the actors they used were able to deliver.

Writing and Direction were major areas of controversy. Like Andy Sipowicz, David Milch is an alcoholic and as he put it Andy got sober before he did. This caused problems in the writing, which Jimmy Smits pointed out in the special. By the time Smits left, the cast were getting blank call sheets and lines delivered hours or minutes before scenes were to be shot. It was chaotic but many of the cast consider this sort of working without a net to be some of the best episodes they did. What the writers did impressively week after week was to chart the progression of the characters in a manner that didn't seem staged. Andy's relationship with John Irvin, the civilian administrative assistant, progressed over the years from antagonism to acceptance to friendship in a way that was totally believable. As for direction, the use of the "shaky cam" helped to create the show's feel as well, giving it an almost documentary feel. Although appearing random the quick movements of the camera were deliberately planned to recreate the way the human eye moves when something suddenly attracts our attention. It helped to define the show's look and feel.

The final year of NYPD Blue wasn't as strong as many of the earlier seasons. The departure of Charlotte Ross, who played Andy's third wife Connie MacDowell, last season pretty much ended storylines that dealt with his home life. The fear of a crackdown on obscenity, which began with Janet Jackson's nipple, restricted both the language and the number of nude scenes in the show - the latter affected relationship stories for other characters in the show. It was starting to become more about the work not the people. Then too there was the feeling that, with ABC announcing that the show was in its final season, the show was sliding towards its end. Sliding but not entirely slumping. Some of the stories this season have been quite strong. It was fitting that it went out when it did, and fitting that last scene, featuring the guy who was the screw-up from the first season who knew he would never make it beyond Detective Third Grade, had made Sergeant and was running the detective squad. The Progress Of Andy Sipowicz was complete.

Amazing Race 7 Teams

I'm a "Big Fan" of The Amazing Race, which is generally regarded as the best of the reality shows. In fact I'm such a big fan that when the show is on I post an episode recap on the Amazing Race newsgroup. These posts are big - usually around 20 KB and I don't plan on posting them here. A summary maybe but not the whole thing. Before the season starts, I also post an evaluation of the teams and this is a somewhat edited version of what I posted last night. For details on the teams, check out The Amazing Race website which has biographies of all 11 teams and video clip interviews. As The Race goes on they'll also have episode recaps and video clips not seen on the show.

1. Meredith & Gretchen: Tricky this. Over 50s tend not to do at all well inThe Amazing Race. The best finish by any Over 50 was Ian in TAR3, but he was just 50. Couples who are both Over 50 don't win, and most tend not to make it beyond the first half of the race. I think Meredith is capable of going as far as Don & Mary-Jean did in TAR6 (8^thplace) but Gretchen seems a bit too naïve to succeed. Probably one of the first teams out.



2. Megan & Heidi: I wouldn't be surprised if they're the first team out. Based on their interview they just don't seem prepared for what they'll encounter. Being an all-woman team is a handicap; no all-woman team has been in the final hour of the show except as part of the cheering section at the finish line. Limited travel experience and Megan's fear of flying are definite negatives. Their personalities mesh but their self-perceived strengths and weaknesses are very much the same and don't strengthen them. If they make it to the fourth episode I'll be (pleasantly) surprised.



3. Susan & Patrick: I really don't like Patrick. He moved to my wrong side when he started talking about forming alliances and stabbing people in the back. He's on the wrong show if that's his strategy. If all he brings to the table is the sort of insight that has the other teams ganging up on Rob & Amber because they've won a million bucks then I don't think they're going to last on The Race. As well as the Over 50 factor, the parent-child dynamic comes into play - the best finish by a parent & child was Nancy & Emily in TAR1. They have learned the first law of The Race; never be apart from at least one other team. How much time will they have to put it into practice?



4. Uchenna & Joyce: I'm inclined to think that they are going to have a problem. They're worried about food and lack of sleep, two things that are almost a given on The Amazing Race. They have the physical part of it down, but most of the top 8 teams do. What I don't like is that there is some tension in their relationship. The Race is not exactly known for easing stress within relationships. They could do well but really I don't see them going much higher than maybe fifth or sixth.



5. Lynn & Alex: What is it about this season's trio of gay guys that irritates me so much? I know what it is about these two - they're hyper-judgemental. The love the old couple but think they'll be gone fast. They hate the Hillbillies (Ryan & Chuck) and think they're stupid. They think the Republicans (who? Ron & Kelly perhaps) won't do well in other countries where people don't like Bush. These guys haven't travelled much as a couple although they claim to have travelled extensively as individuals. They think that its an advantage that they're together 24/7. Lynn expects to argue about money and doesnt like the idea of sleeping outdoors - he wants hotels. If they last they could be this years villains.



6. Ray & Deana: I'd like to see this team go far simply because of their physical preparation- they've worked out a lot for this race. The problem is that they're another team with a relationship that can be described as rocky and he tends to be a bit controlling. They do understand that The Race isn't about alliances and that the team that they have to be most concerned about is themselves. For this and their physicality I like them better than Lynn & Alex and in the right circumstances they could make final four.



7. Brian & Greg: The Alpha-Male team makes a comeback. I like them but their lack of travel experience and foreign languages is - in theory at least - a weak point. They could go all the way of course, but there's something about them that doesn't sit quite well with me. This is one of those teams where I'll know better when I see them in action.



8. Ryan & Chuck: I love these guys. They're not afraid of hard work or hard conditions. I think teams are going to underestimate them, particularly Chuck, who speaks Portuguese fluently and has travelled in South America including their first destination, Peru. I'm also betting that their hard work muscles will surprise some of those with "Hollywood muscles". Their finish is a real wild-card, but I don't expect them to finish first or last. This year's answer to the Frat Boys and The Clowns.



9. Ron & Kelly: This might shock a lot of people but I don't necessarily see them as final three material. The weakness is her; I don't know if shes "a when the going gets tough the tough get going" type which Ron, the former POW in Iraq, clearly is. Another big weakness is that they havent been together as a couple for very long and they've been long distance dating since they did get together. They don't know the other person's foibles as well as couples that have been together for a while, or teams that are friends rather than romantically involved. The biggest thing in their favour is Ron's military experience. The stress won't be a big deal for him.



10. Rob & Amber: The hated Romber. I think they could be a major force in this. Unlike Donny & Allyson in TAR5 they've been through stress together. If 39 days on the Pearl Islands brought them together I can't see The Amazing Race pulling them apart. Language is a weak spot, but they seem to be approaching The Race more with a spirit of enjoying the adventure than the lure of the money. They're looking forward to challenges where they're confronted with things they don't know they can do. They seem to have a healthy attitude about the race, and Rob recognises that this isn't Survivor: here the only way you can win is by relying on yourselfs not by backstabbing or forming alliances.



11. Debbie & Bianca: These women impress me. Between the two of them theyve been to 34 different countries. Educationally they are very impressive. Debbie graduated summa cum laude from William and Mary, and Bianca has a BA in International Affairs and is working on her Masters in Education with a specialty in multi-cultural studies. Add in that Bianca spent time living on $5 a day in Thailand - which means living really rough - and it is entirely possible that we could see a female team in the final three for the first time. I don't think they'll win, but they'll be in the fight.

Housekeeping Matters

I've finally added a links section to some of my favourite blogs and blog-like entities. I'm sure the list will grow, and there's some links to blogs on my personal favourites list that haven't made it to the blog's list. I've also rearranged placement of some things on the sidebar to make them suit me. Now if only I can figure out how to get Google Ad-Sense to stop giving me PSAs.

Couple of notes on the stuff on my blogs list:

• Colortini is the personal website of Tom Snyder, who I consider to be the last erudite person to host a non-political show on US network TV. The link is to the blog portion of the site.


• I've never met Tim Gueguen even though we both live in the same city, but I've encountered him online since we were both posting through the old Saskatoon Freenet. He seems to be having as much trouble with Google Ad-Sense as I am - most of the time when I check his blog the Adsense bar isn't visible (honest Tim, I do click on the ads when I see them).


• Mark Evanier is a comics and cartoon pro who has been around since at least the 1970s and probably before. He knew such people as Daws Butler and Tex Avery. He's not too proud to post on newsgroups and there at least seems like a pretty nice and knowledgable guy.


• Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew is a pretty good sumation of animation news and opinions. Check out Jerry's Cartoon Research website as well.


• The Comics Curmudeon, originally "I Read The Comics So You Don't Have To" but he ran into a newspaper that had a column with a similar title and weren't pleased with the duplication - never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel - does satirical (usually) looks at comics that interest/annoy him.

As I say, I'm sure there'll be more links added to this list and existing entries editted and tweaked as time goes by.

It's A Wonderful Night For Oscar...NOT!!

Well, that was several degrees of pretty bad.

Everyone says that the Oscar telecast is too long. Usually it clocks in at about four hours and somewhere along the line someone makes a joke about how long things are. This year's telecast clocked in at three hours and ten minutes and Chris Rock made a joke about how next year they'll be handing out the awards for the "lesser" categories at a drive-thru in the parking lot to speed things up even further. That's the thing; some of those four hour plus Oscar shows didn't feel like they were running for four hours because the pacing was good, the presenters entertaining, and there were those unscripted moments that happen that either touch you or make you laugh. Tonight's show wasn't well paced, stifled spontaneity, and suppressed the unexpected. It may have only run three hours and ten minutes but it felt a lot longer.

They seemed to run into troubles almost immediately. Chris Rock's opening monologue seemed to have the potential for what they hired him for initially - to be edgy - and his jokes about George W. Bush (and the laughter they got, even from Clint Eastwood) are bound to have the Raving Right yelling about "Hollywood Liberals". There was a nice bit about the quality of actors involving that had Rock's movie Pootie Tang as a punchline. The trouble is that he quickly lost steam. Just how badly Rock was floundering was proven when they aired the tribute to former Oscar host Johnny Carson. The contrast between the show that Rock was MCing, and the way he was doing it, and the show that Carson did, and the way he did it was obvious to anyone. Chris Rock had a bit where he went to a Magic Johnson Theater and asked the mostly African American audience whether they'd seen the nominated pictures. Not only was the answer uniformly no (but I'm betting the responses were scripted) but the people named some of the worst movies to come out this year, including White Girls. It was mildly amusing even when Albert Brooks made an appearance in the bit. There was a terribly lame bit with Adam Sandler that had Rock reading lines (supposedly) written for Catherine Zeta Jones and Sandler acting like a sex obsessed pig. By the end of the show, Rock was reduced to doing a boob joke about Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayak.

Then there was the way that the awards were presented. Some of the awards were presented the usual way - the nominees sat in their seats waiting for their closeup, the presenter read out the list of names, sometimes with clips then announced the winner, who came out of the audience, getting congratulated by fiends relatives and people they worked with - but this was mainly for the "big" categories. In many of the so-called lesser categories, all of the nominees were brought out onto the stage and given a group shot - no closeup Mr. DeMille - and then the names were read out with clips - where used - projected onto the floor of the stage in such a way that viewers at home would be hard pressed to realize that they were watching a clip of an Oscar nominated film. They were the lucky ones - they got on stage. In some categories the presenter went to the back part of the theater and read out the names on a hand-held mike while the nominees sat in their aisle seats. When the winner was announced he, she or they had to go to microphones located in the aisles to make their 30 second speech. This meant that if people wanted to actually see the person being "honoured" rather than watch it on the big screen TVs in the Kodak Theater they had to twist in their seats. I doubt many bothered. These winners probably didn't get to go to the interview area either. If I were a nominee, I'd want my closeup, I'd want my film clip to be seen in a form that people could see and dammit I'd want my Oscar Walk. Maybe next year they really will hand out awards at a drive-thru.

There were some moments, although nothing even approaching the emotion of Adrien Brody's acceptance speech in 2002. I liked the bit with Pierce Brosnan and Edith Head lookalike Edna "E" Mode (an animated character), but of course that was scripted. Jamie Foxx had the best speech but then he had the time to deliver it. Maybe the most spontaneous and heartfelt speech came from Cinematography winner Robert Richardson who took the opportunity to thank the doctors and nurses who were caring for his mother who had recently taken ill. I also sort of liked that the winner for best song sang some of his song from Motorcycle Diaries as his speech. He sounded better a acapella than Antonio Banderas did with Carlos Santanna as backup. The Best Song category is a problem though; I think it's time has passed. It used to be that every picture would have a song and the songs were known and heard on the radio. This years nominees included songs from two animated movies, two foreign language films and a song shoehorned into an existing musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the express purpose of getting his Lordship another Oscar (he's two down on former writing partner Tim Rice). The "In Memoriam" piece was short (shorter than the tribute to a guy who made only one movie - Johnny Carson) and had subdued reactions, thanks in part to Yoyo Ma being on stage playing during the whole thing. No one seemed to want to applaud in recognition while he was playing. And did we really need Beyonce singing three of the five nominated songs? I suppose it was part of the Academy's effort to attract young people. I hope it didn't work - it might encourage them.

The 2005 Oscars didn't really work. There was too many bad ideas and bad moments that outweighed any good stuff that there was. I can't really fault Chris Rock - he wasn't Billy Crystal but I don't know if Billy would have worked well under the restrictions that Rock worked under. I can and do fault the producers for sort of missing the point. Or maybe they just became so obsessed with bringing the show in fast that they forgot that faster isn't always better.

Oscar Predictions

Haven't got time to write up a set of Oscar Predictions, and besides I haven't been to a movie in a theatre (which is where you can really tell whether a movie is really good) since I saw Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring about three years ago. What I am doing is posting a link to an article at Blogcritics.org that cover the major categories. I mostly agree, although I'd like to see someone give Alan Alda a little more credit for playing against type in The Aviator than just - as Roger Ebert puts it "his nomination is his reward" - but he won't.

I have opinions on a couple of categories that aren't covered in the Blogcritic article. Best Adapted Screenplay - Paul Haggis, Million Dollar Baby. Haggis created a script that was so polished that the final draft he handed to Clint Eastwood was shot exactly as written, no revisions during shooting. Best Animated Feature - The Incredibles. I will however have to claim a bias on that one; I went to Darwyn Peachey, who is Vice-President of Research and Development at Pixar, was a fairly close friend of mine in high school.

Good Oscar night!

Oscar Travesties

This list of "Oscar Atrocities" appeared first in the blog Alternative Reel. I'm reprinting it here because even though I'm an Oscar Junkie, it doesn't take a genius to recognise that the Academy Awards are very much a "flavour of the month" kind of thing with a huge dollop of politics - real world and Hollywood - mixed in for fun, and the "flavour of the month" might not always be the all-time classic; the politics become dated too. That said, I tend to trust the Academy more than I trust something like The People's Choice Awards which once determined that Ghost was a better All Around Picture (their equivalent to Best Picture) than Unforgiven. And that was one of their good choices.

There are reasons for a lot of the things that are on this list, and I don't entirely agree that every thing Bill Chinasky labels as an "Oscar Atrocity" on this list is an atrocity. For one thing he tends to love the Lord of the Rings movies a bit too much to be objective, and describing Best Years of Our Lives beating It's A Wonderful Life as an atrocity is pretty harsh. There are things I'd add to the list as well. The Great Ziegfeld beats Mr. Deeds Goes To Town? Mrs. Miniver is better than Yankee Doodle Dandy? Jimmy Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes To Washington) loses in 1939 not to Clark Gable (The only actor nominated for Gone With The Wind not to win), but to Robert Donat in Good-bye Mr Chips. Alfred Hitchcock gets nominated for Lifeboat and Rebecca but not for Notorious Shadow Of A Doubt or North By Northwest? Jimmy Cagney never wins, and Cary Grant is never even nominated? Those are atrocities!

1927-28: Wings beats out Sunrise for Best Picture.1929-30: Norma Shearer (The Divorcee) wins Best Actress; Louise Brooks (Pandoras Box) isnt even nominated!
1930-31: Cimarron wins Best Picture; City Lights isnt nominated.Lionel Barrymore (A Free Soul) wins Best Actor; neither James Cagney (The Public Enemy) nor Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar) is nominated.
1932-33: Cavalcade wins Best Picture over A Farewell to Arms, 42nd Street and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.
1940: Rebecca wins Best Picture over The Grapes of Wrath. James Stewart (The Philadelphia Story) wins Best Actor over Henry Fonda (The Grapes of Wrath).
1941: How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane. John Ford (How Green Was My Valley) wins Best Director over Orson Welles (Citizen Kane).
1943: Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine) wins Best Actor over Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca).
1946: The Best Years of Our Lives over Its a Wonderful Life. Frederic March (The Best Years of Our Lives) wins Best Actor over James Stewart (Its a Wonderful Life). Olivia de Havilland (To Each His Own) wins Best Actress; Ingrid Bergman (Notorious) and Donna Reed (Its a Wonderful Life) aren't even nominated.
1949: Broderick Crawford (All the Kings Men) wins Best Actor over Kirk Douglas (Champion); James Cagney (White Heat) and Gene Kelly (On the Town) aren't even nominated.
1950: Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday) wins Best Actress over Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard).
1951: An American in Paris over A Place in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire; The African Queen and A Christmas Carol aren't nominated.
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon; Singin' in the Rain isn't nominated.
1954: Grace Kelly (The Country Girl) wins Best Actress over Judy Garland (A Star is Born).
1955: Marty wins Best Picture; Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Kiss Me Deadly aren't even nominated. Ernest Borgnine (Marty) wins Best Actor over James Dean (East of Eden)
1956: Around in the World in 80 Days over Giant and The Ten Commandments.
1965: Julie Christie (Darling) wins Best Actress over Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music).
1969: John Wayne (True Grit) wins Best Actor over Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy) and Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy).
1972: Bob Fosse (Cabaret) wins Best Director over Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather).
1973: Jack Lemmon (Save the Tiger) wins Best Actor over Marlon Brando (Last Tango in Paris), Jack Nicholson (The Last Detail) and Al Pacino (Serpico).
1980: Ordinary People over Raging Bull.
1990: Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas.
1994: Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction.
1996: Geoffrey Rush (Shine) over Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) for Best Actor.
1998: Shakespeare in Love wins Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful) for Best Actor over Nick Nolte (Affliction), Edward Norton (American History X), Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) and Ian McKellen (Gods and Monsters).
2001: A Beautiful Mind over The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings. Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) wins Best Director over Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Jim Broadbent (Iris) for Best Supporting Actor over Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings).
2002: Chicago over The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Oscar Nominees On TV

I confess to being an Oscar junkie and will be posting several Oscar related items today and tomorrow. Accept it.

First of all, lets take a look at this year's Oscar nominees and their experience in Television. These are the nominees in the Acting and Director categories. A couple of things are apparent: Actors are more likely to have worked in series Television than Actresses, and British and Australian actors and actresses tend to have more (and more recent) television experience than North Americans. Only Alan Alda is currently working in a regular series, The West Wing. (Format is Person - Film nominated for - Television series - not mini-series - where credited as a regular). Apparently American Directors think TV is beneath them, except for the three biggest (Eastwood and Scorcese).

Actors

• Don Cheadle - Hotel Rwanda - Golden Palace, Picket Fences
• Johnny Depp - Finding Neverland - 21 Jump Street
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator - Parenthood, Santa Barbara Growing Pains
• Jamie Foxx - Ray - In Living Color, The Jamie Foxx Show
• Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby - Rawhide

Supporting Actors

• Alan Alda - The Aviator - Story Theatre, M*A*S*H, The West Wing
• Thomas Haden Church - Sideways - Wings, Ned and Stacey
• Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby - The Electric Company, Ryan's Hope, Another World
• Clive Owen - Closer - Capital City, Chancer, Sharman (British)

Actress

• Annette Benning - Being Julia - Nothing except a voice credit in Liberty's Kids
• Catalina Sandino Moreno - Maria Full of Grace - Nothing (in fact Maria Full Of Grace seems to be her first acting credit of any kind)
• Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake - Thompson, Up The Garden Path, If You See God Tell Him, Is It Legal? (British)
• Hilary Swank - Million Dollar Baby - Evening Shade, Camp Wilder, Leaving LA, Beverly Hills 90210
• Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - Dark Season, Get Back (British)

Supporting Actress

• Cate Blanchett - The Aviator - Heartland, Bordertown (Australia; although IMDB classes both of these as mini-series, there may be some argument, particularly about Bordertown)
• Laura Linney - Kinsey - Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City
• Virginia Madsen - Sideways - American Dreams
• Sophie Okonedo - Hotel Rwanda - Staying Alive, The Governor, In Defence, Clocking Off (and a special shout out for voice work in Doctor Who: The Scream Of Shalka) (British)
• Natalie Portman - Closer - Nothing

Directors (Directing TV - just about anything)

• Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby - an episode of Amazing Stories
• Taylor Hackford - Ray - Nothing
• Mike Leigh - Vera Drake - The Wednesday Player, Play for Today (British)
• Alexander Payne - Sideways - Nothing
• Martin Scorcese - The Aviator - an episode of Amazing Stories, an episode of the mini-series The Blues

And a special mention goes to Paul Haggis the screenwriter for Million Dollar Baby, who has a ton of TV credits starting with One Day At A Time. Around here he's best known as the creator of Due South, but he also has a creator credit on Walker: Texas Ranger, something that embarasses him so much that in interviews he says that his greatest fear was that when he died the first thing that would be mentioned in his obituary would be creator of Walker: Texas Ranger.

We Use Math Every Day

Years ago, when I first became interested in gambling that was more than picking winners at the races - which I was actually reasonably good at; why I quit is another story entirely - I started reading a lot of books about the subject. Percentages are a big thing in gambling. In simple terms you want to make bets that give the House the smallest advantage possible. Roulette, particularly with an American wheel (which has 38 numbers including 0 and 00 - the European wheel has 37 numbers) is not a good choice for the gambler. The House edge on an American rules table is 5.26% (on a European wheel it's 2.70%) which mean that if you were to place a bet on Black, or Even, which seem to be even money bets, you will actually win only 47.4 percent of the time. By comparison Craps has an House advantage of 1.41% on the Come Line and 1.364% on the Don't Come Line, and both percentages can be significantly reduced by laying or giving odds if the casino allows it. One of the books I read at the time was called The Eudaemonic Pie. It was the true story of a group of hippie types in the early 1970s who happened to be geniuses at physics. They wanted to set up a commune but to do that they needed money and they thought that the "easiest" way to get it was by gambling and roulette is the game that offers the largest pay outs. Betting a single number wins 36 times the original bet (that is 35-1 even thought he odds are 37-1 against - that's the advantage). Being physicists and mathematicians these guys felt that there had to be a way to use physics and mathematics to reduce the odds to a manageable level where you could place a chip on six numbers (for example) and know that the ball would land on one of those numbers. They didn't succeed but their failure had more to do with implementation rather than the actual areas of math and physics. In reading the book I learned a lot more about how something like this can be analyzed mathematically. I was also the first time that I had encountered the concept of Chaos Theory. The new TV series Numb3rs tries to convey some of the sort of wonder that mathematics provokes in some people.

The series focusses on Don and Charlie Eppes, played by Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz. Don is a senior agent in the Los Angeles office of the FBI, while his younger brother Charlie is a brilliant young professor of mathematics who occasionally consults with the FBI and other agencies. In his own world Charlie is a superstar, a concept which Don doesn't seem to fully grasp. In the pilot episode it was implied that Charlie's primarily participated in fraud and other types of cases involving money which on the face of it would seem to be the equivalent of asking Picasso to paint a mural for the baby's room. In the course of the pilot Charlie convinces Don that mathematical analysis can be used in cases that don't involve numbers in an obvious way. In essence he contends that it's possible to analyze information mathematically and from the known data deduce patterns that the criminals repeat. It's not unlike what the Eudaemons were trying to do with the Roulette wheel - given data about the rate at which the wheel spins and the speed of the orbit of the little white ball and its rate of decay and other data, it should be possible (using a computer) to determine which sector of the wheel (and therefore which numbers) the ball will end up in. As a concept for a television show it has the potential to go over a lot of peoples' heads, and I'm given to understand that the math has been "dumbed down" for the average viewer. On the other hand the public has embraced the idea of scientific investigations of crimes in a big way - witness the popularity of the CSI franchise, Crossing Jordan, and in Canada DaVinci's Inquest. The way the show is presented is both dramatic and quirky. That said, I sometimes find the writing to be a bit pedestrian, particularly when they're dealing with the personal aspects of the character relationships.

The show has a workmanlike cast. Rob Morrow is probably best known for playing Dr. Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure, but here seems to be channelling his investigator from the movie Quiz Show. He's fine playing a man who knows his brother is brilliant but sometimes has trouble really understanding him. Judd Hirsch, who plays Don and Charlie's father, has wisely decided to make closer to John Lacey from his old series Dear John than Julius Levinson from Independence Day. Alan Eppes is a man who is immensely proud of both of his sons, although mostly he's worried that they aren't romantically involved. Of special note in the supporting cast are Sabrina Lloyd as Don's FBI partner, a role that is different from what we normally associate her with, and Peter McNichol, who plays Charlie's friend, coworker and sometimes advisor. McNichol's character, Larry, is a typical McNichol character, quirky and comedic but extremely able and likeable not unlike the character of Alan Burch that he played in Chicago Hope.

The most important piece of casting is David Krumholtz as Charlie. Although known for comedy (including Bernard the "Arch-Elf" in the Santa Clause movies) he's also played a variety of dramatic roles, and was the man who stabbed John Carter on ER. As Charlie, he brings a sense of nervous, almost maniacal energy to character, particularly when he's involved in a problem. Charlie owes a little to Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind in that Charlie occassionally can't fully cope with reality particularly when it affects his family. Charlie isn't socially inept but he does have a comfort zone that he retreats into. But it's the mathematics where his true passion is. In Friday's episode, Charlie gives an explanation of the everyday importance of mathematics to Sabrina Lloyd's character that is at once beautiful passionate, and almost romantic. In addition there's a chemistry between Krumholtz and Morrow that makes them believable as brothers even though the real difference in their ages is closer to 16 years rather than the five or six that the show implies (Charlie and Don graduated from high school on the same day).

CBS has been promoting Numb3rs on the name value of Tony and Ridley Scott, whose production company makes the show. My suspicion is that the Scott Brothers' involvement has been limited to bringing money and the prestige of their names to the project. I don't think that it's necessarily the right approach. It is vaguely ironic that the fate of Numb3rs will be decided by numbers - Nielsen Rating numbers. Although Numb3rs has been the top rated show in its time slot since the show debuted, the ratings have also declined since it moved to its regular Friday night timeslot. Worse, beginning on March 4, it will be up against the newest entry in the Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Trial By Jury. I'd like to see Numb3rs renewed for next season, possibly on a new night if the opposition from L&O: Trial by Jury is too great, but a great deal depends on how much confidence the network has in the show. That's a lot of pressure.

The Proper Marriage of Acting and Writing

I'm not sure how much of Without A Trace is based in reality and how much is pure invention. I don't know, for example if the FBI maintains a missing persons unit. I don't know if law enforcement organizations at any level will investigate a missing persons case until 48 (or is it 72) hours has passed unless the missing person is a child. I am aware that in any criminal case the likelihood of successfully solving the case goes down as time passes, and goes down very precipitously in the early hours of the case. What I do know is that since it first debuted Without A Trace has been compelling enough to keep me from watching ER, which until that time had been on my "don't miss list" and while I'm pretty sure that a lot of it has to do with what I see as the decline in the quality of the stories in ER, I watch Without A Trace because it has managed to present good and frequently great television.

Without A Trace is a product of the Jerry Bruckheimer stable of shows. I am frequently driven to wonder just how much Bruckheimer is involved in this or the other programs he produces. They're a diverse lot, including the three CSI series, Cold Case, Without A Trace and The Amazing Race. He also has a comedy called The Evolution of Man listed as being in pre-production. This is all in addition to his movie work which in the past five years has ranged in quality from Veronica Guerin to Kangaroo Jack. Is Bruckheimer's role in his TV shows to put creative people together with money people and make the marriage work, or does he actually get his hands dirty on a day to day basis. It doesn't really matter because - for the most part - the TV series where he's listed as Executive Producer tend to be good quality productions. Which is more than can be said for most of his movie work.

The most noticeable thing about Without A Trace is the acting - it is rock solid. Led by Anthony LaPaglia as Jack Malone and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (nominated in for an Academy award in 1996 for Secrets And Lies) as Viv Johnson, the missing persons unit also includes Poppy Montgomery as Samantha "Sam" Spade, Enrique Murciano as Danny Taylor, and Eric Close as Martin Fitzgerald. (Trivia: of the five member of the cast of solid American characters, three are non-Americans - LaPaglia and Montgomery are Australians and Jean-Baptiste is British.) It is a show that is carried by the strength of the actors. While other series often attempt to submerge the characters in the work they are doing, the writers on Without A Trace have given their characters (mostly) believable personal lives which makes them more fully realized as people. Making the characters more complex in this way runs a risk - played badly the characters could be seen as artificial - but this cast makes the added dimension work. Thus it's believable that LaPaglia's character is too obsessed with his job to make his marriage work, but it's also believable that he doesn't fully know it until he's confronted with it. If it's only presented to us as a fait accompli early on in the run of the series then it's just an aspect of the character. In this case it has been revealed over time, but the revelation hasn't been incidental but has been the focus of episodes.

Writing for Without A Trace is a major strength but it's often not as noticeable as the acting, perhaps because of how good the acting is. The show has had its share of by the numbers plots and usually has it share of gimmicks, like revealing the clues and movements of the missing persons through flashbacks, there are episodes that stand out with their power. The finale of the first season is in essence a conversation between Agent Malone and a bereaved man who has taken a group of hostages and traded them for Malone. We learn a lot about the hostage taker but a lot more about Malone which gives us a solid grasp handle on part of his character. Another episode featured an amazing performance by Charles Dutton as a man whose life has been devastated by the unsolved abduction of his son several years before. Part of that episode's success was undoubtedly Dutton's acting ability (he won an Emmy as Outstanding Guest Star in a Drama for it), but part of it is that the writers gave him a strong script to work with.

I have a theory that in the end there are three essential features to any TV show or movie - the actors, the writers, and the director. If all three are outstanding then the product will be outstanding. If any two of the three are superior then what is seen on the screen will be good but often great. If only one of the three is first rate then you might get something worth watching, but probably not. If you have none of them you get Porky's or Kangaroo Jack or most Adam Sandler movies. At the very least Without A Trace has strong writers and excellent actors. It is invariably good and sometimes great.

The Child Is The Father Of The Man

Jack & Bobby is the sort of show we've come to expect from The WB. That is, it's a show focussed on teen angst but with a gimmick. It's standard stuff for The WB. Roswell gave us teen angst where the teens were aliens sent to earth to keep them safe from a civil war on their own world. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was teen angst where there were vampires and monsters to fight. Smallville is teen angst in a small town where one of the teens happens to be the guy who will become Superman and already has some of the powers. So what's the gimmick with Jack & Bobby? Well, one of them grows up to be president of the United States about 40 years from now. It's not a spoiler to say that it's the younger brother, Bobby. Still, it's Jack who is the angsty teen. While Bobby is the one who is being shaped, a lot of the events that are shaping him seem to be happening to Jack, while Bobby is in the background. Watching Jack making mistakes, or just living life, seems to be the leading influence on Bobby's course.

The other major influence on Bobby's life is his mother, Grace McAllister, played by the always interesting Christine Lahti (who as it happens is married to the show's Executive Producer, Tommy Schlamme). To put it mildly, Grace is larger than life, and in some ways almost a caricature. She's a liberal feminist professor at a small but well regarded university in Missouri. She's also a single mom (never married and the boys' father is an extremely shadowy figure), who tends to be overly controlling of her children even though her personal life is anything but controlled. She is overly fond of pot, something that brings her into conflict with Jack, and she's also started an affair with a younger man. Tom is not only her teaching assistant but she's also his thesis advisor. The affair has recently become public and has had major consequences for just about everyone, even if Tom is too dense to see them. Rounding out the main characters are Jack's best friend Marcus Ride, and the University president, Peter Benedict and his daughter Courtney. Peter Benedict is on his way to becoming a major influence on Bobby's life, one that tends to balance out Grace. Peter is conservative, but tends to treat Bobby as more of an adult than Grace does. For his part Bobby seems to have a puppy-like devotion to Peter, initially because Peter saved Bobby from a severe asthma attack but mainly because Bobby desperately needs an adult male role model.

An interesting aspect of the show is that each episode but one has had vignettes from the presidency of Robert McAllister inserted into the narrative. These are told by various people in the life of the adult Bobby, including his wife Courtney (the same Courtney who is the daughter of Peter Benedict and will be in a relationship with Jack McAllister) and his chief advisor Marcus Ride. These are done as a series of interviews for a documentary about the (presumably dead) President McAllister. We learn that Bobby became a Republican (much to his mother's disgust) but broke with the party and that he won the presidency because a bus load of students from Chicago drove to their home state of Missouri to vote for him. Mostly what we learn is how the events of the present that are the focus of the show reflect or influence the attitudes and decisions that President McAllister will make forty years from now. Their importance to the show can't be ignored - the one episode that didn't feature a "flash-forward" was unusually flat.

I enjoy Jack & Bobby and the show seems to have attracted a loyal fan base - a small, loyal fan base. The show was initially seen on Sunday and earned anaemic ratings and was soon switched to Wednesday nights after Smallville. It hasn't fared much better there, although to be fair the show is up against a powerful lineup on all four of the major networks - American Idol (Fox), The West Wing (NBC), Alias (ABC), and the combination of King of Queens and (now) Yes Dear (CBS). The one thing that the show has going for it (beyond that small but loyal fan base) is the critical acclaim that the show has garnered from a variety of sources. It has even earned Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for Christine Lahti (she didn't win either losing the SAG award to Jennifer Garner, and the Golden Globe to Mariska Hargitay) which is rare enough for a WB show to be noteworthy. It seems likely that Jack & Bobby will be cancelled at the end of this season - which would be a shame because it is a rather likable series if people would just give it a chance. The simple truth is that the show has never been in a good time slot in terms of fitting with its lead-in. A better time slot would be on Monday after Seventh Heaven but that slot has been given to Everwood and isn't likely to be taken away from it. As much as I hate to say it - because I've grown to like the show even if I'm not a fanatic about it as I am with some other shows - don't expect to see Jack & Bobby on The WB's lineup next fall.

And Here I Thought I Was Being Original

As It turns out, entirely without my knowing about it, there is another blog with a name almost identical to this one. Child Of Television is written by Hollywood-based stand-up comedian Tony Figueroa, and I have to admit, he writes better than I do. To make matters even more scarily coincidental - and it is entirely a coincidence - the first sentence of his first post is "I am a child of television." Until he emailed me I was entirely unaware of his, or his blog's existance. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this as I am rather fond of the name and coming up with it has temporarily exhausted my supply of creativity. In this, at least, I am not unlike a lot of people who work in Television.

What Exactly Constitutes "Groundbreaking"?

When I was 18 I watched One Day At A Time religiously and I'll tell you the biggest reason: Bonnie Franklin. I didn't think much about her acting but for the 18 year-old me, who had little success with girls my own age, she was a fantasy - she was pretty enough, energetic, older and therefore more experienced, and she didn't wear a bra (they weren't big but the moved and that was good enough for me). I wanted her or her doppelganger to "teach me" if you get my meaning. 18 year-old boys are horny pigs, but I'm sure that comes as a revelation to no one, either former 18 year-old males or females of just about any age. She wasn't my first TV sex object - that would probably have been Margot Kidder from the short lived Nichols (thanks to those bar maid outfits) - but Bonnie lasted.

I watched "bouncing Bonnie" bounce for the full eight years that the show was on the air. I enjoyed the show even as, in an odd way it grew increasingly mainstream. Valerie Bertinelli went from a cute kid to an extremely attractive woman and lost her virginity long before her character did, and we watched Mackenzie Phillips go from skinny bitchy teen to drug addicted near-cadaver. Anne Romano went from struggling divorced mom to successful business woman and all three women married. And as the show pushed more towards the centre other shows were doing stuff that was even out there in terms of breaking ground. About the most outrageous thing One Day At A Time was able to do towards the end was have Anne marry her son-in-law's father (which meant that Anne became Barbara's mother-in-law as well as her mother).

So I wasn't going to write anything about the One Day At A Time reunion show - beyond my desire to "sleep" with Bonnie Franklin (or Anne Romano) until I read a comment on the show's IMDB entry. The person writing the show was venomous in his attack on Bonnie Franklin to the point of calling her "one of the worst actresses in television history" and that "her act would get gonged on The Gong Show but it was one line in particular that started me thinking. The line in question was "Why did they think that D-I-V-O-R-C-E was edgy? The show was five years behind the times." What makes a show edgy and groundbreaking?

I can only assume that the writer of this diatribe never saw the shows of the period except in reruns which is not seeing it in the context of the time. Back in the day - and the day was thirty years ago - divorce was a big taboo on television. Actresses might get divorced, but you didn't see divorced or separated women on TV. Women living alone were single or widowed. If an unattached woman had kids then she was a widow. (And of course there was Doris Day: on her sitcom she went from a widow with kids living on a ranch with her father, to a widow with kids living in San Fancisco to a single woman with no kids. In fact she was probably a virgin again!) About the only divorced women on TV at the time were also Norman Lear creation, Maude Findlay (a three time loser) and her daughter Carole, but on Maude, Maude was married and Carole was just a subsidiary character, not the lead.

Another thing about Anne Romano was that she was an independent woman. She'd gotten out of one marriage and unlike so many characters on sitcom even at that point her objective in life wasn't to get married as soon as possible. She didn't want to be controlled the way she had been in her first marriage, which caused her first post-marriage relationship to end - he wanted kids with her, she didn't want any more. She struggled with being a single parent and trying to balance finding work and then working with a family. And like a good feminist, when she felt that she was being held back at work because she was a woman she started her own business and made a success of it.

And then there was sex. Anne Romano got laid. It was less than five years before that people were scandalized that Mary Richards stayed out all night with men on very rare occasions (and to protect herself took the pill). Mary Tyler Moore was supposed to be an even more groundbreaking show - Mary was supposed to be a divorced woman, but the network objected to the idea because they said that people would think that Laura Petrie had divorced Rob. Anne didn't just discreetly come home the morning after like Mary, you saw her heading to the bedroom, from the bedroom, and on occasion in the bedroom. Not all of her affairs were long term relationships either - she had at least a few one nighters sprinkled in among her list of bed buddies.

So was One Day At A Time groundbreaking? To a degree I think it was. It wasn't All In The Family or Maude or even The Jeffersons in terms of innovation, it broke a few taboos in a gentler fashion. It even makes me wonder if a show like this could be made today by a major network. I don't watch sitcoms today, but it seems to me that the typical sitcom can be boiled down to this sort of recipe. Take one guy (usually overweight - think Kevin James or Jim Belushi), add one wife who usually looks to good to be with him (Courtney Thorne Smith or Leah Remini), mix in one or more kid or funny adult relative who needs to be cared for (have to say that to include Jerry Stiller) and some goofy friends. Blend well and pour into molds. As nearly as I can recall the only show with a female lead character in a sitcom who is a divorced woman with kids is Reba, and that's not even in the same league as One Day At A Time.

What is Las Vegas?

No, not the city in Nevada, I'm talking about the TV series on NBC on Monday nights. It's an hour long, has people punching each other and stars James Caan, so it must be an action-drama, right? Actually, after careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that Las Vegas is the latest hour-long situation comedy and more accurately an action-comedy. I do know that anyone who actually thinks this show is even remotely realistic in its depiction of operations at a major casino resort - something I saw in a user commentary on IMDB while I was researching this little piece - should have their heads examined.

There have been hour-long comedies practically since the inception of network television but virtually all were variety shows with a large component of comedy or sketch shows like Laugh-In or Love American Style. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did some one hour shows Desi-Lucy Comedy Hour - in fact one episode ran 75 minutes - with them in character as Lucy and Ricky throughout not just the episodes but the series. The first really modern hour long sitcom was probably Moonlighting, although both the Directors Guild of America and the Television Academy followed the "traditional" definition of a drama being any hour-long show (although I mentioned in an earlier post that this definition only really became accepted by the mid-1960s) when giving out awards. Only the Golden Globes put Moonlighting in their comedy-musical category. Northern Exposure won Emmys as a dramatic series as well when, given the quirky nature of the characters and the situations that faced the lead character, Dr. Joel Fleischman, it could only be described as a comedy. At least the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild recognised that the show was a comedy in their awards, although the DGA only switched the designation for their 1994 awards. The first hour-long show to be fully recognised by the Emmys, the Directors Guild and most other award giving organizations was Ally McBeal.

So why do I think that Las Vegas is a comedy? For me the big thing is that although there have been episodes that are primarily dramatic, most of the episodes are largely comedic. Take Monday's episode. From the title, "To Protect And Serve Manicotti" it was played broadly and with a definite comedic pacing. In the "A" plot, casino boss and former CIA agent "Big" Ed Deline (James Caan) and his friend Frank (played by Sylvester Stallone) try to stop a protection racket directed against the mother of a showgirl. The interaction between Caan and Stallone is not unlike that in a Hope and Crosby "Road" picture. In the "B" plot, Security Chief Danny McCoy (Josh Duhamel) tries to track down a customer who cheated the casino out of a hundred thousand dollars before Big Ed finds out that they gave the guy a marker without checking with him. In the "C" plot Nessa, Sam and Delinda (Marsha Thomason, Vanessa Marcil and Molly Sims; Nikki Cox as Mary Connell - Danny's best friend and occasional love interest - didn't have much to do in this episode) each go to extremes to get Joe Rogan to pick her over the other two to represent the hotel on an episode of Fear Factor. The "B" plot is perhaps the only one that could possibly be considered as dramatic, and the way Duhammel carries himself and his character make that a rather absurd assertion.

The best reason for watching Las Vegas is to see James Caan play his tough guy image for a laugh. It's abundantly clear that Big Ed is not someone to be trifled with but his bluster is just a little too showy to be taken seriously by the audience, and he does tend to range between chewing the scenery a bit, and playing a low key "dese, dem and dose" kind of guy. I'm also willing to bet that Caan is the reason what the show has been able to attract actors like Stallone and Alec Baldwin to do a TV show. Duhamel is frequently quite watchable as the titular lead player, and has some meaty dramatic scenes to sink his teeth into (notably Danny's return from military service in Iraq) but is charming enough to pull off the comedy scenes. James Lesure as Danny's pal Mike (an MIT engineer who worked as a hotel valet because he earned more money that way and then was forced to take a pay cut when Big Ed needed him to work in security) is a techno-wizard but in a cool way. He doesn’t have a lot of funny moments, but plays off of Danny and Ed well. Although the women as individuals may have serious storylines, a lot of the stuff that they do individually and together has a comedic aspect to it.

Las Vegas will probably never win any major awards, but on the whole it is an attractive, well-made, and funny series that uses the frequent absurdity of the title city most effectively. It certainly doesn't belong on any list of guilty pleasures. Best of all, the producers, having decided that the show needed an Elvis Presley song as the title music, resisted the temptation to use "Viva Las Vegas" and went instead for "A Little Less Conversation". What's not to love about that?

Lost In The Translation

A couple of years after Food TV first showed up in Canada I stumbled upon the debut of a new series (at least new to them) called Iron Chef. If you remember Food TV at the time it was pretty dire. There was - I kid you not - a show about making dog biscuits, called Three Dog Bakery after the hosts who owned an establishment by that name. About the best show on the network was Two Fat Ladies, and yeah I am including Emeril on that list. Iron Chef was a revelation. It presented cooking like a competitive sport complete with announcer Fukui Kenji (I'm giving the names in the Japanese manner with the surname first), colour commentator Hattori Yukio, and on field reporter Ota Shinichiro. The fact that sometimes the show seemed like pro wrestling - like when various factions formed to confront various Iron Chefs of which the most notable was the Ohta Faction that was headhunting for the third Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto Masaharu - made it more fun. Even the music fits - I can't watch the movie Backdraft without expecting to see a flamboyantly dressed Japanese man show up and chomp on a bell pepper. It rapidly went on my list of guilty pleasures until I discovered that it was on so many people's list of guilty pleasures that it had actually become something of a mainstream show. Just to show you how popular the show was, I remember going to dinner at my brother's house with my mother and some of my brother's friends. While Greg and his then wife Jana were upstairs cooking the rest of us were in the basement watching TV and talking. At the appropriate time I switched the TV over to Food TV to watch Iron Chef. A few minutes later my brother - who is not a fan - came down and tried to change the channel. There was a general rebellion amongst the guests. The same thing happened when my sister-in-law came down and tried to get the channel changed - the only one on her side was my brother.

It was probably inevitable that once it became apparent how popular the show was, there was be an attempt to create an American version. The first tentative move was made by Food TV in cooperation with the show's Japanese producers, Fuji TV. They brought most of the Japanese cast including Hattori, Fukui, Iron Chefs Sakai Hiroyuki and Kobe Masahiko (Morimoto lived in New York at the time), retired Iron Chef Michiba Rokusaburo, and the show's host "Chairman" Kaga Takeshi, to New York City to do an episode for the Japanese series but also set it up as a Food TV special. In it, Morimoto went up against American chef - and Food TV star - Bobby Flay. Despite an all-American judging panel including restaurant guide writers Tim and Nina Zagat and Donna Hanover (then going through an extremely messy divorce from New York Mayor Rudy Gulianni) and an audience member, Flay lost and in doing so cemented his reputation as a bit of a brat.

The first real attempt to do an all-American version of Iron Chef was made by UPN in two specials that seemed to be intended as pilots for a series. They took all of the elements of the Japanese version and did them completely wrong. They took a large showroom space in Las Vegas for their Kitchen Stadium and filled it with cheering "fans" complete with signs that I'm sure were made by the producers and handed to audience members as they came in. The announcers came across as converted wrestling announcers with absolutely no knowledge of food (while Fukui Kenji from the Japanese version is a baseball announcer, his partner Hattori Yukio is an expert on food whose business - Hattori Nutrition College - was involved in the creation of the show) and the less said about floor reporter Sissy Biggers and "Chairman" William Shatner the better. I said at the time that the only man who could possibly be an American version of Kaga was Liberace and he was, unfortunately, dead. The quality of the judges can be summed up by the fact that one said that the only way to eat tuna is on bread with mayonnaise, and another judge was Bruce Villanch. About the only thing they got right was their selection of Iron Chefs. The show tanked in the ratings - even by UPN standards - and no more was heard of it.

Which brings us to the new incarnation of Iron Chef. This version is being done by Food TV and is light years beyond the UPN version. As "Chairman" they have martial artist and actor Marc Dacascos as "Chairman" Kaga's nephew. Instead of an announcer and a colour commentator, the producers have decided to use Food TV host Alton Brown as the announcer with another network personality Kevin Brauch as floor reporter. It's a nice choice since both men seem to know what they're talking about with reference to food, and if they don't know what's going on the chefs are miked and close enough to make comments and answer questions. After an initial four episode series of specials featuring Japanese Iron Chefs Morimoto and Sakai (a third Japanese Iron Chef, Chen Kenichi was supposed to appear but had to cancel due to a death in the family) against American Iron Chefs (and Food TV hosts) Bobby Flay, Mario Battali and Wolfgang Puck, the series was picked up although Puck was replaced (mercifully) with Morimoto (who now runs his own restaurant in Philadelphia). The result was Iron Chef America.

I enjoy Iron Chef America, but there are enough differences between this and the Japanese version (which is no longer in production) to make the whole thing feel somewhat "off". While Alton Brown is extremely knowledgeable, my feeling is that he may need someone who has less knowledge than him to work off of in the way that Hattori-san worked off of Fukui and one or two of the guest judges. The judges are another minor problem. In the Japanese version the usual format was to have at least one and possibly two celebrities as judges, in addition to one of a group of regular judges who weren't in the food business and (usually) a judge who was a culinary writer or other professional - the most frequent choice was Kishi Asako. In the episodes of the Iron Chef America that I've seen almost all of the judges have been professional food critics. They may know food, but they aren't prone to make silly comments like the notorious "bimbos du jour" from the original series. Another minor quibble is the decision to dress the Iron Chefs in a sort of uniform of blue jackets with an American flag on the right shoulder and the only distinguishing mark being a different coloured patch for each man on the left arm. The Japanese Iron Chefs each had their own distinctive outfit right down to their hats. The uniform look of the American Iron Chefs gives an impression not unlike the kitchen staff at your local East Side Marios or some other chain where the kitchen personnel are on view. A big change is that they've abandoned the fiction that the Challengers chose which Iron Chef they'd face. (It was a fiction. In the Japanese show the producers would suggest a couple of opponents to a challenger some time before taping and the selection would be made at that time. Thus it was rare that all of the Iron Chefs were in the studio at the same time. They also gave both the Iron Chef and the challenger a list of five potential featured ingredients, one of which would be used.) In the American version of the show, the Chairman chooses which Iron Chef will be featured.

As I say, I enjoy Iron Chef America and I hope that it will be enough of a success that Food TV and Food Network Canada (which was created by Alliance-Atlantis in partnership with the American channel a couple of years ago - it helps with Canadian television regulations and provides the Canadian channel with different content than the American parent) will continue to produce and broadcast it. It's a good show, but that said, the fact remains that there is something ever so slightly off that keeps it from being the great show that the Japanese Iron Chef was. If someone can figure out what that missing ingredient is, they might have something.

More Loonatics

Because I'm not sure the cast picture really did a good job of showing what this is going to be like, I found a copy of the Loonatics promotional poster, though the only one that seems to "pop" is Bugs...sorry, BUZZ.... Bunny. Remember, it's all about the toys.

This Is Just Wrong!

Okay I know that this has been posted elsewhere a number of times, and I'm a bit of a Johnny Come-lately on this so sue me. The fact is that as Baby Herman said in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, this whole thing stinks like yesterday's diaper. Loonatics is a reimaging of Bugs Bunny and several other Looney Tunes characters as hip, fighting superheroes in a far distant future. Ministers of grace protect us the network weasels at Kids'WB and the Cartoon Network have flipped their lids!

The characters (and the identity that they were developed from) are, from left to right:

• Slick (Wile E. Coyote)
• Spaz (The Tasmanian Devil)
• Buzz Bunny (Bugs Bunny)
• Duck (Daffy Duck)
• Lexi (Lola Bunny from the Michael Jordan vanity piece Space Jam)
• Roadster (The Roadrunner)

According to a Warner Animation executive who should have remained anonymous but is in fact division president Sander Schwartz, "The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today." Dan Jallonari, president of Kids'WB, said that the network flipped over it: "We just said, `Wow, what a great way to take the classic Looney Tunes franchise that has been huge with audiences for decades and bring it into the new millennium.'" Of course Jallonari also mentioned what I take to be the real reason for developing the new show. According to him both boys and girls enjoyed the new action figures in the test runs of the show. In short, it's all about the toys.

The Looney Tunes characters belong to Warner Brothers and they can do what they want with them, and the idea of anthropomorphic animals with superpowers is not an entirely unheard of concept in animated movies and comic books. There have been "Mighty Mouse", "Marvel Bunny" (an animal counterpart of the original "Captain Marvel") and "Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew" from DC Comics. It's not that part of the idea that I don't like. The big problem, beyond the assumption that the original characters were intended just for kids - everyone who worked in the animation industry when it was at its high point between 1930 and the mid-1950s was making cartoons for adults and kids together - is that they showed so little originality. Why base the new characters off of the original Looney Tunes characters? Why not create original characters? There are a lot of explanations, the most charitable of which is that the producers wanted a tie-in with known commodities, and the least charitable is that these people (the network weasels responsible) are simply incapable of being original. Regardless, I feel like Daffy Duck in the cartoon where everything keeps changing around him thanks to a malignant animator; confused and angry.

The Ol' Bait And Switch

Okay, I admit it, I fell for it ... again. In my personal television lexicon the "Bait and Switch" is when a show or a network promises something and then delivers in such a way that you feel cheated and used when the show is over. Cross-overs between shows are frequently examples of the Bait and Switch, and the Third Watch part of last night's Third Watch/Medical Investigation crossover is a prime example. And like a big all-day sucker I bought into it. I watched them both.

My personal history with Third Watch is a bit muddied. I watched the pilot while I had a severe headache. It might even have been a migraine but I'm not sure. A personal rule now is "don't decide on a show when you've got a migraine" (on the other hand, if the show or movie gives you a migraine, that's usually a bad sign - Highlander II always gives me a migraine). At the time though I decided to pass on Third Watch. I thought the concept about New York cops and firefighters might have had potential but I disliked just about all of the characters. Besides the show was on Monday nights at the time and I'd have to tape it because I bowl Monday nights, and why tape something you hate. I caught a few episodes around the end of the first season and the show seemed a bit better (no migraines) but not enough to give it tape time.

Then came the attacks on the World Trade Center. Third Watch did some of the best episodes of any TV show surrounding that tragedy including the two hour "In Their Own Words" which was a two hour non-fiction episode consisting of New York Police and Fire personnel who had survived the attacks and heir families describing the events. The only regular cast member in that episode was Molly Price and she was there legitimately - she is married to a New York firefighter in real life. This episode won a Peabody Award. The episode "September Tenth" was excellent as well. I didn't stick with the show though. By the time I watched my next episode - the Bait and Switch crossover with ER - the show was becoming increasingly about the cops and not particularly the cop on the street. Symbolic of this was the episode in which one of the major firefighter characters was literally blown to pieces in an explosion (as I recall the scene, all they found was her feet, still in her boots). By 2004 almost all of the fire department personnel were gone and the show had become one of those grim and gritty police dramas with occasional appearances from the paramedics.

The episode I saw last night isn't the sort of thing that would get me watching on a regular basis. The "A" plot centred on the murder of a major drug dealer in the police precinct house by a 12 year-old boy and the rise of a new drug lord that was clearly part of an ongoing line and not for the viewers who just wanted to be completists on the upcoming Medical Investigation episode. The "B" plot focused on the investigation of the murder of a jeweler who was a friend of one of the street cops. There was also the usual soap opera style relationship conflicts, although not at ER This is what brought in the team from Medical Investigation, but only the two main actors, Neal McDonough and Kelli Williams. I didn't put a strop watch on it of course but if they ten minutes of screen time in the episode I'd only be surprised that they were on for that long. Their storyline never developed much beyond the "Hi, I'm Dr Connor and this is my partner Dr. Durant" stage. Some crossover particularly when you saw what the producers of Medical Investigation did with the cast members from Third Watch. The character of Carlos, played by Anthony Ruivivar, was one of the patients and although you could be almost certain that he wasn't going to die, given some of the stunts that have been pulled off on Third Watch in the past, it wasn't quite a dead lock cinch. The character who was given The biggest role was Molly Price from Third Watch. The character of Detective Faith Yokas fit so effortlessly into the Medical Investigation cast that I almost expected Connor to give her an open job offer for whenever she got tired of being on the NYPD.

Direct crossovers between shows usually occur in one of three circumstances. The first is when shows share a producer, as happened when Third Watch and ER crossed over. Both shows are produced by John Wells, so I suppose it might be possible that we'll be seeing a Third Watch/West Wing crossover. Another example is when shows are on the same night, but this usually constitutes an "event". One of the most memorable was when all of the NBC comedies on one Saturday night crossed over with each other. This included Empty Nest, Nurses, and Golden Girls. The third type of crossover is when one show crosses over with another so that viewers from a popular show will watch one that is less popular show despite not having a night or a producer in common. The most famous examples of that were the occasions when the highly popular Law & Order crossed over with the less well rated, but critically popular Homicide: Life On The Street. Many time the cross-over is motivated by two, or even all three of these reason. While I think that the cross-over between Third Watch and Medical Investigation was originally motivated by being on the same night, it is also true that Medical Investigation started the season strong but declined against CSI: Miami ratings and the new show Numb3rs to the point that NBC will be moving Law & Order: Trial by Jury into that time slot. There's no word as to what will happen to Medical Investigation which is unfortunate because I rather liked it. I certainly like it better than what I saw of Third Watch last night.