 | You scored as Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo). You have spent your life trying to life up to and impress your Dad, shame he never seemed to notice. You are a stickler for the rules. But in matters of loyalty and honour you know when they have to be broken.
What New Battlestar Galactica character are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Monday, October 24, 2005
Another Quiz - Battlestar Galactica
Poker On TV
As you may have noticed, I signed up for the Pokerstars Blogger tournament. Suffice it to say I did not perform as well as I had hoped. I finished about 1290th out of some 1473 players. As my old grade nine coach would have said "That's not performance." I had fun but it ended way to soon leaving me feeling as though I had played beyond my depth. Some careful analysis has led me to the conclusion that I was just unlucky in the hands I chose to make a stand on.The fact that I was playing in such a tournament is testimony to the power of Television and the Internet.The influence of the Internet is fairly obvious. It allowed players to play the game, and new players to learn the game without having to go to a casino, a card room or to find or set up a game. More to the point millions of people who were casual players were suddenly able to pit their skills not just against their friends but against people from all over the world. The influence of Television is also obvious, although for less than obvious reasons. Television exposed people to the game, specifically No-Limit Texas Hold'em, and made it look easy. Perhaps the single most important event in the current Poker boom occurred not when a young accountant from Tennessee named Chris Moneymaker won $3.5 million at the World Series of Poker from a $40 Internet satellite tournament but when ESPN broadcast their coverage of the World Series of Poker. The World Poker Tour, broadcast in the United States on the Travel Channel had laid the groundwork, making poker players "famous" (or at least as famous as a cable channel can make anybody) but it was seeing Moneymaker win and in so doing proving that the old adage that the NFL sought so hard to sell - namely that on any given day anyone can win - really applied to Poker. Between 2003 when Moneymaker won and 2005 when an Australian mortgage broker named Joseph Hachem won $7.5 million, the field when from 839 players to 5,619, each paying $10,000 to play (or more often winning a tournament that provided the entry fee).
The bigger question is what makes Poker "good" TV. It didn't used to be. As late as 2000, when Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won the World Series main event, ESPN didn't even cover poker, the finals were shown on the Discovery Channel. The major change in the game for Television has been the adoption of cameras to show the player's hole cards. There are two varieties. The first, used by the British for their series Late Night Poker was a system of under the table cameras, shooting up through glass or plexiglass panels where the players have to put their cards. The system which is more commonly used in North America uses a more conventional table equipped with "lipstick" cameras placed along the edge of the table. This allows players to look at their hands as covertly as they wish while still showing their cards to the viewers. Being able to see what players have has increased the drama of the game because viewers can see when people are bluffing and when they've got the best hands.
Of course if all the game needed to generate interest was to show the players' cards, I wouldn't be writing this. Poker also needs commentators and colour commentators not just to sell the action but to explain strategy. I have my own favourites both as individuals and as broadcasting teams (my favourite broadcasting team may come as a surprise). What I look for in commentators and a commentary team is some humour but also a solid grounding in poker and the ability to explain to me why a move is good or not. A lot of this falls on the colour commentator. Probably the best colour commentator I've ever heard was professional Poker player Howard "The Professor" Lederer who announced on Fox Sports' Showdown at the Sands Tournament in 2003 however this was a one time effort and Lederer rarely does commentary. Another excellent commentator was Gabe Kaplan who for many years did commentary and interviews for the World Series of Poker telecasts. He had was not only experienced as a comedian and actor, but is also an extremely good poker player in his own right. His most recent job as a colour commentator was on NBC's coverage of the National Heads Up Championship.
Here are the commentary teams for the major TV Poker shows, and my opinion of them:
World Series of Poker and most ESPN tournaments hosted by Lon McEachern and Norman Chad - Not my favourite commentary team and I put a lot of the blame on Chad in the colour commentary seat. The problem is that he's not giving me a lot of information - at least not about the Poker. I'm finding out a lot about his ex-wives and a lot about what he finds funny (which is probably why he has several ex-wives) but not a lot of insight about why players are making the moves they do. McEachern is better as an announcer but when working with Chad (who is a columnist for the Washington Post and Sport Illustrated) he spends a lot of time as a straight man.
The World Poker Tour hosted by Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton - I like this team better although not by much. The problem here is Van Patten. While Sexton is a good player and can talk with some knowledge about the game, Van Patten is frequently annoying and given to saying the obvious. Like Chad he has numerous one liners and frequently gives hands new names to suit his fancy. He's not a very good player either.
The Ultimate Poker Challenge hosted by Chad Brown - Called "America's Most Watched Poker Show" this syndicated series based out of the Palms Casino in Las Vegas takes a different approach to commentary. The show is hosted by professional poker player (and former actor) Chad Brown with a different colour commentator every week. In the first season commentators included Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman and in the finals both Todd Brunson and his father Doyle. The resulting commentary is full of insight but on the whole the show comes across as having been done on the cheap,and very serious.
Celebrity Poker Showdown hosted by Dave Foley and Phil Gordon - yeah, I admit it, they're my favourite team mainly because Gordon and Foley work well together. They seem to have a bit of chemistry between them and the humour usually works. Foley knows enough about poker to know that he doesn't know a lot which means that he asks Gordon questions which allows the professional player to explain situations in terms a layman can understand. It doesn't hurt that they aren't talking about pros which means that Gordon can take the opportunity to be critical when someone makes a bad move (he once said a play that NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon made in a tournament was "stupid") and explain not only why the move was poor but also what a pro would do.
There are a number of other Poker shows out there, including the Canadian Poker Tour, but these are the main ones. All have their strengths - even Celebrity Poker Showdown, and all are part of the Poker boom. How long the boom will last is a major question , but there's no argument that right now there's a wealth of opportunity to watch and learn on TV, even if some of the lessons are the wrong ones.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
New Poll - Which Of These New Shows Do You Find Scariest?
With Hallowe'en coming up I thought I'd spend some time with scary shows. First up, which of the new wave of scary shows do you find scariest.
As usual, feel free to comment.
As usual, feel free to comment.
Poll Results - The Video iPod
Last week I asked the question: Would you pay $1.99 for a network TV show using the Video iPod? The results are kind of interesting. There were seven responses. At the bottom were Yes, No, but I would pay for original content, and Bittorrent roolz, iTunes droolz with no votes. In third place we had No, I have a DVD recorder/PVR/VCR with one vote. And the winners - since we had a tie - were Maybe, depends on a lot of things and No, the screen's too small with three votes each.
The one respondent who wouldn't buy a Video iPod because (s)he had an existing recording device represents the comfortable status quo - the person who has a device which records programming as it's broadcast, and is happy with that. The question, in the United States at least, is whether the industry will be able to push through broadcast flagging which will make it possible for the content producers and distributors to prevent this sort of free reproduction, nominally to prevent piracy. The original FCC ruling was overturned in May of this year, but there are rumours that the industry will try to find another way to get it through. In such circumstances buying content - suitably protected against piracy - may be the way the industry is driving people. In a similar vein, I had expected to see at least one person voting for Bittorrent simply because using it is "free" and let's admit that Bloggers can be a pretty tech savvy crowd (I've considered Bittorrent for shows that I've missed or can't see otherwise). The downside of Bittorrent is that it can sometimes be hard to find content and of course the fear of a knock on the door from the MPAA.
Let's look at the two winning responses next. I think that for network TV shows the screen on the Video iPod is too small, and unlike its audio relatives or the Photo iPod (at least as I understand that device) you can't render the video content on this device into a more viewer friendly format - speakers for the regular iPods versus a video screen of some sort for the Video iPod. What I hoped to find from this response is whether people were interested in having the ability to legally pay a fee to get programming that they can view when they want and the problem here was not with the idea but with the specific device they were being asked to use.
As far as Maybe, depends on a lot of things, I only got one comment - from Harry Heuser who publishes the blog broadcastellan. He wrote: "Such technology is a good thing if you don't have access to certain television channels (while living abroad, for instance). On the other hand, I regret the further fragmentation of the audience. I enjoy tuning in for a shared experience, knowing that millions are watching at the same time." He has a definite point about audience fragmentation. It's something that I've noted for many years about movies. It used to be that people would go to a big theater with 800 or more seats, frequently filled. Sure there were fewer theaters which meant fewer options but it was a collective experience. Compare that to the theater where I saw Serenity a couple of weeks ago. There were 134 seats (I counted them which shows just how few there were not to mention the boredom of the wait for the show to start) of which about a quarter were full. Thirty or so people does not a collective experience make. It was the same with television. In the days of three networks in the U.S. and little or no cable penetration people talked about the TV shows they watched and people usually saw the same shows. There aren't many collective experiences left in the era of the 500 channel universe. Harry is also right however when he mentions that this can be a good thing if you don't have access to certain television channels. Of course that's how cable - and the original fragmentation of the audience - got started. Of course I don't know if iTunes will sell a show like Desperate Housewives (just as an example) to customers outside of North America. For a long time they didn't sell music to Canadians.
This leads us other response. I expected votes for original content since the poll question specifically mentioned "network TV shows". Original content may indeed be the thing that the Video iPod is best suited for. I know of a couple of producers of content in the technology field (notably Kevin Rose) who are producing content that is at least compatible with the iPod. I also know that after Firefly was cancelled by Fox, there were viewers who were willing to pay to keep the show in production. It may be that downloadable content is a way to make make things like that a reality.
Thoughts?
The one respondent who wouldn't buy a Video iPod because (s)he had an existing recording device represents the comfortable status quo - the person who has a device which records programming as it's broadcast, and is happy with that. The question, in the United States at least, is whether the industry will be able to push through broadcast flagging which will make it possible for the content producers and distributors to prevent this sort of free reproduction, nominally to prevent piracy. The original FCC ruling was overturned in May of this year, but there are rumours that the industry will try to find another way to get it through. In such circumstances buying content - suitably protected against piracy - may be the way the industry is driving people. In a similar vein, I had expected to see at least one person voting for Bittorrent simply because using it is "free" and let's admit that Bloggers can be a pretty tech savvy crowd (I've considered Bittorrent for shows that I've missed or can't see otherwise). The downside of Bittorrent is that it can sometimes be hard to find content and of course the fear of a knock on the door from the MPAA.
Let's look at the two winning responses next. I think that for network TV shows the screen on the Video iPod is too small, and unlike its audio relatives or the Photo iPod (at least as I understand that device) you can't render the video content on this device into a more viewer friendly format - speakers for the regular iPods versus a video screen of some sort for the Video iPod. What I hoped to find from this response is whether people were interested in having the ability to legally pay a fee to get programming that they can view when they want and the problem here was not with the idea but with the specific device they were being asked to use.
As far as Maybe, depends on a lot of things, I only got one comment - from Harry Heuser who publishes the blog broadcastellan. He wrote: "Such technology is a good thing if you don't have access to certain television channels (while living abroad, for instance). On the other hand, I regret the further fragmentation of the audience. I enjoy tuning in for a shared experience, knowing that millions are watching at the same time." He has a definite point about audience fragmentation. It's something that I've noted for many years about movies. It used to be that people would go to a big theater with 800 or more seats, frequently filled. Sure there were fewer theaters which meant fewer options but it was a collective experience. Compare that to the theater where I saw Serenity a couple of weeks ago. There were 134 seats (I counted them which shows just how few there were not to mention the boredom of the wait for the show to start) of which about a quarter were full. Thirty or so people does not a collective experience make. It was the same with television. In the days of three networks in the U.S. and little or no cable penetration people talked about the TV shows they watched and people usually saw the same shows. There aren't many collective experiences left in the era of the 500 channel universe. Harry is also right however when he mentions that this can be a good thing if you don't have access to certain television channels. Of course that's how cable - and the original fragmentation of the audience - got started. Of course I don't know if iTunes will sell a show like Desperate Housewives (just as an example) to customers outside of North America. For a long time they didn't sell music to Canadians.
This leads us other response. I expected votes for original content since the poll question specifically mentioned "network TV shows". Original content may indeed be the thing that the Video iPod is best suited for. I know of a couple of producers of content in the technology field (notably Kevin Rose) who are producing content that is at least compatible with the iPod. I also know that after Firefly was cancelled by Fox, there were viewers who were willing to pay to keep the show in production. It may be that downloadable content is a way to make make things like that a reality.
Thoughts?
Friday, October 21, 2005
TV On DVD - October 18, 2005 - Or At Least Thereabouts
Apologies all. This is very late thanks in no small part to a very stubborn and exasperating Internet connection that has been driving me up the wall. Lots of kidvid, but there are a some real nostalgic gems from the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
The Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Season
- Superman is an American icon and when you think of the TV version it's the George Reeves version from the 1950s that you think of rather than Dean Cain's version in Lois And Clark or Tom Welling's Clark Kent in Smalville. The show was done on a shoestring budget, and a pretty frayed shoestring at that, and used a lot of stock footage not to mention scripts that were actually worse than those used in the 1950s comic books. The show is worth watching for the cast which included Jack larcenies as Jimmy oleaginous, and both Phyllis Coates and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. However the key is Reeves as Superman. You might be able to see that Clark Kent is Superman, but Reeves looks equally good in the form fitting Superman uniform or Clark Kent's suit and snapped brim fedora. And as dramatic as the opening was on radio it was even better with a visual component.
Atomic Betty, Vol. 1: Betty, Set, Go!
Atomic Betty, Vol. 2: Betty to the Rescue
- I don't know much about the Atomic Betty animated series, so I've had to do a little research. It's produced in Canada for the Cartoon Network and Teletoon, and is about a girl from Moose Jaw Heights Saskatchewan(!) who is an ordinary Earth kid who just happens to be famous throughout the rest of the galaxy as a member of the Galactic Guardians. According to Wikipedia the series has unimaginative plotting but "an unusually strong sense of continuity for a show of its genre, and it is generally considered to have excellent character design." Done with Macromedia Flash animation.
Batman vs. Dracula
- This is part of a larger release of Batman material including the 1943 serial time to coincide with the release of the recent Batman Begins movie on DVD. I have seen parts of a few episodes of the current The Batman series and while it lacks some of the retro feel of the previous Batman cartoons, which worked to create an artistic impression not unlike the Fleischer Superman cartoons, this series does work. The Batman Vs. Dracula is actually a 90 minute feature produced for the direct to DVD market and not only features Dracula but many of The Batman's most famous enemies.
Braceface: Turning 13
- Another animated Canadian series that I know little about, this one produced by and starring Alicia Silverstone as the voice of Sharon Spitz. Apparently it ran for only two seasons to uniformly low ratings.
C.S.I. New York: The Complete First Season
- While I don't like CSI: New York as well as I like the original CSI, it is far closer to the original in style than CSI: Miami and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Gary Sinese doesn't dominate the show in the same way that David Caruso does the Miami version. There is always the sense in this version of the franchise that while Sinese's character of Mack Taylor is in control, everything doesn't revolve around him. The first season of the series was criticized for being dark, and as such possibly hurting New York's image. Perhaps, but it is in keeping with creating a mood that fits the particular setting.
Dark Shadows: The Revival, The Complete Series
- Noting the continued popularity of the original Dark Shadows series, in 1991creator Dan Curtis revived the show as a prime time series. Despite a strong cast which included Oscar nominee Jean Simmons and Chariots of Fire star Ben Cross, the series lasted a mere 12 episodes. While it has its adherents it is not nearly as popular as the original series.
Garfield Prime Time Gift Set
- These were the prime time specials which led up to the creation of the Garfield and Friends TV series, brought together on a three DVD set. It's hard to explain just how anticipated these specials were at the time, given the slide in popularity that the comic strip has undergone in recent years.
Ghost Hunters: Complete First Season
Ghost Hunters, Vol. 1: Very Best Of - Most Bizarre
- I haven't seen this series which airs on the Sci-Fi channel in the United States. It has been dubbed a "docu-soap" whatever the heck that means. Apparently it features two real-life plumbers who are also investigate the paranormal, which is to say ghosts. Scary stuff for Hallowe'en.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Season One, Volume 1 (Collector's Edition)
- He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe existed for one thing and one thing only - to sell toys - and no amount of tacking on those little morals or public service type messages to the end of each episode could change that. Worse still it came from Filmation, a studio where the motto always seemed to be "if you can't do it fast and cheap don't do it at all." The worst of Hanna-Barbera was better than the best of Filmation.
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
- The labelling on this set is misleading. Empire Pictures, which is releasing this boxed set is playing up the presence of Vincent Price, however Price was just a small part of the show, serving as its narrator. The real star of the show was the legendary Canadian comedian Billy Van, who got his start in show-business as a Frank Sinatra imitator. Van played most of the characters on the show which was an hour long and produced at CHCH-TV in Hamilton Ontario - which probably explains why I never saw it, since CHCH was a major independent station and guarded the rights to their own programming dilligently.
Mister Peepers
- Mister Peepers was one of the legendary TV series of the early days of television, and has been mostly unseen since it was first aired. Perhaps that explains why it is so poorly rated on TV.com. The problem was that two-fold. The series was originally only intended as a summer replacement in 1952, but a series called Doc Corkle performed so poorly that Mister Peepers was revived. The series was done live and was distributed to the west coast using kinescopes - basically a 16 mm film camera filming the studio monitor. The kinescopes were never meant to last and mostly they didn't. Also the show was shot in New York so they weren't able to adapt as readily to the three camera technology pioneered by Desi Arnaz around the time that Mister Peepers debuted. Still the cast was outstanding, and included not just Wally Cox, who became a star as a result of this show, but also Tony Randall, Jack Warden, Arthur O'Connell and Marion Lorne.
Pet Alien: Atomic Tommy
Pet Alien: Aliens Unleashed
- Yet another Cartoon Network series that I've never seen and have no idea what it's about.
Saved by the Bell - The New Class: Season 5
- This series, which Ian J. Ball tells me was vastly inferior to the original, just kept going and going and going, changing kids as needed.
Strawberry Shortcake: Dress Up Days
- Like He-Man the primary objective of this series was to sell toys. Unlike He-Man the vapid stories are at least supported by tolerable animation.
Legend of Zelda: The Complete Animated Series
- These cartoons are from the short-lived live action Super Mario Brothers Super Show series. The cartoons deal with Princess Zelda and her suitor and frequent rescuer Link and tend to be a bit dumb. The DVD does include some scenes from the Super Mario Brothers show which starred former wrestler Captain Lou Albano and veteran character actor Danny Wells which look funny in a strange sort of way.
Twilight Zone: Season 4
- More episodes from one of the greatest science fiction television anthologies of all time - the original series not the 1985 or 2002 revivals. Extras include old interviews with a number of actors who worked during the season including Burgess Meredith and Ross Martin, as well at least one commentary from William Windom. As always with this series, the casts for the individual stories are outstanding, and include Meredith, Martin, and Windom as well as Jack Klugman, Paul Mazursky, Robert Duvall, Dana Andrews and Martin Balsam.
Unscripted
- I've never seen this HBO series created by George Clooney and Steven Soderburgh. This is described as an "improvisational dramedy" which implies that the actors involved are given situations to deal with within the context of the show but aren't working with a script. I've never seen it but it sounds as if it could either be very good or very bad. At the very least it seems to be an interesting experiment.
The Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Season
- Superman is an American icon and when you think of the TV version it's the George Reeves version from the 1950s that you think of rather than Dean Cain's version in Lois And Clark or Tom Welling's Clark Kent in Smalville. The show was done on a shoestring budget, and a pretty frayed shoestring at that, and used a lot of stock footage not to mention scripts that were actually worse than those used in the 1950s comic books. The show is worth watching for the cast which included Jack larcenies as Jimmy oleaginous, and both Phyllis Coates and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. However the key is Reeves as Superman. You might be able to see that Clark Kent is Superman, but Reeves looks equally good in the form fitting Superman uniform or Clark Kent's suit and snapped brim fedora. And as dramatic as the opening was on radio it was even better with a visual component.
Atomic Betty, Vol. 1: Betty, Set, Go!
Atomic Betty, Vol. 2: Betty to the Rescue
- I don't know much about the Atomic Betty animated series, so I've had to do a little research. It's produced in Canada for the Cartoon Network and Teletoon, and is about a girl from Moose Jaw Heights Saskatchewan(!) who is an ordinary Earth kid who just happens to be famous throughout the rest of the galaxy as a member of the Galactic Guardians. According to Wikipedia the series has unimaginative plotting but "an unusually strong sense of continuity for a show of its genre, and it is generally considered to have excellent character design." Done with Macromedia Flash animation.
Batman vs. Dracula
- This is part of a larger release of Batman material including the 1943 serial time to coincide with the release of the recent Batman Begins movie on DVD. I have seen parts of a few episodes of the current The Batman series and while it lacks some of the retro feel of the previous Batman cartoons, which worked to create an artistic impression not unlike the Fleischer Superman cartoons, this series does work. The Batman Vs. Dracula is actually a 90 minute feature produced for the direct to DVD market and not only features Dracula but many of The Batman's most famous enemies.
Braceface: Turning 13
- Another animated Canadian series that I know little about, this one produced by and starring Alicia Silverstone as the voice of Sharon Spitz. Apparently it ran for only two seasons to uniformly low ratings.
C.S.I. New York: The Complete First Season
- While I don't like CSI: New York as well as I like the original CSI, it is far closer to the original in style than CSI: Miami and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Gary Sinese doesn't dominate the show in the same way that David Caruso does the Miami version. There is always the sense in this version of the franchise that while Sinese's character of Mack Taylor is in control, everything doesn't revolve around him. The first season of the series was criticized for being dark, and as such possibly hurting New York's image. Perhaps, but it is in keeping with creating a mood that fits the particular setting.
Dark Shadows: The Revival, The Complete Series
- Noting the continued popularity of the original Dark Shadows series, in 1991creator Dan Curtis revived the show as a prime time series. Despite a strong cast which included Oscar nominee Jean Simmons and Chariots of Fire star Ben Cross, the series lasted a mere 12 episodes. While it has its adherents it is not nearly as popular as the original series.
Garfield Prime Time Gift Set
- These were the prime time specials which led up to the creation of the Garfield and Friends TV series, brought together on a three DVD set. It's hard to explain just how anticipated these specials were at the time, given the slide in popularity that the comic strip has undergone in recent years.
Ghost Hunters: Complete First Season
Ghost Hunters, Vol. 1: Very Best Of - Most Bizarre
- I haven't seen this series which airs on the Sci-Fi channel in the United States. It has been dubbed a "docu-soap" whatever the heck that means. Apparently it features two real-life plumbers who are also investigate the paranormal, which is to say ghosts. Scary stuff for Hallowe'en.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Season One, Volume 1 (Collector's Edition)
- He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe existed for one thing and one thing only - to sell toys - and no amount of tacking on those little morals or public service type messages to the end of each episode could change that. Worse still it came from Filmation, a studio where the motto always seemed to be "if you can't do it fast and cheap don't do it at all." The worst of Hanna-Barbera was better than the best of Filmation.
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
- The labelling on this set is misleading. Empire Pictures, which is releasing this boxed set is playing up the presence of Vincent Price, however Price was just a small part of the show, serving as its narrator. The real star of the show was the legendary Canadian comedian Billy Van, who got his start in show-business as a Frank Sinatra imitator. Van played most of the characters on the show which was an hour long and produced at CHCH-TV in Hamilton Ontario - which probably explains why I never saw it, since CHCH was a major independent station and guarded the rights to their own programming dilligently.
Mister Peepers
- Mister Peepers was one of the legendary TV series of the early days of television, and has been mostly unseen since it was first aired. Perhaps that explains why it is so poorly rated on TV.com. The problem was that two-fold. The series was originally only intended as a summer replacement in 1952, but a series called Doc Corkle performed so poorly that Mister Peepers was revived. The series was done live and was distributed to the west coast using kinescopes - basically a 16 mm film camera filming the studio monitor. The kinescopes were never meant to last and mostly they didn't. Also the show was shot in New York so they weren't able to adapt as readily to the three camera technology pioneered by Desi Arnaz around the time that Mister Peepers debuted. Still the cast was outstanding, and included not just Wally Cox, who became a star as a result of this show, but also Tony Randall, Jack Warden, Arthur O'Connell and Marion Lorne.
Pet Alien: Atomic Tommy
Pet Alien: Aliens Unleashed
- Yet another Cartoon Network series that I've never seen and have no idea what it's about.
Saved by the Bell - The New Class: Season 5
- This series, which Ian J. Ball tells me was vastly inferior to the original, just kept going and going and going, changing kids as needed.
Strawberry Shortcake: Dress Up Days
- Like He-Man the primary objective of this series was to sell toys. Unlike He-Man the vapid stories are at least supported by tolerable animation.
Legend of Zelda: The Complete Animated Series
- These cartoons are from the short-lived live action Super Mario Brothers Super Show series. The cartoons deal with Princess Zelda and her suitor and frequent rescuer Link and tend to be a bit dumb. The DVD does include some scenes from the Super Mario Brothers show which starred former wrestler Captain Lou Albano and veteran character actor Danny Wells which look funny in a strange sort of way.
Twilight Zone: Season 4
- More episodes from one of the greatest science fiction television anthologies of all time - the original series not the 1985 or 2002 revivals. Extras include old interviews with a number of actors who worked during the season including Burgess Meredith and Ross Martin, as well at least one commentary from William Windom. As always with this series, the casts for the individual stories are outstanding, and include Meredith, Martin, and Windom as well as Jack Klugman, Paul Mazursky, Robert Duvall, Dana Andrews and Martin Balsam.
Unscripted
- I've never seen this HBO series created by George Clooney and Steven Soderburgh. This is described as an "improvisational dramedy" which implies that the actors involved are given situations to deal with within the context of the show but aren't working with a script. I've never seen it but it sounds as if it could either be very good or very bad. At the very least it seems to be an interesting experiment.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
I Must Be Doing Something Wrong
Since the others did it (and Sam fibbed!) I thought I'd try it and get $0.00 too, just to show how worthless this site is. Imagine my surprise when this popped up. Must be the ads.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Not That I Would, But I Could
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct! |
Saturday, October 15, 2005
New Poll - The Video iPod
With the potential of a shift in the way that TV is done thanks to the deal between Apple and Disney-ABC, I thought it was only fitting that this week's poll question looks at whether buying shows using the Video iPod is a "good thing". Please add comments here.
Poll Results: What Network Produces The Fewest Shows That You Must See
Roughly what I'd expected, at least as far as the winner. There was a problem with the Poll title though.
There were eight voters this time through. In a tie for fifth with no votes were NBC and The WB. I found the WB result rather surprising - maybe shuffling their lineup helped and they have got some good shows out there. About NBC, well I guess they have something that people want to watch. In a tie for third place were CBS and Fox with one vote each. Again, not entirely surprising, particularly with the tendency of CBS to skew older. In second place, surprisingly, was ABC with two votes. I'm not really sure what to make of that one. Finally the winner with a full 50% of the vote (four people picked it) was UPN.
UPN is a difficult case. There are a couple of shows worth watching on the network - Everybody Hates Chris may be the best new comedy on any network, and Veronica Mars is a much better series than the premise would have you believe. For me at least the network was at it's best in it's first couple of seasons with show's like Live Shot, Legend, Nowhere Man, and The Sentinel. Heck I even liked Marker. I won't say that the new shows on UPN represents a renaissance for the network, but it does mean that there are a couple of good shows to watch and that's always something.
New poll up in a bit.
There were eight voters this time through. In a tie for fifth with no votes were NBC and The WB. I found the WB result rather surprising - maybe shuffling their lineup helped and they have got some good shows out there. About NBC, well I guess they have something that people want to watch. In a tie for third place were CBS and Fox with one vote each. Again, not entirely surprising, particularly with the tendency of CBS to skew older. In second place, surprisingly, was ABC with two votes. I'm not really sure what to make of that one. Finally the winner with a full 50% of the vote (four people picked it) was UPN.
UPN is a difficult case. There are a couple of shows worth watching on the network - Everybody Hates Chris may be the best new comedy on any network, and Veronica Mars is a much better series than the premise would have you believe. For me at least the network was at it's best in it's first couple of seasons with show's like Live Shot, Legend, Nowhere Man, and The Sentinel. Heck I even liked Marker. I won't say that the new shows on UPN represents a renaissance for the network, but it does mean that there are a couple of good shows to watch and that's always something.
New poll up in a bit.
A Shift In The Way Television Is Done?
Three days ago Apple announced a new product, the Video iPod. The new device, a variant of the company's immensely popular iPod is a handheld device capable of holding a minimum of 7,500 songs, 25,000 photos or 75 hours of video. The device has its own colour screen on which you can watch programs or music videos. Content is - or will be - available from the iTunes music store for $1.99. Among the content that has been made available is five TV series from Disney-ABC including Lost, Desperate Housewives and Night Stalker with episodes available the day after they air on TV. It's this content which makes this product interesting. I doubt there are many people who would buy a video capable device if all there was to watch was music videos. The videos are encoded to fit the iPod's screen resolution of 320x240 pixels and image quality degrades on larger screens.
This development leads inevitably to discussion on "what it means". In an article in his blog Blogmaverick entitled "How Bob Iger Saved Network TV" Mark Cuban suggests that by offering network content online for a price, Robert Iger (President and CEO of the Walt Disney Company which owns ABC) has "saved" the TV industry by introducing a new revenue stream. According to Cuban:
Cuban offers some further interesting possibilities based on the decision to include Night Stalker, a show which hasn't been setting the ratings on fire, as part of the ABC package:
The important thing, according to Cuban is that Iger has "had the brilliance to say yes to giving consumers his content, where, how and when they want to consume it."
The idea is interesting, and it may extend beyond what Cuban has predicted. While the TV producers were initially reluctant to put recent programming out on DVD, there has been a trend to release shows on DVD soon after the latest season of the show has completed its repeat run, and these DVDs sell well. One case was Firefly which was cancelled after 11 episodes. The Fox Network made a DVD release of the show with the expectation of tapping into the fan market of the show. In fact the DVD release was a huge seller, to the point where Fox allowed executive producer Joss Whedon to peddle the concept to Universal to make the movie Serenity. At the very least this proves that the public wants the ability to watch its favourite shows when they want to see them. This is also reflected in the use of PVRs, VCRs, and recordable DVDs.
We know that downloading video content online is a popular activity with programs like Bittorent. While much of this material is pirated - put online without the permission of the content creators - there are some people who are producing what are essentially video podcasts, intended to be downloaded online. They aren't getting paid for this of course but they do show that the ability exists to produce programing without the support of existing networks or cable providers. Downloadable programming provides the ability to service niche markets better than regular broadcast or cable TV. Now consider the ability to package a group of shows - perhaps shows with a similar theme - and make them available as a unit at a lower price than each of the individual shows on their own. How about this? TV and movie companies often have huge libraries of product which they can't sell. The ability to download content online would make this profitable in a way that it wouldn't be on DVD or through syndication. A Paramount movie from the 1930s might not be profitable on DVD (or so say the Paramount executives) given the costs of DVD production, but if that movie could be downloaded legally and a fee paid to the studio for each download, the release of the movie would be profitable because the costs would be minimal.
Setting aside the limitations of the iPod Video unit, what Robert Iger's decision indicates is something of a paradigm shift. The TV networks, like the radio networks before them, began because they controlled the means of distribution in a way that independent stations and independent producers didn't have. The radio networks were able to contract for the telephone lines to transmit their shows to stations across the country and were able to sell advertising on their shows based on that model. The same thing went for the television networks. Distribution as much as content was king. Today the means of distribution model has changed. It goes beyond cable and satellite, which allowed a host of independent niche broadcasters to flourish because they didn't need local stations to redistribute their content. I suspect that more networks are going to offer their programming as legal downloads for pay with better quality than pirates using something like Bittorrent - if you want quality you'll have to pay for it. In the long term, the networks will have to adapt. I have a suspicion that in the future it won't be Apple that acts as the middle man between producers and consumers, it will be the networks. Want to watch an episode of The West Wing at the time of your choice? Pay your two bucks to NBC's program store and go ahead, but don't try to sell it to someone else because it won't work.
Changing their approach to how shows are sold may be the only way for the networks to remain relevant.
This development leads inevitably to discussion on "what it means". In an article in his blog Blogmaverick entitled "How Bob Iger Saved Network TV" Mark Cuban suggests that by offering network content online for a price, Robert Iger (President and CEO of the Walt Disney Company which owns ABC) has "saved" the TV industry by introducing a new revenue stream. According to Cuban:
The entire TV industry is scared shitless about how advertising will evolve. Will the 30 second commercial survive? Will PVRs eliminate commercial watching in a material percentage of homes? What impact will HDTV have on TV viewing and advertising (besides the obvious rush to HDNet & HDNet Movies:)? The answers to these questions are pivotal to the programming side of the equation because without enough advertising revenue for the networks, how are they going to pay for programming?
Bob Iger has enabled a new revenue stream which if it grows, could definitely be the revenue stream that saves primetime network TV.
Bob Iger has enabled a new revenue stream which if it grows, could definitely be the revenue stream that saves primetime network TV.
Cuban offers some further interesting possibilities based on the decision to include Night Stalker, a show which hasn't been setting the ratings on fire, as part of the ABC package:
What if Night Stalker turns out to be a hugely popular download? Would ABC keep it on the air for that reason? What if the show is cancelled? Will ABC sell any unaired episodes? And how many downloads will be sold of those? If the show is cancelled, are enough downloads being sold so that when combined with a license fee from a cable network, the show could live on?
Since ABC will be able to see the sell through numbers on a daily basis, will that impact programming decisions?
Since ABC will be able to see the sell through numbers on a daily basis, will that impact programming decisions?
The important thing, according to Cuban is that Iger has "had the brilliance to say yes to giving consumers his content, where, how and when they want to consume it."
The idea is interesting, and it may extend beyond what Cuban has predicted. While the TV producers were initially reluctant to put recent programming out on DVD, there has been a trend to release shows on DVD soon after the latest season of the show has completed its repeat run, and these DVDs sell well. One case was Firefly which was cancelled after 11 episodes. The Fox Network made a DVD release of the show with the expectation of tapping into the fan market of the show. In fact the DVD release was a huge seller, to the point where Fox allowed executive producer Joss Whedon to peddle the concept to Universal to make the movie Serenity. At the very least this proves that the public wants the ability to watch its favourite shows when they want to see them. This is also reflected in the use of PVRs, VCRs, and recordable DVDs.
We know that downloading video content online is a popular activity with programs like Bittorent. While much of this material is pirated - put online without the permission of the content creators - there are some people who are producing what are essentially video podcasts, intended to be downloaded online. They aren't getting paid for this of course but they do show that the ability exists to produce programing without the support of existing networks or cable providers. Downloadable programming provides the ability to service niche markets better than regular broadcast or cable TV. Now consider the ability to package a group of shows - perhaps shows with a similar theme - and make them available as a unit at a lower price than each of the individual shows on their own. How about this? TV and movie companies often have huge libraries of product which they can't sell. The ability to download content online would make this profitable in a way that it wouldn't be on DVD or through syndication. A Paramount movie from the 1930s might not be profitable on DVD (or so say the Paramount executives) given the costs of DVD production, but if that movie could be downloaded legally and a fee paid to the studio for each download, the release of the movie would be profitable because the costs would be minimal.
Setting aside the limitations of the iPod Video unit, what Robert Iger's decision indicates is something of a paradigm shift. The TV networks, like the radio networks before them, began because they controlled the means of distribution in a way that independent stations and independent producers didn't have. The radio networks were able to contract for the telephone lines to transmit their shows to stations across the country and were able to sell advertising on their shows based on that model. The same thing went for the television networks. Distribution as much as content was king. Today the means of distribution model has changed. It goes beyond cable and satellite, which allowed a host of independent niche broadcasters to flourish because they didn't need local stations to redistribute their content. I suspect that more networks are going to offer their programming as legal downloads for pay with better quality than pirates using something like Bittorrent - if you want quality you'll have to pay for it. In the long term, the networks will have to adapt. I have a suspicion that in the future it won't be Apple that acts as the middle man between producers and consumers, it will be the networks. Want to watch an episode of The West Wing at the time of your choice? Pay your two bucks to NBC's program store and go ahead, but don't try to sell it to someone else because it won't work.
Changing their approach to how shows are sold may be the only way for the networks to remain relevant.
Friday, October 14, 2005
The Apprentice: Xerox
I have a confession to make - well two really but this is the big one. I once had an erotic dream about Martha Stewart. Yes, I know but it was a really good erotic dream. She was very - how shall I put it - assertive. I sometimes like women who are assertive in that situation. This was a few years ago, but as I think of it today I have the sneaking suspicion that in real life she would be assertive in that situation as in most others. As though having gotten something between her nethers that didn't run on batteries (to steal a line from Serenity - I have a partial review of it written but it's still only partial) she's want the event to be perfect and she'd tell you exactly how to make the experience incredibly satisfying for both of you ... but especially her.
Unfortunately this hasn't happened with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Here's my second confession: I like The Apprentice: Martha Stewart better than I do The E-Ring the show with which it was swapped on Wednesday nights and at least as well - if not better _ as the version with Trump. The characters on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart are far more believable and I would rather that The E-Ring be crushed (deservedly) by the juggernaut that is Lost than Martha. That said, what is happening to The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was entirely predictable. In fact I predicted it back at the beginning of September after the latest attempts by the networks to launch their own "faux Trumps" on an unsuspecting world had provided a disastrous series of shows which were only watched because it was summer. The only one which was anywhere near to being successful was Hell's Kitchen on Fox and that only got ratings because it turned the format on its head by emphasizing Gordon Ramsay not as some aloof figure like Donald Trump but as someone who was down in the pit with his contestants. The trouble with The Apprentice: Martha Stewart is that after two years of watching people create show about making schmattas (The Cut), trying to become part of high society (Who Wants To Be A Hilton), or becoming American next great lawyer (The Law Firm), not to mention CBS's attempt last year to find the "next domestic diva" (this being after Martha herself was hustled off to Club Fed for insider trading), Mark Burnett and NBC believed with the fervour of a true believer that it wasn't just Donald Trump that made The Apprentice work. Well he was right and he was wrong.
There isn't a lot of difference between Martha's Apprentice and The Donald's. Each show has 16 participants in a "job interview" arranged in two teams of eight, although Martha allowed her candidates to self select their teams, with disastrous results. Martha's team split between Business people and Creative people with the probably predictable result that the business oriented team kicked creative but. Trump split his team into an all male team and an all female team after last year's Book Smarts versus Street Smarts fiasco. On The Apprentice: Martha Stewart tasks have tended to be a little more craft and cooking related - in one episode the teams made wedding cakes - but in the end everything has had a business element - the deciding factor in the cake challenge was not how well the cakes looked but how much money they brought in. To succeed in that sort of task, and indeed in just about any of the tasks that have been assigned so far in Martha Stewart's show there is a singular need to understand the market you are appealing to, something which the business oriented people have understood throughout and which the creative people have never completely grasped. And of course there has been backbiting and manipulation by players on all of the teams.
Continuing with the similarities between the two shows, while Trump meets his teams in the corporate board room Stewart deals with hers in a conference room because at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia "there are no boardrooms". A rose by any other name would still produce rosehips. Like Trump Martha has an older male and a younger female underling to serve as her eyes and ears because she of course is too busy dealing with important matters. Charles Koppelman, who is in fact Chairman of the Board of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, stands in for Donald Trump's long time associate George Ross who is Trump's top legal advisor. Taking the place of the lovely Carolyn Kepcher in Martha's organization is the lovely Alexis Stewart, Martha's daughter.
As you can see the two shows stick very close to each other in terms of content and style. There is no gross variance which sets one apart the other and indeed very few minor differences. So why does Donald's Apprentice work better than Martha's. Well beyond the fact that I'm not sure that one really does work better than the other, I think there are a couple of factors: personality and time slot. In terms of time slot, the first two episodes were up against a preview of Lost the first week and the first hour of a two hour premier of Lost the second week, after which the network panicked and in an effort to save The E-Ring swapped the two shows so that The Apprentice: Martha Stewart was up against Lost permanently. I am not convinced that, had the show remained in the original time slot it wouldn't have improved its ratings against the relatively weak comedies on ABC CBS and (eventually) Fox it's ratings would not have improved. There's another factor worth considering though and that is the question of exposure. For all that Donald Trump is a rabid publicity junkie of the "I don't care what you say as long as you spell my name right" variety he is an amateur when compared with Martha Stewart. She has to be seen - without her there is no Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia - but because of this it is possible to argue that she's more overexposed than Trump. While I won't say that people were happy when she went to jail - although there were many who were - I think the group of people who felt a sense of schadenfreude when she went away. As a result I think it is entirely plausible to question whether, if the world really needed an exact duplicate version of The Apprentice (and remember the fate of virtually all of the Apprentice imitators in the past couple of years), Martha Stewart was the right person to front it. Of course it might just be that the show's creator, Mark Burnett, and NBC simply tried to go to the well one too many times with the Apprentice concept without looking at why it works and how it could be changed. Because change was needed if only to keep the two show's distinct and in keeping with the personalities of their "stars".
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Hail to the Chiefess
Who remembers Geraldine Ferarro? She was Walter Mondale's Vice Presidential running mate, the product of a desperate attempt to vitalize a campaign against an exceptionally popular sitting president, the theory being that having someone who pees sitting down as matter of biological necessity on the ticket would automatically mean that women would vote for the ticket en mass because women always like it when one of their own gets the next to top job. It was a gimmick. It certainly couldn't have been idealism; idealism would have put an African-American on the ticket since blacks have had the vote since 1865 - fifty years longer than women in many states - and have never even had one of their own considered worthy of even occupying the post described by one of its occupants as "not worth a pitcher of warm spit" (although the man who said it, John Nance Garner may have actually specified another bodily fluid and the quote modified by newspapermen of the time). There's a bit of a hint of that in the new ABC series Commander In Chief, both on the part of the politicians on the show and the network itself. It's a gimmick, but in a way it works.I've been waiting for a while to write this post, not because I wanted to let the series settle into a groove but simply because there hasn't bee the time before. That said the show has had time to develop and seems to be settling into a particular groove. Geena Davis plays Mackenzie Allen, former Vice President of the United States until the death of the man who got her nominated her to the post. The logic was apparently that since she was a woman and an independent she'd attract women and independents. Trouble was she was a bit too independent for President Theodore Roosevelt Bridges and once he had his stroke he, and all of his advisors begged and pleaded that she resign to allow Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (played with a marvelously slimy villainy by the versatile Donald Sutherland) to replace him. And she was ready to, until she met with Templeton and he said some stuff that made him seem to the right or Attilla the Hun. This is a key point since it sets up the principal conflict in the series Mackenzie Allen versus Nathan Templeton. He wants the power of the presidency for his own agenda while she is prepared to move heaven and earth to keep him from getting it. This desire to keep Templeton from power informs Allen's own selection for Vice-President - ironically he opponent in the previous election General Warren Keaton (Peter Coyote, being distinctly less sinister than he was as one of the lead characters in this summer's The Inside) who is about as different from Templeton as she is. This is the business side of the Mackenzie Allen presidency, in which she is aided by her reluctant Chief of Staff Jim Gardner (played by Harry Lennix as a man who wishes Mac wasn't in the top job but for now at least seems to be working diligently with her), and her press secretary Kelly Ludlow (Ever Carradine).
Of course this isn't the only area of potential drama for the new female President. She has a home life to contend with, in the form of a husband, the new First Gentleman, a teenaged son and daughter (twins) and a ten year old daughter, not to mention an unwelcome lodger in the form of the previous First Lady and her son who don't seem to have anywhere else to go. The big problem is the President's husband Rod Allen (played with a certain amount of style by Kyle Secor). He had been her Chief of Staff when she was Vice President but she's worried about the image it would present if he is appointed as Presidential Chief of Staff. This leaves him with nothing but "First Lady" stuff to do, like endorsing menus and giving speeches to organizations with little or no importance. He hates this and his chief of staff, a woman who thinks that all presidential spouses should do "First Lady things" and that anything Hillary Clinton did "didn't go over well", doesn't exactly help. He wants to be a player and in the third episode he seems to have found his niche by preparing the Vice-President for his confirmation hearings. The other aspect is the kids. The twins have their own issues and personalities - son Horace is outgoing and totally supportive of his mother while daughter Rebecca doesn't get have many friends at the public school they both go to (she wants to go to private school with the kids of senators and "people like us"). For the youngest daughter there's the realization that her mother isn't always available to her and the fear - expressed by the son of the former president - that she'll never see her mother now that she's president.
Commander In Chief is not The West Wing. The comparisons have been made but in all respects even a bad episode of The West Wing is better than the best episode of Commander In Chief so far. There are lots of reasons but a big one is that despite what conservatives have said The West Wing never resorted to villains. There is no figure like Nathan Templeton in The West Wing. There are good politicians of both stripes as well as annoying and obstructionist ones - admittedly more on the right than on the left. More to the point The West Wing has always tended to focus on the workings of the White House and on the people who made it work. There was a reason why in the initial conception of the series President Bartlett wasn't meant to be seen or only seen briefly; the centre of our attention was always meant to be on the staff. By contrast, President Allen seems to have two staff members, her Chief of Staff and her Press Secretary. At the same time the show spends an inordinate amount of attention on the President's family, and while finding Rod Allen a role that will please everyone is an intriguing task, paying so much attention to the President's children and particularly the youngest (a typical cute kid played by Jasmine Jessica Anthony) isn't doing much for the show. I would suggest that finding occasionally episodes where the children - well mostly the teenagers - are the central point would work better than injecting them into each episode.
The question remains as to whether Commander In Chief is any good. I give it an extremely tentative thumbs up. Setting aside the political bullcrap which seems to pop up when you have a political drama in the United States and which seems to assert itself in comment on the IMDB and in newsgroups with the most superficial and sometimes ridiculous comments from both sides, there are problems with the show. The actors in the lead roles are some of the best around but they have to work with what they're given by the writers. Sometimes what they give them is good but frequently it seems trite, and it suffers by comparison with something superior such as The West Wing (or shows in other areas like NYPD Blue to take it out of the political arena). President Allen seems to resolve problems in an hour (minus commercials) with little or no consultation with others and she's always right. The idea that you have to have a villain like Templeton - no matter how well Donald Sutherland plays him - is a weak way to develop conflict. The result is competent but not particularly compelling entertainment even if it is drawing big ratings and is the only new series to crack the top 10 (not having to go up against House may be affecting this however). And yet I have hope for the show, in part because of the recent replacement of Rod Lurie as showrunner with Stephen Bochco. While it is difficult to see this as a Bochco show right now, my hope is that given time he'll put his stamp on the show, making it harder hitting and tackle tougher topics. People like Commander In Chief and maybe with a gradual renovation of the concept there'll be a better reason to like it.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
TV On DVD - October 11, 2005
A fairly slow week in DVDs and a relatively lackluster list at that. Still there are a couple of gems from Britain and a couple of American series worth checking out.
I was trying to buy some DVDs for the past couple of weeks. The local Future Shop sent out a flyer about a week and a half ago offering Firefly for $29.98 in conjunction with the opening of the movie Serenity - I actually went to a theatre to see it; great movie go see it! - so I went to the store the day they advertised it. They didn't have it, the shipment was delayed, check back on Monday. I couldn't make it Monday so I went in on Wednesday (the sale price supposedly ended that Friday); shipment was delayed, check back next Monday. I called back on Tuesday (Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving so naturally I was helping my brother to install a new storm door on his house) and "no we didn't get any in this week, check back next Monday." I am beginning to lose patience with these people since the whole thing sounds like a "bait and switch" operation.
All Grown Up: RV Having Fun Yet?
- Described (on the box) as a double length All Grown Up special with two bonus episodes. I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that the double length part has more than a bit to do with "camping" in an RV. Yawn.
Arrested Development: Season 2
- One of the writers described this as a show that nobody watches. He said it at the Emmy Awards after he and his partner had heard that they had won the Emmy for Best Writing in a Comedy. Here's a confession - I'm one of the people not watching. My excuse is that I've always been watching something else. This season I've even been doing something else - bowling. Still they have to be doing something right for Fox of all networks to keep them on despite the ratings.
Captain and Tennille: Ultimate Collection
- During World War II they had a slogan: "Is this trip really necessary?" This can be adapted to this release: "Is this DVD really necessary?" But then one has to remember that Pink Lady ... and Jeff is out on DVD and we can at least thank our lucky stars that it isn't Shields and Yarnell, and it was nominated for an Emmy.
Dora the Explorer: Dance to the Rescue
- More kidvid I don't get. I feel old.
Duchess of Duke Street: Series 1
- One of the best series to come out of Britain in the 1970s. It is of course the sort of concept that an American producer might take and do horribly badly. The story is about a lower class woman who becomes the hotel keeper to the best of London society thanks to an affair with the Prince of Wales, a supportive lover and her own abilities as a business woman and chef. Gemma Jones is superb in the lead role and the supporting cast is excellent.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: The Original Animated Series, Vol. 2
Fat Albert's Christmas Special
- Probably intended for children, but there are probably a lot of adults who have fond memories of one of Bill Cosby's greatest comedy creations.
Fresh Prince of Bel Air: The Complete Second Season
- The thing about Will Smith is that he can be a good actor. The problem with Will Smith is that all too often the projects that he chooses are lucrative financially but don't push him as far as he can go in terms of using his acting abilities. In an odd sort of way The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Airfall into the category of roles that push his acting ability if only because up until the time that he did the series no one knew that he had any acting ability. Because of the talent he showed while surrounded by a strong cast which included James Avery, Daphne Maxwell Reid and Alfonso Ribeiro he got the part in Six Degrees Of Separation but also Bad Boys and Independence Day; the good roles and the lucrative roles came because of the ability and screen presence - one might even say the charisma - that he exhibited on the sitcom.
The Jeffersons: The Complete Fourth Season
- Another season of The Jeffersons. There's not really that much that stands out about the fourth season of the show in terms of major changes. Still, taken over its run the show was quite entertaining which I suppose is reason enough for wanting it.
Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital: Post Mortem
- The only reason I can see for making a three DVD set release of what was a rather poorly rated ABC series, which has already been released in a boxed set containing all 13 episodes is to milk a bit more money from the Stephen King completists out there. Frankly I don't see it, but then I'm waiting for my local Future Shop to get in a shipment of Firefly DVDs so who am I to talk.
Mutant X: The Complete Third Season
- I never actually saw an episode of this series, probably because of the very reason it was made - it tried to imitate The X-Men. In fact Marvel Entertainment, which owns the X-Men characters was one fo the producers of the show. However because 20th Century Fox had the movie rights - and sued when the series debuted - certain elements were ditched, such as "code names" and specific uniforms. This is the final season of the show and sees character Emma de Lauro die while John Shea as Adam Kane is reduced to recurring status.
Only Fools and Horses: The Complete Series 6
- Although I've only seen moments of this show, courtesy of BBC Canada, it is one of the best loved British series of all time. A big part of it is casting. David Jason, who played David "Del Boy" Trotter, is arguably one of the finest actors working in British television, a chameleon like figure who makes the transition between comedy and drama effortlessly. Nicholas Lindhurst is letter perfect as younger brother Rodney who Del Boy has to protect. The Trotters aren't really crooked, although they are a little "bent". The series itself has had an irregular (to say the least) history. Series 6, which features Rodney's wedding to Cassandra, was made two and a half years after Series 5 and in the intervening period there were three 90 minute Christmas specials. There was one further series of six shows about a year and a half later (with two Christmas specials in between) followed by a several more specials before the series ended (apparently) with a Christmas special in 2003 where Rodney and Cassandra's baby is born. However a sequel called Green Green Grass featuring two of the supporting characters - Boycie and his wife Marlene - was being shot in June 2005
Soap: The Complete Fourth Season
- It's hard to remember just how scared Soap made a lot of people feel when it first came out. They didn't like the homosexuality idea, they didn't like the sexuality period (on the other hand the Gay community wasn't exactly comfortable with it either - they were "sure" that the producers would "cure" Jody). By the fourth season most of the controversy had disappeared and along with it the ratings. Still there were some fun elements. There was Roscoe Lee Brown attempting valiantly (and failing miserably) to replace Robert Guillaume's Benson, and there was always the physical comedy of Richard Mulligan working alone or with Ted Wass. Still I think the best thing in the show (and apologies to Katherine Helmond here) is Billy Crystal as Jody. For a gay character, Jody attracted some fine looking women - in this season the ever dependable Barbara Rhoades.
South Park: The Complete Sixth Season
- There are no words to express just how much I loathe South Park. Rather than try to explain why I hate the show (expletives, animation that in appearance sets the form back to the 1920s) I think I'll just go on to the next DVD.
Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season
- I came late to Veronica Mars. Last year's TV Guide Fall Preview liked it, and people I respect on the rec.arts.tv newsgroup raved about it, but somehow it just seemed too "Nancy Drew" to me. Then I tried it. And yeah there are some elements that remind me of Nancy - substitute Wallace for George just as an example - but the show takes a far different spin than sweet virginal Nancy or her creators ever thought about in their deepest alcoholic stupors (assuming of course they ever had alcoholic stupors). I refuse to say that it's the best thing UPN has ever produced, bit it comes very close.
I was trying to buy some DVDs for the past couple of weeks. The local Future Shop sent out a flyer about a week and a half ago offering Firefly for $29.98 in conjunction with the opening of the movie Serenity - I actually went to a theatre to see it; great movie go see it! - so I went to the store the day they advertised it. They didn't have it, the shipment was delayed, check back on Monday. I couldn't make it Monday so I went in on Wednesday (the sale price supposedly ended that Friday); shipment was delayed, check back next Monday. I called back on Tuesday (Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving so naturally I was helping my brother to install a new storm door on his house) and "no we didn't get any in this week, check back next Monday." I am beginning to lose patience with these people since the whole thing sounds like a "bait and switch" operation.
All Grown Up: RV Having Fun Yet?
- Described (on the box) as a double length All Grown Up special with two bonus episodes. I'm going to hazard a guess here and say that the double length part has more than a bit to do with "camping" in an RV. Yawn.
Arrested Development: Season 2
- One of the writers described this as a show that nobody watches. He said it at the Emmy Awards after he and his partner had heard that they had won the Emmy for Best Writing in a Comedy. Here's a confession - I'm one of the people not watching. My excuse is that I've always been watching something else. This season I've even been doing something else - bowling. Still they have to be doing something right for Fox of all networks to keep them on despite the ratings.
Captain and Tennille: Ultimate Collection
- During World War II they had a slogan: "Is this trip really necessary?" This can be adapted to this release: "Is this DVD really necessary?" But then one has to remember that Pink Lady ... and Jeff is out on DVD and we can at least thank our lucky stars that it isn't Shields and Yarnell, and it was nominated for an Emmy.
Dora the Explorer: Dance to the Rescue
- More kidvid I don't get. I feel old.
Duchess of Duke Street: Series 1
- One of the best series to come out of Britain in the 1970s. It is of course the sort of concept that an American producer might take and do horribly badly. The story is about a lower class woman who becomes the hotel keeper to the best of London society thanks to an affair with the Prince of Wales, a supportive lover and her own abilities as a business woman and chef. Gemma Jones is superb in the lead role and the supporting cast is excellent.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: The Original Animated Series, Vol. 2
Fat Albert's Christmas Special
- Probably intended for children, but there are probably a lot of adults who have fond memories of one of Bill Cosby's greatest comedy creations.
Fresh Prince of Bel Air: The Complete Second Season
- The thing about Will Smith is that he can be a good actor. The problem with Will Smith is that all too often the projects that he chooses are lucrative financially but don't push him as far as he can go in terms of using his acting abilities. In an odd sort of way The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Airfall into the category of roles that push his acting ability if only because up until the time that he did the series no one knew that he had any acting ability. Because of the talent he showed while surrounded by a strong cast which included James Avery, Daphne Maxwell Reid and Alfonso Ribeiro he got the part in Six Degrees Of Separation but also Bad Boys and Independence Day; the good roles and the lucrative roles came because of the ability and screen presence - one might even say the charisma - that he exhibited on the sitcom.
The Jeffersons: The Complete Fourth Season
- Another season of The Jeffersons. There's not really that much that stands out about the fourth season of the show in terms of major changes. Still, taken over its run the show was quite entertaining which I suppose is reason enough for wanting it.
Stephen King Presents Kingdom Hospital: Post Mortem
- The only reason I can see for making a three DVD set release of what was a rather poorly rated ABC series, which has already been released in a boxed set containing all 13 episodes is to milk a bit more money from the Stephen King completists out there. Frankly I don't see it, but then I'm waiting for my local Future Shop to get in a shipment of Firefly DVDs so who am I to talk.
Mutant X: The Complete Third Season
- I never actually saw an episode of this series, probably because of the very reason it was made - it tried to imitate The X-Men. In fact Marvel Entertainment, which owns the X-Men characters was one fo the producers of the show. However because 20th Century Fox had the movie rights - and sued when the series debuted - certain elements were ditched, such as "code names" and specific uniforms. This is the final season of the show and sees character Emma de Lauro die while John Shea as Adam Kane is reduced to recurring status.
Only Fools and Horses: The Complete Series 6
- Although I've only seen moments of this show, courtesy of BBC Canada, it is one of the best loved British series of all time. A big part of it is casting. David Jason, who played David "Del Boy" Trotter, is arguably one of the finest actors working in British television, a chameleon like figure who makes the transition between comedy and drama effortlessly. Nicholas Lindhurst is letter perfect as younger brother Rodney who Del Boy has to protect. The Trotters aren't really crooked, although they are a little "bent". The series itself has had an irregular (to say the least) history. Series 6, which features Rodney's wedding to Cassandra, was made two and a half years after Series 5 and in the intervening period there were three 90 minute Christmas specials. There was one further series of six shows about a year and a half later (with two Christmas specials in between) followed by a several more specials before the series ended (apparently) with a Christmas special in 2003 where Rodney and Cassandra's baby is born. However a sequel called Green Green Grass featuring two of the supporting characters - Boycie and his wife Marlene - was being shot in June 2005
Soap: The Complete Fourth Season
- It's hard to remember just how scared Soap made a lot of people feel when it first came out. They didn't like the homosexuality idea, they didn't like the sexuality period (on the other hand the Gay community wasn't exactly comfortable with it either - they were "sure" that the producers would "cure" Jody). By the fourth season most of the controversy had disappeared and along with it the ratings. Still there were some fun elements. There was Roscoe Lee Brown attempting valiantly (and failing miserably) to replace Robert Guillaume's Benson, and there was always the physical comedy of Richard Mulligan working alone or with Ted Wass. Still I think the best thing in the show (and apologies to Katherine Helmond here) is Billy Crystal as Jody. For a gay character, Jody attracted some fine looking women - in this season the ever dependable Barbara Rhoades.
South Park: The Complete Sixth Season
- There are no words to express just how much I loathe South Park. Rather than try to explain why I hate the show (expletives, animation that in appearance sets the form back to the 1920s) I think I'll just go on to the next DVD.
Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season
- I came late to Veronica Mars. Last year's TV Guide Fall Preview liked it, and people I respect on the rec.arts.tv newsgroup raved about it, but somehow it just seemed too "Nancy Drew" to me. Then I tried it. And yeah there are some elements that remind me of Nancy - substitute Wallace for George just as an example - but the show takes a far different spin than sweet virginal Nancy or her creators ever thought about in their deepest alcoholic stupors (assuming of course they ever had alcoholic stupors). I refuse to say that it's the best thing UPN has ever produced, bit it comes very close.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Remembrance Of Games Past
Tonight Canadians got to hear their "second" national anthem - the Hockey Night In Canada theme - for the first time in over a year. There was a great deal fo concern that even with the NHL strike being solved, the CBC lockout would delay the return of Hockey for those viewers who don't have cable or satellite services. The resolution of the lockout last week and an effort on the part of both sides meant that Canadians would hear the "dulcet" tones of Ron McLean, Don Cherry, and the rest of the Hockey Night In Canada crew. Somehow it was fitting that the first game on CBC for most of the country was the Montreal Canadiens against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This rambling entry is a bit of a remembrance for me. As the name of this blog states, I am a child of television and if you're a Canadian, television always meant Hockey Night In Canada. Canadians didn't - and don't - have any trouble deciding what to watch on Saturday nights; it's always been hockey. I was a kid in the time of the misnamed "Original Six" (they can trace their status as "original" to 1926 when the Red Wings, Rangers and Blackhawls were formed and their status as six to 1942 when the New York Americans folded and weren't reinstated after the war), and a particular time of the Original Six. Between 1956 when I was born and 1968, only three teams won the Stanley Cup: the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, and the Chicago Blackhawks ... and the Blackhawks only won once, in 1961. As often as not it was the Leafs playing the Canadiens for the Cup. It was only suitable since they were literally the only original teams in the league, going back to its formation in 1917.
When I was a kid certain things were certainties. The Rangers and the Bruins stank (sorry little brother but it's true - from 1959 to 1967 then never finished higher than fifth in a six team league and more often than not fifth was something they could only dream about), and the Blackhawks and Red Wings usually weren't quite good enough to beat a Canadian team. We knew that if either the Leafs or Canadiens were playing the Russians who kept beating our amateurs at the Olympics, they'd wipe the ice with them. Canadians always saw either the Leafs or the Canadiens on TV. The games from Montreal were featured Frank Selke Jr. and Danny Gallivan as announcers while the Toronto games were announced by the legendary Foster Hewitt - and later his son Bill Hewitt - with Ward Cornell. Hewitt was probably the greatest announcer in the game, perhaps of all time. He was the first man to broadcast an NHL game on radio (there were a couple of other men who announced games on radio, notably Regina's Peter Parker who broadcast the first complete professional game in 1923 eight days before Hewitt) and was a staple of CBC's radio broadcasts. We almost never saw a complete game. The broadcasts would start about ten minutes into the game, the owners having the belief that people wouldn't come to the games if they could see it for free on TV, which is sort of hard to believe with the black & white TVs of the day. If the game was from Toronto Foster Hewitt would greet us with his classic introduction: "Good evening Canada and hockey fans in the United States" and he'd give the score, if there was one, as part of a summary of the action so far. Selke and Gallivan did something similar from Montreal although they didn't have an introductory line like Hewitt. The first half of the game was sponsored by Imperial Oil-Esso, whose commercials featured actor Murray Westgate as a smiling station attendant, while the second half belonged to Ford Motors. At the end of the game was the Three Star selection, a tradition going back to radio days and a new gasoline from Imperial-Esso called Three Star Gas.
If you were an anglo-Canadian kid of my age you had to have a favourite team, and it was usually either the Leafs or the Canadiens plus whatever team the local hero played for (around here it was Detroit because that's where Gordie Howe played). Kids in Quebec - English or French - had it easy; their team was the Canadiens. Period. Roch Carrier's modern classic The Hockey Sweater explains it perfectly. Kids I knew were usually split. I was a Leafs fan while my cousin Gary - to this day - swears by the Montreal Canadiens. Still we saw the Leafs and Canadiens enough that we knew the players, more than we knew the players on the other teams. Toronto was coached by Punch Imlach, had Johnny Bower in goal, Tim Horton on defence, and players like Red Kelly (who was so popular that he was elected to Parliament twice while he was an active player), George "the Chief" Armstrong, Davey Keon, and Eddie Shack. The coach at Montreal was Hector "Toe" Blake, with Lorne "Gump" Worsley in goal, and players like Henri "The Pocket Rocket" Richard (his big brother was Maurice "The Rocket" Richard who retired in 1960 and I honestly don't remember seeing), Jean Belliveau, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, Jacque Laperrierre, and Yvan Cournoyer.
My NHL ended in 1968. That was the year of the so-called "first expansion" - which was of course nothing of the sort. There were six new teams in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, places which - if we'd been at all interested in the history of the league - we would have learned had had NHL teams before. There were also teams in Los Angeles and Oakland that had been hotbeds of the old Western League but were only major league cities because they had owners with deep pockets (Oakland was owned by Charlie Finley at one point), and Minnesota. The first expansion didn't hurt quality too much but the more the league grew the weaker the product on the ice became. Montreal kept winning the Cup although not nearly are regularly, but the Leafs would only make the playoffs once in the next 25 years. The team's owner Harold Ballard alienated a great many fans with the way he ran the club (just one example: during renovations to Maple Leaf Gardens he ordered the destruction of "The Gondola", the press box that Foster Hewitt had broadcast from despite the fact that the Hockey Hall of Fame wanted to preserve it; when asked, Ballard said that if Hewitt wanted it he should have bought it). The draft, free agency and player salaries meant that money ruled and players went to the teams that could pay. I became a Winnipeg Jets fan because a friend of mine played there until the business side of the League became too important and the team was relocated to Phoenix. I don't watch much hockey anymore and I don't have a team, but tonight's game between Montreal and Toronto brought back the memories.
By the way, Montreal won a barn-burner 5-4. Who knows, I might become interested again.
This rambling entry is a bit of a remembrance for me. As the name of this blog states, I am a child of television and if you're a Canadian, television always meant Hockey Night In Canada. Canadians didn't - and don't - have any trouble deciding what to watch on Saturday nights; it's always been hockey. I was a kid in the time of the misnamed "Original Six" (they can trace their status as "original" to 1926 when the Red Wings, Rangers and Blackhawls were formed and their status as six to 1942 when the New York Americans folded and weren't reinstated after the war), and a particular time of the Original Six. Between 1956 when I was born and 1968, only three teams won the Stanley Cup: the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, and the Chicago Blackhawks ... and the Blackhawks only won once, in 1961. As often as not it was the Leafs playing the Canadiens for the Cup. It was only suitable since they were literally the only original teams in the league, going back to its formation in 1917.
When I was a kid certain things were certainties. The Rangers and the Bruins stank (sorry little brother but it's true - from 1959 to 1967 then never finished higher than fifth in a six team league and more often than not fifth was something they could only dream about), and the Blackhawks and Red Wings usually weren't quite good enough to beat a Canadian team. We knew that if either the Leafs or Canadiens were playing the Russians who kept beating our amateurs at the Olympics, they'd wipe the ice with them. Canadians always saw either the Leafs or the Canadiens on TV. The games from Montreal were featured Frank Selke Jr. and Danny Gallivan as announcers while the Toronto games were announced by the legendary Foster Hewitt - and later his son Bill Hewitt - with Ward Cornell. Hewitt was probably the greatest announcer in the game, perhaps of all time. He was the first man to broadcast an NHL game on radio (there were a couple of other men who announced games on radio, notably Regina's Peter Parker who broadcast the first complete professional game in 1923 eight days before Hewitt) and was a staple of CBC's radio broadcasts. We almost never saw a complete game. The broadcasts would start about ten minutes into the game, the owners having the belief that people wouldn't come to the games if they could see it for free on TV, which is sort of hard to believe with the black & white TVs of the day. If the game was from Toronto Foster Hewitt would greet us with his classic introduction: "Good evening Canada and hockey fans in the United States" and he'd give the score, if there was one, as part of a summary of the action so far. Selke and Gallivan did something similar from Montreal although they didn't have an introductory line like Hewitt. The first half of the game was sponsored by Imperial Oil-Esso, whose commercials featured actor Murray Westgate as a smiling station attendant, while the second half belonged to Ford Motors. At the end of the game was the Three Star selection, a tradition going back to radio days and a new gasoline from Imperial-Esso called Three Star Gas.
If you were an anglo-Canadian kid of my age you had to have a favourite team, and it was usually either the Leafs or the Canadiens plus whatever team the local hero played for (around here it was Detroit because that's where Gordie Howe played). Kids in Quebec - English or French - had it easy; their team was the Canadiens. Period. Roch Carrier's modern classic The Hockey Sweater
explains it perfectly. Kids I knew were usually split. I was a Leafs fan while my cousin Gary - to this day - swears by the Montreal Canadiens. Still we saw the Leafs and Canadiens enough that we knew the players, more than we knew the players on the other teams. Toronto was coached by Punch Imlach, had Johnny Bower in goal, Tim Horton on defence, and players like Red Kelly (who was so popular that he was elected to Parliament twice while he was an active player), George "the Chief" Armstrong, Davey Keon, and Eddie Shack. The coach at Montreal was Hector "Toe" Blake, with Lorne "Gump" Worsley in goal, and players like Henri "The Pocket Rocket" Richard (his big brother was Maurice "The Rocket" Richard who retired in 1960 and I honestly don't remember seeing), Jean Belliveau, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, Jacque Laperrierre, and Yvan Cournoyer.My NHL ended in 1968. That was the year of the so-called "first expansion" - which was of course nothing of the sort. There were six new teams in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, places which - if we'd been at all interested in the history of the league - we would have learned had had NHL teams before. There were also teams in Los Angeles and Oakland that had been hotbeds of the old Western League but were only major league cities because they had owners with deep pockets (Oakland was owned by Charlie Finley at one point), and Minnesota. The first expansion didn't hurt quality too much but the more the league grew the weaker the product on the ice became. Montreal kept winning the Cup although not nearly are regularly, but the Leafs would only make the playoffs once in the next 25 years. The team's owner Harold Ballard alienated a great many fans with the way he ran the club (just one example: during renovations to Maple Leaf Gardens he ordered the destruction of "The Gondola", the press box that Foster Hewitt had broadcast from despite the fact that the Hockey Hall of Fame wanted to preserve it; when asked, Ballard said that if Hewitt wanted it he should have bought it). The draft, free agency and player salaries meant that money ruled and players went to the teams that could pay. I became a Winnipeg Jets fan because a friend of mine played there until the business side of the League became too important and the team was relocated to Phoenix. I don't watch much hockey anymore and I don't have a team, but tonight's game between Montreal and Toronto brought back the memories.
By the way, Montreal won a barn-burner 5-4. Who knows, I might become interested again.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
New Poll - What Network Produces The Fewest Shows That You Must See
Let's see, we've covered favourite nights and networks with shows you must see, so this time around, let's look at networks that produce the fewest shows that you watch.
As usual, comments can be added here.
As usual, comments can be added here.
Poll Results - What Network Produces The Most Shows That You "Must See"?
Well this came as a total surprise to me. Ten votes cast and the overwhelming majority, seven voters or 70% of the people who answered said they considered Fox to produce the most shows they must see. Two people, or 20%, said ABC. One person, 10% said CBS. The whole thing seems to run against conventional wisdom given that CBS has some of the top rated TV shows on most days. Does Fox appeal more to people who do blogs or what.
I'm one of the people who go towards CBS. I regularly watch about 11 hours a week of CBS. Their Tuesday and Thursday lineups are strong - even stronger with the addition of Close To Home on Tuesdays and I like their Friday evening shows. I watch about four hours of ABC a week, three or four hours of Fox, and perhaps the same amount of NBC. I make an effort to see about an hour of The WB and about the same amount of UPN (Smallville and Veronica Mars, a show which I only really discovered over the summer).
I guess the next poll should be self evident but I'll make it official in the morning.
I'm one of the people who go towards CBS. I regularly watch about 11 hours a week of CBS. Their Tuesday and Thursday lineups are strong - even stronger with the addition of Close To Home on Tuesdays and I like their Friday evening shows. I watch about four hours of ABC a week, three or four hours of Fox, and perhaps the same amount of NBC. I make an effort to see about an hour of The WB and about the same amount of UPN (Smallville and Veronica Mars, a show which I only really discovered over the summer).
I guess the next poll should be self evident but I'll make it official in the morning.
Friday, October 07, 2005
A Little Something I Enjoy - Poker For Free
I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!
This event is powered by PokerStars.
Registration code: 6821911
The E-Ring - Poor Television
The new NBC series E-Ring isn't bad. It's poor. As in poor writing, poor plotting, poorly drawn characters, and a poverty of creative ideas which on the episode level leads to reliance on the oldest trick in the writer's book - coincidence or "deus ex machina" - and on the series level leads to rehashing the same old concepts that have been used before. Given Jerry Bruckheimer's other TV products, I expected something better. Indeed Criminal Minds, a show which shared a time slot with E-Ring for about a week is more of a Bruckheimer show in style than the actual Bruckheimer show.
Benjamin Bratt plays Major Jim Tisnewski, although for some reason he plays the role with a vaguely southern accent. JT (as he's called) is a former special forces officer who is now assigned to a planning post at the Pentagon. The show's title refers to the outer ring of the Pentagon's five concentric rings where his office is and where, we're told, all the "big" decisions are made. His boss is Colonel McNulty, played by Dennis Hopper. McNulty's a maverick officer who gets things done. He has to be a maverick because, given Hopper's age (and more importantly the age that he looks to be) there's no way that he'd only be a Bird Colonel if his career hadn't been stopped dead. Also working with them is Sergeant Jocelyn Pierce played by Anjanue Ellis who is not only by the book, she's memorized the book (frankly she's the only character I even halfway like). Her job is to keep McNulty and JT from trying anything too far out while at the same time protecting their scrawny asses. Also in the cast are Kelsey Oldershaw as JT's girlfriend Allison, an analyst for the CIA, and Kelly Rutherford as Samantha "Sonny" Liston, a woman with whom JT has had some sort of relationship in the past. (This was actually a major cause for early concern about the show. Like a lot of people I knew there was a problem when I learned that Sarah Clarke - late of 24 - who was to play the Benjamin Bratt character's wife was dropped from the show after a focus group of women said that the character shouldn't be married. If a decision making about other aspects of the show was left to focus groups, it's no wonder there are problems.)
The episode that aired Wednesday night was in some ways unusual for the show, mainly because it gets one of the main characters out of Washington for once. McNulty sent JT to do some personalized ass-kicking to the commander of a special forces team in Iraq which has been getting good results but has been playing fast and loose with the definition of the Iran-Iraq border in order to do it. JT flies into the unit's camp by helicopter and delivers the requisite ass-kick, but then for reasons surpassing understanding - unless you're a script writer devoted to Deus ex Machina - he returns to Baghdad by road, travelling with a patrol in a couple of open vehicles. Naturally the patrol is ambushed and while some of the soldiers make it out alive JT is knocked unconscious and captured. He comes too in the back of what looks like a Toyota pickup which has stopped for some reason or other. He over powers and kills one of his captors with the guy's own knife and then wipes out the other three or four using the first guy's AK-47. Then he uses the bad guys' own radio to contact an AWACS plane which manages to establish his location ... inside Iran.
Meanwhile back at the Fort (for those of you who don't know, the Pentagon is basically the shape of a "star" fort of the sort that was common in the 19th Century for harbour and river defense) McNulty is making the argument for getting JT out of Iran, the big point on his side being that JT knows too many secret things and no one can stand up to the torture forever. A civilian from the State Department makes an argument for not rescuing him or at least trying a diplomatic solution. The idea is complicated by the political power situation within Iran, which is such that an approach to the Iranian UN ambassador will do nothing because the Iranian government has no power, it's all in the hands of the religious leadership. There is someone at Georgetown University who can get to the Ayatollahs, but he hates America so much that the only way to approach him is through the French, who are ticked off at America for a lot of reasons (being called "surrender monkeys" all the time may be a big one) but it can be eased by opening up a contract to Airbus Industries. Through these various back-channel methods McNulty and the Pentagon manage to put together a rescue operation using the French, only to have it fall apart because during the escape and evasion process JT has had to kill several Iranian soldiers, and the civilian who was leading them on his trail. The Iranian army is catching up to JT and he's in a firefight with them but after he uses his one grenade and his AK-47 either jams or runs out of bullets it looks like he'll be captured. Suddenly the "cavalry", in the form or the Special Ops unit that JT was sent to administer an ass-kicking to, arrives and drives them off. They had of course been sent, or rather put in a position to break the rules, by McNulty who knew they would break rules.
In the B plot, McNulty has to deal with a woman representative of a defense contractor who is trying to push a product that doesn't work on the military. While he's trying to deal with JT's situation he suddenly finds himself confronted with a sexual harassment complaint. This stops at least one rescue attempt and hurts McNulty's credibility. Using the Marine Corps Sergeant-secretaries network inside the Pentagon to find out the, Pierce confronts the contractor's aide who brought the complaint. She's pursuing her bosses' agenda but McNulty did call her stuff like "Honey" which she finds degrading. Pierce then recounts for her in graphic detail real sexual harassment which happened to her in training. This causes the contractor's assistant to withdraw her complaint.
The things that are right about this show are outweighed by the things that are wrong. The series has an excellent cast, but it is wasted playing characters who are basically cardboard cutouts. Pierce is the stereotypical by the book type who has to rein in her superiors. McNulty is the usual one time renegade who tries to work within the system but usually finds himself falling into his old ways. And of course Tisnewski is the typical hotshot with a fast rising career brought into the head office to season him and show him how things really work for his next promotion. Most of the plots are complicated but are usually bad ripoffs of Tom Clancy and similar writers, condensed to fit an hour time slot. And then there's the coincidences. Of course JT decides to drive back to Baghdad after flying in, and of course he survives an attack on his truck by people who take him back to Iran. That's acceptable enough. But then there's the string of coincidences that follow. He just happens to encounter an Iranian goatherd who speaks fluent English so that there can be a discussion of why the USA isn't a threat to Iran. An Iranian patrol happens to come by forcing JT to tie the kid up and making him more of an enemy than he already was (the guy was praying when the patrol arrived) to the point where, when he's attacked by the small patrol later in the episode the kid is leading them and carrying a pistol, forcing JT to kill him. The Iranians discover the patrol (and the kid) that JT killed just as the "French" (probably really Americans with fake accents) are about to send in the extraction team and revoke permission for the operation. And so on.
If shows like J.A.G. and NCIS tell us anything it is that it is possible to make reasonably good and enjoyable programming with a military theme. After all J.A.G. was about military law - with excursions into other areas of the military culture such as fighter pilots and operations in the field - which is scarcely the most compelling subject in the world. NCIS is about investigators who work for the U.S. Navy. Again, not the most compelling subject but it has been made to work and provided good television. I'm convinced that it is possible to make a good TV series about the workings at the top levels of the American military command structure, particularly if you bring an approach similar to a show like The West Wing (which E-Ring replaced) or one of the Law & Order series. You could probably even make a good series focusing on exactly what this show focuses - planning and execution of special operations. The problem is that the producers, the directors, the writers and yes, even the actors aren't giving us that sort of effort. They are settling, and frankly for me that's just not good enough. In my book, poor TV is sometimes worse than bad TV. At least with bad Television you know they think they're doing their best. I can't say that for the people responsible for The E-Ring.
Benjamin Bratt plays Major Jim Tisnewski, although for some reason he plays the role with a vaguely southern accent. JT (as he's called) is a former special forces officer who is now assigned to a planning post at the Pentagon. The show's title refers to the outer ring of the Pentagon's five concentric rings where his office is and where, we're told, all the "big" decisions are made. His boss is Colonel McNulty, played by Dennis Hopper. McNulty's a maverick officer who gets things done. He has to be a maverick because, given Hopper's age (and more importantly the age that he looks to be) there's no way that he'd only be a Bird Colonel if his career hadn't been stopped dead. Also working with them is Sergeant Jocelyn Pierce played by Anjanue Ellis who is not only by the book, she's memorized the book (frankly she's the only character I even halfway like). Her job is to keep McNulty and JT from trying anything too far out while at the same time protecting their scrawny asses. Also in the cast are Kelsey Oldershaw as JT's girlfriend Allison, an analyst for the CIA, and Kelly Rutherford as Samantha "Sonny" Liston, a woman with whom JT has had some sort of relationship in the past. (This was actually a major cause for early concern about the show. Like a lot of people I knew there was a problem when I learned that Sarah Clarke - late of 24 - who was to play the Benjamin Bratt character's wife was dropped from the show after a focus group of women said that the character shouldn't be married. If a decision making about other aspects of the show was left to focus groups, it's no wonder there are problems.)
The episode that aired Wednesday night was in some ways unusual for the show, mainly because it gets one of the main characters out of Washington for once. McNulty sent JT to do some personalized ass-kicking to the commander of a special forces team in Iraq which has been getting good results but has been playing fast and loose with the definition of the Iran-Iraq border in order to do it. JT flies into the unit's camp by helicopter and delivers the requisite ass-kick, but then for reasons surpassing understanding - unless you're a script writer devoted to Deus ex Machina - he returns to Baghdad by road, travelling with a patrol in a couple of open vehicles. Naturally the patrol is ambushed and while some of the soldiers make it out alive JT is knocked unconscious and captured. He comes too in the back of what looks like a Toyota pickup which has stopped for some reason or other. He over powers and kills one of his captors with the guy's own knife and then wipes out the other three or four using the first guy's AK-47. Then he uses the bad guys' own radio to contact an AWACS plane which manages to establish his location ... inside Iran.
Meanwhile back at the Fort (for those of you who don't know, the Pentagon is basically the shape of a "star" fort of the sort that was common in the 19th Century for harbour and river defense) McNulty is making the argument for getting JT out of Iran, the big point on his side being that JT knows too many secret things and no one can stand up to the torture forever. A civilian from the State Department makes an argument for not rescuing him or at least trying a diplomatic solution. The idea is complicated by the political power situation within Iran, which is such that an approach to the Iranian UN ambassador will do nothing because the Iranian government has no power, it's all in the hands of the religious leadership. There is someone at Georgetown University who can get to the Ayatollahs, but he hates America so much that the only way to approach him is through the French, who are ticked off at America for a lot of reasons (being called "surrender monkeys" all the time may be a big one) but it can be eased by opening up a contract to Airbus Industries. Through these various back-channel methods McNulty and the Pentagon manage to put together a rescue operation using the French, only to have it fall apart because during the escape and evasion process JT has had to kill several Iranian soldiers, and the civilian who was leading them on his trail. The Iranian army is catching up to JT and he's in a firefight with them but after he uses his one grenade and his AK-47 either jams or runs out of bullets it looks like he'll be captured. Suddenly the "cavalry", in the form or the Special Ops unit that JT was sent to administer an ass-kicking to, arrives and drives them off. They had of course been sent, or rather put in a position to break the rules, by McNulty who knew they would break rules.
In the B plot, McNulty has to deal with a woman representative of a defense contractor who is trying to push a product that doesn't work on the military. While he's trying to deal with JT's situation he suddenly finds himself confronted with a sexual harassment complaint. This stops at least one rescue attempt and hurts McNulty's credibility. Using the Marine Corps Sergeant-secretaries network inside the Pentagon to find out the, Pierce confronts the contractor's aide who brought the complaint. She's pursuing her bosses' agenda but McNulty did call her stuff like "Honey" which she finds degrading. Pierce then recounts for her in graphic detail real sexual harassment which happened to her in training. This causes the contractor's assistant to withdraw her complaint.
The things that are right about this show are outweighed by the things that are wrong. The series has an excellent cast, but it is wasted playing characters who are basically cardboard cutouts. Pierce is the stereotypical by the book type who has to rein in her superiors. McNulty is the usual one time renegade who tries to work within the system but usually finds himself falling into his old ways. And of course Tisnewski is the typical hotshot with a fast rising career brought into the head office to season him and show him how things really work for his next promotion. Most of the plots are complicated but are usually bad ripoffs of Tom Clancy and similar writers, condensed to fit an hour time slot. And then there's the coincidences. Of course JT decides to drive back to Baghdad after flying in, and of course he survives an attack on his truck by people who take him back to Iran. That's acceptable enough. But then there's the string of coincidences that follow. He just happens to encounter an Iranian goatherd who speaks fluent English so that there can be a discussion of why the USA isn't a threat to Iran. An Iranian patrol happens to come by forcing JT to tie the kid up and making him more of an enemy than he already was (the guy was praying when the patrol arrived) to the point where, when he's attacked by the small patrol later in the episode the kid is leading them and carrying a pistol, forcing JT to kill him. The Iranians discover the patrol (and the kid) that JT killed just as the "French" (probably really Americans with fake accents) are about to send in the extraction team and revoke permission for the operation. And so on.
If shows like J.A.G. and NCIS tell us anything it is that it is possible to make reasonably good and enjoyable programming with a military theme. After all J.A.G. was about military law - with excursions into other areas of the military culture such as fighter pilots and operations in the field - which is scarcely the most compelling subject in the world. NCIS is about investigators who work for the U.S. Navy. Again, not the most compelling subject but it has been made to work and provided good television. I'm convinced that it is possible to make a good TV series about the workings at the top levels of the American military command structure, particularly if you bring an approach similar to a show like The West Wing (which E-Ring replaced) or one of the Law & Order series. You could probably even make a good series focusing on exactly what this show focuses - planning and execution of special operations. The problem is that the producers, the directors, the writers and yes, even the actors aren't giving us that sort of effort. They are settling, and frankly for me that's just not good enough. In my book, poor TV is sometimes worse than bad TV. At least with bad Television you know they think they're doing their best. I can't say that for the people responsible for The E-Ring.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
TV On DVD - October 4, 2005
Ah it's October, the time when a young marketer's thoughts lightly turn to thoughts of two things - Hallowe'en and Christmas (the exact equality of Hallowe'en and Christmas served as a springboard for a short mystery by Isaac Asimov but that's a whole other discussion). The big trend in this week's DVD releases is (1) scary stuff and (2) Christmas related releases. There are one or two interesting things and certainly one "must buy" item if you got the cash.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One
- This is it, accept no substitutes or remakes. The Great Man's 195 series was one of the high points of television when I was growing up. There was the fat gentleman coming out in profile to that creepily funny music (Funeral March of the Marionettes of course) and fitting himself into that line drawing, followed by his witty introductions. Then came the episodes which I only grew to appreciate much later, followed by another appearance from Uncle Alfred with the final part of his little personal drama of mayhem. I suspect that this is being released now for little or no other reason than that Universal is releasing just about anything that Hitchcock did that they own the rights to, and it was the TV series and his friendship with Lou Wasserman that actually brought him to the studio.
America's Funniest Home Videos: Home for the Holidays
- What can I say? Not much really. The usual assortment of hijinx either real or set up by amateurs hoping to rake in the weekly prize money. This time the funny stuff relates to stuff that happens to people at Christmas. I don't watch the show and I'm not particularly interested in DVDs taken from the show. How's that for burning my bridges.
The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Second Season
- This is the second season of the Bob Newhart Show - the one with Suzanne Pleshette - and a good thing it is too, even if the release of the first season suffered somewhat from less than stellar masters. The show was one of the better comedies in a period when sitcoms tended to be very good and not locked into the formula of dysfunctional family life that they seem to be in today. Bob's work as a psychiatrist - or pshrink - is as much the focus of the show as his life at home with the lovely Emily and his not so bright neighbour Howard Borden. A great show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike - Love Is Hell
- Four episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer featuring everyone's second favourite vampire (well second favourite male vampire - I'm fonder of Dru and Darla and even -gasp- Harmony myself) Spike. The character was one of the fan favourites and I have to admit that there are a lot of Spike episodes that are classics. In fact of the four in this set the only one I'd omit is "Lie To Me" which could be replaced with something from his "chip period" - either a Harmony episode (because I like her inept vampire bit) or the episode where he gets the crap beaten out of him by Glory to protect Dawn's secret. "Lie To Me" just isn't that special.
Count Duckula: Complete First Season
- I caught a few episodes of Count Duckula and while the idea is funny enough in a sort of standard, often done way, I can't say that it's anything special.
Drawn Together: Uncensored! Season One
- Now this is special, but of course not for kids. Take the concept of a reality TV series like The Real World or (better) The Surreal Life and turn it on its head by bringing together various Cartoon archetypes - the superhero, the Disney Princess, an Elf, some "funny" animals - none of which really follow the stereotype for their characters or what the viewer generally thanks of when they think of animated characters. Good stuff.
Farscape: Starburst Edition, Vol. 6
- I will renew my all to frequent comment on the Farscape DVDs - why so many in so many different combinations?
Into the West
- No matter what else you may say about Steven Spielberg's mini-series Into The West it is impossible to deny that it lives up to my criteria for the mini-series as a form - it is epic in scope and tells an epic story. The mini-series deals with the white settlement of the American West and the simultaneous destruction of Native American society. Well worth a look.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
- It seems clear to me that the release of the complete 1974 Kolchak: The Night Stalker series was meant to tie in with the new series The Night Stalker. This was probably a mistake in that it will remind people who saw it just how inferior the new version is and educate people who haven't seen it about why the others feel so strongly about it. Buy this and skip the series.
Cartoon Network Christmas 2 - Christmas Rocks
- Apparently - since there's absolutely no listing of what's on this on the Amazon.ca website - these are Christmas episodes from some Cartoon Network shows, probably with a rock theme and I don't mean "Flintstone" type rocks.
Postcards from Buster: Buster's Got the Beat
Postcards from Buster: Buster's Outdoor Journeys
- More kidvid from the PBS series. Buy it just to tick off a social conservative.
SCTV: Christmas with SCTV
- Two SCTV Christmas episodes - the SCTV Staff Christmas Party and Christmas With Catherine O'Hara and Andrae Crouch. Not much here, but it is a Christmas DVD after all.
Stargate SG-1: Season 8
- I'm not a Stargate SG-1 viewer so I don't know if season 8 is good bad or indifferent. All I really know is that the series has been around for a long time and say what you will, longevity like that at least indicates that there are people who like the series enough that TV executives are keeping it on the air.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Series 3, Vol. 5
- Apparently this is from the 2003 version of the cartoon based on the comic book. In fact the 2003 version is based on the comic book which was a lot darker and more violent than either the movies or the 1987 cartoons. Of course back in 1987 people tended to regard both comics and TV animation as being for kids, even though comic books were moving quite radically away from the reasons for that assumption. It isn't surprising then that the took a strip that sounded like it was kid's stuff and made it into a cartoon for kids, or that the creators, seeing where their bread was buttered moved the comics closer to the kid market in tone.
William Shatner's Twist in the Tale
- I can't tell you very much about this show. It was filmed in New Zealand, it deals with supernatural stories but aimed at kids, and had William Shatner as a sort of modern Hitchcock or Serling clone.
Wild Palms
- I remember this series as being very entrancing and at the same time very difficult to understand. I confess though that for me the biggest moment was Bebe Neuwirth in very lacy black bra and panties, straddling Robert Loggia. Science fiction with a very scary twist.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One
- This is it, accept no substitutes or remakes. The Great Man's 195 series was one of the high points of television when I was growing up. There was the fat gentleman coming out in profile to that creepily funny music (Funeral March of the Marionettes of course) and fitting himself into that line drawing, followed by his witty introductions. Then came the episodes which I only grew to appreciate much later, followed by another appearance from Uncle Alfred with the final part of his little personal drama of mayhem. I suspect that this is being released now for little or no other reason than that Universal is releasing just about anything that Hitchcock did that they own the rights to, and it was the TV series and his friendship with Lou Wasserman that actually brought him to the studio.
America's Funniest Home Videos: Home for the Holidays
- What can I say? Not much really. The usual assortment of hijinx either real or set up by amateurs hoping to rake in the weekly prize money. This time the funny stuff relates to stuff that happens to people at Christmas. I don't watch the show and I'm not particularly interested in DVDs taken from the show. How's that for burning my bridges.
The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Second Season
- This is the second season of the Bob Newhart Show - the one with Suzanne Pleshette - and a good thing it is too, even if the release of the first season suffered somewhat from less than stellar masters. The show was one of the better comedies in a period when sitcoms tended to be very good and not locked into the formula of dysfunctional family life that they seem to be in today. Bob's work as a psychiatrist - or pshrink - is as much the focus of the show as his life at home with the lovely Emily and his not so bright neighbour Howard Borden. A great show.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike - Love Is Hell
- Four episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer featuring everyone's second favourite vampire (well second favourite male vampire - I'm fonder of Dru and Darla and even -gasp- Harmony myself) Spike. The character was one of the fan favourites and I have to admit that there are a lot of Spike episodes that are classics. In fact of the four in this set the only one I'd omit is "Lie To Me" which could be replaced with something from his "chip period" - either a Harmony episode (because I like her inept vampire bit) or the episode where he gets the crap beaten out of him by Glory to protect Dawn's secret. "Lie To Me" just isn't that special.
Count Duckula: Complete First Season
- I caught a few episodes of Count Duckula and while the idea is funny enough in a sort of standard, often done way, I can't say that it's anything special.
Drawn Together: Uncensored! Season One
- Now this is special, but of course not for kids. Take the concept of a reality TV series like The Real World or (better) The Surreal Life and turn it on its head by bringing together various Cartoon archetypes - the superhero, the Disney Princess, an Elf, some "funny" animals - none of which really follow the stereotype for their characters or what the viewer generally thanks of when they think of animated characters. Good stuff.
Farscape: Starburst Edition, Vol. 6
- I will renew my all to frequent comment on the Farscape DVDs - why so many in so many different combinations?
Into the West
- No matter what else you may say about Steven Spielberg's mini-series Into The West it is impossible to deny that it lives up to my criteria for the mini-series as a form - it is epic in scope and tells an epic story. The mini-series deals with the white settlement of the American West and the simultaneous destruction of Native American society. Well worth a look.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
- It seems clear to me that the release of the complete 1974 Kolchak: The Night Stalker series was meant to tie in with the new series The Night Stalker. This was probably a mistake in that it will remind people who saw it just how inferior the new version is and educate people who haven't seen it about why the others feel so strongly about it. Buy this and skip the series.
Cartoon Network Christmas 2 - Christmas Rocks
- Apparently - since there's absolutely no listing of what's on this on the Amazon.ca website - these are Christmas episodes from some Cartoon Network shows, probably with a rock theme and I don't mean "Flintstone" type rocks.
Postcards from Buster: Buster's Got the Beat
Postcards from Buster: Buster's Outdoor Journeys
- More kidvid from the PBS series. Buy it just to tick off a social conservative.
SCTV: Christmas with SCTV
- Two SCTV Christmas episodes - the SCTV Staff Christmas Party and Christmas With Catherine O'Hara and Andrae Crouch. Not much here, but it is a Christmas DVD after all.
Stargate SG-1: Season 8
- I'm not a Stargate SG-1 viewer so I don't know if season 8 is good bad or indifferent. All I really know is that the series has been around for a long time and say what you will, longevity like that at least indicates that there are people who like the series enough that TV executives are keeping it on the air.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Series 3, Vol. 5
- Apparently this is from the 2003 version of the cartoon based on the comic book. In fact the 2003 version is based on the comic book which was a lot darker and more violent than either the movies or the 1987 cartoons. Of course back in 1987 people tended to regard both comics and TV animation as being for kids, even though comic books were moving quite radically away from the reasons for that assumption. It isn't surprising then that the took a strip that sounded like it was kid's stuff and made it into a cartoon for kids, or that the creators, seeing where their bread was buttered moved the comics closer to the kid market in tone.
William Shatner's Twist in the Tale
- I can't tell you very much about this show. It was filmed in New Zealand, it deals with supernatural stories but aimed at kids, and had William Shatner as a sort of modern Hitchcock or Serling clone.
Wild Palms
- I remember this series as being very entrancing and at the same time very difficult to understand. I confess though that for me the biggest moment was Bebe Neuwirth in very lacy black bra and panties, straddling Robert Loggia. Science fiction with a very scary twist.
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