TV On DVD (And A Little Bit More) - December 20, 2005

A very short but very strong list this week, which considering that I'm in my pre-Christmas funk, is probably a good thing. It started last night at my bowling league Christmas Party and let's just say I didn't have good time. Between poor bowling, selfish people, having to catch the bus and not wanting to get my bowling balls greasy I had a grand total of one piece of pizza. And that's how it starts.

Nowhere Man: The Complete Series
- Nowhere Man debuted in the second season of UPN's existence after the network dropped everything on their schedule that didn't have the words "Star" and "Trek" in the title. Now setting aside the fact that I happen to think there were a couple of good shows besides Voyager in that first season lineup, I have to admit that Nowhere Man was one of the best shows the network ever put together. Its cancellation after a single season was a real shocker, although UPN execs at that time were quicker to pull the trigger on a new show than someone at Fox who saw a science fiction series on the schedule. There was an attempt at resolution of the main story line but there is still argument today as to whether it was tacked on or if the series was even meant to continue beyond one season.

Seaquest DSV: Season One
- Roy Scheider starred in this series which had Steven Spielberg as Executive Producer. The first season wasn't that great and there was a lot of dissension on the set. Still I liked it better than the following seasons. A large number of the first season cast was either dumped or jumped ship (so to speak) as the whole concept was revamped. The kept Jonathon Brandis and the talking dolphin though.

The Shield: Season 4
- I've never seen The Shield although it has aired on Global here in Canada (although I don't think the fourth season has been seen here yet - it is notoriously difficult to find out what show's that network is airing at any given time) which shows the difference between Canada, where this show can be seen on broadcast TV, and the US where the PTC is trying to get it run off of cable. Season Four was the one with Glenn Close cast as Michael Chiklis's boss, a role which earned her an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Actress in a Drama.

Tracey Takes on: The Complete First Season
- Tracey Takes On never aired in Canada except on the pay movie channels (if there) so I know nothing about it except for the brief clips I used to see at Emmy time when it was almost invariably nominated and frequently won in a number of categories. Star Tracey Ullman is one of those chamelon-like actors who can take on a variety of parts (the IMDB lists 10 roles for her in Tracey Takes On and adds "other roles") and be unrecognizable as herself in most of them. Tremendous talent.

The Twilight Zone: Season 5 - The Definitive Edition
- The final season of The Twilight Zone which saw the series revert to the tighter half hour format. The season as a whole has the usual great casting but in particular this season features the episode "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet" with William Shatner. This was later remade in the Twilight Zone movie with John Lithgow and parodied in Third Rock From The Sun with Lithgow and Shatner together.

And now for a little bit more:

Serenity (Widescreen Edition)
- I know this isn't TV but I was a big fan of the TV series Firefly (and I really want to get that gorram DVD set!) and the movie is really a continuation of the series. The special effects are tremendous and the characters pick up from where they left off with barely a pause. The writing is incredibly witty ("This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight... turbulence and then explode.") and while some critics didn't get it, Science fiction author Orson Scott Card has called Serenity "the best science fiction film ever." For reasons which escape most fans, the movie never really found an audience - worldwide box office was below budget (not helped by Universal cancelling the theatrical release in seven countries) but there's hope that if DVD sales are strong Universal might consider a second sequel to be made for its SciFi Channel. So buy the gorram DVD!

New Poll - What Was The Best New Show Of Calendar 2005?

In our year end round-up we've surveyed the worst new show of 2005 so it's only fitting that we now turn to the bestnew show of the year. And the nominees are:

• The Office - the NBC version of the hit BBC series


• My Name Is Earl - NBC's comedy about a man trying to reay oll the bad things he's done


• Numb3rs - The CBS series about a mathematician who helps his FBI agent brother solve crimes


• Commander In Chief - ABC's series about the first Woman President of the United States


• Everybody Hates Chris - The fictionalised version of Chris Rock's childhood on UPN


• Prison Break - Fox's series about an engineer trying to bust his wrongly convicted brother out of death row

As usual, feel free to comment here and tell me what series you think I should have put on the list.

Poll Results - What Was The Worst New Show Of Calendar 2005?

A larger turnout than last time but still comparatively small with eight voters. Obviously I need to promote the blog more at BlogExplosion to get more voters.

Here are the results. In a tie for fifth place were The Law Firm and Head Cases with no votes. In fourth place with one vote (12%) is Just Legal, the Don Johnson series that lasted just a few weeks on the WB. In a tie for second place with two votes (25%) are Blind Justice and The War At Home. But the winner - or at least the show with the most votes - with three is Stacked.

I have a suspicion that with a few more votes this result would have changed. I have to confess that I rather liked Blind Justice (even with giving a blind man a gun) which may have done better if it hadn't been placed in the old NYPD Blue slot. I missed Just Legal (it was on a Monday) and I only saw the pilot episode of Head Cases which I thought was borderline adequate although the pilot isn't enough to judge the show by. I did watch The Law Firm and it was awful, but it was nothing when compared to the big steaming pile of bovine scatology that is The War At Home. Which is why I'm convinced that if I had more voters Stacked would not have been the winner in this poll. I've never seen it - I have a low tolerance for Pamela Anderson after I saw Barb Wire on TV once (the woman was stark naked for part of it and still boring while the actual movie gave me a raging migraine) - but any series with Christopher Lloyd can't be entirely bad and I seem to recall that Anderson had some slight comedic ability. Besides, I've actually heard that librarians and small bookstore owners have actually credited the series for increased patronage. I know that if I'd voted in my own poll, which I occasionally do, it would have been for The War At Home..

New poll shortly.

John Spencer 1946 - 2005

I hate writing obituaries but sometimes there are people who you just have to write about. John Spencer, who died late on Friday, was one of those. He would have been 59 on Tuesday.

On TCM they sometimes have a brief segment following some of their movies called Damned Good Actors. It think that this is a description that fit John Spencer to a T. He made his television debut as a teenager on the second season of The Patty Duke Show. His character disappeared when production of the show moved from New York to Hollywood after Patty Duke turned 18 (New York Law was less restrictive with regard to the hours a juvenile actor could work than California law). He was a student at New York's Professional Children's School where some of his fellow students were Liza Minelli and Pinchas Zuckerman. Spencer worked in regional theatre and off-Broadway productions for much of the 1970s and '80s, winning an Obie for his role in the play Still Life and a Drama Desk nomination for The Day Room.

His film career began in the early 1980s with small parts, like one of the airman at the missile silo at the start of War Games, and often parts in cheap movies. In 1990 he had a major supporting role in the Harrison Ford movie Presumed Innocent which probably led to his first major break, the role of Tommy Mullaney on L.A. Law. He was perfectly cast as the gruff former prosecutor whose alcoholism had led to the end of his marriage and nearly the end of his career before he got a second chance with Mackenzie Brackman. Adding Spencer was a major - and positive - addition to the cast of L.A. Law and he was one of the outstanding figures on the show particularly after Susan Dey, Harry Hamlin and Jimmy Smits left the cast. Spencer's role on L.A. Law helped his career insofar as it got him a better class of supporting roles including parts in forget Paris, The Rock, Copland and The Negotiator although he still appeared in some pretty awful movies. In 1998 he was one of the leading characters in the short-lived NBC series Trinity, co-starring as Jill Clayburgh's husband.

It was with The West Wing that actor and character came together in one of those perfect fits that happen so rarely. Although Spencer said of Leo McGarry "He has qualities that I wish I had more of. I often say to Aaron [Sorkin], 'You're writing the man I'd like to be.' " the two men were close in a lot of ways. Like McGarry, Spencer was an alcoholic and a workaholic. In an interview for AP he said "Like Leo, I've always been a workaholic, too. Through good times and bad, acting has been my escape, my joy, my nourishment. The drug for me, even better than alcohol, was acting.'' Spencer was nominated for five Emmy Awards as Best Supporting Actor and won once in 2002. It always seemed to me to be a bit of a snub to nominate him in the Supporting Actor category as it always seemed to me that the role of Leo was very much the equal of Martin Sheen's Josiah Bartlett, and it seemed particularly strange in those years when Stockard Channing was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for doing far less. True, Bartlett was the showier part but in so many ways Spencer was the glue who held the show together, who linked Bartlett with the bulk of his staff. Indeed, if the original plan for the series had proceeded, where the President either wasn't seen or rarely seen, McGarry would have been the principal character even if Rob Lowe was getting more money per episode. Spencer brought the proper weight to the tough brilliant and occasionally troubled character of Leo. There are so many great scenes with Leo that John Spencer made live. My favourite Leo scene was one where Spencer made the words seem like his own experience. He's explaining to his lawyer - played by Joanna Gleason - that he can't have just one drink, that he can't understand people who can only have just one drink. It's a rivetting near soliloquy and one of his best performances on the show.

There is a certain irony to a couple of events on the show in light of John Spencer's death. In the sixth season episode "Birnam Wood" Leo suffered a near fatal heart attack which took him away from his job at the White House. The episode seemed to have an impact on Spencer. He stated that "I do not want to have a heart attack. Since (I shot that episode) I have taken much better care of myself. I did the thing I have been trying to do for years - I stopped smoking." Reportedly the next episode of The West Wing which was to air on January 6 was to feature Leo in a Vice-Presidential debate where the issue of health care comes up. Reportedly the character was supposed to say "By an overwhelming percentage, the first warning symptom of a heart attack is death. I'm fortunate to be here." There are no reports at the moment of how The West Wing will be handling John Spencer's death.

Spencer was an only child who was married and divorced in the 1970s. According to his publicist he is survived by "cousins, aunts, uncles, and wonderful friends." Not to mention a great many stunned fans.

The Apprentice Finale - And Aftershock

It isn't often that the word "aftershock" is really appropriate when talking about a television show, and particularly a reality show, but I think you can argue that the decision of one player at the end of the fourth season finale of The Apprentice set off something of a firestorm. Or an aftershock.

At the start of the two part Apprentice finale Donald Trump had narrowed the field of 18 candidates to two, Randal Pinkett from Somerset New Jersey and Rebecca Jarvis from Chicago. As usual in the show, the final task for each was to coordinate a charity event, with a staff made up of three previously fired candidates each. In this case each potential Apprentice had to deal with a corporate sponsor. Randal was put in charge of a celebrity softball game for the charity Autism Speaks with Outback Steak House as corporate sponsor, while Rebecca was given a comedy event for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation with Yahoo! as corporate sponsor. Both Randal and his group and Rebecca and her group encountered problems. In Rebecca's case the problems were twofold. The original host for the comedy event was supposed to be former Saturday Night Live cast member Joe Piscopo, however soon after a meeting with two of Rebecca's employees, Piscopo pulled out claiming resistance from "the union". (Since there isn't a "comedian's union" I suspect the resistance may have come from either AFTRA or Actor's Equity concerning payment from the producers of The Apprentice, but I haven't seen any specific union claim.) She responded by contacting various comedy clubs and finding a replacement MC for the event. A bigger problem was staunch resistance on the part of Yahoo! to attempts at direct fundraising during the event. Randal found similar resistance from Outback Steak House but after hearing details about Autism from the representative of Autism Speaks he and his team were able to persuade the company to give in on that point. A bigger problem for Randal was the weather - on the day that he developed his plans for the event the weather was excellent but the day of the event had heavy rain and the groundskeeper at Brooklyn's Key Span Park where the softball game was to be held felt that even if it stopped raining the field wouldn't be ready in time for the game. Randal was forced to improvise a "Plan B" in a matter of hours.

The events went off with some difficulty. Randal decided to crowd the various celebrities and VIP guests into the dressing room for the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team and proceed with a planned auction sale there with proceeds going to Autism Speaks, with bins for personal donations also provided. In his opening remarks Randal gave a spirited explanation of the need to donate to the charity, however during the course of the event the celebrities - who were invited to participate in the softball game - were spread throughout the room rather than placed in a position where they'd be visible to the crowd. Worse, by the time that Donald Trump arrived for the event it had stopped raining and he wondered aloud whether the game could have been held as planned. (In Randal's defense, in such matters one should usually defer to the opinion of the experts, in this case the stadium groundskeeper.) Still Randal managed to raise $11,000 for Autism Speaks.

As for Rebecca, she seemed to have totally caved in to Yahoo!'s demands. The whole place was resplendent in purple and white (the Yahoo! colours) including the drinks - Yahootinis and drinks with purple blinking ice cubes. The only visible mention of the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation was one rather small banner placed above the bar, and while Glaser's son did speak to the crowd at the start of the comedy performances, and the MC did from time to time mention the group, there was no way to directly contribute. Gift bags were given to the attendees at the end of the event which included a brochure and a donation form but no money was raised directly from the event. At the live "board room" in the second hour of the show, an executive from Yahoo! tried to make up for this by donating $50,000 each to Autism Speaks and the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation - the executive who told Rebecca that they didn't want direct fundraising at "their" event was seated beside him looking somewhat shame faced.

The final boardroom, broadcast live found Trump faced with the choice between two of the best candidates he's ever had. Randal's education (five degrees from Rutgers, MIT, and Oxford - where he was a Rhodes Scholar), business acumen and leadership skills were up against the younger Rebecca, a financial journalist who had attended the University of Chicago and as a teen had founded her own charity which raised over $750,000 and had involved both Bill Clinton and Colin Powell. For this she had been named in 2000 as one of Teen People's "20 Teens Who Will Change the World". Still things came down to performance both in the final task and long term. Randal questioned Rebecca's youth and lack of practical experience in the world of business while touting his own success as an entrepreneur and his greater success as a team leader during the interview process. Neither George or Caroline was particularly kind to either candidate's plan. Caroline in particular was unimpressed with Randal not having a well considered Plan B in the event of rain or checking with the weather service regularly to be sure that the softball game could go ahead, while George wondered why Randal didn't make sure that the celebrities in attendance weren't more prominently on display. The George's point has somewhat less merit than Caroline's although there was probably a better way to make use of the celebrities in the auction situation. The big criticism went to Rebecca for losing sight of the fact that her client wasn't Yahoo! but the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation.(It should be noted here that the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric Aids Foundation is a particular favourite charity of Mark Burnett's production company - proceeds from the auction of Survivor props from each season goes to the Foundation as do proceeds from auctions of Apprentice memorabilia.) In the end it came down to Donald Trump's own decision. He chose Randal.

And then he asked the question excited the aftershock. I don't think that anyone either present at Lincoln Center or in the TV audience would disagree that Randal was deserving of being selected as Trump's Apprentice, even though there was a general sense that if Rebecca were selected it wouldn't be a bad choice either. Certainly the final two this season were far superior to either of the Season Three candidates Tana or Kendra, and perhaps the best final two of any season of the show. So maybe it shouldn't have come as a big surprise when Donald Trump asked Randal if Rebecca should also be hired. And then Randal surrendered all the considerable good will he had won. With Felisha and Alla both shaking their heads so hard that you could probably hear them rattling, Randal said ''No, Mr. Trump. It's not called The Apprenti. There should only be one.'' There were boos from the audience at Lincoln Center but even greater were the comments at various online locations. Before TVSquad shut down their comments for maintenance, they received 116 comments most of which could be summed up with the statement "Randal is a jerk." At The Donald's Trump University blog there were 276 comments the last time I checked, the essence of which, in virtually every case was "Randal is a jerk and you should hire Rebecca anyway Mr. Trump."

As for me, I'm not sure. If Trump had wanted to hire both he could have. If he felt that it was for the best for his organization he should have, and probably still should. More to the point he shouldn't have asked a newly hired employee whether he should hire her unless it was a case of having her work for him as an assistant or as part of his team. At the same time however, Randal is probably obliged to tell his employer whether he thinks the company would be better off if he were to hire Rebecca. And there hangs the real seed of any controversy. The reasons expressed by Randal are personal rather than business related, related to his interests and the name of the show, The Apprentice. He won; he is The Apprentice but in saying that he is going against the final line of the show's intro - "It's not personal, it's only business." By not offering a sound business reason for not hiring Rebecca, he has put the personal ahead of the business, and if that doesn't make him the things that people have been calling him, perhaps it does make him less sound as a businessman, which after all is what Trump is hiring.

TV on DVD - December 13, 2005

Well yes, I know I missed last week, and considering what this week's DVD list looks like compared with last week's I suppose some people could accuse me of skipping the hard weeks. Truth is that there was a lot of stuff on my not blogging plate, complicated by the fact that I haven't been sleeping well the past little while - don't know why not but I haven't. I've been compensating - or have been forced to compensate by my body - with afternoon siestas which in turn mean I haven't been getting as good a night's sleep as I should, but what can you do when you almost fall asleep while typing. And yeah I did get the final result of Survivor wrong but the optimal strategy was still right.

Mercifully short list this week and quite a bit of it good stuff.

Dukes of Hazzard: The Complete Fifth Season
- Ah the most infamous season of all for the denizens of Hazard County, when "them Duke boys" weren't Bo and Luke but Coy and Vance. John Schneider and Tom Wopat got into a salary dispute and Warner Brothers, apparently forgetting what happened with Clint Walker and Jim Garner back in the late 1950s, decided that their young stars were interchangable cogs which could be swapped out at will. Coy was Byron Cherry (and whatever happened to him) while Vance was Christopher Mayer who actually had a career after driving the General Lee, usually working as Chip Mayer. They were on the show for 18 episodes before vanishing - quite literally - from the Duke Family Tree never to be spoken of again to this very day. In fact neither set of cousins appears on the front of this set - though Coy and Vance seem to appear on one end - all we see are The General and Daisy. And after all those were the main reasons a lot of us watched the show.

Family Bonds: The Complete First Season
- Never heard of it. Apparently a 10 part HBO "documentary" series (read non-competitive reality show) following a family of bailbondsmen and "recovery specialists" on their job. No appeal to me at all, and since it appears that HBO isn't actually going to do a second season, not much appeal to anybody else.

Farscape: Season 3, Collection 1 (Starburst Edition)
- I've said it before and I'll probably have to say it again, how many different ways can they find to package the same thing? Starburst Edition, full season edition etcetera etcetera.

Gilmore Girls: The Complete Fifth Season
- I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of Gilmore Girls but from what little I've seen, the show has some excellent witty writing, and the fact that it doesn't really appeal to me only means that it doesn't appeal to me. Certainly it is one of the most successful WB series, and the stars are very appealing.

Miami Vice: Season Two
- Miami Vice was as much a product of its time as any series can be. It not only reflected its time and place but also set trends. Who could forget the cars, the pastel shades and modernistic chic of Miami, and Don Johnson's purposely stubbled face, not to mention Jan Hammer's score. In a very real way Miami Vice also served as a starring vehicle for Edward James Olmos. Sure he'd done some work before Miami Vice including The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez which he not only starred in but wrote produced and even composed the music for, but Miami Vice was his big break as a mainstream star.

Rambo, Vol. 5: Snow Raid
Rambo, Vol. 6: Face of Freedom
- Just what we need more badly animated Rambo for kids - the horror, the horror. And remember, this was a daily cartoon show for a year.

Reba: Season 2
- I know that there are some people - no, make that a lot of people - who don't understand why Reba McEntire not only has a sitcom but how that sitcom has managed to survive into its fifth season. Well the fact is that the show is funny, although most of the credit for that doesn't go to McEntire (who isn't the worst actor in the world but isn't going to win any Emmy's either) but to her supporting cast and in particular Melissa Peterman as Barbara Jean (a woman who at best marches to the beat of a different drum - her logic is not the same as our earth logic). The interaction between Reba and Barbara Jean is classic, and is only compounded when Reba's not terribly bright son-in-law Van (Steve Howey) is added to the mix.

The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season (Collectible Marge Head Pack)
The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season
- Two packages for the latest compilation of Simpson's episodes. One is a boring old regular box for those of us who have shelves for out DVDs and one is a match for the Season 6 Homer's Head package, this time featuring Marge (but her hair is scaled way down). Obvious must for Simpsons fans of course.

Tour of Duty: Entire Series
- All three seasons of Tour of Duty brought together in a single set in a package made to look like an Army footlocker. Usual warnings apply - buy only if you don't already have the individual seasons, but if you know someone who likes the series and doesn't already have the DVDs, this could be a great Christmas gift.

New Poll - What Was The Worst New Show Of Calendar 2005?

While Christmas is occupying our attentions, we shouldn't forget that the end of the year, with it's tradition of Best and Worst lists is coming up. With that in mind I present the first of three end of the year poll questions.

It's always more fun to pick the Worst rather than the Best, but I've got two bests and Worst is first. What was the worst network TV show to debut in the 2005 calendar year? (Note that I did say the calendar year which allows me to do a season long poll at the end of the year.)

Just to refresh your memory - because some of these came and went so fast that even the people who were in them don't remember them - the six contenders are:

• Blind Justice - a blind cop with a dog and a gun. Replaced NYPD Blue on ABC.
• Stacked - Pamela Anderson in a book store. On Fox
• The Law Firm - A wannabe Apprentice with lawyers. Lasted two episodes on NBC in the summer before being dumped onto Bravo.
• The War At Home - Fox moved Arrested Development off of Sunday nights for this.
• Head Cases - Another Fox series, this one lasted a whole three episodes. I confess I liked the pilot and some of the cast but didn't see enough to have an opinion.
• Just Legal - This time The WB cancelled a show after just three episodes. Come on this is The WB - they don't cancel shows after three episodes!

Please feel free to comment here and if there are worse shows that debuted in 2005 that you can think of feel free to mention them.

Poll - What TV related gift would you like to find under the Christmas Tree?

Well after the highs in voting we experienced in the last poll, this one was quite a come down. Either I didn't promote this one as well as I could have (entirely possible) or everyone is content with the electronic gear they have. And yet even with a voter turnout of four (4!) there does seem to be a clear concensus. If the number of hits I get in a week is accurate, virtually everyone is content with the stuff they've got. Of the people who expressed an opinion however, none wanted a Universal Remote, a DVD Recorder, a new TV, or Home Theatre Seating. Despite all of the problems with the initial run of them, a quarter of respondents (that's one person to you) wanted an X-Box 360. The big winner, with 75% of the vote (three people) wanted a Personal Video Recorder.

This one is interesting even with the low turnout. It seems clear that people want a replacement for the VCR, and the preferred choice, I suppose because of its flexibility, is a PVR like a TiVo or what the satellite and cable companies are offering bundled with their equipment. I confess that I'd like to replace my VCR as well, but the options to me as a Canadian with Digital Cable are severely limited. I can buy a TiVo and just recently the company has started offering scheduling services for Canadian channels even though the company does not sell the device in Canada or offer service to Canadian owners. The problem is that some of what I regard as the functionality of the TiVo would seem to be lost if I'm forced to record only what's on my digital box, or to get a second box just for the TiVo in order to be able to watch one show in digital and record another. How is that different from what a DVD Recorder or my current VCR does? I confess however, that some of the DVD Recorders with the built in Hard Disk Drive are appealing as a way of having your cake and eating it too, but I tend to be wary of any sort of combination unit of this sort - if one thing breaks you lose the use of both while getting it repaired, always assuming you can get it repaired.

New Poll (on a better topic I hope) later today.

Holiday Gift Suggestions - A Brief Guide DVDs

Here's the second installment of my holiday gift list. This one is a far less specific about products than my earlier listing. I had planned to make specific suggestions but as I point out these would reflect my tastes and that doesn't really help anyone. It's less about suggesting specific material than perhaps offering a little guidance as to directions that someone buying DVDs as gifts might find helpful. (In other words I'm weaseling out a bit on my title.)

Since the format debuted DVDs have been a natural gift choice, just as prerecorded tapes were before them. I'm not going to try to suggest movies. For one thing there are so many choices out there and individual taste is the most important aspect of this. I can recommend The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection (and it is something I want in case someone who is buying for me is reading this) but most people would look at the words "Silent Movies" and run in terror (probably including anyone who is buying for me), so I'll mostly restrict myself to an overview of TV related material.

Season Boxed Sets
Boxed sets of seasons of TV series are a perfect gift, and practically suggests itself. If someone has the first three seasons of 24 for example, what could be a more natural Christmas gift than 24: Season Four. You can also make choices based on what a person watches on TV or in reruns what they'd like or the sort of show they might enjoy. A Smallville fan might appreciate The Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Season and Lois and Clark: The Complete First Season. It's tricky though. A Star Trek might not be interested in Babylon 5 and vice versa. I could list a number of titles - indeed that was my intention when I started to write this - but those would reflect my tastes and even when they are outstanding productions, both in terms of the programs themselves and what is on the DVD, they aren't ideal for everyone.

Children's Programming
Anyone buying DVDs for children needs to be aware of a few things. Age is very much a consideration. Brian, my almost three year old nephew loves Thomas The Tank Engine and The Wiggles but will he like them when he's six? I can practically guarantee you that he won't like them when he's nine. Another thing to be aware of is that if you're a parent you had better like the DVDs because you are going to be seeing and hearing them a lot. Particularly with the youngest children they want to see the same video - and sometimes the same episode - over and over again in a period of minutes not hours or days. Would your sanity survive that sort of repetition of Barney the Dinosaur, Blue's Clues, or The Wiggles? Incidentally one interesting idea that I've heard of is playing old silent comedy shorts like Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton for younger children (I haven't had a chance to try this with Brian yet). Apparently they appreciate the slapstick comedy and the music and don't mind that it isn't in colour and that the people don't speak. There are some very affordable sets of this material out there, although of course it's a case of caveat emptor and you get what you pay for.

Special Interest DVDs
There are a lot of DVDs that fit into this grouping, touching on just about any interest, and not all of them were TV shows but it is an area that people might want to consider when giving DVDs for Christmas. Amazon.ca lists the following categories: Art & Artists, Cooking & Beverages, Crafts & Hobbies, Dance, Educational, Fitness & Yoga, Health, History, Home & Garden,Metaphysical & Supernatural, Nature & Wildlife, Outdoor Recreation, Parenting & Childcare, Religion & Spirituality, Self-Help, Sports, Transportation, and Travel. And I'm convinced that if you put a little more work into searching for DVDs - looking in hobby publications and the like - you can find even more material, often from small producers who aim for a very specialized market.

Survivor: Guatemala - My Prediction

Back when Survivor first debuted, in the summer of 2000, it was a big hit among players of the boardgame Diplomacy. Where most people saw Richard Hatch as a conniving backstabber who hoodwinked the other people on that island, we Diplomacy players saw a kindred spirit who was playing the other people in order to accomplish his series of goals - "going for the 18 centre win" as we'd put it - by establishing an alliance and using that alliance to eliminate other players and controlling the game throughout. All the while he was also manipulating other players in such a way that they would see him as the lesser of virtually every alternative in the final jury session. Hatch's opponents took too long to fully understand what was going on. A perfect example of how he handled things was final Immunity Challenge of that first season. It featured Hatch, whitewater rafting guide Kelly Wigglesworth and former US Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch. Hatch knew that neither he nor Wigglesworth were likely to beat Boesch who was well liked by many of the members of the jury primarily because he hadn't engaged in the sort of intrigues that Hatch and Wigglesworth had been part of. Hatch also knew that he couldn't vote Boesch off lest he lose the older man's vote in the final Tribal Council. Therefore he eliminated himself from the competition leaving it a battle between Wigglesworth and Boesch, certain that he would be in the final two either way - Wigglesworth would take him believing that she could win against Hatch and couldn't win against Boesch while Boesch would remain loyal to their early pact. In the end Wigglesworth outlasted Boesch in the endurance challenge, but it was Hatch, who had created the alliance strategy after researching the Swedish show Expedition Robinson on which Survivor is based was able to convince the other players - famously including Sue Hawk - that he was the lesser of the two evils they had to choose from.

Subsequent seasons of Survivor weren't as popular with Diplomacy players, in part because the lessons of the first season were often only half learned. Survivor: Outback featured Colby Donaldson, a player who physically dominated the individual Immunity Challenges but made a major mistake by choosing the more popular (and manipulative) Tina Wesson before the jury instead of the far less popular Keith Famie. Wesson won because she was better at the non-challenge part of the game. Similarly Kim Johnson chose Ethan Zohn in Survivor: Africa because she wanted him to win the money and didn't think she could win against either Zohn or third place finisher Lex van der Berghe. Subsequent seasons saw the rise of the "under the radar" strategy pioneered by Vecepia Towery in Survivor: Marquesas a strategy which has the problem of being seen as riding on a stronger opponent's coattails as happened in Survivor: Palau Katie Gallagher. Something vaguely similar to the "under the radar strategy" occurred in the All Star version of Survivor in which Rob Mariano (who hadn't been a particularly effective player in Survivor: Marianas but obviously had been studying) played master manipulator to reach the final two along with his ally, the virtually invisible Amber Brkich (who had tried the coattails thing in Survivor: Australia - she won as the lesser of two evils. Increasingly the strategy which has been most successful is a strong two person alliance with temporary alliances with others to reach the final four or three - in fact the same essential strategy pioneered by Richard Hatch in the very first Survivor, although in many cases players haven't had the Machiavellian willingness to subtly pull the trigger on their principal ally that Richard Hatch did when he pulled out of the final immunity.

So what, in this old (and bad) Diplomacy player's mind, is going to happen in the two hour finale of Survivor: Guatemala. The final four are Stephenie La Grossa (who had been a contestant in Survivor: Palau), Rafe Judkins, Danni Boatwright, and Lydia Morales. Of the four, Rafe and Steph appear to have the closest alliance, although it seems to be under a lot of pressure. Lydia had been a partner in this alliance and ridden along on its coattails but was increasingly seen as an outsider. Danni is the only surviving member of the original Nakum Tribe. Rafe and Steph are the two most dominant players in terms of being competitive in challenges - both immunity and reward. Lydia has not one an individual challenge of either type while Danni won a crucial immunity when it seemed likely that she would be voted out as the last Nakum member. For a Diplomacy player the best situation is to go into a head to head contest with a player who is at a positional disadvantage on the board. In terms of Survivor: Guatemala, this is Lydia who has been the weakest remaining player throughout the season. Having her in the final two will insure her opponent the win, so if anyone is playing optimally she should go before the jury. Assuming that either of the two strongest players - Rafe or Steph - wins the first immunity of Sunday night's show that person should work with Danni and Lydia to eliminate the strongest remaining player. That is Steph should try to eliminate Rafe and vice versa. This means of course that whoever wins the final immunity should keep Lydia and vote out the other player.

I can practically guarantee you that this will not happen. While it is optimal play it isn't expected play. I expect Lydia to be eliminated for the exact reason that she should be kept on - she hasn't been a strong player and it may be that the stronger players will find her unworthy of having even a slight chance at the million dollar first prize. The question then becomes whether Rafe or Steph will take Danni to the jury or each other. If the final is Steph versus Danni I would expect the vote to be 4-3 for Steph. Rafe versus Danni would either be 5-2 or 4-3 for Rafe. Rafe versus Steph is a bit harder to call and will probably depend on the winner of the final immunity challenge, although I lean towards Rafe winning because he hasn't antagonized as many people as Stephanie has. Rafe beats Lydia, Danni and probably Stephenie, while Stephenie beats Lydia and probably Danni. Danni is only certain to beat Lydia, meaning that the most likely winner of Survivor: Guatemala is Rafe Judkins.

John Lennon

It was twenty-five years ago tonight that John Lennon died, shot to death by Mark David Chapman who fulfilled John's own prediction of how he'd die "I'll probably be popped off by some loony."

Like everyone else I heard about Lennon's death on television. If I'm not mistaken I was watching Carson. The first announcement of John Lennon's murder had been made by Howard Cossel on Monday Night Football because a producer for WABC-TV in New York had been in the Emergency Room of Roosevelt Hospital waiting for some X-Rays. He called his station with the news which was then confirmed and relayed to Cosell. Details were promised on Nightline but there were certainly some reminiscences from Cosell, Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. John and Yoko had been on Monday Night Football at least once - a famous incident where John had appeared with Ronald Reagan.

I however was not a Monday Night Football fan - in 1980 I was a devotee of Lou Grant among other shows - and was watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when NBC News interrupted with the report that John Lennon had been shot and killed. I suspect that CBS also broke in whatever they were showing at the time with a report. No network news director wanted a repetition of what happened at CBS when Elvis Presley died. Cronkite was on vacation and Roger Mudd was the anchor which also meant that he was setting the running order for the show. When the news came in that Elvis had died, Mudd decided that Elvis had been out of the public eye too long and wasn't "important" enough to lead the news so he moved the story to the middle of the broadcast - and came off looking like an elitist when ABC and NBC ran the story as the lead item on their newscasts. Some people mark that event as the end of Mudd's pre-eminence in the "fight" to replace Cronkite. Certainly no network news director was prepared to make a similar decision about Lennon, even though he'd had been out of the spotlight longer than Elvis had at the time of his death.

Over the next few days television news gave extensive coverage to the mourning for John Lennon. Some of it was moving - the vigil at Central Park and the ten minutes of silence the Sunday following the murder - some of it was newsworthy - putting together the sequence of events that brought John Lennon and Mark David Chapman together that night - and the trivial - John and Yoko had just recently bought bullet proof vests for the NYPD. Then of course the story faded from the news coming up on the anniversary of John Lennon's death and when there were other assassinations or attempts, as when Ronald Reagan was shot less than six months later. Over time the media remembrances of the event grew fewer even as nostalgia for The Beatles grew.

I think you could call John Lennon and The Beatles creations of Television in some way. John didn't grow up with TV - although regular TV broadcasting in Britain began in 1936 it was mostly restricted to London into the early 1950s and for a long time was a toy for the rich, and Lennon's family were scarcely affluent. Their influences were different - movies and radio - than a later generation's. Still, television would have an important influence on how their careers developed. They had paid their dues in the cellar clubs of Liverpool and then in Germany where they got their first recording contract ... as a back up band to Tony Sheridan and then as featured performers, but it wasn't until they signed with EMI that that they rose to prominence. Their first EMI recordings in September 1962 were followed within a month with their first TV appearance on Granada TV (one of the stations that made up the ITV network). Within a year they were appearing on ITV's national show Sunday Night At The Paladium as well as a number of other British programs. They still hadn't caught on in the USA despite the efforts of Dick Clark to promote the band on American Bandstand by playing "She Loves You" on the show. According to the Wikipedia entry on the Beatles "A testing of the song ... resulted in laughter and scorn from American teenagers when they saw the group's unusual haircuts." Their first appearance on American TV came on the CBS News in December 1963 which ironically described their act as "the latest non-music from Britain". This report however led a Washington radio station to begin extensive play of an imported copy of some Beatles music which in turn led to Capitol Records' early release of "I Want To Hold Your Hand".

It was the band's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that really made them an international phenomenon. The Sullivan appearances on three consecutive shows (February 9, 16, and 23) were the first time that I saw the band. And I do mean saw - if you've ever watched the tapes of those appearances you'll notice that the band could barely be heard over the screams of the teenaged audience (in fact the four Ed Sullivan Show appearances are available on DVD). It was one of the great television moments and it occurred in part because Brian Epstein was trying to promote the group in America and in part because Sullivan was receptive. Say whatever you want about Ed Sullivan, he had an incredible eye for talent and if he didn't think that the Beatles were good no amount of cajoling from a manager/promoter would get them on his show.

In the post Beatles period, John Lennon's TV appearances were fewer. He spent a week as "co-host" on the Mike Douglas Show (something that I find incredibly difficult to picture to be honest) and did a three Dick Cavett Shows which are available on DVD. His last TV appearance was on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show in April 1975. Increasingly Lennon was withdrawing from the spotlight, becoming something of a recluse and raising his son with Yoko Ono. At the time of his murder he was re-entering the music industry and would probably have made more TV appearances had his life not been cut short. He was inextricably tied to television as a promotional tool; besides, he was good at it.

New Poll: What TV related gift would you like to find under the Christmas Tree?

Based on my Christmas gift suggestions from Saturday, this poll deals with the sort of TV and tech related gifts that you'd like to find wrapped up shining under the Christmas Tree (which is to say that I'm not touching on Books or DVDs this time around). Feel free to comment. In fact feel free to use this blog as a surrogate Santa Claus and "suggest" that your loved ones take a look at the comments here to see what "someone" might like.

HO! HO! HO!

Holiday Gift Suggestions - Gadgets

Here's the first installment of my holiday gift list for the TV lover. First up I thought I'd start with gadgets and accessories. Please not that I'm generally not recommending specific models or manufacturers but rather items you might want to look at.

TV Sets: I'm not going to suggest a new TV. There are a couple of reasons for this. Everyone has their own preferences of course and a discussion of the relative merits of CRT, Plasma, LCD, Rear Projection and Projectors wouldn't be that useful. More to the point however is the fact that if you're anything like my brother - who is in the market - you should be doing diligent research about what to buy. After all, while the prices for 4:3 CRT TVs has gone down considerably since I bought my 27" TV a few years ago (and that was down a lot from prices before that), most of what you want to buy is going to represent a major financial expenditure and you want to go into that knowing what you want and what you can afford. I do recommend a 16:9 TV for anyone who is buying a new television, but be aware that most of these are "HD Ready" which usually means that they need a tuner of some sort to be fully functional.

Game Consoles: Another area where I'm going to recommend holding off if you're after the latest and greatest. Although Microsoft has recently shipped their "next generation" system, the X-Box 360 a major problem remains in that the unit is is short supply in the stores. It seems like they made a supreme effort to have something out for the Christmas shopping season even if the supplies are low. Also be aware that although Microsoft is quoting a low price, this is for a very stripped down unit - the "core system" - and to get a lot of what you really need you'll have to pay more. (Of course even the core system probably has more computing power than most home computers.) Beyond that there appear to be some problems with the initial release units which are likely to be worked out with time. Once Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Revolution are released, probably by the third quarter of 2006, you should see some price competition. You might look for good prices on some of the earlier systems now.

DVD: DVD players are today at the stage that VCRs were a few years ago. It is literally possible to get a bottom of the line DVD player for $40 or $50 and that's in Canadian money. I don't recommend the very low end players as some of them have problems with overheating and problems reading discs. You're probably better to pay a little more (and based on prices at Future Shop here in Canada it's a very little more) and get a better quality name brand unit. I'd probably stay away from High Definition DVDs for the moment to see which of the two formats - Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - gains becomes the standard.

Recording Devices: With the VCR going the way of the dinosaur (Future Shop currently offers one model, and no longer sells blank tape - combination DVD players and VCRs are only slightly more common) people who want to time shift programs need to look at the two major alternatives - Hard Drive units and DVD Recorders. The most famous name in stand alone Hard Drive devices is TiVo and although TiVo isn't available for sale in Canada the company has recently made it possible for Canadians who buy the units to program them for Canadian cable and satellite companies. Programmable PVRs - where a user can program the unit using an online guide - are are only available through the cable companies and satellite service providers, usually integrated into their HD tuner boxes. There are some DVD recorders that combine a Hard Disc Drive with the DVD Recorder so that you can record a show on the Hard Drive and then transfer it to a recordable DVD if you want to save it. Units with HD Drives often have built in software to allow you to edit programs before you commit them to recordable DVD. In Canada these sell for $450 and up. Somewhat more affordable are DVD Recorders with built in VCRs which also allow some editing between VCR and DVD. Most name brand standalone DVD Recorders sell between $200 and $350 in Canada which is about what I paid for my first VCR about fifteen years ago.

Home Theatre System: My brother built his home theatre system piece by piece, but he was an audiophile before he became interested in home theatre and had most of the components ahead of time. If you aren't an audiophile you might want to consider a Home Theater System which has all of the components you need, and in a lot of cases one you might not - a DVD player. Prices for name brand systems range from about $200 and up. As usual in such cases the difference in price is often driven by power use and manufacturer names. CNet.com offers reviews of systems in various price ranges. One thing I'm not sure of is just where a system reaches a point where the average person can't detect the difference between systems. In most cases that probably depends on the end user.

Remote Controls: If you're like my brother you have too damn many remotes. In my brother's case, to watch a DVD he has to use the remote for the TV, the remote for the DVD player and the remote for his home theatre system, and that's only about half of the active remotes that he has. The obvious answer is to get a universal remote. There are a lot of them out there, and most of them have some drawbacks. CNet.com offers reviews of most of the major lines, splitting them into Budget, LCD, PC Programmable and High End Remotes. The line that most people are used to seeing is the One-For-All remotes. The company dominates the market and generally offers a good product. A major drawback for their top of the line Kameleon series is depressingly short battery life and lack of customizability. A better choice might be a PC programmable remote like the Logitech Harmony series. These can be programmed for your equipment by connecting the remote to your computer using a USB cable and entering the model number of the components in your system. While online the Remote Control Programming Wizard helps you to set up macros that literally allows one touch operation of your equipment. Instead of using three remotes to do several actions to watch a DVD, my brother would literally have to press one button, labelled Watch DVD to do all the procedures required to play a DVD. Some of the higher end models in the Harmony series even include recharging stations.

Home Theater Seating: So you've got your TV, high end remote, DVD player/recorder, game console, and perfect audio setup and you still have money that you need to spend on your TV watching needs? SeatsandChairs.com offers a large variety of home theater seating available, both refurbished seats salvaged from theaters and new seating from a number of manufacturers. And if money isn't an object, you might consider something like this.

Poll Results: What Reality Show Would You Do Best On?

Well isn't that interesting.

This poll had either the highest or second highest voter turnout in the time that I've been doing polls, twenty voters. Part of this is due to my not getting the question changed as fast as I should have - I still wonder if people were voting on shows you watch most before I changed the question - meaning more time to vote. Another part is that this is an issue that polarizes people, and adding the final response has to have had an effect on voting. If I had made Big Brother or The Apprentice a choice and dropped Reality TV is a pox on society I'm convinced that I wouldn't get the turn-out that I did.

So let's take a look at the results. There were 20 votes and amazingly (in my opinion anyway) every show got at least one vote. In sixth place - with one vote (5%) - was Biggest Loser. In fifth place with two votes (10%) was Survivor. In a tie for third place with three votes each (15%) were American Idol and Fear Factor. In second place - and really the winner of the actual shows - with four votes (20%) was The Amazing Race. Finally the biggest vote getter was Reality TV is a pox on society. That option earned seven votes a whopping 35% of the people who voted.

The two low vote getters are interesting. Biggest Loser certainly requires a specialized group of contestants. Most people probably wouldn't be suitable for the show. Survivor on the other hand may well be the hardest of the reality programs if the current series is to be believed. It is a tough competition and Lydia (from this season's show) has the bug bites to prove it. Now Fear Factor and American Idol are a study in contrasts. Fear Factor seems like it's something anyone with a certain amount of athletic abilities and a strong stomach can do - in fact there are a couple of bloggers named Tanya and Jim Ryno who are lobbying to get on Fear Factor as part of a Burger King contest (Hey guys!). On the other hand I didn't expect as high a vote for American Idol. I mean sure, almost everybody thinks they can sing, but to do really well you really have to be able to sing.

The Amazing Race is my favourite of course. I regard it as the Cadillac of Reality-Competition programs and it's a show that I think I could do really well on even though, because I'm a Canadian, I'll never get a chance (I did vote for it here once). The show has it's share of physical challenges of course but in most seasons the physical aspect is combined with a mental and intellectual side which I think I'd do well at. Moreover the travel side is most appealing, to the point where I think that most of the teams who appeared in this year's Family Edition (an experiment I hope they never ever repeat) were disappointed that with the exception of a couple of excursions to Panama and Costa Rica they haven't been out of the United States. The opportunity to experience what to many of us is the exotic is what makes The Amazing Race attractive both to the viewer and the competitor.

I confess I'm sort of depressed - but not at all surprised - by the result for Reality TV is a pox on society. I don't watch every Reality-Competition show - in fact of the shows listed I only watch Survivor and The Amazing Race - but at their core they can be a fun alternative. That there may be too many on the air is something that is hard to deny, particularly when so many show few if any originality, but the fact that all five of the shows I have named not only are still on the air but have drawn strong enough ratings to be renewed has to say something abut the genre. And to be sure, if I had asked whether people would rather watch Joey or Survivor I think the response would have been overwhelming in favour of the reality show (Survivor vs. Lost may be a different story). I'm convinced that for as long as the networks put on expensive dreck like Joey, Reality-Competition shows will not just survive but thrive.

Lost Is a Family Show ?

This is going to take a little explanation, so let me start with an Awards Show. Oh it isn't one that that's been on TV yet (but it will be - on the WB on December 11) but an award is an award after all. In this case it was the Seventh Annual Family Television Awards. Here, in a very specific order are the winners:

• Best Actor - Jim Belushi


• Best Actress - Reba McIntire


• Best Reality host - Ty Pennington


• Lifetime Achievement Award, 7th Heaven


• Best Movie - The Wool Cap


• Best New series - Everybody Hates Chris


• Best Reality program - The Amazing Race


• Best Comedy - King of Queens


• Best Drama - Lost

Now you'll excuse me for saying so, but one of these things doesn't seem to be like the others and you don't have to be a Sesame Street regular to figure out which one it is. I mean, I love Lost - it is probably one of the best shows on TV right now - but I have a problem is in describing it as a "Family Show". There are - dare I say it - dramas that are more family friendly and life affirming than Lost, including the show that received a Lifetime Achievement Award at this very awards show, 7th Heaven. After all, since it debuted Lost has included murders, torture, drug use and the abduction of a child, not to mention what could best be described as "almost incest" between two adults. Admittedly Shannon and Boone were step-siblings, but can you imagine the reaction if Greg and Marcia Brady - also step-siblings though that wasn't emphasizes through most of the series - had even kissed romantically? This is a family show? More to the point, is this the best family drama on television? Maybe we need to look at these awards a little more deeply.

Despite the name, the Family Television Awards are not given out by some socially conservative organization like the Parents Television Council, but rather by the Association of National Advertisers Inc. through their Family Friendly Programming Forum. The Forum was founded in 1999 and has as its stated objective "to support and promote the development and scheduling of 'family friendly' movies, dramas, situation comedies and informational programs that are aired during key prime-time hours when adults and children in a household are most likely to watch television together (8 – 10 p.m [Eastern].)" The mission statement goes on to say (emphasis mine) "The definition of family friendly programming is purposefully broad: it is relevant to today’s audience, has cross-generational appeal, depicts real life and is appropriate in theme, content and language for a broad family audience. These programs also embody a responsible resolution of issues. The goal of the Family Friendly Programming Forum (FFPF) is to ensure that there is always at least one family friendly programming alternative that adults and children can enjoy watching together each hour between 8 and 10 p.m. every night of the week." In this they seem to be offering a far more lenient definition than a group like the PTC, but also a far more responsible, realistic and achievable one. The first Family Television Awards took place in 1999 with winners that year including 7th Heaven, ABC's TGIF Line-up, Touched by an Angel and The Discovery Channel as well as a lifetime achievement award to The Cosby Show. Among the dramas to win in subsequent years were: The West Wing in 2000 and 2001, 7th Heaven in 2002, American Dreams in 2003 and Joan of Arcadia in 2004. Of interest is that the Family Friendly Programming Forum Committee includes advertising executives from over forty major advertisers including Sears, Federal Express, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kellogs, General Mills, Kraft, Ford and General Motors. As a group these seem to be heavy hitters.

Unlike the PTC the Family Friendly Programming Forum doesn't just criticize, protest imagined obscenity to the FCC, and give commendations, they are literally putting their money where their mouths are. A group of 18 companies also sponsors a script development fund which all six US networks participate in. According to the Script Development Fund section at the Forum's website the program works like this: The fund provides seed money to the networks for family friendly scripts, a process administered by the networks and if a script becomes a pilot, the network reimburses the Fund and the money is redeployed to seed more scripts. Among the projects supported by the Forum in 2005 which became series were Commander in Chief, Everybody Hates Chris, Old Christine, and Related. Among previous projects were Gilmore Girls, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, American Dreams, and Steve Harvey’s Big Time. When was the last time that the PTC funded a script let alone got one into production for one of the six networks? When was the last time that the PTC did anything positive besides giving someone a ?

When I started writing this I confess it was an effort to have a little fun with a group that thought that Lost was a family show. On the face of it an organization that would give this show this reward would seem easy to make fun of. The interesting thing is that what I've found is a group which is acting far more positively with less public exposure than a group which gets a lot more publicity while being negative. Is Lost a family show? Well by the standards set by the Family Friendly Programming Forum it is. It is "relevant and interesting to a broad family audience" and it "contains no elements that the average viewer would find offensive." It accomplishes all this and is an excellent show besides. So yeah, maybe Lost really is a family drama.

TV On DVD - November 29, 2005

There's going to be an election in Canada on January 23, 2006. Barring any particularly good commercials, something that really interests me about debate format (which have in the past been radically different from anything that American politicians have been willing to try outside of The West Wing) or particularly good or egregious bits of broadcast policy, this is the last you'll hear of the election from me until the day after election day, if then.

Since it is December, and Christmas is coming (along with holidays in other religions into which a gift giving component has been shoehorned) I have a nascent idea about basic gift suggestions for the TV lover in your house. It'll probably be running over the next three Saturdays.

A very light week for DVDs, with more than a few exclusive offers that won't show up on Amazon.

C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation - The Complete Fifth Season
- Season 5 of CSI was one of my favourites. It started with Greg becoming a real boy - sorry a CSI field guy - and the search for his replacement which initially seemed to be Reiko Aylesworth but turned out to be Aisha Tyler. (Interesting: both Aylesworth and Tyler as well as Xander Berkeley who played Sheriff Atwater - in two episodes including the seventh episode of this season - and Glenn Morshower who played Sheriff Brian Mobley were in 24. Well I thought it was interesting.) The season ended with the Quentin Tarantino directed episode which also just happened to be the last performance of Frank Gorshin. Definitely a season that you should get if you're a fan of the show.

Crank Yankers V2 Season 2
- Okay, now I get it. This set was released in Canada and is only available on DVD from Best Buy in the United States. Crank phone calls reenacted by puppets. Conceptually at least it's interesting.

Criss Angel: Mindfreak - The Complete Season One
- The show sounds like a sort of cross between magic show and reality TV. I've never seen it, although I have seen Criss Angel on Las Vegas and he does seem amazing. Certainly he's one of the top young illusionists of his generation. Still there's always something suspicious about magic on TV despite all of the assertions that no camera tricks are used.

Empire
- ABC ran this last summer and boy was it a stinker. There were a couple of good performances (notably Colm Feore as Caesar) but if you're really smart you'll wait for HBO's far superior Rome or get I, Claudius.

Family Guy: Volume Three
- The little series that could. Volume 3 actually the first thirteen episodes of the fourth season revival of the show, which is currently running. These are the episodes that ran from May 2005 ("North By North Quahog") to the end of September 2005 ("Jungle Love"). Lord I love the way Fox runs series!

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Rock Forever
- Okay I have absolutely no idea about this. Puffy AmiYumi is a Japanese pop group which amazingly for such groups has been in existence since 1996. This is an animated version of the two young women who make up the group (and occasionally appear in live action bits on the show) but although the style is Japanese Anime, the show is actually produced in the US using flash animation. Never seen it (it's on YTV here and early on a Saturday morning at that) so no opinion.

Lotsa Luck
- Now this is a real curiosity. A remake of the legendary British series On The Buses it lacked a lot of the charm of the original in part because British buses don't run in the same way that American buses do. There wasn't the partnership that Reg Varney and Bob Grant had in the original and much more of the focus in the American show was on the home life of the lead character. On the other hand it does star a younger Dom Deluise and the always enjoyable Kathleen Freeman. Still I don't recommend it.

Mission Hill: The Complete Series
- This animated series had an incredibly brief run on The WB of two episodes in September and October 1999 before it was cancelled. Then it was burned off in June and July of 2000. Worth it? Well it does have something of a cult following but there just doesn't seem to be that much there for what you're paying.

Project Runway: Season One
- Another one I've never seen. It was nominated this past season for Outstanding Reality-Competition Series (it lost to The Amazing Race - I'll resist the temptation to say "of course"). It helps that it was on Bravo since from what I've read the format - a competition between a dozen designers and a dozen models - seems like a combination of American Idol and The Apprentice. And we all know how network audiences reacted to what they saw as imitations of existing formats last summer. I don't know.

'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen and Dave (Target Exclusive)
- Only available at Target stores, which we don't have here in Canada. This is the Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro series for MTV so I don't feel as bad about not being able to get it as I would if it were the British forerunner to All In The Family. On the other hand, on those rare occasions when I've seen him (and I don't listen to his music) he's been quite entertaining.

Timeslip: The Complete Series
- Why is it that the British do TV for children and teens that is so much more advanced than anything that anyone else seems willing to do, particularly the Americans. The series consisted of 26 episodes in black & white (for a variety of reasons). The two main characters are capable of slipping backwards and forwards in time. The 1970s series dealt with some incredibly up to date concepts like cloning and global warming in episodes which are linked up into what amounts to four serials. Can you imagine an American network producing anything like this let alone producing it for kids?

Tomorrow People: Set 2
- Seasons 3, 4 and 5 of the British Science Fiction series from the 1970s, although like most British Science Fiction series it suffered from terminally low budgets. Like Timeslip it's another example of the British doing shows for a teen audience that no American network would try. The concept of teens with "psi" powers wasn't exactly new at the time (see The X-Men comic books) but there's a certain charm here.

Canadian TV and the New Technology

There was an interesting article in the Friday November 25 issue of TV Times, the listing book that comes with many Canadian newspapers on Friday mornings (because of course most Canadian newspapers don't do Sunday editions and putting it in on Saturday would be just too much for people to read on one day).

The article, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be available online, is by Eric Kohanik the TV Times editor. In it he writes: "Canadian TV broadcasters are in big trouble" and goes on to explain why.

"First, ABC revealed that it will now be 'podcasting' episodes of Lost on its website....

The next logical step in this iPod craze is video. Once it really catches on, everyone will have tiny portable TVs that let you import shows and watch them whenever - and wherever - you want.

Shortly after ABC's announcement, CBS and NBC unveiled deals with American cable and satellite services to make CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the Law & Order spin-offs available via video on demand for 99 cents US per episode. VOD basically turns your cable or satellite box into a video player, letting you watch stuff at your convenience.

There's also the news that TV programming will now be available on cellphones. And at the other end of the TV spectrum, American networks are moving aggressively towards digital and high-definition television.

Add all of this to the fact that many shows are available on DVD or can be downloaded from the Internet, and you suddenly realize that TV is in the midst of a huge transition."

So far, Mr. Kohanik has basically reported material that is reasonably well known to anyone following recent technological developments. (Well except for the fact that he doesn't seem to grasp the real importance of the ABC announcement. They aren't podcasts; what ABC is offering in cooperation with Apple and the iTunes Music Store is the ability to download the complete one hour TV show to be seen on the Video iPod. In other words, what he calls the next logical step has already been taken.) He also missed - or it wasn't announced at the time that he wrote the article - that it will be possible to download shows recorded on a TiVo to the Video iPod. What he hasn't explained yet is why Canadian networks are in trouble although perceptive readers may have already figured that out.

Mr. Kohanik continues:

So why are the Canadian [broadcasters] in trouble? They've been lazy. Many have lagged behind technologically, not even embracing stereo television, let alone HDTV.

The far bigger problem, though, is content. Rather than creating a healthy appetite and market place for homegrown shows, government regulation and television welfare funds have led to shows that - with a few notable exceptions - are mostly just filler.

This isn't about Canadian culture; it's about economics. Canadian networks have become addicted to American shows because they're cheaper to air and they can simply rake in the advertising bucks.

But Canadian channels don't own the American shows they air. And so, the emerging revenue streams will flow elsewhere.

In short Canadian broadcasters will suffer because they don't have quality content of their own to offer for sale and they, rightly, won't participate in any revenue generated by the recent technological developments.

Of course by this he means the Canadian private broadcasters, and he's also speaking about English language television. For the way that people - and in particular the private broadcasters - bitch about it, the CBC has been essentially free of American programming content for a number of years. Certainly they show American movies but virtually all of the CBC's prime time programming is Canadian or British. No other Canadian English language network - broadcast or cable - can make that claim. In a world where content is finally coming to be seen as king, the CBC is better placed than networks which have treated their Canadian content requirements as a cross to be borne rather than an opportunity to be embraced.

The private broadcasters have always worked under a philosophy stated by the then Roy Thomson, later Lord Thomson of Fleet who described owning a television station as "a license to print money." For them the easiest way to make money was to show as much American programming as possible and then state that they had to because otherwise most people would watch American stations (since the largest proportion of Canada's population lives within range of American TV stations - mostly in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia) and Canadian advertisers wouldn't spend their money on TV. When cable became widespread they demanded and got the ability to overlay their signals on top of the same show running on the United States station (if it was being shown at the same time and the Canadian stations arranged their schedules so it would happen that way) to protect their revenue stream. That is as much an example of television welfare as government funding for programming but it's not something that gets mentioned for what it is.

I am less concerned about the fate of private broadcasters than Eric Kohanik is. I am sure that the Canadian cable and satellite industry will not introduce American programming "on demand" - or they won't be allowed to. If nothing else the private broadcasters will use the regulator - the CRTC - to block or delay it. Even if I had the Video iPod I can't buy Lost or Desperate Housewives at the iTunes Music Store. They don't have the rights to sell it in Canada. It may be that when we're finally able to purchase content either for the iPod or through Video on Demand, government regulation will see some funds going to the company that owns broadcast rights to the content in Canada. I'm sure that eventually the technology will come to Canada but it will come with the broadcasters kicking and screaming and figuring out a way so that they could make money on the deal even if they have nothing to do with the creation of the content.

It would be desirable if the development of new technology, which threatens the existing advertiser driven model of television, would result in Canadian private broadcasters spending money to to produce quality Canadian programming rather than make "filler" to put on the air because they have to. I don't think that's going to happen for a long time, not before the pressure to bring in the new technology become too much to resist and if they can get the right deal maybe not even then.

Oops!

I just noticed the mistaken question on the Blog Poll. For that reason I've decided to extend the dealing to December 2. Sorry if you voted an answer to the wrong question.

TV On DVD - November 22, 2005 - Delayed For Your Thanksgiving Shopping Convenience

Well sort of. I got caught up in some other stuff I was writing an then I realised that if you are an American you tend to work off fifteen pounds of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, candied yams and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream by pushing and shoving your way through malls and department stores the day after Thanksgiving (and does anyone besides me hate the phrase "Turkey Day" - just curious). Weird sort of exercise regimen but I'm just a dumb Canadian so what do I know. Anyway, while I frankly doubt that there's anything on this particular list which is a must have for the TV Lover in your life here is some not bad stuff this time around.

Before I start with the list though, I want to vent about one thing. People at BlogExplosion - you, the ones in authority - what you have done with the Battle of The Blogs sucks, bites, blows and and an assortment of other verbs and adjectives that are synonyms for stinks. While you may think that what you have done is made it fairer for blogs with minority subject matter to get noticed by competing against other blogs with similar subject matter if they so wish, what you've actually done is create a huge bottleneck of blogs that can't find opponents. I watched entranced (well actually bore to tears) for four hours last night (not continuously of course) while a blog about gardening sat waiting for an opponent, slotted into the "Hobby" category. It was still there when I woke up in the morning.Change things back to the way they were so that blogs like that can find opponents (preferably me so I can inflate my win/loss record).

Okay, rant over. Back to the list.

Aeon Flux: The Complete Animated Collection
- Aeon Flux was an MTV series that apparently aired on YTV in Canada. The current release of the short-lived cult animation series is of course related to the release of the new live action movie featuring Charlize Theron. From what little I've seen of the graphics, the animated films, some as short as two or three minutes have an incredibly beautiful (and presumably incredibly expensive) style that is really a mix on the very best of Anime with the European graphic novel tradition. Interesting for that quality if for nothing else.

The Best & Worst of American Idol (Limited Edition)
Best of American Idol
Worst of American Idol
- Question: How do you market American Idol on DVD. I suppose you could release each season and see how they sell, and as a matter of fact they did exactly that for the first season with Kelly and Justin. I don't think it was a great seller. The other option, since what people really like are the really great performances - because they're good singers singing good songs - and the really bad performances - because they're funny - is to release a "Best of" and a "Worst of" DVD set. The real genius though is to put the two together, slap together a third "bonus" DVD and label it a limited edition so that you can stop making it when you choose.

The Andy Griffith Show: The Complete Fourth Season
- One of the great series, and the fourth season is one of the most memorable. The season's first episode is the famous one where Opie accidentally kills a mother bird and tries to raise her chicks, while the final episode has Gomer Pyle joining the marines and meeting a certain Sergeant Carter. In between plenty of the Darling Family and Ernest T. Bass, as well as Barney and Gomer in conflict.

Astro Boy: The Collection
- Okay I think I've figured this one out. This is the 1980 series, and consists of eight discs and 51episodes plus a few special features including comparisons between the Japanese version and the censored version that was seen on American TV. Well worth it for the fan.

Batman vs. Dracula [With Toy]
- The Batman Vs. Dracula was in fact released earlier this year. This release is a "Gift Box", the "gift" being a Batman toy and a Dracula toy. The question is are the two toys worth the extra 12 bucks (Canadian) which is the difference between the ordinary set and the "Gift Box". For the fanboys the answer is YES!!

C.S.I. Miami: The Complete Third Season
- Of the three CSI series this is considered by a lot of people to be the weakest, largely because of the dominating presence of David Caruso. The third season had to cope with the departure of Rory Cochrane, who played the increasingly sullen Tim Speedle, and replaced him with Jonathon Togo as Ryan Wolfe. It was also the season that saw the final resolution of the Raymond Caine story line and the departure of Sofia Milos. There are good episodes but on the whole I've always found the original series more involving and the lead character on CSI: New York more likable.

Captain and Tennille: Ultimate Collection
- Didn't I preview this earlier? Oh well, I just can't imagine that there's a huge market for this series even if it was nominated for an Emmy. It was the '70s - we didn't know better.

Dark Shadows: DVD Collection 21
- More episodes from maybe the only soap opera yet (and possibly ever) to be released on DVD.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition: Season One
- Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is one of the great "feel good" series currently on. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a show that gives us feel good stories and then leaves the people the "help" with houses they can't afford to maintain or even pay the taxes on, not to mention making sure that the people they intend to help aren't tossed out into the streets by the people who own the house that was fixed up. I started watching this series but increasingly find it uncomfortable, the more I find out about the aftermath of many of these stories.

French Chef, Vol. 2
- It has always surprised me that there aren't more cooking shows out on DVD. It would seem to me that cooking something that a TV chef has done would be so much easier if you could pause, rewind, and watch technique in detail as you are cooking, not to mention recipes and tips on DVD-ROM files on the disk. Julia Child was one of the great television cooking instructors as well as one of the great personalities (both as a TV presenter and if you knew even a little of her personal history) but her shows could be difficult to follow. If you like to cook this is probably a must.

The Golden Girls: The Complete Third Season
- The longer this show ran the less of a fan I became. By Season 3 it just wasn't watching.

Home Improvement: The Complete Third Season
- On the other hand, by the Third Season of Home Improvement I was a devoted viewer. The third season included the addition of Debbie Dunning as Tool Girl Heidi, and she was really given a lot more to do than her predecessor Pamela Anderson. It always felt as if she fit in more. Beyond that the chemistry between the characters was becoming increasingly strong. It's hard to explain the attraction, but Tim Allen was maturing from being "just" as stand-up comedian into a reasonably competent actor (largely due to be surrounded by competent actors), something which a lot of people who do stand-up and then get shows never manage.

Kenny Vs. Spenny: Season One
- Okay I'm totally clueless I don't know who these people are or what this show is about except what I read in the IMDB and Wikipedia. Apparently it's about two guys who are always competing against each other. It's supposed to be funny but I really don't know.

King of the Hill: Complete Season 5
- If you look at the PTC list of the ten worst TV shows for families, you will observe that only two shows from the Fox Sunday night lineup are not on that list. One is King Of The Hill. Even with that endorsement the few episodes I've watched haven't been that bad. The humour has been adult in a way that is different from the approach used by The Family Guy which may be one reason why the PTC likes it. I'll even suggest that while Hank is no Ward Cleaver, he's a lot better than some of the live action parents on TV and that's without even putting the War At Home parents into competition.

Leave It to Beaver: The Complete First Season
Leave It to Beaver: The Complete First Season (Limited Edition)
- When it comes down to it, Leave It To Beaver was the epitome of the vision of the 1950s which so many Social Conservatives yearn for. It never existed out side of the TV set of course, and certainly anyone who was an adult or a teen in the 1950s and had their eyes open would tell you that. Still, it was a great series. Reality, no, but you wanted to know people like the Cleavers. The "Limited Edition" has a "Cleaver Family Album" and is packaged in a '50s lunch box style container. Given the slight difference in price, probably worth it.

Life in the Freezer
- Given the fascination with the recent documentary March Of The Penguins, it isn't surprising that the BBC has released this 1993 series about the natural history of Antarctica on DVD. Presented (as the British would say instead of hosted) by not produced or directed by the legendary nature documentary producer Sir David Attenborough, it gives a wider picture of the Antarctic ecosystem than the more recent documentary, but of course it has more time.

Naked City: Box Set 2
- "There are eight million stories in the Naked City." These are some of them. When I reviewed the first boxed set of these I commented that Image had collected some of the individual DVDs they had released previously to be on that set. I was corrected by Ivan Shreve, and that makes there efforts at getting this legendary series out even more praiseworthy. The price - $24.49 from Amazon.ca - for a three DVD set is amazing as well. If you have any interest, this set is worth having.

Seinfeld: Season 5
Seinfeld: Season 6
Seinfeld: Seasons 5 & 6 Gift Set
- I have literally never watched an episode of this show which I suppose sets me apart. The gift set contains a "hand written" script and a puffy shirt. Oh Joy!

The Tom Green Show: The Complete Series - Inside and Outside the Box
- This was Green's early Canadian show. I find Tom Green about as amusing as dropping both of my five pin bowling balls onto my hand from a height of 6 feet, but I suppose there must have been people who liked him. Somewhere.

The X-Files Mythology: Vol. 4 - Super Soldiers
- The last of the X-Files "mytharc" series of boxed sets. This one covers the last episodes of Season 8 and the arc related episodes of season 9 including the birth of Scully's son, and the series finale. This set is the final installment of a fascinating way of repackaging elements of a series that has been available for a long time. If only other series which have been rereleasing old material in new packages were this inventive.