My Second Ever

And this time I made it pay!

TV on DVD – July 24, 2007

Well better late than never on this. There have been a couple of breaks in the local hot weather – enough that I've been able to get ouside and do some much needed yard work – and I also confess to becoming obsessed with a new (to me) game. The downfall of my family I fear is that when we get obsessed with a new game it is to the exclusion of all else including concepts like time or at least day and night. Hopefully I can get things back on track soon.

Beer Nutz: Season 1
Okay, this might come as a surprise but I know absolutely nothing about this show. As in absolutely nothing – like who did it, what country it came from or what it's about. And apparently no one else does either. Wikipedia doesn't list it; TV.com doesn't; the IMDB lists only the host, while neither Amazon.ca nor Amazon.com have anything beyond the price and the day it ships. I can't even find a homepage for the show – if indeed it is a show – online! So finally I went to the source of the data for these posts, TVShowsonDVD.com and here's what they wrote (and apologies to them for pulling this quote in its entirety – I usually do my own homework): "If you've ever dreamed you'd hold the title of brew master, belly up to the bar as we travel across the country, one glass at a time. Discover America's beer capitals and learn the history and traditions behind the perfect pint to see if you can join the ranks of the most fanatical and wear the badge of Beer Nut.

Benson: The Complete First Season
Benson is one of my favourite series. Robert Guillaume's character Benson DuBois was quite clearly the sanest person in the series Soap and also one of the most popular characters, so it made sense to put him into a series of his own. The first season of the show had a lot the elements that we'd become familiar with – the genial Governor played by James Noble and Inge Svenson as the acerbic chief cook Kraus with whom he was always feuding – but it wasn't the show that it would become. It was almost as if they'd carried some of the basics of the Soap format over to the new show. Still worth a watch, even if you do miss Rene Auberjonois (he didn't start until the second season).

A Bit of Fry & Laurie: Season Three
A Bit of Fry & Laurie: Season Four
A Bit of Fry & Laurie: The Complete Collection... Every Bit
I first became familiar with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie from their work as the title characters in the 1990s Jeeves and Wooster TV series which was seen on Masterpiece Theater and which antedates their work on Blackadder (1986-89 for Laurie) and is contemporary with their work on A Bit Of Fry and Laurie. Which makes it odd – but only slightly – that I've never seen more than a few moments of this show. Actually I do know the reason; even though it was on the Canadian version of Bravo (which is totally different from the American version) I could never find it and when I did find it could never remember when it was on. The show is an almost entirely two-person sketch show even more than something like Little Britain. A gem.

TV Guide Presents: The Crow: Stairway to Heaven: The Complete Series
Our blogging buddy Bryce Zabel produced this follow-up to the two Crow movies. It was shot in Vancouver, and I remember it as one of the earliest original shows on Space: The Imagination Station – the Canadian equivalent of The Sci-Fi Channel (but better). While I generally enjoyed the show I sometimes found it difficult to follow and had hopes that a second season might have resolved some of my problems with it. Of course the show never had a second season. Unfortunately, even though the show did decently in the ratings it got caught up in the mess that was Polygram's sale to Seagrams and subsequent integration into Universal. What I wasn't aware of until I started writing this is that the star of the series, Mark Dacascos, is the Charirman on Iron Chef America. Julie Dreyfus, who appears on the show as the owner of the Blackout Club, was an occasional judge on the original Japanese version of Iron Chef.

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Vol. 3
It was with a certain amount of sadness that I read in TVSquad that Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law had aired its last episode. Oh, not because I'm a particularly huge fan, but it seemed to me that this mining of a character who in his "dramatic" incarnation lasted only one season was an ideal venue for satirizing just about any subject you could think of. Much of the show was done using Flash in part because the Korean animation studio that was originally contracted to produce episodes couldn't keep up with the pace that the show required. The result was a rather interesting variation on the sort of limited animation that Hanna-Barbera – which created most of the characters used in the show – was famous/infamous for.

The Secrets of Isis: The Complete Series
As far as I know this series, which with its companion Shazam! was part of Saturday morning's The Shazam!/Isis Hour, wasn't seen in my little part of Canada so unlike a lot of guys I never lusted after Joanna Cameron. The series was a departure for Filmation in that both parts were live action shows rather than extremely poorly animated shows. A generation later Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess would be cultural phenomena but as far as I can tell Isis never caught fire. A mere 22 episodes were produced over two seasons, in addition to three appearances by Isis on the Shazam part of the show. The Isis character was an original creation by Filmation that later spawned a fairly short lived comic book series from DC which in turn led to the character being reworked and revived in the 52 series. Presumably somewhere along the line ownership of the character ended up at DC Comics.

Land of the Giants: The Complete Series
Can I just say WOW!!! This set not only includes the complete series on nine double sided DVDs but there are a ton of special features on the disks and other stuff in the box including a reprint of a Land Of The Giants comic book, trading cards, a shoulder patch and what looks like a toy version of the ship in the series. Land Of The Giants is the only one of the 1960s Irwin Allen TV series that I haven't seen – I saw Lost In Space and Time Tunnel when it came out and caught bits and pieces of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea when it aired on Space – but I've never managed to catch Land Of The Giants in almost 40 years. If it weren't for the price tag on this set (as big as the box) I might be interested just to see what I've been missing.

The Real McCoys: Complete Season 1
Rhino Home Video released a DVD of The Real McCoys back in 2003 but for fans of the show that was more than a bit of a disappointment since it wasn't a full season set but rather had four episodes of the series. This set, from new producer Falcon Pictures Group is the complete first season. Another show that I never saw back in the days of one local station, and while it may have popped up in syndication when we had more than one station it was at a time when I wasn't able to see it.

Todd McFarlane's Spawn: 10th Anniversary Signature Edition
Spawn is one of those "hey you kids get off my lawn" things for me. I just don't get it; not as a comic book, not as a movie, and most assuredly not as an animated series. Still who am I to argue with success; Spawn, and the toy company and licensing arrangements that went along with it, made Todd McFarlane an extremely rich man. Despite what's written on the box, the series only had three seasons of six episodes each – the 10^th anniversary refers to the fact that the show debuted 10 years ago. And I still don't get it!!

Spenser: A Savage Place
Spenser: Judas Goat
A pair of made for TV movies that Robert Urich and Avery Brooks did in 1995 along with Canadian actress Wendy Crewson (the films were done in Toronto rather than Boston, and it sometimes shows). A Savage Place was Robert Urich's last appearance as Spenser (they're also the reason why Captain Sisko suddenly shave his head and grew a badass beard on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Certainly not as good as the series – Toronto ain't Boston, and Urich's health still wasn't the best – but the movies are reportedly relatively close to the original material, which is always good.

Star Trek Captains Log
Captain's Log...Stardate ... some random numbers in ... the script...point 6. Iconic words indeed whether uttered by Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway – Archer came before Stardates although he did do log entries. The good folks at Paramount Home Video (it should be mentioned here that most executives in the Home Video companies and branches of companies are slightly below "Network Weasels" in terms of being "good" for reasons that usually quite apparent), having released every episode of Star Trek ever made in overpriced boxed sets, are still determined to wring cash out of the fans. Unlike the people who do Farscape sets with their multiple versions, or Andromeda with their overpriced part of a season sets followed up by a complete season set that was a fraction of the price of the individual discs needed to make up the complete season, the Star Trek folks have been ingenious. What they've done is to package episodes from different series in the franchise along a common theme; Klingons, or The Borg for example. This set is an interesting one. There are ten episodes – two from each captain – chosen by fans of the series in an online poll, but in addition each of the five actors who played a captain chose one favourite episode of their own. And of course there are plenty of special features. As Spock would say, "Fascinating."

Stargate SG-1: Season 10
I was never a huge Stargate SG1 fan. Oh I'd watch it if I saw it and once I got into the story I'd enjoy it, but I never actively sought it out. This is the tenth and final season although, like Star Trek the franchise just keeps rolling along with Stargate Atlantis and a projected third series as well as some TV movies from the original franchise. The tenth season makes a quite conscious effort to wind things up, and there are apparently more than a few stand-alone stories as well as a number of resolved plot threads (for those movies). From a non-fan like me this gets a half-hearted recommendation though I'm sure every fan will be lining up to get it (if they didn't pre-order).

Suspense: The Lost Episodes Collection, Vol. 1
When commercial television revived after being halted by World War II it seemed only natural to transfer the popular radio shows of the day to the small screen. One of the most popular radio shows of the day was Suspense. On radio the series had high production values and attracted some of the leading lights of the day including comedians like Jack Benny and Jim and Marion Jordan, appearing in dramatic roles. The show ran a surprising six years on television, and attracted its share of famous talent. On the cover of this DVD I recognise Leslie Nielsen and George Reeves as well as Boris Karloff. There is a bit of a bait and switch going on here in a couple of ways. The legendary Boris Karloff is featured on the cover as if he were the star of the series when in fact he only appeared in six episodes during the show's entire run. Secondly the show is listed as being "filmed in Kinescope" as though that were some revolutionary process. In fact the "process" consisted of filming the show off the TV monitor as the show was being done live. The result was for the most less than satisfactory by even the standards of a few years later. Shows on this set start in 1949 and run the complete length of the series. Good stories with great casts and a glimpse into the early days of Television; what more could you ask for?

Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Sixth Season
I've been told that the sixth season of Tales From The Crypt is one of the weaker ones for the show. I couldn't honestly tell you – on those occasions when I've managed to see episodes of the show (or parts of episodes, usually) I haven't been able to tell whether an episode was from season one or season seven. The show is quite interesting; an ensemble series based on the sort of stories featured in the classic EC Comics that were scandalous in the 1950s (the comics were deemed so graphic by the Kefauver Commission that they spawned the Comics Code Authority – after trying to buck the system in couple of ways publisher William Gaines stuck with his one remaining title, a juvenile humour comic that became a magazine called Mad). The stories attracted a really impressive list of directors and actors. Regardless of the season this series is a good watch.

Three Sheets: Season 1
Zane Lamprey drinks his way around the world in HD. I can't see anything in the concept that would tempt me to part with 25 bucks, but your mileage may vary.

The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 1
The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 2
The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 3
We all know why this series is coming out now – it's a prelude to the new live action (with CGI) Disney movie Underdog, Here's an instant tip for those of you with kids. Take the money you would be spending to take your spouse and your two and a half kids (is that still the average?) to the multiplex, pay for parking and the overpriced food at the theatre, and buy these DVDs. You'll probably save money and you will undoubtedly have a lot better time and not just because you can put real butter on the popcorn. I find it vaguely disturbing just how much I remember from this series that I didn't see that many times; from "Not bird nor plane nor even frog, it's just little old me (CRASH!!) Underdog," to "without my super energy pill I get weaker and weaker and weaker still," to Sweet Polly Purebred's "Oh where oh where has my Underdog gone, Oh where oh where can he be?" At a time when Batman was pushing the "camp" humour angle to adults while being taken seriously by kids like me (who didn't see the "real" Batman until years after the show left the air), and Hanna-Barbera were doing shows like Space Ghost and Birdman that were played with deadly seriousness, Underdog is pure fun. And as an added bonus, these are complete episodes – like a lot of cartoons in this period there were two six minute episodes featuring the lead character and a single episode of a secondary character – which means episodes of Tennessee Tuxedo and my personal favourites the Go Go Gophers. And besides the movie doesn't have the voice of the sadly underappreciated Wally Cox.

Weeds, Season 2
Weeds: Season 2 [Blu-ray]
Another show that I really haven't caught even though it is now available on basic cable here. The series obviously has something worth paying attention to given the number of awards the show has been nominated for and won, including Emmy nominations for this season for Mary Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins. The subject of a fortyish suburban widow who also happens to be a pot dealer just doesn't seem to attract me I guess. Still the cast is superb and I confess that I'd probably like it if I ever gave it a chance. Worth noting that the series is available on standard DVD and the high definition Blu-ray format (but not HD-DVD). I'm no expert on the DVD format wars so I won't express an opinion on this. Either one format will win out or dual format players will become the norm until, in the long term one format wins.

The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Collection
This is the reason why I won't be buying Underdog or anything else for a while. I'm not sure what inspired Universal to release these cartoons but I'm glad they did. In fact if it weren't for the hot spell we've been having (and the need to do work around the house when the hot spell occasionally broke) I'd have this set already. Walter Lantz never had the biggest or the best studio in Hollywood; he was pretty much a second tier studio behind the Disneys, Warners and MGMs of the world, but he did have a knack for self promotion that led him to be as famous as Disney for a time while his TV show ran in the late 1950s. And truth be known he made some pretty good cartoons (he also made theatrical shorts longer than just about anyone else, though given the quality of some of the last shorts he did that's not really something to brag about). This set if full of great material that isn't just Woody Woodpecker. The last shorts that Tex Avery did are here as are some cartoons that Lantz was forbidden to show on TV (some of his Swing Symphony cartoons were deemed to be racially touchy by censors in the 1950s). One thing. My friend Jaime Weinman warned in his MacLean's blog that there is a problem with the Canadian sets of this – Disc 1 is labelled as Disc 2 and vice versa. It doesn't make much of a difference, since all the material is there, but it's worth mentioning.

New Poll – Who Should Win The Emmy For Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy?

Pretty straight forward getting the poll up – easier in fact than I anticipated. There are a couple of interesting things that I might want to play with at a later date, but right now we've got the next Emmy Poll to deal with. The rules are the same as before, namely that you should vote for who you'd like to see win, rather than the person that you think the Academy will vote for.

One interesting thing in this list is that there are six names. This actually happens several times in the list of nominees. Apparently the TV Academy has a rule that says that if the number of votes to nominate between fifth and sixth (and seventh and eighth on a few occasions) falls within a certain range, it will be considered a tie and the sixth (and seventh and eighth) person will be included on the nomination list. This is in contrast with the policies of Oscars and Tonys which require the number of votes to be exactly the same for a tie to have occurred and an extra name to be added to the nomination list. In most cases I'd agree with that policy, but given that I think that five nominees is too few in most Emmy categories – given the sheer number of shows that are produced each year – I think that in this case it is an appropriate response.

This poll ends on June 30. As usual feel free to comment on how you voted – or what I wrote about the number of nominees – in the comments section of this post.

Poll Results – Who should win the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy?

Here are the first results on the 2006-07 Emmy Award Poll. Five votes were cast, which isn't the worst voter turnout one of these has ever had.

Tied with no votes are Kevin Dillon of Entourage and Rainn Wilson from The Office. In a tie for second place, with one vote each (20%), are Jon Cryer from Two And A Half Men and Jeremy Priven from Entourage. However, with three votes (60%) is Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney on How I Met Your Mother.

Given that I've only seen about one episode of Entourage, I think it's a pretty good result. As virtually everyone who has read this blog during the main TV season knows, I bowl on Monday nights and so I miss a lot of shows. I don't feel deprived by missing Two And A Half Men and I know that there are a lot of people – okay, mainly the people who get their writing on TV into newspapers and magazines – who don't either. If I were being mean-spirited, I'd say that the show received the huge number of Emmy nominations that it has because it gets huge Nielsen ratings. That said, I will admit that Jon Cryer is great as a straight man for Martin Sheen to play off of. As I said, I've only seen one episode of Entourage, but I really enjoyed it. The thing was that I enjoyed it more because of Jeremy Priven as super-agent Ari Gold rather than Kevin Dillon as Drama. I think that Ari is a far flashier role, and one which probably deserves an Outstanding Actor nomination rather than one in the supporting actor category – I think you could build an ordinary sitcom around Ari Gold's character far more easily than around the other characters on the show. One thing that I'm rather surprised about is the lack of love for Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on The Office. The character's inherent absurdity and the his straight faced serious manner perfectly realised by Wilson.

Ah, but then there's Neil Patrick Harris. Barney Stinson is a perfect supporting character. You can't imagine his character as the focus of a successful sitcom – if Barney were spun-off into his own show it would be the next Joey not the next Fraser – and yet Barney is a dominant factor in How I Met Your Mother's success. If, as I've always maintained, How I Met Your Mother is the "real" American Coupling then Barney is the show's equivalent of Richard Coyle's character 'Jeff, ' at once absurd and yet kind of lovable. Harris brings a sort of goofy energy to the role too – you get the sense that he really enjoys playing Barney.

How do I think the Academy will vote? I think it may come down to Priven vs. Harris, with Rainn Wilson having an outside chance. Ari Gold is probably the role that is closer to a lead, and Priven has the advantage of having won last year (and was nominated the year before, losing to Brad Garrett in Everybody Love's Raymond's last season). On the other hand, Harris is in a true supporting part even though the show is very much an ensemble show, not unlike Friends or Coupling. Wilson's part in The Office is very much a supporting role, he's rarely the focus of an episode given the attention on Steve Carell's Michael, or on the Jim-Pam relationship. On the whole, I think Harris has a pretty good shot at winning this.

New Poll up shortly.

Short Takes – July 24, 2007

Apologies are in order. I meant for this to be longer, earlier, and more interesting. The longer and earlier were harmed by a bit of a problem that's developed with the fingers of my right hand; I suspect it's arthritis, and me without any of Granny Clampett's (well strictly speaking Granny Moses's) Rheumatis medicine. It's made typing a bit of a pain literally. I have a system, really I do, but implementing it has been a bit hit and miss.

Given that this is the time when the professional critics head for Los Angeles for the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour there's more than a little news out there, but in most cases the news tends to be in the form of who is in what (Katee Sackoff – yay – and Isaiah Washington – not so much of a yay – have both been signed to play recurring roles in Bionic Woman; just an example) and promotional material. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to be down there (all I need is someone to pay me for writing this stuff in dollar amounts large enough to pay the costs of two or three weeks in Los Angeles every six months), but the fact is that a lot of what the TCA press tour is about is the attempt to spin the stories about the networks and their new and returning shows. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Oh, by the way, don't forget to vote in the poll!

The new host of The Price Is Right is...: Drew Carey. One of the only good things about this problem with my hand is that I'm able to feed you this bit of fresh news. Carey, who is hosting the new CBS prime time game show The Power Of 10, revealed that he had finalized the deal to host The Price is Right during his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on Monday night, although since the show is taped earlier in the day it was actually completed Monday afternoon. According to Carey he was notified that the deal had been completed less than fifteen minutes before his appearance on the Letterman show. Drew Carey will probably do all right as the host of The Price Is Right. On the plus side, he has had experience hosting a live or live to tape show both from The Power Of 10 and earlier with Whose Line Is It Anyway? In addition he's personable and has something of an everyman vibe about him. On the downside he's not as polished as Barker was and hasn't shown that much experience in dealing with the mass audience on a personal level. The biggest strike against him may be that he's a comedian and sometimes has something of a sarcastic bent to him. The thing about The Price is Right or almost any game show is that you have to take it and the contestants seriously. It's going to be interesting to see how Carey adapts to his new job. The pressure is going to be on him, not unlike the way it was for Katie Couric, to live up to the standards of his predecessor while still making the job his own. But I don't expect Drew Carey to be under the same sort of constant and hypercritical scrutiny that Couric has had to endure.

Schedule changes at NBC: You know what they say about an old broom seeping clean? Well Ben Silverman hasn't exactly swept the NBC schedule clean of the shows that his predecessor as head of the NBC Entertainment Division announced but he did shake the schedule up a bit. He started by moving the new series Chuck from the second hour of Tuesday night to the first hour of Monday as a lead in for Heroes, making Monday night "Science Fiction Night" (Chuck, Heroes, JourneyMan). Next, he extended Biggest Loser from one hour to ninety minutes and put a half-hour version of The Singing Bee on from 9:30 to 10 p.m. (Eastern). The Singing Bee, which had a very successful debut two weeks ago and had been scheduled to alternate with 1 vs. 100 on Friday night. On Friday night, 1 vs. 100 has been shelved and replaced by the second episode of Deal Or No Deal. The game show will serve as the lead-in for Friday Night Lights, which has swapped with Las Vegas, which moves to Friday's third hour.

On the whole I think that this tinkering has been an improvement to the NBC schedule. It gives Friday Night Lights a more accessible time slot with a stronger lead while allowing the comedy-drama Las Vegas to play around with more adult storylines (although the PTC will likely insist that Friday Night Lights is too smutty even for the second hour in much the same way they did with Las Vegas). The Singing Bee will probably do better in its current format as a half-hour show than it would have done at an hour. My one reservation here is that the later time slot puts it up against the last half hour of the Dancing With The Stars results show. The Singing Bee could very easily work as the first show of the night, particularly up against ABC's Cavemen. Finally, by moving Chuck to the first hour of Monday night Silverman has not only established a clear theme for the night but installed a show that probably going to be "friendly" to the "family" audience – youth oriented – in a time slot where it will be effective. There's a lot less contrast in having that show leading out a themed night than serving as the jump between Biggest Loser and Law & Order: SVU. About the only show that is really screwed by these changes is 1 vs. 100, a show that I personally enjoy more than either The Singing Bee or Deal Or No Deal. Best of all this is not the sort of mass schedule modification that Kevin Reilly engaged in last year to "save" Studio 60 from the combination of Grey's Anatomy and CSI, which was immensely destructive to NBC's line-up and didn't even accomplish its main goal. This is more along the lines of surgical tinkering with a sense of logic to it.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: Well the PTC positively loves the US Senate Commerce Committee for "protecting children from indecent content on television." The Committee passed a Bill (do committees actually pass bills?) to institutionalize the ban on any use of "profanity and indecent images" that the FCC attempted to enforce, including the notion of fleeting obscenities that was struck down by the Second Circuit decision. As the PTC writes in their press statement, "We applaud the Senate Commerce Committee, and especially the bipartisan leadership of Senators Rockefeller, Inouye, Stevens, and Pryor, for putting the interests of families above the self-serving interests of the broadcast industry." They further go on to say that "It is clearly in the interest of children and families that nudity and inappropriate sexual content -- such as the infamous Super Bowl strip show -- should not be shown on television before 10 pm. The public interest was clearly served by today's bipartisan Senate action, and we now call on the full Senate to vote on this measure before the August recess." What the PTC misses in its self-congratulatory rhetoric is the quite serious question of whether any such bill would be able to withstand challenge on constitutional grounds, which after all was a major point of the Second Circuit Court's decision. But no, they don't seem to believe that the Television industry has the simple right to sue for redress against arbitrary actions or to seek a clear and consistent definition of what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Note in this excerpt how they define the industry's efforts as "absurd," that the FCC's ruling was an example of "common sense," and how they make it a point to downplay the validity of the Second Circuit's decision by pointing out that it was only two judges: "Through their lawsuits asserting the 'right' to air profanity during the hours when children are in the audience, and the absurd notion that a striptease during the Super Bowl is not indecent, the broadcast networks continue to show they are not responsible stewards of the public airwaves; but as licensees, the responsibility is theirs. The FCC's authority to enforce common sense decency standards, which were recently stripped by two judges in New York City, must be restored. Today's action is a significant step in the right direction." Of course if the two judges had been a majority in favour of their position, the PTC would have said that they were more than enough and would deny any attempt by the industry to appeal to the Supreme Court, an option which the broadcasting industry does not deny to the FCC.

The fact is that the FCC decision overturned by the Second Circuit was not an example of "common sense decency standards" because it went against previously established precedent on the handling of such situations which had been the standard of behaviour for thirty years. Indeed the FCC has contradicted itself since their decision on obscenities by saying that it was in fact acceptable for stations to air Saving Private Ryan with the language uncensored despite the fact that it was an example of scripted obscenities rather than "slips of the tongue" or incidental uses of words like "fuck" or "shit" during something like an awards show. This in and of itself is representative of an inconsistent standard on the part of the FCC. If the words are acceptable in Saving Private Rayan then why not NYPD Blue?

The Cable Worst of the Week is Rescue Me. The Cable Worst of the Week is almost always Rescue Me. And it is almost always Rescue Me for the same reason every time. Details change but the essence lingers on. Allow me to summarise the PTC's complaints in the stylings of Mr. Charles Brown: "Blah blah blah 'graphically and crudely'. Blah blah blah 'hand job.' Blah blah blah, 'eye-popping view of Tommy and Janet sexually healing their ruinous relationship.' Blah blah blah 'nymphomaniac former nun.' Blah blah 'sex during church services.' Blah blah 'penchant for pornography.' Blah blah blah 'salacious slate of programming.'" After that there is of course the usual condemnation of the "fact" that "all cable subscribers are forced to subsidize such programming." I put quotes around the word 'fact' because the PTC insists on using the word "subsidize" which my dictionary at least defines as "to aid or assist with a grant of money or by guaranteeing a market."And while I suppose that the existence of FX as a cable network where shows are – for now at least – unrestricted by the regulations that the FCC imposes on over the air stations might be defined as "guaranteeing a market" the implication of a subsidy is that the product or the manufacturer would not continue to exist without the payment of the grant of money. The only way in which cable subscribers are "subsidizing" Rescue Me is by making FX a profitable corporate entity and the degree to which they do that is subject to scrutiny given that FX sells advertising time of the channel. Certainly it is unfair to say that cable subscribers are subsidizing the program when, at the same time, the PTC condemns advertisers who put their commercials on the show. In fact it might be more valid to say that cable subscribers who pay for FX are subsidizing the commercial-free Fox Movie Channel since the fees paid for FX go into the coffers of News Corp which owns Fox Movie Channel.

Broadcast's Worst of the Week is Big Brother. They state that "In the first two episodes this season sex and foul language dominate" and it seems as though the PTC has feels the need to be more explicit about the language in their press release than the show ever was. The PTC's normal method of dealing with obscenities – and they have a far larger list of such things than most people – is either to give only the first and last letter or to use the initials, like "the S-word" or "the F-word." Here's what the PTC press release on Big Brother being the worst of the week said: "Foul language on the two episodes included poorly bleeped words such as 'asshole,' 'shit,' 'tits,' and eleven instances of the word 'fuck.'" Of almost as much interest as the fact that the PTC used the actual words in their press release is their reasoning for condemning the program (well one of them; we'll get to the other shortly). They acknowledged that the words were bleeped, including the ones which have been used on TV before, but it's not good enough for them. The show should be condemned because the bleeping of the words in question does not meet the PTC's standards for such things!

Ah, but that wasn't the only reason for the PTC to be down on the show. There was it seems explicit sexual references on what the PTC is now describing as "the traditional Family Hour." These references came from "flamboyantly homosexual housemate Joe," and dealt with his accusation against his former boyfriend Dustin. "Joe openly and unapologetically announces that he has contracted the disease from implied unprotected sex with Dustin. Dustin adamantly denies that it was he that gave Joe the STD." I'm sure of course that the PTC would just as rigorously condemn any statement by a heterosexual houseguest about contracting gonorrhoea from a former long term relationship, but they seemed to take inordinate glee from pointing out that it was Gay people having unprotected sex.

The PTC finishes their comments on Big Brother with the almost ritual condemnation of the TV ratings system. According to the PTC "With a TV rating PG-L, no parent could rely on the V-Chip to protect young viewers from such content. Both episodes were unconscionably aired promoting promiscuous and crude behavior in the homes of unsuspecting families." According to Wikipedia, PG-L refers to "mild coarse language." The other "descriptors" at this level are V-moderate violence, S-sexual situations, D-suggestive dialog. The PTC has acknowledged that the strongest language used by the "houseguests" was bleeped, even if it wasn't up to the PTC's standards (they also omit the fact that CBS "fuzzed" the mouths of houseguests when necessary to protect lip-readers). And given the reaction of people both inside the house and outside to Joe's repeated comments about the STD that he claimed Dustin gave to him, it can hardly be seen as "promoting promiscuous behaviour." I would be interested in knowing exactly the PTC would rate any episode of Big Brother using the V-Chip. But of course they will not say what they think would be acceptable, because of course the V-Chip and the ratings system doesn't work.

Here’s What I Was Watching 38 Years Ago Tonight

Me and just about everyone else on the planet, supposedly. Oh there were some who didn't see it. They didn't have TV in South Africa until 1975 which quite frankly is a real shocker. I doubt that the people in the People's Republic of China – or as we called it then "Red China" to distinguish it from Chiang Kai Shek's truly "democratic" Republic across the Taiwan Strait – saw it. And you can be damned sure they weren't watching in North Vietnam or North Korea. Anyway, here's the clip.

The question I guess is whether the United States could do it again; an eight year program to do the near impossible because it was a challenge. I'm not sure. A few years ago I posted a challenge on soc.history.what-if asking whether, if Bill Clinton had said in the first year of his presidency that the United States had to put a man on the Moon by the turn of the millennium in 2001, the country and industry could do it. The responses I got weren't yes or no answers, or programs, they were diatribes on how Clinton in particular and the Democrats in general hated the space program. It degenerated from that into the usual Clinton hatred and politicized policy bashing of the Democrats that was so prevalent in the early days of the Bush presidency and still exists today. Looking back, I have to wonder if the United States could ever unite itself behind a leader and a policy as completely as it did around John Kennedy and the mission to the Moon (and yeah, I know it was hardly unanimous support but far more than any other recent president has been able to put together, let alone for anything so daring)? Right now, I despair about the possibility.

New Poll – Who should win the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Yes, my infamous polls are back, with a new poll service provider – Bravenet. There was actually a provider that I liked better, but unfortunately their code had a tendency to take out virtually everything on my sidebar! And I can't figure out why. If I can ever figure out why the code didn't work I might go back to them

Okay, so here's the rules part. Vote for the actor who you think should win the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy, not the one that you think the Emmy voters will choose. Feel free to make comments on the poll in this post. Simple right.

Voting on this category ends on the morning of July 25. (That's one thing I did like about both my old polling service and the one I couldn't get to work – they'd automatically end the poll on a specified date. With Bravenet I have to watch the date myself.)

Emmy Nominations 2007

The 2007 Emmy nominations are out and that means the usual run of analysis – and that`s just for the actors who are feeling down on themselves for not being nominated and need their shrinks (Thank you; I`m here all week, try the veal, tip your waitresses well). But seriously folks, once the nominations are announced it is inevitable that people who write about TV, both the professional TV critics in the newspapers and magazines – because when was the last time you saw serious TV commentary on entertainment "news" shows like Entertainment Tonight – as well as amateurs with Blogs (like I don`t know...me) like to look at the nominations and tell the Television Academy where they screwed up. And this year – like most years – they did indeed screw up.

DRAMA SERIES
Boston Legal
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
House
The Sopranos

Commentary: It`s not a horrible set of nominations, and the nomination of Heroes even throws a bone to Science Fiction fans. The thing is that it`s mostly a safe list with all the usual suspects. Snubs, you want snubs? Set aside Battlestar Galactica, which could probably put a nominee in most of the Drama categories and I'll prove it, how about these: Friday Night Lights, Deadwood, The Wire, The Shield, Rescue Me. In fact you could probably come up with a list of great shows that the PTC hates that would also be shows that would deserve to win here.

COMEDY SERIES
Entourage
The Office
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty

Commentary: I'm not really up on the current state of sitcoms, or comedy in general, but this at least seems to be a pretty good list with the exception perhaps of Two and a Half Men but that's just me. Trouble is that there are a couple of other shows that could probably qualify as well. They would be the departing King Of Queens,How I Met Your Mother and most importantly, Extras.

REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM
The Amazing Race
American Idol
Dancing With The Stars
Project Runway
Top Chef

Commentary: All the usual suspects except for Survivor, which really deserves to be up there after their most recent season. I hate to say it (but of course I will), but I think that the domination of this category by my beloved Amazing Race will probably end after the lacklustre All-Star edition.

REALITY PROGRAM
Antiques Roadshow
Dog Whisperer With Cesar Millan
Extreme Makeover Home Edition
Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

No Commentary

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES
The Colbert Report
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Late Night With Conan O'Brien
Late Show With David Letterman
Real Time With Bill Maher

Commentary: No real commentary except that notable by his absence it the jaw that walks like a man, Jay Leno and The Tonight Show. Someone has obviously gotten wise.

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SPECIAL
The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner
The Kennedy Center Honors: A National Celebration Of The Performing Arts
Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed
Tony Bennett: An American Classic
A Tribute To James Taylor (Great Performances)
Wanda Sykes: Sick And Tired

No Commentary

MINISERIES
Broken Trail
Prime Suspect: The Final Act
The Starter Wife

No Commentary

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
Inside The Twin Towers
Longford
The Ron Clark Story
Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy

No Commentary

ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
James Gandolfini, The Sopranos
Hugh Laurie, House
Denis Leary, Rescue Me
James Spader, Boston Legal
Kiefer Sutherland, 24

Commentary: Okay, I said I could do this, so here goes – Edward James Olmos as Admiral Adama. In addition to my Battlestar Galactica snub, I`ll also add Ian McShane for Deadwood, Michael Chiklis for The Shield and Matthew Perry for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I know the show died an ignominious death but Perry was perfect as the cynical, sarcastic and troubled writer producer Matt Albie.

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Minnie Driver, The Riches
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Commentary: Katee Sackoff as Starbuck. Her scenes under the psychological torture from Callum Keith Rennie`s Leoben are absolutely chilling. A good list on the whole, particularly the nomination of Kyra Sedgwick. One big snub is Connie Britton as Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights who provides humour and stability into what could be at best a weak supporting role if the show was really what people thought it was. The problem in this category is just how male-centered most TV drama is.

ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Ricky Gervais, Extras
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

No Commentary

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

No Commentary

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Jim Broadbent, Longford
Robert Duvall, Broken Trail
William H. Macy, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From The Stories Of Stephen King
Matthew Perry, The Ron Clark Story
Tom Selleck, Jesse Stone: Sea Change

No Commentary

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Queen Latifah , Life Support
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect: The Final Act
Mary-Louise Parker, The Robber Bride
Gena Rowlands, What If God Were The Sun

No Commentary

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Michael Emerson, Lost
Michael Imperioli, The Sopranos
T.R. Knight, Grey's Anatomy
Terry O'Quinn, Lost
Masi Oka, Heroes
William Shatner, Boston Legal

Commentary: A real surprise to see another nominee from a Science Fiction series. Galactica snub: could I suppose be James Callis as Gaius Baltar, the Quisling-like puppet president the Cylons had running New Caprica, but my personal preference is for Michael Hogan as Colonel Tigh, a man who lost his eye, his wife and his humanity over the course of the season – and that was before we found out he was a Cylon. Other snubs would have to include Gerald McRaney in Deadwood, and Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen in Friday Night Lights as a kid who has been forced to step up both in football and in life and is thoroughly overwhelmed by it. Another great supporting turn comes from Steven Webber as network executive Jack Rudolph in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. The role is totally unlike anything we ever associate with Webber based on shows he's done before, a man who has to hold his personal preferences in check for the business realities inherent in his job.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Lorraine Bracco, The Sopranos
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
Katherine Heigl, Grey's Anatomy
Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy
Aida Turturro, The Sopranos
Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy

Commentary: My Galactica snub in this one is really big – Tricia Helfer as Six. The nature of the Cylons means that Helfer has to play a number of different characters who just happen to share a body "model", and sometimes she has to play them in the same scene! Otherwise, do we really need three actresses from Grey's Anatomy?

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Rainn Wilson, The Office

No Commentary

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Conchata Ferrell, Two and a Half Men
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds
Jaime Pressly, My Name Is Earl
Holland Taylor, Two and a Half Men
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty

Commentary: I guess I'd have tried to find a place to nominate Alyson Hannigan from How I Met Your Mother. The woman has a quality about her that's hard to explain but I love it.

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Edward Asner, The Christmas Card
Thomas Haden Church, Broken Trail
Joe Mantegna, The Starter Wife
Aidan Quinn, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
August Schellenberg, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

Commentary: Nothing really except to note that Augie Schellenberg has been a fixture in Canadian TV and radio acting for a couple of decades now.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Toni Collette, Tsunami, The Aftermath
Judy Davis, The Starter Wife
Samantha Morton, Longford
Anna Paquin, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
Greta Scacchi, Broken Trail

No Commentary

GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Tim Daly, The Sopranos
Christian Clemenson, Boston Legal
John Goodman, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
David Morse, House
Eli Wallach, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Forest Whitaker, ER

Commentary: Wow! I'm shocked that the Academy has seen fit to nominate the two performances from Studio 60 that immediately sprung to my mind; Goodman as the Judge in Pahrump who provided a sane voice for the people who didn't like the values promoted by the fictional Studio 60, and Eli Wallach as the elderly comedy writer who was blacklisted in an earlier period where the arts were under attack. Galactica snub: Carl Lumley from the episode Hero in which he plays a pilot who escaped years of Cylon captivity and suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Kate Burton, Grey's Anatomy
Leslie Caron, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Marcia Gay Harden, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Elizabeth Reaser, Grey's Anatomy
Jean Smart, 24

Commentary: Compared with last season, Jean Smart's role isn't as pivotal as it might be. Interesting, and vagely shocking, that except for Smart the nominations all come from just two series and those are broadcast series. As for Galactica this one is hard. The nature of the series is such that it's difficult to introduce a guest performer – the fleet is large but the show focuses almost all of the action on Galactica, and it's not as if you can suddenly introduce a new Cylon model. Worst of all, Academy rules now require that nominees in this category submit a paper copy of their on-screen "guest starring" credit. Still, using the old criteria of six or fewer episodes, I'd suggest Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh, whose love for her husband led her to prostitute herself to Brother Cavil, and eventually to betray the Human resistance on New Caprica, which led to her death.

GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Beau Bridges, My Name Is Earl
Martin Landau, Entourage
Sir Ian McKellen, Extras
Giovanni Ribisi, My Name Is Earl
Stanley Tucci, Monk

No Commentary

GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Dixie Carter, Desperate Housewives
Salma Hayek, Ugly Betty
Judith Light, Ugly Betty
Laurie Metcalf, Desperate Housewives
Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock

No Commentary

The Emmys air on Septenmber 16. I hope to start running polls on some of the categories starting tomorrow. I just have to work out the schedule and maybe look for a new polling service.

Thoughts On A Bad Change

Tomorrow they announce the nominees for the Emmys, and I find myself a bit a loose ends, particularly since I busted out of a poker tournament I was playing in well before the money (okay, so I lasted much longer than Tim Gueguen, but it's small consolation – sorry about that one Tim but let's face it, neither one of us is likely to duplicate the achievement of Tuan Lam any time in the foreseeable) and there isn't much I really want to watch on TV at the moment. So I've been sitting around the computer, and blessing anyone responsible for the invention of air conditioning. It's not the heat, it's the humidity but the humidity here lately has been brutal.

Which is how, in an extremely roundabout manner, I found the subject for this piece. I was reading the comments on the Blog when I came across this one from Marissa Leone. She was commenting on my original post on this season of America's Got Talent which featured saxophone player Andrew Beal. Andrew was sent through to the Las Vegas call back session and then was never seen again. Marissa wrote: "What happened to him? Why the heck is he not in the top 20? I'm also unsure why they originally kicked Buttercup off and now she's magically back on the show. What's going on? I'm lost." Well Marissa, you're not the only one. I don't get why Andrew was deemed not good enough while Boy Shakira is in the top 20. I mean Boy Shakira?!

Okay, here's at least part of what happened. Seventy acts were sent through to Las Vegas from the original audition cycle. That included Andrew Beal, Buttercup and the rest. In Las Vegas all of the acts performed and the judges decided which thirty-five would be eligible for the final twenty. After they named the final thirty-five they then weeded that number down to the final twenty, this time with the requirement that ten of the acts would be singers and ten would be "non-singers." We didn't see the performances of each of the seventy acts who made it to Las Vegas – in fact we only really saw about seventeen acts performing in the two Las Vegas call back episodes and we didn't necessarily see the ones who made it to the semi-finals either. In fact there was one act – Robert Hatcher, the sewer worker from Cincinnati – who we have only seen in his semi-final appearance. Somewhere in the call back audition process, Andrew "Mr. Big 'Who's the Guy'" Beal was dropped while Boy Shakira (?!) and Bollywood inspired dancer Kashif Memon (likewise ?!) did.

Like a lot of people I'm amazed at some of these selections. The restriction on the number of singers hurt acts like Michael Strelo-Smith and The Three Redneck Tenors (okay these are acts that I really liked), but some of the selections in the non-singing category were absolutely bizarre. Just as an example they decided to allow magician Kevin James to go through which was a good choice even though his performance in the semi-finals was, to say the least, extremely disappointing, but they seem to have decided that they could only have one magic act which meant that Anthony Reed was passed over despite doing a technically difficult water escape trick known as the Aquarian Illusion, claiming that the trick was nothing new. And there were other non-musical acts that were eliminated for reasons that we'll never know because they weren't shown on the program, while Kashif Memon, whose act is sort of like dance karaoke (the only real description I can come up with) and Boy Shaikira (who is now officially supported by Vote For The Worst).

I put most of the blame for this on the new format that the show has adopted. In the first season approximately sixty acts made it through to the second round. They were split into four groups and the judges picked ten acts from each group to perform each week. The judges picked one act each week to go through to the finals and viewer phone votes picked a second act to go through. In the fifth week a "Wild Card" show was run, in which the four runners up in the viewer vote from each previous week, together with two choices by each judge from pool of acts that hadn't made it into their top ten each week, Again, two acts were chosen from this group, one by the judges and one by the viewers, making for a total of ten contestants in the finals.

There seem to be a couple of reasons for this change in format, which in some ways is much more like the American Idol format. A big problem in the first season was the preponderance of singers – five of the finalists were singers, and only two were non-musical acts – something that irritated Piers Morgan who wanted "a more diverse group of acts for the final." Another factor was a problem caused by NBC. Originally the series was meant to air beginning in January in the Sunday night slot eventually occupied by Grease: You're The One That I Want but at some point it was moved back to a weeknight timeslot in the summer. I am given to understand that some if not all of the original auditions were done for the original launch date. Part of the time change was the elimination of the results show. I have a suspicion – though of course I can't prove it – that the Las Vegas call backs may have been meant to at least partly to bridge the gap between the auditions in the third quarter of 2006 and the summer show. Because I would hate to think that producer Simon Cowell thought that what we have now is the best format for the show.

My personal feeling is that so many of the problems that people have been complaining about in this season of America's Got Talent would have been avoided if the show had stuck with its original format. Think of it. It wouldn't have been that hard to set up. Keep the seventy acts, and if the producers still want to maintain the equal split between singing and non-singing acts then have two weeks of singers and two weeks of non-singers. With six acts chosen by the judges from those who qualified but weren't picked in the four semifinal shows as Wild Cards (joined by the four acts that finished second in the viewer votes in the first four semi-final episodes) you would have forty-six of seventy acts (65%) that the judges initially decided were good enough to go forward being seen by the American public. And while Boy Shakira or Kashif Memon might just possibly have made it into one of the two episodes that didn't feature singers, I can't imagine that any of the judges would have wasted a "wild card" pick on them any more than I believe that the American public would vote them into the finals or even give them the second highest number of votes. And I think it would have made for far more entertaining television than the two Vegas call back episodes, where we saw most acts only as part of montages or as they were being eliminated or told that they were moving on.

So anyway Marissa, and everyone else, that's why you didn't see Andrew "Mr. Big 'Who's the Guy'" Beal on America's Got Talent after the episode where he totally blew us away. It's a shame too, because he and most of the other forty or so acts that didn't make it out of Las Vegas and who weren't seen performing on the one "Call Back episode" that actually showed performances deserved to be treated better than they were by the show's producers. I don't know if Andrew Beal or any of the other acts that we didn't see had more to their acts than what we saw in their auditions – maybe some of them were this season's David & Dania who did the same act the same way each of the three times they were on the show – but that's not the point. The point is that we the audience should at least have had a chance to decide that for ourselves instead of having Hasselhoff, Morgan and Osbourne deciding that these are the ten singers and the ten "variety" acts that are worthy of our consideration. The sad and truly annoying part is that the show, with this less than satisfactory format (from my point of view at least), is doing well in the ratings and I assume that if/when this show returns next year it will come back with this format because it's not "less successful" than the way the show was done originally, which in my view is a pity because I think that as viewers we're being cheated.

TV on DVD – July 17, 2007 – The Return

Yeah, I’ve decided to revive my TV on DVD articles. These are TV shows that will be available on July 17. The list is taken from the TV Shows On DVD website, which is an invaluable resource.
So, why did this part of my blogging die and why is it coming back now? Well the first part is easy to answer – I was getting swamped and not getting the pieces out in a timely manner that was satisfactory to me. As to why it’s coming back, there are several reasons. The new computer gave me some new tools to use in doing these pieces so that I can work at them well ahead of time, and Amazon has a couple of interesting new tools for making links on the blog more exciting than plain old text links. Not that I expect to make money on this feature – I didn’t before so why should now be any different – but what I’m adding will give the links “pop”. Mostly though, I just miss doing it. So let’s get started.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this show. I know some of the basics about the characters from comic books, but I’ve never seen the show or played the video games. What’s worse of course is that I can’t give an informed opinion about the quality of the animation. Thanks to Wikipedia I can tell you that it is the “lighter” of the two animated versions of the character that debuted in 1993. Both were produced by the same company and both featured Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic, though none of the actors who played other character appeared in both shows. Obviously it’s “Kidvid” but can I really be dismissive of this when some of my fondest memories as a child were of shows which today would be dismissed as “Kidvid” if people like me didn’t regard them as classics (Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound). Apparently not available at Amazon.ca.

America's Funniest Home Videos: Guide to Parenting
I’ve never been a fan of America’s Funniest Home Videos, the ever green franchise that has gone through several incarnations and reincarnations – I seem to recall that it’s been cancelled and then revived several times in its 17 year history. Someone called it the world’s first reality show – it may be true if you don’t count something like Candid Camera as a reality show. The show is about people who send in funny home video clips in hopes of making money. Are they or aren’t they staged? I don`t know, but I`d probably be a bit less cynical if there weren`t a $10,000 prize at the end of each episode. This is a compilation disc built around the theme of parenting, and I`m guessing that somewhere in it is the image of dear old dad getting caught in the `nads by a kid swinging a baseball bat.

Birdman and the Galaxy Trio: The Complete Series
Before there was Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law there was Birdman and The Galaxy Trio. A superhero series, this was done with desperate seriousness by Hanna-Barbera. Contrary to the title, Birdman (his secret identity was Ray Randall – not a Harvey to be seen) and the Galaxy Trio – Vapor Man, Meteor Man, and Gravity Girl – didn’t actually interact with each other. Each episode of the show followed the normal Saturday morning cartoon show format of the time with two episodes of Birdman separated by an episode of Galaxy Trio. Among the voice talent was Dick Beals, Don Messick and Ted Cassidy (Lurch from The Addams Family).

Bozo: The World's Most Famous Clown, Vol. 1
Even if you never saw Bozo as a kid – and I never did because I was poor and deprived and living in a place far from the US border – you were aware of the image of Larry Harmon’s character through books, comics, records and any number of other kid friendly things. Harmon did something interesting with the character by licensing him to various local TV stations. They’d find their own actors to play the character – Willard Scott was Bozo in Washington for a time – who tended to have their own variations in look. It’s not clear from the description, but the material on this disc may be from Harmon’s experiment in syndicating the show nationally to stations that didn’t produce their own shows, with Boston’s Bozo Frank Avruch. Thirty episodes, probably aimed more at people who were kids in the 1960s than those who are kids today.

The Business
Canada has an IFC channel but as you might expect it has totally different content from the American IFC and because of the way the network is licensed by the CRTC it carries a low percentage of American programming. As a result The Business doesn’t seem to be seen in Canada. The show is about the attempts of a producer of low budget porn films to enter into legitimate film production. It at least sounds as if it could be interesting.

College Hill Virgin Islands
A reality show from BET, a network which I don’t get. Follows eight students at the University of the Virgin Islands – four locals and four California transfer students – as they share a “tricked out pad.” There are cultural differences and tensions and the usual reality show sex and drama. The local makes it sound exotic but on the whole it sounds like any number of shows that bring people from diverse backgrounds together and forces them to share a living space.

Grafters: Season 1
Actually a mini-series about two brothers forced to work together for economic reasons on a house owned by a London couple. Features the always enjoyable Robson Green. The title comes from British slang for labour – graft or hard graft – and people who works as labourers – grafters.

Gunsmoke: Season 1
Finally they’re doing this show properly. Previously they had released an anniversary package in two volumes – one of half-hour episodes and one of hour-long episodes – a Directors Collection and a collection of the made for TV movies. This doesn’t mention the Columbia House collections that my buddy Ivan Shreve diligently collected until Columbia House stopped doing them. The series was a staple in my house for its entire run, but for a long time – here at least – it has been impossible to see the early black & white episodes, or even the half hour episodes. Definitely worth seeing!!!

The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Second Season
Trust me, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. It became almost a cliché but this is the series that brought it to life. Taking elements from The Fugitive (David Banner travels from town to town taking menial jobs and helping people he meets along the way while being pursued for a murder “The Hulk” didn’t commit – Banner’s own) and Night Stalker (The Hulk is pursued by monster hunting tabloid reporter Jack McGee) and grafting them onto the concept from the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic book created a show that was slightly less cheesy than some of the other shows that were coming out of Universal TV at the time – shows like The Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica.

The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman
Another IFC series that I don’t get to see, this one a comedy about a magazine writer who wants to be a screenwriter and his friend Tara, who works at a low level job at a video production house.

Most Haunted: Castles of Britain
Most Haunted: London Haunts
Most Haunted: the Collection
A British “paranormal investigations” series that has been on the air since 2002, and which is seen on the Travel Channel in the U.S. A team consisiting of presenter Yvette Fielding, parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O’Keefe, and a Medium (currently David Wells, previously Derek Acorah) investigate hauntied buildings and paranormal phenomena. The Collection is a six disk set with 20 episodes, apparently all from the show’s first two seasons, while London Haunts and Castles of Britain are single disks with three episodes each. Also be aware that there have been several accusations of fakery (well no kidding!) related to this show, notably the “abilities” of the original psychic medium.

Overhaulin' Season 3 Vol.1
TLC’s answer to Pimp My Ride does surprise upgrades of old and often worn out cars for people who think that their car has been stolen, impounded or otherwise “misplaced.” Family and friends are usually involved in nominating the recipient/victim and getting the car away from them while members of the show’s cast take various roles to explain why the car is gone and keep the owner in the dark about what’s going on until the reveal.

Payback - Volume 1 - DVD
This show from Speed Channel features celebrities who have made it “big” thanking people who have helped them in the past. Since this is a Speed Channel show, the “payback” comes in the form of a heavily customized new car, built by Detroit’s Wheel to Wheel auto shop.

Rising Damp, Vol. 4
The last season or series of one of the classics of British television. The show deals with the lives of quiet desperation of the residents of a rundown “bedsit” owned by a seedy, miserly and bigoted landlord named Rupert Rigsby. Of particular interest is the young medical student, Alan, who is played by Richard Beckinsale, whose daughter Kate has made something of a name for herself as an actress. Sadly her father never saw her success – he died of a heart attack a couple of years after the show ended, at age 31.

The Rookies: Season 1
A classic early ‘70s “realistic” cop show along the lines of Adam-12 and Joseph Wambaugh’s novel The New Centurions, it is probably best known today for being one of the earliest roles for Kate Jackson. She played Nurse Jill Danko who was married to Officer Mike Danko, who was played by Sam Melville (year’s later Melville played Mrs. King’s ex-husband in Scarcrow and Mrs. King opposite Kate Jackson). In the first season the other two rookie cops were played by Georg Stanford Brown and Michael Ontkean, while Gerald S. O’Laughlin played their boss, Lt. Ryker.

Space Ghost and Dino Boy: The Complete Series
Another Hanna-Barbera series from the 1960s that used a similar format to that of Birdman And The Galaxy Trio in that, while two characters were included in the title they didn’t interact. Also like Birdman, Space Ghost spun off into more comedic form, as the “host” of Space Ghost Coast To Coast. Alas, Dino Boy, who like the Galaxy Trio was only seen in one of the three segments in each episode, never made the jump to adult roles. Someone who did make the jump to adult roles was the voice of Jace, Space Ghost’s male sidekick, Tim Matheson.

Vincent - Season 1
An intriguing British series, Vincent follows a team of private investigators led by the eponymous Vincent (played by Ray Winstone) who do the sort of work that real private investigators do, including spying on cheating spouses, as well as looking into murders for various reasons. Episode descriptions for this show make it seen quite hard-boiled, a view that is reinforced by the presence of Winstone as the lead actor.

Voyagers!: The Complete Series
Oddly enough, I have very strong memories of this show, even though it was only on TV for a single season. It certainly wasn’t the acting that was memorable – star Jon-Erik Hexum was never a more than vaguely adequate, even for a show aimed at young viewers as this show most definitely was. Still, for a history geek and a lover of anything to do with time travel fiction this was a natural fit for me. The show had a good sense of humour about itself without being reduced totally to camp, and the ties to the young audience were cemented by having the kid (Jeffrey Jones, played by Meeno Peluce) be the one with the knowledge of history while the adult (Hexum) is effectively his sidekick, doing the work of keeping history on its proper path which he only knows because Jeffrey tells him. Interestingly Meeno Peluce grew up to be a high school history teacher.

Wanted: Dead or Alive: Season Two
This is an absolute must for Steve McQueen fans. This series, which ran from 1958 to 1961, was the launching pad for McQueen’s Hollywood career. McQueen played Josh Randall, a bounty hunter with a surprisingly soft heart in many cases who would sometimes give the bounty he recovered to deserving people and on occasion helped wrongly accused prisoners. Like many characters in westerns in this period he had a signature weapon; in his case it was a sawed-off rifle Randall called a “Mare’s Leg” which he carried in a holster on his leg. McQueen carried the weight of the show on his shoulders – Josh Randall was the only continuing character – and when McQueen’s movie career heated up he deliberately became difficult to work with, to the point where the network eventually cancelled the still successful series.

William and Mary
A British series from ITV featuring the always entertaining Martin Clunes as an undertaker named William who is romantically involved with a midwife named Mary. Needless to say the themes of birth and death are prominent in this series can be described as a romantic comedy-drama. Beyond that, I don’t know much about the series. This set is describes as the “complete series” but the show ran for three 6-episode series, for a total of 18 episodes, but the information on the Amazon.ca website indicates that the three disc set only includes 12 episodes.