Category: TV

Even the death rattle has a boppy J.J. Abrams score

Dan Dickinson

A week or so ago in Salon Heather Havrilesky ripped TV a new one:

The golden age of television may be over just a few short years after it began. 2008 not only marked one of the worst years of TV in the last decade, but all of the momentum and promise of the past few years seemed to vanish in a haze of crappy, unoriginal new programming, lackluster sophomore shows, flaccid sitcoms and pointless cable comedies.

Deservedly so, too. Just months and years removed from the likes of The Wire, Six Feet Under and The Shield, we’re now faced with this harbinger of doom:

And has there ever been a more depressing sign of TV’s demise than the move by NBC to give Jay Leno, the epitome of a guy who’s flatly bad at his job but continues to be promoted for reasons utterly mysterious to mortal man, a whopping five hours of prime-time real estate, thereby saving themselves from the unpleasant work of finding worthwhile programming to fill their nightly 10 p.m. slot?

The Star also weighed in with a recap (less with the doomsday, more with the funny) of the past year’s horror show:

Herbie Hancock wins Album of the Year at the “Granny” Awards as music pundits slap their foreheads and check their calendars. Nope, it’s not 1983. Ratings plummet.

…

Cloris Leachman dresses like a rapper and asks, “What’s up, homeys?” in an old school hip-hop number on Dancing With the Stars. Viewers, horrified at the spectre of the 82-year-old Emmy winner in short shorts and rapper’s cap, vote her off the following week.

The concept of TV as art seems to be just about dead. Apart from the seven shows I actually care about — 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica, The Daily Show, Friday Night Lights, Life, The Office and The Unit — I’m increasingly seeing the TV as nothing more than a sports & movie delivery device.

Just declare the 4 big American networks 24-hour reality TV channels and be done with it. HBO can buy Netflix and we’ll all be happy.

"It feels like I'm shitting a knife!"

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Our aspirational target this weekend was profound laziness. While we didn’t quite hit that (damn stretch goals) we did manage to watch two movies:

Baby Mama (imdb | rotten tomatoes) started off badly — not that the jokes weren’t funny, it’s just that we’d seen them all in the trailer — but got funnier as it went on. This post’s title, a line from the film, made me laugh out loud. I’m still giggling just typing it. Let’s face it, though, Tina Fey could do the New York Times crossword on camera for 90 minutes and I’d still pay to see it.

I think we waited too long to see Tropic Thunder (imdb | rotten tomatoes) ’cause I just didn’t like it. I liked how it skewered movie-making in general, and action movies in particular, but I’m not sure I really laughed at single line not uttered by Danny McBride. And Tom Cruise’s tiny part, the one that’s earned him a fricking Golden Globe nomination? Not so much with the funny.

Here, I’ll give you an example of funny, and it just happens to involve Tina Fey. It’s from last Thursday’s episode of 30 Rock:

Liz: “Jack, do you know the Postmaster General?”

Jack: “I do, but we had a falling out over the Jerry Garcia stamp. If I wanted to lick a hippie I’d just return Joan Baez’s phone calls.”

Bam.

"How much memory does that thing have?"

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I can’t stop thinking about Tuesday night’s episode of The Shield, the series finale. It was a perfect and nervewracking conclusion to a gripping season, which was itself the culmination of an amazingly consistent series. I still think the season with Forest Whitaker was the best, and among the best seasons of television I’ve ever seen, but this final season came close. There was a scene in the penultimate episode that was so perfect it almost hurt.

I’ve said many times before that it was one of the best shows on TV, and Salon recently named it the most underappreciated show on TV (alongside past winners like Battlestar Galactica and The Wire). If you’re looking for a good series to watch, or if you think you’ll have some free time over the holidays, or if you’re just annoyed at having missed out on one of the best shows on TV, go rent the first season and dig in to the twisted world of Vic Mackey.

"My voice is a signal calling out"

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Let’s see, what’ve I been consuming lately?

  • The season finale of True Blood was pretty good, but I’ll be curious to see if they can keep it up another season.
  • I don’t even know why I still enjoy Entourage (beyond the obvious Piven-ness) but I do.
  • The new Fembots album Calling Out is very good.
  • As much as I can’t wait to watch the final two episodes of The Shield, I really don’t want it to end.
  • I’ve watched four movies in the past couple of weeks: Monkey Warfare (very Parkdale-indie), You Kill Me (ridiculous and implausible, but fun), L’Enfant (realistic, troubling and bleak) and Rails & Ties (predictable, melodramatic and wooden at times).
  • Lots of hockey and basketball too, but both my teams are slumping right now, so…yeah. Lots of Wii tennis.
  • The Future of Management by Gary Hamel was a very good book if you’re ever wondering why we’ve spent the last century innovating new business practices, but not new management practices.

"Is Spongebob Squarepants supposed to be terrifying?"

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While the rest of the world was watching the US election Tuesday night, Nellie and I couldn’t stop ourselves from watching The Shield. As great as the show has been, the recent winner of Salon’s “Buffy” award has stepped up its game again in recent episodes. Now in the final season, the show is well into endgame mode, and I can barely stand waiting for each new episode. Best drama on TV right now.

I only qualify that, of course, because 30 Rock is the best comedy on TV right now. Last week’s episode was funny; this week’s was funnier. Kenneth alone made me laugh out loud half a dozen times tonight.

Still with TV, True Blood has gotten better, or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. The first couple of episodes I was only mildly interested, but I’m enjoying it now. Wish they’d let Rene talk more though.

Things I've learned in the past 24 hours

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  • I’m getting sick. Not enough to make me feel like I need to stay in bed, but enough to drain me of all energy and motivation to, you know, move.
  • The Rob Zombie remake of Halloween (imdb | rotten tomatoes) started off better than I expected, in that it gave us a Michael Myers preview, but the remake part was just standard slasher fare. The only thing I liked better about it than the original was that Myers moved like a normal guy…fast sometimes, normal speed the rest of the time, instead of at a slow zombie pace.
  • Sometimes our cats will sleep quietly through the night. Other times they will stage a Bob Fosse revival on our bed at 3AM. Last night was the latter.
  • We need a new coffee table and over-sized (but not too over-sized) chair, but aren’t having much luck finding them. Lo and behold, I read this in Thursday’s issue of Now, and figure we should give it a try.
  • Even when the Canadiens are down 4-1 going into the third period, I should still finish watching the game, especially when it’s against a soft team like the Islanders. The Habs scored 4 goals in the third period and won. They’re playing .850 hockey so far this season, the best of any team in the NHL.
  • The Raptors look pretty good, having won their third in a row to remain perfect in this young season. Bosh looks better with O’Neal there to take the pressure off, Bargnani looks better coming off the bench than he does starting, Calderon looks better without the T.J. Ford of Damocles hanging over his head, and Kapono just looks better. But the defense is what seemed different last night…not all the time, but a lot of the time. Players like Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson have carved through the Raptors like butter in recent years, but last night, the Raps seemed to challenge more. Anyway, we’ll see how they fare against real competition like the Celtics or Lakers.
  • John McCain isn’t funny.

Your honor, I'd like to refer to the case of Leah Remeni vs. Kevin James

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I like Life. Not just the state of being, mind you; the NBC show too. If you haven’t watched the first season, you should. Charlie Crews (played by the remarkable Damien Lewis) is one of the more interesting characters on TV. The second season has been okay too, but as with all shows based on the concept of a single season, it’s lost some steam. Still, I’ll keep watching on the strength of Lewis, the writing and Crews’ partner Dani Reese, played by my girlfriend du jour Sarah Shahi.

It’s Shahi that’s prompted me to write this actually. For those of you who actually watch the show but aren’t caught up, or plan to watch it some day, stop reading now: there be spoilers here. The rest of you, who saw the most recent episode, can join me in saying, “Dear NBC: what the hell ass balls would prompt a character played by Sarah Shahi, surely one of the most stunning women on the planet, to be attracted to — let alone kiss — a character played by Donal Logue, a nice guy and fine actor to be certain, but whose attractiveness maxes out around “shlubby” and who is regrettably done up here as a smarmy greaseball?” Please refer to the equation below for more detail:

Now, I know this isn’t NBC’s fault. This, and the dozens of situations like this we see on TV every day, is the chauvinistic byproduct of a male-dominated writers guild, but surely NBC has someone on staff who could call foul on the play when the imbalance is this silly. The lunacy used to be contained to sitcoms. Alas, the sickness has spread.

Lullaby Haze

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Tonight: blogging in delicious bite-sized portions.

  • The new Mates of State is very good. Maybe not Bring It Back awesome, but very good.
  • We’re going to try to do Nuit Blanche this year. That should be interesting…I’ll basically get home, sleep for most of Sunday and then go to a Leafs game. Yes, a Leafs game. Normally I wouldn’t go but it’s a work thing, so I’ll just have to try to scrub off the dirty feelings and record lots of Canadiens highlights to watch when I get home, lest all the patheticness get lodged in my brain.
  • My brother just sent me this link, which made me puke and shit a little at the same time. That’s right, it made me shuke. Behold: lobster ice cream.
  • The Economist asked people around the world who they’d choose if they could vote in the American election. The results: awfully blue.
  • Paste Magazine reviewed the 10th anniversary edition DVD set of Sports Night. I know I’ve said it eleventy million times, but really…go watch it. So good. Stick it out through the first few episodes when they forced Sorkin to use a laugh track.
  • My debate plan this evening: watch the Canadian election debate but keep the picture-in-picture tuned to the American VP debate. If Sarah Palin gets that scared fawn look in her eyes, I’m flippin’.

See? Tasty!