416 posts in the Television CategoryDavid Hewlett to be "reunited with Stargate's 'Destiny'" next year? David Hewlett retuning to Destiny? David Hewlett, Stargate Universe More on Modern Family Addressing some arguments raised in defense of the Modern Family cast, and comparing the ratings of MF, Two and a Half Men, and Desperate Housewives for context. Desperate Housewives, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men Are directors as interchangable as spark plugs? Directors come and go on television, where all the best stories are told, and even on hugely successful franchise films. Do they even matter anymore? Gary Ross, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games House M.D. is ending with its current season The producers and star of House M.D. announced this evening that the current season will be its last. FOX, House SyFy's Being Human - back and better than ever! Coming to SyFy's "Being Human" with a fresh but cautious perspective of yet another remake. Being Human, SyFy, SyFy Channel Neverland Hits All the Right Notes Kenyth Mogan reviews the new SyFy channel mini-series, "Neverland". Neverland, SyFy Winners at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards The latest iteration of the Emmy Awards was mostly what you'd expect: boring. But there was a surprise or two to be had. Emmy Awards, Modern Family Tonight's premiers: Fringe, A Gifted Man, CSI: NY, Blue Bloods & more A Gifted Man has its series premier on CBS tonight along with some old shows returning, such as Kitchen Nightmares, CSI: New York, and Fringe. A Gifted Man, Blue Bloods, Fringe, Kitchen Nightmares, Supernatural Tonight's premiers: Big Bang Theory, The Office, and new series New and returning shows for Thursday, September 23rd, 2011. Returning shows include Grey's Anatomy and The Office, new shows include Charlie's Angels and Person of Interest, and more. Charlie's Angels, Person of Interest, Prime Suspect, Whitney Why Eureka got canceled and Warehouse 13 didn't Wondering why Eureka just got canceled with 1.87m viewers while Warehouse 13 with 1.82m did not? Find out. Eureka, SyFy Channel, Warehouse 13 63rd Primetime Emmy Award Nominations The 2011 Emmy Award nominations (brief). Emmy Awards Star Trek TNG in HD, with an interesting workaround Paramount is releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD later this year, and is taking extraordinary steps to do so. Paramount, Star Trek: TNG CBS: New and returning 2011 fall show schedule The 2011 CBS fall schedule. Fall Schedule On wrestling jumping to a broadcast network (Wonkish) A statement by a USA Network VP about moving wrestling from USA to NBC ignores the reality and power of vertical integration. Wrestling, WWE Joss Whedon officially kills fan attempt to revive Firefly Firefly creator Joss Whedon puts the kibosh on a fan revival. Firefly, Joss Whedon TV Trailer: The Killing TV Trailer for AMC's new drama based on the Danish show, "The Killing". The Killing IGN's top 50 sci-fi TV shows that aren't actually sci-fi IGN's list of top 50 science fiction TV shows is missing something important: science fiction TV shows. IGN, Science Fiction Trailer: Falling Skies Trailer for Steven Spielberg's newest TV series staring Noah Wyle, "Falling Skies". Falling Skies TV Guide: V may wipe out a third of its cast By the time V sees its season finale next month, as few as two main characters may be all that are left standing. V Six experts give odds on the survival of bubble shows The predictions from six TV writers are combined for each network show on FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, and The CW. Is your show toast? Ratings poo The latest ratings are in and it's ugly for everyone but CBS. Fringe is down and probably on its way out while House is coming back. NCIS is destroying everything, including V, which is drawing dead. ABC, CBS, FOX, Fringe, House, NBC, V Product placements get on-screen warnings in the UK Product placements, which had previously been banned, will now require regular on-screen warnings in the UK. Meanwhile in the United States...not so much. 7 (not) sci-fi series in danger of not seeing another season The abuse and destruction of the term "science fiction" has gone too far when it covers ghosts, vampires, and sitcom comedies. Science Fiction, Supernatural Piracy didn't kill Stargate Universe, or anything else So few people pirate shows online, compared to the massive number of people that watch them live on television, that it's highly unlikely that any show has ever be killed by piracy. But there is another explanation for what happened to SGU. Stargate Universe, SyFy Channel Gone from Sunday Night Football, Olbermann leaves NBC-U entirely Keith Olbermann is out at MSNBC, less than a year after leaving NBC's Football Night in American to focus on his cable duties. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC AMC's gift to "Walking Dead" writers for great ratings: You're fired. AMC to "The Walking Dead" writers: Great job on the ratings, Merry Christmas, and... you're fired. AMC, The Walking Dead Keith Olbermann's open letter to you Keith Olbermann writes an open letter to his viewers about the incident that resulted in his suspension. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Keith Olbermann's "indefinite" suspension ends after just four days Keith Olbermann's "indefinite" suspension will only end up lasting four days, covering two shows, and it was never going to turn out any differently than this. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC DirecTV drops low-rated G4TV DirecTV subscribers will have to look elsewhere for G4TV after the satellite giant decided to drop the low rated cable channel. Comcast, G4 TV ratings are not falling because of the iPhone Is the increasing use of iPhone apps causing TV ratings to plummet? Seriously? Apple Rush Preview: The Event, on NBC (spoiler-free) A rush preview of NBC's The Event. Should be spoiler-free, but be cautious anyway. NBC, The Event Apple's next move: ruin the online TV market Apple's attempts to muscle into the online TV market will result in higher prices and represents a step back in innovation. Apple Network PR spin makes politics look like amateur hour The contortions the big four networks twist themselves into in order to claim a ratings victory are so ridiculous that often times, two networks will claim to have "won" the same week at the same time. Lost/Stargate prop auctions, lawsuits, Potter test screening, more Silly lawsuits, spoiler-ific test screenings, dumb reality show ideas and more in quick links. HBO pilot about snarky Hollywood blogger implodes An HBO pilot about controversial blogger Nikki Finke has blown up as the showrunner is fired. Cynthia Mort, HBO, Tilda Love really does bite for NBC An unexpected pregnancy throws a wrench into the production of NBC's Love Bites, along with a shifty showrunner who isn't running the show anymore. Becki Newton, Love Bites Hulu ducks behind a pay wall Hulu has announced a new $10/month service that opens access to entire seasons of TV shows with new streaming capabilities on mobile devices. Hulu The sad state of MGM The failed auction-sale of MGM has left its creditors desperate for a quick fix. MGM, Stargate CBS 2010 upfronts: complete fall schedule CBS's full fall schedule. CBS, Upfronts CBS dumps Ghost Whisperer and six other shows ABC dumps seven shows including a few that surprised THR's James Hibberd. ABC, Cold Case, Ghost Whisperer, Upfronts ABC 2010 upfronts: complete fall schedule ABC's complete fall schedule, canceled and returning series, and new show details. ABC, Upfronts Google's coming set-top box may run Android apps Google's push into home entertainment may involve a TV set-top box that will stream from flash drives, the Internet, open the floodgates for new Android applications to run on your television. NBC 2010 upfronts: complete fall schedule NBC's full fall 2010 schedule with a list of new shows with details. NBC, Upfronts FOX 2010 upfronts: complete fall schedule FOX's fall and spring schedule with new show details and photos from new series. FOX, Upfronts David Shore and David Tennant booed by NBC, more upfront news. More upfront news as new shows are ordered, old ones canceled, and the final fate of Heroes and Law & Order unfold. Heroes, Law & Order, Upfronts CBS "upfront" coverage introduction Upfront introduction, links to all the CBS upfront coverage pages, and a list of what shows have been canceled, renewed, or are on the bubble. CBS, Upfronts CBS 2010 upfronts: Mid-season replacements Detailed information on all of CBS's mid-season replacement pilots, some of which will air this summer. CBS, Upfronts CBS 2010 upfronts: Comedy pilots Detailed information on all of CBS's comedy pilots, some of which will air this fall. CBS, Upfronts CBS 2010 upfronts: Drama pilots Detailed information on all of CBS's drama pilots, some of which will air this fall. CBS, Upfronts Chuck, 'V', Human Target renewed, Flash Forward canceled, 15 new shows ordered.. Chuck, V, Human Target, Lie to me reportedly renewed for another season, Flash Forward canceled, and more upfront news. Big Bang Theory, Chuck, Flash Forward, Human Target, Lie to Me, Two and a Half Men, Upfronts, V Law & Order, Heroes dead. NOW THEY'RE BACK. Dead again.. Rumors of the demise of Heroes and Law & Order (and their renewal) should be taken with a grain of salt, and there's plenty of them to go around. Heroes, Law & Order, NBC, Upfronts ABC "upfront" coverage introduction Upfront introduction, links to all the ABC upfront coverage pages, and a list of what shows have been canceled, renewed, or are on the bubble. ABC, Upfronts ABC 2010 upfronts: Drama pilots Detailed information on all of ABCs drama pilots, some of which will air this fall. ABC, Upfronts ABC 2010 upfronts: Comedy pilots Detailed information on all of ABC's comedy pilots, some of which will air this fall. ABC, Upfronts ABC 2010 upfronts: Mid-season replacements Detailed information on all of ABC's mid-season replacement pilots, some of which will air this summer. ABC, Upfronts New pilot, renewal, and cancellation rumors for NBC/FOX/ABC Information begins leaking on series pickups and renewals from FOX, NBC, and ABC. ABC, FOX, NBC, Upfronts FOX "upfront" coverage introduction Upfront introduction, links to all the FOX upfront coverage pages, and a list of what shows have been canceled, renewed, or are on the bubble. FOX, Upfronts FOX 2010 upfronts: Comedy pilots Detailed information on all of FOX's comedy pilots, some of which will air this fall. FOX, Upfronts FOX 2010 upfronts: Drama pilots Detailed information on all of FOX's drama pilots, some of which will air this fall. FOX, Upfronts FOX 2010 upfronts: Mid-season replacements Detailed information on all of FOX's mid-season replacement pilots, some of which will air this summer. FOX, Upfronts NBC "upfront" coverage introduction Introduction to my coverage of NBC's upfronts and their development program, with links to new comedy and drama pilots and mid-season replacements. NBC, Upfronts NBC 2010 upfronts: Drama pilots Drama pilots ordered by NBC for consideration for the 2010 fall season. Any new series will come from this pile and be announced at the upfronts next week. NBC, upfront NBC 2010 upfronts: Comedy pilots Comedy pilots ordered by NBC for consideration for the 2010 fall season. Any new series will come from this pile and be announced at the upfronts next week. NBC, Upfronts NBC 2010 upfronts: Mid-season replacements Mid-season replacements considered by NBC for the 2010 summer season. Any new series will come from this pile and be announced at the upfronts next week. NBC, Upfronts NBC doubles its pilot order from last year A New York Times story on NBC shows that the network is heading in the right direction, ordering twice as many new pilots this year as last. Chuck, Heroes, J. J. Abrams, NBC, Upfronts NBC is now rebooting failed reality shows NBC is setting new standards for failure by rebooting the original version of The Apprentice. Donald Trump, NBC, The Apprentice Katherine Heigl got fired from Grey's Anatomy Word is leaking out that ABC has had enough with Katherine Heigl's unprofessional behavior, and that she has effectively been fired. Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl 24 may move from FOX to NBC 20th Century Fox is pitching 24 to NBC as it nears the end of its run on FOX (the broadcast network), which could be both good and bad for the 4th place network. 24, FOX, NBC Comcast and Cablevision lose appeal over channel sharing rules Comcast and Cablevision have lost an appeal in a lawsuit against the FCC over rules forcing them to make channels they own available to their competitors. Cablevision, Comcast, FCC Leno is already struggling Leno is back at the helm of The Tonight Show and he's already on the verge of losing to Letterman; Conan's rumored tour is set to begin in April. Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Tonight Show Looky what I have I have on my desk the next two un-aired episodes of Stargate Universe. Stargate Universe, SyFy Ausiello's list of which TV shows are getting voted off the island Michael Ausiello shares his list of shows that are coming back, on the bubble, and being buried as we speak. Stephen King: When I heard about Leno's new show, my heart sank Stephen King writes about how he's glad that the Jay Leno experiment failed, even though he likes Leno personally. Jay Leno, NBC, Stephen King NBC probably violated Conan O'Brien's contact I'm a little late to the party, but I fully agree with THR after THR viewed and explained Conan's contract with NBC: NBC very clearly violated it. Conan O'Brien, NBC, Tonight Show MGM is screwing Stargate fans MGM is charging more for half a season of Stargate Universe on DVD than the most recent full season of House costs. DVD, MGM, Stargate Michael Shanks is wrong - SG-1 is not dead Michael Shanks thinks Stargate SG-1, even in the form of DVD movies, is dead. He's wrong. MGM, Michael Shanks, Stargate, Stargate SG-1 Done deal: Conan to leave with $32 million Wire reports are saying that the deal for NBC to pay Conan O'Brien to surrender The Tonight Show and leave the network has been finalized. Conan O'Brien, NBC CBS refuses to release public domain, un-aired TV show episodes Fans and representatives of Jack Benny's estate have discovered a cache of unaired episodes (in the public domain) in CBS's archives -- and they refuse to release them. CBS, Jack Benny FOX developing American-ized Torchwood THR is reporting that FOX is developing an American version of the British sci-fi show Torchwood, but it's already got problems. FOX, Torchwood NBC pushed out the wrong man NBC followed my advice (which they obviously never saw), but they fired the wrong guy, and it's going to cost them dearly. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, NBC Don't believe the media lies, Conan hasn't quit. Yet. More rumors about Leno and O'Brien (no, Conan hasn't quit yet) and what they said during their monologues last night. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, NBC, Tonight Show NBC Nightmare: Conan says he'll fight moving the Tonight Show More trouble for NBC as Conan O'Brien releases a statement (included) saying that he would not go along with NBC's plans to move The Tonight Show back to 12:05, if he has any say. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, NBC, The Tonight Show Forget Leno and O'Brien, is NBC helping itself? Leno and O'Brien may be grabbing the headlines, but it shouldn't distract us asking what this is doing for NBC. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, NBC FOX pulls reprehensible show for wrong reasons A sick little reality show from FOX and Mark Burnett that pits child geniuses against experts for money is being re-shot after problems from Standards and Practices. Mark Burnett, Our Little Genius, Reality Stop whining about Lost getting bumped by the SOTU speech There are things in life more important than TV shows like Lost, and the State of the Union is one of them. Lost, Politics Did Lost/ABC just rip off Battlestar Galactica? Did Lost and ABC just steal an idea from Battlestar Galactica to tease the final season? Yep. Battlestar Galactica, Lost Amanda Tapping talks Sanctuary with CliqueClack Amanda Tapping recently sat down to talk Sanctuary with CliqueClack. Amanda Tapping, Sanctuary NYT misses what makes TV remakes fail Why do television remakes fail? The New York Times asks the question but misses the answer, but it's not so hard to find as you might think. Sci-fi masters, or confused bloggers? Another day, another misguided list of supposed science fiction from io9 that forgot to bring the science fiction. Bryan Fuller, Joss Whedon, Sam Raimi, Science Fiction U.S. House passes bill to limit TV commercial volume The U.S. House of representatives has passed a bill that would limit the volume of commercials to an acceptable standard in line with the original programming. Still not your daddy's Sci-Fi The misapplication of "sci-fi" to many shows that are no such thing is making it almost impossible to actually discuss sci-fi at all. Verdict: Stargate Universe stands on its own Judging by the first half season, I'd call Stargate Universe a real success with a few minor caveats. Stargate Universe Repost: How NBC can get its groove back NBC needs bold leadership willing to take risks and ignore conventional wisdom to get back into the game. Here's how. Comcast, NBC, NBC Universal How NBC can get its groove back NBC has made a number of fundamental mistakes that can be overcome with proper leadership and the willingness to take some risks. NBC Stargate Universe, Dollhouse gain viewers Stargate Universe built its viewership from the pilot to the second episode, and Dollhouse grew a bit week-to-week but found 50% more people when DVRs are factored in, one of the best on all of television. Dollhouse, Fringe, Heroes, Stargate Universe Top 5 posts for September 2009 The top 5 posts for the month of September, 2009. Stargate Universe, Top 5 This is how the networks can win the ratings war Nearly every show is losing viewers on Friday night and here are a few things the networks can do to reverse that trend. ABC, Cable Ratings, CBS, Dollhouse, FOX, NBC, Ratings Stargate Universe does good numbers, but not great Stargate Universe premiered to less than stellar numbers, but acceptable if it can maintain or even build. (Full pilot episode embedded in post) Hulu, Stargate Universe, SyFy NBC absolutely needs new series to work NBC wins a bidding war over a spec pilot from J. J. Abrams, while wonderboy's most recent series Fringe is now struggling. Fringe, Heroes, J. J. Abrams, NBC Stargate Universe review (Part 2); "This is not a game." Part 2 of an exclusive review of Stargate Universe. Stargate Universe Stargate Universe review (Part 1); "We're here. That happened." Part 1 of an exclusive review of Stargate Universe. Stargate Universe Rape ain't what it used to be Accusations of rape taken lightly are, well, not to taken so lightly. Things like this are why prejudging something you've never seen is a bad idea. Stargate Universe WGA lets Leno off the hook for strike breaking Jay Leno has been absolved of strike breaking after he returned to writing during a strike. Yeah, I don't get it either. Jay Leno, WGA Stargate Universe is a promising show worth seeing My first impression of Stargate Universe after watching the three part series premier -- but this is not a review or my write-up just yet. Stargate Universe Writers' earnings plummet 18% in 2008 According to the Writers Guild, pay for writers suffered a steep decline in 2008 due at least partially to a strike, down nearly 18% across film and television, the second year in a row TV saw a falloff in pay. New York Times, WGA, Writing Photos from inside the Stargate Universe press kit A new image gallery featuring high resolution scans of the entire Stargate Universe press kit book. Stargate Universe, SyFy Channel SyFy really knows how to promote a show (SGU) While Fox continues to stonewall small fish bloggers like me over screeners, the SyFy Channel has sent out a press kit that puts all others to shame forever. CBS, Fox, NBC, Stargate Universe, SyFy Channel Accusations of lying between John Wells and John Bowman Accusations between WGA Presidential candidate John Wells, and former neg-com chair John Bowman, and an attempt to erase at least some of it from history. John Bowman, John Wells, Patric Verrone, WGA Fringe reruns will feature cast commentary via Twitter Fox plans to air on-network reruns of Fringe and Glee this fall that include a live stream of Twitter comments by the cast and producers, something SpikeTV has been doing for a while now, but only with fan commentary previously. Fox, Fringe, Glee Bryan Fuller quit Heroes. Again. Addressing a number of thoughts from Transformers 2, Bryan Fuller leaving Heroes (again), and Cameron Diaz looking goofy. Bryan Fuller, Heroes, Joss Whedon, Screeners, Transformers 2 SAG's new leadership a lot like the old Almost a year after their contract with the studios expired, the new "United for Strength" faction running SAG has the guild anything but united. AMPTP, SAG Good news for Dollhouse, deceptive news for Ron Brown Dollhouse gets renewed and Angels & Demons disappoints. Fox did the right thing, but did Sony? Angels and Demons, Dollhouse, Joss Whedon Once proud Lost, like Heroes, is having problems Lost, like Heroes, is constantly testing new ratings lows, and the reason is far more complex that simple burnout. Heroes, Lost Lengthy Kal Penn Q&A about his new job, post-House Kal Penn did a Q&A with the press on the fate of his House character, and his new venture in politics working for the White House -- here is a complete transcript. House, Kal Penn House creator David Shore and Katie Jacobs interview David Shore and Katie Jacobs did a Q&A with the press on the fate of Kal Penn's House character, and the actor's new venture in politics working for the White House -- here is a complete transcript. David Shore, House, Katie Jacobs Felicia Day's "Dollhouse" ep gets axed News is out that Fox is only letting Dollhouse run 12 episodes this "season", and that the fully produced 13th episode guest starring Felicia Day will never air. Dollhouse, Felicia Day, Fox Warner Brothers is threatening to sue India Lost joins Heroes with record low ratings, SG-1 alumni to appear in SGU pilot, Iron Man 2 begins shooting and more. Memo to Hayden Panettiere: Grow up or quit Rumors in U.S. celeb tabloids has Heroes star Hayden Panettiere disrupting the set over a petty personal spat with co-star Milo Ventimiglia. Hayden Panettiere, Heroes, Milo Ventimiglia Dollhouse and Terminator continue to struggle Dollhouse lost viewers in its second week after an already disappointing series premier. Dollhouse, Fox, Joss Whedon, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Fox is finally slipping (casting news for Dollhouse too) Fox came within a hair of losing Tuesday night's ratings rat race to CBS, even with 800 pound gorilla American Idol calling the shots. America Idol, CBS, Fox Two days from Dollhouse premier, and no screener In which I complain, yet again, about Fox stiffing me on screeners. FOX, Screeners Elections have consequences The FDA has forced big-pharma company Bayer to spend millions on commercials back-tracking some of their misleading claims regarding questionable benefits of a new contraceptive for other ailments. Bayer, Commercials, FDA DTV transition delay fails While the Senate passed a six-month delay for the analog TV cutoff, the House refused to follow today making the February transition inevitable. Digital TV Ars argues against delaying DTV transition A writer for Ars Technica agrees -- but fir different reasons -- that we shouldn't delay the DTV transition any further. Digital TV, FCC Update on Cabin in the Woods It appears that yesterday's news of Bradley Whitford talking to join Joss Whedon's "Cabin in the Woods" has been somewhat confirmed. Cabin in the Woods, Dollhouse, Joss Whedon Bradley Whitford + Joss Whedon flick = mmm Bradley Whitford is in talks to join Cabin in the Woods, a "horror movie to end all horror movies" from Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. Bradley Whitford, Cabin In The Woods, Drew Goddard, Joss Whedon NBC losing viewers at same rate as Heroes NBC appears to be losing prime-time viewers at nearly the same rate as Heroes. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming Heroes for the failures of its network. Heroes, NBC Gov wants yet another DTV transition delay Congress wants to delay the digital TV transition into June because the coupon fund ran dry, and because consumers have been too lazy to upgrade. Digital TV, FCC Prison Break purged, is SCC next? Prison Break has been canceled and will not see a fifth season. Will ratings-challenged Terminator follow? Prison Break, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Thomas Dekker Cable does not yet compete with network television By way of news that Scifi is moving the debut of Stargate Universe from summer to fall, GateWorld makes the erroneous claim that cable can and does compete with broadcast TV. Battlestar Galactica, Scifi Channel, Stargate Universe New FCC chair could mean pro-public agency President-elect Obama has announced his pick for the next FCC chairman, which could have significant effects on Internet network neutrality and "indecency" on television. FCC Top entertainment stories, or top media fascinations? MSNBC's list of the top 10 entertainment stories of 2008 gets reshuffled according to their actual impact on our culture and society, rather than based on media obsession. SAG delays strike authorization vote The Screen Actors Guild notified their membership late Monday night that the January 2nd strike authorization vote would be postponed in lieu of a national board meeting in the 12th and 13th. AMPTP, SAG This is what's wrong with TV Scheduling games are a perfect example of network TV disrespecting the people they rely on for their business. Lost, Scifi Channel Five free pieces of advice for the Networks Five free pieces of advice for the TV networks on how not to drive me into selling my TV. Robert Carlyle cast in Stargate Universe Actor Robert Carlyle has been cast in the role of Dr. David Rush in the third Stargate series franchise set to launch this summer, Stargate Universe. Robert Carlyle, Stargate Universe A SAG state of things The sorry state of labor unity is laid bare as the regional New York board is demanding an emergency meeting of the national board to avert a strike auth vote they had previously supported. AMPTP, SAG Screen Actors Guild sets strike vote for Jan. 2 The Screen Actors Guild has set the date of January 2nd for their strike authorization vote. AMPTP, SAG Shows like Heroes may give rise to new type of series The fine folks over at CliqueClack gave me the opportunity to write a guest post on their site about my favorite thing: television. Heroes, Prison Break, Star Trek: Enterprise Not done dumping on SCC by a long shot Taking on Bob Degon, point-by-point, five reasons why Terminator: SCC is anything but one of the best shows on television. Lena Heady, Summer Glau, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Terminator is stuck in the mud If Fox and the folks making the Sarah Connor Chronicles want to win back the fans, they need to find a way to move this series forward instead of drifting aimlessly. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Here we go again -- SAG asking for strike vote The Screen Actors Guild has announced that a federal mediator has failed to work out a solution, will seek strike authorization vote. AMPTP, SAG Paging Doctor Greene Looking at Anthony Edwards' return to E.R., and two contrasting shows that in the day and age of half-season orders, managed to stay on the air for a decade. Anthony Edwards, E.R., Stargate How to save Heroes: Let it go Heroes is still losing viewers and the possible return of Bryan Fuller may be the shot in the arm that this series needs to return to former glory, or maybe it's just time to let it go. Bryan Fuller, Heroes On the matter of unstable TV shows Taking a look at Heroes, Pushing Daisies, Terminator, Sanctuary, Lipstick Jungle, My Own Worst Enemy and Prison Break and how each ratings-troubled show has been treated differently under similar circumstances. Heroes, Lipstick Jungle, Pushing Daises, Sanctuary, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles A final word or two on Sanctuary A final few words on Sanctuary, including highlights of criticism from Alex Epstein and some bad reviews from Meta Critic. Sanctuary Joe Scarborough's potty mouth earns tape-delay MSNBC's Joe Scarborough let loose some language a few days ago that earned his show a seven second tape-delay, perfectly illustrating the rank hypocrisy of Republicans generally and the unnecessary existence of FCC censorship specifically. Censorship, FCC, Joe Scarborough Scifi Channel renews Sanctuary The Scifi Channel has renewed Sanctuary for another season, but it may be more of a result of the troubled economy than anything. Sanctuary, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Fox's schizophrenic schedule screws Dollhouse Why does Fox hate Joss Whedon? Dollhouse, Fox, Joss Whedon MSNBC Extends Keith Olbermann's Contract NBC-Universal has renegotiated Keith Olbermann's contract which keeps the Countdown host with MSNBC through 2013 for an estimated $7.5 million per year. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC This is a bad idea When you start firing cast members and writers/producers, you might as well hit yourself in the face with an axe for all the good it will do. Knight Rider, meet axe.. Bionic Woman, Knight Rider Clone Wars and Sanctuary struggle Two shows with a lot of hype have failed to deliver; Clone Wars and Sanctuary have consistently lost viewers week-to-week. Sanctuary, Star Wars: Clone Wars First up on post-election theater: censorship at the high court The big four networks battled the FCC in arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday in an on-going war over foul language and censorship. ABC, CBS, Censorship, Fox, NBC Joe The Plumber complains about the media..on Fox News "Joe The Plumber" is complaining about the media invading his life and making him feel "very small", and he's doing it by flying to New York to appear on TV..in front of the media. Fox News, John McCain, Politics THR: Prez debates were "low rated" at 53+ million viewers THR writer Paul Gough says that the presidential debates which all got more than 52 million viewers was "low rated" and "dull" and that people really wanted more gaffes and mud slinging. Two crappy series get a full season Fox flop Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and NBC's questionable Knight Rider remake have both gotten full season pickups. Umm, why? Knight Rider, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles While you were sleeping Bush the movie does well but Max Payne wins the weekend; SAG calls for a federal mediator to intervene; The Sarah Connor Chronicles gets a full season; THE DEBATES ARE FINALLY OVER! People are leaving network TV, not TV in general Taking a look at the broadcast and cable network landscape to shoot down the myth that people are ditching television en masse. WGA tells Fremantle to get lost The WGA has ordered writers not to work on a new show by Fremantle Media and Fox for Ozzy Osborne over Fremantle's refusal to cover their writers under a full WGA contract. Fremantle Media, Tyler Perry, WGA Kath & Kim is "tedious" and "pretty much just sits there" Variety says NBC's Aussie adaptation, Kath & Kim, "pretty much just sits there." The reviews don't get any better after that. Ben Silverman, Kath & Kim, Molly Shannon, Selma Blair WGA pickets new Tyler Perry studio after controversial firings of four writers The WGA has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Tyler Perry of illegally firing four writers for trying to unionize. House of Payne, Tyler Perry, WGA New shows in trouble, or is cable at the gates? Zaip2it writer Rick Porter blames the writers strike for the "sophomore slump." I credit ever-increasing competition from cable and some really bad timing on the part of the networks and studios that locked out the writers and are about to do it again with actors. Amanda Tapping's 'Sanctuary' premiers tonight Amanda Tapping's new sci-fi series Sanctuary hits the airwaves tonight on The Sci Fi Channel, but will it be any good? Sanctuary, Stargate Atlantis 40 million people watched the VP debate Network ratings for the only VP debate this year were big, but somewhat spread out. The only real loser was Fox in a distant fourth place. Politics Ratings notes for Monday and Tuesday Ratings notes for Monday and Tuesday, September 29-30 2008: Heroes and House down a little, Fringe up a little; Terminator still stinks, reality programming still rocking. Fringe, Heroes, House Review: Lipstick Jungle Review of the Lipstick Jungle 2008 fall premier. Lipstick Jungle Preview: Criminal Minds Previewing the fourth season premier of Criminal Minds. Criminal Minds Reality and CSI crush the competition (2008/09/22) The Monday ratings are in for 2008/09/22. Good news: Heroes is still killing in the demo, and reality is still the big draw. Bad news: Terminator isn't rebounding and reality hasn't gone away yet. Dancing with the Stars, Heroes, Prison Break, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Worst Week Review: Worst Week; it's worth your time. Reviewing the "Worst Week" pilot, a new Monday night comedy on CBS. CBS, Worst Week Ken Levine should have hosted the Emmys Ken Levine (Cheers, Frasier, MASH) has a few words for last nights Emmy Awards. Emmy Awards, Ken Levine Review: The Big Bang Theory A review of the 2008 fall season premier of The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Ruminating the 2008 Emmy Awards Comments on the 2008 Emmy Awards. Emmy Awards, House, Mad Men, Tina Fey 60th Primetime Emmy Award Winners The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards Winners post. Emmy Awards Heroes is back with a bang Lightly exploring the origins of Tim Kring, and dipping into the third season premier of Heroes, "The Second Coming". Heroes Fox crashing on Mondays, booming on Tuesdays The Sarah Connor Chronicles continues to bleed viewers and Prison Break isn't fairing much better which lands Fox solidly in third for Monday night. Tuesday, however, is another story. Fox, Fringe, House, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles NBC wins ratings race for a week NBC won last week (Sept. 8-14) in the overall ratings while Fox placed last amongst the big four. NBC Kristen Bell interviewed by Scifi Kirsten Bell was interviewed by SCIFI Wire about the third season of Heroes, and seems upbeat about where her character is headed. Heroes, Kirsten Bell Emmy Awards reminder 2008 Emmy Awards reminder; airs in one week folks. Emmy Awards Terminator spin-off in serious trouble Fox's baby from last year, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is in serious ratings trouble with the second season premier scoring just 6.3 million viewers, a drop of 23% from the finale. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles A word on screeners before Review Week A perhaps final word on screeners before review week begins. Fringe underwhelms The pilot for J. J. Abrams new series on Fox, Fringe, underwhelmed to say the least. Not just in my opinion, but in the ratings as well. Fox, Fringe On agents of evil and the web replacing television Introducing two lengthy comments/discussions I've had on sites other than my own relating to Hollywood agents and how the web will never replace television. Last chance for Prison Break Prison Break returns for Fox tonight with a two-hour fourth season premier, but is it even worth watching? Fox, Prison Break Aaron Sorkin was a member of the "cave first" faction Aaron Sorkin in an interview with GQ revealed that he was a member of a tiny writers faction that wanted the WGA to accept the DGA deal before he even got to read it. Aaron Sorkin, AMPTP, WGA Q&A with Atlantis showrunner Joe Mallozzi Stargate exec-prod Joe Mallozzi fields some questions on the end of Atlantis and the continuing Stargate franchise. Joe Mallozzi, Stargate Atlantis Screeners, Watchmen, Stargate and actual jobs An update on this blog, a cool job offer, late screeners, the Watchmen lawsuit with more to follow, and a coming Stargate Q&A with Joe Mallozzi. Screeners, Stargate Atlantis, Watchmen Unanswered questions with sinking of Atlantis Brad Wright reveals in an interview with GateWorld that the cancellation of Atlantis was a mutual decision between himself, MGM, and the Scifi Channel. Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe Scifi cancels Atlantis; needs lobotomy The Scifi Channel resumes its transformation into the Not-Scifi Channel; cancels perfectly good Stargate series. Scifi Channel, Stargate Atlantis First half thoughts on the 2008 Olympics Confusing rules, boring events, amazing atheletes full of pride, a side of censorship and some things about the 2008 Olympics that could do with some improving. NBC, Olympics A Distinctly Screenerless Existence Due to overbearing network executives and delays cause by the writers strike, DVD screeners are far behind schedule and the TV critics that rely on them aren't happy about it. Screeners 90210 drama starts early Insanely rich Tori Spelling is holding up a fifth-rated network for more cash to return to a has-been show which is, like Spellings career, a desperate last gasp attempt to survive. Beverly Hills 90210, Tori Spelling South Park's "Chef" passed away Sunday The voice of Chef on South Park passed away on Sunday of unknown causes. Isaac Hayes, South Park List of top paid TV actors is nauseating Charlie Sheen has topped the list of best paid actors in television at $850,000 per episode for a season haul of $20 million per year -- 24% more than the cost of "Saw", "Saw II", and "Saw III" combined. Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men PTC sticks its nose where it doesn't belong The Parents Television Council has released another "report" assailing adult drama for being too adult. ABC, Censorship, PTC It's not possible Avatar didn't get the credit it deserved; it took SG-1 to a whole new level that is rarefied air for any television series ever seen. Stargate SG-1 Writers want Grey's Izzie's head on a pike A source on the production of Grey's Anatomy says the writers want Izzie's head on a platter. Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl Sometime this season, a character will die.. Sarah Connor Chronicles exec John Wirth announced at Comic Con that one of seven main characters will die this season. Boring... Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles FCC vs MPAA vs us, no matter who wins, we lose. The MPAA censors Kevin Smith's latest flick, will the FCC is blown out of the water by a federal appeals court over "fleeting images." Kevin Smith, MPAA, Zack and Miri Make A Porno 2008 Emmy Award Summary The 2008 Emmy Award Summary Emmy Awards Now I know Fringe is going to suck J. J. Abrams spoke at the Television Critics Association this week, saying that contrary to everyone thought, he would be "deeply involved" Fox's new series 'Fringe'. Fringe, J. J. Abrams, Lost Stargate Week: Search & Rescue An early preview of the 5th season premier of Stargate: Atlantis, "Search & Rescue" Stargate Atlantis Stargate week: Picardo and Mallozzi on "Whispers" Stargate writer/producer Joe Mallozzi on the upcoming 5th season horror ep, "Whispers." Joe Mallozzi, Robert Picardo, Stargate Atlantis Stargate week: I shot him...in the leg. In which I discuss the first season of Stargate Atlantis. Stargate Atlantis Stargate Atlantis week A week-long series of stories on the past, present, and future of Stargate Atlantis, in the run-up to the fifth season premier (including early review). Stargate Atlantis Goodbye Don SG-1 anchor Don S. Davis passed away over the weekend, which makes the upcoming Stargate Atlantis S5 premier a bit of a sad celebration. Don S. Davis, Stargate SG-1 DHD publishes part 1 of SAG/AMPTP series Taking a look at the first part in a three-part series on the SAG/AMPTP negotiations as written by Nikki Finke for Deadline Hollywood. AFTRA, AMPTP, SAG Preliminary Emmy list out The 2008 Emmy Award preliminary list is out. Emmy Awards, Friday Night Lights, Grey's Anatomy, Heroes Pilot and screener leaks just don't matter NewTeeVee lists all the new fall pilots on the file sharing networks and I wonder why we're even giving attention to such a small, irrelevant thing. Piracy, Scifi Channel, Stargate Atlantis NBC rebuked in accounting fraud lawsuit Actor Jack Klugman won a court order to have his old Qunicy M.E. contract copied and released to him by NBC Universal in a brewing battle over accounting disagreements. Jack Klugman, NBC Universal WGA likens product integration to paid programming The WGA is going all out to fight against 'product integration', the practice of inserting products as props and changing story lines to advertise events and services. Product Integration, WGA Ron Moore's new show finds its star Ron Moore's new sci-fi show on Fox has dug up the former star of New Amsterdam to lead a spaceship crew living in a virtual reality environment. Fox, Ron Moore, Virtuality Pictures and spoilers from the set of Heroes As the third season production of Heroes kicks into high gear, set pictures and plot spoilers abound. Hayden Panettiere, Heroes, Milo Ventimiglia In which I dump a bunch of Stargate links on you A collection of interviews and news stories on Stargate Atlantis, Continuum, and even some BSG from the past month. Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Continuum Fringe pilot really was leaked The Fringe pilot was leaked two months early, and nobody really cares. Fox, Fringe On lost icons and naughty thespians Ruminating on the loss of Tim Russet, Stan Winston, and how much I wish we could "lose" Katherine Heigl somewhere, preferably in a desert or a crowded mall. Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl, Stan Winston, Tim Russet Martin Wood talks Sanctuary, Canadian productions Stargate producer Martin Wood talks about his new web-to-TV series 'Sanctuary', and the struggle to compete with instead of serve the American TV market. Martin Wood, Sanctuary, Scifi Channel Scribes walk off Sony show over labor jurisdiction Writers who were working without a contract in good faith have walked off production of a Sony/Fox show after being promised WGA coverage, only to have it denied. IATSE, Shut Up Sit Down, Sony, WGA Battlestar finale anything but "jaw-dropping" Friday's Battlestar Galactica mid-season finale was anything but "jaw-dropping". Battlestar Galactica Heigl's comments a 'slap in the face' A Grey's Anatomy insider speaks out on controversial comments by star Katherine Heigl, saying they were a "slap in the face." Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl After today, no more BSG 'till 2009 After tonight, there won't be any new Battlestar Galactica until next year at the earliest. Why does the Scifi Channel hate BSG so much? Battlestar Galactica, Scifi Channel Katherine Heigl says her writing staff sucks Katherine Heigl bowed out of the Emmys this year because she thinks her writing staff failed her. Emmy Awards, Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl Straczynski's Jeremiah coming to Scifi Jeremiah, a short-lived drama by J. Michael Straczynski and Sam Egan is making its way to the Scifi Channel in July, J. Michael Straczynski, Jeremiah, Scifi Channel E! interviews Heroes cast on third season With the third season of Heroes in production, interviews with the cast and news about the fall premier are making their way out. Adrain Pasdar, Francis Capra, Heroes, Jack Coleman, Milo Ventimiglia, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Zackary Quinto Academic conference studies Whedon Universe Academics gather to discuss the Joss Whedon universe. Joss Whedon Are vanity cable channels the future? The NFL passes up a grand opportunity to launch award winning original programming on its own cable channel in favor of Showtime. Will DirecTV lead the way instead? DirecTV, Inside The NFL, NFL, Showtime Five changes for a better TV experience Fox has pledged fewer commercials for Dollhouse and Fringe, but here are four more things they can do to make the TV viewing experience better. Dollhouse, Fox, Fringe Dina Lohan is a great parent Dina Lohan has caused a minor uproar by exposing her 14-year-old daughter to smut while filming an episode of her reality show. Cool.. Dina Lohan, Lindsay Lohan, Reality Fringe follows House, Dollhouse after 24 Fox schedules Fringe to follow House this fall, and Dollhouse to follow 24 next January. Dollhouse, Fox, Fringe, J. J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, Tim Minear Garbage? On Fox? The hell you say Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is adding some garbage to the mix later this fall, and that's supposed to be some sort of compliment. Fox, Sarah Connor Chronicles Dollhouse pre-fans have some spirit Fan websites, forums, and letter writing campaigns are not what a network is looking for when a show hits the bubble. Dollhouse, Joss Whedon New TV shows and movies released on DVD Rambo, Darfur Now, Lipstick Jungle, He-Man, Rawhide, Degrassi: The Next Generation, The Invaders; other new movies TV shows recently released on DVD. On odd and sucky TV promos Networks are responsible for making promos for new TV episodes, and they almost always suck. Why aren't the show's producers tasked with this instead? Fox, Fringe New TV shows and movies released on DVD National Treasure 2, 24 Season 1 - Special edition, Bill Engvall, A Haunting, Jeff Corwin, Young Maverick; more recently released on DVD. Stingy Hulu release sched may increase piracy Hulu has instituted an eight-day waiting period for the most recent episode of certain shows, such as House, and Battlestar Galactica. FOX, House, Hulu, NBC Movies, TV shows recently released Recently released movies, recently released TV shows -- Stargate Infinity, The Incredible Hulk, Two and a Half Men, Untraceable, The Great Debaters, Drawn Together; more.. Bones could learn a lot from House Bones used the last minute of its finale as the "twist", while House spent its entire episode (of two parts) to do the job. There simply is no comparing the two. Bones, House NBC says 4th place is the new 1st Jeff Zucker says ratings don't matter; Ben Silverman books new reality show with polar bears and flaming swords! Ben Silverman, Jeff Zucker, NBC In Brief 24 webisodes work well; WGA strike has lasting impact, Bear Grylls is a wimp, Still on Tropic Thunder, more of my reading list.. 24, David Mamet, Jericho, Sarah Connor Chronicles, WGA, Will Smith New House, Bones tonight New House and Bones on tonight, April 28th. Bones, Fox, House Scifi Channel creates SGA-themed Tuesday block The Scifi Channel will begin airing a 3-hour block of Stargate Atlantis reruns on Tuesday nights, beginning April 29th. Scifi Channel, Stargate Atlantis Weekend bits Heroes return date; David Mamet does a dark drama; GTA IV got pirated nearly a week early; more... American Idol, GTA IV, Heroes, Lost, Redbelt, Tina Fey Not so fast For what it's worth, DVRs still beat streaming online hands down. Terminator spin-off lives into the fall The Sarah Connor Chronicles gets a second season, but does it deserve it? Not really. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles In Brief Viacom starts own pay-cable channel; NBC blurs the line between entertainment and paid programming; Lohan falls off the wagon, more.. Avatar, Avatar The Last Airbender, Deadliest Catch, Linsday Lohan, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Uwe Boll, Viacom Money, baby. Most successful shows go off the air because their costs inevitably exceed revenue. Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing Culture has nothing to do with it Addressing misconceptions about how and why veteran TV shows fail -- put simply they don't. SAG strike won't kill our Heroes SyFy Portal starts a rumor that a SAG strike could kill off Heroes. The article itself has very little in the way of evidence to back up its imaginative claims. Heroes, NBC FCC and Justice Department declare war on Fox The FCC and Department of Justice have declared war on Fox over indecency on television. How far will these persecutions go? DoJ, FCC, Fox Hulu is not the future of television Slate's Michael Agge asks if Hulu and streaming video will replace TV, but most people don't understand what that really means. Plus a free Battlestar Galactica video, cause I'm just that awesome. Hulu There's too much frakking going on Battlestar Galactica's big problem: too much frakking going on. Battlestar Galactica What the frak are you watching tonight? Battlestar Galactica returns for its final season today; links to sites talking about the BSGs legacy and a handful of interviews with cast and crew. Battlestar Galactica NBC sets 2008 year-around schedule NBC is the first to try a year-around development schedule; announces which shows will go where for all of 2008. NBC, Upfronts Reflecting on Battlestar Galactica's journey One of the better shows on television (when it's actually on) is coming to an end this year. The fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica will premier this Friday at 10PM, at least temporarily taking up the regular time slot of Stargate Atlantis. It'll repeat again at midnight and you can even catch the premier early on the Scifi channel website from noon until 1pm that day.All that's good and stuff, but does anyone actually remember where BSG left off? It's been a while since the last episode aired and that's one of my chief complaints -- not with the show itself, but how the cable network has handled its production and broadcast schedule. I can't remember the last... Battlestar Galactica Terminator, Jericho, Stargate movie thoughts The Terminator TV show will return for another go; Jericho got canceled again; thoughts on Stargate: The Ark of Truth Jericho, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG1 Big Content Still Doesn't Get It Eric Bangeman writing for Ars Technica wrote yesterday about a change coming in April in the way DirecTV's satellite receiver/DVR combo will treat pay-per-view recordings. As has been feared ever since a bug in a TiVo software update triggered a "lockdown" of sorts on programming that would only remain on the system for 24 hours before being automatically deleted -- whether you wanted that to happen or not -- it seems that DirecTV has caved to outside pressure and implemented precisely this type of content control, effective April 15th.... DirecTV, DRM Battlestar S4 premier will be streamed early The good news is that there's some new Battlestar Galactica on the way, in fact it should be roaming free on or about April 4th around noon, depending on where you live. The bad news is that the last I heard, Scifi still had not decided whether or not to split the fourth season into two parts like they do with everything else. Worse, yet still in intriguing, is that Scifi will air the season premier online via the scifi.com website about 10 hours before it is broadcast the old fashioned way.... Battlestar Galactica Nicholl, ABC/Disney Fellowship reminders Since I'm running behind on this myself, I suppose it might be helpful to anyone that's interested in writing for either television or film: The Nicholl Fellowship has been open for 2008 submissions since January, and their deadline is coming up on May 1st. This is a fellowship, not a contest. Winners are paid by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars people) to do nothing by write for the period of one year, somewhere around $30,000 I believe. The point is to discover new writing talent, and then give them the financial means (at least for a single year) to do nothing but write. The judging process is extensive and includes Academy members, professional script readers,... The TV Landscape is Changing, and We Better Be Ready While the studios and networks that produce virtually all television content are monoliths that respond slowly to change, and often fight it to their own detriment, we're all experiencing a transformation of that medium in ways that nobody truly seems to understand.Last year's fall television season would likely have continued an unfortunate yet increasingly common trend where the networks divide an industry-standard 22 or 24-episode season into two distinct halves. Some networks have taken to calling the forced mid-season hiatus the "season finale" without bothering to call the corresponding return the "season premier", as if the industry is floating the idea of redefining the term until a "season" consists of about 11 or 12 episodes, but don't really want to... Lots to find fault with in The Last Man Stargate Atlantis aired its fourth season finale on Friday, called The Last Man, and it really was a mixed bag that had an interesting peek into a grim future, but really failed to deliver a knockout punch that the best season yet truly deserved. This bag had enough things in it that most people should have been able to pull out something to enjoy, but it actually felt really very empty to me. Kindred 1&2 felt like the season was going to end in such a way that the finale could figuratively and -- within that fictional universe -- literally explode in practically any direction that could drastically reshape the entire galaxy in which the show takes place. Something so... Stargate Atlantis Terminator spin-off did everything wrong I'm looking forward to the season finale of Stargate Atlantis this evening, and don't forget there is supposed to be a one-minute long preview for the SG-1 straight-to-DVD movie sometime during the broadcast. The episode looks great and puts a strong finish on this season, so congrats to all of them for getting it done and earning a fifth season.Sometime this weekend I imagine I'll end up watching the "season" finale of the Terminator spin-off. Can you even call nine episodes a season? How can nine episodes here, and 22 episodes over there both be considered a season? One is clearly less than half of the other, so if you ask me, and I know you didn't, it's really stretching... Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Best scifi film poll topped by non-scifi flick The Scifi Channel website recently ran an email poll asking readers to pick their top 10 favorite science fiction films of all time, from AFI's own top 50 list published at times unknown. It's of little surprise that one of the Star Wars films topped the list, even though isn't not anything remotely close to science fiction unless you broaden the meaning to include pretty much anything that takes place in space. If it's 50 years in the future, and I'm standing on the moon taking a dump, well that's science fiction according to Scifi.This -- coming from The Science Fiction Channel -- that shows pro-wrestling and B-horror movies on the weekend. This list represents the best of science fiction... Science Fiction Stargate Atlantis going out on a high note Sorry about being dark over the past week. If there's anything I've done over the past six months that could be considered regular, it's that I don't post much or at all over the weekend. Monday went from a potential day of record personal achievement in writing to a day spent cleaning. It rained all day and night on Tuesday, killing my net connection, and today I'm at the height of a miserable head cold.Feeling crappy did give me the much needed excuse to catch up on the two most recent episodes of Stargate Atlantis, which were, thankfully, better than I had hoped.... Stargate Atlantis Arguing with Zeff Zucker NewTeeVee has lots of sound bites from NBC's Jeff Zucker's talk at the Harvard Business School a couple of days ago. For whatever reason, it seems like the main qualification to be a CEO is the completely inability to adapt to changing markets, with an irrepressible urge to hang onto the past as long as humanly possible, regardless of the consequences.Zucker fits that mold quite well, based on some of the crap coming out of this guys mouth. He's still mad at Apple for rebuking NBC's attempt to raise the price of TV shows (only for NBC to start streaming them for free), apparently doesn't know net neutrality is, and wants everyone to believe that the writers strike was a... A wager built on sand Came across a post by Steve Gaynor this afternoon via Penny Arcade, whereby Gaynor wagers that video games won't be any more culturally ingrained or introspective as films and books have been 50 years from now, or pretty much ever. I don't believe in betting generally because it's the essential definition of risk without mitigation, which is obviously never really a good idea. That aside, I believe this wager is crafted too narrowly and therefore is weighted too heavily in favor of the person proposing it.I could make all sorts of analogies here, but I'll just cut to the chase. To say that video games won't be as culturally ingrained as films and books at any point in time is... This ain't your daddies Scifi There's a funny poll running on Scifi Wire today asking readers which of the listed films should win the Saturn award for best Scifi flick. It's funny because of the six choices, only two of them are actually science fiction, while most are borderline stupid and just do not belong. I could go on for pages about how the term has been so abused over the years that it doesn't really resemble the original use in any way. It feels like virtually anything that isn't a comedy can be called Scifi now, and people don't even think about it.I've seen people say that Lost is science fiction, and Heroes, and these films are even more ludicrous; Transformers, Fantastic Four, and... Science Fiction Quarterlife didn't impress In case you didn't hear about it, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, Quarterlife made a very quiet debut on NBC last night. For a little background, Quarterlife is a series made specifically for the Internet, spanning six episodes cut into six parts each, but produced with veteran talent and equipment you aren't going to find lurking in the garage anytime soon.... Quarterlife Bionic Woman is dead. Again. This show was troubled and probably doomed right from the very beginning. We've seen some success with this reboot/reimagining phenomena over the past couple of years in Battlestar Galactica on the television side of things, and Batman Begins on the feature side.It can work and in some cases with wonderful results, but that doesn't mean it will work, nor it is reason enough to try. It also helps not to force out the show's creator and begin a revolving door of showrunners before the first episode even hits the airwaves.NBC did precisely that, and not-so-shockingly the results are a whole lot of people looking for new jobs:Although NBC isn't talking, I'm told by multiple sources that Bionic staffers were informed... Bionic Woman Terminator losing more viewers, and my patience I've been watching the new Terminator spin-off on Fox, as I'm sure most of you have been, and I'm just about ready to cancel my season pass and send this monster into oblivion, as I'm sure a lot of you already have.Yeah, I know, it's kind of redundant since there's only two episodes left and Terminator wasn't on Fox's recent list of shows returning to production. They only managed to complete eight episodes before the strike put a stop to this (mercy?) although they were able to plan out the final episode of this "season" as a finale.House, Bones, Back To You, and others are coming back and a few premiering between the end of February and mid-April, but not... Terminator 4, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Jericho an example of finite-length serial drama While catching up on DVR stuff (20+ hours of backlog) I managed to snag the season debut of Jericho on CBS West. Now I haven't got a lot to go on here, but I'm just not getting good vibes.The ratings were just about where the show left off when it was canceled, which is better than I expected after such a long time off, though they should have been a lot better with no other real scripted competition to deal with. With a slashed budget and slightly smaller cast, you'd figure that identical ratings to what it was canceled would actually work in its favor since CBS is getting the same number of peepers and the same advertising dollars, yet... CBS, Jericho 'Trio' and 'Midway' getting it done for Atlantis Since I crapped on Reunion and Outcast, it's only fair that I hand out some props for Trio and Midway. I just saw the latter two this morning and was very happy with what I saw. Not that I'm some definitive connoisseur of Stargate, drama, or television in general, but it's good to acknowledge the good along with the bad. It's pretty easy to bitch and whine when something isn't to your liking, but much more difficult to articulate your thoughts when you enjoy something.Maybe that's because you really just want to bask in it without thinking at all, lest you spoil the moment. Trio did that for me, but less so with Midway. The latter of those two really... Stargate Atlantis Atlantis season 5, and thoughts Now that season 5 of Stargate Atlantis has started production, I suppose now is a good time to gather some of my thoughts on what's going on, and where the show is going in the future. I really wish this show would get better ratings so that it didn't feel like it was always in a tenuous position for renewal. Even though I'd put quite a few shows above SGA on my list of things to make sure I see each year, I really don't think there are any that I'd rather write for. It'll suck well beyond description if and when it does end its run.So where is this show right now? I've got to fudge on that just... Stargate Atlantis ABC screws with Lost's timeslot...again Usually this is a sign that show is about to go away on a happy trip, the kind that people don't come back from because they've actually been taken out behind a shed or something, and shot. If you consider a 13 share great, then Lost is thriving. I don't actually consider a show that once had 26 million people watching it to be great -- if anything it's deflated and within easy striking distance of many other shows who would like to dethrone Lost as the king of the utterly-nonsensical-and-mostly-boring island.The island of the Lost, naturally.Anyway, ABC has decided that while 9pm on Thursday nights was cool, 10pm -- the hour after which everyone on the entire east coast... ABC, Lost Late night talkers actually thrived during the strike If there's one thing I learned from the writers' strike, it's that one of the following two things must be true -- either the majority of the late-night crowd wouldn't know real comedy if I rubbed their face in it then beat them with my belt, or people just don't watch late-night talk shows for anything other than the interviews.I'm going with the latter.... Late Show, Tonight Show '24' season 7 pushed back to Jan. 2009 There's lots of news flooding the blogosphere about what shows are coming back this year, or next year, what shows aren't coming back at all, and which of those are heading back into production or have done so already. 24 wasn't going to just go away, and most of you should have been aware by now that Fox decided to hold off on airing the beginning of the 7th season which they had already begun until after the strike ended.I could insert a snide remark here about how Fox wouldn't have even had to make that decision, if they had acted like adults and gotten the WGA contract out of the way without the need for a strike. Instead, I'll... 24, Joel Surnow Will 'Inside The NFL' land on the NFL's own channel? This may not be a news item that would appeal to very many people, nor do I imagine it has appeared on many people's radar. I still find this in an awkward way to be pretty great news. HBO is ditching Inside The NFL after hosting the talk program for the better part of past three decades. That's the bad part, HBO isn't interested in the show anymore, for whatever reason, but HBO didn't own it to begin with.I'll get to that in a minute, but first, the sound bite:More than 30 years after it began its run on HBO, "Inside the NFL" is leaving the field after Wednesday night's show."It has been a terrific franchise," HBO Sports president Ross... Inside The NFL, NFL Scifi Channel finds Sanctuary I found it too, albeit I never actually saw it, I knew where it was! It was on a crappy website which was the only place you could actually see the series, which will in the end probably be remembered not so much as a pioneer, but one of those "ahead of its time" shows, like early scripted dramas that paved the way for the likes of 24, and Lost.This is actually worthy news because this is the second instance where a show was created outside of the studio system, for digital consumption only. Meaning it was made with a smaller budget, with shorter episodes, viewable only on the Internet via its home website. If that sounds familiar, NBC recently... Quarterlife, Sanctuary, Scifi Channel FCC fines ABC $1.5m for 5-year-old infraction It's funny how conservatives (i.e. Republicans) are the first to object to the government interfering in a family's rights when it comes to parenting and running their household, and generally fight all forms of regulation even when it's desperately required, but are always coming into your home unannounced, sitting down onto the couch next to you, holding your remote control, and deciding what you -- presumably a mature adult with a car and a real job and everything -- can watch on television.The FCC under Republican control (it's a five-member panel with a Republican president that gets to decide who gets nominated -- do the math) has been rebuked by the courts for trying to regulate far beyond what congress... ABC, FCC Giants win big, but Fox wins bigger So everyone knew that Fox was going to set a ratings record on Sunday with probably the most anticipated Super Bowl in history, and neither the football teams nor Fox would disappoint. Point in fact, this was the most watched Super Bowl in history, pulling in a monster 65 share, or just under 100 million people screaming from the couch, squirming in the chair, and gusty gamblers in Vegas raking in a fortune.To give you an idea of just how big that is, American Idol was pulling in about 32-37 million viewers in its most popular year, while the best performing scripted dramas average in the low 20s. So yeah, this Super Bowl tripled up on American Idol, I shit... NFL, Super Bowl The Super Bowl is truly Worldwide No joke, you may have read about this a few days ago:For the first time ever, the BBC is to broadcast live TV coverage of Super Bowl, one of the world's most popular sports events. Super Bowl will be shown by BBC2, the pubcaster's second most watched web, at 10.50 p.m. local time Feb. 3. The Beeb will have it this year and in 2009 as well, and I'm sure once they see the ratings this event pulls in, they'll try to lock it in for as long as they can possibly afford, just as Fox has done here in the U.S. I'm actually a little surprised this hasn't happened sooner. The U.S. has exported American football and baseball, and... NBC wins a little, losses a little with the writers strike Here's a thought: NBC seems like it has benefited the most from the writers strike, and is also suffering the worst of it. How funky is that? They won Monday outright, and came in second on "American Idol Tuesday." Without Idol, NBC may have won that day, too. And yet here is a network that has be stuck in fourth for the past few years after the demise of its extremely popular sitcoms, giving money back to advertisers because it knew it couldn't meet its ratings promises.A recent earnings report showed that for parent General Electric, USA out-earned NBC by a ratio of nearly 6:1, and the once great broadcast net is not doing any upfront sales this year and... Fox, NBC Goodbye Enterprise, Hello Jericho..(Updated) The Scifi channel is trading Klingons for country bumpkins trying to survive a post-apocalyptic United States on Monday nights, beginning February 11th.Goodbye Enterprise, hello Jericho!According to the press release, said mini-marathon will begin one day before the new "season" begins on CBS in a move to cushion their scripted drama depraved schedule due to the ongoing writers strike. It's really just a limited-run...something since a season consists of 22-24 episodes, not 7.I really do like the later seasons of Enterprise and I'll be a little sad to see them go, but a very fine show is taking its place that need people need to see. Jericho had its bumps as any new series does, but it easily earned a second... Jericho, Scifi Channel WGA signs landmark digital deal I call this a landmark digital deal because the interim agreement may the first step towards changing how television is created and then delivered to viewers. Doug Liman has founded a startup called Jackson Bites to foster out-of-industry development of online entertainment."If the last strike is best remembered for the studios attempting to show they could create programming without writers, this could be the strike where the writers show they can do it without the studios," said Liman. "We are at a moment of opportunity in television where we have gone from three networks to six, and from a handful of channels to a thousand and YouTube. In that environment, what matters is compelling programming -- and compelling programming starts... WGA American Idol sees worst ratings in 4 years I should have written a few things yesterday when I had the chance, because wouldn't you know it, it snowed in this area of North Carolina for the first time in like 2-3 years, and old 'net connection cried itself to sleep this morning and for most of the afternoon. Probably do the same thing on Saturday.What could possibly cheer me up more than having the connection back? Seeing that American Idol had its worst ratings in the past four years. They were still monster, but if the first episode back is any indication, then this show has seen all the growth it was going to."Idol" received a 13.8 rating among adults 18 to 49, according to national Nielsen data.... American Idol Sarah Connor Chronicles craters I still haven't gotten around to watching the new Terminator TV spin-off, so it's interesting to see other people's reactions without being tainted by my own. Interesting meta aside, what is concrete and definitely not good is how amazing the ratings were for the pilot, and what a huge drop there was between that, and the second part (or was it the second episode?) on Monday evening.Sunday: 11.1 rating, 17 share (huge)Monday: 6.2 rating, 9 share (-52%)9 is still good, but oh my god what a huge drop. Just an absolute ton of people stuck around after the football game to watch that pilot, and yet half of them didn't bother to come back just 24 hours later.That, my friends,... Sarah Connor Chronicles Variety spins the late night wars into a victory for..the AMPTP Best friend of the poor, blue-collar working (billion dollar multi-national) media corporations, Variety, has a story up that must have the AMPTP CEOs dancing on their boardroom tables (rumor: boardroom tables have been sold at auction to make up for hundred-million-dollar losses due to strike):Writers or no writers, Jay Leno is still TV's latenight leader.In its first three nights back on the air last week, NBC's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" easily beat CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" in all key categories, according to final Nielsen data released Thursday. "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," whose host is also operating sans scribes, topped the WGA-blessed "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson."A couple of things worth nothing here, first being... David Letterman, Jay Leno Why Bionic Woman failed I don't mean to pick on the guy, but Michael Hinman asked a straight forward question about what why Bionic Woman turned into a Bionic Mess, but then went straight on and missed the most obvious answer possible: it just plain sucked. I also feel like the hype surrounding the Terminator spin-off is hardly any different than the spin from NBC.Granted, the story wasn't actually about comparing the two shows and lacked an explanation that might have otherwise been somewhat convincing, but the argument is still erroneous.And yeah, there are lots of great shows that die for the same reason, that being nobody is actually watching it, where Firefly yes, but also Studio 60 come to mind in recent times.... Bionic Woman, Sarah Connor Chronicles Jack Harkness gives James Marsters some Torchwood Before I get into the first-episode guest star which you already know from the post title, let me say with no small amount of unpatriotic shame that the best "new" fall show last year wasn't produced in North America, and wasn't even really new, either.If you happened to get BBC America and are a fan of science fiction in all its shapes and forms, you probably heard about Torchwood, and if you got that channel, you had the opportunity to see it a number of months after the brits did.That's not the case this year, as we're only going to be running on a slight delay from the BBC, with new episodes from season 2 beginning later this month, on... James Marsters, Torchwood CBS SAYS THERE WILL BE BLOOD!! That was my impression of an AICN headline, and quite apropos too, with CBS making the long expected announcement that with no end in sight for the writers strike, Showtime's #1 drama Dexter will be gracing network airtime on Sunday nights starting in February.I caught the second season premier which did very, very good ratings for Showtime, and was real happy with what I saw. The only problem is that I only got to check it out because I was visiting my sister, who actually gets Showtime, whereas I do not.So I've only seen the second season pre, and that's it.I'm desperate for more of this show and now with CBS airing the entire first season, we can all enjoy... Dexter USA is killing NBC I don't know what's worse in this deal, USA (the cable net) nearly trumping The CW in yearly ratings, or USA absolutely killing NBC in profit making for parent GE. Who cares about the peacock, writers need to concentrate all their fire on USA if they really want to hurt that conglom.$100 million (NBC) profit in 2007, versus $600 million for USA, which can't even begin to compare in ratings, even though NBC is typically a distant fourth year-after-year."USA's profits are outlandish, considering that the network was kind of tattered and sluggish when NBC bought Universal" in 2003, says Hal Vogel, the veteran showbiz analyst and head of Vogel Capital Management. (At the time, Universal was the parent company of... Cable Ratings, USA On Leno's strike breaking; various items This is not one of those "everyone has an opinion" situations, if your curious what my opinion is. (Hey, see what I did there?)It doesn't really matter what the MBA says (how is it an expired contract can still govern what the WGA does, anyway?) or what the strike rules say: writing during a strike is scabbing, period. Doesn't matter if you're doing it for yourself, doesn't matter if you have a loophole.If you write during a strike, you're a scab.... Jay Leno 'Terminator' series pilot online Looks like Fox is letting the pilot for The Sarah Connor Chronicles out of the bag a little early, putting it on that dastardly digital medium known as the Internets. You know, the one that makes them so little money and is so unstable and uncertain that they can't pay anyone residuals when they stream video?Yeah, that Internets -- the one with the word 'billions' after it.So (via BuddyTV) you can watch the pilot before it airs on national television as the networks continue their brave exploration of this wild, untamed land made up of a 'series of tubes', populated by pirating savages, but only within a 24-hour window, starting at 9pm this evening.Or you can just wait until the... The Sarah Connor Chronicles January 4th 2008, In Brief I don't think anybody is reading these, but I'll give it some time, because really there's just no place else to put this stuff and a lot of it is click worthy. I've got a link to a page listing the season finale dates for all the shows ending in January, a Dark Knight trailer from a couple of days ago, some Stargate stuff, Lost (trying to) go viral, more..... Batman: The Dark Knight, Bones, Firefly, House, Lost, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1 Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant...and unemployed Disney appears to be playing favorites when it comes to their own roster of bad girls these days, although Lindsay Lohan has since graduated to the majors where "bad" usually means drug abuse, car wrecks, lawsuits, and of course feature films and special treatment by judges and cops, there's no doubt that Jamie Lynn Spears and Vanessa Hudgens are not considered equal in the empire of the mouse.16-year-old pregnant? You're fired! Young-woman playing teenager nude pic scandal? New contract baby!Just what is it Disney is putting in the water over there, anyway?... Britney Spears, Jamie Lynn Spears, Lindsay Lohan WGA condemns Leno; Wins latenight ratings Nikki Finke's revelation that a clique of "A-list'ers" within the writers guild are plotting against the leadership -- which ought to send Kay Reindl into a fatal seizure if she's true to her "shoot all traitors" philosophy -- and will go fi-core to escape the strike and go back to work if the WGA doesn't accept pretty much whatever deal the DGA gets from the AMPTP, doesn't sound like it's panning out.In addition to the "are they or aren't they" debate, Jay Leno received a lashing from the WGA over writing his own monologue for last nights return to the air.... David Letterman, Jay Leno, Late Show, The Tonight Show Thoughts on Letterman's first show The Late Show opened with dancing showgirls carrying WGA picket signs, which immediately made me laugh with sinful glee and must have made CBS absolutely cringe. Every night that David Letterman is on the air with his writers, their own show will be taking shots at them for being excessively greedy, driving it home to several million people that probably didn't think about it one way or another.Now, they're going to get a WGA friendly message with absolutely no rebut from big media. And meanwhile, on NBC, Conan O'Brien opens with a song about his new beard and his first guest was fellow NBC employee, Bob Saget.... David Letterman, Late Show Hillary Clinton on Letterman tonight I seem to be the only blog in town that has this outside of the mainstream press; apparently David Letterman has booked Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for tonights return to the air, alongside Robin Williams and Shooter Jennings.That ought to make for some interesting ratings with Republican candidate Mike Huckabee appearing on Leno at during the same hour.Perhaps more interesting is that Nikke Finke is spreading the rumor that Craig Ferguson won't actually have any guests tonight, but will transform itself into a pure comedy show for the evening to showcase its writers and their fight with the AMPTP. She's also still trying to form a wedge between feature writers who are upset (and self centered) about Letterman's writers... David Letterman, Late Show Reminder: Letterman returns Tonight Tonight (11:30pm or is it 11:35pm as my guide says?) David Letterman returns to the airwaves with something none of his competitors will have: his entire writing staff. Sanctioned by the WGA after Letterman's company (which owns his show) struck a deal last Friday that gave some hefty weight to the writers' claims that the contract they seek is extremely reasonable.Letterman's first guest will be Robin Williams -- you can expect a number of big name SAG members to follow after that guilds president encouraged his entire membership only to frequent Letterman's non-struck show -- and Shooter Jennings as the musical guest.Leno has Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tonight, while the rest of the bookies remain unknown. Huckabee has courted... David Letterman, Robin Williams, Shooter Jennings After 9/11, NBC wanted "Cops", got "Predator" instead There's an interesting story running from Reuters featuring some unflattering accusations from a former Dateline reporter that NBC rejected his ideas for shows investigating the origins of Islamic fundamentalism and al-Qaeda in favor of fluff pieces that "should instead focus on the firefighters and perhaps ride along with them a la 'Cops.'"John Hockenberry pitched these ideas after September 11th 2001, and claims he was shot down by Jeff Zucker.... Dateline, NBC Top 10 stolen films and TV shows of 2007 I came across a post on Torrentfreak via NewTeeVee (a site you should consider scoping out) listing the top ten pirated films and TV series of 2007, which is worth mentioning for two reasons. The first being that a couple of the shows on the TV list are -- depending on how you view things -- ratings challenged, to say the least.All the people stealing these shows may do well to consider that if they acted like responsible adults and paid for this stuff like everybody else does, then these shows wouldn't end up getting canceled so often.Dexter, #9 on the list, is Showtime's most viewed show and set a personal ratings record for them in both the second season... Piracy Money matters most The title says it all: money matters most to the multi-national congloms that own our domestic television and film production. If, as this one anonymous writer claims, NBC\NBC-U didn't make any money for GE, it would have been sold off already. The same goes for every major studio.Here, I'll let this person explain it far better than I could:... United Hollywood Leno gets Huckabee; Letterman gets Robin Williams NBC must really be desperate to have the first guest for their non-union show be a union-hating Republican presidential candidate. Now it's a given that no Democratic candidate is going to cross the picket line, and Nikke Finke mentioned that Mike Huckabee has courted union support, but just look at the facts and tell me what his and NBC's intentions really are.The guy is going to cross a sizable union picket line after asking for union support.If there are any late-night talkers you should be watching during the strike, I suggest you tune in with David Letterman who has signed an interim deal with the WGA that allows his writers to return to work under a fair contract, the kind... David Letterman, Jay Leno, Late Show, The Tonight Show Patriots & Giants draw record numbers Here's a fact that surprised absolutely nobody: Sunday's game between the Patriots and Giants pulled in a bit over 34 million viewers spread across two national broadcast networks and one cable channel, the latter being owned by and displaying only NFL content.Ultimately I think it's kind of funny, that with NBC and CBS fighting each other for viewers that neither one ended up with terribly impressive numbers. Almost 16 million people opted to watch the game on CBS, while 13 million eyeballed NBC. If either had won out, they'd have been sitting on nearly 30 million viewers, up there in American Idol territory.For whatever reason, 4.5 million people watched the game on the NFL Network, which considering the importance of... NFL, Patriots Ron Moore on the Letterman Deal In case you didn't know, Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) started a blog to jot down his personal musings during the strike, which is rarely updated yet fairly insightful and a must read if you track that kind of thing at all. There was a great story about staff writers on Star Trek TNG peering through a window from their office building over to the next with binoculars into Rick Berman's office trying to figure out how he was mangling their scripts on any given day.Good stuff, and naturally he had a short statement on Letterman's company Worldwide Pants striking a deal with the Writers Guild of America, allowing him to return to the air with his writers while no other... David Letterman, Ron Moore 5 Things to do During The Strike With only a few series left to air new episodes in January, there's just not going to be much to watch on TV if you're not a fan of reality for a good long while. That got me thinking of things you could do to get your fix, and if your life is anything like the rest of ours, then there's plenty of things to see now that over the years you just didn't have time for.But now you do!Subscribe to Netflix and look up some TV series that you thought you'd probably like, but knew you didn't have time for. For me, that means the second and third seasons of House, and pretty much every season of Lost. With... Closed for the holidays I got burned out on blogging and believe me, that can happen no matter how much or how little content you write on a daily basis. There hasn't been much strike news and there doesn't figure at least until after the new year. Chances are even then, we're going to be stuck with this one for a while.Other stuff has been building up and what I'd like to do is try to write more original content and also bring in more posts highlighting other original content, and fewer link posts to industry news. I'll try that after Christmas, when I'll be back here with full energy and attention. There's little point to starting that all right now since most people... The 4400, The Dead Zone Letterman strikes deal with WGA Late-night TV is about to come back on the air with all hosts returning to their shows, minus writers, with the exception of David Letterman who actually owns his show and has negotiated an interim deal with the Writers Guild of America. Naturally CBS distanced itself from the deal because they didn't want to look like they were making positive efforts to end the strike. They really want to own that "greedy retarded child" image, don't they?News about it here, here, and here.I can see how writers are upset that Leno, O'Brien, and Letterman are going back on the air during a strike when they are all WGA members, crossing picket lines, and damaging the strike by putting money back... David Letterman, Late Show, WGA Lost returns even more fragmented than ever So the TV writers are starting to get all in a tizzy over the return of Lost next month on ABC. Can't say I agree, I missed the first season, watched the first quarter of the second season and was turned off by stagnant writing that really never rose above my own preconception of a boring drama set in a jungle. The flashbacks that everyone seemed so enthralled with were devistating to the narrative and did nothing but yank me out of the show and make me wish they'd pick one or the other.They really did feel like cheats.Anyway, when ABC decided to stop making full seasons, I figured it was a sign they had lost faith in the once... Lost Letterman coming back? There isn't generally speaking a lot going on with the writers strike. SAG wrote a letter to the WGA membership telling them what they already knew: SAG wants them to win this battle so that they don't have to next summer. It may not matter if the DGA undercuts both of them so they can get a doggy biscuit from management, so we'll have to see if they get a chance to show how far their commitment really goes.If you're a Letterman fan, though, there's good news for you.... David Letterman A legendary box office for Will Smith Just dropping in after a series of power outages that probably aren't over quite yet, to give a hat tip to Will Smith and company. I Am Legend killed at the box office this past weekend despite a devistating winter storm that has been battering the heartland and the north east. $77 million I believe the projection was, a good 35% above expectations (note to Nikki Finke -- that's not "nearly double"..) which will undoubtedly trigger five sequels of questionable quality.I wonder what it would have done without the storms getting in the way? Regardless, it topped the December openings of everything in history, including all three Lord of the Rings films, and Narnia.Well played.... I Am Legend, Will Smith Journeyman time-travels to the graveyard I know many publications expend a lot of energy coming up with clever titles to the same news a dozen other outlets are publishing that day, but it can occasionally be fun when you have to make a joke about crappy shows being sent to the television afterlife. No so funny perhaps to fans of this doomed drama, though.After giving Chuck and Life full season orders which they will never end up fulfilling due to the strike, it has been reported that NBC has let its option on Journeyman expire:"Journeyman" has earned some critical praise of late after tepid reviews for its pilot, but it has struggled in the ratings pretty much from the start. It's averaging 7.34 million viewers... Journeyman Initial proceedings for David Chase lawsuit begins today The AP is reporting that jury selection for the lawsuit filed against The Sopranos creator David Chase was set to begin today. Apparently one of Chase's unofficial consultants is suing him over the success of the show, even though it's not really clear here what the legal claim is. Robert Baer, a prosecutor and former judge did some leg work well before the show went on the air to give Chase some background on the Jersey Mafia which inspired the show.It seems like the work Baer did amounts to little more than consulting, so I'm not sure what he thinks he's going to get out of this. The "he stole the show idea from me" rap never holds up in... David Chase, The Sopranos ABC fires the 'Big Shots' No, sadly I'm not referring to the networks CEO who along with every other big media exec is causing 13,000 writers and god knows how many below-the-line people to be out of work during the holidays, but a freshman drama about...a bunch of unruly CEOs.The network has opted not to air the three remaining original episodes of the series, which had been scheduled for Dec. 13, 20 and 27. In its place following "Grey's Anatomy" on Thursdays, ABC will air repeats of "Grey's" spinoff "Private Practice."ABC's decision is a little bit of a head-scratcher, given that original episodes of scripted shows will be at a premium as the writers' strike drags on. On the other hand, in a season without... Big Shots Sci Fi Channel gets a gameshow Apparently the "Sci Fi Channel" is about to step beyond "professional" wrestling and into pure reality programming sometime in the near future. A published report from the 7th said that Sci Fi had greenlit a reality/gameshow based on a Japanese property that will be called Run For Money.The only reason I'm bothering to tell you this is because it's well past time NBC found a new name for their formally niche cable network. With an overwhelming number of original fantasy and horror films (all of them bad) paired with fantasy mini-series, pro-wrestling, and now a game show, they have lost the right to be even be associated with the science fiction genre, much less be named after it.Production is set... Reality, Science Fiction, Scifi Channel Dexter on CBS? Hurrah! There really isn't very much going on right now with the strike having nuked production on basically everything related to television, while most shows are really starting to run out of new episodes to air. Heroes is done, I guess The Office is done. Desperate Housewives, which will be a bitter pill to swallow with the great ratings it's getting, is just about history. All the nets seem intent on driving away what few people there are who are still watching television by pushing reality programming into overdrive in January.Some nets have held back shows for whatever reason or excuse, so those that have it are going to have a few new things to sprinkle on the tube while they... Dexter Jericho Season 2 Premier Date Set Fans of the canceled and then resurrected CBS drama Jericho shall rejoice thusly: a date has been set for the premier of the limited-run second "season" on Tuesday, February 12th in the ridiculously late time slot of 10pm EST where people are guaranteed not to watch it. It's nice that CBS is using Jericho to prop up its schedule right around the time it, along with every other major network, will have expended their new programming for the year due to the writers strike.The new episodes of Jericho were written and shot well before the strike began in the first week of November. Due to the lack of other original scripted programming, Jericho may well benefit in the short term... Jericho Torchwood season 2 censored for your protection The BBC is apparently going to censor edit the second season of Torchwood (which hasn't aired yet) so they can air it in an earlier time slot and so younger viewers can watch it without them having to endure horrific experiences of swearing on television when they certainly get it every single day at home and at school instead. The original version will still air later at night for all of us sick deviants that like our entertainment written as if we weren't all 10-years-old.I find it kind of funny though that they're going to scrub the language but not the sexual content, of which there is a fair amount in reference, though I'm not talking about nudity here. Beyond... Torchwood 'Shrek The Halls' obliterates competition No seriously, when I say Shrek The Halls absolutely killed everything in its path, I'm not exaggerating here or merely comparing it to whatever else was on TV during the same hour that night. According to the guys in the know (you know, those pesky Neilsen "people") Shrek The Halls pulled in an 19 share the other night that will guarantee about 50 more Shrek specials down the road.It teamed with animated classic "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Classic" to produce the best young-adult ratings for any entertainment program in the 8 o'clock hour -- on any night, on any net -- since last May's season-ender of "American Idol" on Fox.I had no earthly clue a half-hour special, even... ABC, Shrek Bring on the reality For people who like reality programming - by the ratings shows like Dancing With The Stars get I'd say that's a whole lot of you - you're in for a big surprise come January when all the scripted shows start running out of new episodes to air. Of course there will be some exceptions, like The Sarah Connor Chronicles that Fox held back for whatever reason, and a short run of new Jericho episodes on CBS, but other than that, what NBC has planned is precisely what all the other networks have in store for you after the Superbowl.Shrugging your shoulders at a plate full of reality is going to haunt you when you're sitting there staring it directly in... NBC, Reality Drudge report on Leno firings inaccurate Variety led off the afternoon with a story about staffers for The Tonight Show having worked their last day for NBC, and for some reason or another, Matt Drudge turned this from these guys being laid-off by NBC to them being fired by Lay Leno. That is a blatant misstatement of the facts (also known as a lie.) None of these people work for Jay Leno, they work for NBC; the network signs their checks and they are responsible for the writers strike - along with every other greedy AMPTP member - which is the cause for these layoffs.There's simply nothing for these people to do so long as the Leno writers refuse to work without a fair contract. It's... Jay Leno, NBC Life, Chuck get full seasons Good news for Life and Chuck, and perhaps something of a ray of hope for Journeyman and Bionic Woman fans. The former two got full season orders despite being challenged in the ratings. The latter two are playing in a very similar range and I'm going to have to agree with Hinman at SyFy Portal that some shows in this group aren't going to make it.Still, it didn't really look like Life and Chuck were going to make it either, it was shaping up (and still looks like) a near total wash for NBC this fall. Perhaps their best bet is to clone Tim Kring a couple of times and see how many new shows he can come up with... Chuck, Life 'Shrek The Halls' on ABC tonight I was going to make a joke about one large green cartoon character sitting on and squishing another from Christmas past, but Variety beat me to it. Bastards.ABC is going to air a Shrek-themed Christmas special this year called "Shrek the Halls" with all the old players taking up their parts for one of the most successful animated properties in recent times. Hell, maybe ever. The first three films have grossed just about $2.2 billion between them over the years and I don't think things are going to change very much for the coming fourth film.It seems like an odd match for Christmas, but I guess it was inevitable that they'd branch out to television in one way or another... Shrek Heroes: Truth & Consequences The better the series gets, the less I have to say about it because I'm busy enjoying it and would rather just let it simmer in my mind after watching it, trying to extend the suspension of reality for as long as possible to, as I said, enjoy it rather than eating it.I only have two notes for Truth & Consequences with another floating in the background, and it figures that just when we're at a point where I can sit back and enjoy Heroes without bitching about anything, we've reached the end of the strike shortened season.... Heroes The state of things I hope everyone enjoyed their long holiday weekend. I didn't bother posting anything since most people were going to be traveling or away from their computers, plus, there wasn't hardly any news to post anyway. Of the things that have happened, I'll catch up you up.I forgot to do the weekend box office preview, I discovered a problem with Yahoo!'s email system that can prevent people from registering accounts for commenting, and Rupert Murdock is still a douchebag intent on indoctrinating not only the United States, but the entire world into the neo-con culture. Still interested?... CBS, Heroes, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, WGA Wil Wheaton on NUMB3RS Friday One last blurb before I close shop for tonight: Mr. Wil Wheaton did a guest spot on NUMB3RS which is scheduled to air this coming Friday. I don't know a thing about the show as I generally find myself firmly attached to the Sci Fi Channel on Friday nights, but there are fewer and fewer reasons every year to bother watching them. SG-1 is gone, Battlestar is fragmented and feels like it was canceled last year and is long since dust, the way Sci Fi has jerked the schedule around.Do you even remember how the last season ended?Perhaps with all of their mistakes, now is the time to bounce around and find something new to watch. Anybody know what NUMB3RS... NUMB3RS, Wil Wheaton Will the strike cause Idol to blossum, or crash? An entertainment writer for the Associated Press wrote a semi-amusing article about his vision of the future of Hollywood due to the strike, at least in the near term, all the way through July of next year. Most of it is just playful prognostication, but there is a nugget of inspiration in there that will lead me to a perhaps controversial prediction. Oh I'll be hearing a strange, low frequency noise emanating from every direction from now until I die that resembles a couple of hundred million people all saying "duh" at the same time."Prison Break" stages a puppet version of the show to benefit production staff; an episode of "Gossip Girl" is mimed to reflect writer-less television. Viewers discover... American Idol, Reality Dexter is murder for Showtime ratings I don't know if you've ever seen Dexter before, but it's a really great show. Don't get a chance to see very many since it's on Showtime and I think paying for more channels twice is kind of absurd, but I've seen a few. More than enough to know I'd be a die hard fan if it was airing on a network, or even a basic-cable channel like FX. It would fit in perfectly with Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me, don't you think?Anyway, those guys over there have a lot to be happy when Dexter apparently broke a ratings record for Showtime, so says Reuters. Kind of funny when you consider Showtime foaming at the mouth over 1.2 million viewers when... Dexter, Showtime NBC's Knight Rider just got lamer You've probably heard by now that NBC is going to remake Knight Rider the same way it did Bionic Woman, only I'm sure they are hoping for much better results this time around, considering that Bionic Woman probably won't be coming back after the writers strike comes to an end. I don't know anybody that thinks this is a good idea, but really, whose idea was it to bring David Hasselhoff on board? I like the guy, and I liked Knight Rider actually, but this is just sad my friends.No matter how much money you throw at it, you can't get it back. Please, for all that is holy and good in the world, just stop it. These network execs... Knight Rider, NBC Chili Peppers going after Californication There was a cute story in Variety yesterday about a lawsuit filed against Showtime over the title of their series Californication. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers think they own the name exclusively since they used it first, and foremost for both a CD and song title. The problem with that theory is that song titles generally don't qualify for trademark protection. Just have a look through any catalog and you'll see dozens of songs with the same title, all by different bands in different eras.The same goes for movie and television episode titles. Follow this imdb.com search to see what I mean.Something to consider is that trademark protection is not absolute, either. Because words are kind of a finite resource,... Californication Internet series Quarterlife will be broadcast on NBC There was a story in Variety right before the weekend saying that NBC was going to bring Internet series Quarterlife to air at some unknown future date, presumably after they start running out of original material due to the writers strike. Any other time it would have been fantastic news, since this is probably going to increase in the future as writers look to get out from under the interfering thumbs of hapless network executives and networks look for more ways to get programming without having to pay anyone for it.The first episodes of Quarterlife have already been produced, and I've wondered if they were of sufficient quality that they'd look good on NBC and whether or not editing for... Quarterlife Heroes: Cautionary Tales I have some mixed feelings about this episode. The negatives are few and mostly about not seeing either Peter or Sylar at all. On the other hand, we didn't see the Hondurans either, and the whole episode is like that. It's not really what the promo sold it as, but it's still good.Not Four Months Later good, but the last scene gets the job done.... Heroes More shows shut down At first, it looked like the WGA was going to wait until SAG's contract expired sometime near June of next year, in order to give both guilds extreme bargaining power that would shut down everything almost overnight. Instead, in what now looks like a stroke of genius, the writers walked off the lot just three days after their contract expired on October 31st, right in the middle of the fall television season.With a number of high profile actors and writing/producing "showrunners" refusing to cross picket lines, no fewer than seven shows came to a screeching halt or were disrupted by the strike and were unable to continue with production. Now on the 11th day of the strike and the 16th... Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman 'Ellen' skips east coast visit over WGAe threats The animosity between Ellen DeGeneres and the Writers Guild of America (East) seems to be taking a toll on the host's show, which has canceled plans to travel to the east coast this week apparently due to threats by WGAe that they'd picket her show for continuing her hosting duties while the strike is on-going. WGAe blasted DeGeneres for only honoring the strike for a single day before crossing the line. They are especially pissed because she happens to be a WGA member herself.I don't think there's any argument about the legality of this, her hosting duties are separate from any writing she may have done for the show - which actually appears to be none at all given what... Ellen DeGeneres Heroes: Four Months Ago This is everything that Four Months Later could have been, even though the last few minutes of Four Months Later was actually a pretty good grab. I disagree that this is what the premier should have been, though, because a lot happened tonight that wouldn't have been possible without some of the mysteries set in motion up until this point.Finding Peter with no memory handcuffed in a cargo container was cool, but it was no replacement for Four Months Ago, yet it couldn't have come full circle without it. (Moderate Spoilers ahead)... Heroes NBC's 'Scrubs' May Be Twice The Victim Scrubs is going to run out of episodes sooner rather than later, like most shows that are still in the first half of their seasonal run. TV Guide estimates Scrubs may have as few as nine episodes left to air with almost all of them already shot and ready for broadcast, but that's really not their biggest concern. Creator Bill Lawrence had intended to wrap up Scrubs this year after an improbable seven-year run, and now it's possible that the strike could very well end it right in the middle of the season with no way of really controlling what will happen.NBC was reluctant to renew the show this year but did end up making that decision, I'm pretty sure... Scrubs Can Quarterlife Survive During The Strike? There has been some talk recently that Internet-only series Quarterlife may be bought by NBC and presumably reproduced for airing on the network after all its own shows run out of original episodes to air, sometime in or after January. That article isn't the first to suggest this and I really don't know anything about the show or the probabilities of such a thing going forward, but it did raise an interesting proposition.How can it all work and how will it be affected by the strike, after it's bought?... NBC, Quarterlife Some Shows Only Have 1 Episode Left I noticed that some family members didn't have any idea there was a strike going on right now in tinseltown, and were less than thrilled at the idea of this mediocre fall television season being cut short just when prospects were looking up on shows like Heroes. If you're one of the brave few, keeping an eye on the situation for the good of the nation, you might want to start letting your own family and friends know that some of their favorite sitcoms and the like are going to burn up and disappear in a matter of weeks.I know I'd rather be sacked out on the floor with the DVR remote sitting on my fat belly for the next... Heroes, The Office Ronald D. Moore on NBC: They Weren't Going to Pay Us It seems like the popular thing to do now. Go out to the picket lines and score quick interviews and quotes from showrunners on everything that's been pissing them off lately. Well, Ron Moore is plenty pissed off at NBC and it's easy to understand why. I've written on this subject before and had my reporting linked from the WGA website and quoted in a trade labor magazine, because I think this is important and because I knew it was a pretense to the struggles going on right now over digital media.NBC wanted Ron Moore and company to create a series of webisodes - basically two-minute shorts that step outside the main thrust of a TV show - to broadcast... Battlestar Galactica, NBC, Ronald D. Moore Bionic Woman Not Getting Bionic Ratings If there were two things that NBC really wanted to see this fall, it was the continued success of Heroes, and at least one show they could follow-up on that success with on Monday night or any other.That show was supposed to be Bionic Woman, only it didn't quite work out that way. The remake is currently sitting on its third showrunner since the pilot was shot and has continually fallen in the ratings nearly every single week since the premier. This past Wednesday didn't help matters, either.Michael Hinman, who has been watching the ratings for Bionic Woman for SyFy Portal, reports that NBC's hopeful darling for the fall has officially lost half its total audience over the series premier,... Bionic Woman, NBC, Ratings Strike News Roundup: November 8th Defamer has a number of great links today, including news that Fox has shelved 24 in favor of Prison Break and The Sarah Connor Chronicles due to running short on episodes for the former ailing drama. 24 and Chronicles were scheduled to debut side-by-side with Prison Break being pushed back, but now it looks like PB will hit the air first, followed by Chronicles mid-month, with 24 to be held back until the strike ends.If you choose to count it, 24 makes the eighth show to be negatively affected by the strike earlier than planned.Nikki Finke had the hilarious idea that agents are the magical solution to the strike, that both sides negotiators be benched and replaced. Let's think about... AMPTP, DGA, WGA Tim Kring: We F*cked up, But We Can Fix It There has been a lot of criticism over the way season two of Heroes has unfolded, least of which has come from me. Everything I've disliked though has been addressed in one way or another by series creator and showrunner Tim Kring in a chat he held with Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen. Wow, there actually is a real person with the last name Jensen. Can you believe it? I'm freaking out, man.The pace is too slow"We assumed the audience wanted season 1 — a buildup of intrigue about these characters and the discovery of their powers. We taught [them] to expect a certain kind of storytelling. They wanted adrenaline. We made a mistake."The world-saving stakes should have been established soonerThe... Heroes, Tim Kring Michael Eisner Calls Writers' Strike "Stupid", Says They Can't Afford To Pay Writers More -- Time Warner Announces $1 Billion Profit On Huge Summer Box Office $250 Million dollars -- About 1/28th what Time Warnermade this year.Two different stories from two different corporations on two different websites emerged today, that when put together, says all you need to know about why the writers are striking right now and how dishonest and pathetic the major studios are. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner was on Wall Street today telling the stock market bigwigs that the writers' strike is "insanity" and "too stupid", according to The Hollywood Reporter, that "writers had been premature in pressing for digital revenue when the model was still unproven, and should have postponed action for at least three years."NBC and Fox recently initiated a beta test of their new video publishing website called Hulu.com... Michael Eisner, Time Warner, WGA Strike News For November 7th, 2007 There are only a couple of interesting news bits this afternoon regarding the writers' strike. The guy who was hit by a car yesterday is "Tom Johnson, head writer for Talkshow With Spike Feresten" according to Deadline Hollywood's Nikke Finke. Tom suffered a broken leg but presumably will be ok. I sincerely hope whoever hit him and then fled the scene (an automatic crime no matter what the circumstances are) ends up spending at least some amount of time in the local jail, though knowing how pathetic the L.A. justice system is, he'll probably get even less time than Paris Hilton even though he/she damn near murdered this poor guy.The "breaking talks news" that Nikke alluded to on her blog... Desperate Housewives, DGA, WGA Are Canadian Productions Now Scabs? I've been wondering for a couple of weeks what Stargate Atlantis exec-producer Joe Mallozzi meant when answering a question about whether or not SGA would be affected by the WGA strike - the one that began on Monday morning. He said no, but no can mean a lot of things with ambiguous context. The Sci Fi Channel had yet to order a fifth season of the show when the question was asked, and I haven't been clear on the various producers guild affiliations until now.Canada has its own writers guild, which on face value actually seems silly and destructive, at least for North America where you can have writers in one country, while shooting it in another. According to a... Stargate Atlantis, WGA, WGC Seven Shows Are Shut Down A writers strike isn't supposed to start shutting down shows until those shows start running out of scripts that were finished before the strike started. In this case, that was supposed to be sometime in January, although some were behind and only had one or two scripts ready, the bulk was supposed to come later - and the bulk may yet still drag on.But a number of shows are shutting down right now due to walkouts by the writers, writing-producers, and not an insubstantial number of actors as well. Not to be a party pooper, but aren't a lot of these people violating their SAG contracts? Way to go! That's what I call labor unity.Here's the list as of Tuesday... Heroes: Out Of Time This episode was great in that it really set us up for the seasons real arc: stopping the plague. The notepad I use to jot down thoughts while I watch the show has been divided by episode and each passage was longer than the last, meaning more complaints every single time out.This one was a third of the last size and after seeing the teaser for next week, I don't plan on writing another one of these things for at least another two weeks - possibly never again.... Heroes Jay Leno Joins The Line; Some Shows May Only Have Five Episodes Left I heard on the news this afternoon that Democratic Presidential candidate Barak Obama has declared his support for writers as the strike got underway today. That's not really surprising seeing as how Democrats love unions and Obama and Clinton are not labors favorite son (so to speak) - John Edwards is. Even so, that support is appreciated and won't be forgotten by anyone.As you can see, Jay Leno was walking the lines today showing his support, as have a number of big names that typically hang out in front of the camera. SAG has been more supportive of the WGA this year than they have in a long time, perhaps because this instance of leadership reached out to them more... Jay Leno, SAG, WGA Cloning 'The Office' For Fun And Profit It was odd when NBC started expanding The Office to a full hour (when's the last time you saw an hour-long comedy?) but I don't watch The Office so I never gave it much thought beyond some weird promotional gimmick. Turns out NBC wants to do it some more and people who watch the show are starting to complain, or at least some of them are anyway.Michael Ausiello wrote a couple of days ago that NBC wants a spinoff of The Office to put into play and perhaps that'll be the unnatural culmination of the hour-long episodes, even if it wasn't planned, at least that'll mean it's going to come to an end. There are some great writers out there... Kev Levine, The Office More on Writing With Partners I've thought about this for a bit and while I generally don't think this is even worth the time since this is almost entirely trolling on the part of another party, it's probably worth getting a few words in here to clear the air because loud annoying people..well annoy me. I wrote a post called Writing With Partners on Oct 25th which linked to an article by Patrick Walsh on Cinematical which featured some tips for writing with partners, hence the title.Two items that have become flash points are partnerships and outlines.I don't see the value in writing partners for reasons that matter only to me and are not really subject to debate by others. I am not the only... FX Happy With Nip/Tuck & Rescue Me I see that FX (one of Fox's cable channels) has ordered up another season of Rescue Me (5th season), and the numbers coming in for returning Nip/Tuck are looking great (double what Rescue Me pulls in) so that show is likely to continue into the foreseeable future, the strike not withstanding of course. Cable shows tend to work on a different schedule than network shows so depending on how these two are jiggered, they may have an entire season banked and ready to ride out the first half of 2008, or they may run dry just as fast as everyone else.I've seen both these series in the past and while I couldn't really find enough in them to keep up... FX, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me NBC May Cap Heroes at 11 Episodes This isn't surprising at all, with a strike set to begin sometime Monday morning there won't be anymore writing done from now until the studios and networks decide to stop redefining the word 'greed'. NBC is taking advantage of the last few days they have control over Tim Kring and company by forcing them to write an alternate ending to the 11th episode of Heroes this season so that it can function has a season-ending wrap-up.News comes right on the heels of NBC axing the much hyped spinoff called "Origins" that would have aired either during the regular second season hiatus, or more likely in between the second and third seasons. Kevin Smith, John August, Eli Roth and a number... Heroes, NBC Joss Whedon and Tim Minear Setup New Series at Fox James Hibberd (the TV Week guy that openly admits downloading pirated TV shows in order to write his stories about pirated TV shows) has news on a new series Fox picking up from cult-god Joss Whedon, with additional news from Michael Ausiello that Tim Minear is on board as well, at least for the time being. Whedon and Minear have collaborated on a number of shows with cult followings including Buffy The Vampire Slayer (7 seasons), Angel (5 seasons), and Firefly, while Minear has worked as a producer on The X-Files and other things.When these two guys get together, you know there are nothing but good things in store.... Dollhouse, Joss Whedon, Tim Minear 'Heroes: Origins' Delayed, Possibly Canceled? You might chalk this one up to the craziness happening over the past week where the studios and networks are indeed freaking out over the coming strike, despite what some people say about them actually being happy they can reset this failed fall season, with a rumor starting on The Hollywood Reporter today that NBC is delaying introduction of Heroes: Origins from its planned mid-season debut.NBC declined comment, but "Heroes: Origins" is not going to get its six-episode run, which was expected to start as early as late April. While the network hasn't officially canceled the spinoff, producers of the series have been given no indication of when it might get a spot on the schedule.Sources indicated "Origins" may be... Heroes, Heroes: Origins Sci Fi Channel Kicks Monster Ass I'm a huge fan of science fiction when it's done right and it just annoys me to no end that the Sci Fi Channel has polluted their schedule with increasingly non-science fiction content. It's bad enough that they mix horror with their original programming and really unfortunate that 99% of their original movies are pure hard-core suck. It was downright embarrassing to tell people that I watch the Sci Fi Channel when they started showing wrestling. What the hell is that all about?Well their increasing willingness to abandon their roots is actually paying off this Halloween as it seems they're beating the tar out of other cable channels running horror-genre marathons this week.SCI FI's 13 Days of Halloween programming stunt... Ratings, Scifi Channel Heroes: The Line Things haven't gotten a whole lot better since 2x05 "The Kindness of Strangers" like I thought it would, and yet I'm left with the same impression of next weeks episode which looks and feels a lot more like what we're used to from "Origins" (volume 1, not the spin-off.) We're still spending too much time with the Hondurans with precisely no advancement in either the overall story, or their own arc.The same can be said for virtually everything in this episode, zero forward movement.... Heroes Bionic Woman Crashing Hard and Fast It's based on a series concept that's close to 30 years old, wasn't changed at all, is on its third show runner in as many episodes, and now is crashing hard and fast in the ratings. Gee, you don't think any of that is possibly related, do you? Naaah. "Bionic Woman" earned a 4.8 rating/7 share according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research, putting in not only a series low, but finishing almost last for the night (when removing The CW shows).NBC was thrilled with the pilot so much that they pushed out Glenn Morgan and replaced him twice, which has clearly and always does fail miserably. Yet they really did love the pilot ratings which was tops... Bionic Woman, Ratings Battlestar Galactica Delayed Again Such a strange story. It used to be that Battlestar Galactica was the darling of all reality, people were complaining that it wasn't making it to the final nomination for best drama in the Emmy Awards, there was constantly speculation that the show was such a critical darling that NBC-U was going to take it away from the Sci Fi Channel and put it on NBC's prime time schedule. That never happened, even though new rumors are that NBC will take the reigns if they get seriously desperate for new content during the coming strike.It has already been what feels like forever since the last new episodes aired and frankly, the most recent season was nothing to write home about.... Battlestar Galactica House Hits a Roadblock Variety is reporting this morning that House, M.D. star Hugh Laurie went home to the United Kingdom last night for what are said to be "family reasons", though Laurie's representative won't elaborate further, saying only that he'll return to the set sometime on Monday.As the lead actor of a show in times when television has turned to ensemble casts, this is pretty unusual. Even being gone for a few days is going to delay production and ruin many carefully laid out schedules for the month. Obviously with Laurie being the well-liked star of an enormously important show for Fox, an inconvenience such as this is a small price to pay.On the other hand, with the writers strike looming, all... Fox, House, Hugh Laurie IGN Interviews 'Scrubs' Creator Bill Lawrence I've been asked once or twice why I don't do interviews of my own, and the answer is simple: I'm a tiny, new site, and nobody will talk to me. I cry at night, all alone, and wonder what the point of even living is. But then I remember that Jesus loves me, I'm a super nice person, and I managed to get dressed all by myself this morning. Go me!Scrubs quickly become known as a series that was able to shift tone and carefully balance drama and comedy, keeping both of them equally effective. Lawrence talked a bit about this, saying "I like when we bridge the gap between the kind of broad, goofy comedy and emotional episodes…I like... Bill Lawrence, Comedy, Interview, Scrubs Fox Orders 'Back To You' For a Full Season Even with weak numbers, Fox has ordered up a full season of Kelsey Grammer's sitcom Back to You. At this point I'm not really sure why the networks are ordering series to full season when there's going to be a strike this year, because even in the remote (and I mean remote) event that the two sides come to some sort of agreement, that's likely to happen sometime between the end of this month and the first two weeks of November, giving them plenty of time to fill those orders at a later date.It certainly flies in the face of Nikki Finke (Deadline Hollywood) claiming that all the network execs have given up on the new fall season and don't... Back to You, Fox Writing With Partners Cinematical has an actual employed (and probably about to be unemployed due to the coming strike) writer on staff writing about..well, writing. What else would he write about? If you're interested in this story of thing, he has five in-depth tips for collaborating on scripts when you don't physically meet with your writing partner, which I found terribly odd. Then again I find the entire notion of collaborative writing odd. If you're supposed to write the second act of a telescript and your partner is in the process of writing the first act, how do you know where to start when you don't know where he or she is going to end?I guess you'd have to heavily rely on writing... Rockne S. O’Bannon is Back with 'Warehouse 13' If there is one writer out there doing some truly great mixed science fiction and drama that isn't well known to the public and doesn't have much of an iconic cult status and yet totally deserves it, it'd be Rockne S. O’Bannon. He brought us top 5 best sci-fi show ever in Farscape, wrote for seaQuest DSV (when it was good), Alien Nation, The Twilight Zone (80's), Amazing Stories, and wrote the script for the Sci Fi Channel's miniseries The Triangle.This guy has got serious sci-fi game, and he's coming back to television for the first time since The Triangle (which was pretty good actually) and the Farscape TV movie The Peacekeeper Wars (first part was great, the rest stunk)... Rockne S. O'Bannon, Science Fiction, Warehouse 13 Bionic Woman Burns Through Yet Another Showrunner While I read through some lengthy news clippings and wait for Variety's horrible Windows webserver to actually return the text to the articles I'm trying to load, I'll depress whatever fans NBC's Bionic Woman has left with the news that they are officially on their third showrunner since the series pilot was shot. For those who don't know, a showrunner is the highest level executive producer - the king of the show so to speak and roughly equivalent to a feature film director only for television - usually a writer and the person who created the show in the first place.Some of them write during the course of the show while some write the pilot and then guide the writing... Bionic Woman Warner Brothers Learning That Family Matters Warner Brothers (the studio) is being sued by a former writer-producer for Family Matters over allegedly unpaid revenue sharing agreements and/or bonuses made years - in some cases decades - ago. If memory serves me, this is the third such lawsuit this year alone, although not all of them have been against Warner Brothers. These lawsuits stem over promises by the studios to share profits with series bigwigs, but only if the show can generate a profit on paper, otherwise those sharing agreements don't come into effect while the studio tries to recoup its production costs.Unfortunately for the people who actually make the show, the studios are notorious for juggling their accounting books in ways that would Enron blush. No... Family Matters, Warner Brothers Fox Has "Prison Break" Spinoff in The Works It's actually kind of shocking with the serious downturn in quality that Prison Break has suffered in the past two years, to find that Fox is paying for a pilot script that will be spun off the current season sometime next year. I was among those that thought the concept of this show was a terrible one, mainly because it was unsustainable. I then made the mistake of tying its potential for quality to its seemingly inevitable downfall due to stagnation.After it debuted and I was hooked on it like crack, I threw away all my early misconceptions and declared Prison Break to be the next smash hit that would bring in tens of millions of viewers for five or... Fox, Prison Break Scifi Channel Renews 'Stargate: Atlantis' I woke up this morning to the news in Variety that the Sci Fi Channel has renewed Atlantis for a fifth season, which I couldn't be more happy about. It's an odd show in a way where there isn't too much comedy so that you can't take it seriously, yet not too much drama that it gets full of itself (like Battlestar Galatica can do at times.) The third season finale and fourth season premier were the best pair for the show yet, and some friends I've spoken with that are big fans of the franchise entirely agree.We all think the best is yet to come.On a personal and very selfish level I was hoping this would happen so that... Stargate Atlantis Could The Strike Help Jericho? That's my thought after pondering for a moment where we find ourselves. SyFy Portal is speculating that CBS may fill the time slot recently vacated by the recently canceled Viva Laughlin, after they spin up some press and get the machine moving. For the time being, they'll fill that hole with reruns of other programs currently producing new episodes such as CSI and some reality garbage.But what about the strike? There has been some speculation too that Jericho will be held back until January or later to start filling in air time when the other shows run out of scripts due to the presumed writers strike that will probably happen sometime in early November. I've been the only person around... CBS, Jericho Good News For 'Pushing Daisies' Fans, Bad News For 'Heroes' Fans The new series that Bryan Fuller left Heroes to create and run has been given a full season order by ABC, meaning there's now zero chance that Fuller could return to Heroes this year or the next, which would have depended on the failure of Daises to free up his time. For Daisies fans, that's great news and means the fall newbie everybody sanctified as the best of the crop has lived up to expectations thus far and is being rewarded for fairly decent and steady ratings.For Heroes fans, as I said this is not such great news as it means Fuller is likely done with Heroes unless he comes in to do an episode of Origins, when Daisies is... Pushing Daises Hasta La Viva Laughlin Say Au-revoir to Viva Laughlin, this one is DOA. It didn't take a genius to know that a musical drama was going to get canceled exactly 1.5 seconds after people realized they were actually watching the show, and not a really bad commercial. Seriously, I love to say "whoever did this [insert act of depravity]" ought to be fired for it, but this defines the term - whoever green lit Viva Laughlin (Hugh Jackson producing or not) needs to either quit right now, or be reduced to janitorial services.(The) Show was based on the hit BBC series “Viva Blackpool,†about a gambler who opens a casino but winds up in the middle of a murder investigation. The series repped part... Viva Laughlin Heroes: Fight or Flight Things are starting to feel a little more cohesive now that I think most of the major introductions have taken place, culminating in the appearance of much-hyped netlet star Kristen Bell. If you go back and watch the first few episodes of the first season, the quality has clearly taken a hit with the loss of Bryan Fuller and I don't think they will ever get the magic back.It can still be good, and based on the teaser for 2x06 the show is on the verge of picking up some steam. Peter will leave Ireland, Matt Parkman and Nathan have set flight after Parkman's evil daddy who is no where near as scary as we were lead to believe -... Heroes Feature: Drinking Jesus Juice at Deadline Hollywood Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood and I don't see things eye-to-eye when it comes to Hollywood labor. She drinks the coolaid the studios gave out to the press when they took their retarded residual rollbacks off the table in the first sign that perhaps they are actually interested in trying to negotiate a new deal before the strike occurs. For somebody who appears to be a legitimate "expert" on industry execs - insofar as one can be such a thing - and I respect her insight, access, and stinging if not often insulting and unprofessional attacks on said execs, she just continues to miss the big picture.... AMPTP, Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke, WGA Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Get a Vanity Series For some odd reason, network and cable executives like to give free rides to rich and famous actors (which we already know) along with letting them take on jobs they aren't qualified for and probably have no real interest in doing. Chances are while they'll be sitting at the top as far as creative decisions go (which as non-writers on a television series is just about the worst thing possible) but I guarantee you they won't be putting in 20 hour days, every day for the run of the entire season.They'll hire somebody to do that for them, without the authority that person will have earned through the work, and without any credibility amongst the shows staff. It may very... Angelina Jolie. HBO, Brad Pitt Get Ready For No More Prison Break It hasn't been canceled. Yet. But Fox is preparing to send Prison Break on a nearly half-year long hiatus to make room on its Monday night schedule for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. News has come in that Chronicles will be taking over Prison Break's time slot, with the latter going off the air in mid-December and the former making its debut along side 24 in January.Although Fox has promised to finish off this season at some point, this is precisely what happened to Jericho on CBS, and that resulted in a temporary cancellation (and the striking of their sets) and it's abbreviated return for seven new episodes to test the waters - with a much smaller budget.I definitely think Prison... Prison Break, The Sarah Connor Chronicles 'Cold Case' Pisses Off Christians But who doesn't? Seriously, what doesn't offend Christians these days? This isn't a case of TV shows pushing the envelope more and more every year, I think the real problem is that conservatives keep leaning towards fundamentalism every year and it's only going to get worse until this country stands up as a whole and decides we'd rather not emulate everything we sought to change in Iraq and the Middle East. Today it's forbidden TV shows, tomorrow it's women who can't vote and can't wear sexy clothing...or talk.In the said episode, Cold Case featured an unsolved murder of young woman with a promiscuous past who joins a Christian-based abstinence group in an effort to change her life, only to discover... Censorship, Cold Case Catch a Sneak Peek At 24 - Season 7 I'm pretty sure that Fox did this last year too, though hopefully they've got something new in store for us because I'm not really looking forward to 24 this year. There have been so many ups and downs over the years - the downs having been more plentiful - that it's hard to get excited when I already know what's going to happen. We're already used to the season being divided into multiple arcs which started in what, season 4? And don't get me wrong, season 4 was actually really good, and I think it has a well earned place along with the first and second seasons and the best work that group has ever done.But now that we're used... 24 CSI, Grey's Anatomy Still Monsters on Thursday Night Remember when NBC owned Thursday nights with Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, and all the other sitcoms? Remember when everybody just wanted to be NBC? All those shows reached their natural conclusions beyond which most people were sick of the same people telling the same jokes and they just wanted something else for a change. In rolls Fox with their reality gamble that turned into a monster in its own right and now everybody is sick of that, too.But what people aren't sick of yet is CSI and Grey's Anatomy on Thursday night where NBC is struggling just to beat out The CW - a marriage of the two former netlets UPN and The WB. Compared to these two giants, even Survivor's... CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Ratings, Survivor, The Office To Nobody's Surprise, Private Practice Gets a Full Season While a number of shows are falling in the ratings and several others are growing precariously close to the cancellation zone (which is anything from 0 to 10,000,000,000 viewers for Fox) there are others that were predestined to make it not just all the way through their first season, but through a second, and possibly a third before the network gave any kind of serious thought about kicking it to the curb. This year it was Private Practice, next year it'll be House: The Early Years.Two freshman series, ABC's drama "Private Practice" and CBS' comedy "The Big Bang Theory," received full-season pickups Thursday. ABC and CBS ordered nine additional episodes of each series, bringing the total for "Practice" and "Big... Private Practice, The Big Bang Theory, The Unit Bryan Fuller's New Series Holds The Line If you paid even the slightest attention to the hype running up to the fall TV season, then you probably heard the name Pushing Daisies more than a few times in the same sentence with the word "best of." I don't know whereas I'd agree with that, at this point I'd probably have to go with the BBC's Torchwood, even though I've only seen two episodes and even though technically speaking, this series isn't new. The United States is already a full season behind for Torchwood, but we're just getting to see it now via BBC America (with healthy doses of "shit" which is delightful in reminding me that there are some shows out there not made for 10-year-olds.)Torchwood is... Bionic Woman, Pushing Daises, Torchwood Shock: TV Doesn't Cause Violence I think people that believe that television, movies, and games cause kids to become violent are generally real prudes and that almost all of life's annoyances can be traced directly back to prudish people who want to ruin all the fun in life for the rest of us. They don't like porn or violence but it isn't enough just for them to avoid exposing themselves to it, they have to forbid the rest of us from having it too, because controlling other peoples lives makes them feel more secure since deep down, they know they have no control over their own.Congratulations if you managed to stomach my sermon, for I now reward you with a study about to be released... Scifi Channel Spawns a 'Revolution' I don't pay much attention to new series debuting on cable, especially when we're talking about the Scifi Channel. Stargate SG-1 had its thing going before Scifi rescued it from cancellation, although the Atlantis spin-off had been somewhat successful in its first few years, it's now pulling in so few people that it risks being canceled itself. Their new version of Flash Gordon is terrible and the cable channel has already announced that they won't be renewing that little gem for a second year, and we all know how bad Painkiller Jane was.This new show, however, sounds like it could be fairly decent. Though it reminds me a little bit too much of NBC's insanely great Earth 2, that could... Revolution, Scifi Channel Finke Drinks The Studios Cool Aid Nikke Finke - whom I love to read yet think is wrong about 50% of the time - has published her story about the WGA strike authorization vote. I'm heartened by her insistance that the studios are unnerved by the resolve shown by writers, and as she writes, "the feeling was always that if the total of the 'Yes' votes was anywhere above 75%, the studios and networks had a giant headache on their hands."As I posted a few minutes ago, the precise number of members voting to authorize a strike was 90.3%, so I'd imagine based on what Nikki has observed that things have gone from a giant headache to continuous vomiting in corner for their expensive offices. Try not... AMPTP, Nikki Finke, WGA Interview: Heroes' Tim Kring and Kristen Bell Ran across a transcribed conference call for the media with Heroes showrunner Tim Kring, and new season 2 entrant Kristen Bell. I was going to publish this about an hour ago, but there were a couple of comments under the blog post where I found this to site where you supposedly could watch every episode of Heros online for free. The link not pointing to NBC.com made me more than just a little bit curious, so I followed it to find a site that is nothing but a shell that has a bunch of Google AdSense ads on it and lots of embedded video from Divx.com's video hosting site.Every single video was a full length episode of Heroes, sure enough,... Heroes, Interview, Kristen Bell, Tim Kring 'Sarah Connor Chronicles' Gets a Date For some odd reason, Fox held back The Sarah Connor Chronicles from its fall schedule this year in favor of releasing it sometime in January or Feb. It could be that they just wanted to bank as many episodes for the series as possible in case the writers strike materializes. Current shows will be running out of episodes right around when 24 and Chronicles hit the airwaves.Those dates have now been set, according to a news bulletin from The Futon Critic, "..the series will premiere Monday, January 14 at 8:00/7:00c." It also says that Chronicles will be "bookended by the three-hour seventh season launch of '24'", which doesn't make any sense at all since 24 has usually launched with a... 24, The Sarah Connor Chornicles Another Day, Another Studio Sued Over Accounting I'm sure that most people don't follow labor issues much, if at all, especially not in Hollywood. To quickly explain, studios play with their accounting books adding in every possible cost they can imagine, discounting certain profits, shifting and adding debt (they are true masters that would make Enron proud) until every movie they produce shows a loss on paper. They do this because a lot of people see huge blockbusters making hundreds of millions of dollars and they figure since they helped make the picture, they ought to get a piece of the profit based on a percentage.The studios never want to give out money they don't have to, so they promise most people a percentage of the profit... 20th Century Fox, Dharma & Greg Fox Kills Another Fox is exceedingly good at killing their own television shows without giving them a chance to find their voice. Anchorwoman which probably deserved a quick and easy death only survived a single episode on air, but now Fox has taken things to the next level by placing one of their own new fall dramas on indefinite hiatus - before it was even broadcast.With seven episodes of supernatural drama in the can, the network's executives have decided to take a look and decide whether to order additional segments, something considered unlikely."Amsterdam" stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as an immortal New York City police detective. The pilot of the series was directed by Lasse Hallstrom.I was looking forward to this, but leave it to... Amsterdam, Fox My Thoughts on SGA "Reunion" Joseph Mallozzi is an executive producer and writer for Stargate Atlantis, one of many professional writers who blog about their job and (to a degree) their personal life as well. Along with this quick introduction in case you might be interested in this, I also give you the opportunity to skip this post if you've never seen SGA, don't particularly care about the finer points of television writing and are looking for something else.This may not be for you.If you are at all curious, read on. Joe wrote what amounts to a blow-by-blow of 4x03 - Reunion, from his perspective as an EP and the writer. I think as an amateur writer, this is a wonderful opportunity to write... Stargate Atlantis Scifi Channel Snaps Up 'Lost' Syndication Rights NBC-owned Scifi Channel has licensed non-exclusive rights to rebroadcast Lost beginning in September of 2008. While G4 also go a similar deal, nobody really cares because nobody actually watches G4. Scifi will be sliding Lost into its traditional Monday evening block where they've been showing four hours of a single series, in order, back-to-back ever since picking up Stargate SG-1 after Showtime canceled it.This was how I was introduced to Stargate in the first place, and this really paved the way for that channels entry into original programming. Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Atlantis, along with a small mountain of absolute crap such as Painkiller Jane and Flash Gordon.The first part of season 3 of Lost was in my opinion just... G4, Lost, Scifi Channel Friday Night Bionic Woman? This news is a little stale at this point but I figured I'd collect a couple of items to burn off some time on this very fine Tuesday morning, during which I'd rather sleep through. There are three things going on right now and it's too early to know if any of them have much significance, although when you add them together, things aren't looking so rosy for this remake that absolutely nobody was actually asking for.First off the top is news that NBC ordered a couple of extra scripts for their top performing new fall shows (notice I said new, not overall) which means they'll likely have those shot and put in the can for airing sometime later this... Bionic Woman After Gerald McRaney, Jericho Loses Another Michael Hinman reported on Saturday the sad news that Pamela Reed (Gail Green) won't be coming back for any more episodes of Jericho, beyond the seven new episodes that recently wrapped production after the shows unlikely resurrection. If you're wondering why, I think Reed lays it all pretty damn well. "The average age of actors on that show is under 40, and those of us over 40 are gone," the 58-year-old actress said, according to Film Stew.McRaney left by his own choice, probably because he thought like everybody else that Deadwood was headed for the silverscreen. HBO pulled the plug on that series, promising at least one movie to follow, then renegged and now that property is essentially deader than... Jericho Heroes: The Kindness of Strangers The Kindness of Strangers (2x04) felt closer to an episode from the first season than any other thus far, which is good, and yet it left out two of the better arcs entirely in favor of pushing two new ones that utterly suck and have up until this point been pretty boring.I jotted down some notes so I'd be able to quickly cover all the points I wanted to write about once the episode was over, and here's the one I ended up writing in three different places: "WHERE'S PETER?"If you haven't seen this episode yet, go no further..... Heroes Friday Night Lights Bleeding Viewers I don't know why NBC renewed FNL over Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. They both were ratings challenged but there is a huge difference between the talent behind FNL and television master Aaron Sorkin. If things don't change, FNL won't be hanging around much longer, which makes 30 Rock next. Both FNL and 30 Rock should have been canceled and those resources shifted over to the stellar Studio 60 last year. It's a miracle that NBC had Heroes dropped in its lap and didn't somehow screw it up.Not surprisingly, the addition of "Murder Club" to the night affected drama competitors "Moonlight" on CBS (prelim 2.0/6 in 18-49, 7.3 million) and "Friday Night Lights" on NBC (prelim 1.7/5 in 18-49,... Friday Night Lights, Moonlight, Murder Club, Ratings 'House' Ends Up Victim of NBC/iTunes Scuffle I didn't think about this but thankfully someone at BuddyTV did, and the story goes a little something like this: although House airs on Fox and Fox has no outstanding issues with iTunes, the show is not produced by Fox's sibling studio. The studio arm of NBC-Universal, Universal Media Studios produces the ratings monster which is licensed to Fox for broadcast, making NBC the true owner of the show.Since NBC is having a price dispute with iTunes, new episodes of House won't be available once that contract expires, along with all the other shows that NBC-U produces. You can more about it at BuddyTV. NBC, according to Apple, wants to charge $4.99 per episode rather than $1.99, while Apple wants... Apple, House, iTunes, NBC Fanboy Feud Erupts Over Jericho Revival Things are starting to shift on the Jericho front, though not necessarily in a good way. In a story on SyFy Portal, Michael Hinman documents the growing dissension and acrimony in the ranks of Jericho fans, particularly those that took part in the shows resurrection after being canceled earlier in the year. The point of contention now seems to be who gets to take credit for bringing the show back with a reduced budget and a heavily shortened episode order.Me, I'm wondering if there is anything worth fighting over right now. A new run of seven episodes is fairly weak and noncommittal on the part of CBS and is more likely a backup plan for replacing one of its inevitable... CBS, Jericho Does George Lucas Expect Writers to Cross The Strike Line For Him? Entertainment Weekly is reporting that none other than George Lucas himself will be trolling the deadly streets of L.A. looking for writers to pitch ideas and get assignments for writing the first 13 episodes of his planned live-action Star Wars television series. There's only about 13,000,000 problems with his plan but I'll save you a couple of years of reading and list the most prominent ones that have the potential to delay the production and ruin the series altogether.The Strike - The contract between the Writers Guild of America and the studios expires on October 31st, and all signs point to a strike being called within a week of that date. Lucas intends to bring his booty of freelancers back... George Lucas, Star Wars WGA Steps in it Over Supposed Animation Ban There were two curious rules the Writers Guild of America set forth within the past day or two, called Strike Rules (pdf), where WGA supposedly banned its own members from taking part in feature animation writing, which is not covered in the current contract with the studios and is not an area the guild tends to represent. (Forget for now the other odd rule.) Now, the union that does actually represent feature animation writers is none too pleased with WGA's new rules and is threatening to sue over the matter.... AMPTP, IATSE, WGA Kevin Smith Digs 'Lost' I have to admit, I'm actually disappointed by this. The title of this post at Entertainment Weekly is "Kevin Smith Raves About 'Lost'", which makes it sound like a lengthy interview where we get to listen to what one great creative mind says about the work of a half-dozen others. I always love reading things like that, when real talent appreciates the real talent of others - it's very insightful at times.But it's a bust, a total implosion. There's one long dialog by Smith about Lost, a short back and forth (and I mean short) and that's it.Read it if you're a fan of Lost or of Kevin Smith, then complain about them ripping you off. As for Lost itself,... Kevin Smith, Lost Ready For Some Jericho? It has always been possible that the new limited-run episodes of Jericho (the so-called second season that isn't a season) would be cued up to replace one of CBS' new fall shows that falls on its face. There are quite a few that bomb and drop early and it makes sense to have something ready to slide into its place at a moments notice.Jericho's new episodes are done filming and could be ready to air in a matter of weeks if they are needed, and if the ratings decline some of these new shows are experiencing is any clue, sooner rather than later it may be.Last season "Jericho" aired Wednesdays at 8 p.m., the time period now held by "Nation."... Jericho Bionic Woman Takes a Bionic Crap This show's title is perfectly designed for the most amount of useless puns and unclever jokes..I love it. Unfortunately if you put me in a room with NBC, then I'm the only one in that little world having any fun. In fact, one of us probably wants to jump off a cliff, and honey, it ain't me.Bionic Woman in the span of a week went from the networks best rated fall drama to middle-of-the-pack, says the ratings gurus, though the loss is not nearly as bad as Cavemen. Gee, would would have thought a comedy based on the most annoying Geico commercials every produced wouldn't pan out? Maybe networks should hire a couple of people whose only job is to... Bionic Woman, NBC Additional Script Orders May go to Waste I'm no expert on television production, having not been directly involved with any myself, but it doesn't take a genius to understand that no matter how much the studios stockpile scripts for feature productions and television, some schedules leave projects vulnerable to a strike. Best as I understand it, virtually every new fall show is going to suffer if and when this happens.The question then becomes, have NBC and CBS ordered new scripts for some of their shows despite the possibility they won't even get written, or because of it, in order to sneak them in under the wire without possibility of getting any revisions during the strike, forcing them to shoot what they have, crap or not.... Bionic Woman, Cane, Chuck, Journeyman, Life A Comment on "No More Female Leads" A couple of days ago, Nikki Finke wrote on her blog that three anonymous sources recounted hearing a top Warner Brothers exec say that they weren't going to produce films with female leads anymore. I didn't think very much of it at the time because the world is full of people who would say things like that, people who would say it and not really mean it, and people who would lie to screw over somebody else.A couple of other blogs picked up the story, got an official denial from Warner Brothers which was expected and means absolutely nothing, but Robert Sanchez of IESB raised an interesting question, one he didn't bother to find the answer to.Given how tough it... IESB, Warner Brothers Bionic Woman is a Bionic Mess When an executive producer that was intimately involved with the creation of a show is pushed out in one way or another after the pilot, and that EP has the resume of Glen Morgan, it doesn't take a genius to figure that things are only going to go downhill from that point forward. Things are made much, much worse when you factor in how uninspiring the pilot was to begin with, and at least for a few seconds of pure delusional insanity, I can actually understand why NBC wanted changes made.Unfortunately for NBC, it panicked and went for the reset button rather than just chilling out for a few episodes to let the show and its people find their way... Bionic Woman, Glen Morgan Studios Move Towards Writer Lockout Hardly ever do you hear about what the studios do in preparation for a strike that is just as damaging to the situation as anything the writers do. The writers you see are not the only people who can refuse to stop working with the other side.Will the writers strike until they get what they want, like whiny children bound and determined to stay up just another five minutes? Or will they be fair to those poor production studios who are out there just trying to make an honest buck in a cruel world full of pirates and thieves?... AMPTP, WGA Heroes: Kindred (my thoughts and where to get it streaming) As is usually the case, if you're just looking for a place where you can stream Heroes Kindred from, you can get it here on NBC's website. They'll have it up sometime on Tuesday where it will remain until the next episode airs a week later.Also, while I won't reveal huge plot points from what I write, some things can always be inferred. Don't read the rest of this if you haven't seen the episode. That said, it has been the best episode of the new season, though not really outstanding compared to some first season episodes.I really feel like show has lost a great deal with the loss of Bryan Fuller to Pushing Daisies.... Heroes Mysterious Evil Force Disrupting TV in Israel Variety is reporting that the cable and satellite television experience in Israel has degraded precipitously over the past few weeks, with people complaining of screen flickers and frame freezing. As is usually the case, everyone is blaming the military.The onset of the problems coincided with a Sept. 6 Israeli air raid on Syria. Television signals began to deteriorate shortly afterward and on Sept. 12, Lebanon's Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh told local daily An Nahar that interference had "started with the aggressive Israeli infiltration on Syria."But by Sept. 20, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which also linked reception problems to the raid, reported "Syrian espionage activities on northern Israel using Russian experts" as a possible cause of the disruption.A third theory emerged... New Battlestar Content Tonight The Scifi Channel is using new Battlestar Galactica content to prop up its new failing series Flash Gordon tonight. They'll be showing original two-minute long clips they are calling "flashbacks" that show parts of the first war against the Cylons from the perspective of a young William Adama. Scifi is calling these shorts by the name "Razor Flashbacks", which is deceptive since they have absolutely nothing to do with the made-for-tv movie of the same name ("Razor") that will air in late November.I'll have to see if someone does a writeup on what happens, because I am not suffering through Flash just to see these. That show is worse than the latter years of Andromeda.Flash Gordon airs on Friday nights... Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon Today's Baseball Playoff Games on TV A little late to the game myself but here is a list of the games being played on TBS today, including the first one which is already underway. Virtually every single game in the first round are being aired on TBS this year, with one from each series I believe airing on TNT, but not until later into the week. All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT.)Colorado Rockies @ Philadelphia Phillies (3pm)Jeff Francis (17-9, 4.22) vs Cole Hamels (15-5, 3.39) in Game 1.Los Angeles Angels @ Boston Red Sox (6:30pm)Josh Beckett (20-7, 3.27) vs John Lackey (19-9, 3.01) in Game 1.Chicago Cubs @ Arizona Diamondbacks (10pm)Brandon Webb (18-10, 3.01) vs Carlos Zambrano (18-13, 3.86) in Game 1.Boston and Anaheim... Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Angels, Philadelphia Phillies Tonight's Premiers: Cavemen, Carpoolers Yeah, not much in the way of new series debuting tonight and out of these two, one is guaranteed to blow chunks. Can you guess which one it is? I'll give you a hint: it's the show that starts with the letter 'C'.8PM EDTCavemen (ABC)8:30CarpoolersAnyone want to take bets on which one gets canceled first? You may just want to watch House instead, and get ready for the coming preemptions since the MLB playoffs are getting ready to roll.All the division series will be on TBS (and one or two on TNT) but then Fox will pick it up at some point and you'll just have to deal. Sorry, not like it happens all year long.... Carpoolers, Cavemen Streaming and Download Links: Heroes, Chuck, Bionic Woman, The Office, Friday Night Lights Links to watch The Office, Heroes, Friday Night Lights, House, 30 Rock, Chuck, and other FOX and NBC shows streaming for free (and legal too.) Bionic Woman, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, The Office Heroes: Lizards Was it good? Yes. Better than the premier? Perhaps. Are there developing problems? Definitely. Will they stop you from watching? Hell no.I love this show but I'm still struggling here. I know some people didn't care for the first season finale, but it left me in a state that few shows ever do (in a good way) and it's hard to come back down from that to enjoy the next marathon. Everything I felt from the premier was familiar just now, it was thrilling and disappointing and I can easily explain why without giving anything away if you haven't seen it yet.... Heroes Tonight's Premiers: Everybody Hates Chris, Aliens in America, Girlfriends, The Game It's an all-CW premier night from 8PM through 10 with four half-hour shows that sound exceptionally unexceptional, perhaps with the exception of Aliens in America. Unfortunately for The CW, they picked the worst night to put these shows on and is it any wonder that nobody watches their network?I don't mean that in an insulting way, just look and what they are up against on the big four tonight: Prison Break, Heroes, K-Ville (which I'm really starting to like which means it will be canceled by Fox in exactly 1.5 seconds), Journeyman, and ESPN has the Patriots playing the Bengals at home.Like I said, worst night ever to put your premiers when you are already deep in the hole by... Aliens in America, Everybody Hates Chris, Girlfriends, The Game Tonight's Premiers: Dexter, Desperate Housewives, more.. Premier week is behind us but there are still new shows yet to do their thing. There are five tonight, four on Monday, two on Tuesday, the almighty Pushing Daisies on Wednesday, and more stuff later in the week. If you haven't checked out Stargate Atlantis yet, you're missing some fantastic science fiction. They had their best season premier thus far and it looks to get better as the week rolls on.Don't forget though, amongst all these new shows, we're rolling into some second episodes here. Heroes baby!Click through to see tonights schedule...... American Dad, Brotherhood, Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, Extreme Makeover Stargate Atlantis Season 4 Drifts Home Tonight It doesn't seem like three months has passed since the season 3 finale of Stargate Atlantis, if anything it feels like half a year. Although the dynamic due of SG-1 and Atlantis won't be gracing the airwaves anymore (for those unaware, SG-1 was sadly canceled after 10 seasons) the junior series is still getting its game on, and tonight is the night my friends.Firstly, Atlantis is moving back to its original time slot from before Battlestar Galactica started sucking up all the available money (first it cost us SG-1, now word is they are going to split it into 2, 10 episode seasons because of the enormous cost.)I love BSG but if it really is costing that much, somebody isn't... Amanda Tapping, David Hewlett, Scifi Channel, Stargate Atlantis Tonight's Premiers: Stargate Atlantis, Moonlight, Numb3rs, Ghost Wisperer, Las Vegas Oh thank God, this is the last day of premier week since there's nothing new on Saturday and technically Sunday is the beginning of the week. There's just one new show but five returning (or more if I tracked all of cable) this evening. I'm tired of making up stuff to say in these intros so...here, enjoy it and shut up.8PM EDTGhost Whisperer (CBS)9PMMoonlight (CBS)Las Vegas (NBC)10PMNumb3rs (CBS)Stargate Atlantis (Scifi)Blah blah, enjoy, blah blah.... Ghost Wisperer, Las Vegas, Moonlight, Numb3rs, Stargate Atlantis Watch the Heroes Season 2 Premier 'Four Months Later' Streaming Now Heroes season 2 streaming on NBC and Hulu.com. Four Months Later, Heroes, Streaming Video Heroes: Four Months Later Thus begins volume two of Heroes, and along with a couple of million of other bloggers, I'll lay out my thoughts on where we've found ourselves - very much far from home. If you haven't seen this yet, don't click through. I had a few gripes and not a great deal of praise, but there is only so much you can accomplish in a one-hour season premier (maybe other shows should learn from 24 about two-hour premiers) and the build-up to all of this surely exceeded anything the producers of the show are capable of.That's not to say that it wasn't good, just that with all the hype and high expectations, whether we admit it or not, we expected the... Heroes 'Weeds' exec-prod Unprofessional, Grossly Irresponsible Far be it from me to lecture people about piracy, given my own spotty past (I'm reformed), but this is totally unacceptable behavior from an executive producer and must be strongly condemned. According to TV Squad, Weeds EP Jenji Kohan either in a meltdown of common sense or in an act of utter stupidity that will not be winning any fans amongst her own staff anytime soon, openly wished for her series to be pirated on file sharing networks moreso than it already is.... Piracy, Weeds 'Jericho' Season 2 Bits (updated) Date announced for Jericho Season 2 Premier...Note: If you've come here looking for info on the second season of Jericho, you may find these other posts interesting: CBS Entertainment Prez Talks 'Jericho', Stephen King Digs Jericho, Jericho on DVD, Turteltaub on Jericho, Jericho Season 2 Spoilers, CBS Has Message for 'Jericho' Fans, and Jericho Season 2 Preview from IGN.I'm going to start right off with this from TV.com:Jericho fans know the deal: If the show does not get enough viewers, it will be canceled. If the attendance at the CBS program's panel at Comic-Con this year is any indication, there is a bit of work to do.At this point I have got to point out that Jericho has already been... DVD, Feature, Jericho |
