Nov 27 2008
Tuned In Journal wishes you and yours a happy turkey day. We'll return from the holiday next week. In the meantime, watch the main Post-Gazette TV page for links to these stories:
-- For this week's Tuned In Podcast, Post-Gazette columnist Tony Norman and I discuss the "24" TV movie, "Redemption," and ponder the end of "The Shield." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.
-- The annual roundup of holiday TV programs publishes Friday in Mag & Movies. Save it with your TV Week on the coffee table.
-- My annual turkeys column of broadcasting blunders runs Friday in Mag & Movies. (TV Q&A has the week off, returning Dec. 5.)
-- Sunday's TV Week includes a column on the BBC America miniseries "Britz." It's an excellent miniseries that should appeal to fans of quality TV drama.
-- Monday in Tuned In Journal I'll interview yet another Pittsburgher who's on yet another reality show.
Nov 26 2008
When FX's "Sons of Anarchy" began in September, I was cautiously optimistic that it would grow into a quality serialized drama. It certainly had a strong cast, particularly Katey Sagal as one tough mother, but what about the stories? Would the tale of a motorcyle gang have staying power?
As it rode through its first season, the answer was unequivocal: Absolutely.
Although "Sons" sometimes threatens to go down the "Shield" rabbit hole of introducing too many rival gangs (creating confusions and a lack of clarity in the process), it has done an excellent job of deepening its compelling characters and entangling them in juicy plots.
In tonight's season finale (10 p.m., FX), the aftermath of the shooting of a gang member's wife comes to the fore as conflicted son Jax (Charlie Hunnam) may be forced to take a stand against his stepfather, and club boss, Clay (Ron Perlman), and by extension, Jax's mother, Gemma (Sagal), Clay's wife. Clay ordered the shooting of Jax's best friend, Opie, whom he incorrectly thought was a snitch, but Opie's wife was murdered instead. Will Jax figure out his stepfather's role? Will Opie or his dad, Piney, figure it out?
This "Sons" season finale lays the groundwork for a possible new direction in season two (the show has already been renewed). I'm eager to go along for the ride.
***
I always try to give new shows a second chance beyond the pilot in hopes that maybe a series that seemed stillborn at first will somehow overcome its deficiencies and develop into a worthwhile show. Judging by the Thanksgiving episode of CBS's "Gary Unmarried" (8:30 tonight, KDKA), there's still a lot of room for improvement.
"Gary" remains a meh sitcom. Gary (Jay Mohr) snipes at ex-wife Allison (Paula Marshall). She razzes him back. It's like theme song from "The Simpsons" cartoon "Itchy & Scratchy": "They fight! And bite! They fight and bite and fight! Fight fight fight! Bite bite bite! The Itchy and Scratchy Show!"
In this Thanksgiving episode -- a far cry from the orphans Thanksgiving episode of "Cheers" -- Gary wants to host Thanksgiving and Allison tries to steal it away. Assorted parents, played by Jane Curtin, Martin Mull and Max Gail, complicate matters. A turkey is stolen. Food burns up. Gary's father hits on Allison's mother. Insults are hurled.
"This is nice," Gary says to his dad and Allison. "A little laughter between the man who gave me life and the woman who destroyed it."
And there are the requisite sex jokes, this time about "crabs" (one person is talking about the sea creature, another about the STD).
"Gary Unmarried" offers some modest laughs, but it's still more turkey than treat.
Nov 25 2008
FX's "The Shield" ends its run tonight with a 90-minute finale that wraps up most of the storylines and delivers a comeuppance of sorts to anti-hero Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis).
After last week's intense, maybe-even-superior penultimate episode, in which Vic negotiated immunity for himself -- but not Ronnie (David Rees Snell) -- it appeared that Vic won't be going to jail, except perhaps a hell-like prison of his own making, as I suggested in Sunday's TV Week.
Since writing that piece, I had an opportunity to watch tonight's "Shield" swan song.
In TV Week, star C.C.H. Pounder said "it's the greatest finale that you'll see anywhere" and that the finale is what "Vic Mackey deserves."
I think both points are arguable. The finale certainly fits into "The Shield" universe. It feels like the show. Writer Shawn Ryan and director Clark Johnson, who also directed the show's pilot and has a cameo in tonight's finale, succeed at crafting a 90-minute goodbye that feels fitting, right down to the song that plays over the worth-watching end credits ("...Long Time Ago" by the band Concrete Blonde).
Titled "Family Meeting," the episode includes tears, deaths, regrets, recriminations, apologies and even some hope and tenderness. Most of the characters get at least a moment -- Julien, the ambiguously gay cop whose sexuality was a major plot point early in the series, casts a lingering glance at a gay couple holding hands -- while others get much meatier scenes.
There's a requisite final showdown between Vic and Claudette Wyms (Pounder) and a tender scene of friendship and concern between Dutch (Jay Karnes, whose real-life wife, actress Julia Campbell, plays Steve Billings' lawyer) and Claudette.
But will fans be satisfied with the disposition of Vic Mackey? I can imagine varying reactions. And I'm curious to learn viewers' thoughts, so please post them below after the finale airs. To post, login (register to login here).
***
Post-Gazette columnist Tony Norman and I discuss the end of "The Shield" and the "24" TV movie in this week's Tuned In Podcast. Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.
***
If you set a VCR to record "House," be warned: The show runs until 9:08 p.m. tonight. Consequently, "Fringe" runs until 10:07 p.m.
If you use a Comcast DVR, the guide was updated last week to reflect the longer running time of both shows.
Nov 24 2008
I'm all for networks experimenting with new storytelling forms in the emerging mediums of online and on demand. Already we've seen it done well, such as the "Office" webisodes and any number of amusing FunnyOrDie.com shorts.
But no matter the medium, a coherent story is still necessary. That's a minimum requirement that FearNet's music video-like "Dark Path Chronicles" does not meet. Four-minute episodes began posting to Comcast's On Demand earlier this month, just in time to capitalize on the theatrical release of the teen vamprie drama "Twilight."
Finding them is a challenge due to the poor design of Comcast's On Demand menus. I spent five minutes looking before finding the FearNet tab under "free movies."
Written and directed by Mary Lambert ("Pet Semetary"), the episodes have little dialogue and what dialogue exists is buried under a heavy metal soundtrack. (Yes, I know that makes me sound like the elderly viewers who always complain about background music on TV being too loud, but this is the only program with which I've ever experienced this phenomenon.)
In the first episode, a blond girl looks at pictures from World War II. Elsewhere, a vampire wearing a Nazi armband claws its way out of a grave and later chomps a passing bicyclist. The vamp is of the requisite long-haired, brooding variety, perfect for wooing viewers still mourning the demise of "Moonlight."
In episode two, a priest is introduced. That's also a brunette female vamp. The blond girls begins to bleed out of her left ear. I think Lambert intends this program -- intercut, inexplicably, with images of construction cranes -- to be seductive and sexy. Instead it's largely incoherent.
Episode three features the brunette vamp sucking the blood out of a bald guy while the blond girl, still bloody, wanders the streets of an urban area and then suddenly is atop a hill, the same hill where we met the Nazi vamp.
Where is this all going? Who knows. I won't be sticking around to see what happens to any of these ciphers.
***
On the other hand, a much better breed of vampire was on display in HBO's "True Blood," which had its first-season finale last night. What did you think? Post your reactions to the season finale below by logging in (or register to login).
Nov 21 2008
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that ABC has declined to order new episodes of "Pushing Daisies," "Eli Stone" and "Dirty Sexy Money," which pretty much means they won't be back. The "Daisies" death was expected but "Eli" and "DSM" are a little more surprising. ABC does have a large roster of midseason shows, so they're probably banking on some success with those.
EW also says ABC picked up additional episodes of "Life on Mars," which moves to 10 p.m. Wednesday, following "Lost" in January. "Private Practice" moves to 10 p.m. Thursday. "Scrubs" will join the schedule at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Jan. 6.
***
Fans of CBS's "Ghost Whisperer" (8 tonight, KDKA) may be concerned about what's going to happen to Jim (David Conrad) on the series now that Jim is dead but his amnesiac soul is residing in another guy.
Executive producer P.K. Simonds offers some reassurances.
"We love David Conrad and he's going to be around for a long, long time," Simonds said on a call with TV reporters yesterday. "Jim's body is gone but there is a resolution we're heading toward. There's a very satisfactory resolution. This is a happy ending to this story."
Simonds acknowledged that the situation that's presented tonight -- Jim in Sam's body spending time with Jim's widow, Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) -- can't last forever.
"We're interested in the journey," he said. "It was always our plan to do an emotional prequel. Now we get to see what may have played out in the very beginning of their relationship."
And viewers will start to see bits of the old Jim getting through his amnesia.
"Jim is still in there somewhere even though he doesn't have access to all his life memories, those things will come back," Simonds said. "Here's a guy who has a lot of knowledge of his life on paper but none of it resides in his memories or mind. It's fun to play and creates a real dilemma for all our characters."
Conrad called the new plot an "exciting development."
"It's not the same trope we normally do, which is nice but somewhat predictable," Conrad said. "It's like a prequel. We get to date, flirt and fall back in love with one another. That's thrilling and it's at the heart of what makes them exciting, it's the chemistry."
Is this reassuring to you "Ghost Whisperer" fans or are you still ticked off at the plot developments? Post your feelings below by signing in (or register to sign in here).
Nov 20 2008
To prepare for the "24" movie "Redemption," debuting Sunday, you can read the official "CTU Operations Manual" ($24.95, Quirk Books). It's a paperback that comes packaged inside a hard cardboard box. It's basically an instruction book similar to the "Zombie Survival Guide," only it's taken from a "24" perspective.
There's a section on "Approved Firearms for CTU Agents" and a catalog of the terrorist arsenal taken from past seasons of the show. A section on interrogating suspects includes advice to invade your subject's personal space: "Americans are accustomed to 18-48 inches of 'personal space' in conversations, and reducing this space will disorient the subject."
I might find the book more amusing if "24" didn't feel so dated and out-of-step with the times. Plus, CTU won't be a part of the new season that airs in January.
Are you looking forward to the return of "24" or do you, like me, feel that it's time has passed? Login (or register to login) and post your comments below.
***
Hey "Heroes" fans: Are you still watching the show live? Well then you might want to know that the show's creator, Tim Kring, considers you a "sap" and worse. IGN had the first report and Time offers a spot-on retort. Hearing that Kring considers me a sap isn't likely to inspire me to keep watching. How about you?
***
The CW has dumped its MRC-programmed Sunday night block, according to Broadcasting & Cable. Beginning Nov. 30, The CW will show episode of the canceled CBS show "Jericho" at 7 p.m., followed by movies at 8 p.m.
Nov 20 2008
I try not to be a jealous person but after seeing some improvements to FiOS TV's on-screen menu displays and technological advances, I'm green with envy. Alas, as a City of Pittsburgh resident, FiOS TV is not yet an option for me, so I'm stuck with Comcast as my cable TV provider. (Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski said the company would love to have a license agreement with the city for FiOS TV worked out by the end of the year, but it seems more likely to come sometime in early 2009.)
But FiOS TV is oh-so-enticing. First, there's the cleaner design of the on-screen menus. Comcast's looks like they were created on a Commodore 64; FiOS TV's menus have a comparatively crisp, clean look. But it's the technological advances, rolled out in recent weeks, that really wowed me when given a tour of new FiOS TV options by Anil Guntupalli, director of systems and architecture for Verizon Data Services.
Interestingly, FiOS TV uses similar or the same Motorola cable boxes as Comcast, but the FiOS TV software is more advanced. My favorite innovation in the FiOS TV two-way interactive service is the ability to program your home DVR from the Web. So if you go out of town and forgot to set the DVR to record "30 Rock," no worries, you can log on and program the FiOS DVR remotely, a feature I believe is also available to TiVO users.
Currently in beta testing is the ability to program the DVR from three LG models of Verizon mobile phones (Chocolate, Voyager and Envy). That service will likely roll out in Pittsburgh in a few weeks. But pulling shows from your DVR to the phone isn't happening soon due to digital rights issues, although FiOS has the technological know-how to make that happen, too.
Another nifty feature: "Wait for me." FiOS customers can pause a live program on one channel, flip to another channel and then return to the initial channel, where the program remains paused.
FiOS TV's channel listings can be displayed in myriad ways, some that take up little screen space and others that take up more screen space. There are also widgets that provide links to text news articles, sports reports, horoscopes and even a real-time look at what the most popular programs are among FiOS TV users in the region at any given moment. (Simmer down, privacy advocates, the FiOS TV people say they don't store customer viewing info, just a snapshot aggregate of what channels viewers are tuned to.) There's even a beta test of a Facebook widget that can pull in friends' photo albums and status updates.
Currently, FiOS TV offers four free games (sudoku, chess, solitaire, Wordplay) that users play against the computer. As many as 20 games will be launched by late December, some of which will be for purchase as part of a subscription.
Then there's the Media Manager, which allows subscribers to watch on TV videos that are stored on their computers. Currently a link from FiOS TV to Internet videos, like those from YouTube, is in beta trials, so users will be able to search and watch YouTube from their couches. This took a little longer to load than other applications, but no more than the time it takes to get into the on demand menu on Comcast.
Next year FiOS TV plans to target more interactive advertising, social networking applications and interactive features (maybe some polls that can be pulled up while watching CNN).
One caveat: Some services aren't available on lower-end cable boxes or are more limited (two free games instead of four), but for anyone with a FiOS TV DVR and HD, there is new technology to test drive.
If you're a Verizon FiOS TV customer who's experimented with this new technology, please tell us about your experiences below. An in-home opportunity to live with this technology is going to be more telling than the demo I received. Do you like it? Am I over-selling it? Please login (or register to login) to post below.
Nov 19 2008
A new batch of "Office" webisodes debut tomorrow at NBC.com.
This batch of four, two-minute episodes, titled "The Outburst," stars series regulars Brian Baumgartner, Creed Bratton, Kate Flannery, Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nunez and Phyllis Smith.
These webisodes seem more character-driven than some past efforts and it's wonderful to see so many of the supporting players participating.
Curiously, Toby (Paul Lieberstein) also appears to be working back in the office, which is odd since the character was last seen on the TV series in a hospital and not in Scranton. Does his presence here portend Toby's return or are these episodes simply scraps from the cutting room floor before he departed at the end of last season? (According to a NBC publicist, the webisodes are slightly ahead of the TV show's storyline, so it looks like Toby is headed back to Scranton.)
"The Outburst" begins with Oscar yelling at someone on the phone. His nosey co-workers automatically think he's fighting with his partner.
"There's so much passion," Kelly (Kaling) says. "It's so romantic."
Meredith (Flanery), one of the most criminally underused "Office" players, even gets a moment to shine.
"I don't know why people are so caught upin Oscar's little tantrum," she says. "When I act up, nobody gives a damn."
Moreso than some past efforts, these "Office" webisodes should delight the show's fans.
***
After a week off, Tuned In Podcast is back with a new installment about the status of prime-time network TV. I had a recent conversation with two fellow TV critics, expressing my sadness that few shows have me really excited to see them each week, partially a result of the dismal fall season, I suspect. Post-Gazette entertainment editor Sharon Eberson and I discuss these TV disappointments, the shows we do look forward to and the new "Colbert Christmas," premiering Sunday on Comedy Centra. Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.
Nov 18 2008
Media literacy is a subject near and dear to my heart. If I wasn't writing about TV for a newspaper, I'd love to teach a course in media literacy. It's an essential part of education for all American citizens in this modern media era. People need to understand how the media works, why we see what we see on television.
The new, six-episode documentary series "IFC Media Project" (8 tonight, IFC) attempts to draw back the curtain and explain a myriad of issues surrounding modern media coverage.
Hosted by a prematurely graying Gideon Yago (pictured, left), formerly of MTV News, the program was created by Meghan O'Hara, an executive producer on Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11" and "Sicko." That gives you some idea of where the show's heart lies. And the program did bring to mind Moore's "TV Nation" even before I read the press notes to learn it has a Moore connection.
In the first two episodes sent for review, "The IFC Media Project" has a mixed track record of success. A segment called "Media Encyclopedia" is right on target in explaining the use of the word "allegedly" in news coverage ("a handy word to put in front of any statement to magically make it true") and the TV news concept of "the tease" ("use of terrifying rhetoric to scare the crap out of viewers while focusing their attention on an upcoming story").
But a piece tonight on media obsession with single, missing white girls fails to offer up much in the way of context or explanation. The focus on a bottom feeder who uses both the media and grieving families, while potentially illustrative in a larger context, isn't meaningful when he's the primary source.
A report on pro-Israel Middle East coverage is interesting but also proves to be a bigger topic that requires more time than the "The IFC Media Project" is willing to devote to it. The same for a segment tonight on TV pundits that features just one: Tucker Carlson.
An animated segment called "News Junkie" is fairly worthless and plays to the show's worst self-consciously hip tendencies.
But despite these missteps, there is gold to mine in "IFC Media Project," particularly next week's report by Jimmy Tingle about government propaganda in the Iraq War, which recaps the New York Times revelations about the Pentagon's military analysts program. That report failed to get much coverage by TV networks since they were largely complicit in the government propaganda it revealed. Better late than never that it should get a public airing now.
***
While we're on the subject of journalism, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier stopped by the Post-Gazette yesterday. She recounted her experience in Iraq and the injuries she sustained as the result of a car bomb, and what it was like for a reporter to become the story. It was a fascinating opportunity to hear an account of Iraq that's anything but simple; rather, it's filled with shades of grey.
You can hear some of Dozier's comments in this video.
Nov 17 2008
Local stations just held their first test of digital TV by turning off their analog signals for two minutes.
At my home, it worked just as it was supposed to. The little TV in my kitchen, which is not hooked to cable, displayed the message that that little TV is not ready for the digital transition. But all my other TVs, which are hooked to cable, displayed the regular local newscasts.
Stations approached the test differently. KDKA and WPXI aired reports on the DTV transition during the test. WTAE opted to stick with its sports segment with an announcement at the start and end of the digital test.
WPXI displayed a lot of text on screen, which might have thrown off some viewers, even though the lower third said "the television you are watching is ready for DTV transition." But let's remember, the people most confused by this are the ones who probably have the most difficult time seeing and hearing the TV.
Results of the digital test will be available in the coming days and I'll report on what the test reveals.
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