As I settled in Tuesday night at 9 PM to watch Body of Proof on ABC, I had realistic hopes. Starring Dana Delany (Desperate Housewives) I figured that she wouldn't have signed on to just any show and that she had some sort of standards about the type of work she took on.

I was wrong.

Body of Proof felt, in the first five minutes, like a poorly crafted ripoff of FOX's Bones. The biggest difference is that Bones has likable characters and good writing. For a show centering around death and an excessively bitchy medical examiner who seems to almost loathe her job (aren't we in the era of just being happy to have a job?) the settings seemed to bright and sterile. Maybe I've been spoiled by the spot-on scenery from FOX's Bones but not even the mildly MILFy Dana Delany could save this tepid hour.

ABC obviously has little faith in it based on its late March premiere. If it were even half way decent it would have made the schedule in January and let's face it, ABC has plenty of openings on its schedule but they instead opted to give dead on arrival series like Detroit-187 and No Ordinary Family nearly full seasons and held on to this for when few would be watching it.

Unfortunately, the ratings of the first episode tell a different story. Approximately 14 million people stuck around after two hours of Dancing with the Stars to watch ABC's latest bomb. I don't know the true explanation for people accepting poorly crafted entertainment but maybe millions of people lost their remotes or maybe they simply fell asleep (I know I dozed off for five minutes of Proof, maybe I missed the good part). The true test for Body of Proof comes Sunday with a special airing of the show before it again settles in to its Tuesday, 9 PM C/T timeslot. Check it out if you hate your eyes but I recommend doing something better with your time like filling your eyes with broken glass.

Posted in Labels: ABC, drama, MILF, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 31, 2011  

In case you're still obsessed, some thirty years later, about the modern day royal wedding happening a mere month away, worry not. Americans can obsess over the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton with 20 hours of combined coverage spread over NBC, MSNBC, E! and a few other cable nets nobody really gives a damn about.

The real question, though, is whether people do actually care about this royal wedding? The previous royal wedding was big news because it was the first of its kind due to it being televised and the soon-to-be Princess Diana being a virtual nobody and coming from nothing. She used her fame, though, for good and made a lasting legacy with her charity work.

The whole Kate Middleton thing seems different. Oh, sure, she's easy on the eyes but she's already at least somewhat famous and seems to be just a lesser version of our American fame whores -- the difference being that she has an accent which makes being a fame whore a bit classier.

I can wish until I'm blue in the face but I already know that people will obsess over  the Prince William/Kate Middleton nuptials just like any other wedding but do we need it to be televised? Hasn't Prince Charles done enough to sully the mystique of the British royal family to the point that we don't/shouldn't care any longer? Maybe we've finally moved on because we sure seem to be able to obsess plenty over stateside nobodies like Lindsay Lohan and her drug addiction/shoplifting habit and Charlie Sheen generally being a walking corpse who survives on a constant flow of porn star sex and cocaine.

Posted in Labels: British, celebrities, TV 2 comments Posted by Sornie at Monday, March 28, 2011  

Not only is Fringe, one of my favorite dramas on television, coming back for a ratehr unexpected fourth season to FOX this fall, it's doing so with a new character. Emily Meade, who was most recently on HBO's The Wire, will play a rookie FBI agent on the sci-fi drama in the show's season finale this May in what will likely be a recurring role.

The big one-two punch of a new possible lead character for Fringe coupled with the show getting a full fourth season order is surprising. Fringe has never been much in the way of a ratings blockbuster. It's been shuffled around the schedule by FOX and recently landed in the 8 PM C/T Friday night time slot. That's faily hideous treatment for a well produced drama that seems to be a dying breed on network television.

With police and medical procedurals being the norm, I didn't think that a lowly rated sci-fi drama about strange happenings and an alternate universe much like our own had a chance. With TV viewers far more interested in watching average schmucks be jackasses (Jersey Shore) and glorified karaoke contests like American Idol bringing in huge ratings and advertising dollars, I was beginning to doubt whether quality television which requires you to pay attention and think -- opening your mind to things that might possibly be real somewher ein the future -- had a place on the airwaves.

FOX has proven me wrong today. Let's hope that they follow through with the full season (22 episodes) in 2011-2012

Posted in Labels: drama, FOX, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Friday, March 25, 2011  

Believe it or not, I try not to pass judgment on TV shows before they hit the air but sometimes there are some that just scream shit based on the treatment they receive at their network home. The Paul Reiser Show is no exception. It's been in development for well over a year and NBC has so little faith in it that they produced a mere six episodes, held the series back for months and have now given it an April 14 debut at 7:30 PM.

Alonge the vein of Larry David's HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm which the Paul Reiser Show is supposedly modeled after, Larry David has a history of being truly funny. He was the creative voice behind Seinfeld and his quirkiness shows excellently on his HBO show. Paul Reiser, on the other hand, made us all suffer through 6 or 8 seasons of Mad About You and hasn't done anything of note since that time. There's a reason he's been lying dormant for the past decade and a half. He's just not funny anymore and probably wasn't that funny during Mad About You's NBC run in the late 80s and early 90s.

During that time, cable TV didn't do much, if anything, in the way of original scripted content so the networks ruled. But after cable networks stepped up their game, the weaknesses of the networks become painfully apparent. They can't capture a mass audience anymore but still cling to that seemingly ancient identity that they are the gold standard for news and entertainment because they used to be that and by their thinking, things never change. Well, they do and in this new world, Paul Reiser has been exposed as being terribly unfunny.

Will I watch The Paul Reiser Show though? Probably. But will it be funny and capture the minds of more than the 2% of Americans who still watch NBC? Probably not.

Posted in Labels: comedy, HBO, NBC, TV 1 comments Posted by Sornie at Wednesday, March 23, 2011  

Saturday brings what is technically the third round of March Madness but to a codgery purist like me it's still just the second round and finally TruTV is out of the mix.

March 19
Noon Kentucky vs. West Virginia CBS
2:30 p.m. Florida vs. UCLA CBS
5 p.m. Morehead State vs. Richmond CBS
6 p.m. Temple vs. San Diego State TNT
7 p.m. Pitt vs. Butler TBS
7:45 p.m. BYU vs. Gonzaga CBS
8:30 p.m. Wisconsin vs. Kansas State TNT
9:30 p.m. Connecticut vs. Cincinnati TBS

Posted in Labels: basketball, CBS, NCAA, sports, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Friday, March 18, 2011  

March Madness keeps rolling and while the NCAA is calling it the second round, it's still the first round in my dark, cold soul.

March 18 (all times Eastern)
Noon Oakland vs. Texas CBS
12:30 p.m. Tennessee vs. Michigan truTV
1:30 p.m. Akron vs. Notre Dame TBS
2 p.m. Villanova vs. George Mason TNT
2:30 p.m. Memphis vs. Arizona CBS
3 p.m. Hampton vs. Duke truTV
4 p.m. Florida State vs. Texas A&M TBS
4:30 p.m. Texas-San Antonio vs. Ohio State TNT
6:45 p.m. Boston University vs. Kansas TBS
7 p.m. Long Island vs. North Carolina CBS
7:15 p.m St Peter's vs. Purdue TNT
7:15 p.m. Marquette vs. Xavier truTV
9:15 p.m. Illinois vs. UNLV TBS
9:30 p.m. Georgia vs. Washington CBS
9:45 p.m. Virginia Commonwealth vs. Georgetown TNT
9:55 p.m. Indiana State vs. Syracuse truTV

Posted in Labels: CBS, NCAA, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Friday, March 18, 2011  

For the most part, the cast of NBC's newest Thursday night comedy, Perfect Couples is a talented bunch. It's the writing, directing and behind-the-scenes folks who are dicking up what could otherwise, with a few changes, be a decent comedy and help to drag NBC out of their deep gutter.

My first gripe has to do with Olivia Munn. I, along with plenty of Americans, find her grating. She's not funny and couldn't utter a funny line if someone was holding a gun to her head. She is a cinder block around the ankle of the show. Oh, sure, some people think she's hilarious because she's easy to look at. We get it, she has boobs, hell, 50% of the world's population has boobs but that doesn't mean I want to see them all once a week or that they are funny people. I don't like her and apparently millions of Americans don't like her (or the series as a whole) either because a number just above nobody is watching Perfect Couples each week. It's a shame too because if you're watching a show purely based on boobs you've A.) a very sad and shallow person and B.) clearly ignoring other, far more appealing female cast member of the show.

Take, for instance, Christine Woods (I couldn't tell you her character's name but she plays the wife from the normal couple). She does her best to work with the dog shit lines and terrible directing that plague this show. She's also easy as hell on the eyes. In fact I'm probably going to hang a poster of her on the back of my bedroom door this weekend. (I'm kidding?) While she was anything but stellar in her role as a lesbian FBI officer in last year's God-awful Flash Forward on ABC, she's clearly far better suited for comedic roles. She seems to play her role at a higher level than the rest of the cast and excels -- I would actually bill her as the true star of this seemingly cobbled-together cast.

If you're still in it purely for the eye candy factor, there's the third female cast memeber, Mary Elizabeth Ellis (the female half of the crazy couple). She's probably better known for her role as "The Waitress" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX but she brings at least a serviceable amount of crazy to her Perfect Couples role. She's also easy on the eyes but not quite to the level of Christine Woods. In the crazy department, too, she is one-upped by her fiance's character, played by David Walton. Hell, he even has scruffy facial hair and generally messed up hair to add to his level of crazy in the show. As much as I wanted not to laugh at this show from its pilot episode, I've now found myself laughing at his antics as well as those of Christine Woods and her husband, played by Kyle Bornheimer (from the failed CBS comedy Worst Week). While I know, almost for certain, that this show will get the ax at the end of this season, I almost feel that it kind of deserves a second look and a second season. There are worse shows out there.

Posted in Labels: comedy, NBC, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 17, 2011  

Oh, sure. The NCAA's March Madness starts today but with four networks slicing up coverage of the games, who actually knows what game is playing when and on which network? Behold: Thursday's March Madness TV schedule. (All times Eastern)

AFTERNOON GAMES

12:15: West Virginia vs. Clemson (CBS)

12:40: Butler vs. Old Dominion (truTV)

1:40: Louisville vs. Morehead State (TBS)

2:10: Temple vs. Penn State (TNT)

2:45: Kentucky vs. Princeton (CBS)

3:10: Pittsburgh vs. UNC Asheville (truTV)

4:10: Vanderbilt vs. Richmond (TBS)

4:40: San Diego State vs. Northern Colorado (TNT)

EVENING GAMES

6:50: Florida vs. UC Santa Barbara (TBS)

7:15: BYU vs. Wofford (CBS)

7:20: Connecticut vs. Bucknell (TNT)

7:27: Wisconsin vs. Belmont (truTV)

9:20: UCLA vs. Michigan State (TBS)

9:45: St. John’s vs. Gonzaga (CBS)

9:50: Cincinnati vs. Missouri (TNT)

9:57: Kansas State vs. Utah State (truTV)

Posted in Labels: basketball, college, NCAA, sports, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 17, 2011  

I've never been a Netflix customer but their announcement today that they're in talks to distribute an original series starring Kevin Spacey has me intrigued. Would a company whose business model centers around sending DVDs and now streams of movies and TV series produced by others to customers move into producing their own content? It seems at least possible but maybe Netflix is thinking about some other form of distribution. Would they branch out and begin producing original content, while holding the license to eventually distribute it themselves under their subscription rental model, to syndicate it for broadcast on a traditional TV network or cable channel?

It's an interesting development but in the end I doubt that people would actually want to watch a series starring Kevin Spacey given his less than impressive roles on the big screen.

Posted in Labels: Netflix, technology, TV 1 comments Posted by Sornie at Wednesday, March 16, 2011  

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and when it comes to the topic of gambling and whether casinos in Minnesota should be a tribal-only affair or if private or state ownership should be allowed it seems that everyone does have an opinion on the matter.

When I saw that a "Staff Council" (spokesperson) from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community had written a response to a story appearing in some southwest metro newspapers, I kind of knew what to expect. I figured that the stance would be "Where's the SMSC side of the argument?" "That story was very anti-tribal." "We don't have a monopoly in the casino business." Blah, blah, blah.

Of course the SMSC spokesperson is going to be against any additional casinos in the state. They are, by a long shot, the richest tribe in the country. Chalk it up to proximity to the 16th largest metro area in the country and you can see why. With a population base of nearly 3 million within a hour's drive, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community has built a damn empire on Scott County Highway 83. With their original convenience store, another purchased from Kwik Trip, their organic foods market (Mazopiya) a health clinic for their tribal residents, a fire department that serves their community as well as surrounding areas their high-rise hotel and two casinos (Mystic Lake & Little Six); their reservation -- to me at least -- qualifies as an empire, at least when compared to the businesses and wealth held by other Native American tribes around the country. But it seems that the SMSC is still not happy with the Native American monopoly on casino gambling in Minnesota and remains staunchly opposed to any expansions by other businesses.

The story is full of the same misleading messages used for many years now by the Canterbury shill machine. First, the addition of slot machines at Canterbury is a qualitative expansion of gambling. It would dramatically alter the make-up of who provides what types of games. Simply ask the question: how would Canterbury feel if the SMSC commenced operations of numerous poker rooms and pari-mutuel horse racing at Mystic Lake Casino?

I'm guessing that Canterbury Park would find a way to co-exist. They have managed to carve out their own niche even just two miles away from the state's largest casino. Yes, they added their card room to become a true year-around destination and while I'm sure they wouldn't be overly joyous if Mystic Lake Casino opened a card room of their own, they probably wouldn't cry foul like SMSC spokespersons who feel that their gambling monopoly is justified.

Second, the tribal governments do not have a “monopoly” on gaming in Minnesota. The gaming market is already divided in a way that brings revenue to the various operators. Canterbury has horse racing and a multitude of card games. The state government operates a diverse array of lottery games. The charities and bars sell pull tabs and can offer poker. Bingo halls are easy to locate throughout the state. And the tribal governments operate video slots and blackjack pursuant to the tribal-state compacts. There are plenty of gambling options in Minnesota today. No one has a monopoly on gaming.

Correct. To a point. Nobody has a monopoly on "gaming" in Minnesota. Gaming is a rather broad term. However, Native American tribes do have a monopoly on Casino-style gambling in Minnesota. None of the state's dozen or so casinos are owned by any other group than Native American tribes. While casino ownership lifted many tribes out of deep poverty and they have repaid their neighbors by funding infrastructure improvements, donated funds to worthy causes and improved their own fortunes (no pun intended) they have also done so due to their monopoly on Casino-style gambling. Nowhere else, outside of tribal-owned casinos will you find slot machines, keno, roulette or high stakes bingo. WHen something isn't available elsewhere, that comes off as a monopoly to me.

The tribal spokesperson also goes on to tout job loss at the casino that keeps him employed.

For every job created at a racino, there will be at least four or five jobs killed at a tribal facility.

That tells me that, unlike privately run businesses, tribal casinos are vastly overstaffed. I understand why, too. Mystic Lake Casino is practically overflowing with cash. To not be overstaffed would put the profits they make front and center. It all boils down to competition. Would Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake close its doors if Canterbury Park in Shakopee installed a few dozen slot machines? No. Would they have to try harder to pull potential customers a couple miles further down the road? Maybe. But Mystic Lake Casino has them beat hands down with the fact that they have a plush concert hall, bingo halls, huge prizes and giveaways, an attached hotel, three or four restaurants of different styles and a world-class golf course as well. If SMSC is so overly concerned about their future, why don't they do a show of good will and get in on the stadium game because even though William J. Hardacker mentions how little gambling revenues will do to balance the state's vast budget deficit, the big push for additional casinos in the state boils down to getting a Vikings stadium built.

Just think what kind of good will that the SMSC could display if they partially funded a Vikings stadium? Think how well they'd make out if they built, owned and operated a stadium? If they want to protect their slot machine (really, that's what their argument boils down to) monopoly then they need to play ball with the needs of the Twin Cities and Minnesota in general.

Posted in Labels: gambling, money, Shakopee, Vikings 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Tuesday, March 15, 2011  

March Madness is something akin to watching the birth of a unicorn. It's magical. It's priceless. Except for the fact that it heppens every year it's just like a unicorn's birth. Watching that unicorn taking its first breath is like watching a 15 seed eek out a victory against the second seeded team in the first round. The coverage turns from what should have been the most compelling game to the little game nobody cared about. 15 seed Western Podunk A&M Tech is beating Duke and it's magical. This is the kind of thing that gets remembered. Except that this year that game won't be on the national stage.

Chances are that the 2-15 game in the first round will land on Tru TV. For the previous 116 years, NCAA March Madness has been televised on CBS. The games all shared some time as during lulls in the game you were seeing you'd be treated to live look-ins of other games taking place from other regions around the country. Well, the NCAA, in the name of greed, has gone and fucked that up. No longer does CBS broadcast each and every game -- now TNT, TBS and Tru TV have a piece of the pie. A piece of the pie that CBS should rightfully have. It would be like the Super Bowl being held in May. It would be like moving Christmas to the third Friday in March. It's just wrong.

The 64 team field is even a thing of the past. Oh, sure, for the past few years there has been a play-in game between two teams that nobody gave a shit about to secure the 16th seed in one region but in all of the NCAA's wisdom, they felt the need to expand upon that and create a sort of warm-up round prior to the Madness. The First Four now features FOUR play-in games where eight teams nobody gives a damn about will scramble for the chance to get their asses handed to them by teams from schools people have actually heard of. So tuen in the Tru TV Tuesday and Wednesday night starting at 5:30 PM CT to see Kibbles & Bits Polytechnic, Jerry Fallwell University of Hatespeech and six other schools duke it out on a cable channel that most people don't even know where to find on their TVs.

Way to go NCAA. You went and fucked up what was already too much of a good thing with too much more of a bad thing. You are dead to me March Madness.

Sure, I'm still playing five March Madness brackets but that just how hypocrisy works.

Posted in Labels: basketball, CBS, college, NCAA, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Monday, March 14, 2011  

FOX has postponed their sci-fi drama epic "Terra Nova" ... again. Originally scheduled to premiere right about this time of year, it was then moved to premiere after the American Idol finale this spring it has now moved to a fall 2011 premiere. While it's been hyped beyond belief I have my doubts now if it will ever make it to the air and if it does I can see it lasting just a hair longer than "Lonestar" did during the fall 2010 season (2 episodes).

Greedy NFL owners have locked out overpaid NFL players. It happened just after the late local news on Friday night which means that nobody actually found out until this morning anyway. Way to bury a huge story about the country's most successful business possibly losing the 2011 season.

There's still hope that new TV shows can be good. Check out "Nick's Big Show" and then imagine the main character in a possible new NBC sitcom this fall entitled "I Hate That I Love You".

Posted in Labels: FOX, NBC, NFL, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Monday, March 14, 2011  

I wouldn't normally ever consider watching 20/20. It's not because I'm too cool to watch a network news magazine show. It's not even that I'm out of the house on a Friday night (because I'm basically an elderly shut-in). It's just that afSavedter enduring Friday nights where the only option was 20/20 growing up, I have a dislike for the program -- much like my wife's dislike of pancakes.

But this Friday's episode of 20/20 (9 PM Central on KSTP-Channel 5/ABC) just may be intriguing enough to consider watching. It's all about the phenomenon of reality television. According to the ABC Press Release, they'll be taking a look at the thing that most maddens me -- people who are famous for no other reason than being famous. The people like Richard Hatch (Survivor), Kate Gosselin, The Kardashians and others. Also featured will be the perfectly nauseating ladies from Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise. Having never watched it but heard discussions about it, they are all a bunch of spoiled, bitchy, possibly whorish housewives who drink a lot and live overly privileged lives.

In short, they fit the bill for being famous for no other reason than being famous. And their fame is only due to Bravo (and other cable channels) rolling out original but (supposedly) unscripted series featuring the supposedly average lives of nobodies. Basically, we have the cable channels to blame for a whole new breed of fame -- those who have done nothing, outside of living their mundane lives, to become famous.

Let's all blame cable and get back to watching these worthless, vapid souls being exposed on ABC's 20/20.

Posted in Labels: ABC, celebrities, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

Much has been made in the past decade about High-Definition (HD) broadcasting. It was touted as the biggest advancement in television since color TV. I remember first seeing a High-Definition broadcast during some incarnation of the Winter Olympics as I wandered through the Rochester, MN Best Buy store. I am fairly certain that the local NBC affiliate, KTTC, wasn’t yet broadcasting in HD (this may have been as far back as 1998, more likely 2002) but they had a handful of many-thousand-dollar plasma televisions showing the most kick-ass picture that I had ever seen on a TV. I know it was a hockey game being broadcast but beyond that I can’t remember anything else.

Fast forward about a decade and I actually own two HD sets. But I still only receive a handful of channels -- mainly the local Twin Cities signals - in High-Def. This is one part my own frugality (I refuse to pay an additional $7.95/month for a box from Mediacom which forces me to use their shitty remote and make room for a clunky, ass-ugly box) and another part the fault of the companies broadcasting the very content we watch. The first local affiliate I received was KARE-11. KSTP, FOX 9 and WCCO followed within a year but then things stopped. It took another year of so before Mediacom Cable started re-transmitting High-Def signals for KPXM (Ion) and WFTC just arrived on my TVs a few months ago along with WGN. I’m still holding out for KSTC (45) and that’s where the story really begins.

KSTC-45 has the rights to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota State High School League playoff games and the Minnesota Wild. While I haven’t caught either an NBA or NHL game on KSTC I did pass by and watch a few seconds of a high school hockey state playoff game last night. To put it bluntly it looked like shit.

The picture was best described as muddy and grainy, the audio sounded like it was first being passed through a bucket of thick Mississippi River mud and I could barely read the scores in the graphics bar at the top of the screen. And to top it all off, it was still being broadcast in standard definition (the old not-widescreen 4:3 aspect ratio).

Why, in 2011, are any sports being shown not in full widescreen high definition? I am not sure if this is an issue with the broadcast equipment being used by the folks producing the high school games for KSTC or if the fault lies with KSTC themselves.

I do know that a huge amount of responsibility lies with Mediacom, my cable television provider, for not granting its customers access to the last broadcast television station in the Twin Cities not available in high definition. The other gripe about the lack of high definition broadcasts lies, again, with cable providers. They are viewing the advent of high definition not as a way to provide a better experience to their viewers but instead as yet another way to profit. Why should I, as a customer, pay any additional money per month for what is essentially a duplication of services? Both of my televisions, equipped with internal QAM tuners, receive unencrypted HD signals. The logical thing for cable providers to do is send those HD signals from all subscribed packages to customers’ televisions unencrypted. They already do this with the shitty analog version of every channel I subscribe to, I just want the digital (and HD) version in the same way. My television (and every decent TV sold in recent years) supports this and it would remove a huge burden from the cable companies. They would no longer have to supply clunky Motorola cable boxes to receive the signal. Things could go back to a simple plug and play format -- the way they were meant to be. Even new TVs still have a co-ax input so it’s a logical process.

And if Mediacom -- and other cable providers -- would just loosen the reigns a bit they’d have happier customers instead of angry people like me who just want to watch some Minnesota Wild playoff games in full widescreen high definition.

Posted in Labels: cable, hockey, sports, TV, Twin Cities 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

The shortest possible answer about what the best new show this season is simple: nothing. Every new program (launched on the big 4.5 networks -- the CW is NOT a full network) launched in the 2010-11 season has been utter shit.

I pondered earlier this year during premiere week that “Mike and Molly” was a surprise. I like a good fat joke or two and even though comedies centered around a romance of any sort make me want to puke, I genuinely liked the Chicago cop character of Mike (comedian Billy Gardell). He was that underdog that made mistakes. He wasn’t a blundering idiot of any sort but his comedic timing was spot-on.

I lasted through the first three episodes of “Mike and Molly”. I grew to actually loathe Molly’s drunk mom Joyce (Swoosie Kurtz) and while Molly’s sister, Victoria (Katy Mixon) was somewhat appealing a drunken slut of sorts, both of their acts quickly wore thin.

That’s all it took. The show lacked depth. It didn’t have much in the way of an intriguing ensemble cast and the writing rapidly showed itself to be thin and lacking any need for intellectual thought. It was brainless, plug and play comedy. The jokes could likely be generated by a computer program tailored to appeal to the lowest common denominator*. If this show was the sort of shit that appeals to the masses then I’m glad to be an outsider.

If that statement makes me an elitist then so be it. This could have been a smart and funny comedy but when the fat jokes began to wear thin and the petty conflicts of Mike and Molly’s budding romance took center stage, I got out.

*Other lowest common denominator sitcoms include “Two and a Half Men” and “Rules of Engagement” -- both of which are on CBS. Coincidence?

Posted in Labels: CBS, TV 1 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

I watched, like a giddy six year-old, as the first moments of “The Event” played out on NBC last September. I had seen promos for about five months prior and knew that this show was either going to be huge or an immediate flop right out of the gate. The first episode was amazing. It felt like a half year’s worth of development had been packed in to 44 minutes of screen time. There were intriguing characters, intriguing happenings (a plane-swallowing wormhole?!?) and the promise of more to come.

Another item that gave me hope was a cast featuring relatively new faces on TV. Sure Jason Ritter (as Sean Walker) and Sarah Roemer (as Leila Buchanan) have had movie roles before but never in a straight-up starring role. The fresh faces, to me at least, allow me to more easily digest the roles these characters are portraying. I’m not remembering previous roles they had on other series and I find it easier to accept the story as a whole because I have no preconceived notions about this actors’ previous performances.

As I said, the first episode was epic. It proved that action and science-fiction still had a place in our relatively dumbed down television entertainment culture.

But then it started to go downhill. The show’s pace slowed. It got bogged down in details that seemed to matter little to the overall story. (Those fucking aliens are up to something!) Not to mention that there were plenty of elements (even for a sci-fi themed series) that were too far-fetched (and I was a die-hard “Lost” fan) to believe.

“The Event” rapidly lost its initial momentum. It’s almost like the writers had originally penned a two hour movie and now found themselves having to fill the time between parts one and two with an additional 20 hours of writing. They, not unlike me, seemed to have landed a television series without a firm plan on how to create captivating episodes to cover a season. It became obvious that the character lacked depth. The acting became almost painful and I was as close to throwing in the towel as ever. But after hanging on through most of November’s episodes I rationalized that I had committed too much time to “The Event” to give up at this point. The show eventually went on a three month hiatus and, as its return on Monday, March 7 proved, the writing staff had finally found their groove.

The action was back and the pace was fast. It was almost to the point that if you missed one scene you’d have some serious catching up to take care of. The alien story came back and sort of tied in those seemingly pointless details which seemed to be filler in previous episodes. But the rating seemed to indicate that a three month hiatus was too much for many viewers to take. “The Event” had been shedding viewers from the very first episode but when a “Spring premiere” fails to produce any sort of an increase, the writing’s on the wall.

I guess the one positive of watching a series whose cancellation seems to be a nearly sure thing is that it won’t drag on for endless seasons. Maybe that’s best for serialized dramas like “The Event”. In any case, “The Event” is back on my watch list but only because I have a lot of time invested and its end is near. If it was to drag on for even one more year I’d probably get off the couch and find a hobby.

Posted in Labels: drama, NBC, suspense, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

The first clue that the feature entitled “War of the Roses” on local Top 40 station 101.3 KDWB-FM is fake is that when a station calls someone they must inform the person they are calling that they are being recorded. That alone should tip people off that the insanity that ensues when a suspicious woman sets up her man to see who he will send a dozen roses to is entirely fabricated. But some people fail to see the truth.

It’s been discussed back and forth in the inner circles of media insiders

and media watchers but this week it all came bubbling to the surface. Gawker specifically names the faked bit as “War of the Roses”. The name is used nationally and while it’s best known here in the Twin Cities as being a weekly staple of the Dave Ryan Show on KDWB, even the over-exposed Ryan Seacrest in Los Angeles uses the bit on his morning show.

In short, the callers are provided by a company called United Stations Radio Networks (helmed by Dick Clark). The bulk of the talent used for this bit and other pot-stirring radio bits on a number of large Top 40 radio stations are actors plucked from New York City among other places across the country. They are given talking points and a basic outline but the majority is ad libbed and done so quite well.

But it doesn’t stop at staged bits to expose supposedly cheating spouses. When a ludicrous topic is posed by a morning DJ, often times a caller conveniently pops up with an equally ludicrous take on the topic. Many of those scenarios are staged by Dick Clark’s United Stations Radio Network as well. The bottom line is if it sounds too crazy to be real then it’s probably bullshit.

Now while I’m not saying that every wacky bit Dave Ryan (Kibler if you’re all for realism and truth) does on his KDWB morning show is straight up bullshit I think that this company set up by Dick Clark and Premiere Radio Networks (a company under the Clear Channel umbrella) to provide actors for radio bits and calls should be proof enough to be at least skeptical about what you hear during your favorite morning show. Just take t hings with a grain of salt and remember that radio was originally billed as theater of the mind -- not everything you hear is real.

Posted in Labels: fake, KDWB, Minneapolis, radio 4 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

Earlier this week I hinted at something new in this space. This blog have been in a near-constant state of evolution and if you’ve followed me at all in the past few years you’ll know that I am an experimenter. I’ve toyed around with a couple twists on photo blogs (one featuring my own work and another aggregating the work of others), I have another blog featuring the most ridiculous Star Tribune comments from their website, another where I share my own video playlist (another twist on aggregation). Some of my projects gain traction while others simply fail fast and are cast aside.

But this place has been around since late in 2003. That’s about three generations in internet time. I’ve gone from a diary of sorts to rambling political commentary to a focus on happenings in Minnesota to general interest sort of stuff. It’s a constantly evolving space that seems to change with my interests.

But now things are changing again. As I made a somewhat veiled post earlier this week (typing any amount of text on an iPod’s touch screen is a test of one’s patience) I considered a number of ideas but then it dawned on me -- why do something gimmicky when I could take a semi-dormant project and revive it. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or get bored again and fall back into a regularly updated series of general interest content but why not get back to some of the most fun stuff I’ve ever written for another website -- “Talkin’ ‘bout TV”

As I think back and look at the archives here, I don have some sort of sick interest in pop culture. I also watch a shit-ton of TV but quickly weed out the garbage. I feel that everyone (or every program in this case) deserves at least a first look. I’ve never played favorites (hell, I actually enjoyed the first couple seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”) but I do get hooked on a few shows and find those to be appointment television. But why stop at TV? I also pay at least somewhat close attention to our nation’s ridiculous obsession with pop culture and am genuinely intrigued by local and national media happenings. So for the time being that’s what you can expect.

So if you like what you’ve read, keep coming back. If you don’t like what you’ve read or feel uneasy about this change, keep coming back because even if you hate TV (which I sort of do), pop culture and media happenings you’re bound to find something you like. And it probably won’t be exclusively content in those three areas but for now my goal is to test the waters in those areas and see what I am capable of writing.

I'm open to catchy names so if you have any drop them in the comments. Thanks!

Posted in Labels: celebrities, media, pop culture, TV 0 comments Posted by Sornie at Thursday, March 10, 2011  

One of the rulesof blogging is to never apologize for not writing frequently. Well you won't find that here because I'm not one who apologizes.

The second rule is never admit that you have nothing interesting to say. Again, I won't say that because I always have plenty of interesting things to say. It's just that people aren't always listening.

So as I sit here watching Tosh.0 I thought I'd share my latest idea I'm thinking about trying here...

Posted in 1 comments Posted by Sornie at Tuesday, March 08, 2011