Telefizzled w.7

My Own Worst Enemy Edition

Another one bites the dust… and it wasn’t even on last week, which is why it bites the dust. You have a week layoff to start its season and I lose interest. I still don’t understand why NBC chose to not show any new shows the night before the election, but they did, so while I will continue to watch Chuck until it is cancelled, I won’t say the same for Enemy.

With this one now out, I am no longer watching anything new this season and 30 Rock is already on the bubble after two episodes. Can Aniston and Martin save it? Unlikely.

Chuck: Oh, that’s right… NBC shows this and it wasn’t on. Grr…

Big Bang: A geeky grad student takes a liking to Sheldon. Hilarity ensues. (I kid, I kid.) It was funny to see how they’d handle this kind of situation and it came off pretty much like you’d expect, except it didn’t seem the girl was into him outside of his brain, so no situation where we’d see what happens when he is presented with the option of s3x.

HIMYM: The let’s avoid Stella episode. It was another lame one. Maybe this one is on the bubble too.

Sma... Continue reading »

Friday Night Lights

The Best Show I Am Not Now Watching!

Back in October, Ed posted about FNL at The Ed Zone. It was a call to arms that everyone watch one of the best shows on television that, unfortunately, not enough people watch. It is one of those shows with a lot of critical praise, but low viewership. Yup… almost assured cancellation or non-renewal at the hands of some idiot network exec. (See Arrested Development, Veronica Mars.)

I’m sure the heat could be on again this Spring to renew the show, but then, the WGA strike has thrown the proverbial monkey in the wrench with respect to next year’s schedule. It is my belief that NBC will do the right thing and renew the show for at least half a season next year. (They aren’t being as kind to Las Vegas so far though.)

So, to do my part, I have started watching again. Yup, it started accidentally with me catching the last two episodes (shown to date) from this year as I happened to be visiting Noelle on both those Friday nights. She, like her brother, is a rabid fan of the show. In fact, I dare say she loves it more than him. In any case, she’s bummed to have to wait for post WGA strike filmed show... Continue reading »

Angry Alec

I’m sorry that Alec Baldwin went off on his daughter via voice-mail and it was subsequently leaked to the press… but, why does it have to mean an end to his wonderful stint on NBC’s recently renewed 30 Rock? For all we know, he already wanted out before this happened, but if it helped nudge him, then that sux.

I watch the show for his performance alone — I am willing to bet so don’t a lot of other folks — so does NBC keep him locked knowing that fact, thus leading to bad shows, or let him out and try to replace him? When has that ever worked? If he’s out, NBC would be better off reneging on the deal.

UPDATE: A comment is brewing from me, but I figured I’d post a follow up that E! has posted about Baldwin’s appearance on The View and some stuff that Dr. Phil guy had to say on the matter…

Tellyman returns

Not really, no.

Well, not in so much a way as before?

Ah, who cares, it is just a post about some televisionic observations I have had of late (and maybe later…).

So, I was watching Heroes last night, which has been so very good the past three epsiodes, and NBC is running ads for their newest show sure to fail, Raines. Now, was the pitch for this show something along the lines of “let’s put Medium, Tru Calling and The Ghost Whisperer in the blender and sprinkle with a little bit of Monk… oh, and we’ll get Jeff Goldblum!” Really?

Anyone else watching The Black Donnelly’s? I feel compelled to watch, you know, as an Irishman… yeah. Well, if you are, do we really need Joey Ice Cream as a narrator? The sudden insertion of himself into a scene, with subsequent character reaction, is unnecessary and seems forced as a way to try and distinguish the storytelling as unique or different. The story being told does the job just fine… which is to say, mediocre at best. Not sure this one is going to fair much better than Studio 60.

Speaking of which, I’ll be sorry to see Studio 60 go. It was good enough t... Continue reading »

Pam v Karen

Picked up a link in the boston.com Viewer Discretion blog tonight. I don’t normally read that, but I clicked on a lead-in link about NBC in-show ads which I complained about in my last Office post.

Anyway, you can buy a shirt for the camp you fall into; Team Karen or Team Pam. Not sure the waste of money is worth it, but if you are so inclined, here’s a direct link.

Unlike the blogger, I’m on Team Karen right now. Jim might as well “totally hit that” now, while he can, because we know she’ll be gone eventually, and then have Pam later…

Happy Halloween

Nothing like posting a Happy Halloween post about an hour before the day is over, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. If I wasn’t a major sleepaholic or I was a major slacker at work, I could have either gotten up earlier this morning and posted or posted while at work, but since I am and I am not, you get this now.

Makes perfect sense, right? You better read that again…

Anyway, I wanted to post a photo of my Halloween costume this year because I was so happy to have had one in a while. Okay, so that is a lie. You can see my last one from 2003, which is or isn’t a while, over on Ed’s blog (he was Tom Hanks from Castaway again, which is still a kick ass costume three years later). I don’t know if I can consider me as Affleck a costume since he seems indicate I dressed as myself, but whatever.

This year, I was J.D. from Scrubs… okay, so I was a doctor with scrubs on, and that is easy, but I made up a badge with a picture of Zach Braff and the name and all that and since my hair hasn’t been cut in a couple months, I was able to push it up a bit like him (unfortunately if flattened out fairly early as I don&... Continue reading »

Heroes: Collision

Since this is two weeks in a row, maybe I should just plan on getting this out on Wednesday night and if I should have it done on Tuesday night, bonus for you. Before I jump in to my thoughts on the episode, make sure you check out this week’s mini-comic, from which the image above is borrowed. I happened to accidentally click on the first panel and lo and behold, a Claire Bennet MySpace page loads up. Has Google bought it yet?

I have watched this episode twice and it turns out I didn’t really need to do it, but it was still enjoyable the second time around. Speaking of which, and this is the last aside, they are running three episodes this Sunday (10/22) starting at 8pm. Looks like they’ll start with episode 2 instead of the Pilot, but if you missed any of them, check it out. Looks like they are also repeating the current epsiode on Sci-Fi channel too, so if you miss one on a Monday night, you can probably catch it later in the week there.

Okay, so the reason I say I didn’t need to watch again was because there wasn’t much that needed extra scrutiny. The only new symbol I picked up was probably obvious to anyone who watched Nik... Continue reading »

Tellyman: Week Two

So, continuing a new theme of talking about shows on the telly every week, this is week two. In case you don’t get it, my title this week and last is trying to play on the Batman: Year One and Year Two comic stories. I’m not Tellyman and I don’t know who is. Maybe he has utility belt, but not a slightly-too-young-sidekick.

Yeah, I know…

I don’t know how much longer I will really keep this up, but I at least planned on doing it for the first three weeks since debuts are spread out over that time. Anyway, here’s what I think of week two…

This past week saw the series debut of Heroes and season premiere of Smallville, so I guess an extra dose of comic book type viewing. The image above is from a web comic on the nbc.com site to promote Heroes. The book is penciled by Michael Turner and Koi Turnbull of Aspen Comics, so it is good stuff. The first part mostly follows Mohinder Suresh and fills in a few little tidbits we didn’t get in the show. If you are already a fan, I suggest you check it out. There’s also a blog written by Hiro.

If you didn’t check out the first episode, you should do so on-line an... Continue reading »

Bucked by Zebras

I know this is probably a day or two late, but I got caught up in watching the telly on Monday night and I just wasn’t up for posting immediately upon returning home from the game on Sunday night. The good news is this is just a short post. The bad news is the Pats lost the game, but you already knew that.

That there picture was taken by my shiny new Motorola Razr. Yup, that’s the highest setting and resolution, resized down and trimmed to fit here. Looks like crap, no? Well, that’s because it is. I wonder why they even bother with the cameras in the phones. They all suck. My old phone took slightly more crappy photos than this one (remember the shot of the grackle?). I understand that distance shots won’t be great, but c’mon, that is some bad stuff. I guess it will take a couple more years. Not the point though…

I guess the real good news was the rain stopped by game time. We did wait in excessive traffic, but that’s because the lots filled up earlier than usual with it being a Sunday night game. Yup, it was a tent city in those lots. Tons of those white pop tents, which go for $120 or so. Thankfully, I don’t need to... Continue reading »

The Office: The Accountants

The first three webisodes for The Office are on-line at nbc.com.

For the most part, the first three are very weak. Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) is the only one that stands out, but that’s probably just because of the group that is involved, he’s the only one I like. I suppose the third one with Meredith (Kate Flannery) is okay, but just because she’s a drunk and who doesn’t love a drunk!

Honestly though, The FedEx Kinkos commercial that precedes each episode is better… so far. Considering I knew it would be the secondary players ahead of time, I probably shouldn’t be disappointed, but I guess I had higher hopes that they’d shine when given the spotlight.

New episode each Thursday, so let’s hope they get better.