You remember that Law & Order: CI episode I mentioned yesterday? Here's the episode's short thread on the TWoP Forums. It contains a few inappropriately humorous comments involving confusion:
That was Ethan Embry? What happened?
he still looked like "original recipe" Ethan Embry in [Sweet Home Alabama]
Brad Renfro is police custody on both TV and in real life. He must have graduated from the Robert Downey, Jr. School of Method Acting.
any of these losers: AMPTP Dedicated To Feeding Delicious Content To Hungry Screens, from Defamer.
Also, TV Blogs Go Dark in Solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, by Liz at Glowy Box, via Defamer.
On November 13th, this blog and the blogs listed below will be on strike for the day in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. As fellow writers and as TV fans, we are coming together to express our strong support for the writers and their goals. We believe that when a writer's work makes money for a company, that writer deserves to be paid . . .
Because I'm too lazy to write my own Gossip Girl recaps:
"What's with the business formal? Are you being arraigned for something?": Gossip Girl, by Carrie at South Dakota Dark.
You can read my feelings in the comments section that follows.
"What if there was this gay serial rapist who accidentally fell in like with his best friend's girlfriend, who was kind of his best actual friend, because they were kind of rapists together, and they got together in the seamiest, creepiest way...but you were cheering them on the whole time, and kind of got teary when they sealed the deal, even though it was presented in weird '90s Nine Inch Nails jumpcuts played against weird '00s emo-punk-rock crap? Like their creepiness cancels each other out and it's kind of...sweet? Like, 'Way to lose your virginity to the gay best friend of your shitty boyfriend'?"
• Okay, so Vanessa sneaks in while Dan and Serena are making out, which brings to bear the question we've been wondering since she first stepped foot through his window. What if he were masturbating?? This is high school, not Clarissa Explains It All; you can't just sneak through a boy's window without warning if you don't want to see some frighteningly awkward hunching maneuvers and a flash of low-grade Internet porn. Minus 5.
• Aha! Only a few minutes later, Vanessa comes in and Dan is looking at porn. Except he's still not masturbating. Not to be vulgar, but in what world would that happen? Minus 5, for willfully and repeatedly ignoring the libido level of a high-school boy. These creatures will hump APPLE PIES, people.
I found him! After having no luck with Google searches and being led to this other "Asian guy" by the related TWoP forum, I used my noggin, played my tape of the Office episode again, and paused during the end credits. "Tim Kang" was the only non-Anglo name listed in the guest stars. I checked on IMDb, scrolled down to Additional Details, and confirmed that Mr. Kang is indeed the Cingular guy, even though his Office appearance is not yet listed. So there you go. It only took me three days to figure this out. Brilliant.
In case the title of this post isn't self-explanatory even in context, it comes from the comments on the above video's YouTube page.
...the absolute best part, as pointed out by noted pal Jane Wiedlin's Boyfriend (who watched this for no compensation, and therefore needs a doctor, I am thinking), is how the song repeats "work, work, work it out" until you feel like maybe nobody knew any other words to include, or nobody knew any other words at all, or somebody wrote the whole thing using a defective magnetic poetry kit where all verbs were replaced with "work," all pronouns with "it," and all prepositions with "out," and then when the music is finally over and the dance stops, Troy immediately turns to FOT [Friend of Troy, Corbin Bleu] and says, "So can we work this out?" Because he's still wondering. Goddamn, Troy. What do you think the entire song you just sang was about? Unsurprisingly, having just repeated "we can work it out" in song four hundred times, FOT replies, "Yeah, we can work it out." I'M SO GLAD WE GOT THAT CLEARED UP.
If you didn't see this coming, you shouldn't be working in television.
High School Musical 2 Big 2 B Ignored, by Joal Ryan, E! Online. Emphases mine.
...Disney Channel's HSM2 was simply huge, averaging 17.2 million Zac Efron-worshipping viewers, preliminary Nielsen Media Research ratings showed, per the network Saturday.
The TV movie set records for all-time biggest basic cable audience (besting a 2006 ESPN Monday Night Football telecast) and all-time biggest made-for-basic-cable telepic (besting TNT's 2001 western, Crossfire Trail), the Disney Channel said.
Overall, HSM was easily TV's most watched show, on broadcast or cable, since the final week of 2006-07 season, topping the summertime likes of The Sopranos finale on HBO (11.9 million) and the season premiere of NBC's America's Got Talent (12.9 million). And according to the Disney Channel, it was the most-watched TV-movie anywhere since the 2005 premiere of the Keri Russell-Skeet Ulrich period drama, The Magic of Ordinary Days (18.7 million), on CBS...
...It was not clear what impact the mobilization of such large numbers of children had on the greater society on Friday night. Historically, or at least anecdotally, big TV events, such as the Beatles' debut on Ed Sullivan, have been linked to drops in crime. There was no word if HSM2 could be credited with bringing calm to the nation's pizza parlors and summer camps.
Also, according to the Disney Channel, there was no way of gauging exactly how many youngsters watched HSM2 owing to an untold number of HSM2 viewing parties. (Nielsen doesn't count heads at such events. Ditto for slumber parties.)...
...The new movie starred Hairspray's Efron and duet partner Vanessa Hudgens, both of the old movie, in a tale seemingly borrowed from the third season of Saved by the Bell, i.e., high-school friends take summer jobs, en masse, at a country club.
In its review, the New York Times said there was "much to admire" in the sequel, but also "so much to hate," including, for its taste, too much cast use of bronzer...
I started laughing to myself this week as I recalled reading this Mondo Extras recap on TWoP during my Winter Break: The Christmas Shoes. It was a made-for-TV movie, based on a schmaltzy Christmas song, starring Rob Lowe and Kimberly Williams. Here's what recapper Mr. Sobell had to say:
...It's a ridiculous anthem, full of mawkish sentiment and shallow acts of semi-kindness heralded as selfless philanthropy, topped with the kind of self-centered smugness normally reserved for Aaron Sorkin homilies. Someone responsible for "The Christmas Shoes" really needs to be punched.
I remember sharing this opinion with my father-in-law between guffaws of derisive laughter. However, my father-in-law -- an otherwise sensible fellow with little patience for the grade-A Velveeta often served up by popular culture -- took umbrage with my disdain for "The Christmas Shoes"; the words "cynical left-coast elitist" may have been tossed around in anger. And I soon learned that the majority of the civilized world seemed to take his side in this clash of cultures -- all throughout the weekend, people were calling into the radio station begging, pleading with the DJs to play this inane treacle. And in fact, the song turned out to be so terrifically popular that a woman named Donna VanLiere would churn out a novella based on this jejune pop song. I don't mean to disparage Ms. VanLiere or her literary efforts, but, several decades from now, don't expect to find The Christmas Shoes on the reading list for that "Great Books of the Early 21st Century" course they're teaching at your grandkid's university -- not if that school hopes to keep its accreditation, at any rate...
The deep imprint left upon the television landscape by seminal 1980s osteoporotic sitcom The Golden Girls is indisputable: Swap in some Cosmos for a cheesecake, you're looking at a post-menopausal Sex and the City; add an angry lesbian and some Hot Topics, The View. Not surprisingly, the series carries with it a fanatical following, comprised mainly of gay men of a certain age, and no one else. Many of them showed up at Book Soup last night to hear Rue "Blanche" McClanahan read and sign from her new autobiography.
YOU SHOULD *NOT* PURSUE THIS JOB IF:
...You would ever write (or laugh at) any of these 6 lines of dialogue:
(1) "Hey, stop eating my dinner, Eatie McEaterson!"
(2) "These nachos are like a party in my mouth!"
(3) "Whooaaa, too much information."
(4) "And by [that] I mean [this]."
(5) "Whoops, did I say that out loud?"
(6) "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit."
If you enjoy any of the above 6 lines of dialogue, time to move on to the next Craigslist ad! [...]
If you really hate this ad and you want to tell us how awful, unprofessional, and arrogant it is, please send that email to either your mom or your nearest Home Depot.
The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.
My So-Called Life might be coming back. No, sorry, not with new episodes (I know, that was just cruel, teasing you like that), but as a re-released DVD box set of its one and only season.
He ends the article with this paragraph, emphasis mine:
ON a Sunday morning a few months back, I interviewed my final Harvard applicant of the year. After saying goodbye to the girl and watching her and her mother drive off, I headed to the beach at the end of our street for a run.
It was a spectacular winter day, bright, sunny and cold; the tide was out, the waves were high, and I had the beach to myself. As I ran, I thought the same thing I do after all these interviews: Another amazing kid who won’t get into Harvard.
That day, running on the beach, I was lost in my thoughts when a voice startled me. “Pops, hey, Pops!” It was Sammy, one of my twins, who’s probably heading for a good state school. He was in his wetsuit, surfing alone in the 30-degree weather, the only other person on the beach. “What a day!” he yelled, and his joy filled my heart.
What's the Times' sudden obsession with high school kids and top colleges? Maybe the paper is trying to solidify its identity as the most respected paper among the white, upper-class mass of Ivy league applicants.
...[Lorelai Gilmore] never apologized. Not for getting pregnant; not for running away; not for over-mothering Rory; and not for being pretty and smart and young. Ms. Sherman-Palladino made her a strong character who overflowed with love and enthusiasm. We responded to her in kind.
Mr. Rosenthal, however, has seemed to want to punish the Gilmore girls for having too much fun -- and too much independence – over the last six years. Not a single character has escaped this season without tragedy or curse. After the collapse of her relationship with Luke, Lorelai made the very unlike Lorelai decision to marry Rory’s dad, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), perhaps the least reliable person she's ever known. The notion that Lorelai would be swept away by a romantic gesture (Christopher proposed in Paris after a shaky and swift post-Luke reunion) is totally ludicrous – this woman never even had a one night stand up to now. (Well, except with Christopher.) Luke, who having gotten to know the teen daughter he's only recently become aware of, became embroiled in a nasty custody battle – this is a man who didn't want a lawyer to help him get divorced a few seasons back. Rory is graduating from Yale (finally!) but has been dragged down by her boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry) who lost all of his family-bestowed millions on an internet merger deal gone bad…. And now, at 23, he's proposing! Mr. Gilmore, Lorelai's dad, had a heart attack; Rory's best friend Lane had sex once – on her honeymoon –hated it, and got pregnant with – wait for it – twins!
Bravo nabs popular TV Web site: Television Without Pity bought by cable station.
[Co-founders Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting] will remain as editors of TWOP, overseeing all content. Bravo execs said the site will maintain complete editorial independence, despite now being a tiny little division of General Electric.
"If Television Without Pity didn't exist, we would have built it," said Bravo exec VP Jason Klarman, who's at the center of Bravo's online strategy.
[Bravo President Lauren Zalaznick] said she wants the cabler and its Web sites to speak to people who, like many TWOP visitors, don't necessarily watch a lot of TV--but who get worked up over the shows they do watch.
"They have to get smart and rich by reading a lot, going to movies, going to school and having big jobs -- therefore they have less time to watch TV sometimes," she said. "But they seem to have infinite bandwidth, so to speak, to love television, talk about television and go places and spend time deeply with their kind of most essential core television connection."
"Internet blogs have blazed with crass and incendiary comments about their looks and their past and present personal behavior. After attorneys for one participant contacted Television Without Pity, the fan-based website shut down a "Housewives" thread. (Bloggers on the Orange County Register's website complained their negative comments were not published on Bravo's website in favor of more favorable ones.)"
"There is a feeling that the vast majority of the audience is not black, and having a black lead dominating the show makes most viewers feel shut out since they don't work with an African-American in a dominant position in their daily life," TV historian Tim Brooks says.
Latinos, who overtook blacks as the largest minority in the U.S. in 2003, have a good chance at landing their first drama series on commercial broadcast TV this year with CBS' untitled family drama pilot featuring an predominantly Latino cast, including leading man Jimmy Smits.
