Up Shat's Creek

If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you check out Shatner's Raw Nerve Tuesday nights on the Biography Channel. Unfortunately, I missed the first couple episodes - hopefully I can find them online - but was lucky enough to catch Bill's interview with Kelsey Grammer last night.

What makes this show good is how different it is from the regular glut of talk shows we are used to. There's no live audience, no stupid banter about how great their newest project is or how wonderful it was to work with so and so. It's a genuine conversation in which both - repeat both - participants are interested and willing to talk about interesting personal aspects of their lives. It makes for an extremely compelling and engrossing half-hour.

Would You Buy Mulch From This Man? Jack Donaghy, Yes; Jack Bauer, No.

If you saw 30 Rock last night, then you saw not only the best episode of the season, but a quintessential example of everything that makes this show great when it clicks. The story was terrific - what a great idea to take someone who thought she was a dork in high school and have it turn out that she was the snob; it actually made me consider reassessing my own high school experience - the dialogue was quick and more natural than it has been this season, and the characters finally had room to be themselves after three weeks of making room for the the guest stars. As soon as last night's episode was over I wanted to watch it again.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for 24:Redemption, which I finally got around to watching over the weekend, and afterwards found myself wishing I had instead spent the time raking up yet another pile of leaves. Note: there are no more leaves left, but I would have found some to rake if it meant I could have missed this piece of junk.

The first 45 minutes were downright boring, I had no interest in the plot regarding the fake African country's coup, the pseudo-attempt at understanding Jack's motives, or the palace intrigue going on at the White House - is it just me or do you find it tiresome that every administration in the 24 universe is filled with some sort of MacBeth/Lex Luthor-wanna-be megalomaniac?

This show has relied on the same formula for too long and that's what killed seasons 5 and 6. So I was happy to see some promising developments in the preview for the upcoming season. I like the idea of CTU having been disbanded and Jack working in a new environment. I was happy that is until they introduced Tony Almeida as the new season's arch-villain. We saw the man die on the CTU medical center table in season 5. So unless President Logan spun a frozen donkey wheel and moved CTU back in time, this premise is ridiculous. As is the fact that I will probably still tune in to watch the season premiere.

30 Rock's Third Season or Planes, F-Trains, and Automobiles

So we're three weeks into 30 Rock's new season, and while I still love this show, I'm feeling that so far this may be it's weakest season. Perhaps it's a result of Tina Fey having been distracted with her Sarah Palin duties on SNL during the filming of these first few episodes, but something is slightly off somewhere. One thing I've noticed is that while I'm a huge fan of the understated joke, there have been a few instances this season where the humor has been almost too subtle - I'm still trying to figure out what I'm missing about the "crazy putty" joke from last night's episode (oh wait...I think I just got it). More than that though, it almost feels as if there is too much story each week for what boils down to 20 minutes after commercials, and as a result we're ending up with episodes that just don't flow quite right.

Last night's episode is a good example, in that the main story - which was admittedly less than original - focused on Lemon's crazy friend Claire (Jennifer Aniston) falling in lust with Lemon's other crazy friend Jack. Meanwhile, Kenneth and Tracy tried filming the never-shot Night Court finale with the original stars of that series. That's a huge subplot, and one that several times threatened to overshadow the main story line of the episode. Add to that the fact that it was the second week in a row with a big-name cameo (Oprah was on last week; Steve Martin will be next) and it just feels like they might be trying a little too hard; it's no secret that the show gets high marks from critics, but usually suffers in the ratings. Ironically, the tactics they're using to draw in new viewers takes away from what makes the show great and therefore makes it harder to keep those new viewers watching anyway. I have loads of theories about why ratings shouldn't really matter anymore anyway, but that's for another day.

Everything great about this show is still in place, especially the writing. And they've done the guest-star bit several times in the past to wonderful effect (see Carrie Fischer's turn as Liz's demented mentor from season two). There just seems to be a slight problem with execution. Hopefully, now that we've put Gov. Palin behind us Tina can sharpen the focus on our view of the chaos that is Liz Lemon's life.

Help Me Obi-Wolf, You're My Only Hope!

There I was enjoying my self-imposed exile from the blogosphere when I was suddenly drawn out of retirement by a disturbance in the force.

Even though they still haven’t quite perfected the whole “live-via-satellite” routine, CNN thought it would somehow be worthwhile to pioneer the correspondent-in-studio-via-hologram-technique. That’s right, CNN has created, for our viewing pleasure, a real live 3D representation of a person that we can watch on TV! Don't tell the folks in the graphics department, but the people who are actually in the studio are also technically in 3D, we just can't tell at home because we’re WATCHING THEM ON TELEVISION! Now if CNN could beam Campbell Brown into my living room for a rundown of the day’s events, that'd be a different story - and something I could really get behind. But alas, we are stuck with an awkward Star Wars rip-off, and one poorly executed at that. They didn’t even bother to put an R2-D2 doll next to Wolf Blitzer, who I believe has attained the rank of Jedi Master after having been successful at controlling all the monitors in the situation room with only his mind.

CNN Correspondent Jessica Yellin - later followed by someone named Wil.i.am (who may or may not be related to the Green Eggs and Ham kid) - was beamed onto the set a la Star Trek, with the glaring exception that in Star Trek they beamed the actual person to their destination not just a grainy, blue-hazy image of him or her. They then pretty much skipped any reporting that could have been done to explain how the process works - the person is put into a green screen tent surrounded by dozens of HD cameras – as well how this format would be helpful in reducing crowd noise from whatever event the reporter might be covering; in this case the Obama celebration in Grant Park. Apparently no one in accounting was consulted, because they almost definitely would have suggested simply moving Yellin a few feet away from the crowd and giving her a better microphone.

CNN wasn’t the only network beaming with pride over its ability to use technology in completely pointless ways. NBC trapped Ann Curry in a green screen pit so that they could have her walk around in what looked like a mini-Jefferson Memorial, lurking behind the charts and graphs detailing the exit poll results. It might have been more useful to demonstrate Obama's overwhelming electoral victory if each time he won a state one of those columns collapsed on Ann Curry's head. That would have had some cache.

I’d be OK with them using these virtual reality techniques if they actually added something to the reporting, but if they’re going to drum up these detailed sets just to show me the same graphics they could with an overhead projector than they should save their money. If the economy keeps going the way it has been, they’re going to need it.

ESPN Rex: The Worldwide Leader in Eye-Gouging Viewers

While trying to watch ESPN's coverage of Barry Bond's triumph over AT&T Park's shallow right-field wall, I couldn't help but think back to an article I meant to comment on a couple weeks ago. Newsweek ran a piece questioning ESPN's journalistic integrity in light of its increasing coziness with the professional sports leagues and their various members. I thought the article was pretty fair and, for me at least, it really touched on a number of things that have led me to all but banish the worldwide sports leader from my favorite channel roster. I'll still tune in for the occasional baseball game or special event, but most of what the boys (and girls) of Bristol U are selling, I'm not buying. (The obvious exception of course being Mike in Mike in the Morning, but that's really a radio show with a video feed.)

I've totally given up on SportsCenter, especially after this morning's tired exercise. What used to be an entertaining box-score rundown has, over the past six or seven years, turned into an athletics-based Access Hollywood, focusing less on the games and more on the athletes, providing viewers with rumor, innuendo, way too many "anonymous sources" and details I don't care about. Not only that, but it's obvious the producers are pushing it towards the MTV demographic. I personally can wait to see what story is coming up next, I don't need the "helpful" rundown on the side distracting me further from the program's main content along with the scrolling banner and unnecessarily loud (perhaps just plain unnecessary?) background music. I'm obviously no longer the type of viewer SportsCenter is courting, so I will bid them adieu and get my scores from the web.

The same goes for other past favorites like Baseball Tonight. I think Devin Gordon (author of the Newsweek piece) is spot-on when he maintains that the network relies far too heavily on "underqualified ex-jocks to fill its analyst ranks". We're not talking about public policy or anything else that really requires open debate, so why do I need to listen to not just one, but several second-string athletes "break things down" and argue their points with excruciating redundancy and little added insight?

I like to mark the network's downfall from the moment they did that live behind-the-scenes SportsCenter broadcast a few years back. While it was an interesting and enlightening event, it really did, on a certain level, display the hubris of the network as well as the the runners of it's flagship show. This was an organization at the top of its game, one that had recently become a pop-culture icon. These guys were cool and they knew it. That always spells trouble. Since that broadcast it feels like everything at ESPN has been done for the sake of cool, thus substance has suffered and in my opinion at least, things have been trending downward, like they do for the star of any Greek tragedy when his waistline begins to exceed the dimensions of his britches. If that is in fact what they wear under those togas.