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2008:11:23:20:00. Sunday. REDEEMED? Based on the first hour of tonight's 24 telefilm, it seems that in the Obama era the new neo-con wank-a-thon will be harping on the lessons of Rwanda. If so, I guess it's marginally better to have these people motivated by humanitarian interventionism than by strength projection, but only just so. As it is, this movie is so far both dumb and boring, which even the terrible season 6 managed to not be at the same time, mostly.
2008:07:15:17:48. Tuesday. HORROR SHOW. We ordered DirecTV last weekend and it was a breeze. The information on the site was clear, the options were excellent, the promotion they're running was a great deal. Then the guy came to install it today and we don't have a line of sight. So instead we're getting terrestrial cable from Charter, which is turning out to be a complete fucking nightmare. First, the packages they offer you (at $40, $50 or $70/mo) don't come with descriptions that actually tell you what's different about them. If you go into their live chat support system, the service reps will refer you back to a big list of channels that they offer, but that don't differentiate by package. If you actually add a package to your order and begin setting it up, you'll see that various tiers are available with each package. HBO and Showtime are handled differently for some reason (HBO is bundled with Starz in the top package, Showtime is stuffed in the "movie tier"), and other digital channels are tiered based on nothing in particular. Also, over the course of the next year we'll be paying about the same total amount for far fewer channels, no premium channels, and no DVR. Oh yeah, if you want HD it's an extra $13/mo. Plus you're going to pay $60 at the time of installation, for installation and "line of service fee," a surprise bonus that you don't find out about until after you've ordered. That is, if you ever get an installation scheduled. I've been in the live chat for the last 15 minutes trying to get this set up and the guy's spent most of that time trying to sell me more shit and retaking the information I already submitted with the order. I've finally got him talking times and he offers me "1-3 or 1-5." What? How do you have two-hour and four-hour slots, with no 3-5, except the next day there is a 3-5 slot? When I called to cancel the DTV order they were extremely pleasant and helpful; made me wistful, it did I don't even have service yet, but still: Fuck you, Charter! [UPDATE: The cable guy showed up three hours early, which was OK in this instance, but come on. Normal people aren't going to be home. Also, the "digital view" tier didn't show up on my account, even though I'm 100% positive I ordered it, and Charter's "universal" remote has five codes for my TV manufacturer, none of which work.]
2008:04:02:11:34. Wednesday. REVISITING BUFFY SEASON 4 AND ANGEL SEASON 1. During the strike we started working through the complete DVD set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which Emily had never seen before, and most of which I hadn't seen since the show ended almost five years ago. We're at about the halfway point now -- just done with season four of Buffy and season one of the Angel spin-off -- and I find myself changing a lot of my thoughts about this particular double-season, which I'd sort of written off as a misstep at the time. I'll go into detail, but spoilers ahoy, of course. 2007:12:02:21:15. Sunday. FLASHBACK VERONICA MARS BLOGGING. In one of Amazon's recent sales, I picked up Veronica Mars seasons one and two for $25 each, and have been working my way through the first one over the last couple weeks. I haven't seen most of these episodes since they first aired, and I'm really struck by how well it holds up. A show like this, it's possible that there's nothing there for rewatching, but there are a lot of layers to dig into and the fun little beats that I remember are still fun. By the time you get past about the eighth episode, all the little wrinkles have been ironed out and it's smooth sailing. It's really one of the awesomest things in the canon of modern TV.
2007:08:18:10:18. Saturday. TELEVISION: TEACHER, MOTHER, SECRET LOVER! Watching the premiere of Spike's The Kill Point recently something struck me, or rather, re-struck me -- there are a lot of TV shows lately that are either explicitly about what a shitty government we've got, or implicitly about the shittiness of our government's preferred policy approaches. A brief rundown:
Others?
2007:04:28:15:34. Saturday. THINGS THAT NEED BE SAID. Hockey in HD is fucking amazing. But even so, I don't know if I can stand watching another Red Wings playoff collapse. The only thing nearly as cool as this TV is upgrading my laptop to 2GB of RAM, so that I can do anything at all that I might want to do while also playing videos onto the new TV. Adobe Creative Suite 3 is pretty nice so far, but I'm a little confused as to why it takes up twice the hard drive space of CS2.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:04:23:23:43. Monday. NEW TV. It's just as well that I haven't got clips to post this week, because our TV died on Saturday and now I'm immersed in playing with the new one. We're now watching HD over the air, and it is super duper. It can also be used as a monitor, so I'll be picking up a VGA cable tomorrow; the giant LCD monitor we have on campus is pretty incredible, so I'm really looking forward to it.
2007:02:01:10:42. Thursday. EVERYONE, BOW YOUR HEADS AND PRETEND TO BE SERIOUS. 
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:01:18:00:13. Thursday. NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME. I've got the Saturday Night [Live] first season DVDs from the library, and I'm kind of surprised at what a revelation they are. I never would have expected them to have pushed the meta-comedy so hard from the very beginning -- practically the entire second half of the season features, rather than a straight-up Chevy Chase pratfall, Chase complaining about the pratfall bit. Scenes are broken; the fourth wall is shattered. And the humor is unbelievably efficient -- even if the build-up is extensive, the punchline is never dragged out or harped on. Chase's Gerald Ford -- recently in a bit of spotlight again following Ford's death -- is also the kind of thing that's totally out of sync with the current show, or with political satire in general today. Instead of some guy in a full costume trying to impersonate George Bush's speech and mannerisms, imagine if what you saw was some guy who looked nothing like George Bush, talked nothing like George Bush and was constantly finding ways to be choking on a pretzel. Over and over, a joke about comedy that builds on itself until its the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. Wow. Current SNL writers, please feel free to shove "Deep House Dish" up your asses.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:08:13:23:05. Sunday. THERE'S BEEN AN A. WHITNEY BROWN SIGHTING. The Daily Show has recently been playing clips from past shows in honor of its tenth birthday, and one a couple of weeks ago featured former contributor A. Whitney Brown. He's probably best known for his commentaries (called "The Big Picture," also the title of a similarly themed book by Brown) during the Dennis Miller-era "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live, but he's done very little since leaving TDS in the late 90's. After briefly seeing him discuss the constant presence of NAMBLA members at Disney World, I started looking around after him. Apparently he worked as a producer for Air America Radio, got fired for "insubordination," started a blog that lasted exactly two days and is now a semi-regular diarist at Daily Kos. It's kind of weird to see, because I think he was one of the best political humorists of the late 80's and early 90's, both in terms of message and style, and now he's part of a mass of what amounts to long tail political commentary. It'll be nice to hear something from him once in a while now, and maybe this is a stage that suits him. Two of my favorite bloggers, Digby and Billmon, distinctly remind me of his style, after all. Still, somebody, please, put him back on television. Everytime I think of A. Whitney Brown, I'm reminded of what a do-nothing punk Lewis Black is.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:02:28:23:38. Tuesday. IN PRAISE OF THE MAINSTREAM. You know how sometimes a record will come out from an established band in an established genre, a member of the mainstream not attempting to avoid the mainstream, just to dominate it, and it will be as amazing and life-changing as anything a new or avant-garde or "alternative" act could've thrown at you? R.E.M.'s Green. Who's Next. The Joshua Tree. Led Zeppelin IV. Rubber Soul. Kind of Blue. Total crap is not unique to the mainstream, but highly visible total crap is, and that's why I think it's important to recognize when mainstream culture produces a truly worthy and transcendent piece of art. And right now, I think we ought to be talking about David E. Kelley's Boston Legal in those terms. Kelley and the lawyer show genre are manifestly of the mainstream, both alone and together, and have been paired for years -- if L.A. Law hadn't gone off the air it would be in its 20th season. But if BL's mundane title -- much worse than the working title, Fleet Street -- hints at its foundation in common practices of episodic TV drama, it masks a tendency to ignore boundaries and deconstruct at will the Dick Wolfian notions that prop up much of the lawyer show genre. That this is being done by such a veteran assemblage is what's so amazing. TV drama of late has been ruled by relative newcomers -- Joss Whedon, Alan Ball, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Thomas. But here we have Kelley producing the show and writing, co-writing or polishing every script, while William Shatner and Candice Bergen prowl the soundstage in what should be a sleep-through victory lap. Instead they spring to life in what is surely their best material in years, an opportunity to create rather than manufacture a screen presence, and to bring their skills to bear in a holistic way. That BL is half farce, half liberal polemic (a welcome notion during these last few Sorkinless years) may make the show seem like an ironic, cult-directed affair, but it is, in fact, the 15th most subscribed show by TiVo users, beating out every flavor of Law & Order and the Sorkin-free version of The West Wing. While it subverts -- like Green, like Kind of Blue -- it assimilates as well. It can act as a kind of tour guide to those mired in Medium and NCIS and Las Vegas, and because of that it may be the most important show on television.
2004:09:30:22:35. Thursday. LIGHTER. Here's part of a screenshot of cnn.com from immediately after tonight's debate:
Why, you might ask, is someone from VH1 being linked next to stalwart pundits like Begala and Novak on CNN's front page in the immediate aftermath of one of the campaign's biggest events? I don't fucking have a clue. The link goes to the blog of one Jessi Klein, which contains this editor's note:
VH1 Best Week Ever's Jessi Klein is providing a lighter take on the debate this evening through this CNN.com blog. Follow along as she shares her observations and insight into the political process tonight.
Klein, for her part, says this, among other things:
Overall, I think Kerry had the edge over Bush in this debate. He didn't seem too flip-floppy, he was clear and concise, and his haircut was pretty decent.
Bush, on the other hand, seemed pretty baffled for a lot of it, and there were some moments when he paused for so long before speaking that I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Watching Bush talk always gives me that feeling like when you're watching an alcoholic uncle give a toast at a wedding - you're just kind of hoping he'll get through it without messing up too bad, but he inevitably does. None of this takes away from the fact that I still can't picture John Kerry and Teresa actually kissing. Fuck you, CNN. Fuck you, VH1, for not getting Viacom to step in and stop this inter-corporate madness. Fuck you, news-consuming public for going back over and over to the same poisoned troughs. And fuck you, Jessi Klein, for this:
The most important thing is, please remember to vote, and for Pete's sake, if you're one of those undecided voters, would you please get over yourself and make a choice already? It can't be that hard.
Your feigned impartiality sickens me, and is enabling these undecided morons to remain the focus of the able-minded among us. Get bent.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:06:03:22:17. Thursday. YOU WIN THIS ROUND, THE MAN. I got rid of cable last summer. Now I'm trying to watch the fifth game of the Stanley Cup Finals, which has gone into overtime and suddenly become a really exciting series. So why is it that, just as the overtime puck drops, my ABC reception goes all to hell? Damn you, antennas!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:05:07:21:46. Friday. MUST FLEE TV. Thanks again to BitTorrent and zany-fast Internet connections, I have witnessed the greatest piece of terrible television ever produced. NBC's two-part, four-hour disasterwank, 10.5, simultaneously follows all the rules for unremarkable, obvious drama and for stupendous post-modern comedy. I never liked Mystery Science Theater 3000, but watching that quake-fueled gorge follow along a curving railroad line, only to stop expanding just as it caught a distressed train, I so, so wanted some robots to jabber with. Everything about the whole four-hour experience (well, three-hour experience if you're watching it via commercial-free download) is summed up in the last half-hour, as all hell breaks loose. A very important thing to keep in mind about filmmaking is that everything you see or hear is deliberate. Nothing happens by chance -- it's all planned. Everything that happens does so because somebody wanted it to. Which is why the extended sequences of extras running in circles, running in all manner of opposite directions, away from and towards nothing in particular, well, they were awe-inspiring. In a world crafted by the tightest kind of deliberation, these things made no rational sense. I imagine the director informing the extras that their motivation is to escape the giant chasm that is coming from the Pacific Ocean to consume them, and then telling them to run around in caffeinated ska circles. In the early days of The Late Show, David Letterman liked to stop in the middle of his monologue and remind the audience that he was the only thing on CBS at the moment. Amazingly, I found myself mind-blown when I realized that Kim Delaney simultaneously detonating five nuclear warheads in order to fuse tectonic plates together was the only thing on NBC.
2004:04:29:12:34. Thursday. I'M GOING TO CLOSE MY EYES AND WHEN I OPEN THEM YOU'LL BE GONE. Sinclair TV, who does for television what Clear Channel does for radio and who provides some of TV's most vile commentary via the reprehensible Mark Hyman, has ordered its eight ABC affiliates not to run tomorrow's Nightline. The show plans to air nothing but the names and photos of soldiers killed in Iraq, commercial-free. Sinclair's general counsel says the broadcast is "contrary to the public interest."
The ABC Television network announced on Tuesday that the Friday, April 30th edition of �Nightline� will consist entirely of Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq. Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.
While the Sinclair Broadcast Group honors the memory of the brave members of the military who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country, we do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content.�As a result, we have decided to preempt the broadcast of �Nightline� this Friday on each of our stations which air ABC programming. Remember, these heroes made the ultimate sacrifice to keep the United States safe from the evil, evil terrorists and their doubleplusdangerous weapons of mass destruction. And thinking about it won't bring them back. Sinclair's ABC affiliates are located in Greensboro, NC; Pensacola, FL; St. Louis, MO; Columbus, OH; Asheville, NC; Charleston, WV; Springfield, MA; and Tallahassee, FL.
2004:03:20:16:29. Saturday. TELEVISION'S SECOND MOST EXCITING SEASON. I am a big TV dork. I've got dozens of tapes of various shows I have enjoyed over the years, waiting on a shelf for the lazy afternoon on which they are called to duty. But lately something has changed. In the last two fall programming slates, only two shows -- Fox's doomed-from-the-start Firefly and Arrested Development -- caught my interest. Cable filled some of the slack for a little while, but I got rid of that last fall because it just wasn't worth the money. With The West Wing successfully turned into unwatchable, uninspired melodrama, I'm down to six shows in which I have an active interest. So now it's mid-season time, and the networks have decided that I am once again a desired demographic. They've launched four new shows (plus a fifth on NBC's snobby cousin, Bravo) which all look good enough to check out. Thanks to the miracle that is Bittorrent, checked them out I have. posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:03:19:09:35. Friday. KIM BAUER: COMIC BOOK PUBLISHER? File under "Incredibly Stupid:"
Fox TV's award winning, hit series 24 is noted for its innovative use of time and its fast-paced, exciting stories. Now IDW Publishing will break new ground by releasing a 24 comic book one-shot mirroring the show's dynamic use of the time element.
Two pages of printed story will equal one hour of time elapsed in this 48-page one shot. Handling the clock and the story will be J.C. Vaughn and Mark L. Haynes of Battlestar Galactica fame. Art will by by noted CSI: Miami artist, Renato Guedes. As implied, IDW publishes a variety of comics based on action-related TV programs; they started with CSI about a year ago. The idea of a 24 comic is not stupid on its face, but the idea of a comic that completely inverts the show's format is. The show is basically as decompressed as you can get in motion picture storytelling. After accounting for commercials, 60 minutes of story happen in 43 minutes of real time. Most shows compress at least a few days worth of story into those 43 minutes. This comic is going to give you 60 minutes of story in two pages, probably about a dozen total panels. If you're not familiar with reading comic books, that's a few minutes worth of reading, assuming the pages are caption-heavy. Why not do a 24-issue series in which each full issue is one hour? Why not ease off the "24-hour" part and do a 48-page special that covers just one hour? This format is just plain dumb. End nerdrant.
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