My Emmy predictions

by Diane Wild | Sep 21, 2008 | TV

Not that anyone’s counting, but my third annual Emmy prediction silliness is up on Blogcritics, where I decide on the winners using my heart, head, and a random number generator. Last year, my success rate was 8/12 correct predictions if you combine all three (which is cheating, but whatever), or 5/12 for my head, 2/12 for my heart, and 2/12 for random number generator.

• Rolling The Dice on the Emmys
  “Heart: Hugh Laurie definitely has my heart. For the Emmy Award, I mean.
  Head: Laurie is overdue, and Michael C. Hall and Bryan Cranston were amazing, too, but my head’s going with Jon Hamm. Mad Men has the buzz and the momentum, and Hamm brings nuance to a role where so much is below the surface. I have turned into a pessimist and have come to think that one day, when House is limping along in its 10th season, voters will finally realize they haven’t yet given it to Laurie and reward him when someone else has had stronger material. As long as James Spader doesn’t win, I think I can deal with the disappointment. But I don’t want to test that theory.” Read more.

Fall TV according to me

by Diane Wild | Sep 6, 2008 | TV

Last TV season, critics were grumbling that there were no break-out new series to keep an eye on, calling it a lackluster crop of new shows. Even the eye-poppingly original series, Pushing Daisies, was forecast to have an early death, supposedly unable to sustain a series out of the whimsical “Pie-lette”.

They weren’t entirely wrong about the season as a whole, long before it was derailed by the writers strike. This fall will see some shows return for their sophomore year, but for most it was more a reprieve than a whole-hearted renewal. Even Pushing Daisies, given an early second season order on the basis of its unexpectedly solid ratings, faltered in the Nielsen’s towards the end of its brief strike-truncated run.

This season, critics are grumbling that they haven’t even seen most new series, largely because the pilot season was delayed by the writers strike and networks didn’t send out many screeners for reviews. So they are handicapped in their attempts to handicap the series’ chances of success.

I’m not sure it matters. I strongly believe in the role of the professional critic, but it’s a huge stretch to say their positive or negative opinions have a corresponding effect on ratings. And their prognostications about success or failure are about as accurate as my Emmy predictions (translation: really, really not). I’m perversely happy about it, since I’d decided to bow out of doing reviews this year anyway.

The CW chose not to send preview copies of 90210, causing critic conniptions. Conniptions they wrote about, at length, along with speculation and casting news, creating big buzz for a series no one had seen, helping lead to The CW’s best ratings for a scripted series ever. (Though keep in mind “forever” in CW terms is two years.) I’m apparently old: I watched the original semi-regularly but couldn’t muster even a smidgen of excitement over the remake. I did catch a bit of the pilot, but I seemed to catch a really boring bit. Tell me they weren’t all boring bits.

Fringe has buzz, though the scary sci-fi people (^TM Lisa de Moraes) tend to buzz about anything “genre.” (Don’t get me started, as a former English lit major, on how much I hate that scary sci-fi/fantasy people have taken over the word “genre” like it means a specific genre.) I’ll probably give it an extended try since I miss The X-Files, and the movie sure didn’t help relive its glory days. I thought the leaked Fringe pilot was a snooze, but they’ve tweaked it since then, and it’s not the kind of show I can necessarily judge all that well from a pilot anyway. Will it become a convoluted mess? A ponderous bore? Or spooky entertainment? Time will tell.

I don’t get Movie Central, the Canadian broadcaster for True Blood, and the leaked pilot helped me decide I’m not sad about that, though there was a lot to like. I can do without this hodgepodge though.

I do have my DVR set for Privileged, which doesn’t seem like my kind of show at all, but the promos have me sucked in; it looks like it could be fun escapism along the lines of The Nanny Diaries – the book, not the horrible movie version.

(Let me interrupt for a scary thought about those promos: network marketers may not have seen the shows they’re promoting, either.)

The pilot of Do Not Disturb was dreck. Turns out they won’t be airing the pilot first, but with writing and acting that bad, I can’t imagine it’ll make much difference and I’m not planning to find out.

I didn’t hate the leaked pilot for Life on Mars as much as most, though Jason O’Mara felt like a weak link, and he’s the only cast member to survive the retooling. I don’t have much interest in watching the drastically revised series, though. The original British series was a great concept that I had enough of after a few episodes – I Googled to find out how it all ended. I know, shameful, but it saved me a lot of time.

The Mentalist does not look like something I’ll stick with — cop shows tend to leave me cold, hence my bailing on Life on Mars — but I have to check it out just because it stars Simon Baker (The Guardian) and he seems to have developed the ability to smile. Swoon.

There’s more of course, but those are the only ones I’ve seen or intend to see. Other new series I’m hearing a lot about include Knight Rider (ugh) and sitcoms (always a hard sell for me) like Worst Week, The Ex List, Kath & Kim, and Gary Unmarried (when did Jay Mohr – Action – become so toothless? Oh yeah, way back when he did a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston).

The TV Addict has a great printable calendar with all the new and returning premiere dates: download it here.

Aaron Sorkin’s Online Adventures

by Diane Wild | Aug 28, 2008 | TV

Aaron Sorkin is one of my favourite writers in any medium. I’d put some of his TV episodes up against some of my favourite books. I was ultimately disappointed in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but I’m sipping on tea from a travel mug emblazoned with the logo as I write this. The first four seasons of The West Wing stand as my favourite TV series ever. (Think of my House ramblings now, and imagine if I’d been blogging then. The Internet just isn’t big enough to hold all that verbosity.) I still mourn Sports Night and keep an eye on the cast wherever else they pop up. I both own the DVD of and watch every time I notice it’s on TV – which is a lot – The American President. His dialogue, his themes, his passion, it adds up to brilliance.

So I say this with love: what the hell is he thinking? The news has escaped the confines of Facebook – Aaron Sorkin is apparently writing a movie about that social networking site’s origins.

I can’t wrap my head around the idea of the man whose work frequently takes simplistic sideswipes at web-based communities, and who claims his dead grandmother is more savvy about the Internet than he is, making a movie about Facebook in the first place. Why on earth is he interested?

I kinda hope it’s not to promulgate the same views from The West Wing/Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip. In real life, Sorkin has had tangles with online communities, both in trying to defend his work to fans and in trying to diminish the role of his staff writers. He seems to let his venom leak into his work occasionally, where his characters’ frustrations with online communities has been entertaining but also a little naïve.

I found Studio 60‘s earnestness over the world of television easier to take than some people, because I find a person’s passion for a subject is often interesting in itself, even if the passions or opinions don’t jibe with my own. I’m not an American politics junkie, or a sports junkie, but I couldn’t have been more interested in his previous works if they were medical dramas or whimsical parables. I guess the problem is I’m suspicious of Sorkin’s passion for the Facebook topic.

Even more odd — if it’s actually him, which it seems to be — is Sorkin’s attempt to research Facebook by announcing that he’s researching Facebook. It’s quantum physics waiting to happen; the act of observing changes the results. (Yes, I abuse this metaphor frequently, but it explains so much about life itself. And I’m a geek.) Aaron Sorkin joining Facebook as Aaron Sorkin and soliciting feedback on the Facebook experience will give him about as genuine a Facebook experience as Will Smith walking into Denny’s and evaluating the service.

However, besides the Facebook group where he has interacted with fans (and of course a few detractors), he has a Facebook profile, too, which he’s wisely made almost as private as possible. If he’s actually using it like a regular user, interacting with people he knows, that should provide the more authentic experience. Except that now all his Friends, if he decides to accumulate any, will know it’s an experiment, that they’re being monitored, and he will be evaluating his actions and interactions through a lens that no other Facebook user will experience. It’s quantum physics, I tell you.

But I have to go back to that first paragraph. I’m not innately interested in a movie about Facebook, nor am I confident in his innate passions for the subject. And yet he’s a brilliant writer. Something appeals to him about the topic, and he’s trying to absorb the experience of the topic, and a little faith is in order. If there’s anything the Internet fan community has taught me, it’s that pre-judging based on Internet rumour is unwise.

Well, maybe the lesson hasn’t quite sunk in, but I’m trying. Faith. I have faith.

Summer television

by Diane Wild | Aug 20, 2008 | TV

Several weeks ago I started to write a post about what TV I’m watching this summer, and I suddenly realized that if I don’t finish and post it soon, it will have to morph it into a “what I’m watching this fall” post. For quite a while I wasn’t watching anything at all – yay summer! – but I’ve got a few regulars now as I start to pine for my favourites to return.

Mad Men
I had also started another post about Mad Men, The Dark Knight, and Dr. Horrible that I may never finish, so: basically I like them all, but don’t love them nearly as much as I’m apparently supposed to, and there’s a commonality to why, believe it or not. Anyway, it took me a few tries to get into Mad Men, and no show could live up to its $25 million marketing hype and critical drooling, but I finally appreciate the series even if I don’t wholeheartedly embrace it.

Normally I wouldn’t give a show more than a couple of chances, and usually just one (what’s the point? I could forever miss out on the best TV series ever made and it wouldn’t even slightly change my life for the worse). But it’s summer, and it’s got such a slavish following, and will almost certainly win the Emmy, so I wanted to make the effort. It didn’t work until I recorded the late July marathon on AMC and finally pushed through my distaste for some elements of the show by watching a few in a row.

Even now I think it’s wonderfully well crafted, with a bit too much Craft on ostentatious display on occasion. For example, some of the acting and dialogue I find stilted, and the period detail sometimes feels like it’s come out of a magazine rather than a life. Matthew Weiner has wonderfully recreated an era that often makes me wonder why I want to spend an hour of my week immersed in a society I mercifully missed the first time around. However, it does the slow burn story incredibly well – nothing ever seems to happen until you realize the characters’ positions have shifted in incredibly interesting ways – and while I can’t warm to any of these chilly characters, there are very few, if any, I don’t find fascinating.

Flashpoint
I’m not a fan of cop dramas – I was into St. Elsewhere over Hill Street Blues, Chicago Hope/ER over NYPD Blue, House over CSI – but Flashpoint was on my radar because of the Canadian television thing, and it’s a decent hour of entertainment that plays with my emotions in effective ways. I rarely cry over TV shows unless they’re killing Wilson’s girlfriend, but this one seems to hit my buttons and I’ve had something in my eye at the end of almost every episode so far. It feels good to root for it to succeed.

Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Billie Piper’s turn as the happy hooker is fluffy fun that I would call a guilty pleasure, but I can’t manage to feel any guilt. I couldn’t tell you when it airs, but some evenings I’ll notice there are a couple of episodes on my DVR and turn them on while doing whatever I have to do around the house. I haven’t seen a new-to-me episode for a while, though, and I’ll delete the series recording when fall TV kicks in.

The Middleman
This ABC Family series is not available in Canada so I won’t say that I watch it and enjoy the relentless silliness coupled with unexpected moments of cleverness, not to mention the crazily likeable cast.

Burn Notice
I watched the first couple of episodes and it was fine, but I wasn’t drawn into it and I don’t have the same motivation as with Mad Men to try harder. Delete.

Coming up
I’m not actually excited about any of the new shows for fall, but I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised by at least one new series, and I can’t wait for House and Pushing Daisies to return, plus 30 Rock and The Office make me smile in anticipation.