Tuesday - July 21, 2009
BBC executive says corporation should foster ‘left-of-centre thinking.’ And Brits will pay as usual
A bit of a bru-ha this week.
First, folks (most I think) pay a license fee to the BBC which is govt. So this suggestion hasn’t gone down well with the right, what there is of it.
There are two articles of interest, one is two days old. I didn’t think they had a great deal of interest for our American audience, or in fact anyone outside the UK. At least not all on their own. But there really is something to look at with the two.
A couple of days ago I read the following article.
Sarah Kennedy ‘spoken to’ by BBC for praising Enoch Powell during Radio 2 show
By Niall Firth
Last updated at 8:28 AM on 19th July 2009Radio 2 presenter Sarah Kennedy has been chastised by the BBC for praising right-wing politician Enoch Powell during her show.
During her early-morning show on Wednesday, Kennedy, 59, described Powell as ‘the best prime minister this country never had’.Enoch Powell was famously sacked from the shadow cabinet by Ted Heath in 1968 after his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech about the dangers of mass immigration.
A spokesman for the BBC said that the corporation had received 25 complaints by Friday and that the presenter had been ‘spoken to’ about the remark.
She said: ‘It was inappropriate for Sarah to offer an off-the-cuff political opinion and we have spoken to her and made that clear.’
Ok, understood. Mustn’t be political and careful of off the cuff remarks. Even if they’re true. And most especially you bet, when the remark favors the right.
Mr. Powell has been gone for many years btw, and I really don’t think her remark should have brought 25 protests. Most likely from wimpy-weepy libtards and commies.
However, todays headline in the Telegraph has another story, not related directly to the one I’ve posted in the mail above. But I find it telling anyway.
And think about this. The TV license costs around $200 (in American terms) a year.
Oh wow. I can imagine the posts we’d get from people here at BMEWS were they made to pay for a TV license that leaned left.
Here, this is what I’m referring to.
BBC executive says corporation should foster ‘left-of-centre thinking’
A senior BBC executive has claimed that the corporation should foster “left-of-centre thinking”, leading to accusations of political bias from the Conservatives.
By Jon Swaine
Published: 7:00AM BST 21 Jul 2009Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning, said that the corporation should encourage “peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”
According to its own royal charter, the BBC must “be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output”.
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, said: “What Ben Stephenson said was a clear breach of the BBC’s impartiality obligations.
“No journalist or editor should be following a political agenda, let alone someone as senior as a controller.”
Mr Hunt said that he had written to Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, “asking for an immediate retraction and apology”.
Peter Whittle, the director of The New Culture Forum, a right-leaning think tank, said: “The political slant in the non-news output of the BBC is for many harder to detect but is actually far more insidious and damaging in the effect it has on our cultural drift.”
Mr Stephenson made the comments in a newspaper article in which he responded to criticism from Tony Garnett, a television producer, who accused the BBC’s drama department of changing “in ways which have coarsened both it and wider culture.”
He wrote: “If we didn’t all think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn’t, wouldn’t our lives, and more importantly, our TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”
He later denied that he had meant the comment to have a political meaning.
“Like ‘left-field’, it is a phrase that I use with frequency when talking to the creative community to encourage them to develop and approach their ideas from a completely new perspective,” he said.
A BBC source said that executives believed that their casting of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, in an episode of EastEnders, proved that they did not have a left-wing bias.
Meanwhile, a report yesterday said that the licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters, because the BBC was failing to fulfill its public service remit.
The paper, by Frank Field MP and David Rees, argued that the licence fee should be put in the hands of a new independent commissioning body.
Broadcasters, including the BBC, would then pitch ideas for public service programmes to the body and be awarded funding accordingly.
BBC One, BBC Three, Radio 1 and Radio 2 should all be put up for sale, it added.
Yeah. Left field. But he didn’t say ‘left field.’ Did He?
BBC has no commercials and is supported by the license ppl pay. If I ever watched TV, and honest, haven’t done that in five years and don’t miss it, I guess paying to avoid commercials isn’t a bad idea as ideas go. But for us, there’s nothin on we want to see and so don’t watch.
Posted by peiper
on 07/21/2009 at 08:22 AM
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Permalink • Friday - April 17, 2009
The risk of sexual abuse, by treating the victims’ discomfort with humour. ok but,,, DISNEY????
Not supposed to be here right now but hey. This just HAD to get itself posted.
It’s way over my head. At first I thought, oh what nonsense. Come on. But then another thought intruded on the first.
Hang on ... I’m not a parent. How can I judge this as nonsense when I haven’t any kids?
I guess my generation was lucky as was the one before when it came to this. We never thought in the terms expressed by this article.
Still though .... hard for me to accept. Come on. Pinocchio? Snow White? Robin Hood?
Is this really valid or just a few ivory tower types with time on their hands and nothing else in their collective minds?
Was Pinocchio was being ‘groomed’ by his cartoon pals?
Classic Disney cartoon films are giving children the wrong message about how to deal with “stranger danger”, psychologists have warned.
By Roger DobsonWas Pinocchio was being ‘groomed’ by his cartoon pals?
They claim films like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Robin Hood contain scenes in which children receive “unwanted personal contact” or threatening approaches from adults, and that the victims fail to set a good example in the way they respond.
The study warns that the films also undermine efforts to teach children about personal safety and how to minimise the risk of sexual abuse, by treating the victims’ discomfort with humour.
In one example, the researchers found that the Pinocchio had been “groomed” by the adult characters Honest John and Gideon but that his response to the abuse resembled “victim blaming”.
The report says that some characters, like Mowgli, in the Jungle Book, and Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, are able to successfully handle to threats they face from adults, suggesting they could have a positive educational impact on children. However, it points out that they do so without telling a trusted adult.
It adds: “It is possible that viewing these scenes could influence children to believe that telling a trusted adult about a stranger’s advances is unnecessary because the film characters model successful independence.”
The research, published in the journal Child Abuse, was conducted by a team of psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists at Carleton University, in Canada.The academics wrote that they were “surprised to find depictions of children being touched, usually by adults, contrary to the expressed desires of the child”.
They studied 47 animated feature length Disney films, released between 1937 and 2006. In ten of them, they found examples of “unwanted personal contact” or scenes which show child characters in “risky situations”.In their analysis, six films – Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, The Sword in the Stone, and A Goofy Movie – depict children and adolescent characters experiencing unwanted personal contact.
A further four films – Snow White, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book – were found to show childlike characters in “risky situations” where strangers approach them with “hidden malevolence” and promise rewards in exchange for their compliance.
The films were reviewed several times, often using the pause and slow motion features to fully capture the content. Child characters could be human, fantastic or an anthropomorphised animal.
The child had to be under 18, and where age of the character was not specified, the researchers judged each on the basis of voice pitch, manner of speaking, stature, and behaviour.
Dr Wendy Hovdestad, the lead author, said: “The depictions of child and adolescent characters being grabbed and kissed against their will by adult characters is particularly problematic for the boy characters Wart (The Sword in the Stone), Flounder (The Little Mermaid), and Skippy (Robin Hood), because the context in the film is humorous.
“The treatment would probably be upsetting if it happened to a real child, and treating it as humorous is directly contradicting sexual safety education that teaches children that they get to decide who touches their bodies.”
The report concludes: “The findings raise questions about potential impacts on child audiences. Is the unwanted contact and risky situation content appropriate viewing for children, given efforts to teach children sexual safety?”
A Disney spokeswoman said, “As we have not studied the report we are unable to comment.”
Posted by peiper
on 04/17/2009 at 06:15 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - February 19, 2009
When TV Reporters Go Wild
A new hero, or the latest guy to get the pink slip tomorrow morning?
Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party
A short video in which a financial markets TV reporter goes a bit wild. Speak the truth, shame the devil, lose your job as well? We’ll find out tomorrow I guess.
Extremely interesting point he makes from the trading floor - a very large number of the people desiring their mortgages to be refinanced couldn’t/wouldn’t pay them back even if the interest rate was 2%. Even Minus 2% he says.
You can’t buy your way to prosperity ... [if you could then] the government should spend a trillion dollars an hour; they’d get a 1.5 trillion back. ... our founding fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and [Thomas] Jefferson, what we’re doing in our country right now is making them roll over in their graves.
Outstanding.
This calls for more hair. More teeth too!
Just clicking around the net found me Maynard’s post on the Stimulus over at Tammy Bruce:
It’s a crime beyond imagination against the American people.
This monster is not of Obama’s creation. It’s a product of long-term rot and corruption; the consequence of fools and demagogues pandering to the lowest common denominator, promising ever-more goodies to an ever-needier mob.
For a brief moment, I hoped the shock of the current crisis would bring an element of reality to the debate in Washington. Certainly Obama would do the right thing. Not because he wanted to, you understand, but because he had no choice. I thought the nation had reached that late stage of addiction where the addict has hit bottom, and finally faces his issues head-on.
I stand corrected. We haven’t hit bottom yet, but Obama is working on that. His “stimulus” package may become our final binge. What Reagan did to the Soviet Union, Obama is now arranging for us.
This is only the beginning.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/19/2009 at 07:33 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - February 18, 2009
LOST bon mot
For all you LOST junkies, tonight was the episode. Please have your new acronym ready before visiting any of the LOST forums and recap sites. Use it wherever possible, because it’s a doozy.
It’s going to be right up there with that line from Jaws, WGNABB, “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat”.
Frank Lapidus, former freighter helicopter pilot, now Ajira Airways jet pilot, on finding out that just about the only passengers on his plane are the Oceanic Six, even the dead guy in the hold who is currently doing his best to fill another dead man’s shoes ...
But where is Aaron? And why can’t Hurley ever take a shower?
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Wednesday - December 17, 2008
Some Good News For Fox News
Ok, this may not exactly be news to some folks. It’s been out there for a couple of months now. But the date wasn’t set. I noticed Fox has an ad running now saying Glenn will bring his show over starting on the 19th. So that’s one less reason to watch CNN. And, come on, you always knew Glenn didn’t belong on CNN anyway. He was the sole Right voice on the whole network.
Alan Colmes leaving Fox’s Hannity & Colmes show. Again, this is not exactly news, nor has his departure date of “the end of the year” changed. But I can’t stand his character on that show. What a smarmy little twit. And I say character because of the persistent internet rumor that this isn’t how the man is at all; that he was hired to play this role and does so amazingly well. No word yet on his replacement, but I can only hope it will be Kristen Powers. Ms. Powers, former Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative for Public Affairs during the Clinton administration, is well spoken, very smart, and oh so easy to look at. She’s my favorite liberal, but I don’t think she’s a progressive leftist.
Now if Fox could just figure out how to steal Robin Meade away from that other network ...
Posted by Drew458
on 12/17/2008 at 02:33 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - October 15, 2008
Sarah Palin dives in poll ratings, and msm in USA are not biased, reports The Telegraph.
And ya read it here. Unless you caught it all back home in US.
It may hurt but there’s no way to ignore this reporting on American elections from the Brit side.
Honestly, and yes I know I’m being cowardly, I so far have avoided watching the other parodies of Mrs. Palin. I saw the first and yes it was funny.
I might get the nerve to see the others. Not really sure I want to. It’s nice and warm and secure here in the sand.
Sarah Palin dives in poll ratings as Tina Fey impersonates her on Saturday Night Live
It has broken Sarah Palin’s spell and could decide the next president. As Obama and McCain square up for Wednesday’s final debate, Neil Midgley explains how US TV entertains, informs and influences voters in a way that would be unthinkable in Britain.
By Neil Midgley
Last Updated: 9:05AM BST 15 Oct 2008
Three weeks from now, Sarah Palin may be the Vice-President elect of the United States of America. But today, few people would call her the most powerful woman in American politics.
Arguably, that honour doesn’t go to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi either. Today, the most influential woman in America is probably Tina Fey – a television comedienne.
Since Palin’s nomination as Republican John McCain’s running mate for the White House, Fey has mercilessly and relentlessly impersonated her on NBC’s late-night satirical show Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Fey’s physical resemblance to Palin is uncanny, and Fey has an equally spooky knack of replicating the Alaska governor’s near-Canadian accent.
In public, Palin has taken Fey’s mockery in good part. But Palin’s poll ratings are telling a more devastating story.
In a Newsweek poll in September, voters were asked whether Palin was qualified or unqualified to be president. The result was a near dead-heat. In the same poll this month, those saying she was “unqualified” outnumbered those saying she was “qualified” by a massive 16 points.
Some of Fey’s best satire has come straight from Palin’s own unforced errors.At the end of last month, Palin was interviewed by Katie Couric, the main news anchor for the CBS television network.
Couric asked Palin whether the $700 billion for the Wall Street bail-out, which had at that point not been approved by Congress, might be better spent helping out middle-class families.
Palin replied: “That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out.
“But ultimately what the bail-out does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the – it’s got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track.
She went on: “So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade – we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today – we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity.”
That babbling response was a gift for Couric, but an even bigger one for Fey the following Saturday. Repeating Palin almost verbatim gave Fey her most powerful line so far.
Thanks to Fey, SNL is defying gravity. While other television shows continue to lose viewers, its ratings are up 50 per cent this autumn – despite the fact that it is now in its 34th season. It currently commands 10 million viewers – a creditable figure for a primetime drama, let alone a late-night sketch show.
NBC has given it an extra slot on Thursday nights. And its success in feeding off serious anchors such as Couric highlights just how powerful a force television has become in deciding this presidential election.
Other satirical shows, such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, are also enjoying record ratings, as well as influence far beyond their own viewers.
Stewart’s combination of comic monologue, fake news reports and genuine celebrity guests (such as Michelle Obama and Tony Blair) has gained him a cult following both in the US and here, where the show airs on the digital channel More4.
Even bigger than Saturday Night Live have been the presidential and vice-presidential debates. Sarah Palin’s set-to with Joe Biden on October 2 attracted nearly 70 million viewers – a record for a vice-presidential debate and the highest-rated election debate since 1992.
Presidential candidates Obama and McCain only managed 63 million, but even that is a massive number. To put it in context, this year’s American Idol finale – one of the highest-rated shows in the calendar – had 32 million viewers.
It is impossible to imagine a similar level of engagement with political television in this country. Gordon Brown and David Cameron would not only have to debate each other on TV – an unlikely scenario in itself – but pull in an audience bigger than the finals of Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly Come Dancing put together.
American networks do have some advantages over the BBC and ITV in planning and executing their political coverage.
Presidential elections happen on a rigid four-year timetable, avoiding the unholy scramble when a British general election is called at a month’s notice.
That allows the networks to engage with the process much earlier on – not least with their Sunday morning political talk shows.
“Two years ago, the then-potential candidates were making their pitstops on [NBC Sunday morning show] Meet the Press,” says Brian Stelter, a media reporter for the New York Times and the lead contributor to that newspaper’s TV Decoder blog. “In some ways, those shows are really try-outs.”
British TV channels also labour under Ofcom’s impartiality requirements, which bar the kind of opinion-led political shows that litter America’s cable news channels.
Every weeknight, there is a primetime battle between Fox News’s legendary conservative Bill O’Reilly, and firebrand liberal Keith Olbermann, whose show airs on NBC’s cable news spin-off channel MSNBC.
Olbermann calls O’Reilly “Billo the Clown”; O’Reilly glories in the fact that Fox gets higher ratings than MSNBC.
The BBC News channel and Sky News could never engage in such playground antics, no matter how entertaining – not least because they could distort the outcome of elections.
“I think we’re learning what it means to have opinion journalism in this country on such a grand scale,” says Stelter. “It’s only in the last six to 12 months that those lines have hardened between Fox and MSNBC. I think the [ratings] numbers for cable have surprised people.
“Cable, which is a niche offering, is in some cases beating some of the big broadcasting networks. I think that shows that people are looking for different stripes of political news.”
American political TV certainly is polarised. When Governor Palin attacked the media in her speech at the Republican convention last month, the crowd chanted “NBC”.
Gwen Ifill, a respected anchor on the non-commercial channel PBS, who moderated the vice-presidential debate, saw her impartiality attacked because she is writing a book about African-American politics that mentions Obama in its title.
Yet despite the Wild-West flavour of some shows, America’s networks comprehensively outstrip this country in both volume and quality of political coverage.
All three major US networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – offer a large amount of serious (and unbiased) political coverage, both in their evening network newscasts and in their morning equivalents of GMTV. All three have Sunday morning political talk shows.
(and here we conservative folks have been thinking how biased those innocents are. silly us. )By contrast, ITV has almost abandoned politics, and Channel 4 offers precious little political coverage outside Channel 4 News (and, occasionally, Dispatches).
The BBC still wheels out politics on Sunday mornings, but Andrew Marr’s show is very soft and The Politics Show, with its heavy regional component, often seems like a box-ticking exercise by the corporation.
Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott, BBC1’s late-night political Punch and Judy, would seem dangerously flippant among NBC’s line-up of heavyweight political pundits.
Even more worryingly, political television gets no support from Ofcom’s ongoing review of public service broadcasting (PSB), which will likely mutate into government policy early next year.
The regulator appears so obsessed by preserving regional news on ITV, and so charmed by Channel 4’s bid for public funding, that it will allow the broadcasters’ coverage of national politics to drift.
Unlike science, arts, and history, political television does not get a separate mention from news and current affairs in Ofcom’s definition of PSB; the word “democracy” did not appear once in the regulator’s latest 155-page report.
Impartiality and the public service ethos hardly characterise Tina Fey’s performances. Tonight’s presidential debate forms part of a series driven largely by commercial networks, not publicly funded channels. Neither Fox News nor MSNBC was set up as a sop to a regulator.
Yet if Lord Reith were alive today, he’d see more education, information and entertainment about politics in US television than on the BBC.
Can we learn something from our American cousins? As Sarah Palin erself might say, “Darn right, doggone it, you betcha!”
That link will also take you to all the Tina Fey parodies.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/15/2008 at 03:38 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 27, 2008
A winning formula
And Disney cranks out another one!
Music video from the unbelievably cute Selena Gomez, all of 16 I think maybe. It’s part of the soundtrack to her new, straight to DVD movie, Another Cinderella Story. I guess that explains the maid costume.
Disney has this shizz down to an art at this point. I can almost guarantee this kid will be a multi-millionaire by the time she’s 22. Sucks to be her, don’t it?
Let’s see if the big D is keeping to form here ... really pretty performer? Check. Taps into the Tweener market? Check. Simple lyrics repeated endlessly so that simple minded people can memorize the whole thing in two listenings? Check. Lots of synth and computer assistance on the soundtrack? Check. Rebellious teen theme? Check. Loaded down with implied sexuality, but nothing actually overt? Check and Double Check. Cha-Ching! Platinum sales guaranteed.
UPDATE: This video may have been pulled from YouTube, or it may just be overloading the servers. MTV may have exclusive rights to the thing for now perhaps. So here is an embed that gets the vid from MTV ... minus all of their extra links, previews, and other junk
I’m such an old fart that I never even thought to go out to MTV.com. Duh. Ok, next time I feel the need to post a bit of pop music I’ll remember. Unless I have another Senior Moment.
My God that girl is adorable. 16 didn’t look 1/20th this good when I was there.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/27/2008 at 08:00 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - July 09, 2008
Summer TV
New season of Gabrielle Anwar starts tomorrow, 10pm Eastern on USA Network.
Oh, right. I forgot. Where was I?
I’m actually trying to say that the second season of Burn Notice, a delightful little lighthearted action/drama/mystery/near-sitcom show, starts this Thursday. It’s about this guy named Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan ["he’s sooo cute” comes up from downstairs]). He’s this super spy guy who gets fired. Burned. And all his money and everything else disappears too. So he’s stuck in Miami Beach, all sun and bikini babes, trying to figure out what happened. Being flat broke, he does whatever he can to avoid moving back in with his nagging, chain smoking mother (excellently played by Sharon Glass) and deadbeat brother. That “whatever he can” is the weekly episode of him helping out some regular schmoo who’s being screwed over by the mob, the government, cheating business associates, etc. And for a few bucks Michael solves the weekly case by being a combination of MacGyver/A-Team/Mission Impossible and The Saint. And sometimes he finds a clue about who burned him.
Along the way he gets a little help from his one remaining friend Sam (Bruce Campbell), who used to be another spy guy but now he’s a bit of a drunk. And more than a little help from his mostly-girlfriend Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar. You saw Pacino in Scent of a Woman? That was her). She makes it all worth watching. That is, if you appreciate former models who have matured a bit but still kept their slender shape. Damn. Wow. Fiona is this former IRA assassin. Fiona is smart and dangerous, and always just this close to violence. Which makes her sexy as all hell. Oh, and Michael has a nice old Charger Sebring to drive, though it frequently needs work as it’s always getting shot up or set on fire. Season Two will also feature more of Tricia Helfer, former underwear model turned actress. The one who played the Cylon Number 6 in Battlestar Galactica. Not that there’s anything wrong with that either.
It’s a fun show, light and breezy, and the eye-candy factor for guys who are over 30 is first class. ["But he’s sooo cute!!” comes up from downstairs again]
Two other USA shows, Monk and Psyche, start up on Friday. Both are funny in their own way and usually worth watching. But they don’t have Gabrielle.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Friday - May 30, 2008
Has LOST jumped the shark?
I found the 4th season finale to be kind of a let down. I don’t know what I was looking for, but somehow I didn’t find it. So Michael sort of redeems himself but the freighter and everyone on it are now dead. Bye Jin. Gee, thanks Ben. And Faraday and a couple of the other extra cast members in the little motorboat? I guess they’re lost at sea now. The SIX started off as the EIGHT, but once Penny found their lift raft (of course!) and she and Desmond had their perfect moment and he’s never leaving her again, so Desmond’s out of it. For a while at any rate, until the final Widmore showdown is my guess. And Frank stayed on there too, so he’s off the show as well. Big Red stayed on the island; interesting that she was coming back to it again! Maybe she’ll be getting her claws into Sawyer now, after his altruistic jump to save the helicopter and his long swim to shore, where he washes up shirtless like a gift from the sea right at Juliet’s feet while she knocks back the Captain Dharma spiced rum and watches the ship burn. I smell bitchfight coming!
But after Ben worked the Windlass of Time TM and upped the Phase Space AnchorTM the island was sent to another reality. He paid the price and descended the temporal tunnel back to our timeline, so he’s off to do nasty things in the “real” world. And the only way he can get back is to take the SIX and the dead guy with him? Not likely.
So now Lostie Island is a gigantic tropical version of Dr. Who’s magic phone booth? Are all the castaways going to bond now with the remains of the Others (cue Jeff Probst: “Ok everyone, take off your buffs. It’s time for the Merger. Everyone put on huge amounts of eyeliner like Richard Alpert here") and jump around each week solving crimes and saving whales and dolphins? Shark jumping? Who can say, but I think the Fonz is off the water ski jump and in the air.
Loose ends: WTF is up with Claire and Dr. Daddy? After all she’s been through with the baby, and Charlie, and being kidnapped, etc., now she’s suddenly all languid and dreamy and given to ghost like appearances in people’s dreams?
Major disappointments: The man in the coffin is Jeremy Bentham. That name has got to be a scrambled message, so get to work. But the season came full circle: episode one had Jack visiting the funeral home and that’s where this season ended. Except I swear that in ep 1 he met the funeral director, and in this final ep he had to break in. And I had thought the coffin was much shorter the first time, not at all big enough to hold the large man we finally see inside: John Locke. What the hell? Maybe he lost his legs again.
Amazingly stupid: So now, several years later, a burned out, drunk, and despondent Dr. Jack wants to get back to the island? Why, because events there proved him to be totally wrong about everything? He can’t face the world without his giant ego? “There’s no such things as miracles John” says Dr. Brainwave. And then the big purple light fills the sky again, and poof!, the island is gone, leaving nothing but a quickly dissipating ring in the water. And a school of sharks, circling.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Sunday - May 11, 2008
Signs of the Apocolypse
Comedy Central Thursday announced it is bringing “The Gong Show” back to U.S. television with a new version of the classic variety series.
Lauren Corrao, the network’s president of original programming and development, said “The Gong Show with Dave Attell” is to premiere July 17.
The new series will feature eight to 10 “off-beat and hilarious acts” that will be judged by a panel of three revolving celebrity judges, Comedy Central said.
The search for talent has already begun and submissions are being accepted at gongshowcasting@aol.com.
“We are very excited to welcome Dave Attell back to the network and put the Comedy Central touch on such a classic game/variety show,” Corrao said in a statement. “Dave is the perfect guy to host this series. His dry, comedic wit paired with the outspoken personalities of our celebrity judges and the outrageous acts will create a fresh, new take on the famed series.”
“Stars will be made, feelings will be hurt,” Attell warned.
Attell was the creator and host of “Insomniac with Dave Attell,” ran for four season on Comedy Central beginning in 2001.
Yes, I remember Insomniac, in which Dave “played” a foul mouthed sarcastic scruffy drunk, who would visit a different city each week to cruise the late night bars, chat up the hookers, and visit the unusual people who work the overnight shift in various odd businesses. It was slightly funny and slightly educational.
The original Gong Show was perhaps the worst game show that was ever on TV, back in the mid 70s when TV was at its lowest ebb. It was funny in a very painful way; if you could take everything bad about Idol and it’s predecessor Star Search and magnify it ten times, you’d have The Gong Show.
Thanks to Rancino for the link. I think.
Truly we are living in End Times.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/11/2008 at 09:39 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 08, 2008
TV Blogging: Survivor Fans vs Favorites
One man against four women. Four women who have openly bonded to vote off all the guys. And have done so. One man who wins every challenge, time after time. Because even a scrawny wiener of a guy is stronger and faster than most women. Four women who lay such an obvious guilt trip on him -"oh you hurt our feelings so much, I don’t know what you can do to make it up to us!” - that he gives up immunity when it’s a guarantee to be in the Final Four. Four women who vote him out in a flash and laugh in his face while the jury hides their faces in embarassment for him. As Parvati says “Erik, you are the dumbest Survivor in the history of Survivor”. And Erik is gone. The tribe has spoken.
Hey dumbshit, didn’t your “religiously studying” the show teach you anything from Dreamz a couple seasons back? ”I’m a keep it.” That’s how the game is played.
Truly, there has to be an intelligence test to be a contestant on this show. And you have to fail it by a wide margin to become a contestant.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/08/2008 at 08:00 PM
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Permalink • Friday - April 25, 2008
New LOST TV episode
Now that the mid-season intermission is over, LOST was back last night with a totally mind-blowing (and house blowing) episode. So now we know why future Sayeed is working for Ben, but why did Nadia get killed? (talk about a rotten encore - her character appears for the first time in 2 years and she’s already dead). Meanwhile, back on the island, the frieghter fighters are shooting everyone in sight, including Alex-I-just-got-my-hot-babe-tiara-and-now-I’m-dead. And once again Hurley turns out to have a pivotal role. Oh, and as if anybody cared, Dr. Jack is sick. I wonder if we’ll have another catfight in the mud to see whether Juliette or murder girl Kate gets to take care of him?
Let’s just hope that “The Shape of Things To Come” is the shape of things to come. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a wild ride.
For the usual great recap, go visit Mac.
For you detail junkies, mouse on over to Sledgeweb’s site, cuz there were lots of micro-clues in last night’s episode, including a new Dharma station and the parka of someone special!
Meh for recaps, but great for theories and HD screencaps is Doc Artz’ site. Plus forums!
For some fun cartoons like this on, and character sketches, plus T-shirts and coffee mugs, go visit The Lost Boys Project
Posted by Drew458
on 04/25/2008 at 01:32 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - March 20, 2008
LOST - the half season finale
So, are you utterly blown away and confused? Got lots of your questions answered, only to have many more questions asked? Me too. We got to see “Kevin Johnson“‘s backstory, in between leaving the island and nearly coming back on the freighter. I still hate him, and hope Libby haunts him forever. And is Locke totally nuts, a traitor for now supporting Ben, or has the island just taken over his mind? And I knew Tom was gay!! He was just having waaay too much fun playing football with Jack back at the Other’s compound last season. And the twist at the end, where it looks like Sayeed is giving Michael his wish ... “Why are you here?” “I’m here to die.” Fantastic move Sayeed. Talk about leveraging your assets!
Now you’ve got 5 weeks to watch all your Tivo’d episodes, and try and figure out the timelines ... one in the real world, one on the island. Because I think the show resumes on Christmas morning, island time. And decide if Charles Widmore is hugely evil, or merely rich and diabolical ... putting together the world’s biggest con in less than 10 weeks. So where does that leave Penny?
PS - knowing the LOST curse, does anyone know if the actress who plays Rousseau was caught DWI? 
PPS - did Walt look small again to you? Last time we saw him, when Locke was dying in the Dharma body pit, he looked 6 feet tall and 20 years old.
PPPS - Michael’s ride is a 1976 Plymouth Volare, restored to mint condition. Which is an oxymoronic undertaking akin to chrome plating a turd, but fits perfectly with his woebegone, do-everything-wrong personality.
You can always get a great recap over at Mac’s place. Until April 24, namaste!
Posted by Drew458
on 03/20/2008 at 10:51 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - March 01, 2008
One for the LOST fans
Mr. Ecko’s stick and Frank Lapidus’ map (the helicopter pilot): both show course 305 is the way off the island.
But Ben sent Walt and Michael out on course 325 ... wonder what year they wound up in?
Posted by Drew458
on 03/01/2008 at 11:58 PM
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