BLUE MAG

Grim word today that Veronica Mars is “out of hope” at The CW.

All we have left to hope for is that Rob Thomas can find a way to wrap up the series well next week. Fortunately he has 2 hours. I’m hoping that they will work in part of the season 4 tester they produced to try to keep this from happening. Big finish and then wham, fast forward 4 years and hopefully tell us what everyone is doing.

Incidentally I thought this week’s was great. Dick telling off Daddy Casablancas was something I did not see coming and was really well done.

But still. Fuck!!

UPDATE: Or is it? The Hollywood Reporter reports that CW still hasn’t decided on the proposed “Veronica Mars, F.B.I.” reinvented series. I guess they are looking at that as a separate series rather than an extension of the current one. So the current series doesn’t appear even as a mid-season replacement but CW could possibly bring in the new/reinvented/sequel/spinoff as a midseason replacement.

Here is the official description of ABC’s fall show “Dirty Sexy Money”

Power, privilege and family money are a volatile cocktail thrust on an idealistic lawyer when he inherits the job of tending to the legal (and sometimes illegal) needs of the absurdly wealthy Darlings of New York City. Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland, Jill Clayburgh and William Baldwin star in this younger, sexier, redheaded stepchild of Dallas and Dynasty.

It stars Peter Krause as the lawyer who takes over the family trust. William Baldwin plays a Senator. The youngest sibling is a male, and appears to be sort of a fuckup. The patriarch is played by a grizzled movie actor. The show is exec produced by Greg Berlanti.

In other words, a former “Six Feet Under” cast member is at the reins, one character is a Senator/Presidential candidate, one character is played by one of a famous pair of actor brothers, and it is exec-produced by Greg Berlanti. There are so many points where this is a ripoff of “Brothers and Sisters” that I almost don’t know where to start.

I know I’m not the first person to point this out, but this is where TV programming goes wrong. They take a hit show, and with all the marketing and focus grouping they do they still can’t figure out that what makes it a hit is that it is fresh and unique. See Lost, 24, even Brothers and Sisters. So they decide to copy it, instead of finding something else unique.

Where’s that book I was reading?…

A buddy of mine saw Andy, the latest ABC “Bachelor,” at a triathlon a few weekends ago. Here is photographic evidence that Andy just “can’t turn ‘it’ off”…

CBS has yet to officially announce its fall lineup, but the LA Times is reporting that “How I Met Your Mother” is safe. That is excellent news.

It must be, or it couldn’t have been canceled today as NBC announced its new fall lineup. “Bionic Woman” remake, a “Sex and the City” remake, several shows featuring — are you sitting down? — supernatural twists, and “Heroes: Origins.” The best idea ever? I’m pretty sure it sounds rad…

The spinoff will introduce a new character each week, and viewers will select which one stays for the following season.

In what will probably end up as the best news of the week — especially after reading that CW has not booked the cast of “Veronica Mars” in to NYC for the upfront — NBC made right by Texas and picked up “Friday Night Lights,” moving it to … Friday nights. Will that be better? Maybe it will.

Continue reading Breaking NBC upfront news: “Crossing Jordan” is still on

I’m still loving this show. But I have a problem with last night’s episode… don’t read on if you haven’t watched.

How could Juliet have known what was on the other side of the tape? At best she could have guessed at the message’s content, but since the tape player went from Ben to Locke to Sawyer, she could not have heard it. Last week, she had told Ben on the tape that Sun was preggers and that she still had to get Kate’s sample, but they were still on for the original plan for the raid. On the tape last night, Ben confirmed the first two points, saying there would be no time for Kate’s sample but then changing the timeframe of the raid. Correct? That would have been new, urgent information for Juliet, but instead she played it like she had heard that message already. Unless of course the tape player was a feint for Locke and Sawyer’s benefit, and that the real messages were being passed some other way between Ben and Juliet. But that would just be confusing at this point. They would have had to set that up. I think this was a flub.

So was what happened to Locke, but of a different much more serious variety…

Boo on you, CW, Amy Sherman-Palladino, David Rosenthal, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel.
Mark my words, the series ending of “Gilmore Girls” is going to go down in TV history as the biggest letdown. A picture of Lorelai will appear in dictionaries next to the word “fizzle.” Blech.

Recently I’ve noticed this show has/had a tendency to do sloppy cuts between scenes; a character would be in a scene, that scene would end, and then we’d cut… to the same character in another scene. This always seemed just sloppy. Lorelai is at the inn, daytime, talking to Sookie… cut to Lorelai walking on the street at night. Sloppy, I say.

But when you’re wrapping up a seven season show in 2 episodes, it becomes even more egregious. Logan breaks up with Rory after proposing on the eve of her graduation from Yale, and our next cut is… Rory packing up her apartment, only mentioning that sad situation in passing? That should have been an episode and a half.

I am going to go out on a limb and blame Lauren Graham personally. It seems pretty obvious that the two central Girls wanted out of this show. They easily could have worked out a “Friends” style deal giving them enough money to buy seven CW networks, but at the end of the day they wanted out. And since Alexis Bledel is still obviously only 13 years old I blame her elder. This blood is on your hands, Lauren Graham.

Blech.

Discover RiffTrax, a new project from Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (Tom Servo and Crow) featuring … wacky running commentary for bad movies! Only this time the target is a wide selection of more current movies rather than 60s-70s B movies, and it is served up on MP3 rather than in sillhouette. Sample the comedy.

My brother just sent me a link to a bunch of clips of Mr. Show, which should make for some great Friday time-wasting. Included is the “audition” sketch in which David is performing a monologue about an audition. I think that might be one of my favorite Mr. Show sketches.

Two stories today about classic tv getting new life online… First up it’s Sony’s “Minisode Network” which will be producing brief versions of classic TV episodes from shows like “Sheena” and “Dilbert.” Yes those were both shows. Remember “Sheena”?

Next is VH1Classic.com featuring thousands of full-length 70s-80s-90s videos. You know what would make your afternoon rad? Watching the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” You’re welcome.