Shifting the Paradigm, Baby: The Simpsons, Studio 60, Pluto, and MORE

And I'm back, gearing up for what will definitely be an interesting week. Only clocking in for two work days, as Wednesday morning I fly to CT by way of Vegas. Yes, my first time ever in Las Vegas will be on a one-hour stopover between Burbank and Hartford. Exciting, huh? As all of this goes on, it is premiere week here at NBC, and all eyes will be on the Nielson ratings tommorow morning, where an entire corporation is going to be looking to see what our most hyped show of the fall, STUDIO 60, scores in the ratings. Luckily, the show itself is excellent, so I can say with full confidence to check it out tonight at 10 pm and boost our biz a little.

Also, I will take this opportunity to plug the fact that, apparently, my brother appears on tonight's season premiere of Deal or No Deal. As if you need another reason to watch (what, Howie Mandell and scantily clad women aren't enough?), Matt Baram will, I hear, be visible throughout the episode as an audience member, who may or may not on occasion yell various obnoxious phrases directed at the contestants. Set your Tivo's, people.

- I'd also like to say that this weekend was really fun. Two BU birthday celebrations, two, two, two nights of fun on Friday and Saturday, and it was nice to see so many people who I had not seen in a while, and it was great hanging out with such a diverse mix of BU grads and former NBC pages. A good weekend was capped off by a hearty Olive Garden dinner in Burbank, which for me is about as good as it can get.

- Speaking of my brother, a while back he recommended that I watch a movie called Dolemite, which according to his roommate - an afficianado of cult-classic blaxploitaiton films - is the quintissential over-the-top badassss blaxploitation movie. So while at Circuit City this weekend I happened upon a Kung-Fu double pack featuring DVD's of a hilarious blaxploitation karate flick that I've seen called Black Samurai, along with a movie called Shaolin Dolemite. Figuring that this was clearly some sort of sequel to Dolemite, I figured "why not?" and purchased this potentially funkalicious DVD set for the sweet price of $9.99. Unbeknownst to my unschooled self, Shaolin Dolemite is merely some old Asian kung-fu flick re-edited to include the Dolemite character, as a cheap way to capitalize on the cult success of the original Dolemite. Dayum. I have yet to actually watch Shaolin Dolemite, but now I feel burned that I will not be getting a true Dolemite experience. Oh well, at least I can be assured that 50% of the Kung-Fu doublepack is filled with ghetto-licious kung fu action, as Black Samurai is, well, amazing. Shut yo' mouth.

- Speaking of DVD purchases, I picked up two recent movies that I never got a chance to see but have heard great things about. One being Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the other being City of God. I figure for $10 each at Best Buy, you might as well add them to the ol' collection rather than renting, ya' know?

- In other movie news, no review of the Black Dahlia for ya'. I had been excited for this movie for a while, but the poor reviews combined with my general busy-ness this weekend made me decide to skip the free Universal screening. If I wasn't in CT this coming weekend, I would definitely be up for Jet Li's Fearles, however - that looks friggin kickass. Perhaps my brother and I will check it out in CT ...

- Also, Ain't It Cool News recently had a four part interview with Peter Jackson, the most intriguing part of which focused on the possibility of him finally doing The Hobbit. Jackson mentioned a desire to once again work with the cast of the original LOTR trilogy, and even speculated that he could see doing The Hobbit as a two-part series. While two Hobbit movies seems a bit extreme to me (the beauty of the book was always that it was such a comparitively simple, open-and-shut story, that only hinted at the grand epic to come), the thought of PJ doing another LOTR adaptation makes me float away to geek heaven. I love those movies more than almost any others, I will unabashedly admit, and I can only hope that the rights issues get cleared up ASAP, and that MGM, who holds the rights to the Hobbit, will make some sort of compromise with New Line to get this done. After all, actors like Ian Holm (if they were to include him as Bilbo, though the practicality of that is debatable), Ian McKellan, Cate Blanchett, and especially Christopher Lee (what is he, 90-something?) are not getting any younger, and if the latter two were to be included (McKellan would have to be, of course), this needs to be on the fast-track!

- Okay, some TV Reviews:

FOX SUNDAY NIGHT:

Well, it's not quite the same without King of the Hill back yet, as I only now care about 50% of FOX's Sunday Night Lineup. And night's like last night, where both Simpsons and Family Guy disappinted, man, just very depressing when the filler shows include American Dad and The War at Home rather than gems like Futurama and Arrested Development.

THE SIMPSONS:

This ep really started out on a promising note. I liked the focus on Bart, and the whole Bat-takes-up-drumming thing was actually one of the best pieces of character development they've done on the show in a long time. And that trippy scene with Bart and the White Stripes was a really cool little piece of animation. But man, was it ever all downhill from there. Almost every joke fell flat, and the plot soon veered its focus into a totaly pointless and boring B-story about Lisa collecting abandoned animals, which really angered me as they had something interesting going on with the Lisa-being-jealous-of-Bart's-musical-success plot point. As per usual with these types of poorly-structured episodes, the whole third act felt rushed, random, and haphazardly done, and it didn't help that there was barely a laugh the entire duration of the episode. Just a really, really disappointing episode, especially conisdering that the premise was one of the more novel ones in a while. My Grade: C

FAMILY GUY:

And ... wow. Yet another contender for Worst Episode Ever. This one was just tough to even watch. WTF is going on here? This episode committed the cardinal sin of mocking something for being annoying by being just as annoying. Case in point: the whole satire of morning radio in this ep -- yes, annoying morning radio DJ's are a good target for comedic satire, but the satirical scenes here were, in and of themselvs, RIDICULOUSLY ANNOYING. It's like mocking an Al Gore speech for being boring by playing an entire Al Gore speech. I mean, yikes, this ep was just BAD. Almost every joke was flat, every cutaway was just LAME, and it did not work, at ALL. If this is the level of qulity we can expect from this season, then please put this show out of it's misery. My Grade: D

As far as I can tell, King of the Hill cannot return fast enough in order to save this increasingly unwatchable FOX Sunday night. I was unfortunate enough to catch the first minute or so of The War at Home, in which the dad did a cringe inducing monologue about The American Dream versus the Canadian or Mexican Dreams. One of the worst attempts at "comedy" I've ever heard- I'd get more legitimate laughs from the latest edition of Blondie.

- On that note, this week's premiere of THE OFFICE cannot come fast enough either. Comedy is in a sad state right now, and a good dose of Dwight Schrute may be just what the laugh doctor ordered.

- But, allow me to weigh in on the controversy of The Office's Jim-Pam romance-centric ad campaign. As I've said, these ads are LAME. The show is an offbeat, ensemble comedy, not Friends, not Cheers, and certainly NOT the newest CW soap. Even if emphasizing the show's most soapy aspect over all else (including, you know, the COMEDY) gets a few more viewers to tune in, to me this is basically just selling the show out.

- Speaking of the CW - Sunday saw the official demise of THE WB. Very sad for those of us who are longtime fans, and I liked how the WB ran a bunch of its classic pilots on Sunday as kind of a last hurrah. Smallville, Gilmore Girls, Grounded for Life, Jack and Bobby, Birds of Prey (well, not so much), and a treasure trove of animated programs are all examples of quality programming I enjoyed on the WB. Here's hoping that revitalized CW continues to be a home for shows that dare to be different, and that the bigger franchises like Gilmore Girls can bring new viewers to very deserving UPN-imports like Veronica Mars and Everybody Hates Chris.

- Regarding the newly-hot FACEBOOK: stop sending me these invites to join all these lame groups! Whether it' a facebook-protest group, an anti-protest protest group, or whatever, I don't care enough about facebook-related issues to join any of these. And also, i must say, the insights that the new Feed give you on people's facebooking habits is quite scary. All I know is, some people spend A LOT of time tweaking their page. I mean, do people just like wake up one morning and say "Oh man, 'Major League' is not quite as beloved by me as I once thought - I'd better removie it from my favorite movies list ASAP!"?

- Just a quick thought on Pluto: as relatively small a thing as it might be, I hate when I read about traditionalists bemoaning the loss of Pluto as a planet because of how fondly they remember learning about it in school or whatever. While in this case I understand the sentimentality, in principal I hate this attitude. Why? Because getting all worked up about Pluto no longer being a planet because you "like the idea" of it being one is like a gateway belief into being anti-evolution ("well, I LIKED THE IDEA of humans not evolving from apes"), or anti-semitic ("well, it was FUN to blame the Jews for everything") or of taking any position that involves unfounded, inherited modes of thought over the facts of science. I know, connecting these things with Pluto is a stretch. But the way I see it, one minute you're demanding that Pluto be a planet, the next you're saying we should still think the world was flat, since it made more sense that way. On the other hand ... 'the hell? Pluto isn't a planet anymore? Who do these uppity "scientists" think they are - I'll be darned if they're gonna steal MY childhood like that.

- Umm ... anyways ...

- And while I'm talking about Pluto, I'd just like to reiterate the inherent creepiness of the fact that in the Disney universe, Pluto exists side by side with Goofy. Both are dogs, yet one stands on two legs and can talk and is a peer of similiarly anthropomorphic cartoon Mickey Mouse, while the other walks on all fours, cannot speak English, and is clearly a subserviant pet to the more humanized Mickey, who nonetheless is also an animal, albeit one who wears pants and white gloves. How weird is THAT ...?

- Hey, is the Playstation 3 actually coming out in 2006? Will people actually shell out $600 for it? Will it spur the sales of Blu-Ray or doom Blu-Ray to obscurity?So many questions, and none make me feel good about my chances of playing Metal Gear Solid 4 anytime in the next two years ...

- Back to TV, I love how all the shows are slowly being made available for FREE on ad-suported streaming feeds online. Seriously, I anticipate that I am going to be doing a ton of show-watching this year sitting in front of the computer screen. Because as high-quality as Studio 60 is for example, I just don't know if I'll be in the mood for it after a testosterone-filled double-shot of Prison Break and 24. I'd rather flip to USA after my Jack Bauer-induced high and watch the last hour of grown men in tights throwing each other through wooden tables on WWE RAW. So yeah, WATCH Studio 60, it's really, really good, but it's on NBC.com, video-on-demand, not on I-Tunes yet, but who knows. My point is, there's no way most of us have time to watch all these shows when they actually air, but it's cool that now there are so many ways for us to watch em that can be time-shifted to match out moods and schedules. Hey, I'm working in New Media these days so screw the traditional broadcast model, I'm all about SHIFTING THE PARADIGM, baby.

- On that note, I'm out. In spite of all that I just said: Matthew Perry, Amanda Pete, and an all-star cast - STUDIO 60 tonight. Watch, Tivo, stream, record, netflix, VOD, or download it.