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TV.MyTriState.us
Welcome! Here, you'll find our blogs on TV and TV shows. From The Honeymooners to modern titles, TV is a life long obsession for many of us. While formula-matic sitcoms delight some and bore others to tears, there are still a few new and exciting shows to be seen, which we'll be detailing here in our TV News & Review section.
TV Reviews
Do we have any education in TV reviewing? Nope, we just love TV. Well, sort of.
TV shows that start with the letter
Return of the Unwatchable Tonight Show
When we heard Conan O'Brien was taking over the Tonight Show, we were pumped up about it. Read more...
Fox and Time Warner Cable subscriber fees
If you've seen or heard Fox's annoying commercials about how Time Warner Cable may not be able to carry Fox channels in the near future, you might be wondering what is going on. Using their standard scare tactics, Fox is encouraging folks to call Time Warner Cable and let them know you love Fox and blah blah blah. The reason Time Warner Cable might lose Fox is because the negotiation for subscriber fees is not going well. Fox wants $1 per subscriber from Time Warner for it's broadcast channel and regional sports networks only - the negotiations do not include news channels or National Geographic Channel. CBS, on the other hand, is expecting about 50 cents per subscriber, so you can see how Time Warner Cable is balking at this. We've also read a lot about the enormous about of money Fox spent on the film Avatar, which has been number 1 at the box office for the last two weeks but supposedly had Fox executives sweating, so there might be a connection between Fox's high priced demand and spending. Avatar is the most expensive movie Fox has ever made - internet speculation puts the price tag between $250 and $500 million. In any case, if Time Warner users have to go a few weeks without Fox, they're better off. What are you really missing, anyway? American Idol? Big deal. Besides, you can watch all the episodes on Hulu, can't you? No matter what nonsense Fox puts in the Time Warner Cable marketing campaign, the bottom line is that if Time Warner Cable has to pay $1 per subscriber, they're going to raise your cable fee. If Time Warner Cable is smart, they'll make it a separate line item on your bill! You'll say to yourself, "I'm paying HOW MUCH for 24 and Family Guy? @#%!"
NOTE: Fox and Time Warner Cable have reached an agreement to extend their negotiations beyond the deadline.
Comcast now owns 51% of NBC Universal
G.E. has now become a minority shareholder at 49% as controlling shares of NBC Universal is now owned by Comcast, the cable giant that now has the major television and film production house it always wanted. What's interesting is the declining value of network broadcast NBC and rising value of the NBC Universal cables channels, like USA, Bravo, SyFy, CNBC and MSNBC. Adding this to Comcast's meager stable of cable channels like VS and the Golf Channel, Comcast has made a nice purchase for itself, as cable vendors purchase cable channels A la carte, meaning NBC Universal is probably not going to charge itself for its own cable channels, and now, they have DirecTV by the short and curlies. DirecTV recently dropped VS, a terrible blow for DirecTV customers who love hockey, but now Comcast is in a position of strength to stuff VS down DirecTV's throat, perhaps using a, 'if you want one of our channels, you have to take them all' philosophy. Only time will tell how effective this deal is for both companies and what it'll mean for the entertainment industry.
Scrubs to change format for Season 9
What has several thumbs and doesn't need Zach Braff for it's 9th season? The cast of Scrubs. Read more...
CastTV.com
If you want to watch TV online, CastTV is a place to go. CastTV is like Hulu or YouTube, but better - the pull TV shows from a ton of sources, so you get a lot more episodes than you would at other sites. Hulu, for example, keeps 5 episodes per show online and YouTube has minimal content, so CastTV is really the place to go. Check it out, but beware of all the ads and misleading crap. It's a little hard to navigate, but once you get used to the site, you'll be in good shape.
Jeff Dunham Show
If you want to give the Jeff Dunham Show a chance, its on Wednesday nights on Comedy Central at, uhm, oh who the hell cares? Read more...
Infotainment - understanding 24 hour 'news' networks
Americans need to go back to school when it comes to their understanding of what they're seeing on 24 hour 'news' networks. We put news in quotes because, for the most part, if you turn on the FOX News Channel, MSNBC or CNN, you're not going to be tuning in to a news program but instead, a talk show. Here are what these networks have on at 8 PM:
FOX NEWS CHANNEL: O'Reilly Factor
MSNBC: Countdown with Keith Olbermann
CNN: Campbell Brown
None of these shows are news - they're all talk shows. This is an important distinction that needs to be made and people need to understand. Talk shows are under no obligation to report facts - talk shows are in the business of getting rating and making money. Now it's true, news programs like BBC World News America are under an obligation to their network to earn rating and advertising dollars, but its not the same thing - and, true enough, BBC World News America is not on at 8 PM, it's on at 10 PM. At some point, infotainment took over these channels - shows that wear the cloak of news but are really talk shows in disguise, full of arguing pundits and radical hosts who are primarily employed to grab a specific market share of the audience. Remember when Jon Stewart battled Jim Cramer about his show and how Cramer's bad advise may have cost people a lot of money? Stewart never tackled the issue from the right angle; the real issue is that Mad Money isn't a show you should be taking advice from because Jim Cramer is a talk show host, not an economic adviser. Use your common sense - he's throwing stuff at the camera half the damn time! But when a show is on a channel that calls itself a 24 hours news network, it's easy to get confused.
Now we know better. Now we know there is this new concept out there, and its called Infotainment. It might sound like news, but put it in its proper perspective: would you take advice on stocks from some guy your friend told you was an expert? You might, but you'd do your own research, your own thinking before you made a serious financial commitment. The tools are out there - most of them are right here on the internet. But there are some news shows to watch on TV on PBS or BBC - but, that's pretty much where it ends.
The Many Divisions of FOX
FOX is a fascinating animal (that's a terrible pun), and the different divisions beat to their own drummer. FOX News features conservative pundits who warp themselves so tightly in the American flag it's a wonder they can breath. FOX broadcast channel (that's 5 on the dial here in greater tv, television, hd tv, tv blog, tv review, episodes) offers a steady diet of far racier programming like 'Family Guy' (adult content), '24' (violence) or 'American Idol' (extreme character tear downs and humiliation). During Saturday's FOX Sports presentation of the New York Mets at the Philadelphia Phillies, they chose not to broadcast the national anthem. On July 4th. They did, however, interrupt the 1st inning to show Manny Ramirez's 1st at bat in his second game back from his PED suspenion.
Is this inconsistent of FOX? Maybe not. Is it strange the FOX News hammers a conservative point of view, their broadcast networks shows racy shows with questionable (at best) family values and their Sports execs cut the National Anthem out of the Fourth of July baseball game? Not really. The one thing all divisions of FOX do consistently is try to be right on the edge. FOX News has some of the loudest conservative voices around. FOX Sports gets us talking all the time with their silly graphics, poor play by play announcers and decisions like extra commercials and when they do stuff like cutting the Star Spangled Banner on the 4th of July. 'Family Guy' is stock full of border line language and celebrity attacks. It's all the same basic model - shock em so they watch, keep watching and so people talk about it. It's working - we're talking about it right now. We can't necessarily advocate a full boycott of FOX; not while they have 'The Simpsons' and MLB games, but we're getting closer. 'The Simpsons' won't stay on the air forever, and FOX is bound to let the World Series go eventually as the rating continue to slip. Until then, we'll review the first episode of the 'Cleveland Show' (not expecting much there - nothing like beating a dead horse, huh, guys?), but FOX sure is making it hard to watch.
Important Things with Demetri Martin
Important Things with Demetri Martin stars Demetri Martin. We can't stress that enough. You might have seen Demetri Martin doing a Comedy Central special - he'd be the dude with a guitar and a big ass pad, dispensing truth at a leisurely rate. Read more...
Daily Show Examines Olympic Controversies
This video is so good, we had to make sure ya'll saw it. Read more...
ESPN announcers miss Yankees injury
Sure, watching the Yankees on YES or listening to them on the radio is essentially a love fest. Read more...
FOX switches from Yankees Red Sox to NASAR mid at bat
Watching sports on FOX is really annoying, what with dancing robots and Scooter, but they usually show the entire game. Not this time, though. Read more...
Hulu.com is out of beta testing
The TV/Movie site hulu.com is now out of beta testing and is available to the public. You have to watch disgusting 15 second Taco Bell ads (seriously, no one likes cheese this much), but that's it. Is this the first bit of declining traffic for YouTube? Could be... Try out an episode of The Simpsons.
Family Guy to spawn Cleveland spin off
We've been reading it everywhere, so it's either a widely published rumor or fact... guess it has to be one or the other... Check out CollegeCandy.com for an angry article, but if you search 'Cleveland spinoff' at Google, you'll get lots of results. Frankly, we're in full agreement with the CollgeCandy.com article, excluding The Simpsons comments. We can't think of any good ideas for a Family Guy spin off, but we've considered Cleveland to be one of the weaker, less interesting characters on the show. Maybe a spinoff where Cleveland AND Quagmire live together as a new odd couple could work, but it's just a bad idea. We'll have to wait and see if this comes to pass. We liked Peter's idea for his own show better: where he was a former baseball umpire who owned a bar... at the center of the earth.
UPDATED: Knight Rider
Did anybody watch this? We didn't. Sounds like we made the right move. Check out the Autoblog for their play by play.
The Knight Rider movie sounds so bad, we couldn't' even get through the Autoblog description of it. We hoped that NBC was punished for their unoriginal bastardism, but no such luck - they won the Sunday night spot in the ratings as seen here. Oh well.
NBC's Knight Rider debuts Feb 17, 9 pm
In an effort to be the most unoriginal bastards on the planet, NBC is bringing back Knight Rider - not a remake, but a continuation... or something like that. Check out the Official NBC website.
Knight Rider? Really? What's next, Air Wolf? Is it really that difficult to come up with new ideas? Was Knight Rider that good an idea to begin with? We suppose the answers to all this and more will come on Feb 17, but we won't know them - we have a bunch of Terminator episodes that we recorded to catch up on... well, not really.
"American Idol" is number 1 in 2007
Nielsen.com has posted their top 10 lists for 2007, and it isn't pretty. Head over to their site for the full list.
Wow, American Idol. Jeez.
Is this really what American's like? Glorified Star Search? British people telling us we suck? Used up Pop Stars fawning over their favorites and of course, the other guy? Do you really enjoy when they bring in people on the first day that have no business being there? Do you enjoy them being humiliated? Does it make you feel better about yourself? Or perhaps you miss The Gong Show?
We don't know what the attraction to American Idol is and frankly, we hope we never figure it out. I guess this show is here to stay until people with talent stop auditioning or the show gets completely played out.
Local restaurant on "Kitchen Nightmares"
Apparently, people actually watch this show in both the UK and the US. (Wow, how we collectively suck.) Fair Lawn's Campania, an Italian Restaurant, was recently featured and we just want to make it clear that anything negative you saw on that show gets a big middle digit from us. Isn't anyone else getting sick of British people complaining about Americans on reality TV? We know, we know, they do sound smart, but the accent helps. A lot. Didn't anyone see Snatch?
We couldn't be bothered to watch the entire episode; we did hear that the Ramsay guy complained that the portions were too large. We believe that large portions are a good thing, you blimey bastard! The next best thing to a good dinner is reliving it at lunch the next day. And if they found the staff's behavior to not be professional enough, take a look at one of your local chain kitchens (Fridays, Tuesdays, any other day of the week you may choose... Chile's...): a bit of goofy behavior is the least of your worries, believe me.
Oh well.
Campania is a great spot to eat, and not just for dinner, but for lunch as well. (Their power lunch will knock you on your butt!)
Campania Restaurant: 17-15 Broadway, Fairlawn, New Jersey 07410. Tel: 201-797-8222
"Dude, I'm Getting An Old Fashioned!" Curtis Is Now A Waiter
Remember Ben Curtis telling us that, in fact, we were getting a Dell? Well, we saw on Engadget that you can now ask him for an alternative; say vodka martini, shaken, not stirred. Yep, he who proudly complained, "Dude, you're getting Dell!" is waitering at local watering hole Tortilla Flats. That's rough; Curtis' deal with Dell was terminated after a marijuana arrest, just when it seemed like movies and the world was opening up for him. We understand this isn't the sort of face they want on their product, but jeez... it's not like he was selling crack to school children... We can only hope that his band, Whale, takes off...
Coming Nov 27 - Futurama: Bender's Big Score
[Tears of joy] You dream about this day [sniff], but when it finally comes, you just don't know what to say. Futurama has an 88 minute feature debuting on Nov 27 called Bender's Big Score. We've heard some plot spoilers, but we'll keep em to ourselves. Futurama is, for our generation, one of the worst cancellations ever. A show that was (no pun intended) ahead of its time, Futurama did for off beat sitcoms what The Simpsons did for family sitcoms. We hope this does well and one of our favorite shows of all time gets a second life. Futurama sites: Futurama: Bender's Big Score | Bring Back Futurama Petition | Can't Get Enough Futurama
You can order it from Amazon here.
South Park Season 11
NOVEMBER 2007: South Park's new season is rolling along and we're pretty happy so far. Check out our South Park TV review page for more details and a VIDEO.
Taco Bell Ads Are Scaring Us/Grossing Us Out
OCTOBER 2007: Dude, those new spots for Taco Bell's featured product are both frightening and borderline barf-a-rific. Seriously. Cheese is not a turn on. We have never seen people bond over cheese (maybe at a fondue bar) and the image of the cheese... ugh. It doesn't look like cheese to us... Head over to their site for info about what appears to be a beef burrito with extra cheese, but they're running their spots all over the MLB playoffs if you want to be scared until you hurl... Maybe it's just us.
The Price is Right
Network: CBS
The Price is Right returns, and it looks like all they changed was the host - good call, by the way. See the video from Yahoo!; it'll give you the low down.
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