Whine & Cheese

The Strike

2007-11-07T19:18:00.001-08:00

So, I like to dabble in the writing, and if you've ever read my old blogs, you'd know that I'm into television. In particular, I'm into arc-centric television. So, to say that the WGA's writer's strike peaks my interest is a understatement. All of the shows that I watch and love are about to go off the air and who knows when or if any of them will come back? Without a script, you can't do a show. I support the writers. In particular, I support their necessity to get paid for residuals that come in from all sources of media.

Webisodes, for example, not covered under current WGA contract. Internet downloads, streaming media, also not covered. The formula for which residuals are paid on home video are antiquated, back from the days where producing a home video was not as easy as putting a disc into your computer and clicking a few buttons.

I think we're bound for a long strike. The last WGA strike was in 1988 and lasted five months and in the end, the writers caved. So, what does that mean? No new dramas, comedies, talk shows, soap operas will be dried up come January 2008. So what does that leave us with? Reality TV. Once again, if you've read any of my old blogs you'll know that I think reality TV is crap. It's created by talentless hacks and watched by people who only want the lowest form of entertainment. Sorry if you watch reality TV, but it has brought us such great hits as: Temptation Island and Joe Millionaire. Yeah, good programming there. (No, not all of it is total crap, but for the most part, it needs to die.) It's cheap, it gets the average working class citizen watching and most importantly, WGA writers are not on staff.

So, what does that mean for the shows I cover here in the blog? Well, The Office's final episode for the time being will air next Thursday as Steve Carrell and other members of the cast are WGA members. Heroes may have it's season finale on December 3 or it may just kinda be up in the air. Lost probably won't be coming back until February 2009 at this point as the executive producers say that with the eight episodes in the bag make you think you're in the middle of Harry Potter. 24 (a show I used to cover) is on indefinite hiatus. Battlestar Galactica's premiere has been pushed back to April, and it is believed that the final ten episodes of the series will not air until 2009. I would assume that this does not bode well for a second season of Damages. The fate of that show has been on the bubble for several months now. I believe the current season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is in the can. I've read nothing on Chuck or How I Met Your Mother but I would assume the story is similar although I'd imagine like Damages, Chuck might not see a second season.

The one real disappointment is Scrubs. In its final season and only nine or ten episodes in the can out of the order of eighteen, the question remains, will the show get a proper sendoff? The answer is probably not. So, very disappointing there.

Truth be told, I think the season ending very early is probably a good thing for me personally. Directing Suicide Anyone? will be nice to focus on that and only that, and it will give me time to study for the GRE and maintain a semblance of a social life. But, I will miss my Lost and Office and other shows. That is for true.

If the strike does last long, this will also move into the development season of the 2008-2009 season. In other words, there may be a lot of reality TV on the slate next season.

God help us all.

Halloween

2007-10-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about this time of a year but it seems that no matter what year it is, I have issues this time every year. Not going to go into a tremendous amount of detail about what's going on (because who knows who's reading and because I really don't want to be all emo right now) suffice it to say that there are certain things I can't just sit back and watch happen. Let's just say that I feel like I've been here before at this time of year and I don't know what keeps bringing me back.

So as I sit here with my Halloween duds on... looking all white trash-esque as I'm about to go to that center of white trash - American Pi. God, I hate that place but when you've been blowing off friends for about a month for various different reasons, you do what they want to do. I don't plan on staying out that late anyway. I'll be home no later than 1.

So its been awhile since I've written. What's new? Well, The Sting is over and I'm starting to gear up for production on Suicide Anyone? A crew's together, auditions are set, now I just need a vision for my segment, "Loyalty." Seems everyone likes Andrew's episode "Empathy" more than "Loyalty," but thats okay. (Side note: Its very interesting that "okay" is not in Firefox's spelling dictionary. Very odd.) So, that's a big goal for this week is to get my vision on.

Watching Studio 60 on DVD. While I have to admit, time has made me realize that maybe I was a little overzealous for my praise of the show, but its still very good. This season, Nielsen has finally listened to reason and started counting TiVo/DVR viewing in its count as long as its "live plus seven" (seven days that is). Medialife Magazine reports "The live-plus-seven-day rating for NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is 136 percent higher than its live rating in DVR homes." In other words, had Studio 60 premiered one year later, or had Nielsen started including those ratings earlier, the show would have most likely gotten a second season.

Work is work but there may be some changes which I really can't talk about at the moment and life continues to be interesting at every turn. Sometimes I wish it was just a little less interesting. Well, Happy Halloween to all! Catch ya later!

The New Fall Season!

2007-09-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

It’s that time again!

The new fall season is upon us and once again, the shows that we (well, maybe just I) love are coming back. This year for me personally means fewer shows which means a lot more time to not spend in front of the TV. For those of you who may have forgotten, here’s where the list of shows was left off at the end of the 2006-2007 season.

6. Scrubs
5. How I Met Your Mother
4. Battlestar Galactica
3. Heroes
2. Lost
1. The Office

Now granted, this was how the list looked at the beginning of the 2006-2007 season.

10. Family Guy (no longer on the must-see list)
9. The Simpsons (no longer on the must-see list)
8. How I Met Your Mother
7. Veronica Mars (cancelled)
6. Heroes
5. Battlestar Galactica
4. Scrubs
3. 24 (no longer on the must-see list)
2. Lost
1. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (cancelled)

Other shows that I watched during the season included Day Break (which honestly just bored me to tears the week before ABC cancelled it), Andy Barker, P.I. (which was a hilariously brilliant show in the vein of Arrested Development – no wonder it didn’t catch on) and Drive (poor Nathan Fillion and Tim Minear… will they ever get shows off the ground?).

I was really hoping the networks would have absolutely nothing new and potentially interesting to offer me. Well, they did. Damn them. I was perfectly content letting my six remaining shows dwindle out and that I would never ever watch “live” TV again. So, now I have seven, but the newest one is obviously on a “I’ll watch the first handful of episodes and see what I think about the show come midseason (assuming it too is not cancelled.) I’ve had the chance to see four pilots for this season (four through legal, one through slightly less than legal) and I can say that there is only one show out of those four that really managed to peak my interest through the running time. The Bionic Woman, Back to You and Journeyman all bored me for different reasons. Chuck, well, we’ll see how the second episode fairs before I add it to the list. Also, two shows that are new on my schedule but won’t be added to the list (as they are both well into their new season’s run) are Damages and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, both airing on FX. Also, Lost and Battlestar Galactica will not be reviewed as they are not premiering this fall. Always Sunny and Damages will be reviewed individually at the end of their seasons (retroactively for the first three seasons on Always Sunny’s part) and Lost and Galactica will be added into the mix in the midseason review. So, that brings the total down to four (yes, four) series that will be premiering in the next month or so. So, without further adieu…

4. Scrubs (Thursdays, 9:30/8:30c, NBC, premieres October 25)

Zach Braff (Dr. John (J.D.) Dorian), Sarah Chalke (Dr. Elliott Reid), Donald Faison (Dr. Chris Turk), Neil Flynn (Janitor), John C. McGinley (Dr. Bob Kelso) and Judy Reyes (Nurse Carla Turk)
Created by Bill Lawrence

Seven can often times be the lucky number. More often that not, when it comes to television shows, seven seems more than often to equal death. Many series that see seven years don’t see an eighth (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing, Star Trek: The Next Generation for instance) and those that do probably shouldn’t have (M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, E.R., among many others). Even still seven is certainly no magic number, but creating twenty to twenty-six story ideas a year around the same basic premise over a period of several years can milk an idea dry.

For Scrubs, this happened around the end of the fifth season. NBC, however decided to give the series a sixth season which probably wasn’t as good as years past (with maybe the exception of the musical episode). However, there was a pretty decently-sized cliffhanger at the end of the sixth season. A seventh season with seventeen episodes was commissioned to wrap the story up.

Now, please, do not get me wrong. I do like Scrubs and I am still entertained by the series (which I suppose is the most important thing). With every girl’s name Dr. Cox (McGinley) calls J.D. (Braff), Dr. Acula sketch or J.D. fantasy, I do find myself laughing. But, the show is starting to lose its footing. I would much rather have seen it go out on top at the end of season four then at season five. That way, perhaps we could avoid the rumored appearance of Shirley, the late Laverne’s sister. The kicker, both Laverne and Shirley are played by Aloma Wright. Laverne was a great character, but yeah, let’s introduce her identical twin. A little soap-opera-y don’t you think? Still, I am looking forward to see how they wrap it all up!

3. How I Met Your Mother (Mondays, 8/7c, CBS, premieres September 24)

Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby), Jason Segel (Marshall Eriksen), Cobie Smulders (Robin Scherbatsky) with Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson) and Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin)
Created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas

In researching this article (yes, I do a little research on these things), I discovered that there is a slap bet timer on CBS’ HIMYM site. For those of you who don’t watch the show or don’t remember the significance of the slap bet, last November, there was an episode of the show entitled strangely enough, “Slap Bet.” In it, Marshall won a bet against Barney in which Marshall could give him a certain number of slaps in a row or a different number of slaps at any time he wanted to. Its nice to see that the continuity in this show goes on. It’s something that sitcoms had only a small amount of in the past and with shows that are still standalone in nature, brining stuff like this and oh, I don’t know, maybe Robin Sparkles back would be legen (wait for it) dary!

In the first few weeks of the show this year, we’re going to see guest spots by Mandy Moore and Enrique Igelsias as well as the return of Trudy (Danica McKellar) from my favorite episode of the series, “The Pineapple Incident!”

The question remains however, how long until Robin and Ted get back together? And when will Ted meet that pesky mother? And how will it all go down? Maybe we’ll find out soon enough!

2. Heroes (Mondays, 9/8c, NBC, premieres September 24)

Jack Coleman (Noah Bennet), Noah Gray-Cabey (Micah Sanders), Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman), Ali Larter (Nikki Sanders), James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi), Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli)

Created by Tim Kring

I had a party a week ago and had invited some people from my personal life and some from the office. A good friend of mine from the office wasn’t particularly enthused with Heroes citing issues with the dialogue and the lack of action in the show. When he met another friend of mine, who scoffed at the dialogue issue (“I don’t watch the show for the dialogue! I watch it for the action!”), my office friend freaked. Not that I wanted any harm to happen to either of them, I really kinda wanted to see a nerd-herd debate out of the two of them. Sure, it might have broken up the way cool party, but it could have been fun.

Heroes returns for a second season. While one can hope that the dialogue and action will improve, no one can improve the ratings, as it was NBC’s number one new drama in the ratings in 2006-2007. So, what can they do to improve upon it? Yeah, yeah, we’ve all seen the promos by this point: new heroes, new powers, all that stuff.

What excites me most is the old characters. Sure, its going to be great to see Veronica Mars herself as a superpower when Kristen Bell becomes a recurring character. But I want to know why I’m seeing Nathan and Peter in the promos when, well, aren’t they supposed to be dead? What happened with them? Why’s Matt walking around when D.L.’s nowhere to be seen? And what’s the deal with Spock—er Sylar?

This show to me was never one about action, it was one about character and while I think dialogue is very important to character, this show does have interesting characters. My favorite, Mr. Horned Rimmed Glasses himself, Noah Bennett, is back with his hottie daughter Claire. What’s going to happen to them as they start a new life? What about Ando going back to Japan? And most importantly, when will his friend Hiro come back to the future?

Well, we will find out very soon, now won’t we?

The Office (Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC, premieres September 27)

Steve Carrell (Michael Scott), Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute), John Krasinski (Jim Halpert), Jenna Fischer (Pam
Beesley) and B.J. Novak (Ryan Howard)

Created by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Greg Daniels

“You and I are done.”
“What?!?”

There are a lot of people out there that are anxiously awaiting the return of The Office to see what happened with Jim and Pam? Yeah, I’ll admit that I do like the Jim and Pam ‘ship, and it does certainly interest me where it’s going to go. The scene at the end of “The Job” where Jim asks Pam out is an excellent payoff from the past three seasons of the “will they/won’t they” crap that so many shows play out for six or seven years (Exhibit A: Niles and Daphne from Frasier). What really interests me more is what the hell is going to happen with Ryan now that he got the job? Apparently, he will actually have more of a role than he did in the past. Interesting. September 27^th can’t come soon enough!

The Office is one of those anomalies in television like Arrested Development before it. It’s a smart comedy that doesn’t take its audience for granted and doesn’t treat them like idiots. That’s one of the things I really like about that show… oh and I also like Jenna Fischer. Looks like Pam’s back on her feet and looking cuter than ever after breaking her back in May. Thank God. I don’t know what we would have done without our fancy new Beasley. (She has had a rough summer what with the back and the news that she separated from husband James Gunn.)

Also coming back are many (if not all) of the supporting cast. That’s another major plus for this show. There are so many fleshed out supporting players on this show that you can’t help but be sucked into the world. With the ever-stupid Kevin, the always freaky Creed, the ever moral Angela, and the completely obnoxious to the point she’s hilarious Kelly, you can’t go wrong. Personally, I’m a fan of Andy myself. I was a little concerned when it was announced that he would be a regular midway through last season as I thought initially he was a one-joke character and that he’d become completely irredeemable after getting Dwight fired. Thankfully I was wrong and Ed Helms has certainly become a fixture on the show. I certainly find myself laughing every time he sings. Rashida Jones, who plays Karen, will be returning for a few episodes. Also a plus as she certainly has some unfinished business with Jim and Pam. Jim did after all leave her crying by a fountain in New York.

I’m sure a lot of you are anxiously awaiting the premiere episode, “Fun Run” as much as I am. Plus with the first four episodes being one-hour? I mean, wow. Big coup for NBC in my opinion. Those of you who have never tuned in, what the hell are you waiting for?

Well, that’s all we got. I’d hoped to get this out sooner as the new season technically began tonight. For now for me sleep. Tomorrow after rehearsal, the first new Heroes and as the week goes on I’ll catch up with Ted and Barney and Michael and Jim and Pam and Dwight.

Ah, old friends back for more! Hope to see you all on the boob tube!

Welcome!

2007-08-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have read my various other blogs, welcome to my new blog, "Whine & Cheese." A little bit more classy, a little bit more upscale, the same old Ryan and his blogs. Truth be told, I get kind of bored easily as I think this is my fourth or fifth blog and MySpace has lost it's luster, so I'm here with a new blog on Blogger. I had one before, but the angstyness in that blog was enough that I just decided, let's do something new! But, I'm sure there will certainly be some amount of angst. Just read the name.

So, welcome! You'll see some of the same things you've seen before. I'll have film and TV reviews, my rants, perhaps some theatre production blogs and of course, things about my life you'll probably consider to be angsty, but mainly it's my place to whine and be cheesy. So, grab a table and always be ready to ask the question:

"Would you like some whine with that cheese?