TV Tyrant

Boycotting the Emmys

September 20th, 2009 | by | 30 rock, battlestar galactica, bored to death, curb your enthusiasm, emmys, fringe, hbo, intervention, jericho, kings, the wire

Sep
20

I went back and forth on whether I’d live-blog the Emmys tonight, mainly because, after all, this is a TV blog.

But then I thought about it.

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Where’s Battlestar Galactica? Kings? Did Jericho ever get any love?

Sure, critical darlings 30 Rock and The Office, though relatively low-rated (compared with the CSI juggernaut, anyway) get lots of Emmy love – as they well should. But most of the best shows on television rarely get any attention from the academy, unless they’re on HBO. And even there, The Wire never got recognition and it was, bar none, the best show on television during its run.

And if nothing else, this blog is about quality television (OK, and sometimes Charles in Charge, but I was young, sue me). And the Emmy broadcast itself is not quality television. How does the Oscar ceremony win a freakin’ Emmy every year? (Though I have to admit, choosing Intervention for Best Reality Series is a teensy bit redemptive.)

So tonight, I’ll be watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere and the series premiere of Bored to Death. We’ll probably catch up with the season premiere of Fringe, which I was waiting for my husband’s return to watch.

The Emmys? I’ll probably glance on Twitter every now and again. Or maybe I’ll just wait ’til morning.

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Catching up: Reaper, Kings, Harper’s Island

June 21st, 2009 | by | harper's island, kings, ray wise, reaper

Jun
21

I’ve fallen rather behind both in my television viewing and in my blogging, so I thought I’d catch up with a few things today, seeing as I don’t have access to HBO this weekend and can’t watch True Blood until tomorrow, at the earliest.

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First up: Reaper.

I did so love this show.

I’ve said about 8 gazillion times how perfectly cast Ray Wise was as Satan, so I’ll try to keep that to a minimum today.

But I absolutely am going to miss seeing him with those piercing blue eyes, impeccably combed hair and blinding white smile, making mischief in people’s lives now that Reaper‘s off the air.

Like most of the shows I watch these days, I caught up with most of Season 2 in marathon viewings on my DVR. Over three, maybe four nights, I watched the entire season and enjoyed it as much as ever.

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Damages – It sucked me right back in …

May 26th, 2009 | by | damages

May
26

We never got around to watching Damages this year when it was actually on the air, but we dutifully recorded it to catch up with some time.

There, an entire season sat, taunting us.

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I remembered that last year, with Season 1, we knew, somehow, that we were going to like the show, but just couldn’t get ourselves to hit “play” on the first episode.

We’re not big on the procedural in our house. Only the star power of the cast – Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson – and the fact that it was on FX made us take a second look.

About five minutes into the first episode, we were completely hooked.

Oddly enough, the same thing happened this season.

It ended weeks ago – April 1 – and we hadn’t started watching it until over the Memorial Day weekend. We’d exhausted most of the other shows and movies on the DVR that we watch together.

So we finally caved in and started watching Season 2 of Damages.

About 5 minutes into it, we were completely sucked in.

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The state of science fiction on TV

May 24th, 2009 | by | human target, new season, new shows, past life, schedule

May
24

As it is with every year, a whole bunch of science fiction-y shows were canceled at the end of the season, but I have to give it to the networks for trying a bunch of new ones next year.

It was so hard to keep track of the comings and goings during the upfronts, but SciFi Wire thankfully charted it all in a very understandable fashion.

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The clear winner, IMHO, is Fox.

Sure, Fox canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, better known as TSCC because it’s a lot freakin’ shorter. But it did keep Dollhouse around for at least another 13 episodes. (Side note: This comic is probably a bit too close to reality for comfort when it comes to how the decision was made.) I’m thinking that Fox didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of the Whedonverse again, whereas TSCC ended at a spot that could full well be the series’ end. (Not that I wouldn’t have loved to see where it would have picked up in the fall.)

Fox also kept Fringe, which is one of my favorite shows. So the net gets brownie points for that. It’s also picked up Human Target and Past Life, each for 13 episodes and for midseason.

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Ratings: Worst. Season. Ever.

May 22nd, 2009 | by | ratings, season

May
22

OK, I guess the TV seasons before most people had televisions were worse, but this season was for the birds, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The four major networks (that’d be CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox – sorry CW) lost an average of 16 percent of viewership in the coveted “demo” – adults 18-49. That includes DVR use.

Fox was on top, followed by CBS, ABC and NBC. But “on top” still includes a steep drop.

Why is this?

A whole mess of things.

First off, a lot of people are watching online – legally and illegally (Hulu an example of the former, BitTorrent an example of the latter). I know some folks who don’t have televisions, even, and only watch what they like online.

Second, a lot of people watch on DVR, but not within that 7-day window included in ratings. For example, my husband and I haven’t watched Season 2 of Damages yet. The entire season is sitting there on our DVR. We just finished up the entire first seasons of Dollhouse and Better off Ted in a few days in marathon viewing sessions. (I’ll be writing about BoT in a couple days). I still have episodes of Reaper, the season finale of Supernatural and Sunday’s episode of Breaking Bad on my DVR, waiting for me to have a chance to sit down and watch ‘em.

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Kings & Jericho: More in common than the Biblical references

April 27th, 2009 | by | tv shows

Apr
27

I was chatting with a friend on Twitter yesterday about the crime that is the all-but-certain cancellation of Kings.

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I first met Dan during the (partly successful) fan uprising to keep Jericho on the air.

For those of  you unfamiliar with the late, lamented CBS show, here’s the basics in a nutshell:

A tale of a small Kansas town and its residents in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on most of America’s major cities, Jericho debuted in September 2006 to decent ratings, which it held onto through the fall before going on an unannounced winter hiatus.

By the time CBS brought it back in the spring, many people had forgotten about it; some thought it had been canceled. The network didn’t really publicize its return, either, leaving some fans happily surprised to stumble upon it.

It ended its season with OK, if not stellar ratings, but a very passionate fanbase, who were stunned when CBS announced, after the finale aired, that the show would not get a second season.

Harkening to a line spoken by Skeet Ulrich, who played the lead character Jake, in the finale, fans started sending peanuts by the truckload to CBS headquarters.

After receiving enough peanuts to feed every elephant in the world for the rest of their lives, CBS relented, somewhat and greenlit a short second season as a midseason replacement.

Again, the network stumbled, and waited to put it on the air until after the writer’s strike was over and new programming was once again finding its way to the airwaves. In the end, Jericho was canceled a second and final time, though it has found an extended life on The CW and Sci Fi (now SyFy) networks and its creators are still pursuing the possibility of a movie.

An undercurrent to the entire ordeal was this: Jericho did great on DVR ratings and online viewing. The regular old Nielsen ratings weren’t measuring the show’s true viewership, fans argued. The network didn’t listen.

What does any of this have to do with Kings?

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Kings: A prince among paupers

April 19th, 2009 | by | ian mcshane, kings

Apr
19

When I first heard the premise for Kings – a modern-day interpretation of the David v. Goliath tale from that old chestnut, The Bible – I was intrigued.

I love it, frankly, when there’s a modern-day take on a classic tale – biblical or not.

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One could argue, of course, that almost everything is a modern-day take on a classic tale if you look at it hard enough. But that’s an issue for another blog post entirely.

picture-4Beyond that, however, was the opportunity to see the great Ian McShane in another role. McShane was the incredible Al Swearingen on the late, great, truly lamented Deadwood.

Hell, if he were in a car commercial, I’d watch it.

McShane as King Silas is brilliant; every time you think you hate him (much like Swearingen), he does or says something that makes you realize he’s more or less a product of his circumstances and is pretty much an alright kinda guy, for what he is.

Add to that you have a hotshot supporting cast – note Miguel Ferrer as the general from Gath? Macaulay Culkin as the king’s nephew-in-law? Maqua from Last of the Mohicans (known in real life as Wes Studi) as the Gilboan general?

So of course it was with no surprise that I read that Kings was kinda sorta canceled. It wasn’t really; just moved from Sunday night to Satuday night.

That’s pretty much the death knell, of course, seeing as no one watches television on Saturday nights. Of course, you’d think that a show wouldn’t have to get good ratings to survive on a Saturday night.

As I’ve said in the past, however, a short run of the show might not be such a bad thing.

But one season for Kings? That seems almost criminal.

I think the powers that be at NBC should be banished to Port Prosperity, just before the turnover to Gath.

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