TVGuide NBC Planning Major Office Expansion! (via Ain’t It Cool News) This is disappointing because whenever a show becomes a franchise, I feel like it suffers. I feel like the original Office is already mining for new material and I can’t see them succeeding with another “branch”.
Archive for the 'television' Category
I've been having trouble describing my excitement about the season finale of The Office Thursday night. This show quickly matured from a quirky comedy into a television masterpiece, matching and perhaps surpassing its British counterpart. Few shows have guys this excited about a kiss. The workplace humor works because its something everyone can relate to. Similarly, the Jim-Pam relationship encompasses a lot of universal feelings. Everyone has been one of these characters before and that's why we love them.
Another great thing about the show is that is truly an ensemble. Not only did the "Casino Night" finale include a number of great returning guest stars, nearly every cast member had their own story climax. Steve Carell didn't just act, he wrote this great episode that expertly blended humor and romance. John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer also deserve extra credit for their natural performances in the show's climax.
If you don't watch the show, none of this makes a lot of sense to you. I recommend you watch the show on rerun if you get a chance this summer. I think The Office is the best comedy since Arrested Development, with Seinfeld before that. It is that good. (On a side note, several of the cast members have MySpace accounts including Jenna Fischer, who blogs from time to time)
Remember when saying “Wayne Brady makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X” was a joke. These days there’s been a big firestorm about the comments Gumbel made on his Real Sports program on HBO.
“Count me among those who don’t like ‘em and won’t watch ‘em. Try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these Games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”
He also went after some other easy targets like figure skating and judged sports. But the big news was that Gumbel pulled the “race card”. Well he’s absolutely right. And even if you don’t think its a race thing, you have to admit that the Winter Olympics are not for all socio-economic groups. Being a winter athlete requires more than just natural ability, it also requires the resources or support to pay for the training.
The nature of winter sports requiring things like ice or snow makes it more difficult for anyone to pick the sports up and practice regularly. Skiing and snowboarding require a lot of equipment and lift passes. Hockey is also a prohibitively expensive sport for kids to get into with equipment and ice time. Figure skating - damn, you must be rich - because you have to pay for ice time, private coaches, as well as things like costumes and music. I would love to see the upfront required to put Sasha Cohen on the podium. Sure it will payout in the end and the USOC tries to support all athletes regardless of their income levels. Still I am doubtful about how many of our Winter Olympic heroes work at McDonald’s or Home Depot to support their training. And its not surprising that there are fewer developing countries represented in the Winter Games than the Summer ones. Winter Games are elitist sports, period.
And how about the Olympics coverage NBC has treated us to thus far. I have probably watched the prime time coverage at least 1/2 of the days its been on. And all I can remember seeing is figure skating and snowboarding, with 5 minute spurts of speed skating or skiing. Note that figure skating and snowboarding are both judged sports - with little credibility in my mind. Figure skaters are judged for cuteness as much as their talent. And snowboarding is given to the most brainless American teenager who is willing to skip the X Games.
The most satisfying thing about this Olympics games has been Bode Miller’s failure to win at anything this games - despite the media attention. In fact nearly all the athletes featured in any pre-Games previews have blown it. It’s at least reassuring to know NBC can’t script these things - even the French judge couldn’t have made Cohen fall twice during last night’s long program. Anyway, this Winter Olympics has served as a lesson for me. The Winter Olympics is not a moment of global cooperation, but more a self-congratulatory pat on the back for the world’s elite.
Update: Patrick has made some good comments, so be sure to check them out. He’s right that the problem with the Olympics isn’t really racial. I do think that they are more of an elitist event though and not as accessible as other sports. Hopefully we’ll see this change in the years to come.
Ok this is old news by now, but I’ll still complain about it. Rupert Murdoch is a media tycoon who owns 20th Century Fox. He has also been hailed as a technology leader because he bought DirectTV and MySpace.com. I think he’s overrated. Listen to him talk about Fox’s video offerings in Newsweek:
We’re not knocked out by iPod so far… How many will want to pay $1.99 on Monday morning if they missed “Desperate Housewives” the night before? What’s been announced so far with iPod and Disney and NBC is very small-time at the moment… There are so many things you can do, particularly in other parts of the world, where mobile-telephone service is a lot more developed. We’re downloading minute segments-original “mobisodes”-of the Fox hit “24″… It’ll be a pretty serious piece of revenue for us someday, probably. We’ll be into all these things, some quite original and some of what others are doing.
I wouldn’t mind if Murdoch said they didn’t want to lock their customers into the Apple format or that they think quality of iTunes video was sufficient. I would almost accept the argument that you didn’t trust DRM as a way of protecting your content. But to say that they know what we want better than we do, that’s just stupid. Then to say the “mobisodes” are better, is ridiculous. How can 1 minute of Jack Bauer (actually, I doubt the 24 mobisode even has Kiefer) be better than an hour?
What really bothers me about all this is the presumption that content-owners know their customers better than the customers know themselves. Apple’s model has become very successful and has actually helped shows gain a larger audience (see The Office). I wonder what would happen if Murdoch would have let people could have test Arrested Development out for $1.99 an episode?
(On an aside, last night’s “finale” of Arrested Development was spectacular. Perhaps another network would be good enough to continue it. If that doesn’t happen, it was great while it lasted and they went out with a bang.)
Forget your digital cable package. It’s becoming clear to me that on demand video content is becoming increasingly available on your desktop, on the web. For example, I missed the Villanova-St. Joe’s game tonight (I’m from Philly area, so I take an interest in Big 5 basketball) so I thought I would check out the score on EPSN.com. Since their recent redesign, I have noticed ESPN has changed their game recap pages to include video highlights. They have always had video content on their site, but to have the actual highlights embedded right on the page is a wonderful feature. Also of note these videos don’t require Windows Media, Real, or Quicktime, just good old-fashioned Flash. Nice.
Last month Viacom’s MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon made news by adding a number of series to the iTunes Music Store. What hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is the fact that MTV and Comedy Central already have a lot of video content online for free. MTV Overdrive and Comedy Central Motherload services are pretty intriguing additions since they let you quickly access a wealth of content from their respective networks. They even have Windows Media Center add-ons which are pretty popular. I have found these services to be neat though they require more bandwidth than I really have at this point, but the amount of content is impressive. And MTV overcame an obstacle by putting together a nice plug-in to help it run smoothly on Firefox, in addition to IE.
User-driven media is quickly becoming the darling of the Internet, and video is no exception. iFilm used to seem cool, but YouTube is a much better source for amusing clips these days. Anyone (including me) can upload video clips to the site for worldwide consumption. Its range includes last night’s SNL skit to commercials to lonely teenagers lip-syncing pop songs. Google Video tries to do similar things, though it straddles the line between being an open marketplace and protecting content owner rights. A lot of video blogs are sprouting up on iTunes’ directory and others, including my favorite: Rocketboom. As you can see, free on demand video content is all around us and only growing. Tomorrow I’ll complain about the companies that aren’t embracing it.
Hope you had a good holiday weekend. That’s right, Super Bowl Sunday is a national holiday according to one PSU professor. It certainly does a good enough job getting people to come together. I watched the game in a dorm with some friends, including one annoyingly happy Steelers fan. Though we like to think its a 50-50 split, the truth is the Steelers are the favorite team here in State College. It seemed like they might have been the NFL’s favorite too. Truth is I like the Steelers as a team, I just didn’t want to have to deal with their obnoxious fans. Congratulations to the Steelers, especially Betis and Cowher, and the thousands of Steelers fans who live under the delusion that their support made the difference. If you weren’t interested in the game, I thought the FedEx’s cavemen commercial was the best.
Actually the biggest sports news around here is Penn State’s upset of #6 Illinois on Saturday night. I went to the game Wednesday night against Michigan, which was a closer match-up than it should have been. I imagine I will be going to more games after this weekend’s performance. I spent my weekend at the theaters seeing Something New and Captoe, both very worthwhile. I think Phillip Seymore Hoffman should be getting an Oscar for his performance. Speaking of which, I am planning to put together my belated Best Films of 2005 list and Oscar picks soon when I get a chance. Also, I got tricked into watching Grey’s Anatomy after seeing the commercials - only to be left with a cliffhanger. It confirmed most of my worst suspicions about the show, including the fact that it couldn’t take Scrubs in a fight.
My real reason for writing tonight was just to get back to blogging again. I have been really slow about posting, though the posts I have written have gotten a lot of attention. It’s nice to take time and write a good post once in a while, but lately I have just only been doing long rants which don’t really reflect what I am thinking. So starting tomorrow I will go back to posting at least once a day, something I did when I started this blog. I am also pleased with the way I styled this post, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I do even more first person writing. Anyway, more posts are on the way in the future.
I have received a lot of traffic last week for a lot of reasons, among them being people’s interest in the Jack Bauer list. As I mentioned before I did not have anything to do with creating this entertaining piece, but I am happy to share it with the world.
I recently found out that the list was a spin-off of a popular Internet site with Chuck Norris Facts.And when WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg recently blogged about that list and the Conan O’Brien Walker clips, a light bulb went off in my head. The clips feature random and funny clips from the TV show Walker, Texas Ranger and while watching 24 tonight I realized that it also has similar clips that could be very funny. So without further ado …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/w/?v=5QmVihCvzi8] Conan O’Brien’s 24 Pipeline (12.8mb)
This is a semi-original creation, so the video editing is pretty rough. It’s a good laugh though. If someone else can do a better job, feel free to. Also, if Conan wants to take this idea he is welcome to as well. Anyway, I wasted to much on time on this for now. So good night.
I have been posting a lot about TV today. This is pretty exciting news though. TVWeek reported today that adding The Office to iTunes has led to higher ratings. Now The Office has seen a lot of extra promotion on NBC with its move to Thursday nights, but the iTunes influence appears to be a factor as well. The Office has several episodes in iTunes Most Popular Videos list and apparently makes up 1/3 of all the NBC programs downloaded. ABC is also saying they have seen higher ratings for Lost since the iTunes introduction, after seeing a small drop when they first started.
This really highlights the power of the Internet as a media marketer. Television networks are learning what indie music labels have known for some time: making your content available online will increase demand. And while it helps a big show like Lost, it means even more to a small show like The Office that a lot of people haven’t seen. Being able to download and watch shows at your own convenience is nice. It worked for me: I began downloading The Office this fall and now I am a regular viewer. Even more exciting for broadcasters is that the shows not only get publicity, but they are also making money off the downloads. Too bad Fox has yet to get on board, Arrested Development could have used this time of publicity.
Ok a little more TV stuff. 24 (a.k.a. the Jack Bauer Power Hour) has returned in fine form this weekend. I stumbled upon this funny list called “The World According to Jack Bauer” and had to share some of these.
- If you wake up in the morning, it’s because Jack Bauer spared your life.
- Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
- If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he’d shoot Nina twice.
- Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
- Don’t ask what Jack Bauer would do for a Klondike bar…
- If you get 7 stars on your wanted level on Grand Theft Auto, Jack Bauer comes after you. You don’t want to get 7 stars.
- 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
- Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
- Jack Bauer does not sleep. The only rest he needs is what he gets when he’s knocked out or temporarily killed.
- Jack Bauer’s family threw him a surprise birthday party when he was a child. Once.
- David Spade always says ‘yes’ to Jack Bauer when he wants to redeem his credit card miles.
- If Jack Bauer had been on Oceanic 815 there would no Lost.
- Jack Bauer can sneeze with his eyes open.
- Killing Jack Bauer doesn’t make him dead. It just makes him angry.
- Jack Bauer shouldn’t be compared to Jesus. Jack rose from the dead not once, but twice.
- When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
You can see the original list in its here, thanks to Michael Sean.
Update: Here’s another 24 spoof I made featuring Conan.
I was pretty excited when Santa brought me the Hauppauge WinTV-USB2 for Christmas. I like to watch a lot of television shows and last semester I had to miss them a lot because of late night group meetings. This is a TV tuner card that plugs into my laptop’s USB port so I can record shows straight to my computer. Though I played with it a little bit during at home, this first week of the semester has been my first real chance to have it permanently set up and running. It has been a mixed experience.
First the positives. After last semester I needed a better way to get my TV fix. I got caught up with Lost and The Office through iTunes, but the $1.99 an episode adds up quickly. Being able to plug it into my USB port is also convenient since I didn’t need to try to install anything (I am not sure I could have installed anything in my laptop anyway). Recording shows has been nice. I was able to record a rerun of the Rose Bowl and burn it to DVD for my dad (of course I still need to mail it out). I was also able to tape shows while I was out or when I just had something better to do. TitanTV is a great way to get TV listings and makes it really easy to record shows.
All that being said, there is a lot of little bugs with this thing that would make it difficult for others to use. The device must be plugged-in when the computer is started and must remain plugged-in for the WinTV application to work properly. It inhibits my ability to carry my laptop around, since I may need it to be set up to record. Also annoying is the fact that if a recording fails for some reason, the software does not try to resume recording. This may not be a big problem though, since most of the failures I have had so far tend to be human related. A combination of video compression and my lousy cable connection creates an effect that does not deliver the pristine picture one would expect from digital technology. The WinTV software in general is kind of clunky and leaves a lot to be desired. Too bad Windows Media Center is offered as an option for this device.
None of my complaints are major for me, but they may be deal breakers for the less tech-savvy user. If people expect users to really embrace the digital media lifestyle, we need products that are much simpler and more reliable. I would like to see Windows Media Center in action sometime, because I think it is supposed to do this well. Apple also does a good job of making digital media accessible to users, though they do not have a TV-tuner/PVR application at this time.
Anyway, I am mostly happy with it at this point and look forward to lots of good television in the future. Now I just need an iPod Video to watch these videos on the go 