Holiday Visitors Pt. 1 December 17, 2011
Posted by Ted in : Big Bang Theory, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, General, Grimm, Holiday Posts, NBC, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Terra Nova , add a commentBefore I delve into more personal topics, I’ll make a few comments about the current television season, because after all, that’s what this blog is supposed to be about.
Terra Nova has turned out to be a lot better than I expected, and I haven’t missed an episode yet. It seems very retro, like a show from the 70s, something you can watch with your kids without giving them psychological problems. Dinosaurs plus advanced technology and complex inter-tribal conflict equals big fun!
I have finally watched a couple of episodes of Big Bang Theory, and I have to admit I laughed a couple of times and the show is probably not as bad as I suggested in my last column. And I do appreciate the many sci-fi references and I’m now wondering if I somehow missed the boat by not having my own collection of real-life nerdy roommates.
This season Fox has decided to air Fringe at the same time as Supernatural on Friday nights, and as a result I’ve had to watch Supernatural online.
Also scheduled in the same time slot is NBC’s new spooky-ish drama Grimm, the first episode of which I saw and was not terribly impressed. It seems to steal equally from both Supernatural and Buffy, while not breaking much new ground. Surely the network must know that airing it in the same time slot as two of TVs most popular shows amounts to a death sentence. I mean, this show might not be the greatest, but at least put it where it can survive until viewers start to watch it. Doesn’t that make sense, NBC? As usual, I fail to understand what you’re thinking. Maybe for some twisted reason they decided that Grimm would be dead on arrival. Office politics, egos, and that kind of thing? A better explanation might be plain old incompetence.
Anyway, Fringe has been pretty interesting so far this season, as Peter tries to convince Walter and Olivia that he used to be their co-worker, even though they can’t remember him. I’m guessing the Watchers might not be pleased with his reappearance. And now we have these new improved shape-shifters plotting to take over the earth. They don’t have mercury in their veins like the old ones — they are indistinguishable from real people, except for a little hunk of embedded computer hardware. Oddly, they can still only communicate with headquarters via an old typewriter. Where’s that “Can you hear me now?” guy when you need him?
My new sort-of girlfriend Sierra is also a Fringe fan, and she has been over to the crawlspace a couple of times to watch it with me. What’s that? You’re shocked? You thought I was a total recluse and a candidate for the nut house? Well, that might be true, but even us crazies need some company every now and then.
Actually, the story about how Sierra and I met is kind of interesting. I was working my usual graveyard shift (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.) at Majik Market on Saturday night a few weeks ago. Around 2:30, a car came screeching to a halt in the parking lot in front of the store. For a minute I wondered if I was about to be robbed, but eventually the driver-side door opened and a woman with a long winter coat got out and came into the store.
She seemed a little wobbly on her high heels, and she went over to the drink cooler, pulled out a can of Red Bull, and brought it to the checkout register.
Putting her hands on the countertop for support, she muttered, “Sorry, I had a little too much to drink tonight.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I replied in my usual patronizing tone, which you develop only after years of working at a convenience store.
As I rang up the can, she started going through her pocket book. She laid down a raggedy one dollar bill and a handful of change. One of the pennies rolled off the counter and onto the floor. She started to kneel down in front of the counter to pick it up, then lost her balance and fell on the floor with a scream. I heard laughter from the other side of the counter, and my drunken customer showed little interest in getting up again.
I walked around to the front of the counter to see what the situation was, and she had managed to prop herself up on one arm.
She held up her penny, and said with a smile, “Here it is… I found it.”
By then the laughter had stopped, and she seemed to be crying instead.
Bending down, I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Hey, listen. You don’t need to be driving in this condition. Why don’t you come sit in the back and try to sober up for a while?”
She agreed, so I helped her up and took her to sit in the big recliner chair in the manager’s office. On the way there she assured me that she didn’t usually drink so much, but the party she had gone to was boring and she didn’t know anybody there except for a couple of girls she had barely known in high school. After assisting her into the chair, I went back out front for a while. When I came back to check on her a few minutes later she seemed to be asleep, so I turned off the light in the office.
While she was out cold, my co-worker Somebody Else came by on his ten-speed to check his schedule for the following week. S.E. had recently started working at the convenience store to augment his lack of income from Somebody’s Webpage. That’s right, we now have two jobs in common, although I don’t hang around at the website office that much. I think that office might as well be Somebody’s apartment. It seems like he’s always there, and he’s even got a bed in the back room.
Anyway, S.E. looked like he had been out clubbing. He had his silk shirt opened several buttons down, and a gold chain around his neck, and his hair was combed back with some kind of mousse in it. I didn’t inquire about his adventures that night — I honestly didn’t care.
You might think from looking at him in that getup that the guy is kind of flaky and superficial, but don’t be deceived. He’s really a top notch writer, so good that he actually intimidates me a little bit. He turns out at least one article a week for Somebody’s Webpage, while I’ve only been writing a new post once a month or so. Anyway, I was happy to help him get a job here at the convenience store. I see it as a peace offering of sorts.
Luckily, I had the work schedule behind the counter, so S.E. didn’t have to go into Rajnish’s office and find out about the recovering damsel in the recliner.
S.E. and I talked about the weather and politics and the website for a few minutes, and when I brought up the subject of my blog, he once again commented that he doesn’t have time to watch TV, since he’d rather be doing something worthwhile like mountain climbing.
OK, whatever. Having accomplished his goal of annoying me, he paid for some bottled water then set off for home on his bike.
The next couple of hours at the store were pretty dead, as they always are right before dawn, and I sat down in my chair behind the counter and dozed for 15 minutes or so. Then I woke up, made some fresh coffee for the early birds, and started restocking some of the drinks and gum and stuff.
Shortly before 6:00 a.m. — when the sun was beginning to rise — the mystery girl finally emerged from the back room. She assured me she was feeling much better and thanked me for the help. I went and pulled her can of Red Bull back out of the cooler and gave it to her. She got into her car and drove away in a much more dignified fashion than when she had arrived.
I honestly thought that was the last I would see of her, but she returned to the store about a week later to buy a pack of mints. This time she seemed like a different person. She had on an olive-colored sweater with jeans, and seemed completely sober and coherent.
We talked for a while, and I found out she’s working as a hostess at a restaurant called Jacques, and she’s also studying to be a paralegal. I told her about my TV blog, and it turned out that she likes most of the same shows that I do. There was definitely some chemistry happening there the second time she came in, and I finally learned her name when she wrote “Sierra” down on a piece of paper with her phone number.
Since then, we’ve had several phone conversations, and she’s been over to my place to watch TV a couple of times. She was impressed with my beanbag chair and my black light posters, but thinks I need to get a Christmas tree. I said OK, under the condition that she helps me decorate it. I’m not sure where this is all going to lead, but it’s shaping up to be a better holiday season than I’ve had in many years.
Ted’s Fall TV Preview 2011 August 14, 2011
Posted by Ted in : 30 Rock, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Crime Dramas, CW, Dollhouse, FOX, Fringe, General, Grimm, NBC, nikita, Parks and Recreation, Person of Interest, Reviews, Ringer, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, Terra Nova, The Event, The Office, Whedonverse , 4commentsIf you believe the ancient Mayans, or the latest news reports on the economy for that matter, this could be the last full season of television before the world ends. I can’t think of a better excuse to kick back, let my calls go to voicemail, and renew my commitment to lethargically gazing for hours into the idiot box. Yes, the fall premiere season is almost upon us, and we can be grateful that the networks have once again managed to cook up a handful of new shows that might be good, and are bringing back some favorite established programs for a new season.
Here are some new shows I’ll be watching:
Ringer
Featuring the long-awaited return of Sarah Michelle Gellar to her native network (The CW, formerly The WB), where she not only stars as a pair of identical twins, but also executive co-produces the show. Ringer is described as a drama-thriller about a woman, Bridget, who is on the run from the mob, and takes over her twin sister’s life after the sister disappears. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Ringer turned out to be better than Joss Whedon’s recent two-season flop Dollhouse? Then we might realize that all that time we were worshipping Whedon, Gellar was the real power behind the Buffy throne. That’s probably a stretch, but this show is first on my must-watch list this season, if only for nostalgia’s sake.
Grimm
Maybe this is NBC’s consolation prize for those of us who were hoping that last season’s sci-fi thriller, The Event, would be worth a crap and would not get the ax after one season. Grimm is described on Wikipedia as a “dark fantasy,” and has a premise eerily similar to a certain CW show: “A homicide detective learns that he is a descendant of a group of hunters known as ‘Grimms,’ who fight to keep the balance of humanity safe from the supernatural creatures of the world.” Maybe NBC has finally realized that supernatural-themed shows are — gasp! — profitable. The prospects for Grimm are more than a little iffy, however, given NBC’s record on these kinds of outings, but there’s one clear sign that it might be more than a blatant Supernatural rip-off: David Greenwalt, who was executive producer of the Buffy spin-off Angel, as well as the short-lived but excellent paranormal show called Miracles, is an executive producer for Grimm. Cross your fingers out there, fans of things that go bump in the night.
Person of Interest
I generally avoid crime dramas like the plague — except when Mom forces me to watch one of her horrible Law and Order DVDs — but Person of Interest has a science-fiction twist and is produced by J.J. Abrams of Lost and Fringe fame, which is just enough of an alteration of the standard formula to push the show onto my “must-watch” list — for a couple of episodes, anyway. According to my sources, the plot involves “a mysterious billionaire who has developed a computer program that predicts future crime victims.” Could be interesting, I suppose. You gotta love those mysterious billionaires, putting all that money and free time to such good use and keeping America safe. I’m just wondering what kind of crimes the computer program predicts. Shoplifting, jaywalking, and that kind of thing? Entering a restaurant without shoes and a shirt, maybe?
Terra Nova
This is Fox’s latest sci-fi effort, in which a group of people in the year 2149 time travel back to the era of the dinosaurs to escape the end of the world. Hey, sounds like a good plan to me. I mean, why bother trying to fix your problems when you can just jump in a time machine and go hang out with the Flintstones? To be honest, Terra Nova sounds like a train wreck, but as a self-professed connoisseur of all things sci-fi and fantasy, I feel obligated to watch. Time travel, in general, has gotten to be the most over-used premise in sci-fi television for the last few years. Personally, I have never believed that time travel is even possible. I look at it like this: The past and the future don’t really exist — they’re just abstract concepts that help us understand our lives. How can you travel to a place that doesn’t exist? You can’t. That’s my theory and I’m sticking with it.
Getting back to my topic, Terra Nova sounds an awful lot like the old Saturday-morning show Land of the Lost. It remains to be seen if a prime-time audience will love the dinosaurs as much as kids in the 1970s did. Steven Spielberg is listed as one of 10 “executive producers.” His actual level of involvement with the show, I’m guessing, is somewhere between slim and none. They probably just called him up and offered him some money, and when he replied “uh…,” that was enough input to slap his name in the credits. Steven, your check for 10 million is in the mail…not that you’ll be looking for it.
I know what you’re saying: “Those sound like great new shows, Ted, but what about returning old shows? Tell me about those! More specifically, which ones will you be watching?” Well, I’m glad you asked.
Nikita
After avoiding this for a long time, I finally watched an episode and found it fairly entertaining. It’s about a rogue government agent, who generally kicks butt, rights wrongs and sneaks around in tight spandex. Starring the Hawaiian-born model Maggie Q, Nikita is sort of a cross between 24 and Dollhouse that takes itself less seriously than either. It will be taking Smallville’s old slot before Supernatural on Friday nights, which means I probably won’t miss an episode.
Supernatural
Somehow, over the years, this has become my favorite show. It seems to fulfill the same psychological need as Buffy or Angel, which might be something along the lines of “the struggle for personal power and sanity in a hostile world.” Also, the low-class, gritty vibe of the thing makes me feel a lot cooler than I actually am.
Parks and Recreation
Parks and Rec has been steadily closing in on The Office as NBC’s best sitcom. Sometimes it gets a little close to chick territory, with the various romantic entanglements, but otherwise, it’s consistently intelligent, funny, and original. In other words, the anti-30 Rock.
The Office (Mini-spoiler ahead!)
Steve Carrell has set sail for the land of bad romantic comedies. It will be interesting to see whether the show withers or blossoms without him (I’m hoping for the later — Michael Scott was never one of my favorite characters). Also, Pam will be carrying Halpert baby number two at the start of the season.
Fringe
Peter never existed, according to those bald guys in fedoras and suits. I assumed this was an elaborate way of writing Joshua Jackson out of the show, but according to the show’s producers, he’s still on the payroll.
I’m not going to lie. I’ve been kind of frustrated with this show lately. Time travel and alternate universe doppelgangers and blah blah blah. I’m just not buying it. I’m also going risk the wrath of Fringedom and say that I find Walter to be incredibly annoying. Sure, he was amusing for the first couple of seasons, but there’s only so much drug-induced babbling in a Shakespearian accent that a person can take. Forget all those exotic diseases — Walter needs to find an antidote to himself.
How to improve Fringe? The same way any show could be improved: Forget the complex plot gimmicks and special effects and focus more on the characters. Bring them to life. Make me care about them. That’s all there is to it.
That wraps up my fall preview for 2011. Hopefully, some of the shows mentioned above will spiritually prepare you to meet your maker if those end-of-the-world rumors turn out to be true, or will at least drown out the screams while the earth is overrun with four-headed dragons, scary bat-like creatures, giant lions with pharaoh heads, machine-gun toting gorillas on skateboards, and vacuum cleaners that come on and vacuum by themselves.
Crawlspace Confidential February 20, 2011
Posted by Ted in : Crime Dramas, General, Lost, Satire, Sci-Fi, Snacks , add a commentHello, fans. No, your eyes don’t deceive you, it’s a new and exciting post on the newly renovated T.V. Crawlspace. Yes, I played around with the theme and the styling, changed the colors and whatnot. I think it’s pretty spiffy looking. Here’s what the blog used to look like.
You may remember that in my very first blog post a couple of years ago I insinuated that I live in the crawlspace under my mother’s house. Well, I should probably come clean and admit it’s not really a crawlspace, it’s actually a small basement that my mother rents to me for $150 a month. You see, I really named my blog T.V. Crawlspace because my name is Ted V. Crawford. It seemed like a clever play on my name, and it nicely reflected the state of my current living arrangement. So now you know. I repeat, I don’t live in a crawlspace, so you can stop sending me all those emails asking me about my health and personal hygiene. I’ll have you know, Mom lets me shower in the upstairs bathroom once a week whether I need it or not. Ba-boom, crash.
A few of you, I’m sure, are wondering when I’m going to start writing more again. Somebody, the editor-in-chief of this blog’s parent website, has also been wondering. He called me this morning and we had a lengthy phone conversation about that very subject. When the phone rang I had just gotten into bed an hour earlier, after returning home from my graveyard shift at Majik Market, and I was too dazed to understand what he was saying at first. I began to wake up a little bit when the yelling started. “Two blog posts in a year?!! What’s up with that, Ted? This is the last time I’m going to tell you. You have to give me a post at least every two months! Can you handle that? ‘Cause if you can’t then my neighbor’s got a 10 year old niece who’s submitted me 1003 pages of insightful commentary about Glee and Vampire Diaries.”
I rubbed my eyes and told him what he wanted to hear. “OK, OK. It’ll be bi-monthly from now on, I promise.” I started to wonder why I was taking abuse from this guy. He’s given me nothing in return for two years of writing except a gift card to Olive Garden. He keeps saying we’ll all be rolling in the dough one of these days when the site goes viral. But he’s right about my blog, my output has been beyond pathetic lately, so I’m going to try to make good on my promise.
The truth is, certain aspects of my personal life last year prevented me from posting regularly. For one thing I spent three months on assignment on Lost Island without internet access. It was a weird experience, to say the least, and I returned with even fewer answers about Lost than I had when I left. More about that in a future post. After I got home I recuperated for a few days, and hoped to dive back into the blog writing, but I ran into a couple of problems.
First, I had to get my job at the convenience store back, and then I had to arrange to work extra shifts to make up for the three months of rent I owed Mom. She had been none too pleased about the late payments, and during my absence had decided to use my living quarters as a storage area for her massive crime drama DVD collection, which includes every season of every show in the Law and Order and CSI franchises. They were stacked up on the card table where I usually eat, crammed into my bookshelves, and piled high in several big shopping bags. She said she brought them downstairs to keep people from stealing them. What kind of person would steal Law and Order DVDs? I’ll tell you who: her friends — middle aged ladies who think stubble faced criminals with black stocking caps lurk in every alleyway and behind every 3rd SUV in the Walmart parking lot, waiting to either rob them, or kidnap them and give them that thrilling escape from suburban drudgery they’ve always dreamed of.
There’s one new show in particular that they can’t get enough of — Law and Order: Los Angeles, which features an actor named Skeet Ulrich. He was most famous for his starring role in the action drama Jericho, about life in a small town after the collapse of the federal government due to a nuclear attack. He also starred in the excellent but short-lived paranormal drama Miracles. Mom and her friends love this guy so much they started a fan club. They have meetings every weekend, starting on Friday night and sometimes lasting until Sunday afternoon. These things are basically an excuse for the girls to party like it’s 1999.
Skeet! Skeet! Wherefore art thou, Skeet?
Can you imagine a house full of old hens drunk on margaritas, dancing with each other to disco music loud enough to shake the entire house? It kind of makes it hard to concentrate when I’m trying to write and do my research. On weekends I’ve been forced to wear earplugs and watch TV with closed captioning turned on.
One time I made the mistake of going upstairs to heat up a frozen pizza while one of their celebrations was in progress. Debbie Schwartz, the club’s President, had sent Mr. Ulrich himself an email invitation to attend that night’s meeting, and two minutes before I went upstairs they had been joking that Skeet was going to walk through the door any minute. Some of the ladies who had not met me before apparently thought I was a close-enough approximation of their heartthrob. The shrieks were deafening, and were accompanied by a barrage of hair-ruffling, groping, and pinching.
Mom, temporarily returning to her senses, stepped in and told them to back off. Shaken and disheveled, I proceeded to the kitchen and cooked my pizza, which those bitches promptly ate before I could get back downstairs with it. By that point I didn’t even care anymore. There’s nothing that will make you lose your appetite faster than getting hit on by your mother’s friends. Well, except for that one brunette.
Anyway, I have installed a couple of extra dead bolts on the door to the upstairs for added security. Nobody gets in here unless they’re invited. The fan club meetings have settled down a little bit since the last time the police showed up and took a couple of the Skeet Sisters away in handcuffs. Now maybe I’ll be able to get on with blogging. Stay tuned.
Summer Viewing Report 2010 September 16, 2010
Posted by Ted in : America's Got Talent, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DTV, ER, Friends, General, Hell's Kitchen, Inspirational, Lost, PBS, Reality TV, Reviews, Satire, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, The X-Files, Whedonverse , add a commentThe DTV Nightmare Part IV: In spite of the umpteen public service announcements that promised all I had to do was hook up a digital converter box and my TV viewing would not be affected in the slightest by the digital television transition, I discovered after the switch that I was unable to receive my local ABC affiliate — in spite of buying two different antennas for that purpose — and was unable to watch the final season of Lost. Not the biggest surprise of my life. It’s OK, I’ll just pick up Lost on DVD. That show’s definitely worth owning. I’ve already started to accept the fact that this could the beginning of the end of free over-the-air television, thanks to the greedy telecom companies wanting to usurp all the extra bandwidth, and I could eventually be forced to pay for cable or satellite television for the first time in my life. Honestly, the thought of paying a monthly fee for TV makes my stomach turn, but I guess I’ll just cross that bridge when I get to it. I may have to change the name of my blog to Book Wormhole. God knows, I have plenty of books to read.
So maybe the fact that one of the major networks is out of my life for the foreseeable future accounted for the lack of things to watch on TV this summer. Although, that seems unlikely, since Lost is the only show I can remember watching on ABC since The Six Million Dollar Man. I guess part of the problem is I’m finally getting tired of some of the summer reality junk that used to amuse me on occasion. I once again elected to miss the circus of stupidity called Big Brother, and sidestepped the parade of wasted lives know as America’s Got Talent. I chose to opt out of Chef Ramsey’s masochistic cooking school for a second season in a row, maybe I’ll be bored enough to watch him next time Hell’s Kitchen rolls around, and yes, there will be a next time. There’s always a next time for these abusive British types.
Supernatural reruns: This CW show has been pretty amazing for the last couple of seasons in spite of the fact that I never particularly liked the Winchester brothers. Their melodramatic bickering and overwrought machismo are still annoying at times, but the show consistently delivers interesting, well written stories, with witty dialogue reminiscent of Buffy in her heyday (but don’t tell Dean I said that).
Need To Know: I tuned in to the new PBS public affairs program, needing to know if the show was a worthy replacement for the recently ended Bill Moyers’ Journal. It’s not a bad program, but they seem to take more of an apologist stance on American foreign policy than I would have hoped for. In other words, more of the same warmed over middle-of-the-road opinions you can hear anywhere else. Well, we can look on the bright side. Maybe the talk radio Nazis will quit calling PBS liberal now that Moyers is gone. Of course, they would have to actually watch the network to figure that out, which seems unlikely.
Ghost Story / Circle of Fear: Lucky for me, I have a small stockpile of DVDs of favorite TV shows from the past. These are a real lifesaver at times when there’s nothing on but infomercials or court shows. Receiving top billing here in the crawlspace this summer was an old childhood favorite, which had never been officially released on DVD, but I was enthused to find it for sale as a bootleg. It was a supernatural-themed anthology show (meaning that each episode was a stand-alone story with a different set of characters) called Ghost Story, which was renamed Circle of Fear in its second and final season. The program is very similar in style to Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. I used to rush into my parents’ living room every week to watch this show back in the early 70s. The passing decades have only made it more appealing — the old cars, the clothes, the psychedelic music and directing style all add up to a nostalgia high for this aging potato. Plus, Sebastian Cabot adds a touch of class as a mysterious innkeeper who introduces each episode.
Hangin’ out with my Friends: Other shows in my DVD player recently included the first seasons of X-Files, ER, and Friends. You might not believe this, but I was actually going through an extended “I don’t watch TV” phase back in the 90s when the early seasons of these shows where on. But I fell off the wagon hard in 1996 when I discovered them, along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Seinfeld. That was the year I became a TV fanatic. I couldn’t believe how much good stuff was on, and so happily rejoined the ranks of the low-brow and unrefined. My renewed friendship with the glowing box has gone on for 14 years now.
So sue me. I’m sure you anti-TV snobs that read that last paragraph will recognize me as a traitor to your cause, and call for an immediate intervention on my behalf. No doubt, you’ll have me sent to a TV watchers’ rehabilitation center somewhere, where my treatment will consist of a rigid daily regimen of life affirming get-em-off-the-couch activities, including skydiving, bungee jumping, horseback riding, cake decorating, metallurgy, tightrope walking, bee keeping, long distance swimming, marble sculpting, barehand tree climbing, helicopter piloting, CPR classes, square dancing, jazzercise, tennis, karate, taekwondo, tai chi, feng shui, and advanced survivalist training. Evening hours will be dedicated to group therapy and the speed reading of great literary classics. Concurrent with these activities, I’m guessing, will be daily deprogramming sessions involving the use of psychoactive medications and the forced viewing of Clockwork Orange-style propaganda videos. At the end of my 60 day stay I will roll my eyes at any suggestion of watching TV, and join the ranks of the sweater-wearing latte sippers at my local trendy bookstore.
Who Wants to be a Blog-o-Naire? Pt. 1 April 21, 2009
Posted by Ted in : General, Satire , add a commentMERIDITH VIEIRA: Hello everybody and welcome to Who Wants to be a Blog-o-naire, the game show for people who have deluded themselves into thinking they can get rich quick by starting a blog. Audience, are you ready to meet our first contestant ?
AUDIENCE: Yesssss!
MERIDITH: Are you sure?
AUDIENCE: Yesssss!!
MERIDITH: Are you really, really sure?”
AUDIENCE: YEESSSSSSSS!!!!!
MERIDITH: (chuckling) Alright then let’s say hello to our first contestant, Ted from TV Crawlspace.
(Ted walks out and waves to the crowd.)
MERIDITH: Well hello Ted, it’s so nice to meet yooouuuu! Now, it says here that you haven’t written a blog post in a month and half!
TED: Actually, it’s been closer to two months.
MERIDITH: Two months?! Well, what seems to be the problem? (laughter from the audience.) Don’t you want to be a blogger anymore?
TED: I think I do but lately it’s been hard to get motivated. It turns out that writing a blog is actually hard work. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to finish this post.
MERIDITH: Finish this post? Ted, what in the heck are you talking about? (laughter from the audience.)
Midseason 2009 TV Explosion! January 6, 2009
Posted by Ted in : 24, 30 Rock, Amazing Race, American Idol, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Fringe, General, Hell's Kitchen, Heroes, Holiday Posts, Kath & Kim, Lost, Midseason, My Name is Earl, Reality TV, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Smallville, Terminator: tSCC, The Office , 7commentsJanuary is here. The festivities and laziness of the holiday season are behind us. It’s time for everyone to once again get serious about things, get back to work, and face up to the hard cold reality of life. Right?
Wrong! January is the time of year we TV watchers plunge head first into some serious escapist entertainment, and here at TV Crawlspace the only reality we’ll be facing is reality television. In just a few days, a massive wave of midseason premieres will hit like a tsunami, carrying us helplessly out into the television ocean, hopefully never to return again.
For TV Guide’s complete schedule of midseason premieres, click here.
Here’s a rundown of shows I’m looking forward to (and a couple I’m not looking forward to) in chronological order:
13 Fear is Real – (starts Wed., Jan. 7 on CW 8/7c)
This is a spooky themed reality show that might be amusing, something along the lines of Survivor meets Blair Witch Project. I hope there’s something more going on here than guys in masks jumping out and scaring contestants.
NBC comedy night done (halfway) right – (all four shows resume on Thur., Jan. 8 on NBC 8/7c)
My Name is Earl – This has been a little bit better this season, with a half hearted attempt to return to the theme of redemption (Earl’s list) that made the show so appealing in the first season.
Kath & Kim – I watched this show just to see how bad it was, and to my surprise I liked it. Slightly demented but well written, it’s sort of a kinder, gentler version of John Waters. Everybody on this show apparently works in a mall. How cool is that?
The Office – This has been brilliant as usual. I especially liked the episode where Jim and Pam had their first disagreement. I hope this is a foreshadowing of things to come. I think I like them better as enemies than lovers. Is it just me, or are all the female characters on this show mean and vindictive?
30 Rock – As a fan of Tina Fey during her SNL days, I wanted to like this overhyped show, but the cutesy self-satisfied tone of it left me cold. The jokes aren’t funny, and the endless parade of guest stars can’t make up for the show’s lack of direction. The emperor has no clothes!
Howie Do It – (starts Fri. Jan. 9 on ABC 8/7c)
This appears to be a hidden camera prank type show with Howie Mandel. I may watch the one episode that is aired before the show is cancelled.
24 - (starts Sun. Jan. 11 on FOX 8/7c)
What I always liked about 24 was its sci-fi elements, like the spacey soundtrack, and the high tech gadgetry. This season Janeane Garofalo plays the new computer guru, Janis Gold. According to TV Guide, “Mid-season run-ins with Chloe should make for hot geek-on-geek action.”
American Idol – (starts Tue. Jan. 13 on FOX 8/7c)
It is what it is.
Smallville - (returns Thur. Jan. 15 on CW 8/7c)
I’ve gotten hooked on this show again after sitting out for a couple of seasons. It seems unfair that Smallville’s best season ever may be its last, although I don’t know if that’s been made official yet.
Supernatural - (returns Thur. Jan. 15 on CW 9/8c)
Another CW show that I’ve rediscovered. It seems to have improved a lot since its first season. CW deserves credit for giving shows like this and Smallville a chance, and not axing them at the drop of a hat.
Fringe - (returns Tue. Jan. 20 on FOX 9/8c)
This sci-fi drama from the co-creator of Lost is my favorite new show of the year. Run and tell your friends.
Lost – (starts Wed. Jan. 21 on ABC 9/8c)
There are few television pleasures that compare with getting lost in Lost. It’s pretty amazing that a show this weird could stay on the air for five years, but it’s been reported that season 6 in 2010 will be the last.
Hell’s Kitchen – (starts Thur. Jan. 29 on FOX 9/8c)
Not a great time slot for Chef Ramsey this time around. He’s going up against The Office and the ratings powerhouse Supernatural.
Heroes - (returns Mon. Feb. 2 on NBC 9/8c)
This quality of this show has fallen faster than Nathan Petrelli during an eclipse. The storylines seem to be wandering aimlessly. Too many characters to keep up with is part of the problem. Some have suggested it could be the show’s last season if the ratings don’t improve.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – (returns Fri. Feb. 13 on FOX 8/7c)
FOX is moving this to Fridays, where it will be paired up with Dollhouse.
Dollhouse - (starts Fri. Feb. 13 on FOX 9/8c)
This is the one that everyone’s waiting for, the new show from Buffy/Angel mastermind Joss Whedon, but there have reportedly been problems in production and FOX has now relegated the show to the dreaded Friday night time slot (set to debut on Friday the 13th, no less). Of course, the X-files thrived on Fridays, so there’s still hope.
The Amazing Race – (starts Sun. Feb. 15 on CBS 8/7c)
My favorite reality show will feature less airports this season, according to TV Guide.
Inside the DTV Transition Nightmare, Part 3 December 17, 2008
Posted by Ted in : DTV, General, Satire , 3comments
OK, I know I left you all hanging for several months in anticipation of the third exciting installment of my DTV blog series. Rest easy, my two faithful readers, for your patience has finally been rewarded.
After a prolonged period of painstaking and painful alliteration, I have reached the following conclusions about the digital television transition:
If you don’t have a state of the art television and you’re not a cable or satellite subscriber, you may find the DTV transition to be reminiscent of the following situations:
1. The first time you looked in the mirror after your parents forced you to get braces.
2. Getting an unplanned one day crash course in lion taming.
3. Staying awake for two days, then taking a physics exam without a calculator.
4. Running barefoot through hot gravel.
5. Getting the hiccups during a job interview.
3. Washing down your cold french fries with a warm, watery drink.
6. Trying out for the rodeo while intoxicated.
5. That time your prom date found a ride home with somebody else.
7. Having a tooth pulled with three fourths of the normal dose of anesthetic.
9. Getting bailed out of jail by your mother.
8. Having shoes thrown at you during a press conference.
In the previous episode, you may remember, I aquired a digital converter box from my local Radio Shack, and I somewhat naively believed that this would solve all my DTV transition issues. I was able to successfully set up the channels on my converter box, but I found that a couple of the channels would cut out or the picture would freeze. With digital channels, unlike analog, you get all or nothing. If the signal isn’t 100% strong, you get no picture. In a desperate attempt to fix this problem, I bought two new antennas, neither of which improved my reception very well. My only other option will be to put up an outdoor antenna, but I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that won’t be necessary.
Keep in mind that the reason I’m fooling around with antennas is to avoid having a monthly bill from a cable or satellite service. The subscription TV providers are the big winners in this huge scam by our Washington brain trust. February 17, 2009 is the day Dish Network, Direct TV, Charter, Bright House, and all the others hit the jackpot. These guys aren’t getting my money. I’ve never paid for television and never will, unless they figure out a way to outlaw free TV altogether, which will probably be the next step in the never ending downward spiral that is the American way of life. The other big DTV snafu that they don’t tell you about is the fact that you will no longer be able to tape one show on your VCR and watch a different show at the same time. You will either need to buy an extra television, or invest in an expensive Tivo system.
The bottom line is, you will have to pay out the butt for new TVs, cable and satellite services, antennas, and/or digital video recorders, unless you have already done so. It’s almost enough to make me give up TV and start dating again.
Candy Wrapper Revelations September 6, 2008
Posted by Ted in : General, Inspirational, Satire, Snacks , 2comments
As you know, here at TV Crawlspace we consider snacks to be a necessary ingredient in the TV watching experience. After sampling a pack of M&M’s the other night I thought I spotted a typo on the wrapper. What seemed to be the problem was the apostrophe between the second M and the s. Was it possible that the package designers fell prey to the old pitfall of using an inappropriate apostrophe before the ‘s’ in a plural noun? My inner punctuation zealot jumped for joy at this thought. “The inclusion of the apostrophe implies ownership,” I proudly proclaimed. “In order for it to be valid, the word M&M’s would have to be followed with a second noun.” That’s when I noticed the tiny words at the bottom of the logo, “Chocolate Candies”. There they were. Two little words that meant so much. All was right on my candy wrapper.
This question of who owns the candies prompted me to do a little internet research. It turns out that M&M’s were named after the first owners of the candy’s patent, Forrest Mars Sr. and R. Bruce Murrie, who purchased the rights in 1929. The full name of the product, hypothetically, would read “Mars and Murrie’s Chocolate Candies”. Mr. Mars went on to amass a personal fortune of four billion dollars from the sale his little colorful creations. Kind of adds new meaning to the phrase “living the sweet life”.
After solving that mystery, something else caught my attention. Standing over on the right side of the wrapper was the jaded looking spokescandy known to M&M-o-philes as Red. Like a carnival booth attendant, he pointed a solicitous finger and seemed to urge passersby to partake in the contents of the little brown package. I tried to imagine what he might be saying:
“What’s the matter kid, life got you down? I got just the thing you need. Nothing like a sugar fix to make you forget about your problems. For a while at least. Then you’ll be back for more. Old man Mars got filthy rich off of desperate little kids like you. So what’s got you down, exactly? Let me take a guess. Your playstation game doesn’t work anymore? Your Barbie doll lost an arm? That’s nothin’. I hate to break it to ya, but it’s all downhill from here. You got twelve years of school to look forward to, and each grade is tougher than the last one. Then you work a crap job until you’re old and gray. That’s the game of life, and if you don’t play you end up dead in the gutter with the rats and the junkies. Take it from Red, the biggest thrill in your life will be these little chocolate candies here. Eat all you want, we got a whole warehouse full. These things won’t melt in your hand like that other cheap sh**.”
Just then I imagined a large shoe coming down on our affable spokescandy, crushing him into the sidewalk. That’s the way it goes in the school of hard knocks.
Inside the DTV Transition Nightmare, Part 2 July 20, 2008
Posted by Ted in : DTV, General , 2comments
Fight the Future!
I’m sure you all know about the Digital TV transition at this point, and you’re probably sick of all the public service announcements about it. “Who cares?”, you think, “I’ve got a nice flat screen with satellite TV service, so I’m good to go.” But there’s one very important reason why you should care about this issue, namely, that it affects me personally. That’s right. Here in the crawlspace I watch exclusively over-the-air programming on my old analog 22″ Panasonic. Don’t laugh. Up until now, it has served me just fine. I never felt the need to get cable. What’s so great about cable anyway? It’s mostly just sports, shopping channels, some violence and T&A on HBO, and lots and lots of reruns. (There’s only two sports games I bother to watch: the World Series, and the Auburn vs. Alabama game, which we are required by law to watch in the state of Alabama.) So why pay for that stuff when the best programs are available for free on network television?
Now they’re telling me that after February of 2009 I’ll be staring at nothing but static like that little girl in Poltergeist. This has huge connotations for the future of my TV blog. I try hard not to be paranoid, but it almost seems as if congress is thumbing its nose at me. After all, there’s a lot of big business interests who seem poised to benefit from this process: cable and satellite TV providers, electronics retailers, TV manufacturers, and so forth. “So what?”, you say, “Just get the damn converter box.”
Well, I did, and that’s where the situation got complicated. I went to the DTV Answers website several months ago and dutifully ordered my 40-dollar-off coupon. I received the coupon, which looks like a red credit card, in the mail after a few weeks. I took it to my local Radio Shack and asked if they had any converter boxes. They were out, but the clerk said they would have more in within a couple of days. So I went back three days later and got the converter box. The coupon covered most of the cost. I was feeling upbeat about my prospects. I would get through the DTV transition with my individuality intact; I would defeat the Orwellian designs of the military-industrial complex and continue to receive free television, only now I would also get a clear digital picture. What’s not to like? But as anyone over the age of 4 might have predicted, there was a catch.
(To be continued)
Inside the DTV Transition Nightmare, Part 1 July 9, 2008
Posted by Ted in : DTV, General, Holiday Posts, Satire , add a comment
It was a dark and stormy Christmas Eve in Washington D.C. The senate had postponed their holiday vacation to deal with a matter that weighted heavy on the heart of the nation. A teary eyed conservative senator stood before the chamber and proclaimed, “On behalf of my fellow Republicans I want to apologize. We hadn’t realized the magnitude of this problem. So many people out there are suffering…..really suffering…..” Unable to continue, he pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. But his display of emotion didn’t seem so strange that night. There were few dry eyes on either side of the aisle. The majority leader spoke next. “I’m inspired by what I have seen here tonight. Inspired that we can set aside our partisan differences and do what’s right for the American people. There are many problems facing our country in this troubling age: a shrinking middle class, skyrocketing fuel prices, the loss of high-paying jobs, spiraling healthcare costs, disabled veterans who can’t pay their bills, climate change, the threat of nuclear and biological attacks, and the list goes on. But these problems pale in comparison to the heartbreak that is endured every day by millions of helpless Americans. For too many years they have suffered in the shadows, afraid to speak up, not wanting to burden those of us who enjoy a clear digital picture on our televisions. While we relax in comfort they struggle with their rabbit ear antennas, trying in vain to improve their reception of Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs, and other shows we take for granted. Some of them can barely pick up the CW. It’s a national disgrace, I tell you. Tonight we have shown these brave Americans that they haven’t been forgotten this holiday season!” After a 10 minute standing ovation, the cheering senators crowded around the speaker and he proceeded to body-surf out of the chamber. Joyful chants echoed around the capital building: “DTV for all! DTV for all!”
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