Category: TV, Film and Radio

NBC’s big Leno gamble isn’t a huge risk

In about an hour, the next step in Jay Leno’s career begins with his new series. Every weeknight at 10 p.m. viewers will get a dose of Leno — if they’re tuned to NBC. Chances are viewers will be tuned to another channel or doing something else entirely.

Clearly there’s been a lot of talk about whether “The Jay Leno Show” reflects the changing reality of television or if it will crash and burn. Newsweek’s Pop Vox blog has some insight and how results might end up being mixed.

While I lament the loss of potentially five hours of scripted television, I never really thought that NBC was taking that huge of a risk by airing Leno five nights a week. As others have helpfully pointed out, producing Leno’s show is likely a lot cheaper than filming an hour-long drama. The downside is that these cheaper shows may not have the same rating draw as a drama.

Also, the “Jay Leno Show” isn’t necessarily a revolutionary move on NBC’s part. After all, it was nearly 20 years ago when NBC and the other networks used cheaply produced newsmagazines to plug in gaps in their schedules.

I don’t think NBC ever aired “Dateline NBC” five nights a week on a consistent basis, but it certainly felt like it on some weeks.

We’ve seen networks try to save money amid increasing competition with regularly scheduled and cheap newsmagazines. This is just another link in the chain.

‘Glee’ success depends on how it’s sweetened

As “Glee” starts its first season tonight on FOX, I think a lot of the show’s success depends on how this fun show is developed.

The show’s creators have thrown in a lot of cane sugar — I enjoyed the story about high school students and their teacher working to revive a show choir. There’s something sincere about the effort to succeed in a harmless endeavor even if it isn’t popular or well regarded by other students.

On the other hand, the “Glee” chefs have also stirred in a ton of artificial corn syrup — including really blatant fake singing that detracts from the show’s impact. I’m not talking about normal dubbing, which I think happened in some of the songs from the pilot. I’m talking about fake singing on the scale of the “Nick & Jessica’s Family Christmas” special featuring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

The show choir’s big number in the pilot — a performance of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” — sounded overdubbed and had way too many voices for what is supposed to be a group of six singers. The vocals from the male lead sounded like they were lightly processed by an auto-tuner. That definitely detracts from a character who is supposed to have great talent.

Plus, the backing music supposedly from a jazz band sounded like a synthesizer from the 1980s. As a former band-o, this is unforgivable.

Far better critics than I (like Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune) have noted how “Glee” is trying to strike a balance between sincerity and irony.

As the show gets launched tonight, I think that it will need to balance a lot of things. Yes, sincerity and irony but also providing a semi-real slice of high school while providing enough entertainment to keep viewers tuned in.

I hope they find their sweet spot because this is a show that I could be interested in.

Venting to a TV shrink now worth $172

The approximate round-trip cost to take Amtrak’s first-class Acela train from New York to Philadelphia is about $172 (depending on demand). Thanks to TV, that cost might be free for a select few.
According to an acerbic post on the Web site Gawker, Dr. Phil is going to be on Acela for a round-trip from NYP to Philadelphia on Sept. 9. While on-board, Mr. McGraw will speak with passengers about “everyday problems.”
There’s a form to fill out if you are interested in being on the train/appearing on the show. If you’re selected, the trip is free.
I don’t know if I would do it. It’s interesting that people are willing to vent their problems on national TV for about $172. That’s a relatively low price for a TV producer to pay.
There’s also a fame factor involved in meeting and interactive with Dr. Phil. Fame and notoriety seem to be strong motivators even if there is little reward.
Also, the leather seats on Acela sound pretty nice compared to a counselor’s couch.
So is it worth discussing your problem with a talk-show host if it gets you a free train trip?

Monday’s ‘Fresh Air’ touches on food and high concert prices

I always like listening to the diverse topics discussed on public radio, but Monday’s “Fresh Air” seemed to hit a lot of high notes in my book. There were discussions about the increasing popularity of cooking shows and a look at ticket prices at concerts.

First, guest host Dave Davies chatted with Michael Pollan whose recent New York Times Magazine story touched on how Americans love watching cooking shows, but we’re actually cooking less. It was a great interview and had some sobering information.

Pollan said Americans spend an average of 24 minutes per day cooking in the kitchen and about 4 minutes doing dishes. He compared that figure to the fact that some cooking shows last twice as long as some people spend in the kitchen.

Looking toward the future, Pollan cited some marketers who feel that home cooking may fall by the wayside, much like killing, bleeding and plucking a bird if you wanted chicken for dinner.

I admit that I don’t cook at home as much as I should. I loved watching cooking shows, ranging from what Pollan called “dump-and-stir” instructional programs to the competitive shows like “Iron Chef.”

Cooking shows provide me some cultural insight and some ideas for meals (although it doesn’t necessarily translate to my kitchen). Some of the competitive programs are over the top and don’t provide direct ties to home cooking. However, Iron Chef gave me a greater appreciation of cooking and Japanese culture. Programs like “Good Eats” and “Molto Mario”  showed me essential ingredients and cooking techniques that helped in the kitchen.

In the second segment, John Seabrook discussed the live music industry following his recent article in The New Yorker.

The interesting aspect of that conversation was about Internet scalping driving up ticket prices. Seabrook said ticket prices may be set lower than full market value to encourage sell-outs and that full venues help the bottom line for parking and concessions.

I really enjoyed the discussion, but I still have strong feelings about scalpers, online or otherwise. It is fascinating how the Internet has legitimatized something that was previously illegal in many states and just a little bit scuzzy.

It miffs me that people who have no interest whatsoever in attending an event buying up and reselling tons of tickets to line their own pockets. On the other hand, I’m more understanding of season-ticket holders and others selling tickets to events they intended to attend.

Ultimately, I think scalpers needlessly drive up the cost of attending an event and I want to have no part of it even if it means that I don’t get to go.

‘Futurama’ cast, studio strike deal

Good news, everyone! Word came out Friday evening that the “Futurama” cast has signed on for the new season of the show.
It’s not clear what cleared the way toward a deal between the actors and the studio, but I’m glad they reached terms. I definitely wouldn’t want to see the actors be replaced.
The new season will begin airing next year.

Secret Shame: Never been to Comic-Con

Every so often, I delve into my drawer of “Secret Shames” — some deep, dark, pop-culture secret that I’m not too proud of. This latest secret shame deals with one of the largest pop-culture events of the year — the San Diego Comic-Con.

The 40th edition of the event recently ended and, for the umpteenth time in a row, I wished I could’ve been there. In recent years, it’s become a huge event that went beyond its comic book origins as Hollywood studios slowly realized the convention’s potential.

While I’m modestly interested in comic book, I would’ve definitely wanted to check out panels for many of my favorite TV shows, including “Battlestar Galactica” and “Chuck.” There were “Battlestar Galactica” concerts at the House of Blues.

Yes, there are people dressed up as their favorite characters. While it’s not my thing to dress up, I can appreciate the work of many of the costumes.

Missing Comic-Con wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t lived in San Diego for nearly seven years. What’s worse, I don’t think I knew much about it while I lived there.

The only convention I went to in San Diego was a “Star Trek” gathering at Golden Hall. It’s like riding a Merry-Go-Round when Disneyland is around the corner.

In the years since I left San Diego, I’ve never been able to time a vacation to go down there for Comic-Con. Also, I think if I wanted to go, there might be a problem getting passes — as the event has grown, the passes have become more elusive.

Luckily, Comic-Con puts on a smaller affair in San Francisco every February called WonderCon. I’ve been able to make two of those and had a great time each year.

Hopefully, I can catch the 41st Comic-Con next year and put this secret shame to rest.

Fox threat to recast ‘Futurama’ actors likely a folly

The future is in Futurama lunch boxes
Many fans of the resurrected TV series “Futurama” have gotten their dander up in recent weeks over the possibility that the show may go on without the original voice actors.

According to several sources (including this Kansas City Star blog), the actors haven’t been able to reach terms with 20th Century Fox over compensation for the new season of the show. Other parts of the show have apparently been scaled down as the series moved from the Fox TV network to DVD releases and, finally, to Comedy Central.

While I don’t know all the details about the contract negotiations, I can think of a few reasons why recasting the voice actors is a bad idea:

  • This isn’t like the old days where you could replace Darren on “Bewitched” and get away with it.
  • Recasting the actors will likely alienate the die-hard fans who stood by the show over the years. These are the fans that have willingly watched endless repeats, first on Adult Swim and later on Comedy Central. More importantly, they’ve voted with their wallets by paying for the DVD releases.
  • Fox has been getting a deal with its current voice actors. Billy West does the voices of one of major characters (Fry) and several others, including Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg and Zapp Brannigan. What do you think the odds are that the studio will be able to find one actor to do all those voices?

Threatening to recast the actors is a tactic Fox has tried before with Futurama’s sibling show, “The Simpsons.” I don’t know if Fox really benefited from the threat — all the actors were able to return, with better contracts IIRC.

Ultimately, Futurama is a show that has given me and its fans countless hours of entertainment, laughs, romance and a little bit of geeky brilliance. I hope there’s a resolution that allows this show to continue.

What the media companies giveth, they can taketh away

In just two days, I’ve seen a pair of reminders of the power media providers have when it comes to providing access to content. These providers are Amazon and Comcast.

On a national scale, some people have been crying foul about Amazon reaching out and deleting copies of books on their Kindle e-book reader. Many have noted the irony that the books being deleted in this Orwellian fashion are those by George Orwell, he of “Animal Farm” and “1984” fame.

As Ars Technica notes, it appears that a third-party publisher may have not had the rights to sell Orwell’s books. I can appreciate Amazon’s desire to try to correct a situation a third party has put the company into, but I also hope that Amazon sticks to its word and doesn’t automatically delete purchased books in the future.

On the personal level, I received a letter from Comcast regarding their On Demand service. In its letter, Comcast wanted to tell me that my wide access to use On Demand to watch shows and movies from most channels at any time was a mistake. Comcast stated they were limiting most of my access unless, of course, I chose to upgrade to a more-expensive package.

I downgraded to local channels to save money. While On Demand is a nice perk for a handful of shows I don’t have access to anymore, it’s simply not worth the additional $40 per month to return to Standard Cable with Digital.

I don’t quite understand it — Comcast should be encouraging use of On Demand because it offers a lot of the advantages of watching shows on the Internet, but from the comfort and convenience of your living-room television. Instead Comcast is helping me opt for the cheaper solution with more available programming on the Internet.

At least Comcast is giving me a heads up about the change. It’s pretty easy for media companies to simply flip a switch and take away stuff that we take for granted.

Tennis grunting and you

Much has been made of professional tennis players who grunt or otherwise emit loud noises as they swing at the tennis ball. BBC News did a large piece on it in late June. About 10 days later, ABC News did a piece, thus making the matter suitable for American consumption.

The BBC News article tells the story pretty well, including discussing why it’s an issue now considering that there have been a number of noisy players since the ’70s. Monica Seles and her auditory performances were cited as a landmark shift in the woman’s game.

Also, the article quotes trainer Nick Bollettieri who says the grunting (or just exhaling at the end of a maneuver) can be natural.

“I prefer to use the word ‘exhaling’. I think that if you look at other
sports, weightlifting or doing squats or a golfer when he executes the
shot or a hockey player, the exhaling is a release of energy in a
constructive way,” Bollettieri said.

I decided to put Bollettieri’s theory to the test. I wanted to see if grunting was a natural release of energy. So my friends and I went to the best court we could find — the table tennis set at The Oasis.

After a couple of warm-up rounds, I tested to see if grunting would help my game at all. With every swing of the tiny wooden paddle, I tried to push out a little more air and emit a loud “UGH” or a breathy “EH” as I reached out for the ping pong ball.

While it cracked my opponent up, I don’t believe it helped my game much. It also seemed artificial emitting a sound as I lined up my return.

Perhaps the field of play was too small — maybe table tennis isn’t ready yet for grunters. I wonder if grunting in tennis is necessary — I played racquetball over the years and don’t recall a lot of grunting.

I guess my experiment was rather silly, but at least it had a paddle and a ball. BBC Radio 1’s “Newsbeat” didn’t even have that — they asked people outside Wimbledon to play “grunt tennis,” where they pantomimed playing tennis grunting all the while.

So, to grunt or not to grunt? What do you think?

Winners and losers in the digital TV conversion

Digital TV converter boxI want to check out some winners and losers with the recent switch to digital TV over-the-air signals. Depending on where you live or what you like to watch, the switch had some pretty interesting outcomes.

Here’s a quick look at the scorecard:

Winner — The National Football League. The original conversion date was set in mid-February. Lawmakers took pains to avoid making the switch around the Super Bowl. Even the summer switch doesn’t affect the NFL.
Losers — The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. It’s pretty clear that Congress _didn’t_ consider these two when setting the new date of June 12. Both the NBA and NHL were the midst of their league finals. For the NHL, a pivotal Game 7 took place on the day itself.

Winners — Big cities. When I visited Salt Lake City in March, I checked the DTV set-up at several relatives’ houses. Not only was the set-up fairly easy with indoor antennas and strong local signals, the number of channels available was amazing — upwards of 20+. Of course, SLC has 3 public TV stations so it’s not a huge surprise (those three stations are responsible for about 12 channels alone).
Losers — Small cities. It’s more of a crapshoot pulling in DTV signals from more distant locations (such as trying to view Redding stations from Chico). My neighbor has been on the roof at least four times adjusting an antenna to pull in Redding’s PBS station, KIXE 9.

When you do manage to pull in a signal, the station offerings aren’t as robust, although there are some additional channels. In many areas, some viewers may give up over-the-air viewing and opt for satellite. This isn’t necessarily an option in the smallest of markets which currently don’t have local channels on satellite.

Winners — People with good converter boxes. Having a good converter box can greatly add to a viewer’s DTV experience. Look out for the ability to change the viewing options (such as zooming in on the image) and having a reliable on-screen program guide.
Losers — People with bad converter boxes. I tested a couple of boxes that stunk out loud. It was next-to-impossible to change some of the viewing options. Some of the boxes had a clunky interface, requiring scrolling through several on-screen menus.

Draw — People watching TV over-the-air. Assuming you can pull in DTV signals on your antenna, the viewing
experience is much better than before — clearer pictures, more
offerings, etc. It’s free, but you don’t necessarily get all the channels that other systems offer.
Draw — People watching over cable/satellite. Clearer pictures and tons of channels are something that cable/satellite viewers have enjoyed for years … at a cost. Also, the new DTV subchannels are just now being added to cable systems, but they’re often require a digital cable box (at additional cost) to view.

Undecided — The people who didn’t make the switch. In the lead-up to the switchover, there were concerns that some groups of people, including the elderly, indigent and non-English speakers, wouldn’t make the switch. The number of people who weren’t prepared for DTV was shrinking, but I don’t know if it shrunk enough.

So, how do you think the DTV switchover game played out?

Photo: A Digital Stream converter box used during a May 2008 E-R test.