As the second season of the NBC spy spoof, “Chuck,” winds down, fans are gearing up to fight for a third season. Where else are you going to get a and witty spoof of both spy movies and geek culture expertly woven into 44-minute packages?
Marueen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune sums up the situation quite well.
Personally, “Chuck” is one of the best things about television on Monday night or any other night of the week. I was recording it along with “Heroes,” but it’s gotten to the point where I’ve dropped the superhero show from my lineup and focused on “Chuck.”
It’s a great combination of spy drama and geek comedy with just a touch of ’80s nostalgia thrown in for kicks. Some of the plot falls apart when you probe for specifics, but it holds up for most casual viewers.
Considering all the creative energy the show has in its tanks and the lack of many strong one-hour programs on NBC (can you name two?), I hope the network considers picking up the series for at least one more year.
“Unusuals” harkens back to old police drama … not necessarily in a good way
I watched about 2 minutes of the premiere of the new ABC drama (or dramedy) “The Unusuals.” I didn’t give it a full 44 minutes Wednesday night, but the scene I watched was lifted from a classic crime show from 15 years ago. Well, I don’t know if it was a homage or lifting.
That show of yesterday was the incomparable “Homicide: Life on the Streets.” What was the scene? It was the one where Baltimore detectives are interrogating a suspect and they hook up to a “lie detector.” The gag is, and has always been, that the lie detector is really a photocopying machine but the detectives have done a convincing enough job to dupe the subject into thinking that it was a real polygraph.
The gag involves the subject placing his hand on the scanner while the detectives ask a series of three questions. The first two are gimmies — Is your name John Doe? Do you live on Clancy Street?
The suspect would tell the truth, the detective would push the “Start” button and, lo and behold, the copier would spit out a piece of paper with the subject’s handprint and the word “TRUE.” Of course, the detectives had arranged the paper tray in advance to obtain that very result.
The third question is crucial — did you kill the victim? The subject would lie and somehow the polygraph would know this — the paper that emerges says “FALSE.” Faced with such overwhelming evidence, the suspect then confesses.
Something similar did happen on the “Unusuals,” although it was after one of the detectives showed the suspect body parts in a cooler and imitated the victim’s voice.
I can’t say the creators of this new show were lifting from “Homicide” — It’s apparently a very old tale (according to Snopes.com). In modern storytelling, the Xerox polygraph was in David Simon’s 1991 book, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” and it cropped up twice in TV shows based on Simon’s work or created by Simon himself — “Homicide” and “The Wire.”
That’s where I first encountered the story, although even the source material alludes to the incident happening in Detroit.
Regardless of where the polygraph by photocopier originated, I wonder why we’re seeing it again. It’s a good gag, but shouldn’t a new show strive for new ground at least for the first few episodes?
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If “SportsCenter” was broadcast in the middle of a forest, would anyone notice?
ESPN started broadcasting its 10 p.m. edition of “SportsCenter” from Los Angeles this week (LA Times article). Can anyone tell me if they can notice the difference?
To be honest, it took me a while to realize that the switch was made. The LA broadcast looked very similar to every other edition (all other editions of “SportsCenter” continue to originate from Bristol, Conn.).
I was catching snippets of Tuesday’s “SportsCenter” while at The Maltese. Every so often, there would be background footage of Los Angeles — Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, stuff like that. I didn’t think there was any major sporting event originating from LA, so the whole thing threw me off until I remembered about the changes.
At first, there don’t seem to be any major changes — the sports highlights looked the same (although the graphic presentation looks to have been updated in the past few weeks). The studio looks pretty similar to its Bristol counterpart.
I think many of the changes are beneath the surface. Some commentators have said ESPN is throwing the West Coast a bone after decades of being headquartered in New England. I think the changes could be more profound than that.
Having a production center and “SportsCenter” in Los Angeles is an excellent move on ESPN’s part. Sports is increasingly becoming “sports entertainment” (to steal a phrase from pro wrestling). I think the network could have a better access to superstar athletes with their studio across the street from Staples Center instead of relatively rural Connecticut.
Being close to Hollywood could help with other things, such as their series of original movies. ESPN is also ready to kick things up to the next level of TV production — the new studio is the first capable of producing 1080p high-definition TV.
I guess we’ll see if the left coast has an influence on the worldwide leader in sports.
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My “ER” memory
The long-running medical drama “ER” is ending tonight. I never was a die-hard fan of the show, but I do have one memory that I hold somewhat dear.
It was my first year of college and I was working at the student newspaper. We published the paper twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays, IIRC), but we were there other days of the week too.
Thursdays were always kind of a fun day — the paper had just come out and we had some breathing room before next Monday. Often times, we would hang out and watch some TV in the sports office.
“ER” was one of the shows we would watch. It was 1996 and the show was in full stride. The characters were interesting and the frantic pace of the drama was exciting (even if they did seem to intubate every patient that set foot in the hospital). It also didn’t hurt that our opinion editor looked like Dr. Greene.
Just as I lost track with most of my college newspaper colleagues, I haven’t kept tabs with “ER” as the years have rolled past. Nonetheless, the show will have a place in my heart for entertaining us all those years ago.
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Taking errors to new heights
We rely on computers for a lot in public — scoreboards, timetables, ATMs, etc. For the most part, it’s seamless. When it fails in a harmless way, it’s funny.
During a vacation last summer, I saw two displays “crash” with Windows error messages in the space of a few hours in Salt Lake City.
One was a huge storefront display on Main Street across from the Gallivan Center TRAX station. It seemed like an elegant way to reuse a vacant storefront. However, that morning, there was a giant error window instead of pithy notes about upcoming events.
It appeared that the program driving the whole storefront display had crashed and needed attention. It probably got a decent amount of attention during that morning’s commute.
A little while later, I headed to the Clark Planetarium in the Gateway Center. While I’m learning about “our” sun, I notice _another_ error message — the screen saver apparently wouldn’t engage.
This error was probably less noticeable — it was a smaller monitor placed way above people’s heads. Nonetheless, I let the museum staff know in case they can fix the problem.
As someone who is a little oriented towards technology, I have the desire to try and fix the problem even if it’s none of my business — like at the Dave & Buster’s in San Jose.
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Newspapers cutting back on delivery days
If I blogged every time a newspaper reduced the days it published, I would’ve been a fairly busy man. Thankfully (and sadly), the Associated Press has compiled all of these papers in a list.
The lengthy list details publications that cut days since last year. It doesn’t include newspapers that have closed entirely (such as the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
That list includes the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News (an Enterprise-Record sister paper), which dropped four publishing weekdays starting today. I’m interested to see how that unfolds. There was higher than anticipated demand for their e-Editions this morning.
It’s a reminder of the industry that is in great flux.
In other news, cartoon journalist Brenda Starr has been furloughed.
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Saturday DVD release of “Twilight” is brilliant
Although I’m not the target audience to watch “Twilight,” I have to say the
Saturday release for the DVD is a stroke of brilliance.
If you need a refresher about what the movie is about, it’s a tale of “forbidden love between a vampire and a mortal.”
Most DVDs come out on Tuesday, but there’s nothing as far as I know to prevent a Saturday release. It’s like movies at the theater — most come out on Friday, but they can come out on other days as needed.
In the case of “Twilight,” it’s a great idea. The target audience for the film seems to be teenage girls. I can imagine the DVD fitting in well with many weekend activities, including get-togethers. A quick search shows several DVD parties are being set up (including in York, Pa..)
I like these group experiences although they can be easily mocked by outsiders. They are some of the things that make the cult movie experience worthwhile for the participants.
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Corned beef and pizza — a winning combination
When someone says St. Patrick’s Day, one might typically think about the traditional foods — corned beef, potatoes, cabbage, etc. Like most holiday foods, people try to mix things up with variations often with mixed results. I can report that the corned beef and cabbage pizza from Woodstock’s Pizza is a superlative success.
After my radio show, I headed out into downtown Chico to catch a little of the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Most of the parties appeared to have wound down — I definitely saw a lot of people (and police activity) at about 8:30 p.m. Things were different post-midnight, and the crowds had largely dissipated.
The crowd at Woodstock’s was modest and there was no line. I quickly queued up for a slice of their evening special — the previously mentioned corned beef and cabbage pizza. The photo used on promotions was not totally appealing, it looked like a straightforward slice.
A regular-sized slice was $2.50, a steal for the treat I was about to eat.
The slice looked like a pretty normal piece of pizza. The melted mozzarella cheese concealed the thinly sliced cabbage and pesto sauce. The exception was the dark ruby-red chunks of corned beef scattered about.
Taking a bite, there was a great melange of flavor. The cabbage added texture and the tinniest bit of cabbage-y taste to the cheese and pesto sauce.
I was skeptical about the corned beef. The meat looked more like dry jerky instead of the roast served at the dinner table or the hash served at breakfast.
The corned beef succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. The texture wasn’t overly dry. The savory, salty flavor of the meat helped to bring the entire slice together. It reminded me of the Canadian bacon served on Hawaiian pizzas, but more nuanced and potent.
Without the corned beef and cabbage, the pesto may have been overwhelming and the slice wouldn’t have worked.
This cabbage and corned beef pizza definitely stands apart in the world of reinventing traditional foods.
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Another angle on the Facebook privacy row
The social-networking Web site Facebook decided to roll back its terms of use after its users protested.
As I understand it, Facebook removed a clause stating that users could remove their content at any time. Many users want to ensure that if they decide to leave the site, Facebook would delete all the information pertaining to the user.
That sounds fair enough, but I’m concerned about losing comments from friends who at some point decide to leave the Web site. If they opt to delete their profiles, does that include the comments that they left for their friends?
According to BBC News, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the terms were changed to recognize that a deleted user’s comments and messages to others would remain.
“We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.” — Mark Zuckerberg
I look at Facebook as a chronicle for the lives of my friends and myself. I wouldn’t want the loss of people’s thoughts that they left for me and others. I guess it’s a good reminder to save early and save often if there are memories you want to keep.
UPDATE: There’s some more details and commentary from the BBC’s dot.life blog.
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Ticketmaster and Live Nation to merge and devise new fees
Today’s announced merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation is big news. The two companies are trying to quell fears that the deal will increase ticket prices. Here’s what Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller said about prices:
“Ticketmaster does not set prices. Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set the prices,” Diller said.
The Associated Press writer was keen to point out that Diller did not mention the ticket surcharges that Ticketmaster is well known for.
While artists may set the ticket prices, Ticketmaster seems to find new and fun ways to charge its customers new supplemental fees. When I bought tickets for an event in San Jose last year, Ticketmaster wanted to charge me to print my tickets at home. This hardly seemed fair — while Ticketmaster paid to invest in the ticket-generating technology, I would have to pay for the ink, paper and printer in addition for this added fee. Needless to say, I opted for the cheapest method possible — delivered via first-class mail.
Public radio’s Marketplace had an interesting story about the fees last year. It also noted that Ticketmaster could have lost 10 percent of its business if a partnership between the company and Live Nation fell by the wayside. Clearly, this isn’t going to happen now.
With this merger in the works, who knows what fun ways Ticketmaster will charge people. Any ideas?
