Thanks to NBC’s upcoming 10:00pm weeknight schedule change, there may be a new David E. Kelley legal drama, featuring an ex-patent attorney (see the second paragraph of the CNN article). Apparently, actual patent attorneys aren’t interesting enough to be the featured characters on a TV show. And I don’t have a problem with that. We patent attorneys are a fairly boring bunch.
Archive for the ‘Television’ Category
Patent attorneys on TV?!?
Tuesday, January 12th, 201024gasm on Season 7
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010I finally finished watching Season 7 of 24 on DVD over the weekend. (I was trying to be clever with “24gasm”, but found out some more clever people beat me to it.)
Spolier Alert: Some plot points from Season 7 follow. If you don’t want to know, stop now.
A few comments on Season 7.
- Which Tony is it? First he’s alive, and a bad guy. Then a good guy. Then away for a little while. Then back again, but still a good guy. Then a really bad guy. Then in custody. That much flailing around leads to a high degree of difficulty (a PDF document explaining how to calculate the degree of difficult for diving); I’d says it’s at least a 3.5.
- More Kim Bauer stupidity. That whole thing in the airport: chasing the bad guy while wearing heels, the security guards get shot, the car crashes through the barrier and flips over. Kim reaches in to grab tha laptop and the car catches on fire along with Kim’s arm. Makes me wistful for the cougar from Season 2 (read this as a “jump the shark” moment).
- I still really, really hate Chloe. Really. Please kill this character. Go all Chef on her, so she can’t come back, a la Tony. And while you’re at it, kill Janice too.
- A season-ending cliffhanger? Will Jack live? (Well, duh – he’s in Season 8.) Will Renee go all Jack Bauer on Alan Wilson? (No, she doesn’t have the stones, and he wouldn’t break anyway.) What’s going to happen to Tony? (Rot in prison until he receives a poison pill to swallow.) What’s going to happen to Olivia? (Go back to being a consultant in the private sector. Conspiracy to commit murder charge? Feh.)
Just a few more days to the Season 8 24gasm. Enjoy!
Pop! goes the TV
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009Karen and I were sitting watching a little TV last night (DVR’ed episode 2 of AMC’s The Prisoner) when about 10 minutes or so into the episode (and right around 10:00pm) there’s a loud pop! from the TV, the picture goes all sepia tone, and the fan gets really loud. Loud enough to bother the dog. I switch off the TV, thinking that maybe it’s a temporary thing. I wait about a minute or so and turn it back on. No picture, no sound, and the fan is still really loud. And now I can’t turn the TV off. I’m worried that it’s going to burst into flames, since I had no idea what went wrong. I’m trying to reach behind and next to the TV to unplug it, but can’t remember which plug is for the TV (it’s one of those set it and forget it type of things). I finally find the right plug and then can’t get my arm back far enough to unplug it. This is becoming more farcical by the minute.
Now it’s time to find that five extended service contract I got when I bought all this gear 3 1/2 years ago. From Tweeter, which is now out of business. Good thing the contract is honored by a third party. After about 25 minutes of looking, I finally find it (it somwhow made its way into the refiling pile). I call the number, and it’s disconnected. This is not good. I look up the company online and find another number. And somebody answered the phone at 10:30pm! Success! They outsource the repairs to local companies. The repair tech will be coming tomorrow. But any parts will have to be ordered, at a 7-10 business day delay.
It’s relatively rough, since Caroline is such a big Sesame Street fan, and it’s a good distraction for a few minutes if something needs to be done around the house.
Karen posted something about it on her Facebook page (sorry, direct inbound links aren’t allowed), and one of her friends commented “Just put a little bacon on it. Bacon makes EVERYTHING better.” Too bad we didn’t have any bacon.
Castle salutes Firefly
Friday, October 30th, 2009Karen and I really enjoy Castle. And I did enjoy Firefly. So I thought it was great for this week’s Halloween episode of Castle (you can watch it here), when Castle (played by Nathan Fillion) started the episode by getting into his Halloween costume as Captain Mal (his Firefly role, for those who didn’t know). Then there was this dialogue (paraphrasing/remembering as bet as I can):
Alexis (his daughter): What are you?
Castle: I’m a space cowboy.
Alexis: There are no cowboys in space. Besides, didn’t you wear that, like, five years ago?
OK, it makes sense and is funny if you watched Firefly.
On the Battlestar Galactica finale
Monday, March 30th, 2009The questions I would have liked answered did not get answered. Instead we got some silly quasi-religious themes, complete with angels. The show went out with a whimper instead of a bang. My take on the ending below.
[Spoiler alert]
Finding a habitable planet (a new Earth) with pre-technology natives, the people leave technology behind, fly all the technology into the sun, and help repopulate humanity by blending in with the locals (or not). We then flash-forward 150,000 years, and left with a prophetic warning (complete with a cameo by co-producer Ronald Moore) about the dangers of robots. Then exit with Jimi Hendrix doing “All Along the Watchtower.” 
Maybe more fully channeling the end of The Matrix by playing Rage Against the Machine would have been too much to ask. A little wink with someone keeping some advanced technology around would have been slighly more interesting.
What I’d like in the Battlestar Galactica finale
Thursday, March 19th, 2009Tomorrow night is the series finale for Battlestar Galactica. I have watched the entire series, even suffering through some of the worst dialogue in the history of television. (I refer to the “frakking” episode, where about every 5th word was some variation of “frak”. I guess they were channeling Deadwood or something.)
There are a few open issues I would like to see resolved. In no particular order:
- Will Baltar’s treachery (deactivating the planetary defense shields from the miniseries) be revealed to everyone? He destroyed the only video evidence in Season One (I think it was then). But will Six rat him out?
- What happened to Baltar’s nuclear weapon? He got one to do some of his Cylon testing and it was last seen in the possession of one of the Sixes on a civilian ship.
- What exactly happened to Starbuck? Was that really her corpse she found?
- Will Roslin finally friggin’ die? Enough already. Can’t stand the character.
I would have preferred to have seen what happened if the mutiny on Galactica had succeeded. I think it would have been interesting to watch Zarek and Gaeda try to lead while everything is crashing down around them. It likely would have meant the end of the human race, but what the heck.
Lastly, I hope there will be some finality. I don’t want loose ends, with the possibility of a follow-up movie or something. Just end it.
Terminator terminated in my house
Monday, September 15th, 2008I tried liking the Terminator TV show. I really tried. I fought through Season 1, with each episode offering my just enough to keep watching. The Season 2 premiere killed it though. I can’t keep watching this formulaic crap. Save thing every week: blow shit up, question Cameron’s loyalty (will she kill John? will Sarah kill Cameron?), suffer through Brian Austin Green, advance the plot by millimeters. Too much time, not enough payoff. You’re done.
Oh, No! (Mercenaries 2 song)
Friday, September 12th, 2008If you watch any TV (and since I watch very little TV, you probably watch more than me), you’ve likely seen the commercial for the video game Mercenaries 2. It has a song with the catchy piano riff in it. I liked it enough to try to figure out if it was a whole song or just a commercial jingle. It is a whole song, and it’s available for free from the game developers’ (Pandemic Studios) Web site: see the Downloads page or get the song directly. When you listen to the whole thing, it’s pretty funny. The site doesn’t tell you who it’s by, but various other sites attribute it to the Wojahn Brothers, though I can’t find anything definitive. Enjoy!
Reality TV redux
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008I was thinking while in the shower this morning (and oddity in and of itself) that with the Hollywood writers’ strike now over, there might be some reduction in the number of reality shows. Which, as you might guess, is a good thing. An aside: There was a print ad a few years ago for a beer (I forget which watered-down swill) that had the line “Let’s get back to fake TV and real breasts.” Or something like that.
Anyway… I was thinking that maybe some reality shows needed to be combined to cut down the total number and shake things up a bit. I just thought of a few:
- Gene Simmons Rock of Love Intervention: Gene Simmons prevents women from dating Bret Michaels. Let’s face it: he’s washed up and needs a career boost. Gene would be doing them a favor. Or maybe just doing them.
- Scott Baio is 46 and in Celebrity Rehab: Might actually need a career jolt more than Bret Michaels.
- The Biggest Dancing with the Loser Stars: The weight loss phenomenon goes dancing! Millions of saps will watch until they see the horror of the Michael Moore wardrobe malfunction. Hosted by Oprah!
Oh my God, they killed Omar!
Monday, February 25th, 2008You bastards!
Wow. Watching last night’s episode of The Wire I was stunned when Omar got dropped. I was holding the baby, leaning forward with my mouth open. Just plain stunned. Karen asked, “You didn’t see that coming, didn’t you.”
“Hell no.”
I’m still stunned. The one thing I would have thought I would have been able to guess about this story is that Omar would have been the last man standing. Or limping as his “Spider-Man shit” (per Marlo) left him with a broken ankle. But that’s the great thing about this show – always keeps you guessing.
