This isn't a new proposition, but its one that's quickly gaining relevance. HBO, a network I dare not criticize because of the literally thousands of hours of quality original programming its given me, has officially hit a commercial, if not critical slump. Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm are aging, and their last seasons were below par. Big Love, their new tent pole, is no The Sorpanos. Flight of the Conchords is officially my favourite HBO series, but I question how far the premise can go. And, sure, Tell Me You Love Me and In Treatment are great, innovative series, but I doubt they'll ever catch on, even with some sort of The Wire-esque following.

Showtime, on the other hand, has got some serious goods right now: British import Diary of Call Girl is fantastic, and kudos for not Americanizing it and just airing the original form (a la Extras, and not unlike Showtime's own Queer as Folk... learning lessons, we are). Weeds is down but certainly not out. Dexter, This American Life, Californication, The Tudors, Brotherhood, The L Word, Tracey Ullman... its an impressive slate. To be sure, its a pale comparison to HBO's heyday, but the horizon is looking better and better for Showtime.

In the past week, Showtime announced two very promising new developments: a Matthew Perry starring dark comedy and George Clooney produced dark comedy. This comes after news of yet another dark comedy, The United States of Tara, which boasts some of the best joint pedigree to ever grace a pilot: Toni Collette, Steven Spielberg and Diablo Cody.

The overdose on dark comedy is not as bad an idea as you'd might think. Its branding the network to a genre that has produced some of the best cable series (even The Sopranos or The Wire occasionally dip their tone in that direction), and its done them right so far. Its certainly better than HBO's bizarre new genre of choice: the shrink narrative, the focus of both In Treatment and Tell Me You Love Me, and as we all know, a central theme in their dearly departed big gun.

The two freshly announced series both look promising (though their very, very similar names but prove way to cute for a programming block). Clooney's series, The Fall of Bob, will follow the lead character, Bob, who jumps from a building and then narrates his life as it flashes before him. Im sure whoever is cast as Bob could be a deal breaker, but Im guessing Clooney's cred might get someone impressive. Perry will star in his series (and exec produce and write), The End of Steve. Co-created by Rescue Me/Larry Sanders vet Peter Tolan, Perry will star as "s a local afternoon talk show host whose smooth, cheery on-screen demeanor contrasts with his bitter off-camera personality and his chaotic personal life, which includes a tentative romance with a co-worker." Larry Sanders in the Afternoon? Fine by me.

or for us Canadians, where it wont air for months, tomorrow via the internets, hopefully.

Let's hope this new setting shakeup and the presence of Albert Brooks helps lift the show out of a late-season 3 quality downfall...

For whatever, reason the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has the actual ballots for the upcoming Emmy nominations posted online. As I not-so-eagerly anticipate a giant list of disappointments when the nominations come out, some already are clear on the ballot, which lists all submitted performers. Though there are some interesting brightspots: the SNL performers are being considered in acting categories this year (meaning Amy Poehler could be nominated alongside Vanessa Williams or Jenna Fischer in the supporting actress category), and its nice to see no one wasted any money submitting Jim Belushi for best actor in According To Jim. One other notable non-entry was Katherine Heigl, who removed herself from consideration after winning last year so that her co-workers could have better shots (you weren't gonna win anyway, so nice PR move). But though this isn't Emmys fault - its likely HBO or even the show itself that decided this - how come so few Wire folk are in the running? I see Dominic West, Wendell Pierce, Michael K. Williams and Andre Royo on the list, arguably the season's MVPs, but only a small percentage of the deserving cast members? But why is Domenick Lombardozzi (Herc) in there and not Sonja Sohn or Lance Reddick or Aiden Gillen? None of them will get a nod anyway, as The Wire has never received nods for series or acting, which goes in line with the Emmys complete ignorance of most shows I ever really love. Of the "10 most personally influential series" I listed here last week, one three (Sex and the City, Arrested Development and Seinfeld), ever won a series award, and of my top 5, only one was even nominated.

Click here for some joy from someone with a lot of time to spare.

Because of the unexpected excitement I'm feeling re: this weekend's impending Sex and the City movie (and the fact that I am one episode away from finishing The Wire, which I'm saving for a Wire themed Friday night gathering, where were all drinking raw eggs in beer), I couldn't help but wonder: How much has television shaped my existence? Mostly because I need a break from editing ye ol' thesis, I did the following as a fun exercise in television nostalgia and reflection: Ranking series in terms of how influential they were at the time, or even now. Don't take it too seriously, and maybe just watch the clips, after the jump.

Yesterday, NBC decided to release its schedule for Sept 2008-Aug 2009 (in 3 separate schedules for each season of the "season") a month ahead of schedule:

The announcements were part of NBC's new strategy to be "in front" of its competitors by presenting a "52-week super-season" of "quality programming" to advertisers and journalists in lieu of the usual May upfront extravaganza.

"New strategy" is codeword for "We're copying FOX". FOX programmed "super seasons" for the past few years, and has also shown historic tendencies to shove their programming in everyones face before everyone else to try and get more press. But FOX is the #1 network now. Its NBC's turn to use superlatives and cheap tactics.

NBC - headed to become by far the 4th highest rated network of the now "Big 4" - particularly its programming chief Ben Silverman, seems quite proud of what I'd consider a pathetic attempt at regaining viewers. But I could easily be totally wrong - there's obviously a huge market for unoriginal garbage.

Remakes, spin-offs and international stealing pretty sums up NBC's slate: A Knight Rider rehash; spinoffs of The Office and Saturday Night Live ("Thursday Night Live! In Primetime!); Australian sitcom Kath and Kim redone America stylez; a series starring Christian Slater that Silverman aptly describes as "Think 'Jekyll & Hyde' meets 'The Bourne Identity.'"

I'll admit that some of the aforementioned I'm actually kind of excited about: Kath, simply because it stars Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, two of my faves (but if The Return of Jezebel James taught us anything..); An Office spin-off could also be great, but I fear it might be a bit of an Office overdose, particularly for a series that - though much loved - is not as massive a ratings hit as NBC seems to pretend; And even though it sucks more than the recent cover of Entertainment Weekly suggested, an election-side extended edition of Weekend Update - live and in primetime - could be kinda great.

My main issues are elsewhere.

Though I'm happy to see Friday Night Lights get a renewal despite insanely low ratings, I don't think NBC should be patting itself on the back for doing one for the critics and loyal viewers: They didn't really have many options. See their renewal of low-rated and critically lambasted Lipstick Jungle. Why, you ask? Well, Silverstein tells EW: "The the women of America have spoken." Yes, all seven of them. The ones that thought Sex and the City was too intelligent for them to get into.

And, seriously, everything just screams overkill. A 15th Season of ER!? A 3 HOUR premiere of Heroes? A "couples" edition of The Biggest Loser? ANOTHER Celebrity Apprentice? And its not bad enough youre bringing back Knight Rider, but youre also gonna encore it every single week on Saturday nights? More over, get a load of some of the new reality programming: America's Toughest Jobs! Shark Taggers!

But I guess its a tough job, crawling your way from the bottom of the heap. So I do pity the men and women that have to take this on. But if I was you, Silverstein, I'd just clone Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin and play 30 Rock every night.

The last few days have caused a bit of quarrel between gays and both Jay Leno and David Letterman. First, Jay Leno took asked Ryan Phillippe to give his best "gay face" after mocking him ("weren't your parents proud?") for playing the first gay teen on a soap opera. Then, David Letterman (who I've always really enjoyed and thus this disappoints me more), called pregnant trans man Thomas Beatie an "androgynous freak show."

In case you haven't seen, here are clips of both offenses:

So quite a little hubbub has resulted. And rightfully so. Just months after sensitivity to gay jokes on late night was called into question by, among others, daytime talk show host Ellen deGeneres (mainly in response to the horrific murder of 15-year old gay teen Lawrence King), the one-two punch stylings of America's talk show giants is certainly a problem.

My favourite of the many responses against Leno in particular was Avenue Q creator Jeff Whitty. The highlights are here. Whitty eventually came to accept Leno's apology (and denounce GLAAD's johnny-come-lately retaliation effort), but not before he wrote an insightful letter Jay's way:

Not everyone can stomach you, I fear, so for those who can't, I'll do a little transcription. You were interviewing Ryan Phillippe, whose first acting job was as a gay teenager on One Life to Live. So naturally you homed in on how WEIRD and HILARIOUS it was that he played a GAY PERSON - while Phillippe reasonably tried to shift the conversation to the larger issue of how weird it was to be on a soap opera.

But you couldn't be stopped! You went for the comedy gold!

Whitty goes on to include links to a dozen or so "gay faces" - the battered faces of various gay-bashed individuals to prove the most important point in all of this:

I bring those faces up because there's a group (with whom you are supposedly sympathetic) undergoing a major civil rights struggle, and you seem to adore using the stereotype that we're laughable and really, all the same in the end.

Anyway... More of the same (though in a much more ballsy - or is it just a suicide mission? - context), gay activist Wayne Besen took the topic to Bill O'Reilly to attempt to explain the basic fundamental problems with homophobia to the, I'm sorry, lost causes that watch FOX News. As expected ( Many could have predicted it word for word), Reilly's response:

It looks to me in America that you can't ever make fun of any minority group. Ever. In any way. Anymore. In this country. I think that's where we are really. You can make fun of white Christian men. You can make fun of, famous people. But if you make fun of a minority, any minority...

And as you can tell yourself from the below video, Besen tries his best, but O'Reilly never listens anyway (and almost everything he says in the clip is wrong on many levels), so I wonder why people even bother:

Less attention has been paid to Letterman's comments, perhaps out of fatigue from Leno, but I for one think his offense is worse (and not just because I expected more). Thomas Beattie's situation - being the first trans man to become pregnant - is a sensitive issue in its newness. Trans-discrimination is a whole different ballgame than homophobia, and a rather revelatory story like Beattie's needs to be carefully celebrated as a wonderful turn of events in a life that likely saw personal conflicts of an incomparable nature to that of gays and lesbians. An "androgynous freak show" is a plainly cruel claim to be made in Beattie's regard, and exemplifies the difference between gay jokes and trans jokes: gay jokes seem to revolve around insecurities people - mainly straight men - have regarding gays, and usually play out with "light" though harmful jokes in the realm of, as Besen articulated: "Ha Ha Your Gay". However, trans jokes go for the "freak" factor, placing trans people much further into the depths of subordination.

Sadly, though, even if this little outburst shuts up the Lenos and the Lettermans for a little while, thats likely not making any of the Bill O'Reillys of this world go away. You can't force good humanity, and I guess it takes more than something like Lawrence King's murder to show people that this kind of dialogue is not a good thing.

Finally.. Ill end off by referencing The San Francisco Chronicle's Violet Blue's own
take on the situation. Blue decided to return the favour by heading to the 1996 Journal of Abnormal Psychology, for this fun ditty on the origins of homophobic remarks:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals... The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire... Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

So maybe it was just Ryan Phillippe's pecks (which are also one of the best things about Stop-Loss, which in a related note I saw last night and was quite disappointed by), that made Leno feel the need to go there? If that's the case, I totally forgive you Jay.

...her wasn't-meant-to-be sitcom, The Return of Jezebel James has been cancelled after three episodes. I love Posey, I love her co-star Lauren Ambrose. And I thought I loved Amy Sherman-Palladino, the voice behind five amazing and one decent season of my once beloved Gilmore Girls. But I did not love Jezebel James. And am, sadly, not surprised or displeased it was cancelled. Bad show+Friday night timeslot? Unless your two big breasts whispering to ghosts, this combination will not win.

I just really wonder what the hell happened here? So much pedigree! Did Lauren & Parker read the script? And if so, did they ask Amy what the fuck she was doing? The show had weak dialogue, a horribly cliched premise and, gasp, not much chemistry. Gilmore Girls was some of the best TV writing of the past decade... And I liked to think its tragically bad seventh season was simply due to the fact Amy left the show... And this is what she came up with??

I'd like to say I wished FOX gave it room to grow, but I'm afraid this one was too dead to grow and maybe its best all three women cut their loses and move on to something that suits all of their abilities.

Warning: Cody kinda ruins the end of There Will Be Blood (Oscar sabotage?)

Singer Kimya Dawson was mistakingly taken for Colin Powell on yesterday's "The View."

Juno was the highest grossing film in America Monday night, taking in $1.38 million, about $75,000 more than #2 National Treasure. Not bad considering it was its first day at #1 and its 34th day in release.

But more impressive (and more horrific), Monday night brought some other notable numbers, says The Futon Critic:

Last night from 8-9 p.m. ET, the regular time period debut of "American Gladiators" (4.8 rating, 12 share in adults 18-49, 10.9 million viewers overall) nailed NBC's highest 18-49 rating in this time period in 10 months (since March 5, 2007). In total viewers, "Gladiators" attracted NBC's biggest audience in the slot with regularly scheduled programming since June 18, 2007.

So its come to this?

Say goodbye to scripted television for a while. Most shows will run out of new episodes this month, with a few come latelys sticking around until March. Lost, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Medium and Jericho will be the ONLY network scripted shows running new episodes in March, with two of them done on March 3rd so they barely count. So no scripted shows, no Golden Globes... Thank god theres an election going on to provide some source of interesting viewing. The full list of when-dones after the jump.

Though last night I suggested Jay Leno's shitty guests and shitty jokes would result in David Letterman's deserved surge in the ratings, last night this wasn't so. The dueling shows' (reviewed here by EW's Ken Tucker) ratings are in:

The Tonight Show: 7.2 million viewers (43% higher than season average)
The Late Show: 5.5 million viewers (45% higher)

I hope the viewers who watched Leno's lamefest featuring newly crowned Iowa GOP winner Mike Fuckabee decided to change their ways today. I actually just watched Letterman (and Leno in commercial breaks), and the show was a huge improvement over last night's good-but-not-great-but-still-way-better-than-Leno outing, mostly due to the non-presence of Robin Williams and the presence of Bill Maher. Add that to Ellen Page, who though she seemed nervous and out of place in that dress, gave countless shout outs to Canada and hit a few "whorehouse" jokes out of the park Juno-style (see clips of both Maher and Page below), and I don't know who would choose Howie Mandel (also Canadian, unfortunately) on Leno? But I guess the sad many people that would vote in Huckabee might really like Deal or No Deal and definately really hate Bill Maher, and probably are never doing anything better at 11:30 every night.

Ah, well. I overestimated ye with Neilsen boxes yet again.

Tonights the night. Late night talk shows, after two months off the hair, are returning - with Dave, Conan, Leno, Kimmel and that Scottish guy all back. But, as we've all heard, only Dave and Craig Ferguson, through an interim deal between WGA and Letterman's Worldwide Pants, which owns both shows. The rest of the shows (including Colbert & Stewart, both back next week), all go writer-less.

So, far, fears that the writerless shows might be scraping for guests appear warranted (the Screen Actor's Guild is urging celebs to go see Dave. In the next few days, Letterman has Robin Williams, Bill Maher, Ellen Page, Donald Trump, Lupe Fiasco... Even Hillary Clinton will appear via satellite. Leno has Mike Huckabee, whose currently one of my ten least favourite people on the planet. Conan has Bob Saget.

Most of these shows seem pretty damaged by the strike thus far, and I'll be curious to see if (and, likely, by how much) Letterman overtakes Leno's throne. Leno is averaging 4.4 million viewers this season, losing a quarter of his audience from last season. Before the strike, his audience was off 10 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research. Letterman's average of 3.6 million viewers is 15 percent off last season. Before the strike, his viewership was down 9 percent.

CNN got a sneak peek of Letterman, including this image:

Thats a fully bearded Letterman with Robin Williams. Apparently - and spoiler alert here - Letterman opens by saying: "I know what you're thinking," Letterman said of his mostly white beard. "You think Dave looks like a cattle-drive cook." Letterman's Top 10 list was delivered by striking writers, offering their strike demands. They included "Complementary tote bag with next insulting contract offer" and "Hazard pay for breaking up fights on 'The View.' "

Though I can already feel my anxiety in watching Williams (lets count how many accents he does!), I'll
watch Letterman (though poke over to Leno just to see how they try and pull off. And while I was already hands-down a Letterman fan, but I'll enjoy seeing some of Leno's 4.4 million devotees come over to my side as well.

The best show on television returns...

Please strike, end...

If Rosie hadn't left yet, she would have today... And why were some people clapping for Sherri's beyond-ignorant parenting tips? Somebody hit her, please? C'mon, Barbara, you know you want to (watch Barbara give Sherri a bitchy "excuse me" a minute or so in).

Even Elizabeth wouldn't be this ignorant.

I'd been meaning to post this since I read it an Entertainment Weekly a few weeks back, but two of their reporters watched all 192 episodes of Full House (at once) and posted a diary on EW.com. Its quite hysterical, and I felt their ambitious efforts deserved to be included after the jump.

Like her former SNL co-stars, Tina Fey organized a live benefit performance of an episode of 30 Rock at an improv house in New York. “If you paid more than that on Craig's List, you are a sucker,” Fey told the crowd. “This is going to be on TV for free in a few weeks.”

Staged to raise money for 30 Rock's production staff, this classy move continues to move Fey up in my love ranks (Whats more, Rock is probably my favourite currently airing television series). Anyway, Entertainment Weekly has some commentary on the event after the jump.

Rachel Sklar of The Huffington Post did an amazing play-by-play of Saturday night's Saturday Night Live improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre in Chelsea. It made me incredibly jealous I wasn't there, and made me miss SNL, even though I regret watching it everytime I do. Sklar's extensive analysis after the jump.

Even though I kinda hate Saturday Night Live most of the time, this would be exciting if I lived in New York.

In lieu of the strike, Saturday Night Live, complete with one of the best hosts they've had all season (Michael Cera!), will perform live at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre this Saturday night. They will improv the skits and it obviously won't air on TV, so if you live in New York, its only 20 bones!

Apparently, Amy Poehler personally asked Mr. Cera to join in (his ex-uncle is her husband, see) and he won't be meeting with the cast until a few hours before the show...

From TV Guide.com, a list of how many unaired episodes are left for most network series. If the strike continues as it looks like it will, this is what you got left (after the jump).

While Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy walked the picket lines, Variety as well as some blogs are reporting that actress Frances Fisher, who was walking the line at Paramount with fellow SAG board member Valerie "Rhoda" Harper, has found someone to blame: The SAG national board, led by then-president Melissa Gilbert, of Little House on the Prairie fame, for its decision in early 2004 to agree to a one-year extension of its deal that de-linked with SAG's expiration date from the WGA's and placed in synch with the DGA's.

The SAG and DGA contracts both expire next June 30; the WGA's expired on Halloween.

"What we did was put the WGA in a less powerful position, which led to this strike," said Fisher. "And I think Melissa Gilbert should be out here apologizing to the WGA."

And in brief strike updates: The last new episode of The Office will be next week; Family Guy might not have another episode, and Desperate Housewives might have just a small few. And 24's premiere has been postponed, with no new date given. Variety also reported the strike is likely to last well into 2008.

UPDATE: 24 will not air this season at all.

I really do. While they may be hitting a bit of a road block in the wake of the end of the three big series that start with "S" that essentially gave HBO their golden era, they are not stooping to network-levels of easy entertainment to restore their ratings gold. They might not have Weeds or Rescue Me (arguably my two favourite US cable series right now), but I do love Flight of the Conchords and Tell Me You Love Me, and love that they were easily renewed despite low ratings. I love that challenging and ambitious series like The Wire and Deadwood lasted as long as they did. And I love that the new crop of shows coming soon are following similar paths. Case in point is In Treatment, which HBO has committed to weeks of 5-nights-a-week new episodes. Weeks! Despite a likely unpopular premise and no ratings results in until February. And Diane Wiest is in it! Take a look at EW's breakdown after the jump. Pay particular attention to HBO program planning chief David Baldwin's quote: "We don't worry about premiere ratings or selling ads." If it was any other network, I'd think he was lying.

In Fall of 1994, I was one of a small few who did not watch the first season of Friends. I was ten years old, and I was about to get the first real education on what was going to happen in the next decade or so. ABC's My So-Called Life, a tragically show-lived gem of a series that portrayed youth and all its intricacies in a realism never before or after reached, made more of a pop cultural mark in 19 episodes than most series do in many seasons. Even my 15 year old sister and her friends caught the series in its reruns and asked me the question I've thought and heard so many times: "What would have happened if they had a second season?" Who knows... and 13 years later, who cares I guess. Lets just be happy we had those 19 perfectly written and executed slices of mid-90s teen angst... And that we can now watch them whenever we want.

Today marks the release of the long overdue re-issed DVD box set of My So-Called Life. Complete with loads of extras and a book, the set is actually a decent price ($50ish) and available in mass quantities. Go by it. And while for five years, I held the fact that I owned the rare original (and extraless) set (which I purchased with my tax refund in Spring 2003 for $130) over the head of everyone I knew who loved the show but didnt spend their money so fruitfully (or quickly, it was off the shelves by that Fall)... I'm ready to let my petty selfishness go and smile at the sight of Angela Chase on the DVD shelves of everyone I know who loved it.

After the jump, a selection of classic MSCL quotes to entice your spending habits.

After just an episode, the much hyped CBS musical dramedy, Viva Laughlin, produced by Hugh Jackman, has been cancelled. It will be replaced by reruns of CSI. Maybe in 20 years they'll try the musical network television series again (at least Cop Rock lasted longer than this), but until then, if it ain't a cartoon, High School Musical or an isolated episode of Oz or Buffy, don't air it on TV. Or if you do, try making it good next time? You'd think for a genre experimented with every decade or so, they'd have some better ideas (and they didn't even make this one up themselves, they stole it from the Brits!).