The opening skit of last night's Saturday Night Live was a takeoff on a C-SPAN Senate Foreign Relations Hearing broadcast. The show managed to capture that C-SPAN "ambience" perfectly ( Read more... )

First things first, I hereby swear not to do any more YouTube-related posts for at least thirty days. I've whiled away much too much time over at that copyright-infringing, time-sucking, Stuckey's-on-the-Web (though, I must admit, I did enjoy seeing again, for the first time in years, "The Contest Nobody Could Win" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati ( Read more... )

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There have been several things I've wanted to blog about these last few weeks, but, because I've been happily occupied with this and that, the opportunity just hasn't presented itself. So tonight, in one fell swoop, here's what's been on my mind:


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From his message board, more from Harlan Ellison and his interpretation of "Made in America," Episode 86 - better known as the last episode ever - of The Sopranos:

HARLAN ELLISON

- Wednesday, June 13 2007 20:0:53

THE SOPRANOS' ONION RING SYMBOLISM

Please understand that I despise all that pseudo-academic horse puckey feeding into " ( Read more... )

I've intended all week to post rhapsodic about the final episode of The Sopranos, about how creator David Chase's "non-ending" is in fact the perfect ending, a rare example of an artistic act in the guise of a mere TV show. The only thing that even comes close is the last episode of St. Elsewhere.

As someone whose own fiction has often been ( Read more... )

Just a note of thanks to NBC for once again pulling Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip from Monday night's schedule, thereby freeing me to watch Family Guy reruns on TBS. Aaron Sorkin's original concept -- a behind-the-scenes look at what purportedly goes on in the production of a weekly live comedy show à la Saturday Night Live -- quickly revealed that ( Read more... )

An article in this morning's The New York Times reveals that the premiere episode of the new WB series The Bedford Diaries will contain more cuts than originally announced (see original 25 March 2006 post, "sex, lies, and the WB"). Whereas original Times articles reported that only two scenes would be sent to the network censor's cutting room floor ( Read more... )

Two recent articles in The New York Times ("WB Censors Its Own Drama for Fear of F.C.C. Fines" and its follow-up "Fear of FCC Action Prompts Cuts in WB Drama") brought to light the latest repercussion from what began two years ago with Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, and culminated last week with the FCC fining over 100 television ( Read more... )

They say it happens in threes, so here's number two...

Darren McGavin died yesterday. A fine actor with, according to IMDb, 173 roles to his name, for me he will always be remembered as the irascible and forever exasperated newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak.


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