I Am A TV Junkie, A Blog For The Clicker Jockey

Gwen Cooper's Got the Wedding Bell Blues

Uh oh! Oops! Did I tell you the one about the Torchwood agent who got bit by a shape shifter?

Well, gotta go watch this episode. Thanks, Spence, for the pic.

Rosie's Official "Welcome Danny Noriega to the Cruise" Clip

Rosie has an embed feature on her clips now, and you know I've never met an embed code that I didn't love to death.

So here it is, without a whole lot of BS from me. Oh, Ross Mathews from Leno, Ant (the comic) and Danny's cousin are included.

After the jump, some Danny fun with Joel McHale and the gang at The Soup, because "some people weren't liking it!"

What the Frak? BSG in Eight Minutes, Seventeen Seconds, but Bye Bye Bionic Woman

You know, just like the Lost catchup clip that I posted before it came back recently. Battlestar Gallactica returns on April 4 to the SciFi Channel.

But first, Bob Sassone at TV Squad told us earlier this week that Bionic Woman is really really gone. Hat tip to Bob for leading me to the Wired.com blog entry on this, where BSG's and Bionic's David Eick talks about ... well ... stuff like this:

"I just felt that the process was so frustrating, and the conditions under which we were making that show never really came to fruition in such a way that I felt like we could make the show well. The actress (Michelle Ryan) we found was wonderful. Some of the writing was good."

"We just didn't ever bring it all together like we did with Battlestar," he continued. "At a certain point, when it becomes that frustrating, I think you're better off to say, 'Let's try again another time,' and let it go."

But that's the thing with bringing back an iconic TV character, you don't get a second chance. When he says, "Let's try again another time," it means with a new idea, a different show.

The show David Eick wanted to make, and I know about that show 'cause I heard him talk at Comic-Con about that show, would have been a hit. It's just too bad that NBC wouldn't leave him alone to do that.

They had to foist Isaiah Washington on them, they had to recast the sister, changing her from a troubled deaf girl to a troubled computer hacker, and then they killed of the major gray-hat character of the show, the original boyfriend's dad, and then (and I'm not sure of this, but I can't think of another reason) they shied away from the Jaime v. Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff, left) storyline because of the lesbian subtext.

That's not only a lot of notes, those are freakin' BIG notes.

So, the show I was most excited about when I left San Diego turned to crap. Ah, corporate America, you gotta love it.

You won't hear this from any of the producers, they want to work with this network again. In fact, Eick has the final season of BSG and now the prequel movie Caprica to do for Universal/SciFi, so what can he really say.

He can say he was "frustrated."

Other people have said more, like Steve Moffat after NBC ruined Coupling. Ballsy? Yes, but Moffat didn't have projects pending at NBC at the time.

Okay, off my soapbox. I'm gonna try to catch up with BSG before it comes back. The clip after the jump helps, but I am not too proud to accept the assistance of any fan who wants to help.

Am I Wrong or Should People Not Date Others Young Enough to Be Their Kids?

What is wrong with people out there?

Today's Keith Olbermann personal life story mentions that his live-in girlfriend has just landed a gig at the CW station in NYC.

She's 24 years old.

Keith's 49.

Certainly it's none of my business, I get that. But when I think about how I would feel if anyone saw me out at about with a 24-year-old (I'm only a year younger than Keith) I feel sick to my stomach.

Do you?

My Facebook status message currently reads, "Joe is consistently disappointed in the personal lives of his professional idols."

Update on the Oprah Backlash

You remember the post, I said ...

C'mon, folks, she's a woman who does a talk show that you've all bought into and that's where your adoration comes from. You've invested so much time and energy with the O that you can't bear to think that she's just a woman with a talk show, a keen business sense and a line of bull that you embrace.

(snip)

Remember that bile I mentioned earlier, I think it just might be the beginnings of an Oprah backlash fomenting.

Well ...

A woman claims in a lawsuit that she was injured in a dash for seats at Oprah Winfrey's talk show in Chicago.

Orit Greenberg's lawsuit seeks some $50,000 in damages. Greenberg claims Harpo Studios failed to control the audience on Dec. 5, 2006.

And ...

Lynn (Massachusetts) lady Darlene Tracy doesn’t think Oprah Winfrey is such a Give-ing kind of gal. Because, according to the mother of four, she proposed the concept for Winfrey’s “Big Give” to the media demigoddess back in 2005 - and Oprah stole it!

Tracy, whose reality show idea was called “The Philanthropist,” filed a copyright-infringement suit in 2006 against Op and her Harpo Productions in Boston’s U.S. District Court after the talk-show czarina announced the details of her new show.

“Oprah’s Big Give,” which debuted March 2 on ABC, gives contestants money to turn around the life of a person or organization in need. There are twists, there are turns. And the last do-gooder standing is crowned “The Biggest Giver.”

(snip)

Federal Judge Rya Zobel dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds a year ago. And Tracy, whose written proposal is verrrrry similar to “Big Give,” continues to appeal. Late last month, she asked the court for an expedited decision.

Darlene claims in her lawsuit that she was told by a Harpie, who passed on the project, that the production types were going to use “their own uniquely different ideas.” Hmmm.

Note for those of you who sent dismissive or unapproving emails:

HA!

Dear Unsolicited Email Sender, From Your TV Junkie

Dear Unsolicited Email Sender,

I do not care that you "peeked at your neighbor's daughter." I didn't care the first time you sent me that unsolicited email, and I won't care when you send me the final email. At this point, I'd say I've seen about 20 of these.

It creeps me out and leads me to believe the you are a pedophile.

Just stop it!

-Joe

Disappointed in Miss/Guided? Me Too

I watched both episodes that aired last night in the Ugly Betty (not a comedy) spot, and I think that's it for me.

A bit too female skewing, a bit too young skewing, and they seem to have the reigns pulled tight on Judy Greer, I feel like they aren't giving her a chance to create one of the many eccentric characters that she has graced other people's films with for a long time.

He needs to be let go to be the person this character is supposed to be -- flighty, distracted, but ultimately concerned and protective of the kids because she has a close connection to her own feelings from that time in her life at the same school.

Throwing the Ashton episode so close to the premiere also indicates to me that the producers (which include Ashton) are somewhat concerned about audience. And, even though he's the exec producer, I still don't like stunt casting.

And that goes for the casting of Jamie Lynn, too.

About Whores and Media Whores

Brian Lowry has a column up at Variety about Spitzer, "Kristen" (Ms. Dupre), and media complicity in generating income for high class hookers who boff big time media figures and big time tabloid figures who just boff, period:

The Spitzer affair has triggered a familiar debate about sexual politics, but relatively little discussion of the media's role in helping young women reap tidy profits from nothing more or less than with whom they are (or have been) having sex. It once might have been dubbed the horizontal path to scaling the ladder of success, though such terminology exhibits a certain old-school lack of directional imagination.

Dupre is merely the latest woman to be catapulted to fame (or at least notoriety) based on her sexcapades. Indeed, E! Entertainment Television seems to have a development pool specifically devoted to that niche, having already given the world programs featuring homemade sex-tape stars Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. MTV, meanwhile, is planning a series sequel showcasing bisexual reality TV personality Tila Tequila, who -- in what might be a first even for pseudo-celebrities -- had to deny a Page Six rumor that she was in fact (gasp) "stick-straight."

Legal entanglements notwithstanding, the not-so-subtle message for Dupre and others is that tabloid infamy represents a perfectly logical and increasingly legitimized stepping stone to 15 minutes of fame, with each additional minute usually translating into extra dollar signs.

Click the link, read it all, then come back for frivolous crap about your fave TV shows and more high minded stuff if I can come up with anything.

Jericho: Gone, Never to Return, Don't Bother Sending Nuts

Yeah, that's not gonna work this time.

Hollywood Reporter:

The ending that will air Tuesday night doesn't entirely slam the door on the series and is only slightly different from the cliffhanger version, sources said. The ending also doesn't preclude the possibility of "Jericho" finding a second life on cable, though the economics of the production will likely prevent a continuation of the show.

The most recent episodes of "Jericho" have averaged about a 1.9 rating among adults 18 to 49 during their Tuesdays at 10 p.m. time period.

We cared, the rest didn't. It's over. Move on. There are other shows. Sorry about this, but I had a sense.

It is a business, you know, and Jericho just didn't do the business. And btw, the Reporter story by James Hibberd makes the correct point that the show can't survive on cable given the production cost. And a 1.9 rating on broadcast would dwindle further on cable.

It's been a long road to this moment. Interesting, now that it's here, I feel nothing.

My Former County Executive, Al D'Amato, Wants to Be on TV -- Why You Don't Wanna Watch

Former US Senator Alphonse D'Amato, who is also the former County Executive of Nassau County, is, according to the Reporter, shopping around a daytime court show:

He also was known for his lengthy and at times comical filibusters on the floor of the Senate, one of which found him answering questions from a visiting colleague, reciting names and singing "South of the Border." He published a book, "Power, Pasta & Politics: The World According to Senator Al D'Amato," in 1995 and founded the consulting firm Park Strategies four years later.

However, Kimberlye Nordyke of the Reporter, that is not all for which D'Amato is known. I mean, if you're gonna write something about Al D'Amato and not talk about his involvement in the Whitewater investigations during the Clinton administration or about how he called Chuck Schumer, who eventually beat him for his Senate seat a putz-head over and over until someone noted that he was using the Yiddish for dickhead on the stump.

Or, maybe you could have told your readers that D'Amato let his brother, a lobbyist, use his Senate stationery to solicit defense contracts.

Or how he and his brother are chummy enough with people with mob ties to testify on their behalf in court, as he did on behalf of Phillip Basile.

So, that's why I find it interesting that Al D'Amato is looking to do a daytime court show, because I think he would be really used to being either the judge or the defendant.

And c'mon, can the people at the Poker Players Alliance, the lobbying group that he works with, do without him? Who will protect the rights of people who wanna lose their life's savings playing poker on the computer?

I don't think America needs a daily dose of Al, what about you?