I Am A TV Junkie

Video -- Updating from Two Posts Ago ... Three Rivers Up The River

Sorry, hoards of women (and some men) who love Alex O'Loughlin, this one didn't work out for him, either.

Moonlight should have hit, I think it was just slightly before its time and suffered because of the network standards and practices departments. Sophia Myles (former David Tennant girlfriend, his co-star in Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace) was sublime as well.

This show just didn't seem to connect with the audience. And, Sunday is a tough TV night--  it was originally scheduled against Desperate Housewives, which sucks up the female demo to begin with, and all the other folk out there are either watching Sunday Night Football in the east on NBC or the Fox animated shows (the latter is always my first choice).

For Alex fans, you can next see him in the Jennifer Lopez movie The Back-Up Plan in March. And to tide you over until then I've posted a still from that film of Alex apparently driving a tractor shirtless.

I always drive my tractor shirtless, don't you?

Watch an early sneak peek with lots of Alex in it after the jump.

Torchwood's Coming Back For 13 Episodes, Time to Be Determined, Says Barrowman

Best news of the day! The scoop goes to a radio program Barrowman was on in the last couple days in the UK, you can hear the entire clip at the Blogtor Who blog at this link.

Thanks, Ty Davies, for posting the link at Facebook. You are a mensch.

Barrowman says:

We are discussing the future of Torchwood because most definitely Torchwood will come back to the BBC. I'm not sure when because we have to work out the logistics of the filming and it's already been said that it will be 13 episodes instead of five.

Yea!

Funny, I just asked for a new series of Torchwood from Santa (see the banner top of page).

Things I'm asking for now:

• A pony
• A trip to Wales so I can watch the Doctor Who year-end specials with Ty, his wife Donna, son Ryan and their friends.
• Jessie Pavelka, the personal trainer on the Lifetime show DietTribe.
• One of those touchscreen bar game setups
• The family photo montage that the Griffins have in their kitchen on Family Guy
• A party in my honor at Comic-Con this year
• A calzone

That last one's a cheat, I'm on my way out for a calzone right now.

Great news. Can't wait for more Gwen, Rhys, Jack, newbies to the crew and a brand new Torchwood hub.

TV.com Hears the Axe Man Coming: FlashForward, Fringe, Melrose, Heroes, Three Rivers

Quickly, my rundown of Tim Surette's analysis of three of the shows mentioned at this TV.com link:

FlashForward: Tim sez the costs involved in production might be the deciding factor. Is it too smart for TV? Too high concept? Did they expect too much? Should they have hired more bankable stars than the guy who played opposite Gwynnie is Shakespeare in Love and hasn't been seen much in the US since? Is it taking too long to reveal itself? I keep watching and sometimes I feel like it's making no progress despite having a heavy serial focus. But I love the dialogue and it's very well shot.

Fringe: I will not let Fringe get canceled. Period. It's the best genre show on American TV right now. John Noble is an actor's actor, the scripts are solid, the pacing excellent and Anna Torv is just getting to the point that she can keep up an American accent for the whole hour. It would be a shame for it to go away. I've asked Roco at Fringebloggers.com if we can come up with a save our show strategy and I hope we do. Tim supports the show, too, saying, "(I)t will be back. And then we'll meet alternate universe Astrid who will be a major ass-kicker (I hope)! Verdict: It will be back, and hopefully on another night."

Three Rivers: Tim shares that the demos skew way old. Well, it IS CBS after all (see my previous post). I haven't watched since the pre-air pilot, I don't like medical shows -- I have aging parents that I take to the doctor so I get my share of that in real life. Tim also remarks, "(I)t turns out that, without his fangs, Moonlight hunk Alex O'Loughlin just isn't the attraction I thought he would be.

Go read the rest. Link at top of post.

James Franco on General Hospital -- What ... Did He Lose A Bet or Something?

Daytime soaps are dying a slow and painful death. It was bound to happen. Cable and DVDs (and VHS before it) took a big chunk out of the audience, then DVRs took it a further step. Many of them are just ... gone!

Guiding Light disappeared this year, Passions last year (okay, Passions was a surreal take on the traditional soap, but still, it's gone), and Another World may be seen in another world but not this one, it was canceled, too.

One can surmise that the money's just not there to keep 'em going ... so, what's the deal with ABC meeting James Franco's usual and customary pay rate (if they indeed are doing so) for a splashy guest shot on General Hospital as a conceptual artist named Franco (no last name) who always seems to be around when someone's murdered?

(Reminds me of Jessica Fletcher. I never trusted that woman. I always expected on the final episode they'd lead her away in cuffs!)

And why Franco? I just watched a clip at ABC.com on the GH homepage where he throws around the words fascinating and process and Tony Geary and Steve Burton seems to vaguely enjoy working with him (they're pointedly noncommittal, actually) from what they say in the same clip, but I still don't quite get it.

Elizabeth Taylor was a BIG fan of GH when she guested (and a bit past her prime), Carol Burnett and Rosie O'Donnell had watched All My Children for years when they guested. Franco doesn't claim to be a fan of the show at all. 

It leads me to believe that ABC thought it would be a great idea for November sweeps to have a movie star show up for a story arc.

Questions:

Is Franco a movie star (emphasis on the star)?

Is he a draw for the daytime demographic?

Wouldn't the producers have been better off grabbing a female star of note to guest? Someone like, I dunno, Reese Witherspoon (though I'm sure an Oscar winner like Reese would have politely declined) or even an old GH star not seen for years? Like ... what ever happened to Gail Ramsey (Susan Moore, Jason's mom) or Robin Mattson (my favorite Heather Webber -- sorry Cher's sister). Even Ab Fab star Joanna Lumley was once on the show, I would have gotten a kick out of seeing her reprise her "flirty patient" role (with a blonde beehive, of course).

Weren't there any actors or actresses of note who were professed fans of the show that could have not only appeared on the show but done some enthusiastic press for it? Because Franco didn't seem too thrilled about it all in the interview I watched.

Why not bring back Richard Dean Anderson or Kin Shriner or Rick Springfield? Yes, I know Rick's currently on Californication and did return to GH for a while, but even he makes more sense than Franco.

I'll take your answers below. I found the clip I refer to above at YouTube, it's after the jump.

(Oh, speaking of Lumley, she's signed for the new series of the UK series Mistresses, which hopefully for you fans of it here in the States will make the trip here.)

Watch, it'll become a trend ... Mike Wallace will be doing the weather on your local CBS affiliate, Meryl Streep will show up in Judge Judy's court and your 12-year-old will step up to the plate in his Little League game against Mariano Rivera.

(And Rivera will still throw a spitter. At a 12-year-old. I hate those frakkin' Yankees!)

So, I'm Off to Get My Bifocals -- Ugh!

Damn. Those years just went by like ... (snapped my fingers once).

For the last few months I've been taking off my glasses and holding the paper very close to my face ... because they are obviously printing things in a small typeface lately.

They are printing things in smaller typefaces, right? Right? RIGHT?

I know, I'm just kidding myself. Hey, maybe I'll start reading again. Maybe I'll start a new blog, "I Am A Book Junkie."

Okay, let's not go too far here.

Still, it makes me thing about demographics and how, as David Goyer from FlashForward and the Batman reboot said to me, I "don't matter." And that really pisses me off, like I'm not aware enough or mentally or emotionally pliable enough to adopt to new products or program concepts.

(And they're  right in one regard ... I certainly haven't taken to unscripted crap like the Real Housewives Who Do No Housework or Keeping Up With the Girl With the Big Ass and the Sex Tape, but I just chalk that up to my love for traditional dramas and comedies being on the tube and, frankly, intelligence. And to a large extent my distaste with knowing too much personal business about people I don't know.)

Let me ask you this, and keep the "Tiffany Network" particularly  in mind when I ask this ... Isn't the onus on CBS to convince advertisers that what they have to sell (inventory) is valuable, just like Christian Audigier convinces douchebags to wear Ed Hardy shirts? If they did that maybe I wouldn't feel so ghettoized by my not-so-advancing age?

Well, thanks once again for letting my spout. More later, after the optometrist. And I won't be getting the frames illustrated above, those were Ben Franklin's. I've been looking forever for the glasses Patton Oswalt wore when he played the Clark Rockefeller doppelganger on Reno 911 but no luck yet.

Video (for the less than wealthy) -- Glee's Lea Michele Sings On My Own at HRC Dinner

Ah, Les Miz, love that show, love the music, love this particular song.

Of course, you would never find me at the HRC National Dinner, it's way too pricey a proposition at $250. I have about $500 to $700 for all my non-HIV gay donating each year and let's face it, one's money doesn't go very far at HRC (which for years some of us have been referring to as the Human Rights Champagne Fund because only the hoitiest of the toitiest show up, and in full formal dress, and the out of towners have to get hotel rooms on top of that.

The Goddess of Blogging, Pam Spaulding, had this to say recently about the sitch at her fine weblog, Pam's House Blend:

For those out there offended by my use of the term A-gays, perhaps you should think of a better shorthand term for me to use. What I am referring to here is the class and access distinction between most of the LGBT community (who cannot afford the $250 and up ticket price to see the President or pay thousands to captain a table at other events). The divide is very real and troubling on several levels. These are often a sea of gay white well-to-do men with a sprinkling of lesbians, plus media and anyone lucky enough to scrape money together or are sponsored by their organizations to attend. It doesn't mean attendees are just schmoozing or have no sense of activism, it just means there's an inconvenient truth no one likes to talk about and that makes it uncomfortable when it is raised.

Well, I never wanted to sit in a room with David Geffen and that Hormel guy and listen to the President speak, anyway ... Geffen got me mad with all his opposition to letting people use the beach near his Malibu compound a few years back and ... I hate Spam (not the email issue, actual Spam, from Hormel).

I don't even know if either of them were there, actually, but that's the kind of crowd they get. The A-Gays: trust fund babies, private schoolers from wealthy stock who made connections and ended up at the right hedge funds and law firms, overpaid entertainers ... and Bravo's Andy Cohen.

Pam suggested at her blog that Obama should have spoken at the March to "even things out." I concur. He didn't do that, though.

Okay, enough about all that,  click over the jump and listen to Lea sing that song I love.

I don't have to tell you that Ryan Murphy's Fox hit Glee airs Wednesday at 9, but what you don't know is that there's going to be a big break in its schedule during the opening week's of the Idol juggernaut ..you know, the very mean-spirited opening weeks where they make fun of all kinds of unfortunate souls.

(I wonder if Ellen will skew it less mean-spirited? We'll see. Hey, there's someone who can afford the HRC dinner, I wonder if she and Portia were in attendance?)

I'd rather be watching reruns of Glee during that time. Hell, I'd rather watch a test pattern during that time.

Ridiculous Abstinent Vampires Rule Box Office Again -- See NGTV's New Moon Special Part II

This one includes Michael Sheen (below right), a personal fave, talking about assless chaps, a discussion I'm always up for, especially considering all those years Sheen played football (soccer for us Yanks, of course).

Next film, Sheen, I want you in them.

 

It's a shame that I can't stomach the whole idea of these vampires that have feelings and don't have sex, because I really love some of the supporting players here: Fanning, Sheen and Cameron Bright (remember him from the season four opener of The 4400, The Wrath of Graham? He was Graham).

But c'mon, abstinent vampires? That's like a comb without teeth, a camera without a lens, a TV without a remote. Practically useless.

Carrie asks the wolfpack why they have no babes in tow ... do you think it might be because their doggie style is man on man? Hmmm.

Still no embedding from No Good Television during their conversion to a new streaming technology, but here's the link (LINK) and you must stay tuned till the end for the most blasphemous thing I've ever heard said in an episode of Carrie Keagan's Up Close series, spewed forth by director Chris Weitz.

It's right at the end, you gotta watch the whole thing. It almost counterbalances the abstinence thing.

I said almost.

And another thing ... check out Weitz's arm and chest hair. I think he's a real life werewolf. I think TMZ should check up on that.

It's once again the number one film worldwide. Let me just say this to my gays who are into this drivel ...  if Stephenie Meyer uses any of her cash from this to fight against marriage equality (she's a Mormon, you kn0w) I will hunt you down.

I'm serious.

ABC Airs Beyonce Informercial Thanksgiving Night; Teases the Bejeebees Out of Me, Fans

Seriously, ABC, what's the deal with this? Beyonce: I Am ... Yours was just like those informercials for the Dean Martin Roasts; quick musical clips interspersed with "interview footage" with Mrs. Jay-Z that seemed crafted to sell the CD or DVD of the full concert from Wynne Las Vegas recorded last Summer.

Margaret Lyons at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch Blog:

Look, this special was totally enjoyable, and the concert footage demonstrated for the jillionth time that Beyonce is one hell of a performer — she can command an entire stadium’s attention with the arch of an eyebrow. (Being in a leotard helps.) She has an awesome all-female band, and everyone in it respects and admires her. Beyonce is a very hard worker, and when we’re extremely lucky, we get to see her interact with her husband for a second or two.

But she’s also elusive, and even telling her own origin story glosses over details that everyone in the audience already knows. If you’re going to bring up the old days of Destiny’s Child, do you want to utter the words “Michelle” or “Kelly”? If you show footage from the then-tween group’s debut on Star Search, might you mention that yes, there were six people in the group at the time? No on all counts.

Totally enjoyable? I can't really agree with that. It was passable entertainment for a Saturday night for me after watched the penultimate episode of White Collar for the season on my DVR, but at the end, when they let loose with the "buy this" section of the show it made me feel ripped off. I certainly would have enjoyed less Beyonce talking, more Beyonce singing and dancing.

And, when you listen to the hits of her solo career, there are really only a couple that stand out. Single Ladies, for all it's pop culture appeal and the viralness of it's video and the copycats, is just an okay pop song. Naughty Girl and Irreplaceable are great songs and Crazy In Love is a powerhouse cut, but I would have rather heard some of the Destiny's Child catalogue than some of her other solo "hits."

Most of all, I would have liked to have heard the songs in full, not just a verse and a chorus.

I didn't record the McCartney special after, does anyone know if it was the same deal with that?

Honestly, the only reason I recorded Beyonce was because Wendy Williams mentioned it on her Wednesday show. I thought it would be something else. I guess it was, just not the something else I was expecting.

It was something I would expect from Guthy-Renker.

BBC John & Yoko Film Casts Christopher Eccleston & Naoko Mori

Now this is some major casting news. Doctor #9 (Chris) and Torchwood's Tosh starring in a movie about John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

I am so in!

(Mori, btw, will more than likely be the prettiest Yoko ever seen on film. Even in person (she crashed last year's Los Angeles Doctor Who Convention) she is just stunning.

BBC Press Office:

Lennon Naked charts his transition from "Beatle John" to enduring and enigmatic icon. It covers a period of wildly fluctuating fortunes from 1967-71; a time of worldwide adulation at one extreme, a combination of frustration and despair at the other.

Writer Robert Jones articulates the burden of genius, as well as issues of fatherhood and fame in this 90-minute film.

Jones, btw, has written for the BBC/HBO co-production of The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency and the BBC's Party Animals, a series featuring Doctor #11 Matt "Intern Who" Smith.

For those of us in "the States," you can be reasonably sure than this one-off 90 minute (without commercials, it's the BBC) film will make the trip across the Atlantic. After all, it's about John Lennon. I can't predict if it will be PBS or HBO or BBC America but I have a pretty good sense that we'l l get a chance to see this.

And, if not, hopefully BBC Video will release it here on DVD. They'd be foolish not to.

Producing is Blast! Films, who were responsible for the Bobby Sands/IRA drama Hunger that won a BAFTA  and IFTA (Ireland's films awards) last year and was a career-maker for Michael Fassbender in the lead role.

If you've never seen Eccleston in a role beside the Doctor and in Heroes season one, a great performance to check out is his performance in the four-hour miniseries for UK's Channel 4 called The Second Coming, written by Russell T. Davies. It's available at Amazon, click the icon below and pick it up, I did and it's provocative, entertaining, and co-stars another Davies favorite Lesley Sharpe, who you might know from the Doctor Who series four episode Midnight.

According to the Chris Eccleston Facebook fan page this is already in production and they have one blurry little pic of Chris as Lennon. At this link.

Guardian UK on Glenn Beck: "The Republican Party ... is now a wing of Fox"

Interesting that a British paper (albeit the politically liberal one) is talking about Beck and the birthers and teabaggers and the paranoid delusions of the former alcoholic, ADHD-er, Mormon who supports gay marriage (at least he says he does)  and poster boy for Vick's Vapo-Rub and its tear-inducing qualities.

A taste of it here, but please click this link and read the extensive article from Gaby Wood at the Guardian:

One of Beck's campaigns featured a security system now being offered with some General Motors cars. It's called Onstar; it includes a tracking device in case your car gets stolen, and a speed limit you can impose so a thief can't get away in a high-speed chase. Beck's take on this was that since GM is now partly owned by the government, this was the government's "spy satellite", its way of knowing where you are at all times. Yet Beck positions himself as an entirely reasonable, non-conspiracy theorist. He's just like you: an ordinary guy who wants to know what's going on. He refers to others as "the nut-job fringes" and says: "the fringes are what's pulling us apart".

No, I didn't know about Beck's Onstar problem, either. And about his "nut-job fringes" remark, all I can do is make reference to a pot and a kettle and you know the rest. But it doesn't seems to bother his viewers, as Ms. Wood remarks:

His 5pm show on Fox now claims 3 million viewers; his syndicated morning radio show has 8 million listeners; he has several bestselling books, including a novel and a children's book; he has his own one-man touring stage show and, as of last week, conducts political rallies. (His earnings in the year leading up to June 2009 were estimated by Forbes to be around $23m, and they are set to increase.)

Still, there are 300 million plus Americans, and fortunately most of them are either shaking their heads in amazement or dismay or actively debunking all his claptrap (that group would include moi). And I find it particularly vexing that this guy, who lives in New Canaan, CT, home of the biggest wage earners in the country including the CEO of the parent company of Beck nemesis MSNBC, gets away with leading a populist uprising, albeit an uprising of seemingly uneducated or bigoted Americans.

I totally get that there are enough people out there, between those fashioning their tin foil hats and those who still just despise the fact that (their words, not mine) "that n***** is in the White House," but it embarrasses me that people in other countries are figuring the same out.

Embarassed that we still have this race problem in this country, embarassed that people don't read enough to know what he says is total crap, embarassed that a high school grad who is nothing more than a bad entertainer has such sway over a swath of Americans.

And one more thing ... how is it that Beck supports gay marriage and still gets all this ink from the LDS Church (Mormon) press? It seems they can be awfully selective in their hearing.

Four Episodes In, Not Back Till March, But I Have a V Problem (and I don't mean vajayjay)

(I'll never have a vajayjay problem, as you know I'm not interested in such.)

But, I am having problems with ABC's reboot of V, and not just because Agent Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) lives in a lovely little Craftsman-style home ... in the middle of Manhattan!

As if!

(C'mon, ABC, I know you're working in Vancouver and trying to make it look like NYC, but the house Erica and son Tyler live in would never ever ever exist in Manhattan, and if it did it would cost much more than an FBI field agent's salary could afford.)

My problem with V came to a boil this past week when it was revealed that the Visitors were messing with the flu shot inventory and unleashing this R6 substance that will do ... well, I'm not quite sure what.

I have to agree with the blog Show Me SciFi, where it says:

I knew there was a good reason why we didn’t get the H1N1 vaccine.

BUT THE WHAT THE FRAK? Does ABC have no ethics? Plant a story about the flu vaccine being a route for alien control? Really? Aren’t people scared enough about the Flu vaccine already?

Answer to that? This is the same company (Disney) that wouldn't release Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 because of what some say was pressure from the Bush administrations both in Washington and Tallahassee (Jeb) for fear of losing tax breaks on real estate in Orlando. Make up your own mind.

More after the jump.

Video -- Deals, Deals, Deals! CBS Early Show Touts CyberMonday.com

Clip after the jump. The best deal I found out about via CyberMonday.com doesn't even start on Cyber Monday, it starts NOW, at Borders.com (see image above).

So use that promo code (BDC6959X) at their site thru Sunday for a whopping 25% off your total order, an order that might include ...

• Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead ($13.99 before discount)
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas ($25.19 before discount)
• Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days ($26.09 before discount)

And, so many more I could not possibly list them. And, bonus, if you buy these for me you get the addition of my undying thanks.

Would not know about the CyberMonday.com site had I not watched this clip after the jump with Daniel Siebert and CBS Early Show host Harry Smith.

Video -- Better Off Ted Returns December 8 at 9:30 (With a Scrubs Lead-In)

I have a great Jay Harrington behind-the-scenes clip (he's just such a cutie) after the jump and I've been kind enough to also post the season one finale as another Hulu embed after the jump.

But first ...

The new season starts December 8th and this year will enjoy the lead-in of a reboot of Scrubs (more on that next week -- or if it's already next week you can just click around to find it on this blog) which has already been added to my DVR queue.

I had nothing at 9 on Tuesdays, what with my saving episodes of NCIS: LA for their eventual move to USA Network (speculation) and my less-than-tepid response to Heather Locklear's return to Melrose Place.

Season premiere features a guest shot from Taye Diggs (a personal fave of mine, though I hate doctor dramas that don't involve time travel so Private Practice isn't on my list).

The season opener is called L0ve Blurts ... from the ABC release ...

Veridian Dynamics tries matchmaking employees based on their genetic compatibility in hopes of saving on health insurance bills from imperfectly bred children. Ted and Linda balk at this until they meet their supposed matches -- Greg (guest star Taye Diggs) for Linda and Danielle (Virginia Williams) for Ted -- and are instantly attracted despite themselves. Meanwhile, after Veronica finds out Lem is her perfect genetic match, she hounds him to make a donation to a sperm bank.

Poor Lem, always gettin' dissed by someone. Remember when the lights wouldn't turn on when he entered the room?

(Oh, and once again, it's not David Chappelle, it's Malcolm Barrett playing Lem.)

Everyone's back, in case you were worrying about casting tweaks, and the season one DVD boxset will drop this Tuesday at your local retailer or from Amazon below.

Would love you to click through via the icon below, I'll take the half-cent I make from that and fund a study to create a meat-like substance from the tire treads that peel off tires on the San Diego Freeway, just so you know the funds go toward something positive.

Clip and season one finale from Hulu after the jump.

Are You a Fan of Both Family Guy & Doctor Who?

Family Guy VS Doctor Who by *Commander-June on deviantART

Then this is for you. Thanks to Ty Davies and Jill Weiner at Facebook for bringing it to my attention. And great work from "Commander June."

My Pals The Fine Bros. Have Something to Say -- But Watch it Fast, It Self-Destructs

Yes, it self-destructs, just like the tape at the beginning of Mission: Impossible ... or Sarah Palin.

I love these guys, you will too. You've seen their stuff here before, this clip is actually them. More on them at their Facebook page or their site.

They have a lot of energy, they make me feel old. Oh, wait, I AM old. Well, older than them, anyway.

LINK

Eastwick Fans Mounting "Save Our Show" Drive -- Help Us!

From my screed on the ABC Eastwick Facebook page today ...

This news is really a shame. First of all, Paul Gross is a Canadian national treasure and we value him entirely too little, RRO'C (Rebecca Romijn O'Connor) has never been better on TV, neither has Lindsay (Price), and Jaime Ray Newman belongs in network primetime (discovered her this summer in Eureka on Syfy).  Sara Rue is remarkable, the stories have been great fun, and any show that gets Veronica Cartwright involved is worthy of my watching. If this show was scheduled after Grey's it would have hit, it's a perfect 10 pm show.

Remarkably disappointed that ABC doesn't have the stones to stick with it.

One of the positive things I thought might happen from the NBC decision to place Jay at 10 pm was that the competition would feel free to stick with some of their new 10 pm dramas, after all Jay can't beat a test pattern at 10 (well, maybe a test pattern, but not an animated test pattern).

I guess I was wrong.

Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly did a phoner with producer Maggie Friedman (Jack & Bobby, Once & Again, Related) where she first said she was furious that the show had stopped production (first step toward cancellation) and then had to backpedal in order to make nice nice with the network brass (I think) and you can read all about it at this link.

If for no other reason, they should have stuck with the show just to give us more Paul Gross as Daryl Van Horne. There is no one, NO ONE, who could have stepped into a role made so memorable by Jack Nicholson and made it his own and he did.

Plus, everyone is a better actor when acting with Paul Gross. Period.

More after the jump.

Stuff I'm Thankful For ... Craig Ferguson Edition -- Peter Capaldi (as promised) and Morgan Freeman's Rules

"Give us this day our daily Craig, and forgive us our spit-taking, as we forgive those who spit-take against us. Lead us not into the Shamwow commercial without discussing what we've learned and deliver us to that cute kitty getting blown up or shot or turned into a drag queen before we bid farewell."

Two clips after the jump, first Craig's ol' pal from Scotland (and star of The Thick of It and Torchwood Children of Earth) Peter Capaldi.

After that, Morgan Freeman calls in and makes sure the show treats him in a manner to which he is accustomed.

Both after the jump.

Today's Turkey? Good Morning America Cancels Adam Lambert, Books Chris Brown

Because for The Walt Disney Company, apparently, beating women is more palatable than "the gay" (as Rachel Maddow would say).

(Yeah, I know, there's been a lot of Adam lately on the blog, but this will be the last post for a while, unless he ... a) Decides he's straight ... b) Stops wearing the guyliner ... c) Gets a gig guesting on season three of True Blood. And no, I have to knowledge of a potential deal to bring him on the show, it's just speculation, MY specualtion. But, fingers crossed, huh?)

HuffPo has picked up the NY Post story that details this. I can't, because ... well I just can't link to the Post (a Newscorpse paper) so here's the HuffPo link.

No matter, GMA will be dying to have him some day and I hope he says, "No, Thanks."

Meanwhile, let's hope Chris Brown doesn't wind up and sock Robin Roberts in the face between songs.

Is anyone interested in Chris' music anymore, anyway? I know people will watch the interview so that they can gasp in horror when he indicates that he still doesn't get why everyone's so angry with him, but does anyone seriously care about the music he's making?

Meanwhile, Adam was on Letterman last night, and the clip's after the jumperoo.

Hope your Thanksgiving Day is going well. I'm jumping the shower now to get "pretty" for guests.

(Well, pretty is a relative term.)

Go! Eat, drink celebrate!

2 Clips -- In Which Great Minds Think Alike Re: Adam Lambert (and he's on Letterman tonight)

And I have the music video for the song he sang at the Awards (better version, via Towleroad) and a clip with his mom talking about the whole brouhaha this morning on the CBS Early Show. But first ...

Yesterday I said that I didn't believe for a moment that there was anything off-the-cuff about the performance at the American Music Awards. Today in a TV.com piece called Adam Lambert's A Big Faker from Richard Lawson (and you should read all his stuff there) ...

Given the frequency and intensity of hetero lovin' on TV these days, and the relative paucity of gay representation on the airwaves, the queerness of Adam's performance shouldn't, in 2009, rankle anyone. Sorry folks, but gay people kiss and have sex and do other things. Calling it "sodomy" and decrying its immorality just smacks of dying-breed Puritanism. So that argument really should be off the table. What truly WAS the problem with the whole debacle was how forced and canned the whole outrageousness came across. It wasn't so much "We get it, Adam, you're gay" as much as it was "We get it, Adam, you think you're some sort of rebel even though you're only famous for coming up second on the least rebellious show on TV."

Here here!!!

More after the jump, including the promised clips.

Clip Bonanza -- Give Us This Day Our Daily Craig: Ferguson With Neil Patrick Harris Last Week, Peter Capaldi Tonight!

The one the only Neil Patrick Wait-for-it Harris after the jump, but first ...

If you have read American on Purpose (still available in your bookstores, Amazon, Audible.com and major retailers) you know that Peter Capaldi, star of UK hits like The Thick of It, Skins, Pinochet in Suburbia, etc. is one of Craig's old dear pals from Scotland.

We know Peter mostly from his star turn as the bureaucrat left holding the ball in the international TV hit Torchwood: Children of Earth (image above). He is a big TV and film star in Britain and we cool people in the states have great reverence for his acting.

He's on Craig, tonight, so get those DVRs rolling at (hand over my mouth) "the time in your area that it airs."

(You gotta be a fan of the show to get that joke.)

I have no idea what he's promoting. Maybe it's just a social call. Nah, there hasn't been "just a social call" on a latenight talker since the Carson days.

Watch Neil after the jump (two parts). Watch Capaldi tonight (and for my UK friends I'll post the clip tomorrow). Also, catch him in a clip from the Torchwood miniseries as your third clip, making this a clip bonanza (that's the threshold, three clips or more).

Neil's parents' restaurant, Perrenials, mentioned in the interview, has a website at this link. Ron and Sheila Harris should know that I could produce for them a much nicer website.

Call me! Or rather, have your son call me!

2 Clips -- Adam Lambert, Now With Super-Action Pelvis and Super-Spy Tumbling Action

Yes, I have the full unexpurgated clip after the jump. Well, it'll be there for a little while, anyway, before Dick Clark Productions or the Parents Television Council of ABC get it taken off YouTube, again.

(As I live on the left coast, just miles north of Lambert's San Diego hometown, I didn't get to see some of the most controversial moments, they were edited out before the signal got to Casa Del Joe. And I'll tell you, after watching the number on my DVR three times since the brouhaha caught fire in the public sphere I thought I was starting to have serious cognitive defects. I kept thinking, "What face in what crotch? I don't see any faux BJ motions. Am I going blind or crazy?"

Lots of fuss over a kiss that I'm still not sure was a same-sex kiss and some pelvic thrusting to the face. Yes, that was a male keyboard player who was the recipient of the kiss and from what I gather from the press coverage of Adam's American Music Awards performance it was a clever adlib after a slip that led to the cool James Bondian tuck and roll on top of a scaffold.

Adam's lucky, though, that the PTC (Hi, Tim Winter, hope you're having a blessed day) has gotten so vocal over the whole stunt (and it was a stunt, plain and simple). That should provide for another 500,000 copies of the album coming out.

"In that final moment, the moment of truth when you're up there," Adam said later, "the adrenaline takes over and the spirit of performance takes over, and things happen sometime that don't happen in rehearsal."

Do I believe that? Not really. Nothing that kicks off a promotional tour for an album of this importance happens without planning. I don't believe the Janet Jackson Super Bowl thing wasn't staged and I don't believe that it was the "spirit of performance" that spirited Adam's crotch into some guy's face or his mouth onto the face of a very androgenous keyboard player.

Purportedly the network got over 1500 calls about all the crotch-related activities (and that nasty all-over-the-face kiss). Seriously, 1500 people, were you expecting anything less from this guy? Did your kids beg you to stay up until 10:40 pm Sunday to watch the guy with the eyeliner from American Idol make what was ostensibly his "pro debut" on the show? Did you not read the papers last May when everyone was talking about him coming out? Did you not see the makeup and the haircut?

Do you live on the planet Earth?

(More including two clips after the jump.)

Video -- Newly-Manscaped Chuck Returns January 10, Special Messages From Zach Levi & Sarah Lancaster

Very special messages ... so special Zach got a haircut especially for you and Sarah Lancaster (sister Ellie) dressed down for "lounging" and shot a special thank you for fans of the show. You can't beat that with a stick, huh?

But first, lets all click over to Alan Sepinwall and Mo Ryan at their respective newspapers (Newark Star-Ledger, Chicago Tribune) and thank them for being so vocal last Spring during the network upfront period. Seriously, the show might not be back without them, they were instrumental, as well as ChuckTV.net and Zachary-Levi.com who did a bunch of the heavy lifting as well.

(My impassioned plea to keep Chuck on the air appears at this link, and although passionate I don't get anywhere near the page views of the others, but read it still, it was one of my finest moments here at the blog.)

Even better? During their break they got their episode order increased from 13 to 19 episodes, probably a result of new upgraded Chuck Bartkowski's new skills not being able to fit into just a baker's dozen. As you remember the new version of the intersect downloaded into Chuck at the end of last season with brand new features that make him a superman.

Speaking of the Man of Steel, Kristin Kreuk from Smallville shows up as a possible love interest for Chuck, then Brandon Routh from that horrible Superman movie from a couple years ago comes in as a CIA agent to rival, it seem, both Sarah (Yvonne Strahotski Strahovski) and Adam Baldwin's NSA operative John Casey.

Also, guest shots from WWE star Stone Cold Steve Austin (damn, that's good casting) and T2's Robert Patrick.

No new images from this upcoming season yet, but feel free to enjoy the Chuck/Sarah image above and the clips after the jump.

The Triumphant Return of "Give Us This Day Our Daily Craig (Ferguson)"

Here's the best monologue in late night, plain and simple.

Everyone else pales compared to Craig and it's not just the monologue, it's the whole show. Craig could have the checker at your local market and your plumber on the show and make it a great time.

The monologue is directly below, and you can click over to CBS.com to watch full episodes whenever you like, it's at this link.

LINK

Clip Bonanza -- Lady Gaga Returns to Logo to Host NewNowNext PopLab Monday Night

News I (and in turn you) can use from Logo, and even more news this weekend about the new season of RuPaul's Drag Race, but first ...

The high priestess of the club scene at this moment, our one and only Lady Gaga is having a big week. First there was the appearance in the new Beyonce video (it's after the jump, kids) and now Logo announces that Gaga is back where it all began for her on their air, her first TV performance having happened during the 2008 NewNowNext Awards.

On Monday (the 23rd) you can tune in to Logo (check your cable system, I don't know what their penetration is outside major cities -- hehehe I said penetration) and check her out hosting NewNowNext PopLab, the place to hear club music first -- because we gays and our friends rule those charts.

(It's always been that way, it always will. We start all the great trends ... most of us have the disposable income and the time while you're carting Billy and Suzy off to Scouts and ballet. If you're carting Billy off to ballet and Suzy off to Scouts, btw, good for you for breaking those stereotypes.)

Don't have Logo because, for example, you live in Idaho and your cable operator attends neo-Nazi rallies on the weekends? Watch online, at this link. And no, I don't really know any cable operators who attend neo-Nazi rallies in Idaho on the weekends.

Click over the jumperoo for her appearance in the new Beyonce clip for the song Video Phone which includes B as Bettie Page (very hot, except for some reason she's holding what looks like a grenade launcher -- why?) and some girl-on-girl choreography you don't wanna miss.

Beyonce, now with added Gaga (because she knows to latch onto something hot, reminds me of Madonna making out with Britney and Christina at the VMAs).

Gaga released The Fame Monster, an eight-song EP, yesterday. It will also be available in a pack with her first release, The Fame, starting December 15, just in time for your Christmas shopping needs.

The first release from the EP is Bad Romance, which is the second clip after the jump. Finally, the third clip is from Gaga's appearance on Gossip Girl this week.

18 & Older Video Only -- If You're Going to Watch One Set of New Moon Interviews ...

... it should be from No Good Television.

Now, I don't endorse the whole dealio ... celibate vampires? Give me a fuckin' break with that. Every vampire I've met has been very horny (not including Clive Owen, who is a vampire as well as the guy who's stalking me on Facebook, however he's just evil and out to get me for apparently no reason).

However, if you're looking for Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson to drop a few F-bombs, host Carrie Keagan to ask all those eerewolf boys to take off their pants and more generalized debauchery from this gang, click THIS LINK RIGHT HERE and be transported to the NGTV.com site and make sure you're over 18 and click away (because you would never lie about anything on the Internet, would you?) and enjoy.

(They are in the process of a major site redesign, so no embed codes right now, which gives you every reason to click over there and watch ... everything! Including Carrie interviewing the casts of Precious, Pirate Radio, Gentlemen Broncos and ... Dolph Lundgren. Dolph Lundgren? Yes, Dolph Lundgren.)

I prefer my vampires having sex, same-sex sex, opposite-sex sex (t0 paraphrase a certain Miss California with eight separate sex tapes out there) ... rough sex with tough customers ... but this no sex thing just leaves me dry.

Very dry.

And btw, this is only part one of a multi-part extravaganza from the No Good gang with these kids. Wish they would have gotten Michael Sheen to play but whatev, maybe he shows up in the next one ... and hopefully with a potty-mouthed Dakota Fanning (because it's time, it's just time for her to break out of this kid thing ... we all know she's really a 30-year-old who just looks young for her age).

I couldn't possibly say more about whole Twilighty thing.

Someone owes me cocktails, Kourosh.

2 Clips -- Behind the Heather Locklear Melrose Numbers is Bad Promotion

Now this just pisses me off, because you know they paid top dollar to get Heather and then to fail to promote it properly is just stupid. And you can see the particulars quite handily if you look at it this way (cocking my head to the left ... hehehe I said cocking ... and head).

Hibberd at his THR blog says, "The CW was hoping for a little more than this." Well, they should have looked outside The CW when they were promoting the thing.

I would have promo'd the hell out of her first appearance on TV Land and SoapNet, but apparently they failed to do that, because it seems the very slight uptick in the ratings came from the 18-34 female demo that probably doesn't much remember Amanda from back in the day but was exposed to all the promo that ran on the netlet during their other 18-34 female skewing shows.

TVByTheNumbers.com:

The return of Heather Locklear gave a bump to Melrose Place’s ratings. It had only the slightest increase to a 0.8 rating for adults 18-49 (vs. a 0.7 last week), but did better among youth increasing to a 1.1 rating for adults 18-34 (vs. a 0.8 last week) and a 1.6 rating for women 18-34 (vs. a 1.2 last week) . That’s slightly better than I expected in the women’s 18-34 demos, but less in the other two categories.

I'll say this ... I didn't see one mention of the show or Heather's debut on it on anything I have watched this week ... and I'm your TV Junkie. If I didn't see it, it's like it wasn't seen.

More, with clips, after the jump.

Those Mad Men (and Women) & Their New Esprit de Corp

And some Joan Holloway to the rescue on the side; a spicy, tasty condiment to a very exciting turn of events in the season finale of your favorite (read: only) 60s-era adults and their bad habits and better nature drama.

(And yes, I know I'm a week late, but I don't remember any of you offering to unpack moving boxes for me. BTW, regulars, there's still lots to do so although I'll be posting daily I won't be posting lots. Thanks for bearing with me.)

Would you have ever thought that this group above would be in room 435 of the Pierre Hotel, not a cocktail to be seen, no offices short Harry Crane's media dept. in the bedroom (where the TV is, where I would be natch), no secretaries (because Joan is no one's secretary even when she is someone's secretary).

Just Pete's wife Trudy bringing in "every kind of sandwich and a cake" and Don in the other room attending to personal business. In that way, it's the same ol' story. Don's just that guy you've always hated who can glide into a room and dazzle while you and I toil for hours, like Peggy, in order to get where we wanna be.

But his personal life is shit, thankfully, because it would be impossible to face a guy daily who had it all. Poor Betty didn't do any research before husband shopping. Or maybe, just maybe, Betty was just interested in the wrong list of features. Shiny chrome? Yes. Outstanding maneuverability? You've seen it between the sheets and in the corridors of power.

Husband Don, however, is not a reliable model. Ends up in the wrong garage more often than not and when he does get that right he's usually too checked out to do much more than pour yet another cocktail and undress in the dark.

Betty does much better with the Governor's aide Henry Francis, as she jets off, this time not to Italy to meet Connie Hilton and get her hair piled way high on her dome but to Reno, home of the annual chili cookoff and a city I spent one really dull late September evening in the late 90s. I was there because I missed a connecting flight, but Betty's on her way to a Nevada divorce (more on that chestnut from the past at this link).

So, the marriage starts its long and arduous road to dissolution while what we knew as Sterling Cooper does the same, but there's a new entity in its place that adds Draper and Pryce (yea, more Jared Harris) to the title (what, no Holloway? We know she runs the damn place, give her a piece of the action!) and gives us an entire off-season to wonder about the following ...

What about those left behind? Ken Cosgrove? Paul Kinsey? And what about Sal? Sal needs a job, they need a creative, but Lucky Strike is still and issue (and Lee Garner Jr. is still a workplace sexual predator scared of being outed).

Gives us a wealth of questions to be asking until next year. As usual, for more and new content whether there's a new episode or not, run and don't walk to Basket of Kisses, Deb and Roberta's obsessive exercise in Mad Men exploration.

I Am Almost Ready to Return to TV Blogging, Just One More Day!

Hi, it's your "I Watch TV and Write About It On the Web" pal Joe.

Moving has been an arduous task. It's just about over, though, and starting tomorrow I'll be back with all the usual yada-yada. And yes, I just looked for an image of Jason Alexander and Suzanne Cryer from that Seinfeld episode and came up empty.

You'll have to close your eyes and imagine them sitting in Monk's.

Your homework tonight is to watch Castle at 10 on ABC, if only for the rugged handsomeness of Nathan Fillion and the discreet yet faaaaabulous charms of Susan Sullivan, a personal favorite of mine.

G'night.

Video -- Tonight's FlashForward Preview, And My Last Post Before Moving

Blue hand. Just keep thinking about the blue hand.

And, I'll by offline until Tuesday (possibly) or Wednesday (more than likely).

In the meantime, the clip widget thingy from ABC.com is after the jump and I'll see you on the back end of my move.

Report -- Car Crash Victim Unfortunately Not Glenn Beck

From The Onion, natch.

Mother of the victim: "There's no harder thing than having Glenn Beck outlive your child."

Question of the Day: Does Beck's audience know he's a Mormon? Because my impression is that the Fox Noise audience was key in quashing Mitt's Presidential bid in 08.

Talk amongst yourselves, clip after the jump.

Tears courtesy Vicks Vapo-Rub. Details at this link.

TV.com on a Heroes' Death -- Big Huge Spoiler (about a show I no longer watch)

Tim Surette has all the details, I'll excerpt him with the exception of the name of the actor and the role he plays, but it is someone in the image above (and not Hayden, which is the image TV.com used for some reason):

According to the site, blankblankblank who plays blankblankblank, has been "let go" (a nice way of saying "kicked to the curb and left to die a slow impoverished death").

E! Online, which broke the initial mystery-death report, says blankblankblank is ticked off about the decision and found out about it the hard way: by reading an upcoming script.

(snip)

So why kill blankblankblank now? Some say it's for budgetary reasons, but it seems more like the writers backed themselves into a corner and just needed to end this storyline.

Harsh, huh? Well, blankblankblank should have considered the tales of Jess Alexander and Jeph Loeb, producers/writers that got the very public heave-ho last year. They don't play nice on Heroes, it must be all the ill will that comes with watching your hit show go to shit.

Here's the link to Tim's piece, click at your own peril.

The Onion's AV Club tears apart the latest episode at this link.

The spoiler I want to read about is the one that tells me exactly what happened that turned this TV phenomenon into the most discouraging reminder of how broadcast TV can fail in recent memory. I think it might be time to add Heroes to a list that includes both Supertrain and Manimal, classic NBC flops from the Fred Silverman and not Ben Silverman era.

(Yes, I know, Fred inherited Supertrain from his predecessor ... but he didn't have to run the damned thing. And, Silverman, if you're out there reading, I haven't even touched the TV crime that was Pink Lady & Jeff, so you better just sit there and take it. TAKE IT I SAY!)

Video -- Hey, Remember the Day I Met FlashForward's David Goyer and Brannon Braga?

Well, this is what happened that day at No Good Television. Carrie and Shark (and a small crowd of very vocal fans, myself included ... though off-camera where I belong because I'm not quite TV-ready) experienced this, below.

(Don't even have to click over the jumperoo for it, so watch it.)

Thanks to Kourosh and the NGTV gang for yet another fun day west of La Brea and the best time I've ever had in Beverly Hills.

LINK

Why I Put Up With Harvey/TMZ -- The Carrie Prejean Sex Tape Revelation

Great great stuff today from TMZ, but only because it points out the hypocrisy of the right wing, Fox News, the God people and all that ...

Carrie Prejean demanded more than a million dollars during her settlement negotiations with Miss California USA Pageant officials -- that is, until the lawyer for the Pageant showed Carrie an XXX home video of her handiwork.

The video the lawyer showed Carrie is extremely graphic and has never been released publicly. We know that, because TMZ obtained the video months ago but decided not to post it because it was so racy.

That's fine, I certainly don't need to see yet another blonde California Republican Conservative Christian woman have sex on video, though if she has a hot brother who likes the gym and a little leather ...

... How you doin'? Awright!

Harvey, however, kinda makes me feel like I need to take a shower, and not in a good way.

How graphic is "extremely graphic" anyway? Because I think we should maybe have some color coded system like Bush's terror alert system, with red being "smokin' hot" and green being "not using too much energy and maybe just laying back and getting ... served."

And some faaaabulous pinks and lavenders in between.

Go ahead, click over to TMZ, read about it, but be gracious enough to feel some self-loathing afterward, like I am right now. Maybe take a shower yourself.

"Out, damned spot."

My Current Facebook Profile Pic, With Props (or something less enthusiastic) to Alex Rodriguez

Katharine Rust writes about the A-Rod as centaur story at TheAtlanticWire.com at this link.

Photo montage by me, from online sources.

Clip Bonanza -- Watch the First 8:30 of ABC's V Reboot Right Now! (Sorry, US Only)

And, bonus, if you read my Mad Men post from today already the beginning of this will completely freak you out.

Okay, maybe not, but it freaked me out that after I spent a couple hours writing about the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11 that they should be referenced in the first ten seconds of this show.

Watch the whole thing tonight at 8, of course, and click over the jump for the aforementioned clip and two Hulu exclusive interviews, one with Elizabeth Mitchell and the absolutely adorable Morris Chestnut and the other with absolutely adorable Scott Wolf and Morena Baccarin.

Joel Gretsch from The 4400? Also absolutely adorable and pictured in the image at the top of the post (all the way to the left wearing the priest garb ... is it wrong to objectify an actor dressed as a priest? I guess I'll burn in hell.)

Caught glimpses of the original series over the weekend on Syfy. Those lizard heads are laughable, they made me think of Sid and Marty Kroft.

Reviews have been for the most part good. Mary McNamara in the LA Times was especially impressed and Shawna Malcom did a quick feature on Mitchell, at this link and this link.

Linda Holmes at the NPR blog Monkey See:

(W)here something like X-Men takes a shot at fear and suspicion of people who are "different," V flips that on its head and says, "What if we enthusiastically welcomed space aliens with open arms and integrated them warmly into the population of Earth?" That's probably not what would happen, I think it's safe to say.

What I'm saying is that some alien stories have very interesting ideas about visitors, about us and them, about the way the unfamiliar is confronted, and about the way the promise of something good conflicts with fear of the unknown. This isn't really that kind of a show. This is really just a show about alien-human fighting.

So far. She hasn't seen more than the pilot. We haven't even seen the pilot. ABC, why don't you love me in the same way CBS, NBC, TBS, TNT and Fox do and send me screeners? I'm a good guy and careful with copyrighted content!

Whatev, I'll be watching tonight. Clips after the jump.

David Tennant Starring in US Pilot for NBC? OMG!!!

He smiling at me, not at you. I'm talkin' to you, Zoe Louise!

The big big news from BBC.com, because I figure they have more of the inside scoop:

The former Doctor Who will star as a top Chicago lawyer who suffers from panic attacks and coaches his clients to represent themselves in court.

The NBC hour-long show is titled Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.

Nice premise for him. I guess he'll be yet another Brit coming across the pond with a US accent in his mouth. That's the only shame of it, I love Tennant's native Scottish accent which you hardly ever hear short of interviews.

And, though it's not a film, and it's been bandied about since the announcement that he's be leaving Doctor Who that he left to pursue a film career, it works for me. TV comes right to my house, movies require driving and drinking expensive soft drinks.

More from Nellie Andreeva at the Hollywood Reporter:

NBC greenlighted the project in August, about two years after it was first developed, and had been trying to find a lead actor for several months until Tennant came along and nailed the part.

Tennant, a theater and TV actor, rose to fame playing the mysterious alien time-traveler at the center of "Doctor Who" for the past five years. His performance as the Doctor has been often rated as the top in the franchise's 46-year history.

Tennant's casting is reminiscent of the tapping of another established British TV actor with virtually no American TV experience, Hugh Laurie, as the lead on Fox's medical drama "House."

Tennant, who co-starred in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," recently signed with UTA. He's also repped by U.K.'s Independent Talent Group.

There's still the issue of the Doctor Who movie, and that requires some coordination with the Billie Piper schedule, and I'm still on it like paparazzi on an Olsen twin.

I worry about it being for NBC. Didn't Steve Moffat tell Tennant how NBC treats the talent? He knows, he should have shared. Maybe it was just too good to turn down.

It's from Berman/Braun. I, of course, can't think about "Lloyd Braun" without remembering how many computers he sold for George Costanza's father.

And thank you, Jennifer, for the heads up.

Mad Men and the Kennedy Assassination as Analogue For 9/11

UPDATE: If you really wanna freak out, consider that I wrote this this morning and then watched the first few minutes of V online at Hulu (you can do the same at this link) and the first 10 seconds of V references both the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11.

(Hi, remember me? I used to blog here multiple times daily, then I went away for a while. I'm not back for good, unfortunately. I just happen to have a short break in the "action" of packing and moving and thought it would be nice to stop by and flex this muscle again. I have some of today and tomorrow for fun and then back to the grind of transferring the contents of one's life to a new address ... details to follow.)

Certainly for me the assasination of John F. Kennedy is something I can only slightly touch with memory ... I was just a month older than three years and it's all very fuzzy, and those memories actually might be made from my imagining what it might have looked like on our TV on Mineola Ave. in Valley Stream.

(Ah, my first TV. It was a black and white Zenith with a plastic champagne-colored exterior, not unlike Harry Crane's office TV. I don't even think there was a color called "champagne" back then, not a popular color with Long Island's middle class, but our TV was the color of the stuff that Andre sold besides Cold Duck -- the first alcoholic beverage I ever consumed. Later in life my parents bought a champagne-colored car and I still remember wondering why there wasn't a Cold Duck-colored vehicle in the driveway ... like the blush of the beverage was our team color.)

Of course JFK was followed by MLK and then RFK and then Munich. It was King's assassination that really burns in the memory for me. It happened right before I lost the ability to walk for a short period of time due to childhood rheumatic fever and still I was completely mesmerized by the wall-to-wall network coverage of the event. First time I saw all the TV channels basically playing "the same show."

I was seven years old. I had about five minutes of upset over not being able to watch The Flying Nun, Bewitched and Batgirl on ABC -- yup, gay even then -- before I realized this was a really big deal and that the preacher guy who was gonna make sure the black people were treated right wouldn't be making any more speeches on TV, which I knew about because they were on TV and TV was my pal.

Even then.

The picture up at the top of this post really sums up my experience with major world events. Like most of us I'm usually not there on the spot but experience it through the ever-expanding window that is my TV.

Ever-expanding indeed, and in so many ways.

We now see these things as they happen or at least moments later, as everyone has the power to record live events, most of us with our phones which are omnipresent. Not only that, there are more than enough ways to see those events ... network, cable, internet ... and each outlet not only has a different physical angle on the action but their own ideological slant as well.

More after the jump.