30 Rocks Scrub Rodgers

And so the headline explains my Thursday night....

Packers v. Cowboys: When it was 27-10 and old man Favre went down, it looked like the game was over and the $5.99 I paid for NFL network for the night would be for naught. But then the Aaron Rodgers audtion tape started and the next thing you know -- it's a great game, down to the end. From a fantasy standpoint the game was a disaster for me in all 3 leagues I play in, but it was some solid football.
If you are a Packer fan, you have to be psyched that even though you lost, you saw your future it was pretty darn good. I think the kids call that a moral victory.
Quick note on Bryant Gumble -- he sucks. Plain and simple, and I am not alone on this. Actually, I would like to meet someone who thinks he does a good job at play-by-play. Are there any? He is so fucking terrible its almost hard to watch. Thank goodness for Cris Collinsworth. NFL Network has to make a change. All 13 people who were able to see the game will agree with me.

Scrubs: Great episode, love giant black doctor. And the whole bit with JD and Turk and their kids was outstanding. I have found myself doing similar things when my kids were infants, so it was fun to watch on television. Catch it if you can.

30 Rock: As usual, sheer genuis and pretty damn funny too. Comparing the mess in Iraq with taking over a little league team was very well done, and Kenneth and Tracy were great. I love Alec Baldwin more and more every week.

A loyal reader passed along this link to me -- its about the 30 Rock reference to Verizon product placement from a few weeks ago. Turns out, Verizon liked it a lot.


CLICK HERE

Bad Blogger...

How dare me. I think I have upset my fanbase of 2 by not posting in almost two weeks. The holidays get tough for me. My real father was killed by a wild turkey in Abbas Abbera in 1972 and its very tramautic for all of us still.

Anyway, the show must go on (at least until we run out of new ones soon).
This TV season, strike or not, has been amazing in terms of consective new episodes. Several shows I watch how gone re-run free since late September, that is insane. Because the season has been starting toward the end of September and not the beginning, and November is sweeps -- in most cases you seem to get 8 or 9 shows in a row. Good times, but I can't really catch up on anything else.
Once the strike and the new year hit home, I do have every episode of DirtySexyMoney, Earl, Las Vegas, Chuck, and Pushing Dasies ready to go. I am actually looking forward to it.

Most recently watched at the Hoffman house were three episodes of 'Gossip Girl' and we are loving it right now. The Thanksgiving debacle was a pleasure to watch unfold as Dan and Serena learned of their parent's past history. That was good stuff. I read a good interview with Josh Schwartz on TVguide.com where he talks about how much this show differs from the O.C. and how funny it is to him that the 'teen drama' that the Gossip Girl cast grew up on was the O.C. -- I am getting old I think. Even Josh Schwartz is like 22 years old and running two network shows right now (he also produces Chuck). Long story longer...if you are or were watching Gossip Girl, its come back pretty strong and been a good watch.

The Thanksgiving episode, or should I say, Slapsgiving episode of HIMYM was fantastic. I also enjoyed the 'yips' episode this week as Barney made a fool of himself at the Victoria Secret party. Reminded me of me on my best day unfortunately. That show has been A+ all year and I hope people are watching..if not, since they have run 9 in a row, the reruns will be coming soon.
I still find Big Bang Theory annoying, but its watchable when you have 22 minutes to kill and the critics seem to love it, so its for sure sticking around.

Bones is my favorite crime procedural, but you already knew that. The last two episodes - the continuation of the Gormagon serial killer story line and the Christmas episode were both really fun, funny, and touching too. I really like the way this show is paced, written, and acted. Check it out please if you have not -- it looks like Bones will be in reruns until January or later...I have also heared rumors of FOX moving it to Friday night for some reason. Stupid FOX. Settle the strike, get Jack Bauer back to work, and keep Bones on Tuesday or Wednesday where people will find it (before Idol).

30 Rock is new tonight..yeah! The Office is closed for the time being, so as far as brilliant comedy goes, this is it for awhile...and Scrubs too of course.

You know your hair is your 'head suit'

I laughed at The Office more thinking about it then I did while watching it. That seems to happen a lot. Someone should come up with a name for that phoenomenon. Now I have to go back and watch it again - the deposition was excellent and the whole 'whose on first/that's what she said' bit was very well done. Also well done is everything that happens between Toby and Michael.

30 Rock was epic end-to-end. I love you Tina Fey. I used to hate you so much and your smug looks into the camera on SNL what with your snarky news casting. And then you come along and steal my heart with the smartest and funniest sitcom since maybe ever. Between The Office, 30 Rock, and Scrubs - there has never been 90 more consecultively creative minutes in television history. Quote me, book it, try to prove otherwise.

Quick hit thoughts from 30 Rock (sorry Peter King):
- The Head Suit bit
- Fred Armison's guest shot as terrorist/Reality TV Wannabe
- The opening scene with the Rerun dance
- Edie Falco's guest shot as CC (D-Vermont)
- Kenneth's killer ape
- The Verizon bit **

**Speaking of the Verizon bit, I think we have a winner of the Op-Ed TV 2007 Self Reflexive TV Moments Award. When Tina Fey stared down the camera Zach Morris style and asked Verizon for her money - that was favorite moment of 2007 I think. I don't even know what happened, but I can guess a product placement deal went bad and Fey decided to stick it to Verizon in the most creative way possible. It was great and fit in perfectly with the show - it wasn't even a strech.

Some other notes:
-Scrubs was good as usual. It's always good. That is probably the best way to describe it. Funny, clever, interesting, thought provoking. Its never awesome, killer, hillarios, side-splitting, cutting, or buzz-worthy -- its just plain good. The sad thing is, if the strike doesn't end soon -- Scrubs will probably never see the series finale it deserves.

I see some shows are now telling their actors that they are on half-pay leave. This means 5 weeks from now their deals end, they get fired, or the studio has to pay them to stay on within their contracts and just sit and wait. Fun. Meanwhile, there is no end in site. Good news for me -- I still haven't started CHUCK, DIRTY SEXY MONEY, PUSHING DASIES, and have 4 GOSSIP GIRLS all in the hopper. SWEET FOR ME.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone -- this guy is on hiatus....

Ladies Night

A couple random thoughts from this past weekend...

A plug for 'Heidi's', a new restaurant on 50th and Bryant owned by my buddy's sister and her chef husband Stuart Woodman. His food is fantastic and the restaurant is really cute, and pretty much a complete and total 180 from the last place - Five - which was big, loud, splashy and expensive. 'Heidi's' food was so good, so well priced for a gourmet meal, and a great experience. End of plug.

Much like Heroes second season, Desperate Housewives second season, and Lost's second season - the sequel to 'Adrian Peterson runs all over everyone and the Vikings dominate' was very disappointing on Sunday. They need new writers.

There is a lot to read on the Writers Strike if you are interested. Here are two good links:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-11-11-strike-bianco_N.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11lindelof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


We watched DH and B+S last night. They both dealt with drug addiction and confrontation. One of them involved puking and shaking and withdrawl...oh wait, that was me watching this crap.
I swear to god B+S did a surprise intervention with yelling episode last year -- oh well, whatever works I guess. At this point, I would just like all of them to shut up and have a normal day. In THREE episodes we have seen a divorce and custody battle play out and then get reversed, a husband start and end an affair, a drug addiction start and end, a pregnancy followed by a miscarriage, a gay relationship turn toward an affair, and a closeted homosexual of 40+ years come out of the closet to his sister. Did I catch it all? I think so.

I am all caught up on my Law and Order:SVU in preparation for the sweeps stunt of the decade tomorrow night. If the previews didn't ruin it for you, then I am not going to. You can go in blind.

The FX show Damages was just renewed for 2 more 13-episode seasons.

In case you didn't know, the writers strike does not affect cartoons. Isn't that odd -- different union.

I miss Jon Stewart and Colbert -- come back soon. Although per the articles above, it doesn't seem all that likely.

The Schwimmer Redemption

I played in a poker game last night in St. Paul until 11:30 PM. I won, so that was a nice change of pace. Anyway, I didn’t get home until after 12 but still felt a yearning to blow my Friday completely by watching both The Office and 30 Rock.

I think workbuddy.cecchi said it best when he pointed out a while back that “The Office isn’t The Office when they leave the office”. He never said it so eloquently, but the point is the same. Michael Scott alone in the woods – cute. Get back to work. Dwight cooking birds eggs direct from a nest during NBC’s environment week – ironic and disgusting at the same time. Get back to work. Jim realizing he turned into Michael for a day – scary. I will need to watch this episode again as I am pretty sure it probably had more funny lines and I would have picked them up had I not been half-asleep watching it in bed with the volume on low.

I don’t hear very well anymore – I mowed a lot of lawns growing up.

Have I mentioned before how awesome 30 Rock is. It lived up to its hype this week. Taking NBC’s ‘green’ mandate and shoving it back up their asses but still getting the message across was a thing of beauty. It really was. The Al Gore bit was very well played, and Schwimmer did a great job.

SIDEBAR: One time when I was living in Chicago I was waiting for my table at Mia Francesca, a little Italian place about a block from my crib, that doesn’t take reservations. Lauren and I had been waiting about 30 minutes and were up next for a table. But shitbag Schwimmer walks in with a date and gets my table. 15 minutes later we get a table and it happens to be next to that no-talent whining hack. Needless to say I did nothing, said nothing, and just listened to his mindless conversation for the remainder of the meal – let me tell you ladies, he’s not that interesting. I think he and Lauren might have made out a little though when I went to the bathroom. Schwims and I have been on the outs ever since. Until last night.

So I loved 30 Rock. Jack McBreyer is fantastic as Kenneth – I don’t think I could picture anyone else knocking out that role quite like he does. The Pop Tart bit was funny, the party storyline was funny and well executed, and Greenzo was fantastic. Well played Tina Fey and NBC. NOW GET BACK TO FUCKING WORK SO I DON’T HAVE TO WATCH RERUNS ALL WINTER LONG.

Sorry, that was selfish. I understand where the writers are coming from. I know my company always compensates me every time they use one of my templates or presentations beyond its original purpose. I know that the first thing they think of when one of my ideas is repackaged is to send me some money as a thank you – we all share in those profits together. Oh wait, we don’t, it’s how it works. We whore ourselves for a paycheck, hopefully enjoy what we do, and understand that we actually have no true intellectual property once we sign a contract with someone and they can do what they want with it. It’s called capitalism. If you don’t like it, don’t sign the contract.

COUNTERPOINT: I wrote it for the purposes of television broadcast and now you are using it online, and in DVDs, and on phones, and in bathroom stalls, and in-flight programming, and iTunes and whatnot - -and all the while selling ads each and every time. Give me a cut will ya? This business doesn’t work like ‘other’ businesses – the creative process is handled differently and people need to respect that. We get paid to write and then live on the royalties that come from reruns and syndication – we deserve our cut of the new media ventures as well, not just the networks.

I heard that NBC is optioning a YouTube show called ‘Quarter Life’. Please get back to work.

What are they striking over?

this clip brought to you direct from the Picket Line from Kelly, Toby, and Ryan from The Office.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT

watch this -- it is 2 minutes.

Mad Men Marathon

We had about 3 or 4 episodes of Mad Men left to go from this summer/fall and they were removed from the DVR because they can also be found in OnDemand. Well last night turned into a major fire drill. I randomly checked to see how many episodes we had left -- which was 3 -- and found out they would be coming off OnDemand on the 8th. That would be today.
I sounded the emergency television signal and Lauren immediately came running to the family room with sodas and assorted snacks from Trader Joes. Needless to say, we did it. Thank god. We made it and before the clock hit midnight. What a victory for the little guy.
Mad Men is a fantastic show. If they rerun it or it comes to DVD, you should watch it.
Last night, we saw Kennedy come from behind and beat Nixon. I already knew that was going to happen due to some early public school education, but it was still very exciting. Also Don Draper showed us how the 'old-fashioned' slide projector may have been named the 'Carousel' during an awesome pitch to the Kodak company.

I watched Big Bang Theory again this week -- those guys are way to whiny and annoying for this show to have any legs. They are really going to have to tone down the dork if I am going to keep watching. That scene in the Chineese Restaurant was so difficult to watch as Sheldon tried to break down how they were going to order and split the dumplings when there were only 3 people at the table.

OP-EDTV 'THAT GUY' AWARD WINNER
The first ever award goes to....James Hong
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0393222/

You know James as 'that Chineese guy who plays the old Chineese guy' in pretty much every TV show and movie ever made. He was the waiter this week on Big Bang Theory in the Chineese restaurant -- not to be confused with his epic role as the host at the Chineese Restaurant in the famous episode of Seinfeld.........'Cartright 4'
It looks like James has been busy playing Chineese restaurant employees, Chineese bad guys, and Chineese doctors.
Congrats to James Hong.

What was your favorite James Hong role? Let us know....

Perspective

The everyday things in life can really work you up. But it is an event like a Hollywood writers strike that really helps put things in perspective. I mean Pakistan has no constitution, Turkey is in a border battle that is much different than a Badger-Gopher game, we still seem to be fighting a war in Iraq (according to some newspapers), and Britney Spears has been granted some visitation with the children – but when the future of 24, Lost, and the first half of 2008 original programming are threatened, you really need to sit down and take a look around.

I am not going to blog about the overall impact network-by-network, TV Guide already did it. They pay people to do things like that. Then I get to tell you where to find it. Like right here: http://community.tvguide.com/blog/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Strike-Watch-Season/800059822

This strike will not affect the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, no one has been writing jokes for that show in about 10 years. Hey-oh. I would cross the picket line by the way if they needed some help on The Daily Show, The Office, 30 Rock, Colbert Report, 24, or Lost. I am not saying they are going to come calling, I am just saying that I would cross. Do you think they will call? I once wrote a 10 minute newscast in 5^th grade, but it killed. I also once wrote the first 10 minutes of the movie I am never going to make. But its awesome. Of course when I wrote it, I had the role of the 17 year star slated for James VanDerBeek, so you know – it’s collecting some dust. Just like James. Hey-Oh. Hire me, seriously.

Speaking of collecting dust, Lauren was shocked that Danny Glover would be on ‘Brothers and Sisters’ last night. Yeah I know, I am surprised his schedule opened up. Between getting ignored by racist cab drivers and making absolutely crazy political statements seen as anti-American, he has been super busy waiting by the phone for Mel Gibson to call. Unfortunately these days, that call won’t be about Lethal Weapon 6, but a need for bail money, or the answer to his anti-Semitic crossword puzzle.

“What’s a 4 letter word for a Jew starting with K?”

“Oh that’s right…‘Kyle’. The cute Jewish kid from South Park”

Hey-Oh. Seriously, call me.

This just in, one of the best reasons to watch Brothers and Sisters, Emily Van Camp, looks like complete crap with that new haircut which is all bangs and no face. Seriously, WTF?

SUBJECT CHANGE: I have been told this season of South Park is out of control funny and super-offensive. I will try to find some time to check it out. I believe there have been several references to the rape of Strawberry Shortcake. So if you are into clever jokes about molesting children’s characters, I guess this is the season you have been waiting for.

I also enjoyed that episode of 'Adrian Peterson single handedly dismantles the San Diego Chargers and their 7^th ranked run defense'. It was a good show. Started slowly but really picked up midway through. I am hoping for a sequel.

The rumor is that Thursday night’s 30 Rock is about as good as any episode has ever been. The critics loved it. So, the bar has been raised. Sorry to raise your expectations, but aren’t you excited now?

And also - call me.

Thursday Night Recap

I will let it speak for itself...

Michael Scott: You cannot take the hilarious black guy from the office. Stanley is part of what makes this branch extraordinary. The blusy wisdom, the sassy remarks, the crossword puzzles, the smile, those big watery red eyes. I don't know how George Bush did it when Colin Powell left

Oscar: Besides having sex with men, I would say the Finer Things Club is the gayest thing about me.

Michael Scott: Yeah. We all want money. But there is none in the budget. So. Tell me why you're really leaving.
Stanley: Money.
Michael Scott: Mo money mo problems, Stanley. You of all people should know that.

Dwight Schrute: I think I cut my penis on the lid!

Dwight Schrute: The eyes are the groin of the head.

Rants from a Thursday Post-Lunch Food Coma

I turned on NBC’s Phenomenon last night but got confused – where is John Travolta and Forrest Whitaker?

Brothers and Sisters is quickly becoming a fast-forward show for me. I get it, I get it – predictable drama, banter-banter, lets move on. I am one episode behind, and Calista Flockhart might be pregnant per the previews for this week – I can’t believe I was able to go to bed with all the tension mounting.

Someone mentioned to me that Curb Your Enthusiasm is beginning to feel like a Seinfeld rerun at this point. Like they know they’ve seen it before and plots are becoming oddly familiar. I’ll be honest, I don’t see – but I was intrigued by the theory. Here is another theory for you to ponder:

Seinfeld enthusiast Scott R. of Wayzata believes that Seinfeld reruns are cut up so that the primary and secondary stories are mixed to keep episodes interesting. Of course Scott R. is just kidding, but how many times have you found yourself saying, “I didn’t realize THAT happened in this episode too..”

No 30 Rock this evening. You see, Sweeps Month starts tonight and that means NBC has to fake its way through the next 30 days in order to show advertisers that their viewership is higher than it really is so they can sell ad space at a higher rate.

I don’t have a lot of inside baseball on this process, but I know some of my readers do, so any comments on this would be great. Basically, I don’t get how a network can show (for example) a Victoria’s Secret Strip show in place of the usual Ghost Whisperer and then claim that 30 million people watch CBS on Friday night therefore the rates can be higher – who is fooled by this? If I am Proctor and Gamble and I want to buy space for 30 Rock, I am just going to look at the average audience size for my demographic across the whole year and decide what its worth – call me an advertising major from UW-Madison who got an A in Don Stoffles class on advertising demographics, but it seems pretty obvious.

That being said, most of the country is pretty stupid and can relate better to Earl, so he gets an hour while Jack Donaghy and his Emmy for best comedy sit this one out.

The writers might go on strike tomorrow – this is what I am calling BLACK FRIDAY. If they shut down, we are all screwed. What are we supposed to do? Oh yeah, live sports, re-runs, and we’ll only have tons and tons of shows on DVD we’ve never seen, shows from the past we never caught now out on DVD, and non-scripted programming for the 7 remaining reality TV fans--- what will we do?

There is also a 90% chance that old scripts once discarded and TV pilots burned off might make their way into your living rooms soon. Now that will be the real disaster. But in my house, as long as DJ Lance with the cast of Yo Gabba Gabba and the Higglytown Heroes don’t go on strike, we’ll be fine.