louisgray.com: live

What ever happened to letting good television shows run their course until they faded away and the cast could come out beaming to a series of curtain calls? It seems that with the infrequent exceptions of NYPD Blue, Cheers and Seinfeld, any show worth its salt, which has something resembling intellect and sharp dialogue, can't make it past a single season before a dull, drooling, American public finds it too difficult to comprehend, and in a panic, network executives give it the axe.

It happened with The West Wing. It happened to Law and Order: Trial By Jury. It happened to Conviction just as the show was getting some momentum. And now, it sounds like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is going to be annihilated within weeks. According to Fox News online, cast members of the NBC show featuring Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford have already told friends and family that the show's cancellation is imminent.

In the Gray household, it takes a lot to crack into our TiVo Season Pass list. Given our addictions to the CSI and Law And Order franchise, as well as House, and a variety of late-night comedy shows, we don't have much time to add new shows when they come out, and we absolutely deplore the mindless philandering on reality television and vacuous game shows. Studio 60 immediately made its mark this season and had us looking forward to each episode as it developed.

With many of the characters having become familiar through The West Wing, also run by Aaron Sorkin, the show's give and take and rhythm seemed familiar. The situations were interesting. The dialog was college level, something that looks like a non-starter in today's saccharine world. When Conviction and The West Wing were 2005-06 casualties, I called for a new network to bravely take on these shows to satiate our need for real world conversations and intriguing plots, but the harsh economics of television are too much.

With Studio 60 pulling only half the viewers of the dialog-poor skinfest at CSI Miami, they had no chance of emerging with the #1 position on Monday nights, and will exit a loser, without chance of resuscitation. We're not too happy about it, and we're further disillusioned with the way today's airwaves are going. If it weren't for the serialized cop and lawyer shows, and professional sports, we'd be doing a lot more reading, and even more Web surfing than we do today. But the TV just fell another notch in our eyes. We are not happy with this black box and how it is treating us.

Now I'm sure that this isn't exactly honoring Fox's copyrights, so we'll see how long it stays up... but a site called AllSimps.com has acquired Flash episodes for every single Simpsons episode ever - from Season 1 through Season 18.

As Napster did, AllSimps.com claims they "don't host any videos of the Simpsons or upload them", but they do act as a conduit for those who do. If you haven't yet purchased all of the Simpsons' seasonal DVDs, or memorized every line in syndication, then this site could be a good distraction for you.

http://www.allsimps.com/

For as much time as we sit behind the boob tube, whether it be watching A's baseball, laughing along with Conan O'Brien and Jon Stewart, or enjoying the drama of House, CSI and 24, we sure have made do with substandard equipment for some time - and with technology advances over the last few years being what they are - I can't help but think it's time to review where we sit and what the options are.

Currently, in our home, we have two televisions - nothing fancy. One is a 25 or 27-inch (can't remember) in the living room, connected to a series 1 TiVo DVR and an ancient DVD player. The DVD player was purchased for about $79 or so more than five years ago, and the TV is similarly old, made worse because it has a scratch on the front of it that impairs the clarity of every single show we watch. It'd be incredibly annoying had I not grown used to it in the years after it was first damaged (when it fell over on its face in a U-Haul truck as I moved from Belmont to Palo Alto).

The TV itself is fine (aside from the scratch), but the DVD player is trying to kill us. Every single DVD we watch from NetFlix or other sources tends to skip and then stop, necessitating the disk be taken out, cleaned, and started over at its point of interruption. Meanwhile, our cable box doesn't always cooperate with the TiVo, sometimes false-start channel changing, which makes the TiVo record a channel it hadn't been asked to. This means we run significant risk of missing show premieres every time we expect the TiVo to do its job. And the TiVo, though very reliable, doesn't have all the whiz-bang features introduced in subsequent releases of the TiVo series 2 and new series 3.

The second television is a smaller 17-19 inch in the bedroom, which for some odd reason doesn't get anything on cable past say channel 13. We've never resolved it, and hadn't made it a high priority. Now, with a new television season upon us, we're seriously investigating a full "rip and replace" of both sets - provided we have the available funds and time to make sure all goes well.

In my head, both televisions absolutely need to be flat-panel, and ideally would be placed on the walls of both the living room and bedroom. Ideally, the living room set would meet or exceed 42 inches, while the bedroom set would exceed 27 inches. The thought is we could move our Series 1 TiVo to the bedroom TV, and get a second DVR and new DVD unit for the living room. But while we've prepared to stomach a jump in cost to the new sets, the fact that TiVo is now asking $799 for its Series 3 unit, in addition to unprecedented monthly service fees, is a big punch to the gut. We've also seen online reports that TiVo is having issues meeting customer demand.

Beyond this, we have additional options to further gouge our wallets, should we decide TV is a worthwhile investment. We don't have an HD set, but understand that's the way to go looking forward. We would also have to ensure our cable was transmitting HD content. From what I understand, HD content, especially for sports, is one of those things you never want to walk away from. Once you've made the move, you don't go back. And while we haven't looked into DirecTV or adding Comcast's OnDemand, we can see their occasionally being interesting. While staying at a friend's place a few weeks back, we had the chance to experiment with OnCommand, and found the ease of ordering movies for $4.99 quite simple. The ability to pause, and rewind the films also was very handy.

I'm ready to make the move, and will be scouring everything from Shopzilla to Best Buy and Amazon to make sure we've got the best deal out there. If we do join the rest of couch potato America in embracing our inner sloth, we will be sure to let you know the outcome.

Listening to ''I'm Getting Closer'', by M83 (Play Count: 5)

Aside from the daily ups and downs of Oakland A's baseball, it's been a long, lonely summer for our TiVo. Without new shows each week from any of the networks, we resorted to the occasional late night show from Conan O'Brien or Jon Stewart, and took a liking to the syndicated Arli$$ from ESPN Classic, but can't say we've been satiated without the standard fare from Law & Order, CSI, 24 and the rest.

Now that September is upon us, the fall season premieres are just beginning to debut and give us hope. After some dark days which had seen us whittle our TiVo WatchList to less than one screen (TiVo owners know what I mean), we should soon be arriving home each day to new fares, and hopefully soon get to struggle not with finding anything to watch, but to instead, pick which show to watch. My wife and I had a conversation of that type just yesterday when we got home.

"What do you want to see when we get home," she asked. "Arli$$ or House?" "Both!" I answered.

So we did - somehow trying to get used to a kinder, gentler House who no longer finds himself addicted to painkillers and a cane following last season's dramatic conclusion which had him shot and on his deathbed. Arli$$ on the other hand was up to his usual tricks, and doesn't seem any better for it.

With the new season upon us, I grow wistful of those who may never grace our screens again - the West Wings and Convictions of the world who some mucky-muck decided had either run their course or never were to be allowed to forge one. But somehow, I think we'll push through and become acceptable TV viewers again, as we did before when we lost NYPD Blue, or even further back, when The Cosby Show and Family Ties said their farewells. Instead, we look to the future and welcome back War At Home, welcome back Jack Bauer and Gil Grissom and the crew as they go about their business. And our TiVo will once again love us back.

Listening to ''Assorted Trance Volume 16'', by DJ Irish (Play Count: 2)

Being a TV cheapskate, we've never, ever, had HBO. Not when I was living at home, not when I was in college, not when I was single, and not now that I'm married. As a result, we've "missed out" on a number of HBO shows that garnered tremendous critical acclaim - from Oz to the Sopranos, and Sex In the City.

With most all shows in summer reruns, we tested out our TiVo by visiting the nether-regions of the cable lineup, all the way down to ESPN Classic, where we were hoping to find historic baseball contests or athlete profiles. Instead, we stumbled upon Arli$$, which started its life as an HBO feature, and now is getting a second wind in syndication on the ESPN offshoot. So, on a lark, having always heard good things about the show, we politely asked our TiVo to look into it on a more consistent basis.

The show, as you may know, focuses on a big-name sports agent, and his efforts to get the largest amount of bucks for his clients. After seeing five or so episodes, we're hooked - and we're going to bleed the show dry this summer, or until we're tired of it, whatever comes first. Even my wife has found it funny. So on top of our regular fare, currently dominated by Oakland A's baseball, and House reruns, Arli$$ is making a good run.

Listening to ''Night'', by M83 (Play Count: 4)

If you combine being on the road for a week with a slew of season finales from the biggest shows, you'll realize I have quite the backlog on my TiVo, and we're only now getting the opportunity to make headway. But whose idea is it to make each of these finales two hours each? Are they going to be twice as good, or just twice as long? Law & Order, Law & Order Criminal Intent and Conviction are each two hours apiece, and even with Tivo's patented fast-forward options for commercials, the end isn't exactly in sight yet.

Conviction's season finale was also, as you now know, the surprising series finale as well. That show finished well, and is significantly better than almost every other show out there, so someone should tell Dick Wolf to unwed his series to NBC, and start shopping it around. We still can't figure out the logic.

Listening to ''Safe'', by M83 (Play Count: 5)

Well, that sure didn't take long!

NBC has unveiled their Fall 2006 lineup, and while we have to applaud the deletion of "Fear Factor", "Joey" and other subpar fare, I was surprised to see that yet another Law and Order spinoff has bitten the dust, as the axe was taken to Conviction, after only one season of the promising show, which, in my mind anyway, had become more interesting than the standard L&O fare.

With the conclusion of West Wing just yesterday night, it clears up yet another Season Pass slot on our TiVo - but neither one of them had been requested.

TVSquad argues that they had in fact expected curtains for Conviction, saying, "The storytelling style on Conviction was so complicated that it was virtually impossible to feel anything for any of the characters." I'd argue that's not the case, but if people were looking for simplicity, they were coming to the wrong show.

I'm tired of enjoying professional shows that make complete sentences and use words that contain more than five letters every once in a while, only to be reminded that the typical American prefers their shows to have bare midriffs, fan voting, celebrities exposed, and gun shots every 4 minutes.

Isn't there some way that shows like Conviction and West Wing can continue on a more-intelligent network? God knows we have enough TV channels.

Listening to ''Prosac'', by DJ Tomcraft (Play Count: 7)

It's a double-edged sword - TV series are supposed to accelerate ratings as seasons come to their conclusion, while others have major or minor stars moving on, whether due to contract negotiations or new opportunities that come up. So, in the last few weeks, especially the final two weeks, it's increasingly likely that stars you've come to expect to see week in and week out, well, they're going down in a hail of bullets.

This Sunday afternoon, as we plowed through CSI, Law and Order and Conviction, while seeing previews for season finales for just about everything else, we saw people get shot, and others promising plenty of violence as their seasons come to an end.

You'd think we get used to it, and of course, we are. We're not surprised when assistant district attorneys are held at gunpoint, or kidnapped, or shot. We're not surprised when police chiefs come out on the losing end of negotiations with a suspect. So, the thrill is somewhat gone, as we understand the back-room dealings that go into what's supposed to be compelling television. And in some cases, we know they're leaving, and are just curious how the people will be written out of the show.

Of course, that doesn't count West Wing. That show, still the best out there, wraps up tonight, and it's all done. We'll be sure to catch that as close to live as possible, TiVo permitting.

Listening to ''The Hardest Part'', by Coldplay (Play Count: 6)

In case you hadn't already heard, TiVo's aforementioned lawsuit against Echostar for infringement of the company's patents, most specifically related to "time shifting" of television shows, was resolved quickly, with a jury awarding the DVR company more than $73 million in damages, and issuing the first salvo in what could be the first of many court dramas involving TiVo. On the heels of my whining that I had missed out on TiVo's recent stock run from $6 to $8, I had jumped back in at the $8 mark Wednesday, and saw that trade take a positive 22% bounce after market hours Thursday night. While I don't have anything resembling a massive nest egg, I'm definitely picking and pulling wherever I can to increase the bottom line, and this one looks good so far.

Regarding the lawsuit, it's great to see technology innovators rewarded for their investment in R&D (research and development). Too often, competition so closely mimics a product's attributes and offers only price as a differentiator, which while temporarily beneficial to consumers, damages development in the long run, as the original market maker may fall on hard times. Many had speculated that if TiVo lost this round of the lawsuit against Echostar, the company's viability would be very much in jeopardy. For now, that decision has been postponed.

Listening to ''Requiem For A Dream (Leama's D'', by Paul Oakenfold (Play Count: 12)

Tonight was the long-awaited Election results episode on The West Wing, where Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Arnie Vinick (Alan Alda) have been duking it out for the highest position in all the land. While our TiVo dutifully recorded it, and awaited our viewing, I had not anticipated running across any site that would carelessly blurt out the result before I had the chance to see it for myself. Unlike a sports event like the Olympics or Super Bowl - where I could go out of my way to avoid seeing the score, I didn't fear this issue with a simple TV drama. Unfortunately, in the evening, I visited Matt Drudge's Drudge Report and encountered a headline "SURPRISE! (PARTY NAME) WINS 'WEST WING' PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION...", only the words "Party Name" were replaced by the actual party of the TV show's nominee.

While I of course enjoyed watching the show after 11 p.m., I had already known the outcome, and had to be good - not telling my wife of the result, and not being caught up in the drama that entailed of who was going to gather the final electoral votes from toss-up states. The right thing to do for Matt Drudge, and he knows better, was to have put the word "Spoiler" before the link to warn potential viewers.

Listening to ''String Theory'', by Alex Gold (Play Count: 1)

Three weeks ago, we matched up two television drams: "24" against "CSI Miami", and 24 came out on top - significantly. In fact, just last week, we took CSI Miami off our season pass list on TiVo - it was just THAT BAD. So, tonight, our our TiVo lineup, we watched yesterday's episode of West Wing, followed by tonight's episode of 24. Now, with 24 following, it didn't exactly dominate. In fact, at least for tonight, West Wing won out.

West Wing, now following the last weeks of the presidential election between Matthew Santos and Arnold Vinnick, continues to be great television, and we're not looking forward to having the series die at the end of the season. The characters are believable. The stress is real. The fatigue from a lack of sleep and even the marital tension shown by the candidates can be believed. And at least on this show, the president is flocked by staffers and administration, congressmen, lobbyists and ambassadors.

In stark contrast, 24 shows the bumbling president in an empty home, with only his first lady and at maximum, two or three folks willing to push him around - because he has no clue. And on 24, while the drama is very intriguing, the good guys shoot better than the bad guys, the technology mavens are intellectual giants, and somehow they still manage to get around Los Angeles in minutes. You'd smirk at the silliness if it wasn't such good TV.

Jack Bauer is a one man killing machine who is one step ahead of every ally and foe - be they the director of CTU, the president of the United States, or an accent-challenged Russian terrorist kingpin. He's very good, but too good - and today's episode saw him running, silhouetted out of a burning building in a scene better found in Terminator than in the Department of Homeland Security. Good television, but imminently forgettable.

Meanwhile, West Wing is having a sensational ending to what's been a great show. They are peaking in confronting the very real issues in today's elections and presidential politics - leaks and special prosecutors and the possibility of winning the election in the courts. Next week is election day, and we aren't that much closer in learning who will be the eventual winner. In 24, I think we already know who's going to win. West Wing wins here.

Listening to ''Forever Waiting'', by DJ Tiesto (Play Count: 5)

Already with 17 full seasons under its belt, The Simpsons is the longest-running entertainment series on television, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox just signed on for two more seasons, the show's 18th and 19th, which extends the contract through the 2007-2008 season. A Simpsons junkie myself, it's incredible to realize that there are children driving on the roads today who have never known a world without the wacky antics of Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, not to mention the hundreds of other characters who have made the show unique. By the end of the two new seasons, these Simpsons era teens should be graduating from high school. (Unless they opted to instead watch the full DVD sets from the first seven seasons released so far instead of doing their homework.)

When the show first debuted, I was too young for my parents to be comfortable with my watching, especially on Sunday nights. It was too irreverent. Now, owning all seven DVD sets, and having imbibed reruns to my full content, I'm a quote-spewing, analogy reciting, Conan O'Brien worshiping fool. While it seems the show has lost its way over the last five or eight years, there are still precious few comedies that can compete with the ridiculousness the town of Springfield offers. The amusement for me lies in the fact there are countless references to sophisticated books, arts, and film - double entendres and wise cracks clearly not aimed for the pre-teen set. I stress to others how intellectual the show is and I usually get blank stares in return, but it's quite hilarious on all levels. I just hope I'm not embarrassed by whatever watered-down plot lines the newest generation of writers comes up with.

While we were away in Arizona, following the noblest of pursuits - A's baseball and feigning an early summer burn/tan, our homebound, landlocked, TiVo continued to slave away in our absence, doing just as we had asked it to do, without any fuss, muss or compensation. Though we had abandoned it to the quiet of an unheated home for the space of four days, it didn't quit or turn in early hours, or sleep in, missing any of its programming.

Which leaves us with serious issues. while in Phoenix, TiVo stored the most recent copies of 24, The West Wing, ER, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien's much-anticipated journey to Finland. So how do we catch up, barring putting away the laptops, our books, and breaking out the caffeine? Could be a real conundrum, should I choose to give it priority. Do I need to come home earlier for work, or stay up later, or wake up early and show up to work late? All are very tempting possibilities to bring our home up to speed in TV-land. On the other hand, I could be giving this way too much thought. Good thing the TiVo didn't overthink it, and just did as it was told.

Here's one way to ensure that we'll never upgrade to the latest TiVo DVR boxes - change the service plan so that we'd be contractually bound to pay the company about $20 a month just to continue watching the TV we already pay for on the cable, while gaining TiVo's standard functions (pause, slo-mo, skip and store). When my wife and I got our Series 1 recorder, I paid for the lifetime service fee, and won't ever have to give TiVo another check, should I choose to do so. But with the lifetime service plan only being assigned to the lifetime of the DVR, and not the lifetime of the customer (small difference there), if I were to upgrade, I would have to pay up again. And now, following this afternoon's announcement, the lifetime service plan is gone - as TiVo has opted to move all plans to include monthly fees.

TiVo has struggled to find a consistent, growing revenue stream. I can see how they would want to get more money from new customers, but what this has done is eliminate my plan to upgrade to a series 2 when it comes down the hand-me-down line, should a friend go to a series 3 following their introduction. Were I able to upgrade and buy another lifetime service plan, I would do so, but now that option has been taken away. Were I to accept the second box and move the Series 1 recorder to a second room, I'd still need to pay monthly service fees on the second TiVo, and that's just not interesting.

Monday is a big day for the Tivo in our house, usually running with its red recording light on from 9 through 11:30, picking up 24, CSI Miami and wrapping up with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Usually, we don't get through all the shows on the same night, and cherry-pick the episodes as available through the week, but with both my wife and I home and not moving around (but somehow getting work done with the TV on in the background), we took in a special 2-hour episode of 24, followed by CSI Miami - in what should be three gripping hours of television drama, but instead only exposed CSI Miami for the half-baked, poorly written, half-acting tripe it is.

After a double feature of the non-stop intensity of 24, which has scene after scene of action, surprise, and intrigue, the laidback, wait-around, ridiculous attitude of CSI Miami is simply nauseating. While 24 can at times be less than credible (somehow the bad guys never kill Jack Bauer?), David Caruso's transparent, shallow pandering to the camera is flat-out ridiculous, and each time we suffer through it, I swear it will be the last time, and that this time, we'll take it off our Season Pass once and for all. Watching 24 and CSI Miami back to back just makes the choice that much more clear.

When David Caruso was on NYPD Blue, his character was very good, and he rivaled Dennis Franz for our attention. But we all know how that ended - with his being written out of the show and forced into what was long considered the most dramatic example of career suicide known in the TV acting business. That he got a second chance with CSI Miami was fine, but the man is a disaster, and his colleagues aren't that much better. In fact, the show is so formulaic and foolish, there are drinking games set to the characters' odd behaviors. It's one thing to try and support the CSI franchise. CSI: Las Vegas is still pretty good. But Miami and New York leave much to be desired. Jack could probably take them all out in one action-packed episode... of 24.

Can you name the five main Simpsons characters? (You knew it was Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, right?) Well, the BBC thinks that you probably can't recite the five rights guaranteed you by the first amendment to the US Constitution quite so easily. In fact, if you could recite those five rights, you would be a small minority - numbering one in every thousand.

(And to be honest, I didn't get them all either. I said "right to bear arms" before my wife, a social studies teacher, shot me a withering look from across the room... Right... second amendment, I knew that.)

But civics lessons aside, I think knowledge of the Simpsons may actually have more applicability to today's modern life than does the Constitution's first amendment. We're said to have freedom of the press, but the press is almost exclusively owned by massive conglomerates, and our taxpayer dollars have been known to fund administration pay-outs for positive stories... and our freedom of assembly is threatened when we've learned that there are government employees infiltrating peaceful organizations under the guise of Homeland Security or the Patriot Act.

What the BBC missed is not that we can name the Simpsons' main characters - big deal. It is more impressive if you can remember who shot Mr. Burns (Maggie), who Bart sold his soul to (Milhouse) and for how much ($5.00). Now into the show's 17th season, it is increasingly difficult for even the most ardent Simpsons historians to remember the characters, their plot twists, punch lines, and many capers. Luckily for us, we can study up by using a myriad of online resources and fan sites - or even better, go to the source. With the first seven seasons of the Simpsons on DVD, you can watch every episode commercial-free, and gain insight through included commentary.

It's practically your civic duty.

It's a secret pleasure - but Fox's War at Home, which debuted after the Simpsons this season, featuring lead actor Michael Rapaport and an atypical dysfunctional family with two sons and a teenage daughter, has been much better than I ever could have expected. Though we haven't had a chance to catch every single show, due to conflicts with NBC's The West Wing, in its final season, I have yet to see an episode that didn't keep me laughing all the way through. Irreverent, surprisingly insightful and absurd all at once, War At Home quickly made its way onto our TiVo's season pass list, and we've even caught ourselves watching the reruns - for the jokes are still funny.

While the show's two main characters, Rapaport and wife Vicky, played by Anita Barone, have a sordid past, and checkered present, the show tries to mean well - they want their kids to get good grades, stay out of trouble, and generally avoid being too ridiculous, whether for their own good or to avoid parental embarrassment. In early episodes, War At Home has discussed teen drinking, first relationships, the potential of having a gay son, and revisiting old flings with former partners. While it's not likely to be critically acclaimed or be confused with 60 Minutes or Law and Order, War At Home is a raw look at conversations likely going on in homes around the country, if parents are taking the time to talk to their kids at all.

It can be caught on Sundays at 8:30 p.m., immediately following the Simpsons. Set your DVRs.

I hate it when I find out my favorite shows are being canceled.

My wife quasi-introduced me to West Wing when we were dating. I was always aware of the show, but didn't take to it until 2003, and using the magic powers of TiVo, I had it set to record all the older re-runs on Bravo, so during a regular week, I could get five older episodes and the new one from the current season on NBC.

With West Wing being moved to Sundays now, their ratings have dropped, and we were all shocked to learn of the death of John Spencer, who played the gutty Leo, running for Vice President alongside Jimmy Smits. But I still rooted for the show to go on. It's suspenseful, intelligent, and funny, all at once.

From the AP article: NBC Cancels 'West Wing' After 7 Seasons

Oh well - as with NYPD Blue, I guess it was eventually time for the show to move on.