Well Hello

My my, has it been a busy couple of weeks. What with the end of month of one of our most stressful months of the year at work (both Diageo and Foster's Wine Estates' fiscal year ends) bookended by two ridiculously debaucherous and alcohol filled weekends, let's just say there just hasn't been a ton of time for writing. Oh, and did I mention getting all the work done for my vacation (a week and a half in Seattle and Portland)? I've been busy to the point that I even cancelled my WAR subscription due to lack of playing time, and havent logged a minute of TF2 in two weeks. So in that vein, some Matt-related quickhits;

-I will admit to getting atleast a little general nerdiness in, as Luq alerted me to the fact that Steam (a service I've totally come around on and really, really love now)was offering EQ2 for the low, low price of $9.99 (all expansions and 30 days free included), an offer I simply couldn't pass up to atleast give the game a chance. Now it was beyond disappointing, something I fully expected, but now I can atleast add it to the extensive list of MMO's I've played and quickly tired of before and since Dark Age of Camelot, bar none the best MMO I've ever played.

-On account of the aforementioned debaucherous weekends, atleast the most recent one, I've had a nice hungover sunday which afforded me and my general uselessness the ability to lay in bed all day with the curtains drawn and watch television, in much the same way I was introduced to True Blood a few weeks back. This sunday though was dedicated to finishing season one of Dexter....all 8 episodes I had left. It was good stuff. While certainly not The Wire, and maybe not even as good as Oz, it made moderately entertaining TV and I'm going to atleast watch season two. The characters can be a little unbelievable at times, but it seems they've begun to develop them quite a bit as the season wore on. Likewise, as any good television show (read: unlike Fourth And Long, which is god awful) does, the plot thickens as the series goes on and sucks you in a bit. I'm not gonna give it the must-see status The Wire gets, but it's good enough.

-I'm now two days from vacation. Ahhhh, sweet sweet vacation. 10 days in the beautiful and not hot Pacific Northwest. And as if things could have worked out any better, after booking the dates it turned out the Rangers are going to be in Seattle this weekend (already have tickets to see them at Safeco) and Mudhoney is playing a free show in Seattle. Throw in a crab dinner, a couple rounds of golf and some time with the extended family and that makes for a pretty nice trip before I head down to Portland to spend a week enjoying the great outdoors and craft beers. Have I mentioned I'm a little stoked?

Tha said, unless you want to hear about the Rangers or how much Beringer/Sterling/BV I had to sell last month (a lot) then I really don't really have a whole hell of a lot more for you. So until I'm back from vacation, I bid you adieu.

Fringe

Back in December I wrote a little bit about the new quality TV Programming the Fall of 2008 gave us. And while Heroes has since jumped the shark for the 15th time and I'm totally checked out of that series, and House has resorted to fighting for proverbial plot scraps to maintain my attention (though the hallucination plotline this past season ended on was a good one, I just wish they'd make it less formulaic), there were some high points. No I don't mean the return for new seasons of Gangland and Deadliest Catch (though those do start this week). Nor do I mean a second season of Sons Of Anrchy (which will return in Summer '09 with Henry Rollins. No, I think what impressed me the most was the way they wrapped up the first season of Fringe.

I originally billed it as a bit of a revised X-Files, and while I still think it fits the bill there, its also a bit more linear than the X-Files was. In much the same way Law & Order does things with the X-Files there were certain linear aspects to the story (ie, plot points that carried over from episode to episode and season to season), for the most part each episode seemed to be a stand-alone episode with only a few minutes a week given to the over-arching story. Burn Notice is another show that does this. Fringe meanwhile has each episode contributing to the building of a larger story in the much more traditional format for a drama.

Semantics aside though, what's really impressed me about Fringe is how they've tied together the most confusing (don't mistake that for outlandishly absurd like Lost) and far-fetched beginning of the series and progressed it to the point where it starts to actually make sense, but becomes compelling. At the end of the first half of Season One I was really unsure of the show, but at the prodding of a few friends decided to give it another go and they were dead on-the second half of the first season they actually explained who people were, what was going on, and managed to make the characters more endearing and interesting-in other words, the series finally had life.

At this point in time, I feel fairly confident saying that Fringe and Sons of Anarchy were the best new television shows 2008 gave us, even if Fringe spilled over into 2009-and if you're something to replace a show you've lost, I can't suggest enough giving them a try.

The End Of An ERa

Like that title? Brilliant, aren't I? What a play on words. That said, please indulge me....as I feel the need to write a little about the series finale of ER. Yes, that ER.

ER debuted in September of 1994, and just to put things in perspective that was just a few months after Kurt Cobain killed himself (which oddly enough, is 15 years today)....the show has been on for-freaking-ever. Part of the original NBC "must-see TV" lineup along with Seinfeld, it's a program for which I've got great fondness, as I watched it throughout my youth. It was intended to be a realistic medical drama (albeit, with a little soap opera style drama thrown in) which focused on the characters and not the medical cases (like, say, House) and I'd suggest that it delivered....a bold proclamation for a show that lasted 15 years....no?

What seperated ER from the pack though, was the way in which it was filmed. Filmed in a somewhat grainy form with a herky-jerky (yes that's a technical term) camera method that continually followed the action instead of existing with a focal point or three in the room. The camera was always moving, and the action always following with it-proving the point that an ER is a chaotic place-and making the cases (almost) as exciting as, say, the opening scene of 'Saving Private Ryan.' I said almost.

I watched ER live for the first half dozen or so seasons before hitting the meat of High School and then College, a time in my life in which I didn't watch that much TV, especially live TV. As such, I fell off the show's bandwagon always enjoying the odd episode I'd catch but not being up to date. That all changed though when I got a Tivo, and then totally changed when I graduated college and had 4mos unemployed to do nothing but drink beer, play video games, and watch TV (and good god, that was a good 4mos). You see, TNT ran ER re-runs twice a day and in chronological order, allowing an unemployed man with a Tivo little choice but to watch them.....all. And watch them all I did, to the point that I started at the pilot episode and caught alllllll the way up, and have since made it a point to record and watch every episode. And so on thursday, I finally watched the final episode of ER.....having watched every episode previous.

Ending a series is a difficult task. Seinfeld-a show I love-failed miserably at it. Most shows do, as tying up all the loose ends whilst simultaneously trying to give viewers their proverbial last hit off the crack pipe is a difficult thing. In much the same way we think three more Star Wars movies is a good idea, we as television consuming human beings never wants a program to end-no matter how tired it has become. ER had played through every concievable dramatic twist multiple times over the years, and likewise had churned through more characters than you can shake a stick at-a fact I was reminded of as I watched the ER series retrospective which aired previous to the final episode.

Dr. Ross, Dr. Greene, Nurse Hathaway, Dr. Carter, Dr. Benton, Dr. Lewis....that's how it started, more or less. By my count, we've had another 20+ doctors (30+ if you include nurses and staff) enter and exit the show in various ways since 1994. Don't believe me? Off the top of my head I've got Dr. Boulet, Dr. Weaver, Dr. Weaver, Jerry, Frank, Dr. Corday, Dr. Kovac, Lucy, Dr. Del Amico, Dr. Malucci, Dr. Chen, Nurse Lockhart, Dr. Pratt, Dr. Rasgotra, Dr. Gallant, Dr. Barnett, Nurse Taggart, Dr. Morris, Dr. Gates (Uncle Jessie), Dr. Brenner, Dr. Banfield and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few, to say nothing of the ancillary characters (all four dozen of them).

What started as a medical drama that was apparently rejectd by multiple networks upon it's inception before being given a chance, morphed into a piece of TV cultural Americana, as more actors than you can shake a stick at have filled cameo roles on the show and the characters have gained a place in our TV hearts. Before TV would touch the AIDS/Civil War epidemics in Africa, ER was there with Dr. Carter doing two seasons of mission work with Doctors Without Borders. Likewise they had Dr. Benton's deaf child, Dr. Boulet's life with HIV, Dr. Romano's well known arm lost to a helicopter....I know this all sounds really crazy and soap opera-y......but it was good TV, and while sometimes preachy, it brought issues to the forefront that other programs didnt want to touch.

I was ready for it to end, really I was.....I think I'd made peace with it's incoming finale when Dr. Pratt died-the latest in a long list of characters I'd come around on only to see them meet their maker. But that doesn't mean the quality of the show was lost on me, and the cameos over the past season to sew up the loose ends did little but re-affirm for me the quality of the program. When the last episode faded to black, I felt as though my commitment to the program had been rewarded. I'm sad to see it go, but it was a great run.

And for the record, Dr. Greene was my favorite character.

The Wire: Season 2

If you are a fan of film of any kind, be it film (like those people who have an illogical disdain for television but enjoy movies), or myself (list of movies I need to see is lengthy, but am a tv snob), I still can't recommend enough giving The Wire a shot (and I'd be happy loan it to you) and the TV hating people I know (including vegan neighbor who has the tiniest color tv known to man) will back me up here. It's engaging, it's enthralling, it's got compelling characters and compelling storylines that reach into the deepest reaches of our shame and our guilt and brings them alive. The humanity and the realization that this is the world is what makes the show all the more compelling, and being 2/5 of the way through I'm fairly confident that I've found a winner, especially considering the dozen emails I got after singing its praises last.

Ok, so here's the deal:

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

Seriously;

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT.

Alright, I'm not going to spoil everything, but with a program as intricate as this I feel it to by neigh impossible to discuss without giving away something. That said, I was asked to update when I finished season two, and while I'm a little late (i've actually finished season 3 too, but i will write about that tomorrow)

It was good. Was it as good as season one? No, but being from a non-union and non-port city (Dallas) I do think a lack of being able to relate was a factor, as was having a bevy of classic Northeastern US jack-ass characters, which again aren't entirely relateable as a Texan. We have our share of Ziggy's down here, but it's not quite what it's like in the Northeast, and he was an instant turn-off as a character to me.

Much like season one, I thought season two started off a little slow and it took me three or four episodes to really start to get a grasp on the characters. With the "good guys" (i use that term loosely) spread amongst several deparments of BPD, a new cast of characters in the stevedores, Deangelo and Avon in prison, and the introduction of The Greek and his crew-it just took me a while to wrap my head around who everyone is. That said, once I did the season was greatness.

Using the harbor as ground-zero for the season turns out to be a great idea, as there is actually enough that goes on at the harbor to make it almost as interesting as west baltimore had been in season one. I really didn't think there would be, but between the insane drunken-ness, the smuggling of women and drugs, and the politics of it all paired with their desperation as a dying union, there proved to be plenty of good storylines coming out of the harbor, and more than enough to make a compelling season when paired with Stringer taking over Avon's crew, Stringer's taking up with Deangelo's girl, and finally Deangelos death-to saying nothing of Omar and Brother Mozone.

I didn't like it as much as Season One, but at the end I was definately ready to jump right into Season 3. I'm not sure how people were able to take the suspense of waiting weeks/months between episodes, because there've been a couple 3 hour stretches of The Wire for me as I get enthralled by the storylines.

Super Bowl interrupted by....porn?

In some weird cosmic twist, it seems that once again the broadcast of the Super Bowl has become ground zero for broadcasters and what they're responsible for. We all of course remember the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" from back in 2004, and this time its porn being broadcast during the game.

As the story goes, Comcast subscribers in the Tucson, AZ area were watching Larry Fitzgerald part the seas on an amazing catch and run when the signal becomes interrupted and then replaced with a porn star shaking his thang for 30 seconds before the the station returns to the game. You can view the video here (without a it being blurred out) or here if you prefer not looking at a giant penis-either way it's most certainly NSFW.

Comcast is claiming that it was a "malicious attack" on their signal, you can read their release here, to which I wonder if I were going to commit what I'm sure is a federal crime, I'd most certainly have chosen a better porn clip. That said, how how uncomfortable that must be-can you imagine sitting next to your grandmother or child and that popping on during the Super Bowl? It's awesomely hilarious.

The Wire

For a few years now, I've listened to dozens of people tell me how great The Wire is and how I just had to watch it, it was the greatest show to ever be televised, etc. ad nauseum. Everyone from my leaders Bob and Dan to female friend that is a Harvard graduate (and has a spotty tv record, enjoying amongst other things that model show on Bravo), to people with whom I've never discussed television, and the critics always agree-supposedly this is one of the best television shows ever.

I was skeptical, I'm always skeptical but willing to try out new programs. And with the Tivo nearing empty and re-runs going full bore, I decided that I had the time to adopt a new show. The candidates were The Sopranos, The Shield, and The Wire-and after seeking the opinions of others, The Wire won out. The had been so much hype surrounding this show, that I completely and totally expected to be underwhelmed by it. I mean it could be great, but how could it ever live up to the hype? That said, last night I finished watching season one.

And it was awesome!

I don't know how else to describe it. What a fantastic television series-great acting, great drama, great characters, very gritty and edgy but still totally believable. I have to take my cue from those that got me to finally watch it and say that I cannot recommend The Wire enough. Go over to Amazon.com right now, pay the $134.49 for the entire series, and consider it one of the best investments in entertainment you've ever made. I have only seen one of the five seasons, and I cannot wait to watch the next four. I liked Oz, Oz was great, and this puts Oz to shame.

So consider this a public service announcement. If you haven't watched the Wire, go rent/borrow/buy/steal yourself the first season. You will thank me. And if you have, well then, feel free to rub my nose in the fact that I am quite late to the party.

Fall Television Redux

With sweeps behind us now and most fall television seasons having wrapped up and/or about to wrap up, I figured it was a good time to blog about the Fall '08 TV season. It didn't hurt either that I've been fighting my yearly sinus infection (later than usual this year) since Thanksgiving giving me plenty of time to lay in bed with my Tivo and catch up on House, Heroes, Law & Order, SVU, Family Guy, Fringe, and My Own Worst Enemy. I even tried to watch Chuck, but ya, it sucked. See? Being sick has atleast some upside.

The best new show of the season was most definately Sons of Anarchy on FX. It wrapped up last thursday with a 90 minute episode that was phenomenal. I realize I am hard-selling this show, but it's really that fucking good. Do yourself a favor and get the first season, as it's been picked up for two more seasons already and seems primed to be FX's replacement for the Shield. And I'm still kicking myself for not getting in on The Shield early. There's just something fascinating about the biker gang underworld, and this show totally delivers.

Speaking of biker gangs, I've been catching episodes here and there of Gangland on History. I'm not sure it's season pass worthy, but like Deadliest Catch is nice downtime filler. Being from Dallas I don't see gangs like the folks in NYC, LA, or Chicago do...so I find it to be pretty fascinating programming. Plus it ties in nicely with Sons of Anarchy and The Wire, which I started on Season 1 this week because Jenny won't stop hassling me about it being the greatest show ever made.

Fringe was also a nice breakout show for the Fall season. It's actually gotten progressively more interesting sicne the premier, like a show should but so many fail to do. I'm still not sure it's of the caliber of the X-Files, but it's pretty damn good. The plots can get a little far fetched, but the acting is superb. John Noble makes an excellent Walter, and Anne Tory (Agent Dunham) is strangely attractive and great for her role.

Heroes has come so close to jumping the shark (see photo at top) so many times this season, but keeps avoiding it. I'm not sure how much longer they can, as I'm really not sure how much of a future a show about people with superpowers can have, but they've managed to keep it atleast mildly entertaining as people are switching sides and doublecrossing each other every week. I watched the entire season in one night (that whole sick thing....) and I still couldn't figure out who was on who's side. I'm assuming that confusion is by design. I'm not going to try and sell you on it, were Heroes a stock I'd probably give it a sell rating, but we shall see.....I'm still watching.

Law & Order makes another attempt at replacing the great Detective Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) while also replacing Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), this time going with Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto) and Kevin Bernard (Anthony Anderson). And like with most L&O pairings, it's improving with time. I'm not sure you can ever replace Briscoe and Green, but these two aren't bad. Having McCoy (Sam Waterston) as D.A. while new A.D.A Cutter (Linus Roache) goes rogue straight out of the old Jack McCoy playbook has been an interesting storyline. Meanwhile Law & Order: SVU is trudging along with more subplots involving Stabler's family. Not bad, but not great, it's still SVU.....a nice spin-off of the original classic but not on par with it. And certainly not as bad as Criminal Intent, where Vincent D'Onoffrio made me insane.

House is still awesome. I know some people don't like it, I even admit to it being extremely formulaeic, but Hugh Laurie is simply amazing as the character House, and I like the direction it's going with a potential House/Cuddy romance after the drama with Cut-throat Bitch and Wilson earlier in the season. I also think the writers are doing an excellent job of fleshing out the characters of 13, Taub, and Kumar, making them interesting in the dynamic between House, Cuddy, and Foreman. Thus far this has been the best season since the one with the cop harassing House, season 2 I think.

I watched the first could episodes of My Own Worst Enemy to see if Christian Slater had anything left in the bag. Upon episode three the show was not renewed so I didn't bother with the rest of them. Slater wasn't bad, but the premise was just too ridiculous and the scope too limited, also the cast around Slater was pretty mediocre. Likewise Worst Week was really funny, but completely unsustainable, even with Red from That '70s Show. It would be like making Meet The Parents into a TV series, it's just not feasible.

So there you go, my Fall TV Redux. Cheers!

What I Wouldn't Give For A Tivo Brain Implant

I'm not gonna lie, Warhammer Online is most assuredly a part of why I've been conspicuously absent from blogging the past few days. So to has work, with a couple of unexpected things coming up and some more on the horizon for next week, but the work excuse is boring-it's much easier to blame it on Warhammer.

But also factoring into the mix, is television. Over the past few weeks some of our favorite shows have returned, but this was the big week where everything returned and the new shows debuted. So needless to say, the Tivo has been working doubletime to record everything as needed and provide it to me commercial free during non-primetime hours.

Let me start off by saying do yourself a favor, get into Sons of Anarchy on FX. It's brilliant, it's great, and wildly entertaining. As I mentioned in this entry when I was previewing the Fall TV lineup, it reminds me a lot of Oz, without the carte blanche HBO had for violence, sex, and swearing. And while I wasn't sold on the first episode, after three episodes I'm totally on board. And it seems I'm not the only one. It's not too late, this wednesday is just episode four and FX re-runs everything into the ground. Get on board, it's freaking great.

Speaking of great, last night's season premiere of The Office was fucking hilarious. There has been the occasional dud of an episode, and last night was certainly not one of them. I wasn't positive they could make this hour long episode thing work, but they have. Those writers need to get a raise, because I haven't laughed that hard in ages. It was awesome. Jim and Pam finally got engaged, Angela's cheating on Toby with Dwight, and Michael in fatsuit doing that character is hilarious.

ER returned as well. I can't believe they killed off Dr. Pratt. I really liked that character, and while I've long been an ER fan I think even I am ready for the show to finally end. They've killed off so many good characters over the years, it just gets tiring. Couldn't they just keep killing off secondary characters like that Army reservist doctor (Dr. Gallant?) who died in Iraq and Dr. Romano instead of Dr. Green and Ray?

All that, and I've still got to get through this week's episodes of Fringe, My Name Is Earl, and Heroes. Life's rough, huh?

Fall Television Preview

With the return of football to the airwaves and our lives, also comes the return of new television programming. Other than a few cable networks (USA comes to mind), most networks coincide their new programming with the fall so that they run into sweeps (where as I'm sure you know, the ratings really matter to the network suits). This is obviously not a revelation, if you've been watching any amount of television over the past few weeks you should be well aware that Heroes, Lost, House, The Office, Terminator, Law & Order, and The Shield are all returning (unless you've perfected Tivo-ing through commercials) along with a boatload of other shows-you can't help but notice as the networks cram it down our collective throats.


But with the return of these staples, always comes the debut of new series' like this year's redux of Beverly Hills: 90210. Most of these series will end up being complete and total failures (see: Cavemen), but occasionally you will get something of quality. Think of it as the networks wielding one giant shotgun and firing blindly and just praying something hits the target.


After football on Sunday I watched one of Fox's new offerings, Hole In The Wall. It's a spin-off from an Australian gameshow that was originally ripped off from a Japanese gameshow. The premise is that theres this wall coming at contestants and they have to contort themselves to get through the wall lest they get pushed into water. Or for more television gold, if they're really fat they'll just fall through the wall. Yes folks, this is primetime television. And yes, it's as stupid and mindless as it sounds.


Will it survive? Probably, atleast for a little while. I'd imagine the slapstick spectacle humor will fade with time and the show will fade with it (think: Man Getting Hit In Crotch With Football from that episode of The Simpsons), but in a country that's given Jeff Foxworthy multiple fifteen minute sets of fame and is somehow enamored with Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? when American Idol is off-season, well let's just say I'm not convinced the American public won't suck up just about any show. If you want my take on the shows, it's this: if you're really, really fucked up-I'm talking absolutely hammered-and don't have any friends who will talk to you and your internet isn't working, well then by all means give it 30m of your time. Now that's a ringing endorsement.


Which isn't to say that all the television this fall will be terrible. Heroes returns in a couple weeks, House returns next tuesday, and we've got two more weeks of the very, very under-rated Burn Notice on USA. And I guess I should mention Lost for those of you into that (I personally just can't get into it). And there are a couple new shows that I've got interest in.


The pilot episode of Sons Of Anarchy on FX showed a lot of promise, I'm interested in seeing the second episode this week. It's a show about a California biker gang (think: Hell's Angels but smaller) and the ebb and flow of the criminal landscape, where the black gangs, Mexican gangs, white gangs, and the smaller players all compete for a piece of the pie running guns, selling drugs, etc. It's like Oz on motorcycles and not in prison. And without the anal rape. Knowing FX they're running that pilot into the ground, so give it a shot if you've got a spare evening.


And finally, there's Fringe which debuted tonite on Fox. It seems to be the most critically hyped show of this fall season, with most critics comparing it favorably to the X-Files. As far as I can tell the only real similarity it has to the X-Files is that both deal with the paranormal and/or strange government experiments to mimic the paranormal. Fringe doesn't have the acting of the X-Files or the great duo that was Mulder & Scully. It also appears that it will delve far into the character's personal lives (and sadly, love stories) and be much more morally black and white whereas the X-Files usually dealt in shades of grey. Then again, they could surprise me and take the show in another direction-the plot twist at the end of the pilot episode was enough to atleast get me back in front of my TV to watch next week's episode (along with the fact that House immediately follows it, hehe). It's not bad, I don't want to make it sound that way-it's just that it's not the X-Files as they are trying to make you believe, atleast not yet. The pilot episode ran just over 90m with very limited commercials and will be re-airing Sunday night after football if you're interested in giving it a try.


And finally, the Max Payne movie starring Mark Wahlberg is set for an October 17 release and looks as though it's going to live up to the film noir with John Woo style action of it's namesake. Yes I'm a sucker for video game spin-off movies, especially for games I like (see: Hitman), but this looks really good. As does Burn After Reading.

I'm Now A Nielsen Home

Got a postcard in the mail today from Nielsen, you know, the TV ratings people. Apparently our house has been randomly selected as a Nielsen home and we've been requested to fill out some questionnaires regarding our television consumption.

Why do I have a feeling that we're going to be the statistical outlier to the American majority that's watching the crap on the major networks. Other than House and Law & Order, I don't think there's a single program on the major four networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) I watch even rarely (excluding of course Sports). T-bone watches the Mid-day news, and I think that about covers it for this household.

USA, TNT, History, Discovery, Cartoon, CNN, FNC, and Comedy make up the bulk of our television consumption, and while nationally I am most certainly in the minority I like to thing that among college-educated people between ages 20 and 35 this would be atleast a little less of a minority.

Regardless, this being a Nielsen home is nothing but good news for Burn Notice (damn you and your 3 week break before finishing the season), NCAA Football, the NFL, and Dick Wolf (creator of the Law & Order Franchise).