The Wire: Season 5, Episode 4 Look-Ahead

Air date: January 27, 2008
Director: Dan Attias
Title: Transition

One whole week is too long to wait for a new episode of The Wire so we here at TV on the INTERNETS have started playing a game where we try to deduce in what direction our monomaniacal leader, David Simon, will take us this Sunday.

The first interesting thing to jump out is the name of Dan Attias, the director of episode 4. Attias is one of TVOTI's favorite TV directors, along with Schlamme and Farino, because of his work on Entourage and one of the greatest episodes of any show last year, Studio 60's Christmas Special.

Second, it seems officer Beatrice "Beadie" Russell will be back. Russell, played by Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan, played a prominent role in the Port case of season 2. Her reemergence will most definitely coincide with more face time for Spiros Vandopoulos, played by Paul Ben-Victor. With Sergei back in the story and now Spiros, it seems Sunday will be the time for the infamous Greek to return as well.

Third, the reunion of the masterminds behind the Port smuggling in season 2 must mean Marlo is closer to brokering a deal with them to cut Prop Joe out of the supply side of the game. With Omar back in town, though, can Marlo really afford a two-front war with Omar and the East Side? Maybe Stringer Bell knows how that story ends.

Fourth, Gus' search into the city's real estate dealings with known drug dealers proves fruitful as Fatface Rick, aka Troj Strickland, comes back to join us. Fatface doesn't seem to pop up again later this season so maybe it's just a name drop or potentially a hit. Either way, his story will most likely tie in with Clay Davis' grand jury inquisition, which kicks off in earnest this week and will last through March. Keep an eye out for Tom Townsend playing the only character listed as "Grand Jury Member."

Finally, Michael's mom, played by Shamika Cotton, is back in the picture after losing her boyfriend to Chris and Snoop last year. Michael's in the episode too, fresh off his cameo as Nephew in the Roc Boys video, but no mention of Duq, Nay or Randy. Seems like we'll have to wait a bit longer to see what they and Prezbo have been up to.

The Wire. Season 5. Episode 4. 77 hours and counting.

American Idol 7: I'm Your Angel Edition

TV on the INTERNETS has finally gotten off its high horse and introduced a Department of Alternative Programming here at our NY offices. From here on out TVOTI will no longer subjectively discriminate against reality programming and will allow into its purview of quality entertainment the Fox juggernaurous "American Idol." Why? Because after 7 years we've realized it's pointless to try to hate on a legitimate phenomenon that fulfills the very expectations with which TV was created - to provide disparate people of a unified land a sense of community through shared experience. So let's come together and celebrate American Idol Season 7's South Carolina auditions.

Very few potential winners will come out of the crop shown to us in last night's one hour episode but there definitely were some standouts.

First, there was Oliver Highman. I'm not sure if that's how you officially spell his last name but I prefer Hymen, since it would go better with the whole vaginal vibe of his audition. His wife went into labor; he stunk, etc. An interesting programming choice on the part of American Idol to build an episode-long story arc around a guy who ends up being kind of lame.



Second, Michelle and Jeffrey Lampkin brought the "ow" with an R. Kelly / Celine Dion duet that I didn't even know existed. Jeffrey was kind of good though his head voice fell flat some times and doesn't bode well for his performance of songs that aren't booming ballads. Michelle squeaked through because it would just be too sad to watch them say goodbye right now. Let's wait for that awkward Hollywood cry and embrace for which Sanjaya and his sexy sis set the precedent last year.



Third, last night AI sent some cats home that didn't seem outrageously horrendous in my opinion.

For example, was Lyndsay Goodman that bad?



What about the self-proclaimed "Black Clay Aiken," Rishard? Too gay for American Idol? For reals?



Finally, we here at TV on the INTERNETS think Simon saw into the future and predicted a story line that should provide some drama into the early rounds of Season 7. Will Amy Catharine Flynn live up to her potential as the most hated 16-year-old in the country?



Let's see, a cheerleader that doesn't bone. Yeah, I can't think of a single person that liked that chick in high school.

Brobama: Writing Durrrrty

Yeah, I know, we all got massive broners watching Obama's Iowa Victory Speech on January 3rd but there was more than his affected proselytizing prose that rubbed my rod the wrong way.

First, is a booming baritone vibrato allowed in any public speaking venue outside of a pulpit or a lectern on the Mall?

Second, is a 26-year-old white kid named Jon Favreau really responsible for those bombastic phrases that draw such easy parallels to a white guy doing an impression of a black guy doing an impression of a black guy? Apparently, yes.

As evinced by this January 20th New York Times article everyone and their dad is in love with Obama's broratory skills. What would Obama say, they ask. My answer: Whatever Nixon already has.

Let's take a comparative look at Obama's Iowa Victory Speech from 2008 and Richard Nixon's second Republican nomination acceptance speech in 1972 and see if any similarities immediately jump out.

Nixon: "Speaking in a very personal sense, I express my deep gratitude to this convention for the tribute you have paid to the best campaigner in the Nixon family-my wife Pat. In honoring her, you have honored millions of women in America who have contributed in the past and will contribute in the future so very much to better government in this country."

Obama: "And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.Give it up for Michelle Obama."

Nixon: "I want to say that you have inspired us with your enthusiasm, with your intelligence, with your dedication at this convention. You have made us realize that this is a year when we can prove the experts' predictions wrong..."

Obama: "You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high...But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do."

Nixon: "This Nation proudly calls itself the United States of America. Let us reject any philosophy that would make us the divided people of America.In that spirit, I address you tonight, my fellow Americans, not as a partisan of party, which would divide us, but as a partisan of principles, which can unite us...And I ask you, my fellow Americans, tonight to join us not in a coalition held together only by a desire to gain power. I ask you to join us as members of a new American majority bound together by our common ideals."

Obama: "In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people...You said the time has come...To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states."

Nixon: "The choice in this election is not between radical change and no change. The choice in this election is between change that works and change that won't work."

Obama: "We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America."

Nixon: "I ask you, my fellow Americans, to join our new majority not just in the cause of winning an election, but in achieving a hope that mankind has had since the beginning of civilization. Let us build a peace that our children and all the children of the world can enjoy for generations to come."

Obama: "Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."

Bill Pullman: "We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests...We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"

Baltmanimore, MD

The Wire: Not 4 Attribution
Season 5, Episode 3
Directed by: Joy and Scott Kecken
Written by: Chris Collins

The latest episode of The Wire took us one step closer to the series finale where, presumably, all loose ends will tie themselves and the show's creators will leave us with a sublime ending that crushes our souls with its fatalistic view of mankind's inevitable fall while making us smile at the resilience of our ineptitude. Its title refers to the principle in journalism ethics that requires only a general source for a specific quotation. In this example, Scott, the entitled Sun reporter, fabricates a quote that he falsely attributes to Nareese in order to demonstrate his chops as a reporter to the paper's city editor. The situation nicely parallels McNulty's own equivocations in Homicide where he doctor's reports and crime scenes to create the impression of a serial killer stalking the city's vagrants. Ironically, McNulty must conjure a serial killer to capture the attention of his superiors and spur more funding to the department because a real serial killer, responsible for more than 20 bodies found in city housing, doesn't rank as a primary concern for the department's limited budget.

The convoluted story line of McNulty faking murders, strangling dead bodies, planting clues to establish pathological patterns and enlisting the help of Lester to make things MORE sensational took on a tone of the absurd. If Season 4 of The Wire was a Dickensian tale of lost souls in a heartless city ruled by corruption, then Season 5 is turning out to become a wry, Eastern European story in the vein of Milan Kundera where the only way to bear the vacuous emptiness of state-sponsored bureaucracy is to laugh at its total ineffectualness.

You can't really argue that Simon and co. aren't shooting for the absurd in Season 5. In the 4 seasons of The Wire have you seen anything more ridiculous than Marlo walking through the Caribbean Antilles asking to see his money? Or Corner Boys at Six Flags? Or Omar in a pair of shorts? Or Duq gaming on a white girl? Come on.

The direction of Joy and Scott Kecken seems like a step in a new direction for the series as well. The show has always been well-helmed and very detail oriented with attention to story paramount in the execution, but "Not For Attribution" took on an Altman quality that literally marks a new direction for the series. For example, when Alma walks into the grocery store to buy the early edition of The Sun McNulty is also there purchasing red ribbon for his pet project, in which Alma will later play a part. This cinematic technique has most recently been adopted by Stephen Soderbergh in Traffic and Paul Thomas Anderson in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. This could be a developing season 5 characteristic since we also saw it in episode 1 when Chris approaches Cedric and Ronnie in City Hall and asks directions while they are discussing Marlo Stanfield, for whom he is a henchman. Clearly this is David Simon telling us visually that everything is connected and will be made obvious in season 5.

It seems the meta nature of this season is scheduled to continue through the finale. Remember the scene in episode 2 this year where The Sun editors are discussing how best to frame a story about Baltimore's public schools? The editor-in-chief's line that he didn't want a "sprawling, amorphous depiction of a social ill" was surely a direct quote from the Season 4 brainstorming sessions the writers of the show themselves endured. According to IMDB, Chris Collins, the writer of "Not For Attribution," also penned the episode to air February 10th (episode 6) entitled, appropriately, "The Dickensian Aspect." I think it's fair to say The Wire is only going to get more self-referential this season as story lines reemerge from the past (Nick Sabotka slated to appear in episode 6!) and the show becomes a commentary on itself. That is until the finale where hope will most likely die painfully beneath the heel of city politics and a new breed of dealers, politicians, cops and killers ignorant of the errors of the past continue to perpetuate the ethos of Bodymore, Murderland.

NY Times: Whole Lotta Kolata

In her article The Myth, The Math, the Sex, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata draws attention to a statistical anomaly that doesn't quite add up. In nearly all studies men admit to having nearly twice the number of sexual partners over the course of a lifetime than women. "How can that work?" researches ask. "It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women."

One statistician attempts to explain his point figuratively, clearly a strength with someone who's dedicated their life to numbers and their relationship to each other.

“By way of dramatization, we change the context slightly and will prove what will be called the High School Prom Theorem. We suppose that on the day after the prom, each girl is asked to give the number of boys she danced with. These numbers are then added up giving a number G. The same information is then obtained from the boys, giving a number B.

Theorem: G=B

Proof: Both G and B are equal to C, the number of couples who danced together at the prom. Q.E.D.”

Hey Dr., I don't mean to quibble with your logic, but, um, it seems like you're missing out on one of the most obvious variables for the discrepancy. What if you sleep with 2 women at the same time?

No wonder Gina Kolata can't have as much sex as a normal dude. She DUMB.

Current TV Injures Shoulder Patting Itself on Back After Announcing Launch of Hip Music Content Video Blog

Current TV has been around for about 2 1/2 years struggling to be the hip center of the new media movement. Al Gore founded the network to give voice to the growing phenomenon of User Generated Content in early 2005.

A lot has happened in the realm of UGC in the past 30 months, however, and very little of it to do with Current TV. Now, I was one of the early fans of the network but the channel was borderline unwatchable. Not so much because of the content submitted by viewers, but by the offensively sterile personalities recruited by the network to represent hip, smart and engaged youth.

Can you imagine anything worse than getting hip and savvy news from this?

Gotham Chopra, contributor Current TV. Also, co-creator of K Lounge, the Kama Sutra themed bar in Manhattan that was kind of bumping that one time I went at like 5:30 on a Wednesday.

Or this?

Conor Knighton, Current TV Contributor

Or this?

Max and Jason, Contributors to Current TV. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

The corn-ball personalities they chose as their faces and the minimal success of Current TV begs the question - is San Francisco too gay to be cool?

Apparently, yes:



But in case you're still on the fence, now's the time to find out. News came out today that Current TV is launching a Music-Video blog to air frequently on the network. The segment will apparently fill the void left by channels like MTV, VH1 and BET abandoning their ostensible objectives of music programming. By focusing on "up-and-coming" acts like Dizzy Rascal (who I'm pretty sure has been kind of huge both in the UK and the US for almost 5 years now), Current TV will ipso facto become the go-to destination for mainstream music news.

There's only one problem. The address for Current TV:

118 King Street
San Francisco, CA 94107p
(415) 995-8200
f (415) 995-8201

Yup, that's the Bay Area and nothing cool having to do with white people has come out of San Francisco since Judd scored Pam the Asian on the Real World.

Even worse, Current TV prides itself on its lame locale and unashamedly provides visitors to its site a link to a Google Map showing you from exactly where that stench of smug mediocrity you find in Trader Joes grocery stores and poetry slams originates.

Current TV can encourage you to FTP them cell phone videos of My Morning Jacket live at Lollapalooza until its XML is blue in the face. That won't change what has always been the case. San Francisco's just too lame to be cool.

The Darjeeling Limited

From: Anonymous [mailto:ANONYMOUS@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:57 AM

To: TV on the INTERNETS

Subject: Re: FW: Sundance Doc winner "Manda Bala" opening @ Angelika next weekend! GO SEE THIS FANTASTIC FILM!

Body: have you seen this?

An exerpt from my emotional response:

You know, I hadn't yet, but I'm really glad I have...[EDIT]

So, you know, I've been simultaneously stoked and worried about this for some time now. On one hand, it sounds awesome. On the other, it's white people in India. And not just India, NORTH EAST INDIA, an area that holds pride in never falling to the Mughals, being the last to succumb to British Imperialism and now, apparently, the last to withstand the onslaught of white dudes with video cameras.

But if anyone had to do it I can't imagine anyone I'd be more comfortable with than Schwartzman and Anderson. I even saw a few other paliating names and faces in the trailer. Irfan Khan from the Namesake and Roman Coppola with a writing credit.

Also, you have to appreciate Anderson's style. The color schemes, the production design, the reproduction of reality so heavily steeped in theater and theatricality. Even the title is hilarious. The transcontinental trian in India is actually called The Darjeeling Express. I don't even know if a Darjeeling Limited even exists. That alone makes me believe that this movie will be awesome but will be ruined by legions of hardcore Anderson loyalists who will either blindly adore the movie or irrationally hate it. This seems like one of those flicks I'd like to see alone in the dark. With a comforter and someone nearby to carry me into bed. That part may sound weird but fuck you for being such a phillistine.

Sweet trailer. Thanks.

Sincerely,
TV on the INTERNETS

Takes Balls to Bring Vampires to HBO

I believe there are 2 main reasons why Vampire shows have been relatively nonexistent on television over the past few years. First, no one wants to be compared to Buffy. And second, a show about vampires in the age of new media is begging for an unoriginal blogger with a Typepad business account to make a "This Show Sucks (Blood)" headline.

Leave it to Alan Ball, however, to grab the undead by the incisors and bring True Blood to HBO come January 2008. On its surface the show seems like standard HBO fare.

• Take convoluted conceit (Drifters in the West : Vampires in the South)
• Place flawed characters in a location that becomes a metaphor for existence (Mobsters in suburban New Jersey ; Struggling Rock Band in Manhattan)
  
• Use hook of outlandish premise to lure audience into yet another character drama that ruminates on the themes of love, family and mortality

Based on the books by Charlaine Harris, True Blood has a lot to aspire to if the original author's website is any indication of the quality of her work. Judging by her frequented message boards and fastidiously updated blog it would seem Charlaine Harris' stories are less John Berendt and Faulkner than a healthy mix of Ann Rice and J.K. Rowling.

Even Ball admitted to the lighter tone planned for the series.

"The books are funny, scary, sexy, romantic, bizarre and really fun," Ball said. "I couldn't put them down. I will try to remain as true to the spirit of her book as possible."

He continued,

"I was ready to do something a little lighter in tone than 'Six Feet,"' Ball said. "Five years of staring into the abyss was enough."

He wasn't kidding about that lighter tone. Several of the writers slated to produce pieces for True Blood have backgrounds in sitcom and prepubescent sci-fi. Brian Buckner, for example, was nominated for 2 Emmys as a co-producer on Friends and later contributed to the ill-fated programs Joey and The Class. Raelle Tucker came from writing stints on Supernatural.

Things on the production end don't seem that much more esteemed. Production manager Bill Johnson's most notable credits are Executive Producing A Walk to Remember and acting as Unit Production Manager on Malibu's Most Wanted. Checco Varese as cinematographer doesn't look like he'll bring much in terms of mind-blowing aesthetics, either, with his most outstanding achievement a collection of Dave Mathews Band videos.

It is HBO, however, the home of The Sopranos, Deadwood, Entourage, Six Feet Under and so many other productions that boast incomparable achievement in the field of Set and Art Design. True Blood's one saving grace and harbinger for modest success seems to lie in Suzuki Ingerslev, whose art direction seems to be partially responsible for HBO's reputation as not just TV.

Come January, however, we'll see if HBO really can trump Buffy as the definitive small screen portrayal of Vampires. Or if, in the end, True Blood really will underwhelm and prompt millions of headlines across the blogosphere to claim True Blood Sucks (Alan) Balls.

Vh1: Friend, Foe, Frenemy?

I am firmly convinced that had I not had Vh1 freely fed into my apartment as an undergrad my G.P.A. would have been 0.6 points higher and I wouldn't currently be sitting in a windowless bedroom that smells like paint updating an internet TV blog for an audience of two (you know who you are, my sole RSS feeder). I had unfettered access, though, to that crack of cable, airing endless marathons of count down lists that legitimately had me wondering, "who DOES have the #4 hardest rock body?!" I would sit on that 9 foot couch, a Chipotle burrito sitting on my chest, and actively know what it was like to have television eat my brain.

Three years later Vh1 has taken its calculus of narcotizing crap and out of it actually spun a viable media platform: Celeb-reality. Shows like Flavor of Love, The Surreal Life, and I Love New York have given the network some of the highest ratings in the land of cable and, as Bill Carter in today's New York Times points out, pioneered the path for a bizarre new programming maxim:

Take a pop cultural idol from the past 20 years or so — idol being defined so broadly as to include almost anyone who ever struck the public consciousness even a glancing blow — and place him or her in some reality television context.

Carter's article raises the obvious criticisms levelled against shows like Flavor of Love, which opponents claim reify black stereotypes of minstrels and hoochies. Most interesting, however, is the paradoxical role Vh1 seeks to establish for itself as the gatekeepers of "Acceptable TV," an upcoming show starring Jack Black that "dovetails neatly with the general skepticism that VH1 executives have about the value of the Internet vs. traditional television."

Here we have Vh1, the network that brought us Mini-Me peeing on a Brady Brother, as the final arbiter of taste between what passes for measly user generated content and broadcast worthy entertainment. Maybe that passes for irony, but I'm not exactly sure of the term's definition. If only I'd spent more time in the library as an undergrad than on my couch inhaling burritos taking note of the top 40 most awesomely dirrrty songs of '04.

30 Rock: Writing Derrty

Yeah, I know 30 Rock was a rerun tonight, but the absence of anything new to write about has allowed me to rummage through the heaps of TV on the INTERNETS notes I have scrawled on the backs of "Business Reply Mail" cards that have fallen out of my sister's past issues of People and pick a bone that has for too long gone, you know, not picked. 30. Rock. Is. Stealing. Jokes.

Yup, I said it, and I'll step back, appreciate it and repeat it. 30 Rock is writing derrrty. Cheyeah.

Now I'm well aware that the standards of ethical argumentation normally require at least 3 supporting pieces of evidence for each supposition, but I only have two right now and hopefully a third will strike me by the end of this post.

First example of punch line plagiarism - tonight's repeated episode "Jack-Tor," in which, according to the info on my sister's DVR:

Liz integrates Jack into a sketch; Frank and Toofer trick Jenna into fearing for her job; Liz wonders if Tracy is faking illiteracy to skip rehearsals. Rated TV-24. Program Type: Series/Sitcom. Letterbox. Repeat.

I forget when exactly this episode aired, but it was relatively early in the season, as the show was first finding its legs, and served as one of the flash points that ignited attention for both Alec Baldwin and the show (as well as star and head-writer Tina Fey) as something more than just Suddenly Susan where the new Susan suddenly has bigger boobs and no Judd Nelson. In fact, it was a fellow TV blogger I believe, who raved about the episode's Snapple Placement scene during which the writing staff of the fictional Girlie Show criticize Alec Baldwin's character for encouraging product placement while they simultaneously throw in non-sequiturs praising Diet Snapple and its Plumagranite flavor. Yeah, we get it, it's WAY meta on like SO many levels except, wait a minute, Wayne's World did it like 15 years ago.



Second example - the episode which aired about two weeks ago that featured the debut of the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine. An obvious parody of the George Foreman Grill, the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine also mimicked the George Bluth Cornholer from Arrested Development in its dangerous shortcoming of scalding its users with burning grease.

The similarities between the shows don't stop there. Both 30 Rock and Arrested Development fall into the category of, dare I say it, post-post-modern sitcoms (in other words - sitcoms written after and with the full understanding of the paradigm shift created by '80s and '90s institutions The Simpsons and Seinfeld) that not only break the use of the 3 camera system but also find jokes in the deconstruction of language and TV-reality interplay.

For the humor found in deconstructing language one need only to look at any scene involving David Cross in Arrested Development (ex, Psychoanalyst + Therapist = Analrapist) or the Colbert Report's "The Word" segment. As for TV-reality interplay, both Arrested Development and 30 Rock rely heavily on recreating the humor of real life by inviting the audience into the world of the show's characters and making them privy to inside jokes. How many times did Arrested Development quickly toss out a self-referential joke like "hermano"? Even 30 Rock created an alternative world where jokes transcend punch lines and one liners (the kind of sitcom bricks that still form the foundation for more "traditional" fare such as Two and a Half Men or The New Adventures of Old Christine) and involve situations of shared experience like Jenna's "Rural Juror." Even Alec Baldwin's character in the episode cops to it when asked to play a GE exec in a sketch mocking GE execs:

Oh I get it. The whole self-referential thing. Letterman hates the suits. Stern yells at his boss. Nixon's sock-it-to-me on Laugh In. Yeah, hippy humor.

In my opinion, 30 Rock is still the best new sitcom of the 2006 - 2007 season and has proven for many critics that the sitcom is no longer a moribund genre. However, it's important to realize originality is still the basis of creativity and without it you're just writing derrrty.

I know that's not a third supporting piece of evidence for my original argument but that's all I have written on my "Business Reply Mail Notes" I've scrounged up off the floor among old Chipotle wrappers. Cheyeah.

Studio 60 Continues Not Sucking Streak

Until I learn the purpose of the TV blog "recaplet" and how to successfully write a good one this will be how I shall address the airings of most recent episodes.

Show: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Air Date: Monday, January 22, 2007
Title: Monday
Writer: Aaron Sorkin *

Commentary: Without completely losing the Religious Right critique he's been using as the moral center of the show, a schtick a lot of viewers have grown tired of, Sorkin kicked off the second half of the show's first season with a strong story incorporating the finer aspects of his past work: intriguing overarching plot points, richly written women characters and the painful tenderness of unrequited love.

One interesting thing to take away from Monday's episode is Sorkin's maturing exploration of race. Predominantly a non-issue in Sports Night, race became an awkward scepter of self-righteousness which Sorkin used to pat his own back in certain episodes of the West Wing. In Monday's Studio 60, however, the developing story line of Simon Stiles, his race and his relationship with a young, black writer introduces a topic often noticed but rarely discussed - the black identity within the history of American comedy.

Perhaps it was of no oversight of his own that Sorkin wrote the scene between Simon Stiles and the new, black writer for an episode to air 30 years after the premier of that other great institution of American television, Roots.

Maybe the improbable is possible; Sorkin can be topical without being pedantic; maybe someday I'll learn to write a recaplet.

*Sorkin only gets a "created by" credit not a "teleplay by."