Ikea Loot

Long time no update! (10 days according to Blogger) Went with my friend over the weekend to Ikea to help her pick out a couch & dresser and do some wedding registry stuff ("But where's her fiance?" you ask. I know, right?). I picked up some smaller stuff for myself, including a battery-powered DIODER that doesn't cost $40 a strip, and that has a motion detector to light up instead of a switch, which I personally think is really stupid. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that they don't tell you about this anywhere on the display or package and when you open it up you're like, "Uh, I'm supposed to stick this in a drawer?" (per the directions, apparently the Swedes don't want you sticking it anywhere but in a drawer or some other dark hole)

I got a really cool retro-looking clock for like $5, I'm amazed at how cheap but sturdy just about everything is that they sell. As I'm writing this, my computer sits on a soft pine desk that's about 5 or 6 years old now that is still holding up well, from Ikea of course. I bought the most soothing apples and cinammon candle, as well as some ridiculous plates and bowls. I make sure to purchase at least one piece of flatware or a plate, bowl or cup everytime I go there. Granted, nothing I get ever matches because of this method of purchasing things, but it makes for an interesting and eclectic - and unending - combination of place settings. The candle was a big deal for me because normally candles or air fresheners end up nauseating me, this one is quote unquote juuuuust right. I'm a regular insomniac, and somehow that candle made me pleasantly drowsy. After all, smell is the most powerful memory receptor in terms of the five senses.

Chuck's Renewed....Maybe?!

So we may or may not be seeing the Orange Orange sometime soon depending on who you believe. TVbythenumbers seems to concur with nearly everyone and say that NBC hasn't made a decision yet but that the prez of NBC has told lead producer Josh Schwartz to "remain positive". But then again, I just found this on the very same site that seems to nail down that it is, in fact renewed. And then there's the site that "confirmed" it first, now saying that it may or may not be true. AHHHHHHHHH *pee-wee's playhouse "word of the day" noises* At any rate, chances seem extra good that our favorite supergeek (that now knows kung fu!) will make a triumphant return next season.

Blog Needs Design Revisions... Badly

NT

Another Chuck-date

So apparently the real push has begun for Chuck's renewal. Everyone is commanded to go to Subway on Monday before the season finale. There's the Twitter campaign that's going on, as well. Even the show's executive producer and co-creator Josh Schwartz is commenting on it:

In an interview at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Schwartz said he had a good meeting with NBC about “Chuck’s” future, but he would not speculate on whether the show would survive. NBC, which is stripping Jay Leno across the 10 p.m. time period five nights a week, does not have a lot of real estate for shows like Schwartz’s that are on the bubble.

In the meantime, “Chuck” fans are taking matters into their own hands. According to Schwartz, there is a push on the Internet to get fans to go to Subway on Monday before the season finale to buy sandwiches in support of the show. Why Subway? Because the sandwich shop was featured prominently in a recent episode. So much for product placement turning off viewers. “It shows a real sophistication on the part of the viewer,” Schwartz said.

The site that I got this from, TV By the Numbers, also speculated that perhaps if 40,000 people went to buy an Insight from Honda on Monday (pointing to the commercial posted below, that Zachary Levi did last Monday during the show, Heroes' Greg Grunberg also did one during his show) that would make a statement, but that 40,000 subs would probably not. I personally concur with TVbtn about a "fan push" not making a difference right now, simply because the economy is so crappy and NBC -- if I didn't mention it before -- is 4th out of the major FOUR networks, so that extra meaning you probably would get out of fans vying for a show's renewal will probably just get buried by pure, hard numbers now. Sad though it is, it's kind of a relief that it won't make a difference, because I'm more of a Quizno's man. =P

Weird, one of the main articles on that site says that "Chuck idles" in it's headline, but then there's a contradictory article about "Strong Results Highlight NBC's Primetime Week April 13-19" specifically mentioning how strong Chuck was:

* Also on Monday, “Chuck” hit a six-week high in both adults 18-49 and total viewers, and “Medium” conjured up its highest 18-49 rating in eight weeks (up 23 percent vs. the prior week), while making contact with its biggest overall audience in seven weeks.

Interesting. Well, enough speculation for now, still hoping for that golden renewal news.

Mreh @ TV, i.e. - american audiences suck

I'm not normally one of those people that goes crazy over TV shows. I usually take it for granted that shows I like will be renewed, and if they aren't, then oh well. I mean, I do get pissy when something I like is canceled or on the verge of cancellation, but I'm not some fat Joss Whedon fangirl (is that redundant?) that signs a bunch of e-petitions and goes to cons with a paper petition and makes t-shirts that they still wear 5 years after the show is canceled. But as of late with the economy (dun dun dun I finally dropped the E-bomb) the way it is networks are kinda slimming down their "pickins'" to nothing and the network that I thought was doing better than everyone is actually doing the worst out of the major four.

Apparently NBC is shit at this point. It's funny how quickly things can change, Heroes was this "breakout hit" and then the next season they're calling it crap. With shows like The Office (which I don't watch for the most part), 30 Rock (which I don't watch but heard is good), My Name is Earl, the aforementioned Heroes, that Life show that I hated (which I assumed would make it wonderful in the ratings) and all of those crappy Law & Order shows that everyone seems to love, I figured that NBC was on the top of the heap. How mistaken I was.

So that brings me to my point of order: Chuck. Chuck is apparently on the precipice of getting hucked off the TV cliff. I like Chuck, a lot. I have sat idly by and watched The Riche$ get canceled, 10 Items or Less (even though it might've deserved it in its 3rd season) and many others I'm sure I'm forgetting that did not make the cut. And if there were superior-performing shows around I wouldn't be too miffed about Chuck riding the cancellation fence, but goddamn. First, I'd like to preface this rant with a fact or two. One, NBC is paying Jay Leno a varitable mint to do his show at 10 PM five nights a week, this working two-fold: one being that dumping more money into Mr. Leno's pockets means less money to make more shows with and two -- perhaps more importantly -- it eliminates five hours of primetime programming from the lineup every week. Also, Chuck goes up against Fox's House every week, and has been since the beginning of this season, that's gotta spell doom for every show up against it. House is pretty much Fox's number one show, it's #1 in the scripted department and only loses to American Idol (groan) in terms of overall viewership. I love House. In fact, House is the only show that I will drop everything for to watch, even if I've seen the ep 20 times already.

That said, there are a lot of shows that are just awful that I cannot fathom how they stay on the air, other than audiences having really bad tastes. Now I'm not even going to bother bringing up Lost, because that's a moot point. I will, however bring up FRINGE and Dollhouse and Lie to Me. I've pretty much made peace with the fact that shitty shows like Dancing with the Stars and American Idol are cash cows and cost the network little to nothing and enthrall the dumbass masses. Fringe began airing at the same time as Chuck, and I watched both. I thought that Chuck had kind of a silly premise at first, but it quickly grew on me. Fringe never really held my interest at all, and when they brought the stereotypical characters in, the crappy "plot" and compared it to the X-Files -- ew. Then it became "acclaimed", wow, I thought, "People cannot have that bad a taste in shows." Then that Lie to Me show came along, and that was gimmicky, poorly cast, poorly acted and generic. Somehow this show is probably getting a renewal. And Dollhouse, despite having the combination of getting the Friday night death slot and being abyssimal, has somehow weaseled it's way to "50-50" on getting a renewal.

And all you can blame are the numbers. The studio isn't really at fault. If not enough people watch a show, it's gone. TV is a business, afterall. So that brings me to the conclusion that the typical viewer in this country has a room temperature IQ and loves repetitive, regurgative idiocy and loathes new and innovative entertainment. They also love namesakes, Southland is made by the creators of ER and I can guarantee that'll get picked up, and Law & Order and all of its incarnations are in like their 20,000th seasons now, right? I don't see them getting canceled anytime soon. And don't tell me that the idea of karaoke being televised and then judged and then spit back into 6 other forms like dancing, is innovative.

WTB Weather Machine

House totally looks like the T-800 in this picture. After a stroke.

Goddamn is the weather unbalanced here. To add to that horribleness, it's like a sauna in this room, what with every essential and plenty of non-essential electronics running at all hours. (Fish clock, USB owl and beerbot anyone?) I wish it would just climb over 55, 45 is uncomfortable to leave the window open all the time.

Dead by comparison: Chopping Block vs. Hell's Kitchen

A few weeks back the show The Chopping Block debuted on NBC, and as I'm not a real TV-o-phile unless I know a show I like is flagging, I just assumed that it was doing okay. The big tagline surrounding the show was that Marco Pierre White had made Chef Gordon Ramsay cry when he was training him or whatever. I got sucked into the hype a little bit. I was also enthused by the first ep because the people that were on here seemed to not be so "organic" as was the case in a lot of contestants on Hell's Kitchen. So after seeing the first episode I told a friend just that. I think it went something like: "This Chopping Block show is good, it doesn't have that white trashy element that a lot of the Hell's Kitchen groups have had so far."

But after the "new" wore off, it was exactly that that was the problem. All of those people in the first episode that were "new and refreshing", were now just the opposite, boring and cardboard. The show played out like something you'd see on Food Network or Home & Garden -- this was primetime, not cable showing you how to make a souflee. Not even this supposedly merciless Marco was being pushy, let alone showing this mysterious fierceness that put Ramsay on his ass or whatever. Honestly it wasn't even like Marco was in charge, it was more like he was an observer or something, he always seemed very disaffected or disinterested and like he was there in a narrative capacity more than a chef.

The contestants weren't much better. Hell's Kitchen makes you feel like -- for better or worse -- the people vying for the title they're driving at really need that job. (Which couldn't be further from the truth, apparently, if you read the Wiki about what the winners of each season are doing now. One even turned down the initial job immediately after they won it.) The people on The Chopping Block all seem to range from "Weeeeell me and my friend thought this might make a neat weekend project!" to, "Well we already have a diversified portfolio and a chain of restaurants back home but we're looking to expand." Thus making you not really give a shit about them. Individually, the people don't seem that interesting, in fact I can't remember a single person's name or what their backstory is from TCB. Aaaaaand apparently I wasn't the only one. The Chopping Block failed hardcore, being replaced after only 3 episodes (With episodes of fucking law and order no less. No show deserves that fate.).

So I ate my initial words. Everyone knows I'm not a reality fan at all, so it's a miracle that I like either of these shows. And I think I do like them because they are reality. The situations may be set up for the purpose of sifting through the garbage so to speak, but this will be an actual job opportunity for someone. It isn't B-list celebs and fucking Steve-O and other retards dancing around with bimbos, or some mental-defective, deranged idiot or rich little snot trying to caterwaul for some drugged up bitch and self-aggrandizing English egomaniac. I respect Ramsay, he didn't bullshit his way into the limelight, he doesn't pretend to be anything he's not.

The one thing these two shows do have in common is the fact that for any reality show to work, you need your dramatic idiot types with weak character and little to no skills and then you need your "the drama's in there but you have to work to draw it out of me" with skills-balanced type. Of course there are varying degrees of these two extremes, but I guess what I'm trying to say is you need drama to make it work. You need people that are going to react. If you just throw in a bunch of professionals that are going to do everything right into the kitchen together, no one's going to tune in. If you throw a bunch of people that know how to cradle themselves and cry and fight and piss and moan at each other but have no skills -- well then you really don't have a show, at least not one with a goal. Hell's Kitchen normally has a cast that has this catalyst in a mixture where the results are entertaining. You may or may not give a crap about them as people, or about who wins, but the rotating HK cast is most certainly entertaining more often than not.

The Chopping Block had that drama, but not in the right mixture. There were people that butted heads, but not really in an entertaining way. You need to set it up so there is a dominant type and another dominant type going head-to-head, maybe more than a few in some instances. TBC had a few people that were bitchy and bullied others, but the other side either blew them off or relented, and that just isn't interesting television. By comparison, Hell's Kitchen this season had a cast where I did not find myself rooting for anyone but that's okay because I did want people off of there, which is equally as good a catalyst for continued-watching. I thought pretty much everyone on HK this season was obnoxious. If I was really hard-pressed to pick someone that I wanted to win, it'd be Andrea. I'm convinced there's a "fodder" catergory that they use to pick applicants that are for sure not going to make it to the end, how else would you explain Lacey -- the bitchiest lardass that ever existed's presence? I'm really glad that HK is returning for its 6th and 7th seasons, the 6th being broadcast in July (yay!), and hopefully the cast will remain as reactionary and pushy as ever.