Cuppacafe

Yep, you heard that right, The new word is that TNT (the cable network that rescued the NBC-axed superb cop drama, Southland from sudden death), just might be able to come to the rescue for Law & Order (which has admittedly grown long in the tooth). The story that is floating around now is that Dick Wolf is attempting to broker a last-minute deal to bring the series into a record-breaking 21st season.

...Wolf described the "Law & Order" flagship as "in a medically induced coma, waiting for a life-saving medicine."

We can only hope that it works.

The Perfessor

OK, First, now would be the time to tell you something I learned in like grade School. The Vikings misnamed both Iceland (which is warm, green, and habitable) and Greenland (which is cold, brutal, and unlivable), so as to confuse their enemies. Second, there is this thing called the "Ring of Fire" where the magma from the center of the Earth boils up to the surface and spews out.

It is back to Skool for you!.

The Perfessor

You see, here is why I like Jon Stewart so much, he is able to take a complex, convoluted, partisan issue, and boil it down to its core essence. Watch as he dissects the Wall Street Meltdown. He really gets to the most salient parts about half-way through this bit. Seriously, it is worth sitting through the whole thing to hear the explanation.

Now watch him as he goes after the Catholic Church's "swift" condemnation for a German pedophile priest.

Don't you just love it?

The Perfessor

I was chatting with Walt earlier today and told him that a dispute between ABC and my local cable provider (Cablevison) has caused ABC to cut the feed as of midnight this morning. According to ABC it is Cablevisions fault, and (you guessed it) Cablevision, it is all ABC's fault.

The Disney Co., which owns the ABC network, cut off service to the city's 3.1 million Cablevision customers after the two sides failed to reach a deal.

ABC officials acted on their threat to pull the channel unless Cablevision agreed to pay a rights fee to offer the top-rated station to its subscribers.

"Cablevision has once again betrayed its subscribers by losing ABC7, the most popular station in the tri-state area," Channel 7 president Rebecca Campbell said in a statement.

Cablevision blamed the stall in negotiations on Disney CEO Bob Iger.

What this mostly means to ABC customers, is that they won't get to watch the Oscars tonight. Fortunately, I live in CT, and we have a local ABC Affiliate (WTNH in New Haven), and can still access the feed through them.

Needless to say, this is (obviously) a short-term fix, and, well, something is going to have to be done.

Personally, I'm a little suspect, as since ABC is still essentially a "broadcast" channel, the Federal Government has decreed that the broadcast belongs to the public and should be free, so how can ABC pull the feed. An interesting question since the FCC doesn't control cable programming.

The $40 million that ABC is asking for from cablevision is actually rather interesting given as how its parent company (Disney), is renown for being the living embodiment of it's tightwad character, Scrooge McDuck.

The Perfessor

OK, now this one is just fun. We just learned that ex-Governatrix, Sarah Palin's recent appearance on The Tonight Show (with old/new host Jay Leno) was digitally altered to make her appear more appealing. Yep, that's right, according to an individual who was in the audience, she totally bombed in her stand-up routine, and was not nearly the media darling that she appeared to be during the ham-handed, softball interview.

"Who needs teleprompters when a studio can simply insert canned laughter?

I've dealt with sound engineering for 30 years, as a film maker, interviewer, musician, working with master reel to reel tapes/decks at EMS Music in Seattle in the 80's as a sound duplication engineer, or setting sound levels for my and other bands in live situations at shows. I won a Hollywood award for animation in 2000. I know sound. And it's my opinion that audio portions of Sarah Palin's March 2nd appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight show were added or amplified, edited before broadcast to make it appear that Sarah Palin was more welcome than she was.

I know. I was there."

Makes you wonder how much of what we "witness" on TV has been faked (yes, I'm talking to you Fox News)

"They added laughter where there was none during uncomfortable portions. Well, there was some laughter. Mine, of derision. During those pregnant pauses in her performance I was laughing long and loud, couldn't help myself as much of what she was saying was utterly surreal, ridiculous, hypocritical - nonsense, spewed platitudes, pushed buttons. I was seriously thinking of leaving as it was getting hysterically unfunny.

After sitting through the taping of the show in the studio I can recount many portions where there was little or no laughter or response, but at the later broadcast they are smoothed over with applause and laughter that WERE NOT THERE at the taping. Groans, hoots, grumbling, or just dead silence - all missing."

Oh yeah, truth in reporting makes us want to add that the person who made this blogpost, was not only a former resident of Alaska (says he live there for 12 years), but is no fan of Palin.

In fact the guy also the published Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book, and had actually brought several to the taping, and passed them out to the audience prior to the start of the show.

Oh yeah, apparently there is a story making the rounds that Palin (who recently lifted everything from an Oscar freebie table) is currently pitching a reality show featuring her.

Talk about the vanishing ratings on TV, eh?

The Perfessor

So, after all is said and done, and all the noise is blasted across the airwaves, it turns out that NBC might have simply been rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Leno's vaunted return to the Tonight Show are actual lower (yes lower) than Conan's opening night some six months earlier...

NBC's "Tonight Show" returned Monday evening to a solid if unspectacular rating that exceeded Leno's comparable "Tonight" average from last year, yet underperformed Conan O'Brien's "Tonight Show" debut from last June.

"Tonight" drew 6.6 million viewers and a 1.6 adults 18-49. That's down 58% from Conan O'Brien's first night as the new "Tonight" host -- which was out of season, and without an Olympic run-up.

Seriously, where is Dick Cavet when you need him?

The Perfessor