#48 – The Push Principle – Recorded 8/19/07

Right now, we’re like a show that just had its season finale and hasn’t heard yet if it’s going to come back for another one. We don’t expect that anyone’s going to be sending letters or peanuts or postcards or whatever the equivalent would be for us. (But then, this never was really about you, was it?)

But let’s not dwell on that too much. The new TV season will come and we’ll be back or we won’t. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this show. It exists independent of all of that.

We get to Scott Baio Is 45 And Single and are fine with not having to ever go back to it. The respective ends of John From Cincinnati and Hell’s Kitchen aren’t exactly the finales we would have chosen to parallel ours, but seriously, we’ll take them however we can get them. The rest (Entourage, Flight of the Conchords, My Boys, Weeds, On the Lot, Greek, Top Chef, Mad Men and Psych) will have to soldier on without us. I hope they’ll be okay.

See you in September…?

#47 – Victimology – Recorded 8-12-07

Apparently, two weeks wasn’t time enough away. Or perhaps is was too much? Either way, this week feels a little like we’re preparing our living will. But don’t allow that to impair your ability to join the discussion.

There’s a little bit of catching up to do, with the finales of DeGrassi and the beleaguered Next Food Network Star having come at an inopportune time. Saving Grace, however, couldn’t have timed things better. John From Cincinnati will have to wait another painfully pretentious week, and Damages, Eureka and Burn Notice may never be heard from again (or at all), but Entourage, Flight of the Conchords, Hell’s Kitchen, Greek, My Boys, On the Lot, Top Chef, Mad Men and Psych are all apparently important enough to make the show. And thanks to Showtime there’s Californication, which at the time felt like we were ahead of the game. But at this point, it barely qualifies as timely.

Tangents II

Once again, rather than go dark for a week (or two) this is a collection of deleted bits from previous shows (specifically episodes 36-46.) Once again, don’t start here if you’re new, and once again, there’s no point to trying to tell you what you’ll hear about because it’s a variety of subjects ranging from stuff you’d think belonged in a regular show (The World Series Of Pop Culture) to stuff that clearly doesn’t (Once) to stuff that might not belong anywhere anymore (the Western genre) which was probably the reason it was cut in the first place.

Oh yeah, and here’s the link to that Onion article Jack sent us.

#46 – Pulling Up Stakes – Recorded 7-22-07

Since Hilary won’t be around for a couple weeks and can’t quit TV cold turkey, she decided to exit gradually by not watching Burn Notice, the premiere of Side Order Of Life and the finale of Traveler.  Even so, there was still apparently too much leftover this week.  John From Cincinnati can’t get its act(ing) together, The Next Food Network Star can’t do a simple background check, State Of Mind can’t stop daydreaming, Entourage just can’t stop, Flight Of The Conchords can’t stop copying itself, Hell’s Kitchen can’t remember it’s a gameshow, Greek can’t possibly be this good (right?), On The Lot can’t pretend women can direct, Euerka can’t take itself seriously, Top Chef can’t maintain friendships, Mad Men can’t stop shocking us with things we already know, DeGrassi can’t stop going there, Standoff can’t even get a decent farewell from us and Psych can’t be a better way to end the week.

This is what happens when you decide to try to watch most of what’s on TV in a year.

Somehow we’re still talking about the Emmys.

This actually is our Emmy post.

Below the cut, Darwin and I offer our takes on the Emmy nominations, which were announced today.

#45 – Iconoclasm – Recorded 7-15-07

It’s what you’ve all been waiting for. This week, we get in a big, fat fight. Sort of. The more Darwin yells, the more I giggle. Riveting. But still, what is it with religion on TV? Discussions like this could be what David Milch had in mind when he created John From Cincinnati. But in other news, The Next Food Network Star is welcomed warmly, especially compared to still trying to talk about Entourage. While On the Lot and Hell’s Kitchen are regulars now, whether we like it or not, we’re still testing Greek and Eureka to see what we think. (Or at least I am.) Traveler and Top Chef return, Burn Notice continues its slide into nothingness and Degrassi and Standoff continue to be awesome. And then there was Psych, the happiest way to the end the week…

#44 – What Would Kenny Luby Do? – Recorded 7-6-07

Probably he wouldn’t listen to this week‘s show. But he’d respect us for doing what we had to do and for just pushing ahead, not stopping to worry about the sound quality… or voice quality in my case. The Fourth of July gave us a little break from our Wednesday shows, but the rest of our now standard summer slate still aired including John From Cincinnati, Entourage, Flight of the Conchords and Hell’s Kitchen. It’s amazing how much we have to say about On the Lot even though Darwin technically wasn’t supposed to be watching it anymore. We expected a lot of joy out of the end of-the-week shows— Burn Notice, Degrassi and Standoff—but maybe we put too much pressure on them and they started panicking. I suspect next week Psych will show them how to wrap things up as effortlessly as possible.

#43 – White Noise – Recorded 7-1-07

So wow. Not since the very early days of this (namely the first three episodes) has the sound been this terrible. If we had even an ounce of professionalism or an ounce of cause to feel professional, we probably wouldn’t have put this up. But we don’t, so we did. And here it is.

To add to the awfulness, I didn’t have my notes and after all the Tyler Perry’s House Of Payne lately, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Thankfully. But despite all this, if you don’t try to listen, you’ll miss the continued dissension that is HBO Sunday, the sneaky meaninglessness of Hell’s Kitchen, what my father thinks about Heartland, the overt meaninglessness of On the Lot, Traveler’s middle-of-the-roadiness, Top Chef’s disdain for middle-of-the-roadiness, the end of The Starter Wife (brought to you by Pond’s), an ultra-happy exit from Studio 60, the toothy premiere of Burn Notice, an anxiety-ridden return of DeGrassi, and Standoff. For which we’ve already used our allotment of adjectives. Plus Hilary’s controversial stance on abortion. Now that’s worth enduring a little background noise for, isn’t it?

#42 – Last Looks – Recorded 6-24-07

I’m starting to feel a bit oppressed by summer, and it’s not just the heat (despite the best efforts of the Hell’s Kitchen graphics department). Truly, it was hard to get through some of this week’s shows. Darwin and I continue to get very different things out of HBO’s Sunday night lineup of John From Cincinnati, Entourage and the new series Flight of the Conchords. But we’re united in our adoration of Creature Comforts and our… disappointment? in Heartland. All of our other summer shows—On the Lot, Traveler, Top Chef, The Starter Wife, Studio 60 and Standoff—remain as good and as bad as they ever were, which is something of a relief, I guess. Though what’s really relieving is knowing that at least two of these shows only have one more episode left.