MagneticMediaFed

Let me describe my current situation: I have just moved from New York City to Nashville, Tennessee. To make the move as streamlined and economical as possible I opted to leave behind several things. One of those things was my trusty 20″ Panasonic tube standard-definition television. Televisions are (or rather, were) quite the bulky piece of equipment. Because of this decision I have been keeping myself up-to-date in the world of televised media by watching whatever I can on my computer. Because we now live in a world where there are myriad legal (and perhaps a few legally dubious) options for television content on computers I have to assume that this is not a method of consumption unique to me and my current situation. I have to assume many thousands (millions?) of viewers watch video on their computers or, frankly, it probably wouldn’t exist.

This leads me to a very interesting development that I believe to be unique to the process of watching video on a computer monitor. Tonight I was catching the most recent episode of FX’s stellar drama The Riches when the screen dipped to black where the commercial would have been had I been watching on legit cable (let’s just gloss over the fact that it wasn’t). Well, because one sits so much closer to the screen while watching video on a computer, when that video dips to black it is not unlikely for the viewer to catch a rather revealing glimpse of themselves in the reflection of the suddenly black monitor. It is one of those rare moments when one sees themselves as they actually are, completely unencumbered by pretense. For me, during this episode of The Riches I two-times caught myself grinning like an idiot as the drama of the episode escalated to the point of cliffhanger just before cutting away to commercial. It is rare in life to see oneself with this degree of utter realism. In the morning, while looking into the mirror while brushing our teeth we know what to expect. It’s an image we’ve seen millions of times before. In the presence of cameras we may believe the image being captured is reality, but more often than not what we see is the adoptive presence of someone who knows they are about to be seen and recorded.

But those unexpected flashes of black, where we suddenly see ourself as an active participant, that’s where the truth lies. Smiles, grins, looks of horror, boredom, curiosity, these are the most accurate reviews for any program on the air. Next time you start streaming something to your computer, don’t be surprised if what you see if yourself.

Don’t buy it, but love it.

Yesterday afternoon, while watching the second season premiere of The Riches I began to think about the general improbability of the action on the show — how the set-up is so inherently ridiculous I’m astonished that they’ve already gotten an entire season under their belts and can hardly fathom the creators putting out at least another half-dozen this spring. I mean, how have these characters not been caught yet? But the thing is, the show works. I mean really works, like way better than a lot of those series that actually have believable plot lines. I started to think about which method makes for a better television experience. The short answer is its all about execution. The longer answer is after the jump…

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I wanna go back!

I suppose in about eight weeks I could proven severely wrong. I suppose this could be true. For as a season that was designed to tell a very specific story over a very specific number of episodes (16), it is quite likely that I and all the rest of the beach-based sci-fi nerdalati could riot in the streets for leaving us hanging with the inevitable faux-finale. Yes, we will gather together with torches and SPF 60 and mobile devices that allow us to maintain contact with our favorite gadget blogs and will whine and complain about the writers, the AMTPT, ABC, Cuse and Lindelof and the rest of the cast and why they couldn’t just cross the damn line and maybe squeeze out a nineth episode — something, anything to prolong the misery that is being denied what is rightfully ours.

But right now, today, as American’s quickly find worthy substitutes for televised entertainments in the face of a strike that has rendered much of the entire medium culturally irrelevant, LOST is the big winner. I’ll tell you why after the jump…

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Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed my day off by watching the fourth episode of The Wire season five on HBO On-Demand. As I was sitting in my living room watching it there seemed to this perfect storm of politics swirling around me as the episode played out. I was home from work for the MLK holiday, which obviously has its own political implications, especially as I enjoyed the comfort of my gentrified New York neighborhood watching a series ostensibly about the progress (or lack thereof) of the African American community in our country’s cities. The best parts of the episode (and I might argue the best parts of the this season as a whole) dealt with the complex maneuvering of political capital by Baltimore’s fictional mayor in order to further his own political ambitions. While watching this and thinking about why I was staying home form work I couldn’t help but also think about the current presidential race that is now going full bore and the disconnect between what I was currently seeing on screen and what the candidates have been screaming about on the stump. More (with very minor spoilers) after the jump…

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Image via apple.com

Right now we’re mid-cycle when it comes to new and exciting technology. At the Consumer Electronics Show that wrapped up last week in Las Vegas the “sweeping technological innovation” seemed to be ridiculously thin televisions, a product whose actual benefits can be measured with a six-inch plastic ruler. Even my beloved Apple couldn’t find a way to properly dazzle us Tuesday at this year’s Macworld Expo. What was the big product? A thin laptop. Are we really this short on space? (Those who have seen my bedroom… ladies… probably shouldn’t answer.)

Having a couple days to mull it over, I’ve started to realize that the gem of Macworld was not the MacBook Air, but instead the companies revamped Apple TV — a product that still isn’t quite ready for prime time but does give us a very realistic look at how the television experience could change (soon). More after the jump…

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A spherical head

I suppose this is something of a holdover from Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, but I’ve been thinking about it since the AP called the race for Hillary Clinton. Let me set the scene: My roommate and I are watching MSNBC’s coverage because we’re both hopelessly addicted/in love to/with Tim Russert and I find Keith Olberman fine enough. We’re kind of doing that thing where we’re half watching the slowly creeping numbers of their various on-screen graphics and half making fun of everything on screen despite the fact that not-so-deep-down we clearly love all of this and don’t want it to end. Then the AP calls the race for Hillary Clinton and the night is ostensibly over. But instead of flipping off the television I flip back over to CNN to see what Wolf “They’re so black” Blitzer has to say about things. What they had to say was that CNN “was not prepared to call the race for Mrs. Clinton.” GAME ON! More after the jump…

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Pencils down?

Last night I was watching the return of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Both shows came back without their writers despite desperately trying to make their own deal with the union, and one could tell… kinda. Your typical episode of either of those programs is highly written. Last night it felt like the shows were half-written. The hosts were clearly out there trying to make something out of nothing, but at the same time, there were plenty of well-timed jokes and video pieces and by damn if it didn’t seem like there was at least some sort of script they were going by. Frankly, I found the whole thing very confusing. Was there writing taking place? Is this aloud? Doesn’t even a little writing kind of hurt the writer’s cause? The rules seems so complex. Originally I was thinking these late-night shows were really going to crack this thing wide open and make the AMPTP go back to the table. They would expose the hideousness and hypocrisy of the network stooges, but instead Jay is doing the same show he’s always done, Letterman has the artillery but isn’t turning the screws and now Stewart and Colbert are producing a half-wattage show that appears to neither sting the opposition nor illustrate a world where they simply can’t survive without their writing staff. It’s incredibly frustrating.

Is it wrong to think the shows that were forced back on the air without their writers should be taking a dive — that the hosts should be intentionally tanking to force everyone back to the bargaining table? Oh, I should say here that I am not a professional labor negotiator.

Please enjoy my thoroughly greased biceps!

If you were wondering how many minutes of NBC’s revamped American Gladiators you would have to watch before your overall sense of nostalgia would be dwarfed by your overall sense of shame, well the answer is three. Yes, in three short minutes dreams of Nitro and “The Gauntlet” where murdered at the hands of ridiculous scripted dialogue, cheesy back stories and a James Hatfield circa Ride the Lightening-esque character named Wolf who actually howls when addressed. Most troubling, however, is not the awfulness that is American Gladiators (that was something I’m sure we all could have deduced on our own), but the continued repackaging and marketing of our youth. More after the jump…

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HBO is going to be posting new episodes of The Wire on HBO On-Demand a week before they air. Because of this, and because “seeing them early” doesn’t really mean “seeing them fast” I have watched the season five premiere three (3!) times over the past week. Some would say this may be excessive. Those people are idiots. More after the jump…

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The line for Wednesday’s show, the first in eight weeks.

These are dark times for fans of television. The writers are in the middle of a seemingly endless strike that has effectively wiped original scripted programming from the networks (both broadcast and cable) for the foreseeable future. While there are some new series in the can, only a few have any significant buzz behind them (like, say, half a season of Lost). Two and a half days into 2008 and there are only two television events that I was genuinely excited about. The first is the fifth (and final) season premiere of The Wire this Sunday (an episode which I’ve actually already seen on HBO On-Demand). The second, and dare I say the more culturally significant of the two (at least when it comes to ‘the now’), was Wednesday’s return of the late night talk shows, specifically The Late Show with David Letterman. More after the jump…

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