MagneticMediaFed

I’m Vinnie Van Lowe and I want your vote.

Some quick thoughts on a so-so V-Mars. Again, the mystery of the week wasn’t particularly interesting in terms of actual mystery and trying to figure out who did what. The story seemed to have much more purpose in that all of our characters are going to be disbursed throughout the world come summer.

Quick nitpicky item: Piz gets an internship with Pitchforkmedia and says he’ll have to move to New York. Aren’t they based out of Chicago? Sorry, I don’t want to be “that guy” — the guy who doesn’t understand television physics. More troubling was that he was actually considering taking an internship at a local radio station instead so he could remain close to Veronica (a total LC move if you ask me).

Things I loved: the Vinnie Van Lowe political ad, the way Veronica shook her head when her dad was talking about her “gentleman callers,” Dick showing some emotion, Keith positioning his P.I. test neatly at the top of the drawer, and the fact that again, Piz got an internship at Pitchfork despite having a Jet poster in his room.

Last night I watched both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for the first time in 2007. I had been watching Colbert pretty religiously into February before taking a break. TDS, on the other hand I had quit watching sometime last fall. Given that sweeps is in full bloom I figured I might as well see how things are sitting over there in Comedy Central’s late-night division.

As it turns out, both shows are more or less how they were when I last watched, which I suppose is as comforting as it should be. The Daily Show did get a new set. It seems like the program is single-handedly keeping New Yorks booming set-building-industry operating at full steam.

The good news is that the increasingly early political season should provide a much-needed jolt of humor in what had otherwise turned into a pretty dire half-hour of comedy. I mean how many times can you sit back and laugh at the non-joke of the United States’ one-time blissful ignorance. Luckily, presidential primary candidates know how to bring the funny (at least Kucinich).

At the bottom of the hour The Colbert Report is still comedy packed, but the character’s freshness seems dated. His dual-mug gracing the cover of GQ this month is probably a year late. This isn’t to say the show shouldn’t be watched. It clearly provides much more of a venue for creativity than TDS, simply based on the format. The thing is neither of these programs are really designed to be watched every night — well, they are and they aren’t. Obviously the programs themselves want you to tune in and want to reward those who tune in often (The Late Show is masterful at paying off long runners, but we’re not talking Letterman here), but anyone who insists on watching hundreds of episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report day in and day out is really no different from the person who watches Headline News all day or insists upon seeing Jeopardy before the night can really begin. I say this because I am that guy and I can spot our own.

ONE: Did anyone else find the judging round of last night’s Top Chef to be a bit of cop out? Sure, Cliff would have been eliminated reguardless of his Tami/David-influenced prank/ouster, and yes, the contestants had cooked better than they had all season, but surely one of those four could have done more. Elia could have not broken that chocolate heart. Marcel could have not had such a ridiculous haircut. I don’t know, Sam is still alive so I’m happy.

TWO: Tonight, either the real or fake Stephen Colbert will be appearing on The O’Reilly Factor AND culture warrior Bill O’Reilly will be appearing on The Colbert Report. Tune in and watch a cartoon character debate a human (but you won’t know which is which). [8:00pm FOX News Channel, 11:30pm Comedy Central]

THREE: According to the AP, CBS is annoyed they went to all this effort to attract more viewers than any other network and yet still can’t get people to talk about their programs at the water cooler. To fight this the network has decided to focus more on “BUZZ” (I’d have suggested “Zazz!”). Says the article:

CBS is annoyed by the lack of attention paid by the industry, critics and awards shows to series like “NCIS,” which has done particularly well since this past summer, and “Criminal Minds,” which was starting to beat ABC’s “Lost” head-to-head. CBS is airing a “Criminal Minds” episode directly after the Super Bowl to drum up more public interest.

That’s also true to a lesser extent for “Jericho,” the new serial about nuclear survivors that has done well despite some critics judging it the least likely fall series to succeed, said Nancy Tellem, CBS Paramount Network president.

“It is very, very frustrating to know you have hit shows and fantastic actors with story lines as challenging as any others and somehow we can’t break through,” Tellem said.

-David Bauder AP

Yes, who’d have thought that the the whims of the American populace might not coincide with critics? News flash: when Americans are grouped together, we start to get kind of stupid.To counter this, the network is planning for some buzzworthy fare for next fall, including “a musical about a low-rent casino owner, a series about a swinging couple set in the 1970s and a show about an exorcist,” says Nina Tassler, CBS entertainment president.

FOUR: Last night I finished watching the first season of the BBC series Spaced, which aired between 1999 and 2001, and is utterly fantastic. The series, which is notable to fans of “Shaun of the Dead” as the same people were involved, was the culmination of a decade’s worth of Generation X-influenced culture. The basic premise plays along the lines of Three’s Company but that’s where the similarities end. Spaced, instead, is a kinetic, hilarious, explosion of twenty-something laziness. The filmmaking (and the comedy) is as ADHD as its characters, but unlike The Family Guy and other such copycats, Spaced always has a purpose in its insanity. Spaced is the type of program you would expect a vintage Kevin Smith to make if he were more ambitious.

I work for a local news station. We were live last night– election night– until midnight. This is, obviously, not unheard of in the world of television news. I didn’t get home from work until well after 2am. The first thing I did was watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report’s special “Midterm Midtacular” on my DVR. The Daily Show side was mostly funny, but the Colbert Report half was nothing shy of brilliant.

After watching, I flipped around the cable-news channels a bit to see what was happening at 3:30 AM in the land of über-news. All three networks, FOX, MSNBC, and CNN, were live. This is not a surprise as there are still two senate races that are too close to call. What was interesting was that MSNBC still had the “A” team on the set. Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Bob Shrum, etc, all sitting at a desk commenting on what I can only assume they had been commenting since yesterday morning (fact: I watched Buchanan and Shrum in the exact same positions talking with Joe Scarborough yesterday afternoon around 2). Keith Olberman had been on set as late as 2:30 AM. The obvious question: “Why?”

Sure, on the west coast, the time would be just after midnight, but who cares? There gets to be a point in these races where you reach a deadlock and simply need to give things a day or two to sort themselves out. There isn’t a reason to keep your top talent on the set for that long, especially if you’d like to use them the next morning, or at the very least the next day.

EXCEPT!

If you’re MSNBC and you’re the third ranked cable-news channel you can show up the competition by claiming that you delivered the most comprehensive coverage. One has to assume that the only person watching election results at three in the morning are the die-hards and television bloggers, and seeing familiar faces at such an ungodly hour would definitely keep you watching and might even win you over the next time you’re looking for information. It’s kind of an interesting political maneuver in their own right.

None of this answers the real quesiton of the night, “why do we need all of this coverage anyway?” Have we really learning anything that we couldn’t have just found out in the morning?

On a related plane, at what point does CNN’s election night set get its own AI, revolt and then reek havoc on greater Atlanta?