MagneticMediaFed

Well, the nominations are out and The Wire failed to get even the obligatory “final season” nod. Even if it wasn’t their strongest, I still don’t understand how the actors continue to be ignored. Isiah Whitlock Jr’s Clay Davis? C’mon. Simon and Burns did get a writing nod for the finale.

That being said, both Mad Men and Damages were nominated for Best Drama, which is pretty damn cool — especially since this is the first time a basic cable show has been up for said award. The rest of the list you can probably predict. (HBO nominated for a miniseries? Now I’ve heard everything!)

Full list can be found here.

Glenn Close, Ted Danson, William Hurt, Timothy Olyphant, UPDATE!: Marcia Gay Harden, etc.

The first season of Damages was one of the biggest surprises of last year, helped in large part by the strength of the cast (and the tightness of the mystery). I keep thinking there is no way the second season (which doesn’t get underway until 2009) could possibly be as good, but they keep adding A-listers to the cast making me believe otherwise.

Read the whole story over at Zap2It! (UPDATE!) …And hit up the comments with shows whose cast you feel is superior.

*On television

One year ago I spent the entire upfronts week feverishly clicking my refresh button looking for the latest information on the coming fall television season. What a difference a year makes. After the 100-day writer’s strike left most of the network’s schedules flopping on the dock like a hooked but forgotten flounder, no one (not the advertisers, not the networks, and certainly not the audience) seems particularly thrilled about the network announcements (or lack of announcements) for their future plans. This week is, after all, FOR the advertisers, and since network television is no longer viewed as being all that lucrative those advertising dollars are looking for something more than the typical slate of potential prime-time disasters. Take ABC, for example. The network plans on adding a whopping TWO new programs to its fall prime-time line-up, choosing instead to bring back almost all of it’s fall ‘08 slate (minus, Carpoolers, Cavemen and October Road). But who cares, especially this early in the process? More after the jump…

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Am I the only person who isn’t particularly offended by the news Jimmy Fallon will be taking over Late Night next summer? This isn’t to say I’ll be watching, but as a strategic move in chess game of late night programming, it makes perfect sense. Let us not forget the genre is clearly in its waning years. Really, network television, like newspapers, aren’t a particularly sound investment right now. That being said, the transition from where we are now to where we will eventually be isn’t going to be immediate, and frankly, we probably won’t see it happening. One day we’ll just wake up, go to work, stumble over to the water cooler and say to whomever is standing there, “Hey, did you watch Letterman last night?” To which they will undoubtedly respond, “What’s a letterman?” And then you will realize that they don’t even have televisions at the nursing home and that you haven’t gone to work in 23 years. More after the jump…

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I suppose this is a post reminding everyone that Gossip Girl returns to The CW tonight for a string of new post-strike episodes beginning at the startlingly early time-slot of 8PM. Tonight we’ll presumably see: Dan and S get into some sort of fight that will be resolved in about 45 minutes; Jenny continue to fall down the social rabbit hole; Chuck do something manipulative; Nate act boring; Rufus act a little mid-life-crisis-y. I also predict someone will get a critical piece of information via text-message.

But that’s a lie, the real reason for this post is just so we can all gawk at the above advertisement one more time. I know we’re in a recession, but whoever designed that ad needs a serious bonus. The not-quite-as-cool video ads after the jump…

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So, I’m not entirely sure if I’m supposed to be posting this or not, but it was sent to me by CBS yesterday as promotion for Monday’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, so I guess this is me “promoting.”

Enjoy Sandcastles, a new song from 80s Canadian Pop-Legend Robin Sparkles. A clip from the video is available on her MySpace page.

Check out the show Monday for, presumably, more.

Clark Johnson as Gus Haynes and Michael K. Williams as Omar Little

For those playing the home game, allow me to pass along the following:

• Tuesday Terry Gross interviewed Clark Johnson on Fresh Air. Mr. Johnson plays city editor Gus Haynes of the Baltimore Sun this season. He also directed the pilot episode and will direct the finale in a few weeks.
• This was followed Wednesday by her interview with Michaek K. Williams who plays the exponentially awesome Omar Little.
• A couple weeks ago HBO put out The Wire: All the Pieces Matter, a collection of music from the series as well as Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks From The Wire, a stripped down disc that focuses exclusively on the hip-hop that has come out of the city. The cool kids seem to think the two are a mostly worthy effort.

Just when you thought the writer’s strike had sucked out the very last drop of interesting scripted television this year, AMC goes ahead and delivers to us Breaking Bad, a new hour-long drama starring Malcolm in the Middle’s Bryan Cranston as a science teacher who starts cooking meth to supliment his income. The network, which was previously known for categorizing “Cat Woman” as an American Movie Classic, now has a lot to live up to after delivering Mad Men to us last summer — one of the best new shows of the decade.

Frankly I don’t know what to expect from Breaking Bad (foolishly, I missed my opportunity to catch a press-preview of the episode earlier this week), but I have to say I’m optimistic. Cranston was great recently in guest spots on How I Met Your Mother and I look forward to seeing him do drama. I’m also hoping the show proves to be a more down-to-earth, less self-destructive version of Weeds. We’ll find out on Sunday.

Breaking Bad starts this Sunday (January 20th) at 10:00pm EST on AMC.

This post is basically an excuse to use this awesome picture of Letterman that The Post ran on Friday, as well as to say that various sources are reporting that all of the big-four late-night hosts have been talking about coming back on the air at the same time (presumably early January) as to avoid generating Ellen-esque animosity from the union.

Update: The NYTimes just posted this story about talks between Letterman and the WGA that would allow him to come back in January WITH writers.

Photo via Flickr

Last Friday the AMPTP released a statement saying:

The AMPTP today unveiled a New Economic Partnership to the WGA, which includes groundbreaking moves in several areas of new media, including streaming, content made for new media and programming delivered over digital broadcast channels.  The entire value of the New Economic Partnership will deliver more than $130 million in additional compensation above and beyond the more than $1.3 billion writers already receive each year.

The WGA then lifted their media blackout and said:

Among the rumors was the assertion that the AMPTP had a groundbreaking proposal that would make this negotiation a “done deal.” In fact, for the first three days of this week, the companies presented in essence their November 4 package with not an iota of movement on any of the issues that matter to writers.

Thursday morning, the first new proposal was finally presented to us. It dealt only with streaming and made-for-Internet jurisdiction, and it amounts to a massive rollback.
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Talks are scheduled to resume on Tuesday. Given the current tone it doesn’t sound like a deal is close. More stuff after the jump…

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For the nine people that care (eight besides myself), Damages has been extended for TWO (2!) more seasons. I haven’t the slightest idea how they’ll keep up the good thing they had going this past summer or if the show can possibly succeed without Danson (assuming he doesn’t come back… hopefully he will) but its welcome news nonetheless. If anything it’s an excuse for everyone to catch up when the DVD comes out in a couple months. It’ll be well worth your time.

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Hey-hey, ho-ho!

I don’t puport to being a television insider. I’m much more of a television front-sider. I watch it. I like it. I try to read about it as much as possible. So while I may not have Les Moonves’ e-mail address (perhaps lmoonves@cbs.com?) I do, at the very least, keep myself abreast of those industry things that directly affect what I’m going to be watching. It is because of this that we now begin MagneticMediaFed’s coverage of the as-of-right-now imminent writers strike in Hollywood.

Here’s what we know as of right now: Tuesday the WGA and the studios will meet at the barganing table (which I imagine to have a granite top) and try to make a deal (with or without Howie Mandel). The sticking point is how writers will be compensated for DVDs, downloads, and whatever other crazy technology we have yet to invent (I’m hoping for something that lets me watch a series instantly through my brain).

More importantly, here’s what this means for us… the watchers: Wednesday at midnight if no deal reached the guild will go on strike (the last time this happened was 1988 and it lasted for 5 months). This will not affect us on Thursday (nor will it affect us on Friday or for the foreseeable future). Knowing this date is approached the studios have been stockpiling scripts and have several weeks worth of shows all ready in production or in the can. Once these episodes run out, which will likely be sometime in January as much of December is no-man’s land on broadcast television anyway. At this point we will be slammed with excessive quantities of reality programs, game-shows, Dateline incarnations, reruns and other such noble fare that doesn’t require writers. This is problematic for fans of serialized television. Personally, I fear for my beloved Lost, which isn’t even suppose to come back until February 6th, right in the middle of the strike’s blast-zone.

In short, ‘08 could be a very bleak year for good TV.

Read more here and here

I don’t want to get too political here, but I just finished watching this week’s Meet The Press (my favorite of the Sunday morning Yack-shows) and Tim Russert had on President Clinton as a guest. During the conversation the issue of torture came up. On a previous appearance Clinton had said he supported sanctioned exceptions to the country’s current anti-torture policy. Here, he said he had changed his mind on the issue — and this is where the connection to television starts to take place.

Clinton spoke of the “Jack Bauer” scenario. On 24, he pointed out, whenever the President gives the OK for Jack to torture a suspect, the result is always negative for the President and for the country, but when Jack acts alone, knowing the consequences of his actions, things tend to work out for the best (or whatever definition of “best” you want to go with when nuclear annihilation tends to be the consequence). In short, Clinton thinks that a country shouldn’t sanction torture, but if the agent actually involved with a situation chooses to take action for the greater good, knowing the legal repercussions of those actions, it might not be a bad thing.

Policy aside, it’s always interesting to hear someone in politics so directly references the actions of a fictional television character. The question I wish Russert had followed up with would be whether President Clinton thought last season of 24 was as lame as most of the rest of us. I’m also curious if he thinks the relocation of the series to Washington D.C. in the upcoming seventh season is a good move. (It is.)

What do you do when you’re an extremely likeable on-air personality in an increasingly irrelevant medium? This is the problem that has seemed to plague NBC’s one-time heir apparent to the newsman throne, Brian Williams. On Sunday Associated Press writer David Bauder wrote an interesting piece looking at Williams recent fall to the middle. Amidst all of the anchor shuffling over the past year and a half (some necessary, some greedy) Williams was the one constant. He was named early to replace Brokaw and the transition seemed almost invisible. And yet here he is sitting in second place behind one former morning show host and in front of another.

One area on which the article touches is the fact that Brian Williams has become a favorite guest on Conan and The Daily Show — not because of his keen insight into the stories of the day, but because he happens to be really funny (add to this his recent, and incredibly curious, role as Sopranos-blogger for Slate). The problem is the people who are watching Conan and The Daily Show are not the people who watch the Nightly News and they never will. It’s a format for the old and the conditioned.

The question then becomes, is Brian Williams losing viewers, or is the format losing viewer (and Charles Gibson just happens to be attracting people at the moment)? In either of these scenarios one also has to wonder what the “face of a news division” will ultimately mean as fewer and fewer people stop feeling the need to tune in to a program whose information they could easily find on the web in half the time (and with considerably fewer ads for denture cream and adult diapers).

I don’t watch any of these broadcasts, but I feel like I should. The fact of the matter is if I were left to my own devices nine times out of ten I’m going to read an article on what new deal a studio executive was able to make instead of reading the article on Iranian peace agreements, even though I know the latter is ultimately more meaningful. Hopefully Mr. Williams (and the rest of the gang) can somehow trick us into watching more often — just hopefully not like they did at CBS. No, that was a complete disaster.

I don’t think we need to pretend that any of the readers of this website actually care about what The CW is planning on doing this fall, with a few notable exceptions. Because of this, I’m going to forego the usual massive breakdown of the networks proposed lineup complete with sociological analysis, opinions and recipes. In this case it just seems like overkill.

When the network launched last fall I was a strong supporter as it meant the two relatively insignificant networks (The WB and UPN) could pool together their best shows and really make a run at those younger viewers and present themselves as a sreious contender. Nine months later, The CW has proven to be a bust, and may have sunk shows that otherwise might have had a little more life. Now that they’ve presented their first original schedule (not comprised of the syphoning of two previously established networks) we can see exactly the type of network The CW has become: the broadcast version of MTV — which sounds like a compliment until you remember what it’s actually like to watch MTV. A brief runthrough of what’s important after the jump…

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