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

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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I love making end of the year top ten lists. Sometimes I think it’s the only reason I put up with the fifty weeks of mediocre nonsense (but then I take my antidepressants and go back to playing with that shiny piece of foil). The problem with having television as your medium of choice is that the television schedule doesn’t fit nicely into the Gregorian calendar. Typical seasons on the networks run from September to May, while cable tends to stick closer to the actual climatological patterns of the earth. It’s easy to say that first season Friday Night Lights was the best thing of 2007 except for the fact that half of the season landed squarely in 2006. MagneticMediaFed has figured out the solution to all of this: EPISODES. Episodes are what make television TELEVISION. A good episode keeps you glued to the screen for the full hour (or half hour), it tells a complete story while adding significantly to the series as a whole, it shows you something you didn’t think you’d see or makes you laugh in ways you didn’t think were possible.

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past couple weeks culling over the MMF-archives reminding myself of those episodes that I thought really stuck out. I watch a lot of television, though I don’t purport to watch all television (anyone who does should be shunned and bathed — not necessarily in that order). Because of this, my list only includes the shows that I regularly watch and is missing some obvious gems that I simply don’t know/care about (i.e. Battlestar Galactica, A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila). Still, I think most of the bases are covered. If there was a fantastic episode you remember from this past calendar year, please let us know in the comments. The full list, available right 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.

READ

It’s been a month since new shows started popping up and my god has it been a rough ride. I was able to keep for the better part of two weeks, but lately I’ve had to throw my hands up and declare that once again, the television has won. Part of the problem, for me at least, is this fall seems to have more decent shows than season’s past. There are always one or two really good new programs, but typically the rest of it is just dreck. This year there have only been a small handful of shows I would consider abdominal, but with an unusually large amount resting somewhere in the middle. But how does one justify sticking with a series that is at its very best just OK. I think now would be as good a time as any to look at where we are and decide how to move forward.

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