AOL QUIZLING

AOL has a "personality quiz" to help you determine which of the new TV shows you should watch. I took the quiz twice, slightly varying my answers to see what suggestions they would have.

1 . Which cancelled show are you still mourning for?
'E-Ring'
'Everwood'
'In Justice'
'Invasion'
'The West Wing'
'Yes, Dear'

First time through, I marked 'The West Wing'. Second time, 'InJustice'.

2 . Which of these current shows do you prefer?
'24'
'CSI'
'Grey's Anatomy'
'Saturday Night Live'
'Smallville'
'Two and a Half Men'

Both times I answered 'Two and a Half Men'

3 . I tend to watch:
Character-driven shows
Legal dramas
Mysteries
Sci-fi/fantasy
Traditional sitcoms
Workplace dramedies

First time: character-driven shows; second time: workplace dramadies

4 . Your take on 'Lost'?
I like the big ensemble cast
I like the theories & clues
I like the sci-fi angle
It's too serious
It's too complicated
It's too time-consuming

Both times: I like the theories and the clues

5 . TV alum you'd watch again:
Ted Danson ('Cheers')
Calista Flockhart ('Ally McBeal')
Victor Garber ('Alias')
Matthew Perry ('Friends')
Jeremy Sisto ('Six Feet Under')
Milo Ventimiglia ('Gilmore Girls')

First time: Matthew Perry; second time: Victor Garber

6 . A recent movie you enjoyed?
The 'Break Up'
'The Da Vinci Code'
'Little Miss Sunshine'
'Miami Vice'
'Superman Returns'
'Talladega Nights'

Both times I skipped the question, as I hadn't seen any of them.

The suggestions for the first try:

You should check out the edge-of-your-seat thrillers 'Kidnapped, 'Runaway' and 'Vanished.'

And for the second:

For you, we recommend the quirkier, darker new shows 'Heroes' and 'Jericho.'

Well, I plan to sample them all, so I guess it was all just a time-wastin' diversion anyway.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

TOO LATE TO MATTER, BUT NEVERTHELESS....

Well, folks, I screwed up. I was supposed to post this yesterday........

In the Idiot's Delight Digest on July 26, 2006, "Brooklyn George" wrote the following:

I just got an email from the State Theater in New Brunswick announcing aNovember 11th show by the Laurie Bernker band, the 'top sellingchildren's group in the country' as the email says, and she is appearingwith Susie Pampert and Adam Bernstein.

I am assuming this is Park Slope's Adam... nice gig!

And AB, another "Iddiot", responded:

Yes friends it's true. Laurie [is an] old friend of mine and I'm playing with the band regularly now. We did some TV, Today Show, Regis, we're on GMA on Aug 26th. It's a great gig, I bought a new bass for it too, a Jack Casady Hollowbody Epiphone, it's incredible.

Kids music is the thing, they dig their rock 'n roll!

I hope somebody out there got to see them perform this morning on TV, no thanks to me.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

2006 SEASON REPORT: "STUDIO 60"

I took advantage of the collaboration between Netflix and NBC and added the pilots of 'Studio 60 Live From The Sunset Strip' and 'Kidnapped' to the top of my queue last week. (Not for me the chance to watch these shows online; I'm still a dialupagus.)

So far I've watched 'Studio 60' and will get to 'Kidnapped' on Sunday.

First off, what's with that title? Sorkin must know nobody's going to use the full thing once the show is launched; it will always be just 'Studio 60'. It would be like if its inspiration was known by its classic opening: 'Live From New York, It's Saturday Night'!

I'm not saying shorter titles are better - sometimes that just leads to confusion if you don't have enough in there to describe the show. How many people out there might be confused as to which network will be broadcasting 'Kidnapped' or 'Vanished'?

But the show itself looks pretty good from the pilot episode. After finally seeing it, I can't see why there were so many people down on it when they first had a chance to see it. Had they only seen excerpts?

I think 'Studio 60' offers the best from both of Sorkin's previous shows. Although he doesn't have the type of world stage available to him in 'The West Wing', a late-night satirical comedy should offer him the kind of forum in which he can tackle the various topics that make up the Big Picture.

Okay, maybe not the plight of women in Equatorial Kundhu. But if presented with that challenge, I'm sure Sorkin would rise up to meet it and succeed.

And as he had shown with 'SportsNight', even on a smaller scale he can delve into those topics which concern him, like racism or sexual harrassment in the workplace.

Plus, since he first did 'SportsNight', he's gained more experience working behind the scenes in TV, having come from a theatrical and cinematic background before that, and that will add plenty of anecdotes upon which he can draw for the smaller stories.

(My favorite small story of 'The West Wing'? The fate of the penny issue.)

As for these new character inhabiting Toobworld, the spotlight was focused mostly on the standins for Aaron Sorkin and director/co-conspirator Thomas Schlamme (although certain characteristics for Sorkin were given to the Schlamme counterpart).

We learned a lot about Matt and Danny, as played by Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, this time out and I would expect each member of this large cast will get their time in the sun eventually. You don't want to overwhelm the audience with too much info right away.

We also got a good fix on the types of characters played by Steven Weber as the boss of the network and Amanda Peet who's newly in charge of running the company. And cast members like DL Hughley must have been clued in as to what's in store for their characters or else they might have passed. (Then again, the chance to work with Sorkin......)

So it's a bit strange that the other character who was really fleshed out was the producer of the late night show, played by Judd Hirsch. Probably his best role in years and he wasn't around for more than ten minutes, I'd think.

I don't think they'll have too much trouble in pulling in the guest stars either, if the pilot was any indication. Ed Asner made a quick appearance near the beginning as the uber-boss of the corporation which owns the network, and Felicity Huffman appeared as herself, hosting that particular broadcast of 'Studio 60'.

This caused a Zonk, of course, as there were several mentions of Ms. Huffman (or as she's coming to be known thanks to Stephen Colbert, Filliam Muffman) being a cast member of 'Desperate Housewives'.

Okay, fine. Toobworld also has a show called 'Desperate Housewives'. We just don't know if it's exactly like the Real World version, nor did we hear who Ms. Huffman plays on that counterpart.

So let's get down, finally, to the main concern of Toobworld......

When the series was first announced and details began leaking out as they progressed, I read somewhere that the TV Network would be "UBS". (As former network president Bill Nickerson proclaimed, "Where we put 'U' before the 'BS'!")

For Toobworld, this would have been fantastic, as I could then link it to not only 'America 2Nite', but also 'Galactica 1980'.

However, it would also put people in mind of the movie "Network" which also had UBS as its fictional TV network. And considering the major plot point which kicks off 'Studio 60' echoes that film, it would have been wrong to tie it even closer by choosing UBS as its name.

(I liked that they addressed the similarity with several mentions of what transpired in the movie.)

So instead they chose NBS - the National Broadcasting System. (Or was it Service?) And of course, the audience will naturally link it to the Real World home for this series, NBC.

I don't trust the intelligence of the average viewer, so I doubt they'll be able to keep it straight in their heads that future events on this show do not reflect what goes on behind the scenes at NBC, or else they might be facing some protestors at the home of the Peacock Throne.

But I hope they do throw mentions of NBS into their other programs on the 2006 schedule, to solidify its presence in the NBC line-up of shows. NBS has more programs than just one late-night comedy show, so we can see the NBS "bug" in the bottom corner of the screen during news stories, talk shows, or even fictional soap operas as seen in episodes of 'Crossing Jordan', 'Las Vegas', 'Medium' or 'ER'. And it doesn't have to be just the dramas, but also the comedies like 'The Office' or 'My Name Is Earl'. Who knows? Maybe even in an episode of '30 Rock', to show there's no problem between the rival series.

All in all, it was a fast-moving episode with signature Sorkin flourishes, but with its own identity to set it apart from its predecessors. And since it will be airing on Mondays at 10 pm, I don't see why I wouldn't be watching it each week starting this fall. (I'm sure 'CSI: Miami' will survive without me.)

One final note: I went into this, even before the chance to see the pilot, with a lot of trepidation about the casting of Bradley Whitford. I thought it was way too soon after the finale of 'The West Wing' to see another weekly collaboration between Whitford and Sorkin.

But I should have trusted their talents. The character of Danny Tripp was light years away from Josh Lyman, and I wasn't even reminded of him once during the episode despite the same actor playing both roles.

Good work all around.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

TOOBLINKS

Off to the left, my ever-expanding list of links has gained two new members today: "TV Bloggin'" and "The Medium Is Not Enough".

The entire run of my links have some basic divides: TV Crossovers, TV News Sites, Blogs by those in the Biz, TV Critics, Fan Blogs, TV Info Sites, Fictional Blogs, and Sites focused on one particular TV Obsession.

After that, they're just tossed in there in no particular order. So no one should think that their particular site is considered less important than those listed above theirs. It's just that I wanted to create the sense of "Channel Surfing" among the sites.

But just to list my druthers, here are the sites I HAVE to check everyday:

Tommy Westphall's Mind
TV Squad
TV Tattle
Lee Goldberg's Site
Bryce Zabel's Site
Ken Levine's Site
Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear
Brent's "I Am A Child Of Television"
What's Alan Watching?
Roger Catlin, TV Eye
Maureen Ryan's The Watcher
Spoiler Fix
Trivial TV
and John Kenneth Muir's site.

I think Rob Buckley's "The Medium Is Not Enough" will be added to that mix.

Many of the others, like Pop Culture Junk Mail and Siftin' and Musty TV, I check every couple of days. Same with many of the critics. And of course the TV Info sites are there for when I need to research my posts, like with the Pluto essay earlier today.

So hopefully you'll check out these sites as well if you have an interest in televisiology. They're well worth the side trips!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

PLUTO'S LIVES

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet on Thursday when scientists from around the world redefined it as a "dwarf planet", leaving just eight classical planets in the solar system.

The need to define what it takes to be a planet stems from technological advances that enable astronomers to look further into space and to measure more precisely the size of celestial bodies in our solar system.
~~~~~
Oh well. At least the ghost of Gustav Holtz will be pleased with this ruling. Pluto wasn't even discovered until twelve years after he wrote his "Planets" suite. Now, for the first time since 1930, it can be considered a finished symphony.

If I was in charge of Toobworld, rather than just a caretaker, I would have had the Red Stripe Beer Man approach the podium at the televersion of this gathering of astrophysicists. He would stand there, resplendent in his white military jacket adorned with sash and medals, and say to the assembly:

"Boo Creepy Pluto Naysayers!"

For those of you disheartened by the news that Pluto has lost its status as a planet, take heart. This was a transient, man-made decision; an artificial construct much like the demarcation of Time. And such a ruling can be undone in the future by a different assemblage of scientists using some new, arbitrary set of rules.

So have patience, fans of Pluto. Ti-i-i-ime is on your side. (Yes, it is.)

At least it is in Toobworld.

By the 24th Century, Pluto will have been colonized, as will most of the planets in solar system. All of them will have been terra-formed and some of the outermost planets will have artificial miniature "suns" locked into their orbits to provide the necessary heat an illumination which would be lacking from the distant Sol.

All of this advancement will be due to "help" from a race known as the Usurians (obviously the English translation, considering.....). The Usurians are a sentient but poisonous fungi which will slowly tighten its vice-like financial grip on the people of Pluto for nearly 3,000,000 years.

Their hold over Pluto will eventually end with the timely intervention of a Doctor, who will show the Plutonian populace that they have nothing to lose but their claims.

But in the beginning of its colonial period, all will be well with Pluto as it becomes a member of the Solar Council, otherwise known as the Solar Alliance. (In the Tooniverse, membership will be in D.O.O.P. - the Democratic Order Of Planets) Other member planets of the Solar Council are Mars, Pluto, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Eos and Earth, the Polaris Colony, and Jupiter's moon Io. (Oddly, Neptune is not represented. This is understandble in the Tooniverse - that killer Santa Claus robot lives there!)

(Another planet not represented in Solar Council is Mondas, which used to share the exact same orbit as Earth. Monda was equidistant from our homeworld, on the other side of Sol, so that it was "invisible" to astronomers But it was blasted out of its orbit and left the solar system, only to be destroyed when it began its return trip.)

So take heart, fans of Pluto! Eventually your little buddy in the outermost reaches of the solar system will be reincorporated into the League of Planets.

But in the meantime, you better dust off the old mnemonic for remembering the order of planets from the Sun......

Here are a list of shows which are set in the future and which refer to Pluto as an actual planet:

'Space Patrol'
#17 "THE COUNTERFEIT COMMANDER" April 21, 1951
# 19 "THE MAJOR'S DILEMMA" May 5, 1951
# 25 "BEYOND THE RIM OF SPACE" June 16, 1951
# 30 "WAY STATION TO THE STARS" July 21, 1951
# 50 "THE SACRIFICE" December 8, 1951
# 68 "THE PHANTOM FLEET" April 12, 1952
#106 "THE HUMAN TARGETS" January 3, 1953
#189 "THE GIANTS OF PLUTO III" October 2, 1954
#190 "THE FIERY PIT OF PLUTO III" October 9, 1954
#191 "MANHUNT ON PLUTO III" October 16, 1954

'Doctor Who'
"THE SUNMAKERS"
Part One 26th November, 1977
Part Two 3rd December, 1977
Part Three 10th December, 1977
Part Four 17th December, 1977

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

The TV shows cited for this essay are:

'Doctor Who'
'Space Patrol'
'Futurama'
'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'
'Captain Video And His Video Rangers'

This essay would not have been possible if not for the information... information... information garnered from the following web sites:

The Doctor Who Reference Guide

Solar Guards

Doctor Who Chronology

HELLBOSS OF TOOBWORLD

Challenger, Gray & Christmas is an outplacement firm which has compiled a list of the worst bosses to be found in Toobworld:

Montgomery Burns, 'The Simpsons'
President Logan, '24'
Gordon Ramsey, 'Hell's Kitchen'
Michael Scott, 'The Office'
Al Swearengen, 'Deadwood'
Dr. Bob Kelso, 'Scrubs'
Adrian Monk, 'Monk'
Cosmo Spacely, 'The Jetsons'

Ramsey is the only one of those characters who exists in the Real World.

But then, Cosmo Spacely probably hasn't even been born yet.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

OF BEAVERS AND BLIPVERTS

You've seen the TV commercial for Rozerem, haven't you? There's the guy who can't sleep so he goes down to the kitchen where he's confronted by three characters from his dream cycle: Abraham Lincoln, a guy in a diving bell suit, and a beaver who plays chess.

They tell him about Rozerem, the product that can help restore his REM cycle so that he can get back to sleep and play chess again. Even though "Honest" Abe cheats, according to the Beav.

But who exactly is the insomnia guy?

I honestly can't remember if the Beaver or Abe calls him by his given name or not; and in the item about the commercial at adweek.com (see the link to the left) he's only listed in the credits as "Insomnia Guy".

But that's... okay. Because that means we can make the claim that he's some other character played on Television by that actor, Kevin Berntson.

What especially helps is that Kevin Berntson has played a couple of characters who were nameless; any one of them could later be suffering from insomnia.

The first one was a character he played in 'ER' who was just listed as "Student #1" in the episode "They Treat Horses, Don't They?"

But I think we can eliminate this character as an option as he later shows up in another episode, "Masquerade", later the same year. But this time he's known as Willie Goldman.

I'm striving to keep things simple with the vast Toobworld concept, so why complicate matters with two Chicago residents running around on the same show with the same face? I don't see the need to drag the "identical cousins" chestnut out of the fire for this one.

Then there's the fifteenth episode of a show called 'Spyder Games', in which Berntson played a guy simply known as "Man at Laundromat". Perhaps that is the same guy suffering from insomnia in the Rozerem blipvert.

'Spyder Games' was a 65 episode soap opera on MTV about a family who made their fortune with a video game empire who all had dirty secrets.

"The town is called Fort Kent, but it's not anywhere specifically," said the producer Christian McLaughlin. "Actually, Fort Kent is a real town in Maine that my [Mom?] is from, and they're going to freak out when they see how dirty the show is."

The Rozerem ad could be combined with the episode of 'Reno 911' which dealt with the news that "Wiegel's Pregnant". In that episode, Berntson played a guy named Jim Mann.

If he was the guy who got Wiegel pregnant, then yeah, I guess he probably would be suffering from insomnia.

Finally, if the commercial is set in San Francisco, then we can combine his nameless character with the sports fan who was serving on a jury when "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty". The travails of that experience, including the annoyance of being cooped up with 'Monk', not to mention being tied up by a killer, would keep anybody awake at night.

It's always best to combine such characters so that we don't have too many people wandering around with the exact same facial features.

Just imagine what it must have been like in Los Angeles back in the 1970s. With all of his different appearances on 'Columbo', there must have been at least ten guys who all looked like a very funny character actor named Vito Scotti!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

THE IDES OF "MARS"

Still on 'Life On Mars'.....

At TV.com, one of the notes left by a reader about episode 3 read:

"Sam conducted the taped interview, stating that it was 'Wednesday 16th March'. In 1973, 16 March was a Friday, not a Wednesday. However, 16 March was a Wednesday in 2005, the year that Sam is from."

I have to assume this was intentional and if so, it's brilliant. Even to the smallest detail, the creators of this show leave you hanging as to whether or not this is really happening, or whether it's all taking place in Sam's mind.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

ZONKS ON MARS

So I've been trapped in my apartment all day because the long hallway leading into the main part of the place was scraped, plastered, and painted. The guy did a great job and finally finished around 4:30 pm EST. (He started at 8:30 am. I should have said it was a looooong hallway.)

So that gave me plenty of time to catch up on some shows taped earlier in the week, and to post. Post, post, post, post and post. This post will mark my ninth for the day and that ties my personal best for a 24 hour period. I don't think I'm done either. Got plenty more waiting on the sidelines that I should clear out and inflict upon you, Dear Reader.

So one of the tapes I watched today was Monday's offering of 'Life On Mars' from the BBC-America. (The U.K. got to see this back in February.)

And in it there was the following exchange between Annie Cartwright and Sam Tyler:

Annie Cartwright: No more funny stuff?
Sam Tyler: Funny stuff?
Annie Cartwright: Y'know the whole time travel, out of body experience thing.
Sam Tyler: Well, I went to see Doctor Who; he... prescribed me some pills...

You see, Sam was struck by a car in 2006, and he's awakened in 1973. As he says in the show's intro, he doesn't know if he's mad, in a coma, or actually back in Time.

Finding himself so disoriented at first that he couldn't keep quiet about his situation as he sought to find some answers, Sam ended up spilling the beans about what he thought might have happened to just about everybody within earshot. So Annie couldn't help but rib him about it in episode 5.

Now, I suppose I could go into this whole splainin in which Sam was referring to some fake doctor of Asian descent, but who would I be kidding? It's not like he was making the reference to somebody who didn't know what he was talking about; as though it was something from the future. 'Doctor Who' ran from 1963 to 1989; came back with a 1996 TV movie and then returned as a series in 2005. So you know damn well that Annie would know what 'Doctor Who' was about in 1973.

You can see it in her eyes and in that knowing laugh that she thinks Sam is having her on with a joke about yet another, more famous, time traveler.

And one that to her, was quite fictitious.

The thing is, the Gallifreyan Time Lord should exist within the same TV dimension as Sam and Annie. (That is, the Doctor through his first eight incarnations; the 9th and 10th Doctors are the doppelgangers from another dimension.)

I've already decided that in the Toobworld concept, every TV show we watch here in the Real World has a counterpart in TV Land. It just isn't necessarily an exact duplicate. So they may have a 'Doctor Who' TV show about time travel in Toobworld, but that doesn't mean it's been the exact same program; diff'rent actors, diff'rent storylines.

How did they end up getting a TV show about a mysterious Time Lord who lives in the same dimension as they do?

Over the decades, the Doctor in most of his incarnations has met several characters who have been involved in the TV business. Eventually one of them must have decided to sell the premise to Auntie Beeb despite the risk of disciplinary action by UNIT for disclosing classified information.

And I would think the Doctor would have even encouraged the idea for much the same reason as the people behind the Stargate project (no matter which dimension you're in) okayed the idea to fictionalize their story as 'Wormhole X-treme'. By making it look like the whole thing is nothing more than the fever dreams of some network suit who hasn't yet been nibbled to death by ducks, you can establish plausible deniability when someone actually stumbles across the truth. ("Oh, that wasn't a real TARDIS; they're filming a TV show. Now run along; nothing to see here!")

Speakingo of episode 5 of 'Life On Mars', a reader of the 'Doctor Who' blog "Behind The Sofa" posted this about the episode:

"Life On Mars'' first proper reference to 'Doctor Who' happened this evening in a story surrounding a football match between Manchester United and Manchester City.

In case anyone is wondering, after a quick look around, the match happened on the 21st April 1973 (since there were no other local derbies that year) and it was a 0-0 draw (61,500 gate). Which also means the young Sam Tyler might have gone home that night and enjoyed episode three of "Planet of the Daleks" ...

Posted by Stuart Ian Burns on 06/02/2006 at 10:30 PM

But of course, that's only if the Toobworld version of 'Doctor Who' followed the same storylines as the Real World version.

Instead, what should be pointed out is that in Toobworld, the Master is reviving a Daemon named Azal who will attempt to destroy the Earth because it unworthy to exist.

No matter how old Sam was back in 1973, he never realized how much of a debt he and the rest of the planet owed Jo Grant for her willingness to sacrifice herself. She was doing so in order to save the 3rd incarnation of the Doctor, but that willingness then saved the Earth itself.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SPOOK SHOW

Good news for the fans of 'MI-5', which was known as 'Spooks' over in England: the series is coming back to A&E with its fourth season, starting September 15th. (The stories have already taken place in Toobworld, as the Brits saw the series back last fall.)

The bad news is that it will be butchered in the editing room to fit into an hour-long timeslot.

Plus, it's been gutted cast-wise as well with the loss of original actors Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, and David Oyelowo. In order, Tom Quinn \was forced by circumstances to quit the service; Zoe Reynolds had to go into exile under an assumed name; and Danny Hunter was killed in the line of duty.

That leaves only Harry Pearce running the department with assistance from original team members Ruth, Malcolm, and Colin (as well as other agents brought in as replacements, like Adam Carter.)

Still, it was a stylish thriller which in my mind is all in cool, grey-blue coloring. And Harry Pearce did make for a very engaging bulldog of a boss.

So keep September 15th in mind; A&E. Check your local listings for the time......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby