This is the first March Madness I've really given two shits about. Yes, I think I'm actually starting to become a college basketball fan (though the NBA still has absolutely zero appeal for me). As such, I find CBS/NCAA March Madness on Demand pretty friggin' cool, as I'm sure many desk slaves will agree. We need more free-to-the-viewer sports online. Apparently NBC will broadcast much of this year's summer olympics online via Microsoft's Silverlight system.

I just finished watching the penultimate episode of a serious contender for Best TV Show Ever. But apparently now I have to wait two weeks to see the series finale, because HBO is giving the finger to On Demand subscribers (and, uh, their friends). I've also heard that reviewers are upset over not receiving copies of the entire season early, as with the fourth season. I guess this way the last episode becomes more of an "event." Hopefully not an event like the Sopranos finale, though. I keep trying to convince myself that the final anticlimax there was borne of true artistic integrity, but the soreness it left behind is a constant reminder a brutal gimmicky violation.

At any rate, the last few episodes of The Wire have been a treat as the many-threaded story lines finally come together in that final glorious knot. It's rare that a series forces me to pay attention as closely in order to keep up—Deadwood and The West Wing (Sorkin years at least) are two others that come to mind—and The Wire is the only one to have maintained such a high level throughout its run.

Unfortunately now I'm without quality television to savor each week. I've lately been tempted to dig out my DVDs of the first couple of seasons of The West Wing, and maybe I could even delude myself into believing that such a rosy political future is possible as my four year hangover is now more than three years complete.

On the moderately good TV front, has anyone been watching Breaking Bad? I just discovered this show a few days ago, and it's better than your average cable drama. The highest point of the show is the amazing acting of Bryan Cranston (Hal from Malcolm in the Middle). I know it's a hard sell when one actor is possibly carrying the entire show, but damn it he's just that good. Though, if you're not already watching it, you may want to hold out for the unrated DVD release which will almost certainly follow. A guy can only take so much silent bleeping and blurry boobies without becoming irrecoverably distracted.

Since I'm already wildly digressing from the original intent of this post... I watched my first movie in some months: Star Trek Nemesis. And it suuuuuucked! Not the least of which, the horrible action sequences... After exchanging shots for some time, The Beard asks for covering fire and Worf dives forward to shoot down all the enemy in an instant. Well why didn't you just do that in the first place? Also, the Remans are supposed to be some kind of super soldiers, but half a dozen or more of them are no match for a single 60-year-old archaeologist in a fire fight? Give me a fucking break.

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via Jackson Publick's LJ

Matt asks the question and I find the answer. Happy Holidays Knoxvillians.

It sounds like Comedy Central may be forcing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, both WGA members, to return to air without their writers. In a joint statement, they said:

"We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

In solidarity with the WGA, the internet's adorable animals are going on strike.

To this day the unexplained transmission of 22 November 1987 remains an historic curiosity, since it represents the last such signal of its kind… no other instance of a complete hijacking of a commercial broadcast has occurred in the US in the twenty years since. For now the mysterious masked Max Headroom lookalike remains at large, but his backside may never truly be safe from the mighty flyswatter of justice.

via
see also

• Stealing Life a long New Yorker piece on David Simon
• New York Times piece on the marriage Donnie Andrews and Fran Boyd
• Down to 'The Wire': It's a Wrap for Gritty TV Series
• an interview with David Simon by David Mills, a writer for the Wire, the Corner, and one of the best episodes of Homicide. See also part 2

Continued...

Honestly, how many times did you see this commercial as a kid?

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program...
That left decisions over al Hurra's content in the hands of its reporters and producers, who are, according to Blaya, hastily-hired Arabic-speaking journalists with insufficient understanding of Western journalistic practices or the network's pro-Western mission...
The station's gaffes have included broadcasting in December 2006 a 68-minute call to arms against Israelis by a senior figure of the terrorist group Hezbollah; deferential coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference; and a factually flawed piece on a splinter group of Orthodox Jews who oppose the state of Israel.

From an excellent Lost season 3 recap:

So it all started with some blonde chick who was upset because she couldn't make muffins or something and we felt bad for her and we were like, "Aw, poor woman, don't worry about your muffins!"