A Statement About the Golden Globes

Happy Award Season, everyone! I'm going to give live blogging the Golden Globes a shot this evening (while making chocolate chip cookies!), so... readysteadygo.

Thoughts before the show: How painful is the NBC pre-show? All I really had to see was Natalie Morales identify Samuel L. Jackson as "the bad guy" in Iron Man, and I knew we were in trouble. I'm currently taking bets on the number of Conan references, and could not be more excited about Ricky. Oh wait! It's starting...

*Ricky starts by slamming Steve Carell... woooo!

*The Office versus The Office. Glorious. Gervais can't decide which one he wants to promote more... Let's face it, no matter which one you watch, he's getting piles of money.

*NBC slam #1! Yessssssss.

*Masturbation jokes in the top half hour. Love it.

*"Let's get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno."

*Mo'nique gets the first award, and the first standing O. I guess this means the Oscar is hers to lose.

*Sofia Vergara and Matthew Fox?! Holy hot presenters, Batman!

*Toni Colette for the win! I think I'm doing really badly in the office pool at this point. I'm a little surprised it's not Lea Michele, to be honest... the Globes have a history of honoring longshot first-timers. And Toni is cute, but I'm tired of seeing her win things.

...aaaaaaand we're at the first commercial break. So far, so... boring?

PS- loving Evangeline Lilly in the L'Oreal commercials.

*Jim Parsons and Lauren Graham presenting together? Ausiello's in HEAVEN.

*Did Jeremy Piven get plugs?!

*John Lithgow. For the record, I have officially lost the office pool. And when on EARTH is NPH going to get a little love? I mean, for realsies. (However, Lithgow does know how to give a speech)

*Paul McCartney is a rock star-- in the "what a cool mo'fo" kinda way. Yay UP!

*Ohhhhh, The Invention of Lying. Have I mentioned that Gervais is killing it?

*Felicity Huffman is very nervous. Almost as nervous as I am about her body mass. But she looks pretty.

*Well, I'll give them this... they know how to pair presenters. Jane Krakowski and NPH! Woot!

*What is on Michael C. Hall's head? AND WHY DID HE JUST BEAT JON HAMM?? I really might stop watching.

*What is on January Jone's head? Perhaps we'll have themed winners (pleasepleaseplease?). NO. Juliana Marguiles. Who is gorgeous and whom we love. But why am I doing so badly at this?!

*Nice slam JM. 10:00 drama indeed.

*Yes, Gervais just called out McCartney on his divorce settlement. Yikes.

*I really have nothing to say about Aguilera and Cher. For serious.

*Yay Michael Giacchino. Not just because you're the first one I got right, but because I love you.

*Grey Gardens. Thank God. I mean, yay me. And the producers need to stop talking now. No one cares.

*Tom Hanks, you gem. That's two for Alec Baldwin, who now really wishes he had bothered to show up.

*Ricky took off his tie. Time to party.

*How beautiful is Meryl Streep, btw? She didn't divide her own votes! But she won for Julie & Julia, which is the only award that movie is ever going to get. There are no words for how awesome she is.

*Where did Jessica Lange go? She used to be there. DREW BARRYMORE?! That's pretty cool... time for Lange to share the wealth. And her speech we just right.

*I don't heart Cameron Diaz. But I kind of heart her dress.

*Someone needs to take over in the control room, because I'm getting seasick.

*Woooo Jason Reitman. Way to be your own artist. Rockin' love to Clooney.

*JENNIFER GARNER ALERT. Could she be any prettier? Too bad Alec Baldwin won.

*Samuel L. introducing Sophia Loren = class on a stick

*Amy Poehler and Zachary Levi might be my new fave couple. MAD MEN. Thank God. Especially after they submitted "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." Also, I'm enjoying the GG orchestra take on A Beautiful Mine.

RANDOM QUESTION: If you had to judge these television shows, how would you do it? I mean, theoretically you're supposed to judge based on the one submitted episode. Does that mean you don't watch the shows in their entirety when they air? Or do you watch all of them so you can give them all a fair shake? Or just watch the ones you like... in which case, why bother even watching the screeners?

*Christophe Waltz. Brilliant. Nice speech.

*Time for the DeMille (aka, Time to Make Dinner). Scorsese honored by DeNiro and DiCaprio.

*I love Ricky and his pint. AND HE DID NOT JUST NAIL MEL GIBSON. OMG. OMG. OMG. James Cameron... I knew it was going to happen, but I kind of wish it hadn't. Whatever. And he just spoke in a made-up language. I'm over it.

*Yay Glee! Glee kids hooray!

*LOVE Reese Witherspoon's dress. Love it love it.

*The Hangover just won best musical or comedy. And that's why I love this show.

*I'm getting really tired of Chrysler "inviting me to stay tuned." For reals... I'm not going to RSVP.

*Sandra Bullock, woot.

*How much do we love RDJ? SO MUCH.

*Jeff Bridges for the win. And the Oscar race just got more interesting... and a lovely standing O.

*Really Avatar? Really. Whatever. I'm going to bed.

Well, that's a wrap. Sorry this has been sort of boring... Aside from Gervais himself I can't say it's been a spectacular show. Maybe if you're lucky, we'll have a post-wrap tomorrow.

A Statement About Late Night Wars 2.0

So this one time, I was having trouble getting back into writing the blog.

It had been a while, and work was crazy, and I hadn't really had time to process anything I might want to write about. I started a post about how awesome Star Trek is/was (still to come), but I couldn't get in to writing it, because it wasn't a subject that grabbed me and demanded to be written about.

And then the late night wars of the 21st century commenced, and I had found my purpose for blogging again.

I could start at the beginning, with the great Late Night tradition, with Carson and his legacy, but I won't.

I could start with the fact that NBC gave Leno a five year head start to retire, and five years to get themselves comfortable with the fact that it was finally time to turn The Tonight Show over to Generation X.

But the issue goes beyond that. So instead, let's begin with the utter incompetent fools who are running NBC.

There's always the asinine fact that they did give a five year head start to the announcement of the changing of the guard. Leno is fine, but he's no Carson-level nation treasure, both by nature of his humor and length of his tenure. There are not generations, plural, who have set their nightly watches by Leno, or even who bothered to stay up and see his great farewell. No, we did not need five years to prepare ourselves for crippling grief or a landmark change to the nightly television landscape.

Which might have something to do with the fact that by the time he actually retired, we already knew he was coming back. The decision by NBC to introduce an hour-long comedy show every night in the ten o'clock time slot was ludicrous in the extreme: not only were they going to cannibalize their own franchise (who's going to stay up to watch a comedic wrap-up of the day after they've already seen one beginning an hour and a half earlier?), but they were displaying a massive disdain for quality original programming, effectively removing five hours from their schedule that could have been devoted to some of the new, groundbreaking dramas that have been flooding the airwaves in the past decade. Hell, they even could have brought Battlestar Galactica over from SyFy and started showing it from the beginning. It would have saved money. And I'd be willing to bet it would have gotten better ratings than Leno.

All of this doesn't speak to the fact that they brought back Leno to host this banality. And with Leno at the helm, it was only ever going to be banality. Leno versus Letterman aside, I have never personally found Leno funny. At all. He sort of comes out, and bobs his head, makes a couple of inane jokes (which he is sure to laugh at), and then gives seriously boring interviews.

Say what you will about Letterman, his humor and his personal life, at least his show is interesting.

But I digress. Let's talk about Conan O'Brien for a moment. I'm a little too young to have a staunch loyalty to him from his earlier work, but every time I have watched him I have found him humorous and appealing (and let's face it: his constant referencing and legendary cameo on 30 Rock certainly don't hurt), and I think he was a fine, fine choice to usher in the next generation of Tonight-ers. We are the generation of The Daily Show, and anyone who will fight with Stewart and Colbert in a stairwell during the Writers Strike will do nicely. He certainly isn't for everyone, but he isn't as divisive as Leno was against Letterman, and honestly, if I stayed up that late, I would have a hard time choosing who to tune in to.

To the surprise of no one, The Jay Leno Show at 10pm is an unmitigated disaster, no matter what the execs tell you about it performing "exactly as expected" (BTW, we in America have already voted against blind adherence to failed doctrine. Admitting your mistakes is "in" now... seriously), and now the show has been cancelled.

Well, actually not. It has been moved. To 11:35pm. In other words, they are bumping The Tonight Show by a half an hour for... Jay Leno.

There is so much wrong with this scenario that it's hard to know where to begin, but the fact that it's The Tonight Show, not The First Thing Tomorrow Morning show is a good start. Conan's insanely eloquent speech from TCA really says it all. There is nothing I can add to that to make the point better.

And so now, a new question emerges: how on Earth will NBC ever lure anyone back to host their late night? They already screwed Letterman for Leno, and now they're bumping Conan... honestly. How will they convince the next guy that he's not going to be another episode of Law and Order: LVU?

And more importantly, how will they convince showrunners that their ten o'clock hour is now safe for quality drama?

I guess we'll wait-and-see-pudding.

A Statement About Serious Neglect, and Perhaps a Little Bit More

Alright, peeps.

It's been a long few months. They had been saying over here that one day the work was just going to hit, and that nothing was ever going to be the same ever again. I believed them, but it's the kind of thing you can't really comprehend until you've lived it. And boy, have I lived it.

Right about the time I was supposed to be writing 1,667 words per day my work started to pick up considerably, and I am saddened to report that I didn't not finish my WriMo challenge.

And then I didn't blog for another month beyond that.

Work's still intense and in the evenings my concentration is pretty shot (not to mention that the Festival starts in about 2 weeks), but I'm trying to get back on track. I really have nothing to say about anything right now except Happy New Year, and I'm back.

Or trying to be, anyway.