Update: The post on Grunberg's page was a retweet originally written by someone else. (Apparently, I need Grunny to control my mind and actions!)Greg Grunberg is reading my mind.
Yesterday, the Heroes actor tweeted a short rant about The Listener, NBC's new show about a paramedic who can read people's minds. As everyone who watches Heroes knows, Grunberg plays a mind reader on his show, which also airs on NBC.
Here are Grunberg's thoughts on the new mind reader in town:
"wht is ths "The Listener" crap. thr's alrdy a show abt a mindreader on tv, its called heroes, & @greggrunberg is all we need."
I know this isn't big news, but I think it's noteworthy, mostly because I had the same thought. Why would NBC want two shows that feature a dude who reads people's minds? I guess only the network, um, brass could answer that question. Still, it's fun to see a guy like "Grunny" comment on the oddness of it all.
All this, of course, begs the question: Who is the better mind reader, Grunberg's Matt Parkman or Toby from The Listener? Toby seems to get fewer headaches than Matt does, but Matt can alter people's perception of reality, a la Professor X, to make them believe whatever he wants them to believe. I haven't seen Toby do anything that cool yet.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-10-2009 @ 3:15PM
Ryan said...
My first thought when I saw a promo for The Listener was, "why not just spinoff Parkman from Heroes?"
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6-10-2009 @ 3:20PM
Owloo said...
well if mindreading characters are your thing why not watch the Listener since he is the main character you'd get a lot of mindreading as Heroes doesn't always focus on Grunberg's Parkman character sometimes he ain't even in a episode and actually Heroes isn't even on during the Summer so cool your jets Grunberg geez
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6-10-2009 @ 3:28PM
Matthew Hawkins said...
I just lost all respect for Greg Grunberg... I thought he seemed like a nice guy but that comment is just rude. He probably hasn't even seen an episode of The Listener!
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6-10-2009 @ 3:36PM
Eric said...
You guys completely forgot to point out that Greg didn't actually write that, but was re-tweeting what someone else wrote.
http://twitter.com/greggrunberg/status/2099581828
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6-10-2009 @ 4:11PM
Bart Smith said...
He did write this one though.
http://twitter.com/greggrunberg/status/2031387818
6-10-2009 @ 4:14PM
Eric said...
Haha, well I stand corrected.
6-10-2009 @ 4:37PM
Mike Moody said...
Hmm, it didn't seem like a retweet. But it sounds like Grunny shares the sentiment.
6-10-2009 @ 4:22PM
const said...
Here's hoping that the Listener's character doesn't suck as much as Matt Parkman. Lamest. Hero. Ever.
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6-10-2009 @ 4:37PM
MosquitoControl said...
Arguably you need this Listening power to understand that twitter.
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6-10-2009 @ 4:56PM
Hellster said...
Personally i don't give a crap what a celebrity thinks about another show. I like The Listener a lot , and personally think Heroes got boring long ago so what Grunberg said means jack to me. Get over it dude , people like the show so deal with it , and just to eriterate i personally don't like his character in Heroes anyway , he comes off as too much of a wimp , but that's just my thoughts :)
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6-10-2009 @ 6:26PM
Riley Freeman said...
why not realized this was developed for canadian tv and was picked up by nbc?
why not state the fact that heroes has sucked for a longtime now and they got a shor season order because it likely will be cancelled after this season. unless something spectacular will happen (it wont) and ratings improve (they wont).
how bout that?
or how bout parkman has been one of the most boring character on heroes and sounds like a whiny lil b*tch?
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6-10-2009 @ 7:38PM
Richard Lawler said...
Except The Listener doesn't suck, so there's that.
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6-10-2009 @ 9:33PM
KaeDee said...
With the dozens of cop shows on the air, Mike, you're actually griping about a mind-reader and a telepath who star in two separate shows with COMPLETELY different premises? Now I've seen it all. If you really needed something to print today, how about trolling the bottom of another barrel. There are people who can see the difference between the comic book-centric mind-reader presented in the adventure series Heroes, and the telepathic character in the drama The Listener.
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6-10-2009 @ 10:01PM
Xaul said...
I haven´t seen 'the listener', but I gave up on heroes mostly because of boring characters like Matt and that's not Greg's fault, I was a big fan of his work on Alias.
Maybe we really needed another mind-reader.
And did I mention Toby is hot?
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6-10-2009 @ 10:31PM
Greg said...
Can they just kill off Parkman already so he can (presumably) move over to Fringe?
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6-11-2009 @ 12:39AM
Impsy said...
It was a retweet. From me. =D
https://twitter.com/impsy/status/2099484699
First Grunny retweets me, then I get an article about it on tvsquad? Good couple of days for me! haha
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6-11-2009 @ 3:03AM
lynn said...
To reiterate what commenters already said, this particular tweet was a retweet. He did make a second tweet himself, but considering so much of what he writes on his twitter is tongue-in-cheek, I wouldn't take it seriously.
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6-11-2009 @ 3:04AM
DVR Life said...
Why so many Heroes haters? The show may have slipped in writing quality, but Parkman is a pretty awesome character and Greg Grunberg is a good actor.
I've watched the first couple episodes of The Listener and it's pretty decent for summer TV and the two shows are completely different.
Plus The Listener is a Canadian show that's been imported for the summer. It's not like NBC created a new mind reader show.
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6-11-2009 @ 8:22AM
StillBash said...
Twitter condenses everything you say to 160 characters. You are blowing things out of proportion Mike.
Greg can't be THIS dumb to actually think that he has a TM on telepaths on every show out there. That's just insane.
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6-11-2009 @ 8:50AM
Eric H said...
Why would you want to watch a show about a mind reader? Mind reading is a terrible violation of a person, I am not sure how they handle it on "The Listener", but it doesn't sound too good.
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