Chris Thilk
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Chris Thilk would like to make the following confessions: 1) He has, on occasion, watched Golden Girls in a non-ironic fashion; 2) He doesn't think shows from his childhood (A-Team, Knight Rider, etc) hold up and hasn't watched them at all in many years; 3) He is unashamedly a television snob and is more likely to like a show if it doesn't fall easily into one category. When not writing for TVSquad, AdJab or Cinematical Chris works in Chicago and lives in the suburbs with his wife and two sons.
Posted Nov 15th 2006 6:02PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
One of the constant complaints from both fans and critics of
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is that we never get to see much of the actual sketches that make up the show-within-the-show. I always felt this was kind of a silly complaint since we also never saw much of the actual show-within-the-show on
Sports Night but I guess expectations are different for
Studio 60.
Bob disagrees with me but points out that shows like
Entourage, which is about a great actor who we never see actually acting, have the same issue.
Well, if you've been wondering about what those sketches mapped out by Matt Albie, Harriet Hayes and others might look like, the Employee of the Month sketch comedy troupe in Los Angeles is trying to provide a theoretical glimpse. They've taken the snippets of "Crazy Christians," "Nancy Grace" and others from the fictional show and expanded them to
full length form. Check out "Employee of the Month Celebrates The Comedy of Studio 60" starting Friday the 17th.
If any of our LA readers go see this be sure to send in reports.
Posted Nov 3rd 2006 6:43PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Sports, NBC, FOX, CBS, News, Grey's Anatomy, The Five, Talk Show
It might not be
Festivus quite yet, but I feel it's time from some airing of grievances and asking of random questions:
1. Am I the only one who feels Cristina Yang is the most annoying character on TV? The rest of the characters on
Grey's Anatomy are self-centered to some extent but sometimes I think she might actually throw Meredith under a bus to get a cool surgery.
2. Is there a place where I can bet on the tabloids eventually finding Dr. Phil has two other wives and helped build houses in Iraq?
Continue reading The Five: Random Friday questions and gripes
Posted Oct 26th 2006 10:31AM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: FOX
Marshall Kirkpatrick and TechCrunch is
wondering what exactly Fox has in mind with their use of MySpace for online streaming of their shows. He points out that the combination of MySpace, which is seen in some circles as an unproven platform and shows that aren't exactly ratings powerhouses, leads to the conclusion that Fox doesn't really have a MySpace strategy. Or, at the very least, that strategy is to devalue the MySpace brand by streaming shows that are under-performing or off most people's radar.
After using most of the network's online streaming platforms I have to say I liked the MySpace functionality the best. It was the least prone to stopping in the middle of the video, it had the highest quality...I just thought it worked better than any of the alternatives. I'd hate to see it die because it's getting the dregs of the Fox programming lineup.
Posted Oct 26th 2006 9:39AM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Other Drama Shows
This kind of made my day. Marvel is partnering with No Equal Entertainment, a Canadian production company,
to develop a television show based on the comics character
Moon Knight. For those of you unfamiliar with the Moon Knight, his real name is Marc Spector. Spector is chosen by an ancient Egyptian god named Khonshu to be its vessel in the modern world. Spector adopts a number of identities, from a playboy millionaire to a New York cabbie, in order to infiltrate the underworld and dons the Moon Knight garb when kicking butt is needed. There's no timeline for when the series will hit TV but this is fertile ground for a dark series dealing with a number of issues.
Posted Oct 5th 2006 3:27PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, ABC, Lost, Watercooler Talk
The folks here at TV Squad have been having quite an interesting conversation behind the scenes regarding last night's season premiere of
Lost. I don't watch the show (I know J.J. Abrams has no idea what he's doing and is making it up as he goes along. That's what he did with
Alias and it's likely what he's doing on
Lost) but thought that the way those who had tuned in was worthy of publishing for the masses to see. So after the jump you can read the uncensored thoughts of the TV Squad staff.
Continue reading TV Squad's Lost discussion
Posted Sep 28th 2006 11:28AM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
First off, let me just state that I'm with
Bob Sassone: I absolutely love
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The acting, the writing, the production value...I could go on but suffice it to say that I agree with Bob on just about everything.
Let me also state that I am a practicing Christian (Lutheran, specifically) and have been all my life. I mention this because I want you all to know from what position I'm speaking as you read this post.
Continue reading Why Christians should love Studio 60
Posted Sep 14th 2006 5:51PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: ABC, NBC, News, Industry, OpEd, Web, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
In separate deals hammered out with NBC and ABC, studio Warner Bros. has sliced itself off a piece of network flesh and begun what I think will lead to their eventual implosion.
The deal involves the division of income from digital distribution of the WB-produced shows
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and T
he Nine. Under terms of
the agreement, the networks will keep all income from the sales of ads they insert into the shows when they're streamed on the network's websites. Warner, however, will get to keep all the income from what it refers to as permanent downloads of the show such as those through iTunes or Amazon. It might look like a win-win for both parties but believe me when I say that the only winner here is Warner Bros. Keeping all the revenue from sales of their shows is going to open their eyes - and the eyes of all the other studios producing shows - that the network distribution model is unnecessary.
Continue reading Warner Bros. begins the downfall of network television
Posted Sep 7th 2006 3:33PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: CBS, News, Programming, PVR Wire
Wanna hear a funny story? Of course that assumes whether your idea of "funny" is made up of other people getting the shaft or not. If so, then this will most definitely qualify.
People who had Season Passes their TiVos for the
CBS News with Bob Schieffer missed out on Katie Couric's debut in the anchor's chair Tuesday night. That's because the name changed to
CBS News with Katie Couric. The change rendered all those subscriptions about as valuable as the 30-second commercials that got skipped through by people who actually managed to record it, meaning not valuable
at all. The "Couric & Co." blog has a
note on the problem, along with some wonderfully funny advice on how to avoid this problem in the future.
Posted Aug 18th 2006 2:34PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Sports, Industry
Local TV sportscasters are apparently feeling increasingly
marginalized. With national networks such as ESPN covering national teams, and sometimes doing a better job of it because they're a national network, a number of local sports folks see themselves being squeezed out in the near future. Steve Safran at LostRemote has some advice for those concerned about their future:
Go local. Play up the local teams and, when you do cover the big leagues, do it as an actual reporter and not a stenographer. I think that's a fantastic idea. Here in Chicago there are a number of local minor-league and semi-pro teams that get ignored by ESPN but which would be perfect for local stations to cover. And as some of the comments on Steve's post say, there's also plenty of room for them on the internet if they think they're not getting the camera time.
Posted Aug 2nd 2006 7:48PM by Chris Thilk
Filed under: Industry, Children
By virtue of the fact that I have both 1) two young boys aged five and under and 2) a bevy of cable channels to choose from, I wind up watching a fair amount of children's programming. Some shows are better than others, and some versions of shows are better than others. For instance, I don't mind
Jo-Jo's Circus but want to tear my ears from my head during
Dora the Explorer. I also could spend an hour laying out my feelings that Steve was by far the superior host of
Blue's Clues.
What I had never really considered, though, was the effectiveness of the logos for each show. Thankfully Jason Spector has
done so. He's looked at factors like design, emotional effectiveness and accurate representation of the show itself when analyzing the logos. For the sake of fairness he's excluded ones for shows like
The Wiggles that contain the characters since they're too straight-forward and can skew things like emotional connection. Go read the
whole thing for yourself.
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