(S04E09) "The local station edited 'Will & Grace' so much that it was just called 'Karen'." - Randy Lemon
In my mind, Jack Donaghy had nothing to do with the whole Leno/Conan/NBC mess. Sure, he's not as high up as Jeff Zucker or Jeff Gaspin or any other executives named Jeff that the Peacock Network might have. But he's the head of a couple of divisions, so they might have asked him for his opinion on the matter. Jack cares about money, sure, but he seems like a Team Conan guy to me.
But I don't like him in "lost Jack" mode, where's he's lovesick and/or frazzled. And that's how he was in both of the new episodes tonight.
I'm not sure what the heck James Franco is doing on General Hospital (though I kind of admire his quirky career strategy), but I do know what he's doing on 30 Rock: he's playing himself, trying to set up a fake romance with Jenna. Here's a sneak peek of the episode, which airs on January 14.
(S09E07 / S09E08) I don't usually do a joint review when two episodes of a show air in the same night, but both these episodes were so interestingly similar in tone, that I felt it was better to discuss them together than separately. Also, I've got a case of the winter lazies.
But back to that first point: Many of you couldn't understand why I hated the episode on New Year's Day so much; many of you felt that it did a nice job of showcasing the med students as well as a maturing Turk and Elliot. But there was something so off about how those characters were written last week that it didn't sit well with me. This week's episodes showed me why. They also gave me a good indication of the pace and tone that Med School should settle into. Just hope it's not too late.
I'm not going to go into the best and worst things that happened in the world of soaps in 2009, but I have do some thoughts I'd like to share. So before we drop the ball and turn the calendar to 2010, a few highs -- and lows -- from daytime this past year.
1. Disappointing daytime. How could any soap fan not be upset about the fate of Guiding Light and As the World Turns in 2009? Guiding Light departed daytime after 72 years, going out not with a bang, but definitely a whisper. The show was a shadow of its former self, relegated to on-the-fly shooting with camcorders and lights that were likely bought at Home Depot. CBS then made the pain of GL's exit more painful but announcing that As the World Turns would be ending in 2010.
(S35E10) I hope you all rolled a towel against the crack of the door before watching James Franco host. This was the most I've laughed at an episode in quite a while, but I am still not entirely sure if it's because watching for ninety minutes gave me a bit of a contact high. Okay, even if you argue that I'm inferring a lot because bits of Pineapple Express are still lingering in my brain, there's no denying Franco was definitely extra-squinty, extra-grinny, and was half-slurring, half-spitting his speech through most of the night.
There was also a lot of making out. No man, woman or tree was safe. Or bong, I guess. Maybe.
I'm sure I'm simplifying what he's writing about because I'm not savvy about the form, but in his own words, he wrote, "I took the plunge and experimented with the form myself when I signed on to appear on 20 episodes of General Hospital as the bad-boy artist."
If you haven't seen The Prisoner yet, you may want to skip the first fifteen or so minutes of this podcast, because we talk about the whole damn thing this week. Jason Hughes and Allison Waldman join me to talk about the AMC remake of the British cult classic, as well as these topics:
Another dip into our Ask TV Squad mailbag, where we discuss the use of laugh tracks and why multi-camera shows are written differently than single-camera shows,
As usual, the music at the beginning and end of the podcast is "Life" by Justin Trawick. Though I decided to add a small surprise at the beginning, a call-back to an interview I did a few years ago. Hope you enjoy it.
The James Franco experiment has begun on General Hospital. Actually, we have now learned that the movie actor, best known for Spider-Man and Milk and The Pineapple Express, has decided to do a two-month guest role on the ABC soap opera as part of a project he's doing with a filmmaker named Carter.
One thing I do know for certain is that ABC is taking Franco's appearance on GH very seriously. They're working around his schedule, giving him a strangely interesting character to play, and promoting it like mad.
To me, this means that not only can we count on the character of Carly being around for a long time to come -- and played by the same actress who has the most tenure in the part -- but also that GH will likely be around for four more years. Oh, sure, there's nothing guaranteed, but I'm an optimist and I choose to see this as a positive sign.
Wouldn't you love to know who's giving actor James Franco career advice these days? I'm not knocking him or her, but I'd love to figure out the strategy. Or maybe this is just Franco being Franco (like Manny being Manny, for you baseball fans out there)?
James has just started filming his two-month arc on General Hospital -- check out the first pic (right) -- and now Michael Ausiello reports that James Franco will do a guest spot on 30 Rock.
How's that for a career trajectory -- from box office bonanza (Spider-Man) to Oscar feature (Milk) to daytime soap (General Hospital) to Emmy-winning sitcom (30 Rock). He's like a human pinball machine looking for a perfect score!
(S35E04) I remember sitting down and staring at Gerard Butler as he made funny, smarmy faces at the camera. And then I blinked, only to see Butler was thanking the cast and viewers for a wonderful show. I looked on the computer screen. There were half-remembered notes haphazardly tapped out at some point.
Somehow, I had jumped forward ninety minutes. Had I finally mastered short-term time travel? Or did I just watch an incredibly forgettable episode of Saturday Night Live? Probably the latter. However, I vaguely recall a destructive robot adorably struggling through a wall. If that was actually a dream and not real life, please don't tell me.
In the biggest casting shocker since Elizabeth Taylor appeared on General Hospital as Helena Cassadine, movie star James Franco is joining General Hospital for a couple of months as a mystery man who comes to Port Charles. Although not confirmed by the show, it's likely that Franco will be playing Vlad Cassadine, another member of that evil family that vexes the citizens of Port Chuck. His first airdate is November 20.
Why would Franco, who's busy with movies and has appeared in Spider-Man, The Pineapple Express, Milk and other hits, take a role on a daytime soap? There's no word from the actor yet, but it could be that they threw a lot of money at him. There's also the possibility that he's a soap opera fan and thought it would be a lark. Ummm, I'm thinking it's more likely the former.
Freaks and Geeks is not only a cult classic among TV fans, but it's also one of TV Squad's favorite "Ol' Yellers". Those are the shows that were taken out back and shot down by the networks before they had a chance to fully develop, despite the crying, whimpering, snot-producing pleas of those who loved them most. It may not be clever, but it sounded a lot nicer than "stillborns".
So it's no surprise that the show made a cameo appearance in a recent AOL interview with mega-superduperstar Seth Rogen on the heels of his new movie Observe and Report about a rogue mall cop who is more tazer-happy than the campus police at the University of Florida.
There's one thing to do a stupid joke that you shouldn't have done, and then it's another to not even have the balls to follow through on the joke.
Case in point: last night's MTV Movie Awards. Seth Rogan and James Franco presented the award for Best Summer Movie of the Year So Far, and while doing it, they did a little plug for their new movie Pineapple Express. They pulled out a bag of fake (?) weed and smoked (?) it onstage, explaining more than once that it was fake and that kids shouldn't smoke it. But take a look at the video after the jump below. As the joke starts, MTV's cameras pull away to a shot that seems to be taken from across the street. You can't even tell what Rogan and Franco are doing on stage, you can only hear them inhaling and introducing the nominees in the category.
I'm not going to go into 
If you had any doubt before, 
If you haven't seen 
The 
There's a lot to be happy about if you're a fan of General Hospital. There's been some very good news from the soap. Things like 
Wouldn't you love to know who's giving actor 
In the biggest casting shocker since Elizabeth Taylor appeared on 
Freaks and Geeks is not only a cult classic among TV fans, but it's also one of TV Squad's favorite "Ol' Yellers". Those are the shows that were taken out back and shot down by the networks before they had a chance to fully develop, despite the crying, whimpering, snot-producing pleas of those who loved them most. It may not be clever, but it sounded a lot nicer than "stillborns". 
There's one thing to do a stupid joke that you shouldn't have done, and then it's another to not even have the balls to follow through on the joke.
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