TVSquad

Ya gotta give Drew Carey a lot of credit. Going into his third season on The Price is Right, he's been able to step in the shoes of an icon, Bob Barker, and do a good job. He's also his part to drag the 38-year-old show into the 21st century, whether it wants to be here or not.

A couple of weeks ago, Drew simultaneously started a blog called Drew From TV, and a Twitter feed called TPIRHost, essentially to talk about his backstage experiences at TPiR, and whatever else he happens to think about (he soon started a second Twitter feed called DrewFromTV so he could muse on politics, soccer, and his other interests without associating it with the show).

As much as I've complained, bitched, moaned, and complained (yes, I said "complained" twice... that's how much I did it) about Studio 60, I never stopped watching the show.

The reasons why I did so changed over time. For a while, I thought I was "rubbernecking;" I just couldn't resist seeing what train wreck Aaron Sorkin wrote for himself each week, and then couldn't wait to get on to TV Squad and other sites to see the critics and the commenters ravage the episode. Then, for a while, I thought I was watching the show out of the hope that such a talented group of writers and actors could get their act together long enough to run off a streak of quality episodes. Finally, I thought I was watching merely for the fact that there was nothing else to watch on Mondays at 10, and I figured I could just watch it while I wrote my review for How I Met Your Mother.

Turns out it was all three reasons. And, now that The Black Donnellys is taking S60's place starting next week, I'm going to miss the show a little bit.

Apparently, back in the day, Tim Gunn expressed disappointment that season one Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll hadn't debuted a collection by the age of 29. Well, Jay would like you to know that he's "not bitter" about that comment, but it was "hurtful." In the February 4th issue of New York Magazine, McCarroll goes on at length about Tim Gunn, and it's not pretty, Runway fans. (If you're offended by profanity, you may want to close your eyes for this next part.)

"I just hate that because middle America looks at him like, 'He's so nice, he's like a father to them.' On [Project Runway] he was, sure ... At one point he said I was an embarrassment because I didn't show yet. And it's like, f**kin'-A, man ... I don't think [Gunn is] an authority on any designer's life. He went to school for sculpture or something. I don't think he's ever, to my knowledge, started a fashion line and therefore should not be the adviser or the f**kin' creative director." Oops ... too late. Liz Claiborne just made him their creative director. They hadn't gotten the memo from Jay yet, I guess.

The wheel of publicity spins round and round. On January 18th, Rosie O'Donnell complained on The View that American Idol's judges were too harsh. She described them as "three millionaires, one probably intoxicated." Really, much like her remarks about Trump's hair, that description of the show doesn't seem that far out of line with the general public's perception of American Idol or, at the very least, of Paula Abdul. Nevertheless, Simon Cowell felt compelled to reply. Rosie's remarks "smacked of 'I'll have a go at Donald Trump - good for ratings. That died down, so now I'll do American Idol.' Next week it will be, 'I don't like the dresses on Dancing with the Stars.'"

Now, Rosie is on a show whose entire conceit is to gab it up on the pop culture and current events of the day so it really shouldn't surprise anyone that she moved from Trump's Miss America moralism to American Idol. I just hope Rosie doesn't respond to Cowell with some weird comment. That's one playground news cycle nobody needs. It would be so much easier if he'd just pull her pigtails, and she'd just step on his GoBot.

Call me an old crankypuss, but I've never really been impressed with unmoderated discussions on the Web. Once you leave the doors wide open, you're almost immediately overrun by folks who gleefully pound out vicious bromides while hiding behind the anonymity allowed by the Web. One has only to read the comments on any YouTube clip to see how quickly this can bring down intelligent discussion.

Alas, that's how this crazy medium works, so you have to take the good with the bad. That is, unless you're CBS. The network, which boasts some of the most-watched clips on YouTube, is trying to police its comments by moving them to a different page, rather than directly below the videos themselves. The network is also trying to stay on top of profane, off-topic and unconstructive criticism. The network has been doing this since late October, and all I can say is, "Welcome to the user's Web, CBS."

[via Lost Remote]

While we've received dozens of comments about yesterday's Oprah-James Frey show, Oprah has received tens of thousands of comments. The message board on her website lists more than 12,000 comments for the Frey show. In comparison, other shows only garnered several hundred comments. The commenters go from bashing Oprah, to supporting Frey, to discussing the definition of a memoir. A lot of people on Oprah's site and on our site think that she was too harsh on Frey, that it doesn't matter if he lied because it's still a good book, and mostly that she crucified him on national television for personal gain.

Does anybody out there support what Oprah did? I mean, other than me and Joel and Maureen Dowd.

[Thanks for the tip, Debbie!]

Commenting should now be enabled for any posts we've done since Monday morning. We'll have commenting turned back on for the remainder of our posts soon. Also, I know that several of you have already attempted to post comments though have never received the confirmation email. We're working on getting those comments enabled for you, though I'm not certain yet if it's possible. Thanks for your understanding!