TVSquad

There was a time during the early days of television where what happened on a scripted show remained within the confines of the small screen. Then came the wonderful world of the Internet and the amazing potential that it had. Soon enough, reality and imagination began to merge. Now, it's a near given that a TV show will utilize the Internet to maximize its viewing potential.

Take Psych for example. In a conversation that took place during last week's episode Shawn made reference to the fact that his father Henry was angry because he didn't have as many friends on Facebook as his son. Of course, that signaled the purveyors of the World Wide Superhighwaynet to take a look to see if it was true. Turns out, Shawn was correct: he has more friends than his father does. Henry only has two friends -- Shawn Spencer and Shawn Spencer. Poor Henry! Meanwhile, Shawn has a total of 50 friends over two different profiles.

However, neither of them can compare to one Burton "Gus" Guster. When it comes to friends on Facebook good ole Gus has a total of 108 on two profiles. Now we really know who everyone loves on Psych!

TiVo has released a Facebook application called My TV that lets you find and rate your favorite shows, and share your favorites with your friends. You can also scheduled recordings, but only through a connection with the TiVo Central website. So if your primary goal is to schedule recordings online you should probably just go right to the TiVo Central page. But the Facebook app is pretty interesting as a standalone package.

When you sign up, My TV will automatically find any of your Facebook contacts who are already users and show you their shows. When you click on a TV program you can leave comments, rate the show, or post a message to the "Show Chat" box to start a discussion with other fans.

It would be nice if you could do a few more TiVo-related things with the Facebook application, like automatically import your season passes rather than picking them by hand. But whether you use TiVo or not, My TV is a pretty nifty Facebook app for TV lovers. I

[via Gizmo Lovers]

It looks like Kristen Kreuk will only be back for a couple of episodes of Smallville for season eight. She has apparently said something to that effect on her Facebook profile. Between that and the rumors of Michael Rosenbaum not returning, I think season eight will likely be the final season of the show.

This means the only regulars from the first season who will be there in the eighth are Clark and Chloe. On a positive note, the whine factor of the show will definitely decline. It could also mean that the inevitable Lois/Clark romance could start up.

I do wonder where they can go with the show without Lana and Lex. It's not really Smallville anymore, is it? A more appropriate name would be Metropolis. They might be saving that for the spin-off, about a group of six twenty-something superheroes sharing two apartments across the hall from each other.

We thought it was time again to point out a few features of TV Squad that have been around for quite some time now, since we have new readers coming to the site every day.

First up, RSS feeds. Most blog readers know what these are and how to subscribe to them, so I'm not going to get into the basics of that now. What you may not know, though, is how many different RSS feeds we actually have here. Sure, you can subscribe to the main feed with all of the posts, but maybe you want to zone in or posts in certain categories?

If you're the sort of person who doesn't do anything without updating your Facebook status first to let all of your friends know that you're eating dinner, heading to work, reading a book, or updating your Facebook status, have I got a Windows Media Center plugin for you.

Developer Jussi Palo whipped up a little Facebook application that will automatically update your Facebook status to reflect what you're watching with Windows Vista Media Center. If you're watching a program called "News," your status will be set to ".. is watching News." If you're watching a DVD or listening to music, that will show up too.

In order to run install the Facebook Media Center plugin you'll need to download an executable file to your Windows Vista machine, run the installer, and reboot your system. Then you need to login to Facebook. Everything else happens in the background. Unfortunately you're login information won't be remembered, so you may have to login to Facebook every time you restart your PC.

[via Ian Dixon]

I entered the NYTVF panel discussion about advertising with some trepidation. After all, I love TV, but I hate commercials. In fact, I'm in love with my DVR because it allows me to fast forward through all that garbage. And I really love watching my shows on DVD because I don't have to worry about about commercials at all.

However, I also realize that much of my beloved television programming (and now) internet content wouldn't be possible without the support of its sponsors. Advertising is an unfortunate necessary evil. For bloggers it means the difference between getting paid (like here at TV Squad) or diligently toiling away without any compensation with the unselfish commitment of a Harry Potter house elf.

The BBC iPlayer is set for a public beta launch near the end of July. The service, which allows UK residents to download and view TV shows up to 7 days after their initial air date, has been in limited beta testing for a while now.

At launch, the service will be PC-only, due to the fact that the BBC has licensed Microsoft DRM technology in order to enforce the 7 day time limit. The BBC plans to offer a Mac version in the future.

Another upcoming features is integration with YouTube, Facebook, and Bebo. You won't be able to watch full episodes through these services, but you'll be able to access clips. And if you live in the UK, you can click through to the BBC's site for full length episodes. It looks like US Doctor Who fans will not be able to use the iPlayer, and will have to wait until episodes are available will still have to wait until the program hits the Sci-Fi channel.

Reports are coming out that CBS has plans to syndicate much of its content through such Web portals as AOL (which owns TV Squad), Facebook, Last.fm and Joost.

Currently, CBS does offer some full episodes on its innertube site, and it also has a YouTube channel featuring short clips from various series. This new venture would allow folks on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to embed the episodes on their profiles, and to even "personalize" the videos (though don't ask me what that means, exactly).

The new content will begin to appear on the aforementioned sites sometime this week. Personally, I'm happy to see more networks offering full episodes, and offering them through more than one venue. The YouTube clips are nice, but I think what viewers are clamoring for is a chance to see their favorite shows anytime they want. It would seem the networks are starting to figure this out.

Comcast is expanding its foray into user-generated content, this time bringing Facebook along for the ride. Beginning in March, Facebook users will have a chance to submit homemade videos to Comcast's Ziddio web site. Like all Ziddio videos, some short films will be showcased on Comcast's On Demand television channel. Others will be selected for an upcoming television series, titled Facebook Diaries, which will be produced by R.J. Cutler, producer of American High and 30 Days.

I'm glad to see a major cable company getting involved in user-generated content. While I don't believe that sites like YouTube are "farm teams," with users just waiting to get snatched up by the "majors," there are plenty of compelling stories being told on the web by amateur filmmakers. It's nice to see that some of them will make their way to a wider audience.

I guess the confidentiality clause that reality TV participants sign only cover the show's results and not how the participants feel about the show's proceedings. If you're in the market for some meta-commentary on currently airing reality programs, look no further than the dozens of MySpace pages, blogs and Face Book entries kept by various shows' competitors.

You can read about why Dasit skipped out of the Egotrip White Rapper Show's 16-bar challenge ("...had to step before it got too corny...") or what Beauty and the Geek's Neils Hoven thinks of the show's editing ("...if anything, people's personalities have been rather understated so far..."). Despite the wealth of competition, the hands-down best blog entry by a reality show competitor on a currently airing program has to be this Tuesday's screed from I'm from Rolling Stone's Krishtine de Leon.

By now you've probably seen it: The reflective cover of the current Time magazine, touting the Person of the Year to be... You.

What the hell do they mean by that? Well, they figure that because of Web 2.0 applications, from blogging to Facebook to MySpace to YouTube, the public at large is largely responsible for shaping how the world informs and entertains itself. To demonstrate what they were talking about, they interviewed 15 people who have made a name for themselves online, from the guy who ratted out Mark Foley to the guy that Senator George Allen called "Macaca" to the woman who reviews seemingly every book on Amazon.com. YouTube gets a lot of play here, with a big profile of founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

Clearly, The Daily Show has had an absolute field day with the fact that Cheney shot a 78 year-old man in the face... They loved this news enough to stretch it over another episode. Quite frankly, I was amazed. If they talk about it again on Thursday, that'll make an entire week of Daily Show programming about the incident. Who can blame them for eating the news up? I mean, dude, Cheney shot a 78 year-old man in the face. I don't think I need to repeat it again. Anyway, Cheney agreed to a no-holds-bar grilling public press conference about the incident -- okay, not really. He opted for an interview on FOX News (oh, whoop-de-doo), in which he lightly touched on the inner details and also stressed the importance of accuracy because... next time, he will kill Henry Whittington.