TVSquad

The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column or in TV Squad's APB Podcast.

To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them to asktvsquad@gmail.com.

This week, I answer questions about Chuck, Katherine Heigl, and where to legally watch shows online for the U.S. and Canada.

As much as there have been movies about the theater and movies about movies, the films that have been made about television are some of the best ever. This year alone, there are two movies nominated for Best Picture of the year by the Academy Awards that are all about television -- Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. Without TV, neither of these films would exist. Looking back, here are the films about TV that set the standards by which Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon are measured.

The networks are cold, heartless bastards.They want us to watch their shows in order to grab ratings and ad revenue; yet, they mess around with their schedules so much that it's frustrating. Eventually, it gets hard for us not to pick up the damn television and throw it out the window. Well, more like get a few people to pick it up and throw it out of the front door. Come on, those flat screens are heavy!

You're probably wondering what I'm ranting about, aren't you? Well, it involves tonight's primetime schedule during the 8 pm time slot. On CBS, we have The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, while FOX has a new House. The 100th episode of House, to be exact. Now, this wouldn't normally be an issue, since I could watch one network and record the other on my DVR. But, NBC decided to bring back Chuck tonight, as well.

A few TV Squad readers contacted me to know how the strike will affect TV show spoilers and if columns like Spoilers Anonymous would vanish at some point this winter.

The short answer is that spoilers will be quite rare this winter if the strike last beyond the Holidays but not gone since a few series that already shot all or part of their upcoming seasons (e.g., The Shield, Greek, Monk, etc.) will start airing new episodes in spring time. As for the long answer...

ABC and this blog's parent company AOL have reached an agreement to stream ABC programming online. You can already watch a number of TV shows directly from ABC's website, but today's announcement brings us one step closer to being able to watch any program from any network without opening up 20 different web pages.

Although ABC's latest deal is with AOL, the announcement is part of a growing trend. When the networks began streaming TV shows online, the goal was to get people to visit a network website. Now we're seeing more networks teaming up to make content available on sites like MySpace, AOL, and Yahoo!.

I'll admit it, I'm a fan of reality TV. However, there is a limit to what I'll watch. Lately, it seems that the networks are desperately creating new reality series. Maybe it's because they fear a writers' strike or maybe they just think we will actually watch?

Earlier today an unnamed major television network sent out a casting call for a reality series that will follow the planning of a Sweet 16 party!

At this point, television networks have made some prime time content available for free online. We're not talking about $1.99 downloads from iTunes. We're talking free streaming episodes from networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW.

But you can usually find just few episodes of a few programs. Mashable has put together a list of 33 services that provide online access to TV programs in one way or another. Some are 100% legal, like Joost and Babelgum. Others are a bit shadiers, like TV Links, which doesn't host any copyright-infringing video on its servers, but provides links to sites where you can (probably illegally) stream video.

I'm not a fan of most "big" movies. You know, those movies with a ton of special effects, babes and explosions but very little plot? However, that doesn't mean decent "big" movies don't exist, and I think the Spider-Man films are a good example. Also, nobody brings a comic book to life better than Sam Raimi (perhaps some of my comic book-loving readers will disagree, though).

Anyway, I mention Spidey on this TV blog because FX has garnered the rights to broadcast Spider-Man 3 in 2009. How much FX ends up paying for the movie depends on how much money the movie itself brings in. As of this writing, the movie has brought in $161,401,784. The deal between Sony and FX could also allow Sony to sell the film to other broadcast networks.

Just out of curiosity, who saw Spider-Man 3 and what did you think of it? I liked it quite a bit, though I think it's probably the least of the series so far: a little too much story for one movie, but it did maintain that "old comic book" feel I love so much. I have a lot more to say about it, but I'll turn it over to you guys in the comments. Opine.

Bob Geldof, musician, social activist, Live Aid founder and the brains behind the Live 8 concert, is planning to launch a new broadband and television channel in 2008 dedicated to promoting world peace. The new venture will be financed by Point of Peace, a Norwegian human rights organization, and Geldof will launch the channel through his production company, Ten Alps. There's not much information on the channel or what sort of programming it will have, though some sources say the new channel will encourage Western nations to help poorer countries.

My initial thought is that Geldof is going to face an uphill struggle trying to get people to watch a channel dedicated to spreading peace throughout the world. That's not to say most of us wouldn't love to see such a thing happen in our lifetime, but no matter how much we advocate peace in our day to day lives, television still remains a medium mostly dedicated to indulging that part of our brain that loves violence and bloodshed. Getting people to watch a channel about peace is going to involve more than just creating entertaining programming, it's going to mean getting people to approach TV in an entirely new manner.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the brains behind Skype and Kazaa, are preparing to launch the first global television network later this year. The new service, called Joost, has already garnered interest from Endemol TV (Fear Factor, Deal or No Deal and 1 Vs. 100), September Films (Beauty and the Geek, Bridezillas) and the Indy Racing League, all of which will be providing content, though what that content will be is unknown at the time.

The creators hope to provide entertainment for viewers using a format that will also allow content providers to keep their shows safe from piracy. The new venture already has several advertisers lined up, which is no doubt due to the popularity of both Skype and Kazaa.

Speaking as a viewer who isn't exactly tech-savvy, I have to say that the success of Joost will come down to how easy it is to use. I've said before that a large part of YouTube's success is that it's incredibly simple to find and watch videos. As long as Joost doesn't over-complicate things and actually provide worthwhile content, it might be worth checking out.

Adult Swim now has an official channel on YouTube, and I'm not really sure why. The channel only features clips and not full episodes, and while it looks like there are not as many user-uploaded episodes on the site as before, you can still find them if you look hard enough. Also, there's always the Adult Swim Fix that has both full episodes and clips.

So okay, it's more of a promotional thing. That's fine, but if I'm online looking for something to satisfy my craving for Adult Swim content, this is probably the last place I'll go to. Criminy, I sound like such a whiny little bitch: "Oh, why must Adult Swim provide me with free easy-to-view clips of shows I love?" Seriously, I should just shut the hell up. Who do I think I am, anyway? I'm going to go to my room and think about what I've done.

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]

. . . eleven Adult Swim moments.

Gather around the fireplace, kids, and let us reminisce about all the joy Adult Swim has brought us in the past year:

If you discover yourself in India one day and find you just can't live without news and information from ABC News, then you'll be happy to know that ABC News Now, the network's 24-hour news service, will be airing in India later this year. This is the first time the service will be seen outside of the United States. The ABC News Now service offers many of ABC's well-recognized news programs and programs unique to News Now, such as 20/20, Healthy Life, Ahead of the Curve (technology program), and Time Tunnel, a look back at important news events in history. The service will air in India on Dish TV. ABC sees this as a first step and hopes to eventually expand to other countries, as well.

If you tune into TV Land on September 25 from 6 to 7 p.m., don't expect to see anything. No really, you won't see anything because the network is going off the air for that hour in honor of Family Day -- A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children. The idea, I guess, is that if there's nothing being shown on TV Land you'll have no choice but to eat a meal with your family. Frankly, I think the American family needs more persuading than that. Maybe they could hire goons to break into people's homes and tie them to the dinner table and force them to eat at knife point. Even better, they could get TV Land personalities like Henry Winkler and Mr. T to do this. I'd be honored to have the Fonz force feed me a potato. That kind of experience could only make me a better person.