TVSquad

Remember Sony's Minisode Network? Basically Sony is sitting on a huge library of television episodes that don't see much airtime anymore. So the company decided to slice up classic TV shows like Charlie's Angels, and T.J. Hooker and create 5 minute "minisodes."

The interesting thing is that the cliff notes versions of these shows work surprisingly well, if you don't care about things like plot, character development, and dialog.

The minisodes were originally available online at MySpace. Now Sony is making the mini-shows available on Crackle, AOL, and Joost, as well as MySpace. Sony is also bringing more shows out of the vault including Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and The Jeffersons.

[via The New York Times]

Tonight at dinner, a friend of mine mentioned that he recently met Brent Spiner at an event. He then proceeded to tell me about how a particularly annoying Star Trek fan spent the entire evening bothering Spiner with questions about his character Data.

It reminded me of an episode of Joey where a similar thing happened, except in the episode, Spiner was more than happy to reminisce about his Star Trek days. He even went so far as to take Joey's nephew out to his car to show him his actual uniform from the show.

Feel like reliving your childhood, but just can't find the time? Sony Pictures wants to help. The company is partnering with MySpace to create a Minisode Network that will show brief versions of classic television episodes.

Each minisode will run from 3.5 to five minutes in length. These won't be sets of random clips. Each minisode will tell a complete story. Which is to say, most 22 or 42 minute television episodes you watch probably have a whole lot of fat that could be trimmed without getting in the way of storytelling.

Programs will include Charlie's Angels, T.J. Hooker, and other content from Sony's television library. Interestingly, the project was already in the works when Sony executives saw the popular Seven-Minute Sopranos clip on YouTube.

After Aaron Spelling died last week, Keith asked if one of us would come up with some sort of The Five post that reviews the prolific producer's career. I was thinking of doing a "favorite shows" or "favorite moments" post, but there's so many of each to choose from, I didn't think I could do either category justice with only five choices.

So I decided to concentrate on the characters from Spelling's shows. And, yes, there are many to choose from in this category, too. But by choosing five of my favorite characters (and listing a few honorable mentions), it gives me a chance to illustrate how varied Spelling's shows truly were. And, as you can tell by the picture above, everyone could identify with at least one of his characters. So here are my favorite five:

Rumors have been circulating for many years that the only way William Shatner could maintain the physique of Captain James T. Kirk was to wear a corset under his uniform. Well, that's not true, claims Shatner. The actor claims the seed of this particular rumor actually began when he was working on TJ Hooker. During a break in filming he went horseback riding and wound up with a broken rib. An assistant was sent to fetch a bandage for the injured Shatner, and somehow the rumor mill eventually turned "bandage" into "girdle."

Okay, I don't believe Shatner ever wore a corset/girdle on Star Trek, but his explanation seems a little suspicious. Is he claiming this rumor didn't exist until long after Star Trek went off the air? Do any of you older readers remember hearing this rumor pre-TJ Hooker?