TVSquad

This is getting serious.

Both sides are still far from agreement on a new deal, and a strike by the Writers Guild of America could start in a couple of weeks (the last offer was rejected by writers). That means that scripted shows (Lost and House, for example) and late night talk shows would suffer the most. Some shows have a schedule that means they won't be affected that much, like The Simpsons, but most other scripted shows will be hurt in some way. As for daytime, Martha Stewart wouldn't be affected at all, but The View uses union writers so that should could be hit. (The View uses writers? So that means a writer actually puts those words into Elisabeth Hasselbeck's mouth?)

Well, this is a rather cool feature for a TV fan: IMDb pages for TV and movie characters.

Now, it's one thing to have a page for a character that has only been seen on one TV show. But what about characters that have appeared on several TV shows? I decided to test IMDb and see how thorough it is. I typed in "Mike Bauer," a character that used to be on Guiding Light. The character has not only been played by a bunch of characters over the decades, he also appeared on another soap, Another World (on another network!), and damn, the IMDb caught that too.

Judd Apatow, who will forever be a hero to many TV viewers who loved the too short-lived NBC series Freaks and Geeks, is saying goodbye to television. But not before one final shot with the soon-to-be-released feature film The TV Set.

The movie stars David Duchovny as a series creator who butts heads with various studio executives (including Sigourney Weaver) who just don't get what he's trying to do with his TV show. And, yes, it's a version of what Apatow and The TV Set director Jake Kasdan went through when they worked on Freaks and Geeks.

It looks like the Emmy Awards are turning into the SATs.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has made several changes to the way Emmy nominations are chosen. For one, series and acting category nominations will be chosen by a mix of a regular vote and voting by a blue-ribbon panel of voters. Second, there's a new "Ellen Burystyn" rule. An actor can only be nominated if he or she was in at least 5% of an episode (Burstyn won a Supporting award last time, even though she was only on screen for 14 seconds). Third, public performances on TV will no longer compete in the music/variety category. They're adding a new special category where more than one performance could win an award.

Oh, and there's one more change: actors and producers will have to submit an essay of 250 words or less as to what their character/show is about and why they think they should be nominated. This wiill come in handy when Jim Belushi has to explain the complexity of his According To Jim character.

I used to play this game with myself when I was bored where I would try to create "chains" by linking names and phrases together. For example, I might morph "I'm A Little Teapot" and the "Teapot Dome Scandal" into "I'm A Little Teapot Dome Scandal."

Now, someone needs to jog my memory because I know there's an actual game that also became a short-lived game show based on this same idea. While I wait for someone to remind me what that was called*, I've created another game for y'all to play. Just like my last two games, you won't win anything, but I think this one is a little more challenging that my last two.

I've written plot descriptions for twenty-one series below. Here's an example:

Okay, so I was in the mood to create another fun TV game for y'all like I did with my "TV opposites" game, so here it is.

Below you will find altered lyric samples from TV themes that more or less mean the same thing as the original lyrics. For example, if I wrote:

One takes that which is affirmative, and also that which is negative
and puts these two opposing forces together
in conclusion, the result is the truth of all existence

TV Shows on DVD has long been my favorite site for finding information on both recent and upcoming DVD releases of television series, and I've linked to it on numerous occasions. After five years of providing quality content, the site has been acquired by TV Guide. In a message on the site, co-founder Gord Lacey explained that not much will change with the site itself, other than some integration between the site and TVGuide.com.

I always thought the site did pretty well on its own, but as Lacey points out, being part of TV Guide will hopefully give the site even more visibility and access to studios, resulting in even better coverage.

If the acquisition helps to raise the profile of TV Shows On DVD, I say "cheers" to my fellow TV-centric blog. It will remain my preferred choice for TV on DVD news and new releases.

If you're a Netflix subscriber but can't stand waiting for those DVDs to arrive in the mail, I have some good news for you: over the next six months, the company will be rolling out a new feature that will allow subscribers to stream movies and TV shows directly to their computer. Initially, subscribers will be able to choose from about 1,000 movies and TV shows out of the over 70,000 offered through the company's mail service. Users will have to download a browser application in order to take advantage of the new service.

The service will be included as part of the subscription plan at no extra cost. As a Netflix customer, I'm thrilled to have another way of viewing these shows, though I have a feeling the majority of my rentals will still be done through ye olde postal service. I don't really have any desire to watch movies on my computer, at least not until I get a more comfortable computer chair.

This is a variation of a word game I sometimes play with my friends. Below I've listed a bunch of television shows, but instead of writing the actual name of the show, I've written the show's "opposite." I put "opposite" in quotations because obviously not all words have exact opposites, so I have to be clever sometimes and just come up with something that kind of fits. This makes it fun. Here are some examples:

The "opposite" of Taxi might be Bus.

The "opposite" of Everybody Hates Chris might be Nobody Loves Christie.

The "opposite" of General Hospital might be Specific Clinic.

The list is after the jump. See how many you can guess. You won't win anything, just bragging rights and a cameo appearance in my next sexual fantasy. Onward:

UPDATE: Congrats to everyone who has guessed correctly so far. There are still a few left, so crank up your brains, puzzle masters.

SECOND UPDATE: One more left.

THIRD UPDATE: They've all been guessed. Good job, everyone.

It's not even January yet, but that doesn't mean we can't take a sneak peek at some of the shows in development right now. The Futon Critic has a list that they've been updating every week, and while some of the show seem rather bland and the same old same same old, there are a few shows that could be interesting.

TiNo. That's the word San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman has coined for shows that he has recorded on ohis DVR but hasn't watched yet. The shows that have been on there but you haven't watched yet, or the shows you've recorded and you're not even sure if you'll eventually get to them or not. (Funny how TiVo has now become the noun and the verb for recording TV shows on a DVR or PVR, whether or not it's actually a TiVo or not. Like how we call all bandages Band-Aids!)

I've TiNo'ed five episodes of Life on Mars. They've been on there for two months or so, but hopefully I'll get to them in the next month or so.

What shows have you TiNo'ed?

Recently a blogger stumbled upon some hidden pages on Amazon's site that may have offered a look into what the company will be offering as far as its upcoming digital download service, which Anna first hepped us to in July. The pages are no longer available, and since no official announcement has been made by the company we can't take any of this as absolute, but what the page seemed to suggest is that the new service will be called "Amazon Unbox," downloads of TV shows will cost $1.99, and content will be viewable on an in-browser player that will only work with Windows computers (to start with). Like I said, none of this is set in stone and could only be half true or completely false, but I'm definitely curious to see how Amazon approaches this, and if they'll do it in a way that doesn't shut out any customers.

Update: After I scheduled this post, some more information on the service became available. It sounds as if consumers will be able to rent or buy videos through the service. You may also be able to burn purchased copies to a blank DVD, but they won't play on traditional players.

TV Predictions has a regular column where they discuss High-Def. Not just the positive aspects of HD, but also a list of what looks good and what looks bad in HD.

I've noticed this too. Back in the old days of television (and by "old days" I mean two years ago) you would see attractive people on television and not give it a second thought. Or maybe even not so attractive people and not give it a second thought. But now with HD, you see everything oh so clearly, and it's not always a good thing. Guys who had some wrinkles are now revealed to have Grand Canyon-like crevices in their face. Women who you'd look at and say "hmm, she might have had plastic surgery" now leave no doubt that they have. Even soap opera stars, who are almost all uniformly beautiful and/or studly are revealed to be either craggly or wearing so much makeup they look like a wax figure.

Progess isn't all it's cracked up to be. I think Dave said that on NewsRadio once.