This Week's Stupidity & Other Fun Stuff

Hey folks,

Trying to get back on track with that "posting on Wednesdays" schedule I threatened a while ago...

Today we start out with the hope that the minds behind South Park kill off beloved character Chef in the most heinous and disgusting way possible. With Issac Hayes, the voice behind Chef, hypocritically blasting the show for making fun of Scientology (where was he the previous 8 seasons when the show made fun of...well...everyone else), these guys should exact "revenge" in the best way they know...make it a part of the show and point out the hypocracy for all to see (though I'm sure Hayes won't anyway...but we can hope).

Universal Home Video also gets a big "wag of the finger" (to steal from Stephen Colbert) with their announcement of a new series of DVDs called "Brilliant But Cancelled". The idea is a great one. Short lived TV shows with much acclaim get DVD releases. The execution is completely assinine. The first two release are entitled "Crime Dramas" and EZ Streets. This latter release is of a TV series that had NINE episode produced, but Universal is only releasing THREE...and it's not even the first three...it's the two hour pilot, plus two others. The "Crime Dramas" disc contains an episode each from Touching Evil, Johnny Staccatto, Gideon Oliver, and Delvecchio. These shows had, respectively, 13, 27, 4 and 7 or 9 (not sure) episodes produced. Obviously Johnny Staccatto must have been better than "brilliant" to get 27 episodes made. The other shows are all made for DVD at this point. A one or two disc set for each would put all the episodes for their respective fans out without going the assinine "Best Of" route that Universal seems to take. I'm not entirely surprised by this as Universal is easily one of the worst studios when it comes to DVD releases in general (massive failure rates on DVD-18s, screwing up episode orders, etc.). Not that I have any interest in any of these shows, but there are fans of each and they're getting screwed for no real reason.

Meanwhile, on the other side of this coin, Disney gets a "Tip of the hat" (again stealing from Colbert) for releasing the entire run of the defunct Night Stalker "reimagining" from this season in May. ABC cancelled the show, which was growing on me, in the middle of a two parter. Luckily, their parent company is rectifying the problem and adding extras.

Big reminder for all of you out there to turn your TVs this Friday night to the Sci-Fi Channel from 9pm to 11pm. They start airing the new Doctor Who and if you like sci-fi at all, you should be watching this fun and well crafted show. It runs for 13 weeks and with any luck will do well enough for Sci-Fi to run all 14 season two episodes (which will start airing in Britain sometime in April) during the 14 week gap between the end of season one and the scheduled start of Battlestar Galactica for season three (which had an amazing second season I might add).

Lastly, just want to respond to the comments about my Top 25 list. First, I'm just gonna agree to disagree with Glenn on Crash. It's not the first time (probably won't be the last). Second, as for Brokeback Mountain, I should have mentioned not seeing the film under optimum circumstances...having a baby either crawling around the room or crying around the room while trying to focus attention on a film that requires attention (although less so than the baby) is not the best way to watch any movie...but quite honestly, with my priorities changing I was lucky to watch the film at all before the Oscars (and for the record, I didn't actually care what won anything this year...I was about excited to watch the Oscars, even with Jon Stewart as host -- who did a decent job, as I am about clipping my fingernails). So admittedly, Brokeback Mountain is a film that needs a second viewing from me...it's just not going to happen anytime soon if I'm going to try and "fit in" other films (in a similar manner) that I also want to see.

And that's enough of that...in the meantime, we'll see what next week brings as I continue rehearsals for Sly Fox, Natasha continues rehearsals for The Pirates of Penzance (for which I'm doing sound design) and Malcolm continues to go through the horrendously painful process (for everyone) known as "Ferberization". More on that when I have the energy.

Be seeing you.