It’s been a whirlwind year for Netflix, as it attempts to stay well ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, most of CEO Reed Hastings’ attempts have backfired, from raising the subscription cost to his attempt to spin off the mail-in DVD service. He also revealed that Netflix’s ultimate goal is to become more like HBO, and that the service would like to be 60 percent original content at some point in the future. The first step toward that goal was smart: They made a deal to make 10 new episodes of “Arrested Development,” paving the way toward a feature film. Since then? One boneheaded idea after another.

First they tossed around the idea of picking up the little seen, not very good series, “The River” after its cancellation, and this week it was reported that Netflix has approached CBS about reviving “Jericho,” a series that has gained a decent following post-cancellation on CBS, but that wasn’t that great to begin with (at least after a solid opening season).

The question is: Why are they messing about with series few people care about that much, like “The River” or “Jericho,” when they could be exploring the possibility of reviving these 10 series, each of which would fare far better on the online subscription service.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, he would, wouldn’t he? The guy behind “Lost” has written an op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter supporting Veena Sud’s decision not to reveal Rosie Larsen’s killer at the end of the first season. But before you start trashing Lindelof, he’s going to head you off at the pass.

Even before you got to this sentence, you have already decided I’m a f–ing idiot. Because only a f–ing idiot would dare defend “The Killing.”

But defend it I shall. Sure, I understand why you’re angry — I was, too. But this is precisely what qualifies me to change your mind. And I know what you’re thinking. “Ooh. He’s self-servingly finding yet another reason to whine about Lost.” You are, of course, correct.

OK. So, we’ve established that Damon Lindelof is a self-serving, f–ing idiot. Should we even consider his defense? Let’s see what he has to say.

Were we misled? Yes. And yet, it turned out that misleads were sorta the point of the show.

In fact, the messaging behind “The Killing” continually reinforced that it was not going to be the cop formula we were familiar with, but something else entirely. There would be profound meditations on grief. Red herrings. Investigative dead ends. These are the things that drew us to it in the first place … so in some way, shouldn’t we have expected a lack of resolution? More importantly, it was either incredibly stupid or incredibly bold not to give us what we were demanding. I am inclined to believe it was the latter.

Incredibly bold is promising us ice cream and giving us Gelato. The season finale of “The Killing” was more like promising us ice cream and giving us a brain contusion. You’ve not convinced me yet, Lindelof. Please continue.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, we published a post about how someone was selling a piece of the Aggro Crag from Nickelodeon’s “GUTS” on eBay. We’re still not totally sure if it was real or not, but I choose to think it was because SCREW YOU, DON’T MESS WITH MY CHILDHOOD.

But that extremely pricey, totally useless piece of history got me wondering what other on-screen treasures you could purchase through eBay. First, I typed in “Alison Brie underwear” and “Raylan Givens hat,” and after my results returned nothing but signed photos and books (blah), I did a more general search for “TV merchandise props.” Here are ten expensive, literally as-seen-on-TV items I absolutely want and obviously need.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why, New York Times, why? Last week the Grey Lady published an article about TV’s increasing reliance on social media and GIFs, which never once mentioned Dan Harmon, probably the only showrunner who’s ever said the word “GIF” in an interview. (Kurt Sutter might have said it, too, but he probably thinks it means something inappropriate even for this website.) Now there’s: “Clues That Lead to More Clues That Add Up to Nothing.”

I agree with most of the first half of the article, which argues that the creative team behind “Lost” was so involved with laying out clues in the first three seasons of the show that the final three were an absolute mess, the writers involved in an “ever-growing pile of unsolved mysteries, madly skimming Wikipedia entries on space-time geometries and black holes.” But when the Times writer claims, “Lost” was like a dirty bomb that made the world unsafe for serial dramas to this day,” she began to lose me. And she totally lost me at:

In the wake of “Lost,” network and cable executives seem to crave ever bigger (and emptier) televisual thrill pellets. Forget that the very best dramas of the current golden age — “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Wire,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” — build suspense through careful character development, restrained dialogue and meticulous storytelling. “Lost” produced a dangerous addiction to spectacular, heart-stopping pilots with very little clue where to go from there.

Sure, networks pretty quickly began emulating “Lost,” and they pretty much all sucked. Remember “FlashForward” and “The Event”? Terrible. But two of the examples she gives, “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” came three and four years after “Lost” premiered. (She also later refers to the quality of “Mad Men” in the past tense, even though season four was its best yet, with its greatest episode, “The Suitcase.”) “Lost” clearly couldn’t have done that much damage because while it was still on, two of the greatest slow-paced dramas ever, “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” premiered. To further prove her point, she offers up three more “twist-and-turn-packed sloppiness” series in “The Killing,” “Homeland,” and “American Horror Story.” Yes, two of those are sloppy (not “Homeland”), but at no point are “Game of Thrones,” “Justified,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Sons of Anarchy,” or “The Good Wife” brought up. And that’s not to mention “Battlestar Galactica,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Veronica Mars,” etc. all of which took major dramatic risks, and mostly succeeded.

There are always going to be dumb dramas on TV, just as shi*ty music and movies will always be sold and released. But to claim “some of us have been burned too many times to head back into that jungle maze yet again” is to ignore some of the greatest dramas of all-time, all of which premiered after “Lost” supposedly destroyed the genre. One more thing: when you say “Lost”’s “toxic stain…threatens, even in death, to kill the current golden age of television,” are we just ignoring the fact that we’ve never had such a plethora of quality sitcoms as we do right now. Like, ever, in the history of television.

Earlier this week, our briefly departed tyrannical leader, Mr. Ufford, posted an article about how bookmakers Paddy Power have given odds on how Charlie Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, will depart “Two and a Half Men.” Gambling on TV shows, particularly when it involves death, isn’t all that different from putting money on a sports game because you have no idea what the outcome is going to be (“WILL TONY DIE?” ASKS 2007). Unless you work for the show, or know someone who works for the show, or have access to a screener, or…

So it’s completely unlike a sports game, which is why there aren’t many opportunities to do it (with the exception of reality shows—ironically, I hear season two “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard was last seen hanging outside of an OTB in Fresno). On the following pages are a few examples of bets that you could have placed on scripted series, with a last page bonus of the odds for this year’s Emmys.

Let the neon claws of Gamblor guide you.