television

Strike to bring down Battlestar Galactica?

Posted 5 Nov 2007 by Laura Scott

With the writers on strike, will this break up the 22-episode final season of Battlestar Galactica? Will it delay the season altogether?

Show creator and WGA member Ronald D. Moore certainly isn't going to be crossing any picket lines, even if he is in that gray area of writer/producer/show-runner:

Some tense times as we head into the strike tomorrow.

Just wanted to take a moment and express my thanks to those of you who've made clear your support of the writers and of our staff in particular. There will still be a Galactica to finish when this is all over, and I'll be back to talk to you more then.

Thanks again and I'll see you on the other side of the Jump.

My hope is that they will run with the 15 or show shows already written. April 2008 is long enough to wait anyway.

Interview ironies: 60 Minutes/Nightline "puff" vs. Daily Show hardball

Posted 4 Oct 2007 by Laura Scott

Via Romanesko:


CBS, ABC Deny Airing "Puff" on Thomas

CBS-TV and ABC-TV defended their networks' pieces on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid criticism that "60 Minutes" and "Nightline" had offered up uncritical "puff pieces" as they interviewed Thomas in connection with his new memoir, "My Grandfather's Son."

...As noted Monday, the reviews were different on the e-mail list of the National Association of Black Journalists, and in a discussion of the "60 Minutes" piece on PBS' "The Tavis Smiley Show."

"I've now watched the 60 Minutes interview and the Nightline interview. It was like watching the Home Shopping Network," wrote one. "You mean to tell me that there was not a single critical commentator on Clarence Thomas' record? These things could have been on Larry King and no one would have blinked. I'm rarely disgusted, but this was pure journalistic drivel."

Joost as good as the content it has

Posted 5 Apr 2007 by Laura Scott

Joost™I suppose I should feel like the cool insider for being a Joost beta tester. All I did was fill out a form some time ago.

Joost has a pretty logo, and their website is full of Flashy color. However, the actual Joost application experience is much more monochrome.

I find the GUI a bit clunky, but that's to be expected in beta. It's better than the ridiculously bad Comcast digital cable UI, a little. Personally I found the placement of navigation buttons to be awkward.

I spent only 15 minutes or so in my first try of Joost. Most of the time I was trying to scroll through channels to find something that actually interested me. This is where the navigation proved a bit challenging. I think my experience was hampered by the fact that I was trying it out at peak hours -- prime time. Maybe in the morning it would be better.

Cow blogging

Posted 23 Mar 2007 by Laura Scott

One of my favorite "old media" tech sites, Creative Cow, has launched a community blog site. With anticipation, I clicked on the link in the email announcement and as soon as the page loaded I had to laugh.

Creative Cow Blog

The Cow uses Drupal!

Say what you meme: My media consumption diet

Posted 3 Mar 2007 by Laura Scott

Comcast makes a bad user interface just a bit worse

Posted 25 Jan 2007 by Laura Scott

It was already bad enough, the kludgy UI that didn't even qualify for GUI, where moving through the channel selections was less like surfing and more like creeping up and down with a walker and orthopedic shoes.

Now, without improving a thing, Comcast has added on-screeen ads at the bottom of each guide screen. Not only that, as you scroll through the ads, the cursor ends up including the ads in the sequence, making it that much harder to go through the guide.

Digital cable is now that much less usable. Just lovely.

Battlestar Galactica back in space

Posted 22 Oct 2006 by Laura Scott

I'm a little astonished — and I suppose I should be embarrassed, but I'm not — by how I behaved watching Battlestar Galactica this past Friday night. Exodus: Part 2 was one of the most exhilirating and most moving episodes of the entire series so far.

It was one of those episodes that makes the exceptional pilot miniseries — which I just saw again last night showing it to a friend who was a Babylon 5 fan but she never had seen any Galactica — almost pale by comparison.

Chris at Monolithic Sketchbook writes:

The ownership society catches up with YouTube ... for now

Posted 20 Oct 2006 by Laura Scott

YouTube is 30,000 files smaller:

The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 video clips such as television shows, music videos and movies posted on YouTube's site without permission, an official from the group, Fumiyuki Asakura, said Friday.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company quickly complied with the request to remove the copyright materials, made on behalf of 23 Japanese TV stations and entertainment companies, Asakura said.

Most videos posted on YouTube are homemade, but the site also features scores of copyright material posted by individual users. YouTube's policy is to remove such clips after it receives complaints, though some have suggested the startup eventually could be sued, especially with deep-pocketed Google Inc. about to buy it for $1.65 billion in stock.

Battlestar Galactica getting Lost?

Posted 7 Oct 2006 by Laura Scott

Warning: Spoilers

After last night's season 3 opener, I'm a little concerned about my favorite show on television, "Battlestar Galactica." The show is starting to resemble "Lost," which from my perspective is not at all an improvement.

I'm not just talkling about the tents and stress monkeys in the jungle. It's the whole arbitrariness that comes across in sequence after sequence of surprises with very little tension. The show used to be terrific at building tension. Whether it's seizing the ore on a hostile asteroid or finding water or holding red alert for several days while Cylons continue to find the fleet within 33 minutes of arriving anywhere or two strong military commanders poised to take their ships into full battle against each other, the show built great anticipation of what was going to happen next.

Star Trek: Stale special effects? Or gay soap opera?

Posted 15 Sep 2006 by Laura Scott

This little gem turned up as the top video in Technorati this morning.

Hardcore fans will recognize the episodes, but compiling it all here adds a new dimension of whimsical fun.

Do I really think Star Trek: TOS has a hidden homosexual agenda? Of course not. (I hope not. William Shatner is just too cute in the 1960s.)

But given Paramount's tassled-loafer inspiration of re-doing all the special effects in the classic series, they're almost begging for slashy and other take-offs. If they don't respect their own cultural treasures, why should anyone else?

Pages

Subscribe to television