Tag: TV

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Bart as Impulse in 'Justice'With Bart Allen returning to Smallville tonight—alongside Cyborg, Green Arrow, and Aquaman—I find myself wondering about the best way to hang onto just a few episodes. Last night I went looking for my tape of “Run,” the first episode in which he appeared, and I couldn’t find it.

I have no interest in buying full seasons of Smallville, but I’d like to have copies of the two episodes with Bart (partly for character research, partly for completism). Warner Bros. has no reason to release individual episode DVDs, but downloadable episodes (as in iTunes) might be an option.

Another possibility: themed collections. There have been enough episodes guest-starring other DC heroes that WB could do something similar to Buffy‘s Slayer Collection, or The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” set. A single disc featuring, let’s say, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman episodes (Green Arrow might need his own disc), followed by tonight’s big team-up, “Justice.”

Hey, I’d buy it.

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Start your own cable company like Jack and Jill* did!

Hello! We're Time Warner Cable! (With a picture of two children.)

This showed up in our latest cable bill. Time Warner is taking over from Comcast, and while their “Hello, my name is ____” campaign makes sense in a sort of cutesy way, I can’t figure out the logic of this one.

Though I imagine many people would agree that their cable company acts like it was run by eight-year-olds.

*I was trying to think of something to name the kids. My first thought was something like Wakko and Dot, but it didn’t fit the tone. Then I thought of Jack Warner, and Jill was obvious.

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CNET has an article on various websites related to Lost. Among them are official sites for Oceanic Airlines and The Hanso Foundation and fan sites for Mega Lotto Jackpot and Charile’s band, Drive Shaft.

I’d seen the Drive Shaft site last year (or at least a Drive Shaft site), though it seems to have exceeded its bandwidth for this month.

The official sites don’t have much detail, but they do have easter eggs…

Update (April 2010): Four and a half years later, as the show barrels toward its conclusion, only the Drive Shaft fan site is still around. Oceanic Air now redirects to ABC’s page for the show, the Hanso Foundation isn’t responding at all, and Mega Lotto Jackpot seems to have been picked up by a domain squatter.

Update (Feb 2017): In the years since I last checked, the Drive Shaft page was also taken over by a squatter, and has since gone offline.

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Finally, something light-hearted in the news: A bunch of people decked out as zombies crashed the American Idol auditions in Austin, Texas last week, groaning things like “Television rots your braaaaaains!”

Reportedly the contestants didn’t get it.

Ironically, the event organizers had read about the protest in advance on Craigslist, and quickly got the “zombies” to sign release forms to appear on the show.

(via Cognitive Dissonance)

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On seeing an ad for the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard movie, I started thinking of other 70s and early 80s TV shows that Hollywood might remake. Then I started thinking of late 80s and 90s shows. I’m certain that, 10-20 years from now, there will be a Beverly Hills 90210 movie.

But what about the big hits of this decade—the reality shows? Will Hollywood want to release Survivor or Fear Factor movies for 2025? Or would it be like producing a Jeopardy movie?

One of the big draws for shows like Survivor or American Idol is watching the contestants’ stories unfold over time. You can’t do that in a two-hour movie as effectively as you can over a 10–20–week season. On the other hand, not every reality show is about the long haul. Assuming the public’s taste doesn’t change, I’m sure Fear Factor could be made into a movie. (Though one could argue that it already has been.)

Later in my drive I heard a story on the radio about Iraqi reality TV. Apparently the genre has become quite popular there, particularly the helpful sub-genre (like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). There’s a show that helps people navigate government bureaucracy, a show that rebuilds homes destroyed in the war, one that gives couples dream weddings, one that takes people to foreign hospitals for medical procedures, etc.

Who knew what else we’d be exporting?