Sunday, September 28, 2008

Emmy & the New Season

OK.

It's been a while. A long while since I have posted. For that, I apologize.

It's not that I haven't been consuming pop culture, goodness knows it isn't that. It's just that time has been so difficult to come by over the last few months.

Things are settling down, the new TV season is upon us - and there's snarkiness to be shared!

Where to start?

How about the Emmys? There's something there that sums up the last season for me completely.

Five hosts, from five 'reality' shows found it extremely difficult to fill the opening five minutes of the presentation. You see, they were winging it. Nothing was written down for them. And it stunk to high heaven.

Apparently writers ARE important - even to 'reality' shows. Perhaps, expecially to 'reality' shows. Without someone driving the storyline in a particular direction, guess what - TV becomes way too real (read 'boring').

Kudos to Tom Bergeron and Ryan Seacrest for barely participating in the 'winging' - they looked embarrassed to be on the stage, and seemed to sense the true nature of the train wreck that was about to unfold before their eyes.

Meanwhile, the ratings for the snoozefest were down to record lows. Could it be that viewers didn't give much of a rip since the last episode of most of their favorite broadcast shows were aired in January?

And what to make of the dominance of cable? JOHN ADAMS, MAD MEN and BREAKING BAD scored major wins following a season of malaise.

NBC and FOX have both debuted clunker shows that shouldn't have seen the light of day outside of the summer season. All the nets have shows on their schedules that were purchased without a true pilot.

The after shocks of the writers' strike have not ended. This season doesn't look like it's going to have any breakout, water-cooler type pop culture icons. Where is this year's HEROES, 24, or AMERICAN IDOL?

I'll tell you - it didn't get made. I mean, where would we put it? That slot is taken by KNIGHT RIDER, HOLE IN THE WALL or DO NOT DISTURB.

It's gonna be a long season.