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Posts tagged as “Breaking Bad”

Worse to come

The news on everyone’s mind is yesterday’s Emmy nomination list.
As some of you saw via my Twitter reactions, I was pretty pissed at some stuff that got on the list.

Let’s begin with Family Guy.
Now, I don’t hate the show, actually I watch it religiously.
My problem has to do with that it’s Family Guy getting the honors of being the first animated program to be nominated in the Best Comedy category in 50 years or so, instead of The Simpsons.
Also, I don’t believe the show is that good.
It might have been during the first few seasons but not currently.

I don’t appreciate the various writing noms this year either. And by various, I mean the complete opposite.
Four out of five comedy writing noms are for 30 Rock, and four out of five drama writing noms are for Mad Men!
Ridiculous.

My third problem is with another nomination, this time Drama-side: Lost.
Yet again, I’m a huge Lost fan (remember when I interviewed Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse? I sure do), I’ve been with the show since day one.
But this latest season was just atrociously bad, let alone majorly retcon.
Long story short, Lost‘s Season Five shouldn’t be worth the nomination.
Remember how four out of five drama writing noms were for Mad Men?
Well the other one is for, wait for it, Lost‘s The Incident (Season 5 finale).
Out of every drama hours from the past year, they chose this one?
Not even a tiny Breakind Bad episode?

Lost shouldn’t even be nominated for Best Drama, which brings me to my next problem.
With seven contenders this year, I would have expected some outsiders joining the show. Fortunately, Flight of the Conchords was nominated.
On the other hand however, Lost getting on meant The Shield‘s final season got the boot.
Not cool.
I would have liked to see In Treatment in there as well.
Hopefully, Breaking Bad will win.

A new category was announced as well, Outstanding Special Class – Short-format Live-Action Entertainment, also known as the ‘Online Stuff’ category.
With the exception of the Super-Bowl show, all the other noms are webisodes of some kind.
Obviously, Dr. Horrible was nominated.
One might wonder if this category was made just for Dr. Horrible.
It’s a given it will get the Emmy.
Speaking of, Scifi Wire has an interview up with Joss Whedon talking about this nomination, amongst other things.

Another major snub includes Michael Giacchino’s wonderful Lost score being completely ignored from the Outstanding Music Composition category.
Instead, such musical classic as Castle, Legend of the Seeker, and even Ghost Whisperer got the nom.

So much to complain about, I must have left out some other things.
In any case, yeah, I’m pissed at the 61st Emmy Awards.
And they haven’t even started yet.

A few previews have appeared for some interesting upcoming shows.

The first is AMC’s Rubicon starring James Badge Dale and Lili Taylor based on a Jason Horwitch script.
Check out this trailer:

FX meanwhile has made a 6-episode order for an animated comedy series named Archer and created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson who previously worked on Sealab 2021.
As for what it is about, see the following extract:

And finally, two other TV tidbits.
First, some Station news. The FOX show produced by Ben Stiller’s Red Hour, not a network station.
John Goodman has been cast as the co-star alongside Justin Bartha on this series created by Kevin Napier about covert CIA operatives working on installing a new dictatorship in Central America.
The pilot will be shot by Role Model‘s David Wain.

Also, NBC has picked-up Persons Unknown, a 13-episode series Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar in 1994 for his Usual Suspects script.
The show, produced showrunner Remi Aubuchon, Christopher & Heather McQuarrie, revolves around strangers waking up in a deserted town with no recollection of how they got there. They must now work together to escape by solving puzzles.

I’m looking forward to all these four shows.

Coming soon to a screen near you

Is it just me or is nothing major going on in H-Wood (other than massive layoffs)?
Well, actually, a couple of other things have been happening lately.

For one, here are two pics from upcoming pilots.
One is for ABC’s Flash-Forward ($7 million budget), the other one is for FOX’s Absolutely Fabulous.

Over here, the Jules Verne Festival in Paris has just announced its last event for the whole 3 days, after a disappointing opening night (a documentary about the moon basically), and both a small Lost and even smaller BSG event, the only night left to reveal was the closing one.
Barely two weeks before this night, they finally reveal that they’re going to honor Gerard Depardieu.
What the frak?
Some people were expecting a Star Trek premiere or something similar (they hyped it as if it was going to be something major), and we get a tribute to Depardieu?
I know he’s a great actor and all that, but, seriously, we’re talking about a festival named Jules Verne.
How does he relate in any possible way to “adventure” or “science-fiction” or “fantasy”?
No wonder they waited until the last minute to reveal what was going to be night about.

The jury is also even more ridiculous than last year.
What a disappointment overall.
I hope we’ll at least get something epic off the BSG/Lost events.

In the meantime, let’s take a quick look at Showtime.
The cable network has passed on The L Word spin-off as well as theMatthew Perry/Peter Tolan comedy, The End of Steve.
Is this a huge mistake? Time will tell.
Steve will however be shopped around to other nets.
I’m expecting Tim Robbins’ Possible Side Effects to be picked up though.

Also, no surprise, AMC has renewed Breaking Bad.

They Are A-Changin'

This morning were unveiled the 2008 Peabody Award winners, including HBO’s Entourage (!) & John Adams, ABC’s Lost, and AMC’s Breaking Bad.

The award ceremony will take place on May 18 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and will be hosted by NBC’s Brian Williams.

What is most peculiar is that among the winners is non other than YouTube.
Add to that The Onion’s online news-network, and the NY Times’ website, and you’ve got yourself the first time Web entities actually receive the coveted prize.

Interestingly enough, the Peabody Award has now become an “International Competition for Electronic Media, honoring achievement in Television, Radio, Cable and the Web.”

The technological shift continues as Disney just got itself a 30% share in Hulu, making it equal partner with NBC-U and News Corp.
Providence Equity Partners still has its 10%.

The following seemed odly appropriate:

Everyone is trying to get on board now it seems.

CBS is still on the sideline though, sticking with YouTube who is launching April 16 its premium content site and Hulu’s main competitor, Sling.

Somewhat ironically, only clips of ABC’s shows will be available on YouTube.

In the meantime, Business Week has just posted an article in why Hulu attracts eyes, but not advertisers.

Venture Beat notes another ironic subtext: Apple’s Steve Jobs is also the largest shareholder at Disney’s table as well as on the board of directors. Ultimately it seems that Hulu’s free ad-supported streaming will have to go head to head with the iTunes’ ad-free pricey content.

Let the fighting continue (or is it begin?).
The times, they are a-changin’.