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Posts tagged as “NBC”

Put down the remote (Emmys 2009)

The Emmys still fail.
There, I said it.
Despite Neil Patrick Harris doing an incredible job (obviously way superior to last year’s abysmal opening), most of the results did suck.

Obviously, there were no major surprises regarding who won the major awards.
Overhyped much?

On a completely random subject, I was surprised to see Elisabeth Moss kissing Fred Armisen.

Turns out, they’re engaged.
(Yeah, I’m not one to peruse the E! Online pages)

And was that a dig from Glenn Close at the poor writing from Damages’ Second Season?
Said Close:

I wanna begin by thanking Todd, Glenn and Daniel for giving me, probably, maybe, the character of my lifetime — depending on what they do this season. (awkward laugh)

Anyways, Little Dorrit garnered the most Emmy wins of the night with a total of seven, closely followed by Grey Gardens.
I was pretty disappointed that Generation Kill didn’t win best mini-series. Poor Flight of the Conchords never had a chance either.
30 Rock is at five, one more than…Pushing Daisies, the second TV show on the list!
Kristin Chenoweth winning was both surprising and well-deserved.
HBO dominated the Emmys with 21 awards (NBC comes in second with 16, ABC third with 11, and FOX fifth with 10).

It’s funny seeing how the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences categorizes the web-based wins.
For instance, the network (yes) for Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog (which won “Outstanding Special Class – Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program”) is actually drhorrible.com.
For you Lost fans out there, in case you didn’t know, the show did win something else: “Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media (Fiction)”, thanks to the latest Dharma Initiative ARG.
As you might have guessed, the same thing applies here; dharmawantsyou.com is listed instead of ABC or some other studio.
Ironically, this was the worst received of all Lost ARGs.
That, and the website is now dead.

Even the NBC web-based content (such as The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Digital Experience) is not filed under NBC but NBC.com.
It’s certainly an interesting shift to note, especially given the fact that this year’s broadcast seemed to be under the theme of network failure.

Moving on to the other wins, I was very happy for both Bryan Cranston and Michael Emerson and was even more ecstatic to see Kristin Chenoweth win.
Cherry Jones is a great actress but her 24 material was pretty weak compared to the extraordinary In Treatment.
Sadly, Colbert didn’t win anything. I’m awaiting the fallout next Tuesday.
There was a bit of an emphasis this year on Battlestar Galactica (probably since it was its last season).
First, a few clips were shown in the “One Year of Drama” section. Pretty late in the game for that, especially given the quality of the final season.
Also, Bear McCreary’s fantastic score for the series was used for the same section.
Pretty neat.

However, perhaps the most talked-about moment from last night’s show was the “surprise” appearance of Dr. Horrible.

Now that was great.

On the polar opposite, we have CBS advertising in the middle of an acceptance speech the In Memoriam!

What the hell?!

Despite this little mishap, and a few skits that bombed (like that “greatest TV fan badly seated” one), these 61st Primetime Emmy Awards were definitely enjoyable, if only for Neil Patrick Harris.
Certainly not for their results though.

The Jay Leno Show: Is that it?

With almost 18 million viewers last night, NBC’s The Jay Leno Show premiered as expected with high numbers. It will be interesting to see how well it fairs in front of say, CSI (Miami and New York), in a couple of weeks/months.


I dared to watch yesterday’s premiere just to see what all the fuss was about.
For months, there was all this talk about how this would revolutionize the talk show formula, etc.
But after having seen the premiere, I’ve got to wonder:
Is that it?

Seriously, think about it, how is it any different from other talk-shows?
It just looked to me like Oprah meets the Tonight Show.
Nothing was really different, except all the 10s painted everywhere in the gigantic studio to show he was now on at, you know it, 10PM.

Sure, there’s no desk (to a point), but come on, all the guests are still comfortably sitting in their chair.

They’re not doing anything unusual; they’re just talking and cracking jokes (for the most part).

Regarding the monologue, the Dick Cheney joke he made was eerily similar to one Conan O’Brien made last week.
The pre-taped bits weren’t all that funny either, and unfortunately so was (or rather wasn’t) Dan Finnerty. That was disappointing.

As for Jerry Seinfeld, what’s up with his earpiece?


Was someone feeding him jokes…or was it used for the fake Oprah “interview”?

And by fake, I mean that there was no video feed on stage. If you look carefully, she was CGId in. The biggest clue is towards the end of the interview, as the camera moves, so does the fake screen (same movements).
You can check the video again, it’s pretty evident (especially with that fake chrome mount).
So anyways, she wasn’t really on the Leno show after all. At least not when it was shot.

Now, besides her faux-guesting, you might be wondering why the hell I’m comparing the Leno show with the Oprah show.
First off, look how Leno was greeted when he came in. It looked like Jesus had returned to his people.




There was also the awaited Kanye West interview.
I’m not gonna talk about what happened at the VMAs (seriously though, why the hell is this news?).
However, Kanye’s (almost) one-on-one with Leno felt like an Oprah Winfrey moment.

I think it was pretty cold of Leno to ask, almost out of the blue, how West’s (now-deceased) mother would feel about the whole VMA incident.
“Do you think she’d be disappointed?”
That looked like a douchey question just asked to get an emotional response out of someone.

What was almost even weirder however is seeing, only moments later, Kanye West jumping back on stage to sing next to Jay-Z and Rihanna.

Overall, it was your typical Jay Leno talk-show.
There was no “revolution” here, just me being mostly bored.

My Oh My

Continuing on last night’s “What. The. Fuck.,” NBC is going to extra-promote the Leno show next Sunday by using, wait for it, the upcoming Green Bay Packers v. Chicago Bears football game (during Sunday Night Football).
What’s interesting (or ridiculous, your pick) is that, besides the obvious call-outs during the game by the announcers, NBC will have strategically placed inside the stadium, amongst the fans, some insiders wearing football jerseys in Packers colors “with Leno’s name and either a “10” — his new timeslot in most of the country — or a “9” — his slot in the Central time zone. […] Also at Lambeau Field, spots featuring Leno dressed in a half-Packers/half-Bears jersey will run throughout the stadium.”
Throughout the game they’ll spam you by frequently cutting to either promos or “those Leno-clothed fans in the stands.”
Nice touch.

In other great news, The CW’s Vampire Diaries have scored the best ratings ever for the network, placing it not fourth nor fifth, but in third place!
In case you’re keeping tabs, the show scored around 4.8 million viewers, whilst the 90210’s second season premiered with 2.6 mil.

Meanwhile, the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie is going to begin shooting circa April/May with a tentative Summer 2011 release set.
It is still unknown if Gore Verbinski will be back even if his Bioshock movie got passed to another director. But Depp is on board.
The title has been as well revealed, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
I’m so not looking forward to it.