This past Thursday NBC unceremoniously said goodbye to the medical sitcom Scrubs after seven seasons. The series, which introduced Zach Braff to most of the world (before he moped his way through Garden State), gave John C. McGinley the fame he so well deserves, and resurrected the career of Sarah Chalke, has been a critical darling since it went on the air in 2001. For a brief time, it gained a mass audience — that is, until NBC began shuffling its time slots. Pretty soon, that mass audience became a small, loyal group of fans. Seriously, when are executives going to learn that people follow routines when they watch television? They are called viewing habits for a reason. When you move a show around two or three times, people are going to give up trying to find it, even if they do have a DVR. I do give NBC credit for keeping the show on the air for so long. Scrubs lost some of its charm as it evolved from a dramedy with some cartoonish elements into a silly sitcom trying to make us laugh every 30 seconds. By trying too hard for zaniness, the writing became inconsistent and predictable. This inconsistency was frustrating for those of us who latched on to the show in the early seasons.

This past winter, during the writers’ strike, NBC had the perfect opportunity to lure more viewers back into Sacred Heart Hospital; they promoted new episodes and aired them back to back. With nothing but reruns on the other channels, you’d think people would have tuned in. They didn’t. When NBC announced their new schedule for the coming year, Scrubs was … scrubbed. A couple weeks ago, NBC switched time slots between Scrubs and Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, giving the latter the choice placement behind The Office at 9:30 pm. When the season finale rolled around last week, there was little fanfare and little sentiment from the network. What a shame. Even if Scrubs wasn’t as great as it once was, it still deserved a nice sendoff after seven years.

However, fair viewers, this is not the end of the show. (more…)

Watching Tom Cruise appear on Oprah last week, I was surprised at how authentic he appeared. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who did the makeup FX for Cruise on Collateral. We’ve all heard the tales of how Scientologists try to convert everyone they come in contact with, and I was prepared to hear horror stories of a whack job superstar trying to change my artistic friend into an L. Ron Hubbard clone. Instead, my friend told me that Cruise was really down to earth, and spent most of his time in the makeup chair discussing his kids and parenting. I was pleasantly surprised. This was also the impression I got from the intimate interview that took place between Winfrey and Cruise at his Colorado mansion.

The show began with the typical setups. Wife Katie Holmes just “happened” to be there to say hello, and then took off with the kids. Cruise gave Oprah a tour of the house. To that point, it felt like just another typical celebrity interview. Then they sat down in his living room (which looks out on the Colorado wilderness) and Winfrey began to ask him direct questions about the past three years. His crazy couch-jumping, his rants on television about Brooke Shields and antidepressants, his notorious interview with Matt Lauer, and that bizarre Scientology video that hit YouTube last year.

One has to presume that Cruise knew these questions were coming, but I was impressed that Winfrey did not let up when he merely gave answers like he was “misunderstood” and that his quotes about anti-depressants were actually aimed toward medicating children. Still, Cruise was humble, and for the first time in recent memory, he was not “on.” He spoke endearingly about his wife and especially his children and made a point to always include his older children, Isabella and Connor, in the conversation, even though Winfrey continually veered the discussion back to his two-year-old daughter, Suri. As a parent watching this, I was impressed with Cruise’s devotion to his family and his protectiveness.

We’ve all seen in the past couple years how the paparazzi can act like vultures, circling and waiting for something dreadful to happen. Over the years, with the Internet and channels like “E!” thriving on gossip, stars don’t have the luxury of calling off the attack dogs on certain nights. In fact, Cruise explained that he used to be able to actually have human conversations with photographers, asking them to ease off every now and then in exchange for pics the next night. Obviously that is not the case anymore. Still, he seems to have done a decent job of shielding his children from the spotlight and allowing them to grow up in a relatively normal way (if being the child of an international superstar spokesman for a little-understood religion can ever be normal). Furthermore, his protectiveness of his family, basically stating “come after me, but leave my kids alone,” was admirable. (more…)

Some fascinating new polling data has surfaced on the most intriguing political battle of our time. Harvard’s Institute of Politics conducted an online survey of the shows’ key demographic – 18- to 24-year-olds – and amidst the more trivial topics (electoral preferences, America’s fall as a superpower, etc.), the poll finally gave us some insight into one of the most perplexing issues of our time: Who’s better, Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert?

Here’s the overall result:
Jon Stewart 30%
Stephen Colbert 26%
Neither 28%
Never heard of ’em 16%

Beyond the immediate analysis – which boils down to “Get your asses out of the library and turn on the TV, you 16-percenters!” – the mini-demographic breakdowns are fascinating. For example, men go for The Daily Show by a 7% margin, while women narrowly choose The Colbert Report. (It’s gotta be the hair.) The younger portion of the sample, 18- and 19-year-olds, favor Colbert by a 16-point margin, while the 22- to 24-year-olds favor Stewart in similar numbers. In between are the college juniors and seniors, whose parents obviously are no longer getting their money’s worth education-wise; those slackers are partial to both shows in equal numbers.

Young adults who are following the election closely favor Stewart, 46-33; those who aren’t choose Colbert, 31-25. (Note that almost half of those who aren’t paying attention to the race either state no preference or aren’t watching late-night Comedy Central; to them, of course, we can only say, “Pick a side, we’re at war!”) (more…)

Mention the words “silent movie” and most people will become glassy-eyed or chuckle some comment like “You know they make movies with sound now, don’t you?” It’s not that these people are elitist or snobs about movies. It’s just that the average moviegoer has only seen the occasional silent-film clip that makes it look like people in the early 20th century moved at a very fast pace (films in the silent era were shot at a different speed than modern films), or they expect to hear clunky piano music playing over slapstick-comedy one-reelers. Most people are unfamiliar with the history of motion pictures and fail to realize that many of the techniques we see in films today were originally incubated during that time; they don’t realize that while there were films made for the masses, there were also grand epics shown in glamorous movie palaces with live orchestras accompanying the wonderful images flickering on the screen.

Thankfully, archivists like film historian Kevin Brownlow and director Martin Scorsese continue to educate and inform people about the glorious art made during the birth of cinema. Additionally, Turner Classic Movies continues to air silent films on Sunday nights, and it’s led the way in film preservation by restoring many of the groundbreaking and influential films that have been lost to years of deteriorating film stock. TCM continues its work tonight by airing two epic movies from innovative French director Abel Gance: the pacifist war film J’accuse (8 PM Eastern) and the railroad tragedy La Roue (11 PM).

Gance is considered by many to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but like his contemporaries D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein, his name is unrecognizable to almost everyone. Gance’s crowning achievement as a director is 1927’s Napoleon, which utilized Polyvision, a three-screen method of film projection. Napoleon was restored in the early ’80s just before Gance died, but his reputation as France’s most important filmmaker grew out of the success of his two earlier masterpieces, J’accuse (1919) and La Roue (1923).

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Brothers & Sisters, ABC’s latest hit family drama (Sundays at 10 pm), came back to the airwaves last night, and for some of us, it was a welcome return of quality television. It is rare that an adult drama like this one has managed to remain all-inclusive of its male and female characters. With strong, female leads like Rachel Griffiths (formerly of Six Feet Under), Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) and the incomparable Sally Field, it would have been quite easy for Brothers & Sisters to cater strictly to ABC’s female viewers (especially coming off Desperate Housewives). However, the producers have stayed true to the show’s original premise: a series centering on a large family as each member deals with the big family issues, as well as their own individual trials and tribulations.

For the most part, the show is not groundbreaking. Though thought-provoking on many levels, what we’re dealing with is the human heart and how people cope with the good times and bad. That said, the show has been brave in its honest portrayal of sibling Kevin’s slow emergence from the closet and his search for love and happiness. In fact, there’s more male kissing and bed-rolling on this show than any I can think of. Yet, the kissing and lovemaking is done in the same casual manner as you’d expect Flockhart and her onscreen beau, Rob Lowe, to hit the sack. In other words, the producers have wisely decided not to make it a BIG DEAL, and by doing so, allow each story to flow organically.

When it began airing back in the fall of 2006, Brothers & Sisters nearly failed the three strike rule. Its early episodes were downright painful to watch and the plots were so contrived, the writing so clichéd and full of holes, I often found myself yelling at the television when I wasn’t rolling my eyes and punching the couch in frustration. My thoughts were, “How can a show with much talent behind it suck so damn bad?” What kept me hoping would give this show life was the executive producer, Greg Berlanti. Berlanti is a television genius. (more…)

Hey, all. This week I learned what they mean by “chasing down an interview.” I had been planning to post a conversation with one of the actors from October Road, and the two of us have been playing phone tag for days. My backup plan for this week, a write up of the Gene Wilder special on Turner Classic Movies that premieres Tuesday, fell through when the network failed to get me a screener. Bummer. I love Wilder. Anyway, at the last minute (i.e. Sunday morning) I was hanging with my son on the living room couch when I was inspired to write the following. I hope you enjoy it. Aloha.

One of the drawbacks of my son Jacob’s breathing treatments for cystic fibrosis is the amount of television he and his sister, Sophie, end up watching. While we try to curb the level of crap they end up seeing, some things slip thought the cracks. Unfortunately, once an adventure show like Power Rangers kicks down your front door with its level of “fantasy” violence, as a parent you wind up sitting with he kids making sure what’s on the screen is not too inappropriate (this also goes for those teen shows on Nick and Disney which deal with complex emotional issues that I find a little much for my nine-year-old). When Jacob was younger, watching television with him was a mixed bag. The Wiggles were tolerable, Sesame Street educational, but Barney made me want to rip my hair out. My son’s interests have now shifted to comic books and action figures (”guys,” as he calls them, even the female superheroes) and for a thirtysomething fanboy like myself, it’s an opportunity to relive a bit of my childhood.

The most memorable television shows from my youth were Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers (the latter’s theme song is still embedded in my memory). Both series were originally Japanese animated shows produced in the early ’70s (Gatchaman and Space Battleship Yamato, respectively) and imported into U.S. syndication during the latter half of the decade with English-dubbed voices and some of the adult content sliced out for the target audience of prepubescent boys. What made them so enjoyable to tune into was the continuing drama that unfolded in each episode. Battle of the Planets may have been about the struggle between a group of teen warriors taking on an evil alien nemesis, but there was always the mystery surrounding the identity of the villain Zoltar and the question of hero Mark’s family lineage that carried on from episode to episode. Likewise, Star Blazers was the ongoing saga of a space battleship (modeled after a WWII battleship) on a a yearlong mission to save Earth. Each episode concluded with a countdown to the number of days remaining for the Star Force (as the crew was called) to complete their mission and save humanity. Good stuff.

Looking back, these animated TV shows, along with the chapter-like structure of classic X-Men and Teen Titans comics I was reading at age 11, influenced the type of writer I would become one day. I was not alone, as most of the animated series that are popular today use continuing storyline structures, like nighttime dramas and the comic books from which they are drawing stories and inspiration. Although superheroes have broad appeal (e.g. The Incredibles, the Spider-Man films, 300, and Batman Begins), television animation is treated like the bastard child of entertainment, as if its sole purpose is to sell toys and cereal. Fortunately, the writers and artists that work on most of these series don’t think that way. Here are four of the best action/adventure animated shows currently running on television. Now, if you’re not into this type of thing, I ask you to still read on. Being familiar with them may some day make you a very cool uncle or aunt. (more…)

Actor Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on NBC’s 30 Rock) e-mailed me recently, panic-stricken and possibly sweaty. He was convinced that the recent writers’ strike had made people forget who he was. “But Jack,” I said, “the last new episode of 30 Rock aired in January, and the next new episode airs Thursday, April 10, 8:30 Eastern, 7:30 Central. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“The public is fickle, Robert — I have to get my face back out there.”

“But you’re in Mariah Carey’s new video for ‘Touch My Body,’” I reminded him. “I saw it advertised on VH1 at the end of February, and I watched it on YouTube just the other day. Don’t worry. Everything’ll be alright.”

Unfortunately, nothing I said could calm him down. But four hours and a couple hundred e-mails later, Jack and I came up with a solution that would please everyone — a Popdose e-mail interview. Hooray! My work here is done. Well, except for the actual interview.

Jack and I grew up in the same town — Macon, Georgia — but when he was 15, his family moved to Conyers, Georgia, the home of Holly Hunter and a scorching outbreak of syphilis back in the ’90s. After graduating from the University of Evansville in Indiana in 1995, Jack moved to Chicago and studied improv and sketch comedy at the Second City and ImprovOlympic Theater (now known as iO). He was hired for the Second City Touring Company in ‘97, and two years later he was a writer-performer on the Second City e.t.c. stage. In 2002 he moved to New York City and began making regular appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in various roles.

Jack’s next move was to Los Angeles in 2004, where he played a waiter on two episodes of the late, great sitcom Arrested Development, continued improvising at iO West, and in 2006 costarred in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, followed closely by his breakout role as Kenneth the NBC page on the 2007 Emmy winner for best comedy series, 30 Rock. On April 18 he stars in the latest Judd Apatow-produced comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he plays the newlywed husband of Maria Thayer (Strangers With Candy).

Before Jack and his family moved to Conyers, he and I shared good times and youthful lung capacity in the Macon Boys’ Choir during the 1984-’85 school year. Unfortunately, I don’t think we talked to each other that much, seeing as how he was a sixth grader and I was a third grader. Nevertheless, my first question for the southern scene stealer was …

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Last week I discovered that David Caruso has more fans than I could’ve ever imagined. To borrow a phrase from a recent episode of his hit show, CSI: Miami, he’s a huge “cyber-lebrity.” Caruso also attracts his share of non-fans who think he’s a bad actor, but they seem more interested in his string of ex-girlfriends and ex-wives and his past struggles with alcoholism.

I regret mentioning in last week’s post how the actor’s appearance has changed noticeably over the past few seasons of CSI: Miami and then guessing that it’s because he’s in his 50s now; I was merely making an observation about Caruso looking different as his character, Horatio Caine, has become more peculiar. Rob McKenzie of Canada’s National Post said last August that Horatio has “a dash of the supernatural,” and thanks to one of the people who left a comment last week, I found the New York Post’s recent Page Six gossip item about Caruso, in which a CSI: Miami “insider” said that Caruso “once asked the director of photography to make it seem like he was flying to the crime scene, explaining that Horatio is actually a mythical superhero. For real.”

I realize that’s supposed to make Caruso sound like a nut job, but to me, it just reinforces that he “gets” what the show is these days — a live-action cartoon with candy-colored cinematography and a lead character who wears the same dark suit and sunglasses week after week much like a comic-book character would. (I did see a second-season episode the other night on A&E in which Horatio was wearing an olive-green suit and didn’t put on his sunglasses once during the last 20 minutes. CSI: Miami hadn’t become a cartoon yet, and although Horatio was already addressing suspects while standing at a 90-degree angle, he did eventually turn toward them and make eye contact for more than 1.4 seconds.) You could also call his performance self-parody: Caruso gets the last laugh at his own joke, but like I said last week, the joke can wear thin since I know he’s capable of much more as an actor, which is one reason why CSI: Miami is just empty calories. Still, I can’t look away when he’s playing his superhero robot ghost cop.

I also regret mentioning last week that I know someone whose brother appeared on the show, an actor who said there may be “some undiagnosed madness in Caruso’s method.” I couldn’t resist the play on words of “method in his madness, madness in his method,” okay? I love the intricacies of the English language, just like William Shakespeare or the writers of CSI: Miami.

And since I said “It’s just that his face seemed to fall so freakin’ fast” in a reply to a reader’s comment and that reply was then used in an anti-Castro — sorry, anti-Caruso (Miami … Cuba … it’s easy to get confused) — blogger’s own post, may something similar happen to my timeless beauty. In fact, I’ll offer up a curse myself: may all my hair fall out by the time I’m 35. Oh, wait, that already happened. Okay, here’s an alternate curse: may all my back hair fall out by the time I’m 35. That seems fair.

It is a cheap thrill, though, to be quoted out of context on someone’s all-Caruso-all- the-time blog (especially when the blogger leaves out completely irrelevant sentences like “Then again, ain’t we all a little crazy?”), so I’d like to see if I can make it happen again. Caruso player-haters, please take the following bait:

It may seem like DAVID CARUSO’S life is fabulous these days, but let’s FACE facts: LOOKS can be deceiving, and life can very easily get REALLY REALLY BAD.

Now, find the key words in that quote and string them together on your blog. Don’t you love receiving free content this way? It’s win-win all around!

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CSI: Miami, now in its sixth season, returns with a new episode Monday night, the first one completed since the writers’ strike ended in February. CBS’s top-rated crime drama is the most popular TV show in the world according to international ratings, just as Baywatch was the world’s most popular show in the ’90s. (Here in the U.S., A&E leans on the syndicated reruns pretty hard, showing nine-hour marathons every Wednesday.) The two shows have their similarities: beachfront locales, lots of sun, pretty girls and muscular guys, and murder-mystery storylines for those who aren’t interested in the eye candy. But while Baywatch had beefcake mannequin David Hasselhoff as its lead actor, CSI: Miami has David Caruso, whose performance makes the show endlessly watchable. (Of course, Bruce Fretts of TV Guide said in January that Caruso is “rapidly turning into the new Hasselhoff.” Please, Bruce, don’t piss all over my thesis just yet, okay?)

I’m not trying to argue that there are hidden depths to the carrot-topped actor’s portrayal of Horatio Caine, the police detective who heads up the Miami-Dade County police department’s forensics team, but I am defending the method in his madness. (According to someone I know whose brother has appeared on the show in a guest-starring role, there may actually be some undiagnosed madness in Caruso’s method. Then again, ain’t we all a little crazy?) Many people think Caruso’s a terrible actor, which just isn’t so. Instead, he’s a good actor who’s gotten lazy, although I do think he’s keeping himself entertained as he goes through the motions week after week. He could still turn in a solid performance if he wanted to, but for now he’s content to deliver his stone-faced one-liners and throw a bunch of quirks into his role as “H,” like positioning his body at a 90-degree angle in relation to another character and only turning his head to address him or her, and adding lots of odd pauses into his dialogue, possibly as an homage to one of his idols, Christopher Walken, or, as a friend of mine has theorized, because he can only memorize five words of dialogue at a time and then has to look off-camera to locate the next cue card. Caruso’s character isn’t like any of the others on CSI: Miami, which helps set him and the show apart, but he’s so different that he almost seems like he’s on another show altogether.

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Hey everybody! It’s Easter Sunday! What better day to talk about the devil, huh? In Martin Scorsese’s controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ, the devil appears before Jesus in the guise of a lion, a flame, and in the last temptation, an innocent looking cherub. In the CW series Reaper, we only get Ray Wise. Scorsese’s movie may be the more important work, but I’ll take Ray Wise over any of those other Satans any day of the week.

Wise, most famous as the lecherous Leland Palmer in the early ’90s surreal nighttime drama, Twin Peaks, is having so much fun playing the dark lord; it’s a shame that more people aren’t watching Reaper. The show is closing out its first season “on the bubble” for renewal. That means the network executives in charge are unsure if they’ll pick up the show for a second season, and are waiting to see how Reaper does ratings-wise over the course of the next few weeks before making their decision.

Come on, people! Don’t let them cancel one of the best shows on TV! The CW even moved it off Tuesday night to give it a fair shot (because Tuesdays are owned by the American Idol juggernaut). The show now airs Thursdays at 9:00 pm. So instead of worrying about Idol, Reaper has to deal with CSI, Grey’s Anatomy and the two most respected comedies on television, The Office and 30 Rock.

On second thought, maybe the CW has already given up on the show. (more…)