How dope was it that Jack was listening to the Pixies on the "Lost" season finale last night? Word has leaked out that NBC Universal and investment partners have put a $3.5 billion bid on the table for The Weather Channel. Way to jump on the climate change bandwagon. Did the writers at Letterman have an idea this was coming? Here's their Top Ten Signs There's Trouble At The Weather Channel from May 7th. $3.5......

Kind of a weak selection until you get to Sunday evening. HBO has been pushing Recount on all the talk shows and some Democrats have been howling about it because we are in the middle of what could be yet another tightly contested election. Let's think about this for a second, would such activists for the Democratic party, like Kevin Spacey, Ed Begley Jr., Laura Dern, John Hurt, etc. participate in a piece of work......

Last week we noted that the Dish Network has slowed with regards to new subscribers and now Dish has inked a deal with NBC Universal to present interactive ads to viewers. This could potentially bring them a bit more revenue to make up for the slackening subscribership by increasing the value of ads sold. You may have seen these ads if you have a Tivo - these enhanced ads prompt the viewer to click a......

Great story on NPR this morning about the failure of BET to provide decent programming for the community it originally targeted (and secured funds from, hat in hand). Tonight 8:00pm America's Funniest Home Videos ABC - Season Finale. The three finalists compete for the grand prize. 9:00pm Man vs. Wild: Indian Ocean DICSOVERY - Bear Grylls has to survive a week on a deserted island in the Indian Ocean 9:00pm Man Bites Dog IFC -......

DVD: The Passion of Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies Volume 2 Release Date: May 6th, 2008 While you may not have to be a dedicated Greg the Bunny aficionado to love The Passion of Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies Volume 2 you at least have to appreciate dirty puppet humor. It's been a year and a half since the Film Parodies Volume 1 release so hardcore fans must be......

Hope everyone had a great weekend with or without your TVs. Not much industry stuff of note today other than Variety pounding on the drums for the SAG contracts to move towards resolution. The two parties have met 17 times so far and still the June 30th date gets closer. Can you imagine meeting 17 times with someone and not having reached some kind of compromise? 7:30pm The Assassination of Richard Nixon IFC - (2004)......

The LA Times has a write-up on the demise of local public Channel 36. Somehow the City of LA can't/won't come up with a measly $500k to keep local broadcast of "school sport events, public policy talks, and long-distance for-credit college classes". While it's true that there is another city-funded public channel (#35) that one seems to be a megaphone for whichever politicians are in office. Surely the megalopolis of LA is big enough to......

This weekend it's all about BBC America's programming with new seasons of "Robin Hood", "The Graham Norton Show", and "Wire In The Blood". I've seen previews of "Robin Hood" and it's a more than worthy replacement for "Torchwood" whose season (dramatically) ended last Saturday with the (supposed) deaths of at least two main characters. Of course, you'll have to be able to emotionally handle the incredible switch from science fiction to fantasy in order to......

New York City may be all the way across the country, but if Rupert Murdoch gets his way there you can bet he will cast his gaze upon all other major metropolitan areas: the New York Times reports that Murdoch wants to obtain a permanent FCC waiver to acquire two TV NYC stations in addition to his three newspapers and radio assets. Will this be a last hurrah while the friendly Bush Administration still controls......

MTV's "The Real World" returns for its 20th season which is scary because I remember the premiere of this show back in 1992. My roommates and I, and our significant others (or not) would get together and watch the show which seemed scarily innovative at the time - _anything_ could happen! From being an innovator in reality programming to just another in a field of crowded participants, another season of "The Real World" seems like......

Comedy Central has started to establish some control over Wednesday nights. What's funny is that I started to go back to them on Wednesdays because of Lewis Black's excellent show "Root Of All Evil" (anyone catch him on Conan last week? He was great) and now I'm finding myself re-engaging with "South Park" but I'm sure that program directors at Comedy Central were planning for the flow to happen the other way. Whatever, it's working......

Did anyone see the plastic surgery disaster that is Renee Zellweger on Letterman last night? The skin was stretched so hard over her face I thought her skull was going to pop out. OK so maybe it isn't plastic surgery, Botox anyone? What is wrong with her?? Tracey Ullman has her dead on in "State of the Union". Also, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there's an article about NBC's new 52-week, wait, now "65-week" lineup,......

OK so the Oscars are this weekend. Even though the writers' strike is over, the prediction is that this will be a ho-hum (excuse me?) Oscars. First of all, the majority of the films presented for consideration are real downers, secondly, because of the strike, many potential presenters thought that the awards ceremony would be canceled or drastically cut back so they made other plans and are now not available to present at the show.......

Am not so sure how I feel about last night's Frontline (PBS/KCET) which was an analysis of the Haditha "incident" where 24 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, were not massacred - they were just killed in their pajamas. I guess it's a matter of semantics, when is shooting 2 year olds at point blank not a massacre? I don't think the Marines or PBS itself did a good job of proving that this incident......

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that '24' co-creator Joel Surnow is bailing from the show and the Fox network. Surnow is the "right-wing nutjob" who is a personal friend of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and President Bush - he's the one that had the brilliant idea to come up with a right wing "answer" to 'The Daily Show' for Fox, but the failure to produce one is evidence he never understood the question. 8:00pm Survivor:......

Am in a post-Super Bowl stupor. The commercials were so-so, I wasn't unduly impressed, and the halftime show was terrible, they practically had to frickin' wheel Tom Petty and his aging cronies out there. Going for it on 4th and 13?? That made me almost as sick as the above clip. 8:30pm Duty Free TV: Unbeatable Banzuke/Super Big Product Fun Show G4 - Series Premiere. The series is a combination of Super Big Product......

So I spent my Sunday sick as a dog on the couch watching, of all things, football, literally because I was too wiped to find the clicker and move on. I'd forgotten how obnoxious the graphics were and how pompous and full of itself football has become. Still, gotta watch the Super Bowl for the commercials so I still have some time to devote to that. Am dismayed that the talentless hack Ryan Seacrest is......

It's becoming a task to find episodes of anything new and/or remarkable. Do I even mention that there's new episodes of Celebrity Apprentice, Make Me A Supermodel, and CSI? Am I supposed to be excited about informing you that there will be two (2!) new episodes of NBC's Chuck airing two weeks from tonight? 8:00pm Live From Lincoln Center: I Can't Believe It's Schoenberg! PBS/KCET - I can't believe it either. 8:15pm Wuthering Heights TCM......

Hey check it, yours truly was invited to contribute some commentary to this ABCNEWS.com article (I'm on page 2). Thanks for your support! So the Golden Globes got canceled and now maybe the Academy Awards will get canceled and this is conflicting me. On the one hand I will have a whole bunch more free time (hours upon hours) to watch my Tivo'd episodes of Grape Ape but I will have so much less lousy......

I'm hoping you got a bunch of DVDs to tide you over during this dead week as well as until the writer's strike ends. It looks like TCM is running an "aviation in movies" marathon tonight and IFC's featuring Harvey Keitel. For further marathon action, check out BRAVO which is showing all of Project Runway's fourth season (starts at 6:00pm). 4:15pm Five Easy Pieces IFC - (1970) If you've got the day off like me,......

Speaking of TV, LAista Julie Wolfson interviewed E!'s Soup host Joel McHale so be sure to check that post out as well as The Soup Presents... tonight for a review of 2007's "best" talk show moments. 8:00pm Clash of the Choirs NBC - The first of four parts Premieres Tonight and it is what it says it is. Choirs headed by celebrity choir leaders like Nick Lachey, Patti LaBelle, Kelly Rowland and Michael Bolton go......

A couple things on tonight but Saturday's a wasteland, go play in the sand or snow. Sunday is finale-city, check it out below. Have a great weekend. Tonight 7:00pm Attack of the Show G4 - Totally rad 1987 edition tonight!! (Repeats at 11pm) 9:00pm The Next Great American Band FOX - Because I know some of y'all watch this. 9:00pm Friday the 13th IFC - Uncut! 10:00pm The Soup E! - Listed mainly because it......

Dear PBS, eff you and your dumbass Doo-Wop shite - I'm sick of it! Grasping at straws here, no decent movies on tonight either, frickin' TCM has Show Boat (again) and IFC has Sid and Nancy (again). 8:00pm The Office NBC - Yeah, it's a rerun, but it's the hour-long one where they go to Benihana. 8:00pm Survivor: China CBS - Next to last episode of the season. The finale is on Sunday. 9:00pm 30......

If you don't want to watch football over the next 4 days you are screwed. Normally I would tell you to head over to TCM or IFC for some fine movie action but it's slim pickins my friends. TCM has (lamely) decided to schedule a 3 day Andy Hardy marathon starring everyone's favorite short actor, Mickey Rooney, as the misguided but lovable Andy Hardy. One or two Andy Hardy movies is fine, but several days......

7:15pm It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World TCM - Every comedian alive was put in this '63 classic. Watch it, without commercial interruption, as this gang of motley fools head across SoCal towards a slapstick finish in Santa Monica and Venice. TV Junkie Pick-O-The-Night. 8:00pm A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving ABC - One of the weaker Charlie Brown specials, but nostalgia is strong. 8:00pm Kontroll IFC - Cool indie flick from Hungary about a psychopath......

Hope you caught the season finale of Mad Men - it was excellent, especially the final pitch to Kodak (the finale will repeat tonight at 10:00pm on AMC). Am still bummed over the death of Deborah Kerr, of the King and I and From Here to Eternity fame (yeah, that was her rolling around in the surf with Burt Lancaster), she will be very much missed. We also lost the last remaining member of the......

Ten years ago Long Beach native Morgan J. Freeman was minding his own business in film school back east. Doing what everyone else in his class did, he submitted his thesis film "Hurricane Streets" to Sundance for competition. Not only was it accepted - alongside the "real" movies - but it won three awards at the festivall: Morgan won best director, the cinematographer won for best cinematography, and the film got the audience award......

Grab a beer friends, we survived the week. I still got hours of junk Tivo'd that I'm supposed to watch but on the calendar it says it's Friday and that's a great thing. Late night TV is super busy tonight, check it out: a free Paris Hilton, Michael Douglas, Seth Myers, Jenny McCarthy. Also, LeBron James is on SNL tomorrow - have a great weekend. 5:00pm-11:00pm Body Switcharoo Marathon TCM - A rock block of......

Blown transformer down the street killed my cable and internet connection so no post yesterday - many apologies. Did anyone watch Kid Nation? 8:00pm Surivivor: China CBS - Season premiere. This season features a "kidnap your opponent" tactic. Players were also given Sun Tzu's "Art of War" to study - we'll see who did their homework. 8:00pm My Name Is Earl NCB - Season premiere. Earl's got a new love interest(?!) 9:45pm After Hours IFC......

8:00pm So You Think You Can Dance FOX - Two dancers get the boot 9:00pm Fat March ABC - The fat marchers have made it all the way from southeast Massachusetts to Connecticut. The men face a strength challenge. but wait! there's more! 9:00pm Hell's Kitchen FOX - Finalist hell! The final challenge!!! The winner becomes the new head chef at one of Gordon Ramsay's Las Vegas restaurants! 10:00pm Weeds SHOWTIME - Season premiere!......