Various and Sundry: Now Everything But Photography

Let’s see what came out today, shall we?

First, the TV stuff:

• Night Court: The Complete Second Season

At last!  Man, that was a great show.  Where’s the reunion special on this one?

• Dave’s World: Season Two

This must be Harry Anderson’s Big DVD Week.

• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume 14

For those keeping track at home: “Mad Monster,” “Manhunt in Space,” “Soultaker,” and “Final Justice.” I remember the last couple. I probably SHOULD remember the first two. . .

And now for the movies:

• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno
  

This is the kind of stuff the kids today like. I can’t believe I just typed in that second title. This used to be a family-friendly blog. . .

iFMagazine.com: Breaking News: BIG SCOOP CREATOR ROB THOMAS CONFIRMS ‘VERONICA MARS’ MOVIE

At the tail end of this winter’s television critic’s event, Rob Thomas, who has resurrected his 1998 TV series CUPID for another go-around on ABC, announced that he’s currently working on a VERONICA MARS feature film based on his short-lived UPN/CW show, now that his new series order has been reduced from thirteen episodes to eight episodes.

The next paragraph of the story points out that there’s no deal in place for the movie. He’s just writing it; nobody’s financed it yet.  But there’s hope!  If you’ve never seen “Veronica Mars” before, go grab the DVDs.  There’s only three seasons, and they’re pretty cheap these days. They’re averaging about $25 a season on Amazon right now.

Sorry for the slow VandS updates lately. I’m working on ways to crank production back up.  Thanks for sticking with me. . .

My cable-provider-provided DVR went on the fritz this week.  Like happened a couple of months ago, the connection between the DVR and TV was being interrupted.  Last time, it happened about once every 30 seconds.  This time, it happened every couple of seconds. The power wasn’t turning on and off on either the DVR or the TV.  I tried various combinations of HDMI ports and cables, but nothing worked.  The TiVo and DVD player and Apple TV worked fine.  It was only the cable box.

Rather than returning the box again for another refurb unit they’d foist on us, we called for a service visit.  Let them measure the signal to make sure it’s strong or do whatever other tests they need to do.  Something.

The cable rep diagnosed the problem right away: HDCP over HDMI.  For those of you not in the know, that’s the copy protection protocol foisted upon us by Hollywood to keep us from illegally pirating their content.  And, like happens with all copy protection schemes, the only people it hurts are those who are just trying to watch the content they’ve honestly and legally paid for.

The cable guy said we probably tripped over one channel that had HDCP enabled and that was enough to send the box into a tizzy.

By moving to component cables instead of HDMI, everything was set right.

Now THAT’S ridiculous.

On the bright side, it means I only have two things using HDMI connections on my two-port HDTV.  I can put the HDMI switch box into storage for now.  I won’t be using it.

So thanks again, Hollywood.  Excuse me while I go Bit Torrent a movie in exchange for this harassment.

OK, it’s now The Morning After.  I’ve picked my jaw up off the floor, dusted it off, taken some nitroglycerin pills, and can speak coherently towards the series finale of “The Shield,” a show which teased its viewers last night with so many potentially cliched and easy endings, yet never took a one.

“The Shield” stayed true to itself to the very end, never compromising.  The finale was an ending, without being the kind of episode that’s so aware of itself as an end that it got wrapped up in that.  It was another episode of a great series, but even better.

“The Shield” was a ridiculously good show that never got the attention it deserved past Michael Chiklis’ one Emmy. Part of me really hopes the whole “let’s reward a good show after it’s gone” mentality strikes the Emmys folks this coming summer. Heck, give the Emmy to Chiklis’ face.

There are shows you watch because you enjoy, and there are shows you watch because they are truly great.  I enjoy ‘24,’ but it doesn’t hold a candle to ‘The Shield’ as far as great dramas go. The former is a fun roller coaster ride when done right.  The latter is modern day televised Shakespeare.

And that’s what makes writing this so easy and so enjoyable. There’s so much to talk about here that I could go on for another 2500 words.  Hopefully, it’ll be quicker than that.

Let’s get to it.  Full spoilers after the break!

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My DVR listed “The Shield” for 90 minutes tonight.  I recorded an extra 15 to be sure.  The recording cut out near the end of the credits.

For those who were waiting to watch the show off your DVR in the days ahead, you might want to download it from iTunes, instead. I’d hate to see you get that far into the finale and miss the last 15 minutes.

Continuing on, then, from yesterday’s thoughts on “The Shield” at its end.

As there will be spoilers for storylines of the last seven seasons (but not of the finale!) discussed below, I’ll hide it under the break.

This is a little more scattered than I had hoped it would be, but there’s a lot of ground to cover here, including Julien’s lost storyline, Dutch’s unfulfilled promise, Shane’s growth to practically being a co-star, the Aceveda/Mackey parallel, and more.

In the meantime, don’t you think that DVD box art for Season 5 looks like something Dave Johnson might have done up for a “100 Bullets” cover?
Hold onto your hat and let’s see where we wind up.
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“The Shield” has always been one of those shows that you watch to marvel in the miscreance of its characters.  There is no black and white on this show, just plenty of shades of gray.  That’s never been clearer to me than when I watched the most recent two shows back to back the other night.

It’s also a show that you feel the need for a cold shower when you’re finished with it, no doubt due to the same reasons.

The 90 minutes series finale is on Tuesday.  It won’t get blockbuster ratings.  It’ll get a few good reviews from the critics.  It’ll likely be ignored by the Emmys, who should shower the show with at least three acting nominations and a boat load of writing nods. But for those of us who’ve followed the show from the initial gun shot at Terry Crowley’s head seven seasons ago, it’ll be both a riveting finale where anything goes, and the cliched end of an era.

I’m not sure which stands out more on the show — the writing or the acting. I’m probably better equipped to handle the writing side of things, so I’ll focus on that.  But lots of spoilers for the series thus far (and none for what’s coming up in the finale) can be found after the break.  My final writeup came in over 2500 words, so we’ll break it into two parts.  The second part will go up tomorrow.

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With all the episodes centered in the New York City area, it was bound to happen that Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” would finally take on a restaurant that I know.

OK, it’s not one that I’ve eaten at or ever paid attention to, but I’ve passed it many a time, and I recognized its street sign.

Last week’s focus was on “Fiesta Sunrise,” a Mexican restaurant in West Nyack, NY. That town is best known for its gigantic mall, the Palisades Center. I’m pretty sure it ranks as one of the top ten largest in the nation. It’s four stories and has everything you could ever ask for. It’s only one hotel short of being a place you could live in without ever needing to go outside. In addition to all the usual mall things — cell phone kiosks, sunglass kiosks, Croc kiosks, etc. — it has every major department and big box store you could imagine: CostCo, Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, Nordstrom, J.C. Penneys, etc. It has its own post office, a large movie theater complete with stadium seating, an IMAX theater, a bowling alley, and an ice rink.

The crazy thing is, there’s a large chunk of it unfinished upstairs, to stay within some local code. There are actually those who protest the idea of opening up any more stores in a mall that’s four stories tall and has hundreds of shops already. Yeah, that last store or three next to the restaurant row is really going to make the traffic outside unmanageable. Sheesh

But Gordon’s estimate of 25,000 cars a day passing by the restaurant are not unfounded. I imagine the number is much higher on the weekends.

The even funnier point of the mall is that it’s sinking into the ground. It’s only ten years old now, but was built on some soft land. If you park underneath the mall, you can see the effects around the columns holding everything up. But it is a worry that the mall might someday disappear into the earth.

In any case, the mall appears in the background of all the exterior shots of the episode featuring the restaurant’s sign. Specifically, it’s the Lord and Taylor wing of the mall you can see.

The restaurant’s front awning sports a “Grill 303″ sign. I imagine that was the previous restaurant that was there. The “303″ refers to the highway the restaurant is located on, Route 303.

In the closing shot of the restaurant, one of the cars parked by the front door has the News 12 logo on it. News 12 is a local news station. Conveniently enough, it’s on channel 12 on my cable provider.

For comic fans: Wizard’s offices are in Congers, NY, about ten minutes up the road from this location.

Ever since shows like “Lois and Clark” started filming in widescreen format, there’s been a problem.  They’ve needed to pander to people with standard 4:3 ratio television sets.  So while the show exists in widescreen with extra material to the left and right, everything was still composed for the center. Those wings on the screen were dead zones.

Today, 15 years later, the same is true.  Watching a network drama in widescreen format on my HDTV, I see that everything is still happening in the middle of the screen. You might not notice it right away, but once you do it’ll drive you mad. Then you’ll notice the little network bug is right in the corner of the 4:3 layout, while the image still extends out to the right.  This is also true in sporting events — all the graphics stretch completely across the screen, but the information is only in the center of the screen.  It’s even true on reality shows.  Next time Tom Bergeron is shuffling dancers off back stage on “Dancing With the Stars,” note how far to the right he is on the screen.  Those people sitting behind him off on the far left are never seen on a regular 4:3 TV set.

With digital television signals becoming the norm in a couple of months, will this madness soon end?  Will we soon see people talking on screen from the far left or right edge?  Will directors be allowed to compose their television shots in the same way they’d compose their theatrical shots?  I hope so.

I wonder how many episodes of MTV’s “Made” have had to be scrapped because the whiny teenager quit, or failed to show up for the final event planned to be the climax of the episode?

Lots of complete boxed sets this week, oddly enough.  Let’s get to ‘em!

• Batman: The Animated Series: The Complete Collection

The DVDs are all those you might have already bought in the individual boxed sets.  But now you can get them all in one bigger and nicely designed box, complete with a new book.

• Fraggle Rock: The Complete Collection

There was a time I never would have guessed this classic series from my childhood would make it to DVD.  And now you can buy it all in one big gulp.  Beautiful. Like the “Batman” collection above, this one has a nice big box, and will be cheaper than buying all the individual sets, I bet.

• Futurama: Bender’s Game

This new release gets instant bonus credit for naming itself after the classic Orson Scott Card novel, though it looks to be more of a takeoff on Dungeons and Dragons.  Weird.

• Spin City: The Complete First Season

Definitely not the series’ strongest year, but I’m sure it would be fun to go back and watch it evolve.  Note Carla Gugino’s appearance as Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend in the infamous pilot episode’s “shared hockey jersey” sequence.

• Get Smart

This is the recent movie, though there is also a Complete Series boxed set on release this week.  That’s the third such set I’ve mentioned.  Yeesh. Be grateful I’m not mentioning “The Complete Little House on the Prairie” boxed set.

Whoops.

It’s still Friday for another hour or so. . .

• Coming soon to your TV: Photography Network?  I’ve been watching “Behind the Camera” a lot on the Gallery HD network.  It has some nice stuff in it, and some hacky stuff that’s tough to take seriously.  For starters, don’t call yourself a serious professional photographer if you’re still using the kit lens!  UGH.  It’s also very Canadian.  That doesn’t bother me, but it does stick out every now and again.

• The old “Digital Photography Show” podcast is back!  Now, it’s “Digital Photography Life.”  Their first official podcast is coming soon, with special guest Scott Kelby.

• MetaFilter shows the great Mark Kistler the love.  Back in my artsy fartsy days (when I was about 10 – 12 years old), he was a very important part of my TV life.  To know there are episode of Commander Mark’s show on YouTube is to know sheer joy.

• Don’t forget: NaNoWriMo begins this weekend!  And I’m still not doing it.  It’s true; you’ll always find an excuse to not do something.  And, thus, nothing gets done.  But at least I’m caught up on “The Shield.”

• Spongebob Squarepants, as if drawn by various classic comic strip artists.

Mostly linking these to remind me to look further into them over the weekend:

• Buy Noise Ninja

• Integrate Noise Ninja into Lightroom 2 work flow. It’s times like this that I wish Lightroom allowed for more plug-ins.  ::sigh::

Notes on the New PBA Season:

The Professional Bowler’s Association opened up their 50th annual tour this weekend with the traditional first of four majors — the PBA World Championship.  They touted the new formats and new exciting changes in the tour for the season, hot on the heels of the previous week’s NBA Player/PBA Pro team championship, which the one NBA league bowler handily won.

They teased a couple different formats. The first is an all plastic ball week.  I like that idea.  Reverting to older materials will put a premium on bowling skills over equipment technology.  I just don’t know where they plan on finding that many plastic bowls.  Are they all going to K-Mart to find new bowls to drill?  ( I know, I know.  They use plastic balls all the time for spare shooting.  Forgive me my snark.)

They’re also planning a week of house oil conditions — in other words, a strike shooting condition on easier oil patterns.  That could be fun.

The other immediate change is the new bowling uniform.  This season, NASCAR drivers are bowling!  Well, not really, but sponsor logos are now splashed across the chests and stomachs of more bowlers.  It started with scripting bowlers’ names on the backs of their shirts.  Then they added the American Flag above it after 9/11.  Now, that American flag has been replaced with a sponsor, plus three patches on one sleeve, two on the other, and a large sponsor logo splashed across the front of their shirt.  The only place left for sponsorhip now is patches on the butt or down the legs.  I fully expect we’ll see one of those next season.

Ironically, the giant “STORM” logo is allowed on Norm Duke’s chest, but the commentators aren’t allowed to mention bowling equipment manufacturers by name.  This might be a good thing, given that one of them works for a manufacturer as a rep now.

I’m not sure if this is specific to that particular location or if it’s a new PBA mandate, but they were playing music inbetween shots.  It was odd.  And slightly annoying.  I felt sorry for the bowlers, who had to listen to that crap until they put their first foot up on the approach.

The PBA telecasts are still not in high definition.  How ridiculous is that?  Aside from one or two handheld cameras, all the other shots are locked down.  Everything is inside.  Lights can be adjusted for.  Why NOT do high def?  Are they really that cheap?

Chris Barnes is always championed as The Ultimate Bowling Technician, and continues to think his way to failure.  After a successful game bowling from deep inside, he chased after Duke’s line in the finale and stunk.  When he finally switched back to his deep inside line late in the already-lost game, he started to strike.  Duh.

And Duke played the faithful straight up and in line, right up the second arrow, until his final bowl of the day, which he threw on Barnes’ line and also struck.  Ouch, Barnes.

It is impressive that Duke has now won three majors in a row.  The pressure will be on in January at the next Major.  Nobody’s ever won three in a row.  Winning four in a row would be insanity.  I’ll be rooting for it, unless he comes up against Walter Ray Williams Jr., who I always root for first.  (Duke did bowl a 300 against Williams once, though.)

Sorry for the last minute warning, but O.A.R. returns to Conan O’Brien’s show tonight (Wednesday, 14 Oct), where I first saw them back in 2003.

Whoopsie of the century?

“A TV stuntman is lucky to be alive after actor Jimmy Smits stabbed him for real during a fight scene for TV show Dexter.”

Smiths got lucky and hit a tiny plastic piece covering the stunt man’s heart, deflecting the blow.  Still: YIKES!