Skip to main content

Televisionary

Little bit of an understatement coming: I've always loved television. And I mean LOVE television. (Not all television, mind, but that's what this blog is about--the good and the bad and the really hideous.) There's something so unique and rewarding about a medium that allows us to tell ongoing stories in a serialized format--a medium so diverse and filled with zillions of channels that it can bring us dramas like Lost and Gilmore Girls, reality shows like The Amazing Race, soap operas, sports, sitcoms and, yes, even dreck like Skating with Celebrities all in one box that sits, ever patiently waiting for some one to turn in on, in our living rooms and bedrooms.

Even when I was a little kid (a naughty one at that who wouldn't let my poor parents ever sleep), I was entranced by what the television could offer. Night after night, I would cry and fuss and the only time I would quiet down would be when they let me watch television with them. It was before my little brother came along, so I must have been about two years old, and I would watch with amazement and awe shows like Dynasty and Alice and Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days. Even then it seemed to me that, like the books I loved so much, television too was an amazing gateway to other worlds, some like ours and some extremely exaggerated (like, er, Dynasty).

Since then, I've been involved in a relationship with television--watching, devouring an ever-increasing and diverse array of programs over the years. Television and I have had our ups (the discovery at a young age of the brilliance of British telly) and downs (a cable-free college dorm, FOX: The Early Years) but my love affair with the medium has persisted and deepened.

And now, I even work in the medium: in the (sometimes, but not that often) exciting world of television development.

But that's not what this blog is about. (In fact, the less said about my job the better.)

Televisionary will instead be program reviews, features, short "news" items about the state of the industry or writing staff hires or casting info, ongoing columns, and in general just television-related items that strike my fancy.

So enjoy, put your feet up, sit back and relax. And if you don't like it, you can always change the channel.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Is Jas sitting in the room with the producers, does he have spyware in writer's heads, or what?! The critics and producers will go crazy once they find Televisionary!! Jas rocks!

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian