Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2454

Poor guy. His retirement didn't last as long as Kardashian's marriage. (Too soon?)


Seriously RIP, Andy. Loved every segment. Which I'm sure will be out on DVD if they're not already.

aaronwt: Complications from minor surgery AFTER he left. AFAIK, there was little wrong with him when he stepped down.

I agree. I still watch 6 of those shows, but only one (Last Man Standing) would stay on my list if there were something else on at the same time and I admit it is not that good, I just like Tim Allen. Probably half the time I miss the shows we watch because I'm doing something on the laptop while I'm watching, but I record them anyway. I said during premiere week that I didn't see anything that really grabbed me, so I understand Goodman dropping them.

I do think a lot of folks misunderstand the word "believable" though. We all know shows like AHS are unbelievable in the sense that most people don't believe in ghosts, etc., but that doesn't mean our imaginations can't make sense of what is being presented and expect characters to react in a "believable" manner. When they stretch that imagination though, then the presentation becomes unbelievable and we stop watching.

That happens to me with most sitcoms and that's why I don't watch many. With shows like MASH, Home Improvement, etc., I can see the characters doing what they do. During Viet Nam, I saw many instances of the kind of irreverence on MASH and I could relate, still can, since I was pretty "unmilitary" most of my 27 years. Even a show like 2.5 Men made sense with Charlie, but I can't relate to his replacement. What is with him and clothes? Do writers and viewers really find that funny?

Hospitals are no place for sick people. Or even healthy people, for that matter. The man who married my wife and me was my retired uncle, a pastor. He was also a veteran who volunteered at a VA hospital. While doing his weekly ministry there a couple of years ago, he picked up some virus - just from being in the place - that killed him within 2 weeks.

I've told my family that if I ever need to go to a hospital, get me out of there at the earliest opportunity. I can convalesce at home, where I'm safe.

Well, we can agree on that. I try not to even visit folks when they are in the hospital for that very reason. I don't even like doctor's waiting rooms when there is someone obviouly sick in them. Sorry about your uncle.

Yeah, if I make it to 92 and I need "minor surgery," if I can just live with whatever the problem is, I'm gonna just live with it. Surgery on a 92-year-old is just too stressful. And the immune system of someone that age just ain't what it used to be.

Thanks Dave. It happened so fast, it was almost like he died in a sudden accident. It's funny... my dad worked in a hospital his entire life and managed to survive 'till a ripe old age. But that was mostly before the era of antibiotic resistant superbugs - the silent, unstoppable ninja assassins of the microbe world. Hospitals are their turf now.

I may well have watched every Andy Rooney segment on 60 minutes. I looked forward to Sunday evening with a minute or two with the old codger. I've missed him already. RIP my friend. You've left quite a legacy.

Obituary
Andy Rooney dead at 92
By CBSNews.com - November 5th, 2011

(CBS News) Andy Rooney, the "60 Minutes" commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays - a unique genre he is credited with inventing - died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. and Rowayton, Conn.

"It's a sad day at '60 Minutes' and for everybody here at CBS News," said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of "60 Minutes." "It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much."

Rooney had announced on Oct. 2, 2011 in his 1,097th essay for "60 Minutes" that he would no longer appear regularly.

Rooney wrote for television since its birth, spending more than 60 years at CBS, 30 of them behind the camera as a writer and producer, first for entertainment and then news programming, before becoming a television personality - a role he said he was never comfortable in. He preferred to be known as a writer and was the author of best-selling books and a national newspaper column, in addition to his "60 Minutes" essays.

But it is his television role as the inquisitive and cranky commentator on "60 Minutes" that made him a cultural icon. For over 30 years, Rooney had the last word on the most watched television program in history. Ratings for the broadcast rose steadily over its time period, peaking at a few minutes before the end of the hour, precisely when he delivered his essays - which could generate thousands of response letters.

There is no better way to celebrate Andy Rooney's work than to let Andy do the talking.

Each Sunday, Rooney delivered one of his "60 Minutes" essays from behind a desk that he, an expert woodworker, hewed himself. The topics ranged from the contents of that desk's drawer to whether God existed. He often weighed in on major news topics. In an early "60 Minutes" essay that won him the third of his four Emmy Awards, his compromise to the grain embargo against the Soviet Union was to sell them cereal. "Are they going to take us seriously as an enemy if they think we eat Cap'n Crunch for breakfast?" deadpanned Rooney.

Mainly, his essays struck a chord in viewers by pointing out life's unspoken truths or more often complaining about its subtle lies, earning him the "curmudgeon" status he wore like a uniform. "I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn't realize they thought," Rooney told the Associated Press in 1998. In typical themes, Rooney questioned labels on packages, products that didn't seem to work and why people didn't talk in elevators.

Rooney asked thousands of questions in his essays over the years, none, however, began with "Did you ever...?" a phrase often associated with him. Comedian Joe Piscopo used it in a 1981 impersonation of him on "Saturday Night Live" and, from then on, it was erroneously linked to Rooney.

Rooney was also mistakenly connected to racism when a politically charged essay highly insensitive to minorities was written in his style and passed off as his on the internet in 2003.

Over the next few years, it found its way into the e-mail boxes of untold thousands, causing Rooney to refute it in a 2005 "60 Minutes" essay, and again, as it continued to proliferate, in a Associated Press article a year later.

Many assumed he wrote the screed because Rooney's longtime habit of writing or speaking plainly on sensitive topics had left him open to attacks in the past by activist groups. The racist essay was one of the many false Rooney quotes and essays bouncing around the Internet. The racism charge angered and hurt Rooney deeply, especially because as a young soldier in the early 1940s, he got himself arrested in Florida for refusing to leave the seat he had chosen among blacks in the back of an Army bus.

At the height of the AIDS crisis, Rooney had his biggest run-in with a group and it had dire consequences. In February 1990, the gay magazine The Advocate interviewed him after he associated the human choices of drugs, tobacco and gay sex with death in a CBS News special, "A Year With Andy Rooney: 1989." The magazine printed racist remarks attributed to him from the interview, which he vehemently denied making. A torrent of negative publicity followed, after which then-CBS News President David Burke suspended him for three months. The outcry for his return was deafening. Burke reinstated him after only three weeks, saying Rooney was not a man "who holds prejudice in his heart and mind." The ratings for "60 Minutes," CBS' only top-10 hit that season, dropped while Rooney was off the air.

But the negative publicity and suspension exacted a toll. Rooney said publicly he was "chilled" and admitted the new sensitivity led him to spike a later essay regarding the United Negro College Fund.

Rooney still spoke his mind, however. Thousands of angry letters arrived when he said Kurt Cobain, the young star of hit rock band "Nirvana," was essentially a waste of humanity for taking his own life. Native Americans demanded apologies when he belittled their efforts to stop sports teams from using names like "Braves" in 1995 and again in 1997 when he suggested Indian casino profits be used to support poor tribes. He reacted to the acquittal of O.J. Simpson in 1995 by offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the real killer - a reward he said he would never have to pay because Simpson committed the murders. His essay in 2004, in which he said God told him that the Rev. Pat Robertson and Mel Gibson were "whackos," resulted in 20,000 complaints - the most response any "60 Minutes" issue ever drew.

No group was off-limits for Rooney, especially CBS management and his own colleagues. Rooney poked fun at the "60 Minutes" correspondents on a regular basis in his essays, while he questioned CBS management on issues, such as layoffs and strikes, sometimes in his "60 Minutes" essays, but more often in his syndicated newspaper column for Tribune Media Services or in media interviews. During a Writers Guild of America strike against CBS, Rooney, though not in the union, supported it by not writing any "60 Minutes" pieces until the strike was settled. He publicly blamed CBS's troubles of the early 1990s on Chairman Laurence Tisch's cutbacks, daring Tisch to fire him.

Rooney was very popular with the public but drew criticism from the media for his controversial views and for the seemingly effortless style and content of his "60 Minutes" essays. He once took advantage of his popularity to get back at a critic. When Associated Press television critic Frazier Moore wrote that Rooney should quit because his material was getting old, Rooney took Moore to task by broadcasting the newswire's New York phone number, exhorting his "60 Minutes" viewers to tell the writer what they thought of his opinion. The Associated Press logged over 7,000 calls in 48 hours, the vast majority in favor of Rooney.

He rarely attacked his critics publicly, in fact, he sometimes embraced them. On many occasions, he read on the air their most cutting letters, sometimes admitting he was wrong and apologizing. The Cobain and the O.J. Simpson incidents were both essays he regretted writing and he said so on air.

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born January 14, 1919 in Albany, N.Y. He graduated from Albany Academy High School and attended Colgate University until being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941, his junior year. After brief service in an artillery unit in England, he became a correspondent for The Stars and Stripes for three years. Rooney was one of six correspondents to fly with the Army's 8th Air Force on the second American bombing raid over Germany - a risky mission the enemy fully expected. He then covered the Allied invasion of Europe and, after the surrender of Germany, filed reports from the Far East. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his reporting under fire at the battle of Saint Lo.

Rooney wrote about his war experiences in his first three books, the second of which, The Story of the Stars and Stripes, was bought by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for movie rights. Despite going to Hollywood and writing a film script, the film was never made, but the sizable sum he earned enabled him to write as a freelancer for several years after the war.

He was hired by CBS in 1949 after a bold encounter in the elevator with Arthur Godfrey. Rooney told the biggest radio star of the day he could use some better writing. His nerve moved Godfrey to hire him for "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts," which moved to television and became a top-10 hit that was number one in 1952. He also wrote for Godfrey's other primetime program, "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends," and the star's daily morning show. He became Godfrey's only writer in 1953, before quitting the lucrative work in 1955 because he felt he could be doing something more important. But after a period of unemployment, with a wife and four children to support, he returned to television writing on CBS' "The Morning News with Will Rogers, Jr." in 1957. The best thing that happened to Rooney on the short-lived program was meeting and befriending CBS News Correspondent Harry Reasoner, with whom he collaborated later to great success.

He also wrote for "The Garry Moore Show" (1959-'65), helping it to achieve hit status as a top-20 program. Such regularly featured talents as Victor Borge, Bob and Ray and Perry Como spoke the words written by Rooney during this period. At the same time, he wrote for CBS News public affairs broadcasts, including "The Twentieth Century," "News of America" and "Adventure," and he freelanced articles for the biggest magazines of the day.

By the mid-1960s, Rooney's name was a familiar credit at the end of CBS News programs. "The most felicitous nonfiction writer in television" is how Time magazine described Rooney in 1969, a winner of the Writers Guild Award for Best Script of the Year six times.

Rooney had convinced CBS News he could write for television on any subject when he wrote his first television essay in 1964, an original genre he is credited with developing. Proving his point, he picked doors as the subject and Reasoner as the voice for "An Essay on Doors." The team - Rooney writing and producing and Reasoner narrating -- went on to create such critically acclaimed specials as "An Essay on Bridges" (1965), "An Essay on Hotels" (1966), "An Essay on Women" (1967), "An Essay on Chairs" (1968) and "The Strange Case of the English Language" (1968). Rooney also wrote and produced many news documentaries, including the most comprehensive television treatment of Frank Sinatra, "Frank Sinatra: Living With the Legend," in 1965. He wrote two CBS News specials for the series "Of Black America" in 1968, one of which, "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed," won him his first Emmy and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards First Prize for Television.

Rooney also produced for Reasoner at "60 Minutes" during the broadcast's first few seasons and made his on-screen "debut." He and the broadcast's senior producer, Palmer Williams, appeared in silhouette as "Ipso and Facto" in a short-lived opinion segment called "Digressions." Then, after Reasoner left for ABC in 1970, Rooney also left the network briefly. Having trouble getting his material on the air, he purchased his "An Essay on War" from CBS and took it to public television to be broadcast on "Great American Dream Machine." The 1971 program was Rooney's first appearance as himself on television and won him his third Writers Guild Award. He wrote and produced more essays for the program, appearing in those as well.

He returned to CBS in 1973 after a short stint with Reasoner at ABC News and then wrote, produced and narrated a series of broadcasts for CBS News on various aspects of American life between 1975 and 1989. These included "Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington," for which he won a Peabody Award, "Andy Rooney Takes Off," "Mr. Rooney Goes to Work" and "Mr. Rooney Goes to Dinner." He also appeared several times in 1977 and 1978 on "60 Minutes" doing segments that included "Super Salesman," a look at the relationship between the Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company, the National Retired Teachers Association and the American Association of Retired Persons, in which he suggested the AARP was created as a vehicle to sell insurance to the elderly.

Rooney then was given the job as summer replacement for the Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick "Point/Counterpoint" "60 Minutes" segment on July 2, 1978. In this first essay, "Three Minutes or so with Andy Rooney," he attacked the dark tradition of tallying the highway deaths during the holiday weekend. In the fall, "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" became a regular segment, alternating with Alexander and Kilpatrick. The following season (1979-'80), Rooney had the end of the broadcast to himself, holding forth in front of an audience approaching 40 million - the number-one television program in America.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists recognized Rooney's rich body of work with its Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award in June 2003. Rooney was a friend of Pyle, the famous World War II correspondent felled by a sniper, whom he met while covering the war for The Stars and Stripes. The Overseas Press Club honored Rooney with its President's Award in April 2010 for his war reporting

Rooney was a rabid New York Giants football fan whose 50-plus years of season tickets began in a seat behind a pole at the Polo Grounds. Attending such public events was often problematic for the recognizable Rooney, who didn't sign autographs because he thought it a silly endeavor linked to his television fame. Always proud of his writing, he would gladly sign one of his 16 books - provided it was sent to him with a stamped and addressed return envelope. In addition to The Story of the Stars and Stripes, Rooney wrote: Air Gunner; Conquerors' Peace; The Fortunes of War; A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney; And More by Andy Rooney; Pieces of My Mind; Word for Word; Not That You Asked...; Sweet and Sour; My War; Sincerely, Andy Rooney; Common Nonsense; Years of Minutes; Out of My Mind and Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit.

Rooney resided in Manhattan; he also kept a family vacation home in Rensselaerville, N.Y, and the first home he ever purchased, in Rowayton, Conn. He was pre-deceased by his wife of 62 years, Marguerite, in 2004. He is survived by his four children Ellen, Brian, the former longtime ABC News correspondent, Emily, longtime host of "Greater Boston," a local public affairs television program on PBS, and Martha Fishel; five grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He was also was pre-deceased by his sister, Nancy.

[CLICK LINK BELOW FOR LINKS TO MULTIMEDIA PROFILES OF ANDY ROONEY'S CAREER]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_16...g=breakingnews

I'm betting that it wasn't so "minor" of minor surgery. Coming from a guy who said he would die before leaving his job, then suddenly he left, went in for surgery - something was up. Of course, it's up to the family if we will ever hear what that "minor" surgery was for.

TV Review
'True Life' (MTV)
Wall Street Protests, Person by Person
By Mike Hale, The New York Times - November 4th, 2011

If your inclination is to take the Occupy Wall Street protests a little less than seriously, watching I'm Occupying Wall Street, the latest episode of MTV's occasional documentary series True Life, won't change your mind. Rough footage from Saturday's show, which was still being edited a few days before broadcast, portrayed the scene in Zuccotti Park as summer camp with protest signs, a rolling festival of exasperation and naïveté, stone-faced cops and Hacky Sack Fuming Man.

In the style of True Life the episode is a close-up view of individual experiences. The episode focuses on Bryan, a 23-year-old from Massachusetts who is a full-time protester and a dedicated member of the sanitation squad, and the friends Kait and Caitlin, 20-year-old students who moonlight at the park.

There's very little 99-percent haranguing or physical confrontation in the show; catalyzing events like the Brooklyn Bridge arrests take place off screen. We see Quixotic attempts to keep the pavement mopped as Bryan points out diplomatically, there are certain members of the community who don't really clean up after themselves and a lot of casual consciousness raising. Those who haven't seen the people's mike in action the practice of having an entire crowd repeat, verbatim, everything a speaker says can witness it here.

There are plenty of moments in the half-hour that invite sniggering a surprising amount, actually, for a show on a network that you would assume is sympathetic to the young people's feelings, or at least mindful of their viewing choices. As Kait marches by various bank headquarters she says, It's empowering to walk past them and shout at them. As the police surround protesters in Washington Square Park, Kait nervously says, I don't know if I'm going to stay here, and Caitlin chimes in, But that has nothing to do with us not being passionate about this cause.

On the other hand you can also get a sense of the powerful emotions the protests have unleashed, regardless of where you stand on the issues involved. You might want to roll your eyes when Caitlin declares, I've never felt more important than right here, but you might also be on the wrong side of history.

Kait expresses her feelings about Zuccotti Park more viscerally: This is my Red Bull right here. It's a nice plug for a company whose founders currently rank 208th on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires. It's O.K., though; being from Austria and Thailand, they're technically not part of the 1 percent.

'TRUE LIFE: I'm Occupying Wall Street'
MTV, Saturday night at 6, Eastern and Pacific times; 5, Central time.

http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/art...ref=television

TV Notes
'Treme' co-creator David Simon clarifies show's future
Writer would like New Orleans drama to end after four seasons, but the choice is up to HBO
By Alan Sepinwall, HitFix.com - November 4th, 2011

Ever since the "Lost" producers cut a deal with ABC to conclude the series after six seasons, it's become fashionable for people to say Show X or Y would be wise to set an end date, even though most of the TV business works under the assumption that the longer a show lasts, the better it is financially, if not creatively. HBO doesn't operate according to those rules, and even within HBO, David Simon marches to his own drummer, which is why he's begun suggesting that "Treme" should probably end after four seasons - even though at the moment the show is only guaranteed three.

As first reported by New Orleans Times-Picayune TV critic and all-around "Treme" expert Dave Walker (whose "Treme" Explained pieces are essential reading after every episode), Simon, co-creator Eric Overmyer and producer George Pelecanos recently got together to discuss the long-term arc of the series, and concluded that four seasons would probably be the ideal length. Simon then sent a memo to HBO explaining that and detailing their plans for that hypothetical fourth season.

Since Walker's piece was published earlier this week, the details have gotten mangled in certain places in that usual game-of-Telephone way that the Internet operates, so I emailed Simon for some clarification.

"It seems to be out there that i said we would be doing four seasons," Simon wrote back. "I didn't say that exactly. I told Dave Walker that the writer-producers met twice over the hiatus for a week at a time and plotted all the storylines and determined that two more seasons was the optimum for the vast majority of characters, for the theme, and practical for the history of post-Katrina New Orleans. That we would have a hard time finishing in three, or, unless some other avenues for storytelling revealed themselves organically, extending the drama to five seasons."

At the same time, he recognizes that it's entirely up to HBO bosses Michael Lombardo and Richard Plepler to decide whether they want a fourth season, and that "HBO has made no decision and I don't expect a decision until we meet with them -- at the earliest."

If the show sticks to a timeline where each season begins roughly a year after the one before it started, we would need a fifth season to get through the New Orleans Saint's Super Bowl win and the BP oil spill, which seem the kind of good news/horrible news mix that would be appropriate for a David Simon-style finale. But it may be that Simon and company don't want to take the characters that far, or else that there will be longer chronological gaps between the events of seasons two and three, and then between three and the hypothetical four.

But all we know for now is that Simon ultimately doesn't control when the show ends. As he put it, "Fools plan. Networks decide."

(HBO hasn't yet announced a premiere date for the third season, but based on precedent, expect sometime in the spring.)

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-al...s-shows-future

TV Notes
‘Gundam’: Three decades of a signature force in anime
By Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times' 'Hero Complex' Blog - November 5th, 2011

When Yoshiyuki Tomino’s first “Gundam” series premiered on Japanese television in 1979, its run ended early due to low ratings. But the same material was recut and released as three theatrical features in 1981 and 1982, the response was so enthusiastic, fans fought over Gundam toys and model kits in toy stores.

Three decades later, there have been 25 “Gundam” television series, 11 feature films, plus direct-to-video releases and an IMAX featurette. In 2009-2010, a 59-foot “life-size” statue of a Gundam Mobile Suit was exhibited in Tokyo and Shizuoka to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Gundam plastic model kit. According to some estimates, there have been ten Gundam models sold for every man, woman and child in Japan.

The breadth and impact of that history are timely topics with the home video release of the feature “Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer” (2010) and the reissue of the landmark TV series “Mobile Suit Gundam” (1979) which taken together offer an overview of one of the longest-running franchises in animation history.

In addition to helping to create modern anime fandom, “Gundam” transformed the robot sci-fi genre. Earlier series like “Tetsujin 28 –go” (“Gigantor” in America) had featured dumpy robots that were remote-controlled, self-propelled entities. The boy-heroes of these programs treated the robots as pets that could be ordered to fly them around or attack an enemy. Tomino’s Gundams resembled a fusion of an outsized space suit, a one-man space ship and a flamboyant suit of samurai armor, piloted by psychic teen-age warriors.

But “Gundam” offered more than superior robots. Tomino, who cites “Star Wars,” “Destination Moon” and the films of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu as influences, also instituted a revolution in story. Rather than focusing exclusively on a small cadre of heroes and villains, “Gundam” played its heroic battles against a larger canvas. Like George Lucas’ Galactic Empire or Gene Rodenberry’s Federation, Tomino’s “Gundam” universe allowed its creator to explore politics, mysticism, ecology, and prejudice.

The “Gundam” stories take place in the not-too-distant future, when the human population passed 11 billion. Most people have left Earth for the orbiting Space Colonies. But the corrupt, bickering oligarchs of the world government inevitably come into conflict with a large underclass seeking freedom. The outcome of the struggle depends on the battles fought by the heroic space-born pilots in their Gundam Mobile Suits.

The sheer scale of the “Gundam” franchise can be daunting. It would take more than six weeks of watching eight hours of video a day, seven days a week, to see the more than 345 hours of the “Gundam saga.” (And even a dedicated otaku would probably crack before the second week was up.)

The original “Mobile Suit Gundam” looks very dated today, with its crumbly Xerox lines, slow pacing, limited animation and tame battles. It’s closer in tone to “Robotech” than the more spectacular recent favorites “Gundam Wing” (1995) and “The 08th MS Team” (1996). But the story of Amuro Ray becoming a mecha pilot and a warrior in spite of himself is well told. In contrast, “A Wakening of the Trailblazer,” the first theatrical feature in 19 years, boasts dazzling CG battle scenes and a muddled plot.

Despite the enormous success of the “Gundam” franchise, Tomino has a notorious love-hate relationship with his creation. In a 1993 interview, he recalled the frustration he felt when the first film was released: “In the United States a film like ‘Star Wars’ could be made in live-action, whereas in Japan we were in a position — or I was in a position — where I had to make my story in robot animation…and I don’t particularly like robot animation.”

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/...orce-in-anime/

Obituary
Comic Actor Sid Melton Dies at 94
By Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter - November 4th, 2011

Sid Melton, a comic character actor best known for his work on three shows starring Danny Thomas, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 94.

During a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Melton appeared in about 140 television and film projects. They included the 1951 films Lost Continent with Cesar Romero and Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet and Diana Ross starrer Lady Sings the Blues (1972).

On the 1950s TV show Captain Midnight, Melton co-starred as the hero's sidekick, Ichabod Mudd. His signature line was, That's Mudd with two D's.

On The Danny Thomas Show (aka Make Room for Daddy), The Danny Thomas Hour and Make Room for Granddaddy that spanned 1959 to 1971, Melton played Uncle Charley Halper, the owner of the Copa Club where Thomas performed.

Melton also had a recurring role in the late 1960s on the sitcom Green Acres as Alf Monroe, half of an inept brother-sister carpenter team. (Mary Grace Canfield played his sister, Ralph.)

The Brooklyn native also appeared in flashbacks as the husband of Estelle Getty's widowed character on The Golden Girls and on such other shows as Peter Gunn, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Munsters, Love American Style, Hunter, Empty Nest and Dave's World.

The son of Isidor Meltzer, a comedian in Yiddish theater, Melton made his acting debut in 1939 in a touring production of See My Lawyer and appeared in 1947 on Broadway in The Magic Touch.

Melton also appeared in Shadow of a Thin Man (1941) and directed two films, Bad Girls Do Cry (1965) and And Call Me in the Morning (1999), in which he also starred opposite Frank Sinatra Jr.

Melton's older brother was Lewis Meltzer, a screenwriter who worked on Golden Boy (1939) starring William Holden, The Jazz Singer (1952) starring Thomas and Man With the Golden Arm (1955) starring Frank Sinatra.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...on-dies-257760

FRIDAY's fast affiliate overnight prime-time ratings -and what they mean- have been posted on Analyst Marc Berman's Media INsight's Blog.

Nielsen Overnights
CBS wins with Blue Bloods'; what do Grimm' ratings mean?
By Hal Boedeker, Orlando Sentinel's 'TV Guy' Blog - November 5th, 2011

CBS won Friday night by several counts. The network had the biggest audience, the most young adults and the most popular show (Blue Bloods).

The ratings for NBC's Grimm were confounding, though. The fantasy/police drama placed first in young adults at 9 p.m. a good sign. But Grimm was second in total viewers to CBS' CSI: NY. Grimm debuted last week against Game 7 of the World Series and pulled in 6.6 million viewers. Last night, though, the audience was 5.9 million. And the audience drooped from the first half-hour to the second - not good signs.

Blue Bloods averaged 12.6 million viewers at 10 p.m. for CBS. It was far ahead of the two newsmagazines, which devoted time to the latest in Dr. Conrad Murray's trial. ABC's 20/20″ averaged 4.9 million viewers, and Dateline NBC drew 4.1 million.

CBS won at 9 with CSI: NY drawing 9.6 million viewers. It was ahead of Grimm, ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (5.4 million) and Fox's Fringe (3.3 million).

At 8, CBS had the most viewers with A Gifted Man being the medicine for 8.4 million. Extreme Makeover averaged 4.9 million in the hour. Kitchen Nightmares drew 3.7 million for Fox, but pulled in the most young adults in the hour. Chuck charmed 3.1 million for NBC.

Here are the prime-time averages: CBS with 10.2 million, ABC with 5 million, NBC with 4.4 million, Fox with 3.5 million and The CW with 1.8 million. The CW aired new episodes of Nikita (1.8 million) and Supernatural (1.7 million).

In Orlando, the top shows were Blue Bloods with 170,200 viewers, CSI: NY with 130,800, A Gifted Man with 110,300, Grimm with 95,600 and The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel with 80,400.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/ent...ings-mean.html

TV Review
Fans of 'Homeland' Won't Want to Miss the Star-Filled British Drama 'Page Eight'
By Maureen Ryan, AOLTV.com - November 4th, 2011

'Homeland' is certainly the year's best new show, but fans of that Showtime drama will want to make time Sunday night for a British import that explores neighboring territory.

Speaking of imports, Masterpiece's bracing British fare -- 'Downton Abbey,' 'Case Histories,' 'Page Eight' and 'The Song of Lunch,' which arrives Nov. 13 -- isn't just enjoyable on its own terms; it proves HBO doesn't have a monopoly on handsomely crafted movies and miniseries.

As for 'Page Eight' (PBS Masterpiece Sunday night, check local listings), this enjoyable Bill Nighy espionage movie should also be on the radar of people who enjoyed AMC's 'Rubicon' or the previous Nighy vehicle 'State of Play' (a great 2003 miniseries that BBC America will re-air Dec. 7). Then again, you don't have to be a particular fan of spy fare or Nighy to enjoy 'Page Eight,' which is full of the kind of proven British acting talent that makes the whole venture worthwhile.

In this well-constructed drama, Ralph Fiennes plays a U.K. prime minister who looks and acts the part but is full of vaguely menacing aggression; Rachel Weisz is the possibly suspect neighbor of Nighy's character, career MI-5 agent Johnny Warricker; the great Michael Gambon plays Warricker's avuncular, razor-sharp boss, Benedict Baron; Judy Davis co-stars as a sharp-elbowed colleague and Alice Krige is Nighy's prickly ex-wife (one of them, anyway).

I'd happily watch this cast read the phone book, but fortunately the script by David Hare (who also directed) is intelligent, engaging and generally makes good use of this singular cast's talents. Through expertly handled exposition, we gradually learn that Baron and Warricker are involved in a high-stakes game of chicken with the government. They've learned damning information about how the war on terror is being conducted in the U.K., and, by the second half of the 100-minute film, danger lurks around every corner.

But this is no a 'Bourne'-like thriller. 'Page Eight' is more a study of one man's struggle to continue to believe that his job has rules and meaning, and Hare never forgets that two people talking in a quiet room can be fascinating, provided the right performers are speaking the right kind of dialogue. There's a confrontation between Fiennes' prime minister and Nighy's character that is as full of crackling tension as a really good chase scene; these actors go at each other like fully armed thespian ninjas, and it's a delight to watch.

I've recently discovered the critical stylings of an online writer who goes by the name FilmCritHulk, and if you can get past the all-caps writing on his posts (and it's worth the effort to do so), he has some interesting thoughts on what makes 'Downton Abbey' and British dramas in general work so well. In Hulk's view, these stories often revolve around the characters' restraint and the promise of that restraint finally being loosened. 'Page Eight,' which brims with nicely calibrated restraint, certainly works in that regard, and Nighy is particularly well-suited to the kind of storytelling that telegraphs both repression and possible abandon.

Something antic and wild lurks inside Nighy; you can sense it in his snaky line-readings and his slightly evasive presence. Just when you think you have his characters pinned down, they slip away behind a secretive, mildly amused facade. As he did in 'State of Play,' Nighy excels at assuming the mantle of a powerful man who wears his influence lightly, but part of his charisma derives from his capacity for mischievousness. There are elements of melancholy and caution in Johnny, but like many of Nighy's other characters, he lives life on his own terms and is quite capable of enjoying himself, should the opportunity arise.

But Johnny's profession has clearly taken a toll on his ability to trust, and like 'Homeland' and 'Rubicon,' 'Page Eight' intelligently explores the burdens carried by people whose jobs force them to live with difficult knowledge. That's not to say 'Page Eight' is a downer -- far from it -- but this film give us an unsentimental yet realistic view of the price paid by those protecting us from real and confounding evils.

There are elements of 'Page Eight' that would have benefited from a more time and exploration; Johnny's relationship with his artist daughter and the sub-plot about his neighbor both seem a little thinner than they should be. Also, the film's conclusion presents a false choice that is less nuanced than what came before it. Still, this small gem of a film manages to be a finely drawn character piece and a searching exploration of what powerful people will (and won't) do to keep their countries safe, and it provides some great actors with meaty roles along the way.

Notes: 'Page Eight' will be online at the Masterpiece site on Nov. 7. 'Case Histories,' a good three-part detective series starring Jason Isaacs, is online there until Nov. 29. And if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and record 'State of Play' (the 2003 miniseries, not the Russell Crowe film) when BBC America re-airs it starting Dec. 7. It stars Nighy, Kelly Macdonald, James McAvoy, David Morrissey, John Simm and Polly Walker. It's very good; I wrote more about it here.

By the way, Alan Sepinwall was the first to make the observation that between 'Page Eight' and 'The Song of Lunch,' which airs Nov. 13 on Masterpiece, half the adult cast of the Harry Potter films will be on our TVs this month. (I haven't seen 'Lunch,' which airs Nov. 13, but it stars Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman as former flames, so it's surely worth a look.).

http://www.aoltv.com/2011/11/04/fans...ed-brit-drama/

TV Review
AMC rides to a big win with Hell on Wheels,' high-octane drama about building the railroad
By David Hinckley, New York Daily News - November 5th, 2011

AMC rolls out another winner with Hell on Wheels, a dark, complex and intense drama about a group of damaged people who come together after the Civil War to help build the Transcontinental Railroad.

While none of their lives are easy, and viewers shouldn't get attached to several of the characters they will meet in Sunday night's premiere, Hell on Wheels also has a strong undertone of hope and even optimism.

The railroad itself, while it may break hearts and backs, represents the kind of big dream that gives everyone, on some level, the satisfaction of knowing that someday it will provide a galaxy of new possibilities for those who follow.

Hell on Wheels itself is the moving collection of supplies, services and lodging that follows the railroad as it builds toward the West. To call it a town might seem like an overstatement, but as they say in country songs, Any old place I hang my hat is home sweet home to me.

The central hat-hanger is Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), a former Confederate soldier whose wife was raped and murdered by outlaw Yankees.

His mission is to find those Yankees and kill them. The trail led to the railroad, so here he is.

Meanwhile, he's skilled enough to become a crew boss.

His co-workers include Elam Ferguson (Common), a liberated slave who also has management skills, but who knows the Emancipation Proclamation only gave him liberty, not equality.

Lili Bell (Dominique McElligott) came to Hell on Wheels with her husband, only to lose him to the fact there are few laws here and fewer people to enforce them.

Lili is a whole lot less delicate than she looks, so she decides not to return home.

Returning home was never an option or a consideration for Doc Durant (Colm Meaney), the man building the railroad, who can almost sit there every day watching himself get richer.

By the time the first expanded episode wraps up, Hell on Wheels has dipped its toes into runaway capitalism, the poisonous legacy of the war between the states, the tempered hope of the colored, the battle of Irish immigrants and the almost tribal struggles over what to do with the Western territories, particularly now that the railroad will link them with the East.

As the setting suggests, Hell On Wheels has many trappings of a Western.

Where it diverges is the lack of white hats and black hats. The axis of good and bad is constantly shifting, which is part of what makes the story intriguing.

That doesn't mean there aren't better and worse characters, or that the whole thing is so jumbled it gives you a headache.

The first episode sorts things out nicely, making it clear why each of these folks is here and, more important, making us want to see how they pursue their dream and whether they find it.

Add riveting performances by Mount, Common, Meaney and McElligott, and AMC's right up there at the top of cable's dramatic leader board.

'HELL ON WHEELS'
Sunday at 10 p.m., AMC
Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...ticle-1.971950

Question still remains, will cable internet providers allow for this to happen over their systems when they want subscribers to pay for their cable TV service instead?

TV Notes
A Divorce Seems to Resound and the Real Issue Is, Why?
By Brian Stelter and Noam Cohen, The New York Times - November 4th, 2011

All over America this week, parents faced a very modern problem: how to explain the Kim Kardashian divorce to their children.

How could it be otherwise? America's latest approximation of a royal wedding is still playing on TV, over and over and over again, even though it's been more than a week since the professional reality TV starlet told the tabloids that she had filed for divorce from Kris Humphries, a basketball player for the New Jersey Nets. Yet the kids come home from school and there it is on the tube, in high definition: America's fairy-tale wedding.

The cognitive dissonance was smothering. For a while this week, it seemed that the Kardashians were all that America was talking about, Greek debt be damned.

Not only has the end of Ms. Kardashian's 72-day marriage been a headline on the TV morning shows for three days running, it's also been the subject of ferocious online debates, endless water-cooler chatter and a limerick from the writer Salman Rushdie, published as a series of Twitter messages. It has even become a rallying point for gay marriage activists who ask why brief male-female marriages are not considered damaging to the institution of marriage but gay unions are.

But the question that hovers over all the debates and attention is a simple one: Why do we care? Why does anyone?

Thomas de Zengotita, author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Our World and the Way We Live in It, contends that the fascination with Ms. Kardashian and other reality stars is not evidence of the decline of Western culture, as tempting as that thought might be. Instead, he says, the growing sophistication of viewers allows them to watch reality television on several different levels.

Why reality TV shows have gone so far is that, in the broadest possible sense, it is about us, Mr. de Zengotita said.

First, he said, there is the simple identification with the interactions between Ms. Kardashian; her sisters; their manager/mother, Kris Jenner; and their beleaguered stepfather, Bruce Jenner, who used to be known as America's greatest decathlete.

That sense was very much in evidence on Thursday at Dash, the Manhattan boutique owned by the Kardashian sisters, where there is sometimes a line to get in (but, for the record, no 72-day return policy).

They remind me of my own family, said Melissa Porter, 26, of Scherer, Ind., who said she sometimes teased her mother the same way the Kardashian sisters tease their mother.

Before posing for a photo outside Dash, her friend Tyne Pierce, 25, of Clearwater, Fla., had another explanation for the fame of the runaway newlywed, one that some E! executives have privately echoed this week. You can get wrapped up in wedding hype, she said, standing next to her husband, who just smiled silently.

There is another level of viewing, Mr. de Zengotita said: envy for the lives of the rich and famous. Running concurrently with envy is the urge to mock the wealth and spectacle of the Kardashian lives as the sisters move from party to party, product placement to product placement.

(Ms. Kardashian reportedly netted $18 million through the wedding, though the family has said that figure is inflated.)

It was this level that inspired wits like Mr. Rushdie to render his take on the wedding mess in limerick:

The marriage of poor kim #kardashian

was krushed like a kar in a krashian

her kris kried, not fair!

why kan't I keep my share?

But kardashian fell klean outa fashian.

And it prompted the Toronto political writer Andrew Coyne to dust off the Edwardian form the clerihew:

Kim Kardashian

Was a slave to her passion

She married for l'amour

Or perhaps for an hour.

For Ms. Kardashian's television home, the E! network, the explosion of interest is further proof of the triumph of reality television, which began as an inexpensive gimmick but has now conquered the airwaves and beyond.

In the United States, celebrity culture has long been carefully manufactured by Hollywood, but now TV fans scan Us Weekly, In Touch and even People magazine for the latest off-the-air exploits of the teen moms, desperate housewives and even more desperate bachelorettes.

On the day of the divorce announcement, St. Martin's Press shipped 100,000 more copies of the sisters' best-selling book, Kardashian Konfidential, updated with wedding photos.

For magazines and network television, reality stars are the ultimate supply-driven phenomenon: an endless supply of attention-seeking semistars to fill up pages and hours. Best of all, they usually won't sue.

But one wonders whether Ms. Kardashian violated the basic code of the reality star by so quickly announcing the divorce.

And so the search for meaning began. Has she betrayed her many fans by choosing personal happiness over show business or has she revealed that the marriage itself was just one more ratings gimmick?

With Ms. Kardashian in Australia this week, where she was mobbed by the news media and fans, Ms. Jenner who is promoting a book of her own found herself trying to convince Kardashian-watchers that they hadn't watched a fictional fairy tale.

It certainly wasn't a sham, and certainly wasn't for TV, she said on the Today show on Wednesday, on NBC, a sister company of the E! network. We have enough going on on our show that we don't have to make things up.

In three weeks, a new season of one of the family's shows Kourtney & Kim Take New York will start on E!, and viewers will see some of the turmoil within the brief marriage that is, if they haven't tired of reading about it online and in print first. All the while, the debate will rage on.

I believe Kim K married for love, or what she thought was love, wrote one commenter on YouBeMom.com, a message board for parents, in an attempt to be sympathetic. think she's just dumb as a brick when it comes to that.

But another commenter wrote: Used to kind of enjoy the Kardashian show, fun, guilty pleasure, but now I'm really turned off by how blatantly exploitative and gauche they are. Won't be watching any more.

The lesson for reality stars might be this: Fans may love reality as long as it's not too real.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/ar...ref=television

TV Notes
Mark Harmon's aim? Diverse roles
By Bill Keveney, USA Today - November 4th, 2011

The new cop on the beat bears a striking physical resemblance to one of TV's favorite lawmen.

Both catch bad guys. But Mark Harmon, star of the CBS hit NCIS, says the differences between the weekly drama's Jethro Gibbs and Lucas Davenport, the central character of John Sandford's Certain Prey (USA, Sunday, 9 ET/PT), are what drew him to the new character. (An NCIS marathon, starting at 10 a.m. ET/PT, leads into the movie.)

Davenport, Minneapolis' deputy police chief, is a sharply dressed, sports-car-loving ladies' man who has a goodly sum of money from earlier success in the computer business.

"What he loves more than any of it is being a cop. He loves nothing more than sitting around a coffee shop with uniformed cops, talking the breeze," Harmon says. And there's "the other side of him; he's a very rough character. At times, not very nice."

A big difference between Davenport and Gibbs is their relationship to the job; the money buys Davenport more choices. "Fact is, this guy can walk away from it at any time. I don't think Gibbs can walk away ever. If you took this job away from him, I don't know where he'd be."

At the same time, Harmon says he didn't want to step so far away from Gibbs that it would be "some giant stretch in a whole other direction than what you've been doing the past nine years."

The film is based on Certain Prey, the 10th of 21 Prey novels written by best-selling author Sandford. Prey follows Davenport, who doesn't always play by the rules, in his pursuit of two deadly women, a top local lawyer (Lola Glaudini) and a nomadic hit woman (Tatiana Maslany), who join forces to cover up a series of murders.

"The allure of two female adversaries was big," he says. "We all had the same idea of trying to create some open-ended capacity where maybe one story line wraps up (and) another one opens up."

The nature of Sandford's books doesn't require starting at the first novel in the series, Harmon says. He doesn't rule out a potential Prey series but says he's focused on this one. "It just seemed sensible to me to make that effort and see if this is something that could have legs, (and) that has to do with how you do the first one."

Harmon, a fan of the Prey character and series, is more than the star of the film; he helped put the project together. "I haven't done this from start to finish before, where you find a project you like and a character you like and you pitch and sell it and find a writer and a director and, eventually, light the candle on getting it made. It's all kind of exciting."

The actor, who has had a wide range of roles in TV and movies, from ChicagoHope and The West Wing to The Deliberate Stranger and Summer School, says an actor's goal is to play many different characters. But he reassures NCIS fans that he's committed to the series, where he's under contract for one more season.

"I couldn't do this if I wasn't enjoying it. They're great, nice people (and) the show keeps getting better and more popular. There's a lot to be thankful for," says Harmon, who won't get ahead of himself by predicting how long NCIS may run. "Right now, I'm just looking at the next script next week. That's it."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/televis...rey/51050526/1

Bless his heart.

Business Notes
Time Warner makes play for Endemol, to boost overeas presence
By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - November 4th, 2011

Looking to boost its international presence, Time Warner Inc. made a unsolicited bid earlier this week for Endemol, the creator of reality TV hits “Deal or No Deal” and “Wipeout” and one of the world’s largest television production companies.

The media giant and parent of Warner Bros. has offered about $1.4 billion for the highly leveraged Endemol, according to a person with knowledge of the bid. Time Warner is interested in the company because it can provide a steady stream of product to its channels around the globe.

“We have received an approach from Time Warner, which doesn’t come as a surprise,” said Charlie Gardner, a spokesman for Endemol.

However, Gardner said, Amsterdam-based Endemol is committed to resolving its balance sheet issues. The company carries a debt load of about $2.75 billion, Gardner said.

“This doesn’t change anything. We remain focused on reaching a solution with lenders,” Gardner said, adding: “We are confident that an agreement will put the business on a firm financial footing and strengthen Endemol’s prospects for the future.”

In the United States, Endemol is best known as a producer of reality and game shows including CBS’ “Big Brother” and NBC’s “Fear Factor.” It also produces numerous reality shows for cable, such as TLC’s “LA Ink” and Bravo’s “The Rachel Zoe Project.”

Founded in 1994 by John De Mol and now owned by the investment firm Goldman Sachs and investment funds Cyrte and Mediacinco –- controlled by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- Endemol has gone through some internal turmoil as of late. Less than three months ago, Ynon Kreiz abruptly resigned as chairman and chief executive in the midst of Endemol’s efforts to restructure its heavy debt load. Endemol's board tapped Marco Bassetti, the company's group president, and Just Spee, the group chief financial officer, to manage the company as it tries to come to a new agreement with its debt holders.

The ongoing fight between Endemol and its creditors appears to have motivated Time Warner to make a play for the company. Besides its bid, Time Warner has also committed to investing heavily in new programming.

In Endemol, Time Warner sees a product pipeline for its international television networks. Time Warner owns entertainment channels in India, Japan, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Warner Bros. already has a lucrative business selling its library of television shows, including current hits “The Big Bang Theory” and dramas such as “The Mentalist” and “Nikita,” around the world.

But now companies such as Time Warner, Viacom and Sony are also trying to produce more local content for foreign markets instead of just dubbing their shows in various languages and shipping them overseas. Sony, for example, has produced Russian-language versions of its “The Nanny” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

Endemol has a library of almost 2500 program formats and produces regional versions of its shows in numerous languages, in numerous places, including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Brazil and the Middle East.

The company has recently become a player in the syndication game as well. Programs it sells abroad include the AMC cable channel hits “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” the soon-to-premiere Western “Hell on Wheels” and the TV Land series “Happily Divorced.”

Although best known for its reality and game shows, Endemol has also increased its scripted programming production by about 50% in the last three years. Endemol’s scripted fare is made primarily for Holland, Italy, Spain and Australia. It also has a presence in Britain and in Argentina, where it makes telenovelas. This year, Endemol unveiled plans to build a scripted entertainment business in the United States.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...r-endemol.html

I thought the CBS obit of Andy Rooney was really well written.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post21171533

But using the term "pre-deceased" in reference to his wife was a little too elitist for my taste.

Does 'died earlier' fit your tastes better...

Technology Notes
An Online Answer to the DVR
By Anne Eisenberg, The New York Times - November 5th, 2011

Some people who want to watch a movie at home wait for Netflix to mail it to them on a disc. Others click on a link at Netflix or other Web sites and immediately watch films, TV episodes or sports events streamed to them on the spot.

But streamed shows can be ephemeral — they depend on a good broadband connection, and they pass by as they are viewed, unlike downloaded videos that can be watched later offline. And some shows can’t be found again at a site that once provided them, because they are meant to have a limited run.

Now, for $5 a month, a new service called PlayLater lets subscribers copy streaming video as it shows up at 30 sites, including Netflix, Hulu, PBS, ESPN and CNN, so they can watch it later.

With PlayLater, viewers can stockpile episodes of their favorite television shows on their hard drives and thumb drives, just as they copy programs on a digital video recorder for later viewing.

PlayLater has many restrictions — it works only on PCs, and the videos made with the software may be watched only on the PC licensed by PlayLater to record the show, or on another PC that shares the license. And it doesn’t work with iPhones, iPads, or mobile Android devices, although Jeff Lawrence, the chief executive of PlayOn, the Seattle company that offers the subscription service, said these apps would be available soon.

The number of people who watch streaming video is climbing, said Radha Subramanyam, an executive at Nielsen, the ratings firm, “and so is the time they spend watching.” Netflix subscribers spent an average of nearly 8.5 hours doing so in June, she said.

“Everyone streams across all ages,” she said, “but some age groups stream more than others.” She said that there were strong numbers for both the 18-to-24 and 24-to-35 age groups.

PlayLater is among many new services that aim to take advantage of streaming’s popularity, said Dan Rayburn, a New York-based analyst at Frost & Sullivan, a market research firm, and an executive at StreamingMedia.com, a Web site devoted to covering the streaming media field.

Mr. Rayburn called the subscription service “a great idea” but said it had many weaknesses. “Most important,” he said, “it doesn’t work on Macs.”

I signed up for a free trial offered by PlayLater and installed the software on my PC — a painless process that took about 10 minutes. There is no central schedule of streaming choices at the bare-bones PlayLater home page. Instead, I went to each participating site and shopped for shows I might want to copy. The software records in real time, so it takes 30 minutes to copy a 30-minute show — though you can skip the commercials when you watch the recordings later.

I listed in a queue all the programs I wanted, then PlayLater recorded them one after another. But I couldn’t program the software to record on future dates, as can be done with DVRs. (Mr. Lawrence of PlayLater says the company is working on creating this feature.)

Streaming quality, of course, will be affected by the Internet connection. PlayLater’s site recommends a broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits a second, the same speed that Netflix recommends.

Even with a decent connection, you should be sure that other people on your home network aren’t downloading large files or playing an online game, taking away needed bandwidth.

The quality is also affected by computer hardware. You’ll need a laptop or desktop PC bought within the last five years to avoid problems, Mr. Lawrence said. Each hour of video being recorded requires about one gigabyte of storage space.

The picture quality of the shows I stored on the hard drive was similar to that of the movies I stream from Netflix or Amazon — sharp and clear when tiny, and grainier when I enlarged the image. That is how it should be, said Ara Derderian , co-host of the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast.

“Don’t expect high definition, or the quality of a Blu-ray player,” he said. “The copy of what’s streamed should look identical to what you’d get if you were streaming it.”

* * * *

Subscribers might also be worried about the legality of copying video content. Mr. Lawrence said PlayLater is following the path set earlier by VCRs and DVRs.

“PlayLater is legal for the same reason that using a VCR and a DVR is legal,” he said. “There is a well-established legal precedent that consumers are allowed to record videos for time-shifted viewing.” (In time-shifting, people make copies for their personal use that they can view later.)

Denise M. Howell , an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer in Newport Beach, Calif., says she isn’t so sure that software like PlayLater’s will succeed without a legal challenge. She pointed out that the terms-of-service agreements that users have with companies like Netflix and Amazon limit a video’s viewing.

“If the streaming sites let this go, ignoring it, they will irritate the people who provide the content,” she said. “They are not going to be able to sit back and look the other way.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/bu...ref=television

What they should do is license the software and add it to their service. Studios don't care when we watch the DVD's we purchase, so they shouldn't care when we watch streamed content either. As far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't even care what device we watch it on as long it's a registered device abd DMR protected. We should also be free to copy a DVR recording to our tablets and laptops so we can watch it on a trip, etc.

Q&A
John Francis Daley on both sides of the camera
'Freaks and Geeks' veteran who costars as Sweets on 'Bones' has penned an episode of the series and co-written 'Horrible Bosses.'
By Jasmine Elist, Los Angeles Times - November 6th, 2011

At the age of 13, John Francis Daley launched his acting career playing the socially awkward Sam Weir on cult classic "Freaks and Geeks." A dozen years later, Daley talks about his role as Sweets on Fox's crime drama TV series "Bones," which returned for its seventh season last week, and how he became one of Hollywood's most popular comedy writers, co-writing the recent hit movie "Horrible Bosses."

You starred on "Freaks and Geeks" as a teen. Are there things you learned then that are useful today?
Unlike so many auditions that I had done before where I was directed to act really kid-like and appealing to mainstream audiences, with "Freaks and Geeks" they encouraged me to just be myself and play everything real. That is something that has stayed with me through to where I have gotten more and more comfortable with being myself on-screen.

What are you most excited about for the new season of "Bones"?
The new dynamic with the two leads, Booth [David Boreanaz] and Brennan [Emily Deschanel]. Now that they've "hooked up," it's all about the aftermath and how they are going to address it all. And the fact that I get a gun mostly the fact that I get a gun.

You've played Sweets on "Bones" since 2007, but you just wrote your first episode of the show this past season. What was that like?
It was the first television script I had ever written that was produced, so it was great to get that satisfaction of writing something, then seeing it hit the screen just a few months later. It's a very different process the body finds and the world that each episode is set in is a very specific formula that Hart Hanson, the creator, and Stephen Nathan, one of the executive producers, have fine-tuned. It took a minute of getting used to, but it was a lot of fun.

When did you start writing scripts?
I've been writing since I was a little kid basically the same time I started acting. But the first real project that I wrote was with my writing partner Jonathan Goldstein in 2007. We did "The $40,000 Man," which was a spec that we didn't really take seriously because the premise was so silly: The guy that came before the Six Million Dollar Man. So we were all the more surprised when we found out that New Line wanted to buy it. We had sold four or five projects before we even started working on "Horrible Bosses." But just as an example of how you never know what project is going to go in Hollywood: The last thing that we wrote was the first thing that got made, and that was "Horrible Bosses."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,7743698.story

That's a bad comparison. Play later is essentially providing the recording, not the customer.

The comparison would only hold true if the VHS tapes you bought already had the shows recorded on them.

TV Notes
Andy Rooney Tribute to Air on '60 Minutes'
By Philiana Ng, The Hollywood Reporter - November 5th, 2011

60 Minutes announced early Saturday that it will air a special tribute to longtime contributor Andy Rooney, who died in New York at the age of 92, at the end of this week's edition.

60 Minutes' Morley Safer will lead the segment, which will air at the end of Sunday's telecast at 7 p.m. on CBS.

"It's a sad day at 60 Minutes and for everybody here at CBS News," said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of 60 Minutes. "It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much."

For 33 years, Rooney wryly commented on life's annoyances and his reports, "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney," became a regular feature on 60 Minutes in 1978.

On Oct. 2, Rooney delivered his 1,097th and final essay titled "My Lucky Life" on the CBS news program. "I wish I could do this forever. I can't, though," he said. Rooney's final report boosted the ratings for 60 Minutes, the program drawing its largest October audience in four years. The episode lured 17.1 million total viewers.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...tribute-257940

Yes, that's how normal people speak.