Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2851

TV Review
‘LA Shrinks,’ more than we wanna know
New Bravo series brings us into the private lives of therapists
By Tom Conroy, Media Life Magazine - Mar. 4, 2013

What is the psychiatric equivalent for the saying “Physician, heal thyself”? Maybe “Therapist, treat thyself”?

That’s basically what goes on in Bravo’s new reality show “LA Shrinks.” The series follows three attractive psychologists as they counsel patients and work on their own issues.

The patients’ counseling sessions are racy but nothing we haven’t seen on previous too-much-information TV shows. The shrinks’ own issues are the sort of relationship problems that recur in the personal-life scenes in most of Bravo’s series about successful professionals. The result is a skillfully assembled hour with a lot of clamor but few surprises.

In the premiere episode, airing tonight at 10, we meet the three therapists featured on the show, all of whom say that their patients’ issues give them insights into their own problems. This isn’t always borne out by the episode.

Venus Nicolino, a Ph.D who lives in a mansion with her husband and four boys, counsels a couple whose sex life is dysfunctional because the woman is unhappy with the man’s physical endowment, but not in the way one might expect. After some graphic discussion, Nicolino tells the camera that this specific complaint usually means that the woman is afraid of sex.

Sure enough, the woman tells Nicolino that she had a convent education that taught her that sex is dirty. Nonetheless, she’s open to having another woman join them in bed. One starts to get the feeling that everyone involved — including Nicolino, who at one point yells at the man, “Worship the vajayjay” — is just trying to be outrageous in order to get as much screen time as possible.

The second shrink is a Ph.D. named Gregory Cason, who is in a long-term “monogamish” relationship. In the premiere, he works with a woman who has anger issues. We see footage of her shouting variations on the most common obscenity, both while driving and while being treated.

Since anger management isn’t the sort of thing that keeps us tuned in, the patient describes in graphic detail how the handles her problem: by having vigorous sex with her boyfriend.

Eris Huemer, whose credentials aren’t specified, treats a couple with issues about frequency: She is frustrated because they have sex about once a week; he seems to think that is fine.

Huemer’s personal life most closely mirrors her patients’ issue: She tell us that she and her husband haven’t had sex in months, and she tells him that she wants to have a baby soon, since, she says, “I’m 38 years old, and my biological clock is ticking away.”

To make this discussion special, Huemer hires a chef to prepare an aphrodisiac dinner. This is the sort of thing that happens more on reality shows than in reality. As they dig in, Huemer points out to her husband that asparagus resembles a certain body part, then puts a stalk in his mouth.

Cason tells us that he was drawn to therapy because his father had anger issues and was vocally anti-gay. He’s worried that if he invites his father to his upcoming commitment ceremony, his sisters won’t attend. Even now, he says, “I’m scared s—less of telling my father I want to marry another man.”

Nicolino seems to have the most tranquil home life, even though she and her husband are raising four boys under 7: their own two sons and two of their nephews. In a pre-commercial tease, her husband suggests it’s time for them to have another child. She responds with a phrase using the aforementioned common obscenity.

Of course, when that scene comes around later, she laughs immediately afterwards.

Intimate but forced, these slices of the therapists’ personal lives, set in comfortable and chic upper-middle-class décor, look and sound just like the scenes in the homes of the various PR professionals, real estate dealers and stylists who have their own Bravo shows.

Throughout, there is simply too much self-exposure, both emotionally and physically. We see Huemer in her underwear and Nicolino in her bathtub.

The patients share things that we — never mind their friends and co-workers —simply don’t need to know.

Maybe Americans will tire of this kind of oversharing and not only stop participating in these shows but also stop watching them. But as therapists say, first we have to want to change.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/la-shrinks-more-than-we-want-to-know/

Business Notes
Cable continues dominance of on-demand movie sale
By Mike Snider, USA Today - Mar. 4, 2013

Cable companies continue to dominate the home video-on-demand market, but telecom TV operators are increasing their share.

Consumers spent $1.3 billion ordering movies and other video-on-demand from their pay TV service in 2012, according to The NPD Group's 2012 VideoWatch VOD Report.

Cable TV companies such as Comcast and Time Warner controlled more than half (56%) of the VOD movie market, but that is down from 60% in 2011, the report says. Telecom TV operators such as Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse increased their share by 4 percentage points up to 18% in 2012 from 14% in 2011. Satellite TV operators DIRECTV and Dish Network increased their share of the VOD movie market slightly, earning 27%, up from 26%.

Verizon and AT&T also generated more revenue per subscriber on average, too. The average telecom pay TV subscriber spent $25.29, compared to $13.83 for cable TV operators. Satellite companies got about $10.33 per subscriber.

"Verizon FIOS and AT&T U-verse still considerably lag cable operators in the number of service subscribers; however they are actually growing their share of the MPVD VOD-movie-rental market," said Russ Crupnick, NPD's senior vice president of industry analysis, in a statement accompanying the report's release. "Telecom operators are leading their competitors when it comes to earning additional revenue from VOD movie rentals."

The report covered only revenue generated by separate per-movie rental fees, not pay TV subscriptions or Internet services such as Netflix. The total electronic home video market was estimated at about $6.4 billion in 2012, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2013/03/04/telecom-tv-movie-sales/1961869/

Well, duh. They premiered it against Walking (and Talking) Dead. What did they expect to happen?

Critic's Notes
The Best Sitcom of the Past 30 Years, Round One: The Cosby Show vs. The Simpsons
By Keith Phipps, Vulture.com (New York Magazine) - Mar. 4, 2013

Vulture is holding the ultimate Sitcom Smackdown to determine the greatest TV comedy of the past 30 years. Each day, a different notable writer will be charged with determining the winner of a round of the bracket, until New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz judges the finals on March 18. Today's battle: Pop-culture writer Keith Phipps judges a rematch between The Cosby Show and The Simpsons, which Fox famously and brazenly pitted against the Huxtables in 1990. Make sure to head over to Facebook to vote in our Readers Bracket. We also invite tweeted opinions with the #sitcomsmackdown hashtag.

There’s an excellent chance the bracket you’re reading now wouldn’t exist if NBC hadn’t debuted The Cosby Show in September 1984 and America hadn’t decided it still had room in its heart for sitcoms. Years before dubbing it Must See TV, the network began turning Thursday nights into a showcase for critically acclaimed comedy with Cheers in 1982 and then in earnest when Family Ties and the brilliant-but-doomed Buffalo Bill joined the lineup in 1983. The only trouble: No one was watching. The sitcom wasn’t dead in the early eighties — see above for examples to the contrary — but it had certainly seen better days, as had NBC. Nothing symbolized the hard times upon which both had fallen quite so well as the 1983 Friday night doubleheader of Mr. Smith and Jennifer Slept Here, the former a show about a superintelligent orangutan who goes into politics, the latter about a family haunted by a dead movie star.

Enter Bill Cosby, to cool jazz accompaniment. A late addition to NBC’s fall schedule, The Cosby Show reversed the fortunes of both the network and the sitcom virtually overnight, paying off the bet that viewers would tune in to watch a comedy about an affluent African American family. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem like that great a gamble. Though he hadn’t had much luck in front of the cameras since I Spy in the sixties, Cosby was a popular stand-up comic, ubiquitous pitchman, and Saturday morning fixture thanks to the long-running animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. And yet such was the state of television in 1984 — to say nothing of shows with a black cast in a landscape still defined by whiteness — that it felt risky.

Like all great sitcoms, The Cosby Show followed the most basic rule: Create a show around people about whom it was easy to care. (It’s the key to even Seinfeld’s success; as selfish and petty as the characters were, you still loved them.) Cosby’s eight seasons had creative peaks and valleys, but the Huxtables — headed by Cosby and Phylicia Rashad and featuring an expanding (and occasionally contracting) cast of children, grandchildren, a precocious step-grandchild, a teenage cousin introduced in later seasons, and various hangers-on — remained people it was a pleasure to spend time with. The plots were steadfastly simplistic, steering clear of gimmicks and tired formulas, focusing instead on the pleasures and frustrations of domestic life and finding ways to spin whole episodes (and a lesson or two) out of, say, a funeral for Rudy’s fish. It offered a wry, sometimes exasperated take on parenthood, heavily inspired by Cosby’s gentle (and gently barbed) stand-up act. The Huxtable house was a home where conflicts simmered but rarely boiled over. But it was also a home that didn’t always run smoothly, where parental pride did constant battle with the threat of disappointment, and no one got what they wanted — be it a designer shirt, an unhealthy snack, or just a little peace and quiet — as often as they would like.

It was the sort of home in which a lot of Americans could see reflections of their own lives, regardless of its residents’ race — a fact that brought the show understandable plaudits, but also some criticism. Previous sitcoms featuring African Americans — Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Gimme a Break! (which occupied The Cosby Show’s time slot the year before it debuted) — often made race the source of their comedy, sometimes pointedly, sometimes awkwardly. Cosby largely left it in the background, which is not the same as ignoring it. From the funky score to the home décor to the fashion-forward clothing choices (Cosby’s trademark sweaters aside), the show dealt with race without shouting it. And when the writers did bring the subject to the forefront, they made sure it counted. The second-season episode “Vanessa’s Bad Grade,” which aired shortly before the first national observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, ends with the family silently watching the “I Have a Dream" speech on television. As a white, suburban teenager, I knew enough about history to understand the speech’s importance, but watching that episode brought me closer to understanding what it meant.

This bracket isn’t the first time The Cosby Show competed against The Simpsons. In the fall of 1990, emboldened by the success of The Simpsons’ first season and the mania-level enthusiasm it inspired, Fox pitted the series against The Cosby Show. As network strategy, it made sense. Cosby was still popular in 1990, but was clearly closer to the end of its run than its beginning. Taking it on both ensured publicity for Fox and helped establish the still-fledgling network as an edgy alternative to ABC, NBC, and CBS. But the shows weren’t as antithetical as they seemed. Sure, The Simpsons made a joke of fathers strangling sons, but Cliff Huxtable beat Homer to it by joking about killing his oldest, Theo, in the show’s very first episode. (“I brought you into this world,” he warns. “I’ll take you out.”) Both sitcoms, initially at least, were about the fractious process of keeping a family together. The Simpsons just took a more animated approach to the subject, in every sense of the word.

Created by Matt Groening to fill time between sketches on The Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons became a half-hour prime-time show following a Christmas special. (A few years later, South Park would get a series on Comedy Central when their decidedly more blasphemous take on Christmas went viral.) A direct descendent of Groening’s weekly comic strip "Life in Hell," The Simpsons offered a purposefully ugly but fond take on family life — well-meaning, mistake-prone parents and perpetually misbehaving, anxiety-prone children. Executive producer and veteran creator James L. Brooks (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi) imbued the early episodes with the recognizable warmth of classic sitcoms, but the show quickly evolved thanks to a murderers’ row of comedy writing talent (including George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti), who expanded the show’s scope to the town of Springfield and the world. Before long, the patented blend of sentiment and parody had been perfected; The Simpsons was Fox’s first top 30 show in its first season.

To watch the opening moments of a prime-era Simpsons episode is to cash in on a lifetime of pop-culture obsession. Take season four’s Conan O’Brien–scripted “Marge vs. the Monorail,” with references that include The Flintstones, crooked southern politicians, Harold Faltemeyer’s Beverly Hills Cop score, Silence of the Lambs, Andy Capp, virtual reality, and the fifties sci-fi classic Them. That all happens within the first four minutes(!), counting the opening credits, and before the episode turns into an homage to The Music Man, complete with a show-stopping musical number worthy of its inspiration. There was more than cleverness at work. The Simpsons understood before anyone else that pop culture provided a lens through which Baby Boomers and their Gen-X kids interpreted the world. In another O’Brien episode, “Homer Goes to College,” Homer returns to school and attempts to square his idea of what the college experience ought to be — as suggested to him by eighties T&A comedies — with the realities of modern campus life, complete with a dean who used to play bass in the Pretenders.

If The Simpsons were built only on references, we wouldn’t be talking about it as one of the all-time greats. As later seasons, and shows inspired by The Simpsons (much of Seth MacFarlane’s output, 30 Rock on an off night), have proven, references alone only get you so far. It’s the endearing, instantly recognizable, and oddly three-dimensional Simpson family — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and the eternally pacifier-sucking Maggie — that sticks to your ribs. “Watch this, Lisa: You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half,” Bart says to his sister as he shows her a video of her disillusioned would-be suitor Ralph Wiggum in “I Love Lisa.” Bart might as well be talking about The Simpsons: hilarity for sure, with the occasional injection of poignancy that can rip your heart in half.

And, no, America’s longest-running sitcom, animated program, and prime-time scripted series is not as good as it used to be. We’re now deep into what Planet Simpson author Chris Turner has dubbed “The Long Plateau,” a stretch of seasons that are rarely awful but just as rarely inspired in the way it was in its best years. I’ve come to think of The Simpsons in much the same way that I think of Paul McCartney. In his latter years, he’s been capable of the snoozer (Kisses on the Bottom), the not-bad-at-all (Memory Almost Full), and even the occasional rousing surprise, like, say, jamming with the surviving members of Nirvana. But the guy wrote “Hey Jude,” “Yesterday,” and “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and there’s no taking that away from him. Sub in “Mr. Plow,” “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” and “Homer’s Phobia,” and you see what I mean.

So, even though I can’t imagine the modern sitcom without The Cosby Show, I can’t even contemplate an It’s a Wonderful Life–style exercise that would erase The Simpsons. I doubt you can either. It’s crept into our collective consciousness, changed the way we watch TV, rewired our brains. What sitcom has been poured over as obsessively — and by that I mean freezing every frame so you don’t miss a single gag? “Dental plan!” “An evening with Phillip Glass.” “Me fail English?” If you were within a mile of a TV in the last two decades, you probably just provided the words that follow each of those phrases. A world without The Simpsons? Unpossible.

Winner: THE SIMPSONS

Keith Phipps is a Chicago-based writer and editor who focuses on film and pop culture.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/cosby-show-vs-the-simpsons-sitcom-smackdown.html

TV Review
'Staircase' Murder Documentary: An Update On A Bizarre And Fascinating Case
By Maureen Ryan, HuffingtonPost.com - Mar. 4, 2013

Television loves nothing more than a good crime saga, and one reason "The Staircase" is so gripping is because it's all true.

A dozen years ago, novelist Michael Peterson's wife Kathleen was found at the bottom of a staircase in the couple's Durham, N.C., mansion. Did she sustain fatal injuries in the course of an accidental fall, or was she murdered? Those questions have driven intense public interest in the case for more than a decade.

Had French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade not taken an interest in the case, however, there's a good chance that national and international interest in the Peterson case would have tapered off fairly quickly. After Peterson was tried and convicted of Kathleen's murder in 2003, Le Strade released the quietly devastating documentary "The Staircase," a haunting chronicle of Peterson's trial that kept me glued to my chair when I first watched it, despite its length (it originally aired on the Sundance Channel in 2005 in eight installments, and is well worth searching out and watching in its entirety).

For those who were gripped by that telling of the Peterson tale -- which had as many strange twists the most imaginative crime thrillers -- de Lestrade has returned with "The Staircase: Last Chance" (10 p.m. ET Monday, Sundance Channel) It's shorter than the original film ("Last Chance" airs in two one-hour installments), and probably of most interest to fans of the original documentary, but still worth a look.

Even if you're not familiar with the Peterson story (which served as the basis of a Lifetime movie, among other fictional adaptations), de Lestrade's sequel is hard to look away from. Like a real-life "Gone Girl," the case plumbs the murkier corners of human behavior, and de Lestrade brings a vigilant yet compassionate eye the players in this high-stakes courtroom drama.

There's no real doubt regarding de Lestrade's opinion on the case, but his deliberate, meticulous approach leaves room for ambiguity about what happened in that well-appointed Durham house 12 years ago. In "Last Chance," newcomers to the case get an extensive introduction to the twists and turns of Peterson's first trial, but the bulk of the new film follows an appeal filed by the novelist's lawyer, David Rudolf, one of the most compelling characters from the first documentary. If it seems like I'm leaving out a lot of details about the case, I am, because they're best discovered in de Lestrade's recounting of it. Suffice to say, if you did come across some of these twists in a novel, you might dismiss them as too strange or preposterous.

One of the strengths of both films is the time de Lestrade takes to paint detailed, observational portraits of various figures in the case. Peterson himself is far frailer and seemingly more vulnerable than the man depicted in the original documentary, but there's a core resilience to the man that is both admirable and hard to comprehend. It's also easy to see how the case has aged and altered Rudolf and Peterson's children, especially two of his daughters.

Some might find the pace of de Lestrade's films a little too stately, but, thanks to his measured approach, nothing about either of his Peterson documentaries comes off as exploitative or cheesy. There are a lot of melodramatic turns in this case, but de Lestrade doesn't pump up the luridness of it, merely the human wreckage left by one mysterious death.

"THE STAIRCASE: LAST CHANCE"
10 p.m. ET Monday on Sundance Channel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/staircase-murder-documentary-last-chance-sundance_b_2805852.html?utm_hp_ref=tv

For you fans of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, I just saw a link to a tweet that new episodes (the start of the final 11) will air starting March 25 (finally!) on Cartoon Network.

https://twitter.com/Tony_Cervone/status/307260239940567040

How many weeks are ya gonna leave this goof in here?

....until may 24 friday of memorial day weekend the start of summer !!

Until someone points it out to my imperfect being and I say 'thanks ', fix it and you never see it again.

TV Notes
Les Moonves: 'Last' Season for 'Dexter'
By Lesley Goldberg, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Live Feed' Blog - Mar. 4, 2013

Season eight of Showtime's Dexter may officially be its last.

Speaking to analysts at a Wall Street conference Monday in Palm Beach, Fla., CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves indicated that the serial killer drama will wrap its run following the upcoming eighth season.

Asked by an analyst -- who implied that the Michael C. Hall-Jennifer Carpenter drama was in its last season -- what was in the pipeline for the CBS Corp.'s sibling cable network Showtime, Moonves may have let the cat out of the bag.

"We have Ray Donovan coming on with Liev Schreiber, which comes on with Dexter's last season starting in June and then we have Masters of Sex," Moonves replied with a laugh as if to acknowledge something that Showtime has yet to do.

Showtime executives have been mum on what the future holds for Dexter. A spokesperson for the network told The Hollywood Reporter late Monday that there was "nothing confirmed" about if the series could and would continue beyond season eight.

Showtime will use Dexter -- which was renewed a year ago for seasons seven and eight -- as a launching pad for Ray Donovan, moving up its premiere from fall to summer for the first time come June.

Paul Bond contributed to this report.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/les-moonves-last-season-dexter-426001

Nielsen Notes (Cable)
'The Bible,' 'Vikings' Draw Big Numbers for History
By Tim Kenneally, TheWrap.com - Mar. 4, 2013

The odd coupling of "The Bible" and "Vikings" delivered big ratings for The History Channel, as the premiere of the Mark Burnett-produced miniseries "The Bible" drew 13.1 million total viewers and the series premiere of "Vikings" landed 6.2 million total viewers with its premiere.

The premiere of "The Bible" from 8 to 10 p.m. drew 13.1 million total viewers, rivaling last year's finale of the History miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys," which drew an astonishing 14.3 million total viewers.

With a second telecast factored in, "The Bible" averaged 14.8 million total viewers for the night, with 5 million of them in the advertiser-preferred 18-49 demographic and 5.6 million of them in the 25-54 demo.

“We could not be more thrilled with this out of the gate success of 'The Bible' on History," executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett said. "The world is watching right now and we are incredibly humbled by the reaction to the series."

"Vikings," meanwhile, drew 6.2 million total viewers with its 10 p.m. premiere, and 8.3 million with a second airing factored in. Over the two airings, the first installment of "Vikings" pulled in 3.4 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic and 3.8 million in the 25-54 demo.

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/ratings-bible-vikings-draw-big-numbers-history-80071

TV Notes
Fox Early Renewals: ‘The Following’, ‘New Girl’, ‘Raising Hope’ & ‘Mindy Project’
By Nellie Andreeva, Deadline.com - Mar. 4, 2013

Fox has handed early renewals to midseason drama The Following and Tuesday comedies New Girl, Raising Hope and The Mindy Project. They join recently renewed veteran Bones, with negotiations for a fifth season of Glee ongoing. Per star Kevin Bacon’s deal, The Following pickup is for a 15-episode second season, same as Season 1. It will likely return next midseason. The Following, from creator/executive producer Kevin Williamson and Warner Bros. TV, has emerged as a big DVR performer, rising to No. 2 broadcast drama and No. 3 drama overall this season in Live+7 ratings.

Fox hinted at the renewal of New Girl, Raising Hope and The Mindy Project last week when it slotted repeats of the three comedies on its summer schedule. New Girl, from creator Liz Meriwether, Chernin Entertainment and 20th TV, is Fox’s highest-rated comedy. It has been renewed for a third season. Raising Hope, from creator Greg Garcia and 20th TV, has been a great utility player, delivering solid ratings wherever dispatched by the network. Mindy Kaling’s freshman Mindy Project, from Universal TV and 3 Arts has been soft in the ratings but has done well with critics and is a favorite of Fox brass.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/foxs-the-following-new-girl-raising-hope-mindy-project-get-early-renewals/

Technology Notes
Browsing the web on an iPad stinks–and Apple likes it that way
By Hank Nothhaft, Jr., GigaOM.com - Mar. 3, 2013

When iPads were first introduced in 2010, an Apple press release promised that the “iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch interface makes surfing the web an entirely new experience, dramatically more interactive and intimate than on a computer.” The implication was that the web via the tablet would be unrecognizable and vastly superior: hoverboarding compared with surfing on my laptop and doggie paddling on my phone.

Yet, here it is three years on, and we’re still waiting for that “interactive and intimate” browsing experience (and hoverboards, for that matter).

A recent study conducted by Onswipe revealed that iPads account for a whopping 98.1 percent of tablet traffic on websites. Despite this, the actual experience of surfing the web on an iPad is underwhelming at best and infuriating at worst. Simply put, today’s state-of-the-art tablet browsers, especially Safari, don’t do the Internet, the user, or the iPad justice. Apple wasn’t totally wrong: The iPad has proven itself to be a revolutionary device that absolutely has the potential to offer a transformative web-browsing experience. It just hasn’t yet. Which means there’s a gap in the market for an intuitive, immersive, innovative iPad browser. Whoever develops it is going to win big.

Safari is deliberately hobbled

As more and more of the services we use on a daily basis have migrated to the cloud, the web browser has become the computer’s most essential app. And when we surf the web on a computer, we encounter few obstacles. Though we may have to scale the occasional paywall or sit through an obligatory five seconds of an ad before accessing content, the navigational experience of a computer user is fluid and frictionless — as anyone who’s gone down the rabbit hole researching alpaca breeds or underrated Val Kilmer films at 3 a.m. can attest.

Surfing the web is far less pleasurable on an iPad. Visiting a site frequently presents one with a pop-up and a dilemma: Download the app, or endure the diminished experience of a website designed for another device. Safari is essentially a limited version of its desktop sibling – and apps almost always provide a better experience. (Or, as Firefox UX Lead Alex Limi has summed it up, it’s ”kind of sucky.”)

Of course, this is sort of the point. It’s in Apple’s, or any tablet maker’s, best interest to make using (read: buying) apps preferable to visiting websites. Safari is designed to make using web-based apps on an iPad inconvenient, if not impossible. In response, most companies focus their mobile development resources on creating native apps rather than optimizing their content for tablet browsers. The result is a browsing experience full of flow-breakers. In short, on a computer the browsing experience is limitless; on a tablet, it’s filled with blind alleys and false doors.

Why web browsing still matters

There is an impulse among some to assume that the rise of apps – or, more sensationally, the death of the website – will eventually render browsers, or at least mobile ones, obsolete. While it’s true that more and more content is consumed through apps, and that personalization has shifted our approach to content from searching to getting, the average number of Google searches per day has steadily increased – by an astounding one trillion each year.

But even if we accept that the importance of mobile websites is on the wane, there’s no reason for mobile browsers to beat them to an early grave. There is plenty of room for resurrection, but only if we throw out desktop-based notions of what a browser looks and feels like. Freed of all the tasks and responsibilities that other apps accomplish, tablet browsers should offer an absorbing, engaging innovative experience. Further, they should evolve the idea of what a browser is and can be on a tablet. Take GarageBand, for example: The iPad version is infinitely more interactive and tactile than the desktop version.

I’ve mostly been picking on Safari. As the native browser for a tablet that accounts for 98.1 percent of tablet traffic, its influence is enormous. However, that’s not to say there aren’t more innovative browsers taking steps in the right direction. Dolphin, for instance, allows you to create your own gestures for various functions. And though there are any number of other browsers contending in the space, as of yet none has emerged as the standard-setter or must-have. Mozilla’s forthcoming iPad browser, Junior, which completely throws out desktop-inspired design and focuses on simplicity, could be a contender, but for now we have to wait and see.

What we’ve lost

As it currently stands, the shoehorning of hobbled desktop browsers onto tablets is forcing us to move from a browser to app-navigation experience. This is not necessarily a negative development, but we must carefully consider what we lose as our web experience becomes siloed, or, alternately, take into consideration in our app design how we can ensure and better enable the type of surfing serendipity that made web browsing valuable in the first place.

The web as we have known it was designed to facilitate the browsing experience – to be a boundlessly linked rhizomatic structure of hypertext. But we have quite willingly begun to fence it off as we have shifted our experience to the iPad and individual apps. Even worse, though, is that most of the apps and services that have attempted to fill the browsing void have only further constricted the experience of the web via the tablet.

Under the claim of “personalization” and making the browsing and discovery experience more individually valuable and meaningful, they really provide little more than constricting customization confined to picks of an editor or your social graph. Most of it is expected or retreaded.What is lost is the magic of blazing a trail from one page to the next, the anticipation of revealing the unknown that lurks behind the next link. Personalization shouldn’t be an either/or experience of web discovery, and neither should browsing on the tablet.

While we will continue to make strides in personalizing the web, and hopefully even enhancing the web experience on tablets, I’m also looking forward to a browser that lets me fall down an unexpected rabbit hole once in awhile. As long as there are alpacas and Val Kilmer movies, there will be surfers. It’s up to developers to provide the hoverboards.

Hank Nothhaft is the co-founder and chief product officer of Trapit, a personalized content discovery platform.

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/03/browsing-the-web-on-an-ipad-stinks-and-apple-likes-it-that-way/

TV/Business Notes
Don’t Touch That Remote: TV Pilots Turn to Net, Not Networks
By Brian Stelter, The New York Times - Mar. 4, 2013

In the television pilot that Cheyenne Jackson taped recently, he played an aggressive young news anchor whose ascendancy threatened an older colleague. It was a fitting metaphor for the industry itself, because while Mr. Jackson had taped pilots for ABC, NBC and USA before, this was his first time doing one for a new challenger to those alphabet networks: Amazon.com.

When Amazon sizes up the television marketplace, it sees opportunity. Internet-delivered TV, which until recently was unready for prime time, is the new front in the war for Americans’ attention spans. Netflix is following up on the $100 million drama “House of Cards” with four more series this year. Microsoft is producing programming for the Xbox video game console with the help of a former CBS president. Other companies, from AOL to Sony to Twitter, are likely to follow.

The companies are, in effect, creating new networks for television through broadband pipes and also giving rise to new rivalries — among one another, as between Amazon and Netflix, and with the big but vulnerable broadcast networks as well.

“These are the very first lab tests in a very grand experiment,” said Jeff Berman, the president of BermanBraun, a media company that makes programming for NBC, HGTV, AOL and YouTube, among others.

As he suggested, the competition has only just begun. Amazon is making pilot episodes for at least six comedies and five children’s shows, with more to be announced soon. Sometime this spring it will put the episodes on its Amazon Prime Instant Video service and ask its customers which ones they like, then order full seasons of some of them.

Netflix has been ordering entire seasons of its shows without seeing pilots first. Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, said last week that “House of Cards,” the political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, had been a “great success” for the company. Its next program, a horror series called “Hemlock Grove” from the film director Eli Roth, premieres in April.

Microsoft has said comparatively little about its plans. But all three companies are commissioning TV shows because they have millions of subscribers on monthly or yearly subscription plans. Though the shows may be loss leaders, executives say that having exclusive content — something that cannot be seen anywhere else — increases the likelihood that existing subscribers will keep paying and that new ones will sign up.

The proliferation of shows is generally seen as a good thing for viewers, who have more choices about what to watch and when, and for producers and actors, who have more places to be seen and heard. But the trend may inflame cable companies’ concerns about cord-cutting by subscribers who decide there’s enough to watch online. At the same time, the rise of Internet-only shows may make viewers more dependent on the broadband cord. In many cases, though, both cable and broadband are supplied by the same company.

Unlike the early stabs at Internet television, these shows look and feel like traditional TV. That is partly because more viewers are watching Internet content on big-screen TV sets, but it is mostly because the companies involved are throwing money at the screens: each of the Amazon comedy pilots cost the company upward of $1 million, according to people involved in their production, which is less than the $2 million invested in a broadcast comedy pilot, but more than is typically invested in cable pilots.

Not only are the budgets comparable, so are the perks for actors and creators — like trailers and car-service pickups. The writers are guild members. The actors have what the people involved say are standard television contracts, with options for several seasons if shows succeed.

“There’s absolutely no difference” between TV and these new productions, said Jeffrey Tambor, who starred in HBO’s “Larry Sanders Show,” then Fox’s “Arrested Development.” Now, at 68, he is an online pioneer: earlier this year he reprised his character for Netflix’s new season of “Arrested,” which will make its premiere in May. While taping that show, he read the script for “The Onion Presents: The News,” an Amazon pilot. He signed up, and played the older rival to Cheyenne Jackson.

The “Onion” producers took over half of the newsroom of NY1, a New York news channel, in mid-February and reimagined it as the headquarters of an unscrupulous news corporation. (In the pilot episode, a reporter kidnaps a child to increase ratings.) NY1 had rented out its space to the producers of “Gossip Girl,” “Damages” and “The Good Wife” before — but never to a show being made for the Web. For most of the actors there, like Mr. Jackson, a Broadway star whose TV credits include “30 Rock” and “Glee,” the taping was their one pilot of the season — and thus represented a bet on Amazon over the broadcasters.

Mr. Jackson recalled that his manager called about “The Onion” with a note of apprehension in her voice. “It’s online,” she said. “We have to talk about this.” But when he read the script, he said, he felt confident — the tone of it reminded him of “30 Rock.”

“This is kind of a leap of faith,” he said between tapings. “We’re all taking a leap together.”

Analysts say they expect more TV investment to come, including from companies that do not have monthly subscribers to please. YouTube, for instance, the biggest video Web site of all, makes its money from ads, not from subscriptions. But it has paid dozens of outside producers to start channels so that it has original, professional content. And its owner, Google, can afford to pay many more.

Similar logic is spurring cable channels, which each receive a small piece of cable subscribers’ monthly payments, to come up with more dramas and sitcoms that they can call their own. This brings up a conundrum, of course: too much great TV to watch, and not enough time.

“Viewers find organizing and managing all of their beloved TV options to be a bit stressful,” said Christy Tanner, the chief executive of TVGuide.com, which conducted research that found respondents who said “it feels like work” and “I’m afraid of missing something.”

Nonetheless, the number of companies trying to elbow into the TV space is only going up — further proving the nearly 20-year-old adage that “content is king.” Witness DirecTV, the biggest satellite distributor in the country, which is planning to introduce its first homegrown show, a thriller called “Rogue,” next month. Christopher Long, who runs DirecTV’s original programming, said he wanted to buy several more shows: “Our opinion is, if we build good enough television, people will find it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/business/media/online-only-tv-shows-join-fight-for-attention.html?ref=media

Critic's Notes
Comedy Undercard: Full House vs. Saved by the Bell
By Amanda Dobbins, Vulture.com (New York Magazine) - Mar. 4, 2013

Vulture is in the midst of its Sitcom Smackdown, a three-week contest that pits the best sitcoms of the last 30 years against each other to crown the ultimate winner. But while that bracket focuses on the greatest, most innovative modern comedies, it couldn't cover all of the series that live on in our hearts, the ones that may not fit those highfalutin parameters but which we could talk about for days. To give these other series their moments to shine, every day we’ll be pitting two like-minded comedies against each other: We’ll pick our winner, and readers will then vote for their own. Today: It’s after-school specials, with Full House squaring off against Saved by the Bell.

Today's Contenders: Full House (1987–1995) vs. Saved by the Bell (1989–1993)

Though the shows ran concurrently, you probably keep Full House and Saved by the Bell in slightly different nostalgia lockers (three years of aging makes all the difference in these matters). Full House was the TGIF anchor, a kids' show that you loved but grew out of, just like the Olsen twins; Saved by the Bell was the "teen" (but really still for kids) show you grew into, especially if you discovered the TBS reruns in the mid-to-late nineties. One show taught us about families and the Beach Boys; the other taught us about giant cell phones and the perils of caffeine pills. Everything we know we learned from network teen programming in the late eighties/early nineties.

Home Turf: San Francisco vs. L.A.

Main Crew: The Tanner Family (widow-dad Danny, sisters D.J., Stephanie, and sassy Michelle) and the Bayside Six (ringleader Zack, girlfriend Kelly, brainy friend Jessie, jock friend Slater, snooty friend Lisa, and, of course, Screech).

Embarrassing Friends: Kimmy Gibbler, D.J.'s weird neighbor-slash-BFF, and Screech, Zack's nerd sidekick-slash-doormat.

Embarrassing Older Guy: Uncle Joey (a.k.a. Dave Coulier, a.k.a. the man who inspired "You Oughta Know," which is a whole different set of lessons) and Mr. Belding, the school principal.

Hunky Older Guy: Uncle Jesse, who rides a motorcycle and wants to be Elvis, and Jeff, the Max Manager who comes between Zack and Kelly in a truly devastating prom episode.

Beloved pets: Comet the Dog and Becky the Duck (RIP, Becky).

Random Older Woman Who Shows Up in the Later Seasons: Aunt Becky (Danny's morning-show co-host and Jesse's future wife) and Tori, biker chick and Zack's future GF.

Hangouts: The Tanner family home, with bonus basement rec room for Uncle Joey, and Bayside High, with the Max for after-school drama

Catchphrases: "How rude!" "Cut. It. Out." "Have mercy." (Full House); "Time out." "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm. So. Scared." (Saved by the Bell).

Fictional bands: Jesse and the Rippers, who performed with the Beach Boys and recorded a single ("Forever"); Zack Attack, who were discovered by none other than Casey Kasem, and Hot Fudge Sundae, the girl band that necessitated Jessie Spano's pill addiction

Memorable Dance Trends: The Sprain, and the Loveshack. [CLICK LINK BELOW TO SEE VIDEO CLIPS]

Are the shows any good? Look, we're talking about shows for children here. Saved by the Bell was just a series of after-school specials with more attractive actors. Most of Full House's punch lines are delivered by a 2-year-old, which is the only reason they even merit a laugh track. Full House was better when it came to character development and actual story arcs (Uncle Jesse and Becky finally get married! Michelle is all grown up and riding a bike!), but Saved by the Bell explained an alluring and terrifying subject — high school — to a fascinated audience. They are both excellent shows for 8-year-olds.

The moment of truth: The first rule of teen and tween-dom is that Older Is Always cooler. (This maxim reverses at the age of 22.) I had a crush on Zack Morris; I know plenty of people who can still sing all the words to "Put Your Mind to It" and who would give anything to work for Mr. Carosi for a summer. Full House might have been the structurally superior sitcom, but Saved by the Bell was the cheesy teenage dream. I can't vote for anything else.

Winner: SAVED BY THE BELL

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/full-house-versus-saved-by-the-bell.html

Agreed. I much rather use my mouse and keyboard and large monitor on my computer.

Critic's Notes
Bianculli's Best Bets
By David Bianculli, TVWorthWatching.com - Mar. 5, 2013

HISTORY OF THE EAGLES
Showtime, 6:55 p.m. ET
This documentary on The Eagles - the musical ones, not the national-emblem ones - originally was televised in two parts, both of which surprised me by how thorough, interesting and entertaining they were. Now Showtime is showing both parts in one big three-hour gulp - and it's quite a feast. It's worth it just to see vintage footage of some future Eagles backing Linda Ronstadt on a small club tour.

AMERICAN IDOL
Fox, 8:00 p.m. ET
I’ve paid little attention to this series this season – but tonight’s the night to check in, in the first of three live editions this week. The first two are performance shows – 10 contestants tonight, 10 more tomorrow – and Thursday’s installment is an elimination show, where half of them are booted off the Idol island. And all three shows, this week, are the first live editions for Idol 2013, which makes them the first time to see both Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj unfiltered by editing. Divas, take your marks.

SMASH
NBC, 10:00 p.m. ET
So Bombshell is back on – but tonight, rather than combining as a dedicated unit, the creative team begins to engage in some self-doubts, and especially doubts about some of the people around them.

JUSTIFIED
FX, 10:00 p.m. ET
I feel like now’s a good time to offer a salute: to Gerald McRaney, who’s been burning up his few but substantial scenes as a guest on Justified, just as he did when he last appeared opposite Timothy Olyphant, on Deadwood. McRaney has been great the past few weeks – just like this series, in which the sudden violence and unexpected twists rival the biggest shockers in The Walking Dead.

WHITE COLLAR
USA, 10:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: Treat Williams, as the father of Matt Bomer’s Neal, returns for another episode, in which Matt and company try to secure evidence that would exonerate his dad of murder. But the plot, to me, is less enticing this week than the setting, because White Collar got permission to film at the Empire State Building.

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/

TV Reviews
'The Car Chasers' and 'Treasure Detectives' (CNBC)
By Allison Keene, The Hollywood Reporter - Mar. 5, 2013

Financial channel CNBC has finally decided to get into the reality-TV business, because, at this point, it's a safe bet. But they did it right: Their first foray into docu-series actually happens to accurately reflect the purpose and focus of their network. Both of their new shows, The Car Chasers and Treasure Detectives, are at their core about buying low and selling high and the power of investment. They also both build upon tried-and-true reality formulas: The Car Chasers mixes the current obsession with pawn-shop shows and auction-related series, while The Treasure Detectives hits upon another smart combination: Antiques Roadshow meets CSI. And all of it circulates around the idea of hidden treasure (Gold Rush, anyone?)

Treasure Detectives easily builds off of the broad appeal of the genre hits it combines by presenting weekly historical mysteries. Will the items brought to art detective Curtis Dowling and his staff be authentic or forgeries? The team puts the items through rigorous testing that pairs history with science. Of course, at the end of each mystery there is also someone anxiously waiting for either a triumphant or devastating result. Will that $1,200 Lalique hood ornament be worth $300,000 at auction and pay for your kids' college tuition? Or is it just a very expensive paperweight?

In the meantime, Dowling and his affable team engage in familiar and quippy banter with one another and explain in detail what they are looking for when they attempt to authenticate the pieces, naturally piquing viewer interest in the artists and time periods discussed. And like Antiques Roadshow, it will also probably send viewers scuttling to the attic to dust off relics in search of potential treasure.

The Car Chasers capitalizes on its own element of treasure-hunting, though it is not quite as instantly appealing as Treasure Detectives. The series follows the owners and employees of the Flat 12 Gallery of Lubbock, Texas, who search for, fix and flip classic and exotic vehicles. As with Dowling's crew, there's genial banter among the principle cast, including Jeff Allen and his right-hand man Perry Barndt, as well as some of the same kinds of quirky family elements that have made shows like Duck Dynasty and American Chopper popular. Allen's father (known as "Roundman" -- "round body, square deals, though I've never gotten one," Allen says) owns his own vintage car shop right around the corner and says at one point of his son, "I needed someone foolish to buy this car, so I called him."

But The Car Chasers know their stuff, as do the show's producers (David Leepson has a resume filled with other vehicularly-minded series, such as Car Warriors and Car Science). The show broaches the educational as it explains the context and backgrounds of the vehicles they are looking to flip, from '57 Chevys to '77 Trans Ams and the occasional Ferrari. ("This is identical to the one Magnum, P.I. drove!") And while budgets and repairs constantly form gloomy clouds over the business, the Flat 12 crew seems to take it in stride. In the end, The Car Chasers may not be a unique series, but it manages, like one of those '77 Trans Ams, to prove its worth.

CNBC has done an admirable job of adding more than just noise and volume to the reality scene, actually creating two pretty entertaining shows that both fit in with their other specific programming. As the network undoubtedly expands its slate of docu-series in the future, here's hoping they stick to the precedent they've set. For now, to quote Dowling, "Crack on."

THE CAR CHASERS/TREASURE DETECTIVES
The Bottom Line: Both series combine winning reality formulas and hinge on the thrill of hidden treasure.
Airdate: 9 p.m. Tuesday, March 5 (CNBC)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cnbcs-car-chasers-treasure-detectives-426000

TV Sports
Regis Philbin to host Fox Sports cable show
By Hillary Busis, EW.com's 'Inside TV' Blog - Mar. 5, 2013

He’s baaack!

Television legend Regis Philbin has been without a regular TV gig since leaving Live! With Regis and Kelly in 2011. But this summer, Reeg will return to the airwaves with a series on Fox Sports 1 — a new channel that will replace the Fox-owned Speed channel on cable.

Philbin’s new show — and Fox Sports 1′s very existence — won’t officially be announced until this afternoon. Still, the advent of both is one of showbusiness’s worst-kept secrets; after some prodding from Barbara Walters, Philbin spilled the beans about his upcoming project on The View yesterday. “Yes, I think I will be doing another show,” the host said vaguely before giving a few specifics: “Fox is starting a sports channel. Everybody is starting a sports channel now, you know? Nothing but 24 hours of sports … Regis is going to have a show on that.”

Philbin’s decision to reveal his plans on The View makes sense, as the New York Post reports that his Fox Sports 1 program will be a panel show inspired by Walters’s afternoon juggernaut. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire producer Michael Davies is reportedly attached to the show as well.

When asked for comment, a rep for Fox Sports would only say that an official announcement about both the channel and Philbin’s show is expected this afternoon.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cnbcs-car-chasers-treasure-detectives-426000

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

He's also on Southland playing John's retired TO who's bought a "used hole in the water".

I'd never heard that before, rather liked it.

Nielsen Overnights (18-49)
‘Following’ the leader for Fox on Monday
New drama draws a 2.8 in 18-49s, the night's top show
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - Mar. 5, 2013

With CBS in reruns, Fox grabbed first place on Monday night, led by the highest-rated program of the evening, the recently renewed drama “The Following.”

“Following” drew a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, even to last week’s rating.

ABC’s “The Bachelor: Women Tell All” special was second on the night with a 2.7 rating from 8 to 10 p.m. ABC had won or tied for first in the demo the past two weeks, but “Bachelor” lead-out “Castle” was a repeat, which pulled down the network’s nightly average.

Even with CBS airing repeats, most shows were down from last week. The “Bachelor” special was off 7 percent from last week’s regular episode (though it was up 8 percent over last year’s “Women” episode).

Fox’s 8 p.m. drama “Bones” fell a tenth from last week, to a 2.2, as did NBC’s long-running reality show “The Biggest Loser,” which drew a 2.1 from 8 to 10 p.m.

Fox finished first for the night among 18-49s with a 2.5 average overnight rating and a 7 share. ABC was second at 2.3/6, NBC third at 1.8/5, Univision fourth at 1.7/5, CBS fifth at 1.6/4, Telemundo sixth at 0.5/1 and CW seventh at 0.4/1.

As a reminder, all ratings are based on live-plus-same-day DVR playback, which includes shows replayed before 3 a.m. the night before. Seven-day DVR data won’t be available for several weeks. Forty-seven percent of Nielsen households have DVRs.

ABC led at 8 p.m. with a 2.6 for “Bachelor,” while NBC and Fox tied for second at 2.2, NBC for “Loser” and Fox for “Bones.” CBS and Univision tied for fourth at 1.9, CBS for a repeat of “How I Met Your Mother” (1.6) and a new “Rules of Engagement” (2.2) and Univision for “Por Ella Soy Eva.” CW was sixth with a 0.5 for “The Carrie Diaries” and Telemundo seventh with a 0.4 for “Pasion Prohibida.”

At 9 p.m. ABC and Fox tied for first at 2.8, ABC for more “Bachelor” and Fox for “Following.” NBC was third with a 2.1 for more “Loser,” Univision fourth with a 1.9 for “Amores Verdaderos,” CBS fifth with a 1.7 for repeats of “2 Broke Girls” and “Mike & Molly,” Telemundo sixth with a 0.8 for “La Patrona” and CW seventh with a 0.3 for “90210.”

Univision took the lead at 10 p.m. with a 1.5 for “Amor Bravio,” followed by ABC with a 1.4 for a “Castle” rerun. CBS was third with a 1.3 for a repeat of “Hawaii Five-0,” NBC fourth with a 1.1 for “Deception” and Telemundo fifth with a 0.4 for “El Rostro de la Venganza.”

ABC led the night among households with a 5.3 average overnight rating and an 8 share. Fox was a close second at 5.2/8, CBS third at 4.0/6, NBC fourth at 3.2/5, Univision fifth at 2.1/3, Telemundo sixth at 0.7/1 and CW seventh at 0.6/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/following-the-leader-for-fox-on-monday/

* * * *

TV Notes
‘Pushing Daisies,’ alive once more
Quirky ABC show, felled by the writer's strike, is on Chiller
By Louisa Ada Seltzer, Media Life Magazine - Mar. 5, 2013

If not for the writers’ strike of 2007, the brief but delightfully odd run of ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” might have been extended.

The strike stripped the show of any momentum, however, and it lasted a mere 22 episodes, getting canceled in 2009.

Now the show is back for its first off-network run, starting tonight at 9 p.m. on Chiller, the NBCUniversal network devoted to all things spooky.

“Daisies” had a fanciful premise.

It followed Ned, a piemaker with a unique ability. He can bring things back to life simply by touching them. But if he touches them a second time, he kills them again.

The dramedy had all sorts of over-the-top plotlines and funky characters, but at its center was a sweet love story between Ned and Chuck, his murdered childhood sweetheart whom he revived on a whim, dooming them to never touch each other again lest she die once more.

“Daisies” premiered to good ratings in 2007, but after airing only nine episodes, it went off the air for more than nine months because of the strike. When it finally returned, viewers had all but forgotten about the show, and it lasted just 13 episodes more before being axed by ABC.

Still, it’s found an apt home on Chiller, which showcases plenty of “canceled too soon” shows like “Twin Peaks,” “Dead Like Me” and “Millennium.”

The channel, available in 40 million households, averaged 43,000 adults 18-49 in primetime last year and 106,000 total viewers, according to Nielsen.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/pushing-daisies-alive-once-more/

 

The reality that a full size monitor, desktop and keyboard/mouse are superior to using a small screened pad is obvious.  But that wasn't the point of the article.  That author tried quite miserably to say that using safari on an ipad is terrible, when the experience of the legions of ipad users is quite the opposite.  His contention is that the browser experience is the problematic issue, not the lack of convenience of larger sized screen/keyboard/mouse etc.  Check the comments on the article and you will see how actual users feel about his assertions, and you will also see that the author is simply trying to steer people to use his company's browser instead.  It's just a poorly executed sham article/stealth-marketing for his product. 

 

 

ron

Critic's Notes
The Best Sitcom of the Past 30 Years, Round One: Community Vs. The Larry Sanders Show
By Heather Havrilesky, Vulture.com (New York Magazine) - Mar. 5, 2013

Vulture is holding the ultimate Sitcom Smackdown to determine the greatest TV comedy of the past 30 years. Each day, a different notable writer will be charged with determining the winner of a round of the bracket, until New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz judges the finals on March 18. Today's battle: Author Heather Havrilesky pits meta against vérité, deciding between Community and The Larry Sanders Show. Make sure to head over to Facebook to vote in our Readers Bracket. We also invite tweeted opinions with the #sitcomsmackdown hashtag.

What would Larry Sanders do? I ask myself this question often. Because, unlike Jesus — whose behavior is far too erratic to mimic unless you have a thing for touching strangers, overturning the discount shoe table at Foot Locker, or referring to public spaces as "my house" (which makes you sound more like Kanye than Jesus anyway) — HBO's fictional talk-show host Larry Sanders navigated life with the counterfeit cheer and pragmatic caution of a true survivor. His strategy was simple: Approach with a strained smile, shake hands swiftly, then back away, nodding without fully engaging, and throwing out an exit zinger. When trapped, whether by an earnest fan or a pushy network executive, whimper "Artie? Artie?" until help arrives.

Apply this behavioral strategy to the chaotic, ever-expanding universe of Community, though, and you might find yourself in a pickle. What would Larry Sanders do, for example, if he were lost in the Turkish district of the giant blanket fort created by Troy and Abed? Would he grimace uncomfortably, accept a puff from a hookah, then curl up in the corner, hallucinating and crying out for Artie's help? Or would he nervously search for an exit until cornered by David Duchovny in the red-light district, then frantically dial Beverly on his gigantic cell phone?

Such questions are best left to the masters of fan fiction, but they underscore how deeply the worlds offered by The Larry Sanders Show and Community are inscribed in their disciples' brains. Both shows walk an engaging line between realism and farce, deadpan and melodrama, capturing the mundane irritants and deep stupidity of life within an institutional microcosm (Hollywood and community college have a lot in common, as it turns out), but without underselling the high-stakes battles and semi-imaginary clashes that play out therein. Both show's characters are flawed but hypersensitive, needy but resourceful, and they pursue their (often shallow) goals with striking tenacity, from sidekick Hank Kingsley's (Jeffrey Tambor) compulsion to own a rotating restaurant to Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) and Jeff Winger’s (Joel McHale) ego-driven battle to save Greendale from an invasion by City College's Storm Troopers.

No wonder pitting Larry Sanders against Community feels patently absurd, like trying to predict a match-up between the '92 Chicago Bulls and the '13 Miami Heat. Twenty years ago, as Michael Jordan was tongue-flapping his way to the second of six NBA championships, Garry Shandling and co-creator Dennis Klein were mapping out the future of TV comedy. The pair took the combative banter of Seinfeld and threw in more awkward silences, more uncomfortable misunderstandings, and more outright contempt, setting the wincing template for future comedies The Office (U.K. and U.S. versions) and Louie, among others. They turned the fluffy celebrity cameo of Love Boat on its head by allowing stars to appear as surly, egomaniacal versions of themselves, making the world safe for the unflattering cameos of Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock, and Entourage. Shandling's daring move to create a character in his own neurotic, ego-driven image felt cutting-edge back in 1992, but eventually begat some of the best semi-nonfictional comedic turns on TV, from The Comeback to Girls. The twisted aggression of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the rapid-fire intelligence of Arrested Development, the buffoonish fumblings of Modern Family, the soulless corporate surrealism of 30 Rock, the self-deprecating slapstick of The Hangover, Borat, Anchorman, and Bridesmaids: All find strands of their DNA in Larry Sanders.

From shifting back and forth between video and film footage to embracing naturalistic chatter between characters, almost every dimension of Larry Sanders formed the lexicon of TV comedies to come. What Shandling and Klein did best, though, was stoke our affection for their gaggle of hapless misanthropes. Even as Larry, Artie, and Hank are revealed as self-centered miscreants who could never thrive outside of their rarefied habitat, our fondness for them grows. After Larry quits his show at the end of season two, moves to Montana, and then admits that the whole thing was a big mistake, Artie tells him he knew he'd come to his senses. "You're a talk-show animal," Artie says. "You're like one of those goddamn creatures out of Greek mythology: half-man, half-desk!" This ability to mine the enormous gap between a character's self-perception and how he's encountered by the outside world is best epitomized by Hank yelling at Larry, "What about the time I chipped my tooth on the bathroom urinal? What the **** is so comical about that?!" The tension between Larry and Hank forms the comedic center of the show, as when Larry tries to get Hank to drop his annoying "Hey now" catchphrase, and Hank balks: "It's part of our whole interplay on camera!" To which Larry replies: "By interplay, do you mean the times we're both awake?" More than anything else, Larry Sanders captures Hollywood's ability to drag its inhabitants over the red-hot coals of existential crisis, over and over again.

But if HBO's Larry Sanders was the comedy of the future twenty years ago, today that accolade goes to NBC's Community. Dan Harmon's creation takes the rapid-fire wit, aggression, and unabashed weirdness of some of the smartest, most imaginative TV comedies of the last two decades — The Simpsons, Arrested Development, South Park — and crams all of that chaos and genius into the very simple story of a community-college study group. Perversely, it may have been the show's total lack of narrative promise that led Harmon into the creative wilderness, where he and the show's other writers found themselves concocting elaborate conspiracies, zombie nightmares, spaghetti Western spoofs, Heart of Darkness–style documentaries, claymation Christmas specials, and the story of one very special wisdom-granting trampoline. Like a magician pulling a musk ox out of a handkerchief, the show's writers took a provincial microcosm and extracted from it a vast web of comedic madness featuring cartoonishly odd characters who still manage to capture our sympathies by the end of each episode. As with the infinite (and infinitely trivial) blanket-fort maze of the Internet, there's something undeniably modern about Harmon's amalgamation of parody, psychosocial commentary, and pop references. When the study group makes a diorama of themselves making a diorama, or Abed proclaims, "The kid's gonna be a star. He's a young the Asian Guy From Lost," we peer into a pop-cultural hall of mirrors, where every reference expands exponentially into the abyss.

Along the way, some essential tether to the linear sitcom narrative is misplaced forever. Community disrupts our appetite for conventional plot and makes us crave digressions — sure-footed and bizarre, unhinged and a little foolish. But if an affinity for parody and references were enough to make a show great, then Family Guy would be in the running here (and clearly it's not). What separates Community from the lesser stars in its galaxy is the haunting realism of its most farcical depictions. Each absurd twist echoes some unnerving aspect of modern life, from the groundskeeper-guru who turns out to be a racist to the anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals that send Jeff into a narcissistic tailspin. And each character's challenges, no matter how bizarre, are firmly planted on familiar emotional terrain: Shirley struggles to redeem her bullying past by teaching Jeff to play expert foosball; Annie attempts to quell her high-strung nature by moving in with Troy and Abed.

So how do you pick between these two? When this pairing was first assigned, I figured the groundbreaking, genre-bending brilliance of Larry Sanders was the obvious choice. After all, without yesterday's show of the future, today's show of the future wouldn't even exist. And because Community is a network comedy and is therefore at the mercy of a breakneck network production schedule, the very worst episodes of Community sometimes fall lower than the worst episodes of Larry Sanders.

But the more episodes of Larry Sanders and Community I rewatched, the more I found myself chuckling at the former, but laughing loudly (and repeatedly) at the latter. By reimagining the TV comedy without a couch and a laugh track, Larry Sanders offered an unforgettable snapshot of life in Hollywood. But by reimagining the comedic narrative outside the boundaries of gravity, taste, and sanity, Community has evolved into a show that's so smart and unpredictable, it will leave you awe-struck — delirious, even. Watching Community sometimes feels like entering an alternate world designed by David Foster Wallace, Stephen J. Hawking, and Butthead, a dizzying nowhereland that loosely resembles the It’s a Small World–like Duff Beer ride from The Simpsons. Its jokes are sharp, super-charged, depraved, relentless. It's almost too much for one human to bear. Larry Sanders is obviously one of the best TV comedies of all time, but Community transcends the boundaries of space and time, and quite possibly binds the galaxy together. Or, as my 16-year-old stepson puts it, "There are three episodes about paintball. And they're all awesome."

Winner: COMMUNITY

Heather Havrilesky writes the existential advice column Turning the Screw for the Awl, and she is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/community-vs-larry-sanders-show-sitcom-smackdown.html

TV Sports/Nielsen Notes
TV sports ratings: What's up and down?
By Michael Hiestand, USA Today - Mar. 4, 2013

What's up and down when it comes to weekend TV sports ratings:

-- NASCAR pretty strong: The ratings momentum coming out of the Daytona 500 didn't show up in Fox's NASCAR race in Phoenix Sunday -- but at least the rating was up slightly.

Fox drew a 5.3 overnight -- translating to 5.3% of households in the 56 urban markets measured for overnights -- up 6% from last year's comparable coverage. Danica Patrick, whose pole position in the Daytona 500 helped lift ratings for NASCAR's season opener, finished eighth at Daytona and 39th Sunday.

-- NBA solid, but not great: The NBA, like most leagues has yearned for a winner in New York as well as a team that would be a national draw.

The NBA got both in Sunday's N.Y.Knicks-Miami game on ABC Sunday. But it's 3.7 overnight was down 14% from comparable coverage of a Knicks-Boston game last year. The asterisk: Jeremy Lin was America's flavor-of-the-month during last year's game.

Later Sunday, ABC's Oklahoma City-L.A. Clippers, two teams with good won-loss records, drew a 3.8 overnight. But neither team has had enough success for long enough to be national draws yet: Predictably, that 3.8 was down big -- 27% -- from comparable coverage of a game last year between the league's two biggest TV draws -- Miami and the L.A. Lakers.

-- Golf without Tiger: What do you think happened? With Tiger Woods finishing 13 strokes off the lead in Sunday's Honda Classic on NBC, coverage drew a 1.6 rating. That's down 20% from last year's coverage when Rory McIlroy, who quit this year's tournament before weekend coverage, dueled with Woods in winning the event.

-- Strong NHL rating ... at least compared to normal NHL ratings. NBC's NHL Chicago-Detroit drew a 1.6 overnight Sunday -- up 60% from comparable coverage of a Boston-N.Y. Rangers game last year. That 1.6 is diminutive. But it's also NBC's best-ever rating, outside Winter Classics, for a regular-season NHL national TV game.

Spice rack: Check out Fox's attempt to sort of take on ESPN with a new general-interest sports channel that will be formally announced this week. Attempts to reach young viewers include dusting off Regis Philbin. Good luck with that. ... What's behind your rising TV cable bills: Sports, but not just sports. ... Broadcasting is just one of ESPN analyst Patrick McEnroe's revenue streams. He also makes $1.1 million annually as general manager/player development for the U.S. Tennis Association. ... Keith Olbermann had dinner weeks ago with ESPN head John Skipper. But here's an example of how prominent on-air guys can market themselves: Today, an item surfaces suggesting publicly that the well-traveled Olbermann wants to return to ESPN -- also ESPN's Skipper seems to shut down the idea. ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys Monday said ESPN has no further comment.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2013/03/04/nascar-fox-pga-tour-tiger-woods-nhl-nbc-tv-ratings-honda-classic-chicago-blackhawks/1962277/

Actually, the Series Premiere of Golden Boy was last week. This week is episode #102.

Around here you hear it frequently along with, "The two happiest days of a boatowner's life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it."