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Critic's Notes
How Season Four of Community Reveals a Major Flaw of the First Three Seasons
By Jesse David Fox, Vulture.com (New York Magazine)

Three weeks ago, Vulture’s TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote about his frustrations with the current season of Community: "It’s still a good show, but it doesn’t give me that anticipatory buzz that defines a really great series, that joyous anxiety born from being continually, often delightfully surprised." And after the first five episodes, the prevailing sense is that Seitz is very much correct — the show is not as good as it once was. However, what if this season's fundamental flaws have actually been part of the show’s DNA the entire time but we were too distracted to notice? Are we finally seeing problems that had been there all along?

Each of this season’s five episodes has had a big conceptual hook. In order: Hunger Games/multi-cam sitcom/Muppet Babies parody; haunted house movie parody; fan convention parody; war movie parody; Shawshank Redemption parody. Yet none of them really felt as authentic or was as funny as anything from the first three seasons. It all felt like the writers going, "I guess we're supposed to parody something — it's Community, the show that spoofs stuff." You can blame the new showrunners for oversimplifying, but they needed to hook the show onto something, and it turns out that the characters just weren't a viable option. The fact is, as is the nature of the medium, a TV character should be so well defined that multiple writers can write for them effectively each week, and as we've seen this season, Community has failed that test.

"I’m not digging the Britta-Troy relationship," Seitz wrote. "I get the feeling the writers and actors don’t have any particular opinion on it, either." It's an accurate assessment, but it's important to remember that the seeds of this relationship were sown during the Harmon era. A romantic spark between the two would appear periodically, but it was pushed really hard in season three and likely would've existed in season four regardless. And we probably wouldn't have dug it, even if Harmon had remained showrunner. Britta and Troy's relationship feels out of character for both of them. It might've made sense in early season one, when both were partly defined by the front they put on (this peaked at the dance recital episode), but that part of each of their characters basically vanished. Britta is someone who's trying to finally be an adult member of society, while also staying true to her rebelliousness — dating a younger and, let's say, simple guy like Troy doesn't fit into that. (Also, Britta is hypothetically about ten years older than Troy. It's not as creepy as Jeff and Annie, but still.) Maybe it was borne out of that TV trope of putting people together because of proximity and physical attractiveness, but that rings as particularly unambitious for a show that aspired to subvert sitcom convention.

For Troy, this arc feels weird, because it's weird for Troy to have a story of substance at all, especially one that's not just something for Abed to bounce off of. (He had that whole air conditioner thing last year, but it wasn't particularly revealing.) Comedically, Troy's role in the group is obvious: dumb guy. Every ensemble comedy has at least one. Emotionally, Troy is harder to pin down, because it was never a big part of the show. Every once in awhile, we see that Troy wants to be seen as a grown up; however, it's a characterization at odds with Troy accepting his more childlike self. It would change by the episode as was needed, because his character was inherently defined by his relationship with Abed and sometimes Jeff.

Worse yet is Annie. As has become painfully apparent this season, there is nothing to her. Who is she? Intermittently type A, she looks like Alison Brie, and she sometimes has a crush on Jeff. That’s it. And this has been a major problem for the show's entire run. Her pretending to be Jeff's wife in "Conventions of Space and Time" felt like it could've been a C plot in any season, because she hasn't really changed in any substantial way. Her lack of heft is why Jeff's recent dad arc came with him being paired with the more developed Britta. Maybe at one point they wanted to explore Annie coming to terms with her sexuality, but that never manifested itself — instead she was postmodernly sexualized as nerd bait. Sure, Brie has been very good in the role, but it now feels just like "funny sitcom character, female." Harmon did a fantastic job developing Jeff, Britta, and Abed — the three characters he had publically admitted to being most like — and then just coasted with the other four. Things were alluded to and gently hinted at for the rest, but there just wasn't enough time.

That's because the show's most compelling narrative was that of the show itself. Somewhere in the middle of the second season, the idea of how Community was revolutionizing television (which it was) became more important than any of the show’s actual characters. Viewers followed the show to see how it played with the sitcom form each week and less to see what the characters were doing or why they were doing it. This is the "spark" Seitz referred to. The best episodes of season two felt like the concept was in service of the characters, but over time the show felt more like the reverse. With concept trumping everything else, it was Dan Harmon that became the show's most noteworthy character. We were following Harmon's ability to one-up himself. It was hard to see the forest for the trees while it was happening, because as Seitz said, we, the fans, were taken by all the smart things that were happening. But now that the dust has settled on that era, we are stuck with tossed-off parodies and characters (save Jeff and Abed) that feel incredibly underdeveloped for a show that is in its fourth season.

Community's new showrunners were not given an easy task. They were handed a brilliant show that was most defined by its brilliance. No one character was nearly as iconic as the show itself and what it represented. And they've done a solid, if not good, job trying to re-create that show. (They even improved on some small parts, namely Britta's glasses!) It's just without that intangible brilliance, it's less of a desirable show than we might've thought. Somewhere between the shooting of paintballs and the tossing of a Yahtzee die, the show fell into a state of arrested development. And as a result, this season sometimes feels like they're starting over again from scratch. They know how to make these characters funny, but they don't know where they should be going, and maybe that's always been the case with Community.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/communitys-season-4-and-the-series-major-flaw.html

TV Review
‘Playing With Fire,’ playing with food
Here's a food show that allows us to sample a stew of celebs
By Tom Conroy, Media Life Magazine

Some people can never make up their mind what they want to order in a restaurant. It can be easier to take them to a buffet so they can have a little bit of everything.

E! has taken the buffet approach with its new food-themed series “Playing With Fire,” which is just like one of those Bravo reality shows about supposedly colorful people working in supposedly glamorous fields. But rather than focusing on one person or a pair of partners, the show has taken a handful and given us small servings of each.

As it turns out, this is a good strategy. Previous shows in this genre — for example, “Kell on Earth,” “The Rachel Zoe Project” and “Dukes of Melrose” — generally prove that supposedly colorful people working in supposedly glamorous fields wear out their welcome quickly. But on “Playing With Fire,” when we start to tire of one star, the show cuts to another one, usually with an intervening beauty shot of a main dish, dessert or cocktail. Like a fast-food meal, these bite-size servings pass quickly and have little nutritional value.

Premiering this Sunday, March 17, at 10 p.m., the show can’t even make up its mind how many people to feature. Of the seven people who share the spotlight in the three episodes provided for review, two — the restaurateur Todd English and the actress and wannabe baker Jennifer Esposito — are listed as guest stars in the press materials.

The subjects are loosely linked. Anna Boiardi, an author and cooking teacher who is descended from the supermarket icon Chef Boyardee, is teaching Esposito how to make gluten-free pastries for the actress’s planned bakery.

Boiardi is also supposedly friends with Candice Kumai, a former model and television personality who is promoting a book called “Cook Yourself Sexy.” Boiardi sets up a blind date for Kumai, who ruins it by talking incessantly about herself.

English is supposedly friends with Daniel and Derek Koch, identical twins and former models who run several restaurants. One of the people attending the opening party for the twins’ restaurant Toy is Julie Elkind, a 25-year-old pastry chef.

Like most of these shows, “Playing With Fire” covers its subjects’ personal and private lives, which tend to overlap. For example, in the premiere episode, Daniel Koch is angry at Derek because Derek wants to skip the opening party so he can take his girlfriend, Molly, to Disney World. Derek is afraid to tell her that they may have to go one day later than planned.

Derek, who is portrayed in the show as the responsible twin, is angry with Daniel because Daniel isn’t working hard enough on their newest restaurant. When Daniel steps up and plans a promotional party at the place, the health department shuts it down just hours before the party.

When Elkind tries to introduce a new dessert at a restaurant for which she consults, she has to risk alienating the chef by going over his head to the owner. She tells the camera, “Sometimes it just takes a b—- to filter through all these people who may have doubts because you have a vagina.”

When Esposito comes to Boiardi’s home for a lesson in wheat-free gnocchi making, Esposito forgets the rice milk. The resulting gnocchi are inedible.

Boiardi is distraught when she has to drop off her two-year-old son at preschool. When her husband asks why she simply doesn’t keep him at home, she says that if he doesn’t get into the right preschool, he won’t get into the right kindergarten and grammar school, and his life will be over. To avoid traumatizing the boy by having him see his mother cry, they decide to have the nanny take him to preschool.

The only person with a relatable problem is Elkind, whose live-in boyfriend, Kyle, is a would-be actor who she thinks is slacking off.

But the stars are attractive, and their professional duties are enviably vague. They spend a lot of time eating and drinking in chic, expensive-looking restaurants or making delicious things themselves.

We see Elkind and her boyfriend checking out a high-rise apartment with views in all directions and a walk-in closet. She says they want to move out of her “dirt-hole apartment,” which is in fact a small Manhattan duplex that would have most 25-year-olds drooling in their actual dirt holes in the outer boroughs or New Jersey.

Those of us with rich fantasy lives will be able to set our envy aside and imagine ourselves with problems like those of these lucky foodies. By the time we realize we wouldn’t want to actually be one of them, “Playing With Fire” has already moved on.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/playing-with-fire-playing-with-food/

TV Notes
Mike Fleiss says no 'Bachelor Pad' this summer
By Lynette Rice, EW.com's 'Inside TV' Blog - Mar. 16, 2012

Bummer news from the king of the Bachelor franchise today.

Mike Fleiss answered a fan inquiry on Twitter by saying there won’t be a fourth edition of Bachelor Pad, the cheesy fun spinoff of The Bachelor this summer. ABC confirmed that Pad, which has been a solid little player for ABC in the summer months, will not return this year.

No word yet on whether we will ever see the Pad again.

Pad launched in August of 2010 as an elimination-style game show that featured contestants from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, who competed for a final cash prize.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/03/16/mike-fleiss-says-no-bachelor-pad/

TV Sports
CBS, Turner Ramp Up March Madness Viewing Options
By The Deadline.com Team - Mar. 17, 2012

This year’s March Madness will have a lot more eyeballs in play. Millions more, according to CBS Sports and Turner Sports execs who boast that the NCAA College Basketball Championships will be available to more viewers on more devices plus a larger TV Everywhere Universe, Multichannel.com reports. CBS and Turner also are confident that consumers’ increased familiarity with authentication process will expand the overall audience for the tourney. NCAA March Madness gets underway Tuesday following today’s announcement of the 68-team field on CBS’ NCAA Baskeball Championship Selection Show. The Turner-produced NCAA March Madness live will offer free streaming of the 67 games comprising the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship tournament across skads of online, mobile and tablet devices to pay TV subscribers. With social and interactive components, it will launch from ncaa.com/marchmadness, CBSSports.com and www.bleacherreport.com, along with Google Play and Apple’s App Store. The games beging with TruTV’s coverage of the First Four on March 19 and 20 and concludes with the national championship game in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on April 8.

Turner execs said their TV Everywhere universe now exceeds 80 million households, up from 75 million at this time a year ago. Significantly, that total doesn’t count Time Warner Cable subscribers because Turner hasn’t been able to reach a longterm deal with TWC, but the companies have come to terms on an “interim solution” that that will allow TWC subscribers to stream games but no other programming during the tournament. Turner’s current TV Everywhere partners include Comcast, Verizon, Dish, Cox, AT&T, Direct TV, Cablevision, Charter, and a host of other providers. Viable gadgets this year include smart phones and tablets running on Android 4.0+ operating system, as well as iPhone5 and iPad mini — but no Blackberry or Windows devices. Users can watch the action on TNT, TBS and TruTV on their preferred digital device by logging in with their TV service provider information at NCAA March Madness Live, while all games on broadcast teammate CBS will be accessible without registration. Those who are not pay-TV subscribers will be able to watch up to four hours of live game streaming without registration.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/cbs-turner-ramp-up-march-madness-viewing-options/

TV Notes
'Smash' Producers 'Disappointed' by Viewership, Stars Urge Fans to Rally
By Jordan Zakarin, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Live Feed' Blog - Mar. 17, 2013

For at least one night, Saturday brought good news to the cast and crew of Smash.

The NBC musical drama won the GLAAD awards for outstanding television drama, earning the prize in a hotel that, quite appropriately, overlooked Broadway. It was a brief respite from the show's recent struggles; facing a ratings free fall in its sophomore season, Smash last week was moved by the network from its plum Tuesday night time slot to 9 p.m. on Saturdays, beginning April 6.

"The future is still up in the air. We’re very disappointed that not many more people are watching it because we think it’s a very ambitious show and we think that people should watch it," executive producer Neil Meron told The Hollywood Reporter at the GLAAD ceremony. "It’s ambitious, it’s musical, it really is a terrific show and we just want to get more word out."

When it premiered in February, Smash averaged a 1.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 4.5 million viewers, and has recently fallen to a 0.9 and under 3 million viewers. As for why the show has fallen so far, Meron would only speculate that the subject matter -- the inner-workings of a musical theater show -- didn't carry the widest appeal.

"That’s really hard to say because we took on something where we were looking at a niche part of the entertainment business," the producer, who also ran this year's Oscars and the 2002 film version of Chicago, said. "So who really knows what the answer to that is?"

The show has taken some harsh criticism online, from both bloggers and critics, while also earning a defense from passionate viewer. The discussion is something that has not escaped star Christian Borle.

"I'm not on Smash every day of my life, so I'm kind of enjoying every minute of it," he said with a smirk. "I love that people are passionate about it. I have my own opinions about it as well, so it's a great national discussion. I'm biased, I love it. It's been a great two year run for me. There's so much to be proud of. But it's fun to hear what people have to say about it."

Borle added that he was "really really excited" that NBC was going to air all 17 episodes of the second season. "When I heard that, I was blissful," he added.

Krysta Rodriguez, who spent years on actual Broadway shows, was just enthused that so many more people got to see her work on television than did when she was on stage. As for the future of the show, she encouraged fans to stick with it.

"We are happy with the show that we created and we hope that people will continue to watch it and we think that they will," she said. "We’re trying to make Saturday the new party night."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/smash-producers-disappointed-by-viewership-429286

Why? Because the new showrunners are not authentic. It's not hard to dissect why the show doesn't function as it did. Harmon is a geek who surrounded himself with geeks in the writing room. Not just Sci-fi geeks, but from all corners of the pop-culture spectrum with knowledge of various fictional tropes. That's why the previous seasons overloaded with references both blatant and more obscure and wrapped in some childish silliness. That in itself was part of the brilliance of the Community.

Guarascio/Port might be fine TV producers in their own right, but you can tell just from what they talk about outside of the show that they have no real interest in the things that made up the essence of Community. It's very similar to how Chuck Lorre exhausted every scientific idea and science-fiction trope he was aware of in the first two seasons of BBT and now it barely exists, save for obvious mainstream references. When the people involved in making a show have no genuine interest in the things they are writing about, it's very easy to see.

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

The problem is that any new viewer, one that hasn't witnessed any character development, will quickly tune out. So, Smash won't be gaining new viewers. It therefore cannot afford to lose any existing viewers.

The move to Saturday guarantees that they will, but DVR viewing might keep them afloat - maybe.

TV Notes
Justified’s Fourth Season Is Great TV Without All the Fuss
By Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture.com (New York Magazine) - Mar. 17, 2013

No great contemporary TV series is more flat-out enjoyable than Justified. The southern-fried crime drama, which wraps up its fourth season April 2 on FX, is as densely plotted as Game of Thrones; as brutal as Boardwalk Empire; and more consistently hilarious than almost any current sitcom. And it boasts some of the most musically ornate dialogue this side of the still-lamented Deadwood. “What precipitated this change in your weather vane?” demands Walton Goggins’s toothy, scheming anti-hero, Boyd Crowder, a more musical way of asking, “What made you change your mind?” And yet for all its creative brio, Justified never seems full of itself. The show wears its considerable ambition the way its hero, Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), wears his cowboy hat: as if it’s no big deal at all. It’s an Elmore Leonard thing. The ­Detroit-based fiction master started out writing Westerns and segued into modern crime thrillers. Leonard’s original Raylan Givens story, “Fire in the Hole”—the basis for Justified—combined those modes; showrunner Graham Yost and co–executive producer Olyphant replicate them, along with Leonard’s laid-back showmanship. Justified is a brazenly ambitious show posing (very convincingly) as a humble one. There are deep, dark things happening between characters, and within characters, but the show never puts anyone on a therapist’s couch; with so many barstools and front porches around, it doesn’t have to.

The series has never felt more kick-ass confident than during this recent season, which amounts to a summation of Justified’s first four years. The central story is a glorified missing-persons case: Back in 1983, a D. B. Cooper–like fugitive named Drew Thompson, who saw a Detroit Mafia boss rub out a key witness in a racketeering case, went missing and was presumed dead; turns out he parachuted into Harlan County with money and cocaine and lived there for three decades under an assumed identity—that of local sheriff Shelby Parlow (Jim Beaver), who outed himself as Thompson a couple of weeks ago and has been on the run ever since. The big reveal should have seemed obvious, but Beaver (a character actor best known for playing rock-of-decency roles on Deadwood and Supernatural) is such a warm, almost fatherly presence that the show deflected our suspicion for nine weeks.

The tale kicked off when a couple of junkies found a bag containing Thompson’s I.D. The discovery sparked a mad scramble to figure out which grizzled fiftysomething local was secretly Thompson, then arrest or kill him. Raylan and his boss, Art (Nick Searcy), knew that finding Thompson could lead to big promotions; the recently separated Raylan needs the pay bump, since he’s got a kid on the way and has been moonlighting as a skip tracer when he’s not drinking himself into a stupor and fighting with his girlfriend’s bare-knuckle brawler of an ex-husband. The Detroit mob wanted Drew snuffed out, to protect the long-ago triggerman Theo Tonin (Adam Arkin), currently the Motor City mob’s top boss. Boyd got in on the search, hoping to score enough reward money to exit the criminal underworld and go legit with his great love, Ava.

There was a secondary, parallel story about another missing person, the prostitute Ellen May (Abby Miller), who ran away after watching Ava kill an abusive pimp. That Ellen May and Drew Thompson eventually found each other felt poetically apt: Justified is filled with amusing or exciting romantic pairings, including Ava and Boyd (heels in love) and Raylan and Boyd (whose macho bromance could be titled Frenemies: a Love Story). The show hasn’t stinted on action, either, serving up enough fistfights and gun battles to keep FX’s core audience of young men happy. But when you peek beneath Justified’s surface pleasures, it’s a philosophical show obsessed with the weight of history on individuals. Raylan and Boyd and all the other major characters are still dealing with the psychic aftermath of their childhoods in Harlan County, which were marked by bloody, stupid feuds that weren’t so much ended as paused. When Raylan’s father, Arlo (Raymond Barry), gets stabbed to death in prison, it’s a historical as well as a personal disruption, the supposedly dormant past igniting to blow a hole in the present. And Arlo’s death doesn’t solve anything; the cruel old bastard’s spirit lives within Raylan, a cop who could just as easily have been a criminal, just as the spirit of Boyd’s own bad daddy lives on in Boyd, a criminal who briefly became a fundamentalist preacher. “You’re only a lawman when it suits you, Raylan,” Hunter Mosley, the former sheriff, tells Raylan. “Gives you cover to do things you would’ve done anyway.” As Hunter (Brent Sexton) says this, the episode’s director, John Dahl (The Last Seduction), lingers on the hero’s haggard face as it’s lit by police lights, their red pulses expressing the rage that both drives and limits Raylan. In moments like these, Justified seems as astute a drama about the necessity and impossibility of reinvention as Mad Men.

But Justified never comes at you like a student looking for an A from the teacher. It’s high-fiber bubblegum, so tasty-sweet that you never think of it as being good for the mind. Any given episode is likely to contain impassioned arguments about morality as well as gunfights, torture scenes, “Who’s on first?”–style absurdist exchanges, and declarations of undying love. “I know this ain’t how most people do it, professing their love over a box of cash,” Boyd tells Ava, proposing to her with a pile of money he’s hoping to use as a down payment on a dream house. “But the way I see it, you and me, Ava, well … We ain’t like most people.” Justified ain’t like most shows.

JUSTIFIED
FX. Tuesdays. 10 p.m.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/seitz-justified-season-four-is-great-tv.html

TV Notes
Local TV News Is Following Print’s Path, Study Says
By Brian Stelter, The New York Times - Mar. 18, 2013

With shorter stories and scarce coverage of politics and government, local television newscasts in the United States, like local newspapers before them, are suffering from “shrinking pains,” according to the Pew Research Center.

The diagnosis comes in the center’s 10th annual State of the News Media report, which will be published on Monday. The report, covering 2012, describes cutbacks in the reporting ranks of newspapers and television networks and a surge in efforts by politicians, corporations and others to tell their own stories.

“This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones or to question information put into its hands,” the report’s main author, Amy Mitchell, wrote in an introduction.

The report also highlighted the results of a new Pew survey that asked Americans whether they had heard much about the financial challenges that the news industry faces, like the steep decline in newspaper advertising revenue.

Sixty percent of the respondents said they had heard little or nothing, indicating that “awareness of the industry’s financial struggles is limited,” the report said. But some have sensed the results: 31 percent of respondents said they “have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting.”

The report’s authors did find, as in prior years, a robust public appetite for news. Digital news sources are now used daily by 50 percent of Americans, according to Pew’s survey, making the Internet nearly as important a source as television. Mobile phones and tablets were mostly responsible for the surge in digital news consumption.

Computers and mobile phones, of course, redistribute news from television, radio and newspapers. But cutbacks at many of these traditional sources continued in 2012, Pew found.

The report’s authors cited an estimate from Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at The Poynter Institute, of newspaper newsroom employment that dipped below 40,000 last year, to the industry’s lowest level since 1978. They decided to dig deep into television news coverage, partly because it has escaped the scrutiny focused on newspapers in recent years. They found that local television stations have increased their reliance on three main topics — weather, traffic and sports.

The researchers sampled the newscasts in four markets (Bend, Ore.; Houston; Milwaukee; and Pittsburgh) and compared their findings with a similar study of three of the markets in 2005. Back then, there were more taped stories and interviews; now there are more live reports from reporters in the field. The report called this a sign that “there is less in-depth journalism being produced.”

Only 20 percent of the stories in the 2012 sample were more than a minute long. Segments about weather, traffic and sports ate up 40 percent of local newscasts’ time, up from 32 percent in 2005, even though this kind of information “is now available on demand in a variety of digital platforms,” the report said.

Stories about government and politics in the markets that were sampled fell by more than half, to 3 percent of the broadcasts from 7 percent in 2005. There was also a marked decline in the percentage of stories about crime, to 17 percent from 29 percent. The volume of economic stories rose to 8 percent, from 3 percent, perhaps, the report’s authors said, because of the fragile state of the economy.

Nielsen ratings show that the audiences for local television newscasts in 2012 declined, albeit slightly, versus the prior year. The medium remains a top source of news overall, though.

Pew’s researchers didn’t find the same kinds of changes to network news programming that it found locally; in fact, they were struck by how little had changed about the big three network nightly newscasts since 2007, the last time they studied them. However, a lot had changed on the three major cable news channels, which have become more politically oriented in the last five years, the study found. Daytime programs on cable news increasingly resembled prime-time talk shows, the report said, adding that “interview segments are now as prominent in daytime cable as they are in prime time.”

As for newspapers, Pew followed up on a prediction in last year’s report that more news organizations would require customers to pay for full access to their Web sites. The number of daily newspapers doing so has more than doubled since then, according to Monday’s report, to about 450. (That figure, out of 1,380 daily newspapers across the country, included the newspapers that have announced such plans as well as the ones that have actually started.)

“This is already helping rebalance the print industry’s heavy reliance on advertising over subscription revenue,” the report said, adding that digital advertising for newspapers “grew only at an anemic 3 percent rate in 2012.”

The report also identified a split in digital advertising. While the news industry “continues to lose out,” it said, “on the bulk of new digital advertising,” some outlets are seeing growth from sponsored content. An online twist on “advertorials” of old, these ad units appear within a publication’s Web page and are often called “native ads.”

“Traditional publications such as The Atlantic and Forbes, as well as digital publications BuzzFeed and Gawker, have relied on native ads to quickly build digital ad revenues, and their use is expected to spread,” the report said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/business/media/local-tv-news-is-following-prints-path-study-says.html?ref=media

TV Review
'Bates Motel': Norman's 'Psycho' path
By Dave Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle

A&E's "Bates Motel" is kind of a mess, but that's one of the reasons it's fun to watch.

The drama is, of course, based on Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," and the novel by Robert Bloch. Technically, it's a prequel, focusing on Norman Bates before he went off the deep end, and on his mother before she became beef jerky on a rope.

But because creator Anthony Cipriano has set the story in the present day and expanded it beyond the fetid claustrophobia of the Bates house, A&E says the show is "inspired by" the Hitchcock film.

Less obviously, it's also inspired by "Twin Peaks," "Justified" and, in one memorable scene, "Taxi Driver," but who's counting?

In Monday's premiere episode, Norman (Freddie Highmore) and his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), have packed up and moved to the seemingly sleepy coastal town of White Pine Bay where Norma plans to make a new start after the unexplained death of her second husband, who was Norman's father.

She also has a child named Dylan (Max Thieriot) from her first marriage, but he's supposed to be the bad son and Norma hasn't even told him that they're moving.

Before they've even had a chance to change the motel's neon sign, Norman and Norma find themselves covering up a murder, Norman discovers a strange notebook filled with drawings of Asian women in bondage, the local sheriff (Nestor Carbonell) becomes suspicious of the Bateses, and his deputy (Mike Vogel) becomes smitten with Norma.

Meanwhile, Norman tries to fit in at the local high school and develops a crush on popular girl Bradley (Nicola Peltz) but is seriously pursued by loner Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke), who has to drag an oxygen tank around with her because she has cystic fibrosis.

"What's your life expectancy?" Norma asks bluntly when Norman brings the girl over for a visit.

And you thought your parents subjected your dates to a Spanish Inquisition.

The plot thickens

Over the first three episodes, the plot thickens to an even more unlikely degree as we learn that White Pine Bay is no Mayberry and that half the town is raising pot to make money - lots of money.

For now, though, the credibility issues don't matter that much because we're more interested in the characters, who may not be all that credibly created themselves, but who are informed by Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece.

Freddie Highmore ("Finding Neverland") is a good choice to play a young Norman, in part because he shares that combination of pretty innocence with malevolent overtones that made Anthony Perkins unforgettable in "Psycho."

At rest, Highmore's face has a boyish sweetness, the mouth suggesting a faint smile. When Norman is provoked to anger (which happens with disturbing ease), the face becomes garish, terrifying.

It makes it easy to imagine him turning into Perkins' Norman Bates, especially as he wrestles to define himself against the smothering domination of Norma.

Heavy lifting

Unlike Highmore, Farrmiga isn't tethered to our memories of an actor from the Hitchcock film, but we still know Norma because we know Norman. Vermiga is given a lot of heavy lifting in "Bates Motel," probably too much.

She is by turns loving and supportive toward Norman, then dominating, and, to the outside world, just a normal single mom one minute and an evil manipulator the next.
Norma's elder son is one of the show's more credible and interesting characters. He's a bad boy, but only because he's been on to Norma's ways from the get-go.

Dylan is a classic antihero, in a way, and Thieriot gives him additional dimension through a nicely nuanced performance. The more we learn about Norma and the residents of White Pine Bay, the more we see Dylan as a comparative force for good.

Beyond Oedipal

It makes sense, on paper, to set the story in the present day because it removes it just a bit from "Psycho" and allows the writers to open it out beyond the Oedipal mother-son dynamic.

But shifting the time period also loses something that Hitchcock used to subtle advantage, and that is the sexual repressiveness of the late '50s.

Of course, we know more about Hitchcock's own psychological makeup now, through fact and mythology, and he couldn't have known that our cultural attitudes on sexuality would evolve in the future.

Still, the times informed Hitchcock's film and the character of Norman, and "Bates Motel" capitalizes as much as it can. But it's more difficult to get a handle on the character when Norman is out of the context of the Bates home and motel in the series.

There's no sense of modern times being repressive when Norman is in the crowded halls of the high school, or standing off by himself at a party that Bradley invites him to attend.
We get that he's an outsider and that he has no social skills. But as a character, he becomes ironically more three-dimensional only when he's home with his mother.

Well, you know what they say: A boy's best friend is his mother. In the case of "Bates Motel," make that "fiend."


BATES MOTEL
10 p.m. Monday A&E.

http://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/Bates-Motel-review-Norman-s-Psycho-path-4355457.php

TV Sports
Same old selection show, except for Charles Barkley
By Michael Hiestand, USA Today - Mar. 17, 2013

CBS' annual infomercial for its NCAA men's basketball tournament -- its NCAA selection show Sunday -- was the same old, same old.

Meaning, it was bizarre by the standards of TV sports. It virtually ignored what is usually the star attraction in the rest of TV sports: the athletes themselves.

A very few players were mentioned in passing although, before the selection show, coaches were interviewed. That the CBS/Turner NCAA coverage is about try to sell 67 games in national TV windows with pretty much no nationally-known players on display isn't totally the fault of those networks. But they aren't doing much to help themselves.

TOURNAMENT BRACKET: A look at the field of 68

UNPREDICTABLE: Top seven surprises on Selection Sunday

Imagine NFL pregame show that didn't talk about players. Or seeing Olympic TV coverage without all those athlete up-close-and-personals?

It isn't new that CBS/Turner selection coverage yaks on and on about brackets, seeding, game sites and on that on the games we'll see plenty of sideline shots to show the big names -- the coaches. But it's still striking to see TV event coverage in which the players are seen as secondary. Granted there's lots of player turnover, especially with the best players turning pro, but NCAA TV coverage can turn real-life blood, sweat and groin tears into a sort of bloodless fantasy league.

BRACKET ANALYSIS: Who has easiest Final Four path?

CBS' Clark Kellogg, on a Sunday night conference call, says "it's a challenge" to tout the players -- "the college game, quite honestly, has been about the teams" -- and repeated the axiom that in college basketball it's the name on the front of jerseys that counts. Steve Kerr, who'll call the Final Four along with Kellogg and Jim Nantz, says now "the tournament itself is the star, especially these days with the lack of true star power. ... The fans don't have the opportunity to know the great players because they're done after one year." Besides, says Kerr, "the quality of play is down" in college basketball, partly because "the game is far too physical" and "all the rules favor the defense."

Of course, buzzer-beaters will be hyped. Just don't expect to recognize -- or maybe care much -- about who makes the shots.

More NCAA buzz:

-- The NCAA TV wild card wastes no time. Charles Barkley, on CBS from the CBS/Turner Sports Atlanta studio after the Big Ten Conference title game Sunday, didn't waste time knocking the conference widely seen as the strongest in college basketball this season. The Big Ten, he said, is "overrated" he announced and the Mountain West "is better." And just because the Big Ten has several highly-ranked teams doesn't mean much: "If you got together a bunch of ugly girls and pick a homecoming queen, that doesn't mean she's the homecoming queen."

Ugly girls? Eeeesh. But as Barkley is in his third year of NCAA coverage, it's still fun to think of NCAA higher-ups wincing when he appears on-air. And advertisers clearly think Barkley resonates with viewers -- he was the NCAA TV analyst who kept popping up in commercials Sunday.

But Big Ten powers, representing populous states, do help ratings: CBS' Wisconsin-Indiana conference semifinal Saturday drew a 2.3 overnight rating -- 2.3% of households in the 56 urban markets measured for overnights -- which is up 92% from last year's comparable coverage. The Ohio State-Michigan State semi also drew a 2.3 overnight -- up 35%.

And either Barkley or Kerr is dead wrong about the Big Ten. "Five Big Ten teams could win it all," says Kerr. "I like Michigan State."

But studio analysts Greg Anthony, and Seth Davis agree with Barkley: They all see Louisville winning it all.

-- New tournament TV subplot. Gonzaga didn't deserve to be a No. 1 seed, said CBS/Turner studio rookie Doug Gottlieb -- "it's hard to get a sense of how good they are, considering their schedule." Davis disagreed. It was one of many such disagreements Sunday as Gottlieb, who moved last year ESPN for CBS, seems primed to become a welcome instigator of on-air debate.

-- The field looks solid for TV ratings. In terms of having schools that should appeal to major TV markets, CBS/Turner should be happy -- although it hurts that brand name Kentucky won't be around that the field doesn't include team from Texas or New York City.

But the field includes the top ratings magnet -- loved/hated Duke, as a likely title contender -- as well as teams likely to draw in big markets such as Los Angeles (UCLA), Chicago (Illinois, Notre Dame), Philadelphia (Temple, LaSalle, Villanova), Washington, D.C. (Georgetown) as well as the state of Florida (Miami and Florida).

-- Lost opportunity. Barkley, the Turner NBA analyst who is also a CBS/Turner NCAA studio analyst and ESPN's Dick Vitale, arguably college basketball's iconic announcer, have lobbied for months for the networks the make some kind of deal that would allow each to crossover -- including, possibly, Vitale finally getting to call NCAA action.

It's not that far-fetched. CBS Sports head Sean McManus said in 2006 it would be a "no-brainer" to add him to CBS' coverage then -- but ESPN nixed the idea.

But ESPN said they would have been OK with it this season. Ultimately CBS and Turner said no, saying in a statement there'd been "no discussion" about using Vitale. But, said ESPN's Mike Soltys Sunday, "we've been interested all along" in the idea of letting Barkley appear on an ESPN game with Vitale popping up on Turner-related coverage.

And when it comes to next year's possibilities, CBS/Turner should consider bringing back Bill Walton -- who used to be a CBS NCAA announcer before taking time off to recover from severe health problems. Calling Pac-12 tournament action for the league's TV network, Walton was at the top of his game for, well, Waltonisms as he talked about "one man gathers what another man spills" to describe turnovers and saying "there's nothing wrong with being selfish in the team concept" to describe, well, something that at least he saw. He's an original.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2013/03/17/ncaa-basketball-tournament-cbs-tnt-tbs-trutv-jim-nantz-clark-kellogg-steve-kerr-duke-ohio-state/1995037/
Edited by dad1153 - 3/18/13 at 12:04am

TV Notes
'Top of the Lake' star Elisabeth Moss savors miniseries' nuances
The actress, who plays a detective in Jane Campion's drama on Sundance Channel, relishes the detail of a story that reveals itself in unexpected ways.
By Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times - Mar. 17, 2013

It's a sun-soaked afternoon in Los Angeles, but Elisabeth Moss is shivering. Sitting in the back room at the Pikey on Sunset Boulevard, Moss recalls how cold the water was in New Zealand, where she filmed "Top of the Lake," a miniseries created by Jane Campion that premieres Monday at 9:00 p.m. on the Sundance Channel.

"The lake is the same temperature all year round: freezing," says Moss, wearing a loose white cotton dress, her short brown hair tucked neatly behind one ear. "My makeup artist had this black plastic bucket and they would fill it with hot water and I would go sit in it fully clothed to warm up."

It's an odd detail, but it's in keeping with the making of the moody crime drama, filmed over a five-month period against a staggeringly beautiful natural backdrop of soaring mountains, rugged bush and the omnipresent lake. The setting plays a natural foil to the darkness of the plot, driven by the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old named Tui. Moss plays a confused and hardened Sydney, Australia, cop named Robin who gets wrapped up in the case during a visit to her cancer-stricken mother.

The mystery reveals itself in unexpected ways during seven hourlong episodes. The length of the series allows delicate subplots to push to the surface, including the story of Paradise, a desolate refugee camp for lost, mostly menopausal women, silently lorded over by an enigmatic visionary named GJ, played by Holly Hunter. Then there's the taut drama surrounding Tui's father, a criminal named Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan) who rules the town and its police through the sheer, rabid force of his violent will.

"I think this is Jane's best work. She really thrived in the miniseries genre," says Moss. "It's in the details for Jane. It's all about the secondary characters, the locations and all the weird moments — all the extra things that make Jane a genius. If you cut it down to two hours you'd make an awesome detective story, but you'd lose all that great stuff."

Making a miniseries did, indeed, give her room to play, agrees Campion.

"My favorite form is the novel," she says, speaking by phone from Jodhpur, India. "Which I think adds up to six or seven hours of something beautiful. That's what I was trying to create."

Campion recalls how watching the salty HBO drama "Deadwood" made her realize that modern television was the place for her.

"I thought, 'My God, this is so brilliant, I can't believe someone in television is financing this,'" she says. "How wild, what a revelation!"

Campion's feeling that anything goes on the small screen translated to some genuinely brave directorial choices, particularly when it comes to the world of Paradise, the camp by the lake. Here the women live in empty shipping containers and there is a sense of weird, wind-swept desolation that easily conjures "Twin Peaks" comparisons.

"TV is being written, directed and acted for adults," says Holly Hunter, addressing the strange world of the camp. "It's bringing complexity to a lot of different stories, characters and landscapes."

In the case of Paradise, that sense of richness and possibility plays out among women that Campion says are "probably the most unattractive group of women in the world": menopausal and post-menopausal.

"But I'm one of them," she says. "And there's a lot of freedom to it. You skip out of all the conventional points of success. You're not hot, you don't have a hot body."

Through Paradise we see the vulnerability and power of women, and Tui's disappearance becomes that much more upsetting. The evil embodied in the show, however, is as amorphous as the constantly shifting weather.

"Even though there are people who do very bad things in 'Top of the Lake,' those people still get a lot of humanity shined on them through Jane and Gerard Lee, her co-writer," says Hunter. "I think they both love people and they love all their characters."

It had been a long time since Campion had written with Lee, who she says was living on an island off Brisbane in Australia when she called on him to collaborate. His voice was vital because he could awaken the male point of view alongside her female point of view. Sexuality and sex roles are a bit murky, along with just about everything else in "Top of the Lake."

That's certainly true when it comes to Moss' Robin, who has held onto bleak secrets that have twisted her to hardened extremes. Thanks to her role as Peggy Olson on "Mad Men," Moss knows a thing or two about infiltrating male-dominated worlds. But that's where all comparisons between the roles stop.

Campion says Moss wasn't who she had in mind when she was writing the role but that it quickly became apparent during casting that she was the correct choice.

"I always want to know more about her," says Campion of Moss. "She's a bit like the Mona Lisa, she shows you something, but there's so much more."

For her part, Moss says she was both thrilled and terrified to carry the show. But it wasn't until filming was over that she realized the full scope of what they had made.

"They showed this clip they edited together at the end of filming, and by the end tears were just streaming down my face," says Moss. "It was like watching my life for the past five months being played back at me."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-top-of-the-lake-20130318,0,5398011.story

Business Notes
Verizon Hopes To Link Network Carriage Fees To Actual Viewership Figures: WSJ
By The Deadline.com Team - Mar. 17, 2013

It isn’t a la carte but Verizon’s proposal to tie what it pays to carry TV channels to the number of viewers who actually watch is what big media companies might consider “disruptive”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Verizon’s FiOS TV is the nation’s sixth-largest pay-TV provider and has begun negotiations with some smaller companies about basing what Verizon pays on audience size. Under the established industry model, cable and satellite operators pay a monthly per-subscriber fee to carry channels based on the number of homes the channels are available. Verizon’s chief programming negotiator Terry Denson suggests that in many cases “We are paying for a customer who never goes to the channel”.

Verizon would like to continue providing a large number of channels but to pay each channel based solely on the number of subscribers who actually tune in for a minimum of five minutes. Viewership would be measured by Verizon’s set-top box data, not Nielsen ratings. This model might actually benefit some niche channels, Denson suggested. The proposal wouldn’t reduce FiOS subscribers’ bills, Denson said, but the shift might “stablize retail prices for consumers” unless more people watched smaller and midsize channels. Any increase would be tied to actual consumption. Negotiations are inching forward with the smaller providers, Denson said, and he plans to broach the subject with big media companies as carriage contract renewals come up. Verizon’s proposal comes at a time pay-TV executives are concerned that ever-escalating costs might cause customers to “cut the cord”.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/verizon-hopes-to-shift-network-carriage-fees-to-actual-viewership-figures-wsj/
Edited by dad1153 - 3/18/13 at 3:10am

Critic's Notes
Spreading Disruption, Shaking Up Cable TV
By Dave Karr, The New York Times' 'Media Equation' Column - Mar. 18, 2013

The table in the conference room on the sixth floor of the IAC headquarters in Manhattan was a portrait of organization. In front of each of the 10 chairs was a leather case holding a fresh tablet of paper, with a sharpened pencil placed above it, just so. Everything in “the Helm,” as they call the room, was precise, orderly, logical. Just the way Barry Diller likes it.

Ten days ago Mr. Diller, the chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, was sitting at the head of that table talking about Aereo, a start-up in New York that he is backing. Aereo uses antenna farms to capture broadcast signals that can then be streamed on the Internet and viewed on a device of the customer’s choosing. Given that the service cuts out the cable television middleman and pays no retransmission fees to the programming producers, it’s a business idea that will sow chaos, disruption and turmoil. Just the way Mr. Diller likes it.

Mr. Diller has lived through various paradigm shifts in the television business. Indeed, he has helped create some of them. He worked as a young man at ABC, rose to head Paramount Pictures while inventing the made-for-television movie, helped make shopping a televised activity, and, most famously, created a fourth network at Fox.

A chronic deal maker and financial engineer who has aggregated a number of Web-oriented businesses at IAC, including Match.com, CollegeHumor, The Daily Beast and Vimeo, he has made many friends and enemies along the way — and in Mr. Diller’s world, it’s often difficult to tell them apart.

Aereo gained a big legal victory last summer when a judge declined to issue an injunction against it. The plaintiffs have appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Oral arguments were given in November and a decision is expected in the coming months, but Aereo and its backers are not content to wait. The company is about to roll out its service in 22 American cities, aiming a missile at the heart of the television business.

Aereo is what has been called a loophole start-up because it is structured to comply with regulations even as it disrupts the current model. The company was started by Chet Kanojia, a Boston technologist and entrepreneur, and became operational in New York last year. It is built on a relatively ancient technology, with coin-size antennas assigned to each person in the coverage area who signs up for the service. Customers can then use an Internet connection to stream any program from broadcast stations, or have them stored by Aereo for later streaming.

“I met with Chet Kanojia and spent an hour challenging him and understanding the technology, and I couldn’t find a flaw,” Mr. Diller said. “I knew there was going to be controversy, but I couldn’t find a flaw because I felt that the existing law was so much on the side of what Aereo was doing, and that’s what intrigued me.”

Having watched Mr. Diller on and off for over a decade, I suggested he was enjoying the opportunity to roll a grenade into businesses run by people whom he might otherwise invite to his home for cocktails — people like Leslie Moonves of CBS and Rupert Murdoch, for whom he built out Fox Broadcasting.

“That’s not right,” he said. “In this environment, your friends really are your enemies. Anything you’re going to do more than likely disrupts somebody’s business. There’s no grenade thrill in it.”

He added: “I am very fond of Les Moonves, and he is a terrific executive. Les said to me: ‘Look, I have no objection to what you’re doing. Just pay me retransmission fees and you can go in good health.’ I said, ‘When you can get Radio Shack’ ” — which sells antennas — “ ‘to pay you retransmission fees, I’ll be right behind them.’ ”

In a phone call, Mr. Moonves reciprocated Mr. Diller’s nice words but maintained resolutely that Aereo was a lawless technology.

“It is clear that the whole premise of Aereo is to make money off the back of the hundreds of millions of dollars we invest in programming,” he said. “We pay the N.F.L. $1 billion a year. Right now we have a lot of correspondents in Rome. We think it is patently illegal to take our signal and those of the other networks and resell it without paying for it. It is so wrong on so many different levels.”

In our conversation, Mr. Diller anticipated Mr. Moonves’s response.

“I don’t think that broadcast networks are in particular danger of not being able to be profitable enterprises, whichever way the technology goes,” he said. “The idea that they need retransmission consent fees, which have just come along in the last several years, to survive seems not right to me.”

Then again, Mr. Diller acknowledged, he made a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in the early 1990s in which he said that a second stream of income beyond advertising — retransmission fees — was critical to the survival of free broadcasting. “I was on the other side of it back then,” he said.

Some see his pivot from incumbent to insurgent as opportunism. He says it’s just good business.

Mr. Diller suggested that broadcasters and cable providers created a competitive runway by not responding to consumers and gouging them at every turn. “People pay $130 for cable with a lot of channels they never watch,” he said.

Speaking at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Tex., last week, Mr. Kanojia echoed the sentiment. “How many people here love their cable company?” he asked his audience. When one answered affirmatively, he asked, “Do you work at Comcast or Time Warner?”

“Comcast,” came the answer.

“Told you,” he said, turning back toward the audience.

Talking later on a bench outside the convention center, Mr. Kanojia insisted that he was not stealing from the people who create content.

“We are talking about the profits of the middleman,” he said. “The consumer has decided that they want to be able to buy what meets their needs, and once consumers decide, change comes very rapidly.”

Given Netflix’s and Amazon’s big original programming initiatives, the growth of Web-enabled television sets and the tendency of consumers to view shows on devices of their choosing, the ecosystem of broadcasting and paid television seems to be unlocking. Aereo is not so much cutting the cable cord as replacing it with a cheaper cord, albeit one that doesn’t pipe in HBO or ESPN.

“It’s as if the mirror cracked and you can see these changes are starting to happen all over the place,” Mr. Diller said. “Programming over the Internet is going to happen, and cable is only now waking up to the fact that everybody hates them. I think we’re on the side of the angels.”

He added: “I understand that any existing business tries to protect its borders from any and all incursions. I’ve done it and probably will again.” A phone rang, out of sight, under the immaculate conference table. Time to go.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/business/media/barry-dillers-aereo-service-challenges-cable-television.html?ref=media&_r=0

Critic's Notes
'Girls': Another Triumph in Season 2
By Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Bastard Machine' Blog - Mar. 17, 2013

Note: This column contains spoilers about the season finale and previous nine episodes of Girls.

With two of its four main female characters finding connections that Girls often keeps at arm's length -- a kind of emotionally available and heartwarming take on love and happiness -- season two of Girls closed out with a tightly written, insightful and even kind-hearted season finale that stood in stark contrast to the darkness of last week's penultimate episode.

What Girls has excelled at in two seasons is showing how people -- especially post-college types in their 20s, still trying to figure out what the world has in store for them -- often implode emotionally and revert to ironic detachment or the comfort of screwing up and suffering through hard failures. Failing is so much more noble than success, to some. Series creator Lena Dunham knows this territory well and seems to mine it effortlessly, but even she must understand that hilarity via cynicism and crushed souls is a whole lot easier to sell to the target audience than something that even hints at a strain of romantic comedy or optimism.

And so it's refreshing to see that the season two finale dared to allow in some light, in what has been a particularly downbeat 10 episodes, by not only letting Marnie (Allison Williams) and Charlie (Christopher Abbott) get back together but Adam (Adam Driver) and Hannah (Dunham) as well -- the latter in a climactic scene as romantic and heroic as can be for a guy who dumped a "money shot" all over his alleged "girlfriend" from last week's episode, which people are still talking about.

Then again, people always talk about Girls -- at least in the social media arena. Hell, if HBO had as many viewers for the show as those leaving comments or having an opinion, it would be a runaway hit rather than a critical darling that has barely begun to get the credit it deserves, much less the ratings numbers.

Part of that problem stems from the fact that Girls might be the most overanalyzed show on television, to the point that this season I've refrained from talking about it much because the din of voices is too annoying to join in with. Since the very first episode, Girls became a show where people talked about things that didn't truly matter to what was on the screen -- and that's an overemphasis on Dunham's private life, the family connections of its stars, why the show couldn't be something other than what it was and, the constant of the backlash -- what the show was doing wrong based on the perceptions of people who thought it should be doing something entirely different, even though it wasn't their show.

At some point, Girls became a show talked about not in the context of what it presented in each episode, but how that presentation was sexist, racist, pointless or otherwise too-entitled-to-be-real because of various element completely outside the frame of the camera. The only mildly interesting element of all of this yammering -- much of it in the form of an angry backlash -- was that from a sociological standpoint it said so much about the people making the complaints and less about what the show was trying to do.

For example, there's a major and disappointing undercurrent of misogyny in comments that surround the series. Through angry comments from viewers (if they actually watched, which is certainly debatable) and even a string of writers and critics -- many, but not all of them male -- it's as if Dunham committed a crime against television for daring to not be thinner and more beautiful. Normally you'd expect a young woman who not only created the series, but starred in it, wrote it and often directed it, to reap the rewards of praise for such an accomplishment, but Dunham has been continually cut down for what amounts to a body-positive approach to her character. Hannah is naked more times than not in Girls, and this apparently annoys a certain segment of the audience who seems to wish it was one of the other three female characters instead.

It's almost as if Dunham's reaction to that has been to be naked even more often, just to spite that group. In one recent episode, Hannah connects with an extremely good-looking man in the midst of a divorce (Patrick Wilson), and that led to people reacting incredulously because it was inconceivable to them that he would find anything to appreciate in Dunham/Hannah. That's the kind of misogyny that passes as acceptable criticism precisely because most television panders to the notion that everyone appearing on it must be eye candy unless they play murderers, deadbeats or freaks.

Beyond the unkind, unfair and uncalled for attacks on Dunham, there are any number of other complaints about the series that seem so angry as to forget a basic principle: The show is the show, whether you agree with it or not. It's a work of fiction with a specific, many times unlikable set of conceits to it but, in the end, it was created exactly for that purpose and, if that pushes your buttons, maybe some self-evaluation is in order. Or you should vote with your remote. But it's absolutely essential to approach Girls from what's on the screen only, not what happens with Dunham in her personal life or any other outside influence.

What season two managed to achieve so wonderfully is continue, often in a difficult way, the story of spoiled, self-involved Hannah and her collection of friends. In many ways, viewers are supposed to be angry with Hannah. She constantly makes mistakes, she forever thinks of herself first, she lacks discipline, she's weak, she's entitled, she's a dreamer frustratingly at a deep remove from accomplishing her dreams. Those traits push a major button in some people (both in the same age range as the characters and those who are older and can't relate to the entitled aspect). But if Dunham had wanted to, she could have created a series with these very same actors where they're all hip and funny and totally grounded and they get it. That's a show that might have earned the easy love some viewers want to dispense, but it's not, thankfully, what Dunham wanted to document.

From the get-go, Dunham hasn't been allowed to present a worldview she's interested in (note: that doesn't mean she's incapable of doing something 180 degrees different, it's that as a writer she chose this world, whether you like it or not). Charges of Girls being too white (Dunham started off the season with Donald Glover as her new boyfriend and then promptly split with him because he was Republican, might have been an answer to that) didn't allow for Dunham to write a series about overeducated, underemployed, mostly WASP-y white girls who hangout entirely amongst themselves in New York, because others apparently wanted her to do their show. Hell, even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar decided to be a critic this year. And then there's the older demo, which couldn't get past how incredibly annoying it was for Hannah to be so spoiled and yet appalled when her parents cut the money off. Perhaps the viewers in that demo forgot Dunham made her character like that on purpose. Again, it's a work of fiction.

Anyway, the chatter has always been too much of a sideshow to fully engage with it, but if you simply watched what was on the screen these past 10 episodes there was plenty of character-advancing moments, like Jessa (Jemima Kirke) getting called out for what she truly is during her short-lived marriage. Even in this season finale, poor downbeat Laird (Jon Glaser), the ex-junkie who pines for Hannah, calls her out: "You're the most self-involved, presumptuous person I have ever met, ever," he says. Later he comments on "how rotten your insides are" to Hannah and lays it out straight: "I think it's a pretty dark scene inside your head."

But there was redemption, too. Ray (Alex Karpovsky) developed feelings this season, even though in the finale he's dumped by Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), less because he wasn't career motivated as she said, but that in their age difference it was clear that Ray's dark cynicism and worldview was too much for a younger girl trying to jump into life. And Adam, one of the best characters on Girls, got to be all over the map (as people can sometimes be), challenging the audience's perception of him and his actions. And the show put all-too-perfect Marnie through the ringer this year, to the joy of those who (of course!) didn't like her prudeness/perfection/princess thing. But she, too, grew from "the worst year of my life" to finally appreciate Charlie and maybe learn a little something about herself along the way.

Ultimately, for Hannah, the season ends with more failure about her writing career and whether she has what it takes to make it as one. Her OCD onset caused by relentless stress (self-made, of course) went from quirky to painful. But on the other side, there was flawed Adam, coming to the Kid's rescue.

No doubt, because it's Girls, this semi-upbeat element for two of the characters will be derided as a rom-com happy-ending sell-out, regardless of the previous nine episodes of bleakness. But that should serve as yet another reminder that Girls is best experienced by simply watching it, not reading all the gripes about it.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bastard-machine/lena-dunham-girls-triumph-season-429325

'The Big Bang Theory' cast on the origins of 'bazinga' and moreBy Emily Rome, EW.com
"The Big Bang Theory's" cast and crew held a PaleyFest panel Wednesday
It was pretty short on spoilers
There were plenty of entertaining and funny behind-the-scenes stories
The 19th episode of season six airs tonight
(EW) -- Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter and Raj Koothrappali may not be doctors of the medical sort, but they still know how to serve up a heaping dose of the best medicine (a.k.a. laughs — lots of them) to a sold-out audience.

At least, that's what their real-life counterparts — along with other cast members and writer/producers of "The Big Bang Theory" — did Wednesday evening for the CBS comedy's PaleyFest panel in Beverly Hills' Saban Theatre.

The event, presented by the Paley Center for Media, was pretty short on spoilers. The production schedule is currently not that far ahead of viewers, who will get to see the 19th episode of season six tonight, but there were plenty of entertaining and funny behind-the-scenes stories and playful moments among the talent on the panel, which was moderated by "NCIS" actress Pauley Perrette.

Read on for 10 highlights from the "Big Bang Theory" panel:

1. The scene when Penny first tells Leonard "I love you" was shot in only one take

Kaley Cuoco (Penny), whose face brightened with a big grin when asked about this scene, revealed that she and Johnny Galecki (Leonard) pulled it off in just one "very special take."

Executive producer Steven Molaro recalled telling the two actors, "'That was beautiful. It's never gonna be better than that,' and then Kaley said to Johnny, 'I don't know about you, but we started the scene, and it was like the audience went away and the cameras went away and it was just us.'" That got a big "awww" out of the PaleyFest crowd.

2. Everybody loves Lucy

The cast and writers seem to be having a fun time with Kate Micucci aboard the show playing Raj's (sort of) girlfriend, Lucy.

"It's really fun playing opposite an actress that is talented and really listens and reacts," Kunal Nayyar (Raj) told EW in the press tent before the panel. Inside the Saban Theatre, he told the crowd that he has enjoyed this storyline "because you play a character for six years, and in my case, you grow affection for that character. You really want to see that character succeed. It's really lovely to see him explore that side, which I think has been missed for so long while he's been seeing the growth of his friends."

Co-creator Chuck Lorre told EW that Raj and Lucy's recent texting date won't be the last time we see them come up with a creative way to communicate, but Raj will also "continue to rely on demon rum to help him overcome his shyness." He's not going to let that pesky selective mutism get in his way!

Jim Parsons to executive produce TV series about real-life geniuses

3. That spanking scene

Sheldon went old-school with his punishment for Amy when she lied about being sick. Though "punishment" isn't exactly how the delighted Amy thought of the near-BDSM experience.

Jim Parsons (Sheldon) revealed that while the spanking was always in the script for that December 2012 episode, it was originally planned to be off-camera. The original gag had Amy's spanking, along with two other points of the episode, paired with the image of Amy's monkey mimicking the image of "see no evil," "hear no evil" and then "speak no evil." Ultimately, once the writers decided to put the spanking on-camera, Parsons found the scene "one of the hardest things I've had to do — because it was so amusing."

After Cuoco and Galecki recalled the shot needing several takes, Mayim Bialik (Amy) confessed, "There was some redness!"

4. How did last fall's flash mob come together?

When the cast and crew surprised their studio audience — and their producers — with a flash mob dance last October, it was the result of two weeks of rehearsals. The idea was Cuoco's, who recruited her sister to do the choreography. As for that back-spin of Galecki's, the actor had originally expressed no interest in participating, but "I saw their last rehearsal, and after rolling my eyes for two weeks, I said, 'I really want to be a part of this,'" Galecki recalled. He didn't have time to learn the whole dance, but he contributed his move that he "usually save for weddings."

5. We may see Sheldon's Meemaw in a future episode

When an audience member questioned the producers about Sheldon's oft-talked-about but yet-to-be-seen grandmother, Molaro said, "We've talked about [having her appear on the show]. I certainly don't rule it out. I don't know how she'd feel about Amy." When that last comment was met with nervous laughter and hmms from the audience, Molaro quickly followed up: "She loves Amy! She will love Amy!"

'Arrow,' 'Big Bang Theory,' 'Supernatural,' 'NCIS: LA': Find out what's next in the Spoiler Room

6. How does one call up George Takei to ask him to do that scene?

When the writers created the scene in which Howard has a dream about "Battlestar Galactica" hottie Katee Sackhoff that is soon interrupted by George Takei, the task of calling up the celebrated "Star Trek" actor about the guest spot fell to co-creator Bill Prady.

"We wrote a line of Howard saying, 'I'm so confused' and thought it'd be really funny if George Takei said, 'Confused? Perhaps I can help.'" Prady said. "How do I say to this guy that he's a possible homosexual fantasy? ... Finally I said, 'Alright, so you know you're gay, right?' and he said," — cue George Takei accent — "'That's news. I'll tell my husband.'"

7. Tonight's episode is a touching and emotional one

Tonight's episode, titled "The Closet Reconfiguration," centers around a discovery Sheldon makes when reorganizing Bernadette and Howard's closet:

He unwittingly opens a letter from Howard's father (who abandoned Howard and Mrs. Wolowitz when he was a kid) that our favorite diminutive engineer has never braved reading since he received it at age 18. It's an emotion-filled episode, the cast said, that features each character supporting Howard through the tough situation in their own way.

"You get to see how good [Howard's] friends really are and how kind of fallible they are and yet unflappable. They don't change. But everybody is coming from a sweet, good place," Simon Helberg (Howard) told EW.

"They're all put in a position to figure out how to best support their friend," Galecki told EW. "It's a sensitive issue, and I think the conclusion that they come to is really smart and unique and has never been done on television before. It's one of my favorite episodes, I swear to God. I'm not just saying that ... It really is."

'The Big Bang Theory': Dr. Sheldon Cooper inspires new bee name

8. How will the season six finale compare to last season's big closer?

"That was pretty big," Lorre said to EW of the season five finale. "A wedding and a Russian rocket into space is pretty big. I think we can safely say this [year's finale] will be smaller, more intimate."

9. The tale of Melissa Rauch's "Smurfette"

The biggest applause of the night was saved for the hilarious Melissa Rauch (Bernadette). The audience raved when she impersonated Howard's mother's voice, and when she told a story about getting her makeup removed following the day of shooting this season's Halloween episode.

Getting off all that blue Smurf makeup required some hot towels and the work of Rauch's regular makeup artist and two assistants, both of whom were men.

"It was getting late, and I'm starting to fall asleep," Rauch recalled, "and I lifted my legs up to get the rest of the makeup off and heard the guy laugh and thought, 'Oh, they're just telling jokes.' But then I looked in the mirror and thought, 'What's that?! Dear Lord Jesus, that's my business!' I had totally exposed myself! I put my legs down and just said to them, 'Long night!' That is the tale of my Smurfette!"

10. Where did 'bazinga' come from?

Sheldon's catchphrase now beloved by fans and nerdy T-shirt companies everywhere got its start as now-showrunner Steven Molaro's catchphrase.

Prady told the audience that during the show's second season, Molaro would use the word to mean "gotcha" when he pulled a trick on a fellow writer.

A "bazinga" was in order, for example, when Molaro gave Prady a grapefruit that turned out to be hollowed out then carefully taped back together. And that's how the catchphrase of smug, trickster Sheldon was born.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/showbiz/tv/big-bang-theory-paleyfest-ew/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9
Edited by WilliamR - 3/18/13 at 8:01am

Has Nellie ever watched Jeopardy!? The contestants ask the questions, Alex supplies the answers.

Not in that order.

To be truly picky, Art Fleming supplied answers, for which contestants then asked the questions.  Alex Trebek supplies clues, to which contestants give responses in interrogative syntax.  Those are the terms used now for what were called "answers" and "questions" in the Fleming era.

Critic's Notes
Bianculli's Best Bets
By David Bianculli, TVWorthWatching.com - Mar. 18, 2013

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
CBS, 8:00 p.m. ET
In tonight’s episode, Robin asks Barney to sell his bachelor pad, so they can live in a place with fewer of his conquest-specific … memories. Good move, but Barney doesn’t agree.

TOP OF THE LAKE
Sundance, 9:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES PREMIERE: Jane Campion co-wrote and co-directed this seven-part miniseries, which stars Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men as a New Zealand detective who returns home to visit family, only to be asked to help solve a local mystery. It’s a strong series of character studies – as full of angst as The Killing, but done the Kiwi way. Holly Hunter co-stars, but the standouts here are Moss (what a performance!) and, playing the menacing father of a girl who goes missing, Peter Mullan (ditto!).

MARS ATTACKS!
More Max, 9:15 p.m. ET
Every time I visit this 1996 Tim Burton comedy, its imaginative design, and so many of its playful performances, make me smile, from Jack Nicholson’s dual role to Martin Short’s smarmy one. And the aliens are perfect: Ack! Ack! Ack!

BATES MOTEL
A&E, 10:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: Freddie Highmore plays a young Norman Bates, and Vera Farmiga is his mother Norma, in this prequel to 1960’s Psycho that ignores timeline logic by setting this earlier chapter of Norman’s life in the present day. But give it a chance, because eventually, it starts to gel.

INSIDE COMEDY
Showtime, 11:00 p.m. ET
Will Ferrell and Betty White are this week’s guest on David Steinberg’s intimate talk show about comedy, about which I have two major complaints. One: It should be shown earlier by Showtime, because it’s certainly entertaining enough. Two: each installment should be an hour, not 30 minutes. I know you want to leave the audience wanting more, but it seems Steinberg and his guests, each week, are barely getting started.

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/

* * * *

TV Review
A&E Revisits Norman and His Mother in 'Bates Motel'
By Ed Bark, TVWorthWatching.com - Mar. 18, 2013

Fifty-three years after first alarming an unsuspecting public, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho still stirs the blood, quickens the pulse and generates sequels, remakes and now, a "contemporary prequel."

A&E's Bates Motel, premiering Monday, March 18, is both mesmerizing and sometimes absurd in its rewind to Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore, left) as a repressed 17-year-old. In the early minutes of Monday's premiere, he's further scarred by the discovery of his father's suddenly dead body.

It seems fairly obvious whodunit. But Norma Bates (delicious, Emmy caliber work by Vera Farmiga) certainly isn't telling. And Norman seems none the wiser as son and mother relocate "Six Months Later" from Arizona to the rundown "Seafairer Motel" (whose proprietor was a lousy businessman who apparently couldn't spell either).

The place is located in present-day White Pine Bay, a picturesque, out-of-the way coastal berg that — all together now — "isn't quite what it seems." And here's where Bates Motel could go really wrong while also seeming to get a lot of things quite right in its depiction of the off-center Norma/Norman dynamic.

Through the first three episodes available for review, executive producers Carlton Cuse (of Lost fame) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) fill Bates Motel to the brim with other strange goings-on. No big spoilers here, but Twin Peaks has nothing on White Pine Bay in terms of attendant crookedness.

So Norman becomes a reluctant amateur detective at times in league with high school classmate Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke), whose multiple sclerosis requires her to be hooked to a portable oxygen tank at all times. She's an appealing character, though, breathing life into their scenes together. In Episode 2, plucky Emma scores by telling Norman, "You know what's peculiar? A 17-year-old boy using the word 'peculiar.' " He does know how to use a smart phone, though.

Bates Motel creates another new character in Norman's surly, older half-brother Dylan (Max Thieriot), who arrives unannounced in a penniless state. There's also a hunky deputy sheriff named Zach Shelby (Mike Vogel), a not entirely above-board guy whose boss is the very stern Sheriff Alex Romero (Lost emigre Nestor Carbonell).

Norma's plans for a fresh, clean start — "It's all gonna be good. You'll see" — are quickly waylaid by an extremely bitter brute whose family owned the Seafairer and its attendant famous house on a hill before the bank foreclosed.

"He's just some pathetic drunk, loser slob, honey," Norma tells Norman. He's soon also a dead body, with mother and son frantically hiding his corpse and cleaning up the joint before the cops arrive the next day to question them. Get ready for another bathtub/shower scene, this one rather ingeniously pulled off.

Highmore is effectively twitchy, vulnerable and naive as Norman, at times resembling a young Dana Carvey in the role. "Holy hell, mother, we're totally screwed!" he wails convincingly.

But it's Farmiga (left, with Highmore) who carries the ball as a possessive, obsessive and sometimes flirty Norma. Nominated for an Oscar opposite George Clooney in the terrific film Up In The Air, Farmiga never slips into a Mommie Dearest caricature. She's a joy to watch throughout, whether being willful, devious, protective or alluring.

Bates Motel otherwise risks having way too much else going on. There's no Smoke Monster yet, but Cuse is still in Lost mode when it comes to attendant mysteries and rather preposterous occurrences. This hasn't yet unduly spoiled anything, but has the potential to do so.

On the other hand, every Farmiga sighting so far serves to right this ship. She's so very, very good as Norma. To the point where Bates Motel could easily be subtitled, I Want My Mommy.

BATES MOTEL
GRADE: B+

http://www.tvworthwatching.com/BlogPostDetails.aspx?postId=4541

SUNDAY'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 (18-49)
‘Family Guy’ tops a down night for broadcast
Fox cartoon averages a 2.3 in 18-49s, down 12 percent
By Toni Fitzgerald, Media Life Magazine - Mar. 18, 2013

It was another limp Sunday night on broadcast with all but one Big Four network, NBC, seeing week-to-week declines in primetime and the night’s highest-rated show mustering a mere 2.3 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights.

That show was Fox’s “Family Guy,” which just barely edged CBS’s “The Amazing Race” and ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” as the evening’s top program. “Guy” was off 12 percent from a 2.6 last week.

“Race” and “Time” tied with a 2.2 at 8 p.m., with “Race” down a tenth from last week and “Time” even to last week. ABC notes that more people have been recording the show to watch later, with its DVR bump going from 42 percent last fall to 52 percent at midseason.

“Time” lead-out “Revenge” fell 10 percent from last week, from a 2.0 to a 1.8.

NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” was even to last week from 9 to 11 p.m. with a 1.6.

CBS finished first for the night among 18-49s with a 1.7 average overnight rating and a 5 share. Fox was second at 1.6/5, ABC third at 1.6/4, NBC fourth at 1.5/4, Univision fifth at 0.9/3 and Telemundo sixth at 0.4/1.

ABC and CBS were off a tenth from last week, while Fox declined by 0.2. NBC was up 0.2.

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.

At 8 p.m. CBS led with a 1.6 for “60 Minutes,” followed by ABC with a 1.4 for a repeat of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” NBC was third with a 1.2 for “Dateline,” Fox fourth with a 1.0 for a repeat of “Bob’s Burgers” (0.7) and a new “Cleveland Show” (1.2), Univision fifth with a 0.7 for “Aqui y Ahora” and Telemundo sixth with a 0.3 for the movie “Baby Geniuses.”

ABC and CBS tied for first at 8 p.m., each with a 2.2 rating, ABC for “Time” and CBS for “Race.” Fox was third with a 2.0 for ‘The Simpsons” (2.1) and ‘The Cleveland Show” (1.8), NBC fourth with a 1.4 for more “Dateline” (1.5), Univision fifth with a 0.9 for “Nuestra Belleza Latina” and Telemundo sixth with a 0.4 for the end of “Geniuses” and start of the movie “Con Air.”

Fox took the lead at 9 p.m. with a 2.0 for “Guy” (2.3) and “Bob’s Burgers” (1.6), while ABC was second with a 1.8 for “Revenge.” NBC was third with a 1.7 for “Apprentice,” CBS fourth with a 1.5 for “The Good Wife,” Univision fifth with a 1.2 for more “Latina” and Telemundo sixth with a 0.5 for its movie.

At 10 p.m. NBC moved to first with a 1.9 for more “Apprentice,” followed by CBS with a 1.6 for “The Mentalist.” ABC was third with a 1.0 for “Red Widow,” Univision fourth with a 0.8 for “Sal y Pimienta” and Telemundo fifth with a 0.5 for the end of “Con Air.”

CBS was also first for the night among households with a 6.0 average overnight rating and a 10 share. ABC was second at 3.7/6, NBC third at 3.6/6, Fox fourth at 2.0/3, Univision fifth at 1.3/2 and Telemundo sixth at 0.5/1.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/family-guy-tops-a-down-night-for-broadcast/

* * * *

TV Notes
On ‘Stars,’ klutzes return to the floor
Long-running hit ABC reality show returns to original formula
By Louisa Ada Seltzer, Media Life Magazine - Mar. 18, 2013

Season 15 of “Dancing with the Stars” seemed like a sure bet to fire up viewership for the aging franchise.

It turned out to be a bust.

Ratings sank to all-time lows with an all-star cast of dancers who had all already participated in one season of the show.

So when season 16 kicks off tonight at 8 p.m. on ABC, there will be no familiar faces. This is an entirely new cast with notably little dance experience.

As ABC noted last fall when ratings tumbled, viewers like watching clumsy stars struggle to develop into good dancers. They do not like watching good dancers develop into great ones, as was the case with last season’s cast, which included previous winners like Helio Castroneves, Shawn Johnson and Kelly Monaco.

Last season the show averaged an all-time low 2.2 adults 18-49 Nielsen rating for the Monday performance episode and a 2.3 for the Tuesday results episode.

It was still one of the top 10 shows on broadcast with Monday’s edition averaging 13.75 million total viewers and Tuesday’s drawing 13.4 million.

Even with the lower numbers, “Stars” will give ABC a boost on Tuesday night, where it has been struggling this season. Last week “Celebrity Wife Swap” drew only a 1.6 in the 8 p.m. timeslot.

This year’s group of dancing stars includes Dorothy Hamill, Wynona Judd, Kellie Pickler and D.L. Hughley.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/klutzes-return-to-dancing-with-the-stars/

Hmm, this came out of nowhere but it sounds like it may be worth watching.

Came out of nowhere? It's been advertised for weeks!

Advertised? They still do that?

What do you call it?

The parts of television/media I never see?

Especially on Sundance. I don't even remember that channel exists most of the time because there's rarely a reason to. I'll have to check to see if I have HD. If I don't I won't be watching this time either.

Sorry, I didn't specify the order.

Interesting, considering when a contestant fails to respond in the form of a question, Alex tells the contestant that the response needed to be in the form of a question. Especially in round two, where they are not forgiving.

Local news audience has shrunk too - by at least one - me. I quit watching since there is really very little "news". The focus is a stand up video in front of a former crime scene for little if any reason. Then they interview some local who makes inane comments about the victim/perpetrator/situation and then a quick cut back to the studio and a glossy anchor spouting more inane comments.

The other thing that has turned me off is that instead of being the nightly news, it's become the nightly bad news. The old adage "if it bleeds it leads' has never been more true than today. Yes, there are bad things happening, but there are good things too. Balance all the negative news with some positive, and by that I do not mean the requisite puppy or 95 year old grandmother story that seems to get trotted out from time to time.

This ties in with something i was contemplating the other day, where do I get my news from? My local paper has gone to 3 days of printing, so I dropped it, my other favorite paper has raised it's home delivery prices through the roof forcing people to the online version, so I dropped it, and as I stated I do not watch the local news. Yet I feel as informed if not more so than I did in the past. I have my favorite new web sites I visit daily and I read the headlines and various stories on my cell's news ticker. If I want more info I can easily drill down online and get it.

So perhaps the local newsroom is as anachronistic as the local paper in today's world. I see little value in it.