Monday, August 06, 2007

Boys to men

Very heady times here at What's Alan Watching?, as the blog got blurbed last night in a "John From Cincinnati" ad. (They were quoting my "enthralled" review of the sermon episode.) I've been blurbed a lot from the column, but it's a first for this place, and it has me in a particularly whore-ish mood. What other shows can I blurb now? Would you think less of me if I said "According to Jim" is a comedy masterpiece for our time? "Scott Baio is 45 and Single" is a riveting, thought-provoking examination of relationship and celebrity in the '00s? "The New Adventures of Old Christine" is better than "Seinfeld"?

Speaking of celebrity, today's column deals with VH1's "Mission: Man Band," a Celebrity Has-Beens On Parade series that I didn't hate, since at least it's inviting its has-beens (former members of 'N Sync, Color Me Badd, 98 Degrees and LFO) to do the thing that made them famous. There are also items on HBO's Hiroshima/Nagasaki documentary and the latest round of Fox scheduling shenanigans, the upshot of which is that "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" has bumped "New Amsterdam" to midseason, at least. (Those who prefer the single-page, printer-friendly version can read that instead.)

Reviews of "John" and the other Sunday shows coming up later this morning.
Posted by Alan Sepinwall at 7:41 AM

6 comments:

Katie V. said...

Congrats on the blurb! Let's just hope that someone doesn't take your quotes out of context (such as making it look like you adore Rescue Me unconditionally, week after shining week, when you point out one aspect of one particular episode that was actually pretty good).

On another subject, I just have to thank you for writing a blog that doesn't make me cringe from routinely spotting elementary grammar mistakes. Case in point: your admirably correct use of "its" and "it's," even within the same sentence! Most impressive. A huge pet peeve of mine is grammatically-challenged bloggers who land book deals. Ughh!

8:52 AM, August 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

When the blurb appeared I whooped so loudly my husband came in from the kitchen to see what had happened (he gave up on JFC after about 5 eps so was not watching with me). Very cool for you! Really looking forward to hearing what you thought of the episode -- I was equal parts bored out of my mind and, yes, enthralled. Finding it very hard to believe that "all will be revealed" in one more episode.

9:51 AM, August 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

ITA with Page about the promised reveal. I'm not even sure Milch knows where he's going with this.

Awesome on the blurb, btw. I rewound it on the DVR just to see it again :-)

10:16 AM, August 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

Alan,

Three questions immediately came to mind:

1) Is it good or bad that they are choosing to quote blog endorsements?

2) How big are your readership stats? (See question one.)

3) Will they drop you if you don't endorse this week's episode, since any visitor will probably go to the latest John review?

All of which suggests, cash in now!

Anon

10:48 AM, August 06, 2007
Alan Sepinwall said...

Anon, in order:

1)Hard to say. There's something of a difference between me and your average blogger, in that I'm also a semi-prominent newspaper columnist. I just do my blogging off-site, as opposed to, say, Tim Goodman or Melanie McFarland. But at the same time, blogs are getting more weight as tastemakers, and they're certainly more respectable than quoting one of those print and radio blurbwhores who love everything and phrase everything they do just to get blurbed.

2)On average this summer, between 2500 and 3000 readers a day. During the TV season, or on an unusual ocurrence (the Sopranos finale, say), it can go quite a lot higher than that. But it still doesn't touch the nearly half a million readers The Star-Ledger has. (Of course, I have no idea what percentage of that group reads my column.)

3)I get no money for blurbs, and I have no idea how stuff is or isn't chosen.

I once wrote a very mixed review of the NBC sitcom "Leap of Faith" that included the following phrase: "The biggest problem with 'Faith' is Faith herself. Paulson is cute and charming enough, but the character is, like Carrie (on 'Sex and the City'), a bit of an indecisive brat."

NBC blurbed it as "'Cute and charming!' -The Star-Ledger"

And of course, there's the infamous Tom Shales pan of "Providence," which closed with this paragraph:

"There's no meaning in 'Providence.' It's as dreary and dismal and empty as 'Trinity.' Thus it can truly be said: 'NBC has done it again.'"

The promo blurb: "'NBC has done it again!' -The Washington Post"

11:21 AM, August 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

There needs to be a website that has hilarious blurbs like the ones Alan listed.

8:54 PM, August 07, 2007

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