Insta-column up over at NJ.com, in which I detail CBS' plans for the character who will follow Gil Grissom on "CSI," Katie Couric affirming her career plans, the status of "Swingtown," something of a big spoiler for "HIMYM" vis-a-vis Sarah Chalke, plus Nina's latest comment on the cancellation of "Moonlight."(Also, if you need some light reading, I strongly recommend you read the comments for the NJ.com version of today's Day in the Life of Press Tour entry, and keep in mind how complicated it is to register on NJ.com, and that these fine people did it just to register their opinions.)
"Moonlight" fans make "Jericho" fans look restrained by comparison. And while on a pure intensity level, it's hard to beat Whedon fans, "Moonlight" seems to be setting new records in the intensity of fandom to quality of show ratio.
ReplyDeleteWow, someone lit a fire under that fanbase. I'm guessing some "Moonlight" fan site aimed their laser beam at your blog.
ReplyDeleteA tad sensitive, though, aren't they? We've all been guilty of a little overzealous fanboyism in our time, and dealt with the resulting flak from outsiders.
For some reason I can't help but picture the Moonlight fans as a bunch of lonely middle aged women who sat around on Friday nights watching the show with their cats. Even if that's not an accurate picture, they clearly need to get a collective life.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, Alan - word choice is quite finicky with such fan groups. I once had the gall to insinuate that CBS was justified in canceling Jericho, and I was showered with similar claims of hate speech.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, Jericho fans were alright - intense, yes, but more conversational and understanding as time wore on and I got to know them better. Moonlight fans could be on the same page, in time, but right now it does seem so overwhelming that folks with any sort of voice in the industry aren't going to take up their cause. Jericho fans, or some of them, learned that polite disagreement is better than public shaming - I'd hope Moonlight fans would do the same soon.
I love this one.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that anyone willing to compare a televised vampire drama to civil rights never, ever gets what they want out of life.
Unless that was a parody comment. Then, bravo, 51Cinnamon.
"Nina Tassler is an idiot. She's also a liar... Shame on you, Mr. Sepinwall, for your mean-spiritedness."
ReplyDeleteClassic.
My personal favorite is the person who compares fighting for "Moonlight" to the civil rights movement. That is classic
ReplyDeleteSo, nobody wants to talk about CSI replacing Grissom with the guy with frog DNA?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think Mandy Pantinkin would be a great fit for CSI.
ReplyDelete:)
Nice to have you in my time zone. :)
ReplyDeleteHow was the discussion about Diane's show?
Personally, I think Mandy Pantinkin would be a great fit for CSI.
ReplyDeleteThe chances are greater that Nina Tassler -- currently studying to be a cantor -- would do a concert together with Mandy than that she would ever hire him to front one of her shows.
How was the discussion about Diane's show?
ReplyDeleteAll times listed in the previous post are Pacific. "Ex-List" session isn't for another few hours.
Nina Tassler is studying to be a cantor?? Okay, that has to qualify as one of the most random things I've ever heard.
ReplyDeleteOops - sorry. I see that's after lunch.
ReplyDeleteNot sure who I'd like to take over on CSI. I liked the idea of Malkovich, though I can understand why he'd pass. TVGuide suggested David Straithairn. I think he'd be good, but I'm not sure he has the name recognition they want. A lot of the actors that have come to mind for me (Dennis Hopper, Gary Cole, Victor Garber) are already attached to other shows. How about Keith Carradine? I enjoyed his stint on Dexter last year and he's available as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteYikes! Me thinks Alex O'Loughlin needs to borrow from Shatner and tell these people to get a life.
ReplyDeleteI have watched a bunch of vampire shows (Forever Knight, Kindred, Buffy) and Moonlight was not good. The lead was cute, but the mythology was all over the place and Jason Dohring was not compelling as his more evil friend. I can understand if they made efforts to reverse cancellation, but once that decision is made, accept it and move on.
Or write fanfic or something. As we are not vampires, life is too short to dwell on mediocre cult television shows.
How about James Woods? He aint busy anymore.
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm guessing those comments were written by the same 1-3 people with freshly-minted accounts.
ReplyDeletep.s. I know you gave up on Swingtown, Alan, but it has grown on me. They've completely abandoned the story about the sons and mother/daughter next door for the past two episodes. At this point, the teenage daughter and the opening theme song/credits are the worst thing about it. The three couples are getting very interesting indeed.
ReplyDeleteAdmit it, Alan, you knew exactly what you were doing with that NJ.com post. I knew what was going to happen as soon as I read the Moonlight line.
ReplyDeleteAnon
Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI thought Alex was better on the Shield than Moonlight. That show just never caught on with me.
With an outcry like that, one would think you asked Couric about her wardrobe again.
I'm going to start whining about Scrubs now since they've mentioned the show could continue after Braff leaves.
I think Moonlight fandom gives us a glimpse of what it would have been like when Beauty and the Beast got canceled if the internet had been around. (In it's current form. I was actually on Usenet at the time, and there was some relatively intense fandom for the time.)
ReplyDeleteOne of the posts at NJ.com was signed with the same screename as a post I just saw on Eonline. It really does seem like it's just the same few Moonlight fans spamming every single site they can find.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that anyone willing to compare a televised vampire drama to civil rights never, ever gets what they want out of life.
ReplyDeleteThat person sure managed to pack a whole lot of crazy into one post. And the posts were exceedingly whiny to boot. Way to show Alan chose the right word, Moonfans! :-D
I am still undecided as to which offends me more: the comparison between the struggle to bring back Moonlight to the Civil Rights Movement or the comparison by a character on a vampire show to Johnny Carson.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like that all posters started more or less like this "Whiners?", as if they misheard you.
Heh. Well done, Alan. My grandmother liked that show, so I can shamefully admit I've seen more episodes than I care to, and it really was badly written and acted, which makes the fervor of the fans even funnier to me. You gotta love them for totally proving you right.
ReplyDeleteI have never previously posted on this blog, but the whining joke has led me to make that jump: I have quite enjoyed your "so called journalism." I have also enjoyed Burn Notice, which has been some fun summer tv, so thanks for that. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do these whiners know how much their whining makes me want to make fun of them? Probably not...yet.
The fascinating thing is that as vehement as they are there, they haven't made their way here. As for inappropriate analogies to the civil rights movement Sarah Vowell (and Isaac Jaffee!) speak for me.
ReplyDeleteI must wonder, what were they watching before that they seem to never have had a show cancelled on them? It happens. It happens to far better and more highly rated shows than "Moonlight."
ReplyDeleteAnd the Civil Rights movement v. a television show? Really? That takes a special kind of clueless.
You ready to kill two birds with on stone? You replace the guy on CSI with Alex O'Laughlin! And this "serial killer DNA" is actually vampirism!
ReplyDeleteTo hell with being a supernatural private eye. Think of the morality that plays out when he is caught by his team lapping up the blood from a crime scene he is supposed to be analyzing? He can do taste tests to match DNA and sniff out clues that other, human investigators will miss. I think I may have something here...
Also, I like that all posters started more or less like this "Whiners?"
ReplyDeleteThis works extraplusgood if you read it aloud mimicking Jim Mora when he screamed, "Playoffs?!"
That First Andrew sounds like the best solution to a most egregious situation. I would love to see how CBS tries to promote the vampire forensic investigator.
ReplyDeleteLooks like they massed over here before flocking to nj.com.
ReplyDelete"Vampire Solidarity. Rah Rah Rah."
How about Michael C Hall to play the new CSI guy. I know he is currently in some show, but I can see him stretching to play this character:)
ReplyDeleteHaving skipped Moonlight because it was universally panned at the start and had a zillion pilots...it really wasn't good, right? Wait...Jason Dohring was on it? That explains the outcry. I wonder if VM/Moonlight fans followed him to Xenu worship.
ReplyDeleteBravo to Alan for some epic trolling.
Well, what they lack in logic they make up for in sanctimony. I give them that.
ReplyDeletewow, I can't even get thru all the comments *here*!
ReplyDeleteyour point about how hard it is to sin up is no joke - I'm still waiting for the confirmation email.
I really just wanted to ask - when did Les Moonves stop being The Target at CBS? Then again, I may be out of touch, cause I finally solved my problem with Les when Veronica Mars was cancelled:
I stopped watching CBS
(also, the WC)
Les alone has screwed me more than any other network head (it's a long list from Mr & Mrs Smith, to the firing of the male lead on the Romantic Comedy! Almost Perfect, to Enterprise (who'd give their eye teeth to have Moonlight's apparent ratings) and Joan of Arcadia (wo did, but the viewers were "too old")
Well almost
I do watch HIMYM (and my broher watches Big Bang) but my world won't end if they are cancelled (though I will curse Les at least once just for fun) - unless they can HIMYM on a cliffhanger.
I recorded 8 eps of Moonlight before I gave up and dumped them when in need of disc space.
My biggest annoyance is that Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies were picked up - since now I'll have to watch them. If they'd been canned, I could have dumped them with abandon (as it is, i don't want to watch them twice, hence i'm still waiting for the brother to be here to see them)
Glad Notes from the Underbelly is gone - I didn't even get half of season 1 and i like to watch things straight through.Now I don't need to worry.
Oddly, the cancellation I most remember mourning (once I finally learned of it)? The Singing Bee.
I don't like games (save Jeopardy) or reality, but that one was a lot of fun (it was quick, and it had new games all the time) - much moreso than the Wayne Brady Millionaire Rip-off Drawn Out Angst Fest (which I'll watch anyway cause I love to sing - and no, I don't watch American Idol)
I agree - one Moonlight fan caught your column and passed on the news to her compatriots. That's the way it works in my fandom at least (Scott Bakula)
(I only read the column due to your comment about the comments)
time to check for that confirmation again.
Bill Pullman should replace Petersen. He's nicely off-kilter, and if anyone accidentally called him "Bill" it wouldn't be a problem the way it would with, say, Lawrence Fishburne.
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry that the Leeserites have attacked you!
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a small but growing number of SANE Moonlight fans who have left the deluded lunatics behind and moved on.
Not all of us are overweight menopausal psychos watching with our cats....LMAO
They have gotten UNBELIEVABLE at a couple of sites!
Any fans out there that want refuge from the storm?
JOIN US!
http://thebluewhalepub.com