Monday, May 04, 2009

Reader mail: Bubble shows and desert island discs

It's another reader mailbag column today, dealing largely with people worrying about whether one show or another might come back next season.

And speaking of which, NBC's "infront" schedule announcement is this afternoon. As I'm writing this note, I've been hearing conflicting things about "Chuck," from the idea that its fate (along with several other bubble shows) might not be determined for another week or two, to Nikki Finke claiming that "Chuck" (and "Medium," and "Law & Order") has already been picked up (and others pointing out just how vague Nikki's report was).

I doubt I'm going to know anything concrete until the infront, which is running between 1:30 and 3 -- and it is entirely possible that, as Josh Schwartz told the "Chuck" cast and crew over the weekend, a decision might not be made for a few weeks. This seems like one of those occasions that Twitter was made for, so keep uploading my Twitter feed and I'll have any of the bare bones up there, followed by a full column an hour or two later.

One other minor cosmetic note: I finally upgraded to the "new" Blogger template, which provides some added functionality for both me and for you -- most notably, on your end, that the archives go back more than a single page, so if you click on a show tag, you'll get to see more than the most recent 20 posts or so with that tag -- but which hopefully shouldn't change the appearance much, if at all. Let me know if you spot any obvious bugs. (Or, if you want to recommend a gadget or 12, feel free.)

18 comments:

  1. Fingers crossed for Chuck. The site looks good!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know about a solar powered tv/dvd combo, but I just recently got back from a trip to Europe, and my videophone with a solar battery charger(Six dollars shipped from Hong Kong) kept me up to date on "30 Rock" and "Chuck" episodes on those 12 hour train journeys.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice on new Blogger template. Being able to go back further in the archives is huge.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Obviously, the waterproof and solar-powered TV/DVD player is made out of coconuts. True story.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Midnight Run, huh? I have to say, I LOVED that movie as well...first time I realized that DeNiro could be funny, and Charles Grodin was brilliant -- I loved the scene when DeNiro is on the pay phone with Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina) saying he's going to kill Mardukas. Grodin's face was priceless and Deniro just silently shakes his head at him. LOL. And when my husband is trying to avoid answering a question, he usually says, "Why are you so unpopular with the Chicago police department?"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love for Kavalier and Clay. I'm want to reread my favorite books but that one is a particular favorite.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was just wondering how to go further back in the archves, but assumed it was me being incompetant!

    Any chance of adding an RSS feed button (not just the atom thing at the bottom) so we can add you to yahoo, igoogle etc? Hopefully you don't already have one, or I'll feel really stupid.

    And I really hope Chuck does get picked up - the last 2 eps were brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  8. There used to be a link to TV Tattle for quick snippets of news ... it seems to have vanished. Was that purposeful or has technology started to rise up and next I'll be seeing head!people?

    ReplyDelete
  9. So how many episodes until "Day One" is canceled or unceremoniously shuffled off to Saturday night to burn off its episode order? I'll give it three episodes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I, too, appreciate being able to go back farther in the archives, but is there any way to bring back the individual season tags? I'm behind the curve and have been watching season three of The Office and reading your blog afterwards, and I noticed that the individual season tags disappeared, making it considerably trickier to find those recaps. Other than that, I like it!

    ReplyDelete
  11. To clarify, I mean the individual season tags over on the side of the page under "Recommended Reading"; I realize they're still on the original posts.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yea! Now I can access all your Deadwood posts. Saves me from having to send you a "WTF?" email asking for help!

    ReplyDelete
  13. My desert island series? "Lost," of course, if only so I'd know where all the hatches are. (And I'd show the whole thing to Richard Alpert and totally blow his mind.)

    ReplyDelete
  14. To clarify, I mean the individual season tags over on the side of the page under "Recommended Reading"; I realize they're still on the original posts.

    One of the few annoyances I've found so far with the new template is that it doesn't allow me to put more than one link on a line, which means if I listed each season of each show in the Recommended Reading gadget, it'd run on for, like, 50 lines. I preferred listing them by season like that, but I'm not sure how to easily do it at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Any chance of adding an RSS feed button (not just the atom thing at the bottom) so we can add you to yahoo, igoogle etc? Hopefully you don't already have one, or I'll feel really stupid.

    If I knew how to do it, I'd have it. But most RSS readers should easily be able to pick up my feed if you just punch in the main URL. Google Reader does that for me for tons of blogs that don't have an obvious RSS or XML button.

    ReplyDelete
  16. One of the few annoyances I've found so far with the new template is that it doesn't allow me to put more than one link on a line, which means if I listed each season of each show in the Recommended Reading gadget, it'd run on for, like, 50 lines. I preferred listing them by season like that, but I'm not sure how to easily do it at the moment.Gotcha. It's really only a minor annoyance, and it's definitely preferable to having 50 lines of links!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I clicked on the Chuck tag and it does seem to go all the way to the beginning, as long as you notice "older" at the bottom ;-)

    so, no probs so far

    Chuck Trivia got me to rewatch the first 2 eps, but their questions - they had their fingers on pause and were taking notes. Plus, my computer is apparenntly too slow.

    I'm going to either watch House or eat or both.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Alan, I just noticed that your Season 4 of "The Wire" link on the front page doesn't seem to lead to anything (I just get a message saying no posts match that query).

    ReplyDelete