It almost seems as if the new fall television season hasn't started. There's just so little new material to interest me, and even many of the existing shows I've been watching don't seem to appeal to me. I tried to watch Flash Forward but lost interest after the first five minutes. I did watch the pilot of Eastwick but doubt I'll watch any more episodes; there's just too much male-bashing going on.

There's still one or two shows I've yet to see, but the following is based upon what I expect to be my current fall viewing schedule. I'm leaving out Jay Leno only because I'm likely to watch it off and on, catching it when it's convient as I did when he was on the Tonight Show. I watched the current Tonight Show over the summer but I'm more likely to watch instead. Pretty much all the shows I watch are recorded first.

Monday

8pm Heroes

9pm Trauma

I can't say if I'll stick with Heroes. I watched the pilot and it wasn't that bad. And considering there's no competition at that time I'll likely keep watching it. And there appears to be only 13 episodes this year, so it's not going to be a full year commitment.

I've yet to watch Trauma which premieres tonight. It's one of the few new shows I've any interest in. I'm hoping it's going to be like a modern Emergency, although I don't expect anywhere near the amount of action the previews make it out to have. And I'm not interested in medical dramas right now, so I might not watch past the pilot.

Tuesday

8pm NCIS

9pm NCIS:LA

NCIS:LA may be the only new show I watch. While it's not as strong as NCIS, it's not unwatchable either. And NCIS has been starting to slip in the writing lately, but it's still a strong show. It's uncertain as to whether Ziva will return to the team (after the season premiere), although I wouldn't mind a new face. The whole Ziva/Tony thing is getting tired.

Wednesday

8pm Bones

Wednesday seems to be the lightest night of the week so far. Bones is airing on a Canadian station a day earlier than the US so I'll likely watch it then.

Thursday

(8pm Bones – if I miss it on Wednesday)

9pm Supernaturual

9pm Fringe

10pm The Mentalist

Supernatural and Fringe are both airing at the same time, so I'll likely do some time shifting or tape one off-air. Although I've yet to watch last week's episode of Supernatural so there's still a chance I'll drop it. I wasn't too keen on it after last year, although that might partially have been because I was watching so much. This year is much lighter so I might have the time for it.

Friday

8pm Smallville

Like Supernatural I was going to drop it, although with it switched to Fridays there's nothing to really interfere. Although like Supernatural, I've still yet to watch last week's episode which was the pilot. And I tend to watch a lot of recorded stuff on Fridays so I wouldn't miss it.

Last year was initally suppose to be it's last year. And when last season ended this year was suppose to be it's last year. But now they are saying that it might not be. It's appearent that they're just going to run it into the ground. If it really was it's last year I would have cause to watch, but otherwise no. What I might do is to skip it and if it does turn out to be it's last year I catch up over the summer.

I'm not listing Saturday and Sunday because I tend to watch a lot of recorded stuff then, like movies and stuff I may have downloaded. I also spent the summer catching up with Legend of the Seeker, so I might get back into watching that show when they air new episodes.

So that gives me about 9 or 10 shows to watch this year, which is about half of what I tried to follow last year. And of those, four of them I'm likely to drop. Fortunately, I've got a lot of recorded stuff to catch up on or watch again.

With the exception of The Mentalist and whatever Leno episodes I catch at 10pm, prime time this year seems to be only two hours long. I lost interest in medical shows after ER went downhill and with the two NCIS, Bones and The Mentalist I don't need any more cop shows. Even Fringe is something of a cop show.

At least one of the shows I would be watching, Chuck, won't be starting until after Christmas. By then Heroes should be finished. There was also another new show this season that won't be starting until then, although I can't say whether I'll watch it until I see it. I'm also able to get RTN off-air at times and there's a few older shows on it I find interesting. Although I have seen practically all of them, even if it was years ago.

Overall, I don't expect to be spending any less time watching things, although I expect I'll be watching much more video than TV. I do have at least one show each night to watch. And I am managing to catch up on stuff I expected to watch over the summer but I still have a large backlog. There's been a lot of movies that have come out in the past couple years I've yet to see. And with a new computer I now want to spend time tranferring video tapes I've bought and stuff I've taped over into a digital format. So I doubt I'll be bored.

I've been meaning to get more postings done but I've been too busy with other things lately.

A few things I wanted to cover:
I've switched my main page to http://writerpatrick.webs.com now because Geocities is shutting down. I'm not going to bother recreating the other Geocities pages I had, however most of the videos I had up can now be found on YouTube under Writerpatrick. I'm also not bothering to recreate the list of Saturday Morning TV show previews because someone has already created a Wikipedia entry for it (some time after I had created mine, although Wikipedia didn't exist when I created mine). I may try to do one for Prime Time Previews, or at least re-post that, although I've not had the time to update it lately and there just doesn't seem to be much interest in it. I am going to try to repost the pumpkin pictures, although most should be available throughout this blog. The images shown on the blog are only a partial list, but I might update them with the rest.

If you haven't noticed, I've been producing two podcasts, Podcast Ping found at http://podcastping.blogspot.com and The Blue Hot Gossip podcast at http://bluehotgossip.blogspot.com. I initially was going to do just a gossip column, but I'm more into the comedy shows at the moment. I'm developing a series of specials for Podcast Ping called the 13 Days of Halloween which I'll start releasing on October 19th. I'm also planning to do a Christmas Calendar for Podcast Ping running from December 1st to the 25th. Although it will depend upon how well the Halloween specials do. As for Blue Hot Gossip, I just released an episode today and will have one out in October before the Podcast Ping specials. I may do one more this year, if I find the time. I haven't done nearly as many episodes this year as last, although if I do Christmas as well as Halloween that should raise the count. And since I'm trending towards specials for Podcast Ping, I'm inclided to drop the episode count.

I've started a toy store at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com. And I'm developing a new toy for it that I'll be promoting in October. This will help me determine the effectiveness of the podcasts and may influence my decision as to the future of the podcasts. While I'm not doing the podcasts just to sell stuff, their ability to sell helps me to justify the work they require.

The Torrentcast, in particularly Mininova's Content Distribution, has been the best distribution tool by far. Unfortunately, since many torrent sites take from others it's impossible to know exactly how many downloads a show may get. But I can say that there has been over 365,000 downloads just from Mininova (plus about 20,000 from before Content Distribution started). I've only been able to find the numbers for one other site, and they don't appear to be counting the same downloads. That site runs over 350,000, meaning that I've probably had somewhere around three quarters of a million downloads in total. And there may be many more I don't know about. I could have even passed a million, although I'm only counting the ones I can find listed. I do plan on posting until I reach at least the million mark, provided it's feasable. Right now I'm seeing about a thousand downloads a day, with many shows exceeding 5,000 downloads. One posting appears to have over 20,000 total downloads.

This weekend having been the Victoria Day weekend, I went out last night to watch some fireworks. I don't find them as interesting as I use to, but somehow I don't feel like it's a holiday unless I see a few. There's a park nearby where people will often bring their fireworks to set them off, so it's possible to catch a few small shows for free.

I was also able to finish my latest book-length manuscript last week and sent a query to an agent for it. I'm always quiet about my unpublished works, but I feel that this one fits well with the mainstream market. 

 

Most people are aware that this is the week of season and series finales. But few people realize this is also the week when the networks announce their new shows. Since the shows are still being announced, I'll hold off comments on them until later, but I did want to mention a few things about the finales.

Last night I watched the Smallville season finale and thought, "Why can't every episode be this good?" Most Smallville episodes are just watchable and formulaic: new villian with super powers appears and Clark defeats them. This episode moved him closer to becoming Superman. I also understand that we'll get to see the Fortress of Solitude next season. This should make the character less innocent and more knowledgeable.

Four of the shows that I have been watching this year have had their series finales. One of them is a repeat of an old series, Seaquest DSV, with the final episode airing this Saturday, so it doesn't really count. But I hadn't seen it for some time, and the final three episodes were never shown in my area, so those three are new to me.

The other three shows ending, or have ended, are Andromeda, Star Trek: Enterprise and JAG. I will admit to seeing every episode of Star Trek, but I'm not the convention type. I'm actually glad it's over, although I really wish they had done a new series set in the old time period. To me, that was the best one for stories. The Next Generation period was too advanced, and was as exciting as watching security guards. Enterprise was a refreshing change, although it suffered from the technological conflict arising between the original technology and our current technology.

JAG was one of those shows which I started watching mid-season. I can't say I've seen every episode, but I have watched it steadily. It's surprising that it held up for almost it's entire run. This last season was a little weak, mainly because there wasn't enough Harm. I'm just glad they realized that without him there's no show. And as for the coin toss, I would say it was heads, since that's what was shown as the last shot. (If the spinoff JAG:San Diego had been made, then it would have to have been tails.)

Andromeda is one of those shows I've been half interested in, although I've seen every episode (though not all in order). I've mostly watched it because it was on during times that made it convient. This final season was a good one because they really had an overall storyline. But I was leaning towards dropping it, so I'm glad they won't be making any more.

Now I just have to figure out what to watch during the summer.

 

Many people are not aware of the planned death date for free television. The date is January 1st, 2007. That is when the FCC (in the US) plans to eliminate all off-air television. I don't know what it is in Canada, but it's likely to follow shortly afterwards.

Now most people aren't using off-air signals--the ones you get with your TV antennae--but they are useful. I use a dish system for most of my TV viewing, but that system doesn't allow me to watch one item and tape (or record) another. That's where the antennae comes in. It's a useful secondary reciever so I can use it to tape conflicting shows, if the show is available locally. While many shows are broadcast more than once, even during the day, they may often be run only one other time so that if there are two conflicts, it can get messy.

The TV antennae is also useful for recieving a local channel which isn't available on the dish system (at least not yet). And even with the system, there are many local versions of national US broadcasters which I couldn't get from dish.

My antennae system isn't elaborate, but it works. It's simply a good pair of rabbit ears and ring with a couple of dials. I connect the lines from that into a signal booster, then run it into an old VCR. This allows me to flip through the channels and to tape anything I can pull in. Reception varies greatly, mostly due to weather conditions, but on a good day I can get about 20 channels. Unfortunately over the past decade reception has gotten worse, especially for anything in the VHF range.

What concerns me is that, aside from missing programs because of conflicts, is that without "free TV" to compete with, TV providers will have the freedom to raise prices and set them as high as they want. It's already bad enough having to pay for each channel, but with all the garbage from logos and heavy advertising, television producers seem more interested in selling DVDs than in producing TV shows. It could get to the point where every show is PPV--and that's with the commercials.

 

 

MPIX (one of The Movie Channel channels) is running the "Airport" movies, with the first one on tonight. I like "Airport", and have watched it to the point of wearing out my copy, so it's nice to get the chance to take it again. I can't afford the DVD right now, but it doesn't appear to have any extras other than the movie, so it's not really worth spending the money on.

Unlike it's sequels, it is much closer to reality, despite the bomb, which is why it is so interesting. The second film had a small plane taking out the cockpit, which would should have brought the plane down. The third film had a plane hitting the water, which should have torn it apart. And the forth plane should have spit in two and crashed.

Furthermore, the first film was the only one to truely reflect it's title. "Airport" was about events at an airport, while the others concentrated on the planes themselves. It's also based upon a novel, which explains why the story is better developed.

 I also liked the "Airplane" movies, although the first was much better than the second, which repeats many of the used-up jokes of the first film. There's a heavily edited version which runs frequently on broadcast TV, but that version cuts out some of the funniest but racier jokes. If you get the chance to see it, it's better to see the unedited version first. The editing changes the nature of the film significantly and makes a National Lampoon type film (at least as they were back in the '70s) come across as just a bunch of dumb jokes.

 

It strikes me that many on the Internet don't "get it" when it comes to redistributing other people's works. Maybe this example could explain it:

Let's say you're suppose to work Monday to Friday. You work hard Monday to Thursday, then Friday is your easy day. You get paid the same for all days. One Friday you come in and find someone else has done your work for you--work which wouldn't have been possible without the hard work you had done previously. What's worse is that because the work has been done you're paid one day less even though you went through all the work of showing up and putting in some time at work. You would be pretty irritated, wouldn't you?

Not all artists are rich. Many need the work just to cover their necessities. Fame doesn't equal money, and many artists aren't that famous. Even using parts of other people's work ignores the hard work those people did in creating the ideas in the first place. I'm not taking about fanfic or parody, since that is allowed for, but the deliberate "re-purposing" of material not in the public domain.