Mass Media 101

So they canceled John from Cincinnati.

I'm going on hiatus. First because my semester is starting and I switched majors. Second it is because TV has no faith in TV.

Sure shows like Dead Like Me and Futurama get canceled and brought back on DVD. Other like Jericho and Family Guy come back on TV but most just disappear.

Radio killed vaudeville then TV came along.
The first television transmission was in 1925. During 1948-1952 there was a TV freeze and cable was born. The freeze was to set the frequencies and distance for each station.
VHF=very high frequency channels 2-13
UHF=ultra-high frequency channels 14-83 then reduced to 14-69

The Golden Age of Television
Happened in the 1950s with soldier returning from WWII and Korea with big paychecks and cheap televisions. In 1953 an affordable color TV set hit the American market.
Shows became cheaper to make thanks to "plugs" and other in show marketing.
Greats like The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Meet The Press, and the Today Show first were born along with quiz show and variety hours. Movie were introduced to the small screen thanks to Disney.

Then came the decline
Ratings were introduced in 1961 and a system of cost-per-viewer dominated. Then a backlash against New York and east coast taste caused the industry to move to the west.
All that was left in New York were soaps, those to eventually went. This is why the only soaps I can stomach are As the World Turns and All My Children since they are still filmed in NYC. Shows like General Hospital, Seinfeld, and countless others know that there success lies in being set in the east but they don't film here, the true heartland of America.

TV killed radio dramas and took a chunk out of the movies. The film industry hit a peak in 1946 but TV killed that quickly after the freeze was lifted.

The Turning Point
Not even the internet could stop TV. The internet is for amateurs and most people are dumb. TV has gatekeepers for a reason they filter out the crazies. Online is full of haters, deniers, and straight up thieves. The few decent people get over run by the former.

If I want to learn about elephants and how they came into existence the only place to turn is a TV documentary. Online a person who believes in the Creation Myth will only read sites that supports their view using some facts that are taken out of context. A real researcher will only find partially written articles or over priced journals.

The internet is still fun & entertaining as I tried to keep all my sites but there are others like TMZ who publish five lies and one truth and are praised for it. Now these sites are affecting TV more to the point the viewers. Every viewer wants his version of Lost or his ending of The Sopranos ignoring the creators.

What does the writer do?
He leaves an open end to appease idiots. Or in the case of Lost he tries to lose all the die-hard fans to get back to his original idea hoping to shut up the crowd.
This is not a test audience that networks now deal with, it is every audience member.

I kind of hope TV does fade away, I know it won't. It should be abandoned by the mainstream and for a few years real fans and viewers get to watch shows that have a beginning, middle, and end. No matter how low the ratings. I still have one radio station in NYC that plays radio dramas and they're great.



P.S. I'll right about once a month or if anything good happens. I still have shows to watch and maybe something else. Something to do rather than complain.

A Little Seasoning

John from Cincinnati: His Visit: Day Nine
Shaun is back,
Zippy is back,
John is back,
My headache is back and nothing else is resolved.

The entire Yost clan is surfing together even the grandpa if they can keep him from floating away.
This is the last episode of the season and maybe the last episode forever.
Kyle XY: House of Cards
Tom Foss sacrifices himself for Kyle and iy turns out that the precious ring he wanted was not the one that was pawned. Madacorp's CEO still is not the guy pulling all the strings.

Californication: Pilot
Hank Moody is a lecherous divorced dad who gets all the women he wants. He is also a writer who hates the movie made from his book.

The show is pretty basic the try to make the Moody daughter standout but she is still bland in her rebellion. Mia a 16 year old who tricked Hank into sex is a bit interesting.

Master of whaaa

Master of Science Fiction: The Awakening
Finally got to see this show, although I missed the first episode.

It is like the Outer Limits except happier. Here is what I got from this episode.
The guy from Lost was playing Jack O'Neil from Stargate and he helped relay a message from angel-aliens about being peaceful while they threatened to blow up the Earth.

Did I miss something?

.

Memories

Kyle XY: Ghost in the Machine
The kids take a Scooby trip to the XX/XY factory. Of course they quickly get into trouble. The older ones are trapped underground. The two younglings are exploring their emotions.

Kyle discovers he was Zyzyx's CPU and has a whole bunch of secret memories and he also finds a mystery box from Adam. Andy confesses to Josh she has cancer, which was obvious since she was first introduced. It also turns out that Foss is not all bad.

John from Cincinnati: His Visit: Day Eight
Shaun is gone.
John is gone.
Signs are everywhere, answers are nowhere.

Fallen Finale

Fallen: Someone Always Has to Die
The rogue angel Azazel turns out to be a bigger threat than The Redeemer. Aaron learns he can send anyone to heaven even sinners.

Fallen: Il Gran Rifiuto
We found out that Lucifer is Aaron's daddy. He seemed pleasant and wants redemption. Guess what, Lucifer lied he is not a nice guy. Lucifer has one Hell of a pad, literally. Apparently hell is a choice for everyone except Lucifer. He tries to convince Aaron to redeem him but Aaron refuses.

After fighting his daddy Aaron sends him to hell, I mean deeper into hell. The Fallen agreed to stop the killing and Aaron can finally go home.

Overall not bad but a bit slow. It lacked the heart the original movie had.

Fallen but not Forgotten

Fallen: The Time of the Redeemer
When we last left Aaron Corbett he was running from angels and struggle to accept his role as The Redeemer, a nephilim who can forgive any sin from any being.

He's still running a year later and he has become an expert in Redeeming. He has magic tattoos all over his body each one for an angel he Redeemed. The problem is that he's misses his old life and repressed so much that when he does blow he freaks normal people out.

Fallen: Mysterious Ways & All That
Aaron meets a creepy professor that tells him The Redeemer may be evil. Professor then shows him another nephilim he is holding hostage. It turns out the girl-nephilim is Vilma Rodriguez the pretty girl from the original movie. Her family was hunted down and was tricked by the prof., who is part of a secret group.

Know free Vilma, Aaron, and recently paroled angel are off to see the Light-Bringer.

Oh yes Gabriel the talking dog is back, he's my favorite.

Image property of ABC Family.

Science and Fiction

Kyle XY: What's the Frequency, Kyle?
Another one of those family bonding episodes I enjoy so much. Kyle and Amanda finally kiss, don't worry no sparks or explosions.
We Mr. Trager's father although he was in a coma and died. Coma Trager still manged to send Kyle some ESP pictures that helped reconcile the overly religious man with his "science" son.

I personally don't see a conflict with God and science as the last two Popes agreed that evolution and man's scientific theories are real. Oh well crazy zealots always exist.

Jessi is an unfeeling woman hater. She jumped Lori.

Nova: NOVA|science NOW
This is a spin-off of the great PBS show Nova hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately this was the last of five episodes I should have blogged about it sooner. Every episode has three or four quick science stories.

This episode talked about the causes of the other five mass extinctions in Earth's history. It was in part due to a great volcano that released CO2 in massive numbers. It is more complicated and not as clear cut but the show does explain it well.

The other segments included creepy robots, the 1918 Flu, and recovering papyrus notes.
The flu segment was particularly well done showing in a cartoon how a virus has certain "keys" to unlock our cells and a second set of keys to leave the cell. Each virus has different keys and the ones for the Bird Flu are kind of limited, while the one for the 1918 Flu worked great. If the Bird Flu would mutate and gain a new set of keys we are doomed.

The papyrus stuff was nice they used cameras and filters to uncover a certain bible passage about Christ that is the oldest ever known.

Wide Angle: Dishing Democracy
Impressed by the Nova episode I watched this show and it was also great. A story about the Arab version of The View. Four women from different backgrounds talking about hot issues. The most interesting woman was the lady who wore the scarf and is a Saudi. She knows that 15 of the 19 terrorist on 9/11 were Saudi and all 19 were well to do(richer than the average man). She hates to see in the news that only the poor are terrorist and wonders if poverty was not the problem could it be religion. Of Course.

In Saudia Arabia women can't vote, leave the house unscarved, and 95% of them don't work. Yet the men are still so angry the blow up things.

Shaq's Big Challenge: The final fitness test
All the kids did okay with the guys doing slightly better than the girls with one good exception.

Chris B. this 11 year old lost 77 pounds and went from round to strong. He made a dramatic change, I believe with his family's help he changed his eating habits from traditional foods to equally tasty healthy food, he is from a Cuban background and his mom learned to cook healthier but with the same Cuban flavor.

"Science is a fluid thing, it's not set in concrete,"
said Charles Haas on a recent news story about a re-identified Titanic passenger.