NBC the 5th Network

At least for the February sweeps NBC is in 5th place behind CBS, ABC, Fox, and Univision. Sweeps is a period of time that the networks showcases their best episodes in order to promote the advertisers.

Let's see how many shows I watch on NBC.

• Law & Order: SVU
• Parenthood

That's it. Worst part is these two shows were not on during sweeps or conflicted with other better shows on my preferred networks. 

Let me break down my primetime viewing habits by day.

I = 30 min.	CBS	ABC	FOX	NBC	SyFy	WB	TBS	AMC	HBO	SHO
Monday	III		IIII		IIIIII
Tuesday		IIII	II	II			I
Wednesday		II		II		II
Thursday	IIII
Friday									II
Saturday									IIII	IIII
Sunday		IIII	I					II	II	IIIIII
TOTAL	3.5 HRS	5 HRS	3.5 HRS	2 HRS	3 HRS	1 HR	0.5 HRS	1 HR	4 HRS	3.5 HRS

As for Univision I never watch it unless I am channel surfing looking for nothing.

This is not all if I expand it past primetime I would add several more hours to ABC for the news and various shows. Add a few more hours for FOX and CBS because of football and baseball seasons. Other regular channel like TNT, CineMax, FX, and a few other only makes NBC seem less relevant.

My suggestion is to stop all the reality crap like Trump's show and all the singing competitions. Refocus on sitcoms like Community and stop halting shows mid-season.

Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together Benefit

The benefit to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Most of the coverage on the news is a mix of destruction and the whiners. Yes I know I am suppose to be nice but trust I live in the middle of the city and most people even in the bad areas are fine. The whining is tremendous as the free cheese lines grows and the cell phones are not fully charged.

Still there are plenty who did suffer and died and hopefully this money goes to them and their families before the fat whiners and scammers cut to the front of the line.

First up Christina Aguilera and she was good and depressing as was Jon Bon Jovi. Billy Joel was political as usual.

Jimmy Fallon took lead in a band with Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Steven Tyler, and more. Unfortunately half the performance was not audible because of faulty microphones.

In between songs they showed  little news snippets and clips showing the destruction.

Aerosmith played.

Whoopi Goldberg introduced sting even though she had mic issues, her face when they handed her the second mike was priceless.

Damn Coldplay with sharp images makes an instant tearjerker.

Mary J. Blige was up next with her drama.

Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band ended the night.

I leave everyone with the message that if the weather people give you 10 days warning you should not wait until after the event to prepare.

Partial Monday Season Premiere 2012

Bones: The Future In The Past
I have to admit I have not all of last season because it is against CBS shows. Apparently last season some genius killer setup Bones and so she ran with the baby. Of course they solve the murder and prove Bones is innocent but it did take three months.

Warehouse 13: Second Chances
The overall storyline of bringing back the bad timeline continues. The show is getting funnier but for secret service agents they are hardly professionals.


Revolution: Pilot
Electricity suddenly stops working and one family knew it was about to happen. 15 years later the world has plunged into chaos with everyone turning into gangs of thugs and pilgrims barely surviving. 

As an engineer I know this is utterly ridiculous. Old New York City, Old Chicago and currently half of the world lives without electricity. Wait not only do they live without an modern appliances but they thrive. Add to that that every scientist and engineer would just make things that didn't need electricity. Wind and water could still turn things and make grain. Clocks work with gears and so can many other things. Light, sound, and wave technology would thrive in the absence of electricity and little in modern life would change.

Famine, plagues, and other disaster would be easily handled and this future could never happen. Katrina was a large event and after a few days of partial lawlessness everything calmed down, 95% of the people did not act like idiots. After 9/11 and the east coast blackout in NYC no one rioted went crazy or anything close to that. I guess people are less like animals than the media portrays.

So back to show. The family that knows too much is being hunted by the new Monroe government and people need to be rescued and answers must be found. Nothing original and the end shows someone using a Dharma like computer. Expect little answer and a quick cancellation if this logic continues to fail.

NBS

Someone said it better than me.

CNBC

Channel #24,
Is CNBC a clone of MSNBC or vice versa? I think CNBC is older and does more stock talk. Lots of speculating goes on with Jim Cramer and others. Maria Bartiromo does the closing bell talk and translates for the common person. Still half the schedule is paid programming, some are financial but most are for ab-crunchers or instant face lifts.

Image via Wikipedia

All that aside the station should be called Suze Orman's NBC because she is what all the other shows are scheduled around. The Suze Orman Show is a call in show where people get advice with their financial situations. Most of it is very specific and during better financial times it was mostly about moving your fortunes around to increase your wealth. Lately it is all about how not to eat cat food when you retire.
Her best segment is "Can You Afford It?" where with little judgment you tell her what you want to buy and she looks at your income and savings and yells a response.

When nothing else is on and I'm home on the weekend this is a great show to watch.

MSNBC

At this point we depart the broadcast channels, forever as they really no longer exist as of June 13, 2009.

Family cable starts here and continues for another sixty nine channels. When I restarted my cable viewing in 1996/1997 it was a wonderful world of independent movies, rare documentaries, and premium movies. All the stations were striving for excellence in their given genre.

That has drastically changed for the reality TV and pundit political worse.

Channel #23
MSNBC was never that watchable but at least it was respectful. It once showed stock prices and everything related to wall street until low ratings forced them to hire anchors with opinions.

Watching last night's Rachel Maddow Show was frightening as I thought the lady had gone crazy on air. She does the whole FOX repetitive talk, a technique to reinforce a point that may or may not be valid by saying it repeatedly making it seem valid, and then showed clips out of context.

I enjoy their criminal and prison profiles like Lockup. The general consensus for prison is that the place is not at all enjoyable.

WNBC

Channel #4 on the box
The hippest of all the broadcast stations it has had the best line-up for years. The Thursday night schedule was legendary with The Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld, ER, and many others. The channel was never scared to experiment. They have done 3-D episodes (3rd Rock from the Sun), bi-coastal live shows (ER, Will & Grace), and extended episodes from the 23/30 or 46/60 minute format to whatever time was needed. They also have Saturday Night Live, make mini-series and are willing to put on shows from their other holdings (Battlestar Galactica) if popular.

History
Started on radio in 1928.
Experimental nature started with a low non-TV-tube compatible signal.
Became the first commercially operated station, running ads during broadcast.
This is the flagship station for NBC.

Highlights
Great shows...once - I can't deny watching this channel more than any other but there are changes coming.

News - Sue Simmons has been an anchor since 1980 and is one of my favorites. She is honest, funny, personal, and severely asthmatic. It is shame she will be remembered by one little mistake after she let the expletives fly over the air. She did apologize a few minutes later.
Still this is solid news and worth watching although they tease stories a bit.

Full Schedule - Meaning they give morning shows, news, soap operas, talk shows, dramas, comedies, sports, movies, game shows, and special event programs.

Filming - Thanks to all the Law & Orders and many other NY based shows they are constantly filming in or around the city. It's virtually impossible not to see an NBC TV production live during the year. They are so common that you can meet the actors without getting attitude or a crowd forming.

Lowlights
Run on Emotions - This is more of a Corporate NBC issue. Someone liked Seinfeld and it wasn't canceled but many other shows despite the same low ratings are booted off the air for little to no reason.
Recently they replaced an episode of My Name is Earl with a cartoon. Why? All I know is that now Earl has been canceled. I will admit recently I stopped watching and missed about 4 episodes but the ratings are not that bad to just give up.

Leno at 10pm - They announced the end of 10pm dramas and will fill the time slot with Jay Leno's new talk show. Experimental yes, appealing no.

Advertising
Full logo pop-up and expansion. Just 10 years ago I could record a show on tape and keep it forever since the broadcast was clear and uninterrupted. I did this often for series finale because back then they did not sell TV shows. Now in what I can only guess is a way to force fans to buy the DVDs they completely ruin episodes.
During the ER series finale at an emotional and touching scene they took up 1/4 of the screen to announce that next week at the same time is the series premiere of Southland. That was enough to make it that I never watch Southland and stop archiving.
The commercials are all national spots with nothing remarkable.
In show ads are horrendous. Again with My Name is Earl and several other show they forced "green living" on us. The episodes taught lessons on environmental friendliness that was sickening and badly done. Many times your watching some NBC show and can't help but yell out "commercial".

The End is Nigh

ER: And In The End...
A hour long clip show featuring only the fake doctors talking and none of the fake nurses which seemed wrong. Still there were some great memories and touching scenes.


The episode was a regular stint at the ER with mothers in peril and ignorant kids who party too hard. Many of the the original cast came back and they were all awkward. The only shining star of the night was Alexis Bledel as the never before seen Dr. Wise. She was scared and did not act as if she was so cool that all the misery around her was just background for her own drama.

John Stamos played George Clooney, Scott Grimes played Anthony Edwards, Linda Cardellini played Julianna Margulies, as a homage to Michael Crichton. They showed Dr. Green's daughter all grown up and ready to join the ER and probably tragically die or get viciously assaulted, but that is for an unseen future.

All in all it wrapped up nicely, no grand explosions or nuclear bombs.

Life on Mars(US): Life is a Rock
I saw the first episode and new this would end bad. No surprise as it did. American network producers, writers, and execs always do things out of fear. They never take a real chance because they may offend someone. This is a trend since All in the Family transformed into Archie Bunker's Place.
Back to the ending it turns out the entire show was a lie. The year is 2035 and the main characters have just spent years in stasis with a Dollhouse type program running in their heads. Sam chose to be a cop in NYC in 2008 but a glitch threw the time off by 25 years. Once they woke up they ignored their dreams and stepped onto the Martian soil.

Seeing the UK version with its great ending I can't help but be disappointed that the US took the title literally. In Life on Mars(UK) he woke up from a coma and realized his coma world is better than the real world and decides to jump off the roof to go back. Suicide may be a downer but it fit perfectly.

Windfall

Windfall: The Myth of More
Zoë is found and killed. Everyone else is sleeping around or least trying to. Aside from that it is going pretty much like a soap opera, a bad one.


Back in real life it's been over 100 for awhile here but it is not that bad. The low humidity makes it liveable.

Monday's Back

Surface: Episode 11
Rich and Laura are out of the water and getting swamped by reporters on the way to the hospital. The duo is trying to outrun the bad guys and at the same time distribute the videotape of the sea monsters. With help from a tech guy they upload the video to the internet and then get an interview with MSNBC.
Laura appears on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Olbermann makes fun of her story and video but the internet freaks are downloading the vid like crazy.
Along with the MSNBC tie-in the duo went crazy when they see McDonald's.
At the hotel Rich and Laura are about to be caught by some men lurking outside the door.

Meanwhile Miles is all better and goes to see Nimrod and brings the creature back to life. The aquarium brings in an all-star egghead team to study Nim. Miles gets blocked out and turns to a little hot troublemaker who turns out to be the lead egghead's daughter.
The daughter gets Miles to break some rules and gets fired. Miles walks away upset and starts causing electrical problems.

In the previews we see Miles transforming into the creature and the animals being found out to be artificial.

Jackson is still missing.

Las Vegas: Bait and Switch
50 diamonds are lost during a rap video shoot and they get recovered in some nasty place.
Hot Chocolate is a male stripper turning everybody on.
And the guy from Enterprise is cheating at craps.

Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Gauntlet II
Again someone quits, the hot one Gisela. Mostly crap episode.

From last week Primetime: 2005 Caught On Tape
One thing I like about New York is that we don't have our shows interrupted by police chases and airport mishaps.
The rest of the country especially L.A. sees these go-nowhere chases. Luckily in New York we don't have this or cameras in court rooms, I hate Court TV.

Monday Shows

Arrested Development: The Ocean Walker
Michael is getting married to Rita and doesn't realize she is both rich and retarted. His son tells him and everything becomes clear. The wedding is canceled and once again Michael is alone. This was a dang funny episode especially when the show a picture of Rita before her plastic surgery, it was a picture from Monster.

Kitchen Confidential: French Fight
A funny episode where the chefs start a fight with another restaurant that gets way out of hand.

Las Vegas: Down and Dirty
After the most ridiculous death of Lara Flynn Boyle the hotel is under Dean Cain's control. Their is a porn convention and a TV poker match that is being fixed. It's a funny episode which always goes better then their serious episodes.

Realworld/Road Rules Gauntlet II
One of the few "reality" shows I still watch. This season has veterans from the competitions battling rookies with one or less competitions. The best part of this show is all the sleeping around and fighting. Apparently that made Jo from Real World:SF upset and she called the Trinidad & Tobago police for back up. She seems slightly troubled like a kidnapping victim.