Bill's TV series news and reviews

CNN pairs with HBO on Pacquiao-Bradley match

2012-05-19T21:50:00.001-07:00

CNN is partnering with HBO to air four previews of a June 9 boxing match (on HBO Pay Per View) between Manny Pacquiao (the Philippines) and Timothy Bradley (CA) from the HBO 24/2 Reality Series, starting Saturday evening, May 19, according to this account on "Boxing Scene", here. The preview episodes focus on the life stories of the competitors,

In the early part of the program, Bradley talked about a Christian background. In a panel discussion toward the end, Manny's coach describes why he took on Bradley.

There is a story on Sports Illustrated of Pacquiao's fighting off allegations of anti-gay remarks, here.

I've always wondered about the glorification of boxing, given the idea that an object is to induce a concussion on your opponent. The NFL is already taking heat on head injuries.

Here's ESN News on the match.

NBC Today Show visits Cannes Film Festival and hosts cast of "Madagascar 3"

2012-05-18T08:24:00.002-07:00

On the NBC Today Show today (hosted y Ann Curry), the crew went to the Cannes Film Festival to present the voice cast of "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted". The film is produced by Dreamworks Animation.

The plot has something to do with crashing a plane and winding up on a circus train trying to get home. The stars say that the message is about "the journey" rather than "the result".

Ben Stiller, Chris Rock (who spoke to a high school assembly with an anti-drug message when I was substitute teaching), and Jada Pinkett Smith appeared. An trailer of the animated film was shown.

Animated film has never been my forte, but I think Lomax is rather cute.

Ann also interviewed a star from "Desperate Housewives", which is ending, about what it's like at Cannes. Ann has been there all week.

Today also honored the memory of Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco ("Last Dance"). Joyce Trabulus (her manager) and friend (songwriter) Evan Bogart appeared. Donna died of a form of lung cancer even though she did not smoke. But she had been exposed to toxins from 9/11.

Revenge almost to the coda

2012-05-17T03:21:00.001-07:00

Well, on the penultimate episode ("Grief") of ABC's "Revenge", Nolan gets the "Clutching Hand" (and a garroting noose) at the very end, as a reward for all his spying. Let the hacking end.

And Declan balls when Jack tells him that the family dog is gone. More backstories unfold.

What's the blowout finale going to be like? Maybe an overtime in Superbowl.

If I got into a time machine, was in my mid 30s and got into the world of this story (back in NYC), I'd be Nolan's "partner". No doubt. Then Tyler would have killed me as a rival and the story would be different. Nolan is tantalizing.

This series really grew on me, and it rather surprised me.

Betty White's "Off Their Rockers"; Lucas and Sami react to Will on DOOL

2012-05-16T18:03:00.001-07:00

Tonight I sampled Betty White's skit assembly, "Off Their Rockers" (NBC site).

Should I be afraid of a 90 year old woman? My own mother was as lively as Betty at 90, and stayed that way until about age 95. She passed away at the end of 2010, just after turning 97.

Remember, Betty White had played Elizabeth in "Life with Elizabeth" in the 1950s. She would shake her head if asked "Aren't you ashamed?" I actually teased a classmate named Betsy over this in fifth grade.

Tonight's two episodes had lots of little outtakes, such as Betty riding a people-mover and slowing down Beverly Hills traffic, or Betty doing an oil change, or the sight of an old man told to keep his eyes to himself, after being caught staring at an attractive male. That sounds like familiar territory, from an episode on jury duty in Dallas in 1986.

Betty says, "don't mess with us old folks".

Today, on "Days of our Lives", Lucas seemed more accepting of Will's announcement to them of being gay than was Sami, who never saw it coming. She was just too much into herself.

Obama appears on "The View": his kids have no media use during the school week

2012-05-15T17:51:00.001-07:00

President Obama appeared on ABC’s “The View” today. Early on, he spoke about his opposition to DOMA. But the most interesting part of the appearance was his discussion of his daughters.

One of the daughters had spoken to him openly about when he is “embarrassed”.

He and Michelle do not allow the daughters to have social media accounts or cell phones alone. That is partly to protect security, he said. He also does not allow them to watch television during the school week or to use a computer at all except for homework.

Another aside: On "Days of our Lives" today, the character Will told his parents (Sami and Lucas), "I'm gay". We didn't see their reaction yet.

ABC Nightline: "High Tech Relationship Wars"

2012-05-15T07:30:00.002-07:00

Terry Moran and Jim Avila reported on personal spying by high tech photography and recording devices in “relationship wars” – that is divorce and custody battles, on ABC Nightline Monday May 14.

In one case, a parent found that a divorced spouse had planted a recording device in a son’s blue jeans.

The legal environment, as the report indicates, is murky. Generally, for example, the law allows photography and recording in public places, and people are becoming more concerned over time as pictures of them appear in social media, tagged by others. That concern has become especially noticeable in the past year or so.

But would it allow bugging of a spouse through a child?

video platform video management video solutions video player

CNN Presents: "Voters in America: Vets Wanted?" examines practical re-employment problems for Guard, Reserves returning from deployments

2012-05-13T18:07:00.003-07:00

“Voters in America: Vets Wanted?” , with J.R. Martinez, is a powerful one-hour documentary that aired on “CNN Presents” Sunday night May 13, 2012. The film seems to be part of the CNN “In America” series. The closest link is here.

I had always thought that military employees’ jobs were protected by law. They are to some extent, but there seem to be many loopholes with Guard and Reserve. In practice, many employers don’t want to hire someone who “admits” to being in the Guard or Reserve for fear of deployments. Also, jobs could have been eliminated because of economic downturn.

And repeated deployments – the so-called “backdoor draft” associated with “stop loss” is a big problem. That observation brings up the question of resuming conscription and "shared sacrifice."

The documentary told the stories of a number of soldiers, including a guardsman “Cameron” in Georgia who supports his mother and two sisters. (No, you don’t have to procreate and have your own children to have a family to support.)

The program showed some military law specialists in a building on Columbia Pike in Arlington VA that I recognize, answering legal questions about job rights.

There were examples of guard members who had well-salaried jobs before deployment forced to work for minimum wage when they came back.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an article on the problem by Mackenzie Carpenter and Molly Born, here.

The Department of Labor has a page on legally driven veteran re-employment rights, as stipulated by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act of 1994 (USERRA, Title 38, Section 43, US Code), link here.

The program demonstrated that vets face under-employment. Many of the skills for which they are certified in the military don’t apply well in many civilian companies.

PBS NewsHour also ran a story on veterans "falling behind" when deployed in November 2011. "If someone took a bullet for me, the least I can do is restore his job."

"Missing" doesn't do much to present the CIA's "ethics"

2012-05-10T20:52:00.002-07:00

I must say, a couple of “moral points” on the ABC show “Missing” have caught my attention (in the most recent episodes, "Answers" and "Promise").

Tonight, one of the CIA officers says (talking about Becca) that the point of intelligence work, at least as the CIA practices it, is to spin webs of deceptions and “true lies”. It’s anti-feminine. A journalist could never go to work for the CIA, I guess. Becca, he says, simply stepped over the line, because no one can see the line.

The week before, young Michael killed a Russian mobster himself while escaping and protecting Oskana. The script makes a lot of the fact that the killing was justifiable because it was in self-defense and Michael and Oskana must survive. Yet, this sounds like situational ethics.

Tonight, an agent says that Oskana was planted in the estate in order to captivate Michael. If the kids keep quiet about their misadventure, they’ll live to have a big family. But at the very end of the episode, there was a bounty on Michael. Who are these, the Russian mafia?

Season finale is next week.

Here’s Nick Eversman (Michael) from SideReel.

Jermaine is NBC's Season 2 "Voice"

2012-05-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

Jermaine Paul won the Season Two competition as “The Voice” on Tuesday night on NBC (from LA), winning $100000. He beat Juliet Simms, Tony Lucca and Chris Mann. The final four results were announced in reverse order, common on reality TV’s. The finale aired for two hours at 9 PM EDT May 8.

Paul (a father of four) sang "I Believe I Can Fly".

Just before the finale, Justin Bieber performed a new song (“Boyfriend”), walking through a bizarre on-stage tunnel of light, with female dancers, and a kind of jive repetition, maybe not his best musical talent.

The show earlier featured “Purrfect the Cat” repeatedly.

Amazon announces opportunity for comedy, children's TV writers

2012-05-07T07:08:00.002-07:00

Amazon.com (that is, Amazon Studios) says it is looking for material for half-hour series (cable and Internet TV and mobile) programs for Amazon Instant Video.

Specifically, it’s looking for comedy (that sounds like situation comedy) and children’s programming in 22 minutes or (alternatively for children) 11 minute segments.

This is not my own interest, which would be more along the lines of drama, suspense, sci-fi (as I cover “Revenge”, “The Event”, “Flash Forward”, “Smallville”, “Everwood”, “The 4400”). But I thought I would “pass it along”.

In fact, I once worked with a literary agent for whom the only genre he didn’t take was children’s!

Television screenwriting is quite precise because of the time constraints, and Final Draft has separate formats for it.

In the past, Nickelodeon (Paramount) has sponsored internships specifically in children’s writing.

The link for the opportunity, with full details, is here.

"Grimm" on NBC seems a bit artificial, even if the lead is appealing

2012-05-05T07:24:00.001-07:00

I took a look at the NBC series “Grimm” last night. Portland OR police plainclothesman Nick Burkhardt (Wisconsin native David Giuntoli) is appealing enough (he actually fits the yuppie gay disco stereotype) as the detective with the ability to see supernatural creatures “behind” ordinary people, like the kind only in fairy tales. Hank (Russell Hornsby) is his tag-team sidekick.

On May 5, the episode “Happily Ever Aftermath” showed a rich woman (NBC calls her a “matriarch”, like a hyena) cutting some people off, both short term and in the will. When she goes to bed, the house is attacked by a ghostly force that shatters all the glass in the house. Grimm, in his own hideaway, finds a crude “science fair” invention that can generate glass-shattering noise. There are also a couple of family villains that can interchangeably take on the visages of vampires.

The NBC site is here.

Wikipedia attribution link for Portland picture. My most recent visit: July 1996.

"Alien Planet" is an intriguing look at a postulated "Earth 2" (Discovery Channel)

2012-05-04T14:15:00.002-07:00

“Alien Planet”, a 93-minute Discovery Channel documentary, from 2005, by Evergreen Films, directed by Pierre de Lespinois, is one of the most imaginative animated projections of what an “Earth II” (remember the 90s series with Antonio Sabato) could look like.

The film presumes that a binary star system 6.5 light years away has a planet Darwin with average surface temperature of 70 degrees F, lower gravity but thicker atmosphere. It has lost its oceans. I’m not sure how probable all of this is, given knowledge of the immediate neighborhood of our solar system. (If the atmosphere is thick and the temperature relatively cool, why did the oceans evaporate?)

The probe, launched by a master ship Von Braun with a super computer, has three pieces; the first crashes, but “Leo” (for Da Vinci) and “Ike” are able to explore the planet, and have the artificial intelligence of four year olds.

Some of the life forms are earth-like, with forests, puffballs and fungus-like organisms, and dinosaur-like predators with sonar, and other herbivores (like the bladderhorns). On this desert planet, is there enough vegetation to support herds of vegetarian animals? It gets more interesting, though. The Texas-sized sea turns out to be a symbiotic eusocial colony of organisms that saves water, and can snatch fliers out of the air. The planet has very large animals, like the 5-story groveback, that has forests growing from its shell-like back, and even has “electric mushrooms”. There is a seven-story predator that "forages" in the “sea”.

At the end of the film, we meet the “iosapiens”, who are large, look a bit arthropod-like (as in “Alien”), and have methane-filled bladders for locomotion. There is an exchange of cultures and greetings at the very end.

With Michio Kaku, George Lucas, Curtis Clark (whose voice sounds like mine), Stephen Hawking, Randy Pollock.

Discovery Channel’s link is here.

Wikipedia attribution link for exoplanet diagram.

The YouTube for the entire film is here. It has many interruptions of what sound like commercial breaks edited out, as in a TV series.

A good comparison is National Geographic’s “Extraterrestrials” (2005, 60 minutes), which looks at five fictitious planets, one of which is tidally locked around an M-star.

NBC Today does a silly segment on cosmetic surgery, laser hair removal (no male victims)

2012-05-03T18:39:00.002-07:00

The NBC Today Show turned pretty silly this morning with the cosmetic surgery pitches.

One of the female hosts (didn’t get the name) allowed one forearm to be shaved and then treated with a laser, the first of six treatments that it takes to make it “permanent”. No, they subject a man to this. But laser epilation has been around for at least a dozen years. Back in 1998 there was a 20-20 report on it, as I recall. I made a comment about it on my old website tracking my book, and the next day I had emails on it in AOL.

They did, however, show a 23 year old man who had already had chin surgery to improve his appearance, and made the comment that most corporate CEO’s have cosmetic surgery as part of business strategy.

It reminded me of the early days of my own gay dating in the Village, when at least one date insisted I would buy a wig. I never did. “How will you ever find a lover” if you’re bald? In the straight world, baldness may be a signal that you can survive long enough to actually raise a family.

Would this all make Anderson Cooper's Ridiculist?

Here’s an earlier Today clip from 2007, by Dr. Cameron Rokhsar.

On “Days of our Lives”, Chad, basically a college youth (and male model) promised Lexie that he would start acting as a godfather for Lexie’s austistic son, since Lexie has little time to live. The rest of the show is pretty silly right now. Stefano will disown EJ because EJ isn’t his blood, and “only blood can be trusted”.

Cynthia McFadden plays herself on "Revenge"

2012-05-02T21:21:00.001-07:00

Tonight, on ABC’s “Revenge”, (Episode 19, “Absolution”) Cynthia McFadden played herself interviewing Daniel Grayson (Joshua Bowman) after he got out of jail.

video platform video management video solutions video player

McFadden said that it took about seven hours to film the two minute sequence. It was hard work. Even playing herself, she had to learn the lines. Yes, “charges” is not the same as “allegations”. The clip this evening actually showed a clip from the teleplay in Final Draft.

And screenwriting for TV is very exacting because of the precise time lengths of episodes.

In the episode, Nolan surfaces with family in Pennsylvania, and later Nolan offers to pay for Declan’s college education. Out of altruism. Really.

There will be three more episodes. I’m pretty sure that Nolan and Emily are siblings.

Script above: Mine, from "Do Ask Do Tell"

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg appears on ABC Good Morning America on May Day

2012-05-01T06:03:00.002-07:00

Tuesday morning, May Day 2012, ABC Good Morning America presented Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, at the company’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.

Mark appeared with his gril friend Priscilla, who he said is becoming a pediatrician. Facebook announced a new app which allows potential organ donors to register.

The broadcast reported that Facebook helped relatives find each other and recover some belongings after both the Joplin tornado and Japan earthquake.

The story appears on GMA’s new Yahoo! site here.

Curiously, ABC’s own site offered a much longer video (and multiple videos) about Facebook and the organ donation announcement, including the idea that it was Priscilla’s idea that came up in dinners.

The broadcast also mentioned Zuckerberg’s admiration for the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, who received a liver transplant toward the end. The broadcast showed and briefly explained the “Hack” sign, and graffiti (in a sense) is accepted at company headquarters. Zuckerberg also explained how difficult it is for an adult to learn Mandarin Chinese, which is Priscilla’s native language.

video platform video management video solutions video player

As for camera-shy Zuckerberg, yes, “he’s cute”. He’s grown a lot since his first appearance on Oprah about four years ago. He will be 28 this month.

50% of all Americans are on Facebook.

As with the blood donation issue, MSM may not donate organs. However, The New York Times reports that Facebook hopes that the organ donation link will, through the friending technology, cause other people to feel "pressured" to join up as donors, as in this story by Matt Richtel and Kevin Sack in the May 2 New York Times, "Facebook urgers members to add donor status", link here. This could put MSM "on the spot" inadvertently.

But on May 2, ABC reported that on May 1, some states like California reported seeing a whole month's volume of organ donor registries in one day.

Oprah Winfrey's OWN network, and her Master Class; introducing writer Jeremy Lubman (serendipity on an Amtrak train)

2012-04-29T20:39:00.002-07:00

Wednesday night, as I rode home on Amtrak from Tribeca in New York, I met Jeremy Lubman, who has written some of the episodes of “Oprah Presents: Master Class” on her new OWN, Oprah Winfrey Network.

I had not tried Oprah’s new network (since her show concluded in May 2011, to be replaced by Anderson this fall), but tonight I found that OWN aired a Master Class (link) with Sidney Poitier, now 83, who starred in “Lilies in the Field” (1964) and “In the Heat of the Night” (1967). Oprah says that Poitier’s award for “Lilies” in 1964 was an inspiration for her. He played in a total of 58 films.

I recall that about three years ago Oprah tried another Master Class concept on an Internet webcast, with a variety of spiritual "gurus".

Some of Lubman’s work appears on his own site here.

You can watch “Ecomagination”, or any of several pieces for the Climate Reality Project (link), or his “Experimental Short Film”, which is very abstract. I should be able to identify the piano music, but it escapes me. Maybe it’s Bartok, one of the folk dances.

Make sure to watch “Our Internet”, which is about the dangers to the continued ability “user generated content” because of the possible imposition of downstream liability on service providers with SOPA and Protect-IP, which were shelved in Congress this winter. It’s interesting that one observer points out that laws like SOPA could destroy profitability ("money being made") of Internet start-ups as we know them now. I like his black-and-white stagecoach image.

See my "Bill Boushka" blog for more on SOPA, such as my posting on the "Middle School Detention Problem" Nov. 25, 2011.

ABC 20-20 covers Human Relations (that is, Resources) stealth (and the determination not to hire mothers)

2012-04-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

ABC 20-20 this evening, in an episode titled "True Confessions", included a frightening segment on how HR departments in many companies get away with discriminatory behavior, in this link ("20 tips to get, keep a job"). Even in this day, the report said, some employers go out of their way, under the table, not to hire women with children. They'll even walk the job applicant out to their car to see if they have a child seat in the back.

Employers also have "layoff lists" of people they want to get rid of, and tend to start making up files of incidents that could justify poor performance ratings.

The HR coach advised new employees not to take all their vacation at once in the first year on a job. She also quit the HR business to become a whistleblower.

The report also covered Savanna Swanson, "Porn Star turned Mom".
video platform video management video solutions video player

Anderson's daytime show getting superficial on topics like UFO's, Amish life, bizarre workplace firings, improving personal memory

2012-04-26T15:33:00.001-07:00

Anderson Cooper says that his daytime show is “where the real conversation begins”. This week, there’s been a bit more variety and maybe a little less sensationalism.

Today, he hosted Marilu Henson, who coached people on how to sharpen the memory of details from their lives. Anderson admitted he has trouble remembering even last week in detail. I personally find that I can remember precise moments throughout almost my entire life. If I laid them out by date and time in a database, there would probably be a few thousand data points. In between these moments, though, I don’t sense continuity.

Anderson interviewed people who had left the Amish community, and these persons said that the “shunning” is much worse if you had been baptized in the community. Social capital means everything to the Amish; no one individual is allowed to “stand out.” One of the guests talked about the “black car Amish” who can have cars and minimal electricity.

A woman. Deborah Stevens, who got fired from a job (with Atlantic Automotive Group) after donating a kidney for her boss, which was not used, appeared. The details or this bizarre story appear elsewhere, as on Global Post, here. She believes she was invited back just for the kidney.

Earlier this week, Anderson interviewed people claiming to have seen UFO’s. The director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) appeared, and Anderson challenged him, saying that the government is not very good at keeping secrets. A woman taking pictures of UFO’s with uneven shape claimed that the alien crafted interfered with the operation of her camera and then confiscated some of the pictures.

In retrospect, it seems as though Anderson is glossing on the surface of some of his material. A lot of the material on the website seems “pre-digested” (like this segment on Amish rules, here).

By comparison, Anderson went into detail on the Internet libel problem with his March 12 broadcast (which got into the Section 230 issue). And his CNN coverage weeknights generally is more detailed, with lots of experts, and a mood of “keeping ‘em honest”.

He’ll need to keep the content depth up on his daytime show (which, after all, replaced Oprah) to keep his audience and "ratings".

NBC Rock Center: "Permanent patients" at hospitals cost everyone, would not be a problem with universal coverage

2012-04-24T12:13:00.001-07:00

NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams will air (Wed.) an important report on "permanent patients". It's the story of Barbara Latasiewicz, who had a stroke at work at 62 and wound up using $1.4 million at an Illinois hospital for two years because she did not have the health insurance that would have provided Skilled Nursing Care (SNF) for much less money, MSNBC text here.

The patient was not old enough for Medicare, which will, however, over 65, pay for some SNF care (up to 20 days). People with "good" employer health insurance can typically get about 100 days of skilled nursing care covered.

Again, the story seems to provide some justification for the "individual mandate". Insurers could offer this coverage if everyone had to pay something.

But SNF;s don't have to take uninsured or indigent patients, so hospitals have to keep them, footing the bill.

This sort of situation can matter with eldercare, too. Hospitals could wind up footing the bill if they can't place someone in a timely manner and if there is no family help available. More on that later in the Retirement blog.

Traditional TV ratings drop more this spring; start-up wants "TV Everywhere" on web

2012-04-23T20:08:00.001-07:00

Bill Carter has a major story in the New York Times Monday about the decline in television viewership this spring, link here.

The drop in “American Idol” may be one reason, as it tends to pull viewers to other shows.

One problem is that networks run dramatic series in segments, with repeats in December and March, and viewers often don’t know when a series will resume, or what repeat episode is offered.

More viewers are watching episodes online, which doesn’t seem to get tracked.

Networks have tended to pull the plug on some promising dramatic series after one season, particularly in the sci-fi area, because they weren't satisfied with "numbers". But these sorts of series may invite more online viewing.

Brian Stelter about a start-up called Nimble TV, which would extend the “TV Everywhere” concept, streaming a customer’s satellite (or cable) subscription to the web, somewhat challenging the turf-oriented distribution system, link here.

CNN Presents: "Betrayal of Trust" (harassment of female cadets at US military service academies); freeing research chimps; a baseball pitcher's comeback

2012-04-22T18:47:00.002-07:00

Sunday night, April 22, CNN Presents, with Randi Kaye and Drew Griffin, started their usually provocative report with a story about sexual harassment (and much worse sometimes) of female cadets at the US Naval Academy (Annapolis) and US Military Academy (West Point).

Kyri Phillips and Jesse Joseph have the written report on the segment, titled “Betrayal of Trust?”, link here.

Karley Marquet (West Point) and Annie Kendzior have both joined in a suit against multiple US military defendants, going back to the Bush administration, for failing to enforce military rules against sexual misconduct and harassment.

Annie, who aimed to be an F-18 fighter pilot, says that at the Naval Academy, female midshipmen were called “dubs”.

The attitude parallels anti-gay attitudes in the services well known from the battle over “don’t ask don’t tell” (with repeal in the fall of 2011), but dating back to much earlier times, as with midshipman Joseph Steffan’s book “Honor Bound” (Villard) about his expulsion just before graduation in 1987.

There is an element in the military that does not accept challenges to male domination of combat-related areas.

The second part of the report was called “Freeing the Chimps” and dealt with the previous use of chimpanzees in US medical research, as at NIH. The report is timely given the Disney Nature film “Chimpanzee” (Movies blog, April 21).

The third part was called “The Last Season”, about the attempted comeback of left-handed pitcher CJ Nitkowski, now 39, who had (his own) stem-cell injections (in his shoulder) and played winter ball in the Dominican Republic, and wants to get back to the majors as a relief pitcher. He pitched for the Nationals in 2005.

(Is Ross Detwiler, rather than Stephen Strasburg or Jordan Zimmermann or even Gio, headed to be the ultimate ace of the Nationals' 2012 starting staff?)

"Days": ex girl friend thinks Will plays "bait and switch"

2012-04-21T14:37:00.002-07:00

On "Days of our Lives", the character Will (Chandler Massey) has pretty well "come out". On Wednesday and Thursday, ex-girl-friend Gabi tried to enlist Will in a scheme to get a Chad. Out of this there developed a conversation about why Will had lost interest in her, why she wasn't "good enough". It had never occurred to her that he could be gay. Then she tried to deny it, saying he was just trying to not make her feel bad.

It seems that this is the second time Gabi has dated a gay man, from what she says. She's acting like men almost have a moral obligation to give her babies.

The rest of the show is getting sillier. Stefano is still part of the old oligarch with unbelievable powers to run his own rogue state.

What will the show do with Will? A relationship with Sonny? Would that turn off the old daytime audience, or give it new viewers?

ABC 20-20 covers "open marriage" (to put it mildly)

2012-04-20T20:55:00.002-07:00

ABC 20-20 tonight covered the topic of “open marriage” thoroughly – for heterosexuals.

video platform video management video solutions video player

These were families with children, with no compunction about variety, and no jealousy that each marital partner could enjoy other people.

Back in the early 1970s, when I was coming of age, and even before my own “second coming out”, there was a lot of talk of open marriages and open families even among workplace heterosexual friends. A book “I’m OK, You’re OK” often got mixed into the conversation.

But today the concept does work with gay families, where two women and two men share parenting and babysitting duties for the kids of both couples. I know a family like this in Dallas.

20-20 went on to cover women's use of gigolos.

Then the report turned to a memory of Dick Clark and American Bandstand, from the early 60s, and his hosting of New Years Eve in Times Square 37 years in a row, especially 2002.

ABC Nightline followed up with a brief report on a new style of “porn” film, with a real story and real characters and more dialogue, as catching on with women. Actually, some “gay films” are like that, very explicit but with real plots, mystery and characters (as “Focus-ReFocus, reviewed last week on my movies blog.)

Picture: a wild friend?

"Revenge": deposed writer Treadwell becomes a viral blogger; "Bachelor" series draws racial discrimination lawsuit

2012-04-19T09:22:00.002-07:00

ABC's “Revenge” resumed “regular” episodes last night, April 18, this one titled “Doubt”.

Nolan (Gabrielle Mann) calls a lot of the shots and really is taking on a dominating kind of charisma. At the end of the show, he winds up with the possibility of playing protective “boyfriend” to Jack’s baby brother, Declan (Connor Paolo). Couldn’t that get interesting! Nolan will even watch Jack’s bar while Jack goes to Montreal to track down Amanda.

Nolan also talks writer Mason Treadwell (Roger Bart), who has said “never write again” after losing everything when Amanda torched him , into starting a blog to cover the upcoming trial of Daniel. He has to learn how to use computers, and Nolan is the ideal coach.

In the meantime, Daniel (Joshua Bowman) gets beat up at Riker’s Island, so the judge lets him out under $10 million bail and house arrest.

Amanda (Emily van Camp) at one point says “they say we are the fairer sex. But we protect our nest.” She then displays her knowledge of martial arts.

Maybe this drama is a lesson in karma, paying for other people’s sins.

The link for the episode is here.

YHN has this YouTube short on the “men” from “Revenge”:

Here's another ditty: rejected candidates from ABC's reality "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" series have filed class action lawsuits claiming racial discrimination against applicants being chosen as potential lead "bachelors" or "bachelorettes", typical story from Eonline here. Do networks "discriminate" on the basis of who will be the most physically appealing lead on a reality show? Is this a case of lookism? Could the show even work without it? I wonder what Jeffrey Toobin on CNN would say about this one. I have a feeling the suit won't go anywhere.

Washington ABC affiliate airs story on residential mold, might be a national problem with underwater ("pun") and abandoned townhomes

2012-04-18T15:03:00.001-07:00

ABC Station WJLA in Washington aired a story about a mold problem in an abandoned townhouse in Prince Georges County, MD that sounds like something that could happen repeatedly and deserve a national report on a channel like CNN.

A townhome, apparently underwater in mortgage, was placed on short sale and the owner moved. Then a leak after heavy rains led to heavy mold problems that affected adjacent units.

The county took legal action against the original owner, which is quite possible even when the defendant is out-of-state. (For morbid amusement, look at the site "serve-em" here.)

This is another example where undervalued homes quickly spreads blight and can make neighboring homes, even when relatively new, uninhabitable.

The WJLA story originally aired in December here and was updated again today.

The CDC has a FAQ page that somewhat defuses the media-laden term “toxic mold” here.