Kel Varnsen

I saw a few of those Corey tries to quit episodes. The show needs to stop acting like it is some real documentary about guys working in a pawn shop and start making it a bit more real. I mean I would have loved it if when Corey said he was going to quit, if Rick had said "ok you can quit and be the manager of another shop, but then we will stop selling Big Hoss merch in the store, and you won't be on TV anymore and you can forget about things like appearances on Letterman or that kind of thing".

Yea I totally see why they cancelled Dollhouse. I watched the first 4 or 5 episodes and they were all terrible I thought. I mean most of them were bad action movie cliches (people hunting people!). I actually gave it more of a chance than I probably would have if it had been some generic show. And yes I know the episodes were aired out of order, but those first episodes were still written by the creative staff, and they were still terrible. I was basically the target market for that show, single guy age 18-35 who already likes genre shows from this creator. If they couldn't convince me to watch the show, what hope did they have with the general public.

I had the same problem with season 5 and the newspaper people I mean David Simon always talked about how one of the major themes of the show was how generally good people who were good at their job would get screwed over by their system, as if the system was some kind of Greek god. With most of the characters (McNulty, Bunk, Lester, Sobotka, Bunny, teacher Prez hell even Carcetti) they actually showed you how they were good at their jobs. But with the guys at the newspaper they just kept telling you how Gus and the other old timers were great newspaper men without actually showing. Plus I swear if Gus spent half of the time he spent complaining about management or trying to bust Templeton's fake story, actually doing his job (helping gather stories, or training the young reporters to take over once the old ones were gone) then the Baltimore Sun of the show would have probably been an awesome paper. Hell maybe he wouldn't have missed all the huge local stories if he had spent more time doing his job. I mean the fact that they didn't cover Omar's death to me is a huge sign. Even if you totally eliminate who Omar was, the fact that a little kid shoots and murders an adult in a store, in front of witnesses in broad daylight and it doesn't make the newspaper seems like a huge error to me. I mean even in Baltimore that has to be news.

Except when it works. I mean Tina Fey wanted Rachel Dratch to play Jenna. The role went instead to Jane Krakowski and I would have to think that with Rachel Dratch it would have been an entirely different show.

I think pawn stars has to be up there. I mean I find it hard to believe that when he is not counting all the money he makes or going on Letterman, Chumlee is ok with going to get lunch for the other guys, or sweeping up the shop or working crappy night shifts. Not to mention all the other crap that goes on. Rick wrote a pawn stars book, and if you read the book, it kind of reveals how stuff that goes on, in the show is just crap. For example a number of times I have seen on the show where they buy something and then sell it right away or take it home. But in the book it talks about how when they do buy something, they have to keep it in secure storage for I think 30 days before they can do anything with it, just to make sure it doesn't get reported stolen.

Even the how they got there thing though, I think if those shows had stayed on another night they would have probably been cancelled faster. So while some people might look at Friday night as the place where shows go to die, I look at it more like a stay of execution. It is basically the network saying we know your show can't handle the competition of say a Thursday night, but instead of just cancelling your outright we will move to Friday where competition is not as tough, and see if your fanbase truly is loyal. And sometimes a show concept is just not a successful one for whatever reason.

See I never bought into the concept of the Friday Night Death Slot. If your show is good, people will watch it on Friday night. There have been a number of shows that have been successful on Friday. Plus Friday night is the night of low competition and low expectations. If you can't get decent ratings on Friday, you probably aren't going to succeed on any other night when you are up against shows that get monster ratings.

As much as people complain about FOX being trigger happy I totally agree with this. I mean sure they cancel shows fast, but a lot of the low rated cult shows that they put on and then cancel, wouldn't have a chance on any other network. So as much as there is the complaint about FOX never giving them a chance, they at least gave the creators a chance to pitch their show, make a pilot and then a few more episodes. I mean how many genre shows are on CBS? This is the worst for me, especially because even after reading a ton about it, it still doesn't make any sense to me. It seems some of the blame falls on HBO, but some of it also falls on David Milch. Plus the promise of feature length movies to wrap it up never seemed to happen either, and that seems to be all on Milch.

It was like a double whammy for expensive shows. I mean every scene was either like some gala event, in a fancy real world location with 100's of extras all in fancy clothes, or it was an action scene with tank battles and explosions and that sort of thing. As far as ratings go, I remember one of the Saturday episodes set a record for lowest rating of a first run episode for a prime time show on a major network in the history of television.

On top of that only on TV can the expert PhD person who has multiple doctorates or is the world renowned expert in their field be in their 20's. Because stuff like going to school and building your reputation are things that hardly take any time. Only on TV are first year classes at colleges and universities filled with kids fresh out of high school. Because no one decides they want to go back to school after a years of working, or changes degree programs after a few years, or has to work for a few years to save up enough to pay for university.

Kings is a tough one for me. I mean I loved the show the show when it was one, and Ian McShane is awesome. But at the same time I remember watching it and just being able to pretty much see on the screen the crap load of money they must have been spending to produce the show. At the same time the show was getting terrible ratings (like record setting bad) so it is hard to really fault NBC in their decision to cancel the show.

Canada has that too. Back when the show was huge, CTV, one or our major broadcast networks used to play The Sopranos, completely uncut (but with commercials added) in the 10pm timeslot. I live in Canada and growing up, where I lived we used to get KVOS-TV out of Bellingham, Washington. I remember at least a few times they used to play the Jane Fonda movie Barbarella, without cutting any of the nudity.

I really liked Space too but I am really not sure how well it could have done. I mean it was a pretty high concept show (World War 2 being retold in space). Plus I think somewhere I read that it was one of the more expensive to produce tv series of its day (those CG effects were cutting edge at the time). And this was at a time when Fox was still kind of thought of as a second rate network. For something completely unrelated my wife and I have been working our way through Happy Endings on Netflix. Never watched it when it was on and it is kind of disappointing to know that when we finish season 3 that will be it. Of those dating people in a big city shows it is probably one of the funnier ones I have seen in a long time.

Looking back on the episode Joe's comment about Sally Ride and the first female US astronaut being a gimmick that had been done before made me laugh. Mostly because that is exactly what I thought about the "big twist" that Joe likes to have sex with men. Also I totally agree with others who have mentioned they have no idea what kind of computer these guys are building. I mean if they are trying to build a computer for the masses would there really be any demand in that market at that point, to have the computer be portable? I got my first computer around 1986-87 when I was probably around 9. It was a commodore 64 and all we did was play games or use it for word processing.If someone had a home computer that was portable in 1983, where would they take it? And what would they do with it if they could take it somewhere? Especially at 17 pounds, it is not like you could take it on an airplane to play games. And if you would use it for work, then it really isn't the market they said they were going after. The whole thing with trying to raise capital made me laugh to and thing of Shark Tank/Dragon's Den. I imagine Joe trying to go on that show and getting completely destroyed. I mean he has no product, no sales, no business plan and the main competitor in their space is a giant that wants to wipe him out. How much investment does he expect to get? Overall this show is starting to lose me. I mean I think at this point I am only watching because it is something different, and there really isn't a lot else to watch at the moment. But if it doesn't get better I will probably drop it.

I really don't know what happened to that show. I mean it seemed to start out as an awesome kind of dark, satire type show of every crappy teen melodrama show out there. But then at some point the hype the show was getting really took off, and the creators really bought into all the hype. It seems like they decided that they would become the one true force that could fix every stupid issue high school kids were dealing with. And the show basically became everything they used to be actively making fun of.

When Alex met with Piper, she mentioned that she had a gun (which Piper commented was a parole violation), and that her parole officer was kind of a jerk and didn't really care that she was in danger. Based on that, plus the look on Alex's face when the PO came in her door, plus the fact that she was hiding the gun behind her back would indicate to me that the gun would be a big deal. Plus if they want to do Alex/Piper stories next season, they would need to get Alex back in prison, if this isn't how they are going to do it, then the scene with Davy Crockett would have been kind of pointless.

With respect to Alex I am pretty sure that being in possession of a gun would be in violation of her parole, so she would be headed back to prison. Although I am not sure what the chances of her heading back to Litchfield would be.

It is a simple one but I would really like to meet the warden. Mostly just to figure out what exactly his deal is.

The whole season was super tense, what with the different races being against each other, plus all the talk about how poor the prisoners felt they were being treated, and then the isolated acts of violence, then we saw the riot gear show up, then the storm. I really thought the prison was going to explode at some point. I thought it was cool that it didn't happen, but then a bunch of other crazy shit did happen.

I really liked how for most of her clues she began with "I am..." and then basically acted out the clue as the person who she was trying to describe, sometimes adding in voices. It was hilarious and really effective. She also did some good strategic passing. Which got me thinking I am surprised that people in this game aren't better at passing. Yes I know there is a limited amount of clues, but like profs of mine used to say back in school, go through once and get all the easy ones and then go back and spend the time you need on the hard ones. In this case watch the clock and if it takes more than 5-9 seconds to get a clue, or you know you don't have a good description, just pass.

I think they are almost going for comedy with how over the top powerful Fig acts. Especially with how big a deal she makes about her husband's political ambitions. I mean he is running for state senate right? And he hasn't even won yet. The plot line really reminds me of Angela from the Office who was also married to a state senator and also thought it was a way bigger deal than it was. Her husband was also secretly gay. To be fair right now neither of the baby's bio parents can take care of him either because it is not like Bennett can really show that the kid is his.

I bought it. I mean no one was hurt and there was minimal property damage. The prime suspect is locked up, and the guard who supervised her in the van was fired. As far as DNA goes you hear all the time about crime labs being so understaffed, that there is a DNA backlog for rape cases. Not sure running DNA on a breaking and entering case would be a priority at all. I fully expect Daya to be totally into Pornstache's display since he basically did everything she wants Bennet to do. I bet there will be more of her guilting Bennet in the coming episodes and more of me being annoyed by it.

I think the kid was telling the truth. Not sure why he would be lying, especially from a storytelling point of view. As for the thing with Morello in the car after seeing some future episodes it totally makes sense. I mean if

I thought that was crap too. I almost laughed when Fig said she was worried about a sexual harassment lawsuit. What about a wrongful termination lawsuit, considering that she was fired for cause with essentially no warning, and no documentation of her past poor performance.

I am kind of glad they didn't take too much time explaining this. It was obviously something that would have happened very fast, so having someone basically pause the show so that the viewers can have it explained to them would be kind of jarring. I mean this isn't House of Lies or Saved by the Bell where the main character talks to the audience. One thing I didn't get was how the year between Sputnik and the football game proved to Cameron that Joe was full of crap. I mean couldn't the timeline have been that he saw Sputnik and was obsessed about it for a year and wouldn't shut up about it. When the other kids hear him talking about it for a year and the giants lose that big game they finally have enough and beat the crap out of him? It is something that could possibly happen, especially when these are little kids.