The Good, The Bad... Redux

The Good…

Showtime has officially renewed it's Rhode Island-centric drama Brotherhood for a third season. While the renewal is for a short order – only eight episodes – it is nevertheless a renewal... and that's VERY good, as Brotherhood is one of television's best.


The Bad…

Thanks to the seemingly-endless writers strike, the broadcast networks’ quest to fill their schedules with low-cost reality programming has finally begun to scrape the bottom (and I mean the bottom) of the programming barrel. Need proof? Then check out the three latest proposals to emerge from the networks’ strategy sessions:

Circus of the Stars

Celebrity Circus

The World’s Strongest Celebrity

Now I ask you: have you ever seen three sorrier proposals for prime-time television? You know, maybe it’s time that we all pitch in and start paying the writers out of our own pockets… or else we soon may find ourselves with nothing to watch but The World's Strongest Circus Celebrity.


And The Rest…

Rumors are flying that Miss New York herself, Tiffany Pollard is planning a late-winter or early-spring wedding to I Love New York 2 "winner" George “Tailor Made” Weisgerber. Should this made-in-reality-TV-heaven wedding actually take place, then expect the vows to be exchanged in Las Vegas.

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad...

The Good…

If all goes according to plan, then in the not-too-distant future you just might be seeing another grade-Z celebrity dating show. I can hardly contain my excitement as I share with you that this grade-Z celebrity is none other than “Webster” himself, Emmanuel Lewis. Last seen in VH1’s The Surreal Life, Manny now would like to find love, and apparently he’s interested in taking the Flavor Flav / Bret Michaels path to romance. God bless you, Manny - absurd TV just wouldn't be the same without you.

Note to VH1… you’d better grab this one while you can!


And the Bad…

Discovery Communications announced today that it is turning over its Discovery Health Channel to Oprah Winfrey so that it can become (fanfare and drum roll, please)… OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network! The change is expected to take place in early 2009.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have a new champion in the race for the title of “most unnecessary cable channel.”

If You've Missed Any Episdoes of Lost... and I Mean ANY

Good news for Lost fans: ABC has just made available on its website (abc.com) the first three seasons on Lost in streaming HD. Yes, every episode from every season… available for viewing… in HD, no less! No downloading necessary, no iTunes-type fees imposed. For ABC, this is a major departure from their business-as-usual posting of episodes on its website; the basic rule at abc.com has been that only the four latest episodes of selected series have been made available online… at that’s been it. But now… three full seasons, online and on demand! Way to go, ABC!

Now if that isn’t good news, then I don’t know what is.