Recently in Television Category

As I look through my the suggestions my TiVo decided to record for me, I often think to myself, "If I wanted to watch that film I'd walk over to my shelf and put my DVD in. It's uncut, unlike this network television version." Therefore, I wish there was a way to tell my TiVo that I own something and do not wish to have it suggested to me while still rating it positively. I do, after all, own it, like it, and want to use a positive rating of it when determining other suggestions.

Just a thought.

Yes, of course I have both! And this guy found a way to get them working together. Using the Greasemonkey framework for Firefox, he provides a user script that will search the TiVo site for films on your Netflix queue and provide links to them right on the queue page - assuming, of course, that they've been found.

For a guy like me who pays for all of the movie channels and has entirely too many unwatched films on his netflix queue, this is really handy.

[Via an IM from Skadz]

It's funny - I never thought any cable service could be worse than Adelphia, but if first impressions are to be believed Comcast really takes the cake.

Last night I decided that, since Comcast finally finished their buyout of Adelphia in Vermont, now was the perfect time to upgrade my service. I phoned in and was greeted by a woman with an almost incomprehensible accent. As the conversation progressed... well I can't even bring myself to relive it. Suffice it to say I'll be at the Comcast store and asking exactly what I signed up for. But before I cut this off prematurely, I'd just like to point out how incredibly stupid it is that I had to pay $1.99 to upgrade my service and give them more money. And I thought Adelphia made things hurt.

Alton Brown is my favorite television chef and his new show premiered last night. In Feasting on Asphalt, Alton rides his motorcycle across the country in search of authentic road side eateries and gives viewers an excellent history lesson along the way. Alton's personality shines in this show and I find it to be a bit more raw than his other series, Good Eats, and that's a good thing in this show. Everything just shines spontaneously written and produced. This is going to be a great series.

I gave in. I ordered TiVo today. The TiVo software is so vastly superior to Adelphia's DVR that there was little question about whether or not I wanted it, but since Comcast is moving to Vermont and has a deal with TiVo I wanted to hold out. I've even heard rumors that they'll be beta testing soon. But I gave in. Perhaps it's my patience, and perhaps it's the ability to use it to contact my file server upstairs to listen to music, but it struck me as a good idea.

Last week I wrote about Guy's Big Bite. I talked about my hope that Guy would fall into a groove and get a little better in front of the camera, as well as my getting used to him. The second episode aired today and I think at least one of those hopes has come true. Either I'm more used to him or he's gotten better, but something about this episode was a little bit more inviting than the first. I think Guy Fieri's got some real potential and I think I'll keep watching this one.

This morning Guy's Big Bite premiered on the Food Network. It's Guy Fieri's show. Guy Fieri is the winner of this year's Next Food Network Star contest and since I followed that I thought it would be fun to follow this. I have to admit, though, that I'm a little disappointed. Given time Guy will hopefully fall into a groove, but he really seemed rushed in this episode. Everything just struck me as over the top and pushed. We'll see how he does.

I took some time to watch a television show called Firefly recently. Okay, I'll admit it - a DVR and a marathon on the sci-fi channel were a winning combination for me.

For those short on patience, I'll open by saying I found the show to be excellent and well worth watching. In fact, I have every intention of renting the DVDs so I can see the episodes that never aired. That's right - some episodes never aired. You see, for some reason Fox decided to cancel the series before the first season finished running. This was a big mistake. Fans were outraged at the cancellation. Universal, hearing the fans collective plea, released the entire first season - including the un-aired episodes - on DVD. The fans were grateful, and the DVDs sold exceptionally well. Universal saw this and responded in kind. A feature film, entitled Serenity, will be released this weekend.

Firefly is set five-hundred years in the future in a universe where the earth's natural resources were depleted and humanity moved on. The human race has found a new galaxy and tera-formed planets to live on. An alliance was formed by core planets, and they decided they were in charge of, well, everything. They took control by force. The story itself is about a Firefly-class freighter ship called Serenity and it's crew. They travel the outer rim looking for work and essentially just trying to survive.

The show could be classified as a sci-fi western, which by definition is pretty unique and interesting. The culture portrayed is actually a mixture of many cultures and time periods. The result is something that is familiar enough to be comfortable to look at, but foreign enough to make a watcher think. The character development is deep; even a casual watcher will grasp the characters' motivations and histories will be revealed in reasonable portions.

Overall I think it's an excellent series; everything is top notch. It's so engaging that I find myself really getting absorbed into the world as I would with a book. I will definitely be following up by watching the rest of the season, and seeing the feature film. I would urge any science fiction fan to do the same.

I hate to admit it, but I suppose I'm harboring some hope that this film is going to be used by Universal to gauge interest in a second season, and a third, and so forth. A little hope is a good thing.

So Janet Jackson and Saturday Night Live decided to spoof the breast flash which we've all heard so much about. This skit comes just as it was finally slowing down on the news. It's a bit frustrating. It also smells of a desperate act. By having her do the skit herself, we open ourselves to thinking she might be doing this to try to help things blow over. If someone else did it, it would be seen as more of a humorous imitation. Whatever it is, it's annoying. Just let it die already.

Okay, I admit this means little to me in the here and now, not having cable and all, but when I do have cable, and when I've had it in the past, The Simpsons was one of my favorite shows. In fact, it's been one of my favorites for years. So it really saddens me to hear that they're on strike over a silly pay dispute. It's not all of them, but it's enough of them to take the show off the air. After the years of high quality low brow television these actors have provided, I think they're due for a raise. Don't you? I know it's a lot of money, but it's not like that's anything new for television actors.