Ananas

Odd. Minear has a show in development for ABC about a disgraced preacher. I hope that's not off now as it sounded cool.

He only did one episode of The Office, they bring in guest directors a lot.

Not to mention a character history that's ever expanding, deepening its roots like any good sitcom foil.

I forgot one great Canadiana band -

God bless his poor command of the English language.

I like that the process of selection has been so drawn out. For the cynical amongst us who would have seen Olivia Wilde and Kal Penn appearing and immediately assumed they'd be on the team, this creates legitimate mystery that perhaps they just signed lengthy guest arcs.

You haven't experienced hip-hop until you've heard this song.

Just a few Canadian artist who seem to really represent what Canadian music is really well: Sam Roberts Neil Young New Pornographers And then there are the really mindblowing modern alternative folk: Feist And of course, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXw4qqQqTrY...

Okay the good news is that Prison Break has gotten slightly better in the past few weeks, even though it still ranks third in the timeslot in my mind. The bad news is this. Although hey, at least I suppose there's no way this one turns out a sausage fest.

Well he wasn't the first Leaf to score three goals in his first game, but at least it's a pretty safe bet that he was the first Leaf to score his first goal with his ass.

It's a shame this is the last of the one hour Offices for now, because these last two have been fantastic. There seems to be a push towards more hour-long comedies, and I wonder if this was a test run for a permanent switch in the show's runtime. I actually thought last week's was probably the best they've done yet, but this one held up extremely well too. It's always refreshing to see an episode where the pile-on effect doesn't kick in with Michael; where we get to see him in some way redeem himself (or at least in the eyes of the other characters). Not enough Creed though. We need more Creed. And now, next week, we've got all 4 of the best comedies on television back on one night. Can't wait.

Am I the only person who thought it was Sarah's head the instant they teased the reveal last week? I don't really get why it's so "shocking"; if it were LJ Lincoln would have gone crazy and the ridiculousness of their twists have gone well beyond hand in a box. Gotta love how the producers find a way to keep this show TV's biggest sausage fest though. When they killed Veronica I figured that was basically Sarah's insurance policy because they wouldn't kill off ALL their female characters, right? But hey, the producers choices beyond the first season have proven that even the most basic common sense elements of TV logic are not to be taken for granted with this show. This latest episode wasn't bad, it was the best of the season so far, but it definitely wasn't anything to write home about. It was a make or break episode for me though, so at least I'll give it another week.

A bit of good news: apparently Chuck, along with Josh Schwartz's other newcomer Gossip Girl, is a massive success on iTunes, and early data suggests that it may also take a big bump when DVR numbers come in. The first week rating was solid, the second held reasonably well, and now with iTunes and DVR data this show may be doing a lot better than people thought a few weeks ago.

Now that was far better than the premiere. I'm pretty sure at this point that Ryan's tranformation is a little in-joke reference to one of the show's executive producers and the new head of NBC, Ben Silverman, right down to the shaggy facial hair, crazy lifestyle, the talk of radical change and calling himself a "wunderkind". Even the story that brought Ryan to the job was eerily similar to the Memorial Day weekend that saw Silverman get the top NBC job, and Kevin Reilly landing the job at FOX soon after lead to the same inevitable discomfort and close proximity as was seen with Jan on Thursday (for those of you curious, Kevin Reilly cameoed on The Office last year as Dwight's boss at Staples). It was funny for the new position the office finds itself in with Ryan in the job anyway, but to people who follow the network politics it's a nice additional in-joke. The rest of the episode: Michael following "technology" into a river, Creed's paranoia, Kelly's attempts to woo Ryan, Dwight and Michael taking the basket back, all great. And Tobey as the sad sack is beginning to rival Ted the Lawyer on Scrubs. That was just leaps and bounds ahead of a season premiere that was just average.

The pilot is, quite obviously, the best of the 2007/2008 class. Now what kind of show it ultimately produces is another question. Visually the entire episode looked stunning, but it also looked expensive. It'll be interesting to see what happens when they're working on an episodic budget. It also has arguably the most tortured love story imaginable, and it'll be tough to keep it fresh without the possibility of a traditional payoff. Nonetheless it's got Bryan Fuller and a great cast so I have high expectations.

I felt that way about the wheel-chair female doc from last year, who I thought was awesome. She hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Bwahahaha that was funny. And was that Uwe himself making a cameo as the window cleaner? Now I'm legitimately interested in a Uwe Boll film. This much is surprising.

With the late-season beating NBC took in all timeslots last year, I'd say that these numbers are just fine. After you set record lows for ratings week in the middle of finale season, numbers that are at least sharp upturns from where the timeslot left off are at the very least a step in the right direction. None of NBC's scripted programming have performed as well as Deal Or No Deal lately, so I don't think they're pulling their hair out over Chuck failing to match. Studio 60 was promoted like it was going to save television and was from the creator of a show that at one point had 20 million regular viewers, so predictably it attracted a sizable debut audience. And most importantly, it's the debut of a ton of new programming where your product has already been available for some time. I know of several people who didn't rewatch Chuck and Journeyman because they'd already seen it and were waiting for next week (one of which has posted in this thread). You can't start climbing until you stop falling. This is a well programmed night of television, and if they can hold steady at the 8 and 10pm hours, they'll do just fine. Like I said, second week is going to count for so much more.

They need to do an episode with Creed as the star. Everything he does is awesome. This episode was great, but Earl wins the night.

I don't buy that Journeyman and particularly Chuck's ratings are disappointments. I've heard that said about Journeyman because of the disappointing retention, but both were solid demo performers and premiered on a network whose recent history includes a lot of anemic numbers. Chuck's kind of in a tough spot, up against another pair a shows on CBS and FOX that likely skew particularly young, and Journeyman went up against the debut of long running reality series The Bachelor. But there are a pair of bright spots for both shows. For Chuck, the critical consensus was good, the show tested high and it's one of two shows that NBC prexy Ben Silverman is big on. For Journeyman, of its competition, ABC's The Bachelor consistently bled viewers at each half hour, and more viewers are likely to be available come next week. And for these shows particularly, the pilots have been available for some time, Journeyman since the beginning of September and Chuck since mid-July. This extends beyond the internet's leaks and Amazon's Unbox, and to Blockbuster and Netflix, who have both been offering the NBC pilots as a rental. How big that audience is remains to be seen, but it makes the second week ratings MUCH more important. I think the expectations are going to be down this year anyway. To coin a phrase from TV-Week's excellent blog coverage of the season, first it was "flat is the new up" last week, and as this week's numbers come in it's "down 20% is the new flat". Viewers are turning to digital downloads, broadband numbers and DVR. Until Nielsen finds a way to incorporate all of those aspects into their ratings system, their numbers just don't reflect the true nature of the industry right now.

Didn't they do the exact same bit 6 years ago with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes going door to door to drum up support for Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back?