Watching Studio60

TV Squad is reporting that Studio 60 is returning on May 24th, which is a Thursday, at 10.00pm. This means it is filling the ER time slot, hopefully to finish off the remaining episodes, and maybe, if all goes well, we can hope for a second season, although all evidence would point to that being very wishful thinking.
Still if we can get the word out and get the viewing numbers up, who knows what may be possible….

The TV Squad web site has published the ratings for the week of April 22nd:
1. American Idol - Weds (FOX)
2. American Idol - Tues (FOX)
3. House (FOX)
4. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
5. Dancing with the Stars - Mon (ABC)
6. Dancing with the Stars - Results (ABC)
7. Desperate Housewives (ABC)
8. CSI: Miami (CBS)
9. Survivor (CBS)
10. Two and a Half Men (CBS)
11. Shark (CBS)
12. CSI (CBS)
13. King of Queens (CBS)
14. Lost (ABC)
15. Extreme Makeover (ABC)
16. 24 (FOX)
17. CSI: NY (CBS)
18. NCIS (CBS)
19. Deal Or No Deal - Mon (NBC)
20. Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie (CBS)

and where is NBC - 19th place with the insipid show - Deal or No Deal. I have a hard time categorizing that show - it’s not a quiz show because the contestants don’t answer any general knowledge or trivia questions, it’s not a game show because they are not competing with any other players, it’s not a reality show because - well because it isn’t, so what is it? Answers on the back of a postcard Please Let’s get off that soap box!
What does it say about a network who places 19th out of 20th for a whole week, with a crappy show, even when most of the other networks are running reruns of their top shows or reality TV shows that are reaching their finales.

Well I will leave you pondering that while I go and Save the World!!!

I grew up without television. Not that I am that old, just that I was in a boarding school from the age of 5 through 18 and there was little or no TV. Even when I went home for the holidays, my parents were always living in some exotic land and, again, TV didn’t feature very highly on the list. So it wasn’t until the mid 80’s when I became a stay at home Mum, that I even began to watch on a regular basis. And then it was mostly children’s shows like Postman Pat or The Magic Roundabout - Yes, I was living in England.
Today I live in a home with 6 TV’s, and there is always a TV on from about 5.30am when my room mate gets up to about 2.00am when the other room mate goes to bed. Sometimes, three, or even four, of the TV’s will be on even though there are only three of us living in the house.
And I will be the first to admit, that I watch way too much TV. I wish I could say it was quality shows like the History Channel, or Discovery, or even CNN or MSNBC, but alas, it is more of the hour long dramas like Law and Order, Brothers and Sisters, 24 etc. Not so much of the half hour comedies, although I will admit to getting hooked on Friends round about season 3 or 4.
Where am I going with this? Well the other evening in one of our “sitting around the kitchen table” chats, my room mate remarked that apparently the cookie is baked by the time you are 7 years old - meaning that who and what you are is determined by the time you are 7. This was being used to explain my lack of attachment to material things, even homes of my own, and my ability to pack up and move - homes, jobs, countries - without a backward glance - but it left me reflecting on other apsects of my life and could they be explained by the first 7 years. Interesting exercise! To cut to the chase - I am now a TV junkie because I was deprived during the first 7 years of my life - well the first 30 years actually - but who’s counting!!
Happy watching!

Happy Monday.
I got fed up with the results I was getting from Google when I typed in Studio 60, so I thought I would try Ask.com instead, just to see if anything different showed up. Well, the results were different and 1 site: TV Fodder even provides the name of the publcicist assigned to the show, and encourages you to call him to beg for another season, or even jus tto let us knwo when this season’s final episodes will air. We know that they have filmed up to Episode 20, leaving only 2 more to put in the can, and given the cost of filming the show, they must be planning on airing them. Let’s hope it’s soon.
On another web site we get even more encouraging news:
“International Award
April 9th, 2007
Studio 60 has been nominated for a Banff World Television Award for Continuing Series. Awards will be given out on June 11th in Canada.
Word has been going around that the finale six episodes of Studio 60 have been filmed. The plan is to air them at the beginning of June on Thursdays at 10 Eastern and Pacific/9 Central. Which is ER’s timeslot.
So there’s still hope!”
With the way this year has been flying by, June will be with us really soon! Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!
Check out the pictures for Matthew’s picture Numb

Doesn’t time just swing by when you are having fun, or overworked and stressed out. This week saw me working my day time job, and two nights at the HP Pavilion where thankfully the Sharks won both times, flying to LA on business on Tuesday morning to return on Wednesday afternoon, then commuting to San Francisco Thursday and Friday. An unusally busy week, even for my schedule and you start to wonder if it is really worth it all. My longest standing friend, a girl I was at school with, recently went to Ethiopia for 2 years with VSO, the British equivalent of the Peace Corp, and I have begun to think that doing something like that is soo much more rewarding then sloggin away for oirporate America, or corporate Britain or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Another couple of months and I may well be making similar life altering decisions of my own.
But for now - nose to the grindstone, keep paying the bills, and Go Sharks. They have to win tonight!!!

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

I am going to rant - not about NBC and their insane scheduling decisions, or lack of in terms of putting Studio 60 back on the air, but about random thoughts that have crossed my mind in the last few days.
First - Vriginia Tech - my heart, along with the entire nation’s, goes out to the families and friends of the victims. Being a mother of two, with one in college, you go to bed every night hoping that your children are safe and happy, not even an inkling in your head that tomorrow a random act of violence will cut short their dreams and hopes. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and suffering those families are going through.
Having said that, and speaking as an avid anti-gun person - When will this country wake up and stop hiding behind that stupid belief that everyone is entitled to carry a gun. If you read the words of the second amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
there is a built in assumption that the right to bear arms is in order to have a well regulated militia. This means - as I read it - that if you want to carry a gun you either have to be in the militia or you have to go through the right training to ensure that you know what you are doing. It doesn’t mean that anybody can just walk into a gun shop, purchase a gun, walk out and start shooting. We don’t let people drive cars, perform operations, or teach our children without putting them through the right training, yet we allow them to buy guns - whose only purpose in life is to kill - without any training whatsoever, and then wonder how tragedies like Virginia Tech and Columbine happen in our back yards.
Get the guns off the street - please!
On another less controversial note - or maybe not - American Idol has finally lost Sanjaya. What I don’t understand, and please forgive my niaivitee - if he was such an awful singer, how did he even get through to Hollywood. Don’t the three judges make that decision on their road trip of auditions?
And finally - in a conversation with another Brit on Monday night - he expressed an opinion that gave me pause (as the character from Ally McBeal would have said) - he didn’t want his 4 year old daughter to grow up in the States because he didn’t want her thinking that everyone who wore a gutra was a terrorist who was about to kill you, that all that mattered was material things and, that he wanted her to know that there was a world out there beyond the shores of the USA. While I don’t agree with all he said, and I have chosen to make my home in California for the last 10 years, it did make me wonder how many people out there share his opinions and how many Americans are aware of the persona they present to the rest of the world. As I said - pause for thought!
Well, that’s it for now - Have a good day, as they say in America! Stay safe and Happy.

I am really running out of ways to keep this blog about Studio 60. If you try and do any research on Matthew Perry all you get is outdated information about his supposedly latest squeeze - so I applaud him for being able to keep his private life private. Similarly if you look for information about Bradley Whitford, most of the intel is dated at least 2006 if not older, but I did find an interesting interview, not too recent but still of interest, on the TV Squad web site.
I will keep watching and researching for news and in the meantime here’s a lovely picture of Matthew to keep the appetite whetted and - Go Sharks - Game 4 tonight at the Tank!

The good news is that various web sites are reporting continuing production on the show but, alas, no one is stating a return date for the show. However, optimism seems to be the order of the day. For a good reference point on the show go to: popsugar.com which is a site I have not heard of before, but it has some cute pictures of Matthew.
On another very sad note - my heart goes out to the people of Virginia Tech at this time. It seems the shooter was a loner who came to the States from South Korea in 1992 - coincidentally the same year I arrived here from England with my family.
“The gunman suspected of carrying out the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead was identified Tuesday as a English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school’s counseling service”.
Isn’t hind sight wonderful - it seems all the clues were in place to prevent this from happening but no one took any action, no one followed up to ensure that this boy got the help he needed - so disaster strikes which maybe could have been averted if more action had been taken.
OK - off the soap box - and again, my deepest sympathies to all involved.

Just to leave on a happy note - Go Sharks - now 2 -1 ahead with the next game tomorrow night. As I said before I am not really a fan but it is hard not to get caught up in the emotions and fever that take over the Shark Tank when the team plays.

Unlike Studio 60, which despite rumours that all the remaining episodes have been filmed or are in the process of being filmed, there is still no word on the return to our screens.
On another front, I was listening to the radio in the car the other morning on my way to work, and the disc jockey was pontificating about a family he had seen at the Olive Garden on Easter Sunday. There were 18 members of the family at lunch, from Grandfather and Grandmother through sons and daughters down to grandchildren. He was bemoaning the fact that the family apparently personified what is wrong with America today, because the grandparents were nicely turned out with their Sunday best clothes, which seemed to indicate that Grandfather was a lawyer or doctor, but the grandchildren were wearing ripped jeans, were covered in tattoes, and according to him, hadn’t showered in weeks, which showed that they were unemployed. There was also mention of body piercings and mohawk hiarstyle in evidence. What really got me rilled was the grand assumptions being made about this family based entirely on their appearance.
I have three points to make to the rantings of this disc jockey:
1) You can never judge a book by it’s cover, and just because grandfather was well dressed and grandson was not, does not mean that one was or is a lawyer or doctor and the other is unemployed.
2) The values of the grandchildren have been taught and passed down from their grandparents and parents, and as such they are a direct reflection of same - so if they were wearing ripped jeans and had body art, then this is obviously OK with the parents, otherwise they would not have been present at the lunch
3) The major difference between the generations these days is not only the music they listen to but the prevelence of the media in our lives. Many of the younger generation are heavily influenced by the likes of Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, and other such rock stars and rappers of today.
The irony is that our indignant disc jockey was once a member of such a rock band and as such probably had a big hand in influencing many of the today’s mohawk sporting, tattoed, and peirced youth - the very ones he was deriding and railing against last week! What is the saying about glass houses?
Anyway - more tomorrow as I continue to be newsless about Studio 60 but will continue to search the media for whatever tidbits I can find.

Not much to report on the Studio 60 scene, no more information, no news about it’s return, so rather then continue to write about nothing, and because I am out of town next week on business, I will be taking a week’s hiatus - rather like the show but shorter!!
Enjoy your weekend - dont forget to support your favourite in The Masters and to catch The Amazing Race on Sunday - it’s getting down to the final few so they need your support.
I will catch you again on Monday April 16th - Happy Easter

Well it’s official - NBC is pulling the Black Donnelly’s after the April 16th airing, leaving 5 of the 13 episodes in the can. However, as reported before, they are replacing it with another reality TV show based on The Wedding Crashers, which itself only has 4 hours filmed. Again that begs the question, what happens then?
However, while we can only watch and speculate, I am going to sit back and enjoy The Masters for the next few days, rooting for my favourites, and of course, i will be working at the HP Pavillion, hoping that The Sharks do well in the playoffs.

Well, as usual, another day with not much news about Studio 60, but I have been empowered by watching a DVD the other day entitled The Secret.. It’s a strange title for something that is really not so secret, having been around for many, many years, but what impressed me about the DVD was the sincerity of the people making it and the fact that no one was trying to sell anything. The concept is very simple - that the universe obeys The Law of Attraction. What you put out in thoughts and words, comes back at you - “What goes around comes around” is a very common saying that most people seem to subscribe to. So, if you put out positive thougts and ideas, they will come back to you. Don’t think nergatively, think positively - that’s it in a nutshell. So I have really been trying hard to maintain this attitude, along with another - No complaininglaining. Started by a minister in Kansas, people are encouraged to go 21 days without complaining - purple wrist bands are the daily reminder of this quest and millions have been sent all over the world. Give it a try, all of it - send out positive thoughts and no complaining - How hard can that be?

Vince Manze has just been announced as the prexy (?) of planning, scheduling and strategy for NBC. Lets hope that he is successful inthis new position, as he apparently brings a history of succes withhim, being responsible for the Peacock promo compaigns - Must See TV, and Save the Cheerleader promos for Heroes. I wish him all the best and hope he brings back Studio 60 very soon.
Is it my imagination or am I getting way more spam then before. I was up to 322 at the last count, but over the last few days it is increasing by 100’s rather then 10’s as before. Does that mean my website is getting picked up by more searches?
And finally, thank you to the information provided by gnosys letting us know that on April 23rd (did you know that that is not only Shakespeare’s birthday but also St George’s day - and don’t ask Who is St George!) we will see the Monday night 10.00pm slot being given to a new reality show based on real life Wedding Crashers. In reading the blurb on the futoncritic it seems that there are only 6 hours of this to be enjoyed - which leaves us with the question - what will they put on at 10.00pm after that? Answers on the back of a post card - please!

It seems Aaron is keeping himself busy while we wait for the return of Studio 60. As reported by EW.com, Aaron is writing the script for a Braodway musical, which will take the Flaming Lips album, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” onto the Broadway Stage. Good news for Flaming Lips fans, I guess!
TV Squad reports that Episode 19 of Studio 60 is in the can and filming has started on Epsiode 20, so there is hope that we will see the remaining episodes but all appear to be in agreement that the show will not be renewed for another season. At this point I will be happy to see the last 6 episodes, and maybe a miracle will happen and the numbers will be soo good that even if NBC does not pick it up another network or cable channel will appreciate the show and keep it on the air for us.
Happy Monday!