HEROES numbers will be up from last week, but start trending down a few weeks out.  I’m expect a 2.3 before November.

TRAUMA will bomb after HEROES but still probably get above a 2.0

LENO will continue to hover above a 1.5 and continue to make NBC money.

MERCY will be the first NBC program to be “let go.”

HOUSE won’t hold most of its premiere numbers, but still be the most watched scripted show on Monday.

LIE TO ME will debut with solid numbers now that it has a strong lead in.  HOUSE/LIE TO ME is a great combo.

GLEE will continue to amuse my female friends but seriously annoy the hell out of me.

FRINGE will continue to drop until JJ throws a fit worthy of Shatner.

V will bomb.  Because it’s V in name only.

FLASH FORWARD won’t hold up, but will still be successful.

COUGAR TOWN will continue to get good numbers because people like hot old women who prey on younger men.

NCIS will continue to grow.  It may average close to 20M viewers for the season, proving it can still be done by a scripted show.

DEXTER will have its best season since season 1, and remind people that SHOWTIME might make better TV than HBO right now.

DOLLHOUSE will slowly rebound and finally average out at 1.2 in the demo, get a back 9 ordered, and a 3rd season.  TV BY THE NUMBERS will start removing Fridays from their index.

Someone at SaveTSCC will convince more idiots to donate more money because the campaigns “are working!” when what that really means, is “it’s working as great supplemental income for me!”

People will watch the Olympics.

People won’t watch MELROSE PLACE.

CHUCK will come back with numbers that make sense to keep it going.  Thank SUBWAY.

DVR numbers will get so crazy that FOX will feel stupid for abandoning the RemoteFree TV concept.

Advertisers will want to pay less money and blame it on DVR.

PSYCHE will continue to make fun of THE MENTALIST but continue to also not have THE MENTALISTS ratings.

MONK will find his wife’s killer.

BURN NOTICE will come back larger than it left following its normal trend.

THE DAILY SHOW and BILL MAHER are still sadly, the best place to get your news.

The ROMAN POLANSKI TRIAL if it happens, will break OJ numbers.

Dawn Ostroff will get fired, but so will The CW.

and…..

Someone will finally cast Serinda Swan in a real role.

One of the biggest and most popular posts on the old site was making fun of Michael and his “spoilers,” in his weekly fake chats.  He makes the questions up himself and always makes it out like everyone is kissing his ass while they ask questions.  That’s ok behavior I suppose… but his latest “I need attention!” scandal is … well desperate.

He currently has an article up about a “hot,” couple that is making love and war.  Love on the scenes and war behind the scenes.  He hints at whom it may be but not very well (because Ausiello isn’t that creative).  He starts the whole article off with a sentence that blatantly says how connected he is and how he is cool and well don’t you wish you were him?

The truth is that Michael Ausiello is a sad sack.  He has no balls.  He can’t write the article he wants to write because it would blacklist him, but he wants to write it!  So he writes it and removes names, the show name, etc. and posts it anyway.  This will of course cause some tabloid rag to write up what Michael doesn’t have the balls to do.

Hey Hollywood, a little heads up here:  When the tabloids drag these professionals through the mud remember that it was Ausiello who lead them to it.

I have some news and I’ll post things shortly.

The hope was for the new website to be up and running by now, so that while I was off there would be posts from the others.  I take full blame for that too, as I haven’t pursued finishing up the new site.

I’ll work on it.  Promise.

[polldaddy poll=1801752]

The answer is an emphatic HELL NO.  It’s not true.  It’s not close to being true.  The truth is the awards are biased towards money.  The 90s kind of proved without a shadow of doubt that a Studio, Network, etc. can buy an award.  You throw around enough “For Your Considerations,” adverts, and invite voters to parties, etc.  Soon enough you have SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE winning best picture.

Did Newline have any trouble getting THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies nominated and eventually winning?  Nope.  Just a little money.  I could go on at length about how those movies had no right what so ever to be nominated for much except art related awards (design, costumes, FX, etc), but that just gets the idiots enraged.  Peter Jackson winning a best director award proves that there is no bias against sci-fi/fantasy.  If he can win, and win with a fantasy flick it proves….

This is just a bad myth.  TV?  Go back to the TWILIGHT ZONE the grandfather of all sci-fi, it not only won awards for best writing its first 2 seasons, it also was nominated for best Drama after it’s second and best season.  Historians all know the overall quality dropped after season 2, with Rod Serling being over worked.  If there had been an Emmy for best drama TV series instead of Drama for both TV series and TV movie, it would have won.  The fact that it didn’t win ended up being a point brought up many times for the awards to be split, which they finally were.

I hear idiots jump up and say “The X-FILES was ignored too,” and it’s one of the most nominated TV shows of all time.  It’s also won quite a few awards.  Sure, you can ignore DGA, etc. awards.  You just want to count Emmy Awards?  For 4 straight seasons  it was nominated for Best Drama.  The stars were nominated 6 times, and Anderson actually won once.  Numerous editing, writing, cinematography, etc. awards were actually handed out to them.  Peter Boyle won a best Guest acting award, which is truly about the toughest award to win for actors, and other guests were nominated on more than one occasion.

Yes, the show stopped receiving big nominations right around the time when the quality dropped.  Go figure.

I hear other idiots jump up and say “What about BUFFY?”  You’re right BUFFY was ignored.  However, was it ignored because it was sci-fi/fantasy or because it was a “teen show?”  Whedon did get a writing nomination one year if my memory hasn’t totally failed me.  Gellar was nominated one year for a Golden Globe.  The series was nominated and won numerous Teen Choice awards.  It never won a HUGO which is specifically THE award for sci-fi.  Saturn awards were handed out left and right, but not a HUGO.  This was a show looked down on by sci fi people because of the teen aspect.  You want a conspiracy?  How about “Teen Shows Never Win Non-Teen Awards,” there you might actually have something.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy snub or Teen Show snub?  Maybe the skirt length disqualified them?

So why were such good shows like BUFFY left out?  Is it a conspiracy?  No.  It’s called:  MONEY.  The WB didn’t throw parties, didn’t pay for a lot of “For Your Consideration,” adverts, and didn’t woo the voters.  You know who did?  CBS, NBC, etc.

There is no conspiracy.  Generally decent shows mostly worthy of nominations are nominated.  Shows like FRINGE & TRUE BLOOD weren’t snubbed.  They didn’t deserve it.  Yes, there were snubbed shows.  They all have one thing in common:  Nobody went to bat ($) for them.  Look at FX, they spent nothing on THE SHIELD, because it was the final season and thus no money in it for them to spend money.  If you’re looking for proof to what I say, that’s a damn perfect example.

FAMILY GUY became the first animated comedy nominated for Best Comedy since THE FLINTSTONES.  THE SIMPSONS however applied for Best Animated show rather than Best Comedy so who knows if that could have happened before.

30 ROCK and MAD MEN received all but 1 nomination in Best Writing in the Comedy and Drama categories respectively.  Anyone else not totally convinced that this system is broken yet?

30 ROCK broke the record for most nominations for a Comedy.  Due almost entirely to Writing, Directing and Guest Actor noms which I believe made up 13 of the noms just from those 4 categories.

Once again Jon Cryer is a “Supporting Actor,” when I could have sworn he was one of the 2 and a half men.  As long as they continue to allow people to apply for whatever award they want this Award system is a joke.  If I was Hugh Laurie I would submit my name for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy every year for his portrayal of Gregory House, he’d win every year.

AMC had more Best Drama noms than any other Network.

HBO continues to get more nominations than anyone (99 up from 84 last year) despite the fact that besides ENTOURAGE they don’t really have a TV show worth a damn award wise (but they got lots of movies, mini-series, and docus).  Although TRUE BLOOD best win best title sequence or the whole thing is a bigger joke than I already know it is.

SHOWTIME had to feel good with both DEXTER, WEEDS and their main stars getting noms.

CBS showed you can still buy a nomination, congrats CBS for getting Simon Baker nominated for his work on THE MENTALIST.

LIFE ON MARS got a well deserved nom for best cinematography.

Kevin Dillon better win for his portrayal of Johnny Drama… especially since some how Jeremy Piven wasn’t considered worthy this year of even a nomination.

Really, Amy Poehler for her work on SNL?  Really?  Really Academy of TV Arts & Sciences?  Really?  Is this some kind of sympathy for the fat pregnant chick nomination?  Really, Academy you couldn’t find someone on say A COMEDY SERIES?!?  Really?

Wait, WTF!  Kristen Wiig?  That racist little ****** got a nod as best supporting actress in a comedy too?  Shouldn’t she be getting a nomination for Variety show?

Tina Fey gets a nom for her portrayal of Governor Palin!  I’m not sure I understand all this Tina Fey love.  30 ROCK is a giant rip off of THE MUPPET SHOW (oh if I pointed out the similarities in both the overall show and certain episodes you’d be stunned).  I get it she has that hot librarian look going, but do we really have to give her show 50% of all nominations due to that?  It’s not original (see MUPPET SHOW reference) and it’s funny, but not hilarious.

I think this kind of proves we need a real Comedy on the air again, please someone, somewhere go find a comic genius and let him/her do their thing.  PLEASE.

Is it just me or are there also a lot of names and particularly female names getting nominations that we’re used to seeing get Oscar noms and wins?

CHUCK Vs. BURN NOTICE seems to be in effect for best stunt too.  Sadly, that stunt on BURN NOTICE is going to be hard to top.

Sadly, Serinda Swan was not nominated for her portrayal of Beautiful Girl on the TV series REAPER.  Which should be all the proof you need, that this is just all really a circle jerk for the popular kids in Hollywood.

Serinda Swan practicing being a Beautiful Girl which is obviously hard work for her.

1.  THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959-1964, 1985-1989 CBS)

Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE produced 156 episodes in 6 years.  It was written by many of the greatest science fiction, suspense,  fantasy, and horror writers of the time including Serling, Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury.  The series was known for its endings which usually had some sort of sick twist to them as well as Serling’s voice over work for introductions and closing remarks.  Along with ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, no TV shows did as much for television as them.  The show pushed the limits of reality and provided a lot of abstract ideas and plot lines that were not only accepted by viewers but relished by viewers.  It inspired a movie and multiple revivals of the show.

To understand the importance of the show, one must understand the importance of its creator.  Rod Serling was a prolific writer (I believe he wrote something like 150+ episodes of TV from 1957-1964 alone) and he was fighting a system.  Early TV was dominated by sponsors.  A sponsor would pay for entire shows, and they wanted shows presented in a certain way.  Serling was unable to tell stories he wanted to tell.  Politics was a subject that just wasn’t allowed for instance.

Enter Ray Bradbury.  Bradbury had a famous conversation with Serling about allegory.  Serling then wrote the teleplay PATTERNS, and it was the first show to ever be re-run.  CBS’s president at the time claimed the screenplay had by itself advanced TV 10 years.  Serling then wrote TIME ELEMENT and pitched it as well as THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  CBS would decline saying TV viewers weren’t ready.

Enter Lucille Ball.  Lucy did a lot (and yes, I know how can her show not be on the top 100 list somewhere?  Trust me I noticed a little too late, so many shows … one bad memory)  for a lot of shows.  She did more for science fiction than anyone in the 50s and 60s for TV (she saved STAR TREK too).  She was a huge fan.  When Bert Granet who was producing the WESTINGHOUSE DESILU PLAYHOUSE found TIME ELEMENT in storage at CBS he was riveted.  However Desi Arnez wasn’t as riveted.  Lucy saw it, and history was made.  TIME ELEMENT aired and it caused an avalanche of letters.  The result was a reluctant CBS greenlit THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  With that one move… TV was changed forever.  However people didn’t want change.

A famous interview with Mike Wallace (60 Minutes fame) had Wallace ask a question like this:

Wallace:  You’re going to be, obviously, working so hard on THE TWILIGHT ZONE that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you’ve given up on writing anything important for television, right?

For that reason alone I lost total respect for Mike Wallace.  However at the time this was what TV executives thought, and it’s what many reporters were reporting.  Then they saw the show…

Serling took full advantage of the opportunity and brought in Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and George Clayton Johnston (sci fi legends) to help him write stories that defied what was previously allowed on TV by using allegory.  The result was a TV show that was watched by many, but not a lot.  It’s ratings were barely enough to stay on the air.  Yet, it was critically applauded.  It won awards (Hugo and Emmy).  Colgate was convinced to save the show as a new sponsor.

However the 2nd season would be a fight against CBS and their new network idiot James Aubrey.  Aubrey fought the show tooth and nail until the budget was practically nothing and less episodes were shot.  Despite this the quality of writing was still better than anything on TV today, and it again won an a Hugo and an Emmy.  It also was given a brand new Emmy for Outstanding Program Achievement, and won an other award for helping with Race Relations.  Aubrey was convinced to can the show however.

Things were looking like sure cancellation, then Ray Bradbury contacted people and said “I want to write an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE,” that got the sponsorship needed and Season 3 was under way.  It wasn’t as good as previous seasons and Serling admitted being tapped out and tired.  However it was still good enough to win its 3rd straight Hugo Award. The show however was finally cancelled.  Serling would give up TV and become a professor at his alma-mater.

However the replacement show totally flopped, CBS then decided to bring the show back, but renamed it TWILIGHT ZONE, and extended it to an hour in length.  Beaumont had fallen extremely ill (a publicly un-named brain disease) his output was questionable.  Serling despised the hour long length, and he kept his job as a professor and basically phoned everything in.  His limited travels to LA provided the time to shoot his narration.  However the new hour long version did better than anyone hoped, so a 5th season was bought (and changed back to 30 minutes).

Season 5 saw a new producer who really knew how to piss off the writers.  The changes he made resulted in Johnston quitting, and the new producer axed the production of several episodes.  One of which was later made as an episode of AMAZING STORIES and was nominated for numerous awards.  The show did however have a resurgence in quality with many well remembered episodes (including William Shatner’s famous episode with the gremlin on the wing of the plane).  This final season would also have an episode that would end up being filmed in France, and released there as a short.  The episode won an Academy Award, making THE TWILIGHT ZONE the only drama to win an Emmy and an Oscar.

CBS finally decided to cancel the show for good, resulting in Serling being quoted as saying “That’s ok, I’ve decided to cancel the network.”

The impact of THE TWILIGHT ZONE wasn’t really felt until years later when like another sci fi show STAR TREK it became a major force in syndication.  The 2nd most successful 1950s program ever in syndication behind only I LOVE LUCY, THE TWILIGHT ZONE was able to make a lasting impression on numerous future writers, directors, etc.  The impact of the series would lead to a movie and resurgent TV series by CBS.  CBS would again treat the new show poorly, but it would have episodes written by the likes of Harlan Ellison (that’s a huge feat right there), Stephen King, and J. Michael Straczynski.

The famous episodes of this show are still some of the greatest TV ever.  Perhaps the greatest episode of any TV show period, is the infamous TIME ENOUGH AT LAST.  This episode is famous for Burgess Merideth’s book lover being the last man on Earth and breaking his glasses, unable now to read all the books he so desperately wants to read.  Then you have THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET another famous episode that is infamous for its allegorical dealings of a possible communist Russian attack on the US.

This series pushed TV.  It pushed sponsors.  It pushed the Networks.  What is amazing is just how stupid the Network executives and sponsors were.  They had no clue what was being told right under their noses.  When Aubrey was asked years later how he felt knowing that the show had dealt with communism, black listing, racism, etc. his response was “it did?  You’re mistaken, the was a show about aliens and monsters.”  I’m paraphrasing that quote there, but the stupidity of the people running TV at the time was amazing.

Of course UPN tried to bring the show back with episodes that weren’t worthy of THE OUTER LIMITS or NIGHT GALLERY let alone THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and that is a shame.  This is a show that easily could handle a revival every 15 years or so.  Just go after the right writers that like to push the boundaries and give them a setting to weird us all out.

The latest rip off scam?  Try this:

http://www.savethescc.com/billboard.html

This is a scam.  You’re never going to see your money or TSCC ever again.  If you really want to burn your money I can start a paypal account too.  Send me the money, and when you send enough I’ll pay for a DTV movie to be made, really.  All we need is approximately $5M.  So all you TSCC fans just send in $1.  We’ll have your show saved.

Chances are very high that you’ll never see that moving billboard either.  Chances are extremely high actually.  You see this scam has been done before.  Someone did this with MOONLIGHT.  They got the money, and no moving billboard was ever seen.

Would a moving Billboard even work?  NO.  It wouldn’t do anything.  This show is dead.  Heck, as of today Warner has no plans to ever make another TERMINATOR movie.  This franchise is D-E-A-D.  If you thought the hit movie would save the TV show, what will a tremendous flop do for your TV show?  It’s definitely not helping.

You want to save it, I’ll start that paypal account.  I promise if it gets to $4M I’ll see the movie gets made with Glau, etc. and I’ll even hire a real writer to write the damn thing.  However, I’ll only give you 4 months to gather the money.  Any money left in the pot after 4 months is mine to do with as I see fit.

What you don’t trust me?  Then why on earth have people given that site nearly $1,000?  He doesn’t need $1,000 to help run his little web site, but you see that is the ripoff part.  The small print:  to maintain the site and pay for the billboard.  He’ll likely get close to $2k. and keep the cash.  Not a bad way to make $2k.  Just put up a site and wait for the suckers to come give you money.

This show is dead.  It’s a rotting corpse.  It is 100% unsavable.  I know the people at Warner.  It’s dead.  Now if you straight up paid them for a DTV… you’d convince them.  They’d make it.  They’d have it paid for and then they could make DVD profit from it.  Hire someone who isn’t a hack to write it (in other words stay as far away from Friedman as possible) and you might get decent sales.  Money is the only thing that can save this show.

If you pay for a moving billboard it will be the joke of the day that day on the lot.  That isn’t good PR, that’s bad PR.  However, I have no reason to trust that person will ever even do it.  If they were serious, you’d be paying the billboard company directly.  They’d set up a paypal account to do it.  However, it’s not being done that way, which means scam.

More cheating by me.  When I made this list I pretty much started off with about 160 shows.  I asked a lot of people I know to come up with a list of the 100 greatest shows of all time.  There were 160 that were on multiple lists.  So I started rating them, and moving them around.  The top show was hard, and what it came down to was this:

What is more important?  I was able to list some shows and come up with the best in a genre.  Which genre was more important…  I don’t really know.  So here is the list:

THE TOP CHILDREN’S SHOW:  SESAME STREET (1969-1970 NET, 1970-???? PBS)

This show taught me to count and my ABCs.  Grover taught me near and far.  How important is a show that was fundamental learning for so many people?

THE TOP SCI-FI SHOW:  THE X-FILES (1993-2002 FOX)

This show along with THE SIMPSONS dragged FOX up from the abyss and gave the station some respect.  So many people helped shape this show… however for me it was Kim Manners who kept this show grounded and about important things.  The show started without an idea of where it was going, and that always hurt the show.  SUPERNATURAL may pass it in my mind if Season 5 is as good as it should be.  A phenomenal show held back by just not knowing where exactly it was going.  However the stand alone episodes had some truly brilliant pieces.  I was always a huge fan of HUMBUG and CLYDE BRUCKMAN’S FINAL REPOSE.  Those type of episodes were what had me won over, and not the mythology episodes.

THE TOP NEWS SHOW: 60 MINUTES (1968-???? CBS)

The only quesiton I have is, how long has Andy Rooney been doing his schtick there?  60 MINUTES is a great news program, or was.  I haven’t been as impressed in the last 10 years as I was before.  I think they lost their bite.  They used to run over a dog to get to a story, now I think they care what their owners think.

THE TOP SKETCH COMEDY:  MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS (1969-1974 BBC2)

The greatest comedy team of all time:  John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin.

THE TOP AMERICAN COMEDY:  CHEERS (1982-1993 NBC)

Where everyone knows your name.  The greatest ensemble comedy show ever.  Period.  I’ll take Sam, Coach (later Woody), Diane, Norm, Carla, Cliff, Rebecca, Frasier, etc.  over any other cast of characters in comedy history.

TOP BRITISH COMEDY:  FAWLTY TOWERS (1975-1979 BBC2)

John Cleese and his wife (at the time) Connie Booth of Monty Python fame (Booth was involved with Flying Circus as well) created this show about a husband and wife who run a hotel.  It may be the funniest show ever, and while only 12 episodes were made (two 6 episode seasons) it has had a major impact on British TV and even American TV.  I believe us yanks have tried on more than occassion to adapt the show for our audience … and failed.

THE TOP POLICE DRAMA:  DRAGNET (1951-1959 NBC)

Joe Friday started it all.  Just about every police show owes traits to this famous show.  What is interesting is that it still holds up decently after all this time.

THE TOP CRIME DRAMA:  THE SOPRANOS (1999-2007 HBO)

The last truly great drama on HBO.  Maybe the best mob tales ever told.  Is it better than the GODFATHER movies?  I’ve heard some argue it is.  I’ve of course heard others argue differently.

THE TOP LEGAL DRAMA:  PERRY MASON (1957-1966 CBS)

Every Legal Drama owes this show something.  Mason captivated audiences and would keep doing his thing well into the 90s thanks to made for TV movies that did quite well in ratings.  One thing that still amuses me about this show is how they always set the victim up as some rotten bastard or bitch who no one would really care if they were killed anyway.  Of course the show is famous for Mason always getting someone to admit they really did it in court.

THE TOP DRAMA:  ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (1955-1964, 1964-1965 CBS, NBC)

What happens when the greatest director alive at the time has his own TV series?  This.  Simply amazing.  Go ahead and rent a DVD of it and tell me that it doesn’t still hold up well today.  Simply stunning, sure some of it is dated and amusing, but the story arcs and the characters and the twist are still good even by today’s standards.  Heck, last summer I watched 4 seasons of this show and realized about 15% of what I saw was better than 95% of TV today.

THE TOP SHOW I LEFT OFF THE LIST:  FRASIER (1993-2004 NBC)

FRASIER is a great show and an amazing comedy.  I just kept having trouble putting it on the list.  It’s such an extension of CHEERS even if unique and a fresh take on the character…  I just couldn’t find myself a place to put it and feel good about it.

These 10 shows are amazing in their respective genres.  Some like SESAME STREET and 60 MINUTES would likely have not made a top 20 list for me.  60 MINUTES likely not even the top 50.  Sketch comedy?  Likely top 25.  So don’t take this as a real Top 10, take it for the tops in their genre.  They all had a major impact.  I had a tough time trying to place them, so this is where they end up.  Cop out?  Sure.

Now I will name THE TOP SHOW OF ALL TIME tomorrow.  I did come up with one show that truly stands above the rest and deserves it.  I’ll write about it.  Then later in the week I’ll write up a summary and why I left some shows like LOST off the list (trust me it will make sense when you read it, and you’ll agree to probably disagree, but I have a good reason).