Blast recently got an exclusive interview with the cast of “Hank,” Kelsey Grammer’s latest return to prime time.

We did a great story, and we were happy to have the access. But there was one problem: The show stinks. It’s getting bad ratings and worse reviews.

The good thing is that interviews and reviews are done by different reporters, but my question was: Is it ok to cheer for or hype a show because of our coverage? We gave the show a bad review but still pumped the interview.

Any thoughts?

Everyone got mad at Homer for doing something obviously stupid and wrong. It involved alcohol and money. One family member tried to cut him off. Then he did something amazing and made everyone love him again. All along, there were pithy remarks about the economy.

hrm … that’s basically a summation of the past two seasons.

The network, instead of continuing the show that gave them their highest ratings ever when it launched 2004, will finish off Stargate Atlantis with — surprise surprise — a bunch of TV and straight-to-dvd movies.

That thump you just heard was my lifeless body landing somewhere off a tall building.

This is really stupid. And, yes I’ll say it, the last straight-to-dvd Stargate movie sucked. Stargate Continuum was supposed to be this epic way to end Stargate SG-1, and instead all we got was something that was either too long for a single episode or way too short for a two-parter and DEFINITELY not something cinematic and movie-like.

Okay, maybe “sucked” is unfair, because it was still Stargate SG-1, and gets points for that. It was very poorly edited and should have had much more storyline and development. I mean, Ba’al, the main badguy, is killed halfway through, before his nefarious plan can come to fruition. Needed more drama and gloom and doom.

Insider moment that only fans will understand: What if Ba’al’s plan worked? All the system lords were defeated, the Jaffa got their freedom, earth got left alone, Jack’s kid was still alive, and everything was beautiful. Let all that happen and then something catastrophic can go wrong, like Anubis, replicators and priors come at the same time (or any combination of the three) and wrecks shit up or something? Then they have to team up with Ba’al again and defeat the much worse common enemy. NO, they ended Continuum with what? With what? An EXECUTION! Celebrating death. Ba’al may have been the least bad of all the system lords, but SG-1 made it a point to mark his death with a grand celebration. Awful.

I hope that producer Brad Wright and company will learn from this and realize that you can go over the 1:30 mark for a feature film — It’s okay, no one is going to get mad at you for it.

Finally, just to complete my bitter rampage at MGM, (owners of the Stargate franchise) I am very concerned that Stargate Universe, the planned third Stargate series, is going to be god-awful. It already sounds like “Enterprise.”

“Universe” takes place in a long-lost ancient spaceship, exploring the galaxy. It’s already been said that the new show does not contain elements or characters from SG-1 or Atlantis, so kiss Ben Browder goodbye — he seems to really want to be involved in Stargate. He was a late addition to SG-1, but a lot of fans came to like him, especially fans that joined late in the running.

Some science fiction fans remember that Fox tried to “US military explores space in the present time or not-too-distant future” in the 90s with Space: Above and Beyond, which barely made it through a single season (but I liked it just the same).

MGM, Sci Fi, Wright: you, sirs, have an extremely high bar set for yourselves. I am very concerned.

Amber dying, House showing his inner feelings, Cuddy’s most visible demonstration for her feelings for House, Wilson’s whole world crashing down, 13′s Huntington’s … it all happened at once.

My God.

It was actually painful to watch, but it was so damn good. Wow.

To me, it’s not so much of a shocker.

To shock me, Hannah Montana would have to get knocked up.

The show has become nothing more than a soapbox for people who cannot sing and have no talent to speak of who simply want to get a few seconds in front of the television cameras. Fox has succumbed, again, to entertainment on the same level as an ant on the food chain.

Between Barnaro, who has now been given 30 minutes of fame (he pulled the same act on “So You Think you can Dance,” and the crybaby, “my daddy doesn’t love me” girl who came immediately next, this is the most pointless drivel I have ever seen. The show comes off as scripted (if it isn’t already) and if Simon Cowell is serious about the music industry, he will end this trash immediately. Though for X million dollars per year, I can’t necessarily blame him.

Sarah Burgess, the “crybaby,” got a pass to Hollywood and a 10 minute feature on the show for telling the producers that she skipped school and didn’t tell her parents she was trying out for “Idol,” because her father didn’t believe in or support her.

So they cut to a scene where she calls dear old dad to confess the truth that she tried out for the show and made it past the first round. Dad, in an uncharacteristic way if you ask crybaby, was giddy and excited and immediately congratulated his daughter, telling Seacrest that all that mattered was that his daughter was safe.

I hope she wins this competition so I can call her crybaby for her entire career, because the only reason why she was given the chance to appear before Simon and company was due to the entertainment value that her sob story added in the eyes of the Fox producers.

Then came the three time loser, a girl who’s been to Hollywood twice already and failed–but, if nothing else, she’s actually taken the competition serious–and Fox used this as an opportunity to make fun of her and cued soap opera music.

There are people out there with real talent–some of them even appeared on the show–and none of them should be happy about this season of “American Idol.”

Bottom line, the “losers” were funny until they started faking it just to get famous outside of the show. I personally do not want to see it anymore. Show talent, judge talent and put the freaks in the circus where they very obviously want to be.

The 6’1″ television legend will turn 83 on Dec. 12 according to a CNN report. Barker’s television career began when he served as emcee for the game show “Truth or Consequences” starting in 1956. He hosted tie 1976 Miss Universe pageant and made appearances on numerous television shows. He made his big screen debut in 1996′s Happy Gilmore where he played himself and beat the hell out of Adam Sandler’s character. Surprisingly, also played his first non-self acting role in 1996 in NBC’s short-lived “Something So Right.”

Bob Barker has earned his golden watch and leisure days. He was a naval fighter pilot in World War II, and worked at a radio station to finance his education after the war. During his game show years, he has given out more than $55 million in cash and prizes to contestants, according to an Internet Movie Database article.
In fact, his name ranks up there with one of the most recognizable in all of show business. Bob Barker is synonymous with daytime television. The show he championed for almost four decades transcends generations. The word “Plinko” elicits sheer excitement at its very mention, let alone its signature harp music that drives an already excited crowd to madness. Sure its virtually impossible to win the top prize in the game, the clink clack noise is all we need.

And how many times growing up did we hear the late Rod Roddy exclaim that a happy player could win “a new car!?”

If Dan Castellaneta were to leave the Simpsons you might see as big of an impact on a television show. When Jerry Orbach was forced to leave Law & Order due to illness after 2004, the show was never the same, but never before and never again will a television show be so changed than “The Price is Right” will be next summer. No one has been the epitome of a piece of entertainment the way Bob Barker has.

That is what you call creating a buzz around your work.

And please, Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.

But it wasn’t any of that.

This was the most interesting quote of the night:

“This whole thing is a big act,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly, responding to a heckler, exclaimed that he and the talk show host were actually good friends and this whole banter or arguing or rivalry, or whatever it is to be called, is fake and merely an act for entertainment purposes.

WOW

The Fox pundit. The arch-enemy of the bleeding heart. The scourge of the Clinton administration is acting?

It is entirely possible that O’Reilly and Letterman are friends. The media makes for strange bedfellows, and much stranger than these two have emerged in the past. It’s also plausible that when the cameras stop rolling and they’ve both made their political points that they are utterly civil and perhaps even cordial to each other. The best debaters in the world make their point when it counts and don’t take it or the responding contentions personally. It’s like a rugby match where you basically kill the other team all game and then go out for beers afterwards. But the killing is real and the debating is real and none of it is (supposed to be) an act.

CNN did report on the exchange.

Otherwise, we did get to see a great exchange between media figures, and the war in Iraq was a hot topic as always. But, now the question sits in the back of our minds now: Did O’Reilly snap and drop the acting card on the audience or was he just pissed

But it wasn’t any of that.

This was the most interesting quote of the night:

“This whole thing is a big act,” O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly, responding to a heckler, exclaimed that he and the talk show host were actually good friends and this whole banter or arguing or rivalry, or whatever it is to be called, is fake and merely an act for entertainment purposes.

WOW

The Fox pundit. The arch-enemy of the bleeding heart. The scourge of the Clinton administration is acting?

It is entirely possible that O’Reilly and Letterman are friends. The media makes for strange bedfellows, and much stranger than these two have emerged in the past. It’s also plausible that when the cameras stop rolling and they’ve both made their political points that they are utterly civil and perhaps even cordial to each other. The best debaters in the world make their point when it counts and don’t take it or the responding contentions personally. It’s like a rugby match where you basically kill the other team all game and then go out for beers afterwards. But the killing is real and the debating is real and none of it is (supposed to be) an act.

CNN did report on the exchange.

Otherwise, we did get to see a great exchange between media figures, and the war in Iraq was a hot topic as always. But, now the question sits in the back of our minds now: Did O’Reilly snap and drop the acting card on the audience or was he just pissed

There are now more televisions in the average American home than there are people.

CNN is reporting on a Nielsen Media Research report indicating that there are 2.73 televisions versus 2.55 people in the typical home.

Where before there was barely one TV set in the living room of select American households, the television quickly became a necessary standard. Then cable/satellite television came along and it too became the standard. Now, high-definition television is about to become the broadcast standard.

What’s more; you can now watch television in the bedroom before you sleep, in the bathroom while you bathe, in the kitchen while you eat, in the car (hopefully not) while you drive, on the bus while you ride and on the airplane while you fly. And yes, it’s still in the living room, but the modern living room is fast becoming the home theater room.

There is no better indication for the merger that is coming between Internet and television services than the amount of money being invested in televisions lately versus the amount of money being lost by internet service providers, once the gatekeepers of the luxury that it was to be “online.” According to Neilson, teenagers and young adults have been splitting their time between Internet usage and television watching, which begs the question as to how these devices and services will integrate effectively.

The number one issue, similar to blogs and new media versus newspapers, is amateurism. YouTube shows us that anyone with a $19.99 webcam can make their own video production. Internet Television would have two main streams of consciousness if you will; the networks and “regulated” mediums and the amateur/independent productions. To that effect, two separate networks works in principle. One network is “corporate” media that may be regulated and controlled, but you know what to expect, much like traditional television networks today. The other network would be what we basically now as the Internet today, unregulated, unauthenticated and raw.

I am not talking about the proposals to create two different networks with different bandwidths and speeds. The networks should be equal in their speeds but distinct so that the viewer clearly knows if they are watching their local ABC nightly news or an independent podcast of current events.

Let’s face it, there’s a good reason why not everyone is allowed to broadcast on cable television. Cable television provides a (usually) professionally presented experience that we have come to know. Thus, you leave that regulated network as a separate entity, and continue to allow the vital free-enterprise world that the Internet has become alone, with the knowledge that what we should always consider the source.

We are quickly getting to the point where we can stream high definition audio and video signals with no latency. This is vital. The Internet must be able to provide the same or better quality experience than current service offerings.

The result? No more cable box and a new generation of home theater pc which would be an integrated digital video disk (dvd/blu-ray/hd-dvd) player, personal video recorder, audio/video receiver, Internet-connected video player and personal computer.