Pre-Binged TV

Sure you could try these yourself at nominal cost via services like Netflix or iTunes. But why trust your own judgement when you can trust mine? To be fair, I think I only binged House of Cards and Breaking Bad. And 1 binge per season at that.

The shows with a line over them I never gave a chance. The ones with a squiggly line next to them means I watched religiously until I lost interest (presumably because I got older).

Happy rainy days. :-)

Hat tip uproxx.com

Veep is Fracking Good

Season 3, Episode 4 of HBO's Veep tackles the issue of fracking, features a blogger, a smartwatch and a really complicated toilet. Very good, and very funny.

Disclaimer: people here in New Brunswick are going nuts about fracking, I obviously blog, I own a smart watch and I struggled with my hotel room's toilet while visiting Tokyo. 

​

Somewhere Between is a Great Doc

Netflix just earned my monthly 8 bucks again. Somewhere Between is perhaps a bit of a chick-doc, but there are enough geopolitical economic undertones to keep the coldest intellectual male interested. The human side of The Economist, if you will.

I highly recommend it. So did Roger Ebert. 

Somewhere Between is a documentary about Chinese adoption, currently streaming on Netflix Canada and USA.

Movies Complimentary to Argo

I really enjoyed Argo (probably going to win the Best Picture later tonight; rentable in iTunes and the PS3 video store). It's not too often that you get such a tense geopolitical thriller. The story is more or less accurate and, obviously (hopefully), the Iranians featured in the film are not reflective of the entire population.

To get a more balanced impression of Iran, I highly recommend the following films. Unlike Argo, most are quite slow.

-Crimson Gold (about a pizza delivery man).
-Persepolis (a historical cartoon)
-Offside (a girl trying to get into a soccer stadium).
-The Queen and I (about the wife of the Sha, living in France)

A Maximum of 20 million People Have Viewed House of Cards

I previously called House of Cards a hit, but that was based on comments on Twitter. I've introduced some fuzzy logic. Psy's Gangnam style has been viewed 1.2 billion times, yet has only received 7 million ratings, or 0.59%. For each rating, the video has been viewed 168 times. Part of the explanation for that is many people will have watched the 4 minute video over and over, yet only rated it once. As well, I'm pretty sure you have to be logged into Youtube to rate a video. With Netflix, few if any people will have viewed House of Cards 20 times and only rated it once. Also, you have to be logged into Netflix to view a video, so there is one less step to rating.

The Netflix experience is probably different than Youtube. I suspect the average viewer per Netflix account is significantly higher than one. An account is, after all, $8 a month. You can only rate once per Netflix account. An other defence of House of Cards is that many people will wait until they have finished the 13 episode season before rating the show. Only the insane have already viewed the 11 hours of House of Cards made available by Netflix 5 days ago. Still, you can rate the series, or even an episode, without having viewed the entire series. I suspect it is more than 0.6% that have done so.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, here is my conclusion: Best case scenario, 20 million people have viewed 1 or more episodes of the 2013 US version of House of Cards. 

Math: 120,000 X 168 =  20,160,000 people. Since the average rating for House of Cards is 4.6 stars out 5, we can assume most of those viewers will eventually view each of the 13 episode.

These days, you usually need a karaoke machine to reach 20 million people an episode. 

I Need to Talk About House of Cards

I'm suffering from House of Cards withdrawal. But they haven't even filmed season 2 of House of Cards yet! Depending on if you count the credits, so far I've watched about 22 hours of House of Cards in 2013 (British version + American version). So yeah, the show has had an impact. 

Firstly, humans are social animals. You can't watch that much TV without having the overwhelming urge to interact. I'd talk with someone about their cat at this point. But only briefly, because I want to talk about House of Cards. You may have noticed, I created a new label: HOC. The label should be at the bottom of each of my House of Cards posts. Apparently I'm not the only one with this urge to talk about House of Cards.

If, and only if, you have seen all 13 episodes of the American version (Netflix) of House of Cards, then you can allow yourself to read House of Cards, Watched Entire series, by Josef Adalian. That got rid of my urge to read about House of Cards. :)

I honestly can't wait until House of Cards is available in France. I just know we French speaking people will have interesting discussions on the subject of House of Cards. Oddly, the House of Cards show doesn't seem to have caught on in Quebec, yet. They were probably busy watching Superbowl commercials. 

House of Cards is good, but it isn't Rubicon good. And that AMC show got cancelled. So I'm kind of obsessed with the popularity of House of Cards. The people involved in the 1990 British version of House of Cards are probably dead by now, so the American version of House of Cards is all we got.

So far the newspapers have found a way to talk about House of Cards because of the marathon angle (you can watch all 13 chapters, like you would with a new book). Twitter is spitting out about a tweet a minute, 24/7. The vast majority are positive. So far, 120,000 people on Netflix have given the show an average 4.6 out of 5 star rating. But that 120,000 number would be fairly disastrous if it is anywhere close to the actual number of people who have watched House of Cards. Network shows in the US typically get an audience of about 10 million people an episode. 

As they'd say in Rubicon, I need more data!

My previous House of Cards posts:

-House of Cards is a Hit!

-House of Cards: Netflix Ececs Have Balls of Steel

-Mad Men Love House of Cards

Remember to click on the HOC label below so you don't miss any of my newer House of Cards posts.

Wonderwall

The 1995 song Wonderwall was featured at the end of episode 4 of Girls (HBO, 2013).



Toronto concert. Skip to 1:30.


The gitarist and singer Noel Gallagher suffered 3 broken ribs. 48 year old David Sullivan of Pickering, Ontario, plead guilty and received a sentence of 1 year house arest. His wife left him, no doubt in part because Sullivan was about to lose all his money. As they had to cancel a few shows, the band sued Sullivan for 2.5 million dollars. The band disbanded shortly after this video was taken.

Some say Noel Gallagher's absence from the closing ceremonies ruined the 2012 London Olympics. Ok, I made that last part up.

See for yourself. Note the absence of Liam Gallagher's brother Noel.


Today, back pusher and rib breaker David Sullivan... (insert content here when finished stalking him).

Dispite his injuries and the end of the band Oasis, Noel Gallagher returned to Toronto in November 2011. No word if David Sullivan, a free man by then, showed up at the concert.

Mad Men Love House of Cards

Mad men had terrible ratings. Why? Well, people are interested in different things. And with CSI and American Idle being so popular, perhaps we live in the age of stupid. On the other hand, we are talking about TV, shouldn't smart people be reading books?

With literacy rates sky high, an interesting phenomena in the English speaking world are books aimed at the stupid masses and TV shows aimed at an intelligent audience. Both are fairly fragmented niche markets. Most stupid people still don't read much and, when they have jobs, the educated don't spend that much time in front of the idiot box. You, for example, have access to 150 TV channels, and yet you are reading this blog.

When shown with no ads, perhaps shows like Mad Men and House of Cards make even less sense. Assuming their target audience does indeed watch less TV, you'd think they could attract a premium from advertisers. On the other hand, educated smart people tend to earn more, so perhaps they are the ones willing to pay more for AMC and Netflix. Apparently, even in the age of digital video recorders, product placement still isn't that lucrative.

The problem with intelligent TV is that most of us get tired, drunk or surround ourselves with ignorant people (our children, for example). We can also surf the net, tweet, or read a magazine while watching TV. So we can watch stupid TV. However, it takes alot of effort to watch something when you don't quite get it. Try watching something in your second language. There better be a lot of nudity, because without subtitles, you are going to be reaching for the remote. And even when there are subtitles, most of us are at least slightly put off when presented with a movie or series in a spoken language that is going to require alot of reading. Watching smart TV requires a certain level of alertness on your part and that of your partner. It is generally not advised in the presence of stupid people (aka your teenagers). At any given time, smart TV has a limited audience.

To be fair, neither Mad Men nor the House of Cards require a particularly high knowledge level or intelligence to be enjoyed. And if I still have your attention, you are probably not that smart either (nor am I, as my B.S. degree attained with a C+ average attests).

So what's the conclusion? Frankly I've lost interest. Now where did I put that US IP address?  I need to watch Prisoners of War (Israeli version of Homeland) on Hulu before my contact lenses dry up. 

 

Shortcut to this blog: j.mp/slugline 

Photo stolen from

-New Way to Deliver a Drama: All 13 Episodes in One Sitting (NYT)

House of Cards: Netflix Execs Have Balls of Steel

New shortcut to Altavistagoogle: j.mp/slugline .
 

I liked the 11 hours of the 1990 to 1995 British version of House of Cards (currently on Netflix). Silly, dark and about politics, what more could you want? However, it never would have occurred to me to make an American version. Even less to make what could (should?) be a low budget TV show and turn it into a Waterworldesque 100 million dollar production.

This is, after all, a show based on characters that are completely amoral. And just in case you are amoral yourself and start to identify with them, the authors of the American version made one of the male characters bisexual. An other had 3 abortions. Despite this (or because?), the 100 million dollar American version is quite watchable. Hopefully it provides escapism for most viewers and perhaps even educates a few on how a bill becomes law. Oh, and there are numerous references to zoning and easements.

I can just imagine the Netflix exec, enraptured by the separation of powers, the federalism (all 4 levels of government) the bill writing and the people blogging, jump in excitement when he realizes the show would include: FLIRTING VIA SMS!

Like I said, I liked it. I should say them, because after watching the 11 hours of the British version, I did watch the 13 hours of the American version. Since the launch of the show Friday morning, Twitter is averaging a positive review every 30 seconds. Even with this, I still have my doubts. Just like when the iPad first came out, part of me wants to believe this will be a monster hit. But people are weird. They like CSI and American Idle. This is a show about public policy and writing law.

Netflix execs are brave (or stupid) people. First thing Monday you should probably buy some Netflix stock, because the subscribers signups will be HUGE. Or not. I don't know.

Oh, and offering a free month subscription? Aren't you worried people will sign up, watch the ENTIRE SERIES, and then cancel before their free month is up? Maybe you shouldn't buy Netflix shares. Just get a good mattress. 

-House of Cards is a Hit!

I assumed part of the 100 million dollars went to build this peach monstrosity. Turns out it exists in real life!
 

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House of Cards is a Hit!

You might think House of Cards is an excellent series, but I couldn't possibly comment.

New shortcut to my blog: j.mp/slugline .
 

Who am I kidding? The show is great! The people of Twitter have spoken: way too many product placements and very awkward references to the Internet. Well actually those are the two only negative comments I have found. Everybody else seems to like it.

Interestingly, few people seem to have seen the 1990 British version, despite it also being available on Netflix. Personally I though the British version was quite good and I'm kind of perplexed that someone found a need to Americanize it. The British parliamentary system is perhaps easier to understand for Canadians, although the MPs choosing their leader is a thing we don't do in Canada. If you weren't a newsjunky in the 90s, you might miss some of the current events references (Margaret Thatcher spied on her MPs, Cyprus, prince Charles' meddling obsession with architecture).

House of Cards is worth watching, even if most of your $8 goes to the series this month. Either version or both. The first episode of both versions is kind a slow, but it gets better, honest. 

Other series i quite enjoyed recently on Netflix Canada:

-Breaking Bad

-Mad Men

-IT Crowd

-Top Gear

Not on Netflix, but I recommend them anyway:

-The Promise. Hulu in the USA; In Canada, TVO has been sitting on it for over a year:

 Thank you for contacting TVO.  We haven't yet set a date for the broadcast of The Promise, but I have shared your message with our Programming department. 

-Homeland with Claire Danes. Showtime in the US. Super Channel in Canada. The excellent spy show is based on the Israli, Prisoners of War (Hulu USA). 

-Sons of Anarchy (FX in the US, in Canada: Super Channel for recent series, FX Canada for older seasons). A couple of shows were filmed in Northern Ireland!

-The League (Hulu USA). A show about fantasy football. As silly as it sounds. 

-House of Lies (Showtime in the USA, The Movie Network in Canada). A show about consultants. 

If you don't have cable, you can find some seasons of Homeland and Sons of Anarchy on iTunes. Your PS3 video store also has interesting shows.

If you've never subscribed to TMN/HBO, now might be the time. The back catalogue available via Internet (get a password from a close friend or relative) include 6 seasons of The Supranos (New Jersey crime, often involving local government) 3 seasons of The Wire (Baltimore politics and police work), Bordwalk Empire Season 3 (Atlantic City crime and political corruption during prohibition). The Newsroom (with Olivia Munn as the hottest economist ever). Luck ( a well acted show about horse racing that was officially cancelled because horses kept dying. Oh, and the ratings were terrible). I watch Girls, but I can't recommend it. I think I like it because it features New York City and 2 very attractive women (Including NBC news anchor Brian Williams' daughter).

People on Twitter have commented that House of Cards reminds them of Boss (Mayor of Chicago losing his mind). Starz had it in the USA. Super Channel in Canada. iTunes has season one. Ratings (not reviews, ratings) were terrible, so it was cancelled after 2 seasons. I have not seen it. 

 

My list of network TV favourites:

j.mp/tvcan

Miley Cyrus Braless

Some random safe for work Disney spin off T&A to increase ad revenue. If Huffington Post does it... By the way, significantly less hot with sound on.

The Promise is a TV Gem

Israel, then and now, from a British perspective.

If you like your TV fiction mixed in with a bit a geopolitial history, then, if you are in the USA, point your browser to hulu.com and search "The Promise". In the UK, go here. France, go here.  In Canada, you will have to wait until TVO decides it is worthy of your eyes and ears.

Here are some of the French media reviews according to Wikipedia (I recommend turning on closed captioning if you watch it in the original English):

 Libération called it "admirable", praising the "excellent director" for telling a "tragedy in two voices", while "pointing the finger at neither one side nor the other".^[77] Les Echos called it "exceptional, stunningly intelligent" and said the considered dialogue and tense, serious acting fully measured up to the ambition of the film.^[78] TV magazine Télérama called it "remarkable", confronting its subject "head on".^[79] Le Figaro said it was "magnificently filmed and masterfully acted... perfectly balanced... great television", and gave it a maximum rating of four stars out of four.^[80] The Nouvel Obs and Le Journal du Dimanche both identified the series as reflecting the viewpoint of the "British pro-Palestinian left", but the latter praised it as "nevertheless a historical fiction useful for understanding an intractable conflict",^[81] while the former commended its "epic spirit, rare on television".^[82] Le Monde gave the series an enthusiastic preview in its TéléVisions supplement along with a lengthy interview with the director.^[19] Le Point predicted Kosminsky would receive a "shower of awards...[a]nd also gibes".^[83] However, La Croix's reviewer was more hostile, considering that although there was "no doubt that the film ought to be seen", it "cannot be mistaken for a history lesson but a great partisan fiction", marred by bias and an "embarrassing" representation of Jews.^[84]L'Express considered it beautiful but too long.^[85]  

I couldn't possibly agree more with those reviews.

NBC News Anchor's Daughter Almost Topless

Would Allison Williams be as attractive if she wasn't Brian Williams' (NBC Nightly News Anchor) daughter? Someone please ask someone who isn't a lefty news junky.

Anyway, I felt like the guy in the picture after Williams almost showed her breasts in episode 1 of HBO's season 2 of Girls. So close.

As a Lena Dunham inspired confessional (read her book proposal), I'd like to publicly admit to watching a few episodes of Sex in the City (because of the warning that "it may contain nudity"). That felt good.

If you are interested in Girls, the TV show, you might also be interested in reading about one of the writers, Lesley Arfin, and her horrible racism against blacks. If, like the typical congressman, you are just interested in girls, point your browser to my post about Zosia Mamet. .
 

You may know Chris O'Dowd in this video from the very funny British show IT Crowd (currently on Neflix Canada). Williams has also appeared as a fully dressed girlfriend in season 3 of The League (curently on Hulu USA).

You're welcome.

Absinthe Minded Olivia Munn

I watched the Cabin episode of New Girl (City in Canada, Hulu in the USA) with Olivia Munn drinking absinthe. My thought when I watched her jug some of the mystical drink: "what, you're not burning a cube of sugar!?"

Rogers to the rescue. The free documentary "Absinthe", currently streemable on Rogers on Demand, explains that the 1990s Czech trend of burning sugar into your drink was a gimmick invented by post-communist entrepreneurs. In some Prague bars, they'd light your drinks on fire (an effective way of burning the excess alcohol when you don't have water to dilute it). You don't even need sugar at all if you are drinking a quality absinthe. 

Anyway, turns out Absinthe was a popular drink in France when wine became expensive and soldiers returned from Algeria where the army used absinthe to disinfect the water. It was declared legal in the USA, wait for it, in 2007!

I was about to cross the street to the liquor store (I chose my apartment when it was a parking lot, honest), when I realized Alcohol NB doesn't sell it! At least, that is what their web site says. The Nova Scotia Liquor Commission lists one brand, but non of the stores I searched have it stocked. 

So what is the solution? I don't have to drink at home. I am willing to go out. Where in the Maritimes can I get a glass of abstinthe!

Update: 2013-02-19
Olivia Munn nip slip in Attack of the Show (Not safe for work):
 

 

Orginal

Public Service

TMZ: "TV is Mindless and Bad, But so what"

TMZ on TV Full Episode: Monday 1/07/13
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TMZ on TV Full Episode: Tuesday 1/08/13
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TMZ Now on This Blog

TMZ was a blog that turned into a TV show. Well now you can embed TMZ, the TV show, not the blog, on your own blog. That makes way more sense than going through the trouble of turning your own blog into a TV show. I think. Although wouldn't it be cool to embed TMZ, the blog, into your TV show?

Oddly, this video seems to be viewable in Canada. Perhaps its is because they caught Bieber smoking weed. In Canada, you could normally catch-up on TMZ via the CTV website, but looks like they dropped the show! When did that happen?

TMZ, Friday January 4 episode. I've rated it PG-13 because Bieber was caught smoking weed.

TMZ on TV Full Episode: Friday 1/04/13
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Modern Seinfeld

Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld and an Austin Healey in an
 unothorised screen capture of the Death Machine episode of
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

While writing this post I got seriously distracted by Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (hat tip NY Times) and tracking down "The League" (found it on iTunes) as per a comment on the Wired article:

 "Worst idea ever, we already have "The IT Crowd", "Always Sunny [in Philadelphia]", "The League", "30 Rock", "Modern Family" and dare I say, the [...] US version of "The Office" all dealing with 'Today' "

By the way, I can't speak for The League, but you should absolutely watch every episode of the above shows (most are on iTunes) before wasting your time with the rest of this post.

After a couple of the people I follow on Twitter retweeted Modern Seinfeld ( @SeinfeldToday ), a fan fiction account with 140 character summaries of modern never aired Seinfeld episodes, I read all 22 days worth. I laughed and I felt good after reading them.

I'm now one of 292,542 followers. 

To my chagrin, we aren't exactly a secret society. The following articles have been written about the account. I'm a 24/7 connected new junky and huge Seinfeld show fan, how did I take so long to catch on?

-Modern Seinfeld Twitter Feed Goes Viral - Hollywood Reporter

-'Modern Seinfeld' Twitter Imagines Sitcom With Contemporary Tech ... (Wired)

-Modern Seinfeld imagines 21st-century Jerry & co. | PopWatch | EW ..

-Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not ... (The Atlantic)

-Modern Seinfeld Twitter feed: What if 'Seinfeld' was still on the air ... (Zap2it)

-Seinfeld Twitter Account Shows Hilarious Modern-Day Plot Lines (Mashable)

-Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not ... (Yahoo News)

-New Twitter Account Takes On 'Modern' Seinfeld - ABC News

-Modern Seinfeld Yada Yada Yada Your New Favorite Twitter Feed ... (Gothamist)

-Modern Seinfeld : funny (Reddit)

-Modern Seinfeld - Speakeasy - WSJ

-Tweets Imagine 'Seinfeld' In Modern NYC With Modern Technology ... (CBS)

-Modern Seinfeld is a Twitter feed about nothing (Philly.com)

-Jerry Seinfeld 2.0: what would Jerry do today? (The Age)

-AOL On - The 404: Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account (AOL)

-Seinfeld lives the tweet life: Modern day storylines re-imagined ... (The Herald Sun)

-The Joke Twitter Feed Of The Day Is Modern Seinfeld - Business ... (Business Insider)

-'Seinfeld' masters a new domain: Twitter - MarketWatch

-Twitter rethinks 'Seinfeld' for the digital age- MSN Money

False Confessions on 60 Minutes

I had to pause the latest 60 Minutes report on False Confessions because it was getting me angry. People become bureaucratically stupid.

Remember that unilingual blind man's dog that was barred from an English immersion class at UNB? I listened to one of the staff people involved, months after the events, still defending the decision. Of course, the person only speaks English.

That was in Fredericton. The false confessions in the 6o Minutes bit happen in Chicago.

The Amazing Race Visits Canada, via Australia, Cuba

The American Amazing Race has been to Montreal and other Canadian destinations, but I took significant pride in my country watching the Aussies navigate Vancouver.

Highlights include:
-Australians signing the lumberjack song (Monthy Python), the actual lumberjacks were not amused.
-Australian signing a Brian Adams song on her way up Gross Mountain.
-Australian asking if Toronto is in Canada.

The following is from The Amazing Race, Australia, series 2, episode 9. Hat tip RealityTVfan.org . If there is a legal way to watch Amazing Race Australia in Canada, let me know.

Killing Ben Laden

His book No Easy Day is not exactly a page turner, but Mark Owen's 60 Minutes exposé is quite compelling.