Tag Archives: Television

October 24, 2007 · 4:52 pm

A Brief Hey! Nielsen Update

Hey everyone,

I might get to Pushing Daisies tonight, but it’s a hectic week and I don’t have all that much to say about the episode. What I want to focus on instead is an email I just got from Steve at Hey! Nielsen. After our Sound Off! Week came to a bit of an abrupt end when I pretty much ran out of time, I didn’t get a chance to properly address some issues. One of these was just how fantastic they are about making changes to their system to better reflect actual activity.

In the short term, these are a risky proposition for the Hey! Nielsen crew: they result in decreases in the scores of shows, which angers the fans who have put their efforts into the site. However, they’re about long term sustainability: remembering that this isn’t just a month-long installation, but rather a site that is intended to make an impact for years ahead, this is an important step in that direction.

In this case, Steve revealed two important things:

  • That recent activity is valued more than past activity. In other words, rather than cramming all of your efforts into one day and bursting to the top, it will take a continued presence on the site (Let’s say one opinion a week) to really make a long-term impact. This means that there is incentive for people visiting on a regular basis. This could cause more spamming, more often, but I am hoping that people refrain from this.
  • That although they won’t reveal the exact formula (It’s the internet’s own Caramilk Secret), they can confirm that Reactions, which were where fans of Jericho and Supernatural were seeing people responding negatively out of spite, do not have a huge impact. In fact, they never have, and it has actually been adjusted further.

These two things are great for fans: on the one hand they provide a great deal of incentive, and on the other hand they downplay the negative nellies who ruined the experience for some fans of shows like the Dresden Files, Jericho or Supernatural. It creates a much more positive environment, which I think should help the long-term sustainability of the site.

And speaking of long-term, there’s no more long-term in the TV Blog Contest, which ends tonight. So if you want to get in a last minute vote for Cultural Learnings, it would be most appreciated!

Hey! Nielsen TV Blog Entry – Cultural Learnings

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October 22, 2007 · 10:09 pm

Heroes: “Fight or Flight” or “The Kristen Bell Episode”

“Fight or Flight”

October 22nd, 2007

Five episodes into its first season, Future Hiro showed up on a subway train informing Peter to “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World.” Five episodes into its second season, it might take more than Kristen Bell’s much-anticipated arrival to save a series struggling to get a grip on its own storylines. Will she bring with her the overarching storyline the season so desperately needs, or just a fanboy surge without any last impact?

Obviously, considering that her arc will last a fairly long period of time, it’s hard to judge what impact Bell will have. Her scenes were both sparse and uneventful, her impact limited thanks to either low budgets or the show’s deluge of storylines being juggled. I think her character at least introduces something new to the equation, which is at least the kind of step forward that the show needed at this stage of the game. While it doesn’t quite happen in this episode, even though Peter’s storyline moves forward slowly, there are more redemptive elements present than in weeks before.

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October 21, 2007 · 10:57 pm

Dexter – “See-Through”

“See-Through”

October 21st, 2007

The second season of Dexter is based on a basic irony: its title character walks through Miami while people offer opinions of the Bay Harbor Butcher without knowing he’s right in front of them. I’m glad that in this episode Dexter finally admitted how annoying it’s getting, because I would tend to agree. It was engaging for one episode, maybe, but now it’s simply getting repetitive.

Actually, a lot of things are getting repetitive with Dexter. La Guerta’s replacement remains a true incompetent, almost becoming a parody of herself in her quest to reveal her husband’s indiscretion. Deb continues to face her Ice Truck Killer hangups, and Rita continues to be socially awkward with relatives or anyone other than Dexter. I worry that the drug addiction parallel is already getting repetitive after just a single episode, as the sponsor’s speeches were almost groan inducing.

This is not to say that Dexter is losing all of its quality: certain elements of the show remain intact. But the concern right now is that in providing us a greater window into Dexter’s mind, beginning to have other characters relate to him in new ways, the show is going for the easy kill as opposed to the subtle development.

[For more results and Cultural Observations…]

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October 21, 2007 · 8:01 pm

Brothers & Sisters – “States of the Union”

“States of the Union”

October 21st, 2007

I really want to add an s to this title, because there’s a lot of unions flying around this series. And, well, their states are pretty well all entirely the same: “Crappy”. Tommy and Julia are on the rocks, Sarah and Joe are beyond the rocks, and Kitty is freaked out that McAllister is preparing for them to maybe be on the rocks in the future. Nora’s there to try to fix all of the problems, and the result is largely uneventful.

Brothers & Sisters is at its best when it is either embracing its humorous side or creating powerful drama. This episode represents neither, focusing instead on people in crisis and the way they cope with it. This could easily fall into comic or dramatic territory, but it seems to float in between resulting in a distinct lack of impact as far as the series’ past goes. The conclusion brought things to a head, but it didn’t quite hit the right note.

[For more details, and Cultural Observations…]

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October 19, 2007 · 10:16 pm

Friday Night Lights – “Are You Ready for Friday Night?”

“Are You Ready for Friday Night?”

October 19th, 2007

Once passed over due to its football focus, Friday Night Lights has spent its second season taking its established characters within a football environment and turning this into a purely personal drama series. This week, we finally returned to the gridiron…except not at all.

Last season, the show hit many of its finest moments when it paralleled the gridiron action with the off-field concerns: Mud Bowl, perhaps the show’s finest moment, brought a football game which intercut with Tyra being attacked and represented Coach Taylor’s field of dreams as much as it represented four quarters of high school ball.

We’re missing that this time around: football used to provide a framework, but now it’s treated as a distraction from the interpersonal drama. Football gets in the way of Tim Riggins’ drinking, football gets in the way of the Taylor family’s happiness, and football is just the reason Saracen and Smash are feuding. The only plays we saw in the football game were plays that spoke to this last point, as opposed to…well, actual football.

And I like football: I played a lot of it during lunchtime in High School, and I kind of felt like it was its own character within Friday Night Lights. Now, Football has no voice of its own, and I think that the show is hurting because of it. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between each episode, a way for us to relate these disparate storylines to one another in the web of things.

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October 16, 2007 · 10:28 pm

Hey! Nielsen TV Blog Contest Update – 3rd Place? Madness!

Hey everyone, hope everything is going well out there. While I’m busy off dealing with the faculty strike (They’re talking again tomorrow night, in case someone is theoretically interested in my daily affairs), I missed an email that informed me that Cultural Learnings was sitting in 3rd Place in the Hey! Nielsen TV Blog Contest.

Needless to say, I need to thank everyone who has voted for me thus far. The fact that you’d take the time to react to this site in a positive fashion shows I must be doing something right. I greatly appreciate the support, and only wish I could have been more productive over the weekend to justify this high placement.

Now, you might be wondering what my plans are to dethrone the current leader. Well, I have no plans whatsoever. When it comes to who deserves to win this contest, there is no doubt in my mind that current #1, Jericho Monster, is that site.

Jane has put together a site that has garnered interviews with not only bloggers like myself and Rich over at Copywrite Ink., but also actors like Lennie James, who plays Hawkins on Jericho. Her interviews and postings have been a huge service to a fan campaign, and her contributions don’t stop there: whether on message boards or elsewhere, Jane has been a huge part of the Save Jericho campaign.

And since that’s really what Hey! Nielsen is for, rewarding those who step outside the box to promote their favourite series, I want everyone who might vote for me to vote for Jane as well.

Hey! Nielsen TV Blog Entry – Jericho Monster

Hey! Nielsen TV Blog Entry – Cultural Learnings

Thanks again, everyone: voting ends on October 24th!

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October 16, 2007 · 8:33 pm

Pushing Daisies – “The Fun in Funeral”

“The Fun in Funeral”

October 16th, 2007

Perhaps starting a trend for the series, Pushing Daisies used its third episode to bring its pilot back to life. With creator Bryan Fuller writing, the story returned to Aunts Lilly and Vivian, to the Schotz Brothers’ Funeral Home in Couer d’Couers, and to the very premise of the show itself. The result was a charming episode that returned to the witty dialogue of the pilot even while losing some (but not all) of its dramatic flair. If this is what happens when Fuller steps back behind the computer, I think the series has plenty of longevity.

And I think this was a smart decision for its third outing: after the second episode felt extremely self-contained outside of some small moments of character continuity, this episode returned to the premise of the series in a big way. The mystery of the week surrounded the mysterious death of the funeral director who oh-so unfortunately died when Ned kept Chuck alive. When Chuck becomes aware that she is living in place of someone else, she is understandably mortified. And thus begins a game of cat and mouse that, while not quite capturing the pilot’s charm, certainly contains a great deal of wit.

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October 12, 2007 · 9:11 am

Sound Off! Week – Hey! Nielsen – Is it Making a Difference?

I have to apologize for not being able to post yesterday: I’m currently working with the students’ union as part of some pre-faculty strike preparations, so that took up a great deal of my time. As a result, I’m going to set us back a few days and finish this series on Sunday with some final recommendations. But, before I head out for the weekend, I want to leave what I think are some of the most important statements that Jericho and Supernatural fans made to me in their responses.

The reality is that Hey! Nielsen is a social networking site with a purpose: to better inform the Nielsen Company and their advertisers/partners about what parts of television, movies, etc. are most popular. The site is sold as a way to take the example of Jericho’s fandom to the next level, and this is why Jericho and Supernatural fans rushed to the new medium.

But the problem that the site faces is that it has no proof (as of this writing) that this is actually making a difference. There is no tangible return on their involvement: they spend a week pouring their hearts out about their favourite show, but did that make a difference? And, if it didn’t, why should they bother with this site when they’re already posting on message boards or on LiveJournal in the same fashion?

I know that the site doesn’t purport to have a direct impact on Nielsen ratings, but I think that the “purpose” of the site has led to a great deal of disinterest in its development. It’s one thing to post on a message board, such as the CBS Jericho Message Boards: you know you’re making a difference, but you have no illusion of your post being read by Nina Tassler and for Jericho to receive a third season order in the process.

But when you post on Hey! Nielsen, there is that illusion: that, in some way, being #1 on this site could be a breakthrough for your fandom. But then nothing happens: Supernatural’s ratings haven’t seen any sort of spike, Jericho doesn’t have a timeslot yet, and the Dresden Files (Newcomers to the Hey! Nielsen game, and to this blog. Welcome!) still remains canceled. People see this and, for obvious reasons, start to wonder if it was all a waste of time.

What Hey! Nielsen needs to do now is give its users at least some sense that someone is listening: I don’t care if it’s a PR letter from the head of the Nielsen Company, the first in its user-led focus groups being announced, or something to prove that they’re paying attention. A social networking site that purports to being a megaphone for fans to extend their views to a more important audience is a novel concept, but there needs to be some reciprocity in the relationship.

For now, here are what Jericho and Supernatural Fans thought of the site’s future differences, read below. If you have your own thoughts from the perspective of another fan group, let us know in the comments below!

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October 11, 2007 · 8:03 pm

The Office – “Launch Day”

“Launch Day”

October 11th, 2007

To expand on the cold open to tonight’s episode of The Office, the show is a little square bouncing around a TV screen. As a fan, I’ve been watching to see whether the series will be able to hit that sweet spot right in the corner of the screen. As the members of the office wait for the bouncing cube to finally enter into that elusive meeting place of perpindicular lines, something happens: it goes in the corner. And, as if to coincide, the show found its own corner as well.

What the show brought to the table this week, that it hasn’t in weeks past, is a focus on entirely Office-related activity. The show teased heading to New York, but staying grounded in Scranton brought out the best in the show’s characters. The episode wasn’t perfect: the second half still devolved into Michael’s crazy antics that went a tad too far, but it remained grounded in the office environment. Plus, Michael actually realized he had done something wrong: a step in the right direction!

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October 10, 2007 · 10:00 pm

Gossip Girl – “Bad News Blair”

“Bad News Blair”

October 10th, 2007

I really don’t have too much to say about this decent fourth outing for Gossip Girl, but I felt it was important to recognize that the series is the first to receive a full season order. The CW has a lot of faith that its little teen drama that could will grow with DVR ratings, iTunes and word of mouth. From my experience, everyone is decidedly not talking about Gossip Girl, but I think the show deserves a shot at growing.

This particular episode was actually fairly gutsy, proving once and for all that despite its title Gossip Girl has balls. It managed to keep Serena and Blair friends at episode’s end despite their fashion model meltdown, something which the previews seemed to make impossible. It also continued Dan Humphrey’s “coming out” into the Upper East Side with his first interaction with Blair, and spent considerable time with Dan and Serena’s parental units interacting over a painting.

This is all well and good, but I think that the characters are appearing a bit too thin at this point. Blair, in particular, needs to do something to prove that she’s not just another bitchy character. When she was criticized by the photographer for being too prim and stiff, I don’t think Leighton Meester was acting: her entire character has been that way. It’s like what Summer Roberts was supposed to be, on the page, before Rachel Bilson breathed life into her. I’m still waiting to see that life here.

And while the Dan/Serena pairing is fine and good, and I liked how Dan’s own relationship with his mother connected his storyline with his father’s, this teasing is going a bit too far: just let them have a date so we can see if they have any chemistry. I also missed Eric and Jenny in this episode: I get why they were cut (To focus characterization on Serena and Dan), but Serena’s development was minimal. I’m still waiting for her to gain dimension outside of her bad girl past.

But, now the show has time: my expectations are high for the series now that it has its full season, because it can start planning for the future. Much like The O.C., I’m expecting them to paint some realistic arcs for these characters outside of the back and forth between Blair and Serena. Here’s hoping that this actually comes to pass.

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