Conan is back!

Conan O’Brien returned Monday night from a 10-month hiatus to star in his new self-titled TBS talk show. The first episode of Conan drew in 4.2 million viewers, making its mark as the most-watched late night talk show episode of all time. The episode beat out David Letterman, Jay Leno, John Stewart and Steven Colbert.

After a 7-month stint on NBC’s Tonight Show, Conan had fun bashing the peacock in his opening sequence. He compared his expulsion from NBC to Sonny Corleone being set up and gunned down at a toll booth. Conan also came out with his new, bearded look and

Andy Richter reprised his roll as Conan’s sidekick, but one notable missing gang member was Max Weinberg. Weinberg was less than pleased after losing his title as band leader of the Tonight Show Band (since he was frequently gone and touring with Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band) to guitarist Jimmy Vivino, while they were on The Tonight Show. The lost job title also came with a pay-cut, so when Conan was kicked of the NBC lot, Weinberg decided not to follow.

For the sake of irony, Conan’s first guest was Arlene Wagner, curator of Leavenworth, Washington’s Nutcracker Museum. His second guest was Seth Rogen, who kept the atmosphere light and had some funny banter with Conan. He was followed by Glee sensation Lea Michelle. The musical guest was Jack White (who also was the last musical guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien) who, with Conan, covered Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock.” It was a good performance and nice ending for the first episode of a show that will hopefully be on for longer than 7 months. 

Curb on Basic Cable

The other day I witnessed one of the greatest atrocities in modern history: an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm censored and cut short. This episode (“The Bracelet” from Season 1) was on a basic cable network and thus, needed to be censored to meet certain FCC guidelines. And since Curb plays on the commercial-free HBO, most episodes are in the 28-30 minute range. When they get syndicated to basic cable, they need to be abridged to 22 minutes to account for ad time. Censoring the risqué material usually cuts down a few minutes, but getting it to 22 minutes takes some more slicing.

You may ask yourself, what’s wrong with this? Well if you’re a die-hard Curb fan like myself, you know that the only way to enjoy Curb is through Larry David’s unfiltered, uncut lens. Anything short of this defeats the purpose of watching the show. It’s all about an estranged man trying to overcome societal norms in his dismal life journey. The way the show works is by constantly building on newly introduced topics until everything finally comes together at the end. The episodes are unscripted (besides the basic thematic plot points) and the actors improv all of their dialogue. Adding commercial breaks breaks the flow LD does such a careful job of crafting.

In this particular case, the perpetrating network (WGAN) literally cut out the entire ending so it could fit the episode in the 22 minutes it had apportioned. Without the ending, the story made no sense and was an absolute train wreck. Be warned – don’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm on a basic cable channel, it is an inaccurate representation of Larry David’s genius.

3D TVs

The 3D movie insurgency has paved the way for the next step in 3D technology – the 3D television. We all knew it was just a matter of time until 3D TVs started to pick up steam, but will they have the same effect as this decade’s plasma television revolution?

No doubt, 3D movies have become a staple of today’s film industry. Studios drool at the opportunity of charging an extra $3 per ticket – resulting in an automatic 25% more in revenue. However, moviegoers have shown a general decline in interest in 3D movies. I mean it was pretty cool when they first came out, but now they’re almost played out now. The newly released Saw 3D was destroyed in the box office by competitor Paranormal Activity 2 (a 2D release).

Last week I was at Best Buy and I watched the 3D Sony Bravia. I sat in the chair and put the glasses on. As the reel went through sports games, movies and other clips, I couldn’t help but think what the big deal about 3D TVs was. The picture looked almost the same (it’s like when you go to a 3D movie that doesn’t look 3D and you wonder why they made it in 3D) and the glasses are uncomfortable to wear.

Then again, there are some television manufacturers, like Toshiba, that are producing glasses-free models. But the problem with buying one of those is they are really expensive and the technology hasn’t been perfected. Toshiba’s 20” GL1 model (3D & glasses-free) goes for $2900 and is currently only available in Japan. It also looks like shit (see above picture). It’s like they took a plasma from 1998 and shoved a 3D platform into it. Also, you can only see the 3D image if you sit at a certain angle directly in front of the screen. However, the glasses-free models are the only option in my opinion. People who buy the 3D with glasses models have to buy the glasses (at $200 a pop). And what do you do when people come over?

Even with the current drawbacks, I think 3D TVs will gain significant market share in the near future. Technology and societal one-upmanship will cause people to buy 3D TVs to impress their contemporaries, only to find out the picture’s not really that different.

Leo gets a Killer role

Erik Larson’s non-fiction novel, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness At The Fair That Changed America, has been optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way production company. The story tells the true tale of 19^th century Chicago serial killer Dr. HH Holmes (played by Leo) – who was rumored to have killed 200 people, numbers that put Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer to shame. Will this finally be the roll that nabs Leo the Oscar?

He’s been nominated three times before – twice for Best Actor (The Aviator and Blood Diamond) and once for Best Supporting Actor (in a chilling performance as a young mentally challenged boy alongside Johnny Depp in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?). Since Titanic came out in 1997, everyone’s been saying how good Leo is and how he deserves one. But he’s never had that one, juicy roll he can really sink his teeth into – something in the vein of Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence of the Lamb (a roll Hopkins literally and figuratively sunk his teeth into) which won him the Oscar.

With a good director behind the camera, this project has a lot of Oscar potential for Leo. He’s made some good movies this year, but his roles are starting to look the same – especially with his new, go-to squinty-eyed facial expression, that he incessantly used in both Shutter Island and Inception this year. This one facial expression acting style is what I like to call the Mark Wahlbergization of contemporary acting (in Wahlberg’s case, the expression is unbridled confusion). Leo’s role as a cunning serial killer lends itself to a multitude of emotions, let’s see if he can use his range and ride this project all the way to Oscar town. 

Kiefer Sutherland's Hitting Broadway

Kiefer Sutherland hasn’t been up to anything since 24 ended. Now, he’s set to star in Jason Miller’s That Championship Season alongside Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, and Jason Patric. The story focuses on a group of friends that were on a championship basketball team, reuniting after 20 years. The play first debuted in 1972 and won both a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize. However, with Sutherland as the lead, this production has enormous destructive possibilities.

Sutherland is notorious for being extremely hard to work with. 24 ended because he was showing up shitfaced to work everyday. He has 4 DUIs, with the most recent one in 2007. Earlier this year, he was kicked out of a New York strip club for being too drunk and taking his shirt off. This came after pledging he would quit drinking and focus on acting after his last DUI arrest. He might be a good actor, but the guy’s got as much class as a can of wine.

The only reason he became a celebrity was because of his father Donald. But riding the coattails to the top can only get you so far. Eventually, you need to prove you belong where you are and Sutherland has failed his father and himself time and time again. 

The Future of TV

Since the dawn of time, people have been glued to their TVs. Radio used to be the popular form of entertainment but since the television was invented, Americans have been hooked like catnip. Television will be around until the end of the world (2012?), but the way we experience TV has and will forever continue to change. As the network model becomes less viable, we’ll see the rise of new technological platforms such as digital video recorders (DVRs), internet-enabled televisions, and non-network content owners (such as Netflix).

The financial element behind the current model is not sustainable. The networks have been bleeding profits since 2008 – the start of the Great Recession. Networks make money in one way: ad sales. Companies don’t have as much money anymore and advertising is usually the first thing to go when businesses start going in the red. Cable, on the other hand, has an advantage with its dual-revenue stream. Basic cable networks like FX and TNT are doing much better than the networks because they have subscription fees plus ad space to sell. Premium cable networks have been relatively unaffected by the recession. HBO still has 30 million subscribers at $10 a month. That’s roughly $3.6 billion in revenue a year.

I predict that within the next 15 years, network television will no longer exist. The parent companies that control the networks can’t afford to keep losing money. When there were only 3 channels (ABC, NBC, and CBS) each network was able to garner a significant market share. But now that there are literally thousands of things to watch on TV, people have so much more to choose from. Logically, the networks have less viewership – that’s why they will eventually have to charge for viewership. I think this will be for the better because the networks will have more money to work with and can therefore make better product. The rise of trashy television and reality shows is the consequence of not investing the money in quality programming.

Another thing to consider is that the network “brand” no longer exists. Back in the 3-channel days, each network had a brand identity. But now, any network show can fit in any network station. People don’t watch networks, they watch shows. And now, with digital video recording (DVR) and on-demand, people watch shows on their own time. The days of getting together with friends and huddling around the tube on to watch Seinfeld on Thursday nights are over. We’re busier than ever and refuse to conform to the traditional TV schedule.

TiVo changed the game with the DVR, empowering consumers with the ability to watch shows on their own time. With the proliferation of DVR, advertisers are having a much tougher time getting people to watch their commercials. Why would anyone sit through commercials when they can fast-forward them? These advertisers have demanded lower CPMs (cost per a thousand ad exposures) from the networks.

In my opinion having everything available on demand is the most efficient and effective television model. This concept is known as IPTV (internet protocol television). When I visited Shanghai earlier this year they were already using this technology in most places. It is one of the best and most economical ways of watching television. You just go to the menu and pick what you want to watch. It helps people save time – and since we all know that time is money, through the transitive property, IPTV helps people save money. It may not be quite that simple, but at its core, IPTV promotes a more efficient society. The only problem with this is live events like award shows or sports games. However, this shouldn’t be hard to work around, they can simply offer a “live-stream” section with all the live events happening at that hour.

If and/or when IPTV is the dominant form of watching television, the network identity will truly no longer exist. In fact, networks (both cable and non-cable) will no longer exist. The only “network” will be your cable provider. This might bother some traditionalists who remember the good ol’ days when they would sit around the tube, watching Bonanza, while eating their Swanson TV dinners. To those people I say, “Beat it old-timer, get with the program.”

Whether you like it or not, the internet is eventually going to be part of TV. IPTV works through a broadband connection and company’s like Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T (U-verse) use fiber-optic internet connections for their television platforms. With websites like Hulu and Clicker, a lot of people are watching TV on their computers these days. A merger of these two mediums is logically imminent.

The cyber company with the most destruction capability is Netflix. In an earlier post I highlighted how Netflix has the potential to destroy our current model. They already have the on demand set up which allows consumers to stream all types of content over a broadband connection. PlayStation3, Xbox 360, Wii, and even some Blu-Ray players are able to project Netflix content on televisions. If Netflix starts producing original content instead of just acquiring it, they could really put a dent in the networks’ wallets.

So will all this new technology really improve television, or will all the clutter make it even harder to watch? The technological revolution is imminent and while this might scare the traditionalists, I think it’s exciting. The old model is no longer viable and we need to look to the future. It’s really only the networks that are opposed to DVR, IPTV, and Netflix – for the sole purpose that these shows empower the viewer and allow them to skip commercials. Networks want you to conform to their pre-set schedules, but the consumers will not stand for that. They’re worried about finding a way to monetize the trend, but it’s not that complicated – just make it impossible to skip commercials on all DVR-ed or web-based programming (like Hulu and several network sites already do).

In an ever-going effort to save time, we’ve adjusted many aspects of our lives. Living in the age of technology, we have the luxury of new tools that conform to us and make our lives easier. We’re on the brink of a televisual revolution that will promote social efficiency by empowering the audience and we can’t let the networks’ corporate fat cats thwart our progress.

Scary Movie Weekend

Saw 3D, the seventh and supposedly “final” installment of the franchise, opened at $24 million this weekend – underperforming its $30 million estimate. Even with the higher 3D ticket price, the opening ranks only fifth among the other Saw movies.

So are people getting tired of this franchise? The movies have grossed over $750 million globally, with another billion dollars coming from DVD sales. Financially speaking, it’s the most successful horror franchise ever, but it’s time for a change. Every year they dupe audiences with the “final installment” fib. People go out and watch the gore, but eventually, the core viewers become desensitized. There’s only so much garbage a studio can churn out of one dumpster.

Another reason Saw 3D may have underperformed was because of the 3D. Maybe people are just tired of 3D movies; or maybe the $3 up-charge is turning viewers away. Further evidence to support this claim is the success of (the 2D) Paranormal Activity 2. The film is in its second week and has a grossed $66 million up to this point. It opened at $40 million, blowing Saw 3D out of the water.

Although Saw 3D claims to be the last installment, they’ll be back with another one. Lionsgate (who produces Saw) isn’t going to let Paramount (Paranormal Activity) have a monopoly on the Halloween movie weekend market. With the success of the first two films, Paramount’s already in talks to make Paranormal Activity 3. Also, the Saw writers have reportedly come up with an amazing idea for Saw 8. From the looks of it, Paranormal Activity and Saw will be in a Halloween pissing match far into the foreseeable future.