The late Bob Ross now available on YouTube. (via Quiddity)

Since the Melanie Martinez post has generated great interest, here’s the contact address for the PBS executive who fired her. (Wax’s specific reason: “PBS Kids Sprout has determined that the dialogue in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool program host and may undermine her character’s credibility with our audience.”) I would suggest faxes and letters instead of emails, as paper is something which will clutter up the PBS offices and email can be easily deleted. And if you like, why not give Wax a call? I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.

Sandy Wax
President
PBS Kids Sprout
2000 Market Street, 20th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-667-2750
Fax: 215-667-2701
email: sandy_wax@comcast.com

An archive of every Jeopardy question ever.

I’m wiped out from work and scant sleep, but I will post the remainder of the T.C. Boyle Talk Talk roundtable next week (which also offers the group some time to formulate more responses). In the meantime, from Rarely Likable comes this lazy Friday meme:

Bold television series of which you’ve seen at least three episodes, and bold and italicize those for which you’ve seen every episode.

Most of my television watching precedes 1998, but there were a few surprises here.

24
7th Heaven
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents [Ed: 1950s or 1980s?]
Alias
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
America’s Next Top Model/Germany’s Next Top Model
Angel
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boy Meets World
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling (the UK version, of course)
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who (new Who) [Ed: Does second season count here? If so, yes through “Doomsday.” Count me as a fanboy.]
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape [Ed: almost italicized, but I gave up on the last season when it got too smug for its own good.]
Fawlty Towers [Ed: many, many times!]
Felicity
Firefly
Frasier
Friends [Ed: Yes, I’m one of the few and proud to have only viewed two episodes.]
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hogan’s Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell’s Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Joey
John Doe
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married… With Children
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mission: Impossible [Ed: 1960s or 1980s?]
Monk
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Three Sons
My Two Dads [Ed: Oh, great shame.]
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers [Ed: Don’t ask.]
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psyche
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? [Ed: I own the DVD box set.]
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Slings and Arrows
Smallville [Ed: About a season behind on this, I think.]
So Weird
South Park
Spaced [Ed: Brilliant UK comedy that deserves US release.]
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek [Ed: I’m assuming this is TOS.]
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager [Ed: Crap.]
Star Trek: Enterprise [Ed: Good riddance.]
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman [Ed: If George Reeves version, yes.]
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Brady Bunch [Ed: I may have seen them all, but the notion of going through a Brady Bunch episode guide and checking off episodes is about as salutary to me as plunging my head in liquid nitrogen.]
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls [Ed: One episode was enough, frankly.]
The Honeymooners
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters [Ed: A poor man’s Addams Family.]
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Real World
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Twilight Zone [Ed: 1960s, 1980s or UPN bomb? If the first two, yes to all.]
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three’s Company [Ed: Yes, I’ve seen them all. There are reasons for this, too complicated to get into.]
Top Gear
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Veronica Mars
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK) [Ed: All that were broadcast on Comedy Central, at any rate.]
Will and Grace

Here and here.

Where Are They Now? More interestingly, why is it that so much crazy shit goes on behind the scenes at The Price is Right? Just how stable is Bob Barker?

[RELATED: Could this be true? Bob Barker lists Winston Churchill and Dizzy Dean as his personal heroes? If this is indeed true, all signs point to wacky. Also, this guy believes that The Price is Right will galvanize the economy — this while correctly singling out “the disembodied, stentorian tones of announcer Rod Roddy.” But perhaps this clip (or this) might explain the show’s enduring appeal.]

This is the way to close a season. (Obligatory spoiler warning for Office watchers.) (via Rarely Likable)

BSG characters drawn into Simpsons characters. (via MeFi)

It seems that Christopher Eccleston, perhaps one of the best things about the Doctor Who revival (before his acrimonious exit), may be in line to play Number 6 in an upcoming revival of The Prisoner. The original series is, for my money, one of the finest series ever produced for television. It’s unknown whether Patrick McGoohan will have any involvement, but Eccleston’s intensity, I’m sure, will serve well. Let’s just hope the scripts and the execution are in the right place.

I think it’s completely cool that Caroll Spinney, the man who plays Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, continues to voice and puppet these characters at the age of 72. Sesame Street has been airing since 1969. So there must be some kind of record for “Longest Puppeteer” somewhere.

Just saw the second season finale. And I’m just as stunned as Lee Goldberg. Ron Moore has, with his writers, somehow managed to redeem science fiction television, transferring the moral and political subtext quite present in today’s speculative fiction to episodic drama. He has dared to imbue this series with scope and an almost Tolstoyesque range of assorted characters, without sacrificing the hard space opera component.

Even before the audacious subtitle “ONE YEAR LATER,” last night’s episode was dealing with some pretty hefty issues. A rigged presidential election recalling Miami-Dade County and the moral consequences of interferring with democracy, the lingering aftermath of a state presiding over a woman’s uterus, the gloriously incompetent Baltar, and, if politics wasn’t your thing, Starbuck wondering if she was really ready to commit to a boytoy, an utterly shelled out Tyrol trying to find an identity, and Apollo struggling with his new role as a commander.

In other words, not only do we have characters here who are utterly fucked up, but we have a government presented, warts and all, that represents the flawed will of the people.

I’m almost positive that Ron Moore had China Mieville’s New Crobuzon books sitting nearby when he planned this out with his writers. I can’t recall a single American television series that has dared to combine such a mammoth political scope with a dogged determination to explore flawed human beings. And this in a bona-fide serial format. Deep Space Nine, which, incidentally, Moore did write for, came close, but was, alas, hindered by the need to adhere to the antiseptic utopia of the Star Trek universe.

Something like Lost tantalizes us, but has failed in part this season to live up to its bargain that there is some grand masterplan at work. By contrast, Moore’s Battlestar Galactica has remained absolutely consistent in quality since its inception. Battlestar does not torture us with tedious puzzles that, in all likelihood, are meaningless. It takes more chances and has more followthrough, even on minor storylines that appear to have been concluded. It willingly paints itself into a corner again and again and, like a grand Houdini act, still manages to find an escape.

Frankly, I’m not certain how much longer Moore and company can keep this up. But I’ve greatly enjoyed the ride so far. Battlestar isn’t just escapism. It’s great television. I rarely use that modifier with relation to the boob tube. Indeed, I rarely turn the evil Trinitron on. But Battlestar has restored my faith that, every now and then, television can live up to its end of the bargain.

Incredible.

Earlier in the year, I gave the U.S. version of The Office a shot. I had my doubts. To saunter onto the territory of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant was tantamount to sacrilege. But after a shaky start, the U.S. Office proved that it had the heart, irreverence, dedication and continuous storyline that, while not as good as Gervais, was nevertheless laudable.

But last week’s episode, which dealt with sexual harassment meetings and organized labor, finally equaled the Gervais-Merchant blend of discomfiting satire and it may very well have surpassed it. Last week’s episode, with its character development, its underlying subtext of corporations crushing the soul out of humanity and the embarassing image of Michael Scott treating a forklift like a toy and driving it into a stack of shelves, pushed The Office into the oxymoron of, dare I say it, vital television.

What makes The Office so important? When was the last time, for example, that you saw any show dramatizing the way a corporation keeps its workers baited for life with impossible dreams (such as the graphic arts training program or the “human” face of a meeting in which extremely personal questions are asked and it’s really more about reporting these things back to HR)? Of course, in a world where you can be downsized tomorrow, these long-term prospects are lilttle more than prospects.

Americans spend forty hours of their week at a job and perhaps ten of those hours stuck in traffic. Out of a 168 hour week, with 56 hours devoted to eight hours of sleep, that’s about half of a waking life devoted to work. And yet there have been very few films and television that have come along to dramatize this middle-class bloc. The reason why a film like Office Space became so celebrated is because there was frankly nothing else out there which has dared to focus on this.

Until, of course, The Office, in both its UK and US incarnations.

To wit: If you are not watching this show, start from the beginning. You will encounter a show that is not only hilarious but has its finger on the pulse of one of the great American hypocrisies.

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: And speaking of television exploring hypocrisy, I should also note that Battlestar Galactica is also strong in its own ways, if only because any program with the line, “One of the nice things about being President: you don’t have to explain yourself to anybody,” is playing quite rightly with fire.]

Variety: “A designated operative — the ‘runner’ — has to elude capture by average folks as he or she travels across the country. Game will take place in both the real world and online, with audience members competing to snag a cash bounty by ‘capturing’ the runner. Grand prize is expected to be several million dollars, a value that exceeds the sum offered up by most TV reality shows. Other, smaller prizes could be offered throughout the event.”

All that’s missing here are the guns and the homicidal maniacs.

The pictures tell the story.

This information from Nielsen Media Research (PDF) can’t possibly be right. The average American watches 8 hours and 11 minutes per day? Okay, let’s say the average American works from nine to five. That’s eight hours. Let’s say further that the average American spends about an hour commuting. That leaves fifteen hours left in the day: seven hours devoted to sleep and eight hours to television?

And that’s just the mean. Who knows what the standard deviation is? We’re not even counting the folks (e.g., senior citizens) who are putting in ten hours of television watching a day. Or even twelve hours a day? I mean, this is pretty much that Ray Bradbury story (the title escapes me) in which the entire population is watching television and a man is arrested for daring to walk outside.

I mean, I’m lucky if I watch eight hours of television a month. Please help me understand.

Have American lives become so fundamentally empty that we now clutch onto the television as if it’s some totem to stave off loneliness? Or are Nielsen’s figures suspect?

One thing’s for sure: this television thing sure explains certain mentalities.

I was very skeptical. Friends keep telling me that I must see it, that even my jaded opinion of television and my annoyance at the medium’s hollow artifices would be mollified by this series.

Well, I have at last seen the first few episodes of Lost and I can happily report that, from what I’ve seen, this television show cuts the mustard in almost every way. It is as enchanting as a baroque tapestry. It is as beguiling as a James Ellroy novel. It is, one gets the sense, leading somewhere, which is a rarity on episodic television. By some miracle, Lost does not insult the intelligence of its viewers and it even has the audacity to reward those who are paying attention. People are not what they seem to be. The setting is not what it seems to be. The situation, indeed, is not what it seems to be. One is left delighted by the confusion, driven compulsively to watch more, wondering what details the writers will throw in next.

Lost is one part Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, one part The Prisoner, one part Cast Away, and several parts a parable of humanism and interconnectivity. To wit, it may very well fall into that rarest of categories: sui generis.

In particular, one episode revealing the origins of Locke, a mysterious man with a penchant for knives and a capacious threshold of history and obscure trivia, was, much to my surprise, a moving tale of surprise revelations and indomnitable will. We see early on a young middle manager’s cruelty and agism directed to Locke, and realize much later that it is something more atavistic and unpleasant, yet ultimately futile. That television is still capable of exploring such human complexity, that indeed Hollywood is still capable of doing this, is nothing less than a miracle in this epoch of braindead entertainment designed for mass consumption.

This is that rare series that threatens to draw me away from my work and that may keep me up late. Let us hope that Lost‘s success finally gives the programming heads some clue that if television is to survive, it must, like Lost, be nurtured.