Wow. For the sake of people who were waiting for the return of My Name is Earl, I hope that tonight’s episode improves dramatically after the fifteen-minute mark, because right up to that point it has sucked out loud. With a fairly gratuitous guest-shot by Marisa Tomei (she was better used on Seinfeld), a banal and unsurprising coma plot, uncharacteristically flat acting, and a retro-TV-comedy-fantasy plot device that I know I’ve seen a time or two before (as plot device, that is), this has all the earmarks of a shark jump.

Apparently, when your show is introduced by Jeff Zucker, entertainment doesn’t necessarily follow. That intro defined “lame and forced,” incidentally. If “JZ” intros The Office or 30 Rock, I may holler.

A few minutes later: Getting even worse. And hey, it’s a whole hour tonight! Don’t think I’ll stick around for the rest.

• Now that’s my kind of reality show
• Entertainment Tonight picks at the corpse
• Impulse power restored, captain
• What’s it worth to you?
• Fill ‘er up

Color me unenthused over the pending movie revival of The X Files. I was a lukewarm fan of the show, and was utterly underwhelmed by the first film spinoff, The X-Files: Fight the Future. It’s much too early to start recycling Nineties concepts, isn’t it? Didn’t we just get rid of DINK, techno, and Seinfeld?

Yes, I did watch the program some. Yes, Gillian Anderson was very easy to look at. And yes, the “monster of the week” concept - straight outta Kolchak: The Night Stalker - was a lot of fun. These fine attributes were undermined, however, by the yawn-inducing, tinfoil-hatted conspiracy “story arc” that excited legions of nerds but put me to sleep. I can’t even think the words “Smoking Man” or “Lone Gunmen” without wanting to take a nap.

As for the first film - ehh. I seem to remember Mulder being shot in the head, but he shook that off easily enough. Scully got stung by a bee and almost died. Lots of white Antarctic background. Kang and Kodos flying away. And, uh, Rollin Hand but not - strangely enough - Cinnamon Carter. Did I miss anything?

I’m told the TV series went on for a couple of years after the film came out. Odd that I don’t remember.

And now it’s all coming back. Well, it’ll be fun for somebody.

• Un-x-cited over X Files
• A hell of a headline
• Watermelon cantaloupe watermelon cantaloupe
• Wrong time, wrong place
• When Worlds collide

Via Hacking Netflix, I found a Film.com piece on common causes of Netflix burnout. The article lists four such problems; of those, only the first one applies to me:

1). Out of Sync With My Life
Perhaps the chief problem with services like Netflix is that DVD rental is inherently a spur of the moment decision. Let’s say I’m sitting at home early on a Friday night after being stood up by whatever evil girl from the coffee shop and I want to wallow in I’m-a-survivor self-pity. I’ll pull myself up from the couch, hop in the Accord and go rent myself some sort of hard-boiled revenge flick, say, Get Carter or Point Blank. With Netflix, you’ve got to predict your mood three to four days in advance. That’s the paradox: if I knew I was going to be stood up, I wouldn’t have gone out in the first place and hence, no need for wallowing.

And so, the DVDs just sit there while I wait to fall back into that just-right state of mind.

Absolutely. Several have been the occasions when I actually dreaded seeing the red envelope in my mailbox because I knew it contained a film I had absolutely no interest - any longer - in watching. Out-of-sync DVD’s don’t “just sit there” in my house, however. Who has time to wait for the return of a given fancy? I tear the cover off the envelopes, reseal them, and put them back in the mail faster than you can say “visit your queue.” The problem, of course, is that I’ve still lost time and have no movie to watch at that moment.

This segues quite nicely into another annoyance with the Netflix schema, one that is not on the Film.com list but is tops (or bottoms, or bottomses, or whatever) on mine. This business of Mac users having to wait until media companies get around to providing a service while Windows users get the goods is nothing new, but it hardly engenders brand loyalty. I’m speaking of the Netflix “Watch Instantly” feature, which might as well be science fiction so far as the lowly Mac demographic is concerned.* Sure, Netflix said it hopes (!) to make the service available to Mac users sometime in 2008 (we’re already in 2008, by the way), or so we’re told. The excuse is that the Microsoft digital rights management used by Netflix only works, naturally, on Windows boxes.

I guess Netflix isn’t so profitable that it could afford to hire an extra programmer (lawyer, actually) or two to come up with a Mac DRM.

If Apple wasn’t so slow on the uptake, it would have announced a movie-rental plan in conjunction with Apple TV that provided actual competition for Netflix’s download plan. But that didn’t happen, and so I’m stuck renting physical discs by mail like a sucker.**

Great. After this rant, I’m no longer in the mood to watch the Poitier version of A Raisin in the Sun. Damn.

* Yes, if I purchase, install, and configure Parallel Desktops and Microsoft Windows, I too be a first-class digital citizen in the eyes of Netflix without having to wait! Wonder if Netflix would discount my subscription as a reward for my investment in software just so I could download their movies?

** This rant doesn’t take into account such aspects of download viewing as picture resolution, sound quality, or bonus features. I’d learn more about it, but obviously there’s to reason for me to rush to learn those things.

• Netflix, moods and Macs
• Why you want an Intel Mac now rather than later
• Netflixed
• Netflix down! Netflix down!
• The nano is mine

M and I subscribe to DISH Network for our television viewing needs. As hinted at in a previous post, our subscription isn’t exactly DISH’s most fully-featured offering; indeed, it’s their bargain-basement level, something called DISH Family. In this context, “family-friendly programming” means “none of the real good stuff for you, cheapos.” Still, we’ve found entertainment here and there in the selection. The DIY network, for example. Being halfway enthusiastic householders, we like to inspire/berate ourselves by watching telegenic contractors with years of experience, unlimited tools, and a crew of helpers make home renovation look easy. Another favorite of ours is the Fine Living network. Lots of guidelines from these folks too, though these fall more generally into the “style you can’t quite afford” category. It’s good to dream, though.

Fine Living features a pair of shows with the same host, a Canadian designer named Sarah Richardson. Her shows are fascinating to me because of the very different ways in which Richardson is portrayed. On the first and somewhat older show, Room Service, Richardson is soft-spoken and gently enthusiastic as she describes design projects for the style-impaired. She’s really rather sweet; even the background music is soft and pleasant, kind of Windham Hill-ish. The second series, Design, Inc., is something else again: here, Richardson is the snarky, hard-driving leader of a team of designers putting together new looks for clients with cash to burn. It’s like the difference between a tranquil elf princess and a grand and terrible elf queen. At least, that’s the way I describe it to M, who always laughs.

Both shows, “both” hosts, very enjoyable. Though for very different reasons.

• The two Sarah Richardsons
• Richardson has self-esteem issues
• Can hardly wait for the fall season
• Satellite TV: Let the incompetence begin!
• Sudden impact

We’ll take down the latest round of vaguely misleading WW commercials as soon as we get the rest of the weblog up to speed.

• These Weight Watchers ads are wack
• Upgrade fever, kind of
• Slow re-entry
• Whois
• Official blog of…?