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I’m happy to report that according to one of the special features on Stargate: The Ark of Truth, there is an actual door in Cheyenne Mountain labeled Stargate Command. It’s a broom closet.

So I haven’t really been paying too much attention to this writers’ strike thing up to this point, but I guess I really should be. For one, a bunch of shows I like to watch are affected. The premiere of 24 has been indefinitely delayed because FOX wants the season to air uninterrupted. Family Guy has one finished episode, and a whole bunch of unfinished ones; since Seth MacFarlane is walking a picket line in LA, there’s a good chance they’ll stay that way for a while. The next season of Lost is only half finished. Jon Stewart announced on last Thursday’s Daily Show that they wouldn’t be on the air this week. I’m sure the list goes on.

Now the second reason I should care. A big part of why the writers are striking has to do with “new media” a.k.a. the internet. With all kinds of content showing up on line (paid and free) there’s some money involved. The writers don’t feel like they’re getting any benefit from this new stuff and they want their share. This is the kind of discussion I find interesting.

The problem is I don’t know which side I come down on. On the one hand, I understand why the writers might want a piece of the new media pie, and I would even say they are probably entitled to their cut. However, I think they may be grossly overestimating how much money studios and producers are actually making, especially with many networks now offering shows online for free with minimal to no commercials. At the same time, NBC was one instance of a network seemingly doing well selling the shows you can watch for free on TV. Then they go get greedy and pull away from what seemed to be a successful partnership with Apple selling shows on iTunes and what are they making now? C’mon people - get it figured out and stop punishing your audience by keeping their favorite shows off the air.

I cannot believe this show was cancelled in favor of more Seventh Heaven. No matter what anyone says, I’ve never had a show draw me into the characters lives’ as completely as Everwood did. Getting me hooked on the show might be one of the only decent things Jimmy ever did for me. The series finale was somewhat predictable and sappy of course, but the writers always managed to do that in a unique way that made it worth it. I think I might just own the entire series on DVD. Everwood, you will be missed.

What could have been.

This was too good to pass up. Seven ways to use the lessons of 24 at work.

If your boss catches you shooting heroin in your office, just say its part of your cover. If he says, “What cover?” Yell “Federal Agent!” and tackle the crap out of him.

Jack Bauer is completely badass. Oh, and I think the writers are punishing President Logan’s character because he was such a douche last season. He’ll get what’s coming to him…just wait for the 24th hour.

Do you think Jon Stewart will use this as material for The Daily Show this week?

An embarrassed charter school has discovered it booked the wrong Jon Stewart for its annual gala. The DaVinci Academy thought it had made a deal with comedian Jon Stewart, star of The Daily Show” and host of this year’s Academy Awards, to appear next week.

It sent out 500 invitations to businesses and planned for 900 people.

But last week, it learned that it had booked Jon A. Stewart, a former motivational speaker, businessman and part-time professional wrestler from Chicago.

So apparently they don’t think a former motivational speaker and now part-time professional wrestler will be the highlight of the event as they were hoping - they cancelled him.

Since The Shield started up again on FX, I’ve been seeing previews for this show and it piqued my curiosity. Once the premiere came close enough, I set the DVR to record it to see if it would be any good. If nothing else, it looked like an interesting concept and while I wasn’t sure about pure entertainment value I thought it might be worth watching.

As of today something like four episodes have aired, and I’ve watched the first two. It started off a little bit slow as they explained the premise (which I already knew after one promo spot). Basically two families live in the same house together and attempt to give each other the experience of living as the opposite race. Makeup artists work their airbrush magic to change black to white and vice versa.

The first episode kind of laid the groundwork for the opinions of those involved in “the project” as they call it. The black dad is amazed at how much better he gets treated as a white man. The white mom thinks she grew up with a liberal family and this project won’t be a stretch for her. The black mom is sensitive to racially charged language. The white dad thinks racism is all in blacks’ interpretations. The black son couldn’t care less about the whole thing. The white daughter seems to have the best grasp of the whole point of the show out of any of them.

Each family is supposed to help the other to gain the full experience of living as the other race. So far, this hasn’t really happened. The black family feels like they already know what it takes to be white because they “put on that face” all the time to be accepted in white society. The white family assumes they know what it takes to be black, and - not surprisingly - they have no idea. They end up trying way too hard; but then again, the black family isn’t really helping them out either.

The most interesting component for me is the situation they’ve put the white daughter in. She’s attending a slam poetry class with some very open and honest black teens who lay out all their feelings for everyone to hear. She struggles with the fact that she might not live up to their expectations, but more than that, she feels horrible hiding who she really is when they are being so honest. In the episode I just watched, she actually revealed to them that she was really a white girl in black makeup. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for her to admit that she’d essentially been lying to them. The reaction was mixed - some of them were supportive, but one in particular felt betrayed and let her know it. Still, it’s obvious that she understands what they’re doing, and genuinely appreciates their varied reactions. So far she seems to be the only one who really gets it.

One thing is immediately obvious - these are two very different worlds being forced to collide. It’s no surprise that not everything is going to go well. After two episodes, I’m hooked in. I’m interested to see where things will go from here, even if it’s uncomfortable at times. Still, after finishing an episode a few minutes ago I couldn’t help but think the whole thing was a little depressing. Granted it’s still early, but the level of understanding between the two families is almost non-existent. I hope at the end I’ll be pleasantly surprised and not bitterly disappointed. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s worth checking it out Wednesdays on FX.

I just finished watching the season finale of Battlestar Galactica from a few weeks ago (which was awesome, by the way). The end of the episode was so different from what I was expecting, I went in search of more information. I hit up gateworld.net because it’s always been a good source of info without giving away everything. What I found instead was this little gem about Richard Dean Anderson appearing next season on Stargate! The link contains mild spoilers so be careful. Here’s the spoiler-free highlights:

Anderson will appear first in the episode titled “200,” which not coincidentally will air at the show’s 200th episode, this summer. “200″ will allow the cast and crew to break outside the mold of the traditional Stargate episode while revisiting a comical storyline from the past — precisely 100 episodes ago, in fact. [Think Wormhole X-Treme!]
…
The show’s former leading man will also guest star on Stargate Atlantis in Season Three, and will appear in additional episodes of SG-1’s tenth year. Anderson told his official Web site that he will appear in a total of five episodes this year. He was asked to appear in the 200th episode, and during negotiations offered to do a few more if the writers wanted to use his character to tie up any loose ends.
…
The show’s producers also told GateWorld that Anderson’s appearance in [”200″] will be substantial, and not a brief cameo as he did in Season Nine’s “Avalon, Part 1″ and “Origin.”

Sweet! I’ve always hoped he would come back for some closure. Col. Mitchell is cool and definitely a worthy replacement, but you just can’t beat Jack O’Neill. Apparently he spilled the beans to a fan site a few weeks ago. His first new episode should air sometime in August.

I just finished watching the season finale. Wow.

I read a review over at TV.com the other day about this show. It really is amazing how many awful things a person can watch the characters do and still root for them, feel sorry for them, and hate the good guys. I got into this show by a fluke three summers ago and haven’t looked back. The tone is set in the very first episode, and nothing has changed in five seasons - the writing is as good as ever, the actors are incredible, the characters haven’t worn thin, and the surprises haven’t stopped.

Last year there were rumors that season five would be the last, and I still see forums saying it will end after six. But I know I’m not alone when I say I’ll keep watching as long as they keep up the great work.

We’re gonna find out who did this, and we’re gonna kill him.

Edit: I just read an article that says this is only a midseason finale for season five (it’s only the 11th episode). Apparently FX didn’t order the rest of the episodes until after it was too late to have them done in time to run after the first 11. So apparently “season five” isn’t over, and the next major decision will be whether or not to come back after that.

We got about 4 inches of snow yesterday in Madison. The good news is that it wasn’t very cold, so it was almost nice. Of course, I haven’t tried driving to work yet…

I thought Jon Stewart did OK as Oscar host last night. He was funny as always, but didn’t get the big laughs I was expecting. I’m not sure if he nervous, facing the wrong kind of crowd, missing some of the sight gags possible with his 3 giant screens from The Daily Show set, or just trying too hard - but he never seemed to really connect with the audience. It’s a shame, because he’s one of the smartest and funniest guys out there. I don’t think it helped that ABC’s intro clip portrayed him as the guy they went to when no one else was willing to host (even if it was funny). Which reminds me, I’ve gotta set the DVR to record The Daily Show this week.

I haven’t seen any of the movies up for best picture; we seem to be in a movie drought lately. I can’t remember the last time we went to a movie in the theater, and we’re probably not getting our money’s worth out of Netflix in the last couple of months either. Still, I’ve heard quite a bit about the movies and I was glad to see Crash take home best picture, mostly because everyone was convinced it would be Brokeback Mountain.

Now I’ve really gotta get to work and hope my customers leave me alone so I can get some real work done.

Even the TWiTs loves this guy; they all agree he should be getting as much money as Leno or Letterman. They even invited him to be on the podcast. How sweet would that be?