Wolf Parade: 42 Inch Television Liveblogs the Village Halloween Parade

Not wanting to miss the start of the 34th annual Village Halloween Parade, I made sure to tune in to NY1 fifteen minutes early. I figured I could prepare myself for the arduous task that is a running diary with NY1 on as background noise until show time. But any preparation I had my sights set on doing was stopped cold when I saw the "Political Rundown" segment on Inside City Hall. Seeing Guardian Angel Curtis Silwa and English Language Murderer Gerson Borrero argue about politics was as transfixing as watching a dryer spin. It was the perfect NY1 segment--over-modulated microphones, bad production values, barely understandable diatribes and when it was all finished you didn't learn one thing. Think Pardon the Interruption but with more yelling.

You know what? In hindsight, watching that before the Halloween Parade was probably the best preparation I could have hoped for. In honor of Bill Simmons, here's a running diary of the proceedings:

Excellence in Broadcasting: Season 7 of 24 Gets a Trailer

Season 6 of 24 was quite possibly the worst television show that I've ever watched from beginning to end. But no matter how awful things got--and yes, they got really awful--I steadfastly refused to stop watching. It was a matter of debt that really kept me going. I felt I owed 24 the respect of finishing the season, just because of the excellence it let me enjoy in years past.

There was a time when 24 was far and away the best show on television. But somewhere during Season 5, things derailed. The plots grew tired and contrived, the situations felt familiar, and to borrow a phrase from Kiefer Sutherland, the show lost its "gravitas." And as the curtain fell on Season 6, I decided my time watching 24 was over. I figured if I heard Season 7 was good, I could always catch up on DVD. In fact, here's what I wrote to my friends immediately after the season finale:

Less is More: How Networks Kill Their Golden Geese

There is an epidemic striking your favorite television shows that's even worse than a guest starring role for Ted McGinley. This plague is nasty, creatively stifling and knows no boundaries. Everything from critical favorites to new shows are being attacked and sadly for us viewers, there is literally no end in sight. In fact, with the exception of a rare few, no show is immune.

This disease, which we'll call "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-itis," (WWTBAMitis for short) is one born out of overkill, gluttony, hubris and good ole' American gumption. Its name is derived from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which for a brief time was the biggest thing on television, until ABC foolishly decided to run the show multiple nights per week, killing its programming and audience almost simultaneously. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, over long seasons, extra long episodes and wild guest star turns. And to date, there is no known cure--most of the time WWTBAMitis is fatal.

Could Peggy Olson Really Not Know About Her Pregnancy?

After the credits rolled on Mad Men's season finale, the talk all over the internet wasn't about the breathtaking monologue that Don gave in his pitch to Kodak. It wasn't about Betty's heart-to-heart with her 12-year-old neighbor. It wasn't even about Pete's constant humiliations which reached their nadir at the hands of his father-in-law. Sadly, the one moment that has overshadowed almost everything in the finale was Peggy's sudden-but-not-entirely unexpected pregnancy. But giving birth without even knowing she's pregnant? Is that possible? Is that probable? Is that the worst thing that Matthew Weiner could have done?

The Pain from an Old Wound: The Season One Finale of Mad Men Recapped

Over the last month, the Mad Men bandwagon has gotten quite full. I noticed the sea change when a couple of my friends told me they started watching the show and were loving it. Not long after that, articles all over the interweb began sprouting up about how Mad Men was this underappreciated gem, the type of television show that comes along once in a long while. Then AMC announced they were picking up the show for a second season, despite the fact that I personally know 27% of the audience.

I guess my only gripe about all this positive feedback is as follows: why did it take everyone so long?

Who's Your Favorite New Kid?: Gossip Girl Recapped

The latest episode of Gossip Girl could be the seminal moment in the young history of the teen soap. For the first time thus far, an episode that wasn't scribed by Josh Schwartz was actually really brilliant. I'm talking OC Season One brilliant.

After writing the excellent pilot and the just-as-excellent second episode, Schwartz, as is his want, stopped putting pen to paper on the scripts, and the show has suffered noticeably. The last few episodes felt really stale, as if they had been struck with a case of the "too muchsies." There was too much Chuck Bass, too much Nate Archibald and too much fighting/making up/crying between Serena and Blair--for those keeping score at home, I'm talking about the date rapist, the guy who looks like Boone from LOST but has the personality of a piece of loose leaf and the two, ri-donkey-hot, leads--and not enough of the characters that made the first two episodes so gosh darn awesome, like the entire Humphrey family.

Episode five however, was the sorely needed course correction.

Sunday Morning Taped: What's Wrong with SNL?

You aren't watching Saturday Night Live anymore.

I know that.

In fact, outside of high school theater nerds and me, I doubt anyone is really still watching it. The time when SNL was appointment television has long left the reservation.

Me? I still DVR Saturday Night Live each week. And I still watch it on Sunday mornings, bleary eyed and half awake, as I sit and eat my eggs and drink my coffee. The magic of DVR makes watching SNL a breeze. Instead of sitting there for ninety minutes, I can watch an episode in less than forty blasting through the skits that suck without a second thought.

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah: Will 30 Rock Kill The Office

I feel bad for the producers and stars of The Office. I really do. Because any time I've seen or read an interview with John Krasinski, Mindy Kaling, Jenna Fischer, Steve Carrell or Greg Daniels, they come off like good, solid people who really enjoy working together and creating something that's beloved--or at least was beloved before this fourth season, which certainly looks like it's going to be relegated to "not as good as it used to be" status.

But thanks to the genius mind of NBC programming president Ben Silverstein (read: not genius in the least), they're doomed.

Really doomed.

The Bad Guys Lost: The Yankees Go Down in 2007

With the exception of Mad Men, the best television watching experience I've seen in the last two months was Game Four of the ALDS, here-to-fore gloriously known as ELIMINATION DAY 2007.

I don't know when it happened exactly, but some time during the last twelve years I started garnering more joy out of watching the Yankees lose than anything else on the Planet Earth. It's true. I hate the entire franchise and spend six months out of every year actively wishing bad things on them. If you root for the Yankees, in the deep recesses of my heart, I don't like something about you. And if you are the type of person who wears an A-Rod jersey, I can happily consider you a douchebag. And of course I mean that with the least amount of respect possible.

Seinfail: Why Jerry Seinfeld Almost Ruined 30 Rock

You know how I know 30 Rock is funnier than anything else on television?

Because even the "bad episodes" are funnier than anything else on television.

The season premiere of 30 Rock was a "bad episode," which I have to put into quotes only because it wasn't really bad in the least. Actually, it was pretty great. It's just that of the twenty-two episodes that 30 Rock has aired in the last calendar year, "SeinfeldVision" would probably only rank in the mid-to-high teens if you were making a greatest hits list.

Six Feet Under: Is Pushing Daisies The Most Over-rated Show of the Year?

In the September edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Michael Hirschorn, using Wes Anderson, Ira Glass and Napoleon Dynamite as examples, decided that American popular culture is "drowning in quirk."

And though I didn't agree with a lot of his piece--you cannot slam both Wes Anderson and Arrested Development in the same article and expect to get a Christmas card from me--it was all I could think about as I sat through what, in my estimation, is the worst new show of the Fall Television season.

OFMG: Why Gossip Girl Might Be the Best New Show of the Fall

For those of you interested, I've written a couple of pieces in the last month for Flak Magazine. My latest, on Josh Schwartz's sublime Gossip Girl can be read right here. Or, if you're too lazy to click that, just read the less polished version (read: better) of it posted below.

Gossip Girl's third episode airs tonight at 9 p.m. on The CW.

Can You Hear Me Now?: Prison Break Recapped

As if trying to watch four television shows in one night wasn't enough, Monday night also featured a Monday Night Football game with the "you need to see how sick this team is" New England Patriots and a Major League Baseball playoff play-in game between the Rockies and Padres. To give you an idea about how rare the latter is, the last time that happened occurred in 1999.

Needless to say, watching episodes of the improbably awesome Journeyman, the incredibly annoying Chuck and the all-over-the-map Weeds ended up taking a back seat to those sporting events. Don't worry. They'll all live to fight another day on my DVR. But one show had to get watched, no matter what the circumstances: Prison Break.