Does Fringe have a chance at renewal?

Yes it is only February, but the scary season of TV is well uponn us, and for, having the fortune to like very high rating shows, the show I am really worried about it Fringe. Fringe is so beautifully fantastic, but with positivly awful ratings that would get it yanked off the air on many a network, it has clung onto it's Friday night. But does it have a chance at coming back? that is the million dollar question.

Fox usually cancels at least 4 hours of drama each year, so basically Fringe just has to be slightly better than the 4 it cancels, with House ending this year, thats only 3 shows that have to be cancelled. Now due to American Idol and the X-factor, and the fact Fox doesn't program the 10p hour they don't have that much drama and their sunday night or animation is essentially set, there is very few shows for which Fringe to 'beat'. Although Glee is getting a lot worse, it is still almost definitely coming back, New Girl is also a shoe in for renewal, and Bones is also extremely likely. That just leaves, Terra Nova, Alcatraz, Breaking In, The Finder and Touch. Now luckily all of these shows have fairly marginal ratings, however unfortunately all of these shows only have half-seasons. Thus the possibility of a full season of Fringe is unfortunately really unlikely. Also assuming Bones is getting a full season pick-up, and Fox doesn't expand its comedy hours (which is unfortunately quite possible) 4 or 3 of these shows must be cancelled.

Thankfully Alcatraz has rather quickly declining ratings, as with it's quality, thus as long as the ratings continure to decline, it probably will be cancelled. Terra Nova did not have great ratings, but unfortunately they weren't that bad to make for instant cancelation. It has so-so ratings, but being a hugely expensive freshman show, it does not get much layway for bad ratings, another thing is that as the Australian dollar is stronger, it is again more expensive, and I don't think that Fox really wants to get in bed with another expensive, cultish, low ratings show, and they definitely don't want 2, or 3 of them, so there is a very real possibility it could get cancelled.

The Finder, although I enjoy the show, does have pretty poor ratings, it is currently on after American idol, and thus its ratings ae almost entirely inflated. So there is a very real possibly that Fox will also cancel it, knowing that the ratings are not going to continue. It reminds me of the Criminal Minds spin-off, because spinoff usually don't get a lot of layway, especially since Bones is also dipping in ratings. (actually I'm watching Bones right now, and it does seem like it is it's final season, although I still think its got a few more left in it luckily)

Then we have Breaking In. I personally believe this was picked up when they shorten the season of Bones, as it was canceled last season and had pretty terrible ratings, I don't think its very likely to get a third season, so even though it hasn't premiered yet, I'd say that it easily a lock for cancelation, so hopefully thats one less show to beat.

Finally we have Touch. I personally didn't like this very much, but the preview drew big ratings, well a 3.3 which is more like very respectable ratings instead of good ones, however previews do often rate higher, and there have been countless examples of shows that have had huge ratings drops.

Unfortunalty last years Fringe renewal came on March 23rd, meaning as Fringe has wrapped up for 4 weeks, there is no chance ofr its ratings to rise, and only a small amount of times for shows like Breaking in and Touch ratings to fall. As they have said in multiple occasions, they are going to give Fringe enough time to wrap up the series, they are more likely to cancel it early, and wait to decide on other shows, instead of renewing Fringe, and cancelling shows with ratings falling, but shows that aren't awful yet. Although the same thing does also go for Terra Nova, so there is some hope.

There is one other possibility, American Idol's ratings are crashing, and crashing hard, they are still very good, but still just good, they're around the average of good shows. Not to mention, as in all seasons in American Idol the ratings decline every week, so the ratings could be right down by the end of the season. Idol is an extremely, extremely expensive show, and while the ratings might be on the slightly higher end of spectrum, there is a possibility they might want to retire Idol on a high note, maintaining it's legacy, instead of putting it out for another season, and waiting for the ratings to crash and have to slink off the schedule.

While Fringe is also really expensive, what it really has going for it, is syndication possibilities. 13 episodes would it 101, thus making it possible for syndication, and although it is possible to syndicate it at 88 episodes, the more episodes, the more money Fox makes off it.

Of course if Fringe is going to be renewed it probably is only going to be for a 13 season, series finale (so no chance of ratings getting better and getting a 6th season) and on a hugely reduced budget, but any Fringe is better than no Fringe.

Spillard

so the story of the week here in aus (although it had been gathering international attention) is the gillard vs rudd re-spill. After months of tension, trupmed up by the media, we actually have a confrotation when Rubb resigned at an extremely inconvienat time-zone (espeically to his publicists ohh I don't want to think about how wacked their sleep cycles must be) time when he was still in Washington DC. Gillard then made a rather large gamble, but really the only thing she could do, in a winner takes all re-count, and the looser goes to the back bench and relinqhues all leadership ambitions, annoyingly, on the first day on uni, aka the only day I can't watch it live, which also happens to be the day of the oscars! annoyance at uni timetabling!

-Just an observations before we continue on-firstly the media often refers to Julia Gillard as Julia, but never to Kevin Rudd as Kevin, its always Rudd, this is possibly a gender thing, because in environments where people do get called by their last names, girls often get called by their first names, but if it is, it's interesting to note how seeped in gender rolls are-

Anyway I am a Gillard suppoerter, so this post will be biased, but then again it is my blog so deal with it,  but I really think that Rudd winning would be devastating for the labour party, the public has more or less managed to get past the upset in leaders 2 years ago, but another upset is just going to destroy the public's faith in the party. Although we do not run on the american system, and the party can more or less change prime minsters as they will, the parties promote themself by their leader, people vote for either Rudd or Gillard, not usually their local member, or infact sometimes not liberal or labor, the head of the parties really are that, and people want to vote them in, and not whoever the party feels like putting in as the leader, it makes people feel like they have more control, like it is more like a democracy

Thus if Rudd replaces Gillard, not only will the media hype up the possibility of her coming back (where as they might calm down a smidge if Rudd goes to the back bench, feeling like he's contested, failed, so he's less likely to challenge again) so the party will seem to be even more unstable, people won;t feel like their voting in a particular leader, they'll feel like the government, not them, has the power, and I suspect their polling number would initially rise but drop.

Speaking on polling number, Rudd is running a fantastic campaign at the moment, with much higher poling numbers, although these numbers I suspect will not correlate to an election, where people are not interested in supporting the underdog, or supporting Rubb because its the right thing to do, because he was elected in first or whatever (stupid reasons) they'd be looking for stability in government, which with a good media campaign by the liberals, would mean a rather large swing away from any labor government.

Then there is the rather tricky question of the independants to consider, I'm am almost definite their would be further speculation about whether the independants are going to side with labor or not now with Rudd in charge, I believe that they eventually would, but they wouldn't be politicians if they didn't continue to milk their again heightened importance for all it was worth, and depending on how well the liberals play it, there would be a possibility for another election. I don't think an election is very likely, it's another thing that is continuously hyped up by the media, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a possibility, because a lot of the independant have seen their numbers plummit, and thus there is a slight possibility that they can hope to regain some support by now siding with the liberals, or on the condidtion that they will side with them if an election is called.

My point being that if Rudd wins, the crisis isn't over, there is still going to be this massive speculation about leadership, and has Gillard really given up all leadership ambitions and what about the independents and the labor party will just seem very unorganised and chaotic, and that more than any other policy, will loose them the election, baring a miraculous turn around, which based on Rudd's record, seems highly unlikely.

I think Gillard has a good chance of winning, although it is not at all certain, and its quite possibly going to be very close, especially if it is a secret ballet. Gillard has the advantage of being considered the front-runner, thus if it isn't secret ballet a lot of people may vote for her, trying to suck up more or less, because if she does win, its best to show that your loyalties lie with Gillard, and not Rudd, but if it is a secret ballet, then Rudd has a much better chance. Whatever the outcome, it is certainly going to be a very interesting time in politics.

dispersing waves

Wow that was a bad tittle, but what do you tittle something that starts off as one thing, but ends in another? the creative process is what, and that creativity leads me to weird pretentious names such as dispersing waves. Anyway, another collections of my nails, I originally had an idea of waves kinds radiating, off, but I didn't like how the first one turned out, so I more or less abandoned it and just thought of crazy patterns, especially with the second hand. I then tried to go with contrasting colours, but put one of the colours in each nail that would be the focus of the next nail, although that kinda stopped when whatever I was watching (I think the X-files) got to interesting. Still I do really like the end result, even if it was very random

you can kinda see a wave (by which I mean wavelength) theme going on in this hand, use your imagination!

I actually really love this design, and it was completely unplanned, it was just one of those things that works out :)

Of course the one that I loved had to be the one that broke patern

This was the original nail, it was supposed to be more like the sun, with waves rays of heat and energy rolling off it, like in monte, but it failed rather badly when I choose the wrong base coat, and had the adjust colour with suckier brushes, still. It's wired, usually I draw inspiration from the first one to make a series, and link all the nails, this time it was just random, and the first one actually felt out of place.

total abandonment of wave theme

You know your running out of ideas when you go to spots

yes, there all random designs, but I actually really like how it all seemed to come together, I may do another random design one soon!

Valentines day nails

I was going through all my photos, and realised that I haven't uploaded any pics of my nails yet! Which being the main reason I decided to get this blog, I think I'd better rectify the situation pretty quickly. Look forward to spam posts of my nails, really for the past year, or actually really for the past 2 years, since I've started recording them, anyway, this is the design I have on at the moment (although I'm taking them off tonight, imaginary people, I need suggestions for what next!) They're fairly obviously Valentines day themed, and not up to my usual standard, because I did them in about an hour, just before I was going out, and was interrupted by a random plumber guy who wanted to explain to me in great detail all about different types of water filters, it was fascinating, anywho, my nails!

yeah like I said, kinda boring, run of the mill, still I actually quite like them, and the photo (taken off my iphone-real top quaility photography) don't do them a whole lot of justice+the fact that they're all chipped  but hey, happy late valentines day!

Why we watch too much TV

Right so I've reccently been posting about how much TV I myself watch, and Australians as a whole, and really wondering, why do we watch TV.

I think we watch TV in two ways, passivly and argessivly

Passivly watching TV is the sort of TV you watch after you've had a long day. Its TV you watch in fornt of dinner, or when you doing something boring and want entertainment. Its when your channel surfing and then land on a show, something that you enjoy, but you don't activly engage in. Breakfast TV, and sitcoms are perfect example of this, at half an hour, lots of people can just crash infront of an episode of the big bang theory or whatever, to rejuvinate, but it isn't like you'll be devasted if you miss an episode, its just fun TV.

Then you can activly watch TV, and I have to say as a person of extrmes, this is the only sort of way that I watch TV. Activly watching TV is when you really engage in the show, you deliberlty go and watch it, instead of just finding something to watch. You'll probably watch every episode, or if your more on my scale of active TV, you definitly watch every epsidoe, you read interviews by cast members, you talk to other people about the show, and you'll look forward to episodes. You'd classify yourself as a fan of the show, instead of just liking it, maybe more like passive TV.

So if thats the two forms of TV, why do we watch it? Well as I've mentioned before, Escape. People watch TV to get away from their life, if they've had a big day and want to relax in someone else's life, or they find active engagement in a show, in doing something different. yet this still doesn't explain why we watch TV.

Taking it a step forward, I think its more about emotions, and our emotional connections. A good TV show will make us feel something, it will manipulate our emotions, it will completly suck us in to its world and it will do this all in 43 minutes. And we, I'd argue as humans, want that. Its not that we want to escape nessirly your life, its that we want to escape ambivilence of feeling. You go out with your friends for a few hours, you (hopefully) are happy for those hours, or maybe you are in work and possibly bored, but do you really know what you are feeling? What we are usually doing is feeling a combination of emotions, or just noting at all, just 'meah' we are rarely sure of exactly what we are feeling, expect if we are feeling the extreme. (ie you know when you are absolutely elated, and heart broken, but honestly how many other points in your life, how much of life do we feel ambivalent?) and as humans I think we fear this 'meah', we are constantly haunted by our limited time, and we feel a need to make use of time, not to waste time, except we don't know how. We feel like feeling nothing is wasting time, we have to be feeling something, we have to do something, that's why we go skydiving, or  scuba diving, for experiences yes, but more so for emotional clarity, to feel something different.

However in a good TV/movie/book/whatever we get crystallised extreme bursts of emotion. We know exactly what we are feeling, and this fills us with happiness. It lets us know that we are human, we are capable of feeling, and that we are not wasting our time. Of course I feel that this is all happening on a sub-conscience level, it is for this reason that we enjoy doing these things, and we want to do these things, because so often our conscience mind labels them as wasting time, and not important. But I'd argue that watching TV, or entertainment in general is still a very important thing, and quite frankly we shouldn't be ashemed of the fact that we watch huge amounts of TV, because TV, and entertainment in general is still important.

How much TV do we watch?

If you've been reading this blog, or know me at all, you know that I really like TV. I also have a huge obbession with the TV ratings,  however unfortunalty due to the fact the Oztam is one of the suckiest orginisation ever, they have this wierd obbession with keeping the ratings a secret, and rarely release ratings quickly, never release demo's and only give us the 5 capitical city ratings and never the final, unless you want to pay. Its a very sucky system so I stick mainly to US ratings, because I need my fix somehow, but today, something momentous has happened, Oztam has temporily forgetted how precious its ratings are and released a report! A report! one that isn't grossly outdated and about something borring. No they've released the first ever Australian Multi-screen Survey! Forget the fact that the rest of the world has been doing this for years, and the report and press release are possibly the worst things ever written, riddled with inaccuracies, refusing to define terms, making the meaning murky, and giving numbers that aren't well defined. Yes it took me a good 3 hours to track down exactly where all of the numbers came from, and even then they weren't even on the Oztam site! Welcome to the world of mulit-screen reporting, and please, please, please do a better job next time. Its a good thing I'm a bored uni student with too much time on my hands.


The good news is I'm far from alone in my TV obbession. Infact Australians spend an average of 5 hours and 3 minutes a day watching TV ( a lot more than I do, see I'm not that bad), and a further 9 minutes a day streaming internet video (a heck of a lot less than I do). Another failing of the report is that all of the three companies colloborating all had different age brackets, so I'm not even going to attempt to look at age trends, however in the quilivant American report, it was very interesting to note that the caotrgy that used internet and mobile streaming by far the most was the 25-34 age bracket, not the college age 18-24 age bracket that I would have expected. Back on Australian shores, men watch more internet TV (62%) but marginally less actual TV ( 47%) proving what media experts have been saying all along, that the prime advertising catorgry is men, 18-34 (but really any 18-34) because they are the most rare and less accessable. Why Australia still goes by total people, over-populated by older people already set into their viewing habbits astounds me (or even worse, obbessing over the "grocery buying audience" eurgh, people statistics, they're important) and further proves just how sucky the Australian TV industry is.

Anyway compare this to the 4 hours and 52 minute that the average american watches, and additional 39 minutes of internet streaming video, which is rather a scary comparison, considering the very high penetration cable in america (90%) and the fact that this cable accounts for 74% of all viewing, Australians watch a lot of TV. Even including digital channels, full penetration is at 70% and digital only accounts for about 10% of all TV viewing, and pay TV only 15%.


Of course non of these figures includes downloads of TV shows, which probably won't have that big an influence on the total numbers, which are dragged up by the older population, who don't download, but for me personally, and probably in the 18-24 age bracket downloads certainly account for a huge amount of TV broadcasting. But what this basically means is that while Americans have more reason to watch TV (they also have a higher internet pentration 98% compared to 77%- a very scary figure- in Australia and an average of 3 TV's per household compared to Australia's 2.4 and although Australians have a higher percentage of people who own a working TV, 99% compared to 97% of Americans) Australians are watching much more TV. This could be slighly explained by our marginally higher life expectancy, although if you look at the age population graphs, they are almost identical, basically I think we just like watching TV.

here is the report if you're at all interested. I have to warn you, its pretty basic, and not very clear, but its better than nothing.

I watch too much TV

I was going thourgh my sidereel trakcer and have come to the conculsion that I spend way to much time watching TV. Well actually I think I'm still below the average, amount of time people spend watching TV but still too much. Now this may have been fine while I was on holidays but with Uni starting, I really need to find a way of cutting down on my TV intake.

Firstly some stats, according to my sidereel tracker (sidenote: sidereel is quite possibly the best site ever invented) I am currently tracking 16 shows. Yes that is a lot, Now assuming each of those shows aired a new episode every week, I would spend 16 hours a week watching TV, which is 9.5% of my week, and 15% of my awake week. Now that is a heck of a lot of time, although not every shows airs every week, I like some cable shows which only air in summer, and some shows only have a half season, not to mention I watch a lot of stuff online, so if you average my TV viewing out through the year, it becomes the more managable figure of 4% of my life or 6% of my awake life, still a lot, but smaller. Thats assuming I spend an hour per show, which I'm taking, because I do like to look up trailers, and ocasionally spoilers and the like. Also that figure doesn't account for all the TV I'm catching up on, currently the X-Files and SVU, but that I can fairly easily cull, or restrict to watching on the bus and stuff.

Anyway none of that brings me back to the problem of what am I going to do when I no longer have literally all day just to watch TV, and also the nagging question in my mind, how many shows is a good number. I've picked up 6 new shows this year, which is a fairly significant increase, espeically considering how not all of this years new shows haven't premiered yet, and I took prime suspect off my tracker after it got cancelled, effectivly meaning I've doubled my TV intake. Now I know this is very early to be writting about, but I'm actually kinda scared that I'll do the same thing next year, pick up ridiclous amounts of TV, because some of the pilots (I'm asshamed to say CW ones) actually sound very good. So what to do

I'm feeling a bit like CBS, too many good choices, and I want to add more, so what to do; luckily for me pan-am is getting csncelled, infact I probably wouldn't have stuck around with it if it wasn't getting cancelled. in danger of getting cancelled are The Finder, Nikita, and although I hate to say it Fringe. Potentially SVU, although I think thats highly unlikely. Although I do enjoy it, I could probably cut back on Nikita and The Finder, bar a mirclous turn around, I think I am going to stop watching glee as well. But here comes my coundroum, of all the shows I'm thinking of dropping back on (Revenge, Once upon a time) are all new shows, and there are no non-new shows that I want to drop, even though really I did only start watching criminal minds this year, and fringe, and the mentalist WOW I really did start watching a lot more TV this year. Except for Nikita, which is only 2 years old, none of my veteran shows are getting bad, which is probably why they've surivied to be vetern shows, and which I love, but my time management doesn't.

Of course I could always start getting creative, downloading shows to watch on the bus, or as much as I don't like to admit this, mulit-tasking. Espeically as it looks like I'm going to be working on the weekends, and I've joined a club that meets on friday afternoons, which sounds really fun, but when am I going to have time to watch stuff! I may have to push friday night TV binge back to Saturday night, because if I'm being honest I rarely have the stamina to work past about 6 on Saturdays, the downside of that is that I'll have to delay Fringe watching time/cut back on Fringe spazzing time, which would actually be a good thing for my time management. I could also start watching shows on Australian TV. Why would this be advantageous, as I'd loose my 15minutes of add time. However most of the shows airing in Australia start after easter, meaning that I'd essentially cut down some of my watching time, and offset it, in the US summer, where less shows air. However the downside of that is that I really like being up to date, because it means I can read articles and interviews, and go on chats, and all the fun stuff associated with watching TV, because while I enjoy the actual process, I enjoy talking an anticipating and stuff more. Also there would be a rather high chance that I wouldn't even get to watch it on TV anyway, and just watch it online later, which really doesn't do anything.

So after that very long self indulgent discussion, what am I going to do? I have no idea, I think I'm going to bank on the fact that most shows don't air a new episode every week, and thus I wouldn't be up for 7.5 hours a week (10 shows currently airing-add time) which is a more manageable figure, and cut back on my catch TV time, except come may sweeps, which is like finale time, meaning all new episodes and much more time reading up and theorising, although I can totally do that on the bus right, I'll be fine, right?

Eurozone crash

Guess what! I'm not going to talk about TV or politics! I know I'm as shocked as you are, instead I'm going to apply my wonderful 18-year-old wisdom to a new non-science topic (very wierd for me, but I guess I'm just getting all my science fill in other places, but no one ever wants to here me talk about TV or politics) I'm going to talk about economics!

Unless you have been living under a very large rock for the past year, you probably know the eurozone is in trouble, and by in trouble, its in huge trouble. Greek, Spain, Ireland, Protgugual, you name it are all frankly scrabaling to right there economies to avoid a Eurozone crash. But what does a Eurozone crash mean, and what will it hold for the rest of the world? Well as my extensive google search, by which I mean I clicked through to page 3 of google search results yielded no answers, I'm going to make some up myself.

Firstly by Eurozone crash, I am going to refer to the Eurozone breaking up, basically everyone going back to their respective currencies before the Euro. So what would happen? Well firstly very bad things for practically everyone in Europe. The big countries, like Germany, who have a strong economy, would suddenly find that their dollar is much stronger, (like what happened to Australia about 5 years ago) and thus bad for both tourism (why would you go somewhere with a strong dollar?), exporters, as they would have to lower their price, and thus profit margin, to remain competitive, and drive away further investers. Now Germany has a pretty strong economy, it would almost definitly survive, but it would take a pretty serious hit, as would global markets, because Germany is such a big exporting nation. This could actually possibly be good for other exporting companies, as they would have a chance to move in on Germany's share on the market, but Germany would probably have to do some belt tighting measures, which combined with the other countries in Europe, could seriously impact of global markets, as their share would no longer be there.

And secondly it would be very, very, bad for small struggaling countries like Greece, Ireland, and actually a lot of countries in the Eurozone. Without the stabaling balence of the Eurozone, their currency vaule would pulmit, making it even harder, if not impossible to pay off their massive loans, which would simply get bigger with interest, resulting in high inflation and probably bankrupcy, also effectivly taking these countries out of the global market, which would obviously have a huge impact.

So the Eurozone crashing sucks if you're in Europe, but what about the people around the world? Well it may actually be good for countries such as India and China, with less competitors in the global market for exporting, but not really anyone else. With Europe's share in the global market diminishing, and thus not buying as much, thats a hefty part of the world companies can no longer sell to. Trade plays a huge roll in moderating the economic climate, and with trade right down, it is not at all inconceivable that there could be another world-wide rescission. Which of course with the world just recovering from the one 4 years ago, would be a very bad thing. Another likely result, but not one oft connected is that Obama would almost definitely loose the upcoming presidential election, or at least his chances at winning would be diminished. Economic factors, especially change in economic factors in the election year, have by far the biggest impact on the election. Voters rarely consider social factors in times of economic hardship, and many voters will probably view the recession as a failure by Obama. Not to mention Obama is currently doing very well with a high job creation rate (if there was one peacetime factor that influenced politics the most, it would be the change in number of jobs) a number that would surely plummet if the Eurozone crashed.

Wow, well looks like I did talk about politics after all, but that what I think will happen if the Eurozone crashes. Fortunately its not very likely, thanks to Greece and other countries electing to adopt further austerity measures, and bailout funds from the IMF, but there is still a long way to go, before the crisis is really averted.

Flu vascine

Well so as you may or may not have heard, two teams in the netherlands and the US have devlepoed a more transmssable flu virus, and in certain circles there is a hot debate about whether or not to publish some of the information. Maybe its because I've been watching too much of the X-Files (government conspiracies are everywhere!) but I personally believe this information should be realeased.

Well firstly what are the reasons for not releasing the information? Well in a word terrorism. The Influenza pandemic that devastated the 1919's was so awful because it was so easily transmissable. Its estimated at least 27% of the worlds population was infected, and at a mortality rate of around 3% (your plain garden variety flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1%) that makes for a huge death toll. However while the end of World War I did succeed in transmitting the disease around the world, today, if such a virus with such a high infection rate was released, it could travel much much faster, and infect much more of the world thanks to air-travel and the like. Thankfully the recent pandemic of Swine Flu, was not as easily transmittable, yet not so thankfully, it had an estimated much higher mortality rate of around 14%-33%. A very bad thing for the world if it was more easily transmittable, which is essentially what these scientists have figured out how to do.

So yes, if a terrorist ever did manage to get there hands on some of the viruses the US and the Dutch have developed, that would be bad, very very bad.

But at the same time, publishing the information could also do a lot of good. While I don't think that there is likely to be another pandemic anytime soon, there is a very real possibility that there will be one time in the future. Quite frankly the world got off lucky when it came to Swine flu, there was not nearly the level of devastation that would happen had the virus been more transmittable, so unless we want a contagion like scenario, there is a real need to evaluate and prepare for a more effective way to deal with such an outbreak, and of course the best possible scenario would be a vaccine, which of course the earlier it is able to be developed, the better for the rest of the world, and studying these viruses in more depth could do a world of good. Such as other ways to fight them, ways in which to reduce exposure and prevent contagion, not just for the flu, but for a range of other diseases as well.

Also there is the fact that if two teams were independently able to create a virus that was so easily transmittable, there is a very real possibility that if a said terrorist group or whatever was so motivated to do so, they could produce the virus themself. Honestly there is always a risk that an extremely deranged individual will create or steal a deadly virus, I remember when I was younger and the war in Iraq was in full swing, people afraid that some terrorist group would was going to release the small-pox virus, and I knew quite a few people who went and got vaccinated against a variety of such dieases. But honestly it very unlikely that something like this would happen.

So while there is a risk, I still think it would be a much better idea if they were to release the research, to activity do some good, rather then be afraid of possible bad. But it will be interesting to see what actually happens.

Fringe explosion

Right so I was in the middle of writting 2 non-TV blogs, and then I took a break to watch Fringe, and then my mind promptly exploded. ASOURGTOWGJRPSG What on earth just happened OMG I am still in shock, and I have to say that I absolutly 100% take it all back about how I wasn't liking this season OMG that episode was freaking fantastic and OMG I still haven't gotten over it, how on earth do this writters manage to be so good OMG OMGOMG, my heart melted, my heart broke,  right I am going to need a few hours before I can talk coherently, so I'm going to come back

(hours later)

right I've sufficently calmed down,if such a thing exists after such an episode, and got all my ranting out on fringe boards, anywho I'm going to use this space to lay out some of my theories and thus claim credit for them if there right, I'd claim credit for them anyway, but its a bit more offical if you can actually write it down somewhere, plus I love theorising

anyway, focusing on the end scene, I immediatly thought of the matrix, and being pulled out of the matrix. It made the amberverse fell very much like it was the 'its all just a dream' so my orginal theory was that the amber verse is all happening inside peter's head as he's still in the machine, but I dismissed that theory pretty quickly because it seems fairly redundant and the fringe writers are so expansive, so I think the amberverse must be real, to some extent, and that the kidnapped person is amber-nina, because she seemed to have a much more mothery relationship with Oliva, even though normal-nina likes Oliva, I don' imagine her to ever tell Oliva that they are going to get through this

I am really confused about a lot of things, and really with good reason, if you think about the number of versions of people, shapeshifter versions of people, and univeres, there are well over 100 different possible versions of the people in the scene, and where it takes place, which is both great and inherdintl annoying at the same time, but I am just going to start with the things I know. Based off the promo's for next week it appears if Jones is clearly behind this plan, and  still obbessed with activating cortexifan abilities. So I am assuming that Jones kidnapped amber-nina and replaced her with a shapeshifter, because only nina could access the cortexifan, she then dossed Oliva with cortifan, and wants to activate her powers

But that being 'known' there are still a bunch of unknown stuff, mainly why is Oliva getting her memories back, why does Jones need the amfilicite and what the heck universe is this taking place in.

I've gone back and gone through all the screencaps of Nina for this season, and quite frankly I'm really confused, in all episodes she's been in (from subject 9 onwards) she's wearing 2 black, full, gloves, but that I re-watched some earlier nina scenes, and she's still usually wearing 2 gloves, and she's worn fingerless gloves in the past, and assuming blue-Nina's good, she's definitely been kidnapped by episode 7, when Oliva starts getting migraines, but the gloves don't change! Confused.

On Jones, I don't think he is amber Jones, I think he is either blue-verse Jones, but as I don't see that as possible this leads to my rather awesome, but almost definitly not true theory about the matrix, mainly Jones as the creator of the matrix, in fact I think Jones might be one of the first people, the first person to initate the building of the machine. I think that when peter created this new timeline, Jones somehow managed to corupt it, because of Oliva. Jones has always been obbessed with Oliva, and I don't think that it is any coincidence that she is the crowbar, however this is where the theme of cycles comes in, I think he's done this in the future, and now has to lead back up to it, I think that he needs Oliva and the amphilisite to somehow use the machine, possibly to merge this new timeline back with the old one. Why? I haven't the foggiest, but this could explain why the observer told Oliva that she must die, as this timeline has been corupted by Jones,

But then you have all the observer activity, and its highly confusing, well if Jones is trying to merge the 2 timelines, I think it would be logical to assume that the observers would not be happy about it, and this could possibly go with my orginal theory, that spetember, looking out for the Fringe team, is more strongly against this, because he knows that bad things that will happen to them in the orignal timeline, but the other obersever (march?) may be more in favour of this, not thinking that the new timeline was nessisary, espeically as they essentially had to re-write history to sort out Spetembers mistake, shots Spetember, to stop him messing up again.

Speaking of Obsevers, I'd better put my theory out there because we are apparently going to learn tons about them next week. I reckon that the observers are born people (spetember around 1900, so he was alive during the Spannish flu) and then somehow become observers, they accend so say, and their job is to be the sort of keeper of the universes, they show up, make sure everything is going according to plan, and thats why they show up at important events, events that change the course of history, to make sure that these events don't wreck the universe, and once they happen, to see how the future is going to play out. Except when walter crossed over, that was not going to plan, and the universe was breaking, and so then the observers had to show up to fringe events, to make sure they weren't going to collapse and destroy the universe. I also think that peter is the only Peter to ever survive, and thats why September was watching Walternate make the cure, because it was important, he was the only one. They clearly have the abilityI have no idea what else is going on thought, so thats why I'm uber pumped (amoung other things) for next week.

of course then there is the trustl\y theory that this is all happening inside peters head, as he is in the machine, and learns what would be the best outcome to save the day, but I have to say I don't think so

ack ending a very rambaly blog post, basically I absolutly loved this wee's episode of Fringe, and I think it is really some of the best TV out there, but I am heavily confused.

The week In TV (part 2)

Although the last time I did this, it was more annoance at chrome crashing and lossing my posts, so I couldn't be bothered to do a full post, I just did a random post about what I watched the past week, and although I intended it to be a random one-week thing, I actually quiet enjoyed it, so I'm thinking of doing it more regually, depending on how much I blog of course, because I don't want my entire blog to be what I watch, but then again, who cares, its my blog

anyway this week I watched...

NCIS- It was actually a big week for NCIS in my life, not only did new episodes return to Australia (finally!) but it was the 200th episode. Now while I really enjoyed the 200th episode, I'm kind of glad that this type of episode only happens once every 200. I mean it was good, it was very good to see some familiar faces (although it would have been better if we could have had an actual scene, like with Jenny, instead of just having her photoshopped in) but at the same time I felt like they were bitting off more than  they could chew. They were trying to explore so many things, that they just didn't have time for in 43minutes. Thus some of the dinner stuff felt redundant, jest because it wasn't fully explored, same thing I think with the 2-parter engaged, that just aired in Australia. I really enjoyed the episode, but it just fell a bit short for me, as compared to some of the 2 parter's in the past. Almost definitly because the other 2-parters were really a culmination of lots of things that had been teased througout the season, were this felt more like a case of the week. That being said, still very enjoyable, but probably because it hadn't been built up as much as others, it fell a little short.

Fringe: WOW, just WOW, I mean Fringe is always good, it always manages to manipulate my emotions but his episode WOW. I definitely the best episode of the season, It was so so good to see walter peter and Oliva investigating in typical Fringe fashion, it was so good to see the dynamics that I love, Walter was being funny again, the case was interesting, and that last scene! I don't think my face has ever been consorted into so many different positions in just a few seconds, I was at the same time elated, horrified, confused and in awe. It felt like the Fringe I love, but at the same time, this was still technically a case of the week episode, so I just can't wait for the fabled observer episode, because this one just blew my mind, from beginning ot end, and I'm not sounding very cohesive, because it was so good I am incapable of thinking clearly, LOVED this weeks ep!

Law and Order: SVU- I've decided that I offically like stabler-less (cue bad stability joke) SVU, possibly even more than stabler SVU, which is very weird, and I think its mainly due to the new girl, who is played by the same person who played the lead person in Chase, and I thinks name is something silly like giddish, her character name is also stupid, except less funny. The only resong I remember this is because every single article about SVU mentions this fact, and the fact that the characters are almost identical. Admitably I don't think the girl from chase had much of a character besides the fact that she runs a lot, and almost got eaten by a tiger (because I don't forgot ridiclous plot points like that very easily) and maybe its the fact that they both have the same accent, but they seem like the same character. But seeing as I really hate the Spannish speaking boy (and Oliva speaks Spannish, so he's practiacally redundant) I must like her, because I like the show again, a lot. Or maybe its the fact that we know have 2 girls again, and she has blounde hair like Alex, who I really like, anyway, weirdly liking this show.

Sherlock- This first episode of Sherlock frankly fell flat. It was probably because it was more just a random look into Sherlock's life, and didn't have a clear case, and although there were lots of little clues, we didn't know what we were supposed to be figuring out, so it wasn't as good, and partly because I dislike Sherlock so moppy, and thought that Irene falling so much in love with him was not good, that keypad thing was lame. I really like Sherlock, but I think it needed a much clearer sturcure.

The River- ugh, seriously ugh. I was actually quite annoyed, I wasn't really excepting to like this show, I mean I've never been a fan of the horror, and this definitely took inspiration from horror, but even so, I just didn't like it. I was probably willing to look past the hidden camera style of film making, if the storyline was intriguing, but it wasn't. The characters bar the main guy, were all extremely annoying, and I just didn't like it. Usually I'd go back and check it out some more, but no, this one just sucked.

thats all the remarkable TV that I can remember, I definitely watched more, but some of it was repeat watching for me on Australian TV, (ie Revenge and Alacatraz both premiered, I've decided that I actually like revenge, I've officially added it to my tracker,(ack I've got to clean it out for uni!) and am not excited but more anticipating the suppodably really good episode tomorrow) Nikita was quite cool this week, very twisty, and I really enjoyed bones, castle and the finder, very good episodes, and how can you go wrong with a superhero episode?

In which Emily talks some more about TV

wow look! A post on TV! now that is really weird, Emily never blogs about TV. Yes I know, I'm talking heaps about TV as of late, but really there is nothing else in my life going on, maybe when uni starts again I'll start posting on more achedemic and interesting things, but for now, your stuck with my major obession over TV, however today I'm going to vear from my love obession with US TV to my haterd of Australian TV, and that reason really has to do with pilots.

Ohh pilots, how I love to hate you. You are so bad, yet you serve such a critical function in making TV good, and by that I mean pilot season. Make no mistake pilot season is the best thing to happen to man, in the history of ever. Why is pilot season the best thing to happen to man, because it keeps TV good. Every season there are at least 10000 concepts of shows out there in the aether, which gets whittled down to 40-50 new shows. and while networks may like to be able to squash more hours into primetime they can't, so that means each year 40-50 new shows have to be cancelled. Admittedly usually at least 20 of these shows are new shows, and some get canned after barely making it to series, but there are always going to be veteran shows that get cancelled.

Why is this a good thing? because it keeps producers on their toes, even shows witha verage ratings routinely get axed, so there is constant pressure to keep the show up to scratch to make it good. This is the main difference between the American and the Australian market. Thanks to drama points, instead of having too many shows to choose from and having to cull, the Australian networks have too little to choose from, and thus shows can remain on the air with pretty marginal ratings, because the network needs the points. There is no culling of bad shows, or shows with bad ratings there is no pressure to be good, and so quite often the shows get lazy. I get it, making TV is hard work, and even harder making good TV, and if you know that your going to stick around no matter what, very bad TV can, and does get made.

Of course besides the lack of culling the bad shows part of the problem with Australian TV is that they are completely unoriginal, and so completely follow international trends, and over-saturate the market when I hit happens. Of course this happens in the US as well, but the difference being most of these bad copy-cat ideas get weeded out or don't make it to series, because they have so many to choose from, not to mention the fact that the market is so much bigger. Thats another huge factor in what makes Australian TV suck (or US TV so much better), ridiculously tiny market. I'll talk more about this later, but for now I'm tired and I want to go actually watch TV instead of talking about it.

What makes a good pilot

Isn't is scary that while NBC and ABC are still rolling out new shows, we're already well into pilot season. I love pilot season, love it love it love it. theres all these new shows, everything is potential hits, and its so exciting, and like all good things in life, there is much TV being consumed, so I am very very happy. I'm going to talk more about why I think pilot season is such a good thing for TV a bit later, but today I'm going to focus on the pilots themself, and more so the good ones. Why, because as I have stated before, pilots on a general rule suck, however they need no to suck, if only they paid a bit more attention in film-making school.

First up I do get why pilots usally suck, Pilots are by far the hardest TV to make. Firstly the main point of the pilot is to introduce the show, the character and the concept, but its the first episode, and these things are probably still being solidified. The production crew is new, the actors are new, and everyone is really finding there feet, but this is really the time where you need to put your best foot forward. A pilot needs to be pitched to both the TV execs and the audience, and really crucially making them want more. You need to get them excitted for the next episode, and usally this is done by over-heightened drama, about characters that you don't hugly care about, having only meet then 20 minutes ago. The fact that a pilot is suppossed to be a typical representation of an episdoe gets pushed away and good storytelling gives way to often clunky introductions, so as to squash the entire thing into 43 minutes

One way many production companies combat this is using a 2 hour. I personally hate this, firstly its a huge step to ask your audience to commit to 2 hours with characters that they don't know or care about. And ues, I am aware that this is basically what a movie is, and they still manage ok, well yes, but there are 3 crucial differences between a pilot and a movie, budget, schuduling and adds. Yes adds, don't underestimate their power, in a movie cinema, you go in, and your not leaving till the movie is over, unless the movie is really, really bad, so they can take their time, giving everyone a proper introduction, unlike a pilot, where it is competitng agaisnt multitudes of differenct distractions in your house, not the least being the remote. If the pilot is too boring, too cinfusing, or doesn't capitvate the audience enough before the first add break, there not going to stick around. So pilots have to be all go all the time, where as movies can afford to take it a bit slow, and give you some proper character stuff, stuff that you onlt get in a TV show by the 6th or so episode, and the primary way they do this is through drama, which brings me to my other points. Although the pilot is by far the most expensive hour of a television season, with the most time devoted to it, it shallows in comprasin to even an indie film budget. You cannot have big action, CGI or whatever squences in television.

Thus pilots often get stuck in between a rock and a hard place, on one hand constant drama will hopefully keep the audience occupied, but yet there is no way you can have, good, constant drama, and so some pilots fall back on the sloppy cramming background character info at you, which when done well works, but it is done well only with supremely talented actors, in which case the show is probably going to succeed anyway (not really, but you get my point). Some pilots resort to the tactic of leaving the first episode in a cliffhanger, which I also think is sloppy, are you going to end every episode in a cliff-hanger? No. So what should a pilot actually do?

Well I personally believe that a good pilot really should just be a normal episode, plucked from the middle of the season. Obviously it should be a really good normal episode, but nothing that isn't going to happen ever again on the show should happen. Why, because if you want people to attach to your show, you need them to attach to the concept, the storyline, and you shouldn't waste anytime. Just a few well thought out character introductions, that introduce each character in their element. I still remember our introduction to Sherlock, in, wel, Sherlock. Him in the morgue, making sarcastic smart-ass comments and wipping the corpse, absolutely classic Sherlock, and because he was such a well written and thought out character, you were instantly drawn to him. If a TV show is any good, the characters need to be engaging enough just to watch them in their element, and so why doesn't the pilot start us off by introducing them?

Unfortunately what most drama pilots (or most pilots in general) do is have an uber dramatic plot which sets up the rest of the series, and this dramatic event brings the team together. I get why they do this, its very easy to introduce the characters, because the characters are introducing themselves to each other. however I find that this often results in a very black and white picture of the characters, so while we know there background history, we don't see the humanity, the quirks, the things which actually draw us to the character. The pilot is pushed by the dramatic event, and not by the character who are going to push the rest of the season, thus even if the audience does come back for the second episode, with no more dramatic events, there not going to stick around.

Unfortunatly no one ever seems to take my advice (shocking I know) and I'm willing to be at least 80% of the new drama pilots will be about the team or whatever getting together, but hey, just because the pilot sucks doesn't mean the show is going to. In fact I really didn't like most of the non-cable non-BBC pilots of shows I know love. I'll talk a bit later on about originality in TV shows, and my annoyance at a million and one attempts to remake a hit, but for now I'll leave my pilot rant.

The week in TV

ok this is actually the thrid time I've tried to post this post, thanks to my sucktastic internet browser  and crappier each time. basically I'm doing a post of what I thought of TV this week

Homeland- I really don't know why I'm watching this on Australian TV, probably because were still in non-ratings thus theres nothing else on, and I have way to much free time, but I am watching it. and really since I've already seen it, I can't comment on whats happened, although I think I am getting some of the more englishly metaphors and such better now, fantastic performance as usaul by Claire Danes, and I seriously want a friend like niguel. Seriously how did Carrie land him, she complelty awful, but niguel is just always there for her, and she is paying him, but he doesn't have to make him dinner, or stick around, if I was going to ship anyone, which I don't because it would demean the show, I'd think I'd have to ship Carrie-Niguel

Fringe- WOW, well I always love Fringe, but loved loved this ep! this I think is my favourite fringe, the mythalone, where we get a nice self-contianed story but some meaty mythology to sink our teeth into, actually I wasn't a fan of the case this time, mainly because I didn't like the bad-guy, but I really loved all the charaacter interactions, I think fauxlivia just sold the ep for me. She just walks in, bold as brass, "hi girls" to a room full of people who mostly hate her, then causly helps herself to leftover chinese. I know it would be uber annoying in perosn, but she's such a fun character, and Oliva is always so buttoned up, I just love her, also loved the astird-alt asdrid interaction, and how she screamed when meeting her double, Oliva is so right, why doesn't everyone else do that. Anyway, totally think this new obsever is evil, and shot Spetember, which in itself is a pretty evil act, but I think he's something along the lines of a rougue observer, or someone how wants to jump up the pecking order, because I thought that really was the feel of the ep, loved it and so excited for next week!

As those were the only new shows (and Homeland isn't even new) I contnued to catch up on the X-files, which is really like season -1 of fringe, if you backtrack mythology vs standalone. Its really good, but at the moment, its too standalonly for me to get that "OMG I have to watch" feeling, but still very enjoyable. I've also started watching SVU again. I really enjoy SVU, but like the X-files, it is very, very episodic. as in usally in even the most procedural of procudral TV shows, there is some follow over, whether its just occasional clue, or a scene at the end of the episode, there is an overarching storyline that usally builds to something, usallu revealed at the end of the season, but in SVU theres non of that. Which is good, because I don't really watch it in order, but kinda bad at the same time. It relies very much on character drama, and that's what draws you back to the next episode, and not plot lines, and I mean the show is good, like really good, its clearly has some very talented people behind the scenes, and so you want to come back for the character drama, but sometimes, just the shear number of episodes and no real thread is just daunting, so I always watch SVU in stages

I've also started, rather embarrassingly, to watch revenge. Its uber soapy, uber bad, but somehow so good. Its actually rather interesting, in a way that many shows have a 'case of the week' revenge has a 'revenge getting exercise of the week' were yes, once a week, someone gets burned, its only downside is, besides its ludricous plots and seeming amount of gun-wielding psychopaths that live in the Hampton's is that the main romantic couple is called Emily and Daniel, which is just awkward, but besides that, its still ludicrous but somehow enthralling

Problems with Criminal Minds

I have been watching a lot of criminal minds as of late, for a variety of reasons, the first being that there are 150 episdoes, all on youtube, meaning I can watch it lying in bed, and not have to worry about repeating an episode or whatnot, on my iphone without having to drag my laptop over to my bed (yes I know, major first world problem, but I like physically lying on my side watching stuff, espeically when I'm watching stuff right before I'm going to go to sleep, because I always sit up with my laptop, and then i'll have to get up to take it back to my desk and eurgh, iphone is easier) and secondly because it's good.

But Emily, the title of this blog post is problem with criminal minds, and you just said its good, I'm confused, you might say. Well if you know anything about the show, or me, you will know that it is a cop show, which for me is practically good enough, not to mention the fact that one of its leads is called Emily, dresses primarily in black, and is unfortunatly way more bad-ass than me,

I love this photo, its like black, black, black, COLOR EXPLOSION, its foreshadowing the evil that is about to come- who said TV wasn't educational- english lesson right there

 although said bad-assery did eventuate in her getting a stake shoved through her stomach (wow accidental alliteration!) and it would be a lot cooler if I had a more random name like arshul ( I don't even know if thats a name) or I don't know justine, but seriously, how many shows outside of buffy have people getting stabbed by huge stakes, take my word for it, its good I just have a few pet peaves about it;

(I'm not going to include the usual complaint people have about cop shows, aka its so unrealistic, because as I have mentioned eariler, I like it being unrealisic, and the whole JJ, Prentiss, Seaver thing, because if you know the show that goes without saying that it annoys me, and if you don't know the show you wouldn't get it anyway, actually who am I kidding, your not going to get anything about this post)

1.     The magically appearing SVU's  -  ahh the SVU's I think a large part of america's budget deficet could be resolved if they just stopped supplying the BAU with a near endless supply of black SVU's. Seriously these guys travel around the country (another good budget cutting measure, stop giving 6 people there own private jet), and where-ever they are they always find at least 3 black SVU's outfitted with lights and sirens, I mean I get it when they go to New York or somewhere where there is a FBI field office, who will lend them the cars, but serously like montanta? alaska? I'm sure there were a few episodes where there was a police force smaller than the BAU team, and still they managed to procure at leat 3 very large black SVU's which they later shot the window out of, and then just left the field office with a wrecked up SVU, not cool guys

2.   Speaking of cars, how does the team seem to magically know there way around every single city, like they travel all over the country (or sometime it seems all over new england, and yet they still takee the jet) but they can drive around and find there way to places really fast in cities they've never been to before, I've lived around *suburb* my entire life, and I still need to use the GPS to get places

3.     Funerals- ok so I get that when they have someones funeral they want it to be emotional, for the team, but what really bugs me is that only the members of the team carry the coffin, like do these people have no other friends? or at least family members, I kinda get at Prentess's funeral why they did that, but at Haley's? dude seriously did she not know any other guys than those of her ex-husbands work mates? I seriously hope that at my funeral I get people to carry my coffin that I've talked about more than the weather with, and I know that the show is about the team, and not about haleys random friends but still, and because they were too wimpy to kill someone actually important off they were trying to make it a big deal but eurgh annoying

4.    Rapidly accerealting body count this seems to be more a problem with network television in general, but especially with criminal minds. I get it, although killing 7 people may be realistic, and a heck of a lot, it doesn't sound that evil, so the really bad serial killer kills 10, then 20, then 30, and seven seasons later we have killers who have 192 victims, 192! is there anyone out there that has done half that number of murders?

5.     Seaver- yes I said I wasn't going to mention it but seaver, eurgh

6.    and finally Emily's nails- they become quite the plot device in the episode where she kinda dies, the team is able to figure out that she was the one holding the gun because the hands of the person holding the gun had bitten nails. Dude seriously, there are 6 billion people in the world, i don't think having bitten nails is a real identifying feature, not to mention it was like eons ago, isn't it conceivable they people can change their nail habbits or whatever, I mean if they were my nails I could understand, but there not, so lame plot device

yes I know nit-picking, but isn't that kinda the point, I mean if I wanted I could really tear appart the sturture, about how there are always 2 people who die, and they save the third, or some of the more tangential leaps or whatever, but I won't, because thats not the point. The point is, like much of the TV I watch, while I could pick it appart till tomorrow, I don;t because there enjoyable to watch, and most of the time, thats all that matters

The problem with award shows

right well as promised, the (much) longer blog on what I think of award shows in general. I really enjoy award shows, but quiet honestly I think the method of choosing movies is seriously flawed, first up, the joint TV/Movie ones. I really enjoy these ones, because it means you don't have any of the boring catorgries like best stunt person and best makeup (I'm not meaning to try and discredit make up artists or anything, but you have no idea who is going to win, and there just not interesting) but the downside to these joint ones is the fact that while very similar, TV and Movies are hugely different things, with hugely different timelines, production schedules and just different ways of being produced, and yet the same people are excepted to be an expert in both areas, and not just areas of their expertise, all areas, which they quiet frankly don't know about.

Lets take the oscars, the academy is made up of a bit over 5,000 people, already a small sample space, all experts in some area of film production, but as it goes by being an expert, pretty clueless in others, which I get why they do. They are trying to compromise a very educated by very small group with a much wider, but a lot less knowledgable consensus to pick awards. But the downside of this, is that you really have critics and publcity driving the awards

Because lets face it, there are thousands of movies that are realesed each year, most of them suck, but even the good ones, even if you're currently not working, not to metion the crazy hours assoicated with the media industry, is anyone really going to have time to watch all of them? No, but when it comes down to vote you need to, so what movies do you pick, the ones the critics say are good, the ones with the biggest publicity. Thats why practialy all the movies nomiated were realesed around december, yes its because the studios plan it that way, but the reason they plan it, is to get it in the minds of the voters. Take the town from last year, personally I thought it was a very high class movie, and definitly as good if not better than a lot of the other movies nomiated, yet it was realised in march, so by the time voting rolled around no one remembered it.

Another important factor not to be looked over is momentum, and that again goes down to the people picking the votes not really knowing whats what. We saw it last year with the King's speach, how it got off to a slow start, but after making a virtual clean sweep at the BAFTA's made short work of the Oscars, and it looks to happen this year with the help as well. Now don't get me wrong, I think its a fantasitc movie, but a large part of why it's doing so well, was because of the huge media hype, coming from a successful book, and the fact that it was not excepted to do so well, being released in the US summer, a southern film which is not really considered typical oscar material. so it made it very easy to exceed expectations. While I'm mentioning expectations, lets also start to think about the precense of big-name starts in movies, many of the films in serious contention for an oscar (aka not extremly loud and incrediably close) have at least one big-name person with some serious creditials under thier belt, yes this does mean that they are talented, and thus are likely to produce quaility work, but this also means that they are picked more or less because they have a reputation, and the accedmey really does not know who to pick. 

This is escpecially true with the more traditional award cermonies like the Oscars, and you only have to look at the Emmy nomiations year to year to see practically no difference. and sometimes this is deserves, but a lot of the time, quiet frankly its not, and they get picked because the art director knows nothing about who is the better supporting actor or vice versa. What I'm trying to say is that winning or getting nominated is rarely just based on quality, but how much a movie fits a formula. The academy is looking for serious films, films that aren't marketed at a mass audience, and films that have some sort of meaning, but aren't too deep, (another reason why the help is doing so well) not to mention good creditionals, so people who don't really know much about the catorgry, or even haven't seen the movie, will just assume its good, and vote for it.

It's scary how true this is

So what then. well that is the question I've been asking myself since I started writing this blogpost. Well the skewing of movies towards winning oscars (because an award like an oscar has a serious positive career, not to mention salary boost) definitely does I believe have a negative effect on the media industry as a whole, because you are getting lots of oscar fitting movies, usually with very good acting, but definitely limited creativity, and when you do ha mold ve a hugly creative movie or show, it gets overlooked, not to mention the fact that many deserving people never g reconginstion et. I'm sure I'll be talking about this again at Emmy nomination time if Mariska Hargitay or SVU get nominated for the zillionth time in lue of Anna Torv and Fringe, but it annoys me to no end when quiet frankly bad shows get nomiated, when there are so much better ones out there, but I do beleive the way award shows pick their winners is seriously flawed, although it is this way or the people's choice awards, and no one wants more of that.