Ghost Shark Communist

I would like to produce a cable news show called Ghost Shark Communist. Every week's episode would feature 3 shocking stories about one the titular topics, but here's the gimmick: you don't know which fearsome terror you're learning about until halfway through the segment. Then, the big reveal with a loud splash page and a scream of GHOST, SHARK, or COMMUNIST!!!

So maybe we start by showing a Caribbean ocean scene, with beaches and sunbathers and innocent, meaty children playing in the surf, but then we pull back and see an old pirate ship run aground nearby. GHOST!

Then we have a story about a dying grandma whose pension is being seized by the progressive socialist government... of Atlantis! SHARK!

Back to the ghost pirates... They've invaded a sugar plantation and started a co-op garden! COMMUNISTS!

We'd get expert commentators and secret documents and all sorts of exclusive content that we made up on the spot, and every week would feature hushed portentious suggestions that these 3 forces were colluding to undermine the United States, or take away your freedoms, or put iodine in name brand cola or something. And we'd encourage you to phone your congressman.

Oh, it would be grand.

SG- Done

I meant to post this back when it was not embarrassingly out of date (my obsessive geek cred is down the drain), but here it is now anyway.

Stargate: SG-1 Speed Synopsis

Thor: Hey humanity, we're dying. You want all our stuff?

SG-1: What?

Asgard: *boom*

*A series of improbable events, in which SG-1 becomes trapped in a plot bubble and isolated from the rest of the cast.*

Sam: We're screwed

Everyone: Crap.

*Time passes in montage form.*

Vala: Do I make you horny?

Daniel: No.

Vala: *cries*

Daniel: Yes. Totally. Let's do it.

*Twenty years pass, during which they either have a lot of fruitless unprotected sex, or replicate a constant supply of contraception options in order to avoid a potentially tricky moral equation involving time distortion and the rights of sentient life at the end of the show.*

Beau Bridges: Sam, don't lose hope. You've been like a daughter to me.

Sam: And you're like the father I never had - the one that didn't become host to a hyper-intelligent space lungfish.

Beau Bridges: *dies*

*Thirty years pass, during which the cast members are shown (via montage) to have chemistry.*

Sam: I figured out a way out, but someone has to stay old while the rest of us regain our youthful good looks and remain viable characters.

Teal'c: I'll do it. I'm like a Vulcan. *pushes reset button*

Everyone: Yay. *exchanges poorly-written half self-aware wrap-up dialogue*

Review: I know they're setting up for the movie, and I know that SciFi canceled them essentially mid story arc. But seriously guys, that was lame. I could see this as a one-shot throwaway episode, but as the SERIES FINALE? WTF? They should have gone out on Wormhole X-Treme!.

Stargate: Atlantis Speed Synopsis

Military Guy: I'm going to do something stupid.

Everybody: No way, dude.

Military Guy: Yes way, and you're going to help. So there.

*They do something stupid.*

Dr. Annoying: We're so doomed, Now I have to start the doom clock. We have 36 hours to live.

Dr. Annoying: Now we have 28 hours.

Dr. Annoying: 16 hours

Dr. Annoying: 4 hours

Dr. Annoying: 10 hours again.

Dr. Annoying: 2 weeks!

Weir: I quit. Samantha can take my place. *boom*

Samantha: Sweet! Employment!

Dr. Annoying: Ok, 1 hour to live again. Sorry, my bad.

Review: Why do they keep Rodney around? He does the job of like 20 different scientists and engineers and he gets half of what he calculates dead wrong in every damn episode. Replace him with a bunch of bored MIT grad students and they'd have the replicators building giant bongs in Kendall Square and terraforming Mars by now.

Bad Dog

No no no no no no no no no no no no.

They cancelled Teen Titans to bring us this?

My problem is not so much with the concept as with the secondary characters. Watch the preview and see if you can figure out which one is stabbing me in the brain. Go ahead, I'll wait.

...

Done? Ok, here's the thing. I have no problem with a Kryptonian dog coming to Earth and befriending a human household sans Clark. I'll even grant the need for a sidekick cat somewhere in close enough proximity to provide comic relief.

But Ace? ACE the BATDOG?! Bruce Wayne felt the need to dress his ROTTWEILLER in a BATSUIT to hide his IDENTITY and look more INTIMIDATING? ARGH!

Great Moments in Television

Exhibit A: John Stewart rips Crossfire a new one, calls Tucker Carlson a dick.
Exhibit B: CNN cancels Crossfire, Carlson disappears into obscurity. (membership required)

[CNN president Jonathan Klein] specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at "Crossfire" when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."

Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.

I disagree with that last premise - people often want to be told what to think, even me. But blind partisan hatemongering (right after this word from our sponsors) IS bad. Kudos to CNN.