Way back in September, Kyle, Friend of the Faux Katie, and I attended a taping of the Parker Posey/Lauren Ambrose/Amy Sherman-Palladino sitcom The Return of Jezebel James. I’m excited to say that the episode we saw is airing tonight! (Unless they cancel the show between now and 8:30. Which is… possible.)

This is our episode! That kid with the horns on the right is based on this kid.

Living in New York, and in the age of the single-camera sitcom, we don’t get a lot of opportunity to see scripted shows being taped. I’ve been to the Daily Show, which was awesome, but it was also remarkably similar to sitting at home watching the Daily Show (for example, it took almost exactly a half hour to tape). Seeing Jezebel James taping was completely different and fascinating. Watching the crew at work, manipulating these giant cameras at insane speeds and making instant decisions and changes and improvements, was like watching a whole other show in addition to the one being taped. I loved it. I could’ve stayed there all night just to watch them do their jobs.

… Which is good, because the taping went until after 1:00 AM! Keep in mind these numbers: Taping began at around 7:00. About 8-10 minutes of the show had been previously recorded. That means that we spent 6+ hours taping 12-14 minutes of actual show. Now, if this were a movie, that might not be so insane. But according to the audience’s cheesy host/comedian(?), who’s been a host/comedian(?) at dozens of tapings of many shows, in his experience, this was the latest a sitcom taping had ever gone. (Also, his family owns Town Shop. FYI.)

Like I said, I had no problem with this, because I was loving the whole experience. However, it did not bode well for the show. The problem seemed to be the house style of dialogue, those lovely convoluted twisty-turny sentences that tripped so lightly off of Lauren Graham’s tongue. Apparently, not everyone is so adept at turning the Palladino witticisms into natural speech. I adore Parker Posey, and she was delightful to watch, but it was not a natural fit for her — not the speeded-up rhythms of taping a TV show, not the mouthfuls of dialogue, not the increasingly late and exhausting night. Not any of it, really.

Her assistant was our favorite. Great timing. Get that guy his own show!

I’m very curious how it all turned out. Critics and audiences don’t seem to like it so far. For the crews doing overtime last September, that may turn out to be a relief. But for poor me who likes seeing TV being taped, that’s a shame.

So is anyone going to watch tonight? I’d recommend it, even though it’s not a slam dunk show. It’s worth taking a look, and not just because you may hear my laughter.

I have to admit, I made this post an “I’m Sick of Your Shit” primarily for the shock value. I love Jon Stewart endlessly, of course, but I have a bone to pick with The Daily Show and why not resurrect the series?

It’s a weird, unpleasant feeling — I must say — having to raise a beef with one of our favorites. But no show is perfect and even the teacher’s pet has to get a B+ every once in a while to keep him on his toes.

Here’s what has been on my mind for a while now…

I don’t watch The Daily Show consistently, but I watch it enough to notice that they have a certain kind of gag I find cheap and not constructive. Often when they are discussing media coverage, they’ll do segments where the splice together lots of anchors and reporters asking the same question in different ways. For instance, on a big primary night recently they had a montage of network anchors describing the colors they used on the different maps. There’s a shot of Wolf Blitzer calling a certain color code “cranberry” and then Chris Matthews calling something “umber.” Etc., etc., etc.

That’s a silly example, but they often tackle more substantive issues and you’re supposed to make inferences based on the clip compilations. Because everyone is asking whether Barack Obama’s speech on race did the job, then there must be something wrong with that.

What gets me about this phenomenon is this: it’s an easy trick that can fill up a good twenty to thirty seconds and you don’t have to write an actual joke. I’m not trying to say the media should be let off easy (far from it) or that the 24 hour news networks aren’t ridiculous much of the time (they are), but often these clip compilations don’t have a real point. Just because a lot of people are asking the same question and it seems silly in the reel, doesn’t mean it’s not valid. I feel like when you’re in the game of political satire, when you make fun of something there should be a lesson to glean from it.

Not that everything comes back to Project Runway (well, it kind of does in my world, but whatever), but they do the same thing on the Project Runway reunion shows. They often to montages of all the times a certain event happened on the past season — like Ricky crying, Christian saying “fierce,” Tim Gunn saying “make it work.”

When you take them all at once, it’s funny to see. But it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Awww… it’s just like old times.  Want to bitch about Studio 60?

• Michelle Trachtenberg is joining the cast of Gossip Girl.
• Mr. Show’s Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are reuniting on a project called “David’s Situation.”
• In case anyone was wondering, The Bionic Woman is officially kaput.
• Things look good for a second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• A talk with Lost’s creator about last night’s episode.
• Michael from Lost talks to TV Guide.
• I can’t tell if this Lost/Battlestar Galactica comparison is annoying or profound.
• Rainn Wilson talks about Office spin-offs.
• Sock from Reaper talks to E! I have completely forgotten about that show.
• Looks like a few people actually posted the Spike graphic!  Take a look at Amuse Biatch, Wannabe Foodie and Cliffieland.