Buzz tested your knowledge of how much money TV stars make. (BuzzSugar)

This week, Sandie took a first look at Katie Holmes’ guest appearance on Eli Stone (Daemon’s TV)

As part of a week-long series on TV v. film with TiFaux, Marcia takes a look at some of the ways TV creates more varied characters than film. (Pop Vultures)

Rae steps into the RTVW Confessional and spills about liking good stunt casting, citing such examples as LiLo on Ugly Betty and Katie Holmes on Eli Stone. (RTVW Online)

Paris Hilton, Ludacris and Plastic Man all recently tossed their hats into the political ring. God help us all. (Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green)

Vance giddily recaps the finale of So You Think You Can Dance Season 4. (Tapeworthy)

This week, Jace waxed poetic about the latest Peggy-and-Pete-centric installment of Mad Men, easily the one of the most complex, vibrant, and vivid series on television right now. (Televisionary)

In an exciting first for TiFaux, Dan teamed up with Marcia from Pop Vultures to discuss the merits of TV versus film. In his first entry, Dan talked about how couch potatoes are given a bad reputation as anti-social shut-ins. Which, for the record, he only is when Project Runway is on. (TiFaux)

Jack Bauer would me proud as this week, the TV Addict did the impossible and infiltrated the set of 24. [The TV Addict]

Kate was saddened to realize that pretty much any great woman’s life can be turned into a Lifetime Original Movie. (TV Filter)

The brevity and economy of film is one of its assets. Although, if you ask me, movies are getting way too long these days.  (But you didn’t.  So nevermind.) It’s a delicate and thoughtful process to trim out what isn’t necessary in a film to create the most powerful piece of art possible. Ask TiFaux Kyle — he’s famous for this stuff. I won’t go on this tangent because I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about.

But what I’m getting at is this — in a movie you’ve got two hours to make your point. And, generally, you hit or you miss and the characters work or they don’t. However, the nature of television means that not only do you have more time to develop relationships with characters, but they have more potential to develop and grow.

Think of Jim and Pam on The Office — the will-they-won’t they tension on that show could never have built up and paid off if you’d only known about them for two hours. Not only did you have dozens of episodes to build upon, but you had the weeks in between to analyze and speculate about how things would pan out.

Furthermore, the plotlines have the potential to be richer. While the miniseries of Battlestar Galactica laid a great foundation, the series has taken the potential of the concept and run with it. The depth of the mythologies of TV series is something that is distinct to the medium — whether it’s knowing all about Gaius Baltar and his misdeeds or knowing why Meredith Grey has become the basketcase she is today.

Heck, think about packing all the twists and turns of Lost into a feature film (or a book for that matter).

Watching television can be a social experience. I’m serious.

The couch potato stereotype involves pot bellies, Cheetos, bed sores and awkward social interactions. As a TV blogger (a two-fer of descriptors that carry negative connotations), I have to accept that some of these things may apply to me (I’ll leave it to you to guess which ones), but I’d also like to establish the fact that television has the capacity to serve as a social experience better than movies ever could.

Let’s start here: I’ve never understood the idea of going out to the movies in the company of people you haven’t seen for a while or on a first date (where you should spend the entire time asking each other how many siblings you have while you nervously sip latte). Seeing a movie on the big screen is pretty much a solitary experience and, counter to the popular notion, is probably best experienced when one is feeling antisocial. You’re in a dark room, not facing your friends and you’re teleported to a completely foreign setting with characters you don’t know. There’s no social interaction except for the moment where you leave the theater and discuss the movie before you go get burritos (or, well, at least that’s the way it goes with my friends).

There should be less shame associated with going to the movies solo.

(Before I get started praising the television, I’ll just put it out there that I’m not trying to say that watching television is the best way to interact with friends. However, television is more conducive to healthy socialization than a solitary movie experience. I’m not saying that people should watch more television in order to solve any social problems. I’m just saying that the tube has been given a bad reputation as a vortex for laziness, antisocial behavior and all things awful. All of these tendencies to exist, but it’s the people who watch it who are responsible for their own social lives.)

While people frequently watch television by themselves (of course), television shows are much more conducive to social interaction in a variety of ways. I’ll talk about what I think are the two biggies.

You watch television at home, within your comfort zone. It’s a pressure-free environment and, in a group, you can pay as much or little attention it as possible. Whereas movie theaters run trailers asking you to not talk during movies, in the comfort of your own home you can heckle the screen as much as you want, guffaw if you feel like it, or hit pause on the TiFaux so you can blend more margaritas.

It’s a quiet indignity that television suffers that people are more cavalier in talking over the action, but it does make the medium a bigger experience.

The second reason that television is a social experience is because there’s a higher likelihood that people will have at least some concept of the shows their peers and acquaintances keep up with, thus providing them with a basis for conversation. Movies come and go in the blink of an eye and, unless you’re talking about franchises, there’s no continuity. Since television shows last longer, there’s a stronger chance you’ve heard of them.

Keeping up with television shows is a way for unlike people to establish common ground. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve been stuck with and they only thing we’ve had to talk about is Project Runway (speaking of — how dreamy is Keith. Rowr.) With television, you’ve instantly got a common backstory.

I wouldn’t worry that talk of television is ‘dumbing down’ the discourse between strangers. If television went away, first dates wouldn’t be replaced by talk of Descartes and the human condition. Furthermore, television is less emotionally charged than politics or religion (although I can understand people having strong feelings about the Blayne “girlicious” issue)

To sum up — television may not get a lot of respect from a lot of folks, but it is a pretty decent (if counterintuitive) way for people to stay in touch with each other.

PS — And for the contingent who will inevitably shout “Why don’t you go outside! Meet people! Join a club!,” all I have to say is this: right now you are reading a blog about television. On the internet. Alone.

Physician, heal thyself.

I’m not really as big of a couch potato as you might think. Despite the TV blog.

First, a little backstory…

When TiFaux started I wasn’t exactly a television obsessive. I mean, I still probably watched more than was really healthy — but I didn’t know what the upfronts were, I wouldn’t have given a show like Battlestar Galactica the time of day and I didn’t exactly care about the various casting changes of flash-in-the-pan one-season network series. When Cristin and Maggie invited me to write for the site, I figured TV seemed like a good topic to write about without actually having to have any real education or expertise.

But now, it’s safe to say that I pay more attention to TV than most people do (or, perhaps, should). Because of my heightened involvement in TV news and the amount of time I spend dissecting why Izzie Stevens is such a horrible cow, I’ve grown a little bit defensive about the medium and it’s reputation as the dim-witted, fat cousin of the svelte, turtle-necked feature film.

I particularly dislike it when people deny that they watch TV at all. To this, I say one of the following:

• Shut up, you’re a damned liar.
• Well, this is going to be a short conversation because I have no idea what we’re going to talk about.

In any case, I’ve developed a bizarre defensive fondness for television — perhaps as a justification for writing a TV blog. And now I have an opportunity to defend it. Marcia from Pop Vultures has invited me to collaborate in a week-long celebration of the small screen. All next week, we will elaborate on some of the reasons the small screen has a leg up on the big one.

Stay tuned.

PS — I’m gone all next week.  In Alaska.  On a boat.  With my mom.  I’m actually gone right now.

I guess I should retire this series now, since it’s so unbelievably far away from the upfronts, but I’ll keep it up in the spirit of introducing new series for the fall.

Next up: My Own Worst Enemy with a resurgent Christian Slater.

The gist of the show is that it is Chuck.  That’s about it.

Well, there’s a bit of Medium thrown in because of the “soccer dad by day” aspect and perhaps a little bit of “Mr. and Mrs. Jones” because he’s an assassin.  But, basically, it’s another fantasy superhero series with secret identities. I might watch it once, just because I think it’s weird that Christian Slater is still around, but the premise is a bit tired.

This does remind me a bit of Slater’s movie He Was a Quiet Man, where he played a pudgy, bald office drone who nearly becomes a mass murderer. It has a talking goldfish, Elisha Cuthbert paralyzed from the waist down and a fair amount of gunplay. Needless to say, it’s a weird movie to watch on a plane (as I did — I needed something a little arty after sitting through all nine hours of Transformers: The Movie).

Here’s a Hulu preview of tonight’s episode of Project Runway.

Sorry, international folks. You’ll see the episode soon enough, though.

As I perused the television news today, I found a photo of Rory Cochrane. At first, I thought “who the hell is that and why does he sound so familiar?”

Then I realized it. Rory Cochrane is the dude from Empire Records who stole all the money and was locked in the office the whole (or most of the) time. Apparently he did a stint on CSI: Miami (he died or got transfered or got deported) and now he’s going to be on the next season of 24.

The strange thing is this: dude’s gotten older. Not old.  But older.

And there’s nothing wrong with aging.  I’m doing it as we speak. And, for the record, I think he’s infinitely more handsome now than he was when he was making Empire Records. But, seriously, can you believe that that movie was made in 1995? And even in 1995 he was kind of the Ian Ziering of the bunch age-wise. The I’ll-suspend-my-disbelief-ever-so-slightly guy who seemed a bit of a stretch to fit into an adolescent drama.

Jeez.

Empire Records, man. With Ethan Embry and that soundtrack with The Cranberries and Coyote Shivers.

Needless to say, my birthday’s next week and I’m going down my usual spiral of shame and anxiety. Pay no mind.

Happy Wednesday.

Johnny Foreigner. Not to be confused with Foreigner, Foreigner. Just so you know.

Moving on — welcome to the song that I was introduced to just yesterday and have become utterly obsessed with. Johnny Foreigner is a British trio whose album hasn’t even come out in the U.S. yet. But, if you watch the following clip, you’ll be familiar with them. And that doesn’t that make you feel in the know?

Well, it’s available online, but not in stores.

The Johnnies have played in the U.S. already opening up for TiFaux favorites Los Campesinos!.  This single, unfortunately named “Salt, Pepa and Spinderella,” is exactly the kind of thing I eat up — boy/girl vocals, huge urgent melodies and very pleasing harmonies. For what it’s worth, the video is kind of interesting too. It seems like it’s an animated clip made up of photographs, but with various depth of field experiments throughout.

Here it is:

Johnny Foreigner- Salt, peppa and spinderella from Best Before Records on Vimeo.

Like a breath of fresh air, here comes the teaser for the premiere of Dexter. Of course, it’s not exactly fresh air as it is air reeking of stagnant pools of blood and the tension of a tortured non-conscience.

Hooray for moral ambiguity!

The next season of Dexter promises more character development and more “how’s he going to make his way out of this one” misadventures.” However, the thing I like about Dexter is that it never feels monotonous. One would think the conceit of having a serial killer constantly try to hide his habit would grow one note — like a morose episode of Frasier (for some reason I feel like that show always relied on those elevator baby plotlines about trying to cover up unfortunate situations with elaborate lies). Actually, now that I think of it, I think it would be pretty funny if Niles had been a persnickety serial killer the entire time.  He was always talking about Maris — who was actually stuffed and kept propped up on a pile of babydoll heads.

Was that too much?

But I digress. This season stars Jimmy Smits, back on the market after the unfortunate demise of the middling drama of last season, Cane.

Take a look.

It’s still the guy who screams and makes the air shake. This time, though, there’s an appearance by a familiar face.

Not saying you have to watch it or anything, but there is a little bit of familiarity.