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 can’t really say that I’m very accomplished. This grows more and more clear as I near 30 and find myself dreading my college’s alumni magazine (where they show the various weddings, higher education degrees and career accomplishments made by my peers). It’s not that I don’t want my friends to be successful, I just don’t want them to be more successful, more quickly than me.

But whatever, man. I’ve got a blog that’s read by… well, more people than can fit in a phone booth. I can pretend that I wield media influence. After all, this isn’t a Livejournal or a Blogspot– this is a dot com. We’ve got our own URL, suckers.

Anyways, I want to make my mark on society by creating a phrase that can be incorporated into the pop culture lexicon. This is something I can put in my obituary. So, this entry is the beginning of a series (I’ve just decided that — like now) where I throw out terms I made up and see if people unexpectedly start using them.

My first one is thus…

Elevator baby (noun, adjective) - a catch-all term for a time-worn plot device that has been repeated time and time again.

Sitcoms have used the device of having hapless men deliver babies in elevators for years. It’s been on Doogie Howser, M.D., Saved by the Bell — heck — even that God-awful Private Practice (although they’re doctors — they should know how to do this). I want the term “elevator baby” to refer to an uninspired, phoned-in plotline.

Often these elevator baby devices involve confined spaces (being caught in a storage facility/walk-in freezer), but the term can apply to anything. The replacement of a dead hamster to fool a child, etc.

Here it is in a sentence:

It was a generally strong season, but a few episodes suffered from elevator baby plotlines.

Another:

Two and a Half Men is the worst. Every episode seems to be an elevator baby.

So, there you have it. This is the key to my fame.

One of our frequently linked-to sections, TV Guide’s Ask Ausiello, will presumably be no more. Michael Ausiello, the author of said column, will move to Entertainment Weekly.

This may not mean anything to the casual blog reader, but this is big news — especially for bloggers who pillage his columns for juicy morsels about spoilers on our favorite TV shows (speaking of which, I’ve been out all night — don’t tell me what happened on Lost).

Here’s the release:

Michael Ausiello was named columnist at Entertainment Weekly, it was announced today by Rick Tetzeli, Managing Editor, Entertainment Weekly. In this new role, effective as of July 2, Michael will write for EW.com in addition to having a weekly column in the magazine’s TV section. “Michael is a first rate journalist. His extraordinary combination of hard work, obsessive intensity and friendly persuasion are a perfect fit for Entertainment Weekly,” said Tetzeli. “The EW.com audience has an insatiable appetite for all things television and Michael will certainly further our readers’ desire for ongoing coverage of their favorite shows.” For the last eight years, Ausiello served as a senior writer at TV Guide magazine and TVGuide.com. He is widely considered one of the most influential reporters in the television and entertainment industry. His track record of breaking hundreds of television and entertainment stories is unparalleled. His two columns, Ask Ausiello and The Ausiello Report are not only among the most trafficked on TVGuide.com but have become must-reads for reporters and columnists who cover the television industry.

I am guessing that this just means that the powers that be at EW offered him a wheelbarrow full of cash in exchange for his services and his following. And all I have to say to Mr. Ausiello is “God bless.” May we all follow in your footsteps. I respect his ability to establish contacts at all these TV shows, especially as an introverted blogger who needs days to psychologically prepare for an interview.

We’ll see how this all translates to a new format and how TV Guide adjusts to his absence.

There’s a new show on ABC called Life on Mars, which is an adaptation of a BBC show.

As you can see from the above clip, the show follows a detective who gets hit by a car and teleported into the early 1970s. (shhh…. don’t ask questions) There’s a serial killer involved at some point, and a pretty girl two. Colm Meaney (!) shows up as the tough-as-nails police chief. It seems to follow in the vein of the one-man mystery solver with a supernatural twist tradition (see Journeyman, Medium, etc.) — this one seems to be a hybrid of those two shows with a bit of Starsky and Hutch and Hill Street Blues thrown in.

In the grand TiFaux tradition of hasty snap judgements and baseless predictions, here’s my take: This is one of those shows will probably end up being decent, but not a must-see. Thusly, I give it one season. I have a sneaking suspicion I’d rather watch a show that featured Colm Meaney sipping a Guiness and telling stories about small Irish towns in his lilting accent. Oh well.

It’s upfront season!

Unfortunately, the strike has effed everything up and it’s not really the same week-long parade of new programming we used to know. Maggie used to handle this beat, but I’ll handle it this weird year. However, now I’m adding a question mark to the “It’s the Upfronts” title because it all seemed very after-the-fact and unceremonious.

Instead of highlighting all the inevitably crappy programming that is bound to pop up, I’m going to spotlight some stuff that might actually be good. First stop: Fringe.

First of all, I think J.J. Abrams should buy me a pony. Between Alias, Lost, Felicity and that vomit-orious movie Cloverfield, he must be making enough money that he can buy me and every other red-blooded American boy a pony… on whose head I can superglue a cone and make into a unicorn.

The reason I say this is that Fringe is his ninety millionth new series. If I had Abrams cash, I’d dedicate a room in my house just to store my Judaica.

Fringe looks like it could be intriguing although I have my reservations.

• They boast that it was done by the writers of Transformers.
• There’s a high probability it might be in the distinctive JJ Abrams category of high concept, uneven payoff.

However, it does have some things working for it.

• The always adorably apple-cheeked Joshua Jackson (who, by the way, has one of my favorite celebrity mug shots ever).
• An obviously large budget.
• A strong cast including that mysterious fellow who keeps popping up in flashbacks/flashforwards on Lost.

What do you think? Any other shows you’re looking forward to?

NBC has announced its schedule for the next year, and it kind of makes me want to puke.

NO: Why dilute the Office brand with a spin-off? Why not come up with a new idea instead? Oh right. That would be expensive. And take time. But the strike means there’s none of either available. Sigh.

NO: Practically no new shows at all, and definitely no definitive season openers like we’ve had in Septembers past. And the new shows that they’ve got are stale, stale, stale. A paraplegic psychic who solves crimes? A comedy import from Australia? GET OUT.

NO: Knight Rider.

NO: “SNL Thursday Night Live” — they do know that those initials mean something, and therefore the title is actually “Saturday Night Live Thursday Night Live,” right? Also: I don’t want any more political sketches than what we already have. And why Thursday? Why??

NO: Chuck has been renewed. I can’t quit it! If they air it, I will be forced to watch! And they’re following it with a spy drama starring Christian Slater. I quote from the description of his show, because its ridiculousness cannot be summarized:

Henry Spivey (Christian Slater, “Bobby”) is a middle-class efficiency expert living a humdrum life in the suburbs with a wife, two kids, a dog, and a minivan. Edward Albright is an operative who speaks 13 languages, runs a four-minute mile, and is trained to kill with his teeth. Henry and Edward are polar opposites who share only one thing in common — the same body. When the carefully constructed wall between them breaks down, Henry and Edward are thrust into unfamiliar territory where each man is dangerously out of his element. “My Own Worst Enemy” explores the duality of a man who is literally pitted against himself. And it raises the question: who can you trust when you can’t trust yourself?

What is this, written by Donald Kaufman?

MAYBE: I kind of like the idea of Merlin starring Anthony Head. Ditto for Ian McShane’s Kings.

That is the saddest slate of new shows I’ve seen in a long time. And this is not just because they’ve deprived me of my precious upfronts. I suppose I am resistant to change, even if it’s probably going to be good for me — in theory, I am all for year-round TV. In theory. But not if it’s going to be all diluted like this schedule.

I was reading this article that Juliana Hatfield wrote about her song Make It Home — better known as “that song she played when she starred as the homeless teenager/dead girl/angel on My So-Called Life way back when.” It’s an interesting article, not only because it talks about the origin of the song and the way she approached her first-time acting role, but also because she gives a little insight on famed singer/actor/punching bag-for-hipsters Jared Leto.

Even though he isn’t mentioned at all in the article, thinking of My So-Called Life got me thinking about one of its most unnerving characters (to me, at least): Brian Krakow. Krakow was an all-too-real depiction of a high school nerd — one that doesn’t come around that often. Watching him with his blond ‘fro and awkward interactions is a painful reminder of being 14 and just praying you’ll be able to get through gym class without being humiliated.

Then there are nerds like Tina Fey — people who are smart and wear glasses and are, as a matter of fact, cooler than you’ll ever be. These days, nerds are fetishized to a degree where it’s harder and harder to try to be unironically cool. Keep in mind that “nerdiness” doesn’t necessarily imply the stereotypical Urkel-ian norms. Nerdiness can be defined by a general beta mentality — folks who did stage tech in theater or spent hours upon hours teaching themselves to juggle.

Conversely, there are also folks who are supposed to be cool, but aren’t. If you walked into a restaurant dressed like The Fonz, most people would beat you up upon entry. And not a jury in the world would convict them.

On that note, here’s a chart comparing the cool nerdery and nerdy coolness. Feel free to tell me who I’m missing.

One of the side effects of blogging about TV is everyone’s expectation that you know everything that’s going on.

The sad thing is, generally, I do.

But I’m not positive when discussing one of my most frequently asked questions — what is the timeline for our last spurt of new TV programming of the ill-fated 2007-2008 season. So here’s my response to all those who have come to simply ask me “When do the shows come back?”

Thanks to TV Guide, here’s a handy list of when the shows you care about are coming back (because I can’t imagine you give a rat’s ass when Til Death or Womens Murder Club return).

30 Rock - April 10 - 5 episodes

Battlestar Galactica - April 4 - 10 episodes

Brothers and Sisters (some of you watch this, right?) - April 20 -5 episodes

Everybody Hates Chris - Already started, suckers! - 11 episodes

Gossip Girl - April 21 - 5 episodes

Grey’s Anatomy - April 24 - 5 episodes

House - April 28 - 4 episodes

How I Met Your Mother - Already started, suckers! - 9 episodes

Lost - April 24 - 5 episodes

The Office - April 10 - 6 episodes

Reaper - April 22 - 5 episodes

Samantha Who? - April 6 - 6 episodes

Ugly Betty - April 24 - 5 episodes