I just posted the news that TNT has renewed The Closer for its fourth season (yee-ha!) and what did I notice but it was post 17,000.

SEVENTEEN THOUSAND POSTS?

Lordy.

As I write, I have one measly icon, a pink cupcake. I usually have four full rows of them. Now I have four rows of empty boxes, save one pink cupcake.

So, which one of you varmints stole my icons?

And so began the opening of Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" show. Don't remember it? What a shame. Don't remember him? You missed something special.

Tom Snyder, who died today, was the original late-late-night talk show host. His "Tomorrow" show debuted one night in 1973, after the "Tonight Show" ended. The premise was simple: a darkened set, two chairs, Tom and a cigarette, one guest and conversation. Not chat, not 3-1/2 minute promos for a star's latest effort, but real conversation, about topics ranging from the events of the day, to politics to the arts. It was stimulating stuff, to which you really had to listen. Snyder was a journalist, not a personality, and he used his abiility to ask the right question and to communicate to create a show the likes of which no longer exist on network television. He was the Charlie Rose of his day, but also a real original.

I remember Tom Snyder when he joined the KNBC News Staff in the late 60's, to replace John Chancellor or Tom Brokaw, I think it was, when one or the other went to the network. KNBC was the proving ground for pre-network personnel in those days. He made the news individual with his quick, acerbic wit and cut-to-the-chase commentary.

But it was his interviews that brought out the best in him. Often intense and punctuated with his unique, robust laugh, he knew how to get the most from a half-hour conversation. But his secret was that he chose his guests not for who they were but what they brought to the conversation. I remember interviews with the likes of John Lennon, any number of political figures, and even Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. Two of my favorite guests were James Woods and Kate Mulgrew, both outstanding conversationalists themselves. Not surprisingly, they were staples on the show.

Unfortunately, as tastes changed, "Tomorrow" came to an end, and far too soon. Tom Snyder went on to do other things, all worthy. He was individual enough to be parodied on SNL, by none other than Dan Ackroyd. He eventually left NBC and joined CBS. But he never created quite what that original show was again.

I'll never forget Tom Snyder, that wonderful show, and his invitation each evening to come join him for the conversation:

"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

I will, Tom, but it won't be the same without you.

I don't usually blog on my level, for no perfectly good reason, but...

YAY!

I finally cracked Level 40.

I thought I would never make it out of the 30's. Funny. It's the one time in my life I'm actually glad to turn 40. Never thought I'd say that!

I had a random thought the other day about the random use of a random word causing random irritation in my life, so I made a random decision to put some random musings together in the form of a random blog. The word that spurred this action? RANDOM!

I am convinced that no one outside academia actually knows what the word means. As the "it" word of the moment, I hear it used plenty these days, largely as a synonym for words such as arbitrary, unrelated, unexpected and spontaneous (the most egregious misuse.) What I never hear is correct use of the word, other than by my colleagues discussing research methodology, a blessed sanctuary of correctness in an ill-defined world of misused randomness. I'll focus my treatise on the abuse of random in its adjectival form, used to describe an isolated event, since that's where much of the abuse occurs. We'll leave the application to people to another day.

Ya see, to be random, you generally have to be deliberate. And randomness involves multiple events. So no single occurence can ever be random on its own. It can be unexpected. It can be spontaneous. It can be arbitrary. It can be unique (and let's not get me started on people who try to qualify the uniqueness of an experience.) But it can never be random. Not something the average schnook seems to grasp, especially the late-teen set.

I've long conceded the English language, whether it be British or American (and the random use of random is endemic to both versions of the language) has begun to evolve in such a direction we'll sound more like Cher Horowitz than William F. Buckley in another generation. It's the product of language learned by contact, but not study or practice, and a certain reverse snobbery that makes unacceptable English de rigueur - a point of pride.

Proper use of English and a well-developed vocabulary seems to be something that frightens a great many people. The degree to which I'm accused of doing so for nefarious purposes, usually associated with intimidation or domination around here (generally by people who can't mount a decent argument, but that's another blog) is proof enough of that. The misuse of random is just the tip of the iceberg. We quantify discrete items in terms of amount, not number (the British got there first!), have deja vu all over again (the ultimate redundancy), should mourn the disappearance of the personal pronoun in favor of the generic that, and worse. And we never notice.

I despair for the precise, well-articulated sentence. It's becoming as extinct as the dodo. Instead, we are content to pepper our writing with text message-isms and misdefined words. Randomly.

And that, my friends, ends my random rant on random misuse of random. Comment on!

Bravo and three cheers to Welleg for having the guts to delete the discussion of the recent accusations involving the private life of one of the ER cast on the ER board. While discussion of the cast's lives is a normal part of our exchanges both on the ER board and on their person boards, there should be limits that have nothing to do with rules, but with simple respect for the parties involved and the line between public/professional and private life. This is something of which nothing good can come, and we can't change that. But we can, at least, refrain from doing any further harm.

Well done, Welleg!

And as for the Bleu cats who have drooled, dissected and speculated for the last three weeks, then suddenly gone moral, I'll have plenty to say about them tomorrow. I would also echo Welleg's request and ask the specifics of the day's accusations not be mentioned here.

OK, now he's really done it. Ego Filth McBeardstubble has brought my home state and my city (OK, so I live in a suburb, but go with the principle here) into disrepute. And Oz better be careful it not paint all Angelinos with the same brush, especially when they're wagging their fingers at Hollywood celebs for doing just such a thing.

Let me explain: the Daily Telegraph, Rupert Murdoch's flagship newspaper in Sydney has made good sport of following EFMcB's antics the last few days, and more power to them. The paper has shown him up for the drunken cretin he is, and called him to account for his choices very effectively in a series of stinging articles. The latest, by Sarrah le Marquand suggests Stamos might do well to give Oz a miss from now into perpetuity. Oz, it seems, is rather uptight and not at all impressed with his antics. It's a commendable piece in many ways, and I'll share some of the writer's sentiments further on in this blog. But first, I've got a bone to pick.

Here's the problem: in that column, the Daily Telegraph crossed the same line they drew in the sand themselves when they chided Americans for assuming Aussies are all beer swillers (a perception, I might add, the Australian tourist industry goes a long way to foster in this country, but that's another argument.) Yet the columnist did the same thing for which we were condemned: with one sweeping overgeneralization about Los Angeles she assumes that because EFMcB comes from here, we must all be like him.

NOW HOLD YOUR HORSES. First of all, do we all look so stupid as to believe Australians are all cut from the same cookie cutter? I thought not. So why, WHY do la Marquand and her publication assume first that we think that way, and second, that EFMcB is better off back in LA and by implication, that he would be tolerated here? This is the state with the most stringent drunk-driving laws in the country, with one of the most health-conscious cultures going, which attaches no stigma to the admission of substance abuse and houses arguably the best known rehab facility in the world. EFMcB is a square peg on that basis alone - a stinking drunk who is too arrogant to admit he's got a problem and too egotistical to believe he'd be held to account.

But LA is not Hollywood, and it's far, far, more than the entertainment industry. Most of us are ordinary folks trying make a home, do a job, raise a family, balance a budget and live a life, no fuss and no pretense. Unfortunately, we must share our city with an industry that believes it, and it alone, defines what Los Angeles is, when it's actually clueless about what goes on in the average LA life. Ask them about life in Boyle Heights or along Crenshaw Blvd. or at Hobart Ave. Elementary School, and they couldn't even tell you what city they're in. Most of them, you see, live in a vaccuum of their own making.

I've lived around the entertainment industry all my life, and I've learned there are two types of figures who populate the group we call "talent." The first are the good guys, who go about their work and try to live their lives with some semblance of normalcy. They behave with moderation, defining themselves are more than the glory reflected by their work. Sadly they are too few and too far between, but they are typified by Goran Visnjic, who turned up at a tiny film festival in Palm Springs in a downpour, chatty and gregarious, reluctant to talk about himself, generous in his praise of his colleagues and genuinely interested in what people have to say about the film that was to represent his country in the upcoming 2005 Oscar derby. That ethic leads to the kind of professionalism we saw reflected in the articles coming from his recent press junket in Buenos Aires.

The, there are the stars. You know the type I mean: you've seen them preening before cameras, getting into punch-ups, spouting anti-Semetic garbage, jumping on couches on Oprah, and demanding special treatment everywhere they go. They exist as insular enclaves in Burbank, Hollywood and parts of LA, locked away from we mere mortals from whom many of them feel they must be guarded. They venture out to do their work, hiding behind blacked-out limousine windows, clogging streets with their detritus of their work designed to keep them in comfort, preventing us from going about our business by putting their functionaries in our way, and then scuttling home to their hideouts until they must emerge again. Unless of course, it's time to grab the spotlight, at which time they appear like so many peacocks to be worshipped and adored even as they sneer at those doing the adoring. It's a weird half-life they live, lusting after money and fame. The funny part is, a sizeable number of them are never-were's, almost-were's, wanna-be's, used-to be's, celebrities for celebrity's sake and a variety of other no-hopers, legends in their own mind trying to prove something. And it leads to the behavior we saw in Australia this week. The one thing they're not is Angelinos. Most of us wish they'd pack their bags and go elsewhere. And we'll gladly start with EFMcB.

But... on the upside, kudos, props and plaudits to la Marquand for her arcerbic, dead-on target characterization of EFMcB: a washed-up actor (she forgot talentless) basking in the tattered glory that came from a TV show made 20 years ago, perpetually overshadowed by the Olson twins, trying to revive a long-dead career and feeling sorry for himself. SPOT ON! All the King's horses and all the Kings PR men can't put this train wreck of a career back together again, not after the debacle in Oz.

But did she have to insult ER and the hard work of a lot of good people to make her point?

Oh, EFMcB has been a bad boy down in Oz again. You see, he didn't exactly do what his wags said he did, but rather took a slightly longer trip home than we originally thought. Seems there were a few bars he had to hit en route to the airport. Recall if you will the official chapter and verse after the debacle that was MFMcB's appearance on Mornings with Kerri-Anne was that he was summarily packed on a plane, sent home, arrived contrite, and apologized for his actions. Uh-huh.

The truth, it seems, is a bit different. Contrary to what his PR people say, it seems old EF stuck around and treated Sydney to a couple more days of his redoutable bonhommie. Sadly for him, the main Sydney newspaper, the Daily Telegraph was hot on his trail, and caught him twice: in a restaurant, still in the same sorry shape, and in the company of two blondes half his age, and then again at Sydney airport when he finally slunk out of the country, two days later than claimed. Obviously someone else did the apologizing for his actions, since he was still too busy making an arse of himself and generating new offenses to have done so.

So, let's see if I have this straight. One week after his arrival in Oz, EFMcB is still too jet lagged and short of sleep to get himself together and behave like a responsible adult when representing ER. But he's not too tired to hit the strip clubs, bars and restaurants of Sydney with an assortment of none-too-choosey women. Uh-huh. And I'm supposed to believe he's not a stinking drunk, just in need of a rest after his extensive travels? Travels, I might add, he chose to undertake knowing he would be due in Australia to promote the show. Okey-dokey.

Honestly, it would seem, along with modesty, responsibility and contrition, are not part of his skill set.

Meanwhile, back in South America...

Another article about Goran Visnjic, this time from Chile, as Season 13 starts there. Again (and bless my Spanish speaking students) nothing but a professional focused on what's in the best interest in his program, talking with pride about the people with whom he works, the challenges he's been offered and the quality of his show. And we have yet another a glowing article. Did we expect anything else?

C'mon. You know what I mean. Herein lies the tale of two ER actors and their respective forays to the land of the southern cross on a mission to promote the show's upcoming airings in South America and Australia.

First, to Australia. After all, that's where the juicy bits happened. Our pal, our icon, our savior, our legend in his own mind, the redoubtable Ego Filth McBeardstubble arrived in Australia last Thursday to do a promotional swing prior to the upcoming start of the 13th season on Australian television. It was the usual bit they all do from time-to-time: press calls and talk shows. Or so the producers thought. What happened was something quite different.

He started out well enough on Thursday night, looking good when photographed at a so-called "gentlemen's club" (read: strip club) called Pure Platinum, signing autographs and preening for the camera – the usual routine. Given the kind of men who patronize those places are anything but gentlemen, that little visit was worrying enough, but EFMcB was an adult (chronologically, anyway) and on his own time, after all. Not much to tut-tut about in the vast scheme of things.

But Monday was another matter. It started innocently enough with a press call. Daily Telegraph TV writer Steven Downie interviewed EFMcB about life on Full House and ER. But instead of getting the usual jovial if self aggrandizing egomaniac with a severe case of verbal diarrhea we usually see, he got a disheveled creature with few motor skills, slurring his speech, barely able to keep his eyes open – clearly drunk. Not impressed, Downie wrote about it in his June 25 column, and what was said wasn't pretty. Worse yet, video of his disastrous interview was posted along with the column and a less-than complimentary photograph, completely marking EFMcB's card as an out of control sot.

You'd think he'd learn from the experience, wouldn't you? But nooooo…. Not the King of Ego.

Cut to Tuesday, and EFMcB's scheduled appearance on Kerri-Anne Kennerly's "chat" show, Mornings with Kerri-Anne. Our hero arrives on-camera in a rather unorthodox way, has to be manhandled by Kerri-Ann just to get him to his seat and it's downhill from there. In his less than 10 minute appearance, EFMcB managed to insult the host and the writer who called him on his nonsense the day previous, call on the Greek community in Australia to boycott the paper thus revealing the extend of his ego, simulate a sexual act, liken himself to Princess Diana and Elvis (which elicited the question "Was he drunk, too?" from Kerri-Ann), paw a clearly uncomfortable Kerri-Anne, and generally make a drunken arse of himself. It was a shambles of a performance, and he totally humiliated his show and his colleagues, if not himself, since he lacks the sense of appropriate behavior needed to recognize when he should feel humiliated.

This, the crowning glory of his rainbow tour of Oz, resulted in EFMcB being quickly packed on a plane and sent home. None too soon, but the damage was well and truly done. All that remains now is the alibis and the aftermath.

Epilogue: when he finally got back to LA, bathed in shame if nothing else, EFMcB apologized – through his agent, since he lacked the courage to do it himself. But Oz isn't buying the apology, or the excuse. Can you blame them?

Meanwhile, in another part of the southern hemisphere…

It was a different story altogether in Buenos Aires, when a similar publicity tour was undertaken to promote the upcoming season of ER in Brazil and Argentina in mid-May. This time the actor was Goran Visnjic and the outcome was the complete opposite. In his usual easy going, professional way, Goran did a series of interviews and appearances that resulted in half a dozen glowing Spanish/Portuguese-language magazine articles, some great photographs and a lighthearted radio interview.

No fuss, no muss, just Goran being Goran, obligingly chatting about Luka, his work, his colleagues (who he consistently describes as friends), and answering the usual questions about leaving the show, Croatia and what's to come. No huffing and puffing. No look at me behavior. Just a gentlemen and a professional, behaving as gentlemen and professionals do. Small wonder he has a reputation for being a great actor to work with.

When he returned home, Goran commented the trip to Buenos Aires was one of the best experiences of his life. And South America returned the compliment.

And that, my friends is what happens to a clarse act.

I am happy to report I am now the Trusted User for The Closer! That means I have TU status for my two favorite shows, ER and The Closer, where I make most of my submissons. How great is that? And I get to work with H, who has become a dear friend in a remarkably short period of time. As a result, I have the best time documenting and researching the police procedures, locations, etc. I see on the show, giving the guide all some LA-based context.

I even got a lovely surprise, when Formulakaz made me TU for Mary Beth Evans. I never expected that, and it was a super surprise. I'm enjoying getting to know her, as she's proving to be a valuable contributor to Stephen Nichols' guide.

I like being a trusted user. For one thing, I have the freedom to really make a contribution to each show's guide. And I don't have to be the bad guy! But better still, I have the luxury of flexibility. Nice. Second in command has always suited me best (I've got the same job at work, in the program in which I work.) I have enough trouble keeping GV and SN's people pages up to snuff!

And the best part is I get to work with two great Editors, H (The Closer) and welleg (ER). Both are great collaborators, which means I have a role to play that helps make the guide better, and I like that. But better still, both are friends. And isn't that what all this is about?

I’m not sure the latest antics can even be termed a battle, much less a war. More like the tossing of a deflated water balloon. But I like the metaphor, so we’ll go with it and press on. I’ve got a nice big cream pie, and an irresistible urge to toss it.

It seems the gang who couldn't shoot straight over at the Cesspit are at it again. I guess they got bored with one another and at having nothing new to say. I haven’t a clue, and contemplating them is somewhere on my priority list between reading the Collected Wit and Wisdom of Paris Hilton and deciding if I should care that David Beckham is coming to LA to join the hapless Galaxy. But never mind.

To the point: it seems some poor innocent wandered in there the other day, registered under the user name Fiddlesticks, and introduced herself innocently enough by describing a discussion group to which she belongs. It seems her group, which consists of women who dared to get an education and not be ashamed of it (a prime threat to that lot) apparently follows Cesspit antics over periodic conversation and a glass of red wine. Gad, they must have awfully strong stomachs - that prospect would sour the wine to my mind. Now why anyone would waste their time on that crew of sad sacks on a regular basis is beyond me. But different strokes I suppose. And their idiocy does have an amusingly surreal, if decidedly forced quality I can see intriguing mental health professionals.

But back to Fiddlesticks. As if her mentioning the group didn't set them off all on its own, she made an attempt to join the fray by adopting a milder form of the prevailing tone of discussion: sarcastic, self-satisfied, and generally nasty. And not surprisingly, nor particularly originally, the sour sisters started the same sad, silly and repetitive tapes running, feigning indignation that someone would dare call them as she saw them. Not that she said much. She never got a chance. They banned her quickly in their cowardly way. That, of course, makes taking cheap shots all the easier, without having to answer for what they’ve said.

But here's the rich part. It seems they've decided Fiddlesticks was ME! At least I think that's what they were saying - they kept banging on about me and sock puppets (which BTW, is not a compound word) in the same breath. I'm having to use context clues to decode their nonsense, but I assume a sock puppet is some sort of adopted personna in the form of a second user name. I'm not sure; I don't speak in the middle school code they've adopted to avoid the use of simple English. From what I've gathered, if one selects a different user name (from what, I'm not sure) one must have nefarious reasons for doing so. Ergo, one is using a sock puppet to hide - what from whom I'm not sure. What sort of nonsense is that? (Imagine me shaking my head side to side to clear the nonsense.)

As for my registering on their board: to quote that font of youthful wisdom, Cher Horowitz, "AS IF!" My gawd, there isn't a set of waders thick enough or high enough or a gas mask strong enough to induce me to step into that foul and fetid place, even if I did have the time to bother. Besides, why would I try to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent, or group of opponents such as that crew? I guess anyone with a half-way decent education (which clearly threatens them to the back teeth, since they bring it up so often, even when other posters, including the poor, hapless Fiddlesticks, don't) and a vocabulary of more than monosyllabic words must be so alien to them they figure there's only one of us out there that might actually see them for who they are. Heck, the purest evidence it wasn't me is in what Fiddlesticks said. It was far, far to sociable and tame, aside from the dead-on-the-mark comment that they all compete to see who can hate the show the most. That little pageant, what I've seen of it, is painfully silly. I might add the rather acute observation about one particularly absurd “sunny” username (and another user so aptly named it’s, well, silly!) Oh, and I did rather like the question about whether a couple of them made all their nonsense up for effect. Except they don't. More's the pity.

NEWSFLASH guys: it ain't me. Accept it. Don't accept it. I don't care. But you got it wrong. And you look like fools. But then, that's nothing new, is it?

How’s the cream taste?

[Oh, and Fiddlesticks, if you're out there, join TV.com and send me a PM. You're my kind of girl and that group of yours sounds like fun.]

Change happens. Sometimes we resist, but change is inevitable. I know that. I just don't have to like it. Which brings me to the new policy regarding TV.com user icons.

I was not one who embraced the change to user-defined icons. I rather liked the TV.com icon sets. They were fairly uniform and reflected our individual TV tastes. For the gang on the ER  board, they became very individual: when you saw Gonzo, you thought of Des; Betty Rubble was Linsey; Welleg was whatzername from Charmed and so forth, each a reflection of the user's taste, but each within the TV genre. Even the reluctant Mrs. E came on board and adopted the BBC logo. And we guarded the individuality of those icons to the degree there were rarely duplicates. I liked that most of all; that was team spirit.

The coming of the new icons certainly added a lot of individuality (not to mention a couple nice pictures of Goran) to the mix. But something was lost when pictures started reflecting something other than TV, a sort of reflection of who we are as a team. And I guess that's what I miss.

Which brings me to Sally. I chose an icon of Sally Brown when the first icon sets were made available for a couple reasons.


First, and simplest, she's a smart, sassy blonde, a combination of who I am and who I'd like to be. Second, she's the ultimate hopeful romantic, quitely adoring the unattainable, and not particularly caring who knows. And I always laughingly thought that was a bit me, too, if in a more realistic way. From time-to-time people asked if I would ever change to a picture of Luka, and I always said no. The icon's about me, not the character I like, and I unswervingly stuck with her.

Recently, however, I did notice she was lookin' kinda puny in relation to the flashy new icons that have come along. And, reluctantly, I came to realize she's too fine and sharp a lady for that. So with a bit of help from Linsey, I found a larger version of the image of Sally that TV.com probably originally used, cropped her to match, and sized her to the new 80x80 specs (which widens her face slightly.)

And ta-dum! An all new "look at me!" Sally. So here we are, Doc and Sally, still together with her new look. I think she'd approve.



Coming soon: Board Wars, the New Generation. I was alerted that the sour sisters of the Cesspit have fired another salvo my way, and boy are they wide of the mark this time. I've tried to resist, honestly I have, but I simply must give them a pie in the collective face. Stay tuned.

Thirteen Days to the ER Season 13 Premiere
(Shifting Gears)
Time for my life to shift gears. A week from Monday, I don my professorial robes for yet another year and am back at work. That means next week is devoted to course preparation, which is very intense. Once school starts, the first week is meetings, meetings, meetings, and one class starting Thursday, then the heavy lifting begins in earnest. As does ER!

It all means I have to make a few changes. The biggest change is that I will retire from the job of posting spoilers on the spoiler thread in order to maintain the new episode threads as I did last season. I'll also continue to contribute titles to the title thread. Realistically, once school stars, I don't have the time to devote to writing the spoiler summaries that I did this summer. Instead, I would rather hand that responsibility off to someone who can step in and maintain quality rather than do a half-baked job myself.

We'll be unpinning the spoiler and speculation threads this weekend in order to bring the episode discussion threads back, but the spoiler thread will live on, now free-floating, and will be an important bullwark against spoilers being where they don't belong, as well as a placed to be enjoyed where they do. It also will be linked in the first post of every new episode thread to make it easy for users to access it.

Thirteen days to go!

Happy Labor Day! It's been a great day, enjoying a day-long marathon of "The Closer" on TNT, and the season finale. I've got them all taped, and will bit Brenda farewell until December and the two-hour special. She and her team have been a great summer companion while Luka's been on hiatus.

And it was a great finale, too. Again, we had a shooting, although on a police drama that's not terribly surprising, but shot so that we saw a number of small details that will no doubt figure in the December episodes to come. I can't wait!! Given the accuracy of their portrayal of LAPD procedure, this will be a grueling examination of what happened and who's to blame.

I was surprised at my own reaction to the last few minutes. I've long ago lost the ability to watch the whole landscape on ER; eveything filters through Luka. But on "The Closer," I watch an ensemble, and enjoy all the characters more or less equally, which was the right point of view to have.

They did a very effective job of involving the whole cast, either as participant or as a witness, and I held my breath through much of it, alternately fearing for Provenza and Sanchez as the action unrolled. I was amazed they all got out unscathed, or at least unshot.

What happens next remains to be seen, but I can't wait to see it! In the meantime, we've got Season 13.1 of ER to come, and the time will pass all too fast.

Twenty Days to the ER Season 13 Premiere
(The End is in Sight!)

"Windflop" has finally given its all, not that it's much, and slipped into TV obscurity, never to be heard from again. Thank goodness. In the "preview" place at the end of the episode was the ER preview, back home where it belongs, always a good sign. It still energizes me every time I see it. I am so ready for this season to start.

Oh, and we've got the first episode summary posted by NBC! Want to see it? Check out the spoiler thread. Another step closer to September 21. (Note to the Cesspit: the title is Bloodline, not Borderline, so let's hear no more about authority.) Oh, enough of that nonsense. Let's get back to anticipating Season 13, shall we?

It's gonna be great!!

Oh, now this is rich! It seems we’ve been branded as thieves, in toto. All of us! Can you imagine? Allow me to elaborate.

A denizen of one of the boards that is part of the cabal I refer to as The Cesspit has some sort of contact who gets her a what is, at most, a précis of each episode of ER a day or so before the casting sides, from which our spoilers are drawn, become available. It’s scant information: episode title, director and filming dates, and a line about the story in which the character being cast is involved, not sufficient to construct even the beginnings of a summary. This trifle is posted at her favorite website, but not before she indulges in a fair bit of editorializing, often in the vilest language, until the original content is at times so distorted as to become unrecognizable. More curious still, she has a lordly sense of ownership of these few tidbits which she views as “exclusive” to the Cesspit, despite the fact they are part of what is distributed to the sizeable number of talent/casting agencies here in LA, and are far from a state secret.

It generally takes a matter of a couple hours for her post to be copied and make its way, often in a cleaned-up form around the ER boards, the notable exception being ours. And woe be it to anyone who does posts these few scraps, on which she sets such store, on another site without what she deems appropriate credit, whether they came from her site or not. She’s so convinced this is her personal, private stash of information, that it must originate only from her, that she’ll quickly tar, feather and label with a capital S anyone who dares not to comply with her standards of attribution, again in pretty vile language. Innocent me, when I first started the spoiler thread, I summarized some advance information that included material from her site one time (I never lifted anything word-for-word, I practice I find inappropriate) and I credited her in a way I felt was both adequate and suitably descriptive (which she probably didn’t like, but the truth hurts), before I found the stench of brimstone and treacle a bit much, and found an alternative approach. And now, in the silly world she’s constructed for herself, TV.com is “stealing” spoilers from the Cesspit.

Yeah, you read it right. Stealing. The notion would be laughably sad, if it weren’t so patently absurd. For one thing, from what I gather from others, her reliability is, well, questionable, shall we say? I can attest to at least one casting notice she put out there that apparently hasn’t materialized as promised, and she’s got two of the six episode titles we know at the moment wrong! Hardly my cup of tea, given I prefer to keep spoilers clean, simple and accurate, and certainly not an incentive to beg, borrow or steal from her site.

Let’s look at the ludicrous notion of exclusivity. Yes, she distributes this material solely to one venue – but look how she does it: on a public message board on the Internet, one that isn’t so much as password protected. Just enter the URL, click on the right topic and SHAZAM: it’s all there for the world to see, literally. And as such, her post becomes public speech, subject to redistribution at will. Yes, it is appropriate to credit the source when one copies content word-for-word, a social norm that has been established at least within the ER community as an outgrowth of both simple courtesy and plagiarism avoidance. But it ends there.

And then there’s the matter of ownership. Now the last time I looked, Constant C Productions held the copyright to any and all material relating to ER, including written and broadcast media. So how on EARTH this person can feel she owns what is copyrighted by another entity eludes me. It’s pretzel logic at its most twisted, born of some sort of petulant need to be bigger, better, closer to the show than anyone else. But it’s a sham; she owns nothing, no matter how loudly she and her acolytes might protest to the contrary.

Bottom line, does this silly accusation worry me? Not a whit. Were she to accuse just me, I’d do now what I’ve always done. Ignore it, or more likely, go about my business oblivious to all she says. But when she brands us all, as a community, she steps way over the line. So to her, and her tired, sour followers, I say: you want to take me on? Go ahead. I’m an adult with plenty of impulse control, an ample supply of words, and the ability to deal with petty bullies. But leave the rest of the decent, fun-loving people of this board alone. They are miles out of your league. I’d suggest you pick on someone your own size, but there’s no one that small.

What is it with people sometimes? I wish I understood human nature better where the following of a television program is concerned. A year’s worth of doctoral level courses in social psychology sure haven’t helped crack this particular nut. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’ll never get it because it’s all so antithetic to my nature, but I need to draw a line under something, get a few things off my chest, and turn my back on it. I’ll call it (cue the triumphal John Williams music) BOARD WARS!

I’m comparatively new to this message board business where a TV program is concerned. I dabbled around at one or two other boards early on, found the tone something other than what I wanted to be part of, and by chance, found my way to this board when it was still part of TVTome. The camaraderie, the respect for the opinions and perspectives of others, the international flavor, and most of all the unity drew me, unlike any board I’d experienced before, and I had fun! I think we who were there at the time had an epiphany the summer before Season 11. TVT issued a policy statement that had to do with spelling, writing content, and several related issues that, by virtue of the way it was written, seemed to say we had to be putting up grammatically correct and accurately spelled posts. We closed ranks around our few limited-English writers, realized we’d never needed rules because we had a community that was so respectful it didn’t demand them, and several of us wrote posts saying as much. From that day forward, we’ve had only a couple rules on this board: be polite and mark your spoilers, because that’s all we’ve ever needed. Even TV.com’s heavy-handed rule system and competitive command structure hasn’t altered that, nor has the occasional test of our social structure. We have our fights, but we fight like family, and we make up the same way.

Would t’were it was the same elsewhere. Sadly, I’ve discovered things are much different elsewhere. One thing that’s always been nice about TV.com is we fly, or should I say, flew, under the radar, avoiding much of the cult of personality that goes on elsewhere. Recently, to my chagrin, I’ve discovered that is no longer the case, and that’s caused a certain level of cognitive dissonance. As a rule, I don’t pay much mind to the other boards for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t have time to devote to them. TV.com is my little bit of fun, and stress relief. And second, I tend to find the tone at most boards less than agreeable to downright hostile, and worse, I discovered to my dismay how easy it can be to get sucked into it all.

It seems most boards are privately operated by ER “fans.” I use that term loosely, because some of the folks running them are anything but, judging by the sourness that characterizes the rhetoric. Each board professes to be a board designed for all ER fans, but closer examination soon laughably belies that fact. I’ve seen anything from manic anger to clear cut psychopathology directed toward the show in general and one or more characters in specific, and heaven help anyone who disagrees. It’s a little scary at times, and often distasteful. Occasionally, the postings are pleasant and girlishly fun, or benign, wishful discussions of the desired outcomes for a favorite character or analysis of episode content that supports predictions of future plot. Unfortunately, all that exists within a rigid framework. The truth is each board has a position and a party line, and heaven help you if you don’t tow that line.

The people on these boards are fascinating studies of group behavior. Either they adopt an artificial set of airs and graces while they preach to the converted, or they bow down to their elected heroine who recounts the party line in lengthy, florid dialogue, supplicants before her. Or they simply close ranks, making admission to their not-so-charming charmed circle almost impossible. Worse yet, they devolve into an amalgamated breed of board I call the Cesspit. Therein, they compete to see who can be sourest, who can be the most willfully blind to what actually is on the screen, who can twist or spin information to suit their perspective, who can reinvent history to suit their agenda the most adeptly, or who can just be the nastiest on any given day, taking cheap shots from the cheap seats, yet never entertaining the notion that if the show is really that bad, they ought to change the channel. After all, why do that when the nastiness is so much fun? It’s mind-numbing behavior, the worst of our social nature.

Which brings me to that most intriguing breed of cat, the moderator. Usually that’s the role of (s)he who designed the board and pays the bill, so a certain amount of rigidity regarding content is understandable. But so often it gets out of hand. I’ve seen moderators at one board who could stand a few lessons in human nature, and to learn that old axiom, “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” But that’s not the least of it. Don’t like what someone says? Simply exercise the ultimate expression of female aggression – covert action. You can ban them!!

And oh, the heady power of the BAN! Oh my, how fun it all is! Oh, my how we swing our power like an erratic axe. Someone says some thing you don’t like? BAN ‘EM! Someone likes a character you don’t like? BAN ‘EM! Someone dares to disagree with the party line? BAN ‘EM! Guilty until proven innocent, except the poor schnook who’s banned never gets a chance to defend him/herself. Ah, the petty tyranny of it all! The powerful, puffed-up feeling!! Except it’s all hollow, and he/she who is banned is better off for it.

It fascinates me to no end, I’m sure, because I have a whole range of moderation powers on GV’s forum I’ve never even looked at. Why bother, when there’s nothing to moderate? The biggest thing I do is close an HTML tag now and then, and I like it that way. Instead, I value that crazy-quilt of women who come in, giggle and trade the trash, then go about our business after having a laugh. What could be better?

Yet I watch the newbies come in from all over the world, apologize for their English as if their English mastery is of any consequence, and cower, waiting for the axe to fall the first time they dare to disagree. And rise, equally surprised, when it doesn’t and they discover the men and women who people the ER and GV forums not only accept dissenting opinions, but value them. Oh, be prepared to defend what you say, and for others to give as good as they get, but isn’t that what good discourse is all about? In the end, it’s the exchange of ideas and the richness of opinion we value, so preferable to a line of bobble-head dolls, grinning blankly and nodding in agreement with the party line.

James Woods didn't get an Emmy for his appearance on ER this season. What IS the world coming to? Yeah, I know, the script was no where near as well written as Time of Death. But the character was compelling and Woods was magnificent!

I demand a recount! Check for hanging chads! Harumph!

Thirty-five Days to the ER Season 13 Premiere
(What a Preview!)

Every year I think the latest preview has got to be the best. Then the next year's appears and I change my mind again. This year's preview, which appears to be just for Bloodline is a doozie to say the least!

Lots of energy, lots of quick cuts and lots of Luka! That's what I wanted to see and that's what I got. I'm not going to put any spoilers in this blog, but it looks like we're in for quite a ride on September 21. I can't wait.

Oh, and we get Season 6 on TNT starting August 28; this time in High Definition at Casa Speddoc! And the DVD's out December 19. Plenty to look forward to, and the DVD's to help see us through the "Black Donnellys" hiatus.

Five weeks sounds like such a long time, and yet I know it will go fast. The final week is opening week at the university, which is always dizzying, and I have to start a heavy-duty research class the night of the premiere. That alone should keep me going strong, and keep things moving fast.

OK, bring on the Kovac! I'm ready.

Sixty-one Days to the ER Season 13 Premiere
(News, At Last!)

Hosannah, and hallelujah, we've finally got some news of casting for Season 13, and with it something to talk about! The June/July dry spell is over for another season (I think this one was worst than last year!!) and there's enough news beginning to trickle out to give us some fodder for speculation and conversation. And it's good stuff!! Boy, did am I ready.

And at the same time the staff added a forum function to each person page, so now Goran has a forum! For now, it's our little playpen; just some girlish fun and conversation with a great group. But we've got our first newbie, and I'm hoping in time it will develop, and enhance our enjoyment of Goran's part in the new season. The community is always great.

Meanwhile, Luka's fall storylines (yes, plural) look juicy, there's a lot going on, and it looks like the show is coming out strong this fall. I can't wait for the first episode spoilers now, and I can't believe I'm saying that!!