television

Chris Knight's avatar

If you’re a Star Wars geek, chances are you caught last night’s Robot Chicken Star Wars special on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. I tuned in. Now, up ’til last night I had already seen this lil’ Star Wars clip from the Robot Chicken show…

But last night was the first time, ever, that I tuned in specifically for Robot Chicken on TV. So I watched the Star Wars special (which was hilarious!) and then, decided that I see what “regular” Robot Chicken is like.

I haven’t laughed this hard at television in… I don’t know how long!

And I can’t believe that I haven’t watched Robot Chicken until now!

For a long time, I’ve thought that television had become stale, without anything “new” adding vibrancy and vitality to the medium. And then Lost comes along, and re-defines dramatic storytelling. And now here is Robot Chicken, which I think ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

This one really bothers me, and you know why? Because years ago somebody told me that Don Herbert had already been dead for a few years and it really broke my heart to hear that. I believed it. And all this time he was still not only alive but apparently very active, as evidenced by his website.

I first saw “Mr. Wizard” on TV at a friend’s house in, I guess this was like 1985, and she told me that this was a guy who had been on TV when her dad was our age. And from the moment I saw him I thought that Don Herbert was cool! Ya see, I’ve always been a geek for science, but about the ages of 8 to 13 I was uber-geek for science. Don Herbert was like the first person I ever saw on television that I felt I ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

They unveiled the logo for the 2012 London Olympics earlier this week and it’s so magnificently malformed that some are claiming that it could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy…

It reminded me of something that happened almost ten years ago. On December 17th 1997, Japanese television broadcast an episode of the popular Pokemon show. During the episode there is one scene that has intense rapid red/blue blinking. In the minutes and hours following that scene, hundreds of Japanese children were rushed to hospitals because that sequence caused those kids to suffer seizures, convulsions, fainting, extreme headaches and nausea! The flashing was taken out of subsequent airings of the episode.

So… wanna see it? Here it is, with the original video unedited. If this link goes bad just do a search on YouTube for “pokemon” and “seizures” or “epilepsy”. But I’m seriously warning you: I watched this thing, and ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

How does this sound for a new show (I’m thinking Fox would be the best venue for it) in the style of American Idol and On The Lot: I call it Pardon Me!

Pardon Me! will feature twelve contestants, all of them convicted felons on Death Row. Each week the inmates have to “file an appeal” which is critiqued by a panel of three judges, including one “celebrity judge” (I’m thinking O.J. Simpson and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme via satellite from prison in Texas). At the end of each show the phone lines open and the audience gets to vote on who they like most. Each week the “contestant” with the fewest votes is sent “home” and escorted off the stage on what the producers call “The Long Walk”. The very last person left after weeks of competition gets a full pardon.

We’re headed straight toward that, folks. That’s ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

So Lisa and I watched On The Lot, now about four months after we saw that promo back in January and her telling me that I should have a go at it. So with only a month before deadline I went and made Schrodinger’s Bedroom. Obviously the entry round was as far as I got (nope, not so much as a callback for an interview), but it was a fun lil’ film to make and I’m glad for the opportunity.

Now, as for what we finally saw on television last night…

Where this show is weak is that it, like most other “reality television” series, already seems to be built around combativeness among the contestants. In that regard I have to wonder how much of a “talent” competition this really is. I do believe that where my own entry failed was the 45-second intro: I definitely wanted to ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

On The Lot, the new reality show from Mark Burnett (Survivor and a few other programs) and Steven Spielberg (some movie guy) premieres on Fox tonight at 9 p.m. EST, right after American Idol. This is that “American Idol for filmmakers” show, where aspiring filmmakers have to make one movie a week and in Idol fashion, they get judged by a celebrity panel of judges before going to the American public to be voted on. The last one standing at the end of the summer gets a $1 million contract to work at DreamWorks.

Here are the 50 semi-finalists that came out of a field of over 12,000 entrants. I will not be one of those on the show tonight, although my entry Schrodinger’s Bedroom seems to have been enjoyed by quite a lot of people (it had over ten thousand views before a website snafu ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Yes you read that right. And at least two of them. However it looks like they will be made-for-television only. They won’t be about the Skywalker family either.

But hey, it’ll be new Star Wars story and so what if it’s just for television: some of the stuff being done for the small screen lately has rivaled a lot of big-budget cinema. I mean, check this bad-boy out: the now-legendary “atmosphere jump” from this past season of Sci-Fi’s Battlestar Galactica…

Now imagine Industrial Light and Magic getting turned loose like that on the medium. ‘Twould be an awesome spectacle, no doubt!...

Read more