In the good old days when Dandy Don got Howard to sing, “Once I had an old blue dog…made that possum walk that log…” well…

That was good sports broadcasting!

I loved Gifford, and Al Michaels…and even though Pam couldn’t stand to listen to John Madden in his early days as a sportscaster, she finally learned to love him…even though she doesn’t know a field goal from a forfeit.

I watch occasionally. But I’ve lost my interest in NFL football. I just watch all the guys that get paid to play on Saturday.

we’ll see.

1. It’s pace is glacial. And the glaciers are melting. It’s not just that nothing happens, it’s that nothing takes FOREVER to happen. And then you get to more nothing.

2. I really do think that the show’s production team was told to do the show on the smallest possible budget. I just can’t come up with any other reason for the stories they’ve come up with so far, all of which are filmed in the least interesting settings imaginable. Interminable shots in the desert. Interminable shots in the tiny area of the ship they are able to get to. Interminable shots in contemporary earth settings. With modern computer graphics capability I can’t understand why they can’t tell stories that have some remotely interesting setting. So I have to conclude that even the cost of a green screen or two is too much for the budget.

3. The ship commander is an idiot. They try to play him as some sort of thoughtful, Picard type who agonizes over the burden of command. I don’t wanna see that! I wanna see a commander COMMAND! Make a damn decision! A party lost in deep space needs a LEADER, not a vote-taker. LEAD!

4. The whole thing with the communication stones is completely implausible, both in terms of technical capability and in terms of plot elements. I’m sure the average wife is going to plop into bed with the daily “rent a body” of the main character. Sure she will. And geebus! Talk about ethically challenged! What kind of selfish narcissist would take someone else’s body and go have sex with it? Even if the implausible plot device were remotely feasible, the FIRST rule the military would put in place is “Don’t have sex in someone else’s body.” DUH!

5. And then there are the characters… Some of them have some redeeming qualities. The first show or two I thought “Math boy” was pretty clever. Now, not so much. The Senator’s daughter is alternately portrayed as a strong willed, principled woman, and a teenage slut. And what’s the deal with the violence-prone army grunt? Geez, throw him out an airlock already!

Anyway, I’m still watching it, but I can’t say it is doing much to improve my opinion of television in the 21st century.

Don’t care about a one of them any more than I did Battlestar — too many stories, none told well.

Universe appears to be trying to be BSG with their low-light shooting, everyone not trusting the scientist guy who has his own agenda, and lots of shakey camera work. I still kind of like it, but they’d better move to something interesting quick, or it’ll be canceled. The “supply crisis of the week” format is getting old, and their only encounter with aliens was a CGI thing that got tossed out the ‘gate after they stuffed it into a garbage can – not exactly inspiring.

The problem with most “interesting” people is that they are either “interesting” for the wrong reasons for the bulk of society (e.g., Limbaugh) or are only “interesting” to a small niche (e.g., Miller, Kornheiser, “Chuckie”).

MNF seems to have given up after Miller and Kornheiser in their quest for the next Madden and have gone for bland.

They succeeded in bland.

I may be being too hard on Jaws. I don’t really have anything against him, and maybe the dynamic between him and Gruden is just accentuating Jaws’ traits.

What I do know is that I find the whole package to be monumentally irritating and uninformative. Just about the only things I want from the MNF crew is to be informed and entertained and that’s pretty much exactly what I don’t get. Gruden is the absolute master of stating the obvious, but he doesn’t just “state” it, he is assertive about it, as if it never occurred to anyone on the planet that Ben Rothlesberger was a big, strong, play-extending quarterback who has won a couple of Super Bowls. I just wanna reach into the TV and SMACK him to make him shut up.

I think Tirico is fine as a play-by-play guy. Maybe not as good as Michaels, but good enough for MNF. But Gruden has no business being there; he’s too young to stop being a coach. He needs more real NFL experience before trying to fill the Howard Cosell role.

Jaworski is fine, he fits his role really well. Gruden is the big problem. Too bad the networks couldn’t take a chance on Limbaugh; they would instantly bump their ratings, and he would almost certainly make Jaworski and Tirico more interesting.

I saw The Box this past weekend and I sort of liked it. It was basically what I expected from the guy who brought us Donnie Darko; great idea; interesting film; unnecessarily complicated plot.

Richard Kelly is what you get if David Lynch tried to make mainstream movies. Still, I say give it a whirl.

I’m going to see 2012 this weekend. I think I’ll get what I pay for on that one but the effects look great.

I say check out either of those two films. (And go rent Ghost Image gosh darn it!!)