Hillary-Obama death match

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My feature from today's Irish Examiner

The Hollywood writers strike may have ended two months ago, but it’s only now that television schedules are returning to something approaching normal. The 100-day strike by the 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America brought Tinseltown to its knees last winter, halting most, if not all, TV and film productions, and resulting in a total loss of anything between E1.5 and E2 billion to the industry.

By the end of this week, however, most of the biggest shows on television will have returned to US screens, and fans in Ireland can expect to see new episodes of the likes of Lost, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty almost immediately after.

It’s taken some six weeks for the industry to get back to work, but there’s no doubt that the television landscape has been altered dramatically by the strike. The most noticeable consequence is that most of biggest shows will have seen their current seasons seriously truncated by as many as 6-7 episodes.

All the indications are that the shortfall in the current seasons won’t be made up later in the year. Instead, most shows will compress storylines into the few remaining episodes in the current seasons, and will then resume a normal scheduled season in the autumn (presuming, of course, that they are renewed by the networks).

The biggest casualty of the strike has been the real-time action thriller 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland. Eight episodes of its seventh season were filmed before the picket began, but the new series’ debut has been pushed back until January 2009 to allow the show to run for 24 consecutive weeks without interruption (a two hour TV movie is reported to be in the works to keep fans happy in the interim).

The writers strike has also been a mixed blessing for some freshman shows that started last autumn. On the one hand, the hiatus gave the networks the perfect excuse to kill off struggling or critically panned shows such as Bionic Woman (starring former EastEnder Michelle Ryan) and the witless Sex and the City clone Cashmere Mafia.

On the other hand, other newbies like Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Chuck have been granted a stay of execution, and will return for new full seasons in the autumn (though there will be no new episodes to finish off their current runs).

Likewise, Heroes, a smash hit in its first series last year, went into serious decline during its 11-episode second season (which started on BBC2 lastThursday night), but it will return for a third ‘volume’ in September, after a much-needed re-boot.

So, what can fans expect for the remainder of the current seasons of their favourite shows?

Desperate Housewives aired 10 episodes of its fourth season before the strike, and the series resumed here in Ireland on RTE 2 last week for six more episodes to conclude the season (the finale of which promises to be a shocker that changes the show forever).

Elsewhere, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost return to US TV screens lastThursday for five episodes each. The entire fourth season of Grey’s will begin on RTE 2 in July. Lost already had a shortened season of 16 episodes (as will the final two seasons), but its current series has now been chopped even further to 13 broadcasts of frantically compressed storylines. It returned to RTE last night.

Ugly Betty will round out its current season with five more episodes, which kicked off on RTE 2 last Thursday, before returning with a full season in September. Likewise, Brothers and Sisters returned last Sunday in the US with the first of four new episodes, though RTE, which airs the show here, is pretty behind the US, so it will remain unaffected by the strike delay.

The quirky medical comedy Scrubs returned on April 10 in America for four more episodes to complete what was supposed to be its final season. However, during the strike, a deal was rumoured to have been struck that will see the show switch to a new network for an eighth season. RTE has yet to schedule its return.

On that note, medical drama ER will have five new post-strike episodes to finish off its 14th – yes, 14th! – season. These will more than likely be shown here in Ireland together with the final season of 19 episodes in the autumn (the show is scheduled to call time for good in February 2009). Producers are said to be working their charm to lure some of the show’s more famous alumni back for a last hurrah, amongst them George Clooney (as Dr Doug Ross), Julianna Margulies (Carol Hathaway) and Noah Wyle (John Carter).

However, all of the above plans for the autumn TV schedule are contingent on another potential industrial relations dispute. At the end of March, the two main Hollywood acting unions, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild, broke-up and will pursue new deals for their members separately.

This means that the already precarious negotiations between the actors and the studios have been made even more difficult, as one union may push for greater terms for its members, meaning a stalemate, or the nuclear option of an all-out strike by the actors could result. The actors’ contracts run out on June 30, and if a strike hobbles all work after that, then TV fans the world over could be facing into another lonely autumn and winter of discontent without their favourite shows.

When are they back:
Lost: Returned to RTE on April 28 for 4 episodes and then a 2-hour finale on June 9.
Ugly Betty: Returned on RTE on April 24 with 5 new episodes.
Grey’s Anatomy: Series 4 starts in its entirety on RTE in July (ahead of UK Living).
ER: Remaining episodes of series 14 to run alongside season 15 on RTE 1 in late autumn.

Washed up soap stars

My feature on Sally Fletcher and the success rates of other long term soap stars in today's Independent.

This month marks the end of an era for soap fans as actress Kate Ritchie, who has played Sally on Home and Away for 20 years, bows out of the Aussie sudsfest. Continue here.

I said in the papers

I know it's a bit sad, but a feature of mine got a mention in the paper review on Morning Ireland this morning. If you follow this link and go to the It Says In the Papers link, I'm mentioned towards the end [Declan shuffles off, embarrassed]

Lost Strikes Back!

Lost is back on screen in the US tomorrow night (Monday night here on RTE) for 5 new post-strike episodes to round out the riveting series 4. They promise to be shockers! Watch a trailer Here.

West End Girl

You can read my interview with Aoife Mulholland - star of The Sound of Music and Chicago in the West End, and former contestant on How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria - in UCD Connections magazine here.

About A Boy

Good interview with actor Andrew Garfield - BAFTA winning star of John Crowley's extraordinary Boy A - in today's Guardian. Read here. This Boy is gonna be big.

Tickets please...

New York Times on the possibility of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton unity ticket.

Because I'm Worth It

Feature from today's Indo

If you think your smile, legs or bum are worth a million bucks, then it's possible you might be undervaluing your attributes. It seems that everything does indeed have a price these days, and that even includes your sense of smell and taste. Continue here.

We could be heroes

Good article in The Guide in today's Guardian about how comic book heroes have been recruited for propaganda purposes. Read here.

Don't mess with JK's kids

My feature on JK Rowling's copyright court case and the endurance of the Harry Potter franchise in today's News Review in the Independent.

In terms of epic battles, it's hardly up there with Harry Potter's struggle against the evil forces of He Who Shall Not Be Named. But millionaire author JK Rowling's court case this week against a small US publisher and its unauthorised A-Z guide to the boy wizard's universe has refocused attention yet again on the cross-cultural, trans-generational phenomenon that is Harry Potter. Continue here.

Oooooh controversial...

Bill Maher on Pope Benedictator and the Catholic Church. Watch here.

So true...

Words of wisdom from last night's 30 Rock courtesy of Jenna Maroney:

"Love is hiding who you really are at all times, even when you're sleeping. Love is wearing makeup to bed, and going downstairs to Burger King to poop, and hiding alcohol in perfume bottles. That's love."

"That girl don't love herself"

OK, I know the movies are awful, but my friend Seamie and I consistently crack up just even thinking about this girl and some of her lines in the Scary Movie series. Watch and weep.

Not to be Mist

Just after watching Frank Darabont's The Mist, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story that never made it to general release here. It's about the residents of a small town who become trapped in a food market when a mysterious mist suddenly envelopes the area, and unleashes vicious mutant - some think Biblical - creatures on them.

The less you know about this movie the better; just to say it's quite Cloverfield-ian, with a decidedly grim view of post 9/11 American social and religious mindsets. It also features an absolutely barnstorming performance from Marcia Gay Harden as a religious fundamentalist.

It's not perfect - there are a few holes in the plot and the special effects at times look positively TV movie-ish - but it's redeemed by some scream-and-watch-through-your-fingers set pieces and a final act that is amongst the bleakest and most haunting you're ever likely to see.

Watch the trailer here.

Sex sells...out?

Can a feminist love Sex and the City? From today's Guardian - read here.

Confessions of a travel writer

Dominic Lawson on the Lonely Planet-gate scandal in today's London Independent. Read here

Arabian Nights

My travel feature on Dubai in yesterday's Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent.

Dubai has earned itself a number of sobriquets in recent years. Ones that I heard before travelling to the second largest territory in the United Arab Emirates were 'Las Vegas of the Middle East', 'Monaco in the desert', or 'Arabian Disneyland'. Mine would be 'architect's playground'. Continue here.

Over the Hill?

Reports that Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are to end the Deomcratic stalement by endorsing Obama and sending Hillary packing...read here.

Important Statistical Information

30 Rock is back!

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TV Empire Strikes Back

For TV addicts like myself, the good news is that a lot of the best US shows are coming back on air as early as this week after the gap caused by the 100-day writer's strike. The schedule of my favourites is as follows, so mark them down for downloading hours afterwards!

Thursday, April 10: The Office, Scrubs, ER, and the awesome 30 Rock

Sun, April 13: Desperate Housewives

Sun, April 20: Brothers and Sisters

Mon, April 21: Gossip Girl

Thurs, April 24: Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, and the one that I really cannot wait for, Lost.

Stop Lindsay, you're Killing Me

Good god. I've just soiled my eyes by watching Linds-AA Lohan's 8-time Razzie award winning mess-terpiece I Know Who Killed Me. It is as unfathomably bad as you've been led to believe - though it's worth watching just for the scene where her fake leg is plugged into a wall socket to charge. And to see what she can do with her bionic arm. And for the owl. And the stripping sequences that are about as erotic as douching.

So exhilaratingly, guilt-inducingly bad that I actually feel sorry for La Lohan - she was obviously off her bin when she agreed to make this and/or was making this. She hardly...no...she couldn't possibly have thought this was good?

Get just a small glimpse of the horror here.

Pulitzer Prizeseses

The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. See the list here. Yet again I was overlooked. This time next year baby

Read a review of the Fiction winner, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of OscarWao, here.

Streets Ahead

My feature on my visit to the set of Coronation Street in today's Weekend magazine in the Independent. Read here

"I'm to blame. I was wrong"

Reading back over Bertie's resignation speech, it's amazing how he still thinks he's done no wrong regarding his bizarre accumulation of personal payments in the 1990s.

It brought to mind a moment in The West Wing when Bartlet explains to his chief of staff Leo McGarry why he's decided to accept Congressional Censure for concealing the truth about his Multiple Sclerosis. In an era where every political leader seems to shirk responsibility and never admit to making mistakes, Bartlet's words are all the more relevant.

Bartlet: "I was wrong. I was. I was just...I was wrong. Come on, you know that. Lots of times we don't know what right or wrong is but lots of times we do and come on, this is one. I may not have had sinister intent at the outset but there were plenty of opportunities for me to make it right. No one in government takes responsibility for anything anymore. We foster, we obfuscate, we rationalize. "Everybody does it." That's what we say. So we come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame so no one's guilty. I'm to blame. I was wrong."

Peabody Award for 30 Rock

The peerless 30 Rock is amongst the recipients of the prestigious Peabody Awards for 2008. Read about it and the other winners here and here.

Empirical Evidence

Great feature on Empire's website counting down the 50 best TV shows of all time. Start it here

Bye bye Bertie Part 2

This didn't take long...look at it now before it's taken down!

Bye bye Bertie?

"All political careers end in failure" - Enoch Powell

Secret of beauty? Go figure!

My feature on the 'beauty formula' in today's Independent.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the secret of what constitutes an attractive face could actually lie in a mathematical formula originally devised by artists like Leonardo da Vinci. Continue here.

Move over Nigella

Interview with Trish Deseine in last Saturday's Weekend magazine in the Independent

School trips are not associated with epiphanies that can change your life for the better. The lasting memory most of us have from such experiences involve a group of gauche, hormonal teens being lumped together with awkward, stressed-out teachers, sharing a sweaty, cramped bus, stopping off in grotty hostels and bargain-basement eateries.
Continue here.

Daddy's Girl

Feature on Organ Donor Awareness week in last Saturday's Weekend magazine, written by a a handsome and talented fellow indeed. Read here.