And Buffy, too

The last few weeks I have been getting back in touch with my old friend, television. Not in an I've-accepted-that-Dancing with the Stars-is-on-every-day sort of way (although my Mom did force me to watch it last week), but in a tv-party-on-my-Macbook 24/7 way. This party consists of:

1) Hulu. Holy shit. They have 30Rock, Fame, St. Elsewhere, and now... season two of Buffy. (The hair! Did people really look like that 11 years ago?) If they add Now and Again and Family I'm doomed, for certain.

2) TV professors! I think this is my dream job. See "Notes on Single Camera Comedy," found during my recent obsession with the now infamous failure of AS-P's Jezebel James, which people are blaming mostly on the laugh track and unexpected actor incompatibility. I watched all three episodes and the writing wasn't bad, but it's probably in the actors' best interest that no one see them act like that ever again (Parker Posey, cutesy or uptight? Even she's not sure. And Lauren Ambrose: forever petulant teen?). If you feel at all traumatized by these performances, just go rent Dazed and Confused, Personal Velocity, and SFU: Season 5, and you'll forget all about it. (No, sadly, none of these are on hulu yet.)

Yesterday, I felt traumatized by the failure (exacerbated by the fact that I wrote about it last week w/o warning people about the bad reviews). Failure is just really f-ing sad, even if it helps you move on to better things. If you don't believe me, come over to my house and watch Silas reach a little too far around the dishwasher until he crashes down, bonking his little head on the hard tiles. Which leads me to...

3) The great theater of life. Besides daily episodes of Rock of Love II on my actual television (Who will Ambre tattle on next? Did Bret really just say, "She hasn't addressed to me yet..."?), there are the daily articles in Variety and other industry pubs talking about the dismally slow pilot season and decline of television, as well as the writers' complaints that producers are out to punish them.

A TV studio chief is less generous in responding to the notion that companies are out for payback, calling those who make such accusations "crybabies."

"I’m not trying to get back at anyone," the exec said. "This is just the ebb and flow of any market and being true to what people’s value really is."