This weekend concludes NBC's broadcast of the XXIX Summer Olympics which has had some very enjoyable moments, not necessarily enjoyable because of NBC, but it's not like we had a lot of choice. Who knows what moments we missed in the countless events that were not broadcast, who knows what sports would have piqued the interest of Americans, if only they had exposure to them. In feedback to previous posts about the Olympics, commenters have......

OK, just a couple more days to go of overexposure to Michael Phelps. Yes, he's amazing but do we need profiles of him every single night? Interesting how these profiles gloss over his 2004 DUI conviction. We know what he eats, we know how his dog snores, but we don't hear about his DUI, or his broken wrist, and other setbacks he's had over the last few years - facts which only make his story......

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you should know that the Olympics start this weekend. Tonight the enormous super-choreographed extravaganza known as the Opening Ceremonies will take hours of your life away from you. Over the next couple weeks, TV Junkie will show what's on Prime Time as well as any events that should be highlighted depending upon how the games go. Tonight 8:00pm The Olympic Summer Games NBC -......

Shark Week winds down - I'm almost all sharked out anyways, plus the TV Junkie will be heading for a week's vacation at the beach so he was getting a little freaked out. Sunday's dilemma of "Generation Kill" vs. "Mad Men" continues. If you can Tivo one at a later time then that's a solution to get your dose of what is probably the best original programming of the week. Speaking of Tivo, some stats......

This weekend presents a dilemma. The big deal this weekend is the season premiere of "Mad Men" on Sunday at 10:00pm but this puts it in conflict with HBO's excellent "Generation Kill" which runs until 10:30pm but it repeats again at Midnight so that's probably the way out of this mess. Also, this weekend the Tour de France concludes - the race will be decided (early) Saturday morning by a 53k/33 mile individual time trial.......

The Screen Actors Guild has officially rejected the June 30th offer from the studios. Cited among the reasons for the rejection was the fact that the major studios and networks have invested large amounts of money and/or have inked deals to distribute their content online or via video-on-demand but the contract offered actors does not account for this increased distribution. Considering that the contract would be for four years, to be locked out of that......

Season four of "the #1 ad-supported cable series of all time", aka TNT's "The Closer" returns to TV tonight. I've always had a problem with this series, whether it was the annoying music, Kyra Sedgwick's overpainted lips and weird accent, or the fact that her character, LAPD Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, has somehow attained the status of Deputy Police Chief despite being "hopeless at LAPD politics". Still, the series is well-funded, looks decent......

The studios say that the SAG rejected their latest offer but the SAG says that isn't true. Still no word of a strike vote from SAG - if this SAG stuff is of particular interest to you, be sure to check out The Hollywood Reporter's SAG/AFTRA "Strike Zone". The big deal this weekend is HBO's Sunday premiere of "Generation Kill". The show will be dramatic and there will definitely be some "humanizing" of the members......

With nine hours left in their contract, the TV Junkie is really wondering what will happen with the Screen Actors Guild situation. Our guess is that the SAG will blink first since somehow, even just discussing talent receiving additional percentages of DVD sales is simply off the table for producers. Looks like TV is for old folks folks as the LA Biz Observed is highlighting a summary of a report from Broadcasting & Cable noting......

Kind of a slow weekend ahead folks, even on the movie channels, Sunday's programming is particularly deplorable. Rejoice though, in the news that Sony, within the next three years, will be offering a video-downloading service through all its key products, including its televisions, computers, music players and videogame devices. It plans to give most of its products network and wireless capability in that same window of time. Yup, download Hollywood movies through your PS3, etc.......

The Screen Actors Guild contract runs out on Monday, yup, the day is fast upon us, and it looks like, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the SAG will attempt to extend their contract instead of vote for a strike. This will keep the studios' projects moving forward while the SAG and AFTRA get in lockstep (or not) and the SAG decides what its deal-breaking points are (or not). The SAG is becoming very aware of......

Good news, you may continue to watch as much online porn as you want without your broadband provider building that into your profile - that is, only if you are using Charter Communications. After announcing 6 weeks ago that they would start to monitor their customers' activity in order to sell target profiles to advertisers, Charter is backing away from that position after running into protests from Congress as well as consumer groups. Perhaps Charter......

Tonight a double-travesty is occurring: the broadcast of both "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Game Show". Both of these shows take a good idea (for immature jerks like myself), Spike TV's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" aka "MXE", and turn it into garbage. "MXE" is an overdubbed (by members of LA's comedy troupe the Groundlings) and hilarious replaying of episodes of Japanese gameshow, "Takeshi's Castle" while "Wipeout" and "I Survived A Japanese Gameshow" are......

Variety is reporting that the upcoming NBC "The Office" spinoff has made its first hire: Aziz Ansari from MTV's "Human Giant" whom LAist interviewed a couple months ago and whom the TV Junkie met at the Ashton Kutcher SNL post-party in April). While the show title, other cast members, and method of launch is unknown to the general public, it is known that the show will debut this winter in the 9:30pm timeslot, right after......

Seems like everyone is running to the web these days as a secondary broadcast option. NBC did it a long time ago and now a couple more big names are heading that direction. Viacom will be adding an assortment of its shows to Fox-NBC joint-venture HULU - yeah, finally we'll be able to see full length episodes of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" rather than the ridiculous little clips we've been getting off......

As the SAG/AFTRA/AMPTP drama continues, advertisers are still ponying up the big bucks for TV advertising: $9.2 billion in pre-booked ads for the 2008-2009 season. This broad sale of advertising combined with targeted ad sales technology now offered by Canoe Ventures (you got a dog? say "hello" to even more Purina commercials) makes it seem like things are hunky-dory in TV land but they might not be. Some folks are perceiving these as just defensive......

In contrast to the wildly cute meerkates to the right (yes, they're back), some seriously big numbers have been issued by the prestigious Milken Institute has put out an impressive study of the impact of the writer's strike. In summary: - 37,700 jobs lost - $2.1 billion in lost output through the end of 2008 The cascading effects of the strike are what reportedly tipped the state into a recession in early 2008, but......

We're coming down to a bit over 3 weeks to go before a SAG strike as the guild resumes talks with producers today. The guild has yet to vote for a strike and sources say that even though fellow actors' guild AFTRA signed a contract last month, SAG is unlikely to rubberstamp a copy of that contract for their members. All I know is that "Mad Men" is coming back to AMC in July so......

In late May, HBO premiered it's original movie Recount, something this author thinks is an award worthy flick. It looks into the 2000 election woes in Florida, something the film does extremely well (it's on HBO Demand if you missed it). And if the Sunshine State's rainy month in the spotlight was not enough, Super Tuesday 2008 in California had its own troubles (fortunately, a good portion was corrected). Today, Californians go out to......

Dear aging hipsters, happy fun time is upon you as "Twin Peaks" is now available on Joost. Now go bake some pie. In other news, it looks like HBO's "In Treatment" will get another season once producer Warren Leight gets signed to helm production for the low-viewership, but highly thought of (by some reviewers, myself not included because it seemed to boring and overwrought). 7:00pm Star Trek: The Next Generation SciFi - Cable network premiere......

Kind of a weak selection until you get to Sunday evening. HBO has been pushing Recount on all the talk shows and some Democrats have been howling about it because we are in the middle of what could be yet another tightly contested election. Let's think about this for a second, would such activists for the Democratic party, like Kevin Spacey, Ed Begley Jr., Laura Dern, John Hurt, etc. participate in a piece of work......

It looks like Time Warner Inc. will be spinning off Time Warner Cable and announcing that sometime today. No word yet on how that might affect subscribers (like yours truly) of the TV, phone, and web services that the cable entity offers. 9:00pm MI-5 BBCA - This show kicks butt over any similar US show: "CSI", "NUMB3RS", etc. 9:15pm Brief Encounter TCM - (1945) Hey romantics, this tale of unrequited love directed by David Lean......

Hey "Gossip Girl" fans, The CW is pulling the show off of its website because too many of you are choosing to watch it online vs. TV (where its ratings are slumping). So, I get it, restrict the viewing of the content and everything will get better. What do you want to bet that this won't fix the problem? Tonight 7:00pm The Stepford Wives TCM - (1975) The ORIGINAL and much better version, with the......

In short: tonight brings us the conclusion of HBO's In Treatment, tomorrow Torchwood on the BBCA at 9pm provides us an opportunity to geek out, and on Sunday a lot of newly patriotic folks await part 4 of John Adams on HBO at 9pm. The big story this weekend is Showtime's Sunday lineup. Season 2 of The Tudors starts up and while it might not lure away John Adams fans immediately, it should be noted......

Is HBO really in trouble? (Speaking of HBO, check out this great movie from 1983 about the creation of the HBO Theater opening sequence). Business Week asks if the premium channel is in trouble now that "The Sopranos" are gone (also "The Wire", "deadwood", "Rome", etc.) with nothing on the horizon to step up. The fact is that Showtime, FX, and even AMC are coming up with more compelling shows as of this last year......

Other than college basketball, we don't have a lot to go on for this weekend. Can't wait for next weekend when Showtime unleashes The Tudors and Tracey Ullman's State of the Union. 9-11:00pm 20/20 ABC - For some reason, I can't imagine what, 20/20 has been inspired to provide a 2-hour special on prostitutes. 9:20pm That Mitchell and Webb Look BBCA - Pink jumpsuit superheroes. 9:30pm Jack and the Beanstalk TCM - (1952) Abbott &......

From 'Real Time With Bill Maher' on March 7, 2008 Bill visits Olvera Street to take the "temperature of the Latino vote." Skip ahead to 5:00 minutes for the interviews.......

Tonight we say goodbye to McNulty, Bunk, Freaman, Greggs and the rest of the cast of The Wire Back in June 2002, a crime drama from the minds of former Baltimore Sun writer David Simon (who spoke at USC earlier this week) and former Baltimore police officer Ed Burns made its debut on HBO. The Wire was more than just another cop show, it was an examination of both sides of the Baltimore drug......

So can fans really make a difference? Word has it that enough fans got through to NBC for them to keep the high school football-romance-drama "Friday Night Lights" on the air through a partnership with DirecTV. This gives one hope that a group of people can make a difference but then disappointment that truly great shows like "Arrested Development" couldn't make the cut. Speaking of which, Will Arnett is on Jimmy Kimmel tonight - Arnett......

Bob Saget will perform at 4th & B in San Diego on March 7, The Grove of Anaheim on March 8 and The Joint at The Hard Rock in Vegas on March 21 as part of his national theater tour and we're lucky to have another chance at him. Bob Saget is known to most people for all the wrong reasons.The cookie-cutter personas of "Full House"'s Danny Tanner and the "America's Funniest Home Videos" host......