Entertainment: January 2008 Archives
Head over to Moviefone to see a spy shot of the new Enterprise from the up and coming prequel film, Star Trek. Apparently the trailer is due to premiere tomorrow as part of the previews for the movie Cloverfield. Anyone want to bet how many more hours until a bootlegged version of the trailer shows up on YouTube?
Either way, looks like they are embracing the old design, it seems.
Everyone loves a good mystery. In the wake of the well publicized Writer's Guild Strike, the late night shows are some of the first to return to the airwaves with new episodes (that's right, I'm choosing to ignore reality TV). The offerings on CBS (Letterman and Ferguson) had the blessing and full return of the writers, while NBC's (Leno and O'Brien) did not.
The mystery, in my mind, was whether or not these shows had become so dependent on writers that they would not be humorous with nothing but their host's own wit and a meager stable of C-list guests. According to this article on E! Online, both Leno and O'Brien beat their timeslot rivals in the ratings the first night back to the air.
Now why did this happen? How could Leno have possibly beaten the polished, well-staffed, union-blessed Letterman?
Critics really wrestled with those questions. They tried comparing the guest list; which for Letterman contained A-list celebrities like Robin Williams, and for Leno - republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. While the strike continues, Leno and O'Brien will be extremely challenged to recruit stars of stage & screen as guests, mostly due to those guests required loyalty to the writer's strike.
Better get ready for more political, animal, and cooking related segments.
After watching the last couple night's of Leno, I'm not that surprised that he and Conan have been gaining ground in the ratings. There are two things that people likely find interesting about all this.
First, Leno and Conan are the underdogs, and people usually root for the underdogs
Second, when things are no longer as tightly scripted- uncomfortable silences, blank stares, and failure in the shape of sharp, sharp knives enter. To some viewers, this is equal to witnessing a car accident.
And like any car accident, even though I know it may be really bad... I still can't look away.
