or Able was I ere I saw Elba

Lost - "Dr. Linus"
(season 6, episode 7)

What would Lost be without Michael Emerson? The man has a talent to deliver any line with a creepy smarminess (See him in a 1992 prison guard training video), but also for conveying deep and genuine emotion. Benjamin Linus killed his father and let his adopted daughter be killed in service of Jacob and the Island. And what for? Why did he make those sacrifices? What was Jacob's plan? Emerson just killed the scene confronting Ilana. He manages to show the depth of Ben's grief and also show the possibility that Ben is, as always, spinning the wheels in his head to figure out a plan to keep himself alive and try to get an advantage.

On an Island where people are very likely to be killed by either natural or human causes, it's certainly useful to have someone like Miles, who can confirm a corpse's cause and method of death. That skill proves to be a useful deus ex machina that keeps Ben from being able to continue lying to Ilana, Sun and Lapidus about the circumstances of Jacob's death. As a result, Ilana forces Ben to contemplate his role in Jacob's death.

In the flash sideways, Ben and Roger left the Island and Ben went on to get a doctorate in European history to end up teaching high school alongside Leslie Arzt and new substitute John Locke. We happen to see him teaching about Napoleon's exile on the island of Elba, which the French Emperor eventually escaped and marched on Paris, although his second reign only lasted until the Battle of Waterloo later that same year.

In this timeline, Ben helps his father and tutors Alex Rousseau, who is applying to Yale. Ben has the opportunity to blackmail his principal in exchange for more personal power, but at the cost of killing Alex's chances of getting into Yale. In the alternate timeline, Ben has a plan, but tries his best to save Alex's future.

Elsewhere on the Island, or the first time, we see Richard as a man who is lost and out of his element. He's always seemed to be close with the Island and in the know-- if not the same confidence of being few steps ahead of everyone else that Ben could exhibit. But without Jacob, Richard is directionless and hopeless.

Ben is not the only one confused by his place in Jacob's plan. Richard confirms that he came to the island on the Black Rock, has been serving Jacob, and Jacob granted hiim a sort of immortality. Jacob had a plan; he could convey the gift of longevity, if not immortality. Was he a Cylon?

Is the crazy smile after surviving a dub stick of dynamite, proof that Jack has become a man of faith. Are Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Sun and Jin protected by Jacob's touch in the same way as Richard, while they are on the Island? Did Jacob's touch fail to protect Locke once he left the Island? Was part of the loophole that the Man in Black found luring Locke off of the Island?

While this episode was filled with good elements, the last few feel like they've kept too many pieces off of the table. Sawyer hasn't been seen since The Substitute. This week, Smokey's band of followers-- including Sawyer, Claire, Sayid and Kate-- were completely out of the picture. Jin didn't appear at all this week, either. But the episode closed with a brief appearance of a character coming back who has yet to be seen at all this season, bringing more of the pieces of the puzzle into the picture.

The last scene on the beach let Oscar winner Michael Giacchino's score take the forefront and be a more effective substitute for some dialog. As a visual medium, a picture can be worth a thousand words, and sometimes pictures alone are more effective without words. The writers, director and producers deserve credit for trusting the actors and Giacchino to deliver without feeling the need to explain everything.

Posted by Andrew Raff on March 9, 2010 11:42 PM
Tags: Lost
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Chuck vs. the Beard

Chuck is a fundamentally silly show. Its version of international espionage involves many more "missions," "secrets" and "being a spy" in 44 minutes than actual undercover operatives might use in their entire careers. But as the closest spiritual successor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it uses spy movie tropes to set the stage for stories that are allegorical. Buffy brought vampires, monsters and hellmouths to high school; Chuck brings James Bond to mid-20's malaise.

Chuck's second season paralleled stories in spy world with stories in Buy Moria, but the best episodes brought the two together. Just as Joyce Summer eventually learned about her daughter being the Slayer, this episode serves to further integrate Chuck's spy life with his real life. While Chuck has become more of an ass as he's used the Intersect 2.0 to become more of a spy (in particular, breaking up with Hannah), he's fundamentally still a good person, who needs to talk about things with his friends and family. Unlike Sarah, Chuck has people close to him from whom he doesn't want to keep big secrets (there's that word again.)

One of the things that the show fixed from its first to second seasons was the character of Morgan. Josh Gomez dialed his performance down closer to human. Unfortunately, Morgan largely reverts to some of the overbearing nerd. Perhaps this was a conscious choice by first-time director Zachary Levi, or perhaps this was the character just freaking out when he learns that the Buy More is a cover for a joint CIA-NSA task force.

Although Office Space alumnus Diedrich Bader plays a twisted version of The Bobs and gives Chuck and Morgan a chance to have their biggest bromantic moment of the third season, it also plays against Jeffster performing CCR's "Fortunate Son," hand to hand combat and a Buy Moria take Iwo Jima.

How I Met Your Mother, "Of Course"

The second act of "Of Course" may have been this show's single best act of the entire series. Realizing that breaking up Barney and Robin couldn't just be a return to the status quo, HIMYM finally realized that the relationship did have an effect on the characters and that they couldn't just go back to hanging out at McLaren's together without consequences.

Fully integrated the heart and the funny. The emotional beats were cut properly with laughs, like Marshall's song getting more involved each time we revisit it. And how can you not like an episode where Marshall punches the head off of a Stormtrooper and adds, "frankly, I'm still angry at the Empire"

Posted by Andrew Raff on March 8, 2010 11:28 PM
Tags: chuck HIMYM
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Now that I've ripped all of my CD's into compressed digital formats in iTunes, I've acquired a turntable and started listening to more music on vinyl. As a listener, it's nice to have a more active and physical connection with music. Hard disk-based libraries are wonderful for depth and variety, but for listening to the great albums that you love as albums, the album-centric listening experience is rewarding and engaging.

Instead of building a multi-hour playlist of digital music spanning dozens of genres, artists and albums across hundreds of songs, an LP listener has to flip after each side and can't easily skip ahead from song to song. The medium forces more engaged listening.

But the LP is also an inferior medium to the CD and even compressed digital formats. The CD has tremendously more dynamic range. Dynamic range is the amount of sounds that can be reproduced from a recording-- from the lowest note and softest volume to the highest frequency and loudest volume.

But today's recordings are mixed and mastered to push the average levels as high as possible, using less dynamic range than the CD medium is able to deliver. Robert Levine published the definite take on the so-called loudness wars in a 2007 article in Rolling Stone, The Death of High Fidelity, "Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse."

Pete Bilderback, Yo! Turn It Down!

"Dynamic range compression is not new. Producers of popular music have been using it for decades, and--used in moderation--it is actually an essential tool in producing good sounding pop and rock recordings. But over the past several decades producers, mastering engineers and recording artists have engaged in a race to create the loudest possible sounding CDs (the so-called "loudness wars") and in doing so have severely restricted the dynamic range heard in today's popular music recordings."

Most modern music is seemingly optimized for listening in a 128 kbps MP3. Below about 192 kbps, MP3 files sound washed out, but above that are close enough to CD to be intistinguishable, except perhaps on truly audiophile equipment.

Music recorded earlier than the mid-1980s was not only mixed, mastered and produced to fit within the limits of the medium, but also recorded to sound best on the medium. While 2" analog tape has a much wider dynamic range than an LP, did any artists not seek to make the best sounding LP possible?

Bob Speer, What Happened To Dynamic Range?

"What happened to dynamic range? That's a question that should be asked of record labels, producers, artists, and last but not least, recording and mastering engineers. The question needs to be asked because we're the ones responsible for what's happened to our music. Much of the music we listen to today is nothing more than distortion with a beat. Great music is suffering because it lacks dynamic range. When music lacks dynamic range, it lacks punch, emotion, and clarity."

Mastering for vinyl can be more artistic than mastering for digital because of the limitations of the medium. Kevin Gray, Producing Great Sounding Phonograph Records

Comparing the waverforms for the CD and LP versions of Bob Dylan's Eyolf Østrem looked at the amount of dynamic range used by the different masters of the same album and concluded, Someone Please Fire Jack Frost. Even though the CD is capable of delivering a more dynamic representation of the music, it's often end up delivering as loud of a delivery as possible with less dynamic range.

Given that digital formats are using less dynamic range than LP's, and that analog distortion is warmer, more musical and more natural than digital clipping, the vinyl record is remaining relevant, because the inferior medium is used in a superior manner. The loudness wars are making modern digital recordings sound worse than records. Which is a shame, because properly recorded and mastered digital recordings are more dynamic. The deepest lows and highest highs that a CD can reproduce are higher and lower than those on vinyl, but for albums that don't use all of that dynamic range, the warm sound and focused experience of listening to albums is more compelling for music fans.

Posted by Andrew Raff on March 4, 2010 3:18 PM
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109 episodes in, and only now am I going to start trying to write about individual episodes:

Lost, "Sundown" (season 6 episode 6)

"Sundown" certainly did not lack for action (or body count.) Sayid and Dogen fought in Dogen's office, Smokey had some issues with the temple Others, Sayid settled some differences with Dogen and Lennon, while Ilana, Ben, Sun and Lapidus made it to the temple to save Miles from Smokey.

But while this episode had a lot of action, much of it was set in motion for reasons that are still opaque to us as the audience. While we now understand that the flashes to the alternate timeline differ in ways that go far deeper than flight 815 landing safely at LAX, but not yet what relationship they have to our characters on the island. The original flashbacks from seasons 1 and 2 showed how the characters were shaped by the events that led them to the island, that gave the characters new shape and demonstrated some of the motivations (or put twists on those motivations) for why they acted in the way they acted on the island.

So far, season 6's vignettes in the parallel universe have echoed season 1's flashbacks. Like "Tabula Rasa," "What Kate does" was a Kate story, like "Walkabout," "The Substitute" was a Locke episode, and like "White Rabbit," "Lighthouse" featured Jack. But whereas the sixth episode of the show, "House of the Rising Sun," was a Sun flashback, tonight's "Sundown" was a Sayid story.

In parallel 2004, Sayid travels to Los Angeles to see Nadia, who is married to Sayid's brother. In the original timeline, Sayid was working with the CIA to infiltrate a terrorist plot in Sydney in exchange for information on Nadia's whereabouts, as he had not seen her since letting her escape torture and capitivity in Iraq. In the parallel timeline, Sayid was an interrogator in the Republican Guard, but had not lost track of Nadia.

At this point, it's frustrating not to understand more about the mirror universe. We know that despite some major differences (e.g. Jack has a son, Locke has a good relationship with Helen and his father), the characters are largely the same-- Rose still has cancer, Jack still had a difficult relationship with his father, Claire is still having a baby, Kate is still a fugitive, Locke still got rejected from his walkabout, Keamy still makes a mean plate of eggs. In this episode we see that Sayid is still trying to make peace with having served as a torturer for the Republican Guard. Despite that, he wants to be a good man and find some measure of redemption. But he keeps getting sucked back in to torture and murder -- whether it's to extract information from Sawyer, os a hired gun for Ben, or trying to extract his brother from a bad business arrangement in the alternative timeline. Naveen Andrews does a very good job of selling Sayid's understanding that he has done some terrible, unforgivable things in both timelines and wants redemption.

But what's the relationship between the mirror universe and the original one? We don't yet know what the glimpses of the characters' lives in the parallel universe show. Is this what their lives would have been like if they hadn't been influenced by Jacob or the island? (But still were traveling from Sydney to LA on the same day.) Are the two timelines going to come together at some point?

My theory is that despite the differences, the characters are going to largely end up in similar relationships and doing similar actions, because their characters are the same whether they were brought to the island or not. It's not a matter of having a destiny or being played as puppets by Jacob, but that these people use their free will in ways directed by their personalities that bring them to similar places. I worry that if this in fact the relationship between the island and alternate timelines, it will be patently unsatisfying; in the original timeline, we had about 100 hours of story to get the characters to where they were by the end of The Incident, and we're only going to see a few hours of the alternate timeline by the end of the series.

Of more interest in the parallel world, Martin Keamy (originally Widmore's lead mercenary on the freighter who killed Alex, among others) is a gangster (and cook of eggs) who was extorting Sayid's brother. Oh, and he has Jin bound in a freezer. Is Keamy working for Widmore in the alternate timeline? Or does he just have competing interests with Jin (or Jin's employer) and Sayid's brother?

I think part of what I'm finding so odd with this season is the pacing of the various threads. Not only have the relationship between the island and the Others who have been exiled off the island (Eloise, Widmore)

Two episodes ago in The Substitute, we followed Sawyer and Smokey climbing down Jacob's ladder to retreive a Horcrux (or something) and learning the candidate-Numbers connection, but we haven't seen Sawyer since (except for a brief appearance as part of Smokey's entourage). Last week, we followed Hurley and Jack wandering old-school through the jungle to the Lighthouse, but didn't see them at all this week. The show isn't so much juggling these disparate plot threads, but holding them and then throwing them up in the air, letting them fall to the ground, and then picking them up again.

So on the one hand, this episode was effective at moving the story forward, but didn't reveal much of the overarching structure of the story that's being told. If there's some conflict that spans hundreds of years, involves shadowy organizations in the world like Widmore Industries, the Hanso Foundation and the Dharma Initiative, a conspiracy of Others who had some kind of access between the island and the outside world, a frozen donkey wheel, time travel, and a smoke monster, the stakes of season 6 have felt smaller than earlier seasons. Not that it may ever be possible to explain all of those elements-- or that it will be unsatisfying if these questions are never answerd-- but the prior seasons have been effective at raising the stakes with new questions. So far, season 6 has introduced new elements, but hasn't manage to either make these new elements more compelling than those from prior seasons that always appeared to raise the stakes or expand the scope of the world.

At this point, season 6 feels like it's struggling to connect the story that it's been building week to week, much less with much of the foundation laid in the last five years. I suspect that this section of the season will play much better in tighter sequence than one episode per week.

Review and Reaction Roundup
Alan Sepinwall, A history of violence ""Lost" is all about eternal struggles - good vs. evil, science vs. faith, free will vs. destiny - and fundamentally about man vs. his own nature. John Locke wants to be a big man but can't overcome his own smallness. Jack Shephard tries to fix everything and usually winds up destroying it. And Sayid Jarrah wants to be a good man free to enjoy the love of his good woman, but instead he's always the man brought in when people need killing."

James Poniewozik, Time, "When season six started a month ago, fans who had endured a long hiatus expected quick answers. It's the last season, after all; the show ends just a few weeks from now, on May 23. But instead, during the first four weeks of this season, we got new characters like Dogen and Lennon, an elaborate new set at the temple, and SmokeLocke insisting to Sawyer during a long jungle trek that his questions (and, presumably, ours) would be answered if we just keep following. It was a little annoying: it's way past teasing time."

Noel Murray, The AV Club, Sundown "Like “What Kate Does” a few weeks back, I thought “Sundown” was pretty shaky at times, though it ended so strongly—and offered so much to ponder along the way— that I didn’t mind that it was light on incident and heavy on Temple moping. I also didn’t mind that “Sundown” was a Sayid episode that defaulted back to the same set of questions and concerns that have driven nearly every Sayid episode lately: Is this dude a stone a stone-cold killer or what? I didn’t mind it because I thought “Sundown” was one of the most bravely unforgiving episodes yet when it comes to dealing with the question of free will versus fate."

Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly, 'Lost' recap: The Measure of the Man "Last night's episode of Lost, 'Sundown,' reminded us that for all his spirituality, and for all his protest-too-much bleating about being a 'good man,' Sayid has never been able to make peace with his past as a torturer for Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, as well as the CIA. He's more than mired in his quagmire; he feels like he deserves it. To quote Joseph Conrad, Sayid is a man infected with a self-mortifying, self-corrupting 'fascination with abomination.'"

Maureen Ryan, Chicago Tribune, Let's talk 'Lost': 'Sundown' "What an excellent episode. We got some interesting forward movement on the island, not to mention some wonderfully creepy atmospheric moments on and off the island. Sayid asked a lot of good questions, some of which even got answers We had Sideways and island timelines that were linked thematically and emotionally and thus quite a bit more interesting in tandem than some other Sideways trips."

Todd VanderWerff, LA Times, 'Lost': Sayid loses himself in the dark " Sometimes you watch "Lost" and think about the philosophical conundrums it presents or the way the characters interact. Sometimes you watch it and come away impressed by the show's rock-solid direction or great acting. But sometimes, oh, sometimes, you watch the show and end up feeling that there's just nothing else like it on TV, nothing quite so, well ... awesome. When "Lost" is on, there's nothing quite like it for bringing big, epic moments, and there's never really been anything like it in the history of the medium. It's a big, bold show when it wants to be, and when it pays off a whole bunch of setup with a big, action payoff, it usually delivers."

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, Lost – “Sundown” "The Flash Sideways structure this season has been taking a lot of criticism from those who think that its opaque intentions are obscuring any meaning that it might have, but I think that in terms of its immediate function it has actually been quite clear. As the show confuses the question of identity through the Man in Black and his various influences, the Flashes offer a glimpse at characters in a far less confused universe who are still just as confused as they were before."

Emily Nussbaum, NY Magazine, Tortured Logic "Sorry to go all Lori 'Settle!' Gottlieb on you, but must every character have a soul mate? Desmond, Sayid, Jin, Sawyer, Jack — always mooning, mooning, mooning! And look where it leads them, into whining and, in more extreme cases, blood-soaked evil.

Mike Hale, NYT Artsbeat, Sayid Goes Off, "For all the hyperventilating in other forums about Sayid as a born killer, the show has made the case in the past for his essential goodness, and he’s being manipulated now by Fake Locke. Do we really think that any of the show’s central characters won’t, in the end, find some kind of redemption?"

Isaac Spaceman, A List of Things Thrown 5 Minutes Ago, Kate, Separated From The Group Again, Wishes She Had Not Scoffed At The Idea Of A Line Buddy

Posted by Andrew Raff on March 3, 2010 11:44 AM
Tags: lost
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Fun promo video for Parks & Recreation:

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 5, 2010 11:12 AM
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Lost may not be the most popular show on television, but it may the most popular show with the highest percentage of extremely engaged fans. In other words, the product of the size of Lost's fan base and their intensity has to be the largest for any television show. Dollhouse or Breaking Bad may have a higher percentage of extremely engaged fans, but a smaller audience. American Idol or CSI might have a larger audience, but their fans are less likely to know who the showrunners and producers are.

Is there any other show (aside from perhaps NBC's promotion of The Marriage Ref from Executive Producer Jerry Seinfeld) where the showrunners would be giving interviews on late night television instead of anyone from the cast?

Or that EW refers to by their first names only? Doc Jensen, EW PopWatch, Confused by the 'Lost' premiere? Never fear! Damon and Carlton explain a few things about the start of Season 6 (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Lost may be the most thoroughly analyzed show on TV. Here is an incomplete collection of some of the reviews and analysis of the season 6 premier, LA X, parts 1 and 2: Alan Sepinwall Doc Jensen (EW), jOpinionated, Televisionary Mike Hale (NY Times), Noel Murray (AV Club), Drew McWeeny (HitFix), Mary McNamara (LA Times), Todd VanDerWerff (LA Times), Myles McNutt (Cultural Learnings), Isaac Spaceman (A List of Things Thrown 5 Minutes Ago), Maureen Ryan (Chicago Tribune), James Poniewozik (Time), Linda Holmes (NPR).

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 3, 2010 6:06 PM
Tags: Lost
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Now that President Obama gave the State of the Union address, the host chair of the Tonight Show is settled, Chuck premiered and Steve Jobs announced Apple's new iPad, the Internets can finally fully devote attention to preparing for the most important media event EVER: the final season of Lost.

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan interviews showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof in an epic three part interview.

As only he can, ALOTT5MA's Isaac Spaceman recaps to this point: Welcome to the Hanso Island Resort and Spa

I've been re-watching season one, and I'm amazed at how different the show has become since then. Initially, this was a show about the characters who crashed on Craphole Island. As important as the various situations they encountered was how their reaction to those situations is affected by (or how the crash has forced them to reconsider) their actions in their lives before the crash. Since then, it's gone on to be a time-bending show that's grown in scope and added new characters with a connection to the island, who were not on Oceanic Flight 815 (and generally more compelling than many of the original characters.)

What most of the shows that have since attempted to be the next Lost seem to have forgotten is that Lost's mythology is something that was introduced gradually over the course of the first two seasons. The first season was all about the characters from the crash; each episode focused on one character. If the show didn't evolve from the first season, it would have become stagnant (like the early part of season 3.) If it started as the mythology-heavy show of later seasons, it may not have been around long enough to explore the mythology.

But over 5 seasons, the show has asked so many questions, that the final season will probably answer some questions that shouldn't be answered and leave others open.

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, The Scourge of Fandom: Why Lost Owes Us Nothing, "I tend to view fans who are basically threatening Lindelof and Cuse that they have to answer particular questions as the scourge of fandom. Lost is a show that very much invites fans to make their own theories, and I like that Lindelof and Cuse respect the audience enough to inspire their obsession. That’s why I find it disrespectful for fans to then take their theories and push them back on Lindelof and Cuse, as if the reason Lost’s mysteries exist is for us to solve them and then force the show to adhere to our ideas."

James Poniewozik, Time: Tuned In Blog, My Favorite Episodes, and Yours

While Lindelof and Cuse expect to bring a satisfying conclusion that will end this show, Disney may want to do more with the franchise than just sell Dharma jumpsuits. What happens then? AfterLost? Lost: The Next Generation? Michael Schneider, Variety, Is 'Lost' here to stay?

Finally, Lost recapped by an extended Italian family:

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 1, 2010 4:15 PM
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Igot invited to see a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater last night. And aside from Dave being more engaged and energized by another situation involving the Tonight Show and Jay Leno over at NBC, this was incredibly worthwhile to attend, because The Heavy were the musical guest and rocked the house. As soon as the show wrapped, I was looking for their tour schedule to see if they were playing a full set later. Unfortunately, the Late Show wrapped up their US tour.

How often does Dave ask the musical guest to keep playing the song for another go round with the CBS Orchestra then vamping on the riff after the band finishes?

According to the Late Show website, it was "unprecedented." They also have the full and complete encore performance

But sometimes when a band is just setting up, you get a feeling that you're going to like them. If they've set up a four piece Gretsch drum set, Rickenbacker bass, Telecaster guitar through a Fender amp, baritone sax, tenor sax and trumpet, you get a sense of the sound they're going to have. Combine with a British flag and before the band is even on stage, that's a pretty solid indicator of the kind of sound they're going to have. Borrow the Dap Kings horn section and execute well and there you go: a recipe for awesome.

The Heavy [theheavy.co.uk]

WXPN: The Heavy, Recorded Live In Concert (Jan. 15, 2010)

NPR: The Heavy: Dirty Basement Soul "Like the early White Stripes, The Heavy sometimes threatens to cross the line between reviving and archiving. Also like the early White Stripes, it's good enough to get away with a lot, and smart enough to take full advantage."

The House That Dirt Built: Vinyl CD MP3

Posted by Andrew Raff on January 19, 2010 10:46 AM
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"I'll be honest, I was a bit nervous before playing this show," said Julian Casablancas from the stage Thursday at Terminal 5 before thanking the packed house again for the warm reception. Artists gain and lose popularity fast in music, so it may not have been too crazy for him to think people might not care about him or his old band The Strokes that much anymore. But an excited Terminal 5 audience dispelled any doubt. Perhaps music tastes can change, but New Yorker's always welcome back one of their own.

Doors opened at 8 PM and by 9 PM opener Tanlines was keeping the growing crowd well entertained, mostly with their intense on-stage gyrations. Tweaking computers and keyboards they presented an aggressive dance sound. In contrast, Telepathe, who followed, emitted an intense racket that sounded like a wash of sound rather than finely crafted music. The duo's similar sounding voices and monotonous songs barely excited the crowd, and a few of their offerrings ended with just a spattering of applause. The group looked a little dejected as they left the stage, but after 35 minutes of without much musical or visual excitement (they barely tried to engage the crowd), it was hard to feel guilty about the audience's poor reaction.

The reaction was much different when the lights went down for the headliner. With his backing band hitting the stage first, Julian Casablancas strolled out in a slim black leather outfit to the jubilation of everyone in Terminal 5. Although it's only been a few years since The Strokes played New York, the excitement of the moment was palpable, as was the moment when he began singing in his distinctive croon.

The band started off with "Ludlow Street," one of the album's slower tracks, and though it lacked some of the old world instrumentation of the recorded version, it came across well, as did the next song, the more up-tempo "River of Brakelights." Casablancas took the chance to talk to the crowd a bit, spouting out a stream of expletive-laden thanks-yous to everyone for the warm reception. The casual banter would continue throughout the night, and flew off into such side roads as Casablanca's admiration of Alicia Key's contribution to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" (he would later sing a snippet of it as a ten-second final song of the night, backed only by drums).

Launching into single "11th Dimension," the band was fully warmed up and the crowd was soon bopping up and down. Every once in a while throughout the night (in "River of Brakelights" and Left and Right in the Dark," for example), the band hit a chugging groove and Casablancas voice hit that sweet spot towards the higher, more desperate part of his range. The effect recalled what was so great about the Strokes, and the crowd reacted as you would have expected (see the video below). But the other sounds Casablancas has explored proved popular as well. The crowd sang along with "Out of the Blue" and "Left and Right in the Dark." Casablancas and company played a new, untitled song which felt energetic and a lot more raw than the album material.

Reports from L.A. told of an elaborate stage show, but there were no visuals or fancy costumes at this gig, just the band and Casablancas with minimal lighting effects. Still, the crowd ate it up, especially in the encore when Casablancas and his keyboard player came out to play a stripped-down "I'll Do Anything Once," a Strokes b-side (which he announced as a cover). A bigger surprise was the inclusion of the Kings of Leon song "Velvet Snow," though admittedly it was one of the weaker songs of the night. Still, the singer seems happy to playing live in NY again, whether this solo tour is a diversion before a Strokes reunion or a long term gig.

Posted by Krikor Daglian on January 15, 2010 2:39 PM
Tags: Julian Casablancas The Strokes Terminal 5
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In the New York Times today, Bill Carter finds NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol clearly on Team Jay, saying,
"What this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan." Executive Leaps to Leno’s Defense.

But how much of Conan's woes at the Tonight Show are caused by the creative failure of the Jay Leno Show at 10 PM?

Tucked away in this story from Joe Adalian at The Wrap is the one fact that I've been looking for, that Conan's Tonight Show is actually outperforming Leno's Tonight Show, when you account for the massive fall-off of lead-in: Ebersol: Conan 'Chicken-Hearted, Gutless' | The Wrap: "O'Brien's down from the Leno era in the adults 18-49, losing Leno's 15 percent advantage over Letterman. But local news numbers have dropped between 20 and 30 percent since Leno shifted to 10, which means O'Brien is actually not dropping as much as his lead-in."

Even though Leno hosted the Tonight Show on a low-rated network last year, NBC's slightly more creatively interesting 2008-09 schedule provided a much stronger lead-in to the late local news and The Tonight Show than the 5 night per week black hole of suck that is the Jay Leno Show.

But why do we care so much about The Tonight Show?

Firstly, it is the most established late night show and during the Carson era, it was the only late night talk show that mattered. Viewers have a relationship as much with the tradition and establishment of a show. Millions of Americans find something comforting about routine and being able to watch The Tonight Show while settling in to sleep. And given Leno's popularity, we can only assume that for many people funny isn't a necessary component of a comedy show.

Secondly, even though NBC is by far the least popular network of the four, it may still be the one with which television viewers have the most personal connection. NBC has a much more specific nexus with its location at 30 Rockefeller Center. Because The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Channel 4 News, Saturday Night Live, Late Night and (fictionally) 30 Rock are all based there, there's a feeling that NBC is an actual location with physical place and staff that all works together rather than a bunch of shows that happen to occupy the same frequency allocation on a transmitter. Secondly, more of its shows are long-running brands that have maintained the same core identity for so long that they have become institutions. Meet The Press is the longest running television show in worldwide broadcasting history, having been on the air continually since 1947. The Today Show has been on since 1952. The Tonight Show has aired continually since 1954. Saturday Night Live has aired since 1975 and Late Night since 1982. Only in two areas (evening news on CBS) and newsmagazine (60 Minutes)) do any of its competitors have longer running institutions than NBC.

Conan put his talk show up for sale on Craigslist.

What happened the last time NBC threatened to replace a Tonight Show host with another host from its network? In 1992, Bill Carter reported for the New York Times, Jay Leno Criticizes NBC On 'Tonight' Cliffhanger. We all know how that turned out.

It seems that Jimmy Kimmel is not a Leno fan. He did his Tuesday night show as Leno and then went direct as a guest on Leno's show:

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, Betrayal at NBC, Colon, What REALLY happened with my Late Night Show, Question Mark, by Conan O’Brien

Anne Helen Petersen, celebrity gossip, academic style, Team Conan: Nice Guys Finish First. Okay, well, kinda.

Lawrence Ebert, IP Biz, "The Tonight Show" controversy: do trademarks have a temporal dimension?. I'd say that since it has always aired after the late local news, The Tonight Show has come to mean NBC's leadoff flagship and least-late of its late night shows.

James Poniewozik, Time Tuned In, Jay Leno: Seabiscuit or War Admiral

Posted by Andrew Raff on January 15, 2010 12:38 PM
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