A few morning TV links
What's happening outside What's Alan Watching?
Crystal Bowersox on last night's "American Idol."
Credit: Michael Becker / FOX
Welcome to day 2 of the HitFix era. We're still working out some kinks, but as I said in the comments to my introductory post, rest assured that our new ant HitFix overlords are reading and aware of any and all concerns, and working to improve what they can as quickly as they can.
And before I move on to some more watching/reviewing, I wanted to do a little link-blogging, including Fienberg's take on "Idol" (and my own brief take), an interview I did with Mediaite, and the story of a critic who couldn't watch "Lost" live last night because he was hanging out with half of Team Darlton...
- As I said last week on the old blog, I'm probably not going to do regular "American Idol" reviews for the rest of this season. The only contestant I care about is Crystal, and, frankly, Dan does a much better job of covering that show. So here's his take on Frank Sinatra Night, which is largely in line with my own. The Crystal thing was at once frustrating and understandable, in that I agree that that's how a song like "Summer Wind" should be done, but it's not a song or style that gets rewarded when you only have 90 seconds a week to impress people into voting for you.
- Mediate posed their 5 Quick Questions to me, in which I risk incurring the wrath of the Whedon fans.
- James Poniewozik from Time has a good story about getting texts from his wife about last night's "Lost" (which I covered here) while seated next to Carlton Cuse at an awards dinner.
Back in a bit with thoughts on last night's "Parenthood."
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupLDP in Cincinnati
May 5, 2010 at 9:46AM EST Reply to CommentHey Alan. Can you ask your new bosses if it's possible to get to your blog via the HitFix iPhone app? If it is, then perhaps I'm dense, because I can't figure it out. Thanks.
Google Reader for Life
May 5, 2010 at 9:58AM EST Reply to CommentSTOP RSS TRUNCATION NOW!!!!
l.
May 5, 2010 at 10:00AM EST Reply to Commentthe rss truncated feed is awful. please fix!
amyc
May 5, 2010 at 10:04AM EST Reply to CommentInstead of just posting "we don't like it" complaints....could hitfix set up a suggestion form or an email address to send constructive ideas about site / iphone app performance?
I'd rather post here about the tv topic at hand, but do have some specific ideas that might help the site developers (particularly about navigating the iphone app).
Thanks!
matthew
May 5, 2010 at 10:05AM EST Reply to CommentYES, ALAN: STOP RSS TRUNCATION NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
matthew
May 5, 2010 at 10:07AM EST Reply to CommentAlso, here is a good perspective on how switching to full RSS feeds can actually increase overall metrics for HitFix: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/06/04/rss-datapoint-of-the-day/
chuchundra
May 5, 2010 at 10:39AM EST Reply to CommentI understand the reason for the RSS feed truncation. HitFix wants the clickthroughs/page views. But there's no reason they can't do it intelligently. Let us see the whole summary in the feed instead of just a certain number of characters. That should be pretty easy to pull off and much more functional.
Karl Ruben Good luck on your new venture, Alan!
May 5, 2010 at 12:18PM ESTI'm not so bothered by the RSS feed being truncated, since I didn't read the old site through RSS. But I would definitely vote for a modified RSS feed with a cutoff after the "just as soon as" joke. Including the article picture in the feed would be great too, as an interesting picture often can be as much as a hook as the first paragraph of the article. I'll be clicking through to the HitFix site anyway, but it'd be nice to be able to decide which articles to read without the awfully distracting design of the main WAW page.
Is there any way to reduce the size of the social media widgets under the headlines? Again: distracting, irritating design choice.
Larry C
May 5, 2010 at 10:45AM EST Reply to CommentAlan, can you please have the powers-that-be fix "show less comments"? This incorrect grammar is just irking me!
Ben S Ha ha, a fellow pedant. It most certainly should be 'show fewer comments'.
May 5, 2010 at 11:17AM ESTchuchundra I agree. Don't make my wife come over there with her Sharpie.
May 5, 2010 at 11:48AM ESTchi TNT's "More Movie, Less Commercials" promo thing drove me up a wall (when I was watching that channel regularly)
May 6, 2010 at 1:40AM EST:)
Grammar Nerds unite!
pamelajaye actually that and the fact that every time I comment I have to re-click Show More Comments.
May 6, 2010 at 2:01AM ESTYup, I know Rome wasn't built in a day. Then again the people who lived there before Rome took over probably weren't happy with the changes either ;-)
I did mean to drop in to read Parenthood, but was distracted by... whatever this post was.
Derric
May 5, 2010 at 10:48AM EST Reply to CommentNot sure how this ended up on the wrong thread... Still getting used to the new site!
sepinwall It happens, Derric. I went in and deleted the Lost comment.
May 5, 2010 at 10:57AM ESTSarah
May 5, 2010 at 11:04AM EST Reply to CommentHi Alan,
I will happily follow you to any site, as I am a enjoy your writing and insights on TV. Since this seems to be the thread where people are issuing concerns -- is there anything to be done about the logo animation on the right side of the page? It's really distracting when I'm trying to read one of your posts. I'll take the ads and plugs for other blogs, and even your logo...so long as it's not animated. This might be a Hitfix thing with all the blogs,and if so, fine, but it'd be reeeallly nice not to have all the animation.
Thanks.
Dustin
May 5, 2010 at 11:36AM EST Reply to CommentI created a quick Yahoo Pipe to get the full RSS feed. As long as HitFix doesn't change the website too often, this should work until they decide to show full articles
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=547552b465a181fa4ecf80b0f7c60aac&_render=rss
chi Hot dog! It works! Picture and all - this feels like old times. I'll click through for comments most of the time anyway.
May 6, 2010 at 1:35AM ESTNo
May 5, 2010 at 12:05PM EST Reply to CommentBeen reading your posts for a few weeks now Alan. Your very informative and I love that. I do however wish you still had your own blog as the RSS feed trunc. is horrible and upon coming to the site there is no easy navigation between shows you post about. Please go back to your own blog or have this site set up exactly as it was on your old one!
Thanks for the great posts.
fred
May 5, 2010 at 12:27PM EST Reply to CommentAlan,
You're often right, but not always. Firefly is the best.
That is all.
(Actually no, one more thing: why is there still an unfinished sentence in your review of Lost? It's been mentioned in the comments there already, and yet right now
May 5, 2010 at 12:30PM EST Reply to CommentCall me weird, but for this blog I prefer truncated RSS: I always had to quickly page through the entries in Reader to avoid spoilers before. (But I'm a "watch it the next day on Hulu" type.)
fred Nothing weird, truncated is good. And it's how Alan write his posts anyways. I just wish the RSS would cut things where Alan wants to, and not in the middle of a sentence of what was supposed to only show up "after the jump" and, as such, might be filled with "spoilery" information and other quotes...
May 5, 2010 at 1:10PM ESTsepinwall FWIW, I've already asked about setting the feed to truncate right after the "just as soon as" phrase. The tech team's working on that. As with everything, I kindly ask for your patience.
May 5, 2010 at 2:31PM ESTklg19
May 5, 2010 at 3:25PM EST Reply to CommentOmar vs the Fonz? Geez, that's insane. I don't think I'd even want to KNOW the guy who picks the Fonz in that matchup.
Not only does shotgun beat thumb, but red tracksuit with four-in-hand totally trumps leather jacket.
rosengje
May 5, 2010 at 3:37PM EST Reply to CommentI would appreciate the occasional Idol post. Dan's reviews are funny and insightful but I feel like the format he uses doesn't allow for as much depth as you usually reach. I am only half watching the season anyway so I can't blame you for not wanting to waste time on it, but some intermittent thoughts would be great.
sepinwall
May 6, 2010 at 9:06AM EST Reply to CommentService with a smile: as you can see, the link now reads "Show fewer comments."
chuchundra You're the man now, Dog!
May 6, 2010 at 9:15AM ESTBen S Ha ha, wonderful! The system works.
May 6, 2010 at 10:16AM ESTLarry C Woo Hoo! thanks Alan!
May 6, 2010 at 10:19PM EST