I spend a lot of time doing homework to be better prepared for HBO projects.

 

Reading George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" definitely aided my enjoyment of the expansive epic fantasy series, which premiered last week.

 

Reading James M. Cain's "Mildred Pierce" definitely hindered my enjoyment of Todd Haynes' claustrophobically literal miniseries, which premiered last month.

 

With HBO's new telefilm "Cinema Verite," I was unable to watch the 12 episodes of "An American Family" and I came away feeling less enriched because of it. Or maybe I was just starved for any depth and context? With a brisk running time of 90 minutes, "Cinema Verite" is barely even an appetizer, introducing a lot of characters, a lot of history and a lot of media studies theory regarding the birth and evolution of reality TV, only to stop short of anything even vaguely illuminating or satisfying. This superficial take on the story and its cultural ripples was exactly entertaining enough to make me yearn to see the same story told properly.

 

More on "Cinema Verite" after the break...

David Murphy had an odd run on "Survivor: Redemption Island" this season.

 

Described by many of his Zapatera teammates as a master of puzzles, we never saw him actually solve a puzzle. 

 

And although he wasn't a part of the Russell alliance, David became most passionate when waging an ill-fated campaign to save Stephanie (a teammate he'd previously vocally criticized when she was given puzzle-solving duties instead of him on a key task).

 

And after weeks of seemingly unmotivated on-camera criticism for his job as a lawyer, it was maybe appropriate that David wound up being the first member of this season's "Survivor" jury. 

 

On "Survivor," where contestants are often eliminated because of the collapse of their metaphorical, strategic house of cards, David's run ended because he failed to construct a literal house of cards quickly enough in a Redemption Island Duel against Matt and Mike.

 

In this week's "Survivor" Exit Interview, David and I discussed his flawed Duel approach, his take on the rice/race conflict between Phillip and Steve, why he didn't join forces with Russell and why the other castaways hated his day job so much.

 

Click through...

John Noble and I, we've had a busy year together.

 

Last summer, we chatted on the "Fringe" set in Vancouver. Then we talked again, this time on camera, before the show's premiere in September. And, of course, we were co-stars in what may or may not have been the year's most pivotal "Fringe" scene.

 

And when I had the opportunity to do a slightly unusual interview -- I was on the phone, he was being filmed in-studio -- with the ever-gracious, ever-intelligent star earlier this week, I didn't hesitate. After all, we hadn't talked since "Fringe" earned its fourth season pick-up and with the "Fringe" spring finale just weeks away, this was a great chance to touch base on Walter and Walternate. [I also enlisted HitFix's "Fringe" guru Ryan McGee to get a different perspective on some fresh queries.]

 

Check out our conversation, which contains what may count as teasing spoilers.

In the past year, my parents have become fanatical "Bones" fans. I don't know if I actually believe their claims of occasionally watching four "Bones" repeats in one evening, especially with the Red Sox starting their season and the Celtics and Bruins both early in their playoff runs, but I know that more than a couple conversations with them have recently begun with, "On that 'Bones' repeat we saw the other night..."

 

My parents became "Bones" fans through TNT's relentless scheduling of wall-to-wall repeats. The show has also presumably attracted more than a few new viewers this spring thanks to its slotting on Thursday night after "American Idol."

 

After six seasons, 125 episodes and more than a few threatened moves to Fridays, "Bones" has become an "overnight" hit. FOX has sufficient confidence in "Bones" that Thursday (April 21) night's episode tried something rather unprecedented: Backdoor pilots are common, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time a series loosely based on one author's literary franchise has been used as a springboard for a hypothetical second series based on an entirely different different author's franchise. Kathy Reichs' books may not always take place in the same fictional universe as Richard Greener's "Locator" novels, but they shared the same 42 minutes on Thursday.

 

So how did the new series look? My impressions on the backdoor pilot after the break... I'm gonna assume you've watched the episode and won't care about spoilers, not that there's much that could really be spoiled...

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls.

 

In this week's installment of The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, we talk about "Cougar Town," "Treme," HBO's "Cinema Verite" and... nudity!

 

Good times.

 

Here's the breakdown:

 

The return of "Cougar Town" -- 01:00 - 11:00

Listener Mail: Nudity -- 11:45 - 17:45

Listener Mail: The NY Times "Game of Thrones" review -- 17:50 - 26:05

Listener Mail: Industry info relating to opinions -- 26:25 - 30:30

HBO's "Talking Funny" -- 30:45 - 35:25

"Doctor Who" -- 35:25 - 39:00

HBO's "Cinema Verite" -- 39:10 - 48:20

HBO's "Treme" -- 48:30 - 01:01:20

On the Firewall & Iceberg podcast last week, Sepinwall broke with form and asked me to give the introductory synopsis for HBO's new epic drama "Game of Thrones." He figured that since I'd read a book-and-a-half (and counting) of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" franchise, I might have more luck summarizing the fantasy-but-not-fantasy trappings.

 

I failed dismally. 

 

The next day, I was on a conference call with Martin himself and I asked him to take a shot at laying out the basics, figuring he must have pitched the premise enough times over the years to have a really simple, one-paragraph answer prepared.

 

He did not. He said something about it having been described as "fantasy for people who hate fantasy" and made his now-familiar claims about the story's root in The War of the Roses. He talked for at least five minutes and while I'm sure he improved upon my podcast stammering, he didn't give a response that I could work with.

 

The problem isn't that "Game of Thrones" is excessively complicated or that it's difficult to understand without a scorecard. I don't want to give any impression that "Game of Thrones" is an intimidating piece of work to slog through. What it is, however, is vast and uncompromising in scope. HBO has never been afraid to plop viewers down in the middle of heavily populated dramatic realms. Go back and watch the pilots for "The Wire" or "Deadwood" or "Boardwalk Empire" and count the number of characters you're immediately asked to keep track of. But "The Wire" was grounded in an American urban experience that was at least vaguely familiar, even if you weren't versed in the specifics of Baltimore's inner city. And "Deadwood" and "Boardwalk Empire" both relied on a scaffolding of actual history and geography, plus the inclusion of a number of famous historical characters. 

 

"Game of Thrones" dispatches viewers in a foreign land with a foreign geography and thousands of years of foreign history. It doesn't say "Understand everything this second or your're going to wind up in a corner muttering 'Starks and Tullys and Lanisters... oh my.'" What it requires, if you haven't read any of Martin's books, is that you have faith in series developers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, This isn't a "They know best" kind of faith, but rather a "They'll tell me what I need to know when I need to know it" faith. 

 

Through six episodes, I found that faith well-earned. Benioff and Weiss have taken Martin's hefy book and translated it with a fidelity that fans are likely to appreciate, while welcoming new audiences with a thematic core that won't seem so impenetrable. It's not just a story for fantasy fans. And although I can only speak for my own gender-informed viewing experience, there's no reason why this should be a story aimed only at men. 

 

"Game of Thrones" is a solidly told yarn that easily overcomes its few storytelling stumbles with exceptional production values and a deep and superior cast that far out-strips any reasonable expectations for this sort of saga.

 

Click through for more on "Game of Thrones"...

 

As horrible as "Vampire in Brooklyn" was -- it's one of those disasters you can't even justify as a guilty pleasure -- it set me up perfectly for a press screening of "Scream" the next year. At that moment, there was no buzz at all for "Scream." It was a little horror movie that appeared to star Drew Barrymore and one of the frequently crying actresses from "Party of Five." I had no expectations regarding the plot or the tone and nobody had begun to suggest that there were surprises or twists to be spoiled or kept secret. And after "Vampire in Brooklyn," I'd have been astounded if Craven still knew how to keep images in proper focus, much less cut together a scene of cinematic suspense.

 

"Scream" worked for me on every level and I spent a couple weeks preaching the gospel of what felt very much like a slasher movie that had been made specifically for me and my friends. When "Scream" premiered to only $6 million, I was disappointed, but the movie went on to follow a nearly unprecedented box office pattern on the way to $100 million.

 

The sequel wasn't quite as smart and funny, but I actually thought "Scream 2" was more consistently scary than the original.

 

Then "Scream 3" came along and sucked all of the joy out of the franchise, draining it of its life-blood like some sort of vampire in or from Brooklyn. 

 

It took more than a decade for anybody (and everybody, including Craven and writer Kevin Williamson) to get desperate enough to make a fourth "Scream" film and the resulting sequel, which opens on Friday (April 15) is better than "Scream 3," but I don't know if I'm prepared to call it a return-to-form for the franchise.

 

Click through for a full review...

A TV set-visit shell game:

 

It was back in November that I found myself on the set of a network comedy that had already shot seven episodes, but which wouldn't air a single episode until April. While the series in question was shooting a scene on the New York City street of a Hollywood studio lot, which was dressed to vaguely resemble Chicago, its stars were being taken to chat with a small group of reporters on a stage decorated for a different TV series airing on a different network.

 

That's a little background for how I came to be sitting on the Paramount-based set of NBC's "Community" interviewing the stars of ABC's "Happy Endings" about a series they'd been shooting in a vacuum for months without a premiere date or time period in sight.

 

The uncertainty was clearly making some of the show's stars antsy, but for Eliza Coupe, filming piles of episodes without a guaranteed timetable was old hat.

 

"That's kinda my M.O.," Coupe said. "I was on an HBO show ["12 Miles of Bad Road"] that we shot six episodes and it was like, 'This is gonna be the greatest thing.' I was playing Lily Tomlin's daughter. The whole thing was amazing and then it was like, 'Yeah. We're not gonna do that.' And then 'Scrubs.' Ninth season. The U.K. really loves it."

 

At the time, all of the stars of "Happy Endings" agreed that their show would be a perfect match with "Modern Family" on ABC's Wednesday night, because who wouldn't say that their show would be a perfect match with the highest rated comedy on their respective network? 

 

And for one week -- but only one week -- the "Happy Endings" family will get their wish, as the comedy will premiere on Wednesday, April 13 with two episodes airing after a new installment of "Modern Family." Starting the following week, "Happy Endings" will shift to a Wednesday 10:30 p.m. slot after "Cougar Town," which may actually be a more compatible lead-in.

 

[For more on how the "Happy Endings" team described their new comedy, click through...]

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls.

 

Lots of stuff to discuss in this week's installment of the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.

 

Don't worry, we talk about HBO's "Game of Thrones" for a long time at the end of the podcast. But we also cover the return of "Law & Order: Los Angeles" (with some spoilers), the premieres of "Happy Endings" and "The Paul Reiser Show," the NBC premiere of the final season of "Friday Night Lights" plus the "Burn Notice" telefim "The Fall of Sam Axe."

 

It's a busy podcast and it's a minor miracle that Alan's voice somewhat stayed intact throughout.

 

Here's the breakdown:

"Law & Order: Los Angeles" -- 01:30 - 09:55

"Happy Endings" -- 10:00 - 18:05

"The Paul Reiser Show" -- 18:30 - 27:00

"Friday Night Lights" -- 27:00 - 31:30

"The Fall of Sam Axe" -- 31:35 - 38:00

"Game of Thrones" -- 38:00 - 58:45

 

Winter is coming to HBO on Sunday, April 17. 

 

But on Friday, April 8, dinner was coming to Venice Beach. [Or a tasty pre-dinner appetizer.]

 

After visiting locations in New York and Los Angeles, the "Game of Thrones" food truck made its final stop on Friday evening, delivering "a taste of Westeros" with a free tasting menu devised by "Top Chef" favorite Tom Colicchio.

 

Friday's menu offered the choice between suckling head cheese (accompanied by farro and dried fruits) and venison skewers (with baked apple, barley and cinnamon). Both featured options were accompanied by moist lemon cakes.  Many people in the long line stretching down Abbot Kinney selected first one entree and then circled back around for another stint in line to try the other. The head cheese came only in a thin sliver and while savory, it could have been any tasty terrine or luncheon meat. The venison, though, was tremendous and I could have made a meal of it, if I'd gone back through the line five or six more times. [Instead, I went across the street and whetted the rest of my appetite at one of the seemingly dozen Korean-Mexican fusion trucks that prowl LA's streets.]

 

Fans at the "Game of Thrones" truck were treated to a surprise guest, "A Song of Ice and Fire" author George R.R. Martin, who greeted every patron through the line as they neared the end of their journey. Some of the diners were clear fans. A guy in front of me told Martin that he'd previously met him at a book-signing in Dublin. Others had no clue who they were seeing, but they were at least appreciative of the camera crews surrounding Martin and the pilgrims coming up to be photographed with the author. 

 

As food quantities ran low and the gaggle diminished, I snagged a few minutes with Martin, who saw the first two episodes of "Game of Thrones" earlier this week.

 

Click through for the interview...