Hi Folks,

We had some help from Doug Allison and his brother Roger tonight. There's still tons to do and I am just finishing up for the day. We have about a month worth of work to do in a week. Ack.

The little 11 year old R&B singer won America's Got Talent. That had to be the worst produced/directed/edited TV series in Telivision history. High school community cable station volunteers would have been able to edit it far better. I mean seriously.. it was so awful that it was hard to even notice the show itself while watching the lousy job the tech crew was doing. Several times during the season they exposed magicians tricks accidentally due to camera angles.. they always cut away for pointless and lame audience shots during the performances.. it was as if they were trying to do a terrible job.. well.. they succeeded. It would be like fading a drum track in and out while clicking vocal tracks on and off and washing it all in 10 times too much reverb on a song. Only a moron would do it. Apparently.. morons produced that series. But I digress.

The little girl won the show on her first performance. She got worse with each successive one. Granted, her worst was as good as many pro level singers best.. but the magic was gone after the first jaw dropping performance. That said, as long as she's supported and handled correctly, we likely haven't heard the last from her. She really is amazingly talented.

Anyone out there watch Deadwood? Some of the best character acting in TV history.

Brian

I haven't seen it Brian (don't have HBO!) but everyone says it's excellent. I'm a big fan of Ian Mc Shane in general though. He's an extemely versatile actor. If you like him you might want to check out his old British series, Lovejoy. His character couldn't be more different from Deadwood. He plays a loveable rogue who deals in art and antiques in the English countryside. Very gentrified and funny and brilliantly plotted!

The thing about Deadwood is that it's full of people who would NEVER make it on regular network TV because they aren't models. Sure, there are a few "pretty faces" (The sheriff, several of the female characters who are prostitutes and the bank owner) are attractive, but once you get past those, it's a world of real looking people acting like real people, but with a nearly Shakespearian delivery of their lines. Did people really talk like that? Who knows.. I imagine it wasn't so flowery.. but they do a great job mixing brutal expletives with the soliloquies. And depending on the characters, they often deliver not much more than grunt with the same flare. Great show. And Ian McShane went from being the most evil despicable bad guy to making you root for him anyway. It's an amazing job of acting and character development.

Brian

Brian,

Just so happens that my husband, Dan and I are huge fans of Deadwood, as well as other HBO shows, such as Carnivale and Six Feet Under.

I agree that Deadwood has some awesome actors...amazing performances and VERY intelligent writing.

It's one of the few shows I've seen from that time period that gives a very accurate view of how hard life was - especially for women...

After watching this caliber of writing and acting...I just can't watch much of the mindless junk on network television!

Emily

[This message has been edited by Emily Sanders (edited 08-19-2006).]