I'm not sure how many Jammer's Realm viewers of V are out there, but I thought I would chime in with an installment of Other Things Jammer Watches.

The aliens arrive in the pilot of V. It's downhill from there, as plenty of boring unoriginal stuff happens.

Today's installment: V, or "ABC's V," as the network likes to say. (What is it about ABC that has to advertise that its shows are its shows? And why is the V logo on ABC's ads slapped on top of a backdrop of a Chicago skyline when the show takes place in New York?)

I've been watching V since the pilot, which I thought was pretty engaging (if unoriginal, even setting aside the fact that the show is a remake) as pilots go. It established the premise with a compelling Independence Day-like arrival of the aliens, and then thrust itself into a workable, albeit hardly riveting, mix of action and intrigue. The production values were above average. The characters were a workable motley crew. The themes of paranoia and notions of sleeper agents and double agents and hybrid children reminded me of some of Battlestar Galactica's strengths. (Read more...)

I have to say that Monday's episode of 24 was better than most episodes of this season. It had almost no action, but instead had something better: a couple of tense, terrific dialog scenes with charged drama and personal stakes. The Taylor/Logan/Ethan showdown was some of this season's best stuff, for my money.

Does it make sense in the slightest that Taylor would move forward with a useless peace treaty that is built upon a lie with a Russian government that doesn't even want to be a part of it? And, furthermore, based on a lie that other people know about and could easily expose? Not in the slightest. But as broken down as a binary choice by Logan in that scene, it made for a great few minutes of drama. (Read more...)

On Monday, Conan O'Brien and TBS announced that a deal had been reached that will bring Conan back to television this November. I was initially surprised to hear that TBS would be Conan's future home (I don't recall it being mentioned as a possibility in most of the prognosticating over the past few months), but in thinking about it, I think it's a potentially good fit for both Conan and TBS.

Conan O'Brien, seen on The Tonight Show in his 2009 debut, is headed to TBS.

TBS has long been trying to brand itself around the tagline of "very funny," and the cable network's recent attempt to get into the late-night talk-show game with George Lopez's show makes Conan a logical next step for them. Landing Conan is a score for TBS.

For Conan, this might be a good fit as well. The whole Tonight Show debacle showed that the audience drawn by his somewhat more bizarre brand of humor is, while younger, undeniably much smaller than that drawn by Leno's bland appeal. Conan's ratings were about half of what Leno's were. (Read more...)

The headline pretty much says it all. What is the point of the iPad? I think this may be the perfect example of the consumer product that exists first and foremost to fleece its buyers out of their money. Goal #2: To convince them that it's great in the absence of these customers having better reasons for living.

The wonderful iPad. Frankly, iDontGiveADamn.

Too cynical? Perhaps. Granted, the last thing I should probably do is dare to question the uber-smart-and-savvy Steve Jobs. After all, every high-tech, game-changing, mega-hyped, life-altering, blockbuster piece of techo-wizardry that Apple has released in the past decade has been a slam-bang success, right?

The very first "i" product, the iMac, basically saved Apple from oblivion shortly before the turn of the millennium. After that came the iPod and the iPhone, both of which redefined the notion of success when it comes to cool-ass gadgets. The iPod announced Apple as a company that owned the gadget zeitgeist, and the iPhone was so hyped it confirmed Apple's lightning-in-a-bottle reputation well before it even came out. For me to question the potential success of the iPad is probably betting against the house, where the house has long ago rigged the game. (Read more...)