Word is, this is going to end up being the last season for 24. Based on what we've seen this season, I'm thinking that wouldn't be such a bad idea, especially if it allows the show to just get it over with and become a movie franchise.

Brian Hastings (Mykelti Williamson) and Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff) do counter-terrorist stuff at CTU in season eight of "24."

24 as a series has gotten awfully long in the tooth, and clearly it has simply run out of ideas. The question is not whether the show will surprise us, but whether the show will be entertaining enough in recycling itself to deliver respectably for an hour. I'm not sure what's worse: The general malaise of this season, or the haphazardly messy multiple shark-jumping of season six. Season eight has so far merely alternated between the typically competent 24 action moments, plenty of mediocre beats, and lots of filler.

But by far the worst thing about this season has been what about the last thing any fan of Battlestar Galactica like me would've expected: that any scene featuring Katee Sackhoff, as CTU analyst Dana Walsh, would immediately lead to eye-rolling and infuriation. Sackhoff occupies a subplot that sucks beyond belief and is stupid beyond words. Even in the world that is 24, which we know and expect (and generally accept) to be endlessly contrived, this storyline defies sense at every turn. (Read more...)

I've about reached the end of my patience with Danica Patrick. Specifically, Danica Patrick teamed with Go Daddy to be an annual Super Bowl institution excercising tired and unfunny assumptions about the Lowest Common Denominator. Has anything ever played on such a dumb and repetitive brain-dead premise ("Hey, guys who watch football also like hot chicks in tank tops! You know, like at Hooters!) and so quickly become so utterly forced, predictable, and eye-roll worthy?

Hi, I'm Danica Patrick. Check this shit out (Fig. 1): I will now sell you a domain name by staring intensely at you through your computer screen and hypnotizing you with my extremely undeniable Danica Patrick-ness. Because nothing says "domain names" quite like generic girls in tank tops, me, my awesomeness, and auto racing. Boo-yah.

(The answer to that question, by the way, is: Why, yes, of course about a million things have achieved a similar feat of comparable eye-rolling lameness. This is just one such excellent example.)

I don't remember when Go Daddy first rolled out its chicks-sell-domain-names ad campaign for the Super Bowl, but it's probably been at least five years now. Or 10. Or 50. (How old is the Internet again?)

The campaign the last two or three years has been a lame cutaway from an "escalating" situation of Extreme Supposed Hotness, as a girl rips off her shirt to reveal a Go Daddy tank top underneath, accompanied by a sudden cut to a black screen with the Go Daddy logo, and a promise of "seeing more" at GoDaddy.com. Always, the references to the online continuation implores us to exercise extreme caution: "WARNING: WEB CONTENT UNRATED!" Because it's just too hot for TV, we tell ya! These ads are not edgy. They are the opposite of edgy. (Read more...)

Okay. So you all know about my dislike of "Black Friday" hype from my previously posted complaints, from both my own personal experience as well as from madness in the headlines.

But I just can't let it go. This year, I must register my distaste over a particular persisting word associated with the Black Friday madness:

"Doorbuster." (Read more...)

"Don't Trust Me" by 3OH!3, featuring these winner lyrics. At the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch-with-today's-youth kinduva guy (you know, someone who might shout "Get off my lawn!" to neighborhood kids), I must voice my hatred of this godawful song.

I was standing around at a Fourth of July party with some friends a couple weeks ago, and this song came on the radio. When I mentioned how much I hated it, a friend said, "Yeah, this is like the douchebag theme song." Talk about hitting the nail on the head. Yes. That's it exactly. I wish I'd thought of the phrasing myself. (Read more...)

I understand that Michael Jackson was huge and the passing of a pop icon is a big deal, blah, blah, etc. But the coverage of this event in the news has become nothing short of sickening. It's a media feeding frenzy, and it's ridiculous.

I don't care what you thought of the guy as an artist or about the controversies and his strangeness later in life, or the where-there's-smoke-there's-fire allegations of his conduct with children. I don't want to get into all that. I frankly don't care. (Read more...)

Jon & Kate Gosselin have an announcement. So say the advertisements for tonight's episode of TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus 8," a formerly cutesy reality show that I've seen exactly two episodes of.

Those two episodes were seen about a year ago as I was doing things around my house and had the TV on a random channel for no particularly memorable reason. Here was this couple, with eight kids (six sextuplets; two twins). During the interview segments, the couple sat on the couch and talked to the cameras, and what became very clear to even the novice viewer was that Jon was fairly hands-off about things, and that Kate didn't miss any opportunity to bitch out her husband on camera. Jon would sit there and take it, and you could almost read his thoughts as he'd try not to react when belittled in front of a basic cable audience. (Read more...)

Two years ago, on a lark, I did the Black Friday thing, as sort of a sociological experiment more than anything else. I consider myself above the fray on this whole issue; even as I was doing it I was lamenting the stupidity of having lowered myself to participating in the increasingly hyped event that is the Biggest Shopping Day of the Year. (Read more...)

I haven't been watching any non-cable network television over the summer, so I was amazed to find out (or maybe not) via one of my RSS feeds that there was a show that debuted on Thursday called "America's Greatest Dog." (Read more...)

The overexposure is really starting to rankle my ass, and the pop-garbage media, apparently at a loss of things to talk about (but that's why they're pop-garbage), have latched onto the Miley Cyrus flap over her Vanity Fair photo shoot.

To the pop-garbage media: Stop it. Stop it now. (Read more...)

Daylight-Saving Time begins Sunday at 2 a.m., for which I am glad, because that means I get an extra hour of daylight in the evenings, which in turn makes it seem more like spring (even if the weather isn't there yet) and less like this interminable winter that I've had to endure. (Yes, I said "I" and not "we" because, on IDWID, it's all about me. Maybe IDWID actually stands for "I Do What I Do.") (Read more...)