Friday, October 6, 2006

THEY SHOOT BAD TV SHOWS, DON'T THEY?
Do you remember when learning about cavemen and such, how wooly mammoths huddled around their younger, weaker members in a circle to protect them from predators? Well, sometimes television networks work the same way. Case in point, CBS just moved The Class (only show with a gay lead, blah, blah, blah) from it's 8 PM slot in front of How I Met Your Mother to the 8:30 PM slot after Mother and before Two and a Half Men. Trust me, it wasn't for aesthetic reasons or because The Class seamlessly leads into the classy meat market that is Men.

The Class isn't doing so hot, you see, and CBS clearly hopes Mother's larger audience is too lazy to actually reach for the remote and will therefore stick around to watch their struggling sitcom. I guess that's so much easier than getting funnier scripts. My advice to CBS is that this is one baby mammoth that they should leave to the wolves.

ABC's Help Me Help You is faring a little better, or at least that's how the network is spinning it. A press release this week touted that Help Me's audience actually grew among 12-17 year olds and adult men 18-49. Whoa, nellie! Pop the champagne! Too bad the show still didn't finish anywhere near the Top Twenty.

Even worse, Help Me is profoundly unfunny, and Jim Rash's gay character is such a groaner that it's painful to watch. On the other hand, at least he didn't have to lick New York City lamp posts or eat out of the trash like poor Inger. Such sophisticated humor.

Brothers and Sisters took a big dive in the rankings from number 12 to 23. Even worse, it lost almost 8 million of Desperate Housewive's viewers which precedes it. That ain't good. Fortunately, the show finished at number 11 amongst the uber-desirable demographic of 18-49 year olds. I thought the second episode was stronger, and really hope this is one baby mammoth the networks decide to protect. Matthew Rhys' role as Kevin is the only one on network TV that seems to hold real potential of developing into a gay character that is flesh and blood.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL GIVES THE SHIRT OFF HIS BACK
The Human Rights Campaign announced their latest fundraiser, a live auction of Brokeback Mountain memorabilia at their 10th annual Dinner in Washington D.C tomorrow night. Jake's jeans, shirt, and cowboy shirt are up for grabs to the highest bidder to raise money for the organization. Best of all, Jake will be live on stage peeling off each item as they are sold. Or is that just my wishful thinking?

BUSTED!
No, I'm not talking about George Michael's latest misadventures. I'm talking about how smart—and fast—AfterElton's discriminating readers are. I like to believe that we make few mistakes, but when we do, you better believe we hear about them quickly. Our Jim McGreevey interview this week was the perfect example. I swear that interview hadn't been posted for five minutes when an eagle-eyed reader wrote in to point out current New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine had been a US senator and not a state senator as we erroneously reported. Given that most Americans can't name the three different branches of government, I was most impressed to have that error caught and so quickly.

Lest you fret, AfterElton takes these sorts of errors very seriously. The writer who made that mistake is currently spending two weeks in Guantanamo Bay where government officials are finding out what he knows about WMD in Iraq. We'll see if he makes that sort of mistake again!

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