Weekend Meme: NBC Aims To "Smash" "Glee," "Modern Family" Has True Family Values, and Goodbye Keith Olbermann

Reports out of New York say that 14-year-old Kameron Jacobson committed suicide due to taunting on Facebook based on the perception he was gay. Not again. Please not another one.

I’m immensely excited by the news that NBC has ordered  a pilot of Precinct 17 from Ron Moore, of Battlestar Galactica fame. It’s being described as “Harry Potter for grownups” which I think is quite insulting to grownups who love Harry Potter. But still, a police procedural in a world ruled by magic, and not science is a nice twist if NBC must insist on more procedurals.

Meanwhile, a fairly detailed and spoiler filled description of Battlestar: Blood and Chrome is out. I can totally see this as a miniseries, but I just don’t see how you can make it work as a full, open-ended series.

Over at EW, as a follow on to their gay teens on television issue, they’ve picked up our series of stories about the lack of gay characters on Disney and TeenNick. When I first read it, the comments were even decent.

Also from the youth demographic, Belinda Carlisle’s activist/actor son James Duke Mason has weighed in on the Richard Chamberlain/Jane Lynch/Ramin Setoodeh controversy on homophobia in Hollywood. And he cuts right to the core of my issues with people like Chamberlain: the topic can be discussed in a way that doesn’t reinforce the prejudice

Adam Lambert says he’s started taking meetings for his next album, but he’s also going to take his time writing it, and wants to make it more honest, and personal.

Speaking of Adam, he already has a new hairdo, and a poll based pitting photos of his longer ‘do against Robert Pattinson’s redder ‘do has Adam a clear favorite. Um, as much as I love Adam, these people are on crack.

Wonder Woman from David E. Kelley has gotten a pilot order from NBC, which now has much more free cash since Comcast is in charge. Kelley's pilot, which has a vigilante angle, sounds very different from the campy delight of Lynda Carter’s version.

If you needed another reason to watch Gregg Araki’s Kaboom, here are some totally NSFW images of Thomas Dekker’s roommate Chris Zylka.

Sadly, it sounds as if Michael Patrick King’s drama about a straight Beverly Hills hair stylist dealing his “complicated life” also got picked up. King may be gay, and he may have given us Sex and the City, but I’ve not generally been a fan of most of his gay characters — and this premise is begging for horrible stereotypes.

Do Nothing for Two Minutes.

MTV is having serious issues with advertisers for Skins USA. GM, Wrigley and H&R Block have all yanked advertising from the show that people are calling racy without actually sitting through it.

There is no reason to fear Matt LeBlanc’s penis.

A group of conservative Republicans is proposing eliminating all funding for the arts from the federal budget. No NEA, no Corporation for Public Broadcasting, nothing. The article says there are 150 people in the group, but they only name one congressman, so I’m unclear of how much support this actually has.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad may not have any homosexuals in his country, but he certainly seems to know a lot about them. Now he’s saying we’re “against human spirit.” Which is rich. The leader of a totalitarian state talking about the “human spirit.”

You Can’t Make It Up (Seriously, go read it!)

Jason Mraz may have gotten engaged, but he says he won’t actually get married until gays can also marry. And it sounds like he’s thought it through, including dealing with his mother’s feelings on wanting to see him married.

James Franco. A Suzanne Somers’ wig. Music. The Regal Beagle. It’s just something you gotta see for yourself.

NBC is bringing out the big guns in an effort to duplicate the success of Glee with their show Smash. The basic premise is about a diverse group that comes together to do a Broadway show.  Produced by Steven Spielberg, Chicago’s Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and Hairspray’s Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. They’re trying to sign Spring Awakening’s Michael Mayer to direct, and the article speculates that pretty much guarantees Jonathan Groff gets the lead.

The same article says they also ordered a pilot of I Hate That I Love You which has a premise based on “a straight couple that set up two lesbian friends on a blind date, resulting in both an instant attraction and a pregnancy.”

Britanna is on. Britanna was always on. Episode 15 – and Gwyneth is the one who gets them together…

On February 3, at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in Washington, D.C., thirty queer writers will converge at the Human Rights Campaign Equality Forum for "3 Dollar Bill." Each writer will read two minutes of prose or poetry in succession. The reading is free and open to the public.

There’s a lot to love in this NY Times piece on Modern Family. For one thing, they get Norman Lear to comment on the show, which is fairly epic. The bulk of the article is spent trying to analyze what, precisely, is the family message that the show is trying to get across. But the money quote is having out (and that he’s out, and playing out is important) Jesse Tyler Ferguson say “There’s been an absence of well-grounded, family comedy on television. Instead we’ve had fantastic snarky comedies, like Seinfeld and  Arrested Development. I think people miss shows like The Cosby Show and  Family Ties that showed true family values.”