Post TV.

Premiere dates that matter

True Blood - HBO - June 10

Futurama - Comedy Central - June 20

Snooki and JWoww - MTV - June 21

The Newsroom - HBO - June 24

Wilfred - FX - June 28

Strangely Uplifiting - FX - June 28

Episodes - Showtime - July 1

Breaking Bad - AMC - July 15

and finally…

Take Me Out  - FOX - June 7th.

Kickstarting a TV show?

After comments from Damon Lindelof about a Kickstarter fund for Dan Harmon to make an alt-version of Community, I’ve been wondering if it would be possible to crowdfund a TV pilot? Hmmm…

Breaking Bad

The first half of the final season of Breaking Bad starts July 15th, on AMC. I cannot wait.

Underhyped Trends in Social TV

Jeremy Toeman at Techcrunch covers the trends that we might be missing in the future of TV.

We can and should expect to see cracks in the system. But I don’t think it’s about cord cutting and little startups. This is the Barzinis teaming up with the Tattaglias to take out Vito, and I hate to say it, but Silicon Valley’s no more than a Clemenza, at best. But there is war a-coming, and there will be great opportunities for startups to rise to great heights if they understand how the system works today, and what’s coming down the pipe.

I have noticed that I barely use the “genre” sections on Netflix or Apple TV, but they must serve a purpose for someone. Anyone?

The Watercooler is in the Cloud

Fantastic article by Matt Zoller Seitz about the shift to talking about TV with people you may not know over social networks, as opposed to your colleagues at work the next day.

Watching TV used to be a mindless experience to be shared with only those in the room (often just oneself); thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, it has become a group activity, practically a hive mind.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have gone to Twitter to make sense of a line, or understand a cultural reference beyond my feeble learnings. I have also lamented the loss of the water cooler chat, due to people watching shows at different times, but this is probably better.

Youtube’s First Transmedia Sitcom

Liz Shannon Miller writes about a Youtube sitcom looking to reach across all platforms and networks.

Each show is hosted by at least one of the show’s characters, who also have vibrant social media profiles across a minimum of three social networks — each. Between Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and Twitter, that’s a total of 25 profiles, each being updated multiple times daily. According to co-creator Benny Fine via IM, there are over 40,000 people following the characters and the company on services outside of YouTube.

Some may say this is a bold gamble, but I don’t see what they have to lose. Seems like a lot of hard work for a viewer to fully invest in the show though.

Dan Harmon > Sony.

I am still reeling from todays news that Sony have removed Dan Harmon as Executive Producer of Community.

Sony’s desperation to get the show over the syndication finish line has forced them into a change which I’m sure even they had second thoughts about.

More than any other show on network TV, Dan Harmon is the auteur and his fingerprints are all over the production. Not only that, you can see that the cast and crew (Chevy aside) are fully on board with his vision.

So how will Season 4 of Community look now? Will any of it’s stars walk? Will Sony get the “back 9” episode order they so badly want? Find out all this and more, next season on NBC.