The ‘Tastic Is Officially Important: We’ve Been Counterfeited By The Chinese

The Chinese: "That's not a mouse. It's a cat with over-sized ears." (Not Kidding)

Today, The ‘Tastic reached the status of such big names as Microsoft, Luis Vuitton, Coach, Chanel, Rolex, Tag Heuer, Franck Mueller, Gucci, Disney, Pfizer, Nike, Vivendi, Adidas, Majestic, North Face, Adobe, Yamaha, Duracell, Eveready, American Standard (yes, these effers even make fake toilets), Gillette, Procter & Gamble, Chopard, Baby Phat, Sharpie, New Balance, Coach, Prada, Marc Jacobs, Monster Cable (although we can assure you that any fake of their products will be just as good as the real thing), etc.

Yes, Indeed. The 'Tastic is as Big as Fake Boner Pills.

We got half-assedly jacked by the Chinese!  As you’ll notice this post looks surprisingly like the one we wrote last Friday right down to our photo and caption.  These people apparently just can’t help themselves.

For more on the Chinese and their counterfeiting here’s our favorite story of all time about the fake Chinese Disneyland.

TV NEWS ALERT! Discovery Channel Will Air Special ‘Killing Bin Laden’ On Sunday May 15th

Heroes

From the “Well-they-certainly-don’t-waste-any-time” file, Discovery announced on Monday that they would be airing an hour long special about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden on Sunday, May 15th.  You’ll notice the lack of a Bin Laden Photo on this site unlike every other site. Sorry, but we’d rather enjoy a picture of the S.E.A.L.’s than a dead terrorist who murdered innocent Americans.

via Press Release:

DISCOVERY CHANNEL ONE HOUR SPECIAL KILLING BIN LADEN (WT) PROVIDES
SECOND-BY-SECOND ACCOUNT OF HISTORIC OPERATION

– Premieres Sunday, May 15 at 10PM ET/PT –

(Silver Spring, Md.) – “Bin Laden Dead.” For ten years – since Osama Bin Laden masterminded the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center — it’s been the headline Americans have waited for. On Sunday, May 15 at 10PM ET/PT, Discovery Channel will premiere KILLING BIN LADEN (WT), a one-hour special that provides an intimate second-by-second account of the Bin Laden operation — from the time the crucial intelligence was gathered in 2010, through the burial of bin Laden at sea.

More Heroes

Utilizing a global team of local reporters, fixers and cameras on the ground in Abbottabad, Pakistan, KILLING BIN LADEN (WT) will delve into the details of how the operation was planned and executed, seeking to answer key questions that are to date unresolved, including: How many special ops forces were involved? From where did they deploy? How was facial recognition used to identify bin Laden? Why was one of the helicopters abandoned and destroyed?

“Bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice is one of the biggest stories of our country’s lifetime,” said Clark Bunting, President and GM, Discovery Channel. “Discovery Channel’s global reach, strong partnerships and unique nonfiction storytelling ability allow us to delve deep into this story and provide viewers with answers to the questions they are asking as well as context and historical perspective.”

KILLING BIN LADEN (WT) will also investigate how intelligence gathered the information that led to Bin Laden’s hideout, including the tracking of a senior Al Qaeda courier. In August 2010, investigators tagged the heavily fortified compound, where the courier lived with his brother, as a possible terrorist hideout. Once intelligence experts were convinced that the compound contained a senior “high value” terrorist target with a strong likelihood that it could be Osama Bin Laden himself, they launched the plan that would end with U.S. Special Forces making a pre-dawn raid on the compound by helicopter.

Encore airings of KILLING BIN LADEN (WT) will air on Discovery Communications’ Military Channel, Science Channel ID and Planet Green in the United States. The special will also air internationally within Discovery’s portfolio of global networks.

Commentary: Lights Out Down For The Count… Or Is It?

On March 24th, F/X announced that they would not be renewing their critically acclaimed drama, Lights Out, for a second season as we originally reported here.  In our original review, we stated that Lights Out was the best new show of the Spring and we gave it a coveted 10 out of 10 rating (an honor that has only been bestowed upon one other show since we started the blog, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire) after only seeing two episodes and we firmly stand by that assessment, but we get why it didn’t catch on with audiences.

As terrific as Lights Out was, the boxing backdrop in and of itself simply was too niche to appeal to any kind of general audience.  First, boxing has never been that popular of a sport in the U.S., but in the last two decades the sport has seen a serious decline in interest by the public.  As we noted, boxing really was incidental to the show.  The show was really about an ordinary man who, in his prime, had fame and money due to his particular talent, was losing everything and at this point would do ANYTHING to protect his family, even if that meant risking his own personal health, violating his own ethics and morals and even breaking the law.

The problem was that F/X sold this show as a boxing show when there were only two fights during the whole season.  It was very gritty and compelling but unfortunately due to F/X’s decision to emphasize the boxing element before the show ever aired, audiences never really wanted to find out. Now, we aren’t necessarily slamming F/X for the marketing decision, though, as it’s kind of difficult for us to envision a way to market this show downplaying the boxing aspect and making it more attractive to a broader audience at the same time.  Maybe “Lights Out” wasn’t the best title for the show, perhaps?

C’est la vie, though.  TV shows come and go and it’s really difficult for us to get too attached to a show considering how fickle audiences are and how quickly even the best shows seem to leave us.  The upside is that Season One of Lights Out played out like a 13 episode miniseries, even in the finale, leaving unanswered questions that frankly didn’t need a second season to be expanded on (even though it would have been nice).  They could simply be left to the viewer’s imagination to figure it out for themselves, and that, folks, is a mark of great storytelling.

Possibly Up at the 9 Count For One More Round?

As Spock said, “There are always… possibilities.”  No sooner did F/X make the announcement of the cancellation of Lights Out did DirecTV issue feelers to its followers on Twitter regarding interest in possibly picking it up:

FX cancels “Lights Out,” what’s your reaction?

And they aren’t the only ones.  In an interview he did for The Hollywood Reporter, Executive Producer Warren Leight explains that although he’s not optimistic about the chances of the show being picked up by another network, they have been pitching it and Showtime’s name in particular had come up.

People express “maybe” kind of interest. I would love to believe it when it happens. My sense is it’s unlikely Showtime would pick up a show that had been on basic cable.

Not so fast there, Mr. Leight.  We think everyone who watched this show probably agrees that it was better suited for premium cable than basic cable to begin with (again, we noted this as well in our original review) and there’s also the fact that Showtime has a history of broadcasting programming that was rejected by non-premium television (see: The Reagans in 2003).

However, If this does become a reality, our money is on DirecTV Channel 101 if for only the reason that they recently picked up the highly acclaimed Damages from F/X in January with Season 4 set to air in July.  As much as DirecTV claims that they are out of the “Save Our Show” business, wanting to instead focus on original programming for their Channel 101, we believe that if they can find success with Season Four of Damages, their attitude about a show like Lights Out will change rather quickly.  So, at this point, it’s a waiting game.

As an aside, we highly recommend reading the full interview with THR that we linked to earlier. Leight gives many insights into the show and the state of television today and confirms a lot of our original contentions about the show that we restated above.