Jonathan Brandis and River Phoenix are still alive and have been cast in 3 movies together. In one of them, they starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. It tanked.

Firefly was never canceled. It ran for seven years and has become the gold standard for science-fiction character dramas on television. Joss Whedon created a spin-off about a young Shepherd Book. It was cancelled during the first season but has had a very successful comic book series since.

George Lucas died in 1996. On his deathbed, he turned over creative control of the series to Steven Spielberg. He sat on the rights for several years and eventually formed a partnership with J.J. Abrams and Timothy Zahn, requiring unanimous decisions for the future of the franchise. To this day, no one has ever heard of Jar Jar Binks or “Ani” Skywalker.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is still on the air and has served as biting commentary on the political state of our nation. He has announced his plans to run for President in 2012 should President Obama decide not run again.

Facebook and Google were both brought up on charges for mishandling of personal information of their clients. Facebook has not recovered from the bad publicity and has been overtaken by several social networks. Eric Schmidt is currently spending 5 years in prison for willfully violating the privacy of millions of Americans. Mark Zuckerberg has appealed his case and is currently still on trial.

Television networks have invested heavily in web and mobile distribution for currently airing series. Netflix and Hulu are the two most visited websites in all of the world thanks to easy viewing on iPhones, iPads and many set-top boxes/gaming devices.

Damn you Thank you, Glee, for being so incredibly entertaining.

Now hear me out, because I’m a big fan of Hulu. I am not, however, a fan of paying for ads. Nor am I a fan of paying more for less. And, unfortunately, that is what’s happening with Hulu Plus.

Let’s start with the advertisements. I have no problem watching ads in order to view TV. I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s worked out pretty well for me. But the reason that I loved Hulu in the early days is that the ads were fewer and (as the service grew) targeted to the viewer. Unfortunately, Hulu decided that they weren’t making enough money from ads and needed to start a subscription-based model to bring in more money. The good news, now Hulu can afford to pay all those pesky licensing fees so that they can show every episode from every series they’ve got online, even if it’s the current season of your favorite ABC drama. The bad news, Hulu forgot that people paying for Internet-based subscription-driven websites don’t like to also be forced to watch ads during their shows.

Why is this a problem? For starters, Netflix already offers a great deal of the same shows with no ads for a cheaper price. Furthermore, Netflix offers something that Hulu doesn’t (which brings me to my second issue, paying more for less). At Netflix, $9 per month will get you unlimited streaming and 1 DVD out at a time from Netflix’s vast rental library. That’s $1 cheaper than Hulu Plus’s $10 subscription fee and includes the added bonus of being able to watch shows and movies that aren’t available for streaming without ever leaving your house to go rent them (except of course when you walk to your mailbox, but if you’re that agoraphobic, then you have larger problems).

So why will people use Hulu? Honestly, because it’s still a fairly cheap service and has established itself as a common enough name that people trust the brand. Also, the free content remains free, so people will be pressured to sign up while viewing the free content. It’s a business model that has worked well in the past. Netflix doesn’t have any sort of free service. The only way to try before you buy is to sign up for a free month and see how it fits. Plus, if you want access to Hulu on your iPhone or iPad, you’ve got to be a subscriber (though, again, Netflix offers this service for the iPad already and will be adding the iPhone very soon).

Hey, maybe you’ve got money to burn and can afford a subscription to both. If that’s the case, feel free to sign me up, as well. Being able to watch every season of Stargate SG-1 while I’m waiting for my tires to get changed is an excellent use of my (still) unlimited data plan. Suck on that, AT&T.

Gruber is not one of those who talks about Apple TV as Steve Jobs’ one dud. He likes Apple TV, but says it has a fundamental problem: it’s primarily about watching movies and TV shows through the iTunes store, with the result that there’s a worse selection on Apple TV than there is at any local video store. Hulu is a wonderful solution but when Boxee figured out a way to put it on TV, the Hulu guys freaked out. They have “this crazy brick wall in their heads,” Gruber explains, that perceives computers and TVs and two fundamentally different things. They worry about ad-supported Hulu getting on TVs when they should be worried about people bootlegging their content for free and watching it with no ads. “I don’t see,” Gruber concludes, “how Apple can get from where they are to where they need to be when they are negotiating with people that stupid.”

John Gruber, in an interview with Fortune – emphasis mine

And so it happened that last night, while in the shower, I decided to create a list of The 5 Greatest Father Figures in Television History. The only problem, of course, that I haven’t seen every television show in history. As a result, I will accept contentions so long as valid reasoning is included.

So without further ado, my list:

1. Jason Seaver – played by Alan Thicke, “Growing Pains” – Any child of the 80s remembers Mr. Seaver. He’s the father we all wished we had—unless you liked your dad, as I did. He was cooler than most, he had a deep, imposing “dad” voice, and he had excellent hair. It’s safe to say he trumps all other father figures on television.
2. Rupert Giles – played by Anthony Stewart Head, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” – While not a father on the show, Giles was the closest thing that Buffy ever had to a father during the course of the show’s 7-year run (despite her own dad making an appearance a few times). Best of all, he was the kind of father that could kick serious demon ass, when necessary (though like Bruce Banner into Hulk, rage was a necessary factor).
3. Cliff Huxtable – played by Bill Cosby, “The Cosby Show” – I spent a great deal of time with Dr. Huxtable during the years, probably more than any other TV dad. My father loved “The Cosby Show”, which meant we all watched it and loved it as well. He helped me prepare for my time as a father immensely. He taught me that sometimes your children will say and do something that leaves you utterly speechless, and your best response is to simply laugh, inwardly if necessary.
4. Ward Cleaver – played by Hugh Beaumont, “Leave It to Beaver” – The first televised father figure for most of us, and a favored memory even if he isn’t. Stern, yet fair, Mr. Cleaver is a paragon of fatherhood in the ’50s and as strong an example of a patriarchal society you will ever find on television.
5. Andy Taylor – played by Andy Griffith, “The Andy Griffith Show” – Andy Griffith has been a part of television for many years and is the quintessential “small-town father”. While some strong similarities to Ward Cleaver, Mr. Taylor was a far more jovial fellow and a much more rounded character. Instead of being a stereotype, Griffith portrayed a well-rounded character seen in a great many situations (likely due to the fact that he was the titular character).

There are spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

So far, I’m cautiously optimistic about the show, but the reasons why are what’s really important.

To begin, I’ve seen the original miniseries and found it remarkable. It was well-paced, fairly well-acted (despite the involvement of The Beastmaster), and had an excellent subtext hearkening back to the Nazi rise to power before World War 2.

Having said that, I’ll explain what I liked about the reimagining. For starters, the opening 10 minutes is really solid, with a well-crafted portrayal of the various primary chracters going about their daily lives as the V’s arrive. A plane falls out of the sky, its pilot unconsciously parachuting to the ground. The ships appear overhead and cause fear and panic. There’s even an excellent tongue-in-cheek moment where a kid being interviewed for the news points out that the V’s entrance is right out of Independence Day, while his friend comments that ID4 was a rip-off of many movies that came before.

Another thing I like about it is that it’s going to give us the opportunity to see a lot more of the story, as the original incarnation of the show was canceled during its first season, leaving much of the story unfinished. Assuming this show makes it two seasons, it would be enough to complete the cycle satisfactorily.

The show has some excellent cinematography. The leader of the V’s and her right-hand man are often shown at angles that make them seem imposing or menacing. There are even scenes where Ana (the leader) is made to look even more lizard-like through the use of lights, shadows, and angles.

Lastly, the show hints that the current instability in our world is due to alien agents causing wars and economic depression. My wife has taken that to mean that the show is trying to tell us that GWB is an alien.

But unfortunately, there are things about the show that aren’t so great. For starters, having seen the miniseries, I was disappointed with how quickly the key secrets of the story were given away much too quickly. Essentially, the first 90 minutes of the V miniseries was compressed into one episode of the new series. I had hoped the series would go the opposite direction and stretch out the story, not shorten it.

Further, what made the miniseries so great was the use of a character that had survived Germany in WW2 and spoke about how the same shift in power and loss of civil rights was happening again. While it would not make sense to have the same character in this story due to the 20 year time difference, I do hope that some sort of parallels are drawn as the series progresses.

Lastly, I mourn the death of Alan Tudyk’s character so early in the show. Having a mole in the FBI during the course of the series would have been an excellent way to drive the plot and characters forward. Revealing their true identities so early and ending their characters’ lives eliminates the possibility of having those elements for at least several episodes while they set up new characters to replace Alan Tudyk’s dead one.

All-in-all, V is about what I expected it to be. I had little hope it would be a great show, and wasn’t even sure it would be a good show. I’ll tune in next week to see where the series progresses, but I’m not expecting anything extraordinary. But it’s fun sci-fi/action with pretty actors, so it’ll do to fill my down time at work.

But that’s all beside the point. That’s cold, unfeeling words that describe what happens. That’s not what the movie is.

BSG: The Plan is a gorgeously crafted, perfectly choreographed new dance to the same old tune (the one that you kept hearing from the end of season 3 onward). It is a love letter, penned by a poet, and written as a tribute to the fans of the series. It is jaw-droppingly beautiful. It is gut-wrenchingly painful.

It is a testament to the world crafted during the course of this series that it could be tied so neatly together in one 2-hour package. Not only that, but by revisiting key scenes throughout the first two seasons with gaps filled in, you finally understand how certain characters could change so much by the end of the series. You even begin to see how the decision to work together first came to light.

I highly recommend that anyone that has seen the series to its end watch this. Twice.

Oh, and don’t turn it off when the credits roll. The music has to be heard to be believed.

I would like to take a moment of your time to plead the case for Dollhouse. It has had a rocky season and it needs all the help it can get.

First, I would like to thank you for the little things that were different in the way Dollhouse was handled versus Firefly. I’m sure the number of fans that assaulted your company was very high when Dollhouse first began airing (and they feared that the show was being “mangled” by the studio), crippling its chances of success. Likewise, a similar situation probably occurred when it was believed that the studio was intentionally holding back an episode of the show instead of airing it (due to the issues with funding for a pilot that was never aired versus a DVD release of 13 episodes.

I would like to apologize on behalf of those fans. They desperately want this show to succeed and don’t always realize that they may be hurting its chances rather than helping.

Now, on to the meat of the matter. As I’m sure you are aware, Dollhouse is a show that faces some stiff opposition. In a technological landscape that allows fans to download complete episodes of their favorite shows the day after they air (both legally and illegally), watch them for free via websites that are already looking to the future of broadcasting (such as Hulu), and record their preferred shows via DVR and skip past the commercials, advertising dollars for big-budget shows like Dollhouse can be hard to come by. On top of all that, the difficulty in getting reliable viewing numbers with the antiquated Nielsen system make shows like Dollhouse difficult to keep spending money on. How can you be certain you’re getting a proper return-on-investment?

Unfortunately, you can’t anymore. Not until the DVD release is available, not until the second season starts, and not until a method is in place for reporting accurate internet views and live and recorded viewings on televisions. With advertising on sites like Hulu and other streaming media locations a much smaller source of income, the profits for a show like Dollhouse dwindle as the world gets better educated and more connected.

Which brings me to the point of my e-mail. We love Dollhouse. We love it because Joss Whedon created it and we feel that we got shafted on Firefly and so we fought so hard for this show, even though the first three episodes kind of sucked (we’re not pointing fingers, we’re just saying). But we also love it because it is an incredible show, one with depth and controversy and incredible writing. No other show on television will be able to touch on the subject matter that Dollhouse can (voluntary / involuntary slavery, who are we without the experiences that define us) which makes it an important piece of television history. Or, it will, if it’s allowed to live.

As the world has moved more and more to delivering content over the Internet at a time of the viewer’s choosing, viewership during live broadcasts have tapered off dramatically. The secret is not to create more reality TV or to cancel good shows to give other shows a try. The answer is to embrace the Internet. And if any one man knows how to get the most out of the Internet, it’s Joss Whedon. Look at Dr. Horrible. A low-budget project with big names and incredible talent. Think of what you could do if you were the first studio to truly embrace the Internet. Air episodes of Dollhouse with the SAME commercials you air on television during the first week it’s online. After the first week, let it become just like all the other episodes on Hulu with the same commercial shown 4 or 5 times during the 45 minutes it takes to watch. Or get a corporate sponsor for the show that already embraces the Internet. Put a single 60 second advertisement at the beginning of the episode and let people stream it commercial free. Create an alternate-reality game to prep people for the second season. Ask fans of the series to market the show for you via guerilla marketing tactics. All of these are ways to increase viewership. And if you really want to help, keep the episodes online for free all summer long and encourage fans to share them with their friends and family so that when the new season starts, they’re caught up, too.

I promise you, that if you make the effort to push this show, and let Joss do what Joss does best, he won’t disappoint you.

But don’t tell him I said that, he doesn’t need the pressure.

Thank you for your time,

Jared Cash
Dollhouse Fan

Red Dwarf Theme – iPhone - NEW!!!

True Blood Theme – iPhone - NEW!!!

Battlestar Galactica Classic – iPhone

Battlestar Galactica Intro – iPhone

Battlestar Galactica Title – iPhone

Crusoe Theme – iPhone

Angel Theme – iPhone

Buffy Theme – iPhone

Do the Mario – iPhone

Firefly Theme – iPhone

Friends Theme – iPhone

Heroes Theme – iPhone

The IT Crowd – iPhone

Jack of All Trades – iPhone

Jetson’s Doorbell – iPhone

Lost Credits – iPhone

Lost Intro – iPhone

Lost Signature Tune – iPhone

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Power Rangers Zeo – iPhone

Stargate SG-1 – iPhone

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – iPhone

Star Trek Theme 1 – iPhone

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Super Mario Bros. Cartoon – iPhone