Jason and Joel start the podcast talking about the goings on at the TCA press tour… mainly because Joel’s not there. From there, though, we talk about the news of the week:
- We launch into a fairly somber topic, related to the Aurora, CO shootings, and how the news media’s handling of it seems sadly all too familiar,
- We then talk about the first two episodes of Breaking Bad’s final season (the first half is this summer, the second half is next summer), the great new “relationship” forged in the second episode, and what pitfalls Vince Gilligan and his staff face as they wrap this great show up,
- During the week, Joel asked Jason to watch a weird Showtime reality series called Polyamory: Married & Dating, so we talked about how yet again reality producers make any segment of the population look nutty. We also discuss how the show manages to make attractive naked people having on-camera sex look terrible,
- Then we talk about Joel’s challenge show to Jason, Watch What Happens Live. Joel didn’t watch the episode Jason watched, but he knows exactly what happened on a show that should really be called “Andy Cohen & These People Over Here”,
- Joel has finally started watching Awkward on MTV, so the two of them discuss how old the teenagers are, how young the parents are, Desi Lydic’s Jenna Elfman vibe and why they need to get off the “two guys for one girl” story,
- Two stars of TV’s past died this week: Chad Everett and Sherman Hemsley. The topic of Hemsley’s passing leads us to talk about how there seemed to be more diversity on TV in the days of The Jeffersons than there is now, especially on broadcast comedies. But, then again, maybe that wasn’t always a good thing, given the ethnic stereotypes from that time period,
- Finally, we talk about the Olympics and how TV is going to cover them. We also sidetrack onto America’s Got Talent, as Joel laments the fact that Howard Stern is now so family-friendly on the show, his 9-year-old niece knows who he is.
You can listen to the podcast above (if you don’t hear anything, fiddle with the volume slider), download it via this link, subscribe to our RSS feed, or subscribe via iTunes. You can also find us on the Stitcher radio app for smartphones and iPads.
By the way, the bumper music is “Trevor Trailer Trash” from the late, great band Cropduster.
Joel Keller
Joel Keller is one of the co-founders of Antenna Free TV and co-hosts the weekly AFT Podcast. A long time ago, he left a career rebooting servers to write about TV and other fun stuff (though his ulterior motive was to write off his cable on his income taxes). At the time, he was writing for the late, great site TV Squad, where he eventually became editor-in-chief. Since those heady days, he's written about TV and other topics for The New York Times, The A.V. Club, TheAtlantic.com, Fast Company's Co.Create, Vulture, Zap2It and elsewhere.
