Fringe,Snl,Web series.

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Watched the pilot episode of FRINGE from fox with Joshua Jackson. For some reason I was anticipating this, but I dont generally get into one hour dramas. Maybe it was the supernatural, mystery subject matter or jj abrhams names that was attached, but I was looking forward to this one. I was impressed by the casting, all seemed like plausible people who fit the role that they are for. Even the female lead who is really the focus of the series, she was not a model, or vj before this. She was in fact from the looks of it a real actress, and hold for this, she actually had wrinkles that a woman her age would have. I like Joshua Jackson, I think he has this wise ass character down, and his minimalistic style really keeps you interested because you know there is more there underneath ready to come out. The show itself was far too long at a hour and a half. But I heard they spent 10 million on the pilot so I guess they wanted to get their monies worth. Also the pilot was very confusing as it tried to sum up this larger picture that they will be going after the entire season. The science of it all was confusing, and it was never super clear on what the antagonist was doing. Obviously so I guess so we would come back and watch more.

Caught the premiere of SNL last night with Michael Phelps. It was alright, but as with many you hit the hour point and it slows down a bit. Lil Wayne sucks, I havent listened to any of his stuff, but heard good things. But his songs were lame, used reverb or something on his vocals that were about money and going to the club. Whatever. The cold opening was funny as they introduced Tina Fey as Palin countered by Poehler as Hilary. They left Michael Phelps to do as little as possible which was a good choice, but still gave him things to have fun with. And he had a great live moment coughing thinking he wasn't being cut to, but he was. A couple weird choices bringing back old sketch that I'm surprised they did. Had a great game show with some home school kids. Digital short was lame. The new guy was in a load of sketches and even got his own sketch basically which was very surprising. Had loads of funny lines in it, but the character was a bit 'been down that road before'. But i've seen him at ucb and he was very funny, as he did a good job in his first show as well. congrats to him. I look forward to next week with Kings of Leon and the underated James Franco.

Also watched a web series called BRING IT IN which was done by local Chicago comedians. I think it was directed by Dina Facklis and featured a great cast of improv ladies with Andy St.Clair thrown in as their basketball coach. Obviously with a talented cast like they have the characters are very fun and each have their own bits to play with, but I was really impressed with the direction (story, but especially shooting),and editing of the project. 

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Tried to work on some holiday parody songs for the Gift sketch show. Direct parodies are hard and even harder to make funny. Respect to Weird Al not cuz he's great, but because once and a while he does make something that's hilarious. Also in my being stuck in the DARK DOMESTICATION trilogy I've worked on it and changed the idea to a webisode of 3 minutes a piece and using Batman as a narrator to speed things along. I'm still not sold on where I have him ending up.