The Extratextuals

1. Ken Levine’s blog tells the very amusing story of numerous prominent writers getting rejection letters from the studios now that everyone’s back in business. So efficient are the studios, though, that their rejections (along with criticisms for, for instance, not being female-friendly enough) are going to writers who didn’t actually submit pitches. David Lavery and Angela Hague have an amusing book called Teleparody with academic reviews of television studies books that were never written, but now the studios seem able to reject pitches that were never even written. Welcome to Hollywood, I guess.
2. Wanna know when your favorite shows are back on air? A few helpful links here and (for CBS) here. I’m fascinated to see if the hiatus has any effect on quality – did writers have more time to think through plot points? Will Samantha Who actually be funny when it returns? Do Cuse and Lindelof now know what the numbers mean? Stay tuned.
3. When Jericho was cancelled, fans sent nuts en masse to CBS to demand its reinstatement. Inspired by this, Friday Night Lights fans are sending mini footballs, light bulbs, and/or eye drops to encourage NBC to renew the show, as Sam Ford explains over at the Convergence Culture Consortium blog. All of which makes me wonder what fans of other shows would send should their show face cancellation. Horn-rimmed glasses for Heroes? Old pieces of pie for Pushing Daisies? Thank you letters for Grey’s Anatomy? Dexter fans might worry me the most.
4. Speaking of Dex, a fun Dexter-related bit of transmedia can be found here: enter your name and details, then watch as a news clip announces you to be the next likely victim of Miami’s Dark Defender.
5. The Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer is now out, with the final line a great one for any adjunct faculty member. Consider me well and truly excited.

Uncategorized Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Indiana Jones, strike

Just before I start with our third installment, this one on TV opening credit sequences, I wanted to give a shout-out to Michael Newman’s fantastic blog post on the best of 2007 across media. His list makes no distinctions between media, and thus is chock-full of good extratextuals. It also preceded ours significantly, so don’t let my belated link suggest we got there first.

Anyways, kudos offered, let me proceed. The best opening credit sequences ready you for the program, performing the careful act of transferring you from your world to the show’s world. The best ones also bear out multiple viewings, becoming a favored announcement of the show, and a generator of anticipation. Think of the orchestra’s hum of tuning instruments before a performance, of the grand curtains being lifted at a theatre, of the “Let’s get ready to rumble” before a boxing match, or other ritualistic intros. Hence I divided this category into newer shows and long-running ones, since it’s something special when an older show can still do the business with its intro. First, the new recruits.

Best TV Opening Credit Sequence: Newer Show

Runner-Up: Chuck. One of my favorite new shows, and it has a very playful opening credit sequence that captures the silliness and fun of the show as a whole. Stick man spies seem to capture exactly what Chuck is. And the first spy falling out of Chuck’s nose cues the irreverence: Chuck doesn’t take itself seriously, and this is made clear from the very beginning. It’s perhaps worth noting, too, that the action is all shown to occur within the barcode on Chuck’s shirt lapel, appropriate for a program whose title character has a massive spy computer in his brain. The theme song’s fun, too. Moreover, it cues following an opening scene that sets up this week’s spy issue: very James Bond, yet clearly not James Bond at one and the same time.

Winner after the fold…

Read more…

awards Amazing Race, American Idol, Chuck, CSI: Miami, Dexter, Lost, opening credit sequences