HOLLOW POINTS

• My House spec was a second rounder for the Austin Film Festival competition. At one point, I'd have thought to myself "not bad." Now I find myself thinking "not good enough." I can be such a dick to myself. Apparently, as a "Second Rounder" there's a special badge and a discount. Wish I could go.

• Mad Men to be picked up for a second year. I had no doubt. Slowly outlining my Mad Men spec. Not actually going to start writing it until a few minutes after the season finale airs. It's breaking me out of some familiar thinking through it's unusual act structure for a one-hour drama. A structure I noticed that AMC screwed with in the premiere. Wish I'd thought to ask Weiner about that when I had the chance.

• Bruckheimer developing Eleventh Hour for American TV. I don't know about this. I felt the original version, despite the Patrick Stewart, was a little flat. The originals were more like a series of TV movies though, and I think they went on a little longer than the story wanted to. I'm sure Jerry's kids will punch it up, but that leaves me with the fear that we'll be left with a weirder version of CSI. Open mind, though.

• I'm a big fan of Boing Boing, but sometimes they get so blinded by their opposition to something that they attack something harmless. NBC is launching a free video download service. For one week after a show airs, you can download it for nothing and watch it without having to stream it (great for bad connections or if you're going on a trip). The file self destructs in seven days. While I agree that DRM generally sucks and is misused in all manner of ways , I think calling this sucky is...sucky. It's free. You can't be ripped off if you don't give up anything. There are no implied rights to anything. It's just a chance to catch something you might have missed. It isn't even remotely the same business model as an online download store. This is one step removed from watching live TV. It's an ad-based revenue stream. All it asks of you is your time (i.e. commerical breaks). Free file, DRM the hell out of it...as long as it doesn't reek rootkit-like damage over my system. Charge me for it, and the (i)tune changes.
  

• Watched K-Ville. Had read the pilot, so no surprises. Now I need to see what the average episode with a quarter of the first one's budget will be like. I see the potential for it to evoke Homicide in a way. Baltimore was very much the main character in Homicide , K-Ville could do the same with New Orleans, but the pilot didn't feel especially authentic about it. Doesn't seem likely spec bait.

• Cleaned up some Scribosphere links on the left sidebar. Added some new faves, ejected some dead links. Moved the whole lot up.

• There is pulpy goodness in the offing. Stay tuned.