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A three-judge panel in New York says a rule on unscripted expletives on live broadcast TV and radio creates a ‘chilling effect’ in violation of the 1st Amendment. The ruling is a major victory for broadcast networks.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government’s longstanding prohibition against indecency on broadcast television and radio, ruling that the policy was “unconstitutionally vague” and created a “chilling effect” that violated the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York is a major victory for the broadcast TV networks, which jointly sued the Federal Communications Commission in 2006 in the wake of a tougher crackdown on indecency over the airwaves.

The suit stemmed from an FCC ruling in March 2006 that unscripted expletives uttered impromptu on live broadcasts, such as awards shows, violated indecency rules and were subject to fines.

The same court found in 2007 that the FCC’s policy on such so-called “fleeting expletives” was “arbitrary and capricious.” The FCC appealed the ruling and the Supreme Court upheld the crackdown on fleeting expletives that began in 2004.

But the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling was focused on the way the FCC enacted its tougher policy and sent the case back to the New York court to decide the broader issue of the constitutionality of the ban on profanity on the broadcast airwaves.

That policy dates back to a 1978 Supreme Court decision stemming from the radio broadcast of comedian George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” monologue. The FCC began a tougher crackdown on indecency in 2004 under the Bush administration.

Congress voted in 2006 to boost the maximum fine for each violation tenfold, to $325,000, in the aftermath of singer Janet Jackson’s so-called wardrobe malfunction during a performance in the Super Bowl halftime show in which one of her breasts was briefly exposed on live TV. Each station that airs an indecency violation can be hit with the fine, putting networks on the hook for as much as $35 million for each incident.

“Under the current policy, broadcasters must choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose,” U.S. Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler wrote in Tuesday’s decision. “Indeed, there is ample evidence in the record that the FCC’s indecency policy has chilled protected speech.”

The court cited the failure of several CBS affiliates not to air the Peabody Award-winning “9/11″ documentary, which contained some expletives in audio footage from firefighters responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Fox Broadcasting Co. cheered the ruling.

“We have always felt that the government’s position on fleeting expletives was unconstitutional,” the network said. “While we will continue to strive to eliminate expletives from live broadcasts, the inherent challenges broadcasters face with live television, coupled with the human element required for monitoring, must allow for the unfortunate isolated instances where inappropriate language slips through.”

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I found myself a little bit bored with this series around mid last season.  The story seemed to drag on a bit and meandered around.  I was so disappointed that Godrick was killed off right away, his character in just the couple of episodes he was in was so fascinating to me.  He was/is so revered by Eric and a few other vamps and was such a bad ass…in a 17ish year old boys body.  Sooo bad ass.  It was nice to see him in a flash back in this last episode.  It would be interesting if they told a little more back story via these flashbacks al la highlander.  Since these characters have been around so long it stands to reason there there is some rich history between them.  The audience is now hooked on the series…it would be a good move to take some time now and then to build some of this history and see how these characters interact and why they interact the way they have.

If you haven’t watched this series, catch the past seasons on DVD and tivo the new episodes…it’s worth watching.

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LONDON – Patrick Stewart has been upgraded from captain — to knight.

The actor — famous for playing Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — officially became Sir Patrick Stewart when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.

While “Star Trek” introduced him to a different group of fans, Stewart is also a widely respected stage actor.

The 69-year-old actor discovered the theater as a child, and said “my heroes were Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness.” Being “in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me.”

Stewart joined Britain’s storied Royal Shakespeare Company in his 20s, and in 2008 was nominated for a Tony award for the leading role in “Macbeth.”

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My take on this whole series has been influenced by my experiences, the idea of two brothers setting out against the world strikes a chord with me.  I thought the final scene was subtly meaningful…maybe more so from my perspective than from most.  I think even if there wasn’t going to be a 6th season this would be a good ending for the series.  I think anything they do from here will sully the overall story and take away from the cumulative message I’ve taken away from the past 5 years.

The style of the last episode was a bit different than the other episodes.  They decided to use the profit’s (I’m horrible with character names) perspective and voice over to narrate the story.  I thought, given kripke’s departure, this was a very fitting choice.  He talks about the significance of the impala…which at first seemed odd..but whatever.  He told the story of the brothers growing up with the car and the various things they did that left their mark on the vehicle.  The significance of this will be shown in the final battle, which was a bit of a cheese dick move…but whatever.  There was one decent conversation between the brothers where sam tells dean not to come after him if he ends up in the pit.  I thought it was going to come off as a bit tongue in cheek…and maybe season 6 will show dean chasing after sam…but the feeling from the end of 5 is that he’s done.

The battle between Micheal and Lucifer in some ways mirrored the bickering between sam and dean over the course of the series.  I assume this was intentional.  Micheal was the “have to do this” type that reflected deans mentality and the devil was more of a “lets walk and do our own thing” which reflected sam’s mentality.

In the end, we see the devil in sam’s body beating the living hell out of dean…only to see one of the affor mentioned “marks” left on the impala…which seemingly empowered sam to take control and jump into the pit with micheal.  Strangly enough…micheal wasn’t interested in locking up the devil, he -needed- to fight him as he felt he was directed to by his father (god).  That was an interesting point upon reflection.  Micheal wasn’t interested in saving humanity or containing the devil…he needed to fight as he felt he was directed to do by god.

The series made a few interesting religious points throughout it’s 5 years, but one of the more interesting to me were the ones it made about Christianity compared to other religions or conventional beliefs.  One point that has been made over and over again was that the angels really don’t give a damn about the humans…and in fact resent them.  This is nothing new as far as religious writing is concerned…many shows/movies have passed on the idea that angels resent humans.  In the 3rd to final episode this season they demonstrated the power that the christian angels had is superior to the power of other religions gods.  This seems like an odd statement to make…but whatever, it was a good story.  The last one that really piqued my interest was the idea that the horseman “death” was eternal…possibly being older than “god” and also existing longer in the end, eventually taking god with him.  Maybe that’s a statement about all religions eventually dying out…who knows, I just thought it was interesting.

Now, the final scene….

This scene hit pretty close to home for me.  Sam is dead, dean finds his “woman” from a previous season and she basically takes him in…we assume to be part of the family.  We see dean, her and her child sitting down to dinner.  Strangely, this hits really close to home for me.  We then see sam standing by a light post outside the window looking in on this scene.

Some people are speculating that the devil escaped from his prison, or that god brought sam back.  I think that misses out on the overall point of this scene.  I think Kripke was trying to show a final act of “brotherly love” as it were.  That letting go is the final, and hardest thing to do.  If sam is going to give dean a shot at a normal life, he can’t see him again…if dean is going to have a normal life he can’t go looking for sam.  Also, on the way over to this chic’s house, dean was in the impala with castiel and he says that god gave dean “more of the same, no heaven…no hell…just more of the same”.  I think that’s a wrong assessment, given that he’s now separate from sam it’s more of a hell than the same it was before.

Like I said earlier though, my take on the story is pretty colored.

We’ll see what season 6 has in store for the brothers.  I’m a bit disappointed they are going on with the series…I think this would be a very good way to end it.

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The confrontation with Zod was pretty lame…just as it’s been all year.  There was no super hero smack down…it was just Zod making a mistake that his super powered friends were able to over hear.  Through the whole season they have focused on making sure they portray Zod as a powerful calculating super intelligent being…epic fail at the end.  Clark taking the blue kryptonite dagger in the guts and dropping off the building so Zod would get sucked up into the abyss was pretty cool…and should have been the final selfless sacrificing step to him donning the blue/red and yellow.  One final note, “kneel before zod” was over used to the extreme this season.

I’m interested to see where the 10th (and hopefully final) season of Smallville go.  Will clark die or does he pull out the dagger and survive the fall?  Would he not get sucked up if he did?  Clearly whomever ran down the green arrow in the crawl space is going to be the foe for magical season 10.  I -really- hope they go with the traditional superman though and not this pussy version they think people want.

Superman’s torment isn’t saving people…it’s that he can’t save everybody.  When the writers get their heads around that…it will be a much more enjoyable show.

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Each subsequent episode after #4 got better and better.  The writing improved, the dialogue got better and better and the story started to get a little intricate with the back stabbing and political maneuvering.  There wasn’t just intrigue among the upper class…there was some well developed friction between the gladiators as well.  It’s pretty impossible to know how the slaves/gladiators viewed their situations.  Spartacus shows some of them embracing the honor of the arena and others displaying their hatred for slavery and yet others finding ways to cope with it.  The gladiators seemed like a cross between prisoners and privileged citizens at times.  It seems to me they were treated very much like pets, sometimes given perks like orgies and booze but always used for the entertainment of their owners.

The graphic novel style of cinematography took a little getting used to, but after you accepted it, that style very much works for this series.  Each episode used it better and better until the end when it worked out quite well.  The production quality of this show was on par with an HBO original series.  I wouldn’t get Starz just to see it, but I would Netflix the series or maybe even buy it.  If you watched a couple episodes then stopped or didn’t get into this series from the beginning…it’s worth watching.  With 13 episode seasons, the action moves along quite well.  I don’t like the fact that these series are so short, but the lower number of episodes helps the story move along faster than it would otherwise.

It will be interesting to see where the show goes in the 2nd season.  I have some ideas, but I’m not going to spoil it for anyone that hasn’t seen the final episode yet.

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Conan O’Brien will make his return to Late Night TV on TBS.  Last night we reported that Conan O’Brien and FOX’s relationship may be in jeopardy due to unhappy affiliates.  Now TVGuide.com reports that in an unexpected move, Conan has gone to TBS, which is a huge “get” for the Atlanta-based network.  The announcement comes the same day as Conan begins his nationwide comedy tour in Eugene, Oregon.  His new TV show will air Mondays through Thursdays at 11 p.m. EST and move George Lopez’ talk show to midnight.  However, Conan’s deal with NBC prohibits him from being on TV until September.  On his Twitter feed, Conan says he’ll return in November following the World Series.  Here’s his post from Twitter:

The good news: I will be doing a show on TBS starting in November! The bad news: I’ll be playing Rudy on the all new Cosby Show.

Hit the jump for another statement from Conan and my excitement over his move to TBS.

Here’s what Conan said in a tounge-in-check statement:

“In three months, I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable.  My plan is working perfectly.”

No one expected TBS to get Conan and that may be because all eyes were on FOX.  This is a huge get for TBS but then it makes more sense when you consider that the last stop on Conan’s comedy tour is Atlanta.  To Conan’s publicist, please let me interview this man and by interview I mean let me spend a half-hour telling him how awesome he is.

I honestly do think that this is a good fit for Conan because while basic cable has a smaller audience, it also allows for more creative freedom for late night hosts (see: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report).  Also, as part of Turner Broadcasting, he could possibly have more access to Turner’s other popular late night programming: Cartoon Network’s [adult swim].  However, I’m 99% sure that Conan will remain in Los Angeles.

Please give us your thoughts on Conan’s move to TBS in our comments section.

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The show has started the past couple of episodes with actual footage of the war and interviews with some guys that were in the marine company they are following.  They tell about some of the hell they went through and some of the memories and feelings that look to still haunt them today.  The episode deals with what the real people outlined in the first segment.

I don’t want to give anything away about this series.  If you are interested in war stories this is very worth watching.  I’ll probably pick up the DVD’s for my old man when they are on sale.

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I am a little disappointed in some of the language in the series.  The cursing and all that seems fine and along the line of what you would expect given the situation they are in…but some of the strings of things they throw together doesn’t really make sense to me.  “Great Jupiter’s C**K!”.  It doesn’t make sense to me that characters of the time would say stuff like that then rip off something like “Your words put me in a dire place” or something a little more poetic.  It doesn’t make sense that the trashy verbiage and the poetic speech would come out of the same mouth.  It’s a very similar situation to what we heard in Deadwood.

Something that is starting to grow on me is the graphic novel style of cinematography.  I think you have to understand the genre to appreciate the style of action/shooting.  It’s pretty 300 esq in the way the stories are told, but IMO that adds to the “realism” of the story in that things are bigger than life and they are being relayed on the screen like they would have been passed down as verbal stories of the time.  The graphic novel style of shooting helps bring that bigger than life feel to the screen.  I think anyway…I could be over analyzing things and getting something out of the show that the writers and directors are not intending or even aiming for.

I’ll keep watching it.  The show is no where near Rome’s level of production but the story and characters are being developed very well.

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Peter Graves, whose calm and intelligent demeanor was a good fit for the intrigue of “Mission Impossible” as well as the satire of the “Airplane” films, has died.

Graves passed away Sunday just a few days before his 84th birthday outside his home in Los Angeles, publicist Sandy Brokaw said. Graves was returning from brunch with his wife of nearly 60 years and his family when he had what Graves’ doctor believed was a heart attack, Brokaw said.

Graves first gained the attention of many baby boomers with the 1950s TV series “Fury,” but remained best known for the role of Jim Phelps, leader of a gang of special agents who battled evil conspirators in TV’s “Mission: Impossible.”

Normally cast as a hero, he turned in an unforgettable performance early in his career as the treacherous Nazi spy in Billy Wilder’s 1953 prisoner-of-war drama “Stalag 17.”

He also masterfully lampooned his straight-arrow image when he portrayed bumbling airline pilot Clarence Oveur in the 1980 disaster movie spoof “Airplane!”

Graves appeared in dozens of films and a handful of television shows in a career of nearly 60 years.

The authority and trust he projected made him a favorite for commercials late in his life, and he was often encouraged to go into politics.

“He had this statesmanlike quality,” Brokaw said. “People were always encouraging him to run for office.”

Graves was preceded in stardom by his older brother James Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon on TV’s “Gunsmoke.”

Born Peter Aurness, Graves adopted his grandfather’s last name to avoid confusion with his older brother, who had dropped the “U” from the family name.

Graves’ career began with cheaply made exploitation films like “It Conquered the World,” in which he battled a carrot-shaped monster from Venus, and “Beginning of the World,” in which he fought a giant grasshopper.

He later took on equally formidable human villains each week on “Mission: Impossible.”

Every show began with Graves, as agent Phelps, listening to a tape of instructions outlining his team’s latest mission and explaining that if he or any of his agents were killed or captured “the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

The tape always self-destructed within seconds of being played.

The show ran on CBS from 1967 to 1973 and was revived on ABC from 1988 to 1990 with Graves back as the only original cast member.

The actor credited clever writing for the show’s success.

“It made you think a little bit and kept you on the edge of your seat because you never knew what was going to happen next,” he once said.

He also played roles in such films as John Ford’s “The Long Gray Line” and Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter,” as well as “The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell,” “Texas Across the River” and “The Ballad of Josie.”

Graves’ first television series was the children’s Saturday morning show, “Fury,” about an orphan and his untamed black stallion. Filmed in Australia, it lasted six years on NBC.

In his later years, Graves brought his white-haired eminence to public television as host of “Discover: The World of Science” and A&E’s “Biography” series.

He noted during an interview in 2000 that he made his foray into comedy somewhat reluctantly.

Filmmakers Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker had written a satire on the airplane-in-trouble movies, and they wanted Graves and fellow handsome actors Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack to spoof their serious images.

All agreed, but Graves admitted to nervousness. On the one hand, he said, he considered the role a challenge, “but it also scared me.”

“I thought I could lose a whole long acting career,” he recalled.

“Airplane!” became a box-office smash, and Graves returned for “Airplane II, The Sequel.”

Graves was a champion hurdler in high school in Minnesota, as well as a clarinet player in dance bands and a radio announcer.

After two years in the Air Force, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota as a drama major and worked in summer stock before following his brother west to Hollywood.

He found enough success there to send for his college sweetheart, Joan Endress. They were married in 1950 and had three daughters — Kelly Jean, Claudia King and Amanda Lee — and six grandchildren.

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