With The Wire recently wrapping up its final season on HBO, David Simon and Ed Burns have moved onto their newest project, substituting the rough-and-tumble streets of Baltimore with the rough-and-tumble streets of Baghdad. Not sure which place is more dangerous these days.

The first installment of Generation Kill, a seven-part mini-series airs Sunday on HBO, adapted from Rolling Stones journalist Evan Wright’s account of traveling with the First Recon Battalion (probably the best book I didn’t finish reading this year. Library fines suck.)

Generation Kill follows the highly trained Marines of First Recon Battalion through the first 40 days of the Iraq war. The seven-part mini-series portrays the true story of the young Marines’ experience at the tip pf the spear of the American invsasion, as they contend with equipment shortages, incompetent commanding officers, ever-evolving Rules of Engagement and an unclear strategy.

Check out the trailer below, and a recent New York Times review. Looks like a guaranteed winner! I’ll be back on Monday with a review.

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Michel Gondry, the schizophrenic French music video visionary/director (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) sits down with EW and goes over what he considers his top 25 classic music videos.

Obviously, his own numerous videos are excluded from the cut, which short-changes the list somewhat (anyone else’s list would no doubt include at least one of his bizarre offerings) but fans of his work will no doubt appreciate the trip inside his though process. He is nothing if not a child of the ’80s.

(Via EW)

In case you missed them the first time around over the last two decades or so, HBO2 will marathon through all the George Carlin HBO specials today and tomorrow. The man did a lot of specials for that network, so it’s great to see them showing the love.

For everyone who only gets HBO proper, fear not: they will be showing ‘George Carlin: IT’S BAD FOR YA’ on Friday, June 27th @ 9 p.m. Beats the alternative of no George Carlin specials at all!

HBO2 schedule:

Wednesday, June 25th
8PM George Carlin at USC (1977)
9PM George Carlin Again! (1978)
11PM Carlin at Carnegie (1983)
12AM Carlin on Campus (1984)
1AM Playin’ with Your Head (1986)

Thursday, June 26
8PM What Am I Doing In New Jersey? (1988)
9PM Doin’ It Again (1990)
10PM Jammin’ in New York (1992)
11PM Back in Town (1996)
12AM You Are All Diseased (1999)
1AM IT’S BAD FOR YA (2008)

Everyone get those TiVos ready.

(via HBO)

Comparing a show that hasn’t even aired yet to sci-fi heavyweights like The X-Files and The Twilight Zone is a gutsy maneuver (and one that usually reeks of desperation and quick cancellation) but in the case of Fox’s upcoming show Fringe, it might be justified.

Co-created by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield) and two guys who apparently had something to do with the Transformers movie (not sure why that’s a selling point), here’s a summation care of Variety:

Net has made a series commitment to the Warner Bros.-Bad Robot production, which will start off with a two-hour pilot budgeted at more than $10 million. Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci — the brain trust behind Par’s new “Star Trek” feature — wrote the project on spec and shopped it to nets this week.

Trio will exec produce “Fringe” along with Bryan Burk (”Lost”). A search has begun for a pilot helmer as well as a series showrunner.

Deal also marks Fox’s acceptance of a new digital template hammered out by Warners and ABC last month (Daily Variety, Sept. 6). Pact gives Fox broad streaming rights to Warners shows in their first season and lets Warners start monetizing skeins via digital platforms by season two.
More than one option

“Fringe” mixes elements of “The X-Files” and Paddy Chayefsky’s “Altered States” with what Abrams calls “a slight ‘Twilight Zone’ vibe.” It will focus on brilliant but possibly crazy research scientist Walter Bishop, his estranged son and a female FBI agent who brings them together.

Episodes will explore self-contained mysteries of the paranormal, as well as the relationships between the three leads.

You remain unconvinced, you say? Well, check out the trailer below.

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Okay. As a Canadian, I am alarmed by the following news.

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - The Fox network will help to develop “The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie,” a Canadian primetime cartoon that reunites Second City TV alumni Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.

Thomas said Monday that Fox became involved in the pilot episode of a cartoon based on the SCTV characters Bob & Doug McKenzie, to be voiced by himself and Moranis.

The animated sitcom is based on the beer-addled Bob & Doug characters, who began as a two-minute SCTV skit in 1980 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

The “hoser” characters, played by Thomas and Moranis, grew a cult following as they went on to star in TV commercials and the 1983 dumb-buddy feature film “Strange Brew.”

SCTV is all right in my book, and Strange Brew had its charms (and was filmed primarily down the street from my house) but… exactly who at Fox said to themselves, “Hey, you know what would make a great cartoon for kids? An adaptation of characters from 20 years before they were born centering around substance abuse!”

This is a very important question to be answered. Whoever this was at Fox, please send us an email. We need to talk to you about possibly freelancing some articles.

Attention Lost devotees! The Verdict crew will be assembling a special recap podcast on Thursday night immediately following the finale of Lost, which will surely involve a lot of confused stutters, swear words and frozen donkey wheels. Don’t miss it!

Look for it either late Thursday night or early Friday morning, depending on how many curse words we have to bleep out. That kind of post-production work takes time, after all.

Lost fans worldwide are twiddling their thumbs in anticipation of this Thursday night (9/8c), when the two-hour season finale airs and hopefully (for once) answers more questions than it presents. An unlikely proposition, considering producers have already hinted at the “big surprise” by ts internal production codename: Frozen Donkey Wheel.

Call me cynical, but it is shockingly unlikely anything involving a frozen donkey wheel will clarify any of my questions, at all.

What do you guys think? There are a lot of outstanding questions to be wrapped up. Will we get to see the Orchid station? Will we (finally) get to know who the heck was in the coffin back in the finale of Season Three? Will we get to see the events that lead up to the rescue of the Oceanic Six? So many questions… so little time.

Also, if you haven’t seen the Orchid Orientation video yet, do not pass GO or collect $200 until you have seen it. It is essential viewing going into the finale, and one of the rare occasions where content that exists outside the “official” canon of the episode content is vitally important.

We’ll be back Thursday to recap. Until then, patience.

On such rare and fanciful moments when Saturday Night Live can still make people laugh, we here at TV Verdict must celebrate by posting a clip:

PS. The sketch? It’s a MacGyver joke. FYI.

Some Monday morning math for you television fans:

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz + two producers from The Simpsons = a new Fox animated series.

Comedy gold, right? Fox seems to think so, and seems to be getting close to green lighting production of Sit Down, Shut Up, attaching Simpsons vets Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein on board.

Oakley and Weinstein will add plenty of animated comedy experience to “Sit Down, Shut Up,” which was initially set up by “Arrested Development” creator Mitch Hurwitz (who also wrote the first script) and his producing partners, Eric Tannenbaum and Kim Tannenbaum.

[…]

“Sit Down, Shut Up” is based on a live-action sitcom from Australia. The animated U.S. version revolves around the lives of seven staff members at a dysfunctional high school in a small northeastern fishing town. Action centers on faculty members, as their egos and personal agendas trump the students’ needs.

“It’s extremely character based, like ‘Arrested Development,’ and has different rhythms than other animated shows like ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘King of the Hill,’” Oakley said. Voice talent includes several thesps from Hurwitz’s “Arrested Development”: Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler. Show also features Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, Regina King, Tom Kenny, Nick Kroll and Maria Bamford.

Animator and children’s book author Mo Willems, who was behind Cartoon Network’s critically acclaimed “Sheep in the Big City,” is handling animation on the show.

Could be something good? Admittedly, Fox has a tendency to cancel shows before they even get a chance for the ink to dry. Still, they have a better track record with animated shows than any other prime time network, so if anyone can pull it off, it’s the big “F”.

(via Variety)

The fourth season of the rebooted and reanimated Doctor Who airs Saturday, April 5th on the BBC, much to the ire of every fan who doesn’t live in the United Kingdom. For those of us stuck in Canada, it will be many moons before the CBC gets around to airing Season Four, but we can take minor consolation in knowing it will be infinitely faster than you unlucky Americans tucked down there. You guys have some serious Who lag.

If you find yourself more inclined to follow the good Doctor on his adventures regardless of your particular citizenship, join the club. Alas, your options are painfully limited.

The newly re-launched BBC iPlayer streams new BBC programming right from your browser, and even allows high-quality downloaded versions to be saved for 30 days… provided you can convince the website you live in the UK. It will check your IP address based on region and weed out the unfaithful. There are ways to get around this sort of thing, ahem, but obviously we can’t help you in this regard.

There are also, ahem, more unscrupulous methods of acquiring television content via the internet involving black-and-white flags with skulls on them, but we do not do that around here. We are good and proper people, thank you very much. Our mothers love us dearly, and we enjoy pie. Cherry, apple, you name it. No eye patches whatsoever. Just sweet, sweet pie.

To summarize: I curse the British.

Update: Actually, I curse Canada! As it turns out, Sci-Fi will be airing Season Four of Doctor Who on April 18, while the CBC has been painfully mum on future plans to show the new episodes. Looks like for the first time, the US will be ahead of the curve on this one. Lucky you guys!