In recapping Big Brother for AfterElton, I’ve been trying to keep a tab on what the live feed subscribers are seeing. To that end, the Big Brother forum at Television without Pity has been incredibly useful. Not only is TWoP home to some of the smartest conversations about television, the strict moderation keeps it all very sharp.

Now imagine my surprise this afternoon when I decided to check on the thread, having last visited some 20 hours ago, and found that 35 pages of discussion had happened in that time. Yikes.

For me, the most interesting aspect of Big Brother is that we do get a glimpse at the man behind the curtain. It’s really interesting to track the discrepancies between what the live feed subscribers see and what CBS viewers see, a glimpse into how one can manufacture the reality of reality TV.

On the current season Dick and Danielle are the only remnants of the season’s “enemies” twists where one man was surprised to learn that his ex-boyfriend would be a part of the cast and another woman learned her high school rival was there. Dick and Danielle are a father and daughter who’ve had a rocky relationship, she was mostly raised by her grandparents and the two haven’t spoken to each other for two years after she failed to pay back money she borrowed from him.

If you only see the primetime Big Brother, you’d have an image of Dick as a blunt, punk-rock curmudgeon who hides his caring side. We see him taking slow steps towards reconciling with his daughter and giving her good advice in the season’s squirm-inducing romance between Danielle and the flirtatious Nick. (Danielle said goodbye to a live-in boyfriend at the beginning of the season, CBS has just stopped short of calling him a cuckold on the show.)

The live feed viewers, however, have a very different view of Dick, however. For that segment of the audience, he’s a short-tempered bully who has repeatedly cursed out one female housemate, using threats of violence, death wishes and rape as well as all the derogatory references to her sexual organs you’d expect out of someone who has issues with women.

His angry words in her direction have gotten worse and worse until last night, he poured his drink on her. That might sound minor, but for someone who’s used threatening language again and again, an invasion of physical space like that is cause for concern.

The frustration is increased by how the other housemates have rationalized that there isn’t reason to worry and have mostly held onto their friendship with Dick. Most of them have drawn the ire of live feed viewers for their “Mean Girls” tendencies.

However, the most bothersome aspect is that CBS has edited out all of his worst moments. His rudeness comes off in primetime as bluntness, his anger as crotchetiness and, in the end the main message is that he has a heart of gold at the center. By constantly shrugging off his threats and dismissing them (by portraying him in an opposite manner as he behaves) the network is almost giving their okay to his behavior.

After failing to give the telenovela format the amount of support it needed to succeed, MyNetwork TV has become a network made up of whatever programming it can afford. First they added fighting to their schedule, then they started doing celebrity documentaries. The network will be co-producing a revival of Paradise Hotel, a trashy reality series that originally aired on Fox.

Now, MyNetwork TV is repurposing FX series Damages.

If MyNetwork TV lasts, I suspect it’ll be some time before it develops an identity.

So. On Friday’s Countdown Keith Olbermann promised an interview with Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson on Monday’s show. Upon hearing that, I turned to The Spouse and said, “I’d be way more interested in an interview with Yeardley Smith.”

Last night, I tuned in to Countdown to see that the fabulous Ms. Smith was going to be on the show. Yay!

Whew! Nice to be back, I hate it when blog lethargy suddenly takes over.

Anyway, there’s a thought that’s been running in my head. I’ve been watching The Kill Point on Spike TV, an eight-hour mini-series about a bank robbery that turns into a hostage crisis. To some degree, the format is quite interesting to me since the story starts out as complex as one of the serialized shows that debuted this year (and, yes, the plot does bring The Nine to mind) but, as a miniseries, it also promises a conclusion and confident pacing.

Earlier this summer, USA aired The Starter Wife, a six-hour series adapting a bestseller by Gigi Levangie Grazer.

Both mini-series had a two-hour debut, followed by weekly hourlong installments, a format that made both series feel like something TV pundits have long wished for — a limited-run series that gets to tell a complex story over several hours without finding itself spinning its wheels, trying to hold back its secrets for a date to be determined later. Cable networks have done mini-series before, but typically mini-series are made into events — each installment is aired in two-hour blocks, sometimes the installments are aired a few days apart with the whole event airing in a week. The Starter Wife and The Kill Point both aired as weekly hourlong installments, making it feel more like a comfy series than a big clear-out-your-calendar event.

Since we have two different cable networks, from two different media corporations, I find myself wondering if we’re seeing cable jump ahead of the broadcast networks, again. Making TV series that end after they’ve told their story has been discussed since Twin Peaks fizzled after ending its initial mystery, but the money has always stopped the broadcast networks, who frequently will run a hit series into the ground before letting it end. Since cable networks aren’t as set in their ways, they have had more flexibility to innovate. Cable networks have already seen success in making a summer TV season. There was plenty of talk about a summer season after Fox successfully launched The O.C. over the summer, but a strategy disappeared after North Shore failed to find an audience the next summer. Now, summer is home to cheap-to-produce reality series and game shows (minimalizing the cost of failure) leaving a wide opening for cable to launch new series over the summer. I wonder if mini-series is another way cable will be stepping head of broadcast.

For some reason this was a very lethargic week for me — maybe it’s because it’s been a fairly slow news week for gay pop culture and my energy has been drained into reading, reading, reading my feeds without much reward. Or maybe it’s all those Big Brother recaps draining me.

Anyway, it’s Friday, so this week’s weekend-starting video is the trailer for the new NiGHTS game. I don’t have a Wii, but this certainly makes it tempting:

I’m off to see if Escort’s tracks are sold on iTunes now…

To be honest, enjoyment of Supernatural has always been a little tepid. When it first debuted, I found it’s urban-legend-based-monster-of-the-week format rather cute, though I definitely didn’t like the show’s mythology. The second season had a greater focus on the mythology, which almost lost me, until the series started delivering some truly solid episodes with intriguing set-ups, solid suspense and material that let us discover the acting chops of it’s two leads.

Unfortunately, one thing that’s always kept me from fully getting into Supernatural is the show’s WiR-ness. Mot only is the plot centered on men haunted by their dead wives and girlfriends, but the series hasn’t succeeded in bringing any female characters that have balanced out this flaw, which has been rather glaring to me.

This summer I’ve heard some Supernatural fans complain about rumors that The CW pressured the show’s producers to add some female characters in the third season. This was one case where I argued for reserving judgment, since the mandated change would address what, for me, was Supernatural last, glaring fault. So while I could see that it might be just a matter of demographic appeal, it very well could have been a demand to improve the show.

Now, an interview with series creator Eric Kripke gets me excited about Supernatural for the first time. There’s no money quote, but, at the least Kripke shows an awareness of the problem and seems like he’s looking to correct the course. Probably the best sign is that the new characters aren’t seen as potential love interest, but as professional rivals to the Winchester brothers. Hopefully, the show sticks to that plan.

I’ve get to find a consistent tone for my Big Brother recaps. I’m happiest with Sunday’s recap where I dropped references to Marc Almond, Doctor Who (the obvious one), Sesame Street, Beavis and Butthead as well as a couple religious jokes that I hoped wouldn’t offend (partially because anyone who would be offended by my jokes aren’t people one could have a discussion with.) My Tuesday recap was just mostly snark-filled. I’m sure I’ll end up hating this Big Brother cast as I always do, but at the moment I am having fun laughing at this cast. Then, my recap of Thursday’s show was kind of a mess, mostly wanting to examine what this season of Big Brother meant to gay visibility — is it progress if we get to look as stupid as any other reality show buffoon?

I was kinda bleah on the rest of my posting, if only because recapping takes a lot of energy. Hopefully, it’ll come easier, but (evidently) that’ll take more than a couple weeks. Here are the interesting items I wrote this week:

• Another reason why British TV is cooler than ours: John Barrowman will be hosting a new game show. It kinda sounds like a BBC edition of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? but the Brits get people like Barrowman hosting their shows, while we get Penn Gillette.
• Stephen Colbert’s reaction to Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” theory had some potential for Colbert-adoring snark, which I took advantage of. BTW, ShirtlessHunks-BaggingGroceries.com instantly became a Google “Hot Trend”. No surprise, but where’s my shirtless hunks bagging groceries?
• I discovered we have some strong Peter Molyneux fans when I brought up the gay relationships possible in Fable. I dunno, is Fable one of those FRPGs where you walk all over the bleeding creation waiting to encounter something? That’s what killed Elder Scrolls for me.

Boomania edition:

Back in the early ’90s, I adored Brit rapper Betty Boo for the Emma Peel sense of style seen on her singles, as well the ‘Agent of D.I.S.C.O.’ persona she playsed in her videos. Her video for “Hey DJ (I Can’t Dance to that Music You’re Playing)” stands out for being the first time I saw a solo female artist (I think Bananarama was making their beefcake-heavy videos by then) surrounding herself with hunky dancers who were clearly there for no reason beyond their sex appeal.

I got to sample her follow-up album before buying it and, unfortunately, her sound changed to sound more like everything else already on the radio. Boo’s current project, WigWam, has had a couple interesting singles, but I miss the old campy shtick.

• Hooray! A PC version of Puzzle Quest is finaly coming. I was so addicted to the demo game.
• I’ve got my fingers crossed this turns out as good as it could be — Keith Olbermann will host a Democratic Presidential Forum yadda
• Rosie O’Donnell wanted to gay up The Price is Right with “Broadway hunks, confetti, musical bumpers and a much-needed set makeover “so the colors actually match!” Too bad, that could be what the show needs.
• Do you want a Robin Sparkles Mall Tour t-shirt to wear to the mall?
• The State finally gets a DVD release/