Anyone who gave up on West Wing last season should give it another try. Jimmy Smits, who's sexy and funny, is alone worth the time. And lately it's felt like the writers have finally stopped trying to be Aaron Sorkin and have found their own voice.
Speaking of tv, if you haven't visited television without pity, do so with all due speed. It's a message board site that has a staff of writers who recap shows every week. I found it a few years ago and have been hooked ever since. The Buffy and Angel recaps used to have me in tears. All the recaps are funny as hell and so detailed that if you miss an episode of your favorite show, you don't have to feel bad. The writers also actually seem to like television, which is a nice switch from so many critics who obviously hate the fact that they aren't Pauline Kael.
Not that I watch television or anything ...
I think you might be conflating Jeff Jarvis with Jeff Jensen, something I do quite often. Jensen is a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly, as well as an occasional comic book writer.
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | February 24, 2005 at 10:21 AM
There are so many Jeff Jarvis' out there. I think I'm right about the one I mean though. Is this the guy who keeps getting interviewed to speak for all lefty bloggers everywhere and always does a bad job of it?
Jeff Jarvis is president and creative director of Advance.net, which oversees the Internet operations for Advance Publications, including CondéNet and Advance Internet. He is a former television critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor of the New York Daily News and columnist with the San Francisco Examiner.
Jarvis, a longtime supporter of Weblogs, or "blogs" -- the online diaries that link to other content -- recently launched a blog focusing on the possible "War In Iraq" for all of the local news sites affiliated with Advance newspapers. Jarvis spoke with I Want Media about how blogs can help traditional media outlets create "a new and powerful relationship" with their audiences.
Posted by: eRobin | February 24, 2005 at 11:28 AM
If you look around on his blog, I think you'll find that Jarvis also used to write for TV Guide; he talks about that now and then.
Posted by: Thomas Nephew | February 25, 2005 at 07:15 PM
Oh. Never mind, you had that already.
Posted by: Thomas Nephew | February 25, 2005 at 07:17 PM
I'm at his blog for the first time right now, Thomas. I can't get past the love notes between him and Keller.
Posted by: eRobin | February 25, 2005 at 08:17 PM
I used to read Jarvis a lot, and was even a bit of a blog buddy of his. (Translated a Niemoeller sermon for him Christmas 2001). He got well known after 9/11 because He Was There, and he had this kind of preachy thing going that could (and can) work for a stretch at a time.
But he's become a case of arrested political development, I think. As far as I can tell, he's never stopped to reflect how Bush et al basically hijacked that experience, so that he's kind of been the slowly boiled frog. He was very gung-ho about Iraq. Full disclosure: I was for it going in as well, not gung-ho, but for it -- but then it turned out there really were no WMD or programs. And Abu Ghraib etcetera shocked and angered me in a way that it apparently didn't do for Jarvis (see here.)
Nowadays he laments that he's being drummed out of the party by the DailyKosians etc.; there's a fairly good commentary going on about that on a post of his this evening, reminding him that he's consistently been a lot harder on Democrats to his left than on Republicans to his right, and not much less intemperate than his critics. He's also a bit awfully eager to get Instapundit linkage, which, as commenters observe, is generally of the "good Democrats like Jeff agree with us" variety. And he's prone to fall into the "extremism in the pursuit of moderation is a virtue" trap -- he wanted everyone to pledge to support the president after the 2004 election, for example.
I drifted right along some of those same paths myself for a while, so I'm in no position to cast stones were I so inclined. I do think he's a little full of himself, and the ever increasing TV exposure these days isn't helping.
Posted by: Thomas Nephew | February 25, 2005 at 09:26 PM