Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Worst New Network

While paying too much for gas today, caught a little bit of GSTV, which the locale will tell you is not Game Show TV or even Garry Shandling TV, but Gas Station TV. Its screens blast out info while you’re captive there pumping.

It’s hard to ignore because it runs at top volume. But in addition to plugging the array of snacks available inside, they also stop for varying information. Depending on whether you’re putting in $5 or $50, you can hear a weather report, a snippet of entertainment news and a whole lot of ads for CBS shows.

I didn’t hear any news per se. Certainly nothing newsy about world situations that have led to these historically high prices. They like to keep it light, probably. Hence the entertainment news.

It was a piece of info I didn’t know: That Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio were back in Boston shooting a new movie, their first together since “The Departed.” They didn’t report this because I was on the Mass Pike, I had the feeling. It was just a coincidence (still, I kind of looked around to see if they were gassing up as well).

Gas Station TV is the latest intrusion of video on every corner of modern life. There’s no getting away from flatscreens at home, where they flash in kitchens and bedrooms, to restaurants and bars, to taxicabs and now gas pumps.

There are 5,000 such screens now in 375 cities and expanding rapidly, its website says. With ESPN Sports, CBS News, local weather and even a reality style competition for a new host, "Wanna Be a BroadcaSTAR?" its "4 ½ minute lineup is designed to maximize consumer engagement."

Of course standing there tethered by a hose from pump to tank helps keep customers in front of your screens as well.

I was relieved for the relative reprise of peace and quite afforded me inside, where there was not yet a Urinal TV Network at work.

Paris on 'Earl,' Earl on Paris

The people behind "My Name is Earl" were on the line the other day talking about the show’s return with a one-hour episode that includes Paris Hilton as guest star.

And the main thing people wanted to know was: What was Paris like to work with?

Well, said Jason Lee, "She was here for 15 minutes."

"She wasn’t here that long," agreed show creator Greg Garcia. "So we don’t have a lot of dirt on her or anything like that."

(You could almost hear the sigh of disappointment).

"I can just say," Garcia added, "that she came in, she knew what to do and she was very professional and very sweet and nice to everybody."

"She was a trouper," Lee said. "I mean, she knew what she was, you know, what it was all about, that she would be playing herself."

On the other hand, he added, "I kind of get the feeling that with Paris Hilton, it was one of those, ‘Oh, I love the show.’  Guarantee you, she’s never seen an episode."

"My Name is Earl" returns April 3.

Morning Ball

I’ve been used to some early Red Sox Games – normally that 11 o'clock Patriot’s Day games that begin with a morning chill, winter coats and questions about whether it’s too early to buy a beer.

But 6 a.m. is the earliest yet.

Still, it takes a lot to miss the season opener, which holds more meaning than just the start of baseball. Just to take in that expanse of green – a shade we haven’t seen in nearly six months, portends the start of spring more thrillingly than a calendar number.

No doubt, though, it can still be cold. Remember that year that the home opener had to be postponed because of snow?

This year’s was nearly called for lack of travel budget. The rest of the team wasn’t going to go if the whole coaching team wasn’t also afforded the exotic trip to Tokyo where the season opener would take place at the Tokyo Dome.

Oakland was technically the home team (they’d watch the Monday night game at 3 a.m. in California) but there were probably more Sox fans in the stands in Japan and a couple of countrymen to cheer -- Dice-K: Daisuke Matzusaka who was starting pitcher and Hideki Okajima, the reliever listed as winning pitcher.

Even with airfare, tickets there are probably cheaper than the good seats at the overpriced Fenway.

Ambling downstairs in slippers and turning on the season’s first game is a good way to start the day.

Good to hear the solid announcing team of Don Orsilo and Jerry Remy in action on NESN. Didn’t mind not being able to read most of the ads inside the dome. But the music inside the dome was all imported as well, down to the "Dirty Water" after the close of the game in extra innings.

But yes, the morning is a little too early for the "Sweet Caroline" singalong.

If you Tivo’d the game, you’ll get the ninth inning tie, but none of the determining action– a two RBI Manny Ramirez double in the 10th.

Red Sox win 6-5.

Britney on 'How I Met Your Mother'

Because she did not stumble around listlessly in tap pants and lip synch, it’s quite possible that Britney Spears’ brief cameo in Monday’s 'How I Met Your Mother' actually represented a glimmer of a career comeback, succeeding where her still-mocked MTV Awards appearance last year did not.

She was the smallest part of the sitcom, though. In an episode about Ted’s crush on his tattoo-removal doctor played by Sarah Chalke, Britney played the ditsy bespectacled receptionist named Abby.

She just looks around the office when we first see her, then starts to show some interest in Ted, especially when he feigns interest in her in order to get to the doctor. She’s got a few lines, and as the show goes on she gets gradually more glamorous, losing the glasses and adding makeup as if to catch the eye of Ted.

The Chalke part was much more newsworthy as it turned out – she was as funny and smart and beautiful as she’s been on “Scrubs,” where’s she was the obvious romantic object in the show for such a long time, of course it was eventually not viable (in the way these strung-out TV romances are).

She’d make almost as good a partner for Ted as Robin did and, according to show lore, Robin is not the future mother in the show title, they’ve stated plainly. Just last week they stated plainly that the future mother in the title was at the same St. Patrick's Day party that Ted was at, but he didn’t meet her.

Chalke's character Stella says she was just at a St. Paddy’s party but had to leave early because it was so bad.

So, depending on contracts and the fate of “Scrubs” and what the writers want to do, Stella could be the one. Or not. At any rate, the important thing about the episode was the secondary character. So let’s talk about that:

Britney’s role was like those Marilyn Monroe used to have before she became a marquee star – eye candy in the corner, playing a ditz more often than not.

The appearance didn’t involve any singing but there was the sitcom equivalence of lip synch – canned laughter. The high security of the event – as high as the hype: I’ve seen five different interviews with people about what she was like to work with – probably required that it was a closed set.

I could hardly tell if it was funny or not. I spent most of the time shouting her name and shooting flash at the screen. Instinctive. She almost ran over my foot.

Bad Days for Quakers

The big villain emerging from the first chapters of HBO's big historical miniseries "John Adams" -- besides the Redcoats -- is John Dickinson, the Pennsylvanian representative to the First Continental Congress who keeps voting against a war with England, in part because being raised Quaker and adhering to its pacifism.

It occurs in an episode that premiered the night before Eliot Spitzer stepped down as governor for a tryst with a high class prostitute. At the Emperors Club, the high-spending governor may have been known as Client No. 9, but the name he gave the people down there was that of a hedge fund king who was also a political contributor, but also the name of the founder of the Quakers, George Fox.

Fox vs. FCC Goes to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court said Monday it would hear the case of Fox vs. FCC, which means the high court will be treated to the F-words uttered on an awards show six years ago that led to fines since overturned by a lower court.

Fox vs. FCC has already provided entertainment (and plenty of cussing) when arguments before the Second District court in New York were broadcast in December 2006 were carried on CSPAN.

The Second District eventually determined that the fines levied against the network for review of  fine against Fox for vulgar words uttered by Cher and Nicole Richie at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards were too high, and the application of such fines against networks too inconsistent (it was OK for such words to be heard during a broadcast of the movie "Saving Private Ryan").

Unfortunately the arguments before the Supreme Court, due in fall, won’t be televised as were the lower court's.

Reenactments will be required to bring those arguments to TV since the Supreme Court eschews cameras to date.

They are allowing audio recordings, though (so Nina Totenberg doesn’t have to read their transcripts like plays). If we’re lucky there will be one of those "Adventures in Real Audio" cartoons from Robert Smigel on "Saturday Night Live."

NY TV Notes

Back from a short visit to New York, I can remark on two TV related things: They’ve got little TVs affixed in cabs now, so people don’t have a second away from video screens.

There are video screens with ads on Subway entrances, and on trucks that just drive around the streets like old billboard trucks used to do. Then there’s all those screens in Times Square that you just tune out.

The TV itself features a number of hosts, some of whom are recognizable – Al Roker, Mo Rocca – all doing interviews or saying something pertinent, but you’d never know because every cab I was in had the sound turned down or out. Passengers were too busy watching their own video on phones or iPods.

Of all the TV created in or about New York city, it seems like the town is proudest of "The Honeymooners," at least judging from the times Ralph Kramden, the character created by Jackie Wilson Gleason, seemed to pop up.

First there is that statue of Kramden in front of the Port Authority Bus Station (although his job driving for the Gotham Bus Company seemed strictly local, not regional, as it is at the Port Authority).

Then there is the homage at the Raccoon Lodge, a downtown bar where pictures of Kramden, Ed Norton and the rest are up on the walls, along with oversized mounted animal heads (of moose, not raccoon). Video games extend the theme as well, as patrons pick up plastic rifles to play Big Buck Hunter. You needn’t be a member to stroll in. But being 21 helps.

Rell to the Rescue

The Governor of Connecticut moved into a new realm yesterday when she single-handedly called ESPN and got the Big East women’s semifinal game to run on CPTV.

The UConn- Pittsburghgame had been scheduled on the far flung ESPNU, which many state cable companies do not carry so she called the powers that be in Bristol and called CPTV and got the thing together, announced less than an hour before it started.

So woosh, gone was Ruff Ruffman, gone was Clifford the Big Red Dog, gone was Super WHY and Jim Lehrer and the Nightly Business Report.

And here was basketball action, live from the XL Center.

An achievement, but its details didn’t come out: Did CPTV have to pay for the feed? If not, how did CPTV justify raising money during every break? (ESPN wasn’t just providing its entertainment, it was giving it a way to further cash in during the endless pledge period).

As we await this information, let’s keep Gov. Rell on this track. If she has some bearing on CPTV – though it is one of the few public TV stations that receives no state money – maybe we can get her to work on a few other things:

• A cap on the number of time a Suze Oreman infomercial runs.
• solid moratorium on Celtic Thunder
• A reliable and regular time for series such as “Independent Lens” and “P.O.V.”?
• The end of documentaries about trains and the Royals.
• Establishment of one pledge week annually and an end to the current year-round campaign.
• Full retirement for British sitcoms made in the 70s.
• A regular time slot for “Austin City Limits.”
• mothballs for Barney.

Ignoring Rhode Island

You’d never know, except for some of the scene-setting skylines, that TV’s newest legal drama "Canterbury’s Law," takes place in Providence.

Unlike the exacting accents in, say, Showtime’s "Brotherhood," "Canterbury," which begins tonight on Fox, skips the regional sense of place altogether.

"No, I do not speak with a Rhode Island accent, which was a very conscious decision," star Julianna Margulies said in a teleconference last week.  “I think it would have taken away a little bit; people would have been like, huh?"

Her take on Elizabeth Canterbury is that “this woman ended up there; she’s not necessarily from there."

And so is everybody else who speaks in the series.

Providence was chosen as the setting, she said, because "Boston has been done, New York has been done – they’ve all been done.  Let’s try Rhode Island.  And you can double New York as Rhode Island anytime," Margulies said.

"Rhode Island is just sort of the backdrop of where this takes place and where someone could feasibly have a law firm, as opposed to New York City and Boston.

"And," she added, "we didn’t want to make it New Jersey."

The Big C on TV

Two of my current favorite shows have one thing in common: each of their central characters have cancer.

Cancer has cropped up on series television before, but usually in supporting characters or members of ensemble casts.

Samantha Jones on "Sex and the City" got breast cancer; as did Murphy Brown. Tennis star Dana Fairbanks died of cancer on "The L Word." Alex went through treatment on "Sisters"; Brenda found a lump on "Beverly Hills 90120," Lacy tangled with the disease on "Cagney & Lacy." Even Edith Bunker had a scare.

Even hospital shows don't have that much about the disease, surprisingly, though Alexis on "General Hospital" contracted lung cancer and George’s dad and possibly Meredith's mom both succumbed to the disease on "Grey’s Anatomy."

Still, the occurrences on TV are pretty rare, especially considering cancer rates in the U.S. About 565,650 Americans are expected to die from cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society. That's a rate of more than 1,500 deaths a day. Cancer accounts for one out of every four deaths in the U.S. It's second only to heart disease as the country's leading cause of death.

Leroy Sievers, blogging his disease on an NPR site in a column called My Cancer, noticed that while sidelined at home with a cold (and undergoing chemo) he noticed none of the shows on the 100 or so networks he surfed through reflected anybody having cancer.

You can see just about anything on TV these days, but when was the last time you saw a character who just happened to have cancer?... Now, I'm not asking for equal time. I don't think TV characters should be getting cancer by the dozens, but it just doesn't seem to have a place in our entertainment world.

And yet this season, there are two shows, where the central characters not only have cancer, the disease causes them to radically change their lives in unexpected ways.

In "Breaking Bad," which ends its seven-episode run tonight on AMC (with hopes of a second season), the central figure is Walter White, a brilliant science teacher of some promise, who has been taking a distinctly different path since diagnosed with lung cancer.

Fearing unable to care for the growning family he’s leaving behind (a pregnant wife and teenage son), he decides to go for quick money by using his chemical knowledge to become the best cook of crystal meth in Albuquerque. Paired with a comically inept former student, they face problems right away – in the form of established drug dealers. Two have to be killed (and disposed of) right away. Another is so tough they have to show their own toughness to even be taken seriously.

The cancer is sapping his strength; the chemo has already started his hair to fall, so he shaves his head. And yet this very real brush with mortality has emboldened him in a way he might have never been before, living with a newfound purpose (that it’s also illegal is something else to reconsider).

For Katie Sampson, the central figure of "Terminal City," the Canadian series just now imported to Sundance Thursday nights, the diagnosis of breast cancer has caused her to act out initially. She shoots golf balls into her neighbors’ houses. She drinks before breakfast. While at the hospital, she interrupts a doctor’s live reality show to explain her malady, in an interview that causes a stir because she both says the F-word and flashes the breast in question.

This disturbs a network executive, who in a scene with a producer named Jane, is clearly more concerned with the utterance of the C-word than the F-word.

"She flashed her breast on television, a cancerous breast, I might add. We’re not doing a documentary, we’re doing reality TV."

"What could be more real than a woman’s breast?"

"That’s natural, not real, and there’s a difference: and that’s cancer."

"Exactly."

"Cancer, Jane. It’s one word."

"It's TV."

"It ended up on TV."

"Good."

"Bad."

That was his initial reaction, anyway. He comes around to the idea of using this interesting woman as a host. But the scene points out what exactly is verboten on TV these days. At least until now.