Another week, another fr…waitaminute. Didn’t I write that last week? Shit. I don’t even know what time it is anymore or what day it is or where I put that jar of maggots I had been saving “just in case”. The truth is, thanks to the cold snap, my internet connection was snapped in half for about a week. For once, getting it fixed had nothing to do with Time Warner’s incompetence, but rather the ridiculous incomprehensibility of trying to negotiate a time my landlord would be home and the repair-person was available. Hence, the following conversation between Drake and myself is a relic of last week, the heady days when Dollhouse and Xavier: Renegade Angel delighted our eyes with their existence. Sadly, those days are still here. Wait. Why so sadly? Why so serial?

Andy: Fucking cocksucker. I’m just going to swear this entire time. This is going to be the Deadwood of conversations. Cocksucking fuckface.

Andy: Dickwich. Screamballs.

Drake: I bet you’d love a dickwich. So what did you want to talk about?

Andy: Well, there are a number of things we can discuss. Dollhouse. Xavier: Renegade Angel.

Drake: Mr. Joss Whedon and how he broke my heart?

Andy: There was one other thing. What the fuck happened to February sweeps?

Drake: It wasn’t March?

Andy: February. And like, almost every show I watch is on hiatus.

Drake: Well then I have no idea.

Andy: How I Met Your Mother. 30 Rock. The Office. Scrubs.

Drake: Just about everything is in the tank.

Andy: I’m all for the networks abandoning the traditional business models. But this month is terribly bleak. It’s fucking disgusting cold outside. We shed how many jobs so far this year? 20,000,000?

Drake: Nobody has any money. Every advertiser has decided to tell you that nobody has any money. As if somehow reminding you of that will get you to buy their product.

Andy: The economy has fucking face cancer. At least we haven’t yet collapsed into medieval death societies. Each group of us worshipping a different god of murder.

Drake: What the hell do you mean?? That sounds like a lot more fun.

Andy: Each of us battling against the other for supremacy over a landscape of hatred. Which god of murder would you worship?

Drake: I call Kzaak, god of blood and one liners.

Andy: I choose El-Krat. His body is made of the plague. I like how all deathgods have to have “K” in their names.

Drake: Legend has it that Kzaak once had a zinger so tight that it instantly decapitated all his enemies and knocked up their wives.

Andy: Which automatically became Kzaak’s wives. Which he hadn’t bargained for. And now he has infinite wives and families he has to support. This sounds like a set up for a sitcom

Drake: Because even Kzaak is not above the law.

Andy: Kzaak is the law. But unfortunately, he is made up of very stiff child-support statutes.

Andy: Someday I’ll pitch every show I’ve suggested here to a network and get laughed out of existence.

Drake: I’m sure one of them will be a gem. I bet MANTIS sounded pretty stupid too when somebody pitched it. But now who’s crazy, huh?

Andy: Especially my sitcom about slave-children in Africa forced to mine diamonds. It’s going to be called, “They Can’t All Be Gems”

Drake: Andy, I don’t know how you can shoot that in three cameras. Think this through. I do like the title

Andy: Hey, Dollhouse. There’s a piece of shit, right? That got made.

Drake: It has its moments. Kinda…

Drake: I was only half joking about Joss breaking my heart. I love pretty much everything Whedon’s ever done. If Whedon were a religion, I’d drink the Kool-Aid.

Andy: I gave up after how bad the pilot was. It wasn’t even just the acting and the plot. The whole fucking idea is even more retarded than when I first heard about it.

Drake: And now, Dollhouse is making me question everything I thought I knew about myself.

Andy: Including your sexuality?

Drake: Everything, Andy. Everything.

Drake: It’s not a terrible idea. It would have made an excellent Star Trek episode. But yes, it’s really not good.

Andy: Maybe it would have made one good episode of another show.

Drake: It picked up a bit in the second episode. But only slightly…

Andy: The central concept is rotten though. I have to believe that Whedon didn’t begin it like that and it’s because Fox is both a) a terrible network and b) run by viciously stupid people.

Drake: That very well may be. I even think Echo might have made an interesting side character for something else. But there seems to be a mechanics problem of centering a show around a character who by definition has no personality. Fox is pitching it furiously as “hot girls kicking ass.” Which really isn’t what the shows about.

Andy: And here’s another thing I thought of. As much as I like Eliza Dushku as Faith, she’s not a strong actor. Look at The United States of Tara.

Lars and the Real Dollhouse.

Drake: Wow. I can’t believe this. But I completely agree.

Andy: Toni Collette really inhabits those different characters. Everyone Dushku plays is just a variation of herself. And you can’t have an actress like that in this role.

Drake: Tara does the multiple personality think incredibly well.

Andy: I’m not saying Dushku is a bad actress, just a limited one.

Drake: The scenes where Dushku switches characters are almost funny, they’re so ridiculous.

Andy: I have to admit, there’s parts of the concept I like. The idea that you get the bad along with the good of a personality, that’s smart.

Drake: Yes. That concept is great.

Andy: But the stupid coincidence that’s at the heart of the first episode is a huge boner-killer.

Drake: That’s the short Dollhouse review. “Dollhouse. It’s a boner-killer.”

Andy: This makes me worried for Ron Moore’s Virtuality.

Drake: Viruality? Tell me more?

Andy: It’s a show he pitched to Fox. I’m not sure exactly about the specifics of the show beyond the fact that I think it’s about one of those hologram rooms like on ST: TNG. The fact that it’s on Fox though doesn’t inspire me with hope. I understand there’s a limited number of major networks these days, but doesn’t anyone learn their fucking lessons?

Drake: But there aren’t a limited number of networks. Joss Whedon is a huge cult commodity. I dare say the biggest. Whedon could just hand out DVDs of his shows on the corner and they’d still get around. Look at Dr. Horrible. Fantastic. And no Fox.

Andy: Sure, if Whedon chose to work outside the studio system, he could make great stuff. It stands to see if he will follow the coming business model or hold onto old shreds and churn out shit like Dollhouse. But the places left to make interesting TV are few and far between a rock and a hard-on. Sci Fi pretty much giving Ron Moore free reign and AMC with Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Those are two of the only non-pay places to make great TV.

Drake: Damn right. And how about pay places?

Andy: HBO and Showtime both have great shows.

Drake: Showtime, HBO. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for a season 2 of Firefly. I’d stab somebody’s grandma for a season 2 of Firefly.

Andy: But Nathan Fillion has some shitty detective show on CBS or something. How would he ever get out of a show that’s sure to last for many, many seasons.

I’m going to pretty much carry this show with my charm, aren’t I?

Drake:It looks like Bones, but in reverse. With more sex and less forensic anthropology. You know actually, that sounds pretty good. When I spell it out like that.

Andy: I like equal amounts of sex and forensic anthropology.

Drake: Now’s the time where we drop in a picture of you wearing only nerd glasses staring at a femur.

Andy: Hey, have you been watching Xavier?

Drake: Yes I have. There’s a show that’s out of the box. Way out. And I like it.

Andy: I thought they couldn’t get more fucked up than last season. But the dialogue is almost nonstop now. There’s no let-up. It’s mindbending.

Taste the pain.

Drake: This might be a good time to interject about how awesome Wonder Showzen is.

Andy: One bad thing about those guys though. That interview they did in The Onion is annoying as fuck. They have to be terrible to hang out with. I can’t stand comedians that can never turn it off. I mean, I don’t expect their interviews to be enlightening philosophical discourses on the nature of the universe. But christ, give me something interesting.

Drake: That may very well be. Both of those shows are the kind of thing where it’s entertaining, but in the back of your head, you know you can turn the TV off. If you had to live in that world everyday, it would be some sort of Faustian hell.

Andy: No way. I sit down in front of Xavier and I’m enraptured.

Drake: Forever? There wouldn’t be some point where you look down and realize you no longer know your human name and have pulled out your own fingernails?

Andy: If that’s the afterlife? I guess. I mean, I’d rather wander around a landscape of boobs for all eternity, but whatevs.

Drake: Ah, the land of boobs. A wise choice.

Andy: Alright, this seems to have petered out. Shall we call it? I need to get out of this shitty coffeeshop. Charging me $2 for a tea. Fuck those bitches

Drake:Is that bad?

Andy: It’s a fucking tea bag and a cup. How does that warrant $2? It used to be a $1. They can eat my shit.