Ughhh, I'd managed to erase Con from my memory. He was resurrected properly for something recently, wasn't he? Was it Let Loose Live? I can't find it on IMDB so maybe it was all just a big nightmare.

The Mick Molloy Show worked because it was jam-packed with proven talents and left by the network to its own devices. If a segment didn't work, it didn't matter because there were enough people on the couch at any one time to buoy it. Here, when Con (or Jackie O, or Peter Garrett, or etc etc) drags the show down there's nobody around to save it. Mick is a lot of things but he's no Rove, and even Rove has people on the set ready to jump in when things get boring.

And the Sopranos bit: It's that not-existing-in-the-same-universe thing again. Jackie O wouldn't know The Sopranos if it slammed gherkins up her nose, so she certainly wouldn't understand (a) its stature or (b) the fact that Aus viewers won't get to see the ending for 12 years.

I know I'm labouring this point but she simply doesn't belong on the show. The Sopranos débacle only underscores this fact. No way would Molloy have chosen someone like her. It's like having Jennifer Byrne on Quizmonkey. Give her bloody green room duties on Kerri-Anne, and replace her crap oh-wow-celebrities-how-exciting segment with something real.

I'm so disappointed. Not even the glimmer of a smile at the corners of my mouth watching this week's serving of Molloy. Perhaps I was thrown by the awfulness of the Garrett interview last week that made everything else not seem so bad but this week it was all that bad.

The Dalai Llama stuff was puerile - also instanced in tonight's Chaser and not done much better - and that fuck from LA did the same thing as the news on Radio National did on Monday - "we won't give any spoilers away but this is what happened..." Fucking assholes! Ross, you may not realise it but I'm not completely up-to-date on the Sopranos viewing so, yes, I'm as mad as hell.

Od, and Adam D, what about the shoehorning of Con the Fruiterer? Mick wishes he could have a tenth the talent and popularity of the Comedy Company.

The word on Molloy? Watch Numb3rs. Or First Tuesday Book Club when it's on...

Or... to put it in Micallef terminology - "The Nation with Mick Molloy... INTO THE BIN!"

Ratings versus expense was the end for Michallef. Such a shame.


"INTO THE BIN" (insert whip sound effect).

Ahhhh. And he probably got paid more than for his entire time at the ABC. Fortunately 9 didn't 'warehouse' him for six years.

Newstopia will be fantastic. Nobody will watch it but it will be the best show ever.

Ahhh. And he probably got paid more than for his entire time at the ABC. Fortunately 9 didn't 'warehouse' him for six years.

Newstopia will be fantastic. Nobody will watch it but it will be the best show ever.

I heard that story too, Adam D, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was true, but it was probably the whole package what done him in... I was so surprised it was on Nine in the first place, although that seemed to be at a time when the commercial networks were going out of their way to poach whoever from wherever.

I taped every episode of Micallef Tonight! See, that was obviously not going to last either.

Was it true about the Alan Jones gag contributing to Micallef's axing?

If it is the case that the only 'journalists' bagging the end of The Sopranos are women, I find that truly bizarre... perhaps they're all control freaks that need absolute closure? Awesome ending to a magnificent show - wish I could talk about it more...
I always thought The Russian in the forest was purposefully a red herring - one of those classic Sopranos moments (albeit a full episode) of building tension just for the sake of it. That's probably the biggest thing I've loved about this show - that it's not always going somewhere, that things just are sometimes. Like life, really.

...

Such a shame that Micallef Tonight has never been released on DVD - his Infinite Parrots piece was absolute gold; a fitting tribute to Jones finishing up on Today.

To be fair, it wouldn't be Mick Molloy without the larrikin gags. But yeah, that Dalai Lama thing in particular was predictable and laboured. (Is that Molloy's usual practice of taking a one-line joke and running with it, or are the writers producing Molloy-like material because they assume that's what he wants?)

The show really was an effort to watch. I chase-played the whole thing and skipped through the celebrity and sport bits, but I suspect most viewers just went to bed.

An additional factor in all this is that everyone on the production would know it's not going to last. There are far too many precedents. When the ABC debuts one of its 50 billion light entertainment shows, there's energy and optimism in the delivery because everyone knows it'll get a decent run. That's not here.

And another thing - Jackie O discussing the end of The Sopranos is just crap.

"I'm not going to give away any spoilers but blah, blah, blah..."

I know she didn't reveal any major plot developments away and I know it's been in the news, but she should have said nothing. As a purist - if I had seen this before I had seen the final episode I would had been furious.

Good job Jackie O will be in the studio next week - neither of them is terribly good as working off a screen.

I just thought it was dull. I hadn't laughed 20 minutes in and I turned it off. How much mileage can he get out of his "Imagine an AUSSIE version of this" routine? Ha, ha, we're all beer drinking, thong wearing dickheads.

Nothing really happens, does it? A few forced sketches and some slightly awkward segments about sports and omgfamous people. That Guantanamo Bay thing was about as topical as mad cow disease.

I don't doubt the people involved are seriously talented; in fact I'd love to see the jokes that are being rejected. Akmal's bits were the only time I cracked a smile, again. At least no celebrities were shoehorned in this week.

Mick wearing a tie still comes off like an AFL awards night. And Mick and Jackie O still don't exist in the same universe, so I'd love to know how they're doing that. Prosthetics? CGI?

Ummmm, what ?

Tiffany Cherry on the Nation. Total uppity BITCH. Unbelievable this whore. There is nothing worse than female sports reporters. This 36 year old whore should be put out to pasture. ESPN my arse, what a piece of shit, I hope she gets second smoke cancer. I fucking the sport flat chested type. The worst.

Here is the Beer ad that everyone was moaning about (I actually like the ad, its somewhat abstract and contemporary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORfkh0OojxY

Having spent far too much of my life fighting off Nigerian pyramid schemists, I'm with registrations all the way. I registered last week: it took ~7 seconds to make one and another 3 to login, and it even remembers me.

Final ep of The Nation is on tonight! Let's see if they get that jinxed achondroplasic bloke on to seal the deal.

Oi Kinal, heard you on RN this morning. If you're just the fill in guy, then when you know it is the last time you are gonna do it, you should just cut in with a plug for your website. But you wouldn't do that would you, you career seeking guy you

Oh my god, 430 afternoon news channel nine, they covered the sopranos ending. They had some mewling whore going 'I feel like I have wasted the last ten years of my life'. Why is it all the women reporters on the news articles on google news don't get it? Why is it the men think its genius?

Why is that?

Seriously go to google news, search google news for 'sopranos' and see there have been an astonishing 5000 articles written in newspapers around the world.

Invariably the ;journalists' who shitcan the ending are women.

Seriously Josh and co, a nickel's worth of advice for free. Fuck the registration for the blog off.

Studies have shown that blogs who require cumbersome sign ups with email addresses, and to make matters worse you can't even initially choose your own password with your blog, yes, studies have shown that people in the blogosphere totally resent having to register and then change a password to an easier one to 'remember' just to participate in some idle banter over television. Studies have shown.

For every ten visitors to the blog who wish to comment, I bet five who want to comment give up when they see your cumbersome process.

I hate bloggers who run their blogs this way I really do. It is like saying to the readers, the visitors to your blog, who are as important in lifeblood terms to the blog as original main posts by the blog owners are, it is like saying to these visitors, 'We have a spam problem, but even though we who run the blog visit it like three times a day to check on it, we can't be fucked filtering out the spam, so the onus is on you not us" It is like saying fuck you.

Seriously do you have any realistic understanding of the fact you are simply paranoid to the extreme if you think opening the blog to unregistered posters will be opening the floodgates for spam ads. I frequent a couple of heavily trafficked blogs on google blogger of all things, with avrage 72 comments per main page post. A new post every two days from the blog owner, totally anonymous, even non word verification posting allowed, and you never see a god damn ad on the thing. If it is it is like wikipedia, up there for a few minutes and then gone.

If you people are spruiking for your podcast listeners to get the URL out there, and win some shit, how about not putting a god damn wall for the new traffic when they get here. Spam is the blog owner's problem, not the visitors' you can't just palm off responsibility to me the reader to remember some utterly ridiculous password made of random numbers and letters, and then put the onus on me to change it in 'dashboard'! jesus it's a blog for christ's sake, a little tv critic blog, for banter about tv.

You are shooting your future traffic in the foot. Change your policy Boxcutters. It's been a year, and your main page post comment reply average utterly sucks for an operation of your caliber.

Seriously, you've got a decent podcast, you all know your stuff, you record it at a radio station for god's sake, you have well known guests, its a great radio show, but if you are gonna run a blog of the same caliber fuck the registration off! Pleeeeeaase I want to see you succeed.

And I bet one of you checks in every half day on the blog anyway. You can moderate the comments. Not us. I guarantee your comment traffic will go up. You seem to do all this analytical crap on your blog hits, without stopping to think about the fact you've locked yourself in for a first impression for traffic that is 'jesus, the podcast is great, there is pete smith, james talia, the guy who hosts tempation is there, marieke hardy is there, but why the fuck is there four blog comments?'

Annette Benning is the hottest milf around for christ's sake. Her in American Beauty getting owned by the 'Real Estate King' fucking classic. My christ the pins on that piece of work, jesus. How dare you remind me Annette Benning exists and is not in my bed right now. How dare you!

On happenings in Newark, it was just amazing. Do you remember that moment when you thought furio was going to push Tony into the helicopter blades when they were taking a piss at Atlantic city? The show was full of moments like that. And I can tell you Robert Iler has just impressed the shit out of me. Nothing but stock standard crap from Jamie-Lynn Sigler, she really isn't as good an actress as others on the show, she is just pretty. But Iler's AJ was a joy to watch grow up my word. Even as early as when they wanted to send him to military school in season 3 I think it was, you could see the emotive acting flair this guy has.

I think these rumors of shooting alternate endings is a load of shit thrown out there to throw us off the scent, i'll be VERY surprised if the dvd comes with alternate endings. This isn't going to happen. Chase wouldn't spend almost two years thinking of season six just to have it malleable at the touch of dvd remote button.

If they do make a movie, I hope it either is about the 60s New Jersy crew, with Johnny Boy and Junior or some crazy 2025 version with a 40 year old AJ etc.

Seriously think about what the future holds for Robert Iler, he was trained by Gandolfini from age 12 for christ's sake. The kid is destined for greatness, even though he just turned 22, the frigging style the guy had in 06/07 was fantastic.

I'm out of sopranos episodes, the riches episodes, what should I download?

I need a new show.

*Please note - some comments contained spoilers and have been removed.

Right there with you Jimbo - can and do watch it again and again as a stand alone ep. Amazing.

The Test Dream. End of Series Five. The dream sequence, which includes Annette Bening, could be the best dream sequence not just in the history of television but in films as well.

Awesome, markymarc. Peculiarly, my broadband connection at home is cactus at the moment, so the show got up slightly quicker than it normally does - go figure.

As for the new, big Crumpler comp, stay tuned to the blog for more details as I implement the system to score the incoming links.

my monday nights are given meaning by boxcutters.