TWO GREAT TASTES THAT TASTE GREAT TOGETHER? So, how do we feel about Kristin Chenoweth joining The Good Wife in a recurring capacity as "a top-of-her-game political reporter who matches wits with Julianne Margulies’ Alicia and Chris Noth’s Peter?"  As for me, love Kristin, and love Good Wife, but think Kristin tends to fare better when it's more stylized/over-the-top (Pushing Daisies) than in something that is as grounded in ugly reality as Good Wife is.

TWENTY PEOPLE COULD SAY THAT THEY LIKED ME, ARTIE, AND I AM TELLING YOU I'D STILL BE THINKING SEVENTEEN OF THEM WERE LYING: Flavorwire's (single page!) list of the top ten tv shows about the making of tv shows demonstrates that there aren't, actually, ten such great shows yet, as Alan Sepinwall's similar 2009 list confirms (though he, at least, remembers Max Headroom).

I'LL TAKE RANDOM PARENTING VIDEOS FOR $200: I've got nothing to blog about this morning, so go watch this adorable video of a white rhino being born at a Tel Aviv zoo.  Or I've got four words for you: "Never again, Grace Elizabeth!"

THIS FIELD, THIS GAME: Houston Babies baseball is alive and well.

UNTIL YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO, YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SHAKESPEARE THE WAY IT'S MEANT TO BE PLAYED:  Aaron Sorkin may repeat himself. It's really quite something, a virtuous and proportional response, and you know it.

KILL THIS PORTMANTEAU, NOW:  "Breastaurant"?  Ugh. (And then kill the concept to which it is attached.)

TO BE FAIR, YOSEMITE IS PRETTY GREAT: Obviously, we're going to talk  about The Newsroom, and, unlike critics, we mere mortals have only seen one episode.  Perhaps because of that, I liked the show much more than many of the critics did (Alan in particular noted that his review would have been better if based on the pilot alone).  In particular, the opening sequence and most of the actual newscast worked quite effectively, and the performances were pretty uniformly solid.  A few thoughts to provoke discussion:

• Especially in the middle portion of the episode (after the opening sequence but before they go on air), it seemed to me part of the problem was the direction.  Sorkinese is meant to be spoken very very quickly (especially Romantic Comedy Sorkinese), and the pace seemed oddly slow for a chunk of that act, with pauses that seemed out of place.  (Allison Pill, who has the most screwball part, arguably suffers the most from this.)
• Several of the reviews have noted that the decision to set the show in the recent past leads to the show being about people who have almost magical knowledge.  The pilot includes a bit of reporting where Will and his team are able to get a story far before anyone in the real world did because of pure, unadulterated luck and dei ex machinae.  I hope this doesn't continue and turn into "Aaron Sorkin shows how to do news better than it was done!"
• There are very clearly gender issues there.  Obviously, Sorkin has relationship issues, given that Studio 60 was a very long apology letter to an ex-girlfriend, but maybe he needs to work them out in a way other than TV writing.