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Fred Thompson Run Could Ruin TNT

You’ve probably heard that Senator Fred Thompson is mulling a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, then you should definitely recognize from his movie and TV roles, one of the most high profile being his long stint as District Attorney on Law & Order. Because of this fact, TV networks face an unusual problem should he enter the race, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

If Thompson enters the campaign, his on-screen alter egos may no longer get airtime.

Because of federal equal-time provisions, broadcasters that run programs featuring Thompson would open themselves up to requests from other candidates for an equivalent platform. With at least 10 other Republican hopefuls, that could be a daunting prospect.

NBC has already decided that if Thompson runs, it will replace any Law & Order episodes he’s in with repeats that do not feature the former senator. (The network has not yet decided whether to bring the program back in the fall, but if it is renewed and Thompson launches a presidential bid, he would presumably be recast.)

“We would just have to work around it,” said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks.

But the situation is more complicated for cable networks, on which viewers can tune into Law & Order and its two spin-offs nearly any hour of the day. TNT builds its schedule around a diet of Law & Order repeats — as many as eight episodes a day. Since Thompson is in more than 100 episodes over five seasons, excising the programs in which he’s featured could seriously erode the network’s lineup.

Didn’t a similar issue face California when Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for Governor? The difference was that it wasn’t a national race, though…

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Wall Street 2?!

Slashfilm reports that:

20th Century Fox is developing a sequel to Oliver Stone’s 1987 drama Wall Street. The studio has signed deals with the original producer and also the writer. Stephen Schiff script Money Never Sleeps will follow Gordon Gekko’s release from jail and entry into the exciting world of hedge funds. The project is being set-up as a potential starring vehicle for Michael Douglas. Oliver Stone is not expected to return as director.

The comments at TechCrunch make some interesting suggestions/guesses at what he might get into now that he’s out…

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The Zimmers – “My Generation”

Now this is cool. Check out the YouTube video of The Zimmers covering The Who’s My Generation:

The oldest and greatest rock band in the world – meet The Zimmers and their amazing cover of The Who’s My Generation. Lead singer Alf is 90 – it’s quite something when he sings “I hope I die before I get old”. And he’s not the oldest – there are 99 and 100-year-olds in the band!

The Zimmers will feature in a BBC TV documentary being aired in May 2007. Documentary-maker Tim Samuels has been all over Britain recruiting isolated and lonely old people – those who can’t leave their flats or who are stuck in rubbish care homes.

The finale of the show is this group of lonely old people coming together to stick it back to the society that’s cast them aside – by forming a rock troupe and trying to storm into the pop charts.

Some massive names from the pop world have thrown their weight behind The Zimmers… The song is produced by Mike Hedges (U2, Dido, Cure), the video shot by Geoff Wonfor (Band Aid, Beatles Anthology), and it was recorded in the legendary Beatles studio 2 at Abbey Road.

Look out for the single being released from May 21 – with proceeds going to a good cause.

And check out more photos and info at [The Zimmers’ MySpace page].

via Cynical-C

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Trailer to the Moon

Bad Astronomy Blog reports on a very cool new NASA trailer:

Keith Cowing at NASAWatch put up a link to a video put out ostensibly by NASA, but it’s not like other ones they’ve done. This one is very, very cool.

The hi-res version is here, and is worth waiting for.

The music is cool. It has ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ overtones at first, as Keith points out, then it kicks into a ‘Battlestar Galactica’ thing. I wonder who did this, and what the music is from?

Incidentally, this is the kind of thing I was yelling at NASA to do years ago (well, not literally yelling, but I felt like it sometimes). A handful of these trailers, playing in movie theaters before some crappy SciFi epic, would go a long way toward showing the public that going back to the Moon is such an amazing and awe-inspiring thing to do. NASA needs to do lots more stuff like this.

I agree…

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