I was watching the first season of the unbelievably wonderful Showtime television adaptation of Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life,” when I heard the story of Marcus Halevi. The act focused on Halevi’s life as a photojournalist and the memories about his job that still haunts them. One of those memories, the one that haunts him most deeply was a picture he took while working as a photographer for a newspaper. 

Every reporter or photographer who covers these kinds of stories (as I do) has had the conversation with themselves that Halevi had on that bluff. Thankfully, many of them never have to make that split-second decision and decide whether to help or stay behind and do your job. Many criticize Halevi, and later Halevi seems to question his own decision that day, for “letting a woman drown” just to get a good picture, just to sell some papers.

As journalists we often see things we wish we hadn’t and ask questions that many people, including our readers, viewers and ourselves, would rather not know the answers to. I don’t second guess Halevi’s decision not to help. As a journalist, my first job was working in Destin, Florida, walking stretches of sugar-white sand of a coastline fraught with rip tides. Having fairly close relationships with a number of beach umbrellas attendants, lifeguards and firefighters, I learned that often times those who go in after someone who is drowning are often killed themselves and then someone must go in after that person and so on and so forth. Whether that was Halevi’s reasoning that stormy day, no one can say for sure. But I find the idea that because someone is a journalist or someone is a photographer that they were complicit in the death of an innocent person just to get a good photographer insulting beyond reproach. There are those in this business who relish the sorrow, pain and misfortune of others for their own professional gain but that is, in my experience, most certainly the exception rather than the rule. As someone who has gotten into my car after an assignment and fought back tears or just weeped openly, I can tell you that this job gets to you and stays with you.

You never forget the stories you cover, the things people say to you and the things you witness with a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. Halevi certainly did not.

With everyone chiming in on and what their favorite (and least favorite) Super Bowl ads were last night, I thought I’d throw in my two cents on what my favorite spots were from last night’s surprisingly epic game between the Steelers and Cardinals. I’ll spare including links for the commercials I liked the least, namely all of Budweiser’s ad, even the one featuring Conan O’Brien, a guy that I think is always funny except in this ad, which I thought was otherwise pretty stupid. The combination of the dreadful Clydesdale ads and that douchebag with the telestrator really made Budweiser the night’s big loser for me.

Without further adieu, the best of Super Bowl ‘09 ads:

Career Builder

Though I find the repetitious nature of this ad a little tiring, the combination of the koala getting punched and the woman riding the sea lion is one that made me laugh harder than I had laughed at anything all night.

Audi

Simply put, this ad appeals to the 10-year-old in me that loves Jason Statham and car chases.

Pixar’s Up

Though I still think this ad plays a little too much like a Pixar’s greatest hits reel, this movie looks like unbridled wonderful, though I’m still not sure exactly what it’s about.

Cars.com

This was an ad that I really liked but was kind of on the fence about as to whether it was one of my favorites of the night. I really liked the set up but felt like the end fell really short. The ad feels a little too ambitious for Cars.com.

Apparently a diner in Brooklyn burned down last night just steps away from where Denis Leary’s Rescue Me, a show about New York City firefighters, was filming.

I’m not a firefighter, I just play one on TV.

Please tell me I’m not the only person who watched Sons of Anarchy this season.

Yes, I was a little reticent at first. I mean a drama about a biker gang in California wasn’t exactly my cup of tea particularly after watching the entire series of The Wire this summer. But alas, SOA really filled the void in my heart that The Wire left. I will abandon my comparisons to The Wire there as the shows have little in common other than my adoration for both of them.

The show features one of the most underrated casts on television (including Ron Perlman) and features Apatow alum Charlie Hunnam as the show’s lead. I was convinced that Hunnam not only couldn’t act but was sporting a fake British accent for Apatow’s short-lived but wonderful series starring Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogan, but he’s great in as the perpetually cool but conflicted Jax Teller. The show also features really strong contributions from Peg Bundy.. sorry, Katey Segal and Ryan Hurst, better known for his role as Gerry Bertier in Remember the Titans.

The good news for people who loved this show or have yet to embrace it is that FX picked it up for another year (with the departure of The Shield and the slow downward spiral of Rescue Me, I’m sure they’ll take what they can get). I wouldn’t be surprised to see SOA and Damages become FX’s new flagship series.

Despite peddling hours of nonsense reality television (see “The Real Housewives of… (Fill in the city, I’m sure Tacoma is next on the list) and ruining Top Chef with too many team challenges and almost abhorrently blatant and offensive product placement (see: The Not-So-Subtle push-in on the T-Mobile Sidekick Hosea is using to call home during a recent episode), Bravo has won favor with me and brought back Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing on weekday mornings and for one hour at like 2 a.m.

Even though Lost, Heroes, Fringe, Scrubs, and The Office – all shows I love – are returning to the airwaves this month, it is  has been Aaron Sorkin’s White House drama that I’ve looked forward to watching every day for the past few weeks. I was a passive West Wing fan during its run from 1999 to 2006, but watching it now, I have a real appreciation for Sorkin’s brilliance and the utter greatness of the show’s cast. 

I was already somewhat pre-disposed to Sorkin worship before enjoying The West Wing’s run on Bravo on weekday mornings. I’ve seen every episode of Sorkin’s tragically underrated Sportsnight, a dramedy starring Six Feet Under’s Peter Krause and Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives fame. A lot of the Sportsnight regulars make appearances on The West Wing, including the great Joshua Malina who comes on in 2003 as speechwriter Will Bailey.

Part touching, compelling political drama, part workplace comedy, The West Wing is one of the best American television shows of the last decade and certainly the best and most realistic political show ever on television.

Below is one of my favorite West Wing moments and one, I’m not afraid to say, gave me goosebumps and made me cry. Just amazing writing and compelling television. If this doesn’t move you, there’s a better than average chance you don’t have a soul.

Generally I reserve this blog space for things that are (by my own admission) of little consequence. Let’s be honest, aside from the hearts of a few passionate fans, there isn’t a whole lot riding on tomorrow’s Indiana-Michigan State game.

The same most certainly cannot be said for tonight’s presidential debate scheduled to take place tonight in Oxford, Mississippi.

In fact, few things are more important than what Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain have to say after one of the most tumultous weeks in our nation’s history.

Regardless of what side of the fence you’re on, or even if you’re straddling said fence, it is critically important to tune in for tonight’s debate, which will focus primarily on foreign policy. Whether you’re a democrat who’s not yet sold on Obama’s over-generalized plan for the future (ah-em) or a Republican who just isn’t sure that four more years of a Republican president is such a good idea, the debate tonight at Ole Miss could go a long way to deciding who you vote for in November.

But more than anything, Americans need to be talked to, need their questions answered, which is why Sen. McCain’s proposal earlier this week to postpone the debate was baffling at best and idiotic at worst. The last thing Americans want as the Nation pays for decades of de-regulation in the financial sector is silence, and while we may not get to see Gov. Sarah Palin dance around long-awaited questions about her checkered past and questionable bona fides, we will get to see the two men vying for our trust and the job of our nation’s chief executive answer questions about what the next four years could look like under the Obama and McCain administrations respectively.

Forget one-hour premiere of The Office (which was great – despite my lambasting of the strike-shortened fourth season), this is must-see TV.

Reuters, among other wire services, is reporting that Scrubs (easily one of my favorite shows ever) is making the jump from NBC to ABC. This is particularly good news for diehard Scrubs fans, as well as those who have casually enjoyed the show in its syndication run on WGN and Comedy Central as it appeared during the 100-day-long writers strike last year that the show, which NBC had every intention of killing at the end of it’s seventh season, appeared to be headed for an unconclusive ending and no proper series finale. ABC has picked up the show, will air it in HD and has commissioned some extra mini webisodes.

The relationship between ABC and Scrubs isn’t exactly something new. It was to the network that Lawrence, fresh off his hit sitcom Spin City, originally pitched Scrubs and though they owned the property and produced the series, the network sold the distribution rights to NBC who’ve aired the show for seven seasons.

While some may consider this burying the lead, the announcement of Scrubs departure from the Peacock also marked the announcement that the show’s breakout star, Zach Braff, would likely  not be returning.

This, from Braff at the Television Critics Association press tour today in Los Angeles:

“My sense is this is my last year,” Braff said.

Even more alarming than the loss of Braff’s Dr. John Dorian from the cast is this bit of future casting news from ABC Entertainment prez Steve McPherson.

“….ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson indicated there might be a way to keep the comedy going with new cast members, a la NBC’s revolving-door medical drama “ER.”

“We do think that it will not hopefully be a one-season situation,” McPherson said. “We do think there’s an opportunity after that — talking to Zach, talking to Bill — and whether all of the cast is a part of that, I still think there’s a great amount of growth there.”"

I think what makes this show work, at least for me, is the dynamic that exists between the cast members. The reason that people no longer care about ER and why it’s no longer relevant is because of this revolving door of casting that the show has been pushing out since Julianna Marguilles, Anthony Edwards and some guy named George Clooney left that show. I fear that Scrubs might now suffer the same fate.

The New York Times TV blog, TV Decoder, reported today via Reuters that Michael J. Fox will appear as a guest star on the upcoming season of Rescue Me as the wheelchair-bound boyfriend of the ex-wife of the show’s protagonist, Tommy Gavin (played so brilliantly by Dennis Leary, who I hate in everything else besides this show).

This is great news for another of my favorite shows. Fox did a guest spot in 2004 on Scrubs as the Kevin Casey, a brilliant but obsessive-compulsive super doctor and was terrific. And his addition to Rescue Me will no doubt be a boost for show, which many claimed took a hit in season four and will see slagging viewership when it returns in 2009.

Given that I’m a reporter who covers the military, in addition to my other duties, you can imagine that a seven-part miniseries written by David Simon (a former Baltimore Sun reporter who penned my latest television addiction and the only thing keeping me sane during the NFL and college football offseasons — The Wire) about a reporter embedded with an elite Marine unit during the early days of the American invasion of Iraq might peak my interest. The miniseries is based on a book by Evan Wright.

While it’s still a little early for me to decide whether or not I really love this show given that only one episode is aired, I will say that from what I saw in that first episode, I like the show very much. The characters in this series are very much like the characters in The Wire. Every character, both protagonists and antagonists, have redeemable moments and even the show’s foremost protagonists have moments that make you cringe.

The show does have problem areas for me, including the way the Marines’ parts are written and how stereotypical all of the Marine roles feel so far. This depiction of soldiers in a war zone is hardly new and hardly interesting. Simon will have to figure out a way to humanize the soldiers lest the show become a 7-hour sequel to Sam Mendes’ Jarhead.

Saw this last night on The Soup and it made me cry: