It’s amazing how quickly things can go to hell.  A year ago, the cable channel AMC was one of my favorites. They had Breaking Bad, the amazing show starring Bryan Cranston about a drug dealing chemistry teacher, they were coming out with The Walking Dead, a TV show about zombies, and they showed good movies even if they were awkwardly censored. Fast forward to today, where we have Walking Dead show runner Frank Darabont quitting the show, the new series The Killing had a critically despised first season, and now it looks like the last season of Breaking Bad might not even be coming back to the network due to budget issues

Thanks to LA Times, it has been reported that there have been issues with the network demanding the supposedly final fifth season be cut down to 6-8 episodes instead of the regular 13.  Representatives for the show have been shopping around the show to other networks should talks with the network fall through.  What really pisses me off is that the big reason for the budget cuts that are causing these issues is that Mad Men creator Matt Weiner got a really nice (i.e. expensive) deal to stay on with AMC with the show for an additional two season.

I obviously have issues with this.  Breaking Bad is a great show unlike many that we see even through this “Golden Age of Television”, but I can’t even think how a show that wants just one more season could be successful at another network.  And I can’t think of anything more disappointing than this show not having a proper ending.  Either way, what it seems that we have here is AMC putting all of their eggs in one liquored up basket. Either way, with Darabont leaving supposedly because of these budget cuts, and this Breaking Bad business, I’m very worried for the future of both of these shows.  Stay tuned for more information, and let’s hope that both parties come to an agreement that lets this show finish on a creative high without network politics messing with it. 

AMC’s Breaking Bad airs every Sunday at 10 PM ET/ 9PM CT.
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The Sopranos began as a Mafia series but eventually revealed itself as the poignant story of a multi-problem family. The Wire looked to be about drugs but ended up as the most credible account of U.S. city government ever put on a screen. Mad Men, which started out as a drama about advertising, emerged as a detailed picture of upper-middle-class New York in the 1960s. Breaking Bad began as a story about a chemistry teacher with terminal cancer who begins cooking up crystal meth so that he can leave money to his family; it’s since become a sinister parable of humans trapped in a system of unrelenting evil.

All this being so, it’s probably natural that AMC (the home of Mad Men, Breaking Bad and several other notable series) should be the most erratic television channel on the air. Depending on what time of which day you look in, it’s a model of high-class professionalism or a pathetic example of TV Gone Wrong.

AMC, which was called the American Movie Channel until it decided to be simply AMC, is part of the cable television holdings of Charles F. Dolan, a Forbes-authenticated billionaire (his US$3.3-billion makes him No. 336 in the world). Nevertheless, it often runs on the cheap. For years after it began, in 1984, AMC’s programming showed resourcefulness but not much else. Aside from a vigorous campaign to promote the restoration of old films, its schedule had an air of desperation. It ran frequent Monsterfests, week-long festivals of horror movies. A marathon of Marx Brothers was a major event. AMC was the place where you could find Beach Blanket Bingo, if you were of a mind. For a while it filled otherwise empty periods with trailers, drive-in movie ads and commercials urging viewers to visit the snack bar; these were offered as collectors’ items though they were not items anyone else would collect.

Even now, while its awards pile up, AMC retains its original can-we-get-away-with-this approach. Every weekday morning it runs three hours of infomercials and an hour or two of Three Stooges comedies, the most recent of them 40 years old. When not showing an episode from a series it’s commissioned, it fills the schedule by recycling movies that long ago wore out their welcome.

But as an outlet for major series, AMC has developed the ability to see quality where others miss it. Both HBO and Showtime turned down Mad Men before AMC bet on it. As for Breaking Bad, it was first considered by the FX network, then went over to TNT, then HBO and Showtime, finally AMC.

AMC has since done well with The Walking Dead and The Killing. It has a new series to introduce in November, Hell on Wheels, advertised as “epic drama,” a made-in-Alberta saga about building an American transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. This historic event apparently involved murders, Old West gunslingers, some dangerous Civil War veterans and the usual rapacious capitalists. Early promotion excerpts have an authentic look but the voice-over advertising echoes the ads for Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will Be Blood. AMC apparently wants Hell on Wheels to do for railroads what Anderson did for oil.

When everything works at AMC, it delivers a particularly stylish kind of television. The script of Breaking Bad is brusque (the characters are either tough or deeply depressed or both) but the sets and the direction make every sentence count. “Ominous” is the key word. As a killer walks toward his prey we hear a distinct crack every time a heel clicks the cement floor. The musical director specializes in slow, insistent drumbeats. The actors specialize in long, broody looks.

What comes through in Mad Men is the stylishness that arises from an obsessive attention to detail. In a way that’s rare for television or movies, every detail seems to work, from the women’s make-up to the men’s scarves, from the topography of the offices to the liquor bottles.

And the elegance of the art direction never overwhelms the narrative — or the sense of history. We find ourselves observing a world in which men vigorously inhale smoke at every possible moment and executives drink scotch at their desks before lunch. To the young, this distant planet may be hard to imagine; it seems almost equally unbelievable to those of us who lived through it.

Last year the loyal viewers of Mad Men heard potentially tragic news. Matt Weiner was unhappy! Matt Weiner, the show’s creator, previously known as a writer and producer on The Sopranos, was refusing to sign a contract for another season!

The reason was never clear. It was said he wanted more money, or that he was angry because the episodes were being shortened, or because he was being pressured to eliminate a few characters to cut costs. Production had been delayed because AMC couldn’t come to terms with him.

Admirers bellowed and cried, via Facebook, in his defence. Months went by and no solution was announced. The Hollywood Reporter urged  AMC to give Weiner what he wanted, whatever it was. After all, AMC should remember that before Mad Men came along, “They were nowhere,” at best a second- rate movie channel. Mad Men put them on the map. “Pay the man.”

So it came to pass. One way or another, ACM, Weiner  and his production company reached an agreement and shooting for the fifth season begins next week, for showing in 2012. The other day, in an interview, Weiner said he knows just how to deal with the pregnancy of the exquisitely named January Jones, who plays Betty, the former wife of Don Draper, the main character in the series. Her baby arrives in November. Will Betty (who now has an extremely boring second husband) give birth as part of the story? Weiner won’t tell. He also isn’t saying how Mad Men will end three seasons from now, though he claims he knows that, too. That’s OK, Matt. Don’t feel pressured. We know you’re in charge. Just get those episodes done. We’re all waiting.

Many jazz musicans present themselves not only as players but as composers, with varying results. 

Seattle-based Glenn Crytzer — guitarist, banjoist, singer — is one of those rare creative beings who beautifully fills both roles.  The evidence is on YouTube, and most recently on a new small-band CD, HARLEM MAD, which presents twenty (count ‘em) originals by Glenn, with star turns by Meschiya Lake, Solomon Douglas, and Ray Skjelbred. 

Instead of brooding “compositions” that serve only as jumping-off places for long solos, or thirty-two bar borrowings that take their A section from something familiar and their B from something even more so, Glenn’s songs have real shape and authenticity. 

On HARLEM MAD, you’ll hear a broad variety of performances that could be taken from the archives — unissued takes and masters from 1926 to 1949, from Glenn’s own take on rough-hewn South Side Chicago of the Twenties (Jelly Roll Morton, Jimmy Bertrand) to cheerfully lopsided jump tunes that nod to Monk as well as Jacquet and Byas. 

And there are vocals as well — for the justly-praised Meschiya Lake, who comes through on this CD as a fully-developed star personality, whether moaning the blues or suggesting that we get rhythm and jump with her.  The songs romp, groove, and moan — there are paeans to getting frisky on the dance floor, as well as heartbroken blues and naughty laments about making love to the wrong woman in the dark . . . all genres are more than adequately spoken for!’

I thought of Rod Serling — a jazz fan wanders into a diner where he’s never been, in an unidentified time and place.  The coffee is hot; the apple pie is fine . . . . and the jukebox needs no coins and plays one wildly appealing yet unfamiliar song after another . . .  But this isn’t the Twilight Zone, and HARLEM MAD isn’t a science-fiction dreamlike artifact.  

Here are Glenn, Meschiya, and the Syncopators performing one of Glenn’s originals from HARLEM MAD, NEW YEAR BLUES.  (And, yes, who could mistake the trumpet player in the clip?  That’s our own Bria Skonberg.):

And TEN ‘TIL FIVE, which suggests both the 1941 Goodman Sextet with Charlie Christian and one of the Minton’s sessions recorded that same year by Jerry Newman:

See what I mean?  The compositions on HARLEM MAD are the title song / TEN ‘TIL FIVE / YOU DON’T SAY / WITCHING HOUR BLUES / FORTUNATE LOVE / BARNEY’S BOUNCE / PAYIN’ NO MIND / CENTURY STOMPS / NEW YEAR BLUES / WALLINGFORD WIGGLES / I GOT NOTHIN’ / LAZY / THE CLAWJAMMER / MR. RHYTHM / FUMBLIN’ AROUND / THE DEPRIVATION BLUES / RAINIER VALLEY RHYTHM / PARC ON SUMMIT / THE BEAVER BUMP / NICE AND SLOE. 

The multi-talented musicians on the CD are Steve Mostovoy, trumpet / cornet; Dave Loomis, trombone; Craig Flory, clarinet / tenor; Paul Woltz, alto / brass bass; Ray Skjelbred or Solomon Douglas, piano; Glenn Crytzer, guitar / banjo / vocal; Dave Brown or Matt Weiner, string bass; Mike Daugherty, drums / washboard; Meschiya Lake, vocals. 

It’s not nice to tease people, but if you’re feeling whimsical when one of your jazz pals is visiting, you might pick a track from this CD and put it on, unannounced and unidentified . . . when the eyebrows go up and the friend wants to know exactly what that music (newly encountered) is, see how far you can go with a straight face, “Oh, that’s an unissued 1930 Champion by an otherwise unknown Chicago band,” or “That’s something they dug out of the Savoy vaults from 1947.  Like it?” 

Glenn  Crytzer and the Syncopators are just that good, just that swinging. 

There’s a great interview with Glenn at SWUNGOVER: http://swungover.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/interview-with-glenn-crytzer-of-the-syncopators/

and for more information about HARLEM MAD, visit Glenn’s website: http://www.syncopators.com.  Mellow indeed.

The True Blood stud will appear in the sixth season finale of the Fox procedural as “a flashy, arrogant man obsessed with bowling,” says TV Guide Magazine. Yep, bowling is the name of the game when Booth and Bones go undercover to solve the brutal murder of a league member, and Alejandro’s character is a suspect.

Ready for more of today’s TV dish? Well…

• ABC Daytime boss Brian Frons may be in a bit of behind-the-scenes trouble after axing both All My Children and One Life to Live late last week, a source tells Page Six. A rep for ABC, though, tells the gossip column there has been no fallout over his serial sudser slashing, stating: “Frons is not leaving the network.”

• Glee‘s Chris Colfer has sold to the Disney Channel a pilot based on the children’s book, The Little Leftover Witch, says Deadline.

• Speaking of Colfer: Time Magazine has released its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the Glee fave made the cut. Other TV types on the estimable list: Parks and Recreation‘s Amy Poehler; Gossip Girl‘s Blake Lively (?!), Mad Men creator Matt Weiner, and author George R.R. Martin, whose Game of Thrones begot an instantly renewed HBO series.

• Sarah Shahi fans, rejoice! While it’s not officially official, AdWeek is reporting that USA’s Fairly Legal has been picked up for a second season. Expect confirmation on Monday, May 2 at the cabler’s upfront presentation.

• NBC has renewed Late Night with Jimmy Fallon for a third season, EW.com reports.

• A&E has set a premiere date for the second season of The Glades: Sunday, June 5 at 10/9c.

• Things are burning up in Mystic Falls, and TVGuide.com has that picture to prove it. Take a look at this sneak peek from The Vampire Diaries‘ season finale and tell us what you think is really going on with Damon and Elena.

Which TVLine Items have you talking today?

Some things that happened recently:

- As previously reported, Stephen Colbert was due to sing Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ on ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ last Friday.  And it was awesome.

I don’t know what I enjoyed most because it had it all- completely legit musicians playing a novelty song! dramatic rearrangement of a novelty song! pyrotechnics! a single car door being moved across the stage! Taylor freaking Hicks!* I don’t know what they could have done to make this better, except add all of these people.

- Hopefully Jon Hamm has shaved his beard and stopped carrying around poop as he now has a job to do.  ‘Mad Men’ creator Matt Weiner and AMC finally cut a deal.  Though no dollar amount has been confirmed, Weiner did say that there will be three more seasons, ending the show at seven.  Any characters leaving the show will be doing so for creative reasons, not the network’s mandate that Weiner lose two characters each season.  Production will resume in July and the season will premiere in March 2012.

- Speaking of premiere dates- ‘True Blood’ and ‘Entourage’ have them.  The vampire series will premiere its fourth season- ‘the season of the witch’- on June 26.  ‘Entourage’ will premiere its thankfully final season July 24 with a movie released shortly after its finale.

- Kristin Stewart isn’t the only fairest of them all.  Lily Collins has been cast as Snow White in ‘The Brothers Grimm: Snow White’ not to be confused with Stewart’s ‘Snow White and the Huntsman.’  To help get the two straight, I have made this informative table:

You’re welcome!

- Jennifer Lawrence now has her leading men for ‘The Hunger Games.’  Josh Hutcherson (‘The Kids Are All Right’) is our kind-hearted, bread-making Peeta and Liam Hemsworth (Miley Cyrus’s Ex ‘The Last Song’) is our hunting, ‘bad boy’ Gale.

Hemsworth’s character Gale is supposed to be two years older (at 18) than Lawrence and Hutcherson (who play 16-year-olds). Hemsworth looks to be about 28, but to my astonishment, he is only 21.  Hutcherson is (and looks) 19 which is seriously going to make me feel like a dirty old lady when I’m salivating over Peeta in the movie.

- Get ready for Smithmalan!  Both Jaden and Big Willy Smith have joined M. Night Shyamalan’s next project.  Set 1,000 years in the future, the film follows a young boy and his estranged father as they try to survive on an abandoned Earth after their ship crashes there.  Let’s hope its more ‘Sixth Sense’ and less ‘The Happening.’

That’s all I got for today.  Til next time -cvm

*Soul patrol.

Lost, Harry Potter, 24, and Michael Scott’s Office are all coming to a close or over, it’s good to have a least one great show left creating great stories. (Community and Parks and Recreation are growing favorites)

I’m excited for Don to kick his new wife to the curb. I predict an affair on his current wife with his ex; I’m hoping at least.

Don needs to find his equal. Don needs Dagny Taggart.

Mad Men Season 5 will start early next year.

UPDATE: Mad Men Season’s 1-4 will be available on Netflix Instant Queue July 27th.

Matt Weiner’s lucrative new deal, which a source said was worth about US$30-million over three years, was unveiled two days after cable channel AMC said the Emmy-winning show would not return this summer because of the talks impasse.

Even with the settlement, the fifth season will still not premiere until around March, since production has not yet begun and other shows have been slated in its place.

“These will be the last three seasons,” Weiner told Hollywood news outlet Deadline.com, adding that he turned down a deal four or five times in the last few days.

Weiner had been at loggerheads with AMC and producer Lionsgate over three key issues: running time, budget and product placement.

Under a compromise, the season opener and finale will clock in at 47 minutes each, just as all the episodes did last season. The other 11 episodes will be 45 minutes each, although Weiner has the option to produce 47-minute versions for other platforms, such as digital downloads and DVDs.

Details on the show’s budget were not specified, but the source said no cast cuts would be required unless Weiner wanted to kill off characters to fit in with his storyline. Speculation had run rampant in recent days that Weiner would be forced to reduce the payroll because of a tighter budget.

While Weiner will continue to have full creative control over the show, including the use of commercial products, AMC and Lionsgate will make it easier for advertisers to trumpet their involvement, the source said.

Mad Men, revolving around the martini-swilling staff at a Madison Avenue agency in the turbulent 1960s, organically incorporates well known consumer products in its episodes.

Despite drawing tiny ratings for AMC, it is one of the most acclaimed shows on television and won the best drama Emmy for three consecutive years. Its fourth season, which ended last October, will be eligible for the Emmy Awards in September.

AMC is a unit of Cablevision Systems Corp. Lionsgate is a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Then one day you read in the paper that this old restaurant’s owners have decided to bring in a new chef with some kind of bee in his bonnet about creating innovative recipes from scratch. One of those guys who’s got an idea and, like a terrier with a sweat sock, he won’t let it go. Why he went to work for this old restaurant when there are far better ones in the neighborhood you don’t know. You just know that you’ve heard good things about him.  So you think, what the heck, might as well give that old place a try just for kicks – despite their reputation for dull, dated fare. So you stop in. And lo and behold, once you step inside the dreary exterior it’s an oasis of cool; the whole place comes alive and suddenly you’re lounging in a haven you never even knew existed. The staff is super smooth, and not a little easy on the eyes. Their clothes are spectacularly tasteful. Intrigued, you sit and order. Someone brings you a cocktail and then the meal arrives… and it’s sensational. The presentation is spectacular, they’ve thought of everything, and the dishes are fabulous. Nuanced, flavorful, and bold at the same time. How did this happen?

Week after week you return and you just can’t get enough of the stuff. Your friends love it too. ‘S the toast of the town. At which point the restaurant suddenly closes. What?? But why? Then finally the newspaper runs an article saying all this innovative food costs a ton. The ingredients are super-expensive. Plus, apparently there hasn’t been enough turnover in the restaurant – they aren’t interested in people lingering. Matter of fact, they want you to spend less time enjoying it because by golly, they need more customers so let’s cut your meal time in half, shall we? Then you read that the chef’s not happy at all, and he won’t cook anymore if the restaurant’s owners aren’t going to let him do it his way. The way everyone else – like you and your friends — likes it. It’s a stalemate – only you, the diner, are the ultimate loser because nobody can go eat there til Lord knows when.

That’s exactly what’s happening to TV’s Mad Men. See AMC’s multiple Emmy-winning hit show is in trouble. And if you thought your Sunday nights this summer would heat up with all the glorious shenanigans and sleight of hand as practiced by the ever-deft cool cad Don Draper, sadly you’re mistaken. In fact, we won’t see any Mad Men til 2012. Here’s the deal. According to reports, the network (which wasn’t too exciting for a long time til MM came along) is locked in a nasty battle with the studio and the guy who created the show. If he wants to keep doing it, he has to agree to three things. 1) He’s gotta make the episodes shorter, and add more commercials. 2) He has to put all kinds of new advertiser’s products into actual scenes. Remember the show’s about advertising, and they were kinda brilliant the way they “placed” things like Kodak – so if any show can do it, Mad Men can, but it might not feel nearly as organic. And 3) here’s the tough one: they say the show’s got to get rid of TWO regular cast members per season. Now that doesn’t mean you have to kill them off altogether, but  you might only see them once in a blue moon. On the flip side, they’ve offered this guy $30 million dollars to do all this – but allegedly he cannot stomach those three demands. So it’s a nasty negotiation and it’s already 86’d the brand new season slated to begin this summer. But you won’t mind sitting tight til 2012, will you? Hmmm. What would you do? For today’s poll I was going to list some characters to see who you could live without, but the idea is so unpleasant (No Roger? No Pete? No Joan? No Peggy?) that we’ll skip that. In the meantime, let’s stay tuned and hope they bring the show back sooner rather than later.

Today’s poll:

Voice your choice in today’s featured poll and tell us which of these AMC shows is your favorite:

1)   Mad Men

2)   Breaking Bad

3)   The Walking Dead

Currently, AMC and Lionsgate are locked in contract negotiations with Mad Men creator Matt Weiner. The major sticking point is reducing production costs by jettison some of its bloated ensemble cast. (Please don’t send them over to Grey’s Anatomy!) Might I suggest ditching Pete and Peggy! Just sayin’. Now, if Weiner can’t come to an agreement AMC and Lionsgate could go forward with production of the stylish, Emmy-winning series without its creator. Now before you clutch your vintage 50s pearls in horror, it might not come to this.

Perhaps it’s just typical game of negotiation chicken. Moreover, it’s not as though most fans watch the show because of its creator anyway. Given that the show is going into its fifth season perhaps AMC and Lionsgate are betting the show is so well oiled it could practically run itself. If the unthinkable were to happen it wouldn’t be the first showrunner to be ousted by studio. Let’s look some other examples.

The West Wing – Whether it was Sorkin’s catfight with TWoP or arrest for drug possession or his general douchebaggery that led to his departure from the series he created, (wiki says it was an internal conflict with Warner Bros), but the show continued for what seemed like three hundred years without him. He did show up in the series finale. I bet that must have made everyone warm and cozy.

ER – There was no bad blood; show creator Michael Crichton died in November of 2008. ER continued for another five months before ending its lengthy run. To be sure, it’s not clear how much actual day to day input Crichton had, but if you’ve ever been stuck on a long flight and read one of his girthy novels, you realize that ER was pure Crichton.

Ir remains to be seen whether the parties involved will come to a reasonable compromise. No doubt fans of the series – and I count myself as a casual fan, despite having seen every single episode – are wondering what all this means for the highly anticipated season five debut. It’s kind of assy of AMC and Lionsgate to make demands on Weiner who has put plenty of cashmoney in their pockets, and in AMC’s case, really put their channel on the map.

It’s very rare that I love a show to its core:  Sex and the City (SATC), Gilmore Girls (GG), and Mad Men. While I can watch SATC and GG in its entirety in reruns and from my DVD collection, I am left hanging from Season 4′s finale with Mad Men. Yesterday, AMC and Matt Weiner announced that I have to wait until 2012. The rumor I heard from an inside source is that March 2012 is the earliest we will see the show.  So, they are telling me it’s okay for fans to have to wait 12 months until a new episode is revealed and the answers to my questions are resolved.  Is anyone else worried about Don Draper?  He was in the middle of an alcoholic breakdown!  What about Peggy?  She’s so strong, yet so secretly fragile.  And Sally Draper needs some guidance!  Heck, by the time they start filming Mad Men again, Kiernan Shipka (Sally) will have grown six inches. So, in the meantime, I am in mourning.  I guess I will Netflix Seasons 1-4 and milk every episode until Don Draper pours another drink and enters my living room with a swagger.

Here are a few Mad Men posts to tide you over until 2012….yeah, right.
1. Mad Men Withdrawal--you are going to suffering through a lot of this in 2011.

2. Mad Men Monday–some fun places you can find little Mad Men nuggets of information from QVC to my interview with Kiernan Shipka at the Saturn Awards.

3. Emmys, Part 2:  Photos with my favorite gal, Kiernan Shipka, at the Emmys gifting suite.  Maybe I will run into her again during the Kids’ Choice Awards gifting suite?  I will keep you posted on any Mad Men sightings.

Now the big question is:  What are you going to do with your Sunday nights this summer/fall?

Original file:

Negotiations between AMC and Mad Men creator Matt Weiner have been so tough that the show may not see a fifth season, according to reports.

According to Deadline Hollywood, a deal was nearly in place that would see Weiner paid US$30-million for one more year of the Emmy award winning drama, when the network made a few demands involving the show itself that Weiner refused to fulfill: AMC proposed that each episode be shortened by two minutes to allow for more commercials, that Mad Men involve product placement, and that two actors be cut from the show. Weiner turned AMC down, and negotiations continue.

Meanwhile, The Daily is claiming that these kinks in negotiations threatens Mad Men‘s future. “No one would have heard of AMC if not for Matt Weiner and Mad Men,” a source close to the show said. “But they will not renew the show unless he accedes to all their demands.”