While the broadcast networks are about to launch their fall seasons, cable shows have been wrapping up their summer runs.
On Sunday night, HBO's lineup of "True Blood," "Entourage" and "Hung" air their season finales -- starting at 8 with the vampire show.
I'm most focused on "Entourage," the male fantasy show about a bunch of guys who have access to virtually any diversion they want, thanks to their buddy from the old neighborhood, Vince (Adrian Grenier) Chase, a movie star on the rise.
The seventh season started slowly, but quickly turned dark as Vince hooked up with porn star Sasha Grey, playing a fictionalized version of herself. In this penultimate season, she's a bad influence on the star, who gets involved with drugs and starts damaging his reputation with the folks who make decision in Hollywood.
It's also distancing him from his pals, setting the season for Sunday's season-ender, which is supposed to feature an "intervention."
"Entourage" is due back for one more season (likely six episodes) next summer, and then there's the possibility of a big-screen flick.
Enough question marks about Vince's ability to handle stardom have been introduced this season to make the finale were waiting for and the final HBO season something to look forward to.
Brett Andrews' temporary Madison gig: Former WXSS-FM (103.7) evening voice Brett Andrews headed to Portland, Ore., in the spring to take on the afternoon shift and assistant program director duties at Clear Channel's KKRZ-FM.
Well, he popped up this week on KKRZ's Madison sister station, WZEE-FM in the evening slot. But that doesn't mean the Portland job didn't work out.
The Mequon native tells me it's a custom show for Madison that he's hosting in addition to his regular Portland program. Andrews is doing it to help out Z-104, until they find a body to fill the spot. The Portland station, by the way, is known to listeners as Z-100.
He's expecting the temporary Madison gig to last "at least a few weeks."
On the radio: I'm scheduled to join Joy Cardin on Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network at 6 a.m. Monday to talk about the media issues connected to that Koran-burning mess. In Milwaukee, you can hear the conversation of WHAD-FM (90.7).
Speaking of Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network, CNN's Rick Sanchez joins Kathleen Dunn at 10 a.m. Tuesday to talk about his new book "Conventional Idiocy: Why the New America is Sick of Old Politics." Again, you can hear that in Milwaukee on WHAD.
On TV: TV viewership was low last week, but the numbers were interesting. Spanish-language Univision ended up the top-rated broadcast network among viewers 18 to 49. It's a sign of things to come as the Hispanic population grows.
- Channel 6's 9 p.m. Saturday "Fox 6 Blitz" Packers special will run for 30 minutes, with a half-hour newscast starting at 9:30. The Fox station has added a Saturday night "Fox 6 Blitz Preview Special" at 9 p.m. Sept. 25, to preview the Packers-Bears game the following Monday.
- Oprah Winfrey's final season on broadcast TV begins on Monday at 4 p.m. on Channel 12. Milwaukee's ABC station has added Winfrey's protege, Nate Berkus, at 11 a.m. weekdays starting Monday.
- You'll be able to find "The Martha Stewart Show," which had been on Channel 12, on the Hallmark Channel at 9 a.m. weekdays, starting Monday.
- Comedy Central reports that it's just finished its best summer ever, topping the cable ratings among men 18-34 and men 18-24. Those are key demographics for the channel.
- TNT and TBS have ordered four pilots for "new" series, including a remake of "Dallas." Its fate could depend on how well CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" does this fall.
So long, Chuckles: Word just came out this week of the mid-August death of Mark Gordon, a veteran actor who played "Chuckles the Clown" on a single episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
That's a good excuse to pull out a bit of video from one of the best episodes of any sitcom, the death of Chuckles:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
