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This Week in Product Placement

Posted in Threat Quality with tags Fringe, Jeff Holland, Nissan Leaf, product placement, Threat Quality on February 7, 2012 by braak

Sometimes I wonder if TV’s just getting a little better at not cramming product placement quite so obviously as it felt like last year.

Though that might just be because now that 24’s not extolling the astonishing severed-thumb-print-scanning functions of the average Sprint phone, I’m just not getting as much of it in a given week.

So it’s a good thing I still watch Fringe.

Last year, if you’ll recall, it was the Clutch-Cargo-esque drama-tisement for the Sprint Qik, a hilariously awkward videophone feature that seems to have been completely ignored by smartphone owners.

This year…oh boy. It was at once far more subtle, and somehow even more ludicrous. On the SURFACE, at least. Read more »

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Scattered Thoughts on ‘Alcatraz’

Posted in Jeff Holland, reviews, Threat Quality with tags Alcatraz, Brimstone, Fringe, Jeff Holland, Jorge Garcia, Karen Sisco, Lost, Threat Quality on January 19, 2012 by braak

Reviews on the new J.J. Abrams/whoever-else-ends-up-being-in-charge-of-the-story series Alcatraz have been mixed-to-positive. Most have commented on its procedural structure, as though that’s a bad thing in and of itself, but by and large the reviews feel like an unjustified pre-judgment on the show now that Lost is done with.

These reviews seem to forget 1) that Abrams’ name was also attached to the completely (and hey, justly) forgotten Undercovers, 2) seriously, the guy’s a producer, he’s not Aaron Sorkin writing these things by his lonesome (meaning, we don’t really have room to judge Alcatraz the same way we could all laugh at Studio 60), and 3) Every criticism lobbed at Alcatraz seems to echo all the criticisms thrown at Fringe when that one first showed up. Read more »

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Holy crap, product placement (post brought to you by Sprint)

Posted in crotchety ranting, Jeff Holland, Threat Quality with tags Fringe, Jeff Holland, product placement, Sprint Qik, Threat Quality on December 14, 2010 by braak

I’m of a few minds when it comes to product placement in pop culture. Mind #1 (The “pissy art purist” argument) – of course it’s not great. Every moment the makers of a given TV show or movie are making deals over, say, which scene would best showcase a giant Mountain Dew vending machine in the background is a moment they’re not working in service of the acting or the script.