salon.com

My favorite part of Real Time With Bill Maher is the last segment, "New Rules." It's a segment devoted to looking at things a little bit differently, offering new rules for current events, celebrities, and politicians. Maher released a great book last year with the same title.

After the jump is a clip (from Salon) of the latest "New Rules" segment of the HBO Friday night show. It's entitled "Half-Cocked," and I would usually say to you that the clip is NSFW, but you can probably guess that from the title.

We all have our opinions on what we'd like to see on television, and what we don't want to see. And now Salon has a two-part series where they asked several writers and other folks to come up with their fantasy television series. Included are such people as Phil Rosenthal (creator/producer of Everybody Loves Raymond), Mark Cuban, writer Megham Daum, Aaron Shure (writer on Lucky Louie), and ex-Men's Health, Maxim UK, and Stuff editor Greg Gutfield.

Most of the writers took it as a creative writing exercise, so many of the shows are more jokes than actual ideas. I don't really get Daum's idea about a show involving a ferret and laser tag, and John Darnielle (lead singer of The Mountain Goats) wants to see more boxing on TV.

Mark Cuban wants a reality show starring Dennis Rodman. Ugh.

You know whose essay I agreed with the most? James Frey's. Yup, that's James Frey of Million Little Pieces and Oprah fame. He wants to see a return of the old-fashioned private eye show we don't see on TV anymore, like Magnum, P.I., The Rockford Files, and Mike Hammer. I'd love to see that happen. Either that, or a variety show hosted by Amy Sedaris. All Amy, all the time!

Here's part one, and here's part two.

Six different writers at Salon have chosen the TV shows that should be cancelled. Most of the shows they pick aren't really surprises: Larry King Live, Nancy Grace, The O.C, The L Word. But I'm surprised they listed 24 and The Closer.

We talk a lot here about the shows we don't like, the shows that should go away, the shows that never should have made it on the air at all (not to mention contests predicting which new shows that simply won't last). Here are the six shows I think should be cancelled (in no particular order):

Larry King Live
Nancy Grace
American Dad
ER
Jerry Spinger
one or two of the CSI shows

What shows would you pick?