Flawless TV Blocks

I know I already did something exactly like this. But last time I was focused more on crafting a palatable, sustainable home network. It would work well IRL but it was a little messy on paper, too many twists and turns. I value simplicity above most things. I wanted to go back and do some definitive programming blocks. No alternating slots, nothing but the five star shows, the ones you can show 5 times a week. Also threw together some weekend blocks at the end... y'know, for those shows that are good enough to show two times a week.

Each block is headed with a loose timeframe and the type of programming encased within....



FLAWLESS TV BLOCKS
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Early Morning Action Cartoons


X-Men: The Animated Series
ThunderCats (2011)
Gundam Wing
Dragon Ball Z (first 3 seasons)
Dragon Ball Z (first 3 seasons)
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: The Last Airbender




Midday Sitcom Block


iCarly
Victorious
Shake It Up
Life With Derek
Everybody Hates Chris
Reba
Reba
Victorious
iCarly




Nighttime Adult Cartoon Block


South Park
South Park
Futurama
Futurama
The Boondocks
The Boondocks
Beavis and Butt-head
Daria




Deep Night Drama Block


The Good Wife
Dawson's Creek
Breaking Bad




WEEKEND BLOX (SAT & SUN)
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Early Morning Sitcoms


Good Luck Charlie
Wizards of Waverly Place
Friends
Roseanne





Morning Dramas


Gilmore Girls
Glee
Being Human
Being Human
The Sopranos




Midday Adult Cartoons


The Simpsons
American Dad
Family Guy
Metalocalypse
Frisky Dingo
12 oz Mouse
Aqua Teen Hunger Force




Evening Sitcoms


ANT Farm
Jessie
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
What I Like About You
George Lopez
Awkward




Deep Night Anime


His & Her Circumstances
Berserk
Neon Genesis Evangelion

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Epilogious note: Certain shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy, Seinfeld), are good enough for a weekday slot, but are simply so extensively overplayed that showing them five days a week on my station would not be palatable.

Halloween Movie Marathons

As you *might* have realized, I harbor a deep, pervasive love of television. And over the years, this has translated into a genuine interest in the art of television programming. So, seeing as how it's Halloween-time and all, I figured I would compose the ultimate blocks for all my favorite scary movies, c/o all-night Halloween-weekend horror marathons.

Each night begins with a brutal primer at 6pm (the witching dinner hour), followed by a solid block of theme from 8 until 4am featuring four of my all-time favorite films... one traditional classic, usually one from After Dark's now defunct but gorgeous Horror Fest series, then two from my favorite genre, found footage. Then I took the liberty of affixing each theme with an atmospherically similar episode of the found footage show Lost Tapes, and topped it all off with a non-theme horror flick of a much more light-hearted nature to carry us into the early morning. Except for Halloween, which I decided to make extra-scary...


Friday


6pm: The Company of Wolves
8: Fire in the Sky
10: Communion
12: Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County
2: The Wicksboro Incident
4: Lost Tapes: Alien
4.30: Ginger Snaps




Saturday


6pm: The Gate
8: 28 Days Later
10: Perkins' 14
12: [Rec]
2: [Rec] 2
4: Lost Tapes: Bear Lake Monster
4.30: Pinata: Survival Island




Devil's Night


6pm: Jacob's Ladder
8: Carnosaur
10: Penny Dreadful
12: The Blair Witch Project
2: Eyes in the Dark
4: Lost Tapes: Jersey Devil
4.30: The Craft




Halloween


6pm: Trick 'r Treat
8: From Within
10: Paranormal Activity 2
12: Paranormal Activity
2: Lake Mungo
4: Lost Tapes: Vampire
4.30: Ghostwatch

Enjoy!! Now if only I had my own TV station...

The Perfect TV Day (slightly altered)

Monday thru Friday
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Early Morning Action Cartoons (5:30am - 10)


Todd McFarlane's Spawn
ThunderCats (2011)
Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball Z
Gundam Wing
Gundam Wing
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Legend of Korra





Midday Sitcom Block (10am - 2)


iCarly
Victorious
The Secret World of Alex Mack
Pete & Pete
Everybody Hates Chris
Reba
George Lopez
Shake It Up




Afternoon Drama Block (2pm - 5)


Gilmore Girls
The West Wing
Dawson's Creek



Evening Sitcom Block (5pm - 8)


A.N.T. Farm
Friends
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Victorious
iCarly




Nighttime Adult Cartoon Block (8pm - 1)


South Park
South Park
Futurama
Futurama
The Boondocks
The Boondocks
Daria
Archer
Beavis and Butt-head
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast
12 oz. Mouse




Deep Night Drama Block (1am - 4:30)

South of Nowhere
The Good Wife
Being Human
Breaking Bad




Deep Night Anime Combo (4:30am - 5:30)


His & Her Circumstances
Neon Genesis Evangelion

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Epilogious note: Weekend lineups would feature similarly themed blocks of good shows that aren't quite good enough for the 5-days-a-week playlist. Certain shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy), are good enough for a weekday slot, but are simply so ubiquitous that showing them five days a week on my station would not be palatable or necessary.

Classic iCarly Lineups

One of the many amazingly wonderful things about iCarly is that Nickelodeon shows at least a few episodes each day. So it becomes this exciting little game each day, what episodes are they going to play? It's a lot like listening to the radio, you root for your favorites get played, and for the eps I don't own or haven't watched a lot. It's pretty cool, sometimes themes arise, like a day of shipping episodes, or a day of season 1 episodes, or a day with an ep from each season.

I remember a couple perfect weekend lineups they had a month ago. But more recently, Nick has been playing some relatively weak lineups. It doesn't help that House of Anubis drained the weekday schedule and left it with less iCarlies per day. But now with Best Player coming up and House of Anubis over (I think), iCarly is back in full force and the first two schedules this week were so great I wanted to preserve them for posterity.

Monday, March 7th, 2011

4:30 -- iDon't Want to Fight
5:30 -- iWas a Pageant Girl
6:00 -- iGet Pranky
6:30 -- iTwins

Commentary: This is about as all-star of a lineup as possible. It's a hearty four eps, which is as much as you can get on a weekday. It perfectly represents one episode from each of the show's 4 seasons. iWas a Pageant Girl is among the top eps from Season 3 and iGet Pranky could well be Season 4's crowning achievement. And it contains two of the all-time most novel eps, the one with Sam's glorious twin sister, and iDon't Want To Fight -- what I consider to be the pinnacle Cam episode. Plus they're (intentionally) all Sam-heavy episodes, which is always most welcome (and perhaps quite preffered).

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

4:30 -- iPromote Tech-Foots
6:00 -- iBigfoot
7:00 -- iSam's Mom

Commentary: Few things could compete with the Monday schedule but this was still a fantastic lineup. Again it starts off with a Season 1 ep, this time another of my faves, the hilarious iPromote Tech-Foots. Then another of my all-time favorite season 3 episodes, iBigfoot, finished with Season 4's iSam's Mom which isn't really one of my favorites but is fantastic none the less.

My Turn

Picking favorite episodes is very diffuclt for me. I don't allow myself to overplay iCarly, so that it stays fucking amazing and keeps blowing me away every fucking day. As a result I don't have encylopedic familiarity with each ep, so ranking them is difficult. The quest is "burdened" further by the fact that most of the episodes are freaking fantastic, and the others are still pretty good. But I can extrapolate some themes. Here are, using the same weekday format from above, my picks as would-be Nickelodeon programming director.

"Ship Day"

4:30 -- iDon't Want to Fight
5:30 -- iKiss
6:00 -- iThink They Kissed
6:30 -- iSaved Your Life

"Season's Bests (more or less)"

4:30 -- iWanna Stay With Spencer
5:30 -- iMust Have Locker 239
6:00 -- iHave My Principals
6:30 -- iSell Penny Tees