Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television from the television set to the programming and transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far seeing" (Greek "tele," meaning far, and Latin "visus," meaning seeing).

Origins

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The origins of what would become today's television system can be traced back as far as the discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby Smith in 1873, and the invention of a scanning disk by Paul Nipkow in 1884. All practical television systems use the fundamental idea of scanning an image to produce a time series signal representation. That representation is then transmitted to a device to reverse the scanning process. The final device, the television, relies on the human eye to integrate the result into a coherent image.

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NYT > Television

Video Game Review | Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: A Game That Takes Aim at Bigger Screens
By SETH SCHIESEL Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:07:48 -0000
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, for the PlayStation 3 console, is perhaps the best-looking game on any system and provides a cinematic entertainment experience.
Wanda Sykes Has a Show (or So They Tell Her)
By EDWARD WYATT Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:23:45 -0000
“The Wanda Sykes Show,” a new weekly late-night talk show that mixes stand-up material, taped segments and panel discussions, begins on Saturday on Fox.
Scripps Buys Major Stake in Travel Channel
By BRIAN STELTER and ZACHERY KOUWE Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:34:00 -0000
The deal values the cable channel at nearly a billion dollars, a price that some analysts say they believe is too high.

L.A. Times - TV News

CBS to broadcast Emelianenko fight
Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Strikeforce SEARS CENTRE ARENA, CHICAGO
'The People v. Leo Frank'
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
Documentary revisits the case of a Jew lynched in Georgia over a girl's killing. On April 27, 1913, the body of 13-year-old Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the National Pencil Co. factory in Atlanta, where she worked. She had been raped and strangled.
'Fanboy and Chum Chum'
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800
In their world, they are superheroes “Fanboy and Chum Chum,” which premieres tonight on Nickelodeon before taking up its regular post Saturday morning, is a cartoon about two kids who live in a permanent state of playing. They dress as superheroes, wearing their underwear on the outside for that Superman look. (They have no out-of-costume alter egos.) Their collective mental landscape is littered with the detritus of sci-fi and fantasy, with the stuff of comics and movies, toys and TV shows. But we don't see the world as they imagine it, Walter Mitty-style; we just see them in their world, imagining.

News from TV.com

Project Runway: Caring Is Creepy
Richard Lawson Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:50:00 -0800
Hey guys. Hello fashionistas, how's it hangin' fashionistos. Well, that's that, almost. We've just one sweepy, swooshy, swishy episode left of this florid little heap of a reality show before they pack up the boxes and leave LA to the dogs. Oh thank ye gods. This has been such a lame-duck season, so turdy and uneventful. I'm pretty sure we're all just whiling away the hours until it's gone and we can have some sliver of our Thursday nights back. And what about you, Lifetime? Was it good for you? I doubt that it was. Anyway, because I'm sort of disillusioned with this season, and I've already recapped two other shows today, Ima just keep this real short.I mean really short, like a Logan Neitzl (where are you beautiful boy??) dress. What happened in the episode was this:Heidi Klum got day-drunk one afternoon and was doing some drunken bicycle riding around Los Angeles, which is her second favorite thing to do (the first is making seal pups). On this particular drunken bicycle riding day, she pedaled aimlessly up a long, twisting hill road and finally stopped in a big complex of white buildings and grasses and fountains. Heidi, drunk as Oktoberfest, cooed "Ohhh looking Heidi! You are inning the space station! Zer gut!" Then she fell over and passed out in the soft, cool, green green grass and when she woke up the next day she was back at home and Tim was sitting on the edge of her bed, stirring a cup of tea and putting a washcloth on her forehead. "Guten tag my little sour biscuit," Tim murmured. "Timberly," Heidi croaked, "Ver vas I?" "Why Heidi! You were at the Getty Museum. Up on the hill." "Ze Getty Museum," Heidi whispered. "I zot it was only a legend!" "Oh you and your legends," Tim chuckled. "Now here, drink this tea. It's made from Karl Lagerfeld's skin flakes."So Heidi was so enchanted by ze Getty Museum that for ze final challenge, she had ze designuhz make outfits inspired by ze paintings and zkulptcha and groundz. (If you haven't been and live in LA, shame on you. It's really, really lovely.) The challenge was introduced by the mayor of Los Angeles, a dapper-but-smarmy lookin' fella, and then the kids were off and running. Or, not running, because fashion designers can't and don't run, but you know what I mean. They were off and sketching. I pretty much don't like anyone who's left and haven't liked anyone in the competition with the possible exception of Rae'Mon, so I wasn't really surprised that everything was boring. Basically you need to know this: Irina was mean, Althea was kinda dumb, Daryl Hannah just seemed sort of blandly nice, Gordon complained about home and away, and Chrissy Minnesota meeped and mewed and said hickory things and we all just put our heads in our hands and mumbled, over and over again: "Done, done, done, done..." The whole episode was cobbled together to make it look like everyone hates each other when in truth I'm sure they were just as bored with each other as we are. I'm sure they just spent a lot of time surrounded by clocks ticking, the muted sound of faraway car horns suggesting a world twirling outside, a world where people were going places, where things were happening and getting done. But for the time being they were all just stuck in that studio, left to linger and long for some better, brighter, bigger day.The fashions were:— Althea made a gold dress made of gold that was inspired by golden things that she found at the Heidi Klum Memorial (drunken bicycle riding always gets you in the end) Grassy Space Station. It was pretty, I guess. In the way that Althea is pretty, I guess. And makes pretty clothes, I guess. I guess. I guess and guess forever.— Daryl Hannah apparently found the same gold mine at the Klum Grassy Space Station as Althea did, so she just made a longer version of the same dress. It was really long and really golden and yeah I guess you could see someone wearing it to the Oscars, as long as they were comfortable looking like an actual Oscar.— Chrissy made something weird where you couldn't tell what was the top and what was the bottom. It had a nice middle section that was tied on with string, but the long cylindrical skirt looked awkward and I couldn't figure out when you would wear such a garment. It was a casual evening gown. For all those casual black tie soirees? Feh.— Gordon, who was the closest thing I had to a favorite, made a flowy fright wig of a gown that I thought was quite pretty, if a bit derivative of, once again because everyone copies this dress, Austin Scarlet's season one red carpet numbah. Apparently it was poorly tailored in the back, which is rare for old Gordon. Sigh.— Finally Irina made a big flowing green blob of a thing and I really think that Irina's kind of a big flowing blob of a one trick pony. I hate her.So that was that. Can you guess who went through? Can you guess who went home? Of course you can, it's quite easy. Gordon's an old lady so they sent her packing back to South Carolina, where she can be proud that she made it to the final five but sad that she couldn't compete against people nobody cares about. Sigh. And, yes obviously, it was time for ugly old Chrissy Minnesota to get stuffed back in his duffel bag and shipped to the frozen North Country, where he now spends his days kicking the tires of his near-dead Mercury Topaz and smoking thin cigarettes and staring at the mottled sky and considering life, just the word of it, life, and then he'll get tired or cranky or cold or all three and he'll shuffle back into the house and listen to the stove clock ticking and hear the cars out on Route 12 and he'll think of being stuck in that fashion room in Los Angeles, the way the sun splashed in in tidal waves and he'll miss it with a pain like a needle. When he wakes up in the morning he always smells something burning. The leaves on the tree out front never grew back.Aha. The end. Althea, Daryl Hannah, and She Who Shall Not Be Named. They're going to the big dance. Do you care? Does anyone in this filthy blue marble really care? They probably don't even care anymore, because this whole thing happened over a year ago. It's long dead, long gone. Fashion is all about the now, and this season of Project Runway is all about the yesterday. Maybe that's the flaw, that's the uncovered heel. We're in a time machine.Don't step on anything.
House, CSI: Miami, and Accidentally on Purpose
Stefanie Lee Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:24:00 -0800
8 p.m., FOX HouseHouse (Hugh Laurie), Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), and Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) head to a medical conference while the rest of the crew deals with a teen who's been partying too hard. 8:30 p.m., CBS Accidentally on PurposeBillie (Jenna Elfman) asks Abby (Lennon Parham) and Nick to be her baby's godparents—but the pressure splits them up! 9 p.m., FOX Lie to MeAgent Reynolds (Mekhi Phifer) is the star witness in Cal (Tim Roth) and Gillian's (Kelli Williams) latest case—and he's hiding something from his past. 10 p.m., CBS CSI: MiamiA severed leg found in the Everglades that belongs to a girl missing from Las Vegas brings Langston (Laurence Fishburne) to Miami. The story continues all week in a three-episode crossover with CSI: NY and CSI. Series premiere, 11 p.m., TBS Lopez TonightWelcome to late night, George Lopez! Inaugural guests include Ellen DeGeneres, Eva Longoria Parker, and Kobe Bryant. Also on the airwaves ... Dancing with the Stars, 8 p.m., ABCHow I Met Your Mother, 8 p.m., CBSHeroes, 8 p.m., NBCOne Tree Hill, 8 p.m., CWLincoln Heights, 8 p.m. & Season 2 finale 9 p.m., ABC FamilyTwo and a Half Men, 9 p.m., CBSTrauma, 9 p.m., NBCGossip Girl, 9 p.m., CWThe Big Bang Theory, 9:30 p.m., CBSCastle, 10 p.m., ABCMillion Dollar Listing, 10 p.m., BRAVOCake Boss, 10 p.m., TLC What are you watching tonight?
Supernatural Skillfully Skewers the Competition
Tim Surette Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:23:00 -0800
Supernatural is the best show on television that nobody watches—and a after a string of merely "good" episodes (by Supernatural standards, and that's a compliment), the show offered up another epic tale last night. The daring drama has never been afraid to slyly refer its own place in pop culture, but "Changing Channels" went a step further by taking aim at the show's competish. Grey's Anatomy and CSI, which both air opposite Supernatural in the ultra-competitive 9pm Thursday time slot, were both lampooned by The Winchesters with brilliant results. For those who didn't get to watch last night, here's the premise of the episode: Sam and Dean were thrown into a television world where they were the stars of various TV shows—shows that were eerily similar to the shows on TV today. The faux show Dr. Sexy, MD was set at Seattle Mercy Hospital and featured hot doctors who couldn't keep their hands off each other, a ghost that only existed in the mind of one of the doctors (nod and a wink to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who's appeared on both Grey's and Supernatural), Lilith Fair chick music, and tacky dialogue ("You're a brilliant coward!"). In a CSI: Miami send-up, the brothers Winchester repeatedly took off and re-donned their sunglasses and uttered zingers that even David Caruso would envy ("Well I say... jackpot"). But the highlight of the episode had to be the fake opening credits (video below), in which Sam and Dean ride tandem bikes and engage in other Bosom Buddies-ish activities, all to the tune of a kick-ass, classic sitcom theme song. In the end, we learned a big secret about The Trickster and thickened the plot on some future brother-on-brother brawlin'—and the way the whole thing unfolded seemed natural. Some might even say Super natural (*groan*). In less capable hands, the storyline would have been a mess. Am I wrong in saying that Supernatural is one of the most daring and entertaining shows on television? What other show could pull off this type of tomfoolery? Supernatural isn't just one of television's best serialized dramas, it has somehow also become one of TV's best comedies (though I would never call it a comedy), and that's a unique blend from which other shows could stand to learn a thing or two.

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