Well, the NBC show “Chuck” seems to be experiencing “3D glasses gate” tonight. NBC has been heavily promoting the novelty of a 3D broadcast as well as HD (I don't think it's limited to HD sets) in a way that works as regular broadcast without glasses. The "Chuck" show site is here.
Actually, the show aired tonight at 8 PM EST and it looked fine without glasses. A preview segment had aired at halftime, just before Springsteen’s half-time concert at the Super Bowl.
In the show, Chuck has to protect a rock star, Tyler, from the goons, and there’s actually an interesting idea: steganography, ancient style. On his back there is a tattoo of a message as to the location of some highly enriched uranium (so I could have put this entry on my “disaster films” blog). Most viewers know that in this techno-comedy, Chuck (Zachary Levi) was “drafted” into government service by a bizarre email that imprinted his brain with secrets (that makes a lot less sense than the nano-bots of the defunct “Jake 2.0” from UPN a few years back).
Levi has the physical presence of an athlete like Michael Phelps, so his “comedy” of looking flustered is a bit silly. Chuck, after all, is a "virtuous" person. (His “official job” is the sales geek at “Buy More” (= “Best Buy”?? well, the colors are different; Buy More goes green.) His retail sidekick is Morgan (Joshua Gomez), and his sister is played by Sarah Lancaster, who played Madison in Everwood. Yes, Zachary Levi Pugh should be invited to host SNL.
But let’s get back to the 3D business. Sunday I tried CVS, Safeway, Radio Shack, Fye, 7-11 to find them and store personnel had hardly heard of them (see my entry Sunday). So I emailed Liz Crenshaw, consumer reporter at NBC4 in Washington. Today I got back an email from NBC Corporate saying that the glasses distribution was supposed to be the responsibility of Dreamworks and Pepsi Cola. It admitted that there had been many consumer inquiries, and NBC didn’t want the individual stations to get involved. The participating retail outlets are supposed to be Kroger - Ralphs - Frys - Safeway / Vons - SuperValu - Food Lion - A&P - Pathmark - Coburns - Fairway - Fresh Brands - Hy Vee - Nash Finch - Roundy’s - Winn-Dixie - K-mart - Dollar General - Hess (select stores) - CVS (select stores) - Meijer – Target.
I admit that I did not try today, but I found some old 3-D glasses (pic. above) from the Disney “Chicken Little” movie. (Remember “the sky is falling” – that movie had a subtle lesson about Chicken Little’s “online reputation”). I tried them and seemed to get minimal 3D effect in the scenes with the food (Morgan’s eating contest was a gross out) and the elevator escape scene.
NBC says it reairs Chuck Tuesday, but I couldn’t find it on the TV schedule. Just keep looking.
Also, ABC Family tonight, heaven forbid, on its episode of “Kyle XY” showed Kyle in a bar not only showing off his Clark-like “powers” but also engaging in underage drinking, as he grieves the loss of Amanda. Yup, he’ll wind up on someone else’s Myspace, and get aired on Dr. Phil, and wind up needing a cleanup from “Reputation Defender.” Kyle (the synthetic "superman" aka Aldous Huxley, albeit, again, a "good person") says "I finally understood male bonding; you don't use friends to forget, you need friends to stand behind you.:
I do recall about fifteen years ago seeing an experiment from a South Carolina inventor with a televised 3D broadcast that required no glasses at all. According to Engadget, Mitshubishi is advertising this technology on the web, for example here. I don't know why this isn't more widely reported. Maybe some visitor can comment on this.
(I worked for NBC as a computer programmer in New York in the 1970s, right at Rockefeller Center in midtown. I’ve corresponded with the TV station here about other issues. I think they know me.)
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