BJ Wanlund

Okay, none of those actors and/or characters seem to be "underrated" to me particularly.

Here are my 12 underrated actors/characters (sometimes one, sometimes the other, most times both):
12. Alfred Molina/Ricardo Morales (Law & Order: LA). I first heard of Alfred Molina several years ago, as he was Doc Ock in the (rather dreadful I'm afraid) second Spiderman movie with Tobey Maguire. Now that I have finally gotten to see him in action in a far better production, he's great! I would like to see more of this guy in this kind of role, and not a in junky film directed by Sam Raimi (who really should have stopped with the first Spidey movie, much like he should have stopped with the first Evil Dead movie).

11. Portia De Rossi/Veronica Palmer (Better Off Ted). I know, I know, a great many of you think that I'm nuts, but Portia is absolutely hysterical! I never saw her on Arrested Development, or anything she's done, but boy howdy, was she ever great on Better Off Ted!

10. Jane Lynch/Sue Sylvester (Glee). Holy moley, she's hilarious! And no, I won't mistake her for Ellen DeGeneres, because Jane is super unique in her comedic talent! In the grand deadpan tradition of the late Leslie Nielsen, Jane Lynch is the deadpan crownholder of this generation, and that's not entirely a bad thing.

9. Carol Burnett. While she doesn't do that many guest shots, her guest shot on "Glee" was pretty spectacular, and introduced a whole new generation to Carol that might never have heard of her before. It's all about the marketability to the lucrative youth market these days, and now Carol has some cachet in that arena.

8. Tamala Jones/M.E. Lanie Parish (Castle) - Just because she's #8 on my list doesn't mean she's any less of a talented actress! She is the straight-talking, hilarious counterpart to Beckett! Even the diehard fans of Castle, when partaking in the Castle Drinking Game, take a swig every time Lanie isn't the M.E. on the show! That HAS to count for SOMETHING, right?

7. Nathan Fillion/Richard Castle (Castle) - The titular character... and he's gotten less recognition for that than any of his prior roles, including as Captain Reynolds on Firefly. Why is that? Why can't everyone recognize Nathan Fillion for the extremely talented guy he is? Why can't everyone have fantastic roles for Nathan that last a lot longer than his 5 second Halo Reach cameo?

6. Susan Sullivan/Martha Rodgers (Castle) - Am I the only one who DIDN'T remember her from Dharma & Greg or Another World before her role on Castle? Seriously, I must have been living under a TV rock, because she's spectacular!

5. Jon Huertas/Detective Javier Esposito (Castle) - Boy, this guy just has about the straightest role from the 12th Precinct on Castle. A veteran of our military, a veteran of a different police force, and a veteran of only a few fantastic plotlines on Castle, it boggles my mind that Jon hasn't gotten more recognition than he deserves. (I personally think everyone remembers him from Generation: Kill on HBO, and therefore cannot see him as doing a totally different role than that, and that's sad.)

4. Molly Quinn/Alexis Castle (Castle) - While they have given her a few more chintzy plot lines this season on Castle, she's almost always the straight one where Richard Castle is more the goofy one, in the grand tradition of the best comedy teams, like Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, Lucy & Ethel, Bert & Ernie, and the list goes on from there.

3. Ruben Santiago-Hudson/Captain Roy Montgomery (Castle) - Seriously, why hasn't Hollywood given him MORE of this kind of treatment? He's truly one of the best actors we've got right now, and that's saying a lot. That he's also extremely underrated isn't that unimportant either.

2. Stana Katic/Det. Kate Beckett (Castle) - Holy camoley, Stana Katic has to be the most underrated female performer this year by far. There was that great episode earlier this year where she got to explore a bit more of this character's past, especially with regard to her mother's murder, where she was unbelievably emotionally genuine. And there can only be good things to come for Kate Beckett in 2011.

1. Seamus Dever/Det. Kevin Ryan (Castle) - THE most underrated comedic actor this year by far. He had so many brilliant comedic moments in Castle this year, it wasn't even funny. And I sincerely hope that the Emmy voting committee doesn't remember his stint on 'GH' when considering his nomination this year.

Hate to say it, but I 100% agree with you. After doing the math on both proposed NFL Sunday Ticket packages (as well as making a similar mathematical comparison on MLB's very similar service), here's what I came up with:

The two NFL Sunday Ticket digital prices from the Engadget piece:
$39.99/mo for the 5 mo season: $199.95 total for the season
$49.99/mo for the 5 mo season: $249.95 total for the season

Then make the comparison to MLB.tv Premium for a season that is a month longer than NFL Sunday Ticket's (supposedly) 5-mo season for what is essentially, and the comparison becomes even more stark.

Paying $119.95 for the entire season for MLB.TV Premium (as of last season, hopefully they don't raise prices again) is:

$80 less than the $39.99/mo NFL Sunday Ticket Digital Pkg for the season
$130 less than the $49.99/mo NFL Sunday Ticket Digital Pkg for the season

However, when you look at the monthly prices for the entire season, and I'm going by the $24.99/mo price of MLB.TV Premium for the same length of time.

The yearly price of MLB.TV Premium is $119.95 as stated above, the cheapest option of any of these by far.

The monthly price for MLB.TV Premium is $174.93 if you count the extra month for the playoffs. This is about a $55 premium OVER the annual price.

Comparing the monthly price for MLB.TV w/ the proposed NFL Sunday Ticket Digital prices:
$39.99/mo ($199.95/yr): A $25 premium over the MLB.TV price per mo
$49.99/mo ($249.95/yr): A $75 premium over the MLB.TV price per mo

So, for a similar service to MLB.TV Premium, the powers-that-be at DirecTV are basically charging way, way too much for the exact same sort of streaming service. If the NFL were to offer themselves, without any stupid media deals, a similar service to what MLB offers, and similar pricing, I'd certainly consider it.

With DirecTV having too many fingers in the pie however, I cannot consider it on financial grounds. And that saddens me to say that, because while I love the NFL, the NFL cannot figure out how to offer live streaming sports at prices that cannot even trump their iTunes Season Pass pricing for the "NFL Follow Your Team" stuff that isn't even remotely CLOSE to live. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And people wonder why live streaming TV over the Internet without a terrestrial TV service and a Slingbox or EyeTV device isn't even remotely a possibility yet. Sheesh.

I'm good with boring. Especially since the show has gone with some rather bizarre stunt casting (Florence Henderson not so much, because I enjoyed her, but Kate Gosselin? Bristol Palin? Hardly "stars" to me!) in the past couple of seasons.

One suggestion that WON'T be offensive to nearly everyone with a brain: Carol Burnett. To see someone who is older than 55 actually *win* the competition, especially one built upon popularity and viewer votes like DWTS, would be so thrilling to not just me, but to anyone who understands that as people age, their mobility falters slightly.

Many of the younger kids know about her now thanks to "Glee". Methinks this is the perfect time to try a comeback, Carol. Do you think so too?

BJ

All I am interested in is a) moving my print subscriptions to Game Informer and Nintendo Power to digital-only subscriptions, and b) getting new digital-only subscriptions and game strategy guides.

BJ

*I* use iBooks. While the selection is currently paltry compared to the Kindle, the experience (as well as the iTunes integration) is second to none.

BJ

I dunno, I've always been curious about Howard Stern, so this might be very interesting to watch.

iTunes does have a "radio" functionality now, but it's really nothing more than a repository for different Internet radio stations (like Shokus Internet Radio).

If Stern was going to be on iTunes, maybe even in a newly revamped "iTunes Radio" sort of dealie that worked with Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, and it cost maybe a nominal fee per year (I'd be willing to pay $99 a year or have it free for MobileMe subscribers, since we've suffered thru a lot this year), that'd be very nice indeed.

Now there's probably going to be more content than JUST Stern on there, of course. Probably we'd get to see Radio Margaritaville (since Jimmy Buffett is an Apple fan, and has been spotted with his iPad) and E Street Radio (since many Apple employees are fans of The Boss) as well.

It would most definitely be awesome to see Apple trying their hand at original streaming audio content like Stern, and possibly even some other sports/talk radio (like Sporting News Radio, possibly). It remains to be seen, however, if Apple is really doing something like this and it's not proven to be fake that they are, then Apple could potentially pick up many, many XM and Sirius subscribers who subscribed just for Stern.

BJ

Well, at least they haven't developed Smell-O-Vision for TVs yet, as Mythbusters would be AWFUL in Smell-O-Vision.

BJ

So I guess tap tap tap got their way anyhow? I know they were trying to gain access to the volume buttons for their Camera+ app, but they didn't want to have any trouble with accidental volume changes...

BJ

Hmm... when I was looking at this, I thought that it actually allowed for custom SMS tones at long last...

I guess I see what I want to, huh?

BJ

Wait, they're making a 4th Spy Kids flick?!?! First I've heard of that... although I wouldn't be that surprised if it was better than Spy Kids 3-D, which was abysmal.