Californication

I just watched the end of the tv show Californication. For those of you who don't know, it's a comedy starring David Duchovny, among others. It's an absolutely brilliant piece of small screen entertainment. It's got witty dialog, lots of great tits and nudity (more so in the beginning than the end), and a wonderful story.
There have been 12 episodes recorded and released so far, and I recommend that you watch them, because they are wonderful.
There is, however, a problem.
The first season had 12 episodes. Each of which was roughly a half hour. This makes a mini-series in 6 pieces, should one be so inclined. This is only of of the problems, and I'll get to why in a bit.
The second problem is that it seems to have been written like a movie. This first season has all the stages of a good movie clearly defined, but with some extra padding added on to make it into a tv show. Now, it would have made a terrible 2 hour love comedy, but as a 6 hour tv show it's great. It needs those extra hours to really put the content in there.

We have two problems, which might not seem like problems by themselves, but when taken together it spells death for the show. The fact that it was so short, and that it had a proper movie-style ending, indicates to me that, while new shows generally have a short first season for various reasons, they normally don't have such a definitive first season close as californication did. I won't disclose the ending, for those of you who haven't seen it, but I doubt that the second season will ever reach production. According to wikipedia, the shooting is scheduled to start in April of 2008. While this is only 5 months away, it takes place in southern california, and shooting could have begun much quicker if the producers and the publishers actually thought there was something worth putting more money and effort into. The fact that it had a proper ending, and that shooting for the next season is pushed so relatively far back, makes me believe that there won't be a second season.
It also makes sense because it's hard to see where the show would progress from here. It would be easy to just make it a static show about Hank Moody and the trials and tribulations of his life, but that just doesn't fit in with how the first season played out.

I really honestly hope that they can swing several more seasons, and with the same kind of writing that the first season had, but I just don't see it.
Kudos on an extremely well made first season, but I just don't think the storyline has any more tread left on it, I'm sorry...

I'd be able to further elaborate on this, but not without spoiling much of the ending. A little hint is that you are going to love the ending.

Sentencing

When I first discovered lifehacker, I assumed that it would contain tips on how to, well, hack my life, so to speak. What I didn't expect, but what I am thrilled to have found, is that it also links to pages about writing. This recent link offers five tips about proper punctuation. Even if I was pretty much at home with about 3½ of those rules, I really enjoyed reading it. I now know where to put a semicolon, and what they are actually used for. Of course, for tips on punctuation, penny arcade is always helpful. (There is a third one, but I can't seem to locate it.)

Linked from the page about punctuation; I also found this. I haven't had time to read it yet though.

I have read several articles linked from lifehacker about writing, and they've almost all been good. I seem to have misplaced (read deleted) the links to them, otherwise I'd share them with you. Lifehacker uses tags though, so you should be able to find them quickly if you need to.

EDITED TO ADD: This is also very good. I find myself making some of the mistakes explained in here, but not many. I do, however, see them made by others on a daily basis. Number 5 and 7 are very important, as they aren't going to, as the author says, "[do] a little wiggle dance on the screen and then [reach] out to grab the reader by the throat".