Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road, follow follow follow follow… you get the idea, right? Sci-Fi’s mini-series TIN MAN, the re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz, premieres this Sunday, December 2nd at 9/8c and continues Monday and Tuesday nights.

I have a great giveaway in honor of the premiere, the exclusive TIN MAN custom board game as well as a copy of the prequel comic. Okay, it’s no flying monkey but really who wants to deal with the whole monkey crap thing anyhow?

How to Win: Using my CONTACT FORM, email me two previous projects (TV/Film/Otherwise) that each of the main stars have been in. So that’s 2 for Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, and Kathleen Robertson. Bonus points if you can pick my favorite for Kathleen and Alan.

TIN MAN Prize Pack includes: Tin Man original board game, Tin Man prequel comic book. 2 Winners will be selected.

Deadline: Sunday, December 2nd at 11:59 p.m.

To tide you over until Sunday’s premiere, here is a primer/behind the scenes video from Sci-Fi’s TIN MAN.

*And just to clear up any confusion, I am not offering the same giveaway as TVSquad so no iPod Nano’s for you all. No, I didn’t keep them for myself either.

December 1st is WORLD AIDS DAY and every year I try to post something to get you all thinking and active. I’ve urged you to watch TV specials which I’ll do again this year as this is a TV Blog after all, but this year I also have a special request for all of you on my behalf.

Since 2002 I’ve participated in various AIDS Rides and have raised over $14,000 for various HIV/AIDS related organizations. In 2008 I will once again hit the roads as part of BRAKING THE CYCLE (my 3rd year) but I’m not asking you for money yet… I’ll wait until we’re actually in 2008 for that!

Here’s how you can help. A few minutes of your time could help Braking The Cycle and their beneficiary The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center (NYC) raise $5,000 toward our upcoming ride.

$5,000 for Braking the Cycle: Nance, a fellow rider ran into a colleague of hers from the University of Victoria that needs 1,000 subjects for an online experiment. The study is about “the impressions people form and retain when they watch videotaped depictions of complex human behaviours and interactions”. The research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has a nice budget for participants. He has offered to donate $5 per participant to Braking The Cycle. In addition to the $5 donation to our cause, participants are entered into a lottery, with approximately 1/100 chance of winning $100.

Completing the study takes about 20 minutes, and involves watching a short video, performing some word-puzzle tasks, and answering questions about the video. It¹s fun! The study has been approved by University of Victoria’s Human Research Ethics Board.

Click here to participate and help Braking The Cycle. *One thing to know is that as you are downloading a video (which took about 3 minutes on my computer) there is no sign that anything is happening so just hang tight and it will start up. (Thanks to Blake for the tip)

Educate and Activate The Brain Through TV! Here are a number of television events in honor of World AIDS Day.

Friday, November 30
Positive Voices: Women and HIV, 9 p.m. – Showtime
India’s Hidden Plague (With YouthAIDS Ambassador Ashley Judd), 10 p.m. – National Geographic

Saturday, December 1 (World AIDS Day)
The Ride: Seven Days to End AIDS (Marathon), Starting 7:30 a.m. – Logo
MTV’s World AIDS Day Special, 10 a.m. – MTV
Longtime Companion, 10:20 a.m. – Logo
Stephen Fry: HIV & Me, 2 p.m. – Sundance Channel
Beat The Drum, 3 p.m. – Showtime
Behind The Red Door, 3:30 p.m. – Showtime
The Origins of AIDS, 4 p.m. – Sundance Channel
Dear Francis, 5 p.m. – Showtime
I Want to be a Pilot/Positive Voices: Matthew Cusick, 5:30 p.m. – Sundance Channel
In The Gloaming, 5:30 p.m. – Logo

It’s so sad to me that MTV/VH1 aren’t representing more. They used to be huge on World AIDS Day, airing many specials and documentaries and this year basically nothing. I guess they pushed it all on LOGO which is not on basic cable, isn’t targeted toward teens, and sadly gives the impression that AIDS is more of a gay disease than a human pandemic. That’s really frustrating.

The tear jerkers are the movies, Longtime Companion and In The Gloaming. They’re my faves. Documentary wise they all look great; Ashley Judd has worked her ass off over the last few years to educate on AIDS and her films are always incredible. I’m really intersted in the “I Want to be a Pilot” one because it’s interviews with 50 orphaned African kids due to AIDS, you know that’s going to be moving. I liked “The Ride” mostly because it speaks to the rides I’ve done over the past 6 years but 7:30 a.m. is early.

Hope you spend some time this weekend thinking about HIV/AIDS Prevention, Education, and the fight for a cure. Enjoy the weekend gang.

Tonight GMMR and I are meeting to do some dinner and dish on our favorite shows. That means a new TV Podcast with Kath and Dan!

Now that many of the shows are winding down and presenting the last of their original content due to the WGA Strike, we were wondering what you’d like us to talk about most?

Leave us some comments on this post or call us and let us know! We might use your question or comment on our podcast.

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This is Dan and Kathie’s favorite method of contact because it allows us to hear from you and we use these messages live on our podcast to answer your burning television questions. It’s FREE and you don’t have to do anything but click RECORD BY PHONE on the box below and it will walk you through how to contact us!

It’s super easy and free to leave us a message:

Hope to hear from you soon!

WGA Strike: Day 26
Updates and Links

Friday, I’m not in love… So yesterday saw the glimmer of hope that the AMPTP had presented the WGA with a new proposal but sadly that ray of sunshine was squashed when the WGA realized that it was essentially a slap in the face.