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(All times Eastern. We’re watching ABC channel 7 in New York City, high-definition).

2:30 p.m.

The Knicks/Rockets game was threatening overtime. You’d think that ABC would have built in some more time here than they did, or maybe their pregame show is more modular and flexible than we’d been led to believe. We like to think that ABC suits are sweating bullets. Only in the final moments did the Knicks secure their loss (yes, we’re watching in New York, this is the angle), and then it’s box score, credits, thanks, right on to Detroit.

2:45 p.m.

John Madden and Al Michaels make their first appearance. They’re somewhere else, not yet having taken the bus (behind them) into Detroit. Wherever they are, somebody forgot to bring the high-def camera, so that the back and forth between them and Berman in the “studio” at Ford Field is just awkward. John looks relieved to have made the Hall of Fame, and Michaels is acting like John is the story (not that whole, you know, Super Bowl thing).

2:50 p.m.

The first commercial for the postgame Gray’s Anatomy episode. At our particular party we set the over/under for total GA commercials between now and the end of the game at 8. Everybody takes the over, so we move it up to 10.

3:00 p.m.

ABC airs a very awkward interview with Joe Namath. They’re doing a sort of 40-years of the Super Bowl theme here, which seems to involve both big individuals from games past but also ridiculous spots about the Super Bowl intersecting with American history. This one is just about Broadway Joe, and even though he’s in the stadium (he will run out on the field later during the pregame celebration, along with a full slate of Super Bowl MVP’s, ABC chooses to air this one on tape-delay. You can’t blame them, given his interview history and the drunk come-on to Suzy Kolber on Monday Night Football. But still. That’s just sad.

3:10 p.m.

We’d heard much speculation about getting many, many, many ABC comedy and drama tie-ins this afternoon; this is the first: a strange mini-skit with James Spader and Captain Kirk in full Boston Legal character. It’s not un-funny, I just never know what to do with these moments.

3:29 p.m.

A long documentary feature on the Joey Porter trash-talking incidents from last week. And I feel very torn: yes, of course we want coverage of the actual game. ESPN is reportedly doing more football-intensive coverage over on the Worldwide Leader, but we made a decision to go with ABC top to bottom and we’re not switching over now. We want actual game analysis, and this is better than little documentaries about global politics. But still. Hasn’t this story been played out enough yet? And didn’t we all just realize that it wasn’t much of a story at all. 

3:30 p.m.

ABC can’t figure out their audio; the documentary begins rolling before Berman’s mic gets cut off, and we get both audio feeds at once. Then commercial. A bit sloppy, guys 

3:33 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy ad #2

3:45 p.m.

We’re on Bill Bellichek’s second stint as commentator here. He’s not bad. His voice is so unauthoritative and whiny, but he’s obviously intelligent. We’d give a lot for Mike Tirico’s seat, just having Bellichek’s analysis talking in our ear the whole game.

3:50 p.m.

How many more of these god damn Jessica Simpson Pizza Hut ads do we have to see? Apparently, quite a few.

3:54 p.m.

See, this is what I was talking about. ABC puts together a mini-doc about the Iranian Hostage crisis and how it intersected with the Raiders winning the Super Bowl. And I feel incredibly awkward: yes, I like the Super Bowl as much as anyone, but let’s not assign it geopolitical significance that it clearly shouldn’t have. And somewhere in here ABC needs some stock footage of West Point, and they obviously turn to some of the leftover establishing shots from Codebreakers. Nicely done.

4:10 p.m.

Troy Aikman’s moonlighting on ABC, and he’s much better than any of the ABC guys. This is the most football analysis we’ve had so far this afternoon. Aikman’s note about the constant turnover of footballs during the Super Bowl is an honest-to-goodness, genuine sports insight. We’re a bit late to the “hey, Aikman is really good at this” party, but we want to make an appearance anyway, especially to note that he’s making the ABC commentators look just a bit sloppy.

4:19 p.m.

We don’t have an exact count, but we’re thinking Pizza Hut is at ad #5 in the Jessica-Simpson-is-sexy routine. Except now they do a bait & switch: it’s Ms. Piggy, and the entire ad starts to collapse on itself, implicitly referencing the fact that we’ve spent all afternoon watching this ad. We love it when massive corporations go all meta.

4:33 p.m.

We find ourselves wondering: weren’t Al and John supposed to be at the stadium by now? They said they would “see us in a few minutes” and they are nowhere to be found. The Detroit weather looked terrible, and there was worry about the team buses: maybe the Madden Cruiser has been delayed.

4:45 p.m.

We just saw a clever ad for NFL Mobile, the new(ish) service from Sprint.  And we certainly are expecting a lot of Sprint ads, as they’re the ones “bringing us” the halftime show. But we didn’t expect NFL Mobile ads, not when the ESPN Mobile ad has been such a highly-touted Super Bowl event. Where’s ESPN Mobile? What’s the deal here? We’ll track this one down and let you know.

5:15 p.m.

Mick Jagger is being interviewed. High-definition does this man no favors.

5:23 p.m.

Our first taste of the movie trailer commercials to come: The Benchwarmers with Rob Schneider. Not exactly high-brow drama here. 

5:25 p.m.

This just in: Jerome Bettis is from Detroit! That’s incredible! (hear the sarcasm, love the sarcasm).

5:26 p.m.

ABC’s audio mix is really terrible; the crowd in Detroit has completely overwhelmed Tom Jackson, and the mics at ABC’s location studio can’t pick him up at all over the din. This certainly happens with indoor stadiums, but I would have thought that ABC’s technicians would have anticipated it more acutely.

5:39 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy ad #3. Frankly, I’m a bit shocked that it’s this low so far, and people at my party who were betting WAY above the over/under mark are beginning to look not quite so smart.

5:40 p.m.

The pre-game stage show, an amalgam of Aretha and Stevie Wonder stuff all made terrible. One of the girls “Dancin’ in the Street” has broken a strap on her dress, and now ABC won’t go back to the shot. Even though one of the other girls has been outfit in a very short dress over what looks to be a large diaper – somehow, the chance of nipple is more salacious than this poor woman’s high-definition underwear.

5:55 p.m.

Official airing of the “Are You Ready For Some Football” montage. Thank goodness. This seems to be the official kickoff of the mainstream ABC coverage, but it’s 5 minute before the hour, which is just sort of odd. It’s also the transition to Al & John, so finally they made it, which is good. Let me just say that, 3 and a half hours after beginning to watch Super Bowl coverage, I have learned nothing, and don’t know what happened to the last moments of my life.

6:07 p.m.

We just saw the epic and elaborately-produced ad for Full Throttle. Here’s the question: why would you spend as much money as Full Throttle just did on an ad, and not shoot in in high-definition? Compared to the cost of the production itself, renting a big fancy camera is not that much, and when you’re watching the game on high-def the standard-resolution commercials can stick out and look unsophisticated.

6:13 p.m.

I’m sorry, this is not the State of the Union. There’s no need to cut to Condoleeza Rice out of some sense of honoring the struggle of black women in America, just because Aretha is singing. We can do better, and do more respectably to everyone.

6:18 p.m.

Why is Harrison Ford on my television? With Dr. Suess? And an earring? Seriously, that was the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. Of all of the strange Disney cross-branding promotions I can think of, this one is way beyone the pale. Harrison Ford has clearly lost it. I also don’t understand ABC’s general programming strategy here, there seems to be no logic except just “fill time.”

6:21 p.m.

John Madden thinks that the Seahawks should just “play the way they played in the Playoffs.” Yes, this seems clear. You mean by that: they should win, John? 

6:27 p.m.

Kickoff! We are underway.

6:42 p.m

Essentially, this just feels like a big-time Monday Night Football game. Al and John aren’t making any effort to differentiate it from regular coverage, which is fine, and the MNF routine is so second-hat at this point that it just feels very comfortable. We should point out that the ambient noise level at our party is getting increasingly louder, and we are worried that we may miss something absurd that one of them might say. But we are also confident that this problem exists universally, and that nobody’s Super Bowl Party is very quiet, so maybe this is the safest audience Al and John have ever had.

6:53 p.m.

We just saw an odd mini-doc on our way out of commercial about how Troy Polomalu has never won anything and doesn’t know what it would feel like. I’m not sure how to feel about this; it seems just a bit NBCLympics of them to throw these mini-dramas into the middle of the actual competition. Especially since they could have put another commercial in, easily.

7:14 p.m.

The official ESPN Mobile Ad! With the movie theatre with Miracle in the background, and a Best Buy. Nice plugs, guys. Our first reactions: it’s surprising that ESPN didn’t bother to film this in HD. A much different look than the ESPN Mobile teaser ads, with the minimalistic black – it’s effective, un-funny, compelling. Again, though: the HUGE budget, including the plane fly-overs (though that may just be CGI), means that I am increasingly surprised by the decision not to shoot in high-def. This doesn’t feel like the showstopper ad that it was supposed to be.

7:14 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy ad #4 

7:23 p.m.

Joey Porter graphic, car themed. Yes, we get it. It’s in Detroit. Clever.

7:28 p.m.

Ben’s in-house mini-doc, to go with the Polomalu one from earlier. This is the second of these, and both for Pittsburgh. Does ABC have a rooting interest here? Clearly the Steelers have more media play, especially in the big-money eastern markets, but shouldn’t they at least pretend to program some of these with Seahawks? 

7:35 p.m.

Ah, the airing of the standalone GoDaddy spot that we promised Saturday. Frankly, guys, it doesn’t make any sense, and doesn’t sell anything, and we don’t care. The end.

7:41 p.m.

Ben’s controversial touchdown run. With review and commercial. ABC keeps repeating a completely useless angle, from the side front, where obviously the side angle is the only useful one. And then ABC finds a big useful stat about how ref Bill Leavy overturns calls the least of any active ref (23%). Well done with the statistics.

7:45 p.m.

Bill Cowher’s in-game doc. Still, 3 up, 3 down, all Steelers. And you can see the photographer in the reflection of the Lombardi Trophy he is holding. Not exactly clean editing there, but ok. Maybe the gods would smile upon you more favorably if you would pitch for some Seahawks from time to time…

7:48 p.m.

A commercial break without a commercial, just one of these moments where Al stalls for a while and we talk about the upcoming halftime show. Apparently, the Rolling Stones are still alive. Who knew?

7:54 p.m.

Halftime. The entire half took less than an hour and a half; striking. We wonder how ABC processes the quick game time, though halftime will take forever regardless. Mostly it seems the quick time has to do with the speed of play, and that nobody is scoring; nonetheless, with extended commercial breaks this is remarkable.

8:01 p.m.

Back to the Sunday NFL Countdown Crew for analysis. We had hoped he would change it, but no: Michael Irvin’s tie is still ridiculous. 

8:04 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy ad #5. This is more like it. 

8:06 p.m.

The Stones start performing, on a giant tongue made of people. And the sound is still not great. High-def adds at least 10 years to Mick’s apparent age.

8:10 p.m.

Mick gets bleeped. Sort of. That’s the 5 second delay for you. You don’t hear the bleep, it’s just that his mic dies for a second when he could have been saying nasty words. Well, at least we didn’t see his nipple.

8:20 p.m.

The halftime show was brought to you by Don Mischer Productions. They did the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and Don was the one you heard on CNN having a fit when the balloons failed to drop. That’s just the kind of cultural background information that you count on from us here at SMW.

8:22 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy #6

8:26 p.m.

Finally, an in-game mini-doc that has actual Seahawks in it. But this one is a combination, it seems to have all the big names from both teams. This is just a bit ridiculous, we are officially surprised at the brashness of ABC’s coverage bias.

8:27 p.m.

Second half. Our esteemed publisher observes that Al & John have switched sides of the set. Maybe this is because John’s blue blazer and Al’s black blazer didn’t really work as previously positioned. But again, between these two ill-matched suits and Irvin’s zip-code-sized neckwear, I feel like the ABC costume people didn’t work very thoroughly today.

8:47 p.m.

Deadspin is already reporting a number of Seattle-related conspiracy theories about the officiating. And remember: we don’t comment on that sort of stuff here, we’re just here to point out how quickly the information spreads. And to note that the coverage is fairly biased, regardless of the officiating. And remember; Jerome Bettis? He’s from DETROIT!

8:56 p.m.

Finally! A mini-doc JUST for a Seahawk: it’s Matt Hasselbeck’s turn. This time they don’t cut off the top of his head with the frame, so you get him in full baldness. But thank you, ABC, for waiting until everybody is on their fifth beer before trucking out something nice about Seattle.

9:07 p.m.

A Gray’s Anatomy in-game promo, just one of those floating transparencies over the game. After some brief deliberation we decide that this does not count towards the over-under.

9:09 p.m.

ESPN.com has put a link to the ESPN Mobile ad on their home page, immediately. You can watch it already. We would love some numbers on that the advance sales have been like here; we’ll be looking, and you’ll be the first to know when we do.

9:27 p.m.

Game over. That’s the trick play, Randle-El to Hines Ward, and we imagine we’ll be seeing that one a few more times. Like, forever.

9:36 p.m.

The Beer Institute? We just saw a long ad for something called The Beer Institute, or about how we are supposed to love and appreciate good beer. Read about the ad here; it’s clearly part of Budwieser’s ad buy, but also separate from it in some basic sense. The web page is not loading, possibly thanks to fifty million drunk Americans trying to access it at once. And if this site were called Beer Media Watch (which is not a bad idea), we would follow through with this one with more due diligence. 

9:50 p.m.

ABC is running a slow-mo shot of Joey Porter careening across the field, and he has a sincere look of evil on his face. That’s the last time I use HIS advice column.

9:55 p.m.

Gray’s Anatomy #7. Come on, ABC, we are running out of time. Though my original over-under of 8 is looking fairly accurate 

9:55 p.m.

Another in-game mini-doc, and this time it’s Bettis. If you’re counting, that’s the sixth of these, and four have been all-Steelers, with one mixed.

9:58 p.m.

Some research unearths that the Gray’s Anatomy episode to follow will be part one of two. There are going to be so many millions of disappointed, annoyed, and almost-by-then-sober Americans in about ninety minutes.

10:00 p.m.

Reaction shots of Paul Allen in the stands. There’s a joke in here somewhere about Windows, Microsoft, Bill Gates, and the Seahawks, and when we find it, we’ll let you know.

10:02 p.m.

The End. Bill Cowher has tears streaming down his face; perhaps he had them surgically implanted before the game. Time: just over three and a half hours, which is about half an hour under par for a Super Bowl, and fairly remarkable.

We’ll take the day to think more about overall game coverage. That’s the blow-by-blow. We also have a detailed list of each commercial by timeslot, and will be putting that up on the site for reference later today. For now: it was just like Monday Night Football, except that ABC was flagrantly rooting for the Steelers. It may be that those mini-docs are just designed to appeal to what is considered to be a wider Pittsburgh fan base, but the effect is to make the network seem completely unprofessional. Which, for those few moments, was exactly what it was.

Oh, and Gray's Anatomy just sucked.