Best Television Shows

Archive for August, 2009

Anyone out there genuinely looking forward to The Jay Leno Show? Anyone?

Like most Squadders, I’m not too thrilled with NBC’s decision to hand over the nightly 10 p.m. timeslot to Leno, leaving less room on the sked for scripted dramas. The thought of watching Leno’s incredibly bland stand-up routine and more “Jaywalking” segments in prime time doesn’t really appeal to me. But I might just tune in, at least for a few minutes every night, to check out the show’s musical segments.

Leno says he plans to showcase interesting musical groupings when the show kicks off Sept. 14. Up first will be Jay-Z with superstars Rihanna and Kanye West. On Sept. 17, Leno will feature guitar legend Eric Clapton performing with Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers. Clapton and Hornsby will perform “Space is the Place,” a song from Hornsby’s new album.

Leno’s musical segments will probably only feature mainstream artists and hitmakers – I don’t think we’ll see people like Mos Def and The Silversun Pickups sharing NBC’s stage anytime soon – but I’m looking forward to seeing who else gets booked to perform together.

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities, Reality-Free

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Dearest Gasmii–

It’s too damn hot out to waste time with an opening monologue from your recap artist. Besides, let’s face it, there’s very little going on this season. I would prefer they’d have made the entire thing about Sheree terrorizing everyone en route to her long-unawaited fashion show. Although I do love Kim slowly encroaching on poor innocent Kandi’s life, career and soul.

Someone please get me a Jamba Juice Strawberry Surf Rider with a shot of Absolut Ruby Red. Thanks!

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This week, on the Real World, the first half of the show is the threesome and the second half is everyone talking about it. Probably the best episode of the Real World in a while! Well, it had the inter-roomie threesome, so it kind of wins by default, but – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – I was actually wondering what was going to happen next!

Fingers crossed that it’s not this.

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According to its creator Todd McFarlane (via his Twitter account), an animated version of his comic book anti-hero Spawn will be returning to the airwaves in 2010. Spawn last had an animated version on HBO in 1997 (and it had adult content such as nudity, profanity and violence to boot).

Honestly, other than a few cult followers of the comic book, has anybody even heard of Spawn anymore? The character pretty much jumped out of the mainstream once the experiment that was Image Comics failed. Yes, I know Image is still around and the creators are still involved with it, but it was intended as an experiment to see if comic book creators could run a business as a collective. Most of the founders spun off into their own companies and it failed.

Spawn is too adult of a character to ever reach the mainstream anyway. It can’t really be marketed to children. If the animated series does return (or get a reboot), it would be best served on Adult Swim (or one of the pay channels that would let it go uncensored).

Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Reality-Free

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Being a big fan of Cartoon Network’s goofy Batman: The Brave and the Bold, I’m really looking forward to the debut of Marvel’s Super Hero Squad. The show premieres Sept. 19 on Cartoon Network, and Marvel has already launched a teaser site featuring a fun video preview that could turn out to be the show’s opening montage.

Super Hero Squad is based on the toy line and video game of the same name. It features cute and cuddly versions of Marvel heroes, like Wolverine, Iron Man, and the Hulk, protecting Super Hero City from a pint-sized Dr. Doom and other baby baddies. Judging by the preview video, the show will even make room for kid-sized versions of more obscure characters like Fing Fang Foom and MODOK.

Continue reading Marvel’s Super Hero Squad teaser site now live

Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Programming, Animation, Celebrities, Children, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free

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True Blood pulled in record ratings for last week’s insane episode, “New World in My View.” The ep ended with most of Bon Temps still zombified by Maryann, Sam naked and on the run, and Bill about to meet with the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, played by Evan Rachel Wood.

Over at the Stackhouse place, Sookie, Lettie May and Lafayette were left caring for a bruised Tara, who’s determined to rescue her man, Eggs. That’s where the following preview clip for Sunday’s ep, “Frenzy” picks up. Click through to watch.

Continue reading True Blood: Get a sneak peek at the Frenzy to come

Filed under: Video, Reality-Free, True Blood

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Do you remember the good old days? The innocent times when Lindsay Lohan was an up and coming young movie star. She received critical acclaim for those early roles. She was beautiful and voluptuous (and you know how the kids love that!). Then she got into drugs, drinking, partying, weighing less than 90 pounds, and it all kind of fell apart. Since then, she’s cleaned up her act a bit.

Which is great, Lindsay. But Lindsay Lohan in a reality show? You do know what kind of celebrities appear in realty shows? Do you think Whitney Houston and Britney Spears were at the heights of their careers when they did their amazing stints in reality television?

Speaking of Brit-Brit, LiLo is working with her manager on the project. Hopefully not the same guy that helped develop Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. The series is intended to follow Lohan as she attempts to get her career back on track.

Continue reading As Lindsay Lohan ponders a reality show, I remember when she had a career

Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Celebrities, Celebreality

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When I first saw the headline of this Variety piece, “TV Audiences Are Growing Older,” I thought, of course they’re growing older. What, are there people that actually get younger as the years go by?

A new study shows that the average age of TV viewers of ABC, CBS, NBC is now 51 (FOX’s is a bit younger but they’re growing older too). CBS’ average age has been 50 or over for quite some time (no surprise there, with the type of shows they have), but now ABC and NBC’s age has jumped quite a bit in the past several years. The CW is the youngest.

That’s interesting because just ten years ago the average age of a TV viewer was 43. Part of the jump is because of the introduction of the web and DVRs. The age of the people who use those are much younger than those who watch television. The Variety article breaks down all of the numbers.

Filed under: Industry, Programming, Reality-Free

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Hey, have you seen any promos for Mercy on NBC lately? It’s like they forgot the show was premiering in just a couple weeks. Usually the marketing machine is running into overdrive right about now.

For those who may be planning a volley of comments about how stupid I am, please note that the preceding paragraph is dripping with sarcasm. If you can’t see it, perhaps you don’t have the right fonts loaded. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. If you have seen the promos, I’ll bet you haven’t seen Captain Janeway prowling around the hospital halls, have you?

That’s because Kate Mulgrew just joined the cast of Mercy. She’ll be playing the mother of main character Veronica, played by Taylor Schilling. Mercy’s already been getting some good buzz, and you just know NBC is looking for their next ER. Could Mercy be it? Or better yet, their Grey’s Anatomy? It already appears to have a more personal slant, if Mulgrew’s addition means anything.

Continue reading Kate Mulgrew beaming down to join the cast of Mercy

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Casting, Reality-Free

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• WE has a Golden Girls marathon all night.
• At 7, ESPN2 has the Pilot Pen Tennis final, followed by the NAPA Auto Parts 2000 Qualifying race.
• At 8, CBS has Pre-Season Football, the Chargers vs. the Falcons.
• HGTV has a new Divine Design at 8.
• FOX News has a new Huckabee at 8.
• At 9, FOX has a new America’s Most Wanted.
• NBC has The 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• There’s a new Bill Engvall Show on TBS at 9.
• BBC America has a new Being Human at 9.
• Also at 9: Syfy has the movie Megashark vs. Giant Octopus.
• At 10, ABC has Jimmy Kimmel’s Big Night of Stars.
• Style Network has a new episode of The Dish at 10.
• At 12:30AM, Cartoon Network has two new episodes of Bleach, then a new Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Filed under: Programming, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free

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