Best Television Shows

Archive for December, 2009

Okay Gasmi, we’ve made it through the holiday season, and you’ve probably been bombarded with spiritual messages, what with little spindly Christmas trees teaching the meaning of Christmas to cartoon characters, birth defects allowing small children to be bombarded with toys, and angels getting their wings, but you know what? Screw that noise. We need to talk about a TV show where somebody kicks people in the head, and returns from the dead to save mankind. So what are you waiting for? Make the jump and let’s talk about the newest Dollhouse.

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It should go without saying that we here at TV Squad are infinitely familiar with spoilers, so naturally this New York Times article caught my eye. Even if it did spoil the end of The Sopranos for me. Thanks, Grey Lady!

The paper’s ArtsBeat blog has declared an official moratorium on spoiler complaints and given “amnesty” for their readers to talk about the best surprise endings in the last decade. What are your favorite TV endings that you now have the right to spoil the hell out of for people too lazy to get up and discover them for themselves?

And it should go without saying: don’t complain about how any of the comments below have spoiled anything for you. The only way I could make the spoiler warning any bigger is by typing the word “SPOILER” in all caps and pasting over and over in this post.

Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Other Reality Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Reality-Free

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More of our best of the decade coverage, which started earlier today. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about our favorite reality contestants and participants.

Whether we like it or not, the ’00s introduced us to a new form of celebrity: the reality star. In previous decades, the closest we got to this were especially entrancing personalities from MTV’s Real World. These people gained fame for acting like well-crafted exaggerations of their real selves.

Faster than you can say, “I didn’t come here to make friends,” networks picked up on the public’s fascination with reality TV like Survivor and they pushed it to the popularity that it has reached today. Now, reality shows barely reflect what happens in normal people’s lives but are generally more like high-concept game shows or extremely scripted improvs. But people keep watching, because the personalities are big and captivating.

Yup. Strategic footage editing does wonders. Here are some of our personal favorites from the genre, but feel free to comment with your own worthy additions!

Continue reading Best TV of the ’00s: Reality Participant / Contestant

Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities

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I ran across this video while perusing Gawker, and I honestly have no idea what it is. Well, that’s not true: I know what it is, it’s a shot-by-shot remake of the songs “Summer Lovin’” from Grease, starring Desperate Housewives‘ Eva Longoria-Parker and her husband, NBA player, Tony Parker. What I don’t have an answer for, is why.

Other than Tony talking in the beginning, the video is completely lip-synced, so neither one is trying to show off their vocal talents. Her wig looks like she scalped a parcel of barbies, and his looks like he’s trying to honor a beloved, yet dead family pet by gently nestling it on his cranium for the rest of eternity, so “looking good” can’t be much of a motive either.

Continue reading The weirdest thing you’ll see all day: Eva Longoria and Tony Parker do Grease

Filed under: Desperate Housewives, Video, Celebrities, Reality-Free

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Smallville‘s Clark Kent isn’t the only one getting a visit from DC Comics’ Justice Society in 2010. A month before the classic crime fighters show up for Smallville‘s “Absolute Justice” event, airing Feb. 5, they’ll drop by the Batcave for an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

An animated version of the 1940s superhero team will make its debut January 15 on Cartoon Network’s great and goofy Batman show. We’ll get to see how The Flash (the original one with the silly hat), Hourman, Hawkman, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wildcat influenced Batman’s bad guy-beating skills. We’ll also see them in action against a villain named Per Degaton. The ep, titled “The Golden Age of Justice,” will also feature Bats teaming up with Green Arrow’s main squeeze, Black Canary.

Continue reading DC’s Justice Society gets animated

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Animation, Children, Reality-Free

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Is your life a crazy amalgamation of multiple girlfriends and wild infidelity? Do you often find yourself in strange situations that involve a pair of handcuffed strippers, a goat and a poorly guarded public swimming pool? Do you have a felony arrest record? Then put that talent to work!

New York residents can learn the ins and outs of the national reality TV spotlight by enrolling in the New York Reality TV School.

The school, founded by acting coach and TV director/producer Robert Galinsky, teaches students in both class workshops and private lessons how to develop a personality that TV producers look for in a reality star and how to package yourself for that big audition. I wonder if the curriculum includes a boxing workout?

[via EOnline]

Filed under: Other Reality Shows

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Hugh Jackman has come a long way since he played Curly McLain in a TV version of Oklahoma in 1999. Now we know the Aussie star mainly for his work in movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Australia, and Van Helsing, but early in his career, he earned a communications degree with a journalism major from the University of Technology Sydney. Fortunately for us, he went on to pursue drama at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, then met his future wife Deborra-Lee Furness while starring in the ABC prison drama Correlli.

How do I know all this? Because Biography did a show on him and told us all there is to know about Hugh Jackman. Ok, maybe not ALL there is to know, but enough to get a behind-the-scenes look at the guy who would go on to become famous for his spiky hands and song-and-dance numbers while hosting awards shows. Here’s a look at the episode straight from our sister site, SlashControl.

Filed under: Video, Celebrities

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So playing around with fireworks can be dangerous, and this Dutch ad shows that not only might you get severely injured, it might be in a way you never even imagined.

Having a face like that would cause so many problems I can’t even begin to list them all.

[via Adfreak]

Filed under: Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

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More of our best of the decade coverage, which started earlier today. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the decade’s biggest TV scandals.

Who doesn’t like a little drama? We love it here at TV Squad. Of course, its usually the scripted kind that we obsess over, not the real-life variety. But it was hard to escape all of the behind-the-scenes scandals going on during the Aughts.

The backstage drama often spilled out onto the tube, in talk show interviews, reality series, and with the 24-hour news networks looking to fill time and boost their ratings. Needless to say, we had little trouble picking our top TV scandals of the ’00s.

Continue reading Best TV of the ’00s: Scandals

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This might be the stupidest thing you see on the web all day, but it also happens to be one of the cutest. It’s a recreation of the now infamous scene from Jersey Shore (cut by MTV but seen everywhere anyway) of Snooki being punched in the face in the bar. Only this time it’s done by dogs!

On a related note, has a bartender in NJ created a “Jersey Shore Punch” yet?

[via Best Week Ever]

Filed under: Video, Web

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