Thursday, December 20, 2007

December 20, 2007 - Late Night Returns, Journeyman Ends, Survivor China Finale

What's up everybody? Hope that you're all doing great!!

No movement at all on the writers strike. Still no scheduled talks. There was news that the WGA is looking at negotiating one on one with the studios instead of going through the AMPTP. No one seems sure on how that plan will turn out. Worldwide Pants which produces the David Letterman show is said to be very interested in negotiating one on one and trying to work out a separate deal to get their writers back to work. News did come out this week that late night is about to get rolling again on NBC. Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien announced plans about them returning with new shows beginning January 2nd. The statement that was released basically said that they still support the writers but they have to also support their non-writing crew of people that are getting hammered by this strike. This is what Conan had to say in the statement: "I have been and continue to be an ardent supporter of the WGA and their cause. My career in television started as a WGA member and my subsequent career as a performer has only been possible because of the creativity and integrity of my writing staff. ... Unfortunately, now with the New Year upon us, I am left with a difficult decision: Either go back to work and keep my staff employed or stay dark and allow 80 people, many of whom have worked for me for fourteen years, to lose their jobs. I will make clear, on the program, my support for the writers and I'll do the best version of 'Late Night' I can under the circumstances. Of course, my show will not be as good. In fact, in moments it may very well be terrible. My sincerest hope is that all of my writers are back soon, working under a contract that provides them everything they deserve." Jay Leno had similar comments: "Now that the talks have broken down and there are no further negotiations scheduled I feel it's my responsibility to get my 100 non-writing staff, which were laid off, back to work. We fully support our writers and I think they understand my decision." Days later, Jimmy Kimmel announced plans to also return with new shows beginning on the same night. Kimmel had these comments in a statement released: "Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than a hundred people whose financial well-being depends on our show. It is time to go back to work. I support my colleagues and friends in the WGA completely and hope this ends both fairly and soon." Today saw news come out that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will return with new shows on January 7th on Comedy Central. The speculation has always been that if one of these late night people came back that it would start a pattern with others following lead. That appears to be happening. NBC is also going to move some of the programming from USA over to NBC on March 2nd including Monk and Psych. The Golden Globes and Oscars are going to be effected by the writers strike as well. The Globes and Oscars were hoping to get a waiver allowing writers to work on the shows despite the ongoing strike but the WGA rejected it. No idea on whether the writers plan to picket the awards shows or what actors will attend due to the support of the writers.

The Survivor China finale aired this past Sunday night with the normal three hour broadcast. I really enjoyed the show and wasn't surprised with the outcome. Well, I say that but I thought that Amanda would do better. That was until the jury dismantled her chance of winning with their questioning. It didn't help that Amanda had told Denise that she wouldn't vote her out only to vote her out. To make matters worse for Amanda, she had two jurors who she had done the same thing to. Early on in the show, I really was thinking that she was going to win but I think the jury questioning finished her chance of winning. Denise was voted out in the first tribal council of the episode as Amanda won the final immunity. That gave us a final three of Todd, Amanda, and Courtney. The jury questioning is always my favorite part of the season and it didn't disappoint. Funny moment when Todd's response to Jean-Robert's question left him speechless with James and the jury all laughing at how they had never seen him silenced like that. LOL. I've got to say that I wasn't expecting Jaime to be the one to stir the pot up with her question. When Courtney made final three, I knew she had a legitimate shot of winning. One thing that Courtney was in the game was honest. She would tell you what she thought and not cover up anything. That worked in her favor as I think she gained some respect from the jury on that. What a nice cut by the producers from the voting results when they cut from China to live back in the United States. WOW, I didn't even catch when they did it. The votes played out with Todd getting four votes, Courtney getting two votes, and Amanda getting one vote. Todd wins Survivor China and he did play an excellent game. When you watched the reunion show, you really got a feel of how much he had planned his game out with being a huge Survivor fan from the beginning. A $100,000 prize was also given to the winner of the fan voting of most popular Survivor player. The three in contention were James, Denise, and Peih-Gee. James ended up winning the vote. James was a lot of fun this season and it's nice to see that he has a sense of humor on being asked over and over about not using the immunity idols. I was surprised that Jeff didn't ask Jaime about playing the fake immunity idols. I always feel bad for the cast members that get voted out early on and just pretty much sit there with no questions asked to them. They weren't there long so the attention is going to be on the ones that got further. I do like that Jeff makes sure to talk to everyone even if it is only for a moment.

We also learned that the rumors of an Survivor All Stars 2 was somewhat true. The concept for the next Survivor is Fans vs. Favorites. Several survivors will be returning to do another edition and will play against superfans who feel that they can play the game of Survivor. Who are the returning people going to be? Well, there are rumors out there and it was confirmed that at least one person from Survivor China will take part.

It was nice to see that Big Brother 9 promo running during the Survivor finale on Sunday night. The promo is set to All American Rejects song, Dirty Little Secret. Seeing that promo got me pretty pumped up for the new season which begins on February 12th.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dWLCPeHexA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF_LKQaadVw

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. I Am Legend - $77.2 million. 2. Alvin & The Chipmunks - $44.3 million. 3. The Golden Compass - $8.8 million. 4. Enchanted - $5.5 million. 5. No Country - $2.8 million. 6. Perfect Holiday - $2.2 million. 7. This Christmas - $2.2 million. 8. Fred Clause - $2.2 million. 9. Atonement - $1.8 million. 10. August Rush - $1.7 million.

I Am Legend opened up big at the box office this past weekend. The movie set box office records for being the best opening ever for a movie in December and it is also the biggest box office opening for a Will Smith movie. The previous best opening movie for Will Smith was I Robot in 2004 with $52 million. Incredible numbers for I Am Legend and it is a movie that I plan on watching.

I didn't get to comment last week on Smallville cause I hadn't seen it yet. Good episode and now we are left with more questions. So, Julian isn't still alive after all? He is just a clone led to believe that he is Julian. Oh, that Lex Luthor. The scenes with Chloe and Jimmy in the elevator were very good and I laughed out loud at the elevator opening while they were kissing as they realized that they had an audience. We'll see how Chloe telling Jimmy her meteor secret will turn out. Wow, I didn't see that ending happening with Bizarro being back and Clark being gone!! That was nice!! That also explains how Clark was suddenly able to fly as he was flying through that elevator shaft cause it turns out that it wasn't him. I had to laugh in amazement at Lois cause of her continuing to get herself in trouble with Gemini. He kept telling her to not communicate anything to Chloe that she had a bomb on her. Geez Lois. What part of "don't let Chloe know" didn't you understand??? LOL. Lex now owns The Daily Planet. That story has potential to get nasty before it's over. It's going to be a while before we get a new episode so settle in with your Smallville DVD's or, hey, there is always season seven reruns to watch.

Chloe Sullivan is making her way into territory that she has yet to see. The comic books. That's right. Smallville's Chloe Sullivan has been a character exclusive to the show but that is about to change. The Superman comics are set to introduce Chloe as a character with some of it staying true to the series and some of it not. She will still be an aspiring writer at The Daily Planet as she will be an intern and also be the cousin of Lois Lane. However, she is not going to know Clark's secret and also is going to be younger than Clark. She also won't be infected by meteors. The apparent date for Chloe's arrival in the comics is set for March 12th in issue 674. This is great news and news that is long overdue. Chloe is a great character on Smallville and her arriving in the comics is great as well.

Speaking of comics, Michael Ausiello over at TVGuide.com had a Veronica Mars comic comment in his Q&A this week. He was asked on whether Rob Thomas had gotten any time to work on the comic. Well, the strike could be carrying over to the comic book world too. Nooooo!!! LOL. Thomas said that he had had a second meeting with DC Comics but then discussed how he had heard that the WGA wasn't wanting TV writers working on TV related comics. They are looking into whether Veronica Mars would count since the show is no longer on the air. It does sound optimistic that maybe Veronica Mars might carry over into comic book form. If all my favorite shows continue becoming comic books, there is no telling how many comics I'll have to buy every month. LOL.
http://www.tvguide.com/ask-ausiello

AFI has released their top 10 movies of 2007 list. Among the movies in their list are Michael Clayton, No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Knocked Up, Ratatouille, The Savages, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Into The Wild, and Juno.

Dexter set another record this past week for Showtime. The show set a record earlier in the season for being the most watched broadcast in the history of Showtime. Well, that record has been broken again by the season finale which drew 1.4 million viewers.

With Christmas approaching in the next few days. I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas movies to watch every year. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is still my favorite Christmas movie of all time and a tradition of viewing of mine. That movie has made the Griswold name an adjective. If you see a big extravagant display of lights, it is often referred to as a Griswold display. I have memories of watching this movie in high school on our last day before Christmas break during the scene where Clark just finally goes on his cussing tirade. I'll always remember our teacher sitting up there at his desk with his face really red cause he was laughing so hard at it. Others that I really enjoy are Ernest Saves Christmas. It is a really funny movie and one that has a nice story to it as well. Ernest flying the sleigh was funny stuff!! Home Alone is a movie that I'd throw in there as well as I usually end up watching it sometime during the holidays. I still enjoy the original The Santa Clause movie as well. There are a ton of Christmas movies that I like but those are my favorites. I'll probably be annoyed at myself tomorrow when I realize that I left a favorite of mine out of this list.

I recently watched the movie, Man Of The Year. I won't reveal too much about the storyline in case you are wanting to see it. The movie stars Robin Williams who plays a Jon Stewart or Bill Maher type character as he is a political comedian. Robin Williams plays Tom Dobbs and he decides to run for president as an independent candidate. He is pushed by his audience to go for it and he tries to find a way to balance comedy and also serious issues. His team works hard at trying to get his name out there so he can make some noise in the election. One problem with the election centers around a computer problem in the new voting machines that have been unveiled for the first time. Also in the movie is Christopher Walken who plays Tom's manager. I really liked the cast in this movie. I expected the movie to be more of a comedy but it is definitely a comedy/drama. Overall, I'd recommend this movie. I enjoyed the story and the acting. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Journeyman has been flat out awesome in the last few episodes. So, you know that means?? It has to end. LOL. It looks like this week's episodes were the last of Journeyman unless there is some sort of TV miracle. I recently watched the Christmas episode and it was great. Monday night's episode saw a lot of things changed including the kid. Dan helped a mother and son out of a RV hanging on a cliff only to accidentally drop his digital camera from 2007 in the past before being zapped out of there as he was in the rolling RV as it crashed down the hill. He did save the people in it and got them out. Dan gets back to 2007 and his family is different. He now has a daughter named Caroline instead of a son named Zach. She has all the memories that Zach had but he is gone. Dan figures out that the camera had to be the reason for it. He talked to Katie about it and the stories of how the kid was conceived didn't match up. The story had changed cause Dan had to go cover a story of a computer crash instead of what originally happened. Dan finds out that the kid who found the camera had disappeared finding out that he was selling it to someone else and then likely killed. Dan and Livia save the kid and destroy the camera. Dan gets back to 2007 and Zach is back. Hey, that even rhymes. What an episode!! Last night's finale was a good way to finish up the series as they answered a lot of questions. Dan and Livia ran into another time traveler who had altered his whole life to give the woman he loved a better life. It was really a nice story and it played into how Dan and Livia are having to deal with random time traveling while having to leave family all the time. Dan talked to Langley who told him that there used to be several time travelers but now the numbers are dwindling. He says that Dan is the last one which isn't true but he wouldn't tell Langley the identity of the other one. I loved the way the show ended with Katie getting to watch as Dan disappeared on to his next mission. Watching how good this show has gotten as the season goes along just makes me really annoyed that NBC is not bringing the show back. This would be a great show for Sci-Fi Channel if it could somehow be moved over there. I wonder what kind of ratings it would do on cable. Head over to this website if you would like info on what you can do to help fight for the show: http://savejourneyman.net If you want to check out episodes of the show, head over to NBC.com. I definitely recommend checking it out. The cast is amazing on this show. I love all the storylines and trying to piece things together on why things are happening. This is going to be a show that I'm going to miss a lot. Can this be released on DVD please??!!

The newest Bring It On movie is now in stores on DVD. For more info on the movie including clips, interviews, contests, downloads including a widget and wallpaper, and more, head over to: http://www.myyearbook.com/bringiton

So, I love that new song by Sara Bareilles called Love Song. How catchy is that song??!!

TV Guide is reporting that USA has cancelled its shows Dead Zone and The 4400.
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Ausiello-Report/Exclusive-Usa-Kills/800029520

I don't have any TV on DVD releases for you next week. With it being Christmas day on Tuesday, nothing of TV on DVD is being released.

TV Line Of The Week: From Journeyman.
"If the stairs are a problem, we have elevators." Dan's boss to Dan after Dan returned from time traveling as he had been tumbling down a cliff in a RV. When he returned back to current day, he finished tumbling down the stairs at work.

You Tube Video Of The Week: I'm using this to plug Journeyman this week. Here is a trailer for the pilot. What are you waiting for? Get over to NBC.com and start watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y-i5-dTYYs

I want to take a moment to say Merry Christmas!! Hope you have a very safe and great holiday!! Take care and God bless!!

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