Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Entertainment Wrap Up - February 14, 2008 - Post Strike News, BB9 Premieres, Idol Sets It's Top 24

Supersized edition this week with the post strike news including what shows are doing and when they're coming back, Big Brother, and the normal stuff.

The strike is over!! Can you believe it??!!

So, what are the TV shows going to do now that the strike is over? There has been a lot of talk about some coming back while others weren't going to come back till later. After reading several sites, I'll split this into two categories with who is coming back this season and who is calling it quits. Keep in mind that several of these shows still had new stuff yet to air. I am only putting them into categories with if they are going back into production this season. Some shows have yet to make a decision on what to do while others aren't even sure if they're getting another season such as Journeyman which unfortunately looks bad for another season.

Going back into production this season:
Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Smallville, 30 Rock, Lost, Bones, Boston Legal, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Brothers & Sisters, all CSI shows, Desperate Housewives, Ghost Whisperer, ER, The Game, Ugly Betty, The Office, One Tree Hill, Moonlight, My Name Is Earl, Gossip Girl, House, Grey's Anatomy, all Law & Orders, Medium, Numb3rs, Reaper, Rules Of Engagement, Samantha Who?, Without A Trace, Scrubs, Supernatural, and Two and a Half Men.

See you next season:
24, Heroes, Chuck, Dirty Sexy Money, Everybody Hates Chris, Las Vegas, Life, Men In Trees, New Adventures Of Old Christine, Pushing Daisies, and Private Practice.

Looking over that list, not really anything that surprises me. Well, I am surprised a bit to see Chuck not coming back. Heroes is not a surprise at all. I have been predicting for a while that they'd be done. There just doesn't seem to be a point in coming back to do four or so episodes with the way they write that show. Four episodes would just be a building to something type arc in a regular season on that show. They left off at a great point so why bother coming back before the fall. I would like to see them come back a little earlier than normal in the fall though.

ABC announced this week of several renewals for the fall. Among the shows picked up for next season so far are: Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Brothers & Sisters, Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Private Practice, and Samantha Who?

CBS announced some renewals today for several of their shows for next season. Renewed for next season is The Big Bang Theory, all three CSI shows, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Numb3rs, Two and a Half Men, Without A Trace, and Ghost Whisperer. A big yes to The Big Bang Theory. I love that show and I was worried about how it will do post strike hoping that the audience it had been building hasn't gone away. I am feeling good that it is secure in another season. My concern is not seeing How I Met Your Mother on the list. A decision has not been made about it yet. CBS also did announce when several of their shows would be coming back with new episodes and here is what they released. How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men will all return on March 17th. Criminal Minds and CSI: NY return on April 2nd. Other shows: Cold Case (March 30), CSI: Miami (March 24), Without A Trace (April 3), Ghost Whisperer (April 4), Numb3rs (April 4), NCIS (April 8), Rules Of Engagement (April 14).

NBC announced a few renewals of their own with Chuck, Life, and Heroes all returning next year for another season. NBC said that none of those shows will come back this season and are planning a big return campaign for all of those shows. They also announced when several of their shows will be returning with new episodes: My Name Is Earl (April 3), Law & Order: SVU (April 15), Law & Order (April 23), and 30 Rock, The Office, Scrubs, and ER will all be returning on April 10.

The CW announced that the long running series Girlfriends is done for good. The show appears to not be coming back with any new episodes with the strike now over. The reason given was that the network is going to "focus its creative and financial resources on shows that are in consideration for renewal next year." They also announced the cancellation of their new show, CW Now.

Saturday Night Live is set to return on February 23rd with Tina Fey returning to do the hosting duties. It appears that Ellen Page from Juno will be the host the week after that.

Big Brother fans. Welcome to Big Brother 9!!! Tuesday's premiere saw the cast enter the house and also revealed the secret twists of the season. The first twist is that all the houseguests are single (well, not all of them but we'll get to that in a moment) and each of them will be paired up with their "soulmate" based on questions that they answered. The pairs will compete together, share a bed together, and be evicted together. We learned that four of the people aren't strangers. We have Jen and Ryan who are dating in real life and are going into the house as a secret real life couple. Then, we have Sharon and Jacob who dated for twelve years but aren't together anymore. The ending of the relationship was bad and the two are now going to be living in the house together. She is understandably upset with him still while he says that he messed up losing "the love of his life". With Tuesday's premiere, the girls entered the house first and immediately started putting clues together on what was going on. They noticed that all the bedrooms were locked and also all the love type slogans posted all over the house. The men enter the house and it is pointed out how everyone in the house is single. Introductions are made and Jen and Ryan play things off extremely well. Jen even continues to have to be reminded of his name. Nicely played Jen. Nicely played. The reaction of Sharon and Jacob seeing each other was about what you would expect when you see an ex walk in the house. Very awkward!! Julie Chen announces the twist to the house and the pairs are then announced. The reaction is obviously of shock. Here are the pairings. First, the previous couples mentioned don't have things go their way. Jen and Ryan are split up. Jen ends up with Parker. Ryan ends up with Allison. Then, we get Sharon and Jacob who are of course paired together. WOW. Other couples paired together are: Alex & Amanda, James & Chelsia, Natalie & Matt, Neil & Josh, and Sheila & Adam. The opinions on the pairings are positive and negative from the houseguests. Sheila is not happy at all with her pairing with Adam and pretty much just bashed him in the remaining moments of the first episode. Poor guy. We then get the first competition of BB9 which involves the couples being held from up above a bed in the back yard. The idea is that you will have one person on top and they will have to hold the person below them as they have to hold on tight to each other to keep from falling on to the bed to which you're eliminated. The last couple remaining in the air wins the competition and becomes the power couple being able to evict whichever couple that they want. The first couple out is Sheila & Adam as she really wanted nothing to do with the competition. Josh & Matt are eliminated next followed by Amanda & Alex and Sharon & Jacob. As it nears the end, the remaining couples are then told of a twist that if you are able to reach the pillow below you and pick it up with only your hands, you'll win $10,000 if you are also the winner of the competition. The teams go for it with James & Chelsia making a very tough effort at it. She does get the pillow but has to quit a little bit later cause she can't hold on any longer. Ryan & Allison were eliminated as well. It came down to Jen & Parker and Natalie & Matt. It is decided to go ahead and let Jen & Parker win since they have the pillow. They win to become the power couple and also win the $10,000. After winning the competition, it was up to Jen & Parker on who to evict from the house. What was Jacob thinking when he bashed Parker right in front of his partner, Jen? Of course, Jen went right to Parker and told him what was going on. He gets called out about it in front of everyone and looks really bad. This ends up leading to Jacob & Sharon being evicted from the house. They didn't want to evict Sharon but she was connected to Jacob so she had to go. Wow, I feel so bad for Sharon. She didn't even get to play the game!! Her game was messed up from night one and it ended even a chance of her getting to play. The HOH competition takes place and it is hosted by some very familiar faces. BB8's Jessica and Eric return to the Big Brother house to host the HOH competition which is a dating game of sorts. Great to see Jessica and Eric!!! The HOH is won by Alex & Amanda.

Off to the live feeds:
We got a NASA broadcast. Seriously, they had the NASA stuff up on the feeds for a while as a sort of test pattern deal, I'm sure. It was fun to watch the feeds load up immediately after the show ended. About 7:59pm, the NASA stuff disappeared and we started seeing "application loading" signals across the feeds. Each one loaded up one by one starting from four going up to one with each loading the BB9 logo. The theme song started playing and I admit to letting out a big cheer. We then got a shot of the guinea pigs on all four feeds as we waited. So, I'm guessing that the guinea pigs are the new "front of the house", "flames", or whatever else we've had over the years. Hey, I can deal with that.

What You Missed On The Live Feeds:
Ok, if you don't want to know what happens before the next show airs, this is where you need to move on in the Wrap Up as this is going to be spoilers. Major SPOILER ALERT coming here............................................ Here is what has been happening in the house. Jen and Ryan's secret is out and the house knows that they are a real couple. I don't know how it got revealed yet cause the secret was known when the feeds went live to the viewers on Tuesday night. Parker and Allison were furious obviously. Things got tense early on which you can read more about on my site. The house is split into two different alliances. It was talked about that Jen & Parker and Ryan & Allison would go on the block. Ryan had said repeatedly that he was only there for Jen and it sounded like he was willingly waiting to be voted out to keep her in the game. However, word got around back to Jen that Ryan was campaigning to stay. That made her furious and she said to put him up on the block cause she'd vote Ryan out. Those four are indeed up on the block for eviction. Today brought word that Neil was removed from the house overnight. It appears to be a personal situation with him and not game related. Back in the game is Sharon!! She is teamed up with Josh. There was an argument that went down today between several houseguests but mostly involving James and Parker. It seems like a deal where paranoia is running through that house worrying about additional twists coming. I haven't gotten to watch much of the feeds today so I'm behind as well on most of the happenings. Veto competition has been going on tonight but no results of a winner yet as I type this. It hasn't been all intense all the time as the houseguests did play charades last night in the living room.

Hollywood week has concluded on American Idol and we have a top 24. Here are the people that you'll be seeing performing in the coming weeks beginning next week.
Top 12 guys:
David Archuleta, 17, Salt Lake City, Utah
Colton Berry, 18, Staunton, Virginia
Robbie Carrico, 26, Melbourne, Florida
Jason Castro, 20, Rowlett, Texas
David Cook, 25, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Chikezie Eze, 22, Inglewood, California
Garrett Haley, 17, Elida, Ohio
David Hernandez, 24, Phoenix, Arizona
Michael Johns, 29, Los Angeles, California
Luke Menard, 29, Crawfordsville, Indiana
Danny Noriega, 18, Azusa, California
Jason Yeager, 28, Grand Prairie, Texas
Top 12 girls:
Joanne Borgella, 25, Hoboken, New Jersey
Kristy Lee Cook, 24, Selma, Oregon
Amy Jean Davis, 25, Cedar Lake, Indiana
Asia'h Epperson, 19, Joplin, Missouri
Alexandréa Lushington, 17, Atlanta, Georgia
Kady Malloy, 18, Houston, Texas
Ramiele Malubay, 20, Miramar, Florida
Syesha Mercado, 21, Miami, Florida
Amanda Overmyer, 23, Mulberry, Indiana
Carly Smithson, 24, Dublin, Ireland
Alaina Whitaker, 16, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Brooke White, 24, Van Nuys, California.
An impressive group of singers. I don't know a lot about some of these names cause it really depends on who they decide to show on TV and who doesn't get focused on as much. I am excited more about the competition with the girls side more than I am with the guys. Carly has a lot of hype on her especially from Paula. Brooke has a unique voice. Kristy could do very well. I like JoAnne's voice and think she could be underrated. Syesha also has a very nice voice but we'll have to see if that nice voice will hold up as she has battled a rough throat through a lot of Hollywood week. Amanda is the female rocker this season and I'm interested to see how she does. I don't know a whole lot about the guys. Danny has been someone that has stood out with his voice and personality. David has a good voice as well but we'll have to see if he can handle all this with his age which is something that the judges discussed in putting him through. Other thoughts on Hollywood week. The judges did argue over different ones to put through or not put through. It was pointed out that it was not unanimous to not send Kyle on through. I was surprised to see that Simon was the one that pushed for him to go through especially after a disagreement over Kyle made Simon leave the area on the previous episode. It did appear that the judges were second guessing not sending Cardin McKinney on through as Simon said that for sure. Josiah had a rough Hollywood experience. I really was hoping for him to get through cause he is so unique but he was cut. His last audition pretty well finished him off. It was really sad watching the goodbyes from everyone to him. People seemed to really like him. Ok, I liked Amy Flynn. There was something about her that I liked and I just didn't understand the logic in her coach giving her a brand new song that she didn't know the words to and perform during her last chance to make it through. She had the chorus of the song wrong and I'm sure that finished her chances. Time to start voting people. Vote for your favorites!! To get more info on the top 24 contestants, here is the link to check out: http://www.americanidol.com/top24/

Sticking with Idol news, GAC is going to air a special about Kellie Pickler's visit to the troops overseas this Saturday night at 8pm central time.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend.
1. Fool's Gold - $21.6 million. 2. Roscoe Jenkins - $16.2 million. 3. Hannah Montana - $10.3 million. 4. The Eye - $6.5 million. 5. Juno - $5.6 million. 6. 27 Dresses - $5.4 million. 7. The Bucket List - $5.3 million. 8. Rambo - $4.5 million. 9. Meet The Spartans - $4.1 million. 10. There Will Be Blood - $3.9 million.

Kristen Bell is set to star in a Disney romantic comedy named "When In Rome". Kristen will play a real estate agent in Manhattan who can't find love. She will then be off to Rome for her sister's wedding when she'll start collecting coins from a fountain of love which will bring all sorts of offers for romance. The movie begins shooting in the next couple of months.

The new J.J. Abrams pilot called Fringe that will be on Fox has named a familiar name for a lead role. Joshua Jackson, best known for his role on Dawson's Creek, will be playing the role of a high school dropout with a high IQ but also a gambling problem.

News out of the Star Wars world this week. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is going to happen and it will be an animated series. The series will have a timeline of being between Episode II and III. The series will first go to the theatres on August 15th. After that, the series will air on Cartoon Network and TNT in the fall. For more info and to see a video preview of what the series will look like, head over to: http://www.starwars.com/

Have I mentioned that Smallville's Allison Mack is an excellent blogger? Check out her blog over at her website at http://www.allisonmack.com/

What goes on in Lex Luthor's mind? We found out in tonight's Smallville and what a great episode!! Clark went into Lex's head while Lex was in a coma to try and find out the whereabouts of Kara and Lois. Lois had tracked down Kara but so had Lex. Clark saw many things while in Lex's head including heartbreaking childhood moments of Lex's life. We saw how things are going in there with the bad side of Lex trying to wipe out the good side. Clark took a step in trying to help the good side prevail. This was great stuff. Chloe ended up having to use her healing powers to bring Lex and Clark back. Clark pointed out how it had taken Chloe longer to come back this time after using her powers. Kara still has no clue who she is except, well, she knows her name now cause she was told it. It appears that the next new episode of Smallville will be March 13th from the research that I just did to find out.

There sure is a lot of romance going on with Survivor this year. Tonight's show saw love connections being made on both sides. We have the flirting of Parvati and James. Then, we had Ozzy and Amanda who kissed during the episode. However, the connection on the other side revolved around who got voted off. A little connection started being made between Mikey and Mary. The favorites end up winning the immunity challenge and we actually see very little of them tonight. The show mostly focused on the fans tribe. The tribe splits with the younger group and the older group not getting along. Mikey comes up with a plan but plans a little too much for Joel's liking. The plan is come up with to mess with Mikey and blindside Mary. Mary is voted out with six votes. Other happenings on the show saw Kathy and Ciria on exile island together getting their first clue at the immunity idol. They end up swimming all over the place continuing to get new clues but no idol. It looked exhausting. It does appear that the favorites do realize that the couples are going to become a problem and may need to be broken up. Cirie could be that swing vote according to the previews for next week.

This season of American Gladiators wraps up on Sunday night on NBC. This week's episode saw Alex defeat Andy in the men's competition. I was surprised that Andy lost. Disappointed too as I liked Andy. Monica defeated the comeback kid, Venus. I have liked Monica since seeing her originally compete. Fun personality and really competitive. She has been tough in all of the competitions and she is the odds on favorite in my view to win. Monica will take on Shanay and Alex will take on Evan on Sunday's finale for $100,000 and to become a new gladiator.

I haven't done this in a while. Just picking my five favorite songs at the moment that I have been listening to. No particular order.
Rihanna - Please Don't Stop The Music
Alicia Keys - No One
OneRepublic - Stop and Stare
Carrie Underwood - All-American Girl
Daughtry - Feels Like Tonight

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, February 19th.
Charlie Brown/Peanuts (It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown), Coach (Season Three), He-Man and the Masters Of The Universe (Volume One), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Season Two - Part One), Walker Texas Ranger (Season Four).

TV Line Of The Week:
From American Gladiators
"That is ridiculous up there. That guy is huge. I mean I look like a third grader with like a senior in high school." - Andy's comment after taking on Justice in the Hang Tough competition.

You Tube Video Of The Week:
Conan brings in a professor to help him break the ring spinning record.


Now that my eyes are completely crossing from typing up all of this (LOL), I'm done for the night. Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

No comments:

Big Brother Over The Top - Week One Thoughts

I hope many of you have floated over to Big Brother Over The Top like I have.  Tonight, we will be one week into this game and this new plat...