February 7, 2008 - Survivor Premieres, BB9 Preview, Strike About To End?, and More

Is the writers strike just about over? Signs are extremely pointing toward yes so let's just keep hoping. Word came out last Friday that a major step in the talks was taken to get things closer to being resolved. Since then, rumors have been flying all over the place saying that the strike was about to come to a close. Here is the good news. On Saturday, the WGA is going to meet to discuss the latest happenings. If all goes well, the strike could come to an end soon after. Interesting quote from Michael Eisner tonight on his appearance on CNBC where he said the strike was over adding, "They've made a deal, they shook hands on a deal, it is going on Saturday to the constituents". He also said that the writers would not turn it down saying "It's impossible that they turn it down. A deal has been made and they will be back to work reasonably soon. I know the deal's been made and I know the strike is over. I have some friends in certain places and I believe there was a handshake last Friday. It's possible they (The WGA) will turn it down but it would be insane if they did." Things are looking very good people!! Where would this leave the TV season? Well, it's all up in the air. Some shows are talking about coming back to do a few new episodes while others are saying "see you next season". Who will do which of those options? Let's just wait and see if this strike gets resolved first.

What a Super Bowl this past Sunday!! I don't watch much football as I'm a basketball fan but that was a great game and I watched it beginning to end. Incredible ending to the game. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers performed at halftime and I have to say that I definitely let out a cheer when they sang "I Won't Back Down" which might be my favorite songs of theirs. One thing that I have done for years is always read the USA Today poll results of the Super Bowl commercials where they do an instant poll to get people's thoughts on the commercials after they air. Here is the results for their top 10.
1. Budweiser - Dalmatian training the Clydesdale to make the beer wagon team.
2. FedEx - FedEx beats giant carrier pigeons.
3. Bridgestone - Animals screaming with the squirrel who has a near encounter with a car.
4. Doritos - The giant rat attacking the guy with the Doritos.
5. Bud Light - Guy breaths fire on a date.
6. Bud Light - Men sneak beer into a wine and cheese party.
7. Coca-Cola - The battle of the cartoon balloons over the coke.
8. Diet Pepsi Max - Star-studded cast stops dozing.
9. Planters - Woman with Planters smell attracts all the guys.
10. (tie) Tide To Go - Stain on shirt starts talking louder than the job candidate.
(tie) SoBe Life Water - Lizards and Naomi Campbell dance to Thriller.
To see the rest of the list, head over to:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2008-02-04-results-chart_N.htm
How many times has Budweiser won for best commercial? I do agree that my favorite commercial was the Clydesdale being trained by the Dalmatian. They always do a fun inspirational type commercial with the Clydesdales. My number two would probably be the cartoon balloon battle over the coke and I did let out a little cheer seeing Charlie Brown show up to get the prize. The animals screaming commercial ranks high as well on my list. When the Diet Pepsi Max commercial started and the song kicked on, I did wonder if they were going with the SNL spoof. Chris Kattan going off at the end of it was GREAT!! The Charles Barkley/Dwayne Wade commercial didn't finish very high on the polls and I guess you have to be familiar with their commercials so far to probably enjoy it more. I loved it but I'm also a NBA and Barkley fan. So, I'm biased. LOL.

The Superbowl set HUGE ratings records. It became the highest watched Super Bowl ever topping the 1996 Super Bowl and was the second most watched telecast ever trailing only the MASH finale which had 106 million. The game averaged 97.5 million viewers and was said to have 148.3 million checking out the game sometime during it. The ending of the game saw viewer ship jump up to 105.7 million. What else can be said but wow?

After a summer of reunion twists, ED, The Late Night Crew, America's Player, beer pong, the Jessica/Eric romance, pots and pans, booyahs, and more, Big Brother is set to return for a new season on Tuesday night on CBS. My summer TV obsession is now my winter TV obsession. LOL. I'll be getting the live feeds once again. The twist of the season appears to be that each person will be paired with another one which brings in the "soulmates" name that has been thrown around with the promotion. They will share all duties including HOH and eviction. Here is a listing of the Big Brother 9 cast.
Jen - 26 years old and a bartender from Columbus, Ohio
Amanda - 23 years old and a paralegal from Fridley, Minneasota
Parker - 26 years old and a paparazzo from Northridge, California
Ryan - 27 years old and a college student from Columbus, Ohio
Sheila - 45 years old and a former model from Reseda, California
Alex - 24 years old and a DJ company owner from Staten Island, New York
Natalie - 28 years old and a bikini barista from Salem, Oregon
Allison - 28 years old and a pharmaceutical sales representative from Boston, Massachusetts
Adam - 29 years old and a public relations manager from Delray Beach, Florida
Jacob - 23 years old and an electrician from Dallas, Georgia
Chelsia - 21 years old and a college student from Cedar Falls, Iowa
James - 21 years old from Sarasota Florida and is biking around the world.
Joshuah - 25 years old and an advertising media buyer from Dallas, Texas
Matt - 23 years old and a roofing foreman from Charleston, Massachusetts
Sharon - 23 years old and a realtor from Olathe, Kansas
Neil - 29 years old and a realtor from Los Angeles, California
I've seen the pictures online of what the house is going to look like and it's definitely got an interesting look to it. I like it. Big Brother 9 premieres this Tuesday night at 8pm central time on CBS. For more info on the show including the cast profiles, pictures, house preview, and info on getting the live feeds, head over to: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_brother_9/

I will be doing (hopefully) daily Big Brother live feed updates when time allows on the site.

Survivor Micronesia premiered tonight with the theme of Fans vs. Favorites. I was excited to see what happened tonight with this and how things would work out. The tribes were split with fans vs. favorites obviously. The fans were giving big reactions to the favorites as they were introduced separately. Jeff Probst announced that there were two immunity idols waiting around their boat. One for each team and it could only be used at the next tribal council. The swim was on and the search was all over the place only for the idol to be ON THE BOAT sitting on the beach. LOL. Jonny Fairplay finds it but he doesn't find the right one. He grabs the other tribes idol. Yau-Man realizes what is going on and jumps all over Fairplay to grab the other one. Once again, Yau-Man has an idol. The fans idol was grabbed by Kathy. Day one pretty much went easy for the favorites of setting up camp with a been there done that kind of vibe to it. Day one on the fans side had Kathy in the position of saying too much too early. They pointed out that it was a good thing that she had the idol. It's hard to find that balance in the beginning of Survivor to not say too little but not say too much either. On the favorites side, alliances are already starting to form. Parvati is flirting with James and there is a connection going there it seems. Then, we have Amanda and Ozzy having a connection as well. Eliza, Jonathan, Yau-Man, and Ami all decide to get together as they are going to be outnumbered with the couples already forming. Ozzy decides to try and lock down some allies as well and goes to Jonny Fairplay. He says that he can't trust Eliza and wants her to be the first one voted out. Fairplay ends up going to Eliza and that gang to tell them of what Ozzy had said. How in the world does Fairplay get in the middle here between these two groups? The immunity challenge sees the fans put on a strong performance winning by a good margin. The favorites are in trouble and who is going home? Fairplay starts saying things about how he is about to be a father and misses being back home. Parvati suggests to him to keep saying that and let the others get their guard down so they can vote out Eliza. The next talk was immediately on whether Fairplay was telling the truth on wanting to go home or was he playing the game. Well, it looks like he really did want to go home. Probst was even questioning it as well not knowing what to think. Fairplay goes home first getting a unanimous vote. Other thoughts on the premiere of Survivor. Let me get this straight. Ozzy doesn't trust Eliza and goes to Fairplay to discuss it??!! LOL. I am glad to see Eliza stick around as she is one that I'm really pulling for to do well. She will mix things up and make for some entertaining TV. She took a hard shot during that immunity challenge and I'm glad to see that she is ok. Probst and Fairplay exchanging jabs throughout the show was funny. The fans looked good in their first episode and already have the mentality of wanting to prove themselves. I'm happy with the casting choices for this season and am looking forward to the rest of the season. Next week, it looks like two people will be sent to Exile Island and we'll see a romance get going as well.

Tonight's Smallville. After the shocking ending to last week's episode, this week saw a little bit of follow up to it although not much. The only real mention about Jullian/Grant was Lionel going to Lana trying to get information which she wouldn't have anything to do with. The Clark/Lana relationship continued to be odd but they seemingly took a step forward in trying to fix things. There is just something still really different about Lana and I just can't figure it out. We did find out that she is still keeping an eye on Lex though. Debut of the Black Canary on tonight's episode and the return of Green Arrow. Black Canary was pitted into the middle of the battle between the Justice League and Lex Luthor. She eventually saw who was in the right in the battle. With the return of Green Arrow, that was a perfect way to put Lois back into the equation. Lois ended things off with him saying that she couldn't "share him with the world". After watching this episode, I kept thinking that Jullian/Grant's murder is being kept quiet at the moment. It appeared that Clark didn't know anything about it as Lionel hadn't went to him yet but did Lana say anything to him? I'm guessing no. Does Lois know about it or did I miss it? Anyway, the preview for next week looks like it is going to be a weird type episode with getting into what is going on in Lex's head.

The audition episodes are finished on American Idol and next week gets the competition going. First, let's look at this week's episodes. Tuesday's episode was the Atlanta auditions. Wednesday's episode was a rest of what you didn't see type episode flashing back to all of the auditions. Yep, I did my tally and here we go. Tuesday's episode had eight bad auditions including a montage compared with six good auditions. When they do an episode looking back on the auditions, I usually expect it to be more bad auditions than good. I was happy to see some good ones thrown in. I had nine bad auditions, five good auditions, and one neutral. Thoughts on the Idol week. There weren't a lot of standout people for me this week as there has been in weeks past. Some definitely sad stories of the people auditioning. I can't even tell you how much I admire Asia'h Epperson for getting up there and auditioning especially with her dad just passing away. She had a good voice too. The judges were incredibly touched by her story and the song that she sang for her dad, "How Do I Live?". Josiah Leming made it through to Hollywood and that was the guy that was living in his car. He had a very unique voice and, like the judges, I wasn't expecting to hear a british sounding accent to his singing. Can you imagine being J.P. Tjelmeland? He was the guy telling the story of being two people in line behind Carrie Underwood when she auditioned in season four. That would be an incredible story to tell. I was surprised to see the judges really have to think about whether to send Jo Anne Borgella through to Hollywood. What was there to think about? She definitely had a voice to get to Hollywood. She was the one who had sang recently at Madison Square Garden. Funny moments of the week revolved around Simon. We had the montage of him messing up names which I thought was funny. Then, we had him sweeping the floor up and messing around with Ryan at the same time. Like I said, the auditions are over and it's time for Hollywood. Very excited about the Hollywood rounds as I think the talent has been good this year. My hope is that they don't rush through it like last season. They barely even showed it last year and it really hurt the show cause we learn more about the singers during that portion of the competition. On the previews, it showed that the singers will get to use instruments so that will be different. Looking forward to the Hollywood round.

Election coverage didn't get in the way of the American Idol viewer ship this week. Tuesday's episode averaged 27.8 million viewers. House, which aired after Idol, averaged 23.2 million viewers. That partnership of Idol and House has done wonders for House as it is doing very good numbers.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Hannah Montana - $31.1 million. 2. The Eye - $12.4 million. 3. 27 Dresses - $8.5 million. 4. Meet The Spartans - $7.3 million. 5. Rambo - $7.1 million. 6. Juno - $7.0 million. 7. The Bucket List - $6.7 million. 8. Untraceable - $5.1 million. 9. Cloverfield - $4.8 million. 10. There Will Be Blood - $4.7 million.

Some of you may be looking at those box office numbers and be thinking, Hannah Montana? This was a film of her concert tour that was brought to the theatres for a limited time and also limited theatres. The movie made $31.1 million in only 683 screens playing it. It set the record for highest grossing movie during Super Bowl weekend. I read something about tickets being up around $15 to go see it but I don't know if every theatre was charging that top price. It was only supposed to run for one weekend but, to no surprise, the movie has been extended. Why shut it down when its making that kind of money?

Some Smallville info for any of you out in the California area. The Grand Slam Sci-Fi Summit taking place at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in Burbank, CA will be host to several stars on the weekend of April 12th and 13th. From Smallville, Erica Durance (Lois Lane), Aaron Ashmore (Jimmy Olsen), Phil Morris (Martian Manhunter), Laura Vandervoort (Kara), and also James Marsters (Brainiac and also Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer). Several stars from other shows will be in attendance as well. Go here for more info including what day that the stars will be appearing on: http://www.creationent.com/cal/stgs.htm

News broke a couple of weeks ago about the Buffy reunion at PaleyFest08 but we didn't know a cast lineup. Well, now it has been announced and I am very pleased by it. I was stunned to see the first name. Here is the lineup for the reunion. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Benson, Nicholas Brendon, Emma Caulfield, Eliza Dushku, Seth Green, James Marsters and Michelle Trachtenberg, and last but certainly not least, Joss Whedon. The reunion panel will happen on March 20th. Other shows that will have panels at PaleyFest include Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, Dancing With The Stars, Gossip Girl, and more. Head over to this link to get more info on the event:
http://www.paleycenter.org/festivals/paleyfest2008/index.htm

I watched a nice surprise this morning on The Today Show when the cast of Family Ties was on there. They were there to help promote the book of the show's creator, Gary David Goldberg. The book is entitled fittingly enough, Sit Ubu Sit. If you watched Family Ties, you'll join me in unison in saying "sit Ubu sit, good dog, ruff". That was what always played at the end of the credits in case you didn't know. Sitting in on The Today Show interview were Goldberg, Michael J. Fox, Meredith Baxter, Michael Gross, Justine Bateman, and Tina Yothers. Here is the link for the story and also video of the segment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23048314/
Don't forget that season three of Family Ties is released on DVD this Tuesday.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, February 12th. Blade (Complete Series), Dallas (Season Eight), The Equalizer (Season One), Family Ties (Season Three), Girlfriends (Season Three), Hotel Babylon (Season One), Riptide (Season Three).

TV Line Of The Week:
"I think it's insane there are nine other of your favorite Survivors of all time that all believe what I say. Have you not watched this show before?" - Jonny Fairplay on tonight's Survivor.

You Tube Video Of The Week: Problems With Names

Wishing each and every one of you a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!