Thursday, April 24, 2008

April 24, 2008 - Another Survivor Gets Blindsided, BB9 Finale This Sunday, Juno, Late Night, and More

This is one cutthroat season on Survivor so far. After Ozzy was blindsided last week, another was coming this week. Parvati was having to do some serious explaining over what happened with Ozzy. The guys along with Amanda were searching for what to do in this game after the other girls made their power play. My favorite challenge was up tonight with the Survivor auction. This is fun every season waiting to see who will pay what kind of money for a surprise item which could end up being nothing at all that they want. I'll get to that in a minute but I'll stick with the major details of this auction. Natalie was getting all kinds of power along with her bids in this auction. One was that she would send someone to exile island and also get to take the remaining money from that person as well. She picked Jason to go back to exile island. Jeff mentioned that the hidden immunity idol was back in play and was hidden in a new spot on the island. Jason went to exile island and did in fact find the idol. This time he had the real one. However, the rest of the tribe was feeling antsy about Jason being able to find the idol. The plan was devised by the women to fool Jason into not using the idol if he did indeed find it. Then, they would vote him out. When Jason returned for the immunity challenge, Natalie told him very quickly that they were voting out James at tribal council. The challenge comes down to Erik and James. Erik wins a close one and the plan was still intact but the women were looking very nervous that their plan was about to be messed up. While Jason was away from camp for a few minutes, Natalie checks his bag and finds the hidden immunity idol. I never like it when they go through each others stuff trying to find idols and this seems to be happening every season now. Just a dirty tactic in my opinion. Natalie went to Jason and made him feel very comfortable in how the voting was going to go. Jason was blindsided. He didn't use the idol and was voted out. James got one vote less as the plan was to get rid of either Jason or James. Other thoughts on Survivor. These women are a cutthroat bunch. Natalie has barely said anything on the show so far this season but she had plenty to say tonight. I thought she really come across as arrogant. That group is definitely in control of the game right now. The auction was fun as it always is. It's fun to see what people will pay and then find out what they bid on. How bad are you wanting cake when you offer to pay money to lick it off of someone's fingers??!! Cirie took Erik up on it too.

Me and my friends had a fun and long conversation about Smallville last week as far as the current, past, and possibly future happenings in the story. It's a fun show to get differing opinions on. I think there were at least five or six of us in the conversation. Maybe we need a podcast!! LOL.

Speaking of Smallville, I thought tonight's episode was all right. Not as strong as the others lately but the last ten minutes did open up some cool possibilities. So, Kara and Brainiac could possibly be on Krypton but be in a different time period. I'm also wondering just what in the world that gadget that Lex has can do. I'm assuming that is what can control Clark but I'm wondering how it works.

This Sunday is the finale for Big Brother 9 on CBS. Do you remember how every year that I have this major withdrawal beginning when the show is about to end? Well, not this year. I am not sad to see this season go at all. The final two is set but let's backtrack first to see how it played out. Ryan won HOH last week in the competition that I thought was completely a rip off from Sharon. Problems arise between Ryan and Adam when Ryan caught Adam whispering to Natalie that he voted for her to stay. The two were supposed to split the vote leaving her to not know how the vote went between the guys. Nominations were made for eviction and Ryan nominated Sharon and Sheila. The veto competition was held and won by Ryan. If Ryan left the nominations the same, that would leave the power to Adam on who to vote out. Ryan does not use the veto. That leaves Sharon and Sheila on the block. Adam looks incredibly desperate when he tries to cut a deal with Sharon for final two if he kept her. Sharon is completely shocked at how quick this gets thrown on her and doesn't take the deal. She later tells Ryan what happened which made Ryan's suspicion of Adam go up. Ryan questions Adam about what happened and he denies it saying that Sharon was trying to cut a deal with HIM. Unreal. I keep trying to figure out what kind of game that Adam is playing or if he even is. Adam ends up evicting Sharon on Tuesday's non-live episode. The final HOH competition takes place which is a three parter. Sheila ends up bailing out in the endurance part one portion of it. Ryan and Adam work a deal saying that Ryan will win this part leaving part two up to Adam to win. Ryan takes part one. Adam does defeat Sheila to win part two. Part three played out on Wednesday's live show. Ryan defeated Adam to become the final HOH. It was then up to Ryan on who he wanted to take to the final two. He takes Adam to the final two and evicts Sheila. It basically played out like they wanted where each of them is taking the others' alliance member out to keep the bad off of themselves. Adam took out Sharon while Ryan took out Sheila and neither looks bad to the people that they took out. That didn't exactly work out though. We got to see the jury house upon Sharon's arrival. The jury was watching the DVD of her eviction and they caught the look that Ryan and Adam gave each other when Sharon was evicted. They figured out then that it was a plan between the two of them and not a one person vote. Some other thoughts on the Big Brother week. What is with the houseguests this season with not being to stop from cussing for five minutes while the live show is on? It's hard to follow the live action after eviction and HOH competitions cause the producers keep having to cut the audio due to the profanity. The houseguests sure were paranoid about the whole deal from the HOH about there being another preexisting relationship in the house. They were trying to figure out if they were related or something and didn't know it. I still find it ridiculous that Big Brother pulled that trick which cost Sharon the HOH and her chance in the game. So, Sunday is the finale to this lousy season of Big Brother. If I had to pick between the two, I'd say that Ryan should definitely win over Adam. Adam just hasn't been a strong player at all and has seemed so completely clueless over so much of the course of this game including his scrambling for a deal with Sharon this past week. If anything, the jury questioning should bring some excitement on the finale.

American Idol had the contestants doing something completely different and that was tackling the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I thought it added a different element with seeing how the contestants would respond. Some did well while some struggled. Syesha Mercado had her best performance of the season as far as my opinion goes. I thought she was fantastic. Brooke White had the very scary performance of having to start over after she forgot the lyrics. I was surprised to see that she avoided the bottom group last night. The bottom two was Syesha Mercado and Carly Smithson. Going home was Carly Smithson. Yeah, very disappointed this week as I have really liked Carly. The show definitely lost a powerhouse of a voice. Leona Lewis's guest performance of Bleeding Love on last night's show was incredible. She definitely has a star power to her.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend.
1. The Forbidden Kingdom - $21.4 million. 2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - $17.7 million. 3. Prom Night - $8.6 million. 4. 88 Minutes - $6.9 million. 5. Nim's Island - $5.6 million. 6. 21 - $5.5 million. 7. Street Kings - $4.1 million. 8. Horton Hears A Who - $3.5 million. 9. Leatherheads - $3 million. 10. Expelled - $2.9 million.

It only took visits to three different rental stores but I finally rented Juno over the weekend. Seriously, do I just not rent movies enough or is it harder to find movies in stock now? I can't remember the last time that I couldn't find a movie in stock that I wanted to rent. Anyway, on to Juno. I liked this movie. There has been a lot of hype on the movie so I was curious to see how it was. Juno is about a girl by that name who is sixteen years old and ends up pregnant. The father of the baby is very supportive of her with what she wants to do and the two are long time friends. She decides to give up the baby for adoption and looks in the ads for adoptive parents. Those parents turn out to be a couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. I won't go any further into the story in case people haven't seen it yet. The movie is a definite look at all of these people of different ages and different stages of their lives while seeing how they all blend together. Really liked the casting of the movie. I didn't think anybody was bad in it. This was the first movie of Ellen Page's that I've seen and I thought she was very good in it. Garner and Bateman are two solid actors as well so I knew that they'd do well. Movie has a good mix of comedy and drama as they all deal with what is going on in their lives.

This has been rumored for a while now but it appears that this is about to become official. NBC is going to have Jimmy Fallon take over Late Night for the departing Conan O'Brien in 2009. Conan is of course leaving to take over The Tonight Show. Not sure how this will work out. One thing to keep an eye on especially at that time is the momentum that Craig Ferguson is getting on CBS. He has been building an audience and I could see more people jumping over to his show after Conan exits. Maybe not. We'll see.

Fox has renewed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for another season. The show will return for thirteen new episodes. I hear good things about the show even though I haven't watched it.

It's been fun seeing Kristen Bell hit the talk show circuit over the last week or so doing promotion for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She's got an excellent personality for talk shows and seems to really be having fun with it.

First week of the NBA Playoffs has been fun so far. Surprised to see Detroit get beaten in game one of the playoffs by Philadelphia but they rebounded well last night. Boston is dominating. Dallas has their hands full in the first round for the second year in a row. Phoenix is going to have to rebound upon going home in their series with San Antonio. Cleveland and Washington has had tempers going just as expected but Washington won big tonight making the series 2-1 in favor of Cleveland. Tracy McGrady is in trouble of being eliminated again in the first round as Houston has their hands full with Utah. Kobe Bryant put up 49 points last night in game 2 in the Lakers win over Denver.

I really enjoyed the Robin Sparkles episode of How I Met Your Mother this past Monday night. Yeah, that new music video and song is very addictive. I can't say that I expected the finish of Barney and Robin kissing at the end of it though. Although, the two of them have had a good relationship over the show's run so far where they tend to bond when she is going through a tough time.

I don't watch much Indy racing but I was thrilled to learn of the results of this past weekends race which was won by Danica Patrick. She became the first female to ever win in Indy car racing. I've been wanting her to win for a long time now and am just bummed that I didn't watch it live as it happened.

What is it with MTV that they can't start shows on time? I watch one show on there and I have to set my recording for five minutes over and five minutes late to make sure that I get it.

If you're a Laguna Beach fan, you'll notice a familiar face in the new Gavin DeGraw music video for "In Love With A Girl". The girl in the video is played by none other than Laguna Beach's Kristin Cavallari.

I got an email this week wanting to let all the readers know about a new show on Fine Living Network. The show is a travel show called, All-Girl Getaways. It follows a group of different women each week as they plan out and go on a big vacation. The show airs Wednesdays at 8pm central time. For more info, head over to: http://www.fineliving.com/fine/all_girl_getaways

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, April 29th.
Are You Afraid Of The Dark? (Season Six), Beverly Hills 90210 (Season Four, Expect to see a LOT of music changes in this DVD release from its original airing, yeah, it's annoying), Cheers (Season Nine), Roswell (Seasons One, Two, and Three re-released on DVD), Sabrina The Teenage Witch (Full Animated Series), The Waltons (Season Seven).

TV Line Of The Week:
From Survivor.
"This time maybe you'll get a real one" - Jeff Probst to Jason as he is sent to exile island with hopes of finding a re-hidden immunity idol.

You Tube Video Of The Week:
The TNT crew spoof the new Kobe commercial. Funny stuff. That TNT studio crew cracks me up laughing all the time.

Have a great and safe weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

April 17, 2008 - Survivor Stunner, Smallville, The Guinea Pigs??!!!!

Tonight's Survivor had a STUNNER of a finish. My face looked like Eliza's face as the votes were being read out. The immunity challenge had a test of who could hold their arm up the longest and also battle the tub of water over their heads. Funniest moment was James laughing at the troubles of the others only to have the same thing to happen to him. His reaction cracked me up!! The big turning point of the challenge had Ozzy bailing out for the offer of food from Jeff Probst. It came down to Jason and Parvati. Jeff offered a huge supply of food that everyone would get to share if someone dropped out at that moment. Everyone told Jason that he would be guaranteed safety if he bailed out. However, most of them had their fingers crossed when they said it. Jason bails out and Parvati wins immunity. So, Jason got voted out, right? WRONG. Out of nowhere, a revolution happened to get Ozzy voted out. The votes looked to be very anticlimactic when the Jason votes kept showing up but suddenly a second Ozzy vote showed up. My thought was who was the second vote? That kept going as my question when all the votes were coming out was just who made the votes to pull this off? Ozzy was voted out. The votes to get rid of Ozzy were Parvati, Natalie, Jason, Alexis, and Cirie. WOW. That was a power play right there folks. The front runner to win and the one with the hidden immunity idol is now gone. That game is wide open now and feels like a completely new game. Like I said, Eliza sitting in the jury had the best expressions of holy cow while the others looked at each other to try and figure out what had happened. I thought something was odd when Cirie made that grin when the idol wasn't played. What an episode!!

The title of tonight's episode of Smallville was Descent and was that ever a fitting title. This episode was all about Lex and the defining moment of him going to the dark side for good. I knew that someone was getting killed off tonight and my speculation was right on who it would be. I was shocked though when it happened in the first five minutes. My thinking was, well, they're not wasting anytime here building to it. Lex confronted Lionel wanting the key to unlock the secret. Their conversation turned into Lionel's demise as Lex got the locket from Lionel and proceeded to shove him out of the window. I thought the next scenes that followed were very good cause you saw the incredible reaction of the public to what had happened to someone as powerful as Lionel Luthor. So, Lex now has the key. Not so fast. He got the locket which had no key in it. Where is the key? Chloe found it in her office and he left it with her after he had pleaded with her to listen to him. Chloe however ends up not keeping it long when Lex showed up. She was fired and lost all of her personal items and the key was taken. The death of Lionel was covered up as a suicide however Jimmy and Lois had photographic evidence that someone was with him at the time. That leaves it up to my favorite computer whiz, Chloe, to do some work to the photo and figure out that Lex was the guilty party. Lex's evil sidekick does her best to eliminate the photo and ends up finding out Clark's secret. You know what that means in the story? She must be eliminated. LOL. Who was the guy that ended up taking her out anyway? Was he associated with Swann somehow? Clark and Lex had their faceoff talking about both of their fathers that they had lost. Some really good stuff tonight with the return of Lex battling his good side as the little boy in him tried to continue to keep Lex from going completely evil. Well, there is no doubt with how that ended up that the good is no longer there and things are going to be very dark for Lex from here on out. The scene at the end was very good with Lex and Clark being the only ones at Lionel's funeral. Just an incredible episode tonight and they set up all sorts of things for the rest of the season.

The endurance challenge was underway as last week's live Big Brother show went off the air. Whoever could hang the longest inside the glass box would win HOH. Sharon had to drop out early cause of injuring her back the night before. This left it to Natalie, Ryan, and Sheila. When Sharon and Adam went inside, a deal was made between the final three to put up the two in the house for eviction. Ryan dropped out. However, Natalie wouldn't drop. With the deal made, she still found herself unable to give up HOH. That couldn't have anything to do with her last endurance HOH deal, could it? The whole house kept trying to get her to drop so Sheila could win and finally Natalie did give up. Sheila wins HOH but Natalie put an even bigger target on herself. The plan was made to target Natalie for eviction this week. She wouldn't be put up originally though. Sheila made her nominations which were Adam and Sharon. Kind of funny how Adam got so mad at Sheila for putting him on the block when he did the same thing to her last week. The veto competition took place at night and it went according to plan for how the house was looking to vote. The winner of the veto went to Adam. Adam takes himself off the block and Sheila puts Natalie up as the replacement nominee. Natalie was assured that she was safe including being told by Sheila. Sheila said that she felt bad for lying straight to Natalie's face but that Natalie had done the same to her. Natalie's playing both sides of the house had caught up to her. The guys end up calling a house meeting to call out Natalie on stuff that she had been saying. They asked her who she had an alliance with whether it was them or the girls. Natalie looked like a deer in headlights trying to decide how to handle it. She said her alliance was with the guys. The voting took place and the guys decided to split the vote and let Sheila be the one to evict her. Before the vote, the houseguests were allowed to plea for votes one last time and Natalie again said that she was sticking with the boys. Not a good idea when Sheila is the one that is the tie breaker. Sheila breaks the tie and evicts Natalie. I knew it was only a matter of time before playing both sides badly would catch up to her. The HOH competition takes place which has Julie Chen asking the houseguests questions on whether the statement is fact or fiction. It is won by Ryan. I have to vent about the HOH competition. Sharon is up by one point going into the last question. The question is if there are any more existing relationships in the house. All of them guess fiction. Julie takes FOREVER to reveal the answer. She reveals that it is fact. My first thought was that she messed it up. Then, they flash on the screen "the guinea pigs". The guinea pigs??!!! Are you kidding me??!! That sends us to a tiebreaker. Ryan wins the question and HOH. Wow, did I ever feel that Sharon got ripped off. What a joke that question was!! Other happenings on Big Brother this week. We got to see James arrive at the sequester house. After they watched the DVD of the happenings in the house, James revealed that it was Chelsia's loud exit that put the target on him by the whole house. She left the room crying at hearing the news. Sheila got a surprise birthday celebration in the house this week. The houseguests not being able to sing "Happy Birthday" was odd as they sang "for she's a jolly good fellow" instead. I think I read somewhere that Adam said on the feeds that they weren't allowed to sing it by the show. Maybe I'm wrong but that was what I read. Are there copyrights on "Happy Birthday" cause I guess everyone is breaking that copyrighted song. LOL.

American Idol had Mariah Carey as the featured singer this week. The contestants sang her songs and she helped them with preparing to do the songs. Last night's results show was the annual "let's split the group in two and make the last one pick which one they think is safe" show. One group had Syesha Mercado, Kristy Lee Cook, and Brooke White. The other had Jason Castro, Carly Smithson, and David Cook. Playing the role of Bo Bice this year was David Archuleta. I'm pretty sure that Bo was the first one to actually not pick a group and sit down in the middle of the stage back in season four. David was declared safe and was then told to go to which group that he thought was the safe group. He sat down on the stage as everyone has been doing for the last several years. Seriously Idol, time to get a new gimmick. Everyone has figured out the let's sit down and not pick a group deal. I knew the second that they started putting the contestants on each side of the stage that this was what they were doing. Syesha was sent back to safety leaving a bottom two of Brooke and Kristy. Going home this week was Kristy Lee Cook. Bummer as she was one of my favorites this season. She had really stepped up her game lately as well!!

It appears that Rob Thomas may not be the one in charge of the new Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff after all. Kristin over at E Online is saying that Thomas is wanting to concentrate on his two other shows for ABC and just doesn't have the time to take on this project. However, he may still be a consultant for the spinoff.
http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/detail/index.jsp?uuid=bc78814b-a82c-4129-be5b-846560e8312b

Speaking of 90210, there was some Jennie Garth news this week that has gotten the 90210 talk stirred up. Jennie Garth was said to be taking part in a CBS pilot but news came out this week that she won't be in it after all. The speculation has run wild ever since that she will be returning to 90210. Will she? Who knows? It's all speculation.

This news was great to read today about Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse. Remember a few weeks ago when I said that I wanted Amy Acker back on my TV screen when talk of Whedonverse alums kept coming up for the new show? Well, Joss made this post today on Whedonesque.com: "November (who will be recurring but does not appear in the pilot) will be played by the luminous Miracle Laurie. And Dr. Claire Saunders will be played by... yet another name I'm gonna have trouble remembering how to spell... Amy Acker." Thrilled with this news!!!

Movie box office numbers for last weekend.
1. Prom Date -$22.7 million. 2. Street Kings - $12 million. 3. 21 - $11 million. 4. Nim's Island - $9 million. 5. Leatherheads - $6.2 million. 6. Horton Hears A Who - $6 million. 7. Smart People - $4.2 million. 8. The Ruins - $3.3 million. 9. Superhero Movie - $3.1 million. 10. Drillbit Taylor - $2.1 million.

How I Met Your Mother fans. Don't forget that the Robin Sparkles story returns on this Monday's episode. Want a tease of the music video? Here you go. It's definitely spoofing several 80's music videos. Best line was from TV Guide commenting when they linked to this video saying "warning: the song is made of crack cocaine, and will be stuck in your head all day."
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=32496725

As I'm typing this up, Duffy's song Mercy is now playing on the radio. Yeah, this is a very catchy and addicting song. Ah, next song that is playing is Coldplay's "Speed Of Sound". LOVE that song!!

If you have been wanting to see Juno, Fox has given you another viewing option. The movie was released on DVD on Tuesday and has also been released to buy via download on iTunes. I'm hoping to rent some movies maybe this weekend and Juno is going to be one of them. Just have to see what the hype is all about.

Universal announced today that they will be releasing seasons one and two of Heroes on Blu-Ray DVD on August 26th.

I'm a big NBA fan so I'm looking forward to the start of the NBA Playoffs this weekend. Here is the first round match ups. In the east: #1 Boston vs. #8 Atlanta, #2 Detroit vs. #7 Philadelphia, #3 Orlando vs. #6 Toronto, #4 Cleveland vs. #5 Washington. In the west: #1 LA Lakers vs. #8 Denver, #2 New Orleans vs. #7 Dallas, #3 San Antonio vs. #6 Phoenix, #4 Utah vs. #5 Houston. Those first round match ups in the west are looking really strong. I really don't know what to call for winners with some of them. That race in the west has been so tight all the way from 1st to 8th so you can't really go by seeding in these western conference playoffs. Dallas is going to have yet another tough first round match up just like last year. Phoenix and San Antonio is going to be exciting to watch to see how the new look Suns do. The only safe pick that I feel that I have is picking the Lakers over Denver. The rest is going to be wild. In the east, Cleveland and Washington will be fun especially with how those teams seem to do a lot of talking about each other. Definite rivalry there. I'll be stunned if Boston doesn't come out of the east to move on to the NBA Finals. I'm not even going to try and pick a Finals team out of the west. The 2008 NBA Playoffs start on Saturday.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, April 22nd.
Big Ideas For A Small Planet (Season One), Friday Night Lights (Season Two), House Of Venus (Season Two), Laverne and Shirley (Season Four).

You Tube Video Of The Week: An Engineer's Guide To Cats. Being a cat person, I loved this video.

Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

April 10, 2008 - Idol Gives Back, Survivor, Robin Sparkles, and More

This week was Idol Gives Back week on American Idol. This is a great fundraising show that is becoming a yearly tradition. Billboard is saying that the show raised $22 million on Wednesday night. Appearing on the show were Billy Crystal, Bono, Kobe Bryant, Ben Stiller, Kylie Minogue, The Jonas Brothers, John Cena, Triple H, Adam Sandler, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, David & Victoria Beckham, Kiefer Sutherland, Celine Dion, Jimmy Kimmel, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Forest Whitaker, Reese Witherspoon, Keith Urban, Dane Cook, Alicia Keys, Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Hudgens, Robin Williams, Rob Schneider, Tyra Banks, David Spade, Brad Pitt, and more. Performing on the show was Carrie Underwood, Snoop Dogg, Miley Cyrus, Fergie with John Legend, Heart, Annie Lennox, Gloria Estefan, Daughtry, and Mariah Carey. I loved Carrie Underwood's version of "Praying For Time" that she performed. The exchange between Billy Crystal and Miley Cyrus was funny where their whole segment was basically pointing out the difference in age between them while playing up that neither knew who the other was. LOL. I enjoyed the performance show on Tuesday night. The theme of the week was inspiration so that was what the performers did with picking out their favorite inspirational songs. I mentioned recently about how picking "Alone" was a risky choice due to how great that Carrie sang it back in season four. Well, Syesha picking Fantasia's "I Believe" was a risky one as well. I thought she did well with it but it is so hard to live up to the original. I like Carly but just wasn't crazy with her performance this week. I like the song but it just didn't click with me. I thought Jason Castro might have had his best performance yet with "Over The Rainbow". Kristy Lee Cook brought it this week and I loved her performance. Randy Jackson sure wasn't liking much on that episode, was he? The crowd was tearing him up over his critiques instead of Simon. Tonight's voting show had a surprising ending. The bottom three were Michael Johns, Carly Smithson, and Syesha Mercado. Michael Johns was the surprise voted out tonight. So much for the TIVO theory that went around today. TIVO had predicted who was being voted out for the last four weeks based on their own statistics of how people were watching replays of performances and all. They were saying Syesha would be voted out tonight. Also on tonight's show, we got more celebrity pushes for Idol Gives Back. We also had Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown as they performed their new song live which is a song that I really like. Jordin was presented with two platinum records for two of her singles and then also a gold album for her debut album.

So, I officially canceled my Big Brother feeds. Yeah, I told you how much I disliked this season. I actually haven't watched the feeds in a couple of weeks. If you're wondering why the Big Brother coverage has been slimming down over the last couple of weeks, now you know. Last week, Adam won HOH leaving James looking vulnerable once again. A tearful plea to Adam won him over and he saved himself from being nominated. Adam put up Sharon and Sheila for eviction. Adam's whole alliance snapped on him wondering what he was doing as their target was James. He later apologized for what he did. The veto competition took place. James was eliminated mid way through and Ryan won it. Ryan used the veto on Sheila and then Adam put James up for eviction in her place. That gets us to last night's episode where James was evicted on a 3-0 vote. The HOH competition was an endurance challenge. The competition was ongoing as the show went off the air. I'll post the winner below in a spoiler alert if you want to know.
Other notes from the Big Brother week. Natalie sure is stirring up a lot of stuff. She says one thing to someone and then proceeds to tell the comment to someone else saying that someone else said it. I'm not sure what her strategy is in this game. It's always interesting to see the sequester house to see how things are going there. Things were about like I expected. We saw Matt, Chelsia, and Josh all reunited.
How did the HOH competition turn out? Well, here you go. SPOILER ALERT!! The HOH had Sharon going out early on. Sheila ended up taking the win and she has since made her nominations which are Adam and Sharon.

How I Met Your Mother is setting up for a big group of guest stars on the April 21st episode. The episode will see the return of the Robin Sparkles story. Guest starring on the show will be 80's teen singer Tiffany, Alan Thicke, and James Van Der Beek. A new Robin Sparkles song will debut during the episode. The first go round of the Robin Sparkles storyline was great stuff so I really look forward to this episode.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. 21 - $15.1 million. 2. Leatherheads - $13.5 million. 3. Nim's Island - $13.3 million. 4. Horton Hears A Who - $9.1 million. 5. The Ruins - $7.8 million. 6. Superhero Movie - $5.4 million. 7. Meet The Browns - $3.5 million. 8. Drillbit Taylor - $3.5 million. 9. Shutter - $2.9 million. 10. 10,000 BC - $2.7 million.

Don't forget that Smallville returns next week with new episodes.

Mike Myers has been named as the host of the MTV Movie Awards taking place this summer.

On to the merge on Survivor. We also had the interest in the fake immunity idol on whether it would be used. First, the merge takes place and the tribes decide on Malakal to be their home. Erik promised trust to Ozzy for saving him at the previous tribal council. Eliza felt like she was on her own especially after finding out that Ami had been voted out. She and Jason had an alliance though as they both were bonding together over being outcasts in the tribe. Problems among the women. Eliza tried to align back with Parvati who wasn't having it and told Amanda about it. Amanda had her own problems with Parvati with finding out that Parvati had put her in an alliance with Alexis and Natalie without her approval. Amanda also wasn't happy with the bonding of Ozzy and Alexis. The immunity challenge was a competition of trying to stay under the water for the longest. Winner of the first single immunity goes to Jason. With Jason winning, he promised his hidden immunity idol to Eliza to protect her. He showed her the stick which is of course the fake immunity idol that Ozzy fixed up. She knew immediately that it wasn't the real thing but had to go for it anyway. She presented it at tribal council and it was told as a fake. Ozzy got a big laugh out of seeing it used. Eliza then said that it proved that Ozzy had the real one. Eliza was voted out. I'm an Eliza fan so I liked seeing her getting to call out the owner of the real immunity idol and change the game up a bit on her way out.

CBS has already canceled their new show, Secret Talents of the Stars. Only 4.6 million viewers tuned into the premiere this past Tuesday night. Somewhere, the Jericho fans have a huge smile on their face.

Jewel Staite, who played Kalee, on Firefly made some noise among Firefly fans recently when she mentioned that she had recently been asked to do commentary on a new box set. The new box set does appear to be a high definition set released on Blu-Ray. I'm sure it is a LONG way off from release but it does appear to be in the works.

If you're a fan of High School Musical, a fourth movie is already in the works. Disney Entertainment talked this week about there being a script being worked on. If I was Disney, I'd keep going with that series of movies as long as possible. What a huge money maker.

There are some movies that you just watch over and over. I know that there are several movies that I will stop on a channel and watch no matter how many times that I've seen it. One of these movies is Independence Day. I have seen this a ton lately on the movie channels. I actually had to make myself stop watching it the other night to go do something that I needed to get done. However, I was very content to just keep watching it. I still remember going to the theatre and seeing this during opening weekend in 1996. Me and my group of friends got there a little later than we wanted and ended up having to sit on the front row cause the theatre was jammed. I still laugh at us moving our heads from left to right as we read the words that would appear on the screen cause we were so close. I can't stand sitting that close but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of that movie at all. I loved that movie and, like I said, I'll still watch it when I see it on a lot of times. Just a great mix of action, story, and comedy. Fun cast too. I still laugh every time near the end of the movie where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum's characters get spotted by the alien which is when the alien overrides the command opening up the windows. Goldblum's way of delivering his reaction line (which I won't repeat, LOL) cracks me up every time.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, April 15th. American Dad (Volume Three), Melrose Place (Season Four).

TV Line Of The Week: From Survivor.
"That can't be it because it's just a stick." - Eliza to Jason after seeing the fake immunity idol.

You Tube Video Of The Week: The Transformers in Hollywood. Strong language in this one!!


Have a great and safe weekend!! Take care and God bless!!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

April 3, 2008 - Smallville, NBC Announces Fall Schedule, Big Bang Theory, and More

The Smallville world got rocked earlier today with some shocking news. Smallville creators, Al Gough and Miles Millar, are leaving after this season. Who will be in charge of Smallville next season? The CW and Warner Brothers TV released this statement: "Al Gough and Miles Millar have been great partners and instrumental in the development and success of Smallville. While we are sad to see them go, we are very excited to announce that executive producers Darren Swimmer, Todd Slavkin, Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson will helm the show next season. [They] have been writing for the show for the past six seasons, and as producers for the last four years, they have played an integral role in the ongoing creative evolution of the series. As showrunners, they will continue to deliver the compelling storytelling that Smallville fans have come to expect and love." Al Gough and Miles Millar also released an open letter today that said: As the creators of Smallville we look back at 7 amazing years. We look back at 152 episodes. We look back knowing that the show will continue into Season 8 without us. After much heartache and debate we have decided it is time for us to move on. Over the last 7 years we have had the honor of working with a remarkable team of people here in Los Angeles and in Vancouver. We have been blessed with a wonderful cast who we have watched mature with admiration and affection. We have been rewarded with a fan base that is as loyal as it is vocal. We are incredibly proud of our work on this show. We achieved what we set out to do. We never compromised our vision. We leave knowing that Smallville is the longest — running comic book based series of all — time. The show was featured on the covers of Rolling Stone, MAD magazine, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. The pilot had the highest — rated premiere in the history of the WB. Even in its seventh year it is still the #1 scripted show on the network. Smallville is watched by millions of people in hundreds of countries and in dozens of languages around the world. The show's success is a credit to a fantastically talented group of people. We wanted to take this chance to single some of them out:
Our writers — your work speaks for itself.
James, Jae, Rob, David — the backbone of our team in Vancouver.
Joe Davola, Chris and Shelly — remember those Friday night brainstorming sessions?
Len Goldstein and Steve Pearlman — thanks for believing we could do this. David Nutter — for giving the show your magic touch.
John Litvack — when the knives were out, you always had our backs.
Ken Horton — our Yoda.
Peter Roth — Smallville's biggest fan.
Melinda, Michael R., Paul M., Susan and Suzanne — for steering us through 152 episodes.
Greg Beeman — your passion is an inspiration.
Jordan, David, Garth, Carolyn, Bob & Lew — and everyone at the much — missed WB.
Paul Levitz, Greg Noveck and the guys at DC Comics.
Lisa Lewis — our very own soccer mom/mafia accountant.
Michael Gendler — aka mega — counsel.
David Lubliner — we can finally focus on features now.
And last but in no way the least, Renee Kurtz — the smartest TV agent in town, we would be nowhere without you!
Finally, to the fans who have stuck with us through the highs and the lows:
know this — we never stopped fighting to make this show great. Thanks for watching.

Wow, where did this come from and why? What caused them to exit stage left? There sure doesn't seem to be any answers right now but I've got to think we're going to find out in the near future. It couldn't be that crazy CW Network, could it? That network has done amazing things so far, right? cricket. cricket. chirp. chirp. Definitely going to be an interesting story to follow.

NBC jumped out and made big announcements this week concerning their upcoming fall schedule. They've already got their game plan laid out and here it is. Shows returning in the fall include Heroes, Chuck, Biggest Loser, Law & Order: SVU, Deal Or No Deal, Lipstick Jungle, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, ER, and Life. Medium is said to be coming back at midseason. Friday Night Lights WILL be returning and the deal between NBC and DirecTV is happening. This has been talked about for several weeks but the plan is that there will be a new season set for thirteen episodes. The new episodes will first premiere on DirecTV's channel 101 in the fall. Later in the TV season, NBC will then run Friday Night Lights as encore presentations. There appears to also be an Office spinoff show happening as well. The shows not returning include Journeyman, Las Vegas, Bionic Woman, 1 vs. 100, Amne$ia, Clash Of The Choirs, My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, Phenomenon, Quarterlife, and The Singing Bee. Ah, Journeyman. Such a great show that NBC is not bringing back. I'm really going to miss it!! You will also notice that Scrubs was not on the list of shows returning. It does appear that Scrubs will be moving over to ABC. New shows premiering in the fall for NBC include Knight Rider, My Own Worse Enemy (spy show starring Christian Slater), and Kath & Kim (stars Molly Shannon and Selma Blair).

Movie box office numbers for last weekend.
1. 21 - $23.7 million. 2. Horton Hears A Who? - $17.4 million. 3. Superhero Movie - $9.5 million. 4. Meet The Browns - $7.8 million. 5. Drillbit Taylor - $5.8 million. 6. Shutter - $5.3 million. 7. 10,000 BC - $4.9 million. 8. Stop-Loss - $4.5 million. 9. College Road Trip - $3.5 million. 10. The Bank Job - $2.8 million.

Natalie's HOH reign was the feature of this week's Big Brother. Her nominations weren't a surprise as she put up James and Josh. The plan was to get James out. With Chelsia gone, James broke down especially knowing that the whole house was against him. He had a major blowup with Sheila after he overheard her giving a pep talk to Josh about staying in the house which was the same speech that she gave to James earlier. James went into the veto competition knowing that he had to win or he was out. The rest of the house pretty much blew it on strategy in the competition and James won the veto. James took himself off the block and Sharon was put up as a replacement. Josh knew during the veto competition that if James won, then he was going home. I'm assuming that the time line was right on Tuesday's episode with Sharon and Josh's reactions to the fact that Josh was likely leaving. Sharon was making me sad with how hard she was taking Josh leaving the house. To make it worse, she is in there crying her eyes out to Sheila that Josh is leaving and he is out and about campaigning against her. That girl has been very loyal to him while he has been ready to throw her under the bus for weeks now. Josh started going to get votes lined up. However, Natalie told Sharon about how Josh had been campaigning against her which completely surprised her. They then let Sheila in on it too. Josh was evicted from the house on a 3-1 vote. Josh's lone vote to stay was from James. Josh made a speech on the way out the door which seems to be the order of things lately this season. The HOH competition takes place and the winner was Adam.

What You Missed On The Live Feeds:
Hey, I even missed the live feeds this week as I didn't watch any of it.

What Has Happened Since Last Night's Live Show: SPOILER ALERT!!
With Adam as HOH, the nominations are in for the week. Up on the block is Sharon and Sheila.

This week's American Idol had Dolly Parton as the guest and the contestants sang her songs. The bottom three were Ramiele Malubay, Brooke White, and Kristy Lee Cook. Ironic thing is that all three of them are roommates. Brooke was sent back to safety leaving a bottom two of Ramiele and Kristy. Ramiele leaves American Idol this week.

This week's How I Met Your Mother was all about the tournament. Not the actual NCAA tournament but a different spin on it. Barney was being sabotaged by a scorned woman keeping him from getting anywhere with any new women. So, the tournament bracket was brought out including seeding to figure out the likelihood of which girl it could be that is messing with him. A brain session was also done where the group tried to figure out which lie that he told to the women was worse thus advancing that woman to the next round. The conclusion of the episode also gave us a completely new version of the One Shining Moment highlight reel. LOL. The Neil Patrick Harris clip at the end with the Doogie Howser spoof was very good.

Tonight's Survivor had the tribes surprised by an immunity challenge taking place one day after the last one. Each tribe got to pick one person from their own to send to Exile Island. They would be immune to the vote if their tribe was sent to tribal council. So, Ozzy and Alexis were sent to Exile Island. Airai won the immunity challenge so that meant that Ozzy was immune to the vote. Erik's stay on Survivor was seemingly over as he was up against a tribe full of "favorites". So, he did what he had to do. Stir anything up. He told the truth about Ami almost jumping sides over the last several tribal councils. The girls still stuck together so Erik told the story to Ozzy when he returned from Exile Island. Ozzy was questioning the loyalty of Ami and things were up in the air going to tribal council. Ami ended up voted out. In this episode, Ozzy did find out that the fake immunity idol had been found as it was gone. Next week's preview shows Eliza telling Jason that the idol that he has possession of has to be a fake cause "it's a stick".

I loved this week's Big Bang Theory. Sheldon came down with a cold which means one thing....run and hide. All of his friends knew how he acts when he is sick and they ran away. The guys ended up at a Planet Of The Apes movie marathon knowing that it guaranteed them many hours away. With his friends being away, he went to an unlikely place and that was to Penny....at work. She ended up being stuck with Sheldon and wasn't happy about it. She did take care of him but she caught Leonard on trying to staying away from him. She knew then that she had gotten stuck with him. It was a great episode.

Warner Brothers is releasing the Birds Of Prey series on DVD. This is a series that fans have been wanting put on DVD for many years now but I never thought it would happen. The box set will be released on July 15th.

Fox has renewed King Of The Hill for another season.

Ready for another remake? Variety is reporting that Dimension Films has purchased the rights to the movie, Short Circuit. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983475.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, April 8th.
The Cosby Show (Seasons Seven & Eight), Fortysomething (Full Series), Matlock (Season One), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Season Six).

You Tube Video Of The Week: If you know anything about wrestling, I'm sure you know the name Ric Flair. This past Monday night on Raw, WWE and fans all around the world said goodbye to Ric Flair as he goes into retirement. The segment had everyone out of character and paying tribute to someone who has meant so much to the business. It was one of the most special moments in wrestling history for sure.

Wishing you all a great week. Take care and God bless!!

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...