The Entertainment Wrap Up - August 14, 2008 - Olympics, BB10, Lost Season Three, & More

The Summer Olympic games are underway. I LOVE watching the Olympics and have had so much fun watching them. The opening ceremonies in Beijing were just amazing. It seems like each Olympics is trying to top the previous with the ceremonies. Just amazing is really all that can be said. We got to the moment with the Olympic torch being lit. The guy running around the stadium on the wall with images showing behind him was incredible!!!! I loved how he lit the Olympic flame too. That meant that the games were on for another summer. World records are being shattered big time in this Olympics especially in swimming. Michael Phelps has been INCREDIBLE. What a run he is having!! The most dramatic was the team relay where his teammate made that huge comeback to defeat France at the line to win gold and set the world record. Women’s gymnastics is my main event of the Olympics every year so I am glued to the TV when it is on. The team final was exciting and the US just stumbled at the end. I felt so bad for Alicia. Everyone makes mistakes. Nice to see some of The Magnificent Seven from the 1996 Olympics showing back up with all the gymnastics talk this week. I saw Amanda Borden do an interview and it was the first time I’ve seen her on TV in a long time. The US basketball teams are in control so far with the women still dominating and the Redeem Team men’s basketball returning to form. They have looked very impressive in their games as well but still have some strong opponents ahead. That women’s roster is an impressive one and the odds of them remaining unbeaten in Olympic competition going back many years looks like it will be safe. One thing that I’ve noticed about the Olympics is that I can really watch any sport that is on it. I found myself fascinated watching badminton the other morning. The Olympics really is the talk of everyone and its great to see people enjoying it.

Lots of happenings tonight in the Olympics. The biggest news is the fact that the United States now has three women as individual all around gymnastics champions. Following in the steps of Mary Lou Retton and Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin has added her name to the list by winning the gold medal tonight after a great performance. The news doesn’t end there though as Shawn Johnson got the silver medal giving the U.S. a one-two finish. Definitely a huge moment tonight!! It was a fun and stressful night in cheering for them to win. Michael Phelps continued his dominance in swimming winning his sixth gold medal and also setting his sixth world record in doing so. Phelps wasn’t the only one winning gold and setting records tonight for the U.S. as Rebecca Soni won gold in the 200m breaststroke and also set a world record with the win. May and Walsh got a very close match tonight in beach volleyball as Belgium gave them a run for the win. May and Walsh had to battle back to win the first set and then won the second to take it. A definite wake up call for them but they looked impressive in their comeback. Incredible night of action from Beijing. A big congratulations to all of them!!!

The ratings for the Olympics have been very strong so far. People are tuning in big time and I’d hate to be trying to compete against it. The Opening Ceremonies had the biggest viewing audience ever for a non American hosted Olympic Games. 30 million viewers tuned into it on Friday night. 25 million tuned into the 2004 Opening Ceremonies and this year’s Opening Ceremonies was up by 37% compared to that. To compare, the 1996 Olympics from Atlanta still has the biggest Opening Ceremonies audience with 39 million viewers. Live coverage has no doubt helped this Olympics a lot. Average viewership for the first three nights of Olympic coverage was up by 6 million over what the 2004 Games did. I have to think that everyone at NBC has to be thrilled with the combination of gymnastics and swimming this week in primetime and beyond. That has to be a dream pairing with the story of Michael Phelps being paired with gymnastics which is one of the highest rated Olympic nights every time. The Olympics started Tuesday night with a 16.2 rating, jumping to a 17.9 in the second hour, and then jumping to a 22.8 in the third hour when the women’s team gymnastics coverage began. Being able to go live back and forth was great the other night. The ratings definitely jump to no surprise when Phelps is competing which was evidenced on Wednesday night’s Olympic coverage. I love the live coverage and I don’t mind staying up at all to watch an event that I want to see. I’m just thrilled to see it live cause the delayed viewing was getting old in year’s past based on the fact that results kept getting put up everywhere. The NBC coverage gets a big A+ from me as the coverage spanning the NBC networks and then online has been great.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. The Dark Knight - $26.1 million. 2. Pineapple Express - $23.2 million. 3. The Mummy - $16.4 million. 4. The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 - $10.6 million. 5. Step Brothers - $9.1 million. 6. Mamma Mia - $8.2 million. 7. Journey To The Center Of The Earth - $4.8 million. 8. Hancock - $3.3 million. 9. WALL-E - $3.1 million. 10. Swing Vote - $3.1 million.

We have another victim of the writers strike. The release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been pushed back to July 17, 2009 instead of November 21st. Alan Horn of Warner Brothers Pictures had this statement on the change: "Our reasons for shifting 'Half-Blood Prince' to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers' strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films--changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move 'Half-Blood Prince' to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer."

This was one wild week in the Big Brother house and I didn’t think the show really captured all of the stuff that went on. Tuesday’s episode didn’t cover a lot of the happenings with the argument among the girls which I’ll cover down in the Live Feeds section as I watched it all play out as it happened. When we left off last week, Michelle was the HOH after Jessie’s eviction. Dan was America’s Player and his vote went to evict Jessie so he had a big target on his back cause of it. April and Ollie were mad over the flip that Keesha and Libra did to go against April’s HOH wishes. Dan was in damage control mode and tried to look as miserable as possible to stay safe. Memphis did come to his defense especially after Dan helped him stay in. Keesha and Libra knew immediately that a target was on them. Michelle put up Keesha and Libra on the nomination block. Jerry went to Michelle trying to get her to target Dan and the house has done some major speculating that Dan is America’s Player. The talk would have more effect if they haven’t been speculating about this for weeks now. The veto competition takes place which involves having to transfer onions into a box or you can fill onions in a surprise box which would give you a prize. Memphis and April do get mystery box prizes. April got five designer outfits but Memphis didn’t do so well. His prize was that he got to wear a necklace of onions around his neck for 24 hours. The veto itself comes down to Jerry and Libra. Libra has 32 pounds in her box while Jerry has 36.8 to win the veto. Jerry has been attacking Dan all week which has been seen obviously on the show but more on the feeds and I don’t like the personal attacks on Dan. It’s a game. What is odd is Jerry attacking Dan about his character when Jerry did the same thing on week one going back on his word with Brian. Jerry kept working on a plan to try and use the veto and get Dan up on the block. Things got wild which I’ll go into more detail momentarily but the feast turned into a major argument between the girls that went for a lot of the night. Dan then talked about how the feast dinner ended up benefitting him most cause the girls had all blown up at each other getting more attention off of him. The veto ceremony takes place and Jerry uses the opportunity to blast Dan by continuing to blast him on his character. He got so brutal with the speech that the house pretty much turned on him for what he had to say. Jerry goes on to say that he won’t be using the veto and that he was “saving Dan again”. Tonight’s eviction episode had the show really trying to bring up some drama on whether Libra would stay. They especially got dramatic going to commercial only two votes into the live voting instead of going to commercial halfway through the voting like they normally do. Libra has known all week that she was going home. Interesting comments made from the house about Jerry’s speech on Dan. Dan’s diary room was great where he started really down and then said how Jerry’s speech was incredible cause it gained sympathy for him from the house. I agree with Libra when she wondered if Jerry got his Big Brother manual cause this show isn’t about trust and loyalty. Memphis has been pretty vocal in standing up for Dan in the house over Jerry’s comments about him. He does not like the personal comments. Libra gets voted out on a 6-0 vote and becomes the first member of the jury. The HOH competition takes place and it is a competition where they had to guess on which non-jury evictees made the asked about diary room comments. Every right answer earned the person the ability to eliminate someone else from the competition. Renny eliminated April. Dan eliminated Jerry. Ollie, Memphis, and Dan guessed wrong on three in a row so they eliminated themselves. That leaves Renny and Keesha as the final two. Renny ends up winning and is the new HOH.

Other thoughts on the Big Brother week. First, I have to say that I watched House Calls with Jessie on the show last Friday. Wow, he got ripped apart. Gretchen and Dick were just countering him on every statement that he had. I’ve never seen Gretchen on a rampage like she was on this show as she is usually very laid back even if she has been on the record as not liking a houseguest before their appearance. Even the callers were brutal but Jessie did have a few fans call in for support. Wow was all I could say as I was watching the show. This was definitely the week of the feuding girls in the house. I have been watching the feeds and the show but I get completely confused on who has said what. All of these arguments have been finger pointing between the girls and there are so many different stories with people throwing each other under the bus that I don’t even remember what is the actual truth anymore. Ha ha. The house guests got a visit from various Big Brother alum during the food competition. Someone from each season of Big Brother was represented. The alum would provide a news story from the outside world and the house guests would have to guess on whether they thought the story was true or false. The more questions that they got right, the more food that they got for the week. It’s funny cause there were so many stories that I would guess false too if I was in that house. Who says Big Brother isn’t informative cause I had no clue about China’s deal where they are working on a project to control the weather during the Olympics.

What You Missed On The Live Feeds: One thing to follow that is funny is April talking about Memphis’s car that he won at the beginning of the game. Every time she uses the car as an excuse for something against him, the value of it goes up. I am not kidding. Ha ha. The value started at $10,000 and she has the value up over $100,000 now. Dan and Memphis seem to be taking to slop really well saying that they don’t see what all the complaining is about saying that they like it. Friday consisted of Jerry walking into every conversation that a feed was on and then talking all sorts of trash on Dan. It got pretty annoying after a while where I was thinking “ok we get it, you don’t like Dan”. Saturday night was one of the most bizarre nights in the history of Big Brother where my ears were almost hurting by the end of the night after listening to all the screaming going on. The feast that the houseguests got out of the veto competition resulted in a big love fest. The alcohol came out and the mood was all over the place starting with the love fest. The houseguests all talked good things about each other. Tears were flowing from them as they talked. Dan gave a nice speech about Jerry to which he replied that he thought Dan was America’s Player and that if that was the reason for what had happened, then he could understand the turn. After the tears, then came the anger and people comparing notes and stories. We have April and Keesha going at it in the sauna room yelling about what has happened between them so far in the game which was left off the show. Some truths and some spins being told back and forth. Funny thing is that it started out as a “let’s make up” type of talk. It was one of the most bizarre make up type talks that I’ve ever heard. Keesha apologized at the end and they hugged as they left the room. The feeds then cut to the living room and there is silence with Libra and Ollie on the couches. First line out of Ollie’s mouth is “it’s amazing what alcohol can do”. No doubt!!!! Later, things got fueled again in the HOH when Keesha, April, Libra, and Michelle all argued in the HOH room. It started as Michelle bringing them together to discuss things. This was one of the wildest arguments that I’ve ever seen in Big Brother history. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it and kept thinking that I’m never getting to sleep tonight. Michelle ended up getting fired up with not believing comments that were being made. She left the room and proceeded to throw around just about every pillow in the house which was also left off the show. Funny thing is the guys just all sitting around and laying low during all of it. They were barely seen and when they were seen, they looked extremely uncomfortable. Libra summed it up pretty well saying “no more alcohol for us, that’s a wrap Big Brother”. I actually thought the editing of the show was pretty nice to Keesha cause she was not doing so well during this whole thing. We then had Michelle, Libra, and April yelling in the living room with Dan and Ollie laying on couches covering their faces looking like they can’t take much more of this. Ollie and Jerry later talked in the bedrooms and then Renny walked in to the room to tell them that she is “too old for this”. The time got to 2am here and all was finally calm. The screaming went on for at least three hours off and on.

What Has Happened Since The Live Show: Well, not much really. Mood is light in the house. Quite a bit of pool playing going on tonight. Renny got her HOH room. April has also gotten her designer clothing that she won in the veto competition. No word on who Renny is looking to nominate just yet. It appears that she may be targeting April though.

I finished season three of Lost. Again, I’m going into my thoughts on the season so I’m discussing major spoilers if you haven’t seen it. Good season which saw a lot of the story get changed up. Ben has been around for over a full season now and he still keeps me guessing on what he is up to. Interesting start with him having Kate, Jack, and Sawyer all captured but Jack ended up taking control after the surgery to save Ben. That was one intense negotiation session to finish the surgery. Speaking of Jack and the surgery, that scene was great where the group goes back to get Jack and then see him running only to realize that he is catching a football. That was a great reveal!! Desmond was a character that I saw potential with but didn’t know if they had anything else planned for him other than running out of the hatch. Well, where else is he going to go when you think about it? His ability to see flashes of the future was a good twist. Locke sure had some interesting stuff going on. I didn’t realize when I commented about season two that things were going to get worse for him in season three when we found out that his dad was the one that put him in the wheelchair. Then, his dad ends up on the island with the excellent combining of two stories with Sawyer realizing that Locke’s dad was the con man that ruined his life. Wow. I was glad to see Locke survive his gunshot from Ben cause I think Locke’s bond with the island is fun to watch especially with his injury going away when he landed on the island. Then, there is Juliet. I can’t seem to figure her out character out either where sometimes you wonder whose side she is on as well. Sad but heroic ending for Charlie with him cutting off the frequency. Well, I say that but if what Ben is saying is true, then this communcation that was sent out might be bad for everyone. I thought the episode was funny with Nikki and Paulo that ended up with them both getting bit by the spider which paralyzed them for several hours. Their planning ended up being their demise. I thought those characters were annoying anyway. Loved the episode with Hurley finding the van and being determined to fix it. It was just a light episode and I have grown to love having scenes with Hurley and Sawyer together. The two of them competing in ping pong was fun too. They play off each other so well. What a close to the season where the seemingly flashback stuff with Jack ended up being a future deal with Jack telling Kate that they had to go back. Wow, I did not see that coming but I kept trying to figure out where that stuff with Jack could be in the timeline of his life before getting to the island and I couldn’t figure it out. Well, it was in the future apparently. One more season to go to be caught up with everyone else.

Have you seen the new Nike ad running during the Olympics? Love it!! Here it is in case you haven’t seen it.

Remember all the talk a couple of years ago about the Buffy cartoon that was being pitched around. Well, the video for it has shown up online. Here you go if you want to check it out:

Moving on to issue ten of Angel: After The Fall. SPOILER ALERT if you are reading the comics and don’t want to know the happenings. Good stuff in this issue which had the gang trying to control Illyria keeping her separated from Wesley. Illyria also let one big thing out when she revealed that Angel was not a vampire anymore. She wasn’t told but she is able to feel power and knew that Angel didn’t have it anymore. So, now the group knows and the feeling was major shock especially when Angel was going into major battle and the feeling was the group asking if he was in a suicide mission or something. Great closing to the issue where we had Angel and Gunn coming face to face just as the next battle was about to take place. Big shock on Angel’s face when he realizes that it’s Gunn in front of him.

I might as well go with news on a third Whedon show as there is some news out of Firefly too.
There will be an online comic based on Shepherd Book’s character. The Shepherd’s Tale will go into the history of Book. This should be a lot of fun to read as we really didn’t get to learn a whole lot about his history. The comic won’t be seen till next year though so don’t get too excited just yet.

Regis Philbin is set to guest star this season on How I Met Your Mother. Regis will play himself in the episode.

The Hills is back for season four and premieres on Monday night on MTV.

Tori Spelling is officially out as appearing on the new Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff. There are reports out there talking about money being a reason. The new 90210 premieres on September 2nd.

I got an email wanting to let all of you know that the second season of Blog Cabin is now airing on DIY Network. The show lets bloggers be in control of the design and construction of a waterfront vacation home. The show airs Thursdays at 8pm central time. For more info on the show, head over to: www.diynetwork.com/blogcabin

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, August 19th. Are You Afraid Of The Dark? (Season Seven), Dexter (Season Two), Gossip Girl (Season One), House (Season Four), Justice League (Season One), Married With Children (Season Nine), Perry Mason (Season Three – Volume One), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Season One), Transformers: Animated (Season One).

You Tube Video Of The Week: Chad Vader’s shoplifting prevention video.


That is all I have for you tonight. Hope everyone is enjoying the Olympics as much as I am!! Take care and God bless!!