Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Entertainment Wrap Up - November 20, 2008 - Sugar vs. Randy, TRL Says Goodbye, Amazing Race, 90210, Trademark Wins, Storm Chasers, & More

Not sure what I’m going to do with the Wrap Up next week with it falling on Thanksgiving. I’ll see what happens.

The wedding of Jimmy and Chloe on Smallville was an episode that looked big based on the previews. Plus, it's a big event in Smallville and something bad usually happens such as homecoming, graduation, political wins, etc. This was a great episode!! I loved it from beginning to end. The wedding saw familiar faces return. The wedding itself was overshadowed by the emergence of Doomsday. Davis had been calling Chloe all day but due to him previously telling her of his feelings, she had ignored the calls. He was out of control and Doomsday emerged at the wedding. Clark had one face off with him which resulted in Clark being sent out of there in a hurry putting him next to some kryptonite. The returning Lana made the save for Clark but there was no saving Jimmy or Chloe. Jimmy took a nasty shot from Doomsday and Chloe was carried away to the fortress. Jimmy was in bad condition and being transferred to another hospital for a special surgeon. Lois left to go be with him waiting to hear back from Chloe as well. Lana and Oliver came face to face in Cuba when they both were on the trail of Lex, who we found out is alive. Lana is definitely working an agenda that we aren't seeing really yet. Lana always has an agenda when it comes to Lex. Oliver is looking for revenge for the most part. Lana did arrive at the wedding and they played the Lois and Clark story perfect. They are set to kiss and......enter Lana into the reception. Then, Lois walks away destroyed thinking that she might as well exit stage left cause Clark's love of his life just walked back into the door. Clark and Lana decided to leave things alone between them. I did find it funny how there wasn't really any major reaction to Chloe not knowing Clark's secret anymore. I thought that would be more of a hot topic among everyone. We did see Lex at the end of the episode and he was seeing all of the happenings of the wedding. Well, it wasn't Rosenbaum obviously. Chloe giving the smile to Doomsday in the fortress was really wild for sure. That ties into the great song that fit the last scene. For those wondering what the song is, it is "Don't Take Your Love Away From Me" by VAST. I liked how the episode had the videographer footage of the wedding tied into everything especially with how we just saw his footage to open the episode. Like I said, I loved the Lois and Clark stuff. The tease of them being together has been a LOT of fun to watch this season. The worst part of the episode? The graphic that said new episodes return on January 15th. Great episode!! Great!!

Tonight’s episode of Survivor was all about Sugar vs. Randy. Sugar is so much fun to watch this season!! She is definitely my favorite cast member. The two of them have been going at it for a while now. The Survivor auction which is always one of my favorite moments of the season took place and had their battle continue into the auction. Sugar was looking to take Randy out in the auction throughout it. It all came to a head when the last item was a surprise. First $20 bid got the item for the whole tribe. Randy bid the $20 and it was a plate full of chocolate chip cookies. Randy made the comment about how he was going to keep all of them but Jeff insisted that they were for the tribe. Sugar did not get a cookie. She asked if she could give hers to someone else and Randy said that he was in charge of them. Her cookie goes elsewhere. The tray comes back to her and he offers a cookie. She takes it and gives it to Matty. It turns out that it was the last one and it was Randy’s cookie. It was now gone. Randy went off and was furious about it. Bob was sent to exile island which was part of the auction. Ken got that surprise in what he bought where he got to send someone to exile but got to take their money as well. Bob was sent and got nowhere with the idol clue. Bob and Sugar did talk about how he had a fake idol made and he showed the idol to Sugar too. This led to a lot of craziness. Randy’s plan was for himself to get a lot of heat on him. He would get Bob to give him the idol so he could use it. He and his group would all vote for Susie and she’d be gone due to having the second highest number of votes. Ken won immunity but that wasn’t the story. Sugar talks to Bob about giving the fake idol to Randy to use. Bob gives Randy the fake idol. Tribal council takes place and most of them were very vocal on their votes and why. Sugar’s finish to her speech was really funny cause she is such a fun personality. Crystal’s had me cracking up laughing cause I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone get up there and scream venting while they hold up their vote. The rest of the tribe could hear the whole thing and it was hilarious!! Even Randy had a look of “what in the world??!!” Randy plays the fake idol and it is revealed to be fake. Randy gets the most votes and is voted out. Corinne and Randy are blindsided. WOW. That was amazing that they pulled that off. It continued on into the previews where Bob is going to spin the story to Corinne to protect himself. Really clever on what he was telling her.

I watched the finale of TRL on Sunday night. TRL wrapped up its ten year run with a three hour finale featuring Carson Daly returning to co-host along with interviews and appearances by Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Backstreet Boys, Kid Rock, Diddy, Beyonce, Hilary Duff, and many, many more. I used to watch this show years ago and, yes, I was one of those fans that voted. Watching the finale felt like going to a high school reunion. It was just like a reunion cause it’s awkward at first, you see old friends, and the atmosphere brings you back in, and then you’re having fun like old times. A high school reunion seemed to be the same kind of feeling for many others as well. I have often said that TRL is this generation’s American Bandstand. This show was such a pop culture phenomenon but has fallen from grace in recent years. TRL was a huge part of the music industry for many years. Celebrities would use TRL as major launches for albums, singles, movies, TV shows, etc. Many music artists should thank that show for all they have because it launched MANY of their careers. Not only did the show launch artists but also themselves. Carson Daly’s career took off with TRL and he’s now hosting his own show on NBC. Hilarie Burton went on to One Tree Hill. There are several others too that have done well. One thing that I noticed about Carson through the years was just how easy he made the hosting duties look. Even after all the years of being away from the show, he made this finale hosting look easy as well. Carson was always the heart of that show and I actually started fazing out from the show around the time that he started to faze out. Fans were able to battle it out and vote for their favorite videos and support their favorite singers. We also had the normal moment of a girl popping up in a bubble on the screen as she tells why her favorite is great and then….wait for it….cue the screaming to end it. I always found it funny when they’d start screaming before they were even done talking where you had no clue what they had just said. LOL. TRL had a huge local impact there in New York. The show would draw huge crowds in Times Square. The NYPD often had to shut down the streets cause of the size of the crowds. There was one day where the crowd got so wild for The Backstreet Boys that they had to shut the shades on the windows to calm them down. It turned into a “can you top this?” kind of deal to see who could draw the biggest crowds and there were a lot of artists that could draw HUGE crowds. I still remember TRL being one of the first shows to return to live TV after 9/11. TRL coming back was this feeling of normalcy after a week that was horribly against but normal. The three hour finale had a top ten countdown of favorites from over the years which felt like a major blast from the past. It was fun to see the retro moments with Carson hosting, the familiar guests returning, and the huge crowd outside taking over Times Square one more time. Where did they find Jesse Camp and Dave Holmes??!! Great to see them. I had completely forgotten that Dave was the runner up in that Be a VJ contest. Fun to see the clips of Hilarie’s first TRL appearance as I still remember watching that thinking how fun of a personality that she was for the show. Very fitting for Diddy to make an appearance on the finale as he was a big part of the show’s run which also had him getting choked up discussing the show ending. Putting it into perspective on how long this show had been going on and how the artists have changed was the Christina Aguilera interview. I just thought of how she was a new artist breaking on to the scene as a teenager around the beginning of the TRL run. Now, here she is being very successful while balancing being a wife and mom. Justin Timberlake and JC Chazez’s appearance was a lot of fun and you can tell that they’re really going to miss the show. There are so many artists to mention that had huge impacts on that show over the years and also appeared on the finale. The finale definitely had a feeling of closing a big chapter in music history. TRL changed the landscape of music. That is for sure.

Some things never change in 90210 land. Kelly and Brenda’s relationship is back on ice. Brenda was looking to distance herself from Kelly and the reason was learned at the end of the episode. Brenda had an accident falling off the stage ending up in the hospital. Despite their bad ending to their lunch earlier on, Kelly was called by the hospital because she was in Brenda’s emergency contact list. It was then that Brenda admitted to sleeping with Ryan. Kelly just turned and left. Just like old times having a guy being a problem between the two of them. The other major story was the arrival of the long lost son, Sean. He is put between the two families and it definitely caused problems. One major problem was Dixon who felt ignored by all the attention that Sean was getting. He finally got Harry’s attention though by his conduct in the game. Annie struggled with how Beverly Hills has changed her including her going off on Naomi. Yeah, things haven’t improved between them. Naomi worked on trying to fit in with a new crowd. A cheerleader is paying extra attention to Dixon which is definitely going to have to be setting up a storyline of issues between Dixon and Silver. What is up with the phone call that Sean made at the end of the episode? Not sure what to make of that!! No new episodes until January 6th???!!!! Wow. Brutal.

Anyone see the new Lost season five preview tonight on ABC? I did not see it and I’m kind of afraid to watch it cause I don’t want to know too much. I did see the little teaser last weekend on ABC but I really debated on whether to watch it. Yeah, I caved in and watched it but it gave away nothing. Not sure about this new one. I just don’t want to know any kind of major spoilers for the show.

What happens when you mix storm chasing and roads in terrible condition, an absolute mess is what you get. This week’s Storm Chasers had the chasers barely even able to stay on the road with the scout actually leaving the road in a scary landing. The TIV had the biggest reaction when they passed the scout later on and they mentioned how it looked like that the scout had been in a tornado with how beat up the vehicle looked. Reed and the TVN crew battled road conditions that had them driving side ways at one point and running into a road closed area. Just a wild episode and the last few episodes have definitely shown how dangerous that chasing can be. This weekend’s episode looks like it will be wild.

Trademark Properties has won their lawsuit against A&E winning $4 million. Richard Davis filed suit against A&E saying that there was an agreement between the two to split the profits. Trademark was featured in the first season of Flip This House but then the network went a different direction away from Trademark for the following seasons. Fans were furious after the promotion for the new season said nothing about a new crew on the show. People including me tuned in for new episodes of Trademark only to see brand new people and not the Trademark crew that we had loved to watch. A&E took a ton of heat from fans online about the switch. I’ve refused to watch the show after feeling that I got big time bait and switched by the network. Trademark Properties went on to move on to doing a show on TLC called The Real Estate Pros. I’m a big fan of the Trademark Properties TV shows. So much fun. I still anxiously await word on when we’re going to get some new TV out of them.

Twilight has yet to hit theatres but the soundtrack has already hit number one on the charts. Remember when movie soundtrack albums used to be so huge? There was always some big song that went with the movie and would make the soundtrack sell a TON of copies. I miss that.

Another week, another first place finish for Nick and Starr on The Amazing Race. After a battle to try and get the best flights, all the teams ended up even at the road block. There was a twist to the road block and that was a fast forward. Nick & Starr and Terence & Sarah went for it. The fast forward consisted of having to eat meat at a local delicacy. The problem for Terence and Sarah? Terence is a vegetarian and hadn’t eaten meat in fifteen years. Terence tried hard but was unable to do it. They gave up especially after seeing how far ahead Nick and Starr were with their eating. Terence and Sarah go back to the regular race while Nick and Starr win the fast forward and go on to win that leg of the race. The rest of the teams battled it out having to walk the streets while in a cow costume. Ken and Tina struggled when Tina didn’t catch the clue on the bottom of the milk bottle. Toni and Dallas, who finished the task first, did give Ken and Tina the information about needing to continue wearing the costume throughout the task. Andrew and Dan had a rough time throughout and ended up frustrated with one another at the end. Terence and Sarah did their best to catch up but were unable to do it. They were eliminated from the race. The current standings as we have a final four: 1st – Nick and Starr.
2nd – Toni and Dallas. 3rd – Ken and Tina. 4th – Dan and Andrew.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Quantum Of Solace - $67.5 million. 2. Madagascar Escape 2 Africa - $35 million. 3. Role Models - $11.1 million. 4. High School Musical 3 - $5.6 million. 5. Changeling - $4.2 million. 6. Zack and Miri - $3.1 million. 7. Soul Men - $2.3 million. 8. The Secret Life Of Bees - $2.3 million. 9. Saw V - $1.7 million. 10. Beverly Hills Chihuahua - $1.5 million.

This week’s Heroes had us seeing who was on what side at the end of the episode. The lines are drawn between the Petrelli’s. Claire is the catalyst that is going to make the plan happen. Sylar had mixed results with being locked in a room with a very furious Elle. Gabriel was definitely coming out of him by the end as the two found peace. Hiro was zapped back into being a kid. It was funny stuff with him doing what any kid would do with those kind of powers. I’m very curious to see how this all ties up.

There are reports out that ABC is not picking up any new episodes of three shows. One of these is going to make a friend of mine very unhappy. ABC has canceled Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, and Dirty Sexy Money.

Carrie Underwood has some Christmas music coming your way this year. Her version of “Do You Hear What I Hear” is on radio now but is also part of an exclusive CD at Walmart. There is now a two disc version of Carnival Ride that is exclusive to the store with the second disc having five different Christmas songs. Not sure if there is anyway to just get the bonus disc if you already own the original CD. That would be my question. I would guess probably not.

I don’t watch any daytime soaps but I know good and well that this is huge news. It’s also a sign of the economic times. Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn are gone from Days Of Our Lives. They appear to be the victim of budget cuts.

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, November 25th. 24 (Redemption), Beverly Hills 90210 (Season Six), The Big Easy (Season Two), The Colbert Report (Colbert Christmas), Freaks and Geeks (Full Series), Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. (Season Five), The Mod Squad (Season Two - Volume One).

TV Line Of The Week: From Survivor.
“Uh, loser” (complete with “L” symbol on the forehead). – Sugar commenting on her vote for Randy.

You Tube Video Of The Week: Infectious laugh tops the comedian.


That’s it for this week. I’ll see what is going on with the Wrap Up and Thanksgiving next week. Take care and God bless!!

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