The Entertainment Wrap Up - December 18, 2008 - Big Bang Theory, HIMYM, Favorite Christmas Songs, Meredith Andrews, Chuck, & More

Some Smallville news to start the Wrap Up for tonight.

The CW has released a new promo for Smallville showing what we can expect when the show returns with new episodes on January 15th. This just made me want January 15th to get here even faster now to see where the story is going.


The plan for now apparently is for Lost to air straight through this season with no interruptions. This season and next season will be 17 episodes in length which is longer than the original plan. That is to make up for the episodes that didn’t happen last season due to the WGA strike. We’ll have to see if things work out for it to straight through to the season finale in May.

I loved the Christmas episode of The Big Bang Theory. The gift exchanging between Penny and Sheldon was hilarious stuff especially the payoff scene at the end of the episode. Penny revealed that she had gotten a gift for Sheldon which sent him into a meltdown cause he felt obligated to get her something. Sheldon took the guys gift shopping for Penny but didn’t know what to get her to even up whatever she got him. His plan was to bring all sorts of gifts at all different price levels home so he would be able to compare what she had gotten him. His plan was to open her present, excuse himself, and go look up the value online. He would then give her the one with the equal value and return the rest for a full refund. Her present was a napkin which had a personalized autograph from Leonard Nimoy. He had been at the restaurant and she got his autograph for Sheldon. This sent Sheldon into a hilarious shock of a meltdown especially when he learned that it also had Nimoy’s DNA on it as well due to him using the napkin. Sheldon returned and gave her all the things that he had bougnt saying it still didn’t even up. He then went and uncomfortably gave her a hug. It was great stuff. I also loved the scene with Leonard confronting Penny over her dating a guy that is smarter than he is. Penny’s reason to Leonard on why they couldn’t work out was that he was too smart for her. So, Leonard was frustrated to see her hit it off with someone smarter but he was also a very built guy which had him not looking like a regular scientist. Things went bad when Penny had realized that the guy had a wife as well along with Penny being his new girlfriend. It ended up with a really nice moment between Penny and Leonard where she kissed him on the cheek. The on again off again romance of theirs may be my favorite on TV right now. It is so fun and I cheer for them a lot.

What would happen if Barney finally met Ted’s sister, Heather? Well, Ted didn’t want to find out and constantly hid her from Barney being the protective brother. His reasoning was that he tried to protect his sister from guys like Barney. The trust issue of Ted towards his sister ended up being solved in the end as she and Barney set Ted up on his distrust. My favorite part of the episode was Marshall and Robin at the Minnesota sports hang out. The story was that Robin gets homesick a lot around Christmas and misses Canada. She wasn’t big on the New York guys so Marshall took her to his hangout which had guys more like she wanted to hang around. Marshall eventually got jealous when Robin fit in a little too well along with her lying about being Canadian (which would automatically get you thrown out due to their dislike of Canadians). Marshall finally busted her on her lies cause he couldn’t take her getting too much attention anymore. She was kicked out but went out with a very pro Canadian rant to the bar. Marshall felt bad over what he had done and made up for it by taking Robin to another bar that was all about Canada. She felt right at home but the laugh out loud moment for the episode was at the end. Marshall sang karaoke and knew what he was going to sing. He broke into “Let’s Go To The Mall” as Robin hid her face at the bar. That was of course the song that she was popular for in Canada when she was a pop star in case you forgot. Great stuff. Loved this episode.

Speaking of How I Met Your Mother. What does Barney want for Christmas? Check out Barney’s Christmas list at :
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/barney_blog/index.php

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. The Day The Earth Stood Still - $30.4 million. 2. Four Christmases - $13 million. 3. Twilight - $7.9 million. 4. Bolt - $7.4 million. 5. Australia - $4.1 million. 6. Quantum Of Solace - $3.7 million. 7. Nothing Like The Holidays - $3.5 million. 8. Madagascar Escape 2 Africa - $3.1 million. 9. Milk - $2.5 million. 10. Transporter 3 - $2.3 million.

Strong episode of Chuck this week that revolved around a hostage situation at the Buy More. It turned out to all be a way to find out where the intersect was. Chuck revealed that it was him to help protect his sister who had been thrown into this hostage situation as well. We found out what length that Sarah would go to protect Chuck and that was shooting the guy in question. Chuck saw the incident take place but she later lied to him about how she had arrested the guy instead. It is going to be interesting to see how their relationship goes after this major turn.

How much would you pay for Luke Skywalker’s light saber used in the first couple of Star Wars movies? Well, it recently sold at a Hollywood memorabilia auction for $240,000. WOW. The droid helmet of C-3PO went for $120,000. The auction apparently sold about $3.5 million worth of merchandise. That included Marlon Brando’s costume from the Superman movie which went for $72,000.

This volume of Heroes ended up on Monday night. The general opinion among me and my friends that I watched it with was just “ehhh”. We liked last week’s episode a lot more than this week’s wrap up episode. They sure have disposed of some characters over the last few weeks and it continued this week. Let’s get real. Sylar isn’t gone. He shall return. Pinehearst is no more after being destroyed by Claire’s mom which also took her out as well. The formula was destroyed. Ando now has powers. Nathan and Peter continue to be at odds and the start of the next volume has Nathan working a deal with the President about all the people that have abilities. The previews for the new episodes show all the Heroes being hunted down one by one. Heroes returns on Monday, February 2nd.

I saw both Gremlins movies on TV last weekend on AMC. I can’t remember the last time that I saw those on TV. It has been so long since I’ve seen them that I didn’t even realize that was John Glover that was in the sequel. I always remembered how great that character was but didn’t know the actor’s name at the time. One line cracked me up with him after he had his encounter with his first gremlin while one guy tried to convince him that maybe it was a bug. He replied with “those are some big bugs”. That brought back a lot of memories seeing those movies on TV.

I recently bought Meredith Andrews CD entitled The Invitation. Meredith is a Christian music artist and recently just released this album. She has an incredible voice and has so many inspirational songs on the album. I found out about her when I was listening to the radio last weekend and heard her song, “You Invite Me In”. I started thinking that she sounded like a singer that I would probably like. I found her website and listened to more of her music. Yeah, it didn’t take long for me to be hooked. I bought the CD the next day. Favorite songs on the album include the song I already mentioned along with “You’re Not Alone” and “Show Me What It Means”. Check out Meredith's website at: http://www.meredithandrews.com/
Very inspirational music!!!

To no surprise, The Dark Knight is selling very well on DVD. It is doing very well on Blu-ray. I read one article that said that the Blu-ray version of the movie had already sold over one million copies.

Don’t forget that the Joss Whedon hit, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, is released tomorrow on DVD. Head over to Amazon.com to pick yours up.

With it being time for Christmas, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite Christmas songs. These are in no particular order. I've got a wide variety of favorites. Some are classics while some are more modern. Actually, I’ll go ahead and name a top five in no order and then name my other favorites.
1. Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney
2. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – U2
3. Rockin Around The Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
4. Do They Know It's Christmas? – Band Aid
5. Jingle Bell Rock – Bobby Helms

Other favorites include:
Christmas Time – Christina Aguilera
Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon
Holly Jolly Christmas – Burl Ives
White Christmas – Bing Crosby
Jingle Bell Rock – Hall & Oates
Sleigh Ride – Debbie Gibson
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town – Bruce Springsteen
Carol of the Bells – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Deck The Halls – Mannehim Steamroller
All I Want For Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
2,000 Miles - Pretenders
Do You Hear What I Hear? – Carrie Underwood

What is my favorite Christmas movie of all time? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I have to watch it every year. It's tradition. I found it kind of funny speaking about songs and movies cause I've heard a song used in this movie a ton over the holidays so far. I'm talking about the song that they play during the fantasy pool scene when Clark is looking out of the window. I always thought how I rarely ever hear that song besides in that movie but I heard it for almost five days straight on the radio this year.

A couple of classic cartoons are now available on Hulu. He-Man and The Masters of The Universe along with The Adventures of Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids are now up for viewing on the site. Classic stuff there.

Speaking of movies on DVD, Mamma Mia! is getting a ton of promotion with its DVD release. It seems like I see a promo for it during every commercial break. I haven’t seen it but I know the movie is very popular for sure. The DVD was released this week and if you haven’t picked it up yet, I got an email to give all of you a sneak peak at the DVD with this bonus video. Hope you enjoy!!
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oiFinmXi9n4

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, December 23rd. Very slow week with TV on DVD as there is only one release. Voltron: Defender Of The Universe (Collection 6).

TV Line Of The Week: From The Big Bang Theory.
“I can grow my own Leonard Nimoy. “ - Sheldon after realizing that he had the DNA of Leonard Nimoy.

You Tube Video Of The Week: The great finish to this week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory. Keep in mind that Sheldon was just given this napkin that Penny had autographed by Leonard Nimoy.


That is it for this week. Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!! Stay safe and have a great time!! Take care and God bless!!