The Entertainment Wrap Up - December 4, 2008 - No More Kristen Bell??!!, Dr. Horrible, Lost, Amazing Race, Survivor, Grammys, & More

The Amazing Race finale is this Sunday night and we are down to three teams in the running for the win. Nick & Starr, Ken & Tina, and Dan & Andrew. This last Sunday’s episode itself revolved around a huge mistake by Dallas. Dallas left the passports and all their money in a cab. That left them with no money to travel with for that leg of the race. They had to beg for money from people to keep trying to complete the task. They did as good as they could with it but were eliminated. It never is a good sign when Phil comes looking for you instead of waiting for you to arrive at the pit stop. That was when he eliminated them. Nick and Starr return to first place on this leg of the race followed by Dan and Andrew in second place. In third was Ken and Tina. I think Dan and Andrew may have had the oddest run to a final three ever for a team. They have had so many things go wrong for them but here they are in the finale. Nick and Starr have been very strong throughout. Ken and Tina have been right there in the mix in the top 3 or 4 most of the race. Here are my predictions on how it will turn out this Sunday. Nick and Starr win the race followed by Ken and Tina in second and Dan and Andrew finishing third.

Tonight’s Survivor saw Bob and Corinne try a play to keep themselves in the game a while longer. Bob was upset over how people rubbed things in Randy’s face about the fake idol. The reward challenge had major perks to win and that was a message from home. All of the tribe was shown a little bit of their video message from home. The tribe was split into three on three with each team having to go through a swamp of sorts to get their wheel pieces. When they got the pieces, they had to make it all work. Crystal and Susie were captains based on a random draw and got to choose their teams. Crystal, Bob, and Sugar were able to come from behind and defeat Susie, Bob, and Matty. That moved the winning team of three into the final round where each had to solve a puzzle. Bob finished the puzzle and won the challenge easily. He got private time where he watched the video message on the phone from his wife. She then said to hang on for a second and she surprised him by being there in person. It was a really fun surprise. Bob got to bring her back to camp but a bigger surprise awaited the rest as they also brought the loved ones of everyone else’s as well. A couple of really good moments with Matty proposing to his girlfriend and her accepting. Sugar and her sister sprinkled some of the ashes of their father which was sad for sure. Then, it was back to the game play. Bob and Corinne work on a plan to work the fake immunity idol once again. The plan was to say that Marcus actually did have the immunity idol that was thrown away and that Bob was the only one that knew where it was. Bob would once again make a fake idol. Bob and Corinne realized that it was a little chance that this would work but tried anyway. The immunity challenge consisted of answering questions to gain shots at a target. Each would throw a ball at a target below them and the one closest to the center would win immunity. Bob was right on with this one as he got the lead on his first throw. His second throw was even closer to the center. Bob wins immunity and the plan for him and Corinne was on. Corinne told Kenny the story about the idol. Bob told Crystal the story and showed her the fake idol. Kenny and Crystal then debated on what to do. The plan for them was to put in the votes for Matty but try to flush out the idol as well. A win, win situation for them. The fake idol was not used of course and the votes had Corinne going home on a 4-3 vote. I’ve got to give them credit for trying.

Joss Whedon has commented over at Whedonesque.com about the upcoming Dr. Horrible DVD which is released on December 19th on Amazon.com. "Well, my turkey (or, in some cases, tofurkey) stuffed friends, we literally just put the finishing touches on the disc. Is it worth fifteen hard-earned dollars? Absolutely. In fact, I can say without reservation that the Dr. Horrible DVD is worth $15.23 EASILY. More, if your dollars weren’t the hard-earned kind, just the kind you have lying around in your mom’s purse. God knows WE’VE worked hard to earn ‘em. “Commentary! The Musical” is the most painstaking and exhausting piece of whimsey I have ever mistaken for a good idea. It has nearly twice as much music as Dr. Horrible itself — since you can’t really talk that much during a commentary musical or it sounds like a regular commentary. (Which we also have, with the stars and writers, plus making-of’s, ELE applications, and a few items left lying around by a notorious Bunny…) I can say without hesitation that I hesitate to say it’s great. And by great I mean ridiculous. It’s sophmoric, solopsistic, silly and the most fun I’ve had being exhausted since the fabled Mushortio itself. And everyone sings beautifullly. Which enrages me. I a little bit hate my friends now. The listed street date is, by the way, a little later than we’d expected — I’m hoping Amazon is just playing it safe and we can beat that date. More on that as we learn it. Expect a twittering sensation. Finally, I just want to say “thank you” to everybody who has supported this venture. We’ve been able to pay our crew and all our bills, which means a lot. What means more is proving that completely independent ventures can muscle their way through the blizzard of big-budget behemoths. (A blizzard of behemoths? Back to writing school, alliteration-junkie!) All that rhetoric about the future of entertainment that flew about during the Strike is still entirely true. We need to find our own way of producing entertainment. A lot of people are watching Dr. Horrible to see if it’s any kind of model — way more people than I expected — and it means everything to me to help pave the way for artists to start working and making a living from the ground up. There are a couple of real pioneers in this that I know personally: Felicia Day, I’m thrilled to say, and choreographer Chris Elam are both looking far ahead in terms of monetization and interactivity. Me, I’m more like Jimmy Stewart in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, but at least I’m out there. Thanks, he finally summed up, to you. My story has become tiresome! But wait till you hear the songs. Did we cover “silly”…?" http://whedonesque.com/comments/18243#270186
If you are a Joss fan, you need to check out Dr. Horrible. I reviewed this several months back and LOVED it. There will be a lot of extras on the set which will be fun to watch.

After reading all that, I had to watch Dr. Horrible again. After that? Yep, I had to watch the Buffy musical, Once More With Feeling, again which makes a watch count of no telling how many for me.

The season finale of Storm Chasers is this Sunday night on Discovery Channel. It looks like a very wild finale that has the teams chasing storms on the last chasing day of the season. The last several episodes have had the teams chasing some very dangerous storms and have actually been chased by storms as well.

As a huge Kristen Bell fan, I’m more than a little concerned over watching the end of this week’s Heroes. Elle is likely gone but I’m in major denial over it. Still holding on to that little, tiny, microscopic bit of hope that she will return. Yeah, I’m reaching but I don’t want to lose Kristen Bell from my TV. The eclipse ended this week just in the right amount of time for many of the Heroes. That was the seeming demise of Elle by Sylar. Claire was able to return after being declared dead. Daphne returned to her speedy self. Peter and Nathan survived Haiti with the Haitian. Some of the best stuff though revolved around Hiro in the comic book store with Seth Green and Breckin Meyer. I thought that stuff was written perfect where you had them all talking about the comic book telling the future of Hiro. Green and Meyer’s characters keep talking about things like they are discussing the comic story but yet it has turned into real life for them. It was great stuff.

With Pushing Daisies likely on its way out, there is talk that Bryan Fuller might be returning to work on the staff of Heroes. Fuller was with the show in season one and the addition of him would be big.

NBC has announced their plans for midseason. Medium will be returning on February 2nd. The new volume of Heroes called “Fugitives” will also premiere that night along with the 3D episode of Chuck. The Celebrity Apprentice will return on March 1st and it appears that they are going to be doing two hour episodes each Sunday night. Wow, didn’t expect that. The Office will get the coveted post Super Bowl slot as there will be an hour long episode of The Office following Super Bowl XLIII on February 1st. The series finale of ER will be two hours and will air on March 12th. It appears that Knight Rider will be wrapping up on February 25th.

ABC has also announced its midseason plans. The obvious attention is on the return of Lost which will be on January 21st with a 3 hour night. ABC is going to air last season’s last three episodes of Lost on January 14th as a way to build up to the premiere. Scrubs will have its network premiere on January 6th. The next season of Dancing With The Stars will premiere on March 9th. The much talked about premiere of Cupid will be on March 24th. Samantha Who? will be back with new episodes on January 12th. The new season of The Bachelor will premiere on January 5th. Nathan Fillion’s new show Castle will premiere on March 9th. The Unusuals will premiere on April 8th which stars Amber Tamblyn , Harold Perrineau, and Adam Goldberg.

Season four of Lost hits stores this Tuesday on DVD. Plenty of extras to be had on the set including Bloopers, Lost Flashbacks, Deleted Scenes, Audio Commentaries, Oceanic Airlines Safety Guide, Lost On Location, and plenty more.

Speaking of Lost, I am just terrified to watch any of these previews of the new season cause I’m afraid I will get too much information of spoilers.

Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Four Christmases - $31 million. 2. Bolt - $26.5 million. 3. Twilight - $26.3 million. 4. Quantum Of Solace - $18.8 million. 5. Australia - $14.8 million. 6. Madagascar Escape 2 Africa - $14.2 million. 7. Transporter 3 - $12 million. 8. Role Models - $5.2 million. 9. The Boy In The Striped Pajamas - $1.6 million. 10. Milk - $1.4 million.

The Grammy Award nominees have been announced. Here are some of the nominees.
Record of the Year:
“Chasing Pavements” – Adele
“Viva La Vida” – Coldplay
“Bleeding Love” – Leona Lewis
“Paper Planes” – M.I.A.
“Please Read The Letter” – Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Album of the Year:
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends – Coldplay
The Carter III – Lil Wayne
Year Of The Gentleman – Ne-Yo
Raising Sand – Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
In Rainbows – Radiohead

Song of the Year:
“American Boy” – Estelle featuring Kanye West
“Chasing Pavements” – Adele
“I’m Yours” – Jason Mraz
“Love Song” – Sara Bareilles
“Viva La Vida” - Coldplay

Best New Artist:
Adele
Duffy
Jonas Brothers
Lady Antebellum
Jazmine Sullivan

Best Female Country Vocal Performance:
“For These Times” – Martina McBride
“What I Cannot Change” – LeAnn Rimes
“Last Name” – Carrie Underwood
“Last Call” – Lee Ann Womack
“This Is Me You’re Talking To” – Trisha Yearwood

Best Male Country Vocal Performance:
“You’re Gonna Miss This” – Trace Adkins
“In Color” – Jamey Johnson
“Just Got Started Lovin’ You” – James Otto
“Letter To Me” – Brad Paisley
“Troubadour” – George Strait

Gloriana has a free song download available on their website now. You can head over to their website at http://www.gloriana.com to download their version of “Silent Night”. While you’re there, you can listen to their new song “Wild At Heart”.

I haven’t had a chance to type about this yet but I watched the Crossroads show on CMT with Def Leppard and Taylor Swift. This was a lot of fun. They performed together with them each singing each other’s songs. I really loved “Photograph” and “Hysteria”. The Crossroads idea is a fun one getting different artists together on the same stage to combine styles.

If you want to vote for your favorites for the 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards, the voting is underway. I’m obviously supporting my favorites which you can see on the side of the page. Here is the link to cast your votes: http://www.pcavote.com/pca/index.jsp

TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, December 9th. Deadwood (Full Series), Gunsmoke (Season Three – Volume One), Happy Days (Season Four), Lost (Season Four), McLeod’s Daughters (Season Seven), Rawhide (Season Three – Volume Two), The Wire (Full Series).

TV Line Of The Week: From Heroes.
“Best day ever”. - Seth Green, as Sam, after he watched Hiro teleport out of the comic book store.

You Tube Video Of The Week: Nobody’s Watching Lost.




That is it for this edition of the Wrap Up. Have a great weekend!! Take care and God bless!!