Here is the story that has got Buffy fans all fired up this week. There is talk of a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie. Hold on!!! Don’t get excited. There isn’t reason to get excited. The Hollywood Reporter had an article earlier this week talking about Vertigo Entertainment and the Kuzui’s teaming up for the remake. Basically, Fran Rubel Kuzui was the movie director of the original Buffy movie in 1992. She found the script of Joss Whedon’s for the 1992 movie and produced it. She also brought back Joss for the TV series in the late 90’s. That is why you see Kuzui as an executive producer. Kuzui Entertainment owns the rights to Buffy so they can do a remake if they want. The talk is that the new movie won’t have any ties to the TV series including none of the TV characters. Buffy would be a complete reset with a new cast including a new actress playing the slayer. Joss Whedon will have no part in it from the reports out of it so far. I’m sorry but Buffy without Joss is not Buffy. There is already a big backlash by the Whedonverse over this and I expect things to get uglier if the movie does go through. I know that I won’t be there to see it. I will boycott it bigger than anything. Joss has yet to really comment other than Michael Ausiello getting a short comment from him: http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/05/a-joss-less-buf.html I tend to think we’ll hear what Joss has to say not too far ahead. Here is the link to the original article with more on the possible remake: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i666afabc28491e6a5d5861d83ae30855?imw=Y
Tomorrow night is the last Tonight Show hosted by Jay Leno. The final show will have Conan O’Brien as his last guest. That will carry out the hosting transition. James Taylor will also be the musical guest. What will Conan be doing when he takes over The Tonight Show on Monday night? His first guest is Will Ferrell and musical guests will be Pearl Jam. Keep in mind that Andy Richter will be reuniting with Conan on The Tonight Show. I am sad to see Leno leaving The Tonight Show. He has been really good and he always provides great comedy at night when you’re ready to just kick back and relax. I will definitely be watching his show in the fall on NBC. I wish Conan all the best with taking it over. I think he will do a very good job and I’ve enjoyed watching him on Late Night over the years. Basically, I’m a big fan of both of them. I spoke a few months ago about how this was a tough situation all around cause Leno isn’t ready to leave but Conan has been waiting in the wings for a long time. NBC was put in a tough spot as well cause they couldn’t afford to let Conan get away but it wasn’t fair for Conan to just be stuck stagnant as well. Leno’s primetime show is going to mostly be the same stuff that he has been doing but it just won’t be The Tonight Show. So, we’ll still get to see Leno and Conan entertaining us. Just at different times. Very excited to see the transition for The Tonight Show.
The Hills may be losing Lauren Conrad but the show will be gaining a Laguna Beach alum. EW is reporting that Kristin Cavallari will be joining The Hills and will make her first appearance in the season finale. She is already promising drama on the show saying that the fans want the drama. http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/05/ew-exclusive-la.html The season finale of The Hills will air this Sunday night on MTV at 7pm central time which is said to include the return of Kristin. I will definitely miss Lauren on the show.
I am eagerly awaiting the Gloriana album release. They did send out a message recently about something to hold you over until the album is released this summer. Last week, they released a "sneak peek EP" with four songs on it. They will also be releasing ringtones and ringbacks that will be exclusive to Verizon Wireless on May 29th. It has been a while since I've been so excited for an album to be released. I saw them in concert back in the fall and I was halfway through watching their concert before I said "I have a new favorite group". They are awesome!! I would love to see them again in concert in the future. For more info, head over to: http://www.gloriana.com Also, I had to send this clip as I thought it was hilarious. It is the sticky hands competition. This is a hilarious video. I cracked up at watching Tom trying to do a serious interview and there goes Cheyenne, Mike, and Rachel running in the background.
Note to guys that are around Taylor Swift or Kellie Pickler. Don’t break their heart or they WILL write a song about you. Ha ha. I was thinking about that one day when I was listening to their music. I love the video of Kellie’s with Taylor for “Best Days Of Your Life”.
I have to say that it was really strange to not have American Idol to watch this week. Suddenly, Tuesday and Wednesday nights have become a lot less busy TV wise.
An update on my “movies to see” list. If you aren’t familiar with this, this is a play off of the joke that has been going on in the last while. I have a bunch of classic movies that I have never seen. I’ve always been more of a TV person or am watching other movies. This is basically how it works. Someone starts talking about a movie. They ask if I’ve seen it. I say no. Then, I get the look of that I have just let them down possibly more than I ever could followed by “you’ve never seen (insert movie here)??!!” It’s rather funny to be honest. My usual plan in the summer when reruns start is to find a TV series that I’ve really wanted to see and run through it over the summer. This year, me and my friends were discussing it and the “movies to see” list was born. When a movie gets mentioned by someone that I haven’t seen especially one that people think I’d like, it gets added to the list. Right now, I have about thirty something movies on the list. I have gotten four movies watched in the last week or so. Just thought I’d give some random thoughts on them and there are spoilers in these comments. First, Breakfast Club. No, I’ve never seen Breakfast Club but have wanted to for many years. I just never have gotten around to seeing it. I know this shocks and stuns many of you based on the kind of movies that I like to watch. I liked this movie as I thought I would. I had basically seen the movie based on how many of my favorite shows have spoofed the movie over the years. One of them was Dawson’s Creek in the first season which was one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. Amazing that something so simple of a concept with a group of teenagers being stuck in Saturday detention could become such a hit. Different people from different social circles. Yeah, I liked it. X-Men. I’ve seen the third one but not any of the others. I liked it as well. Lots of setting up of the story and I hear that X2 is much better. Fun watching how Wolverine and Rogue end up revolving around each other. Looking forward to seeing X2. Moving on to Superman. I watched the first Superman movie a couple of weeks ago. I watched Superman 2 and 3 this past weekend. Ok, I really liked Superman 2. I thought it was much better than the first one. Definitely my favorite by far!! I liked having a more serious villain with Zod and his crew. My Superman experience is basically Smallville so keep that in mind when it comes to my thoughts on these movies. I just like a more serious Lex like he is in Smallville so that was one thing that I didn’t like about the first movie. The villians were just too comedy at times for my liking. So, Zod was right up my alley for season two. I loved the stuff with Clark and Lois where she found out his secret of being Superman. Superman 3. Wow, I went into this with low expectations based on everything that my friends were telling me. Here is how it went for me. The first hour had me thinking, well, this isn’t bad so far. A lot of it focused on the high school reunion with Clark and Lana Lang. Now, being a Smallville fan, I loved that stuff. When we got to hour two of the movie. This was where it started going downhill for me. I just was not crazy about the Clark vs. Superman battle which seemed to go on for a while. The final battle revolves around Clark battling a computer. I didn’t hate the movie but I didn’t really like it either. Like I said, I really enjoyed the Clark/Lana stuff but the rest of the movie was just ehh to me. So, what movies are next? Just depends what I can get my hands on to watch.
Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Night At The Museum - $70 million. 2. Terminator Salvation - $51.9 million. 3. Star Trek - $29.3 million. 4. Angels & Demons - $27.4 million. 5. Dance Flick - $12.6 million. 6. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $9.9 million. 7. Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past - $4.7 million. 8. Obsessed - $2.4 million. 9. Monsters vs. Aliens - $2 million. 10. 17 Again - $1.2 million.
One month till Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen!!!!!
The premiere date for Big Brother 11 has been announced by CBS. The new season will premiere on Thursday, July 9. The show will go back to its old format of viewing with episodes airing on Thursday, Sunday, and Tuesday. That is going to be much better. The timing of the episode air dates last year often made the footage either seem rushed into an episode or not included at all.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, June 2. Army Wives (Season Two), Cannon (Season Two – Volume One), The Fairly Oddparents (Seasons One & Two), The Jetsons (Season Two – Volume One), Prison Break (Season Four), Quincy M.E. (Season Three), Rugrats (Seasons One & Two), Weeds (Season Four).
Twitter Update Of The Week: Felicia Day speaks the feelings of the Whedonverse: @feliciaday RT: @drhorrible: Oy... http://bit.ly/gwmRt What the?! .... Sad face. You Tube Video Of The Week: Want a preview of things to come when Storm Chasers returns this fall on Discovery Channel? Here is a nice video of a big time tornado encounter by Reed Timmer and his crew that they have posted on their website at http://www.tornadovideos.net Impressive footage and it shows that we’re going to see some wild footage in the fall. Some strong language in this video:
Ted’s 31st birthday party was the focus of the season finale of How I Met Your Mother. Events taking place during the party were no Ted, Marshall threatening to jump, Barney and Robin telling each other their feelings, and Ted getting beaten up by a goat. Ted was too focused on his project for his job to take part in what was a surprise party for the second year in a row. Ted’s project ended up not going well anyway and it led to a good moment with Lilly talking to Ted wondering if he really wanted the architect job. She said that it was killing him while her and his friends were frustrated watching him have such a tough time with it. They wanted him to take a chance on something else to make him happy. She told him to do what the world was asking him to do and take that leap. That put Marshall into motion. One ongoing storyline in this episode revolved around Marshall continuing to talk about jumping from one roof to the other but not being able to do it. Very little space between both roofs but a tough jump. Marshall ends up going for it and makes it. The rest of the group makes the jump as well. Funny moment when Marshall jumped across and then said he was getting a motorcycle next. Lilly shot that down really fast!! Ha ha. What about Robin and Barney? Well, Barney got Mosby’d. What does that mean? Well, you may remember Ted telling Robin that he loved her on their first date. It scared Robin off and then became a term, Mosby’d. Well, Barney went to Ted telling him that he was going to profess his love to Robin. Ted gave him the go ahead saying that he should do it but Robin overheard this from the other room. She took the info to Lilly and Marshall. Robin was stunned to hear that Lilly had kept this a secret for eight months. Marshall was shown to know about it too and he said that he had known for seven months and twenty nine days. Robin talked of how she didn’t feel the same and how he was going to express his feelings for a girl for the first time with her now set to crush that. The plan is made to Mosby Barney. When Barney goes to tell her of his feelings, she jumps in first saying that she is in love with him. That scares Barney off and he tells Lilly that all of his feelings are suddenly gone. His feelings return after Lilly breaks it to him that he had been Mosby’d. The rest of the episode had Barney and Robin playing this Mosby tactic as they tried to sort out how they really felt about each other. Yeah, there was a kiss but that was all. Sorting out the feelings later. Oh yeah, the goat story was told as Lilly let the goat back into the apartment. When Ted kept taking away the washcloth that the goat wanted to chew on, the goat got angry and took him down. That put Ted into the hospital where he was shown to be fine although he was ridiculed by his friends and the person at the hospital over what happened. So, what did the show end with? Well, Ted talked about his awful year with all the bad things that had happened to him. He said that it was the best year of his life. All the bad things got him to the job of his life which is a professor. He tells the kids in the narration that being a professor was where he met their mother.
Shawn Johnson wins Dancing With The Stars. She was on Regis and Kelly yesterday morning and was asked what her future was going to hold. She said that the first thing that she was going to do was take time off adding that she hadn't had a break in eight years. What about the Olympics? Well, she said that she isn't sure what she will do as far as her gymnastics career. She definitely deserves to take time off from everything. Congrats to Shawn for the win!!
Ahh, the world of Twitter. Who says you can’t get news on there when keeping up with celebrities? I learned that there was an earthquake in California the other night from Ryan Seacrest, Lauren Conrad, and Brea Grant. LOL. They posted the news on their Twitter accounts immediately after it happened.
Moving on to the season finale of 90210. Annie explodes!!! A baby is born!!! That was the main theme of the rest of prom night. Annie finally let all that frustration go but the ending of her prom night left us with a cliffhanger. When Adrianna went into labor, Naomi took off to go be with her. The after prom party plans were changed as Naomi took it over despite her sister not wanting anything to do with it. Her sister ended up sleeping with Liam. Annie continued to try and keep control of the party with little luck. Things got really bad for Naomi when she caught Liam in the bedroom but never saw the other person. She saw some of Annie’s clothes in there. Naomi storms out and Annie gets the full blame while she had no clue what happened. Annie also gets the vengeance from the others at the party due to the other party getting canceled which she also had nothing to do with. She was kicked out but made it all worthwhile on the way out. She told them all off and made a phone call to the police telling of underage drinking going on at a party. She took some alcohol with her though and that was when things went bad for her. During the morning hours, we saw Annie hit something on the road and then kept going. As she left, a car pulled up to whatever she hit but we didn’t see it. Ok, I admit. I had to rewind to look at the license plate and make sure that it didn’t say I8A4RE. LOL. So, what did Annie hit and who saw it? Cliffhanger. Like I said, Adrianna had her baby. She did give it up for adoption despite not wanting to after she bonded with the baby. Brenda and Kelly were there for her at the hospital. Brenda talked of how she had just adopted a baby from China. That was what got Adrianna to go through with giving up the baby with Brenda saying what a gift that it would be for the family. Problems with Ethan and Dixon. They both like the same girl. Dixon was able to see that he was interested and got Ethan to admit it. Later, Silver confronted him about it and they shared a kiss outside. I expected something more with Ethan’s character especially considering the actor that plays him is said to not be returning next season. This whole Ethan attraction to Silver storyline seemed to show up quicker than Silver’s sudden bipolar disorder storyline. I just thought the Ethan/Silver thing was way too rushed and came out of nowhere. Anyone else freaking out when they did the tease of Jim Walsh being in the hospital and not being far from passing away??!! Then, Brenda started acting strange and I realized it was a dream sequence. Whew!! Anyway, good finale. Not crazy about the Ethan/Silver stuff. I really liked the Annie storyline and it could lead to some big things next season and that was before the cliffhanger. Naomi will eventually find out what her sister is doing to her. Overall, I enjoyed this first season of the remake of 90210. I did like the first half of the season better than the second half but it gets a thumbs up from me.
You Tube Video Of The Week: Charles Barkley in a push up contest with the camera woman.
TV Line Of The Week: From TNT’s Inside The NBA. “Why don’t you do situps?” Kenny Smith to Charles Barkley. This was after the push ups challenge and the plan for a rematch. Charles wanted to do something else and this was Kenny’s response. Big LOL from me with that line and the studio was cracking up!!
Twitter Update Of The Week: @ElizaPatricia Thank YOU Dollhouse Dollhouse people! We're back & 'bout to attack ;)
That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!
What does The CW have planned for this new TV season? The network held its upfront presentation this morning. Several shows are canceled, all comedies are gone, the network goes even more retro, and more. The move that has gotten my attention is Smallville being moved to Fridays. What has been my theme for the week? Friday isn’t good for shows most of the time. Lots of fans have gotten fired up over the breakup of Smallville and Supernatural on Thursday night. The CW has instead decided to put Vampire Diaries in front of Supernatural. What does that mean for Smallville? Is the CW casting it to Friday nights to see it go out the door? CW Entertainment President, Dawn Ostroff, said this at the upfronts: “No. First of all, it's way too early to talk about at the moment, as the show's producers haven't yet mapped out the storyline for season nine. But no, it's not the last season. Hopefully not." Smallville does have a two year deal with Tom Welling so the show should continue on with ten seasons unless The CW finishes it off on Friday nights after nine. They said that they are hoping for Smallville to do better than the comedies did last year on Friday nights. That was their strategy last year was to do away with the male demographic with WWE Friday Night Smackdown on Friday nights. The result was a significant drop in ratings. The CW is bringing back another show. Veronica Mars???!!!! No, not Veronica Mars but a guy can dream, can’t he? Ha ha. Seriously, the show that is returning is of no surprise as it has been talked about for a long time now. The CW unveiled the first look at the relaunch of Melrose Place. Melrose will be paired up with 90210 on Tuesday nights. Just like old times!!! The video of the show was unveiled and it looks solid. Sydney is back and is the landlady at Melrose Place. Sydney is involved with the estranged son of Michael Mancini. Some things never change on Melrose Place. The press release tells the plot of all the characters living in the building with many of them having ties to Sydney. The big twist in the pilot is a body found in the pool and finding what happened. Was it Brooke in the pool??!! Sorry, flashback to the old series. It does sound interesting and sounds every bit as wild as the original series. Well, we’ll see if it goes that far? It will be hard to top Kimberly’s plan for the finish of the building. I’m also waiting to see how they explain Sydney being alive. Here are some of the comments from Ostroff of the happenings at the upfronts. I’m not sure what to make of her comment of how they don’t have ratings but they do have buzz. Their new slogan for the network is “TV To Talk About”. Hmm. I’m hoping people remind them of that slogan when they start talking ratings next season. Ostroff called their new show Parental Discretion Advised a cross between Gilmore Girls and Juno. When the topic of Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton leaving One Tree Hill was brought up, Ostroff said "We tried to get them to stay, and we would have been thrilled if they wanted to. I think the show moving into its seventh year was very open to sort of reinventing itself. One thing I have to give Mark Schwahn a lot of credit for is he's kept the show fresh all these years. ... I think Mark is excited about maybe bringing on a few new characters, which is what we're going to do now that we're finishing the pilot process." What about the Gossip Girl spinoff that had been talked about? Well, nothing on the schedule but The CW hasn’t ruled it out from happening. What will follow Smallville on Friday nights? A repeat of Top Model. Wow, you really aren’t doing Smallville any favors, are you CW?
Returning Shows: Smallville, 90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, America’s Next Top Model, Supernatural,
Canceled Shows: Privileged, Reaper, Everybody Hates Chris, The Game. 4REAL, 13 – Fear Is Real, Easy Money, In Harm’s Way, Stylista, Valentine.
New Shows: Melrose Place (remake of the original 1990’s series), The Beautiful Life (drama starring Mischa Barton about models sharing a co-ed place in New York), Vampire Diaries (a girl in high school falls in love for a guy which turns out to be a vampire. Lost tie to this show with Ian Somerhalder starring in it who played Boone on Lost), Parental Discretion Advised (drama that debuts in midseason about a teenage girl who goes to look for her biological parents but the parents haven’t spoken to each other since their one night stand. Stars Shiri Appleby (Roswell), Kerr Smith (Dawson’s Creek), and Britt Robertson.
Overall Thoughts: I’ve shared my thoughts for the most part. Smallville being moved is a major deal for me and I just wonder how it will do on Friday night. It is amazing with how they treat that show sometimes especially with how popular that it is. As far as new shows, 90210 was successful but will Melrose be the same? I think it will do as well as 90210 has. I have interest in Parental Discretion Advised especially based off of the cast. The CW is banking a LOT on Vampire Diaries and we’ll see if it performs for them. As far as cancellations, I didn’t watch Priviledged but a LOT of people are upset over that cancellation. Sounds like it was a good show from everything I’ve heard over the last season. Wow, no comedies anywhere on the network. That just baffles me. They really aren’t doing anything with variety on this network. They have a target audience and that is all they are catering to so we’ll see how that goes for them. Will it turn into more viewers for the network? We’ll see.
After 100 million votes and a two hour finale tonight, we have a new American Idol. Kris Allen defeated Adam Lambert to win season eight of American Idol. A shocker but I had been thinking all day that Kris very well could win this thing. It seemed like Adam was such a clear favorite that Kris was almost getting overlooked. Kris has been very strong leading up to the finale. He improved every week and fought hard for the Idol crown. Congrats to him and congrats to Adam for the second place finish!! They both showed a lot of class tonight with the results. Fun finale with a lot of great performances and surprises. I always like the group performances and getting the group back together. I loved the performance of Pink’s song "So What" that got the performance side of the show going. Other favorites of mine were Kris Allen and Keith Urban, Allison Iraheta and Cyndi Lauper, Alexis Grace and Jorge Garcia with Jason Mraz, and Matt Giraud with the group along with Santana. Other stars on the show performing with the Idols were Queen Latifah, Rod Stewart, Lionel Richie, KISS, Fergie and The Black Eyed Peas. Adam was the one to perform with KISS. Great line from Ryan afterwards when he said that it was like New Year’s Eve for a moment. Queen was on the Idol stage as Kris and Allen performed "We Are The Champions" with them. Great to see David Cook on the Idol stage. He has had a rough couple of weeks. His performance of “Permanent” is available on iTunes with the proceeds going to ABC Squared which is in honor of his brother’s memory and is a group raising money to help find a cure for cancer. The Idol award thing was fun. Nick Mitchell was great. He walked up on stage to accept saying that he wasn’t ready for this moment as he was just there to watch the show. Then, he yelled “hit it” and the music hit. Off came the clothes and he was in full Norman character. His performance was a lot of fun!! That brings us to the other similar moment of the night. Katrina, otherwise known as Bikini Girl, accepts her award for Outstanding Female. She performs "Vision Of Love" and then out walks Kara DioGuardi behind her singing the same song. They battle over the song and then the song ends with Kara unbuttoning her dress to reveal a bikini to combat Katrina. This was a golden Idol moment!! Hilarious!! Ryan said that they had a big bet going that Kara wouldn’t do it and now were going to be donating a lot of money to charity because of it. Tatiana. Of course, there had to be some Tatiana on this finale cause she was a big part of the early part of the season. Idol alums all over the place as Mikalah Gordon was in Conway, Arkansas with Kris’s fans. Carly Smithson was in San Diego with Adam’s fans. Carrie Underwood was shown in the crowd. Hey, can we get her up on stage again so we can hear the rest of her performance of Home Sweet Home??!! Justin Guarini was another Idol alum in the crowd with plenty more. Once again, Kris Allen is your American Idol champion. I really enjoyed this season. I haven’t been crazy about the last several seasons but, to me, this has been the best season since season five. Strong group of performers. The competition really seemed wide open from the beginning. I know people have been back and forth on whether they liked the addition of Kara as a fourth judge. I liked her immediately and have been happy with her. I hope that they bring her back. Overall, fun season of American Idol. Idol returns in January. If you want to see the Idols on tour, check and see if they are coming to your city.
CBS is the latest network to present their plans for the new TV season. First for you Medium fans, there is great news!! After NBC canceled the show, CBS has decided to pick it up. Good and bad news with that announcement. Well, actually the show being picked up is going to override any bad news considering it was a goner. The show will air on Friday nights which is the bad news but the good news is that it will follow Ghost Whisperer which has built a nice following on Friday nights. Medium did get a 22 episode order from CBS for a full season. I think Medium will do just fine on Friday nights especially paired with Ghost Whisperer. Monday nights will be changing. How I Met Your Mother was picked up for another season and will move to the 7pm central time slot. The Big Bang Theory has been moved to the 8:30 time slot following Two and a Half Men. Jenna Elfman's new show Accidentally On Purpose will air at 7:30. There is no word yet on Flashpoint with what CBS plans to do with it. The Mentalist will be moving to Thursdays.
New Shows: NCIS: Los Angeles (spinoff of NCIS), Accidentally On Purpose (comedy starring Jenna Elfman and Grant Show about a single woman "accidentally" getting pregnant after a one night stand with a younger guy), The Good Wife (drama about a woman who is the wife of a politician who was thrown in jail after a sex scandal. She then joins a law firm looking for a way to help her family bounce back), Three Rivers (drama following the stories of organ donors including the ones who received, gave, and the surgeons to were involved in it), The Bridge (police drama about an officer who becomes the union leader), Miami Trauma (drama about a trauma unit. Simple enough), Arranged Marriage (this is exactly what it sounds like. Reality show about spouses that have to marry the person that their family and friends choose), Undercover Boss (reality show which has a corporate executive going undercover working at his own company and seeing how his employees are working)
Returning Shows: The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Medium (although new for CBS), Two and a Half Men, CSI: Miami, NCIS, The New Adventures Of Old Christine, Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, CSI: NY, CSI, The Mentalist, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs, 60 Minutes, Cold Case.
Canceled Shows: Without A Trace, The Unit, Harper's Island, Worst Week, Eleventh Hour.
Overall Thoughts: CBS will be their usual solid selves. Nice mix of returning shows and new shows. I'm waiting to see how Medium performs for CBS leaving NBC to kick themselves over letting it go. The Big Bang Theory being moved to 8:30 is interesting. I liked my back to back comedies of Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother on Monday nights. However, I'm all for any move that will help the show. I just always get nervous when the networks start moving shows around when they have built an audience where they are at. Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother are my favorite sitcoms so that is great. Remember that The Big Bang Theory is renewed for two seasons. I'm not sure why there was such a delay in the renewal of How I Met Your Mother. This has happened for the last couple of seasons. So, we'll have a battle on the networks on Friday night between Medium, Dollhouse, Ugly Betty, Southland, and then what The CW goes with in that timeslot. I've looked over the new shows and there isn't really one of them that grabs me. I will likely be just sticking with what I normally watch on CBS. The bottom line is that CBS will do great just like they have been doing.
Finale week on American Idol. Adam Lambert and Kris Allen performed tonight on Tuesday’s show with each doing three songs. The first song was a song of their own choosing. The second was a pick from Simon Fuller while the third was the new Idol single co-written by Kara DioGuardi. There was a coin toss to determine the order with Kris winning it and choosing to perform second. Adam performed one of his previous hit performances of the season, Mad World. The judges loved it although Simon wasn’t crazy about his outfit. That was the only complaint of it though. Kris picked Ain’t No Sunshine with Randy calling it one of his best performances of the season. Simon spoke up saying that he was wondering if America had got the decision right last week on putting Kris in the finale. After that performance, Simon said America was right. Simon gave round one to Kris. That brings us to round two and Simon Fuller. Fuller picked Change Is Gonna Come for Adam. Kara called it possibly the best interpretation of a song that Adam has done all season with Paula calling it the best that Adam has ever been. Fuller picked What’s Going On for Kris. The judges liked it but Simon felt it was too low tempo of a song for the finale. I can’t remember who Simon gave round two to but I’m fairly sure that it was Adam and I agree. That brings us to round three and the new Idol single co-written by Kara which is title “No Boundaries”. Most of the time I like the Idol finale singles as I liked the songs for Kelly, Carrie, Fantasia, and Jordin but this song just hasn’t warmed up to me yet. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it just isn’t the right singers singing it. I’m not sure that either singer really did well with it. Randy said that he wasn’t crazy about Adam’s performance of it while Kara was proud of him doing the song that she had helped write. It was clear that Simon didn’t like the song and refused to judge Adam on the song instead choosing to judge him on his overall season. All of them give him major credit for being one of the best performers ever on Idol. That brings us to Kris. I thought Kris did a better job of it but the judges agreed that the song was a little too high for him. They thought he did a good job of it and Simon pointed out how great it had been to watch Kris grow since his unconfident like audition. The judges judged him overall as well instead of just on the song. The show closed with Carrie Underwood performing this season’s farewell song, Home Sweet Home. What was up with them cutting out of it??!! So, Fox has run Idol over no telling how many times this season but end up cutting out of Carrie’s performance. I was annoyed wih that. Grr Fox. It’s a good thing that you renewed Dollhouse and got on my good side this week. ☺ Anyway, Carrie was amazing and I love her version of the song. I always like seeing the clips of the season playing in the background. Anyway, the finale is tomorrow night on Fox. SET YOUR DVR’S TO RUN OVER EVERYONE!!! This show will run over. Ryan Seacrest guaranteed it tonight and I can tell you for a fact that it runs over EVERY YEAR. Set your DVR to run over by at least 15 minutes but I’d go 30 minutes just to be safe!! Adam and Kris put on a show tonight and I really don’t know who is going to win tomorrow night. I think Adam is the safe bet but Kris may very well win this thing. It will be a very close vote. It will be great to see the Idol finalists back together and see what surprises will be in store for us. It will be a lot of fun!!!
ABC announced their plans and previewed their new shows today during their upfronts presentation. Now, the obvious question from Lost fans revolves around Elizabeth Mitchell who plays Juliet on Lost. She is going to be the star of the new show, V. ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson had these comments during the press conference about how Elizabeth could appear in both shows if need be: "We're thrilled to be able to have her do both. It was a little bit of a juggling act and we're very thankful to the (Lost) producers, but I think we'll see her on Lost during the show's final season.” So, there you go. Wow, Ugly Betty is moving to Fridays. What is up with that???!!! That sure doesn’t sound like a good sign for that show. The decision appears to be ABC wanting to push Flash Forward on Thursday and see if it takes off while also mentioning Betty’s falling ratings on Thursday night. ABC made the comment that they still love the show and America Ferrera with them wanting to see Ugly Betty perform well on Friday just like Ghost Whipsper does for CBS. I just don’t think you can make fans of any show feel good about a move to Friday. Most fans take moves of their shows to Friday as a suttle threat from the networks. Speaking as a Chuck fan, I was nervous about the speculation of that move but it didn’t happen and also having Dollhouse airing on Friday as well bugs me. Hang in there Ugly Betty fans!! ABC is going to take a risk on Wednesday airing five brand new shows with four of them being sitcoms. Interesting to see the cast list for their new drama, Happy Town. Amy Acker is on the list. The show premieres at midseason. What does this mean for Amy on Dollhouse? The show also stars Geoff Stults of 7th Heaven fame. Then, we have Busy Philipps on the new show, Cougar Town. My first thought is that we sure have a lot of WB alums on the new upcoming ABC shows.
Returning Shows: Lost, Dancing With The Stars, Castle, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Supernanny, Ugly Betty, 20/20, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, The Bachelor, Scrubs, Better Off Ted, True Beauty, Wife Swap.
Canceled Shows: Cupid, Samantha Who?, The Unusuals, In The Motherhood, According To Jim.
New Shows: Cougar Town (comedy about a middle-aged mom who is back in the dating world after a divorce which stars Courteney Cox), The Deep End (drama about young lawyers being recruited from all over the world to join a prestigious LA firm. Have to point out Tina Majorino who played Mac on Veronica Mars is in this show), Happy Town (drama about a Minnesota town that had kidnappings that went unsolved ten years previously, a new crime in the town brings back many secrets of people in the town), Eastwick (drama based on the movie The Witches Of Eastwick about a man who brings powers to three women which stars Rebecca Romjin, Lindsay Price, and Sara Rue), Flash Forward (drama about a black out and during the black out, everyone in the world sees a two minute vision of their future), V (drama starring Elizabeth Mitchell of Lost fame which is a remake of the 80’s series about aliens coming to Earth. Also stars Scott Wolf (Party Of Five), Morena Baccarin (Firefly) and also Laura Vandervoort (Smallville), The Forgotten (drama about amateur crime solvers taking cases that the police have given up on and trying to solve them), Hank (comedy starring Kelsey Grammer about a corporate executive who is now out of a job and back at home with his family), The Middle (comedy starring Patricia Heaton about a middle class family in Indiana), Modern Family (comedy starring Ed O’Neill which is done in a documentary style about a family), Shark Tank (reality show with people presenting their business proposals to millionaires with them hoping to get the money to make their dream happen).
Overall Thoughts: The huge things for ABC in the upcoming season is going to be the return of Lost for its final season. The usual shows such as Dancing With The Stars, Grey’s Anatomy, and others will bring their usual audience and do well. As far as new shows, I checked out some previews of each of them. Not really any of the video clips changed my mind on what I thought I’d like and not like. There are several shows that I’m really not interested in the concept of the show but I like members of the cast so I may have to check it out. I think Flash Forward could be a fun show and it has a Lost tie with Sonya Walger who played Penny. I like the idea of it with everyone getting a quick vision of the future. The only sitcom that got my attention was Modern Family and that is based off of it being shot like a documentary. The full pilot has been previewed to audiences and is said to have gotten positive reactions. I just don’t know about V. That seems like it could be a show that I would either like or not like with not much middle ground. I like the cast in it with many of them being on several of my other favorite shows so I’ll probably check that out on loyalty to the cast members. I think several of these new shows could do well. Just not sure if there are many that would interest me. As far as cancellations. Wow, The Unusuals sure didn’t stick around long. Anybody waiting to see if ABC changes their mind and brings back According To Jim again. That show has had nine lives. Incredible. Well, Nathan Fillion was even shocked that his show, Castle, got brought back. Funny comment from him on Twitter with him saying that he couldn’t remember the last time that any show of his got picked up for a second season. Ugly Betty moving to Friday nights is still a strange move for me. That surprised me. ABC needs a major hit this upcoming season with Lost on its way out. We’ll see if any of their new shows bring that.
I've mostly covered NBC already with their announcements a couple of weeks ago so I'll just go with the new stuff. What about Chuck? That has been my question and the question from many people. The news came out a couple of days ago that Chuck had been renewed for 13 episodes. What a relief that was to hear!!!! The show will return in February after the Olympics with NBC promoting it heavily during the Olympics. Wow, that is a long wait on the show especially with the momentum of this campaign. It is going to almost be a year before it is back on TV. Despite speculation, the show will remain on Monday nights in its normal time slot and the cast is not going to be shrunk down according to comments made today. NBC president, Ben Silverman, gave a big credit to the online fan campaign as to the reason that Chuck is returning. Subway will be back on board partnering up with the show and Subway was a key part of the show coming back. Nothing but love for Subway!! Silverman made these comments about Chuck's fan campaign: “Both the fans of the shows that matter and the advertisers of the shows raised their hands to say, ‘We need ‘Chuck on the schedule.’ We will send you Nerds. We will buy Subway $5 footlongs. We will do whatever it takes.” He also pointed out how that same lack of dedication to other shows led to their cancellation. This has been speculated about but it is now confirmed that NBC has canceled My Name Is Earl. The speculation has also been that another network will pick it up but nothing on that yet. Ethan Suplee twittered this comment today voicing his frustration over the cancellation: "Just got the call that My Name Is Earl has been canceled. They sure did take their time with that decision or rather informing us of it." http://twitter.com/EthanSuplee Heroes will move to 7pm central time in the fall on Monday nights. The 19 episodes ordered for the show will run straight through. The new show Trauma will follow Heroes on Monday nights. 30 Rock will premiere a month late into the fall season launch due to Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin doing movies while also wanting to cut down on reruns. Law & Order has been picked up for 16 episodes. Medium is canceled although there are reports from Entertainment Weekly today that CBS might be interested in it. Friday Night Lights is once again paired up with DirecTV and will have its new season premiering exclusively on the satellite service. The new season will eventually run on NBC but appears to be later than it was this season. The Biggest Loser will drop to 90 minutes at midseason but will remain two hours in the fall. Jerry Seinfeld’s show, The Marriage Ref will be airing on Sunday nights after the NFL season is over. Basically, you get the idea. Lots of mix and matching with shows. Some shows will start in the fall and then be replaced by others premiering at midseason. Then, don’t forget that we have five nights of Leno to add into the mix. The new comedy, Community is going to air on Thursday nights in the middle of the comedies. If you want to see the full schedule, here is the link: http://www.nbc.com/upcoming-shows/
Returning Shows: Chuck, Heroes, The Biggest Loser, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Southland, Dateline, 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, SNL Thursday, Friday Night Lights, Celebrity Apprentice.
Canceled Shows: My Name Is Earl, Medium, Life.
Overall Thoughts: Well, we mostly knew what NBC was doing except for the exception of a few shows and then what their actual schedule was going to look like. Chuck being back is a great thing!! That was my worry when it came to NBC. Not sure if holding it off till February is such a good idea!! I expect Leno to do well and I’m really looking forward to seeing how his show competes at that time. I commented on the new shows a couple weeks ago with there being two of them that I would like to check out. NBC also has the Winter Olympics which are very up and down ratings wise. The Winter Olympics just doesn’t draw viewers like the Summer Olympics does. The mix and matching of shows by NBC is interesting to keep an eye on thoughout the season.
Fox was up first today revealing their plans for the upcoming TV season at the upfronts presentation. Most of the news of what they were doing was already known and the last was really the word over the weekend about Dollhouse's renewal. We did learn the fate of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It will not be back and Fox executive, Kevin Reilly, made it clear that even if the new Terminator movie does really well, it will not make them rethink the decision. He pointed out that the show had done better ratings on Monday nights but the show had tumbled since moving to Friday nights. Again, no kidding!!! Friday night is a terrible TV viewing night if you are wanting viewers. I always get kind of annoyed with networks complaining about numbers for shows on Friday nights. The DVR numbers for Sarah Connor Chronicles were good but not good enough apparently for Fox. It was announced that Bones has been renewed for two seasons. The eighth season of 24 will premiere on January 17, 2010.
Returning Shows: House, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Bones, Fringe, 'Til Death, Dollhouse, Cops, America's Most Wanted, 24, American Idol, Lie To Me, So You Think You Can Dance. Hope that I didn’t leave anything out here.
New Shows: The Cleveland Show (spinoff of Family Guy), Brothers (comedy starring Michael Strahan about a retired football player coming back to live with his family), Glee (premieres this week and is a comedy/drama about a teacher helping to bring the glee club back to its old glory), Human Target (drama about a private contractor who uses himself as a human target to protect his clients), Past Life (drama about a team including a psychologist who work to find out about the past lives of their clients), Sons Of Tuscon (comedy about kids hiring a guy to play the role of their dad while their real father is in prison), The Wanda Sykes Show (late night series hosted by of course Wanda Sykes),
What about Dollhouse? Dollhouse seems to be the biggest topic among people looking at the Fox upfronts. On the conference call with reporters, Kevin Reilly said that bringing back Dollhouse was "a bet on Joss Whedon. We looked at the profile of that show's - he has an unbelievably loyal fan base. It was consistent in the ratings and consistently [improved] as one of the biggest time-shifted shows on the air. So we're placing a bet on Joss that he'll keep it going next year." He did make a comment saying that if Joss’ show had been canceled that he would have received a ton of emails this morning complaining about it. Yeah, no doubt about that. Peter Rice, the chairman of Fox Entertainment, had this quote saying "The show became much stronger creatively over the course of the season, and Joss feels really energized about it. We believe in him as a creator and had a lot of success with him in the past. We feel we can build this show, that it can grow in the new season." Dollhouse will remain on Friday nights and be paired with two comedies, 'Til Death and Brothers. Yeah, I am not seeing this as doing Dollhouse any favors. I just hope that Fox keeps looking at those DVR and online streaming numbers. People are likely going to be watching the show in those methods. I'm thrilled that Dollhouse will be coming back.
Overall Thoughts: Fox will keep doing what they're doing and be successful. They have their ratings juggernauts in American Idol, 24, The Simpsons, and others. They have a lot of solid shows that perform very well for them. Like I always say with Fox, I won't be watching any of their new shows. I've learned my lesson many times with them promoting a show to the maximum and then I get interested in checking it out. I watch it, like it, and then Fox cancels it after two episodes. I've been caught too many times on that. I expect The Cleveland Show to do well as it will grab the Family Guy audience. Lots of hype on Glee so it will be interesting to see how it performs. Bottom line from me with Fox is that Dollhouse is renewed!!
Loyalty vs. a possible easy win. That was the theme of tonight’s Survivor Tocantins finale. The final four was JT, Erinn, Stephen, and Taj. Good finale tonight that I enjoyed quite a bit. Here are the happenings of the episode. The episode opened with the final four returning to camp with Stephen now feeling like he’ll be looked at as a bad guy. Why? Well, Coach went home and Stephen voted for him to go. However, JT was right in there with Stephen on voting him out but JT voted for Coach to stay. Now, JT looked like the good guy and Stephen had that mark against him. Erinn was the last member of Tambira left standing in the game. The immunity challenge was a puzzle solving challenge. Erinn was able to come from last to make a run for it at the end. JT was able to hold her off and win the first immunity of the night. Erinn then started working things with the guys telling how Taj would be dangerous to take to the end cause she would get a lot of jury votes. Suddenly, the three person alliance looked shaky. The guys talked about how they knew that they could beat Erinn in the final but weren’t sure about Taj. Tribal council had the blindside as Taj was sent home on a three to one vote. Yeah, Taj didn’t have a clue that was coming. Erinn continued to work her game when the final three returned to camp. Erinn talked to Stephen about how popular that JT would be. Stephen talked of how he would probably have to take Erinn to the final two. However, JT and Stephen vowed to each other to stay loyal to one another while Erinn said that she’d take Stephen to the final two if she won immunity. She knew she could beat Stephen over JT. The final immunity challenge was one that made my head spin thinking of how hard it would be to keep your head in it. They had to put a ball inside a track that spun around. You would catch the ball at the bottom and send it back through the track again. After a certain amount of time, another ball would be put into play. If you drop a ball, you’re out. Wow, I can’t even imagine how hard this was. Actually, I can cause it made me anxious watching it. Ha ha. Erinn was the first one out after she dropped the ball after three were in play. That brought it down to Stephen and JT. Stephen made several saves to keep himself in it but he couldn’t make the last save after four balls were in play. JT wins the last immunity. Stephen talked in his interview about how he was happy to not have won immunity cause he would have had to choose between JT or Erinn. Erinn got back to work talking to JT and revealing what Stephen had said to her about taking her to the final two. Stephen, of course, denied that to JT. That brought us to tribal council. The topic is brought up on what JT should do. Stephen seemed to dig himself a hole with the more that he talked including how he and JT’s friendship wouldn’t be the same if JT took Erinn. JT did vote out Erinn which gave us a JT/Stephen final two.
The final tribal council saw things stirred up between the friends. Stephen opened by saying that his road on Survivor had been more difficult cause of having to learn how to do things that he has never done. He said that he had never even camped before. JT’s speech was talking about how he had worked hard for everyone and never got one vote. He chose loyalty over Erinn in the final two. The jury questioning got going and Brendan got them stirred up immediately as they were doing rebuttals to one another. Erinn called Stephen out on his three alliances that he had going. Debbie tried to call out JT on his lying but JT fired back at her saying that she didn’t tell Coach that she was voting him out. Debbie really got the rest of the tribal council going when she asked Stephen if he would have taken Erinn to the final two if he had won immunity. He tried to dance around the question at first till she pinned him on answering honestly. He then said that he probably would have taken Erinn. That floored JT and got the jury buzzing. Way to go Debbie!! That tribal council just got a lot more interesting!! Ha ha. Coach asked for examples of the final two being honest in the game. JT pointed out that he had stayed loyal to Coach and not voted for him even though he knew Coach was going home. However, JT then took the shot at Stephen saying that he kept his word to Stephen although he didn’t get the same back. Stephen fired back saying that if JT was targeting people, that counted the same as voting for them. Sierra then got up and questioned JT on his “strongest” players comments. She said that JT kept taking the weaker players with him at the end of the game and throughout while she pointed Stephen out as the “weakest” in the game. WOW. Tyson asked if the two of them could have made it to the final two without the other one. JT said that he could have while Stephen wasn’t so sure. Taj was the last jury member to get up and added that she was crushed over being blindsided. Things really got going between JT and Stephen on her questions. JT said that Taj was the hardest vote for him cause he didn’t want to do it. Stephen then said that JT had wanted to vote her out for a long time but had talked JT out of it. They went back and forth for a bit while the jury sat there buzzing with their jaw dropped. JT said that he felt like a fool taking Stephen to the final two over what he had learned. That brought us to the live show to get the votes revealed. New York City was the place as JT won Survivor getting all seven jury votes. Only the second time in Survivor history that that has happened.
The reunion show was fun. JT and Stephen are still great friends and there is no hard feelings about anything. In fact, JT admitted that he was putting on about some of his betrayal hurt during the tribal council to try and gather some votes. Stephen talked of the mole that they had at camp relaying that Tyson would tell things to Coach, Coach would tell things to JT and then JT to Stephen. Stephen was questioned about admitting that he would have taken Erinn to the final two. Stephen got laughs when he said that he felt pressured by Debbie to be honest especially after she had just told JT how he was the greatest guy ever. Fun moments with Jeff Probst talking to Eddie George about Taj. Taj talked of how much she learned about herself and what she could do with her Survivor experience. On to Sierra. I loved Sierra. She was a big favorite of mine this season. She talked of how she found herself during the three days when everyone turned on her while also pointing out that she “slayed the dragon”. I loved that. LOL. That brings us to Coach. This was good TV here. Jeff had asked Coach to take a lie detector test about his story on how he had been kidnapped by natives while traveling in the Amazon. Coach denied the request. However, Coach then pointed out that he was going to blindside Jeff for the first time. Coach had a sealed envelope of a lie detector test that he had taken at a place called John Grogan’s or something like that. Jeff opened the envelope and it all looked official. The test had him as saying yes and the answer was shown to be true. The voting was revealed for the Survivor Player of the Season which was voted on by fans. The top three was JT, Taj, and Sierra. The winner of $100,00 was JT. More money to add to his million. Jeff got around to asking questions to the rest of the cast and that is fun to hear what has happened with everyone since the show. It was revealed that season nineteen of Survivor would be heading to the islands of Samoa. The capping on the show was the end. Jeff was announcing the Survivor auction and then revealed a mystery item. The item was the Regis and Kelly necklace!!! I loved it!!! If you didn’t see this, Jeff was a guest on Regis and Kelly last week. He was told that if he didn’t wear that necklace on the finale that he would never be brought back to Live With Regis and Kelly with them teasing him about his loyalty to them. I never thought that Probst would wear it and he did!!! Great stuff!!! They are going to be eating that up tomorrow morning on Live. Can’t wait to watch it.
Fun finale for Survivor. JT winning wasn’t much of a surprise at all. The votes showed that. However, the drama created between JT and Stephen did provide for some entertainment. JT was strong throughout the game. He made key alliances, was likable, and was strong physically. Big credit to Erinn. She was outnumbered for a while at the end of this game but kept surviving. She almost snuck into the final two. I was also an Erinn fan this season along with a Sierra fan. Survivor Samoa will premiere this fall on CBS.
One fan campaign has gotten a win!! Dollhouse has reportedly been picked up for season two by Fox!!!! It appears to be a thirteen episode order. Joss Whedon fans can celebrate tonight!! It sure did look gloomy on the show returning. Yes, the show has not had good ratings. Well, no kidding. The show airs on Friday nights which is a very low rated TV viewing night. People knew it was going to be a bad thing for the show when Fox decided to air it on Friday nights. Here is the good news with that. The DVR numbers have been really good for the show. That means that people aren't watching the show live on Friday nights and are instead recording it to watch later. I'm also one of those as I rarely watch the show live. The numbers have also been very good with iTunes and Hulu viewing. Presale orders on the Dollhouse DVD set have also been very good. It is nice to see a show get attention for other things besides live ratings. In this day and age of TV viewing, you have to account a lot more into how a show is doing besides ratings cause there are so many different ways to view shows now. It also goes against Fox's normal routine of cancel everything that doesn't do blockbuster ratings. Trust me, I know cause I've quit watching new shows on Fox due to that very thing. A Joss Whedon project was the only thing that got me to break my rule. Yesterday was the news that Fox's voice mail system had crashed after Miracle Laurie posted phone numbers on Twitter for fans to call and support the show. That was great by the way!!! Twitter has changed the way of the fan campaigns with fans being able to get news out quicker. The Joss Whedon fans are a loyal bunch. I should know cause I'm one of them. We will watch his shows. The show is apparently going to remain on Friday nights. There is speculation that the show's budget will be smaller but, hey, the show is coming back. The official announcement should come on Monday during the Fox upfronts presentation. Very exciting news!!!
The Save Chuck campaigns continue and are getting media coverage including mentions on Jon Stewart's show. I mentioned last week that the newest campaign was the American Heart Association money raising campaign. Well, the campaign has done very well!!! In just a week or so, the Have A Heart - Renew Chuck campaign has raised $13,796.92 for the AHA!!! WOW, that is so great!! Keep up the great work Chuck fans!! You can get all the details on how you can donate money for the AHA and also help to save Chuck at this link: http://weheartchuck.blogspot.com/ We will know a decision on Chuck on Monday and we're all hoping for the best with it. Keep up the fight to save Chuck!!!
Fox is getting slammed by phone calls today from fans wanting their show to return. The Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles fans are fighting for their show and then Miracle Laurie posted on Twitter of info of phone numbers to call to help save Dollhouse. There is a report tonight that Fox’s phone system went down with Fox claiming their voicemail system went down due to so many fans working to save Dollhouse. I love hearing stuff like this!!!! Keep up the fight Dollhouse fans. Also, I don’t watch Sarah Connor Chronicles but all of you fans keep up your fight as well. I love fan campaigns!! Everyone keep fighting for your shows. I know that I am. Here is the link to the story about Fox’s phones. http://www.endofshow.com/2009/05/14/dollhouse-fans-crash-fox-phone-system-asking-for-second-series/
The final two is set on American Idol. It will be Adam Lambert against Kris Allen. That meant that Danny Gokey went home. I've been a supporter of Danny's since the audition process and am happy to see that he made it to the top three. This was a really unpredictable week for the Idol results. In past seasons, there has usually been an idea on who is going home every week. This year has left many unable to predict the weekly results including myself. Not based on America's votes but just on how good the talent is. There are very few struggling moments with this group. Solid performance show on Tuesday night once again. The only real criticism that was handed out was to Danny for his first song. I always do find it interesting to see what the judges pick for the songs each year. I liked Simon's pick of "One" by U2 for Adam Lambert. It was announced that less than one million votes separated the top two. That is one million out of 88 million votes. That really makes this battle on the finale seem like it could be anyone's win. Kris has got some major momentum going on over the last several weeks. Adam has been solid throughout and a major fan favorite in the competition. I could definitely see Kris winning this thing especially if he has a great week. They will put on a show. That is for sure. Tuesday is the performance show. Wednesday night will be the big finale. Great to see Carrie Underwood on Tuesday’s performance show. She was in a video clip of her visit to Angola, Africa to see the progress on what the Idol Gives Back money is doing for people there. She will be performing “Home Sweet Home” on Tuesday night’s show.
Tonight was the season finale of Smallville. I had heard that there were going to be major happenings on tonight’s episode and that proved to be true. What would happen to Doomsday? What would Clark do to get rid of Doomsday? Would Oliver get his way on how it should be done? We got a lot of answers tonight. Instead of actually recapping a lot of it, I thought I’d just give some random thoughts on it. I liked the visit from Rokk telling Clark of what his future would hold on the next day cause it put a lot more anticipation on the battle between him and Doomsday. Nice to see the Legion returning and I wonder where they go with Oliver from here after Clark told him that he wasn’t one of them anymore. I loved the scene with Jimmy finding out the secret about Clark. Really well done and I’ve seen one fan saying it was one of the best scenes of the season. I totally agree with that statement. I had heard that they were going to kill someone off tonight so I was wondering who it would be. Just when you thought things would be ok with Davis and Doomsday being split, that all gets thrown out when Davis sees Chloe and Jimmy having their romantic moment. Davis takes out Jimmy from behind and leaves him for dead. As Davis goes for Chloe, Jimmy saves her with one last stand killing Davis but then passed away in Chloe’s arms. When Jimmy was killed off, my first thought was that the Superman fans are going to be furious messing with the story!!! Then, we found out how they got around it. It wasn’t the real Jimmy from the Superman legacy. We saw Jimmy’s little brother at the funeral which has the same name. That little brother is the Jimmy that will go on to be the Jimmy Olsen of the Superman series. I kept thinking that Clark would use the time travel ring to save Jimmy but then Lois ended up using it. So, Clark and Chloe’s scene at the end was really good with Clark saying that human side couldn’t get in his way anymore. He declared that “Clark Kent is dead”. Chloe questioned him about being at Jimmy’s funeral and how she needed him to be there with her. So, basically Chloe gave up everything to protect Clark. Now, she has lost Jimmy and Lois and then Clark walks out on her. Where is the loyalty for the girl that gave up so much for him??!! Geez, Clark. Some other random thoughts. Where did Lois end up after that ring was used??!! What part is Tess going to play with what was going on at the end of the episode? Did I hear the word “Zod”? Sure sounded like it. I actually had to rewind it just to make sure that was what I heard. Well written finale and I’m curious to see where the show goes for season nine.
The final four is set on Survivor. It is down to JT, Erinn, Stephen, and Taj for the winner of the million dollars. Tonight’s episode was all about the downfall of Coach. His trip to exile island stirred a lot of words. He spoke to Stephen and JT about how he didn’t want to go wondering if his body could take it. So, JT won the reward challenge but decided to send Coach to exile since he was one of only two that hadn’t been yet. JT got mad when Erinn spoke up as he felt that Coach was going to go honorably. Erinn said that she felt Coach was trying to make excuses of why he would lose immunity when he got back. Coach had said that he wasn’t going to eat or anything while he was there but instead meditate. That was what set Erinn off but she later apologized for it to Taj saying it wasn’t the right situation to voice that. JT and Stephen went on the reward and got to take showers along with a big feast. Coach returned for the immunity challenge and looked rough. Speaking of Coach on exile, did anyone think that he looked like Anakin Skywalker walking across the sand in those wide camera shots? The immunity challenge was an endurance challenge where you had to stand up the longest. It came down to JT and Coach. JT asked Probst if he was going to offer some food saying he would probably drop out if Probst had any. Probst didn’t but my first thought was….YOU JUST HAD A FEAST!!! LOL. What more food do you want? Coach ends up dropping out and JT wins immunity. Coach then collapsed saying how badly his back was hurting. Not everyone in camp was buying it. Erinn mentioned how Coach had barely been able to walk but was able to stay up there for an hour in the challenge. JT and Stephen told Coach that their target was Erinn especially after what she had to say after the reward challenge. Taj and Erinn wanted to target Coach. The tribal council basically had Coach saying that “women have great intuition” when asked if there was anyone who was going home in particular. Coach read a poem which got a sleeping reaction from the jury. I LOVE Sierra over on the jury. She is cracking me up every week with her reactions to things. Coach gets blindsided and was voted out of the game. That leaves us to the final four with the finale on Sunday night on CBS.
I'll have daily updates next week on my website about the upfront presentations of the networks including the fate of many shows that are still up in the air including two of my favorites, Chuck and Dollhouse. Plus, we'll see what the new shows are from the networks although we've already seen what NBC is rolling out. Check the site next week for the upfront news.
The How I Met Your Mother season finale will be on Monday night. The speculation was correct with there not being a return to the Ted/Stella relationship. Instead, Tony wanted to do something for Ted to help him after being the cause of him losing Stella. That was finding Ted a job. When that didn't solve things, Tony ended up breaking up with Stella. Yeah, Ted got them back together when Stella showed up hoping that Ted could talk to Tony. I was happy that Ted did let Stella know how much damage that she did to him saying that the romantic guy in him was gone because of her. I really liked the dialogue between them in the car at the end of the episode where Ted was talking about how he keeps waiting for the "one" girl to come along. He talked of how he was tired of waiting while Stella told him that the girl for him was getting there as fast as she could. It was nice closure on the Stella breakup especially when he just got run over earlier in the season. The other story of the show was Barney trying to prove that he could get out of a speeding ticket. Yeah, didn't go well for him. He ended up failing miserably and ended up in jail cause he had gotten so many tickets in such a short amount of time. Hey, Lily's back!! Nice to see her return at the end of the episode. There was a funny article in this week's Entertainment Weekly where they talked about how the show is covering up Alyson and Cobie's pregnancies. I've commented in recent weeks on all the funny ways that they covered Alyson and now it has switched over to Cobie. I have to mention this but did you hear Ted's ringtone for a call incoming from Barney? It was "Let's Go To The Mall". Hilarious!! The tease for the season finale shows that we may get more from the Barney/Robin story. Looking forward to that.
Big news out of One Tree Hill this week. This has been rumored for a while now especially after Hilarie Burton did that video blog which didn't exactly leave much confidence in her returning next season. Michael Ausiello over at EW.com has reported that Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton are both not returning for next season on One Tree Hill. Wow, two of the main original four cast members gone. What is that show going to be like next season? To read more about it, head over to: http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/05/exclusive-murra.html
Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Star Trek - $75.2 million. 2. Wolverine - $26.4 million. 3. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - $10.2 million. 4. Obsessed - $6.5 million. 5. 17 Again - $4.2 million. 6. Next Day Air - $4.1 million. 7. The Soloist - $3.9 million. 8. Monsters vs. Aliens - $3.2 million. 9. Earth - $2.6 million. 10. Hannah Montana - $2.1 million.
Saturday Night Live needs to add Justin Timberlake to the cast. Ha ha. Every time he is on there, it is comedy magic. He just has such a talent at comedy. The Gibbs stuff is always funny. How hilarious was him doing a spoof of "Poker Face" which was changed to "Mediocre Face"?
The finish line of this season of The Amazing Race was reached on Sunday night. Margie and Luke were able to arrive at the last task in first place. Luke did the task which involved having to remember all of the tasks that you have done throughout the race and in which order. Luke had them all but the last two. Tammy and Victor were able to move past them when Victor finished it up first. Tammy and Victor win The Amazing Race. Jaime and Cara end up working with Margie and Luke giving each other a trade to help one another as Jaime couldn’t figure out the last ones either. Luke and Jaime were very frustrated on the way to the finish over the loss. Second place goes to Jaime and Cara while third goes to Margie and Luke. All the teams fought like crazy with all they had to try and win the race.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, May 19. 24 (Season Seven), 8 Simple Rules (Season Two), Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Hour (1970's Volume One), Friday Night Lights (Season Three), Peyton Place (Part One), Sister Sister (Season Two), True Blood (Season One). TV Line Of The Week: From How I Met Your Mother "You got Tony to dump Stella? I am very sorry but I'm going to have to insist that you bump this." - Robin holding out her fist for a fist bump from Ted when Stella showed up at her and Ted's apartment after being dumped.
Twitter Update Of The Week: This one helped load up Fox’s phone system today. Loved it!! @miraclelaurie decision on DH soon-make your voice heard 2day! contact:Peter Rice, Chrman of Ent @FOX Brdcstng. Leave a msg @310-369-3066 or askfox@fox.com
You Tube Video Of The Week: The Lost Video Podcast with Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, and Elizabeth Mitchell talking about the finale.
Wishing all of you a great weekend. Take care and God bless!!
1993 Prom vs. 2009 Prom. A return to West Beverly High on 90210 means that it time for a return to high school prom. This episode definitely felt like returning to see the next generation of high schoolers after having been a fan of the original series. So, let’s compare the two prom episodes. 2009 and 1993. Major events to compare are Donna getting way past drunk and getting caught in 1993. This led to her being banned from graduation and started the “Donna Martin graduates” revolution. The revolution against the school board is still one of my favorite 90210 episodes by the way. I did find it kind of ironic that West Beverly was going to such extremes over the post prom party and cutting out the drinking when thinking about the other prom episode with Donna. 2009’s big episode event was around Adrianna. Navid got into a fight with Ty over Adrianna. As that was going on, Adrianna’s water broke. 1993: Brandon and Andrea attend a school board meeting where they learned about a quiet ruling about how any person that is caught drinking at prom would be banned from graduation. 2009: Harry does a PSA for the school saying that anyone at an after prom party that involved drinking would be suspended and be going to summer school. 1993: Brandon and Brenda decide not to attend prom. Brenda finds another date after her original plan didn’t work out. Brandon ends up filling in for a flu ridden Jordan who was going with Andrea. 2009: Dixon wants to go badly to prom while Silver is antsy about returning to West Beverly but agrees to go cause it meant so much to him. Annie is still without a date. Liam keeps on her about not having a date. She is asked by a guy in class but is not into the guy at all. The guy is crazy about her but she is embarrassed to be with him the whole time. He wants to go on another date but she tells him that she wasn’t interested in him. He sees that it was a pity date and gets mad saying that he could have went with someone that did actually want to go with him. 1993: Kelly Taylor. 2009: Kelly Taylor. Musical acts booked for the prom. 1993: Cathy Dennis. 2009: The Veronicas. Each act matches their era. The Veronicas are big now. Cathy Dennis was big in 1993. Now, to be fair. Prom night is not actually over yet and will continue into this Tuesday’s season finale. We’ll see how it plays out.
The new season of Lost needs to start……RIGHT NOW!!!! Oh my goodness. Did we ever get left on a cliffhanger??!! It was a perfect one too for it to be a last ever SEASON finale cliffhanger. It was funny cause in the last few minutes I was thinking how nothing had changed. Everything played out like it was supposed to and that may still be true. Jack had tried to change things and the energy was still released. However, we now don’t know what happened. I figured that Juliet was already a goner and then we see her at the bottom next to the bomb. She hits it and it detonates as the season ends. What happened??!!! When Juliet was trying to detonate it, I kept thinking, oh wow, she is going to end up being the hero. Or was she?? Did it change history or did everything play out as expected? Well, at least we have to wait a long time to find out!!! Ha ha. The other big story of the episode was the reveal of Jacob and how he had been around in crucial parts of everyone’s lives. I had thought early on in the episode that Jacob had something happen to him cause we were just seeing him with the Oceanic survivors in their early lives. Then, we see him with Locke falling out of the window and later with Hurley before he went back to the island. I thought I had called something when there was the tease of what was in the box. It was revealed to be the body of Locke’s. My first thought was that Jacob is now Locke. That theory seemed to phase out a bit after the final meeting between Ben, Locke, and Jacob at the end. Locke orders Ben to be the one to kill Jacob which he does. There has to be more to this cause Jacob sure did go out without any sort of whimper. Who is coming???!!!! That was the last words of Jacob. So, just what is up with Locke anyway? I still think there is some tie between Locke and Jacob with what all is going on. It’s amazing how Ben has evolved as now he is looking at his time as pointless with being the leader. With his speech, we also found out that Richard is definitely Jacob’s right hand man bringing the orders of Jacob to Ben. Hey, Rose and Bernard!!! That answers the questions on where they have been as Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet ran into them. They had been living out in the jungle in the three years since they were all separated. Even the dog showed up!! Well, if the bomb did go off, Jack and Sawyer got to have one more fight to finish their time together on the island. Sayid was barely hanging on after he was shot in the standoff with Jack and him against the Dharma group. How many orders have went up on Amazon.com to order that book “Everything Rises Must Converge” to try and get some answers? That was the book that Jacob was reading when Locke was thrown out of the window. Really fun finale and that two hours FLEW by cause it was so good. I just love how the show keeps building, and building, and building to get you to the big moment. Lost will return in 2010 where our final questions will be answered in the last season of the show.
Wow, that Dollhouse finale was awesome tonight!! I’ll get to that in a little bit. Listening and watching to some Once More With Feeling (The Buffy musical) as I type this Wrap Up. Fun, fun.
Oh my goodness!! The Dollhouse finale was awesome!!!!!!! I was actually two episodes behind on it so I did a Dollhouse marathon tonight watching the two episodes and then the finale. Major credit to two actors who stepped up huge in the two episodes. Amy Acker and Alan Tudyk!! Everyone knows what a huge fan of Amy’s that I am. I was so happy to see her character, Dr. Saunders, play a major role in how the story in the Dollhouse had turned out with Alpha. Speaking of Alpha, he was played by Alan Tudyk. Yep, another actor from the Whedonverse returns and this time Firefly is represented. He was great as well!! He was cracking me up as he and Ballard made their way into the Dollhouse. Then, we got the awesome reveal that he was Alpha. We got the flashback of Alpha, Dr. Saunders (when she was known as a doll named Whiskey), and a newly arriving Echo. Whiskey was the top doll and Alpha had his eyes on Echo. He wanted Echo to be the top doll so that was when he scarred Whiskey which took away her good looks. Alpha would later get 38 personalities dumped into him at once in the chair when things went wrong. He took out his handler and also the original Dr. Saunders who was a guy. Whiskey was later given the personality of Dr. Saunders but she never wanted to be a doctor. Alpha took Echo along with all of the personalities cards of hers including her original personality of Caroline. Alpha kidnapped another girl as well and put Caroline’s personality in her. It was Echo with all of her personalities installed that she had been since being in the dollhouse along with Caroline against Alpha. Yes, Alpha got away but Echo got a nice fight scene with him. Ballard saved Caroline’s personality card. Ballard would later decide to join the Dollhouse in an exchange of setting Mellie free. It was sad to see her not have a clue who he was while he remembered every bit of their history. Nice payoff for that story. Echo stays at the Dollhouse determined to finish out her contract. Alpha? Well, he is still out there. The show? Well, we’ll see but I want it to stick around especially after the episodes that I watched tonight. Strong finish to the season. Show started kind of slow but we were off to the races at episode six and beyond.
The Chuck campaigns to save the show continue and I sent out the info earlier in the week. I will update this. After only two days of the American Heart Assocation campaign, $3,432.03 had been raised from Chuck fans. Incredible!! Twitter has really changed the way the fan campaigns are run. Immediate campaign news can get out and spread like crazy.
The two hour season finale of Lost is this Wednesday night on ABC. This week’s episode was all about setting up the finale. Well, Jack suddenly is thinking like Locke. That only took him years to realize that Locke was on to something with that island. I still laugh at last season with Jack trying to explain that the island being moved didn’t happen when they were on the helicopter together. Hurley’s line of saying if Jack had a better explanation of what happened then he’d love to hear it was perfect. That was what I had been thinking. Way to get in the game Jack. Jack is determined to carry out what Faraday wanted and change history with the Oceanic flight never crashing. Kate on the other hand. Not too thrilled with Jack’s plan of throwing out the memories of the past several years and she is now thrown into a love triangle with Sawyer and Juliet on the submarine. Locke is leading his group to go see Jacob. Don’t you just want to see what Jacob is going to be? Maybe he is the Wizard Of Oz. ha ha. The stuff was good with Faraday’s mom realizing that it was indeed her son that she had shot. Loved the stuff with Jack explaining things to her while Kate looked on.
Last night’s Survivor had the Survivor auction, Debbie trying to distance herself from Coach, an appearance from Eddie George, and an incredible memory by Stephen. I always love the Survivor auction cause it’s amazing to see the bidding on items including the surprise items that they have no idea what is. Taj got the big treat of the auction when everyone chipped in for her to get a phone message from her family. She then got the surprise announcement that her husband would be with her at camp. A twist was announced that if Taj agreed to go to exile island with her husband, everyone else would get a visit from their loved ones as well. Of course, she agreed to it. Always a great moment seeing everyone reunited. Stephen won the immunity challenge after an incredible way of memorizing numbers. Debbie tried to distance herself from Coach as she knew that he was messing up her game. For a while, the group decided to go after Coach and get him out. Debbie promised JT and Stephen that if the three of them were in the final three challenge, she’d hand over immunity to them. She had been telling a lot of stories to different people so it was decided that they had no idea on whether they could trust her. The editing sure made it look like Coach was going home. However, Debbie’s work to save herself didn’t work and she got three votes to join the jury. The other votes were Debbie’s vote for Coach and one vote for Taj.
Rock week on American Idol had the elimination of my favorite contestant this season, Allison Iraheta. My guess was that it would be either her or Kris going home after watching Tuesday’s performance show. Allison fired back at Simon over the criticism of her performance. That is a delicate border to balance. Sometimes, that will get you votes and other times it will take away votes if viewers think you’re being disrespectful. Bummed to see Allison go and that leaves us down to a battle between the guys. The top three is Adam Lambert, Kris Allen, and Danny Gokey. I expect it to be a Danny vs. Adam finale. I liked the duets idea this week and found it different. I can’t say that I ever expected to see Slash on American Idol as he was the mentor for the week. Daughtry performed on the Idol stage with their new single. I’ll still never forget the shock of the night that he was eliminated from Idoll. He’s done just fine without the Idol win!! Wild to see No Doubt performing together again but a good thing.
The Amazing Race crosses the finish line for one million dollars this Sunday night on CBS. We’re down to three teams after Jen and Kisha were eliminated. The teams continued to battle in China. It came down to a battle between Jen & Kisha against Jaime & Cara. The difference between them ended up being a bathroom break worth one million dollars when Jen had to stop close to the pit stop due to all the water she had drank while trying to eat in the food task. That gave Jaime and Cara the third place finish as they barely got there ahead of Jen and Kisha. So, it is down to Tammy & Victor, Margie & Luke, and Jaime & Cara for the million dollars. I’m predicting a Tammy and Victor win.
Great episode of How I Met Your Mother this week. The story revolved around how your events in your life will lead you to the next thing in life just as it is supposed to work out. It provided for some fun story lines but the end result had Ted running into Stella. Not Stella!!! My first thought was that I hope that she isn’t the front runner for being Ted’s love of his life again. Wow, that character was so unlikable. I read some interesting thoughts on TV Guide where they had theories about Stella. The comments talked me into it that Stella will play a part but she won’t actually be the one. No spoilers there but they just mentioned the wording of what Ted had to say in the episode. The season finale is on Monday night. Please don’t let Stella be the mother. Please don’t let Stella be the mother. Maybe if I say it enough times, they’ll change their mind even if the episode is already shot. Ha ha.
Smallville’s season finale is this Thursday night on The CW. Last night’s episode set up for a major showdown between Clark and Davis. Clark has made it clear that he is going to try and use the black kryptonite to separate Davis and Doomsday. That would save Davis and then send his Kryptonian counterpart, Doomsday, to the phantom zone. Tess is going to play a major part of this finale. What about Chloe? Nice tease in this episode with the shapeshifting where it wasn’t Chloe at all that Clark saved. Oliver also admitted to Clark that he killed Lex and their relationship appears to be back on the rocks.
Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $85 million. 2. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - $15.4 million. 3. Obsessed - $12 million. 4. 17 Again - $6.3 million. 5. Monsters vs. Aliens - $5.8 million. 6. The Soloist - $5.6 million. 7. Earth - $4.3 million. 8. Hannah Montana The Movie - $4.1 million. 9. Fighting - $4 million. 10. State Of Play - $3.7 million.
Well, I can’t remember a whole lot of first round NBA playoff series being as good as that Bulls/Celtics series. It was incredible!! The series set ratings records for first round NBA playoff games. The triple overtime Game 6 had 5.35 million viewers and was the most watched first round game ever on cable. That was until game 7. Nearly seven million tuned into the deciding game of the series. Those two teams fought it out till they had nothing left in the tank. Just big shot after big shot by both teams. I’m a Bulls fan so I was stressing every time that Pierce or Allen were taking shots at the end of the games. Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon stepped up huge for Chicago. That mid season trade for the Bulls paid off big for them and they were a completely different team in the second half of the season than the one that I watched in the first half that made me want to pull my hair out. Boston stepped up and won game seven. Big thanks to both teams for giving one of, if not the, best first round series that I’ve ever seen. Four games went to overtime out of seven. Unreal.
Excellent commercial that I saw from DirecTV last week. They were advertising their PPV movies and brought up the point of if you go to the movies with a family of five, you pay to see the movie five times. With their PPV, you just buy it once for everyone. Such a logical thing that is of course common knowledge but you don’t really think about it. Good commercial idea.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, May 12. The Dana Carvey Show (Full Series), The Jeff Foxworthy Show (Season Two), Two and a Half Men (Season Five).
TV Line Of The Week: From How I Met Your Mother “On any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever. You see, the universe has a plan kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain. It’s a scary thought but it’s also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of the machine constantly working making sure that you end up exactly where you’re supposed to be, exactly when you’re supposed to be there. The right place at the right time.” Ted’s narration to his kids in the future at the beginning of the episode. Loved that line!!
Twitter Update Of The Week: (New weekly feature that I hope to keep doing). @darthvader “Just be glad I don't celebrate Earth Day the way I celebrated Alderaan Day.”
You Tube Video Of The Week: Fun video made for the Save Chuck campaigns. Yes, that is Zachary Levi joining in with fans on the Subway campaign!!
Here is the story that has got Buffy fans all fired up this week. There is talk of a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie. Hold on!!! Don’t get excited. There isn’t reason to get excited. The Hollywood Reporter had an article earlier this week talking about Vertigo Entertainment and the Kuzui’s teaming up for the remake. Basically, Fran Rubel Kuzui was the movie director of the original Buffy movie in 1992. She found the script of Joss Whedon’s for the 1992 movie and produced it. She also brought back Joss for the TV series in the late 90’s. That is why you see Kuzui as an executive producer. Kuzui Entertainment owns the rights to Buffy so they can do a remake if they want. The talk is that the new movie won’t have any ties to the TV series including none of the TV characters. Buffy would be a complete reset with a new cast including a new actress playing the slayer. Joss Whedon will have no part in it from the reports out of it so far. I’m sorry but Buffy without Joss is not Buffy. There is already a big backlash by the Whedonverse over this and I expect things to get uglier if the movie does go through. I know that I won’t be there to see it. I will boycott it bigger than anything. Joss has yet to really comment other than Michael Ausiello getting a short comment from him: http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/05/a-joss-less-buf.html
