Daniel's TV Blog

A few weeks back on The Simpsons, Bart became best friends with bully Nelson. Things didn't work out and this is how the episode ended.



Hopefully the YouTube link is still valid. It's copywritten material so it is technically not supposed to be up there. I hope everyone still watches The Simpsons. This season is the best in years.

Brokeback Mountain has been showing up in lots of places lately. On Prison Break, Bellick was asked if he and Geary were "Brokebacking it" in Kansas. In the new movie Night at the Museum, Cowboy Owen Wilson say something like "I wish I could quit you." I don't remember the line but it wasn't exactly the same line from BBM, but I knew what they were trying to say.

Doctor Who season 2 finale was last Friday. At that time we were completely caught up with the BBC. Since then we've already fallen behind. The third season won't start for a couple of months but on Christmas they had another Christmas Special episode. It didn't introduce the new companion but it will continue the story of the bride that suddenly appeared in the Tardis and the end of the season. The strange thing about TV in the UK is they get really big ratings on Christmas day so that's when they put their biggest event television. Christmas Day in America is completely dull and useless.

Season 2 of Doctor Who was quite good. I like the tenth doctor more than the ninth doctor. Rose had gone from just a tag along "outside man" to a seriously smart and capable problem solver. And the slow reveal of Torchwood was great and will lead to another great show. I don't know when we are getting that in the US but the SciFi channel has annouced Doctor Who season 3 will start over the summer. In the UK Torchwood was shown between seasons 2 and 3 of Doctor Who.

The finale also saw the departure of Rose. This was very well known even if you didn't seek out spoilers. The forshadowing was getting a bit ridiculous. The amoazing thing was that she didn't die. Everything was leading me to believe she was doomed to a terrible ending but it turns out her life was much better off than before meeting the Doctor. At the end she was stuck in an alternative dimension with her mom, best friend/boyfriend, and her alternate dad who didn't die in this universe. Also, her dad is super rich and she going to go work for the Torchwood organization in that universe. Much better than death. I cried a little bit when the Doctor said good-bye to her. What a great show.

Battlestar Galactica had it's last episode of 2006 and on Friday nights last week. Four weeks from Sunday it moves to its new night. I had no power that evening so my TiVo didn't record it. I had to buy it from iTunes over the weekend.



It was a great episode. One of the best this season. The show seems to run like a Cosine Wave. The first few episodes are great beyond explanation. Then it gets not as good and then by the tenth or twentieth episode of the season it is back up to great beyond explanation. Season 2.0 and 2.5 worked the same way as the recently completed 3.0. The show ended with the most suspenseful cliffhanger to date in my opinion. In the past we've had one big thing closing out the show. There was so much going on at the end that was unresolved, I can barely take it. In need to watch the show one more time before I do a Lost-style write up. It was that good and I had to watch it on my laptop thanks to the lame wind storm.

Last year during the week before Christmas, NBC had a "week long event" where they introduced Deal or No Deal. It's a stupid show no one should ever watch. And if you must watch it, turn the TV to mute you will enjoy the show more and not miss a thing. The show became a huge hit for some reason. This year they are hoping for a second hit with Identity. Twelve people are on stage and twelve professions or trait are listed. The contestant must pick who is who. The show comes down to stereotypes and assumptions but it is still fun. On Monday they had special celebrity guest Eve "Jan Brady" Plum. Her "Identity" was that she was a painter. I'm not sure if it is houses or portraits.

And by "junk" I mean Vajayjays and Cock. Yes it was a big year for people showing off their junk. Especially Britney. Why do women go out in short skirts and no panties. It's just odd to me. But women parts are gross so I don't think about them that often. On hand to collect the award for "junk" was Dustin "Screach" Diamond who put out a porn video featuring his enormous junk eariler this year.

I'm still without power at my house so I watched it over at Ted's house, where I am blogging from right now.

A lot of crazy stuff happens each week. One of the ways I keep up is with VH1's Best Week Ever. Tonight is the annual year end wrap-up, Best Year Ever. If you have your TiVo set for Best Week Ever, it won't automatically pick up Best Year Ever so be sure to set it for the extra showing tonight at 11. The new season of BWE starts up again in January.

Of all the old Claymation Christmas specials from my childhood, The Year Without Santa Claus was always my favorite. My brother used to call me Heat Miser becuase I had read hair. He looked not unlike Snow Miser since he was tall and skinny. We never had snow in Thousand Oaks so the story of a couple elves trying to bring a White Christmas to Southtown also appealled to me. The animated version is on Friday on ABC Family but tonight on NBC is a live action remake. I haven't heard if it follows the orginal story or not. Somehow I'm not hopeful. The photo in TV Guide shows a fat Santa, but in the original Santa was skinny and trying to put on the weight becuase, "No one wants a skinny Santa!"

Tonight on A&E is a new movie, Wedding Wars, starring John "Full House" Stamos. He plays a gay wedding planner who is suddenly at odds with the brides parents who are opponents to gay marriage. He can't just quit since the groom is his brother. I doubt there will be any man-on-man Stamos action, but it still might be good.

Every Year the SciFi Channel has a mini-series for December. Sometimes they are great (Battlestar Galatica) and sometimes they suck big-time (The Triangle). I don't know where this year's will fall. It's called The Lost Room and it's starring that "Narm" guy from Six Feet Under. The story revolves around a motel room that can transport people through space-time, like Hiro. But there are other funny things going on. It starts tonight and continues on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This was a rather ridiculous year. Britney's vagina was everywhere and the vice president shot someone in the face. Tonight Lewis Black hosts the Last Laugh '06 on Comedy Central. Him and a bunch of other comedians will look back at the year and make fun of everything. But for a real big laugh at the last year, set your TiVos for Best Year Ever on Friday night at 11.

This year I've picked up two mature shows because my friends have talked about them so often. The first is How I Met Your Mother. It's a funny show with a good ensemble. My friends Sean and Lorna both love this show, along with all the other CBS Monday comedies. I can't commit to 2.5 Men since it will conflict with 24 come January. I'm also giving The Class a try. That's got lots and lots of characters. It will take a few more episodes to figure them all out.

The other show is Gilmore Girls, which is on tonight. This has been one of my friend Matt's favorite shows for years. This show is very funny. I can't believe it took me to it's eighth season to find this one. I'll be NetFlix'ing the past seasons here someday.

It's easy to see others mistakes when sitting on the outside. In January the SciFi channel is moving Battlestar Galatica to Sunday night. In my opinion this is a mistake. A mistake to repair the original mistake which itself led to one more mistake. The original mistake was starting the season in October instead of July or August. With every critic loving this show, they should have run it when not much else was going on. Many more people would have come on board. This lead to another mistake which was the cancellation of Stargate: SG1.

If I was running the SciFi channel or Universal entertainment, this is what I would have done. BSG would have started over the summer with Stargate: Atlantis. After ten weeks both would have gone on hiatus and would have been replaced by Stargate: SG1 and Doctor Who. In January BSG and SG:A would finish their season. Also, over the summer, NBC would replay episodes of BSG on Saturday night. This would have lead to the most successful ratings of all shows.

The move to Sunday night is not all the surprising. SciFi has a long historical standing on Friday night. X-Files had four seasons on Friday night before moving to Sunday and much better ratings. This may actually solve the unexpected low ratings they have been having this season. I think the low ratings are due to the October starting and the incredibly dark storylines.