Daniel's TV Blog

Best Week Ever isn't on this week. Probably due to the holiday this week. Microsoft used to have this printed news letter called the Micronews. On weeks with a holiday, they took the entire week off. I always thought that was lame. Best Week Ever takes a week off out of every three or four and this is one of them. So to get you through the drought, he are the last five Best Week Ever's.

On May 25th, Heroes had the best week ever. And not just the show, but the NY subway hero and Paula Adbul who injured her nose while trying to protect her little dog Tulip.


On May 18th, Kelly Clarkson had the best week ever. That week was all about American Idol.


On May 11th, Summer Reality Shows had the best week ever. That week all the promos for the crappy summer shows came out. "No Bingo!"


On April 27th, People Who Didn't Deserve the Spotlight had the best week ever. Including (but not limited to) the American Idol crying girl and the kid who got hit by a football player.


On April 20th, Shaun Ellis the Man Amoung Wolves had the best week ever. Because white people crazy.

Rosie's not returning to the View on Monday. Her dust up with EH was too much and she's had enough. ABC has allowed her to leave her contract early. No word as to who will be one of the new hosts but rumors about Kathy Griffin are swirling! That's the only way I would keep The View on my TiVo.

For some reason Donald Trump felt the need to make a statement about this and he came in on Rosie's side. He called Elisabeth "one of the dumbest people on television." As much as I can't stand the Donald, it's nice to see that he can be right once and a while.

So let's sum up Elisabeth's offenses. She supports torture, both as interrogation and punishment. She supports the war in Iraq at the expense of so many civilian lives and the lives of our own brave soldiers. She believes Rosie thinks our troops are terrorists. And now she's responsible for destroying the best show on daytime. I blame her personally.

I'm breaking this weeks entry into two. This part will be all about the events off the island. Something seemed strange to me about this from the beginning. And even in the first scene I proposed that maybe this was in the future. Things just didn't fit the timeline. Jack's wife was long gone and pregnant. How could Jack go from being a bearded alcoholic pill swallower to the guy who had it together enough to eject his father from surgery? Then there was his phone. RAZR phone came out just before the events on the island so it is very unlikely he would have one. But by the end we discovered it was not a flashback but a future flash. This is something I was hoping they would do from the very beginning. I always thought the last season should have future flashes where we slowly see who made it off the island while the final events of the island unfold. Near the end of last season, Jack started being a dick. This episode brings him back as we see there were consequences for his arrogance.
Anyway, here's what we know:

• Jack, Kate, and at least one other person made it off the island
• The other person is dead and no one went to the funeral
• Jack's decision to leave the island destroyed him personally causing a spiral into drugs and alcohol
• Jack is looking for the island and wants to go back
• The newspaper Jack was reading was dated 4/5/7, over two years after the events on the island.

And here are the new questions:

• Why isn't Kate in jail?
• Who was the person in the coffin?
• Why was the funeral in a predominately black neighborhood?
• What's the the beard Jack.

The biggest question is this: Is this how the show is going to end or this getting off the island only part of the story? Will future Jack join up with some others trying to find the island? Will season 4 start in 2008 as people try to get back to the island and flashback to the events in the in between years? Or will there be three more seasons of more of the same until people go back to their terrible lives?

Labels: LOST

OK, maybe not really, but it is clear to everyone watching The View and Rosie that Elisabeth agrees with the Bushies that Rosie called our troops terrorists. Rosie asked her again point blank and she wouldn't answer with a simple yes or no. When asked in the past, she avoided an answer. This is not at all surprising behavior for Elisabeth. She has continuously spouted Republican talking points without bothering to form her own opinion. Here, her first hand knowledge through her friendship with Rosie is at odds with these talking points and her brainwashed little mind can't deal with it. And how does she react? With lots and lots of anger. I've never seen her so made on the show before. She has a lot of anger inside her. I feel very sorry for her husband and kids. It will be very sad day for that family when she finds out her husband is cheating on her. Someone is going to the ER.

The best thing was watching her boil over after Alicia Silverstone totally disses her on air. When coming out on stage, Alicia (my new hero) walks right past her and greats only the other three hosts. Even after casually grabbing her arm Elisabeth isn't even worthy of eye contact.

In this next photo, Elisabeth sees what is going on and she is pissed! I love it. Alicia greets all the other hosts with a hug, the biggest for Rosie. A total professional, Alicia doesn't treat Elisabeth any different than the other hosts during the interview. Most people probably missed the exchange at the beginning altogether. We got to witness first hand that even though speech is free, there are consequences for being a hateful bitch.

If you missed the fight, watch it here.

What else I loved:

• Everyone trying to go to commercial
• The split screen argument between the two
• Elisabeth constantly interrupting Joy and Rosie and yet demanding that she be allowed to finish. This, btw, was a tactic often employed by my ex when we got into arguments. Years into our relationship I exposed this tactic as an unnecessary way to make me look like the bad guy.
• Elisabeth bringing up the Donald...low blow.
  
• And my favorite is Rosie not giving up even though she keeps saying she's not arguing anymore. I don't think anyone with strong beliefs could possibly stay quiet when dealing with such idiocy and hypocrisy.

If I were a producer at The View or an executive at ABC or Disney, I would be begging Rosie to stay for another year.

Now that all the new fall schedules are out, I wanted to take a look at last year's new shows which got renewed and look what I said about them when they were announced (Spring), when it debuted (Fall), and now (Now).

• 'Til Death – (Spring) Comedy about a middle-aged couple living next door to a newlywed couple and hilarity ensues. (Fall) This is the show that makes me happy I'm gay. The entire joke is about how crappy it is to be married for a long time. My parents are happy. I love Jolie Fisher, though. (Now) I’m still not watching it next season.
• Shark – (Spring) Another law show starring James Woods as a prosecutor. Just what CBS needs. (Fall) Is that the one with James Woods or Ray Liota? Either way a show with the only asset being a movie star is destined to fail. (Now) I still see no reason why anyone would watch this.
• The Game – (Spring) It's about a woman dating a professional football player. I'll pass because none of the football players look hot. (Fall) I didn't watch Girlsfriends so I don't need to watch its spin-off. (Now) ditto.
• Ugly Betty – (Spring) based on the wildly popular telenovela, a "TV Ugly" woman goes to work in the world of high fashion. (Fall) [I’m not watching this] 'cause she's ugly. (Now) This turned out to be one of the best new shows last year. It was funny and campy with all the fun of Dynasty. I hope it runs for seven seasons.
• Men in Trees – (Spring) Oh my gods, they let Anne Heche back on TV! And in a show that's described as Sex and the City meets Northern Exposure. This won't make it to Thanksgiving. (Fall) Anne Heche is crazy and this terrible rip off of Northern Exposure is sure to be the first show cancelled. I wonder if ABC picked this up just so they would have something to cancel. (Now) Wow, how did this show make it? Who are the insane people watching this?
• Brothers & Sisters – (Spring) Ally McBeal stars in a new nighttime soap about a large family. (Fall) Night time soaps about families are only interesting when there are huge empires or dynasties involved. Plus Calista Flockhart frightens me. (Now) I heard good things about this and started sandbagging it. Unfortunately my DVR croaked so I’ll have to watch season one on DVD this summer. Or not.
• Heroes – (Spring) It's kind of like The X-Men or The 4400. People become superheros. Looks like it could be good expect SciFi never lasts for more than a season on NBC, if they are lucky. (Fall) It's like the X-men but not at all different. SciFi never lasts on NBC so enjoy the ride and hope for a full season. (Now) I’m so happy this was good and people caught on to it. I can see this running for a long time.
• Friday Night Lights – (Spring) Football players are hot! (Fall) How much stories can you have about teens being yelled at by their coach? And what if we like the characters? Will this show follow them to college? Those games aren't on Friday night. (Now) this was low rated but it still got renewed. I’m happy to see they moved it to Friday nights.
• 30 Rock – (Spring) It's the COMEDY about SNL. Looks good. (Fall) NBC comedy about SNL. Tina Fey is a brilliant comedy writter and Alec Baldwin was perfect on Will & Grace so this has lots of funny potential. (Now) This was clearly the best comedy on TV last year. It was funny and silly and the characters were great. I can’t wait for season 2.

Labels: Heroes

With the demise of Veronica (series finale tonight!) the only show I'm left watching on The CW is Smallville. And every year I hope that gets cancelled. No luck this year.

CW Now - It's like 60 Minutes but for the CW demographic. Someone should tell the suits that their demographic either doesn't watch the news of gets it online. And speaking of online...
Online Nation - A show about what's good and funny on the web. VH1 used to call this WebJunk and even they cancelled that.
Life is Wild - A vet moves his family to an African Game reserve. It's a teen drama but the teens will have no one to interact with so were is the fun?
Aliens in America - A family hosts an exchange student and gets a Pakistani.
Reaper - A guy becomes a bounty hunter for Satan because his parent's sold his soul when he was a baby. The killer from Twin Peaks plays Satan.
Gossip Girl - Another teen drama about some elite prep school kids whose life keeps getting documented on the internet by a mysterious blogger named "Gossip Girl". This looks like it could be good. VMVO is the voice of Gossip Girl.

Labels: upfronts

Fox is getting really in to the split season. When I was a kid, we would get new shows in September and then a smattering of mid-season replacements. Kids these days get a whole new season premier month on January. I'm only going to comment on the stuff starting this fall so The Sarah Conner Chronicles will have to wait.

K-Ville - Are we ready for a show about post-Katrina New Orleans? I say yes.
New Amsterdam - An immortal cop in New York, formerly New Amsterdam and he's been there that long.
Back to You - Frasier is back on TV as an local anchor man fallen from former national status after an on-air breakdown. I want to see the breakdown and that's about it.
Kitchen Nightmares - I'm not sure how this is different from Hell's Kitchen.
The Search for the Next Great Band - since American Idol is only on in the Spring, Simon and Fox needed something to fill the vacant fall schedule and hopefully generate some ratings.
Nashville - I'm confused about this. Is this country music show reality or scripted? No stars are listed so it is either uncast or unscripted.

Labels: upfronts

The problem with the end of the season is so many episodes actually take place within one day. The current day is 12/22/04. They are so close to Christmas I keep wondering if anyone will notice. It would have worked perfectly for this one since one of Charlie's flashbacks was a Christmas flashback. I both loved and hated the flashbacks from this episode. Usually Charlie flashbacks suck, but these were good: they were short and necessary for the current story. What I hated was the second flashback. The second flashback was from Karl. This was just lazy story telling. They could have easily had this as the teaser opener, but instead they put it later as a flashback. And how could we have seen all that since Karl was given the story of what Ben said and did second hand through Alex. I hate when they are inconsistent.

Speaking of inconsistency, what is going on with Desmond's flashbacks? He saw Charlie in the Looking Glass station and then drowning. Up until now all the things he saw in the future were things he would eventually see in person. If he didn't follow Charlie into the Looking Glass, how could he have seen these things? Maybe we will find out in the finale

And one more thing bothered me about the episode. The Dharma Swan station was generally referred to as "the Hatch" because they found the top escape hatch first. The survivors began to refer to the other stations as hatches because of the this. The Others and the Dharma folks always called them Stations, yet the blue prints for the Looking Glass Sayid got from The Flame calls it a Hatch. What the Pho? Also Desmond called it a hatch, but that might have been due to his cohabitation with the survivors.


OK, here's what we learned:

• Charlie's band is popular again
• Alex doesn't believe she is Ben's daughter
• Karl has been living in the jungle near the Others tent city
• The cable Sayid found in season one lead to the Looking Glass
• Nadia (Sayid's love) was in Britain for a while
• Charlie likes Oasis
• Desmond was at the pool when Charlie was a child. If you listen carefully as Charlie approaches the edge before he jumps in, you can hear a child yelling his name.

Here are the new questions:

• In the first season, Charlie said he couldn't swim. Why did he say that?
• Why did Ben telling the others the Looking Glass was abandoned?
• Who are the women in the Looking Glass?
• Why weren't the women part of Desmond's future flash?
• Why was Ben so frazzled after returning to tent city?
• Why did he move up the raid on the survivors camp?
  

Labels: LOST

What did I love about the Reno 911! season finale last Sunday? What didn't I love? It was full of surprises and laughs from beginning to end. I loved Leslie proposal at the beginning. It was both romantic and highly inappropriate. Later we got some great physical humor from Terry. Then Wiegel went into labor while inside a cake and the group has to role her down the street to the hospital. Finally, Leslie and Dangle had their big gay wedding in the hospital room only to have it interrupted by Garcia running in and professing his love...for Leslie. Wiegel turns to Dangle just after he is left at the alter and says that she knows who the father of the baby is. I loved it and can't wait until next season which should be this summer.

Not much change at CBS this fall. Jericho is out. I'll talk about that next week. A single new show on five different nights.

Viva Laughlin - Because one show about a casino is never enough on prime time, CBS brings a new show about the opening of a small casino in Laughlin. Laughlin is where my seventy-something parents go to gamble, so it's not quite Vegas.
The Big Bang Theory - It's Beauty and the Geek in sitcom form. It's got a great time slot but The Class didn't do well last time.
Cane - Jimmy Smits returns to TV in a family business drama.
Kid Nation - A reality show about a group of 40 kids who have to form a community. It didn't work in Lord of the Flies.
Moonlight - Why do people keep making Vampire shows? Nothing will ever compete with the Buffyverse so stop trying.

Labels: upfronts

ABC released their new schedule today. Unlike NBC they have some new comedies on their schedule including a sitcom based on a Geico commercial. Who knew?

Sam I Am - I love Christina Applegate so if she's in it, I'll put it on my list.
Cavemen - It's so easy a caveman could do it. I laughed out loud when I saw ABC was doing a show based on the Geico cavemen commercials.
Carpoolers - A group people carpool and talk about their lives.
Pushing Daisies - This show seems quite strange. This guy can bring people back to life so he uses his power to solve crimes. But if he touches the same person a second time, they die again.
Private Practice - The highly anticipated spin-off to Grey's Anatomy.
Dirty Sexy Money - Finally we've got a possible replacement for Dynasty/Dallas. This rich family drama is from the point of view of their new lawyer.
Big Shots - This one is about a bunch of guys in the business world. I'm glad Christopher Titus is returning to television.
Women's Murder Club - Finally a new detective drama that's not all about the police. There's a medical examiner, D.A., reporter, and detective who work together. Who knows.

Labels: upfronts

One of the best things about May is the release of the new fall schedules. Today NBC released their up fronts. Tomorrow is ABC, then CBS on Wednesday, and Fox and CW on Thursday. Hooray! Here's the new shows NBC has to offer:

Lipstick Jungle - It's the old smart-women-in-a-fashion-magazine show again. But this time it's a drama and more Sex and the City. We had enough of these in the 90's. The good news: Kim Raver is starring. The bad news: Kim Raver is starring which means she won't be on 24 next season either.
The Journeyman - It sounds like a new version of Quantum Leap. Except this time, he's a reporter.
Chuck - A computer hacker accidentally gets all kinds of government secrets downloaded into his brain and becomes a new secret agent. The best news: super hot Adam Baldwin is co-starring as the military contact. I can never get enough of him.
The Bionic Woman - A remake of the great Lindsey Wagner show from the 70's. Co-starring Katte Sackhoff (aka Starback). Let's count, there are now three additional SciFi shows on NBC this fall? How did that happen?
Life - A cop drama with the main detective just having got out of jail after getting acquitted. Sounds interesting but I don't watch too many cop shows.
The Singing Bee - NBC takes on American Idol with a karaoke show. That's all American Idol is anyway.

The good news is Comedy Night Done Right is back in it's entirety.

Labels: upfronts

Two of the stars of Battlestar Galactica (Katee Sackhoff and EJO) confirmed that the next season of BSG will most likely be the last. The show is too expensive to keep going with the current viewership. It's sad but the good news is they know it will probably be the last going in. This thwarts the problem with most series finales: the unexpected end. As much as I'd love 5, 7 or 10 seasons, I'd rather have an ended planned out and scheduled. Irregardless, we have to wait until January 2008 for the start of the next season.

Labels: Battlestar Galactica

I enjoy the Ben story but I was disappointed it wasn't a better episode. The best episodes are those with a flashback story that closely matches the main story. While Ben's story answered a lot of questions, it didn't match the John and Ben going to meet the wizard story. But it was still good. Even with the problem with Portland. 32 miles outside Portland in December people would not be hiking without hats and gloves. People would not be driving around in a convertible with only a light jacket. But the show is written by people from L.A. who live in Hawaii so I guess I can forgive them. The first time a survivor saw an image of his dead parent (Jack and his dad) the title of the episode was called White Rabbit. When Ben went looking for his dead mother again, he used a white rabbit to get through the sonic weapon fence. Coincidence?

What we know:

• Ben was born near Portland, not on the island
• Roger Workman was Ben's father
• Ben killed his father in the purge
• Ben is the last remaining person from the Dharma Inititive
• The Dharma group had several cars and passable roads between stations

New questions (there's a lot of them):

• Why did Richard appear not to age?
• How was Ben able to summon his mother?
• Where did the original Hostiles/Others come from?
• Who is fronting the organizations off the island that maintain the Others?
• Does the Dharma Inititive exist outside the island?
• Do they know about the purge?
• Who is supplying the island?
• What is the strange powder outside Jacob's cabin?
• Who is Jacob?
• Why can't he be seen or heard by most people?
• Why didn't Ben's coveralls have the Dharma logo on them?
• Why did they never cover the mass grave?
• Why did the Hostiles want to get rid of the Dharma folks?
• Did they leave the Swan station alone?
• Why is Ben the leader?
• Will Locke survive?
• Why does Jacob need Locke to help him?

Labels: LOST

Tonight is the season finale of Jericho. The last two episodes have been very exciting concluding with the war between small town Jericho and slightly bigger neighboring small town New Bern. The season has been filled with several mysteries which have been satisfactorily resolved and some great stories. However it still remains the largest leap of suspension of disbelief of any show I'm currently watching.

I can deal with the main premise: a group of terrorist set off twenty or so nukes in major US cities killing some 30 million people. That's a stretch but OK. However I have bigger problems dealing with these points. (1) There was a total breakdown of communication at the start of the season. Broadcasting centers are far more diversified than just the main urban areas. (2) The EMP which hit in episode 6 was far more devastating than the nukes. But what caused it? How far reaching was it? (3) Although the complete breakdown of the federal government makes for great storylines, I don't buy it. The military would not collapse without the Pentagon. And wasn't the Pentagon designed to mostly survive a nuke? (4) The countryside scenes are clearly rural Southern California, not Kansas. Of course it's cheaper to do this but I still get bothered by it. I grew up there so I know what it looks like. (5) The food shortages seem a little unlikely. Kansas produces significant amounts of food which it ships all over the globe. With nothing getting shipped out one would expect an abundance of food. As a fly-over state when I look down all I see are those irrigation circles. (6) An early season sub-plot was the missing planes that couldn't land at the nuked out cities so they landed on highways. I never bought this one. There are lots of small regional airports which wouldn't be ideal to land a 757, but much better than a two lane highway. (7) What happened to Canada and Mexico? Germany, Russia, and China have all sent aid but what of our neighbors. Trucking stuff in would seem cheaper than airdrops.

OK, so why do I still watch? The characters are good and the action of the war between the small towns is second only to the action sequences on 24. Great gunfights and explosions and stuff. Even though there's a lot of hurdles to believability, it's fun TV. I hope they get a second season.

Labels: Jericho

I was reading the paper yesterday (yes I read the actual paper sometimes) and that's were I first heard the news about the end of LOST. They have announce three more seasons, each with 16 episodes. They will run without repeats or recaps from Feb-May in 2008-2010. Plus the three episodes left this season means a total of 51 episodes left in LOST. I think this is a great move. Of course I would love to see 22-24 episodes a season, I much prefer the short blasts over the long drawn out season with huge breaks in them. I think the popularity of the Sopranos with completely inconsistent seasons has allowed shows to survive and flourish with huge gaps between seasons. The best part of season 3 have been these 16 episodes in the spring. The first six in the fall did more to hurt the show than anything

Tonight is the first Ben flashback show. It should be awesome.

Labels: LOST

Almost exactly seven years ago I got my first DVR. It was the DISHPlayer 7200 and it would record about 8 hours. It was the greatest piece of technology ever. Well, maybe not ever but it is the technology that changed my life the fastest. Suddenly I didn't have to use videos tapes any more. The 10 minutes I spent every morning checking the VCRs and cable boxes was no longer necessary. Seven years later and two hard-drive upgrades later and I'm still using this great old box on my main TV. It can record nearly 100 hours now with no signal degradation. My Tivo can only record as much as 80 hours on crappy quality and something like 20 hours at a almost undetectable quality loss. The DISHPlayer is so great that I've overlooked a huge bug that has existed since the beginning: Daylight Savings Time. It never figures out PDT/PST so twice a year I have to create new seasons passes for everything. But that's not the disaster.

I've been pre-occupied with the Photo Safari and a new computer game so I slacked off on my blogging. But as my friends over at Just Ted say, "one should blog for one's self not any pretend audience." So if I want to take two weeks off, I can. Pppppffffttt!

LOST 3.19: Everybody hates Jack
The least surprising secret (oooh, The Secret!) this season is that Claire is Jack's half sister. The second least surprising secret (oooh, The Secret!) is that Locke's father is the original Sawyer. Since he confessed to being a conman all his life, this storyline was secured. He's dead now. Besides flashback's by Juliet, flashbacks to all island events are my favorite. I hate having to filter through a boring pre-island story that's sorta relevant to the events we really want to see. So this was yet another favorite episode for me. Also Jack is a dick and now the other Losties are beginning to realize that. James should totally take over as the leader.

Here is what we learned:

• The Others are very excited about Locke, except Ben who sees him as a threat to his power.
• Flight 815 was "found" off the coast of Bali.
• Naomi was looking for Desmond, not flight 815.
• Jack and Juliet have a secret (oooh, The Secret!)
• There are other ruins on the island.
• The Others are planning a raid on the Losties camp

New questions:

• What does Deleen need dynamite?
• Why would flight 815 be off the coast of Bali? That's the other direction.
• What plane did they find since 815 is scattered all over the island?
• What does Juliet want to tell Kate? Why does Jack want to keep it a secret? (oooh, The Secret!)
• Why was Sayid digging a hole?
• How did Cooper get to the island?
• Will James drop the name "Sawyer" now that his life's mission is complete?
• Where did the Others go?

LOST 3.18: Patchy's Back
So who's your favorite Other? Besides Juliet mine has to be Patchy aka Mikhail. I'm so glad he's not dead. And how many languages does that guy know? How many does helicopter girl know? Juliet was great again. She's great and she still hates Ben. Who knows what he's up to. I think Sun/Jin episodes are my least favorite in the flashbacks. Mostly because I usually watch each episode twice, the second time while folding laundry or sorting Legos. When the show is sub-title heavy I have to pay more attention both times. I hate that.

Here's what we know:

• Jin is the father of Sun's baby.
• Sun got pregnant on the island so she is going to die.
• Juliet thinks Kate is probably pregers also.
• Patchy didn't die in the sonic weapon fence incident.

Here are the new questions:

• What the parachute girl mean when she said there were no survivors of flight 815?
• Why was there a hidden door in The Staff station?
• Is Kate pregnant?
• How did patchy survive the sonic weapon fence?
  

Labels: LOST