Posted Apr 15th 2008 6:00PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: In the Limelight, Lipstick Jungle, Reality-Free
Good chemistry between TV couples is a rare commodity, but when Robert Buckley and Kim Raver heat up the screen as Kirby and Nico on
Lipstick Jungle, there's some major fireworks flying around.
Much of that spark can be attributed to Buckley, who inhabits the role of Kirby so well that it hardly seems like he's playing a part. Buckley took over the role from Will Toale, who played the part in the pilot episode.
The 26-year-old actor really hasn't been on the TV scene all that long. He got his start playing two roles on MyNetworkTV prime time dramas: photographer Michael Bauer on 2006's
Fashion House; and Matthew Wakefield on 2007's
American Heiress.
Continue reading Robert Buckley: In the Limelight
Posted Apr 15th 2008 11:01AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, 24, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, TV Squad Lists, Lipstick Jungle, Reality-Free
Last week's episode of The Office now ranks high on my list of Awkward TV Moments. It got me thinking about other all-time great awkward TV moments. Sure, we've all seen the episode where a disheveled Mary Richards shows up at the awards banquet wearing one fuzzy pink slipper. And the one where Frasier and Roz nearly do it on a cruise ship. But let's take a look at a few recent awkward TV moments.
1. Jan heaves a Dundee at Michael's flat-screen TV. Okay, we'll start with last week's episode of
The Office, in which Michael coerces Jim and Pam into attending a couples-only dinner party at his and Jan's condo. The entire episode is one long awkward moment, from Dwight showing up with his former babysitter as his date to Pam realizing she'll be held hostage for three hours, thanks to Jan's poor culinary planning. But the topper is when Michael and Jan's love spat escalates into a huge fight, ending with her heaving one of his treasured Dundee awards at his new (and tiny) flat-screen TV. The cops show up after the neighbors report a disturbance, and Michael ends up going home with Dwight.
Continue reading Ten awkward TV moments
Posted Mar 24th 2008 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, CSI, House, Law and Order, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, NCIS, TV Squad Lists, Lipstick Jungle, Eli Stone
The world of primetime TV are primarily set in the real world. The real world based on the fiction they create. So,
Law and Order -- in all its incarnations -- is set in New York City, but it's not the real five boroughs. The newspapers they read are not
The New York Times, the
Post or the
Daily News. For contemporary TV fiction, reality is on the margins of the storytelling because you can't really set those characters in a real world. However, when the two worlds intersect, the results can be magic. Here's 8 big-time, primetime examples:
1) Cowboy Up TimeRemember the episode of
Lost when Ben wanted to convince Jack that he was in communication with the world outside the island? To prove that he was telling the truth, he showed Jack a video of the Boston Red Sox winning the world series in 2004. You can't get more real than that, right? And yet it was used in one of the most out of this world shows on the air. In fact, using
Lost's own terminology, the Red Sox video is a constant truth in a universe that's a complete fiction.
Continue reading Eight real world moments in reel TV
Posted Mar 21st 2008 10:38AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E07) "When fortune knocks, offer a chair." - Lorraine, the writerNBC advertised this week's episode of
Lipstick Jungle as the "season finale." Yet, about a month ago,
they ordered six more episodes of the series saying that season one would get 13 episodes. NBC probably doesn't want
LJ to face shows like
Lost; so the network probably decided to air those six episodes next season in a less threatening timeslot. Let's face it, the series, even if it definitely got better over time, is not the best out there. It benefited a lot from the strike since it aired without much of competition.
Even if the season finale could have been more rocking, it was a satisfying episode that left viewers with a few questions such as: Was Charles really cheating?, Did Nico take the right decision?, Did Joe have a one-night stand or was this woman a "regular"?, Will Victory forgive Joe since, technically, he didn't cheat?, etc.
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Seven: Carpe Threesome (season finale)
Posted Mar 14th 2008 10:41AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E06) "It must feel like a really horrible surprise party" - Kirby to WendyI felt sorry for Wendy as I watched about 4/5 of the episode unfold. (I had to tape the episode and the VCR decided to not be my friend and stopped around 45 minutes in! Thanks NBC for complete recaps of the episodes.) Not only did Wendy go to a meeting she didn't want to go but she had the unpleasant surprise to learn that not only one of her best friend has been lying to her for weeks but that Nico also flew her boy toy half across the world for a booty call!
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Six: Take the High Road
Posted Mar 7th 2008 7:42AM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E05) Well, I am certainly enjoying
Lipstick Jungle more than
Cashmere Mafia. I like it so much that I jumped at the opportunity to fill in for
Isabelle and review this week's episode.
Of course, lots of people expected the two shows to be almost the same (just different nights and channels). And the shows do have similarities: big stars with big paychecks (Lucy Liu, Brooke Shields), female characters in powerful jobs, stupid titles, etc. But as I sat through the first few episodes of
Lipstick Jungle, I knew it would be a much more gratifying show.
LJ is nowhere near
Sex and the City or
Desperate Housewives, but it certainly has potential.
Okay, enough preamble. After the jump, I'll talk about "Chapter Five: Dressed to Kill," I promise.
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Five: Dressed to Kill
Posted Mar 4th 2008 10:27AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, In the Limelight, Celebrities, Lipstick Jungle
While the casting for the ladies to play the power brokers on NBC's
Lipstick Jungle was imperative, no less attention was paid for the men with whom those women would be romantically entwined. For the character of Joe Bennett, the enigmatic, high-powered, complicated Prince Charming with a dark side, producers had to be looking for just the right combination of sexual appeal and sensitive undercurrent. They found the right guy when
Andrew McCarthy was cast. The former Brat Packer could be the find of the TV season; the new McDreamy.
Continue reading Andrew McCarthy: In the Limelight
Posted Feb 29th 2008 9:35AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E04) "People like us are easy targets." - Hector to NicoIf we look at what
Lipstick Jungle offers us, indeed, people in the movie, fashion, or magazine business are easy targets. Wendy's ex-nanny wrote a book, Victory's career was destroyed by one bad collection, and Nico had to face a fake lawsuit that had some truth to it (even Nico admits that what she did could be seen as sexual harassment).
This week's episode closed the books on the lawsuit Kirby filed against Nico but it didn't end their relationship. Why did he really do it? Even if Mike was the snake behind the ordeal, Kirby agreed to go forward yet all he wanted was Nico...
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Four: Bombay Highway
Posted Feb 25th 2008 9:40AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Lipstick Jungle
NBC's
Sex and the City-like fashionable show
Lipstick Jungle received an order of six extra episodes. This means that the series will get a first season of 13 episodes.
TV Guide reveals that the series, based on the book of the same name written by
SatC author Candace Bushnell, is winning its timeslot among women of the 18-49 and 18-34 categories.
Continue reading More Lipstick for NBC
Posted Feb 24th 2008 2:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Law and Order, Pickups and Renewals, Ratings, Lipstick Jungle
The fate of ABC's
Women's Murder Club has been determined...at least for the rest of this season. After a shake-up in the production team early this month which resulted in co-creators/producers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, as well and exec-producer R. Scott Gemmill, all being dispatched, Robert Nathan (
Law and Order) has been named showrunner.
Nathan will produce three more original episodes this season to be aired as early as April. This is good news for fans of the
femme detective series based on crime novelist James Pattersons' bestsellers. The hour drama premiered last October to generally poor reviews, but did well enough in the Nielsens to encourage ABC that they might have a hit on their hands. As the week's passed, the ratings dipped. The ten episodes that aired averaged a 6.1 rating/11 share; 38th place overall. Not gangbusters, but pretty good.
Continue reading Three new Women's Murder Clubs to come
Posted Feb 22nd 2008 11:04AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, OpEd, 24, CSI, Daytime, Cable/Satellite, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Psych, Project Runway, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, TiVo, Damages, Lipstick Jungle
Is it really a big surprise that television advertising isn't as effective as it used to be? As TV watchers -- okay, we're uber-watchers -- we know that with DVRs and TiVos we're zooming through ads, or we're channel surfing in between segments of our favorite shows, or renting/buying content in formats that allow us to avoid commercials altogether. Now, according to the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research's TV & Technology Survey,
we learn that six out of 10 marketers believe that TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years. And it's getting worse.
Continue reading Products galore...and you can't avoid them
Posted Feb 22nd 2008 1:41AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E03) "I could do a lot worse." - Madeleine about Wendy being her mother.Indeed, Madeleine could do a lot worse. Wendy may not be a model mother but she is human and tries to make ends meet as best as she can. This week we saw more of how a scandalous book can affect someone and the control damage needed to smooth things over. Good thing that Wendy has a very good friend who is not afraid to play dirty!
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Three: Pink Poison
Posted Feb 15th 2008 12:06AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E02) "Tsunami for bad mommy." - Janice after seeing a picture of Wendy crying because of the book.After watching the
Lipstick Jungle pilot last week, some of TV Squad readers commented on the fact that the series was not true to the book and that it was not light enough. One commenter even said that it left an ABC romantic TV movie aftertaste in her mouth. Other people thought it was good but not fantastic and that the actresses gave fair performances. Not having read the book, I cannot compare. The pilot didn't
wow me but was interesting enough to have me turn up for more this week. However, "Nothing Sacred" was a let down and, if it had not been for the fact I had to write this review, I think I would have switched channels to watch
Eli Stone live instead of tomorrow morning.
I don't know what I was expecting exactly this week. But it wasn't what I was offered by the NBC series.
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Chapter Two: Nothing Sacred
Posted Feb 8th 2008 12:45AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Lipstick Jungle
(S01E01) Earlier today, I gave you a take on what I thought NBC's new dramedy
Lipstick Jungle was like. The series, based on a
novel penned by
Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, premiered with a slightly revamped pilot and a whole lot of promos for Maybelline.
I won't rehash what I said in my
early look post since there weren't enough changes between the two versions of the pilot. The main change is the recast of Wendy's husband (Paul Blackthorne took over the role held by Christopher Wiehl); a good move if you ask me. Wiehl's performance in the pilot wasn't believable and strong enough. Blackthorne is more fitting in the role and will bring in a nice flavor to the show thanks to his English background.
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Feb 7th 2008 8:00AM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Early Looks, Lipstick Jungle
Are you in need for a TV series that may fill the void left by the departure years ago of the
Sex and the City ladies and
Cashmere Mafia ain't working for you? You may be interested to know that Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price return to the small screen this week in the new NBC dramedy
Lipstick Jungle, based on a
novel penned by
SatC author, Candace Bushnell.
Continue reading Lipstick Jungle -- An early look
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The Upfronts: FOX
Carter Bays of How I Met Your Mother: The TV Squad Interview
The Upfronts: CBS
