George Michael-related stories
Posted Jan 29th 2009 3:37PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, Arrested Development, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
Jeffrey Tambor guarantees that Michael Cera will be in the
Arrested Development movie.
That's what Tambor said at a recent Uprights Citizens Brigade show. He says that even if he has to call Cera up on the phone and order him to be on the set, Cera will definitely be in the big-screen version of the TV show. I can picture Tambor going to Cera's house, grabbing him by the ear and dragging him to his car to go to the set. And then Cera would be blindfolded and handcuffed to the car door, and if he tries to get out, two bodyguards will punch him in the gut and tell him to shut up. Then they'll get to the set and Cera will be kept in a cage when he's not filming scenes for the movie, fed scraps of food like bagels and Pringles (Sour Cream and Onion flavored).
Sorry, the scenario got out of hand there for a moment.
I also have no doubt Cera will be in the movie. Of course, I never thought there would even
be a theatrical
Arrested Development, so I'm not exactly Kreskin when it comes to this stuff.
Posted Dec 5th 2008 2:09PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Reality-Free
I want to talk to you about a grass roots campaign to save Eli Stone. You see, I had this idea where fans of the program would send George Michael paraphernalia - CDs, MP3s, T-Shirts, programs, videos - to the executive mugwumps over at ABC in order to express their frustration that they were not picking up the back nine episodes of the series. It would have been similar in scope to the Great Peanut Campaign of 2007 that ending up (temporarily) saving Jericho.
Then I got to thinking, which is always a bad sign. While a campaign such as this could result in programming executives opening their minds for just a minuscule amount of time to the possibilities of continuin the series, I'm not too sure it would be worth it. Not 'worth' in the terms that the campaign would fall on the deaf ears of the tailor-suited wonks. I'm talking about 'worth' in what it would cost the fans of the show to get the materials and ship them out to send a message. We are in a recession, after all.
Continue reading The grass roots costs of saving a television show
Posted May 21st 2008 7:45PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: American Idol, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Episode Reviews, Episode Recaps
(S07E42) Forty-two episodes later we're finally ready to find out who is going to take home the crown of the next
American Idol. Look at all those faces up there, and now it's all come down to the Davids. The lingering question is if they're going to be Idols the likes of Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson; sales in the millions with mantles full of awards; or will they find mainstream success more of a challenge, like Taylor Hicks or Justin Guarini (I know he came in second but let's face it, at this point first and second are almost interchangeable as far as getting a shot at a career)? The show's an hour early and an hour longer, clocking in from 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM Eastern Time. That means you have two hours to chat live right here with your friends and frenemies about which David should win and how stupid they are for disagreeing with you.
You can join the chat by following this link. Look for the full episode review right here later tonight.Continue reading American Idol: Your American Idol Revealed (season finale)
Posted Apr 18th 2008 7:01AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Eli Stone, Reality-Free
(S01E13) The surgery is done. The brain aneurysm is gone. But Eli's life hangs -- or hung -- in the balance. This was a very trippy episode, a term Dr. Chen uses to explain to Eli why everything seems so out of whack. By the end of the hour, I'm not sure we can say with any certainty that Eli is
really back. But it sure seems that when faced with a choice of letting go or letting God, he took the latter and opened his eyes.
Continue reading Eli Stone: Soul Free (season finale)
Posted Mar 28th 2008 12:28PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Eli Stone
(S01E09) Boy, that George Michael cat is one helluva swell guy, isn't he? Now I'm not sure how many celebrities would feel the need to get involved in a newspaper story, but George got all Oprah and put himself out there for this girl he doesn't even know. As for how he wound up picking Eli to lawyer up and take the case? Would you believe it came to him in a vision? Maybe the case was in the vision, too.
In a way, this episode serves as a closing chapter in the first major arc of the
Eli Stone story. Sure, dangling threads keep thrusting us forward, like the unresolved issues regarding Patti's old stomping grounds and the earthquake of ... when was that now? Oh, that's right it hasn't happened yet. But this craziness all started with George Michael appearing to Eli in a vision, so there's a nice symmetry in the real deal serving a significant role as well.
Continue reading Eli Stone: I Want Your Sex
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 Feb 15th 2008 12:21PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Eli Stone
(S01E03) Okay, it looks like we have the formula down pretty well now. Eli's going to have some bizarre visions that will jeopardize his personal and professional life, but those visions will help him make decisions as to what to do. Could it be a brain aneurysm? Sure, if aneurysms can specifically name clients that he hasn't met yet as tonight's does. Instead of creating a compelling long-form narrative,
Eli Stone is going to be a typical legal dramedy with a few spot visions thrown in to mess with Eli's life. That's it and it's a shame.
Continue reading Eli Stone: Father Figure
Posted Feb 8th 2008 10:21AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Eli Stone
(S01E02) "I'm getting the ass end of this arrangement, man!" -- Eli Stone, concerning his role as supposed prophet.
Ah, now I see the pattern! The titles of all the first season episodes of Eli Stone will be titles or references to titles of George Michael or Wham songs. Next week's title is 'Father Figure' and the week after that it's 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'. It also looks like each week will feature another performer, or set of performers, who sing a piece of that particular week's song. I wonder who'll they'll get to sing 'Wake Me Up' in a few weeks.
Continue reading Eli Stone: Freedom
Posted Feb 1st 2008 12:46PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Eli Stone
(S01E01) "Oh, Did I mention I recently found out I could be a prophet? Yeah, I was shocked too."
What better lead-in could a show about a guy who may be a prophet having visions of the future (or may just be plain crazy) want than the season premiere of
Lost? And in this strike-stripped era of reality television and reruns, any new scripted fare is bound to draw the reddened eyes of those sad and pathetic little viewers asking themselves why oh why did they watch the entire season of
Crowned.
But while I went into it expecting something different and interesting, I instead found a fairly standard legal drama with a gimmick. Sure, you could argue that
Pushing Daisies is nothing more than a standard mystery show with a gimmick, but the characters and charm of
Daisies can win out over that. So far,
Eli is missing that ingredient.
Continue reading Eli Stone: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Sep 30th 2007 7:01PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, Web, Celebrities
What's happening on other blogs via the interweb.
Posted Mar 9th 2007 1:03PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: News, Web, Celebrities
Via Digg comes ten YouTube clips featuring some of the most awkward television interviews ever conducted. Some of them are classic, such as Barbara Walters asking Katherine Hepburn what kind of a tree she'd like to be, but most of them are fairly recent: Michael Richards on Letterman, a seemingly spaced-out Paula Abdul, and Tom Cruise talking down to Matt Lauer. My favorite is the various clips of Mike Tyson being, well, Mike Tyson.
Continue reading Ten awkward TV interviews
Posted May 9th 2006 1:18PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, TV Royalty, Industry, TV on DVD, Arrested Development
First FOX said the third season of the show was going to be released in June, then they canceled that release and said that they didn't know what day the set would be released. But now it looks almost certain that the show isn't coming back, to FOX or Showtime or ABC or the web or anyplace else, so FOX is
going to release the third season set on August 29.
There were 20 episodes this season? I didn't even realize that.
Posted Apr 21st 2006 2:25PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Talent, Arrested Development, Web, Celebrities
Arrested Development star Michael Cera will chat live
at
boston.com to promote
his new indie flick
Darling Darling. Cera is in town for
The Independent Film Festival Of
Boston.
Not sure if you have to be a member of boston.com or not, but it looks like you can just enter a
name and chat away.
Posted Feb 14th 2006 10:15AM by Ryan j Budke
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, OpEd, Arrested Development
Here's the deal, if you missed the finale of
Arrested
Development Friday on FOX, well, you just aren't a true fan. Not only that, but you missed probably two of the
finest hours of TV comedy that have ever aired. I'm not sure that there was a plotline that didn't get some kind of
mention or wrap-up. Hilarious, funny, crazy, witty, comical, side-splitting, and uproarious are all terms I, and many
many others, have used to describe
Arrested Development in the past, but there was one word that wasn't
mentioned enough: perfection.
Arrested Development was treated like garbage by FOX. People can say what they
want about FOX giving it more time than most shows to "find its audience," but that's bull and we all know
it. Unless it's an immediate hit (with immediate gratification) networks just don't care about anything anymore (ABC's
handling of
Emily's Reasons Why Not was criminal), and FOX jumped
AD all over the place, putting it
on hiatus left and right, advertising showings that then disappeared, or just flat-out not advertising it at all. On
with the show!
Continue reading Arrested Development: The Finale
Posted Feb 10th 2006 7:58PM by Ryan j Budke
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, Arrested Development, TV Squad Chatcasts
As we all know by now, Friday is 99.9999999% more than likely
the last time any new episodes of
Arrested Development will ever air on Fox. Whether or not Showtime picks it
up, I've relegated myself to the fact that this is a good thing. Fox has treated this brilliant show like garbage.
Hopefully though, we'll get an announcement sometime within the next week or two officially canceling the show, which
will then lead to an official announcement from Showtime. Well, one can hope. So to celebrate Friday's swan song, we
here at TV Squad will be having a Live
Arrested Development Chat. Will George Michael and Maebe maybe
hook up? Will Lucille 2 make her triumphant return? What will become of the banana stand? I honestly don't know, but I
can't wait to see, and I hope you all join me.
Check back
here on Friday at 8pm EST, it's gonna be one wild ride off into the sunset.
UPDATE:
Come one, come all; here is the secret location for our Arrested
Development Chat! See you inside.
Disclaimer: All or parts of the
discussion in this chatroom may be posted in a later column on this site.Continue reading Arrested Development Live Chat Location
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