SeasonPremiere-related stories
Posted Sep 27th 2009 11:39PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Reality-Free
(S07E01) As the seventh season commences, the cases continue. Tonight it's a flashback to 1966 and the events on a ship known for suicides, but the real crux of the show was more current. What's going on with Lily Rush since her near-death experience last year? When the case against Kitchener seems to be going soft, her reaction makes me wonder if our Lily is contemplating going
Dirty Harry (Harriet?) on us.
Continue reading Cold Case: The Crossing (season premiere)
Posted Sep 17th 2009 9:37PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, The Office, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S06E01) Welcome to season six of
The Office (wow... who would have thought we'd be looking at the sixth season of this show? I didn't, and I liked the show from day one). Jay Black did a great job of reviewing the show the last couple of years, but his stand-up and other duties have called him away on Thursday nights. So your humble editor has decided to take over and sink his teeth into one of his all-time favorite shows.
Even though we pick up season six somewhat where we left off last year -- Pam's preggers, but she and Jim haven't told anyone around the office yet -- it's otherwise just a regular day around Dunder Mifflin. Well, regular in that Michael spends the day telling rumors to cover up one that's actually true, we find out that not all is what it seems in Stanley's life, and Andy is seriously questioning his sexuality. Like I said, just a normal day...
Continue reading The Office: Gossip (season premiere)
Posted Sep 9th 2009 10:31PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S01E02) After the terrific
premiere episode of Glee last May, it was probably inevitable that the second episode would have a hard time recapturing that euphoria. For the first few minutes, however,
Glee had succeeded. As Will made his entrance into McKinley High, high on the joy that the New Directions had brought back to his life and seeing it reflected in the lives of the students in the club, I related to the euphoria. I love that euphoria.
As the music to Dean Martin's "Ain't That A Kick in the Head" played (sans vocal) in the background, it seemed that
Glee was sailing. More on the rest of the show after the jump.
Continue reading Glee: Showmance
Posted Sep 4th 2009 2:32PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Casting, Reality-Free
It looks like
Megan Fox hosting the season premiere of Saturday Night Live is all but officially confirmed by the folks behind the show. And now we've gotten word that
U2 will be the first musical guest for the new season of SNL. They're in the midst of their U2 360 world tour promoting their latest album,
No Line on the Horizon.
I don't know if U2 has the same kind of pull on the kids today as they have had on my generation through the years, but in my eyes this is a pretty significant "get" for one of NBC's marquee shows.
Continue reading U2 reportedly to join Megan Fox for the SNL season premiere
Posted Sep 4th 2009 10:08AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, House, Reality-Free, So You Think You Can Dance
The only way Fox will air President Obama's prime time address next Wednesday will be if he joins the glee club. No, seriously, if the Prez could sing or dance with the kids at McKinley High School on the new Fox series,
Glee, he'd have a better chance of getting air time than he does as the Commander in Chief.
Fox is not expected to show President Obama's address to Congress.
Fox has already shown an unwillingness to interrupt prime time for
President Obama. Back in March,
the network chose not to air a press conference. To be honest, Obama has been on TV a lot more than President George W. Bush. All that prime time real estate is expensive, and the networks have squawked about how often Obama has requested the air time.
Continue reading Don't count on Fox giving up Glee for Obama
Posted Aug 20th 2009 2:46PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, OpEd, Episode Reviews
(S06E01) The producers of
Top Chef must have listened to the criticism from the last edition of the show, the one set in New York with the contestants housed in Brooklyn. Despite being in perhaps the most exciting culinary city in the world,
TC-NY was pedestrian. Well,
Top Chef season six, is in Las Vegas and judging by the premiere, the stakes -- as they said a few times -- have been set very high. The round-up of players was filled with James Beard awardees, Michelin star cooks, people who have restaurants already... and a couple of others who have something to prove.
Continue reading Top Chef: Las Vegas (season premiere)
Posted Aug 18th 2009 5:09PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Ratings, Reality-Free, Celebreality, Mad Men
Sometimes ratings can paint such interesting portraits of the American audience.
Mad Men set a series high and ranked as the top show on cable Sunday with its third season premiere. And yet, its victory on the night was only 0.1 million viewers over the premiere of E!s
Kourtney & Khloe Take Miami.
Those
K&K numbers make it the new highest premiere on E! since
The Anna Nicole Show premiered. A
record briefly held by Kendra's premiere earlier this summer
.So one the one hand we have one of the most deservedly acclaimed television shows of the past decade, and right there with it, running neck and neck, is yet another reality spin-off featuring rich people who are only famous because ... they're famous. I blame Paris Hilton. She was one of the first people who got famous for doing absolutely nothing.
Continue reading Mad Men debuts huge, but almost gets beat by a couple of Kardashians
Posted Aug 17th 2009 12:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Mad Men
(S03E01) The more things change, the more they stay the same. Don has returned to Betty, the baby's on the way, but all's not right in Don's world. There's turmoil in the office and a current of unrest thanks to the British takeover of Sterling Cooper.
But if you hoped, or believed, that Don's sojourn to Los Angeles and his contemplation of another life was a wake-up call, think again. Don Draper remains Dick Whitman. A leopard doesn't change his spots.
Continue reading Mad Men: Out of Town (season premiere)
Posted Aug 12th 2009 12:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Ratings, NCIS, Reality-Free
Only 42 days to go. That's how long until the season premiere of
NCIS. According to
Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, quoting exec producer Shane Brennan,
the first minute of NCIS is a mindblower. What could this possibly mean? Will someone die, or will we discover what happened to Ziva? Was that her being beaten and tortured in the closing scene of last season's finale?
Continue reading NCIS's premiere will begin with a bang
Posted Aug 8th 2009 1:00AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S08E01) Somewhere Sherwood Schwartz was smiling if he watched this season premiere of
Monk. Or else he was calling his attorney to sue for copyright infringement. I think it was more likely the former, because the tribute to
The Brady Bunch was sweet. More on that and the rest of Mr. Monk's return -- for his last season -- after the jump.
Continue reading Monk: Mr. Monk's Favorite Show (season premiere)
Posted Jan 6th 2009 9:32PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Scrubs, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S08E01) It's interesting how much attention
Scrubs gets from us TV-loving types, considering how little attention it gets from everyone else. Why is it?
Well, partially it's because of Bill Lawrence and the cast, who have been entertaining to cover and very press-friendly. But mostly,
it's because of the comedic potential the program showed over it's first couple of years, which included the ability to go from comedy to high drama in an instant and make it look easy.
The eighth(and final?) season premiere was more comedic than dramatic (the second episode of the night, "My Last Words," demonstrates this balance quite well), but it showed that Lawrence was serious when he told critics that he was going to dial down the silly and get back to what made people like the show to begin with.
Continue reading Scrubs: My Jerks (season premiere)
Posted Sep 30th 2008 9:01AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Life, Reality-Free
(S02E01) Ten months. That's how long its been since we've seen a fresh episode of Life. After the last episode aired in November there was nary a word about the show, save for reports of its renewal and a bit about casting changes. This left fans of the show in a bit of a tizzy. For Life wasn't just a dime-a-dozen criminal procedural, but a show with an underlying story about conspiracy and the search for justice. By the time the show ended its very short first season we were cheering Detective Charlie Crews as he was able to get a semblance of his freedom back.
Now we enter season two. And, as usual, the following question comes to mind: did it carry on the spirit of season one? Well yes, and possibly no. Click ahead to find out.
Continue reading Life: Find Your Happy Place (season premiere)
Posted Sep 29th 2008 1:07PM by Richard Keller
Filed under: OpEd, ER, Reality-Free
We all know that ER is famous for its deaths. Not only of the patients that are served by Chicago's County General but of its staff as well. Particularly in its emergency room. Fact of the matter is, there have been so many deaths of ER personnel that I'm surprised that a police investigation hasn't been opened to determined if they were natural or a bit suspicious. Some of these deaths have been shocking, such as Lucy Knight's during season six. Others were long in coming, like Mark Greene's peaceful death in season 8.
Continue reading Greg Pratt's fate on ER -- too soon?
Posted Sep 24th 2008 12:05AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: NCIS, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S06E01) All summer long,
NCIS fans have been simmering about how the team was broken up in
the season finale. It was bad enough that Jenny had died and a new director -- well, actually, the acting director -- was named to take her place, but then his first action was to reassign DiNozzo, McGee and David and give Gibbs three new agents. As the ads for
NCIS reminded us, "breaking up is hard to do."
Well, I'm relieved to report that the team may not be together, but they're still intact. It's not as confusing as it seems and if you watched tonight's return, it was clear that the powers that be knew what they were doing with the storyline. Picking up 126 days since the break up, you got the sense that Jethro was nearly as vexed about the changes as Abby, even though he was refraining from putting pictures and postcards on the bulletin board.
For more about how all the pieces of the puzzle have come together so that those that are scattered can still be whole, read after the jump.
Continue reading NCIS: Last Man Standing (season premiere)
Posted Sep 17th 2008 9:10AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: OpEd, House, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Episode Recaps
(S05E01) "This is Dr. House. He's too brilliant for introductions." -- Thirteen to House's patient of the week
Another season of House, another patient with a mysterious ailment. If there is one thing that has not changed in the five seasons that this medical procedural has aired it is the fact that someone is going to enter Princeton-Plainsboro with an illness that can't be determined until the very last minute. It's why House is still on the air. Well, there's that, and then there's the fact that Hugh Laurie is a damn fine actor. Oh, and the others on the show don't do so badly themselves.
So, what can one viewer look forward to for this new season? If you think same-old, same-old then you would be absolutely, totally....incorrect. Because things are a-changing in Greg House's universe -- actually have been changing since the death of Amber in last season's finale -- that he can't, or won't, stop. The result? Well, I would be writing my own death sentence if I revealed it to you here. So, come and join me for a recap of this week's episode.
Continue reading House: Dying Changes Everything (season premiere)
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