Spike-related stories
Posted Oct 15th 2009 9:03AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Reality-Free, True Blood, Vampire Diaries
Vampires aren't scary anymore. They haven't been for a while.
Anne Rice saw to that while she was making her fortune turning vampires into the kind of delicate camp caricatures you see hosting cooking shows on Bravo. It's continued through
Twilight and every
Twilight clone coming down the pipe. Still,
Twilight can build it's own Federal Reserve Bank now, and no one gives a cuss what I think.
Now, I've officially typed the word "Twilight" way more than I wanted to today, and I need to get to the point. So, vampires will be the cause celebre of
Spike TV's 4th Annual "Scream.," Tuesday, October 27 at 10 PM ET/PT.
Continue reading Spike TV's Scream special celebrates our nation's vampires
Posted Jul 29th 2009 2:31PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, TV Squad Polls, Reality-Free
I haven't jumped on the vampire bandwagon. I don't have any real interest in
Twilight or
True Blood or any other vampire show/movie that starts with a T (
The Vampire Diaries starts this fall on The CW). But I've liked them for a long time, from the Christopher Lee films to Kolchak to
Forever Knight.
Grady Hendrix at Slate says that vampire stories suck (ha ha) now, because it's more about feelings and psychology and vampires having normal lives and very little about the biting of people.
Posted Jun 20th 2009 10:35AM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Late Night, Interviews, Reality-Free
In his breakout role on
NewsRadio fifteen years ago, Joe Rogan played Joe Garrelli, a maintenance man with deceptively deep springs of knowledge. In a sense, Rogan has been playing that role for his whole career, hosting
Fear Factor and
The Man Show, commentating for the UFC, while writing increasingly smart stand-up comedy. Rogan's new special,
Talking Monkeys in Space (Spike TV, June 20 midnight), is his best work to date.
Rogan takes on the legalization of marijuana, Dr. Phil, and technology with brutal logic. His last television day gig,
Game Show In Your Head, is over but he says he doesn't mind. He's still doing what he loves most - stand-up comedy and commentating for the UFC, and he's got a new Web series on Crackle.com, a sort of
Inside the Actors Studio for stand-up comedians, he says will start within the next couple of months.
I spoke with him about all of that, how having a one-year old daughter has changed his perspective, how his personal philosophies have evolved, and the treatment of his frequent rival Carlos Mencia on a recent episode of
South Park, in which Mencia was beheaded by Kanye West for stealing a joke he couldn't explain.
Continue reading Talking Monkeys and the evolution of Joe Rogan
Posted Jun 7th 2009 5:00PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free
My 14-year-old son is not only big into history, he's also big into warriors. So watching Spike's
Deadliest Warrior has become a family affair in our house. I guess they've been playing a lot of marathons lately, because I'm seeing one ferocious battle after the next, each pitting one fierce historical warrior against another. I am learning so much!
I'd never heard of William Wallace or Shaka Zulu, but last night, I got a primer on both of these tough warriors. William Wallace was a 13th century Scottish Knight who had an epic poem written about him and inspired films like
Braveheart. Shaka Zulu was a Zulu king who reigned during the first half of the 19th century and was eventually assassinated by his half-brothers. That's tough!
Deadliest Warrior is beautifully violent and pulls no punches in telling us exactly how to lop someone's head off with a sword or pierce a vital organ with an axe. We get step-by-step instructions on how a Shaolin Monk uses twin hooks or how the Italian Mafia wields a Tommy gun. From brain matter to entrails to gut spillage, it's all there.
Continue reading My son is making me watch Deadliest Warrior
Posted May 17th 2009 2:27PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, Jane After Dark
Well,
you guys were absolutely right. Season five of
Angel is awesome, and I'm so glad I slugged through some of the earlier seasons that didn't exactly float my vampire boat.
The writing in season five is excellent, the characters are both fun and multidimensional (especially Wesley, whose story only gets more and more tragic), and it's just a great all-around season. Here are five reasons why I loved this season as much as any TV show (including
Buffy).
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Five reasons why Angel season five is awesome
Posted May 2nd 2009 10:10AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, Jane After Dark
Last week, I devoted my first
Jane After Dark column to my
top five Buffy moments. I was thrilled to read all the responses, both here on
TV Squad and at
Whedonesque, where the post was picked up. Fans of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer are a passionate bunch!
This week, I thought it would be fun to delve into my favorite Buffy hookups. One that didn't make the list but holds a special place in my heart is Giles and Joyce. It was a fleeting moment, but one that was fun and would have made for great storytelling had it continued.
But who to pair Buffy up with -- Spike, Angel or Riley? What about Spike and Drusilla? And while Willow and Tara had a special love affair, there's a lot to be said for Willow and Oz. And what of Xander? Sure, he and Anya had a fun romance, but his hookups with Cordelia and even Faith were intense in their own way.
Oh the choices! Read on for my thoughts, and please add your own in the comments below.
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Top five Buffy hookups
Posted Apr 25th 2009 11:02AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: TV Royalty, TV on DVD, OpEd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, Jane After Dark
I'm starting a new column here on
TV Squad called "Jane After Dark." Some of you know I work the "night shift" here at the Squad, editing and scheduling posts into the wee hours. I'm a big multi-tasker, so I also use those hours to get caught up on all the great shows I've missed along the way.
Over the past year, I've watched some really cool shows, including
Six Feet Under,
The Sopranos,
Moonlight,
Weeds,
Entourage,
Gossip Girl, and many others. So I thought it would be fun to write about my After Dark musings, and I hope you'll chime in with your own thoughts about whatever I'm watching.
I just finished
Joss Whedon's magnificent
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I loved so many things about the show. No one could look as stylish as Buffy as she slayed those vampires. Angel and Spike were both hot in their own way. The love between Willow and Tara was sweet and gentle, but also powerful. And the characters continued to grow and evolve throughout the series. By the last episode, you really felt like you knew these characters and had grown right along with them.
Continue reading Jane After Dark: Top five Buffy moments
Posted Feb 12th 2009 10:01AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Pickups and Renewals
One of your television's least-appreciated funnymen is getting a second wind on cable again.
The Upright Citizens Brigade's Matt Walsh and fellow founding member Trotter, er, Ian Roberts have landed their first starring roles in
a show he created for Spike.
It's called
Players, names after a sports bar his character runs with his brother as part of his eternal life fantasy to hit on hot waitresses and spend his days yelling at an HD television. Think of it as
Cheers, but with more penis jokes and a Carla that doesn't make your eyes bleed.
Continue reading Adair, er, UCB's Matt Walsh returning to star status on Spike
Posted Jan 23rd 2009 1:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Pickups and Renewals
It's been done for business executives, wrestlers and singers, and now potential professional football players will be
getting their chance to compete for their dreams. Michael Irvin is hosting a reality television show on Spike in which the winner will get a spot on the Dallas Cowboys training camp roster. The judges are going to be former football players and coaches.
I'm surprised someone at the NFL didn't think of this earlier. Perhaps they did but they were afraid fans would take the sport less seriously. The candidates will need a football background, but not much (more than high school). This is definitely on the right network for this particular type of reality television.
I'm not a football fan, so I'd like to ask anybody out there that is one: what do you think of this? Is this something you would legitimately be interested in watching or is it a waste of a spot in the roster?
Posted Dec 31st 2008 10:01AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Industry, Programming, OpEd, Cable/Satellite, News and Gossip
Have been itching for a fix of
South Park,
Spongebob or
Bonanza?
Well, bite down on some leather, drink plenty of fluids, and get ready for some long nights of withdrawal, because
Viacom is pulling 18 channels off the air from all of Time Warner Cable's outlets in protest over their recent carriage fee raises.
That means if you're a TWC customer and a fan of anything on Comedy Central, VH1, Spike, Nickelodeon, Logo, CMT or (if you're completely blind and deaf) MTV, you're boned.
Continue reading Viacom going black on Time Warner Cable
Posted Nov 19th 2008 2:05PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
I think that in the most grossly general way, TV shows can be separated into three groups: the shows that get a ton of viewers and everyone knows about (
American Idol,
Two and a Half Men,
Lost, etc), shows that don't get quite as many viewers but are well-known anyway (
30 Rock,
Burn Notice,
Mad Men,
The Shield), and a third category of shows that are more niche. They're probably on cable or public television and may even be on at odd times. They have their fan base, but a lot of people probably don't even know they exist.
That's what this list is, the five shows that I've been enjoying lately, away from the more mainstream shows that I watch every week (
The Mentalist,
30 Rock,
Lost,
Mad Men,
Burn Notice,
Chuck,
Heroes,
The Simpsons,
60 Minutes). They're quirky, interesting, and they're probably shows you should check out too.
Continue reading Five shows I've been watching (and you should check out too) - VIDEOS
Posted Jul 11th 2008 10:43AM by Keith McDuffee
Filed under: Subtle Subtitles, Retro Squad, Reality-Free, Cheers
Welcome to Subtle Subtitles. For those of you who are uninitiated to the purpose of this feature, we're asking you to come up with your funniest quote or description for what's going on in the screen grab we choose for the week. Winners are announced in the following Friday's contest.
Last contest's winner:
Dorv"You know, Dru was a 20th level dungeon master, but I could never get how the bloody game worked..."This week, I couldn't resist using the image from my
Ken Levine and Cheers post ...
Posted Jul 10th 2008 8:42AM by Erin Martell
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, Video
The makers of
MXC are not happy with the "creative" minds behind ABC's summer hit
Wipeout.
Spike initially called out the Wipeout folks in a press release announcing the
MXC marathon,
"MXC, The Original, Not The Ripoff, Weekend." Now Larry Strawther,
MXC's executive producer, is
upset with ABC and YouTube for removing a video that Strawther released in order to establish
Wipeout's ripoff status.
The video in question is after the jump.
Strawther has also accused YouTube of "[altering] the search results algorithm to benefit ABC and punish
MXC." He's right; a search using the terms "
MXC" and "
Wipeout" leads you to videos showing motocross wipeouts. Strange.
Continue reading MXC's feud with Wipeout continues - VIDEO
Posted Jun 28th 2008 2:09PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, In the Limelight, Celebrities, Reality-Free
No, it's not Adrien Brody's snarky older brother. It's
David Pasquesi, one of the stars of Spike TV's first original half-hour comedy,
The Factory.
Looking at
Pasquesi's IMDb page, he's done a fair amount of TV and film work, but the majority of his experience comes from both theater and improv. He currently does shows and occasionally teaches at Chicago's IO (Improv Olympic). Back in the day, he honed his improv chops under the tutelage of the legendary Del Close and was part of the class that developed The Harold. An improv geek's reaction to that would be "Holy crap!" and everyone else should be thinking, "Who's Harold?" Yeah, don't worry about it. If this interests you though, check out
this great interview he did back in '06, all about his work in improv.
Continue reading David Pasquesi: In the Limelight - VIDEOS
Posted Jun 26th 2008 6:02PM by Brett Love
Filed under: OpEd, Cable/Satellite, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, So You Think You Can Dance
I'm going to hazard the guess that if you are a regular visitor to TV Squad that you, like me, probably watch more television than the average bear. Partly out of good old fashioned curiosity, and partly because I'm paying for all of those channels so I might as well use them, I make it a point to cover as much of my cable TV package as I can when time allows. Doing so, you end up finding some odd and interesting things. After the jump, five things I've learned from my cable TV over the last week or so.
Continue reading Things I learned from my cable TV
Next Page >
The TV Squad Podcast: Vik Sahay of Chuck, Oprah talk, brutal timeslots, and more!
TV Squad Ten: Top Ten ESPN shows from worst to first
Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
