cw-related stories
Posted Oct 14th 2009 12:07PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Recently, I spent a couple of hours watching
Gilmore Girls on SoapNet. The experience put a smile on my face and reminded me that I miss the kind of dramedy that Amy Sherman-Palladino created on that show.
The show remains a near perfect blend of character, comedy, drama and emotion to me. So, when I read this morning that
Amy Sherman-Palladino is doing aproject at HBO about a mother-daughter relationship, I let out a "yeah."
True, true, true, Amy's last show was the disappointing sitcom -- hell, call it like it was, dreadful --
The Return of Jezebel James at Fox. No excuses. It was a mess. Still, I'm more than willing to give this writer another chance to soar again.
Continue reading HBO snags Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino
Posted Sep 26th 2009 12:27AM by Hemal Jhaveri
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Vampire Diaries
(S01E03) Why does every high school show have to do the obligatory football episode? Is this something that's still big for kids? Seriously, does this hierarchy of popularity still exist? Or are the writers just too old to know any better?
Anyway, this week Stefan tries out for the football team in a desperate attempt to not be so weird and creepy, and Elena, in an effort to get back to her "normal" life, goes back to cheerleading. That works for a few days, until Damon shows up and kills the history teacher/football coach Mr. Tanner. Yay for Damon!
Continue reading Vampire Diaries: Friday Night Bite
Posted Sep 18th 2009 12:44PM by Hemal Jhaveri
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Vampire Diaries
(S01E02) Two episodes in and I'm totally on board with the
bad-ass Damon love. People, he is so evil! And he looks like Rob Lowe. What is not to love? The second episode of Vampire Diaries was way more watchable than the pilot, mainly because we don't have to suffer through so much boring character exposition. This really freed up the writers to get creative with Damon and Stefan, which was a great boost. And aside from some scenery chewing at the end, a very well paced and exciting episode.
Continue reading The Vampire Diaries: The Night Of The Comet
Posted Sep 9th 2009 9:04AM by Michael Pascua
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Early Looks
For the thirteenth season of
America's Next Top Model nothing really has changed. The girls stand even less of a chance of being a successful model this season because of their well-advertised height deficit. Fans of the show will find the same exact program since
ANTM has been part of the CW lineup. I guess after twelve cycles, it's inevitable that we'd see a lot of the same.
Top Model will also be emphasizing the word "petite" for the height-challenged girls. There are points of bad overdubbing where the Jays voiced over the word "petite" because they didn't originally use it. If this season does well, it may become the catalyst for "
America's Next Top Plus-Sized Model."
Continue reading America's Next Top Model cycle thirteen -- An early look
Posted Aug 26th 2009 6:31PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Reality-Free
Cross promotions are not a new concept to TV heads, but this one cooked up by the folks behind the CW's
Vampire Diaries deserves a Peabody Award
. As
Brad mentioned earlier today,
The Vampire Diaries is being cross-promoted with the American Red Cross in which
the show is hosting its own blood drive.
What a great idea and a great cause! Just think of the other charitable promotions this will inspire other shows to tackle.
Continue reading Vampire Diaries' cross promotion could inspire more TV charities
Posted May 15th 2009 10:32AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Emmys, Reality-Free
They have feuds. They have babies (at least one of them). They have daily debates. But the ladies of
The View have no sway with
the Daytime Emmys. Well, that's not entirely correct. The ladies themselves, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Barbara Walters, Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, received an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Talk Show host(s), but their show was snubbed.
Whether it's deemed a Talk Show/Entertainment or Talk Show/Information, it's not deemed worthy. But
The View's missing nomination is merely one of the many oddities of
the 36th Annual Daytime Emmy nominations. Something is really bizarre in the batch of noms.
Continue reading Weirdness in the Daytime Emmys nominations
Posted Apr 1st 2009 12:25AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reaper, Reality-Free
(S01E05) "Lookin' sharp, Buffy, lookin' sharp." - Devil to Sam while he was holding a wooden stakeSeason two of
Reaper continues to entertain: it's funny, smart and unexpected, while still delivering all the things we loved about
Reaper in season one. From using Sam's zombie dad to scare the poop out of Ben in the car, to the tongue-in-cheek shout-out to
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this episode delivered.
One thing this episode did suffer from, though, is something I feared. Because they've introduced so many characters, we only saw a brief bit of them this week (and we didn't see Nina at all), and I was left wanting more of some. I guess we got a good fill of the dad, and it was so great to have demon Tony back. But I missed Nina, and I craved more Morgan. I'm wondering, too, if Kristen will end up being more than a bizarre sex symbol for Sock.
Continue reading Reaper: I Want My Baby Back
Posted Mar 25th 2009 1:02AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reaper, Reality-Free
(S02E04) Reaper pulled it out again with another winner of an episode. Something tells me they know exactly what they are doing this season, and I'm loving every second of it.
Although I enjoyed the addition of Morgan, the Devil's other son, very much, I was getting a bit irritated that they kept introducing new characters -- Kristen, Nina, Morgan -- and just left the whole storyline with Sam's dad floating out there. I was getting nervous that they didn't really know what to do with it, so they were just going to drop it and hope we didn't remember. Well, they got back to it tonight, and I can't wait to see it all come together.
But we'll get to that later. Let's talk about the rest of the episode first...
Continue reading Reaper: The Favorite
Posted Mar 11th 2009 1:10AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reaper, Reality-Free
How'd
Reaper do this week? As much as I enjoyed it, this episode has left me with a few longings for more. Don't worry, I wasn't wishing I was watching the 13
American Idol wannabes performing over on FOX, but I do think there are places that
Reaper could go that would be extremely satisfying.
In fact, they went there at the end of season one. The conspiracy with Sam's dad (um, does Sam even know that his dad is alive?), the demon rebellion, Sam's true parentage ... I want more! When I saw Andrew Airlie's name in the opening credits, I got excited, thinking we were headed back to the darker side of
Reaper, to the secrets of Sam's family (remember his mom digging up his dad at the end of season one?) and really getting to some good stuff.
Bah, I guess I'll have to wait for that, but I'm hoping they'll deliver.
Reaper did deliver laughs and a bit of a story arc tonight.
Continue reading Reaper: Dirty Sexy Mongol
Posted Mar 9th 2009 3:04PM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
I've never seen Ashlee Simpson-Wentz act. I know she played a janitor or something on
7th Heaven, but I kind of missed the entire eleven-year run of that series. I've also never purchased and Ashlee Simpson album, so while I have heard her sing, or you know,
not sing, I can't say I'm a huge fan. So I don't really know why I'm excited to hear she's
joining the cast of CW's revamped Melrose Place, but I am.
I watched the original
Melrose Place off and on, and while it was perfect mid-90s soapy goodness, I don't really feel that there's a burning need for its return. However, the new
90210 is doing pretty well for the fledgling CW, so I certainly can't blame them for taking the next logical step in bringing back its spinoff.
Continue reading Am I the only one excited about Ashlee Simpson-Wentz on Melrose Place?
Posted Mar 3rd 2009 10:05PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reaper, Reality-Free
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(S02E01) "Shut your mouth, that's my sister! I have dibs." -- Sock, to Ben who referred to Sock's stepsister as "smokin' hot"Reaper's back, and our resident lovable losers are in full form: homeless (evicted from their apartment), jobless (though they get them back with a little blackmail), Sam's in the doghouse with Andi, and it's just another devilish day at The Work Bench.
That all may add up to a typical episode of
Reaper for you, but they've taken a couple of steps to bring this show to the next level, as well as bringing us everything we loved so much about the first season.
Continue reading Reaper: A New Hope (season premiere)
Posted Dec 3rd 2008 8:28PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Programming, Pickups and Renewals, Reaper, Reality-Free
I have to admit, I've been slightly obsessed with checking the
mid-season replacement schedule over at The Futon Critic. You see, I've been waiting to find out when one of my favorite shows from last season,
Reaper, would be coming back.
Finally, I need wait no more: The CW has finally announced
Reaper's timeslot, and it's not half bad. Or, I guess it is half bad, depending on how you look at it.
First things first: it's not on Friday night, which is something I feared because CW's schedule is so wide open on that night. So that's good, right?
Continue reading Reaper is finally on the CW's mid-season schedule
Posted Dec 3rd 2008 7:42PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals
Director Sam Raimi, the man who created such gut-wrenching horrors as
The Evil Dead trilogy and
Spider Man 3, takes his talent for disemboweling innocent people and chopping off limbs with a dull ax to television ... for a reality show?!?
13 - Fear is Real premieres
tonight January 7 on The CW at 8 p.m. eastern. It puts 13 innocent (not really) people in the middle of a fake horror movie, and the last one standing on their bloody stumps takes home the grand prize.
The reality show aims to do for horror movies what
Next Action Star did for action movies - rip them off and turn them into another schlock reality show that requires little to no creative ideas or thought.
Continue reading Sam Raimi gets into reality with Fear is Real
Posted Oct 14th 2008 2:27PM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Casting, Reality-Free, 90210
Despite my best efforts, I'll admit it:
90210 has sucked me in. I'm not proud of it, but CW just has a way of doing that to me.
90210 isn't a great show: the acting is so-so and the plots are completely predictable . Nevertheless, every week I find myself inexplicably drawn to the goings on at West Beverly High. Apparently it's not just the audience who's getting sucked in: the actors are as well. Despite sounding like she wasn't interested in appearing beyond her initial four-episode run,
Shannen Doherty is returning to 90210.
Doherty has signed up for two episodes of the CW series with the possibility for more. Doherty has been joined on the
90210 set by her costar on the original
90210,
Jennie Garth. Both of their characters left town in a recent episode, but Garth has always planned on coming back. After all, her character, Kelly Taylor, is actually employed at West Beverly, while Doherty's Brenda Walsh seems to have come back solely to react to Kelly's storylines and babysit her son.
Continue reading Doherty returns to her favorite zip code
Posted Oct 5th 2008 9:39AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Ratings, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Private Practice, Dirty Sexy Money, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Reality-Free
You know the one I'm talking about. After the writers strike ended last year in February, most of the networks made the interesting decision to just go ahead and shelve most of their freshmen series for the season, even if they'd picked up their "back nine" orders. Instead, they thought they'd launch the shows to big fanfare this fall, almost as if they were new again. Unfortunately, it looks like this plan backfired on them tremendously.
Across the board, those
sophomore series that went on hiatus for more than six months are way down in the ratings. Apparently, absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder when it comes to the television landscape. It makes the instant gratification generation forget you existed. And stop caring.
Continue reading The long hiatus is killing second-year shows, and some older ones
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