Last night I watched three episodes of Sherri. I didn't plan on doing it, and I'm still not quite sure how it happened, but I watched three episodes (two repeats and one new episode). It's not bad. I mean, it's incredibly sitcommy, but it's entertaining, and Sherri Shepherd has always been a great comedic actress, appearing on shows like Friends and Suddenly Susan, and of course her regular roles on 30 Rock, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Less Than Perfect.
Last night's new episode was the Halloween episode. What did you think?
(S03E18) Army Wives is the highest rated series in the history of Lifetime, and this season has done little to infringe on the show's popularity. For me, though, this past season has been a bit of a drag... until tonight's dramatic finale. In the tradition of the show, cliffhanger endings are its specialty and more than a few lives were torn asunder by the time the credits rolled on tonight's show.
There's a lot up in the air going into next season (which has already been ordered by Lifetime, so don't worry about these storylines not being resolved). Before looking at the couples, one by one, overall I think Army Wives could use some shaking up. There's a bit of complacency setting in, but more on that and the couples after the jump.
(S01E13) Drop Dead Diva has lived up to the pilot/premiere, and in some ways, exceeded it. The Deb/Jane dichotomy has morphed into someone different than either pure Deb or pure Jane. Brooke Elliott is wonderful as "New Jane" with just a hint of Deb. As season one comes to a close, even if the writers hadn't left us with a cliffhanger ending, I'd be more than anxious to tune in next year.
There were two interesting cases on the docket for the finale, with Stacy offering lots of comic relief as second stool -- chair -- to Grayson in a lawsuit brought by a lingerie model who'd been fired because she went public with her surviving breast cancer. Jane's case was more complex, but not until after it had been won. More on both cases, and Jane's dilemma on the dating front, after the jump.
The second-season premiere doesn't really focus on Rita's music so much. While we do still see her at practice, she's mainly dealing with mom stuff, specifically in relation to Hallie, her oldest daughter. In fact, what we have is a perennial family-sitcom classic-- the parent having to give the child "The Talk."
I feel sorry for the poor intern who had to put this thing together. I understand that Lifetime is a cable network and all, but they've become pretty high-profile lately. I would think that if they were going to send out press kits, then maybe they could spring for more than some confetti and crappy stickers printed out on the office ink jet.
Even Sit Down, Shut Up, which is last press kit I did, at least had a t-shirt. It was actually a super-comfy American Apparel shirt, and I still wear it around the house. The Rita Rocks/Sherri press kit, on the other hand, is a do-it-yourself lunchbox-type thing, filled with confetti, containing the DVDs, a bunch of crappy candy, and some un-inflated balloons. It's kind of the saddest thing I've ever seen.
(S06E04) Project Runway loves messing with their designers. This week's challenge was that the models were their clients. It's not groundbreaking (season one's Wedding Dress Challenge comes to mind), but the real challenge is trying to tell these girls that they're delusional and not designers. Epperson's model Matar wanted an orange, punk, flowing, tiger dress. Thankfully, he took pieces and translated it correctly.
Tim announces that this is the first one-day challenge. This group has it easy; season five's first four challenges were all one-day. They probably wanted to make sure Johnny didn't have another mental breakdown and quit.
(S06E03) Early episodes of Project Runway throw me off. There are too many contestants, and a lot of them get lost in the shuffle. A lot of the designers have five seconds here and there, but the editing team chooses which ones we get to know.
This week was a team challenge where everyone was paired up in a school-yard pick. Who is Irina anyway? The designers had the chance to talk to locals, but the information they gave was useless. If someone didn't know beach wear was influenced by tropical colors, comfort, and functionality, they deserve to lose the challenge.
A long-awaited merger between two cable channels has been finalized...uh, finally.
A&E Networks aquired Lifetime as part of a deal between Hearst, Disney and NBC Universal. The deal makes Lifetime a sub-company in the A&E empire.
The deal puts Disney and Hearst in the front row seats of both networks with NBC in a distant third. This means that NBC can sell its holdings in Lifetime to the other two parties within the next 15 years.
There doesn't seem to be any serious announcement or confirmations of a name or brand change under their new owners. Lifetime will still be called Lifetime.
In the war between the cable channels, score this week for Lifetime over Bravo. The battle for Project Runway had been a legal wrangle that delayed Lifetime getting to show the fashion reality series until last Thursday, but when it finally appeared it was a ratings bonanza. Project Runway was the highest-rated series premiere in Lifetime's history. That's 25 years!
(S06E01)Project Runway is back! With few exceptions, the show seems remarkably unchanged by the move to Lifetime, so those who were fearful that without the Bravo touch Project Runway would cease to be... Project Runway, your fears should be allayed. The one significant change, one I'm still not sure about, is the move from New York to Los Angeles. New York just screams fashion to me, the rag trade, and the buzz of Seventh Avenue. L.A. doesn't, but we shall see how it plays out.
Meanwhile, Heidi, Michael, Nina and Tim were there, the touchstones of the show, and as the new contestants were unveiled, PR was off and running.
In a smart programming move, Lifetime ran a Project Runway: All Stars edition before the Season Six premiere. Seeing familiar faces from the Bravo years immediately sent a message to viewers that this was the same Project Runway.
Joan Cusack has made a career of finding the comedically crumbling foundations beneath what are at first normal-seeming characters. The two-time Oscar nominee also has a knack for making the most out of her roles, and in the new Lifetime movie Acceptance, both of her greatest skills are on display.
In the movie, which debuts on Saturday at 9PM ET, Cusack plays Nina Rockefeller, the hard-driving and high-strung mother of the movie's protagonist, Taylor (played by Mae Whitman of Arrested Development). The movie examines the pressure on high school overachievers to go to just the "right" college, and the story is told in a way that looks at it from both the students' and the parents' perspectives.
Cusack called me from Chicago (where she lives full-time) earlier this week. We talked about college pressures, if the notion of a Lifetime movie has changed, and why she loves working with her brother John so damn much.
See, this is a reason why cable is becoming the best place to watch TV. Lifetime has picked up Drop Dead Diva for a second season. The show is a real chick-flick kind of comedy/drama that has done well in the ratings ... for Lifetime.
The 2.6-3 million viewers would mean a cancellation on the networks – think Pushing Daisies – but on Lifetime, the charm and whimsy of Drop Dead Diva, the appeal to the female demographic, and the pairing with Army Wives on Sunday nights spells success.
Last week on The View, Sherri Shepherd showed off her new body, clad in a bathing suit, and now it seems there was more to her remake than just good health and looking better. Shepherd's Lifetime sitcom, Sherri, will premiere on October 5, and you just know it's her intention to score a big time success. Lifetime has had this in the works for months. This is the network's first fully-owned sitcom, so you gotta believe the net has a lot of faith in Sherri.
The show is based on Shepherd's stand-up, which is the same formula that worked for Roseanne, Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), Tim Allen (Home Improvement) and a half-dozen other comics, and the exposure Sherri gets from The View won't hurt at all.
The same demographic that watches The View tunes in to Lifetime shows like Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives. Oh, and don't forget the Lifetime movies. Ladies love Lifetime.
In preparation for its big August 20th season premiere on Lifetime (and, evidently, to interrupt me when I'm trying to watch a few episodes of Frasier and Will & Grace), Project Runway has been running endless ads, loud and proud. I'm sorry, did I say "loud and proud"? I meant "weirdly sentimental and full of slow-mo."
The commercials featuring individual designers from the upcoming season were almost touching enough to confuse me. I mean, I'm used to the super-catty "I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to be the snarky queen bee" sort of ads. Are these just to reel in the average Lifetime viewer, or is this an early indication of Project Runway's slightly new voice?
So the new season of Project Runway premieres on August 20, on Lifetime after a legal battle with Bravo and a long wait (filming ended nine months ago). But there isn't just one Project Runway this season, there's two, if you include the spinoff Models of the Runway, which will show the models they use on the show talking about what went on behind the scenes.
Coming next season: Gaffers of the Runway, where the crew that works on the electricity/lighting on the set will talk about the models, and then Project Craft Services, where the people who supply the food to the cast and crew will talk about what the models eat (or don't eat) and which of the designers eats the most.
(S03E18) 
(S01E13) Drop Dead Diva has lived up to the 
A long-awaited merger between two cable channels has been finalized...uh, finally. 
(S06E01) Project Runway is back! With few exceptions, the show seems remarkably unchanged by 
Joan Cusack has made a career of finding the comedically crumbling foundations beneath what are at first normal-seeming characters. The two-time Oscar nominee also has a knack for making the most out of her roles, and in the 
Last week on 
In preparation for its big August 20th season premiere on Lifetime (and, evidently, to interrupt me when I'm trying to watch a few episodes of Frasier and Will & Grace), 
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