TVSquad

Big Brother 9 is premiering tonight on CBS! I repeat, Big Brother 9 is premiering tonight on CBS!

Several of us here at TV Squad couldn't be happier (myself included), so in honor of this off-cycle winter season of Big Brothery goodness, we'll be hosting a live chat during the one hour season premiere.

The chat will begin a few minutes before the show starts and can be accessed via the link in the recap post. The recap post will hit the front page around the same time so check back then if you'd like to join the conversation.

Seriously, what else are you going to be watching tonight? Come join the chat and let your opinions be known in real-time with like-minded Big Brother fans. What could be better? I promise to bring the beer if you guys bring the slop.

See everyone tonight at 9:00 EST.

(S01E01) TV Squad has already done an early look at this series. What follows is a more in-depth review of the pilot episode.

To recap, the episode begins in 1999. It takes place between the second and third movies in the franchise. Sarah Connor (played by Lena Headey) and her son John Connor (played by Thomas Dekker) are on the run from the future.

In the future, John Connor saves mankind from a supercomputer called Skynet that was built by a human creator and financed by the military. Shortly after going online, Skynet became hellbent on making the human race extinct. Unfortunately, future John wasn't able to finish the job before Skynet invented a working time machine. Skynet also uses cyborg foot soldiers called Terminators to do its dirty work.

Sarah and John have to be careful not to leave any clues to their location while they're on the run from both the law and the future. If they do, at best they'll be arrested. At worst, Skynet can find them and send Terminators back in time to kill John before he saves the world.

Episode spoilers after the jump...

If you've been following my posts from the New York Television Festival, you may remember my mentioning that I'd post details of the Chuck premiere the festival was going to hold on Friday. Well, that didn't really turn out as planned. The "premiere" turned out to be just a screening: no red carpet, no panel, no one involved with the show attending. So I decided to skip posting about that (though I enjoyed the pilot, which is one of the few I haven't seen) and move right along to the premiere for Pushing Daisies, which was held on Saturday night.

You've already read a little about it, as I had director Barry Sonnenfeld address stories about cost overruns on the show. But, as I also said, that wasn't the only thing I asked him that peeved him a little bit. More on that after the jump.

One of the fun side benefits of covering the New York Television Festival is that you get to see a few selected fall pilots projected up on a big screen. Oh, and you also get to talk to some of that show's actors and producers, as well. FOX's New Amsterdam was the first of three network pilots to premiere at the festival; shot in New York, it's a procedural whose main character, NYPD homicide detective John Amsterdam, has lived in the city for over 400 years, searching for his one true love. If it sounds familiar, you're right.

More details and pictures after the jump.

Drew Carey and The Price is Right will premiere on October 15th on CBS. Just like Bob Barker's final episode, Drew Carey's inaugural episode will include some pretty spendy prizes. While the network isn't saying exactly what will be won, it does say that contestants will have a chance to win "some of the most expensive cars" ever on the game show.

Carey began filming the 36th season of The Price is Right on August 15th. He had a slight mishap when he got his arm wrenched in one of the games, but now it sounds like smooth sailing for Carey. The Price is Right continues filming through October and apparently free tickets are still available, if you're going to be in the Los Angeles area. CBS has now made tickets available on this website.

In March, I told you about a new TV Land series called Back to the Grind in which celebrities from classic TV shows actually attempt to do the jobs their characters performed on television. I told you it debuted on October 10, but clearly I was lying because it actually kicks off this Wednesday, July 18 at 10:30 p.m.

If you don't have TV Land, don't worry. You can actually watch full episodes on TV Land's site starting July 16. Right now you can just see a few clips, but I think they give a pretty good idea of what to expect. I especially enjoyed watching Erik Estrada continuously fail both the written examination and driving test for his motorcycle license. Also, Loni Anderson doesn't look that much different than she did when she was on WKRP in Cincinnati. It's almost as if she had some kind of surgery performed on herself to make her look younger than she really is.

The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had a certain recommendation for ad men. It went a little something like this, "By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself...there's no rationalization for what you do...you are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are f@cked, and you are f@cking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your f@cking soul. Kill yourself...quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every f@cking thing on this planet."

The little town of Springfield, VT (pop. 9,300) won the nationwide contest to host the premiere of The Simpsons Movie. It beat out 13 other Springfield, USAs for the honor based on voting on the USA Today website.

Springfield, VT was a last-minute entry into the contest. City leaders said they didn't even hear about the contest until the videos were almost due, so they hurried up and slapped something together. That video is pretty darn good, actually. It begins with a live action re-creation of The Simpsons opening credits, which comes to an abrupt stop when a man impersonating Homer Simpson sees a giant, pink doughnut. He chases it around town-- showing off Springfield, VT in the meantime and introducing characters, such as a post-pubescent Bart. Whoever wrote the script definitely has knowledge of The Simpsons. You can see the winning video (and the other contenders) here.

Springfield, VT will get to premiere The Simpsons Movie on July 26th. It opens nationwide on July 27th.

For a few months now, we've been telling you about how 16 towns of Springfield across the United States are all competing to host the premiere of The Simpsons Movie. The cities have been sending their videos to 20th Century Fox to show why they're the real Springfield.

The city of Springfield, Oregon, for example, did a Bill Kurtis-style investigative report on where the real Springfield is and determined it was in Oregon. There was even a cameo by Tony Hawk! The city of Springfield, Massachusetts had a similar premise, but with higher production quality. Theirs includes a message from Sen. Ted Kennedy.

You can see all the videos here, where USA Today is hosting a vote from now through July 9th on which Springfield deserves the premiere. The website doesn't say whether our voting will actually determine the premiere location, though.

(S01E01) Unlike my esteemed colleagues at various print publications, I did not have access to John from Cincinnati's press screener weeks before the show's broadcast. I would have to write my review within an hour or two after watching the premiere with the rest of America. This is all well and good, but I was a little nervous about what I would make of David Milch's latest outing without some time to reflect. I didn't want my commentary to be mired in superfluous comments about how Ed O'Neill and Rebecca De Mornay are looking these days. This series is drawing on an "everything and the kitchen sink" range of literary and philosophical references. It deserves more from me so I prepared by reading everything that was available – namely the script, interviews with Milch and the early reviews.

Had I known that television shows were just going to premiere all their pilots online well before their air dates, I wouldn't have had to move all the way to Los Angeles for the insider privilege. But, we, the internet savvy, are being rewarded for our pop culture geekitude with such treats as HBO's online premiere of Flight of the Conchords over a month before its broadcast on June 17th at 10:30PM. You can watch New Zealand's "fourth most popular folk parody duo" in their stateside series debut on the show's MySpace site or, starting Monday, at HBO.com.

ABC is giving Traveler some love. What is Traveler? Well, I'd honestly be surprised if you remembered. It was on ABC's fall schedule, which was announced almost a year ago, and then kept getting bumped back to later dates. The series is about two college grads who end up getting framed for a terrorist act by another college buddy. Bob has been looking forward to it for nearly a year now!

Earlier this month, ABC announced Traveler would premiere on May 30th, but now the network has bumped up that premiere and given it a sweet time slot. The pilot episode of Traveler will air on May 10th at 10 pm, following a new episode of Grey's Anatomy. Then, the pilot will air again on the May 30th date.

I'm not sure if this is a good marketing idea. It seems odd to give a sneak preview of a show and then make people remember that they need to pick it up again during a holiday week (Memorial Day).

Despite all the rave reviews and my own personal adoration for This American Life, I did not subscribe to Showtime so I could see the televised version of the PBS radio program. But Showtime is crafty. The network has posted this week's premiere episode of This American Life online (for free!) and now I am in love with it. I never thought that This American Life needed pictures to go with its stories, but the story of Chance the bull seems like it would be lost without video.

Take a look at the premiere and tell me what you think. I like it, but I still think I'm too cheap to get Showtime. I keep hoping they'll all be available on iTunes.

(By the way, if you are a fan of This American Life, you'll probably get a kick out of this parody by San Francisco sketch comedy group, Kasper Hauser. Their Ira Glass impression is dead-on.)

[Via Pop Candy]

(S01E01) I went into the series premiere of October Road with very low expectations. The reviews, by and large, ranged from "this show is so-so," to "this show blows."

But still, something made me want to watch. It was set in the greater Boston area. (I live in the Boston area.) A character wears a Boston Red Sox cap all the time. (There are many different kinds of Sox caps in my house.) The main character's a writer . . . you get the idea.

With the gift of the time slot after Grey's Anatomy -- but the curse of being up against the NCAA first round games -- October Road was given a golden opportunity that many new series aren't.

And it kind of faltered. But, if ABC gives it enough time (a precious, almost non-existent commodity in today's primetime environment), I think there's a chance that, like the freshman series Brothers & Sisters, it could, repeat, could right its ship. If it stops being so heavy-handed that is.

Holy history porn. If you dig Rome, and Deadwood does it for your fictive nonfiction-loving self, then Showtime's The Tudors may be right up your alley. It's a journey through Henry VIII's kingship and many, many marriages with more tits, ass, intrigue and bloody violence than you can shake a royal stick at.

Showtime is offering a VIP preview of The Tudors' first two episodes online. (The password is "king.") The series, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, premieres on Sunday, April 1st at 10PM. The series focuses primarily on the king's affair with Anne Boleyn, his obsession with producing a male heir and the political intrigue of the court. And, did I mention that it's essentially softcore for the Anglophile set?

[Via Pop Candy]