series-related stories
Posted May 8th 2009 7:08PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Activision Blizzard is looking at the possibility of
creating a concert tour and reality television show based on their popular video game
Guitar Hero. Admittedly, I'm not a video game fanatic and have never played the game, but I don't get how such a program would work.
Would it be a competition to see which gamer could pretend to play the guitar the best, or would it simply be following a bunch of
Guitar Hero enthusiasts in their day-to-day lives? My guess is the former. I know a few people that actually play guitar that don't like the game, mostly because it doesn't really teach you how to play the guitar. The controls involve pressing buttons rather than strumming the strings. Even the creators of
South Park had a go at the franchise.
However, all this is speculation at this stage. If there were a television show based on
Guitar Hero, would you watch it?
Posted Jan 28th 2009 9:01AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
This summer, I wrote about my love for all things
V -- including lizard babies and future Freddie Kreuger aliens -- when the buzz was that there was a
V movie script out and about, one that would lead to a sequel series.
Not sure if that script has become a future movie, but Jason tells us there is some more
fun news on the front for V fans, and if ABC doesn't let down its fans yet again, then we could be seeing a
remake of the original V series on ABC sometime soon.
Me? I say ... yay! But that's a yay with caution. Just because ABC has ordered the pilot doesn't mean it will get any farther than that. And there are pilots made every day that no one ever gets to see. Furthermore, the support that ABC has shown its quirky shows this year -- and
V could be seriously quirky -- has not been stellar (
Pushing Daisies,
Eli Stone and
Dirty Sexy Money, anyone?).
Continue reading ABC's V series remake -- will it really happen?
Posted Jan 20th 2009 5:05PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: Programming, TV on DVD, Reality-Free
I didn't jump immediately on the
Moonlight bandwagon. The pilot just didn't grab me, and there was still a bitter taste in my mouth from
Buffy and
Angel being canceled. We Whedon fans don't forgive easily.
Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and I caught up on all the episodes and fell for
Moonlight. I loved the unique lore, the back story with Coraline and her family was riveting and yeah, Jason Dohring in love as a vampire? Much more appealing than when he's in love
with a little blonde super sleuth.
Well, you can now relive the tragically short
Moonlight experience, courtesy of the Sci Fi Channel. Beginning this Friday night, they'll be showing an
episode of Moonlight every Friday at 9:00, through the entire series.
As if that's not enough, the entire series of
Moonlight has been released on DVD today. I'm just not sure
Moonlight fans could ask for better news than being able to see the series run again. Well, they could ask, but they won't get it.
Posted Dec 5th 2008 1:17PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: OpEd, Cancellations, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone, Reality-Free
One of the worst words to hear for a devoted TV fan is the word "
cancellation." Just having to type it makes me cringe. Hearing this word a year in advance allows fans, cast and crew to prepare and usually means that we will get a satisfying ending (I say usually because, let's face it, not everyone was satisfied with
the Seinfeld gang ending up in prison or with the
black screen at the end of The Sopranos... then again, can we satisfy all fans?).
What makes the "word that shall not be typed again in this post" so scary is when it is said after a series wrapped up its current episode order or when it is said almost a mere minute before said episode order is completed. When this happens, it usually means that the shows will not have the money/time/leisure to go back to the drawing board and rework what will now be known as their series finale.
When ABC announced that
Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone and
Pushing Daisies were
canc... not renewed, a lot of fans frantically searched the web to know if production had wrapped up in order to find out if there was hope for some closure. Well, my fellow TV fans, I come with answers:
DSM and
Eli finales will offer some closure while
Daisies will end with a few cliffhangers!
Slight spoilers coming up!Continue reading Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone fans to get closure; Daisies viewers won't
Posted Nov 5th 2008 2:23PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Casting, Reality-Free
The other day, Les Moonves said that CBS is a network where the good guys win. That's part of the reason for the Tiffany net's success, even if their programming is sometimes deemed too traditional. Well, a great CBS star is coming back to the fold to play a good guy in a movie series that fans embrace.
Tom Selleck will returns as Jesse Stone in his sixth TV movie based on the Robert B. Parker character.
The new TV movie is called
Jesse Stone: No Remorse. Stone, a small-town cop with a checkered past and a troubled personal life, hits a major roadblock in his career when the town council suspends him. He takes a job for an old friend, going to Boston to investigate a series of murders in Boston.
Continue reading Tom Selleck returns as Jesse Stone
Posted Jul 30th 2007 11:19AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, TV on the Bigscreen, The Simpsons
If you noticed, we haven't done a lot of posts about
The Simpsons leading up to the release of
The Simpsons Movie. There are a few reasons for that: 1) it's a movie, and our friends at
Cinematical have that beat pretty well covered, 2) we did some
Simpsons stuff before its 400th episode, and 3)
everyone else was doing it.
But there's no denying that all the
promotional tie-ins,
Simpsonizing web sites, and just the general popularity of the show paid off, now that
the weekend's box office totals are in: the movie came in at #1 for the week, bringing in an impressive $71.9 million. Even Adam Sandler's latest epic,
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, couldn't withstand the power of Yellow: it came in second with just over $19 million in sales.
Continue reading The Simpsons Movie rakes in $71.9 million
Posted Jun 14th 2007 1:29PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Industry, Lost
Lost creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse recently made an appearance at a Promax/BDA conference where they made some promises about the series ending and provided some insight on extras they have planned for next season.
First of all, the two promising fans that they will not give the series a "murky" ending, like what happened with this week's
series finale of
The Sopranos. They said they will answer questions and explain the island's mysteries over the next 48 episodes.
Continue reading Lost creators promise answers, not Sopranos-style ending
Posted May 22nd 2007 12:02PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Celebrities
That's right, A&E has a new reality series, Confessions of a Matchmaker, set to debut on June 16 at 10:00 p.m. that is all about the art of making matches. Starting with the lumberjacks who chop down the trees for the matches and ending with the factory workers who create the match heads out of phosphorus sesquisulfide and potassium chlorate.
Hang on, someone just told me that's not what this series is about at all. It's actually about Patti Novak, a professional matchmaker who helps her clients find that special someone by using her own brand of "tough love." I'm guessing Novak's approach doesn't involve a lot of potassium chlorate, but maybe it should. I'm just saying.
Continue reading A&E begins Matchmaking June 16
Posted Apr 13th 2007 7:01AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: OpEd, Shark, Episode Reviews
(S01E19) It's the saint versus the pornographer, as someone in the episode says. An internet pornographer is murdered, ostensibly by a single man who also runs his very own shelter for wayward young women. That's handy. Apparently this particular shelter is
the place in the Valley to find women with low self-esteem to lure into porn. By the way doesn't "internet pornographer" sound ever so much sleazier that just plain ol' pornographer? Evidently the
Shark writers think so.
It's no surprise when "the saint" is eventually revealed to have done business with the porn king, then got out of business with him, then fell in love with one of the women he was "rehabilitating" in his shelter, who then became a porn actress, who then ... oh, who cares?
Continue reading Shark: Porn Free
Posted Apr 6th 2007 7:41AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: OpEd, Shark, Episode Reviews
(S01E18) All in all, I enjoyed t
his hostage-crisis episode better than the
previous hostage-crisis episode,
"The Wrath of Khan", the one in which attorney Alexis Cruz got axed.
Evan Handler gives an enjoyable performance as the poor loser who claims he's innocent and is looking at his third strike. Handler played Hurley's probably imaginary friend Dave, the
title character in a
Lost episode last season and, more recently, one of the two hacky comedy writers on
Studio 60, that Matthew Perry's character liked to bust on.
Continue reading Shark: Trial By Fire
Posted Mar 30th 2007 11:57AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, OpEd, Shark
(S01E17) Just under the wire,
Shark sneaks a new episode into the vast desolation of repeats that is March. This time, the plot concerns the racially-charged shooting of a drug dealer and his honor-student cousin by two cops. As usual, the true culprit is not the person who Stark initially charges with a crime, but rather the person who years and years of TV-watching has told us to expect it will be: the allegedly least-likely (and therefore,
most likely) candidate. The actual mystery here is why Isaac backed off his opportunity with Raina in San Diego some episodes ago. Isaac's ready to explain that now, but Raina's not in the mood, initially, to listen. She's reasonably suspicious that Isaac might just amount to a whole sack of drama and what does she need with that noise?
This is one of the better episodes. The plot-reversals, double-reversals, and triple-bogie re-re-re-reversals are not so outrageous as to sink the whole enterprise, and this allows some room for good character interaction.
Continue reading Shark: Backfire
Posted Mar 6th 2007 6:41AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, NBC, OpEd, Heroes
(S02E18) "Company Man" last week gave us many dimensions of one character. This week's awesomeness gives us many events snowballing throughout the
Heroes universe. New characters, new secrets about old characters, and in anticipation of a month-plus hiatus, some tantalizing cliffhangers.
If this episode had been a football game, then I would say it was remarkable for its extraordinary number of turnovers. Time after time, when one character thinks he or she has the drop on another -- surprise! It isn't so.
Continue reading Heroes: Parasite
Posted Feb 26th 2007 10:36PM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, NBC, OpEd, Heroes
(S01E17) Damn, this is good TV.
Heroes has raised the bar for itself again. That's my review, thanks for stopping by, I look forward to reading your comments.
Seriously though, I don't know where to start. The show this week focuses on one main story: the life and career of that "company man," Mr. Bennet, the man with a hidden first name, aka HRG. He is, as we knew, mysterious, calculating, and deceptive. He's also intelligent, conflicted, and loving. Jack Coleman, who plays this character teasing out all his layered glory, deserves an Emmy based on this episode alone.
Continue reading Heroes: Company Man
Posted Feb 23rd 2007 8:41AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, OpEd, Shark
(S01E16) Incredible. I don't mean that as a compliment. First we are supposed to believe that 16-year-old Julie is able to keep her DWI arrest secret from a parent for an extended period. Even with Isaac covering for her, I don't buy it. Even the media finds out before Stark! And what kind of person is Isaac? He doesn't call Stark
that night? Isaac is an adult, and he's keeping secrets with his friend's kid? Well, he is the guy who recommended the world's lamest bodyguard for Julie recently, so maybe I expect too much of him. All I know is Det. Baldwin Jones would never have messed this up
This isn't done because it makes sense however, but merely to set Stark up for a big feeling of betrayal to mirror the one he's going to get from this week's case...
Continue reading Shark: Blind Trust
Posted Feb 20th 2007 7:26AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, NBC, OpEd, Heroes
(S01E16) See, this is what happens when you give an ex-junkie a gun just in case a human bomb turns up, and tell him to use it to "save the world." Not HRG's best strategy, and a tragedy for Simone (
Tawny Cypress). I think Nathan, succumbing to the more cynical side of his nature, will be relieved by this turn of events, because of his fears over Simone's earlier stated intention to go public with her knowledge of special abilities. Not that Simone would have been believed any more that Claire was when she opened up to her Mom's doctor.
Nathan, by the way, tells Simone exactly how he would handle persons with special abilities: treat them like lab rats and isolate them. This, as we know, is pretty much the philosophy of HRG's organization, anyhow.
Continue reading Heroes: Unexpected
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