BLOGS
April 2010 Archives
Tragically, it seems tonight's third season finale will be the last Damages episode we'll ever see, and after such a strong creative comeback, too. I can't blame FX -- they did everything they could, but people just wouldn't watch the show, despite all of its ads and Emmys. It's really too bad. I can't think of very many current shows that are this much fun, with this fantastic a cast, and I'm going to miss it dearly. But I digress to tonight's finale.
The Academy of Country Music Awards, one of half a dozen televised awards shows devoted exclusively to country music, airs tonight with Reba returning to host for the 12th damn time. I love country music (and not even really that ashamed of it), but the redundancies in these shows drive me crazy. Country superstars are a tiny, tiny group. Do we need yet another show that showers every single award on Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum and Kenny Chesney? How many times do we need to see that?
The Doctor has returned. He's got a new look (the eleventh incarnation is played by relative newcomer Matt Smith), a new companion and a new TARDIS. Additionally there is a new logo, a slightly tweaked theme song and a new head honcho (Stephen Moffat took over for Russell T. Davies). That's a lot of change for Who fans to absorb at once, and a bunch of big shoes to fill, but the spirit of the show is still there, and the first episode is a dizzyingly paced fun episode that introduces the still transforming new Doctor and cleverly unveils his new companion, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).
Apparently, family movie night is back. Or, at least, that's what we're hearing out of NBC, anyway. Tonight's TV-movie, Secrets of the Mountain, certainly looks like a family movie. It appears to be one part Indiana Jones, two parts Goonies and 97 parts National Treasure 2, and it follows a single mom and her three kids as they go on a forced family vacation to visit property her uncle left her, and which now has a mysterious purchase offer. Of course, the property ends up including an entrance to an underground labyrinth, with a lot of yawning chasms and a Mayan pyramid and trap doors and slides like the ones that led the Goonies to One-Eyed Willie's pirate sh-- wait a minute. Mayan pyramid? Where does this take place? The town, Tesla Falls, appears to be in the Pacific Northwest, and I-- wait, Tesla Falls? Sigh.
FlashForward has really been picking up the pace lately -- a logical progression, I suppose, when your show's internal doomsday is rapidly approaching, but it sure made for some dragging storylines in the beginning. Now the date of their future visions is almost upon our characters, and they have to start making some decisions, especially if a real-world doomsday lies just beyond their fictional doomsday and the show is cancelled when their 22 episodes are up. It'd be a shame, but I'm pretty sure I'll get over it. Especially if they manage to wrap enough things up. And by the looks of this episode, they're trying to.
Bad news, Christopher Chance fans -- there's a "chance" that Human Target may be cancelled. The 12th and final episode of Season 1 airs tonight, and we imagine it needs to do pretty well to save the show from Fox's hit list. Luckily, it's going out with guns blazing, both figuratively and (we assume) literally, so maybe one shot will get lucky and kill whoever at Fox is in charge of making sound financial decisions. (This show must be pretty expensive to make, what with all the explosions and a new set every week.) But seriously, the finale looks pretty awesome, with two pretty sweet guest stars and secrets, secrets, secrets! Uh... revealed, revealed, revealed!
After eons of waiting, Glee finally returns tonight, and with two bonus Broadway guest stars in tow! Lea Michele's Spring Awakening co-star Jonathan Groff is guest-starring as the lead singer of the evil Vocal Adrenaline and her new love interest/possible New Directions saboteur, and her doppelganger Idina Menzel is guesting as the Vocal Adrenaline director/a new love interest for Schue/possible New Directions saboteur. Also, Sue Sylvester is back from Boca and out for blood, and Finn has a threeway date with Brittany and Santana. Fun!
Glee airs on Fox tonight at 9:28 PM in a bizarre one-time timeslot, so make sure your iTunes billing information is up to date in time for tomorrow's buying spree.
Read an interview with Glee co-star Harry Shum, a.k.a. Mike Chang.
This CW series is ending its first season, and I'm really relieved. Let's be clear, I absolutely, 100% fully adored the pilot. I thought it was very tightly written and full of creative new ideas, and I believed wholeheartedly that I had found my new Everwood. Just a few short weeks later, and I'm over it. Actually, I was pretty much done with the show after the second and third episodes failed to capture the heart that the premiere had, but I kept sticking with it, thinking it was going to get better.
The Wire creator David Simon takes on another city tonight with Treme, the story of a diverse group of people rebuilding their lives and homes in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina. I haven't seen the premiere yet (which is 80 minutes, by the way, so stretch and get plenty of rest first -- 80 minutes of David Simon is 80 minutes of brilliance, but it's also 80 minutes of intense brain squeezing), but it appears to be a thematic relative of The Wire.
Every Friday night, VH1 forgoes their stockpiles of Grease 2 and I Love the... betas to show a concert of some sort. It's a new thing, apparently. And tonight, they will be airing an intimate evening with Glamberace, and there are no amps allowed. Let's just put aside that his sole major label album only has one good song on it and hope he just does his Youtube Wicked catalog or something instead.