BLOGS
April 2011 Archives
Since ABC has been good enough to renew this wonderful yet ratings-challenged series already, they're going all-out with the show's first new episode in months by sticking it right on the end of a now shortened Dancing With the Stars at 9:30 tonight. Hopefully all them Chris Jericho fans will find Jules' wine addiction as funny as I do. Oh, and, we get our regularly scheduled Cougar Town this Wednesday, too. Double shot!
Since this whole week has been all about tonight's Game of Thrones premiere, I thought I'd give us all a brief break from talking about how winter is coming to focus on something equally important: the female relatives of famous mobsters kicking the crap out of each other on VH1. It's Mob Wives premiere night tonight, and that's every bit as exciting as award-winning fantasy being adapted on HBO. You know, depending on who you ask. I'm sure there's someone who says that.
Unless you have DirecTV or a DVD player, then tonight marks the beginning of the last season of Dillon football. Starting at the beginning of a new school year, everything is mostly where you might expect. Coach actually has something of a team, Tami is a councilor for East Dillon, Tim is still in jail, Julie is about to go to college, and everyone is still trying to figure out how to get by in a small Texas town. Of course, Lion football is right about to get started, giving East Dillon a feeling of excitement about the possibilities of the year to come.
Let's just get this out in the open: The whole show seems like a total ripoff of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm made for anyone who would never subscribe to HBO. Paul Reiser is playing a semiautobiographical version of himself as a former TV star who is living the new American dream as a dude who doesn't really do anything more than get into trouble with his friends and family. However, unlike David, the misanthropic prick, Reiser is way too likable. If Reiser's character here is anything like his Mad About You persona, Paul Buchman, his eccentricities will only be charming and lovable. A combination of traits that make for a sitcom full of slow, forced jokes aimed too broadly to ever actually land for anyone. In other words, this is dad TV in its purest form.
Everyone brace yourselves, because tonight's Top Chef Masters is the one with Christina Hendricks (and her boobs) guest judging a sixties-themed challenge that I hope won't be too on the nose, as this show sometimes ends up falling trap to. It would be demoralizing to have to watch George Mendes struggle to make a dish out of cigarette ash and widely accepted racism, you know.
After cleaning up the country's most unhealthy town of Huntington, West Virginia last season, Jamie Oliver is back for round two tonight and setting his sights on the public school lunches of the infamously bureaucratic nightmare that is Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, the slop providers for the L.A. school district get him kicked out of the schools and he is forced to take his act to some fast food restaurants for the majority of the season. Just like a real drop-out!
Well, the first season of the U.S. adaptation of Being Human is almost over, and it seems to be a resounding success. The second season has been greenlit, it wasn't a desecration of the original, and all of the main characters are still alive. Right? The season finale is tonight, and I'm assuming none of the three main characters is going to die. Well, aside from the two who are already dead.
You've probably seen those posters with that one girl who was barely in SGU and haven't given The Killing a second thought. However, if you're a Stieg Larsson fan you totally should. The show, based on a Danish series, will spend the entire season dealing with the investigation of a girl's murder and the fallout around those connected to the case. However, unlike most ribbon tying murder mysteries, The Killing presents a drab realistic world that is less about justice and more about the way people react to suddenly becoming connected to violence. That basically means parents crying and political intrigue. Plus, you have Mireille Enos (Jordeen from Big Love) playing the lead investigator.
After Nashville Star, it's kind of hard to see another country music competition showing up on TV, but it looks like CMT's Next Superstar might be able to avoid the things that made NS such a failure. For one, the show is targeted specifically to CMT's music video viewers instead of a wider network audience, giving the show the chance to actually let its country flag fly pretty high. Also, all of the contestants have mostly impressive previous experience as singer/songwriters, so at least no one will be too painful to listen to. And most importantly, nearly all of the contestants already have names that are perfect for country stars, like Courtney Cole or Wynn Varble.
Another batch of rich housewives, another new season. The Real Housewives of New York City is back for a fourth go-round (without beloved Bethenny Frankel), proving that the housewives function similarly to Gremlins: You add some decent ratings and they'll multiply right back at you.