Nearly everyone I know is highly, HIGHLY anticipating the forthcoming, and regrettably final, season of LOST. All the questions will be answered and what will become of our castaways is finally… wait for it…

…wait…

insert figure skating here.
insert luge here.

That’s right folks. While no official broadcast schedules have been announced. Rumors are that the Winter Olympic games are most definitely going to cut right into the middle of LOST season 6 after just a couple of episodes. So as of now, LOST is scheduled to premiere in January. Then it will be cut off for at least a couple of weeks before resuming again in March. Let me be the second to say, “fuck the Olympics.”

For the last few days, XM Satellite radio has turned their normal LaughUSA channel in to “Monty Python Radio” in honor of the fortieth anniversary of “Monty Pythons Flying Circus”. This has been an absolute treat to listen to everyday and made me rediscover some of the classic bits on YouTube tonight. Three of my favorite Python bits :

.

Are there better commercials on television right now?

Now that we’re a week or two into the fall TV season, what’s everyone watching? Maybe we can start up a few open threads on some shows (other than Lost, which I know will get its open thread back in the spring for sure).

Here’s my current schedule, though I do tend to start off watching waaay too many shows and dropping some as I run short on time. Non-bolded shows are more likely to fall off the schedule than bolded ones.

Monday

How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Castle (ABC)

Tuesday

V (ABC; starts in November)
NCIS (CBS)
So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; also Wednesday)
NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)

Wednesday

Glee (FOX)
Top Chef (Bravo)

Thursday

(aka, the day all the networks gang up to try to kill me and my DVR)

FlashForward (ABC)
Survivor: Samoa (CBS)
Bones (FOX)
Community (NBC)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Fringe (FOX)
The Office (NBC)
30 Rock (NBC)
The Mentalist (CBS)
Project Runway (Lifetime)

Friday

Dollhouse (FOX)
Stargate Universe (Syfy)
Sanctuary (Syfy)

Sunday

The Amazing Race (CBS)
The Simpsons (FOX)
The Cleveland Show (FOX)
Family Guy (FOX)
Mad Men (AMC)

I’ve already dropped Numb3rs and Criminal Minds – I just can’t do that many procedurals, and those two were not holding my interest last year. I may watch House on hulu, but I’m kind of not missing it, so I might not. I quit Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Heroes last year and am not going back; I’d like to pick back up with Ugly Betty, but I missed some eps and will just finish the whole thing on DVD later.

While I can’t say I’ve ever watched Hannah Montana (I have the feeling that it may just be unbearable), I still have respect for Larry going on the show for a cameo with his two daughters, who happen to be big real-life fans of the show. And hey, the “Uncle Jerry” bit is pretty funny, proving that even on crappy Disney shows, Larry David is a god among men. Just one thing: is this not the worst use of the laugh track that you have ever heard? It doesn’t stop almost throughout the entirety. Is it like this throughout the entire show? Painful.

With that said, did anybody watch the first few episodes of the new Curb Your Enthusiasm season? It was a stroke of brilliance staging an in-show Seinfeld reunion. Last episode that brought on the entire Seinfeld cast for the first time was an instant classic.

A friend of mine asked me the other day what I’d heard about Riverworld, and the answer was….nothing. Providentially almost, within hours of that conversation the trailer popped up on Quiet Earth (and other places, but that’s where I saw it first, so they get the nod), and I didn’t even have to do much of my own research!

It’s an upcoming Syfy miniseries, due to air in 2010, starring Battlestar Galactica costars Tahmoh Penikett and Alessandro Juliani, among others including Alan Cumming and Smallville‘s Laura Vandervoort. Penikett and Vandervoort are fiancés, both killed in a terrorist bombing – but then Penikett wakes up in a strange world of rivers, and discovers that everyone else there has also died. All throughout history, in fact. He ends up traveling with a 13th century female warrior and Mark Twain to find Vandervoort, and looks like they get mixed up in some power struggle (not surprising, really, considering there appear to be Conquistadors running around all over the place).

It’s based on a series of books by Philip Jose Farmer, but I’m not familiar with them, so I’m coming at the story purely from the descriptions of the miniseries. The premise really intrigues me, what with the possibilities of some kind of limbo or non-heavenly afterlife, possibly with an alien guiding presence. Right now everything I can find indicates that this is just going to be a four-hour miniseries, but there ought to be enough story here for this to be a full series. I mean, come on. People from all historical periods finding themselves alive together in an unknown world? Such possibilities! I might have to read the books to find out some of the ones the miniseries obviously won’t be able to include.

On the the other hand, this is Syfy, which can’t even be trusted to hang on to a reasonable name for their network and have never been known for quality original miniseries programming. So I guess I’ll rein in my hopes a bit. But I’m definitely up for checking it out.

Television shows by their very nature are long-sighted affairs. Even if they run only a season or less, the intention is that they’ll run longer, and accordingly, the stories and characters are built over a long period of time, rather than the relatively short period of time that belongs to movies. Though some shows are more given to long story arcs and others focus more on discreet standalone episodes (and everything in between), it still holds true that most shows are judged, loved, or hated as a whole rather than by each episode.

However, sometimes specific episodes leap out from the dozens or hundreds episodes of a given show and bowl you over with their individual power, apart from their places in the show’s arc or among the other, more average episodes. Sometimes a great episode emerges from a mediocre show, or sometimes an episode of an outstanding show turns out to be even better than those surrounding it. I thought it would be fun to highlight some of these episodes in what I hope will be an ongoing series. First off, an episode I recently saw for the first time and practically wouldn’t let me go without writing about it.

We’re all geeky enough here not to laugh and write me off immediately when I say an episode of the BBC’s rebooted Doctor Who is one of the best things I’ve seen on TV in a long time, right? Well, even if we’re not, rest assured that episode 3×10: “Blink” is tighter, stronger, and scarier than anything else I’ve seen on the series (I’ve only watched through Season 3), and contains hardly a trace of the series’ lovable cheese. It also works very well completely on its own, so it’s a perfect entry-point for a new viewer. Just be aware that the show as a whole (which I love, by the way), is a lot more given to dubious special effects and over-the-top plot-lines than this episode is.

Read More

When you become a detective, you have two options:

1) Say something cool, then put on your sunglasses.

or

2) Say something cool, then walk away immediately.

You need to watch the entire seven minutes of this for the full effect. How this man hasn’t won Emmy after Emmy is beyond me.

It is safe to say that Californication is my favorite show on television. Granted, I don’t watch much television and am pretty ignorant on the medium as a whole (I’ve never watched an episode of The Sopranos – yeah, I know, I know), but I still know good television when I see it. I’ve been going through withdrawal these months without my dose of Hank Moody and his Moodyisms (“I may not go down in history, but I will go down on your sister,” “A morning of awkwardness is far better than a night of loneliness,” ” You can’t snort a line of coke off a woman;s ass and not wonder about her hopes and dreams, it’s not gentlemanly,” etc.) and have been itching for some new episode to quench my thirst.

While I’m not as quick-witted or smooth (although it’s neck and neck), I see a lot of myself in Hank and he lives a life similar to what I (and probably most dudes out there) aspire to: making money from writing, boozing, seducing women – and now, with the upcoming season three, teaching at the collegiate level. I was wondering what direction they would take this third season in, as I could have seen the show burning out if it stayed on a similar path. This was certainly a great decision on the part of the writers, making Hank a younger, more hip David Kepesh, if you will, and it should definitely keep the show fresh and interesting.

This season looks to be the most promising yet. Watch the trailer for Season 3 below, which premieres September 27th on Showtime.

And after the jump are two of my favorite Hank Moody moments, just to help convince those that haven’t watched the show yet:

Read More

He is everything I want to be in life.

     With LOST off the air for at least another five months, I’ve started up soemthing new: “Weeds.” An easy to show to get into right away. Funny, entertaining, decent acting, passable script, good looking women and Kevin Nealon. So I finished season 1 and onto season 2 this past week.

They changed to opening theme song for season 2! Seriously, wtf? This is one of the very few show (maybe the only show) I can remember ever watching* (at least recently) and actually sit through the opening song because I enjoy it so much. Now it sucks. Ah well. The show is still good.

[display_podcast]

*My parents would let me stay up an extra 10 minutes on Friday nights after “The Dukes of Hazzard” so I could listen to the theme song for “Dallas.” I still think that shit is the mad note. What other opening theme songs for a TV show are good enough that you can watch them over and over and over and not get sick of them?

You may not know the name, but if you were a pre-teen in the 80′s and had cable, you certainly know the face. Or if you’re a resident of Canada maybe you are familiar with this great entertainer’s voice and writing talent.

But for me, Les Lye will always be the folly of many foils as pretty much the only adult (aside from the one lady) cast member of Nickelodeon’s “You Can’t Do That On Television.” What else is there to say? I haven’t thought about the guy in years, but when I ran across this news today I have to admit it was a bit of a blow. Staple is maybe too strong of a word, but his passing has certainly brought a lot of memories flooding back. He will be missed.

Rest in peace sir! And thanks for the bundles of laughs and fond fond memories…

.

NOTE: There are NO Spoilers in this post, its safe to read.

As much as we fans of Lost cannot seem to shut up about it, and can generally agree that what we are watching is something special and ambitious that pushes the envelope of both science fiction and suspense, most of us are well aware of the show’s flaws, and bitch about them almost as much as we heap praise. Some people watch the show for the characters and the character development, while others, like myself, are really there for the island mythology and the mechanics of the show’s storytelling. Lost is a behemoth of a show, with one of the largest casts and one of the most convoluted narratives ever attempted on broadcast television. With so many balls being juggled it is no wonder the show trips up now and then, and it is almost miraculous that it has stayed this relatively coherent considering that Lostpedia counts over a hundred different mysteries posed by the show during its five season run. The following is a gripe list, and while it is mostly directed towards Lost, the observations are often general enough to apply to similar shows (i.e., Battlestar Galactica, for how great a show it is, still resorts to some of the same tropes). I am sure I have left something out so please add in the comment thread if you see an omission, or if you plain disagree with my choices.

Please remember to add spoiler warnings to your comments when needed. Nothing in my list is spoilerific.

1. Do not inventory the living characters on the front of dvd cases

Here me now and here me well: Timothy Olyphant kicks ass. Six out of seven doctors recommend him if you are going to get in a gunfight and need a badass western sheriff by your side. The Bible even says so. While Deadwood was the bomb diggity and probably the pinnacle of his career (it’s just that good – not an insult), Olyphant’s been solid in many of his other roles as well, including in what I consider a very underappreciated comedy, The Girl Next Door, where he lays on the sleaze perfectly. It’s a seriously underrated performance as well. Unfortunately though, he’s landed roles in a bunch of stinkers too, including Hitman (although I thought he did a swell job, just a lazy, mindless script) and Live Free or Die Hard (*shudders*).

Whatever. Point being, Olyphant is set to star in the pilot for a new FX drama based on a short story by the legendary Elmore Leonard. That story, titled Fire in the Hole, followed a U.S. Marshal named Raylan Givens who returns to his hometown in Kentucky. Then stuff happens. Bad stuff.

“He has a certain jaggedness, but he also loves his job,” executive producer Graham Yost said of the character Givens. “He is like an anachronism: He wears a hat, cowboy boots and a holster on his hip. It’s a little bit like he was born 100 years too late.”

Oh man, this seems like a role right up Olyphant’s alley. I look forward to hearing and seeing more. Production begins in May.

Source: Coming Soon