CSI:TheGoodSpinoff

Let's ignore the existence of CSI:TheOriginal for now and instead focus on the two spin-offs of the series that is quickly trying to become the next Law & Order.

We have CSI:Miami starring David Caruso and Emily Procter and CSI:New York with Gary Sinise and Melina Kanalksajeiuhlkjs. After watching enough episodes of CSI:Miami last season to make me want to stick a sharp object in my eye every time David Caruso showed up and then watching one episode of CSI:NY last night, I've decided that CSI:TheGoodSpinoff which will begin next season will involve taking NY and trading Melina Kanalksajeiuhlkjs for Emily Procter in a blockbuster trade.

CSI:Miami will then become the show that people watch when they want to commit suicide but don't actually want to die.
And CSI:NY will become a viable option to fill that growing crime-show void in America that could not otherwise be filled by CSI:Las Vegas, Cold Case, L&O:TheMany, and... nevermind.

- totoro

'Jack & Bobby' picked up for full season

The WB is the first to pick up a new show for a full season. Some of Fox's summer shows already got picked up, but this is the first new fall show to hit the jackpot. I'm a little surprised that Jack and Bobby is the big winner since it hasn't been doing particularly well in the ratings. But perhaps this means the WB will kill off the Mountain sooner and give J&B an encore time when I can TiVo it, since Desperate Housewives will be getting priority on the TiVo.

- nyanko

Bradley Cooper on Jack & Bobby

Bradley Cooper (Will from Alias) will be showing up on Jack & Bobby. Unfortunately, he'll be a love interest for Grace, who I find to be a very annoying character. I just fast forward through her long monologues. And funnily enough, Bradley Cooper acknowledges in his interview that Grace is not a very likable character, which is why they brought him in. Well, if it keeps Bradley Cooper on our screen, I'll take it!

- nyanko

Earthsea miniseries

Looks like the Sci Fi channel is going to do a miniseries based on Ursula LeGuin's The Wizard of Earthsea. the futon critic has a blurb about it here (fifth item). The miniseries will be aired in December. Also, Kristen Kreuk is in it. Heh. I don't watch much on the Sci Fi channel, and I like to make fun of the Dune miniseries (because really, it's funny). But I definitely enjoyed the Earthsea series so I might have to check this out.

- nyanko

The Mountain

It's surprising how terrible this show was. It seems like it was a show made just for me, but after less than 20 minutes of the show, I paused and revoked the Season Pass. The only reason I watched the entire thing was that I told Totoro that I would watch it and write up a review. Frankly, I can't write up much of a review since I can't remember much, mainly because I've blocked out those memories. I think there were extended outdoors scenes (snowboarding, dirt biking) and a neverending hookup scene with Oliver Hudson and some girl who looks a little like Lauren Holly - but I fast forwarded through those. I thought the mom had bad hairstyling so that really needs work. Yeah, not much to share. But really, RUN AWAY.

In other news, my silly boyfriend actually gave this show a Season Pass of his OWN volition (he saw the WB ads and was suckered by the tagline that the show was from the same producers as that of the OC) and after watching it, said that it was okay and he would give it a few more episodes to get good. Ugh. I'm not sure I could stomach more than 44 minutes of the show. And now I won't have to.

- nyanko

casualties of the new fall season

It's probably morbid curiousity, but I have to say that one of the things I'm most interested to find out in the fall is which series are getting cancelled. Even when shows I like get taken down, I still find it extremely exciting (if also sad) to see how things unfold. It's like my own little soap opera, watching the networks play against each other, counterprogram and eventually cede defeat in places by cancelling some shows and moving around others.

Here are my predictions for some early casualties for the fall season: Clubhouse, LAX, and the Mountain. This is not to say that they can't have a turnaround or that the networks won't rework the shows to improve the ratings. One Tree Hill had terrible ratings when it first came out, but is now one of the higher rated shows on the WB. Go figure. But these seem like likely candidates for the chopping block. Clubhouse has actually only had one show aired, but it got so crushed it's hard to think it will continue. LAX got killed by CSI: Miami last week and lost a large percentage of its viewers in its second showing. Jack & Bobby is also rapidly losing viewers so it might soon make it to the "Not Long for this World" list.

Interestingly, Tru Calling seems to be a silent casualty of Fox - it has been bumped from its time slot and there are rumors that the 13 episode order got cut back to only the episodes already completed.

- nyanko

Look away!

Don't click on this. I recommend Hooked on a Feeling. There are evil uses for video editing software.

- nyanko

ouch

Wow. Katie Holmes' latest movie First Daughter looks to be a flaming disaster: 8% right now on Rotten Tomatoes. Spectacularly, that is worse than Chasing Liberty, which was a truly bad movie.

- nyanko

What I'm listening to now

Sadly, my latest musical find is courtesy of John Mayer who has a column in Esquire magazine. The sadly refers more to John Mayer than to Esquire (which I like) since he seems really somewhat overhyped and definitely overplayed. But he recommended Teitur, some Danish guy, and the album is great if you like David Grey, Pete Yorn, and that type of stuff. [Editorial note: Flash sites are funky and even funkier to direct people to. You can listen to more clips by entering the site and clicking on the guitar. Yeah, sorry, no direct link for you.]

Listen to one of the songs here.

- nyanko

Veronica Mars

Reviews of Veronica Mars have overall been pretty positive, but since it's airing on UPN, I was a little uncertain of its prospects. Last fall, UPN quickly killed Jake 2.0 which was not great, but if a show can't even survive on UPN, things are not looking good. However, Veronica Mars looks like it will be around for a bit longer since it will be reairing on MTV. The good news is that this will get rid of one of my scheduling conflicts since its UPN timeslot overlaps with Scrubs. The bad news is it gets rid of one of my scheduling conflicts making it possible for me to record yet anther hour of TV.

Some middling shows will have to be dropped in order to leave me with a reasonable amount of TV to watch every week. Otherwise I won't be able to go to work because I'll have too much TV to watch!

- nyanko

Speaking of Veronica Mars... turns out it's actually quite entertaining.
I kept thinking Veronica was a clone of Chloe from Smallville, she even had the whole camera/investigative thing going on.

To briefly go into the actual content of the pilot episode...

Veronica is an outcast in a school full of rich=spoiled=evil kids. She used to be one of them, when her dad (the photographer from Just Shoot Me) was the town Sheriff, but dramatic circumstances ended up causing the loss of his job, her status, and her mom.
Now Daddy is a private investigator and Veronica works for him, while at the same time doing good deeds on the side and wrecking havoc against the evil hordes of the city. Without a wooden stake.

Excellent.

- totoro

Wimbledon

Can I say that I am sooo excited that Wimbledon has gotten good reviews? It has gotten 60% positive reviews, which is excellent for a romantic comedy and for my personal low standards - I'll actually consider seeing a romantic comedy in the theater if it's anything above 40%. And in the interest of honest, the Prince & Me got 28% and it really wasn't um, underrated. Kirsten Dunst seems like she might be kind of squeaky, but the previews looked like they were made just to persuade me to go! Unfortunately, these ads make me feel a bit like a sucker because I can tell I'm in the target demographic and gosh darn it, that marketing worked on me. It's like they know me, and know what I'm thinking! Marketing stalkers!

- nyanko

aha! Wimbledon has dropped below the 60% fresh mark. - totoro

dvd crack

One of my roommates has started referring to the Everwood season 1 DVDs as DVD crack because we just keep watching, and watching. And then crying when Greg Berlanti pours on the schmaltz. I'm addicted and I've made it through three of the discs in the past week or so. It's a little odd to watch two different seasons (the season on dvd and the current season) at the same time because sometimes I get a little confused about what is happening now and what was from the DVD, particularly since you get so much more immersed when you watch two or three or seven episodes in a row...

- nyanko

all growed up

Is it just me or does Ephram on Everwood look OLD this season? I can't tell if it's the haircut, the weird sideburn thingies, or if his face just filled out a little. Granted, he's 21 now so he might just have started to look more his age... And in contrast, Scott Wolf still looks the same age as in Party of Five. My roommates and I had a long discussion about how old he really was - and whether he just looks very young or whether he was very young when he was on Party of Five.

Okay, thanks to the wonders of imdb, we can find out that he's about 36 (if I did my math right) now and was about 26 when he started Party of Five. And the imdb also blesses us with the trivia that he was once engaged to Alyssa Milano. Wow. Scary.

- nyanko

IMDb + TV Tome = Unfathomable Power

Okay, so maybe it's not unfathomable, but there is power there.

For example, Nyanko and I were recently discussing Veronica Mars, an upcoming show on UPN which may be blogged about later. This resulted in a search on IMDb which revealed that the star of the show was actually in an earlier episode of Everwood (and also 24 years old). TV Tome then confirmed my suspicions that indeed, she was the unfortunate Everwood high school student last season having problems with her implants.

- totoro

Sky Captain

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow feels like a movie that I've been watching trailers for since the age of 6. That's a reference to the amount of time I've been hearing hype for this movie, rather than the implication that its old pulp 30-40's style is something that reminds me of my childhood.
Which gets me to the main point: stylistically fantastic as it was, I felt the movie was a letdown in terms of its potential to be a great movie, what with the high RT score and metascore.

There's not much memorable in terms of what actually happens in the movie, but the style of the movie is undeniable. Gwyneth tries hard to be Veronica Lake, but doesn't quite get there. Giovanni is likable and fun but seemed a bit out of place in the style of film we see here. And Jude puts in a solid performance but doesn't really stand out. Angelina, however, does stand out in the 2 minutes that she has.

The trailers gave me much more hope for having a old school sci-fi pulp action film with some cheezy action and witty banter and it does deliver the goods to some degree, but you can get almost as much just from the trailers. Not to say that the movie wasn't entertaining, because it certainly was, but it wasn't that memorable and my inclination to watch too many movie trailers and read too many articles about movies brought the expectations way up.

Bottom line: go find it on netflix, nyanko.

- totoro

the prince & me

I watched the Prince & Me over the weekend, in a moment of girlie movie weakness. Sadly, the movie was not very satisfying. The romantic scenes weren't that cute, the boy wasn't that sweet, there was a too-soon, too-quickly-accepted marriage proposal... Although at least there was a happy ending to give relatively happy closure to the whole affair. But the frightening part? In the deleted scenes, there was an alternate ending where the couple didn't get back together at the end. Gads. How would anyone actually get through the painful parts of romantic comedies if there wasn't the comfort throughout of at least having a happy ending?

- nyanko

revoking season passes

I revoked my first season pass for a new show this past weekend - the winner was Medical Investigation. It just wasn't a good show, even though it had many of the same components of other shows I like (mysteries to solve, the same types of characters, etc.). On the season pass death watch: Father of the Pride. So far, it just hasn't been interesting enough to capture my interest. I've already freed up one hour per week from the TiVo and my life; we'll see how the rest of the new shows fare.

(Also, when you are saving your post and the whole operation fails and deletes your post, I think it is a sign from the Internet gods, telling you the post was really not very good and should be rewritten or forgotten.)

- nyanko

brush with celebrity

When I was recently on vacation in Vancouver, I was eating dinner at the sushi restaurant Tojo's, and ended up sitting next to Smallville's Tom Welling and his wife at the sushi bar. Sounds like a fairly common place for Smallville and celebrity sightings. There was also some figure skating gold medalist there, but I think she was Canadian (and she's a figure skater), so heck if I know who she was...

I guess that'll be my big brush with celebrity for the near future. Hopefully this will not reduce my celebrity-sighting karma to a low level such that I won't get to see Britney at some point...

- nyanko

yay for fall!

A few fun tidbits:

Both Dean and Christopher will be back for a number of episodes of the Gilmore Girls this season. Yay!

There will be two OC behind-the-scenes specials on Oct 16 and 23. Hopefully they will be fun and entertaining.

Bradley Cooper (Will from Alias) will be on Jack & Bobby. Not sure if he's just guest starring or will be a regular.

- nyanko

TiVo + Netflix!

This could be a match made in heaven. Now this would get me to get broadband internet.

- nyanko

House of Anime

So, I have a story. About a week ago, I went on a bit of a nyanko shopping spree at a website called House of Anime. I happily made my purchases, which include the 17" giant potsticker nyanko. So in sum, it's going to take a large box to contain it. I always send packages to my office because there is someone to sign for them. So flash forward to this week. I was on vacation and for the second half of the week, I am working remotely. (Read: I'm not around to get packages from my office.) So, I call into my meeting yesterday and one of my co-workers says, "hey, there's a giant box outside your office." So I think, "yay, my nyanko has arrived!" Then he says, "and the box says House of Anime on it." Well, crap. Now I'm sad because really, who respects anyone who orders a giant box from a place called House of Anime? So I say, "Oh good gravy, just kick the box into my office." And hang my head in shame. Sigh.

But at least I have some good nyanko when I get back, including island nyanko, pot sticker nyanko, and snow cone nyanko.

- nyanko

Back from hiatus

After a bit of a hiatus that included vacation, a week-long bout with a death-like flu virus (have now vowed to get a flu shot every year), and a fun reunion with totoro, I think I'm back since there's tons of fun crap to babble about with the new fall season.

I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of watching the Olympics. I can only watch so much sports and then I get kind of bored. It's fun to see random sports that you usually don't see - the team rhythmic gymnastics routines with three hoops and two balls were actually pretty awesome, even though they were really basically Cirque du Soleil, but with less scary music. I also figured out that a girl from my high school who is a few years older than me was in the long jump competition.

However, TiVo or a DVR is totally clutch for this type of television, since it allows you to fast forward through coverage you're not interested in (men's basketball and weightlifting for me; schmatlzy personal interest stories; extended graphics about the standings).

- nyanko

Another TV columnist

TV Gal is another columnist who writes all about crap on TV. She likes stuff that is a little bit cornier than my taste (Two and a Half Men), but lots of good info about shows and the like. I was hoping that the Mountain would be decent, but my hopes are swiftly plummeting, the more I read about the show.

Based on totoro's review, I'll be setting a season pass for Jack & Bobby, although I suspect it will get lower priority than Alias/Desparate Housewives which are also on in the same time slot. However, I will have a couple weeks to check out the show before Desperate Housewives starts.

In other scary casting news, Anne Heche will be joining the cast of Everwood (scary) and Kerr Smith (Jack on Dawson's Creek) will be a love interest for Rose McGowan on Charmed (heh).

- nyanko

Jack and Bobby

This post is way overdue, but I am finally going to get around to talking about one of The WB's new shows this Fall, Jack and Bobby (Sundays 9 pm, starts 9/12).
The premise involves a single mother and her two sons named Jack and Bobby, and one of them becomes president in the future. The story is interrupted by what appear to be interviews with various personalities involved with the presidency around the year 2049 (you see the younger incarnations of some of these people), so the future president is just in high school for present day, when most of the story takes place.

Oh, and so you know, these kids are not named Kennedy. I guess the producers thought that using such familiar names would immediately clue people in as to the nature of the show.

The whole pilot makes a big deal about how "one" of them becomes president, and you get the feeling that they're trying to jerk you around and make you guess which of the two brothers it is. That whole aspect is a little distracting, but the story isn't so bad, and you get some good glimpses into the characters. They also lay on the drama pretty heavily, which all became clear when the credits rolled and my roommate pointed out that the executive producers are pretty much all involved with Everwood. The one that's not, Thomas Schlamme, has The West Wing and Ally McBeal on his CV.

There wasn't a whole lot of funny in this, it definitely had a WB feel to it, and I found some parts way too predictable, but the show is also redeeming in the way that most of the WB's shows tend to be. There are warm parts, you get some chuckles in, the characters are likable (enough), and the sap is just right at times so I will stick with this show for at least the first few episodes. We'll see how it pans out.

- totoro

The Return.

It's been months since I've posted here, strangely coinciding with a lack of new television and an increase in distractions of other sorts (work, for example).
Last night marked the beginning of the new season of television! For me, at least. Scrubs aired the premiere of its 4th season, and it was glorious. Heather Graham is on the show for a few episodes, and her character is completely insane, along with everyone else on the show.
I must say that I was none to pleased with the way the last season ended, at least in regards to J.D. and Elliot. Kind of similar to the way I was definitely unhappy with the way Rory of Gilmore Girls became a tree.

Speaking of Scrubs, and J.D., and Zach Braff, one must mention Garden State. Which really must henceforth be known as the movie where Natalie Portman's cuteness finally meets its potential. I mean, after seeing her in a variety of other roles over the years (Star Wars Ep2 might even count), this one finally gets it.

- totoro