Friday, December 21, 2007

Ned the Piemaker

Ned, the piemaker, from Pushing Daisies is going to be in a 1930s-set movie with Amy Adams and Frances McDormand. The trailer is probably only intriguing for girls, and doesn't look horrendous, but it is kind of fun to see Lee Pace outside of the stylized world of Pushing Daisies.

MTV Plans a High School Mall-sical

Taylor Townsend from the OC (aka Autumn Reeser) is slated to be an MTV made for TV movie musical about a mall. Wow, that's a mouthful.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Book geo-caching

There a site that facilitates what seems basically like book geo-caching. You leave a book in a public place and someone eventually picks it up. It sounds like books left in places that are too obvious don't really get picked up by other book-geo-cachers, but the books hidden into more obscure places, like the peach bin at the grocery store or hidden on a drugstore shelf sound pretty funny.

No more ThinkSecret

Hmmm, Apple gets ThinkSecret.com shut down as part of the settlement against the site for revealing company secrets. The guy who ran the site is now at Harvard and started the site when he was 13.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Bruckheimer video games

Jerry Bruckheimer, who manages to turn everything to gold!, is going to start developing video games! I'm always instantly intrigued by anything by the guy who did Bad Boys, Treasure Hunters (the reality show!) and National Treasure (the Nic Cage movie, not the reality show), so I'm totally going to follow this.

In other news, I started playing Zelda on the Wii and my lantern burned out and I'm trapped in a cave. In other words, not going so well... Maybe I should start playing on the tomcat's profile...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

DWTS, but back in time

BBC America is reairing the second season of Dancing with the Stars. Go back to when Cheryl Burke was the rising pro dancer star and Drew Lachey hadn't yet proven that he's a way better cohost than Samantha Harris.

Psych and Monk

Psych and Monk will air on NBC in March. Psych is really fun so I think this is great way to get it more exposure; Monk is enjoyable, but less fun for me than Psych...

Friday, December 14, 2007

Thursday, December 13, 2007

'Mamma Mia'

Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan are going to be in the movie adaptation of 'Mamma Mia' seems pretty intriguing to me. Maybe High School Musical and Enchanted will help bring back the live action musical as a popular genre!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

No more Blueprint

The Martha Stewart magazine 'Blueprint' is folding as a standalone magazine, although it will still surface as special sections in the Weddings magazine, or maybe as special issues, I think. I'm a bit sad since I enjoyed this magazine. However, the other interesting news in this release is that they are planning to expand the Martha Stewart Weddings franchise to include destination wedding issues and further developing their website.

Gob

Will Arnett aka Gob on Arrested Development, will be the voice of KITT on the remake of Knight Rider...

Monday, December 10, 2007

Parking Wars!

There will be an A&E reality show about meter maids and parking enforcement people! I am strangely attracted to this show! When I walk to work, I go past the lot where all the little meter maid cars park for the night and it's pretty funny to see them peeling out in the morning. I think there is much stronger enforcement in that area, since they can just tag blatant infractions on their way in or out of the lot...

More Amazing Race!

Another season of the Amazing Race has been greenlit. Yay!

Friday, December 07, 2007

Singing and Dancing

Julianne Hough's first single will be out in May and will have a dancing related title. Heh. I wonder if there will be another DWTS season the spring and if this will prevent Julianne from being on it, or whether she'll just use the show to shill for her new album...

Flowers in the Attic

All the publicity about the Golden Compass, which this article's author enjoyed, but would not give to her kids, also brings up memories of "the preteen incest classic Flowers in the Attic", which the author was enthralled by and which remain very popular for female teen/preteen readers. This made me laugh because I think I've read two or three of these books and they are utterly appalling, yet mysteriously compelling, at least for a book or two. Not sure if any of you got sucked in by this, but I certainly was when I was younger.

FNL viewers

The Office and Friday Night Lights attract the highest number of affluent viewers (thost making more than $100,000/yr). The other shows that have wealthy viewers are: "“30 Rock;” “Scrubs;” “60 Minutes;” “Sunday Night Football;” “Amazing Race 12;” “Two and a Half Men;” “Dirty Sexy Money;” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”"

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

Awesomely, the latest trailer for National Treasure II is basically an extended commercial for Mercedes and the backup camera. It's pretty awesome and I recommend you watch!

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Show by Show WGA Strike Status

Here's a fairly easy to read Show by Show status of when new episodes will run out.

Filling the time

There are rumors that the TV networks will pull shows from their sister networks to find content to air - so CBS may show a Showtime series or NBC may show something from USA or Sci Fi. The interesting thing would be to see if this got more visibility and higher ratings for some great shows that are on the cable networks, like Burn Notice, Psych, and Battlestar Galactica. I think I may have gotten cc2 interested in Battlestar, so now I just have to get her to watch the miniseries that started it off!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

‘Gossip Girl’ groupies

Here's a fairly humorous (not in the writing of the article, but on the content) article about young pre-teen girls in NYC who hang around the location shoots for Gossip Girl hoping to see the stars.

What I should watch this winter

Since the writer's strike doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon, it's going to be slim pickings on TV, which is probably good since I'll finally start reading more and watching my Netflix. But I think I will start watching How I Met Your Mother again, and may start watching Life, which the tomcat is a huge fan of. And maybe I'll watch some of Heroes... And happily, there are some new episodes of Monk and Psych that will air in January as well.

For Jane Austen fans, a new Masterpiece Theater will start on Jan 13th with an adaptation of Persuasion. I hope I remember to put that on my Tivo.

In other funny news, my mother tends to skim most of the newspaper every day which means she knows about almost all movies, and even weirder, about video games. We played the Wii at Christmas last year and ever since then, I think she's been reading about the games and recommended my favorite game (Elebits!) to me, even though she doesn't own a Wii and I never had any video games when I was a kid.

Past lives of House actors

The only relevant thing you need to know from this article is that Omar Epps was a backup dancer for Queen Latifah. Yep.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Wall-E

There's a viral website out there to promote the new Pixar film Wall-E

The Wire is almost here!

More teasers for "The Wire". I'm getting really excited about the season!

Prom reality show

ABC Family will be having a prom queen reality show. I have no idea what the criteria for prom queen really is, since I always thought that was largely a popularity contest, so no doubt this will be a totally tragic show...

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Julianne Hough: Pop star?

cc2 (if you want a new nickname, you have come up with one!) and I have a total crush on Julianne Hough and this article brings us the "news" that she is still denying dating Helio, but also the mind-bending news that she's recording an album which is to be released in early 2008. Wow. I hope she works with Timbaland (who isn't, these days... He's everywhere!) Maybe she can replace the place that Britney once occupied in my heart!

Personalized Sharpie

Via pop candy, you can now create Personalized Sharpies! Seems like fun!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Dancing with the Stars Backstage Report

The Dancing with the Stars finale show last night (before the finale results show) was pretty lackluster, but it sounds like it was due to illness (Julianne), injuries (Maks, and bizarre judgement (Marie). However, I was finally motivated enough to actually pick up the phone and vote for a reality show for the first time ever.

Rock Band

Here's a fun review of the Rock Band video game which it sounds like Totoro has been having a lot of fun playing.

Time to get HBO!

I knew that the Wire would be back in 2008, but I hadn't kept track of exactly when. However, it snuck up on me, since the new season starts on 1/6/08, but the first episode of the season will go live on OnDemand on New Year's Eve!

Amazon's secret price guarantee!

Amazon actually has a 30 day price guarantee if they lower their price. You just need to call into the customer service number listed in the article (woo, for finding the customer service number!) and ask for it!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Made Of Honor

Patrick Dempsey is getting a lot of mileage out of being a romantic comedy main man - besides Enchanted, he has another movie coming out in May. He's now in a movie called Made Of Honor, where he is a total playboy who finally realizes he's in love with his best friend, but she's already engaged and then he gets asked to be the maid of honor... The trailer doesn't look horrible; it's certainly better than Fool's Gold.

Cookies + Milianos!

Pepperidge Farm is making a social networking site around their cookie brand. Weird.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Kate and Matt reunited: Fool's Gold

I know there are some fans of How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days, here's the next offering from Kate Hudson (yay!) and Matthew McConaughey (boo) called Fool's Gold. It appears to be a romantic comedy that follows the typical formula where a couple breaks up early in the movie and then they maybe possibly get back together by the end. Maybe.

Brian Grazer

I'm not as gaga over everything Brian Grazer does, as I am about Jerry Bruckheimer, but Grazer has been behind a number of shows which I love, like Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights and Sports Night. The main reason I'm familiar with him is because of the hilarious (to me at least) running gag on Defamer with their obsession with both the man and his crazy publicist-provided head shot. Anyway, according to the NYTimes, Grazer also has a running gag of leaving behind small heart shaped pictures frames with pictures of himself among family photos when he visits people's houses, including .... Fidel Castro. Apparently some people got really mad about his prank, but he thinks it shows interesting things about people. I'm not even sure what to say about this... You can't make this stuff up.

My heart will go on!

Yes, next week, Celine Dion will be the singing performer on the Dancing with the Stars finale. And she's singing the Titanic song! It's like the producers are making this show *just* for me! Or for me and a bunch of 50-year-old women...

What could have been on DWTS!

Shannen Doherty turned down Dancing with the Stars in the first season because she has an issue "being judged." No kidding! Heh, it would have been awesome to see her on that show, although there would have been a good chance that she might have attacked the judges... I'll bet she was one of the first people they thought of wanting to have on the show. I can only hope that once they finish working their way through the cast of 90210, they'll start getting the cast of Charmed on. Imagine having Piper (Holly Marie Combs), Alysa Milano or Leo, the whitelighter (you know you don't care about his real name). The power of three!

Monday, November 19, 2007

'One Tree Hill' Flashes Forward

'One Tree Hill' deals with the awkward transition most shows have when taking their characters from high school to college in a different and novel way - they're skipping it and putting the show forward four years, which will make the actors look much more age appropriate as well... I never watch this show, but thought it was funny that they were doing the fast forward.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Decent review for Enchanted

Enchanted, starring Amy Adams and McDreamy, in a half animated, half live action film about a fairy tale princess who gets transported to Manhattan, has a good review from Yahoo. Currently (and shockingly), it's at 100%, but with only 5 reviews so far.

Riverdancing with the Stars

Yes, Michael Flatley will perform on Dancing with the Stars next week on Tuesday's results show. I felt I needed to let you know since some of you may not be regular DWTS viewers, but would not want to miss this totally awesome event! Seriously, how long has it been since you thought about Riverdance? That was a phenomenon that swept the nation for a while!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Live '30 Rock' and 'SNL'

There will be live performances of a '30 Rock' episode and 'SNL' in the next week. George Michael Bluth (aka Michael Cera) will be hosting the SNL!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Trading card games for girls

The founder of Wizards of the Coast, who brought Pokemon to our shores, is now starting a card game for girls, featuring ponies and unicorns. Apparently these cards are already huge in Scandinavia. And they have a treatment for a movie already! Heh. Also, interesting is the aside that professional women with children are Target's core customers.

Crowned

The CW is having a beauty pageant reality show - hopefully it will be as fun as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show and much more interesting than the MTV Pageant Place (ugh). It does have Carson Kressley as one of the judges, which should keep it entertaining, although it might become clear that he was only really hysterical when in the context of and counterbalanced by the other Queer Eye guys.

Season 2 & 3 of Damages

Turns out that the first time I linked to news on the renewal of Damages, it was actually a bit premature and the decision hadn't been made. But now the news is out that FX has picked Damages up for 2 more seasons. Obviously, I can't verify how true the news is this time, but seems legit! I hope so!

Summer & Chuck!

Rachel Bilson's guest arc on Chuck starts tonight! Thank goodness this got filmed before the strike!

NBC Direct launches

NBC Direct launches, but with lots of caveats. You can only download episodes of The Office, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Bionic Woman, and Life, and even then you can only download the most recent ep and must watch it within 48 hours. That sounds like a total pain in the butt. I guess the networks want to try out various business models and they have the flexibility to keep experimenting until they find one that works, at least for some period of time... Better to be too strict, rather than not strict enough and then try to change later on, I guess...

'RUNWAY' CONFIDENTIAL

Apparently, being on Project Runway is like being in a sweatshop for a month. It has always been somewhat clear to me that the new challenges are given out the night of an elimination based on the hairstyles of the contestants and the models, even though they are wearing a different set of clothes. The only contestent who didn't complain about post-traumatic stress effects during interviews was Chloe Dao, whose family escaped from Laos during the Vietnam War. Huh.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Bunnytown

There's a new kid's show called Bunnytown, which "these crazy, silly bunnies — space bunnies, super bunnies, pirate bunnies". How can that not be awesome? I think this would be relevant to one of totoro's friends who loves bunnies!

Ben Silverman

I'm looking forward to reading this Esquire article about NBC's Entertainment President.

Office reruns starting soon

There are no more new Office episodes after next Thursday's show, so they'll go into repeats, as an early victim of the writer's strike. Sadly, the one upside of the strike is that I might finally catch up on my TV and start watching the Netflix I am paying for.

Rent-a-dog

Via Freakonomics' New York Times Blog, there is in fact a service where you can rent a pet. It's up and running in San Diego and New York, and is soon to expand. And it's actually kind of expensive!

Super sorry about Heroes

Courtesy of Chris, the Heroes creator admits that Season 2 is kind of sucky and apologizes.

New Fox schedule

Fox has postponed the premiere date of 24 until the full season can run in its entirety. Premiere dates have also been set for New Amsterdam (2/22) and Amy Sherman-Palladino's show The Return of Jezebel James (3/7).

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

An economist solves the mysteries of dating. - By Ray Fisman - Slate Magazine

This link is for totoro after we had a conversation about a study he read that put an actual dollar amount of how much money a person would have to make in order to overcome certain less desirable traits (like being less attractive) when doing online dating. This study uses speed dating to find out dating preferences. Interestingly, they

"found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women. However, we also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women's neutrality, not the men's pronounced preference."

Teasers for BSG: Razor

SciFi has been showing 2 minute teasers for Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie which is coming out in two weeks, and here is one of them streaming online.

Another plus for Facebook

I have been resisting the pull of Facebook, but there's yet another reason to join - CBS has created an Amazing Race facebook page. Although I thought things were based on your real identity so I'm not sure how that works - this seems more like something MySpace would do. Anyway, chalk up another point for Facebook.

Care Bears turn 25

I find it hard to believe that Care Bears are already turning 25. I guess I'm finally getting old.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Friday Night Lights: Renew or Cancel?

TV by the Numbers is running an interesting series of mini-articles evaluating whether a network should renew or cancel various shows. Unfortunately, the numbers seem to point to the fact that Friday Night Lights ratings indicate that NBC may have good reason to want to cancel it. Bummer. The numbers for Chuck also seem to indicate that it might be a cancellation candidate. Maybe it will be like the Office and will need a season or two to build its audience...

Dancing romance

For the two people who actually care, Sabrina Bryan admits she's dating her partner Mark Ballas, which seemed pretty inevitable if you watched the show where they got eliminated. Sadly, cc2 and I had long conversations speculating about this so it's very exciting to get confirmation...

Friday, November 02, 2007

writer strike FAQ

the futon critic wrote up an FAQ about the writer's strike in case you want to understand the issues a bit better

Hourlong Offices

Apparently the ratings for the one hour episodes of the Office were way up, so the viewers have voted with the remotes and NBC figures they love it. And you can't argue with data, but really? Arg. I guess this means that more one hours episodes will be in our future.

National Treasure II & Pushing Daisies

Pop Candy linked to two awesome things:

First, the second trailer for National Treasure: Book of Secrets which is still looking hilariously entertaining. It comes out right before Christmas and seems like it could be a pretty fun movie for the family during the holidays. I would go to this in the theater if it gets halfway decent reviews - although I might be far more easily entertained than most people.

And second, the futon critic posted an interview with Brian Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld (who writes hilarious tech reviews in Esquire) from Pushing Daisies. And oh gosh, he reveals that if Dead Like Me had continued and the character who could bring people back to life had been introduced, he would have had a story arc where he touched George, brought her back to life and she would have gone back to her family for a bit, but he would touch her again because she had abandoned all her reaper responsibilities.

Dollhouse

Here's a more indepth article about the new Joss Whedon show, including the notes that if they can get into production soon, they might be able to have the show ready for the spring and even do a full season next fall if successful. Eliza is going into training so she can "into that 'Dark Angel'-on-crack shape where I can do everything." A Dark Angel shoutout? This show could be even more awesome than I imagined. And more on the plot:

Beyond Dushku's character, the show will also revolve around the people who run the mysterious "dollhouse" and two other "dolls," a man and woman who are friendly with Echo. Then there's the federal agent who has heard an urban myth about the dolls, and is trying to investigate their existence.


So it's the classic sci fi show, but I'm still totally excited!

'Amazing Race' Goth team

Here's a short article about the Goth team on the Amazing Race - and the good news - they actually did some preparation and working out before they left, as opposed to figuring their uniqueness and positive attitude will take them to the finish line. Unfortunately, it's less clear if the compacts of face powder and one shared flatiron will assist them, or just weigh them down.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

‘Reaper’ Goes to iTunes

Interestingly, the CW is now putting all the Reaper episodes aired to date - this is mainly interesting just because the ratings on this show have been struggling, but before this the show was not available online - it wasn't streaming on the CW website and you couldn't buy it either. Is this a last ditch effort to try to bump up the ratings and visibility of the show by giving people other ways to watch it beyond just on TV or on your DVR? What is the advantage of not having it online before this? Ah, all questions which I have no idea what the answer is!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Faith + Joss Whedon + Fox = sqee!

Yowza, look at this! Joss Whedon has already gotten a seven episode commitment for a new show for Fox, that will star Eliza Dushku. I'm a bit frightened that it will suffer the same fate as Firefly, but for now, I'm going to stay optimistic. And get this - Eliza will be living in a "a futuristic dorm" with a bunch of other Jason Bourne-like secret agents who get the memories erased after assignments.

There's an interview with Whedon in the article, and he does comment that 20th Century Fox genuinely is trying to resolve the issue with the Buffy musicals so that they can restart. Ooh, apparently Joss thinks the Eliza show might even be ready as soon as spring, provided the writer's strike doesn't derail that...

Veronica Mars - what could have been

Before it got cancelled, Rob Thomas did a short pilot of what Veronica Mars could have been like in season 4 if she went to work at the FBI.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Degrees of separation from Amazing Racers

Previous to this, my closest connection to any of the Amazing Racers was two degrees via Gecko and a Christmas party. However, the universe is coming together now, since I have only one degree of separation from the racers via the tomcat who knew one of the racers via work and via cc who used to carpool with a different racer.

Mad Money

The trailer for Mad Money - Katie Holmes first movie in a long while, is up. And it kind of looks like a total train wreck. Huh.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Hulu Hands-On Review

There have been a number of reviews of Hulu.com, the new NBC/Fox TV portal. Many of the reviews have been positive, including this review. I'm definitely going to have to check it out. Apparently, they have the whole first season of Arrested Development up there, as well as Scrubs episodes.

Office convention

If you though Joss Whedon/sci fi/fantasy show fans were the only people to go nuts for a convention, you'd be wrong because it sounds like there are some obsessed Office fans out there. I love the picture of the I (pretzel) Pretzel Day shirt! And people competed in an Office Olympics competition. Awesome!

Sunday, October 28, 2007

iTunes & ABC

Oh thank goodness, something intelligent on a television website. ABC has finally added iTunes links to their music guide so you don't always have to manually type it into iTunes. Too bad I haven't installed it on this computer yet and I'm reluctant to poison this machine with more software...

Friday, October 26, 2007

TV strike

Here's a more detailed article about the potential writer's strike in TV, and some of the issues at stake in the negotiations. Residuals on new media broadcasts appear to be one of the major sticking points; usually union negotiations seem to mainly play out in the media, but with an annoying lack of detail, so you can't figure out whether any side is taking too hard a stance or is asking for unreasonable things. I'm also kind of surprised that a lot of the TV writers are working around the clock trying to finish scripts. You'd think that if there was a lot of bad blood about the residuals, that they would obviously do their job in the runup to the strike, but would not necessarily work overtime.

TV Guide stuff

Here are a few links from TVguide.com:

Here's an article that says that it answers burning questions from the Damages finale. Unfortunately, I can't read it yet because I am one of those people contributing to its miserable ratings by watching it days later on my DVR. Sorry Damages! I hope you get picked up! The tomcat and cc2 have told me the finale is pretty exciting.

There is a trailer for the new season of 24 - the trailers or previews of the season always make me really excited, as well as the usual 6 or eight hour over two week 24 "event" that kicks off the beginning of the season, but my interest typically wanes as the producers struggle to find a way to keep up the adrenaline over 24 episodes...

And Dirty Sexy Money has gotten additional script orders which seems like the interim step before getting picked up so we'll see what happens. I feel like all the full season pickups are coming fast and furious and it seems really early, but it is almost sweeps so maybe this is the time most shows find out their fate. Aliens in America and Reaper have also gotten script orders.

Product placement

Here's an article about a more subtle example of product placement/advertising - Allstate Insurance got Friday Night Lights to include a storyline about safe driving for teenagers and will have an ad at the very end of the episode. But the show will not have any explict mention or background art/posters/whatever for Allstate.

And speaking of bad driving, I just heard and then saw some driver zooming away from a hit and run accident with a parked car. There is a sad Lexus out on the street. Yowza.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Battlestar

The final season of Battlestar will air in April, which is still kind of far away. Sigh. At least we have the Razor movie to tide us over. But still no word on whether the final season will all air at once or be split into two different chunks.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Google and TV

Google is getting into the TV ratings business, helping to measure how many people watch each ad. They are partnering with Nielsen, but I wonder if Nielsen should actually run away screaming...

The Amazing Race teams

Here are the teams from the latest season of the Amazing Race. Looks like a pretty eclectic group - I wonder if the Goth couple will actually manage to maintain their makeup for the entire race.

Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies has been picked up for a full season, so we'll be able to find out what happens to those characters! Yay! I was a bit worried since the show looked so expensive to produce, what with the props, like all the little eco cars they crashed and blew up...

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Battlestar

Here's a bunch of info about the Battlestar movie, Razor. Apparently, there will be screenings at theaters in select cities. This article also has some tidbits about the plot of the movie so beware if you don't want to know!

Amazing Race comes back early

Amazing Race gets called off the bench early and will be premiering in two weeks. I am very excited - hopefully this means that CBS will continue to think it is a valuable franchise. Maybe they will greenlight another season on TAR so that we'll get another season in spring/summer!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Pacey!

Holy cow! Pacey (Joshua Jackson) is going to be on Grey's. I guess they do know who their target audience really is...

Four Britney Spears Songs for preview

People.com points us to a streaming player for the new Britney Spears album, which has a preview of four songs and Gimme More. The second song Radar is pretty darn catchy - I like it. I'm more ambivalent about Piece of Me and Break the Ice, but both are fun. Heaven is cool - I like it!

Friday, October 19, 2007

TV Ratings and more

Via Chicago Tribune's The Watcher, here is a blog that does more analysis of TV ratings data and other TV data trends.

Step Up 2 the Streets

Wow, I didn't realize Step Up was popular enough to warrant a sequel so cleverly named Step Up 2 the Streets. I think this might be all new actors, although maybe that's because I can't remember who the female lead was in that movie. Oh wait, it was that Jenna girl who was in the NSYNC videos and was linked to Justin Timberlake after he broke up with Britney. Okay, looks like the two leads are different. Anyway, I'll have to check the reviews before I decide if I'm going to add it to my Netflix queue.

Dancing With The Stars on Wii

Here's a trailer for the Dancing With The Stars Wii game (which I saw a fairly angry and derisive review ), but the trailer does have some unintentional comedy from the clips of the people playing the game. They just look darn silly.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Christopher from Gilmore Girls!

I always loved Christopher on Gilmore Girls until (spoiler) he married Lorelei and got written to be a totally petty person. Which was a total bummer. But it now appears that he's going to be on Private Practice. I'm not watching Private Practice, but this might almost motivate me.

Also, I have to comment on the fact that the CW was the first to officially cancel a show(Online Nation or something like that - I can't remember the name), and I'm kind of surprised that not many other shows have gotten the axe yet. Last fall it seemed like a number of shows got pulled after a couple episodes, but this year, only Fox's Nashville has gotten pulled (though not actually cancelled) and that show didn't seem to get much publicity.

Broadcast v. Cable

Here's a quick article about how cable show ratings compare with broadcast network show ratings. The big brouhaha this fall has been about how all the buzzed about shows were during the summer on cable and how the fall broadcast network season has been a big letdown, but despite this apparent creative letdown, far more people watch even the crappiest of the broadcast shows. The Ghost Whisperer beat out the highest rated cable premiere (The Closer) [2.4 vs. 2.2 million), and the CW's Girlfriends beats Monk.

E:60

I set a season pass for ESPN's new 60 Minutes clone E:60 because the Sports Guy (aka Bill Simmons) is a contributor on the show and I love his pop culture laced sports columns, but the show was mostly about "hard-hitting" stories, and I haven't gotten to the part with the Sports Guy. Here's a review of the show from Slate Magazine. I might give it a couple more weeks to see if the format improves or if Sports Guy gets more screen time and actually does something fun and entertaining.

Live-action Star Wars TV Series

I guess I missed this a few weeks ago/didn't care at all about this, but I suspect that the tomcat would like to know that there may be a Live-action Star Wars TV Series...

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Jezebel James

There's a rumor that the reason the episode order of the Return of Jezebel James has been cut back is because Parker Posey might not be the biggest fan of the schedule for making a weekly TV show (in the middle of this Q&A, but beware spoilers for many other shows).

What's the future of iTunes?

Here's an article that examines the future of the iTunes store

Isaac Mizrahi reality show

The CW will be doing a reality show with Isaac Mizrahi about creating a fashion collection. One can only hope it will be as fun as the Signe Chanel show about creating the Chanel couture collection with all the French seamstresses who do the hand-sewing for the couture line.

Subway orientation

NYC is putting decals on the street so you know your orientation when you get out of the subway. They're just piloting this program, but I think it's pretty useful because the blocks are long so going to wrong direction can waste a lot of time, and the twistiness of the stations and stairwells can really confuse you as to what direction you're going.

Pushing Daisies stuff

I hadn't realized this, but apparently, Pushing Daisies is basically a spin-off of Dead Like Me in spirit. Brian Fuller worked on both shows and had planned to have a storyline where George (the main character on DLM) could not collect souls because she came across a person who could bring people back to life with a touch. DLM then got cancelled so he decided to make it into a separate show. I wonder if he would have pitched this if he knew that DLM was going to get a direct to DVD movie which is slated to release next spring. Also, one other tidbit from the article is that the pies on the set of Pushing Daisies are real and they get a chef in every week to make the pies. Yum!

More Starter Wife

Even though the Starter Wife summer mini-series starring Debra Messing has been renewed. I found it pretty fun and fluffy, which was good for summer (and very girlie). I'm not sure what it means when a mini-series gets renewed - will it be a real series of 13 episodes or so? Will it just be another six hours? These are questions to ponder.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Pinkberry

Pinkberry is raising cash, which hopefully means that they have some expansion plans and will move into an area close to me!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Return of Jezebel James

Amy Sherman-Palladino's latest show the Return of Jezebel James (with Parker Posey) just got cut back from 13 episodes to 7. That is never a good sign, which is too bad since I was hoping for something fun to replace the Gilmore Girls void in my life, although I guess that void has been out there for several years since the first season or two of GG were the best.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

David Simon

David Simon, creator of the Wire, may do a show about New Orleans, now that he's done with the Wire. I'd definitely watch that. I'm hoping that Spike Lee will do a sequel to When the Levees Broke, since that was rumored a while back, but I'm not sure if that ever came to fruition.

Juno - Trailer

So this movie Juno stars Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Michael Cera (George Michael!), and the trailer actually looks kind of entertaining. I might have to see this.

Friday, October 12, 2007

No more Buffy musical screenings



I only recently heard about the prevalence of these events where a bunch of Buffy fans get together and sing along with the musical episode "Once More, With Feeling." However, apparently Fox has cracked down on these public screenings and there will be no more. It sounds kind of like the old school Rocky Horror Picture Show stuff that used to go on (and maybe still does).

AICN has the news as well as one of the sites (the only one?) that runs these things: http://uncoolkids.com/buffy/

This doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone who knows how the industry works, but this seems like a great idea that has gotten good attendance and Fox could make a decent chunk of change with very little investment by arranging these things themselves... but yeah, probably not going to happen.

sports guy hits TV

Bill Simmons aka ESPN's Sports Guy now has a TV gig as well. We'll see if his nasally voice is as distracting on TV as it is on his podcasts...

Thursday, October 11, 2007

'Church of Reggie'

Fox is developing a new pilot called 'Church of Reggie' by one of the guys from Arrested Development, with involvement from Ron Howard as well. One can only hope it will be as silly and funny as Arrested Development.

And in other news, I finally persuaded totoro to watch an episode of 30 Rock, and I think he thought it was pretty good!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

New Tiffany's

Tiffany's has opened what sounds like a palatial new store in the financial district of NYC. Perhaps I'll make a pilgrimage the next time I'm in NYC...

Jumper

A trailer is out for Doug Liman's new movie, Jumper.
http://www.jumperthemovie.com/

Just last night we were talking about what Rachel Bilson has been up lately, and I guess now we have some idea. This movie stars Anakin... I mean Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane (who I didn't see in the trailer, but I probably just missed it), and of course Summer. It's a sci-fi type action/thriller focused around a guy who can teleport himself around. What a handy talent.

The trailer has a nice slow setup showcasing his talent followed by an omgactionmysterywhat?? to draw the viewer in. Sadly Rachel is not looking her best in this, but so far it seems like Anakin will not be as ehhhhh as he was in the Star Wars movies.

Doug Liman directed Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so he is basically my hero and this movie is now on the must-see list. The action in the latter two movies is pretty well-done in my opinion, and the trailer for Jumper suggests that we'll be seeing more of that style.

Thanks to my ninja friend for being the first to pick up on this. AICN also has comments about this.

Britney Spears's Album out on Oct 30

Britney Spears's Album is going to be Oct 30 instead of mid-November. I'm still excited about this, although I am having to look away from the train wreck that is Britney's actual life.

Damages

In case you have a spare 12 hours this weekend and wished you had caught the Glenn Close series Damages from the beginning, you can watch the whole season this weekend on FX.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Deal or No Deal ---> The Office

http://www.nbc.com/Deal_or_No_Deal/video/#mea=164150

Credit to TV Squad for this link, but if you ever wanted to see some Deal or No Deal models act out a scene from The Office, here's your chance. Seriously.

The "Pam" and the "Dwight" are actually pretty good.

And the first winner of the fall season is...

Gossip Girl, which somewhat surprisingly has already gotten a full season pickup. I didn't think this would be the first one, nor did I really have high expectations for an actual full season, but now I can look forward to this guilty pleasure for the rest of the year.

TiVo in Rhapsody

TiVo will allow users to access the Rhapsody music service; I've heard some good things about the service, but haven't tried it myself. I'll probably check it out with the free 30 day trial that Tivo will offer, but I don't listen to that much music, so I'm not sure it will make sense for me. However, the article also notes that Tivo's subscriber base has dropped by 200,000 in the past year; that's not great. I obviously need to read the quarterly financial reports from Tivo so I have a better idea of their financial health and can decide if I should get the Tivo HD. Although at $300, it's a pretty good deal.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Handicapping the New Fall Series, but with data!

Analysis of fall shows in the dangerous cancellation zone after two weeks of the fall season. Bionic Woman and Private Practice had precipitous drops between the first two episodes. However, it looks like Chuck and Dirty Sexy Money are still doing okay!

How many shows will people watch?

Apparently, people who work in television believe that most people only really love and loyally watch less than 10 shows, and maybe even only 6 shows. This makes sense to me because if you don't have a DVR, you will make an appointment to sit down and watch certain shows, but it's hard to watch something every night of the week. It seems like TV networks are annoyed by DVRs, but I wonder if DVRs have actually lowered the bar for what you'll watch since you can watch it at your leisure. I certainly keep more shows around because I can, and watch them when I have a chance. Of course, since I'm not watching the commercials, the networks still have the right to be annoyed. It would be interesting to see what number of TV shows DVR-owners loyally watch - my number is certainly much higher than 10. I also wonder if the number referenced above refers to 6-10 shows at any given time, or just 6-10 shows across all shows. Meaning, most people can only track the time and day of 10 shows, and after that, they give up and don't want to deal with any more logistics.

This article also talks about the high buzz factor of many cable shows this summer and how the fall network shows have seemed to pale in comparison, and speculation on if this will really hurt the broadcast networks.

A New Ratings System Stirs Up the Fall TV Season - New York Times

NY Times has an interesting article about how DVRs are affecting TV ratings. Apparently about 20% of households now have DVRs and there are certain days that are more popular for watching on DVRs - one of which is, no surprise, Friday. Apparently CSI was watched by more people on Friday night, than watched all by one of the the actual Friday night broadcast shows (Numb3rs beat out DVR CSI). How I Met Your Mother gains 52% in ratings when DVR watching is included. And apparently, there will now be ratings for specific commercials, but that data won't be in until mid-October for the season premieres of shows.

Damages' gets a second season!

Looks like Glenn Close's show Damages has been picked up for another season! I'm excited because I found the show to be completely riveting this year. I'm not sure if the show will be able to keep it up because it has a pretty complex conspiracy theory type plot, and I'm not sure if any of this year's main storyline can really be continued into the next season... But I'm excited to find out!

Trivia

The tomcat loves going trivia with his friends, so I thought I'd post this item from the NY Times honoring a retiring bartender who ran a trivia game. The article also includes a set of trivia questions, which seem pretty challenging to me...

Saturday, October 06, 2007

The laser!

Usually school sponsored ads during college football games are a bit cheesy and lame, but this ad for Stanford University is pretty silly.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Tivo season passes

Here's a list of the most popular season passes on Tivos. The futon critic also did some data analysis, giving some cool info like the shows with the biggest rises and falls in premiere week.

Britney video

Britney's new video is premiering on TRL on Monday and you can watch it on Youtube. Even totoro agrees that the song is pretty catchy - so not the total disaster that the rest of her life seems like. Apparently the song is #1 on iTunes; personally, I'm waiting until the whole album is released to buy it, and I'm hoping I can get it DRM free on Amazon's music store. Fingers crossed!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Scrubs

Via pop candy, there is a production blog for Scrubs so you can learn all about the behind the scenes while you're waiting for the premiere which will be Oct 25. The Pop Candy blogger also posted about this trailer for the new Katherine Heigl movie which is a romantic comedy about a girl who is always the bridesmaid and never the bride. The trailer looks kind of cute, but not super cute - I'll have to see how the reviews go. However, it does also have Judy Greer as the (of course) best friend/sidekick, which makes it that much more appealing.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

DWTS

Julianne Hough and her Dancing with the Stars partner Helio hit the racetrack. I think Julianne is so cute!

Salty snack market share

In case you were wondering, here's some numbers on salty snack market sharesAn eater's field guide to pretzels. - By Sara Dickerman - Slate Magazine: "potato chips grab about 38 percent, and tortilla chips 26 percent, of the salty-snack market. Pretzels hover closer to 7.5 percent to 8 percent.) "

Gwyneth Paltrow on PBS

Gwyneth Paltrow will have a food show on PBS about eating foods in Spain. Will it be fun and interesting? Will it be better than Tara-dise?

Damages

I'm completely hooked on the FX show Damages starring Glenn Close, about a young lawyer working for Glenn Close who ends up over her head and with her fiance dead. The story is told mainly through flashbacks and it's riveting. Unfortunately, it's getting terrible ratings (near the end of this Q & A), but it sounds like the network knows that most people are watching this on a DVR rather than live. But I'd really like to see it get picked up for a second season, although I don't know what the storyline would be. Perhaps this is one of those shows that's better as an extended miniseries with just one story arc...

Vampire movies and Wallace and Gromit

Via Pop Candy, the teen vampire romance novel Twilight by Stephenie Meyer will be made into a movie.

Also in this post, Wallace and Gromit will have another short! Creator Nick Park has a video blog. I love the Shaun the Sheep series, and I am very excited to see more Wallace and Gromit. Hopefully Shaun can make an appearance too!

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Amazon TV Sci-Fi Bundle




Amazon is selling the mother of all TV show DVD bundles in the form of the TV Sci-Fi Bundle. This thing is completely nuts, costs $899, and contains:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
The X-Files
Firefly
Dark Angel
Roswell
The Pretender
Stargate: SG-1
Stargate: Atlantis

I've seen at least parts of every one of these shows other than the Stargate ones (and I think nyanko is quite familiar with many of these as well), but hey I guess the people who are serious collectors will see this as a way to save some money in the long run. I haven't gone through and added up the costs of the individual components of the bundle, but Amazon says that the list price is $1756.

Credit to TV Shows On DVD for this.

TV & iTunes

An article via tvtattle.com about the fact that TV networks are realizing they don't have to be held hostage by Apple and iTunes and are starting to explore things like their own online or download ventures, as well as Amazon Unbox.

Meevee

The New York Times TV Blog pointed me towards this other television site meevee. I'll be reading it for the next couple weeks to see if it makes it into my regular web surfing rotation.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Sail the high seas with John Mayer

Go on a cruise with John Mayer. Maybe he'll bring along whatever celebrity blonde he's dating at the time too. Also, he's calling it the Mayercraft Carrier. Yep.

Brandy!

Via InStyle magazine, we learn that David Duchovny likes Barry Manilow, but we also learn as an aside (which makes me like him waaaay more) that he also has the Looking Glass song Brandy, which is totally awesome! Brandy, you're a fine girl! What a good wife you would beeee!

Lost updates

In case you're really hurting for your Lost fix, it sounds like there's a new podcast...

Traveler - What would have happened? - more thoughts

So the funniest thing about this recap about what would have happened in the next two to three seasons of Traveler if it had been renewed, is that it is incredibly detailed and the plot is totally ridiculous. Sigh. It includes the girlfriend of one of the characters being pregnant, getting tortured and then miscarrying. I was kind of hoping that was a plot line that would just get picked up when a show was desperate and needed better ratings, since it just seems so cliche for women in thriller/suspense shows. Anyway, this is like a ten page summary of what would have happened - you'll need like an hour to get through it. :P

The other fun thing was seeing one of the Traveler main characters (Matthew Bomer aka Jay) on the season premiere of Chuck (he was the rogue secret agent guy).

TV Guide and video content

Apparently, TV Guide is putting together a portal site that will collect official network video content about TV shows

Saturday, September 29, 2007

TomKat

Obviously, TomKat has figured out a better PR strategy recently, as they haven't been in the press that much except for a bunch of stuff about the movie that Tom is filming in Germany, which I totally ignore, and they managed to get this puff piece in People... It's a gallery of pictures from Katie's next movie and I have to say she looks really cute. She might kind of win back my old affection that I had for her in the Dawson's Creek days, even if that was mainly because I'm a total Pacey-Joey fan.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Dunder Mifflin Infinity

Dunder Mifflin Infinity has opened for business.

I am not sure what this is, but it seems to have something to do with getting a bunch of people to sign up in teams and doing random things to earn points. Some kind of online game I guess.

Either way, it has to do with The Office, and you earn SchruteBucks, so it has to be awesome. Check out the FAQ for more info.

I learned about this from Penny-Arcade, who is apparently starting up some kind of rival branch to another online comic PvP.

Traveler - What would have happened?

Here's what would have happened if Traveler had gotten picked up. I'm not sure if anyone cares - I think gecko, tomcat and I might have been the only people watching that show, and the tomcat wasn't even really watching it since he was out of the country...

Sesame Street gets high tech

Looks like Sesame Street is doing podcasts! That's pretty cute.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Bionic Woman

Totoro commented on the ratings for Bionic Woman, and I have to say that I was surprised that it got such good ratings. I'm surprised because 1) it didn't get great reviews, but since buzz doesn't equate to ratings and lots of seemingly crappy movies do well, perhaps this is just an extension of that trend, 2) it was available on Amazon Unbox and online to see ahead of time, so I would have thought that it would erode the initial audience because people have seen the first episode already and 3) the tomcat, who has no standards, really didn't think it was good.

I am very curious how making a pilot available ahead of the premiere affects the ratings. I would think that crappy pilots would have the same issue as crappy movies, such that word of mouth would sink them, so that if the pilot wasn't very good, networks wouldn't put them up. I think that's kind of what's happening with Moonlight and Caveman, which have not sent out screeners to critics (the equivalent of a movie premiering without a critic screening and thus having no reviews on Friday morning, which does seem to help that movie get at least a decent first weekend of revenues). But obviously word of mouth depends on how the show is received in the country at large, so I guess maybe the country at large thinks it's great. Those are also the people watching CSI: Miami. And I'd be curious to see how many people got around to downloading pilots on Amazon Unbox or watching the show online, but the networks may not make that info public...

Ratings and stuff

People who talk about TV (like Nyanko) talk about Nielsen Ratings a lot, but to some people it is not immediately obvious what these ratings are or why they should care. I've started to realize that they are most important to me in the early days of a new show just because the ratings on the first few episodes will essentially decide the fate of the show and I've got too much stuff to watch to invest in a show that will only last 4 episodes.

thefutoncritic has daily ratings and analysis, and here is their report for yesterday, Wed 9/26 which was notable for being the series premieres of Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money on ABC and Bionic Woman and Life on NBC. The basic conclusion here is that both Private Practice and Bionic Woman did well, and people were probably flipping back and forth. I have not seen Private Practice at all (other than the half-test episode on Grey's last season), but the pilot for Bionic Woman was not so great. Sometimes I thought that she really was a robot.

Reports from the first two days of the week imply that Chuck is struggling a little bit, but not as much as Journeyman, which is probably not going to last. Reaper should be okay though, so I think I'll stick with those two shows on the top on my list of new shows to watch this season.

Comment from Nyanko: The other way to look at this though, is that if there's a show you enjoy, you should really try to watch it/download it/somehow juke the ratings numbers so that the networks will feel that it has enough of an audience to continue to air it.

Google Reader

On a recent recommendation from the tomcat I decided to check out Google Reader, which has undergone a lot of changes since I last tried it two or three years ago. So I took the time to set up all my RSS feeds into it and I have to say that it has revolutionized my morning web surfing routine. I think it has cut it down to maybe 10 or 15 minute, which is actually kind of disappointing because I keep hoping there's more stuff out there for me to browse through. I still have a couple sites which don't have a feed that Google can read, but I'm definitely enjoying it. And one of the nice things is that you don't have to give the actual RSS feed to a site, you can just punch in the URL and it will find the feed if it can. So, I recommend checking it out.

Friendster ettiquette part II

In a followup to my earlier post about Facebook, the author of that article did a Q&A about the topic

New Project Runway

The new season of Project Runway will premiere on November 14th

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Buzz != Ratings

An interesting NY Times Blog about how the most buzzed about shows going into the fall have compared to the shows with the biggest ratings. It's fun to see the shows that everyone talked about but were cancelled very quickly - there's quite a few of those.

Reaper

Totoro recommends CW's new show Reaper, which has gotten lots of good reviews, but due to a scheduling logjam (damn you, 6 billion hours of Dancing with the Stars coverage), I didn't get it on the TiVo and it's not available on Unbox. So I guess I have to watch it online.

The Facebook commandments

Slate Magazine has an article abpout Facebook etiquette as well as the following choice quote: " An undergrad who doesn't have a Facebook profile is regarded as a Luddite, the social equivalent of leading a survivalist lifestyle complete with flintlock rifle and bandana." What is a college graduate without a Facebook page considered? Have I crossed over into this survivalist/scary person level, or am I still "normal"?

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

30 Rock & Pageant girls

If you're interested in 30 Rock, but haven't gotten around to watching it yet, there will be a marathon on Bravo.

And MTV is doing a reality show about some pageant queen girls living together. I think it's the winners of the Trump franchise pageants or something, which makes me want to watch it less since it's Trump, but I really can't resist this kind of crap.

Monday, September 24, 2007

NY Times TV blog

The NY Times has TV Decoder - a blog about TV. I think this has been up on the site for a while, but this is the first time I checked it out. The posts so far aren't terribly interesting, but I'll bookmark it and check it out to see if it gets more interesting. A Tina Fey Q&A is slated for later this week, so that will at least get me to come back and check it out, particularly since I think her American Express ad is pretty funny.

However, I have to say that the ad reminds me of this article in Atlantic Monthly, which is a review of the This American Life TV show, but touches upon the prevalence of quirk in the TV/movie medium.

TV DVDs & the Wire

via TV Tattle, an article from the NY Times about tv shows on DVD. The site also linked to a promo for the next season of the Wire! I need to get cc2 to watch all the previous seasons before season 5 starts in January.

Gossip Girl

The other show that seems to be either loved or reviled by TV critics is Gossip Girl. Since it's Josh Schwartz and I tend to like this kind of crap, I figured I'd check it out even though totoro isn't very excited about it. And sadly, I found it somewhat compelling - the main character Serena (Blake Lively) has a cute chemistry with the good-guy male lead, so I want to see how that relationship plays out. The supporting cast seems particularly weak and I'm not sure what the show is really going to be about from week to week - I guess just a relationships drama? There's not a real overarching story that I can tell so far, so shrug. But the music is pretty fun, and I unfortunately also got the tomcat hooked on this as well. We'll have to see if the tomcat gets his friend the LCD to watch it too. Those two watch the Real World Sydney and have to call each other afterwards to "gaaaahhhh" about it.

Chuck & Life

Totoro already reviewed the new NBC shows earlier this summer, when all the preview clips went up, but I finally got around to watching two of the pilots that were free on Amazon Unbox. Woo for downloadable TV I can watch on my Tivo! Anyway, I loved Chuck. I thought the nerd humor was pretty funny ("Not the computer!" when someone is trying to rob him, because, seriously! Not the computer! Although I'd follow it up with "Not the Tivo!", particularly since I don't really own a computer.) It was a fun fluffy show and I hope they can keep it up, at least until Rachel Bilson's guest star arc.

Here's a not so positive review, which comments on the plot holes, but seriously, it's a spy thriller/comedy so I don't know what the reviewer was expecting. She also references Alias, and um, plot holes anyone? Here's another review.

I also ended up watching Life, which the tomcat is actually pretty excited about. He describes it as House, but in the police/crime genre. I thought it was entertaining, but was weak on the plot. I gave it a season pass, but it's definitely not a first priority to watch. So, enjoyable, but I'm not ready to recommend it to anyone yet.

Friday, September 21, 2007

ABC picks up a geeky office show

Maybe this show will be like the Office, but for software people - so, basically, like Dilbert.

What to Watch?

TeeVee.net also posted what they recommend you watch for both new and returning shows.

TeeVee Dead Pool, 2007 Edition

TeeVee.net has put odds on the survival of all the new shows for this season. See what they think is most likely to get cancelled after one episode!

Downloadable TV

I didn't think I'd go blog-crazy at the beginning of the fall season, but there's been lots of interesting news. How I Met Your Mother will be on Amazon Unbox and iTunes, and iTunes is giving away some episodes of Fox shows. Apparently, the break with iTunes has triggered a bunch of anarchy in the downloadable TV world since iTunes or Fox is now giving some stuf away and finally Unbox seems to be getting more of a critical mass of shows on offer.

P.S. I'm working in an open plan office today and I just heard someone's cell phone ring and ... the ring tone was Oops, I Did It Again. Yes!

P.P.S. It wasn't my phone, although ...

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Ryan the temp

A TWOP interview with B.J. Novak aka Ryan the temp. Also, TWOP will now be doing recaps of the Office so you can relive all your favorite moments.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising Movie

These Susan Cooper books are one of my favorite young adult fantasy series, so I was both excited and afraid when I heard they were turning it into a movie. I'm hoping it will be more like Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings and less like Narnia, in terms of popularity. Have any fantasy books really taken off because of a movie adaptation? I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem like it's necessarily a recipe for success. I wonder if Tad Williams will eventually get a movie deal as well...

Anyway, there's a trailer up for the movie, and it looks decent. Based on my recollection of the books, it seems like they've taken some liberties with the story, as well minimized the fact that the story took place in Wales (Welsh is cool! But probably too confusing for a movie...). Mark me as still excited!

And it appears there's a reality show by MTV and Apple associated with the behind the scenes aspect of the movie. So You Want to be a Movie Intern is a web series on iTunes about nine interns living together in Romania while the movie is being filmed. I guess this is what happens when nine strangers stop being polite and start being real. Or start having really bad hookups and alcohol problems in front of lots of people. Oh, that's another show (which the tomcat is TOTALLY watching). Anyway, I can only hope this turned out better than the jobs that the other Real World kids did.

Food for football

Bravo/Top Chef are working the weird tie ins by posting recipes from Top Chef contestents for an NFL game for that week. Naturally, it's cheese for Green Bay, and such.

Scary!

The Desperate Housewives cast photo associated with this article is just kind of scary. I have to say that TV cast photos are always pretty funny and entertaining.

See even more pictures here.

TV Fantasy Network

...Aaaaand Bravo/TWOP launched their fantasy TV network game. It doesn't look like you can create leagues, which is disappointing. I'm tempted to play, but without the thrill of trying to beat the pants off my friends (or friends of friends, who I feel like I know now even though I hadn't met a couple of them while we were playing) or the disappointment of losing to the tomcat/gecko, I'm not sure I'll want to invest the time and energy.

TWOP redesign

Also, via Pop Candy - holy crap, there's been a giant redesign at Television Without Pity. The upside is maybe my RSS will finally work. But I'm going to hvae trouble finding stuff until I figure out what's going on. It looks so spiffy now - go check it out!

TV tidbits

TVtattle had a bunch of fun links including:

Analysis of blogs "written" by various TV characters

I had no idea there was a cutthroat world of high school musicals, but Showtime will have a reality show about it. I thought that was limited to Mathletes and things like that...

A Slate article about how expensive some TV shows are to produce

And finally, that ABC is going to be streaming its videos from AOL.

RSS from Nordstrom.com

Well, this could be my total downfall. Nordstrom has reached an impressive technical pinnacle for an apparel retail shop and have added RSS support. Yes, I can have RSS feeds about new merchandise. Who needs a personal shopper when you have an RSS reader? If Banana Republic figures this out, or if they already have it, and I just finally discover it, it will truly be the end for me. I already added an RSS feed to my Google home page.

Watch the Friday Night Lights season premiere now

Via Pop Candy, the Friday Night Lights second season premiere is already online! So you can watch it now and boost the viewing numbers and at your leisure! I'm totally psyched! I think the tomcat and I might watch it this weekend, unless the tomcat is a weasel and watches it tonight without me. Or if I just watch it at work today! Those company all hands meetings are so boring; this would be much better use of my time.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Download NBC shows now

You can actually start downloading NBC shows now. I haven't gotten around to installing the mini-app, but they are promoting Heroes, Monk and Psych, so it seems likely that you can view full episodes of those shows.

The Sports Guy champions Friday Night Lights

The Sports Guy begs all his readers to watch Friday Night Lights, in hopes of staving off a seemingly inevitable cancellation since the ratings suck, but the show is awesome. I'll be watching!

Macy*s - Martha Stewart Collection

First Martha Stewart houses, now Martha Stewart is taking over Macy's. I guess I'm on a bit of a Martha kick. Anyway, she has an exclusive collection for Macy*s that they are prominently displaying throughout the store - cookware, bedding, towels, etc. and a lot of it looks pretty nice! And with such a nice color palette! I personally have a weakness for the cake stands.

downloadable NBC shows

NBC.COM will allow you to download a number of their popular shows and watch them for up to a week after the broadcast. It starts in beta in October. It will even have an automatic download feature, so you get the shows automatically on your computer when they are available. I'll have to check this out!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Office tchlotkes

If you want to show how much you love the Office beyond constantly quoting lines or referencing scenes from episodes (I'm looking at you, gecko, but not in a bad way!) you can buy Office themed office supplies in the $1 bins at the front of Target. It's just one more reason to love Target.

Psych Renewed

Psych gets a third season. Yay! I have to say that this is one of my favorite summer shows - it's just so silly and fun!

Friday, September 14, 2007

TeeVee.net picks the best shows of the fall

TeeVee.net has posted their Top 10 fall shows, to help you decide what to watch. More detailed reviews will be posted later.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Alyssa Milano & baseball

Alyssa Milano will be doing baseball reporting for the baseball post-season. One can only hope that Holly Marie Combs and Shannen Doherty will show up, and that some of Alyssa's features will be about demons and rhyming spells/poems. And it turns out that Alyssa is back to some TV work since she'll be on My Name is Earl later this season.

Dead show walking

the futon critic explains why TV networks don't always burn off unaired shows, even though they've already paid for the shows.

Martha Stewart houses

You can buy a house modeled after one of Martha Stewart's homes, including inside finishing touches like crown molding, wainscotting, and all that good stuff. Wow, that's one way to extend your lifestyle branding. The homes are pretty classically New England, so I'm not sure how I feel about them in California, but they are purty.

Get an early taste of the new fall TV shows - USATODAY.com

Via Pop Candy, it looks like there are a number of different ways to catch the fall pilots early, including on American Airlines flights. Apparently they are showing Big Bang Theory and Cane on some flights. Tomcat, I think the Big Bang Theory is also streaming online, in case you truly cannot help yourself and need to watch that show. Last year there were a few pilots streaming early, and some pilots also got released on DVD on Netflix. I guess streaming pilots is the big trend this year.

Rachel Bilson

I'm glad to see that Rachel Bilson is still going to be able to find work post-OC, on Josh Schwartz's new show Chuck, which can be downloaded free to your Tivo from Amazon Unbox. I have it on my Tivo and will have to check it out tonight or over the weekend. Rachel still seems to be a paparazzi favorite, but seems to be spending most of her time lately shopping at Target and eating out. I'm glad I'll see her back on TV!

Sex And The City’ Movie

I guess the ‘Sex And The City’ movie is well on its way, since it set a release date for next May

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Brit's new album

After the totally lame VMA performance, I might have to stop posting about Britney. But apparently not quite yet. I guess I'll wait until the album comes out before I decide whether or not to make a final break with Britney. People magazine got to preview the album, and have some positive things to say, which will keep me optimistic...

Friday, September 07, 2007

iTunes' 99-cent Plan

There are rumors that iTunes wants to cut the price of videos to 99-cents. Perhaps that is what really got NBC to jump ship. Steve Jobs is arguing they will make it up in volume... It's a nice price and perhaps it is also to combat Unbox, but I'm still going to have to try Unbox a few times...

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Summer news regarding The Wire

Kottke.org writes about the Wire, and some recent interviews with David Simon

Legally Blonde musical hits MTV

Via tvtattle, The Legally Blonde Broadway musical will be shown on MTV.

NBC in Deal With Amazon to Sell Shows on the Web - New York Times

Via gecko and tomcat, it looks like NBC has found a new purveyor for their online content. I thought they were launching some crazy online site with Fox, but maybe that's someone else or maybe just for streaming content. Anyway, Amazon Unbox will be selling their shows. This will be a great reason for me to try out the service - I'm hoping it will be relatively cheap and really easy, and I'm excited about being able to watch shows on my TiVo rather than on my computer. Good thing I entered all my billing info into Unbox so I can play with this. And NBC will be offering free downloads of their fall pilots starting Sept 10, so those will probably be my first shows to look at.

Hopefully I can catch up on the backlog on the Tivo from this summer before the fall seasons start. I've been watching Damages from FX, and I'm totally addicted!

Roswell

Heeeeey, Shiri Appleby from Roswell resurfaces, but not in tv show or movie, but rather making out with Zach Braff. Wow, who knew. I wonder if these rumors are actually true about Zach Braff making out with people, or if it has just become something like seeing Elvis or Bigfoot...

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Fun facts about new shows

the futon critic is doing a fun series on ten things you should know about the fall season. Today's entry is about how pretty consistently, only 33% of new shows get picked up for a second season. He has statistics to back it up, and it's surprising to see how consistent it is across both networks and seasons.

Buffy stuff

It looks like the Buffy-spinoff Ripper, starring Giles, might become a reality. There has been talk of this series since before Buffy ended, so it's interesting that it's actually coming along now. Perhaps Joss Whedon wants to do some TV again. (via tvtattle.com)

Frak! NBC Universal Pulling Shows from iTunes - Today's News: My Take | TVGuide.com

The whole itunes/NBC feud continues, but this little news bit has an intriguing hint as to the sticking point - pricing, which should be no surprise. But apparently NBC wants to bundle offerings. Naturally, they want to bundle, but I'm still curious how exactly that would be executed... I guess we'll see pretty soon...

Monday, September 03, 2007

Another fantasy TV league

Looks like Bravo/TWOP are hosting their own fantasy tv league. I wonder how the setup compares to fantasyteevee, and whether you can create your own leagues... I signed up for an update, so I can get a few more details. I'll report back!

the futon critic's favorite fall shows

The futon critic has organized all his reviews of the fall pilots by star ratings, so it's easy to see which ones he really likes and so forth. I'll definitely use this as a guide for setting up my season passes.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Britney Spears's Album Out Nov. 13

And here's the release date for Britney's Album...

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Britney's back

Britney has indeed released a new single (I guess all those tabloid rumors were in fact correct, and you can listen to it streaming here. The song isn't an Autumn Goodbye, or Oops, or Walk on By, but it is pretty catchy. The spoken intro is a bit terrifying with some disembodied Britney laughter and slightly strange breathy talking, but I suspect this is one of those songs that will grow on you over time, until you start liking it. Much like most of Justin Timberlake's songs.

Dance off

I thought this was a joke, but apparently it's not so, I guess I'll blog about it. Apparently, ABC wants to pad their schedule with something more like So You Think You Can Dance so they are having Carrie Ann and Bruno assemble dance troupes for a dance off. Or something. And Drew Lachey will host.

The Office Summer Vacation

A NBC preview of what the characters on the Office did over the summer. It's pretty cute, and fun!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Annyong Hermano

Ah, this silly t-shirt makes me miss Arrested Development. At least I know that someone else (other than gecko, of course) misses it too! We can relive the glory with this shirt.

Dancing With The Stars' new cast

I think you have to be hiding under a rock to have missed the Dancing With The Stars announcement of the new cast. I'm a bit surprised that it wasn't in 70 point font on the front page of the paper today, since the news seems like it's everywhere. Obviously, the cast is somewhat exciting (Jennie Garth), but seems a little scary (Wayne Newton, Melanie "Scary Spice/Questionable Eddie Murphy Babymama Paternity Fight" Brown). They've gone a bit more afield with their sports stars (boxing and car racing), and avoided the aging (meaning thirtysomething) teenybopper pop star. Maybe Jane Seymour will be a good dancer... Happily my favorite pro dancers will be back, and we'll see Juliane Hough's brother join the cast as well.

If you want to see something terrifying, the main page of the ABC DWTS website has a montage of clips set to Vanessa Hudgen's new single (she's the lead from High School Musical who apparently is dating the other star - Zac Efron). This is not a fun awesome song ala Pinkberry - it's just sigh, well, I wouldn't buy it and I love pop music. Anyway, she's the star of High School Musical who actually sings her own songs, unlike Zac Efron.

Colbie Caillat

My latest iTunes purchase is Colbie Caillat album, after hearing the latest single on the radio. Her single, Bubbly, may be well into the overplayed rotation, but since I was out of the country for a month, I apologize if I'm coming late the party (By the way, that Narnia SNL rap is awesome! And the dancing hamster!). Anyway, I would actually bet money that this song will end up Grey's Anatomy and the rest of the album seems equally catchy and fun. On her album cover, she looks like Jennifer Aniston. Okay, that's it for my unique and clever insights...

Friday, August 24, 2007

MTV Travel Guides

Hmm, Frommer's and MTV are teaming up to do travel guides. I wonder if they are trying to create a competitor to Let's Go. And I wonder if MTV is adding any valuable content to this. Anyway, I'll have to take a look at these in the bookstore.

Fall TV Guide

A fall TV guide from the Chicago Tribune, with one critic's opinions on what to watch and what to skip. The futon critic should be posting one soon as well, but I'm not sure if E! Online will be doing one this year.

PlayStations news

PS3 will add DVR features, as well as the ability to transfer shows to the PSP

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Wedding magazine blog

Martha Stewart Weddings magazine has finally started a blog

Friday Night Lights Guarantee

The first season DVD of Friday Night Lights comes with a money back guarantee. So really, you should watch it, because it's awesome!

K-Ville

The pilot of K-Ville (one of the new fall shows) has been posted to Yahoo.

Traveler - trying to resurrect

In case you, like the tomcat, would actually have liked to see Traveler continue as a series, there's a campaign to resurrect the show on a cable network (TNT). I think gecko and I were pretty schmeh on the it, so I am extremely ambivalent and won't be signing any petitions or sending candy/soda/condiments to any studios. If only I had gotten into Dead Like Me sooner, I might have been sending stuff to Showtime... It would be hilarious to get into a show much later, but then do whatever their renewal campaign was, but two/three/five/ten years later...

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Lost meets the Wire?

Capt. Daniels from the Wire (aka Lance Reddick) will be on Lost next year. Don't read if you don't want to know the role, since that might be a minor spoiler for Lost...

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Movies on the plane

So one of the good (and bad) things about going on a long plane trip is that you get to watch lots of movies. I recently watched:
* Breach - the Ryan Phillipe movie where he's investigating a mole in the FBI - not very good, but it passed the time.
* Becoming Jane - since I was flying a foreign carrier and this movie apparently got released earlier elsewhere than in the US, I got to see this before it released in the US. Woo, I'm in the know! - it was okay, but I love Anne Hathaway so I was hoping I'd like it more. Maybe I was just grumpy from being on the plane for too long.
* Next - I wrote about this one already.
* Paris Je T'aime
* Blades of Glory

I was also excited that they had TV episodes, so I also got to watch House and Top Gear (a UK car show that's pretty funny.

Marigold

I haven't watched any Bollywood movies, but I'm starting to think I should. And apparently, Ali Larter from Heroes is in Marigold, which is a Bollywood-esque romantic comedy. The movie is supposed to be out now, but I can't find it on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, but I can save it in Netflix, so I'm not sure what that means about the movie's release date. Anyway, I'm not sure is having Ali Larter makes it not really a Bollywood film, but it might be fun, so I'm going to check it out.

Shaun the Sheep

I started watching Shaun the Sheep which is showing on the Disney channel. Shaun is the sheep from the Wallace and Gromit short A Close Shave. Each episode is only 5 minutes and it's adorable. I love it. The sheep are so cute and the silly situations they get into are very entertaining. I highly recommend it. If you click through the link to the site, you can see some links to clips of the episodes.

Monday, August 20, 2007

VM getting around next season

Kristen Bell (i.e. Veronica Mars) already has one new show this upcoming television season, and although it is only a speaking role so far, she is the titular character in the upcoming CW show "Gossip Girl." Now she has one more, as she was recently signed on to the next season of Heroes to play yet another mysterious character.

Gossip Girl doesn't hold a whole lot of appeal to me, since it sounds like it's just going to be a bunch of teenagers being catty to each other, but it has gotten reasonable reviews thus far. Among the two main characters, one of them (Blake Lively) is in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants franchise and the other is best known (to me) as the insane underage girl who goes after House.

Apparently Heroes has about 2853 new characters next season.

Celeb Apprentice?

I'm not sure how whether this entire entry is a rumor sourced by NY Post, or only the info about them trying to recruit Brit, Paris and Lindsay Lohan, but there are rumors that the next version of the Apprentice could have celebrities or "celebrities" as the contestents. So this entire concept could be a sham, but I have to admit, I'd watch it.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The InStyle Weddings curse

I had kind of noticed this, since I'm an avid InStyle Weddings reader, but it looks like there has the InStyle Weddings curse is really starting to have quite a lot of evidence to back it up. The New York Times wrote an article about it back in 2002 and there have been a number of instances after that. TVGuide.com mentions the curse in a post about how Jennifer Morrison and Dr. Chase from House are calling off their engagement... Also, the NY Times article references Shannon Elizabeth, who in fact did get divorced from her husband. I wonder if this is going to get as much traction as the Sports Illustrated curse...