Fables

I'm intrigued by this comic series, “Fables”, which is going to become a series on ABC. The series is about fairy tale characters living in NYC. Fun!

Less Knight

The tomcat will be sad to hear that the Knight Rider episode order just got cut down to 17 episodes. No, that's not a good sign.

Leverage

Here's a review of a the new show Leverage which sounds like it might be kind of a fun crime-based procedural (with the twist of doing the crime, as opposed to solving the crime) and it stars Gina Bellman (Jane from Coupling!).

'Caprica,'

And Caprica, the Battlestar prequel, is getting picked up for a series!

The Amazing Race news

Yes, Dallas and Starr from the Amazing Race have been dating for about six months. And Dallas got screwed by the Amazing Race production team. He lost the Amazing Purse (TM from TWOP) because the production staff unbuckled it when they switched the battery on his microphone pack. And there's a lot more detail in the linked interview about what happened when he lost the purse and afterwards.

Dear Tracy Jordan

Pop Candy had a link to an series of NBC videos called Dear Tracy Jordan. I haven't watched since I can't really watch videos at my office, but I'm excited about the concept. Is he better than Strongbad?

Romantic Comedy Trailer Round-Up

I suppose it's time for my annual post so I thought I'd try something slightly different. Since our reader(s) seem to have an affection for romantic comedies, I'm going to run through a list of trailers for upcoming rom-coms and do a brief description and some thoughts on each.

This list is not comprehensive and I am focusing on mainstream Hollywood movies that have some star power behind them and seem more or less like they just follow the expected storyline.

• The Ugly Truth
  New Katherine Heigl romantic comedy, co-starring Gerard Butler, the "tonight we dine in Hell" guy from 300. She plays a socially awkward television producer, he plays someone who seems like he's supposed to be a more attractive television version of Howard Stern. This has the vague feel of an old school Cary Grant style comedy to me, where they start off hating each other but will probably eventually fall in love. I haven't seen Butler in anything other than 300 but it seems like he can pull off the chauvinistic suave guy pretty well. Could be amusing if they do it right.
  
• New In Town
  Renee Zellweger plays the high-powered California executive who heads to small town Minnesota to do some re-org at her company's plant. Classic fish-out-of-water setup, a rugged-looking Harry Connick Jr. is the local love-interest. Meh.
  
• He's Just Not That Into You


This one speaks for itself. A star-studded cast based on a bestselling book, it's likely that this is going to be a pretty big success. I can't really tell what the plot is actually going to be about, but it seems like it'll focus on several different people and I guess how their relationships progress (and mostly fail). The trailer had some amusing moments and this looks promising right now. The cast consists of Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Justin Long, Ginnifer Goodwin, and probably several others I did not recognize.

• Bride Wars
  Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway play best friends who get engaged to some people I don't recognize at the same time. They share the same dream wedding vision and everything is going according to plan until they discover that only one person can have the venue they both desire, and that's when they become best enemies. I'm not really sure who thought this was a good idea, it doesn't look funny, romantic, and it actually seems kind of sexist, hmm...
  
• Confessions of a Shopaholic
  Isla Fisher plays a crazy shopaholic who runs out of money and has to find... a job? I don't really get it. Isla is pretty cute but this trailer really doesn't do it for me, it looks like they are going for an Uptown Girls kind of thing with a spoiled rich girl who has to learn how to be a better person (by finding a job) but with a Sex and the City spin to it. More meh.
  

Shaun The Sheep - new season

Shaun The Sheep will be getting a new season of 40 more mini-episodes. Hopefully the Disney channel will pick it up again! And I hope the Timmy the Lamb series starts soon too!

TiVo Economics

Here's an awesome economic valuation of TiVo. How much is your time worth? What is the value of not throttling someone you like who has terrible channel surfing habits and loves to watch horrendous stand up on Comedy Central?

Julianne and DWTS

Julianne Hough won't be on the spring season of DWTS (sad!) since she's focusing on her music and she might not even be in the fall season next year...

'Cupid' trailer

ABC is remaking Cupid and there's a trailer for it now. The original had Jeremy Piven and many TV critics are huge fans of the show, which died a fast and ignoble death. The new version has Sarah Paulson, who has been on a series of short-lived shows but who I usually like (although I thought she was annoying on Studio 60, but that was probably just the writing...).

dance show

Michael Flatley is getting his own competitive dance reality show. However, it will feature ethnic/cultural dancing.

More 'Privileged'

Privileged gets the order for five more episodes and will be getting encore showings right after Gossip Girl, which will hopefully translate in getting more people hooked on this show. The tomcat and totoro both watch this show, so it must be awesome. It's definitely a Gilmore Girls replacement show!

DVR stats

I think this will be the end of my blogging burst, but here is a new study published about DVR habits. Of course, sci-fi and action were more likely to have above average DVR playback. There's some additional interesting analysis of the results in the linked blog post, but I feel bad copying it into here so click through to check it out.

Fox's midseason schedule

Here's the new schedule for Fox at midseason although it really does seem like Fox announces five different versions of its schedule so this is probably nothing like what will actually air. The key changes:
1) Dollhouse is moving to Friday, which is not really good news since that's a traditional show elephant graveyard. This post on the Joss Whedon blog (via the blog that was the first link on this page) also does not bode well for how much Fox really likes the show.
2) House moves to Mondays
3) Bones moves to Thursdays

The rest of the changes I don't really care about...

Yogurt Pepsi

I love yogurt flavored things - yogurt gelato is one of my favorites. So is it bad that I'm totally intrigued by the launch of Yogurt Pepsi in Japan? Unfortunately, since liquids can't go on planes anymore, it will be hard to ask someone to bring one back for me, if I can find someone taking a trip over there...

Also, strawberry-chocolate Cheetos? Crazy.

'Battlestar,' auction

Buy your own bit of Battlestar at this auction of props

Disney merchandise

Disney is building out their merchandising to the high end, including "partnerships with designers like Paul Smith, Vivienne Tam and Dolce & Gabbana."

The Wire gets jazzy

Lance Reddick (Cedric Daniels from the Wire, and more recently from Lost) has a jazz album. Who knew?

SYTYCD + ABDC

Hok and Dominic from SYTYCD have a dance crew that auditioned for MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. A collision of worlds! Although I wasn't that impressed with their dance crew performed at the SYTYCD finale during the summer.

Center Stage 2

I forgot to track the premiere date for this, but apparently, the Center Stage sequel is now airing on Oxygen and this blog posted a review. I'll have to figure out if I even get that channel. It sounds like it is both better and worse - a few great dance numbers and a few lame dance numbers, and as to be expected, poor acting.

Dollhouse trailer

via tvtattle, here's a trailer for Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse. It looks pretty good so far! And the link here has a hilarious (to me) picture of Eliza Dushku, Joss Whedon and Helo in a weird, cuddly picture that looks like a satire of most promotional shots for TV shows.

TARracers.com

TARracers.com is a site where you can find out what many of the Amazing Race alumni are up to. Unsurprisingly, many are doing entertainment/TV stuff.

Bride Wars

Bride Wars has Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson and two weddings in the plot which means it should be right in my wheelhouse, but the trailer looks unfortunate. I guess it's just categorized as a comedy, not a romantic comedy. Sad. Where are the cute boys and the crappy love montage? That's all I want in a movie!

Netflix and TiVo to Partner on Movies - NYTimes.com

Netflix will allow its movies to stream to TiVos. As the tomcat says, "It's an awesome smoothie with an extra shot of awesome." Two of my favorite technologies getting together! Now if Pushing Daisies and Privileged get picked up, things will be perfect in my media watching world!

Britney

Britney relaunched her official site with a lot of new content - videos, photos, blog posts and yes, her very own Twitter feed.

Julianne Hough Blog

Julianne is blogging about DWTS and shilling for her album. It's fun to see a bit more behind the scenes stuff about DWTS...

NBC Pages

A short article about the NBC Page program, for fans of Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock.

Britney Spears documentary

Britney Spears will have a 90 minute documentary on MTV airing two days before her new album drops. Will this be more Crossroads or more Chaotic?

DWTS

I was surprised to see that Lance Bass actually got to contribute to the list of potential songs to dance to on DWTS. I always thought it was the professional who picked the list, but it makes sense that the celebrity partner gets to have some input. Although it makes me really question some of the previous songs, since there have been some terrifying songs and it's hard to believe that people would say "hey, volunteer me to dance with that song!"

'Privileged' gains

I was excited to see that Privileged is improving in the ratings since I really enjoy it and don't want to see it cancelled. Usually shows only decline from their premiere, but maybe CW shows defy generalizations... Speculation is that Lauren Conrad's guest appearance and an encore presentation of the show in the Gossip Girl slot may have bumped up the ratings. This article indicated that things were not looking good for Privileged, as of last week.

Remote Free TV works

Fox launched Remote Free TV with Fringe, with the concept that shorter commercial breaks mean people are more likely to watch the ads. They'll be doing this initiative with Fringe and Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku's new show Dollhouse. And apparently the results are in, that people really do watch more of the ads when the breaks are shorter. Of course, it doesn't actually make more people watch the show, since people are drawn to the content, not the overall "less commercials, more content" concept. But cool nonetheless.

'Project Runway' schedule

Via tvtattle, if the Project Runway lawsuit between the production company and NBC is not resolved really quickly, they might miss the schedule to be ready for February's fashion week, and we'll have to wait until next summer for the next season.

Privileged

My latest favorite show is actually Privileged - I try to watch it on the night of, and the main character reminds me of Lorelei from Gilmore Girls, with lots of funny self-conscious banter. And the best part is the cutesy squee romance - the options are the hot, wealthy next door neighbor, the childhood best friend and for now, the high school principal (although I assume he won't be around that long)...

And I just found out that the childhood best friend is played by Michael Cassidy, who was Zach on the OC (the guy Summer dated after Seth who was a Seth-clone). Awesome!

And the best part was that I made the tomcat watch the pilot with me, and he has ended up getting totally addicted to it. So you should watch it too!

DTWS update

Misty May-Treanor got injured while dancing during rehearsals for DWTS so she's out of the competition. That's scary, since it could really mess with her volleyball career. And Brooke Burke also drops the nugget that apparently Derek Hough and Shannon Elizabeth are living together...

Starz+ Netflix

Starz channel movies will now be streamed through Netflix. More reasons to want my Roku back! Although I am definitely buried under all the fall TV. But the tomcat might actually give the Roku back, but only because the service will soon be available on the XBox. Selfish!

Tivo for your PC

Tivo is partnered with some other company to provide DVR capabilities on a PC. It even comes with a remote.

NBC Uni granted 'Runway' injunction

NBC Universal has been granted an injuction against Project Runway going to Lifetime. Lifetime had announced that the next season of Project Runway would air in the fall, but then pushed it back to early 2009. I wonder if they did that because they were worried they would lose the legal challenge. Should be interesting to watch this play out between the Weinstein brothers, and NBC.

Lil Wayne's sports blog

I've been hearing Lil Wayne stuff on the radio like every 5 minutes for the last several months so I was amused to find out that he's starting a blog for ESPN The Magazine. Apparently all he does is watch sports ("I don't watch nothing but sports—no movies, no news, no television shows").

In this first post, he talks a lot about football, as you might expect, and apparently his fantasy football league is small enough that he was able to just drop "Ben Rothlisberger" [sic] and still pick up Kurt Warner. I wonder who else is in that league. T-Pain? T.I.? Chris Brown?

More stuff to watch at Netflix

Netflix will stream curent episodes of CSI and other select CBS and Disney shows. Looks like I'll have even more to watch on the Roku when the tomcat eventually gives it back. And it looks like the networks are doing a shotgun approach to see where people like to view shows - Amazon UnBox, Roku, Netflix, Hulu, etc. I was excited that I could download the season premiere of Chuck via Unbox, so hopefully I'll have time to watch that this week.

Refurb-vo

My refurbished TiVo showed up last night (I came home from work a bit early to intercept the UPS guy), and now it's all set up! I had to buy a cable splitter and scrounge some extra coax cable from under my bed, but I'm up and running. I now have a total of four DVR-able tuners in my house. Thank goodness since otherwise I might have missed a show!

And amazingly, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders reality show got renewed for a third season! I'm totally watching, again!

MAGHOUND

MAGHOUND, the magazine Netflix, has launched in beta and has a pretty broad selection of magazines. I'll have the browse and see if I'm interested. I wonder if they'll put InStyle Weddings in there. I need to do some cost calculations to see if doing this would be cheaper than buying the rather expensive Martha Stewart Weddings subscription and some of the magazines on the newsstand...

Braid

Totoro recommended the XBox game Braid, which I think he has been evangelizing the way that I evangelize Arrested Development and the Wire. He recommended it after the tomcat and I played through Portal in one long, and somewhat motion-sickness filled evening (I hate the way the tomcat drives the camera in the game). He also mentioned that since it was a 2D game, I would not be likely to get as motion sick from watching. Tomcat and I started playing over the weekend and he's not allowed to play when I'm not around. We had a lot of fun, although we appear to be a bit stuck on one of the levels... Anyway, kottke.org posted a link to Soulja Boy reviewing Braid.

New Britney Album

The new Britney album, Circus, will drop on December 2 and the first single will come out on Sept 22nd. Woo!

DVR trends

This report on DVR trends claims that most DVR usage is by power users (30% of the users account for 71% of the usage) and that most DVR users only watch one-third of their content in a time shifted manner. This leads to the conclusion that DVR usage does not erode television viewing as much as has been portrayed by TV networks, and ignores the fact that DVRs may contribute to higher rates of television watching.

A new Jessica Alba movie

I'm honestly baffled by how Jessica Alba picks her movies, but her next movie is about a woman who is very into numbers and math, and becomes a second grade teacher. This sounds like it will likely be truly horrendous, but one of the writers wrote The Wedding Planner, so there is some hope... I'm not expecting Jessica to be believable in this role, but there's a bit of hope for this one.

Pushing Daisies

Via tvtattle.com, here's an interview with the creator of Pushing Daisies and he says that Kristen Chenowith will get more musical numbers this year. Yay!

30 Rock + GG

Gossip Girl's Serena and Blair might guest star on 30 Rock. It's a collision of two fabulous worlds!

Britney at the VMAs

Britney will be at the VMAs, but she won't be performing. No one is sure what she'll be doing, but I might be tempted to check it out...

Dr. Horrible Soundtrack

As of yesterday, you can buy the Dr. Horrible soundtrack on iTunes...

NBC sneaks some season premieres on Hulu

You'll be able to watch Chuck and 30 Rock on Hulu a week before their TV premiere date. Life, Lipstick Jungle and Knight Rider will also get the same treatment.

90210

The NY Times has posted an article with lots of excerpts of interviews from the 90210 cast. I've got a season pass already set for 90210, although I'm not sure how long it will last.

I watched the season premiere of Gossip Girl and enjoyed it, but wasn't totally blown away. But over the weekend, I achieved TiVo zero, in preparation for the fall season so I'm all ready for it. And I finally got around to calling TiVo to get my Tivo fixed/replaced, so I just send to send it back so I can get my replacement box. Woo! And lastly, I was on a mad TV watching binge and finished watching all the old episodes of Bones so that I can watch the season premiere this week! I think I'm all TV-d out. Sigh...

'Center Stage' sequel

Yes, there is going to be a Center Stage sequel! Sadly, the only two repeat cast members are Peter Gallagher and (woo!) Ethan Stiefel/Cooper Nielson, the awesome ballet dancer.

Pie!

Pop Candy gave a link to a news item about the Pushing Daisies publicity tour where they are going around to various cities giving away free pie, as well as Pushing Daisies magnets, pie servers and spatulas! That sounds totally awesome!

90210 ice cream truck

Tee hee - the CW is promoting the premiere of 90210 by having ice cream trucks drive around cities, playing the 90210 theme song. Awesome! I'd come running if I heard that song. Also, there is a contest to make a cover of the 90210 theme song! If you win, your song could get featured during an episode.

Bones

One of the few shows that Totoro watches is Bones, and I'm not even sure if he actually watched the whole season this year, but he recommended it to me. I thought about it and started watching some of the reruns, and enjoyed it a bit but was having some issues with getting some of the early seasons. He then got friend eg to give me the DVDs so I really had no excuses. I've been watching during my commute, which has been really nice and is a good way to avoid very awkward conversations with weird people on public transportation... I'm totally hooked now, and am a third of the way through season 2. Not sure if I'll catch up in time to be ready for the season 4 premiere next week, but I do have the three days weekend to work on that!

‘Amazing Race’ Season 13 teams

An LA Times writer got to interview the TAR teams before they left on the Race and tried to give some opinions about who would do well in the race.

Dancing with the Stars Cast

Here is the new cast for Dancing with the Stars. Some of the interesting couples: Lance Bass with Lacey Schwimmer (from So You Think You Can Dance), Kim Kardashian with Mark Ballas (erg), beach volleyballer Misty May-Treanor with Maksim, Julianne Hough with some 18 year old actor, and Brooke Burke with Derek Hough (doesn't she seem like a clone of Shannon Elizabeth). (Also, does this mean that if they keep up with this line of casting that Tara Reid will be on DWTS? That could be spectacularly tragi-comic, though I'm sure she has been on their wish list of cast members for forever).

Also, Mark Ballas' dad will be one of the professional dancers, so that should amp up some of the inter-dancer rivalries.

Studio Ghibli's newest anime

Totoro should be excited about the latest Studio Ghibli movie which is premiering soon. It's about a fish-human hybrid girl who has a romance with a human boy who lives by the ocean. Should be cute!

Amazing Race 13 cast

The Amazing Race 13 cast is revealed. The full cast list is at CBS.com. I hadn't realized that TAR was on the schedule for this fall, but I'm really excited now that I know it's starting so soon! One of the teams is a woman who was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and her brother, and the woman was on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders reality show. It's a collision of worlds!

Robin McKinley novel

Ooh, Robin McKinley has a new book coming out next month called Chalice! I'm pretty excited about this!

Bring it On!

There is going to be a cheerleading competition Wii game, and the game creators got the services of some guy who was also a consultant on Bring It On. Woo.

New fall TV shows

Is it fall already? TV Guide has posted their guide to all the new fall TV shows. It didn't really seem like there were going to be that many new shows this year, but there are quite a few on that list. I'm going to have to print out the TV grid and figure out what shows I'll record and whether I have too many shows to record.

I'm debating whether to repo the tomcat's other Tivo so that my household can go back to being a 3 Tivo tuner household since 2 tuners is clearly not enough...

Maid in Manhattan for TV

A TV version of Maid in Manhattan is being developed for ABC and will at least get a pilot made. I don't love this movie, but it's pretty fun to watch for a bit if I catch it on TV on a quiet weekend day. But it sounds like it's more of a workplace show, as opposed to a romantic comedy show...

Wallace & Gromit on Hulu

A number of Wallace and Gromit shorts are up at Hulu! I hope they get Shaun the Sheep eventually...

True Blood

The early reviews of True Blood, the HBO vampire series are looking pretty good, although this trailer doesn't really make much sense to me. I might have to check out the books that the series is based on...

Trivial Pursuit game show

I think the tomcat and his friend the LCD will love this new Trivial Pursuit game show that will be airing this fall, starting on Sept 22nd.

The proposal on HIMYM

The wedding proposal by the extras in the 2007 season finale of How I Met Your Mother was a real proposal, and the couple just got married.

Shannon Elizabeth + Derek Hough

I didn't realize thatShannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough were officially a couple. The signs were clearly there,but I hadn't seen any news bits about it, but apparently it's true.

Twilight Bytes: Inspired by own name, town offers 'Twilight'-themed dishes | PopWatch Blog | EW.com

Twilight mania hits the real Washington state town where the book/movie is supposed to take place and the locals are taking advantage of the boom in tween tourism by adding dishes to the restaurant menu that are named after or inspired by the book characters. You can get the Bella Burger, Bellasagna, Ed's Bread (garlic bread), and the Twilight Special Subway Sandwich.

True Blood

I'm intrigued by Alan Ball's new show for HBO, True Blood, which is about a small town Louisiana waitress who falls in with a bunch of vampires. It reminds me of Robin McKinley's book Sunshine, which I really enjoyed, and this seems to be a much more popular genre of story than I previously realized. I guess vampires are kind of having a bit of a pop culture resurgence, with Moonlight and this show, and the movie/book Twilight.

This TV show looks kind of fun and soapy, so hopefully it will turn out well!

Ne-Yo + Big Red

Ne-Yo has covered the Big Red gum jingle. It's hilarious.

Top Gear news

Adam Carolla talked about filming the Top Gear pilot last week. Apparently, there are reviews of the taping all over the internet. So we might know sooner rather than later whether the show will be fun. Corolla said

that finding a star to cram into the "reasonably priced car" took a mighty effort on behalf of both the show's producers and Carolla himself. They came close to settling for Howie Mandel and/or ex-Spice Girl Mel B., but somehow landed the legendary David Hasselhoff at the last moment. Alec Baldwin, a personal friend of Carolla's, was at least approached and Cameron Diaz's name floated about.

Harry Potter 6 trailer

Yup, it's the new Harry Potter teaser. This has been making the rounds since it was released earlier today but I think the most interesting thing is the vastly different style that this trailer has taken on compared to teasers for previous Harry Potter movies. If it didn't take so much effort I would try to look up teasers for the previous movies and embed them here to make it easy to compare but as far as I remember most of them took the format of some voiceovers followed by many snapshots of various scenes from the movie.

This teaser for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince instead is essentially one extended scene and is really quite dark. I'm not sure that this is a children's movie any more. I mean, maybe in the same way that Labyrinth was a children's movie, and that thing scared the crap out of me when I was little.

Chuck Season 2 infoz (possible spoilers)

The video above is about a 6.5 minute preview of Chuck's second season that was screened at the San Diego Comic-con. It's a cam, so the quality of both the video and the audio are pretty poor and you can hear people cheering in the background, but you do get a few good glimpses of things that might happen in the next season.

Some non-spoiler highlights:

• Agent Sarah and... Nicole Richie? Fighting. In the shower.
• Tony Hale of Arrested Development (Buster) playing a role at the Buy More
• Michael Clarke Duncan playing a thug
• Melinda Clarke of The O.C. (Julie Cooper) playing the type of character you'd expect her to play
• Jordana Brewster finding Chuck hiding under a table (I think she plays the girl that he never quite got over... but I could be wrong)
  
• John Larroquette playing some kind of spy boss/mentor
  
• Hilariousness involving Captain Awesome
• Sarah working at a frozen yogurt place
  

Some more details from Watch with Kristin are available. Chuck was one of the few shows that I actually watched last season so I am pretty excited about it starting up again in the Fall. It's not a great show exactly, but it's fun to watch and a few of the characters (mostly Adam Baldwin and Captain Awesome) really make the show worth it.

Rachael Leigh Cook in Psych

There's no confirmation on IMDB about this yet, but our favorite girl who is All That seems to have shown up in the latest episode of Psych. The episode focuses around Shawn and Gus at their high school reunion and Rachael appears to play Shawn's old high school crush. I've embedded a brief clip from the beginning of the episode which is available in its entirety from Hulu.

I have fond memories of She's All That from the pinnacle of the teenybopper era but it is sad to see that Rachael has gone from low budget teen movie lead to starring in a TV pilot that was never picked up to guest starring on a USA show. She's still pretty cute though, so I guess there is that.

'Dr. Horrible': An oral history | 2 | Web Video | News + Notes | Comic-Con 2008 | Entertainment Weekly

An interview with Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris and others about Dr. Horrible - a few fun notes: Neil Patrick Harris auditioned to be the doctor on Firefly (sadly, I don't think I would have liked him as much as the other guy), and that the Dr. Horrible remote was just a website viewed on an iPhone (and Joss wants to make the website public so everyone can have the Dr. Horrible remote!).

'Twilight' @ Comicon

Teenagers are anxiously awaiting the movie adaptation of Twilight and the Comicon session was filled with screaming, swooning girls. Yikes.

Chris Brown dance show

Chris Brown will be getting into the dance reality show craze! Cool! Hopefully he'll do lots of dancing!

OC flashback!

woo, Taylor Townsend from the OC (aka Autumn Reeser) is going to be a guest star on the Pushing Daisies season premiere

as a Southern Belle named Kentucky Fritz who has a deadly run-in with some killer bees. "She's the number one girl at Betty's Bees, who may or may not have been up to some mischief when she was stung to death by a swarm of bees," teases Daisies creator Bryan Fuller.

Neil Patrick Harris Q&A

Here's a fun Q & A with Neil Patrick Harris, but the most surprising thing? The actor he'd most like to work with is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Really? Hmm, I have a bad radar for sarcasm so is he serious or not?

Fringe screening at comicon

Uh oh, looks like the screeing for Fringe at Comicon wasn't an overwhelming success. Maybe they can do some recuts for the premiere?

Dr. Horrible stats

Apparently about 2 million people watched the Dr. Horrible musical online. Not sure how it's doing on iTunes, but Joss Whedon and co. are planning to release a DVD of Dr. Horrible as well.

Caprica trailer

Here's a trailer for Caprica, the TV movie prequel to Battlestar Galactica, set about 50 years before Battlestar. It looks pretty exciting! The latest rumors are a series pickup for Caprica has not yet happened, so the SciFi channel is getting a final cut of the movie soon, and will decide whether to greenlight a season of the show.

Yes Zooey

Here's a trailer for Jim Carrey's new movie Yes Man, which actually looks pretty amusing even though I've never been a particular fan of Jim's and he's looking noticeably older. Basically the only reason why I'm posting this is because Zooey Deschanel is in it and the trailer is actually pretty amusing. I suspect the movie itself will probably not be very good as its premise is basically the classic story of a Scrooge-type character who sees the light and changes his ways and probably finds love along the way, the wacky hijinks that ensue may be amusing but will probably be equally painful.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

I'm intrigued by the trailer for In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which looks like it might be a fun, quirky romantic comedy (or a total train wreck).

Flash of Genius

So this movie, Flash of Genius doesn't look that exciting to me, but it was so nice to Lauren Graham again! I miss seeing her on Gilmore Girls, although I have to admit I was glad to see her escape from the sinking ship that was the last couple seasons of Gilmore Girls...

Brenda's back

Yes, it's true, Shannen Doherty will make a guest appearance on the new 90210 spinoff. Here's hoping that things don't get ugly again!

Dr. Horrible: Watch now!

Don't forget to watch Joss Whedon's new online only mini-show Dr. Horrible, with Doogie Howser and Mal from Firefly, since I think it won't be online for much longer. Or you can buy it from iTunes!

High School Musical 3

Here's the trailer for High School Musical 3: Senior Year. As usual, it looks like it's full of fun songs and dancing.

Hayden Panettiere’s new song

Listen to a clip of Hayden Panettiere’s song “Wake Up Call” . I thought it might be kind of fun, pop-y and catchy, but the tomcat thinks it's lame.

Netflix for magazine

Time Inc is launching a service called Maghound, where you pay a monthly subscriber fee and can pick a certain number of magazines to get that month, out of a stable of 300 magazines (at launch). So you can pay $5 to get any three magazines, and so on and you can change which magazines you get each month. I wonder if you'd be able to see what the cover/contents of the magazine look like before you choose which magazines you want.

I don't think I get any Time Inc magazines, but they do have a bunch of big hitters like Sports Illustrated. I think the tomcat will love this since he loves magazines.

New Twilight trailer

By request of Nyanko, here's a new trailer for Twilight that shows a bit more action. I have not read the books and the trailer doesn't make me any more excited about the movie but I guess there are a lot of people who are into this series.

The only thing I know about this is that the lead female star Kristen Stewart looks way older than she really is (ack she was born in 1990) and she played Meg Ryan's daughter in that movie with Adam Brody that looked really horrible.

Scrubs news

I kind of thought that Scrubs was just going to be on ABC for its last season, but it looks like they haven't really ruled out doing more seasons. Zach Braff has stated that this will be his last season on the show, but at the TV press tour, they talked about bring in new doctors and continuing the show. Hopefully a new cast will bring a creative renaissance as I think the last couple seasons have been kind of weak. Or maybe I'll finally just have to kill my season pass to the show.

P.S. I assume Zach Braff wants to do movies/write movies, but will he ever play a different character than the feckless, wayward 30-something dude? Or can he make a lifetime career of it, ala Hugh Grant?

Kara Saun and ABDC

Looks like Project Runway contestants are making their mark as stylists on TV shows... First we had Kit Pistol dressing Samantha Harris on Dancing with the Stars, and now we have the news that Kara Saun is doing the wardrobe for America's Best Dance Crews.

Megan Fox and Simon Pegg

I am on a roll with the trailers, here's one for How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, a comedy starring Simon Pegg, Megan Fox, Kirsten Dunst, and Jeff Bridges. I have still not seen Shaun of the Dead but I thought Hot Fuzz was hilarious and Simon Pegg appears to be doing pretty well as it looks like he's moving more into mainstream Hollywood with this film.

Also of note, as far as I know this is Megan Fox's first major release since Transformers. One of the main theaters around here has a big prop for this film that I've seen a few times so I've been wondering what this was all about. Now that I've looked into it a bit more it appears that this is based on a book of the same name so I could've figured it out a lot earlier I suppose. Then again, if Megan Fox wasn't on that prop I'm not sure I would've cared that much at all.

Watchmen trailer

Yay more video embedding. Here's a link that may or may not work for the highly anticipated trailer for the upcoming Watchmen film based on the groundbreaking graphic novel by Alan Moore. I pulled this out of the source from this page at Cinematical and it may stop working at any moment since their link to the original post on Empire is also broken. All of these are likely to be fixed this weekend since there have been numerous reports now (too many to reference) that this trailer will be attached to The Dark Knight which is coming out... tonight.

Wire movie? Maybe not.

Apparently, the Wire creator David Simon isn't hot on doing a movie, since he feels that the series had an ending that was appropriate to itself. I guess that throws some cold water on the rumors that some of the cast members had been spreading about trying to put together a movie...

Netflix on the Xbox 360

The tomcat will be thrilled that the Roku box functionality of streaming Netflix rentals will be on the Xbox 360 starting this fall. The service will be free if you already have a Netflix subscription, and again, this is only a subset of the entire Netflix library. Maybe the tomcat give me my Roku box back after that.

Alias

JJ Abrams admits that even he is confused by Alias:

He told a story about recently watching an old ep of Alias with his pal Greg Grunberg. "I was so confused. It was impenetrable," says Abrams, the, um, creator of Alias. "I was like, ‘Who the f--- is that guy?"

At least it wasn't just me. I instituted a rule in my home when others were watching Alias with me of "No 'why' question". You were allowed to get a quick summary of who a character was, but you weren't allowed to ask about why things were happening, because it would take three years to explain and really, it wasn't important.

SYTYCD

Jessica from So You Think You Can Dance got injured so she'll be replaced by the most recently eliminated woman, Comfort.

David Simon and HBO

HBO picks up the pilot for the Wire's David Simon's new show about Post-Katrina New Orleans. Hopefully this will lead to a series. I'd subscribe to HBO just to see it.

epMotion!

Have you ever wondered what an boy band video about an automated pipetting system would be like? Wonder no more. I wish I could be as cool as totoro and embed the video, but I don't think I can do that with this video. You have to watch this - it's pretty hilarious.

Little Britain

I think the tomcat may be excited that HBO will be producing an American version of Little Britain since he started watching it while spending some time in England.

Office webisodes

I'm sure I'm a bit behind on this, but there are new webisodes for the Office, if you need an fix to get you through the summer until the new season starts. This review says that they are not brilliant, but they are fun and worth watching. The webisodes are posted on the NBC website.

The tomcat is currently on the prowl for a 3G iPhone. We'll see if his quest is successful.

Dessert Trucks on Manhattan Streets - NYTimes.com

I love the concept of roving Dessert Trucks in New York. I haven't seen one and maybe I'll have to track down one or two of these the next time I get out there. I always make a Pinkberry pilgrimage, but this would also be pretty fun. There's something so appealing to me about the transience of a dessert shop on wheels and having to deal with parking. When I was in college, the burrito truck used to come by and play their horn song every morning, and it would have been awesome if a dessert truck had come by. Hmm, maybe that will be my new second career plan - a wandering truck-based cupcake/smoothie/pinkberry yogurt place!

Project Runway

I didn't realize this, since there's been no publicity/marketing, but the new season of Project Runway starts next Wednesday and the cast won't get announced until Monday. This article speculates on why there has been so little publicity - is it because they are mad that the show will be going to Lifetime for the next season so they don't want to market it? Is it because they want to generate a lot of buzz, and there will be something exciting to unveil when they announce the cast? We'll have more of a clue next week...

Phonesaber

Since we're talking about iPhone apps and I got 2.0 installed on my phone last night and proceeded to download a bunch of random stuff, this one goes down as probably the most amusing and not useful at all app so far: Phonesaber.

TheMacBox has a brief description of it in case the iTunes link up above doesn't work, but basically it just lets you swing your iPhone around and make lightsaber sounds, who doesn't want that?

BTW that's an actual screenshot from my phone, the new firmware also implemented a screenshot ability (hold the Home button down and then hit the Sleep button up top and it'll stick a screenshot in your Camera Roll).

Urbanspoon

There's an iPhone app out now called Urbanspoon which will take your current GPS location and recommend a decent place nearby for you to eat. It works kind of like a magic 8 ball because you shake it and it comes up with a suggestion and you can keep shaking it to get new options. Kind of fun! This would have been a fun thing to have when I was hanging out with sc and we were always at a loss of where to eat, and neither of us wanted to decide.

Max Payne trailer

There's a trailer for the movie version of Max Payne up now, starring Mark Wahlberg as the title character with Mila Kunis co-starring. I've only very barely played the video games that this movie is based on, but I remember them as being fairly hyped due to the "bullet time" mode in which you are able to slow time down and thereby control your character in dodging bullets and shooting the bad guys in cool slow-motion ways. The first game came out not too long after The Matrix did and it seemed to have been heavily influenced by the action style in that movie.

The trailer appears somewhat Sin City-ish to me, with the kind of dark hued look of a noir thriller. I like Marky Mark as an actor and in action films in particular so this is relatively exciting. I never particularly enjoyed That 70's Show but Mila was quite cute in Forgetting Sarah Marshall so right now this movie is pretty high up on my list of things to watch in the Fall (release scheduled for October 2008).

One other interesting note, although IMDB does not list it, wikipedia claims that Olga Kurylenko, otherwise known as the new Bond girl, will play a small role in this movie.

Jane in a new show: Leverage

TNT has a new show coming out called Leverage. It looks to be an action/drama but the real draw of the show is that it co-stars Gina Bellman, otherwise known as Jane from Coupling. She doesn't do much in the trailer above but it's definitely her.

I suppose I could do some more research into the show but really I'm just excited to see more people from Coupling get work. We've seen Steve in Pirates of the Caribbean and some other stuff, Susan was in the failed Teachers but other than that there hasn't been much that I've seen.

Taken trailer

There's a teaser for Taken on Yahoo movies now. This seems pretty interesting to me if only because it has Liam Neeson in what appears to be a classic action role that I would've expected someone like Jason Statham to do. The plot seems pretty standard: a father has a daughter who is kidnapped for whatever reason and so he goes and gets her back, presumably making the kidnappers regret what they did in the process.

Pierre Morel is the director, his only other directing credit to date is District B13, otherwise known as the French parkour action movie. Liam Neeson is the main star in this as mentioned before, Maggie Grace of Lost fame plays the victim (she looks a bit old for the role) and Famke Janssen appears to be the wife.

I wouldn't say that I am hugely excited about this just yet, but it has some potential if the action sequences come out well.

Another viral video...

This video has been making the rounds over the last couple of weeks but I just saw it for the first time today and it is quite entertaining:


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

I saw this on Cinematical originally but for those who are interested in some of the details about this short film, this is a nice blog post about it. That post has the youtube version of this video but I found the vimeo one to be nicer quality.

No more Netflix

I have finally admitted that I'm not watching Netflix enough so I just cancelled my subscription. It's kind of sad, but I guess I'll have more time to watch the TiVo, read books and play the DS (I'm making good progress through the sudoku game).

But I finally got around to watching some episodes of Bones, since it's one of maybe two shows that totoro actually watches. It's been pretty entertaining so I'm looking forward to catching up on the season during the summer. I might even watch some episodes online if I have time.

In Plain Sight has also become one of my summer favorites. It's not particularly good, but I find the characters to be fun and entertaining.

Dr. Horrible

Joss Whedon's internet video musical Dr. Horrible starting Neil Patrick Harris will be online for only one week, with acts posted on July 15th, 17th and 19th.

Battlestar Galactica: Another TV Movie?

Rumors abound that there's going to be another TV movie for Battlestar.

teaser for Dr. Horrible

Here's a teaser for Joss Whedon's online musical Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion

Burn Notice

Here's a Chicago Tribune interview with the creator of Burn Notice. It's a pretty funny interview where he talks about how the original show script was originally set in Newark and that he was really attached to having it Newark for reasons he can't explain, and how the USA network execs actually gave him some really good notes on the show that have made it better, including setting the show in Miami. I'm really excited about the new season that starts in early July!

In-car wireless

Chrysler is making in-car WiFi an option on new models so you never have to worry about finding a hotspot when you're on the road, and you can even play on the internet while on a roadtrip. Fun, but probably dangerous!

Legally Blonde Reality show

My latest guilty pleasure/summer TV addiction is Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search For Elle Woods, an MTV reality show where they are trying to find a replacement for the current star, Laura Bell Bundy. The show has interesting challenges - like making the competitors sing while riding an exercise bike to help build stamina, or rehearsing a scene and having the scene partner drop lines. It's kind of tragically catty, but I love it!

Shaun The Sheep on the DS

There's going to be a Shaun The Sheep game on the DS! I'll have to check out the reviews when it comes out, since I love the DS and I love Shaun! Hopefully it will be as fun a Professor Layton!

Dolphin Olympics part II

So I wanted to cheer myself up a bit at work the other day, since the day wasn't going particularly well, so I decided to play quick game or two of Dolphin Olympics, since it got a review of being really fun and addictive. Unfortunately, I am too uncoordinated too play, which actually made my day seem that much sadder. I basically kept driving my dolphin into the ocean floor accidentally. It was really kind of horrible. I've played a couple other times and am not improving so I guess I'm immune to this fad. Sniff. I just can't bear to watch my dolphin bounce off the ocean floor.

'Arrested Development' movie

Just one more thing for the Arrested Development movie rumor mill, since rumors have been flying since the show got cancelled - Jason Bateman says it will happen in 2009. That would be dream come true!

MY LITTLE PONY

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of My Little Pony, they are re-releasing some of the original ponies - like Cotton Candy, Butterscotch, Parasol... I still remember them! It takes me back... I'm tempted to buy a couple for old time's sake!

Dolphin Olympics 2

The tomcat sent me a review of a game called Dolphin Olympics 2 which is supposedly super addictive. I'm too afraid to try it, since I am easily sucked in my such things. But seriously, you get to control a dolphin! Awesome!

Lindsay Lohan's new song

Lindsay Lohan has posted a new single on MySpace, called Bossy. The song is kind of vapidly catchy, and the link has a hiliarous livechat transcript of two TV Guide editors as they listen to the song. Excerpt:

dimondisforever: Is this '08's "Umbrella" waiting to open?
ohmickeyursofine: I'm picturing all the ladies in the house loving the chorus
ohmickeyursofine: "I'm just a little bossy/I like it how I like it when I like it and that's just how it is"

ohmickeyursofine: I mean, let's just say it: The lyrics sound like they were cribbed from an 11-year-old's diary
dimondisforever: Damn straight! Not to mention, I feel it's like a hook without anything hanging on it
dimondisforever: Are we selling her and Ne-Yo short though? Could the hollow sound and puerile lyrics simply be a metaphor for her experience in Hollywood?

Battlestar timeline

This Friday's Battlestar Galactica is the last episode of the first part of the final season. The second part of the final season won't air until 2009. Big sad face!

Generation Kill

David Simon (the guy who did the Wire) has a new show, Generation Kill, which starts on July 13th (kottke.org). I cancelled my subscription to HBO so I'm going to have to figure out how to get access to this, or just wait until it comes out on DVD...

Little top chefs!

Top Chef will be developing a version of the show, but with kid contestants (aged 13-16).

Remote Free TV

Fox is trying something new by having half of the amount of normal ad time for two new shows, Fringe and Dollhouse. So those shows will run approximately 10 minutes longer than normal shows... When I first heard about this, I thought it was going to be a "one hour commercial free premiere", which they have done for a number of other shows, like 24, Alias, etc. But it turns out this is going to be an ongoing thing (unless it goes down in flames). It will be interesting to see if Fox can successfully charge a premium for shows that have less ad time. So far, they have succeeded in selling ads for higher, but much will depend on how the shows actually do when they air.

Gossip Girl spinoff?

There are rumors of a Gossip Girl spinoff for Jenny, which would be awesome since I don't really like Jenny's character that much so it would eliminate her story lines! Woo! This doesn't mean I wouldn't watch the spinoff, but that it would increase my enjoyment of Gossip Girl... It appears it will be about boarding school, so I wonder if this is the second life of the spinoff that Josh Schwartz originally wanted to do for the O.C, with Marissa's sister.

TheWB.com

TheWB.com has launched in private beta, in case you want to relive the glory days of the WB by watching their shows online! They have full episodes of All Of Us, Blue Water High, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dangerous, Friends, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Smallville, The OC and Veronica Mars. Huh, I've never even heard of Blue Water High... Since it has the OC and Veronica Mars, I guess it's not limited just to shows that aired on the WB, so it must be stuff produced by Warner Brothers...

Derek Hough and Shannon Elizabeth saga continues

Derek Hough and Shannon Elizabeth create a six minute DWTS vignette/dance/music video/desparate ploy for publicity. It's long and I like the Carpenters, so for the normal person, this will probably seem interminable... The upside - they did use 'Close to You"...

Top 100 songs of the 80s

Over the weekend, the tomcat was channel surfing and chanced upon this top 100 songs of the 80s show on VH1, and I have to say that the songs were really great! I'm going to go through this list and buy a bunch of the songs!

He's Just Not That Into You trailer

There's a trailer for the He's Just Not That Into You movie and it's actually kind of fun. This seemed like it was a really bad idea, but the trailer makes the movie seem appealing and it has a star-studded cast, including Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper (from Alias!) and Scarlet Johansson.

Fringe Review

Here's an early review of Fringe, the Fox show with Pacey. I'm already getting pretty excited.

Dance Crews

America's Best Dance Crews will be back for a second season starting June 19th. I only watched part of this show, but it was pretty entertaining! Yay for all the dance reality shows!

In Plain Sight

Here's an early review of the new USA show, In Plain Sight which premieres June 1. The review is pretty positive, and overall, I've liked USA's original shows, so I'll definitely check it out.

Fringe Trailer

Paaaaacey! Here's the trailer for JJ Abrams' new fall show on Fox, Fringe. I saw it on TV (I actually had to rewind through the House commercial break to see it!

Samantha Harris' stylist

Project Runway contestant Kit Pistol is now the stylist for Dancing with the Stars co-host Samantha Harris.

"Dollhouse" trailer

A trailer for Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse now has a trailer!

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

The tomcat got me the game Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS Lite for my birthday. I didn't play it for a while, since I was busy finishing every single puzzle in Picross , but I was excited about it after rave reviews from sc and cc. I finally started playing about a week ago, and promptly plowed through the entire game in about 10 days, thanks to some quality time (approx. 2 hours each day) on the train. And now, I'm done with the game. Anyone want to borrow it?

Netflix Set Top Box

Roku is a new device that will allow you to stream Netflix movies on demand, directly to your TV. Here's what Netflix has to say about it. You have to have one of the unlimited rental plans in order to use the device and only 10,000 of their 100,000 titles are available. But there are a few Showtime series that I'm excited to see so that should keep me busy for a while.

But the tomcat was very nice and got me one so I'm going to be one of those weird early adopters. This might help me kick the cable TV habit and stop paying Comcast so much money.

The box is $99, and then you just have to pay for one of the unlimited rental Netflix plans, and you're all set.

90210

Here's the first promo for the CW 90210 spin-off and yay for the 90210 theme song. Can't say I'm that interested in the actors or the characters that much, but I obviously need to watch this. And it has Lucille (Jessica Walker) from Arrested Development as the grandma, so that will be awesome.

TAR x 2

Yay, the Amazing Race has been picked up for two seasons next year! (just a bullet point in this blog post)

Dollhouse air date

Ah, Dollhouse will be in on in January. I wonder if it will have only 13 episodes or even more...

Pacey is back!

Pacey is coming back to my living room! Joshua Jackson's new show (by JJ Abrams) got picked up for the fall and will be on after House. And Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse will be aired in midseason, though midseason ranges from October (when a fall show bites the dust early) to March, so we might have a while to wait.

In other news, I finally achieved TiVo Zero this weekend for the first time in months; and I'm actually kind of glad that there's not much on TV so I can do other things, like finish my Picross DS Lite game (woo! finally done! I loved it!) and start a new DS game (Professor Layton). And lastly, in a sad turn of events, my Tivo's video card appears to have given up the ghost and won't display an incoming signal. Luckily, there's another dual tuner TiVo in the house, so we will not go without, but only two tuners could be really challenging in the fall and I no longer have my own working TiVo which is really sad.

Taste issues

I think the professional dancers on Dancing with the Stars assist the costume designers in designing both their and their celebrities' performance outfits. cc2 and I have noticed that some of the dancers (and their partners) have consistently had ugly, or just unflattering outfits. cc2 and I have been joking that Tony Dovolani seems to have issues with the design of his partner's outfits (Marissa had particularly unflattering dresses at the beginning, but started to look really great in the past few weeks), but we've definitely felt that Cheryl had "taste issues". This opinion was finally completely cemented with her crazy silver dress on Monday's show. She was dancing to DMB's Satellite, and perhaps this was too literal an interpretation, but it was heinous and not particularly flattering. (see the picture in this article) Even Tom Bergeron, the host, had to comment on it!

TV show status

Here's a list of shows that are dead, and shows that were on the bubble, but got picked up. Miss Guided was not a great show, but I found it enjoyable, but unfortunately, it's gone.

I'm also trying to coin a new term - "crapcedural" for shows that are of course, a procedural, that isn't very good, but you still watch it anyway. I think CSI and Numb3rs fall into this category.

TV Roundup: What’s 90210 Without Brenda? - PEOPLE TV Watch

There's a petition to add Shannen Doherty to the cast of the 90210 spin-off. Seriously, have we learned nothing from the crazy circumstances in which Shannen left both 90210 and Charmed?

Here's a picture of the actual cast from the CW

HBO + iTunes Store

HBO is putting some of their shows on the iTunes Store. I'm intrigued by this, but I've already seen the shows that they have posted, that I'm interested in. I wonder if they will only be posting stuff from their archives, not new stuff. I would be pretty excited if Showtime also got on this bandwagon, since they have some interesting shows too.

ABC Fall Lineup

ABC announces their fall lineup, which doesn't really include much new. They are picking up Life on Mars, another BBC remake. And Scrubs will be moving to ABC for a final season.

The fall season grid is now filling in.

xoxo

Lily and Bart (Serena's mom and Chuck's dad) from Gossip Girl have a Wedding Website!

New scavenger hunt-y reality show

Justin Timberlake is producing a scavenger hunt-like reality show, based on a Dutch reality show. Will this be better than Treasure Hunters (not to be confused with the Nicolas Cage National Treasure series of movies)? We'll have to wait and see! But I hope we have more misnomer team names, like the CIA team which was all CIA interns, and the grad students who all were only going to school part time and had other jobs.

Showmance gone too far?

There's a rumor that Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough might do a reality show about their lives, pursuing music/acting/whatever. It sounds totally disatrous, and I really hope my cable package gets the channel if it goes through. And still, I'm not sure - are they a couple or not?

No ratings bump for Miley Cyrus

Most other scandal-ridden celebrities/actors tend to have a ratings bump on their shows right after their scandal (examples: Jamie Lynn Spears on Zoey 101, Britney on HIMYM) but the same was not true for Miley Cyrus post-artsy semi-nekkid Vanity Fair photo. I wonder if CSI had a bump after the Gary Dourdan arrest. Or maybe the ratings bump only applies to the Spears family.

A showmance bites the dust

Yep, Sabrina Bryan (the celebrity/Cheetah Girl) and Mark Ballas (the dance pro) have broken up.

'Twilight' trailer

Thanks to cc's recommendation, I read Twilight and enjoyed it, and I previously blogged about the fact that it was being made into a movie. Well, here's the trailer for it. (via popcandy).

And in related news, the author has now written an adult book (Twilight is a young adult book). It's about aliens, so I'm not terribly interested at this point.

Mark Cuban on The Ala Carting of Video on the Internet

Here's a link to a blog post by Mark Cuban on The Ala Carting of Video on the Internet, which analyzes the economics of video on the internet and how ala cart breaks existing economic models for advertising.

Pacey

Sigh, Pacey is looking so good!

Sarah Connor Chronicles

Fox has finally confirmed they picked up Sarah Connor Chronicles for a second season.

Showmance????!!!

OMG, are Dancing With the Stars partners Shannon Elizabeth And Derek Hough together? Although the Maks/Willa Ford vignettes always played at showmance, as did the Helio/Julianne, and Apolo/Julianne vignettes, there has been some legit showmancing going on in recent seasons - Mario Lopez & Karina, and Sabrina Bryan & Mark Ballas. I have to say I think the Shannon Elizabeth/Derek Hough fling is pretty squee! and might actually come out during the show as opposed to people realizing it after the show.

Alicia Silverstone TV show pilot

Apparently, Alicia Silverstone really wants to be on a TV show, and unlike most stars, doesn't want to do movies. She has been cast in a pilot about a 32 year old mother, with a 16 year old daughter (Maeby from Arrested Development) and her 48 year old mother. It's basically Gilmore Girls, but with a really young grandmother too...

Julianne Hough's Music Video

Julianne Hough is looking quite cute in the music video for her new song. She does a lot of turns though, as she's walking along the pier - I think they needed to give her some other ideas for what to do... But anyway, the song is fun!

Jason Segel + Muppets

Apparently, Jason Segel (of HIMYM and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has been signed to write a script for a new Muppets movie.

Almost Amy

Mark Ballas & Derek Hough waited a season to really pick up on the true value of DWTS and have finally started shilling for their band, Almost Amy. Cc2 and I listened to one of the songs and it's crazy ballroom dancer boy band - the song is pretty random, but catchy! Sadly, you can only buy their CD on their website, so it's $20 - not sure it's worth that much to me. Maybe I'll have to check out the myspace page to see if I can preview more songs. Kristi Yamaguchi was at an Almost Amy gig this past weekend - I wonder if that will be part of her training vignette on the show.

Taylor Swift

I have to admit that I find teenage country singer Taylor Swift to have really fun music. The interesting thing is that she's growing up so fast! If you look on the link above, you can see the picture on the album cover, but compare it to her more sophisticated look in the music video posted on the same page... The other funny thing was that I was listening to the radio the other day and heard one of her songs, but in a pop remix, and the most ironic thing about the remix was the song is called "Teardrops on my Guitar" so the content seems super country. The juxtaposition of the pop and the country was pretty entertaining to me.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

The trailer for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 actually looks kind of sweet. And interesting, I think there has been kind of a reversal of fortune, since the two more famous girls at the time of the first movie (Amber Tamblyn on Joan of Arcadia and Alexis Bleidel on Gilmore Girls) certainly seem less up and coming than America Ferrara on Ugly Betty and Blake Lively on the ever entertaining Gossip Girl. Of course, I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that the ugly sophomore slump doesn't make Gossip Girl unwatchable.

Then She Found Me

The trailer for Then She Found Me looks kind of tragic, but potentially the kind of tragic I can get behind because it has ... Colin Firth! I am such a sucker for anything he is in. The movie also stars Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler and Helen Hunt, but that doesn't really matter. Tomcat, do not click on this link because you might not respect me/want to be my friend afterwards.

The Fall

The pie-maker, Ned (Lee Pace) is in a visually stunning movie called the Fall by the same guy that did the Cell. The plot might be terrible/non-existent, but it looks very purty.

Disney's Animation

Disney has announced their animated movie projects for the next several years. There will be an animated musical version of the Pricess and the Frog, Rapunzel, sequels to Toy Story and Cars,

The Pixar films

are "Newt," a summer 2011 film about a lizard cooling his heels in a community college science lab; "The Bear and the Bow," a holiday 2011 fantasy about an impetuous Scottish princess; and "King of the Elves," a 2012 offering focusing on elves and trolls who live in modern-day Mississippi.

Awesome about fantasy critters living in Mississippi! I wonder if there are unicorns there!

Almost Amy

OMG, Mark Ballas and Derek Hough have a band called Almost Amy, that has a hilarious website. My computer is muted now so I'll have to come back later to hear the music, but the broody "hot guy" glamour photos are not to missed. Unfortunately, the link to the rhinestone tee shirt is broken!

Project Runway

NY Times reports that there were rumors that NBC was thinking about moving Project Runway to USA or to NBC itself before Project Runway jumped to Lifetime.

Julianne Hough sings in public

Julianne will sing the national anthem at the Indy 500, as well as a couple of songs from her album which releases May 20. And she's going on tour with Brad Paisley. I hope she won't be too busy to do more seasons of DWTS.

Blu-Ray Firefly

Looks like Firefly will get a Blu-ray Disc. Too bad the tomcat was an early adopter, but a bad gambling early adopter and has an HD DVD player. And he claims he wants to keep it. Gah. My media cabinet doesn't want a technology flameout!

Yikes, Lifetime gets Project Runway?

Apparently, Lifetime has acquired the rights to air new seasons of Project Runway starting this fall, after one more season airs on Bravo and NBC/Bravo is pissed that they didn't get a chance to try to match the price or negotiate to keep Project Runway. Fierce!

Timmy the Lamb Picked Up By Disney

cc2 and I love watching Shaun the Sheep (I've gotten gecko, my parents, the tomcat's parents, and some of the tomcat's aunts and uncles hooked on it too!) so I'm thrilled to see that the spinoff series about Timmy the baby lamb will be on Disney starting in 2009. Ah, the joys of secretly setting up season passes on a TiVo when you visit someone. Watch out when I visit you! You might get hit too!

Jabbawockeez!

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen wore masks to avoid papparazzi at a wedding, but I wonder if they are really just huge Jabbawockeez fans! (You kind of have to see the picture on the link, since I'm too lame to put a picture on the blog.

(Yes, I finally watched a couple eps of America's Best Dance Crews which was pretty fun!)

Pop Goes My Heart

Even though I've seen Music & Lyrics several times (including on a recent plane flight), I didn't realize that Scott Porter (Jason Street from Friday Night Lights) is the lead singer in the fake pop band. His hair is all spiked up so I barely recognize him, but I have to admit that he has some pretty smooth and hilarious 80s dance moves.

Battlestar

Apparently, the core premise of Battlestar Galactica (eighth question, SPOILERS throughout the article) is a slightly reimagined retelling of the Book of Mormon.

USA shows

Burn Notice will be back for its second season on July 10th; Monk and Psych start on July 18th; and the Starter Wife will be back as a 10 episode series in October. Looks like there's going to be some great fun stuff to watch this summer, which will make up for the bleak wasteland of TV right now. Happily, the NBC comedies are back starting next week, so there will be new eps of the Office and 30 Rock!

Step It Up and Dance Recap

TWOP seems to have enjoyed Step It Up and Dance, the new series on Bravo, but maybe there is a conflict of interest since Bravo owns TWOP.

Full Fall NBC schedule announced

NBC announced their fall schedule today. A few highlights:

There will only be a few new shows on NBC's schedule in the fall.

Scrubs is not on the list at all, so no sign of whether it will be on ABC or not.

Knight Rider got picked up to be a series.

There will be a King Arthur themed series starting next fall.

Here's another article, with the full press release.

More 'Friday Night Lights'

Friday Night Lights gets picked up for a 13 episode season! Woo! And it will air first on DirecTV and then air on NBC at midseason. Hmm, I wonder if any of it will be available streaming on hulu or whatever...

'Office' spinoff

There will be an Office spinoff which will premiere next February, on Super Bown Sunday. I wonder who will get spun off... Ryan? Kelly? Jan? I'd hate to lose the dynamic of the core group of characters right now...

'Step It Up & Dance' starts this week

A new reality show Step It Up & Dance on Bravo will start this Thursday. Not sure if it will be good, but I'll probably try to check it out. And apparently, totoro and adia were holding out on me and not reminding me to watch America's Best Dance Crew, so I'm now watching it reruns.

Marry Him!

I thought this was a really interesting article that advocated for settling for a good enough guy in your early thirties, instead of waiting for Mr. Right because the dynamics for women of looking for a mate may work against them if they wait too long. She's not saying this is the ideal, and she lays out some interesting reasoning for her case.

Bride Wars

I'm excited to see that Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are slated to be in the movie Bride Wars, which is about two best friends who pick the same wedding date and fight over lots of things. Might be a terrible movie, but those two actresses are so likable and cute!

Battlestar Galactica Fans!

Celebrities profess their love for Battlestar Galactica, as well as recapping the premise of the series. Joss Whedon, and Jesse L. Martin and S. Epatha Merkerson of Law & Order, and Seth Green are among the celebrities. Just the opening sequence before the credits is pretty fun.

Helo + Faith

Battlestar's Helo is going to be the romantic interest for Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse!

Generation Kill

For those of you mourning the end of the Wire, here is a preview of Generation Kill, the HBO miniseries that is also by David Simon.

30 Rock stuff!

Will Arnett will be back as a guest star on 30 Rock!

NBC Fall Schedule

NBC will unveil its fall schedule next week, way earlier than the usual mid-May upfronts. I don't think there will be too many surprises since pickup announcements have gone out for most shows already, but it will be interesting to see if this triggers more changes in how the networks do business.

Awesome Top Gear episodes

The tomcat has gotten me hooked on Top Gear, a hilarious British car show, and I am going to recommend a couple of episodes, since I heard that totoro finally watched an episode with EG and enjoyed it.

Totoro watched this episode about the smallest car ever made. The main host of the show drives this teeny car to work, and then proceeds to drive it into the BBC office building, to meetings, and other hijinks.

I also love the Africa challenge, where the three hosts each buy a used car for a tiny sum of money and proceed to drive across Africa. At one point, they drive across a salt flat that has a thin crust that will trap your car if you break through it, so they have to take as much weight out of the car as possible so they remove seats and all sorts of car parts in Part II. You'll have to locate the other parts of the episode if you want to see the rest, but it's worth it!

The Top Gear guys and the Top Gear Dog go on a road trip in a caravan, the British RV. They get stuck trying to turn around, Top Gear Dog gets sick, they break stuff and eventually accidentally set the caravan on fire!

The Top Gear hosts each buy a car and convert it into a boat - and then have a challenge to drive it to a little lake and then drive/sail/float it across the little lake. One of the hosts creates the Toyboata with a Toyota truck; another takes a VW van and makes it into a house boat. Also, the changes to the boats interfere with the drivability of the cars, so it's darn funny to watch them on the highway.