TAR teams

The teams have been announced for the new season of the Amazing Race which starts in mid-February. You can see pictures at the CBS website, which tends to give a better perspective of who the strong teams might be. I'm getting excited for the new season!

30 Rock

30 Rock has already gotten picked up for next year! Yay! I'm excited that at least one of my favorite shows will survive to next year, since Pushing Daisies clearly didn't make it. BTW, I'm in denial about PD's cancellation so don't talk to me about it. Oh, and the Office got picked up too, but that's not much of a surprise.

The Proposal

I think I might have finally lost it, but I found the trailer for The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds to be very likable and entertaining. I mean, it makes me want to go to the theater to see it. Egads!

The Penguins of Madagascar

The commando penguins of the movie Madagascar are getting their own cartoon series on Nickelodeon. That sounds pretty awesome.

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.