Posts from — October 2008

No more David Tennant on “Doctor Who”…can I just go cry in the corner?

His portrayal of the Doctor finally made me give the series a chance. How can I go on with out him! I feared that he would be leaving at the end of season four, but when he regenerated without changing his face I felt relieved that he would be staying on the show. Wrong! They just pushed the changover to the Christmas special to coincide with the showrunner changeover from Russell T. Davies to Steven Moffat.

I can’t even fathom a new actor taking his place that can keep up that level of charisma and good looks…*sob*

Source: TV Squad via BBC

I’m a huge Jim Henson fan, especially his breakout television program “The Muppet Show”. The puppet variety show began in 1976 and ran for five years with a total of 120 episodes! My top 3 favorite muppet characters are Animal, Kermit the Frog, and the old man duo - Statler and Waldorf.

Can’t pick a favorite muppet? I know it’s hard. If you or someone you know (like me!!) is a huge fan of Jim Henson and/or “The Muppet Show”, you should give them their own personalized muppet for the holidays.

What? How can this be you ask? FAO Schwartz has opened up a Muppet Whatnot Workshop! For $90-130 bucks you can design your own muppet doll and have it delivered to you in just a few weeks! If you prefer dvds to dolls, the tv seasons are available on dvd today.

The Muppet Show - Season 1
The Muppet Show - Season 2
The Muppet Show - Season 3

Source: Gothamist

So, duh, I like cartoons. One of the ones I like is called “American Dad!”

The show is in its fourth season, and I’m delighted to see the show has survived the onslaught of dismissals of it as a “Family Guy” clone, which plagued its maiden season. And second season. And the third…

The similarities are superficial, at best, and are more indicative of of a particular formula upon which Seth MacFarlane likes to base his projects, going all the way back to “The Life of Larry” (look it up), and in the upcoming “Cleveland” (look that up, too). I’m not going to dissect magic recipe at length here, but if you’re not an idiot, you’ve probably already realized that the basic formula is:

Patriarch + Wacky Family + Anthropomorphous Pet(s)/Sidekick(s) = hilarity/$100 million Fox development deal for Seth

At this point, since “Family Guy” has dissolved into a series of disconnected non sequiturs and obscure references. Each episode’s “plot” is a transparent and hackneyed mess meant to justify making said non sequiturs and obscure references, although I will say last week’s “Road to Germany” was refreshingly coherent.

I admit readily that I believe “American Dad!” has proven to be the better of the two shows, as long as we’re comparing the two. I’ve gotten into plenty of bar arguments over this opinion, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more Friday nights where I debate this issue, punch a cat, and make out with a mailbox.

So, if you wrote off “American Dad!” back when it first began, I recommend you give it another chance. If you’ve never watched it, then give it a first chance. The writers and producers had really caught on to something midway through season 1, and it’s only maintained or improved on the show’s unique sense of humor, since then.

Leave it to me to give the show a great send-up on a night when it’s airing a repeat. “Dad!” will be back next Sunday night on Fox at 9:30, though, with a new episode. And, you can bet I’ll be watching.

“South Park” is back on Comedy Central with a new season, and is as shocking as ever. It’s hard to believe this show has been on for 12 seasons, and I don’t really like to think about that because it makes me feel crotchety.

It seems like only yesterday I was laughing over Cartman’s first rendition of “Kyle’s Mom Is a Big Fat B$%ch” with friends during my 10th grade health class. Those were the days.

Well, Cartman is as much of an A-hole in the new episodes as he was then. Worse, even. And, if last season’s Emmy-winning “Imaginationland” episodes are any indication, Trey (Parker) and Matt (Stone) have definitely still got it.

I’ve had my jaw hanging in disbelief a few times during this season already, and as an equal opportunity offender myself, that’s fairly hard to accomplish. I can’t wait to see what else the guys have planned.

Tune in Wednesdays at 10pm eastern and pacific to catch the new episodes, or on Thursdays at 10pm to catch an encore reairing before new episodes of “The Sarah Silverman Program” at 10:30pm. If those times are no good for you, get a DVR, for crying out loud. It’s 2000-freaking-eight.

Fret not, you DVR-less quasi neo-ludites, for Comedy Central reruns “South Park” almost as much as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” so there are plenty of other times to catch the episodes you may have missed. But, I’m not looking that up for you.

[Picture source: www.SouthParkStudios.com]

Just watch it and thank me later. If Hulu was a real person, I would bake him/her cookies for this!

“30 Rock” premieres on your actual television set next Thursday, October 30th at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.

Showtime just announced that they ordered two more seasons of their hit show, “Dexter”. The fourth season begins filming the next twelve episode run in Spring of 2009.

Yay! I love me some Michael C. Hall (even more than Nefertiti, the other tv revival contributor, does! ), so I’m glad he’s continuing to get work. When I first watched the first season of “Dexter”, I worried that I couldn’t separate Hall’s performance of David Fisher on “Six Feet Under” from his new character. But after seeing Dexter slice up a few corpses and dump them in the bay, I got over it. =)

Buy (or netflix) the first two seasons of “Dexter” today. It’s so worth it! Watch the rest of season three currently airing on Showtime on Sundays at 10/9c.

Source: /Film and Pajiba

HBO’s “In Treatment” will be back for round two in 2009. The show centers on Paul Weston, the psychoanalyst played by Gabriel Byrne, who attempts to maintain his high patient load while his marriage to Kate (Michelle Forbes) disintegrates around him. The episodes aired five days a week to parallel with the session day and time he has with a patient. The episodes focused on four patients and Paul’s own weekly session with his friend and former colleague, Gina (Dianne Wiest). Next season, he will somehow take on two new patients played by John Mahoney and Hope Davis.

I really gave this show a chance, like a deep committed one. I watched weeks one through three, which totals up to be 15 freakin’ episodes! But after awhile the Blair Underwood character became too arrogant for words and the patient who was in love with him, Laura (Melissa George from “Alias”), was beyond annoying. Rule number one in therapy is DO NOT fallfor your therapist! How hard is that to follow? Apparently, it was agonzing for Laura. The only saving grace of the show was watching the married couple, Jake & Amy (Josh Charles and Embeth Davidtz), go at it each week. You never knew if they were going to end up separated or passionately in love again by the end of each session. At least during their session, there was conflict and not just uncomfortable pauses like with the other patients.

“In Treatment” is probably very inexpensive to produce and HBO does need programming… But sheesh, I cannot believe they canceled “Tell Me You Love Me” and renewed this snooze fest. I understand the characters in “Tell Me You Love Me” weren’t that likable, but they seemed to behave more realistically than in “In Treatment” in my opinion.

If you missed the first season on “In Treatment”, the dvd won’t be released until fall 2009 for some crazy reason! Thus, count on HBO to re-run the episodes ad infinitum on their channels and on demand just before the premiere of the second season.

Source: The TV Whore on Pajiba

Warner Bros. is releasing a snazzy complete series box set tomorrow for “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” The whopping 41 dvds cover all four seasons of this sixties spy television show!

Looks like an identical similar set was released in November 2007 by Time Life. So basically, WB just made the box set available to sell in retail stores with a slightly lower price! Read a more comprehensive list of TV on DVD releases for 10/21/08 on TV Squad.

(Picture Source: TVShowsonDVD.com)

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I like a lot of things HBO. If it weren’t for John from Cincinnati a miss or two they’ve had in the past, I could say I like all things HBO.

Anyway, part of my Sunday night lovefest with my TV each week is HBO’s new animated series “The Life and Times of Tim.” Tonight will be the fourth installment of awkward, as this show seems to have an endless supply of inappropriate moments. I’m not in love with the show yet, but each of the previous weeks has been amusing enough to keep me coming back.

The show is about a young guy named Tim, as you may have deduced.  Each week he gets himself into various pickles, and as viewers, our collective schadenfreude is satisfied. To give you a sense of the kind of predicaments Tim gets into, the first cartoon of the series’ premiere episode was called “Angry Unpaid Hooker.” Yup. Quite a pickle, indeed.

For me at least, the humor on “Tim” is such that I recognize that it is funny, and why it’s funny, I’m just not actually laughing aloud at it, aside from the odd snort or chortle. My enthusiasm for this animated series just isn’t all that…animated, I guess, but it is there. And, that’s enough for me to keep tuning in. I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to comedy, so I’m just delighted to have found a new show that doesn’t totally suck. Perhaps you’ll agree “Tim” doesn’t suck, too.

[Picture source: acriticalmoment.com]

“The Sarah Silverman Program” is back on Comedy Central, and the second season is off to a strong start. I’m hoping more poop songs will abound as the season progresses.

The show seems to already have hit its stride in the latest installment, entitled “High, It’s Sarah.” As you may have guessed, this episode is all about “Sarah” (played by Sarah Silverman) getting really, really stoned with “Brian” (played by Brian Posehn). I wonder if these two did any research for their roles. Sounds like a real stretch for them both.

Of course, in the reality– if you can call it that– of this series, way more ridiculous and funny consequences follow than would ever happen to any of us real people after too many bong rips. If only life had writers, no weed laws, and occasional cameos from Eddie Peppitone. If you missed this when it aired a couple of weeks ago, try to catch a rerun of it or the other two episodes that have aired since then. Com Central is pretty decent about second chances. And third, fourth and fifth chances, for that matter.

Technically, this is the second half of the second season that is airing right now. I know this because I just checked to make sure the first season is available on DVD, only to discover that both the first season and “Season Two, Vol. 1″ are available, which is news to me. It’s now about to become news to my credit card company, because I’m off to buy them both. Toodles!

[Picture source: www.JewishJournal.com Seriously.]