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(S02E14) An episode titled "The Bishop Revival" almost has a little religious overtone. But Fringe this week was all about Nazis and Walter's dad's involvement with them. Turns out Dr. Robert Bishop (a.k.a. Bishov or Bishoff) was affiliated with the University of Berlin and came to this country in 1943. Also that he was a spy for the allies, smuggling scientific secrets to the Americans. Thus the setup for this episode and a little backstory for Walter.
(S03E11) For a nice change of pace, Burn Notice played up the local color. Lots of Little Dominica (not Little Havana) and action, including multiple explosions, a little face-forward repelling and a new somewhat mystical character for Michael to play. No Southern boy this week. No tank tops or muscle shirts. Nope. Michael was looking like Mr. Applegate, the devil in the musical Damn Yankees.
(S01E04) Ah, yes. Yet another fine episode of Archer. This show has been steadily funny, which is good. I'm still waiting for it to do something outrageous and surprise us with a particularly extra-hilarious or an especially terrible episode, but I don't mind watching something that I can rely on for decent laughs, even if it doesn't leave me rolling on the floor.
Is there anything Neil Patrick Harris can't do? The other night he was positively stellar on American Idol as a guest judge, stealing the spotlight from Simon by being a fair but stern discerner of the talented and the talentless. You could really see him as a permanent replacement for Simon Cowell and doing a damn, good job. Then there was Dr. Horrible, Emmy host, Tony host and, naturally, Barney on How I Met Your Mother. Neil is a jack of all trade and a master of most!
When you look at the surface, it seemed like Jay Leno was quite revealing during his interview with Oprah Winfrey today. He said that he was "devastated" when NBC came to him in 2004 and told him that they wanted to give Conan O'Brien The Tonight Show. He claimed he was "embarrassed" by what he called "a big mess," and that NBC would have handled it better if "they came in and shot everyone. Then it would have only been a two-day story."
But when Oprah repeatedly tried to get Leno to react to how most of the public is reacting to this story -- that Jay should have stepped aside to give Conan a chance to succeed, and that he is unfairly taking back Conan's dream job -- Leno refused to play along. Not sure if he did so because he's truly not self-aware of what this whole mess looks like or he just doesn't care. But as far as Jay's concerned, this was all just business, and his decision to take back Tonight and Conan's departure are mutually exclusive events.
I still haven't gotten used to the seasons that cable shows have. Mad Men's on in the summer, shows like Burn Notice and Psych split their seasons into two half-seasons. Is Arlis$ still on?
The second season of Nurse Jackie premieres on Showtime March 22 at 10PM. Here's the trailer. Twitter is involved.
Last night during MSNBC's coverage of the State of the Union Address, Chris Matthews said about President Obama, "I forgot that he was black tonight, for an hour." Now, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt about this statement (a dumb statement for many reasons - what, he does remember that he's black all the other times of the day? What exactly does it mean?), it's still an odd statement to say out loud. He "clarified" the statement on Rachel Maddow's show.
Don't think what he said was odd? Imagine if someone on FOX News had said it.
The Super Bowl is coming up on February 7, and as usual TV Squad will have analysis of the game as well as predictions on whether Peyton Manning can handle the Saints' defense. Just kidding. Actually, we'll have analysis of the ads, including this one from Bridgestone titled "Whale of a Tale." Three guys and a whale in a truck.
Question: does this ad make you want to see the rest during the Super Bowl or will you completely forget about it and maybe just happen to see it because you're going to watch the Super Bowl anyway? Do these things work (and I guess I'm asking if the other kind of ad works, the TV commercial that tells you to go to a web site to see the conclusion of the ad. I hate those.)
The CW has picked up two new pilots for the fall season. The first is an untitled family drama on a Wyoming horse farm that is being done by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband. The second is yet another television remake of La Femme Nikita (which is based on a French movie that was made into an American movie).
The latter is going to be produced by McG and have a slight change in concept from the previous versions. In this one, Nikita goes rogue and a new assassin is trained to replace her. By "replace", there's a chance they mean "exterminate".
My guess is that the new version of La Femme Nikita is going for the name-brand recognition and will evolve into something different than its predecessors, like Battlestar Galactica. Of course, if female assassins aren't your thing, you could always watch the drama on the Wyoming farm.
Do we really need multiple nights of David Spade (he's currently appearing on Rules of Engagement on CBS)? TBS believes the answer is "yes" and is preparing to launch an animated series of Joe Dirt which is a continuation of the movie of the same name. Spade will be providing the voice of the title character, which makes sense since he starred in and co-wrote the original movie.
TBS is trying to create a Family Guy-like animated comedy. Expect a lot of toilet humor from the series, which is a staple of the movies from Happy Madison Productions. It's likely that this series will not disappoint the legion of fans of "The Adam Sandler Bunch".
The question I must ask is: does the movie really warrant a spin-off television series? While we're at it, did the original Deuce Bigalow movie really warrant a sequel? If this works out for TBS, we might be seeing Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo the animated series in a few years. You know it would happen.
Tonight Show staffer (with Conan, anyway) Aaron Bleyaert kept a blog and a Twitter account for the show since Conan took over last year. Of course, Jay Leno is coming back so he's no longer going to be doing the blog and wrote his last blog post when Conan's run on the show ended recently. NBC, however, took the blog post down.
But Bleyaert still had the blog post so he put it on his personal site. He talks about how Conan's last show went, what the status was on the show and Conan's future (unknown at the time), talks about the team at NBC.com, how the show will be in repeats until the Olympics, and generally says goodbye until a new show starts up. I'm not really sure what NBC saw objectionable or questionable about it, unless it's like a reader says in the comments section of Aaron's blog that they might have been upset that he linked to his personal web site and personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.
(S07E04) "I think, in a way, we all feel responsible." - Sean
Just when it looked like we were on our way to a major break-up, Nip/Tuck threw fans a curve ball last night as we head in to the series' final five episodes. For as much as Sean may despise Christian, what he's done, and how he acts, sticking with him for 25 years has left a scar -- Sean may see himself as the opposite of Christian, but the rest of the world views them as one and the same.
Ah, The Wonder Years. Kevin's older brother used to tease and bully him all the time. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart used a clip from the show to illustrate what Republicans are supposedly doing to Democrats right now on healthcare, tax cuts, and many other issues.
He also makes a football analogy that no one in the audience gets.
Now that we've seen the device and watched it demonstrated, the answer isn't crystal clear. But yes, it should have some impact on TV viewing.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I agree with those that call the iPad just a bigger version of the iTouch or iPhone. On the surface, it is. However, while it's true that someone might prefer a one-hand device like the smaller iTouch or iPhone to watch a show on a commuter train, you have to imagine a different setting for the iPad.
Is there anything Neil Patrick Harris can't do? The other night he was positively stellar on American Idol as a guest judge, stealing the spotlight from Simon by being a fair but stern discerner of the talented and the talentless. You could really see him as a permanent replacement for Simon Cowell and doing a damn, good job. Then there was Dr. Horrible, Emmy host, Tony host and, naturally, Barney on How I Met Your Mother. Neil is a jack of all trade and a master of most!
The CW has picked up two new pilots for the fall season. The first is an untitled family drama on a Wyoming horse farm that is being done by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband. The second is yet another television remake of La Femme Nikita (which is based on a French movie that was made into an American movie).
Do we really need multiple nights of David Spade (he's currently appearing on Rules of Engagement on CBS)? TBS believes the answer is "yes" and is preparing to launch an animated series of Joe Dirt which is a continuation of the movie of the same name. Spade will be providing the voice of the title character, which makes sense since he starred in and co-wrote the original movie.
Tonight Show staffer (with Conan, anyway) Aaron Bleyaert kept a blog and a Twitter account for the show since Conan took over last year. Of course, Jay Leno is coming back so he's no longer going to be doing the blog and wrote his last blog post when Conan's run on the show ended recently. NBC, however, took the blog post down.
Will Apple's new iPad really change the way we watch TV? That was one of the big questions that we were asking before Steve Jobs' presentation yesterday in San Francisco. I thought that since he was conferring with network execs to slash iTunes prices for TV episodes, that the iPad would have a major TV viewing component.
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