Posted Feb 1st 2010 9:02PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Early Looks
The time slot right after the Super Bowl is usually a good place to air. And CBS is hoping that holds for its new reality show, '
Undercover Boss.'
With more than 100 million viewers set to tune in, some are too lazy, too stuffed with party food or (let's face it) too drunk to change the channel. So, they'll stick around for whatever comes on after the final whistle. This year, it's
The new pilot is a stealth reality show -- looking to combine the cheap, easy ingredients of interoffice drama, humor and shock reveals. The title is self-explanatory, but the premise takes a large company and sends its CEO in as an average employee. As that CEO mixes and mingles with his fellow employees, he gets to see what their days are like, whether they enjoy their jobs, etc.
Continue reading Is 'Undercover Boss' the Next Great Reality Show?
Posted Feb 1st 2010 7:00PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Billie Piper returns in the
other role that's made her famous, only this one definitely isn't for kids of all ages. UK fans caught the premiere of the third series of Piper's
'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' last Thursday, January 28 on ITV2. But this time, stateside fans won't have to wait nearly as long for their first glimpse, as Showtime's season premiere is tonight, Monday, February 1, 2010 at 10 PM ET.
The network was kind enough to send along all eight episodes of the third season for me to look at, and I have to give credit in two areas right off the top. After spending much of last season trying to have a normal romance, Belle wrapped things up by publishing 'The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl,' ironically the very book the television series is based on.
Continue reading 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' Season Three - An Early Look
Posted Jan 29th 2010 1:02PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Programming, Celebrities, Early Looks, Reality-Free, Galleries
Lovers of
Star Wars: The Clone Wars look forward to any new episode of their favorite show. But, when you add a certain mask and armor mix into any
Star Wars story, the fans woof like wookies.
That collective hooting and hollering has never been any louder now that the Mandalorians are finally getting
Star Wars canon screen time in tonight's kick-off of a three-story arc, "
The Mandalore Plot." Dave Filoni,
Clone Wars supervising director, hears those empassioned tones and knows the responsibility he's facing.
"Ever since the first time we saw Boba Fett in 1980, the fans have known he had Mandalorian armor," Filoni said during an interview at Lucasfilm's HQ in San Francisco's Presidio. "Fans have been waiting a long time to see the Mandalorians in action."
"This is George Lucas' universe and he's very active in the show. So, it was George who suggested we bring the Mandalorians into the series."
Continue reading Direct from Lucasfilm: Mandalorians, Favreau rock Clone Wars
Posted Jan 21st 2010 2:00PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: OpEd, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Damages, Reality-Free
When
Damages burst on to the TV scene in the summer of 2007, it turned everything upside down. Creators Glenn and Todd A. Kessler and Daniel Zelman took a tired television genre and re-invented it so well that it became hard to pigeonhole
Damages in the very category that spawned it. It was so much more than a legal thriller and the drama's tense plotting and unique time shifting storytelling technique made the show worthy of scholarly debate -- blink and you'll miss something important.
Now entering its third season,
Damages is prepped to turn the legal world on its head again when FX's superb thriller returns this Monday night, January 25, at 10 p.m. ET. Based on the first two episodes, Glenn Close and the rest of the top-notch cast make the same case that they did the previous two seasons -- this is must see, can't miss television.
Continue reading Damages season three -- An early look
Posted Jan 14th 2010 10:00AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: OpEd, 24, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
"WHERE CAN I BUY A METROCARD?!?!"
Though it's not something you'd expect to hear an angry Jack Bauer scream at an unsuspecting tourist, people familiar with New York City are going to be amazed that he doesn't need to.
Season eight of the real-time drama drops Bauer into the borough of Manhattan and when
24 returns in just a few days (it premieres this Sunday January 17 at 9 p.m. ET and Monday January 18 at 8 p.m. ET on FOX), it's almost comical how easy Bauer seems to get around the city. That's half the fun of it though -- eight seasons in and haven't the terrorists learned their lesson yet? Jack Bauer will
always find you.
However, that doesn't mean Jack's alone in this. As many of the previews for the new season have pointed out, Bauer is a retired man, a
grandfather to boot, and there's a whole new crop of CTUers ready to pick up the torch.
Details and spoilers on the new season after the jump.
Continue reading 24 season eight -- An early look
Posted Jan 13th 2010 11:02AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Animation, Early Looks, Reality-Free
There is only one really bad thing about
Archer, and that's the fact it's going to make my Thursday viewing line-up very, very full. Way to not anticipate my needs, FX. Geez.
I just sampled five episodes of FX's new animated offering, including the pilot that quietly aired a few months ago (
reviewed by Jonathan Toomey here), and I already love it. There are a lot of appealing things about
Archer: It's 60s-style super-spy adventures plus hilarious writing that maintains a great pace for the entire half-hour. Oh, and puns. Lots of puns.
Continue reading Archer -- An early look
Posted Jan 8th 2010 11:06AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: How I Met Your Mother, Early Looks, Reality-Free
If you're a fan of
How I Met Your Mother -- and if you're reading this, you likely are --
the video preview of Monday's episode probably got you pretty excited. After all, it's Neil Patrick Harris and the cast, singing and dancing about Barney Stinson's love of suits. What's not to like, right? If you were wondering, though, how the rest of the episode was, I'm here to tell you that it's the best episode of the season, and maybe the best episode we've seen in a couple of years.
Come with me after the jump and I'll explain. No worries; there won't be any spoilers in this post.
Continue reading How I Met Your Mother's 100th episode -- An early look
Posted Jan 7th 2010 1:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Programming, Ratings, Early Looks, Chuck, Reality-Free
This Sunday night,
Chuck returns to NBC for a special two-episode, two hour jump start into season three. Expect to be dazzled. NBC was good enough to send an
impressive press kit for Chuck's new season, including five episodes.
For those of you who were concerned about how the show would handle the many changes promulgated by the end of last season, you can relax. While it's no spoiler to reveal that Chuck now has the fully integrated Intersect 2.0 inside his head, complete with martial arts skills and other talents (Flamenco guitar?) it's also not a surprise that having all that in his brain doesn't mean that life is any easier for a simple, Burbank IT guy.
Continue reading Chuck season three -- An early look
Posted Dec 27th 2009 11:03AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Early Looks, Reality-Free
British female comedy impressionists like Catherine Tate should pay royalties to Tracey Ullman for copying her schtick. Ullman was the original and still remains one of the best, if not THE best, at what she does.
As with the first two seasons of her Showtime series
Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, she pretends to be, or rather becomes, different personalities across the United States over a single day with an ubiquitous announcer informing us of who she is and where in the country she is located. She even impersonates various celebrities on the way, and sometimes she is more than one of them at the same time.
Continue reading Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, season three -- An early look
Posted Dec 4th 2009 5:02PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Early Looks, Reality-Free
It's hard for me to get excited about something like
Alice, Syfy's twisted new take on Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. NBC and Syfy seemingly produce these modern versions of classic tales for the same reason Hollywood studios push out stale remakes and sequels – because they already have a built in audience. And the producers don't have to worry about coming up with an original story. All they have to do is force some contempo quirkiness into the age-old text and be done with it. (Make the flamingos flying machines! Turn the caterpillar into a hookah-smoking Harry Dean Stanton!)
Similar to Syfy's
Tin Man, its dark and tedious
Wizard of Oz redo,
Alice offers a bizarre retread of its classic source material. But writer-director Nick Willing (the brains behind
Tin Man) smartly sets his tale in a futuristic version of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. And he's created a brand new Alice too. She's a tough twentysomething brunette who teaches martial arts and high-kicks bad guys in the face.
Continue reading Syfy's Alice -- An early look
Posted Dec 4th 2009 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Early Looks, Reality-Free
If you ever watched
Everybody Loves Raymond -- or currently watch the reruns -- you might wonder what would Raymond become after a while. What would happen if he didn't have Deborah yelling at him and his family keeping him from being a self-indulgent slob who only thought of himself.
Men of a Certain Age shows you the dark side of Raymond, only here Ray Romano is called Joe. Joe and his college buddies, Owen and Terry, are on the wrong side of 40 and they know it.
Continue reading Men of a Certain Age -- An early look
Posted Nov 30th 2009 3:05PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Scrubs, Early Looks, Reality-Free
If you're a regular reader of TV Squad, you probably already know what's going on with the unexpected ninth season of
Scrubs. From Bill Lawrence's statement that
the eighth season might not be the final one to his
detailed descriptions of
how the show was going to transition to its new med school setting, you've been given a good idea of how this shift was going to happen.
But one thing we didn't know was the biggest question of all: is it going to be funny?
The answer? A qualified yes. The two episodes ABC sent for review, which air back-to-back tomorrow at 9 PM ET, were definitely funny. But most of the humor came not from the new med students we're supposed to get to know, but from the characters we've known and laughed with for eight years. And for this ninth season to succeed, that ratio will have to even out, and quickly.
Continue reading Scrubs season nine -- An early look
Posted Nov 28th 2009 10:33AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, OpEd, Video, Celebrities, Early Looks
When I heard that Steven Seagal had a new A&E series coming out called
Steven Seagal: Lawman, I thought, oh great, another cop show starring an aging movie star. But that's not what it is at all! Ok, I'll qualify that. Yes, it IS a cop show starring an aging movie star, but probably not what you think.
Turns out that Steven Seagal, best known for his action movies like
Above the Law,
Hard to Kill, and
Under Siege, has been quietly working under the radar for the past 20 years as a real-life deputy with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana. Part of his duties there include instructing the other officers on weapons skills and martial arts.
Continue reading Steven Seagal: Lawman -- An early look
Posted Nov 22nd 2009 2:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Jesse Ventura has been a professional wrestler, an actor and a politician. None of these things have been as fake as the reality television show he will be hosting on truTV titled
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura (premiering December 2 at 10 PM ET).
For the record, I have never met or spoken to Jesse Ventura. He would corroborate this if anybody asked. As a result, I have no idea if he actually believes the crap he says or the conspiracies he investigates on this show. From what I've read, it wouldn't surprise me.
In the series premiere, Jesse and his crew of unknowns, consisting of two young white guys and the token black British female, are investigating a U.S. government installation built in Alaska that's possibly intended to control the weather. Who makes this stuff up? Now we know where the monies saved from stopping the "bridge to nowhere" went.
Continue reading Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura -- An early look
Posted Oct 28th 2009 12:02PM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: OpEd, Friday Night Lights, Early Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
Entering into its fourth season (and second since the NBC/DirecTV deal),
Friday Night Lights is a show in transition on numerous levels. The high school football drama returns tonight to DirecTV's 101 Network at 9 p.m. ET (NBC won't air this season until next summer) and for fans of the show, it's an episode they've long been waiting for.
Ever since the season three finale, as Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami (Connie Britton) stepped on to the East Dillon Lions decrepit football field, Eric's new home, the tension has been at an all time high in Dillon, Texas. How can Coach Taylor, a man whom many consider to be a high school football wunderkind, start from scratch with a team that doesn't even exist yet?
Continue reading Friday Night Lights, season four -- An early look
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