I Heart TV

I love TV. You love TV. I love to read about TV. Hopefully, so do you.

6.29.2005

payback

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to see Land of the Dead. Normally I'm a huge fan of zombie movies, but this one just didn't cut it for me--it was just like a crappy action movie, except with zombies. Really gross zombies. And one of those zombies was played by Shawn Roberts, otherwise known as Dean, Paige's rapist, on Degrassi: The Next Generation. When he died (I guess I'm spoiling a little, but it happens within the first five minutes of the movie), I had to stop myself from screaming, "That's what you get for raping Paige, asshole!"

6.26.2005

veronica mars news for next season

Veronica Mars producer Rob Thomas (not the guy from Matchbox 20) has a great website with lots of VM good stuff--pictures, clips, etc. There's also an option to write to Rob himself (which I did...come on, I am a psycho fan) and ask to be put on his mailing list. Well, on Thursday I got my first Rob Thomas email!

Some of the season 2 information had already been revealed in last week's Ask Ausiello column on TV Guide (scroll down a bit to get to Ausiello's interview with Rob.) However, there were a few tidbits he saved for the email. Such as:

-Dick and Beaver Casablancas will become series regulars, along with a featured role for their stepmother, their dad's trophy wife. She's "Bunny Lebowski ten years later" according to Rob, and will not (necessarily) be played by tara reid, despite rumors to the contrary.
-Veronica will get a new friend in the form of Jackie Chase, daughter of a famous baseball player.
-Keith will be asked to run for sheriff again! by the new candidate for mayor, whose daughter will also be a new cast member.

But the biggest, and most reassuring news by far, which also appeared in Ask Ausiello, was the news that despite some very serious rumors to the contrary, no cast members will be killed off in episode 6! I had read this rumor in so many places that I pretty much believed it, and was leaning towards Weevil or Duncan though my deepest fears said it might be Logan.

In his email, Rob explained that although UPN has asked that they add all these new characters, they don't really have a budget that's any bigger, so some characters' episode counts have been reduced. He said on TV Guide that, for example, Weevil has gone down from 16 episodes to 12. The prevalence of the rumor makes me wonder if, at first, they considered getting rid of a character completely, and then rethought the idea when fans got upset. Either way, I'd much rather have less of a few characters than have to lose someone.

Some other cool things in the email included info about a contest for unsigned bands to get their music on VM, and Rob's pretty inventive idea for getting more music into the show--having established musicians come on and do karaoke, while having their latest singles featured elsewhere in the show. Whether or not people would do it is up in the air, but I think it's a really cool idea, and certainly better than another Bait Shop.

Also, some sad news for those of you waiting for the DVD to catch up on VM before the second season starts: Warner Home Video doesn't want to compete with the DVD releases of Lost and Desperate Housewives in September, so the VM release won't be untl October! At that point, you have to wonder why they just don't wait until January and release a set with commentary and extras, but I guess the idea is still that sooner is better.

Rob ended the email with some pictures of his adorable baby daughter. Even though this was just a mass email, I really feel that by being so involved with VM, I've become a part of an awesome community of television fans.

6.21.2005

the real world: making cool cities uncool

The Real World/Road Rules Blog pointed me to this article in yesterday's New York Times about the new season of The Real World that premieres June 21 and takes place in Austin, Texas. Real World ruler Jon Murray talks about the city selection process and posits The Real World as not only an arbiter of cool but as a cool-ing force, bringing tourism (and other kinds of) dollars to the cities it inhabits.

Is this really true? Of course, I live in a Real World city, but I don't think New York really needed the help. Are there people out there watching MTV and saying "oh gee wow, Philadelphia looks like so much FUN! all the drinking! the sexual confusion! the lackluster efforts at working or being real adults! now that's where I'm going on my next vacation!"

I guess any publicity is good publicity, right?

how i know i am in love

Right now, there is an episode of Family Guy on my Tivo, even though I've already watched it and in spite of my intense Tivo anxiety, just because I think my boyfriend might want to watch it, too.

complete nielsen ratings?

Does anyone know where I can find a listing of the complete Nielsen ratings each week? It's pretty easy to find the top 20, but I want to see all the shows. I'm dying to know how the Veronica Mars repeats are doing in the ratings, and all I know right now is that Dancing With the Stars was last week's number one show and that Two and a Half Men aired something like six times last week. Help me!

6.20.2005

what's so great about the inside?

A while ago, I saw the new remake of Amityville Horror and it scared me to death. No matter that it got mixed and even atrocious reviews--I was terrified. So, when I read that one of Fox's newest dramas, The Inside, featured Rachel Nichols, Amityville's bad babysitter, I made a mental note to check it out. Although it premiered two weeks ago, last night my roommate Allison and I finally found the time to sit down and watch it.

I wasn't impressed. Tvgasm, one of my daily reads, recommended it so highly (and steered me so right with their recommendation of Beauty and the Geek) that I was expecting better. That's not to say that The Inside is bad--it's not. It's original, which is quite a feat considering the glut of crime shows out there. Each twist of the case in the first episode, which features a murderer who slices women's faces off (with surprisingly subtle grossness), surprised me. The tone is subtle--no dun dun DUN moments.

The real problem is the characters. We have the gruff and mysterious boss. The team member who also wants to be a friend. The one who is distrustful. The one who doesn't have many lines (the woman, of course.) And in the center of it all, the woman with a gift for crime-solving due most likely to a deep, dark secret.

Haven't we seen it before? Silence of the Lambs. Medium. Profiler (a great show that never got enough attention.

Jonathan V. Last at the Daily Standard tells the story of The Inside's evolution here. Apparently, the original premise featured Nichols as an agent undercover at a high school, and I think the promise of inventive, emotional interaction would have been stronger there.

The Inside might improve, though it'll have to struggle against its premise to do so. Unfortunately, I won't be there to see it happen. The Inside is currently up against Veronica Mars and Lost, and this first episode wasn't enough to shake my loyalty to either show (as if anything could shake my loyalty to Veroncia Mars.) Did anyone else watch it? What did you guys think?

tivo anxiety

In college, I almost wasn't an English major. I spent the first year and a half of school fearing the required British Literature I and II classes. My interest in literature never really ventured farther back than 1900, and even that was pushing it. I have a hard time with archaic language, and I didn't think I'd find much to capture my interest in the early days of Britain.

I was wrong, of course. (And I should have been dreading the sleepy semester of American Lit I; the Puritans are no strangers to archaic language themselves.)One of the things that endeared my Brit Lit class to me was our discussion of the anxiety over print culture that many people experienced after the advent of the printing press. Suddenly, there were thousands of books to read (well, maybe not suddenly, but relatively suddenly considering the time)and no time in which to read them. With neverending piles of books to read "for fun" after I finished my school reading, I sympathized.

And now, in addition to feeling this way about books, I've come to feel this way about my Tivo.

A few days after I hooked up my Tivo, I was interviewed for an article about Tivo obsession (you can read it here if you've got a free New York Post login, or here if you don't, though you'll have to scroll down a bit to find it.) At the time, I was oh so skeptical about the power of Tivo, the unique, pressure-filled relationship that I would come to have with the little box in my living room with the dancing television on it.

But now my Tivo anxiety has kicked in full force. 12:45 am one night last week found me in front of the television--not watching anything, but rather staring at my "now playing" list and my "to-do" list, obsessing about when I could find the time to watch and delete. At the quality my Tivo is set to record, I can fit about 18.5 hours of television on it. You would think that would be enough, but one week of putting Netflix and reading and going out over Tivo (and VH1 rerunning the entire first season of America's Next Top Model) and it was nearly full.

A quick Google search shows I'm not alone, though this older article from the San Diego Union-Tribune might take things a bit too far:
TiVo television recorders that allow viewers to replay programs and skip commercials have turned casual TV watchers into prisoners shackled to sofas, unable to keep up with the flood of their favorite shows.

Or maybe it doesn't. These casual TV watchers that this quote speaks of? That's not me. I tend to think that even without Tivo, my television fanaticism would crop up in other ways. And nothing is more relaxing to me than a few hours spent with Tivo. Hopefully I can continue to cope with my Tivo anxiety . . . at least until the day I can afford a bigger Tivo.

6.17.2005

the next food network star

I've quickly become addicted to The Next Food Network Star, currently airing on the Food Network. It's only airing for about a month, and I already know I'll miss it when it's gone. Basically, eight finalists were chosen to compete in a series of contests to determine who will get a six-part series on the network. It's not your typical reality show in that so far everyone seems to be getting along very well, with no fights in the kitchen or anything like that.

I'm a closet cooking show fan. I don't really talk about my love for the Food Network, and I don't even have any attachments to any particular shows or hosts. As a picky eater, I sometimes find it hard to think about food in new and interesting ways--sometimes I think I'd be content to just eat pasta with pesto sauce every day. Watching cooking shows gives me a little bit of the desire to try new things, and that's worth a lot to me.

Anyway, the show site is great with info if a little slow and clunky. All the contestants' recipes from each show are there (I'm excited to try Eric's potato salad, which one of the judges claimed was the best potato salad he'd ever had) along with contestant profiles and little mini-blogs.

6.13.2005

remember when she had big black hair on All My Children?

I've always liked Kelly Ripa. When I was a kid, my mom would tape her soap operas during the day and watch them at night, and I often joined her. I still remember how shocked I was when Kelly, who played Hayley on All My Children, first took off the huge black semi-punk wig she wore for her first few months on the show and revealed herself to be a perky blonde. I like her on Regis & Kelly, too, though I've never seen Hope & Faith.

So this week's TV Guide cover story really disappointed me. Kelly is the main part of a larger article on celebrities keeping fit, and she says some things that were downright offensive to me. A selection:
But back when she was a big-haired high-school cheerleader, the 5-foot-4 blonde clocked in at 128 lbs. "That was a fun weigh-in for cheerleading," Ripa jokes. "I was stout. I had four legs, including my two upper arms." The talk-show host and sitcom star, who now tips the scales at a trim 108...


Also (this quote isn't on the web, but it's in the longer article in the print edition):

As for those current whispers that Ripa is now too thin, she insists, "I'm built like a lot of women in New York who are lean because we walk everywhere." Not that she cares about the rumors--she's just happy that when she looks in the mirror now, she doesn't see that stubby cheerleader.


Of course Kelly has the right to hate or love her body at whatever size it is or was. But I think it's a terrible thing to talk in a national magazine about how 128 lbs just isn't thin enough. For the record, I am 5'3" and 125 lbs, and though I have my self-deprecating days I know that my weight is perfectly normal. And on those self-deprecating days, I would not announce to millions of women, most of whom probably weigh more, that this weight is unacceptable.

Also, to insinuate that her thinness is due to living in New York and walking everywhere...well, I doubt it. Sure, people in NYC are thin, but I think it's part of a larger health consciousness rather than simply an increased amount of walking.

I just hate articles that talk about how a given celebrity "eats pizza constantly and doesn't do yoga, Pilates, or weights" and still weighs 108 lbs.

6.12.2005

at least it did better than four shows on the wb

Last week's issue of entertainment weekly featured a list of the complete 2004-2005 TV season ratings. Here are five shows that in my perfect world would not have done better than Veronica Mars (number 149 out of 156 shows, with 2.5 million viewers):

Point Pleasant (#134, 4.1 million viewers)
The Swan 2 (#83, 7.2 million viewers)
Rodney (#58, 9 million viewers--I've never even heard of this show)
Joey (#43, 10.1 million viewers)
Everybody Loves Raymond (#10, 16.9 million viewers)

This chart is also interesting because it shows the percentage change in viewership since last season for returning shows. The O.C., for example, dropped 28%. The biggest drop on the list is The Bernie Mac Show, at 37% (what a shame.) The biggest gain was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, with a 30% gain, making it #15 overall. One surprise for me was that Scrubs dropped 33%. I would have expected a gain after the release of Garden State.

Oh, and the top show overall was the Tuesday showing of American Idol.

Seeing this list makes it really hit home what a miracle it is that VM was renewed for another season. Remember, reruns start this Tuesday at 9 and continue on Wednesdays at 9 after that.

I'll keep the issue around for a few days if anyone wants to know where their favorites ranked.

6.07.2005

summer doldrums and spoilers

The weather turned oppressive in NYC this week. It's finally summer, and along with the hot weather there's been a lackluster few days of television. I've been hearing good things about Beauty and the Geek, so despite Ashton Kutcher's involvement I'm giving it a try; the first episode is waiting for me on the tivo right now.

Last night was the season premiere of Six Feet Under, but I haven't watched it yet (and therefore you get no link, since I can't risk going to the site and getting spoiled). Speaking of spoilerage, I've been noticing lately that certain news outlets are much better than others in terms of what they'll ruin for you. Entertainment Weekly is pretty good; TV Guide is not, especially if you're a subscriber and get the issues a week early (we subscribe at work.) It's not even that they give away spoilers, really, but the articles tend to point your attention toward specific moments or episodes, as if they don't trust you to pay attention on your own. In the SFU article, they named a specific episode where important things will happen. But that begs the question: how much enjoyment would a viewer really get out of that episode if he or she hadn't been watching all along?

What they did for the finale of Lost was even worse: an entire article on the subject of the last scene on the boat, published the week the finale aired. Wait a minute, you mean they're not going to get rescued, and bad things might happen when they think that's happened? You mean I should pay attention? Thanks, TV Guide, but I think Lost itself dropped more than enough clues that something bad would happen to our rafters; if nothing else, the previously on segment featuring every "dun dun DUN" moment of the season should have tipped viewers off.

Not that I'm some kind of spoiler purist, but I do live in fear of accidentally learning something major about a show before I can see it. The moment before I choose to read a spoiler is always a little intense. I just want to have the choice, even if it seems like the spoiler itself doesn't reveal much of anything.

6.03.2005

what happens after the best first season ever (news on next season's veronica mars)

some possibly bad news from eonline (potentially spoilerish, if it's true):

According to sources close to the show, Veronica's second-season pickup came with a suggestion: that producers try to pull in a broader audience closer in demographics to its new time-slot partner on UPN, America's Next Top Model. To do so, the idea was that Veronica should get a female companion, hopefully with a "name" (rumor has it they tossed around the name Tara Reid--though I choose not to believe that), an older love interest and, here comes the hard part, that producers scale back two characters close to Veronica (meaning, they won't be in every episode), and write off a third.


The full article is here, though I have to warn you there's an even bigger potential spoiler there, one you may not want to hear.

The legitimacy of this news is questionable; Tara Reid's name was tossed around for the role of Trina (which ultimately went to Allyson Hannigan), so it might just be recycled gossip, plus isn't she the new host of Wild On?

Later in the article, Kristin begs the powers that be not to fuck with Veronica Mars, and I have to agree. More characters, fewer characters . . . that kind of stuff ultimately doesn't matter as much as the tone, the quality of the writing, the emotional heft behind the stories. It's a lesson we all learned on The O.C. this season; a great first season does not guarantee a second, and there's a delicate balance between new and fresh and too many scary changes. Maybe that's why this news has me a little nervous today.

I've devoted so much of myself as a viewer to this show, and I just want it to be worth it. But as I said to Allison: no matter what happens, we'll always have season one.

6.02.2005

desperate women?

Does anyone remember a show called (maybe) Desperate Women? It was on in the early 90's, and in New York City aired on channel 9. It was about a group of women both in and recently out of prison. For some reason this show just popped into my head.

And while we're talking about obscure shows that aired for brief periods of time that I wonder if anyone besides me watched, does anyone remember Tribes? It aired on Fox, also in the late 80's/early 90's, at 5 pm on weekdays and was pretty scandalous for that time of day.

6.01.2005

veronica mars reruns

Via Neptunesite, here's the schedule so far for this summer's Veronica Mars reruns. I've added the episode number in parentheses. Reruns will air Wednesdays at 9, except for the pilot which will air on a Tuesday:

6/14/05
"Pilot" SPECIAL TUESDAY SHOWING! (1)

6/15/05
"Return of the Kane" (6)

6/22/05
"An Echolls Family Christmas" (10)

6/29/05
"Silence of the Lamb" (11)

7/6/05
"Clash of the Tritons" (12)

7/13/05
"Lord of the Bling" (13)

7/20/05
"Mars vs. Mars" (14)

7/27/05
"Russkie Business" (15)

I'm a little upset that they're not showing all the episodes, but I wonder if they'll show the rest of the episodes after the 27th. It seems likely that they would, since the last two episodes were the best of the season, and then they would have shown 11 through to the end, which isn't so bad. plus, the earlier episodes are lighter on lilly kane stuff and heavier on the mystery of the week. still, one of my favorite episodes is #4, The Wrath of Con, which features flashbacks from homecoming and Lilly's memorial video.

Anyway, I hope everyone watches. My roommate Allison and I had been planning to have a VM party at our house, showing the first 3 episodes to all the people we've pressured to watch, but I'm not sure of the status of that now. We could watch #1 and #6 and #10 and I could stand in front of the room and fill people in on what happens in between.

It doesn't seem to be up on the web yet, but I saw in the latest TV Guide, in their "what we hope happens at the Emmys" article, that they've got as much love for Veronica Mars as I do. They had it picked as their hope for one of the best drama nominees, and Kristen Bell as their hope to win best actress. Not likely to happen, but hopefully their enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of so many other critics, is enough to bring some more viewers to the second season. Now let's just hope it's better than the second season of The O.C.