b-ruce

mmmmm that's good summer TV

Set your Tivo to "fun". "Psych" returns with a new season tonight on USA. It's prolly more of a guilty pleasure show but still I think it's worth a watch.

Oh Fox, why do I even still bother?

So Fox has brought back “The Loop” for summer and it appears they totally retooled it. The point of “The Loop” used to be “Hey kids, ain’t it crazy how you now work in a corporation with these crazy old people and their crazy-old ways, and it doesn’t help that while you’re trying to transition into becoming your dad you’re still hanging out with your friends who are still as drunk and stupid as they were in college.” As such I found the show to be relatable but also marveled at its apparently narrow focus.

So now the show is just your standard wacky office show and at home a wacky slacker brother/roommate. Still with Jimmy Gator and Mimi Rodgers around it’s not a halfbad way to spend 20 minutes plus commercials. Lol, as I was researching potential links for this post I find out the show has already been cancelled and this is just Fox dumping off episodes of things it already paid for. Good old Fox.

Winners and losers

Give Jim Paxon a raise after he fires Scott Skiles. In game 3 of the Bulls series with the Pistons it was Paxon's new draft picks who came up with the extra energy and athleticism to get the Bulls a 19 point lead. A lead which the more veteran team squandered away in the 2nd half. Skiles' inability to see that the younger lineup was more effective should be the source of his demise.

In other news I'm here to tell you that this season's "Survivor" is the best yet. Yau-man is the most intriguing character to ever play the game. He is martyr, marksman and super villain all in one. No one else could do what he did this week: give away a car to another player, send himself to the harsh conditions of exile island and then fiendishly explain his ulterior motives and delight in "having more sneaky conversations". His rational thinking leads me to believe he's the most normal contestant the game has ever had. Or perhaps he’s the best at maintaining normality under the harsh conditions, which makes him exceptional.

Congrats to the Bulls!

I wish the media would stop calling them the "baby bulls" as they don't have the two centers out of high school anymore.

TV report

So have you been watching Andy Ritcher and Conan O'Brian's new show, Andy Barker PI? It's midseason-replacementrific!

In other lots of late, not so breaking news here's my score card for the serieses that have already wrapped. Just to clarify the season score is based primarily on the ability of the episodes in the season to meet or exceed expectations. So just because I scored BSG's season low doesn't mean that I don't still think that it's the best show aired on US TV, because I still do think so and it is (although Veronica Mars could reclaim that title with a strong finish to their season).

The Closer - Season 2 - A

Most of this season was done in the summer of 2006 but they did air a two-part finale in December so this isn't as belated as it seems. Anywho it's damn good TV. The cast is really quite good together and the show's focus on suspect interrogation reminds of Homicide, and that's a way good thing.

Psych - Season 1 - A

The best show that no one I know is talking about. Psych is consistantly funny and engaging.

Rome - Season 2 - A-

Rome Season 1 was a season for the ages. Possibly the tightest story arc ever told in the medium. A damn hard act to follow. But for the most part season 2 delievers a statisfying end to this fantastic series.

Battlestar Galactica - Season 3 - B

So, yeah, the begining of the season was fantastic. Turning the heroes into basically terrorists was a fantastic idea. And the end was tantalizing but there was a lot of filler the in middle there.

Congrats to One Piece!

300 episodes is quite an achievement. Even more amazing is how the series continues to be excellent thoughout the years.

Better late and sparse than never

aka "Give Ben Edlund some money!"

So I picked up a copy of "The Tick vs Season One" and I didn't even know it was available! Well, at least I hadn't until I saw it lying discarded among some other stuff at Target while looking for file folders, why O Amazon email alerts have you forsaken me! IGN didn't cotton to its lack of features, but I think fans of Firefly and Angel should check it out. I mean how could you not want to throw 25 bux over to the guy who wrote Smile Time and Jaynestown

Belle and Sebastian on CBS? Well now I've seen (almost) everything

It's true, a song from "The Boy with the Arab Strap" as well as the picture of the album was referenced not once, but twice on "How I met your Mother" or as most people know it "That one show that Doogie Houser's on... and Willow from Buffy too."

It's still not that funny of a sitcom. But it's little touches like this that make it easier to watch. Makes me feel as if the writers are kindred spirits, toiling away to the indie rock of their youth.

do it

Please watch Arrested Development tonight at 7! or whenever primetime starts around your neck of the woods.

Firefly in the news, seriously

Linky here.

Three thoughts I had while reading:

1. Joss Whedon has a blog and I haven’t been reading it?

2. Must remember to set tivo for Firefly on Sci-Fi channel, even if I did miss the first episode I can always just watch the pilot on DVD.

3. It seems like ages since I read an Astonishing X-Men, did my subscription run out?

Holy diver, you've been down too long in the midnight sea

So the Contender premiered tonight and it looks as if Mark Burnett has done it yet again. Besides picking some very personable, respectable fighters (Ishe Smith is the particular standout here, not only is he good on screen but he’s also a bonafide prospect) Burnett’s kept his magic editing touch. The elimination fight at the end of the show actually made my heart pound, not only was it well shot and shortened to make it look more like a Rocky scene than real, sometimes hum drum, boxing but I was also invested in the two fighters.

On the down side, I found myself missing Jeff Probst. He wouldn’t have just been walking down some street talking to lead into the intro of the show, they would have made him jump out of a helicopter or ride a motorcycle off a cliff, also Sugar Ray Leonard’s hand signal for the beginning of the challenge pales in comparison to the classic Probst *down hand goes up, up hand goes down* maneuver. And while I did like the action-movie buddy buddy dynamic between Sugar Ray and Sly Stallone (wow spell check actually knows how to spell his name right, how’s that for verification of stardom?) I could have done without the weird office scene as they were rolling credits, where the two of them and the other non-fighter personalities on the show were remarking on the episode’s proceedings. It just seemed out of place.

NBC’s going all out here to promote the show (albeit this is TV downtime with most other shows recovering from February sweeps), airing the next episode on ER’s usual timeslot and then airing a third episode in what will be its usual timeslot Sunday. I hope the series is as good as the pilot and viewers make it a hit, would be good for the sport.

Well, looks as if I have at least two shows to watch this fall

Fox premiered “The Next Great Champ” tonight and I must say I was pretty impressed. Boxing lends itself to the sort of drama that reality TV shows need and this first episode delivered. At first I didn’t want to like the show, it being a quick, sour-grape tasting, response to Fox losing the bidding on “Contender”. “Contender” being produced by Rocky himself, along with the guy who created “Survivor” was a can’t miss with me. And it also being the first show with this idea you’d think they would have the best formula and they might. But since Fox launched “Next…” first I now have to wonder if I should invest myself in another boxing reality show. Also Fox secured trainers Tommy Brooks and Lou Duva for “Next…” which I hadn’t heard about before. We all knew Oscar was going to be the face of the show but for them to get two very high quality, championship caliber trainers for the show told me right in the first few minutes that some good thought went into the production. I especially liked the scene were Duva, Brooks and De La Hoya started to speak very frankly and harshly in an effort to rank the contestants.

Only three criticisms come to mind about the pilot. For a show about boxing they really don’t put the focus on the actual fight. There was a 4 round elimination bout that capped off the show. That’s only 15 minutes when you count the minute break in-between rounds. Take out the breaks or edit them down and you’ve got 13 minutes, for an hour long show that’s not a lot, it’s about a fourth of the program. Instead what we saw was a super edited montage of each round spaced out with shots of the ring card girl. But I guess this makes it more accessible to non-boxing fans. Secondly, it wasn’t clear to me if the #1 ranked boxer would have been eliminated if he lost. I knew he was fighting for $25k, that much was certain, but the idea that he might be eliminated was tossed around a bit and logic dictates that someone’s got to go every week, or at least after every fight. And lastly the clip for next week’s show insinuates that one of the boxer’s “significant others” will be trying to help his guy by cheating or deceiving, which if done well could be really entertaining but I can’t really see what on Earth this guy could possibly try that would actually have an impact on anything. From this vantage point he’s just around for moral support, it’s not like he’s judging the fight or anything.

*EDIT* I changed the title to two shows because I just remembered Arrested Development.

Enjoy it, it could be our last

Reminder: Arrested Development is airing tonight at 8:30 central. This is the season finale, but it could be the series finale. So please don't miss what could be your last chance to see one of the funniest sitcoms in this post-Seinfeld era. Watch it, talk about it and write about it, please. Hopefully with our support Fox will renew the series.

I came home on Wednesday to find my beloved computer had crashed. I had left it on to allow folks to download Jumpsuit Robbie tracks, now it was off. I hit the “power” button, no response. I turned off the main power switch and then back on, then “power”, no response. At that point I had to throw in the towel, I had a speech to prepare for and the use of other computers on the premises. Now 3 days have passed and I have still yet to take screwdriver to case, I’ve been hella busy. I also think that I perhaps am dreading the very real possibility that I will have to invest on some replacement parts. Not that I’m without funds, it’s just something I’d rather not spend on at the moment. Thankfully, this new moveable type setup allows me to post from anywhere.

How horribly predictable

Just like clockwork another brilliant show that Ben Edlund was working on has been cancelled. The WB has axed Angel, even though it has seen stronger ratings this year and has ranked consistently in the top half of all WB programs. If anyone is to blame, let’s lay the finger on Edlund, the creative genius that gave us “The Tick”. And while I really enjoyed the animated Tick and adored the short lived “Firefly” (Edlund’s first TV collaboration with Buffy & Angel creator and hella funny guy in his own right, Joss Whedon.) the guy’s like some sort of bad omen. He either creates or joins a show and injects it with his great humor - which now, considering the DVD sales and reviews of “The Tick” and “Firefly” must be considered ahead of his time – and then the show is deemed too funny or generates a cult following and the networks have to cancel it.

Hey, TV executives, you’re wondering why my demographic is disappearing from all TV ratings? Maybe it’s because of your insistence to cancel anything that shows any promise, or your insistence on cramming one poorly conceived reality show after another down my throat. I could start a new network with all of the great shows TV’s canceled recently: The Tick, Greg the Bunny, Firefly, now Angel. That would be a hell of a line up.

Firefly & other TV

I just finished watching the complete Firefly series on DVD and I'm glad to report that I wasn't wrong the first time around. Pretty much every episode of the way too short lived TV series is excellent. It's a damn shame no network picked it up but Fox only has four hour-long dramas in its whole week-long schedule and UPN has like one. So I guess there was just no room for Joss Whedon's brilliant piece of Dramedy in this reality-infatuated modern world of ours. Still with all the damn cable networks out there you'd think someone could've made our day and ordered another season. What's USA got besides Monk (which I've seen a bit of and enjoyed, but don't want to start in the middle of)? And since it takes 8 months or more between seasons of Sopranos or Six Feet Under, HBO could've used a new show. But I guess it's thinking that this that's got me working this busted keyboard in my bedroom and not in a fancy network-executive cubicle.

I'm not the alone on this, Gabe from Penny Arcade wrote almost exactly the same thing earlier today.

So with the quality declining on Teenage-Superman, I've pretty much got just three shows I remember to turn the TV on for: Angel, South Park and Arrested Development.

I strayed away from Angel after giving it a season and a half. But now that Buffy's gone and James Marsters and Joss Whedon are working on the show I'm back on my couch Wednesday nights. This season has been a study of quality television. The additions of Marsters and Mercedes McNab (Harmony) have added some much needed sass-back and have allowed the cast to jell quite nicely. I have high hopes for the future of this series, which is normally forebodes cancellation but let's keep our fingers crossed.

Arrested Development has the kind of strong performances, both in writing and acting, that are expected of a veteran series. It's really wonderful to think how good this show will be if it's allowed to mature for 3-5 seasons. It could be the next Seinfeld; which would be awesome because that would turn the hilarious, card-sharking David Cross into the new Kramer.

I also think highly of a couple shows on Cartoon Network's "adult swim". Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021 pick up on the near genius that was Space Ghost Coast to Coast a few years ago. But they air new episodes on such a sporadic schedule; it's hard to keep up with them.

The TV made us do it

Inspired by Bravo’s new hit show “Celebrity Poker Showdown” we decided to get a poker night set up at John’s house. It came as a shock to all when we arrived at a head count of 16.

Still, I don’t recall having Jackass stunt parties or Detective-Coroner nights following Quincy.

Nevertheless, I must say that I feel quite happy about finally being able to properly ape something I saw on the TV, my previous attempts (building a tank in my barn so I could free the villagers, as seen in the “A Team”, trying to guess, out loud, the prices of the groceries of the person who was ahead of me in line, without going over, a la “The Price is Right”) having met with extremely limited success.