57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. I

Quote of the Week: Who else thinks the Civil War ain’t over, it’s just half-time? (Earl, My Name Is Earl)

Song of the Week: Look After You - The Fray (Journeyman)

Big News of the Week: New CW Shows Tank: Congratulations The CW you just spent millions of dollars promoting a show in Reaper, including paying off critics to make people believe the show was worth watching, only for it to debut with numbers worse than Veronica Mars scored in its first week last year in the same timeslot; a show you promoted with about as much money as you found in your couch cushion. Then to add more insult to injury, your other “show that will bring viewers to The CW,” Gossip Girl almost scored almost a full million less viewer in its first week with any competition this week too compared to that Veronica Mars premiere. So The CW, you may want to get on the phone as soon as possible and beg Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell to get Veronica Mars: The FBI Years ready for the 2008 season and hope all the bridges you burned for canceling the show the first time will be rebuilt by then. Because if you are going to put on shows that get low rating, at least put on one with a loyal fan base that doesn’t cost you as much money. (Full Disclosure: The Nielsen Rating are a sham and I tend not to believe any of the numbers used to make the argument above, but since The CW are stupid enough to think the numbers are accurate it works in the aurgument.)

Speaking of Nielsen, as I mentioned earlier this week, I am up for their TV Blogger of the Year Award despite actually being a TV blog. It was somewhat prestigious when they first made me award of the award being one of about ten blog including actual credible blogs like Television Without Pity and Brilliant But Canceled (okay, I missed how either were actual blogs themselves, but that would be like the story of the kettle and the pot), but now the contest has ballooned up to about a hundred. Yawn. And I realized their whole voting system is pretty hard to figure out. And their website, which was interesting when I had an exclusive beta invitation, has just turned into a place for spammers for their favorite crappy shows. But if you have too much time on you hand, or have already signed up for the site, feel free to head over and give me a pity vote (I have pretty much given up on winning a t-shirt). Also don’t forget to check out my contest where you can win the fourth season of Nip/Tuck on DVD.




How I Met Your Mother: Better than most of the second season, but something just felt off. Maybe it was the recycling of the lower back tattoo that played out two years ago. Maybe it was they didn’t spend enough time with the special guest stars Mandy Moore and Enrique Iglesias (who shouldn’t quit his day job). Of course maybe it was because they totally stole my break-up beard routine. Granted I typically demoted my beard from goatee to fu Manchu to Charlie Chaplin moustache before going bare. And I don’t want to seem as obsessed with hair as Tony Kornheiser, but what was with both of the female’s hair. It is time to fire the show’s stylist. But we are one step closer to meeting the mother, although it was a little insulting to the intelligence to end the show with all black umbrellas with one lone yellow umbrella(ella, ella, eh,eh,eh). Check out the latest episode over at Innertube. The show also showed up in iTunes this week and you can download the last two episodes from last season for free as I write this, but be warned, those were two of the worst episodes in the series history.


Heroes: Darn you Heroes for once again teasing me that you killed off Absorbing Guy just to reveal once again that he wasn’t in fact dead like everyone think. For the love of good acting, the next time you kill him off make sure he stays dead. Of course it would be pretty apropos if Kristen Bell is the one that finally does the deed having one of the best actors today kill off one of the worst. But anyways.

Horrible acting aside, I could also complain how uninteresting the Spanish people are or how they have created so many Heroes that they have already started to recycling abilities (flight) but I want to talk about how funny the premiere was. No seriously, I think I laughed more during Heroes that I did How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and Chuck combined. First, despite starting to be grating during the end of last season, Hero meeting his hero, who just happened to be a drunk British guy. Yeah the premise sounds like a cheesy blockbuster film that should star Martin Laurence or Tom Cruise, yet somehow the actor somehow made it work. Then there was Noah’s boss whom I hope turns out to be a hero himself and much like Samson have his powers being drawn from his moustache. And I’m not even sure why I found it funny but the Bennet family dinner, complete with Mr. Muggles, was so inane I just busted out laughing the whole scene. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.


My Name Is Earl: A strong start and it was nice to see that Earl could still cross off things on his list while in prison. But I still prefer my sitcoms in half hour portions and some of the jokes started to get stretched too long. At least the new guy at NBC said he was getting rid of those stupid Supersized episodes, so we don’t have to worry with those anymore. The best part of the episode though was Joy taking in Randy and trying to teach him how to fend for himself. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.


Survivor: Wow, I can’t believe they actually let the wrestler get voted off, but I guess when someone goes unanimously, it is hard to swing some votes to keep her on. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring back the castoff survivors like they did in the Panama season. We also get to see the big twist this season with the winning reward challenge tribe getting to kidnap an opposing tribe member who in part gets to give a hint to the not so hidden immunity idol. Should be interesting who tells who about what is going down. And I am beginning to think that my prediction of the one tribe never winning anything is actually going to come true. Check out the latest episode over at Innertube.





Smallville: Nobody does season finale/premieres quite like Smallville. In the finales almost every character is in some dire situation and everything is somehow back to normal by the end of the finale. We even had two deaths in the finale, and both were seen alive and kicking by the final scene of the premiere. Of course if you actually thought Lana was dead, you weren’t paying attention (and I not just taking about her still being in the credits); let take the time machine back to May 20th, “Lana who actually got in the van that passed by preventing Lionel (who may or may not be in on it) to reach her, and then remotely blew up the car to fake her own death.”


Also check out my First Impressions of these shows:

Chuck (where you can also check out a Bloggers Must Watch Guide at the bottom)

The Big Bang Theory

Journeyman

Bionic Woman

Life

You can also check out my season review of Dexter: In the Blood (everyone got the Better than Ezra reference right? Anybody? Anybody at all?)


Promo of the Week:




Next Week’s Pick: Friday Night Lights, Friday 9:00 on NBC: A new day for last year’s best new show. I still have avoided temptation from watching the premiere episode on Yahoo, but from the promo above, you can tell at least one of Dillion’s finest who will be showing up in swimwear in the premiere. I would be remised if I also didn’t mention Pushing Daisies which has its series premiere on Wednesday at 8:00 on ABC. Let’s hope that it lives up to the hype.


Check out some of the shows mentioned above on Amazon Unbox which you can transfer to you Tivo (if you are one of those pretencious types, everyone else will have to watch on theor computer; also notice how How I Met Your Mother is currently 0.00 which all the math classes I have taken in taken in my life would have me believe that makes the show free for download):