Best of the Week - 4/9/11

Quote of the Week: I’m no stranger to memetic epidemiology. At Johnson Elementary School the phrase “Shelly Cooper is a smelly pooper” spread like wildfire. (Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory)

Song of the Week: Fortunate Son – Creedence Clearwater Revival (Lights Out)

Big News of the Week: Glen Beck Getting Booted from Television: With a government shutdown looming, Glen Beck is getting the boot from his daily Fox blow hard show just months as his liberal nutjob counterpoint Keith Olberman lost his job at MSNBC. Of course will all the loony talking heads that populate the air waves, somehow Beck managed to out crazy them all like earlier this year during the Egypt uprising, suggested that the American presidents (even both Bush’s) were in cohorts with the Arabs to bring about Armageddon. Goodbye Glen, you won’t be missed.

Free Download of the Week: The Killing (iTunes): You can get the first two hours of the new AMC show for free. You can also check out my First Impressions of The Killing.

Deal of the Week: Seed Your Cloud: Last week I mentioned Amazon introduced their new Cloud and if you bought an album you would get a free 20 Gig upgrade and Amazonj deeply discounted some popular album. This week they dropped some critically alliamed album to $3.99 or less including albums by Sleigh Bells and TV on the Radio.

New Album Release of the Week: Wasting Light - Foo Fighters

New DVD Release of the Week: Man vs. Wild Season 5

Video of the Week: The Paul Riser Show premieres this Thursday at 8:30 and I am not entire sure what to think about it. But it cannot be any more boring than Perfect Couples. Can it?



Bonus Video of the Week: You cannot quite view this video right now (as I write this), but Norm McDonald will be Normcasting the Masters live this Sunday at 2:00 from his living room. Head over to Comedy Central.com then to watch. And tune into the premiere of Sports Show with Norm McDonald this Tuesday at 10:30.

Next Week Pick of the Week: Friday Night Lights, Friday at 8:00 on NBC: It is ironic all us terrestrial television viewers were expressing our jealous toward DirecTV viewers last fall when they got to watch Friday Night Lights. Now all my friends who watched then say they are jealous of me because I still have episodes of the seminal show that I have not seen. And I will savor them a week at a time even though season five is currently out on DVD.

Around the Tubes - 4/8/11

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Shark Men, Colin Quinn: Long Story Short, Maroon 5, Friday Night Lights, Rocko’s Modern Life, Travel Channel and Discovery Channel DVD releases, Being Human, and Face Off.

- The new season of Shark Men returns to the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9:00 with two new episodes. To start off the second season, the Shark Men will head to barren Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco, the first time anyone has been granted access to the area for shark research. Check out a preview below:

North Cal Great White


- I was thinking with MTV resurrecting all its 90’s shows like Beavis and Butt-Head and 120 Minutes, maybe it should bring back other classic shows like Remote Control and Club MTV. Sadly Ken Ober would not be around for any reboot. As for his sidekick, Colin Quinn has a comedy special Long Story Short airing tomorrow at 10:00 on HBO and even takes aim at one of today’s MTV stars: Snooki. Here is a trailer:



- Maroon 5 recently hit the studio to create a song in 24 hours, and now you can head over to cocacola.com to download the track for free.

- One more week until the fifth season of Friday Night Lights hits NBC (of course if you cannot wait, it hit DVD shelves earlier this week). But be warned, if you watch this teaser, you may find yourself screaming at your computer screen, “Julie did what!?” like I did.

The Final Season Begins


- If you were a kiddie in the nineties, you may remember Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life, well now you can relieve those at least you will June 21 when the two set DVD hit selves courtesy of Shout Factory.

- In other DVD release news, the Travel Channel and Discovery Channel will be release eight titles this month including Bert the Conqueror; Sarah Palin's Alaska; Sister Wives; Man Vs. Wild Season 5; Howe and Howe Tech; Earth Collection; Dinosaur Collection and Forensics: You Decide.

- The first season of Being Human is coming to a close Monday on Syfy. Check out a preview below:

Being Human – “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Me Killing You”


- Fans of Syfy’s reality show Face Off who watch and think I could do that, well maybe you can for the show’s second season. Casting will take place tomorrow at (2500 Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505 (10 am – 6 pm) and 82 Mercer Building, 82 Mercer Street, New York, NY (9 am – 5 am), both times local head over to syfy.com/faceoff to obtain an application.

I Want My Music Television - 4/7/11

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.

You Are a Tourist – Death Cab for Cutie



For those that missed it, Death Cab for Cutie filmed this music video live via Ustream in one take and definitely gets an A for ambition for that. But a part of me wishes something would have went horribly wrong. I’m sure the video would have gotten much more press had it happened.


Stone Rollin' - Raphael Saadiq



We are about a month out until the new Raphael Saadiq album hits shelves and the singles he has been dropping keep on getting better.


Long Time - Cake



Cake does not get the credit it deserves for coming up with some creative music videos and their latest takes a morbid turn. I was screaming for the monkey to climb out the hatch and unload the door from the outside.


I'll Be Waiting - Michael Franti & Spearhead



Who would have guessed a Michael Franti and Spearhead career resurgence a decade and a half after being deemed Buzzworthy that never really materialized into mainstream success? Now he has finally bust through with a string of great tracks including this one.

Feed Your iPod vol. LVII: My Hooptie

Watching VH1’s 40 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 90’s, it amazes me who is considered to have only one solitary hit. I lived through the nineties; Vanilla Ice was too huge to have revisionist history change him into a one hit wonder. Play That Funky Music was just as big as Ice Ice Baby (and was also a top five hit to boot) and who can forget Ninja Rap even though most of us would like to. Last month I made an argument that EMF (see Feed Your iPod vol. LVI: Lies) should not be considered a one hit wonder and I could also make arguments for Digital Underground and House of Pain, both artists of which I bought multiple albums of. But I want to take aim at today was on top VH1’s list: Sir Mix-a-Lot. Sure Baby Got Back was absurdly big thanks in part to MTV’s ban (oddly the video got more plays on the channel after it got the pre-8:00 ban than before it), but it certainly should not be the only song of his on your iPod. I could run down the list of his classics (like Posse on Broadway, Beepers, Put 'em on the Glass, Jump on It, Buttermilk Biscuits), but if I could only choose one, it would have to be the most played song in my very first car, a 1976 Malibu with three different shades of blue (not including the grey hood). That song was My Hooptie, and my car may have actually been worse than the one Mix rapped about. Note to teenagers, if your parents give you a choice of taking the bus or buying you a car that is older than you, take the bus. If they would have allowed multiple winners, The Boat, as I affectionately called it, would have won the school paper’s Heap of the Month for two straight years.

My Hooptie – Sir Mix-a-Lot



And as angry as I was about the one hit wonders on their lists that were not really one, do not get me started on the songs the omitted. I scratched my head when I saw the list was only going to be 40 songs deep and I could off the top of my head come up with 40 songs that were snubbed. I have never been keen on doing my owe one hit wonder lists (my exception for my 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 00’s was because I only used songs that only had one song on my Best Songs of the Year lists from the decade, and not a traditional one hit wonder list), but VH1’s list made me so angry I may have to knock one out at some point. But do not expect it anytime soon because I have a couple other lists I am working on that I would like to do first.

First Impressions: The Killing

Dilemmas, dilemmas. Sunday night I had to decide between watching AMC’s latest series The Killing or VH1’s 40 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 90’s. Reluctantly I choose the more scripted fair because undoubtedly VH1 would repeat it a couple hundred more times this month and sit there and scream at the television at some of their entries on the list (like when I flipped during the commercial break and saw House of Pain; has no one heard of Shamrocks and Shenanigans, Who’s the Man?, On Point; more on that later this week).

Despite not being in the can like all the pretentious television critic for AMC, I am always down for a good murder mystery, and even bad one as I made it through a whole season of Pretty Little Liars. Much like the ABC Family drama, The Killing shows the aftermath of a murder of a teenage girl, but the similarities end there. This time the detective work is left to the professionals. Taking lead on her last day of work before moving to a new city is Mireille Enos (who it takes a while to get used to watching in modern day clothes after her work on Big Love). Shadowing her on the case is her replacement Joel Kinnaman (dude’s Swedish, so I cannot translate any of his previous work).

The victim, Rosie Larsen, was killed pretty methodically, being drowned in a car that was sunk to a bottom of a lake of which she was locked in the trunk of. The big twist being that car was registered to the city councilman, Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer) who is running for mayor against the incumbent. Campbell has a few skeletons of his own has been has been hiding an affair with his campaign manager, Kristin Lehman (Tilt), and he knows a few things the Larsen family is going though, as he experienced the same thing with his late wife.

Rounding out the cast are Rosie’s parents Michelle Forbes (Battlestar Galactica: Razor) and Brent Sexton (Deadwood). If you want to be sad for hours on end, just watch their scenes after they found out their daughter died, maybe too real for television especially when they are forced to explain to their sons that they will never see their older sister ever again.

Every good murder mystery is judged by the quality of suspects and there are plenty to be found on The Killing. The two I am targeting includes Eric Ladin (Generation Kill), another of Campbell’s campaign advisor who was a bit too quick to turn the murder into political gain and could have easily been the one to report the campaign car stolen. But my lead suspect is the father of resident douchebag Jasper Ames who was even quicker to break up the questioning of his son. Of course as Aaron Echolls showed, who did not appear until the sixth episode of Veronica Mars, we may have not even met the murderer yet.

As much as a murder mystery can draw me in, the strong point of the show are the two detectives and their two very different styles. In an era where every character on television likes to take long expeditions of dialogue, Enos’s character chooses her words very carefully and doesn’t speak an unnecessary one. While Kinnaman is a very believable former undercover Vice cop as he looks like a skeevier version of DJ Qualls. And his scene with the soccer players was a marvel to watch in that you could have believed any outcome that could have happened from that meeting.

For any degenerates out there that enjoy a good drinking game, may I suggest you take a shot of your favorite poison of choose whenever the show lingers on an image of a bridge. You may get as drunk as the drinking game I invented for whenever Al Swearengen said his favorite word.

The Killing airs Sundays at 10:00 on AMC. You can stream episodes over at amc.com. You can also download The Killing on iTunes (where you can currently download the pilot for free, or Amazon Instand Video, see below, where you can get the first two episodes for free).

Previewing Jailbait

Longtime readers to the 9th Green may remember my interview with John Lehr where we discussed his involvement with I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (click to rewatch it). And what would you know, about a month after we talked about it, NBC resurrected the show to worse results probably because they did not bring Lehr back into the fold. Lehr is currently the creator, writer, executive producer and starring in Jailbait which you can watch over at Crackle.

Jailbait is a ten episode that follows Lehr through his nineteen month stay in correctional facility thanks to a drug charge. The self described people person gives the audience a blow by blow account about everything from his first day (a full body cavity search) to his last (a farewell party thrown by his buddies on the inside), to everything in-between (like his attempt to join a gang) and even give helpful hints if you ever find yourself in prison oranges (like how to get extradited from your cell to get away from your angry roommate).

Joining Lehr instead the big house include his 10 Items or Less co-stars Bob Clendenin as his closest friend behind bars and Kirk Ward as one of the prison guards. And Sandra Vergara (Sofia’s more intelligible younger sister) shows up as Lehr’s pen pail with a little extra baggage. Jailbait is short form comedy at its best, in and out quick with plenty of laughs in-between. Each episode runs around five minutes each and they are all currently available over at Crackle. Watch them in small breaks or knock them out all at once in under an hour, you will laugh more than most hour long comedy blocks currently on network television.

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 4/3/11

The Event: It should go without saying, but I hope the president was smart enough to put GPS trackers on the buses, but since he has made some dumb decisions in the past (okay, let’s be honest, the writers are the one’s making the dumb mistakes) I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Event on iTunes.

Castle: Alexis’s goodie-goodie act is starting to wear thin. Se seriously lied to her father so she could go back to the store where her friends stole stuff without him find out? C’mon. She doesn’t have to go Lindsay Lohan, but it is time to ditch the Mother Teresa act. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Parenthood: Who would have guessed that Cappie would actually look more shaggy post-graduation? Maybe he should realize the best job he could get in underground for a reason. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Parenthood on iTunes.

Lights Out: Every episode since it happened I keep going back to the one that ended with Barry K. Word and Hal Brennen and wondering what exactly was discussed during that meeting. Have they been conspiring this whole time or was that a throw away scene and I am reading too much into it. With one episode left, hopefully all will be revealed. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Lights Out on iTunes.

Survivor: Redemption Island: I was thinking the other day, when an Immunity Idol is played, the person with the second most votes is the one that goes home. But what if the only two people who get votes both play an Idol? Usually when there is a tie, the people who got votes are not allowed to vote in the revote. So would they have a revote for the two people that were voted for whose Idols are no longer valid or do they revote and they cannot vote for the two that played the Idol. This is really all I could think of this week because the actual episode was a bore. Hopefully it picks up next week with the merge and we get to see if my Idol conundrum plays out which could happen because people will be gunning for Boston Rob, but the other tribe knows that Ralph has one, and he knows they know he have one which makes for an interesting chess match. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Justified: Wow, that is the second time we have seen Raylan get severely beaten, sure two on one could be expected, but I thought he could have taken a dimwit with one good hand. But I was disappointed we did not make it to the Bennett Whoop-Di-Do. I remember looking at the clock while they were still at papa’s house and thinking, crap, they are not going to make it this week. I wonder what her master plan is, and what Boyd plans to do about it. But I thought earlier this season it was eluded to that Arlo was the one that had to do with Dicky’s limp, not the story Raylan gave this week about the baseball game. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

The Big Bang Theory: I am surprised Penny’s one episode addition to World of Warcraft, which to this day is one of the better ones in the series run, was never brought up. You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.