57 Channels and Only This Is On 12/2/12

Quote of the Week: Believe it or not I’m your best friend in the world right now. (Quinn, Homeland)

Song of the Week: Hello – Lionel Richie (Suburgatory)

Scene of the Week:


Big News of the Week: iTunes 11 Sucks Massively: If there is one mantra that I live by, it was uttered by the great philosopher Garth Adler in the seminal Wayne's World movie: I fear change. And I really hate unnecessary change. Yet from the New Darrin to New Coke companies have continued to try to fix things that were not broken including the latest version of iTunes. I understand the sprucing up of your look, but iTunes claims the new version of the program makes thing simpler but many things are actually made harder, most notably the new search function. Previously whenever you typed something in the search box, it limited your library to songs, artists and albums. Now there is a drop box actually making it harder to find what you are looking for.

And then there are the parts they erroneously left out of the new version. I am furious that the DJ function did not make the upgrade. That was how I listened to my library. I also do not like that you cannot display duplicates anymore, I download a lot of crap, so that was nice thing to have to delete and clean up songs I already have. And for some reason they added songs from the Cloud to my library even though I have never actually used the iTunes Cloud before. iTunes even managed to make the podcast page look more cluttered. Worst of all it is slow, whenever I press “ok” it takes 5-20 seconds to actually do anything. I am not happy. Hopefully this will all get fixed with the next update, until I will probably use Spotify to listen to my Holiday and Best of 2012 playlists.

Preview Picture of the Week:


Revenge: Oh snap, just in case you did not realize how evil Victoria is, she totally set up her own mother. On Thanksgiving. Although it was a little weird that Charlotte was absent at the dinner (granted I did miss the first couple minutes because a local kid was kidnapped). But the Stowaway was a completely worthless flashback even if it set up that the evil dude who bought into the bar is the song of the evil dude who extorted the bar who has come back for… revenge. Actually I did not really care that much about Nolan’s CFO or how Emily met the British dude.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Revenge on iTunes.

Homeland: I had this fear that Quinn just showed up this season so they had someone to be the mole from last season that I did not really care about. Instead it turned out to be part of a super-secret FBI team specializing in killing terrorists (even if they are working for them). I also thought when I learned Mike would be staying over that he would end up hooking up with Mrs. Brody until I realized she would not actually do that with her kids in the other room. Oops. Apparently she did not care. It was like episode one all over again, Mrs. Brody gets naked, Dana is a brat, and Chris is just hanging out. Now the question is what is Abu Nazir’s contingency plan? Or was this his masterplan the whole time or just a diversion?

The Voice: Far and away the most shocking and noteworthy item on The Voice this week were learning Bill Withers was still alive. Who knew? Since Rick Rubin started the craze of producing long forgotten singers like Johnny Cash (also see Jack White/Wanda Jackson, Damon Alburn/Bobby Womack, Tim Armstrong/Jimmy Cliff, Jeff Tweedy/Mavis Staples) I really hope Cee-Lo uses this opportunity to produce a new Bill Withers album which would be his first in over twenty-five year. Way too long.

Really the only other interesting parts of the episode was when Adam Levine went off on The Roxy, Melanie Martinez’s ex-boyfriend (while she looked on in horror), but not Dez Duron who’s performance deserved it the most. A lackluster performance week where everyone managed to be worse than the previous week (with the exception of Trevin) so as part of this week’s Power Ranking, I have made some suggestions of songs to sing.

1. Nicholas David – I was going to suggest Donny Hathaway, but I am about to complain about other singers being complacent, so instead of another seventies soul song, since his Huey Lewis cover was the most bizarrely awesome performance of the season, maybe try the nineties version of The News and sing Hold My Hand by Hootie and the Blowfish.

2. Cassadee Pope – She had her breakout performance last week with an emotional country ballad, so why not try it again with Colder Weather by Zac Brown Band, a song she can actually relate to on multiple levels because not only has she done a lot of touring, so has her boyfriend.

3. Amanda Brown – I’m surprised no has tackled Thinkin Bout You by Frank Ocean this season, and as Amanda showed during Dream On, she definitely can hit that falsetto part. Just do not turn it into a rock song. In fact go the other way and make it just Amanda and an acoustic guitar.

4. Melanie Martinez – She has done pretty much somewhat obscure alt-rock (or as obscure as a song that gets played in a commercial about as often as political ads over the last three months) and old time blues songs, how about combining them with Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand by the Primitive Radio Gods (which of course samples BB King).

5. Terry McDermott – I originally thought the Scottish singer should take something out the Irish songbook of U2, but how about bringing him in the new millennium with "45" by The Gaslight Anthem.

6. Trevin Hunte – Trevin tried contemporary music last week and failed miserably and when he went back to old emotional RnB it just started to sound tired. So it is time to think outside the box like Something to Believe In by Poison.

And without Dez Duron, Christina Aguilera gets her third straight last place finish. Hopefully Shakira has a better ear for good singers. I also laughed at Christina assertion that Chris Mann is the most successful contestant ever on The Voice. I would like to see her numbers because Javier Colon, Dia Frampton, and Xenia all charted higher than Chris and he is the only one from season two that has released an album yet, so really no competition . Maybe this is way she always performs so bad on the show because she is completely delusional.


You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download songs from The Voice by clicking on the artist’s name.

2 Broke Girls: How could do an episode with all that blood splatter and not make a Dexter reference? Sure they are too poor for premium cable (I do not even remember seeing a television in their apartment), but I am sure Max has figured how to steal it by now.

Survivor: Philippines: I am actually starting to root for Abi-Maria. I got a laugh when she managed to win Immunity and the alliances had to turn on each other. Though has no one ever watched the show before? Of course Probst was going to sell some sort of clue. It is really not a good sign when Abi is the smartest player out there. So you have to wonder if everyone is dumb enough to fall for her fake Immunity Idol.
You can stream recent episodes over at CBS.com. You can also download Survivor: Philippines on iTunes.

Nashville: It is clear that they need to get Rayna and Juliette in the same room at the same time more often because watching those two go out it passive aggressively is the most entertaining part of the show (and I think this is the first time they crossed path since the first episode). Maybe they should go out on tour together.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Nashville on iTunes.


Free Download of the Week: We Three Kings - Rod Stewart featuring Mary J. Blige (iTunes)

Deal of the Week: 100 Albums for $5: This month’s five dollar albums include albums from The Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Lauryn Hill, and Bruce Springsteen.


New Album Release of the Week: The Complete Columbia Album Collection

New DVD Release of the Week: The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins / The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises)

Video of the Week: I am beginning to think that the Pretty Little Liars promos are more interesting than the actual show because I got more excited watching this that I have the last season or two.


Next Week Pick of the Week: The Walking Dead, Sunday at 9:00 on AMC: I figured last week it would take an entire episode for Rick and his crew to make it to Woodbury and that turned out to be the case after a brief detour into the den of some paranoid dude. But they got there which should lead to an explosive mid-season finale when Rick will (presumably) go head to head with the Governor and (again presumably) get the long overdue Dixon family reunion which I have a feeling will not be all that friendly. And who knows, maybe Andrea will finally get killed off.