57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/19/2017

Orphan Black: 147 clones? Wow, Dyad was busy. They are apparently all dead now but I wonder how many dude clones were there. I was just disappointed they ruined Alison, turning her into a hippy for no apparent reason with two episodes left. I was hoping we would get a cheesy sitcom spin off with her and Donnie.
You can download Orphan Black on iTunes.

Ray Donovan: So are they going to continue to tease Abby’s death without actually saying the word or at least show the body? Sure Ray found her convulsing and foaming from the mouth, but we never heard what happened to her. Ray did mention the head injury from the car accident which of course was cause by the hot leaked actress. Except Ray did not bring that up when she showed of at his office. But I did find it interesting that she told Ray she “shot” her husband, not that she killed her. It would be more interesting if the husband is not dead because it seems like Ray cleans up a dead body at least one a season. I believe the very first scene of the series was Ray getting rid of a dead body.

Claws: I am not sure what was more entertaining, the Whitney Houston scene or the Humpty Dance scene. Still I do not understand why Roller and Uncle Daddy let Desna, and Virginia, live for trying to kill the former. And I am not sure if I am racist and think every black man looks the same, but I am pretty sure that was Desna’s doctor friend that the Dixie Mafia met with in the last scene.
You can download Claws on iTunes.

The Strain: So Setrakian has been part of a bone marrow experiment this whole time? And that was kind of an easy escape, why not try that earlier? And why I am complaining, why did the Master not swarm Eph after learning his location. New Horizons was right there presumably swarming with Strigoli.
You can download The Strain on iTunes.

I’m Dying Up Here: Bill got the chair? I know the show positioned him as the next big thing, but never really deserved it in my eyes. Then he did not even bother to kill himself afterward. The other big question beside how did Bill get on Carson, let alone the chair is what happened to Teddy’s club? Did someone set it on fire or was it electrical because the pimp said it passed inspection but not because he updated it. Not that I really cared because after watching the whole season, I wish we would have gotten a second season of Roadies instead.

Preacher: What the fork is up with the freaky dude with the eye? Seriously, the butter thing, what was that?
You can download Preacher on iTunes.

The Challenge: Dirty 30: She may look and act like a ditz, but, wow, Jenna looked like a beast as the only one who pushed her opponent off and she did it twice.
You can download The Challenge: Dirty 30 on iTunes.

Around the Tubes: 8/18/2017

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 Good Behavior, Halt and Catch Fire, Austin City Limits, Conan, Might Cruise Ships, A Season With, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Watergate *But Were Afraid to Ask, Anna of the North.

- Award-winning actress Michelle Dockery will be back on the bad side when she returns as thief and con artist Letty Raines in the hit TNT drama Good Behavior. Juan Diego Botto, Terry Kinney, Lusia Strus and Joey Kern also star in the seductive drama. The second season of Good Behavior is slated to premiere across TNT's television, mobile and digital platforms on Sunday, Oct. 15, at 10:00.


- AMC announced today that the award-winning Blue Man Group will appear in the season premiere episode of Halt and Catch Fire, which begins its fourth and final season on Saturday, August 19th at 9:00. The network will also be launching an exclusive sweepstakes where fans can enter to win a Blue Man Group prize package, including two tickets to see a Blue Man Group performance, a human paintbrush canvas of Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) as seen in the season four premiere, and much more. The sweepstakes will launch on Friday, August 18th at 3:00pm ET and run until September 1st.

- The iconic PBS series Austin City Limits (ACL) announces a new season premiering October 7 with an an epic hour featuring global superstar Ed Sheeran. With this season, ACL becomes the longest-running music show in television history, providing viewers with a front-row seat to the best in performance for over 40 years, and continues its legendary run showcasing more stars, innovators and highly-anticipated debuts. The series airs weekly on PBS stations nationwide and full episodes are made available online for a limited time at pbs.org/austincitylimits immediately following the initial broadcast

- TBS’s Conan will take the show internationally for the seventh time in two years as the popular host travels to Israel. Conan Without Borders: Israel will be a primetime special premiering Tuesday, September 19 at 10:00 on TBS. O’Brien plans to visit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem among other locales to be announced in the coming weeks.

- Embark on a journey across the globe on some of the world’s most luxurious cruises and remarkable trains, exploring breathtaking landscapes on land and sea while experiencing the unique ways passengers can travel the world. Voyage on some of the most extraordinary vessels and locomotives and meet the engineers and crews behind these incredible machines as they travel to locales near and far; with first-class amenities, it’s no wonder these trains and cruise ships are so distinguished. MIGHTY CRUISE SHIPS and MIGHTY TRAINS premiere on Sunday, September 3 at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET/PT, respectively, on Smithsonian Channel.

- SHOWTIME Sports will chronicle the 2017 Naval Academy football team with weekly installments of the all-access documentary series A SEASON WITH NAVY FOOTBALL. The third edition of the groundbreaking franchise, A SEASON WITH, immerses viewers behind the scenes and into the lives of the football players and coaches at the storied Service Academy with weekly 30-minute episodes throughout the 2017 season. The series premieres Tuesday, Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME, four days after Navy begins its season on the road against Florida Atlantic University. New episodes will premiere each Tuesday as the Midshipmen balance the rigors of academics, athletics and military service while navigating a challenging 2017 NCAA FBS football schedule.

- The innovative hybrid publisher, Riverdale Avenue Books is releasing Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Watergate *But Were Afraid to Ask by Brian J. O’Connor and Lori Perkins on August 14th. Select chapters will be available for free to read on RiverdaleAveBooks.com on August 8th, the 43rd anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resigning from office.

- Anna of the North today unveil new single ‘Money’, another infectious alt-pop gem from the ever-more endearing Norwegian-Kiwi duo who stand on the precipice of blowing up.

Previewing Episodes: The Final Season

There are many advantages to shortened seasons utilized by cable networks. But there is one huge disadvantage, where major network shows tend to only have three month breaks, when you are only airing ten episodes a year, that means you are off the air for forty two weeks a year, or a nine and a half month hiatus. And that is the minimum. Sometime it takes longer to come back. Case in point, they announced the last season of Episodes so long ago, Matt LeBlanc managed to air all twenty-two episodes of his next show, Man with a Plan. Seriously, the last episode of Episodes aired March 15, 2015.

Ten months is a long time to remember what happened on a television show, so what happened almost two and a half years ago is very vague. I remember the show within a show was canceled but not that much else. That, of course, makes me ask, if the fake show was canceled why not cancel the real show? What else is there possible to do?

The answer is quite clear at the start of the season premiere; Matt LeBlanc’s new fake gameshow The Box is great. They even spend the first eight minutes show up the fake game show where contestants are stuck in a box (natch) and can build up advantages within the game by answering trivia questions that they can use to make their experience inside the box better or the competitors lives worse to the point they quit the game.

Things are not as entertaining with Beverly and Sean’s new show which they pitched but then was turned over to different showrunner who is ruining their show. At least in their eyes. Yet like two ships passing in the night, the writing duo again crosses path with the former Friends star professionally, and again with mixed (but hilarious for the audience) results. The first couple seasons of Episodes were hit or miss, but the final season is firing on all cylinders, I kind of wish, this season was the starting point and we got four seasons after this premise. Especially a behind the scenes show about The Box.

Episodes airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Dice: Season Two

Two years ago, networks were getting creative with rolling out new series kind of like NBC when they dumped the entire first season of Aquarius On Demand after the premiere. Showtime tried this out with Dice. But much like Aquarius which aired weekly in its second season, it looks like Dice will do just that even though Showtime cares more about subscribers who will watch whenever than appointment viewing.

But that really is the only change with the second season of Dice. Mr. Clay starts off the new season still paying off his gambling debt and even after playing a string of shows he is still owes the casino money. Then after a weird encounter with a rabbi, Dice wakes up in a parallel universe where he never became a comic and is now living as a salesman. And it is really disturbing just how much “normal” Andrew Dice Clay looks like most of my uncle’s friends. Then it dawned on me, oh my, if Andrew Dice Clay went into hedge funds, he may have ended up being The Mooch, the White House communication director for a week and a half Anthony Scaramucci.

I spent most of the first season of Dice wondering, just who is this show for. And it took the past election to realize, people who work for Donald Trump. The type of guy who still find jokes about sniffing underwear, use homosexual terms as an insult, wish they could still grab women without their consent, and vote for Donald Trump will love this show. I guess liberals who want to make fun of how sad these people’s lives are may also enjoy hate-watching Dice too.

Dice airs Sundays at 10:30 on Showtime.

Previewing Divided: Season Two

I used to watch a lot of game shows; The Price Is Right was one of the few things I watched in college. But as I grew older I moved into more scripted fare. But now that I grow even older and I have no idea what is going on from week to week and need a five to ten minute “previously on” package, maybe I should get back into game show. They even have their own network now. Okay, do not ask me if I receive GSN, if I do it is in the 100 tier I never scroll through.

But I did get sample one of their original programming, Divided, returning for a second season tonight with back to back episodes. The first episode features a “full time live streamer.” And no, one of the questions is not how exactly does she make any money (unless the live stream does not involve clothing). The show features four contestants who have to answer each question unanimously and the longer they take to agree, the less money they make if they get. And if they get it wrong, their bank is divided in half. There is also a “Takeover” button where one person can answer for the group.

Then halfway through the episode one person is booted by the group, but if three people do not unanimously, again they have to debate while losing money until they agree. Then at the end of the game, the final bank is divided into sixty, thirty, and ten percent and the remaining three have to agree who leaves with what percentage, and of course everyone’s cut goes down as they debate who gets what.

One of the first things I noticed about the show is how poorly the layout is. Just in the first episode one player said he was picking A but B showed up on the board because he pressed the wrong button. Then later, another player went to lock in his pick, but pushed the Takeover Button by accident. I also found the final dividing round unnecessarily evil. Although the episode I watch, they surprisingly can to a decision quite quickly. But the questions were interesting, I only got one wrong and I was kind of shocked how wrong they all were in the first question of the night dealing with how many vegetarians there are in the nation. But I clearly would be horrible on this show because I am not very agreeable or persuadable. I would probably burn the two Takeovers early which would leave me to getting booted.

The new season of Divided will feature a number of special themed episodes, including Baby Boomers vs. Millennials, Military Night (featuring representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines), all teachers, all lawyers, all poker players, and “Second Chance” episodes where contestants voted off the show early get a second shot at the prize money.

Divided airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on GSN.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/13/2017

Ray Donovan: At the start of every season these days I usually start with complaining about having no clue with what happened last season. The good thing about Ray Donovan is usually the wrap everything up in a little bow at the end of each season so you really do not need much of a refresher. So when they run their “previously on” segment to recap last season, I could go, oh yeah, Ray and the family took down that Russian oligarch (although they were a season early on doing an evil Russian businessman storyline), now there is a fresh slate for the new season.

It is still pretty vague what the big storyline for the season will be. Ray does see a story about a famous person whose personal pictures are released on the internet, presumably without her consent (I believe a starlet earlier in the series tried to release her own sex tape so you never know). The actress in question, does randomly show up in her underwear and runs away. There is also a scene with Susan Sarandon which will probably have a bigger impact later this season.

Then there was the big plot point (and the reason I am writing this now instead of my usually preview because Showtime said no pre-air reviews), they killed off Abby… Maybe. They heavily hinted at it but stopped short of explicitly saying she was dead or showed a body. They annoyingly do this next episode two until we get definitive proof in episode three. We do get to see a lot more of Lili Simmons next week who shows up in Ray’s office. Though again, you will have to wait until episode three to learn just why she was walking half naked in the middle of the road at night.

Claws: So Roller did know Desna tried to kill her. At least he let her call Dean before offing her. Sure, she did save him but that also saved her too so not really to make things square between the two. But overall the weakest episode this season.
You can download Claws on iTunes.

The Strain: Wait, why is Gus still on the show? His little raid on a bunch of cops surveyed absolutely no purpose. If you are not working to bring down the Master at this point, go away. And why did Dutch up the stairs? That is bad horror movie logic, go down and leave. As she planning on jumping rooftops to escape?
You can download The Strain on iTunes.

I’m Dying Up Here: Am I supposed to care about Bill because I really do not. Nor his dad. I actually cared more about the dog then either of them.

Shadowhunters: So Haley Dunfey has a English accent now? Awesome. This girl really likes work, she is on one of the biggest shows on television doing twenty-four episodes a year yet keeps on showing up in numerous movies and shows. And she almost made this show enjoyable.
You can download Shadowhunters on iTunes.

Preacher: So what happened with the dude with the eye? He had a big part of last week but did not show up at all this week.
You can download Preacher on iTunes.

The Challenge: Dirty 30: Boooo, Jenna is the best post-Nany contestant on the show. Hopefully she makes her way back on the show next week. Her and Darrell.
You can download The Challenge: Dirty 30 on iTunes.