Around the Tubes: 5/11/2018

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 Guns N’ Roses, Snoe Patrol, Jessie Ware, Jessie Ware, Mat Kearney, Drinks, Crime and Prohibition, Erik Griffin: Amerikan Warrior, and Final Space.

- On June 29, Geffen/UMe celebrates one of rock’s most important bands, Guns N’ Roses, with the release of Appetite For Destruction: Locked N’ Loaded Edition box set. Commemorating the band’s highly influential album debut Appetite For Destruction, this lavish box set is the ultimate GnFnR fan’s dream fulfilled. Appetite will also be released in concurrent multiple configurations, Appetite For Destruction will be made available in a 4CD/1Blu-ray Audio Super Deluxe Edition with a 96 page book featuring unreleased photos from Axl Rose’s personal archive, a 2CD Deluxe Edition, 2LP 180-gram heavyweight vinyl edition, 1 CD remaster, and digital download/streaming equivalents.

- Snow Patrol premiere Empress, their second single from Wildness, the band’s first album in seven years. Snow Patrol also return to “Later... With Jools Holland” where they debut a live rendition of Empress, along with performances of Life On Earth, Heal Me, and Chasing Cars. Listen to Empress here and watch the band perform the song on Later... With Jools Holland here.

- Jessie Ware: Selfish Love from Late Night with Seth:


- Following its release on Monday, three-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated and BRIT Award-winning multiplatinum singer-songwriter James Bay shares the music video for his latest track “Slide.” Check out the “Slide” here and the video here!

- Tune in Friday, May 11 at 9:00 to watch the broadcast premiere of the concert special Mat Kearney on AT&T* AUDIENCE Network via DIRECTV Ch 239, AT&T U-verse Ch 1114 and streaming on-demand through DIRECTV NOW.

- Prohibition in America was an era of profound contradictions – a period of unprecedented government intervention into the lives of citizens, and yet also a time of exuberance, decadence and casting off restraints. Nearly a hundred years later, Smithsonian Channel’s Drinks, Crime and Prohibition takes a deep dive into the underbelly of a time characterized as much by jazz, illegal booze and female liberation as it was by gangsters and brutality. Weapons experts, historians, museum curators and mixologists weigh in on "the failed experiment” and the compelling drama it unleashed, with all its unlikely alliances, corruption and machinations of organized crime. The two-part special premieres Monday, June 11 at 8:00 on Smithsonian Channel.

- Comedian and I’m Dying Up Here star Erik Griffin returns for his second Showtime comedy special Erik Griffin: Amerikan Warrior, premiering Friday, June 8 at 10:00. Filmed at the Star Theater in Portland, Oregon, the new hour-long special flips convention on its ear with Griffin deconstructing everything from social norms, personal responsibility and lazy protesting to the righteously religious and the female renaissance, all while skewering his own sense of male entitlement.

- Chookity Pok! TBS has renewed its original animated series Final Space for a second season. Born from a seven-minute pilot created by “Tennessee wonder child” Olan Rogers, the intergalactic space saga is TBS’ youngest- skewing original series to debut on the network, reaching more than 20 million viewers across TBS’ linear, VOD and digital platforms. The series pick-up is the latest in a string of renewals for the network, which saw every original series renewed for additional seasons in the last year.

Previewing Patrick Melrose

In the first five minutes of Patrick Melrose, the titular character laughs at the news of his father’s untimely death (okay, he just shot up right before the call and was pretty high) and then finds himself in the bed of two different women. So yeah, this is yet another difficult man show. But hey, in minute six, he says he is trying to kick the heroin. Sure he purchases speed and qualudes minutes later because he just cannot give up everything at once. Oh, and he cannot give up heroin either, he buys some more half way through the first episode.

Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) considered Patrick Melrose a bucket list role (Hamlet being his only other one) so it is that labor of love that elevates the five part miniseries into just another difficult man retreat. And it is such a vanity project; the star barely appears in episode two when the story flashes back to Melrose childhood to highlight just how difficult a relationship he had with his father who actually thinks he is passing on wisdom to his son.

Another time jump starts the third episode, picking up eight years after the death of Papa Melrose where that pain still lingers but Patrick has to just suffer through everything as he finally was able to kick his additions for better or worse. Each episode takes an interesting take on Melrose’s life popping in for only a short time in his life for a very specific moment before taking the next big jump forward or backward. Cumberbatch is such a livewire; you do not feel like you miss a thing throughout the years.

Patrick Melrose airs Saturdays at 9:00 on Showtime.

I Want My Music Television 5/8/2018

Cry Pretty - Carrie Underwood



Carrie Underwood recently had an accident where she injured her face and itt sounded like she now may now look the guy from The Mask. Nope, in her first music video, she still looks like Carrie Underwood. And she still sounds like her mostly inoffensive, boring self too. Although I guess the power ballad guitar at the end was a nice touch. I miss the good cheesy power ballad.


This Is America - Childish Gambino



Childish Gambino started out as a backpack rapper in a time of ringtone rappers. Then hi last alnbum he went full funk for now apparently reason. Apparently next he is going fully African music inspired sound yet with a very political bent to the visuals which I do not believe he release a video for the last album. .


Accelerate - Christina Aguilera feat. Ty Dolla $ign & 2 Chainz



So is Christina Aguilera trying to be Bangerz-era Miley Cyrus now because even Miley has moved on from that gross phase? And that choppy rapper cadence is even more annoying when a which chick does it.


Ashes (from the Deadpool 2 Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Céline Dion



Deadpool is super-meta and I get it, having Mrs. Titanic Céline Dion topline your soundtrack is a get, but c’mon, but if you are going to go super-meta, even in your soundtrack, you should have gotten king of the soundtracks Kenny Loggins to contribute a song. Okay, sure, this video is funnier than anything they could have done with Kenny Loggins.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 5/6/2018

Homeland: The Vice President seemed like a guy who would do the right thing at the right time, but oh boy he went hard on the Russian Ambassador and the Senator. But I was totally surprised Saul got out of Russia within the first twenty minutes. Except poor Carrie got left behind. But I wonder why she did not have diplomatic immunity like Saul? I guess immunity does not extend to people who got caught spying.

Then you have Keene’s speech, at first I thought she was going to get killed by the opposition party for her hippy type speech, but halfway through, I realize, oh snap, this is a resignation speech. Kind of out of character after everything she did to hold on to power for the past two seasons. I wonder if the writers were trying to nudge real life counterpoints. But then they yada yada’ed how Carrie was released. I was thinking that was going to be what next season would be about. Yet seven months later, Saul finds the random Russian guy and Carrie was exchanged. Would have been nice if they explained who that Russian was and how Saul found him.

Fear the Walking Dead: Oh wow, Nick was killed by a little girl (who is a shockingly good shot). That was shocking. Mostly because there was no real lead up to why Nick killed the other guy first. I guess maybe we will see just how that escalated to murder in the flashbacks. The guy being a douche while getting to food they were going after first does not seem like a murderous deed. But Nick should have followed Morgan’s do not kill rule.
you can download Fear the Walking Dead on iTunes.

Billions: I started this season thinking that the end of the series would feature Chuck and Axe is adjourning prison cells, but is this possibly going to end with only Wendy in jail? Or are Chuck and Axe going to team up to take down Connerty? That was my takeaway from the break the stick metaphor. But I never thought Chuck and Axe would team up after spending two and a half seasons of mutually assured destruction to try to take each other down.

Timeless: So Wyatt’s wife is Rittenhouse? I guess that makes sense? If you are going to save her life, might as well indoctrinate her and use her as another sleeper agent. Might as well do the same for Lucy’s sister. But Rufus is learning the same thing as Gemma on SHEILD in that sure you may not die, but you can get really hurt in the process.
You can download Timeless on iTunes.

Supergirl: Okay, I am a bit confused with the Worldkillers, we saw Reign come from Krypton, but were the other two Worldkillers from Krypton too? Were they sent at the same time as Reign? Are they Earthlings that Reign infected. I feel like I missed something.
You can download Supergirl on iTunes.

Good Girls: What a horrible way to end an episode. I have not been this disappoint in a season one finale of a show I was enjoying since Lost.
You can download Good Girls on iTunes.

Rise: So pregnant chick showed up two weeks ago virtually out of nowhere and now am I supposed to know who the girl who made the video is? And I know you want to pretend to be a guy and all, but c’mon, you really do not need to tell the doctor the kid is not yours.
You can download Rise on iTunes.

The Challenge: Vendettas: Good riddance Hennessy, possibly the most annoying person to ever be featured on reality television. But do the Champs now have majority control of both teams? I guess The Miz could change how tiebreakers work next week, but it will be a boring slog if they let the Champs to roll the Stars. But Champs vs. mini seasons have all sucked so far. And why were Tony and Shane throwing whole bags of balls? You could not possibly break anything that way. I feel like I was missing something.
You can download The Challenge: Vendettas on iTunes.

Legion: Wait, what exactly just happened. What I got was the Farouk morphed David’s sister into Lenny, but then why does she have Lenny’s memories. And really has her everything except the sister’s eyes?
You can download Legion on iTunes.

The Handmaid’s Tale: I tried to be vague in my critic of the new season in my preview on account that Hulu forbid me from mentioning that June was recaptured in episode three. But that was kind of a big letdown. Is season two just going to be a retread of season one? But even before the capture, this was least interesting episode in the series to date. Really, the June scenes in the last episodes were mostly a bore too. Hopefully something big changes things soon, or at least give us more Rory Gilmore this season.
You can stream The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.

Survivor: Ghost Island: There are so many advantages in the game now that they are hiding real fake Immunity Idols now? Meh. But I do kind of like split Tribal twist. At least in theory. The two most likely to go home actually did. Sure there were almost fireworks, if only Donathan gave his Idol to the chick whose name I already forgotten. But she was kind of worthless. She goes to the jury and then had to have explained to her that someone had an extra vote advantage. Then we almost had some shenanigans in the other with everyone who could receive votes got one. But on the revote, Michael, the obvious one, was voted out unanimously.

So if only Michael voted for Laurel. That would have been wild. But what exactly was his play? Did he think Laurel was voting with him on Wendall and just hoped Kellyn flipped? And what is going on with Kellyn? She was the best thing about this season but has made to look really bad the last two weeks. First she tried to dictate a vote to Domanick last week, a big no-no on Survivor and this week she is big on Naviti sticking together even that just does not happen on this show in the past decade. And has not happened this season with already two Naviti on the jury and the first person voted out after the first swap was Naviti. I have a feeling Kellyn will be next.
You can download Survivor: Ghost Island on iTunes.

The Blacklist: So they took down the big bad last week and this week, Red sends the team on a wild goose chase which got Samar capture. So next week they have to find her. What a weird pacing for the last four episodes. But this whole season has been weirdly paced.
You can download The Blacklist on iTunes.

The Americans: Oh snap, Philip just went after Elizabeth over killing the couple and straight up told her he was not going to entrap Kimmie. Though by the end he is willing to go to Chicago to help her. Something is going to go wrong next week. But one thing that has been bothering me about the travel business is isn’t their extra curricular activities funded by that? And wouldn’t the Russian funnel money through the business to keep them afloat?
You can download The Americans on iTunes.

Krypton: Last week I wondered if Doomsday was a red herring or a Chekov’s Gun situation and then he appeared again in the “previously on” so I assumed it was the later. Except he was not shown in the actual episode or even mentioned. Are they just trolling us with that or did I just completely miss something? But I did like Adam Strange admitting he was a D-list superhero in his time. Very true.
You can download Krypton on iTunes.

Gotham: Well, I am sure Gordon survived that blast somehow because we know he will become commissioner eventually, but it is kind of silly, but there is no way that should be the case.
You can download Gotham on iTunes.

Blindspot: Wait, Patterson’s father is Bill Nye playing himself? How random. And now that he has brought it up, what is Patterson’s first name.
You can download Blindspot on iTunes.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Nothing says evil like going with a goatee. I do have a feeling going after that gravitonium in the Earth is what cracks it apart. Though I do wonder if Talbot is the real Destroyer of World why does Daisy get blamed for it in the future? But maybe the bigger question is why didn’t future Yo-Yo tell current Yo-Yo do not let Talbot near the gravitonium instead of telling her to do not save Coulson. How is Coulson more important than Talbot becoming Destroyer of Worlds?
You can download Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on iTunes.