Around the Tubes: 8/31/2018

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 Showtime, The First, Ray Donovan, Bob Marley, James Bay, Imagine Dragons, Ariana Grande, America From Scratch, and Turner movies.

- Showtime will be available to more than 71 million households during a Free Preview Weekend from Friday August 31 through Monday, September 3. Viewers nationwide will be able to sample the network’s award-winning programming on SHOWTIME, SHOWTIME ON DEMAND®, SHOWTIME ANYTIME® and select distributors' TV Everywhere portals. The Free Preview weekend will include early sampling of the series premiere of the new half-hour comedy Kidding, starring Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey in his first series regular role in more than two decades. Showtime will also air full-season marathons of Shameless ahead of the season nine premiere on Sunday, September 9 at 9:00 The fourth, fifth and sixth seasons of Shameless will air on back-to-back days starting on Saturday, September 1 through Monday, September 3.

- Check out the official trailer for upcoming Hulu Original drama series The First. All eight episodes of The First debut on Friday, Sept. 14, only on Hulu.


- Showtime has released the season six poster and new behind-the-scenes video for its hit drama series Ray Donovan, which premieres on Sunday, October 28 at 9:00. Ray Donovan stars multiple Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominee Liev Schreiber, with Oscar® winner and multiple Emmy-nominated actress Susan Sarandon and Jon Voight in his Golden Globe winning role.


- On August 24, The Marley Family, Island Records, and UMe will collectively proclaim the sun is shining in celebration of 40 years of Kaya, Bob Marley & The Wailers' historic March 1978 release. This most special anniversary edition will feature Stephen "Ragga" Marley's exciting and vibrant new "Kaya 40" mixes of all ten tracks from the original album alongside its original mixes in 2CD and 180-gram 2LP configurations. (The digital version will be a standalone release of Stephen's mixes only.) The album will also be available as a limited edition 180-gram 2LP green vinyl version exclusively at BobMarley.com

- Three-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated and BRIT Award-winning multiplatinum singer-songwriter James Bay shares an acoustic version of his latest single “Just For Tonight” (Acoustic) today. Check out “Just for Tonight” (Acoustic) HERE via Republic Records.

- Tune in Friday, August 31 at 9:00 pm ET/PT to watch the broadcast premiere of the concert special “Imagine Dragons” on AT&T* AUDIENCE Network via DIRECTV Ch 239, AT&T U-verse Ch 1114. The show will also be available streaming on-demand through DIRECTV NOW. The multi-platinum, GRAMMY® Award-winning band Imagine Dragons will bring their passionately inventive alt-rock sound to a special, one-hour concert this Friday night on AT&T AUDIENCE Network. Watch the trailer for “Imagine Dragons” on AT&T AUDIENCE Network HERE.

- Multiplatinum, record-breaking superstar Ariana Grande debuts at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart with her critically acclaimed fourth studio album, Sweetener. In addition, Sweetener broke the record for largest streaming week for a pop album by a female artist. This is ARIANA’s third album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 chart. Get Sweetener HERE.

- Americans everywhere are asking tough questions about the foundation of our democracy and how we think about politics at this crucial time in our democracy. America From Scratch produced by Rewire for PBS Studios as part of the Twin Cities PBS initiative “In It Together” is taking everyone back to the basics and giving the public a much-needed refresher on civics while asking viewers: If we were to build America from scratch today, what would it look like? Breaking down key ideas related to social sciences, civics and current events, the 11-episode series America From Scratch explores the biases and frustrations in our current system and aims to encourage creative thinking about how we structure our public life and how we define the common good. Actor, musician and writer Toussiant Morrison hosts the series, propelling the action forward with the force of his curiosity in exploring provocative questions such as: Should your data have rights? Should we have a president? What if there were no states? Should we elect our Supreme Court Justices? Should we rewrite our Constitution? America From Scratch sources expert insight from around the world and seeks input and commentary from ordinary viewers across the country. The most recent installment of the series, Should Voting Be Mandatory?, comes just in time for primary season as various states prepare to go to the polls. Watch that particular video here:

- What's streaming in September on tntdrama.com, the TNT App, tbs.com and the TBS App: Catch Maleficent, Alice Through the Looking Glass and more fairytale movies, streaming now on TBS.Don't miss The Dark Knight Rises and Blackhat, this month on TNT.

The Fourteenth Annual Scooter Television Awards

Welcome to the 14th Annual Scooter Television Awards honoring show that aired a majority of their season between July 2017 and June 2018. Without further ado, here are the winners of the 2018 STA's:

Best Scripted Show: The Good Place

Best Drama: The Handmaid’s Tale

Best Sci-Fi Show: Future Man

Best Comic Book Adaptation: Krypton

Best Period Show: G.L.O.W.

Best Animated Show: Star Wars Rebels

Best Reality Show: Survivor

Best Remake, Reboot, or (non-comic book) Adaptation: The Long Road Home

Best Miniseries: The Long Road Home

Best Talk Show: Pardon the Interruption

Best New Show: G.L.O.W.

Guiltiest Guilty Pleasure: The Bold Type

Best Musical: Jesus Christ Superstar

Worst Show I Made Though an Entire Season Of: Kevin (Probably) Saves the World

Best Hour of TV: eps3.4_runtime-err0r.r00 (Mr. Robot)

Best Half Hour of TV: The Trolly Problem (The Good Place)

Biggest Shocker: No cuts or commercials and Angela did not die during eps3.4_runtime-err0r.r00 (Mr. Robot)

Best Line: “I’ve only ever said I love you to two men my entire life: Stone Cold Steve Austin, and a guy in a dark club… who I mistook for Stone Cold Steve Austin.” (Eleonore Shellstrop, The Good Place)

Worst Idea: Having Axe and Chuck team up (Billions)

Worst Moment: Rio was able to get out of prison so early. (Good Girls)

Biggest Disappointment: The Jennings did not get their comeuppance (The Americans)

Best Musical Moment: Drivin’ My Life Away – Eddie Rabbit (The Americans)

Best Karaoke: I Will Survive – Vicky (The Good Place)

Best New Title Sequence: GLOW

Best Character: Jason Mendoza (The Good Place)

Best Recurring Character: Vicky (The Good Place)

Best Guest Appearance: Mindy St. Clair (The Good Place)

Best Cast Addition: Irving (Mr. Robot)

Best Duo: Alison and Donny Hendrix (Orphan Black)

Most Entertaining Reality “Star”: Kellyn Bechtold (Survivor)

Most Annoying Reality “Star”: Britni Thornton (The Challenge)

Most Anticipated New Show of Next Season: Manifest

Most Anticipated Reboot: Veronica Mars

Show That Should Be Brought Back: Orphan Black (or at the very least an Alison/Donny spin-off)

Biggest Question for 2016-2017: How long will the new Good Place experiment last?

The Ten Best Television Shows of 2017-2018

1. The Good Place 2.x (NBC)

2. GLOW 1.x (Netflix)

3. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 3.x (Netflix)

4. The Handmaid’s Tale 2.x (Hulu)

5. Good Girls 1.x (NBC)

6. Future Man 1.x (Hulu)

7. Claws 1.x (TNT)

8. Shameless 8.x (Showtime)

9. Homeland 7.x (Showtime)

10. The Americans 6.x (FX)


Shows that aired a majority of their season between July 2017 and June 2018 were eligible for this list.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/25/2018

Before I get into the week that was on television, I would be remised not to mention the biggest television news of the week: a Veronica Mars reboot is reportedly coming to Hulu with Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas (and other original cast members being negotiating). In the immortal words of Bart Scott: Can’t wait! Really, 2019 is shaping up to a dream year for me with the probibility of reboots of Veronica Mars, Alf, a Deadwood movie, Zombieland 2, and live action Black Manta. Since I am greedy, let me suggest some things that hopefully I can will into existence for 2019: reboots of Quantum Leap, My Two Dad, anything by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, or Hannibal) and give another chance to the Indian chick version of The Greatest American Hero. Brittany Snow cast in the movie version of Supergirl, but that does not interfere with Pitch Perfect: The Series set between the first and second movie. Reunited Oasis and Hootie and the Blowfish or just any nineties act having a great big hit. Areatha Franklin’s death made wonder whatever happened to the musical comeback. Back in the eighties and nineties there were plenty of artists who would have late career resurgence after a decade away from the charts but cannot think of anyone who that has happened to since Santana earlier this century. Is it simply because there is no Clive Davis type figure around anymore to will it? Oh, and of course the most important thing we need to happen next year, if nor earlier, impeachment.

The Affair: Oh snap, Anton straight up called Noah a psychopath in that paper. Speaking of psychopaths, really cold to show up to the funeral of the person you killed. We did get I believe was the first ever three part episode. After a whole season of being absent from the whole show except in the title sequence, the daughter finally showed up. I do not remember her being that cheery. But I called it, Vic gets his legacy from the starlet’s daughter. At least Helen’s story added some levity to the episode so we did not end the season on the depressing Alison death.

Sharp Objects: Murder mystery shows routinely give huge red herrings in the penultimate episode, but that looked like it was definitely Adora. Unless Camille was just imagining Adora as the Woman in White (the show does get a little too artsy). But this whole time I thought Camille’s sister was brutally murdered like these girl. Well it did turn out they were killed by the same person. Except the one thing that does not add up is did Adore really mutilate these bodies? I wonder if Adora had an accomplice. The sheriff gets a little too comfortable with her and I remember it being very striking when they revealed that the girls had their teeth pulled and a couple scenes later he was seen fixing a stop sign with pliers. Oh, and Camille having sex with a teenage murder suspect who up to this point I thought was a homosexual was really creepy.

Fear the Walking Dead: So is this back half of the season just going to be pairs of cast members and how they survive (or don’t survive) this hurricane?
You can download Fear the Walking Dead on iTunes.

The Challenge: Final Reckoning: When Kam announce she had a big plan, my first inclination was that it will backfire. And I was right, TJ again pointed out he is the dirtiest player in the game by introducing Mercenaries (Smashley and someone so inconsequential, I have never bothered to learn his name, yawn). Except her big grand plan was to pit the two weakest teams was super lame. Seriously, she could have gotten Kyle and Brad vs. Zack which would have seen at least one or possibly two of the strongest guys out (although I like either of them against those Mercenaries). Just stupid and yet Kam thinks she is the smartest player out there.
You can download The Challenge: Final Reckoning on iTunes.

Harlots: Oh my, Quigley has a Mini-Me. Although the Mini-Me turned on her by helping lock her up. It was pretty unclear just where the Mini-Me stood all season. It will be interesting if Mary Wells get back to London without fear the gallows. I actually would be interesting to see just how her talents could be used in Virginia at that time period.
You can stream Harlots on Hulu.

Castle Rock: What the fork just happened? Okay I get Ruth has Alzheimer's and her mind sometimes lives in the past. But did they just confirm that the prisoner is some version of Reverend Deaver? Does he just want Ruth to think that? He said more this episode than the previous one’s combined so was that him or in Ruth’s mind? But it seems pretty real that Ruth did, indeed kill Pangborn. But I miss the timeline. Last week they ended with Pangborn entering the house in disarray, but other than an overdrawn bath, it did not seem to happen unless that was when Ruth was pushing her way through the funeral. But when did Panborn get out to the shed. Maybe a more coherent version of events will be shown next week.
You can stream Castle Rock on Hulu.