Around the Tubes: 9/14/2018

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 Into The Dark, Discover and OWN on Hulu, John Mellencamp, Sir Rod Stewart, A Murder in Mansfield, The Circus, Los Comandos, and Towards the North.

- In partnership with Blumhouse Television, Into The Dark is a horror event series from prolific, award-winning producer, Jason Blum’s independent TV studio. The series includes 12 super-sized episodes, with a new installment released each month inspired by a holiday and will feature Blumhouse’s signature genre/thriller spin on the story.


- Discovery Inc. and Hulu today announced an expansive distribution agreement that will extend Discovery’s portfolio of high quality real life entertainment brands to Hulu’s on-demand and live TV subscription streaming services. The new partnership makes Hulu the #1 streaming home for popular unscripted series and reinforces Hulu’s commitment to offering programming the whole family can enjoy. Today’s multi-year agreement increases Hulu’s offering of top Discovery programming to nearly 4,000 episodes of popular shows including Deadliest Catch, MythBusters, Say Yes to the Dress, Naked and Afraid, Property Brothers, Gold Rush, Street Outlaws, Chopped, Chopped Jr., Fixer Upper, House Hunters and House Hunters International, available outside of Discovery’s networks exclusively to Hulu across all of its subscription plans.

- Concurrent with the Discovery partnership, Hulu reached a licensing agreement with OWN – which is part of the Discovery Networks family – to bring four of the network’s top-rated scripted series exclusively to Hulu. All past episodes of Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots, If Loving You is Wrong, The Paynes and Love Thy Neighbor are now available to stream for the first time, only on Hulu. They join the complete library of acclaimed OWN series Queen Sugar from Ava DuVernay and Warner Horizon.

- Set to coincide with a highly anticipated new album release, John Mellencamp will embark on a 2019 tour of “The John Mellencamp Show” which will feature the rock icon’s classics plus some new material. Hailed by critics and fans alike as one of music’s most authentic and crowd pleasing concert performers, Mellencamp will begin the tour February 7th in his home state of Indiana at South Bend’s Morris Performing Arts Center and will span two months ending in Clearwater, Florida at the famed Ruth Eckerd Hall. Produced by AEG Presents, “The John Mellencamp Show” will start promptly at 8pm and will not have an opening act. Every ticket purchased online will receive a physical copy of Mellencamp’s forthcoming album “Other People’s Stuff” set for release on November 16th by Republic Records. Tickets for the tour will be available to the general public beginning Friday, September 21st at 10:00am local time. Pre-sale and VIP tickets will be available beginning Wednesday, September 19th at 10:00am local time. For more information and all ticketing information please visit Mellencamp.com.

- Music legend Sir Rod Stewart scored his 23rd Top 10 hit on the AC chart this week with his latest single “Didn’t I.” The song soared into the Top 10 just five weeks into its release, quickly becoming a radio favorite and standout live performance on Stewart’s sold-out summer tour. The song is from his upcoming 30th studio album Blood Red Roses, which is due out September 28th via Republic Records.

- Two-time Oscar®-winning director Barbara Kopple has partnered with America’s leading true-crime network, Investigation Discovery (ID) to explore the legacy of the notorious 1989 murder of Noreen Boyle in Mansfield, Ohio in the new documentary, A Murder in Mansfield. The film chronicles Noreen’s son Collier’s journey for answers and peace in the aftermath of his mother’s death nearly three decades ago. A Murder in Mansfield will have its national television debut exclusively on Investigation Discovery on November 17, 2018 at 9:00.

- Showtime announced that prominent political strategist and commentator Steve Schmidt will join the network’s heralded weekly political docuseries The Circus as a recurring on-air contributor when the show returns on Sunday, September 16 at 8:00. Schmidt has made previous appearances on The Circus, offering trenchant insight based on his more than two decades working at the highest levels of national Republican politics. In the show’s fall run, Schmidt will join hosts John Heilemann, Alex Wagner and Mark McKinnon as they crisscross the country covering the most high-stakes midterm elections in modern history — with titanic implications for the presidency of Donald Trump.

- On World Refugee Day, public television’s WORLD Channel announced the lineup of films for season 3 of Doc World, a series that showcases stories that dive deep into the heart of international issues, giving viewers a chance to understand the lives and concerns of people beyond U.S. borders. The series continues this weekend, with two new films debuting this Sunday, September 16,: Los Comandos and Towards the North, following refugees in Latin America fleeing their homes in search of asylum.

Previewing The First

Mars was huge when I was growing up, in the nineties there were even two Mars movies that were released within months of each other while the United States sent the Mars Rover there around this time. We reached the moon long before, so we have envisioned going to Mars ever since. But after the turn of the century our fascination of Mars seemed to wain so far that John Carter removed mention of Mars from its title to avoid alienating viewers. It failed, the movie ended up being possibly the biggest bust in the history of cinema.

But more recently, The Martian was a huge critical and box office success so maybe things are turning around for the red planet. So maybe it is time for a Mars television show. The First depicts Sean Penn and his crew as they try and become the first men and women to set foot on Mars. Okay, by that description and trailer, you would think this is a sci-fi show but a couple episodes that the actual science is not all that important to the writers and this is really just a character study, it is just the characters just so happen to be training to go to Mars. Really, I have not seen a show try this hard to be prestige television since maybe Ray Donovan.

Sure this is 2033 and we get a few technological advances. You can now open your truck door by saying “Open” (voice activation is general is very prevalent), hand signatures have replaced door keys, and apparently Google Glass is entrenched in society. But really the show is more about the characters than what they do. It is not until the final episode when the show goes heavy into the science fiction.

The show starts with Penn as the former mission commander on the eve of a launch of a mission he was removed from because it was for the best. After a complication, NASA then has twenty-three months (at a cost of seventy-billion dollars) until the next window. But again, between the first and last episodes, the mission to Mars is essentially a backdrop.

Instead we get a super serious show where the only “fun” scenes include one involving karaoke and another involving a basketball game. Everyone in the cast seems to be haunted by something. None is more haunted than Penn’s daughter, newcomer Anna Jacoby-Heron who is haunted by the death of her mother while struggling with drug addiction. Since the show is angling to be prestige television, you would think I would complained of a child shoehorned into the story, but this may be the first prestige television child that will not get you reaching for the fast forward button. In fact Jacoby-Heron may actually be the best part of the show. And where more episode seemed to be mostly focused on a certain character, her singular focused episode is a highlight of television so far this year even as the rest of the show can lag at points.

It seemed like Hulu has struggled for a while to decide just how to deliver its episodes. It looked like it had settled on released a couple episodes on launch before going to the traditional weekly format. But it looks like they are shifting to a Netflix model of everything at once with all their fall shows are doing that with the exception of weekly talk show I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman and Into the Dark which actually going the other way with just a new episode every month. Sure I am biased since I grew up that way, but they should reconsider and go back to weekly episode so people can go back to talking about television.

Just look at Castle Rock, sure it was a slow start but by the time episode seven and then nine rolled around, they spawn hundreds of think pieces that I am sure inspire plenty of people to catch up. Episode five of The First could have been that moment for this show. But when you have released everything at once, there is no time to write that think piece because everyone has moved on to the next show. I can see releasing everything for teen leaning shows like Runaways, but if The First is geared towards, maybe Hulu should consider releasing the show the way most adults watch in the future.

All episodes of The First are available tomorrow on Hulu.

I Want My Music Television: 9/12/2018

High Horse - Kacey Musgraves


During the height of disco even established rock acts from KISS to The Rolling Stones tried to jump on the bandwagon mostly to embarrassing result. Yet thirty years later, somehow Kacey Musgraves came up with a pretty awesome country-disco track.


God is a woman - Ariana Grande


Who would have guessed Ariana Grande is into abstract art? But what the fork was up with the screaming gophers? And the Pulp Fiction/1984 mash-up?


Feels Like Summer - Childish Gambino


Releasing a video for “Feels Like Summer” days before Labor Day seems weird, but Childish Gambino perfectly sums up that end of summer malaise. And crying Kanye may be the most summer 2018 thing there can be.


Shame - Elle King



And now it is time to check in a one hit wonder to see if they have a second hit in them. Elle King had one of the few pop-rock hits in recent history, but this song does not sound like it will catch on at radio too.

The Most (and Least) Anticipated Questions of 2018-19 Television

Here we are a week after Labor Day and already fall television is starting to ramp up before the network start their new seasons. Four shows I am watch just lauched last night.
o here are some questions I am looking to be answered by the time we hit next summer.

1. What the Fork Is Going On in The Good Place? – The Good Place blew our forking mind when the ended the first season with Eleanor figuring out that they were, in fact, in The Bad Place. The show did their big twist a bit early in season two when The Judge sent Team Cockroach back to Earth to live out their lives to see if they would end up being worthy of The Good Place at the start of the list episode so we did get a sneak peak of what season three may be like. It may be a bit precocious to think this will be the whole season considering Michael’s second try only lasted two episodes of season two. All I know about the third season is that Jason better enjoy the Jacksonville Jaguars’ run through the playoffs last year.

2. Will DC Universe Succeed? – We have finally reached streaming saturation where we have to ask of every new service, can it survive? Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu seem to have their foothold with the big pockets of Disney, Youtube, Facebook Watch, and Apple TV lurking (granted deep pockets does not necessarily mean success, remember Ping?). Which begs the question is there a place for niche services? Seriously, who is paying six buck a month to get AMC or FX ad free? Do you at least get their movies uncensored? The latest to put their hat in the ring is DC which is offering a vague number of their comic book movies, shows, and actual comic books along with one exclusive series airing at a time released with weekly episode for eight bucks a month (or seventy-five for a yearly subscription). Does not seem enough to me for a permanent subscription, but I will likely sign up once a year or so for a month just so I can see Lyla Garrity in a superhero costume. Now if only they would greenlight a Saturn Girl spin-off.

3. How Will Homeland End? – How apropos that a show with a bi-polar lead would be the most uneven show in the history of television. As great as the first season was, the third season was equally bad. Since killing off Brody, the show has evened out (though the long slow death of Quinn was excruciating). Two seasons ago, the show backed itself into a Russian hacking storyline before it turned out to really be happening. The show recently announced next will be its last. We left off with Carrie completely off her meds for a lengthy amount of time. Kind of a shame the drama of freeing Carrie wasn’t itself the final season.

4. Will Manifest Be the Next Lost? – Lost launched thirteen years ago and during it six year run, every network tried to replicate its deep seeded mythology with sprawling cast to no avail. Very few got a second season and none I believe got a third. Since they all failed, it has been awhile since a network has tried something so ambitious. Can Manifest, about a plane (how Lostian) lands fire years with the passengers thinking it was a normal flight, capture the magic that Lost did or will it just go the way of The Event?

5. Will the Veronica Mars Reboot Be Any Good? – Veronica Mars has long been the holy grail of gone too soon television shows. We did get a movie thanks to Kickstarter but it was too fan servicey to be great itself. Four years later it looks like we may get a full television revival on Hulu (no official announcement yet but creator Rob Thomas has tweeted out multiple acticles on the subject without actually commenting on it himself). So will the reboot be any good? The movie was good enough and with Thomas and Kristen Bell back, I am definitely optimistic. And free of network constraints, just how dark and gritty will the show get? Can we expect a full frontal Dick Casablancas?


As the great philosopher Butt-Head once pondered, how would we know if something was cool if there weren't things that sucked; here are the five least antedated questions:

1. Who Will Get Roseanne’d Next? - A wise man once said, “Twitter is stupid and Instagram is Twitter for people who can't read.” Twitter has long been a cesspool for the angriest people to shout at each other and earlier this year Roseanne got axed from her highly rated show for being racist. Then about a month later Guardians of the Galaxy writer / director James Gunn was fired, also by Disney for making poor pedophile jokes on Twitter (or so some claimed were jokes; pictures at him at a pedophile themed party did not help his cause). Which begs the question, who will get fired because of Twitter next? Can I put money on Alec Baldwin, who has an upcoming ABC show and surprisingly has never been blacklisted for his very inappropriate tirades including calling his eleven year old daughter a “rude thoughtless pig.” I know it will not be Rian Johnson, another Disney employee and director of an upcoming Star Wars film, who recently deleted all of his tweets older than a year which is probably the wisest thing anyone can do besides never even going on Twitter.

2. What Will Be the Next Crappy Reboot? – Sure there are some reboots to be extremely excited about that may be coming soon like the previously mentioned Veronica Mars as well Alf, and a Deadwood movie. But for every worthy reboot, there seems to be ten crappy ones. Joining Will and Grace and Roseanne The Connors this fall include Murphy Brown, Magnum P.I. Last Man Standing, and Charmed. We will also be getting soon The Hills, Roswell. And also in the works are Bewitched, Designing Women, The Facts of Life, The Muppet Show, Party of Five, The Twilight Show, The Animaniacs, and a double dose of Melissa Joan Hart reboots in Clarrisa Explains it All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (though she will only appear on the former).

3. Where Did the Runaways Runaway To? – It took an entire season for the titular runaways to actually runaway, to the point I do not really care at this point. I am still kind of rooting for the parents.

4. Will FX Continue to Let Kurt Sutter Overindulge? - The first couple seasons of Sons of Anarchy were pretty good. Then the gang went to Ireland and things dragged on a bit. When they got back to California, it did not get much better because FX’s laisse faire attitude let creator Kurt Sutter make longer and long episode that got more and more excruciating to watch. I think there was even a two hour plus episode that included three musical montages in the final season, one sung by Sutter’s wife who was also a star of the show. Aw, nepotism. So his follow-up was a hard pass for me and apparently most of Sons’ viewers because it was canceled after one season. Sutter is back in the motorcycle game with the spin-off with Mayans MC. But if FX continues to give him carte blanche, I think I will pass. And my cable guide has the first episode at over an hour and thirty-eight minutes and episode two at an hour and a half, so definitely hard pass. Seriously FX, notes are good sometimes.
5. Can CW Succeed Going to Six Nights a Week?: The CW was launched twelve years ago and two years later it was outsourcing its Sunday schedule before abandoning the night a year later. A decade later the CW is reviving the night.

And here are the shows I will be watching this fall and when they begin.

Mondays
8:00 – The Neighborhood (CBS, October 1)
10:00 – Manifest (NBC, September 24)

Tuesdays
8:00 – The Gifted (FOX, September 25)
9:00 – Blackish (ABC, October 16)
10:00 – The Purge (USA, September 4)

Wednesdays
8:00 – Survivor (CBS, September, 26)
8:00 – The Goldbergs (ABC, September 26)
9:00 – Modern Family (ABC, September 26)
9:00 – Vikings (History, November 28)

Thursdays
8:00 – The Good Place (NBC, September 27)
8:00 – The Big Bang Theory (CBS, September 27)
8:30 – Superstore (NBC, October 4)

Fridays
The First (Hulu, all episodes September 14)
Into the Dark (Hulu, new episodes on first Friday of the month starting in October)
Marvel’s Runaways (Hulu, all episodes December 21)
8:00 – Blindspot (October 12)
9:00 – Midnight, Texas (October 26)

Sundays
8:00 – Supergirl (The CW, October 14)
9:00 – Shameless (Showtime, September 9)
9:00 – The Last Ship (TNT, September 9)
9:00 - The Walking Dead (AMC, October 7)
9:00 - Ray Donovan (Showtime, October 28)
10:00 – Kidding (Showtime, September 9)
10:00 – You (Lifetime, September 9)
10:00 - Escape at Dannemora (Showtime, November 18)