Around the Tubes: April 20, 2019

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 The Loudest Voice, Manifest, Best Ever Trivia Show, Jade Bird, Aly & AJ, Disgraceland, Halo, and Shrill

- Showtime has announced that it will premiere its highly-anticipated seven-part limited series The Loudest Voice, starring Academy Award® and Golden Globe® winner Russell Crowe as Fox News founder Roger Ailes, on Sunday, June 30 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Production is currently underway in New York City.


- This is your calling. You are on the verge of discovering something new! From Oscar-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) and executive producers Jeff Rake (The Mysteries of Laura), Jack Rapke (Flight, Cast Away), Jackie Levine (Allied, The Walk) and Len Goldstein (Hart of Dixie, Roadies), Warner Bros. Home Entertainment brings you NBC’s #1 hit series Manifest: The Complete First Season on DVD July 23, 2019. Fans can uncover the mystery from all 16 exhilarating episodes from season one for the suggested low retail price of $29.98 for the DVD ($34.99 in Canada). Manifest: The Complete First Season is also available to own on Digital via purchase from digital retailers.

- Game Show Network, the leader in game shows and competitive entertainment, has announced today that Best Ever Trivia Show, hosted by Sherri Shepherd (“The View”) will debut on June 10 at 4:00 p.m. ET. In Best Ever Trivia Show, three contestants face off against three Trivia Experts. The winning player then goes head-to-head in the final round against the Expert who performed the best over the course of the show – the Ultimate Trivia Challenge. If the player gets more correct answers than the Expert, the player wins $10,000 along with the opportunity to come back and win up to a grand total of $30,000 and take his or her spot in trivia history.

- Jade Bird: I Get No Joy on The Tonight Show:


- Iconic sister duo Aly & AJ release the music video for "Church," the lead single off their forthcoming EP Sanctuary, directed by Alex Ross Perry, director/writer/producer of Her Smell, the critically acclaimed film starring Elizabeth Moss. Perry is also credited for the sister's vampiric "Take Me" video off their 2017 EP, Ten Years, that concluded a decade long gap in their discography.

- It’s the things we do in the bad times that enchant the story of ‘Wild Streak’, the aching new single from Melbourne duo N.Y.C.K. (Dominique Garrard and Nicholas Acquroff). When everything falls apart, our wild streak comes to the fore.

- The rock and roll true crime podcast Disgraceland released season 3 episode 5 on The Grateful Dead. So far in season 3, host Jake Brennan has dissected Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love, Snoop Dogg, and Ike & Tina Turner. Recently, the show peaked at #4 on the overall Apple Podcasts Top Podcasts chart ahead of The New York Times' The Daily and Serial following the launch of season 3.

- Showtime has announced that Emmy and Tony® nominee Pablo Schreiber (First Man, Orange Is the New Black) has been cast as the lead in the highly anticipated Showtime series Halo, based on the iconic Xbox® franchise. Schreiber will play Master Chief, Earth's most advanced warrior in the 26th century and the only hope of salvation for a civilization pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant, an unstoppable alliance of alien worlds committed to the destruction of humanity. Newcomer Yerin Ha will play a new character within the HALO world: Quan Ah, a shrewd, audacious 16-year-old from the Outer Colonies who meets Master Chief at a fateful time for them both.

- Hulu has renewed Shrill for a 8-episode second season.

Previewing Ramy

In a measure of full discourse, I have to admit I much prefer comedies that are, you know, actually funny. I just want something with a high laugh per minute ratio. It seems like more and more shows that are listed as comedies are becoming increasingly less funny because, I don’t know, art, or something else pretentious. And some of these shows are fine, but if you do not have a high laugh ratio, just please stop marketing yourself as a comedy.

I had high hopes for Ramy from stand-up comedian Ramy Youssef and producer Jarod Carmichael, also a stand-up comedy who’s The Carmichael Show was a traditional multicam with a very high laugh per minute ratio, just something you do not see any more unless you are an old person watching CBS. Unfortunately is one of those shows listed as a comedy but is really a drama that has a few extra laughs than, say, This Is Us.

Youssef naturally stars as the titular character that is a Muslim man living in Jersey and just is torn between the two. He wants to be a good Muslim who follows the Koran, but does not want really follow all the tenets like washing his feet before praying. It also eats at him that he has never actually dated a Muslim but has dated plenty of Jews.

In a bit of Hulu synergy, of those Jewish women is the lead of PEN15. In one of the funnier moments of the first couple episodes, after they hook up he checks the condom for leaks, which is something I have never thought of before but may be doing in the future. In another PEN15 reference, we get a full episode of Ramy in middle school though this Ramy is played by an actual young actor, and being a young Muslim boy in the early 00’s, Ramy has a completely different middle school expierence than two nerdy girls.

The best part of the early episodes was Ramy’s foul mouth little sister who seems much more Jersey than Muslim. At least she was the best thing about the show until she gets her own and I learn that you can in fact have too much of a good thing. Same for the mother, who spends a whole episode trying to be a ride share driver but ends up not working as a standalone episode. Grant ed the best episode may be the one where Ramy drives his disabled co-worker to a girl he met online in hopes of getting laid.

The season ends with Ramy returning to his roots to visit his family in Egypt. But the actual final scene may be the weirdest ending to a show ever that is based in reality. I just sat there wondering, am I really seeing this? Although if ending there was an attempt to get people to watch a potential second season, I definitely want to see how they write themselves out of what happened.

All episodes of Ramy premiere tomorrow on Hulu.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: April 14, 2019

Killing Eve: Nothing worse than when something is overhyped when it turns out to be just good. After all the buzz around this show I decided to give it a try when it popped on Hulu earlier this year. And it was perfectly fine, certainly not worth all the praise it got when it first aired. And after finished the first season I was kind of surprised that Sandra Oh got all the award recognition when the crazy French assassin was the best part of the show. And by best, I man pretty most the only good part. I do understand The French assassin’s obsession with Eve on account she is crazy, but I never quite understood why Eve replicated especially after the assassin killed her buddy. The season two premiere was a bit of a bore, probably because the crazy French assassin spent most of the episode in the hospital. But she did give us the two most memorable parts when she posed as a doctor why she was looking for money to steal and then killing the kid after he mentioned he wanted to die.
You can download Killing Eve on iTunes.

Billions: Again we start up with another meeting between Axe and Chuck, and even end t to boot. And this season has been a little lack luster with those two actually being buddy-buddy. Maybe we can get some tension with Wendy going to war with Chuck over this because Axe vs. Taylor is not cutting it. Wendy was conspicuously absent from Chuck’s victory speech.

Good Girls: Oh snap, Ruby is snitching! But just what will she say? Dude wants Beth for some unknown reason to me. How about going after the actual gangster? But how does Beth actually get out of this? I have a feeling it is going to be some not really makes any sense way like how Ray Donovan somehow seems to skate by beside a mountain of evidence.
You can download Good Girls on iTunes

The Bold Type: So Jane learns her new boss exposed himself at his old job but later discovers he did it in a pro-feminist way? Wait, what?!? Um, no matter how noble the reason, there is no good reason to pull your junk out in front of your boss and a female co-worker. This may win most absurd plotline of the year. And it will only get worse when Jane inevitably starts forking the dude.
You can download The Bold Type on iTunes.

The Act: Oh my goodness, this episode was so creepy. From everything that happened in that movie theater, which is just what a romantic comedy would look like if everything went wrong, to Gypsy buying a knife. And as creepy as that boy is, it is just as funny to think of how much of a tool that kid is. I actually worked in a pizza parlor for a summer so I got a huge kick at just how incompetent that kid is. Yet what a dichotomy of the person who he thinks he is and who he really is, just perfectly mirrors Gypsy who is really living two lives herself, who she wants to be and who her mother thinks she is. But if the actual act goes down next week, that means we will two episode of aftermath. I am fine with that. I kind of really want to know where is Gypsy now. I have avoided Googling because I do not want to spoil the show.
You can stream The Act on Hulu.

Survivor: Edge of Extinction: Well, they teased a wild Tribal and we certainly got a wild Tribal which lasted half the episode. I do not remember anyone playing themselves out of the game faster at Tribal than Julia who just blew up her game with some assist from Aurora who just openly admits working with both halves of the Lesu divide. The closest thing I can think of was the guy who lost to the porn star in Thailand who just started attacking everyone at the Final Tribal Council. It was so wild I even missed some big moments the first time I watched like Ron throwing out Victoria’s name with Victoria over his shoulder.

But the thing is, the Tribal could have been much wilder. Sure it is fun watching people running around during Tribal, but in the end, it was a very straight, almost unanimous vote, had Julia and Aurora not given away their plan or spooked Julie, it could have been wilder. We learned from Kelley when David asked her that the plan was actually David. But Victoria and Julia both on Twitter confirmed that Kelley was actually the plan going in. So presumably the Kama six would be voting for Kelley, the Lesu three voting for David and who knows who David and Rick were voting for. But it also seemed obvious that David and Rick were reforming their Idol to play for David. And you have to believe that if David plays an Idol, Kelley would play hers, followed by Lauren. Leaving whoever David and Rick voted for. Unless they vote for Kelley then we would have had a revote where no one who received votes would be eligible to vote for. Which would have been really wild.
You can download Survivor: Edge of Extinction on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists: So we end the episode with both O.G. Liars trapped, Mona by the creepy janitor while Alison is in the trailer of a dead girl. Who knew those locked from the outside? Most interesting to happen since the first episode.
You can download Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists on iTunes.

The Challenge: War of World: Good riddance Bear, please do not ever come back.
You can download The Challenge: War of Worlds on iTunes.

Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger: So much for Mayhem, already sucked into Cloak’s Void but instead of Derek like in Janet’s Void, the cop who killed her boyfriend is there as the only other person sucked in there. Although since the Void seems to be similar to what Cloak sees when he touches people, his Void is filled with your fears. How fun.
You can download Marvel's Cloak and Dagger on iTunes.

Doom Patrol: Finally, what I have been waiting for since it was first talked about: The Underground. And it, mostly, did not disappoint. The explanation as to why some of the personalities look like Jane, that no one knows, was a little lame. Weird that Karen was one of them that looks like Janes, seems like they should have cast some generic blonde who looks like she came from the Hallmark Channel. But I loved that there was personality jail. And we really need more of Penny Farthing.

Blindspot: I just how loved how Rich believe that Bill Nye the Science Guy was some secret supervillain. But it turns out Kurt’s mother is alive. I do not really remember her ever even being mentioned on the show before. I remember his father was suspected of kidnapping a person that everyone thought was Jane for a couple seasons.
You can download Blindspot on iTunes.

The Blacklist: Well, that was one of the more warped Blacklisters to date. Maybe top five. But it looks like we are back at the beginning of the season with Ressler looking into Red’s real identity and Red looking for who put him in prison.
You can download The Blacklist on iTunes.