Previewing Angie Tribeca

2015 was the year of peak television where there was just too many television shows not just on television but now streaming services that not even the people that actually get paid to watch television can keep up let alone us armchair critics. Last year was also a year when channels started to get creative (aside from putting series premiere online and On Demand which had been happening for almost a decade now). NBC put the entire Aquarius first season On Demand and apparently was successful to warrant a second season (but apparently not successful enough not to be relegated to the Saturday burn off slot later in the season; so let's see what they do in the second season). TNT went the On Demand root for Public Morals, but just the first four episode (later it put the whole season there for a weekend) which was not as successful because it got canceled after one season. Recently USA did a Mr. Robot 24-hour marathon and for that have still not caught up, the entire first season is still On Demand, and the last time I checked there is also an Uncensored version of the first season episodes there now too.

Of course the Mr. Robot 24-hour marathon came months after the final episode aired during the time of year marathons have become commonplace. TBS is doing the most attention grabbing roll out of a new television show ever. Starting Sunday at 9:00 PM they are airing a 25-hour marathon of the entire first season of their new show Angie Tribeca commercial free. This is either a stroke of marketing genius or someone is getting fired. Not that the marathon needs to be successful because TBS already renewed Angie Tribeca for ten more seasons (okay, this is a bit misleading because the joke is each season they renewed the show for runs one episode, so basically it just renewed it for another ten episode) which premieres Monday 25 at 9:30. So basically you have seven chances to watch the season by 10:00 PM Monday. But if you do not have three hours and a half hours to carve out, the entire first season will be available On Demand and at tbs.com to watch at your leisure.

The big question though is Angie Tribeca worth the huge stunt? After watching the entire first season over a three and a half block I would have say definitely yes. I will even go ahead and call it the funniest show on television. The show is a deadpan cop show in the vein of the Naked Gun movies where they cram every dumb and absurd joke that can into every scene.

Rashida Jones (Cop Out) stars as the titular character with Hayes MacArthur (She's Out of My League) as her new partner Jay Geils that of course she does not want but is weirdly attracted to even though he last partner / boyfriend died (or did he? at any rate, you will recognized him in the flashbacks). Jere Burns (Wynn Duffy!) is the police captain while Deon Cole (the crazy co-worker on Black-ish aka the best part of Black-ish until the character got fired which I guess makes sense now) and his partner Jagger (the titular character from Max). The TBS press release would also like to point out that "Not involved with the series is Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull)." Like I said this is a show that leaves no joke unsaid no matter how stupid.

The show is the brain child of Nancy (who pops up in the premiere) and Steve Carell (who I am pretty sure provides the theme song, if you can call it a theme song). They got a work out from their Rolodex because each episode has many familiar faces including Lisa Kudrow, Gary Cole, while Alfred Molina has too much fun inn a recurring role as the department... well his role basically changes every episode. The other cameos are too many and too good to mention, but I will say you will definitely want to tune in to episode six just to see who they get to quote Carly Rae Jepsen.

After seeing the entire first season I am ready to go ahead and call Angie Tribeca the funniest show on television. If you like absurdist comedy like the Naked Gun movies or the eighties comedy Sledge Hammer!, you will definitely want to check out Angie Tribeca. Really my only complsint is the season ends with a cliff hanger (which may or may not be an homage to Sledge Hammer!) which is kind of annoying. But hey at least season two starts the following week.

Angie Tribeca first season premieres Sunday at 9:00 PM on TBS and will re-air over the course of 25 hours. Season two premieres the following Monday at 9:30 with new episodes following every week.

Previewing Shameless: Season Six

Something shocking happened last season on Shameless. Okay, something shocking happens every episode of Shameless, usually five to ten, but the shocking thing I am talking about is that someone on the show did something that normal people would not think was shocking at all if anyone else did it, but it was shocking that it seemed like Frank showed legitimate feelings for another human being. Sure he has had bouts of conscience in the past but he has always reset to his old self by the next episode like a cartoon character.

So it is even more shocking that three months later Frank is still pining over his dead doctor buddy with benefits. And it is shocking still that those all to real human feeling may be sticking around at least for a few more episodes (after a funny montage in the season premiere, I was really hoping that they had spread those season out through the whole season). Sure Frank is not particularly very good at being a normal human being, especially when he trying to find someone to replace Bianca next week, but at least he is starting to grow if just baby steps.

But do not worry, the rest of the cast is just as shameless as ever (the title of the second episode is #AbortionEules so this may not be the time to recommend the show to your angry uncle who spent the holidays railing against Planned Parenthood; well unless you want to make him angrier). Lip started sleeping with his professor last season with her husband's blessings and that is continuing despite some more complications. Ian is now in a prescription drug haze while Micky is now three months into a fifteen year stint for attempting to kill the eldest Gallagher (but hey, he may be out in eight due to overcrowding). At least the season opens with Carl being released from Juvi, though it may just be a matter of time before he is back. And as the episode title suggests , not everyone is keen to Debbie's potential bundle of joy.

But Fiona mat still be the most messed up of them all as she tries to keep everyone together (well, except Frank). Still married and still hooking up with her boss, she experiences more troubles than the rest of her family combined. Surprisingly things may actually be looking up for Kev and V after The Alibi gets named the Best Worst Bar on the South Side which is a boon to business. Of course this is Shameless, so I do not expect it to last for very long. I put the over/under on when the health inspectors shows up at episode four.

Shameless airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Legends: Season Two

When TNT started promoting Legends last summer I got excited thinking that it could very well could be a Taken prequil where we learn just exactly how Liam Neeson got his particular set of skill but with Ned Stark playing the main role. When it actually premiere it ended up being a mediocre show where Ned would go deep undercover yet still manage to solve the case in one to three episode despite real deep cover operations taking months to years. Basically it was just a slightly grittier version of what you would expect from a CBS procedural.

At the end of the first season, one of Stark's alias, Martin Odum was set up for killing the head of the FBI. If this was a CBS procedural we could expect Martin to clear his name by the second episode and back going undercover by episode three. But apparently TNT and the producers found the first season as lackluster as I did because season two because the are switching things up. And by switching things up, I mean they are gong the hard reboot route like I do not remember any series before doing

Going into season two, the season has jettisoned the entire cast besides Ned Stark as he who is now on the run in England. Morris Chestnut does show up in the first the very least in the first three episodes but is now listed as "Very Special Guest Star." Now season two looks much less CBS procedural and more cable international spy show like Homeland and The Americans but with many more title cards. There is an infinite increase of title cards because this will flip between current day London, 2001 Prauge when Martin had taken on a Legend of a ruthless Russian drug lord, and even goes all the way back to 1975 to visit a young Martin in school. By the third episode things move to France while we even get another character's flashback in Lithuania.

The modern day England plot follows Martin as he avoids both international and local police but I find the modern day and flashback scenes in Prague much more interesting. Fourteen years ago FBI agent Curtis Ballard was investigating a murder and Dmitry Petrovich (Odum's alias) was on the top of the list. Clearly the case effected him and has left him less of a man, in more ways than one, ever since. After seeing Odum's picture splashed across the present Ballard heads back to the city to figure out how this ruthless Russian mobster he chased a decade and a half ago turned out to be one of his colleagues.

Of course Martin's time in England has ties to this case to as he runs into a woman from his Petrovich past with a teenage daughter (once you do the math in your head it is easy to make an assumption; you will learn if the assumption is true or not by episode two) who just learned her mother is Chechen and decides to practice the faith of her ancestors.

I mentioned that I do not remember any television doing such a hard reboot as Legends is doing for its second season. This is probably because you run the risk of alienating your main audience and those that did not like the original concept will be extremely hesitant to give it a second chance. But I do appreciate TNT and the show taking a risk because the show is significantly better if you give it a chance. And TNT seems to be behind the show, releasing the premiere On Demand and other steaming outlets last week and have also announce that the second episode will be put up On Demand tomorrow morning after the first episode airs. And for fans of binge watching TNT has also already announced that they will stack the entire season of Legends, meaning episodes will remain available on demand throughout the entire season.

Legends airs Mondays at 10:00 on TNT. You can download episodes of Legends on iTunes.

Previewing The Librarians: Season Two

It seems like shows on television are getting darker and dark chasing The Walking Dead to see what can be the most depression. That is what I like about about The Librarians, it may not have cracked my top ten favorite shows of last season, but it is a fun watch kind of like the Carly Rae Jepsen of television (no seriously, her new album is kind of almost good). Nothing really happens and you can go in and out (granted it turned out all the procedural type quests in the first season ended up being important for the finale).

The show is back for its second season for more cheesy fun. At the end of the last season, the three new librarians went their separate ways to solves cases on their on. For the season premiere, three separate cases bring them all to the place where it all began, no not the series but the museum Fynn worked at at the start of the very first movie (for those who though Noah Wiley would be free to join the cast now that Falling Skies has ended, he is still listed as a guest star).

Not surprising all three librarians are brought to the same place as Fynn is not a coincidence where they run into a literary giant (it i not who you originally think and it is much more fun that way; just keep in mind the title of the episode is And the Drowned Book). Thankfully it does not take too long before everyone realizes they are better together because the show is much more fun that way. And The Libraians is going to be a fun release before getting depressed while watching The Walking Dead afterwards.

The Librarians airs Sundays at 8:00 on TNT. You can download The Librarians on iTunes.

Previewing The Affair: Season Two

There has been a trend recently to give each new season a new subtitle. The first time I remember this happening was with Spartacus which officially changed its title every year. Some network do it to re-brand shows like Gotham: Rise of the Villains. Others are just unofficial cheat attempt at social marketing (#BlackSwan). The new season of The Affair might as well have a new name because the titular affair is now out in the open they might as well call the new season The Affair: The Divorce.

The first season of The Affair was maybe the weirdest non-sci-fi series in the history of television though I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. Really my best recollection of the first season was when Bill Simmons (formally of The BS Report and soon to be host of The Bill Simmons Podcast) who countered a dissenter of The Affair saying "you are watching the wrong way." But even as the first season ended, I still was not sure I was watching the show the right way.

At its core, The Affair is an interesting concept with two different points of view which sometime slightly very and other times are completely different. Who is right and who is wrong? We may never now. And to make things more interesting or complicated depending on how you watch the show, the episodes ended sometime in the future with the police investigating a murder. It at first seemed like the two stories were being told to the police but that no longer seems like the case. The ended of the season ended with us learning that Noah and Alison were married with a child just before he was hauled away by the police in the murder of her former brother-in-law, the very one who knocked up his teenage daughter in present day and did not even bother to show up for the abortion.

If you did not like the duel storytelling of the first season, I got some really bad news for you (mild spoiler alert but the premiere is already online and On Demand if you want to watch it, and you may want to watch the TV-14 version on YouTube because the TVMA version features full frontal male nudity) because not only do we get the stories of Noah and Alison, the twist of the new season is after Noah's story, the second story is not Alison but of Helen, Noah's soon to be ex-wife. Like last season, they have slightly different versions of their run in with each other: he thinks their mediator is a overzealous douchebag and she sees him as a slimy douchebag.

And as you guessed it, the second episode starts off with Alison before we get Cole's point of view. So if this holds up, we may only get six days told four ways instead of two stories told twelve ways. But unlike Noah and Helen's slight difference, Alison and Cole's sole run in next week diverges quite differently. Who is telling the truth? I am beginning to think no one is and maybe the only thing we can believe as fact is the future scenes where we finally get to see future Helen and Cole for the first time.

I started to believe that none of the storytellers were being truthful in the first season because each person made themselves look better than they probably were. Noah viewed himself as the stoic superdad seduced by a temptress while Alison viewed herself as the grieving mother who finally gave into the advances of a cad. But this season, all four storytellers portray themselves as pretty horrible people. And they are all clearly kind of horrible people. So maybe this is the season where all the characters realize just how horrible they are and can finally admit it. But who they are admitting it to, nobody knows.

The Affair airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Homeland: Season Five

The first time Carrie Mastiston and Saul Beariston see each other in season five of Homeland, which takesd place two years after the attack in Islamabad which seems to be around the last time the two talked, Saul tells Carrie, "You're being stupid and naive, two things you haven't been before." What? WHAT?!?!? Sure Carrie was the only one who correctly predicted that Brody was a terrorist back in season one, but since then she has only been stupid and naive, choosing her terrorist lover over her country and whose decisions led to the embassy being overrun last season.

But since Saul sold her out last season, Carrie has left the CIA to become the head of security for a millionaire in Berlin who Saul claims to be on the other team because his family made their fortune during World War II. And continuing the flip from last season, Saul is back in the CIA, but not as the head as he blames Carrie's bad recommendation as his being overlooked. Of course in the waning two years Quinn has been in Syria killing terrorists.

With the new setting is some new faces. Miranda Otto (I, Frankenstien) plays the Berlin Bureau chief, Sebastian Koch (A Good Day to Die Hard) is the guy who hires Carrie to protect him, while Sarah Sololovic is another American who works at the foundation. Alexander Fehling (Inglourious Basterds) is the legal council there and starts the season cohabitation with Carrie and Baby Brody (thankfully she finds herself back stateside early in the season).

The Foundation and the CIA naturally find themselves intertwined after a hacker attacks the Berlin Bureau's computers whose information shows up in the (virtual) hands of Sololovic. This brings Saul to Berlin and Quinn of course tags along to kill German terrorists. And before you think Homeland is morphing into a Mr Robot hacking show, Carrie and her boss travel to Syria where of course things start blowing up.

After three seasons of riding on the wildest roller-coaster ride possibly in the history of television with some of the highest highs, but lowest lows, Homeland managed to course correct with a more even keel with less mind blowing, and mind numbing, plot twists. That seems to continue in season five as the show does continue a more traditional pace. Though for those that do miss the early glory days, Carrie does go off her meds in episode three and it is awesome. And yes the crazy picture wall is back.

Homeland airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Blindspot

NBC like to takes other people's ideas and then beat them into the ground. Last decade after the success of Lost NBC started airing similar sci-fi shows like Surface and The Event (The Event was another Earth!!!!!!!!! which they did not bother to reveal until the end of the season which was probably why it was also the end of the series too). This decade the network has been trying to chase political thrillers in the mold of Homeland with shows like Crisis and American Odyssey. They actually found success when they took that Homeland format and made it into a procedural with The Blacklist. Since The Blacklist has been its lone scripted success in recent years it is no surprise NBC is trying the political thriller in a procedural again this season with the premiere of Blindspot which also features an FBI agent assigned to babysit an unconventional asset.

Of course the concept of Blindspot predates even The Blacklist because when that unconventional asset the FBI is working with is covered with tattoos it is hard to to think of Memento, the pre-Batman Christopher Nolan movie about a person who tattoos clues to his wife's murder because he cannot remember what happened as the same event left him without any short term memory. When I first saw the Blindspot trailer I thought brilliant, why hasn't anyone made a televised version of Memento before, it is a perfect format for the small screen using each episode to figure out what another tattoo means.

Really, the only way to make it more perfect is to flip the lead character's gender and cast Jaimie Alexander (Marvel's Lady Sif) as the tattooed amnesiac. But unlike Memento Jaimie's Jane Doe has no memory at all to who she is, she does retain basic human skills so she still knows how to walk, eat, and speak English or whatever language her former self knows (her knowledge of Chinese comes in handy in a scene that invokes another NBC show Chuck; and just like that titular character of that show, Jane Doe is surprised to learn she also knows kung-fu).

On Blindspot, the FBI brought in to babysit Jane Joe is Sullivan Stapleton (300: Rise of an Empire) who is stuck with her basically because his name is one of the tattoos that appears on her body. It is actually, as far as I can tell, the largest on on the canvas. Rounding out the team assigned to Jane Doe include Marianne Jean-Baptiiste (Robocop) as an assistant director of the FBI and Ashley Johnson (yes, that is Chrissy Seaver all grown up) as the head of the forensic science division tasked to figure out what all the tattoos mean. There are a couple more of team members but none of them made much of an impression in the first episode.

There in lies the biggest problem with the Blindspot premiere, I came away not particularly caring about anyone on the show. That kind of includes Jaimie Alexander who spends most of the episode playing a scared little girl. Obviously what she goes through is traumatic, but we do learn that Jane Doe used to be a Navy Seal so it would not be out of the question that she could quickly adapt to her new situations without moping around. It also does not help that multiple times in the first episode the FBI tells Jane Doe to stay out of harms way only for her to demand to go with them, which of course she ends up winning the argument.

Going even deeper into the cast, you can also see clear parallels to The Blacklist, the white bread FBI agent who has to do everything by the book, the stoic FBI chief, the kind of interesting but not utilized enough teckie. But the one thing Blindspot is severely missing is a Reddington type character to spice things up. Sure James Spader can sometime chew too much of the scenery but he makes sure his show is never boring. Sure Alexander can be that for her show but she needs to do much less moping and more beating dudes up. The best part of the premiere is when she realizes she can fight and just goes to town on a couple of bad guys.

Coming out of Upfronts, Blindspot was number one on my most anticipated list and though the premiere did not meet my hefty expectations, there was enough in the first episode to made me think that with some small tweaks (most importantly find some comic relief) that it can get there sometime before the Christmas break. There did do a good job setting up the overall mystery of just who is Jane Doe. There is a shadowy figure who pops up a couple times in the episode as well as a flashback the ends the episode that reveals a big chunk of the mystery so this will not be The Event when you have to wait until the end of the season for any clues to what The Event (two Earths!!!!!!!!!) is going to be. Of course I knew I was going to be watching every episode the moment the cast Lady Sif in a Memento ripoff.

Blindspot airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC. You will be able to download Blindspot on iTunes.

Previewing Live Free or Die

It was not long into the first season of Live Free or Die before I said, "Nope." For the past decade and a half I have watched Survivor thinking I could do that. But on that show, I would be with a tribe that could help build a living quarter, catch fish, and gather firewood. Not to mention all the various rewards as well as a medical staff within walking distance if something goes horribly wrong. Naked and Afraid is another show I have said, "Nope" to as I doubt I would make it a day, but even they get to put clothes on after a month and get to go back to civilization. The people on Live Free or Die are living on their own (aside from one married couple) before the camera arrived and will continue to do so after they leave.

If any of the people from last season would give up and go back to society it would be Colbert whose homemade house burnt down last season. Nope, he is back this season building a new place to live in. And where many people might complain about their local swamp flooding, Colbert sees it as an opportunity to transport large logs to his build sight. Also returning is husband and wife Tony and Amelia, Thorn who has wisely built a shelter to live in instead of the tent he spent last season in.

New this season is Derik Stevens a blacksmith living high in the Colorado Rockies. At the start of the season, snow forced him to house his three mules fifteen miles away in a friends covered barn and now has the task to bring the three wild beasts back home. Showing up next week is another newcomer Tobias Corwin, a desert nomad living in the Arizona wilderness who also teaches primitive skills at an outdoor survival school.

Live Free or Die airs Tuesdays at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel.

Previewing Public Morals

2015 is the year network and basic cable channels have started to throw everything against the wall to combat the Netflix watch whenever you want format. NBC made big waves by releasing every episode of Aquarius to Hulu, On Demand, iTunes and the like (for limited time). Apparently this was successful for NBC to renew the show for a second season after breaking NBC.com streaming records. Of course weeks later the show was resigned to the Saturday burn off slot so it will be interesting t see how NBC releases season two... if at all. NBC's sister station USA also got creative with the release of season two of Playing House by releasing the next episode On Demand the night after the previous episode airs on the cable channel (sure Showtime has released episodes a week before for the last couple seasons of another David Duchovny vehicle Californication). FX also did something interesting recently to fight the lax standards and practices of streaming sites by uploading "Explicit" versions of episodes of Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll On Demand the day after the for basic cable version aired through to my best guess you just hear an extra F-bomb or two per episode and does not show the amount of skin you see on Netflix originals (there is an explicit version of Aquarius floating around but as for now it has just aired in foreign markets and now words when us more prudish Americans can see it).

TNT is getting into the experiment this summer with a different type of release for its sixties crime drama, Public Morals. After tonight's premiere, they are going to put the first four episodes On Demand for people to binge watch. Of the four new ways to release a show I mentioned so far in this post, the Public Morals release is the worst way to watch as a viewer. I always find it bad form to complain about receiving screener for television shows, but this complain is relevant to how TNT is releasing Public Moral. Really my biggest complain when it comes to screeners is that when a network makes available multiple episodes available to watch it is harder to get back into the show weeks, or months later when new to me episodes start to air. What makes this decision even more head scratching is that if someone were to take TNT up on its offer to watch the first four episodes this week, the first new episode not On Demand does not air until September 22, right dab in the middle of the network premiere week. This just seems like horrible planning in my view. And I have seen those first four episodes and there is really no big event or plot twist in episode four that made me go, "oh my goodness, I cannot wait until episode five." Really , if you decide to watch Public Morals, I highly recommend to just watch it week to week (which is how I ended up watching Aquarius passing on binge on it all in a month's time). And for those that prefer binge watching, you might as well just wait until the end of the season instead of watching four now and the last six sometime in November.

Of course how to watch Public Morals is completely moot if it is not worth watching at all. The show takes place in 1960's New York (Red Hook specifically) with Ed Burns, who also created the show, as a cop assigned with dealing with making the city look nicer by riding it of prostitutes and gamblers. Okay, the Public Morals division does not really get rid of these activities, they just make sure they happen in the shadows and get their cut of the take. The balance is threatened when some gets wacked at the end of the first episode. For those hoping for a good murder mystery, sorry, the viewers will know who did it by the middle of episode two even if most everyone on the show is still investigating the murder through episode four.

Also working with Burns is his partner Michael Rappaport (The War at Home), Wass Stevens (Brooklyn's Finest) Ruben Santiago-Hudson (American Gangster) is the Lieutenant. There are also a bunch of twentysomethings on both sides of the law that just seem to blend into each other which may be the only reason to binge the first four episodes as it is easier to tell all those characters apart then having to try to remember who is who after waiting a week. As for the fairer sex, Katrina Bowden (Sex Drive (Unrated)) is one of the girls the cops bust who has an, um, interesting Brooklyn accent on the show (which randomly goes away about halfway through the season). Lyndon Smith (she was Drew's more fun college girlfriend on Parenthood) is one of the around the way girls in Red Hook who can play on both sides of the tracks. There is also Burns's wife who may be the greatest trophy wife on television since Betty Draper (but a lot less icy) played by Elizabeth Masucci (TNT's press lists her main credit as The Americans which I did not recognize her from; after some googling, it turns out she just dubbed "prostitute" in a first season episode so this is really her first recognizable role, but I will say her accent is much better than most on the show).

The show also has an impressive list of guest stars including Timothy Hutton as Burns's gangster uncle who's son chose to take after his cousin not his father. Hutton's boss is Brian Dennehy who also has children problem, Brian's comes in the form of Neil McDonough (the resemblance is uncanny). Kevin Corrigan (it is weird that both male leads of Grounded for Life have gone on to be strong dramatic character actors) is also part of the organization. Also hanging around is Robert Knepper who like Burns and McDonough starred in last year's TNT period cop show Mob City. I will say I have enjoyed Public Morals more so far.

But the thing is, the show does not pick up until the fifth episode when it becomes perfectly clear that the whole season is building towards an epic turf war following the death in tonight's episode. The longer the season progresses the harder it is for the people in charge and the police, who profit from the more salacious activities stay in certain areas and the more entertaining and interesting the show gets. This war spill over from the street and really says a lot about class in the sixties much better than the similarly themed sixties cop show Aquarius. It does help that the other show is spread out in the sprawling Los Angeles while this one is a more compressed area of Red Hook where one small spark could take out an entire city block.

If TNT really wanted to experiment with nontraditional roll outs, they really should have included the fifth episode which the version I looked ready for broadcast (which is not always the case with screeners, it was always weird watching Raylan Givens "drive" down a country road with only green screens in the background). It seemed like TNT wanted to release enough episode to get people hooked but not enough that they would not come back to come back to watch live when those episodes are done. But still, I recommend just watching week to week because I really do not see this experiment working well for either TNT or the viewers who choose to watch the four episodes all this week.

Public Morals airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on TNT. You can download Public Morals on iTunes.

Previewing Twinning

VH1 got into the competition business with I Love Money which ended up being a trashier version of The Challenge (no, seriously; casting agents found people worse off then those that go on The Challenge; think about that for a minute). Tragically, one of the contestants in the third season participated in a murder-suicide prior to the airing. VH1 never aired that season and burned off the fourth season during late night programming over a year later and no more seasons were filmed (same for any ... of Love feeder shows). In the last five years, crappy Housewives type shows have taken their place making VH1 must flee TV in the interim.

Even though those horrible housewives type show still inexplicably do well, it does seem like Video Hits One is trying to change its brand a little bit lately. First off Hindsight, a time traveling nineties show, was shockingly entertaining. There is also their faux-reality block of Barely Famous and Candidly Nicole (the former which is almost watchable) and even The Walk of Shame Shuttle and Dating Naked are cheesy fun at times.

The cable channel is even getting back into the competition game with another The Challenge type show. Thankfully the cast is not culled from all the horrible housewives shows that populated the the channel. Instead, as you can probably guess by the title, Twinning is made up by identical twins to see who has the best twin intuition, or as they calling it twintuition (there are an annoying amount of twin puns in the show).

But the show gets real evil real quick as they force the twins to live in separate Big Brother type houses (naturally they are mirror images of each other, one green, one orange colored; though it may have been cooler had it had been like that Syfy show where one half had to live live primitives, the other in the space age). The twins are even separated in challenges that they are supposed to complete together. The first of which is trying to match the same matching game with a giant wall between them. Okay the challenge kind of sucks and it is pretty clear that the limited amount of challenges where teammates cannot see each other may be too limiting.

Okay, the are not permanently separated because the top four winners get to spend one day with the ability to go between houses where they can hang out with their twins, at the end of which those eight get to pick which two teams go into the elimination round. Again, this is kind of lame because at least the first one is just the twins trying to guess questions like "what is the perfect time to wake up" and what number would you definitely pick if playing the lottery?"

As mentioned earlier, Dating Naked can be cheesy fun, and to give you an idea about Twinning, they come from the same Lighthearted Entertainment production company. The grand prize for the twinners is the kind of laughable $222,222.00. After the first episode, there really anyone I have any interest in rooting for why there are a couple of twins I already hope get the boot soon. Twinning is kind of a low rent The Challenge but since that is not on, Twinning may just hold you over until Survivor starts again in the fall.

Twinning airs Wednesdays at 100 on VH1.

Previewing The 2000's: A New Reality

VH1's I Love the 80's was one of the greatest specials ever in the history of television. Of course I Love the 90's came next. After that the channel went back further for I Love the 70's even though a better title could have been I Kinda Like the 70's because "Love" is a little strong for that decade. But the huge mistake was when VH1 produced I Love the New Millennium. First off, stupid title. Sure we never landed on a title for the decade, but man up and definitively call it something. Even worse it aired in 2008 before the decade was even over. Not only that, the decade pretty much sucked worse than the seventies.

A couple years back National Geographic Channel debuted its own retrospective The '80s: The Decade That Made Us which was a more newsy, macro version of I Love the 80's. Not surprising they followed that up with The '90s: The Last Great Decade?. The simple answer was yes. Much like I Love the New Millennium, I feared that another in the NGC special in the series would be unnecessary. But tonight sees the premiere of The 2000's: A New Reality. At least they actually waited until after the decade was over to produce it.

With all that happened surrounding the Supreme Court last month, it is actually a little funny that the special starts off with liberals like Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi decrying that radical un-elected judges decided who got to be president while conservatives like Bill O'Reilly commended the Supreme Court for following the word of the Constitution. What a difference fifteen years makes.

I figured going in this retrospective would be more depressing than the two previous but watching the four hour but all the bad news stories just kept on getting compounding: Elian Gonzalez, USS Cole, hanging chads, Chandra Levy, 9/11, anthrax, Tora Bora, Beltway Sniper, Enron, the Iraq War, the Southeast Asian tsunami, Janet Jackson's nipple, Abu Ghraib,Hurricane Katrina, global warming, Lehman Brothers. Sure tails of Survivor, Napster, iPod, The Osbournes, YouTube, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are sprinkled in but it is hard not to be glad that decade is over after watching A New Reality.

Back again as narrator is Rob Lowe. We also get first hand accounts of the biggest stories by politicians Dick Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, talking heads Bill O'Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, entertainers Randy Jackson, Adam McCay, people who where on the USS Cole when it was attacked, survivors of the tsunami and Katrina, and even the whistle-blowers behind Enron and Abu Ghraib. The 2000s: A New Reality probably is something airing too early (we should probably wait at least a decade before we should take stalk in history) but it is something that will hold up for future generations to understand just how depressing and wild the decade was.

The 2000s: A New Reality premieres tonight at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel and concludes tomorrow also starting at 9:00.

Previewing Masters of Sex: Season Three

Late last season on Masters of Sex, Virginia's ex-husband George showed up looking to alter their custody arrangement much to her chagrin. I actually thought he had a good case because at that point I had completely forgotten she had children, they were MIA for most of the season and the only time I even remember them being mentioned was when Libby wanted to piggyback Virginia's babysitter to spend more time with her nanny's brother. It seems like there will not be a lack of Johnson children this season because they have enough of a storyline this year to warrant a title card at the end of each episode (or the very least the first two) letting us know that though the sex study is based on their real research, the children on the show are completely fictitious.

When the Johnson children did pop up at the end of last season during the custody battles I was a bit surprised that with all the time jumping that happen last season (five years had passed since the series started) the kids were played by the same actors that played them in the first season despite the five years that had passed in the time. Since another four year has passed since the end of last they have finally recast the kids to more age appropriate actor. Henry is now seventeen and looking like Steve Rogers before he got his Captain America super powers. While fifteen year old Tessa is now being played by Isabelle Fuhrman (the creepy girl from Orphan who did such a great job in an otherwise mediocre film that I had to go straight to her Wikipedia page to see if she really was a forty year old like her character or an actual teenager like she looked). Focusing more on teenagers has always been a drag on otherwise great television shows, but the best part of the early season is when Ginny suggests Dr. Masters, who has spent his life studying the subject, give Tessa the birds and the bees speech.

This comes when the Johnsons and Masters (who have added a third child since the last episode) descend on a cabin for vacation on the even of their book finally being publish. When we last left Libby she was finally admit her husband was having an affair and it seems like everyone now know this but never speak of it which leads to a bunch of awkward conversations even before the subject of birds and bees is brought up. The end of the premiere bring a bombshell that will shake up the new season which will result in the addition of Maggie Grace as fellow doctor (yes, the token hot chick from Lost will be playing an MD) who assists Dr. Masters when a very important person is in need of Masters's expertise.

Over two season, Masters of Sex has established itself as one of television's best, combining drama and sexual education with a wry sense of humor (thankfully Betty and Lester still working at the clinic) and it only continues to get better in its third season. And it may end up being the first great television show that can make kids of the characters entertaining.

Masters of Sex airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime. You can download previous season of Masters of Sex on iTunes.

Previewing Ray Donovan: Season Three

For seven years fans of Justified were hoping that Raylan Givens would run into his alter ego's nemesis Al Swearengen. Unfortunately all we got instead was a dreadful Michael Rappaport season. We may have never gotten the Deadwood reunion we wanted on Justified but we will be getting one on Ray Donovan with Ian McShane showing up on his favorite prostitute's show. He plays a very powerful (and kind of shady) billionaire in need of Ray's by any means necessary approach when his son is held for ransom. That one favor turns into two and when Ray needs a favor, McShane then completely owns Rays (but it is a really big favor).

I had some big problems with the first season of Ray Donovan. It really epitomized what I considered the post-golden age era television is currently in: the acting is ghe writing is good, but something is just missing, and in this case, the show just was not entertaining. The show did improve in its sophomore outing as it found its humor; the Conner birthday was a highlight of last season. Yeah it did still have some rough spots; Bunchy was still a useless character (well so are the kids, but that was the case even during the Golden Age). The show also would have been better off had they just killed off Micky at the end of the first season instead of Sully. But Wendell Pierce was a great addition as Micky's parole officer.

Unfortunately we may not be see much of Pierce this season as apparently his parole expired in between seasons (he does show up in the third episode) and Micky has moved on to babysitting a five year old girl (seriously). Instead we get a recurring Katie Holmes as McShane's sports agents daughter which disappointingly brings Ray back to his first season self where Ray finds himself bailing athletes out of sticky situations that the lower half of their bodies get them into. And it does not happen early in the run, but it seems safe to assume Ray will forcibly have sex with her at some time and will disturbingly like it.

Much like Ray himself, the show is seriously flawed but is working hard at what he does. It is not clear if the third season is where the show can finally turn a corner but at the very least, it will be nice have l Swearengen back on a channel where he can say his favorite word (which sadly, I doubt will chance, a lot has changed in the decade since Deadwood) but it will be interesting if the writers can figure out a reunion with Trixie. But at the very least the second episode is worth checking out just to hear Terry's (who is absent in the season premiere) cellmate sing his favorite Huey Lewis and the News song.

Ray Donovan airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime. You can also download previous seasons of Ray Donovan on iTunes.

Previewing Destination Wild

In a measure of full disclousure I should mention that I have never actually played Angry Birds. I think I got the Star Wars edition when some site offered it for free but never got around to tranfering it to a mobile devise let alone play it yet. But I understand that the mobile game is a cultural phenomanon. It is even getting its own tie in special on Nat Geo Wild this Sunday with the appropriately titled Real Angry Bird. And these birds more than live up to their title with the birds going wild on other animals and even some bird on bird action like one species who go one on one with what look like a female cheering them on like someone is filming a white trash family reunion. And in a rarity on these animal specials, us human beings get featured as a target o some aerial assults.

Real Angry Birds is part of a twelve week Destination Wild branded events all starting Sundays at 9:00. Here is a full down of what is airing this summer:

Real Angry Birds
Premieres Sunday, July 12, 9/8c
“Angry Birds” is an addictive game, but are there real angry birds out there? What happens when they stop being polite and start getting mad? For the aviary set, every day is a battle to survive, find food and shelter, and stay out of harm’s way. Tune in for a bird’s-eye view of our feathered friends’ fights, singing battles and dance-offs.

The Eagles
Premieres Sunday, July 12, 10/9c
Eagles are top predators that battle fiercely for survival and diligently raise their young. This eagle clan has 60 members, united by their acute eyesight, powerful wings, sharp talons and hooked beaks. We follow one eagle from hatchling to home ownership. Her fight to survive shows what it takes to be queen of the sky. In the words of another reality diva: “It’s Gone With the Wind fabulous.”

Brazil
Premieres Sunday, July 19, 9/8c (two hours)
From the rolling mountains and luscious rain forests to the scorching desert and the iconic Amazon River, meet the extreme wildlife of Brazil. And we’re not talking about an episode of “Botched.” We’re talking giant anteaters, venomous snakes, capuchin monkeys, dolphins, boa constrictors and many more.

Clever Monkeys
Premieres Sunday, July 26, 10/9c
Narrated by natural history legend David Attenborough, Clever Monkeys opens our eyes to a world filled with intelligence, love, sadness, empathy, language, lying, social manipulation, stress and humor more touching than anything you might see on Bravo! Scientists around the world are listening to monkey calls and finding language with grammar. They have even discovered lying monkeys. Some monkeys suffer from depression, high blood pressure, ulcers and stress. Come along to a monkey world that looks strikingly similar to ours.

Kings of Baja
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 2, 10/9c
There are few places on Earth more forbidding and beautiful than Baja, Mexico. That said, Laguna Beach came close in its reality heyday. Eight hundred miles long and 10 million years in the making, Baja is home to a punishing desert and the most diverse sea on the planet. Kings of Baja showcases the unique evolutionary adaptations of the flora and mega fauna to survive in their slice of the ecosystem including sea lions, devil rays, great white sharks, hammerheads, giant mantas, whale sharks and gray whales.

Fur Seal Battleground
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 9, 9/8c
If you’re looking for the ultimate survival reality show, you won’t want to miss the adventures of Ruby and Oliver, two New Zealand fur seal pups struggling to learn the secret to staying alive. From the very start, they must stay out of the way of testosterone-charged bulls so they aren’t trampled to death. Every few days the pups are left to themselves while their mothers go off to feed. Only half of all fur seal pups survive the first year of life, so these pups must learn fast if they want to beat the odds.

Lemur Island
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 9, 10/9c
Millions of years ago, hundreds of castaway creatures crash-landed on Madagascar’s rugged shores. Isolated from the mainland, evolution went into overdrive. Of the tens of thousands of species found on the island, approximately 80 percent are unique. This myriad of bizarre life forms had a huge impact on the early human settlers — lemurs in particular shaped their culture, fueling folklore and legend that still guide their lives today. Legend has it that early reality sensation Puck is descended from a lemur.

The Kangaroo King
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 16, 10/9c
The scorching interior of the world’s oldest continent is home to the toughest kangaroo on the planet, the mighty Red. You won’t want to miss extremely rare footage of a red kangaroo birth and specialized in-pouch cameras that capture an intimate portrait of Red’s development. We are also introduced to the kangaroo’s formidable neighbors through close encounters with wedge-tailed eagles, dingoes, venomous snakes and giant monitor lizards. This is a story of survival against the odds and what it takes to endure drought, heat wave and bushfire.

Alpine Underworld
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 23, 8/7c
The Alps’ lofty mountain world is a holiday destination from January to December, but there is an unknown side to the picturesque vacation spot. Using the latest technology, our cameras summit lofty peaks and dive into ice-cold lakes to reveal zones of life and death. We’re talking real-world Life Below Zero here. The lakes’ abyss includes ghostly shipwrecks complete with ghastly residents, medieval trees felled by too much snow and fascinating sea life. High up on the mountaintops we meet the animals that breathe this rare air including lynx, the poisonous asp viper and the stone eagle. This alpine tour brings an entirely new perspective to one of Europe’s most fascinating landscapes.

Wild Spain
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 23, 9/8c
Arab emirs called it the Great River; today it is called the Guadalquivir and it flows for 400 miles from the Carzola mountain range in Spain to the Atlantic Ocean. Together with a lone fox, we embark on the ultimate reality road trip along the banks of the Guadalquivir, from the snow-covered summits to the seashore, enjoying the greatest biodiversity in Europe. The fox’s goal is safer ground, and on his way he meets a motley crew of animals including an Iberian lynx, golden eagle, spider crab, dragonflies and sturgeon. This spectacular variety of landscapes and fauna is a must-see.

Elephant Queen
Premieres Sunday, Aug. 30, 9/8c
After the tragic death of her daughter, the herd matriarch must lead her elephants to safety. This epic journey will take them across an arid desert, past mud swamps, a valley of dust storms and beyond the lion gatekeepers of a forbidden kingdom, into the herds’ ancient feeding grounds in the Okavango Delta. The route they will follow is an ancient one, etched in elephant memory that stitches waterhole to waterhole in an invisible map across the dry lands. However, if Mensah loses her way, her herd could all die of thirst, or worse.

Boteti
Premieres Sunday, Sept. 6, 10/9c
Twenty years of drought has turned the Boteti River into Botswana dust. The animals that live here endure hardship to stay alive and must adapt their behavior to survive. Herds of zebra fight over water, crocodiles dig tunnels to stay cool and elephants practice water conservation. Now for the first time in 30 years, rain has fallen, sending a stream of water through the riverbed. After years of extreme drought, the Boteti has returned in all its glory, transforming the landscape and bringing dramatic changes to the resident animals. It’s like when the contestants on “Survivor” get a food reward — buckle up for a wild ride.

DISNEYNATURE: WINGS OF LIFE Narrated by Meryl Streep (NETWORK TELEVISION PREMIERE)
Premieres Sunday, September Sept. 13, 8/7c (90 minutes)
WINGS OF LIFE is a stunning adventure full of intrigue, drama and mesmerizing beauty. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep, this intimate and unprecedented look at butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, bats and flowers is a celebration of life, as a third of the world’s food supply depends on these incredible — and increasingly threatened — creatures.

Behind Russia’s Frozen Curtain
Premieres Sunday, Sept. 20, 9/8c
Explore the stark landscape, frigid sea and wild animals in Franz Josef Land, one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth. National Geographic Pristine Seas Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala leads a group of scientists and adventurers on the first international scientific expedition to Franz Josef Land. His team will work with some of Russia’s most formidable biologists, geomorphologists and ornithologists to see how climate change is affecting this untouched world. Behind Russia’s Frozen Curtain is also featured in Sala’s new book, “Pristine Seas: Journeys to the Ocean’s Last Wild Places,” on sale Sept. 22.

Land of 10,000 Grizzlies
Premieres Sunday, Sept. 27, 8/7c
Russia’s Far East is a wild and isolated realm that was closed to outsiders by the Soviet military for most of the past hundred years, but wildlife was left to flourish. Compelled by the instinct to reproduce, millions of salmon journey to Russia’s remote Kamchatka Peninsula every summer, drawing some 10,000 grizzly bears to its shores. Talk about an “Amazing Race.” Journey with us to this harsh and beautiful terrain to find Northern fur seals, the artic fox and Steller’s sea eagle.

Previewing Falling Skies: The Final Season

Last week The Last Ship premiered with a two hour premiere pushing the new season of Falling Skies to tonight. I found this odd considering it seemed like every other season premiere for Falling Skies itself opened up with back to back episodes and it is weir that it would stop that streak for its final season. I guess the TNT action baton has been passed early.

The penultimate season of Falling Skies ended with a bang as Tom destroyed the alien power source on the moon with the help of his two year old Khalissi like daughter who sacrificed herself to save her father. Expect his Beamer was sent into space without any power. The new season starts up with a dream sequence ... or something like it with Tom's dead wife giving him a pep talk. It is unclear what is going on or how he gets back on Earth but it is clear that these "dreams" will have a big bearing on the new season.

Once reunited with the 2nd Mass, Tom uses these dreams to wipe out the remains of the Espheni fighting force left on the planet including wild roaming Skidder no longer linked to the Overlords. And what would a new season would be without a new alien creature harassing them and this season introduces a new mutated wasp which only becomes more creepy when they get it under a microscope. Though it it remains unclear in the early episodes who created them or what they were created for. My money would be whoever saved Tom.

Falling Skies airs Sundays at 10:00 on TNT. You can download Falling Skies on iTunes.

Previewing Anne Frank's Holocaust and Brazil

It is depressing to think the last time most people thought about Anne Frank was during the silly debate over whether she would have been a fan of Justin Bieber. I really hate society sometime. Now we have all had to read The Diary of Anne Frank at some point in our lives but what it is easy to overlook was that there was more to Anne Frank after she was separated from her diary. Anne Frank's Holocaust retraces Frank's steps after being found in her father's annex August 4, 1944.

We are maybe a decade or so away from having any more first person accounts of World War II and the new special manages to find two childhood friends of Anne Frank in the Netherlands who would again cross paths at a concentration camp just months before the end of the war. They provide rarely seen photographs and provide a more vivid insight of Frank's early life and that spent in the concentration camps.

Anne Frank's Holocaust premieres tonight at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel.


If the Holocaust is too dark for you, National Geographic Channel's sister station Nat Geo Wild is premiering a new mini series also airing tonight for three straight hours. Brazil is having a moment in the sports world now, hosting the World Cup last year and the Olympic next year. The mini-series Brazil takes you out of the cities away from the people going deep into the many jungles rain forests in the nation. Where here in North America we had cold and warm seasons, in Brazil they have wet and dry season where different species thrive and have to survive in the other which is not as easy as hibernating like our local animals. Most fascinating of which are the fish the have to "jump" back to the rivers during the dry season when their habitat dries up.

Brazil premieres tonight at 8:00 on Nat Geo Wild.

Previewing Proof and Rizzoli and Isles: Season Six

The truth is out there. But what if the truth was not the existence of aliens but the proof of an afterlife. And Scully was a practicing medical doctor who, like every doctor in the post-House world, would be considered a horrible person if it were not for the whole saving lives thing. And Mulder was some rich amalgamation of of Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. Except he is too rich go out into the field and send an underling as a proxy so he is more like the Skinner and, um... okay, my The X-Files comparison to the new TNT drama Proof is starting to break down.

Proof stars Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) as the Sully stand in who is propositioned by Matthew Modine (Jobs) to determine what happens after we die after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and cannot wait a couple months to learn what happens first hand. And they say money is wasted on the rich. Beals is chosen because her scientific mind and her own near death experience (she is a horrible person but she will go to Haiti after the Earthquake or almost drown why aiding tsunami victims).

If there is a Smoking Man of the series it is Callum Blue (Dead Like Me), a supposed physic medium and best selling author. He is probably the most interesting character on the show. Either him or Beals daughter who has taken to pushing mean girls into lockers to cope with her dead brother and pending divorce (he is not so coincidentally works at the same hospital as Beals) and reminds me as a more dramatic version of Jane Levy on Suburgatory who herself was just Emma Stone adjacent.

So the series features Beals and her team (Modine's underling and an African intern played by Justified's Jean Baptiste) go on the look for X-Files type cases dealing with death including a girl who died and came back to life with drawings of dead relatives she had never met, a jealous ex-wife, and an Iraqi War vet who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder... from a past life who participated in the Korean War. Proof feels like an X-Files episode that is being stretched into a full full season and makes the mistake many professional dramas do these days and thinks we actually want to see what goes on when they go home (dear television writers: we don't) which would be an alright concept if the X Files was not returning this winter. And if I am only going to watch one second rate X-Files this year, it is going to be the reboot.

Proof airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on TNT.


It seems odd that Rizzoli and Isles would start off their new season with an officer involved shooting, in a subway platform of all places, considering what has been going on in the real world over the last couple month. But at least the suspect is white (and since it was done by one of the main castmembers probably actually justified even if the perp's gun disappears after the shooting). On a lighter note, Dr. Isles is getting a new assistant medical examiner who may be as eccentric as Maura. There is an even lighter note next week when Boston's finest investigate a murder at a bass fishing tournament which also features a new suitor for Jane.

Rizzoli and Isles airs Tuesdays at 9:00 on TNT.

Previewing Clipped

We are living in the age of the comeback, groups ranging from Jodeci to the Afghan Whigs have come back after a decade long hiatus. Those the musical landscape is littered with comebacks, actors never really have comebacks because with the advent of cable and now the internet, there are countless hours to be filled. So actor never really go away, they are just relegated to channels you did not even now where on your cable package. Seriously, turn on the Hallmark or its Movie channel, you will undoubtedly see an actor you have not seen in five to ten years that you forgot you liked in a movie you will not be able to watch for more than five minutes (oh hey there Lyla Garrity and Earl Hickey).

So you may not have seen George Wendt since Cheers went off the air, but don't call Clipped his comeback, George's been here for year. Okay, Norm on a TBS show is not like Al Bundy on Modern Family but it is a step up from the ABC Family Christmas movies he has been in lately. And sure Al Bundy may be on a show that has won five straight Best Comedy Emmy's, but Norm is on a show where he makes out with Carl Winslow. Seriously.

Yeah The Big Bang Theory and the previously mentioned Modern Family are doing fine, but television comedies audience are becoming more and more fractured with niche type rating. I think it has been five years since an NBC comedy has gotten more than two season and shows airing after The Big Bang Theory and The Voice, the two highest rates shows on television routinely get axed because of pitiful retention rates. As we move into the nicheification of comedy, TBS has weirdly gone into a retro direction green lighting laugh-track heavy show multi-camera shows that feel like their are from the eighties even though none of these shows get more than three seasons (there only interesting programs are when they play with the format like with Glory Daze but that only got one season and King of the Nerds).

Clipped is another workplace comedy taking place at a barber chop populated by six high school friends (and Wendt) in Boston complete with poor Masshole accents. Thankfully Ashley Tisdale (Scary Movie 5) does not even try. Tensions start off the first episode when the owner decides he has to fire someone because of Obamacare premiums and makes his employees decide which one gets the boot. Though it was unclear how up to this point he was able to employ five barbers and an receptions to work at the same time in a shady part of Boston. The plot plays out exactly how you would expect.

Worst of all is the characters are all kind of boring. Two of the character's main attribute is they are hot (and of course they are destined to be together though things will keep them apart for a season or two). There is the necrotic one but he is not necrotic enough t. The overly bubbly receptionist. The douchebag boss. The only interesting character is the Jewish black girl ("Dr. Dreidel" is the funniest joke in the Pilot, possibly the only funny joke). Like TBS's previous sitcoms, Clipped my get a second season, but I would be surprised if it gets to a third.

Clipped airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on TBS. You can download the first episode of Clipped for free on iTunes.

Pilot - Clipped

Previewing Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos

Pink flamingos are always the highlight of any of the nature shows that populate the weekly specials that have popped up on the television over the the past decade so it is not surprising that DisneyNature would give them their own film (spoiler alert: it turns out they are not pink by birth but their pink cue comes from staining their feathers). Tonight is the premiere of The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos at 8:00 on Nat Geo Wild. The documentary give you the lifespan of the bird, from the courtship to the laying of the egg, to learning to fly and the hazards a young flamingo has to get through to make it to adulthood. A warning to those with small children, there are graphic death scenes. But for those with children already familiar with the circle of life, Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos makes for a great family movie. Check out the trailer from the teatrical relerase of the film below:

Previewing Murder in the First: Season Two and Major Crimes: Season Four

I like a good murder mystery, I even enjoy bad ones too, hey I made it through two seasons of The Killing (but I stopped after I learned who killed Rosie Larsen, I am not a sadomasochist). The first season of Murder in the First was alight, when the detectives went home to their families (or lack there of in one case) was a bit of a drag but we did get a conclusion that satisfying for the most part. I did not give much thought of it after the finale and to honest was a bit surprised there is a second season.

But hey, the new season features the addition of Emmanuelle Chriqui (You Don't Mess with the Zohan) so it has to be on an upswing on that bit of casting alone. Sure he plays a member of the Gang Task Force but she does not even crack the top ten list of least believable law enforcement agents in the history of television. The new season also features of shift in storytelling. Gone is the murder mystery (at least for now) and instead of one case, the log lines promises "a series of crimes" that will take the time of the San Francisco Police Department.

Sure we have all seen our fair share of fictitious school shooting that have police and high school dramas since Columbine, but the season starts off with a slightly new take with two kids taking out their classmate on a school bus before escaping on the streets of the city with a few smoke bombs that will instantly make anyone who has picked up a controller of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Though the theme is familiar, the season premiere is very gripping, tense, and a better hour than any of the first season episodes. You may think it cannot possibly take too long to hunt down a pair of teenagers, you would be right, that case seems to be closed by the time I watched all the episodes TNT sent over. It is unclear where they will go next, but a couple time over the first two episodes the department talked about an undercover officer who has gone missing while ingratiating a prostitution ring.

Murder in the First airs Mondays at 10:00 on TNT.


Prior to the new season of Murder in the First is the fourth season of Major Crimes. The new season starts off as it usually does, Lt. Provenza is being grumpy and looking a way to dump their current case on another department because he does not think it is a "major crime." It almost works this time until someone come out crying from a neighboring house with what he has to admit actually is a major crime. The neighbor's mother has been murder which may be linked to a rash of break-ins around town.

Also this season, the team will be investigating a case involving a dead body left in the trunk of a car that is wrecked during a high-speed chase and a gangland shooting case involving an 11-year-old witness. During his first drive-along as a Reserve Officer, Buzz Watson will be dragged into the latest Flynn and Provenza investigative debacle after a dead body in a bathtub threatens an extremely expensive wedding. And Sanchez will return to the Major Crimes unit, but struggle to rebuild relationships and trust with his fellow officers. Back at home, Sharon Raydor’s newly adopted son, Rusty, will discover a passion for journalism that tests his mother’s patience, and could threaten the prosecution of a confessed murderer.

Major Crimes airs Mondays at 9:00 on TNT.