Previewing Casual: Season Two

The first season of Casual ended in maybe the most casual way, with someone walking in on the girl who he is seeing (who has another serious boyfriend in their open relationship) in bed with his sister. The same sister whose one night stand the guy participated in a foursome with and the girl in the open relationship. Well that was the start of the finale, the season ended just like it began, with the guy, the sister, her daughter in the back of a church. But instead of an imaginary funeral of their father, it is his real wedding to their mother.

The first season of Casual was about dating at different stages of life. Valerie was a recent divorcée dealing with the grief of that ending and trying to find something new, usually disastrously (like ending up in your brother’s bed with his girlfriend). Alex has never had a serious relationship but your aimless twenties start to get old when you are well into your thirties. Then there is Valerie’s daughter Laura who is navigation high school while possibly making the worse decision of the all by making a sex tape in hopes of making her photography teacher jealous.

As the second season start, the family is still together in the same house but there are plenty of changes. Alex has moved into Phase 3 of his life which apparently involves running at dawn, fresh fruit drinks, and yoga. And he is not even picking up chick at yoga either. Laura cannot go back to her old school after a sex scandal and her mother sleeping with photographer teacher. While Vanessa, well, he is dealing with birds and construction in a neighboring office.

There are big changes in the personal lives as well as professional. After what happened last season, Alex’s dating app need help to stay afloat. In walked the very person you do not want see walk into your office: Pete Campbell. Even worse, no one punches him in the first couple episode, granted we had to wait four or five seasons before Lane did something every viewer wanted to see. Disappointment of not seeing Pete Campbell getting decked by a British dude aside (c’mon Leon, you can do it), if you enjoyed the first season, there is plenty in the second to renew your Hulu subscription.

New episodes of Casual premiere Tuesdays on Hulu where the first two episodes of season two (and the entire first season) are available now.

Previewing Angie Tribeca: Season Two

Networks are getting creative with how the roll out new shows these days but none were are bizarre as how TBS debuted Angie Tribeca with a twenty-five hour commercial free marathon and then if you missed it, you could watch all episode via On Demand or if you only watch shows on weekly televised schedules, the season re-aired Mondays. Oh, and before it aired, TBS renewed it for ten more seasons. Okay each season would last one episode so basically it was just like greenlighting a ten episode second season because dumb jokes is what the show does best.

Because of its unconventional rollout it is hard to tell if it was a success or not. The TBS PR department has spun it into one touting 65 million social media impressions and 32% of all binge a thon viewers being first time TBS viewers. We will see how many turn into regular viewers when Angie Tribeca has a more traditional second season. The second season starts Monday with new episodes weekly. Okay to ween you in, the first week there is back to back episodes.

The first season ended on a cliffhanger with a bomb strapped to J. Geils’ chest and Angie refusing to leave his side while it counted down to zero. We do learn the fate of the two cops early on before we flashfoward one year later. Despite the possible gme changing episode and the time jump, the show continues with it dumb fun vibe leave no joke unmade. There are actually a couple changes. Unfortunately the screaming guy coming out of the title sequence is no more (c’mon, South Park made it about ten seasons before running out of ways to kill Kenny, you cannot go more than one; but alas).

The bigger change is there is an actual overarching plotline that weaves throughout the season involving a plot to bring down the mayor that brings in the FBI in the form of Heather Graham (playing Diane Duran, natch) and a not so dead guest from the first season. But there still are plenty of silly case of the week plots including a sushi chef murder which features a creative use of sub-titles, an spin on the ever increasing number of drug advertisements, and a dead boy bander that features actual former boy banders (surprisingly Joey Fatone does not play “the fat one”), and the conclusion of the season long plot is successfully enjoyable and slightly confusion in the most Angie Tribeca way possible at the same time (although they leave a very obvious Scooby Doo joke left unsaid; maybe the one missed joke the show has not made ever). Graham is not the only notable face; Maya Rudolph show up as a romance novelist brought in to help on a cast lampooning all the cop shows with wacky consultants (R.I.P. Castle), Dani Pudi as a app developer for cheaters, an ER reunion during the organ theft episode, and many blink and you will miss them cameos. But sorry, no Bill Murray this season, but if you enjoyed the first season, there is plenty to enjoy in season two. Or technically seasons two through eleven.

Angie Tribeca airs Mondays at 9:00 on TBS.

Previewing Penny Dreadful: Season Three

At the end of the last season of Penny Dreadful, everyone seemed to be leaving Vanessa, Ethan turned himself in to the American lawmen who hunted him for the past two seasons, Sir Malcolm went back to Africa, even the Creature even boarded a ship to an undisclosed location. The only people left in London with here were Ferdinand and Dr. Frankenstein who experienced his own abandonment when Lily chose the company of Dorian Gray over his.

So it is Ferdinand who visits Vanessa at the start of the season while she is living in squalor who shakes off her cobwebs and sends her to a doctor specializing in alienism (the study of mental illness) played by Patti Lupone, just not as the same character she played last season on account that she got tarred and feathered. Across the globe we meet up with Ethan on a train in the New Mexico territory along with his captor and other familiar face. The Creature finds himself at the start of the season on the same boat but is now frozen still in the arctic.

Sir Malcolm meanwhile is in Zanzibar runs into an Indian who has a connection with Ethan. Dr. Frankenstein is also visited by an Indian but this one is from the Asian subcontinent not North American and has a name that everyone will know. Victor’s visitor is not the only new familiar Victorian literary name we hear except the second one we hear is the last word we hear in the season premiere and do not actually get to see the person who introduces himself to a new acquaintance of Vanessa.

The start of the new season is a bit of a slow burn with the main characters spread across three continents and one undisclosed arctic climate, and only two actually interacting with each other (Dorian and Lily are completely absent aside from a couple glimpses in the “previous on” package). But with the introduction of the two new Victorian characters and Lupone’s new creation, the new season looks to shake things up as Penny Dreadful looks to claim the title as best horror show on television.

Penny Dreadful airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime. If you can not wait for the premiere you can watch it below (albeit the TV14 version):

Previewing Jack of the Red Hearts

Lifetime has gotten a much deserved reputation for cheesy, ripped from the headlines movies where you laugh along with the movie. But recently has been buying movies to air (and maybe more importantly to add to their new subscription Lifetime Movie Club) that are actually making the rounds at movie festivals and are usually the types of movies that end up on one of the premium channels that do not even air in HD . Last year Stockholm, Pennsylvania, starring future Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, even nabbed a pair of Critics’ Choice TV Awards. Sure these movies still have very Lifetime Movies type themes, Stockholm, Pennsylvania was about a kidnapped child reuniting with a her family seventeen years later, they just do not have the cheesy connotation that made for Lifetime Movies tend to have.

The latest Lifetime acquisition, Jack of the Red Hearts was named Bentonville's 2015 Grand Jury Film Festival Award Winner but still has a theme familiar to Lifetime viewers. AnnaSophia Robb (Soul Surfer) plays a girl who bounced around foster care, now eighteen has to find a way to stay connected to her sister who is still in the system. This means taking out her nose ring, cutting out the streaks in her hair and getting a job. But that is not easy for a juvenile delinquent so she assumes the identity of a care taker unaware it is taking care of an autistic eleven year old.

Though pretty paint by numbers once you know the concept, of course the fake caregiver learns as much from the autistic girl as she I supposed to teach, but the movie is still very heartwarming with even some lighter moments sprinkled throughout despite the heavy subject matter, which one character desires as being co-workers in a mental hospital. It helps that the performances are strong all around. Robb is more believeable as the tender caregiver than the street smart hoodlum but the move really belongs to Taylor Richardson as the autistic Glory and the decision to shoot some scenes through her eyes to give the audience a small sample of what it looks like to be an autistic child.

Jack of the Red Hearts premieres tonight at 8:00 on Lifetime.

Previewing Earth Day 2016

Earth Day is this weekend and Nat Geo Wild is celebrating with a bunch of new premieres. First up is Mission Critical: Orangutan on the Edge. My first takeaway from the special is that I apparently have been mispronouncing the name of the species my whole life. I have been pronouncing the last syllable “tang” as in the fake orange juice powder drink. But the orangutan photographer in the special pronounces it like the last syllable in “Benetton.” But even he might be wrong because the narrator pronounces it “tan” as in the color. Looking at how it is spelled, I am beginning to think the narrator may be the right person of the three of us.

Being an episode of Mission Critical, you can tell that the orangutan (whose direct translation in “person of the forest”) population is dwindling and this episode takes us to Borneo, one of only two places on the planet where orangutans are indigenous to (neighboring island Sumatra being the other). And like many endangered species stories in recent history, the orangutan’s home is being shrunk thanks to deforestation so farmers can grow crops. Most of the special follows a new mother, an orangutan that the photographer has been following since she was just a baby orangutan herself. Unfortunately as the story of the shrinking habitat is not sad enough, this particular story also has a heartbreaking ending.

Full Earth Day (Friday) Schedule at a Glance:
6:30/5:30c: Wild to Inspire *PREMIERE*
7/6c: Cougars Undercover
8/7c: Mission Critical: Leopards at the Door
9/8c: Mission Critical: Orangutan on the Edge *PREMIERE*
10/9c: War Elephants


Also premiering on Nat Geo Wild is a new season of Unlikely Animal Friends. On the premiere you will meet a tiger and lioness; a human and an elephant with an amputated leg; a goat / antelope type creature that bonds with a dog who takes care of abandoned offspring at the Cincinnati Zoo; a tree kangaroo and a human, a cat and a rabbit; and a cat and a pig. Also this season you will see a goat that’s best friends with a pig; a dog that loves riding on the back of a miniature horse; a woman who helped save an Alaskan bald eagle and found it a prosthetic beak; a playful ferret and dog; a former military working dog and his retired Marine; and a duck that’s bonded with two cats! These stories profile the most unique, most surprising, and most loving animal friendships. Two dogs that love a raccoon; a dedicated caretaker who outfitted a miniature horse with a prosthetic leg; a German shepherd that became the surrogate mom to a baby fox; a woman who bonded with a bat; a cat that nurses sick and injured cats and dogs; and a camel that buddied up with a golden retriever. The world’s smallest stallion and his best buddy, a dog; two rhinos that are guarded by a sheep; a duck that improved a boy’s health; a golden retriever/chow mix that was rescued from Hurricane Katrina and is now an animal shelter’s “nanny” to kittens; a pig and his pooch; and a goat that cheers up patients in care facilities. A “nanny cat” that comforts animals at an animal shelter; two pygmy goats and their friend the Chihuahua; a woman who nursed an injured raccoon back to health; a Rhodesian ridgeback that helps raise a cheetah; an emu that’s the “surrogate sibling” to a boy; and a dog and a bunny that are inseparable buddies. A dairy goat that nursed a motherless Clydesdale foal; a green-cheeked conure that’s best friends with a much larger dog; a woman and her mischievously fun donkey; a husky that raised a kitten; a woman who’s gone above and beyond for a disabled cat; and a border collie that’s bonded with a sheep.

Unlikely Animal Friends airs Saturdays at 8:00 on Nat Geo Wild.

Previewing Second Chance Chihuahua

After a successful inaugural Barkfest, Nat Geo Wild is having its second annual event dedicated to man’s best friend. One of the new specials airing this weekend is dedicated to the smallest of the species, Second Chance Chihuahua premiering Saturday at 9:00. The show follows Laura Dash and Jim Peterson (who claim to have gone on the first internet date back in 1996) who run Dolittle’s Ranch in Studio City, California where they have rescued over 2,000 Chihuahua over the past ten years. There moto is the four R’s, “Rescue, Remedy, Rest, and Rehome.” In the episode they add a bunch of new Chihuahua to their rescue list including one who was hit by a car and has been waiting surgery for two months since the shelter does not have the money to pay to fix the dog’s leg. There is another Chihuahua who was abandoned because of a skin condition and another is one found roaming the LA River. Then there is a pack living in an abandoned building that looks like something one of the Ghost Hunter type shows would investigate.

Barkfest starts Friday at 9:00 and runs all weekend. Other premieres include: World’s Funniest Dogs (Friday at 9:00): Whether it’s chewed up shoes, or an extremely excited dog that tackles you like a linebacker, these cute but mischievous dogs are making their owners ask, “Oh, what did you do this time?!” Welcome to World’s Funniest Dogs. This special features some of the most unbelievable videos of dogs doing hilarious mischief. We also meet the owners and dogs to see if these loving troublemakers are still up to no good, or if they’ve reformed their ways.

Who’s Your Doggie? (Friday at 10:00): Ever meet a dog and wonder what breed it is? Where it gets its looks or its non-stop energy? Every day dog owners across America speculate exactly what their mutts are made of. Who’s Your Doggie? finally has the answer. In this special we take six dogs and dig deep into their family roots. After owners explain their mutts’ curious behaviors and physical traits, we bring in a team of experts to do their own analysis. Then we settle the score… with a DNA test. Using one of the most reliable labs in the world, each breed is revealed – and the results will shock you. With an almost endless list of breed combinations, Who’s Your Doggie covers the big, the small, the cute, and the downright crazy.

How Dogs Got Their Shapes (Sunday at 9:00): Man’s best friend comes in many different shapes and sizes. From the three-pound Yorkie to the 200-pound Great Dane, from a wrinkled shar-pei to the super sleek greyhound, it’s hard to believe that these creatures are all the same species. How Dogs Got Their Shapes will look at dogs from their cute noses to their adorable paws, learning the amazing ways that different breeds’ shapes have changed over time. Not just for show, these specialized features help dogs work, hunt, swim, corral, protect, hear and track. In this special, we’ll use a mix of science, history, and surprising, weird facts to learn all about today’s modern dogs.

Previewing The Detour

For years I have been questioning networks for greenlighting dramas that sound like they would make a good movie but how are they going to stretch the premise across ten to twenty-two episodes. Pretty much every one of them did not make it past their original run of episodes. Now TBS is airing the first half hour comedy which makes me wonder, so where do they go after the first batch of episodes? Really, the best way to describe The Detour is to call it Vacation: The Television Show. And if the viewers are lucky, it will be much more the Chevy Chase version than the Ed Helms reboot (spoiler alert, thankfully it is closer to Chase than Helms).

The Detour was created by The Daily Show vets and married couple Jason Jones and Samantha Bee. Jones plays the father on the show but since Bee has her own weekly political show on the same network, Natalie Zea plays the mother figure. Samantha really drew the short straw in that relationship; at night she has to talk about whatever stupid thing Donald Trump said that week and during the day watch dailies of her husband fondling Raylan Givens’ absurdly attractive baby mama.

Along for the ride are twins played by surprisingly not horrible child actors. The male half is the kind of person who is super confident that they are the smartest person in the room but is extremely uninformed about basically everything (can we officially call this the Donald Trump Syndrome). The female twin is the closest thing this family has to a voice of reason as her mouth is almost constantly a gasped to the stupid things her brother said and just straight up bad parenting by her parental figures.

National Lampoon was able to create about ninety minutes of entertaining road trip shenanigans, which comes out to about four episodes of televised comedies these days without commercials. Add the sequel, that is eight episodes. The big question is can The Detour keep it up for ten episode and beyond as the show has already been picked up for a second season. There is a The Affair type plot twist at the end of the first episode. Spoiler Alert, it does not involve any of the characters having an affair. Actually there really is no reason to have a spoiler warning for the first episode because the Pilot has been on YouTube for a couple days now; I have even embedded it below. If you prefer to watch it on your big screen television (and do not have the YouTube app) it is also available On Demand.

So the big twist (again, scroll down to watch if you do not want to be spoiled first) sees Jones being grilled by the FBI at the end of the episode for an undisclosed reason sometime in the future; far enough for him to grow a pretty thick beard, maybe a month or two. But before that Jones needs to get his family from Syracuse to Fort Lauderdale for a family vacation / work retreat (or so his family thinks as he gets fired right before the trip). And as you can tell by the title of the show, there are plenty of unexpected stops along the way, no dead aunts or backwoods cousins (there is a trainwreck of a sister left behind in Syracuse to cat sit; though she ends up having more to do as the show progresses), but still plenty of new hijacks including poor hotel accommodation in Pennsylvania (you do not want to know what the idiot son thinks it is spelled if you are native of the state; granted if you are annoying enough to root for the Steelers or Phillies, you probably have already thought of the joke before), a drunk tank, a culturally insensitive dining establishment in the south, a Bed and Breakfast run by Dr. Harold Abbott (like you have never seen before, and kind of hope to never see again), and of course they arrive in Florida just to run into a massive traffic jam which gives the parent enough time to tell their children the very inappropriate story of how they met.

For a show that is kind of a rip off of a thirty year old movie which already had a horrible reboot last year, The Detour is surprisingly not horrible. Sure TBS’s previous new comedy Angie Tribeca was significantly funny and it probably would only be the fourth funniest family comedy if it aired on ABC. But I did laugh plenty of times throughout the first few episodes, and funnier than the much critically adored Modern Family, even if some of it was uncomfortable laughter; the high point, or low depending how you look at it, comes in the two episodes Dr. Abbott shows up in.

The Detour airs Mondays at 9:00 on TBS. You can go ahead and watch the premiere now commercial free below or download it for free on iTunes or steam it on Amazon Instant Video.

Previewing Dice

Andrew Dice Clay is the most sophomoric comedian of all time; seriously, there really is nothing more childish than dirty nursery rhymes. You would think that would be right up my lane since I was an actual sophomore right around the height of his popularity. But he was even too immature for me at the most immature point of my life. Honestly, the only thing Andrew Dice Clay has ever been a part of that I enjoyed was his act being sampled by EMF for Unbelievable.


But I have matured in my old age, so maybe Clay has to so I figured I would give his new show, the appropriately titled Dice, a try. The show is another in the growing line of fake sitcoms based on real people (but have any besides Curb Your Enthusiasm actually been successful; anyone remember the Paul Reiser Show). Dice is quick to point out in the show that he is not his act and does not refer to women as piglets in real life (insert your own Trump parallels theories here). The problem is that pushing sixty Dice on the show is exactly what you would expect him to act after twenty-five years of not evolving. Dice could very well have been called Jersey Shore: Geriatric Edition.

Sure the premiere starts off with him attending the gay wedding of his girlfriend’s brother, how progressive of him (though his defense of homosexuality is quit crass) but the episode quickly devolves into him trying to win money at a casino to give the couple as a wedding gift which ends up taking most of the half hour. How not very progressive of him.

I guess one of the biggest allure in these fake sitcoms about real people is when they get their famous friends involved. The first person who runs into Dice is Adrian Brody who recruits the comic to help him becoming more manly. And not even for a new movie, but for a one man play (apparently even Adrian Brody forgot Adrian Brody was in a Predators movie to remind him of when he last acted manly). And that is about it. Sure a later episode features Rita Rutner, Criss Angel, and Wayne Newton calling Dice “(expletive deleted) face but it really is not a good sign when Chriss Angel is the best part of your show. And poor Lorraine Bracco, she does not even get to play herself. But at least she gets to play a hotel owner, Michael Rapaport shows up as “Bobby the Mootch.”

But through the whole season, Dice is still up to his old stick, it may not be a nursery rhyme, but in the first episode he changes the words of, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” where he swaps out “horse” for something I am not comfortable with repeating. But then again, maybe Dice has grown up a little, instead of dirty nursery rhymes; he is now making dirty Shakespeare monologues. I guess that is progress.

Dice airs Sundays at 9:30 on Showtime. If you have Showtime On Demand or Showtime Anywhere, you can watch all six episode starting Sunday.

Previewing House of Lies: Season Five

Last season on House of Lies, Marty learned Jeanie sold him out and basically he was up front about firing her after he got Kaan and Associates up and running and she basically could not go anywhere else as most firms are not in the practice of hiring very pregnant women. Not surprisingly, by the time Marty reached his goal, he had a change of heart and decided not to can his baby mama. What was surprising was that Jeanie turned him down to accept a job in the cooperate drug world.

But hey, why hold a grudge when there is money to be made. Despite the vast amount of water flowing under that bridge, Kaan and Associates are now consulting for Jeanie’s new company. Despite the shared child, both have moved on personally. Jeanie is now dating someone at her boner pill job played by Ken Marino (yes, you get to see Veronica Mars have sex with Vinnie Van Lowe). While Marino may be as far as you can get from Marty, Marty on the other hand has replaced Jeanie with another hot blonde. Except this one is an Instagram personality who wears less clothing.

While professionally, Kaan and Associates is booming, which leads to the return of Skip Gallweather. If that name sound familiar, it was one of the names on the masthead that Marty and the pod worked at in the early season. Sure Marty sank that firm, but again, if there is money to be made, that bridge can be built pretty easily. But really, the main reason to watch the new season is to watch Jeanie rap with Larry Bird (the alien from The Neighbors, not the actual basketball legend) which may be the best scene in the history of the show.

House of Lies airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing America's Greatest Makers

Mark Burnett was the first to bring reality television to the American networks with Survivor and now has four successful reality shows on three networks and he is not resting on his laurels (his name is actually on twelve shows currently in production). This time he is partnering with TNT for his newest show America’s Greatest Makers. With a title like that you may think, well, that kind of sounds like one of his other shows Shark Tank, and you will be right. Actually it kind of combines the elements of two of his shows, Shark Tank and The Voice.

Much like Shark Tank, contestants are pitching products, but instead of hoping for seed money, they must get three of the four judges (sorry, no spinning chairs, just a yes or no via a tablet, but there are lights on the floor like The Voice) to advance them to the next round with the last team standing getting a million dollars to fund their product. Much like The Voice, there is a finite number of spots in round two, fifteen (so sorry anyone who pitches late, maybe you get a better spot next season; and TNT does run two ads about applying for a second season so they are feeling pretty confident).

The four judges that each pitcher has to impress include Carol Roth, an on air commentator on CNBC where she covers big and small business, the economy, current events, politics, and pop culture. Kevin Pereira who I guess is best known for being having Olivia Munn as a sidekick on Attack of the Show and now is the co-host of Hack My Live. Brian Krzanich is the CEO of Intel (the subtitle of America’s Greatest Makers is actually “An Intel Experience”). The fourth chair is going to be a revolving door of guest judges. First up is TNT basketball commentator Kenny Smith and will also include his colleague Shaquille O’Neal, founder of Arduino Massimo Banzi, The Big Bang Theory’ss Mayim Bialik, and host of Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe.

Sure The Voice annoyingly makes its show more and more about the coaches, but is the contestants that really make the show and without good products, there is no America’s Greatest Makers. One thing I noticed in the first hour (aside from a very The Voice like sequencing of exactly on failed contestant per hour and a group of montage victims who advance but get about five seconds of screen time) is all but one of six groups that pitch in the first episode involve apps (the sixth is a light up jacket). Of all the products pitched in the first episode the one that piqued my interest was the Slapband. You mind might vaguely think of those bracelets in the eighties that high school girls would obsessively slap on their writs before the fad went away a year later, that is exactly what these are except this will give you your blood pressure eliminating those annoying arm pump things we have to use now. And of course all the information these collect get collected on an app on your smartphone.

When it comes down to it, America’s Greatest Makers just takes Shark Tank and puts in the competition reality show format. The first two episodes are where the contestants give their opening pitches. Then there are five “Make or Break Round,” where one team in each episode advances to the finale. Then the eighth and final episode, the five finalists bring their refined devices to the panel one last time for the chance to win one million dollar and the title America’s Greatest Maker. So if you like Shark Tank but want to spend a little more time with the inventors, you will probably enjoy America’s Greatest Makers.

America’s Greatest Makers airs Tuesdays at 9:00 on TNT.

Previewing The Story of God with Morgan Freemaan

God bless Morgan Freeman, the guy may be well past retirement age but still has four movies slated for release this year not to mention his growing number of narrator jobs. For the past six years he has been the voice and face of Through the Wormhole and now he is adding another hosting job to his resume in another otherworldly subject matter, The Story of God, premiering tonight on the National Geographic Channel.

This time around, Freeman is actually going across the globe to see how people celebrated God throught the years, whatever they called the entity. Each episode of The Story of Godwill center on one big question about the divine, from the mystery of creation, to the true power of miracles, to the promise of resurrection. The first episode deals with the view of the afterlife which takes Freeman from the pyramids of Egypt, to Jerusalem, currently the crossroads of three religions, where Jesus is believed to die in a time when everyone was Jewish. He also travels from Mexico to view the Day of the Dead, combining Aztec and Catholicism beliefs, to India where the locals believe in reincarnation. The episode ends in what may be the future of the afterlife: implanting our memories into artificial intelligence so we can live forever.

Future episodes of The Story of God focus on Creation – Are there similarities among the religious creation stories from around the world? How do they compare with the scientific theory of the creation of the cosmos and the dawn of civilization?. Who Is God? – How has the perception of God evolved over human history? Is God just an idea, and if so, can we find evidence of a divine presence in our brains? Evil – What is the root of evil and how has our idea of it evolved over the millennia? Is the devil real? The birth of religion may be inextricably tied to the need to control evil. Miracles – Are miracles real? For many believers, miracles are the foundation of their faith. Others regard miracles as merely unlikely events on which our brains impose divine meaning. Belief in miracles, however we define them, could be what gives us hope and drives us to turn possibility into reality. And the End of Days – Violent upheaval and fiery judgment fill popular imagination, but was the lore of apocalypse born out of the strife that plagued the Middle East two millennia ago? The true religious meaning of the apocalypse may not be a global war, but an inner revelation.

The Story of God with Morgan Freeman airs Sundays at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel.

Previewing The Path

House of Cards was a game changer for streaming sites; it came out a swept most of the major television awards in its first year. Sure there have been shows made for the internet since high speed internet became widespread but before House of Cards they were called webseries that looked cheap and most were under ten minutes. But House of Cards was considered a television series that you did not need a television to watch and soon every streaming site were producing television quality series to get eyeballs to their site. Seriously, Playstation Plus has its own series. Sure, like every boon, there were some high profile bust; Yahoo! Screen who resurrected Community has already folded after a $42 million write down.

Hulu started out as a place to watch last night’s episode that you missed on three of the big four networks (CBS, the ratings leader at the time skipped the partnership because they were crushing everyone else but now has its own standalone streaming site with an internet exclusive Star Trek series coming later this year). They had some of the webseries quality type shows (The Hot Housewives series is fun but it certainly is not winning any awards) but finally started throwing some real money around last year with comedies like the Billy Eichner starring Difficult People and Casual from Oscar Best Director nominee Jason Reitman.

Hulu switches its attention to drama this year with more big names. First up was the J.J. Abrams and Stephen King produced and James Franco starring 11.22.63. Since I have been J.J. adverse since the end of Lost, I was much more interesting in their next big swing at drama The Path created by Jason Katims, executive producer of Friday Night Light and Parenthood, and starring two guys coming off high profile television gigs, Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Hugh Dancy (Hannibal).

I have long called Parenthood the blue state version of Friday Night Lights, if that is true, The Path may be the messed up version of Friday Night Lights. At the heart of all Katims show is family, Friday Night Lights had the Taylors, and in a macro sense Dillon football was a surrogate family. That is the case for The Path, here there is the Lane’s (Paul and Michelle Monahan, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) but their larger family is not football but a cult (though some would argue Texas football is very cult-like) which Dancy is running while the leader is off adding more rungs to their “ladder” which you will quickly equate to other real life cults.

The series starts off after a tornado hits New Hampshire and Dancy has come to help… and recruited and finds a lost soul and drug addict in Emma Greenwald (Mandy Milkovich number 2 on Shameless) whom he brings back to his New York compound. Early on we also meet Sarah Jones (Alcatraz) who is running from someone, exactly who you think, and by the end of the first episode runs into someone you do not expect. Rockmond Dunbar (Terriers) shows up in the second episode as an FBI agent suspicious of the group for descending on the area hit by the tornado. And since this is a Katims show, of course there is a Dillon alumni cameo, this time in the form of Lyla Garrity doing the hippy dancing (she does do more later in the season).

Netflix completely changed the way television is done, from season and episode lengths to even how the shows are consumed, just air dropping an entire season at once. Despite having the advantages of being a streaming site, Hulu wants to be an old school television network. I do appreciate they still release one episode a week (well they did released the first two episodes today, but presumable just one a week after that). It can be annoying asking people which episode of Daredevil they are before you can talk about it. But I wonder if The Path could have benefited from playing around with the format. It still feels like a Showtime show, well if Showtime had commercial breaks (of course you can pay a couple dollars extra for the ad-free version of Hulu). But really the first season of The Path seemed to go on too long with the middle episodes dragging a bit. It is really should have been a six or seven episode season that got stretched into ten because prestige cable shows run ten or twelve episode. And with those middling middle episode, the show may have been better off if you could binge watch it (of course if you wait nine weeks, you will be able to do that). Those minor gripes aside, The Path is the first show worth paying Hulu for.

The Path is currently available on Hulu with the first two episodes now and new episodes every Wednesday.

Previewing Separation Anxiety

When I saw TBS was doing a game show called Separation Anxiety I thought maybe they were getting into the weird, kind of evil Japanese game shows you come across on the internet every once and a while. Thankfully (or disappointingly depending how you look at it), the show is more in the American vein where there is a catch but it is not that evil at all, just slightly misleading, but for the better.

See the show tells a pair of friends or significant others they are going on an internet game show for a chance to win $2500 but they really are going on a basic cable show where they can win ten times that. The name of the show comes from separating the two players, taking on player to the set of the cheap internet game show while the other gets ushered to a bigger studio to find out what the real show they are on.

The second player also learn that they will be the one’s selecting the categories for their still in the dark partners who think the first question will only net them $10, not $1000. Separation Anxiety comes off as a cheaper version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as the questions get harder the more answers they get right, but if the miss a question, they get nothing. They can stop nd take the money at any time, but only the person that still thinks they are on an internet for chump change can stop (the other person if offered one to pull the plug but they will only get half the money they earned). But like Millionaire, there are two helps throughout the game, Crowd Source, where the host will ask five people in the crowd what they think the answer is, and Smart Phone where they can call their partner for help.

Also periodically through the game, there are Mind Meld mini games where the in the know contestant can bet on their partner on silly bets like one bro has to predict correctly if his buddy will talk to a ho model if left alone in a hall with her within thirty seconds. People who guess correctly will win a special prize that they can keep even if they end up losing the money.

A quiz show with only eight possible questions (of which an average of six got asked in the episodes I saw) is kind of small, but host of the real show Iliza Shlesinger (Last Comic Standing) keeps things lively especially when telling co-host Adam Ray (The Heat) what to do via an earpiece as he hosts the fake internet game show. It also helps when the contestants are game like the guy in the second episode who crows every time he locks in an answer. There is no roll over contestants like on Millionaire but the first couple questions are absurdly easy so no one should go out early especially with the two helps so no one should go out early.

Separation Anxiety airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on TBS.

Previewing Bates Motel: Season Four

The shortened seasons you see on cable make them better because it is much easier to fill ten hours with quality content than it is to do twenty-two over the course of a year. Of course the big drawback is that the breaks are much longer. On the network shows you only have wait three months after a season finale for a new one where you can conceive and deliver a child in between the seasons of some cable show.

It does not help that the season premiere of Bates Motel does not start off with a “previously on” segment (at least the version I saw; maybe they will whip one up for the broadcast version) so it took me a while to remember what was going on. The season starts off with Romero lugging a dead body on a boat and it took me a while to realize, oh yeah, he killed Ted Chough, or maybe it was Norma and he cover it up, I vaguely remember Norma going to an evil country club last season.

Then there is Norman talking to himself in the middle of nowhere which made me remember he ran away at the end of last season and, oh Norman, why did you have to kill the hot chick? Except it was not him, sort of, because he now has this split personality where he becomes an even more overprotective version on his mother. Alrighty. But that split personality does add to the show and adds a level of paranoia (granted not as good as the way Mr. Robot handles mental illness) as something happens at the end of the season premiere and I have absolutely sure if what I saw happened or not. All of this comes to a head at the end of the second episode of the season, though no answers are given yet.

Bates Motel airs Mondays at 9:00 on A&E. You can also download Bates Motel on iTunes.

Previewing He Named Me Malala

I knew who Malala Yousafzai was, the name has been floating around for a while popping up in my news feed and I would occasionally get bits and pieces of her life. I knew she was a Pakistani girl who the Talaban tried to kill when she spoke up for education rights for girls in her country and that she went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It is an important story but to be honest, basically only knew the Cliff Notes version of her story.

And the Cliff Notes version of her life story, but even if you just know the basics (which you should at the very least becaus eI just gave them to you) you should still check out the documentary on her, He Named Me Malala. You will learn just how important that name is and why it is important that young girls have access to an education even if militant Islamist are blowing up schools to make sure it oes not happen.

Not only do you meet Malala the activist, you also get to meet Malala the teenage girl who frets about a mediocre grade on her science test and giggles like a teen would when the interview asks if she like Roger Federer because of his tennis skill or because of his hair. He Named Malala is a powerful movie that should be required viewing for any parent with a daughter and every school age girl. And now you can watch it when it airs commercial free tomorrow on the National Geographic Channel. The documentary was directed by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman).

He Named Me Malana airs commercial free Monday at 8:00 on the National Geographic Channel.

Previewing Cesar 911: Season Three

"What is the deal with dogs and all their barking?" is disappointingly not something Jerry Seinfeld says when Cesar Millan shows up to help the comedian with his four legged friends. See his dog Foxy hates Jerry, something the beloved funnyman is not used to. And to show famous people are just like us, he makes the mistake to try to remedy the situation by giving Foxy a friend, but that made just more shy while the new dog loves barking at anyone who comes to the door. Of course famous people are not like us because where we have to go through lengthy casting sessions, Jerry can probably just call Cesar to come and help right away.

But Cesar is a man of the people so he does help plenty of us regular folk when the new season of Cesar 911 starts up. Also on the premiere tomorrow is Lucky who has become prone to attacking a very dog friendly dog condominium complex. Not only is Lucky not being invited to the Halloween dog parade, he is one dog bite away from the neighbors calling animal control. Lucky for Lucky, Cesar got called first.

Later this season, Cesar runs into maybe his most violent client yet, Simon, a bulldog/terrier mix who killed a pig and ripped off an ear of another that he lived with when the owner was away. Of course Cesar has pigs of his own at his center that he can help rehabilitate Simon from committing any more dog on pig violence. There will also be a Tibetan terrier who attacks dad while protecting mom, a pug that attacks the other five dogs in the family, and another animal killer, this time a goat killing rottweiler / German shepherd mix.

Cesar 911 airs Fridays at 9:00 on Nat Geo Wild. You can download Cesar 911 on iTunes.

Previewing Wild Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is one of those island countries you would see again and again in geography class but really do not much about other than it is just off the coast of India but is a separate entity. Get ready to learn more about its wildlife during a three hour special Wild Sri Lanka part of Nat Geo Wild'd Destination Wild series. The special takes you to the island that is about the size of West Virgina but more diverse as camera take you from the jungles to the oceans that features a place where whales get closest to land than anywhere else on Earth.

Later in Destination Wild series is Wild Japan, narrated by Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery. Then coming sometime during the third quater this year is The Wild Atlantic narrated by Cillian Murphy which will take you undersea volcanoes and the humpback whales 4,000 mile migration as well as Wild Indonesia that will take ou across the 17,000 islands that comprise the nation.

Wild Sri Lanka premieres tonight at 8:00 on Nat Geo Wild.

Previewing Brain Games: Season Seven

Brain Games is back with some new changes. First off it is on a new night, now airing on Sundays at 9:00. Aside from the new nigh we are getting more of it as it is expanding to an hour (well it did start out as an hour special before becoming a half hour series). Though expanded, the concept remains the same as the show takes you on an entertaining and interactive look at how our brain work.

The expanded episodes gives you a more in depth look at the subject of the episode but does not drag even with twice the content and you may not even notice the expanded episode. The season premiere sees host Jason Silva in London to where he takes us on a tour of the brain via the London map. Of course while there he tests the English people to usual games that you can play along with at home. Who do you think can do the best job at getting though a hedge maze: a maze loving child, a mathematics academic, or a cab driver?

The more interesting comes next week when Jason looks into how our thoughts on God effects the brain. The most interesting test comes early in the episode when Jason can get people to change their favorite color in exchange for fifty dollars. But how much money, if any can he give to people to simply just say God does not exist? He also tries to see if self proclaimed atheists and agnostics actually do believe in something other worldly.

Later in the season, Jason tests what it takes to become a super survivor. The seven deadly sins are up next and just how guilt plays into our bad behavior. Jason also will look how our brain changes as we get older. Then the season closes out with how we actually have more than just the five senses we learned about in grade school. Despite the expanded episodes, Brain Games remains a fascinating show which is equally entertaining as it is informative and a show that the whole family can enjoy, from grade schoolers to their grand parents, everyone will learn something new while having fun doing it. And for those that enjoy the show and would like to interact more with the show than the mini games they show during the episode, you can pick up the Brain Games: The Game home game.

Brain Games airs Sundays at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel. You can also download Brain Games on iTunes.

Previewing The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth

I was one of the few people over the summer who did not get too worried over the rise of Trump because I always assumed the people who supported him would not bother to show up when voting started and when the field narrow, someone else would emerge because Trump reached his ceiling in support. Now that we are just days before the first caucus, I am starting to worry. Not that I am beginning to think President Trump is a possibility, but the alternatives at the top of the pols are not much better. Seriously, the four people on top of the polls right now are a reality star, a socialist, a wife of an ex-president, and a Canadian; all of which would be pretty disastrous for this country.

Yet, no matter how depressing this election cycle gets, I still find myself flipping over to the twenty-four hour news channels for the latest poll numbers and candidate interviews. Showtime is getting into the political silly season with the premiere of The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth. It claims to be a real time documentary of this years political race (there is a time stamp of twenty-two days before the Iowa Caucasus in the first episode) so there is plenty of birther talk tonight. The show is produced in cooperation with Bloomberg Politic (of course it is hard not to remember the namesake of the company just tested the waters of a third party run recently) and featuring Bloomberg Politics managing editors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and noted campaign strategist and media advisor Mark McKinnon.

Tonight's episode focuses on the "three outsiders," Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump, in the race. Insteringly enough, the guy who seems to never turn down an interview invitation because he is always on television (despite claiming to hate the media), Trump does not get a sit down interview in the episode. There really in nothing much new in terms of the politics side, if you have been even mildly following the elections, you have heard every soundbite already. The only new I leaned is that Bernie plays monster with his grandchildren, a scene that will either humanize the socialist or scare people even more.

The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth airs Sundays at 8:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Billions

The first season of Homeland was one of the great season's in the history of television. Sure everyone knew it probably would have been better had they actually let Brody kill himself in the season finale, but it came back for the second season and continued to be great. Then about half way through the second season things started going downhill and the "they should have killed Brody long ago" chants started to get more fervent. Then the third season was dreadful and every time Brody showed up, you just could not help but wonder why is he still here. But at least he finally died at the end of that season.

So when Showtime announced Billions and Damien Lewis was listed in the cast you have to wonder why they were getting back into the Sergeant Brody business? Does he have pictures of Showtime executives? But anyway. On the show Lewis plays a hedge fund manager, but before you start thinking of The Wolf of Wall Street, he is is presented as a hedge fund manager with the heart of gold for giving out free tuition and is adored by the public since he was the lone partner of his firm not to die on 9/11.

Opposite him is Paul Giamatti (San Andreas) as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, basically the guy who prosecutes all the insider trading that happens on Wall Street (basically Eliot Sptizer but more powerful). Okay, this is a show on premium cable so these heroic personas are just for show, they are both mostly horrible people. Giamatti is the kind of guy who enjoys being burned by cigarette butts that are cooled down by, um, you do not want to know. But he is right to go after Brody because he has some ill gotten gain and says things like, "Why have (expletive deleted) you money if you never say (expletive deleted) you?"

And of course there is a twist: Giamatti's wife, Maggie Siff (Sons of Anarchy) just so happens to be the in house "performance coach" (a nicer way to say shrink) for Brody's Axe Capital, a job she had before she even met him and makes a sizable more than he does. So a guy who prosecutes inside traders really cannot give his wife a heads up he is building a case against her boss. On the flip side, Brody is married to Malin Akerman (Watchmen) who is just as conniving as her husband.

The biggest problem with Billions (once you get past Brody's inclusion in the cast) is I have little understanding what goes on with these hedge fund guys and Wall Street in general. I have seen multiple movies and read plenty of articles on it but still come away confused. And I think I am not the only one which is why these people were able to sink our economy because no one but these hedge fund guys knew what was going on. Apparently the new movie The Big Short recruits celebrities like Margo Robbie in a bubble bath, to help explain what went on. What Billions really needs is Margo Robbie in a bubble bath. Granted everything could benefit from Margo Robbie in a bubble bath.

Earlier I questioned why Showtime would want to get back in the Sergeant Brody business, but not only that why would they bring him back in the role that probably has just a shelf life of one season? Doesn't Brody have to go to jail in the season finale? I am not sure if many people want to see a cat and mouse game between a hedge fund manager and district attorney for multiple season. Sure season two could be the trial but we still need to get to the end of season one first.

Billions airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.