57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/18/13

Ray Donovan: That fake movie, Black Mass, was one of the funniest fake movies I have seen in a while. Someone needs to rush it into production. Get Robert Rodriguez on the phone. It is nice that Ray named his daughter after his dead sister, but it can get distracting on a shown when he starts talking about his sister and I spend a couple weird moments wondering why he is talking about his daughter like that.

Switched at Birth: I feel cheated that we did not get to witness Travis and MaryBeth’s first (or second or third) date. That had to be highly entertaining. Certainly more entertaining than Toby’s bachelor party at the free clinic.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Switched at Birth on iTunes.

Siberia: It is nice that they tried to explain why the cameramen would not just put the cameras down and start helping out. Of course if I were the cameraman tasked with following the group to the tower, I would have passed, or at the very least asked them to take turns filming stuff. Of course if this really was real, the battery would have died a long time ago without the ability to recharge at the base camp. I also had to laugh at how everyone was complaining about how hard it would reach the tower ten miles away. Colin Ferrell starred in a movie not too long ago about a group of prisoners who escaped a Siberian prison camp, in the dead of winter at that, and managed to walk all the way to Tibet and that was based on a real story. Okay, I think half the people ended up dying, but ten miles should not be that bad in the fall. Unless of course you come across ground zero of what may very well be nuclear testing.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Siberia on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: Just last week I rejoiced that Ezra’s baby mama was moving to Washington because there would be no way Ezra would not follow the child he just found out about. Fast forward to this week and Erza’s kid is not actually his kid. What!?! Which means he will probably go back to having sex with his student. Chris Hansen really needs to pay the writers room a visit.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Pretty Little Liars on iTunes.

The Bridge: A lot of back-story this week, we learned that Sonya’s sister’s murder was handed by her now boss (and she does not know… yet) and she still visits her sister’s murderer in prison even his diminutive mental state. While we also learned that Marco’s father had ties to Fasto’s father who started Fasto’s current business. So did Marco go into law enforcement to rebel against his father or to be a mole for the family business? And it did cross my mind that the two back stories could have intertwined somehow and maybe Sonya’s sister’s killer may have worked for Marco’s father and this whole mystery has been about Sonya and Marco this whole time.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Bridge on iTunes.

The Challenge: Rivals II: I have been watching the show live the last couple of weeks and the frequency of the commercial breaks is really distracting. It seemed like the girls half of the challenge had three breaks itself. It just ruins the flow to have an ad every four to five minutes. I really need to go back to watchjing the show OnDemand where I can fast forward through the commercials even if MTV does not offer HD on their OnDemand channel and I am stuck watching in standard definition.
You can download The Challenge: Rivals II on iTunes.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/11/13

Falling Skies: Did they not just kill Karen two episodes ago? Being a sci-fi show I would not be at all surprised if we see her again. Maybe the Karen we saw die was not the real Karen and she was just some sort of real life robot the aliens were able to produce just to mess with the humans. I do not remember if it was ever explained why she still worked with the aliens without the harness on. And I wonder if there will be any resentment from Hal that Maggie killed Karen. Hall did seem shocked by the action even though that was the humane thing to do and really if Hal should be mad at anyone over Karen’s death it should be at his father.

And as creepy as baby Lexi was, school-girl Lexi is even creepier. I thought it was callous of Tom to shot Karen without trying to barter a way to get the bugs out of her, but I turned out Tom has his own creepy witch doctor in the family. I wonder if she will be a gull teenager by the start of next season. It may only make it even more creepy.
You can download Falling Skies on iTunes.

Ray Donovan: One of my longstanding pet peeves on television are dream sequences and drug trips are a corollary to that, but really, even I cannot hate a drug trip that features a monkey. But I was a bid disappointed that the cop that pulled him over did not morph into The Terminator as he was talking to the agent. And I did complain at the start of the show that I feared it would devolve into cheesy fake celebrity problems that Ray would have to solve every week (which thankfully for the most part it has not) that NBA lottery plan was disturbingly brilliant.

Under the Dome: So at the center of the town (which for some reason is a secluded wooded area, not downtown like normal cities) is a mini dome which encases an egg. Alrighty.
You can stream Under The Dome exclusively on Amazon Instant Video, free for Prime members.

Siberia: It is a little bothersome that the show does not notice the little things. There was an actual scene where the one chick is hunting for deer with the cameraman walking right in front of her. Seriously. No cameraman on a real reality show would walk directly in front of someone with a bow cocked back. At least the show moved the plot forward with the disappearance of everyone on the crew, aside from the cameramen on duty. But then that begs the question, what happened to the faux lesbian who “left” earlier in the day. Did she really make it out just before everything went down, or was she just wondering around for the day? Granted it is highly suspicious that we did not get to see her leave, so I have a feeling she may have been captured by the creepy kids lurking around.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Siberia on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: It looks like I was right, that Mona would essentially plea insanity and find herself back at the mental institution. I wonder if they will heighten security this stay after she admitting to sneaking out multiple times during her last stint.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Pretty Little Liars on iTunes.

The Bridge: Wow, that discussion on serial killers was profound. Too bad I had to read it. And as much as I find that Sonia lives somewhere on the autism spectrum, that meal with the family was actually entertaining in its uncomfortableness. Poor Marco, you really cannot come up with a good example as to why your wallet falls out of your pants innocently. The best thing I could come up with would be to cut a hole in your back pocket and hope she buys it just happened to bust while at the home of another woman to have her sign documents.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Bridge on iTunes.

The Challenge: Rivals II: The biggest problem with shows like this is that voting is extremely predictable (Survivor tried to shake things up with the addition of the Hidden Immunity Idol, but it really has only affected the outcome of a Tribal Council three or four times; I am pretty sure more people have gone home with an Idol in their pocket then have been saved by one) so it is always entertaining when a vote goes disastrously bad like when Teresa “threw away” her vote on her hook up LeRoy only for half the people after her following her lead and also voting for LeRoy, sending him into The Jungle. Not that it ended up mattering because LeRoy was saved by an even more rare occurrence with a disqualification in an elimination round (the only other time I remember this happening was to CT who crushed someone as he usually does, only to be sent home on a technicality).
You can download The Challenge: Rivals II on iTunes.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 8/4/13

Falling Skies: So Tom was able to figure out who the mole is because someone said something similar to what he remember Lourdes said hours before but did not realize it did not make sense to him when she first said it? I hate when writers continually put these kinds of revelations into scripts. Way too cute, just have someone walk in on Lourdes trying to kill Cochise. The reveal would have been more satisfying and less absurd.
You can download Falling Skies on iTunes.

Ray Donovan: I wonder what exactly Ray’s wife thinks he does for a living. Is she just a she no evil her no evil, blind to the fact who just does not ask as long as there is food on the table. Or the kind that does know deep down, but will not say anything because she has grown accustomed to her lifestyle. Or does she really know, does not care, and is just mad that he may be cheating on her and that is the preverbal line.

Switched at Birth: ASL karaoke: who knew? And I am not sure if I should have laughed at all the cheesy ASL pick up lines that Travis was trying. It should be interesting to watch his date with MaryBeth which I have a feeling may devolve into the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Raj went on a date with the chick who plays Daphne with Howard as the interpreter.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Switched at Birth on iTunes.

Siberia: When the show first appeared I theorized that it would turn out to be a rip off of The Cabin In The Woods, and if that is the case, the Powers that Be sure pumped in the pheromones this episode because there were people hooking up all over the place. I also had to think of another horror movie, Evil Dead, when the Serbian dude found the book. I was screaming at the dude, you do open up creepy books that are hidden. But at least he did not try reading from it. Yet.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Siberia on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: Oh Mona, you sneaky devil. But did she fall on the sword to make it up to Hanna for all the A stuff, or does she have a devious master plan that she is not letting on. Either way, she probably could get off, she worked out the self defense claim with Hanna, and worse case scenario, she could just e declared insane again and go back to Bradley, which may very well be her masterplan.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Pretty Little Liars on iTunes.

The Bridge: So not only is the creepy trailer dude not a murderer, he is actually coyote for Mexican prostitutes trying to get up from under the thumb from an evil sex trafficking drug lord(who can easily get a million dollars to Marco to pay for his other stolen property). Oh yeah, and he is so compassionate, he will even help snakes across the street. Alrighty. And it took me about half the episode to realize that was a clean shaven and fully functioning Johnny Crowder as the FBI agent. Considering what happened to him, it may have been better had I not recognized him.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Bridge on iTunes.

The Challenge: Rivals II: When I saw the title of this episode was Mortuusequusphobia‬, I got excited because I assumed it would be another spelling challenge this week. Silly me, they would never use a word longer than five letters in the spelling challenge. I guess it is safe to assume that mortuusequusphobia‬ is the fear of ketchup or condiments in general. But as great as the Jemmye mental breakdown was, the Jungle was as equally disappointing. C’mon promo monkeys, you do not hype the most dangerious elimination round ever only not to have one.
You can download The Challenge: Rivals II on iTunes.

The Hero: Patty?!? Seriously America? Apparently the only people who watched (and or voted) besides me bored housewives who thought they were Patty. And Patty winning is probably the best reason why there will not be a second season. If only the casted the inaugural season better.
You can download The Hero on iTunes.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: 7/21/13

Falling Skies: I never thought Hal was the mole, just too obvious. But do you know who was not at all obvious: Lourdes. Certainly did not see that coming. And that face worm scene was extremely creepy. But how exactly did she know all the strategic planning? Not really something a doctor would be privy two. As for the Masons, all the counter attacks really started to border on absurdity. There had to be about six in one episode lone.
You can download Falling Skies on iTunes.

Ray Donovan: The first two episodes were good, but the show was just missing something to get me invested in it. That may have finally came when the dude who got Papa Donovan out of prison showed up and we ended the episode in his dark basement with Ray and all his friends posted on his wall. This scene really should have been the final scene of the premiere.

Switched at Birth: Bay and Daphne’s talk about sex may have been the most uncomfortable thing I have seen on television in a long time.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Switched at Birth on iTunes.

Under the Dome: So the brother finally asked someone about his sister. That only took three days. Not that he cared all that much because it look like he is already renting out her room. But just what is Big Jim going to do with her? If he lets her go, he will have to send his son, who just did not disappoint him for the very first time in his life, to jail. Since it is flooded, he really cannot keep her in the bunker. So it is either lock her up in the house or kill her.
You can stream Under The Dome exclusively on Amazon Instant Video, free for Prime members.

Siberia: It is annoying on competition reality show when contestants talk about “playing the game” and it is even more annoying on this show because there really is no “game” to play. There are no competitions, not elimination, the only thing they have to do is not die, that really is not a game.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Siberia on iTunes.

Pretty Little Liars: When Spencer drove into that town I thought she drove into a different show. It turns out I was right. For the unaware, Ravenswood is an upcoming Pretty Little Liars spin-off show (do not get too attached to the Hanna / Caleb relationship because is joining that cast). If the show is as creepy as these segments would suggest, it may be worth watching.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Pretty Little Liars on iTunes.

The Bridge: I do not know what I would do if a woman who looked like Diane Kruger walked up to me in a bar and propositioned me for sex right off the bat. I do not know what I would do if any woman walked up to me in a bar and propositioned me for sex right off the bat. I would probably be too paranoid that I was on a hidden camera show or that she is just luring me back to her place to harvest my organs that I would end up passing up the opportunity. It may not be a good thing that this was my big take away from the episode why my biggest question would be is a hostess really an upgrade over a waitress?
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download The Bridge on iTunes.

The Challenge: Rivals II: Seriously producers, if all you can get on short notice was Cara Maria, just send Cooke home. No one wants to see her ever again (including the contestants). It is not even a hate to love thing, it is a wants to turn the channel thing. And a note to any newbies to the Challenge, watch previous seasons. I had to shake my head when Anastasia got mad at CT for using her as her own personal plaything. Had she watched the show before, she would have known that is his M.O. with the exception of Diem. Not watching the previous seasons would be as dumb as training by smoking cigarettes and not eating (God bless TJ).
You can download The Challenge: Rivals II on iTunes.

The Hero: I was really hoping they were going to vote Patti into the Hero’s Challenge, I could have done without her for the final episode. And again it is annoying they are going make us wait a week to find out who gets voted off, really unnecessary. I really doubt there are many people out there that were thinking of not watching next week but will turn in just to see who will be voted off.
You can download The Hero on iTunes.

Previewing Ray Donovan

We have all been there, wake up to some naked dead chick and try to figure out who to call to take care of it. For those of us with enough money, we can call Ray Donovan, the kind of guy who has another client, an action movie hero who got caught with a transvestite, who could be seen with a dead coked-up chick because that would be an upgrade in the public eye from a transvestite (although I am not sure how you have an A-lister get caught with a transvestite and not make an Eddie Murphy joke).

That is the titular character of Ray Donovan (Live Schreiber, Scream 3), he is a fixer. A fixer for high priced clients who need things done by any means necessary. One of his first “fixes” involved his father, Jon Voight (National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets) twenty years ago which landed the him in prison, and the start of the series sees papa Donovan getting released five years ahead of schedule leading the younger version scrambling to keep his father out of his life.

His bothers are more on the fence. Eddie Marsan (The Disappearance of Alice Creed) is the former boxer with Parkinson’s while Dash Mihok (The Day After Tomorrow) is dealing with his own demons that stems from his time in the Catholic church and is now a “sexual anorexic”. And like any good Irish Catholic families, there is even a bastard son unbeknownst to Ray that appears right around the time their father shows up. Home life, in Calabasas, what they call the Jersey Shore of Los Angeles, is not much better, his wife Paula Malcomson (Deadwood) begrudgingly accepts what he has to do for his job while his kids (including Kerris Dorsey who was most recently seen as Sally Draper’s violinist friend on Mad Men) are eager to meet the grandfather they never knew.

The big problem with Ray Donovan is we have seen the troubled Irish-Catholic family with major issues done many times before, and done much better than this. The scenes when Ray is working are much more entertaining but also lean on major clichés. In the first episode we meet the adulterous basketball player, the closeted gay action hero, and the horny pop star. I am guessing it will not be too long until Ray meets the gangsta rapper who actually grew up in the suburbs. And while Voight is creepy, is is not the creepy cool that Mads Mikkelsen on Hannibal plays, but in a hide your young daughters (and probably young sons too) kind of creepy. Early in the season you will get to witness Voight dancing in a gay bar to Now That We Found Love, an imagine you will instantly want scrubbed from your brain after seeing it. In the end, Ray Donovan is one of those shows that is very well done, well written, well acted, but there is just something missing.

Ray Donovan airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime following the final season of Dexter.

Best of the Week: 6/22/13

Quote of the Week: My father never gave me anything. (Sally Draper, Mad Men)

Song of the Week: Cat's In the Cradle - Harry Chapin (as sung by W. Kamau Bell, Totally Biased)

Scene of the Week:


Big News of the Week: God Still Hates Cleveland: People just do not understand how horrible it is to live in Cleveland. Like more Midwest areas, the winters suck massively, but at least cities like Detroit, Chicago, even Green Bay can pull on the covers and root for a championship team. Here in Cleveland we has so many failures, we name them: The Fumble, The Drive, The Shot, The Blown-Save, The Decision. They all hurt, but that last one just hurt the soul because LeBron James was one us, he knew are pain, and instead of breaking the curse, he just added to it. And his championship was just a dagger to heart. Last year’s championship could be explained away because it was a strike shortened season and not truly legit. But he came back this season and won it without any asterisks. And they the won was almost Bill Bucknerian. The Spurs had a commanding lead and up three with seconds in game six (much like Buckner) when LeBron put up a horrible desperation three except the show was so bad to took a weird trajectory off the rim, bouncing right out to Ray Allen, someone who is actually older than me and not known for his rebounding prowess, who took a couple steps back and drained the game tying three. So instead of being the goat for putting up one of the most laughable late game threes ever to the delight of everyone in Cleveland, LeBron and the Heat then goes on to win the game and later the series. As Bill Simmons would say: God hates Cleveland.

Preview Picture of the Week:

"Ch-Ch-Changes" Perception Tuesday at 10:00 on TNT

Free Download of the Week: The Bag or the Bat - Ray Donovan (iTunes): The new Showtime show does not premiere until next week, but if you want to check it out ahead of time or want to see if it is worth subscribing to Showtime for, you can download the first episode on iTunes. If you do not want to waste the hard drive space, you can also watch it via YouTube below. And for those that would rather watch it on your television, check out your On Demand channel.


Deal of the Week: The Big DVD & Blu-ray Blowout: Game of Thrones, The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Big Bang Theory

New Album Release of the Week: Vh1 Storytellers - Alicia Keys

New DVD Release of the Week: Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids: The Complete Series

Video of the Week: I have never been the biggest Jay-Z fan out there, sure he made plenty of hot singles in his two decades, but the only album of his I own is the one he did with Kanye West. With that said, I am already extremely excited for his next one just because of the album announcement he made during the NBC Finals last week (it was too late to updated my list of The 5 Most Anticipated Albums of Summer 2013, but it would have been number two on that list had I did; John Mayer, who made a release date this week too also would have grabbed a slot) which featured uber-producers who have been responsible for some of Jay’s greatest beats including Rick Rubin (99 Problems), Pharrell (I Just Wanna Love U), Swizz Beatz (On to the Next One), and Timbaland (Big Pimpin’). Thankfully DJ Premier and Dr. Dre were not involved otherwise my head could have very well exploded. Magna Carta Holy Grail drops July 4 (or three days earlier if you have some sort of app on a smartphone I refuse to promote because they are not paying me). Happy birthday America.


Next Week Pick of the Week: Under the Dome, Monday at 10:00: When everyone else is scrambling to pull in eyeballs in the summer, CBS just throws on three nights of Big Brother and a bunch repeats and sips mai tai’s until it is Fall. Not only is CBS actually putting on a new scripted show this summer it is quite ambitious and off brand from its usual crime procedurals it usually airs during the season. Base on the novel by Stephen King, Under the Dome follows the residents of a small town cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious dome. Color me intrigued.