Previewing Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23

What is it with ABC and their crappy television show names? Last year they picked up two shows that had a word in them too racy for television that by the time they actually hit the small screen that they both underwent some name surgery. Last month Good Christian (Expletive Deleted) got shortened to GCB because apparently no one over at ABC realized that no one would know what the show by its initials. Then tomorrow the alphabet network premieres Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 which started out without the dashes. Both title make $#*! My Dad Says seem like a reasonable title in comparison. What worse, at some point both shows had reasonable titles: Good Christian Belles and the simple Apartment 23 but now one show is a letter away from being the date rape drug and I have no idea what the correct pronunciation of “B----“ is. But I guess I should not expect good titles from a network that gave us Happy Endings, Cougar Town, Better Off Ted and bungled what could have been the greatest name for a television show ever, Let’s Rob Mick Jagger.

Lame names aside, Apartment 23 is your typical Odd Couple situation with the overtly perky Dreama Walker (Gran Torino) and the extremely evil Krysten Ritter (Veronica Mars). Naturally Ritter plays the title character that takes in roommates then scares them off to pocket their security deposit for herself unto Walker becomes the first roommate to fight backs which endears her Ritter for some reason and they stay roommates (though a series where Ritter scares off a new roommate every week could have been entertaining).

The show plays like a middle class version of 2 Broke Girls where the newly unemployed Walker has to move in with someone completely different from who she was used to back in Ohio (or maybe Indiana). Unfortunately the show also shares Two Broke Girls’ penchant for worthless side characters. Instead of the annoyingly horny line cook, there is a annoyingly horny across the street neighbor who leers at the girls sans pants. There is Walker’s new boss who seems to only be there for one liners much like Garrett Morris. There is also someone that lives down the hall who was a former roommate victim who switches back and forth between hating Ritter and stalking her randomly.

Of course there is also James Van Der Beek (The Rules of Attraction) as Ritter’s best friend James Van Der Beek (Varsity Blues) so it looks like we will finally get the answers of just how many Dawson's Creek jokes could there possibly be. Spoiler Alert!: doubtfully enough to sustain the seven episode season let alone a long series run. It reminds me of that horrible show where Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) played Jennifer Grey (Red Dawn) whose name I cannot remember and do not care enough to look up but the it was like, you know, painfully bad.

But much like how Kat Dennings carries 2 Broke Girls, Dreama Walker makes if worth turning into Apartment 23 at least in the short run (the show may need an overhaul if it comes back for a full second season), she plays the aw shucks newbie to NYC perfectly and is a spitfire when she goes head to head with Krysten Ritter who is a much stronger number two then Beth Behrs. And plus it is hard not to down with a show that features the line, “Anybody want to get weird and play Mario Kart?” Yes, yesI do.

Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 airs Wednesdays at 9:30 on ABC. If you cannot wait, the first two episodes are currently streaming on Hulu. You can also download them both on Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 on iTunes for free.

I Want My Music Television - 4/9/12

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Happy Pills – Norah Jones



You just knew when you heard the latest song from Norah Jones that the video would feature murdering some dude. I also like that te video featured Norah in the shower (and not just for the obvious reason) because when I first heard the song, “out, I’m gonna get you out…” made me think Happy Pills is the twenty-first century version of I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.


Blood for Poppies - Garbage



It has been bout a decade since Garbage released any new material and for the first single back, it sounds like they never left with them still making dirty pop records. Although am not totally convinced that Shirley wasn’t hermetically sealed in-between albums because she hasn’t aged a day.


Sixteen Saltines - Jack White



The newest Jack White music video features a dude eaching a penut butter and jelly sandwich of trhe ceiling and it does not even crack the top ten weirdest thing that happens in the video. Seriously.


Let's Roll - Yelawolf and Kid Rock



Didn’t Bubba Sparxxx try the hillbilly rap a decade ago and was met with a resounding yawn? I am not sure I will picking up too many Yelawolf stock.

57 Channels and Only This Is On - 4/7/12

Once Upon a Time: It was striking just how much Regina looked like Snow early in the episode to the point I thought it was Snow on the horse. I wonder if they shared the same bad wig. Of course Katharine is not dead but where has she been? Since she disappeared I assumed she was in the hospital dungeon with Belle, but considering she showed up just as Mary-Margaret’s heading to trial, I wonder if Mr. Gold had her hidden away.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Once Upon a Time on iTunes.

Mad Men: Wow, I really was not ready for fat Betty to the point that it was a bit distracting. I kept starring at her trying to figure out if that was really January Jones or Gwyneth Paltrow from Shallow Hal.

House of Lies: And that is how it ends, with Ronnie starting a class action lawsuit that ends her engagement. Yawn.

The Voice: After the first two rounds, Lindsey Pavao was clearly one of the two frontrunners to win the show, but she was quite lackluster this week. Lindsey’s strength is taking songs, completely flip them and sing them in her own voice, making them weirdly beautiful. The problem with her trying to sing Somebody That I Used to Know is that it is already inherently weird and she just did not add anything new to it (unless you count the Kubrickian backup dancers). What’s worse is that what really makes the song great is the female voice that comes in during the second where she just retorts everything Gotye sang in the first verse, you just never hear realtime retort in pop songs, or at least not since I Got a Man. So without that second voice, it just loses meaning and is just another, albeit weird, break up song. (Full disclosure notice: this still was the only song I bothered to download this week.)

Poor song selection seemed to be the theme of the week. Jermaine Paul, though better than Avril Lavigne, just did not mesh with the hair band song, and it did not help that he was overpowered by the band (so were Moses Stone and Ashley De La Rosa, who weirdly chose an obscure Alanis Morissette song but still made it work) . RaeLynn and Charlotte Sometimes tried different arrangements for their song and while the chorus of both songs was strong, both of their verses just did not work with the arrangement. On the flip side, the people who did chose wisely (Jordis Unga, Chris Mann, Jesse Campbell) all turned out to be major bores, or as I assume of Chris’s performance because I fell asleep after a couple bars of him singing. The weirdest song choice goes to the white chick who decided to sing Stevie Wonder’s ghetto anthem Living for the City.

There were some surprising song choices and head scratching picks to advance (how did Blake’s strongest performer Charlotte not get saved by America let alone Blake?) but by far the most shocking part of The Voice was just wow absurdly hot Christina Aguilera was and she managed to keep it up two days in a row. She has not been this attractive since the video she did with Ricky Martin and that was over ten years ago. Christina was also responsible for the funniest line when she told RaeLynn, “Are you allowed to grind your hips at that age.” Snitch please, you were barely eighteen when you were grinding your hips in the Genie In a Bottle video while telling guys to rub you the right way.



You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download songs performed this week via the widget at right.

Castle: C’mon, Biggie Slim? I am offended as an old school hip-hop fan by that name.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Castle on iTunes.

Justified: In the four person chess match (though Winn may have entered the game this week, spiting himself from Quarrels), the biggest pawn, Dickie Bennett is off the board again. Also off the board: the three million prize which is currently residing with the Van Halen hating Loretta. She better use some of the money for a personal bodyguard because I doubt Dickie will be the last person after the money. But there were way too many moves on the chessboard this week to count with all the players crossing and double crossing each other. The biggest question for next week is not who is going to die, but how many are going to end up dead.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

Survivor: One World: Easily the best part of the episode this week was Tarzan confronting Chelsea for hating him because she hated her own plastic surgeon. She clearly should not hate her plastic surgeon because I did not even realize she had any work done until Tarzan pointed it out. Maybe Tarzan, just maybe, she hates you for outing her boob job on national television. The easily the worst part of the episode was the 7-Up sponsored reward challenge that did not incorporate the classic rainy day classroom recess game Sevens Up.
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



The Big Bang Theory: There are fewer things I needed to see less than Sheldon in a Fresh Maid outfit. But anyway. Who knew Stephen Hawkins could deliver a puchline?
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download The Big Bang Theory on iTunes.

Community: I wonder if this is case where the promo was actually more entertaining than the actual episode. I’m currently on the face. Maybe Leonard liking Abed’s Facebook status update pushes me over to the side of episode.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Awake: I had to scratch my head when I saw the title of the episode “That’s Not My Penguin.” It made a lot more sense after watching it. But I am not sure what the significance of the ring was, Britton gets it and just goes back to sleep afterwards or did miss something.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Awake on iTunes.

Best of the Week - 4/6/12

Quote of the Week: Marshall, do I strike you in any way as a Van Halen fan? (Loretta, Justified)

Song of the Week: Can't Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon (Justified)

Scene of the Week:



Big News of the Week: Play Ball: Opening Day in the north in early April is always a crapshoot which is why I never head out to the ball park on opening day here in Cleveland and the 56 degree is a little too cold for my tastes. It is too bad they did not have opening day two weeks ago when it was hitting 80 everyday. Now we are stuck in the forties for the foreseeable future. The Indians just had to go 16 innings, preempt Community and still manage to lose (a rain delay opening day last year preempted the season premiere of Friday Night Lights and I am not liking this trend). But anyway. Of course the return of baseball means the return of fantasy baseball and Big Head Barry needs a great season after Elho’s Revenge got unceremoniously bounced in the first round of the playoffs last week. So the national pastime is back, at least until the NFL Draft in three weeks.

Preview Picture of the Week:



Free Download of the Week: Hold On – Alabama Shakes

Deal of the Week: 100 Albums for $5 Each: This month’s five dollar deals include Norah Jones (two albums), the Beach Boys, Cake and Delta Spirit.



New Album Release of the Week: Underwater Sunshine (or what we did on our summer vacation) - Counting Crows

New DVD Release of the Week: Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series (Limited Edition)

Video of the Week: Aaron Sorkin’s latest venture in television Newsroom got its first trailer this week and of course it looks awesome.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, Wednesday at 9:30 on ABC: It looks like Dalia Royce will have some competition for biggest Queen B on Wednesday’s ABC comedy block with the premiere of Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 where the title character is so evil, she takes on new roommates and scares them away so she can pocket their security deposit. Oh yeah, and James van der Beek plays James van der Beek which will finally answer the question just how many Varsity Blues jokes can their be. For those that just cannot wait until Wednesday, you can download the first two episodes on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video (which is now available for the Playstation 3), or just watch it below via Hulu:

Around the Tubes - 4/5/12

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on God Is the Bigger Elvis, Being Human, Dream Machines, Bridge for Dreamers, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, O, and Showbiz Tonight.


- God Is the Bigger Elvis, the latest documentary from HBO premieres tonight at 8:00. The film is about Dolores Hart who traded acting in films with Elvis Presley with becoming a Benedictine nun. Check out the trailer below:



- Monday is the season finales of Syfy shows Being Human (9:00) a Lost Girl (10:00).

- Launching Tuesdays on Syfy is new show Dream Machines which follows Florida-based brothers Marc and Shannon Parker as they take the most imaginative vehicles ever seen in movies, comic books, and TV shows, and engineer them into on the road realities. Meet the Parkers below:

Meet the Parkers – Dream Machines

- A new web series dedicated to Chicago based artists and musicians Bridge for Dreamers recently profiled 19-year old Kirby Kaiser. Watch it below:

Bridge for Dreamers #2 Kirby Kaiser


- Biggest Loser host Alison Sweeney is on the cover of this month’s Redbook where she talks about her marriage, motherhood and her busy lifestyle.



- While over in Good Housekeeping, Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay opens up about adopting her two children.

- Then on Woman’s Day, Dr. Oz is the first man featured on the cover in over thirty years.

- In final magazine news, in the latest issue of O, Oprah wrote a letter to young Oprah.

- Members of Kiss are at it again, complaining about their exclusion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this time to Showbiz Tonight.

- In this week’s political story of the week, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi predicts a 6 to 3 Supreme Court decoction in favor of the healthcare court decision to Paley Center.

Previewing Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron

Spoiler Alert! If you have yet to see Titanic and are waiting for the upcoming 3D release to finally see the movie, be warned that I will be giving away major spoilers about the movie. You have been warned. Of course if you do not know how the movie ends, you need to get yourself to a library and start reading everything in the history section.

It is pretty clear that most people went to Titanic to see the Romeo and Juliet love story of Jack and Rose. Not me. I wanted to see the boat sink. I was even quite disappointed that I have to sit through two hours of love story before the boat even hit the iceberg. Now that we are reaching the boat’s centennial (the Titanic was complete 100 years ago two days ago, embarked on its maiden voyage on the 10th and sank on the 15th) director James Cameron is revisiting the most famous ship wreck this time with Céline Dion songs to be heard.

Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron premieres at 8:00 this Sunday (yes, Easter) and follows the Oscar winner almost twenty years after he started he research on the movie for one last look of just how the famed ship sank and just how accurate was his film with the new information and better computer models that have come to light in the fifteen years since his film was released. And the computer models did not provide the most interesting theories posed in the special, that actually goes to a banana that illustrates just how the ship may have sank. No, seriously, a banana.

Cameron and his crack team of Titanic histories sift through piles of information to come up with new theories that they debate, many times the experts disagree humorously shooting James down in private confessionals. The group treats the boat sinking as murder mystery trying to piece the events together and try to reverse engineer the breakup of the ship from the fragments final resting places at the bottom of the ocean and one scientists even refers to the whole thing as an autopsy and a couple are almost brought to tears talking about. Every moment of the two hour special are truly engrossing.

If that is not enough Titanic for you, the following night, the guy who actually discovered the final resting place on the ocean floor back in 1985 will have his own special with Save the Titanic with Bob Ballard starting at 10:00. With technology getting more advanced, anyone with enough money can get their own tour of the Titanic wreckage, severely disturbing the underwater museum and taking priceless artifacts without any recourse without any international treaties in place and Ballard is doing what he can to preserve the site. More interesting is Bob where he heads to Belfast wear the ship was built to get insight into just how men without calculators, computers, or other modern tool built such a massive ship.

Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron airs Sunday at 8:00 and Save the Titanic with Bob Ballard airs Monday at 10:00, both on the National Geographic Channel. And if the special leave you wanting more Titanic, there is a 21-page cover story in the latest issue of National Geographic the magazine including a four page pullout that maps the wreckage on one side and details just how the ship sank on the other. Check out a preview of the James Cameron special below:

The Five Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2012

A pretty slow week for music releases (unless you’re a fan of the 90’s: Wilson Philips! Candlebox!!) and where spring has become a wasteland for new music ever since the major labels pushed 90% of major releases to the weeks before Christmas, there is a surprising glut of great music coming in the next couple weeks, here are the top five album I am must looking forward to in the next couple months.

1. …Little Broken Hearts – Norah Jones (May 1): Sure the spaghetti western soundtrack album Danger Mouse released last year was a bit of a letdown, but the three standout tracks all utilized the vocal talents of Norah Jones (sorry Jack White). The duo is back together for a new album, but unlike Danger’s previous duets with Cee-Lo and the dude from The Shins, no new band name instead the album is being released under Jones’s name. Despite the darkness of Rome’s tracks, the first single from …Little Broken Hearts is the bouncy break up song Happy Pills. And looking at other track names (Say Goodbye, Travlin’ On) we will be getting a full on break up album.

2. Born and Raised – John Mayer (May 22): Let’s get out of the way first: Mayer’s last album sucked massively because nobody wants to hear a concept album about dating and breaking up with Rachel Green. In the three year since the album his stupid mouth has gotten him much more publicity than his music but has been relatively quiet since starting recording the album, which may just be because of a lingering throat problem, but the first single Shadow Days suggest that he is truly sorry for saying things like how his genitalia is racist. I just hope the album is more on par with his first three.

3. What We Saw from the Cheap Seats – Regina Spektor (May 29): The first song off the new album from Spektor, All the Rowboats, sound darker than anything she has done before. This could be thanks to producer Mike Elizondo who is most famous for working with Dr. Dre but also produced that last album from fellow pianist Fiona Apple. But the second single, Don’t Leave Me does fit much better into her back catalogue, most because it is actually a new version of a song she released a decade ago.

4. Blunderbuss – Jack White (April 24): Now that he has stated no more new bands, Jack White is now on his own, but I get the sense we will still get the blues-pop-rock through a weird filter that we have come to love from the guitarist.

5. The Idler is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do – Fiona Apple (June): Much like her last album, Fiona’s new album has been sitting on the shelf for a while but will supposedly get a June release, though no specific date gives me pause that we will actually get to hear the album before then. Unless, of course, you caught her nine date tour last month where she unveiled some new song (I avoided listening to them because I do not like to judge songs based on a crappy YouTube recording). (Scooter Update: It seems like whenever I create one of these music preview lists, inevitably that day a major release gets announced and today was no difference as just an hour after I published this post, Fiona Apple wrote on her Facebook page that her album got an official release date: June 26 along with the cover art. No presale on Amazon as I write this update.)

And here are some other notable releases. Click on the album title to preorder on Amazon or the artist name to be taken to their iTunes page.

Today
Dedicated – Wilson Phillips
My Head Is an Animal – Of Monsters and Men
Bottoms Up – Obie Trice
Love Stories & Other Musings - Candlebox

April 10
Underwater Sunshine (or what we did on our summer vacation) – Counting Crows
Boys & Girls – Alabama Shakes
Slipstream – Bonnie Raitt
MTV Unplugged – Florence + The Machine
A Wasteland Companion – M. Ward
New Life – Monica
Scars On 45 – Scars On 45

April 17
Love Is a Four Letter Word – Jason Mraz
Picture Show – Neon Trees
California 37 – Train
I Missed Us - SWV
Moving Up Living Down – Eric Hutchinson

April 24
Speak in Code – Eve 6
This Machine – The Dandy Warhols
Landline – Greg Laswell

May 1
Blown Away – Carrie Underwood
Master of My Make-Believe – Santigold
Strange Clouds – B.o.B

May 8
Strangeland – Keane
After Hours – Glenn Frey
After Hours – Silversun Pickups

May 15
Not Your Kind Of People – Garbage
Heroes – Willie Nelson
Rize Of The Fenix – Tenacious D
The Only Place – Best Coast
Bloom – Beach House
Welcome To: Our House - Slaughterhouse

May 22
Apocalyptic Love - Slash

May 29
Here – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

June 5
Americana – Neil Young & Crazy Horse

June 12
The Bravest Man in the World – Bobby Womack
Sythetica – Metric

June 19
Cherry Thing – Neneh Cherry

June 26
Overexposed – Maroon 5

TBD
Handwritten – The Gaslight Anthem
The Diving Board – Elton John
Life Is Good – Nas
The Lion the Beast the Best – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Lollipops and Politics – V.V. Brown
Write Me Back – R. Kelly
Undisputed – DMX
Songs of Accent - U2
Mumford & Sons
The Avett Brothers
The Beach Boys
Bob Seger
D'Angelo
Diane Birch
Pearl Jam
Green Day
Linkin Park
Taylor Swift
M.I.A.
Wu-Tang Clan
The Offspring

And of course let’s not forget the obligatory this may be the quarter we finally get to hear Dr. Dre’s Detox.