Around the Tubes - 1/21/11

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 Game of Thrones, Mean Girls 2, Timmy Time, Face-Off, FX and HBO blogs, The Office, Celebrity Apprentice, and Showtime premiere dates.

- The new Game of Thrones promo hit HBO earlier this week, and naturally made it on the interwebs shortly after. After watching it, color me excited (though not excited enough to actually subscribe to the premium channel, but the DVD will hit the top of my queue as soon as they are available). I especially love the throne made of swords. Game of Thrones hits HBO April 17.



- The original Mean Girls landed in at number sixty-nine on my list of The 100 Greatest Movies of the 00’s and seven years later we finally get a sequel. A sequel without any of the original titular girls (but Tim Meadows is bad, so there is some continuity). Instead we get basically an all Disney Channel alumni cast including Meagan Martin (Camp Rock), Nicole Anderson (Jonas), Jennifer Stone (Wizards of Waverly Place), and Maiara Walsh (Cory in the House). You will have to wait nine years to see if Mean Girls 2 garners a spot on The Greatest Movies of the 10’s, until then tune in to ABC Family this Sunday at 8:00 to get a sense of where it might fall. Below is a trailer.

- For those out there with kiddies, Disney television series Timmy Time is hitting the DVD shelves next month with Timmy Time: Timmy Steals the Show. The DVD set will also feature a Timmy Time sing-a-long.



- Nancy Franklin watches the new Oprah Network for the New Yorker so you don’t have to.

- Syfy is debuting a new show next week and no Face-Off is not related to the John Travolta / Nick Cage film but a reality competition for special effect make up with judges Ve Neill (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands), Glenn Hetrick (Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files) and Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld, Independence Day, Resident Evil: Extinction). The show premieres Wednesdays 26 at 10:00. For those that were unable to try out for the show but think they could be great makeup artists, head over to syfy.com where you can enter to win a 15” Macbook Pro and other professional make-up tools by uploading your transformation.

- Fans of FX show, and if you are not one you should be because they have the best shows on television, will want to check out the production blogs for their various shows including Lights Out, Justified and Archer, the latter two of which return next month for their sophomore seasons.

- In other blog news, Big Love’s Margene has her own blog, head over to Margene’s Blog to read it which she recently updated with a video. Also getting into the blog game is Bill Maher to coincide with the new season of Real Time which shows you how you can listen to the show even if you do not subscribe to HBO.

- The Office has a new webisode, head over to nbc.com to check out The Podcast featuring Gabe trying to set one up for the Sabre website.

- Fans of the A&E show Heavy will be happy to hear that this Monday the show will be hosting a special fan chat and live Q&A session via streaming video. Click here to RSVP to the live Fanchat.

- Celebrity Apprentice returns March 6 with a new batch of has been’s including Gary Busey, Richard Hatch, and Lil Jon, you know, because he always tells the truth.



- Showtime has announced the return of two of its programs. The third season of Nurse Jackie will premiere March 28 at 10:00 promptly followed by the third season of The United States of Tara. Also announced by the premium channel is the debut their latest historical drama The Borgias on Sunday April 3 at 9:00 for a two hour premiere. Note that starting April 10, the show will begin airing at its regular timeslot at 10:00.

First Impressions: Perfect Couples

Tonight starts NBC highly touted three hour comedy block with critical darlings Community (8:00), Parks and Recreations (9:30), old stalwarts The Office (9:00), 30 Rock (10:00) with NBC’s highest rated new show from the fall Outsourced (10:30) pulling up the rear. The one new addition to the lineup Perfect Couples get the prime against the unwatchable $#*! My Dads Says timeslot at 8:30.

Much like the unfunny ABC freshman sitcom Better with You, Perfect Couples follows three couple and even features a similar type of cold open. Unlike Better with You, all the couples are not related aside from a brother and sister with the other relationship coming from common area of work. Olivia Munn (Date Night) and Hayes MacArthur (She’s Out of My League) are the uptight couple. Dave Walton (100 Questions) and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) are the couple that always fight. While Kyle Bornheimer (You Again) and Christine Woods (Flash Forward) are the grounded couple.

Much like Better with You, Perfect Couples started out pretty laughless. But by the second commercial break, the show got better, but still well below Outsourced in terms of quality laughs. But Perfect Couples does have one ace in the hole: Olivia Munn. Anyone who watched her on Attack of the Show she is a hardworking star in the making that will make it worth tuning in every weak because if there were to get on track, she will be the reason why.

Perfect Couples airs Thursdays at 8:30 on NBC. You can also stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Perfect Couples on iTunes.

They Say I'm Better off Now Than I Ever Was with Her

The Script stormed stateside as an Irish version of Maroon 5, emotional yearning lyrics over funky pop beats. Danny O’Donoghue even bears resemblance to Adam Lavine. Where Maroon 5 dedicated a set of songs to a chick name Jane before moving on to various other girls and vaguely political tones of their sophomore album, The Script still seems hung up on the same girl that tormented them on their second album despite the Science & Faith album title.

Most of that first album seemed to be inspired by the preverbal one that got away with heartbroken odes like That Man Who Can’t Be Moved about a guy waiting for a girl to come back to the place they met and Breakeven about a guy who cannot put his life back together knowing his ex-girlfriend has moved on. And just looking at titles like If You Ever Come Back (which shares a very similar guitar riff from Breakeven), Long Gone and Moved On it is more of the same here.

While the thematic haven’t changed, the music has gotten much tighter than their debut disk. The band aim for anthemic from the start of the album with You Won’t Feel a Thing and for the most part reach it. There are also a few swing and miss moments on the album including out of leftfield rap from B.o.B throughout Walk Away of that sticks out like Flavor Flav at a debutante ball. The previous song This = Love features an even more awkward rap in the middle of the song.

Song to Download – Nothing

Science and Faith gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

I Want My Music Television - 1/18/11

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.

Back to December – Taylor Swift



I though the ten degrees and a foot of snow were bad here in Northeast Ohio, but at least the snow hasn’t come indoors like Casa de Taylor Swift. Though I am not entirely sure what is going on with random dude walking across small town winter landscape.


Rolling In the Deep - ADELE



I get the feeling the production crew just asked for three random situation and they came up with dude fighting in a room full of chalk, someone breaking dinnerware, a room full of glasses, and a drummer playing in a corner. To which the director goes, “not random enough.” “well how about adding miniature city going up in flames,” “brilliant, film it.” Ladies and gentlemen, ADELE’s latest video.


Monster – Kanye West featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z, and Nicki Minaj



It looks like Kanye West was also a fan of The Walking Dead, and sadly, Twilight. And I wonder when someone is going to point out that Jay-Z just latches on to great beats and really hasn’t spit a great verse since his un-retirement.


Radio - Raphael Saadiq



Not sure what is with the metallic Lady Gaga looking person, but I am excited for the new Raphael Saadiq album.