57 Channels and Only This Is On - 4/14/12

Mad Men: There are very few things I hate less on television than dream sequences. They are basically writers saying, you know that five minutes you just invested yourself in? Psych! It was just a dream. But the thing about the dream sequence in this week’s episode is I sniffed it out as a dream sequence as soon as the mistress knocked on the door. And of course Don poorly pushing her dead body under the bed made it quite clear that it was a dream sequence (though it is not entirely clear when exactly reality stopped and the dream started, did she really show up at Don’s door? Did she leave after they made coitus? Or maybe it was not a dream sequence and Megan disposed of the body. I wonder how this affects the Over / Under of how many episodes it takes this season until Don cheats on Megan.)

The Voice: Before the episode on Monday I wrote on my Facebook page that Christina Aguilera was the only reason to tune in because I figured before anyone sang a note, Mathai, Tony Lucca, and Pip were guaranteed to get America’s Vote barring one of them running off stage crying mid-performance (and I was right) and Cee-Lo’s team would suck massively (and for the most part I was right). I did not realize just how right I was in saying Christina was the reason to tune in (even though at the time I thought it was to see if she managed to look attractive for a second straight week which she did).

Then out of nowhere she calls Lucca one dimensional, I was so shocked had I had a DVR I would have rewound that to make sure I actually heard what I just heard. Christina has always been the most critical coach, but how she drop kicked him under the bus like that (and the show’s producers at the same time for casting him) was quite jaw dropping. But here is the thing, Christina, even if her delivery was not the best, was complete right with what she said. I own multiple albums by Lucca, love his version of Devil Town, and though his version of Trouble was one of the best of the Blind Audition, but his Battle Round performance and this week were lackluster and if I were Christina I would be pissed if I had on my team the best technical sing in the competition as well as the most entertaining performer and I lost because Justin Timberlake got his millions of fans to blindly vote for Tony when there are clearly to anyone watching there are much better singers than Tony. Not only do I no long think Lucca is the best performer this season, based on this week, I no longer think he is the best singer on his own team.

Although critical at times, Christina was pretty much spot on all night including when she called Mathai’s performance “loungy” which I completely agree with. But I completely disagree with Christina’s intent. For me loungy is not an insult and coming from he is is high praise and Mathai clearly had the best performance on the night. With all the guitarists on stilts, male strippers, and faceless political henchmen, it takes true talent to be captivating with just a mic stand with you on stage and Mathai was (even with the gratuitous up-close armpit shot). Her performance was the closest to Dia Frampton’s breakout performance of Heartless last season.

But god bless Cee Lo Green, he was horrible at picking his team (I cannot believe he actually talked about this multiple time about how much Twitter disagreed with his Battle Round selections) but you sure know how to pick songs even if you overdo it on the set pieces like when Tony Vincent looked like he was performing in Marilyn Manson’s interpretation of The Wall. I audibly laughed when he picked Don’t Leave Me This Way for Cheesa and yet it managed to work. On the flip side I yelled, “Nooo!!!” at the screen when Kim Yarbrough suggested to Adam that she do Rolling in the Deep breaking my Cardinal Rule for karaoke shows. Adam really failed as a coach to let her do this.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. Download songs from this episode using the widget at right.

How I Met Your Mother: Well, at least we are guaranteed that we will finally meet the mother sometime in the next two seasons. Unless the show pulls some crap and the mother is actually a step-mother.
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com. You can also download How I Met Your Mother on iTunes.

Survivor: One World: I love tribal councils when so many people get multiple votes, the only thing that would have been better had it been Troyzan that had the most votes and for the first time since Heroes and Villains (and to my best recollection only the third time a played Idol affected the outcome). But you have to wonder what exactly the game plans are for Leif and Tarzan (who had the best moment of the episode when he managed to fall off his perch just as Probst was saying the challenge was starting). I hate Colton and everything, but at least he was smart enough to create a misfit alliance, I wonder why no one has thought to resurrect it and bring in Christina, and trying to get at least one more girl. Too bad Troyzan let his ego get in the way and voted out Mike last week because not it is too late to get a counter alliance going because I do not see the five girls in the original alliance cracking at this point.
You can stream recent episodes over at cbs.com.



Suburgatory: Dalia has a therapy season with James Lipton and a dog and adopts a kangaroo. I cannot believe I typed a sentence like that.
You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Suburgatory on iTunes.

Community: An episode dedicated to a lack of shame? Wow, when the show fails, it fails big.
You can stream current episodes on Hulu. You can also download Community on iTunes.

Best of the Week - 4/13/12

Quote of the Week: Anybody want to get weird and play Mario Kart? (Chloe, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23)

Song of the Week: Infinity Guitars – Sleigh Bells (Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23)

Scene of the Week:



Big News of the Week: Good Riddance Bye Rick Santorum: James Carville is famous for saying “It’s the economy stupid” and that is a great barometer for presidential contests, but there may be one thing more powerful than the economy: Money. So even though he won a couple states and made some talking heads doubt Mitt Romney’s inevitability, I never thought Rick Santorum had a shot at the Republican nomination despite his position as the top Not-Romney candidate. And just how much dos the Republican base hate Romney that the Tea Partiers would rally behind Santorum who introduced a lot of pork during his time in the senate or the evangelicals who view Catholicism much a cult as Mormonism. So goodbye Rick, just do not think your second place showing this year make you think you have a chance in four to eight years because this year was just a case of part of the Republican base hating you less than Mitt Romney and you have no chance the next cycle when stronger candidates like Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and / or Jeb Bush run. Sarah Palin may even steal votes from your nutjob wing of the part next time around.

Preview Picture of the Week:

Amish: Out of Order  Tuesday at 10:00 on National Geographic Channel

Free Download of the Week: Coachella All-Stars (Google Play): The music festival is this weekend and for those that are not making the trip this year, you can pick up a playlist of 15 songs from artists playing this including The Verve, Daft Punk, and Snoop Dogg for free.

Deal of the Week: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Artists for $3.99: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame takes place tomorrow (sans Axl Rose who does not want to be inducted because he is a douche who does not like that the Hall is inducting his former band mates too because apparently Bumblefoot is more worthy of induction than Slash) and to honor the occasion Amazon has lowered some albums by artists already in Pink Floyd and U2 and new inductees like Beastie Boys and Guns n Roses:



New Album Release of the Week: Picture Show - Neon Trees

New DVD Release of the Week: Frozen Planet: The Complete Series (David Attenborough-Narrated Version) [Blu-ray]

Video of the Week: I am not a big fan of Twitter, I find it un-American to limit free speech to under a hundred or so characters. But I did recently sign up for the service basically just to shamelessly plug new articles here at the 9th Green and it also gives me another avenue to stalk Kristen Bell (but mostly because of the latter). Amidst my unusual shameless plus, I made an tweet saying “I'm trying to figure out how to vote for The Shields Brothers! to advance on The Voice but for some reason they are not listed on the voting page” (In my true anti-Twitter fever I was extremely angry that I had to leave of a period to the post due to the lack of characters left; it’s bad form to sacrifice correct punctuation.) Apparently the brothers enjoyed my sentiments that even because the first celebrities ever to retweet me. And scrolling their twitter feed I noticed they released a video of the song they would have performed at the Live Show had they not been unceremoniously bounced from the show for the painfully bad Erin Martin. Since they were nice to retweet me, here is their version of We Are Young by fun. featuring what looks to be Ava Crowder’s baby sister.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Revenge, Wednesday at 10:00 on ABC: I was not thrill with how the last two episodes of Revenge played out when it turned out that Jack did not kill Daniel like we were led to believe in the series premiere but instead it was the rent boy killed by the sensei. But as it turns out absence does make the heart grow stronger because I am more then ready for the show to return after more than a month hiatus.

Around the Tubes - 4/12/12

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 Girls, Amish: Out of Order, BlackBoxTV, Eureka, The Biggest Loser, The Song That Changed My Life, Nurse Jackie, Web Therapy, and, The Real L Word.

- After ruling the movie theaters for the past decade, Judd Apatow is getting back into the television game when Girls premieres this Sunday at 10:30 on HBO and here is Apatow talking with Girls creator and star Lena Dunham about the show.



- If you are like me and are still bitter that Amish in the City never received a second season, I have a television show for you: Amish: Out of Order. If the title alone is not enough to get you to tune in next Tuesday at 10:00. Here is a clip from the show:

The Cage Fighter


- Tomorrow Collective Digital Studios will be re-launching BlackBoxTV, a YouTube channel which features Thriller and Sci-Fi programming. Keep in mind tomorrow is also Friday the 13 (natch). Head over to the YouTube page for a preview.

- Just a reminder, the final season of Eureka kicks off Monday at 9:00 on Syfy.

- This week on the Biggest Loser, First Lady Michelle Obama issued an important goal for the contestants and viewers: sign up for the PALA+ Challenge! The Presidential Active Lifestyle Award Challenge promotes a healthy lifestyle with physical activity and good nutrition. Learn more now: nbc.com/pala.

- On this week’s episode of The Song That Changed My Life, Jack and White (not to be confused with the White Stripes singer) are featured. Upcoming episodes will include Fictionist, Sixpence None the Richer, Over the Rhine, and Dar Williams.

- Knick Carmelo Anthony guest star in this Sunday’s episode of Nurse Jackie. No, seriously.

- In other Showtime news, the network has announced the premiere dates for new seasons of Web Therapy (Monday, July 2 at 11:00) and The Real L Word (Thursday July 12 at 10:00).

- And for this week’s political story, here is an infograph about GOP presidential candidates and email presented by Silverpop.

The Next One Is Coming Faster

Mags Bennett was such a force of nature, and one of the greatest Big Bad’s ever in the history of television, you could not help that during the Justified off season, just how are they going to replace her. Well you go out and cast one of the best bad guy actors of the past decade Neal McDonough (and them supplement him with Bubba Gump). And as great as McDonough was been in his previous baddie role, he and his creepy baby head really went all out in this role as a sadistic mob boss adopted son with a taste for rent boys and literally a firearm up his sleeve.

But the third season of Justified was much different than the sophomore outing which swelled and crested every couple episodes where the most recent was much more a slow build to that final showdown (aside from the tease when Raylan asked Quarrels “Why Wait?” only to wait another three episodes for the actual showdown). The slow burn was more like the first season, but unlike the debut season which was sprinkled with a bunch of standalone “procedural” episodes, the third really only had one of those when Karen Sisco Goodall made an appearance and those breaks were really missing this season.

Instead the entire season was a four person chess match between Raylan, Boyd Crowder, Limehouse and carpetbagger Quarrels with a bunch of moving pawns like Dicky Bennett, Errol (who I just recently learned was not in fact named Arrow), two sheriffs, Arlo, Winn Duffy and his great reaction shots. And those players spent most of season on a wild goose chase for Mags’ dirty coal money with Limehouse artfully getting all the players outside a motel with guns drawn when the real money was safely under Loretta McCready’s mattress waiting to not be spent on a Van Halen themed Sweet 16 party. (This begs the question why has no one started a Save Loretta from Tim Allen campaign yet? Is it because I am the only one actually watching Last Man Standing?)

But none of the chess players ended up dyeing last week setting up one epic showdown between the four principals this week. Except it was not so epic. The climactic scene played out like the rest of the season, great dialogue (“it’s a piggy bank!), some notable action (goodbye Quarrels’ arm), and a funny moment (Raylan kicking Quarrels’ arm away from him) but I could not help wanting more. I could not help but think we the audience was Wynona (who’s apparently still on the show) when Raylan was telling her the story at the end.

As great as the character was, the writers said they killed off Mags last season because there was nowhere else to go with her, so why is Quarrels still on this mortal coil (I am assuming he did not bleed out)? Since they have him on Wynona’s ex-husband murder, and probably countless other lesser charges, the one armed man is going to be in prison for a while along with other pawns this season Dicky, Winn (another one I am surprised survived the season after Raylan threw a bullet at him earlier this season and said, “The next one is coming faster”), and Arlo (depending on whether insanity is a defense in Kentucky). Sure having him around could expand the Theo Tonin into a major plot next season. Or maybe FX is beefing up the cast of my proposed jailhouse spinoff with Dicky and Dewey Crowe that can now add those three to the cast. Please FX, make that happen.

Justified 3.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale. You can stream episodes on Hulu. You can also download Justified on iTunes.

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.