Thursday, October 19, 2006

NBC Orders More: "NBC has ordered nine more scripts of
Friday Night Lights in an apparent signal the network will stick with the modestly-performing rookie drama.

NBC is also planning on airing an original episode on Monday night, October 30 at 10 p.m., in place of a planned repeat episode of
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.The network will try and use a lead-in from freshman hit drama
Heroes to draw new viewers to the show."

Wednesday, October 18, 2006



As if any further proof were necessary...

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

ABC shows love to "Brothers" - Yahoo! News: "LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - ABC has given a
full-season order to 'Brothers & Sisters,' a freshman drama
starring Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths.

The show had a tough act to follow in the Sunday 10 p.m.
slot, taking over for red-hot medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy,'
which relocated to Thursday. In its four airings to date, it
has averaged 12 million viewers, and won the 10 p.m. hour among
adults 18-49. It also ranks as one of the top new series among
affluent viewers. The ABC order takes its complement to 22
episodes."

Monday, October 16, 2006

Sunday, October 15, 2006

I think, after tonight’s episode, Desperate Housewives has lost me as a viewer. No guarantee that I won’t weaken when 9:00 rolls around next Sunday, but the fact that I can watch it for free online if I want makes it an easier decision to make. (Or download it from iTunes, come to that.)

After a strong first season, I found my attention drifting during the second year. It started feeling like I was watching the show more out of habit, rather than out of an earnest desire to see what happens next. I was still feeling that a bit this year, and then came tonight’s episode. Mike suddenly has amnesia and can’t remember his relationship with Susan? Andrew comes home and immediately, his relationship with his mother is just fine (and, out of the blue, his sister is sleeping with one of her teachers)? Lynette, normally the practical one, is bribing little league players to boost her son’s confidence? I’ve read people accusing the producers of Lost of making things up as they go along. While I don’t agree with that, I think there’s definitely a case to be made for the producers of Desperate Housewives doing just that.

Meanwhile, Brothers & Sisters continues to impress. And on The Amazing Race, I find myself rooting for beauty queens Dustin and Kandice. Partly because they’re hot, and partly because they work well as a team and don’t bicker embarrassingly. Except for the not-dating thing, they actually remind me a lot of Kris and Jon from Amazing Race 6. Here’s hoping they make it to the final three…
This week’s My Name is Earl featured cats and my two favorite Cyndi Lauper songs. And, of course, it was hilarious. Three reasons for me to keep watching and loving the show.

After two episodes, I’m enjoying the BBC’s new Robin Hood TV series. It’s not perfect (I could do without the flying arrow “thwip” sound effect every time they fly in a location caption), but it’s a lot of fun. I can’t remember my first exposure to Robin Hood—probably the Errol Flynn movie—but he’s one of those classic heroes whose stories I always find myself drawn to. (Others on that list would be Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, the Shadow, Batman, and Blackhawk. And that’s probably it.) So I was probably preconditioned to like this show coming out the gate.

The reaction I’ve seem so far—which is very little—seems to be mixed. One review mostly enjoyed it, but while I agree with some of their criticisms—they also dislike the thwips—I think some of the comments display a certain naïveté and ignorance of the demands of popular television. Complaining that the version of Robin Hood seen on BBC1 on Saturdays at 7:00 pm (I think) features actors who are cleaner and more handsome than 12th century outlaws would actually be—because there are so many dirty, ugly leads on television these days—just seems like nitpicking. Similarly, reaction on writer Paul Cornell’s blog seems divided. One poster—rather tactlessly, considering that Cornell, in addition to being one of the nicest humans on the planet, is also one of the writers on Robin Hood--described the series as “one of the worst things I’ve seen on TV In a long time.” Which, you know, entitled to his opinion and all that, but how nice that he has managed to miss so many other shows. Particularly the last Robin Hood series that I can recall, starring Matthew Poretta, and made during the height of the Xena-fueled syndicated fantasy/adventure series boom. This is why superlatives are a bad thing.

Me, I’m getting a kick out of the action, the humor, and the topical references to (metaphorically) the Iraq war. Those references do border on the heavy-handed, but if it’s a choice between something that tries to make a point about something important and something that doesn’t, I fall on the side of the one that tries. (And when it succeeds like in The Girl in the Café, it’s a beautiful thing.

So, I’m not as fanatical about Robin Hood as I am, say, Doctor Who or Spooks or Lost, I am definitely hooked, and plan on sticking with it through all 13 episodes.