Because we’re geeks, the biggest pop cultural events on our radar this weekend are Sunday’s farewell to the WB, which will mark its own extinction with a marathon of pilots from your favorite WB series (Felicity, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Dawson’s Creek, starting at 5 p.m.), and the appearance on Saturday in syndication of the original Star Trek episodes, which have just turned 40 and been given a digital facelift.
Have nostalgia for last season’s TV? The most recent seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, The Office, and My Name Is Earl are now out on DVD.
Speaking of TV, TV on the Radio’s much-anticipated Return to Cookie Mountain is EW’s Music Pick of the Week. Yes, we know, we’re all supposed to be listening to Justin’s and John Mayer’s latest CDs, but critical snobs that we are, we’re geeking to TVOTR and Yo La Tengo’s similarly eclectic freakout I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.
You can still experience tube nostalgia at the multiplex with improvised British three-weddings-and-a-sweepstakes comedy Confetti (starring Martin Freeman of the BBC version of The Office) and The U.S. vs. John Lennon, featuring archival footage of John and Yoko’s political protests and media pranks.
There are not one but two memoirs out this week from former Jeopardy! champs. Record-smasher Ken Jennings’ Brainiac is getting most of the attention, but don’t ignore Bob Harris’ cleverly titled Prisoner of Trebekistan. (Also, give PopWatch credit for resisting the temptation to phrase this item in the form of a question.)
Finally, if you’re nostalgic for the pre-Oprah’s-couch Tom Cruise, and you like Bollywood musicals, you’ll love this hilarious re-edited movie trailer.
Goodbye WB. Let me see, Felicity stopped making sense, at the height of its popularity you let Buffy go to UPN, you cancelled ANGEL too soon, and you ran Dawson’s Creek into the ground. Yes, it’s time to say goodbye and good riddens.
Is the WB Frog going to make a resurrection for the Sunday night good-bye?? That would be kinda cool since he pretty much introduced us to all those shows in the 1st place. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is STILL to this day, my favorite series of the last decade. It debuted at a time when I wasn’t watching much TV, since I was working nights, but I got sick with Mono, caught the pilot episode & was hooked ever since! I still pick up the new novels every few months as they come out! Now that the CW unites the WB & The UPN, does that give me hope for maybe a much needed Buffy/Angel TV reunion TV movie special at some point??? Joss Whedon are u reading?????
I love how classy the WB is going out. I want to watch it just to see how commercials, intros, etc., are handled.
Maybe you could blog about it so I don’t have to watch a bunch of shows I’ve seen 100 times?!
I can’t stand the show Dawson’s Creek. I can’t believe that I actually liked it. YES the show lasted too long!!!!! BUFFY… I MISS IT!!!!! Angel of course but I’ve never seen Felicity so I dunno maybe I’ll like it.
It was a classy way to go out. I flipped over to the WB during commerical breaks. My mom was watching and thought Katie Holmes looked awful young. I said, it was eight years ago.
Classy, Classy, Classy…if we could only get the CW to have half as much class with their advertising as the WB did with their goodbye, we might have been in business.
THE CW did NOT run this line-up here in Philly last night. I was QUITE disappointed!!!
Hey everyone, I just got sent this link from a friend who knows I’m a HUGE Sesame Street fan: http://oldschool.sesamestreet.com/. Sesame Street is about to release its new DVD called Old School, and the exclusive clips they show you on this site look great and are so funny! Check it out!