Image Credit: PM Images/Iconica/Getty ImagesTurnoff Week has arrived, and I do not approve. There, I said it. In fact, I’m celebrating the exact opposite: Turn-on Week! Um…that doesn’t sound right. But you know what I mean. In the polar opposite spirit of Turnoff Week — which encourages folks to (gasp) shut off their TVs from now through Sunday — I’m going to sample three shows that aren’t on my regular weekly lineup: ABC’s The Middle, Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, and FX’s Justified. Because even though my DVR is more crowded than a European airport, I know deep in my Idol-obsessed heart that I simply don’t watch enough television. And neither do you. So tell me, which three shows will you commit to testing out during Turnoff Week? Sound off in the comments below!
Archive: April 2010 (241-250 of 677)
'Turnoff Week' has arrived: Let's all commit to watching three new shows!
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Jay Leno on Conan O'Brien's move to TBS: 'I knew he'd land on his feet.' Does this mean their feud is over?
Image Credit: NBC(2)It’s been three months since the late-night hoopla had legions of TV watchers siphoning themselves off into Team Coco and Team Leno. And now, with Jay Leno back at his old Tonight Show post and Conan O’Brien headed to TBS for his new show, Leno tells Access Hollywood: “I knew he’d land on his feet…I think he’ll be great. He’s a very funny guy.”
Okay, so does this mean the feud is officially over? READ FULL STORY »
'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' 100th episode: Meatwad makes Adult Swim history
Adult Swim just sent out their “first official video press release” for the upcoming May 2 debut of the 100th episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (which, as they point out, is about 98 more episodes than “you press people thought we would make”). The video, embedded below, features a puppet rendition of ATHF character Meatwad reading the release aloud — including the boilerplate for the show and network. Two things of note here: 1) Meatwad can read fairly well when he’s shilling for his employers. 2) Though they take longer to “read,” I would like — no, DEMAND all future press materials be read to me by human-sized food products. READ FULL STORY »
'Romantically Challenged' is lame... but what shows get singletons right?
Image Credit: Richard Foreman/ABCRomantically Challenged premiered last night, bringing with it characters who say things like “mansicle” without a trace of irony. While watching, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why do comedies that get dating-folk wrong grate on my nerves so much? Is it because I miss Sex and the City still, despite its foibles, like that ex-boyfriend you know wasn’t perfect but seems darn near it once you let him go? I know there are just as many bad sitcoms about married people as there are about singletons, but I guess I just take it more personally when they get the single ones wrong. Or maybe it’s because the ones that get it right are so right — after all, we still have How I Met Your Mother, which, while more about the friendships among the characters than the titular search, is pretty all-around stellar. (And I still look back with amused recognition at, say, the episode when Robin doesn’t shave her legs to stop herself from going too far with her date, then ends up trying to shave her legs in the ladies’ room halfway through the evening.) Maybe it’s just the focus-grouped feeling these ensemble-full-of-commitmentphobes-and-divorcees-ha-ha-ha shows have when the chemistry isn’t there (see: American Coupling). Maybe I would feel the exact same way about terrible married-people shows if I were married.
What do you think, PopWatchers? What did you think of Romantically Challenged? Which singleton-sitcoms get it right?
Ron Howard's 'Great Escape' reality show: Scenario suggestions?
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are developing a reality show pilot for TNT called The Great Escape. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series would put ordinary people in “cinema-inspired settings,” and, together, they’d work as a team to get out of them. Possible scenarios include being blindfolded and dropped off in the desert, the mountains, or a prison, or on an island. (If this sounds like a kinder version of the series Michael Bay is peddling, One Way Out, it should — they didn’t use the phrase “death-defying challenges” to describe it.)
So, from what “cinema-inspired settings,” would you like to see people escape? My first thought was from a city bus that can’t go below 50 mph — but I’m guessing that’s too dangerous. I wouldn’t mind watching ordinary people try to flee a small-town bank heist while evading real local cops, who could use the scenario as a training exercise. Again, maybe too Bay-like. I just don’t want to see Cast Away 2, 3, and 4. Let’s get creative!
'Cops' booked for 23rd season, 'Girl With the Red Riding Hood' nabs a leading man (Excess Hollywood)
- Fox has decided to renew Cops for a 23rd season. It’s not necessarily a good thing that the show never stops finding material, right? [THR]
- After starring in The Last Song, Liam Hemsworth is in talks to star alongside Dennis Quaid in The Throwback, a basketball drama. Score. [The Wrap]
- The Catherine Hardwicke-directed Girl With the Red Riding Hood has found its male lead in actor Shiloh Fernandez. The actor will play “an orphaned woodcutter” who romances star Amanda Seyfried. Things we know about Fernandez: He’s appeared in United States of Tara and Jericho. Also, he tested for Edward Cullen in Twilight, which means he has great hair — and he should be great at battling Riding Hood‘s wolf. [THR]
- Jerry Weintraub has purchased the rights to The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music, Dunstan Prial’s biography of John Hammond, the man who discovered famous music acts like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. Okay, but when is someone going to finally make a movie about the man who discovered Lou Bega? [THR]
- A Los Angeles judge has rejected a lawsuit filed against Starbucks by Carly Simon, who claimed the coffee chain didn’t make good on agreements to release her album. Now if only the chain would make good on my demands that they start selling their a-mah-zing chocolate cream cheese muffins again. [Reuters]
- The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is proposing that in light of the decreasing number of traditional television theme songs, the Main Title Theme Emmy category be dropped. In its place, it suggests a new category, Music Composition for a Nonfiction Program. The music branch of the Academy has the final say and is still debating the change, which would go into effect in 2011. [Emmys.org]
'Lost' countdown: Willy Wonka, U2, and the return of Jack vs. Locke!
Image Credit: Mario Perez/ABCLast week’s episode of Lost had several moments that got us all buzzing around the virtual water cooler. Desmond hitting John Locke with his car in the Sideways world. The Monster throwing Desmond down a well in the Island world. And then, there was the Willy Wonka promo for tonight’s episode. Now that was an evocative and provocative bit of marketing communication! As many readers have pointed out to me, season 6 does seem analogous to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The candidates are golden ticket winners, eligible to win the redemption factory that is The Island from retiring Jacob, but first they must pass various tests of character as well as the temptations of Mr. Slugworth, i.e. the Man In Black. The promo made use of the scene from the 1971 Gene Wilder film in which the eccentric confectioner takes his young would-be successors on a surreal boat ride and recites a creepy tone poem that expresses the kids’ intensifying anxiety and discombobulation as they journey deeper into a world where the rules of order and laws of reason are becoming increasingly unclear if not irrelevant. The lyrics used by Lost: READ FULL STORY »
'American Idol' judges on 'Larry King': Finally, it's all about them
The American Idol judges and Ryan Seacrest were on Larry King Live last night pretending that everything is fine this season. King asked why ratings were down a bit, and Seacrest and Simon Cowell said for the show’s ninth season, it’s to be expected. Not much was actually said in the clip embedded after the jump: Ryan teased Simon for showing so much heavage (yawn) and King showed his age making a Harry Belafonte joke. We learned that Simon will be watching at home next season when he leaves Idol for The X Factor and that Randy wants a bat phone to reach him. Also that Kara DioGuardi is happy she’s no longer a rookie judge and claps her hands a lot when she talks. Ellen DeGeneres said the only vaguely interesting thing while describing how hard it is to actually sit in front of someone and pass judgment on his or her performance. “Sometimes I hear myself go, ‘I liked it,’ and inside I’m goin’ No you didn’t.”
I’m officially missing Simon already. You? READ FULL STORY »
'American Idol' Power List: We're down to the Top 7! Who's your favorite?
Image Credit: Michael Becker/FoxAlicia Keys bursts onto the American Idol scene tonight to help the remaining season 9 contestants navigate a bizarre list of 77 “inspirational songs.” (Check out my dream set list for tonight’s show here.) Before Aaron Kelly can go all “This Is My Now” on our behinds, though, I’m going to rank him and his six rivals in terms of their momentum over the last eight weeks of live performances. Won’t you do the same by voting for your favorite in our Power List poll? (Related: ‘American Idol’ results night recap: Two Blue; for more Idol coverage, follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak.)
7. Aaron Kelly (Last week No. 8 ): I’m going to put as much energy and effort into Aaron’s writeup as he’s put into his last three performances. Aaaand…done!
6. Michael ‘Big Mike’ Lynche (Last week No. 7): “In the Ghetto” was vocally spotless, and gave him enough momentum to survive another week — despite his pouting and preening after Simon & Co. chose to use the season 9 Judges’ Save to rescue him from elimination the week prior. Still, it’s hard to get past READ FULL STORY »
'Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,' the movie: Self-help or sci-fi?
Apparently a movie version of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is now in the works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While this is clearly a (delayed) reaction to the success of making another vaguely sexist nonfiction self-help-as-chick-lit book, He’s Just Not That Into You, into a star-studded, desirable-demographic-courting romantic comedy extravaganza, I still must ask, in a more philosophical sense: Why? Because it’s actually 1992? Because the world is aching for a two-hour-long “men and women are so totally different and stuff” joke? Or maybe it’s a sci-fi film about men actually living on Mars and women actually living on Venus after some kind-of post-modern breakdown of relations between the sexes…. THAT I could be into.
What about you, PopWatchers? What concept would you pitch for a Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus script?
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