In episode 1 of her new Web series House Poor, The Office's Mindy Kaling budget-fakes her own pregnancy with a hoodie and a pillow in an attempt to con her friends into furnishing her new house. What the hell is she gonna do with a giant teddy bear?
House Poor is just one of 10 original series on Strike.TV, which launched this week but was devised during the Hollywood writers' strike. Global Warming, starring SNL's Kristen Wiig and The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi (with a cameo by Kaling), is also worth a look. Adventures in office microwaving!
If your lingering reaction to House Poor was, "Awww, I miss Busy Philipps" like mine was, don't miss EW.com's 'Freaks and Geeks': Then and Now photo gallery!
Fox's Bones concludes its strike-shortened season
tonight, wrapping up the series' first attempt at a serialized story
line with the unveiling of the skeleton-collecting, cannibalistic
Gormogon killer and his apprentice. We caught up with exec-producer
Hart Hanson shortly after it was announced that, in the show's fourth
season, it would break from it's Monday-night pairing with House, moving
to Wednesdays in the fall and Fridays come January. While he's hopeful
that the Friday-night placement, meant to help build other shows,
won't happen, and accepted yet another schedule change, Hanson seemed
to crave a little stability. ("I would like them to be tossing all
their effort into making our show a huge hit instead of something
between a huge hit and a cult hit," he said.) Still, Hanson talked to
us about the finale and what went into the planning of this season,
answering some PopWatch questions along the way. (Sorry, guys, no word
on if/when David Boreanaz' Booth and Emily Deschanel's Bones will
finally hook up.) Read Hanson's (spoiler-free) remarks below, and check back with us tomorrow, after the big reveal, to
read more from Hanson on how they decided who the killer would be and
what it could mean for the show next year.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When the identities of the Gormogon killer and his apprentice (which we at PopWatch know) are revealed, are you concerned about the fan reaction? Hart Hanson: I'm counting on it. We're expecting a violent
reaction. When you make a change to a beloved ensemble cast, it's a
good thing and a bad thing. You lose someone but you've got to make
changes and keep it alive. The kiss of death is to keep adding
characters without making room for them because everyone is
underserviced.
Given that you had to rejigger the end of the season, are you happy with the resolution?
I think it works. We'll find out how it works. If
there hadn't been a strike, we would have had a few more Gormogon
stories and it would not have played out exactly the way it did play
out but the end result would have been the same. There would have been
people gone because of the Gormogon. It just would have played out in
different ways. Characters could have been killed for example. However,
one of the things we've found out is that on our show, despite the
murder and mayhem, we are fairly funny, and were we to kill people,
beloved characters, for example, having our regular characters live
with that would be more difficult than if they didn't die. So in that
respect, it worked out just fine for the series.
I was so charmed by this clip of Jenna Fischer gabbing with pregnant Angela Kinsey (from her "Adventures with Angela" vlog series on the official website for The Office), I had to share. In this installment, the costars hang out in a hotel room as Fischer recalls her NYC runway debut in a charity fashion show, and they both try to figure out the Heidi Klum supermodel strut:
Not only does this footage remind me how painfully long it's been since The Office has been on the air (remember, it's back April 10!), but it's an entertaining glimpse into the friendship between two actresses who so convincingly portray nemeses (for non-Office fans, Fischer plays receptionist Pam and Kinsey plays accountant Angela). In fact, the video makes me miss one of my favorite shows and my favorite girlfriends. I'm planning a June vacation with a close group of friends right now, and I actually think these down-to-earth chicks would fit right in with us. Although we don't glam it up with lip gloss when we're just hanging out, and there are more bottles around. But you know what I mean.
In the past, we've asked which famous men or women you PopWatchers would genuinely like to date, and now that it's that Spring Break time of year, let's dish about this: Which TV stars do you think you'd have the most fun going on vacation with, and where?
I don't really watch Grey's Anatomy all that much, and I've never seen a single minute of Private Practice. But after spending a night watching their respective casts belt out some Stephen Sondheim, Billie Holiday, Paul Simon and Woody Guthrie on stage at UCLA's Royce Hall, I'm kinda shocked creator and showrunner Shonda Rhimes hasn't cranked out at least one musical episode for each of her shows. I know I'd be the first to tune in, at least.
The crooning was for a benefit aiding the Grey's and Private Practice crew members who've felt the financial pinch during the writers' strike. (The night's title, naturally, was "Good Medicine.") And it was clearly a passion project; I was told the casts and their backing musicians had rehearsed over two days before the Feb. 29 show, and goodness did the hard work pay off in a fizzy and fun evening.
After the jump, I'll walk through the highlights from the show, including which actor showed off some surprising chops on the harmonica and which two stars didn't make it onto the stage.
Several years ago, after a friend of mine ran the Marine Corps Marathon (and I slipped on a banana peel in the finish area), she told me that the last two-tenths of a mile had been the hardest for her. She'd been so focused on getting to mile 26, she'd forgotten all about the .2, and had to force herself to mentally regroup. I wonder if we, the TV addicts, will experience a similar fate in regards to the writers' strike. Were we so focused on getting a deal signed that we didn't think about what would happen next: Will these final weeks until our DVRs are flooded with new episodes prove the most difficult?
According to an informal poll taken last night at my friend Sheila's birthday dinner, sometime during the second pitcher of sangria, the answer may very well be yes. We went around the table and talked about our lowest point during the strike, when we watched a program that we never would have sat through had the season progressed as usual, and those moments were all recent. Apparently, after Sheila blew through all five new episodes of In Treatment as soon as they appeared on HBO on Demand, she found herself turning to what many of you will consider the unthinkable: Two and a Half Men (pictured). Our friend Ian, it should be noted, involuntarily outed himself as having seen an episode when he joined us in singing the "Men, men, men, men, manly men..." theme song — which we did only to prove to the other side of the table how annoying it is. As in, I used to tape the show, and the song was the reason I stopped.
My friend Robb then attempted to top Sheila's confession by admitting that he's seen every episode of Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle, and had just watched a 1997 TV movie called Every 9 Seconds, starring Caroline in the City's Amy Pietz, on "one of the Lady Networks." His argument would've been stronger had he not added that Christopher Meloni, playing Gail O'Grady's abusive husband, appeared shirtless.
Your turn. What has been your low point during the strike, and how do you plan on making it through these final weeks? (A new episode of Bones airs April 14, friends. We can make it if we stick together. The center must hold.)
Some TV writers are finding it tough to get back into a regular groove now that the strike is finally resolved, even with weeks or months until their shows air again. So just imagine how the teams behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report must have felt on Tuesday night, when they realized they'd have to hit the ground running and whip up a new episode in less than 24 hours! Last night, we got to see the first fruits of their labors. How'd they fare?
The writers' return was a real godsend for Jon Stewart, who'd been visibly flailing for a while now without anyone to keep him supplied with fresh schtick. Last night, he pulled off his funniest show in many weeks — even better than I remember him being in the dull fall months before the strike, to be honest. His pun-filled opening tribute to his scribes was both cute and clever. (No awkward space-filling pauses in sight!) But the Show really hit its stride with a smart, tightly scripted hatchet job on Sen. Arlen Specter — classic Daily material, and the kind of thing Stewart couldn't possibly have come up with off the top of his head:
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo screenwriter Harris Goldberg said he was thrilled his phone was ringing again as development executives checked in with him on an idled TV pilot and movie script he wrote. "After complete silence for three months, I got maybe six or seven calls from people saying, 'Let's go, let's get together, let's get the ball rolling,'" Goldberg said.
We wish Goldberg the best of luck, but also take this opportunity to remind everyone that it's okay to ease back into work. We'll be here.
With an end to the WGA strike imminent, TV fans who've spent the past few months away from the tube, interacting with friends and family (yeah, right — e-mail/IM at best) are scrambling to find out when their beloved scripted shows will return. But since networks don't have much time to make decisions on existing shows before the May announcement of the fall lineup, many of the series will only air four to eight new episodes — and most of them not until April or May. Many shows won't return this spring at all. EW.com is now keeping a regularly updated list. What does it all mean? One thing for sure: Jericho (pictured), which returns tonight with a seven-episode run, has a great shot at catching on this time around. Check out our Jericho sesaon 2 cheat sheet to feel somewhat informed before tuning in.
There must be a little-known proviso in the Writers Guild rules that permits striking TV writers to pen scenarios for shows other than their own in snarky magazine articles. So it is with New York magazine, which cross-assigned teams of writers from various strike-afflicted shows to dream up season-ending arcs for other strike-afflicted shows. (Hat tip to TV Barn and TV Tattle for the link.) The results aren't as funny as I'd have hoped, though I did enjoy the Simpsons crew's apocalyptic take on The Office. I'd still like to see what, say, Tina Fey's 30 Rock-ers could do with House or Heroes. How about you, PopWatchers? What TV writer swaps would you like to see?
After reading this Associated Press article about the two Oscars telecasts being planned — one if the writers' strike has ended, one if it hasn't — I'm torn. Academy president Sid Ganis said Plan B involves "history and packages of film and concepts that are not normally ones that we would have for the show if we were moving straight ahead." No one wants that. But then show producer Gil Cates, explaining why writers still shouldn't picket the Academy Awards, said, "This show, in my view, is really above politics.... It is wrong to treat the show as anything other than a gift from all the people who work in this business, really, to the exceptional talent and the community and the country."
The country, Mr. Cates? Maybe leave me out of this one. Perhaps you genuinely believe that Oscar night is for we, the people, but I don't think the masses are on the minds of the nominees. (Nor should they be.) The fact is: Even though I'm someone who would really love to sit down with her favorite meal and a Xerox of her office Oscar pool ballot, as usual, on Feb. 24, my life would go on if the Academy Awards didn't. I survived without tuning into the Golden Globes debacle thanks to the season premiere of Rock of Love 2.
So, here's my question: Will you watch the Plan B telecast, if it comes to that? This is the Oscars, not the Golden Globes, so we should have a real host — poor Jon Stewart, as far as we know — instead of Billy Bush. Watching him feel our pain post-packages could be somewhat enjoyable.
I don't really watch 
Several years ago, after a friend of mine ran the Marine Corps Marathon (and 
From an 
With an end to the WGA strike imminent, TV fans who've spent the past few months away from the tube, interacting with friends and family (yeah, right — e-mail/IM at best) are scrambling to find out when their beloved scripted shows will return. But since networks don't have much time to make decisions on existing shows before the May announcement of the fall lineup, many of the series will only air four to eight new episodes — and most of them not until April or May. Many shows won't return this spring at all. EW.com is now keeping a regularly 
There must be a little-known proviso in the Writers Guild rules that permits striking TV writers to pen scenarios for shows other than their own in snarky magazine articles. So it is with 
After reading 
