Image Credit: Zade Rosenthal
TV finale season is in full swing this week, with endings served up on Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Vampire Diaries, among others. But the most important entertainment event is arguably the box office bow of a new Star Trek movie — especially when the newest one is called Star Trek Into Darkness and comes studio-sealed in secrecy and trench coats in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch’s deep-voiced baddie.
That and oh-so-much more for the week ahead, below.
Image Credit: Bob Mahoney/The CW
This is a stressful time to be a Vampire Diaries fan. Not only is next week the season finale, but Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev have ended their adorably zen, fedora-laden relationship of the past three years. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: K.C. Bailey
Spotted: A floppy-haired actor biting the glamorous hand that fed him.
Penn Badgley always seemed like the most intellectual member of Gossip Girl‘s cast — perhaps because of his preternaturally deep voice, or the way he held up a “Bring Back the Glass-Steagall Act” sign at Occupy Wall Street in the fall of 2011, or because his chief competitors for that title are people like Chase Crawford and Taylor Momsen. And given this, it’s not totally surprising that Badgley secretly felt like a show that hinged on faked deaths and dowries — dowries! In the year 2012! — was sort of beneath him.
It is, however, a little surprising that Badgley would be so frank about those feelings when talking to a reporter. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Matt Dinerstein
It’s a bustle of premieres, returns, and hiatuses in the entertainment world this week — not to mention a new Zac Efron movie! Our advice after an emotionally draining week: for every dark piece of entertainment, balance it with two pieces of light.
Image Credit: Michael Desmond/Lifetime
You probably don’t remember, but New York was covered in snow the last time I put together the PopWatch Planner. (Sorry, y’all.) To the rest of the country: enjoy what I assume is wonderfully warm weather.
If you still need a little heat, just watch Jennifer Love Hewitt in the season premiere of The Client List. That, and other suggestions, after the jump.
Image Credit: Cate Cameron/The CW
The CW’s new meta-mystery Cult brings us into a world that most visitors to this website happen to know pretty well: The realm of overly obsessive pop culture fandom. It’s a sometimes fun, sometimes scary, always interesting shadowland where enthusiasm for fantasy takes the most peculiar forms: Ardent ‘shipping, colorful cosplay, mad theorizing by know-it-all bloggers who give themselves fake PhDs and are rarely correct about anything. (Such hacks! Such frauds!) Created by Farscape’s Rockne S. O’Bannon, a scribe with genre smarts who clearly knows much about the benefits and beautiful weirdness of fandom, Cult imagines a culture where a show called “Cult” airs on The CW and seems to be having a seriously adverse if not deadly affect on its most ardent viewers. (Like we said: Meta.) READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Disney; Albert L. Ortega/WireImage
There are good years, and then there are great years, and then there are the kinds of years that Joss Whedon had in 2012. In May, Lionsgate released Cabin In The Woods, the long-delayed, widely acclaimed po-mo horror flick, co-written and produced by the cult pop auteur. (Drew Goddard co-wrote and directed the film.) In July, Whedon attended Comic-Con and celebrated the tenth anniversary of his gone-too-soon TV series Firefly at one of the most emotional panels the annual fan-fest has ever seen. In September, Whedon went to the Toronto International Film Festival and premiered Much Ado About Nothing, a micro-budget, literally homemade adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy. ”That was an incredible experience,” recalls Nathan Fillion, who stars in the film (set for release next summer). “The man got three standing ovations before he got on stage. That’s just indicative of the kind of fandom that Joss creates. I have never seen anything like it.” In October, The CW aired – for the first time on television – Whedon’s 2008 Emmy-winning online opus Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Shortly before Halloween, the man who created Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse took to the Web to say a few words about the defining issue of the 2012 presidential campaign – a zombie apocalypse – via a very funny, very personal, very partisan video viewed by over 7 million people.
Oh, and there was Marvel’s The Avengers. Whedon wrote and directed that, too. Grossed $1.5 billion worldwide. Maybe you saw it.
One month ago, Homeland and Modern Family were named Best Drama and Best Comedy at the 64th Annual Emmy Awards. Their crowning ushered in the 2012 fall TV season, an exciting new beginning filled with surprising triumphs and unsurprising failures. (Made in Jersey and Animal Practice, we hardly knew ye!)
It’s too early to tell whether any of the networks’ shiny new shows will dethrone Homeland or ModFam at next year’s Emmys. Still, we’ve seen enough of them to know which ones are live-watch musts, which deserve a spot on the DVR… and which should follow CBS’s legal drama and NBC’s monkey comedy to an early grave.
For now, though, let’s keep things positive. Which of the following new shows is your favorite one of all? Vote in the poll below — and explain yourself in the comments.
