8 posts tagged “csi”

South Park has its midseason premiere on Wednesday night. Since animation isn't covered by the WGA, they weren't out on strike, so this was a planned break. It just happened to coincide with the strike. For as much noise as I make about the fact that I don't like cartoons, South Park is consistently one of my favorite shows.

Also returning this week: Reaper. There are a few episodes left from before the strike and they're producing a few more episodes before the end of the season.

Of course, Lost is still new, as is Law & Order, I believe, and possibly, Smallville. I've got to check again.

Other stuff:
In an attempt to keep interest in the show, Fox is doing a 24 movie before the next season kicks off next January. One of 24's co-creators Joel Surnow, has left the show.

Bubble show Friday Night Lights has apparently been renewed with the help of DirecTV.

CW has announced Smallville has been renewed. I guess that's the good news. The bad news would be that Lex and Lana are both leaving the show. They'll be back for bits, but not regulars. Reaper has not yet been renewed.

CBS has renewed a bunch of shows including all three CSIs. How I Met Your Mother is still not officially renewed, but expectations are that it will be. There are rumors swirling that Alicia Silverstone will be the mother. Take that for what it's worth.

Starbuck's husband Anders (actor Michael Trucco) is going to star in a new NBC comedy called The Man of Your Dreams. It's expected it will be on in the fall. Anders has been a favorite of mine on BSG, so I'll probably watch this one.

Former Doctor Who Christopher Eccelston has joined the cast of G.I. Joe.

The first three Replacements albums and an EP will be reissued in April.

Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons passed away last week.

Reason number 412 why I hate George Lucas. Lucasfilm is reissuing the three original Indiana Jones movies on DVD. There are special features that weren't on previous views. Gee, where have we heard this song and dance before? Jackass.

NBC's handling of Scrubs has always been ham-fisted. It's supposed to finish this year. Except because of the strike, they might not get to finish the show. Now ABC is making noises about picking up the show for the next season. For a whole season. Even though it was supposed to finish. Of course, NBC is more than a little pissed that ABC is making announcements like this since they still own the show.

Saturday Night Live returned a couple weeks ago. It's still bad, but at least the musical guests have been good. Last week was Wilco, this week was Vampire Weekend.

I just started watching another BBC miniseries. This one's called State of Play. I don't know how I missed this one. It's incredible. TV on DVD will eventually be the death of me. I was just going to watch the one episode and go to bed. Now I'm about to finish the disc and I want to finish it the whole series right now. It's going to take at least two more days to get the second and final disc of the series from Netflix. The cast is amazing. Lots of BBC regulars like John Simm (love him) and Philip Glenister (also from Life on Mars with John Simm), people who are now much bigger like James McAvoy, and a few already big stars like Bill Nighy. I think my current obsession with John Simm is responsible for me finally discovering this gem. With his Life on Mars being a favorite of mine and his guest shot on Doctor Who, I'm now finding I want to go back and watch the things I now know he was in that I've already seen, like Human Traffic and 24 Hour Party People. Full review of State of Play to come once I've finished it.

This week we got the last new episodes of CSI, 30 Rock and My Name is Earl.

Tonight we get the premiere of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was also supposed to be he premiere night of 24, but the strike has effectively killed the season. TSSC has been getting pretty good reviews, and it stars Summer Glau of Firefly fame, so I'll check it out.

In strike news this week, the DGA has agreed to initial terms to sit down with the AMPTP. We'll see if the DGA can get them to make a fair deal. If so, it might bode well for the writers.

Lots of football on today. More later.

Well this is just sad. All of the networks have announced their winter schedules. All of the schedules assume the strike will continue and there will essentially be no more new shows produced this season.

The breakdown of shows I care about is as follows:
ABC: Lost starts in February and will run eight episodes. There are rumors that the start could push until March or April. It also changes nights and will be on Thursdays at 9:00.

CBS has the CSIs until they run out of episodes, which will be very soon, in their usual times and will then go in to reruns. Jericho returns February 12.

NBC is bringing back Law&Order on January 2nd with a two hour premiere. They will run original episodes on Wednesday nights a 10:00. L&O:CI comes back on January 9th at 9:00. Scrubs will continue on Thursdays at 8:30 until it runs out of episodes.

Fox has House on its regular Tuesday night slot until they run out of episodes. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts on January 13th and airs on its regular Monday night slot after that.

The CW has Smallville in its regular Thursday at 8 slot until they run out.

Cable stuff of interest includes Reno:911 returning on January 16th. BBC America has Torchwood back on January 26th. The glorious Life on Mars has five episodes left after tonight. Tonight's episode will repeat right before next week's in case you missed it.

CBS canceled Viva Laughlin after just two airings. In four days. I think I made it about halfway through the pilot. Even the appearance of Hugh Jackman couldn't save this thing. Once again, American TV has taken something British and excellent and turned it to crap. Good on ya, CBS. At least you had the good sense to cancel it before it got too embarrassing. It will be replaced by The Amazing Race starting November 4th. A CSI rerun will air instead this coming Sunday. This is the first season pass on the Tivo to go this season. Not that it's a huge surprise. I think I added it just so I'd have something to delete.

In other news, Lost keeps announcing new cast members. How big can this cast get before its gravitational pull turns it in to a black hole? Or, you know, a bigger black hole. There are some vaguely name actors in the list of new names, but it's not even worth digging them out.

It would appear that many critics have now seen the BSG movie Razor which airs on SciFi on November 24th. That's the Saturday after Thanksgiving for those of you playing at home. I'm trying not to read too much about it because I want to be surprised, but the one thing I've seen says we should get some quality space battles. Something that was sorely lacking in the last season. SciFi is starting to put out videos to get people excited about Razor. I haven't watched them yet, but you can bet I'll be checking them out.

Ellen DeGeneres had a complete meltdown about the adoption of a dog. I'm not sure I care, but it's out there so I thought I'd mention it. Google/YouTube is your friend if you want to see what the hubbub is about.

The Tivo series 3 and HD boxes are rolling out support for eSata drives. So owners of the new Tivos can add capacity by simply plugging in an external hard drive. No more warranty voiding mucking about inside. Nice! Now if only they made one that worked with DirecTv I'd be all over it. I'm still not willing to give up my DirecTivo. Given a choice between HD and my Tivo, the Tivo wins hands down. I've never had HD so I don't know what I'm missing and I don't know what I'd do without the Tivo.

Jon Stewart extended his Daily Show contract to 2010.

I don't know if any of you noticed, but Stephen Colbert announced he was running for President, but only in South Carolina. It looks like this is increasingly agitating some folks out there. Some folks claim he's breaking election laws by using his show and Comedy Central to campaign. Colbert was apparently on Meet the Press this Sunday. Is that taking the joke too far? Nah. Adding Sen Larry Craig (of the MSP bathroom sex scandal) as his running mate? Kind of genius.

The complete series of Studio 60 is out on dvd.

I jumped the gun on the shark jumping CSI:NY episode. It airs this week. The previews are horrifying and hilarious. I just can't turn away. Any time you see Gary Sinise yelling "Log out! NOW!" you just have to stand back in awe of the awfulness. And I love Gary Sinise. He's the reason I started watching this junk in the first place. I kinda feel bad for him with the horrible dialog and ridiculous plots they make him play at.

I'm still a little over a week behind with my own TV watching at the moment. It would appear that in the battle between sleep and TV, sleep is currently winning. Go figure.

WTF was up with Heroes turning in to a soap opera last night? I mean, I saw it coming, and it was done completely true to style with Heroes being a comic book and all, but I didn't expect all the love stories to happen at once. Sheesh.

Other than that, I think Heroes still has what it takes. So far, and I've only watched one week of the new tv season, Heroes is still my favorite show.

Lessee, what else is new? Joss Whedon is directing another episode of The Office. So I guess that means I'll have to watch another full episode.

It's looking quite possible that the tv season could be interrupted by a writer's strike. Bummer.

Even though Sara didn't die on CSI, she's apparently off the show. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Fox is apparently giving J.J. Abrams a pile of cash to make a pilot of a Sci-Fi show called Fringe. Why does Fox even bother? If Alias struggled on ABC, at least they gave it a chance. This sounds like another show destined to be canceled by the jackholes at Fox.

Speaking of which, said jackholes at Fox have sent out some sort of cease and desist thing to places like The Parkway that were staging Whedon nights. You could go to the Parkway, see three episodes of great television in a comfy movie theater, have a pint and a slice, sounds like a perfect evening, right? Not anymore. Thanks a lot. Idiots.

Wallace and Gromit are returning to British TV. I hope that makes its way over here at some point.

The X-Files 2 might actually start filming soon. I wonder if anyone will care.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet, but 24 returns this Sunday with a two hour premiere followed by two more hours on Monday night.  It resumes its regular Mondays at 9 schedule after that.  Yes, it's up against Heroes.  Hmm.  Glad I don't have to choose.  Last season of 24 was soooooo good.  I'm really looking forward to this.

And since it's about that time, a couple of people have asked me if there are any new midseason shows that I'm interested in.  Pretty much no.  There's a show called The Black Donnelys that looks interesting, but it doesn't yet have a premiere date.  It's waiting for something else to be cancelled, I suppose.  I haven't really heard anything good about any of the other new shows yet.  I think the EW that's supposed to have arrived already is the winter tv preview, but the Berkeley post office is enjoying it first, I guess.

Kevin Williamson, the creator of Dawson's Creek has a new show coming up.  It's called Hidden Palms.  Doesn't really matter what it's about, it's Kevin Williamson, so it will be teen angsty and too smart for its own good.  Will I watch?  Maybe.  Probably will check it out and then get hooked.  Curse you Kevin Willamson!  It's also not yet on the schedule.

And of course I'll be watching Drive when it comes out in March.  Fox, in its infinite wisdom has put this show in the death slot on Thursday nights against CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Supernatural and Scrubs.  The OC lasted, what, 4, 5 episodes in this slot before it got cancelled?  And it was a succesful show before.  Way to go Fox, once again throwing your weight behind a Tim Minear show.  I hope after you cancel Drive he'll be done with his contract with you so he can go make a show that will last someplace else.  Of course, I really hope it'll be a good show and do well in the slot after American Idol on Thursdays.  That was the timeslot that launched House, after all I think.  But House wasn't competing with that lineup at the time.  It only had to face CSI.  I hope at least some of those shows are in repeats when Drive launches to give it a fighting chance.

I'm not going to say much about last night's Lost because I know some of you haven't watched it.  Mostly I wanted to remind y'all that there's only one more episode left until they go on a 13 week hiatus.  I liked last night's episode, but I'm still steadily losing interest.  Rumor has it that Nathan Fillion's character might show up next week.  Sweet!  It'll be great to see Captain Mal on tv again.

Tim Minear (the other half of the creative team of Firefly) has been helping out on Standoff for a little bit now, but that's not stopping Fox from picking up his show Drive as a midseason replacement.  Should start to air this spring.

NBC has issued a statement that not only is Studio 60 not cancelled, it's making money and the ratings were up for the last episode they aired. Doth they protest too much?  I still think it's doomed, but it might make it through the first season.

CSI, CSI:NY and CSI:Miami are all top 10 shows according to Nielsen.  Holy crap.

Kidnapped is dead dead dead.  NBC has even pulled it from it's Saturday night death slot.  I was still enjoying it, but I'm done.  They claim they're going to put the rest of the episodes on their website, so I guess that means I won't be watching.

Comedy Central has started putting whole episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on their website.

And I promise this is the last time that I'll mention that Alan Tudyk is on CSI tonight.

Apparenty, Eddie Izzard isn't going to be on 24 this season.  I just read that somewhere today and now I can't find it again, so I hope it's not the crack talking.

NBC ordered more scripts for Studio 60.  Not a full season order yet, and no guarantee that they'll air the ones they've ordered.

NBC is changing up their Thursday lineup.  They've pulled 30 Rock from Wednesday.  The new Thursday night lineup is going to be My Name is Earl, The Office, Scrubs and 30 Rock.  leaving Thursday as the only night NBC isn't going for the "cheaper" reality/game show programming from 8-9.  20 Good Years appears to have been pulled for real.  So it looks like Scrubs is coming back earlier than we thought, which is great news.  I love Scrubs, and NBC has been jerking them around for years.  The good news is they're bringing it back, the bad news is they're putting it in the death hour of Thursday at 9 up against Grey's Anatomy, CSI, etc.  I hope it does well and I'm glad I only have CSI as one of my shows so I can record Scrubs too.  Scrubs returns November 30.

Nightmare Before Christmas is airing on Cartoon Network tomorrow night.

ABC has set the return date for Lost.  It's coming back Feb 7th.  In it's absence, ABC is airing a new show called Daybreak.  It's like Groundhog's Day but set as an LA cop show where the central character has to stop his girlfriend's murder.  So not with the funny.  Daybreak stars Taye Diggs and has another Joss Whedon alumnus in the cast in Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Angel).  I like Taye Diggs.  Someday he'll have a show that stays on the air.  Maybe this one's the charm.

Liev Schreiber is joining CSI in January.

There was a whole to-do this week about Michael J Fox doing ads for candidates in favor of stem cell research.  Isn't he Canadian, anyway?

These short stories are great.  Because everything relates back to Joss in some way.

We were right.  After the Borat movie, that character is spent.  And there's a bidding war going on for the Bruno movie, which doesn't exist yet.  Bruno is the third character Sasha Baron Cohen played on Da Ali G Show.

I think I mentioned this already but I'm too lazy to go check. Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal from Firefly/Serenity) will be on Lost November 8th.  It's a good week for former Firefly peeps as Alan Tudyk (my pilot) will be on CSI November 2nd.  Which just happens to be the same night the Parkway is doing a screening/sing-along of Once More With Feeling, the Buffy musical episode.  More Joss related goodness for everyoine.  And since we're already here, Nathan Fillion's latest movie, Slither came out on dvd this week.  Not that I'm dying to see a gross out horror movie, but it's still relavent.

Sesame Street: Old School Volume 1 came out this week too.  So if you're dying to have the old pinball counting video on dvd, now's your chance.

For you How I Met Your Mother fans out there, there's a contest to submit your own Barneyism.  I think this will be more fun than the Transformers' Optimus Prime dialog contest.

I have watched this week's BSG, but that's for another time.  This one's already too long.  And a new record for 5 Joss references in one post.  Ha!