11 posts tagged “house”

I just finished watching the Emmys. For a list of winners, go here. Surprises included Bryan Cranston winning Best Actor in a Drama and Alec Baldwin winning for 30 Rock. Mad Men, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show also won their share.

Tivo check time:
I know I haven't made a big deal out of it yet, but let this be the big reminder that HEROES RETURNS MONDAY NIGHT! There's a one hour special at 8:00 "Countdown to the Premiere", and then at 9:00 is the two hour (two episode, really) premiere.

With slightly fewer capital letters, How I Met Your Mother also returns tonight at 8:30.

Tuesday brings us another new House and Fringe twofer. Also new show The Mentalist goes up against Fringe. It's supposed to be good, so I'll check it out.

Wednesday CSI:NY comes back.

Thursday has the season premiere and a second episode of My Name is Earl and the premiere of Survivor, both at 8:00. The Office also returns this week.

Next Sunday is the premiere of The Amazing Race and the Simpsons, both at 8:00.

In a way, I'm kind of glad there aren't all sorts of interesting new shows this fall because I've been busy and I'm already behind in watching what I've already recorded.

House premieres this week on Fox, Tuesday at 8. It will be followed by the second episode of Fringe.

Not much else going on. It's a quiet week in TV. There's a big news update on the horizon, but it's too late to do it tonight.

The three biggest finales of the season were this week and Veronica Mars rode off in to the sunset. I'm going to ruin the Lost finale three paragraphs down, so stop reading now if you don't want to risk it.

I really enjoyed the last few episodes of Veronica Mars and was actually very sad to see it go. This season was so inconsistent. We spent a lot of the season wondering where the hell all the regulars had gone. Wallace, Mac, Weevil, all MIA for a lot of the season. The last few episodes of the season/series had the whole gang. I even grew to like Piz as the season wore on and was glad he got the girl. Even Deputy Leo made a return for the final few episodes. I think it was watching Veronica walk away after casting her vote and realizing that we'll never know what happens next that bummed me out. Goodbye Veronica Mars.

And now in reverse order of how much I cared, here are the three big season finales from this week. First up, 24. This season of 24 actually sucked. I was surprised at exactly how much it could suck considering we'd made it through the daughter attacked by a mountain lion season and lived to tell the tale. I used to think the way this show told stories was kind of stupid, but it turns out if you take that same story and make it more like a soap opera, it's worse. Love triangles? Like, how many of them were there? Sheesh. The office romances used to be kind of fun on this show, but this season they were just stupid. Except for the Bill Buchanan/Karen Hayes thing. Didn't see that coming at all from the previous season but it was a great idea. Making the woman head of the NSA and having to fire her counter terrorist husband? Genius. Plus it set up several great Bill is a badass moments when he had to go rogue to save Jack. Bill has become my favorite not-Jack character since they offed Tony last season. The finale was fun, it mostly went down like it was supposed to. Jack saves the day, loses the girl, prevents a war. You know, the usual. Knowing Kiefer Sutherland is signed for three more seasons takes some of the suspense away as to the ending. Rumor has it that the next season will be somewhere outside of LA. Where else will they be able to get everywhere they need to be in 10 minutes every time?

Next, Lost. The last time I talked about Lost I mentioned that it was going to be a surprise and/or a relief when the finally killed Charlie. This was so well done. He died well. A great story line in an overall mediocre episode. I loved the way he dealt with the women who were torturing him. He had such a great attitude. He went down there ready to die, so being threatened didn't bother him one bit. There are a lot of people out there complaining about the way he died. To them I say: which show were you watching? It had to go down that way. If what you're hanging on to is the fact that he maybe could have closed the door from the outside, let me remind you that he and Des were in an underwater radio jamming station off the coast of an island that doesn't exist with polar bears and smoke monsters and strange indigenous peoples who are led by a crazy dude who talks to a chair in a cabin in the middle of the jungle thinking it's some sort of divine messenger. Moving on. First off, who the frak was in the casket?! Does it really have to be that big of a mystery? Oooh, spooky, let's watch Jack be crazy in the future that will never be and not tell you why he's upset. Speculate all you want, I'm not wasting any more energy thinking about it. This is exactly the kind of crap I started to hate about Lost. Is it really so important that we don't know? Ok, so theories? Nope. You know what? I don't care. It's entertaining and if I think too much about it it just makes me angry. Fun show, but way beyond me caring about what's actually going on. I used to want to figure it out. All I figured out is that there's nothing to figure out. Mostly I think I'm still watching to see how big a train wreck it can become. I know I'm not supposed to compare Lost and Heroes but I can't help but think about the fact that the Heroes future episode a) told you from the get go they were in the future b) made you completely buy the vision of the future even though you knew it wouldn't happen that way and c) was made of awesome. Lost did the opposite. Yes, I figured out it was a flash forward almost immediately. Yes, I understand it's a future that won't happen. But do they have to be such dicks about it? There were some great moments in the show, don't get me wrong. I still like it, just not for the reasons I used to. Loved the Hurley in the van moment. Loved that Tom the Other didn't kill the three captives and then Sawyer plugged him anyway. Loved the dark turn Sawyer is taking. Loved the fact that Penny almost got to talk to Des. Loved that fact that you just can't kill patchy. Wanna bet he's still not dead? Loved Jack beating the snot out of Ben. Really loved the first words Rousseau ever spoke to her daughter. Loved the body count. At least they're not afraid to kill characters on this show. It's what happens when good writers have bad material. All hat, no cattle. Rest in peace Charlie Pace.

Well, that was more of a tirade that I expected. Which brings us finally to Heroes. I've read a lot of comments on the interweb from people who are disappointed at the Heroes finale. Again, I say to them, which show were you watching? This was a great season finale. It payed off the season while setting up next season without being an irritating cliffhanger. The only complaint I can relate to is that I wanted a little more action in the big fight. Great setup, good job bringing all the Heroes together. Sylar's not dead. Which I have to admit I didn't get on the first viewing. So the question remains, did he crawl in to the sewer or was he dragged by the bigger badder bad that Molly won't look for? After killing two in the penultimate episode, it was almost a little disappointing that nobody actually died in the finale. Several potential mortal woundings, but we didn't see anyone actually die. Yet. I loved this show all season and, after a slew of disappointing season finales, was very pleased to see this one deliver. I'm really hoping they don't suffer a sophomore slump. I'm looking forward to next season very much when we learn that the samurai from the stories is really Hiro's dad. Or something.

And tonight? The beginning of the end for Studio 60. It returns in ER's slot to show the rest of the episodes they've already filmed. There will be no more.

Liverpool lost the Champions League 2-1 to AC Milan. I'm sure you were all dying to know that.

I think the only finale left is House. Which is next Tuesday. Guess I better make sure my Netflix queue is current. Or start playing more video games. Or both.

It's very much awards season now. The Golden Globes were two weeks ago, the SAG awards were Sunday night, and the Oscar nominations came out last week. The tv stuff means a lot more to me, so the Globes and the SAG awards were fun. Hugh Laurie won for House at both. The Office keeps winning stuff, and I still have no interest in watching it. Now Joss Whedon has directed an episode of the Office. His episode airs February 15, so I guess I'll try to make it through a whole episode to see if there are any quality Jossisms in the show.

So you know how I've been joking about the five movies I saw last year? Turns out it's true. Entertainment Weekly just published the top 100 movies of last year. I have seen six. One of them this year so it doesn't count. I saw a bunch more dvds, but I think this proves I gotta get out more.

FX has released the premiere date of Eddie Izzard's show The Riches. It starts March 12 at 10pm. Which is a Monday. At least they were smart enough not to put it up against Heroes and 24 and whatever else is on at 9:00.

South Park returns March 7th for its 11th season.

Now I know it only takes three inches of snow to paralyze Portland.  They drive around on studded tires all winter long up here, but apparently that's just for the ice storms.  The media coverage was fantastic.  KATU channel 2 did something like four hours of live weather coverage.  Pretty much all the schools closed.  It's quite pretty.  Here's the view from the back door of my cousin's house (where I am comfortably ensconced):

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I took advantage of the day today to get caught up on Smallville.  It's really a silly, cheesy show, but I can't help myself.  I'm still really enjoying the Green Arrow subplot.

I'm almost caught up on 24 as well.  If we can't make it out of the house to see Children of Men tonight, I have a feeling that's what we'll be doing instead.

Saw Stranger than Fiction last night at one of the local McMenimans theaters.  Good movie.  Meta in that same sort of way that Adaptation was, but I liked Stranger Than Fiction more.  My only question is, was the movie so meta that they meant to have the boom mic in as many shots as it was in?  Or was it just sloppy filmmaking?  I'd like to think they meant to do it, but I'm really not sure.  I've already seen two movies in a theater in 2007, putting me about halfway to my total for last year.  Admittedly, both were in pub theaters but maybe that's what it's going to take.

The Bagdad in SE Portland is a really beautiful old school theater with the balcony intact and not turned in to a separate theater like many of the theaters of its day.  I think they had four or five or the McMenamins beers on tap there.  Oregon really is a beer heaven.  I've been drinking nothing but local beers since I got here on Friday and I don't think I've had the same thing twice.  (Shameless Plug) I also went to the Lucky Labrador brewery/resaurant in NW on Quimby between 19th and 20th yesterday for lunch.  The manager is none other than my cousin Lauren.  The beer is fantastic and all brewed on site.  Yummy.

Other random tidbits to make the post vaguely relevant: The latest rumor about Drive is that it will be on Monday nights at 8.  Which is a way better timeslot than Thursdays at 9.  Maybe Fox realized it was a bad idea?  That would be a first.  I'd still rather the show was on later so that it could get as interesting as possible, but if it has a prayer of not getting cancelled in a different timeslot, I'm all for it.

Alexandra Pelosi (yes, that Pelosi), who made the documentary Journeys with George about the last presidential campaign is taking on evangelicals in her latest project for HBO called Friends With God.  Popular topic these days.  It premieres on January 25.  Not enough to make me get HBO, but I'll look for it on dvd.

The Lost guys claim they have an endgame and are thinking about ending the show at 5 seasons.

The Golden Globes were on last night.  I didn't watch, and it appears the only thing I care about at all is that Hugh Laurie won for House.

Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, claims there might be a seventh season after all.  With Zach Braff, who has been saying for months that this is the end.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has been cancelled.  I honestly didn't even know it was still on.

Sting is seriously mulling a Police reunion for this year.  30 years already?  Wow.

A sequel of Alien vs Predator is in the works.  Then again, there's also a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on the way.

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.

Turns out these days I am some sort of technology anti-Midas.  About a week ago my Tivo hard drive started to die.  I blame the fact that I've watched a bunch of stuff that had been hanging around and I think I released some bad sectors into the wild that had been held hostage by some Good Eats.  So I thought I'd get clever and replace the hard drive with an even bigger one, not that I need any more tv.  Cut to 10 hours of attempting to get a new hard drive online and I now have a 320 gig hard drive convinced it's 120 gig and refusing to get any bigger.  I know how to fix it, but it would involve losing all the saved recordings I already have.  So maybe I'll wait until Sci-Fi runs another Firefly marathon and do it then.  Yes, I already have it on dvd, but I like having it on the tivo.  This in addition to the fact that I've been trying to assemble my first computer from scratch with what can be kindly referred to mixed success.

The upshot being I missed last night's Simpsons and I really need to put a computer work table in my office so I can work on these things somewhere other than the floor.  Everything's ok for now, and I think I'm in good shape for my shows returning from their winter breaks.  How I Met Your Mother and The Class returned tonight.

House is back tomorrow.  I hope they're going to wrap up the crazy cop storyline.  The Daily Show and Colbert Report are back as well.

And I actually saw a movie this week!  Casino Royale is at the Parkway.  I really liked it.  And Daniel Craig...

So the Golden Globe nominess were announced yesterday.  You'd think I would have been all over that, but instead I spent the day in geek land trying to debug a weird problem and didn't end up posting.

The first thing of note is that I have seen exactly none of the films nominated in any of the major categories.  The only film I've seen that was nomiated at all was DaVinci Code for Best Score or some such.  Sad, really.  I gotta get out more.

There was some good stuff in the tv categories, thought.  24, Lost and Heroes all got Best Drama nominations.  Hugh Laurie, Kiefer Sutherland, Zach Braff, Jason Lee and Steve Carell all got nominated in their respective Best Actor categories.  Sarah Paulson (Harriet) got the only nomination for Studo 60, and Masi Oka got a Best Supporting nod for Heroes.

Once again, BSG gets snubbed.  And Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, two shows I don't get at all, got a bunch of nominations.  And no love for Veronica Mars or How I Met Your Mother either.

The Golden Globes are in January.

TNT has declared October to be Orbachtober in honor of Jerry Orbach.  This means that the only L&O episode they run during the month will be the ones with Jerry Orbach in them.  Yep, I'm pretty sure there are enough of them to run 4-5 times a day for a month.

Just watched the season premiere of L&O:CI. I liked it.  I'll keep watching for the time being.  But when Veronica Mars returns, I'm pretty sure it will be dropped in favor of VM & House.

Continuing the free association, House, and Standoff if you care, are new next week but will not be on Fox channel 2 here in the Bay Area.  They will be on channel 36 instead.  I assume this is some baseball related hoseage, but I thought it was important to let you know.  And it appears that USA is showing reruns of the new episodes of House a week and a half later.  So once it's on against Veronica Mars, you'll still be able to catch it, just a little delayed.  And, for that matter, it appears that USA is showing L&O:CI a week and a half later as well.

If you haven't watched any tv this week, there are spoilers here.

House was good.  I really hoped they weren't going to go all X-Files on us with the alien thing they teased last week.  It was another case of the tease at the end of the show not being like the show at all.  See also: West Wing.  Kid hallucinating sees aliens.  Blah blah medical explanation for it takes several tries.  You know, considering trying to write a wrapup of this show is hard to make interesting, why is this show so good?  Totally formula, but the writing is good and Hugh Laurie is great, I guess.

Standoff was enh.  Better than the pilot, still not great.  Interesting idea with a guy taking air traffic control at LAX hostage after having a couple planes on his last shift get in to a mid-air collision.  I'm not sold on the relationship angle of this show, there's just so little chemistry between the leads, and one of them is Ron Livingston for god's sake!  How did they find a woman with so little of whatever it is she lacks to be interesting?

I watched Justice again this week.  Well, I haven't finished it yet, but I know I will.  This show is soooo cheesy it's good.  I think.  Maybe.  Or it's a train wreck.  Either way I can't look away.  I think I'm going to cave and put this one as a season pass.  It's an interesting spin on the way the media is involved in big trials these days.

Which leaves us the Survivor: Cook Islands premiere from last night.  As you know, there are 4 tribes separated by race this time around.  And they learned a lesson from last season about having teams of 4.  It's just not enough, so there are 20 people, 5 to a tribe this time.  The race thing seems to amuse the players, nobody seems upset about it.  It's an interesting bunch of players, and we're in for another fun season.  It's going to be great when they shake up the tribes, probably in a couple of weeks so they're no longer race based.  If you want to read a blow by blow of the show, tvsquad.com has a good one.