7 posts tagged “the riches”

Another random bits and pieces catch up post.

Jesse L. Martin is leaving Law & Order. This is too bad because this is the first year since we lost Jerry Orbach that he's got a partner that's working well. The whole cast is quite good this year. NBC is planning on doing 5 new post strike episodes that will air starting in April.

HD-DVD is dead. Long live Blu-Ray. Toshiba finally waved the white flag and gave up. All the major studios are moving to Blu-Ray. Looks like there's a PS3 in my future.

The J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie has been moved from a Christmas 2008 release to summer of 2009.

FX has confirmed that rather than produce any post-strike episodes, the season of The Riches will just be seven episodes long.

Craig Ferguson will host the White House Correspondents Dinner. I can't imagine he'll be as offensive to the President as Stephen Colbert was, but he's a funny guy and I'm sure he'll get his digs in.

The deal isn't done yet, but it looks like NBC will let Scrubs finish in the way it intended.

Lots of announcements about the upcoming Wolverine movie, but the only one I'm going to mention is that Dominic Monaghan has joined the cast.

CBS is moving How I Met Your Mother to 8:30 on Monday. Shows what I remember from before the strike, I thought it was there already. It also wasn't in the list of renewals that CBS put out earlier this week, but it seems most people think it will be back. I'll be disappointed if it isn't. They're expecting to shoot nine new episodes this season that will start airing March 17.

Leonardo DiCaprio is producing a live action version of Akira.

Bionic Woman was officially canned. I deleted the unwatched shows off my Tivo a long time ago.

Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell have all signed on to take over Heath Ledger's part in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Since it's a Terry Gilliam movie we already knew it was going to be strange, this just makes it odder.

There's a special Aerosmith only Guitar Hero coming in May. It also looks like I'll be able to get a stand-alone guitar for the Wii in a couple weeks.

The first official trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie is out. It looks ok.

Apparently, there's a vampire movie in production called Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead. With a title like that you shouldn't need Sean Lennon doing the score, but it's got him.

Molly Ringwald recently turned 40. I feel very very old.

An Arrested Development movie might be in the works. For me, this show rode right up to my threshold of embarrassment humor and occasionally crossed it, so I'm not dying for a feature-length episode.

Among many other names added to the cast of G.I. Joe, including Dennis Quaid, Doctor Who number nine, or Claude the invisible man from Heroes depending on who you are, Christopher Eccelston has signed on.

We're getting reissues of three Replacements CDs and one EP in April. The rest of their catalog should be available by the end of the year. I may have to check these out. I love these guys.

In other music news, Thriller celebrated its 25th anniversary while I wasn't looking.

Harold and Maude finally got an official soundtrack. Seems a little silly since you can just pick up Cat Steven's greatest hits, but I guess there was never a proper soundtrack. Don't tell Jim, but I love this movie. He made me watch it one too many times before I was old enough to appreciate it, I think. But it's brilliant.

This is a great list of 48 unanswered questions on Lost. Speaking of Lost, it will produce five more episodes this season, bringing the total to 13 of the 16 they were supposed to do, and when it returns for those episodes it will be at 10 on Thursdays following Grey's Anatomy.

BSG tidbits: Season 3 will be out on DVD March 18th. Season four will premiere on April 4th, with two catch-up specials showing March 28th. The writers are back at work on the show and it looks like they'll actually get to finish it. We'll get everything they shot starting in April, and then we might not get the second half of the final season until 2009. Yikes.

I don't understand the Jane Fonda on the Today Show controversy at all. She said a naughty word, but in fairness, it was the title of one of the Vagina Monologues, so I don't get how that's so bad.

Mitch Peleggi, aka Walter Skinner, will be in the new X-Files movie. Yay! I thought he was great on the series.

The Smurfs in 3d? I just...have no words.

Looks like the Justice League movie is moving forward without Batman or Superman, since they're both currently engaged in their own movie franchise. But I ask you, is it worth seeing a Justice League movie without them?

Transformers 2 is a go. Hm. I think maybe one was enough.

Turns out we'll be getting *both* Coreys in Lost Boys 2. Thank god for that. For a while it looked like we'd have to survive with only one, and that just won't do.

J.J. Abrams new show on Fox, Fringe, has added Joshua Jackson to the cast. OMG Pacey's back on TV!

Disney Interactive has announced Discs of Tron for the XBox.

I think I might have mentioned this earlier, but SciFi announced they're going to show The Sarah Jane Adventures and the new season of Doctor Who starting in April. In fact, they're going to be on Friday night right before BSG. Sounds like we're going to get the good Doctor in a similar fashion to the way BBC America is airing Torchwood, with only a small lag between airing in the UK and airing here. The Beeb hasn't actually announced when this show is starting in the UK, a peculiarity of UK TV that they do that a lot, but it's starting on SciFi on April 18th, so one would assume it's starting sooner than that in the UK.

The Knight Rider movie did well enough that NBC is considering making it a series. Ugh.

The new Clone Wars animated series got picked up by Cartoon Network. I like the look of it. I wonder if the stories will be any good.

Ok, enough of that. I'll put all the returning show info I can find in the next post.

You know how I mentioned that Studio 60 returned this week? Forget I said anything. That was a horrible hour of tv. Truly bad. First off, where were the three main characters? Nowhere. Aaron Sorkin must have called in a favor to get Allison Janney to be the "host" of Studio 60 for the week. What a train wreck. Allison Janney and Timothy Busfield had such great chemistry on The West Wing. The ease with which they work together might have been this episode's only saving grace. I think it was supposed to be a screwball comedy, but it just didn't work. I honestly don't know how many episodes are left, they're just showing the rest of the ones they filmed, but I think I can safely say you won't miss anything if you don't watch.

I spent a chunk of this grey Sunday catching up on the rest of the shows I had on the tivo. So now I'm caught up on Scrubs and The Riches. I really enjoy Scrubs, but for some reason it's always the last thing I watch. Every time I watch The Riches I almost shut it off after 20 minutes, but for some reason I keep watching. I think Eddie Izzard is really doing an amazing job with this show. I still don't quite get what it's doing, but I apparently can't stop watching. I think tomorrow's episode is the season finale. Scrubs is done for the season. I'm ambivalent about the path it took. I think they've been picked up next season, but for a shortened order. I can't imagine it going another season after that, so my guess is that they'll actually try to wrap it up next season.

Now I've really got nothing to watch. Maybe I'll actually get, you know, life stuff done for once. Nah. That'll be the day. I'm down to things like the shows about the Knights Templar that Tivo records for me. The one I've got right now is narrated by Leonard Nimoy. I feel like a child watching In Search Of... again.

It looks like Tiger Woods Golf on the Wii might become a huge time suck. I also just got Zelda for the Wii, but haven't dared get it out yet. Mario Party 8 comes out next week as well. I'm going to hold out on that one as long as I can.

I love Heroes. Even the moments you knew were coming were pretty sweet. And at least one jaw drop surprise. The only disappointing thing about this episode is that now there are only four more episodes. I won't say anything more because I know some of you haven't seen it. So go. Now. Watch.

On the other hand, I can't quite make up my mind about The Riches. I'm watching it right now (commercials suck) and every time I think I'm done with it I can't seem to turn it off. It's fascinating and twisted, and it certainly has its moments. I'm just not sure it's actually good. Clancy Brown is guest starring next week. That could be fun.

Which brings us to Drive. It started last week with a two night, three hour debut. I watched all three hours. And then promptly forgot it was on tonight before Heroes. At least Fox is posting the show on myspace so if I miss it I can catch up. It's an interesting idea, and the writing is pretty good. I think they're running the first five or six episodes in a row, and I'll stick around to see how those go. It was worth the price of admission alone to see that wicked little smile on Nathan Fillion's face at the end of the third hour.

I'm now two weeks behind on 24. And I miss seeing The Daily Show and Colbert every day. It's hard to remember to watch it at 10:00 after prime time. It's bad enough that prime time is from 7-10. Who's home by 7? Seriously.

And I think there's a leak in my dishwasher. Add that to the list of things I miss from home. A non-leaky super quiet dishwasher. Now that this project is wrapping up, I'm ready to come home. Although (here's a sentence I never thought I'd write) I'm looking forward to going to Cleveland this weekend. I'm going to visit the college roommate. Half the fun of flying to Cleveland is that when you fly back it's like time travel. I leave Cleveland at 8:30 and arrive in Chicago at 8:30. Whoa.

I've also been reading (shocker!) since I spend about two hours on the train every day. I finished the Barack Obama book, The Audacity of Hope last week. It was in interesting read, but I'm still not sure what he's about as a candidate. I think he's a smart dude. And moderate. Big on the "be excellent to each other" philosophy I'm fond of. Now on Diana's suggestion I have moved on to The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I'm enjoying it but I'm not sure I get it just yet.

I just finished watching The Riches. I have to admit I was skeptical. I've seen Eddie Izzard do an American accent before and I was kind of dreading an hour of it. Aside from the few times when he sounded like he had marbles in his mouth it didn't bother me that much. This show was really interesting. It was pitched as a black comedy, but there was very little to laugh at in this show. It was very dark. What humor was there was was so black it's only kind of amusing in retrospect. The pilot was very much a setup for the rest of the season. As, I suppose, all pilots are supposed to. I really have no idea how it's going to go, but I was riveted by the pilot. I'm going to keep watching this show. FX is airing the pilot a couple more times before the next episode on Monday. I suggest you set your tivo or tivo-wannabe device.

On the other hand, I still haven't seen the Black Donnellys or The Winner. Maybe I'll get around to it now that a lot of shows are in repeats before their final surge in to spring. And I'm still looking forward to Drive, which starts April 15th.

I finally got around to watching last week's Lost. I used to be so in to this show. It's still enjoyable but I certainly don't love it like I used to. These people are so terrible at communication. There have to be better ways to introduce conflict. Sayid doesn't tell Locke the bunker is lined with C4, Locke doesn't tell Sayid that the computer is asking it questions about hostiles and for f*ck sake hasn't Locke learned not to push buttons on computers?! Jeezy Creezy! And like you couldn't all see the ping pong thing coming. It's great that we're having a moment with the people on the beach but don't you think they'd be better off telling us what that big four toed thing we saw at the end of last season was? Yeah, let's meet the black lady who was one of the main kidnappers of Jack, Kate and Sawer, find out she speaks Russian, and is pals with the eyepatch man (gosh, all that sounds kind of interesting, oh wait...) and then kill her?! Yeah, I'm probably complaining too much for a show I still watch and like. I just need to reset my expectations a lot lot lot lower. It was interesting to hear from the creator of Heroes last week that they are conscious of the backlash hitting Lost this season. It's hard to make a serialized drama and keep people interested. I think Lost and Heroes are trying two different approaches. I'm enjoying Heroes so much, but it's still in its first season. I guess I should reserve judgement until Heroes hits its third season and see if it still holds up. But right now Heroes is appointment tv, and it took me six days to get around to this weeks Lost. And don't even get me started on BSG. Okay, fine, I'll say something about BSG. More space battles please. That is all.

I'm so far behind in writing that I don't remember most of what I was going say.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is in "final negotiations" to take over the Katie Holmes part in The Dark Knight, the next Batman movie. Thank the gods. Maybe she can bring something lifelike to that character.

There will be a special edition dvd of Serenity out this July. It will  have new cover art, which comes as a relief to anyone who's seen the US artwork, as well as the region 4 extras and if all goes well, a cast commentary. Considering I listen to the commentaries about half the time when I watch Firefly or Serenity, this would be huge. Plus the cast is so funny. I would love to hear Alan Tudyk talk about the whole telephone pole through the chest thing.

Eddie Izzard's new series The Riches starts on Monday on FX. It's been getting mixed previews so far, and I'm not super fired up about listening to Eddie and his mediocre American accent. Why don't they just let him talk British? Or at least take a few lessons from Hugh Laurie.

I went to the Game Developers Conference Expo this morning and played a super fun game for the Wii called Mario Strikers Charged. It's a smash soccer game and I want it now. Why didn't the nice booth man tell me I won't be able to get it for months? There's no official release date and it's not even on Amazon's site. Bummer.

It's pilot season in Hollywood which means casting and show rumors are flying around like things that fly around crazily. James Van Der Beek, Dawson himself, appears to have a pilot in the works. This, of course, doesn't mean we'll be able to see him on tv in the fall, it just means he's got a job for a little while. ETA: Looks like he's actually signed on to the American version of the Brit show Footballer's Wives, which has been talked about for so long it would be shocking if it wasn't picked up. Also, Taye Diggs and Chris Lowell (Piz from Veronica Mars) have signed on to the potential Grey's Anatomy spinoff.

Premiere magazine is ceasing publication. I always found Premiere to be a great purchase for a plane. Until I was introduced to The Economist. Then I stopped reading it entirely.

Whew. I've been busy enough lately that I haven't been updating. That and nothing earth-shattering has happened anyway. So here's what's on my little entertainment brain...

First and foremost I guess I should mention that the Oscars are on tomorrow. Since I haven't seen a single nominated movie, I care less about them this year than usual. Of course the tivo is set. Of course I'll watch it. But I'm not making an event out of it like I sometimes do. Also on Sunday nights, my new reality series The Amazing Race. So far I've only seen one episode, but it's really entertaining. This is an all star edition, and the best quote of the show came from one of the other contestants: "We know Rob and Amber because, obviously, we live on the planet." Bwahahaha! I think it's hilarious that we have an all star of all stars reality tv couple. How many shows have they been on now? I lost count. And so far I don't miss Survivor.

The Black Donnellys starts this Monday. NBC did that thing they did with Studio 60 where they made the pilot available from Netflix. And, shocker, I didn't actually get it. So I'll be watching Monday night with the rest of y'all to see how it is. It's getting middling reviews. And I've even seen some people who say that the pilot is really good and they're still not going to watch it. It certainly won't kill me to have one less hour of tv on Monday nights. It also looks as if NBC is rerunning the pilot on Thursday in ER's slot. They've really been promoting it, so I guess that makes sense. Oh, and speaking of which, anyone want to lay odds on whether Studio 60 is coming back? I think it's dead. I guess if The Black Donnellys does even worse in the same slot it might come back. But they'd probably just replace it with a rerun of Deal or No Deal.

Heroes is officially my favorite show on tv. BSG has been sucking wind a little lately and Lost is staging a comeback, but I'm still not sold. I just think the execution of Heroes is so great. There's actual content and story progress every week. And it's just ridiculous enough. It's not postmodern ironic like it could have gone, and it treats the viewer like an adult even though it's basically a comic book in tv form. Now if they could just find a way to excise the Niki/Jessica subplot or at least make it interesting, it could be even better. And why does Mohinder have to be such a sucker? I guess because he thinks Sylar is locked up somewhere that the psycho riding with him to find all the other "gifted" folk is just a little odd? I think the killing of the super hearing lady proves Sylar isn't thinking things through. I'd suspect that Mohinder is going to catch on at some point and I think it would have been smarter to follow him around to find all these people first and then pick them off menu-style starting with the most badass powers first. Instead he kills the first one they come across? Seems rash. I'm still loving the Peter character development. I never understood the motivation of Claude teaching him, or even why Peter thought he could in the first place. But it seems to be working. Turns out all Peter needs is some sort of proximity to the power and it alters his DNA or some such nonsense. It's shaping up to be an epic battle between Sylar and Peter. They'll have the same powers, but Peter might not know about all of them. Classic good vs evil. I'm also still enjoying the ambiguity of which side a lot of the characters are on. Or the fact that some of them aren't on any side but their own (see: Nathan). And I totally didn't see the Simone thing coming this week, but I can't say I'll miss her. Just gives Peter something to be super pissed about. I think in the next couple of weeks we get to finally meet Linderman. Will it be when Hiro gets his sword? I could go on forever about this show (clearly). So great, so much fun.

I'm enjoying the second mini mystery on Veronica Mars more than I enjoyed the first one. The death of the Dean is so much more interesting than the rape storyline. I really like the twist of the forensics professor who literally wrote the book on the perfect crime being the chief suspect. Now if they could just bring the regulars back in to the fold, I'd be satisfied. I miss Wallace. Several interesting twists this week, the biggest being that Keith is back as Neptune's sheriff. Too bad it had to happen at the expense of Lamb, he was such a great foil for both Keith and Veronica. What's going to happen to Keith's open investigations? And does this mean that Veronica can now get whatever info she wants in a slightly more legit fashion? I think father and daughter will butt heads over some of the legalities of V's activities now that Keith has to be above reproach.

And I'd be remiss if I left the return of Lost out of the discussion. So here's a question. Have we learned anything we actually care about? We've been given tidbits about the Others, learned that Jack's tattoos mean something akin to Stranger in a Strange Land (hence the title of the episode), and learned that Desmond can see that Charlie is going to die and he's trying desperately to stop it, but knows he can't. We caught a glimpse of the captured Tailies and saw some of the abducted kids. And then learned exactly zilch about what they've been up to and why they're just roaming around on exile island like that. "Just here to watch"?! WTF? Oh, ok, we learned that Ethan (season one, abducted Claire, shot by Charlie) was the Other's only surgeon until they grabbed Jack. So, that seems like a poorly thought out plan sending the doctor to go undercover and do dangerous stuff. I take that as another sign that the writers are still making it up as they go with no actual plan. I did enjoy Desmond's timebending flashback episode. It was entertaining storytelling, but what exactly was the point? So the jury's still out on Lost, I guess. I've really enjoyed the first two episodes back from the break, but it all still has the patina of "this better be going somewhere good" in my mind. And I think the move to 10:00 was stupid. It's hasn't won the timeslot since the move, and I only see the numbers trending down. So maybe we won't have to wait until year five for some answers, just so long as they give us some before it gets canceled.

I have recorded and not watched The State Within, the BBC miniseries about terrorism. Supposed to be really good. I'll write about it after I've seen it. But it reminds me that the new Robin Hood is coming up on BBC America. I think I mentioned it already, but it starts March 3. There are some other new shows coming up that I'm looking forward to. Fox made it official that Drive will start on April 15 with a two night premiere and they've been promoting the heck out of it, which is great. I hope it's good. Other than Eddie Izzard's new show, The Riches (March 12), I think that's it for my interest in the midseason shows. I sure hope so, because I think you'd all agree that I don't actually need to be watching any more tv.

Then of course there are the British shows that are not technically available. I've started watching season two of Life on Mars, and have finally become intrigued enough to consider Torchwood. Maybe this summer when there's no other new tv on. I'm also hearing good things about The Wire and Rome, both available on dvd now.

I've officially started watching 30 Rock, thanks to a glowing recommendation from Lynn and Scott. So now I've got all of the Thursday night comedy block on NBC, minus The Office, which I still have no desire to watch. I watched the Joss directed episode, which was the only time I've ever made it through an entire episode. It was ok. Loved that the episode he directed had a vampire theme. Genius. I think NBC has finally found another great set of Thursday shows, and I hope they don't screw it up. Oh, right, they're pulling 30 Rock to debut the new Andy Richter show on March 15th. I guess it probably gives it a decent shot at being watched, but is it a smart move? And if it takes off, where will they put it when they bring 30 Rock back?

Not sure I've said anything about the current season of 24 or not yet. It's still very much 24, but it's lacking that certain something this year. Still entertaining in a five-year-old-telling-a-story way and just as over the top as before, but not as stellar as last season. I think the Chloe-Morris-Milo love triangle is pointless. And while it was an interesting idea to make Jack's family part of the baddies, it didn't carry as much weight as I thought it would. They're just too one dimensional. Which is a stupid statement to make given that it's 24 we're talking about and a two dimensional character is almost too much to ask for. The guest actors have been a little disappointing as well. Chad Lowe and The Biscuit have been given really uninteresting characters to play considering they're contemplating assassinating the president. Although I have to admit it was fun to see The Biscuit get his ass kicked last week. All the president had to say was that he valued his input and he decides that maybe it's not such a good idea to kill him in the next hour? Sissy. I hope they give Ricky Shroeder more to do when he arrives on the scene.

I don't think I have any useful gossipy entertainment tidbits to drop on you today. I've not really been paying attention. I keep hearing that Britney Spears has finally lost it. But I almost feel bad for her. I said almost. Too bad she's such an idiot. Anybody who looks to Paris Hilton for guidance is, well, words fail me for how idiotic that is.

I'm sure there are a bunch of random newsish things out there, I'll hunt around later and see if there's anything else to report.

Well now, see what happens when I actually write about the shows and not just news about the shows? Long winded much? We'll see how this goes for the future. I'm not sure reviews are up my alley, but I enjoy thinking out loud about the shows.

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.