Saturday 11/8/14

Of course we all love television! But we also love movies, books and plays. This weekend, we went to see a local college production of "Fiddler on the Roof". I had done this one in high school, so I have all of the music and most of the dialogue memorized. Live theater is always fun. Do watch the movie if you enjoy musicals. You can find scenes from it on YouTube, too, of course, as well as many amateur productions. There's a great one that Josh Groban's L.A. high school did! He's a famous singer now, of course. I remember when he first showed up on "Ally McBeal" years ago.

I didn't get much time this weekend to watch T.V., but I did check out the final episode of this season's "Doctor Who". Wow, was it really good, and sad, too! Too sad. I've watched the show since it's new incarnation started, so I'm not sure - if you disintegrate a Timelord, can he or she still regenerate? Since that's what happened at the end of the show to "The Master"....Hmm. If he can regenerate, then doing that was stupid because it just meant he would show up somewhere else. It would make a whole lot more sense to try to confine him somewhere. Then again, they never explained how he survived dying the last time, either, or how he suddenly has his own TARDIS.

I really think Capaldi is a great actor, but he's been playing the Doctor as too unlikable (or perhaps they're telling him to act that way - directors can have a much bigger impact on actors on TV that anyone would like to think). He should smile more, at the very least.

This is a big week for TV! "The Simpsons" has a mash-up with canceled show "Futurama". Three NBC shows - "Law & Order: SVU", "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D." - have a three-way crossover. "Supernatural" is celebrating it's 200th episode. "Hawaii Five-O" is celebrating its 100th episode.  So cool! I'm only going to watch the "Supernatural" one and perhaps "The Simpsons" one. What about you? Did you watch these momentous shows?

I watched some DVD's this week, including the great Grumpy Cat movie that's airing November 29 on Lifetime, "The Worst Christmas Ever". It was actually really funny. Check out the review!

Sunday 11/9/14

As always, I enjoyed this week's episodes of "The Good Wife" and "Once Upon a Time"! However, I have to say that I'm not too keen on this OUAT storyline of having Emma all upset that her family is afraid of her powers. Emma's smarter than that. She should be able to tell that the Snow Queen is manipulating her and understand that her new powers being out of control are a little scary (particularly when Regina has been such a horrible enemy of Snow's). Also, I hope that in the next episode, Emma seeks Regina's or Gold's help in handling her powers. Regina should have been the FIRST person she ran to for help, since she helped her develop her powers in the first place.

I like the "Frozen" characters, but what I like most is their special effects. Time to bring in the snow man!

Hmm, now that I'm watching "The Good Wife", I keep wanting to call Rumple "Eli Gold" and not just Gold. LOL! Are they related?

Our Primetime News and Schedule pages for this week are here. Next week they'll be at this place (starting on Saturday or Sunday). I usually put up al of the info sometime on the weekend.

Don't you hate when you do something stupid? I accidentally delete all of last week's "Days of Our Lives" Updates, written by our wonderful writer Joseph. Fortunately, he still had copies, so he sent them to me, and I put them back up. I had to put the photos in again, too. Juanita makes 5 screencaps for each soap every weekday and puts them in the updates. She's amazing! All of our volunteers are great. If you have some free time, perhaps you'd like to help us out...

Monday 11/10/14

A friend of mine was telling me how much her husband loves the show "Gotham". I was updating that section of our site a little bit today.  It is a VERY good show, no question. My friend did say, though, that she thought it was too violent. I was shocked. There are so many more way violent shows on TV. She must not watch "The Following" or "Criminal Minds" or any cable shows like "American Horror Story", "The Walking Dead" or "From Dusk Till Dawn" or, well, so many others... To me "Gotham" is not very violent at all, especially for what's essentially a crime drama. I mean, sure, there was that one episode with the killer who stabbed people in the eyeball....LOL!

There are so many things that you must do to keep a big website going, and some of it's not fun, and some of it is very irritating. The larger your website, the worse it can be. Recently I decided to update some of our Meta tags (these describe the site in the coding of each page) and it's been a real pain. Now I found out that our Site Map is not working right, so I'm going to have to go through and find that ASAP (done now!). UGH. But I do it all for you guys, the fans, the fellow TV watchers and visitors to the site!

Tonight's "Castle" was fun. I really enjoyed it, even though it was a bit predictable (we knew in the end that it would have to be a dream or something like that because it's not really a fantasy show, even though it skirts along the edges of fantasy sometimes). These type of "what if" shows are awesome. I was very glad that they got married at the end of the show. However, my one complaint is that they were all standing by the beach (or harbor?) in wedding attire. The women had bare shoulders and such. This show takes place in New York City! It's November. It would be way too cold to have an outdoor wedding by the water. It's in the 40's and 50's right now, and that's about normal for November. They would have an indoor wedding, or even if it was outdoors, it wouldn't be by the water, where the wind would make their eyes water from the cold. Maybe they'd be in the park if it was a particularly warm November. They'd  be wearing jackets and long sleeves, too. I'm sorry, but this is a particular pet peeve of mine. So many shows are made by people who live in L.A. and they like to pretend that the whole country is the same and has the same weather! They don't. Sure, having a wedding in L.A. in November by the water would be okay. Having a wedding back in July or whenever they filmed this episode, in NYC, would be fine. But otherwise...no. At the very least, they could have someone say something like, "Wow, it sure is warm for November! Didn't we get lucky?" But they didn't bother. Okay, enough griping. It was great to see her dad there, too.

I watched today's "General Hospital". Wow, it was really great.  The actor who plays Michael did a fabulous job. I wonder how they're getting Sonny out of jail this time? I wonder if Madeline is really dead? I'm glad that Lord Larry Ashton is not just a fool; he's working with Jerry Jacks! Yay!

Speaking of Jerry Jacks, don't forget to check out our interviews with Sebastian Roché and many others!

Tuesday 11/11/14

I hope you all had a nice Veteran's Day! I usually try to remember to put a holiday picture or animated GIF on our site for each holiday, but I confess that I forgot for this one. Oops! Sorry. No disrespect meant.

I watched tonight's "Selfie" and enjoyed it as usual. I'm still bummed that they're canceling that. I just read that "A to Z" is being canceled, too. That's such a shame. These are pretty funny shows. They keep making the awful, unfunny sitcoms like "blackish" and "Modern Family" and "New Girl", yet they cancel the ones that aren't bad. (I'm not saying they're hilarious, but they're not terrible)

I just loved tonight's "Supernatural". It was hilarious!!! So many bad wigs. The music was great, too. When they said it would be a musical version of the show, I was hoping we would hear Sam, Dean, Cass and Crowley sing! Still, it was very good. Such a great show all the time, anyway.

I've been working on our new "Gotham" section this week so check it out! I added a lot of new content.

This morning, our volunteer Krista was on a conference call interview with Silas Weir Mitchell of "Grimm". I know she really enjoyed it. I was glad not to do it because she watches the show regularly and I don't. It's a really good show, though! I just have too much to watch, all of the time.

Wednesday 11/12/14

This morning I was on a conference call interview with the two creators and producers of NBC's "Constantine", Daniel Cerone & David S. Goyer. Now, I had a hard time thinking of a good question, especially since I hadn't yet watched all 3 aired episodes. So I asked what I figured was a fairly easy question. The show, in case you don't know, is based on a comic book character, but he's not a superhero, exactly. He fights demons. This comic first started in the early 80's, so the character and comics were around for quite a while now. So I asked, since the show is about someone who fights demons, as are some other shows like "Grimm" (which follows it on NBC Fridays) and "Supernatural" on the CW (which is now in its 10th season), whether they keep a close eye on their show and what's gone on with the other two shows, to make sure they're not doing the same things, or whether they just write their shows and don't worry about it. I felt like it was a fairly straight-forward question, choose A or B. Well, apparently I hit a nerve because one of them (not sure which one) seemed to take my question as if I was suggesting either that their show was unoriginal or that they might be copying the other shows. Neither of which was at all what I asked or was even thinking! If anything, I thought maybe those other shows might have copied some things from the "Constantine" comic books, so if they're taking those comics and using them in their series, it might LOOK like they're copying the other shows, even though they're not.

Look at it this way. If you did a TV show based on any old book, play, or comic book, wouldn't you worry that other shows that had gone before might have borrowed liberally from that same source material? For instance, when they had the "Dracula" series last year, they might have worried that other vampire-related TV shows would steal from the original Dracula book. I can't think of a really good comparable example, but you get the idea.

Anyway, he seemed to be pretty defensive, and I didn't get a chance to explain that's not what I meant at all. The other guy seemed less defensive and did answer my question, more or less (they don't worry about it). I know it's not a big deal, but I felt bad that they might think I was trying to imply that they were derivative or copying or anything. I enjoy the show! One of them did many shows that I've enjoyed such as "The Mentalist", "Dexter", "Threshold" and "Charmed". The other one...well, he did the last two Batman movies, and "Man of Steel" so I won't go there.... not a fan of any of those, but there were parts of them that I liked.

"Constantine" is an enjoyable show, but I wonder if it isn't a little slow-paced and odd for network TV? Not to mention, that's an awful time slot. Many shows that I liked aired there and were canceled, such as the aforementioned "Dracula", "Chuck", and "Crossbones". I think they sometimes put "Hannibal" in that slot, too, but from what I've heard, "Constantine" is doing better than "Hannibal" (although not Dracula). Friday is a tough night now for TV. They also had some sitcoms in that slot that did badly, and they killed off "Law & Order" by putting it in that spot. Seems like nothing does well besides "Grimm" and "Dateline".

It's often the death slot on other networks, too. I guess because people are out on dates, or out watching high school football, or whatever. They keep putting scifi on Fridays, thinking that somehow geeks will be home watching TV because they can't get dates. Well, the problem with that idea (if it was ever true) is that geeks are not watching live TV. We're DVRing the shows we like and we're either something on the DVR or we're playing video games or something. Sure, it did work years ago with "The X-Files", but that was a long time ago.

I always enjoy watching "Hot in Cleveland", but I didn't think this week's episode (where they went to L.A. again) was all that good or funny. Last time they did it, with Susan Lucci and all the other celebrities, it was much funnier.  It was great to see Mario Lopez, but they didn't give him much to do.

This week's "The Flash" was very good. The best part of that show is keeping us wondering what that guy Harrison is up to! You definitely don't want to miss the end of any episode.

I don't regularly watch "The Young & The Restless", but I used to, so I know who the characters are and generally keep up with what's going on. I sometimes see what's going on when I'm running the transcript. Months ago they brought in Meredith Baxter on the show as Maureen, a drinking buddy for Nikki, who's fallen off the wagon. Of course we knew that she had some kind of secret (who doesn't on a soap?) and for a while now, we've known that she's Stitch's mom.  Well, once we found out that Stitch had a big secret, too, and that he supposedly killed his dad, then it wasn't too hard to figure out that Maureen was probably the real one who killed him (and that's why she drinks so much). On today's show they made a big deal of her revealing her secret to Victoria. Of course it wasn't much of a reveal to the audience. I mean, come on, I barely have watched the show at all since Michael Muhney (Adam) and Billy Miller (Billy) left, and I had it figured out a long time ago, so what does that tell you? Oh, and it sure doesn't hurt that Baxter's most famous TV movie was "The Betty Broderick Story," so we already think of her as someone who might kill her husband.

Their other big reveal this week was not a reveal at all for the audience -- Sharon switched the paternity tests and was responsible for Phyllis' fall. Big yawn. It would have been at least somewhat interesting if Michelle Stafford were playing Phyllis still because then they would have had that history, and Stafford would have done a great job with it.  Gina Tognoni is a very good actress, but she's not Phyllis yet, and we don't have that emotional connection with her.

Compare that to GH's big reveals this week, with Franco telling Michael that his entire family and girlfriend lied to him about Sonny killing A.J. (not to mention Nina stealing Ava's baby), and there's just no comparison.

FOX lets me and other members of the press watch some shows ahead of time, so that we can review them. They let us watch the first 7 episodes of the 10-part series "Gracepoint" before it aired. I loved it, but sadly it seems that most don't. I think that too many reviewers had already watched "Broadchurch" and either gave it a bad review for not being as good or worse, didn't even watch the whole thing and just assumed it was the same story. I think viewers got bored too early because it's a bit slow moving. It's a shame. I think it would have done better on cable. The regular TV networks usually have very fast-paced shows on and the "masses" who watch them expect lots of ridiculous action, violence and constant gratification. There's no time any more to build a story or an audience. Cable does that better. I'm glad FOX is still showing it, though. I can't wait to find out whodunnit in the last two episodes (I just watched the 8th episode last night). I haven't watched "Broadchurch". I didn't want to compare them. I have it on DVD and I'll watch it one of these days. At least that one's going into a second season, since it was successful. Too bad FOX is not going to do a second season of "Gracepoint" as well.  They both have David Tennant, so they're both excellent (I don't have to watch it to know that!).  He is one of my biggest celebrity crushes - I love anything he's in! Plus he was super nice and funny to me on the phone. Swoon!

Someone on a scifi message board that I frequent tried to say that UK TV shows don't translate successfully to US audiences. That's one of those lame old tropes that's just not true. There are MANY successful UK shows that became successful US shows. The fact is that most TV shows, period, get canceled within a year or so, so the odds are already stacked against them. Yet there's still a long list of successful US shows adapted from UK shows in the past 40 years.  Somehow people only remember the ones they liked or watched that got canceled.

Too bad they won't do a US "Doctor Who" with Tennant! I would love that, and so would his other fans.

Thursday 11/13/14

Busy morning! I had three conference call interviews, although I messed one up. I was supposed to go to the call with Sleepy Hollow's Nicole Beharie at 8am my time, but I had misread it and thought it was at 11am. I had set my clock for 8 am because I thought my first call was at 8:30. Then I realized they hadn't sent me the call-in information for the Beharie call, and when I looked at it again, I realized I had messed up the time. It was already 8:20 by that time, and I had the other call at 8:30, so it was too late. Oh, well. Too bad...

At 8:30 I had a conference call interview with Nicholas D’Agosto, who's playing Harvey Dent on "Gotham" starting next week. He seemed very nice. It was hard to think of a question that hadn't already been asked, so I just asked him about whether they'd started filming the new episodes yet (they got picked up for more episodes this season) and how many he would be in. It was a pretty interesting call, especially since I've been working on our Gotham section the past few days!

At 9:30 I had another call, this time with Adam Copeland (Dwight) and Jay Reso of "Haven" on Syfy. Dwight is a regular character on the show since the beginning, although his part has gotten steadily larger as the show has progressed. He was a WWF wrestler before he turned to acting (known as "Edge"). Reso was his WWF partner, known as "Christian", and he's guest-starring as Dwight's old friend McHugh. The description of the episode says that "Dwight finds himself in a romantic conundrum", so he turns to his friend for help.  In real life, the two have been old friends since they were very young, so they were very fun on the call. I just asked Adam if he was excited about Dwight finally getting a romantic interest on the show, and he talked about that. He sort of hinted that he wasn't sure how long it would last, and I agreed that women on the show don't seem to live very long, and he added "except for Audrey", which is true. I also asked him if the woman was the new doctor character, Dr. Cross, or not, but he couldn't say. I figured that was probably the case, though. I would have asked more questions, but I had to keep the line free for another call I was expecting. It was a great call, though! I love that show and the people on it are just the nicest on the phone.

Every night after my husband comes home from work, and we have dinner, we watch The Colbert Report and then "The Daily Show". They're usually pretty funny, to varying degrees. We only watch a few other shows together: "South Park", "Family Guy", "Last Week with John Oliver" and "Real Time with Bill Maher" (just the monologue and "New Rules").  My husband otherwise just watches news and sports.

Last week's "South Park" was hysterical for a change. This week's I thought was pretty funny, but the problem was that they were spoofing the Matrix and a lot of other similar movies and shows. If you don't watch that kind of thing, it was not that funny or clever. My husband is not a scifi fan, unlike me, so he didn't get the jokes. It was a pretty clever spoof, I have to say.

I thought the "Simpsons" and "Futurama" crossover was pretty good, too. I especially like the Atheist prayer. LOL!

Friday 11/14/14

The only shows I watched today were the two on Comedy Central from last night that we always watch, "Daily Show" and "Stephen Colbert". I didn't sleep much Thursday night, so I went to bed super early!

Bad news today-- "The Millers" was canceled by CBS.  I'm kind of bummed that they also canceled "The Bridge" on FX.  I'm pretty annoyed about "Unforgettable" being canceled, but not too surprised.  And upset about "Franklin & Bash". I'm really really upset about "Perception" being canceled. That's a great show. TNT likes to cancel the shows I enjoy... Here's a good list of all of the shows that have been canceled/renewed.

Some good news...there's a possibility that "Longmire" has found a home on Netflix. Stay tuned! Sure hope that's right because I love that show.  Glad that Syfy's "Dominion" was renewed.

You can find my older blog posts at http://www.tvmegs.com

Chronicles - My personal blog, which is not about TV.

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