Tuesday, July 13
We're kinda bored here without our "Daily Show" and "Nightly
Show" to watch during the week! LOL! I guess they take a 2-week break during the summer that I always forget about. On
the other hand, since Jon Stewart's retiring from "The Daily
Show," I guess he can do whatever he wants!
Last week was the San Diego Comic-Con,
and so I went to
update our page for that and discovered, to my horror, that
I had forgotten to put up the 2014 photos! Yikes! So I've
been working a lot on editing those to put up. Then I have
to put up all the great 2015 photos we got. Our
photographers Zina and Karl got some
great photos again this
year!
I was also trying to get photos of all of the past years'
covers, but I couldn't find any cover art anywhere on the
Web for 1979, 1982, 1983, 1987, or 1988. That's so weird.
Why is it that you can get 1970-1978 but not the ones
after?? Strange. I have many of the older
programs scanned
in, too, but I'm still missing quite a few, and I have three
more of my own to scan in.
Yesterday I figured out that
Tumblr had taken our Tumblr
site down, so I had to rebuild it. That took me a lot longer
than I'd planned! This is why I'm always so behind on
everything... things pop up unexpectedly and then it takes
me a long while to deal with them.
I see that Jake is back on "General Hospital." I think
there's now LITERALLY no one else they can bring back from
the dead on that show that hasn't already been brought
back...except maybe for actual dead people like Edward and
Lila. Soaps shouldn't kill our favorite stars off so often
(it makes the deaths seem meaningless after a while), they
should almost never kill off children (too sad), and they
should DEFINITELY almost never bring back people from the
dead. Just stick to the history and have some dignity.
Admit your mistakes but go forward. Stop pandering to the
fans. Oh, and never bring back an actor as another character
because that rarely works. Franco is no Todd, and Silas is
no John. Rebecca was no Emily. Bill Eckert was no Luke.
Recasting is bad enough.
I have a bunch of new
TV show reviews to write up, so make
sure to check
those out. There are always new shows coming
out now! Here are a bunch of new shows coming out in the
next month or so (I don't usually bother listening reality
shows, sorry):
"Tut" July 19 Spike TV (miniseries)
"Significant Mother" August 3 The CW
"Mr. Robinson" August 5 NBC
"The Carmichael Show" August 5 NBC
"Kevin From Work" ABC Family August 12
"Show Me A Hero" HBO August 16 (miniseries)
"Public Morals" TNT August 17
"Blunt Talk" Starz August 22
"Fear the Walking Dead" AMC August 23
"Public Morals" TNT August 25
"Narcos" Netflix August 28
"Puffin Rock" Netflix September 1
This week's
Primetime News and Schedule page is here and
next week's will be here. Check 'em out! We work very hard
on those all week.
We watch the music channels on our cable when we're
bored. What channels or shows do you watch when you're
bored? Or do you flip around until you find something you
like, or watch a DVD? Or turn off the TV altogether? (The
horror!)
Last week I looked at this page
that had the season's ratings.
It's such a shame that there are so many great shows that no
one watches. I really loved "Forever," "Battle Creek" (not at
first, but I grew to love it), "American Odyssey,"
"Backstrom," "Constantine," "Revenge" and
more. It's sad to think that these companies create these
great shows, with all of the writers, cast, crew, sets, et
al. and sell the show to the networks, and then, suddenly,
they all lose their jobs and they're on to the next things.
That must be a weird life, to always be changing jobs like
that. I know it's very disconcerting to the TV viewers as
well.
Wednesday, July 14
I found out that on this week's "Rizzoli & Isles," they
killed off Susie (Tina
Huang). That's a real shame. She's a
very good actress. I
interviewed her a few months ago. She
said nothing, of course, about dying... I hate when
shows get unrealistic. I mean, last year they already lost
one regular character, now another? Cops just don't die that
often, and she wasn't even a cop so it's ridiculous. The
writing on this show has always been a little weak, to be
honest. They write the characters way better than they do
the stories themselves. Kind of like "Castle" when it first
started, although their stories have improved.
I wish one of the other networks would come out with a
good female buddy cop show with even better writing than
"Rizzoli & Isles." One that's a bit less dumb with
their nice combination of light humor and occasional tragic
drama, with two stars that have great chemistry.
(Technically, Maura is not a cop, but you get the idea)
How about those guys who write "Royal Pains?" They could
definitely do it. Hey, how about hiring Tina Huang to star
in it? None of this nonsense, either, about how the
woman cop has to have a lot of brothers or something in
order to be tough. Women are plenty tough in real life when
they need to be. They don't need men to show them how. There
are lots of women who are cops, firefighters, soldiers,
doctors, construction workers and more, and they're not
lesbians or women who act like guys. Make them interesting,
yet real. How about watching "UnReal" on
Lifetime, to take some
tips on how to write interesting and realistic female
characters? It's so rare on TV.
A friend sent me an interesting article. It was mostly
about sports, but it said that if you pay for cable or
satellite, you pay for ALL of the channels, even though you
may only watch a few. This is good because it gives all of
the networks money in order to produce quality programs
(even those with a fairly small audience, like "Mad Men").
However, so many people nowadays are opting to cancel their
cable or satellite and instead watch online (or they stop
watching altogether). Those that watch online, or on
Netflix, or ROKU et al. don't realize that by not paying for
all of the channels, they may eventually end up with far
fewer shows to watch, or lower quality shows. It'll be
interesting to see what happens and how TV will save itself
in the long run.
Every weekday, I run the
daily soap transcripts for our
site. I have a special computer card in an old pc, so that I
can hook it up to the cable box, and use the software to
grab the closed-captioning off the daytime soaps. I've
been doing this since 2001! I used to have some help with
it, but the few people that had this type of thing stopped
volunteering, after a while, and it's old hardware and
software, so it's hard to find new volunteers that would
have it. I don't mind, though, since there's only 4 soaps
left. It would have been tougher back when we started with
the 9 or 10 soaps that were on the air!
Since early this year, ABC changed the way they do the
closed-captioning, so now there are no names on the
dialogue, and no line spaces between each, so poor Gisele
has to edit it every day and fix it up. Fortunately, she
watches "General Hospital" anyway, but what a pain it is. We're so thankful
to have her! She does a lot of other things on the site, too.
Thursday, July 15
Last night I caught up a lot on writing
reviews of new
shows for our site, so please check it out! I hope that you
got to see both "Impastor" on TVLAND and
"Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll" on FX. They're both very different
shows but both are so funny.
I enjoyed this week's "Royal Pains." It was a good story,
and the whole thing
with the dove was cute. Lightly
spiritual without being preachy. I hope they're not heading
toward pairing Hank and Divya. At this point, they almost
seem like brother and sister. On the other hand, it doesn't
make a whole lot of sense that they never even considered
getting together, since they're both single and looking for
someone. They have so much
in common.
I've been slowly working my way through DVD's of shows I
recorded to watch, catching up on "Rizzoli & Isles" and
"Unreal." I hope to also watch "Teen Wolf" soon. That's my
favorite show right now.
Speaking of watching "Rizzoli & Isles," Jane's mom was on
a health food
kick, so she made cupcakes with cricket flour.
This is very gross. I have to eat gluten free, but I don't
think I would ever try cricket flour. No. Not even if it
tastes and works exactly like wheat flour. I'll stick to my
almond and coconut flour, thank you! You can even
buy it on Amazon. Wow. Those poor little crickets. I'm
not an animal rights person, and I have no problem eating
animals, even some very cute ones like veal, lamb and rabbit
(I try not to think about how cute they are). But I do like
crickets, and I don't see the point in eating them. It's one
thing if you live in a third world country and that's all
you have to eat, but otherwise, it seems pointless. No
thanks! What's next, eating ladybugs? Ick. I don't even want
to know what's in this
TigerNut Flour!
I was also watching some new shows on the FOX press site.
They said they're not for review yet as they're not finished
and might be changing before Fall. I thought "Rosewood" was
okay, but I have to see it on TV because the sound was
pretty bad. The lead guy mumbles a lot. Hopefully they will
fix that a lot. I enjoyed it and found it to be
entertaining. Nice to see another show in Miami again. I
loved both "Dexter"
and "Burn
Notice." Here's an odd thing, though. Anthony
Michael Hall has a small role as a police detective. I
wonder why he would have such a small role (he was great in
"Dead Zone!"). I thought, maybe he's going to turn out
to be the murderer or they'll kill him off, or something?
But no. And also, I checked around the internet and there's
no mention of him being on this show, anywhere. So that's
very strange. I emailed FOX but haven't heard back from them
yet. I hope it's not a big secret that he's on the show! You
heard it here first, if it is! LOL!
I watched another new FOX show "Grandfathered," starring
John Stamos. It was pretty good. There were some
laugh-out-loud moments and it was generally very enjoyable.
He plays a vain, 50-year-old restaurant owner that's never
settled down; he finds out he has a long-lost son and
grand-daughter that he never knew about. Thing is,
John Stamos just went into rehab in real life. I hope he's
okay and getting the help he needs. I hope that doesn't
affect this new show, either. Paget Brewster plays his
old girlfriend in the show. She's always really good.
I also watched this Lifetime movie "The Bride He Bought
Online," which
was much better than it sounds. It airs on
Saturday. Tomorrow morning I get to
interview Anne
Winters, the star of the movie, and possibly Alexandra Paul
as well (she plays a cop in the movie, a small but pivotal
role). There was some confusion between me and the PR
person, so I'm not sure if it's both ladies or just Anne.
Anyway, should be interesting to chat with them. It was a
fairly suspenseful movie.
Friday, July 16
I'm looking forward to tonight's "The Messengers" and
"Defiance!" I guess "Real Time with Bill Maher" is on hiatus
until August 7. Bummer.
I watched last night's "Beauty & The Beast." It's always
a good show! They've found an interesting way to have them
plan their wedding and still have plenty of action and
adventure.
Willy has been writing some
Fan
Fiction for our site. Check it out!
I had a great chat with both Anne Winters and Alexandra
Paul. I put some other
interviews up
that were late. I hope you can read them or listen to them!
They are awesome. We should have more soon, so check back.
By now I'm sure that most of you know that the stations
you get on your TV set, even with cable or satellite, are no
longer
the
only places to find original TV programs. Hulu, Netflix,
Yahoo, and Amazon Prime are four major sites where you can
find original programs as well as many re-runs or DVD shows.
I've watched quite a few of these. A lot of them also now
have music. Amazon Prime seems to be trying to compete with
other services, such as Pandora. They now have free
streaming music (free if you're a Prime member). Tonight
we've been enjoying a lot of 70's albums on there.
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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