We wrap up the weekend's TV highlights and muse about how "Big Love" ended without giving away any spoilers. If you'd like to weigh in, please give us some comments. --- We're pleased to see Stephen King might be writing an episode of "The Walking Dead" and that Jeff Daniels is possibly going to be part of Aaron Sorkin's HBO series. --- All this and tonight's TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan and the listings (lots of great late night TV tonight).
TV Junkie: Weekend TV Wrap Up - Please Weigh In on 'Big Love' Finale
TV Junkie: Farewell 'Big Love'
We had a few great years with some crazy Mormons, thank you HBO for bringing us "Big Love," a show we're sad to see leave. --- We'd like to disagree with Entertainment Weekly's grade of C- for Saturday's broadcast of "The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway," it will be our pick of the night. --- All this and the TV Junkie Must-Watch Plan for your weekend.
TV Junkie: 'What's On Your Plate?' Premieres Saturday; Anti-Choice/Anti-Gay Bowl Still Happening on Sunday
Yes, a football game happens on Sunday and we feel we've already written enough about the Anti-Choice/Anti-Gay Bowl and the dang thing seems to occupy every other moment on the TV anyway. It's our job to point out the not-so-obvious and this weekend, one of those items happens to be the broadcast premiere of a documentary called What's On Your Plate? on Planet Green on Saturday at 7pm (and Sunday at 11am).
TV Junkie: Grammys Post-Mortem; 'X-Play' 1000th Episode Tonight
A highlight of the interminable 52nd Annual Grammys was Stephen Colbert's award, his first Grammy, for the soundtrack to his hilarious holiday special, "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All." His monologue was the most intelligent banter of the night - it was all downhill from there. From the out of tune singing, to an inability to self-censor for a broadcast audience, a confusing 3D experience, and, the very weak "mosh pit" stage design (3 or 4 "Jersey Shore"-style fist-pumpers?), Tinseltown scored an #epicfail with those and countless other "why?" moments.
TV Junkie: NBC and the Corner It's Painted Itself Into; John Oliver Tonight, 'Big Love' & 'Battlestar Galactica' Sunday
Yesterday, did we publish an "unconfirmed" rumor that NBC was canceling "The Jay Leno Show"? Kind of. At the very least, if NBC moves the show from it's 10pm slot back to 11:35pm, and makes it 1/2 hour - that is a very different show than what was originally planned. The biggest problem is that NBC appears to not know what it is doing, what with all the news leaks of conflicting ideas about a drastic change to a broadcast line-up that is about 8 months old.
TV Junkie: 'Battlestar Galactica' - Vaya Con Dios
Tonight marks the end of "Battlestar Galactica", for about 20 years until the geeks of the future resurrect it like they did the now-campy 1970s version. Some have complained that this final season swung the show onto a science-fiction track that was too science-fiction-y but the show had to return to its roots, its core, before wandering off into the cosmos.
TV Junkie: Cramer/Stewart; 'BSG' Ending/'Kings' Beginning; Farrell/Bush
The TV highlight of the week occurred last night with the appearance of CNBC's Jim Cramer on "The Daily Show". Jon Stewart trotted out several video clips of Cramer pontificating about how to game and mislead the markets and how rewarding it is to do so. A lot of footage was cut in order to fit the show's 1/2-hour format so if you missed the airing and/or want to see the entire interview, you can get it all at "The Daily Show".
TV Junkie: Baldwin on TCM; 'Breaking Bad' Returns! 'Ashes to Ashes' Debuts
Sunday @ 10pm features the return of AMC's incredible series, "Breaking Bad", with Bryan Cranston (pictured, right) as Walt White, the terminally-ill high school science teacher-turned meth cooker. We've been eagerly waiting for this show to resume and AMC has done a great job whetting our appetite with their sneak webisodes and other promos. Since the other stuff we like to watch on Sunday's @ 10pm are available on-demand, this is one of our prime picks of the weekend.
PaleyFest 2009 Preview: Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Horrible, True Blood, Pushing Daisies and More
This year's annual William S. Paley Television Festival (also known as PaleyFest) will feature some LAist favorites. The up close and personal television event is sponsored by the Paley Center for Media, and begins April 10 at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome. Tickets go on sale to the public Sunday at 9 a.m. and they're likely to sell out within 24 hours, if not sooner. Most PaleyFest events treat fans to clips from each program (sometimes never-before-seen material) and include a panel discussion with questions from a moderator and the audience. In addition, each panel page on the PaleyFest website now includes an option for fans to submit questions prior to the event. This year's lineup is a strong one and it features: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 90210, True Blood, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse, The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, Desperate Housewives, Unaired Pushing Daisies Episodes, Battlestar Galactica, The Hills, Big Love, Fringe and Swingtown.
TV Junkie: Thank You Conan O'Brien
Tonight marks the last broadcast of Conan O'Brien on "Late Night..." and what a ride it's been. From being a virtual unknown in front of the camera, O'Brien is now a staple of late night television. O'Brien's resurrection of NBC's "Late Night" after the departure of David Letterman to CBS was not easy and the first few years were very tenuous ones for the wild haired funnyman. With support from Lorne Michaels, O'Brien was given enough time to build an audience, something almost unheard of these days.
TV Junkie: Weekend Edition - Online Video Surges; Big Sunday
This December, online video viewing surged over 13%, DigitalMediaWire says:
TV Junkie: Super Bowl XLIII Weekend Edition
A lot of our sport fan/fiend friends are convinced that this Sunday's Super Bowl event will be a boring blow out - "the Cardinals will win how?" is oft heard. But for a lot of media dorks, ourselves included, the Super Bowl is all about the ads. We already know that GoDaddy and PETA have had their ads denied (as must have been planned for). Adweek's Barbara Lippert analyzes past Super Bowl commercial foibles as well as a list of all expected advertisers for XLIII. On Saturday, CBS also takes a trip down memory lane with a program on the "best" commercials of years past.
TV Junkie: LAist Takes on the 15th Annual SAG Awards
This Sunday is the SAG awards and while we're excited that there (probably) won't be a strike any time soon we're even more excited to be covering the SAG awards from the red carpet to the winners. Follow our posts here on Sunday or this Twitter feed as we'll be taking photos and posting them from around 3:30pm Pacific until whenever the event wraps up.
TV Junkie: 'Flight of the Conchords' Returns on Sunday; 'The Office' and '30 Rock' Renewed!
A lot of programs return to or make their premiere on premium cable this Sunday including: "Big Love", "The L Word", "The United States of Tara", and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". What we most eagerly anticipate is the season premiere of "Flight of the Conchords". The pair of musicians and their hapless manager, all hailing from New Zealand, might not have made a second season due to low viewership but their cult like following gave us one more. So enjoy every episode like a smooth New Zealand Merlot, savor it, because this might be their last run, on HBO at least.
Golden Globe Noms Announced
"Atonement" leads the pack of nominees for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards with seven nods, including top actor nominations for both leads, Keira Knightly and James McAvoy. "American Gangster," "No Country for Old Men," and "Sweeney Todd" also garnered nominations; you can read a partial list of the nominees here at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association website. Hayden Panettiere, Dane Cook, Ryan Reynolds and Quentin Tarantino read the list at the Beverly Hilton at...
Loud Neighbors? Call the Cops.
There are a lot of fucked up things going on in Los Angeles at night. Drug deals, murders, gang violence, just to name a few. To me, it was hard to believe that cops would come in quick time to a domestic disturbance complaint, so I never called until tonight.

