Results tagged “sonsofanarchy”

Tonight brings the return of "V" and we'll be on it this time since the episodes don't appear on Hulu until Saturday. "Sons of Anarchy" will have be a 1.5 hour special and series guest star Adam Arkin will be on "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson". At the end of our post check out the in-production "Pacific" promo from HBO featuring the commentary of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

Has anyone been watching "Sons of Anarchy" and "Nip/Tuck" on FX? The motorcycle gang drama (see our interview with series creator Kurt Sutter and series star Katey Sagal) seemed to get back on track last night after last week's somewhat scatter-brained and ridiculous plot turns (gang members riding around as back up for the deputy police chief? Randomly shooting up cars without repercussions? etc.). Tonight we have another round of the pseudo-pornographic "Nip/Tuck" which can range from being a pointed indictment of our superficial culture to being an overwrought train wreck of excess. We admit to being a rubbernecker that just can't not watch it. At least FX is presenting some non-pedestrian series and it appears that it's getting viewership as a reward with these programs earning impressive ratings for scripted programming.

While we applauded the addition of a couple more female players to SNL, it has meant the departure of two: Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson. We met Wilson right after she joined SNL a year and a half ago and she was very sweet and we always thought she was great on the show. Lucky for LA, she will be joining the Hollywood Upright Citizens Brigade on September 24. We hope to see them on TV again very soon.

The TV Junkie braved the stunning heat last Sunday to put on a monkey suit and attend the red carpet ceremonies at the Gibson Amphitheater for the 2009 TV Land Awards. This event is a favorite of TV fans as it's an opportunity to see the creators and talent of some of the best TV from ages past, most of whom are also involved in current TV projects as well.

While we're still recovering from last night's fantastic series finale of "The Shield" we can still open our eyes to the fact that this extended weekend stinks in terms of TV (unless you love football).

When watching local programming, like the news for example, did you notice how many ads there are for cars and trucks? One's mind easily cuts these ads out, with the exception of Cal Worthington and His Dog Spot, but the problem is that these ads contribute a huge amount of money towards the production of local programming raising the specter of local TV becoming a thing of the past if the big automakers go under. When one reads articles about a potential $25 billion bailout the possibility of local TV going under seems a little more real. Not that we are in support of the bailout of automakers - this is an industry that lobbied against reforms that would have resulted in more responsible products that people would actually want to buy. Our opinion is that local broadcasters need to find alternative sources of advertising dollars as soon as possible.

Despite how much some people might despise the show, "American Idol" has organized a very capable charity with its "Idol Gives Back" event. The event, which was held in April, resulted in the donation of over $64 million to six domestic and international charities including The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Malaria No More; Children's Health Fund; U.S. programs of Save the Children; Children's Defense Fund; and Make It Right, Brad Pitt's campaign to help New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina.

In the viewing wars of election night, evidently ABC came out on top - a network we never even considered viewing - so tell us, did you watch ABC last night and why? While ABC scored 65 million viewers vs CNN's 12.3 million, CNN tells TechCrunch that they had record web traffic of over 27 million unique visitors and over 276 million page views.

Just read this post at Nikki Finke's "Deadline Hollywood Daily" about AMC potentially giving "Mad Men" creator, Matt Weiner, the boot. This would be a terrible tragedy for the series and network but it appears that Weiner's representation, CAA, overstepped and demanded too much money from the basic cable channel - essentially demanding compensation more in line with what a HBO or Showtime might be able to afford.

Be sure to "Hack the Debate" tonight (check out today's LAist interview with Current TV about this Twitter partnership) while watching McCain and Obama slug/slog it out (again).

Do you remember a lot of car commercials at the last Academy Awards? There's always lots of car commercials, right? But they've been GM commercials for the last 11 years but now Hyundai is taking them over for 2009 (and perhaps beyond). That's $13+ million in ads for the night and supposedly Hyundai has eyes for Super Bowl slots as well.

"Maude" in tights? According to The Hollywood Reporter, our good friend Norman Lear, creator of the aforementioned "Maude" (which is a damn good show, please bring it back TVLand!), "All in the Family", "The Jeffersons" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," has teamed up with HBO for a series set in the world of 1970s pro wrestling. The show will be a drama (what a shame) entitled "Everybody Hurts" (funny!). Whatever the format, Lear is the consummate show creator and we're dying to see the results.

ABC won the viewership battle of opening night of the season, although the "beginning" of the season gets more ambiguous every year. What put them over the top was "Dancing With the Stars" which featured a pretty awesome Cloris Leachman who can kick some ass at 82. Evidently she wants to "blow" Bob Saget according to the Comedy Central roast of him a few weeks ago so perhaps she's staying spry in hopes of that.

In the mind of the TV Junkie, last night's Emmy Awards were a vindication of the cutting edge programming happening on cable, both premium and basic. With the exception of reality programming and vague miniseries that nobody has heard of, the big networks came up mostly empty other than NBC's fantastic "30 Rock".

So yesterday we mentioned that Amazon-owned IMDB is getting video clips and today Amazon tells us that they're launching a video-on-demand service providing access to over 500 TV shows and associated cast interviews and other content. This is an ad-free offering so one won't have to deal with the ad interruptions that one gets on NBC.com and other such sites. Some featured TV shows will have episodes available PRE air-date so Amazon users will be able to sneak preview the entire episode before it is broadcast. The service is called The Your [Favorite Show] Store.