Results tagged “tomdog”

We've reached Thursday which means it's comedy night topped by "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" on FX at 10pm providing some insight into how Dennis manages to score with so many women. We also had a chance to see the "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" Holiday special, "A Very Sunny Christmas": a 43 minute featurette that's been getting a lot of promo on FX the last couple weeks. If you're a fan, you have to get a hold of it, no question there, it's on DVD & Blu-ray at Amazon. What do you get: Danny DeVito nude and greased up; a supporting role from veteran actor David Huddleston; brilliant casting of "young" Mac, Charlie, Dennis, and Dee (they appear to have used cloning!); classic animation in the style of Rankin/Bass; a disturbing and surreal Christmas sing-a-long with the gang from Paddy's.

13 days ago we wrote about the Parents Television Council boycott of The CW because of advertising for "Gossip Girl" and at Monday's launch party for Mark Liddell's "Exposed: 10 Years in Hollywood" we grabbed the opportunity to ask "Gossip Girl"'s Kelly Rutherford (aka Lily van der Woodsen) about the boycott - please watch the above video for her thoughts. [Also, what a thrill to talk to Megan from the original "Melrose Place"!]

Dear ladies of Los Angeles: if you're 35+ and are considered "hot stuff", prove it by auditioning for TV Land's "She's Got The Look" on December 6th. Check out the details and let us know if you made the cut.

Mark Liddell is the photographer of choice when an actor or celebrity needs to create an iconic image of themselves. From supermodels like Naomi Campbell to rockers like Avril Lavigne to socialites like Paris Hilton, among their most compelling photos were shot by Liddell. Many photographs of these celebrities were done in the name of advancing charity work and now Liddell has released his first book of photographs, Exposed: 10 Years in Hollywood, to benefit The Trevor Project (suicide prevention for teens), which he chose in memory of his best friend’s suicide, and The Jenesse Center for the prevention of domestic violence. The book is available at Channel Photographics and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.

Weekend Notes: January Jones was host of "Saturday Night Live" and if Taylor Swift "nailed" her hosting duties a week ago then Jones did at least as good of a job. The key difference was the writing and the writing was definitely better for the November 7th show. Could it have been a better show? Yes, but not from anything January Jones could have done. It was so painfully obvious that the show had no idea what to do with her - most of her sketches were variations on her "Mad Men" role and most weren't very good. After an hour and a half, we still don't know if Jones is a good comedic actress, c'mon "SNL".

Weekend Edition Programming of note this weekend: "Saturday Night Live" has an odd choice for host this week: January Jones, aka Betty Draper from AMC's "Mad Men". She has a part in the obnoxiously overpromoted comedy Pirate Radio but does that make her funny? We're going to watch to find out if this turns out to be a brilliant gamble. Musical guest is the eager-to-participate-in-any-sponsorship-opportunity aka "whores", the Black Eyed Peas.

The TV world is abuzz with Lou Dobbs' abrupt resignation on his broadcast last night after nearly 30 years at CNN. Everyone is asking "why" this was happening but Dobbs' political bent has been more than slightly apparent for the last several years. We wonder on what basis Dobbs could say CNN has stifled his opinion as it would appear that he has had free reign during his tenure. We also wonder if this move isn't related to his house getting hit by a bullet late last month as his wife and a Dobbs employee stood outside. It would be a shame for him to have left over personal safety issues.

Did any of you tune in to the 2nd episode of "V" last night? We ask because viewership dropped by about 30% from the previous week. Don't get us wrong, we like the series but the drop in ratings made us think a bit more about the program. First of all, they're not really breaking any new ground here and that's fine since the majority of the targeted demographic don't remember the original series at all but we thought there would be more updating to the story other than contemporary babes, hunks, and computer graphics. We'll stay tuned for more but after this we wonder about the remake of the classic and dear-to-our-hearts "The Prisoner", which premieres this Sunday on AMC.

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.

As we know, last night had the excellent season finale of "Bored to Death" which we gave you a sneak peek of but it also had the finale of the multi-Emmy winning "Mad Men" on AMC. "Mad Men" generally had a great season with only a couple sleepy episodes but the finale was incredible. Maybe Don is finally free of Betty but the plight of the kids had our female viewing party members crying with most feeling that Don was much better off without "that crazy Betty". What will keep us pining for the next season is the momentum that was built up with what was ostensibly the launch of a start-up '60s-style. Summer of 2010 can't come too soon.

Today's big scuttlebutt is that Oprah may relocate her show from Chicago to Los Angeles by 2011. While this might be more convenient for Oprah and TV executives, we think TV is more competitive and more interesting when it is produced in more locations. If the entertainment industry doesn't want to be labelled as a "bi-coastal elitist" then it should be aware of how this appears.

"Sesame Street" is about to enter its 40th season and it's making us feel, well, all of our own 40 years. As a little TV Junkie we were plunked down in front of that show as soon as we could sit up and the power of this incredible show has stayed with us all these years. Characters from the show will be popping up all over the place this week, including co-hosting "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" on Monday, November 9th.

Did you make the mistake, like us, of watching the original "V: The Final Battle" on Syfy last weekend? We can't believe that series was such a big deal when we were kids but here's good news, the remake of the series that airs tonight at 8pm on ABC takes the premise and completely owns it in a very slick and well done (at least for the part of the pilot that we've seen) rendition. We'll be watching and not remotely comparing.

Today marks the release of "The Shield: Complete Series" on DVD. This series pushed the boundaries of what could be done on cable television, in terms of content, quality of writing and production, and talent (Academy Award winners galore guested or had long-running storylines). "The Shield" paved the way for current darlings of the critics and viewers like "Damages", "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad", Saving Grace", etc. High quality, aggressive and unapologetic storytelling is not limited to premium cable anymore because of "The Shield".

There's already some news about how this season is going in terms of viewership for the big networks: all the big networks have larger audiences with the exception of ABC. NBC is still struggling in 4th place and its "Jay Leno Show" has about 1/2 the viewership of its rival networks at that hour. Leno did an interview over at Broadcasting & Cable to get some positive press and alludes to a desire to return to the 11:35pm slot.

Robert Englund has been involved in film and television for 35 years, other than his most famous creation, Freddy Krueger, he's been in television staples such as "Soap", "CHiPs", and "V" as well as movies like The Phantom of the Opera, Strangeland, and 2001 Maniacs. He's also been a director and is now an author with the release of his autobiography Hollywood Monster: A Walk Down Elm Street With the Man of Your Dreams, which tells the stories of his life in the business so far with anecdotes about everyone from Burt Reynolds to Johnny Depp. We talked with Englund about his book as well as his new web series, "Fear Clinic", which is available on FEARnet - with five new episodes this week, including one featuring teen heartthrob Lucas Till. Englund plays the notorious Dr. Andover who specializes in treating phobias with cures that might be worse than the ailment.

Halloween Weekend Edition You will have plenty of Halloween options starting tonight with CBS covering all bases with "NUMB3RS", "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer" (fans of the last two should check out this "Spirit of Friday Night" website) but don't forget oldies but goodies like Psycho on TCM at 9pm. Tomorrow there will be Halloween fare all over the place with scary movies on IFC, TCM, and AMC which will be running Night of the Living Dead back to back from 6pm until midnight. You can always check out Martha Stewart's TV options or consider one of these "True Blood" jack-o-lantern stencils for last-minute Halloween ideas.

Tell us, have you watched "Cougar Town"? We've really tried to give this show a chance but the stilted dialogue and hollow stereotypes are starting to get to us: the whole "cougar" premise already seems tired and trite; the cast seems to be waiting for each line of dialogue to be stiffly delivered; and when is the increasingly frozen-faced Christa Miller going to be fed up with being cast as an insufferable harpy?

There was some great TV on last night, with "Sons of Anarchy" continuing to get back on track after some silliness a couple weeks ago. On the more depressing side of things, "Frontline" continued to remind us that we are still riding a unicycle on the precipice of economic disaster. Look forward to more stark details from PBS as Margaret Warner, correspondent for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer", is traveling in Pakistan with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and will be reporting on the region tonight and all this week.

The AFI Film Festival starts this Friday and while there are many excellent films to choose from, we highly recommend The Messenger. The film stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster as U.S. Army officers assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service whose duty is to deliver notification of death to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers. We went to the New York City premiere of the film at the CMJ Film Festival and shot the video of Woody Harrelson and the film's director, Oren Moverman, answering questions from the audience about the film and their preparation for it.

It's dance night again and we're asking you if you care. We want to hear from the lovers and the haters: should we keep listing new episodes of "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing With The Stars" in our schedule or can we save that space for something else? 2 contestants from each show will be eliminated tonight BTW. --- TNT is again stepping up to the plate by funding a pilot to be executive produced by George Clooney.

A couple weeks ago we wrote about Microsoft's insidious sponsorship of Seth MacFarlane's November special, Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show" on November 8th and it now appears that Microsoft can't handle MacFarlane's humor and has dropped the sponsorship. After Microsoft execs attended the October 16th taping, a Microsoft spokesperson stated "We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy,' but after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand." In a twist of reality the company is now behaving exactly like the John Hodgeman parody character.

Tonight at 10:00pm USA will be premiering their new dramedy "White Collar". At the premiere event this morning at Rockefeller Center in NYC, the TV Junkie had a chance to talk to stars Tiffani Thiessen, Matthew Bomer, and Tim DeKay. The series pairs master "white collar" criminal Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) and hardened FBI agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) on capers where they need to track down various corporate criminals...

Weekend Edition The prediction that TV was fading into the fog of yesteryear as a medium seems to not be true (for the moment). Overall viewership of TV is up by 4% and the departure of the coveted 18-49 demographic seems to have been arrested. The Hollywood Reporter offers a breakdown, network by network.

We talked about inspirations behind their new album, See Mystery Lights, which is their first release on DFA. Primary among their inspirations are the bizarre and strange Marfa lights of Western Texas, which they themselves witnessed on multiple occasions.

FOX has pulled "Dollhouse" completely from its November schedule. The series returns in December in a deathrow Friday slot. If this is truly the end of the show, it won't be the end of the line for Eliza Dushku, whose appearance in Hulu commercials has made her a very recognizable face - we hope to see her again soon.

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.

Syndication News: IFC will be rebroadcasting back to back episodes of "Arrested Development" on Sundays at 10pm and Tuesdays at 9pm starting on October 25th. Comedy Central will be rebroadcasting "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" starting in the Summer of 2010.

Ten days ago we bitched about NBC's cancellation of "Southland" and we had a lot of dialogue about that. Now the industry wonders if this move will result in creatives avoiding NBC because why work for a place that would cancel the best-reviewed and highest-rated freshman series in 2008-09? Oh yeah, and it was a series created by John Wells Productions, the guys that created, among other things, "E.R.", which only won about a jillion Emmys and provided NBC with hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising dollars.

Weekend Edition The world watches an empty balloon that could be part of a stunt to get a reality show, hmmm, that makes us think that this particularly family could easily head down the "Jon & Kate Plus 8" route - and whoops, TLC is now suing Jon Gosselin. Unless there is some kind of massive intervention, nothing will end well for anyone in that family.