Results tagged “topgear”

Did anyone watch the "Fringe" re-run on FOX last night? What did you think of the network running (censored/screened) live Tweets during the broadcast? Was it interesting/compelling or tacked-on/wanna-be Web 3.0? --- Looks like we're not the only ones PO'd with the new Jay Leno show. Eliminating five hours a week of (potentially) scripted programming never seemed like a good idea to us because within that five hours, an actual good show might have surfaced.

Remember the hubbub over the US Olympic Committee's plan to launch their own TV network? Other than the several questions of legality (what about NBC's rights? what about the International Olympic Committee's rights?) there was also the question of just what they would actually show? Now they don't have to answer any questions because they are punting. --- Who thinks this is a good idea: a dramedy series based on the movie "St. Elmo's Fire"? Topher Grace will be one of the producers.

Our friends over at BBC America's "Top Gear" have really done it - they have achieved unprecedented success with "Project Sipster": the creation of a car that gets 84mpg , goes from 0-60mph in 7 seconds, and whose cost was to be $7000 or less. You can see more in this video. Suck it Tesla and watch "Top Gear" on BBC America tonight at 8pm.

According to the LA Times, about 1 in 4 TVs were tuned to "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" when President Barack Obama made an appearance last week. Leno has had higher ratings only 3 other times in the past, but the media space is a lot more crowded than it was even 4 years ago, so it was a stellar night for NBC.

AMC's "Breaking Bad" is so good that we can't stop thinking about last night's episode. Both macabre and humorous, it was the best thing we saw on TV last night. The show starts with Walter White already out of the frying pan and in the fire and it ends with him seemingly consumed by the flames - we don't know how they're going to keep it up.

Today NBC launched a 24-hour cable channel in New York called "New York Non-Stop", replete with expanded news coverage, on-location stories, and interactive elements. When can LA expect the same investment?

Tonight marks a big debut in late night TV with the start of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". While we were concerned with the departure of Conan O'Brien from "Late Night", we think he can be very successful in the earlier slot. Jimmy Fallon, at 34 years-old, will be bringing some youth to the time slot, although both Carson Daly and Conan O'Brien were younger when they started their stints on late night television.

The spectacle that is the Academy Awards was wonderfully covered by LAist last night but the outcomes of the spectacle were very predictable. LAist was at the SAG awards last month and most of the big winners there, who were also nominated for Oscars, were winners last night.

Did any of you watch the Grammys? Did you enjoy it? OK, so you might actually like pop music but tell us what you specifically like about it. To us, the performances seem somewhat off and the staging heavy-handed. There was a 17% increase in viewership of the Grammys this year over last year with most folks watching during the 8:30-9:30pm hour.

The big news yesterday was that the TV Guide Network was sold for $255 million to Lionsgate, and apparently not sold to investor Allen Shapiro for $300 million as had been announced less than 3 weeks ago. While we're not sure who should be disappointed and who should be elated, what we're sure of is that $255 million seems like a lot of money for a brand as stale as TV Guide.

The TV Junkie says "welcome back" to you all, to a new year and a new "Winter Season" of TV. Premieres we are looking forward to this month are "Nip/Tuck" (FX 1/6), "Damages" (FX 1/7), "24" (Fox 1/11), "Battlestar Galactica" (SciFi 1/16), "Big Love" (HBO 1/18), and "Lost" (ABC 1/21).

John McCain's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" pushed the show to it's second best rated night of the past decade, only topped by Sarah Palin's appearance a couple weeks ago. "SNL" has garnered a lot of attention for it's meteoric ratings recovery this season but has still been criticized by some, like The New Yorker, for not being as good as it could be. While we understand that for some people, "SNL" will never top it's 1970s incarnation but times are very different now and expectations should be adjusted.

Other than the Sarah Palin edition of "SNL" last weekend, there weren't too many bright spots for NBC in terms of viewership. FOX and ABC didn't fare much better and of all the big networks only CBS had more viewers last week than the week before. Those waves of pilots and new programming haven't paid off at all, perhaps because everyone is in the movie theater watching "Beverly Hills Chihuahua".

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".

Tina Fey for President! OK, well, she should at least be a cabinet member. She has more communications experience and exposure than all of the contenders combined. The big question that is getting asked is, will Fey be back again as Sarah Palin on SNL? She might be back on as early as this upcoming Saturday according to some reports, depending upon how negotiations go.

Last night had some great TV. What'd you watch: "True Blood", "Mad Men", "Entourage", the VMAs? Any comments?

Advertising Age is reporting on the possible end of the nightly network newscast as another 1.2 million viewers in the US stopped tuning in last year. The article points out that the reason why people aren't tuning in at 6pm is because.... they are still at work. Hey networks, instead of constantly going off on red herrings like Terri Schiavo and WMD in Iraq, how about creating a frenzy over the fact that Americans work a shitload more hours than they used to, have less time off, and generally don't have the benefits and more relaxed lifestyles available in other industrialized nations? In the '70s and '80s I remember my parents always being home from work in time to watch Walter Cronkite and our local news - as a working adult, I've literally never had the opportunity to do that. Here's a chance for the network news to shed light on what is killing their viewership by 5+% per year.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Viacom, MGM, and Lion's Gate are teaming up to place (yet) another premium channel in your cable lineup - supposedly there are movies and programming that HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, etc. are not covering. Is the logo going to be a lion with a Viacom dog collar?

Did anyone watch "Top Gear" last night on BBCA? They had a fantastic contest of who could cross London the fastest: a bicycle, a several hundred horsepower boat, public transportation, or a Mercedes SUV. The bike won! Followed closely by the boat and then public transportation with the SUV dead last by more than a quarter hour after public transport. Since LA doesn't have many viable waterways it looks like it's time to sideline cars and invest in bike lanes and public transportation exclusively.

Last night TLC's "I Can Make You Thin" had some good ideas in it but it felt and looked like a frickin' Ronco infomercial. Did anyone watch "John Adams" on HBO? How about Parker Posey in "The Return of Jezebel James" on Friday night? For a St. Paddy's Day themed show tonight, check out the "Ghost Hunters" repeat on SciFi at 9:00pm.

So I won't go on about how dry and average the Oscars were last night and how the TV ratings reflect that. I will say, however, that I'd like to find anyone involved with the development and production of the movie Enchanted and incinerate them on a pile of every DVD and CD soundtrack copy of that rancid film. A brief burst of carbon emissions and pollutants now will save us from more such dreck in the future.

In other news, a desperate NBC has ordered a pilot of the BBC's cars & celebs series, Top Gear. The show has been running on BBC America for a couple years now, I've seen a few episodes, notably one with Ewan McGregor. The show may be amusing depending upon which celebrities they line up, but it's no American Idol. Again, instead of coming up with something original, we're forced to watch rebranded concepts from overseas.