Television

[Dragon Writer]

Stll watching it, personally. It's recored at home3...and i still have to see the new heroes, and chuck, and journey man if those haven't been erased (heroe's hasn't been) but tin man takes priority at the moment...

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by kli6:
Is anybody else looking forward to mid-season? Monk, Dead Zone, Carnivale, Alias, Tru Calling... etc. are all set to come back in January.

Given the age level, I'm not really surprised that this old post was the only reference to Carnivale I could find here. Let my kids watch Buffy? No problem. Let them watch CSI? No problem. Let them watch Carnivale? Not a freakin' chance. :-)

I watched it on HBO On Demand from the beginning through 4 episodes before the end, and then got interrupted for some reason -- it may have been when we had to move out of our old apartment. I could get the last four eps up at Edge Video, but I haven't done it. For one thing, I think I need to watch it all from the beginning to get the story in my head, and since I can only do it after the girls go to bed, it's probably not happening soon. For another, once I watch those four, there's no more Carnivale, since HBO canceled it for being too expensive. Well, yeah, but we were bloody well getting what we paid for... and it was supposed to be a 6-year-story, so we only get the first third of it. Pretty dratted annoying...

I think I have two favorite moments. One is in the first episode, when Brother Justin deals with the woman who had stolen from the collection basket. The other one is near the end of the second season, after the ferris wheel accident. That particular scene completely wrung me out. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if you see it, you'll know what I mean.

[vashmata]

Has anyone seen black adder? It's a really funny show about two sons of queen Elizabeth(not sure what number) And how one, the black adder, prince Edmond tries to kill his brother to become king. As Season one becomes season 2, and season 2 becomes season 3, the black adder gets smarter, and his helper gets stupider. There are a LOT of jokes.

[Kathy Li]

Garrett--yeah, I probably shouldn't have mentioned Carnivale here, since it's a TV-MA type show. I loved it for a very weird different reason, which was that Samson's ex-wife was played by Bree Walker who used to be the anchorwoman on our local news here in San Diego. She'd complained to the showmakers about how if they were going to have a freak show, why weren't they employing real freaks (Walker, due to a birth defect, doesn't have any fingers) and as a response they cast her.

Vashmata: my favorite Black Adder was probably series 3, because they went Regency. The Christmas special (Victorian, natch) was pretty funny, too. It's kind of a shock, though, for House fans to see Hugh Laurie in his upper-class twit comedic phase. Can't imagine how they'd face up to his Bertie Wooster in Jeeves.

I am happy that my tv writers are fighting for their rights, but I am sad in that we have now seen the last in-the-can episodes of Bionic Woman, Heroes, and Pushing Daisies and that next week will be the last-ever of Journeyman. It's nice that Saving Grace (a TV-MA show I should not mention here) is burning off its final three episodes, and that Dexter (another TV-MA show you should all not be watching without parental supervision) is closing up its second series.

But I shall now be left with nothing but reality shows. The Amazing Race and Project: Runway are all fine and well, but I like my fiction. Come the new year, I shall only have things like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, New Amsterdam, The Cashmere Mafia, Lost, Medium and Season 2 of Torchwood to sunstain me. Ok, maybe Quarterlife, too. Sigh...

But all of those shows (except for Quarterlife and Torchwood) are also going to be affected by the writer's strike. I think Lost might be the frontrunner with 8 of its 16 in the can, but come March, it's gonna be very dry again. Oh, well. Guess that's what DVDs are for.

Oh, hey, here's one for YW/feline wizards fans. American Experience on PBS is going to do a special about Grand Central Terminal on Feb 4 at 9pm.

[Emi]

Has anyone seen Moonlight?? It's a new show on CBS I find it pretty interesting. I've watched some episodes online because I didn't know it was there until the other day when I was browsing CBS. Anyway, it's about this private investigator who's also a vampire! It's funny and suspenseful and sometimes scary. No idea what it's rated but it's on at 9pm eastern time on Friday. Oh and here's an interesting fact about this show, they almost called it "Twilight".

Kathy: I haven't kept tabs on Amazing Race!! I didn't even know it started! How's this season's teams? Are they interesting at all?

[vashmata]

my brother told me about this show "Dracula's son" It's about how Dracula, his son and his daughter live In the rest of the world. No one knows they're vampires. his son wants to be a human, his son's friend wants to be a vampire(not knowing Dracula's son is a vampire), and his daughter wants to go back to living in isolation.

[Emi]

There's this new show called Eli Stone on ABC and I find it super hilarious. It's about this guy who's a lawyer and who starts to get these "visions" that help him with cases. They say that the cause of these visions are from this Brain Anurisms (i know that's spelled wrong). But the first episode he kept hearing the song from George Micheal, "Faith". I think it's funny...

Oh and is anyone watching "LOST"? Do you think that it's getting even weirder now?? To avoid spoilers: <span class="ev_code_WHITE">I mean they're getting rescued!! To good to be true? Even though we're also "Flash forwarding" to what happens to the Oceanic 6, I still think it's weird.</span> I'm so glad I finally get to watch that show now. Last season I missed it every time it was on.

[Kathy Li]

Moonlight is ok, but I'm afraid it didn't appeal to me all that much, I'm much more excited about the upcoming New Amsterdam which is about a NYC cop who's been there, well, since it was New Amsterdam. It's actually written as if he really had lived through centuries, which (I have to say) is sometimes missing from shows like Angle, Forever Knight, Highlander, and Moonlight ([hero breaks a mirror]. His partner: "That's bad luck." Amsterdam: "Only seven years.") Plus he's not a vampire or trying to slice heads off to be the Only One, so that's nicely different. The pilot is directed by Lasse Hallstr&ouml;m, who was the guy who directed My Life as a Dog. Too bad the show's on Fox.

Sadly, TAR12 not only began, it finished. I liked it, but it wasn't the best TAR ever. Still, it was fun. Right now, all my reality watching is focused on Project: Runway. I'm soooo loving Chris. I want Chris to win.

And yeah, I'm watching Lost. I actually like that the writers told everybody this is going to be the last season of the show, so all the gloves are off, and nobody's safe. Heh heh heh.

Vashmata, I'm really hoping some cable network in the US picks up Young Dracula. It sounds like a blast.

And there are rumbles that the WGA strike may soon be over. I really hope that's true.

BTW, a friend and I got tickets to go attend the Paley Festival presentation for Pushing Daisies (the Buffy Reunion one sold out too fast, alas). Should be a blast.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Kathy, if that plot interests you, you might like the movie Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth. The main character is a man who was born 40000 years ago (or thereabouts). His friends come to throw him a going-away party as he's leaving to switch identities, and they badger him into admitting to his story. It's very well told, and acted -- half the cast was previously on various episodes of Trek. :-)

The producer sent email to someone who reviewed bittorrents floating around the web thanking him for all the traffic: apparently they were getting more hits from his site than the rest of the web combined. :-) They'd much rather people buy the DVD than watch it for free, but without people seeing it free and spreading the word of mouth, nobody would know about it. I watched the first half hour of the torrent, and then grabbed the DVD from the local video store so I could watch the rest properly. :-)

[Emi]

Kathy I'm excited for New Amsterdam as well. Do you know why he's immortal if he's not a vampire??? I did like Moonlight, but I could never catch it on tv, so I ended up watching it from my computer. I got tired of watching from my computer so I never really watched it for awhile... bummer.

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Emi:
Do you know why he's immortal if he's not a vampire???

They tell the story both of how he comes to be immortal, and how he'll stop being immortal in the pilot episode. It's pretty cool and I think you'll like it.

[Rubywolf]

I watched titanic the other night on TV. It's a good movie, but I don't see how it was worth the eleven oscars.

I like Mythbusters.

[Kathy Li]

So, it's March, and the Paley Center for Media (which used to be called the Museum of Television and Radio) is holding Paleyfest. I went up to L.A. on Saturday for the Pushing Daisies event, and it was a blast. I figured a few folks might be interested in the other shows that have presentations, and I wanted to point out that the Futon Critic is doing live blogging from each event.

[Emi]

That sounds like a load of fun Kathy!! I wish I lived in that area so I could visit places like that.

Anyway, new show called Miss Guided from the exec producer Ashton Kutcher is completely hilarious. I also love the new show The Return of Jezebel James They are both really funny. The first one's on Thursdays and the second's on Fridays. I think they play on ABC.

[Kathy Li]

Sadly, I was disappointed with The Return of Jezebel James (which, btw, is on Fox), especially since I seriously loved Gilmore Girls, which was also created by Amy Sherman-Palladino. Hopefully, they'll fix it.

But, on the up side, Doctor Who series 4 is coming up soon! It's likely to be airing 4/5 on the BBC, and 4/18 on Sci-Fi. Also, Sci-Fi has picked up The Sarah Jane Adventures, which I love more than Torchwood and possibly a hair more than Doctor Who itself.

AND.

This weekend the BBC is airing The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (sadly, the last piece by Anthony Minghella we'll be seeing). I think HBO is co-producing the series, so I'm betting that one makes it to the States on HBO and/or PBS. And they actually filmed it in Botswana.

And SkyOne is going to be airing The Colour of Magic, which was done by the same folk who did Hogfather. Hopefully it'll hop the pond, too (although hopefully not on ION...)

Oh. And Battlestar Galactica returns 4/4.