jack bauer makes illegal u-turns all the time with no repercussions, but keifer sutherland can't - especially when his blood alcohol level is above the legal limit as it was yesterday when he was pulled over by the cops.
it was like 1:35 in the morning and he was taken down to the hollywood police station and booked for a misdemeanor dui. he was released on $25 000 bail and his court date is oct. 16
ok, i know i should be appalled by this, but i find it very intriguing, albeit mostly in a guilty-pleasure type way.
fox has just gotten themselves the u.s. rights to the huge columbian tv hit, Nothing But The Truth. wait, you haven't heard how the game works yet. this is the best part.
- contestants are hooked up to a lie detector and asked 21 questions. if they answer all 21 questions truthfully (according to the lie detector) then they walk away with $500 000. it might sound easy, but the questions do get more and more personal and delicate as they go along. it might start off with a question like 'do you like your mother in law' and eventually get to 'have you ever cheated on your spouse?'
and of course the contestants family will be in the audience with cameras catching every reaction.
crap!!! hbo has announced that they have cancelled the very good John From Cincinnati after one season. this sucks... not only was it a good show, but it had been getting better as the season has progressed.
this isn't the first time david milch (the brilliant creator of the show) has had a show cancelled by hbo. he was also the man behind Deadwood - at least that show made it through season three
i know they are getting desperate for another big, marquee-type show with the end of The Sopranos and before that Six Feet Under and Sex And the City before that. and with other networks like showtime and fx on their heels with some high-quality programming of their own. however, that doesn't make it all better.
anyway, i guess there isn't much more to say here beyond my disappointment with hbo
The Nine and Knights Of Prosperity were two of the best new shows to premier last season and they were also two of the quickest cancelled due to poor ratings (come on people, we need to support quality tv).
anyway, abc decided to bring them both back recently and burn off the remaining episodes they had left, but after a couple airings they have decided to even cut that short and both are now done for good (until dvd i assume).
this is disappointing of course, as it was great to see 'Knights' back if only for a short time, although it was frustrating to be laughing so much and knowing that it was already over and not coming back next season.
add to those two shows, Daybreak and The Black Donnelleys and you had a season of some really good shows that the networks got rid of way to fast. it makes me sad.
let's hope this upcoming season brings us some good shows that get a chance to grab an audience before the short-sighted and scared networks give it the axe.
do you watch the Today show every morning for three hours and when it ends feel like you need more? well, starting september 11th, more is what you are going to get. one hour more to be exact. on that date the weekdat edition of the most popular morning news show ever will expand to four hours, from its current three hour incarnation.
who is going to host that extra hour you ask? good question, and the answer is: ann curry, natalie morales and hoda kotb.
nbc has announced that they have signed carson daly to a 2 year contract extension keeping him around through 2009.
personally i don't really watch his show Last Call much anymore. partly because since he lost weight he just looks kind of scary, like his head is too small for his body and he doesn't really fit in his suits. kind of like at the end of Beetlejuice when the guys head shrinks. but, that aside, i kind of stopped watching once he moved from new york to l.a. and the show started to look like every other late nigth talk show out there - with him sitting behind a desk and the chairs to the side for the guests, etc... when he was in new york the show had a much more laid back vibe. not to mention that the desk looks like a mini version of a real late night desk that the staff put together themselves.
anyway, congrats to him, and he is doing well in that 1:35am time slot - according to Zap2it.com "Last Call performs better in its target adults 18-34 demographic than abc's Jimmy Kimmel Live or cbs' Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
why 2009 you ask? well, for those unaware of the late night tv goings on, that is when jay leno is stepping down and the great conan o'brien will be getting the Tonight Show gig he so richly deserves (conan is definitely the best late night guy going these days. i just hope the switch to the earlier 11:35pm time slot doesn't force him to change his show and tone down that brilliant/dumb/weird/original comedy that him and his writers produce - which is kind of what happened to letterman - who was great at the later hour - when he moved from 12:35am to 11:35pm those many years ago).
back to daly: according to what i read he has made it known that he wants o'briens spot when he leaves, but i don't think that is such a good idea. he is good where he is now, but i just don't see him having what it takes to fill o'briens spot.
supposedly nbc has recently signed jimmy fallon to a holding deal leading people to think that he was nbc's pick to replace conan. as for that one, i'm not sure again. i like fallon and i thought he was fun on SNL, but it takes more then that to be a great late night talk show host - - then again i might be biased because i am such a huge conan o'brian fan that anyone will pretty much be a major step down.
finally the Simple Life has been canceled. i really don't have much to say about this one.
remember trista and ryan? they fell in love when trista was The Bachelorette and it actually worked. not only did they get married a year later (on tv of course), but they just had a baby.
99% of the time these dating shows lead to a momentary couplehood that ends soon after the cameras are turned off, but sometimes it actually works.
congrats to trista, ryan and little maxwell.
a little guest starring news for everyone to check out:
those of you who watched the end of My Name Is Earl last season (and you all shoudl be because it is a great show) know that Earl went to jail to protect his ex-wife. well he is going to meet michael rapaport in prison, who will have a recurring role as another of the inmates.
those who watched the end of Num3ers last season know that there was a whole thing with a mole in the agency yada, yada, yada. well, val kilmer has singed on to play a guy named mason lancer who is the mastermind behind all the events that led up to the discovery of the mole. also, like we talked about on the last podcast, that premier episode is being directed by tony scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Man On Fire...).
well folks, it looks like people really like watching other people try to remember the lyrics to songs. i say this because not only has nbc placed Singing Bee on its fall schedule, but fox has ordered 13 more episodes of their version of the same thing, Don't Forget The Lyrics.
when fox announced that they were going to do a 'karaoke' show similar to nbc's and air it before nbc had planned on airing theirs, nbc quickly premiered their Singing Bee a day before fox did theirs. it all reminded me of a few years back when we got Wife Swap and Trading Spouses at the same time - or if we look at movies: Armageddon/Deep Impact, Dante's Peak/Volcano, etc....
anyway, who knew that north americans love of karaoke was so strong as to be able to support to name-the-lyrics shows, but that is what has happened. who knows if fox's don't Forget The Lyrics will make it past the summer or if Singing Bee will be able to hold its own once the new fall season starts? only time will tell me friends.
as season 18 of Law & Order starts this september jack maccoy (sam waterston) will no longer be the a.d.a. and will have finally moved up to the d.a. role left vacant by potential presidential nominee fred thompson.
but who is going to be the new a.d.a. you ask? well, that would be linus roache who you might have last seen in last seasons short-lived nbc drama Kidnapped.
Law & Order has always been good at bringing in new cast members and making it work, but this does seem to mean less jack mccoy. i say that because as all us Law & Order fans know, the d.a. is much less prevalent in the shows then the a.d.a. - at least that is how it has been in the past.
two weeks ago on the podcast - episode #45 - we previewed nbc's fall lineup. well, it has just changed a little, with nbc announcing that Friday Night Lights will go to fridays at 9pm rather then 10pm and Las Vagas will move from 9pm to the 10pm slot.
it has been announced that mister isaiah 'anti-gay-slur' washington has signed on for a recurring role on nbc's big new fall show Bionic Woman. i guess all the recent interviews he has been doing to 'clear his name' so to speak have worked. hey, i saw the larry king interview and that was some good pr and image-reworking there. in fact i don't know how i feel about patrick dempsey now.
have you been noticing the lack of courtroom/legal system programming and the expansion of reality content at courttv over the last while? well, you aren't the only one, because the people at the network have as well and they have decided to do something about it. they have decided to change their name. on january 1st of next year courttv will become trutv.
zap2it quotes marc julius, the network's general manager saying, "early in the rebranding process, we realized that the current network name doesn't reflect the direction of our programming or our growing target audience of real engagers. In trutv, we now have the ideal name that fits both the programming and the target audience. The network will be top of mind for real engagers seeking real-life action programming, real-life emotion and access to places they can't normally go." (zap2it jokes that they are really trying to make that 'real engagers' tag stick, but i don't see that happening - it is a pretty lame term).
anyway, that's the deal over at courttv. they will still begin their days with some trial coverage and then viewers will get to 'enjoy' star jones in her new talk show, but after that the afternoons and evening will be for the 'real engagers'.
i watched about 10 minutes total of abc's short-lived National Bingo Night during the six weeks it aired this summer, and based on the rating i saw, not many other people were watching any more, if that much. abc, however, just announced that they are bringing the show back for a five day in a row run this december.
why are they doing that you ask? well, the reason is the internet, and no it wasn't some big fan outcry like what saved Jericho. in this case it was the fact that during the shows run there were more then 3 million cards downloaded by play-at-home participants which helped make abc.com the #1 tv web site during that time.
and therein is what caught my eye about this story. the idea that finally the big networks are realising the potential of the internet as something to be embraced rather then feared. it took them awhile, but things look to be slowly happening. another big step forward was when they realized that giving viewers the chance to watch full shows online for free was a good thing for the shows and therefore the networks as well....
letting someone watch an episode of Lost that they missed during the week keeps them involved in the show and makes them more likely to catch it the next week, rather then creating a situation where they miss too much of the story and therefore start to get disinterested. Or helping someone discover a show that is already a few episodes into the season so that they can catch up and get into the weekly flow. the examples are numerous and the potential is there.
i understand that it basically all comes down to money, but to be so stuck in the old tv ways isn't going to help them in this new internet-tivo-world, and the return of National Bingo Night is another small example that at least some people kind of 'get it'.
there were a couple couples calling it quits this week...
salman rushdie and his gorgoeus wife, host of Top Chef, padma lakshmi have filed for divorce and wayne brady's wife has done the same (although they have been split up for a year already).
i guess i could say something else here, but i don't know what. rushdie and lakshmi had been together for about 2-3 years and the brady's had lasted about 6. in 'celebrity'-years those aren't bad numbers... so i guess it's on to the next one.
before they offered it to marcia cross the role of bree van de camp on Desperate Housewives was offered to dana delaney. she turned it down (obviously), but three years after making that mistake (depending on how you look at it) she might be coming anyway.
dana is in talks to come to the show as a regular next season and she would be moving to wisteria lane with her 'husband' nathan fillion and 'daughter' lyndsy fonseca and moving into.
there is no mention of what her storyline might be or what creepiness/craziness would ensue.
according to variety, "abc news' "World News" won its first quarter in more then a decade as charles gibson pulled ahead of nbc's brian williams in the evening news ratings."
this is pretty big news in the nightly news ratings game. ever since i can remember it has always been nbc then abc then cbs - or, tom brokaw then peter jennings then dan rather (am i dating myself?)... that's when i used to watch the nightly news. now i get my news online, through the 24-hour cable channels and other sources. i don't watch the 6 and 11 o'clock news regularly anymore. but, like the Today Show always being number one in the ratings i have just come to expect nbc's nightly news to be ahead of abc's (cbs is in third place on both fronts) so when i read about gibson taking abc into first place i found it kind of interesting.
it wasn't a huge shock though, as it has been a long ways coming over the last while. ever since gibson took over at the abc desk the ratings have been getting closer (couric had a great start but has settled into third place).
i missed fox's show, The Loop when it premiered last year and i assumed i hadn't missed much since most sitcoms are not that funny. however, i was wrong. i just caught an episode tonight (fox is burning off a bunch of episodes over the next few weeks) and i have to say it was damn funny. quick, witty dialogue, fun characters and i have to say that i laughed out loud multiple times.
the only problem is that now that i found the show i am pissed that it has been canceled, but that has been a reoccurring theme this last tv season so i guess this is just par for the course. if you have a chance, check out The Loop while you still can.
nbc has announced that they will no longer be doing any super-sized episodes of thier comedies. they still plan on having some hour long episodes of The Office, but no more 37, 40, 45, etc... minute ones.
