It's a TV Life

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Discovery Health...the Mommie Channel

There's a new show called Mother May I on Discovery Health with an irresistible premise. Each half hour follows a subject (young adult female struggling with various facets of her life) as she spends a few days working with a life coach. The life coach sends her tips and assignments via text message. At the end of the few days, the woman meets face-to-face with the source of the guidance, who is none other than her MOTHER! It seems mothers who love to nag--I mean give advice--all the time may actually know what they're talking about!
So it's kind of a mean-spirited show. I feel bad for the duped daughters. Although, after they bring out the mom they do bring out a REAL life coach to offer some professional insight and suggestions (for mother and daughter). And in the end everyone's learned something (hopefully). The daughters will listen to mom with an open mind, and the moms will present their advice in a more detached way. That's what I think the key is to moms coaching daughters.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Ready for Fall '08

I checked out the networks' upcoming fall schedules, and I'm pretty excited. This past season has felt like a bit of a rip off, because of the writers' strike. I don't know if there were actually less episodes, or if it just felt like it because of the strike break. So I'm looking forward to a new, full season of my faves. Unfortunately there are a couple shows I really liked that won't be coming back.
MissGuided (they only made a few episodes but I was digging it)
Jericho (I got into it late, but I would love to see it go on)
Kid Nation (fun, dramatic, inspiring!)
Beauty and the Geek (watched one season and it was fun)
Bionic Woman (saw a couple episodes, looked interesting)
Aliens In America (this show was so funny and cute, I'm most sad about this one being cancelled)
What I will be watching...
ABC: Boston Legal, Dancing With The Stars
Fox: Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, House, Fringe, Madtv
CW: 90210
NBC: Chuck, Life, Medium (in January)
CBS: Big Bang Theory, HIMYM, Two and a Half Men, Without A Trace, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, Numbers, Cold Case
What will YOU be watching?

Blog Description

Look Alike Actors

Zeljko Ivanek (Heroes, Damages) is an older, paler version of Todd Louiso (High Fidelity, Jerry Maguire). Their younger, more innocent counterparts are Ethan Embry (Can't Hardly Wait, Vegas Vacation) and his taller version Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory)
Sofia Vassilieva (My Sister's Keeper, Medium) and Daveigh Chase (The Ring, Donnie Darko) look a lot alike.
Vera Farmiga (Running Scared, Departed) looks like a mix between Claire Forlani (Antitrust, Meet Joe Black) and Patricia Arquette (Stigmata, Medium)

Cheers

Early in the mornings, around 4-5am, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, etc air educational programming. The shows and topics are usually the same or similar to ones on during the day. However, there is a bonus: no commercials!

Late late nights on Comedy Central, they relax their standards and don't beep out swears. I watched Chris Rock do stand-up (he swears a good bit) without a single censor.

09/03/08
I watched the premier of 90210 last night. I love how they didn't just take one of the old characters and the name of the show, and make everything else new. There were a lot of references to the olden days, yet also a lot of new faces and styles and topics. I liked. It made me feel giddy seeing Brenda and Kelly at the Peach Pit!

(09/06/08) While I jeered TruTV's attempts at VH1 style, I cheer E!'s renditions of TruTV subjects. Their series of Biggest Acts of Love Gone Wrong and Going Postal, etc. are pretty interesting.

(09/22/08) I really hate to admit it, but Keeping Up With the Kardashians is so good. That family is annoying and ridiculous but I like them.

(09/22/08) I just have to make it known that I LOVE JAY LENO. He seems like a really great guy, he's from Boston, and I love his monologues. When McCain was a guest he (McCain) made a "joke" about Jay being his running mate, but seriously I would love Jay for prez. Despite having a politically active wife (which is cool), Jay comes off as very non-partisan. He doesn't side with any political party, he sides with reason and common sense ("your dog's not going to wear that!" etc.). Wouldn't it be great to have a leader like that in power?

(10/12/08) Here’s another admittance. I’m watching Dr Drew’s new show, Sex with Mom and Dad, and I’m actually enjoying it. I love Dr. Drew and I gotta give him props for another well done show. I first heard of the premise on Craigslist. MTV is looking for young people who don’t communicate with their parents about sex? You would have to pay me more than $1000 (which is what they offered) to let MTV make a fool out of me like that. I was imagining the terrible game show they would turn this into. I didn’t realize Dr. Drew was involved. He just wants to help people. He takes kids seriously and doesn’t exploit them (or at least he does it in a way that helps them and makes the audience think). You Rock Dr. Drew!

10/19/08 OMG I missed the first season, but I'm now watching the second season of The Pickup Artist on VH1. I love it! This dude Mystery is teaching a group of dorks how to be cool and get women. I can totally see Mystery as a major geek who put on some eyeliner, rings and a funky hat...and is a serious hottie! My personal favorite dorks are Simeon and Greg.

10/20/08 It's still early, but I'm tentatively putting Gary Unmarried in the Cheers category. I half-watched the first 2 or 3 episodes. At first it was painfully bad. I love Jay Mohr, and I loved him on Ghost Whisperer. I was a bit surprised that his GW character wasn't killed off, he just left the country. After watching the Gary pilot I started wondering how soon his GW character could move back, and if it would really work since he's already been replaced by Jamie Kennedy (who is surprisingly not bad on GW). But last week I found myself laughing at a couple of Gary's lines. I think it will fit into the Christine sitcom feel and do well. On the other hand, Worst Week doesn't seem promising (although I've barely watched any of it so I can't really judge).

10/20/08 My Own Worst Enemy and Life On Mars are both off to a good start.

11/06/08 Yes, I'm enjoying Life On Mars. Tonight's episode had a couple of great moments....[presented in rhyme] When Sam talked to the young/old versions of his mentor, that was really sweet. Whoopi Goldberg with a headband and afro is always a treat. And when Sam broke into Ice Ice Baby for the BLA....it can't be beat!

Jeers

Even though Comedy Central allows swearing late at night, during regular hours they censor a lot. I forget what movie it was, but there was one movie with so many stupid things bleeped or taken out....it's like "what's the point?" MadTV does a bit, "The Sopranos aired on PAX" which shows a one hour episode edited down to about 1 minute!

(9/06/08) I noticed that Tru TV (Court TV) now shows shocking caught-on-tape moments a la VH1. They've mixed real footage of police chases, accidents, animals gone rogue, etc. with, as they call it, "play by play commentary by our daring celebrity cast." This kind of thing is fine when they're talking about OJ and the Long Island Lolita for I Love The '90s. But when the moment real people's lives are ruined or ended is on display, I find it hard to appreciate Danny Bonaduce's two cents on having flipped his car over more times than the guy in the video.

(09/14/08) I hate the way shows like VH1's Worst Celebrity Quotes doesn't actually show the quotes. They tell you what the celeb said and they have the b-list celebs commenting and imitating the quote, but they don't show the actual clip! It's annoying.

(09/21/09) On Ion tonight (paid programming time) "Look Thinner Instantly" is scheduled at 11:30, and "Feed the Children" is on at 12. Leave it to Christian television to present our society's hypocrisy so innocently...

(10/12/08) The Eleventh Hour was a boring combination of every show that's already on the air. Let's take a focused career man with a dry sense of humor (The Mentalist, Life, CSIs, etc.), partner him up with a beautiful yet determined female cop (Life, Fringe, Chuck, The Mentalist, etc.) and have them solve crimes that involve more than the usual forensic evidence (Fringe, Terminator, etc.). Maybe if they had started airing it before Fringe and The Mentalist started it wouldn't seem so hackneyed.

10/19/08 This is very frustrating. First of all, on Saturday nights, absolutely NOTHING is on TV. Second, I watch 2 or 3 episodes of MadTV everyday (well, I don't necessarily watch them, but they are on while I'm at the computer or doing something else) so I am up to my ears in MadTV re-runs. And third, I love the show but it's not that great. There's usually one or two segments each episode that are seriously funny. Then there's a couple segments that are funny because they feature reoccuring characters who are so stupid they're funny. The rest is just stupid. For some reason though, I love this show! And I look forward to Saturday nights at 11 when I get to watch NEW episodes. However, last year their season started with several "best of" shows and then after a few regular episodes, the writers' strike kicked in. After that was resolved, they did a few more episodes and then that was it. So after a total jip of a season, I was all geared up for this year. I got 3 new episodes...then a "compilation" (=rerun) episode...then nothing for 3 weeks! I am this close to just getting a life and going on Saturday nights!!!

10/25/08 I like the new show The Ex-List, so Cheers to the show. But I gotta give Jeers to the main character Bella because she deserves to be dumped again by all the guys she's ever dated. Actually she's usually the dumper the first time around, so she's not really getting dumped again. But when you decide to give your boyfriend a second try, and he soon realizes you were nothing to be heart broken over, it stings extra hard. Right, Bella? But this girl deserves it. Every week there's another boyfriend that just doesn't measure up to her standards of perfection. Because she's oh-so-perfect. I mean, I guess we all have our faults in relationships, but I never dumped so many guys so self-righteously!

11/16/08 Jeers to the networks' websites' video content. For some shows all you can see are a couple little clips, which is pointless. And for other shows, full episodes are available, but for whatever reason they are practically unwatchable. Stalling, buffering, video all choppy, audio out of sync, and then it'll freeze and you'll have to start it from the beginning again. I wind up watching full episodes on other websites like YouTube, Hulu, SurfTheChannel, and Todou (which includes fun Chinese captions). The networks should get their act together.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Discovery Health...the Mommie Channel

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Ready for Fall '08

It's a TV Life

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