Friday, October 5, 2007

First Thoughts: Dirty Sexy Money


Dirty Sexy Money is another show about the rich and powerful. This one is about Nick George and the Darling Family. The Darling's are a big family who is in the media everywhere they go, Nick's father was their family lawyer but when Nick's father dies in an airplane crash, Nick takes over and tries to still be a family man to his own family while dealing with this messed up family.

With such high powered actors as Donald Sutherland, William Baldwin and the magnificent Peter Krause this show looks to be good and will probably stick around for a long time. It's an enjoyable show and one that I'll probably keep up with each week. If you don't know who Peter Krause is off hand, he was the lead anchor on one of my favorite shows of all time, the Aaron Sorkin comedy "Sports Night", he was also the lead in the HBO show Six Feet Under. He's a very good tv actor. If you have time after watching the better shows this season, give it a try. If not, wait for the dvds.

First Thoughts: Pushing Daisies


This is easily in the top three of the best new shows on television right now. Pushing Daisies is the story of Ned, a Pie Maker who with one single touch can bring people, animals and even plants back to life. However there are two complications involved, first if he touches the person again they die for good, second if they stay alive for more then one minute someone else takes their place as dead. So Ned this neurotic fellow who doesn't want to be emotionally attached to anyone gets in with a private investagator to solve crimes by asking the victims who killed them. Unfortunatly one time he finds the deceased his the one girl he kissed, his best friend when he was ten, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles. He brings her back and keeps her back but can not touch her again.

The first episode was incredibly witty and very imaginitive, it had beautiful landscapes, set design and costuming, it almost felt as if I was watching a tv show based on Big Fish. This show has everything a really good show needs and more. I can not sling enough praise at just the first episode, I believe it is currently on abc's website, so go watch it there now. I recommend this to everyone. My only hesitance on this show is how it'll survive, It can not lose quality or it'll fail. The other thing that it has going for it is that it's created and run by Bryan Fuller, this man has a lot of experience behind him with Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Voyager and season one of Heroes. Very good show, I'm looking forward to more.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

First Thoughts: Reaper


So far out of all of the pilots, this is my favorite. Reaper is on the CW on Wednesday Nights. The Basic Premise of Reaper is suppose if you will your parents to save their own life before you were born sold your soul to the devil to save their own, so they didn't mean to have you and you were a mistake. So on your 21st birthday is when the devil decides he's come to collect, but he doesnt take you to hell, instead he wants you to be a bounty hunter to get back those souls from Hell who escaped, because of overcrowding down there it's hard to keep track of them all. You get to keep your life, you just have to do this thing for the devil when he shows up. That's what the show is an believe me they execute it to perfection, this show is very cute, very funny and very delightful. And for once not full of beautiful people on a CW show. So if you do have a chance, check this one out, so far it's worth it.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

First Thoughts: Back To You


The new Fox Comedy is Back To You, the news show starring Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), and Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond). The one thing that gives me hope for the show is it's executive producer Christopher Lloyd. The pilot was humurous, and mildly entertaining but honestly the worst part of the show was the laugh track, it was almost disconcerting. It laughed when things weren't funny and over did the jokes. We've come to the days now where the laugh track isn't needed any more but in traditional sitcom form they don't want to do without it. Also in traditional sitcom form the side characters are all over the top stereotypes in the news anchoring world. Only the two stars give good performances since they know how to do sitcoms. Overall the show is dull and not all that great. It could do better if left to stand on it's own feet without the laugh track, cause seriously that guy that was laughing hysterically at small quips was really starting to piss me off. If you're someone who loves FOX programing more then life itself, then watch this show, otherwise wait until the show actually goes somewhere and see if a DVD comes out for it.

First Thoughts: Chuck


I really liked the pilot for this show, though I am curious to see how they're going to be able to make this into a weekly hour long show as they don't have too much to go on. However, the pilot was very cute, and engaging and had some awesome action sequences. It was good to see Matthew Bomer again from the eight episode tv show that flopped last summer but I enjoyed "Traveller". He plays Chuck's old college buddy and super CIA agent who does really cool action stuff. But is killed when he gets top secret info and emails it to Chuck before he dies. The show was cute and enjoyable and worth watching especially if you have nothing going on before Heroes which I'm in love with more then anything. I'm looking forward to seeing what they plan on doing with this show.

First Thoughts: Gossip Girl


Gossip Girl is the new show on The CW. This one is about a bunch of rich snobbery kids who go to a rich boarding school and who's parents are more messed up then they are. The kids even get into relationships and wear things based on what their parents tell them so that their clothing line or connections won't die out. I found myself actually liking the show except for the creepy stalker narrator called Gossip Girl. Apparently there's this site caled Gossip Girl and she blogs (and her blogs are narration for the show) and her blogs are the first thing everyone checks to know what's going on in the lives of these rich snobs. People are treated based on what Gossip Girl says about them. So that's a really creepy part of the show but besides that it's a fun little show about teenagers who are supposed to be too grown up for their age and what they have to do it about it. Of course since this is the CW the actors and actresses are all way too pretty, and probably don't know how to act, but that's what we come to expect from our fun lovin station CW. This series is based off of a novel franchise which I'd never heard of until the show, so I'll see how the show pans out and will probably end up holding a secret love for the lame show.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Why I'm Excited For: Chuck

A couple of months ago a preview aired for the upcoming show Chuck. What I could surmize was that it was about a nerd type guy doing spy type things with a beautiful woman. I was almost right on the mark with that one. It seems to be tech guy Chuck gets secrets downloaded into his brain somehow and has to keep away from the people that want him dead because of it, but he has some help from opperatives. So it's almost a "I'm a loser, what would happen if my life were like that" type show. Something that we think of whenever we see a James Bond movie.

Another reason why I'm excited is the network is keeping it up by placing it just before Heroes. Which will do very well. But probably the biggest draw for me is this man to the right. None other then Adam Baldwin from the wonderful show "Firefly". A short lived but excellent sci-fi program. He's one of the main characters and I loved his acting in the show so I'm super excited to see him in a new role. Chuck starts this coming Monday an hour before the Season premeir of Heroes.

Best Moments: Psych

If you haven't started watching Psych, you really should. I'll do a full review on it later, but first I just had a new moment added to the best moments list. That being the last three minutes of the 24th episode of Psych entitled "Bounty Hunters!" guest starring Kevin Sorbo. This is the last episode of the year but only half way through the season as they'll show the other episodes in January. I can't say exactly what happened but I will say it was the best foreplay to a kiss ever, though a kiss didn't happen. But the lead in almost made me tear up because of how beautifully and in nature of the show it was done. This moment has elevated the show for me to a higher level. I purchased season one a little while ago, and it's a funny and quite cleverly written show with some good acting taboot. More on that later. Anyways, this goes up there in Best Moments.

Monday, September 17, 2007

TV You Should Be Watching: Flight Of The Conchords


I just finished watching the first five episodes of this funny show tonight. It's got the feel of the Tenacious D television show that only ran for six episodes mixed in with a bit of Extras. The show follows the band "Flight of the Conchords", a comedy band as they do regular things in life, the two main characters are quite monotone but they break into song a lot during the show and become alive through their music. The best moments of the show are usually when they break into their songs which are really cleverly written. One line which made me laugh a lot is when one of the members Bret sees this girl whom he thinks is Hot and says the line, "I wanna tell her how hot she is but she'll think I'm being sexist. She's so hot she's making me sexist. Bitch."

So far it's a pretty good show, I can see more of an indie crowd getting into it then other crowds, just from the style of the show. It just finished airing the first 12 episodes on HBO and a second season is slated for 2008. You can find most of the episodes on youtube. If you want a taste, just try some of their songs and see if it's something you'd like.

TV You Should Be Watching: 30 Rock


30 Rock is as of a couple hours ago the 2007 emmy award winning Best Comedy. I for one and very happy about this because this show is genius. Taking place on the set of a comedy skit television program, much like Saturday Night Live, the main characters are those that work on the show, the actors, the writers, the producers and the boss of it all. Tina Fey who plays the head writer of the show is also the creator and head writer of 30 Rock. She is the mastermind behind the show and since she worked as writer on SNL for many years she has a lot of experience. This show has amazing talent and very funny dialouge for each of them. Alec Baldwin plays the head boss over the show, Tracy Morgan plays the head star "Tracy Jordan" and also wackiest character, even Jack McBreyer who plays a Page at NBC studios is genius. It's been compared and I will continue the comparison to the the late great show Arrested Development in terms of quick witted and intellectual humor as well as able to throw in some weird stuff to make it that much more enjoyable. Season One is currently on dvd and if you can get your hands on a disc or two I'd give it a chance, one of the breakthrough episodes is one in which Tracy is going to be the guest on the Conan O'Brien show, Conan does some amazing lines in the episode. Season Two will be on television starting on Thursday October 4th, at 8:30/7:30c.

If you want to watch episodes of the first season they are currently available to watch online at nbc's website at

http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/video/episodes.shtml