Because-- why not...?

John Barrowman is so awesome....

Television Premieres and Notables: September 15-21, 2014

And here we go for Fall 2014. Starting out slowly this week with Fox jumping the gun (because of baseball playoffs in October) and kicking in next week...

Monday, 9/15

Dancing With the Stars; ABC. 7 pm CST. 19th Cycle Premiere.

Masterchef (Fox; 7 pm CST). Season Finale.

The Approval Matrix (Sundance; 10 pm CST). Season Finale.


Tuesday, 9/16

New Girl; Fox. 8 pm CST. 4th Season Premiere.
Let's hope the writers of this show regrouped a little after the abject failure that was last season...

The Mindy Project; Fox. 8:30 pm CST. 3rd Season Premiere.
I am still not as in love with this show as many (critics) are, but it did get better last year.

Brickleberry; Comedy Central. 9:30 pm CST. Season Premiere.


Wednesday, 9/17

The Mysteries of Laura; NBC. 7 pm CST. Series Premiere.
A detective solves crimes by day-- and tries to raise her wild twin six-year-olds at night.

Red Band Society; Fox. 8 pm CST. Series Premiere.
A young man in a coma narrates the "adventures" of a group of teens who live in a hospital due to various serious conditions (osteosarcoma, needing a heart transplant, cystic fibrosis).

The Meltdown With Jonah and Kumail (Comedy Central; 9:30 pm CST). Season Finale.


Thursday, 9/18

Married (FX; 9 pm CST). Season Finale.
I stuck it out, but this show didn't not capture my imagination.

The Honorable Woman (Sundance; 9 pm CST). Season Finale.

Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories; adult swim. 11:15pm CST. Series Premiere.
I just don't do nearly enough LSD to be able to handle Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but some people just loved it. This show is probably for them.


Friday, 9/19

Tanked; Animal Planet. 9 pm CST. 5th Season Premiere.


Saturday, 9/20

I've tried to talk the show up here and there,and I'll say last week's Hell on Wheels (AMC; 8 pm  CST) was just gut-wrenching. There are great things going on on that quiet Saturday show. In my mind, Anson Mount is one of the best actors working on television right now. You should try to catch up.


Sunday, 9/21

Madam Secretary; CBS. 7:30 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Tea Leoni is finally back on TV.
She plays a woman leading a quiet life until the president asks her to be his secretary of state.
The preview I saw made that whole scene look preposterous, but I'm game for trying this one out anyway.
And looking at the start time of this premiere, I think it's a good time to remind people that their CBS and Fox shows may start late due to football. Make sure you build in time on your DVR-- especially if the network air the late game that week.  CBS, especially, gets "off". I often had to add a whole hour of cushion last year.

The Good Wife; CBS. 8:30 pm CST. 6th Season Premiere.

Cutthroat Kitchen; Food Network. 9 pm CST. 5th Season Premiere.

geez-- they'll sell anything...

Yes-- I know it's a joke. (just in case)

noooo shit...

Batman v. Superman summed up perfectly...

Yes, it's wrong. Yes, I laughed anyway.

Television Premieres and Notables: September 8-14, 2014

Monday, 9/8

Bachelor in Paradise (ABC; 7 pm CST). Season Finale.

Rewrapped; Food Network. 7 pm CST. 2nd Season Premiere.

Love Prison; A&E. 9 pm CST. Series Premiere.

Online daters who've never met each other are moved into a one-bedroom house.

'Cause, you know: no pressure.

Tuesday, 9/9

Sons of Anarchy; FX. 9 pm CST.  7th and Final Season Premiere.

Adam Devine's House Party; Comedy Central. 9:30 pm CST. 2nd Season Premiere.

Wednesday, 9/10

Hell's Kitchen; Fox. 7 pm CST. 13th Season Premiere.

Nova; PBS. 8 pm CST (check local listings). 42nd Season Premiere.

Thursday, 9/11

The Biggest Loser: Glory Days; NBC. 7 pm CST. 15th Season Premiere.

Haven; Syfy. 7 pm CST. 5th Season Premiere.

Friday, 9/12

Z Nation; Syfy. 9 pm CST. Series Premiere.

Syfy gets into the zombie craze-- and they used the guys who brought us Sharknado to bring it to fruition.

Sunday, 9/14

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; PBS. 7 pm CST (check local listings). Mini-series Premiere.

Ken Burns sets his sights on the Roosevelts, specifically Teddy and his nephew Franklin and Franklin's wife Elenor.

American Dad; Fox. 8 pm CST. Burn-off/11th Season Premiere.

Fox airs its last two episodes before it moves to TBS.

Hunt or be Hunted

Apparently not very good friends if you believe THAT shit:

Television Premieres and Notables: September 1-7, 2014

Monday, 9/1

Houdini; History. 8 pm CST. Mini-series Premiere.
Adrien Brody stars as the 20th Century escape artist.


Tuesday, 9/2

Royal Pains (USA; 8 pm CST). Season Finale.

Drunk History (Comedy Central; 9:30 pm CST). Season Finale.


Wednesday, 9/3

The League; FXX. 9 pm CST. 6th Season Premiere.
And, if your cable company sucked like Charter did for me until a few months ago, and your FXX channel was tied into a sports package last year, the net is repeating the previous season over Monday and Tuesday nights in the late-night hour (sorry, not by my TV right now).
(Of course, I've heard the last season sucked, so maybe it was better that I missed it.)


Thursday, 9/4

Sunday Night Football; NBC. 7:30 pm CST. Season Premiere.
So... Sunday Night Football is airing on a Thursday night?
That'd be right. NBC paid a shit-ton of money to get "Sunday Night Football", and they'll be damned if they are going to change that franchise name for one lousy night just because the NFL kicks-off [see what I did there?] their new football seasons on a Thursday.
Why? cha-ching, baby!


Saturday, 9/6

The Chair; Starz. 10 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Two competing filmmakers have to create their own feature with identical scripts-- and must be filmed in Pittsburgh.


Sunday, 9/7

Boardwalk Empire; HBO. 8 pm CST. 5th and Final Season Premiere.

The Leftovers (HBO; 9 pm CST). Season Finale.

This one made me laugh hysterically. Worth a repost.

Television Premieres and Notables: August 25-31, 2014

Sorry about last week. I had it written-- and could swear I "published" it-- but it looks like it didn't go.
Naturally-- it was one of the few I actually spent some extra time typing up.

So if you missed the start of The Simpsons marathon because my post didn't publish, don't worry, FXX will air them all again, eventually. They didn't spend that shit-ton of money to get the syndication rights to not air them.

Hopefully they air them once in a while in the proper aspect ratio. The really old eps looked terrible. It seemed to get better as the seasons went on (and I hope it wasn't because I got used to it), but it's hard to train people to accept how things are supposed to look when networks screw with them.

[Funny thing: I used to have to explain how letterboxed DVDs were more true to how a film looked than full-screen DVDs when I worked at a video store, and now I have to tell people that pillar-boxed airings are more true to the TV series than cropped to fit a wide screen TV.]


The other big one: the Doctor Who premiere should repeat a few times this week.  It wasn't the easiest "jump-on" episode I've seen, but I really like the new Doctor now that he's gotten over the trauma of regeneration (by the end of the episode-- and that's not a spoiler; he eventually was gonna get it together like he has every time before). I also liked all the nods to this being an older-looking character and how Clara (and,by extension, the fan girls who crushed on Tennant and Smith) needed to get over it.

It's certainly worth trying out if you're curious about the series. Just know you'll want to give the show at least a second episode. This premiere was for the fans-- but there were certainly moments you didn't need to be a fan for. I mean, it opens on a giant monster stomping around Victorian England. And the antagonists were especially creepy.


Anyway, let's try this week. Hopefully it'll "publish" properly...


Monday, 8/25

The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards; NBC. 7 pm CST. Special.
I know it says something when fan of TV like myself has little to no interest in watching this.
Anything noteworthy will be online soon after. No reason to waste time on the usual boring shit we can expect from a major award show.

James May's Cars of the People; BBC America. 8 pm CST. Series Premiere.


Tuesday, 8/26

Tosh.0; Comedy Central. 9 pm CST. Midseason Premiere.

Tyrant (FX; 9 pm CST). Season Finale.

Chelsea Lately (E!; 10 pm CST). Series Finale.


Saturday, 8/30

Raiders of the Lost Art; Ovation. 6 pm CST. Series Premiere.
A look at famous, but currently missing, artwork.

Television Premieres and Notables: August 18-24, 2014

Monday, 8/18

Dora and Friends: Into the City; Nickelodeon. 7 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Dora explores the hood...

Switched at Birth (ABC Family; 7 pm CST). Season Finale.

Dallas; TNT. 8 pm CST. Mid-season Return.


Tuesday, 8/19

Wizard Wars; Syfy. 9 pm CST. Series Premiere.
A reality competition where two groups of illusionists battle each other with ordinary objects.

Perception (TNT; 9 pm CST). Season Finale.

A Young Doctor's Notebook; Ovation. 9 pm CST. 2nd Season Premiere.

Nathan For You (Comedy Central; 9:30 pm CST). Season Finale.
This show got picked up for a third season, so it'll be interesting to see just how much longer Fielder can fool people to let him come up with crazy schemes to help their businesses.


Wednesday, 8/20

Suits (USA; 8 pm CST). Season Finale.

Epic Ink; A&E. 9:32 pm CST. Series Premiere.
An Oregon tattoo parlor that specializes on pop culture tats gets its own show.


Thursday, 8/21

The Simpsons; FXX. 9 am pm CST. Mega-marathon.
Every... single... episode... ever... (including the movie) will air, in order, starting today and going until September 1st.
My DVR is going to implode now that my kids have gotten into the Simpsons the last few months.


Friday, 8/22

BoJack Horseman; Netflix. Series Premiere.
Will Arnett plays a anthropomorphic horse who had a hit series in the '90s, and has found himself not able to repeat that success since.


Saturday, 8/23

Doctor Who; BBC America. 7:15 pm CST. 8th Series Premiere.
If ever there was a time to jump-on in the past few years, this may be it.
Peter Capaldi takes over from the extremely popular Matt Smith, so that's always a good time to try the series out: when an old Doctor regenerates into a new one, with a new face and personality.
But this regeneration is especially critical because of how showrunner Steven Moffat ended Smith's tenure by both helping him solve the guilt The Doctor felt after how he ended the Time War (he destroyed two races-- one being his own-- in order to stop it) and to allow him to regenerate again after he had used the entire allotment of his lives.

This is new start. The last fifty years of adventures were wrapped-up with closing the book on The Time War, and now it's a new(ish) beginning. The Series Eight trailer has The Doctor both saying he is looking to correct past mistakes and questioning if he is a good person, and I expect this new incarnation to be more focused and determined than Smith's more "come what may" approach.
I expect the change from the youngest actor to play The Doctor to one of the oldest to be interesting here as well. It should definitely change how Clara (who, thankfully, is staying on) views her adventures with him.

So, check it out.

[If you want to catch up via a week-long marathon of NuWho, you can start with David Tennant's Tenth Doctor run starting at noon on Monday and continuing all week until Saturday's Twelfth Doctor premiere. (If you just want to catch Smith's run, his episodes begin at 8 am on Thursday in the funny-- and badass-- "Eleventh Hour").]


Intruders; BBC America. 9 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Glen Morgan (of X-Files fame) brings us this odd mystery series I know nothing about.
But it stars Mira Sorvino and John Simms, so it's worth giving a shot.

oh boy...

Television Premieres and Notables: August 11-17, 2014

Monday, 8/11

The Approval Matrix; SundanceTV. 10 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Host Neal Brennan brings on some guests to discuss pop culture.


Tuesday, 8/12

4th and Loud; AMC. 8 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley work to get their arena-football team in "you wanted the best" territory.

Below Deck; Bravo. 8 pm CST. 2nd Season Premiere.

Sisterhood of the Hip-Hop; Oxygen. 8 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Five aspiring female musicians try to break into the hip-hop game.

The Singles Project; Bravo. 9 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Six romances are chronicled in "real-time", so fans can comment on the dates and maybe the people will be affected by the comments.
It's on Bravo, so I'm sure it'll be more valuable social experiment than train wreck...

Cement Heads; A&E. 9:30 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Yet another reality show about a construction company. When will they stop?


Wednesday, 8/13

Legends; TNT. 8 pm CST. Series Premiere.
Sean Bean stars as a CIA agent who manages a number of different aliases (or "legends") and is having a difficult time keeping them all straight.

Wallburgers; A&E. 9 pm CST. 2nd Season Premiere.

Franklin & Bash; TNT. 9 pm CST. 4th Season Premiere.
Fourth season? Good Lord; I felt like I had watched for a couple summers before I dropped it 2 years ago.


Sunday, 8/16

The Great Food Truck Race; Food. 8 pm CST. 5th Season Premiere.

10 Things You Didn't Know About; H2. 9 pm CST. 3rd Season Premiere.