Winter TV 2011 Preview

After a lackluster fall with few (if any) truly quality breakout hits and several unfortunate cancellations, will the midseason bring networks and viewers better luck? Look ahead at all of the major new shows coming in the new year. — Television Without Pity

Live to Dance (debuts Jan. 4, 8 PM, CBS)
What Is It: The soft-hearted people at CBS clearly felt bad for Paula Abdul after her exit from Idol, so they've given her a show that is at least somewhat more in her wheelhouse. She's producing and judging this dance competition that basically sounds like So You Think You Can Dance, except there are groups as well as soloists. Don't we already have America's Best Dance Crew for that?
Should You Watch?: Probably not, but curiosity might merit a peek at one episode... or more.

Episodes (debuts Jan. 9, 9:30 PM, Showtime)
What Is It: A British couple are set to bring their hit show to America, but when they get to Hollywood, they're forced to replace one of their talented theatrically trained actors with a larger than life version of Matt LeBlanc.
Should You Watch?: Sure. It's from the creators of The Class and of the shows from Friends stars debuting this winter, this is by far the better one.

The Event: The Next Lost or The Next FlashForward?

The critics loved it, the media hailed it as the next "Lost", but how long can the show survive on air, really? After all, the same thing also happened to "FlashForward" and that show got canceled last season after only airing one season. 

Here is my own personal review of "The Event" after watching the first two episodes. The Event is definitely trying to be the next "Lost". I guess the people behind the show could see that there is a vacancy left after "Lost" ended its run and that there is an opportunity for a similar type of show to thrive of network television. The show has similarities and references to "Lost" (The plane crash, the pacing, the over-arcing mysteries), be it intentional or not. However, if it is indeed intentional then some viewers (meaning: ME) might find it to be rather cheap and unoriginal. Like, can't they come up with something original without similar traits with the pre-existing source and yet could achieve the success of said source? 

Oh, wait, It's Hollywood...

Another minus for me would be the confusing pacing. The format of the episodes and the pacing back and forth was not done as professionally as "Lost". Where Lost had succeeded, "The Event" has failed. "Lost" kept it simple with just two time lines per episodes (present and flashback/flashforward/flash-sideways), but "The Event" has the present plus 5 days ago plus 8 days ago plus 12 years ago plus however-long ago. Who could keep track of that!? I could see how that might become a problem with inattentive viewers (meaning: ME). While "Lost" made each time line as distinct as possible visually and story-wise for the viewers to differentiate, each time jump in "The Event" just felt jumbled to me. And this is coming from a guy who has watched more than his share of non-linear movies and shows (Memento, Inception, and Damages to name a few) and managed to dig them!

So yes, I find that the format and the pacing of "The Event" to be a rather amateurish attempt to mimic the traits of a great show. And by banking on however much leftover cult audiences Lost still has and the general sci-fi aficionados, I don't think the show has long to survive. Besides, the season-long storyline could be a turn off for the mainstream audience. That's what got "FlashForward" cancelled and that's also what got "Lost" and "Damages" to lose a good chunk of their viewership in the end. You have to watch every episode in detail, miss one and the next time you're sitting in front of your TV to watch a new episode, you'll find yourself turning your head to your couch mate saying, "Huh!?" when you ask him to catch you up.

Capturing the loyalty and interests of the audiences with complex mysteries and storylines is a difficult task indeed and that is something only a few shows had achieved and managed to pull off quite beautifully. Whether "The Event" can hold a candle to "Lost" and fill up the big gaping hole in the heart of its fans or become another casualty  in the ratings war, remains to be seen. Although it would be such a shame if the show ever gets canceled since it boasts some of the best talents in television such as Laura Innes, Zeljko Ivanek, Blair Underwood, and the newest heartthrob, Jason Ritter.

Official Website 

The Event at the Internet Movie Database

The Event at TV.com

Fall 2010 New Show Rankings: What to Watch and What to Skip

SlideshowFall 2010 New Show Rankings: What to Watch and What to Skip

Battle of The Vampire Babes, Part Une

You could be forgiven for thinking we're in the midst of an unprecedented madness for vampires with True Blood, Vampire Diaries, and The Twilight Saga being all the rage these days. A better question might be, why vampires ever? Looking back, it's hard to think of a period when we weren't in the middle of a vampire craze.

Beginning in 1897 with Bram Stoker's gothic horror novel, Dracula, since then there have been numerous adaptations and appearances in the media. In 1922, the first vampire movie, Nosferatu was released in theater. Followed by numerous Dracula movies throughout the 1920s to 1960s. In the late 1970s, Anne Rice started raking in the money with Interview With the Vampire, and movies like Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre and the comedy Love at First Bite were critical hits. Then came The Lost Boys, Near Dark, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Innocent Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie), four more Anne Rice books, and Interview With the Vampire (the movie)—which could all be lumped into a rage for vampires that lasted clear through from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Vampires were back again in the mid-1990s, with Buffy (the TV show), the Blade movies, Southern Vampire Mysteries (the book series), and From Dusk Till Dawn. And now we've arrived at the highly touted mid- to late-2000s vogue of Underworld, Twilight (books and movies), True Blood (based on Southern Vampire Mysteries), and The Vampire Diaries. So you see, we might be further along in the vampire craze than what you have imagined.

However, I want to focus more on the contemporary occurrences (this is, after all, a pop-culture blog). Within the last decade there have only been, in my opinion, four significant vampire-madness-inducing franchises in the media. They are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Twilight Saga, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. Now, we could go onto deep discussions concerning those four particular franchises, but we're not going to do that since it will only spark endless debates. I want to focus more on one aspect, which is the protagonists of each franchises. From my observation, I could gather that contemporary vampire franchises have shifted their focus on the vampire characters to the protagonists who are all happen to be females with the vampire characters being reduced to be the female protagonists' love interests or mere supporting characters. This might indicate a new wave of feminism in this era. What I want to do now is pit all these ladies together to find out who is THE best feminist cultural icon of the decade.Oh, and for those teenage girls who think Bella Swan is a good role model, I'm here to set things straight. Someone is going DOWN!!!

I'm gonna start with Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by Joss Whedon, Buffy is a high school cheerleader who learns that she is the Slayer, a Chosen One gifted with the strength and skills to fight vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. The character of Buffy was created to subvert the stereotypical and cliched female horror film victim, the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every film. Whedon wanted to create a strong female cultural icon.  Buffy avoids the "final girl" character trope seen in horror films, where the androgynous and celibate heroine gets to outlive her friends and exact revenge on their killer. She gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster. 

Over the course of seven seasons and 144 episodes, Buffy has saved the world a lot of times, died twice, had sex with more than one vampire, lost loved ones, grew up without parents (her father left before the start of the series and her mother died during her sophomore year of college), and had to drop out to support her younger sister. She had to do all of these between battling forces of darkness on a daily basis and studying for exam, yet she still managed to find time to party.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer's thematic and metaphorical elements have inspired countless studies and academia. Buffy is notable for attracting the interest of scholars of popular culture as a subset of popular culture studies. Academic settings increasingly include the show as a topic of literary study and analysis. Buffy eventually led to the publication of around twenty books and hundreds of articles examining the themes of the show from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, Speech Communication, psychology, philosophy, and women's studies.

Now if that's not amazing, I don't know what is.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Glorious Steinems

There's this one song that I can't seem to get it out of my head. The song was featured on the TV Show 90210 season 2 in the episode "Sweaty Palms and Weak Knees" where Jessica Lowndes performed the song with the fictional band "The Glorious Steinem". I think the lyrics are so beautiful. But I can't seem to find the song anywhere on the internet. Below are the lyrics:
 

Like the way that I trip and fall,
You like to laugh when I dent my car
I'm always in a rush
Sometimes I tend to care too much

Like the way that I burn my food
You like the way that I snap at you
Every morning I hit the snooze
And everyday I seem to lose my shoes
 

I always cheer for the wrong team
Always bring you wrong the drink
Always leave my hair in the sink
And I talk when you're trying to think

Thats how I know you love me
Thats how I know you care
Thats how I know you want me
Cause you take me as I am...

And here's the clip of the scene:

If I Can Dream: An Interactive New Media Entertainment Catering to Your Voyeuristic Nature

If I Can Dream is an online reality show created by Simon Fuller. Simon Fuller is a British artist manager, television producer and creator of the Idol franchise (as in Pop Idol, American Idol, Etc. Idol) and So You Think You Can Dance. He is, or has been, the manager of performers and entertainers including David and Victoria Beckham, Spice Girls, Carrie Underwood, Kris Allen, David Cook, Adam Lambert and others. 

If I Can Dream follows performers (aspiring actors, singers, models, athletes) who are called the dreamers who also live together in a a house in Hollywood. The show isn’t exactly reality TV as it is not shown on conventional TV and you can only watch the episodes via their official website. There’s no judges or voting off. There’s not a pot of money sitting at the end. The goal is to get a job that will allow the dreamers to get out of the house and to move on to a bigger career. The show is just the first step.

Sounds boring maybe. And what is so special about the show, you may ask. Well, the twist is that the house is wired with 60 cameras and when you visit their website you can watch the live streaming from your laptop or computer. You can watch the participants' every move, every action, and every conversation. In real time! Video feeds are available at both 500 Kbps and 1 Mbps which makes it viewable to anyone in Indonesia who has an adequate broadband internet connection. The live feeds stream with very little discrepancies. If I Can Dream will be the largest persistent live "event" produced by a media company!

Glee Effect in Full Throttle: Flash Mob at Ohio Union

Dear Readers, check out this cute viral video on Youtube where the students and staff break out into a dance in the great hall of the new Ohio Union. This, people, is what we call "The Glee Effect"... lol

Kinky Sex, Lesbian Sex, Angry Sex, And A Really Really Twisted Sex

Just another day in Bon Temps and just another episode of True Blood.

I've always made a rule for myself to underpromise and overdeliver so that the people whom I owe my promise to wouldn't be too excited, get their hopes up, or be too disappointed. This is why when True Blood promised to deliver the the sex scene that they claim will become the watercooler moment of the next twenty years, they have set the bar higher than before.

Usually when a TV show promises to deliver a huge cliffhanger or twist or other WTF moments, they rarely deliver (hello, 90210! Yes, I'm talking about you) and only few manages to make your jaw drop and scream "What the hell?! What the hell!?" in front of your TV/Laptop screen (Alias, Lost, Grey's Anatomy), but oh BOY do they deliver this time! And we just got into the third episode of the current third season, making me can't wait to see what else is in store for the rest of the season.

I never thought that any TV show can get any more shocking, more controversial, and nastier than how True Blood has been. But then again, I remembered this is True Blood, born from the genius mind of Allan Ball (Six Feet Under), anything can happen in True Blood. This is, after all, the show that has been nicknamed as "Vampire Porn" and "The Hottest Summer Show from HBO" in a better term.

Now onto the sex talks, here are the sexlights (sex and highlights) of that said episode. And yes these all happened in one episode.

The kinky sex A.K.A. the seizure inducing sex

The first sex scene featuring vampire Franklin Mott and Tara.

Tara goes, "Go ahead. Bite me. Fucking do it!"

But he goes, "No."

"Why not?"

"Because you want me to..."

The lesbian sex

The second sex scene featuring vampire Pam (one of the deliciously spicy character on True Blood) with an Estonian stripper.

Pam was like, "Lie back, sweetheart. Think about Estonia."

From the look of her face, I'm sure she won't be thinking about Estonia at all.

The angry sex and the really really twisted sex

The angry sex and the really really twisted sex happened in one scene. Featuring vampire Bill and his maker, Lorena. Now brace yourself for this one... Things get spoiler-y from here on. So if you don't wanna know more and would rather wait to watch it yourself, just get out of this page.