Watching The CW

Sorry about the lateness of this recap post for the finale of America’s Next Top Model. My laptop is refusing to turn on and is therefore being repaired. In the meantime, my computer access is somewhat limited.

So instead of my usual play-by-play recap, I’m just going to (more…)

This week on America’s Next Top Model they start out with another one of those random chick battles that somehow always seem to spring up when you leave a bunch of little girls alone together. Who even knows why these things happen?

Their first lesson is with Paulina Porizkova who has them say a line in a certain way, pitifully, threateningly, arrogantly, etc. They pretty much all (more…)

This week on America’s Next Top Model, we start out with a little bit of introspection from the girls, as they consider what they were told in panel.

First off, they meet up with Miss J., who has they change into matching outfits, cardigan sweaters and khaki colored capris, black patent pumps and short strands of pearls. It was like they tried to give Mrs. Cleaver a modern make over. Then they walk for him and he brings out two girls from Cycle 9, Bianca and Chantal, to show them how it’s done.

Next up is a Jill Stuart fashion show where they are walking the runway carrying full shopping bags. I was actually surprised that (more…)

I recently saw a list that someone made about actors who should have their own shows. I’m sorry that I don’t remember where I saw it or who wrote it, cause I’d give them the credit for giving me the idea to do the same thing.

One show that seems to have a lot of people I’d like to see again was Veronica Mars, which the powers that be at the CW saw fit to cancel after only three seasons. That was one great show.

The first person I’d bring back is Veronica herself, Kristen Bell. I know we saw her for a while as Elle on Heroes, but it wasn’t enough. Not only is she adorable, she’s talented. She should have another show. I keep holding on to that one faint hope that someone might bring the show back with Veronica a little older, a little wiser and in the FBI. (I saw the videos of that pilot that were floating around a while ago.) It can still happen. OK, maybe I’m a little delusional. But still, it could happen.

I’d also like to see more of Jason Dohring (Logan), who had a part as Josef on the short-lived Moonlight last year. (Don’t even get me started about Moonlight being cancelled. No wonder I’m afraid to fall in love, I’ve been crushed so many times.) Jason is charasmatic and fun, with his boyish looks and the hint of evil in his smile. I just heard that there might be something in the works where he is a secondary character, but that’s not good enough. He should be the star.

Then there’s Sheriff Don Lamb, played by Michael Muhney. Look, I’m not just saying this cause I’m on Twitter with the guy and he often laments his lack of work. I’m saying it cause he was awesome on the show. I remember hating him cause he was such a jerk, but then loving his interaction with Veronica. (If you haven’t seen Veronica Mars, there will be a spoiler in the next sentence.) Sheriff Lamb’s sudden death was a complete and sad surprise to me, since it felt lke he was just coming into his own. But like always, when I’m falling in love, they rip my heart out.

Two more people who deserve honorable mention are Ken Marino (Vinnie Van Lowe) and Tina Majorino (Mac). Both were very able secondary characters who often stole their scenes. Ken did have a short part on Reaper last season and he was awesome. Basically, I’d tune in to watch anything that either of them would choose to star in.

I’m not saying that none of the others deserve a show, I’m just saying these are the people I’d like to see. Hopefully, someone out there in a suit will agree with me.

OK, I have to say something about Heroes. I know I mentioned the show at some point in the past, but I’m not sure what I said anymore.

My nephew had asked me several times if I had ever seen the show and, at that time, I had not. So back in October, I literally sat down and watched every ep (39 episodes in 11 days) to get caught up. It was amazing. Heroes was what was missing from my life.

Or at least I thought so then. But lately, it’s falling flat. Not only can the audience not tell where its headed, we’re left feeling like no one else knows either. It’s almost like they don’t really have a plan or a direction for the show anymore.

At this point, they are basically just re-hashing the same (more…)

Have I mentioned how much I love Psych? Lately? The final episode of the season, ” An Evening with Mr. Yang,” was just awesome.

I think one of the things I like the most about the show, just aside from the great writing and acting, (which should go without saying, although I just said it), is that they seem to have a general 80’s theme running through every week. I imagine that the guys in charge, writers, producers, directors, are probably all about my age. They all remember the things I remember from growing up in the 80’s and then they capitalize on that to draw in others like us.

Even more fun is that Shawn’s (James Roday) dad is Corbin Bernsen and his mom is Cybill Shepherd, and Gus’s (Dule Hill) parents are Phylicia Rashad and Ernie Hudson. (Can you say LA Law, Moonlighting, The Cosby Show and Ghostbusters?) Pop icons of the 80s, each one of them.

Added to that are all the 80s references. Shawn often (and for often, read constantly) refers to happenings from the 80s. Like the whole running gag through one episode, “Murder?… Anyone?… Anyone?… Bueller?” about murder and mayhem at Shawn and Gus’s reunion, which was Shawn mentioning different 80’s movies in his conversations with everyone. His name tag was not a picture of him from high school, like everyone else’s, but a picture of Judd Nelson.

Best yet, in this final episode of the season, it turns out that the killer they are seeking is played by another famous 80’s face. You’ll have to watch the ep to see who, cause I don’t want to spoil it.

If you haven’t seen Psych before, I would highly, highly recommend watching it. You can find eps at Hulu and at USA.

I’ve been wondering what’s going on with the CW. It seems like there’s been a lot of repeats lately, so I have nothing new to talk about. So I went through the next two weeks to see what’s happening. This is what I found out.

This week, Monday’s shows, Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill are repeats. On Tuesday, 90210 is also a repeat, but Privileged is a new ep, the first season finale.

Wednesday is (more…)

Alright, I know it was a couple of days ago now, but I needed to wait a bit, watch the episode a few times, digest it all. Now I’m ready to give my review of Dollhouse. (It is fun to say, Dollhouse, Dollhouse, Dollhouse.) If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, then you might not have heard of Joss Whedon’s new show on Fox, which premiered Friday at 9:00 pm. The premise is people who volunteer (or perhaps they are drafted) to become Actives for a certain time period. They have their personality and memories wiped clean and are then imprinted with other personalities and abilities and are hired out to very wealthy people to perform tasks for them. (OK, I’m not telling it right. You should watch it to see what I mean.)

First off, I admit that I do see everything through Joss colored glasses, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dollhouse is a good show. Actually, its the least Jossy of all his shows and, in my opinion, has the strongest pilot episode. There were some definite This-Is-Joss moments (and yes, that is all in capitals) but then there were also some parts where you just knew the network had its grubby little fingers (more…)

This week on True Beauty, the first challenge is a physical fitness challenge. They have to go through a series of fitness challenges, inclduing being weighed on a scale that adds around 10 lbs to their weight. The other part of the challenge that they don’t know about is that the teenages who are assiting them are also judging them. Laura is the most whiny because she is not into working out. She’s also mad cause she weighs in at 118 lbs. I only wish.

Then when the beauties come into eat, they set up the kids all at one table, except for one poor kid who sits all alone. Billy joins the group and ignores the lonely kid; Julia talks to the lonely kid and asks after him; Joel talks to the group but ignores the loner; Laura doesn’t talk to anyone; Ray talks to the group but not only does he ignore the loner, he comments that he is going to grow up to be a sniper.

When it comes to judgment time, (more…)

It’s Sunday, the day of the Dollhouse panel at NY Comic Con. Anne was in line by 9:20 am and still ended up in the third row. The panel wasn’t starting until 12:45 pm. The people next to us had gotten in the line to get autograph tickets at 5:30 am and they still didn’t get any. It validated my decision to just get a good night’s sleep. I got there just before 10 am and had to cut in line. No one seemed to mind, thank goodness. Lots of people commented on my “Joss is my Hero” shirt. It really did look amazingly awesome. Someone looked at me and said, “He really is, isn’t he?”

I have to thank some people who were in line with us, because they had a plan to get good seats and it worked. As soon as the doors opened, we weaved to the left and ran up the aisle. If not for the guy who was with them running ahead of us with his long legs and then throwing his body over the five seats we needed, we probably wouldn’t be as far up front as we were. Thank you, guy who’s name I never thought to ask. I do know that one of the girls was named Tracy and that she reads stuff over at Whedonesque. So maybe they will read this, too. Here’s a video of the room before the start of the panel. I know they let us in around noon and I took this just after we got settled in our seats. You can’t really tell, but the balcony is also full.

I’m not really even going to try to give a play-by-play of what was discussed at the panel. For one thing, I was so busy hanging on to Joss’s every word, that I’m not exactly clear what he was talking about anyway. Besides, Buffyfest did a great review of the panel, including videos you can actually see and hear, quite unlike the videos I took. So go check it out here.

I will make mention of one of the things Joss said that I can actually remember him saying. Joss speaking about the character of Topher, said, “You won’t be surprised to find a little bit of me in him, he creates characters and has no morals.” He also said something about someday making a period piece, in Elizabethan dress. Could I love this man more?

Oh, and one final note. Something that is just as annoying as people calling Joss Whedon “Josh” is people calling Tahmoh Penikett “Toma.”

Reminder: If you care, you should check out my other blog at Watching Sitcoms, where I’m also blogging about different Comic Con stuff.

Anne and I were walking around the floor at NY Comic Con, and as we walked towards the Sega booth, I saw Mark Sheppard (the lovely, lovely Badger from Firefly). He was standing talking to another guy by one of the games. Turns out that Mark is the lead character in a new Wii game called The Conduit. He saw us standing there, me in my Serenity hoodie, and he said to me, “great jacket.” Which it is. Then he told the guy with him something about how there’s this whole universe that he’s a part of and how “she’s in it, too!” Yes, that is true. We stood and chatted for a bit and he told us about the new Sega game. Then I asked about his dad and he told me that his dad was still over in the booth. I think he was going for lunch when we ran into him, cause as I was leaving to go talk to his dad, he said they would be back and we should come over to the booth later. Sadly, I didn’t get back there, cause I would have liked to have gotten his autograph or a picture.

But I did get to see Mark’s dad, William Morgan Sheppard. For me he is and will always and forever be Blank Reg from Max Headroom, but he has actually been in a gazillion different shows and movies. Most recently, he is in the new Star Trek movie. He was completely adorable. I was really syked to meet him, cause I’m just geeky that way. Morgan was so genuinely nice and friendly. He keept holding my hand and he even kissed my hand at one point. He signed my autograph book, “Toni - Best wishes and thank you for all those evenings - Morgan Sheppard.” Awesome!

Reminder: If you care, you should check out my other blog at Watching Sitcoms, where I’m also blogging about different Comic Con stuff.

On our first trip around the floor at NY Comic Con, Anne and I fought our way through the crowds, trying to find stuff. We sort of knew what we wanted to see, but we didn’t really know where those things were, and we also wanted to take it all in. So we wandered at random. We came to the area called Artist Alley. I had a vague recollection from reviewing the information that there was something in there that I wanted to see.

We came around a corner and along the wall were tables where people were meeting fans and signing autographs. At the end closest to us I saw William Katt. I loved that show, The Greatest American Hero was I was younger. As a matter of fact, a few months ago, my husband and I were in a grocery store when the theme song came on and I was unconsciously singing along. My husband turned to me and said, “I can’t believe you know every word of that song.” And it occured to me that I did. So when we met Mr. Katt, I told him that story. He said he didn’t know if he should be happy or scared for me.

He was a really wonderful guy, very normal, natural and friendly. I mentioned that I had just seen the episode of House where he starred with Thomas Dekker (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles). We then chatted for a bit about his friendship with Thomas Dekker. He also mentioned that Thomas was a musician, which I already knew, since I have the CD. (It’s available at iTunes, so you should check it out.)

It was great to meet William Katt . He had a sort of self-deprecating manner, putting himself in the past, and so I hope that he understood that I really was excited to meet him and it was an honor.

Reminder: If you care, you should check out my other blog at Watching Sitcoms, where I’m also blogging about different Comic Con stuff.

One of the fun things I got to do at NY Comic Con was attend the Torchwood panel. At first I didn’t think I was getting in, even though I got in the line about an hour before the event started. At that point, we were told that only the people in the first loop of the line against the wall would make it in. We were in the third loop and the line was growing. I think it eventually got to be five loops back. (What I mean by loops is that they had to keep bending the line back on itself, back and forth, down the hallway in order to fit everyone in.) I’m not even sure how many people got in, but if I had to guess, I’d say the room fit about 1000 people. I think if the Con organizers had realized how big a deal Torchwood was going to be they would have put them in the big IGN Theatre that seats over 3000.

I got lucky (more…)

The first panel I attended at NY Comic Con was the Watchmen, Friday the 13th and Terminator Salvation panel. It was in the big IGN Theater and was well attended.

I really hadn’t read anything about Watchmen so I didn’t know what to expect. We were treated to a long movie clip. Maybe 15 minutes. It was really good. I definitely want to see it. My nephew told me later that he’ll get me the comic books to read first, which is probably a good idea. I was happy to see so many people I like in the movie, like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earl Haley (who was amazingly terrifying in a great way in the clip), and Matt Frewer. I’m sure there were others, too, but those are the ones I remember.

We then saw a longish clip of the new Friday the 13th movie. I hated it. Well, see, I don’t mind scary or even terrifying, but I draw the line at icky. I just saw some stuff I can’t erase and I’ll have nightmares for a long time. After the first gory part I witnessed, I closed my eyes and (more…)

I just got around to watching last week’s ep of True Beauty.   It premiere on ABC last Monday at 10:00 pm ET.  Believe me when I tell you that watching it was not on my high priority list.  At all.

So anyway, I saw it. And it’s on again tonight. I’ll probably DVR it and watch it when I have nothing else to do. Like last week’s ep.

If you don’t already know, the object of the show is to tell ten contestants that they are being judged and one will be chosen as the most beautiful person in the world. Or something like that. They also get in to People’s most beautiful list. The real scoop is, they are secretly being judged on their inner beauty as well. *gasp*

So last week we met the ten contestants. They are all pretty pretty. You know? But honestly, most of the beauties came across as also being biatches, so I’m not really sure how they are going to prove who has true beauty. I mean, they are eliminating people based on who doesn’t pass at least a couple of the tests they put them through, but more than one person failed the tests. So basically, anyone could have gone home.

The person who did leave was a black beauty queen named Hiawatha. No, wait, that’s not right. It was Hadiyyah-lah - but it hardly matters since no one pronounced it correctly. Ever. In any case, she pretty much failed every test, even the scientific doctor’s test as to how symmetrically beautiful her face was, so she was out of there.

The other contests are Ashley, Billy, Chelsea, CJ, Joel, Julia, Laura, Monique and Ray. I don’t really feel like I know much about them yet. But Billy - the oldest contestant at 31 years - is a real hottie, if you ask me.

The judges are Vanessa Minnillo, Nole Marin (don’t you just love him), and a surprisingly young and skinny looking Cheryl Tiegs. The executive producers are Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher. Which is why I’m willing to give it a chance.