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June 2009 Archives
DVD ALERT: 'It's Garry Shandling's Show' and 'Ally McBeal'
June 29, 2009 10:55 AM
UPDATE --
Here's the Amazon link to pre-order the Shandling's Show full-series set.
ORIGINAL POST --
Now there's an odd mashup. But they're only together in this alert: Both shows are finally being primed for complete-series DVD release!
It's Garry Shandling's Show is the Larry Sanders creator/star's first sitcom, debuting in 1986 on Showtime and getting a network pickup in 1988 on the nascent Fox network. Shandling plays himself -- an insecure standup comic, natch -- as a San Fernando Valley condo dweller beset with wacky neighbors, strange star pals (Jeff Goldblum, Rob Reiner), and "hilarious" personal situations.
But the whole point was using sitcom conventions to lampoon themselves, at a time TV comedy was taking itself Very Special Episode seriously. Shandling famously "broke the fourth wall" to speak directly to his viewers/studio audience about the goings-on, creating a relaxed and still-enjoyable slice of low-budget videotape tomfoolery. It's a sort of pop culture house of mirrors -- which set the stage for Shandling's more-barbed HBO Larry Sanders Show peek behind the scenes of celebrity.
The Shandling's Show release comes from the fine folks at boutique distributor Shout Factory, who know how to treat TV treats like this. (Their extras-crammed efforts have included My So-Called Life, Freaks & Geeks, SCTV, The Dick Cavett Show and this week's new Parker Lewis Can't Lose.) Looks like it'll be all four Shandling seasons on 16 discs, due Oct. 20. Amazon.com should be taking pre-orders soon.
Ally McBeal was actually one of the first shows on DVD back when the format emerged circa 2000. But all the American market saw of David E. Kelley's fanciful law/romance/Dancing Baby hour was a 2-disc first-season selection called Ally on Sex and the Single Life. Full seasons never materialized from distributor Fox Home Entertainment, possibly because the song-loving show was a music licensing nightmare.
But now Calista Flockhart, Peter MacNicol, Jane Krakowski, Robert Downey Jr. and their loopy lawyer pals look like they're on the way with a full-series giftset in time for holiday giving, as outlined by our friends at TVShowsonDVD. That would mean five seasons on an unannounced number of discs, with a possible simultaneous release of Season 1 for buyers who prefer to collect in lower-cost doses. Amazon is taking pre-orders here.
So now, where's The Wonder Years? Ed? China Beach?
In the meantime, enjoy The Theme Song to It's Garry Shandling's Show ("Garry called me up and asked/If I would write his theme song"):
UPDATED LISTINGS: Programs on Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson (as of Monday 1pm ET)
June 25, 2009 7:30 PM
We'll collect updates here on TV programs scheduled last-minute after the Thursday deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
Among the specials yet to air (as of Monday 1 p.m. ET) --
BIO Remembers: Farrah Fawcett (on-demand via digital cable; check on-screen menus) -- This archive hour chronicles the actress' life and career.
Michael Jackson on-demand via digital cable (check your cable provider's on-screen menus) -- Look for Michael Jackson's 1978 musical film The Wiz with Diana Ross on pay-per-view, plus a wide selection of free music videos.
American Idol (Monday 8-10 p.m. ET, Fox) -- Encore of March's Michael Jackson-themed performance show.
Biography: Charlie's Angels (Monday at 9 p.m. ET, BIO)
Biography: Farrah Fawcett (Monday at 10 p.m. ET, BIO)
Dateline NBC (Monday 10 p.m. ET, NBC) -- "Living With Michael Jackson," encore of famous Martin Bashir interview.
World Music Awards 2006 (Wednesday 8-10 p.m. ET, MyNetwork) -- Encore includes Michael Jackson accepting an award on the 25th anniversary of his Thriller album, and singing "We Are the World."
E!ES Michael Jackson (Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, E!) -- Press release: "With full cooperation from Sony, Michael Jackson and the Jackson organization, this one-hour special is the definitive documentary on the pop icon and his music."
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PREVIOUS POST (Friday 9 p.m. ET) --
Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration (Friday 8-10 p.m. ET and 11 p.m.-1 a.m. ET, TV One) -- All-star 2001 concert salute features Jacksons reunion, plus Destiny's Child, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Usher, Britney Spears, 'N Sync, 98 Degrees, James Ingram, Gloria Estefan and others.
Farrah's Story (Friday 8 p.m. ET, NBC) -- Repeat of May's two-hour documentary film chronicling Fawcett's battle with cancer; note that start time moves up one hour. (Also airs Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Oxygen.)
Dateline NBC (Friday 10 p.m. ET, NBC) -- Ann Curry hosts "Michael Jackson - King of Pop" look back at Jackson's legacy.
E! News Special: Michael & Farrah: Lost Icons (Saturday at 10:30am ET/PT, E!) -- Half-hour special chronicles the lives of the two celebs.
True Hollywood Story: Michael Jackson (Saturday at 11 a.m. ET/PT, Sunday at 1 p.m. ET/PT, E!) -- Two-hour documentary covers the pop icon's life from childhood to superstardom.
The Jacksons: An American Dream (Saturday noon-5 p.m. ET and 7 p.m.-midnight ET, TV One) -- Angela Bassett and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs play the teen musicians' parents in 1992 miniseries chronicling the Jackson 5's rise to fame. Also starring: Holly Robinson-Peete, Terrence Howard, Billy Dee Williams.
Man in the Mirror: Life and Legacy of Michael Jackson (Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, CNN)
Chasing Farrah (Saturday 9 p.m. ET, TV Land) -- First two episodes of the 2005 docusoap following Fawcett's daily life as one of the country's most famous faces.
Biography Remembers: The Michael Jackson Story (Saturday at 10 p.m. ET, Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, A&E; Monday at 11 p.m. ET, BIO)
The Life & Times of Michael Jackson (Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, TV One) -- One-hour documentary.
American Idol (Monday 8-10 p.m. ET, Fox) -- Encore of March's Michael Jackson-themed performance show.
Biography: Charlie's Angels (Monday at 9 p.m. ET, BIO)
Biography: Farrah Fawcett (Monday at 10 p.m. ET, BIO)
E!ES Michael Jackson (Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, E!) -- Press release: "With full cooperation from Sony, Michael Jackson and the Jackson organization, this one-hour special is the definitive documentary on the pop icon and his music."
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PREVIOUS POST (Thursday 7 p.m. ET) --
20/20 (Thursday 10 p.m. ET, ABC) -- "Farrah Fawcett: Her life, Her Loves, Her Legacy" is a Barbara Walters report featuring interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Charlie's Angels costar Jaclyn Smith, friend Alana Stewart, her physician Dr. Lawrence Piro, hairstylist Jose Eber, and Leonard Goldberg, co-creator of Charlie's Angels. (It's preceded by a 9 p.m. ET special edition of 20/20, "The Life and Death of Michael Jackson.")
Dateline NBC (Thursday 9-11 p.m. ET, NBC) -- The special extended broadcast will cover Michael Jackson's life and death, in addition to the previously announced "Farrah Fawcett: The Life and Death of an Angel." The Fawcett report includes recent interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Alana Stewart, Fawcett's father, sister and Charlie's Angels costar Kate Jackson, as well as unaired parts of a 1997 interview.
CBS News: The Life and Death of Michael Jackson (Thursday 10 p.m. ET, CBS) -- Hour report on the day's events.
Also scheduled --
Farrah's Story (Friday 9 p.m. ET, NBC) -- Repeat of May's two-hour documentary film chronicling Fawcett's battle with cancer, in her own words. (Also airs Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Oxygen.)
Chasing Farrah (Saturday 9 p.m. ET, TV Land) -- First two episodes of the 2005 docusoap following Fawcett's daily life as one of the country's most famous faces.
WEIRD & WILD: Penn & Teller go for the throat (and private body parts)
June 25, 2009 3:06 PM
There's nothing quite like bombastic comedy magic philosopher Penn Jillette screaming about orgasms. Unless it's a self-proclaimed "erotic rock star" on stage warbling about them. Or a "tantric" master teaching naked women how to literally gush forth with liquid proof of "nothing less than the ever-beating heart of the cosmos."
Ain't it great to have Penn & Teller: Bullshit! back?
Yes, the mad debunkers go after orgasms in the premiere of their adult show's seventh season for Showtime, Thursday at 10 p.m. ET. (The half-hour repeats Friday at 10 p.m. ET and other times all week. It's also waiting at Showtime on Demand.)
Not that Penn & Teller declare orgasms aren't real. (What isn't real is astrology, and that's next week, July 2.) No, P&T really like orgasms. "They're free, they're legal, they burn calories," affirms Penn, the tall, loud one, standing next to stage partner Teller, the small, silent one.
In fact, this latest installment of their freewheeling investigations into assorted dubious aspects of life -- creationism, alien abductions, alternative medicine, 12-stepping, recycling -- is a bit out of character. Typically, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! challenges conventional wisdom and counter-claims to a two-out-of-three verbal wrestling match, assertions vs. facts. This involves setting up straw fish to shoot in a barrel, which mixes metaphors but conveys how P&T unearth the weirdest adherents of whatever they're testing, then skewer them with footage where they babble absurdly, so Penn can berate them profanely in his narrating bellow.
But orgasms? What's the CW? There really isn't one. But since there are oddballs opining weirdly on a hot topic, that's all P&T need. If the "erotic rock star" performs in a black leather jockstrap -- and no, that in itself hardly rates as strange here -- then P&T narrate a host segment wearing black leather jockstraps. They go on to spotlight a pain management doctor who has invented an "orgasmatron" implant for women to operate via remote control for instant jollies. That's not free, but it seems to be legal, and --
Oh, never mind. The idea is to let high-dudgeon Penn bloviate till he nearly bursts a blood vessel, and he is really, really, almost pee-ingly funny doing it. So nitpicking seems beside the point. And these guys do have a point, which is, roughly, to uphold science and reason above wackadoodle dreams and emotion. They don't like seeing the little folks taken for a ride by the big "visionaries."
It's an extension of Penn & Teller's original magic presentations, where they'd show '80s audiences precisely how they were being distracted and misled. But it's also a political statement -- they're libertarian science-lovers who aren't going to believe in God until God appears in their presence and does something, well, magical. (Ideally, on camera.) They're skeptics of everything.
Which is what makes P&T: BS! such a consistent delight. Instead of bludgeoning only the obvious bunk -- next week's show finds Penn stunned that they haven't stomped on astrology yet -- they attack more complicated topics. The July 9 show assesses video games by doing "what any show would do when the network's lawyer leaves on vacation," says Penn -- hand a 9-year-old gamer an automatic weapon to see what happens.
BS! is also beautifully produced. Videotape reports are framed just-so to make the (alleged) wackos look even weirder, and they're tightly edited to spotlight the (alleged) strangeness. Penn & Teller's in-studio host segments take cues from the subject with themed costumes, props and (non-alleged) naked people whenever possible. (Premium cable, you know.) And Penn's over-amped rants as narrator also happen to be finely honed pieces of writing, theater and agitprop. Even if they're going after something you yourself might believe in, their assaults remain laugh-out-loud funny. Even when they hurt.
And that's entertainment, folks. No bullshit.
IN MEMORIAM: Farrah Fawcett
June 25, 2009 1:38 PM
[SEE UPDATE BELOW ON THURSDAY-SATURDAY TV TRIBUTES]
Here's what made Farrah Fawcett a star. The 1976 pilot of ABC's hit Charlie's Angels -- three babes in bikinis solve mysteries -- can be streamed free on Hulu, along with such other classics as the prison episode "Angels in Chains" [photo above].
But to better honor Fawcett, who died Thursday morning of cancer at age 62, you might watch her more dramatic work as an actress. Her 1984 TV movie breakthrough The Burning Bed (abused wife strikes back) has been released on DVD, and also gets a rare TV airing next Tuesday (June 30) -- at 2:35 p.m. and 9:35 p.m. ET on Encore Drama, and at 3:35 p.m. and 10:35 p.m. ET on Movieplex.
Another DVD possibility is Fawcett's 1987 miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl, casting her as tragic heiress Barbara Hutton. It's also available to Netflix subscribers as an instant-view option (online, or over TV with the right device).
And then there's her other TV series work. Before Charlie's Angels, she was David Janssen's neighbor in the cynical '70s sleuth hour Harry O and a guest on then-husband Lee Majors' action smash The Six Million Dollar Man. In the last decade of her life, she appeared in multi-episode arcs on series including Spin City and The Guardian.
Fawcett was also paired with longtime companion Ryan O'Neal in 1991's short-lived sitcom Good Sports, now perhaps a good bet to get a curiosity-fueled DVD release.
But she'll always be known as an Angel, and that '70s "eye candy" series from producer-mogul Aaron Spelling is widely available on DVD. Fawcett starred only in the first season before leaving for "bigger things" that never really materialized. But she did return for a half-dozen subsequent episodes, in the third season, and in the fourth, which on July 21 completes the series' DVD cycle.
--------------------
UPDATED Thursday 7 p.m. --
Farrah Fawcett tributes are being hastily scheduled on various channels. So are reports on Thursday's other big death of a legendary entertainer, Michael Jackson.
Among them:
20/20 (Thursday 10 p.m. ET, ABC) -- "Farrah Fawcett: Her life, Her Loves, Her Legacy" is a Barbara Walters report featuring interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Charlie's Angels costar Jaclyn Smith, friend Alana Stewart, her physician Dr. Lawrence Piro, hairstylist Jose Eber, and Leonard Goldberg, co-creator of Charlie's Angels. (It's preceded by a 9 p.m. ET special edition of 20/20, "The Life and Death of Michael Jackson.")
Dateline NBC (Thursday 9-11 p.m. ET, NBC) -- The special extended broadcast will cover Michael Jackson's life and death, in addition to the previously announced "Farrah Fawcett: The Life and Death of an Angel." The Fawcett report includes recent interviews with Ryan O'Neal, Alana Stewart, Fawcett's father, sister and Charlie's Angels costar Kate Jackson, as well as unaired parts of a 1997 interview.
CBS News: The Life and Death of Michael Jackson (Thursday 10 p.m. ET, CBS) -- Hour report on the day's events.
Farrah's Story (Friday 9 p.m. ET, NBC) -- Repeat of May's two-hour documentary film chronicling Fawcett's battle with cancer, in her own words. (Also airs Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Oxygen.)
Chasing Farrah (Saturday 9 p.m. ET, TV Land) -- First two episodes of the 2005 docusoap following Fawcett's daily life as one of the country's most famous faces.
LISTEN UP: Classic 'Tonight Show' parody from The Credibility Gap
June 24, 2009 11:36 AM
Ed McMahon's second banana work on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show is now a distant memory -- he and Carson left the show in 1992 -- leaving younger viewers to wonder what the big deal was about when the talkfest cohost died this week at age 86.
Wonder no more. We've got a classic distillation of Ed, and Johnny, from their late-night heyday. This straight-from-the-original-LP treat comes from an obscure comedy group called The Credibility Gap, who made dead-on pop culture parody records in the 1970s. And it's no wonder there, either.
Here's the group's makeup:
Harry Shearer -- who'd break out in This Is Spinal Tap and Saturday Night Live, become a reliable source of voices for The Simpsons, and spout off about everything in the world on his weekly public radio monologue, Le Show.
Michael McKean -- soon to be Laverne & Shirley neighbor Lenny, then another Spinal Tap constituent, and a voice on Dinosaurs, and finally a regular in pal Christopher Guest's satire films Best in Show and A Mighty Wind.
David L. Lander -- L&S partner-in-doofusdum Squiggy, before weirding out in David Lynch's Twin Peaks and On the Air, and rampant voice work.
Richard Beebe -- the Pete Best of the bunch.
They're all amazing here, capturing every Carson Tonight Show nuance, whether it's Johnny's "accidental" double entrendres or Ed's obsequious chortling. Enjoy their sendup of Don Rickles, too, and a so-old-it's-new segment on gays in the military. There's even the final-credits promo cut-off, as the network's affiliate stations cut away too soon for local content. They nailed it all, from beginning to end.
If you want a complete taste of the legendary Tonight Show, this is as close an approximation as you'll ever get, in 15 sharp-satire minutes.
And The Credibility Gap has more. The album that holds the Tonight parody, 1974's A Great Gift Idea on Warner Bros., is a feast of '70s sendups -- a hilarious "blaxploitation" trailer (Kingpin, basically casting Martin Luther King as Shaft), a moody-goopy pop culture poem-to-music a la then-trendy Rod McKuen, a greatest-hits record mail-order ad from the screaming K-Tel school, a student-aimed "educational" school film on social diseases, and more.
Buy the whole album here, finally out on CD after a 35-year wait. Or download it even cheaper on MP3.
Just don't expect A Funny Animal Segment.
FLICK PICKS: Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man
June 23, 2009 6:04 PM
Here's an interesting juxtaposition:
This week, Sci Fi is repeating its 2007 miniseries Tin Man (Wednesday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. ET, Sci Fi), a modern fantasy reimagining of L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, starring Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cumming and Richard Dreyfuss.
Next week, Turner Classic Movies salutes the more familiar MGM musical classic The Wizard of Oz (Thursday, July 2 at 8 p.m. ET, TCM), starring Judy Garland, to kick off its monthlong salute to "Hollywood's greatest year," 1939.
Compare and contrast. At your own risk.
WATCH THIS: Hugh Laurie naked!
June 23, 2009 5:33 PM
Got your attention, eh? The cranky workaholic from House gets to be a blithering husband and dad in the British comedy import Fortysomething, a breathless six weeks of farcical fun.
(Check local public TV listings. In New York, Fortysomething airs on WLIW/21 Tuesday nights at 10:10 ET. In Philadelphia, it's WHYY/12 Sunday nights at 7 ET.)
Laurie not only stars but directs half the episodes of this 2003 limited series about a midlife crisis gone gonzo. He's distracted as a general practitioner with a peculiar partner, as a husband whose smart wife (Anna Chancellor of MI-5) may or may not be cheating on him, and as a father whose growing sons are getting more than he is. Every time he turns around, some bizarre kind of craziness breaks loose in his household or workplace, but he's too uptight to loosen up himself. Which doesn't explain how he ends up dressed as a Muslim woman or holding a variety of sex toys.
Did we mention that in the midst of all this accelerating lunacy Laurie strolls the street without clothes on?
I wrote a longer appreciation of this treat when it came out on DVD. You can read that review here. Then tune to the six hourlong episodes, or do the discs. You get to hear Laurie's natural British voice and savor his innate comedic flair. His 1980s British sketchcom partner Stephen Fry (A Bit of Fry and Laurie) even shows up, playing a cranky fishmonger.
There's much more to Hugh than House.
SNEAK PEEK: Trailer for 'The Pacific,' Tom Hanks' followup to 'Band of Brothers'
June 22, 2009 2:58 PM
HBO has just posted the first trailer for The Pacific, its upcoming miniseries companion to its 2001 hit Band of Brothers. (See embedded video below.)
The spring 2010 event is from the same production team, led by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. This time, the focus is on the Pacific front of World War II, as seen by three Marines (played by Jon Seda, Joseph Mazzello and James Badge Dale).
After the mammoth success of Band of Brothers -- both on the air and on DVD/Blu-ray -- anticipation for The Pacific is pretty intense. One fan site has been chronicling the epic project's making for two years already.
By the way, Band of Brothers gets another full-length airing on History Channel next Monday-Tuesday, June 29-30. The first seven parts air Monday (10:42 a.m.-8 p.m. ET), with the final three parts Tuesday (9:11 a.m.-1 p.m. ET). Project background from History here.
HOT DOCS: 'Iran and the West,' plus HBO2's Iran trilogy
June 22, 2009 11:33 AM
Talk about timely. National Geographic Channel hit the jackpot scheduling tonight's big documentary premiere.
Iran and the West (Monday 9-11 p.m. ET, NatGeo) arrives with the middle eastern nation still topping the news nearly two weeks after a presidential election that remains the source of fierce dispute and contentious street protest.
Don't expect up-to-the-minute updates from NatGeo. But you can expect a put-it-all-in-context look back through the last three tumultuous decades culminating in the current tension between Tehran and a western world led by Washington, D.C.
Iran and the West gives new focus to the crucial overthrow of the Shah through the rise of Islamic clerics, the taking of American hostages, and the impact of both on the 1980 American presidential election. Defeated President Jimmy Carter is among those interviewed, along with former secretaries of state (George Shultz, Madeleine Albright) and other key American figures.
But NatGeo gets both sides (actually, the BBC does, since this documentary is an acquired import) -- including interviews with Iran insiders like former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.
There's much more to be learned, too, about the intervening years, including the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the subsequent rise of Islamic extremist terror. Which takes us up to now. Which can be seen taking shape in news reports from today's again tumultuous Iran.
Other cablers are turning their eyes to Iran, too. HBO2 is in the midst of a documentary trilogy focused on the country, led this week by the premiere of Be Like Others (Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, HBO2), an unexpected look at Iranian transsexuals living under strict Islamic law.
Still airing is The Queen and I (Monday night at 2:40 a.m. ET, June 29 at 3 p.m. ET, HBO2), where a proud Iranian revolutionary filmmaker strikes up an unlikely friendship with the glamorous widow of the deposed Shah. First up was Letters to the President (now available via digital cable's HBO On Demand), a portrait of ever-controversial leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
TV WORTH BUYING: Father's Day deals
June 17, 2009 7:31 PM
A Seinfeld game, a Turner Classic Movies program guide -- we're now going beyond DVD and Blu-ray in updating our guide to Father's Day gift goodies.
We'll be adding more disc sets, too, including an obscure new Zane Grey Theatre DVD box that's guaranteed to please (and surprise) any fan of early TV's westerns heyday.
Though the new additions are at the top of the page, please scroll down for other worthy ideas you may have missed.
DVD ALERT: 'M*A*S*H' on sale!
June 17, 2009 11:05 AM
Here's a M*A*S*H note: The entire-series DVD set is Amazon's deal of the day for Wednesday, June 17. All 11 TV seasons, plus Robert Altman's big-screen movie and two discs of bonus features, are priced half off of even Amazon's discounted price -- $86 for Wednesday only.
The 36 discs are tucked into a cloth-covered book in a cloth-covered "first aid" box. And there's a 64-page Collector's Handbook (episode guide) on a clipboard inside.
It makes a great-looking gift package for any fan of the enduring war dramedy developed by TV legend Larry Gelbart and starring Alan Alda. Click here for more info.
FREE DOWNLOADS: 'Arrested Development' and more
June 10, 2009 3:00 PM
Some interesting free downloads right now at iTunes' TV store -- the pilot episode of Arrested Development and the first installment of the '90s sketchcom The State (which featured Thomas Lennon, Kerry Kenney and Michael Ian Black, among others).
The freebies are designed to promote iTunes' current promotion of 99-cent episode downloads of these and other series, including comedy cult faves The IT Crowd and Human Giant.
Also available at no cost: USA's new series pilot Royal Pains.
And though it'll cost you $1.99 each, the always-interesting series panels from TV's annual L.A.-based Paley Festival can be downloaded from iTunes, too. Usually running about an hour, the discussions feature creators and cast talking smartly about their work on Pushing Daisies, Weeds, House, 30 Rock, Family Guy, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse, Dancing With the Stars and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and two dozen other choices. You can also watch video highlights streaming at the Paley Festival site.
NETWORK TV: And they wonder why nobody's watching
June 10, 2009 10:56 AM
Here is the broadcast networks' prime time lineup for Wednesday, June 10. Try to find some TV worth watching in this. (And no, the week's 17th airing of Law & Order doesn't count.)
Yes, I know, they're throwing cheap programs on the air to try to make a buck. (They call it "managing for margins.") And yes, I know it's summer, and viewing levels are lower, anyway.
But, this? This is a patchwork Frankenstein that reeks of low-power syndicated stations and third-rate cable. Viewers see enough of these lineups, and they don't see "networks" anymore, at least not the kind of networks that used to be first-stop shopping when deciding each night what to watch. The former "big three" (or "four," if you like) are so devaluing their real estate that soon nobody will expect their programs to have any more cachet than those of Spike or Style.
And that means nobody will keep checking to see what they're airing anymore.
If a network falls in a fragmented landscape, will anyone hear it crash?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 (all times ET) --
ABC
8 p.m. Wipeout
9 p.m. Wipeout
10 p.m. The Unusuals
CBS
8 p.m. The New Adventures of Old Christine (repeat)
8:30 p.m. Gary Unmarried (repeat)
9 p.m. Criminal Minds (repeat)
10 p.m. CSI: NY (repeat)
NBC
8 p.m. I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (two hours)
10 p.m. Law & Order (repeat)
FOX
8 p.m. So You Think You Can Dance (two hours)
CW
8 p.m. America's Next Top Model (repeat)
9 p.m. Hitched or Ditched (repeat)
MYNETWORK
8 p.m. World's Funniest Moments (repeat)
9 p.m. The Twilight Zone (2002 version; repeat)
9 p.m. The Twilight Zone (2002 version; repeat)
TV WORTH BUYING: Blu-ray deals
June 9, 2009 12:04 PM
It's high-def week in Amazon.com's Gold Box deal-of-the-day space, so check back daily for hot Blu-ray deals on television releases.
Tuesday's offers the Joss Whedon series Firefly, on sale for one day only at $40 ($15 off Amazon's usual price and $60 off list). That's the Blu-ray high-def version; Firefly on standard DVD was priced at $33 as of June 9.
Amazon doesn't announce future Gold Box deals in advance, but we'll try to update with links to any TV deals that pop up there this week.
GOOD SPORTS: HBO goes for gold
June 7, 2009 8:00 PM
Sports are a matter of taste. I'm a hockey fan. You might be a basketball fan. Some folks like the serenity of golf. Others go for cagefighting thrills. But the more that TV channels make coverage deals with various leagues and promoters, the less they take a hard look at what's actually happening behind the scenes anywhere. Sports is yet another genre being overtaken by celebrity gloss and kid-gloves treatment.
Enter HBO Sports. The pay cabler has been in the game for awhile now, going great guns for boxing and Inside the NFL (until recently letting that show slip over to Showtime). They've long supported the topical monthly news magazine Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. (Its next installment premieres Tuesday, June 23 at 10 p.m. ET.) And they continue to scatter sports documentary premieres throughout the year.
Now that library of sports docs gets a weekly summer showcase, Mondays at 7 p.m. ET on HBO, starting with June 8's :03 From Gold. It's a strong look back at the notorious 1972 Olympics men's basketball final, when suspicious control of the game clock allowed the Soviet Union
to down the heavily favored United States team [photo above], stirring controversy that rages to this day. Upcoming sports doc encores include June 15's Back Nine at Cherry Hills: Legends from the 1960 U.S. Open (Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan); June 22's Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush (evoking what the team meant to the New York City borough it would eventually abandon), and June 29's Battle for Tobacco Road: Duke vs. Carolina (chronicling the college basketball rivalry.)
(What, no hockey?)
HBO also adds a new weekly sports series -- Joe Buck Live (starting Monday, June 15 at 9 p.m. ET, HBO), a live hour mixing interviews, topical commentary and more from the second-generation sportscaster (Jack Buck's son) who calls major NFL and MLB games.
And HBO Sports will keep debuting new documentaries. July 15's The Kid: The Life and Death of Ted Williams chronicles not only the Boston Red Sox icon's on-field career and hard-knock personal life, but also the strange circumstances around his death -- when his body was famously preserved (for future use?) in a cryonics lab.
FAMILY FUN: A yankee doodle dandy film series hosted by John Lithgow
June 5, 2009 6:46 PM
James Cagney's Oscar-winning turn as musical patriot George M. Cohan kicks off this summer's family film series The Essentials Jr. on Turner Classic Movies.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, TCM) isn't one of Hollywood's bigger musicals, being filmed in black-and-white during World War II, but it's surely one of the most heartfelt. Its portrait of the prolific songwriter (You're a Grand Old Flag, Over There) made the American Film Institute's list of America's top 100 movies.
This was also Cagney's favorite of the 70-plus pictures he made between 1930 and 1960, since Dandy gave him the chance to escape Hollywood's gangster pigeonhole and return to his origins. Though he'd started on Broadway as a lighthearted song-and-dance man, Cagney got to make only a handful of movie musicals in a factory town where studios preferred to cash in on his tough-guy appeal.
John Lithgow takes over as TCM's Essentials Jr. host this summer, presenting a varied slate of 13 time-tested films for parents and kids to enjoy together -- comedy, mystery, musical, Hitchcock suspense, even whatever-Elvis-does.
TCM's 2009 Essentials Jr. lineup:
June 7: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), starring James Cagney
June 14: To Have and Have Not (1944), Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
June 21: Father of the Bride (1950), Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor
June 28: The Philadelphia Story (1940), Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
July 5: Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953), Jacques Tati
July 12: The African Queen (1951), Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn
July 19: An American in Paris (1951), Gene Kelly
July 26: High Noon (1952), Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly
Aug. 2: Heaven Can Wait (1978), Warren Beatty, Jack Warden
Aug. 9: Notorious (1946), Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman
Aug. 16: It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), Elvis Presley
Aug. 23: Gaslight (1944), Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman
Aug. 30: You Can't Take It With You (1938), James Stewart, Jean Arthur
Visit TCM's Essentials Jr. site for a printable schedule, film info, video clips and more.
REALITY CHECK: Whales, chefs and John Barrowman
June 5, 2009 6:11 PM
Not all reality TV is bad. Among a glut in any genre, you can find better exponents and you can find pieces of &@#$*. So don't worry, I'm not going to get into Ghost Hunters or Fanarchy. But I will suggest a few other newcomers/returnees you might want to consider this weekend (and beyond):
Whale Wars (second season premiere Friday at 9 p.m. ET, repeating Sunday at 10 p.m. ET, Animal Planet) can be viewed as either A) a docusoap following renegade activists confronting Japanese whalers and others they consider evildoers on the high seas, or B) a psychological portrait of activist ship captain Paul Watson, an endlessly fascinating cyclone of bullying and self-defeating behavior. No matter which way you lean on the issue of what to do about whaling, Whale Wars is magnetic, capturing emotional moments that seem to strip bare its subjects' psyches. Can you use a car crash metaphor at sea? It's hard to look away.
Housecat Housecall (season premiere Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET, Animal Planet) is a show I haven't actually seen. But it just seems wrong that with all the dog and puppy shows trotted across prime time, cat fanciers have to get up on Saturday morning to watch something about their feline friends.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (season premiere Sunday at 10-11 p.m. ET, thereafter Sundays 8-10 p.m. ET, BBC America) is another casting competition show, like last season's Any Dream Will Do and NBC's knockoff Grease: You're the One That I Want. This is actually the original, aired the summer of 2006, hosted by cheeky chatter Graham Norton. Torchwood lead (and musical star) John Barrowman joins composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in "judging" wannabes for a London revival of The Sound of Music. But it's the call-in public that ultimately decides who gets to romance Captain von Trapp. Sure, it's one big ad for the resulting stage production, but it's not really a spoiler to tell you the whole thing worked out pretty well in the end. And hey, it's a chance for both women and men to ogle Torchwood's ambisexual hunk a little more often. (Warning: BBC website link above does contain spoilers.)
Top Chef Masters (premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, Bravo) takes the familiar cooking competition concept to a higher level, inviting established chefs rather than amateurs to test their mettle against one another. The 24 contestants include renowned restaurateurs like Chicago's Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill), Hawaii's Roy Yamaguchi (Roy's), San Francisco's Elizabeth Falkner (Orson), New Orleans' John Besh (Restaurant August), and New York's Wylie Dufresne (wd-50). And what would a cooking competition be without celebrity tasters? Be on the lookout for foodie Gael Greene, actor Neil Patrick Harris, and Lost producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.
16 and Pregnant (premieres Thursday at 10 p.m. ET, MTV) just might serve as a little dose of mea culpa for the steaming pile of other reality, um, debris that MTV usually serves up (The Hills, et al). This weekly series leans as heavily on the docu as the soap, following six teenage mothers-to-be as they juggle school, pregnancy, peer pressure, family issues and other anxieties. In other words, their teen years are a lot less glossy than MTV's other "reality" trashcapades.
WATCH ONLINE: Edie Falco's 'Nurse Jackie' debut
June 2, 2009 1:23 PM
Can't wait to see Edie Falco's killer comedy Nurse Jackie debut next Monday on Showtime?
Well, don't!
Watch the first episode right now -- online on Showtime's web site, or on TV at digital cable's Showtime On Demand channel.
While you're there, catch up with Weeds before this cannabis comedy's fifth-season start leads into Jackie June 8. All 13 fourth-season Weeds episodes are available via Showtime On Demand, or you can zip through the season with a fourth-season "tiny tokes" recap here.
Real-time watchers can see Weeds return on Showtime June 8 at 10 p.m. ET, followed by the 10:30 p.m. ET Nurse Jackie premiere.
UPDATE:
Nurse Jackie also has its premiere episode available for free streaming via Netflix and Amazon. You can also download it free from iTunes.
