 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
November 2009 Archives
HOLIDAY TV: Lots more listings!
November 27, 2009 12:29 AM
From Modern Family to All in the Family, from NCIS to Home Alone -- dozens more Christmas-themed airings have been added to our comprehensive holiday TV listings.
You'll find updates for new network episodes, classic films, cartoons and many more sentimental holiday TV movies than you ever thought (or wished) they made.
We'll keep adding, so keep clicking throughout the holiday season.
Follow these links to continually updated listings of:
- TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
- TV Christmas Movies
- TV Christmas Episodes
- TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)
CHRISTMASTIME IS HERE!
November 21, 2009 1:35 AM
It's still a work in progress. But because so many holiday shows are airing already (Grey's Anatomy snuck one in last Thursday), I've gone ahead and posted a first draft of this year's Christmas TV listings pages.
While they're only a start, these PRELIMINARY pages do include the annual airings of favorites like A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story and other perennials.
Lots more shows will be added over the coming days and weeks, so be sure to check back frequently.
(PLEASE READ THIS! -- If your favorites are not listed yet, PLEASE be patient. I'm compiling listings from dozens of sources, and this takes time and effort. Stopping to answer individual queries only delays the editing/posting of additional listings that will probably answer your question.)
Soon to arrive, too, is my annual Christmas TV DVD page reviewing dozens of new holiday-themed releases and a few old favorites (many now available on Blu-ray high-def).
And I'll be compiling a guide to Christmas TV shows online -- streaming options are mushrooming like mad.
As always, TV Worth Watching is your TV Christmas Central. Yule love our coverage!
Follow these links to WORK-IN-PROGRESS listings of:
- TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
- TV Christmas Movies
- TV Christmas Episodes
- TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)
(P.S. -- Ignore those strange post dates at the top of the listings pages. They're just our lazy way of keeping these lengthy holiday roundups separate from current daily posts.)
WATCH THIS: Giving thanks for 'Dexter'
November 19, 2009 11:04 AM
Can't wait for the Christmas episode! Oh, wait, Dexter already had one (or at least first-season action set at yuletide time. Remember the fake snow and squabbling elves?)
But now we get a real Thanksgiving episode, complete with turkey and all the trimmings, which in this case includes two serial killers sitting down to holiday dinner.
This Sunday, Nov. 22 at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime, Michael C. Hall's Dexter breaks bread and who-knows-what-else with the dysfunctional family of John Lithgow's lethal triple-kill specialist "Trinity."
I've had a sneak peek at the table scene, and let's just say you can't cut the tension as easily as the turkey.
The two slayers keep getting closer and closer, which is not at all what I expected when Lithgow was cast as this fourth season's nemesis. He hit the screen instantly brutal and bloody (and naked!), making Dexter all the more eager to off him. But then they got to know each other. And this time it's not opposites that attract, it's mirror images. They're both family men who've got their, um, reasons.
Dexter this season has nicely managed to up both the creep quotient and the emotional impact, not to mention the dramatic suspense. (Even the black humor, too!) Its mano-a-mano star faceoff has been so fine, we've been able to overlook those figuratively blood-draining subplots of an office romance (yawn) between two already lifeless squad characters (double yawn), and a where-is-this-going flirtation between an ambitious reporter and Dexter's dull new cop nemesis. (Could we please have the electric Erik King back? Maybe his dead detective could have a curious twin brother?)
Five more episodes left, with fourth-season action culminating Dec. 13. Find everything Dexter here (including the complete season opener).
DOWNLOAD THIS: Free 'Fawlty' fun
November 16, 2009 8:22 PM
UPDATED Tuesday, Nov. 17 --
Oops, it's too late now for the free Ally McBeal episodes, but iTunes is offering another download treat -- three Fawlty Towers extras in which cocreator/star John Cleese shares the secrets of his ageless hotel farce.
Cleese talks about the making of Fawlty (20 minutes), key characters like Manuel, Sybil and The Major (16 minutes), and the refining of his favorite series moments (10 minutes), from beating up his little red car to insulting the Germans to coping with that other troublesome Basil, the rat.
Though it hardly seems possible, the scenes are even funnier after Cleese deconstructs their logic and timing. (Yes, it's possible to get laughs about hiding a dead body.)
Some shows never get old.
You can buy the new remastered Fawlty Towers DVD set here for just $25, featuring new interviews, including the long-sought sit-down with cocreator/costar Connie Booth (Polly).
ORIGINAL POST --
Just discovered this, and not sure how long it lasts, but iTunes has free downloads of Ally McBeal's 1997 pilot. Also gratis is the second episode ("Compromising Positions") of David E. Kelley's influential, Emmy-winning hour comedy series.
Other episodes are iTunes' standard $1.99 each ($25 for the season). Click here for a list of iTunes' free TV downloads.
Ally McBeal finally came out on DVD this month, too -- Amazon.com has the entire series of 5 seasons (plus bonus extras DVD and soundtrack CD) for $104. Or the first season DVD set for $26. And yes, the sets include the original songs so crucial to the series' impact. Click here to buy on disc.
TV ON DVD: And movies, too, manufactured just for you
November 13, 2009 4:41 PM
Turns out that show you've always wanted to see on DVD might finally get there. But it won't necessarily land on a store shelf.
Warner Archive is now producing individual DVDs of hundreds of vintage movies -- and TV, too -- for delivery direct to consumers.
Last year's CBS version of Eleventh Hour starring Rufus Sewell [photo above] will be manufactured on demand (MOD) for you through the Archive web page or Amazon.com, among other sites. Cult desires like Gene Roddenberry's unsold post-Trek series pilots Genesis II and Planet Earth have recently shown up. 
Also miniseries like The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and Jack the Ripper. And if you've been dying to see Patrick Duffy's '70s mer-man TV movie The Man From Atlantis, your prayers have been answered.
These aren't fancy releases -- no extras, just standard navigation menus, in minimally decorated cases. But if it's this or nothing at all, most fans will be happy to cope.
I've screened both Eleventh Hour and the two Roddenberry pilots. The former looks great in widescreen, while the vintage pilot films look pretty good on disc, considering they weren't remastered for release. (Too bad DVD can't make their corny content any better.)
Film buffs get an even bigger Archive bounty. Turner Classic Movies viewers have already seen the on-air TCM promos pitching on-demand dupes of myriad movies:
- Silent films -- The Sea Hawk, Souls for Sale, The Patsy, The Trail of '98
- Pre-code coolness -- Gabriel Over the White House, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, Wonder Bar
- Studio-era favorites -- The Strawberry Blonde, Rosalie, Pride of the Marines, Rancho Notorious, The Fastest Gun Alive, The Moon Is Blue, Abe Lincoln in Illinois
- Retro '60s and '70s -- Any Wednesday, The Sergeant, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Skin Game, Get to Know Your Rabbit
- Even '80s and '90s titles -- Penn & Teller Get Killed, Paul Simon's One Trick Pony, Pavarotti's Yes, Giorgio, the Jack Kerouac portrait Heart Beat, the concert film Gilda Live
Buff stuff that's hard to find has arrived at Warner Archive, too. Separate sets collect the short subjects of humorist Robert Benchley, the Joe McDoakes hard-luck comedies, and the dressed-up mutts of Dogville.
Special discounts and "value-paks" are offered, but most prices are in the vicinity of $20 a film. The Eleventh Hour series set holds 6 discs for $35.
Warner Archive's site lets you search by decade, by genre and other categories. And many titles offer the option of digital download (313 of 372 titles, as of Nov. 13).
Now another studio is going MOD, too.
The Universal Collection launched a couple of weeks ago, at Turner Classic Movies' site. Already out of the Universal/Paramount vault as on-demand titles are the Christmas romance Remember the Night with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray ($20), and the 5-disc Universal Cult Horror Collection ($50), including such coolness as 1933's Murders in the Zoo. Universal promises its titles will include vintage memorabilia and other extras.
No news there yet about digital downloads. But who knows what's next? These archives give fans hope to get their hands on all their favorite obscurities.
YULE TUBE: 42 days and counting!
November 13, 2009 11:37 AM
The decorations are in the stores, the music is on the Muzak, and here come the TV shows.
Yes, it's officially Christmas already!
We know because Tuesday was the kickoff for ABC Family's Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas. Because 25 days just isn't enough.
(Holiday-happy Hallmark Channel is holding its Countdown to Christmas till after Thanksgiving -- they've got turkey cards to sell first.)
One of our favorite people, Tom "Ed" Cavanagh, got the Christmas snowball rolling Tuesday with his 
Santa-playing TV movie double feature, Snow and Snow 2 Brain Freeze.
Other TV movie highlights of ABC Family's Nov. 10-30 yuletide pre-event include Tori Spelling's Scrooge-ian A Carol Christmas (Thursday, Nov. 19, with William Shatner and Gary Coleman), the sentiment-strewn Kathy Ireland double feature Once Upon a Christmas and Twice Upon a Christmas (Nov. 21), and the premiere of The Dog Who Saved Christmas (Nov. 29) with Mario Lopez and Dean Cain.
Holiday animation gets going on ABC Family with the premieres of Gotta Catch Santa Claus (Shatner again, Nov. 18) and Holly & Hal Moose: Our Uplifting Christmas Adventure (Nov. 24).
You can view or print out ABC Family's complete Countdown to 25 Days listings here.
Others jumping the Christmas gun this month:
NBC premieres Merry Madagascar (Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. ET, NBC), where the familiar animated zoosters help "marauding red night goblin" Santa recover from amnesia.
CMT starts the seasonal songfest with Larry the Cable Guy's Hula-palooza Christmas Luau (Nov. 20), featuring Kenan Thompson, Caroline Rhea, Tony Orlando and many more.
Comedy comes early -- and in a strange place, on History channel -- with two hours of Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black (Nov. 23). The cranky comic delves into the origins of seasonal celebrations and traditions, with perspectives from Craig Ferguson, Joy Behar, Richard Belzer, Shelley Berman, David Alan Grier and other funny folks.
PBS Kids beats the Thanksgiving rush with the pre-turkey premiere of Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas (Nov. 25).
Stay tuned for our own Christmas-palooza. We'll have our annual TV DVD gift guide up shortly, followed by my annual listings compilation of hundreds of holiday shows to watch, record and share.
Six weeks and counting . . .
WEIRD & WILD: Martha and Rachael, together!
November 12, 2009 1:58 PM
[UPDATED BELOW WITH PAIR PHOTO]
The name of the site is TV Worth Watching, so I guess I have to explain why I think Friday's episode of The Martha Stewart Show is worth watching, and you're about to see me (read me?) work real hard at that.
Martha's Friday guest is Rachael Ray. (Check local syndication airtimes.) And though I don't particularly like either one of these cooky/crafty homemade-rs, I feel strangely compelled to Be There.
It's sort of like learning Paul McCartney will duet with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine." These two people do the same thing for a living, but so differently that they don't belong together, and in fact seem diametrically opposed in about a dozen different ways. But who doesn't wanna check out the improbable hook-up?
Martha is all New England proper, and Rachael is all California out-there. Martha wants everything to be just-so, and Rachael just wants it done already. Yet they're the two people most responsible for the nice-up-your-nest steamroller.
They're also two of the most powerful self-made women in America, with their first-name "brands" strewn over everything from magazines to cookery to wastebaskets to Kohl's and Kmart. And daily TV shows, of course.
I'm more fascinated by that in the abstract than I am in the actual personalities who seem to attract millions of viewers to hours of airtime that I can't imagine sitting through.
But seeing them together? As Michael Jackson sang (sans McCartney): Got to be there.
-----
[UPDATED FRIDAY]
And there they were!
Who knew Rachael had never baked a pie? (Youthful trauma, don't ask.)
Martha helped her through the task of making apple-blackberry pie, perfect for the holidays.
And now Earth resumes spinning on its axis . . .
DVD DEAL: Ricky Gervais' 'The Office'
November 12, 2009 1:46 PM
Ricky Gervais keeps Amazon's TV DVD deals rolling with his original UK version of The Office, available as Thursday's gold box special of the day for $25.29 -- a nice drop from the $40 list price and $35 regular Amazon price.
That's for both of the 6-episode seasons and the Christmas movie finale, plus some wonderful bonus features with Gervais and co-creator Stephen Merchant (who played Gervais' agent on their next series, HBO's Extras).
Some fans like me prefer Gervais' approach over NBC's American version with Steve Carell. It's more poignant and truly eavesdrop-ish, where Carell's comedy is broader with winks at the camera. Gervais conveys a vulnerability that's heartbreaking, which viewers of Extras already know.
Watch trailers and clips at the show's Amazon page.
DVD DEAL: Everything 'AbFab'
November 10, 2009 10:47 AM
Misbehaving was never so merry as when Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley slummed through London as inebriated fashionistas in Absolutely Fabulous. The bawdy Britcom is Amazon's daily deal for Tuesday at just $55 for all 5 seasons, plus special episodes and bonus features. (That's down from a list price of $120 and Amazon's regular price of $92.)
It's a gift-ready purchase, because the 9 discs come in a sumptuous silver quilted satin book (which actually fits on a DVD shelf, unlike most fancy packages).
Order here.
TV TRICKS: Cable bait and switch
November 6, 2009 12:41 PM
What's wrong with The Weather Channel giving the weather? Probably the same thing as MTV Music Television playing music. We don't learn much from The Learning Channel now that it's TLC, and American Movie Classics turned to original drama series when it became AMC.
The Weather Channel sadly joins the long list of cable channels essentially dissing their core viewership to appeal to new viewers by downplaying what made them famous.
Last week, TWC took aim at channel surfers with a Friday night movie showcase, hot on the heels of the celeb-happy morning show they started last spring.
At least the host of Wake Up With Al (weekdays at 6 a.m. ET, Weather) was/is a weatherman, even if Al Roker does spend his time chatting up the likes of Tina Fey and Jim Cramer (not coincidentally plugging projects on corporate siblings under the NBC umbrella).
Weather's Friday movie showcase tries to stay tangentially rooted, too, spotlighting films that feature snow, storms and other climactic crises.
Last week's movie kickoff was oceanic disaster flick The Perfect Storm. (Its debut was pretty stormy for TWC, too, judging by this report on ill-placed ad breaks.) This week's title is March of the Penguins (Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Weather), and next week, stretching the rules just a bit, it's the Stephen King suspenser Misery (Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. ET, Weather).
Which does take place in a snowy locale. But come on. What's next? The Wizard of Oz, because of that tornado?
Crazy me -- when I tune to The Weather Channel, I actually want to know what's up with the weather.
DVD DEAL: 'Ally McBeal' complete
November 6, 2009 9:36 AM
This one's definitely in our 2009 TV DVD gift guide (coming soon!), and Amazon.com's deal of the day makes it an even bigger bargain.
On Friday only, get all five seasons of Ally McBeal, plus a bonus disc AND a bonus soundtrack CD, for $79 (down from a list price of $200 and Amazon's usual discount to $122). It's a total of 32 discs, each season in a separate plastic case inside a horizontal-format hardbox.
Calista Flockhart and David E. Kelley teamed for one of Kelley's most delightful creations, tracking the mental adventures of a winsome young Boston attorney whose flights of fancy led her to conjure dancing babies, arrows in the chest and other fantastical metaphors. This Fox show's style defined the early 2000s (skyhigh miniskirts), and its whimsy opened up the hour drama format to comedy and musical numbers. There were even topical stories addressing current issues. And romance. And reclamation (Robert Downey Jr., cast as Ally's guy out of his drug and arrest depths).
Ally McBeal: The Complete Series includes a 40-minute retrospective look back by cast and crew, plus vintage featurettes and a crossover episode with Kelley's other Boston legal series, The Practice (more serious before its Boston Legal reincarnation).
RATINGS: Score one for 'Dexter'
November 5, 2009 3:08 PM
Bianculli may be a Mad Men fan, but I'm one of the few critics who just can't get into its detached '60s chill. My Sunday night passion is Dexter, and I'm not alone. The industry buzz site The Live Feed reports that Dexter has more Sunday night viewers than Mad Men -- despite premium channel Showtime being available in just one-fourth as many homes as basic cable AMC.
And that's impressive, because lots of Showtime viewers like me watch the show later, via cable on-demand (in HD!) or in subsequent weekly airings (each episode repeats about a dozen times that week).
John Lithgow has brought new juice to Dexter this fourth season, providing Michael C. Hall's vigilante serial killer a super-sly mirror-image adversary, whose "upstanding" life forces Dexter to question his. The writers have doubly upped the intimate ante, alongside the logistic complications of Dexter's new marriage and fatherhood. While some of the supporting cop characters remain dramatic dead weight, Dexter's disaster-magnet sister Debra seems poised after her near-death experience to finally broaden into a more motivated and even cunning character.
Dexter's ratings are higher now than ever.
And they said the premise could never sustain . . .
GOOD SPORTS: Yankees on Letterman
November 5, 2009 2:09 PM
For all you Yankees fans (and haters) out there:
Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada will celebrate their World Series win on Thursday night's Late Show With David Letterman (11:35 p.m. ET, CBS).
Jeter and catcher Posada shared their fifth World Series triumph as teammates when the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies Wednesday in the 2009 Series' sixth game.
FLICK PICKS: Johnny Mercer music and more
November 4, 2009 9:22 AM
Clint Eastwood isn't the first name that springs to mind when you think of movie music. But there was a time he wouldn't have seemed to fit the mold of Oscar-winning director either.
Eastwood is indeed a music maven, as he demonstrates again this week by producing and hosting Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me (Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies). It's the kickoff for a month's tribute to the swingin' songwriter and sometime singer behind "Blues in the Night," "One for My Baby," "Jeepers Creepers," "Hooray for Hollywood," "Moon River" and other classic film tunes.
The Mercer marathon is just one of TCM's November salutes, which also include a Thursday night showcase for actress Grace Kelly. But the look at Mercer's work is especially interesting, now that songs in current films serve mostly as record company deals or commercial ephemera.
Tunes in Hollywood's studio era were used more emotionally -- and eternally -- as this 100th birthday celebration so amply demonstrates by unreeling 25 movies Mercer helped make famous and/or effective. TCM follows up Eastwood's feature-length documentary with the bold and brassy sounds of 1942's wartime songfest The Fleet's In (Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, with Dorothy Lamour and the indefatigable Betty Hutton) and 1954's macho musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (late Wednesday night at 2 a.m. ET, after a midnight repeat of the Mercer bio).
But I'm more inclined toward the moody musical signature of 1941's Blues in the Night (late Wednesday/early Thursday at 3:45 a.m. ET, all on TCM).
The mournful title motif with lyrics by Mercer and music by Harold Arlen ("Over the Rainbow") runs throughout this underrated portrait of a jazz band on the road and on the skids. It's boldly directed in black-and-white by Anatole Litvak (Sorry, Wrong Number) as an almost expressionistic dive into an underworld of nomadic players, mob muscle and music's motive power. Don Siegel (later to direct Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Eastwood's Dirty Harry) cut the montages that fast-forward the story, and the cumulative effect is summarized by one IMDb reviewer who calls Blues in the Night "both a musical drama and a sort of missing link between the Warners gangster movies of the 1930s (mugs, molls, and rat-a-tat dialogue) and 1940s film noir (femme fatale, dark shadows, smoky atmosphere, seamy underside of life)."
(But why are TCM's coolest flicks always on in the middle of the night?)
Blues in the Night also captures the loose yet devoted musical vibe that powered Mercer's writing, and his singing, too. It was the laidback latter that drew composer John Williams to his work, he tells Eastwood in TCM's documentary, which includes testimony from fans ranging from Tony Bennett and Julie Andrews to Michael Feinstein to (eek) Eastwood's teen daughter, Morgan. Vintage Mercer interview footage is woven alongside clips of his performances in movies and on the '50s-'70s TV shows of Rosemary Clooney, Andy Williams, Merv Griffin and Dinah Shore.
Mercer's life influences are keenly sketched, from his Revolutionary War ancestors (whence the name of New Jersey's Mercer County) to his own Georgia "country boy" upbringing. Even Mercer's place in literary, cultural and improvisation traditions is explored, placing him in the American giants pantheon of Mark Twain and Louis Armstrong. You can't say Johnny Mercer: The Dream's On Me isn't a well-rounded portrait, of both the man and his music.
There's more Mercer here with details of TCM's Wednesday screenings. Grace Kelly's Thursday run is outlined here.
And you can now plan your TCM tribute viewing with the new half-hour teaser Now Playing: The Show (Sunday, Nov. 8 at 6 a.m. ET, TCM), an on-air companion to the channel's indispensable printed monthly guide Now Playing (subscribe here).
JUST IN: Baldwin, Martin host Oscars
November 3, 2009 7:25 PM
Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, together, co-hosting the Academy Awards?
That's what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced on Tuesday.
Martin hosted the 2001 and 2003 Oscar ceremonies. It's a first for 30 Rock star Baldwin, who's more of a loose cannon.
They'll be sharing space at the podium (or mike, or whatever) on ABC March 7.
Not sure what to think about this.
How about you?
