Tag: showtime

2011-2012 Television Season: Favorite New Shows

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HONORABLE MENTION: American Horror Story

The opening credits should get an award for being the creepiest credits ever (I mean, look at this). Add in a rubber body suit, depressed homicidal teens, Piggy Man and a half-dismembered limb-half-animal-parts baby, and apparently you’ve got yourself a winner.
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: An already dysfunctional family moves into a haunted house where some über creepy shit went down.
BEST EPISODE: Halloween.
NOTABLE QUOTE: “I questioned my sanity when I first found out. But this house, this house will make you a believer.” —Constance

5. Revenge
Soap-y fun in a beautiful locale where queen bitches and scheming Hamptonites are everywhere. What’s not to like? The Graysons might rival for the Scotts for The Family In Most Need of Group Therapy award.
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: A girl heads out on a mission to seek revenge on those responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of her father.
BEST EPISODE: Chaos.
NOTABLE QUOTE: “I will never forget. I will never forgive.” —Emily

4. Once Upon a Time
You can tell a show comes from the creators of LOST when the story circles around the main character, Emma, and her relationship with her biological son who was adopted by the mayor who is actually his biological grandmother while she’s unknowingly living with her mother and is the would-be savior of the fantastical world. 
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: The Evil Queen puts a curse on all fairytale characters condemning them to slum it out in the “real world.”
BEST EPISODE: Hat Trick.
NOTABLE QUOTE: “You know what the issue is with this world, everyone wants a magical solution for their problems and everyone refuses to believe in magic.” —Jefferson/Mad Hatter

3. Hart of Dixie
This show is adorable. Plain and simple. It’s a CW show so everyone is beautiful and watching beautiful people deal with unnecessary drama is the best way to spend an evening. And if you doubt Rachel Bilson’s ability to pull off a very Cristina Yang-like doctor, here’s my (and her) response.
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: Big shot big city doctor Summer Roberts…erm Zoe Hart moves to Alabama after being bequeathed a family practice by a mysterious man who turns out to be her father.
BEST EPISODE: In Havoc and In Heat (just ditch the jorts, Wade)
NOTABLE QUOTE: “Well, my night had quickly gone downhill, but in times like this, I’ve found that one thing really helps me through — Wine.” —Zoe

2. New Girl
I feel like I should preface this by saying I can’t stand Zooey Deschanel and I fully expected to hate this. And even though New Girl hasn’t helped me dislike her less (I’d still watch without its eponymous “new girl”), I will gladly tolerate Ms. Deschanel for 30 minutes to watch this show.
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: Shenanigans ensue when eccentric Jess moves in with three equally quirky bachelors after catching her ugly hippie boyfriend cheating.
BEST EPISODE: The Landlord.
NOTABLE QUOTE:
Schmidt: Who let the dirty slut out of the slut house?
Jess [in a British accent]: Probably the slut butler, right?

1. Homeland
If you haven’t had the extreme pleasure of viewing this gem from Showtime, do yourself a favor and find a way. Like I said in my initial review, I hate politics and political shows with a passion, but this show had me hooked. You will get chills at least twice an episode. The freakiest factor? It all seems perfectly plausible. This show better walk away with an Emmy and two for Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.
SYNOPSIS IN A SENTENCE: POW returns to the US of A after being held captive for eight years and a bipolar CIA agent thinks he’s working for Al-Qaeda.
BEST EPISODE: Marine One, although The Weekend is a very close second.
NOTABLE QUOTE:  “Somewhere down there, there’s a tiny sliver of green just taking its time. This is how everything works. You wait. You lay low. And then you come to life.” —Carrie

FIRST IMPRESSION: Homeland

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Ladies and gentlemen: I have found my favorite most promising new show of the fall. And surprisingly, it does not include love-struck teenyboppers or any kind of supernatural being. I must be growing up!

Homeland is a drama / thriller on Showtime that stars Claire Danes as CIA agent, Carrie, who has been reassigned to a counterterrorism center after leading an unauthorized mission while in Iraq. Before leaving Iraq, she was informed by a knowledgeable source that an American POW has been turned and is now working for Al-Qaeda. When Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) is miraculously recovered after being MIA for eight years, Carrie becomes convinced that he is the POW her source had been referring to.

I seriously haven’t been so intrigued by a pilot since LOST, the final shot of the episode honestly gave me chills. That being said, it’s very cinematic and almost feels like you’re watching a movie.

Now, I’m that rare journalist who has little to no interest in political current events, but Homeland (in my opinion) is extremely well done. And it’s coming less than month of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. Of course, it’s on Showtime so there will be gratuitous use of the f-word, vivid torture scenes and graphic sex. But it’s well worth it. I am really looking forward to see how the rest of the season plays out.

Homeland officially premieres on Sunday October 2.

Five Artfully Awesome Opening Credits

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As I continued my summer’s journey of television mania, (this week: Eureka) it just reinforced my love for clever and artsy main title sequences. I truly miss belting out “CALIFORNIAAAAA” every week with Phantom Planet. I understand that by just using titlecards it can save a precious minute of airtime, but I overly enjoy having a catchy theme to sing or hum along with before all of the laughter and drama starts.

Now, I have many favorite main title sequences, they range from themes you have to jam out with to the boldly graphic. But these are my favorite main title sequences, visual aesthetics and general design being the main factor. Like always, click through the banners for video.

Nip / Tuck, “A Perfect Lie”- The Engine Room

Yes, it’s creepy and the scissor noise in the background is mildly disturbing, but I’ve always appreciated how well the song fits the series. It’s pretty minimal but catches the nature of Nip / Tuck in 45ish seconds. For some reason, my favorite part of the credits is the finger twitch at :09, although I also enjoy watching the lips blow up like collagen balloons at the end.

Six Feet Under, Original Theme

I’ve come to the conclusion that cable shows just automatically have better opening credits. And I think it’s time for the primetime networks to step it up. Six Feet Under’s opening sequence automatically sets up the premise of the show and its tune is delightfully catchy for a song about a funeral home family.

Dexter, Original Theme

Okay. Yeah this one bugged me at first. It’s hella long and the opening shot of the mosquito sinking into Dexter’s arm isn’t particularly my favorite visual. But after a while it definitely grows on you. And the last shot of Dexter’s innocent smile after all these violent shots of a typical morning routine made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it.

Skins, Original Theme

The series 1 Skins opening is my personal favorite. You can’t help but feel ridiculously giddy whenever it plays. The theme is upbeat and just puts an automatic smile on your face. I also appreciate that each season and generation gets a new mix…even though I feel like they’ve all paled in comparison to the original.

Chuck, “Short Skirt”-Cake

You gotta love Cake. And the opening sequence was surprisingly creative and artsy, no complaints here.

REVIEW: 2010-2011 Television Season

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I have always watched a crap-ton of tv, but this year seemed particularly heavy. I had at least two shows per day Monday thru Thursday and I discovered the brilliance of British television. It’s been a busy television season and on the whole, I’m satisfied with the finales we got.

Shows That Premiered This  Season…

After watching the pilot episode, I stuck with only four shows this year: Being Human, Shameless, Happy Endings and The Walking Dead. I always bitch about how much I hate American remakes of British tv shows…and yet two of them made the list. However, unlike Skins, these remakes are actually good. People have been listing Happy Endings on their comedy Emmy wishlists, and while I think that is a wee bit of a stretch, this show surprised me. Any sitcom revolving around a group of friends is immediately likened to, well, Friends. I found the overall premise of Happy Endings to be relatively weak, but the show definitely improved over the course of its short season.

FAVORITE NEW SHOW: Being Human, hands down. The show just gives such a fresh spin on the whole vamp-werewolf dynamic and it totally holds its own against the U.K. counterpart. Although, it’s official, I can’t stand the Josh/George character aka the werewolf in either version.

Discovered shows already on air…

This year, I discovered so many wonderful programs that are already on air. I love this, because then I have oodles of episodes to watch without an annoying hiatus. Thanks to blogs and mostly Tumblr, I had heard only high praises for the British shows, Misfits and Skins. Misfits is by far one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen and I kind of have a crush on Robert Sheehan. I also randomly stumbled upon The Big Bang Theory bloopers on YouTube and even those made me crack up, which gave me the incentive to blindly purchase the dvds. And it’s amazing. I am making it my mission to attend a taping before I leave LA.

While I am still making my way through Parks and Recreation & 30 Rock, I have to say, I love NBC’s Thursday night comedy line-up. I know I am so late to The Office party, it’s not even funny. Within a course of 4 days, I watched every single episode on Hulu. What can I say? It was a boring finals week. And unlike other fans, I don’t think the show has necessarily lost its mojo, I for one, loved season 6. I caught the last few episodes of season 7 on air and while I do agree that it will be a different program, I think the show has potential to be great without Michael Scott / Steve Carell. One of my roomies always sang the praises of Chuck, so I gave that a try, too. It’s a great dramedy and I kind of have a crush on Zachary Levi, too.

FAVORITE NEW SHOW ALREADY ON AIR: This is such a tough decision because I love each and every one of the programs shown above. But it has to be Community. If Glee gets an Emmy nod and Community doesn’t, there’s officially no justice in the world. Even Community‘s “weaker” episodes are better than most shows’ best. And it’s two-parter paintball season finale was damn near flawless. Community‘s comedic style is exactly my cup of tea and I am officially the biggest Jeff & Annie fan ever. I would normally find a relationship between a 20-year-old girl and a guy who is nearly 40 to be disgusting, but they are absolutely adorbs. And to think I only discovered this gem because it was on sale at Target…I have so much love for Target.

Returning shows…

FAVORITE RETURNING SHOW / BEST OVERALL SEASON: This was really not a tough call, as a lot of these shows had lackluster seasons, The Vampire Diaries. Now, I am not one of those crazy TVD fans who stakes out polls on Entertainment Weekly until TVD reigns supreme, but this season was very strong overall. I am such a fan of Tyler & Caroline and I cannot wait to see where the writers take this storyline. We finally saw some progression in the Stefan / Elena / Damon triangle and Jeremy finally got some lovin’ and a relationship I approve of. No sophomore slump here.

ONE TREE HILL: Much like Glee becoming the Kurt Show at times, One Tree Hill morphed into the Brooke & Julian Show. And I love Brooke and Julian, but it was overkill with the babies. If the network would have let Mark Schwahn & crew do the abortion storyline intended for Brooke in season 4, it would have added another dimension to the fact that she is unable to have children. It just seemed too easy to have Brooke get magically pregnant, with twins no less. I love me some Stephen Colletti, but I think the fact that he is now a series regular says enough. We all know that One Tree Hill should have ended after season 6, if not season 4. Although OTH never racked up high numbers, as a long-time fan, it’s horrible to see how its fallen not only in ratings but in quality.

LIGHTS OUT: I won’t divulge too much because it hasn’t aired on NBC yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed the finale. It was the perfect end to a nearly-perfect show. Can we get some Emmy love, pwease?

I generally enjoyed 90210‘s season 3. I think the first half of the season why stronger, but it overall was exponentially better than Gossip Girl. The only thing I really liked about Glee season 2 was the return of Fuinn and we all know how that ended. As for Grey’s, hopefully this season will be its last and it can go out on a high note. It’s already losing its magic, I don’t buy any article that claims Grey’s is having a comeback. Just limit the Calzona, give Alex a substantial love interest, bring back Addison and reunite Mark & Lexie and you’ll be back on track.

So what’s going to be my summer obsession? Well, So You Think You Can Dance, obvi, but I also started watching Six Feet Under today and I’m loving it so far. I am also planning to spend this summer checking out Fringe, Parenthood, Modern Family and The Good Wife.  All I can say is, thank God for Netflix.