Anna Friel by Kate Turning/ABC; Rob Morrow by Cliff Lipson/CBS; Jennifer Love Hewitt by Robert Voets/CBS
Senior editors Matt Webb Mitovich and Mickey OConnor answer your questions E-mail us your own spoilery needsMake a pie-eater happy Give me some juicy Pushing Daisies scoop CeciliaMickey Remember how Ned inadvertently killed Chucks dad when he was a kid Well lets just say that Chuck and her dead dad are going to have more in common than blue eyes or a love of cheeseI am a longtime NumNut and cant wait until Oct 3 for the new season of Numbers Will Charlie get his clearance back and if so how long will hewe have to wait LesleyMatt Two people stand in the way Keith Carradine guest-starring this season as a veteran fed who holds Charlies future in his hands and Charlie himself Yeah it seems Mr Epps has a big decision to make about exactly how badly he wants to be reinstated By the way the NumNut name Very unsettlingI am forced to watch 90210 online Do you know when the network plans to make each episode available SarahMickey
read more
Hi, friends! My apologies, but it turns out that last week was the final blog for Kid Nation. For those of you still watching, I hope you enjoy the rest of the season! Now go watch The Next Great American Band. I need some comments over there, too! And thanks for your comments these past few weeks.
read more
Now is not the time to be a reality-TV snob. The reality of the TV business is that this genre is here to stay — and it may come in especially handy during the writers' strike. Like every form of TV, reality is capable of exhilarating highs: This fall, I'd include Dancing with the Stars (with its most appealing cast to date), Survivor (with its exotic China backdrop) and the recently returned Emmy champ The Amazing Race. Naturally, there are also innumerable lows (most celeb-reality). Here's a quick look at some recent contenders that have caught my interest — or disinterest, as the case may be.
Project Runway
Reality check: Finally, cable's hit design show is back, still the best and most flamboyantly entertaining of TV's skill-based competitions. The personalities pop as colorfully as the outrageous costumes they create. "Life is too short to have on a bad outfit," says one of the contestants, whic
read more
This is the toughest blog of the entire season for me. Why, you ask? Well, other episodes of Kid Nation might not have been great, but at least they were entertaining. This was a train wreck. So I stamp the big black advisory sticker over this first paragraph and tell you that if you are reading this and going to get annoyed by some negativity, then you might just want to stop now and come back next week. However, if you also thought this week was a train wreck, by all means read to the end. The one thing I won’t do is lie to you and put a rosy spin on this blog just for the heck of it. I am nothing if not honest, so my apologies to all who'll hate what’s to come. Every show is allowed a train wreck now and again, right? Right?So let’s look at some of the reasons why this episode was bad.The No. 1 reason has to be: Who the heck is Nathan? Yes, who is this kid? I don’t ever recall seeing him before, and tonight he wins a gold star. And does he have any expression ...
read more
This week on Kid Nation, "The Taylor & DK Show." This is truly getting out of hand with Taylor. The only way you can possibly like this girl is if you too are a lazy, whiny 10-year-old beauty queen. Every time I see her that song pops into my head, you know that one that goes, “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife.... ” Can you just picture what this is leading to? Six years from now we’re going to see Taylor on that sweet-16 birthday show complaining about how she got an Escalade instead of the BMW that she wanted. Then a few years later, if she keeps her looks, she’ll win the heart of some 44-year-old man at one of her pageants and maybe she’ll get to be on a “reality stars” season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge. OK, I’m putting way too much thought into a girl I will thankfully never see again in a few months, but you see where I’m going. Back to present day. I hope that she is ...
read more
It’s about time the kids of Bonanza City got the chance to change the leadership of this city. We’ve been clamoring for this for weeks now. I have to admit that I was disappointed that each group only got to vote for their own leader. It makes sense in a way, but it would have been nice to see how the vote went if everyone voted for one person per team color. Bad for TV, good for Bonanza. At the same time, though, the elections went pretty well overall. For Green, Laurel has been a good leader and the team was probably correct in leaving her in power. The only thing wrong with her this entire time was the lip thing. But nasty lips never prevented anyone from getting elected (or so I have to assume).The Blue team reelected Anjay. He’s been decent as a leader but he needs to grow a thicker skin. Personally, I’m excited that Olivia didn’t get elected. Not only is she a pain in the rear but that face scares the daylights out of me. She was really on Anjay’s...
read more
Question: The Oct. 3 episode of Kid Nation featured most of the kids staying up late partying and drinking soda. Wait: not drinking soda, but chugging it. It was disturbing to see all these kids drinking as much soda as possible to the chant of, "Chug, chug, chug!" I can't help thinking that the producers of the show are egging on the concept that not only is drinking cool, but college drinking, bingeing in particular, is awesome. Considering that this is a family show, what must parents think?
Answer: I'm hoping parents still watching Kid Nation (why would they if they're not related?) are thinking twice before letting their own kids go on a show like this, to be held up to our judgment and ridicule for silly scenes like the one you describe. Far be it from me to defend this lame series, but that particular scene set up the episode's theme of establishing law and order to Bonanza City in the form of a curfew, so there was at least a point. But honestly, the real intention here was to
...
read more
Although I wasn't around last Wednesday night to recap, I did end up watching the episode on Saturday night and then reading all your comments. One of the things that's interesting now that we have a few episodes under our belts is that the show is really giving off a pretty negative vibe. I mean, 75 percent of the comments last week were negative in one form or another, from talking about Taylor, to Greg's attitude and the whole drinking-shots issue. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but don’t you get the feeling that it's much easier to point out the bad than the good? And that's driven by where the editing of this show is taking us. Just the opening segment alone, where they have Taylor prominently saying "deal with it," gives you a great idea of what the show is trying to portray. The biggest comments from last week were Taylor's attitude and the kids drinking shots. And that was a good chunk of this week, too. Taylor did nothing this entire episode. She didn't co...
read more
Kristin Chenowith in Pushing Daisies by Scott Garfield/ABC
The early ratings are in, and it looks like the combination of aggressive promotion and laudatory media buzz paid off for the first round of ABC’s delightful Pushing Daisies, which handily won its time period Wednesday and is off to a solid start. Honestly, though, if any of the reality alternatives had prevailed (especially CBS’s snooze-inducing Kid Nation and the is-that-still-on stupid briefcase show over on NBC), I think I’d be wearing a black armband in to work for the rest of the season. I’m dying to see a second episode of Daisies, and am trying to pretend I’m not worried that ABC hasn’t supplied one yet. (A year ago, I was dazzled by the pilot of The Nine, an episode the series never again lived up to.) Still, after watching an opening hour as filled with wonder and whimsy as Daisies’ pilot (or “Pielette,” as the episode was titled), how can anyone express anything but hope?My other top Wednesday night priority was seeing how Priv...
read more
My apologies friends, but there will be no blog this week. Duty called at the job and unfortunately I was unable to watch it tonight. But I'll be back next week with a blog for you to chat up. But don't let that stop you from talking about the show yourself. Recap, comment etc... I open the string for you have at it. Until next week, friends.
read more
