More Upfronts Stuff

I wasn't overly excited by CBS, Fox or CW (and our department is crazy busy at work) so no lengthy upfronts analysis on those.  I think the only thing that I was really excited about was Gossip Girl and the only thing I am really upset about is Veronica Mars (and the lack thereof).

 

But the plan is to check out the show promos and then come up with a list of shows I'm excited for and shows that have to come out with a good promo if I'm even going to check them out.  And then make my potential viewing schedule.  I tend not to think about the scheduling slots until then, which is what everyone is usually talking about.  The only thing I will ask is why Fox is always listing Bones to move to Friday at midseason.  It doesn't make any sense... and it's not like it's stayed there in previous years.  It's not horrible for me since I both have DVR and watch TV all seven days of the week, but Fox is known for those Friday night timeslots of death.  Oh, and the other scheduling thing would be that it looks like most of the conflicts come up at midseason with the whole Idol every night + all the shows that run straight through without repeats.  Should be an interesting season.

Jamba Juice

If only Jamba Juice delivered.  I could totally go for one of those peach drinks right about now.  Been craving it all afternoon but don't even have the short amount of time it would take to walk 3 blocks to get one.  Sigh.

ABC Upfronts

I hate to write such a quick entry for ABC since it's one of my favorite networks (despite being cancellation trigger happy), but I have stuff to do at work and don't want to stay all night...

 

Shows that aren't coming back:  Nothing to say here except for Daybreak (never had a chance and why does America hate good conspiracy shows?), Extreme Makeover (is it FINALLY gone?), The Nine (we were in San Diego for the last aired episode and I have yet to see it; it was slow but good, but apparently too slow for America), Show Me The Money (horrible show but William Shatner is hilarious), Six Degrees (had much more potential than came through) and What About Brian (not a very good show yet somehow I was addicted to the characters).  I guess I had a lot to say about anything but comedies.

 

Shows that are coming back:  I think I wrote a post awhile ago (or maybe I didn't) about how happy I was with ABC's early renewals.  I still am considering how many of them I watch - Boston Legal, Brothers and Sisters, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Men in Trees, October Road (although I don't know why because the writing is horrible) and Ugly Betty.  Hmm, I seem to watch a lot more ABC than NBC...

 

New shows:  I remember being really excited about a lot of the potential ABC shows... I still am :)

 

Based on what we know so far, I like:

 

*  Big Shots: I think I heard this described as a male Desperate Housewives.  And it has Michael Vaughn, so what's not to love about that...

 

*  Cashmere Mafia:  SATC 2.0 but I'm not sure I'm going to like it as much as SATC.  Will give it a shot though.

 

*  Dirty Sexy Money:  Been hearing great things about it... and good cast + crazy family dynamic (Brothers and Sisters?)

 

*  Eli Stone:  Berlanti + a good guy lawyer ... it could work :)

 

*  Private Practice:  I am part of the minority that LIKED the Grey's spinoff, just not how it meshed with the old Grey's in its introduction.

 

*  Pushing Daisies:  Everything I've heard about this show sounds amazing.

 

*  Women's Murder Club:  Don't know if it's going to be good, but the description is enough to make me catch an episode at the start.

 

... and I don't care about:  Carpoolers (eh), Cavemen (I still can't believe someone thought this was a good concept beyond an ad), Miss/Guided (eh), Oprah's Big Give (I haven't watched Oprah in ages), Sam I Am (sounds ok, but I can't tell enough from the description to know whether I should care).

 

Uh oh.  This is a pretty long list.  Maybe I need 2 DVRs...

NBC

While I am on my "dinner break," I can talk about the NBC upfronts.   (Dinner is really yummy, so I want to take a break from drafting for it).

 

Let's start with what they cancelled this season and/or are not bringing back next year.  I'm not really torn up about any of them except for Kidnapped (which, considering how long it has been since it was hastily cancelled, I have come to accept, although I don't get why America didn't like it) and Raines (which was entertaining in its quirkiness, but sadly quirky shows have a hard time succeeding).  I did watch Studio 60, but don't particularly care about a second season (just seeing the rest of the first season episodes burn off) and The Black Donnellys (until it bored me, which was quick).  And well, Grease, but we knew that was never coming back and even then, I skipped the entire middle.

 

On to the renewals and the non-cancellation of any of the L&O franchises.  That is shocking!  I mean, I kind of want the franchise to set a record for consecutive seasons on the air because I think it's definitely a franchise that deserves its place in history, and I did watch endless amounts of it during the bar exam... but it's really aging (other than SVU, which I used to DVR, but now just watch repeats of).   Happy to see the renewals of Friday Night Lights (heard about this days ago, but at least now I'll have a chance to watch the entire S1 DVD and then watch S2 - I didn't end up seeing much this season because it got built up on the DVR and we ran out of space), Heroes (not really a question) and Medium (was worried that would get cancelled until a few days ago).

 

Then there's always the not really cancelled yet but not really renewed yet Apprentice.  It's kind of aged to the point of irrelevance, but Trump still thinks he's #1.  I can't imagine how this could be revitalized.

 

Now, the fun part - the new shows!  I've been reading snippets about them for weeks, but I usually don't post until it's official.  It's always hard to tell until the fall promos and articles whether the shows will actually live up to their potential (and then again, should still give them a shot like Brothers and Sisters!).  I tend to pick any that look interesting, give them a couple of tries and then if I don't like it or get bored (it's usually the latter, I have a low "like" threshold but a high "really like/love" threshold), then I stop watching.

 

So first, the ones that I'm most interested by:

 

*  Chuck - Josh Schwartz and the brains behind the OC + "comedic spy thriller" + geek becoming secret agent - what's not to love about that?

 

*  Heroes: Origins - intrigued by anything Heroes + we get to choose a character?

 

*  The IT Crowd - more tech humor :)

 

*  Journeyman - time travel + relationships (I thought that was ABC's domain...) - could be interesting but time travel is a very tricky thing in shows and I usually end up overanalyzing it to the point where I have so many holes in it that I don't know what to do with it anymore.

 

*  Lipstick Jungle - well, I do own all the seasons of SATC on DVD, this should be no surprise.

 

*  The reality ones - Singing Bee (karaoke and singing) and World Moves (I watch all the dance reality shows) - seem fun :)

 

Which leaves only two:

 

*  Bionic Woman - I kind of just don't care about it... I'd probably check it out, but I care more about the geek shows :)

 

*  Life - sounds depressing.

 

We'll see what happens... ABC is up tomorrow and is threatening to steal all my remaining TV hours. ;-)  (Oh, and I finished my Moroccan harira soup before I even got to the new shows... oops).

Idiocy

Did you ever have one of those days when you're just an IDIOT?

 

crayon17, meet Monday, May 14th.

 

I don't think it's because I went to sleep at 3 am.  I think I'm just having a stupid day. 

 

For example, I left for work this morning a little later than I had hoped, but nothing too extreme.  I get to my desk and only then do I realize that the voluminous file I brought home to work on over the weekend is still at home on top of the stereo... where I put it so that I would not forget it.  I even stacked all the papers together so that none would be forgotten.  But alas, I am at the office and the papers are at home.  That would not be such a big deal if I could just reprint the pages (waste of paper, but doable), but no, these were handwritten notes from a call that... I can't replicate so easily.  I brought home just about everything I could work on... and then left it at home.  Sigh.

 

Another example, I went home for said file during lunch.  I stopped at a place to get a burrito bowl and then put it in my bag.  I made sure to rearrange my bag so that the food would be flat and level; I just didn't want to come into work carrying that many bags.  Well, perhaps more bags is preferable to spilling out.  Luckily they wrapped it in both paper and plastic and the durable plastic bag stopped any of the sauce from coming out and drenching my umbrella, cooler, file and other assorted items or else I would actually be upset.  I'm not really that upset by this, more just thinking it's further proof that I'm an idiot.  And it could be worse - the entire bowl could have broken and all the food could be in the plastic bag.  At least it was only lots of sauce leaking and not an entire food disaster.

 

And I mean, stupid day... 3 am going to sleep before going to work?  Without an especially good reason for it either...

 

Other assorted notes:

 

1.  I live on the same block as a school and a playground.  The kids were at recess when I left for the office and they were at recess when I went back for my file.  There was a decent block of time between those two visits.  Are the kids at recess for long periods of time?  Can I go to their elementary school?

 

2.  The Naked Cowboy makes crossing streets difficult when people stop and block the little traffic island to take pictures of him and you can't pass.

 

3.  My mom went to Panera for lunch today and it made me think about the fact that I could go for Panera for lunch right now.  Frontega chicken half plus a half salad.  (Mmm, feta cheese).  But there is no Panera near me.  Then again, a midtown lunchtime Panera could be bad, because it would suffer from the Quiznos/Kati Roll/Chipotle problem of huge long lines while they put your food together fresh.

 

4.  I normally let something like Brothers and Sisters play in the background during work, but how I can play last night's episode without sobbing?  It was absolutely heartbreaking.

 

(Survivor Finale spoiler info below if you haven't watched it yet)

 

5.  The Survivor finale turned out well.  There was only one of the 3 that I wanted to get the money and he won!  Yay!  Go Earl!  This wasn't like last year where I could have been ok with any of them but was rooting for Yul.  This year, I thought Cassandra didn't even try in the challenges and Dreamz... well, he could explain himself 5 different ways on any decision and swear it was his plan from the start.  I wish there were a backup million that we could give to Yau-Man... he deserves it much more than Rupert did that season!

 

Hopefully more on the NBC upfronts later.

Upfronts

One more week until we find out the fall TV slate... I can hardly wait!  I'm so excited...

 

And in other good news, Lost is supposedly confirmed to run through 2010.  Yay!  I'm glad when shows actually can map out a full arc and aren't prematurely cancelled or cancelled without time to put together adequate closure.

 

I hope everyone is watching Brothers and Sisters.  It's my favorite Sunday night TV show.  It just gets better and better every week.  Yay for good tv!

Windows

The window washers are outside my window.  I need to be on my best behavior. :)

American Idol 6.34

I love Bon Jovi, so this was an awesome night for me. I was so excited and he just seemed like a genuinely great person who really wanted to coach and mentor the contestants. So awesome.

I wasn't awed by anyone's performance though - except for Blake. Simon thought that it would be pretty polarizing and it probably was, but I loved it. I expected to hate it when JBJ said it was a big risk, but it was captivating. It was the only one I rewatched. And I voted. I always liked Blake, but tonight, he really got me to vote. And I threw in a few votes for Jordin because I liked her in past weeks (even though this week was really disappointing). Melinda was good but she's done better, I was done with Phil and Chris (especially Chris) a few weeks ago and Lakisha... she can sing but (a) she doesn't seem to listen to any advice from the guest coaches and (b) I'm not sure "singing in church" as training is the same as being "trained" in classical and opera (according to her AI web bio).

I'm excited that JBJ is singing tomorrow. YAY!

But seriously - Bush?! on my TV? Not welcome. We fast forwarded it. I realize we just went through Idol Gives Back, but the show is still entertaining fluff for me and I didn't want it ruined by... that. I watch stuff like Idol to get away from all that.

And this isn't about Idol - but Kenny Mayne and DanceCenter should be on Dancing with the Stars every week! It was hilarious.

Anyway, I should sleep. Have you ever had that feeling where you're very tired and very exhausted but not sleepy? Hard to explain. I think I am sleepy, but just can't get myself to take that extra step to go to sleep.