I’ve got a lot for you this week. It’s funny cause there are some weeks where there is just nothing to talk about and then others where there is a lot going on. I’ve got news on Idol, the Buffy season 8 comic comments from Joss Whedon, Grey’s Anatomy, the great murder solving episode of Veronica Mars, my thoughts on season one of The Hills, and a movie review.
Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Ghost Rider – $19.7 million. 2. The Number 23 – $15.1 million. 3. Bridge To Terabithia – $13.6 million. 4. Reno 911: Miami – $10.4 million. 5. Norbit – $9.7 million. 6. Music and Lyrics – $8 million. 7. Breach – $6.2 million. 8. Daddy’s Little Girls – $5.3 million. 9. The Astronaut Farmer – $4.5 million. 10. Amazing Grace – $4.3 million.
I will say one thing about this week’s American Idol and that is at least the guys had a better performance than last week. I still don’t have a favorite person that I’m cheering for. I have several that I think are good but just don’t have a favorite. I have to say that I don’t think the right ones went home tonight as far as performance goes. Going home tonight were AJ Tabaldo, Nicolas Pedro, Alaina Alexander, and Leslie Hunt. The judges didn’t seem to agree either with the how most of the votes went down. Gutsy song choices by Gina Glocksen and Melinda Doolittle picking songs that were so popular in season four with Gina singing “Alone” which was done by Carrie Underwood and then Melinda picking “My Funny Valentine” which was done by Constantine Maroulis. Tuesday’s episode also featured “how many times can we show Jeff Foxworthy in the audience to help promote the new show” segments. They showed him tons of times. We’ll have a top 12 next week and I’ll go ahead and try to predict the four going home not making the top 12. I’ll say that Haley Scarnato, Stephanie Edwards, Jared Cotter, and Brandon Rogers won’t make the top 12. Those aren’t necessarily who I feel should go home but I think the others will have the votes to go on based on what I’ve seen so far.
We’re just under a month away from season 8 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. If you haven’t been reading about it in my posts or on the internet, no, it isn’t on TV. Joss Whedon and crew are doing an 8th season in comic book form and I am very excited with all that I am reading about it. The writers working with Joss range from a ton that worked on the Buffy and Angel shows combined with talented comic writers. I read an interview with Joss last week and thought I would throw some quotes in here that he had to say about the upcoming comic. “Buffy” #1 picks up about a year after the events of Season Seven and addresses how the U.S. government explained away the destruction of Sunnydale, California and hints that those in power and in the know about the supernatural might not be too pleased with the fact that thereÃs now thousands of Slayers wandering around. I’ll just go ahead and say they might not be totally thrilled. Strong women make some people nervous, don’t ask me why.” Joss also says that the story will eventually get to how the demon and vampire groups react to there being so many slayers. There is talk too that we’ll see characters in the series that we haven’t seen in a long time. When asked about an Angel crossover, Joss said, “IDW has the Angel license and although I can use those characters in Buffy, it makes sense to keep the two separate and let them be their own separate worlds. That’s not to say that Angel and Spike aren’t on Buffy’s mind, that’s not to say that they won’t show up, but it’ll be sparingly and in no way interfere with what they’re doing at IDW.” When asked whether the comic would end around issue 22 just like a TV season, he said “It will be more, because I have so many good writers jumping into the mix. I’m just going to keep going until I run out of writers and then I’ll wrap it up. I’ll be doing some stories in between other people. I originally had sort of thought of it as about 25 issues, but this is not like a season in the sense of you know a season always begins three months after the last one, and through the school year, then ends in May. We were pretty religious about that. We didn’t do that on Angel one year. We wrapped it up every year as though it was never coming back. I do have an arc for the season that will come to an end, and then it could be a new season if people were still into it or we would walk away wiping our hands saying weÃre just so awesome. [Laughs] I’m keeping it open lengthwise. It may become even bigger than IÃm imagining it, or you know, I might decide it needs to tighten up and finish.” Joss isn’t concerned about what kind of money is made on these comics stating “I expect it to sell dozens and dozens of copies. I don’t make sales expectations. I think it will do well out there. I think they would be wise to push it and they [Dark Horse] were caught unaware with Serenity. This is getting more heat than anything IÃve done in a while. But for me it’s, is the comic good? Did they get it on the stands?Ã And then somebody tells me the numbers later on. It’s not like I’m going to make a fortune. It’s a comic book.” There will be new characters introduced within the scoobies “Those are characters that we roll out. We see a few of them in the upcoming issues. We see most of the hard scoobies, but there are plenty of people we need to find out about. But everybody Ãs still themselves. Nobody Ãs gone really loopy. They’re not all around each other, and there are some questions about where some of them have been. But when they are around each other, it’s like old times.” Joss was asked about whether new fans that weren’t familiar with the series could still get caught up and enjoy it, “That’s a good question. Believe it or not it’s not one that I’ve ever been asked really or thought about that much. I do sort of explain people as they show up, but there is nothing that lays out the full history of, say, Well, Xander is blah blah. It does assume a certain amount of knowledge. It’s sort of like when I started reading The Authority. That came from books I had never read and that had an assumption of a past, but I didn’t really need to know it. I was just like, what are their powers? Who likes who? And who are they fighting? And it worked just like gangbusters. Hopefully people who haven’t sent the show will be able to jump on and just enjoy the fact that it’s pretty good fun.” When asked about how long the comic series could go, Joss replied, “If there’s juice, fire up the machine. If you’re starting to make them because people are buying them, then stop. If you stop having stories to tell, walk away. Don’t let it be that thing. But there are so many stories I’d be surprised if that happened any time soon.” This is going to be a LOT of fun to read and as promised, I will review these comics as I read them. Issue one is said to be released on March 7th. Dark Horse is already being quoted as saying that preorders have already reached 80,000 copies sold.
Murder case solved on Veronica Mars. This was the last new episode for a while as again the show goes on a planned hiatus. The show delivered what it always does and that is that it keeps you guessing. We got several twists in this episode and I knew there had to be more when the mystery was supposedly solved with around 10 minutes left in the episode. First time all season that I’ve let my guard down about Tim (the TA) and look what happens. Who murdered the Dean? That has been the question for the last couple of months. Let’s go back to how this all started. The Dean’s wife was cheating on him with Professor Landry. The Dean found out about it and went over to see them in a drugged state. He then showed up back at his office. His office window was getting egged due to the fallout from the sorority vote. He then turned to see someone in his office asking the person “what are you doing here”. He was then found shot. The computer had the words “goodbye cruel world” on it making it look like a suicide. Landry was immediately a suspect especially after Landry’s clothes were found with the Dean’s blood on them. The Dean’s wife Mindy hired Keith to investigate it. She then wanted him off of the case when he started putting stuff together that pointed fingers back at Mindy and Landry as the stories and timing weren’t matching up. Landry was arrested and Mindy left town. Landry had thought that Mindy killed her husband and Landry was covering for her. Then, he thought that Mindy had framed him for the murder when Landry was questioned about the statements that Mindy was making. When he was released from jail, he went after Mindy who bought a boat with the life insurance money. They got in an argument over it and it got out of hand leaving Mindy dead. So, Landry is arrested for killing Mindy. Tim tries to end up looking like the hero in all of this as Landry had asked Tim for his help to prove that it wasn’t him that killed the Dean. Tim had heard that Landry didn’t back him on a job offer at Pepperdine. He was looking to get even with Landry. He teams up with Veronica to try and solve the case. They bug phones and all listening to recorded conversations and interviewing people. When Landry is arrested after the murder of Mindy, Tim is picked to take over Landry’s criminology class and asks Veronica to be his TA. The first class sees the students wanting to discuss what happened with their previous professor, Landry. This was when Tim put his foot in his mouth and sort of began to brag about how the case was solved. Only thing was that he said too much and Veronica stood up and poked all kinds of holes in his story including questioning him on various things that there wasn’t anyway that he could know about. He had bugged Landry’s phone and also Veronica’s phone. Veronica shuts him down right there in the class proving that Tim was the one that murdered the Dean as he did it to destroy Landry. Having the phones bugged, he knew that the Dean was in a dazed state that night and knew that an argument had just taken place. He saw this as his opportunity to frame Landry. Veronica Mars returns with new episodes on May 1st. Wow, these long hiatus’ aren’t good and can’t help the show’s ratings.
Movie review this week. I got to watch the movie Hitch over the weekend. This romantic comedy stars Will Smith as Hitch who is a “date doctor”. This means he basically has this secret job of helping people out with love troubles. He’ll set up meetings with clients and find out about the situation of who the person is in love with and the story behind it. Hitch had a really bad thing happen in his own romantic life years before and vowed to take his experience and learn from it to help others. Hitch helps his clients with their dating but only sets up the situation for the client. The ironic thing about Hitch’s situation is that he is great with helping other people out but not so great at his own love life. Kevin James plays Alfred who hires Hitch to help him try to win over a woman that he works for. Alfred struggles a lot with confidence in dating and has not had a lot of luck at it. Basically, Hitch has his hands full big time with trying to help this guy out. Their scenes together are very funny. Not only is Hitch trying to help others but ends up falling for a woman as well. I really enjoyed this movie a lot!! Several laugh out loud moments in it. I’m a big Will Smith fan anyway and he was really good in this movie. The movie is rated PG-13 and runs just under two hours in length.
Season 1 of The Hills is watched and I really liked it. The Hills is a spinoff of the Laguna Beach series as Lauren was given her own series as she went into the working world of fashion. We meet other friends such as Heidi who is good TV for sure cause there is always something going on with her. We also meet Whitney who works with Lauren at Teen Vogue. We see old faces return as Jason returns back into Lauren’s world. Again I repeat something that I said with Laguna Beach, what spell does this guy have over these girls that he just keeps messing up but they keep taking him back? I just don’t get it. The production of the show looks great with all the amazing scenery shots and the music mixed in with it. I cannot express how much I liked all of that. I am tempted to say that I like The Hills better than Laguna Beach. There just isn’t the high school drama with this show as there was with Laguna Beach since Kristin has exited stage left. ha ha. Anyway, bring on season two. Looking forward to watching it. If MTV would quit doing a bait and switch with their schedules, I could get season two recorded and watch it. They have scheduled all of the up to the present season two episodes to air two different times in the last week only for them not to air them.
REALLY good episode of the Amazing Race this past weekend. I am once again playing the Amazing Race “picks” game where you make picks every week on who will be eliminated, win that leg of the race, and use the fast forward if it used in the episode. Yeah, I want to win some free Amazing Race stuff plus it is a lot of fun!! I went two for two on picks as I picked Rob and Amber to win and picked Drew and Kevin to get eliminated. Kevin and Drew went home on this episode and it was a rough ride with them. The thing that really cost them the race was that they didn’t realize that the speed limit restriction was over. They were on the Early Show on Monday and pointed out that the sign that the producers kept showing was of the same sign as it wasn’t like they kept passing multiple signs. They said that the one sign was way out “in Peru” and didn’t see it. Drew has recently apologized as well for the bag incident on the plane with David and Mary saying that he shouldn’t have done it. They are great friends now. Wow, I felt bad for Joyce being in that room so long trying to work out the word scramble deal. Did she not see everyone else looking at the wall and coming up with the clues? I didn’t quite understand what Mirna was trying to do as I know she was wanting Dustin and Kandice to quit following them cause Mirna and Charla had paid the taxi driver to let them follow him. The problem was that while they were arguing over that, the rest of the teams were flying by. I know David and Mary like being friends with everyone but this is a race. Everyone is going to win and I just found it odd that they were complaining over a team passing them on the road.
NBC has picked up Las Vegas for a 5th season. However, it looks like James Caan and Nikki Cox have decided to not return next season. Caan had this comment on why he was leaving: “I’ve had a wonderful four years, worked with great people and made friends for life working on ‘Las Vegas. But I’m eager to return to where my heart is, which is film, and due to the show’s schedule, I’ve missed some great opportunities to do that.”
Dancing With The Stars hasn’t even begun and we already have someone out of it. Vincent Pastore has pulled out of the competition and released this statement on it: “I didn’t realize just how physically demanding it would be for me. Unable to put forth my best effort, I felt it appropriate to step aside and give someone else the opportunity.” ABC said that they will announce a replacement.
There have been a lot of Grey’s Anatomy rumors over the last few weeks and the latest revolves around Katherine Heigl. I know some of you are fans of the show so I just wanted to post what Kristin over at E Online is reporting over the situation. Well, I am happy to report to you that Katherine Heigl is not leaving Grey’s Anatomy. At least, not anytime soon. I’ve just spoken with various sources connected to the show, and they all confirm to me that Katherine is under a six-year contract so she would face major legal issues if she tried to leave the show. So, what happened? Well, according to sources and an official release from ABC Television (see below), the network offered to bump Heigl’s pay to a higher amount than her initial contract. However, according to one well-placed show insider, “Heigl’s representation felt it unfair that she was still not being offered the same compensation as some of the other supporting actors are making. And so, obviously, someone leaked the story to People.” Meanwhile, ABC Television just responded by releasing the following statement:
“Katherine is an integral part of Grey’s Anatomy and its success. Fortunately, we have a long-term contract to ensure she’ll be with the show for several years to come. In recognition of her tremendous talent and value to the show, we recently approached Katherine with an offer to raise her compensation significantly above the terms of her current contract. We were surprised to see this gesture reported negatively in the press, and want to reassure fans that she will continue as Izzie Stevens.”
Fox’s new show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” premiered big on Tuesday night. 26 million viewers tuned in and it was the highest rated Fox premiere in 13 years. Fox has already added more episodes for the show. The show was paired with American Idol and kept 88% of the Idol audience. This is a very good pairing of shows by Fox as you can get the same audience for both shows.
TV On DVD releases for Tuesday, March 6th. Hawaii Five-O (Season 1), The Loop (Season 1), Moonlighting (Season 5), Northern Exposure (Season 6), Sabrina The Teenage Witch (Season 1), South Park (Season 9), Stargate: Atlantis (Season 2).
You Tube Video Of The Week: Chad Vader Returns. I would like to point out that Chad Vader got an Associated Press article this week talking about the guys who produce this. It also said that the guy that does the voice for Chad has been asked to do a voiceover in the new Star Wars video game by LucasArts. Here is a link to the AP article if you’d like to read it. http://www.sj-r.com/sections/ane/stories/108909.asp
Now, here is the latest in the Chad Vader saga.
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