Hey everyone. I have gotten some good feedback on the first Writeup, so I’m going to keep on doing this just every so often. Just depends on what is going on in the entertainment world.
In the last post, I promised that I was going to give my opinions on some of the cancelled shows lately. As you know, there was a huge fan campaign going to keep American Dreams on the air and from what I hear Joan Of Arcadia also has a big campaign still going. Well, in a day of when all you hear about is decency on TV anymore and how there aren’t any good family shows on, the two shows that fit that bill the most were canceled by NBC and CBS. First, on Joan Of Arcadia. I didn’t watch the show but it’s not because I didn’t want to. I just had too many one hour dramas that I am watching already and just couldn’t take on another one. I really wanted to check it out and do plan on buying the first season on DVD which is in stores now. The show stars Amber Tamblyn and, from what I’ve seen, she is great in this show. God comes to talk to her in various ways and she never knows what person God is going to talk to her through. The show had high ratings in its first season but did drop off some in its second season. Not sure why it happened but Friday is a bad night to try to succeed on. Just ask Alicia Silverstone’s Miss Match which was critically acclaimed but just couldn’t get an audience on Friday night. CBS is getting a big backlash right now from the Joan fans trying to get CBS to reconsider.
Now, to American Dreams. Fans fought hard to keep this show around. NBC acknowledged the campaigns and said that they were very disappointed to cancel the show cause they love it so much. What in the world is that comment? If you love it, keep it!!! The show did its strongest ratings during its first season but still had respectable ratings for sure on Sunday nights. A lot of people in the media have stepped up to bat for the show in the past several months including TV Guide and many others. This was a show that people loved including me. First, the production on this show just makes me drool with how well they put it together. They incorporate music all through the show that goes along with what songs were big at the time. They show real Bandstand footage from the 60’s and combine it with the present day acting. It’s amazing with how they do it and frequently have bands and singers of today performing on Bandstand as someone that was on Bandstand in the 60’s. The writing is just unbelievable too. The show takes place in the 60’s. It goes in real time so the first episode took place in November 1963 and covers how the family and the city of Philadelphia (where they live) handles the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The first season finale had to do with the riots in Philadelphia in 1964. It was a very strong episode. The family is the Priors and the show deals with all the stuff that was going on in the ever changing country in the 60’s. Every season covered a one year period. The daughter, Meg, ends up dancing on American Bandstand with her best friend Roxanne. Meg is one to take a stand on stuff that she sees as wrong or unfair. The son, JJ, is the high school football star and ends up later in the military. He ends up being sent off to the Vietnam war and his time over there is a wild one with him trying to fight his way out of there when his platoon is attacked. The way they handled the war was just amazing and you really got caught up in these people’s lives and wanting JJ to somehow get home. We were left with a big cliffhanger that I guess will never get answered. Other disappointing things is that we will never see Meg get to Woodstock cause there is no doubt that her and Roxanne would have made it there and I have read the producer say that they wanted to get Meg there. We’ll never get to see if JJ would be involved in helping NASA get a man to the moon. This was a great show and to say the least I hope NBC chokes on that decision to cancel that show.
I also am disappointed with the cancellation of 8 Simple Rules. This was a very well written sitcom that has survived some trying times for sure. The first season of this show was excellent with John Ritter aboard. After he passed away, the show recovered well and was reworked with additions to the cast. James Garner and David Spade both brought a lot to this show. The show was still very funny. It’s obviously not going to be as funny as it was with John Ritter cause everyone played off of him so well. The ratings were good for this show still and the fact that the show was given a full hour on Friday nights for 2 shows to air tells me that the show must have doing well enough. So, it is very disappointing to see this show end as this was a very talented cast who fought through some tough times and I’m sure it will be tough on the cast to say goodbye to each other.
Some more movie reviews. Hey, I’ve watched 2 more movies in a week. Who would have thought with how bad I’ve gotten lately in keeping up with movies? I watched Raise Your Voice and Wimbledon. Raise Your Voice was a lot better than I expected. I thought it was a really good movie with a good story. You get blindsided early on in the movie with a key moment in the story. Wimbledon was all right. I liked it all right but it just didn’t have me jumping up and down about it. I really liked the production in it with how they made the Wimbledon matches look at times. I won’t spoil the story for you in case you want to see it. I don’t know if I’d really recommend it to watch but it is all right. I know I keep saying the same thing over and over that it is all right but that is all I have. ha ha.
I didn’t get to comment on some season finales last week. Could One Tree Hill possibly have left us any more cliffhangers? Seriously, they left us with a cliffhanger on every single storyline going on. I loved the promos for the finale cause they said they were doing a 2 hour finale cause they needed 2 hours to wrap things up for the season. After the 2 hour finale, we now have more questions than we did when we started the finale!! ha ha. I really liked the episode that they did near the end of the season where they did the classic dream episode of where a dream is occurring and you get to see what things would have been like if something had went different. I found it very cool that it was pretty much the first episode done over with the brothers switched to each other’s lives. It was very cool too that they even had the music right in every scene just like it was in the first episode. Yes, I’m annoying for knowing stuff like that!! Gilmore Girls had a very good finale that left some people mad. I say mad because when it first aired, WB ran it over it’s regular time for about 30 seconds and TIVO viewers didn’t get all of the episode recorded. The WB re-aired it last week though to make up for it. Rory is still in a tailspin after Logan’s family has pretty much ruined all her confidence. Lorelei proposed to Luke. Good cliffhanger there!!! This show is one of the best written shows I have ever seen. You’ll be laughing all through it at a lot of the stuff that goes on in this town.
About the Author
