Survivor Panama: Exile Island premieres tonight on CBS. I am always excited for a new season of Survivor. Jeff Probst is saying that he really liked this season and it reenergized him. He feels that there will be many cast members that will be viewer favorites this season. Every episode will see at least one person sent away exiled to an island by themselves and will miss out on parts of the game. They aren’t saying too much about how the island will play into the game as they are keeping this kind of locked down. The Survivor Live talk show on CBS.com will be returning this season again hosted by Entertainment Weekly’s Dalton Ross and Survivor Amazon and All Stars’ Jenna Morasca. CBS.com is also going to do something completely new by offering episodes of this season’s Survivor on their website available for download for $1.99 an episode. The episodes will be available until June and you can watch them anytime up to 24 hours from the time that they are ordered.
I read an interesting article talking about the new WB/UPN combination network, the CW. Many have been tracing this WB/UPN stuff to see where the problem began for the networks. The problem for the WB seemed to start with Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Remember that the WB didn’t want to pay the money to keep Buffy in 2001 so Buffy went over to UPN. Buffy was a ratings getter for the WB and guaranteed numbers every week. It sparked UPN to step up. The problem with UPN seemed to be that they couldn’t ever really figure out who they were with coming up with a new strategy for programming all the time. UPN was close to closing shop many times and a last ditch effort was made to pay for Buffy to try and start something. It did and UPN realized that there was an audience that they could get into the network. This led to the WB and UPN basically fighting over the same audience which is basically why the networks were neck and neck. Now, they will team together. There is still no word on which shows will be sticking around but the shows I mentioned last week are likely to stay. I don’t expect to know for a while.
Kaley Cuoco is talking like Charmed will likely end in May and that there will be no spinoff.
Superbowl Sunday is this Sunday. This is the one night of the year where you run back into the room when commercials are on instead of running out to get food. I get my food during the program on this night. I’m actually not a big football fan so I just don’t have the excitement over Superbowl Sunday that others have. I can watch football but I’m a basketball guy. I watch for the commercials for the most part. Maybe next week I’ll give a review of some of my favorite Superbowl commercials. Hopefully they are better than last year as I thought last year’s weren’t that great overall.
I’ve been saying this but I’ll say it again. When it comes to TV on DVD, Seinfeld is king. The work that they put into their season box sets is just amazing. All of the actors and writers are doing interviews for the DVD’s. The first 6 seasons of Seinfeld are available now on DVD. Not only does this include the episodes but the extras are just amazing. There is an “inside look” on most episodes where they’ll give information on how they came up with the idea for an episode or talk about favorite moments from that episode. One bit of information that I found fascinating was them talking about the episode “The Marine Biologist” . The scene at the end where George reveals the golf ball that he had found on the whale was done in one take. They were actually doing a practice run of it and it went so well especially with the laugh that they got from the audience when George revealed the golf ball that they didn’t do it again. The actors all talk about how it was possibly the biggest laugh that they ever got from the studio audience. The speech that George gave was written the night before by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. They asked Jason Alexander how quick he could memorize it. Jerry points out that he can actually see himself in the scene following with Jason with how he was making sure that Jason said it all right. There are commentaries on the sets with Jerry Seinfeld and various writers on an episode. Some commentaries are just of the writers of a particular episode. Another set of commentaries are done by Julia Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards. I highly suggest checking theirs out as they crack me up. They point out a lot of stuff in the episodes and laugh along with us in watching it. There are many deleted scenes throughout the season sets. There is a blooper reel on every season which often runs 20 minutes long and these are hilarious to watch. I’ve been flying through these sets with watching them as they are so much fun and laughs. If you love this show, get these DVD’s as you will not be disappointed.
Two of my favorite 80’s shows are coming to DVD this month. The first to be released on Tuesday will be the first season of Growing Pains which has the first 22 episodes of the series. One great extra on this set is a reunion with the whole cast sitting around a campfire discussing the first season which was taped recently for the DVD. One review said that the reunion with the way it was shot looks amazing. The set will also include a blooper reel. The other DVD set is Charles In Charge which will see the first season released on February 14th. This DVD will be of the Pembroke years and contains 22 episodes. I’m looking forward to getting the DVD’s.
The Friends collectors boxes have been delayed on being mailed out. This is the box that I have discussed about that you can order with getting a form in the season 10 set. It is a box that you can put all of your season sets in. The company that is handling shipping the boxes out has gotten slammed with orders. They got more orders than they anticipated so there has been a delay. Someone called Warner Brothers a couple of days ago and said that they were about to start shipping the first round of boxes so we’ll see. If you haven’t ordered one yet, there is definitely still time to get your order in.
Well, one Friend is coming back to NBC. Matthew Perry has signed on to do a drama series for NBC which will be a behind the scenes of a sketch comedy type show like SNL. He will play a comic genius who was a producer for the sketch show only to be let go after a dispute with the network. The show will also star D.L. Hughley and Steven Weber. The show seemingly started a bidding war between NBC and CBS for the series but NBC got it.
I loved the way that they shot that scene at the end of Gilmore Girls this week with the face off between Rory and her grandparents. It was put together like no other scene that I’ve seen done in the show’s history. It looks like next week’s episode could see something big happen.
Rough auditions this week on American Idol. Las Vegas and Texas didn’t produce many people going to Hollywood. They sent barely over 20 people combined from both places.
I’ve mentioned this show before but I’ll give it a recommendation again. I don’t get into a lot of the fixing up home type shows but I really like the one called “Flip This House” It airs on A&E but it’s hard to find it as they just seem to put it on whenever. They have a business where they buy a house and fix it up. Then, they resell it to try and make money on it. It is really good and the people that work with this group are a ton of fun to watch. The personalities of the people make this show a lot of fun along with the amazing work that they do on these houses.
ABC has announced some schedule changes that I won’t go into here due to it being a lot of new shows and it being a lot of information to type up. It’s out there on the internet if you want the info. Somehow missing in this is Alias which was scheduled to return in March so ABC has yet to give any info on that. I did read about a new ABC show that is set to premiere on April 2nd titled “What About Brian”. It stars Barry Watson from 7th Heaven and Sarah Lancaster from Everwood, Saved By The Bell The New Class, and other shows. Watson will play a single guy that has all his friends either married or about to be married. The idea sounds good and yet sounds very familiar. ha ha. Some moving going on in the WB scheduling. Everwood is set to return from hiatus and will be back on Monday nights following 7th Heaven for the rest of the season. Supernatural will move to 8pm on Thursdays after Beauty and the Geek is done so it will now follow Smallville.
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