The 2008 Emmys

My DirecTv DVR messed up and I missed the preshow and first half hour, but got enough to see this year's trainwreck.
I just have few thoughts. In the press area, the writer of John Adams complained about not having enough time for his acceptance speech but all this time went to the reality show hosts. I'm sorry, as much as I like writers and their shows, its not the public fault that actors and writers go on strike, halt production on our favorite shows and all that we have are reality shows to watch. Worse its not our fault that we love these shows. Sometimes when you make a stand, you may win but the industry is never the same, thus the popularity of reality shows.
On the other hand, who's the brainiac who thought letting reality show hosts host the emmys was a great idea. What a snozzer! The hosts don't understand comedy and every joke they tiold was far from innovative. Cmon, going to commercial before announcing the winner of best reality show host! Who didn't see that one. Heidi Klum is just not comfortable with comedy. She talks and ad libs way too much when she's nervous. It was very hard to watch.
The whole Laugh In segment was even more uncomfortable and sad to watch.
Loved the bit between Ricky Gervais.

Battle of the Sexes

Well, now we're into a new season of reality television. I'm a passive viewer of 1 vs. 100 and this week they had the battle of the sexes. 1 woman vs. 100 men and 1 man vs. 100 women.

Now anyone who knows me, knows I'm not sexist, even though I love the ladies. I just find these few facts about the show interesting:

• The woman was intelligent, but she lost the game on a math question. Hmm.
• I never thought I'd see anyone ever beat 100 people on this show. The man was the first person to ever win a million dollars and it was against all women.

No, I'm not saying men are smarter than women. I just find this episode interesting.

Celebrity Apprentice is awesome. Omarosa is going to be interesting to watch. She's definitely not there to make friends and she's the only one there who has two faces.

The TV Season So Far - Part 2

Let’s keep going.  I’ve given you my thoughts so far on the TV season, but I have a few more shows to go.

Ugly Betty. I’m a passive viewer on this show.  My wife and I are constantly fighting over the remote in our bedroom.  This is one of the shows that I’ll watch because I can tolerate it.  That’s basically my feeling on the show.  I tolerate it.  It’s got its moments and the season premiere was not that bad.  The shows just a little over the top, but I like the Spanish Soap Opera feel to it.

Aliens in America.  Due to Tivo conflicts, I’m not able to watch this show live.  I downloaded it from iTunes (currently free).  I really like this show.  I’m not sure I like it well enough to remove the shows it has conflicts, but it’s got a sweet side to it and a different take on the whole fish out of water story.  Good acting and good start.

Cavemen.  On the other hand, this is a rehashed story of the Fish out of water plot.  But now with Cavemen.  I expected this show to be really bad.  It wasn’t.  I expected this show to not be great and it was.  It was OK.  The writing was descent and it was tolerable.  There’s just nothing profound about the show.

Pushing Daisies.  I was looking forward to this show.  It’s being hyped like crazy by Disney and it was Kristin Chenoweth in it.  I think I got my hope too high on this one.  I really liked the pilot, but not at the level I was expecting, but great start.  It’s got a quirky, beautiful look to a TV show.  My concern is that it’s going to battle between whether it’s a love story or a procedural show.

Survivor: China. Ashley’s no longer on the show, I’m not going to watch anymore.

30 Rock:  Another great start for the show.  Can’t wait to see Carrie Fisher next week.

The TV Season So Far - Part 1

It’s the first week of a new Season and I’ve had a chance to watch all of my shows, new and old.  Here’s my initial thoughts.

 

The Office.  I’ve talked to a lot of people who were disappointed with the Office this week.  I for one was not.  Yes, it wasn’t the most hilarious episode ever, but it was still funny.  I loved Andy’s chaffing nipples.  I think what turned my friends off was Dwight euthanizing Angela’s cat.

 

My Name is Earl.  I’m a silent fan of Earl.  It’s appeal is that Earl tries real hard to be a new person and that’s something America can really relate to.  This is the same reason why Michael Scott is nothing like David Brent.  David Brent really offends you, Michael Scott has an endearing quality and Earl is the same way. That’s why you have Joy as the extreme opposite.  I’m looking forward to seeing more of Earl in jail.  I hope they go most of the first season in prison.

 

Kidnation.  Boring.  I caught the episode where they voted on whether to kill chickens.  Leave it to the liberal media for portraying meat eaters as the enemy.  For the show in general, I don’t think this show is very controversial.  The concept might be, but this is not what you are watching.  I guess if the Kids start killing each other, then you have something.

 

Heroes.  Good start for Heroes.  It definitely does not have the energy that it had when the season ended, but that’s the point of a season finale.  Everything leads to a dramatic conclusion.  The season premiere sets the stage for the rest of the season which will lead to an exciting finale.  I was sad to see George Takei killed in the first episode.  Can’t wait for Elle to make her first appearance.

 

Dirty, Sexy Money.  Despite the title, I really like this show.  It has Peter Krause as a moralistic lawyer who takes the place of his father as the family lawyer of this incredibly rich family.  He finds out that his father was murdered and is going to take the job, balance this family life and find the murderer.  Laurie and I thought the premiere was one of the best this season.

 

Desparate Housewives.  Great start for the season, especially with Dana Delany and Nathan Fillian.  The best part was the end when everyone pledged to never keep secrets from one another.  This was a much better start than last season.

 

Kitchen Nightmares.  This is the side of Gordon Ramsey that I like to see.  He just a jerk on Hell’s Kitchen.  Now you truly stand behind his need to yell and swear at people.

 

Survivor China.  I stopped watching survivor after the third season.  I saw the primiere and liked it a lot because of two of the contestants – WWE Diva Ashley and Poker Pro Jean-Robert Bellande.  Because of it’s timeslot, TIVO will not record the rest of the season for me.  Oh well.

 

Journeyman.  About 20 minutes into this one I was about to shut it off.  I got through the rest of it.  I’m going to give this 2-3 more episode.  It better get better.

 

Las Vegas.  Las Vegas to me is a silly show, but I love it.  Sad to see James Caan leave the way he did, but I guess they needed to make sure he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.  Tom Sellick is a good replacement as owner.  This first episode reminds me of Disneyland and their Million Dreams campaign.

 

That’s it for now.  I’ll have the rest of the shows next time.

 

The Emmy's Last Night

For those of you care, here’s my thoughts on the Emmy awards broadcast.

 

As many of my critics can attest, I love to watch television and so I enjoy watching the Emmys.  Unlike the Oscars, I probably have seen most of the entries, especially in the comedy categories.  So with that, let’s get to it.

 

Censored Moments.  I saw three censored moments and was curious to see what happened:

 

1. Ray Romano’s stand up was replaced by preshow footage of the audience.  Here’s what he said.  In making comments about Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer starring in the new show “Back to You”, Ray said “Frasier is screwing my wife.”  Is the s-word in the case forbidden?  I guess from my conservative Christian background, this is just not that big a deal to me.
2. Katherine Heigl mouthed the real s-word when hearing that she won for best supporting actress.  OK. I’ll give this one to them, but it’s interesting that you can say the s-word on other cable channels after primetime.
3. Sally Field said “Let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamned wars in the first place.”  Other than this being a really stupid statement from a no nothing liberal.  I ask myself, when was “goddamned” a bad word?  I would have let this one slip.

 

Other thoughts

1. Ryan Seacrest was OK as host.  I’m glad that they decided to give him and minimal amount of jokes to tell.  This allowed the show to move on quickly, even though it ended late.
2. I had just seen the second season of Extras and Ricky Gervais was hilarious and deserved the Emmy.  My only thought was that the show was only 6 episodes; it just doesn’t seem like enough.
3. Loved Ray’s standup, not much into Brad Garrett’s.
4. Sopranos is finally never going to win another Emmy.
5. Terry O’Quinn was the only award that I cared about.  When I saw the episode of Lost where we find out how Locke ends up in a wheelchair, I thought, Terry better win than Emmy or to me the whole award process is political.
6. Another surprise was Conan O’Brien winning the best writing for a variety series.  I was ecstatic that he won, especially over the Daily Show.  This last season was especially brilliant.  Can anyone say “Horny Manatee?”

 

That’s what I think.  Also, Kim won Design Star, which I thought would happen.  She has the presence to be the host of a show, more than anyone else.  The worst part of the finale was the video montage of all the HGTV hosts saying a few words to the finalists.  I hated this piece, because everyone obviously shot their segment before the finalists were even selected.  The constant barrage of “hey you two deserved it”, “I loved all of your work”, you deserved it was starting to make me gag.  All you needed to do was show someone say, “Hey Todd and Kim, you rock.”  Next time, don’t waste my time with worthless praise and that’s what it was, worthless.

 

Don’t forget to do your Halloween shopping at http://www.themeparkshopper.com/disney_halloween.html

 

Alan

Sci Fi Channel, Mega Snake and I want my life back

I hate to admit this but Laurie and I are fans of Who Wants to Be a Superhero on the Sci Fi channel.  Last year we were religious watchers of the show and very happy when Feedback won.  So anyways.

 

Sci Fi announces a new movie featuring Feedback called mega snake.  In fact here's the ad...

 

 

Third billing is Matthew Atherton (AKA Feedback).  This is supposed to be a Feedback move.  Instead he appears at the end of the movie as Feedback a guy who teaches kids about electricity to children at state fairs.

 

I may not have minded so much, but I had to endure a really back monster move and sit there until the 1:50 mark to finally see Feedback and of course he had not super powers.  Sci Fi channel, I want two hours of my life back.  You owe me big time.

 

Alan Ng

 

Alan Ng

Disney Collectibles

 

Lost, Veronica Mars, Heroes

I'm going to continue to talk about some of the season premieres that I've encountered so far.  If you'd like to know more about previous shows, please read my previous blog - www.mypalal.com. Spoiler Alert.

 

Lost - The season premiere of Lost was awesome.  I like how all of the premiere have started with the plane crash.  This time with the perspective of the others.  It's amazing just how the writers like to mess with your mind.  My understanding is that the first 7 episode will deal primarily with Jack, Kate and Sawyer.  Who will Kate end up with?  I don't care.  The "Henry Gale" character is getting creepier and creepier and I like that.  I also like the fact that the show at this point is very different from the first two seasons.  The whole "others" question is going to be fascinating to watch over the next 7 weeks.

 

Veronica Mars - I missed the first half of the season opener.  My TIVO didn't pick up on the fact that the show moved to the CW and I didn't find out until too late.  Nice start.  Veronica at college.  It's kind of Saved by the Bell - College Years, because lo and behold everyone is going to the same college. I just watched episode 2 last night and I like the fact that Veronica is not perfect and she can ruin two people's lives in one show.

 

The Nine - Great show so far.  I have to give it a few episode for final judgment, but a very strong open to introduce and kill off characters.  This show is in danger of becoming cheeseball very easily.

 

Heroes - I hesitated watching this show for a while.  It was sitting on my TIVO for a few days after the second episode.  I like this show, but it has the danger of becoming cheeseball too.  It reminds me a lot of Unbreakable a movie I loved.  People with powers discovering it's effects in subtle ways.  I think this show is going to go the way of Surface.  Great show but only one season in it.

 

Ugly Betty - Sticks.  I would like to like this show.  I'm not a big fan of the fact that pretty people are on all of the other shows, but It's just not that compelling and a little overrated.

 

The CSI series - So far, kudos to Las Vegas (the original) great start.  Great cliffhanger with Catherine's "rape".

 

More to come on this season.

Anaheim Angels Post Season Blog

And now for something completely different.  I'm hoping you won't get too bored with my politics, I know turn to sports.

 

I'm sitting with my wife and the first game of the ALDS is going to start in a few hours.  I'm an Angels Fan. I was going to say big, but I couldn't get to any games this year.  My wife has chronic knee problems and I can only get wheelchair seat and that requires planning.

 

I think the Angels have a good shot this year.  My only concern is the hitting.  That's the only thing they lacked this year.  Vlad was out for most of the season and Finley has just not been what I hoped for.

 

To you Yankee fans, you're going down just like you did in 2002.

Lost in the New TV Season

Just a few comments about the new TV Season.  I've only seen a handful of new shows and so far:

"How I Met Your Mother" - Sucks
"Surface" - Sticks
"My Name is Earl" - Good show so far
"Invasion" - Interesting, but not very engaging.  Will have to see more episodes.

I saw Lost last night. Very cool and still incredibly frustrating.  Is there no resolution on this island? "Lift it up"????

=========

I was talking to my co-worker about "Surface."  I mentioned that this show about alien creature on earth.  How can this show last more than one season?  My co-worker says, "what about a show about castaways on an island?" I mentioned that Gilligan's Island, lasted three seasons, so Lost can go on forever.

=========

I'm not a big fan of the supernatural/horror genre.  My wife has been wanting me to see "Medium".  I told her that I just don't care for these type of shows.  The season premiere aired and my wife really wants me to see it.  I told her that there's another show airing tomorrow called "Ghost Whisperer" starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.  Same premise, how about I watch that show.  Silence.  I laughed and then I cried.  I can still fell her punch.

Favorite Quotes from the Emmys

"Come on, if you don't win tonight it doesn't mean you're not a good person, it just means you're not a good actor." - Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres.

"I'd like to dedicate this to Britney (Spears) and our baby." - Emmy winner Brad Garrett of "Everybody Loves Raymond."